Got it!

After an initial kerfuffle about a backorder on my new computer...the new notebook’s here! The new notebook’s here! Just in time, too, because my previous laptop’s screen gave up the ghost yesterday. I spent much of the afternoon and evening yesterday getting the new one all set up, and getting some essential programs installed. I still need to get a new wireless keyboard, because the one I had doesn’t work with Windows 7. It’s a shopping day tomorrow!

Before you laugh with derision at my using a wireless keyboard with a laptop, let me head you off at the pass. When on vacation, I don’t take the keyboard with me. I use the laptop keyboard. But for everyday use, I find that the edge of the computer really cuts into my wrists, so I prefer a separate, larger keyboard. I also like a wireless mouse (I’m not a big fan of touchpads), and that I WILL take on vacation!

Anyway, I’m very happy with it. It’s so much faster! If I had to restart the old one, it took a good 15 minutes to get everything up and running, even after I weeded out the startup programs. This one takes a couple of minutes. Fun! Now let’s see what all I can fill it up with!

A quick note of thanks to everyone who sent good wishes about some family health problems. It seems like there is a lot going on right now, but things are looking up for most of those involved. I guess all you can do is just take these things as they come and do your best to make the right decisions and do the right things. That doesn’t always happen, but I think most people understand that it’s a difficult thing to be under such duress, and will have the needed compassion and understanding.

Not everyone will, of course. It’s coming up on one year since my Dad’s death, and I recall quite vividly the reaction of one particular person. I’m to the point where I can laugh about it now, because it showed so well the true nature of this person. Just ugly...ugly to the core. Such a person is surely rotting from the inside out. Well, the time is inching ever closer when they will experience such loss for themselves. You know what I’ll do? I’ll keep my goddamn mouth shut, because I know how it feels. I won’t gloat, because I know how it feels. I also find it a horrid thing to take any sort of glee in anyone’s death, no matter how much I dislike the person, or a person to whom they are connected. Especially when the person lost is such a kind and decent man as my Dad. How ghoulish and awful. A subsequent “apology” was laughable. Their initial reaction showed exactly how they felt, and their true character.

Ah well. I try to put such things in perspective, as well as in the past. I don’t forget about them, though.

On a happier note, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish men’s basketball team ended the regular season today on a high note, with a win at UConn! They’ve never won there before, and it was a good, hard-earned win. Next up is the Big East tournament, followed by the NCAA tourney. I keep thinking about how much Dad would have enjoyed watching this team! We always talked about how we love a true “team,” not one in which one guy is the superstar. The Irish definitely have that this year, although Ben Hansbrough is a standout player, and could possibly win Big East player of the year. I guess during the tourney this year, I’ll be cheering for two. That’s okay. I’m a mouthy broad!

O the humanity!

Sorry I’ve been a little scarce in Blogtropolis, but my laptop is dying a painful death and I haven’t been on as much lately. I’m writing this on the computer in my secret underground lair, AKA The Basement. Actually, I don’t think the computer itself is dying, but the screen is going out...my friend Simon tells me that it sounds like the inverter is going out, and that’s not an expensive fix. I’ll get it repaired eventually and use it as a backup, but in the meantime, I should have my brand new laptop by Friday! I found a good price for a new HP at TigerDirect, and I’m looking forward to a faster computer, as well as saying goodbye to Vista!

I hope you’ll all bear with me as I get things set up. I’m trying to keep up, but not doing very well at it. I’ll be back to what passes for normal soon. Since I’m not spending as much time on the computer, I’m getting more read and I practiced the piano for a while today. I’m doing pretty good with my workouts, and while doing that, listening to some of the CDs that I’ve gotten and haven’t cracked open yet. Good stuff like the Raveonettes, the Hives, the Fratellis, Garbage...lots of great music out there, and I’m loving it! I’m still keeping up on the news, too, of course. Right now, I just don’t feel much like sullying my blog with some of the idiocy I’m seeing. At the top of the list right now is Mike Huckabee and his Aw-shucks-I’m-just-a-simple-country-boy bullshit. But then I wasn’t going to write about any of that right now. I’ll save it up for later.

