Even My Country Isn't the Same: Stating the Truth in the Face of Overwhelming Bullshit

I posted this as a note on Facebook today, and concluded that when I do this kind of thing, I really ought to blog it instead, even if it is a bit tangential to the ideas of geography and identity. Or maybe it isn't.

I've been so depressed lately. This constant flood of layer after layer of lies and complete indifference to truth on the part of some politicians, being egged on and abetted by people who claim to be journalists but who are nothing more than sensationalists and mob inciters. My friend John posted today that there was "no hope" for this country, when we no longer care what is true or just or legal. I was demoralized to find that I really couldn't disagree; but I also realized that if I just throw up my hands, then I deserve the world it looks like I'm about to get. So when people tell lies about our society, I'm going to stand up and tell the truth. Not because I really want to make Facebook a political thing (I really don't), but because silence is complicity, and morally I just can't accept that.

So today, a couple of things:

(1) Barack Obama is a natural born American citizen--there is just no way around that. And while there are certainly plenty of non-racist reasons to disagree with Mr. Obama and his political agenda, there is no non-racist basis for claiming that he isn't American, that he's Kenyan, that he's a Muslim terrorist sleeper agent. This is ugly, it's disgusting, and it would never have been able to continue--in the face of the incontrovertible evidence--for so long without plenty of racial animus behind it. John McCain WAS born outside the United States (in Panama) and yet nobody thought twice about that. He's white. He's Republican. For him it's a technicality that didn't matter. (In fact, it DIDN'T matter--and it wouldn't matter if Obama had been born outside the country either, which he wasn't.)

For the record, because Barack Obama's mother was an American citizen, in 1961 he was an American citizen at birth--no matter where he was born. IF he HAD been born outside of the country, he would not have had to be naturalized on entry to the U.S.: he was born a U.S. citizen. He retained that status as long as he lived in the U.S. continuously for at least 5 years between the ages of 14 and 28, which there is no doubt he did. So even if these pestilential birthers could produce any evidence in support of their groundless claims that Obama was born somewhere other than the U.S. , it wouldn't matter: President Obama would still be a natural born U.S. citizen.

But the fact is that he was born in Honolulu, Oahu, at 7:24 p.m. on August 4, 1961--which is well documented and has been proven again and again and again. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/06/obama-birth.html

Donald Trump isn't really too stupid to know or understand this stuff: he's just shamelessly cynical, lawless and self-serving enough to whip up vulnerable, bigoted, willfully ignorant Americans with this lie in order to support his own campaign. Can you imagine being led by a man who builds his campaign on that kind of ruthless hatred for the law, for truth or justice or honor, or indeed for anything but his own personal power?

(2) You can't get a pap smear or breast exam at Walgreens. Both of these things require a doctor and a clinical setting. If you are a man and you really didn't know this, you should have. The two male co-hosts of "Fox & Friends" who support defunding Planned Parenthood either didn't know this, or knew and deliberately lied. At BEST, they didn't give a damn if it was true or not. The women--on the show and who watch the show--who let them get away with this should be ashamed. Much like Senator Jon Kyle, who claimed in a prepared statement on the Senate Floor, that "90% of what Planed Parenthood does is abortions". Actually, 3% of Planned Parenthood's annual budget goes to abortion services --the rest is birth control (thereby preventing the need for abortion), health screening, gynecological health exams and treatment, and testing and treatment of STDs and referrals for treatment for HIV. When questioned about the 90% number, Kyl's staff said it was "never meant to be a factual statement." Seriously? On the Senate floor, as an argument for de-funding this organization, it didn't matter that the basis of his argument was absolutely untrue? Glenn Beck claims that "nobody but hookers relies on Planned Parenthood for health services." I guess to Glenn Beck a woman making $13,000 a year with minimal health 'benefits' that don't include gynecological care is the equivalent of a hooker, but when I was a paralegal in Boston in the late 1980s it never occurred to me that getting my annual exam at Planned Parenthood made me a prostitute. I actually never saw any hookers there, just a whole lot of students and people with no health insurance, like me.

