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Three of Wands – Make the Best of All Possibilities

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First, let me apologize for being late with this post. Between work and a bad sinus infection, I completely forgot that February was a short month. My bad. The good news is that the Three of Wands appears for March.

The Three of Wands encourages you to take advantage of all possibilities that cross your path during March. If a recruiters contacts you about a job, take a few minutes to listen. Maybe you’re not looking for a new job, but if you don’t check out the possibility, the perfect job might pass you by. If you’ve been wanting to learn a new language or better your second-language skills, March will be a great month to do just this.

Possibilities can appear when you least expect them. Don’t overlook anything. On the first day of March, I noticed an email from a magazine that I’d submitted work to. I didn’t open the email immediately, because as any writer can tell you, more often than not, emails from literary magazines contain polite ways of saying “no thanks.” Imagine my surprise when I later opened the email and found that one of my short stories had been accepted for publication.

So, read your answers. Listen to your voicemails. Be open to all kinds of magic and let March guide you where you need to be. When a new possibility opens up your world, let me know about it.

Queer Artists and Their Hidden Meanings in Paintings

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For thousands of years, queer artists could not express any kind of love or desire that went against the Church’s teaching that relationships consisted of one man, one woman. However, today, while the LGBTQIA community still faces more than their fair share of hurdles, artists can paint whatever they want. This doesn’t mean that these artists won’t receive criticism from various regressive communities, but, now, queer artists have the freedom to create whatever they want to paint.

This wasn’t always the case, though. In the past, queer artists had to be careful what they painted. But even then, many often painted coded messages into their work. In April of 2017, the Tate Museum in London held the “Queer British Art (1861-1967)” exhibition. Not only did this exhibition show queer artists’ work, but it also explored the coded expressions queer artists used before being LGBTQIA was no longer a crime in Britain.

Before it was safe to be openly gay, artists often used academic guises, such as Greek mythology, to show queer love. An example of this is Frederick Leighton’s “Daedalus and Icarus,” which he painted in 1869. The painting hinted of relationships between older men, acting as mentors to younger men. 

In the latter part of the 19th century and early into the 20th century, queer symbols in art became a bit more overt. For example, in Edmund Dulac’s “Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon as Medieval Saints,” the artist shows two men dressed in monastic habits, with one man holding a peacock feather.

The peacock feather refers to the act of gay men using fashionable symbols, such as peacock feathers or dyed green carnations worn in their jacket lapels. This was an easy way for gay men to identify each other while it was still a crime to be gay.

In Jacques-Emile Blanche’s 1895 portrait of Aubrey Vincent Beardsley, the subject flaunts a pink flower on his jacket. No one knows whether Beardsley was gay, but it was well known that his agreeing to be painted with a gay symbol in his jacket was in support of his friend, the writer Oscar Wilde, who had just been imprisoned for being gay.

While it’s no longer a crime to be gay, some artists carry forward the tradition of including gay iconography in their work. Alexander Glass, a London-based sculptor has created an installation that shows a men’s locker room. Glass has designed the locker to look unlike what most men’s locker rooms look like.

“For me, they are places where masculinity can be examined, and I attempt to do this through my aesthetic and material choices,” Glass says. “The aesthetic of what I present is a surface under which a bigger conversation is taking place.”

In William Strang’s “Lady with a Red Hat,” the color red of the woman’s hat and the red of her book is an indication of passion. The woman who sat for this painting, Vita Sackville-West, was Virginia Woolf’s lover for ten years and inspired Woolf’s protagonist in Orlando.

Today’s queer artists have more freedom to create in any way they deem appropriate. However, all LGBTQIA artists are prone to blowback from regressive people and groups. Therefore, if you’re an art lover, do some research on current queer artists and support them. You can start by checking out these artists.

The Invisibility of Native American Women and Girls

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Native American women face crime at a rate higher than any other group of women in the United States. The Urban Indian Health Institute has found that at least 506 indigenous women and girls are either missing or have been killed in 71 cities. Most of these cases were never covered by the news media. These women range in ages from infancy to one who was 83 years of age. And these are just the women that we know about. Why is the media not covering the horror that Native American women face?

It’s not just the media. In 2016, 5,712 cases of missing Native American women were reported to the National Crime Information Center. Yet, only 116 were logged into the U.S. Department of Justice’s missing person’s database. Again, why? I personally think that racism, which I find to be endemic in the American experience, is the biggest reason why no one seems to care about Native American women who are missing or who have been murdered.

Despite the Department of Justice showing how little they care, in 2017, the Democrats introduced a bill called Savanna’s Act, which was named in honor of Savanna Greywind of the Spirit Lake Nation, who was killed while pregnant. This bill was designed to help improve data collection for missing and murdered Native American women. This bill has passed the Senate, but has not yet pass the House. With the Democrats takeover of the House, hopefully this bill will pass soon.

Walter Echo-Hawk, a Pawnee writer, speaker, and attorney, has said that Native American women and girls go missing “three times” – in life, in data, and in the media. These families of these women and girls carry their loss by themselves as nobody sees the women they love when they disappear or are murdered.