I will report that I stuck to my guns (haha, so to speak!) when it came to a month without mentioning Sarah Palin! I did not write a word about her here, and on Facebook, I posted nothing. I did make an occasional comment on someone else’s post, but despite the efforts of someone who shall remain nameless (*cough* Doug *cough*), I did not take the bait, and held true to my pledge. It was actually quite refreshing. I find that I’m actually rather bored with the broad now. Yeah yeah yeah, she made a Facebook entry (rather, her assbag assistant Mansour made one). Oh look, she tweeted. yawwwwwwn She just says stupid shit that everyone pays attention to, ignoring the fact that it’s stupid and it’s shit. If she decides to run for President, I’ll have plenty to say, I’m sure. For now, I find her a non-story.

Carry on, citizens. I’ll be back at full speed soon!

Then and Now

Heading out to a Notre Dame basketball game before too long, but a couple of updates.

I appreciate all the kind comments and support after I sang my Square Peg Blues. It’s very comforting to know that there are many wonderful people out there who have felt the same way, and I am proud to call them friends. I got some very positive feedback last night that I have to share with you. My Cousin Greg found me on Facebook, after recently getting on there to share pictures with his Marine buddies from the first Gulf War. He sent me a message, and I said Cool! I’ll send you a friend request! But I offered a word of caution. I said I’m a flaming liberal and I write about flaming liberal things. There are relatives on there that I’m not friends with because I know they’d hate my posts, and if they bothered him, he could always hide them. Gee, am I gun shy, or what? Well, Greg wrote this back: “You're my cousin, and i support and respect any opinion you have.”

How awesome is that? It was exactly what I needed. Thank you, Cousin Greg.

Speaking of cousins, I have more pictures from the Godfathers concert in Chicago. Actually, it’s not from the show, it’s from our visit to the Liar’s Club afterwards, where the band met up with fans. The picture at the start of this entry is one that I treasure. It’s me and Cousin Shane from probably around 1982. I know I was in college, and I was back here for a visit, staying with Shane’s family. I’m wearing my “God Save the Queen” Sex Pistols T-shirt! We stopped at a K-Mart, I believe, and while my Aunt Bert grabbed a few things, Shane and I stopped at a photo booth and got these pictures. Well, at the Liar’s Club, they had a photo booth. I said, “You know we HAVE to do it!”

So we did. We were laughing, and as I was trying to finger-comb my hair, it started taking the pictures! Shane looks all handsome and smiling, and I’m sitting there looking all dishevelled and unprepared. It wasn’t until the next day that I noticed the art work that someone had taped up in the booth, right over my head. Which makes the second picture even funnier.

Almost 30 years after the first picture, we made another fun memory. Good times!

Beth’s Music Moment: The Godfathers hit Chicago

I’ve written about the Godfathers several times before. In fact, I was planning on linking to the entries where I mentioned them, but there were a few too many to do that! I kinda dig these guys.

Anyway, they’re working on a new album, and they came over to the States for a quick tour this month. They hit a few places on the East coast, and a few places in the Midwest. They never leave out Chicago, so I got to see them again. The original date was planned for the 10th, but due to some visa issues, they had to reschedule a few dates, and the new Chicago date was this past Sunday, the 20th.

We headed up with Cousin Shane and Matt, had a fun, relaxing dinner at the Blue Line, right across from the Double Door, where the show was at. (This was in the Bucktown area of Chicago.) I had two Metrosexuals. They didn’t seem to mind. Ha! Actually, it was a delicious martooni using raspberry vodka and I think some cranberry juice or something. I don’t recall, but they were yummy! Good food at the Blue Line, with a nice atmosphere of Big Band and swing music (after the Blackhawk game was over, that is). I was a finger-poppin’ sugar baby and ready to get my rock on!

We made the long trek across the street to the Double Door and got to hear the opening band, Frosting. Quite good, and it turns out the guitarist is on hiatus from the Javelinas, who opened for the Godfathers at the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre show in 2009 at the Metro. Shane loved the Javelinas, and he and our friend Steve actually went up to Chicago to see them again a few weeks after that. But back to the Godfathers!

