Letting the days go by, water flowing underground

Posted on June 11, 2010 by 40andover

Letting the days go by/water flowing underground
And you may ask yourself
How do I work this?
And you may ask yourself
Where is that large automobile?
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!
Letting the days go by/water flowing underground

Ok, it is a little crazy to meditate on the words to a Talking Heads song Once in a Lifetime

I am just six days away from my 25th college reunion, and so I am in a slightly maudlin and definitely introspective mood.

I have 8 wonderful women friends from college and we have seen each other through 25 years of life’s highs and lows. We have known each other for longer than we were alive when we met.

We all know that each of us cherishes these friendships, but right now we are stressing about what to wear and whether we will be able to survive a few nights of dorm living. Today, one of our number had a minor meltdown about only having fleece to wear as an evening cover-up (she is a suburban mom with three kids — what else is she supposed to have for casual eveningwear?). She was planning to go to the local mall and feared that she would find nothing to wear to the reunion but come home with a new pair of khaki shorts and yet another fleece.

Others of us are taking stock of the pounds gained and lost or of how our quarter century-old pounds are migrating toward our hips and tummies. And in our own particular (and in my case, peculiar) ways, we are taking stock of the lives we have lived in advance of revisiting the place that gave birth to many of our dreams. Life interfered with those dreams in wonderful, sad, humorous and sometimes mediocre ways.

As we are all giving into some vanities (I am working out my arms so that I look toned), and then:

One friend emailed, “I don’t want to brag but I can still wear the same earrings I wore in high school!”

Thank G-d for friends who keep it real and help you keep your head on straight.

So, in response to Messrs. Talking Heads:

Yes, POB (partner of blogger) is my beautiful wife and we live in our home. I got here by taming my demons and working hard and earning the love of POB. And together we created a son (ok, with a little help) and a family. Yes, I am here and this is what I have done. Unfortunately, the days go by too fast. And I still lose sleep at night over bills and the general state of the economy.

Now, that I have had that Frank Capra “It’s a Wonderful Life” moment, I am still going to work out every day until the reunion, and I spent a small fortune on skin moisturizers and wrinkle removal goop. Capra would totally get this — even Jimmy Stewart’s character in that movie was perfectly coiffed while contemplating suicide.

This is the media’s Hurricane Katrina

Posted on June 1, 2010 by 40andover

I believe the Gulf disaster defies analogy.

But we need to pigeon hole this one for the 24 hour news re-cycle. Hmmm. Hurricane Katrina. Yeah, that’s it! Let’s exploit another episode of human suffering for the sake of ratings. That’s why the media asks, “Is this Obama’s Hurricane Katrina?”. Because that was the most recent large scale disaster. We can’t remember back almost 10 years to ask if this is “Obama’s 9/11”.

And it feeds our need, in a situation out of control, for symmetry with past events so we can pretend to understand the event and its ramifications and then go back to watching Britney Spears. The pathology of fear symmetry.

Let’s not make this about President Obama, although it would make it easier if it were. It is about greed and reckless indifference to our earth. It is about a problem of unimaginable scope causing imponderable calamity for all living beings.

We elected President Obama because he is unflappable, at least in public. Now, we are pissed because he doesn’t express constant outrage to satisfy CNN, FOX, and MSNBC and our own fear symmetry pathology.

Everyone, listen up:

Rule 1 of disaster reaction: If the only people with the machinery to solve the problem are the ones who caused the problem, don’t piss them off. If you make it so they can never get out from under the liability, they will take their marbles and go home and then all is lost. Sometimes it feels good to yell at a given moment, but it hurts you in the long run (ever hear the old saw, “don’t cut off your nose to spite your face”?).

Rule 2 of disaster reaction: There is no easy resolution to this problem because no one prepared for this disaster. Not BP and not the United States. Preparation would have required years of research and development by top scientists and hundreds of millions of dollars. So, blame Reagan, Bush I, Clinton and Bush II. Even throw Carter, Ford and Nixon under that bus while you’re at it.

Rule 3 of disaster reaction: Everyone wastes time pointing figures at others. And take out the mirror. All of us. We are the problem, too. Consume too much? Vote for the Drill, Baby, Drill ticket?

Rule 4 of disaster reaction: DON’T TELL THE PUBLIC THE TRUTH. WE CANNOT HANDLE THE TRUTH (Jack Nicholson was right in “A Few Good Men”). We also expect that everything will get fixed for us, preferably within a day’s trading session at the New York Stock Exchange.