Despite the fact that Kyl's numbers were shown to be a flat out, and unapologetic, fabrication, Michelle Bachman went right back out and said "everybody knows Planned Parenthood wants to be the LensCrafters of abortion"--because of course what "everybody knows" is always sexier and more fun and more quotable than the truth or even anything supported by a shred of evidence. She also said they are the "biggest political organization you can imagine!" She must think we have very tiny imaginations. The conservative United States Chamber of Commerce pumped an official $33 million into political campaigns and legislative lobbying in the past year; Planned Parenthood's legal and political outlay was about $1million.

A departure from fact and a foray into a opinion here:

Everybody is entitled to their views on the proper use of federal funding, but if you have to tell lies to win the result you are after, then you presumably are lying about the reasons you want that result. So what is it these folks REALLY want? You can bet it isn't likely to be good for the autonomy of women. Any women.

Anyone, but especially any woman, who would vote for a politician or support 'news' programming that tells deliberate lies like this in order to pass legislation aimed at gutting women's health services, or let's her spouse vote for that person, should be deeply ashamed. To those women, if you happen to know any: You know this is a lie, and you know it is a lie told by someone who has absolute contempt for women, and deep down you know that "women" includes you, whether you like it or not. It isn't just liberal women these guys despise, it's all women, even the ones who think they can "pass" by being as callous and money grubbing and gun-toting and contemptuous of women in general as the next guy. So don't think there's going to be some special club membership for the women who acted like loyal guys when you help bring their anti-woman agenda to fruition.

(3) Public school teachers didn't cause the economic collapse that has wiped out retirement savings and so devastated our country and economy, nor did health services for women, nor arts programming for the public, nor did civil rights for gay citizens: it was the reckless "greed is good", "money makes right," "if they buy the junk we package as investments it's not our fault" and then "grab what you can before this whole house of cards comes down" and then lying, document-hiding, money-laundering, under-regulated investment banking houses that did that.

Everybody is free to have their opinion on the proper use of federal funds, and state governments are free to negotiate salaries and make hard choices about what services they can afford to provide, but let's not use lies to support our arguments. That kind of defeats the purpose of having a vote.

Hello, Universe

I'm having a rare moment of gratitude: for my life, for my family, for my friends, for the remarkable amount of love and support I've seen flowing around this week. Not necessarily to me, but to people I love, and sometimes to people I love because I've asked for that for them, and the response was, "but of course!" Many things may be up in the air, many things are unresolved, many hard choices lie ahead in the not-at-all-distant-future, and then there is the fact that many things feel deeply wrong to me in the world just outside my own life. Today, I feel like I can handle all that and even grow from it, in part thanks to the feeling that there are those who care that this is hard, who don't want to tell me what to do, but are happy to stay by my side while I navigate through it. So I'm feeling grateful. And since everyone else is asleep, I thought I'd just launch a thank you to the universe from here.

Home Again, Home Again

The primary benefit of the move from Los Angeles to the Washington, DC area is that it puts me within a couple of hours' drive of my parents, who aren't getting any younger even if they also aren't getting noticeably more mature. So when I found out last week that my Dad was having another surgery to remove another melanoma (the first was a little less than two years ago, the week before we moved here), this time I could go up and be with them. They didn't "need" me, but it was definitely more fun for all of us to go out drinking and dining in style in Philadelphia the night before than it was for them to hang out in their hotel room, and for me to be at home wondering if I should have gone. I may not be a good influence, but I can be a good listener. It went well, we had lunch, I made him sit down with an icepack, and I got on a train for two hours, rather than a plane for 5 1/2, to go home. Pretty cool, really.

Now I'm back home, waiting to go pick up my son from his fourth visit to a potential new school in three weeks. He hates this; almost as much as he hates being in his current school. I think we'll leave my feelings about the whole issue aside for now.

