My Fave Is Problematic

I have tried at least nine different ways to start this post and have abandoned them because this one is rough. But here goes. (Warning: this one may not be PG-rated.)

My Fave is Problematic.

I'm not going to go into the meme at length here (I have, in one of the nine different ways of writing this post), but suffice it to say that if you want to know what it means, Google is your friend.

I'm referring in this post, obviously, to Kevin Spacey.

Kevin Spacey. 

The Babeahwah. 

Most of you know that for more years than I care to recount (because that would prove that I’m that old), I have loved Spacey. I have connected to this bastard. 

And now, this. 

I’d heard about the Anthony Rapp story. I had heard that Rapp was a teenager, and I always assumed that he was in his late teens when it occurred, and that while “nothing happened”, Spacey had “made a pass” at Rapp. Having had a compromise in that area once in my life, I can understand poor judgment. I let it go, because I LOVED that bastard. 

Until October 30th. 

I was alerted to Mr. Rapp’s story by Starfleet’s newest captain, Jason Isaacs, on his Twitter feed. Isaacs is apparently a very amiable man in person, but behind a computer and with 140 (I guess now 280) characters, he can be withering as hell. He showed strong support for Rapp (and rightfully so), and I clicked through to read what was in the article he linked. 

And then I cried a lot. 

I’m hearing a lot on all sides about this whole “Spacey problem”. How Kevin chose to handle this is sickening, to be truthful. “I don’t remember, perhaps I owe him an apology, and oh yeah I’m gay.” 

“Well, I did it because I’m gay”?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? No wonder the entire gay community wants to be done with you. As Theresa points out, at least half the world conflates homosexuality and pedophilia—erroneously so. That’s like conflating homosexuality and lactose intolerance—there are probably the same proportion in the subset AB as the general population, but one does not become a homosexual through lactose intolerance or vice-versa. 

And it’s like you’re saying that being gay excuses the behavior—seriously, please let me play with a machete near your nether regions. 

Kevin, a little lesson. That’s not how you start. 

First you say: I’m so sorry I did that. 

I don’t want any excuses. If a brain damaged moron (Louis C.K.) can manage it, everyone can. 

We stick our heads in the sand about those we love because it makes life easier. We try to pretend that it's okay because we love them. Sarah Silverman has talked about it regarding Louis C.K. The Louis C.K. thing is disappointing, but the Spacey thing is heart-wrenching. Because there's a lot about him that I just love and adore and I hate that with all of those amazing things comes a secret that keeps getting bigger, and deeper, and darker, and I hate him so much for all of it. 

Kevin went to get "treatment" at the same place that Weinstein went to get "treatment". I get that we need to be able to find forgiveness, but I'm learning that there are some lessons that people don't want to learn, don't want to take in.

Like me with this one. 

I will say that I'm dubious about Kevin getting "treatment" because what he needs is an attitude adjustment that would also likely coincide with a severe reduction in his scrotum. 

I could go on. But I stop here on the ride with Kevin. I no longer investigate, because it hurts. I no longer look at headlines, because each one sends a glass dagger into my organs. 

I believe in forgiveness. I believe in the power of understanding that we need God because NONE of us can honestly achieve our own standards, because ALL of us need help from the darkness that resides in all of us. Some of us have more than others, but it's there in all of us, and it keeps getting dragged out into the light--and we act like the Pharisees about it (oh no! I would never!--say men who have. See: Trump, Donald). (That's a blog post for another day.)

Maybe today, the lesson is to forgive myself. But it comes at a price, and that price is my hope. 

I'm never going on this ride again with you, Kevin. And I'm so sorry. You were my beloved Babeahwah for nearly 2 decades. But now you're a sorry, sad man I have to say goodbye to and move forward. 

Maybe someday I get my hope back.  

Why P!nk is the Icon We Need Right Now

When I heard the new song written by Keith Urban, called “Female”, that Stephen Colbert referred to as "the first song ever written by dumping out a bin full of inspirational throw pillows,” my first thought was, P!nk needs to write a chick-power anthem immediately.

And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that she, more than any other single female icon right now in the Entertainment Industry, is the standard we need right now. 

As I explained in one reply on Facebook, I can imagine how a meeting between P!nk and Harvey Weinstein would have gone down. Weinstein coyly moves their meeting to his hotel room and has his assistant maneuver P!nk into the right place while he takes a shower. P!nk, being both book smart AND street smart, sees where this is heading, and makes sure that 1. the concealed weapons in her boots are still intact and 2. all her recording devices (which she made operational before walking into the hotel) are still functioning before entering the bathroom. 

Once there, she sits demurely (as demurely as a woman who is such a badass can sit) and listens to Weinstein cajole her to join him in the shower, to ask if she likes what she sees, if she’s willing to put it all on the line for her career. So, with recording devices on, she proceeds to throw open the shower curtain…and laugh her ass off at Harvey Weinstein. Literally, look at his manhood and HOWL with laughter, before retrieving the switchblade from her right boot. 

“You called me in here in hopes that I would deign to DO something to your pecker? Well, how about I remove it and put it on my trophy wall? I think that sounds good for starters.” When Weinstein crows that she’ll never work in this town again, she’d say, “I have you on tape, you lying sack of shit. See in you court unless hell gets you first.” 

And then the first person she would subpoena would be Weinstein’s assistant, whom she has on tape. 

That is how P!nk would have schooled Weinstein. I think Weinstein was afraid to touch her because he, too, likely saw the above scenario coming.

That is not the only way, however, that P!nk embodies the female standard we need right now. Yes, she appears very unafraid—her stage name alludes to her strong personality and her survivor attitude (Mr. Pink is the only one who survives the shootout in Reservoir Dogs).  And I am sure that somewhere in her life, the woman born Alecia Beth Moore was afraid. (I will admit that, reading her mini-biography, she seems pretty strong from the outset.)

But women need more than an icon who is not afraid. Madonna was not afraid of very much, and she is not the icon we need right now. P!nk is more than just strength wrapped in a gorgeous package. P!nk is also…us. 

