I almost feel that I should be writing this in the largest size I can get. Why? Because I now spend a couple of hours a day on a program called "Free Rice" instead of playing games when I get tired of writing. Oh, it has a 'game'... but the game is feeding people all over the world and I am glad I found it. I've always been a word game fan... Jessie, my mother, made up word games for us to play from the time we were old enough to talk to the end of her days, so this is my kind of website. The best thing about it is that you get a grain of rice to 'give' to those who need it with every word you identify correctly. I had so much training in words by Jess that I rarely miss a definition -- if I don't know the word, I can usually guess it by the root of the word, or the fact that it isn't the other three or four definitions. I have been managing to get 3,000 to 3,500 grains a day... and I shall continue to do that and more from now on.
I also learned a sad fact from this same place... that we are far, far behind some other countries in our aid to poverty stricken countries and peoples. Take a look at this:
International Aid -- A Solution
http://www.poverty.com/internationalaid.html
It will show you that the Scandanavian countries, plus Luxembourg and Netherlands are way ahead in their aid to the poor, while we are at the BOTTOM in giving, down below Japan, Italy, Greece and Portugal. We assume... I hear people 'assuming' daily ...that we are so big in our 'gifting' to others -- well, folks, we are not. We are at the bottom, according to the UN statistics.
Of course, that is rather a regular thing with our wealthy... they give mainly to those who can 'entertain' them, as to the theatre, symphonies, galleries, museums, etc. They tend to overlook the ill, the halt, the blind, and particularly those annoying, grimy, lazy (so says Barb Bush), poor people, not only here in the U.S., but also abroad. Even Oprah and particularly the WalMart heirs fall into this bunch. The middle class in the U.S., plus the lower classes, and even the poor... largely support those annoying poverty stricken, homeless, lost people of this world. How do I know... well, I am now, through unfortunate circumstances I won't go into... one of "the poor," living on my Social Security -- but I work hard to save up enough to give to two of my favorite groups: "Feeding America" and "Doctors Without Borders." The first tries to feed the people who need their help in the United States, while the second has been feeding children and saving lives all across the globe. They both need our help to continue the great job they've been doing.
If anyone reads this, I hope they write to our President and urge him to give the miserable 0.7% (that is LESS than 1%) of our national income that is the same as the other countries are giving, that the UN says is necessary to stop poverty in the world. Let's get our money in there with the Swedish, the Danes and the Dutch and get rid of world-wide hunger.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Why, why, why do I always seem to get involved with men who seem to find it amusing to torment me... who pull me into thinking they are interesting and fun and smart, then start riding me or teasing me or somehow make me feel that I wrong or a fool or often just make me feel rotten and terrible, just when I seem to have pulled myself out of a hole, often that some other man has pushed me into. I shall be alone once again this Christmas (mainly because I cannot stand the extreme cold weather where my children will be) and had managed to somehow have cheered myself up a bit (primarily from reading the absolute crazy headlines and writing funny limericks about some of the worst), when my latest man "friend" cut me to pieces, I guess because someone had done something to him and he needed someone to take it out on, on the most foolish and silly accusation that I took seriously... until I finally realized he was just riding me to amuse himself. I'm sure he would be absolutely charmed to discover that I now have the worst headache I have had in years... I have taken 3 aspirin... if they help I'll be able to lie down and sleep, but can't lie down yet as it makes it worse, so here I sit... writing until then......
Well, I guess I should just forget about making any more men friends. Most of my female friends are dead and gone, and new ones with brains are hard to find, but I must start searching. I do hope I can find some younger women who will put up with old me, as I cannot bear any more of my friends dying off. The year that four of my best friends died almost killed me also... and drove me into a terrible depression that I am just beginning to rise from... then this guy shows up who is out to make my life miserable. Lovely. And I was doing so well......... Well..... life is hell.....