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Another superb show. I’ve seen them twice now, and they have an in-your-face energy and ferocity that is rarely duplicated. (In reading what other fans write on the Godfathers message board, especially those in Europe that have gotten to see them more often, this is par for the course. They are legendary for being one of the great live acts.) It’s no surprise...they’ve been at this for some time now, and I think their energy is even higher with working on their new album. Their original lineup consisted of two guitarists (that’s the lineup they had when I saw them two years ago), but they are both out of the band now, and replaced by Del Bartle, the guitarist from their pre-Godfathers incarnation as the Sid Presley Experience. I wondered how they’d sound with one guitarist, and I’m happy to say that they still kicked my ass!

I wish I had a setlist for you, but I decided to just experience and enjoy the show and not worry too much about documentation. They did the usual fare, like the fist-pumping anthems “Birth, School, Work, Death” and “Cause I Said So” (One of my personal favorites, because of the great line “And I don’t need no Ph.D, ‘cause I’m ten times smarter than you’ll ever be...’cause I said so!” That’s pure platinum, right there.), as well as the SPE song “Hup Two Three Four,” which I don’t believe they did when I saw them before. They included their new song “Back Into The Future,” and it’s a dandy. I’m looking forward to the new album. I was sitting up at the higher bar on the side of the place, but couldn’t sit up there forever, and had to go down by the stage. I even got a shout-out from Peter Coyne, the lead singer, as “here’s one of our biggest fans!” It’s true, it’s true!

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Peter has one of those huge voices that is just a monster. It’s hard to explain...a little rough and harsh, but smooth at the same time. I wouldn’t quite call it a whiskey-and-cigarettes voice (I think Janis Joplin had the market cornered on that), because it’s smoother than that, but it still packs a wallop. In “Cause I Said So,” he doesn’t so much sing the song as he bites chunks out of it and spits ‘em back out. I’m laughing as I write that, because that doesn’t sound very complimentary, but it very much is. Here is a great interview with Peter Coyne, and he mentions how much he and the band always loved the Ramones. I found that very interesting, because the Godfathers were definitely post-punk, but they still had (and have) much of the musical energy that was so fresh and new with punk. They are more straight-up rock and roll, but I can hear that punk influence in so many of their songs.

I’ve exchanged a few emails with Peter over the past couple of years, and one thing was about movies. They do a couple of instrumentals, “Gone to Texas” and “John Barry.” The former is a tribute to Ennio Morricone and his music from spaghetti westerns, and the latter a tribute to the late, great composer who penned much of the Bond movie music (there is some disagreement as to whether or not he wrote the James Bond theme). I wondered if they get into those movies in the UK, and Peter was like “Are you kidding?” haha He said they love Clint, and James Bond IS a British secret agent, after all...and the band loves ‘em their movies...”How do you think we got our name?” Clint and Bond and the Godfather movies...I guess cool is cool no matter where you live!

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I missed getting together with them after the show from a couple of years ago, but we remedied that this time! I spoke to Peter right after the show, and they were meeting up with people at a nearby bar called the Liar’s Club. We headed over there (great little hole-in-the-wall playing great punk music!) and the band showed up a bit later. I got to chat with them, especially Peter and Del. (I got to meet Grant Nicholas, the drummer, but didn’t chat with him...next time! Also Chris, Peter’s brother and the bass player, wasn’t able to make it over because of unresolved visa issues...again, next time!) Just super, super guys, nice as they could be. I honestly can’t imagine any other band being this accessible to and this friendly with their fans. It was a true pleasure to finally meet them, and I look forward to the next go-round! Thanks, guys—you’re the best!

If the Godfathers escaped you somehow (when I made a CD for Milwaukee Dan #1, he wondered, “How did I miss these guys?”), give ‘em a listen. I’d start with their most famous album, “Birth, School, Work, Death,” but they’re all good, and I’ll keep you posted about the new album. Check out another of my favorites, the driving “Walking Talking Johnny Cash Blues.” Ahhhh, KICK IT!

