I’ve had better weeks. Actually, I can remember a week back in ’95 that … shut up Steve, idiot … no, this one was a bit much. Came to the discovery that the blood pressure meds I was prescribed a couple of months ago suddenly agreed with me rather poorly, to the tune of a face the envy of an elephant man. If I had died from such Michael Jackson’s estate would have surely wanted to buy my bones. And my attempt to try and save a poor little turtle along my busy way home a couple of days later would go so sadly unwell, replete with plenty of “motherfuckers”, flailing raised arms directed at a distancing car and an angrily bouncing, sobbing guy in the middle of a busy roadway.

I responded to one of the comments at my Facebook page of the retelling of this sad turtle story that I almost reached my “snap” moment, as the pressures of these days have mounted, so close in this momentary anger to just completely losing it, madly dancing in small tight circles in the middle of this roadway, that moment where you almost just let it all go, damning the torpedoes and the wide eyed stares of those passing who have no idea.

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As Celie was pulling away, and just as BB and I were pulling up into our usual spot at the house she leaned out of the cab of her truck and, taking a look at my pandemic sweatpants, said I just needed to burn them. I made sure to clarify that she wasn’t talking literally at that very moment. I was wearing old underwear. Sorry Ma. No car wrecks on the way home at least, if it makes ya feel any better.

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My sister, Beck, texted me not too long ago to ask what I thought of Mom continuing to stay with her and the boys and the fur up Albany way instead of heading off to an assisted living place in Carmel. I about broke out in tears. Actually I did, closed the door to my little studio and sat in a puddle. I could never have asked such a thing as she is the one shouldering the care of my Ma who is slipping some. But this slipping has been, not halted but at least greatly slowed since she moved in there. The interaction, the stimulus so much different and so much necessary from the living by herself in that little place at my Aunt Lib’s. My mom should never be one for solitude, she’s so much more than that, has so much more to offer and is such great company even within a decline. And she has a Razzy. I swear to God, whoever that may be, that that dog is gonna be my Mom’s savior.

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Celie’s sister was here with the kids yesterday as Celie has reopened the pool for the season and, as I saw them playing and doing kid pool things, it reminded me of what I felt as a kid myself and the joy of a day trip to that one person that mom knew that had a pool. Her friend in that one apartment complex, on the other side of the world it seemed for how long it took to get there (the anticipation adding miles and miles and miles in my mind) couldn’t tell ya who now. But man, did I feel special to recount on a Monday to my pals how I had gone swimming over the weekend knowing their jealousy would make me a king.

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Still listening to Alan Parsons, down time, sleep time, BB time ever since I did the rediscovery time that I’ve mentioned previously. “I Robot” right now. “Eve” again if I don’t hit it soon. Just as we all have comfort food we also have comfort music. I know, an obvious but just sayin’ it.

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Found out last week that, of our group of stations up north in Albany, that they would like me, after letting go of the voice guy, to be the imaged voice of the big one there and I’ll lobby for my friend Dina as well. Sorry Dina. I just like being a team. Always good to have a female and male voice. Now in a normal world this might come with a benefit you’d think right? But this is not a normal world. Funny, though I might have taken this to anger in the past, being told of no extra benefit, I’m instead just looking at it as a point of pride. My sis and my nephews and my mom, who live up there, will be able to hear me. What more could I really ask for? That’s a me Ma. See, I told ya.

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Messaged my latest song endeavor to a couple of my dearest friends from the college days, actually dearest of friends period, Lori and Tom (JT), a draft of it as “drafts” are what I do (we need to add Mark to our Zoom calls by the way). Always gives you a little bit of wiggle room if you call them drafts. I got a “ridiculously talented” (oh, please, go on) and “fucking clever”. And I don’t even know if I really like this one. But that’s why ya call them friends right?

