Live and Learn

Thursday September 08, 2016Life, Live and LearnView all 2 comments

“There’s nothing we can do.”

At the age of 21 those were the words said to me by my orthopedist. I had been diagnosed with scoliosis at the age of 15,and it had developed into a triple curve starting in my neck and finishing at the bottom of the shoulder blades. Five vertebrae had naturally fused together. It was slight enough, that no medical intervention was warranted, yet severe enough that I was in pain every day of my life and experienced muscle spasms at least once a week. When it was really bad my right shoulder would sit 2-3 inches lower than my left shoulder. That combined with several traumatic back injuries, left me in pretty bad shape. Living like that, for the rest of my life was not an option for 21 year old Kat. So when he said that, I was furious.

The fact that he said it in such a supercilious, “what did you expect?” Tone made it worse. I wanted to grab him by the lapels and tell him that that was unacceptable, and he better come up with something to do to help me! Thankfully, I refrained from doing that, because all he had to offer was sending me back to the physical therapist- been there, done that 5+ times – or a radical surgery installing rods in my back to force my spine to be straight. At the time, that seemed like a good option. Now I thank my lucky stars, that we didn’t go that route.

Instead of physically assaulting my doctor, I showed my frustration by storming out of the office. Then I did my own research, and landed on Pilates. I read accounts of people using Pilates to lesson their back pain, and I latched onto the idea like a life saver. I found a studio that was willing to take insurance where I could take private lessons, got the aforementioned orthopedist to write me a prescription and dove in head first. My trainer specialized in rehabilitation and she was amazing. It took a year of painstaking practice and patience, but eventually we got the five vertebrae in my back to un-fuse. It then took another seven-ish months before I could articulate between each one independently.

Over the next three years, I worked my way up from Practicing three hours a week to over twenty hours a week while training to be a Pilates instructor. For the first time in over 10 years, I would have pain-free days. From a skeletal viewpoint, I was doing great. The muscles in my back, however we’re still pretty pissed off and it became obvious that I couldn’t sustain the schedule that I was doing. That combined with the conflicting hours of a new job meant that I had to drop out of school before I got my full Pilates certification.

Fast forward a couple of years, and I was still doing pretty well skeletal wise, but the muscles were worse. It was also around this time that I found myself working as a manager for a MAssage Envy, and I happened to be the only manager that liked deep tissue massages. Therefore, whenever we had a therapist who was applying to be a deep tissue therapist, I took the interview . . . The interview consisting of an hour long deep tissue massage. For a couple of months when we were short-staffed I was getting upwards of two massages a week. Awesome! It was also there that I met an exceptionally gifted massage therapist, who I still go to now. Because of all of that, the muscles in my back finally calmed down enough that muscle spasms became a once-in-a-great-while occurrence, instead of a weekly occurrence. Whoo-hoo! My sciatica Problems also went away. Double Whoo-hoo!

Now this is not to say, that my back is now totally better, but I do get pain-free days and even weeks sometimes. It’s only when I skip the daily maintenance of stretching, Pilates, yoga and skip my monthly massage. I still have to do all of that to maintain, and when I slack off I usually wind up at the chiropractor,which happened last week. But here’s the thing, I wound up seeing a new chiropractor (because he had an evening appointment available) and he did a full examine to start out, including a scoliosis check. To which he reported, that there were no signs of scoliosis left in my back. The triple curve is now totally gone. SCORE! My back still hurts, and it’s something that I will deal with for the rest of my life, but my biggest obstacle is now gone, and I figured that was worth celebrating!

Also, take that Mr. Orthopedist nay-sayer man!

