Tag: politics

My brain

Revisiting the 30 Days Idol Challenge, when I looked over the list and thought of possible photos, I remembered a photo (maybe two photos) that I thought I bought at a record show in Austin probably in the early 1990s. I knew what bin I’d likely find it in, but I thought it was pointless to look for it, because I had no idea how to credit the photographer. At record shows, there are albums and folders full of concert and celebrity photos, and the seller may not be the original photographer. It’s a free-for-all (but NOT free).

Then my brain–the brain that can’t remember if I took my medicine, can’t remember exactly how old my dogs are without looking up their records, can’t remember what I had for dinner last night or what Tom said he had to do the next day–yes, THAT brain, said, The photographer was an amateur named Dorian Boese. And I was all, “For real, brain? After maybe thirty years, you expect me to believe that factoid? Did you just pull that name out of thin air? WTF?”

Whatever; the brain was right. I dug through the bin, found the photo, and it was stamped on the back with the photographer’s name and address. This is why I tell people not to lie to me, because I remember VERY STRANGE shit and can catch someone when what s/he says contradicts what s/he said even decades ago. I could better manage my daily life if only another person would narrate what I’ve eaten, read, and watched, or why I walked into the kitchen. I’d probably remember if it was something I’d heard. (I shouldn’t joke about this. As a female in Texas, I could be assigned someone to monitor me anytime to report me and collect a bounty if the state and its snitch don’t approve of my choices.)

I have no idea why I remembered this photographer’s name. But here’s brother Carl giving bunny ears to Dennis in red.


September 3 — In red ©Dorian Boese

P.S. Dear Gov Abbott and spies: No need to worry about monitoring my meds. I have a system.

come up with your own

I’m going to advise you to find your own quote about laughter. There are about a million of them encouraging you to do it for your good health and state of mind, and these are times when laughing is hard. I was glad for today’s idol challenge:

Because an Instagram friend recently posted this photo:


September 2 — Laughing cropped photo ©Ed Roach

Thinking about the effects of climate change courtesy of Hurricane Ida on the country, and the effects of yet another Texas law stripping rights from women and the poor, does not keep me from thinking about COVID. I haven’t verified the numbers in the below captures, but they are thought provoking and also nothing to laugh about.

I guess today’s household task to keep me too busy to freak out will be making Tom’s bathroom clean like mine. And I have one disk left in the Feel Flows collection to listen to.

Tiny Tuesday!

My newest FCTRY action figure: Dr. Anthony Fauci, with and without a mask.

I’ve been familiar with Dr. Fauci since I began learning all I could about HIV/AIDS in the early 1990s. He’s served in some capacity in national health since Reagan was president. He was the target of many AIDS activists’ anger because they felt the government wasn’t doing enough to stop illness and deaths. Yet one of the most outspoken of his critics, playwright and founder of GMHC and Act UP Larry Kramer, ultimately called Fauci “the only true and great hero” among government officials during the most active years of the AIDS pandemic.

As a scientist, Fauci has a moral imperative to speak truth to power in a field in which answers may be needed quickly but must come as a result of research and study. The more we learn, the more the answers can be refined. Science is cautious and thorough. Politics is reactive and dependent on the goodwill of people. If you’ve had the Internet since the mid 1990s and have been at all active on social media, “goodwill” seems hardly to exist.

It’s a sad irony that some of the biggest lies of this pandemic have been told–and continue to be told–about Dr. Fauci. It isn’t surprising, however, since most of them come from people who’ve been lying throughout their careers. Lying seems to come as naturally to them as breathing.

Although over the last 14 months, I’ve come to understand that breathing itself is controversial.

Tiny Tuesday!

The plumbers came to Houndstooth Hall yesterday as promised. These are two of the three problems they found and replaced.


A tiny crack in PVC piping was the source of one leak.


A rupture in this copper pipe caused another leak.

There was a third leak they fixed, but I don’t have a photo of that one.

They turned on the gas hot water heater and relit the pilot light. All seemed well. It took a bit for the water to get nice and hot, and as soon as it did, I washed dishes and also put the pots and pans we’ve been using for the last two weeks in the dishwasher for a good washing and sterilizing.

Then later… Water was dripping from the kitchen ceiling into one of our cabinets (an empty cabinet! yay!), over our range hood, and onto our stovetop. While Tom put towels in the cabinet, I threw caution to the wind and showered. Then after he also showered, he turned off the hot water.

Today, we wait for the plumbers’ return, but at least we used some of that hot water it took two weeks to get, and we have clean hair and bodies. =)

Frozen pipes are dumb.

Much later, the day is over, and before I get back to writing, ETA:


Another leak is fixed; there’s a hole in the ceiling now.

Our governor has said Texas will open everything and stop mandating masks. There’s a hole in his soul.

Button Sunday


This is not my button; I found the photo on the Internet.

To finish 2021’s Black History Month, I colored a picture of Rosa Parks from my Boss Babes coloring book, and all the while, I had the great Neville Brothers song “Sister Rosa” in my head.

Not long after we moved to Houston, Tom and I saw The Neville Brothers Band at Rockefeller’s with Lynne. Many nights when we played cards at Lynne and Craig’s, among the CDs we listened to was their Yellow Moon. Love the band, that CD, and the song. Nothing but admiration for strong women who make “good trouble, necessary trouble,” as John Lewis said about Rosa Parks.

Okay, one more

Before I put my tiny FCTRY friends away.


Lynne gave me this coloring book quite a while back. Last year, I pulled out the page for Toronto when I was writing a chapter or two set in Toronto, but then I never colored it.

Couldn’t resist coloring Washington, D.C. this week, though. I’ve only been to D.C. once, and I really liked it. It was a cold October. It would be nice to go in spring when the cherry blossoms bloom.

In recognition of all the fun Bernie memes going around the Internet, I gave him his own place in the photo. He may be looking for his chair.

Inauguration Day

I took something like 50 photos with my phone of so many moments that struck me as I watched the inauguration this morning. But as a writer, I am awestruck by this young woman, Amanda Gorman, and her poem “The Hill We Climb.” It put me in mind of another inauguration, Clinton’s first, when Maya Angelou read “On the Pulse of Morning.” I feel like a brilliant torch has been passed, and Ms. Angelou would approve.


We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace. In the norms and notions of what just is isn’t always justice. And yet, the dawn is ours before we knew it. Somehow we do it. Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished. We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president only to find herself reciting for one.

…..

We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour, but within it, we found the power to author a new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves so while once we asked, how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe? Now we assert, how could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?

I encourage you to find a video or the poem on line and listen to or read it in its entirety.

ETA: Here’s a great inverview with Ms. Gorman and Anderson Cooper.