Apple and Oranges

Even though I knew that "The Fates" held a destiny for me much bigger than a small-sized classroom, I've always loved teachers and education, so much so, I followed my best friend and her older brother to one of the best teaching schools in the country for working class New York kids on a strict budget, which is the exact niche my friends and I fit into. Why pay out interest rates on jacked-up student loans designed to suck from our meager incomes for years, when the starting salary for a teacher in New York State was $26,000 in the 90s (https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d99/d99t080.asp)?

Suffice to say, I learned a lot about my friends and their curriculum by listening and talking with them. It served me well during my apprenticeship in publishing, which has the strongest industry ties to education, by necessity and design. Textbooks, anyone? Who do we serve more than schools? Libraries! That's why I'm typing to you from one today. Makes for an eerie kind of logic, doesn't it? And so we discussed our avid interest in changing the system from within, by shoving out the bored burned-out drones who labored in classrooms like they were slaves from "the bad man" himself, when really they were just bottom-level civil servants made for a life filled with repetition.

But, that's not the actual job of teaching. Running a classroom means you have enough juice and life-force running through your veins that you can actually transmit your passion for learning to other much smaller humans who need you to guide them through your excellently-designed curriculum. We had enough of the ennui that bad teachers hide behind. Get out, if you hate kids that much! It's like dealing with the bitch who runs your doctor's office. Oh, so you hate people? I guess tending to the sick would be at the top of your list, then.

And it wasn't because they were broke or in financial straits like we were. I've worked with plenty of people in publishing who worked because they didn't know what else to do, so they hoped to hide within low-paying jobs alongside some of the most educated people on the planet because....oh, wait. That doesn't work either. Claiming disability became some sort of signal that we "won", because crazy people think that the world is all about some intergalactic pissing contest in lieu of actually living life, like my wonderfully cool grandpapa taught me to do: have fun! Learning is like that.

So, we became focused on accurately transmitting that joyful feeling; not through some dull drama class we did by rote, but the real thing, which unfortunately requires you love what you do for a living, and that can't be faked, no matter the brand of wacky sauce poured on top for seasoning bland personalities. My friends and I felt alive. Are you? We became adept at reading children's real intellectual levels, and that's somehow another layer of threatening for the demented at heart. Here in town, we watched a sick woman smack her ADD son cringing on the floor at our community center in the middle of the day, in front of many witnesses. It was a shockingly familiar sight to anyone from this area: a stick-thin young woman with challenged kids, greasy hair, and a shitty attitude (she has a Down Syndrome girl, too) freaks out whenever she feels stress, which is all-day every day.

The gossip that circulated through us followed suit in a typically dysfunctional pattern we grew up with, too. She was in the middle of a ferocious battle with the teachers at the elementary school next door to our library/community center, because she refused to acknowledge what any two-year-old already knew: she's sick, and so are her kids. Duh. Of course he's "Special Needs"! But just like every rabid bitch we hated as kids, here she was again, haunting the very places we hold dear, like some nightmare merry-go-round in Hell. Hadn't we killed, er, pushed out all these bitches already? Birth control is practically free!

Much like a pseudo-debate over healthcare, it's not really about her kid and his needs, because we've already designed circles around it as an issue, when she finally decides to pull her head out of her own stick-figure ass. Who can tell? She pretended to almost run me over when I crossed at a corner near town, to give me the creeps (just in case I failed at her five million other warning signs that are as obvious as daylight at noontime), by pretending to search for something in her car. We have that on satellite photo, BTW. Look for it! Anywho, like any self-loathing drama queen, her weirdo displays are more about her strange lesbo displays someone has to actually notice, like when she comes into the library in her anorexic day-wear, to bend over until one of the gay women working here notices her bending over to put books into the return slot that should normally take a few seconds. Ugh...great. That's motherhood?!

Body fat is also a no-no among many "sports dykes" and the women who love/hate them. Also, you shouldn't date a closeted women who tricked some poor guy (perhaps deeply closeted, as well) into mating with her poorly, but you should know that from our lessons already, kid. It happens to us everywhere. When I moved into my new residence, I knew within minutes which neighbor was sick with what, and their children, too. It's rather easy to discern, like a physician with a tiny hammer timing your reactions from knocking your knee. The Hispanics upstairs did everything they possibly could, as backwards as possible. They made a kid without marriage, broke up, then he moved in his little girlfriend who preferred shopping to mothering (because they're barely out of their teens! Yay!), which she then telegraphed to everyone in the neighborhood by making his little girl into a pedophiles' sick delight, with outfits cut just a bit too short, so that her boyfriend's ex would suffer from her daughters' molestation that would certainly affect her throughout her life, and that was BEFORE I noticed her obvious developmental issues.