Tuesday August 23, 2016Live and Learn, PoliticsView all 6 comments

Always read the article before posting it. NEVER trust the headline. There is nothing worse than posting an article because you completely agree with the headline only to open it up and discover that you completely disagree with what the actual article says. For that matter, make sure the article is from a credible source and not Jim Bob’s Website of Conspiracy Theories.
Blanket statements will come back to bite you in the ass. It might not be immediately, but eventually you’re going to get bit.
There will be people, both right-wing and left-wing, who are operating on nothing but the propaganda of their party. The second that you start giving facts and sources and asking them to do the same they will resort to calling you names and shouting invectives against your character. If this happens on their page, walk away. If it happens on your page, politely ask them to be respectful and to source what they’re saying. Eventually, in my experience rather quickly, they will run out of ways to avoid stating facts and block you. Then you don’t have to deal with them anymore, and then you have a fun story about that one time you were called a fascist on the internet.

The odds of completely changing somebody’s mind is low. However, the odds of getting somebody to think about something in a new way, or to question the way they do think about something is fairly good. Set your expectations accordingly. People who are undecided about issues are the most fun to talk to.
If someone’s fundamental beliefs are the polar opposite from yours, put the mouse down and step away from the computer. Even in the best of circumstances – face to face with charts, graphs, and expert Witnesses at your beck and call – the odds are slim to none that you will sway that person to your way of thinking, or that they will be able to sway you to theirs. The odds of it happening on the internet are non-existent. Save everybody a headache and don’t even try.
It is perfectly acceptable to agree to disagree. And just because you disagree does not mean that you cannot still be friends. Always try to take the high road, and if you truly have offended someone, apologize.

‘I’ statements help to further the conversation, while ‘you’ statements generally result in someone taking offense. For example ‘I disagree because of XY and Z,’ vs ‘You are wrong. The answer is XY and Z.’
Know your facts, and be prepared to admit when you have entered areas where your knowledge is lacking.
Sometimes you just need to preach to the choir and ignore the haters. That’s okay too.

Tuesday August 16, 2016Live and LearnView all 2 comments

I have always been the independent and self-sufficient type. As such, I am more likely to struggle with something for a couple of hours in order to figure it out, instead of asking for help. Probably not the best use of my time, but it sure is a skill that comes in handy when there isn’t anyone around to ask for help. Or when there is a fee for said help, and I don’t have the funds. Thankfully, I have a pretty good record of muddling through things and eventually coming out on top. Yes, I screw things up, but I’ve always been able to reverse or fix what I’ve screwed up. Until last week.

I’ve been working to update my website so I have a page for my novel, a page for a series of non-fiction books that I’ve started work on, and a sign-up for my shiny new newsletter. Whoo! It’s the last thing on this list that caused everything to go kablooie! In all of my infinite coding wisdom – I have no coding wisdom – I put the code for the newsletter sign-up in the wrong place. The REALLY WRONG place, causing the admin side of my website to straight-up disappear. Oddly enough, end users could still see everything. I could go to my website and browse through old blog posts and take a look at my progress through the Shakespearean canon, etc. However, if I tried to do anything on the back end, like log-in to erase the offending code, all I had was a white screen of death. That’s it.

That was the most frustrating part about the whole thing. I knew exactly how to fix the problem I created, but I had no idea how to get in to fix it. Argh!!!! I tried for two days to gain access before finally relenting and paying the guy who originally coded my website to fix it. To my credit, he was impressed with the fubar that I had created, so that at least made me feel a bit better about having to shell out some cash to fix the problem. In true IT fashion, he had the issue resolved in no time flat and even offered to install the code where it was supposed to go. Bonus!

The good news, is that I now I have the aforementioned pages set-up – you should check them out – and I have a lovely little pop-up so visitors can sign-up for my newsletter, as well as a link in case you decide later that you want to sign-up. The bad news, after seeing the pop-up in action, I’m not a fan and would rather just have the link, which I added all by myself. But as I spent $75 for that damn pop-up, it gets to stay . . . at least until it’s earned that $75 back . . . or I figure out where the code is to delete it . . . anybody else sensing the start of a vicious cycle here?

