Well, well, well life seems to be falling into a sort of ‘normal’ now that the Rona vaccines are out and available. It seems like f-o-r-e-v-e-r but yet justlikeyesterday all of the shit hit the proverbial fan. Who could have foreseen the division created by political so-called leaders in fighting what could have saved hundreds of thousands of American lives by refusing to wear a fucking cloth over one’s face.
Anyhoo, I hope you and yours are well and on the hunt for the vaccine if you haven’t already been shot with the Fauci Ouchie. I’m pumped to say both of my folks are vaccinated and hugs will soon be shared by all of the CBXB clan! WHOOP!
My weekend kicked off with birthday festivities for the second time during Rona. There was nothing that was gonna stand in my way of celebrating this year. I have a full bday recap coming because I’m literally celebrating every.single.day. in March.
Oh hi Rona round two.
I rang in my birthday Wednesday night talking with two of my girls – Miss Bella outta Chicago and A3 outta Duluth.
I’d stopped to get myself some bubbly on my birthday and splurged on a fancy (for me because it was above my typical $6.99 budget) frugal bottle.
I was beyond spoiled to say the very least upon my arrival back to the Mini Manse. This doesn’t include all of the loving I got before, during and still after my day (don’t forget we’re celebrating ALL month and there are three days left in March).
Wondering what was in the tall box, I contemplated if it could possibly be a tent delivered to the wrong address.
Turns out it was delivered to the correct Mini Manse AND was filled with the best treats a girl with Celiac Disease could wish for – a case of GLUTEN FREE DOUBLE STUFFED OREOS that just hit the market and have been impossible to find!
Double Stuffed DELIGHT.
I laid in bed all birthday morning eating Oreos and read all of my messages over and over and over and over. To the point my pussies were trying to claw the device from my hands for some attention.
But Mama’s got some claws of her own. My gal Lash Goddess has been in my Rona bubble and started practicing her talon magic on me much to my delight.
I won the claw fight over the phone, masked up and headed to my fave watering hole on the planet in almost a year…Dalts. Annual birthday Skinny Pirates galore (not unlike a preRona Friday night) for me.
Due to the INSANE amount of rain, it was the purrfect Saturday to stay in bed and binge watch Schitt’s Creek (the show the rest of the world watched at the beginning of the pandemic).
I Netflixed and chilled. Prissy whimpered and whined for a bite.
Nashville has been hit so hard the last 365 days, it’s almost impossible to comprehend everything that has happened. Starting last March with a tornado that ripped through all of Middle Tennessee, a bombing downtown on Christmas morning and ass clown tourists passing Rona around to our citizens because…bachelorette parties are more important than grandma’s life.
GO. THE. FUCK. AWAY. @musicshitty
Insanity poured down on Music City once again. South Nashville was hit especially hard and its demographic of citizens heartbreakingly aren’t typically the type to keep the news in cycle.
Bridge of debris in South Nashville. @musicshitty
Another fun reason I lollygagged in bed was due to being triggered by a rape case in Minnesota. The state Supreme Court of the Land of 10,000 Lakes really knocked the wind outta this survivor’s sails. A woman was raped while she was drunk in 2017. The rapist was convicted and sentenced in 2019 BUT his smarmy (like for real, who defends rapists?) lawyers appealed to the Minnesota Supreme Court with absolute credibility because IT IS LAW.
This is victim blaming at its fucking highest level. It made me physically ill. Not only because of the similarities to my case but holy fucking shit. A rapist never rapes just once and he’s being given a new trial.
This is absolutely infuriating. ABSOFUCKINGLUTELY. It tore me to pieces and I cannot imagine what the victim must be feeling – reeling from – after having come forward, her case making it to court, her rapist found guilty and sentenced, only to be given a new trial UNANIMOUSLY by the state Supreme Court because SHE was drunk. Folks, this is rape culture.
