Category Archives: A-holes

Mar3

My Take On Drumpf

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I should be paid millions for what I’m about to explain.

Donald Drumpf is excelling at the polls and at the caucuses and at the debates and at the strip malls because of some very basic things:

He mostly speaks in monosyllabics. His words are not big ones.

He speaks loudly.

He doesn’t answer questions directly, instead, he says something else about something else.

He uses lots of the same words, often empirical, again and again.

He mostly speaks in simple terms: black & white, no nuance.

He makes fun of anyone who disagrees with him. His ridicule is often biting, sophomoric and redundant. He’s like that guy who watches you trip and then points and laughs. And then tells everyone else about it, while still pointing and laughing at you.

He says the kinds of things that one expects to hear at a local bar, while the little wife is at home.

He says the kinds of things that mirror what people are feeling.

He says the kinds of things that people who admire him can relate to.

He often affirms the fear and the rage and the sense of vengeance of middle-class white Americans who’ve lost their sons and daughters to war.

He often affirms the disenfranchisement of skilled laborers who’ve lost their jobs in America to companies or other laborers, often located overseas or “given” to “illegal” workers — not because they stole jobs, but because they are undocumented aliens from other nations.

His comments about the disabled, women, minorities (which is really funny because, well, what was once considered a minority race, i.e., Latinos, or Asians, are now in the popular majority) and other “fringe” outliers are considered privately in alignment with many of the Americans who admire him.

All of these Drumpfisms are very id-oriented. They feel familiar, because we all want to yell about things every once in a while. The id is our earliest psychological state: it’s from our id that we cried as babies when we wanted to be fed. It’s from our id that we cried when we wanted to be held. It’s from our id that we cried when we wanted to be changed. It’s from our id that we cried when we were startled.

The id is what keeps us alive; it’s where the heart of fear lives.

There are always two voices sounding in our ears: the voice of fear and the voice of confidence.
One is the clamor of the senses,
the other is the whispering of the higher self.

Charles B. Newcomb

It’s not anger that Drumpf represents. It’s fear. Fear of abandonment. Fear of famine. Fear of invisibility. Fear of irrelevance. So, in this dynamic, Drumpf is ideal: he mirrors the irrationality and fear of the masses who adore him, and they continue to adore him and tell their friends.

The id is no place to live. You can’t live in fear. Sure, your heart will continue to beat, but you will be miserable. Drumpf has no fears… well, none he will truly reveal.

The GOP establishment, i.e., The Elite, does itself no favors by pooping on Drumpf. The media does itself, nor HRC or Bernie Sanders any favors by pooping on Drumpf.

Why? Because most people who like Drumpf already hate or feel abandoned by the GOP establishment, the media, HRC and Bernie.

So when they poop on him, the supportive Drumpf people will be validated in their sense of isolation and abandonment. The media and its graphs and movies. The GOP Elite with its big words and tax codes and plans.

Where’s my blankie?

Americans who support Drumpf will NEVER support Sanders: as far as they’re concerned, Bernie wants to give everything away, even their daughters, and especially their money.

Americans who support Drumpf will NEVER support HRC: as far as they’re concerned HRC represents Obama, who they clearly hate and who they blame for their job losses and dead service member children (and/or siblings, spouses, friends, neighbors, relations).

Americans who support Drumpf think he’s going to save the day. They think he will be their “Daddy” as a good friend of mine put it; they think he’s going to sit on their veritable front porches, reading a leathered Hustler from the 70s, rocking under the bare bulb with a loaded shotgun resting across his lap.

Americans who support Drumpf expect him to be there, holding the door open when they come home from a date and not sniffing their breath or checking their eyes.

Because he won’t. Drumpf won’t do that to the Americans who support him.

Why?

Because Drumpf doesn’t care about Americans who support him. He just wants to win. Winning is all there is to him. He is a man obsessed with earning peoples’ favor, no matter how it’s acquired. He’s worried about what people think of the size of his hands.

So keep it up GOP Elite. Keep pooping on him and watch the numbers go up. Keep sending in Paul Ryan to continue to say absolutely nothing of substance about Drumpf’s posturing on anything. Continue being unspecific regarding Drumpf’s latent disavowal of the KKK and David Duke.

Paul Ryan handled that almost as evasively as Drumpf did. He was nice and obtuse. He was nice and unspecific. That was manly. Thanks, Mr. Ryan.

