The Bright Side of Life

Do you know what the Dalai Mama has discovered?  There are two kinds of people:  optimists and pessimists.  And when the shit hits the fan, IMHO, it is better to be an optimist.  I’ve also discovered that E.J. Dionne, The Washington Post columnist, was right when he quoted a pollster friend recently:

“When you give conservatives bad news in your polls, they want to kill you,” he said. “When you give liberals bad news in your polls, they want to kill themselves.”

Last week, even though I am an eternal optimist, I wanted to kill myself when the Prez acted like his strength had been zapped by anniversary sex (Didn’t anyone tell POTUS and the FLOTUS that just because it was their 20^th anniversary not to do the “wild thing” before sending the Prez into the boxing ring against Romney?).  Every athlete knows you can’t be distracted or have your potency drained before the big fight even if your honey of twenty years is one fine lookin’ woman.   Mohammad Ali could have told the Prez that salient piece of advice from his championship days.  I mean, what else could it have been?  I’m just sayin’.    Next time:  Focus, Barack, focus goddamn it!

Anyway, an election that was beginning to look like a slam-dunk for anybody who is part of the 47% or cares about human beings in general, or adheres to the “true” teachings of Christ, suddenly came up for grabs as the polls tightened and The Mittens trounced our President in the first debate and declared a fatwā against Big Bird and his homies on Sesame Street.  (I don’t know about you, but threatening the big yellow six-year-old bird whose raison d’etre is to teach little kids the alphabet was the last straw:  “Your ass is mine, Mittens, and you are going down,” I screamed at the TV as I slid into the worst depression I’ve suffered in years.)

Sesame Street to Mittens: “let’s rumble”||image of weknowmemes.com

Then the sharks began to circle the perceived “blood in the water,” as hateful vitriol intensified against our president and his legitimacy, women and reproductive rights (“legitimate” and/or “easy” rape), 47% as “takers” not makers, and black people in general who “need to be taught good discipline and character as per Paul Ryan, the arrogant Catholic.  Finally, the week was topped off by a truck load of manure dumped in front of an Obama campaign headquarters in my home state of Ohio. As a born-again Christian who is fed up to my eyeballs with the numb-nut stupidity of my ex-religious leaders (I have summarily left the Church but kept my Jesus), I waited for at least one prominent Christian evangelical leader who claims to love Jesus to come forth and speak up for Big Bird, speak up for the poor and down-trodden, speak up against the “Christian” Congressman who claims our daughters can be “legitimately raped,” and speak up against the latest racist claim by a “Christian” legislator that “slavery should be considered a ‘blessing’” cause it brought Africans to America where we are so incredibly blessed.  (Well, we black people truly thank you, Massa!)

Fired by “Mittens”|image by mashable.com

All I heard was the sound of crickets—no righteous Christian leaders speaking up to defend the poor and down-trodden like Jesus did.   And the Dalai Mama wept as I decided to pack my suitcase in disgust and move to Canada (where else am I going to get healthcare in my old age if Romney/Ryan wins the election?).  My husband, WW, who is white and also a born-again Christian suggested I not be too hasty, and that I take a road trip to the beach with him to clear my head before I did something so drastic that I’d have to learn French before migrating to Quebec (if one must live in Canada, one must do so in Quebec City because it’s like moving to France).  I really trust his judgment so I acquiesced to his plan, but told him if the beach didn’t manage to cheer me up, he’d better brush off his passport and dust off his French.

Abolitionist, Frederick Douglas calling Christianity to task for its deceptive stance on
slavery and women’s rights in the 1800’s ||image from leftcheek.bloogspot.com and joanhascheeseburger.com

On our way to the beach, we were forced to stop at a Chick-fil-A, which was the only eating establishment within miles because as WW said, “I am too hungry to stand on principle because I have to piss like a race horse and I am falling asleep at the wheel from lack of food.”  With baseball cap pulled down over my face and large bumble-bee sunglasses secured to disguise my face, I furiously lectured my husband about my signed online petition against Chick-fil-A and how they perfectly illustrated one of the reasons I was going to have to migrate to Canada, because of their contributions to organizations that specialized in hate.  As we scurried past long lines of very fat-bottomed white people (I was the only black person for miles around, and my ass is quite normal, thank you very much!) who were still engaged in their month’s long “chicken-in” demonstration of support for Chick-fil-A against the gays, my husband made me promise not to go all Norma Rae all over the place and get myself arrested while he was in the little boy’s room “pissing like a race horse.”