This is why who you vote for matters. It matters a FUCK ton because judicial positions such as these are appointed by politicians in which citizens vote. You know, like how former president Covita stacked federal courts and the Supreme Court with lifetime nominees. THIS. SHIT. MATTERS.
Needless to say, I spent much more of the weekend holding space for myself, while Prissy and The Pussy Posse wallowed in bed with me.
After being fired up for two days straight, it was fitting to start my Monday with the gang who quite literally carried me virtually through the pandemic on Instagram. A workout crew, the Clams, started by Body By Trainor is almost always my saving grace.
Is there any better way usher in a week than with a swift one-two to the face?
The fashionable 2020 March look is the fucking same in 2021.
If you had told me 365 days ago that I’d be having a second birthday during a worldwide pandemic tomorrow, I would have cock/cunt punched you.
@effinbirds
But here we are STILL in the throes of a global pandemic due to many “you can’t tell me what to do with my body” mask refusing ass hats, accompanied with politicians who act like they know more than the Center for Disease Control (go fucking figure) closely accompanied by the folks that follow said non-doctors blindly. I digress. My VIP Rona ticket happened to include my first ever birthday in quarantine. And now my second.
Oh hi! You feel like celebrating with people now? Too bad.
Little naive me thought I’d be hosting a half birthday party on September 25, 2020. Joke was on me! Well, really all of us. These were thoughts on my day of birth last year…
Poor, poor late March babies.
My birthday took place the first full week of lockdown in Nashville (when every business finally complied – lockdown actually started earlier). But still, I think everyone was hopeful/under the impression/couldn’t comprehend how this could last longer than a month, tops.
Due to Rapegate, I would have been down to par-tay in isolation on any of my past five birthdays. But in 2020, I was ready for shenanigans and celebrations all about me, as I would have typically been pre-Rapegate. CELEBRATE EVERYTHING!
But not 2020. Oh no. This was the first year where this badass bitch was baaaack to finding all things joyful and ready to celebrate the entire month. So I did just that in spite of a fucking global pandemic.
I still celebrated my face off.
I partied and Prissy force loved it.
While the circumstances were not the most epically fabulous, my peeps far and wide celebrated with me. Boston Barbie canceled a trip she had planned to Nashville to celebrate with me in person due to the germy Rona shit. So she did the next best thing – had a bottle of champs with me via FaceTime and sent a pizza for supper.
Presents and hot toddy’s were delivered to the Mini Manse door.
First Mate tapped on my window and brought her own airplane sized bottle (is that what they are really called?) of fancy vino over and poured it into her own glass. Rona shit was still so new, masks weren’t a required accessory yet (ATTENTION NASHVILLE RESIDENTS AND THOSE COWBOY BOOT PUKING TOURISTS – AS OF THIS DAY IN 2021 MASKS ARE STILL MANDATED IN DAVIDSON COUNTY).
Text messages dinging my phone all day kept me smiling from ear to ear.
The world literally stopped turning on March 25, 2020. Yes. I am that.fucking.special.
Even my boyfriend T-Rac wished me a happy birthday and I pretty much died and went to Rona heaven (which would be the Mini Manse bed).
I almost burnt down the Mini Manse drunk baking my own gluten-free birthday cake.
Booze, boobs and baking.
While it was not on the top ten (or top 100) sweets I’ve ever tasted, it went down the hatch like a dry, dry, dry, dry, dry, dry charm (I think it was because of all the sprinkles). Yes, I still ate the damn thing.
Look the fuck out Martha Stewart.
This year’s pandemic birthday cake is gonna look different and be waaaaaay easier since I’m not gonna do fuck all with an oven.
Just need a candle.
Last year I wrote – and I quote, “What I want for my birthday wish is for you and your loved ones to be alive, healthy and ready to celebrate your faces off with me on my half birthday bash on September 25, 2020. Until then, stay the fuck home. Let’s make my half birthday party go viral for reasons other than a worldwide pandemic.”
So naive. So innocent.