Interestingly, the #MeToo movement has also left behind the trauma and violence that Native American women will experience. Four out of five of these women will face violence of all types, and yet, they face this violence alone.

Bree Blackhorse, an attorney with the law firm, Galanda Broadman, who works to protect the rights of all tribal people says that the epidemic of missing and murdered indigenous women in Indian country touches everyone in these communities. She goes on to say, “The #MeToo movement applies to Native American women, but it’s “hard to worry about things like equal pay and fair treatment in the workplace when, as a Native American woman, at times you’re just trying to survive.”

Abigail Echo-Hawk, who is Pawnee, is the Chief Research Officer for the Seattle Indian Health Board. She also serves as the Director of the Urban Indian Health Institute.  She says, “Our women and our children, our girls, they hold such value within our communities. For us to let their deaths to just go unnoticed – for people not to know that we have missing women in our communities, for their voices not to be heard – to me was unacceptable.”

I, too, find it unacceptable that hundreds of Native American women go missing or are murdered each year and few in the United States do anything about it. If you are a part of the #MeToo movement like I am, we need to start conversations to ensure that this movement starts talking about issues that affect Native American women. What else can you do to spotlight the murdered and missing Native American women?

King of Pentacles – A Month of Flourishing Possibilities

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With all the craziness surrounding us with world politics, it’s great to see that our personal worlds can be crazy successful during the month of February. I pulled the King of Pentacles for this month, which represents material wealth, financial abundance, and success of all kinds. For example, if you are dealing with any kind of legal issue, the appearance of the King of Pentacles bodes well for you.

The King of Pentacles also represents wisdom. If you’re contemplating doing something new – like starting a new business or looking for a new job – this is the time to talk with someone you consider wise and successful and get their advice. On the flip side, if someone comes to you for your advice, be sure and take the person seriously and give them the same wisdom that you would wish for yourself.

What do you want to do that you’ve been putting off for a while? The King of Pentacles appears to tell you that the time is now for you to put a plan into place and get moving. This is a great month to also finish projects that you’ve put off for a while. And no matter what keeps you busy this month, don’t forget to find some time for fun.

If you’re in a relationship, do something extra special for Valentine’s Day. And if you’re single, here’s a list of fun and funky days to celebrate in February. I’m always down for a Margarita Day. Finally, February is also the month to celebrate Blackness. Learn more about Black History Month. If you’re not aware of heroes like Ida B. Wells, Harriet Tubman, and Sojourner Truth. Read this article to find out creative ways that you can incorporate Black History Month into your life and learn more. Find out which local Black people are making a difference in the town or city where you live. Get connected. This is the perfect month to do so. Have a wonderful February!

Three of Wands – Lots of Possibilities

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As many of you know, I usually post my Tarot readings on my www.9elephants.com website. However, that site is old and more than a little bit cranky. It won’t even let me post images anymore. So, while I’ll continue to post on that site, I’m going to also post all of my Tarot readings here, as well.

Happy 2019! Here’s to a new year and it’s gonna be a crazy one. But also, one that will bring some joy.

Politics are going to continue being insane. Trump and his nutty GOP minions are finally going to see a modicum of karma – probably not as much as they deserve or we want to witness – but Ms. Karma is going to show up in her kick-ass red pumps and more than a few behinds will be on fire. Be aware, though, that some of those in Trump’s world might take longer to get theirs, including Trump. So, don’t get discouraged if justice isn’t served immediately. And I know that this is easier said than done. Just don’t think that everyone will get all of their karma now.

Similar problems will remain on a global level. Europe will be forced to fight off more right-wing nutters trying to take over various governments. There’s just as much white anger there over immigrants as exists here in the States. It’s all sickening and it won’t go away without smart people taking needed action. This includes all of you voting wisely in each and every election, even for stuff you might take for granted, like school board members. I don’t have the right to preach to anyone in any other country, but I will remind you what happened when too many idiots voted against Hillary Clinton in 2016. And while my spidey senses tell me that votes were actually changed, if any of you fell for the lies of Putin, the GOP, or Bernie Sanders, you might need to double-check your souls.

Countries that are already run by right-wing oligarchs will itch (and one day, take action) to throw off their regressive rulers. Their rulers know this and they will come down with a heavy hand. This includes the United States. We have made a good start by taking back the House of Representatives, but the GOP-led Senate and far too many state Houses and Senates still need to be cleaned of its criminals. Wars will continue around the world and our climate will make it clear each day that if we don’t take care of her, she will annihilate us all.

Poverty will make us all look at how we live and will force us to figure out how to make the appropriate changes in our personal worlds, while helping those in need. You can start by helping those in Flint by donating to the RVA Flint: #SaveFlintChallenge. It’s beyond criminal that our fellow brothers and sisters in this city still don’t have clean water. And I suspect Flint isn’t the only city that we will find out has toxic water.

