Politically Incorrect, Fashion Forward, and More Things I Shouldn’t Do

July 28, 2015Tonya Lanthron 2 Comments

Sometimes I have to wonder when I see old people wearing stuff like this. I’d bet Nixon was in office the last time this dude gave a mustache ride. The chick in the “virgin” t-shirt probably lost it sometime around V-E Day. Do they really read the t-shirts, or do they just put something on because it’s clean? Or do they just put something on because they’re going to be painting, or varnishing, or prancing around in dirty things so they really don’t care?

When I wear snarky t-shirts (and I wear them a lot) I usually have my snark-effect planned out. I want people to wonder when they see me in a shirt that says, “Only Trust People Who Like Big Butts, They Cannot Lie.” The “big butt” comment is even funnier when the reader of the shirt realizes that I am, shall we say, “bootily challenged.” I have the flattest, most non-existent white-bread ass on the planet. Except maybe for my illustrious son.

If that’s the story behind these oldsters’ fashions, more power to them. Keep ’em wondering.

For the younger set, Nixon was in office from 1969-1974. As far as American presidents go, Nixon gets a bad rap. The dude was a choir boy compared to Bill Clinton, and a veritable saint when compared to the current illegitimate occupant of the White House. But get me started on the detestable Barry O., and my rants can go on for days.

V-E Day (the day Allied victory was won in Europe) is May 8, 1945. The more I think about it, I bet a lot of people lost their virginity on V-E Day. I can’t really correlate Nixon’s presidency with mustache rides, (I know when I think “sexy,” Richard Nixon doesn’t come to mind) other than to comment that in the 1970’s almost all VD was curable.

Sit on your ass and keep your mouth shut. That’s not terribly heroic, but it is 100% effective in preventing all forms of VD!

I wonder if it is considered offensive to refer to Germans as “Huns” (generally a WWI reference) or “Krauts” (generally a WWII reference) or is it OK to use either term- because Germans are white?

I know that the term “Cracker” is considered derisive (in some circles) when directed at white people from the American South, but when did it become gauche to make fun of rednecks? It seems rednecks are the only socio-ethnic group that it’s OK to malign.

It’s time to stop worrying about offending people.

Speaking of which….In spite of myself, I really like Donald Trump. I don’t know if I would really want him to be President (although I would gladly prefer my dead dog Sheena over the current illegitimate squatter) but I do like him speaking the truth and rocking the boat. HIs politically incorrect approach is refreshing, if nothing else. There are people who need to be offended, and who need to have their heads pulled out of their asses. If we haven’t learned anything else from the debacle of the Obama Administration, we should know that we need to call a turd a turd. Those who don’t get it that the “Emperor” is naked – as well as being morally bankrupt and an aider and abettor of terrorism to boot- richly deserve a wake up call. If Trump accomplishes that, more power to him. The only thing I don’t want to see is a replay of Ross Perot, who in a roundabout way (another 20th century history lesson, kiddies) bought us eight long years of Bill Clinton.

If it’s cylindrical, brown, and left by the cat, it is best to assume the item is NOT a Tootsie Roll.

My cats are generally really good about using their boxes, and most cats are unless you let the boxes go too long or the cat is sick or something. Healthy cats usually don’t have much trouble shitting where they’re supposed to. Of course, the cats have the basement to themselves, with a small (too small for dogs) cat door so they can come and go downstairs as they need,.

I didn’t generate this meme. I’m enough of a grammar Nazi to know that the author should have used “to” instead of “too.”

Still, it’s a good point.

I can use the men’s locker room and watch the sausage show. Or not. It would be my luck that the guys who wear Speedos but who should be wearing Bermudas would be showering. I’d get a big old eyeful of something like this:

Better for me to shower in the women’s – and dress modestly behind the curtain.

Opinions, Assholes, and Whatever Floats Your Boat

July 1, 2015Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

I can’t help it. But if the cars/owners involved were Camaros or Corvettes, that would be even funnier.

I don’t think that I will ever be shocked again. It’s been awhile since anything really shocked me. There aren’t too many things that really rattle me. The problem is that the things that do rattle me really rattle me.

With the exception of rare genetic or congenital anomalies, gender is male or female.

Pick one. Preferably the one that matches your plumbing.

