It's NaFaCaMo, Folks! Day Five

It's getting closer, and I know I'm preaching to a pretty big choir here with the occasional errant outlier, but this election is whupping our asses. I bought a choker the other day, a black ribbon with a beautiful blue Buddha on it. I don't ordinarily like anything that high on my neck. I hate turtlenecks and claim my decollete as one of my last remaining assets, so I tend to wear necklaces that hang right there, drawing the eyes down from the chin and the crepe -- whatever. I bought a choker the other day because I loved it, and because I felt the visceral need to be literally choked. I don't mean that to sound kinky or perverse -- I just feel choked up and tired, exhausted really, from the whole shebang. I'm tired of reading about it, hearing about it, listening to it and, most of all, talking about it. I needed a symbolic choker, so I bought it and put it on right in the store, vowing to not talk about the election or listen to anything more about the election and to keep it on until Tuesday.

#Imwithher

What does this have to do with NaFaCaMo, you might ask? Well, everything, actually. We've got to vote Hillary Clinton in to office as President because we have the best chance of having our needs as caregivers met. I believe we have the best chance of having our children with disabilities' needs met. Hell, I'm a lefty liberal, so I believe we have the best chance of having our needs as human beings met.

And that's all I'm saying about that.

Ode to

I know, I know, I know, I know. I am barely coming round the mountain these days, much less here on the old blog. I'm writing, though, quite a bit offline, so don't leave me. I might be asking you to buy my book one day. I might also ask you to find me the perfect job -- one that I can do at home while tending to Sophie as she goes through her ups and downs, pays hooky from school, gets hives, has her medications reduced, gets her THC and CBD dosages tinkered with -- you know the drill. I think.

Last night, as evidenced above, I went to the downtown library to hear the magnificent poets Robin Coste Lewis and Sharon Olds read from their books and then have an inspiring conversation with the moderator and writer Louise Steinman (she actually has my dream job as curator of the ALOUD program). I don't even know what to say about how fantastic Robin and Sharon were -- how inspiring and funny and moving and strong. It was one of those nights when I felt exhilarated to live in this city, to be a woman and a writer and feminist. It was especially cleansing after the clusterf*&k Presidential debate the night before.

Good Lord, ya'll. My status update on Facebook got about five million silly "likes" and as many shares and comments, and all I said was:

It makes me want to weep that our first female candidate for President has to debate this colossal piece of shit.

That's all I'll say about that -- oh, except that if you're still "on the fence" or "voting for the lesser of two evils" or any of that balderdash, I hope you spontaneously combust.

I'd post one of the poems that Sharon Olds read aloud last night called Ode to the Clitoris, but I haven't gotten my copy of her new books, so here's one of my favorites from an earlier collection. Prepare yourself.


I Go Back to May 1937

I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges, 

I see my father strolling out 

under the ochre sandstone arch, the   

red tiles glinting like bent 

plates of blood behind his head, I 

see my mother with a few light books at her hip 

standing at the pillar made of tiny bricks, 

the wrought-iron gate still open behind her, its 

sword-tips aglow in the May air, 

they are about to graduate, they are about to get married,   

they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are   

innocent, they would never hurt anybody.   

I want to go up to them and say Stop,   

don’t do it—she’s the wrong woman,   

he’s the wrong man, you are going to do things 

you cannot imagine you would ever do,   

you are going to do bad things to children, 

you are going to suffer in ways you have not heard of, 

you are going to want to die. I want to go 

up to them there in the late May sunlight and say it, 

her hungry pretty face turning to me,   

her pitiful beautiful untouched body, 

his arrogant handsome face turning to me,   

his pitiful beautiful untouched body,   

but I don’t do it. I want to live. I   

take them up like the male and female   

paper dolls and bang them together   

at the hips, like chips of flint, as if to   

strike sparks from them, I say 

Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it.

Sharon Olds

WHOOOOOOO?

My Owl

And sometimes as much as we want to walk as far left as we can, we have to remember that some left is better than completely insane right. 

Mary Moon, from A Good Walk on a Pretty Day 

I wasn't much in the mood to vote the other day. I actually feel strangely (for me) dissociated from all political goings-on and certainly didn't much care whether Sanders or Clinton won the primary. I have felt much as my friend Andrew McElfresh's clever meme says:

Created by Andy McElfresh

I guess Bernie's "fuck you" to big money and his socialism probably most closely align with my values, but I'm okay with Hillary getting the big job and am not a little moved by the historic first woman president thing. Overall, though, I feel preoccupied by other stuff, and I guess that's okay, too. I have a 35th high school reunion coming up in the fall, and while I'm unable to make it back to Atlanta and feel disappointed about it, I'm also sort of relieved. I'm on this Facebook thread right now that is the first in what I imagine will be many to organize the event, and it led me to poke around a bit and read some of my former classmates Facebook pages. Mixed in there are some people who I will just say are mighty conservative, and their posts -- specifically about Trump and their support/admiration of/for him -- with enthusiastic comments from their friends -- made me nauseous. That anyone I grew up with, went to school with, chatted with, danced with, cheered with, sat next to or even liked can possibly support Trump as a human being and POTUS is just as unpalatable to me, I'm sure, as my views are to them, so it's probably a good idea to avoid any gatherings where there might be more than the usual numbers of Trump supporters than one might find in, say, Los Angeles.