Despite all the bad that will be with us in the new year, on a personal level, 2019 has a 3 energy: 2+0+1+9 = 12; 12 = 1+2 = 3. This is a year to have a little bit of fun. This is a year to be true to yourself and find a way to do things that make you happy. While we all have to maintain relative decorum to keep jobs, now is the time to get out there and be yourself. What have you always wanted to do but haven’t. Put a plan together in January and get at it!

With the Three of Wands showing up in January, know that all the possibilities await you. Of course, we must all be realistic. We’re not all going to become NBA superstars or literary giants, but if you love b-ball, get outside and play. I will continue writing and submitting and will continue shaking my head with each rejection and will do it again and again and again—and one day…

It’s time to put yourself first during the new year. This doesn’t mean that you should neglect your responsibilities, but it’s okay to treat yourself with the kindness with which you treat others. After all, we’re in this journey together. We need to take care of ourselves and each other.

2019 is a year to dream and take action on these dreams. Your dreams can be as small or as big as you want them to be. They’re all good. But no matter how bad things are, keep dreaming and keep taking the necessary steps to make your dreams a reality!

With 2019 moving forward on a 3 energy and with January bringing you the energy of the Three of Wands, the Universe is saying that you can be creative and have fun this year and January is starting you off well. So, figure out what you want to do, who you want to be, and enjoy this wild and wooly year. See you in February…

Queer Poets Laureates

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Since 1315, various federal, state, and local governments have appointed poets to be that country’s, state’s, or city’s Poet Laureate. While the appointment is an honor, and the poet does receive a small monetary payment, work is expected with the appointment, as the Poets Laureates are expected to write poems for special events and occasions.

Because December 20th is officially Poet Laureate Day, I wanted to research how many Poets Laureates have been LGBTQIA. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to find that only three have been named. Now, it’s possible that other Poets Laureates were closeted back in the days when it wasn’t safe to be out, but I still expected to see modern times bringing us more LGBTQIA Poets Laureates. Still, I have three poets to share with you: Trudy Howson (Britain), Raquel Salas Rivera (Philadelphia), and Charles Flowers (West Hollywood City).

Trudy Howson

In 2016, the Camden LGBT Forum nominated Trudy Howson as Britain’s first LGBTQIA Poet Laureate. The Forum took this action as they wanted to encourage LGBTQIA poets across both London and the whole of the UK to be more active and public with their writing.

Trudy, a former actress and long hauler, has been tasked with creating poetry to do the following during her three-year tenure:

  • Portray the lives and experiences of the LGBTQIA community.
  • Celebrate LGBTQIA style and culture.
  • Support LGBTQIA people who feel isolated and marginalized within their society.
  • Encourage within the LGBTQIA community a sense of self-respect and pride.
  • Raise a greater public awareness of the LGBTQIA community.
  • Encourage LGBTQIA people of all ages, nationalities, and types, to read, write, watch, and listen to poetry.

To do this, Trudy will write poems for national and internally recognized LGBTQIA days and events. She will write, perform, and promote poetry that reflects and celebrates the unique and diverseexperiences within the LGBTQIA community, and she will raise the profile andaccessibility of LGBTQIA poetry.

Trudy says that she has always written with humor and warmth and works to explore both the internal and external landscapes of being LGBTQIA. She has performed outside of the UK in India, Southeast Asia, and Burma, and her poetry has been published in The Telegraph, The Times, and the London Review. Click here to listen to Trudy recite one of her poems.

Raquel Salas Rivera

Originally from Puerto Rico, Raquel Salas Rivera, the Philadelphia Poet Laureate for 2018-19, uses their passion for poetry to impact lives and community in a positive way. Rivera, who uses they/them/theirs pronouns, came to Philadelphia more than five years ago and made the city home. 

Rivera said, “I really fell in love with Philadelphia and fell in love with my partner. I began to build a life here. Part of building a poetic community was tied to the fact I have been a poet my whole life.”

They regard their position as being a civic one, and they use their poetry to engage and inspire all of Philadelphia. They are building a special kind of community; one in which all are received with warmth and welcome.

Rivera has been published in multiple journals, including Revista del Instituto de Cultura Puertorriquena, Apiary, Apogee, BOAAT, and the Boston Review. Rivera’s books include lo terciario/the tertiary (2018), Caneca de anhelos turbios (2011), and tierra intermitente/intermittend land (2017, 2018).

“The Poet Laureate Committee continues to be uplifted by the powerful and diverse voices of poets in Philadelphia,”chair of the Poet Laureate Governing Committee Beth Feldman Brandt said in astatement.

Beth Feldman Brandt of the Poet Laureate Governing Committee has said of Rivera, “As a poet who writes in Spanish and English, Raquel will expand our understanding of what poetry can be in Philadelphia.” Brandt’s program also supports a yearly Youth Poet Laureate, Husnaa Hashim, who is being mentored by Rivera. These two poets share their writing at a poetry reading at the Free Library on Tuesday nights. 

