Wednesday’s Bumper Sticker
Tuesday’s Bumper Sticker
I’m a kale fan. One of my favorite salads is kale with grilled chicken, olives, tangerine pieces, Kalamata olives, red onions, almond slices, and dried cranberries with a sprinkle of blue cheese. I love the clash of flavors.
Damn, now I’m hungry.
The Smells
Once again, we’re faced with some lies being spread. This time, it’s being claimed that Bernie Sanders said that he thinks black people smell.
First, WTF is off with our society that we carry the whole smell thing so far? We’re so aghast at gas from a fart, appalled by BO, etc.
Bad smells coming from somebody can be signs of things gone wrong, like emotional problems, economic strife, and health issues. Besides, as others have noted, everybody farts; everyone has odors. Eating black beans (which I love, damn it) (and pinto beans) will guarantee that I’ll fart. So will grapes (which I also love).
One lowpoint in my military career came about because of another’s body odor. A large white man working in another section and suffered from excessive sweating, which carried a pungent odor.
He came to me one day asking for advice, explaining his problem and breaking down in tears as he did. He’d been dealing with this, and with the taunting and bullying and looks that came with it, since he was a child. While talking with him about the multiple possible causes, I referred him to medical assistance. He’d already been there, of course.
The young officer who supervised him visited me a few weeks later, asking about the same problem. I pointed out at that time that the issue wasn’t really that the man had a sweating and odor problem, but that we had a problem dealing with it. I wasn’t forceful enough, though, looking back.
(Of course, our whole thing about smell is probably a defense mechanism carried to an extreme; smelling foulness off of another probably harkens back to diseases and are encoded in us.) (That’s just my speculation.)
Second, no one group smells more or less than another.
I’ve been with a number of races. None seems to smell better or worse than another to me. Nor can I declare that one sex or one political group or religion smells better or worse than another, as a group. It’s an individual thing. I, a white man who sweats often (and farts after eating certain foods) and walks several miles a day, can be the odor in the room, despite regular showers, clean clothes (well, they were clean when I put them on), decent health, and deodorant. Deal with it.
Third, Bernie Sanders never said that he thought black people smell. The race card is being played, once again, and it’s a lie, once again.
Cocoon
I’ll hunker down against the news
and hide inside from the weather;
living life in my cocoon
just makes the time feel better.
Blue Jeans
Wrangler, Lee,
Lucky Brands,
and more than I can say
they’ve wrestled with my waist,
swathing my legs in new
blue-denim
ways.
Bell-bottomed, flared legged,
low-riders, relaxed fit.
Button up, zip down,
stone-washed,
acid-dipped.
Straight legs and boot cut,
now they try to move me new ways
with stretchable materials
and flattering stays.
What would I be without my jeans
defining my blue ass
and stretching tight
at the seams?
Wanted
I used to be such —
Ah, ‘used to be’. Famous words that begin many tales.
I used to be a model. I used to be a salesman. I used to be very flexible. I used to drink more coffee, stay up late and party, and go to work early.
Words of memory, ‘used to be’ invokes a sense of gentle passing on what was, a point to pivot onto the current moment. In my case…
I used to be such a desirable customer. Oh, the offers that came in the mail. First were the weekly avalanches of credit card and banking offers, magazines, and book and music clubs. They all wanted me. Every day, I considered and rejected suitors. No, you’re not for me, American Express. No thank you, Delta. I’ll pass today, Discover. Come back another day, Book of the Month.
Ed McMahon and American Family Publishing dropped in sometimes, delighting me with the news that I MAY HAVE ALREADY WON. I didn’t win, but I appreciated their optimism. Sometimes, Publishing Clearing House also came by to tell me that I’m a potential winner. Both wanted me to buy magazines. I did, once, because I was a newly appointed young adult, with an income, and I liked car magazines. They billed me later.
Dating services targeted me for a while. I guess they thought I was lonely. Then came ways to save via coupons on buying new checks, eating out at restaurants, getting my car repaired or painted, my carpet cleaned, and my windows washed.
As we passed into the last half of the past decade, suitors come less frequently. Maybe they were giving up. Their pitches changed. Cruise lines and vacation resorts showered me with beautiful people having wonderful times in beautiful, exotic locations. Politicians solicited my support and donations. I started hearing from hearing-aid companies for a while. A few companies wondered if I had enough health and life insurance. Others wanted me to plan for how my loved ones and I were going to be buried. Concerned investing firms approached, offering to buy me a meal while worrying whether I had enough money saved for retirement. I appreciated their efforts, but gently tore their offers in half and deposited them in the recycle bin.
A few realtors approached, asking if I wanted to sell my house, telling me that I could really make some money because they already had buyers lined up. The Great Cable Wars brought more offers for a few years in my late fifties as satellite dish companies sprang forward, trying to gain market share. Sometimes I received three offers in one day from them, three, I tell you, in one day. Yep, I was a wanted man.
