kellementology

life according to me

Author: K. Peacock Wright

  • Sadness: Random Senseless Purposeless Pointlessness

    Sadness: Random Senseless Purposeless Pointlessness

     

    *February 15, 2018–Yesterday, a young man walked into a high school in Parkland, Florida and shot 17 people. Since I first wrote the angry piece below, there have been 162 school related shootings in the United States. Incidents from a pellet gun aimed at a passing school bus to  the unthinkable massacre of 20 first-grade children and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary. I’ve not included the mass shootings which happened outside of schools–and there have been many. Clearly, no one has done anything to prevent these senseless tragedies from happening, nor do they seem to care. 

    It’s not an accident that on days like today, the newspaper is folded in a particular way when I slide it from its clear bag. The “Currents-Health” section is strategically viewed first, along with the latest piece on “Portion Patrol.” But the largest article on the page, “A sense of urgency” seems vague so I’m forced to flip it over to find information that will help me know if my indigestion is bad enough to seek assistance at the ER. This is where the publisher’s strategy of trying to cover up the main page headlines fails, because now I can see them. And even though I knew they’d be there today, they are sobering. How can they not be? And how can I not read what’s written there regardless of how sad and angry it makes me?

    Quite a long time ago, our local paper ran a dramatic and now famous photograph on its front page of a fireman carrying a small child from the rubble of a building destroyed by a monster. So many people complained about the inappropriateness of that photo being the first thing they saw that morning when they opened the paper, that now, sensitive material is always buried behind another section. Or tastefully covered, so that it can be avoided, or perhaps made more palatable after readers have had the opportunity to peruse something far more important about how granola “hangs with bad calories,” or whether that fart stuck crosswise is worth seeing a doctor about. (more…)

  • Tax Day & the Haves and Have Nots

    Since waking at 3am today, I’ve read three days worth of our local paper, April’s edition of O, and done a great job of not reading the book I’m supposed to be reading. As a result, I’ve been preoccupied by something that used to happen frequently when I was part of the working world; things and issues of the day connected. No matter what I read, or what conversation I had, at some point, ideas converged whether they were supposed to or not. You know, the lights are on and someone is finally home. The point is, it happens rarely now. My brain has relaxed and now gets to think about what it wants, so it meanders everywhere, taking in often unrelated pieces of information that could be useful, but will most likely not synthesize into earth shattering points of lucidity.

    You wouldn’t think that reading pieces about the Imus fallout — some better than others — Internet spawned narcissism, “Who pays what on TAX DAY,” or a pathetic letter to the editor of O grousing about “class privilege” regarding the actions of women who will do anything to conceive a child, would have anything to do with one another, but they must. I can feel the telltale signs of defensive belligerence on low burn right now, so after reading the post in Wonderland or Not today, I’ve decided that the only way to sort it out is to write. Not complain, or snark, or whine. Just express myself about something that has been on my mind for a very long time. This would be an excellent place to stop reading if you don’t want to delve into my dark side. (more…)

  • Walking Commentary

    If you’re a peppy and dedicated individual who would truly enjoy being more healthy, or svelte, you have to get off your duffster and move it! You have to join the throngs of others who venture out on a blustery day to get that heart rate up, and sweat glands functioning. (You do understand that I’m attempting to make up for the bitchy grousing I was engaged in earlier today, don’t you?) But it is excellent advice, because you just never know how things will turn out. Besides, you would rather be someone who talks about sedentary Americans than actually be one, right? If you get out and about, it could be possible that…

    • You may get to hear your VBF confirm that you do smell in your laundry basket retrieved walking attire but that it won’t matter because her horse-like doggo is in the car, too, smelling like a dog should and that it’s a toss up on who smells worse.
    • You will get to see signs like this and, well… take a picture of it, then restrain yourself from commenting at this point because your passionate self is on sleep mode temporarily, and that is a completely different set of posts that you don’t want people to have to read on a Sunday.
    • You scratch and wonder about the red stick art thing in this person’s back yard. “Is it really art? Or is it a stick?” And then you notice others, barely discernible through the plants, but equally mystifying. (more…)

  • Do I have to go?

    You know when you actually plan to sleep in, and you’ve warned everyone within a five block radius of your house, that if they even try to cut a hedge or mow a lawn, or walk their silly little white yipping dog in front of your house, you will launch things from your bedroom window at them? That kind of planning. And when you go to those great lengths to achieve this lofty goal, what do you think really happens?

    You wake up.

    All night long.

    You try so hard to sleep, to enjoy sleeping, to wallow in slumberland, it just doesn’t work. (more…)

  • Fridays

     

     

     

     

     

     

    Fridays are for appreciating that the next two days are special — unless you work, which is too bad. Really. They’re for enjoying the sunshine streaming through my clean — well, sort of clean, but streaked windows, and straightening the house — unless you have a housekeeper, which makes you one up. Fridays are for knowing that you’ve made it through another week, and have most likely not accomplished anything significant. And if you did, well pat yourself on the back, because there’s usually no one standing in line to congratulate you, even though they should. Fridays are for having good friends over to eat exceptional food, drink wine, and talk some serious smack about things that don’t matter to anyone but us. Everything will be solved by the time we’re done. No one will ever have to worry about anything again. Until next Friday.

