Thursday, September 17, 2015

Who are they polling?

I watched a great reality TV comedy show last night. They called it the GOP Presidential Debate. It seemed to be a take off on a more popular and long airing show called Saturday Night Live.

Seriously, the polls say Donald Trump and Carly Fiorino are leading. WHO are they polling? What morons could honestly in their right mind see either one of those imbeciles as president of this very fucked up country??!

I will say, it was a good laugh. The moderator had about as much control of the debate as school teachers have of their classrooms these days. CNN basically gave Donald Trump a platform to perform more of his antics and kept the camera on him most of the time, and I have to believe they did it for ratings, it sure makes good comedy TV, watching that idiot, all red faced and smirky, but it also made you want to throw up a little.

I'm amazed that someone like Donald Trump could even be considered as a leader of one of the "most powerful countries in the world". He is a bully, he is rude, he is narcissistic.  He is a fool in love with himself and no one else. He is not presidential. What is wrong with everyone!?!?!??!

I sat watching this debate, pretending I had to choose one of these candidates to be president, God help us all. I have to say, Marco Rubio impressed me with his professionalism and he seems like a very intelligent man. I don't know that much about his past record, but he sure looked a damn sight better than any of the other choices. Poor old Jeb Bush, finally admitted to his mom he smoked pot, and now I have more respect for him at least. Rand Paul seems like a decent enough fellow, but CNN seemed intent on not letting him prove to anyone he had a brain. Someone needed to encourage sleepy eyed Ben Carson to wake up and come to the party, he is indeed a very intelligent man, but WAKE UP dude! I have to say, I liked Chris Christie, he added a lot of humor to the show, he ain't president material, but he is fun to listen to.  Carly Fiorino also made me want to throw up a little, managing to parallel Iran and Planned Parenthood? Well that was just about the most ridiculous part of the show for me.
The rest of them just came off as slick ass politicians or baptist preachers, which sometimes can be interchangeable. Poor old Ted Huckabee, he seems nice.

Isn't there some way we could educate our young people enough to get someone in office that could actually find their way to work and straighten things out up there in that big white house on the hill?!?
Pleeeeease........

Monday, September 14, 2015

East vs. West



I drove into South Carolina, listening to Lucinda Williams singing about watching the ocean bend and wondering "if there were no tears where would sorrow find a home". I passed through cotton fields and little towns time has forgotten, American flags all along the sidewalks in town, plaques of confederate heroes along the roadside, I wonder if anyone ever stops to read them. I crossed railroad tracks, drove by farm stands selling the last of the summer crops, and then over the Waccamaw River. That's where the smell hits you. That black river. The smell of dirt roads, salty sea air, brackish water, sea oats, hot asphalt,ripe fruit, the south. Home. That smell is home to me. Memories flood back every time I cross the Waccamaw and get to the beach. 

Summer cantaloupe, ripe tomato sandwiches on white bread with mayonaise, sand in my bed sheets no matter how well I wiped my feet before bed, sunburned skin, cherry flavored Icees from the 7 Eleven, boiled peanuts in a brown paper bag. Later, gin and tonic in the bars at night, Mothers Finest on the radio singing Baby Love, or the Eagles singing One of These Nights. 

Then Labor Day, September, when all the tourists went home and the town was quiet and the locals banded together. The ocean was still warm after the summer crowds left, even at night, it belonged to the locals and it was a private club in the fall. I love being here in September. In nine days I will be fifty five. I only lived at the beach for 15 years of my life, but it was the growing up and learning years, the years that define you. September and the ocean are for some reason synonymous to me. I feel it's pull every year around this time. I drove by the house I grew up in today. I just stopped the car and sat there, stared at my bedroom window. I bet that fucking place is haunted now!

I live a different life now, I'm not a beach girl anymore. Gerry and I want farmland. But that sea air and salt water are in my blood and will always be a part of me. It heals my soul. And I have needed some healing, so I got in the car and left for the beach this morning. My arm needs some time to heal, my heart needs some mending, I need the ocean. My mom made me supper. Potato soup and grilled pimento cheese sandwiches. Potato chips. Pecan pie. I don't eat like this at home, but it was mighty fine. We sat and talked. I see her in a different way now. I know now how a mother misses her child. I'm trying.......



My daughter is sitting by the opposite ocean on the west coast. I'm an east coast girl, always will be. I wonder, will she become a west coast girl or did the south seep into her skin like it did mine. I could never live anywhere else. I still miss her terrible bad (as my aunt would say)  and despise this hateful notion of children leaving the nest. But so it is. I have my life, she has hers. My life is moving forward into uncertainty and so is hers. Here in the east, there in the west.....