Well, I guess I should just forget about making any more men friends. Most of my female friends are dead and gone, and new ones with brains are hard to find, but I must start searching. I do hope I can find some younger women who will put up with old me, as I cannot bear any more of my friends dying off. The year that four of my best friends died almost killed me also... and drove me into a terrible depression that I am just beginning to rise from... then this guy shows up who is out to make my life miserable. Lovely. And I was doing so well......... Well..... life is hell.....
Monday, November 23, 2009
Who is she.....
Good heavens, does anyone know who, why and what Twitter is? I seem to have acquired a lot of very strange people "following" me. Most of them only because they want to sell me something. It seems that every day or two, if I happen to go to one mailbox that I used to use only to write to Kirk, but somehow got Twitter on that one, I have one or two weirdos telling me that they are 'following' me... or wish to follow me, or whatever it is. I still haven't figured out why they want to follow me, or have me follow them (following seems so strange in this quite strange thing). So, once in awhile, I say they can follow me, but I have no idea what it is for, as I never hear from them again. Well no... they do appear every now and then to sell something new. Like I care. I don't think I have ever even looked at what they are selling, let alone bought anything from a Twitter Type. The latest woman seems to simply hand out entertainment gossip... yeah, lady, I am just dying to hear from Michael Jackson from the grave, or see the latest little screaming kid dancing in her underwear (or less). Oh well, back to the 50,000 word NaNoWriMo novel...I'm getting very close to the number, but not the end... I'm afraid I'm going well over that number! My heroine is still on husband number 1 and she has three more to go to get her diamond ring.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
ARE YOU THERE???
One has to wonder. Does anyone ever see what one writes? Is anyone there? I dearly love to read other's blogs, and do so often. And often I try to write... or comment... on their writing. This is, after all, the way to tell them that I have read what they have to say, and if I like it tell them... or even if I do not like it... tell them. I am an outspoken person, as anyone who has read what I have to say must obviously know, but I guess I am simply writing to myself. Ah, perhaps I should comment on my writing. But why?
Sunday is almost always depressing. I don’t know why; well, I suppose I do know why today... I am sitting here weeping over spilt boyfriends, having found not only the poem I wrote for Barry, but some of the loveliest of Kirk’s love letters, as I am trying desperately to clean out this room. (Gawd... no matter how many magazines I give away, they seem to keep multiplying.)
I’m also wondering what kind of stomach problem now... having eaten, or should I say ‘et’ as Collie does, two apparently uncooked crumpets -- well, Mike gave them to me, saying, “I don’t have a toaster...” so I naturally figured they had simply to be tossed into the toaster, buttered and eaten, or et. I don’t think so... they did seem a bit mushy and doughy in the middle, but I thought that was perhaps as I had over-buttered them. Well, the butter just kept melting into them... whatever, my stomach is talking to me furiously, so who knows what is next.