I can’t say that I am celebrating in the streets or bathing my profile pic in a rainbow colored filter on Facebook. Nor am I shouting doom and gloom and proclaiming the end of the world because now Adam and Steve (or Annie and Eve) can get “married.” Personally I believe that same sex relations are wrong in any context (and to me, positively vile)- but so are opposite sex relations out of their proper context (but I’ve been there with the heterosexual fornication and done that, hypocrite that I can be.) I am not the Judge, nor do I want to be. I’m guilty of “doing it wrong” too, just in a different way.

Two dudes. Wonder who will clean up the piss splatters around the john?

However, I don’t make a hobby of rubbing my straightness in everyone’s face and Making Them Like It. I even use the term straightness almost lightly, as “asexual” is probably closer to what I am now. I really don’t have any desire for physical contact with anyone. I don’t like strange people touching me, and it’s been more years than I’d like to admit since I did anything other than sleep (or watch TV) in bed. The older I get the more averse to such things I become.

Even so, if you have found your “soulmate,” and you want to have at it like rabbits in heat, whether it be male, female, mechanical, inflatable, or gerbil, I don’t care. Maybe I am a bitter, old, frustrated bitty, but I just don’t want to hear about it. That’s in the same category as wondering whether or not your grandparents still have sex. Some things should remain a mystery.

I don’t care if you have the hots for a ’93 Ford Escort. I really don’t care how people get their jollies for the most part, or who they choose to land in bed with, or why.

It only bothers me when you expect me to call it normal.

You celebrate your holidays, I’ll celebrate mine.

I do have to wonder about the World Rabies Day thing. Is this observation a call to inform people about rabies and to prevent the spread of rabies? I can’t imagine anyone wanting to celebrate Rabies, but there are some real freaks out there.

In all seriousness, I don’t believe anything good or healthy is going to come out of legalizing same-sex marriage. I don’t think it’s healthy to teach children that this an acceptable lifestyle. I don’t want my grandchild witnessing gay groping and make-out fests in public. Celebrating same-sex attraction to me is sort of like celebrating heart disease or cancer- or getting excited about rabies. We know things like heart disease or cancer or some things that some people do in the bedroom (gay OR straight) are not good for you, and eventually any of those things can kill you- but then human beings can be destroyed by things that society has traditionally condoned.

For instance, overwork can kill you- (been really close to that one) but nobody has ever gone to great lengths to morally condemn those who live to work even though that can be just as much idolatry- and positively poison to your physical, spiritual and mental health as anything else. Nobody really puts up an argument to exclude or demonize the addicted-to-work. Especially when that work-addicted person is doing your work for you.

Overeating can kill you- and gluttony is a sin- but do we actively seek to exclude and shame the fat? If fat shaming really worked, we would be a nation of Calista Flockharts, and I don’t see that happening.

Fanny is allowed to experience the feline lifestyle. Fat and lazy is OK- for cats.

Perhaps the silver lining in the gay marriage movement is maybe the whole gay pride in-your-face attitude will become passé and less “trendy” now that it’s legal. Nothing serves so much as a buzz kill than making something once forbidden legitimate.

Maybe that’s why I pretty much gave up binge drinking by age 23.

Sometimes Mom does not realize the absolutely horrendous double entendre she brings up.

Fascinatingly Horrible, a Painful and Awe-Inspiring Truth, and a Silent Witness

May 21, 2015Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

I’ve often wondered when it comes to abandoned cars- why this particular dying place?

I find entropy fascinatingly horrible. Part of me doesn’t want to watch the process of death, decomposition and/or decay, but at times I am almost compelled to do so, because there’s also a strange and captivating beauty in it.

Perhaps my fascination with old and decomposing things lies in the knowledge that somewhere, in a better time, those things were once new and whole.

I could get lost in a place like this. Intentionally.

I don’t like what this world has turned into, at least culturally, and the turning began years-decades, actually- before I was born. Not all change is bad of course, but the moral and cultural disintegration of society is definitely a negative change as far as I’m concerned. I’ve said it before: Orwell’s 1984 was meant to serve as a warning, not an instruction manual. I think Orwell would be spinning in his grave if he could see just how eerily true his observations have become.

All the freaking time. Just look up at all the traffic cameras.

I do appreciate many technological advancements- in fact I would probably been long dead without a fair number of mid-20th century medical advances. Most likely I’d never lived beyond infancy, for good or for ill. And being the third (unwanted female to boot) of three, they’d probably never even bothered spending the scratch on the post mortem pic.

Once you’ve had three kids, don’t they all sort of look alike?

