Already Read Used Books - Read More of Them

Dan and I are truckin' on down to Nags Head again on Saturday for a much needed week of sun-soaking, sand sitting, gull feeding, crab watching and hoping to catch the occasional daybreak dolphin dancing in the surf.

And what do we do when we're not watching the sun rise over the Atlantic? Why, we read, of course. (HA!! Fooled ya, didn't I?)

Today we went on a trek to find a decent used bookstore since I read at the speed of lightening and it pains me to spend upwards of $10.00 or so for a paperback book that I'll blow through in a matter of a coupla hours.

And, much to my delight!!! It was a EUREKA moment. We found, courtesy of our beloved IPhone - a neat little nook called Already Read Used Books right here in Alexandria, just West of Old Town on Duke Street.

Very neat owners - friendly, helpful, down-to-earth and knowledgeable. Big bonus in Gwenievere - a fairly vocal, very pettable purple-nailed tailless biblio-cat whose sole purpose in life is to ease you through the check-out process.

If you're in the area, check it out. You won't be disappointed. They've got a large selection of just about everything you could possibly be interested in reading and the prices are modest. We got a big recycled bag full of books, enough for two speed-reading-type people spending a week at the beach, for less than $60.00.

Go!! Visit!! Buy!! That's an order.

Really.

K. Thx. Boi.

The Amazing Courage of Roy Benavidez

Roy Benavidez

If you don't get a chance to read anything else this Memorial Day weekend - read about Roy - a first generation orphaned immigrant who dropped out of school in the 7th grade to become a migrant farmworker.

God Bless Military Personnel, keep them safe, and grant them the courage that very few of us will ever have.

Things I Have Been

Daughter, Granddaughter, niece, cry-baby child, student, sister, Catholic, teenage runaway, grocery store clerk, babysitter, page at The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, bill collector, advertising agency secretary, homeless, disowned, unwed mother, welfare recipient, scared, frightened, alone, hospital laboratory clerk, wife of a heroin addict, battered woman, atheist, divorcee, aunt, waitress, cocktail waitress, bartender, bar manager, rape victim advocate, suicide hotline worker, daughter-in-law, sister-in-law, used car salesperson, wife of an alcoholic, step-mother, bitch, mother of two, mother of three, home health hospice worker, agnostic, housecleaner, chronically ill, divorcee, medic, firefigher, ambulance driver, content, CPR instructor, EMS instructor, dead tired, homeowner, mother-in-law, published poet, published freelance writer, mourner, Washingtonian, grandmother of 1, medical secretary, wife of a good man, deist, great-aunt, POA and parental caregiver, grandmother of two, unemployed housewife, happy.

[edited to add] Mary wrote and told me I had forgottn to add "good friend." So - consider it added.

That's about it - but it's enough and I wouldn't change a thing of it. Accomplishments are sometimes made simply by living through it and the greatest accomplishment is looking back and smiling and knowing that you got where you got by getting there.

How Words Die and Take On New Meaning

It's just a word - how much weight can it carry? Can a word's meaning change over the years? Like the word, "gay" for instance - it used to connote joy and wild abandon - like in the "Gay '90's." But now, 100 years later, it's meaning has changed entirely.

Or take "bad." Bad used to mean, well, it meant bad. Now it means, "good." Like saying, 'Man, Randy Moss was baddddd in last night's game," when, in fact, he scored 3 touchdowns.

"Christian" is another changing word. Used to be anyone who believed in Christ was happy to be defined as a "Christian." Now, not so much. It's been commandeered by the extremists - and other religions, such as Catholics, are shying away from using it as an identifier because they do not want to be identified with the fanatics who've claimed it as their own. It makes me feel very sorry for the few remaining real "Christians," - those who carry Christ in their heart and soul and practice doing the things He did in their every day life with joy and personal committment but without the fanfare and self-administered pats on the back we're beginning to distance ourselves from.

The more any one group of people use a word to define themselves the more that word becomes the new definition in the minds of those hearing it.