Right A Vote

When I think back on the elections when I was younger

They were fair or at least as fair could be

But Trump days came and changed things

And not changed for the better now

Justifying straight cheating as a means

 

Voting righ-igh-ights

We’ve got a way to exercise ‘em

Gives us a fighting chance

Makes you think and hope along for a brighter day, oh yeh

I got this right that’s still mine

Hasn’t yet been ta-ken away

But we gotta be protective when comes the day

 

But the games are afoot and have been for a while now

Whining fraud means they’ve already begun

We’ve heard the threats of magic powers, military presence

suppression it will come in a host of forms

 

Voting righ-igh-ights

We’ve got a way to exercise ‘em

Gives us a fighting chance

Makes you think and hope along for a brighter day, oh yeh

I got this right that’s still mine

Hasn’t yet been ta-ken away

But we gotta be protective when comes the day

 

Trump he wants to scare this voting right away

Given chance he’ll do anything for a trump day-ay

Donnie’s gonna suppress this voting right away

 

But Donnie can’t stomp these voting rights

Though try he will with all his might

Mail yours in to push the right aw-ay-ay-ay

 

He’ll try to frighten you sit tight

To stay at home for fear of fight

But Donnie can’t take these voting rights away

 

To the Right cheating’s a normal day

It’s how they’ve always made their hay

It seems they don’t know any other way-ay-ay

 

But Donnie can’t shake our voting rights

He’ll whine and cry all day and night

But Trump can’t take your voting right away-ay-ay

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“Catien” – Sci-Fi movie poster for the solitary cat dude: “In Single Space No One Can Hear You Laugh … When Your Cat Trips”

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Bought three new pillows at Dollar General recently (12 bucks motherfuckers – badump! – love that place) knowing that the one I sleep on, however much of a friend it is, looks underpass mattress-like when you remove the pillowcase. Put one in a closet just in case of the company I will never have and the other two? My head hasn’t touched ‘em. One is just a new fluffy behind my back lean and the other has been appropriated. HeHe, it seems I’m still stuck living in my apartment underpass hoping no one will ever look beneath the pillowcase. Friends are friends, however grossly stained they might be. Plus they still bring dreams.

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A good friend who lives in Hawaii will punctuate her posts and messages with a picture of her feet, often flip flopped, crossed casually ahead of a really nice Hawaii backdrop, a sunset, a beach, a Steve stomach turning cool shot of the ocean from a clifftop, a look out a window from a comfy spot. And she does this all while dealing with a world that, for her, personally, has spun upside down. All as she tries keep family as strong as she can. Those feet are such a positive. Aspire. Cheers Cindy.

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My sanity, whatever that may be, is not the tangible thing I may wish, it’s not that one thing I can grab a hold of and say “this is me”. It’s just a who I am at the moment, ever evolving, the things that I do that keep me moving forward. It’s re-worked songs that express my outrage and my anger and new ones I keep re-working, it’s the childhood memories of pool play, it’s lost turtles, it’s cats that claim new pillows or have their usual spots, it’s landlady’s and friend who give you shit, it’s a job that is still somehow paying you and the pride of being the “voice” of something. But it’s also the what I don’t know. Anyone’s “me” comes down to the what you don’t know and how you respond. I’m just going to choose to actively ignore the “what you don’t know” for the moment hoping my hunkered down allows, at best, a don’t know of a maybe bumping into a futon in the dark or a squeezing of cat puke through the toes in the same. Otherwise I’ll use the time to hold that off if that’s Ok. Even for a few minutes.

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And there is the Memes, old girl Mimi the Quirky, who adopted ME quite a while ago after she snuck up the stairs and decided to stay and who HAS to be my company for words.

Yeh, I’m good until shit takes a next step to the what you don’t know.

Breathe if you can and enjoy the moment.

So new addition to the family here at the homestead the Friday before last. Meet Marvin the Microphone so named by my sis after I sent her a picture that weekend. Funny but she responded that it looked like a robot and that I should name it Marvin even though she doesn’t remember much of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy, if any at all, which just happens to be one of my favorite books (series) of all time (if you’ve never read it you are missing out, especially if you have a Monty Python type sense of the funny and the silly and absurd). She doesn’t recall the character of Marvin, the depressed and bored robot from that classic series of books. Guess my geekiness can unknowingly influence. Probably a family thing.

