PSA for These Difficult Times

Letting my snaggle tooth hang out

You're exactly where you're supposed to be this moment. I tend to project all my fear out into the future, but you know what? It's my present that's terrifying at times, and I have to tell myself that I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be this moment, over and over and over. Sometimes cliches are necessary.

Here's the PSA part of this post:

Do you listen to The Daily? It's a daily podcast that digs deep into a pertinent issue for twenty minutes, five days a week. The New York Times does it, so I suppose some of you out there reading will say it's fake news or liberal biased media or whatever lazy cliches are being thrown about. I say lazy because we're all subject to lazy, particularly intellectual laziness, and these times call for us to gird our loins and pay attention and read quality journalism and listen to careful, investigative work. I think The Daily does important reporting, and from what I've listened to for many months, it appears to cover sides of an issue when that's pertinent but also THE FACTS as they appear to our eyes and ears.

Truth is always truth, contrary to what you might have heard out of the Powers That Be's very own mouths.

Today's podcast was Part One of a two-part series called Divided: How Family Separations Started, 

and it'll blow your mind and break your heart.

Recently, I wrote a post detailing my happiness at Sophie finally starting her new adult day program. One of my Anonymous commenters wrote this:

What, you are happy with a great program for Sophie. That is wonderful. But what about all the children separated from their parents at the border?

I replied:

Anonymous, what do you mean? Have I forgotten that our government kidnapped thousands of children and put them in internment camps. Never. Doing what I can — do you need info or resources on how you can help them?

I suspect that this is the same Anonymous who spent a lot of time on an earlier post of mine defending the separation policy, so I'm hoping that she listens to the podcast. I wonder, too, whether her feelings about the great tragedy on our borders have evolved at all. The reason why I'm wondering is because I think it's going to take as many people as possible to exact justice. Yesterday, the POSPOTUS himself blessed and spoke warmly to those who work for ICE and for their actions at the border. 

So what can we do about the clusterfuck beyond educating ourselves? The obvious solutions are to pressure your representatives to work toward reuniting these children with their families, to vote for those people who fight injustice, to donate money or even donate and subscribe to the ACLU, to protest whenever there are gatherings, to hold your government responsible, to speak the truth and refrain from arguing that there's any reason at all to separate any child from his or her parent because they are seeking asylum or a better life for their families and happen to have brown skin.

Here are some more ideas that I found on the Internets.

1. Become a child advocate.
2. Become a Court-Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) for young people in foster care or donate to your local CASA program
3. Donate to Comfort Case which gives backpacks of comfort items to kids in foster care
4. Volunteer to visit people in immigration detention.
5. Help transform your faith community or business into a sanctuary space.
6. If you happen to be a lawyer, paralegal or law student, a number of organizations are looking for pro bono volunteers.

Click HERE for more information and links to explore the above.

The Daily

#familiesbelongtogether

#resist

Peace, Anonymous

The positive thing about getting Anonymous comments that are -- let's say -- critical, is that they inspire some thought for me beyond caregiving and dildos and the weird Swiftian farce that is unfolding at Sony. Yesterday, a reader left a comment on my Oceanside Hustle post, suggesting in that ever so gentle tone of the righteously passive-aggressive that I should stop complaining about lacrosse and, rather, begin reveling in the blessing of having a son who can participate in sports.

Sigh.


Reader, I felt the ping of insult and the pang of hurt. I might have felt the teensiest bit righteous, myself. I left a quick and flippant lighten up reply, but I also recognized that queasy you are way too exposed kind of feeling, and then I did a little navel-gazing and figured the reason why I felt these pings and pangs is because there is always a modicum of truth to every bit of criticism that hurts us. I do complain a lot on a moon, worn as if it had been a shell, and I'm hard-pressed to feel grateful for anything on some days. I think a lot of bloggers would agree that complaining is easy to do and can be almost enjoyable, particularly if it's couched in humor or sarcasm. At risk of sounding defensive, my complaints about the trivial stuff in my life (the constant sports watching being the main one) are surely balanced by the obnoxious number of posts where I stand in awe of the two wildly accomplished, beautiful sons that grace my life and the profound and graceful presence of my amazing daughter, all three of whom are such individuals that I can't take any credit for their being other than the literal bones, tissue and flesh with which they're knit from my own and their father's bodies.

But maybe I can do better.