To get back to the letters... Kirkie was absolutely the best at love letters. So sweet, so delicious to read of his longings that so much matched mine... me too, me too, we’d say so often. He and Barry were so close in my mind so often... the only two men with whom I’d fallen in love at first sight, although I often told Kirkie that it was actually love at first write. His very first letter was so charming and so sweet that I simply destroyed all the rotten, dirty old men letters and kept only his, although, some time later I did start a correspondence with Don, the ‘religious conservative’. Imagine... those two terrible words, and I actually carried on a very interesting correspondence with him. I think that the only reason Don wrote to me was because he so desperately wanted to be a writer, and perhaps felt writing to me would help... then continued thinking that perhaps he could convert me to both god and conservatism... silly MAN. I often wonder where he actually went after his forced stay in the hot, miserable Southern state he was stuck in while he wrote to me. He mentioned perhaps going to Las Vegas, although I would consider that horrible city even worse than the hot forests of the South Don used to run in to keep in shape. I also wonder what he looked like... I pictured him as a short, dark haired, though pale, guy... slim because of his running, lots of dark chest hair and very strong (rather like Paul at BB/L, whose arms were like wood)... but when dressed looking like so many of the lawyers I knew in Chicago -- very stylish, light English or Italian suits, with those soft, expensive, Italian shoes, always looking quite new, as a lawyer never walks anywhere... he simply calls a cab. But Don’s running shoes always muddy and worn from the constant running through the pine woods of Georgia or Alabama... or some steamy Southern state. Why can’t everyone have distinctive names like Dick Zaunere. I put Don’s name in Google and several came up in Las Vegas. Now there was a man who loved his profession, although I don’t think religious conservatives should be allowed in it. He was a typical GOP member, and I do not trust any of them to be impartial. Ah, well, I guess lawyers are never impartial, they can’t be, they have to work for their clients. I suppose Madoff’s lawyer must try to get him off, knowing all the while the man was a rotter and stealing from everyone. What a profession to get into... I would not last two weeks. Although, I was in advertising for years and years, selling stuff I didn’t care about, until I could lie no more. Rather like a politician -- good god, there are too many jobs that ask that one go against all that one believes in. One wonders if the radio talk show hosts actually believe the downright lies they present. I guess they would have to, but what sad little lives they must live. How unfortunate that so great a country that my ancestors dreamed of, has descended into the filth and slime and become a land of lawyers, liars and theives.
Can any of us walk with our heads high again? At the very least, I have become a lot more tolerant of almost everyone. I do not hate anyone, but, sadly, I do not love anyone, either. Well, outside of the ones one is expected to love... one’s own. I do adore my children and grandchildren, even while being quite detached from all of them. The other sad thing about this once great country: there is a separation. One is not supposed to ‘get old.’ What a sad state, where so many old women have either bright yellow or pure black hair, attempting to regain their youth, and so many men do not know how amusing a wig or ‘comb-over’ looks. Take Donald Trump for example, he of the orange forward comb-over. Can they not see that ‘bald is beautiful?’ Well, not on me... and I do love my purple hair, although a foolish little girl at the hospital the other day said, “Do you always match your hair to your outfit?” I was in all purple that day. I guess I shall have to buy a set of those day-glo wigs they sell for Halloween. Now If I could only figure out how to make my eyelashes and mouth show up in photographs. I have disappearing features in most photos. Of course there is always retouching.....
Sunday... bloody sunday. I start with depression, and end with the same. But I have traveled from lovely letters to a land of slime, liars and thieves. I have a solution -- no one can go to law school for the next five years, then they must level out the number of lawyers left, and admit only so many to law school, keeping the number of working lawers at a very low number each year. Nonsense? Ah, well......................
I’m also wondering what kind of stomach problem now... having eaten, or should I say ‘et’ as Collie does, two apparently uncooked crumpets -- well, Mike gave them to me, saying, “I don’t have a toaster...” so I naturally figured they had simply to be tossed into the toaster, buttered and eaten, or et. I don’t think so... they did seem a bit mushy and doughy in the middle, but I thought that was perhaps as I had over-buttered them. Well, the butter just kept melting into them... whatever, my stomach is talking to me furiously, so who knows what is next.
