Nov 19

CAN WE TALK? LET’S DO LUNCH.

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
On Thursday, October 11, 2018, I caught a snippet of one of the oddest sights I’d seen and heard in the White House in quite a long time. Kanye West startled President Donald Trump by hugging him. I was startled too. It was obvious to me that the president was uncomfortable with Kanye’s hug. He wasn’t quite sure what to do with his own hands, which he raised in the air rather than return Kanye’s hug. The president finally resorted a friendly man-to-man back slap when Kanye finished the hug. I was surprised the president allowed the embrace in front of all the cameras. I’d read somewhere he was a germophobe. I was surprised he didn’t try to do a strongman handshake as he’d done before that pushed Kanye away or prevented the embrace altogether. I grew curious. What was Kanye doing in the White House? I knew he wasn’t an international leader of another country, nor was he a representative of any community organization. Why was he hugging the president? Why was he wearing that red MAGA cap in front of the cameras? Why was Jim Brown, the famous running back from the fifties, sitting next to Kanye? Who […]
Nov 05

Obama, Monkeys & Midterms of 2018

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
OBAMA & THE CHIMP On Thursday, February 19, 2009, I saw the infamous “monkey” cartoon by Sean Delonas and I was suddenly reminded of the fugitive slave posters I’d seen in a collection of Black History books from years ago. The posters were arrest warrants, advertising how Prince Jim or Joseph stood nearly six feet, weighed 180 lbs, was strong as an ox, a good breeder, already domesticated and could plow an entire field in a day. His master would pay X amount of money for the return of his chattel. Sketching Prince Jim or Joseph to resemble a monster ape in a white man’s ill-fitting clothing, with long arms dangling below his knees, and gorilla-like facial features was no coincidence. Slave owners wanted to scare the bejesus out of the public—hoping they’d return his property with little fanfare or the expense of hiring slave catchers. Owners especially wanted to spread the fear of God among southern white women—their own wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters who might otherwise be approached by Prince Jim or Joseph and convinced to shelter them. Slave owners couldn’t afford to have Miss Elizabeth Ann hiding Prince Jim or old Joseph. God forbid—it might lead to […]
Oct 29

WHY I WROTE: THE SERGEANT’S DAUGHTER,

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
a story of everlasting love When do you trust someone? How long does it take to earn someone’s trust? Here’s what I mean. Here’s the scenario. Let’s suppose you met the ideal woman thirteen years ago. But you didn’t know she was your ideal partner. You were young, single, and liked to party with any woman who said yes or batted an eye at you. She was a supervisor on the job. You were a lower level employee. The two of you kept bumping into each on the job. You started to notice how attractive she was. When you asked about her, folks at work told you she was single but serious. You decided wouldn’t it be fun make her less serious and more fun-loving like you. You decided to ask her for a date. She said no at first. She heard about you from the same folks you spoke to at work. She knows about your playfulness at work and your reputation for running through women like a rabbit runs from a hunter … quick and smart. You keep asking her out, and one night, you wear her down. The two of you go out. She likes your funny […]
Oct 22

PRIVATE NIGHTMARES & PUBLIC ANGELS

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
I had been married nearly two years when the first assault happened. I’d married the man of my dreams. The man I thought I loved. He was older than I was but what a fun guy. We enjoyed doing things together. We went on vacations together. We exercised together. We wanted children together. We loved the same action and western movies. We read the same books and magazines. We’d go grocery shopping together and consider it a fun thing to do. We loved building stuff together. We loved getting lost in lumber yards or Sears tool & tire sections or at New York’s Annual Auto show. We even watched the same television shows together. Little did I know once we were married, he’d still hangout at bars on the weekend as if he was still single. When I washed his clothes, I’d check his pockets first for loose change and then for packs of cigarettes. I’d always find slips of paper or matchbook covers from bars with women’s names and numbers on them. We never argued about his extra-curricular activities.  Instead, we debated mine. I felt what was good for the goose was good for the gander too. I said […]
Oct 08

WHAT DOES PLEDGING ALLEGIANCE MEAN?

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
When I was a kid living in Ohio, I could count on two or three things always happening to me. If it was summertime and school was out, my mother would send my siblings and me outside. We played outside all day after we finished our daily chores which included weeding my mother’s flower garden planted by our house and the large patch of vegetable garden, growing yards away from our lawn. If it was the fall and school was in session, I knew two things. The school’s cafeteria would serve the slimy, nasty-tasting olive-green canned peas I hated. I’d ended up missing lunch recess because the lunchroom teacher believed in the motto “eat everything on your plate” and I didn’t. The second thing that was a guarantee was that I’d start my day just as the other children in my class did, by pledging allegiance. I never thought about the words. I just memorized them. I stood up and faced the American flag hanging in the corner of the classroom every morning. Then I placed my right hand over my heart and repeated the memorized words about the flag and the republic. I knew what a flag was because […]
Sep 24