First, it was the girls obvious short attention span (easy: blame los Americanos with their sugar and fast food diet), then blame our high price of living telegraphed by obvious parental neglect (so they could leave their girl vulnerable to the house drunks downstairs by pleading poverty for their cheapo babysitting services, having the large man paw the young girl right in front of me on the houses porch, which I clearly documented), and then finally, I met the girl herself, desperate for a real adult to teach her something about life. She picked me out as a safe person quickly, ringing my bell for healthy food and drinks, which I readily had, like home-popped popcorn and seltzer water with fresh lemon slices. She loved my treats, even asking me for more, which I happily gave her in a plastic container that I never got back, in case I didn't get all the other messages transmitted to me that they could care less about me and her, what with their sulking, pouting, drinking, and active chain-smoking social lives to live.

The poor girl was also a shut-in, not leaving the house except for school, and that attendance seemed tepid and short-lived, too. As soon as the young couple could, they farmed out her daycare to babysitters and a series of shifty-looking "nannies", because that's what junior mechanics and their desk-jockey girlfriends do in this century, besides nursing a serious shoe fetish widely telegraphed in the house garbage cans (because they don't recycle, duh. They're "too busy" for that!), but one call to their friend and a Spanish woman will pick up your bottle returns, because the house drunk told me that. "Oh, yeah! We recycle here! Just let so-and-so upstairs know, and he'll call his friend. She picks through the garbage for bottles. You ain't gotta worry 'bout nuthin'. Put 'em in the two pails in the back with no lids, and they'll see it." Huh. I see. Hiding beer bottles and alcoholism, eh? Neat trick!

Their daughter also never played outside, or went to the little playground with picnic tables that are right here in the center of town, or got ice cream nearby like every kid here does in the summer with their parents, nor did she ride her bike openly in the driveway, or play in the yard like any other girl her age would do. She didn't have friends come over, either. She told me she had a sibling who didn't go out, because he "didn't feel good", so he stay inside a lot. Right! I could tell. As she sat at my kitchen table, I asked her to draw me anything she wanted. She couldn't. I asked her to spell her name for me. Nope! Did she know the letters A, B, or C? No! She fidgeted and bounced around my apartment, flitting from object to object, finally swiping them from my coffee table in anger, and then putting them back when my back was turned for a few seconds, which was the one practiced trick she had up her sleeves. When I asked her age, she told me she was six, but she didn't really know. Ah...

After new neighbors moved in, we had two families in our household with small children, and they couldn't be more different. The first time I met little Eli, he played happily in the yard while I became acquainted with his father, cheerfully picking up different stones and rocks to show me. I kept his little gifts in my hands, until his father noticed and asked him to put them down. As a symbol of recognition about their vast differences intellectually and developmentally (because everything is a big fucking secret, I guess), I lined up little Eli's rocks underneath the railing on "my side" of the porch (I don't actually own the house, which makes territorial markings doubly weird!), the same side of the house his parents kept their car parked that they drove everyday, so they would at least know that I knew. He'd sorted rocks by their size, shape, type, and color. At two. Yeah. Different. That's it, right?

 http://www2.ed.gov/parents/needs/speced/edpicks.jhtml

Homeless for the Holidays

Through no fault of my own, I was homeless a few years ago because my family turned their backs on me for being economically dispensable to the unsavory family business that I had worked hard for, a business that was struggling to stay afloat from all of their excesses and not mine. I developed a publishing program for bargain books sold at B&N stores worldwide that's made me infamous throughout the industry. They wasted tens of thousands every year on decorating expenses, stupid parties, pricey real estate, and fancy white gardeners for their office balcony (that I never really had time to use), before they gave us a real 401K plan that we had to ask repeatedly for. My dad had once asked me to sell books only for a dollar or for free, as some sort of test of my "worth" as a publishing executive, and it was one that I easily accomplished. When the economy tanked yet again, they cut the staff who weren't family (or married to family/friends) and jettisoned the rest of us, which surprised me not at all, because I know how people who are bad at business react to stress: they don't. You do. 