Anyone old enough to have ever had to mess with a broken cassette tape or who has been stranded miles away from a phone gets what I’m saying about technology. If we could have the technology without the dumb shit, and without the social and moral atrophy that seems to come along with it, perhaps utopia could be achieved!

I am not nearly that naïve. (Back to Orwell and Animal Farm and the time honored truth that some pigs are more equal than others.)

Of course, we all know that there is no such thing as a perfect world. In fact, I honestly believe in the devolution of humanity.

If only people knew… the VW “Thing” was a thinly disguised Kübelwagen.

And the whole Volkswagen concept was brewed up by Adolf Hitler.

I’ve commented many times on the strange beauty of abandoned machinery, and also of the concept that there might really be literal deus ex machina or real “gods in the machines.”

I can only imagine the silent witness written in cold, dead steel, and what does it have to say?

Sort of like a post mortem for an old, old VW Transporter.

The reality of the Transporters was (and is) that these are pretty much only meant to be owned and operated by technicians capable of repairing them.

Passionate Pragmatism, “Gifted,” but an “Underachiever,” and Related Descriptives

May 20, 2015Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

The lot is cast into the lap, but the decision is the Lord’s alone. – Proverbs 16:33 (NRSV)

“Life’s a box of chocolates, you never know which one you’re gonna get.” – Forrest Gump

I actually used to have a tapestry like this- only it was of cats playing poker- when I lived in Downtown Columbus. It covered up some old plaster imperfections in the wall. From the looks of me lately I could use something like this to cover up more than plaster imperfections.

Holy shit, I’m looking old.

Even though I look every flipping second of my age and then some, I went to school with some people who look a hell of a lot worse than I do. Some of them look better than me too, but that makes sense. By and large, the golden people tend to stay that way.

I was never, ever, ever, one of the golden people.

I know, comparison isn’t very fair and isn’t really very comforting, especially when I realize that if I let the hair color go and didn’t bother to do makeup I’d likely be mistaken for deranged or even dead. I didn’t come from a particularly affluent part of the world, either, and many of my cohorts are even poorer than I am. Poverty does not do much for one’s appearance or outlook. As the saying goes, money may not buy happiness- but it can buy you the misery you like the best.

I guess if it is rumored to be shitty it must be funny.

Speaking of all things shitty, I remember all too well there’s a holiday weekend coming up which means I will have lazy asses goldbricking at my expense even more than normal. “Skippy” as I like to call him -because even when he does show up at work he comes in late, wanders off for hours at a time, and has the balls to leave early to go to Every. Single. One. of his 17 year old son’s baseball games (and he’s not the coach) has got to be the laziest man on earth. Anyway, Skippy has managed to take his level of apathy and work avoidance even higher by taking off Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend- probably to watch even more freaking baseball.

I can think of so many more things I’d rather do.

Granted, he doesn’t do anything when he is at work, so why do I care? I’m already doing his job as it is. I guess I’m just pissed because he’s getting paid for not doing shit. I am getting a bit of entertainment as he is trying to train his buddy (who has the IQ of paint) to be as adept at shirking work as he is.

Yes, I am burned out. Crispy. Fried. Smoked.

I am so tired of how stupid people can be. It might be because of the stupidity I encounter at work, and yesterday was especially choice given that I was horribly sick most of the day. Of course I couldn’t just leave because we are (as always) short staffed and one of the guys (as usual) had a child care issue. So screw me sideways again. It’s good I am not a frequent puker, and that I didn’t have the screaming shits.

I’ve been called many things in my life, and a good many of them derogatory. I always thought “gifted but an underachiever,” was a funny one, as the only ones who ever used that descriptive were math teachers who couldn’t understand why I was doing good to get a “B” or “C” in math when I pretty much slept through everything else and got straight “A”s.

Math was the only subject I actually studied for, and I still sucked at it. I love it when people just assume that if you’re good at one thing then you’re slacking if you suck at something else.

If they thought I sucked at math, they should have watched me attempt team sports.

I suck at sports like no one has ever sucked before. Except swimming, but that’s just for personal exercise.

Arousing the Attention of Law Enforcement, and Vehicle Customization “Don’ts”

May 7, 2015Tonya Lanthron 7 Comments

I try to avoid interactions with law enforcement. I think most rational people do. I’m intimidated easily enough, and I really don’t want to be bothered anyway, so I try to just live my life, quietly obeying the rules and generally blending into the wall.

I learned a disturbing truth a few mornings ago. I should know better, too, but I wasn’t paying attention.