And now we have Mitt Romney stepping in with his perfect graying temples, megawatt smile, billionaire tan, Superman jawline, and exquisitely crinkled crow’s feet being specific and proper and starched collared and denouncing Drumpf, whose numbers will ascend like a helium balloon.

Face it, U.S. Republican Party: you’ve done this to yourselves. You’ve disconnected with any remaining centrist, moderate, reasonable members of your electorate who simply want you to balance the budget, mind your own business and get shit done. Instead, you’ve let people like Ted Cruz read Green Eggs & Ham on the floor of the senate (apologies to the late Dr. Seuss). You’ve not reprimanded Marco Rubio for his pathetic voting and attendance record. You’ve let Paul Ryan be beige and you’ve lost your way. Would you like some crumbs to leave on the path back to Grandma Pelosi’s house next time? Because no one will eat crumbs…

I don’t normally get into politics on my blog, but I need to start writing again and Drumpf is as good a nightmare as any to bite into and launch off. It’s a high-level, unsophisticated, unresearched and unverified post likely full of lots of generalizations which to me, boil down simply as: common sense.

Thank you.

Jun6

And Then There Were #Haters

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I hope this is my last blog post / comment on the Caitlin (neé Bruce) Jenner situation.

Of course there are haters. We do not live in a utopian world: judgementalism and fear have done an excellent job of setting up a premise and creating a platform from which to spout vitriol and puke deep self-loathing and fears, cloaked in hate.

Think about it this way: if you felt good about yourself, felt secure about your prospects, felt happy or content with your life, and felt as though you’ve done everything you can to create a positive environment for yourself (so, ultimately, you’ve done away with all greed, envy, reactivity and shame; and now, you fart rainbows and butterflies) and others, then why would you hate on anyone who decides to do whatever that person wants to its own body?

You wouldn’t.

You’d say, “not for me, but more power to you.”

Not, “the world is a mess and what has happened to us?”

I’ve got news for you: people have been cross dressing, with intention and fear for their lives, for millennia. Has it ever hurt you, o hater, before? Has the cross dresser or transgender or whomever shown up at your senate confirmation hearing for installation as the most balanced, articulate, and rational hater on Earth and said,

“NO NO NO!!! GOOD SENATORS AND STATESMEN! DO NOT PASS THIS INDIVIDUAL AS NOMINATED! HE HAS FEAR IN HIS HEART AND I AM HERE TO PROVE IT! STRIP HIM OF HIS MANHOOD! SHOW HIM HOW DAAAAAAAAANGEERRRRRRROUS I AM TO HIM…. I WILL THWART HIS EVERY EFFORT TO BUY GASOLINE FOR HIS CAR, OR AMMUNITION FOR HIS GUN, OR MATCHES FOR HIS CIGARETTES, OR BEER FOR HIS MAN ‘FRIDGE … BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT I DO… BECAUSE I AM DAAAAAAAAAANGEERRRROUS… boooowhoooohaaaahahaaaahaaaa…”

Get over y’damnselves. Look in the mirror.

I will say it again: I care about the kids in this situation. I care about the kids in all situations where the adults have let fear and apathy and narcissism run themselves freakin’ rampant. Where those adults lose all control of themselves and their grounding. Where the adults lie, and hide, and obfuscate, and deny, and deflect, and project, and displace all their OWN self-shit on to their kids. Where the kids are left holding the bag for the adult who is really, truly, deeply, still a child deep, deep, deep inside. Bruce Jenner hid his truth from his children.

I’m not just talking about the transgender feelings, I’m talking about his PLANS to have surgeries. That tactical and strategic side to all of this. The dude was a freakin’ world-class athlete: he KNOWS all about strategy and execution. It’s like when my dad asks me to find out things for him: he’s an investigative journalist for crying’ out loud…

Bruce never told them. He planned it all along; logistics for this takes months to line up. Months, perhaps years of psychotherapy has to be experienced and assessed before one gets the medical clearance to begin looking into procedures. Bruce hid his truth and only when asked — the kids HAD TO ASK THE RIGHT WORDS IN THE RIGHT WAY — did he pout, look down, and while fiddling with his shirt, say in a very non-sportscaster voice, “mmmm, yeah.”

Much as like how a kid would admit to hitting a baseball into a neighbor’s window.

“But you should’ve seen the hit! It was aMAZing, Mom…”

Bruce has been acting on id impulse for a very long time. See me. Watch me. Listen to me. See me. SEEEEEEEEE MEEEEEEEEE!

