Susan's Scribblings the Blog

Category: Uncategorized

• 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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• Through the Mouth

  Posted at 1:42 am by kayewer, on March 27, 2016

  Commercials sometimes annoy me. One in particular irks me every time it appears on television. The folks at Breathe Right®, the inventor of the nasal strip, features a commercial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJAcDq_IxBcin) which they discuss what happens when your nose is obstructed and you are forced to become a mouth breather to compensate for the lack of open passageways. The newest clip on television includes a daughter video recording her stuffy-nosed mother, presumably for future shaming on social media. A cat appears to look on with contempt–well, maybe that isn’t so unusual–at its human in the same situation, stuck with his mouth open to breathe. “How can anyone sleep like that?” the voice-over lady asks. How, I ask, does anybody not breathe while sleeping?

  So when did breathing through one’s mouth become unpopular? Culturally the term “mouth breather” is often used as an insult to imply that somebody is less intelligent. Why is that, when air can get to the lungs, and oxygenate the brain, quicker by inches that way? I find it contemptible when somebody snorts or whistles through their noses, but I don’t shout “Nose whistler!” at them.

  So there is plenty of information out there about the causes of mouth breathing unrelated to allergies or colds, including reports from periodontists who claim that improper jaw or tooth alignment can affect closing your mouth properly. Other causes include large tonsils, a deviated septum (think anybody who has broken the nose) or nasal polyps.

  Nobody ever mentions that some people have a jungle of nose hair in their nostrils, which surely slows down normal breathing, and the folks at Breathe Right® have never tried to invent a nose hair machete. If they ever remake the 1966 science fiction thriller The Fantastic Voyage, it should still be about a crew of miniaturized scientists who are injected into a person to reach and treat a dangerous life-threatening condition, but instead of exiting the patient’s eye, they must chop their way out through the nose hair jungle.

  The idea behind the nasal strip is that a metal piece adhering to the outside of the nose spreads the outer edges of the nostrils to clear the airway. I actually tried the product once when I had a bad cold. The next morning, the strip was not on my nose, so a search party was called out and it ultimately turned up perched on the outer rim of the wastebasket. So it seems it didn’t keep my nose open, but it flew gracefully through the air and nearly stuck the landing.

  Sports figures tend to wear the nasal strips; sometimes they are color coded to match the team colors of those burly football players. If you’re the fashionable tight end, you want the right color strip on your nose. You can even get lavender scented strips, but since it is above your nose, and you have a cold, can you really smell it?

  I don’t know if mouth breathing is really as bad as they claim in the commercials, but I feel there are better ways to tout a nostril aid than making fun of its users. So when the ad comes on I simply sigh, through my mouth, and exhale through my nose.

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• Pause REM

  Posted at 3:44 am by kayewer, on March 13, 2016

  Adult life is complex, and often we put our own dreams on hold so others can benefit from what we are willing to offer them. Usually before I go to sleep I think about what dreams I still have unfulfilled, and boy is it a list.

  Some people call those unfulfilled dreams parts of a bucket list (named for things to do before one kicks the bucket). Really they are simply the carrots in front of our noses which keep us going when everything in life is making us want to stop. We live, breathe and die working to fulfill those dreams, often for years. That’s an awfully long time to chase a darned carrot.

  Of course some dreams like completing medical school do take years, but the end product is personal enlightenment, humanitarian self sacrifice and some financial security, sleepless nights, chapped hands and a fried brain. Dreams like meeting a celebrity before you die can involve a burly 300-pound bodyguard and possible personal injury. Still, we hang on tenaciously to our dreams, because while they are unrealized, they still have the element of mystery and promise of happiness lingering on the thought of them.

  There are charities like Make a Wish Foundation designed to help children fulfill bucket lists in a very short time frame, usually because they have a condition which will claim their lives long before graduation from high school, let alone medical school. For the rest of us, we continue to put dreams on hold and carry on with life as it is in the present.

  It was the fictional George Bailey, portrayed by James Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life, whose dreams to travel and build were put on hold for the town, his neighbors and his family. In giving up the dreams on his bucket list, George actually found himself. Not all dreams are guaranteed to either help you find or lose yourself, but for now, just remember them before you go to sleep at night; who knows what will happen tomorrow morning.

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• A Gutsy Disease

  Posted at 3:16 am by kayewer, on March 7, 2016

  There was a stomach virus going around our office recently. Actually it may be all around South Jersey, Delaware and parts of Philadelphia, but I digress. Whenever one gets sick in the abdominal region, it’s never a good sign.

  I was certain I got sick from bad hamburgers at a popular joint whose name I’ll not mention because I sent them a complaint and want to see how they handle it. However, with many gastrointestinal events there are always the embarrassment of ailments which I also won’t mention because they’re just too gross. Stomachaches are no picnic.

  The problem with being in an office environment with other people is that not everybody graduated the school of good hygiene. That is how we get sick, either from poor food preparation or a bug somebody who didn’t wash their hands just passed onto a surface 200 other people are going to touch.