On my car (the illustrious Corolla S, with the 6 speed manual, which is an awesome ride) you can just leave the lights and fog lights on (which I usually do) and they will turn off when one turns the ignition off. But for some bizarre reason I turned the lights off. When you turn the lights off, the DRLs (headlights only) still come on. Usually that’s not a real issue.

The headlights are HIDs and are insanely bright, so I didn’t notice that the parking lights or tail lights weren’t on, as I went off on my merry way through the cop obstacle course between my house and the Y. I’ve been known to see as many as six cops between my house and the Y (1.8 miles.) This is particularly odd, considering I make this trip between 5 and 5:15AM. I know there are quite a few speed traps in that small stretch, so I plan accordingly and keep at a painfully slow 35MPH to avoid an unplanned and expensive speeding ticket.

So I was completely shocked when I had a cop light me up. I know I was only doing 35 or maybe a bit less, so what in the flying thunder could this guy want with me?

I did remember the most important thing from my CCW class- let the officer see your hands, because he knows you carry the minute he runs your plates.

So as I stuck my hands out the window, all I could say was, “My weapon is in the trunk.” Which it was. I’m not about lying to cops.

He asks for my driver’s license, and then asked me if I knew my tail lights were out. Then it dawned on me- I looked at the dash and realized for some reason I’d turned off the lights and was just running on DRLs. Oh. Shit.

So the officer- who thankfully wasn’t being a douche bag about it, even though he would have had the right- ran my license. Seeing I had no record, or outstanding warrants, or reason to believe I was running a meth lab out of a late model Corolla, let me go once he verified that yes, my lights all work- when they’re turned on.

At least I didn’t get a speeding ticket.

I have to wonder if I’d been treated differently had I been younger, male, or belonged to a different ethnic group. I know Steve-o was randomly pulled over several times when he had his Audi. The demographics didn’t look good- a 20 year old kid driving a late model Audi A4 in impeccable condition, in an area where the average young 20 something is unemployed, on drugs, and not averse to stealing things. I think the cops just couldn’t believe that someone of Steve-o’s demographic actually worked and earned money to buy a nice car via legitimate means. In their defense, considering most of his age cohorts, I understand their incredulity.

So… the place of notoriety for those of Steve-o’s generation is the “Busted” paper- getting your mug shot plastered all over Central Ohio. The list of names (center) were all the bizarre names I found in just that one issue of the “Busted” paper. Anyone with the last name “Hunt” should really have their head examined before naming their child “Michael.” Another one I found funny was the name “Ciera,” as if her first name should be “Cutlass.” And the name “Crystal,” no matter how you spell it, leads me to want to call her “Crystal Meth.” Note to self: do NOT use the “Busted” paper as a reference source for potential baby names. Although I’m sure some people do.

The badly painted (likely with a house roller) Cincinnati Bengals tribute Civic is a more typical vehicle for someone of Steve-o’s age to be seen driving. Either that or this distressed Accord:

This looks eerily like Steve-o’s first car, a ’92 Accord with about 400K on it.

As soon as he could afford it, he traded it on a ’95 Integra- but he’s had plenty of cars since then.

I mean, right MEOW.

Steve-o got to sit in the back of a cruiser (twice) while the cop verified that his temp tag was legit right after he bought the Audi. Not long after he got his regular plates he got pulled over (again) and the K9 officer who pulled him over thought it appropriate to go through the Audi with the drug dog. I doubt if they found a cough drop or a gum wrapper, (Steve-o is one of those people who doesn’t eat, smoke or do anything in the car that might leave a mess) but the dog did leave behind some hair and slobber that provoked Steve-o to pay for a $150 detail to remove. In some ways I’m glad he traded the Audi for a (newer, yes, but less ostentatious) Jetta. He’s not been pulled over once in the Jetta. Apparently that’s not as much of a head turner as the Audi.

Do I agree with profiling? Not necessarily, and I realize that if Steve-o appeared to be anything other than what can only be called “super white” that a simple, “have a seat in the cruiser” could have turned far uglier. Cops are human too. I know I profile. I know I hit that door lock switch extra fast in certain parts of town. I’m not saying it’s right to do it, but everyone does.

Creative Use of Just About Everything, and Adventures in Eclectic Home Décor

April 30, 2015Tonya Lanthron 1 Comment

If Steve-o thought I had problems with the whole “warm and fuzzy” mommy bit, just wait until I try my hand at home décor- in his house. That is just plain scary, given that my idea of decorating has much more to do with function than the aesthetic. I still have the big Ohio State tapestry on the wall in my room that Jerry put there, for some inexplicable reason. I’m not even that much of an Ohio State fan. I like some hangings on the wall to break up the monotony, but I don’t really give décor much thought. Unless, of course, it’s funny.

