Look. I’m sure that I am incredibly late to the game on this revelation. But I’m going through a midlife crisis, and as such I have been reflecting a lot on exactly what I’m doing with my own life. Where am I? What’s next? What have I missed out on?
The truth is that I have missed out on a lot. Maybe there’s still time for those things, maybe not. But that’s not what I’ve actually been reflecting on. Not really about my past as traditionally happens in a midlife crisis, rather everything that is going on now around me.
Especially with the Internet. It’s readying for another big change.
When I started writing this blog in 2009, I did it because I wanted to be a writer (like a writer-writer). And, because I was stressed about the fact that I left graduate school, what I felt was against my will. Today, I still write on here, though it’s taken many different turns over the years. I published a few books (very few people bought). I’m still trying to podcast more regularly, though I question whether I even want to do that. I co-host a political podcast.
And I did and still do a lot of other stuff too (kids, politics, went back to graduate school…).
Today, where I began has morphed from Mom Blogging into Mom Vlogging. It feels painfully vapid, these 3 minute videos on Tik Tok and YouTube Shorts. Cross-posted on Instagram, covered in beautiful filters with tagged Paid Partnerships. Young moms in their late 20s and 30s, sometimes 40s, clicking their finger nails on products and rambling about grocery hauls. I don’t know what it is, but I do find myself hooked more often than not. I’ll swear I’m going to stop watching, then I find myself awake at 2 in the morning scrolling through video after video of GRWM, DITL, REWM, household resets, cooking and baking ASMR, grocery haul videos…
Though for every hour wasted, I will admit it’s inspired me to do better things, and for that I see value. I wash our fruits and vegetables much better than I did before. I learned how to do all the makeup my mom never taught me. I have tried new recipes. I’ve felt less crazy being such a hot mess Ph.D. Mom with kids.
And, in truth, it’s also a nice escape. My daily life is a combination of chaos and misery. Chaos in that I have three kids in incredibly different stage of their own lives. Misery is that I’m also, what feels like, a permanent student in a program that brings me little joy, a lot of headache, and can be incredibly lonely. Working on a Ph.D., or graduate work of any kind, is isolating. You have other students, but the camaraderie just is not there. I have a 4.0. No one responds to my posts in our online discussion group. Just today, another student in my cohort used the term “bitch” in one of her discussion posts, in a 600 level class, and yet I still feel that I am the idiot in the room because no one will talk to me.
I kind of don’t fit in, much in the same way I don’t fit with today’s Mom Vloggers. Much in the way I don’t fit in with most groups of people I encounter in life.
Back to the Mom Vloggers. In truth, even though I’m now 41, while I don’t fit, I still relate to them. It’s all still in many ways my own life, I just don’t write about it often. Just as there were back then, there are now: camps. There’s the perfect moms, and the hot mess moms. The normalizing normal. The inspirational posts. The “we’re all in this together.” I see myself in all of them, and at the same time cannot even remotely see myself sharing my life like that anymore.
The vlogging, it’s starting to reach the Mom Wars, I’m seeing videos of moms making fun of other mom vloggers, and rants in return. Other niches are growing – makeup tutorials, politics and news, cooking and baking. Same shit, different platform. Some of them are doing stand up events now, like going on tour (which is just bizarre).
Fundamentally, the market is saturated. There’s little for anyone to do to stand out; so much so that it’s lost its meaning.
The same thing happened with bloggers.
Some of the Hey Day of Mommy Blogging bloggers moved on to vlogging. Some of them moved into a new, more permanent niche (makeup, cooking, whatever). A handful of them stuck around like me, but simply no longer care about putting a label on what’s going on here.
A couple sold out (I’ll save that for another post another day).
And many of them simply… stopped and disappeared.
When the Internet changes again, which it most assuredly is about to do, where will everyone go? Will they move on to the next thing? Dig deeper into their niches? Will they just disappear too?
I’m still here. Now I write about whatever I want – sometimes my life, sometimes politics and world news, sometimes… well, whatever. And I post on other social media – vlogs and commentary. I post recipe videos, and baking stuff. Art. I talk a lot of shit about politics on Tik Tok and Twitter. But I do what I want, and in doing that wonder where I fit.
Or maybe more appropriately: if I ever will.
The truth is that in wondering where I fit now, I realize that I never fit. Fit in, that is. Anywhere. I don’t fit in at school. In the blogging or vlogging world. I don’t fit in to politics. In my family, in my husband’s family.
I do not fit.
And that feels profound to say, but in truth it probably isn’t. I say I’m going through a midlife crisis, but really it’s that I simply recognize and understand that now.
I do not fit in. Anywhere.
When the vlogs move on to something else, soon here, will I still follow and not fit again? Or will I stay here and figure out a new way?
Someone said this to me on Tik Tok recently: “Mama always said ‘moving three times is like surviving a house fire.’” I didn’t get it at first, but when I Googled it, I found article after article about how psychologists correlate moving three times in a relatively short period of time to being equivalent physically, financially, and psychologically to losing everything you own in a house fire. It makes sense, and certainly tracks with our experience.
I haven’t been around this blog in a bit, but if you follow me on any social media platform, you know that’s because we moved. Again. For the third time, in exactly one year’s time. To be honest, it came about in a crazy way. Much like the second, and the first, I – at several points – believed I was losing my mind. How can this really, seriously, be happening? And in the middle of an unprecedented, and worsening, housing crisis in California, and historic inflation…
To recap: we have my husband, myself, our three kids, my 80 year old father, two dogs, a guinea pig, and a handful of fish. This would have been an undertaking in even the best of circumstances, and now – now that we are finally in secure housing – I am left wondering how we survived.
The real question is: did we?
On January 4th, 2022, we were notified that our landlord would be terminating our lease. This is a fancy way of saying “evict without cause.” There are reasons you can legally do this in California, and reasons you cannot. As it turns out, they did it for reasons you cannot: for friends to move in to the home, and the kicker was that the friends were somehow family friends of my husband’s now-ex-sister in law. I see photos of them on Instagram at our old house; it makes me physically ill.
Our second move came just four months after we had moved from the first. This house had issues that the manager of the property (the owner’s son) had done well to hide. Ultimately, they couldn’t be remediated while we lived there: black mold, water leaks, sewer flooding – we had to move again, which was fine because everyone was both miserable, and as it turns out sick.
We lasted the remainder of the year since our first move until the third back in our old neighborhood, just a few blocks from that house we had lived at so long and cared for as our own only to be evicted like yesterday’s trash. Everything there was fine, until it wasn’t; and here’s where the story gets crazy.
In November 2022, the homeowner’s son committed suicide by walking in front of two cars in downtown Fresno. A simple Google search verified this, and that it was likely because he was in the middle of a strike elevation case against the State of California for multiple convictions for felony burglary. He had put up several hundred thousand dollars worth of bail over the years, which we will assume came from the owner of our rental. Why assume this?
Because as soon as he was dead, the owner became desperate for us to get out so they could sell the home for its equity.