  So while I have recovered from whatever affected me, it’s going to go around for awhile longer, so keep your antibac handy, folks.

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• Red Carpet, Gold Statue, Black Mark

  Posted at 2:37 am by kayewer, on February 28, 2016

  When those heavy little gold statues are handed out at the biggest film awards ceremony in the world, the only people who will be happy are the award winners. One wins one of those statues because a bunch of supposedly elite experts in film craft say it’s deserved. Who are these people, anyway, and why don’t the average movie going public have a say?

  Why are the movies nominated come out at the end of the year when nominations are due? Why are the most popular movies often snubbed (Star Wars) and movies which could easily be accused of being interminably boring art projects featuring currently high ranked talent getting overpaid for emoting for two hours get multiple nominations (The Revenant)? You can always tell when the elite members of the group determining the winners have snubbed a movie because the best it gets is technical, sound or costume nominations. Often they also lose to a period piece.

  As far as this (and other) years’ elephant in the room–the subject of non-white nominations–I was hoping John Boyega and Daisy Ridley would be nominated for Star Wars. Unfortunately big box office doesn’t always mean big nominations. Some time between the age of big epics like Ben-Hur being nominated from everything except the kitchen sink and today, the voters decided that arty movies are the only ones deserving of a nod. It’s a rigged class structure with rules meant to favor their own. This means that movies either have to get their attention, or the voters have to open their minds to other opinions of what makes a good movie. The mind is hard to turn, so we will always be at odds when it comes to that. We may never see a good pool of nominees as a result. But at least watching the red carpet is still fun.

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• No Money or No Function?

  Posted at 2:41 am by kayewer, on February 21, 2016

  Let’s set the rules down right now: if a person has no money, they are broke, but if a thing is somehow not functioning, it is broken. This must have been Bad Language Week, because I heard the word broke misused about a dozen times. One must be pretty lazy to conserve energy by leaving off one little syllable.

  It was also Cultural Bad Habits Week, because the usage of the verb “to be” was left completely out of so many conversations, I had to step away and process what was just said because I didn’t understand it.  In some places, if clothing was soiled, a person would say, “That needs washed.” The better sentence would be, “That needs to be washed,” or even, “That needs washing,” but for some reason one of Shakespeare’s most memorable soliloquies was lost in translation.  Why people stumble over “to be” may be related to the variances in its conjugation, which don’t look at all like the original. However, just as in math, memorization goes a long way.

  I heard the word broke used for so many malfunctioning things, my head was spinning. Things carrying no monetary support included our electoral system, a helicopter, racial relations and a few others in which the only part of the conversation I heard was that a thing had been broke.  Ugh!

  It’s easy to occasionally forgive some dimly conceived but permanently implanted verbal gaffes such as “daze,” for  (substituting the slurred “they is” for “they are”), “Yiz,” or “Youse,” for several secondary persons (and their third party mate, “allayiz” or “allyouse”), but our language getting shorter is a sure indicator that our brain power is getting smaller. It is we who will wind up broken. And broke.

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• Love Within/Love Without

  Posted at 2:41 am by kayewer, on February 14, 2016

  On Valentine’s Day not everybody has found somebody. I have so many friends who are perpetually lonely, this time of year can be a strain on the morale. There is really nothing wrong with people who are living without love; the problem is with the other people out there who apparently are incapable of love.

  I would rather feel unworthy of love than be incapable of love.

  People who live without love have their skins, minds and souls hardened every day by those incapable of love. The stings of physical, verbal or mental abuse often become as much a part of life as breathing. I’ve written before about the people who are so stunned by a dog who, after ages of abuse, strikes out at the next abuser to come along. That’s a fear response, and it can happen to anybody at any time, even among those hardened to the cruelties of this world. What is really amazing is when an abused dog licks the outstretched hand of its rescuers. This is a creature who was lost to love and still knows what love is.

  Life will often find a companion for the lonely if circumstances allow. Often the powerful, most of whom are incapable of real love, repress the lonely. It might be a fear of somebody else’s happiness eclipsing their own, or a conditioned reaction to anything beyond their perception of normal. It’s against nature to deny love and, if I dare to be political, it is against our founding fathers’ wishes that anybody should be prevented from pursuing happiness.

  I’ve seen my share of bullies, jerks and other people who seem challenged by the good things in life. I’ve seen beautiful miserable people and ugly happy people. Being loved is not about who or what you are, but that one other person sees you and respects your humanity in spite of what or who you are. I’ve been disappointed by lots of people, but I don’t hate them or wish them ill will. They need to be loved the most, because it is so much harder to do.

  It’s true: love is hard, just like anything good and right is hard. So those who are spending their Valentine’s Day unloved are the ones you should seek out. They are capable of so much, while people incapable of love shortchange their lives of so much more.

  So here is to all those lonely people on February 14th. I see you. I hope somebody special will see you someday, too.

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