She’s had trouble in her relationships. She’s also worked through that trouble instead of just walking away. She is now the Mom to two children. 

And she’s been honest about it. 

But the best reason I can think for P!nk being the icon we need right now is simple: she’s not into the shame game. 

When P!nk decided to start doing the wire work/aerial work, did any of you out there think: well, drat. Now I have to go be that strong to fit in.

I didn’t. 

I don’t know anyone who did. 

I know a lot of people, myself included, who were and are in complete awe of what she did and is still doing (SCALING A BUILDING WHILE SINGING? Sure, raise the performance bar a little high, why don’t you?). 

P!nk isn’t saying what so many women in the performance industries are saying, which has to do with looking the right way and having a thigh gap and being thin to fit in. 

When P!nk scaled a building during a performance, the world went “Holy guacamole, she’s STRONG.” 

And if she encourages women to be strong—which is a very different thing than being thin—then I’m all for it. 

I don’t think P!nk scaled a building to shame anyone. Okay, maybe just a little to shame the autotune-crowd, but that’s a very different idea than shaming the average woman for being a person and not a brand. P!nk isn’t saying to our young girls, “You have to be this to fit in.”

She’s saying, “You can be this.” 

P!nk is not ashamed of who she is, warts and all. 

And that is exactly the icon we need right now. 

 

P!nk, I know it’s unlikely that you will ever read this. But if this somehow gets to you, then I beg of you: write our anthem. Write it for all women. Write it for our girls. Make it completely singable by the average person and yet so indelible that the anthem will soar for generations to come. 

Write about what it means to be a woman. 

Write about a world without shame. 

And why it’s important to be strong. 

We Know

If you think Meryl Streep didn't know about Harvey Weinstein, WAKE UP. Because here's reality: anyone who followed anything in H'wood knew about Harvey.

I'm pretty sure every dog I've ever had knew about Harvey.

I will grant that the women probably didn't know the extent. I, too, did not know exactly the extent. But I've seen frequent jokes about all kinds of things ranging from Gwyneth Paltrow's Oscar (common theme: "I hope he got some serious tail from her for buying her that Oscar") to Gretchen Mol's career (common theme: "She was such a slut for putting out for Harvey too much that she became tainted"). And I've seen them since the Internet was still in training wheels.

EVERYBODY KNEW.

I would submit that we all know, to a certain extent, about the men we're around. I'm going to pick on a couple by name that I've worked with, because I'd say this to their faces (and have).

I may never have known a man MORE married than Dare Dutter, except possibly Mike Netto. I worked with both of these men at Nottingham. I don't think any of us at 'Ham were worried about harassment from these men, even though they outweighed most of us. Because we all knew. Dare would actually throw himself in front of an oncoming train before he did anything to betray his wife. Netto spends so much time focused on talking to Tammy in his downtime that it would be sickening if it weren't also cute.

I picked on those two because I know them well. But I could just as easily talk about a dozen others with whom I had the pleasure of working at Ham.

We know about the character of the men we're around. At Ham,  we knew who was having an affair with whom and why we didn't necessarily blame anybody in the situation. We knew who was a hound dog in his earlier days but was a stand-up guy now. We knew who would have your back at work and would never cross that line but who was a freak on the weekends.

We knew.

Conversely, every woman has worked with a man she wouldn't be alone with. I cannot even bring to mind more than a few names personally, but we all know who not to be alone with. We all know the reputations that come with those men once we've been around them for a while.

We know.

I know locker room talk happens, even with the decent men I have worked with. I know that the kind of locker room talk that occurs is normally not about domination but rather "Did you see that woman in that dress today? Holy Toledo! What a pair of..." I don't think there's a woman alive who doesn't know that this happens. We have our own version, dudes. It goes like this: "Did you see that guy in the suit today? Holy Toledo! What a fantastic..." And yet, when we do these things, somehow we convey this lack of personal respect. We are objectifying so that we can feel free to talk this way, to achieve the camaraderie that comes from understanding that more than one of us has these feelings...but they do come at a price.

In a culture that fosters sexuality at its fore more and more, this kind of verbiage is unsurprising. But "we all do it" may or may not be license to do it. We all break the speed limit while driving, but that doesn't mean we don't have to suffer the consequences of those actions, either. Most of the time we don't, but if you choose to go 80 in a 55 and you run into Ms. State Trooper...well, you made that choice. We choose to allow this kind of talking, and we've chosen greater and greater permissiveness in the name of openness, which is not the same thing.

Did this culture also allow Weinstein to become the absolute scum of the earth that he is? I honestly don't know. I do remember reading in Premiere magazine (God, I miss it) nearly 30 years ago about the Weinsteins, about Miramax, and wouldn't you know it, innuendos regarding both brothers were there in the magazine. As someone who incredibly naive even by my culture's standards, I didn't necessarily believe it--but it was there, in black and white, that no sane man would ever trust his daughters with these guys. And yet, nobody reined him in. Not even the mother that he worshipped, whose death a year ago may have inadvertently triggered all of this going down.

At the end of the day, I still think it's all about power.

Why do we give certain people power? Harvey was given the kind of latitude in H'wood normally reserved for Saudi Arabian Princes--but maybe that's the point: we let you do this because we love money. Money is something Harvey and his family apparently had a lot of, and people wanted it and let him run rough shod over women in the name of that money. Some women allowed him to run over them in the name of that money, a fact both tragic and appalling to think about.

I can personally name several other Harvey Weinsteins in H'wood--maybe not nearly the volume of power, but certainly men who laud their power over women, who have subjected women to inappropriate behavior or inappropriate demands, and who believe they can get away with it (and who have been decked by at least one leading man in their careers). And I'm not talking about men from the Roman Polanski era, either. I'm talking about men currently in the primes of their careers who have been nominated for Oscars or Emmys (or have won them).

We do have to be open enough to talk about these things, to drag them into the light of day, and not to tolerate that kind of behavior. But I fear this may only lead to greater permissiveness in discussion, which may lead to greater personal disrespect...which is very much how we got here in the first place.