This year my still-in-a-worldwide-pandemic-but-there-is-a-light-at-the-end-of-the tunnel plans are as follows:
An evening at the Mini Manse theater with a birthday themed film, accompanied with pizza and copious amounts of champs. And a side of extremely cold Diet Coke.
Hello Lovah.
Should I just get a case?
And because dreams do sometimes come true, I’m still alive and kicking after last year (and Rona free!). Typically, I’d head to my treasured watering hole, Dalts (they survived Rona too, woohoo!) to see my fave bartender ever to have eight a Skinny Pirate(s).
Marja + Skinny Pirates = Purrfection
Last year was the first time since I’ve lived in Nashville I didn’t celebrate my arrival into the world with Skinny Pirates and loved ons at Dalts.
2020 loner.
Maybe a more crowded party in 2022?!
It may not be post Rona normal yet but that doesn’t mean I’m not gonna commemorate my day of birth all weekend and then some. Remember, there are six more days in my birthday month and I intend to celebrate the fuck outta each and every one. Shocker.
See ya in 2022!
Last year celebrating my birthday couldn’t help but feel full of doom and gloom. This year’s vibe is a MOOD called gratitude. Now every one of you start saving your pennies to come par-tay at Dalts with me in 2022.
Today marks the five year anniversary of being raped – my rapeversary if you will. Last year was the first time since January 29, 2016 that I felt even a sliver of my “old” self on this day. I declared the 29th day of this month the official International Day of the Badass, making all things related to rape and the aftermath of trauma my bitches. No apologies. Sorry not sorry.
Always and forfuckingever nasty.
I was feeling really fucking fabulous. Seeing the world through my pre-Rapegate rose colored glasses again and ready to celebrate any and everything but most specifically, honor all things ME. This motherfucking badass bitch was back.
And then, that cunt Rona showed her ugly face a little more than a month later and my entire world (along with the rest of the global population) went to shit a matter of days.
Who the fuck invited you here?
My trauma ticks (as I call them) that I worked so fucking hard to kick in four years of therapy cropped up whenever the fuck they felt it inconvenient. Stuttering, leg and foot bouncing, incessant itching at imaginary hot spots on my skin, stress induced cortisol dumping into my system, insomnia, the severity of my anxiety was back at its skyscraper height and my stomach hurt 24/7 with a deep side of sciatica (a new place my stress manifests itself in my bod).
Fun self inflicted times on my wrist, inner arm and ankle.
Feeling these regressions bubbling up sent me on a downward spiral so fucking fast, I was constantly treading water that was circling the drain. For me, it’s been the hardest part of Rona because I was JUST feeling foxy again, ready to strut my stilettos and resurfaced sassiness all over the pace. I hate the feeling of going backward (but who loves it unless we’re talking about aging?) and the grief attached to my trauma ticks, along with being isolated when I was ready to mingle with the world again about did me in.
Thank fuck for emotional support animals.
I had a four year out-of-body experience where I had to mourn the loss of my pre-rape life, the death of myself as I knew me – as well as construct my resurrection. I’d trudged my way through an avalanche of the five stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. But Rona took me straight back from a happier place of acceptance to the prior four stages any time she felt like fucking with me.
I think I chose my closet as my panic attack recovery space in 2016 because it’s small and sparkly for comfort.
Then, I was reminded that grief (and all of the shit that comes along with it) isn’t linear.
Queen of the pivot turn.
I gave myself grace (or at least tried – still trying) and remembered Superhero Sheila’s sound advice. If you wouldn’t say it to one of the twins (that woman goes right for the dagger when she needs it), don’t say it to yourself.
It’s like Superhero Sheila is good at her job or something.
So I got my self talk back on some semblance of a cordial track and proceeded to make my way through the additional perils that 20fucking20 threw at every single citizen of the world in its own unique, shitty way.
I choose to wear sunglasses and fancy headpieces to cope.
But even as I try to forge ahead on this International Day of the Badass, my body and mind are constant companions leading up to this dreaded fucking day, kicking my PTSD into the highest of all gears. I wish there was a WD-40 for the bones because the worst is being in your body, not able to control it.