To get back to the letters... Kirkie was absolutely the best at love letters. So sweet, so delicious to read of his longings that so much matched mine... me too, me too, we’d say so often. He and Barry were so close in my mind so often... the only two men with whom I’d fallen in love at first sight, although I often told Kirkie that it was actually love at first write. His very first letter was so charming and so sweet that I simply destroyed all the rotten, dirty old men letters and kept only his, although, some time later I did start a correspondence with Don, the ‘religious conservative’. Imagine... those two terrible words, and I actually carried on a very interesting correspondence with him. I think that the only reason Don wrote to me was because he so desperately wanted to be a writer, and perhaps felt writing to me would help... then continued thinking that perhaps he could convert me to both god and conservatism... silly MAN. I often wonder where he actually went after his forced stay in the hot, miserable Southern state he was stuck in while he wrote to me. He mentioned perhaps going to Las Vegas, although I would consider that horrible city even worse than the hot forests of the South Don used to run in to keep in shape. I also wonder what he looked like... I pictured him as a short, dark haired, though pale, guy... slim because of his running, lots of dark chest hair and very strong (rather like Paul at BB/L, whose arms were like wood)... but when dressed looking like so many of the lawyers I knew in Chicago -- very stylish, light English or Italian suits, with those soft, expensive, Italian shoes, always looking quite new, as a lawyer never walks anywhere... he simply calls a cab. But Don’s running shoes always muddy and worn from the constant running through the pine woods of Georgia or Alabama... or some steamy Southern state. Why can’t everyone have distinctive names like Dick Zaunere. I put Don’s name in Google and several came up in Las Vegas. Now there was a man who loved his profession, although I don’t think religious conservatives should be allowed in it. He was a typical GOP member, and I do not trust any of them to be impartial. Ah, well, I guess lawyers are never impartial, they can’t be, they have to work for their clients. I suppose Madoff’s lawyer must try to get him off, knowing all the while the man was a rotter and stealing from everyone. What a profession to get into... I would not last two weeks. Although, I was in advertising for years and years, selling stuff I didn’t care about, until I could lie no more. Rather like a politician -- good god, there are too many jobs that ask that one go against all that one believes in. One wonders if the radio talk show hosts actually believe the downright lies they present. I guess they would have to, but what sad little lives they must live. How unfortunate that so great a country that my ancestors dreamed of, has descended into the filth and slime and become a land of lawyers, liars and theives.
Can any of us walk with our heads high again? At the very least, I have become a lot more tolerant of almost everyone. I do not hate anyone, but, sadly, I do not love anyone, either. Well, outside of the ones one is expected to love... one’s own. I do adore my children and grandchildren, even while being quite detached from all of them. The other sad thing about this once great country: there is a separation. One is not supposed to ‘get old.’ What a sad state, where so many old women have either bright yellow or pure black hair, attempting to regain their youth, and so many men do not know how amusing a wig or ‘comb-over’ looks. Take Donald Trump for example, he of the orange forward comb-over. Can they not see that ‘bald is beautiful?’ Well, not on me... and I do love my purple hair, although a foolish little girl at the hospital the other day said, “Do you always match your hair to your outfit?” I was in all purple that day. I guess I shall have to buy a set of those day-glo wigs they sell for Halloween. Now If I could only figure out how to make my eyelashes and mouth show up in photographs. I have disappearing features in most photos. Of course there is always retouching.....
Sunday... bloody sunday. I start with depression, and end with the same. But I have traveled from lovely letters to a land of slime, liars and thieves. I have a solution -- no one can go to law school for the next five years, then they must level out the number of lawyers left, and admit only so many to law school, keeping the number of working lawers at a very low number each year. Nonsense? Ah, well......................
Friday, November 6, 2009
Why Do Men Never Understand?
Why? Because they are men, and men will never understand women, any more than women will ever understand men. God knows I have tried. Why do I bother? Why do any of us bother? There is no understanding, nor will there ever be. (Men love war, women do not!)
Only twice in my life have I loved someone who loved me, and I don't suppose one could call either of them 'men'... for they were boys. At age 10 my best friend was named Cecil, which I pronounced Seecul, except when I was at his house, where I pronounced it Sescil, as his English mother did, I was one of the very few people he allowed to meet her, as he wanted desperately to be an Amurican and be called Seecul. We were best friends and probably loved each other as much as any two 10 or 11 year old children can love. He was the first boy to kiss me... and then push me away, of course. We were the two smartest kids in the sixth grade and proud of it, as Miss Holland, our teacher, let us know that that was a good thing. I wrote a play that year, mainly so that Cecil could star in it, and I could be the Orson Welles (writer, director, designer, etc.) I'll always be happy that I saw him in the "Memphis Belle" documentary years later, so that I at least knew he came out of WWII alive and well, even though we moved and I never saw him in person again. Him I understood, and he understood me and we loved each other dearly. The only other 'boy' I ever knew that this same was true of was Barry Bushnell... we fell in love with each other at first sight, understood each other completely and parted most unhappily at at a bit later tender age.