Your mileage may vary.

The A Word

I get asked about the A word a lot, from a lot of different people in plenty of varying contexts. Well, it's to be expected--what I do for a living and what I'm good at within that profession deals with the A word all the time, probably more than most if not all other professions.

The A word is, of course, Autism.

I've been asked repeatedly, particularly over the last 12 years, why autism is on the rise in our nation. The statistics from the CDC website say that approximately 1 in 68 children will be diagnosed on the Autism Spectrum, and I get asked "why" about that a lot.

In 2012, my answer would have been: autism is on the rise because doctors are more aware than ever about this disorder, they know what to look for, and the public is equally aware of its existence. It's about information dissemination; it's also about the fact that we are saving more and more preemie kids who go on to have difficulties later, kids who would never have survived 40 years ago. I read a statistic a while back that around 50% of all preemie kids (before 36 weeks) go on to have some form of sensory processing issue--something that may or may not qualify them for being on the Autism spectrum (this is a discussion that is hotly debated in some autism circles right now; for the record, I think they are separate issues, but the DSM disagrees).

Now, in 2017, I have a very different answer. I believe all of the above to be true. But a big, outsized contributor to the 1 in 68 statistic is that in some states (I'm presently living in one), you can get an Autism diagnosis just by going to the right doctor. I refer to this as being able to get an Autism diagnosis-by-drive-thru. (Nurse Cyndy knows EXACTLY what I'm talking about.) I hear it discussed frequently like it's the catch-all diagnosis when it should not be at all--there are kids who just need some time to learn some social skills yet will look you right in the face, notice the minute you leave a room, but at age 3 are just learning how to navigate other people.

In that state I was born in, it takes one calendar year, minimum, to get an Autism diagnosis. The process requires at least two and likely three professionals working together, one of whom is always a pediatrician, and often another is a psychiatrist. There are several reasons for this process. One of them is to guard against the drive-thru phenomenon. Another is that the minute you get that medical diagnosis, you get a lot of benefits that go with it. You get 150 minutes of speech weekly through the school district in a group size of no greater than 2. You get a set amount of hours of respite weekly. You get that Medicaid check.

So, before the state of New York is willing to give up all that dough, a lot of rigorous evaluation must be passed. There are some students in that state who clearly are on the spectrum who still didn't qualify in that evaluation schema. Yet where I live now? Easy peasy. I'm not joking when I say you can go to one single doctor (the "right" one, at least) with a minimum of data collection and have the doctor sign off and say "Yes, your child has autism." (Also, in this state? You can get the diagnosis after age 12. My rage knows no bounds about this. It's a DIAGNOSIS OF CHILDHOOD. Developmentally, childhood ENDS AT 12.)

The dichotomy is chilling. And it tells a lot about why we're seeing the A word on the rise in diagnoses.

And so, when in my current position I hear someone saying, "I think this kid may have [the A word]", I kind of internally grimace. We need to be careful with that word--hopes and fears of parents are built around the idea that they slipped the noose of the A word. It's the fear of every parent these days. So we must be incredibly careful and stop looking at the world in relatively simplistic terms, using the A word as our definition of "other", which I'm seeing with alarming frequency.

A is not "other". The world does not consist of: A (other) and not-A (safer).

We're all a little autistic. I guarantee you know the places where you are, whether it be your minor OCD (or, let's face it, major OCD for some of you reading this), or your inability to deal with change on the spot (guilty as charged), or your inexplicable love for that one video you want to watch over and over and over again (Tom Holland's Lip Sync Battle!!). You also may have communication deficits in certain areas (we all do, and I'm metaphorically looking at my father as I say this). You may have some OT problems (have you ever seen my handwriting? Yet I am a fairly accomplished pianist). You may have some sensory issues (Central Auditory Processing Disorder is incredibly common in the American populace).

You may have a smorgasbord of these (hello!) and yet not be autistic.

I am not autistic. And yet I have a lot in common with those who have the diagnosis (who were diagnoses in a way I would refer to as "organically" or maybe just plain "honestly"). I'm starting to think that I need a tagline: I'm not autistic, but I play one on TV.

Or that could just be Jim Parsons' calling card.

So, gentle readers (all 5 of you), I think it's time we start a discussion on what it means to be on a continuum, all of us, one that explicates humanity. We're all part of it. The A word is part of it. Muscular Dystrophy is part of it. OCD is part of it. Hodgkin's Lymphoma is part of it.

It is what defines our humanity--our imperfections, our foibles, our soft spaces that need protection and understanding.

And no one needs more understanding than our children.

Notions of Entitlement

As I write this, the nation is trying to heal from (and taking sides about) what happened in Charlottesville, VA. A White Supremacist (let's call a spade a spade) rally was scheduled to be held there because they are taking down the statue of Robert E. Lee, and the WS/KKK/Nazi/Asshole (sorry, Mom) crowd are hopping mad about it.

As one person on the internet said (sorry, I can't remember whom, but I am presuming it was someone on Twitter whose post I saw reblogged, ostensibly by Louise Mensch or Claude Taylor): take the statue down, Lee is dead and he doesn't care. Lee wouldn't have wanted the statue in the first place.

This tragedy--a woman is dead for no other reason than being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and two police officers are dead from a helicopter crash--highlights a problem that I started hearing about a few years ago back in Upstate.

Reality is this: white people are scared.

No, really.

They're scared because they feel that Donald Trump's lies regarding the people, objects, and ideas he's labeled "other" are true. And that fear is the basis for the anger. The anger also is fueled by these notions of entitlement that some white men seem to have regarding their status because they are white and male.

To hear them talk, they are entitled to gather because they are white and male, apparently. That is fundamentally false: they are granted the legal cover to gather because this nation protects free, peaceful assembly. However, the minute literal fire is added to the mix, and no longer can one discuss "peaceful," because fire? IS A HAZARD. If you want to have an assembly with fire, you get permits and clear it with the Fire Department in that area (and you better be having the kind of assembly with fire that invites people to bring along s'mores ingredients while people get out guitars and sing). That crap would NEVER HAPPENED in Northern California because, well, fire is a major public hazard here. Someone in the Fire Department would have literally gone and dowsed the torches (and people) en masse, citing about 75 public codes in the process.

