Category: Writing

Now the mere act of getting together in a public space is the featured activity.

One of the best features of being sequestered for our own good is how much we value getting together once we venture out. And might I add, “venting out.”

I unleashed months of tension that once I got out of my system, I immediately felt a bounce in my mental health. I imagine it like a video game where my character scores some valuable thing and there’s a wonderful increase in health.

None of us had brought any work to share, but we all floated away afterwards with optimistic feelings of how we’re going to tackle our projects. Hopefully, we’ll get to gather our creative minds together on a more regular basis to get back into the groove.

Never been a huge fan of planks as part of my exercise regimen. Granted, I appreciate the beauty of nicely sculpted arms, but other than vanity, never enjoyed the pain of that gain.

Planks sneak their way into many of my virtual yoga-based classes because they come in so many varieties: high planks, forearm planks, side planks (both forearm and straight arm), bear planks, torpedo planks, plank jacks…I’m sure there are many others percolating in the mind of creative sadistic exercise/yoga instructors.

So, on the way to my car to run errands after work, I tripped and fell. First time in a long time I’ve fallen completely to the ground. Normally a stumble here or there, but a full fall has usually left me in a world of pain and months, sometimes years of recovery.

Not this time! This time, I fell into a high plank position. Not the sexy high plank position, but the OMG that “middle-aged woman just tripped and is going to break her hip” fall into the high plank position. Except, nothing hurt. Once I stopped falling, I held the position as I did a quick mental scan. I hadn’t banged my knee, hit my head, fallen onto one of my arms nor knocked out a tooth. I’d landed into an unattractive yet effective plank.

My scraped palms and wrists were the only evidence of the fall. Even the next day, when I thought my shoulders would be in pain due to the trauma of catching that fall. Nothing!

Planks have now been elevated to a survival skill. For once, I’m going to participate in “Planks-giving” come this November. My yoga studio sponsors the challenge. I believe they start off with a 20-second plank during the first couple of days, adding a few seconds periodically as the month advances until one reaches the 5-minute mark by Thanksgiving.

I shared the challenge with one of my sisters, who told me about her chiropractor’s daughter: she regularly holds a forearm plank for over an hour. Of course my initial thought was “Why?” Then again, kudos to her. Most 10-year olds are being as productive or are consuming TV or some other form of media mindlessly.

For now, I’ve stopped cussing in my head when I do planks and look forward to the challenge.

Another part of what should have been “a double vax hot summer” activity morphed into another pandemic statistic. As days ticked by, the COVID infection rate soared. A week before my friend’s latest book launch, we entered Stage 5. Yet, not even the plague could stop me from writing an introduction. The show must go on, even if it’s over Zoom.

Since we got to know one another through The Austin Writers Roulette, I briefly traced our friendship, including one clip, which I posted in the Zoom chat. I knew the risk. As soon as people see a link, they have to click on it. I heard the audio from the video in less than 20 seconds. Not only did I want to share one of Donna’s performances, but I reminded Donna that one of our deceased friends had been present during that show. What a gift!

Welcome to Donna Dechen Birdwell’s Friday the 13^th Post-Apocalyptic during a Pandemic Book Launch! That title alone is part of the reason we’ve been friends since 2012. Interesting people have interesting friends. 

Donna and I met a month or two before I launched The Austin Writers Roulette, which was a theme-inspired spoken word and storytelling show, which I produced and hosted for eight seasons. However, that first season took place in a capoeira studio that I transformed into a storytelling event space. I had no idea what I was doing that first year, but apparently, I knew enough to attract a major talent like Donna. 

Not only did Donna grace the Roulette stage that first show, but she was a frequent performer throughout all eight seasons. I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know about her anthropology background and personal adventures over the years. And she was one of 20 artists who I extended a personal invitation to perform for the final show in December 2019.

World-building is one of the most challenging tasks speculative fiction writers have. Donna’s writing seamlessly immerses her readers into whichever world her story takes place to the extent that one doesn’t wonder if it could exist, but rather how soon our world will evolve into it. 

Of all the things that Donna boldly shared over the years at the Roulette, she confessed that the sexy steamy things made her nervous for her adult children to read. For the 2016 Roulette show, Sex, Love & Virtual Reality, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xogbZlhCmOg timestamp 8:50), Donna read scenes from her novel, Way of the Serpent. By overwhelming audience applause, she won best woman-identified piece. It was probably her declaration, “There’ll definitely be more sex,” that sealed the deal, elevating her into the Pantheon of Kinky Grandmas. (OK, so that’s not actually a real thing, but it we keep saying it, the Pantheon of Kinky Grandmas will manifest.)

