Writing Reality

  As I sit here typing on my computer nearly twenty-four hours after seeing someone before their resting place. I ponder many things. All morning thoughts of what our society thinks. We have had opinions about age, familiarity, and social structures. I began to realized a few things. First, I noticed that I feel more comfortable around people ten or more years my junior. Secondly, I noted that the people I know that are fifteen to thirty years younger than me, most are not married. Most do not have children. What makes this odd is that, the ages of these people I speak of are ages thirty to forty-five years old. In my day, it seemed majority of that age range were married and or, were raising children or at least had children. I do not find this to be disturbing, quite to the contrary. I marvel at it. I’ve always wondered, ‘when were people going to realize maybe we needed to slow the population down’? Instead of seeing what I saw thirty or more years ago where everyone was thought

  3 rd And 4—Still Loving the NFL I’ve been watching Professional American Football games since the end of 1966. No, not with my dad. But I started watching those games with my older brother. Why? Because it was Wicked Man! Like Cool! And only the cool people knew just how cool it was. If you couldn’t sit there and watch a bunch of guys go head-to-head for your entertainment; then who were you anyway? So, we’d thought. My mother was a ‘real’ girl. She wanted nothing to do with such violence. My dad barely watched NFL games. And for some reason he’d preferred watching Professional Ice Hockey games. I’ll say it was to see an unscheduled fight break out. Because he thought that was how ‘real men’ acted.   You didn’t take a shove on the chin. A real man let it bother him and subsequently took care of business by retaliating with brute force. So, it seemed his thinking. My brother and I loved the NFL games. We’d watch them, then we would apply the plays we witnessed to our unorganize

  Death in the Distant Future… Or at least that is what its supposed to be. We don’t suppose people should die at a certain age. We will witness suffering; but we know it gets better. So, we’ve been told. Or so, we have hope that it will. There are instances of mass tragedy. Sometimes we call that war—maybe insanity—perhaps terrorism… We have names for it, that type of death. Then there are the terminals. Things we think we can control—once we know the enemy within.   Or things we follow, pray for, aim for. We hold hands for it. Or we choose to suffer with the suffering because it matters. And it doesn’t matter how it matters. Then there is some form of Universal Order. A tainted weird line of fate. Perhaps mathematically calculated in everyone’s existence. No matter how great, how menial a life on earth may appear there’s a geometric wave—a pattern. We can involve other mathematical ideologies—Fibonacci, perhaps. And each of our lives are formulas. Formulas appearing misundersto

  “Life is a Negotiation.”---Chris Voss, former FBI negotiator, CEO of the Black Swan Group, Ltd. I laid in bed this morning, staring at the ceiling. And wondered if there was something special about yesterday that I couldn’t get to sleep till nearly two in the morning. Hours later, I got a bit of an answer. Yes, it was about marriage. Well, not really. It was about decisions. I reminisced on how last night marked three years ago was about the same time I’d dreamt that we’d have a complete shutdown from a pandemic. That day, I awoke in a heavy, cold sweat mid-January 2020 on a Wednesday afternoon after two house clients had cancelled. I’d come home said ‘hi’ to hubby then went upstairs and collapsed onto our bed at 11:03 am. It was after I’d already tended to a few other ill and pained clients. I was relieved and I was exhausted. I knew what was about to happen. I’d dreamt years before about all sorts of catastrophes and well, they happened. If the dream is clear it usually happens

  What happens in social media… Stays in social media. Social media is not exactly Las Vegas. I mean it could be. Perhaps some of us wish it were. And then we could walk around after doing, saying or implying something controversial or ridiculous in an open forum on social media. And maybe, no one would have any knowledge of our relationship to whatever appeared typed by us, liked by us, videoed of us. Or anything else that could get us fired, divorced, broken-up, shunned or anything other to the converse of the aforementioned verbs. However, to a larger degree truth being, if our partners, friends, bosses—ehh hmmm, future bosses are watching those social media platforms we’re in for it. We may not get that dynamo job we’ve always wanted. Little Suzie there in accounting who stays in her corner, eats her greens, whilst her mother cuts off the crust of her egg salad sandwiches for her lunch every morning—is in for a surprise. As Suzie, cubiclized sits at her desk. Still worrying if

  Bad Water and The Axis of Evil Sounds like a monster—movie, doesn’t? As I sat in a friend’s office we chatted for an hour about society, behavior patterns and such. She, a new grandmother not nearly age sixty stated, “You know what I’ve noticed around this area?” I replied, “What would that be?” “There are quite a few children nowadays with disabilities in our area.” “Well, I’ll tell you a reason.” “Oh?” “Yes. In my town we have a great child-study team in our school system. We also accommodate many of the county’s hearing impaired children. And with that, may come other ailments with the hearing-impaired children. And perhaps some people move into town for better access to such services.” “Oh, that makes senses.” “Yeah. Now are you ready to hear why else that may have that influx in our town along with a few of the surrounding towns around us?” “What else?” “We have been advised by our water company that our drinking water is not potable to pregnant women, the