See, these people are idiots.

Had they chosen to assemble just on Saturday? Without the Home Depot Tiki Torches from Friday night? I wonder if events would have played out the same, because more people came out to counterprotest after Friday night's demonstration. I imagine that made the WS crowd pleased, because they assumed (possibly accurately) that these people came out of the fear engendered by their antics Friday night, and they really want people to be scared because it makes them feel more powerful.

I want to say that counterprotesting isn't the answer right now. I want to say instead that the answer is to, safely, from the privacy of our homes, collectively point at these people AND LAUGH OUR ASSES OFF AT THEM.

I mean this, people.

Start mocking them. Don't endanger yourself, but mock them. Openly. Freely. Point out the logical fallacies, but do it in such a way that the characters from Deliverance over there get the point: you don't want to be one of these knotheads, because we will laugh at you and mock you and point out that this is one of the stupidest ideas in history.

I do think that we need to also address the fears of the people who think that their country is being taken away from them because they live in an area (like, say, the Rust Belt) where they understand the principle of scarcity of resources. This is one major reason that people voted Trump into the White House--he promised them that fewer people would come to take their resources. Someone (obviously not Trump, and I might argue not anyone in this administration save perhaps Gen. Mattis) needs to start addressing how we are going to shore up the resources we have in such a way that we can abolish this scarcity mindset--something that, incidentally, is highly correlated with poor self-esteem and with other mental health issues.

Just like the mental health issues we saw on display Friday night.

On the Passing of my Grandmother

I announced on Facebook very early Sunday morning that my grandmother, Dorothy Hiler, passed away in her sleep at age 108 Thursday night. Many of you have offered your sympathies and condolences, and I appreciate your outpouring more than I can express.

But I have to remind all of you that I have been told this woman was going to die for, no joke, the last 20 years of my life. I've heard it every year since 1997, that "we're not going to have her for much longer." Well, not much longer turned out to be 20 years. So to say that where I am is anticlimactic is a gross understatement. I expected to be here a long, long, long time ago.

In those 20 years of "make sure you give extra special attention to your grandmother because she could go any minute", a whole lifetime of things has happened. I graduated graduate school, found my dream job, got married, got divorced, lost the dream job, realized I was never going to reproduce, and moved clear across the country to find the place where my brain works.

That's where I am with her passing.

Please remember: as of four years ago, she didn't recall who I was, really who any of us were. On a good day, if I stayed long enough, she'd refer to me as "Carolyn", and I suppose that was as good as I could hope for. My father could not handle his mother in this state and refused to visit her. So her passing is a bit of a relief valve in that regard. He's relieved, and my uncle is probably very conflicted about the whole thing...but that's his story, and he deserves to be the one to choose to tell it.

My grandmother was not warm and fuzzy. I know some people who think she was, but my definition of warm and fuzzy is my mother...and let's be honest, Santa Claus is not as warm and fuzzy as Carolyn. No, Dorothy was actually very much a self-made woman. She started social clubs--she LOVED social clubs--and she was very interested in the goings-on in her town, because that's where she lived and it was important to be a part of it. I've mentioned before that politics is a big deal in our family, and I believe she played an important role in that by simply wanting to know what was going on, civically, in the town around her.

We all knew that she was going to be around a long time, because the assumption generally is that you live 7 years longer than your same-sex parent (or that's what they said in the 70s when Dorothy's mother passed at 93). So we knew she'd likely be a centenarian. And she had her brain for a lot longer than anyone would have guessed. I can only pray I have mine for as long as she had hers.

We were not especially close. But you must understand that this side of my family does not know how to DO close. I'm learning more and more that it is my mother's mother's family, the Jerretts, the crazy people who take over Selkirk Shores once a year--they know how to do family. We Hilers didn't. And that is NOT to cast blame on anyone. If anything, Dorothy aspired to keep us all together by her very presence. And for the most part, it worked.

My father's extended family will be around on Tuesday. I don't know what that means, exactly, because as I said, for the most part we don't know how to do family very well. Everything in our lives with Dorothy has had a ceremonial aspect to it, and Tuesday will of course be all about ceremony--something my father wishes to eschew this time around and knows he cannot.

So again, I thank you all for your kindness. My concern this point is making sure my uncle doesn't collapse and that the stress of handling everything doesn't make Bill even more prickly. My job will be managing Mom during this time, and as my mother is my favorite person on the planet, I'm grateful for that.

Guilty

Let me tell you a short story.

The novel that became the movie Jack Reacher started life being called One Shot. As a Reacher fan, I was not particularly impressed that this was the cinematic entry point into the life of a fascinating character, but let's put that aside for a moment.

The plot: There's a man who commits a heinous crime overseas as part of our armed forces. He just wants to kill someone, to understand that feeling. That this man ended up killing four men responsible for the horrible gangrape of women was just a stroke of luck for him, which resulted in no prosecution of his crime. But Jack Reacher found the man. Jack Reacher knew.

When this same man was set up as the patsy for a similar crime on domestic shores that he did not commit, he says no words, writes the name "Jack Reacher" on a legal pad, and is carted off to holding, where he is beaten senseless. Jack Reacher solves this crime, proving the man innocent.

I think James Comey is a much better investigator than Jack Reacher.

If I am ever, EVER, accused of a crime I did not commit, I want James Comey to investigate it. Because Comey is tenacious, he is bright, he knows law as well as many judges in the land, and he is a fierce investigator. He'll get to the truth and shine it into the light of day.

Why would Trump decide to fire the man over the Hillary emails? I can only come up with one conclusion.

Therefore, I posit the following:

Donald Trump is guilty of illegal activities involving Russian collusion.

It is the only logical explanation.

Comey has made mistakes. I know plenty of people who don't like what he did 10 days before the election--I'm one of them. I don't like his misrepresentation of some facts about that case. But do I think getting a number wrong is cause for dismissal?