All because one thousand, eight hundred and twenty five days ago, I was raped by my best friend’s boyfriend while I slept on her couch, in her 600 square foot apartment after a wine and cryfest, grieving the sudden death of a young friend. I woke up to her boyfriend of five weeks on top of me, pajama pants at my knees, arms at my sides, his face in my neck. That was the moment the me as I knew her, died.
Later that day, I sat with my ass cheeks on thin paper, protecting me from any other prior ass cheeks that unfortunately found themselves sitting on the same exam table in the rape kit performance room. The overwhelming fumes of bleach almost resurrected me from the protective shock in which my body had retreated.
Emily Doe later revealed herself as Chanel Miller, the woman Brock Turner raped behind a Stanford dumpster.
“Do you want a rape advocate?” Detective Stupka (soon-to-be renamed Cuntka) questioned me after she recorded my statement of the illegal, intrusive sexual assault that took place several hours earlier. I couldn’t recall Shane the Rapist’s last name (that was listed in my phone, which was dead from being at the hospital waiting for eight hours on a rape kit), how was I able to know if I needed an advocate? What was an advocate? Did I need one? Detective Cuntka said she could not advise me and I somehow communicated that I did, in fact, want an advocate.
I still can’t wrap my brain around my bff not believing me nine hours after being raped, do I look like I can make a goddamned decision about anything?!
I believe rape victims should be assisted with an advocate, period. No questions asked. Just have one show up and let them do the talking because it was a good three years before my typically decisive as fuck ass could make any decision about ANYTHING.
I will just have one of everything on the menu because what do I want?
When Barbie the advocate tenderly walked into the room, careful not to touch me (when I just wanted her to sweep me up in her arms and tell me everything was gonna be OK – although that would have been a disservice on her part because nothing about being raped is ever OK, so, therefore, no hug took place). She spoke with the same amount of tenderness she used when she was inching toward me.
Where was one of my goddamn pussies when I needed them?!
Barbie resembled more of a Skipper than the actual Barbie doll with a petite frame, carrying a Louis Vuitton bag (that naturally, I admired and wondered if she had a phone charger tucked inside I could use) and was such a pleasant sight after the day kept spewing like uncontrollable bowels. After a few minutes of fill-in-what-horrible-thing happened to you, she looked at me straight in the eye and said, “Honey, there is going to be a before rape and an after rape moving forward in your life.”
It was one of those moments that you just know what’s being said is true, no matter how much you want it to be a lie.
My immediate thoughts of life after rape.
Barbie left the room to sit with Dada CBXB who was most likely wondering how in the fuck his Friday turned out so inexplicable. I sat waiting for the rape kit exam to commence after yet again being hazy on decision making when asked, “Do you want the Plan B pill? Did he wear a condom? Do you want to take the HIV preventative even though it will rob you of 30 days of your life since its effects are so brutal? Do you want to be tested for every STD in which science is aware? Have you eaten anything today? Here are crackers to take with the handful of pills we are giving you.”
I seriously can’t compute.
Upon completion of my rape kit and consumption of no less than 51 pills, I was handed a folder of information with numbers to national hotlines I could call, pamphlets of what to expect in the coming days, and instructions of when to take the next round of pills to rid my body of any other foreign substance left behind when Shane the Rapist raped me. It was like onboarding at a new job or getting every class syllabus on the first day of college. It was literature on what my life after rape was going entail.
I had no inkling of what the fuck I was up against.
Open ended ticket for one, please. @deepfriedfreckles
Nobody wants to be in this club. Nobody wants to be an expert on matters in which we never want to be associated. But rape happens. And there I was and here I am.
All too familiar when I wish I had no clue.
I miss my pre-rape life in the way your heart breaks when someone your world revolved around dies. The me I’d always known, died on January 29, 2016, and I had no idea how to bring myself back to life. Thing is, I was still breathing. I wasn’t dead. I just had no feeling left inside, which made me feel like a shell. Hollow, empty and alone.