So, now that I made her blush, please give a big Zoom welcome to Donna Dechen Birdwell!

For many years now, I’ve not been the least bit impressed about the criminality among our politicians. Imagine: lawmakers breaking laws! Unfortunately, none of us have to use our imagination, given the state of the sliding-scale morality of elected officials.

One political party is so notorious that their essential question must be, “Is it a crime to commit a crime?”

I remember a time where just being caught ended careers. Not so nowadays. Politicians who can’t keep their hands to themselves or keep it in their pants or stick to adults still maneuver to hold onto their jobs/power far longer than previous lawbreakers.

With all the social media platforms, digital trails don’t bury political criminals. Despite the fact that a man is a man, no matter his profession, any man with a wealth of resources and privilege can just about get away with shit for much longer than a poor man. Even name his own terms.

Take the recent political criminal, NY Governor Andrew Cuomo. Normally, this latest incident wouldn’t warrant a blog post, but I was so inspired by his excuse: his physical contact with women didn’t cross the line. The line moved.

Oh, how I howled with laughter when I heard that one! I mocked with glee, “I didn’t commit a crime. The crime committed me. I wanted no part of it, but the crime insisted.”

On top of that, he got to resign and name his last day two weeks from his announcement of stepping down. All so dignified even though he’s allegedly guilty as hell.

I wonder when such humane treatment will be extended to men of color when they’re suspected of criminal activity?

No, I didn’t watch Oprah’s interview with the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. As one comedian pointed out, the racism Meghan experienced in England was so bad, she relocated back to the States. Cue: laughter. And the backlash, especially in England. Some angrily accused her of lying. Others angrily “how dared her” for bringing this up when Prince Philip was still hospitalized after having surgery. Majority felt tremendous empathy, for the queen, that is.

As every black person already knows, there’s never a good time to talk about racism. Surely, Meghan knew this. After all, she is an African American.

The dominant narrative didn’t want to talk about systemic racism last summer when George Floyd was murdered. Nor when Dr. King marched. Nor during Reconstruction when the klan first arose. Over four centuries of “too busy” and “not a good time” to bring up the artificial construction of a racial hierarchy that marginalizes and brutalizes People of Color.

Meghan had dealt with this all her life as a mixed race woman. Too black in some circles, too white in others. Just like any new or expectant parent, Meghan dreamed of all these wonderful things for her unborn child. And yet, before she could even birth her son, the ol’ racist troupe of “the one drop rule” raised its ugly head. Asking about “how dark” a newborn will be isn’t a neutral question. Not as long as the racial hierarchy exists.

Some years ago, a black friend of mine remarried. Her new husband happened to be white. A few days after their first child together was born, she was talking to one of her in-laws on the phone. During the course of the conversation, the in-law asked about what the newborn’s hair looked like. My friend shrieked, “What?!” Fortunately, her husband was near by and swept the phone out of her hand.

Again, there’s no neutral way of asking how coarse a mixed race child’s hair is. Questions like these never happen in a vacuum. Historically, the more people of color look like the dominant narrative’s ideal standard of beauty, the better. And God help you if your so called ethnic looks are considered “exotic” and are fetishized.

Since the start of the coronavirus quarantine, hate crimes have increased around 150% against Asian Americans. Although the dominant narrative denies it, the former president helped create an environment that stoked racial hatred. Then, the pandemic hit. Instead of fostering the sentiment of how we could work together to save one another’s lives, he drove home the idea that Asians were to blame.

As of this week’s blog post, the latest crime against Asians, which the dominant narrative has attempted to trivialize, was a white guy who mass murdered several Asian women at three different massage spas in Atlanta. According to the dominant narrative’s reasoning, if this murderer has a sex addiction, then he couldn’t possibly be racist. The sheriff went as far as saying that the mass murderer was “having a bad day.” He later clarified that he didn’t mean any disrespect to the victims when he trivialized that egregious crime. Additionally, the dominant narrative loves playing the old trope that if anything else can explain what happened, then a crime can’t possibly be due to racism.