No.

I believe Jeff Sessions was told to find a reason to get rid of Comey, and he came up with a very lame one.

We're headed into an incredibly dangerous place as a nation. It appears that the inmates are running the asylum.

I don't know if Comey can or would be reinstated by whomever ends up as the next President (coming to a White House near you, on or around July 2017), but to Pence, Ryan, Hatch--whomever manages to get in there, let me tell you: reinstating Comey would go a long, long way to reestablishing trust within the government--and maybe with a lot of the American people.

And, by the way, whats-her-face who fronts for Melissa McCarthy...I mean, Sean Spicer (I think your name is Sarah Huckabee Sanders)...no, the American people are NOT tired of asking the questions about Russian interference. We're tired of not getting answers. We're not saying "just let that go". We're saying, "Get to the damn point already."

I have to remind myself that Watergate took 2 full years to topple a Presidency, and I'm impatient about 6 months.

Speaking of which...Donald Trump just set up the next Deep Throat. Someone loyal to Comey is going to leak. Leak on his own terms, perhaps, but it's going to happen.

Paging Carl Bernstein...

3.0 Reasons Why

The title of this post refers to 13 Reasons Why, the new series on Netflix based upon the young-adult novel of the same name by Jay Asher. For those of you who don't know, it's the story of a teenaged girl who ends up taking her own life and her thirteen cassette tapes she leaves behind chronicling why she chose to take that action.

There have been plenty of times in my life when I contemplated the same thing, especially before Better Living Through Chemicals (I miss you, Dare Dutter). Why I did not choose the same action had a lot to do with the faith I had and the knowledge that at least one person on this planet loved me for me...even if I didn't (and I miss you even more, Jay Douglas).

I didn't love me for me for a very, very, painfully very long time.

When I posted in November about Kate 2.0 and understanding that I have been looking to those around me to tell me what normal is and realizing...hey, they don't know any more than I do was an absolute revelation to my middle-aged brain. If only I could have come to this sooner, perhaps the real dreams I've had regarding the husband and children I do not have could have come to fruition.

But when I wrote about Kate 2.0, I'd bootstrapped myself into that position primarily by how I was thinking. And I had completely ignored the 800-pound gorilla in the room named Kathie.

Some of you reading this might remember the days of Kathie. You might even remember her fondly. Some of you might have been confused when I refused to be called that name anymore and insisted that my name is Kate.

I didn't want to be Kathie. And who could blame me? Kathie had endured the indescribable indignity of having a diaper put on her at an 8th-grade assembly (forgot that, did you? I assure you; I did not. Pretty sure Bob DeLong hasn't forgotten, either.). She lost the love of her life in college and was told by the group of people she was involved with that this was a happy occurrence, that he married someone else (that he's not married to now, folks), that this was God's Big and Wonderful Plan.

Kathie had two parents who were neurotic at best. I know you all love my Mom, Carolyn. I love her more. But when I was growing up, when I was Kathie, Carolyn was a gigantic hot mess who didn't know how to handle a lot of things and had made me her best friend--and got visibly upset when it was clear I had a best friend that wasn't her. Why did I remove myself from social situations? Carolyn was easier to live with when I did that; she was less threatened and my life was safer on the whole. (For the record: Carolyn says she should have been "locked up"--her words--when I was a teenager. Perimenopause hit her HARD.) But my Mom was only half of the equation.

Those of you who live in California know just how much I love my Dad, Bill. I love Bill. He's hilarious, and awesome, and I wish that Prozac had been available in 1970 so I could have had a somewhat-normal childhood, but it wasn't, and I didn't, and pre-1990 Bill was a gigantic hot mess that Carolyn and I just tried our hardest to live with. He was distant and inconsistent and sometimes dangerous; I've told many people that I heard "I love you" from him twice a year--either Christmas or my birthday (they're a week apart) and then shortly after Chairman Emeritus Mary Hulman would croak out "Gentlemen, Start Your Engines" at the beginning of the Indianapolis 500 every year.

But Kathie had to contend with two people who were full-on crazy some days. (Please, please understand that this is NOT how things are now, and not how they have been for nearly 30 years, with my folks. We love each other like crazy and most days like each other, too. It's taken a lot of work, but it's work that all three of us have been committed to ever since that cute little green-and-cream pill made its way into our lives and we all had a place to start from. Therapy is also an amazing thing.) And yet Kathie's response to this insecure craziness at home was to be the Sparkle-Plenty Miss Piggy Bright Spot that took a helluva lot of ribbing from her cohort in school.

Kathie was naive, and brave, and amazing.

But I didn't know that until quite recently. I saw her as weak, and ineffectual, and deserving of the outright hatred she received from said cohort. (Not all of you; for God's sake, stop bristling because if you are MACS Class of 88 and you ARE reading this then the chances are high that I am not talking about you then and I surely am not talking about you now.) Some of that cohort made her life a living hell. I probably did that to other people without meaning to, although I tried my best not to. I know what it's like to feel like the butt of everyone's joke all the time.

And so, one day in college, I tried to become Kate. It didn't take, and I didn't know the horrors that were ahead of me. But after college, when I worked at 2 places that already had 3 people named Kathy on the payroll...Kate was easier and, quite honestly, the name I have preferred since I was small. It's just that my Mom preferred Kathie because she liked the spelling and who was I to argue with my Mom?

So I became Kate. I drew a line in the sand and started over, and became in my mind something different from Kathie, someone else, someone who wasn't the laughingstock, someone who wasn't screwed over by the only person she thought she could have a good marriage with. And those of you at the Mexico United Methodist Church can attest that I did not take well to being called Kathie once I declared my Kate-ness. I wanted to be Kate and bristled if I was called anything else.

Fast-forward to this past week, when I was confronted with the fact that until I accepted that Kathie was a part of my past and as well a part of who I am, I was not going to move forward. I was not going to be okay. I couldn't love only the select parts of me that I deemed worthy (like my musical ability or my grammar Nazi skills). I had to love all of me, and that includes the me that was called Kathie.