Tuesday August 02, 2016History, Live and Learn, PoliticsView all 6 comments

There has been a meme floating around to advocate voting for a third party candidate by saying that Lincoln was a third party candidate and those votes weren’t wasted. I hate to be the one to burst everyone’s bubble, but Lincoln was not a third party candidate. Bruce Catton’s book The Coming Fury has a somewhat dry, but excellent accounting of the election that preceded the outbreak of the Civil War. However, if reading a long book about history isn’t your idea of fun, here’s my summation.

The Whig party, Lincoln’s original party, began to split in the 1850’s and that is when the Republican Party came into existence. Please note, at that time Republicans were liberal and Democrats were conservative. The Whig split was due in large part to opinions about slavery. Despite what I was taught as a kid, the Civil War was not fought over whether the slaves should be freed. Lincoln introduced that objective with the Emancipation Proclamation which went into effect mid-war, in 1863. This was an attempt to give Northerners who were growing weary of the fighting a rallying cry that they could gather around. Not to mention, cutting off any possible support for the South from abolitionist countries like England. But that’s a totally different conversation, so let’s get back to before the war even started. Among other factors, the Civil War was fought over the possible expansion of slavery and the right of the Federal government to control slavery.

In the 1850’s, leading into the 1860 election, the hot button topic was whether or not slavery should be allowed in new territories and then subsequent states as they were established. As well as the enforcement of fugitive slave laws. The extreme liberals, who were a minority, wanted complete abolition. However, most liberals were content if slavery stayed in the South, wasn’t allowed to expand into new territories, and remained under the jurisdiction of the Federal government. See the Missouri Compromise map below.

The Conservatives wanted the fugitive slave laws more strictly enforced and an amendment to be passed stating that the Federal government had no authority to ever abolish slavery – or “the peculiar institution” as they called it. The extreme conservatives, or “Fire-Eaters” as they were branded, wanted all of that and assurances that any new territory that fell South of the Mason-Dixon Line would become a slave state. This is a simplification obviously, but this is the main issue that split, then dissolved the Whig Party by the 1852 and 1856 election respectively. This opened the stage for the Republican Party to form.

With the dissolution of their party, many Whigs stepped out of politics for a while, if not permanently, and/or changed parties. Northern Whigs tended to gravitate to the new Republican Party. Deep-south Whigs went to the Know Nothing Party, upper-south Whigs went to the Constitutional Union Party and those remaining filtered over to the Democrats. The Know Nothing Party was only prominent for a few years and their stances were based mainly on the beliefs that Irish Catholic and German immigrants were ruining America – some sentiments never change. The Constitutional Union Party was anti-secession and believed that the Constitution was the first and final word for all governing. They hoped that by not taking a stand as either pro or anti-slavery, the whole issue would go away. Their party pretty much dissolved completely with secession.

By 1860, the Whig party was all but gone. Lincoln ran under the Republican ticket, however, he was far from a favorite. The people running his campaign though, were very smart. They realized that there were so many hot button topics that anyone who drew large amounts of attention wouldn’t be able to get elected. William Seward was so outspoken that it would be nearly impossible for him to get a majority vote at the convention. However he was going to lead the first vote because he did have quite a bit of popularity. So Lincoln’s campaign manager – at this point in time the candidates themselves didn’t go out on the campaign trail, they stayed home – made agreements with several crucial states that when the second or third vote came around they would switch their vote to Lincoln. They did the same with states backing Salmon Chase. So by playing up the underdog card, they were able to sway enough states who voted for Seward or Chase in the first and second vote to switch to Lincoln by the third vote. Thus, Lincoln gained a majority and won the convention nomination.

Meanwhile back at the Democratic convention,* they were splitting into two. When the Democrats refused to adopt the platform that the “Fire-Eaters” insisted upon, the Fire-Eaters literally walked out of the convention and formed their own. So for the 1860 election, there were two Democratic conventions and two Democratic nominees. Both claiming that they were in the right and they represented the true Democrats. Again, those running Lincoln’s campaign were savvy. They approached the states who were backing the non-Fire-Eater Democratic nominee and convinced them that their man wouldn’t be able to win with their party split. However, as Lincoln opposed slavery expanding into new territories, but was content to let it exist where it already was this was an agreeable compromise for them. In this way, Lincoln was able to get some of the Democratic votes and gain the White House. The Know Nothing Party and Constitutional Union Party were mere blips on the radar and didn’t have a chance at propelling their candidates into the White House.