You don’t have to cry for me because my eyes leaked enough fluid for nine lifetimes.
I found out who could withstand the shell of myself and who needed an exit. I immediately realized I was going to become a walking, talking rape victim stereotype (the victims that report, anyway) when interacting with Detective Cuntka when she told me 37 days after being raped over the phone that I was “one of 29 other cases she was working on. This was a he said/she said case so not much will come of it.” Oh sorry, this is my first time being raped and dealing with anything that accompanies. Please excuse my incessant questions about how this shit works. Chasing my case and any details became a second full time job.
Daily routines ceased existing and the depression bombarded its way in. Brushing teeth, washing my hair, applying make up (I was Ronafied ahead of the times), no polish on my claws because they became unbearable chores.
This is my version of silent screams for help.
No more hot yoga. No more running. No activities where I was alone with my own thoughts. I couldn’t get off of the couch and into my bed for six months to sleep, further exacerbating the endless cycle of depression, anxiety, nerves, self-loathing, shame, blame, fatigue and stress leaving me empty. Literally dead inside.
I gave zero shits.
Therapy has given me life-saving coping mechanisms. Medicines have made my daily life manageable. The kindness of human beings has been astounding and reinstated the belief that simple acts and words of love can do some serious healing. The outpouring of support once I was able to openly talk about my rape case after the grand jury found insufficient evidence to take Shane the Rapist to trial was astonishing.
After all of that recovery, after all of the therapy, after the shit show of 2020, now more than ever I understand that we all carry invisible wounds. And Rona brought all of my luggage back but this time around the baggage felt excruciatingly heavier.
Others can’t see the shame I carry. Others can’t see the guilt I hold (did I somehow ask for it?). Others can’t see the blame I assign myself every single second, minute, hour, day, month.
The year 2020 made it achingly obvious that people I love haven’t been listening to me and can’t – or worse yet – DON’T WANT to see mental anguish caused by society and the normalcy of rape culture.
Judgment is a fucking beast and after rape, it becomes an unwanted daily acquaintance at your breakfast, lunch, and supper table. I started eating at this fucking buffet again last year.
One thing I know to be true is that people who love you – really love you for you, don’t waiver. It’s been my family, my rock-solid friends, the folks who have come to my rescue via virtual friendships (silver lining of 2020!), the people who have re-entered my life to lift me up when I was sure I was going to drown…that all exists.
Here I stand five years later, my heart beating the last 1,825 days, feeling like a motherfucking badass once again. I now understand that grief is an emotion that exists even when life still is within. I died but I lived.
When I think about the people I love and the fur babies I’ve lost, I choose to celebrate them. Drink their favorite drinks, watch a favorite movie, look at photos, read old cards, love on my current Pussy Posse, share fucking funny stories with others that loved them, too. After forfuckingever five years, I am back to celebrating ALL THINGS ME again.
Sorry not sorry.
Join me in celebrating the International Day of the Badass.
This pussy grabs back.
“I won’t back down. I will stand my ground.” – Tom Petty
What are you celebrating on this International Day of the Badass? Because if you’re reading this, you’re one too.
Oh the things being stationed from home 24/7 will make you do…like take in a kitten who just had her own litter. Therefore, making me not a grandma but a GLAMma.
Oops I did it again. And again. And again. And again. And again.
I have an outside brood of seven pussies that I’ve been feeding the last two years. I was able to trap and release (TNR) each one last spring. TNR is when you catch a cat in a trap, take it to the vet for a spay or neuter and then release it where you found it. I’m making this sound easy but it takes a goddamn act of the stars being aligned even if Mercury is in Retrograde to accomplish this because feral cats are basically wild animals.
I missed a female last spring and she had kittens. And now, I am a Glamma and have four sweet, teeny, tiny Glammies inside the Mini Manse quarantined in their own Rona hell to my bedroom. They are now known as The Glam Squad and I almost lost an arm and two eyes trying to get them into the Mini Manse but that’s a story for another day.