So I did. It was not easy work. It was horrible. Buy stock in Kleenex because their stock is going to go up for all the tissues I went through this week.

But I am Kathie. And Kate. And Kathryn. And all those permutations that make one extraordinary human being.

And I love all of that.

All of me.

And that has cascaded an entirely new outlook on life. Because all of me--the Kate-ness, and the Kathie-ness, and all of the Kathryn--does not care about what anyone else thinks any more.

I didn't know that I would have proof of the change so soon, but it came last night.

I went to see Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood at the Uptown Theatre in Napa last night. (Honest plug: even if you don't know who these morons are, go see them anyway. Unless you don't like comedy. It's improv comedy the way God intended it, and these are two master craftsmen. I assure you that lost-Hargrave-brother Brad Sherwood did not put me up to this.) This was my second time seeing them, and honestly it was just as good this time as last. They tightened up a couple of things, played a few different games, and enjoyed life in general with all of us.

When I went a year ago, they brought people up on the stage and did things to them or made comments and even as I tried to enjoy myself, I sat there cringing inside. Why would they choose to allow themselves to be mocked like this? Don't they know the stigma? That's what I sat there thinking. And so while I enjoyed the show--and to be fair, I think that show was at least equal to the one I saw last night--I also was really, really, really tense as I watched it.

Last night I sat there and didn't think those things. I thought, What great sports. Because the people on stage were laughing as much as the rest of us. They were what we would call in statistics a self-selected sample, and if they couldn't handle the ribbing, they would not have chosen to get up there. In particular big shout out to the middle-aged couple who provided sound effects--they were fantastic and cracking up and trying their very best and failing miserably and enjoying life.

I was forcibly reminded of all the listening I'd done to Brené Brown recently, in her talk The Power of Vulnerability. She says that we perceive it as weakness in ourselves and strength in others, and as I watched the woman doing sound effects (I think her name was Alyssa) and how she would try and just...not do what Brad Sherwood wanted exactly, but he was kind (for Brad) and rolled with it, she stood there and laughed so hard I was sure she was going to fall on the floor. And I thought, that's the power of vulnerability. She's being brave. But she probably didn't see it that way. She thought, "I'll try my best." And she was awesome.

That, maybe, is the power of humanity: to see ourselves and accept our flaws and get on with it.

This is Kate 3.0, with restored access to the Kathie engine, embracing all that I was, and am. You want to call me Kathie? I'll respond, proudly, gratefully, honestly.

It's a whole new ballgame.

Words I never thought I'd say

Where are you when we need you, John Dean?

[Those are the words I never, ever, thought I would say.]

I am a fan of only a few things from the 70s. I do not miss those garish blue and green countertops that my parents had in the 70s. I still think Avocado is a great thing to eat but a lousy color for a refrigerator. If you ask me, I will tell you that I'm not a fan of disco (and I'm always surprised at how many disco songs I know the words to).

But I love All the President's Men and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

I love, love, LOVE them.

And I find it interesting that both, in their own ways, are affecting how I view the world right now. One of my earlier memories is asking my father what a "Watergate" was and noting that every time the word was bandied about, he seemed agitated. (For the record, in my limited brain, I thought a "watergate" must be a gate on a fence that someone tied a sprinkler to. Why this would be upsetting was beyond my ken at that point.) My father insisted on giving his only child the world as it was, not a watered-down version, but he made a point to bring it to a level that a 3-year-old could understand. So I learned that at the very least, our President had gone back on his word to lead us, the American people, honestly. At most, he had broken the law and would have to go to jail.

Walter Cronkite was a big feature of my early childhood because of Watergate. [Does anyone else hear his voice and have their blood pressure decrease? Just curious, because he's good for a 6 point drop for me, no joke.]

I came to Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy much later in my life--within the last 15 years or so--but it also affects how I view the intelligence community. Granted, that is about British intelligence, but was written by a lifelong officer of what we coin MI-6 (who had a forced career change thanks to Kim Philby, the Russian spy who leaked his name along with many others, forcing them into retirement from The Service) and was written by a man who clearly knew the inner workings of that environment. The novel centers around the unmasking of a Russian mole (based upon Philby) within the trappings of MI-6, at the highest levels.

Today's events make me believe that, indeed, we might not have truly learned the lessons of those books and therefore, history is going to make good on its promise of repeating.

Did Russia try to influence the election? The Director of the FBI went on the record about an ongoing investigation to say "Yes." There is precedent for telling the American public about such investigations, even though they are classified, and some of that harkens back to All the President's Men. 

I will tell you that, at least of this writing, I find James Comey to be a man better suited to the Director position at the FBI than L. Patrick Gray, who was acting Director of the FBI at the time of the Watergate scandal, and whose decidedly non-Hooverian way of doing things gave rise (inadvertently) to "Deep Throat," Bob Woodward's secret source in the government. (Had W. Mark Felt been in charge of the FBI when Watergate went down, history would be written differently.) Gray was an FBI outsider whom Nixon liked and respected and also was a Nixon appointee. Felt didn't trust Gray to hold the FBI to the same rigor that Felt perceived Hoover did (in both good and bad ways, as Clarence M. Kelley would eventually have to clean that house).

Comey also comes from a background that is more DOJ-oriented than FBI-cultured, but he was appointed by a man he does not work for to a position that he has no intention of leaving. He also has more Department of Justice experience and in particular experience as an investigator. Comey will also be helped in the court of public opinion by having a similar look to Oliver North: tall, dark-haired, decent-looking. People loved Oliver North in the 80s because he was forthright and photogenic at the same time, even if just about everything he did was illegal. Comey doesn't have that last little problem--he is painfully aware of how much everything he does (and by extension, how the FBI comports itself) is under scrutiny and I think he knows he's got to be as above-board about everything as possible. I'm sure he's been tempted to physically squash some of these morons (Comey is 6'8"; he can likely squash garden gnomes with one foot) but has so far resisted.