This incident brought out several racist factors: 1) denial of racism-in this case since the criminal was an admitted sex addict, then he couldn’t ALSO be racist as if the two things were mutually exclusive; 2) empathize more with the criminal than the victims-when white people commit crimes against people of color (POC), the dominant narrative humanizes the criminal, trivializes his/her crime and in the case of black victims, will do their best to dig up as many negative choices the victim committed as if justifying why they caused their own victimization; 3) turn a blind eye to obvious facts-in this case, if this guy was purely operating under a need to destroy places that tempt his sex addictions, why did he drive past several strip clubs and only stop to shoot up places known to have a significant population of Asian women rather than practically any other place, which had very few women of color.

If I dare pronounce anything good coming from these racially motivated microaggressions and crimes is this: any time these incidents happen, time is created to talk about racism. Even the fiercest deniers of racism find their denial bubbles pierced as they must inconveniently find another way to recreate their alternate reality. At the same time, each racist incident calls for more people to understand the causes and seek preventions. Doing this work, the dominant narrative evolves. One day, the racial hierarchy will be extinct.

So, I was just pushing my shopping cart toward the checkout area after getting all the items on my list, which I keep on the note app on my smartphone, when I had to do a double take because I thought I saw, via my peripheral vision, a familiar face looking at me.

To my delight, it was Snoop Dogg. On a wine bottle. Amused, I circled back to take a picture, but not to purchase. I had plenty of red wine at home, I told myself. I put the Snoop Dogg Cali Red wine on my list for next week.

For once, my Virgo-ness, backfired. The following week brought a gaping hole on the wine shelf where Snoop Dogg should have been. Apparently, everyone wanted the D-O-double G Cali Red wine.

This time, my Virgo-ness paid off. I found a liquor store less than five minutes away from the Black-owned business where I picked up my local food treat for the week. (Since the pandemic, I’ve been ordering takeout from a different restaurant once a week. I’ve not repeated a restaurant yet. Thanks, Rona!)

Although I’m a red wine wino, my favorite is Malbec. Yet the Cali Red was a little sweeter than your average Malbec without being too sweet like a dessert wine, which I refer to as “alcoholic Kool-Aid.” Speaking of “reefer,” no, there was no THC or other hemp products added to the wine. So, as of now, people will just have to supply their own.

In the meantime, who knows how the alcohol and budding hemp industry will emerge on the other side of this pandemic. The federal government isn’t as twitchy as it used to be about hemp products.

In the near future, we may all be able to chill out while sipping Snoop’s wine. And when people remark how relaxed we are, we can say, “Nothing but the Dogg in me.” (I know, that was a George Clinton reference, but I couldn’t resist.)

Dad is a man of few words. Mom’s just the opposite. So, on this rare occasion, Dad took the conversational lead to tell me about when he got his first pair of shoes as a child–a big accomplishment since money was scarce. Of course, this doesn’t mean that Mom remained silent the whole time.

She was so impressed with the critique that I gave her, she encouraged me to promote myself professionally as a sensitivity reader.

Of course, I’ve not followed up with that, but she hired me again. This time, she copied and pasted several scenes from her current manuscript, which totaled 12 pages. She offered to pay me via an electronic service. Instead, I told her to order a bottle of under $20 Malbec and have it delivered to my place.

She did better than that!

Since the grocery store was going to charge her a delivery fee for a mere bottle Malbec, she added her favorite bottle of Merlot and some holiday cookies as well for free delivery. Way to upsell! I also like to think that I’m worth it.

The package was scheduled to be dropped off between 6–8 PM, so I listened out for a knock since I would have to show my ID to accept an alcohol delivery. By the time I finished cooking and started eating dinner, I’d forgotten about the delivery.

The next morning, my roommate found the package sitting outside our front door before she took her morning walk. Apparently, it had sat outside all night. Even though I was impressed that my apartment complex was safer than I thought, I’ve learned my lesson not to wait for a knock on the door. Actually, my thinking at the time was that it would be placed in the package hub near our mailboxes, but that wasn’t the case either.

In previous years, this was the season for so-called “porch pirates.” Perhaps my package was safe because we rarely have anything delivered to our door, thanks to the package hub. Nonetheless, with the added stress of inflated unemployment due to the plague, more people have been stealing food. Not that wine and cookies are a balanced meal, they’re still edible.

In a strange way, this was my Christmas bonus. An everyday reminder that Christmas was coming with each sip of wine.