Cartoonist: Mike Lukovich/Atlanta Journal

I refused to even order a soda, and I know that I stuck out like a raisin in a bowl of milk, so it didn’t take long before one of the employees came over to ask if she could help me as she looked me over with a frozen
smile on her face trying to determine if I was a lesbian reporter about to cause all kinds of trouble up in that place.  I don’t know what motivated her to engage me in conversation.  Maybe it was the fact that I was furiously taking notes in my blog notebook while trying to hide my face, or maybe she saw me contemplating what it would take to climb up on one of the tables without falling off and breaking my ass to start my Norma Rae
impersonation as I mounted my very vocal protest:  “Why do you hate gay people; what have they ever done to your chicken except eat it like the rest of us? Why can’t we all get along in this great country of ours, and What Would Jesus Do to you if he knew the hate you were spewing against his children with our chicken dollars?”  Just as I thought I saw Sarah and Todd Palin queuing up for a couple bags of chicken which gave me all the motivation I needed to start my revolution, WW returned, grabbed me by the arm and marshaled me back to the mini-van before the two policemen staring at me in the corner had a chance to put down their chicken sandwiches, arrest my sorry-ass, and ruin our beach vacation by throwing me in jail for disturbing the peace.

The Palins “protesting” on behalf of Chick-fil-A|thedailywhat.cheeseburger.com

After WW convinced me that I was hallucinating from lack of food and backed up urine, and that I didn’t really see The Palins in that Chick-fil-A, I spent my vacation at the beach thoroughly bummed out about the first presidential debate until one of my blog friends gave me a verbal swift kick in the ass (Frank Angle) and told me to “snap out of it.”   WW added his two cents and told me to cheer up because “it’s not over for the presidential election, or anything in life for that matter, until the fat lady sings—so don’t worry, be happy” (and WW is a pessimist—go figure)!  Once I realized WW wasn’t talking about me as the “fat lady” (I’m slightly chunky and an ex-opera singer), the clouds lifted, my optimistic personality came back into gear, and I returned home, ready to greet a new day.  I am going to add a couple of disciplinary actions for my mind, however:  I don’t plan to watch anymore debates (I’m an Independent but I’ve already made up my mind so why be tortured), and I don’t plan to read any more stories about what the haters are doing in our midst to rob me of my God-given joy.  Haters will always be hatin’—but I don’t have to be listenin’!  (I’ll just keep prayin’ that God zaps their sorry asses into the lowest point of Hell, though, so that the rest of us can live in peace!)

Haters be hatin’ but I’m gonna ignore ‘em all and just be chillaxing

image from joanhascheezburger.com

I am discovering that there are two ways to live one’s life:  either as Henny-Penny (“The sky is falling”) or as Little Orphan Annie (“The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow”).  Henny-Penny may be proved right in the long run, but Orphan Annie will have a hell of a lot more fun and peace of mind before the sky flattens her, especially since she has little to no control over the powers that are making the sky fall.  So to all of my “depressed Democratic friends,” get up off your sorry-asses and do the only thing in your “Orphan Annie” power that can defeat the Koch Brothers, the racists, the shit dumpers, the liars, the Ayn Randians, the 47% haters, and the 1% makers:  GO VOTE, take a friend, and say a little prayer while you do it!  We may just win the day ‘cause God is alive and well and “God don’t like ‘ugly’ (a.k.a. ‘haters’).”   (Besides, WW thinks Obama will win a second term, and he’s a pessimist!)

***

Some things in life are bad,

They can really make you mad.

