Month: August 2024

Kamala:  ( comma la)  ( , la) Should I put a comma here? Yes!   Shakespeare asked “What’s in a name?”. Donald Trump thinks he has an answer with one of his many creative stupid ways to show his disrespect for someone. Coining nicknames and mispronouncing the names of his opponents is one of his attempts to dominate, it’s a power move to give others a nasty nickname. He  actually weaponizes a person’s name against them.  Kamala Harris has told us many times how to pronounce her name. Trump has said “ People think I mispronounce it on purpose, but actually I’ve heard it said about seven different ways. There are a lot of ways.…I said, ‘don’t worry about it’. It doesn’t matter what I say. I couldn’t care less if I mispronounce it or not. I couldn’t care less.” That’s obvious! He’s not alone,  (R.)Nancy Mace has taken some heat for repeatedly mispronouncing Kamala. Her “adult” response, “I will say Kamala’s name any way that I want to!”  I am particularly offended by their name games, it strikes a nerve and just plain pisses me off.  

It turns out there’s a lot in a name. I’m at Starbucks and listening to names being called out to let people know their order is ready. I hear“ Danita” and it’s coffee time! When we introduce ourselves it’s the first piece of information we share. We Midwest folk joke, “Call me anything, but don’t call me late for supper.”, but we don’t really mean it’s ok to call me “anything”.  Making an effort to remember and correctly pronounce someone’s name helps them feel seen and valued. If I’ve told someone my name, and pronounced it for them a couple of times, and they still get it wrong they don’t really care! 

My friend, Missey, seldom uses her legal first name,“Mary”, unless it’s for official documents and business. She is not a “Mary”, she is a “ Missey”. I think people kind of grow into or out of their names. Lots of people are known by their first names only, or by a name they have chosen; i.e. Cher, Prince, Pink, Picasso. Some very popular songs are named after women; i.e. Billie Jean, Jolene, Roxanne , Betty Davis Eyes….  I’ve never met “ A Boy Named Sue”, but I know “ I’m Henry the Eighth. I Am”, “Hey Jude” and “ Bad, Bad Leroy Brown”. I’ve always been amused by the very colorful nicknames for Mafia members; i.e. Dapper Don, Ice Pick Willie, Scarface…. I think I’d want my Mafia name to be Big Toad. (There’s a story, but I’m not going there now.) We want our pets to come when they are called, and they don’t care if their name is “Scuttlebutt”. I have had nicknames for all my pets, and some I’m embarrassed to share, but my animals are never offended. 

What do we do about Trump’s  name calling and denigration of Kamala’s name?  Turn the other cheek or punch him? Guess which one I prefer?!  Or even better we could not vote for him. I’m sure Trump does not understand why the Vietnam War Memorial is so moving. It displays the names of all the soldiers who died in Vietnam. It’s pretty hard to dismiss all those soldiers, who Trump has referred to as “ suckers and losers”, when you see the thousands of names on the wall. The reading of the names is the very least we can do. I nominate Donald Trump to read aloud all of the names slowly and correctly while standing in front of the memorial. 

I’ve always loved the song “ I am…I said “by Neil Diamond. 

I am…I said

To no one there

And no one heard at all, not even the chair

“I am”… I cried

“I am”… said I

And I am lost, and I can’t even say why

“I am”… I said 

“I am”… I cried

“I am”… I said

So the next time someone asks you what your name is—say it proudly and give it it’s due. “ I am…I said”   I am DANITA.

Philosophy can be an exercise in “Oh the Thinks You Can Think”, but remember “Don’t let your mind wander, it’s too small to be out by itself.” I’m thinking of my philosophy more as guidelines for living which are useful and practical, and not just theoretical constructs.

I’ve had a lot of years to consider my philosophy of life, it’s not static, but I do  have  beliefs and philosophical tenets that I know to be true.  I am a member of a 12 step program so I embrace the Steps. I’m also a believer in Stoic principles which are some of the building blocks for the 12 Steps. Those greek Stoic philosophers nailed it! The word stoic has evolved to a rather unflattering meaning, but the ancient Greek Stoic philosophers were not unemotional, detached or lacking joy. I wish I could have spent an afternoon with Marcus Aurelius, I know I would have enjoyed myself.

