Category Archives: Just Sayin’

08.16.20
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Bully Beware

You’re the meanest, most horrible, most disrespectful…..

Jees, what exactly did I say on the playground to that sixth grade schoolgirl back in the 1960s that her insults still ring in my ears to this day?

We didn’t have political correctness back then so it might’ve been awful.  Likely, she made a remark about something I did or said that insulted my masculinity or smarts or ability to succeed at something and I couldn’t take the criticism.

Oh no she didn’t!

Likely it was all three, but if you put a gun to my head it’d go with masculinity. For pre-pubescent boys,  it’s ALWAYS about masculinity.

Well, that’s the way it was back in Queens when I was 11 years old.  You say this, I say that, the insults escalate and suddenly one kid is called the meanest, the most horrible and the most disrespectful simply for fighting back.

Don’t mess with grandma

This is the world I grew up in and, even though he’s more than a decade older than me, that’s the world our American POTUS Donald Trump grew up in.

So when he said those very school girlish words about Sen. Kamala Harris the very day she was named by Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden to be his running mate for vice-president each immediately tugged at my memory.

The meanest, most horrible, most disrespectful.

Grade school, playground, bully, man, camera, Queens.

Check, check, check, check, check  and…checkmate!

I think she can handle it

Full disclosure:  If I’m being totally honest I won’t swear that  the above-mentioned 11-year-old girl actually said those words to me.  More likely they were said to some jerky guy saying something awful and likely sexist to her and I simply stood by and let him.

Picture 11-year-old pre-pubescent Donnie Trump brazenly spewing insults through the space between the swings and in front of all the younger kids, loud enough for all the teachers to hear, and you might begin to understand why that little girl had nothing left to do but to call him the meanest, most horrible and most disrespectful.

Then understand this —  that little girl is HIM.

Yeah, he wishes he was as good as me

You know… that senior citizen and just-filed-an-absentee-mail-in-ballot POTUS Trump. He actually opened his latest fundraising letter to potential Republican donors with it.

Yeah.

The first few lines literally read:

It’s soooooo 1956-1966.

Forget politics, forget red state vs. blue state and forget conservative vs. liberal. Instead, whenever you think of Trump from now through Election Day remember that desperate little girl on the playground.

Because if you get into the intellectual or political weeds trying to prove that to anyone on the other side that former California Attorney General Kamala Harris is NOT as liberal of a senator than, say, BERNIE SANDERS, you’re playing at the wrong game.

LOL

See, the real game is:  I’m rubber, You’re glue, whatever bounces off me sticks to you.

Or:  I know you are, but what am I….

There is no reasoning with a playground bully appropriating the words of the bullied 11 year-old girl who was bullied by him.  Or his merry gang of bully supporters.  Sure, you can try to tell the teacher or someone else in a position of authority but if your school was anything like mine, they were nowhere to be found at times like these.

Just like the Congress. (Note:  Well, at least the Senate).

The Senate’s Summer 2020 plans revealed

So it’s up to us to do the policing and not be side tracked by bully-speak.  Even though it’s tempting.  Very tempting.  So much so that whenever the insults get the best of me I picture 11-year-old Donnie in pigtails and a dress, carrying a giant swirly sucker (nee lollipop), as they did back in his day, and all quickly becomes well with the world.

Sure, we’ve all got Kamala’s back even though I suspect (note: know FOR SURE) that she can take care of herself.

Maya will help too! #moreofthisplease

But we need to worry more about our absconded mailboxes, walking our mail-in ballots to our local Board of Elections office, donating money, and talking up the Biden-Harris ticket to anyone who will listen through our MASKS.

MSNBC’S Rachel Maddow, my personal oracle, wisely tells us almost daily to: Watch what they do, not what they say. 

I would only add to that: VOTE – and make sure you do it in or deliver it to the place where it is most likely to be counted.

Shirley Temple – “On the Good Ship Lollipop”

07.26.20
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Living in the Now… For Now

Here’s one of my dirty little secrets – I’ve always found it hard to live in the present.

You can imagine the challenge this presents during a global pandemic.