Is it possible to be homesick for someplace you've never lived? For the last two months I've had this unbelievable yearning to go to Scotland and/or southwest England; mainly to go walking on downs and highlands. It truly feels like homesickness; like if I could go and just be there for a while I'd be where I belonged, and I'd be refreshed. Yet I've never been to Scotland, never been to the Cotswolds. I've been to London, and to Wales, both of which I love passionately, but the rest of this is all some made up imagery in my head. And yet, it feels so real--and maybe the universe heard me this time.

My husband's business trip to Shanghai next week meant we had to cancel our President's Day weekend plans (bummer), and then he had a trip to London added right in front of the Shanghai trip (as an international relations major I am of course not at all envious of my husband's jet-setting career. nope, not me). So :12 days without him, four of which my son would be on vacation from school. What was I going to do with four days, no vacation plans, and a husband in London for the long weekend? Hey, wait a minute....

Yes. We're all going to London and I'm so excited I can't sit still. I haven't been there in ten years. It isn't a solitary trek across the moors to a cup of tea by the fire, but it's London, and I feel like I'm going hoooome.

What Am I Anyway

The problem with Facebook is that it keeps me from writing. My former teacher, the wonderful Amy Friedman, several years ago forbade us to "tell anybody your stories. For two months." That forced us to write them. We supposedly-blocked writers with nothing to say suddenly became prolific. Many of of us poignant, many of us brilliantly funny and poignant. Not me, incidentally. So far I can sometimes manage poignant (with a lot of personal bloodletting), and often funny in an ironic way that suits some but not all tastes, but not both at the same time. Until I really and truly quit whining, I think really and truly funny will continue to elude me, and maybe even then. Besides, write now, whining is my MO. (That's neither poignant nor funny, but apparently it's what I need to do right now. So I guess the best I can hope for in a literary sense is that someone hears their own suppressed whine in mine.) Facebook is great for short, snippy vents, and so I never have to write anything real. Or at least not anything real and personal.

The good thing about Facebook is that it does occasionally prompts me to say what I mean about something universal. It usually sneaks up as what I intend to be a quick response to something I find annoying, which gets too long, which I then have to turn into a note. I'll repost one of those in a couple of days, when I have created a little distance between it and the original posts on this blog. (And when I have looked it over to determine whether I was actually thinking, and not just judging, when I wrote it.) As I type, this still isn't live, and some of the emotions from a year ago are still things to which, to be honest, I'd prefer not to subject my husband and my family-in-law. All of them undoubtedly are and have been the strongest supporters of my writing aspirations and attempts. I'd like them to read some good stuff without necessarily back-tracking into a mire of my personal discontent. But that won't be today.

Ironically, it is when I feel most alienated and alone and unacceptable that I resort to this blog. The times when my feelings are too raw, or fundamental, to vent even on Facebook. Right now, what I need to do is to scream out my fury and existential pain at where I find myself--which is damned close to non-existent. Married to a wonderful man, mother to a miraculous soul of a son, and absolutely dying--physically, mentally and spiritually--more and more, not by the day but the hour, because neither of those miracles can change the fact that for five years or more I have been trapped in this life of trying--over, and over, and over again-- to ensure simple things like that we have a place to live, that that place is clean and liveable, and that our son has a school environment that is non-terrifying (goal one) and ultimately supports his growth and security as an intelligent, creative human being (we were there, briefly, now we're not again). These seem like basic things to me; preconditions to even babysteps toward a regained life of my own. And yet for as long as I can remember now, as soon as I get one piece in place, somebody knocks out literally all the others. And it's my job to make it work, because let's face it, I'm "it."

