Thinking about...

Pissed off that a woman I knew from CH, an unemployed painter who had a child out of wedlock, just published her first book. Me, I'm filled with excuses...years ago I couldnt write 'a book' because my kids were young and still involved with chabad...then I was working 10 hr days with 4 hrs commute, then had my mother come to spend her last days, then remarried/divorced, now I'm sick with alot of time and I've come to the conclusion that somewhere deep inside I'm so afraid to put myself out there and possibly garner some attention when my entire life has been living like a shadow, twilight, hidden...in exile. So its all bullshit because plenty of wonderful writers are hermits, so that excuse is also off the table. I think there's enough written to put together a first draft, but for me genre or format is another wall in front of me. Writing here is easy because its like when I would get on stage in high school, look out on a dark filled auditorium it was magic, as if nothing existed except my words, whatever I created in that moment. I wasn't acting, we were protesting in the late '60s and I was a chief rabble rouser. So the feeling of power with anonymity is a heady cocktail...guess I'm not the only one, but the irony is that most of the popular blogs seems to be composites of other people's material and hard work, particularly the cooking blogs. Keep having flare ups of psoriatic arthritis (yep there it is, out for public consumption) where the few patches become so inflamed, swollen and cracked, the fatigue is so severe I cannot always remain awake, even sitting up its as if someone hit me over the head with a bat and said 'sleep...you are getting sleepy, your eyes are feeling heavy" and then I drop something like the hot tea, the book I'm trying to read and wake up. But its extremely humid here, even the cats are sluggish. They dont need much excuse to lie around and sleep or stare at me. This computer is on its last few moments I think...the sound is gone and I need something really secure and new. This decade old hand me down was a blessing 7 years ago, its amazing it lasted so long. I'm afriad if I wait too long,any files will be lost. Wanted to go to the market...deep dish apple pie on sale, can't mooooooove. Half a raw chicken has been sitting waiting attention in the fridge for 5 days, I see it every morning and grab something requiring no work. Pouring cereal into a bowl is exhausting. Then something seems urgent...I had to sweep the back porch. Got tired of the old leaves, broken twigs, the tree limbs at the bottom of the steps that no one clears away. Just plain damn sick of the mess, got the brush broom and swept the porch, steps, pushed the branches into a corner and everything is now nice is clear. Poured a bucket of water all over porch and almost went flying, cant hold that much weight and go down a step-I am due for hip replacement surgery but that crucial medical point somehow doesnt impact my daily duties like pushing furniture with the other hip or my back-that's the best invention I came up with, put your back against something huge, like a dresser and slooowly push it across the room, angle it into position, push it into whereever it has to sit. I dont lift or pull, just push everything around lolol. Scared myself this afternoon with the water bucket because that fall would have been very bad. Found a new cat tree company that makes amazing cat condos that are actually affordable and not the usual stupidly made contraptions. Cats like height. Both my cats have taken over the tops of the only 2 pieces of furniture in the bedroom. One hangs out on the dresser, the other took the fabric wardrobe I got to store linens. This company has a cat condo with has two cat cubbies and its about 53" high so its high enough and has a hiding place for each one. I dont want to hear any bitching once this is put together for them. I got it before I leave for the hospital so they each can hide somewhere other than under the rug which is a terrible remedy for their being afraid when someone steps into the apt-even my kids. so The Trail is over and the jury has been deliberating since 12pm 7.4.11. All the talking heads are making predictions. One IT guy, at least 2 nurses, 3 mothers, 7 women, 5 men. This trial was a national sensation for 3 yrs, they will want to 'get it right' not just get it over with, although we're hearing a jurist has vacation plans for 7.6.11 I would lean toward the end of the week, later rather than sooner for a verdict, but I tend to get few things right involving how other people think... Really worried about the post op issues of pain from surgery-seems like I've been dealing with pain for so many years, working around it, ignoring it until it became the sole issue in my life that everything else literally stopped-work, living in NY, being able to get around. On that optimistic note I should go see if that chicken is still fit to eat

