The Truth. According to TinfoilMagnolia

Truthfully? The first time I remember hearing a Martin Luther King, Jr. speech? It was in this video:

It has a good beat, you can totally dance to it. Right? In 1986 a group called OMD released an album, The Pacific Age, containing the song which was an instrumental written around this speech given by Dr. King the night before his assassination. Pretty prophetic to someone like me who reads something into everything.

Truthfully? I must have learned about Dr. King in school, wouldn't you think? And yet I don't remember anything about him, I mean I knew WHO he was but I  didn't know a lot about the speeches he made. Once I found out that it was him, I immediately went to the library. (yes kiddies, this was 1986/87 and there were no *gasp* iPhones or internet back then) I did a lot of research on Dr. King and read as many of his speeches as I could find. Back then when something caught my interest it became a temporary obsession. Like much like the obsessions I later had with Kennedy, Charles Manson, and (god help me) Jim Morrison. I was blown away by his message and had a hard time understanding why he was so controversial. I was born in 1967 so I didn't see much of the civil rights struggle. By the early 70's it was mainly about women's liberation and gay rights and the like.

Truthfully? I have always struggled with the concept of equality in this country. I just don't understand why it is so hard just to treat everyone the same. Prejudice, while understandable, (we all have a notion of what someone will be based on how they look don't we?) doesn't make sense to me when it is elevated to the level of racism. I know the hatred comes from fear. Logically. But I can't imagine beating someone to death over their skin color or denying them the right to vote or sit at a table in the same restaurant as me.

Truthfully? I don't know how I grew up to have the attitudes that I do. I was raised by parents who were, and still are, very prejudiced. The only thing I can point to early in my life was a film and experiment in which we had to take part. (in typical 70's fashion) I guess I was in 3rd or 4th grade and they did that old blue/brown eyes segregation thing. Do ya'll remember that? I of course had brown eyes and got treated like crap. It sucked. I still remember how it sucked. Even after we were told what was going on and watched the film explaining it, my feelings were still hurt from being deemed "stupid" and "unworthy". My best friend at the time was a girl who was African American and I just couldn't imagine why I shouldn't be friends with her or why she would ever be treated that way.

Truthfully? My parents are 76 and 83 and they still use the "n" word. They still use all kinds of racial names that I would never in a million years let go through my mind, much less out into the world. They still hold firm to the argument that "it's how things were back then". In fact, I got into a huge disagreement with my brother over this a couple of years ago when he made a nasty comment about our president that I find utterly full of hate. We had a huge argument which ended with me basically telling him that "if" there is indeed a heaven, as he proclaims to believe, he is going to be 10 kinds of disappointed to see people of every race, color and religion inside those mythical pearly gates. Probably wine, too. And music, definitely music. None of which he or my parents feel fit in with their religious beliefs. Why else did his "god" in whom he proclaims to believe put them here if it was only to suffer torture and ridicule. If one of us is made in his image, so must we all be. Right?

Truthfully? This is one of the three main reasons I made the CHOICE to walk away from organized religion 12 years ago. I don't understand the intersection of christianity and racial inequality. At all. I was taught in church to "love one another". But then see people who look like me saying such horrible things to people of other races. We are taught to treat well the least of us, as if he were jesus. But then we hear such vile, vitriolic comments coming from folks who consider themselves christians. In our town, the churches still remain segregated. The "white" church of christ and the "black" church of christ. I remember growing up and the murmuring that went through the building if a black person walked through the doors for a church service. Don't get me wrong, I don't hold christians responsible, nor do I hold them to a higher standard. It is up to all of us to learn to live together or none of us will achieve peace.

Truthfully? I really do try to treat everyone the same. I object to using the color of their skin or their race as an identifying quality. I hate it when people have to say "my black friend" or "the black waitress". Why can't it be "my friend from design class" or "The waitress in the blue top."? Many times I have questioned myself about whether or not I am being overly sensitive. Is it right to try not to see color? Is it better just to be OK with being divided this way? Because I was always taught that America was a melting pot, not a salad bowl, and we were supposed to all co-exist. I got into a huge argument with a "friend" of mine in Pennsylvania a couple of years ago over this very thing. She was making what I considered to be racist remarks. She said I was overly sensitive to the issue because of my southern background. I said, well if I am what's wrong with that, really? I mean, really. In anything else in life don't we say to err on the side of caution?