Where the adult is acting ONLY ON ID, where the id is in control.

When the id is in control, it’s dessert all the time. Except for you. Just me. That’s my teddy bear. Get your own. Your teddy bear is ugly. I don’t want to watch that show, idiots like that show. I want to watch this. Now. No, now. NOW.

Ids are freakin’ tenacious and selfish motherfuckers. (Sorry.) And ids can rationalize anything. Count on it.

So in my estimation, we have ids running the media and ids hating on others.

The haters have to hate, lest they sit with themselves. It’s all about projection, peeps. They feel so alone.

What gets me the most in this, is the people out there who are FREAKING out and saying that Bruce has become a woman.

No.

I don’t care if Bruce had his genitalia removed, enhanced, fucked with …  there is NOTHING that will turn Caitlin (neé Bruce) into a “woman.”

It’s too late for that. There is and never was a uterus. There are no ovaries. There are no eggs. There were no periods. There were no breast sprouts. There was no breast growth (and that pain! OY!). The hips didn’t widen and curve. There were no stretch marks. There were no girls at school who were shitty to him and slut-shaming and date-rape. There was no ambivalence about growing INTO a woman, no flood of questions about “WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING TO ME????” There were no pregnancy scares or losses. The hormones were never there natively. It’s simply not possible. And Caitlin’s body is 65 years old. So… menopause!! Bruce missed all the windows.

Maybe it’s semantics.

“Female…”? Same point as two paragraphs above.

But… guess what?

None of this matters! How much of what you do is because you are male or female? Really? In the entire existence of your day, do you drink your coffee in a manly way? What about when you scratch your butt or go for your car keys, do you feel especially gender-identified?

Hmmm, Chet. That wasn’t quite manly enough just now, when you pressed the key fob to unlock your Lincoln. It didn’t feel right to our focus group. Let’s try that again. From the doorway, as you step out into the sunlight. Think, ‘How would John Wayne do this?’

But, y’know keep that façade, that shit up, because, really, that’s what matters. It matters HOW you order your grande Americano.

Sally… ? It is Sally, right? Hon, we need to do this again. You didn’t flush the toilet femininely enough. It’s causing all sorts of confusion for us. We need you to go back in, pee, and when you flush, think, ‘How would Joan of Mad Men, not Arc, do this?’

It matters HOW you sit at the steering wheel or periscope because that defines your sexuality. It does. And people are watching. They are. Just now. Yup.

Female. Male. Woman. Man. Metrosexual. Lumber-sexual. Foxy. Hawt.

Gah. These are all “words” and “brands” and “identifiers” we all have created as a construct in order to assign place, and rank, and meaning to our lives. I happen to dig them. I am a word person. But I don’t use them as weapons.

That’s easy for you to say, Molly. Your kids are ____ and ____ and you’re all set.

Well, no. It’s not like that. And you can bet your ass that if one of them came home and said to me, “Mom, I want to be a woman…” I’d likely flip out. The fact is, though, that I would say to him what I said above: no ovaries, no female. It’s not happening, authentically, for you. You can play dress-up and do the façade thing all you want, but biologically and energetically, well, it’s going to be very challenging. Hell, I don’t know what being a woman is. This shit just happens. I don’t know if I’m “doing” it right.

I maintain my position in the first post I wrote about this: Caitlin is Caitlin. And what the hell does it change in your personal life? Nothing. Unless you’re Caitlin, or Caitlin’s (neé Bruce) children. And even to them, it’s their own versions of affect.

Thank God, we are all different versions of each other. I can’t experience what you’re experiencing and you can’t have mine — even if we experience the same thing at the same time, we PROCESS it differently. We might have the same shoe size, but the shoes will fit us differently. And no shoe is the same. I don’t care what you say: they’re not. There is a bubble in the sole of one whereas there is none in the other. A fiber on one is not the same on the other.

THAT’S HOW IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE.

Take comfort in that. (Sorry, China.)

When this story broke, and I saw all the comments flying around, especially the flip and glib ones, I said to my oldest son, “Don’t look now, America, but you’re about to go existential on yourselves… Welcome to the rabbit hole, strap in…”

Haters ‘gonna hate. Let ’em. They need to be seen too. They feel left out. Just don’t give a toot.

Take a deep breath, and sigh it out.

rest.