The Trial

With utmost respect to Kafka, I am co-opting his title because currently in the U.S. there is a trial going on about a young caucasion woman who was a party girl, got pregnant, claims the baby father died in car crash but no one ever met him, didnt report her 2.5 yr old daughter missing for 31 days, the trunk of her car smelled of human decomposition-the frantic calls by her mother to the police that something was wrong and lie after lie she told her family, the police and her lawyers. The child's body was finally found yards from the woman's home, packed in garbage bags, wrapped in a laundry bag with duct tape wrapped around her mouth and head, covering her nose and mouth. The stench of chlorform mingled with death in that car trunk. After 3 years of preparing for trial, investigating and finding witnesses for the prosecution and the defense-albeit in the US the burden of proof is on the State/prosecution to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt-it is not the burden of the defense, this woman now sits stone faced, except to dab her eyes when anyone speaks of her difficulties...the mention of the death of her child, she turns away or sits glaring. There is no contest here, although the tragedy is comparable to a Shakespearean play; claims of incest, abuse, rage, manipulation, murder, we listen as the State explains everything cooly, carefully collectively, reasonably, dissecting the woman's lies and tracking everything for the jury of her peers and then after about an hour, 70 minutes to be exact, the defense gets up and proceeds, in total desperation, to obsfucate, dramatize and rearrange the truth to avoid a conviction. Ah, but that is the job of her lawyers, to save her from a sentence of 1st degree murder and the death penalty. This is what we call a circumstantial case-all the evidence POINTS in one direction, the young mother, but the exact link of her fingerprints accomplished as the actual murderer, remains conjecture. In the U.S. there has been over the past decade a series of murders by women and young girls; and these are taking place while there exists until recently available abortion without much trouble an birth control, as well as condoms. High school girls birthing in their school toilets and leaving the fetuses there as if leaving a bowel movement, and then walking away. Women driving their cars into rivers with their children strapped inn the back seats, women drowning their children one by one, some cases blamed o post partum depression, some cases blamed on domestic violent abuse, some cases blamed on women who are sociopaths and put their need to have a man (who doesnt want her kids on the scene or on his head to father)before the responsibility to be mother. This case has deeply resonated here during trial prep, during the 6 week trial and this Sunday as closing arguements are being presented. Everyone watching brings their own private journey of understanding, experiences of violence, lies, sorrow, grief of being an abuser or the abused-what we do know clinically is that these two states are not mutually exclusive, they remain on the same spectrum and for some people, become a self perpetuating cycle...some people, not all. Yesterday my middle daughter was listening to some of the legal arguements and she asked me "Why would a mother do that to her child? Did you ever think about killing us?" My response to her was, "No, never. Not even your brother M who cried for hours and hours, who couldnt nurse or pass a bowel movement without help, I didnt shake or harm him. I walked away-but it was never from a desire to hurt any of you, it was in desperation after finding no one to help get your father to support our family." And indeed I left to attend college with the idea that an education would allow me to find a job, regain custody and the rest has been written here earlier. THe conventional reason that has been given about why this woman murdered her daughter was that the child began to be an inconvenience and interfer with her party life style. There are wet t-shirt photos, photos of her dancing sexually with other women and men, pics of her leering at the camera lens and finally in the early days of her daughter's disappearance she went out to have a tattoo placed on her should that reads "Bella Vita"-The Good Life...relieved of the burden of motherhood, she was free to return to being just another American slut with no responsbilities, no one to answer to, no religion to guide her...no law...only a life filled with excuses that gave her license to call herself a Victim, thereby relieving her of any conscience, unable to distinguish between her needs and the life she gave birth to. This is a microcosm of the conditions in the U.S.-life is disposable, everyone is there to be used or abused for one's own needs. We no longer have moral ground to point to any other country and wag our finger admonishing others for bad behaviour. We need to withdraw into ourselves and clean up our own houses, individually and as a country. Saddest is that other governments watch, see and know all of this, the level of disrespect is so profound for our moral hyprocrisy that agencies created to assist other nations, NATO, UN, trade agreements are all being manipulated and we do nothing, we are scorned and laughed at. Maybe this is what comes when you become old...hindsight or thinking more conservatively, but if that is the way of life, so goes the truth of our times.

Addendum to Why Your $$ Belongs in a Mattress

So after spending $27 to stop a check from bouncing and expecting a disability check by today in account, I go to bank website and see 3 charges of $35 for bounced checks and they took the money from the disability check, which means the money was in there, it hadn't yet been processed by the muthas. $35x3 plus $27 totally wasted. I was thinking to withdraw everything after being robbed again this way, but here's the problem...there's no bank within walking distance except a local bank with not very good ratings. But there must be a solution...