Months earlier, when Obama was elected, she texted a racial joke to my husband's phone. The same Catholic friend who admonished myself and others for not going to church or believing in heaven and that if we didn't we'd "get the chance to see it firsthand" someday. Her defense for these remarks, other than saying I am not a racist over and over? She received an award during her days in the military for promoting equality. Now, I am sure it's just me but I don't think the US Military is a yardstick of acceptance and equality in this country. Her other defense? Well, they brought it upon themselves. It was Africans who sold their own people into slavery. Needless to say I just stared at her with my mouth gaping open.

She maintained that defeating racism isn't about not seeing color. I beg to disagree. But what do you think? Am I wrong? I strongly believe it isn't just a black and white thing either. Some of the most horrifyingly racist hate speech I have ever been subjected to firsthand occurred when I was dating a guy of Korean descent. I never, ever told him of the things that were whispered to me when we were out in public. The tamest of which was that I could surely "find a real man, an American man, a white man" as pretty as I was. My stomach still churns thinking of all the horrible things that people thought was OK to tell me because I looked like them and he didn't. The sad thing about it was that this guy I was dating? He was a 3rd generation American and his father was a American veteran. It isn't just a black and white thing.

I have a friend who was burned to death in his home because of sexual orientation. I have a friend who I saw treated like a second class citizen because of her learning issues. I have a friend who is talked to and treated like a servant by her husband because it is how he believes their roles should be. I have a friend who has been passed over for a management position time and despite her being perfectly qualified. I have a friend who has obtained a coaching position at a major university and sitting in the crowd at a game I hear him compared to the guy selling cokes in the stands, who is also African American. I have a friend who has been mistaken for a gardener while mowing his own yard in a very nice subdivision. I myself have been subjected to jokes and images about and relating to my weight. It isn't just about race. It is about equality. And treating people with basic respect.

So this morning I attended a breakfast here in our small southern town to celebrate MLK Day. I was asked to attend so that I could write a story for the local paper. I was warned by a friend that I might be one of a half-dozen "white" people there. When I walked in I noted the "white" people, save one or two, clustered together at one table. I had hoped this wouldn't be the case. Determined not to fall into the patterns we all do, being comfortable and sticking with those who look like us, I sat across the room at a table with three of the nicest women you'd hope to meet. I had a wonderful chat with them about jewelry and children and the weather and all the things I would talk about with my own friends. I sat with them and wondered, without asking, what all they had seen or encountered in their lifetime. I came home to write my story covering the event.

But there's just this nagging in my head. Still, there are no answers. Has there been change? Yes, I think there has been. Amazing change. Is it enough? Not by a longshot. The sad thing is that you can't regulate or legislate changes to people's attitudes and opinions. Do we have a long way to go? Absolutely. But I have hope that even though not everyone of my generation can be so accepting, maybe the next generation can. Maybe they can ignore race, and religion, and all those other things upon which we judge people. If only we will let them.

Peace be with us all. And grace upon us fall.

Water Fight!

Well the Cool Whip Queens were back in my water exercise class today for a reunion tour of the pool. Click here for a refresher if you don't remember who they are Well, I shouldn't so much call it a "tour" since they didn't move from the spots they were standing in, but you know what I mean. I sort of forgot how annoying they were. I've had a break the past couple of weeks, either one or the other has been there but not both. I actually was starting to believe that I had exaggerated in my storytelling and now I was remembering them larger than life. But no. They are not exaggerated. At all.

The class today was jam-packed full, probably double the normal amount of people. Our regular kick ass instructor was out and the instructor who was filling in? Well she is the regular instructor for the class right after ours. Yeah. Senior H2O. Yep that's right. So we got about 1/2 of the white hairs from her 9:30 class dumped in on top of our already full class, and ya'll? They. don't. move. At all. None of them. So when we had to run laps around the pool? We had to try not to hit them. Because they were just standing. Where ever they might be, middle of the pool, edge of the pool, didn't matter.

One of the reasons I love my Mon., Wed. mornings is that the instructor is tough, like a drill Sargent. And her music? Kicks serious ass. Beastie Boys, Black Eyed Peas, Beyonce, and Michael Jackson (the other MJ) should I go on? Today's music selection? Classics like "Who Let the Dogs Out?" and the Macarena. Seriously? You can't MAKE a new mix tape from something beyond the 90's?

