This weekend's Trifecta task is simple: forge an answer as to why I write. Not as easy as it sounds so I gave this one the not-over-thought treatment and am offering it in the raw:
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I WRITE BECAUSE
i need to find "like" minds i have to explain myself i try to support others i worry i hurt i truly hunger to communicate
IF I DON'T I’LL DIE
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Trifecta is a twice weekly writing challenge. While I haven't been that regular recently, I remain grateful for the prompts, and committed to take the challenge as often as I can manage.
I've been watching the American elections more closely than ever before. What can I tell you, it is quite entertaining. Which is not a good thing. Say anything you'd like about entertainment, it does not propel us forward. Sure I have lightbulb moments that help me with my angst and love life, but mostly I'm just trying to avoid doing stuff: Cleaning my house, weeding my gardens, teaching my kids, advocating for change.
Today on CBC Radio's daily newsmagazine, The Current, I learned something sinister: those American (inter)nationally televised presidential debates are run a private, non-profit corporation, the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), owned and operated entirely by the Republican and Democratic Party. I mean Parties. And their budget is courtesy of for-profit corporations and their lobby groups. Who own the television networks?
Oh.
I see.
This explains why the candidates’ parties are allowed to stage their positions and audience questions, control the moderators and the camera angles, and keep all other possible candidates far away from the podium. Seriously, how do these debates prove adequate knowledge to voters? Most Americans I know are completely engaged but can't get answers to their deep concerns about the choices being made on their behalf in their country.
The debates may well be a staged fraud, and Americans are only now waking up to realise they've been conned since the birth of their modern nation.
And why, you might ask, would this Canadian be so riveted by the manipulation of a few to continue to hold power when it is not my country?
We have it here too. The lies, the choices that don’t exist. The colonization of our minds.
In Canada as everywhere, the stakes have never seemed higher. Unlabeled GMO foods. Factory farming. Pipelines and tankers carrying bitumen oil, perhaps the most impossible thing to clean up from proposed remote riverbed, mountain range and sea paths. Global warming? Compact florescent lights, anyone?
Update: Here are three parts to a story carried on PBS about this story.
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
I said it once, and I'll say it again. Canada's election process and debates are pretty much the same disaster as those in the USA. We are in the same boat. We may have to work together to right this wrong and be governed by people who want to govern all of us, and not just control us.
These are the rules for playing at Trifecta:
Your response must be between 33 and 333 words.
You must use the 3rd definition of the given word in your post.
The word itself needs to be included in your response.
You may not use a variation of the word; it needs to be exactly as stated above.
As usual, we are using the third definition of a word selected by those crafty-but-cute Trifecta editors. I personally picture them with dancing around a cauldron.
I wear black. Not sometimes, all the time. Pants, shirts, dresses, coats, skirts, tights, socks and shoes. Black. Sure I have this one bulky hot-pink woolen scarf I knit myself for really cold days, and I did wear a red skirt once. But black is it, down to my pajamas and undergarments.
It may surprise you to know, like the childless and unmarried, one who chooses to wear black is endlessly grilled on why, when will this change, what's wrong with you. Heads shake. I would say "nothing" but that is not entirely truthful. It’s just, you know, what right have you to ask?
Listen. I am colourful enough. I spout opinions, don’t know how to keep quiet. I am loud; I call attention to myself by default. I stick out like an infected, inflamed cuticle.
I don’t need colour.
More significantly, when I was a child, another mercilessly critiqued my wardrobe misfires and the unique items that I wore -- lilac shoes, peach pants, a puffed-sleeved, pinstriped blouse that buttoned up one side of my newly-developed bosom. I still hear that kid’s taunts, others gleefully joining in. That was just the tip of my life of being bullied.
That child is now adult, and wishes I would "stop calling attention to myself" for suffering her behaviour. That was then, this is now, get over it.
But my childhood scars are no different than those of a woman who has had cancers cut from her body: scar tissue left behind hardens over time and irritates the flesh around it. The remedy is for a surgeon to score the tissue with a scalpel. My own remedies are to stand out less or to scratch at the memories 'til I bleed.