Girlie Girl feeding Maverick and Ruth.
The Glammies are almost fully weaned off of Mama. I’m on a waiting list at Value Vet and Nashville’s Pet Community Center (that has 600 felines afuckinghead of me) for spaying and neutering. These little nuggets won’t be going back outside, either. They’ve entered the Mini Manse and are now accustomed to a boxed wine luxury lifestyle with Glamma. It’s been a shit ton of work but definitely, a welcomed distraction from whatever this thing is we now call the world. All of the babies will be up for adoption. Don’t you think you need a new friend?
Girlie Girl, Fauci and Nelly enjoying their breakfast buffet.
All of this pussy momming has given me even more reason to dive right into my Crazy Cat Lady status that I have not one ounce of shame over.
Light Friday night reading compliments of M.Star.
So how do Prissy and The Pussy Posse feel about acquiring temporary residents?
WHAT. THE. FUUUUUUUUUUUCK?
Because The Pussy Posse, Prissy, and yours truly all sleep in my Princess and the Pea bed, I’ve had to do some distracting to avoid immediate punishment from the permanent feline residents in the Mini Manse. The weather has been quite fabulous, so I am able to leave the Pussy Patio wing of the Mini, Teddy’s Terrace open for their recreational habits of napping all day every day and night.
Fabio has no complaints.
Thundercunt would like to speak to the manager.
While I’ve been trying to keep my cat hoarding situation under control, Sister CBXB has been entertaining her duo with her fabulous versions of summer camp.
So far they’ve been to France, Japan, and space.
Day camps can be exhausting, so they get a little happy hour every day.
Summering so hard.
Princess B also got a visit from the tooth fairy twice last week.
I could run a summer camp on how to find shit in the garbage can. Remember when I found my dumpster wedding dress (that is still in my possession, I mean, just in case, you never know)? Well, when I was leaving the Mini Manse on Saturday, what to my wondering eyes did appear but a gigantic framed fancy photo of some golfer. And you know who loves her some golf?
First Mate.
One woman’s trash is First Mate’s treasure.
I snapped a pic of it and sent it to her as a joke. Turns out she really wanted it and I unshamefully backed my ass up and it’s now anchored at her beige palace.
You who else needs to back their asses up? Every single motherfucker in this photo from Kid Rock’s bar in downtown Nashville taken this weekend. What do you want to bet every single person in this photo has bitched and moaned about businesses reopening and how masks are an infringement on their personal fucking freedom?
Thanks for helping Nashville inch back to Phase 1.
EVERYONE I know wants to get out and about and have some sense of pre-Rona normalcy. But when a very large handful of peeps take the conveyed Tennessee message “proceed with common sense,” in establishments that completely ignore city set guidelines (6 feet apart, wear a mask), it’s inevitable to not feel like these folks aren’t being wise. Nashville is in a four-phase reopening plan. Currently, we are on Phase 2, with many businesses waiting for Phase 3 to reopen. Selfish folks, like Kid Rock’s establishment, accompanied by many other downtown Nashville bars are completely ruining it for other businesses waiting for their economic means to starting flowing again. Get your shit together you selfish fucks and maybe, just practice compassion for others.
In London over the weekend, great compassion was shown for a counter-protester to the Black Lives Matter march. Patrick Hutchinson saw a white counter-protester on the ground, about to be trampled. Hutchinson picked the man up, and with help from friends, got him out of the large crowd and to safety. Remarkable compassion and integrity.
Selflessness at its finest.
I think some people have become frustrated with what may seem like a lull after two weeks of full-on worldwide protesting (so yeah, the entire universe thinks black lives matter). It’s important to remember that Black Lives Matter is a movement, not a moment. It will take time, education, resources, protests, reform, and….compassion.