It’s an unprecedented time, well at least for our current. There have been many more “unprecedented” times before this. But this unrest and the pain that comes with it, a lot of anger, a lot of unnecessary loss, a lot of fuck you to whoever you can say fuck you to, a lot of sadness is just ours now. Man, this all makes the brain a jumble, a trying to grab the puzzle pieces that fall astray while attempting to fit them into borders that no longer exist, no reference to fill out the middle, no picture on the box, borders bending and swaying on their own now, getting larger or shrinking depending on the day or the latest news cycle, creating their own little universe of new puzzle that doesn’t adhere to any norm you were accustomed to and not in a good way. Surreal is too easy to say, too easy to use saying “surreal” as a way to justify but then pass off, “Oh, this is just so surreal Karen, now can we just move on and did you catch how I just used “surreal” … is Glenda’s open yet? My nails are fried”

I’m angry, I’m “motherfucking” everything upside down and sideways on a daily basis these days, rightways, leftways, at the dumb and the senselessness we have taken to as a new normal but trying my best to at least not have it affect me and the girls. This is my bit of whatever perfect might be. Will it last? Of course not, but it’s a good now.

I am writing what I do with the girls right here, they are MY normal. There are pickups and laps, distractions that remind, rubs of my Bella’s ears or Cricket the Blind’s belly or Mimi the Quirky’s back that makes her flinch …and stretch. They are the best of these welcome distractions.

A good friend, colleague, one who I sent a draft of this to earlier, said to me, declining my tune listen, “my soul is weary. I need to feed myself healthy, nutritious positivity. Even satire takes from me…it doesn’t help me right now”.

Point.

And apologies.

I responded back that I can be a glutton of anger just with a keyboard and a microphone. But I also left a small bag of cat treats on her desk for her “Bea”. It’s small but I got a thumbs on that, a paws up more specifically.  It seems sometimes all ya need is a paw of approval “Hey, if only a little thing like some cat treats brightens the world, your small one, like the same cat treats in my own small, then job well done”.

But things are still out there.

There doesn’t seem to be any real brighter right now.

I still anger.

If you’ve read here at all, can’t really be concerned if you haven’t I guess, what am I gonna do, but if you’re here right now, at these very words, then Ok, thank you. I still go on, as this is a just me, and you probably know that I took to singing a little while ago. Not necessarily very well but that’s not the point. The point is that I HAVE a point and a voice, that anger at least having an outlet, one I just like better with accompaniment and new sharp words I hope you find to be on spot, a voice I want to make to make sure is heard, well, if anyone pays a visit that is, even a few. At least know it’s out there to be so.

The Attic isn’t a bad place by the way, it has it’s moments, just mind your head … and your feet, especially if they are bare. Cricket the Blind is quite the litter kicker.

 

Couple of other post links of recent’s in this tuneful vein …

It Was a Dead Day …

Hittin’ the Ahhh’s (An Eleanor Rigby Take) …

You Can Call Me King …

 

 

These Are Trump Days

Once upon a time there was a nation

A proud one come about but fraught with pain

Of dealing with an oh so shameful histr’y

A one that doesn’t seem to want to change

 

These are Trump days my friend

We pray there’ll be an end

As we dance now beneath jackbooted feet

We try to have our say

But are tear gassed away

These are Trump days yes sadly they’re trump days

 

La La La La La La La

Won’t you get off my neck

Oh momma please I need ya momma please

 

And now the matter’s gotten so much bleaker

Not better as you’d hope histr’y would learn

And presidents who should be our uniters

Instead opt to take messianic turns

 

These are Trump days my friend

Please God help make them end

I cannot breathe my eyes they want to bleed

We tried to have our say

For light to lead the way

But it’s Trump days, we’re lost amid Trump days

 

La La La La La La La

Won’t you get off my neck

Oh momma please I need ya momma please

 

He stood in the Rose garden claimed alliance

With pro-testers on a peaceful go

But then he strapped on his small orange jackboots

went for a walk to turn this into show

 

These are Trump days my friend

Please God ya have to send

An angel’s mercy on our hapless lot

Who just want things to change but cannot in this age

These are Trump days, he won’t allow the ways

 

La La La La La La La

Won’t you get off my neck

Oh momma please I need ya momma please

 

La La La La La La La

Please just get off his neck

His momma wants to see her son again

 

There comes a day where me must be deciders

Of fate that’s dark continued going back

Or a one that tries to move us forward

Something that is more than just attack

 

These … are … Trump … days my friend

Heavens please help us mend

Help us push back on tyrants on the roam

To help us save the weak

Knees under cannot speak

These are Trump days, the devil’s in Trump days

 

La La La La La La La

Won’t you get off my nec

Oh momma please I need ya momma please

 

La La La La La La La

Please just get off his neck

These mommas want to see their sons again

 

 

With all of what’s gone down in the last 3 months (just talking the mundane here mind you), all that has been put aside, all the normalcy that has been put on hold, I thought one of people’s silliest concerns was how they haven’t been able to get to their hairdresser or their barber. To me, vanity, a new cut or simply a more manageable doo was a little low on the list of priorities.