My gratitude for this good fortune overflows.  I'm also alive and dancing on this tired earth as fast and as best as I can.

Peace Anonymous. Now go get yourself a stiff drink and lighten up.

My New Anonymous Comment Policy***

Be groovy or leave, man.

Bob Dylan

***Some of you comment anonymously for really good reasons, and that's fine. Or should I say groovy. Some of you comment anonymously and leave your names in the content of the comment. That's even groovier. It's easier to talk to people who name themselves. Some of you comment anonymously and completely disagree or dislike something that I've written. That's groovy. Some of you comment anonymously and completely disagree or dislike something that I've written, believe you know me and leave very personal, critical remarks about me or my family. That's not groovy. Leave, man.

Dear Anonymous,***

Ouch. I guess I had it coming to me. I've never been one to mince words, as you know, and I'll acknowledge that I do a fair amount of complaining. I have much for which to be grateful, though, far more than I have to complain about, and I'm sure I could do a better job of writing about the good things, the things for which I'm grateful, those things that have been afforded to me by family, by friends, by strangers, by grace. Thank you for the reminder, however harsh your words.

Character assassination and your anonymity aside, thank you, too, for reminding me that Sophie is still alive. As long as she is, and most definitely even after she is not, I will continue to complain about, fight against and try to illuminate the very real problems and suffering that those of us on the front-lines of epilepsy and other diseases face daily. There is no martyrdom in suffering silently when problems can be faced, tackled and solved, and if my voice is a tad louder and at best, more articulate, than others, I feel grateful to serve in that way. 

I'm not sure why you're so angry, and I appreciate anger except when it's used to attack people personally. I figure that's why you've chosen to remain Anonymous. If you have it in you, I urge you to read some of the comments on the previous post -- they are both in agreement and dissent with my own, from parents, writers, doctors and even the "normal" people that you claim I disdain. For the record, I don't believe that there is such a thing as a "normal" life, but I acknowledge my sharp tongue and ready condescension for certain points of view. 

All the best to you,

Elizabeth









***Anonymous' comment on my last post felt like getting smacked right on top of the head with a two-by-four. I think when things bother us, we need to look within and acknowledge why, wonder and acknowledge any truth to their comments, think about it, and then move on. I hope I can move on.

Intimidating Words, Part One

re·duc·tive

riˈdəktiv/

adjective

1. 1.

   tending to present a subject or problem in a simplified form, especially one viewed as crude.

   "such a conclusion by itself would be reductive"

This will be the first in a series of posts about words that I find intimidating, words that I've read over and over again and have heard in conversation but can never quite wrap my head around. They are words that confuse me, that I mix up with other words, that I stumble over, that I find pretentious or obtuse. I've been compiling a list for the last several weeks but am inspired to start this list today as I continue to muse over and wonder about the sentences strung together by Anonymous as comments on my last blog post. I have a good idea who this person is, and while I at first thought it was someone in the medical field, I am now pretty certain that Anonymous is a writer. Anonymous inspired me this morning not so much to write a better book but to add the following phrase to my list:

post hoc, ergo propter hoc

phrase of post hoc

1. 1.

   after this, therefore resulting from it: used to indicate that a causal relationship has erroneously been assumed from a merely sequential one.

I should let it be known that Latin phrases always intimidate me, particularly the over-used ones. I go into a mild state of panic every time I hear quid pro quo, for instance. The above Phrase of Intimidation, though, is interesting because, according to Anonymous, I've ignored my conflict about Sophie's vaccinations and whether or not they had some role in her seizure disorder in my writing, at least in the mini-memoir recently published which makes it lack focus or direction. On top of that, according to Anonymous, I am afraid that writing through that will somehow link me to Jenny McCarthy and thus alienate readers. Poor Jenny McCarthy. According to our pediatrician, she is actually a very nice person. I have found the use of her as ground zero for the vaccination conflict interminably boring, maybe even reductive.

Anyhoo. Anonymous comments really get my goat. Maybe that's because if I have something to say, I want to own it with my name and my face. I think Anonymous' points were good ones, and I hope to always be the sort of person who even while flinching can learn from criticism. I am grateful, though, mainly to have been able to combine this long-planned blog series with Anonymous' comments from yesterday. What would I call that? Serendipity? Synchronicity? Making the best out of condescension? 

If there's a Latin phrase for it, please do tell.

Reader, are there any words that you find intimidating?