A series of events after this unfolded, which involved harassment by the property manager, people showing up at all hours, maintenance men banging on the front door and screaming in the window, and someone trying to cut the power to get us to move. They refused major maintenance things at the same time this was all going on, and suddenly every time we used some of the lights in the house, smoke filled the hallways.
People couldn’t believe we were thinking about leaving, but make no mistake about it: had we not started thinking about it after the holidays, we would have found ourselves evicted again when the one year lease was up in the summer.
Finally, by March 2023 (a couple months ago), it became too much for us, and the fear of competing with other people looking for rentals in the summer, with prices beginning to rise again, influenced the decision and we pulled the plug. We found another rental – this now being a third move, a fourth place to call “home” in just over a year. We contacted an attorney, who had absolutely no problem getting us out of our lease, although we were given only 14 days to get everything out.
Because that was the goal all along.
Already, less than two months since we left, the house has been sold. The owner looks to be recouping their hundreds of thousands in expenses they lost to the State bailing out their now-dead son.
And we, well now we’re here.
For many reasons, this place is safer. It’s technically a townhouse, built on three floors and almost the same amount of square footage as our last rentals. We lost the backyard, but gained the security of being managed by a major, national, apartment rental company. They’ve been very good to us, so far. There are no debates about maintenance, we simply put a request in the portal and someone texts to ask when they can come by within a day. There’s security on sight, everything is freshly remodeled, with new carpeting. The security deposit was not thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars to some rando with an extra house; it was just $600. And because it’s huge, and owned by a large corporation, they follow the law, and we don’t have to deal with these two-bit maniacal slumlords that have one or two rental properties in abhorrent condition to fund their retirements.
As for the house fire…
We spent over $60,000 in the last year on this housing insecurity. It left us in deep debt, and threatened to leave us homeless at any moment. At the very least, it will take years for us to financially recover from this; though my concern with the way the things are in the world now, in the words of Joe Exotic, my biggest fear is that we: are never gonna’ financially recover.
(I suppose time will tell)
The trauma to ourselves and our kids is probably something that will come out over the coming years. Or maybe we somehow resolved it amidst all the packing and hardship.
We are definitely all guarded, especially after the property manager’s harassment at the last place. When the doorbell rings now, everyone still has a moment of tension before realizing it’s probably just Amazon or a GrubHub order. In the words of our primary care physician: “well, you’re all okay for now, but this has been a traumatic year and so we’re just going to hold some space and some grace for if there comes a point when anyone is… not okay anymore…”
While this has happened, the most eye opening thing has been how others have treated us. Make no mistake about it: we have been “othered.” What happened to us is what happens to “other people.” (The funny part is we used to think with that enormous amount of privilege too.)
Some people have acted like this is something we should be pitied for (maybe it is); others have turned their backs on us, because it makes them uncomfortable about the things they do to families like us (middle class renters). A lot of people simply pretend like it didn’t happen.
The last move, the one just a few months ago, was by far the hardest. It was conveniently timed in the middle of one of the atmospheric rivers that hit California. We had so little notice, and were so deep in debt at that point, that my husband worked at his second job the entire time, while for four days, one day after another, my two daughters (19 and 15) and I did the entire move. We would wake up, go to Starbucks, rent a Uhaul, load it with all of our belongings being soaked by the rain. Unload in torrential downpour. Spend the evening drying things off, distributing them, disposing of the phenomenal amount of things ruined by the rain, and then getting up the next day to do it all again.
My mother asked to help, but I was worried she’d get hurt. So on one day, I had her run all our errands for grocery pickups. Other than that, we learned the hard way where things stand on just about every relationship we’ve ever had.
“Mama always said ‘moving three times is like surviving a house fire.’” And so, it is.
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For those that have been asking: some photos of our new place:
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, blissfully unaware of your surroundings and current events, you know the tenuousness in the air right now. It doesn’t matter if you live in the Midwest, the East Coast, or in a coastal city in California, like I do: everyone feels it. The world is, for lack of a more eloquent phrase, on edge.
It could be the escalating tensions across the world surrounding the war in Ukraine. The Chinese spy balloon, followed by three additional unidentified flying objects shot down? Possibly the train derailment in Ohio, or the nitric acid spill in Texas. Maybe that COVID continues to kill and disable hundreds of Americans a day, or simply the dystopian reality we face more each week, as the cost of living explodes and more Americans than ever struggle to put food on the table and obtain necessary healthcare.
Or maybe, it’s as simple as not knowing what we’re going to put on our lists to read this summer.
It is rare that I post a book review, movie list, or a sponsored bit of content on here that comes across as trite and/or paid for. This is obviously because, in spite of the inability to pay bills with blog posts, I have been committed to keeping my content authentically about my own experiences. In short, this is largely an opinion and complaint website, where you can enjoy it and commiserate, or not; like an online diary in the early 2000s, or vague Myspace updates with glitter borders, this site is my home and my hobby and – well – mine.
If that sounds selfish, perhaps it is. In reality, as a stay at home mom with little to speak of in my real life, it is all I have that is really just for, or about, me.
This changes, though, when I come across something that I uniquely identify with, which is what has happened recently with a friend’s book. Entitled Existential Thirst Trap, I came across this new release (coming out May 8th of this year) when the author – someone I have known for the better part of two and a half decades – posted about it on Facebook. A collection of short-form essays by Robert Dean, this book paints a painstakingly real portrait of what many of us just hitting our 40s have lived since growing into adulthood. At least, in part.
When Bobby sent me the pre-print, I immediately found myself hooked. Each essay is funny, and yet acutely poignant. Light-hearted, and paradoxically existential and – well – a little traumatizing. “Existential Thirst Trap” is perfect for a name, because with each essay you want more, to keep reading; while at the same time stuck in your place thinking about the depth of meaning behind simple stories and common experiences.
Described on the back matter as “a love letter to punk rock ethos, mixtape culture, and experiencing life one shot of Jameson at a time,” it is so much more than that. It is, again, the relatable journey many of us have lived snippets of ourselves. Set against the backdrop of early 21st century America, and every crisis that has unfolded as we’ve all tried to make our way in this ever-unbalanced world, each essay unravels layers like an onion – about mental health, parenthood, marriage, divorce, moving across the country, more than once, and learning to make peace amidst this chaos and conflict that is life. And while it is relatable in so many ways at its very core, it is at the same time an inspirational portrait of someone who when kicked down over and over again by circumstances both in and out of his control, responded by simply deciding to get up and kick back.
Those are, in truth, my favorite parts.
On living in New Orleans, he describes memories of roaming and working on Bourbon Street, calling “the street run by too many whiskey-swilling, scumbag pirates” (pg. 3) He describes memories of living there today, “wondering how I’ve managed to dance so close to chaos for so long and still remain unscathed” (pg. 7).
On politics and soul searching through food: “food is the cross-generational salve that takes the pain out of a sting” (pg. 23).
On continuing to get up, time and again: “muscling my way through the debt, the firings, the layoffs, the regrets, and rejection of both professional and personal varieties” (pg. 42).
On the end of a marriage: “Being lonely in a home you share with someone stings harder than actually being alone” (pg. 79).