Rule 5 of disaster reaction: The media feeds our ridiculous expectations and our hubris. So, Anderson Cooper, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Keith Olbermann, Maureen Dowd, Jack Cafferty, Wolf Blitzer and whoever else: stop with the comparisons and come up with ways to heal our earth, ways to help our fellow Americans, our wildlife, etc. Set up a disaster relief fund.

Reality No. 1 of Disasters: The man in charge — President Obama — wanted this gusher plugged the minute it happened. You think he wants to go down as the president who screwed up this disaster response?

Reality No. 2 of Disasters: Everyone is an armchair quarterback. If you can help, then help. If you can’t, then shut up.

Reality No. 3 of Disasters: If there weren’t a disaster, the media would create one. So, for the 45th President of the United States of America, what will be your Gulf Oil Spill Disaster?

This Blogger’s No. 1 Fear: If it is ever over, we will forget about it in a New York minute.

Rand Paul, the Prophet with the Pitchfork

Posted on May 26, 2010 by 40andover

That crazy Tea-Party-er is good for America. You’re thinking: some crazy person is guest blogging. Nope.

Rand Paul is a false prophet. He is rationalizing our nation’s three-decade long drift into a selfish, ego-centric theocracy. He is giving us a way to rationalize and even celebrate our nation’s screw-your-neighbor-because-it-is-your-G-d-given-right hypocrisy. Yes, if we listen to him, we will surely perish.

He lays bear the essential pathos of the Tea Party movement — the fight for white supremacy and control over diminishing resources. Neo-Nazis and Neo-Klansmen with an apocalyptic rapture.

I am over-reacting, maybe?

He said that the President’s criticizing British Petroleum was un-American. Does being American mean I have to applaud and support corporate greed that despoliates the earth? (Psssst, Randy, BP is headquartered in Switzerland to avoid US taxation).

Then he drew a line in the sand — saying that an individual’s right to be a racist is improperly impinged upon by the Civil Rights Act. (If a black proprietor refused to serve a white man, I don’t believe Mr. Paul would be so sanguine about the protections of the Civil Rights Act.)

No, I am not overreacting.

After thousands of years of human civilization and evolution, it still all boils down to the epic battle between good and evil. On one side of Mr. Paul’s line is our common humanity and sense of decency, justice and fair play. All the things that — we say — define us as Americans. On Rand Paul’s side of that line, there are only Freud’s id, chaos and brutality.

Good versus Evil. Yes, it is that simple.

My son’s most excellent adventure

Posted on May 20, 2010 by 40andover

My son is an intrepid traveler. His partner in crime is Cousin Gentle.

They boldly go where no one on our family has gone before — Staten Island.

Now Staten Island — that is RED state country. We descend from the red palette, too, but closer to the blue–red (socialist) part of the spectrum. The kind of red that would make today’s red staters would prefer to be dead (better than be red).

And these two did not just go to the ferry stop on the “other side” and then hurry back to the safety of our (Manhattan) island sanctuary. No, these two Upper West Siders took the SIR — Staten Island Rail — to the end of the line, Tottenville. You might be surprised that there are over 20 stops on the SIR and it takes an hour to go the length of that island.

They stopped for pizza and the proprietor asked Cousin Gentle, “what country are you from?” Cousin Gentle replied, “the Upper West Side”. The proprietor nodded that he had heard of it. Who knew you didn’t need a space rocket to visit Mars?

Apparently, Tottenville has a shore line and beach area and my son waded into the ocean not yet sullied by the oil spill. Over dinner (back home in the bosom of our effete, white wine sipping, brie cheese eating, intellectual elitist Upper West Side), my son said, “Tottenville is just like East Hampton!!” I looked at Cousin Gentle who whispered that he didn’t say that while in Staten Island (because those are fighting words there) and I checked that FOPOB (father of partner of blogger) didn’t hear that statement because, well, FOPOB has a beach house in East Hampton. Honestly, I would rather risk offending FOPOB than inciting people to riot on Staten Island.

There are so many sociological layers to my son’s statement. I, however, will go with “my son, the pampered egalitarian”. And leave it at that.

25th Reunion

Posted on May 15, 2010 by 40andover

I have 5 weeks until my 25th college reunion. I have 5 weeks to be slim, prosperous, toned and, maybe, un-gray.