I have a feeling it is going to be so with the word "Patriot." More and more people are narrowing the definition of the word to suit their own personal needs or beliefs. More and more fringe groups, such as The White Patriot Party, the Tea Party, and numerous extremist militia groups are tossing the phrase around or incorporating it into their selling point as if it belonged to no one but them and anyone who disagrees with them or their views are suddenly "unpatriotic."

Given time, overuse and misuse of the word itself and it will become something to avoid for many people. It will have been co-opted by a few to the distaste of the many. People will still love their country but they will be too disgusted by the ever-narrowing "them or us" mentality of those who incessantly use the word for their own gain (Sarah Palin, The Tea Party and the Oath Keepers come to mind) to continue using it in any old and familiar sense of the word.

It is my personal prediction that the definition of the word "patriot" that we grew up with will become obsolete and come to mean something entirely different - probably within our lifetime - maybe within the next decade.

Gun Rally in Gravelly Park & Fort Hunt

The rally in Va. today - the one in which people are carrying their loaded hand-guns and waving around their (supposedly) unloaded assault rifles, is being held in a National Park. (Gravelly Park.)


I've seen a few clips on the news so far - random interviews with the participants - and each of them, when questioned, say they are there to protest a possible repeal of The Second Amendment or they say that they are there because we are in grave danger of losing our rights to own/carry weapons under the current administration and they want to make people aware of that danger.

The rally organizer said he put this all together to protest the Democratic Congress's capitulation to a "totalitarian socialism" that tramples individual rights.

Washington Post

Here's the "you, moron" part:

This is the first year that they've been granted the freedom to assemble at all - thanks to President Obama signing into effect the recent law which permits the carrying of loaded or unloaded weapons into a National Park.

Guns allowed into Federal Parks

Does this really sound like a president they need to be afraid of and a congress which is "trampling the individual's right" or does it sound like a great opportunity to show off how well your internet-ordered green and black fatigue cammie's go with your new AK and, oh yeah, check out this shiny new black leather ankle-holster and my intimidating but classy bandoleer of magazines containing ammunition which I have artfully draped over my shoulder while you're at it?

The High Cost of Less Taxes and the Accompanying Loss of Freedom

It seems very odd to me - like we have a whole nation, that wants to move backwards.....back to the "old days" which were not "the good old days" at all, but rather a time when life expectancy was low, health was poor and life was hard. Back when the average worker had no recourse if he were put at danger, if he were abused by his employers, if his situation was an unhealthy and unhappy one. A time when corporations called all the shots and no one monitored them or watched over them and they could do whatever they wanted, to whoever they wanted, whenever they wanted. A time when people had 12 and 14 children for two reasons - one being that there was no such thing as health insurance and so you had to produce many so at least a few would live. The second reason being that you needed them to live long enough to support you, their parents, because you sure as hell couldn't save enough and there sure the hell was no pension plan or social security to work for or to rely upon.

It was a time of very little "government interference," granted, but it was also a time when children routinely ate lead paint and got brain-damaged. A time when conditions in factories were horrendous and people routinely suffered life-threatening injuries - and were promptly fired without compensation when they did - and all because there was no mandatory insurance protecting them. A time when people went hungry, children of hard working fathers suffered rickets and malnutrition, gainfully employed men died from untreated pneumonia and undiagnosed ulcers, mothers of 10 children died giving birth to their 11th - and all because there was simply no money to pay the doctor and there was no employee-sponsored insurance plans. A time when, because there were no unions to speak for the common man and there were no government agencies making sure safety laws were passed and enforced, men and women worked 16 and 17 hour days, 7 days a week in the most hellish conditions and children under 12 were routinely hired at half the wage of an adult and made to do the same job as the adult would have done.

Is that what we want? All in the name of "freedom" and all in the name of "being mad as hell and not wanting to pay taxes" any longer?

Sometimes, the more laws we have, the more oversight and safety that's provided, the more free we become.