So, was Lincoln a member of the Whig Party? When it existed, yes. Was he a third party candidate during the 1860 election? No. And thus, I will stop spewing a history lesson at you.

*Okay, technically speaking the Democratic convention that split occurred before the Republican convention, but I couldn’t resist the throwback to one of my favorite childhood books.

Thursday July 28, 2016Live and Learn, Politics, WomenLeave a comment

Anyone who follows me on Facebook knows very clearly that Hillary Clinton has my vote in November. I post about her often and have gotten into more than a handful of conversations with people. One of the things that I see more than anything else from Hillary-Haters is this sentiment, “Give me a reason other than she is a woman or she is better than Trump.” Which is absolutely fair. This is your vote and I completely respect people’s desires to want to vote for a candidate who will best represent them and their beliefs. Neither of those two answers is adequate.

There are multiple reasons that HRC has my vote. Looking at her resume alone, she is one of the most qualified people to ever run for the presidency. She has extensive international diplomacy experience, has dealt with the military, knows firsthand how the Senate runs, knows firsthand what life in the White House is like and has similar if not the same stances on the majority of the major issues as me. See below. Not to mention, anybody that can weather as much criticism and backlash as she has and still be standing, much less functioning at a high level, has the fortitude to withstand a presidency. As a glass-ceiling-breaker she has been put up against higher standards then any male politician. From my study of other glass-ceiling-breakers in America, this is par for the course. She has weathered the storm with grace. And last but not least, the more that I read about her the more her tenacity and “fuck your expectations, I don’t care if I’m a woman” attitude reminds me of myself. The fact that she is a woman is just icing on the cake.

As far as my comparison of the issues, I started in two places. This information below was taken from the results of the quiz on www.iSidewith.com. As I work full time I don’t have the luxury of being able to look up all of this info on separate independent websites and compile my own results. I needed a jumping off point to know where to begin my research and what my research should focus on. In the quiz itself I clicked the “Other Stances” button to read all of the options for each question. At the end of each big issues, I clicked on “answer more questions about . . .” and continued to do this until I had answered every question available. There is also a nifty “Learn More” button next to each question. I clicked on and read almost every one of them. Some categories have many more questions than others, so it’s obviously not perfect. But for a jumping off point, really handy. Here are my results. I was actually surprised by Jill Stein, which warranted more investigation.

Candidates you side with…

89% – Hillary Clinton on social, domestic policy, economic, immigration, healthcare, environmental, science, education, and electoral issues.

87% – Jill Stein on social, domestic policy, economic, foreign policy, immigration, environmental, healthcare, science, education, and electoral issues.

65% – Gary Johnson on social, immigration, and electoral issues.

27% – Donald Trump on no major issues.

Next I looked at www.ontheissues.com which lays out each candidate, the issues and multiple quotes of their stances over time. Awesome! And wouldn’t you know it, they have a candidate picker quiz too. This one’s cool because it lets you see how you line up with senators, mayors, etc as well. However, it only asks 20 pretty basic questions. (To save time, use your back navigation button to switch which candidates you’re comparing yourself to. That way you don’t have to redo the quiz each time!) Again, this is not perfect, but it’s nice to see how this one compared to the other. I still scored with Hillary as first and Trump as last, however, the gap between Hillary Clinton and Jill Stein was bigger, and reading all of Stein’s quotes I think the bigger gap is more accurate. She’s a little too liberal for me.

This is where I started. The quizzes aside, both of these sites are great resources because of all of the questions have snippets about what the questions is talking about. On The Issues has links for every issue. It is really hard to research a topic that you know nothing about. I will be the first to admit that I am not well versed in all of the major topics. My understanding of economics is abysmal. These websites provided me with a launching point to know what and if I wanted to do research on something specific. That allowed me to brush up on, or learn about the issues themselves, decide where I stood and then match it up to a candidate. I have also read my share of articles, watched speeches and shared more than a few memes spouting rhetoric. But this is where I started, and I am more than happy to have intelligent, respectful conversations about any of it, because there is still plenty that I have to learn. Especially economics. My understanding there is still abysmal.