“Raquel’s voice will continue to raise this position to new heights and affirm that poetry in Philadelphia is as vibrant and urgent as ever,” president and director of the Free Library, Siobhan A. Reardon, said in a statement.

Rivera is the co-editor of The Wanderer and Puerto Rico en micorazon. Puerto Rico en micorazon includes a collection of bilingual work from contemporary Puerto-Rican poets, published by Anomalous Press. Sales from this book will be donated to relief agencies helping Puerto Rico recover after the devastation of Hurricane Maria. Rivera and their partner, Allison Harris, also launched a fundraiser to help LGBTQIA Puerto Ricans who were impacted by the hurricane.

Rivera says it’s important that they help build a strong relationship between Puerto Rico and Philadelphia. “I really love Philly. I am so happy this is the city where I am. I lived in a lot of places, saw a lot of stuff and Philadelphia just snagged me. I’m so grateful I get to be here,” Rivera said.

Charles Flowers

Charles Flowers is West Hollywood City’s third Poet Laureate. Each Poet Laureate is honored with the expectations that they highlight the city through the literary arts and, over a period of time, create a new body of literary work that commemorates the diversity and vibrancy of West Hollywood. Flowers and his two predecessors served as an official ambassador to this community’s vibrant literary culture, promoting its poetry and using it to help transform the lives of its citizens, all the while creating excitement about the written word. 

Flowers, who has lived in West Hollywood since 2010, will be serving through 2020. When he’s not busy with poetry and LGBTQIA advocacy, Flowers lives with his husband, Konstantine, and two literary dogs, Mr. Darcy and Ariel.

Flowers graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Vanderbilt University, where he took his first poetry workshop with Mark Jarman and won the Academy of American Poets CollegePrize. He later worked with Garrett Hongo to receive his MFA in Poetry from the University of Oregon.

Flowers’ poems have appeared in Puerto Del Sol, Barrow Street, Indiana Review, and Assaracus. Additionally, he founded and edited BLOOM, a journal for LGBTQIA poetry, prose, and art, which Edmund White called “the most exciting new queer literary publication to emerge in years.” Over the course of ten issues, BLOOM has published stellar poets, including Adrienne Rich, Reginald Shepherd, Eileen Myles, Rafael Campo, Minnie Bruce Pratt, and Mark Doty, to name a few.

Flowers has served as Associate Director of the Academy of American Poets, Executive Director of the Lambda Literary Foundation, Deputy Development Director at the ACLU of Southern California, and most recently as Deputy Director of Arts for LA, a regional arts advocacy organization. 

Below is a sample of Flowers’ work:

Jacaranda

It’s late May & jacaranda petals cover Kings Road,
small purple blossoms across the asphalt & sidewalks,
each car’s shine blotted & stained. Yet their beauty
cannot be denied. On my first encounter with their
purple light, I felt I had fallen into the land of Dr. Seuss,
where bright trees & a talking cat can teach a boy a lesson.
Imagine myself in a forest of purple [I wish . . .]
where melancholy Sondheim sings to me [I wish . . .
more than anything] & I am back in Tennessee,
finding my mother alone on our screened porch,
listening to the summer night and the heart’s litany:
to be single, to be married, to have a child.
My heart was just beginning to dream its own tale,
a prince to rescue me from a Baptist dragon [I wish . . .].
Today, a purple tree & a plangent showtune
remind me how the heart endures, its chorus of desire
never abandons me, season after season.

Sick Note is Just What We All Need Right Now!

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Whenever I feel down or overwhelmed and want to fall into TV Time, my first instinct is not to turn to comedy. Doesn’t make a lot of sense, because comedy can really take your mind off of the bad for a while, but that’s just how this nutty girl rolls. For example, this past Friday night, I spent the evening watching AMC’s remake of The Little Drummer Girl. Nothing like revisiting the Palestine-Israel nightmare while trying to take your mind off of the damage Putin-Appointed Trump is doing to the United States.

It’s not like I couldn’t have caught up on some of the comedy shows I watch that were on my DVR: blackish, The Good Place, Single Parents, The Goldbergs, or Fresh Off The Boat. I love all these shows, but when I’ve finished a Monday-through-Friday week, and it’s all I can do not to make voodoo dolls of too many people with whom I’ve interacted, and I think I won’t be able to breathe another minute because I’m still not over the 2016 Presidential election having been stolen from Hillary Clinton, I don’t think, “Girl, you really need to laugh. Go watch something funny.”

Nope. I go look for the darkest (yet, not bloody) show I can find. Must be all the Scorpio planets I have in my chart. So, after I watched the documentary, The Panama Papers, on Saturday night, I did not search for something light and funny as a follow-up watch. Instead, I tried to find a mind-bending thriller. However, since I’d binged most of the psychological thrillers and espionage movies and shows on both cable and Netflix, and I couldn’t bear the thought of a Christmas movie or any kind of romance, I told myself that I should watch something funny, especially if I could find something British. I’m not quite sure how I missed Sick Note when it came out in 2017, but I blame Trump and the GOP.