Take another one, deeper this time… sigh it out.

rest.

And repeat a third time…. BIG SIGH.

Let that crap go. It’s not yours. None of this has anything to do with you.

The world is not ending over this. Maybe it’s just starting! Ha! Ever thought of that? There are so many other situations which desperately need our enthusiasm and energy: cancer, racism, terrorism, world hunger, bad haircuts….

You still have to pay your taxes and make dinner and do the dishes… life goes on. With or with out you, life goes on.

Yup. That’s all I’m going to say about that. 

Thank you.

Feb25

This is How I Roll: Some Parents Need to Grow Up

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Look, I’m not going to sugar coat this: I’m grossed out by people who think it’s funny to have kids and then bitch about them, or habitually talk about needing booze, or a line, or a joint or a valium or whatever to get through the day.

It’s all over the Internet. Apparently it’s what sells. “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”- Henry Mencken. I prefer to not engage with the “foolish consistencies [which] are the hobgoblins of little minds.” -Emerson. I guess I will never hit it big. That’s OK, drunk people can’t read very well.

What those people need is a few moments alone and several deep breaths. That’s all. Oh, and likely therapy, which they are probably avoiding.

Ask anyone who knows me or who has interacted with me, and they will tell you, I’ve got a sense of humor, I am resilient, I can roll with punches. But just not this one. Not about parents who get their drink/joint/whatever on to cope with their holes, fears, inadequacy issues, mommy issues, daddy issues, shitty childhoods or whatever that are being activated by triggers that parenthood presents. I’m not talking anxiety, we all have that. I’m talking deep, real, soul-wrenching stuff. Oh, and regarding those who habitually make jokes about it? Grow up.

20130225-111055.jpg

So, here’s the deal: I grew up with crap like that happening to me. I can’t tell you how many times I heard, “You drive me to drink” as a kid. It’s sick as hell. Those days, and my decisions to talk about them are prickly. It’s partly my story to tell, in terms of how it affected me, but I can tell you this: if you need a drink, or think it’s funny to crack wise about being a mom or a dad who needs *needs* NEEDS something to “get through your day” I have a proposal for you: get fixed.

No, not with a shrink, that’s later, but tie your tubes, clip the lines, get your act together before you victimize your kids with your so-called, “I was just kidding” banter and jokes and Facebook groups and blog titles, and all that stuff. Because what you do to your kids, in the end, when they’re like me: 45 and wondering where the hell you were all their life, it’s not gonna be so funny then. You will be “Granny needs a drink” then. And that’s even sicker.

This is real. Kids are not saints, they are micro versions of me and you, and they have memories, and they have feelings and they have access to the Internet. If you find yourself turned off by their behavior, I have a suggestion: look around and look in the mirror. They learn from us, peers, teachers, siblings, but mostly from us, their parents, who appear godlike in their eyes. They believe everything we say, they don’t understand sarcasm until they’re about 15, despite our insistence that they get it beforehand. We are their go-to resource, unless we are half in the bag, spending the night at the office, on a little yellow pill, or pulling a toke.

But I’m just joking. Right? Because we all are. We’re all just trying to loosen up, have a little fun, don’t be such a stiff, Mol…

This isn’t our second shot at being in the cool group in high school or being popular with the pretty people. If you (like just about everyone) have some weird torch you’re holding for the glory days of your youth and you’re pinning your hopes on your kid to Make It this time… Wake up and smell the music. It’s pathetic. Get your act together and behave.

Maybe if you’re lucky, when you’re old and decrepit they will just feel sorry for you. Maybe if when they’re in a state where you will need them, when they have to take care of you, they will do the right, honorable and human thing: respect you and help you age and eventually die well. Or maybe they’ll get drunk and make jokes about it. You know, because it’s all in good fun, right?, crapping on the concept of being there for people who need our help. Or maybe they won’t resent the hell out of you for putting yourself first all. the. time. Or maybe they will do their best, numbly go through the motions, but be unable to give back what wasn’t given to them.

As a parent, I’m all for cutting loose and having fun, but not as a brand, not as an identity, and certainly not as a thematic function for who I am. Life’s hard enough sober and single. Marriage adds a whole new dimension. And then kids?! Innocent people who are legitimately needy and completely dependent on us for everything until they aren’t anymore?! Holy cow… I can’t imagine life drunk and with kids. And I certainly can’t imagine it being clever or glib or witty to make jokes about needing a mind-numbing substance to get through the day.