Other things just make you swear and curse.

When you’re chewing on life’s gristle,

Don’t grumble, give a whistle,

And this’ll help things turn out for the best, and…

ALWAYS LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE OF LIFE. . .

Life’s a piece of shit,

When you look at it.

Life’s a laugh and death’s a joke, it’s true.

You’ll see it’s all a show,

Keep ‘em laughing as you go.

Just remember that the last laugh is on you.

SO. . .ALWAYS LOOK AT THE BRIGHT SIDE OF LIFE. . .

“Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” from The Life of Brian by Eric Idle

“Between the optimist and the pessimist, the difference is droll. The optimist sees the doughnut; the pessimist the hole!”—Oscar Wilde

“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.”—Helen Keller

“For myself I am an optimist – it does not seem to be much use being anything else”—Winston Churchill

      “In the long run the pessimist may be proved right, but the optimist has a better time on the trip.”—Daniel L. Reardon

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Eleanor Tomczyk and “How the Hell Did I End Up Here?” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

The Kids Are Watching Us

Do you know what I’ve discovered?   Parents are constantly under surveillance.  We’re not being watched by the CIA or the FBI (well, maybe some of you are, depending on how crazy your behavior got in the 60s), but we’re being monitored by our children when they think we’re not looking.   Before you decide I’ve lost my mind, think about the last time you spent any extended amount of time with your grown children.  Didn’t you notice them staring at you—watching your every move as if they expected you to self-destruct before their very eyes, and for the most part, looking absolutely scandalized at you as they thought:  “Oh, my God, did you see that; have they lost their freakin’ minds?”

Image from forparentsbyparents.com

. . . Or:  “Oh, Lord Jesus, the Poor Rents—I knew all that pot-smoking from their college days would catch up with them sooner than later.”

Image from baby-cute.com

My husband and I were recently made aware of the scrutiny of our adult children in our lives when we went to visit our younger daughter and got lost at every single meeting point the entire weekend, even though we’ve visited the city multiple times.  Baby-girl was so mortified at our mishaps that she told every friend who would listen about our crazy missed exits and off-ramps.   I just know she is secretly checking out nursing homes in her area in case we show other signs of incompetence and brain fogginess, and she’ll be forced to commit us.

I blame last weekend’s mishaps on the fact that WW and I have lost our inner traveling compass.   For the past five years or so, we haven’t left home without an electronic GPS system, but we didn’t have one in the rental car and that’s where all the mayhem began.  We no longer know how to function on our own.  Without a GPS our instincts fail us.  We have lost our personal compass.

animalcapshunz.icanhascheezburger.com

Because I was “Oprah” long before Oprah was Oprah, I did what I frequently do and turned last weekend’s “lost in Minneapolis” debacle into an “A-ha” moment when a mother in a minivan full of kids flipped me the bird because she thought I didn’t turn fast enough.  (Who gives you “the finger” in front of their kids?)  My A-HA moment:  Losing one’s traveling compass is akin to losing one’s moral compass, so that when we’re stressed, fearful, or angry we lose our way as humans and crap all over each other.  But Houston, when this happens, we have a problem because the children are watching.  (Look out Oprah!) 

So this week, I reviewed the most uncivil acts committed by high-profile people (and some not so high-profile), and I sent them a short note with a picture of a particular type of child they may have influenced with their gnarly behavior.

