Susan's Scribblings the Blog

A writer from the Philadelphia area shares the week online.
Susan's Scribblings the Blog
  • Who the Heck is Kayewer?
  • Monthly Archives: March 2022

    • Twitchy

      Posted at 4:40 pm by kayewer, on March 26, 2022

      Do people who twitch annoy you? I can only imagine the most shallow people would be annoyed by the presence of a person who may have a bodily dysfunction like a twitch. This also applies to scoffing at the visibly challenged, such as those who have mobility assistance devices, people with birthmarks, acne, scars, or anything which a select class of people finds intolerable. You may identify as somebody who finds–ahem–imperfections an inconvenience to your daily existence.

      If this describes you, you may also be the type who stays at home, draws the blinds, and clutches the pearls if you so much as raise a bump on the skin while plucking a facial hair.

      You’re bringing us all down, friend.

      A series of prescription commercials are directed at a condition known as tardive dyskinesia, a side effect of some types of anti-depressant medications. TD can cause involuntary mouth or limb movements such as twitching. So can some chronic conditions. People suffering from these symptoms cannot control them. You, however, can control how you react to them. The folks on the ads say that they feel people are staring at their TD instead of at the person.

      So people make other people feel bad about themselves, they take medication to feel better, and they still get picked on for having side effects. That sounds like a typical game plan of a bully: destroy everything until the victim is destroyed.

      What kind of human being does this stuff? Hope that doesn’t describe you.

      Life is not about catering to your ideals; they’re about blending all our lives into one ideal world in which everybody has a place. Some people are quick to ruin life for others because of something they perceive as a flaw, but the truth is the flaws we can see are much better than those we cannot.

      Some ugly stuff is in our souls.

      I don’t stare at flaws: I engage people at the soul level. I bring a smile and pleasant words and patience. Others pick apart and complain, swear and interrupt the flow of time with impatience. You may know some of these high-horse riding folks as Karens.

      Karen is a nice name, not to be confused with an attitude.

      Since some medications may have side effects, a patient may weigh the benefits of one over the other. In some cases, they take another medication to counteract the side effects of the one causing the TD. Now that’s dedication; they don’t want to sit at home with the blinds drawn and clutch their pearls. They want to live their lives.

      Next time you get ready to stare at somebody who is twitching, just don’t do it.

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    • Shore Is Me

      Posted at 4:41 pm by kayewer, on March 19, 2022

      I took a Me Day to visit the shore. After over two decades of not going to the beach, I thought it was time to return, so I’m renting a property to take some time off just to write and relax. As part of the process of reviewing the place in person and finalizing the details, I decided to get my walking in on the boardwalk while I was there. Boy am I tired.

      The driving was not bad for a spring weekend. In the absence of maps, I tried to use my car’s service to offer turn-by-turn directions, but it wanted me to take the toll road, so I discarded that option. Instead I headed out using the main highway leading to the popular beach side resorts, and turned when the signs told me to. Worked fine for me.

      The issue I had was not recognizing anything along the route. The usual landmarks have been replaced by sprawling malls and housing developments, and I think I completely missed one of my father’s favorite shortcuts simply because it wasn’t there (or at least it didn’t look like I expected it to), so I drove flat out on one road until a turnoff appeared for the main strip to the southern shore towns. If I had stayed on the same road, eventually I would have driven my car into the Atlantic Ocean, so it was just a matter of making a turn before that happened.

      Some things have not changed in over twenty years; the little tykes’ theme park was still there, along with the familiar farmer’s markets, the hubcap emporium featuring a tall tree of them as a roadside attraction, and an abundance of mobile home parks and campgrounds along the way. It was a pleasant excursion, though my favorite radio station lost its signal less than a quarter of a way to the destination.

      The visitor’s center used to be a little building on a spit of land off the bridge, but it has become a modern and complex place to figure out how to enter. I missed the turnoff, so I didn’t visit. The truck behind me, who was in an immense hurry, is partly to blame for the distraction.

      Once I tended to the business portion of the trip, I dropped off some donations at the animal shelter, then went to the boardwalk and strolled nearly ten full blocks, then took off my shoes and walked barefoot along the sand and dipped my toes in the water. The ocean was bracing, the breeze strong but tolerable, and the sand felt good on my feet. By the time I turned for home, I was pleasantly achy and tired, so I know I’ll sleep well tonight. Also, my wallet is lighter, because I made a gift shop stop.

      Come summer, I’ll be back to enjoy some peace and quiet. If I can ignore the call of the sea.