Speaking of viruses, my vehicle has been nothing but bad juju and decided to finally piss out on me two weeks ago. It’s just been sitting in the parking lot (silver lining of remote working compliments of Rona) at the Mini Manse until yesterday. And when I started to drive it to CarMax, seeing if I could muster any kind of moola out of them for it, the old rust bucket came up with the soundtrack to 2020.
The brakes completely went out about 15 seconds in the car. I was able to emergency brake it the entire way to the dealer. When the mechanic took it out for a test spin, before giving me my appraisal, I warned him that if he valued his life, he may want to stay in the parking lot.
The rust bucket in better days, when I wished it was a Range Rover.
Turns out, the make and model of my car holds value. WHAT?WHAT? Exsqueeze me?
GOOD NEWS?
How awful is it that I’m accustomed to the very worst scenario always panning out? I’m not a pessimist but I am just always prepared for the defeat of a situation these days. Instead, I got so much for my rust bucket, I was able to get a better vehicle in my price range that I love.
Car salesman Harry and I are now best friends.
My new beaut is being transferred from Maryland and is the exact same make, model and color as my old one. Just newer and minus the rust, the duct tape, the myriad of dashboard lights on 24/7, and no power steering fluid leak. HOW LUCKY AM I?!
For those of us who didn’t have my luck yesterday, (which applies to every other area of my non-vehicular life) might I suggest some sage to last us the next six months as we patiently await 2021?
Let me know when you want me to come sage your place. I have a new ride, you know.
How hard can a year be? We’re not halfway through this one and wow. Just a gigantic motherfucking wow…for all of us.
I mean, peeps all over the world are having to be reminded to wash their hands, (that we were taught to do as wee lads, so a major fail on the adults in this world) as well as a reminder in the harshest way to treat others the way you want to be treated (as we were also taught as kids, shame the fuck on us).
Wash your hands. Live by the Golden Rule.
Some of you didn’t watch this as a kid and it shows.
Collectively, the world is mourning what was life before fucking Rona. There is going to be a before Rona and after Rona. Whether you want it to or not, your life will never be the same. That’s a grieving process and it’s really fucking difficult to grieve something that is still alive. No matter your thoughts on the pandemic – whether you are practicing wise caution, freaked the fuck out or carrying on as nothing is going on around you.
Maybe you know someone who died from COVID. Maybe you contracted COVID and will have lasting aftermath in your body forever. Maybe you lost your livelihood, your business, your house, some relationships, missed prom, rescheduled your wedding, virtually graduated from school, or/and lost your goddamn mind.
This pandemic is real whether you know someone who has been touched by it or not.
RIP Lindsey. 11/23/87 – 3/23/20
Whatever the case may be, When All This Is Over (WATIO) there will be a new normal. Folks may be wearing masks in public forever.
Protection from a pandemic. But make it fashion.
Restaurants and businesses may not be at full capacity for a while. The hard part of this process is the unknown. And lack of leadership in this country. But know that whatever and however you feel Rona is being handled in America, you’re processing some sort of grief about it.
Hello yes, this is Karen. I would like to speak with a manager about the new fucking normal. Thanks.
While America was still thick in the adjustment of Rona, a Black man by the name of George Floyd was murdered on Memorial Day by a Minneapolis police officer.
This injustice at the hands of authority sent should have set your stomach on fire. And yet, Black men being killed by law enforcement is not new and we Americans know that. Fuck, the entire world knows it.
America started that week with New York City resident Amy Cooper, a White woman, calling the cops after a bird watching Christian Cooper (not related) asked her to put her dog on a leash. In Central Park, where leashes on dogs are required (and we all know how I fucking feel about dogs not on leashes). Her exact words to Christian Cooper, who was videoing the episode for his own protection, no doubt:
HE ASKED HER TO LEASH HER FUCKING DOG IN A PARK WHERE IT’S REQUIRED.
What a fucking ass clown.
How many times have White people called the cops on Black people for mundane, ordinary things? It is fucking outrageous.