    So tonight, I’m the hostess with the mostest. Although I can do a knock down drag out job in the kitchen to prepare for these end of the week extravaganzas, I’ve never been able to manage making myself look as good as the food. In fact it’s likely that I’m wearing parts of the menu even as my guests arrive, but no one ever comments about it. You know — like having spinach in your teeth? They’ve also never commented on whether they’ve opened the closets and cupboards I’ve thrown stuff in to give the illusion that my house is tastefully kept. Or mentioned that the couch smells a bit strange near that spot the doggo compulsively licks.

    But today, I’m ahead of the game. In fact, my roots are done, so no one will recognize me. My hair may actually look pleasant. No pony or clip. Combed. Possibly styled. It will distract the others from noticing what’s lacking in my clothes — so “what not to wear.” Who cares? After all, the food will be very un-dietlike.  Truly the only thing that matters.

    Mmmm…Friday…Cheers!

  • Sudden Waning Interest Syndrome

    Teeter Totter In our local paper, Ruben Navarette Jr. writes with fair weather passion about “Judging the ‘Idol’ judges.” In a recent post in Parenting Teens, an overly-protective author writes about the “courage, commitment, and determination” of the “plucky” teenage performer, Sanjaya. In “Chinks in the ‘Idol’ armor?” Verne Gay puts on a spin worth considering about the change in AI’s rankings. It doesn’t matter, because as the television world turns…

    …the RT, MoH and I have reached the tipping point — that funny intangible place in our house where, after a couple of years of watching something together on television to unwind, the fascination is suddenly gone. We don’t need to know what happens next because Elvis has left the building. (more…)

  • Effin’ Tuesday’s Poetic Crapulence

    The Unrelenting Scale

    so much depends

    upon

     

    the callous silver

    scale

     

    lying about my

    virtues

     

    every effing

    Tuesday.

    Everyone…It’s… weigh-in day! And since you’ve all been so pleasant about my hysterical rantings each week, I’ve decided to recognize that another week has bitten the dust and celebrate National Poetry Month all at once! A special thanks to one of my favorite poets, William Carlos Williams, whose fine work has made it easy to express my dissatisfaction with being a member and victim of a numbers fixated society. Er, or something like that. (more…)

  • Comprehending the Edge

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    If I ever needed a group of people to discuss a book I’ve read, it would be now. I’ve finally finished reading Sarah Dunant’s Mapping the Edge, and don’t quite know what to think. Whenever it takes me this long (two weeks at night in bed for about 20 or 30 minutes if I’m lucky) to read a book that size (a mere 301 pages), well, something’s wrong. For days, I have had the book on my mind like some strange puzzle and have found myself talking to the MoH about it — which is just wrong. He doesn’t read. Well, he reads, but would rather not. Numbers. He loves numbers, remember? Mmmm…numbers. Plus, he just finished David Sedaris’ Naked, so his brain is permanently fried now and he probably won’t be able to read ever again without twitching and burping colorful expletives from time to time.

    Like a complete loser, I looked around different sites for what other people thought about Mapping the Edge, and found myself commiserating with those who had the Huh? factor going on. I know, pathetic. Misery loves company — the kind of company Amazon dot com provides in the review section where you can commune with others who need a refresher Reading Comprehension 101 course, or a simple smack upside the head.

    (more…)

  • Curling Up with Old Movie Stars

    When I cook, if no one else is at home, I like to watch movies I’ve seen before. Usually, it’s a movie I’ve seen so many times, I only have to look up on the very best parts; when the music swells, or a dissonant chord lets me know that something important is going to happen. Now, these movies are more current, and popped in with a DVD that I choose from my “feel good” collection of sappy chic films. You know, the kind that you grin through, sigh about, and avoid telling your friends you really like? Like Sleepless in Seattle, Notting Hill, or Cousins with Isabella Rossellini. But the real films I long to see are the ones I spent my adolescence watching on our first color TV. Hilarious when you think about it, because most of these old movies were in black and white. Cable shopping channels, and craft shows were nonexistent, so local channels ran old movies. In the summertime, or late at night and on weekends, I could watch one movie after the other in blissful, non-thinking, oblivion. I could fry my impressionable young self on Esther Williams, who was my authority on smiling under water, or holding breath even longer than Houdini, or Rock the Hunk Hudson and Humphrey Bogart. They’re more difficult to find these days, though. If I took the time in my not so busy life, I could check the guides for Turner Classic Movies or American Movie Classics and maybe I’d get lucky. But I don’t. I rot my brain with this blog now, instead.