For example, this is funny. It will be even funnier when I get the outhouse next to it done.

For the most part, however, I can live without a whole lot of kitsch.

I already told Steve-o he will have his very own G T F O sign- since he doesn’t really get into cute little “Welcome” signs.

Figure it out.. it’s not difficult.

Of course he will probably come up with his own unique flair:

I can imagine all the other funky things that being a man, he won’t mind, such as shall we say “dated” furniture, archaic bathroom fixtures and strangely colored kitchen appliances:

In all seriousness, Steve-o’s house has two full bathrooms. Both of them have new plumbing and faucets, but the tubs, sinks and toilets are straight out of 1975. One bathroom set is this horrible yellow (like the above kitchen) and the other one is a sort of medium brown. On the plus side, the brown will probably hide a lot of stains. Especially in the toilet bowl.

I envy him the 70’s non-low-flow toilets though. Those things are industrial strength, heavy duty beauties that will flush down horse piles, and various and sundry objects up to as large as Jimmy Hoffa. The way he shits, that’s going to be necessary. I don’t know how many times he has had to run for the plunger not just in my house but in my parents’ house (Dad replaced the toilets in the early 2000s and they are awful) as well.

I’m still getting him a couple of plungers as housewarming gifts. In fact, three- one for each toilet, and one for the sinks.

I’ll have to put together my list of crap you need when you move but don’t think about, and then work on collecting said items for him.

1. Drain cleaner.

2. Clorox.

3. Paper towels.

4. Cleaning rags and towels (cloth.)

5. Lysol and various spray air fresheners.

6. Mop and mop bucket- also Murphy’s Oil Soap and magic erasers.

7. Plungers.

8. Coffee- coffee pot, coffee filters, coffee cups.

9. Paper plates, Dixie cups, plastic silverware and napkins.

10. Toilet mints (the blue things you put in the toilets to keep the water blue and to keep dogs from drinking out of the bowl)

I’m sure I’ll come up with more. I have time.

Let’s Have a Riot! (Why?) and Historical Interest

April 28, 2015Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

Why? Ass pilots!

I am sorry but I have absolutely no pity, understanding or tolerance for ass pilots who drum up misdirected feline aggression toward “da man” because some criminal gets beaten up by cops, and then go off to destroy their own cities. I don’t care what kind of rationalization gets cooked up to justify that sort of behavior. Let’s face it: there are flaming idiots who go out and commit egregious crimes. Violence happens. I don’t like those facts either, or that we humans are violent beasts, but the cure for violence generally is not cooking up more random violence and destruction to add to it. That’s sort of counterintuitive. The only sort of justifiable force is the force necessary to put a thug in his place.

Violence is more likely to happen when someone is in the process of breaking the law. I don’t care if the law breaker in question is male, female, straight, gay, trans, black, white, green or turquoise. When you break the law, you open yourself up to having the police- or even those who you are breaking the law against- beat the living shit out of you. I’m not going to start it, but if you physically involve me I will finish it. If the circumstances dictate, I may just cheer the arbiter of legitimate street justice right on along- but looting the 7-11 because you’re pissed that some thug got what was coming to him from the cops…that’s just plain stupid.

If you steal from me and I beat you senseless, you asked for it.

If you try to assault me or carjack me, and I put a .357 through your skull, (and in the proper circumstance I would not hesitate to do so) you bought and own that particular suicide-by-old-bitty.

A last resort, but if it’s you or me…it’s gonna be you.

Leave me alone, you keep your stuff, I keep mine, you keep your hands to yourself, and I have no problem with you.

Why can’t we all just get along?

In better portents, the POMC- the Precious Only Male Child- has signed a contract on a house. He has, from what I can see, done well for himself, even though I had some trepidation regarding the age of this place. The main house (it has numerous additions, upgrades and renovations) was built in 1885. I didn’t know if I was really comfortable with him buying some joint that’s 130 years old, but the basement is thick stone with a concrete floor and the foundation is solid. There are two huge full bathrooms, one upstairs and one downstairs. The joint even has a new dishwasher. The wiring, water heater, furnace, plumbing, carpets, paint and pretty much all of those kinds of things that can be big problems in old houses are new. The seller agreed to install the central air unit that goes with the furnace as part of the deal (why he did all those improvements without adding A/C is beyond me, but different strokes for different folks, I guess) so Steve-o will pretty much only have very minor things to deal with once he moves in. The first call should be to the alarm company, then to the utility companies.

