Newscoma

With the recent suicide of Andrew Koenig dominating the news, seeing the impact of how his depression and death has impacted his parents is devastating.
Raincoaster reports on it. Depression is a wicked and dangerous beast, there is no doubt.

So, I’m going to tell you my first ghost story. It’s about my grandparents’ house and what happened about 30 years ago.

My grandparents, whom we called Dee and Nanny, owned a small pig farm on Morrow St. in Dresden. By the time I came around, the pigs were long gone but small buildings remained in the pig lot. My grandfather was extremely doting and let us paint fluorescent peace signs in it. That building is long gone. It was fun while it lasted.

Anyway, my grandparents renovated their house, but there was a blue room that was claustrophobic and drab. They renovated the whole house, but not that room which I always questioned. We all hated it. It was always cold and weird. I was told that my great-grandmother died in that room after a horrific battle against colon cancer which apparently held her in the throes of agony for years. Every room in that house was bright (Dee loved bright colors. He had a bright green Cadillac and his work vehicle was a royal colored blue Pacer. He also adored bright yellow leisure suits, Budweiser beer and Winston cigarettes that he kept in a plastic box in his shirt pocket. He also had a big lab named Roscoe. Bright and garish with his colors, but a strong man of little words and a huge sense of humor, that was my Dee and I adored him.)

My great grandmother died just a few months before I was born. And she died in that baby blue-colored room. According to my mother, she wasn’t a bad woman, but the glass was always half-empty and she immersed herself in living in a world that was filled with what she didn’t have instead of what she did.

Don’t get me wrong, we loved their house, but not a soul in my family liked that blue room.

It just reeked of dreary.

When I was alone in the house, sometimes I would hear the radio. It was like one of those shows with people talking, somewhat like an old radio program from a different time. Sometimes it was loud and very disconcerting. And sometimes the air would fill with an acrid smell.

That room, bluntly, always stunk. and it was the only one that smelled that way. The rest of the house smelled of cooking and candles and Chanel No. 5, which Dee bought Nanny every Christmas.

Yes, it was more than creepy. When we would sleep in the room, Homer and I, we were terrified. I would dream of a large old-fashioned radio. We despised it. There were times we would camp out in front of the TV just because that room gave us a hearty dose of the wiggums.

Over time, the room was abandoned. Subtly, without words or conversations, it just was not entered. No one wanted to be in it. It was just not a good place.

I didn’t tell a soul that I thought it was haunted.

I thought I was the only one who heard the radio. I found out over time that I wasn’t the only one who heard the radio years after my grandparents died.

Homer had heard it as did my mother. We talked about it one night quite accidentally. We were all surprised that we had the same reaction.

We all hated the blue room.

Another family lives in that house now. They cut down the beautiful trees in the yard, the buildings that once held feed and the rose bushes that lined the small brick home.

I wonder if the room is still blue and if they people hear the radio that haunted us as children.

And that’s one of my ghost stories.

No politics in this post mainly because my heart isn’t into it. So, I’m going to talk about something I know plenty about.

Horror movies. I just love them.

Last year, I liveblogged Plan 9 from Outer Space and we had a rollicking good time.

I wish I had lived blogged They Live yesterday because John Carpenter is at this most genius in this movie.

People that don’t know that this film is revolutionary, well, I’m just telling you it is.

And I creeped myself out when I realized that so much of it has come true.

The obvious choice for a clip would be “I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass, and I’m all out of bubblegum.”

But, I think this clip is more valid to the times we live in.

Spooky.

You don’t need a pair of sunglasses to figure that out.

Eleanor Roosevelt said “Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission.”

I love that statement.

I do.

I know quite a few people that act like the world is out to get them and suck the oxygen out of the room when they enter it. I have felt that way before myself during down periods. Yes, we run into brick walls sometimes. We deal with unpleasant people who build themselves up by breaking others down.

Why is this on my mind this morning? I think it’s because, as I guess you can see by the changes on this blog, that I’m undergoing a transformation. And I’ve tried to surround myself with people who are comfortable in their own skin and who are not only empowered but empowering.

I get tired of people thinking they aren’t good enough, because THEY ARE.