The storyline for Sick Note didn’t sound terribly intriguing – a young man gets diagnosed with cancer, but after an incompetent oncologist lets him know he really doesn’t have cancer, the young man can’t quite find the nerve to update everyone with the good news. Why? Because all of his friends, family, and co-workers now treat him with love and kindness, versus how they used to treat him – like the useless log he was. I passed over this show multiple times, but when I couldn’t find anything else, I soothed myself with the thought that, “Since it’s British, it might be better than it sounds,” and I selected Sick Note.

I spent the first few minutes of the first episode trying to figure out why the guy playing the lead role of Daniel Glass looked so familiar. After I realized it was Ron Weasley all grown up, I was able to concentrate on the story. Before Daniel gets diagnosed with esophageal cancer, he’s just your average guy who loves to play video games while his attractive girlfriend, Becca, pays the rent on their cute apartment. And while Daniel is a layabout, his best friend, Ash, has his life together with a job, a wife, and a new baby.

Daniel doesn’t mind Becca’s late nights at work because he doesn’t know she uses this time to bone his bestie. He’s just grateful for the extra time to play video games while talking with another gamer, Will_5000, who lives in America. Since Daniel doesn’t stop gaming, even when Becca comes home, Will_5000 listens in on all of the couple’s conversations and knows everything going on in his British friend’s life.

Note: I’m purposefully not showing a picture of Will_5000 because you really need to watch the series to get the full Will_5000 effect.

When Daniel does manage to make it to work, he’s upset because Becca has broken up with him, with Will_5000 as a witness (at least, audibly). Daniel figures he has nothing better to do so he shows up at work with a sling on his right arm, as he has told his boss, Michael, that he recently hurt it and can’t work as much as he used to because he has no use of his one arm. Hence an excuse for Daniel to just laze around the office; or, not even show up, as his arm is “hurting” or because he has a doctor’s appointment, which he always manages to miss.

At work, Michael’s boss, Kenny West, is losing it in Michael’s office. This angry, ranting man is played by none other than Don Johnson. West is a lascivious, right-wing, big-animal-trophy-hunting con man who sells “health insurance” in the United Kingdom. Daniel is a customer service rep for West’s company, We Cover. A more apt name would be We Cover Nothing!

The reason West is angry and yelling at Michael is because We Cover is supposed to be featured on a British talk show and West is upset because everyone at We Cover is “too ugly to be on TV,” except for this one cutie, Linda, who West wants to bed.

To calm West down, the ineffective and spineless Michael agrees to fire at least one person – Daniel – but Michael lets West know he can’t do so until after Daniel gets back from his doctor’s appointment. Michael then exits his office and goes to where Daniel sits to remind him that he has said doctor’s appointment. When Michael questions why Daniel is wearing his sling on his right arm when he hurt his left arm, we get to see more reason why Becca broke up with Daniel.

We also witness West going amongst the people he considers beneath him to invite Linda to lunch. While she accepts his invitation, it’s only because she wants to sell something to West, and it’s not her body. Linda is a small-time entrepreneur and inventor, who has created a rubber vitamin dispenser that one can put on their thumb and then suck down vitamins embedded in the rubber. When Linda demonstrates how to use the vitamin thingy, you can just the simultaneously revulsion and lust in West’s eyes.

Before Daniel meets with his doctor, he’s told that his regular doctor is away and that he’ll be seeing a Dr. Iain Glennis. Daniel is unaware that Dr. Glennis has just been told by another more-senior doctor that his doctoring is so bad that if he makes one more mistake, then his worthless derriere is fired! The senior doctor reminds Dr. G that he was brought on temporarily only as a replacement while the regular doctor was away because – I don’t know – there were no other available doctors in all of the UK? Knowing that his wife will leave him if he’s no longer a doctor, Dr. G agrees to make no more mistakes (as if that’s possible).

And then, when he sees Daniel, Dr. G mistakenly tells the young man that he has cancer. Later, when the doctor realizes his horrible gaffe, he calls Daniel back into his office and tries to get him to sign a waiver saying that it wasn’t Dr. Glinnis’ fault that he told Daniel he had cancer. Like it was some other person’s fault? Daniel refuses to sign the waiver. He leaves the doctor’s office and returns to a life that now has a loving girlfriend, a kind boss and co-workers, and parents who no longer blame him for nearly killing them in an earlier car accident that occurred when Daniel was at the wheel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9O9SjTABFQ

The hullabaloo occurs when Daniel tries to figure out whether he should tell everyone in his life the good news. He’s wont to do so as he figures all the love and kindness will disappear. He talks over his dilemma with Will_5000 and decides to remain “sick” a little while longer.

