"You men do not want women educated to do anything, to be able to earn
an honest living by their own exertions. They are educated as if they
were always to be petted and supported, and there was never to be any
such thing as misfortune."
~ protagonist Laura Hawkins in Mark Twain's "The Gilded Age"
"The world is against me. Well, let it be, let it. I am against it."
~ ditto
Whenever I need help when I'm shopping, I always seek out a male store staffer, the older the better. They are always kind and helpful. The old-timers are the most helpful of all and I look for them. My mother and father both say the same thing. In fact, they taught me to do so. Here's to old men, keeping civilization going one helpful act at a time!
―
If there ever is a military coup in this country, it won't be led by Gen. Jack Armstrong, all-American. It will be led by Col. Jaime Gonzalez, immigrant from south of the border, down Mexico way. The English-speaking world doesn't have a tradition of the military seizing control from civilian authorities. It's just not done, no matter what troubles we face. But Latin America....
“Liberalism moves toward radical individualism and the
corruption of standards. By destroying
traditional social habits of the people, by dissolving their natural
collective consciousness into individual constituents, by licensing the
opinions of the most foolish, by substituting instruction for education,
by encouraging cleverness rather than wisdom, the upstart rather than
the qualified, liberalism prepares the way for that which is its own
negation: the artificial, brutalized control which is a
desperate remedy for its chaos.”
―
In my HG magnet high school I had a teacher who said, "In my class I will
talk most of the time and you will listen most of the time because
although you may be smart I've been smart longer." “The fate of this man or that man is less than a drop, although it is a sparkling one, in the great blue motion of the sunlit sea.”
― T.H. White
Back when I was in high school there used to be a fad for making lists about yourself that were in the form of questions. This was around the time Friendster and TagWorld were things. Oh, and good old MySpace. Anyway, the questions were things like what was the last thing you ate, what was the first thing you saw when you woke up in the morning, what was the last TV show you watched and so forth. Kind of lame, right? But everybody was into doing them, I guess because everybody else was doing them.
A spin-off from that was lists of things about yourself. These were long. I think one was called 85 Things About Myself. There were no questions. It was up to you what to write down. I found them enormously interesting to read. People would put down all sorts of things about themselves, often things best left unsaid -- those were the most interesting of all, heh. I don't think guys were much into them -- I mentioned this stuff to one of my brothers and he didn't remember it at all. After a while, the fad died, maybe because making all those lists made people realize just how trivial and dull their lives were, even their transgressions, so they quit making them.
So what sort of things would I put down if I were making one of those Lists About Myself? Hmm. Um... Well... There was this time that... And another time... Once there was this guy and this girl and I almost... When I went to... There was this homeless guy and he came up to me and... My boss once called me into his office, closed the door and... My boyfriend brought his friends over to the house and they all got...and we played...and they suggested...and I said...and then I was the only one except... and he and I...right in front of... When I was just...my uncle...and when my mother found out... The first time I ever...was at my friend's house when she invited me to a sleepover and we... Once when my mother was away visiting relatives I saw my dad's...when he was... and I said...and he said...and then we...and while we were my brother and his friend came in and they...and afterwards I could hardly...but they wanted...so I....
Okay, as you can see, I got nothing. And you have a dirty mind!
“He had the look of one who had drunk the cup of life and found a dead beetle at the bottom.”
―
I once knew a phone sex operator. At the time, she had been divorced for nine years and hadn't been on a date or had sex since her divorce. When she got divorced, she assumed that sooner or later she would find somebody else and her life would resume its normal course. But nothing ever happened.
She was middle-aged, with an older child and a job that kept her on her feet all day. When she got home, all she wanted to do was take off her shoes and rest.
She got into doing phone sex by answering an ad for audio text operators. She thought it would be transcribing phone calls for deaf people or something. But she needed the extra money so she took the job and soon found she was good at it and began making more money than she did at her day job, so she quit that to devote herself full time to her new profession. But the job turned her into a recluse. She worked from home and only made infrequent and quick trips to the grocery store because every minute away from the phone was a potential dollar lost (the phone sex calls netted her a dollar minute).
She stopped taking calls from friends and family, including her daughter, who had gone off to college, because she didn't want to lose paying calls. After a while, they stopped calling.
She realized the job, well-paying as it was, was destroying her life so she quit, but the only job she found was stressful and tedious and paid just $8 an hour, not enough for her to live on. So she went back to being a phone sex operator and a recluse. She said if it wasn't for her phone pervies she would have no social life at all.
―
What I wonder is: if it's supposed to be impossible to catch the falling dollar, why did this ever become a game? At some point, enough people must have been able to catch the falling dollar that it made it a fun thing to try with your friends. Otherwise, why bother?
Maybe this is a sign of generally falling intelligence.
“If you wear a short enough skirt, the party will come to you.”