I made the horrible mistake of falling completely in love at first sight (write) with one other person at a very advanced age, and we knew each other completely, or so I thought. Alas, it doesn't always work out that way. He may have understood me, but I did not, nor will I ever, understand him. So now, I guess I will just have to come to the conclusion that I will never, never understand men... nor will I ever again find one who can understand me (or particularly, my sense of humour, which I think is very straightforward and so easy... not so Paiguy, not so).
Only twice in my life have I loved someone who loved me, and I don't suppose one could call either of them 'men'... for they were boys. At age 10 my best friend was named Cecil, which I pronounced Seecul, except when I was at his house, where I pronounced it Sescil, as his English mother did, I was one of the very few people he allowed to meet her, as he wanted desperately to be an Amurican and be called Seecul. We were best friends and probably loved each other as much as any two 10 or 11 year old children can love. He was the first boy to kiss me... and then push me away, of course. We were the two smartest kids in the sixth grade and proud of it, as Miss Holland, our teacher, let us know that that was a good thing. I wrote a play that year, mainly so that Cecil could star in it, and I could be the Orson Welles (writer, director, designer, etc.) I'll always be happy that I saw him in the "Memphis Belle" documentary years later, so that I at least knew he came out of WWII alive and well, even though we moved and I never saw him in person again. Him I understood, and he understood me and we loved each other dearly. The only other 'boy' I ever knew that this same was true of was Barry Bushnell... we fell in love with each other at first sight, understood each other completely and parted most unhappily at at a bit later tender age.
I made the horrible mistake of falling completely in love at first sight (write) with one other person at a very advanced age, and we knew each other completely, or so I thought. Alas, it doesn't always work out that way. He may have understood me, but I did not, nor will I ever, understand him. So now, I guess I will just have to come to the conclusion that I will never, never understand men... nor will I ever again find one who can understand me (or particularly, my sense of humour, which I think is very straightforward and so easy... not so Paiguy, not so).
Sunday, October 18, 2009
A Little More Introspection
Not a love poem this time, just one that is how I feel... not that anyone cares, but after all, this is the place where I toss little pieces of me to the winds, perhaps hoping that they will coalesce into some sort of covering to warm my heart and protect me from harm and/or any more hurt or unhappiness. Why do I do it? The answer is one that almost every writer gives: Because I have to.
Learning...
I have learned from my own and other's failures
In many things, perhaps even motherhood,
How to roll with the punches, take the blows
And often rise above the whole damned thing.
To forget and forgive: family, friends, enemies,
For there is more to life, and fighting is useless.
Further, I have learned that war is useless,
Feckless, futile, ineffectual, hopeless and a waste.
How have I learned this? By living through
So many, of my own making, and my country's,
So many that I do not want ever to hear
The ludicrous ranting of some useless leader
Who cares so little about peace and prosperity,
About the life and death of his country's people,
That he will simply avoid diplomacy and declare war.
Learning...
I have learned from my own and other's failures
In many things, perhaps even motherhood,
How to roll with the punches, take the blows
And often rise above the whole damned thing.
To forget and forgive: family, friends, enemies,
For there is more to life, and fighting is useless.
Further, I have learned that war is useless,
Feckless, futile, ineffectual, hopeless and a waste.
How have I learned this? By living through
So many, of my own making, and my country's,
So many that I do not want ever to hear
The ludicrous ranting of some useless leader
Who cares so little about peace and prosperity,
About the life and death of his country's people,
That he will simply avoid diplomacy and declare war.
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