Chez Steve-o is not this ornate, but almost this big.

He will need the alarm company. He does not have dogs, and even though he is armed, guns don’t help if you sleep like death. Someone could break into that place and steal him blind and he would sleep through it.

His days of waking up to the All-Catholic, all the time, channel are hopefully numbered. Now he will probably be waking up to the tune of “Boats and Hoes.”

Short Attention Span Theatre, House Hunting, and Feminine Mystique?

April 22, 2015Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

I love old Victorian architecture, but not being “handy” – this would be a bad idea, at least for me.

Steve-o is finally bound and determined to buy a house. It’s probably a good idea, since Mom is getting even nuttier than normal. I know it’s getting bad for him when she leaves her TV on the EWTN (the 24/7 all-Catholic, all the time,) channel full blast all the time. I know she’s trying to work the Catholic brownie point system- and the older she gets the more paranoid she gets about it- but Steve-o’s not Catholic. If she’s looking for a conversion candidate so she can earn points for redeeming a heathen, I can think of much easier prey.

If Mom only knew. ALL guys do it.

All of his religious instruction took place in a Lutheran church (where “self abuse” and/or contraception are not generally considered sins), and even so, he’s not a particularly religious kind of guy. Wigging him out on the more bizarre points of Catholicism, which you will get a real education on if you watch EWTN for very long, is NOT going to result in him converting to Catholicism and joining the priesthood.

Major Logo FAIL. In So Many Ways…

I am surprised he’s not having nightmares similar to the ones I had as a child over some of the more bizarre teachings. He likes women and the horizontal mambo way too much for that noise. He is at a point in his life where he is really questioning the existence of God and there is nothing apart from the power of the Holy Spirit Himself that will be able to bring him to faith. Even then, sincerely it would take an Act of God to get him to even consider going back to church- any Christian church. Right now spiritually he is rather injured and cynical. He’s at that difficult point of finding it hard to believe in God because he is thinking, “How can a good God let me down- and let me hurt so bad?” He’s still getting over being rejected by his daughter’s mother, and even though he would never admit how much that crushed him, that was a really deep wound.

I know this because I have been there too, as far as being rejected and feeling as if God abandoned me. I went through that doubt and angst for about seven years at one time. Steve-o is too authentic and too intellectual to “get it” about faith easily, or without perusing the evidence. He’s going to have to be one of those seekers and knockers and askers (more like screamers at times…) like I was. For him faith will be like it is for me- only by the hard way. An unexamined faith, and a faith without doubts, is not faith at all.

Faith is vexing, but unbelief is illogical.

I don’t mean to bash Catholics, and frankly, I can go along with most of what the RCC (Roman Catholic Church) teaches. I have the same problems with Catholicism that Martin Luther had- the primacy of the pope, the celibacy of priests, the purchase of indulgences for the forgiveness of sins, and the whole concept of a brownie point system where forgiveness is earned in any way by what people do. I’ve actually read the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and according to their rules, if you don’t believe and go along with everything the Church teaches, then by definition, you can’t claim to be Catholic. I have real intellectual problems with just accepting what some person (not God) or even some “esteemed group of people” says without being accorded any sort of space for analysis or debate. That makes me Protestant by definition. Just sayin’.

No, this is NOT me.

I’m still struggling with the concept of the feminine image of God and the importance of beauty in God’s view that we have been going over in our study. Maybe that whole concept sort of pisses me off in a way, because I’ve never seen myself as beautiful, and I’ve never really been regarded as much more than a Fetcher of Beer, or someone to whine at about food, or someone to clean up when there’s dog shit on the floor. From my earliest memory I’ve been defined by what I can or can’t do, (and by how epic my failures are) but I’ve never felt as if anyone saw me as having any sort of native, intrinsic value.

I know that I talk the talk and I get it, at least intellectually, that salvation is a gift of grace- nothing that I can earn or deserve- but deep in my heart of hearts I am still that pathetic, geeky little girl who the other kids threw mud and bugs at. I’m still the awkward kid who doesn’t belong, still the girl the guys approached to get her phone number- so they could call her sisters. I was never anyone’s first choice, and was doing good to be a consolation prize.