I’m not like everybody else

I’ve been thinking a lot about the shit going down right now, with a family member narcing on me to my Mom. I’ve been thinking about privacy, and family dynamics. I vacillate between feeling hurt and upset and feeling righteously pissed.

I’ve always been a very private person, and I’ve always felt I have the right to keep some things to myself. I doubt that many of us share all details of our lives with all friends and family. I wonder when it became a requirement that I be completely open about my beliefs concerning various subjects? Even more, I wonder when some decided that it was their place to not only judge me about something I’ve expressed here, but to go running to my Mom like a junior high school mean girl and tell her about it? Granted, this is a public blog, so anyone who wants to read it can do so (and yeah, I’ve still got my little family of stalkers...Bitter Bear, Hubby Bear, Sister Bear, and Mama Bear). But wouldn’t reason prevail in deciding what to share with certain people? Wouldn’t common sense tell you that telling my Mom about things you read here is going to hurt HER more than it would me? Are you so unthinking when it comes to the feelings of others that you can’t comprehend that?

I have struggled for many years with philosophical questions of all kinds, but especially religion. I’ve written some things about it here, but only a few people know the full details. Some things happened to me, things that I’ve realized recently that I blocked from my memory. No worries...I wasn’t sexually abused by any religious authority figures or anything like that. But I went through a period in my life that was so strange and so bizarre--like something from another universe--that my mind apparently decided to lock it away into a little hidey-hole, and it has only recently started to surface, some twenty years later.

So while I wasn’t physically abused, I most definitely was traumatized, and the root of it was religion. I spent a long time pondering this, trying to come to terms with what had happened to me, trying to figure out what I believed, what I felt. Trying to understand where it might fit into my life, what it all meant, where it might take me. I have spent much of my adult life truly thinking about these things; I have not taken it lightly, and I have approached it with gravitas and a true spirit of self-awareness. I really wanted to explore my feelings on the matter and come to the best conclusion I could.

As I wrote things about it here and on Facebook, I found a group of supportive friends who discussed things with me and helped me try to figure it out, at least as much as we can. Even those who don’t agree with me seem to either respect my right to come to my own conclusions, and to just agree to disagree; either that, or they decided to stop reading me. I respect both options, and I realize that I am not for everyone. I’m okay with that.

But I found a voice here, on my own blog, and also among my Facebook friends. I realized that others have had similar struggles, and I felt stronger knowing that I wasn’t alone. There were even a couple of times when I think maybe I helped some people, the way that others had helped me. In short, I felt accepted for who I was and occasionally respected for my opinions, rather than judged and ostracized because of them.

And here we are. I’ve got someone taking the things I write here and running to my Mom with them. I am once again a “family discussion.” Apparently it’s easier for my online friends to accept me for who I am than it is for certain family members to accept it...they seem quite prepared to judge me. Well, I’ll tell you what. I’ve pretty much had my fill of that. When someone tells you that they think you’re possessed by a demon, you tend to get a little inured to such pronouncements, you know?

I don’t fit in easily. I didn’t in grade school, I didn’t in high school, there have been times when I didn’t in my workplace...I’m that square peg you hear about. It took me a while to get to the point where I not only was okay with that, I was actually kind of proud of it. I still am. I’m going to keep on doing what I do here, and I’m going to keep on writing what I write and thinking what I think. I’m going to keep advocating for equal rights for all and for my gay friends to be able to get married; I’m going to keep railing against the abuses and hypocrisy of the church; I’m going to keep writing about the disastrous policies the Repugnicans are trying to enact that will erase years of progress and return us to the time when dinosaurs rich white guys ruled the earth. Same thing, of course.

Bottom line: I don’t give a rat’s ass if you don’t like my opinions. It’s your prerogative to dislike them, and you know what? You can even dislike me. But it’s my prerogative to keep on voicing those opinions, and that is exactly what I’m going to do.

I’m not like everybody else. And I’m glad.