I can’t stand that stuff, it makes my blood boil. I have moments, trust me, of when I wish I could run away, or of when I wish I could be more resilient, more aloof, but no… This is life. When you get it on and make a baby, it’s not only all about you anymore. It’s about doing your best, everyday showing up mentally and physically and doing two very simple things on paper, but hard as hell to practice at times: love them with all your might and protect them. Love and protect. That’s all.

Therapy is cheap compared to how our glibness affects our children.

I’m dealing with my own set of challenges: I’m the PB&J in my family sandwich. My parents are getting reeeeally old and my kids are almost all teenagers. I will need every ounce of presence and sanity to navigate these waters. I could do the easy thing, do what my parents did: get drunk and avoid my responsibilities, but that’s not who I am.

If I’ve pissed you off, it’s okay. We aren’t right for each other. Just being real.

Thank you.

May14

Thank you, A-hole at Target!

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I was in a pretty good mood earlier. We had a nice dinner and I had to go to get some items from “The store that starts with a ‘T’” as Thing 1 used to call it when he was wee.
I believe in the power of St. Teresa of Avila’s prayer: “May today there be peace within. May you trust God that you are 
exactly where you are meant to be. May you not forget the infinite 
possibilities that are born of faith. May you use those gifts that you 
have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you. May 
you be content knowing you are a child of God. Let this presence 
settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, 
dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of us.”
Pretty awesome, right?
Believing in this prayer has given me capacity to sit as still as I can; to be poised; to count to 10; to not react; to do what I can do to maintain composure; to remember to breathe during challenging moments that basically suck. I have realized it’s easier for a Saint. That it’s much easier to hope for such composure than it is to actually manifest it. The prayer often occurs to me when I’m in traffic and what I do is placate myself about my being late in traffic by suggesting that it’s saving my life from being in an awful six-car accident somewhere. Or for instance, when the kids are insane, I sit back, breathe and wait until I feel that my interfering with them would be more beneficial than wasteful; the prayer doesn’t somehow make their screeching easier on the ears, nor does it diminish their heat or its intensity. It’s just a nice distraction, like whistling when you’re terrified. It’s a nice interlude that actually works for me.

I said the prayer occurs to me… not that I actually succeed. 
Usually, I’m not that together – I react. I heave and sigh. I pretty much go right to the good ole id to do what I can to either beat out the circumstance’s suckiness by creating my own suckiness or escape the suckiness altogether. But eventually, when I figure it out that I must submit to the suckiness in order for it to diminish, it sort of neutralizes. St. Teresa: 1, suckiness: 0.
Sort of.
Not so much tonight at the store that starts with a T. When I look back on tonight’s experience, which I will inevitably do because I’m Irish and we like to brood and foment, I’m not going to doubt myself for why I took so long in the hair repair (I need a deep conditioner) aisle or question if I really needed to be pleasant to the guys in electronics when I was buying the extra memory for my phone. I’m going to do what I can to apply the prayer.
I did what I went to do. I selected my mass-produced stuff, put it in my gigantic red shopping cart (which reminds me of my h.s. friend’s art: Google “Michelle Muldrow – Cathedrals of Desire” (http://www.jenbekman.com/shows/cathedrals-desire) and you’ll see what I mean) and ambled up to the checkout. My hair in a clip and looking like a mom on a Friday night in suburbia.
The gentleman before me was elderly. He bought mostly inexpensive high-carb starchy foods, I guessed he was on a limited income. He looked tired; he needed a shave; he was having trouble reading the electronic debit card machine. He didn’t know where to sign. He was confused by the multiple, neurotic “ARE YOU SURE??” questions about whether to ask for cash back and the numerous denominations in which to acquire the cash that wanted to be needed from the neurotic machine. (Can you imagine the learning curve required by some of our country’s elderly population to deal with all the technology they MUST face daily?!)
Back to me. 