This line of thought started this morning when I was talking to Homer about the incident last week. We were discussing, after a I did a bit of digging, that this has happened to other children and after a bit of raising hell, I think it will be dealt with appropriately.

Everything has a root system. I feel like everything is connected in some form or another. It’s my way.

But the difference of me being a woman who turns 43 years old in three weeks and a child is that I have learned through years of stops and starts that Roosevelt was right. Children don’t know these lessons unless they are taught them but it’s also a matter of just living.

My mother, the wise sage that she was, used to say “Never give someone not worthy free room and board in your head.”

Because our heads lie to us sometimes. So, what do we do?

Well, we learn that we are human. That we are capable of forgiving ourselves for mistakes we make. That no one else is responsible for our state of mind except ourselves.

Growing older is a wonderful thing, really. I’ve learned that if other people are talking about me, then they are giving someone else a break. I even make up rumors about myself sometimes to see how it goes viral in my town just to amuse myself.

You see, the bottom line is that I hope that I can teach my niece that she is not responsible for other people’s asshattery. That she is above that and those people are inconsequential. I tell her that they are fun vampires, sucking the fun out of a room. She has one life. Live it. Do something every day that scares you. She smiles shyly, but I know she is listening.

She is going to be just fine.

Eleanor was right. We have to take ownership of our own psyche.

This is your early morning dose of middle-aged Zen.

To my last couple of days.

Eva Cassidy was a great voice. The audio in this video is just wonderful.

Every day we have a new song. Tonight, this one is mine:

[youtube= http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3YVil3Ajjs]

Aunt B., Rick Maynard and Josh Tinley all have written about a young woman who was assaulted in a Jackson bar on July 15th. They were writing about this story, which I believe the comment section completely blew us all away by the ugliness of the some of those who believe the victim brought the assault on herself.

Some people in the comment section say her crime was being gay. And being in a “straight” bar.

The Jackson Sun is reporting this morning that an arrest warrant has been issued in the case of Miranda Greer.

Police have issued an arrest warrant charging a Jackson man with aggravated assault in connection with a July 15 scuffle at Tequila Joe’s that injured a Halls woman.Jackson police have identified Tyler C. Mansfield, 22, as a suspect in the attack that injured Miranda Greer, according to a press release issued Friday. Authorities said Greer was assaulted by a white male who struck her several times with a beer bottle during the scuffle.

The attack caused possible permanent damage to Greer’s left eye.

Greer, 24, has said she was attacked July 15 because she is a lesbian. She has said she was attacked by a man who approached her after he saw her dancing with a male friend.

snip

Greer has said she and her friends are planning a protest today outside the club in response to the attack and that she has been in touch with a few gay advocacy groups about the incident.

I’ll be honest, I sent the story to several people. The thing for me was that this is the area of the world that I live in, and I couldn’t not believe or even fathom that such arrogant hatred was in my back yard. I know it’s everywhere, I’m not naive, but for people to throw bible verses at other people and then say she deserved it (which is what happened) doesn’t seem to me to be very representative of the church I grew up in. The God I was taught about was, thank goodness, about love.

She was assaulted. It doesn’t matter that she is gay. It doesn’t matter that she was in a bar. It doesn’t matter how she looks. It matters that a human being was attacked because someone wanted to “teach her a lesson.”

And for some of the commenters to “approve” of this action literally makes me sick at my stomach.

Listen, you may not like what other people do. You may not agree with how other people live their lives, but to commit an act of violence and then for others to condone it really makes me wonder if this world will ever get any better.

And, yes. It was a hate crime if you were wondering.

I realize this week I’ve been pretty ominous about things on this blog. I did something this week that is going to change my whole life.

In some ways, it was unexpected but then again, it wasn’t. Now, I’m not going to go into all the details here just yet, as I do have respect for people in my life, but in a couple of weeks, there will be a resume up at the top of this page.

I’m afraid that’s tacky though, and haven’t decided if I’m comfortable with that.

This is the kind of story that should be told one on one, but I must say that things are fixing to be very different for me.

To say I was disappointed and hurt would be an understatement. Real world things are hard sometimes, but sometimes you have to do what you have to do. I’m proud of myself to a degree for being brave enough to follow my heart, but on the other hand, I’ve sacrificed some as well.

