Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Petty Annoyance




Work hard, annoy a liberal ~ Bumper Sticker

I haven’t seen this bumper sticker for a while but it popped up again this morning. It’s one that I have never really understood seeing that I’m a liberal and I work hard. Pat’s a liberal (well, really he’s a socialist) and he works hard. I have liberal friends; smart, educated people. They’re hard workers too. See not so much with the making sense.

So, I started thinking: If hard work doesn’t annoy me as a liberal, what does?

Oh, here’s one. I hate being preached at about “family values” by politicians who live secret lives while trying to deny basic human and civil rights to others. How dare I sit here in my “traditional” marriage, with my one boy and one girl, working hard to earn a living and trying to teach the children crazy “family values” like self-respect, tolerance, acceptance, and love. Holy Moses, we should be shot or indefinitely detained for spreading the crazy notions that the gays and minorities are equal and deserving of love and respect. That’s crazy talk! Crazy liberal talk. Why it’s practically socialism (everyone wave to Pat!).

Know what else makes this liberal crazy mad? People trying to get into my uterus! I know it can hold people but damn folks, one at a time. I’m not Kate Gosselin. Plus the weight limit for my uterus is about 8 lbs. So, sorry guys that want to occupy my uterus but you’re too big to ride that ride. Go play somewhere else. How about somewhere on your body? Hey, why don’t you start with your penis; you may not be as cranky anymore when you’re done.

Here’s another thing that annoys liberals, making up false allegations so you can legislate regressive ideas into law and disenfranchise millions of people. In other words, voter fraud. The totally baseless claim that Mickey Mouse is voting in primaries all over the country and is subverting democracy! Democracy people, being subverted, by an animated mouse! Where’s the outrage? Will no one think of the children? Or Daffy Duck! He’s going to be hella pissed off when he finds out. Hey, want to investigate some fraud, how about that nonsense in New Hampshire when that Republican douche-nozzle, Breitbart, committed real, actual voter fraud. Let’s put him in prison! Or maybe we can finally investigate the software for the Diebold voting machines. You know, the ones that don’t give a printout of the votes cast. Nothing fishy there.

So, let’s recap. If you decide annoying a liberal is something you would like to do in your day-to-day life, you can be a self-loathing, small-minded bigot; you can proclaim that you know best for women everywhere; or you can make up outrageous plots that have no basis in fact, create legislation to foil these “plots” by drafting and passing legislation to make voting harder; thereby, disenfranchising millions. 

Heck, if your industrious enough maybe you can do all three since all of the above annoy liberals.

Hard work, not so much.



Wednesday, February 8, 2012

The Light Box




From the light box in front of Southgate, you could see Hyde Square to the left, to the right you could follow the trolley tracks all the way to Forest Hills; Boylston Street was straight ahead and Moraine Street was at your back. Sitting on the light box was like being in the middle of EVERYWHERE! ~ Melissa Brady

The light box ruled my life. Of all the places from my teenage years, this is where many adventures began. Whether we ended up at Daisy Field, the Pond, or Parley Vale, the Connelly Library, or Kelly’s Rink, we generally started out at the light box.

Southgate is gone, so is Greasey’s. Ditto Kelly’s Rink. Different people live in our homes. Yet, the light box remains, waiting. It stands as the guardian of our youth, a witness to our hopes and fears, our triumphs and failures. It was our gathering space, the hub of our universe.

Jamaica Plain (JP) back in the 70s and 80s was starting to change. It, like many Boston neighborhoods went through a difficult, turbulent metamorphosis. Busing altered the schools and the communities. Many families moved their kids to Catholic schools while still others left entirely. There was a lot of turbulence and violence, poverty and addiction.

But it was always beautiful, even with urban blight. There was, and remains, an incredible array of natural landscape to serve as our backyards: The Emerald Necklace, which includes Daisy Field and Jamaica Pond. Of course we had the Arboretum and other, smaller, urban oases.

We also had rooftops and blacktop. Nothing was missing. We had hopes and dreams. We had each other. We are dangerously close to devolving into a bad 80s song!

I had great friends and outrageous sleep-over’s (at my house and others). Boyfriends and favorite “private” spots, underage drinking and teen pregnancy, and friends lost to accidents and drugs. My memories are filled with living and longing and a little regret.

Every now and then, I wish I could go back. Not because I want to reclaim my youth or have a last hurrah; no, I’d like to take a trip in the way-back machine just so I can tell my teenage self to slow down, to not be in such a rush to experience all the grown-up things. To enjoy the carefree and uncomplicated few years we get. But, like every other lesson in my life, the lesson to slow down finally arrived, panting and out of breath after a 20 year sprint through poor decisions and questionable choices.

I don’t want to change where I am in my life. Not even a little but I would like to alter the path that got me here, especially now that I have teenagers of my own. I would like to be able to hold up my past as an example rather than a warning. But if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.

So fellow light box survivors, join me in a toast: “Here’s to us and those like us, for when we pass the world will never see the likes of us again!”