Tuesday July 26, 2016Change, History, Live and Learn, Right vs Wrong, WritingLeave a comment

My book is unintentionally racist. No, not my novel. That one takes place during the Civil War and is intentionally racist. It has to be to claim any sort of historical accuracy. I am talking about my children’s book, 10 Cheeky Monkeys. It’s a counting book that also teaches vocabulary words, and by happenstance because of current events portrays racism. At first I was content to sweep in under the rug and explain it away by evoking my white privilege of “You’re reading too much into it.” But quite frankly, I can’t do that anymore. I am revoking my white privilege and talking about the fact that it’s there. It isn’t something that I can do anything about at this point, I don’t have the money that it would cost to change it, but I can acknowledge that it is there instead of ignoring it.

You see, I’ve come to believe that one of the biggest problems facing us today in regards to race is everyday good people ignoring or not acknowledging racism when they see it. Or not even realizing that it is there, while meanwhile it is a constant thorn in the sides of people of color. Before the Civil War abolitionists had something to fight for: the abolishment of slavery. It was a tangible, worthy goal with easily recorded wins. Lincoln introduced the Emancipation Proclamation and the end of the Civil War secured the last nail in the coffin lid of slavery. However, something that ingrained isn’t given up that easily. The slave codes were reworded and reworked and largely became the Jim Crow laws. I realize that this is an over simplification and what follows is also a simplification, but I don’t want to bore you with too much of a history lesson, so I beg you to stick with me.

Then came the Civil Rights Movement. Again, there was something tangible to fight against, something to direct the attack. Desegregate, overturn the Jim Crow laws, and end the violence and abject fear that was running rampant in the South. These goals were easily articulated and the wins were easily recorded. However, again, something that ingrained does not go away easily. And I don’t want to harp solely on the South here. There were race riots in New York during the Civil War. In fact, before the war broke out, one of the top proposals of the anti-slavery movement was to stick all of the freed blacks on a boat and send them back to Africa. They weren’t looking for equality, they just didn’t want slavery anymore. Same for the Civil Rights movement. There were plenty of people who were all for blacks having “equal rights,” as long as they didn’t move up north into their neighborhoods. Our country is entrenched in a history of racism, and while the Jim Crow laws were overturned, the sentiments remained.

Our problem today, is that with the advent of cell phone videos and live streaming it is much easier to broadcast the stories of a select group out to a wide audience. And to quote Fannie Lou Hamer, a large majority of the black population is “Sick and tired or being sick and tired.” They are sick of the constant, insidious racism that they encounter every day and tired of it being brushed aside like it’s no big deal. It is a big deal, and unlike the activists of the past, the activists of today don’t have anything they can point to, anything that they can definitively fight against.

Sadly, for some that focus has fallen on the police as it is their onerous job to mete out a lot of this injustice. There are cities in this country that make hundreds of thousands of dollars off their poorest communities from fines and tickets. Guess who has to dole those out? The cops. If they don’t, they lose their jobs. If they do they become the enemy of the very people they have sworn to protect. EVERY ONE is set up for failure in this system. Yes, there are a select few in blue who use their power and position to unduly harass and prosecute the black communities that they are supposed to serve. They are a problem and they need to go. Racism and bigotry have no business in uniform. But even with all of them gone, it is the system as a whole that needs an overhaul.

Even if a fairy godmother could come down and snap her fingers to fix the entire system overnight, we would still have a race problem in this country and the activists of today would still be lacking a handhold for their fight. It is the hearts and minds of the general populace that need to change. But it is a general awareness that is lacking amongst a large portion of the white population that a problem even exists. That is itself one of the biggest problems, and it is perpetuated every time we see or do something racist and let it slide, because, “What’s the big deal?”

