In the US, the right-wing has laid claim to the word “patriotic”. It has become associated with a culture obsessed with guns and taking away others’ rights. I have a knee-jerk reaction to the word now.
But America has had a long history of civil rights, and until this administration has been making steady progress on civil rights. Not fast enough, but in its absence definitely missed. If I am willing to fight for the days of civil rights, does this make me patriotic?
I think so. I think I can call myself a patriot wanting to bring back America’s days of being that shining light on the hill rather than the shitscape it currently is.
This will not be an exciting story. I haven’t broken any major laws accidentally (or on purpose), but I did once leave my vehicle registration for too long, and I was driving on expired stickers. I didn’t get stopped by the cops, so no drama. I discovered the problem some two months after they expired, however, so I could have gotten stopped by the cops at any given time.
I realized I was waiting for a postcard reminding me that my registration was due, and I had never gotten one. This is not an excuse, according to the license bureau.
Fixing it was as simple as going to the license facility and standing in line, all the time hoping that a cop wouldn’t find my car parked out front with an expired sticker. They did not, but I had to pay a fine for waiting too long to get the sticker. I found out that someone had transcribed my license number wrong on a form and that was why I didn’t get a postcard.
This is definitely not one of my more exciting stories.
Daily writing prompt
If there was a biography about you, what would the title be?
I can’t imagine why anyone would want to write a biography about me, much less buy one. I live an ordinary life, one where too many things came easily to me, and one in which I found my niche and settled there. All the adversity was in my childhood (and there was enough there for one lifetime). All the interesting times in my life were in my twenties, and they weren’t that interesting. I suppose one could write about how I’ve managed to live with bipolar disorder. Even that has been easy for me; my medications for the most part have been effective. I live a blessed life, one which does not lend itself well to biography. I like it this way; I’m much too old for drama these days.
My favorite candy is toffee, chocolate covered or not. I like the caramelized sugar and butter flavor and the brittle texture (although I like soft toffee, I prefer the hard kind). I find it hard to resist toffee, and I have to be careful not to eat the whole tin.
I can remember the last time I had toffee. It was a Heath Bar blizzard from Dairy Queen some weeks ago. Heath bars aren’t even the best toffee, but it satisfied my urges. I prefer homemade toffee, but I get that so seldom.
This post is making me hungry for toffee, especially the toffee in the picture above, which looks homemade. There’s no place to get it around here, so I will have to imagine it.
Yesterday I wrote that I was not too concerned about life because I’ve survived a lot. That is a lie — I am very concerned with what the US government is currently doing. I don’t care if Elon Musk is trying to save us money — he has no right to have his fingers in the government agencies to begin with. The end does not justify the means. Trump’s executive orders make him an autocrat and the US a dictatorship.
I don’t know where our government is. I don’t know why Congress hasn’t stepped in and prevented Musk’s plundering of information. If there is no way to prevent this, there are fatal flaws in our government based on trust of a president. What’s stopping a president from ruling by executive order? Nothing, apparently. Trust has eroded, and chaos isn’t far away.
I realize I have to live in-between these moments, within the chaos, and find joy outside the news. I try my best.
As I get older, I get less stressed about the outside world. Maybe this is a bad thing these days with all the chaos in our government, but I feel like I’ve survived everything that life has thrown at me so far, including some things that should very well have killed me (like getting in the car with an impaired driver).
If I can’t do anything about life throws at me, then there’s nothing to gain by panic. I will survive, or I will not, and if I do not, then I won’t know what happened. It’s a fatalistic stance, I guess. But I think it’s a natural consequence of getting older.
I’m planting seeds for a spring herb garden today. Just a few for now; it’s early times yet for seed starting. I received some herb seeds (lots of herb seeds) from my sister for Christmas. I’m converting one particular raised bed in my neglected garden into an herb garden.
I have a grow room in my basement. The shelves were already existent; we set fluorescent lights over each of the shelves and put some heat mats in. There’s a reflective surface on the opposite wall so that the light doesn’t lose itself in a corner. It’s a near-ideal setup for starting seeds, although it could use a little cleaning up.
The challenge is going to be keeping the garden weeded. I don’t have the stamina for weeding, so it falls to my husband, who doesn’t really recognize weeds from herbs. I will mark the herbs well, so that he can find them. Wish me luck.
I haven’t had great, amazingly fantastic news in so long, I have to use my imagination to think about what I would do if I got it. Luckily I have a great imagination. Maybe this is a factor in getting older, but I’ve gotten more bad news (like people dying) than good news these last several years.
Wow paper background with colorful geometric confetti. Vector illustration.
What would be great, amazingly fantastic news? Winning the lottery or snagging an agent, winning an award at work or selling a lot of books. Maybe I expect more from great news than I did when I was younger; I’m not sure.
The first thing I would do if I got great, amazingly fantastic news is let my husband know. Probably by text, because I’m not a big one for phone calls. It’s not a terribly exciting answer, but there it is. His response would be “Yay!” because he’s not an excitable person.
We’d probably celebrate later at a local restaurant, and we would discuss what to do with this great, amazingly fantastic (I love that phrase) thing that befell us, because even great, amazingly fantastic things have consequences.
I’m going to sit here and think of great, amazingly fantastic news. I’ll let you know if anything comes my way. After I tell my husband.
My students tell me that Midwestern Female Syndrome doesn’t exist anymore. Or, rather, they looked at me cockeyed when I explained it. So today’s women don’t feel a need to hide their accomplishments, or fear being honest on a job application because it’s ‘bragging’. As one student put it, “Damn right I’m proud of my good grades!”
Final exam marked with A+ with red pencil.
I am very glad to hear this, and a bit envious. As a member of the generation that was brought up to fear of being caught being successful, I laud my students’ lack of baggage. They never had to put up with a parent saying, “Maybe you shouldn’t act so smart” or “Maybe you should lose once in a while.” They never hid their grade on their exam sheet (thus the quote in the first paragraph) hoping nobody would see it. They will not struggle in a job interview.
I have never felt such an acute difference between generations.
No, really, I do not. I just got off a long break three weeks ago, and I don’t need a break this soon. But I’d really like a break.
I don’t get another break till late March. I used to teach at a college that believed students needed a three-day weekend every six weeks, so that they didn’t tear down the residence halls or do something else stupid. They might have had a point — maybe we all need a three-day weekend every few weeks so that we don’t do something stupid.
I think, if I had a break, I would rest all day. I feel like I could sleep a few hours right now. That’s how winter affects me (although it’s 40 degrees out at the moment). So my break would be me reclined on the couch sleeping. That actually sounds good right now.
Words Like Me 