"There you go again..."--- I'm quoting then Governor Ronald Reagan as he debated then President Jimmy Carter on Medicare/National Healthcare costs October 28th 1980. Well, to the far-right I will say, "There you go again...but now in Brazil."  Far-right individuals stormed the Congress in Brazil today.  Lula was rightfully elected,  like our POTUS Joe Biden. And he's being opposed by Bolsanaro's far-right followers. This was a similar attack like on our Capitol by far-right extremists on January 6th 2021. This  morning as I discussed with a longtime friend about how in America's governance it was usually about our government's elected officials being able to have clear debates. Also, in the past many had been able to 'reach across the aisle', figure things out and get things done in a bipartisan way. The McCarthy debacle, which will ever more be a black stain on the GOP. It may remind many of us of the black stain of the unwillingness o

As I watch documentaries this week.  I watched a documentary on Bruce Lee, which included how the United States... the bigotry of white people was rampant on all people of color. I'm old enough to remember when Asians, African-Americans, Hispanics, Indigenous and many other people of color were rarely, if ever given large acting parts in Hollywood. I'm also observant enough to recognize misogyny. Misogyny,  hatred towards the female gender. I saw it, and was subjected to it growing up. It effected and effects education, business, and sports in female lives. Especially,  if you were a girl/woman in sports, politics and business during my childhood and many, many millennium before. Men undermining girls and women who superseded their intelligence as well their self-proclaimed toughness. A significant example would be J. Edgar Hoover taking credit for the codebreaking Elizabeth Smith-Friedman actually did for the United States government covering two World Wars. As Ms. Smith-Fried

  When its no longer sunny… there’s the sun behind the clouds. I awoke this morning with half-dread feeling of another somewhat foggy and rainy day. I guess I could never want to whether Washington State. Although I’d never been there. People I know do live there. The other day I thought back to 1986 when I seemed to hit an involuntary athletic rut in the road. No, it wasn’t my internal birth defects, nor the leg, foot and back injuries or my allergies that I’d dealt with that year. Neither my asthma-like allergies I’d had since 1977, that began increasing in 1986. I’d waited to deal with my asthma and finally tended to it in March 1995 when suggested by my running coach Tom Fleming. I’d dealt with many an asthma attack; it’d worsened by 1992. And in 1995 Tom and the guys were sick of hearing my increased wheezing at certain parts of our running together. I once again had been fighting through this odd-slog feeling since September 2017. Then suddenly I had a few excuses to train le

  “Sometimes the thing you love the most, can do the greatest harm.”---Titans Head Coach As my daughters and I ate dinner; we chatted about a variety of contact sports with reference to Damar Hamlin’s condition. And my having been a fighter.   ”So, it’s okay that we want to see someone get killed or get their head bashed in?” My youngest commented. “That’s not always the case.” I volleyed. “Like NASCAR. That’s ridiculous.” She continued. “I do understand that. And I do know most people are interested in watching the excitement of witnessing a crash or incident of some sort. Or so we think.” “Why else watch people drive that fast in circles?” My oldest interjected. “Because it’s about showing how fast we can go with control. Although, I don’t understand it. Because to me it’s a waste of fossil fuel and quite polluting.” I added. My youngest continued, “But no one has to do contact sports that are dangerous. I see it as unnecessary.” “Its about a few things. For me,

One summer morning in 1990, I got up earlier than normal to buy the Sunday paper at a local 7-11 for my husband, Norman.  I figured on my way back from running practice I’d pick up Bagels and make a big brunch for us.  The day started out extremely hot and humid.  The sun was a typical July sun in New Jersey.    I drove from my apartment in Haledon to a 7-11 just over the border in Wayne for the paper.  Upon getting out of my car, in front of the store was a cardboard box.   As I approached the front door, I saw a little kitten in the box.  I looked around.  There appeared to be no one in sight.  I called into the store from the front door.  The man behind the counter said it wasn’t his.  Actually he seemed a bit annoyed that I'd asked.  The other 2 customers were men near the counter.  They looked at me as if I were nuts and had no response and no concern.  The kitten was in the worst place. The sun bared down on the little thing right into her eyes.  It appeared she couldn’t open

  I thought of this phrase ‘no where’ as I lay in bed the eve of January 1 st sliding into the second day of 2023. Then when I awoke hours later in the morning of the second day, and there was nothing there about that idea. Originally I’d had the idea to write about ‘no where’. In the morning I typed ‘no where’ onto my laptop and saved the title. Which at the time was going… ‘no where’. I set it aside to work on other film ideas and the like. Even that was beginning not to pan out. So, I went for a run, folded laundry; then settled in, to find that ‘no where’ was not what it had been at one in the morning. I listened to a filmmaker. Then called a friend who’s a writer and producer. Alas, she too was in some sort of odd transition in her creativity. This morning ‘no where’ came to mind. The night before it started with the thought, where am I? If I was something, who had I been? Had I been somewhere, and now I was void of being that somewhere? I felt no where. No where is where I’

  Last night I announced to our oldest that I would be in bed a little after ten. I wanted to encourage her to be home earlier than she had been the past few nights. But I knew she’d defy my desired wishes. For she had now only days left away from studies, being back at her dorm and studying for the winter’s quarter courses. I’d finished working on editing, learning, and making a trailer for a potential monster film at half past eight. And now I’d sat down to watch an episode or so of “Arrow” on Netflix to unwind from the day. My oldest parted to go bowling with friends. At around ten after having a half cup of coffee that does help me sleep, I was beginning to dose in our living room. I knew it was time to shut down. And I’d check on our youngest doing homework and say ‘goodnight’ to her. I’d entered my bedroom, knowing that watching a few minutes of the NFL game between the Bills and the Bengals would get me more settled into a calmer sleep. So, I thought. Until for some reason