Nothing like waiting until the last minute. I was a crammer in college — I was still buying the books from the class syllabus three days before the final exam. (And my GPA showed it.)

I am 46 and, with 5 weeks to go, here is my status:

Slim: I am much slimmer now than I was in college, even though I have gained “more than a few” pounds in recent years. I call it the Recession 8. Better than the Freshman 15. (I had come in with the pre-Freshman 30, so I don’t have college to blame.) But, in truth, I look pretty slim. So, √ in that box.

Prosperous: Ok, things were better a few years ago, before people on Wall Street got stupid and greedy. But, while I don’t stack up to the crazy high-profile entrepreneurs in my class, I am really fortunate. So, √ in that box.

Toned: I want to be buff. I don’t look bad, although there is a certain sag to the skin on my legs from my fat days. And gravity does “weigh down” some erstwhile perky parts. So no short shorts and no tank tops for me. Anyway, after a certain age, a person looks ridiculous in that kind of outfit. I lost this last week to having injured my hip and back (a little arthritis in the hip leads to compensating with other muscles that spasm which leads to crippling pain), and so I think buff is out of the question, but quietly toned is still possible. So, X in this box (with an “*I don’t care anymore because I am not so shallow” followed by “**Does anyone outgrow that infantile sour grapes attitude? Surely not I”).

Un-gray: I am unconvinced on this. Covering the gray requires upkeep even after the reunion. That is a huge commitment. Still under advisement. So put a ? in that box.

My son just walked in and kissed me. He really wants to use the computer, but the kiss was also real. That’s the things with kids — they take you as you are and they don’t put on the artifices that we adults do as naturally as we get dressed in the morning. POB (partner of blogger) calls out to me and wants to know what we want to do for dinner tonight. I remind her to call her dad about coming over for dinner tomorrow night with my dad and assorted relatives.

Now, I think, do I care if I am thin, prosperous, toned and un-gray? Yes, but not because of reunion. I am happy and I don’t envy anyone or want to be envied. I simply want my family to be happy and healthy and safe. I have that. Add new box and put √√√ in it!!! (with an *”still would like to be slim, prosperous, toned and less gray”) .

[break for dinner out during which my son has a mother of all melt-downs and tests my resolve against spanking as a disciplinary tool.]

Ok, so my son was temporary invaded by an alien life form, and all because we cannot go to his choice of local restaurants (there were no tables available). This is not my son (usually). The following race through my mind: (i) aliens are clever, (ii) my parents grew up poor and would not abide such behavior in us, (iii) we knew not to exhibit such behavior and (iv) what have I done to create this monster?

Am I still happy and blessed? Absolutely. Am I pissed? You betcha. But keep the new box with the √√√ in it, and don’t forget the all-important asterisk.

Wall Street Cab Driver

Posted on April 20, 2010 by 40andover

It was too beautiful this morning to get into the subway (and, surprise, I was running late), so I hopped a cab and asked the driver to drive through Central Park, so that I could enjoy the beauty that the car exhaust was destroying. But I digress.

The cab driver mentioned how New York has changed since the 1970s even though he believes that there is more crime than the official statistics would suggest. I asked him if he had always driven a cab, knowing in the back of my mind that anyone who didn’t know that you could get the Park Drive going south at 100th Street and Central Park West hasn’t been a cab driver for too long.

No, he was a bond trader and was laid off in 2000 when the bond markets were rocked by one thing or another. He was a golf caddy for a while and he turned down a job back on Wall Street in 2001 because the pay package was too low. Yup, you guessed it — at a firm in the World Trade Center. Ok, Gordon Gekko, in this case, greed saved his life. Actually, he isn’t really Gekko-esque. After all, he is driving a cab. He said the pay package was too low because bond traders were a dime a dozen and people were scrambling to get work. But he had paid off his mortgage and cashed out of equities as soon as he was laid off, so he was ok. Not rich, but ok. Clearly, because he is driving a cab.

A serene cab driver who would rather compete for fares in New York City than go back to Wall Street. Now that is saying something.

Out at Work

Posted on April 8, 2010 by 40andover

I “out”ed myself today at work — not as a lesbian [remember, I am here, I am queer and I am over it] but as a blogger.

While I didn’t give away the site, apparently some of my coined phrases, like “schlepic” — in the passages I cut and pasted for a colleague — can lead straight to this blog. So, the secret is out. I will never be on the Supreme Court as a result of my writings. That’s okay. First, I am not qualified. Second, I am one of the few New Yorkers who doesn’t look so good in basic black. Phew, intellectual and sartorial disasters averted. Our nation is safe again.