On dating after divorce: “Tinder is hard enough when you’ve got kids, a divorce, and are a weirdo looking for nirvana” (pg. 41).
And on so, so much more.
My favorite essay, by far, is buried in the middle: Bare Soul. A brilliant depiction of the drudgery of life, and the quest for finding peace within it. Of the conflict between seeing friends and family move on to the life that was expected for us all, while crafting an existence for yourself both in and outside of it all. I feel this myself, deep inside. That we often live in a world that is for show – the picket fences and suburban homes, all the while wondering if this is really the life for us. Masterfully, this essay describes finding the stories both from outside as well as within this disjointed and personally conflicting reality; one we are in many ways all living today amidst the ongoing chaos and struggle of today’s world. Again: finding a life outside it all, but also within. And, as all writers seek to do, telling the stories that rise from it all.
For my own part in this, it has been an experience of its own watching Bobby – Robert Dean – grow over the years, as a person and a writer. As I said, I’ve known him for the better part of two and a half decades. It’s hard to think of him and not think back to that tall, lanky kid with long, blonde hair. He always wore these oversized jeans and band shirts, his hair flopping around as his steps were more of a stride (he is really that tall). I can remember sitting at the lunch table in the cafeteria in high school, watching him dip his square of pizza into nacho cheese, and thinking to myself my God this guy could care less what anyone thinks. That we all could be that carefree. In that sense, as well as the way he talked and the sheer size of his presence (he really was the tallest person I knew), there was an ease in him being around, the way people so authentically themselves make you feel. While Existential Thirst Trap describes his own struggles over the decades, along with an ongoing battle with anxiety, he is among the few people I have known for this long who actually seems to have – at least some of it – figured out.
Reading some of his earlier writing, and seeing his progression and maturation as a writer in Existential Thirst Trap now has been, for lack of a better term, an honor. It is the glow up we should all hope for – to experience and grow, and to be able to articulate and share it all with others unabashedly and without reservation.
Existential Thirst Trap is full of familiar prose, and stories told in the style of satire, sarcasm, honesty, and realism we find in writers like David Sedaris. I have seen David Sedaris in person more than once, this book is so similar in tone and tenor, and the way I am left feeling when it ends. Bukowski is mentioned more than once in the book, as well, and it is in that spirit that this book unfolds. Raw. Real. Relatable. This summer, I highly recommend it to anyone, and everyone.
Existential Thirst Trap is available for preorder today on Kindle HERE and in paperback HERE.
For more updates from Robert Dean or to get more information on connecting with him, check him out over on Instagram @ literallyrobertdean or message me via the Contacts taband I can connect you.
Author’s note: I have received no compensation, financial or otherwise, for this post, or the links herein; with the exception of pre-print access to the manuscript for purposes of this review.
Those of you that have been following along for this entire year know that my family has gone through some… well, insecure housing. I will sum it up here, but will also link back to the other posts, in case you want to do a deep dive. The insecurity is of no fault of our own – my husband has a good job, and a side gig; we are responsible, pay our bills on time. We do not make unreasonable requests. Just. an average family, a part of the community. And yet none of this has spared us from being treated like renter scum, along with the other half of California treated much the same, and – I suspect – much of the country that tenant’s another person’s home.
The good news is that I now feel panic attacks are well-deserved.
The bad news is that our housing situation is no more secure now, at the end of 2022, than it was at the beginning when we entered it.
House #1:
I wrote about the housing crisis in California HERE.
After years of living at the same home, caring for it as if it were our own, and diligently paying rent in full and on time, we were callously booted from our rental home. I say callously because we wrote a letter to them after receiving the termination of our tenancy (that’s putting it nicely: it was an eviction without cause), begging them to let us stay until summer so my 18 year old daughter could have endometriosis surgery we had been planning for the entirety of the pandemic, that spring.
They said no. Her surgery was canceled.
This was going on at the same time that thousands of other people across California were suffering the same fate: with the market booming, and looking like it was about to bust; and the eviction moratorium lifted, property managers and owners that wanted to get out of their investments jumped at the opportunity. At the time we entered the market, there was 1 unit available for every 1,789 families in our county looking. So we had quite a hard time finding a place, which we did only for it to be an absolute disaster as well, for other reasons (we’ll get to that next).
The kicker in the pants of all of this is that not only did they cheat us out of our security deposit, trying to charge us for routine maintenance and upgrades to make the house improved above and beyond standard wear and tear, was the fact that: they evicted us unlawfully. As it turns out, California has pretty strict laws about the reasons that a landlord can evict you without cause, not included is that a client of yours needs a rental home. Your landlord cannot, under any circumstance, evict you to just let someone else move in. Unless they are a member of your immediate family, this is a violation of California law.
And yet still, it was the reason we were let go. So a client of our landlord could move in.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, just a few months ago we learned the insult to this injury (one we are all still recovering from): the new tenant is somehow related to our (now ex) sister in law. Tons of people in my husband’s immediate family and friends are mutual friends with these folks.
These folks living in our old house. The one we were unlawfully evicted from without cause.
As I mentioned, we moved in a time that thousands of middle income families were put in the same position. And, we had a limited budget, still recovering ourselves from pay cuts and increased costs associated with the pandemic.
Nevertheless, we eventually found the only place we could afford, in the timeframe we had to get there. It was 45 minutes away from our home, and in a matter of short time (actually, the problems started the first night we moved in), it became evident that this place was not going to work out for us.
Beyond the commute to school, sports, and social activities for our kids, the toxic environment in the HOA, and the smallness of the house were untenable. And then, after we resolved to find a way out of our lease, one presented itself, with a host of maintenance issues and the exposure of water leaks and mold through out the home.
Once we found a new place, back in our old community (actually the same general neighborhood as House #1, where we had lived for years), we were able to easily pull the implied warrant of habitability and get out of our lease. The last day I took a shower at this house, I could see mold peeking through the walls; and shortly after, we discovered the owner had gotten an appraisal only to find over $500,000 worth of damages.
(Of course we’re still arguing with them through the District Attorney to get our security deposit back, but that’s another blog for another day.)
So now we’re in House #3 for the year. We have moved twice, spent over $40,000 – in total – to move between the three homes, put our children through an enormous amount of trauma, suffered temporary illness from exposure to the mold (more than one night close to hospitalization for breathing issues for me, as well as my son), but figured – hey – we’re back home, we’re back in our community…
Fairly early on, though, it became evident that the property manager of this new home was very inexperienced in being a property manager. He always seemed confused, would flake on showing up for maintenance things, and after moving in July 1st of this year, as of today – December 13th – he has yet to complete the items on the move in walk through.
The gardeners written into our lease have shown up approximately 4 times (they are supposed to come every two weeks, which would be 12 visits at this point). The front lawn, completely dead, has drawn the ire of neighbors, and complaints from the city, so much so that we ended up having to invest $300 to cover it with more attractive mulch just so the neighbor kids would come ask our son to play.
In 5 months, we put in one maintenance request for a broken fan, and after a 100 degree heat wave and months of waiting and never getting any answer, just replaced it ourselves.
