Inside or Out

 I've heard of people talking of being on the outside, looking in.  I know what they mean, that intense longing to be a part of something, to be in, to be included, not alone with something.  I, on the other hand, have often felt that I am on the inside looking out.  I'm locked in place, rooted to a spot, unable to break free, while the whole world goes by without me.  What did Mrs. Dalloway say about the most incomprehensible feeling on earth?  As she walks out her door onto the bustling London street, she thinks:  Some day all of this will go on without me.  Then, she plunges herself into it.  She pinpoints the very thing that is so impossible to grasp about death...that the life will continue after ours is gone.

 But here I sit, while the world goes by without me.  I see it, though, going about its business.  the dog walkers, the ball throwers, the comings and goings of neighbors.  And here I am on the inside, looking out, wanting but unable to take that plunge.  

Another trope is the question:  Is the glass half full or half empty?  The answer is supposed to reveal the subject's world view.  Is it positive or negative?  Is the subject an optimist or a pessimist?  Well, I'm here to tell you that there are times when you want that glass to be half empty.  That's considered to be a wrong and very revealing answer, but, in this instance, context is mandatory. 

Booger Red

  

His name was Bill Hunnicutt, but he used to be called Booger Red.  That was back in the days when he was a carny barker.  But I met him when I joined Alcoholics Anonymous to quit drinking back in the 1980s.  A lot of people helped me over the years, but it is Bill Hunnicutt’s voice I most often hear when things are dark.

 

I was 22 and spent, he was in his late 70s.  Short, round, with huge ears like Yoda’s on either side of his bald head, suspenders holding up pants on a waistless body, long-sleeved white shirt with sleeves rolled up, horn-rimmed glasses, strong body odor, and a voice like gravel. 

 

He seemed to be at every meeting I attended.  I’d walk into the meeting hall, and he’d growl, “Nancy, what time did you get up this morning?”

“Um, I don’t know.  7:30.”

“Ha! I been sober longer’n’you!  I got up at 6:30.”

 

AA abounds with clichés and everybody wanted to have his own personal quip, but Bill Hunnicutt was the only person who didn’t make it seem like he was trying to pull something off.  He didn’t seem like he was angling for center stage.  He was simply reminding me that I only have this day. 

 

“This is the only day I have to live right now,” he would say.  “None of the past ones, none of the future ones.  Just this day.”

 

Okay, Bill.  I wish you’d been with me yesterday to remind me that, in living that day, it would eventually end and I wouldn’t have to live it anymore.  But you weren’t with me, so, after a sleepless night, I started this day without any demarcation. 

 

On the previous day, on our way to get coffee, we were assaulted by a parade of cars, uniformly blasting a Trump rap song, American flags, Trump flags, gathering the clouds.  The parade wrapped around the block, as far as I could see and just kept coming.  My stomach lurched.  The rap song, pounded alpha male like an assault rifle, revering their war lord.  People walked out onto their porches, shouting, some cheering, some shouting rage.

 

“Four more years!”

 

 A woman with a Black Lives Matter sign on her front lawn and purple hair, spat into the wind, “Over 220,000 dead!”

 

In 2016 when he was elected, I thought, he’s going to get us all killed.  Surprisingly, Bill Hunnicutt showed up just then, just when the darkness plunged.  “If this is the end,” he whispered, “Live it!  Live each day.”

 

It’s been a long time since I’ve attended AA, and even longer since Bill died in a meeting at the age of 87.  But there are still times when I see Booger Red.   Bill’s round, bald head appears when I least expect it and shakes in front of me, his neck wagging. 

When a friend had been brutally raped and stuffed into the trunk of her own car, I remember her mother sobbing and asking, “What kind of a God would allow this to happen?”

 

Bill softened the gravel in his voice and explained, “This isn’t God’s world.  What you’re seeing there is man’s world.  God don’t have nothin’ to do with that.  God give man free will, and this is what man’s done with it.”