But, with things slowly opening up now, I think I may have more of an understanding as to why this was so important to folks as I was able to get to Wally G’s of Poughkeepsie this past weekend. He’s actually pretty close to the stead here so it’s a quick run. I hadn’t visited him in a while though, more out of laziness than anything else, but once I did it was nice to catch up. We talked, or at least I talked is more to the point, Wally isn’t much for conversation. It is nice though to feel a little lighter.

Plus Wally G only costs me 18 bucks, which isn’t a bad price for a barber’s cut these days especially when you divide that by the number of haircuts over the last year and a half or so since I bought a pair of clippers at Walgreens. And yeh, “Wally G’s” shop IS pretty close, my shower and a looking at the mirror across the bathroom is pretty close. (showers not running by the way, just an easier spot for the fallen cleanup).

And considering, as I posted recently, that I’ve worn the same pair of sweat pants to work every day, 5 days a week, for into the 11th week now or so just because I think it’s funny (hey, every Saturday is a wash day so stop judging before you start thank you) it’s not like “looks” are really a concern of mine (day 5 each week of said sweatpants maybe should be though). Plus, I save on shampoo.

There’s only going to be one issue, and that’s if my glasses get bigger relative to my face moving forward, because if I start to even approach anything closer to what could be a younger Elliot Gould in the Ocean’s movies I might have to seek an intervention, or at least a Go Fund me page to help me get something other than a frame out of the cheap plastic bin at the eye Doc. Shit, even that actual bin is cheap, the kind of thin plastic that bends and dents and folds just looking at it.

Thanks Wally G. I’d leave ya a tip but well … you’re a pair of clippers and that would just subtract from my estimated savings anyway.

(Oh, the Mimi the Quirky and Bella pic is their unstated staring opinion of the new cut. Thanks you two … just lie to me next time will ya)

“I am … an ally of all peaceful protesters.” Trump from Rose Garden June 1

“now, be gone with you with tear gas and rubber bullets so I can take a disingenuous, shameless and awkward photo with a bible that somehow didn’t burn my fingers in front of a church that I’ve almost never visited even though it’s right across the way from the house and then build a 30 second campaign like video of my imagined strength and triumtrumphantyness (that’s a word right? well, it is now … I’ve got the best words)”

 

Robin Givhan  – The Washington Post

Trump’s photo with his loyalists was a vulgar mess. And Ivanka brought a handbag.

With the last 3 months or so being what it is and has been, a lot of us have obviously been stressed and victims of the anxiety that comes with all this. But these stresses and anxieties manifest themselves in different ways.

For me I’ve noticed I’ve become more easily distracted and even more scatterbrained than I can normally be. Last week I made my way to the Dollar General in Wappingers Falls before I got to work, hoping that going in early would give me a better chance of less company in the store. I was correct.

Now I’ve hit Dollar General a few times in the last couple of weeks (gots out free n easy too, both times, coppa’s’ll never catch the likes’a me!!! … “hit” Dollar General … I’m wearing a mask … sorry) figuring it’s a much safer bet than a larger grocery store, surely to be even busier now. I went to Stop N Shop the first weekend of March around when all of this started to go down and I’ve only had to go one other time since, not bad, I stop at PetSmart, also early, when Bella and the Unintentionals needs arise and Dollar General is a bit of a grocery and an everything place, plenty of paper products, cleaning supplies, small home goods (for instance I picked up a new shower curtain before my current one develops it’s own, possibly, sentient ecosystem), stuff to keep Steve not stinky, also cat food and litter if need be etc. It serves most needs. Yes, there are some things they just don’t have there but I can certainly manage … at least until my freezer is empty.