I’m still sticking with the study even though it’s tearing open some really old wounds. Heart is a LOT harder to reach than Mind.

That’s what continuous multitasking will do for you.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I really don’t enjoy multitasking. I don’t like being interrupted at all. When I’m doing what I want to be doing I don’t get distracted…until someone else bugs me and nags me about doing something else or doing something in addition to what I’m doing.

Sometimes I just need to tell the rest of the world to bite me sideways.

Orwell Was Right, (1984 Was Not Supposed to Be an Instruction Manual) and Adventures of the Inane

April 6, 2015Tonya Lanthron 1 Comment

Every day, all the time.

When I got rear-ended in my 2008 Yaris, back in 2010, I had every single ambulance-chasing lawyer in Franklin County sending me all sorts of crap- in the postal mail, via e-mail and yes, even by calling and leaving obnoxious messages on my cell phone about how I need to contact their particular legal emporiums to get compensation for my non-existent “injuries.” All I wanted was to get my car fixed. Had I actually been injured, that would have been one thing, but I think had I been injured I’d been wise enough to seek out appropriate legal counsel without relying on ambulance chasers who solicit business by trolling the police reports.

That really sucked, but the car did what it was designed to do. I was unscathed.

Of course it never seems like the Entities that Be know anything important about you if they really need to, as evidenced by the “How’s Your Diarrhea, Mildred” Incident of 2012. I won’t claim that even at that time I looked “well preserved” for 43, but to be mistaken for a ninety-something named Mildred, well, that was both disarming and morbidly funny at the same time. I guess it was a good thing I was lucid and verbal. But if the health care industry (and business is what it’s all about, folks, it’s all about the MONEY,) really gave two farts in a high wind about something other than dollar signs, they might actually be more concerned with caring for people rather than being sure to collect beaucoup on every warm (or cold, for that matter) carcass that darkens their doors.

I have a great deal of cynicism toward the health care industry. In large part the government is behind the incredibly inefficient and expensive health care fiasco in the United States. It was bad before Obamacare, but with Obamacare it has become even more outrageously expensive, while the quality of care grows abysmally worse. The problem is that the government butted into health care to begin with- and that there are way too many special interests who have wormed their way into the government so they can line their own pockets- at the taxpayers’ expense. Nobody dares to address tort reform, which would lower health care costs by drastically restricting payouts to ambulance-chasing lawyers and their clients. Nobody dares to embrace the free market and encourage competition in health care- instead- it is a governmentally driven oligarchy hell bent on feeding itself while providing lackluster, substandard care at grossly inflated prices.

If any other industry treated their clients as piss-poorly as the health care industry does, they would be out of business- but since health care providers are pretty much equally over priced and equally abysmal in their standards of care, where else can one go, because they will all suck equally bad? You just have to put up with it, and keep writing those grossly inflated checks.

You would also think with all those bloody forms one has to fill out every freaking time one encounters a health care provider, that they might actually keep some of that crap on file. If you can access my social security number and birthdate and location of my first-born to be sure to avail every possible opportunity to bill me and/or the insurance company, then why can’t you find my history with the same information?

Better yet, with all the technology out there, why has no one figured out a way to keep people from having to sit in a crowded, hot hole crammed in next to Typhoid Mary, Bad Body Odor Larry, and Gonorrhea Shaniqua- a crowded, hot hole with nothing to read besides last year’s Hemorrhoid Monthlys and Urology Digests, where there’s nothing on TV but the “who’s my baby daddy” tabloid type shows, while waiting for hours to get maybe three minutes of face time with some guy who (if you’re lucky) is simply going to write you a script and send you home? If that’s all there is to the medical biz, and you’re going to rape me financially anyway, as long as nothing’s bleeding or broken, why can’t we just do it online and save my time?

I am not a big fan of surveillance cameras. Their indiscriminate use seems to violate the 4th Amendment as far as I’m concerned.

To the state of Ohio’s credit, they have ruled the red-light cameras unconstitutional, but any form of random surveillance (without probable cause) in the public sphere violates the 4th Amendment whether they’re trying to entrap criminals or not.

Since very few people bother to actually read the Constitution, here’s the 4th Amendment:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

I do consider constant surveillance to be a violation because who really has the right (or should have the right) to watch your comings and goings? There are “traffic flow” cameras all over the intersection not even a block from my house. Where is there probable cause for anyone other than me to know where my particular black Corolla is at any particular time? Maybe I could see it if the cops knew I was out committing crimes, or if I had a history of crime, but what makes random surveillance any better? Just because they’re watching everyone it makes watching one person OK? Is random search a condition of using public roadways paid for in part by my taxes? That doesn’t seem quite right.