It’s only after Daniel comes home a day or so later and finds evidence that Becca and Ash had been having sex in his and Becca’s bed, that Daniel starts to re-think his life. While puzzling over the new-found affair, Daniel is unaware that Ash is hanging on to a pipe outside of Daniel and Becca’s bathroom window, as Ash and Becca had only finished their coupling a few minutes earlier. Becca had only been away from the apartment for about 15 minutes when Daniel came in and Ash was on the toilet. Hearing his friend enter the apartment, Ash hops off an unflushed toilet, pulls up his pants, and crawls outside the second-story window, where he proceeds to hang off ta nearby pipe.

When Daniel looks in the window, he’s horrified at what he sees in the toilet. He then looks out the bathroom window, sees Ash hanging there, and opens the window to curse him out. This action causes Ash to fall two stories and land hard on the ground. Not sure whether Ash is dead, Daniel calls Dr. Glinnis to come help him, blackmailing him into doing so by telling the doctor that if he doesn’t help him, then Daniel will let everyone know about the cancer debacle.

From here, a misdiagnosis of death occurs, followed by a not-so-bright policeman thinking the KGB tried to kill Ash. Becca shows that she’s willing to sleep with anyone and puts the make on Ash’s wife, and after Will_5000 shows up unexpectedly from America with a startling something on his face, Becca proves that she’ll have it on with anyone, even the “mutilated.”

Then there’s what happens to Mr. West and the entrance of his daughter, played by Lindsay Lohan, who is forced to leave her family of baboons (or monkeys or gorillas – I’m not sure – I was laughing so hard) and come to England to save her father’s company. Like her father, she is charmed by Linda, but she’s not in it for Linda’s body. She’s in it for Linda’s vitamin thumb. Apparently, baboons like to suck. Have they met Becca?

Oh, and Daniel becomes a national hero, and Dr. Glinnis begins working towards a cancer cure (or, not), and so much hilarity ensues that I laughed so hard, I literally hurt myself. On three separate occasions, not only was I in pain from laughing beyond anything I’ve ever done before, but I simultaneously couldn’t breathe. At one point, I remember thinking, “I can’t die this way. I’m barely dressed.”

If you’re not a fan of British comedies, you probably won’t like Sick Note. But if you’re into comedy that sneaks up on you and shocks you and makes you roll around in pain, then this is the perfect series for you. If you liked the British original of Death at a Funeral, then I think you’ll like this sick romp. During Death, I laughed so hard I shot red wine out of my nose (no exaggeration); but, I think I laughed harder during Sick Note. So, check it out and let me know what you think. Here’s to there being a Season 3!

Sally Ride, a Woman of Many Firsts

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Sally Ride was the first American woman to venture into space in 1983. While two Soviet women cosmonauts had actually gone into space before her, Ride remains the youngest astronaut of all to have traveled into space, doing so at age 32.

Ride was born in 1951 in Los Angeles to two parents who were elders in a Presbyterian church. Additionally, Ride’s father worked as a political science professor at Santa Monica College, and Ride’s mother was a volunteer counselor at a women’s correctional facility. Ride’s sister, Karen “Bear” Ride, also became an out Presbyterian minister. While Bear was out, though, Ride chose to remain quiet about her sexuality. Bear is quoted as saying that she felt their Norwegian heritage, which taught that one must keep their lives low-key, was a reason for why Ride never came out while alive. Additionally, back in the day, NASA was not known to be gay-friendly. Thankfully, that has changed, and NASA now supports its LGBTQI employees. Most people were surprised about Ride, though. They had no idea that she was gay until her obituary mentioned that she and Tam O’Shaughnessy, a professor emerita of the school of psychology at San Diego State, had been partners.

After graduating High School, Ride attended Swarthmore College for three semesters while also taking courses at the University of California, Los Angeles. Then, she transferred to Stanford University, from where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English and Physics. While at Stanford, she also earned a PhD in physics with doing research on how x-rays interacted with space.

In 1978, Ride was one of 8,000 people who answered an ad in the Stanford student newspaper about applying to a space program. In 1978, NASA asked her to join them. At NASA, Ride served as the ground-based capsule communicator for the second and third shuttle flights. She also helped to develop the STS-3 shuttle’s robotic arm, Canadarm.

When Ride was first selected to be the first American woman to go on the Challenger STS-7 flight, the media peppered her with questions such as “Will the flight affect your reproductive organs?” and “Do you weep when things go wrong on the job?” Despite the sexism, Ride answered the questions politely, all the while trying to get the media to focus on her being a qualified astronaut, not just a woman who happened to be heading to space.

Ride later rode on the STS-41-G flight and was training for her third flight (STS-61-M), when the space shuttle disaster occurred. Ride was named to the Rogers Commission, which the President organized to investigate the disaster. Ride also headed a subcommittee for both the Challenger accident, and, later, the Columbia disaster. After she helped discover what went wrong with the Challenger accident, NASA assigned her to their D.C. office where she led NASA’s first strategic planning effort, authored a report titled “NASA Leadership and America’s Future in Space” and founded NASA’s Office of Exploration. After Ride’s death, General Donald Kutyna revealed that Ride had provided him with key information about O-rings and how they become stiff at low temperatures. This information later helped identify the cause of the Challenger explosion.