However, Comey isn't going to give Congressional investigators in a public hearing answers to their blatantly partisan questions just so they can feel good about themselves. They know he can't answer. It's not like they are asking expecting an answer. They want their voice on the public record, every last one of them, as saying something important or of value (I'm looking at you, Nunes). Of course the Director of the FBI can't answer those questions because at least one-third were speculative at best, another third revolved around specific people, and the rest were regarding classified material. That these men answered questions at all today--and they did both answer a few questions and make specific statements--is a testament to the fact that both Comey and Mike Rogers, his NSA counterpart, believe that NOT doing so was more damaging to America as a whole.

I want you to think about that for a minute.

In a post-sound-byte, post-15-minutes-of-fame, fully-Internet-integrated culture, where the whims of the American people can be shaped in only a few weeks by outside forces if ANY of this is to be believed, Jim Comey believed that it was in the best interest of America as a whole to confirm to the American people that they likely were manipulated at the time of the election and that the man that won the electoral college vote and people in his camp are being investigated regarding their contact on some level with a country that has publicly shown devotion to the dismantling of this nation.

Jim Comey publicly stated that the American intelligence communities and the Russian intelligence communities believed that there was little way Hillary Clinton would lose the election in November.

Read that one again.

The FBI thought it was a foregone conclusion that Clinton was their next boss.

And calm down if you think that's why Comey went public with the allegations regarding Clinton's servers in October. He didn't think that would cost her the election and he just said so on the public record without coming out and saying it. It was fact, as far as the intelligence community was concerned,  that Clinton had the presidency locked up.

Because Comey wasn't the only one with the intelligence regarding the servers and emails, and had he left it up to the Republicans to leak it (it's documented that Giuliani also had that intelligence and he was going to release it), then his position would be weakened and there could be discussion regarding collusion on his end, that Obama was trying to tie Comey's hands and give the election to Hillary. After all, both Comey and Rogers both agreed that all the intelligence pointed to an historic Clinton win, so he had to come forward but he didn't think it would end up doing what it did. I think he fears that he was played by Russian forces on that end, too, because of the timing. And perhaps so.

Somewhere, right now, in the White House, there's someone who knows all the facts. Someone who knows that what has been happening in Trump-land is illegal, immoral, and just plain wrong. And that someone needs to step forward, now. In today's hearing, the Republicans made it clear that they didn't want anyone in the government to "hide behind" the press, the way W. Mark Felt chose to expose the Nixon administration through Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Comey, too, agreed that DOJ leaks (although many have been wrong in their substance, according to Comey) need to stop because they will undermine any investigation, and this man wants to get it right, especially if he unwittingly helped get this nation to where it is at this moment--divided and scared on all sides.

But that someone--this administration's John Dean--needs to come forward, now, and cop to what's been happening, on the record, to both the DOJ and the legislative branch. And it needs to happen soon.

I'd like to sleep again at night.

How things are

"We do not know what things look like. We know what things are like. It must be very limiting, this seeing."--Aunt Beast, A Wrinkle in Time, written by Madeline L'Engle.

Meeting the blind beasts of the planet Ixchel as a child taught me one of the most important lessons I have ever learned. I was 9, and the novel's female protagonist of an age not that much older than I captivated me.

On the planet Ixchel, there is not a great deal of light. That which does filter through results in a color spectrum best described as drab. Their fruits look unappealing. Everything looks...well, kind of depressing.

But that is not how things are on Ixchel. These semi-telepathic blind creatures know of substance, not of glamour, and their lives are far richer than we can quantify with our feeble seeing. Tasting the unappealing fruits, the humans who have been accidentally stranded on this planet are astounded to discover that these fruits taste indescribably good. The same can be said of the beasts--no eyes, no fingers but rather tentacles, furs in muted browns and grays, and yet they are indescribably good in a way that humans do not know how to be--we literally do not have the sensory set to teach us such things as having to live in a society where people can know what you are thinking and what "best behavior" could really mean.

As a child whose primary sensory experience was not visual but rather auditory, I felt kinship with the beasts...and deep envy at their ability to know how things are. I never forgot the lesson that looks can deceive and that character is borne out within (a lesson that, hilariously enough, was reinforced on an episode of ABC's Super Friends Saturday morning cartoon).

In life, so many people are satisfied if something looks good. An attractive spouse, despite character, might be more appealing to one's friends--and to yourself, if you're going to be honest. The good-looking, well-put-together executive must be doing something right if his sartorial abilities are that sharp. Never mind that he can't type and doesn't know what the Dow Jones Industrial Average averages (and he works in stocks)–that suit means he's got it all together.

Maybe Donald Trump looked better to people than Hillary Clinton and that's why they voted him in because it's okay to age as a man in this culture--it means a man is distinguished--but women must remain forever youthful. (On the flip side, young men are innovative, but a young woman doesn't have enough experience to lead.)

I do not know how to get those around me on the train of being more concerned with how things are than how we're afraid they are because of what we see, even when our eyes lie to us. The struggle continues, I guess.

May we all value the substance of our lives, the intangible character that informs us of how things are.

Trump

Okay. It's time.

Many of you have disliked some of the things I've written over on Facebook about Donald J. Trump. So here goes: I'm about to disclose my bonafides (what some kids these days call "the receipts").

I am a registered Republican.

No, really, you can go look it up if you're bored.

Why am I a registered Republican? There are several reasons, but here are the two that explain it as best I can (not that I believe any one person's political leanings deserve an explanation). First, I'm from the red part of a blue state, staunchly red, and had been raised in a quite conservative household. When I registered, it made the most sense to me because the majority of our lawmakers locally were Republican. This fed into the second, and what I believe to be significantly more important reason: in the great state of New York, one can vote in the primaries only for the political party with which one is affiliated. In other words: in New York, only registered Republicans can vote in the primaries for that party. As the vast, VAST, majority of the people who had more day-to-day contact with me and my life were likely to be the Republican candidate, this is where I would get the most say, where my vote would count the most, in terms of who ended up getting elected in November.