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    • A Monster Walked Into a Convention

      Posted at 8:21 pm by kayewer, on March 12, 2022

      I spent a few hours at a horror convention. After too long without this twice annual event, people were happy to brave nasty weather to buy scary merchandise and meet horror related celebrities.

      We spent hours strolling through the shopping mecca of scary stuff; movies on DVD, tee shirts, collectibles, jewelry, action figures and reproductions of iconic items like the Phantasm sentinel sphere and Thor’s mighty hammer (I thought about trying to heft it, but figured I’m not worthy).

      The crowd was amazing, polite, pleasant and mannerly. I was also told that the celebs were gracious. Though I was familiar with a few of them, I didn’t seek any pre-paid autographs or photos, though a friend did get a picture with a popular television serial killer vigilante and was thrilled to get up close and personal with somebody so well-known.

      Part of the thrill for me was just watching the parade of humanity. One daring fellow went full-on with applying an afore-mentioned Phantasm sphere to be lodged in his forehead. A variety of cosplay guests (persons who try to exactly replicate a popular culture character by wearing a costume and full makeup and/or accessories/prosthetics), including Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger, moved through the crowd and posed for pictures. I even saw a youngster dressed as Chucky in his pre-evil killer doll persona. Some women wore horror-themed dresses, and plenty of jackets sported scary themes.

      Among the crush of people, we did notice a lot of body art revealed with bare arms and creatively covered torsos, and the only bad thing to speak of was the fact that the aroma of a certain controversial plant occasionally crossed our paths because somebody had taken a smoke break before entering the convention floor. The police officers strolling the area had nothing really to do. The attendees were civil.

      Movies ran in one of the hotel auditoriums on a continuous schedule. Annual vendors were easy to find for their regular visitors, and I met up with the tee shirt vendor who was happy to announce that he got licensing for some popular shirts. I got three.

      Horror themed conventions aren’t that much different from others, and it was liberating to go out on a cold and rainy/snowy day and see some interesting things.

      I’ll even sleep well tonight.

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    • To Whom Can I Turn?

      Posted at 4:57 pm by kayewer, on March 5, 2022

      One should be suspicious of any business that does not have an accessible information booth or a complaint department. In the olden days, department stores had a complaint department; it was often near the gift wrap and returns, and in the lower level (read basement), but customers could form a queue and politely air grievances about anything to do with their store experience and have a sympathetic ear. Often the ear was also attached to some mild-mannered milquetoast; in later years the person behind the desk may have been more commanding in their presence, such as a woman one might suspect of having worked in a rock quarry (“Yeah, what’s your beef, wimp?”)

      I have been having some frustrating issues lately, and no place to talk about them. Facebook, for example, has been limiting my actions on the very page you are reading when it is posted there, and they won’t let me settle the issue. Everything I click on is blocked, so I can’t inquire or provide what they may need to reverse the matter. I am so grateful for the handful of supporters I have now, since any potential new supporters don’t know I exist because Facebook doesn’t seem interested in letting me speak with them.

      Microsoft is also a problem to complain to. I had an issue with a game, and when somebody is using a game for brain stimulation or relaxation like me, an issue with playing tends to have the opposite effect. Normally I would turn to the YouTube cheats, in which an expert deftly solves the puzzle while you watch and makes you feel like a total idiot, but this was a rare occasion when I could not find one for this particular game. Sure it’s embarrassing to have somebody hold your hand through a game, but imagine, when there isn’t one, what new level of hell that can be, especially when one is used to ranking in the top ten or twenty on any given day. This particular game cost me dearly when I struggled to reach that point and grew too exhausted to go further, and I ended up in the top 50 somewhere.

      Sometimes in my daily job, I field complaints from other people. This past week I got one of my most dreaded classic approaches to complaining: the entitled person who misses their high school debate team years and makes anybody in customer service miserable by being a jerk and not knowing when to stop.

      These types follow a predictable pattern; first, they openly admit they didn’t follow the best route to satisfaction, either through misguided actions on their part or downright fraud, and the reply simply suggests another way to get the same result. This then brings another reply stating that our answer is useless. Imagine that: throwing monetary bonuses or the road to satisfaction their way, and they call it useless. I always wonder what type of person does this (Dr. Phil McGraw would probably say a narcissist). After a further review and polite suggestions, another missal (read missile) is launched picking apart the reply verbatim with an opinionated jab or two such as “You’re talking with the flair of corporate speak.” Well, sir, who would you want to reply to your malodorous rant, the local librarian?

      Maybe the reason some places did away with complaint departments is that, once one has been complained to all day, the services of a shrink are required, and that’s expensive. The costs have to be passed on to customers, who then complain about that. Gee, we are a complaining race, aren’t we.

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