Gov. Jan Brewer Disrespecting the POTUS||File photo/Google Image

Dear Gov. Jan Brewer:  Rumor has it that at the Republican Party’s annual Flag Day fundraising dinner in Irvine, AZ,you gleefully posed with an admirer while recreating your infamous, classless and tasteless action against the President on the tarmac in Phoenix a while ago.  The back-drop pictures on stage were two oversized photos of your now slovenly act against the President with the words:  “You go, girl!”   Some say it was racist the first time you did it (I said it was a low-class way to up the sales for your book).  But I say, now that you’re taking your wagging-finger show on the road, it’s not only racist, but it is damn contemptuous of the Office of the President.   Get over it, woman, the intelligent, sophisticated, Harvard educated, “not-scared-of-you” black man won the election and does not ask “how high?” when you say jump.  That’s all she wrote, Gov.   I also read that you consider yourself to be a born-again Christian, so I thought, as a “sista in Christ,” I’d school you on the lesson you taught to the likes of Arizona’s “Bad-ass Baby, Clive Jr.” (picture included).   Baby Clive was watching your finger action and emulated your spirit which elevated him and you right up there to the top of the list of what Jesus would not do (WJWND).   Sista Jan, remember that scripture that says:  “Woe to you who cause these little ones to stumble”?  Yikes, wouldn’t want to be you when Arizona’s kids grow up!

Outhouse labeled as Obama’s Presidential Library that was painted to look like it was riddled with bullet holes and proudly displayed to a laughing, cheering crowd in Montana.||AP Photo

“Inside (outhouse), a fake birth certificate for “Barack Hussein Obama” was stamped with an expletive referring to bovine droppings. A message in the structure gave fake phone numbers for Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi “For a Good Time.” By Dana Milbank/The Washington Post

Dear Head of Montana’s GOP convention:  Wow, remind me never to visit Montana.  As a “Negro” and a woman, my ass would be grass!  Come on Repubs—have you no mothers, sisters, or female cousins?  Do you not have one black (light-brown) person in Montana?  And here we go again dissing our (your) President and his Lady in the most disrespectful way.  It’s like you’re itching to have a bunch of black people come to Montana and beat the shit out of you just to make you give the Prez some respect.  But then we’d be no better than you, so we’ll keep following the President’s gracious example and “turn the other cheek.”

I read that Congressman Dennis Rehberg and Newt Gingrich were on-site and neither one of them said a word in protest of the Outhouse.  (I wonder how they would have reacted if it had been them and their wives?)  You’re bullies—no more, no less.   Truth is that I have no idea what will happen to the lives of the people you stuck in your toilet (maybe you will get your wish, although I doubt it), but I do know that you’ve been responsible for setting back the education and citizenship in the family of man of Montana’s children by about 100 years because your babies are watching and learning from you.

Karen Klein, Elderly School Bus Monitor||AP Photo

“A widow of 17 years and a grandmother of eight, Karen worked as a bus driver in Greece, New York for 20 years, and has been a bus monitor for the last three years. Her duty is to ride in the bus with students, making sure that they behave themselves on the route to and from school for which she gets paid around $15,000 annually.” Posted by Charles Wuckland

Dear Pack of Thirteen-Year-Old Boys from Greece, NY who took it upon themselves to torment a sweet, hard-of-hearing Grandmother:  Now let me get this straight, children.  According to all the news reports, you said the following hateful things to a sweet old lady who had never done anything to you, except try to keep you safe:

Oh, my God, you’re such a fucking bitch!”

“You are such a fucking troll!”

(After poking Mrs. Klein): “Your reflexes are so slow, you freakin’ fat bitch.”

“You’re so ugly, you should commit suicide.”

“You don’t have a family because they all killed themselves because they didn’t want to be near you.” (The worst part of these taunt boys is that Mrs. Klein’s son did kill himself ten years ago.)

And to all this Mrs. Klein replied as she was crying:  “I am a person, too. I shouldn’t be treated this way.”

***

Dear Parents of the 13-year-old future terrorists, Gov. Jan Brewer, the Tea Party, the Birthers, Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter, Donald Trump, Fox News, Andrew Breitbart’s friends, the preachers praying “imprecatory prayers of death” against those who disagree with them (California preacher Drake says he’s praying for death of President Obama while another preacher has burned his body in effigy), and all the nameless haters and bullies like the ones who built the “Obama Outhouse Presidential Library:” 

Haters:  I give you your children.

  Children: I give you your teachers!

