Susan's Scribblings the Blog

Monthly Archives: April 2016

• Here’s 2U

  Posted at 1:54 am by kayewer, on April 24, 2016

  I feel obligated to share my story about how Prince affected my life. Since his passing at age 57 was announced on April 21, a world of admirers and their messages have filled phone banks, print and social media with their own stories. My story is about his influence on my writing, and goes back to 1989.

  At the time, I was reading an international Prince fan magazine called Controversy. Over the years since becoming a Prince fan, I had developed an interest in many things, including some of the quirks and trivia associated with music. One afternoon, I was listening intently to a Prince album and singing along until I hit a stumbling block and thought I could do something about it. I prepared and submitted an article to the magazine about misheard lyrics (also known as mondegreens) in Prince’s songs, and the magazine printed it in the August 1st issue #18. What a thrill!

  The bigger thrill came with the next issue (October 1, #19), when the editor announced that Prince had actually read the issue and jotted down a quick reply to my article: his secretary contacted her and asked if she wanted to include it in the next issue and, after what I’m sure was a few moments of hyperventilating, the arrangement was made.

  When the issue went to print, I and myriad other fans were also hyperventilating. The fan in me was over the moon, but the writer in me leaped even higher. It was not just Prince reaching out to me as a fan or sharing something with all the fans reading the magazine; it was proving that my writing was not only worth publishing, but that the subject of the article read it himself. It was an honor and an affirmation to me to keep writing.

  I did go on to write more articles, eventually shifting to another newsletter after Controversy folded. The readers continued to praise my work, and I was and am grateful. Now that Prince is gone, a creative spark has flamed out. Writers, fans and all of us who communicate about his contributions to our world will keep the big light burning until we all get to see what he does in concert in the after world. For me, Prince opened the door to my writing, and I hope all my words in the future will be my thanks to him for that.

   

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• Keep Your Nose Clean

  Posted at 2:02 am by kayewer, on April 17, 2016

  I went to have my car washed the other day. After weeks of rain and schedules which didn’t match its hours (closes at 5:00 on weekdays to leave out most business folk for some reason), I finally had a day off and penned in a car wash on my calendar of things to do. The attendant had an attitude like car wash owner Bogdan Wolynetz  in Breaking Bad. Except I didn’t see any big eyebrows.

  After I got my proof of payment slip and a curt “pay inside” response, I entered the walk-through area to watch my vehicular baby get its spa treatment. I happened to look back outside toward the men who were vacuuming and applying “wheel bright” to my tires. The guy who had just helped me was standing where I had been moments before and blew a  snot rocket on the spot.

  Twice in my life I have so closely encountered men who have done this inexcusable thing on public space in my viewing range. My first thought this time was that I was likely to carry some icky stuff back into my freshly cleaned car, then my home. I was suddenly wishing with all my might that a sudden thunderstorm would come and cleanse the entire ground of the contamination.

  My mother has told stories about men using handkerchiefs, which then had to be boiled to clean them. This was before oxygenated detergents. With the arrival of tissues and the freedom movements of some 50 years ago, those went out of style, but apparently men don’t like to carry tissues anyway. I suppose that the pain of a wallet under one’s butt for hours daily is enough of a burden, but the solution is not to open-air de-snot oneself in public. Carry a couple of them, guys.

  Men belch, pass gas, scratch and adjust their nether regions in public, you might say, so why not toot the snoot as well? There used to be laws about expectorating in public (for a funny take on this, look up “Pay the Two Dollars” on YouTube), but now you don’t know what might be on the ground beneath your feet. I guess I can think about what happened this way: they use steam and jets outside the entrance, so maybe that spot did get cleaned eventually. The image in my head won’t be so easy to dismiss.

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• Funny How That Happens

  Posted at 1:45 am by kayewer, on April 10, 2016

  My can opener tried to take a plastic bag hostage. Maybe it had issues with the attention I was giving the bag, whereas I had not opened a can for a over a week. Really, though, it was just a crazy incident, resulting from factors beyond my control, that got the bag into the grips of the can opener.

  The great mystery of how air and matter come together in a single moment cannot be lost on an event like this. I had just turned around with the bag in my hand to fold it on the table. The handles were waving through the air. The magnetic arm of the can opener was in the same air space as the handles, and one handle was open at just the right angle that it caught on the arm. The one smooth motion I intended to make turned into an awkward tug of war with an inanimate object, which promptly fell over.

  It’s worth laughing at now, but if that bag had been a single man, and the can opener another single woman, blood might have been shed. At my stage of life, if the chance for an interaction with an available member of the opposite sex came along, I’d unsheathe the claws and ask questions later. As it was, I won the battle with the can opener, and the bag suffered no ill effects. I guess with a man it would mean no second date.

  Sometimes life is just that exciting. The score is one for me and zero for the can opener. And I still got the bag folded.

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• Stalled Progress

  Posted at 1:45 am by kayewer, on April 3, 2016

  The state of North Carolina is in the middle of a controversy regarding who can use gender specific public bathrooms. The governor signed a bill into law which affects opening up rest facilities to persons who identify as a gender other than the one into which they were born. Being human (or being a human being) is becoming more complex by the minute.

  I think this means it is time to change our bathrooms, not the people using them.

  Let’s look at what we’re dealing with. For all of us every day, using a bathroom is a biological necessity and a bane. Millions of us handle our bodily functions with decorum, but others, without going into gross detail, do not. In addition to the hygienic issue of the public use toilets, there never seems to be enough of them. The lines for women’s facilities are twice as long as men’s, and let’s face it: nobody likes to stand in a line that long, knowing what we’re planning to do once we get there anyway.

  So the “modern” restrooms have walls, a flimsy door and plenty of ventilation. Often there are gaps everywhere, which can also be abused by voyeurs, and the only thing distinguishing them, other than signs with stick figures of humans–one of whom has a skirt–on the doors are the addition of urinals for the men. Aren’t they a bit of an accessory anyway? Men can urinate in a toilet, but I guess it would put those scented cake manufacturers out of business if we do away with the porcelain penis-height peeing points.

  A person who may resemble a man but is actually a woman (or vice versa) normally should not have an issue with entering a restroom, except that men might expect users who can pee by unzipping their flies at the urinals. Does anybody really care if a woman who identifies as male enters a stall and sits to pee? If they wash their hands, who cares if they have one body part over another?

  Maybe what we need are all access bathrooms which are safe, non-gender specific, with ecology minded low flush toilets and a place to put one’s carried accessories (purses or coat) or a child (like on a changing table) without worrying. We don’t need to worry about showing our birth certificates to prove what gender we are when we have to go.

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