Then, a few months ago (just before Halloween), maintenance people started randomly showing up to do maintenance not requested or included in the move in walk through – without any notice. One person showed up one day to “repair window screens.” (No window screens needed repairing.) He took them and never returned. Another time the same person came to repaint the front door. He slopped paint all over the place, and painted the door so many layers that it now doesn’t open or close properly.
The coup de grâce, though, of this whole affair is that 3 days after paying our 5th month of rent (now December, almost a year after our foray into insecure housing began back at House #1), the property manager texted my husband saying effective immediately he would no longer be the property manager. Another company – un-ironically our old company that allowed our landlord to unlawfully evict us without cause – would be taking over. This would in effect nullify our lease, so we started scrambling to get some legal advice only for him to contact us the next day and say “just kidding, never mind it’ll still be me.”
Okay…
Then today, upon entering our tenant portal, we discovered a couple of weird things. One is that our landlord never actually signed the lease. Two is that our security deposit had been zeroed out. My husband again contacted the new-old-new again property manager, who explained all of this but then… texted him again and asked to come over and take photographs of the home in “a few minutes”…
Again… um… okay…
California law is very strict about these things; it’s one of the few protections 45% of the state that rents has. Property managers and landlords cannot legally enter the home except for emergencies or routine maintenance, or if the house is being sold. Otherwise, inspections are illegal, unless you’ve written it into the lease or are a recipient of state assistance (neither of those apply here). By definition, a 5 month “check up” to take photographs of the home and our personal property with absolutely no notice is both illegal, and a violation of the tenant’s (our) privacy. This, coupled with the previous maintenance folks showing up without notice? And the other maintenance requests and gardening included in the rent ignored? Well… it all qualifies as harassment of a tenant.
We decided to go ahead and call the property manager and be amenable to this quick walk thru to try and get a better idea of just what is going on here. He comes tomorrow. In the meantime, I’ve done some poking around, only to find – to my dismay – that the landlord and his wife have a number of mutual connections with me, and – this is where it gets crazy, and a little sad – his adult son recently died stepping in front of oncoming traffic. Very tragic, even crazier though is that our landlord was apparently on the hook for $420,000 in bail he had forfeited on that son’s behalf, who was about to go to prison on three strikes for felony car theft.
Obviously our landlord is in a state of grief, and trying to control what he can, and possibly recoup some of that lost money. But, all understanding and empathy aside, this does not make what is going on here okay; and moreover, leaves us wondering just how much we’ll have to tolerate before moving on to House #4.
Fundamentally, renters are very oftentimes folks just trying to live their lives peacefully. In California, as I mentioned, 45% of the state lives as a renter. That is almost half of the state, nearly 20 million people. And yet, time and again we become collateral damage for the poor decisions and lifestyles, the problems and personal issues, of our landlords. There is a sense that we are not people, just a paycheck; that we are nothing more than financial capital in the form of humans that can come up with the money to be so. This Class War, it is personal to me, and so many others of the middle and working classes. Personal because it calls into question the very conditions upon which we are able to live or even survive.
Christmas is just 12 days away, as a mom I should be focusing on the magic of it all – wrapping presents, checking all the experiential boxes; all while taking care of my kids, going to school myself, and just… living. It’s hard to see how people can live under these conditions for so long, though. Every morning I wake up in a panic, wondering what problem will come next, how our housing will become even less secure. I’m trying very hard to hold myself together right now, for the sake of my kids. But I’m also just about done. Today, for the first time in all of this, I very seriously thought about putting the kids in the car and just driving. With no idea what that meant, or where we’d go, all I could think of was that anything would be better than suffering under this cruel system where some of us are treated like subjects to be controlled and used for a paycheck, until there’s no more need for us and then we’re just thrown out with yesterday’s garbage. But renters, tenants – we are human beings too.
We, as a family, have a lot going on now, having thought that we were through all this insecure and crazy housing stuff. Big stuff, little stuff, plans we thought we were safe to make because things were supposed to settle down. We had rescheduled that endometriosis surgery for my older daughter, and just learned my younger daughter will have to have a minor procedure for a meniscus problem we planned for the beginning of the year as well. I don’t see us being able to tolerate all these problems and chaos and just *dealing with* our landlord, and navigate all of that at the same time. As a renter, are we really ever beyond that sense of insecurity, into the safety of settling down? Are we ever able to live life like everyone else?
If this Year of the Slumlord has taught me anything, it’s that the answer to all of that is a resounding no.
The Queen died! I get it: everyone has a different relationship with the tabloid family. The memes, of course, have been amazing and on point. The British were colonizers, I think we all need to remember that. But I also can accept that a lot of people have a complex relationship with GB, and also many family that way so… if you’re sad, I’m sorry. If you’re glad, well that’s great.
For me?
Well we had a whole ass revolution to not give a literal shit who was Queen, when she died, and who followed her. I just don’t care.
What I will say, though, is that her address to the world at the beginning of the COVID 19 pandemic was – I believe – one of her most important addresses. It urged calm in a time when people looked to baboons like Trump and Johnson to restore calm and order. I know I appreciated it, and many others did as well.
As for the tabloid family and what is next under Man Baby Big Hands? Only time will tell…
More around the world: today, in an interview, Trump apparently argued that he could declassify documents as president “telepathically.” And, in a similarly idiotic statement, Biden – with no qualifications or data to back his claim – said the pandemic is over.
Buzz kill: neither of those bone heads was correct.
Around My World
As I started this newsletter: ugh. I am feeling like absolute garbage, physically and emotionally. Physically the hay fever is hitting me hard. I sound like I have a smoker’s cough, spend all my time trying to itch my throat with my thoughts, I’ve gone through about 50 boxes of Kleenex, and there seems to be no end in sight. Other than that, my classes in college are relatively unfulfilling – including my 600 level Public Governance course which I am starting to think is taught by AI. No one ever responds to my discussion posts, I’m receiving an A+ for a grade, and the one time I communicated with the professor she responded “I do trust you…” and that was it.
Another pretty crazy thing happened in my world that probably has set all of this off: we found out that friends of family and family friends moved in to our old house. You know, the one we were effectively evicted from with no cause? After living there and caring for it as if it were our own for years? Yeah…
The short of it is that my daughter was on a long walk with the dogs, and we live on the other side of the same subdivision so she made it almost all the way there. She said the people were outside and they were in a big screaming match; so I finally looked up who is living in the house now. A couple searches over on Facebook and I discovered: it’s the family members of my soon-to-be-ex-sister-in-law’s step sister’s partner. Confused? Yeah I am too, but let’s boil it down to this: my brother in law, soon-to-be-ex-sister-in-law, family friends, our former nanny, the soon-to-be-ex-sister-in-law’s step sister and her entire family, also family friends, and a host of other mutual connections are “friends” on Facebook with the people and their extended family that now occupy the house.
Ouch.