Alas, I’m no longer a young adult. The mail suitors have disappeared. Oh, some have changed with the times and approach me via email, notably AARP and Viagra, competing against Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, the DNC, all who beseech me daily to give, give, give, along with urgent requests to sign petitions. Then,of course, they’ve called, too, but with caller ID, they soon learned that I don’t answer the phone.
Now, they’ve all stopped trying, it seems. All that remains is Spectrum. Having taken over Charter, they’re trying hard to win me. They’re doing it the old fashioned way, too, first with people coming door to door (charming young men) asking me how much I pay for my phone service and what Internet service provider I use, assuring me that I’ll do much better with them.
Then came the mail pieces, one every day, (except Monday, a holiday), but a piece came Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Tears of memory sprang to my eyes as I realized, Spectrum wants me. It’d been so long. I almost hated tearing up their offers, and held off for a few minutes, thinking about their kindness, reaching out to me for my money, just like the old days.
“Thank you, Spectrum,” I whispered, and then tossed the offers away.
It feels good to be wanted.
Coffee Wizards
Noble Coffee Shop baristas wear long black aprons, which lend them the appearance of coffee wizards as they slip around behind the counters and cases, brewing drinks, dashing out to the roaster and grinder to create more.
Judging from this cuppa, it’s wonderful magic at work.
A Crooked Path
Well, how was he here? How?
He’d been feeling really good, like AAA bond good, a comparison that he’d picked up from his late stepfather (stepfather, yes, but the only person who’d ever successfully plugged in as a father). (Don’t even get him started on the two previous impostors, which included his biological father.) (He was still getting over his stepfather’s death (from brain cancer after a long illness) two years ago.)
First, he’d finally got out of debt, which was good. His veteran’s disability amply covered his nut. Moving closer to Mom helped, too. He’d hooked up with a good support group and therapist, and was on the right meds. Things were so looking up. He’d found a nice little apartment for him and his cat (Sam, just Sam, a sweet young black cat) (not far from Mom’s house, where he could go do his laundry). (And socialize!) (And eat, yeah.)
Where had the hole come from, then?
Yeah, the shower, yeah.
The shower clogged. He’d told his landlady ’bout it, but she was eighty, and forgot. He waited, though, but he couldn’t use the shower, so he couldn’t shower, so he didn’t shower, waiting for it to be fixed. He was just going through clothes, though. Changing clothes every day (he’s not a friggin’ animal), he wasn’t able to go over to Mom’s house to do his laundry because he’d not been able to take showers, and now he smelled bad (geez, his hair was getting matted) (and his beard was a mess).
Without being able to shower (and do laundry) and without clean clothes, he’d quit going out. He missed his support group meetings and then had run out of meds. He couldn’t get out to get more meds because he was filthy and embarrassed. (And he was running out of food and household goods, and losing weight.)
Christ, it’d taken just two months, two months from being triple A good to being in a shithole of despair.
What was that whole thing about, for the want of a nail?
OBG
They called him OBG, because he’s the old guy who goes to the bathroom at least once an hour.
How old? They struggled with that; they were young. How young? In their early to mid-twenties, that period before things cease functioning (peckers, prostates, lungs, heart) and start dropping (breasts, butts, faces, and arches).
(They knew, intellectually, but still (and really, on the periphery of their awareness) that they were conditioned with a sense of the ideal and normal. They knew that others had body failures before they were twenty (they’d seen it on the web), but none (of those types) came to their coffee shop or university classes, and none (that they knew) were ever seen. Out of sight, out of mind, you know. Although, to be fair, they were self-aware enough to know that they were experiencing health privilege (although it wasn’t thought of that way). (Hey, you were either healthy, or you weren’t.) They were unaware (as the young and healthy often are) of the many changes quietly being made beyond their control in their young, healthy bodies.)
OBG knew (from his casual observance) (hell, it wasn’t hard) that they’d noticed his habits. With that shrugging air of one who’d lived and survive, he dismissed whatever they thought. Into the bathroom he went, first blowing his nose (damn sinuses) (he hated blowing his nose in public) (just didn’t want to bother others), and then stretching (because that fucking sciatic nerve was getting inflamed again and despised sitting in those chairs too long). (Yeah, he shouldn’t sit in those chairs so long, reading his Kindle and browsing the net, habits that he’d started when he’d retired, ten years before, which, in turn were begun by habits he cultivated in his twenties, when he was in school, like these servers who watched.) (Do you see the circle that he sees, the circles of behavior and culture, and how linked they are, like the Olympic logo?)
Then, because he was there, he went ahead and sat down and pissed (not that he had to go, but he was there, so…), flushed, and washed his hands. In all, four minutes of his life had passed, but it all adds up, you know?
“The Traveling Floofburys”
“The Traveling Floofburys” (floofinition) – A British-American musical supergroup formed in the late 1980s. Two albums were released but the group never toured before disbanding.
In use: “The Traveling Floofburys were known for having an almost retro flooffle sound from the 1960s, with memorable, often ironic and sometimes amusing lyrics, such as those in “The End of the Treats”, in which treats (and their lack) are treated (sorry) as a metaphor for a change in circumstances.”
Michael Seidel, writer 