WHY I WROTE: THE IDEAL MAN IS A WOMAN

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
Hip, hip hurrah. This is the year of the woman, politically socially and sexually, right? The title of my book suits of the mood of activism the women in this country and elsewhere. However, I wrote this tale murder with old and new affairs years ago. I imagined what would happen if an out lesbian met a woman who wasn’t sure about her sexual orientation and hinted she might be gay during an interview. The lesbian finds the straight woman attractive. The straight woman isn’t sure how she feels about the lesbian. She’s used to men finding her attractive even if the feeling isn’t mutual on her part. Typically, when Woman A finds Woman B attractive and the feeling isn’t mutual, Woman A tries to convince Woman B of her worthiness. Woman A invites Woman B on a date. It won’t be a dinner date. Why not a dinner date? If the date goes sideways, neither woman wants to hang around for a couple of boorish hours with an annoying woman. Both women have better things to do, right? Woman A lowers the risk. She convinces Woman B to share desert and coffee or simple a drink at a nearby […]
Sep 17

SWEARING IS GOOD FOR YOU

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
Some forty plus years ago, I was pregnant. At the time, I had two bouts of false labor, during which my husband at the time rushed me to the hospital. We were excited that I was finally having our first child. And the baby was the son he’d wanted for so long. We grabbed the go-bag I’d prepared. My husband drove like a crazy person. He was trying to make sure we made it to medical help before I gave birth in the street, in our apartment, or in my husband’s car. The hospital sent us home, saying it was false labor. They were right. I didn’t deliver then. A few days later, after my husband put his car in the shop, I felt labor pains again. This time, the hospital kept saying I wasn’t dilated enough, but they thought I would be soon. A few long hours later, I was the delivery room and I was miserable. I’d been in labor fourteen hours. My pelvis had locked for some reason and my son couldn’t get through the birth canal. I was screaming so loud and cussing so fiercely, folks in the waiting room told my husband to get a […]
Sep 10

IRONIC ISN’T IT?

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
Lately, as I’ve been watching the news, an old song has been running through my mind. Actually, it’s two old-school songs I’ve been hearing in my head. The first one is “Back Stabbers,” which came out in 1972. It was sung the O’Jays and written by Leon Huff, Gene Mcfadden, and John Whitehead. The second one song is newer. “Ironic” came out in 1995. It was written by Glen Ballard and Alanis Morrissette and sung by Alanis Morrissette. Due to copyright laws, I can’t include the lyrics to either song here. I can summarize them. You’ve probably guessed “Back Stabbers” tells a story about a man discovering how much his friends aren’t really his friends. How his friends smile in his face but stab him in the back the first chance they get. His friends want to take his place at work on his job and at home with his woman. His friends do all it by sneaking behind his back. They never confront him. They do sneak attacks and thus he see them as “back stabbers.” Nowadays, his friends would probably use Twitter or Snapchat to demean, belittle, or stab him in the back. The other song, “Ironic,” comments […]
Aug 27

WHY I WROTE: ARMED BUT NOT DANGEROUS TO LOVE

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
Have you ever wanted a do-over on your job? Maybe you wanted to undo a major mistake you made when you first began your career. Most of us remember those newbie days. How awkward we felt until we learned the rhyme and rhythm of the work we were hired to do. Maybe we spoke out at staff meetings when we should have shut up and listened. Or we took the boss at his word when he said, “does anybody have any questions?” We think, here’s our chance to show what we know. Of course, it’s greatly overwhelmed by how much we don’t know. We peppered the boss with a series of questions our supervisor wouldn’t answer, for good reason. They were stupid questions that if we did the assigned work, we’d find the answers. At the staff meeting, we just embarrassed our supervisor and our co-workers as well as ourselves. Now everybody besides us and our supervisor knows how incredibly dumb we are. They think: We can’t be trusted. We don’t listen. We don’t obey office norms. And if we don’t cool off, we will be gone before our supervisor can spit on the sidewalk outside. Got that image in […]
Aug 13

WHY ARE APOLOGIES SO DIFFICULT TO MAKE?

by B.L. in Other 0 comments
Years ago, I had friend I was always trying to impress. She was in school earning her masters when I first met her. After twenty years of dancing around the edges of higher education, I returned to school for my BA first and then my masters, inspired by her quest for higher education. We grew close. We shared our hopes and dreams of the future. She wanted to be a lawyer, then a civil court judge. I wanted to be school psychologist until I learned how long my journey would be. I calculated I’d be a year or so from retirement before I met my career goal. In a particularly revealing moment, she told me how guilty she felt when her kid sister died in a fire and she couldn’t rescue her. I told her about suffering spousal abuse literally at the hands of my former husband. My tale of woe would come back to haunt me. My friend began to tease me about my domestic abuse. She made offhand, mean jokes about getting hit. The first time she did it, I ignored it, which was my mistake. The next time she said something offhand about spousal abuse, I stopped […]
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