I am discovering that regardless of what the politicians and the news pundits tell us, it is not the economy, stupid.  It is our ability to remain a civil society in the midst of hard times and be our “brother’s keeper” that matters.  Yes, times are hard, but we’ll get through them if we stick together and don’t adopt the Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged attitude of the Tea Party, “I’ve got mine, too bad it sucks for you,” as the Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush once wrote.  Where are our leaders (especially on the Republican side) who will stand up and say enough is enough?  I may not agree with your politics, but I regard you as a fellow citizen, a child of God, born with the right to exist, and I will listen to your “civil” discourse and treat you in the way I want to be treated.  Besides, some of my best friends are Republicans.

Dear Repubs (yes, I’m singling you out because I don’t recognize you anymore, and I used to be a Republican):  Don’t give me that childish excuse that the Dems said awful things about President Bush (since when did two wrongs make a right, children?).  And don’t even try to give me that teenager’s excuse that everybody else is doing it, and you can’t control certain elements of your party.  Tell that to your god, because People, our kids are watching and they are going to “lose their way” just like us!  If we don’t hurry up and change our compass to due North, we’ll save the economy and leave the country to a bunch of fat and sassy racists, terrorists, homophobes, misogynists, and heartless cretins.  Are you listening, Mitt?

 

(“Suffering from disgust of grownups?”)||Piclac.com

***

      “When once the forms of civility are violated, there remains little hope of return to kindness or decency.” Samuel Johnson

“The uncomfortable truth is that if we are to solve the difficult problems we face as a national community, we must act affirmatively and with courage and clarity to reclaim civility in the public square. Civility is quite simply the glue that holds us together and allows us as citizens of a representative democracy to dialogue with each other.” Cassnadra Dahnke, Tomas Spath, Donna Bowling (Institute For Civility In Government)

“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”—Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Eleanor Tomczyk and “How the Hell Did I End Up Here?” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

JUST AS I AM

 

Do you know what I’ve discovered?  It’s 2012, and I’ve spent 464,588 hours dieting—in other words, most of my life has been possessed by a bathroom scale.  I just figured out how much time I’ve wasted on this shit while much of the world is starving, and I’m so pissed off that I ate a box of gluten-free donut holes on my way to join Weight Watchers—yet again!  I’m not depressed about losing and gaining weight like a yo-yo on crack, as much as I’m furious that I spent so much time chasing a damn illusion. There is a difference in wanting to be healthy, and then there’s trying to look like Cameron Diaz.  Until recently, losing weight hasn’t been about me being healthy; it’s always been about fitting into someone else’s concept of what a woman should look like—mostly European descent, tall, small boned, narrow hips, slender waist, small tits, and a non-existent ass.  Not looking like that plagues all the women I know, and it just kills me to see them suffer.  We have this body image problem because we live in America—home of the airbrushed magazine covers and glorified stick women.  I’m sure I wouldn’t have this pressure about my body image in many parts of Africa.   But then again the word “dieting” would probably send me into gales of laughter as I rejoiced over the extra protein in the maggots found in my food.  Food, wiggly or cooked, would be a good day to be alive, not “did I lose another pound”!

 

In my defense, I have inherited the genetic makeup from Hell.  My Cherokee grandmother, who legend has it, was 5ft tall and 5ft wide, had fourteen children and at least two of her daughters were called, “Lily & Hannah, the Five-by-Fivers!”  All my life, I’ve pushed against my genetics—half the time I’ve lost and half the time I’ve won, but only for a season.   All that “fluffy” history gives me what my Doc calls:  The Set-Point Prison.  In other words, my Cherokee grandmother’s genetic need to hold onto fat in case her body might need it during the harsh long winters has turned me into a yo-yo dieter on crack, and no amount of multiple dieting will ever be successful in the long term.  I’ve had moments of glory, sometime even years, but as soon as I relax my guard, BAM!  I’m back on tour as the 5ft chocolate Rubenesque model from The Cleve.