So, I was already irritated with the music, and the instructor who was about as graceful as....hmmm... Mary Katherine Gallagher? Yeah, that's about right. She just looked goofy, gangly and, not that there's anything wrong with that, it just added to my ever growing aggravation. Then we started doing a bunch of moves where you had to go forward and back, forward and back, then turn to the left. Go forward and back, forward and back. Well, depending on which way I turned, the CW Queens were ALWAYS IN MY WAY. And talking. Non stop.

#1"Wehuuuul, I teeeal yuuuou whauuut. If ah am nawt out of the house before mah huuuusband gets home? I might as wehul forget about even goin'. He'll staht askin' me about dinnah, or can I peel him a tomatah. And I nevah get out in time." #2 "Wehuuul, I tell yoooou. I figure if he wants a tomatah baaaad enuff, he can figure it out on his own, don't yoooou?" And on and on about such earth shattering issues as tomato peeling, husbands and again church. And everyone in church. And where they shop. Y'know. Earth shattering stuff.

OK, so meanwhile, they are in my way. But that isn't the half of it. To my left, at the end of the pool, there are about 5 people other than the Queens who just aren't ... right. Ya'll I don't know how else to put it. They are going winky-wonky!!! When she says face left, they still face the front. When she says go left to right they are going front to back and running all over myself and the two girls behind me. They are standing with backs to the side of the pool and basically moving any which way. So this is all going on. There is a contingent on either end which isn't moving at all, another contingent which is moving, but directly in opposition to the directions, the CW Queens blabbering on without taking a breath, horrible, awful, stereotypical music and right in the middle of it all? Well, there's me. Exchanging aggravated "what the heck is up with this?!" glances with the sweet lady who was beside me, another regular. Thank goodness. It isn't just me! It was crazy-whack in there today.

Ya'll Ms. Marsha had all she could stand. I was kicking people, trying to avoid other people, trying to stay in place so I didn't bump anyone who didn't have the sense to move when everyone else moved. But this. This was the last straw. In the midst of all this chaos? Comes a woman. Just floating around on her floaty-weight thingies. She stops right behind me and leans on the rope. And just floats there. Right between me and the woman next to me who are crowded in because of the non moving contingent to our left. So we move up to adjust and then? She aimlessly floats up in between us, like there's no one there, and over to the other side of the pool, stops there and floats a while. Seriously? Helen Keller?! There are OTHER PEOPLE IN HERE!!!

That was when I lost it.  I got OUT of the water and left. Yep, left right in the middle of class. I just could. not. take it. Too much nonsense. So thanks to the Senior instructor who brought all her seniors to the class to do what ever the heck they want to in the water. Ya'll I am not an age-ist (or whatever). I don't dislike old people, really I don't. But if you can't follow simple instructions? You need to be somewhere other than in the water. Like a senior facility. They are getting in the way of my fabulously toned body. Here's hoping my regular instructor is back on Wednesday. My life, honestly...

It's Not the Heat, It's the Humidity

So it has been about 2 months since the sudden revelation of what I call, for lack of a better term, my personal manifesto. I set out to put some things on paper, and structure my life so that I achieved both my short and long term goals. I did a super job of sticking to my daily schedule and meeting my deadlines. For about 7 weeks.

Last week that all came to a screeching halt. I do not know why. See, I have one of those minds. I don't think you'd call it one track, but when one thing steps out as an immediate, deadline priority I have trouble working on other things at the same time. I can't work on anything else until that one thing is completed, and my mind is just filled with thoughts and worry about said thing.

Well, something was obsessing me last week. Or I was obsessing about something, I guess would be the proper way to put it. They say it takes 30 days to make a new habit, but I am here to testify that it only takes 1 day to break it. I had a call to interview for a design job and I dropped everything to get my portfolio ready. Even when I tired of working on that stuff, I had to go sit and read or listen to music because I couldn't stop thinking about everything I needed to get done. This is not a good quality.

So, no writing, no walking, no exercising, and no blogging. For a week and now I am so far out of the habit it isn't even funny. So, I guess my training starts all over again. Here's to second chances.

On a personal note, it has been waaaay too hot here for me to even contemplate walking. The humidity is just as unbearable as I remembered it to be. The entire time I was in PA the people there kept telling me how "humid" it got there in the summer. The first couple summers I told them that I didn't think they knew what humid meant. After my fourth summer, I began thinking that maybe it really wasn't that much more humid in the south. Maybe my memory was exaggerating the true extent of the "wall of humidity". Maybe it really was "humid" in PA. Uhhh. No. It really isn't. Not. at. all.