My predilection to black drives some people to distraction. On that single day I sport my scarf, they effuse over colour’s cameo in my life as if it changes the world. They present me more colourful items; my rebuff bites hard.
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The rules:
Your response must be between 33 and 333 words.
You must use the 3rd definition of the given word in your post.
The word itself needs to be included in your response.
You may not use a variation of the word; it needs to be exactly as stated above.
You know how life can steal your breath away? Sometimes it's thrilling, like a super passionate and unexpected kiss and your stomach drops and you feel so light that you could soar away. But other times it's more like the wind is pummeled clean out of you and you have to struggle just to pull in that next breath and sort out which way is up.
That is what happened to me this year, and I feel like I'm just peeking out from under my turtle's shell now. Sure, occasionally I've peeked at your blogs to see how you are, but rarely have I been able to summon up the confidence or ... something ... to comment. I can't lie, sometimes I even type stuff up only to delete it and slink away.
I figured one way I can ease back into some good old muttering, if only for this (temporarily bedridden) moment, would be to Trifecta (trifecticate?).
While I've missed the camaraderie, I have not been able to read any of the often inspiring, thrilling and hilarious work that is posted twice weekly at Trifecta for forever, triste, but I'm trying to just be okay with this strange place I'm in.
I'd love to say I'm back, and better than ever, but instead I think I'm okay to say I'm popping by today with only the best of intentions to write a piece and check out everyone's work once I post this, and maybe, just maybe to hobble back again midweek.
I'm not giving up and going away, but maybe I'm gonna be unreliable for a bit. I can promise nothing better.
And so, without further ado about nothing, this weekend's Trifecta challenge:
-- 33 words of my own, building upon but not counting "On the count of three ..."
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Bang!
Shriek!
Shhhhhhhhhh ...
Okay. Stop it! ... Any moment now ... Hank, ready to light the sparklers?
I want you to meet my friend Glenda Watson Hyatt. We've been friends since she was 7 and I was 6. Or maybe 8 and 7, I can't remember. We were in Brownies (the junior British colony version of Girl Scouts) together, in the same . I'll add a photo of us when we were kids when I come across it again, but today I have to tell you a quick story about her inextinguishable will.
Yesterday, Glenda climbed the steps of the Art Gallery in Philadelphia, following in the footsteps of the semi-biographical character, Rocky Balboa. The true Rocky is a gentleman named Charles (Chuck) Wepner, a heavyweight boxer who went the distance with Muhammad Ali who joined Glenda in her triumph after her ascension.
Since the moment I met her, Glenda, brain injured at birth which left her with a "life, not death sentence" of cerebral palsy, has been a person who has chosen to say "yes" to life and opportunities. She wrote a book with one thumb, Do It Myself, about her early days, including her journey through school and university. Do it Myself is also available to read on your Kindle. If you want to feel inspired, or just get a look at what living with a disability looks like from the inside, I highly recommend it. And not just because I make a brief cameo ...
Anyway, today is about Glenda, and the challenge she set her sights upon most recently. Climbing those stairs, aided by the group, Wish Upon a Hero. She would have done it without them, I know this from experience, but they made a personal challenge a party. I've stolen Glenda's montage of this event, which was made even better by a foundation called from her FB page, so that you can celebrate her spirit too, and answer yes! to the next little (or not so little) dream you have.
Glenda and gang make the climb (photo courtesy: Wish Upon A Hero)
ps. Glenda writes and presents worldwide about Web Accessibility. If you have a blog, or develop internet software, she has compiled a wealth of information about courseware for you to use to broaden your readership by making content more widely available to those with disabilities. She asks you: Is Your Blog Disabled?
This week Joules over at LucidLotusLife completed a Weirdo Survey and then Amelia over at Searching for Amelioration did the same so I thought I would kickstart my writing career and make this jazz a microtrend by forcing myself to do the same.
I dunno why it is dubbed the Weirdo Survey, maybe some weirdo wrote it, but I'm not that fussy so here ya go:
How tall are you barefoot?
It depends. Am I pregnant? (I'm not pregnant.)