― Dorothy Parker
Once when I was a senior in high school I went with my boyfriend to an air show at Van Nuys airport. He wanted to see the old airplanes and I wanted to see him. I dressed as if I were going on a hot date because I thought we would stop by for a few minutes and then have a nice meal at the nearby World War One-themed 94th Aero Squadron Restaurant, one of my favorites, and then go do ... something ... else. So I wore red four-inch mules and a form-fitting red miniskirt over red lace thong panties with a red lace half-cup push-up bra under a low-cut off-the-shoulder red top. Looking back, I must have looked like a very sexy fire extinguisher. I skipped out of the house just as my mother spotted me and demanded, "Young lady, where do you think you're going dressed like that? Hey! Come back he--!" Too late. Well, I was a teenager.
At the airport there was a C-46, a B-24 and a B-29 on static display and a dual-seat P-51D and a B-25J they were selling rides in. Of course, there were some T-6s. I knew all those airplanes by sight because I had been dragged to airshows and aviation museums since before I was in kindergarten by my dad. My brothers were nuts for them but me...not so much.
Anyway, my boyfriend was in heaven and climbed all through the planes, which I didn't want to do because I was not dressed for it, and talked and talked to the docents. I eventually got bored standing around being ignored, plus it was hot in the sunshine out on the ramp, so I wandered off to find some shade. There were crowds around the big bombers, the cargo plane and the Mustang, but only a few people by the B-25 so I sought out the shade under its wings. It smelled of hot metal, paint and rubber, oil and high-octane gasoline. They were selling rides for $250 and two or three customers were about to climb aboard.
One of the crew members approached me smiling and I thought he was going to tell me I had to move away because they were going to be taking off, but instead he asked me if I wanted to go along on the flight. I said I didn't have $250 but he said there was room since they hadn't sold out so why not come along?
I hesitated, knowing old airplanes are full of dirt and grease and sharp corners and I wasn't dressed for that. I also looked at the aft ladder the other passengers were climbing up and doubted I'd be able to manage it in my heels and tight skirt.
The guy must have read my mind because he said, "C'm'ere," and steered me to the front hatch which he pulled open and then grabbed me by the waist and boosted me up over his head, telling me to grab something and pull myself in as he pushed me up. So before I knew it I was inside the old bird on my hands and knees.
He hauled himself up right behind me and steered me through the tunnel below the cockpit into the bombardier's compartment in the nose, steadying and directing me a little more literally hands-on than was strictly necessary as he helped me lie on my back and pull myself forward by the two handrails overhead, then helping me get strapped into the jump seat. My shoes came off in the tunnel and he fetched them and put them back on my feet after I was seated. He said he had to get to the cockpit while we took off as he was the co-pilot but after we were airborne he would be back. We took off with a rattling roar and flew south towards Catalina Island, thundering low over San Pedro after passing Signal Hill then climbing high as we crossed the channel before soaring over Avalon and Blackjack Peak. My friend the co-pilot did come back and crouched next to me, draping his arm across my shoulders and squeezing me to reassure me, I assumed, as well as to help brace himself as we maneuvered through some steep turns. The view was magnificent from the glassed-in nose. I spotted the Banning House Lodge above Two Harbors where my family had vacationed recently.
Then he helped me unbuckle and crawl out of the nose back through the tunnel, he behind me again guiding me along, then he boosted me up to the crew station behind the pilots' seats. There wasn't much room so he stood behind steadying me with his hands on my hips as I looked around. Then he lifted me up again, helping me straddle the bicycle seat in the top turret gunner's position, steadying me with his hands on my thighs. The turret was facing aft so I had a good view along the top of the airplane to the twin tails and rear gunner's position. Then he lifted me down and helped me get settled into the co-pilot's seat. I got to try steering the plane. The control wheel was very stiff and I could barely reach the rudder pedals, but I did manage to induce a few Dutch rolls which I got out of with the pilot's assistance.
As we returned to the field, my friend helped me crawl aft through the flat tunnel over the bomb bay and slide down into the radio compartment with the other passengers where he helped me strap into an empty seat and put my shoes, which had slipped off in the tunnel, back on. The passengers looked at me with some surprise and puzzlement. One tentatively asked me if I was part of the crew. I said yes, I was the bombardier. He nodded.
After we landed, my co-pilot friend helped me down to the ramp and brushed some of the dirt I had accumulated off me. I had grease smudges on my clothes and had somehow torn my blouse on something, and my hair was a mess. He led me over to the flight crew office or whatever it was and waited while I went into the ladies lounge to clean up. Looking at myself in the mirror, I swore I would never dress like this for a date ever again. Jeans or cargo pants over granny panties and a tee or sweatshirt over a sports bra with tennies or, better yet, hiking boots, my hair tied up in a bun. If my date didn't like it, phooey.
When I came out he said I looked fine and if he wasn't an old married man he would ask me for my phone number and a date. He paused as if waiting for a response from me but I said nothing. He bought me a cup of vending-machine coffee and we chatted for a bit and then he had to get back to his airplane and I had to go find my boyfriend.
After lunch, I asked him to take me home. When I got in the door long before I had expected to be back, my mother was waiting for me. I said, "Sorry, mom." She gave me a hug.
“She dreamed of never again putting on tight shoes, of never having to laugh and listen and admire, of never more being a good sport. Never.”
― Dorothy Parker