So began yet another typically old family pattern of dysfunction spurred on by the upsets present in my life, which goes something like this: if "Mama Marie" ain't earning, then she ain't eatin', and that was certainly true for me. I almost fainted from hunger on some of the worst days (during which my father had the gall to ask me if I'd ever gone hungry, after I'd exhausted all my funds, credit, and extraneous belongings, like any normal person would do to avoid being a burden to others), in between the outrageous emails I sent to my family that gave them full advance warning (because I can succeed at business without even trying, despite the lack of their expensively bought M.B.A.'s, thus adding more fuel to their envious fire) of my upcoming eviction due to lack of payment (with no legal advice offered from my lawyer uncle or the corporate lawyer my father has on retainer for his needs), even while my father congratulated me publicly for my success at earning a spot at a prestigious writer's colony (because he wanted me to teach him writing so he could pen his memoirs and brag about it), because I worked that hard to be good for them by compensating for their deficits during my homelessness, like any real mother would. 

In return, I got bizarre offers for a limo ride to some mental institution in Westchester for all my troubles, when I really just needed an expense check sent to me, like any other businesswoman in publishing who itemizes correctly and transparently. There's no secrets here, anymore. How else was I thanked? Well, every time they made the wrong decision about me, I told them the truth about their sicknesses, illnesses, deficiencies, disorders, impairments, addictions, and crimes against humanity that they owe me "big-time" for, because the only times I get pulled into badness of any kind is at someone else's say-so, and isn't that way it always is for people of good faith? We are tried and tested to see through all the badness around us by fighting our way through it, alone. It is in this way that you've come to be my adoring audience in the year 2015: because you asked me to undergo rigorous feats of strength that you can't do, like any true hero does, and I survived to tell you the tales about my amazing, death-defying acts of life, like an ever-ongoing Homeric odyssey of epic modern proportions delivered freshly and freely almost every day.

And so it came to pass that I found myself isolated and alone at some hotel room (during our most holiest of seasons) in the Sunset Park* section of Brooklyn, living by my wits and a tenuous room connection to the hotel's WiFi service, booking rooms at B&B's in the area so as to be ready to go to work on Monday morning, because I worked my way through it, just like I always do. Sure, a few days I had a small powder blue bag with me on the elevator in the morning that was remarked upon by one of my design assistants, but that was it. 

The holiday itself found me with absolutely no contact from anyone whatsoever: no good wishes, no phone calls of forced bonhomie. 
There was no gratitude or charity towards me of on any kind, except the G-dly ones I received by my own hand, because I walked several miles to be with my parish family at St. Francis of Xavier in Park Slope (where I was "shadowing" Sunday school teachers guided by Sister Kathleen, the former principal of the elementary school across the street, by following along with her lovingly designed children's curriculum) for church service on Sunday, because I said I would.  
I said I would be there.

http://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org

 https://www.bowery.org/homelessness/

http://www1.nyc.gov/site/dhs/prevention/homebase.page

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunset_Park,_Brooklyn

Share the Project

http://www.arcofrockland.org/

Do you remember that homework assignment from your elementary school days called "Show and Tell"? You chose an object from home, brought it to class, and then you got up in front of the entire class and your teacher to deliver an impromptu speech about it. For most of us, it was our first real experience with speaking in front of a crowd, and a nerve-wracking one at that. What to choose? What to say?! You spent your free time thinking about it, and then on the day of your speech, you second-guessed yourself all the way to the front of the classroom by fretting over each minute that passed by on the classroom's big clock, while another classmate did the talking. It actually does a lot of important tasks for human brains, organs that operate at their peak efficiency through utilizing all the advanced arts that are necessary for human communication.

It was the same thing for me in college. I took "Public Speaking" because it was required for all S.U.N.Y. school attendees, and then I "graduated" on to much harder skill sets, like talking about the projects I made all by myself at the world's premier art and design school. Bullshitting people you don't really care about for a good grade is an easy trick for most of us to pull off, but to be emotionally invested from your labors enough that you actually care about what you've made, and you want it to be well-received unanimously, is par excellence. A lot of people with some technical abilities do enough that passes off as skills people pay for, but a lot of the time, it's work we don't want to do ourselves because it's boring or dirty.

That's where we pick it up: you at the end of your rope, because you fear getting your hands really dirty, or because you're afraid of the risk that comes with those of us who are brave enough to fail in public without even trying. It means you're strong enough to survive a loss(es), so much so, you can visibly pick yourself up from the floor in front of a huge crowd, dust yourself off, heal, learn from your experience, and then get pissed off enough to do it better than next time. Some of us even publish the results. My father always told me that failure is essential to success, because it's true. If you win every single time you try something, then you aren't trying hard enough. Really brave warriors go out on a limb that can break at any time because that's where the sweetest, rarest fruit always is. So what if you fall down? Who hasn't?!