The big deal is that this country abolished slavery 151 years ago, yet has still failed to systematically treat and address the black population as equal. Don’t believe me, go to Google and type in “Obama monkey.” That is the respect shown to our commander-in-chief. Yes, all presidents get made fun of, but that is not all-in-fun ribbing. Those images are racist. If you’re still skeptical that a problem exists, type in “Leslie Jones Twitter.” That’s just the blatant racism hurled at black people, the subtle, latent racism often sneaks by under the radar of whites. It makes me shudder that we have progressed so little.

So with that said, I am calling myself out. There is a portion of my book 10 Cheeky Monkeys that can be interpreted as racist. Here are the pages next to their inspiration.

I specifically asked my illustrator to add in the police car as a throwback to a piece I did in my portfolio when I graduated from college. I of course can’t find that to add a picture, but it would be of a white guy eating his pizza as fast as he can before the police can come and arrest him. Now here are the pages next to images that are more likely to come to mind with our recent news cycles.

Is it intentional? No. Does it eerily mirror events that are popping up in the news far too frequently? Yes. Do I personally feel that it perpetuates racist stereotypes? Yes. Do I accept that as the publisher of this book and the one who requested the illustration change, that this is my doing? Yes. Does that make me a racist? No. Does that make my illustrator a racist? Absolutely not. Good, well-intentioned people do racist things every day without realizing that they are doing so. That doesn’t make them racists. However, it is time we started noticing how our words and decisions impact those of color. It is time we unlearn our years of privilege and learn to do better. Myself included.

Tuesday July 12, 2016Live and LearnLeave a comment

When I was a kid I dreaded holiday dinners when there was something big politically going on. That’s because there would inevitably be a political discussion at said dinner and I hated, loathed and despised talking about politics. They were always the same. My aunt, the token Democrat, would be on one side and her sister and two brothers, including my father, were the Republicans on the other side. The discussions went something like this. The Democrat would say something and it would land on deaf ears. The Republicans would say something in return. Which would also land on deaf ears. Then the Democrat would yell something back, so as to be better heard, yet it fell on deaf ears as well since the Republicans were too busy coming up with what they would say next to actually hear anything. Then the Republicans would yell something back, then the Democrat, and eventually the back and forth would dissolve completely and it would just become people shouting their beliefs into whatever open space there was. The only people who actually did any listening were my sister and me, and we were the only ones who weren’t taking part in the conversation. So a fat lot of good that did.

It wasn’t until years later, that I realized that this was not a political discussion. A discussion implies discourse, which implies someone listening while another talks and then responding to what was just said. That is not what happened at those holiday dinners. There was no discussion whatsoever. I’m not really sure what you can call it, other than painful to sit through. It wasn’t until after I was out of college that I had my first legit political discussion, and I loved it! And no, we didn’t agree with each other so it wasn’t just one person preaching to the choir. It was one person stating their opinion on a subject and backing it up with facts and research. Then the other person asking questions and trying to understand where that person was coming from. When they couldn’t understand, explaining why not and why they believed what they believed. And so on and so forth.

At no point was there name calling and blanket generalizations were kept to a minimum and generally called out when they were used. By the end of the discussion, neither of us had changed our minds, but we both had a lot to think about. It was amazing! That conversation lingered for weeks. The simple act of actually listening and taking three seconds to try to understand where someone is coming from was so refreshing especially with something as high charged as politics.

From that point on, I’ve become increasingly picky about who I will discuss politics with, because when done right, it’s incredibly invigorating, but when done poorly it’s less productive than banging your head on the wall. For whatever reason, as of late, I have lost my ability to pick the good discussions and keep winding up in arguments where my opponent’s main rebuttal is, “You’re wrong!” Which is oh so enlightening. So I once more find myself stuck with that old bitter taste in my mouth for talk of politics. Therefore, I am going to refrain for a bit until I can get my “picker” fixed. In the meantime, to cleanse my palate, I’m going to go bang my head on the wall.