I didn’t mind. I had nowhere to go. I was patiently patient. Wrongly suspecting that I was like 95% of Fairfax County shoppers by thinking I thought I was more important than the elderly man before me, the cashier evinced patient frustration with the man by apologetically looking at me and rolling her eyes as she flared her lower lip to blow her bangs from her 3” lashes.
She, by virtue of being the cashier, had even less nowhere to go… it’s cool. We’re all part of the chain, baby.
The people behind me were the other 95%. They had better things to do and better places to be with better people who weren’t “Ol’ fools who shoodn be owt heah tryin’a woik da fool machine. Daaaayaaam…”
Audibly disturbed by the elderly man’s God-given right to take his God-given time, the masculine member of the upwardly mobile couple decided to take out a smartphone loaded with his anathema anthems for all shoppers in the entire store to hear. One hate song about Popping F——Caps in The F——- Man and Stupid F—— Biotches wasn’t quite offensive enough so the loutish player of venom tunes switched to more lyrically offensive noise to demonstrate his massive ego and what I can only surmise was (is) his tiny manhood.
Talk about ids.
While the little old man in front of me was trying to get his card back in his wallet and sign the machine’s glowing electronic screen with the wand-like pen that has no ink, I turned to the gratis mobile DJ behind me and asked him, “Do you mind turning that down a bit? Please?”
And he said, “Yeah. I do.”
“WHAT?” My inner a-hole said. “Shhh… count to 10. Count to 10,” said St. Teresa. My eyes narrowed. I tsked. The angry little man behind me was my height. He was about 40# heavier than I am. I just shook my head. It was one of those moments when I wished I was two people: my older triathlete brother who’s 6’5”, built like a fortress and has a tongue like a viper from heredity and honed from his years working in NYC high finance … or my artistic younger brother who’s 5’10” and has the patience of a saint because he’s an ordained minister and the father of a toddler. My older bro would likely intimidate and eviscerate the music man in 20 loud syllables or less whereas my younger bro would wear him down with his low-talking, impressive endurance and vast catalog of Scripturally appropriate responses. Either of them would inspire humility in the little man.
Not me. I’m the middle child. I stooped to his level. 

“Well, it’s loud and it’s pretty offensive.” I said, summoning my best St. Teresa. “May there be peace within… may… there be PEACE withIN…..
“You’re offensive,” the maestro said.
Apparently I wasn’t the only one who needed a deep conditioner tonight.
I said (here we go…) “I’m offensive? That’s the best you can do?”
“Yeah.” Was his witty retort.
And then I just let it go. May there be peace without. Not really. 

But I didn’t bother with him and his escort who decided to make “Mmmmhmmmm, dat’s right… you’re offensive… heee heeehehe…mmmmhmm…” noises from her oral cavity. 

I suddenly realized I did have somewhere better to be: home with my tribe.
So as I was getting my things, the cashier looked at me with a knowing, woeful expression that made me feel like she was probably familiar with a-holes like this from her childhood or marriage and said to me quietly (more so with her eyes) “Thank you.” I looked over my shoulder, grinned, turned back to her and said, “You’re welcome and good luck.”
I took possession of my cart, walked away with poise and confidence after the experience but was definitely angry.
“What do you do with that?” “What’s the point?” “Why does someone get to abuse another person’s air space?” “Where are my rights?”
And all I could think about was how pissed I was that I wasn’t taller, smarter, meaner, stronger, a man, a woman who could crush someone in a blink, or a lesser person – for JUST for that instant… 

. . .oh! to have been a lesser person…
When I got home to my team, I was visibly disturbed from the exchange. I wasn’t crying or shaking; I just wasn’t myself. I told them the story and Thing 2 said, “Momma, if I were with you I would have punched him.”
Not the kind of lesser person I meant, I reasoned, looking into his sparkly eyes. 
So I resigned. I went to bed at 8:45 and have been here since. I  festered. And then thought of St. Teresa’s prayer. And tried to come up with the Grace from the experience. Nope. It doesn’t come when you look for it. So I gave up on that. So then I thought I’d write about it because I hadn’t been writing in a couple weeks (for no good reason but a ton of stuff has been going on) and then came the Grace: I was put there, I took the time I did in the conditioner aisle, and I was nice to the electronics guys to be a buffer between the little old man at the cashier and the big a-hole behind me who had no brain.


Then it made me think of my own dad and how he’s not much different from the little old man in front of me at the cashier. And that if he were at the store tonight that maybe if someone like me were between him and the musical conductor and his sidekick I endured, then so much the better.


Suddenly, within an hour, I was thankful for the experience. I was thankful because I perhaps provided a service to someone who needed it from that small man and his nasty energy. I was thankful because writing about him got me out of a rut. 
Teresa was right… “May you use those gifts that you 
have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you.” 

The prayer from the saint that starts with a T.
Thank you.