Those days of lower taxes and less government intervention - people weren't "free" then. They were slaves to making a dollar - that and only that. There wasn't much joy to go around, nor was there any "freedom." A person is not free when he worries constantly about a dangerous work place, an illness that he can't afford, a child he cannot feed, an old age he cannot support, a house full of lead paint and asbestos, two parents who are destitute and looking to him for sustenance.

All good things come at a cost - the cost is sometimes taxes. If we were to suddenly have all taxes repealed, as well as the loss of all those things that government provides us by virtue of our paying those taxes, how much better off do you think you'd be? How much richer? Does a few dollars a week more in your paycheck offset the cost of providing your own health insurance, the painfully higher cost of commercial products which do not contain things like lead and asbestos, your own retirement fund - without matching funds from your employer, your own workman's comp. insurance in case you get hurt in your suddenly way-more dangerous workplace, tuition for your children's schooling since the government will no longer be able to subsidize them, your own security since the police force will be full of under-qualified patrolmen because salaries will not longer be competitive, hauling your own trash to the dump - which will be full of radioactive junk and harmful materials, since the government will no longer regulate things like waste? The list could go on and on, but you get the point, I'm sure.

The Tea Party is telling us what they don't want....they don't want government interference. They are telling us what they do want - which is LESS TAXES. What they are not telling us is how we survive if and when they succeed.

They are telling us what they want to give to us - but not what it will cost us in the end - or what we will be giving up to get it.

How Revisions Work

Poems are made to be tinkered with.....change a rhyme, fix a meter, adjust a thought. It's a boring process for the most part - except to the author, of course. To the poet it becomes a puzzle, a labor of love, almost. The search for perfection which never gets found.

It's hard to give it up sometimes - and it can be done to death.

This is where the poem posted a few days ago has ended up....there's not much changed, actually, but it's taken hours and hours of time and thought to do. No one will even notice, I suppose, except me. But I heard a neat thing last night and it made the agony that no one will notice worth it.

"Better to have no public and write for yourself than to write for others and have no self."

Anyhow - here's the revision: See if you can find the changes.

My Sister and I


We were the worst Girl Scouts. We did not sell
our cookies we just freely passed them out
to long-haired boys we barely knew and hell-
bound men on low-slung bikes who'd hang about
a day or two until their engines cooled;
until their fresh-inked dragons scabbed; until
our sainted mother dragged us home. She fooled
no one. She wanted us to cry; to spill
our guts; to crack like china; crumb like cake;
surrender unto Mom; to never cling
to strangers but to her; to cower; quake
on sheets still wet with Daddy's sweat; to sing
through tears that only she could make us shed.
She swore to God we'd bleed as she'd been bled.

My Sister and I

My Sister and I

We were not good girl scouts. We did not sell
our cookies. Instead, we gave them away -
to long haired drummer boys in bands and hell-
bound men on low-slung bikes who'd let us stay
a day or two until their engine's cooled,
until the new ink tattoos crusted and
a worried mother dragged us home. She fooled
them all. She wanted us to cry; to bend;
to break; to fold like butter; crumb like cake;
surrender onto Mom; to never cling
to strangers but to her; to sleep and wake
on sheets still wet with Daddy's sweat and sing
through tears that she alone had made us shed.
Her daughters had to bleed as she'd been bled.

295.34

295.34

I hear his voice inside my head.
I count the dried stains on the bed.
The sounds and stains begin to blend.
I'm drugged, unable to defend
or to repeat the things he's said.

My walls are white, his whisper's red.
There's blood to spill and flesh to shred,
grave rituals we must attend.
His is the voice

that no man hears but all men dread.
Eventually the sound will spread.
He keeps insisting I depend
on him alone, my only friend.
He leads; I follow; needle; thread.
I heed his voice.

Beginning Snowmageddon

02/06/10

Snowmageddon DC

2/8/10

Yikes!! I have joined the ranks of the unemployed. Voluntarily, no less.

Snowfall n DC

Veteran's Day 2009

Arlington National Cemetery
Section 60

A lone house-key, a melting Twix,
two Miller Lites, a crucifix.
A fifth of rum, a pack of Kools,
report cards from Chicago schools.