Better yet, I must say to the various and sundry government entities with the cameras: “Why are you randomly searching me?”

I bet this bumper sticker would arouse the attention of law enforcement.

I Am Well Aware, and Resolution Deferred

April 3, 2015Tonya Lanthron Leave a comment

I don’t like to think about “autism awareness” a whole lot, because a lot of the “autism awareness” hype is exactly that. I’ve been aware of autism my entire life. I just didn’t know what it was called until 11 years ago, and even then I had a hard time accepting that description as belonging to me. I rationalized that diagnosis every way I knew how. I couldn’t be “autistic-” hell, I’d just spent the previous however many years playing the normal game- academic achievement, professional achievement, raising a child. Don’t people with autism just sit and rock in a chair, non-communicative, sitting in their own shitty diapers all day? How could someone like me- addicted to overwork, obsessed with professional achievement, possibly be autistic?

I’m not asocial. I function in social situations. I get through. I come off OK. Even when I’m scared as hell. Even though I will probably never get the whole business with eye contact or how to give and receive non-verbals with any kind of accuracy. Even when at times I’ve just had too much and I have to flip into a bathroom stall or pull the car over to freak out. Even when I get emotional and lose all ability to find or use words. Even when I know that everyone around me thinks I’m a spaz and a freakazoid.

Shakespeare said, “All the world’s a stage, and we are merely players.” I learned to be a damned good actress, most of the time- partially out of self preservation, and partially out of a determination to prove that I can out-normal the normals.

But by the time I was 30 and my physical health took a dramatic nosedive, I began to realize just how high a price I was paying for the semblance of normality, which was really just a hollow caricature. It was hypernormality. I had to be super-normal to hide the fact that I was anything but- and by my mid-thirties, that illusion was falling apart.

I wanted to believe that whatever was missing or wrong with me had an easy fix. It doesn’t. There is no fix. It’s hard wired. It’s just the way I am. I will never be “normal,” and that’s the way it is.

I’m aware that I don’t fit in. I’ve always been aware that I’m the “one of these things that’s not like the others” – even before the kids’ TV show made a game of spotting the oddball.

That being said, the way I’m wired is not an excuse. If anything my wiring has served as an impetus for others to impose their notions of noblesse oblige upon me- and for me to gladly embrace that position of noblesse oblige, with the hidden motive that if I do enough, well enough, I might just validate my own existence. I have some interesting abilities for what it’s worth, such as speed reading, technical knowledge, and so forth.

“You can, therefore, you must.” OK., whatever, if you promise to leave me alone when I’m done. Only they never do.

I have to wonder about that too. Most of the ones I encountered were asshats.

Maybe overwork and overachievement are coping mechanisms. Or maybe they are just ways to keep myself occupied so I don’t have to stop and think- and freak.

In music there is a concept of dissonance and resolution. A dissonant chord sounds tense and unfinished until the chord is resolved. Sometimes I feel like I live in that tension and unresolved dissonance like that, just hanging in the air waiting for resolution.

I have to admit that I am afraid to just step back and be, as weird as that sounds. I’ve always been more concerned with what I can do (as though I can actually prove my own worthiness to suck up valuable oxygen) as opposed to having intrinsic value for just being. I’ve never been a fan of psychological systems that propose to validate one for doing nothing, and maybe that’s just my own defense mechanism. I don’t believe in giving prizes to the 12th place loser, even on those occasions when I am the 12th place loser. I still have something that screams out, “I may be defective, but I can still serve some kind of purpose!”

Today being Good Friday, among more awesome truths to ponder, I am challenged to see the Biblical perspective on life and vocation and purpose, and when I look at life that way I find I’ve pretty much been chasing after wind. Ultimately I have to accept the facts that: I can’t earn or attain justification or validity, I am deeply and inherently flawed in many ways, and there is nothing I can do to change that. I have to accept that only in the death and resurrection of Christ does anything have any purpose or meaning. I don’t completely get that, but on its most basic level it means that I am free to be what God created me to be, whatever that is, and I’m still trying to figure that out.

I would add the caveat that salvation is not license, but among other things it is permission not to confuse doing with being. Still working through that one, complete with fear and trembling.

ELYSIANHUNTER, ALWAYS INCITEFUL:

Because comedy is the flipside of tragedy

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