Somehow I missed the obvious facts that by (1) having a child, and (2) three years later giving up my careerand independence to stay home with him when he was having trouble, I forfeited my place in the world of people whose needs and schedules must be accommodated, and became instead someone whose entire work/purpose consists in accommodating others. I have no one to blame but myself. The logic is that once you quit your job outside the house, every job that is not part of your partners' paying job is your job. Since you no longer contribute to the family income that would otherwise pay for help with household administration, if you want to be home with your kid it sort of seems obvious that you need to pick up the tasks that the family can no longer afford to pay someone else to do. Or maybe it could, but since you are home anyway, it seems sort of a waste to pay someone else to do them. You then get to be grateful for any "help" that your spouse gives you with "your" job. And make no mistake: I am grateful, very. My truly wonderful spouse DOES help, much, much more than the spouses of just about any stay-at-home-mom I know. The problem is that I never in a million years wanted to be a SAHM, never dreamed that household administration would ever be MY work. It's not my skill set, let alone my calling. Other things, like research, and analysis, and policy, are. The fact that I spent the first three weeks of this last month repeatedly having to describe myself in writing on school applications as a "homemaker" made me want to wipe myself off the face of the earth.

There are many amazing women for whom home and early childhood development and community are a calling; they manage their homes and their children with a grace, calm, organization and mindfulness that is awe-inspiring. I have come to appreciate in the last eight years with my son that our society simply could not run without these women and their capable, intelligent, strategic, dedicated work for their kids, their schools and their communities. But as much as I have tried, and as much as I have treasured opportunities to dig in and help the schools and families in our communities over the years, at heart, that is not MY work. I just wanted to be a good mother, and to do MY job. Ultimately, it turned out that for a while, I could not do both of those things because my son needed a full time mom at home. That seemed like maybe the best thing for both of us then, as I was weary of the hypocrisy of trying to be a lawyer who was advised not to "talk too much about my son" for fear that people wouldn't give me the best work if I was perceived as being human. Being available to take my son to playdates and to help him bridge to other kids--and to their parents and not their nannies- was what was needed, and it was only for a couple of years, anyway, until he got comfortable socially, and into a school that we knew would work for him. What I didn't realize was that I would necessarily become, the minute I lost my economic power to delegate, the nanny, teacher, social secretary, personal secretary, handyman, building superintendent, project manager, laundress, cook, janitor, community liaison, educational consultant and occupational therapist for our family and child, quickly followed by relocation agent, travel agent, real estate agent, consultant, tutor, physical therapist, child psychologist, homesick child's whipping boy and ultimately resident house-bound resentful fat bitch. I could even live with the task of single-handedly digging myself out of this hole and getting my family to the point where things are in place "enough" to allow me to do some work that actually involves both hemispheres of my brain in the same day, if from one six month period to the next the house, "the job" that brought us here, the school, the goal for any of them, or even the damned car, could stay essentially in the same mode that I spent the previous six months (any previous six months you want to name) trying to make work.

Oy. Maybe I should stick to Facebook. At least it requires something more interesting than self-pity. I need a diary, or this blog will never, ever go live. Apparently it's not just the emotions of last spring, but those of today this winter that I'd prefer to put somewhere else. Maybe that's why I keep having vivid dreams about running away to croft in Scotland--what better place to tuck all of this far out of sight. And maybe slowly scatter it to the ducks and bogs til it dissipates and I become recognizable to myself again.

Sleeping Buddha Poster from Zazzle.com

Sleeping Buddha Poster from Zazzle.com

Our Song--Matthew Sweet's "Waiting"

So I'm still waiting for some kind of official notice that we really and truly have a loan, and that we therefore will really and truly have a house that we have a right to call our own next week. Supposedly next Monday. So far all I have is what my husband says the broker's assistant says the bank says, which is apparently "yes." Not exactly sure when, but yes. Don't get me wrong. In my book that means the house is moving closer, rather than farther away like it was three days ago. But as a lawyer (by training if not by current practice, or even current mindset), all this hearsay doesn't really do it for me. So I'm still waiting for confirmation and a little more peace of mind. The song "Sitting Here in Limbo" keeps running through my mind. But then what came through much more clearly, and so much more sweetly, was my husband's and my "our song": Waiting by Matthew Sweet.