In 1987, Ride left NASA to work for Stanford’s Center for International Security and Arms Control. Two years later, she became a professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego. From this time until her death on July 23, 2012, from pancreatic cancer, Ride was extremely busy. She led outreach programs for NASA, on boards and she was the president and CEO of Sally Ride Science, which focuses on bringing science programs to young people, with a special focus on girls. She even acted in the season 5 finale of Touched by An Angel. She wrote/co-wrote seven books about space to help children become more interested in science, and Ride was honored with multiple awards, both while she was alive and after her death. She even had a couple of songs written about her, along with mini figurines.

Ride had always been a very private person. While many knew that she had been married to a fellow astronaut, Steve Hawley, for five years, most were surprised to find out that Ride had been gay and had been partnered O’Shaughnessy for twenty-seven years. Ride and O’Shaughnessy were childhood friends who had met over their love of tennis. O’Shaughnessy was a science writer who helped Ride found Sally Ride Science. When it came out that Ride was a lesbian, she became the first-known LGBTQI astronaut.

While Ride might not have been out while she was alive, she still inspired so many people to learn more about science. She was a champion of women’s rights and did all she could to help younger Americans to become enamored of science. In her death, Ride has become an inspiring LGBTQI icon.

To quote O’Shaughnessy of Ride, “She was true to herself, she followed her heart, she worked hard.”

Click here and here to find out more about Sally Ride. To find out more about Tam O’Shaughnessy, read this article. Find out how she grew Sally Ride Science by merging with the University of California San Diego. Sally Ride forged new frontiers all throughout her life, and even with her death, she’s helped others in the LGBTQI community by letting them know that they, too, can reach for the stars.

Halloween in the Time of Treason

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My daughter and I adore Halloween, yet since the 2016 election stole the Presidency from Hillary Clinton and the world has gone completely mad, we’ve ignored this holiday. We used to have so much fun decorating our home and we’d even leave up our decorations long after Halloween ended. But not for the past two years.

Some think Halloween became a holiday when men from the Church in Europe tried to turn the pagans into Christians. This was not an easy task, so at some point, the Church started incorporating aspects of pagan celebrations into Christian holidays and everyday life. Many believe that Halloween was born out of the Celtic holy pagan day of Samhain (pronounced Sow-en).

These pagans believed that Samhain was the dividing day between the lighter months (spring, summer) and the darker months (autumn, winter). They felt the veil between the living and those on the other side was thinnest on Samhain and this festival was meant to honor loved ones who had passed. The pagan altar not only held its usual sacred objects, but it also held favorite items or foods that people brought to honor loved ones who had died.

While I’ve not been in the Halloween spirit the past couple of years, I still adore Halloween movies. One of these movies is meant to be a young adult movie, The Worst Witch, but I still love it. The original movie was made in 1986 and it stars Diana Rigg and Charlotte Rae, who run the witch school, Tim Curry as the school’s Grand Wizard, and Fairuza Balk, as Mildred Hubble, the worst witch at the school.

Over the years, I’ve had a hard time finding the original Worst Witch movie. HBO used to show it around Halloween time, but hasn’t in a while. You can watch it on YouTube, but the footage is dated and grainy. Still, it’s a fun movie. Last year, a remake was made of this movie and you can find it as a television series on Netflix. I’ve watched a few episodes and it’s cute, but it just doesn’t hold my attention the way the original movie did and still does.

I also love Practical Magic. I could watch this movie every day and never tire of it. The book, written by Alice Hoffman, is also wonderful. It’s more complex and includes characters not shown in the movie, but despite this, nothing from the book gets lost in the movie. The same magic that flows through the words also flow through the film.

Alanna Bennett, of Buzzfeed News, recently wrote this wonderful article, “Practical Magic” Is 20 Years Old And Just As Relevant As Ever. Bennett discusses the power gap between men and women, #MeToo, being different, and how women helping each other save one woman from the spirit of an abusive man come “alive.”

Bennett also say she wants “to crawl through my screen and live in the world of Practical Magic.” I’ve wanted to live this story since I read it and when I saw the story being played on screen, I also wanted to crawl into the lives of these amazing women with magical powers.

If all of us women who know that Trump and his sadistic followers, both in his administration and elsewhere, are evil, do you think we can hold hands and use our amazing magic to end this treasonous coup that is destroying us? I am one Wiccan-adjacent woman who is down for the try! Also, vote!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why Adult Children Divorce Their Parents

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No matter how toxic a parent is, most children love their mothers and fathers. Parents are the people that are supposed to keep their kids safe. Yet, far too often, parents are the reason kids are not safe. Still, kids love their parents.