Many of them believed that during my campaign I wanted to defund the police. Rather than act like civilized human beings who have known us forever and consider us family or close family friends and – oh, I don’t know – ask me about it personally, they instead decided to rip up my campaign signs, campaign for my opponent, and never talk to us again. Now, I guess I have to wonder if they were all instrumental in getting us the boot for some people not even remotely related to our former landlords moved in.
Or, at the very least, if any of them ever saw anything about these people moving in to our old house… on the Internet? In person? go to a 4th of July BBQ there and think “hey I know the people that used to live here…”? … and, what… just not say anything to us about it? Who else knows?
So. Many. Questions.
Pretty sure that’s also kind of illegal now in California, but that’s neither here nor there. Kick in the gut, and makes me feel even sicker about the tens of thousands of dollars this has cost us. Not to mention all the trauma.
In honor of that, I decided to do my podcast episode this week about Truth and Post-Truth. I didn’t really talk about my personal situation in the pod, but it’s still a fun philosophical listen. You can get it on any podcast platform, or just listen here:
You Can’t Unsee This
A literal representation of me at this time:
STFU Fridays
I was trolling the Internet the other day, looking for mom blog type posts to comment on and stir up some shit. For one, I was bored. For two, this is how I gain new followers. Every once in a while, someone clicks my profile and makes their way here, and *poof* I have made another connection in misanthropy.
Scary Mommy had posted this thing about kids budgeting for toiletries. I really don’t want to get into it, because I sense some of you will disagree with me (which is that I think that making small children budget for necessities like soap, regardless of the parameters, sets up an unhealthy relationship with money and personal care products early on… teach to budget with something else)…
ANYWHO, so I basically said that and boy did the mean mug mommies of the Internet go after me in the comments!
One thing that came up though was on the topic of small children squeezing out toothpaste, and how this budgeting technique would eliminate a small child from doing that. I remain skeptical on that, but I made the egregious mistake of saying I couldn’t relate – my kids have never done anything like that. And it’s true! We brush our teeth together, always have and always will. There’s literally no reason for anyone to go in to the drawer and get that toothpaste otherwise. Problem solved, no toothpaste wasted and squeezed out everywhere!
Well apparently, on the Internet, you are mom shaming others if you openly state a fact of your own household. The mean mug mommies then went after me for saying that my own children have never squeezed toothpaste everywhere – how could I shame them and their parenting styles and their little heathens like that?! HOW?!
You know: not everything people say about themselves is about you. I know that in this hyper-narcissistic and self-interested world we live in, it’s tempting to think that. And I certainly don’t want to turn into one of those people that comments on every single post another person makes, turning it all into an opportunity to talk about themselves. But really… sometimes when someone says something about themselves or their situation… that’s it. It’s not about you. It’s not an attack on you. It’s not meant to shame you. It’s not anything other than a simple statement that ultimately has nothing to do with you.
So you know what you can do if you take other people’s experiences personally?
Well, it’s Friday. You can just shut… the… fuck… up…
Better yet:
Anywho, happy weekend everyone! It’s not quite the weekend yet, but… close enough!
I don’t typically title my newsletters, but for some reason this one felt necessary. For the last several days, the news cycle, and my own interactions with regards to it, have been a complete de-evolution into absurdism.
Yes, I’m talking about Biden.
Yes, I’m talking about Trump.
Yes, I’m talking about the ongoing pandemicS.
Yes, I’m talking about all of it.
We need to get our heads on straight here, folks. We are missing a once in a lifetime opportunity to undo all the wrongs of the last several years, and we’re unironically doing so by falling into the same traps and patterns that created the situation we find ourselves in today.
So let’s talk about it.
Around the World
Unless you live under a rock, you know that last night the President gave a fiery speech in front of Liberty Hall, on the problem of fascism and the MAGA culture. It was, unequivocally, a political speech. There’s no way around that.
I’m perhaps from a more old school thinking: that politics is politics, and government is administration of government services. There is a time and a place for both, but not together. That said, we should demand a number of norms when our government leaders go political; and more importantly we should hold them accountable for politicizing aspects of the government that should not be.
There’s also something to be said about governing by meme, and involving people that should otherwise not be involved in that.
This is why, after the president’s speech, several people went on to criticize the choice of backdrop: Marines, standing at attention. I’ve talked to a lot of people about this since, many in a variety of sectors of the military. Some thought it was gauche. Some didn’t see the big deal. Others said it was politicizing the apolitical. A lot of people highlighted the long time practice of Presidents doing so.
For me, it’s about the venue: it was a political speech using colloquialism and political rhetoric, invoking the Dark Brandon meme. So, pretty tacky to have the Marines involved. But, that’s just my opinion, and something I am *entitled to* without fear of personal attack.
Not what the biggest and loudest Blue MAGA Democrats believe, though, because immediately after CNN journalist Brianna Keilar Tweeted her own disappointment in the move – Brianna Keilar who is married to a man that has spent his entire career in the military, people went for the throat. And this is what I largely observed all over Twitter and other social media platforms as the night wore on: very strong and strident Biden supporters launching disgusting and vile attacks on anyone that is Republican, Centrist, Independent, Progressive, or simply had a disagreement with any aspect of the Biden speech, or frankly anything Biden has said or done.
This style of political and public discourse though? This was completely antithetical to the speech the President gave. While calling for unity he asked people to stand up to actual fascism, which includes the idea that dissenting thoughts and opinion should be tolerated and encouraged, and that nuanced conversation about the issues without personal ad hominem attacks and mudslinging should resume at the policy table of America.
What I’m saying is that the people ripping down anyone that even remotely disagrees with or criticizes any aspect of anything the current president does are just as fascist as the ultra right MAGA fucks that… well, do all the same shit. It isn’t less fascist if you’re doing what the fascists do, just because it’s for your guy.
I discussed this last week on my podcast, actually; so the timing is perfect. If you haven’t had a chance, you can listen to it here:
And to that end, there’s been another growing trend over on social media: the White House’s official government account being used for more political posts about MAGA. Here are two, recent examples:
Now to be clear: I am not saying I disagree with these statements. I’m again highlighting the venue in which they are being made.
Perhaps I’m more sensitive because I happen to be in a 600-level Public Governance class right now, and ethics in public administrations – of which the White House one – is at the forefront of our conversation. For decades, administrations at all levels of government have operated on a code of ethics. This is nothing new, and it is not a foreign concept. If the White House Chief of Staff actually paid attention to the replies he receives in these, he would know that my response was spot on: that ethics training is something they perhaps should get going, given the very fine ethical lines that whomever is in charge of this account is walking.
To be clear: Tweeting about political issues, even ones rooted in fact, using political colloquialisms and rhetoric, is not the job of an official government podium. This is not official government business, and we can accept that and hold them accountable for this while at the same time agreeing with the sentiments – the two are not mutually exclusive.
And last, but certainly not least, on this episode of Shit Show, America: this morning, the full list of items that were removed from Mar a Lago in the FBI raid was released by a federal judge, and it included the notations that several folders labeled CLASSIFIED were removed, although all that was found in them were newspaper and magazine clippings.