 

When I was a student in Italy in the late 1980s, I was sober the whole time.  No vino for me.  Instead, I went to AA meetings in Florence.  I attended an English speaking group there that met 3 times a week.  But, as my language skills improved, I ventured into the ones where Italian was the spoken language.  I lived in terror that they would ask me to share.  My skills were getting better, but I had no confidence at the idea of speaking in a meeting in front of 30 people. 

 

The day came, and they called on me.  I could say that I don’t know where it came from, but now I do know.  In Italian, I told them where I was from and that I knew a man named Bill Hunnicut who had been sober for 38 years.  This was wild to them because AA had only been in Italy for about a decade.  I apologized for my poor language skills but told them that I believed they would understand me.  You see, I went on, Bill always said that Alcoholics Anonymous is a place where we come to speak the language of the heart.  It’s where the heart speaks and where the heart listens.  I was so amazed by my own speech that I got kind of high off of it.  I couldn’t believe I’d said all of that.  I still remember the faces of the people in that room, smiling and nodding.

 

Three weeks later (mail in Italy is much, much, much slower than a snail), I got a letter from my friend, Gloria, who told me that Bill Hunnicut had died in a meeting.  He died the day before I was called on to speak.  I know that Bill didn’t speak Italian, but whatever powers he had tapped into on the other side extended me the words.  I still think of him often with love and gratitude.

Get Into Position, Please!

 

I think he’s sicker than they’re letting on.  I think he has an expiration date, known only by a few insiders.  People are jockeying for position, working to envision themselves in a post-trump world.  Mike Johnson is trying to slither his way into the Presidency.  Bible in his pocket, right hand ready to spring into oath-taking position, he seems to be an appealing alternative to JDVance.  That is, if you haven’t been paying very close attention to what a nazi he is.  The entire nation will collectively barf at the idea of JDVance being President of the United States.  He’s already such a laughing stock…not someone who can take on the role of manly leader.  

 

Mike Johnson will be a new face to the masses of people who don’t pay attention to politics, beyond knowing who is President and whether or not to hate him.  The only thing most Republicans know about Speaker of the House is that it is no longer Nancy Pelosi.  

 

Johnson has made sure to be right in step with Donald Trump at every hair-pin turn.  Now, suddenly, he’s diverging, ever-so-slightly, so very gently with regard to the Epstein Client List.  Johnson would likely be among those in the inner circle to know the extent of Trump’s illness.  He’s on the slide.  And he won’t stop sliding until he lands at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue…or so he thinks.

 

Upon closer inspection, Mike Johnson isn’t much more appealing than JD.  Not really.  Sure, he doesn’t look like a goon.  But he doesn’t look or sound like a manly leader.  There’s no bombast.  Where Trump had a bullhorn Johnson will force people to turn up the volume.  My guess is that they won’t bother.  

 

So, who?  Who will be this manly leader to spring from among the Republicans?  This isn’t a rhetorical question.  I really want to know who the heck could keep the Republicans engaged the way Trump did.  He entertained everyone.  I mean everyone…love him or hate him, he’s the center of every news story.  The volume around Donald Trump is loud no matter where you stand.  He convinced half the nation that he was the superhero they have all been waiting for, leaving the other half of us wondering how anyone could believe his crap.  Think tanks will conduct studies for decades to try and parse the abyss between Who Donald Was and Who Donald Projected Himself to Be.  Maybe just as interesting is Who Saw Donald As He Was vs. Who Drank the KoolAid?  Why did so many drink the KoolAid?

 

Anyway, the spell is somewhat breaking, and it’s kind of fun to watch…or it would be if the Media hadn’t turned it into such a feeding frenzy.  Trump has finally thrown a tantrum to the very category of people you can’t aim a tantrum at…other great big babies.  When a baby screams at another baby, the other one screams back.  Yeah.  They’re pissed.  Damage is done.  Bell rung.  I can see Trump in my mind in that last scene of Ghost, where the bad guy is dragged, screaming, into hell by dark demons.  I see Trump’s face, mouth stretched into a yawning scream, as he is dragged by demons to a prison unlike any prison anyone has ever seen. 