There is a third reason as well, and it bears telling here: on my father's side of the family, there are not many of us. I have no cousins on that side, unlike my mother's far more prolific and quite frankly far warmer side of the family. So it's me, my 107-year-old Grandmother who no longer votes, my Uncle, and my parents. Because of the rules regarding the primaries in New York, as well as the decidedly political bent of my father and his brother in particular (my Uncle should have been one of those pundits on CNN, really, sincerely--he's got a brain for politics that puts the rest of us to shame, even in his 70s. Simply brilliant), as a family we got together in the 90s and chose who got to be with which party, as the Democrats were starting to rise in Central New York. As my parents were both registered Democrats (the result of my father doing computer programming work for the Democratic Party in New York back in the 60s and 70s), my Uncle and I had the mantle fall upon us to select the candidates locally that we believed were the best people for the job in the primaries. I mean, we talked about it as a family--not necessarily long discussions unless my Uncle was involved, but we discussed the issues, probably over dinner on a Sunday before the primaries, and made our choices accordingly. We felt this gave us a greater voice in the democratic process as a whole. (I could do an entire blog on what happened when I changed counties after I got married--my Uncle had a FIELD DAY with this, finally getting his hand into the slightly larger Onondaga County arena and going off at length about his favorite candidate ever, Nancy Larraine Hoffman...you want to hear that man talk for days, say her name.)

I still believe that voting in the primaries and in the local elections gives one the greatest voice in this democracy.

So that is why I am a registered Republican. But I am also from an area of the country where economic downturn during both the Clinton and Obama administrations has made the people as a whole believe that charity starts at home and should not be regulated and that Democratic policies are likely to blame for such failings--whether this is the case or not. I've seen Supply-Side economics actually WORK, even if only for a season, locally. But the issues of each party are far more partisan now than they were when I first registered to vote, way back when, now becoming polarized caricatures of what they once were. I remember Dennis Miller in the 90s joking about remembering that there used to be Conservative Democrats and Liberal Republicans, but with the advent of the media these lines were drawn as people stopped thinking for themselves and wanted someone else to suss out the meanings for them, resulting in the cacophony we presently live with.

Which brings me to Trump.

I'm not going to lie: there are policies that are Conservative, which is now synonymous with Republican, that I agree with, many of them without reservation. I'm not going into those here, but I'm just going to make a blanket statement that I think Republicans need to start choosing the right battles to wage and to stop worrying about the ones that, quite frankly, are idiotic. They live in a media-saturated world, and they need to start acting like they know their words need to be chosen delicately. I'm looking at you, Paul Ryan, aka the man I desperately hope becomes President after an impeachment and a resignation in shame in my ideal universe. (I hope this because that's what would happen if Trump and Pence fall off a cliff--and let's face it: Mike Pence makes Paul Ryan look like Santa Claus, okay?)

So when I attack Trump--and I'm going to, repeatedly and without hesitation--do not mistake this for an attack on the Republican Party or its ideals. I just don't buy the party line that you think he'll abide by--he's not going to. I don't buy "drain the swamp" because let's face it--everything he's done since his surprise win (don't think he wasn't surprised, people, he didn't think they'd pull it off) has proven that the man is an ABSOLUTE BLEEPING HOLY CANNOLI OH MY YODA MORON. And instead of draining the swamp, he's filling it with more people like him. Our country is in grave danger. If you believe in the Republican ideal of a strong military and strong borders but also understand that this comes with strategic diplomacy that makes people work with you so that the strong military is a last resort, then Trump is simply not your candidate and not the man you want in that Oval Office.

And if you're a person who personally defends Trump because you're happy that the Republican candidate got in: I feel for you, because what you believe is about to be wholly thrown on its ear in favor of a man who believes a sound bite is infinitely more important than character. Oh please, do not START me on Trump's character. His wife is a former escort. That's American Family Values? Please, do not kid yourselves about Trump's character. The man is a blight on humanity.

So yes, from one standpoint, the "Republicans" won.

But they didn't. And they know it. Washington is all about control, and they can't control this guy. "Good!" I'm sure many of you just said.

But if you like our friendly status with foreign nations, I don't think you realize the implications for our stability as a nation. As God is my Witness, Mark Cuban would have made a better choice if you wanted a Millionaire President. Mark is smart enough to know when he doesn't know something and then, unlike Trump, goes and does his research or gets his top researchers to get on it and brief him.

The problem with idea of shaking things up and draining the swamp is that you are attempting to depose people--there's really no better word for it--who have had power for a long, long, LONG time. And these people have friends who are just as powerful and still in power in other lands, in high places. Forgive the language, but I'm sure if you walk up to Queen Elizabeth II and say, "Fuck you very much" as a diplomat, your days on the planet are numbered, and she's not even IN the political arena any more (don't start with me on the conspiracy theory that she rules the world secretly with the Bilderbergs. Been there, done that). And with some of the things the people who are now in power are wont to do...that might actually HAPPEN, folks.

There's a reason politics are gridlocked with people who are interested in staying in power. Obama was an outsider, honestly, and needed people like Hillary to help him. Everyone in politics at the federal level has sold his soul somewhere--and if you don't believe me, go ask John McCain. He'll tell you to watch the 1972 movie The Candidate. Everyone is dirty--and so is Trump. The man is so dirty, he's practically covered in mud.

I'll also tell the truth: if Marco Rubio had won the election, I would not be sitting here going "he's an asshole" and railing about him. I don't really LIKE the guy, but I also know that Rubio is not an idiot who believes that giving the masses the sound bite they troll for and then going "Oh I didn't really mean that" is the way to make friends and keep any political job. Honestly, compared to Trump, Rubio and Ted Cruz and most of those other Republican candidates are the equivalent to the Pope and Mother Teresa--and I'm even referring to the current Pope, a man who refused the fancier vestments of his station and snuck out to serve communion daily because he believes in the power of connecting with people. I like Frank, I really do, even if I disagree with him about some things theologically.

So yes. I'm going to keep coming after Trump and his team and singing my song in the darkness. You may laud me. You may hate me. But I will tell you this: history will prove that what I have said is accurate.