With that said, anybody need the services of an aging newspaper hack, that pretty soon, will just be a hack?

But, it was my choice, and for some reason, that’s sort of cleansing and fresh. I forgot I had choices, even though they are hard. Harder than I can express on the laptop pounding words out on this keyboard.

So, bear with me in the coming weeks. I promise not to get too morbid on this weird, odd blog.

But I will try to keep it real without being a whiner.

Going to lie my head down right now, pondering on what the next step is.

I wonder if Dominos is hiring.

Man, you bloggers get me thinking sometimes and it just stays in my head until I process it. I read something this morning about courage. The quote was this:

It takes courage to allow yourself to be lucky.  I’m totally serious.  Recently I had a couple of conversations with a friend about people that seem poised on the edge of greatness, only to consciously or  sub-consciously sabotage themselves.  Why the hell do we do that?

Food for thought for sure. I’ve chewed on that first sentence awhile and I must say, it’s a doozy.

Courage.

I have seen  sporting announcers use the word courage, which always makes me very uncomfortable. I hear politicians use the word as well on a plethora of things from putting policy into the public eye to the very real sacrifices made by young men and women in Iraq.

So, I looked the word up. The ability to do something that frightens you and strength in the face of pain was what I found in a quick search. I found a quote I liked by Tom Krause:

“Courage is the discovery that you may not win, and trying when you know you can lose.” 

Yeah, that about sums it up for me.

When people meet me, you will find that I have a pretty easy smile, rather comfortable in my own skin although I look like an aging roller derby girl on crack in recent photographs seen on the innertubes but there are things that people cannot know about me after a couple of hours. In my non-virtual world, there are people that have known me for years that can’t figure me out. I have never jumped out of an airplane, I’ve never wrestled a gator and I’ve never run a marathon.

But, courage, my friends is deceptive. Even folks like me can open up a can of courage in just the day-to-day tasks we take on. Courage, is indeed, a funny mistress.

Taking risks, putting yourself out there, that isn’t easy. I’m in a place in my life that I’m taking huge risks in my personal and professional relationships that people don’t even know about. I’m doing it, it is sometimes scary but I’m in. Is it courage? Maybe, maybe not but the quote from Kraus applies to me at least.

With that said, I sent the prologue of one of my books to someone to peruse it, to criticize it if necessary. I did this reluctantly because I was afraid that I would be found out and called sad, bitter names and that they wouldn’t like it, but I needed someone to look at it and tell me it was crap or if it was good. I’m also coordinating a huge project for work that will most likely leave me scratching my head but I know what I’m doing. It will either do well or crash and burn or I will be the sacrificial goat on that one although I’m comfortable that it’s pretty good.

But, what sparked these deep thoughts swirling in my head is that Mack is right to a large degree. When the shadows loom behind us it is  should be proof to us we are in the sun as we are we are standing in the light (hence there would be no shadow),  and sometimes we cut and run because it’s frightening. I find many people including myself look for the place where the shadows will just go away. They are scary.

We forget about the light.

So, today, I’m going to let the light gently burn my face and see what happens. I do that to a degree anyway, but today I will aggressively participate in my own life. I like journeys. Just a new way to think about things.

And that is what is on my mind this fine Monday morning.

Botox weirds me out. There is just something about people injecting stuff in their face and looking a bit like a blow-up doll-like that I don’t get. A lot of people do it, but it’s just not for me.

That may be why I look all of my age.

But I read this article over my morning coffee and I could not help but be perplexed that so many men and women are doing it.

Botox helps “Grey’s Anatomy” heartthrob Patrick Dempsey stay McDreamy, and Donny Osmond says he’s used it to keep his puppy love looks.

Even Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., reportedly used Botox to look more youthful on the 2004 campaign trail.

When I was growing up, I constantly worried about my weight, my hair and how I was perceived by others in a physical aspect. The older I got, the less it meant, and I guess I’m a bit unusual. I often feel somewhat left out of conversations when people are talking about the latest beauty aids. Don’t get me wrong, occasionally I like getting dolled up, but not not often. (and currently, my latest bag of make-up is lost and I cannot find it).