Four hard-backed books, a tear-stained poem,
a cell phone programmed to call home.
Three dozen letters never read,
a pillow from a double bed.

A Barbie doll, three Lego cars,
Nine lightning bugs in Mason Jars.
Six polished stones, a strand of beads,
a planter filled with apple seeds.

Two coffee cups that catch the rain,
three baseball caps, a plastic train.
Eight birthday cards, a catcher's mitt,
a sweater someone's mother knit.

Four thousand pictures creased and torn.
One wedding veil that won't be worn.

Don't Ask

What started out last Friday as a much anticipated 4 day weekend in The Outer Banks of North Carolina ended up an 18 hour drive and a 2 day stay in Indiana.

Don't ask.

Who's Calling Who What?

Mike raised an interesting point in an earlier thread that I'd like to take a quick minute to address.

He asked me how I, as a "typical liberal" (although how he thinks he knows me well enough to know what I am is a little puzzing) asked how it felt being called a Nazi for expressing an opinion. He then correlated his (not really) calling me a Nazi with how the Obama-adoring media like to characterize peaceful citizens with concerns as Nazis and hate mongers.

I Figure I could go on and on in response but since a picture's worth a thousand words I'd save my tired fingers about 10 thousand key strokes:

Seen at Town Hall Protests:









I could go on and on about who's calling who what - but well, you get the picture.

Joe (Cry-Liar) Wilson - Lies!!!

At last Thursday's press conference Joe Wilson said the following:

We need to be discussing issues specifically to help the American people. And that would not include illegal aliens, these are people-- I'm for immigration, legal immigration, I've been an immigration attorney. But people who have come to our country and violated laws, we should not be providing full health care services.

According to his web site, however, Joe's a real estate attorney by trade, who helped found the West Columbia law firm Kirkland, Wilson, Moore, Taylor & Thomas, before entering Congress in 2001. He also has served as a Staff Judge Advocate with the South Carolina Army National Guard.

A lawyer familiar with Joe said the following: "Joe has never been anything but a real-estate attorney."

In fact, no one familiar with The South Carolina Bar Association has any knowledge of Joe ever having worked as an immigration attorney.

What's more, according to an extensive search of the American Immigration Lawyer's Association membership database, no one from South Carolina by the name Joe Wilson or Addison Wilson has ever been a member.

Go figure!!

Third Time's The Charm?

Fragility
2nd Rewrite

Fragility's the curse of age:
weak stick-like arms, quick flashing rage,
slow shuffling feet, lethargic brain.
Beloved pleasures become strain:
to read each word, to turn each page.

You leave your room to find the cage
confining you is safety's gauge.
Frail spinal bones rasp one refrain,
"Fragility."

The hands won't grasp, nor fists engage.
You're battling the seventh stage
with parchment skin atop gnarled vein
while jars and tight lids mock your pain
until there's nothing to assuage
fragility.

Fragility -Version 2

Fragility - V2

Fragility's the curse of age;
fine-tremored hands, impendent rage,
slow shuffling feet, lethargic brain.
Beloved pleasures become strain;
to read each word, to turn each page.

You leave your room to find the cage
that once confined is safety's gauge.
Decaying bones grate one refrain,
"Fragility."

The legs can't kick, nor fists engage,
you're pushing back the seventh stage
with parchment covered gnarled vein.
Dropped pills, steep bathtubs mock your pain.
Your memories alone assuage
fragility.

Fragility

Fragility

Fragility's the curse of age -
unsteady hands that shake with rage,
slow moving feet, decaying brain
Simple pleasures are a strain -
to read fine print, to turn the page.

You leave the house to find the cage
that once confined is safety's gauge.
Old bones rattle one refrain,
"Fragility."

The arms cant lift, nor mind engage,
you're staring down the seventh stage
with parchment skin and gnarled vein.
Bedroom mirrors mock your pain.
There's nothing left that can assuage
fragility.