Trump on Maxwell

Trump's reaction when asked about Maxwell was surprising.  "I wish her well," he said.  "I just wish her well." 

 

He seems to be afraid of her.  I mean, really. When has he ever NOT thrown someone under a bus, whether they represented any visible threat or not.  I think he tires of people, and they suddenly turn evil before his eyes.  But not with Maxwell.  He wishes her well.  

 

This whole business has awakened a rough beast.  He spoke of her as someone he slightly knew, much the way we might speak of some of our neighbors…”Oh, yes. I knew her.  She lived two doors down.  I think she came to a couple of our barbeque parties….”  Yes, he knew her, slightly.  

 

There’s talk that Maxwell recruited young girls from Mar a Lago.  There’s talk that, since Trump has declared the entire thing a hoax, Maxwell will demand to be released and cleared of all charges.  There’s talk that Maxwell has petitioned to speak before The House, ready to answer all questions.  

 

If the Executive Branch’s goal was to turn American Politics into a reality show, it has arrived.  What a pickle, Mr. President!  He can’t kill her.  That would be too obvious, since that’s what he likely did with her partner.  He can’t stop her, no matter which way he goes.  Threaten, cajole, intimidate, sic the MAGA hounds on her, declare her a radical lunatic.  Yet, he has done none of his usual thugwork.  Why?

You Just Can't Argue with Crazy

 

It’s the ones who buy into the Qanonie conspiracy theories I don’t even try to engage in discussion.   

 

A while back, I went to a local tavern for dinner and sat at the bar.  When my beer arrived, the guy next to me lifted his glass and said, “Cheers!”   

 

I cheered back.   

 

Then, he lifted his glass again and said, “To better days!”  Now, I’m thinking that this isn’t his first pint.  “To better days,” I chime back.   

 

That’s all he needed to launch into this bizarre story about how the Bidens, Pelosis, Harris’s, and Bushes were all holed up in bunkers with a cabal of international bankers, and a top secret law enforcement agency is closing in on them…

 

Oh, criminy!   

 

“Everybody knows about this.” he declared.  

 

 I asked for my bill and made my order to go.  Aimee, the bartender, was laughing as she rang me out. 

 

Reproductive Health Issues Have Nothing to Do with Children

 

Ever listen to pundits yammer on about a topic and totally miss the significance?  I feel that way about the melding of the topics of reproductive medical care with children who live or die through school shootings.

 

The stance of Vance and every head-bobbing MAGA rally attendee has nothing whatsoever to do with children.  I mean, the media steps right up to it but doesn’t seem to understand the significance.

 

They say that the MAGA stance toward women and their reproductive lives is not in alignment with their response to school shootings.  MAGA says that any fertilized egg should be treated as a person.  But when kids are killed by shooters at a school, their response is, “eh, shit happens.”  It doesn’t make sense, they say.  How can they be so hard-assed about women and pregnancy but so callus about children dying in school shootings?

 

Absolutely.  When looking at these two things, it doesn’t make any sense.  These two things do not make sense because the fight to remove women’s reproductive rights has nothing to do with children. 

 

I want to say this again, because it’s’ killing me that everyone’s missing this.  The rules around reproductive freedom have nothing to do with children.  Nada.  Not one thing.  This whole mess, all of it, is revenge for all the years that Roe v. Wade gave women 100% control over their bodies.  Men couldn’t decide if a woman was going to keep or abort a fetus.  If she decided to run a pregnancy to term and become a single mother, the guy couldn’t force her to abort.  He could even be nailed for child support, and there was nothing he could do about it.  But say he wanted a baby, and she decides to abort.  It simply wasn’t his decision to make. 