A lot of people jumped to ask where those documents were, and that may very well be the case – that the DOJ and Merrick Garland moved like the snails they are, and gave Trump et al more than ample time to sell it all off. Smoking gun is therefore gone, as are the prospects of ever holding them accountable. To be clear, that may very well have happened.
But it’s also equally as likely that this was all a well orchestrated stunt, combined with more of a grift. My thoughts?
Surely we all have not forgotten that time Mike Lindell left the Oval Office and was carrying a document in exactly the right angle so that the media could Zoom in and blow up its contents… these people are professional con artists, there’s no way around it.
And to be frank, I voted to never have to hear about them again. Let’s stop giving them oxygen until it’s either to announce the man is in jail, or dead.
Around My World
I finally decorated the outside of my house for fall the other day, and immediately got a ration of shit from people who neither pay my bills, nor do any other things for me. As I said above, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but there’s also something to be said about the concept of: if you don’t agree with someone’s personal choices that in absolutely no way, shape, or form affect you: keep scrolling.
Nevertheless, here are my outdoor fall decorations outside, and I put them up just in time for California’s unprecedented September heat wave:
Other than that, you guys know the drill… I’m just living the dream of every other stay at home mother who is expected to raise her kids, manage the house, keep everything looking Pinterest-worthy at all times, cook three meals a day and eat completely healthy, while also being charitable to others, help ailing and elderly family members, pursue their own dreams, undergo routine self care and physical and mental health, all while pleasing extended family and friends for the sake of keeping the peace, all on a strapped budget because – again – you are a stay at home mom and have no real steady income except your spouse’s… even if all of this is rapidly escalating to a total and utter mental breakdown from the pressure…
You Can’t Unsee This
Please take into consideration everything I said above, listen to my podcast on fascism, take a deep breath, and consider this meme I made:
STFU Fridays
There has been an increasing trend of doctors and people that should otherwise know better at this stage of the pandemic, downplaying the measures needed to end the pandemic.
I am by no means advocating for more lockdowns or ZERO COVID strategies. But there’s something to be said for paying attention to the governments that still do… they are, and have always been, the experts on SARS and all of its potential negative outcomes. And, to be clear, a lot of physicians and immunologist – epidemiologist types – understand too. What’s even more concerning are the number of other diseases surfacing, and easily spreading, as a result of the hit that our immune systems are taking on the whole to unmitigated coronavirus spread. The CDC and NIH know, and have published papers, on the impacts of SARS-COV-2 on our immune systems, and yet their policies or even their recommendations to others (not them, of course) do not reflect the realities of “new normal.”
And as the pandemic heads into its final stages of the third year, I get it that people are weary, and more than anything they’ve become compromised in their position on certain things. Bottom line is, though, that if you’re going to go on social media platforms and tell people to wear masks… you maybe just should be consistent in your recommendations. Wear a mask yourself.
Moreover, expect our leaders to.
Last night, I was doomscrolling through Tik Tok and came across a post making fun of Trump for his COVID infection versus Biden’s, posted by an immunologist. This woman is a prominent and well respected scientist, and she is also – sometimes – pretty funny. Of course it’s not exactly fair to describe the two infections – one was before vaccines were even available, and one was after the man had four doses of vaccine, with more treatment options, and with a more attenuated version of the virus… but I digress on that issue. It did point to the efficacy of time, science, advancement, and it was silly.
But one of the comments from another doctor on the platform stuck out to me, saying he would never forgive the former president for removing his mask and making a mockery of it. To that, I agree, but I will similarly not forgive the current president for doing the exact same thing. Biden has had more antimask rhetoric and moments, claiming he would wear a mask at all times after exposures and infection, himself, when he then was immediately seen having taken it off around others.
The whole point about living with COVID is that we have to actually learn to live with it and not act like selfish and ignorant fools. Our community members are depending on us to do the right things, including reducing their risk of harming them if we have COVID, have recently had COVID and could still be contagious, are otherwise feeling unwell, or have been exposed.
And we elected Biden to be the leader on this, to which he is failing. Instead he sets an ableist and anti-mask example, with absolutely no one – apparently – with any integrity left to expect better.
So I responded with this comment, and the immunologist – the original poster, the woman who constantly asks people to wear a mask and to be the example for others… she told me to get a grip.
Get a grip.
The most disturbing thing to me, again the overarching theme of this newsletter and why I decided it was important enough to give this one a title, is this idea that people cannot hold anyone accountable for their actions now, simply because the other guy did it first. We should be demanding better of our leaders, and holding them accountable.
And it’s a simple fact that if someone was elected to handle COVID and is now outright refusing to handle COVID, even in his own actions that directly influence the behaviors of millions of Americans (including vulnerable ones)…
Get a Grip?
GET A GRIP?
GET A GRIP?!?!
Get a FUCKING GRIP?!
I get it. We all experienced a lot of trauma with Trump. But it is a fact that the current president is doing worse on COVID at a time when he should and can have opportunities to do better. He preached up and down during his campaign about being a leader and setting an example. And now, he’s doing anything but. We could all live with this if he would do better – it would, at the very least, convince some (and would go a long way to getting more funding for needed tests, treatments, and vaccines from Congress who have all but capitulated to the virus and its ongoing damage).
Instead, it’s easier to look the other way, point fingers, and tell people that have a higher standard of accountability to “get a grip.”
You know what the real grip is that we need though? The one where we are sober to the fact that we have entered this absurdist and morally bankrupt daily reality where everyone thinks standards be damned, norms be fucked, and fascism – even if it’s the lighter version – is the way to go.
The only way out, folks, is if we hold them all accountable for every mistake, all the time. If we get our heads on straight, again. If that is what it means to need to “get a grip,” so be it. In the meantime: if you can’t take the heat of a dissenting opinion, shut the fuck up.
Last Sunday, my kids and I went to get ice cream and the ice cream had been broken down for the night at three local ice cream spots. I quipped that the week was going to be bad, and I could just feel it.
We then proceeded to have 9 successive dumpster fire days with one problem after another.
Last week I wrote about how it all started with my dad falling at Home Depot, to be clear Home Depot’s fault – something quite clear they understand (given how many times they’ve called since).
By the end of the week, we found out my daughter was going to need unexpected surgery, which she had this Monday. My dog also got sick with a UTI, which came to a bill of $682.
Plus, you know, a whole bunch of other random crap…
My dad’s pain in his arm from falling was only made worse by an apparent case of mild food poisoning from some take out over the weekend. He was crabby and angry, and continued to just lash out at everyone in the house, which to be clear was mean and unfair and got more stressful by the day. Today he was totally and completely out of line, yelled at me about something while I was on the phone, and then refused to back off with questions and yelling about his arm when I begged him to give me some space while I got ready to take my kids to school.
Someone called the police, thinking he was abusing me.
This is the way my father has been forever. Family will tell you Uncle Ray has always been a yeller, has always had a perpetual cloud over his head. The pandemic has only worsened that, and his ongoing need to stay safe and not fully resume regular life due to being old and immunocompromised only worsens that.