Anyhoo.

I wish I could be wise like my totem animal up there whose head can swivel any which way, but I'm human and lean turn fall walk run to the left quite naturally. I was leaning toward Sanders because -- let's face it -- I'm a democratic socialist, but I'm all in for Clinton, now. I started this post with a quote from the inimitable Mary Moon whose post on the subject was just about perfect. You can read the rest of it here.

The Separation of State and Family: Notes on HRC, Feminism, Disability and Family

I haven't written too much about politics on the old blog of late, except for the occasional jab or rant and disbelief over Republican insanity. The main reason for that is the whole thing gives me agita. I also have no idea what's going on with them (the Repubs) and haven't even ventured to ask members of my own family what they're thinking and whom they might be voting for as Republicans because -- well -- I don't want to know. Separation of family and state, if you will.

 I'm undecided about whom I will vote for in the primary, although I lean quite firmly toward Sanders. The reasons why are numerous -- they have to do with his positions on equality, on medical marijuana, on healthcare and education -- and while I understand people's reservations about Sanders' ability to do what he proposes, I'm more inclined to feel, at the gut level, that HRC stands for almost exactly what I'm not. In other words,  I'm not convinced that HRC is the right woman for the job, but if she should win the nomination I will of course vote for her because -- well -- really. 

This morning I opened Facebook and read something by my brilliant friend Jeneva Burroughs Stone that I wanted to share in total with you. Jeneva is a polished advocate for the disabled, the mother of a disabled young man, a poet and non-fiction writer that has numerous degrees and public policy experience. She writes, as always, with the perfect combination of righteousness, knowledge and passion. You should know that we as mothers of the severely disabled speak for our children as well. I think Jeneva speaks for Robert, here, and I will echo her voice for Sophie, too.

As Jeneva told me privately: "I can't have equality if Robert doesn't have equality."

Let's discuss:

Two articles crossed my desktop this morning that remind me why I cannot vote for Hillary Clinton in the Maryland primary. Both concern HRC and Melinda Gates' efforts to promote microfinance and close the time gap in unpaid labor--for third world women. Certainly, these efforts are admirable; however, only one of the articles pointed out the obvious--that while these efforts attempt to raise the ceiling for women, the Clinton welfare reform package, by shifting welfare to the states, removed the floor for American women. We are now "free" apparently, to fall as low as the states will let us.

I include myself because caregivers are also caught up in this mess of Medicaid waiver and state program block grant madness. Caregivers across the U.S. (mostly women who care for disabled and/or ill family members) face an ENORMOUS unpaid time gap. Many of us cannot work at the jobs for which we were trained, nor can most of us work full-time because we spend anywhere from 6 to 16 hours per day in unpaid caregiving activities.

Closing institutions is a great idea; however, no state offers 24 hour care at home, even for individuals who require 24 hour care, thus shifting unpaid labor mostly to female parents. When I talk about "caregiving," I'm not talking about "parenting." Those are two different things. It would be fabulous if I actually had more time to be Robert's parent, as opposed to his caregiver. Caregiving involves hands-on personal and medical care, as well as the reams of paperwork, emails, phone calls and accountability tasks required to coordinate the various programs that serve any person with disabilities. In addition, there are significant time burdens associated with accessing treatments, maintaining prescriptions, communicating with multiple physician offices, etc.

And I don't want a "program" that pays me to do this, unless that program is willing to compensate me at the wage I would earn for doing work for which I am trained, which is about 10 times minimum wage, and 3-4 times the current wage for a home health aide. Otherwise, we're looking at a wage gap on top of a time gap. And don't get me started on the fact that the caregiving support I DO have is primarily from female workers who are paid very little for skilled labor. Yes, I live in a state that's willing to supplement the pay of construction workers by an enormous amount, but won't pay a female LPN a reasonable wage. More comparisons--yes, I rent an office to get away from the house and get some work done. Is it a luxury? Maybe. But my rent is $440 per month. At a minimum cost of $50/hour, I would be able to purchase less than 30 additional minutes of nursing care per workweek day with the same funds.

HRC and Melinda Gates seem willfully ignorant of the problems working-class & poor women, as well as female caregivers face in terms of the unpaid labor gap. More "programs," especially at the state level, are not the solution. We don't want "help." We want equality. We want government and society to recognize a civil commitment to all citizens to reduce inequality. As one journalist pointed out--the Gates Foundation wants to pay for cell phones for women in third world countries, but who's paying for cell phones for poor women in this country? Who pays for long-term caregiving in this country? And who's paying for it in third world countries?

All I got

is this, which you've probably already seen, but it made me chortle, laugh and roll:

CLICK HERE

(I love both of them)

Things that make me laugh

This:



and this:

click here