People afraid to fail in front of others are easily controlled through their visible fears. They're those athletes who illegally dose to have a secret edge over their opponents because deep down (or not so deep), they know they aren't good enough to succeed without rigging the contest to their advantage. They're the type of scumbag managers in your daily business who use access to your computer over a secure network to block or track your every move every chance they get, because they know they aren't good enough to be in your position of importance at a company. They're cowards, and cowardly people lie, cheat, and steal all the fucking time because they know they'd suck without you, their high performing muthfucka, to pick up their slack, and there's a lot of that to be had in this world.

I don't trust people who haven't been banged up enough by life because they're too afraid to live it. If you don't have war stories about your epic adventures (with some cool scars to show for your hard work), then you haven't lived enough, because you're too busy sitting on your fat ass peeking out from between lace curtains, like a punk ass bitch in your lazy cushy suburban home, passing judgement on those of us who love life enough to take risks, by taking a fall or two on our asses out in public. Ain't nuthin' but a thang to me, yo. In fact, in my chosen sport of MMA, we don't have "perfect" records (none of us do, really. Not one single athlete), because it isn't a fixed game like some of the shadier sports. There's no such thing as a "perfect" win in our world, because Samurai's accept that they are, like life, imperfect.

It can be jarring for fans of other sports that play dirty through drug use openly ignored, and/or with the assistance of funding from illicit gansta money to front their operation. Whachoo mean he lost? Whaaa....?! They can't even comprehend, because they've learned through a twisted game to expect a fake impression of perfection that's not real because it's a cheat. Some sports are choreographed for a narrative outcome like pro wrestling is, with it's funny over-acting and hammy role-playing, but make no mistake about it: when Brock Lesnar fought in the MMA, he fought a real fucking sport with skill sets so profound, it blows the minds of people who try it. There are just too many mathematical outcomes to predict statistically, and so our sport reflects the genius mentality of people who understand concepts like "hard" and "difficult to achieve" really well, because it's the life they live everyday: a tough game with the odds stacked so much against you, you can't help but draw on a crowd of admiring supporters.

And so it is with my charitable endeavors and active daily service to y'all. I do it because I love it, and I trained for it because I'm the best at it. But there are tons of fuck-ups. I don't have the money to operate a closed system of my own, so I "copy and paste" shit on some old fuckin' computer at the library, because it sucks too much to interact with my better (and older) plug-and-play Mac technology. I call them "Work-Arounds" that are essential to any "real world" type of living: those life situations that reflect the poorer thinking of the people around you who are too blind or dumb (or both) to put real money where it actually belongs. And so you see broken links with dead video uploads and missing photos (stuff I could never do for you at your rich white man's company without aggressive public censure in meetings or firing), because I'm operating under war-like conditions that accurately reflect the angst that I write to you about almost daily, on absolutely no budget whatsoever, because that's what the sick people around me choose in their deluded fantasies: a deliberately purposeful impoverishment that's my accurate lifelong reality.

I tell you this today, in this season of gratitude and thanks, because I don't ever want you to get it twisted with me, and because I care enough to commit my ideas and passion to you on this century's version of "paper" that is semi-permanent in this new digital age. This is my version of "Show and Tell" for you, because I care enough to humble myself by sharing broken work that is still better than any rich white muthfucka's gamed version that's aided and assisted by a thousand other people in support to just him and his goals (usually staffed with lots cheap women and other minority folk), who prop him up look like "Mr. Big Stuff", because he doesn't have the talent or the heart to fail publicly like I do. I want you to be clear about that moving forward, as we go forward on this enterprise that you support with your time and attention.

http://rocklandsample.org/

So, when you come across some joke of a "celebrity" who's puffed up with artificially padded social media accounts that are bought and paid for by advertisers and promoters (unlike yours, maybe), I don't want you to have any doubts about who they fuck they are, or how they got there. They're usually pumped up way beyond their actual skill sets, because most of them don't hold up to scrutiny up close and personal like I do, makeup-free on the daily and going on age 46, baby. That means no weirdo surgeries, no hidden cosmetic procedures behind closed doors, no airbrushing beyond all expectations tied to reality, no surreal overly moneyed shit to throw you off your game by bankrupting your pocketbook in service to someone else. I AM the real deal. Are you tho'? And why not, miss?