Plus, it has one dollar cans of comfort food in the grocery section … ya can’t go wrong with Beefaroni and Spaghetti O’s for just a buck now can ya? And they have a dollar aisle that can’t be beat. I got toothpaste, aluminum foil, some flimsy rolls of toilet paper that will last, probably, for about only 2 sitdowns and even a hot sauce I’ve never tried, Louisiana Hot Sauce, but, with that, I probably should have considered a couple of extra rolls of the flimsy toilet paper, just in case. When it comes to the more noticeable scatterbrainyness I was talking of earlier though I realized when I got home that I had forgotten like half a dozen things, all of which were on a list, a list I took some time with actually, in my phone … in the car. And I didn’t even think about it, at all.

Also, when I was checking out I said to the cashier.

“(sigh) Do you know what I just did?”

“No, what’s that?”

“I just checked 3 pockets with my right hand for the keys that are in my left (double sigh)”

But with the weather finally picking up lately, finally being consistent, not the roller coaster of temp changes and crappiness alternating with brief kinda Ok, maybe our moods have improved a bit as well, easing some of the apprehension, even if only a touch. I’ll take just a touch.

I did realize one thing today though. With it being warmer now I’m gonna have to retire my pandemic sweats for the time being. I call them my pandemic sweats because I’ve been wearing just one single pair of sweatpants to work (yes I’ve been working the whole time, radio doesn’t shut down), 5 days a week, for what, going on 10 weeks now, and the same 5 shirts (though I do change up the days I wear which of the said 5 … I know, bold huh?) with a wash of all on Saturday’s. Oh, and that? Laundry is SOOOO much easier now.

 

A shitty day, a steady rain and a bit of a chill but it at least might wash away some of the other shitty, if there is nothing else to be garnered from it.

When my good friend, Rick, recently sent me some new lyrics to Eleanor Rigby I sung them out for him and for me and put it together just a couple of posts ago. “Sung” is relative of course, but it was fun though tough (the content and the hittin’ of the ahhh’s) and it reminded me of how I hadn’t just sat with a song re-working it for the longest time now. I’ve found this, over the last year and half, to be quite the therapy. Some might consider it to be a waste of time but these have been my editorials. My opinion pieces. As is this one. I took a break from the parodies (though I don’t like calling them that, they’re more) the mood not really seeming to fit a making of parodied point right now, even if it was of the obvious and waaaay too easy.

But taking those lyrics of his and grabbing some time, the world falling away as it always does then when I do, was a reminder and I thought of something new, thought I’d expand on a chorus that has been rattling ’round my noggin for quite some time, “These are the days of stupidity and blunder”. It just seems to fit. Right Mr Simon or apologies?

Plus my window of benefit of the doubt in dire times closed a while ago. You’re on your own again now, orange boy, when it comes to the well deserved derision.

Read along with the lyrics by the way, seems I sing pretty quick.

 

It was a dead day

A day to start dying

Cavalier severe consequence

Another bold lie

Masquerading as bravado

Self preservation festering

As it always does

 

These were the days of self-interest and some bluster

It was the usual roll … call

Of made up facts and imaginary figures

All in a spotlight’s glow

A new ways for a sudden realization

Of a daily narcissistic’s call

These are the days of stupidity and blunder

And Baby I’ll lie, I’ll lie

… I’ll lie

 

It was a cruel truth

As it swept across a nation

That we weren’t prepared

As we wished we could

Have been more in line

With science not a State News

As the blame game took root

Following us around … us around

 

These are the days of stupidity and blunder

A Lysol dream much better than vaccine

The way the presser was a mini rally e-vent

Until embarrassment called

The way the pundits try to search a new distraction

A shiny catch of wandering eye

These are the days of stupidity and blunder

And baby I’ll lie, I’ll lie

… I’ll lie

 

It’s extreme now a violence

A base that’s so inclined to such

Encouraged to stray from the middle of the road

Down an angry dark path of ignorance and bullets

Dead innocents in Michigan for what a maskless sake?

 

These are the days of cowards passing muster

Try and make a momma so proud

A certain sense of purpose of the stupid

Empowered by the man upstairs

These are the days of stupidity and bluster

Momma’s proud somewhere

So proud a follower of the Trump Dumb Down

In his wake blindly with no care oh yeah

 

The way you find yourself and your own violence

But then you just have to cry

At the thought that drove you in the first place

Here

Oh my

Oh my …