I’m not sure what about today warranted a call to the cops, but as I was putting on my makeup and my daughter was making sandwiches for tennis, well after he had finally backed off and left me alone, she looked up and saw a policeman at my door. I opened both of the French doors; and stood in my robe like some downtrodden hillbilly, telling him what happened.
I later realized that my robe had been half open; and this neighborhood we still are relatively new in, got a full view of my lady bits.
Yes. You read that right. I am… so… humiliated.
I thought we had moved on from this after the police officer left; and for the most part we did. My dad committed to do better, try harder. He apologized.
Then, after my kids had tennis and school stuff and we returned home, I made dinner and my dad got ready to go for his daily walk.
You can imagine the horror when, right when he was getting up to the door he… again tripped and fell.
This time he was bleeding and his blood pressure was incredibly low, so we called 9-1-1. As it turns out, because of his mild food poisoning and generally not drinking enough because of his arm hurting and him resting more, he was dehydrated; this and his gait (which again I mentioned before) probably contributed to him falling again. They had his blood pressure normalized by the time they got to the hospital, but this didn’t stop them from doing three hours of tests to rack up a bill I anticipate being over $20,000 to Medicare and his supplemental PPO.
So it was an absolute dumpster fire of a day. It was humiliating, the culminating moment of perhaps years of my dad yelling at me like I am still a little kid. Finally, someone from outside our family told him to stop it, to have more respect for me and to appreciate all we do for him. As I stood there in my robe, window blowing and lady bits showing, the police officer lectured my dad about treating me respectfully, being grateful for how much I do for him, and setting a better example for his grandkids. I don’t think anyone has ever stood up for me like that before. Ever, to anyone.
Which is probably a more sad statement of my general surroundings that we can explore for another day, but as a follow up to my post last week, and everything that’s gone on since: let’s hope the lecture works, the lessons were learned, and the dumpster fires are put out once and for all.
For those of you that have been around for a while, you know that my 79 year old father lives in our home. There is often a misperception that this means I am his caretaker; and oftentimes, that misperception comes from him or what he presents to others, in particular his doctors.
In reality: he expected to live far less time than he has, his corporate retirement package from Sears was effectively ripped out from underneath him over the years, and – well – anyone that thinks seniors can survive on Social Security alone is… the exact reason why so many seniors are homeless or couch surfing, such as in our situation.
This is a perfectly fine way of living, for the most part. My dad has his life, we have ours. He occasionally helps with watching my 5 year old or driving to things, though that’s grown increasingly less reliable in recent years because he has his own… well, stuff to do. Again: we are paying for him to independently live in our home. Sometimes he’ll go on little trips with us, other times he won’t. He rarely eats meals with us. He has, for the most part, his own separate existence.
And while my husband and I are happy to give him a room, cover his costs of living with only minimal contribution from his monthly SSI check (mostly for his luxuries like car insurance and his iPhone), this does not mean that we are in the position to be his caretakers. Again, we can help, but we can only help so much – financially, and more importantly, in terms of senior care. Even with the financial aid, this does not come without extreme sacrifices on our part. In essence: to pay for my dad’s retirement years, we are unable to save for ours… or anything else for that matter, and it also means making decisions that often leave our kids for want. While friends and family take vacations and live exciting lifestyles, we …well, we give Grandpa a home. My biggest fear is that we will have a major problem and have to choose between continuing to house my dad, or taking care of the problem.
That’s the choice we made though, so I’m not complaining. But the other choice we’ve made, or rather I’ve made is: I cannot be a caretaker. I am happy to sacrifice and willing to do so financially, but there is only so far I can go in the space of assisted living. We are paying for him to independently live in our home. This is it. We did not do this because we thought we could personally provide assisted living and nursing care services. This is how I like to articulate it to people, because in the absence of that clear explanation, they tend to assume I’m his caretaker. I am not.
I’m sure a lot of people are going to come at me for being callous or cruel on this point, but the simple fact of the matter is that – while I’m happy to help with making a phone call here or there, or driving him to something that requires sedation or help after a major surgery, or something like that, my plate is already overflowing with responsibilities. At times, like now, it’s overflowing to the point that there is literally food… everywhere… it’s an absolute mess, and not to beat this analogy like a dead horse, the food spilling everywhere is starting to make me feel a little sick.
I have three kids, in vastly different stages of life (college, high school, elementary school). I’m writing part time on this blog, doing a podcast, appearing on other podcasts, taking writing gigs part time, and going to school myself. The kids have sports, and other extra curricular activities, we have two dogs that need care; and then there’s all the other every day stuff: cooking three meals a day, managing the grocery and other household shopping, cleaning the house, yard work, other errands… all of it adds up in time and attention, and while I wouldn’t exchange any of it at all – my plate is full. People need to understand and acknowledge that.
Moreover, I am in no way qualified to caretake. I am not a nurse. I am not an assisted living worker. I am not a dietician or personal senior needs chef. I’m not a senior transport service. Again, while I am happy to help on some level, I’m really not qualified in many of these spaces.
Flash forward to a week like this week, though, when he went to Home Depot with my 18 year old daughter, and tripped on some pallets and fell. This wouldn’t be that big of a deal, of course, if it weren’t for his general bad gait and physical fitness, and the fact that he doesn’t know how to fall properly… welp, he broke his right arm. (He’s lucky it wasn’t worse.) This would be manageable if we had any kind of a support system, or public health infrastructure to support seniors more, but we don’t. We don’t have either. With no family nearby, and with absolutely no one we can call, this turns me into his assumed caretaker.
I’ve spent the better part of the week angry, irrationally so, about the fact that this is happening. If I have advanced warning that I’ll need to help my dad with something – again, like a doctor’s appointment that requires sedation, or a surgery or something – I have absolutely no problem scheduling around that and helping out. Within limits. But these types of unplanned or acute expectations by society on the whole (and also my dad) that I’ll somehow be able to continuously drop everything to care for him, or for these types of instances to upheave our entire house, is… welp, it’s exhausting and unfair.
Since he tripped and fell on Monday, my husband has had to help him in the middle of the night while working, I’ve been texted at midnight and asked for things, he’s come interrupting my children doing their homework to ask questions about medication, and today – the coupe de grace – was when the doctor’s office expected me to cancel my own daughter’s doctor’s appointment and cancel going to my own class, to take my dad to get a CT scan. And then, my dad came into the room while my high schooler was taking a quiz online, started talking and refusing to hold his complaints about what we offered him for dinner, and how he couldn’t get his sling off …and, well again… the consequences showed up in the grade she got.
And this is where I draw the line: where it’s not only us helping him live independently in our home financially, but where I am being expected to place him and his needs above the needs of my children.
This makes me think of that article that went viral years ago, where the woman wrote about how her relationship comes before her kids. I still don’t entirely understand the logic behind it, though I respect it… but for me, the kids come first, and now I’m being expected to place other things above them, including the care of my dad, by people and a society that simply do nothing to help seniors like him. People say “oh you could pay for someone to come help.” The budget of things we can pay for him has limits, ma’am. “Oh Medicare covers an in home helper in these types of situations.” Yes, if the doctors order it, but they always default the job to me.