Have you ever smoked heroin?
Riiiiiight.
Listen. I freaked something awful at someone else who decided in a bar we worked that I needed to watch her snort coke in a bathroom stall late one night because THAT would be the night the joint got busted ... so you tell me. Have I ever smoked heroin?
Do you own a gun?
A water gun. Yes. But I don't allow my kids to touch it. I don't want to hear the girls yelling that the boy shot them in the eye. That bickering drives me insane.
Rehab?
Does eating-disordered loony bin count? Because it should because that's how I used it. So, yes.
Do you get nervous before
hand jobs? Sure. Doesn't everybody?
What do you think of your friends?
If by friends you mean people who read this blog, I think they are brilliant, insightful, beautiful and charming. Did I mention they are brilliant?
If by friends you mean IRL ... I'm working on that. Ha ha, joking. (Sort of). I love my friends very much.
What's your favorite Christmas song?
Have You Ever Been Mellow?
What. I have to listen to stuff like that at Christmas time. It keeps me from losing my shit.
What do you prefer to drink in the morning?
Irish whiskey in black coffee.
Whipped cream optional.
Perfection includes Irish Mist, but I haven't had that since I stopped working the business lunch shift at local Greek restaurants, completely tanked. That Irish Mist really *makes* the drink.
Do you do push-ups?
I never "do" anything that makes my chin rest on my mammary glands. It just looks silly.
Have you ever done ecstacy?
Yep. 1/2 tab. Once whilst living in Hong Kong and attending our one and only rave, in the basement of a grand hotel. We shared the tab in the cab ride over.
The hotel part made our one-and-only attempt at 90s cool pretty pitiful. The chemical merely made my hair stand on end so I never tried it again. I was disappointed I didn't get all chill and/or lovey.
Are you vegetarian?
I am an opportunist. If you feed me good food, I will eat it.
Do you like painkillers?
I haven't found one that works so ... not really. I'm mostly mad at them.
What is your secret weapon to lure in the opposite sex?
Um, yar. I totally use a secret weapon. I fix them with my death glare, and render them incapable to resist. And then I eat them.
What time did you wake up today?
7.25 am
Current worry?
It is July and my toes are cold.
Current hate?
Reality is a bitch.
Do you own slippers?
Nope.
Do you burn or tan?
Are we talking S&M here? Because I'd choose tanning someone's hide over burning them any day. I don't like the smell. Now hot wax, that might be different. But did you ever see that movie that Diana Ross was in, where she burned herself by dripping wax down her body? That was crazy. So maybe I'm going to stick with tanning.
What songs do you sing in the shower?
None. Shower is out of commission. It's a new reno, leaks into the downstairs suite like a kid's snotty nose, please don't ask. I bathe in the clawfoot bathtub we romantically installed in the kids playroom.
Don't. Ask.
How many TVs do you have in your house?
We have three TV screens, but we only watch television shows on my small laptop because we do not receive a signal on said TVs. Really, we should give those things away, don't you think?
Do you wish on stars?
Nope. But I hum the tune.
What song do/did you want played at your wedding?
Queen: I Want to Ride my Bicycle. And then we did.
What song do you want played at your funeral?
I do not want a funeral. But if others want when I go, they can do what they'd like. I don't plan on caring. I'll. Be. Dead.
But I wouldn't complain if someone played a young Liza singing Cabaret. Mostly I hope I'll have figured out how to make this song true in my life:
Do you love someone?
Uh huh. Truly madly deeply, I love my husband. I love my friends (online and off), I love my siblings and their kids. And I love my kids, wildly and without reservation.
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Credit where it's due:
Lisa over at Seeking Elevation started answering surveys as a Friday Fluff thing a while back ... it's good to see it revived every here and there. Her most recent fluff was completed in the run-up to her marathon solo-with-toddler+preschooler trip from Hong Kong to the Gulf of Mexico and beyond ... pretty sure she needed the distraction at that point as much as I am using this for mine now. I believe she is on the last leg of her journey (the Gulf part) and then she's home again home again jiggity jog.