 

This is the only situation that has ever existed giving women 100% say over something, men be damned.  I believe that all of the effort of this largely white-male movement to regain control of women’s reproductive decisions is a temper tantrum.  We must be put in our place, and that place is where white men are in control.   It has nothing to do with children.

 

Of course, lots of unwanted babies will be born.  Men have never been very good at taking responsibility for unwanted children.  Why would that change?  It’s no skin off their noses. 

 

What about women who spew support for losing their bodily autonomy?  I’m talking about women who stand with these white men.  Women who are complicit are almost worse.  I know these women.  I grew up in a family of rednecks, where the only good woman was one who followed her husband’s lead.  These women are utterly convinced that they need a man by their side in order to be safe in the world.  If they have any thoughts of their own, they keep them deeply buried. 

 

Has anyone ever wondered how big this group of women is?  I’m talking about women who are enslaved in their belief that they can’t survive without their white male counterparts, who understand that, by opposing these white men, they could be thrown out onto the streets to be consumed by the countless dangers awaiting them.   “Oh, baby, baby, it’s a wild world.  Hard to get by just upon a smile.” 

 

I belong to a Facebook group of women over 50 who love to travel solo.  It’s a great group, with women sharing their plans, adventures and sometimes mishaps.  But I see posts, daily, from women who are intrigued but terrified at the prospect of doing anything alone.  They think that going to a restaurant and asking for a table for one will bring down all kinds of judgement.  Everyone will stare.  The serving staff will resent having to serve a table of one.  So many women firmly believe that going to a public place without a man by their side will make them the subject of ridicule and scorn.  I find this to be profoundly sad. 

 

Is everyone assuming that these women, who have been misinformed their entire lives can’t be reached?  Or is it that no one is thinking of these women at all?  What if someone told them that they are, indeed, allowed to think for themselves.  Cast their own votes, not just what their husbands would do.  In my travel group, we sort of do that…we coax women into facing their fears and going out into the world.  Most of these women are the ones left behind.  Either their husbands of 30 years have died or left them for a younger model.  They’re left spinning inside their own heads, wondering whether they can figure it all out or if it’s just time to die.

 

So, I see in the news that there are efforts to bring in Black voters, especially black women, latino voters, LGBTQ+ voters, young voters.  I want to see some new targets.  Women who are married to MAGA white men.  Women who are learning to use their voices for the first time, mostly older women who find themselves alone at a later stage of life.

 

I tried joining a group called Red Wine and Blue.  It’s a group of suburban women who are claiming their voices in the political landscape.  They are a vibrant, strong group.  But they are not my tribe.  When I offered comments regarding older women, they were not only not interested.  They refused to include me in their discussions.  I know I am very opinionated, and it has to be difficult to moderate a group with tens of thousands of members, but it was clear that their mission statement differed from my own.  And I am certain that these women are not the ones I speak of who are married to MAGA white men. 

 

This demographic of white women, married to and enslaved by MAGA white men, and those who formerly were, is all but invisible.  But they’re ripe.  Waiting to be plucked from the tree and saved from themselves. 

 

Dreamcatchers and Black Jobs

 In The Dreamcatcher by Stephen King, there is a scene where aliens, disguised as humans, go into a convenience store to get something to eat. They’re trying really hard to fool the real humans, so they ponder what humans like to eat.

 

Bacon! They think…humans love bacon. So, they find the bacon in the store, rip open the packages and chow down on the raw bacon. “Mmmm, this is good,” they mutter, greasy blobs dripping from the corners of their full mouths.

 

Pretty disgusting, huh? Of all the things written by Stephen King, it’s snippets like this that really gross me out.

 

This is what I imagine Trump and his crew will look like as they attempt to stop looking so weird and try to seem like…whatever they think the majority of us look like. I can’t wait to see it. Or maybe they’ve already started trying to look less weird. 

 

Here I am, just grateful that I retired from my black job before some immigrant came along and took it.