Although, come to think of it, I would dispense justice, tempered with mercy. As in, “would you like extra fries with your LAST meal?” I fear that most people would be horrified if every opinion from the bench started with, “Schmuuuuuck, what were you thinking when you . . . ?” I would imprison people who tortured the words of laws or statutes beyond all recognition to fit their desired ends as violations of the Geneva Convention. You know, the Geneva Convention, the so-called “quaint” doctrine discredited by Dick Cheney and his highly educated legal “scholars”. Just using fancy words doesn’t make an idea good; it just makes it high-fallutin’ bullsh@t. But I digress. See, I would get on a roll and mayhem would ensue in my court room. Maybe I should get the Presidential Medal of Honor for having the patriotism not to seek a judgeship.

Anyway, today was a regular day without many gross things to report. Other than the fact that the Virginia governor forgot that slavery was part of Virginia history. That’s like a Texan forgetting the Alamo, for G-d’s sake. But the governor’s omission did hit an impressive trifecta: gross, idiotic and inflammatory.

And then there is the mining company that put profits ahead of lives and now 25, possibly 29, miners are dead. I think Lady MacBeth found that blood stains your hands forever. That crazy Bill Shakespeare. Our very own Elizabethan Nostradamus.

Starvation in the Sudan is at a humanitarian crisis level. (There are so many centers of humanitarian crisis, wouldn’t it be easier for the UN to list where there ISN’T a humanitarian crisis?) We really should think about how lucky the majority of us are in this nation (and remember and help the less fortunate). But, tea party-ers are crying over taxes, which most of them don’t pay anyway. Children starving in the Sudan. Spoiled Americans are protesting a functioning government that protects their liberties and provides a safety net from starvation. Let’s put these two concepts on the scales and balance them. Ok, why are the tea party-ers still talking?

Associate Justice 40andoverblog of the United State of America. It has a nice ring to it.

Doctor, heal thyself

Posted on April 6, 2010 by 40andover

The urologist who put up a sign saying, “if you voted for Obama, go somewhere else,” got his information from the Internet and . . . wait for it . . . it was misinformation. We did not “misunderestimate” him (my favorite moment of the otherwise bleak Bush years). He was flat-out wrong.

The Internet is an amazing tool. It also must be viewed in its context. Opinions — informed, ill-informed and maliciously disinformative — are out there. It is up to each person to glean the facts, evaluate the sources and come to one’s own conclusion. Just because I can write an opinion that you might read doesn’t mean that I am right, that I have all of the facts or that, quite frankly, I am interested in the truth.

Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion, but that doesn’t mean that each opinion deserves equal weight. I spoke to a tea party goer about a year ago that heard on an unnamed “news” station (ok, FOX) that the health care bill would give social security benefits to illegal aliens. Ok, let’s set aside the fact that we are not talking about E.T., The Extra-Terrestrial, or Martians, and that they are humans deserving at least the catch-all phrase of “illegal immigrants”. I asked this woman if she ever dealt with the government. She asked me to get to my point. I responded that even if President Obama were seeking to give away the money in the Treasury (which he can’t because there is a 3 trillion dollar deficit), that the government needs a social security number to take any action with respect to a person’s benefits. So if someone doesn’t have a SSN (let’s assume that an illegal immigrant hasn’t stolen one because why impugn someone who is seeking a better life here, while there are native born executives of Enron and Madoff enterprises who have committed heinous crimes and haven’t yet had their days of reckoning), then it is impossible to give that person social security benefits. The commentator was either mistaken or intentionally misleading.

Ok, let’s be honest. MSNBC is slanted the other way and sometimes uses inductive reasoning — basing a hypothesis on one fact — and gets the whole analysis wrong. For me, sometimes, it is analogous to watching a show about law or maybe a doctor watching ER or Grey’s Anatomy. It strains credulity and sometimes is farcical.

However, when I realized that I paid more in 2009 taxes than most, non-celebrity, tea party-ers pay in two decades, I realized that I put my money where my mouth is. I believe in universal health care, medicare and a safety net for those like my grandparents who slept at night knowing that, if they lost their jobs in sweatshops, their children would not starve. As a child of those children — the embodiment of the American dream — I pay my taxes for those like my grandparents and my parents, and not for the ungrateful masses who are the tea-party-ers. Why? Because this is America, the greatest nation on Earth. But if you don’t want to buy in, that’s ok. But there are consequences. How about we mess with your medicare? Would you be partying then? I hope you get along with your neighbors because if I join your group, there won’t be money to pave the roads outside your homes. But because of my belief in America, and my indebtedness to my forebears, you get to be parasites sucking on the dream of America. To tell you the truth, I cannot wait to heave the yolk of your entitlement of my already heavy burden.