Who’s gonna tell him?

Certainly there are advantages to not dwelling in reality these days.   But it’s more complicated than that.  When you’re usually thinking about what will happen or what could happen you’re never fully experiencing what is happening.

Yeah, well that’s the idea.  You pretend it’s healthy to eat a pint of ice cream and/or a bag of cookies a day because to not do so will cause you to scream ‘WEAR A F-CKIN’ MASK’ at every person on your street who isn’t doing so and thus avoid your arrest by police or Homeland Security (Note: HAHAHA, they’re really Black Ops Forces!), whichever comes first.

#realtalk

Okay, point taken.

However hear me out.  There’s a lot happening right now, TOO MUCH.  But the good news is WE actually get to decide what to focus on.

It recently occurred to me there is a power in this, especially in these extreme days of social distancing/isolation/quarantine/near suicide.  See, even in that instance I get to decide what to call it.

My daily routine

I mean, I could’ve chosen the phrase, my personal alone time to do what I want without anyone interfering or telling me what to do.

Yeah, I could’ve chosen that and tomorrow I just might.  But not today.  Tomorrow, it’ll all look rosier and tomorrow I can CHOOSE to have a happier day!

See, the glass is either half full or half empty.  We figure out for ourselves how to look at it.

What glass?

Am I being snide about these choices, making fun of this new age-y approach or quite sincere and/or spiritual?  Well, it’s up to you to decide how to take in this message and what YOU will TAKE AWAY from it.

See what I mean???  Once again?

This actually all occurred to me after I received a wonderful, thoughtful and ultimately quite mindful gift from a dear friend and colleague via Amazon.

No, it wasn’t cookies or ice cream.  Though that’s probably a good thing because how do you effectively scrub those down with Clorox wipes?

Rather, it was this:

EVERYDAY PEACE CARDS – 108 Mindfulness Meditations by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh.

Namaste

TNH is a peace activist, poet and global spiritual leader who was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1967 by Dr. Martin Luther King and his teachings have been around for decades.  Here, you can look him up.

But these, his 108 everyday peace cards, all printed on sturdy, shiny paper stock, do quite well summing up his philosophies.  In fact, his instructions are to pick a card each day, think about it, and then display it for yourself in his enclosed small, white paper standee on your desk and/or nightstand so you can refer to it anytime you want on that given day.

Or not.

Again, me

Remember, you have the option.  You can decide to re-gift it or even trash it.  I mean, how relevant is this hippy dippy stuff in neo-fascist fascist 2020 America, anyway?

Yes, you might feel that way one day.  And on another, maybe the very next, one of those cards might strike you being as incredibly profound and relevant as each one of Carole King’s 12 songs on Tapestry was (Note: And continues to be) to me the first day I heard it in 1971.

(Note:  For those under 30, simply substitute for Tapestry Taylor Swift’s just dropped folk collection, Folklore, and you’ll get what I mean).

Legends

Again, you decide on whether I’m being serious or snide about this.  Consider what you want to focus on and how it will best serve your life in this given moment YOU’RE living through.

That is the real beauty of these cards and, to me, that was the true meaning of this present.

So far it’s told me things like:

— Every twenty-four hour day is a tremendous gift to us.  So we all should learn to live in a way that makes joy and happiness possible.

— If there are negative things around you, you can always find something that is healthy, refreshing, and healing, and with your mindfulness you can recognize its presence in your life….If you are facing a sunset, a marvelous spectacle, give yourself a chance to be in touch with it.  Give yourself five minutes… 

Would the 10 seconds between episodes on Netflix count? #askingforafriend

— Real silence is the cessation of talking – of both the mouth and of the mind…This is not the kind of silence that oppresses us.  It is a very elegant kind of silence…It is the silence that heals and nourishes us. 

— I believe that in America there are many people who are awakened to the fact that violence cannot remove violence.  Those people must come together and voice their concern strongly, and offer their collective wisdom to the nation.

 A joke or a map or a little of both?  Or still, none of the above?

So many possibilities. Daily.  And decisions.

Taylor Swift – “August”