I’m too busy thinking about stuff, hanging out with people I love who love me for who I am and trying not to swallow my ever-increasing huge bush-sized hairdo as it is getting so long that it is constantly  drifting toward my mouth.

I am sometimes hypersensitive about issues like not being the size of a bulimia victim, and then I realize, oh, now, come on. I’m force-fed this crap constantly from the media. I sort of wig out when people joke about it and try to make sure that I don’t hurt other people’s feelings and I have no sense of irony about it. (I know, I have a sense of humor, but I do have some baggage about people feeling of value and I always miss the joke. Part o’ newscoma’s baggage, I guess. This happened on Friday, and man, did I feel stupid that I put my baloney on someone else.)

And, let us remember that Marilyn Monroe was a size 16.
I have a couple of friends who have spent a fortune on plastic surgery to build their confidence who were quite beautiful in the first place. I have tried to be supportive during their “transformation” but I admit I don’t understand it. It’s constant money to keep it up and  continual upgrades to their appearance.

But if they want to do that, fine.

As I careen into middle-age and I find myself holding on the hand-rails backing up a bit as I stare another year in the face, I realize there are several things that have are starting to define me as a woman in her forties.

Emotions are different. Perceptions are different. Finding value, knowing that most likely half my life is most likely over (I’m not being morbid, just talking about growing older), has become important.

Being appreciated for who I am, and not what people want me to be, that is a biggie.

So, I sit this morning, drinking coffee watching Wimbledon, Squirrel Queen is sitting across from me, looking at her own laptop and we are at peace with the day, because the moment is right now.

And I don’t need a needle in my face with an injection of the fountain of youth to let me know that life is what is is, and sometimes that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

But if any of my readers like the idea, good for you.

We are all different.

There are certain things you might or might not know about me.

I am terrified of spiders, and cave crickets just wig me out.

Zombies, no problem. Vampires, well that might be kinda cool and all except for the blood-drinking. Snakes and mice don’t bother me so much other than startling me when I see them. I can even hold a snake (although I was told one time at Reelfoot Lakes Wildlife Center when I was given a snake by a TWRA agent that I was “upsetting” the snake when I held it. Note to self: Do not wig out a snake when you hold them.)

Gooey Aliens from outer space, I’m fine with that.

As long as they aren’t spidery looking.

On Monday, Elizabeth came into work and said her leg was bothering her. She sort of looked a bit feverish and she said she had some kind of bug bite that really hurt. Later in the day, she looked positively like she was going to barf. A couple of us looked at the bite and it looked angry. Later, she showed us again, and it was twice the size and was starting to bruise.

Big Daddy has been bit by a Brown Recluse spider before. I know what that looks like but this looked different.

EC went to the doctor the next morning after a lovely evening of being sick. It was a black widow bite. And, campers, it was bad. Her entire leg looked like someone had taken a baseball bat to it. Bless her heart, on Tuesday evening after having to take steroids and antibiotics to fight off the infection, I honestly thought she was going to need to go to the emergency room.

Geez, I hate spiders. So I’ve noticed the last couple of days I’ve been watching around me, ever vigilant on patrolling for spiders. I’ve stared at my recliner, looked around in the car, just been a real spiderphobe. Several years ago, when I saw the movie Arachnophobia, I was petrified. I know, I know. Oh yeah, and Shut Up.

Did I mention I didn’t like the creepy crawlies with eight legs? You get that, don’t you?

So, if you ever meet me and I start screaming like a girl (which I am) and jump in your arms weeping, there might be a reason.

And you can bet your hiney it’s because of a spider.

***shudder***

If I had a wish list, there would be two of me doing the two jobs I’m doing right now at my place of employment, or one of me doing one of the jobs I have right now which I think would be better but I don’t sign the check and I sorta need that check so you deal with what you have. I’ve tried to keep them both separate but equal. I’m trying to stay on top of things, learning something new right now that isn’t easy. Dealing with some employees who aren’t sold on change. You know the drill. Just normal life stuff.

And I’ve been given a deadline that I wish I didn’t have.

And I would also own a pony and have Antonio Banderas give me a massage everyday if I could have everything I wanted, but these things don’t always work out.