However, abused kids are almost always confused. Maybe the toxic parent, which can be either mother or father (or, both), is fun sometimes. Occasionally, one or both of the toxic parents are kind. When this happens, kids choose to believe they imagined all the bad stuff and they start thinking everything is fine. But, it never is. Out of the blue comes a toxic rage. Or, a physical beating. Or, maybe a belittling verbal tirade is thrown at a young girl or boy. Or, worse. Sometimes the kids are hurt so badly they require medical attention. But no matter what toxicity is unleashed, these kids wonder what they could have possibly done to deserve such treatment. They’ll remember the good times and wonder what they did to upset their parents. They usually don’t blame their parents. They have no idea that their parents are the ones that are guilty of misbehaving. Kids want to believe their parents are kind and that their parents love them, even when the parents’ actions prove otherwise.

In this article, Dr. Regina Sullivan explains how infant brains crave parental nearness. And babies definitely want to be in their mother’s presence from the moment each baby becomes aware of its mom. A mother’s nearness actually prevents a baby from feeling fear. So, when a mother (and/or, father) turns on the child, confusion reigns. By adolescence, around 80 percent of abused children who have been recognized as having been abused will be diagnosed with major psychiatric illness. This abuse can even change the children’s brain function. Imaging studies have shown that brain areas controlling emotion and cognition are abnormal in people who were abused as young kids.

Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean the abused children will act out in ways as awful as their parents. But sadly, this is exactly what sometimes happens. And even if the child grows up to be a person who treats others and their own children with love and respect, often these adult children will deal with feelings of insecurity and suffer with depression or eating disorders or PTSD or more.

About a year ago, I was listening to Marc Maron’s WTF podcast and the guest was Louie Anderson. They were discussing toxic parents and they talked about how confused they would be because sometimes their parents seemed fine and then, out of the blue, something awful would happen. Before listening to this podcast, I knew that kids were often confused by how their parents treated them, but I had always thought that I was the only idiot for trying to win my parents’ love long after I knew they were deeply hideous people. Hearing Marc and Louie talk about how they remain confused as adult men and weren’t completely sure how they felt about their parents let me know that I hadn’t been as alone as I had thought. Kids who are the target of any kind of abuse are confused and this can cause this much pain.

When I decided to write about this topic, my research first led me to articles about parents being clueless as to why their children wouldn’t have anything to do with them. I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry as I thought about how often my parents would let anyone who was still talking to me know that they were completely flummoxed as to why I had cut them off completely.

I could have explained to them that it was a combination of the non-stop beatings, the sexual abuse, the constant verbal harangues, or the mere fact that they were so worthless that they couldn’t even work to keep us all fed and sheltered. I would have been happy to remind them that, despite the awful way they treated me, I wanted to be a family. I begged them to go to therapy so that we could work through our issues together, and all I got for my effort was sarcastic laughter.

I could have gone into detail about how many years I did my best to overlook my mom trying to get my daughter to love her while trying to get my only child to hate me, and despite the pain this caused, I still tried to make things right with my mother. I could have tried to explain that after one night of spectacular horror I made the firm decision that my toxic parents were hurting not only me, but also my daughter, and I had to make the gutting decision to cut my parents out of my life. Of course, when I finally let my parents know I was divorcing them, they didn’t try to change how they treated me. They simply called me “ungrateful” and let me know that I’d proved myself to be the “harlot” they’d always deemed me to be.

I’m sure that there are some kids who have cut off their parents for no good reason, but I suspect these instances are few. This article, and this, and this provide examples of why children finally reach a breaking point and decide it’s better for them to proceed with their lives having no contact with one or more of their parents. And if you, like me, are one of these people, check out this article, which shows there are plenty of good reasons for divorcing your parents. Or, check out this article, which lets you know that it’s okay if you decide to break ties with toxic parents. This article discusses why you might have to let go of bad parents if you want to live your best life.

Advice is offered to parents who have been cut off from their children, as well. This article discusses what the author terms a “silent epidemic,” and this article provides some ideas on how to cope when children have cut you out of their lives. If you are one of these parents, though, I might suggest first finding an excellent therapist and try to figure out what you did that caused such a harsh break. And then go out of your way to try and build a bridge to your children. And if they refuse to reconnect with you, then you’ll just have to find a way to deal with it.

Unlike Sister, Eudora Welty’s main character in the short story, Why I Live at the P.O., I was not forced to go live at the Post Office when I divorced my parents (and later, all of my family). Sister could not find a way to truly leave her Southern roots and family. She just hid out at the Post Office while the toxicity in her family ran rampant.

I managed to escape my Southern soil when I was young. Although, despite my leaving everything behind and showing up in New York City with a month paid on an apartment in Queens and forty dollars in my pocket, I hadn’t yet cut my parents out of my heart. Many more years would pass before I could find the strength to make such a break. I would live in multiple cities, work a couple of careers, have a daughter, and go to many therapists, both good and bad, before I finally found the courage to walk away from two people I loved desperately – two people who made it plain to me from the time I could remember that I wasn’t wanted, yet I still went out of my way to try and please them into loving me – two people who occasionally had some fine moments – two people who I chose to forgive over and over again – two people that I finally realized I had to let go of for my daughter and me to have better lives. Two people who I now wonder why I wasted so much time loving.

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