America started the week with Amy Cooper. America ended that week with police officer Derek Chauvin murdering George Floyd over a $20 bill, coming freshly off murders of Ahmad Arbery while jogging in broad daylight to Breonna Taylor being shot eight times in her own home.
I believe that when George Floyd called out for his mama in his dying breaths, it was instinctual because his mother had died a few years prior. He wanted her comfort. I think all of us who have a mama want her when we’re sick, scared, vulnerable, dying.
While I haven’t carried a child in my own belly, I have maternal instincts. I know that I love with my entire being, unconditionally. We are all aware that I love my fur babies as if I had birthed them myself and I would honestly, die for them.
But there are also two little kids that my world revolve around and I couldn’t live without either one of them in my life. I would burn the entire world to ashes if anything resembling a George Floyd situation happened to them and lay my life down to protect them from growing up in fear of their lives for daily tasks. I assume you would do the same for your children no matter what the color of their skin.
Can you, as a White person reading this, imagine telling your five-year-old that when they see a police officer they should immediately put their hands up? No. Because as White children, we are told to go to a police officer for help or if we see something bad happening for our protection.
Three years from learning to put their hands up if a police officer approaches them.
When does this little boy become a threat to society in America?
Too cute?
When is it not safe for him to jog on his own?
Still too cute?
What if he has his ball cap on the wrong way?
What about now?
What about her?
Will she always be safe in her own home?
Racism is real, obviously alive, rampant, and raging in America – even if you are not a racist. My eyes were forced open to my own ignorance of it being ever-present since 2017. When my sister called to tell me that White frat boys in khaki shorts and golf shirts were marching with the KKK in Charlottesville, VA, I first thought the images my brain was trying to absorb must be scenes from another country.
White privilege is real. And if you’re a White person in America, you are privileged simply by the color of your skin. It doesn’t mean you grew up with a silver spoon in your mouth or didn’t work your ass off to get where you are today or have unspeakable shit happen to you. It just means that you had a leg up. History has just shown us that the system is a hell of a lot more flawed in favor of White privilege when it comes to police officers, law enforcement in general, and the judicial system.
Because I am White I can do the following without fear of being killed:
This is especially true if you are a White man in America.
The Constitution was written by White men, for White men with no consideration of any other race or sex in 1789. It doesn’t mean it hasn’t been amended and adapted over time of course but that’s where our country as we know it began. It aided America’s history of systemic racism.
Police brutality is real even though you and I both know outstanding police officers. Stand up citizens serving their communities. I have the utmost and mad respect for people who choose to be a cop. But that still doesn’t mean there aren’t bad ones that make horrible choices and as we are finding out, have had disciplinary problems, yet still allowed to work and end up killing innocent people ( Breonna Taylor officer Brett Hankison was and still currently accused in an ongoing civil lawsuit in federal court regarding harassment and George Floyd’s murderer had 17 misconduct complaints and still at work). What kind of system allows behavioral misconduct where you can still carry a gun and work the streets? I have three write-ups and I’m out at an office desk job.
I have heard a lot of my friends say “I just don’t pay attention to it,” regarding the Black Lives Matter movement in America and that is unacceptable. Because it is White people who have the most to learn and comprehend. Education is where we can start. Uncomfortable conversations will be required to move forward. And that’s all OK. This doesn’t mean you are a racist.
It’s imperative that we listen. We learn. We absorb. We educate ourselves and others. Because when it boils down to it, this is a very black and white matter. You are racist or you are not.
White Americans can and must do better. Show the fuck up for one another. To live by the simplest of all – the Golden Rule. How and why is that so fucking hard?
See something, say something.
This isn’t the kind of country in which any kid should grow up.
@repvaldemings
We can do better. We must do better. We owe it to our future generations to be better.
This is victim blaming at its fucking highest level. It made me physically ill. Not only because of the similarities to my case but holy fucking shit. A rapist never rapes just once and he’s being given a new trial.
Cowboys and Crossbones 