How about that? Let the generous, gentler and kinder America (thank you, Bush I) reclaim what is America. I live America — I work hard, I pay my taxes, I pray that the government is good, right and just, I do not believe in torture and I give charity to those who need help to jump start their lives. Yes, what Jesus would do. And I am a Jewish, lesbian, Ivy League educated, Northeastern elitist. And I embody the promise and opportunity of America more than most of the greedy, uncharitable, talking heads that pollute our airwaves.

Bring it on.

The Health Care Debate

Posted on March 27, 2010 by 40andover

Let’s just hold this space for my rant, once I get it under control. Setting aside what you believe, there are people in the country who have behaved so abominably in the tactics they used and the violence they unleashed. And they are maybe worse than unpatriotic, because what they did undermines our system of government and our society. I believe that these people are traitors to our nation and its government because they want to win at all costs, without thought to the preservation of the union. In contra-distinction, those opposed to government action under the Bush-Cheney years did not physically and verbally attack lawmakers who put us in debt for generations, have rifle scopes put on where lawmakers live, and say things like, “you’re a dead man!”

Sen. McCain wants to repeal some of the very things that were part of his platform, until he changed with the direction of the wind. Some maverick.

Many of our representatives have breached their oaths of office. And in the process, they have stoked class warfare and racial distrust and enabled fringe groups to deny the legitimacy of Barack Obama as president of the United States.

But, still, I haven’t gotten my thoughts together yet, so stay tuned.

Gay Marriage

Posted on February 13, 2010 by 40andover

Someone very dear to me mentioned that something was glaringly missing on my blog — my views of gay marriage and my response to all the current strides and defeats. My response was that I couldn’t be funny or amusing about something that core to me. But, I guess I need to vent. So here goes.

I have had the many privileges of being raised white and upper middle class in this country. Even in my lifetime being Jewish was only an issue at “elite” social levels (and I didn’t like those people anyway).

But I am gay and I have less civil rights than others because of it. If I didn’t live in New York City, being gay could be dangerous. We are well-educated, well-to-do and resourceful so we have created a legal web of “equivalents” so that the inability to marry does not affect our day-to-day lives. Still, it does make me feel like a stranger in my own land.

Those against gay marriage hide behind the sanctity of the institution of marriage and the social fabric arguments.

First, if marriage were so sacred, the self-proclaimed family values politicians wouldn’t be crashing and burning in adultery and gay sex scandals every month or so. Frankly, heterosexuals are destroying the sanctity of marriage. Gays in long-term committed relationships would probably lower the divorce rates.

But all this obscures a central truth: Marriage is not a religious law. Civil law decides the rights of married people in the course of the marriage and its dissolution by divorce or death. Therefore, all married people have civil unions. Some of these are “consecrated” in religious ritual and clergy have the power to officiate pursuant to civil law. Sometimes, a couple gets married in a judge’s chambers. Sometimes, you read about a non-clergy, non-civil servant getting authorization to marry a couple.

Why is this important? Because clergy are not necessary to create a “marriage” under civil law. So, let’s fix the nomenclature and call everything a civil union — whether it is a heterosexual or gay couple. Let religions call their rituals “marriage”.

The social fabric argument really riles me: my life with my partner and our son is destroying the social fabric of our country. We pay more in taxes in any year than the average American family earns in a lifetime, we give to charity, we support universal health care, we help the elderly and the needy and we host all family holidays — civil and religious. Nevertheless, the fact of our lives is why Bubba and Jolene — who live in a rented trailer in some trailer park in Mississippi, who don’t have health care, whose children work at WalMart, run a meth lab or fight on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan — can’t get ahead. It isn’t because we have a broken public education system, non-existent health care, faltering manufacturing industries and young men and women who come back from (at least one unnecessary) war broken inside and out. Clearly, Bubba and Jolene and their children won’t have a future if the states recognize our lives as a family.

Ok, I vented.

40 — oh wait, yikes!! 50 — andoverblog

Aging and living in urban US

Category Archives: privilege and wealth