I don't "do" book reviews, but...

If anyone has ever wondered how I felt when we moved from Nashville up to Pennsylvania (and I am sure you just sit around thinking about it constantly) check out the book, Whistlin' Dixie in a Nor'easter by Lisa Patton. (For you Nashville folks, no, it isn't the Channel 2 weather woman.) I had the pleasure of meeting Lisa at the SoKy Book Festival back in April and she is a spunky redhead who raised two sons as a single mother and began writing this, her first novel, in her 40's.

The story is of a woman, Lee Lee, who leads an idyllic life in Memphis along with her husband, two young daughters and her little dog, Princess Grace Kelly. Oh, and her three lifelong best friends, we must not forget the friends. She is an authentic modern day Southern Belle, and when her husband decides that he wants to "follow his bliss" she is not happy about the thought of moving to Vermont to run an inn. However, in the way that only Southern women can do, she acquiesces and off they go to one of our Northern most states. The story is about her adjustment to this strange life and all the trials and tests of will that she must go through during her life there. Not the least of which is the death of her beloved dog, Princess Grace Kelly.

Throughout the entire book I was able to completely identify with Lee Lee on everything about leaving the South and landing in the north. One exception is that I didn't have an inn to run and I didn't have 2 children to get up for every day. But everything rang true to me from the dealing with unusual customs and less than friendly neighbors to the colloquial language she had to deal with and the northern accent that is so grating to Southern ears.

Honestly, I almost had to put the book down a quarter of the way through because I felt as though I was reliving my first few months in the north, feeling so aggravated and angry. When her husband mentioned moving, I screamed in my head "NO don't do it!!! When we first moved I felt so alone and so different everywhere I went. I was the kooky Southern girl and no one could relate to me beyond making fun of my "hick" accent (yes someone called it that). I met 2 or 3 people (literally, 2 or 3) who were friends to me like I would have had "back home" but for the most part, those people up there? I just didn't get them, didn't get how grouchy and negative and short they were and how they didn't just let loose and have fun. I didn't get how cashiers and waitresses wouldn't talk to you. I didn't get how people looked at you like you were crazy if you spoke to them waiting in line at the grocery store. I didn't get how they related to each other with such negativity, and I just plain didn't like most of them. Most of all, I didn't get how whenever I did something different they always said "that must be a Southern thing". Yeah, politeness and friendliness. Those were invented in the south and were kept here, obviously.

I made myself push on through the book and was rewarded with a beautiful scene in which her friends help her out of the biggest jam ever. From there on out the book was total happiness, a story about the enormous difference friends can make in anyone's life. I didn't have anyone to rescue me, but that is mainly due to the fact that I didn't tell anyone how bad things had gotten for me until I was better. I rescued myself by getting out of a job I had taken with a horrible woman, getting myself into counseling, going back to school to get a degree I had wanted for at least 5 years. Finally I began to make friends, enjoy life, and I obtained a great job in my new field. I pulled myself out of the situation in true Steel Magnolia fashion, as only a Southern girl could do. And when I did? I stopped worrying about those people. And then we moved back home to KY for my husband's job. Yes, the universe has a sense of humor.

Reading this book was difficult for me, but I think Lisa did a beautiful job of making you feel as though the early chapters are in black and white (or a dull Northern gray). Once you hit that mid-point, though, I felt like everything turned into technicolor. Sort of like that scene in the Wizard of Oz. I enjoyed this book for all the descriptives and the true voice Lisa gives to LeeLee and all the characters. Even the fact that I was aggravated and angry is a testament to her writing such a vivid account that it rang true with my experience. Thanks, Lisa for such a great book! I enjoyed the read.

Oh, and on a side note, my beloved cat Spaz died while we lived in Pennsylvania after living to the ripe old age of 18. I was completely distraught about what to do with him and when hubby wondered out loud where we could bury him I wailed "I am NOT burying him in f-ing Pennsylvania. NONE of us are going to be buried in f-ing Pennsylvania, do you hear me?! Help me figure out what to do with him!!!" And that is how we ended up driving home to Kentucky, 5 months later, with a frozen cat in a styrofoam cooler in the back of my SUV to be buried in mid-March at my mom and dad's house. Honestly.