    Unfortunately, these two movie channels, although continuing to show “classic” films, also show… ahem…classics like Conan the Barbarian, Halloween, and Basic Instinct. Huh? Oh, I get it. Someone in ratings land thinks thirty-somethings wax prolifically for films like this to re-live the great days of their adolescence. Sharon Stone’s shadowy nether regions? Classic? Uh…Nope.

    What I want to watch are those glorious black and white movies that that loser Ted Turner colorized thinking he could dupe those less fortunate from a younger generation into watching. It’s sort of an “oooh — look at the pretty colors” concept instead of think about the films themselves, because, well, it’s all about making money, right? He should have been arrested for that.

    The really good films are ones you just want to curl up in bed with on a cloudy day. They’re even too good to cook by, because although you’ve seen them what seems like a million times, you don’t want to miss anything. Films like The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, the most haunting love story you’ll ever see. Or Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window — yes that creepy guy is really Raymond Burr, the old Perry Mason and can you believe how great Grace Kelly and James Stewart are together? I never could see what that whole go to Monaco and marry that prince guy was all about. Any movie with that hunky Cary Grant, and especially North by Northwest, the ultimate twisting chase movie, is worth watching. Or The Philadelphia Story, or Laura. Does anyone even know who Gene Tierney is anymore? You should have seen her in Leave her to Heaven. Or any and all of the Frank Capra films — especially if Carole Lombard was in them.

    Who? I know. You’ve never heard of her. This is Carol Lombard with Jimmy Stewart who were both in another fabulous film, Made for Each Other.

    I’m not sure about why I’ve always had this love affair with movies in general, but old films and movie stars in particular. Maybe it’s the result of spending about five years of my early childhood living without television. We went to the movies instead. Watching all those gorgeous people on that huge screen was the ultimate fairyland for a little girl who wanted to be as gorgeous as Audrey Hepburn was in Roman Holiday, sing like there was no tomorrow, and clack across an enormous stage just like Fred and Ginger.

    Life just looked so grand. And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t dance by myself like that in our living room.

  • Comfort Food and Snail Orgies

    He arrived home last night in good spirits after a few days of reciprocity with his cousin, microscopic military figurines in hand, battle rule books, and two bags of stiff, muddy clothes which were casualties of a serious paint ball massacre at the OK Corral.  I got to hear about the whole thing.

    “No blind firing or the ref will nail you, and there were these sissies hiding behind the church.”

    I had to ask him about “the sissies” because I haven’t heard him use this particular word before.

    “Because they were all huddled together acting all Wah. Yah know?” he answered.

    “But how old were they?” I continued, thinking it was probably the first time they were out playing paint ball, and know that it really hurts to get hit by those gelatinous globs, so don’t blame the sissies.

    “Like my age,” he tells me with a look of “old enough to not be afraid of getting hit with paint balls.”

    Well okay. Actually, I’m thinking that nerd-like closet commandos are a force to be reckoned with, and the sissies were expecting G.I. Joe instead.

    To put the finishing touch on his soon to be over Spring Break, the RT cooked dinner for the Master of the House, who dragged himself in from the tax mines at about 9:00 last night. The menu? Kraft macaroni and cheese with sliced weenies served in big plastic bowls. Mmm…

    “What do you call it? You know,” the MoH mumbled between shovel fulls.

    “Comfort food?” I supplied.

    “Yeah, that’s it,” he said, scraping up the last pieces, spoon clacking against the microwave scorched bowl. I thought about the notion of comfort food and pictured that it was more like Baked Ziti with Meatballs, or Cornish Hens stuffed with Wild Rice, but clearly, I am wrong. They went to bed with their bellies full and sappy smiles on their faces.

    Life is good.

    But not for the snails and sadly, it’s their kind of day today. That’s because I finally bought some snail candy. I figured they needed a treat after they murdered all but two of the coleus I planted. Perhaps you remember the ones it took so long for me to plant.

    Going, going…GONE! I busted all of those carry-your-house-on-your-back slime bags yesterday after I found their hiding place. They were down between all the leaves, close to the water having a big party–17 of them!

    Yes, I absolutely know that if I’m going to put defenseless plants in the ground, that I better put some snail food down, too. But it’s so tiresome knowing things and sometimes, you just want to give all the rules the big fat finger. It’s so freeing, don’t you think? But the glee is fleeting, because, well, your plants are gone and you’re left standing in your yard with your big fat finger in the air and an even bigger sign around your neck that states, “LOSER.” Your baby plants are down to the nubbins’ or worse–not even there.

    So today, the Sluggo is gone, and so are the snails. They took their food and left to die in the dark moist cracks of my neighbors’ yards. Hopefully, they went to snail heaven with sappy smiles on their faces, too.

    Wait. Do snails have faces?

    Well if they did, they don’t now. And don’t even go thinking they’re cute, either.

    Are they even on the food chain? I mean, come on.