And this is the thing: he doesn’t really need a caretaker, but when things like this happen he acts as though he is entitled to one. And everyone else just assumes younger generation – namely me – will handle it.
I think this is largely because his generation – the Boomer generation – believes much is an entitlement to them, even if it’s really not. The fact that he believes he can walk in and interrupt children doing schoolwork without recourse, or that we should pay for his retirement while not being able to prepare for our own, is evidence to that. I constantly hear people that are older, of the Boomer age, rail on about people my age, and younger, being lazy, entitled, “nobody wants to work anymore,” and yet we are the ones caretaking entirely for a generation that has been abandoned by the government and society. And no one seems to care enough to even ask if we can do actually do it.
I have compassion for the fact that he tripped at Home Depot and fell; and that he’s in a considerable amount of pain and things are more difficult to do now. I’m willing to help out to a degree. This isn’t the first time he’s taken a tumble and really hurt himself, though; and a lot of that, as I mentioned, is his own fault for not taking care of himself. But the irony (if we can call it that) of this aging population claiming young people like myself, and my kids, do not want to take responsibility for life and its struggles is not lost on me. Earlier, he told me I didn’t know how painful and difficult it was to do anything with a broken arm; I responded that when my son was born five years ago, I was left to care for three children and recover from major abdominal surgery the very night we came home from the hospital, while my husband went to work. I had no caretaker, I had absolutely no support or help at all.
I also had major back surgery when I was 13, but do go on.
I don’t know, I’m probably just venting because this is incredibly overwhelming and I feel like an absolute garbage mother for allowing this all to go on in front of my kids. But I’m tired of my father spending all his time yelling at me, barking over me, and expecting this to become his personal assisted living facility every single time he does something stupid, and hurts himself – again, a direct consequence of his own decisions to take care of himself so poorly.
He is not incompetent. He is not suffering from cognitive decline. He is capable of independent living. Society, and his doctors, need to start treating him like it; and more than anything, he needs to start behaving like it himself.
In the meantime, I’m trying my best but I’m not sure I can ever forgive myself for my kids suffering as a result.
A week ago, a friend messaged me late on Friday. She said “we made it through to the weekend!” And I was like “I mean yeah except those pesky kids and all their bullshit.”
Well folks, here we are on a Friday: you made it. You made it through the week. That is if you aren’t a parent, or you aren’t working odd jobs, odd hours, or multiple jobs.
But nevertheless… you made it. So let’s get to this week’s newsletter.
Around the World
Fascism is on the rise, folks. So much so that I talked about it in my podcast next week (you can preview it on Youtube, or below). I’m really starting to feel like I belong to Fox News though on this topic, because the more cancel culture grows, the more I feel that Democrats have just as much a tendency to fascism as Republicans do.
Think of it: every time they try and suppress viewpoints, suppress information, cancel someone for being against the “vote blue no matter who” mantra, or claim that anything they simply don’t agree with, don’t like, or haven’t read the up-to-date information on… they call it misinformation, or a threat to democracy.
But do you know what the biggest threat is to democracy? Suppression. Censorship. Cancel culture.
What is most disturbing to me is in the case of local media, at least where I live. There is an argument afoot that “both sides-ing journalism” is harmful to democracy because it gives a mouthpiece to an objectively grotesque underbelly of society. But at the same time, if journalists do not offer the perspective of all views, what is to be gained?
One, singular, view that then becomes suppression of other whatever-it-happens-to-be out there. This is not a reflection of America, as a whole.
And I hate this with my whole being, because it offers the perspective that racists should be allowed to spew their racist hatred; transphobia permissible in the public space… and so on. Is what they say right? No. But the principles upon which this country was founded allow for those hateful things to be said, no matter how grotesque or abhorrent.
The Constitution does not save anyone from consequences from their words and actions, this is for certain. So consequence-away. Combat with love, sue people… whatever.
But outright suppression? That shit is wrong. It is anti-democratic. It is fascism, defined.
More on my perspective in next week’s pod, again you can already listen to it in its entirety here:
Around My World
School is back in full swing over here. I’m taking a course in Public Governance, and growing more skeptical of the concept of the “national deficit” by the day as a result. My kids are back at it too. I designed three, entire curriculums over the summer for my five year old, all based around projects in history, STEM, and art. My high schooler is at it, and also dual enrolled in classes at the community college. And my oldest daughter deferred a year to have surgery later this winter, but is taking classes at the community college as well, and playing tennis for their team.
As it turns out, my kids are taking two of their classes at community together, and they invited me to take their painting class with them. Of course, they were probably just being polite; but I graciously accepted, and let them turn my office into their painting space for these 15 weeks. Because wasn’t that nice of them to humor me like that?
You Can’t Unsee This
I mean… is it entirely wrong?
STFU Fridays
My big pet peeve right now are people complaining about the ongoing availability of Telehealth services. I’ve heard it from a couple doctors, some family members that are nurses, and a hell of a lot of people on social media that work in a variety of areas of healthcare.
The complaints run the gamut, but very few of them have actually boiled down to actual serious reasons related to health. Most of them are things like “the wifi never works,” or “I cannot figure out how to do audio,” or – my favorite – “patients take it as an opportunity to spend too much time discussing their issues, because they’re in the comfort of their own home.” The audacity. The audacity of patients wanting to actually be able to have conversations with their doctors without being herded out like cattle.
The. Audacity.
I can certainly see there are some issues that are harder to address over Telehealth, like a rash or something that really does require a hands-on, fingers-up approach (barf). But there are so many things that can be addressed over Telehealth, and with the rapid expansion of it due to COVID it not only makes it safer for people while the pandemic still rages, and it gives access to people to see their doctors that otherwise do not always get to go.
For myself, I am a mom with very little support system, at times (most of the time). Because of this, I am rarely able to see my doctor; once a year if I’m lucky. The pandemic opening Telehealth, though, has allowed me to have regular visits with my primary care physician and really start addressing my allergies and asthma in ways I could only dream of doing with my 5 year old in tow at the office. Both issues are now much better off in terms of their management than they have been in over a decade (think about that for a minute), and I am able to see my doctor more frequently to do this simply because all I have to do is log in to Zoom. I don’t have to fight with my kid to wear his mask or stop opening and closing drawers, I don’t need anyone to drive my older kids to their school and sports activities… I can literally do the appointment from anywhere. This has been an absolute game changer for me, and I am certain it has been for others.
So to the people complaining about Telehealth without understanding the circumstances under which it really and truly has changed lives, and possibly lengthened them? Well y’all just need to shut the fuck up. Quit being lazy, quit being stubborn, and start remembering why you got into healthcare to begin with.
(And again, I recognize the instances where a hands on approach really and truly is needed… this is why both modalities need to be available.)
…on that note of availability, I do have to say that if appointments were more readily available in person, Telehealth may not be so widely needed still. Four times in the last couple of weeks I have called and been offered in person appointments literal weeks from the time I made the call. The Telehealth visit over Zoom? The next day.
Have a good weekend, everyone! That is… if weekends are a thing for you…
Heather Christena Schmidt 