Thursday July 07, 2016Change, History, Live and Learn, Right vs WrongLeave a comment

I feel sick. In my gut, in my heart and in my soul. I have spent considerable amounts of time studying the backward thinking that caused the Civil War. The oppression that the suffragists fought against, and the stark cruelty and abject depravity of the Civil Rights movement. I wish I could stand back and look at our country today and marvel at how far we have come. But I can’t, because we haven’t gone anywhere. The racism is still there, the intolerance and oppression are still there, and it has got to stop. The indomitable Maya Angelou once said:

America, specifically white America, you know better, so start doing better. Black men are not inherently dangerous, or the boogey man lurking in the shadows that our ancestors would have us believe. Homosexuals are not backwards or trying to denigrate and ruin your so called family values. Immigrants are not destroying our nation by bringing in their foreign tongues and diverse cultures. So get over yourselves. White is not right, or better. English is not our official national language and Christianity is not our official national religion – because we don’t have either a national language or religion. Why? This map explains the language matter better than I can, and as for religion, the first amendment of our Constitution states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”

Our founding fathers did the best they knew how to create a canvas of tolerance. Sadly we have failed the test of tolerance from day one and we continue to do so today. This country has the potential of being a great melting pot of people and culture and religion, but we will never achieve that if we continue to allow those in power – ie white Christian men – to skim anything different than themselves out of the pot. We will never achieve that if we continue to allow the thinking to pervade that anything different than white and Christian is bad.

I have great respect for our brothers and sisters in blue who do a largely thankless and hard job. I believe that there are many who do outstanding jobs. However, with that respect comes a higher level of accountability, and it is time to lay that accountability on the table. Blatant racism and prejudice should have no home in a blue uniform and it is time to clean house. It is time that we as a people demand to know what the accountability process is for our local law enforcement. It is time that we investigate what kind of oversight is in place. Is it union-based or strictly in-house? If so, then it is time that we demand there be civilian oversight as well. Police are going to stand up and protect their own, as they should for the most part, but an outside check is severely lacking to provide the needed balance.

Write to your mayor, your governor, your city-councils and let them know that we the people, who elected them, want transparency in our police forces. Write to your representatives and tell them the same. Follow-up. If you sent an email, send a physical letter. If you’ve done both and nothing has happened, make a phone call. If you’ve done all three and nothing has happened, then vote them out in November. There are more than 400 congressional seats up for re-election and innumerable local government seats. Let it be known that this will be a topic not just for discussion, but for action and only those willing to act will get the votes. The time for hashtags is over. Now is the time for action.

*For additional reading, I highly recommend the following articles: What You Can Do About Police Brutality, Concrete Ways to Be an Ally to Black People, White Silence, The Next Time Someone Says All Lives Matter, What White Folks and Non-Black POC Need to Understand About Systematic Racism, and I Recorded the Racist Things People Did to Me.

Thursday June 30, 2016Happiness, Live and LearnLeave a comment

I was never one that believed in the power of the universe/earth/person to heal and be centered. Yoga, meditation, chakras, The Secret, good vibes/energy, karma, chanting, etc all fell under the category of New-Age-Mumbo-Jumbo-Hippy-Dippy Crap. I realize that some of that is actually very old and not new-age, hence the ‘mumbo-jumbo’ or ‘hippy-dippy’ classifications. I thought it was ridiculous and therefore discounted all of it, and quite frankly anyone who practiced it. I didn’t believe in it, so it couldn’t possibly be beneficial. For those who don’t know me well, this is not because of a strict adherence or belief in a western religion. I didn’t believe in any of those either. I was what you would call a consummate non-believer.

As I have gotten older, my non-believer status has definitely been disturbed. Mostly due to the fact that my Western medicine doctors have prescribed for me yoga and meditation. Out of all of the drugs on the market to treat every ailment under the sun, my doctors prescribed this. (As it turns out, I have very good doctors.) I grumbled and bitched, but eventually I tried it. I spent my first yoga class, thinking, “This is stupid. I hate yoga.” But I did it. I also meditated, and for a good long while those sessions were spent with me telling my brain to, “Shut up already, I’m meditating here!” Needless to say, neither of these activities were especially useful at the beginning. I thought it was stupid and so it was stupid.