But life isn’t always easy and last night I was watching the Deadliest Catch Marathon (and I complain. Dang, at least I’m not a crab fisherman), as I’m wont to do and I got into a big case of the What If’s.

Last week, I panicked a bit when I heard that Big Daddy needed tests and I’ll be honest, I wish I hadn’t put it on this blog but as it is an outlet for me and I did. Because of stupid, irritating, unlawful, awful, ignorant trying insurance issues, he didn’t get the tests he needed until Friday although the doctor wanted to do them on Thursday. I was in Memphis on business but came straight home the next day. The other issue is he’s retired and was using Cobra (he was waiting on filing for Medicare even though he is of age.) This is a lot more complicated than I’m going to get into on this blog, so bear with me.

That’s right, campers, the insurance runs out today. After paying $1,200 a month for him and his wife (which he was paying for health insurance), the transition into a new healthcare package is going to be a dilly, especially with this last moment, unexpected obstacle. We can do it, and Hello Nurse is working her hiney off and I want to just go give her a squeeze because she’s being down right heroic right now. They were in the process of transferring it anyway, but this was so unexpected.

We can only hope for the best, and, quite frankly, scramble. You must prepare for every scenario. And I feel like a very ill-equipped General right now organizing a war where I don’t even know who the enemy is and what country I’m going to be fighting. Not fun.

So with all that said, I’m out of panic mode and into let’s-take-care-of-business mode. I do that. I can handle the worst of situations pretty well (and it all ends in tears for me when I’m alone and when no one is looking.) My issues are just like everyone else in America. I have two major business projects going on and one of TPTB (The Powers That Be) wants one of the projects done immediately. As two of my employees are out on vacation, I’m juggling some wombats right now.

And I’m concerned for Big Daddy.

My plan, and it will be sticky, is to meet with everyone today and be very clear I need organization at the job. I usually just smile and try to get everything together and keep everyone calm but right now I need a bit of help and not a lot of drama. When a person and their family is waiting on health results (which might net nothing right now or might show something) there is a bit of limbo. When someone’s family is sick, as happens in every work environment, people have to be loving and compassionate. I do try to do that. It’s important to be sympathetic and empathetic.

Yesterday, I actually cleaned. This is a feat that only those who know me will understand is an occurrence that only happens in a blue moon. I contacted one of my employees and told them to get ready. You see, I’m not the only person juggling. Personal stuff come up for everyone. And, in all honesty, you have to decide the right moment when to say enough is enough and tell folks to pound sand when it comes to family emergencies.

So the What If’s are deadly but being getting organized is important. And, as a human being, the What If’s happen. Either way, I’m getting my armor on.

It comes down to getting my house in order and preparing for whatever curve ball comes at me. And last night, I realized there were no rules, so my bat is huge. I’ll hit whatever comes at me. And today I’m determined enough to hit it out of the park, if necessary.

This week will be filled with a lot of stuff. We are praying that nothing will show up on the cat scan. And we are working on making sure he’s insured. And hopefully, whatever is on that cat scan is manageable.

Dang, waiting is of the suck, I tell you. I’m much better knowing what I have to deal with than not knowing anything at all.

I think this my situation is really reflective of society. We all are trying to juggle our lives in our non-virtual world.

And hopefully today, Homer, Hello Nurse and I will hear good news. Either way, there’s a lot to do and think about.

 Squirrel Queen and her mother at the river. There was laughter yesterday as we spread her father’s ashes at the Obion County River. We honored her father nine months to the day of his passing.

 Squirrel Queen’s family’s farm in Harris Station. This year, the crop is corn. Her parent’s home is in the distance

The river.

The final resting place of her father.

I like the river. It’s green and lush. It moves slowly, deep in some parts, shallow in others. Green lies on the top of the water. You can see life rippling beneath its surface. It’s sort of scary to me, as I’m a town kid. But I think it’s mysterious and beautiful. We laughed yesterday, we raised our glasses to SQ’s father and we cried.  We wished her father well and we said one last goodbye to what he was, what he meant to us and we toasted to him in his journey down the river that was his home for more than six decades. I love it out here. I could honestly become one with this world so different than my own.

I think it’s a fine place. These were her father’s wishes and we honored them.

“The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.”

Hemingway