Author’s Cherokee Grandmother

But if I’m truthful with myself, and if given the power to go back and change my genetic makeup, I wouldn’t just change the physical crap, I’d probably go back and change just about everything.  Shoot, I might even become a man.  What the hell!  When I’m really down on myself (usually at the beginning of a New Year), I think about all the things I have yet to accomplish, and I make New Year’s resolutions that not even a god could keep because I’m just that much of a perfectionist.  I fantasize about what it would be like to become the people who seem to have it all—a magical life.   In my fantasy I send God my plans, replete with pictures of my idols, accompanied with impertinent questions, and I don’t need to hear an audible voice to guess what God would say to me.

Dear God:  I’d like to put a stop to this set-point thing I’ve inherited, and I think the best way to do that is to be given the genetics of Halle Berry.  She and I are both from The Cleve and being beautiful could just as easily have been my lot in life.  What say you?

Dear Eleanor:   I see you’re up to your old tricks of comparing your journey to that of another.  Well, Halle’s definitely a great choice in the beauty and body department—one of my finest human specimens to date.  But you must be willing to take her struggle with diabetes, her slavishness to exercise just to maintain that coveted body, her austere diet that never fluctuates, two divorces, horrific spousal abuse, abandonment by her father, etc.  If you take the beauty, you have to take the pain.

Dear God:  You can’t beat Hillary Clinton for intelligence and fortitude.  I would love, love, love to have the courage she has displayed on the world stage.  Have you been watching her?  She kicks butt and takes no prisoners.

Dear Eleanor:  Yep, Hillary’s my girl, but you’ll have to take a life with Bill.  No Bill—no Hill.

Dear God:  I am in awe of our first black FLOTUS.   She’s got poise, grace, beauty, intelligence, and a spine of steel (not to mention those arms).  I never ever, ever thought I’d see one of my peeps living in the White House and doin’ it with such style.  If I had to pick just one of my idols, you could turn me into Michelle Obama.  I’d be all right with that.

Dear Eleanor:  Yes, isn’t she lovely?  Personally one of my favorite FLOTUS—second only to Eleanor Roosevelt, although don’t tell Anita Perry or Callista Gingrich that.  The two of them have been lusting after the FLOTUS position to the point of imploding.  But are you able to handle an inordinate amount of haters and trash talkers?  Think you could handle watching your husband constantly being attacked by the Rush Limbaughs and the Pat Robertsons of the world?

Dear God:  On second thought being the FLOTUS might give me a heart attack.  I would truly become an “angry black woman” and that would be self-defeating.  I wouldn’t mind being rich, powerful, and influential however—especially as a black woman.  Wouldn’t that be awesome?  I choose my girl, Oprah!  (But the skinny Oprah, please; I’ve had enough of fat for a lifetime.)

Dear Eleanor:  No can do.  You get Oprah’s wealth and power; you have to carry her cross.

Dear God:  Can I possibly sneak in a career as a “working” actress, and if I’m working I might as well become a brilliant one—“I LOVE YOU MERYL.” 

Dear Eleanor:  Yes, isn’t she lovely?  Unfortunately, you can’t be her because, as far as her talent is concerned, I broke the mold when I made her.

I am discovering that I need to cut myself some slack as do most people.  I am what I am and I really don’t think God is down with making me into something that I’m not.   I am also discovering that people are who they are because of the good, bad, and the ugly in their lives and working it all out is part of the human journey.

One of our daughters asked her father recently what his favorite phrase was and he said:  “I love you.”  When I think of Halle Berry’s life, I think of the man that says that phrase to me on a daily basis with such warmth and tenderness after thirty-two years that it makes my heart melt and it renews me.  I think between Ms. Berry and myself, I may have won the lion’s share, and maybe being really “hot” would be nice but not all there is in life.  Maybe being “Halle Berry” is too high a cost to pay, even for Halle Berry.  When I think of all these women who are my “idols,” I think we all wake up everyday hoping to hear the same whisper in our hearts from God:  “I love you, just as you are.”  If I focus on that—if I rest in that—having a chubby ass in 2012 may not be so bad!

Author:  Just as I am

“To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”  ~e.e. Cummings

Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Eleanor Tomczyk and “How the Hell Did I End up Here?” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.