So to keep it simple, I’ve boiled down my practical and aspirational  philosophy to 3 points:

3.Keep it Simple : If you are not disciplined and determined to keep it simple, we all know that weddings for immediate family “only”can end up with a guest list of 300 people. Considering a plan B can be a healthy  approach,  but if I have a plan Z I’ve gone way too far. I can’t plan for all scenarios. (See point 2)  I’d rather be living than planning and worrying. What are my priorities? I can clean up my household clutter and my social and emotional clutter. I don’t “have to” show up to every event I’m invited to. I am not bound  to friendships that may be toxic or unfulfilling. My goal is to live a low maintainence life style. I am determined to prioritize family and friends and keep it simple. I let things that don’t work for me fall away. 

2.Shit Happens : Life is generous in manifesting a host of things that hurt us and scare us. It can, and does, rain on our parade. People we love die and tornadoes wipe out entire towns. Resistance is doomed to fail, we really can’t make this shit up! Wishing and hoping  aren’t very helpful either. I’ve come to believe that acceptance is the answer, but at times it takes painful time to arrive at acceptance.  Only then can I decide if I can do anything to respond. Life is not out to get me, it just is. Painful. Joyful. Scary. Awesome…

3. The bedrock of Stoic philosophy and all 12 step programs is to change what I can, and accept what I cannot change. I know and feel this to be true. As the Serenity prayer says, we need to “have the wisdom to know the difference” and that is the journey of my lifetime.  When shit happens or joy happens,and we know it will, how do I respond instead of just react?It is silly and tragic to spend much of my life trying to change what I cannot change. It is not under my control to change other people , places or things. I cannot make someone love me, make it rain or live forever. Time spent on these impossible endeavors means I have less time to focus on the few things I can control: my thoughts and my behavior. I’m learning to ask myself the right questions about what I can and cannot control. Living this way scares me at times, but it is also freeing and keeps things simple when shit or joy happens. My time is too precious to resist life in all its tragedies and glories. 

I’m going to read this book :”Philosophy for Life and Other Dangerous Situations” by Jules Evans . The title makes me smile as well as these “gems”I found.

Roscoe and Molly don’t eat books. Thank God for that!

I resemble this.

Once upon a time a little girl was born in the kingdom of wishful thinking.  She was beautiful, with eyes that sparkled like blue diamonds and hair like ebony. Everyone thought that she would live happily ever after, especially when her prince came. But…after the honeymoon her prince began to tell her she couldn’t do anything “just right” . The porridge she made was awful and she needed to make the bed perfectly. He  became abusive to her, and poof her happily ever after became fear and bruises. I don’t want to hear this non-fairy tale. It could be a horrible coincidence, but I may still harbor a Goldilocks and Cinderella complex because I have an embarrassing number of pairs of shoes, and most of them are not “just right”.

Happy endings in fairy tales are foretold by standard phrases like “happily ever after” or “And they lived happily ever after”. Good is supposed triumph over evil, love is stronger than hate   We want happy endings or it just doesn’t feel right. Let’s go  back to simpler and better times where there was justice for all. If I do all the right things, I will insure that bad things will not happen to me. Bad things do happen to good people.  Who wants to believe Murphy Law, which says that “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.”?  There is no comfort in this proverb.

Where are all the damsels in distress? They are busy being rescued by their savior,  the prince.  I was part of the women’s lib movement in the 70’s,  so I threw away my bra and my belief that I needed a man, and embraced equality . Not so fast…my mouth was repeating the feminist manifesto, but my actions and feelings were not keeping up. I thought fairy tales and happy endings went up in the smoke from the joint I was smoking. I huffed and puffed and blew the house down, but what about second hand smoke? Was I still a damsel in distress? While professing to believe in the power of women, I think I was still following the trail of bread crumbs into the woods that led me to captivity and dependence. I was an ambivalent slow learner with generations of fairy tales to question and evaluate.

I’m over 70, but sometimes I still believe in fairy tales. Come to think of it, there are no heroines in fairy tales who are old Ike me. We usually get the roles of the wicked witch or the evil queen. “Mirror, mirror on the wall who is the fairest of them all?” Maybe the biggest fairy tale of all is that only the young can be beautiful and deserving

Maybe instead of rewriting our history and banning books that reflect reality, we could  start teaching our children that a ‘happily ever after” does not exist, and there is no goal or challenge that can be met that guarantees  everlasting happiness and success. I think the best choice is to experience and live happy moments in between life’s challenges. Expect problems and learn from them to become strong. So there is no magic wand, glass slipper or fairy dust that we can rely on to give us our fairy-tale ending. Writer Michael Ford has edited a book of erotic tales for men called “Happily Ever After”. The irony is not lost on me.