Then something curious happened. The more I did it, the less stupid it felt and the less stupid it felt, the more my anxiety went away. As my anxiety went away, the nightmares decreased, and as the nightmares decreased, I actually started to get some sleep. Let me tell you, sleep is a glorious thing! I didn’t necessarily increase the amount that I did yoga or meditated, but I stopped thinking of it as stupid. I acknowledged the benefits of each practice. Then I started to practice gratitude, I sent my wants and desires out into the universe and learned about the chakras. All of mine were blocked, go figure. I even made myself a chakra balancing necklace with a representative stone for each chakra. Funny coincidence, the two stones that represent my most blocked Chakras are the two stones I have always been drawn to – the majority of my jewelry contains either peridots or garnets. I’m thinking coincidence isn’t the right word there.

In other words, I’ve gone from a non-believer to a meditating-chakra-balancing-good-vibe-heal-thyself-yogi who is more curious as to what you’re grateful for than what you do for a living. I’m still not entirely sure how this complete reversal took place, it kind of snuck up on me, but I’m much happier and healthier now that it has. Hit me up if you want a chakra balancing necklace/charm. I have no idea if it actually works, but it makes me feel better. So there ya go. Okay, I lied. It’s not a complete reversal. I still dislike yoga. Namaste.

Okay, I like this part.

Thursday June 23, 2016Live and LearnLeave a comment

I was one of those obnoxious people growing up that was just naturally good at school. As long as I went to class and took notes, I could pass the tests with flying colors after very little studying. Essays were a cake-walk. I’ve always had a predilection for writing. Even in college, I wrote my papers the night before they were due and never got lower than an A. I’m organized, pay attention and was smart enough to make school a breeze. Chemistry was the closest I came to a class making me struggle, yet I still had an A when I dropped at semester because it conflicted with the art class that I wanted to take. I was that person. Feel free to hate.

The weird thing is that now that I’m older, I wish I hadn’t been that person. I wish I had been forced to learn early on that you have to work for your success. Instead, I was taught that if you show up, put forth a modicum of effort you will succeed. Yes, I had enough to deal with as a kid without throwing in struggling at school, but still. Because of this education, I have been slapped in the face as an adult more times than I can count, because I expected something to be a cake walk and it wasn’t. The first couple of times it happened, I was flabbergasted. You could have knocked me over with a feather. “What do you mean I didn’t get what I wanted? I showed up and worked toward it a little. That’s all it takes!”

Nope. I have now learned that life is not that simple, and things rarely work exactly as you planned them to. Especially not on the first try! But I’ve also realized that there is more to learn in failing then there is in succeeding. That sounds insanely cliché, but I guess it’s cliché for a reason: it’s true. I have learned more about myself, my friends and what I truly want from life through my failures then through all of the soul-searching I have ever done. I think the biggest one in there, is what I’ve learned that I truly want from life. Think about it, you fail at something and you find yourself sitting there at the bottom examining what you had been striving for. All of sudden, the extraneous bits start to slough off. “Well, that bit isn’t all that important, and that bit would be nice, but isn’t essential. Now if I could only get this.”

So you go after whatever the “this” is, and you leave the bits you pared off behind. It’s simpler now, more focused. You work toward it and you fail again. Sitting at the bottom, you once more evaluate. You once more whittle down, once more become more focused. You become clearer. Then you try again, fail again, re-evaluate again. Rinse and repeat until all that is left is the core of your desire. The wrappings and glitter and bows are gone, and all you are left with is what you truly want and it resonates deep in your soul. It resonates so profoundly that you realize you’ve been going about it all wrong, and shift gears, change tactics completely. Stride out once more to conquer the world. I feel like that’s where I am now. Rinse. Do not repeat. I hope.