I've had a bunch of relationships in my day, several of them very sweet and/or committed, but most of them a total nightmare even to remember. The latter largely because I never knew how to value myself and so kept picking men who didn't, either. John, my beloved spouse, is emblematic of the traditional complaint that girls always fall for assholes instead of the guys who can really love us for who we are. My long road to John is a story for another day, but suffice it to say he was the nicest of nice guys, and therefor scared the hell out of me. I couldn't be responsible for that! But he knew what he wanted, and he never changed his mind in the course of the eight years it took us to come together--even if he would have liked to, and frequently had to separate himself from me for years at a time until I figured it out. Somewhere in there, he introduced me to Matthew Sweet's album, "Girlfriend." "Girlfriend" itself is a great, rocking song. Wonderful to sing at the top of your lungs riding along the beach with the top down or the windows open, or both. But "Waiting" --oh. My heart lifts and twists at the same time. Sweet's voice is clear and pure on this one. And the voice and the music and the lyrics are all so full of that early summer of gentle longing, a yearning but with a feeling that there is real hope that this dream will come true. When I hear it I feel that exquisite sensation of just beginning to suspect that the one you love might actually love you back. It hasn't happened yet for sure, but you think it's about to, and the waiting is worth it. In fact, the waiting makes it better. Its maybe even its own separate form of pleasure. I've never really had an "our song" with anyone else. I'm not even sure that John thinks of it exactly that way, but I know he associates it inextricably with me, and I with him, and that it belongs to us.

It makes me smile to think of that song. I think I'll go play it. And you won't believe this, but honest to God, when I started writing this I didn't think that the song had any parallels to the house other than the title. But maybe it does. That would be cool.

I'll leave you with pictures of the yard today, and picture of the boxes I'm tackling downstairs. You couldn't see the back door before, so there's some progress.

Doing the Math, and My New Favorite Bank

Note to self: one day plus four hours is 28 hours, not 32. So it was at 32 hours and about ten minutes (not 36) that John called to say that Lender Number Two "said yes." He says it's a done deal, and that we will likely close next Monday, maybe Tuesday. Enormous relief all around. But since I haven't seen anything in writing from anybody yet, I have only exhaled about halfway. I'm like that. When it actually happens, I will shout to the rooftops the name of this paragon of banking. In the meantime I will note that our mortgage broker/relocation lender is nearly as p-o'd at "BOSA" as we are. And, interestingly, yesterday morning BOSA pulled all of the credit lines of its "Countywise" mortgage customers, claiming financial difficulties. So it seems that perhaps if our loan sale had been in front of any other bank but this one, the fact that our 2008 tax return was filed late might have been no biggy, rather than potential financial meltdown.

I do remember that I said I'd feel silly for all this gloom and doom and angst if Lender Number Two said yes yesterday. And I do. Eight days of worry, and I fall apart and start spilling my guts (and sort-of online, no less, even if this still isn't live) on day two. But the anxiety and anger had to go somewhere, and infinitely better that it went here than on my sweet, relieved husband, or on our hardworking mortgage broker. John and I came through it as a team, provided one discounts my literary incontinence, and the broker got us this new loan so fast, she says, because she felt she owed it to us for how nice and constructive we were when things went bad. Thank John for that. I was polite, but I was not-so-subtly playing bad cop to John's good with both the broker and our incredibly patient, calm and cooperative sellers--for whom the lack of loan was nearly as bad a fact as it was for us.

And "the lesson" is not so illusory after all. We aren't entitled to this just because we've experienced loss. We were foolish and self-indulgent and it nearly cost us hugely. We're lucky--knocking on wood--and we won't forget it. And we won't forget that as long as we hang together, everything else is gravy. Given that this started to be a blog about decorating a new house, I suspect I'll be reminding myself of that frequently as I repeatedly defer buying "the" perfect rug for the living room (it really is...!) until we get our financial house in order and have some savings again.

My stomach still hasn't unclenched. I think it's going to take keys in hand, maybe even my son tucked into his bed in his "for keeps" room, to do that. That's probably okay. I need to lose some weight anyway.