Because in my world, part of our "bragging rights" goes towards proud, prominently displayed post-fight photos that show you how we are never really injury-free from this life we battle through daily, smiling back at you through temporarily banged-up faces that show our hard-won war wounds, just like the bad-ass muthfuckas you know we are. I don't want you to be thrown by these supposed low numbers you think you see online, just like the too big ones represented by the false premise that some fat-ass porn star has got it all over you, because you care about teachin' yo kids right from wrong on the cheap, like my new friend Jeanne Newman does. Who the fuck are you compared to her, a woman who has devoted her entire life to public service through teaching and annual Thanksgiving dinners for her people? Just who the fuck are you, anyway? Because you ain't nuthin' to me.

You best be believin' that, because that's what time it is: only 350 followers on your page, or that many likes on your charitable site, or a paltry show of "thumbs-up" on your giving photo today? Oh hell, no. What the fuck is that, anyway?! Gone, baby. It's gone, gone, gone that-a-way. You are what's "it" to me. That's what's up. Same thing for my man Barnaby and his service to our beloved ARC friends, here in town (Hey, there Kevin! Mommy says "hi" and gives you big warm hugs all the time:), now takin' his act on the road to Massachusetts, armed with one of my lil' black stickers for prove positive of our unification. You know I do that, too! You think these people are unknown to me? Fuck y'all, then. You're a rock star to me in my world, baby. Don't think this false "divide-and-conquer" shit where you have to sweat it out alone on an isolated pocket is unknown to me as a strategy to keep you down. 

They're that afraid of us, my friends, because we are that strong and that good. Believe it. Believe in me. Believe. We've just grown out-of-bounds by one more person today, my friends. Yeah! That's it! We've grown by one, and now my wolf-pack is more full for it. Haha!

http://sharetheproject.org/20-2/

This one's for you today, Ms. Jeanne Newman! 

Thanks for all that you do daily. We see you!

https://www.facebook.com/sharetheproject/timeline

Make Your Voice Heard

Today's "Mission Impossible": get involved. Whew! Wow, so hard...

Hey, friends! Over the next few years, I'm going to talk and write about hearing loss (which is congenital in my family) in a way that's constructive and helpful, because I've found that the current dialogue (when it is present) is wayyy crazy (read: typically human). I tested the waters recently with a group of my senior friends, a really well-educated and hip crowd, and they had stunned, scared looks on their faces. Oh. Not a good sign. It's a contentious topic, mostly because it's been co-opted artificially by health insurance companies that do not work for you. They work for money and profit. I think it's self-explanatory, but you'd be surprised by the level of ignorance people have when they are resistant to adult subject matter, ie: "not fun" stuff, like a Florida vacation. Oy. New Yorkers!

Anywho, let's get on with it. I'll go first: I started losing volume in one ear around age 30-32, a time typical for great bodily change in mature women, and so it was with me, too. My live-in boyfriend noticed it first, and then I noticed it at work. Aha! My dad is deaf, and so was his sister, my late aunt; actually, they're much more impaired than I am, but that's also an outcome of their generation's neglect. Well, I got diagnosed early on (wrongly at first, but that's a story for another day), learned all about it, became an expert so as to self-advocate for me and my health, and now I can share it with you all.

It's kind of a scary process: you get locked into a sound-proof booth, and it feels like you're taking a test that you know you're going to fail. Uh oh. Yeah, I know, but do it anyway. Just like any subject, a big "Fear of the Unknown" factor compounds and effects wrongly our attitudes about health care. I had my teeth cleaned by my dentist yesterday, and there's some pain and discomfort involved. I know that from years of experience, so I practiced deep breathing exercises while watching Will Farrell on t.v. dressed up like a green pilgrim for St. Pat's Day, knowing I was being tended to and cared for by a real Rockland County kid (my new dentist: such a nice boy!), whose parents own the jewelry store across the street. In other words, I'm home!

But first, we need to address the inequity that exists in health care and within their corporate culture. I was told by a rep at a well-known health insurance company back in the day that my hearing loss was "cosmetic" (and that it would "NEVER", an actual direct quote: "Never be covered by health insurance") because I am relatively young and no one can see it on my face, like seeing a squinting blind person with thick glasses. Can you imagine a rep saying that to someone born near-sighted? Insane! So, first, let's get it straight: as complex as hearing is compared to vision (thus making it more expensive, naturally), you must first accept the concept that hearing devices are like glasses for the ears.

That's it, folks. It's simply this: giving assistance where it's needed, and as it's needed. Get involved in the conversation by talking about it with someone today. Start there, and then let's build on top of that. Let's do this thing! Thanks to Tracey in town for supplying me with the handy dandy hand-out you see pictured below. More to follow on this topic in the future. Be sure of that.  Good day to you all!

http://www.hearingaidtaxcredit.org/