A word of warning

Those of you who are friends of mine on Facebook know that it’s been a bad week so far (and it’s only Wednesday...good times!), and some of you know details. I had a very upsetting conversation today with someone I’m very close to, and they hung up on me. I think it will blow over, but let me just say that I will not compromise my principles, and I refuse to be manipulated.

In a subsequent conversation with someone else, it was brought to my attention that a family member has been telling my Mom certain things that they read about me online. I don’t know if they’re reading Facebook updates (I have my privacy settings quite restricted, but just in case, they are now blocked) or reading what I write here. I can’t block them from here, but perhaps that means they’ll read this, and I would welcome that. In fact, here’s a little message.

I would ask what purpose they hope to serve in telling tales about me to my Mom, or telling her things that I’ve said on here. My Mom doesn’t have a computer, and the things that I write here aren’t meant to be shared with her. What do you hope to accomplish in telling her things that you know will upset her? Why the fuck would you think it is in any way acceptable to upset an elderly woman who is still emotionally raw over the loss of her husband of 60+ years? What kind of an idiotic asshole are you? Really. I’d like to know.

I don’t care if you disagree with my religious and political views. In fact, I’m glad that of that. It will be a cold day in hell that we agree on anything like that, and that’s cool with me. But be warned: you are hurting my Mom by telling her what you are telling her, and that is simply unacceptable to me. If you’ve got a problem with me, you talk to ME. Have the balls to look me in the eye and tell me what you think of me, and I will gladly reciprocate. Gladly. Believe me. But if you think it’s amusing to tell an emotionally fragile widow things that will upset her and potentially cause a rift between her and her youngest daughter, you are a real prick, and I want nothing to do with you.

Word.

Isolation

No, not the blood and body fluid kind you used to see in the hospital. [Sidebar: Back in “the day” at my first job, there were different types of isolation that we had to deal with when going up to the floors and doing phlebotomy. Heck if I can remember them all now. I recall a blood and body fluids precaution for when a patient had hepatitis or AIDS; there was a strict isolation for a patient with Creutzfeld-Jakob; I honestly can’t remember any of the others. That’s because a few years after I started working, we went to universal precautions, in which every patient and every specimen was treated as potentially infectious of any ol’ thing. So you had to wear gloves with everyone. When I started, you only had to wear gloves for phlebotomy if the patient was in isolation. I find that so hard to believe now. End sidebar.]

What was I saying? Oh yes. Isolation. When I find myself in times of trouble, isolation comes to me. I can function well on the surface, be around people, and do what needs to get done, but I get very withdrawn. I try not to be mean, but I can be at times, and I regret that. However, after 48 years, I don’t see that changing anytime soon. I’ve come to realize that it’s my coping mechanism. I don’t know if it’s the right thing to do, but if anyone were to tell me that I should open up more and be more vocal about my feelings, I’d probably tell them to mind their own damn business and get out of mine. I’ll deal with things in my own time and my own way; it’s different for everyone, as I wrote about recently. I really don’t see anything wrong with that, as long as it’s not permanent. My self-imposed isolation is never permanent.

I’m very much an introvert, and can live quite happily in my own head. I realized some time ago that it’s not entirely healthy to do that, and I’ve learned to adjust. But in times of duress, I tend to return to shut-down mode in order to get my brain around something and let myself heal. I’m very much the same way when I’m physically ill; I appreciate well-wishes and concern, but I just want to be left alone and not fussed over. If I have to barf, I’ll hold my own hair back, thank you very much.

I’m at a bit of a low ebb right now due to the illness of a family member. I think I’m kind of having flashbacks after visiting them in the hospital today (thinking about my Dad). I’ll rebound pretty quickly, because I know what is going on in my head and why. In the meantime, I’m just riding the storm out. My family is a pretty stoic bunch. We’re effusive when it comes to laughter, but when it comes to strong negative emotions, we tend to keep a lot of that in until we can deal with it on our own terms and in privacy. Is it the right thing to do? I don’t know. But like Tommy Roe says, I jam up and jelly tight, baby.