"The most common of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind." --H. L. Mencken
I was born in a state of poverty, grew up in a state of discontent, was married in a state of panic, raised my kids in a state of disorder, watched my grandchildren born in a state of ecstasy, and finally I am living my days in a state of contentment.
I am so tired of touchy feelings... A list I used to belong to was talking about John Lennon, and I posted the lyrics to his "Woman Is The Nigger of the World". It isn't a racist piece, it is a Feminist piece saying that the entire world treats women the way bigots in the West treat people of color. But I got so much flack for it! What ever happened to freedom of speech? That was why I countered an anti-semetic joke with a Jewish joke... instead of stomping my feet and quitting the list. The only jokes I know are Jewish jokes, my husband was a raconteur and knew every Jewish joke there was. Some I learned were even in Yiddish.
I was really having fun there on the list, chatting and flirting and just being relaxed, and I know that the first joke was not posted with malice or meant to be mean, just an unthinking post. Sleepy people can forward stuff without paying close attention to what it really says, or that it might offend some groups of people. I don't post jokes and dumb forwards--I figure everybody will get them eventually emailed from some poor soul with nothing to do but forward stuff they get. I try to edit what I post carefully.
If you ever check out my group radicalesbian, you'll see that I am very political and as non-ethnocentric as possible. I belive that Islam in general is a morality much different that that of the militaristic Jihad crazed offshoots. I do however feel that like Judaism, Catholicism, Hinduism, and others, Islam condones and encourages (in fact demands) sanctions for different people--outgroups in sociological terminology, and is full of Sexism, Anti-feminism, intolerance of other religions, and (except for Hinduism) homosexuality.
I try to be tolerant of other peoples insensitivity because it is an ingrained cultural ethnocentric learned subconscious thing. Not their fault, they learned it from their parents parents parents. If I get angry, I try to remember that in some cultures it is immoral NOT to take heads or eat your enemy, or to allow a woman to own her own axe. Yes, objectivity is difficult, one of the hardest things I had to learn as a sociologist, but I keep trying.
My Mom died at 63 of breast cancer...she smoked...but I have yearly Mamos and am okay so far. My Dad passed away last year at 87. He was still working 6 days a week, and one Saturday, after he had picked up the mail, climbed the stairs to his office, done the year end bookeeping and reconciled accounts payable and made sure the payroll taxes were done, as well as everything that needed to be done with the mail, he wrote a letter to my brother saying how he loved us and what was to be done with his funereal arrangements and his property. Then he rested his head on the desk and left us.
The social scene I loved with my ex in San Francisco was much more laid back, and there were video nights with pot lucks and visits to the tea garden and high tea at a little tea shop, and harbor cruises. Then of course, we were in San Francisco!!!! We had so much to do there... even shopping is fun there! And we volunteered at various non-profits and political causes...the events were almost like concerts and parties themselves. For my birthday she took me to see Melissa one year and the next to see KD in a really small venue in Oakland. She is definitely a social butterfly lol!
At the moment I'm living with my youngest and her family. I have my own room with my tv and pc in here. I still have my truck, and am only limited by gas prices to how far I roam. Lately it hasn't been far lol! Most of my vacations when not partnered have been with my grandson Ricky. He is my "soul twin" and we are very close. He is 10 now and starting to have more of his own life, but he still likes to spend time with old Grammy!
I have been beaudyk or beaudyka on the net since 1999. I had a website called "Spiritwoman" for several years, until it became too expensive to maintain. That was when I started this journal. When I had a webtv, I moderated a newsgroup, beaudyka, which was so much fun! On webtv, you can have 6 different profiles and emails, and all but 1 can be changed over and over. You can also have a long signature on your emails that is almost like a webpage. We had a Halloween "costume" contest , and we would try to guess who was whom.... I have been Betty Paige, Casper the ghost, and many others. The last year I was Sex Maniac and I edited a photo graphic for shock value (big boobs). It was a hoot. When I moved to a pc, it was "goodbye" webtvers, but the yahoo id I had created for storing different signatures was still there. I was still beaudyk@hotmail.com until hotmail became impossible to use. So I went back to using my old yahoo addy, maniac1916.Please don't call me "maniac" though, it's Beau!
Watching TV in my shorts lol. Some commercials just made me think-- 20 years ago I would have been sitting by the Santa Monica beach, eating croissants and drinking coffee al fresco under an umberella, reading the LA Times, the NY Times, and telling the homeless that "No, I'm not finished with that yet" about my breakfast. Today I'm sitting in my air conditioned bedroom, reading news online and eating 'leftovers'.... a 12 oz ribeye bbqed last night and now reheated medium rare, eggs over medium, and toasted 'roasted garlic sourdough french' bread with Challenge butter. Things are different now, but they ain't so bad lol!
Vegas is now 2 separate places--the Strip, and everywhere else. It has absolutely exploded in size over the last 15 years. Henderson used to be a separate city, now it's a suburb. Green Valley appeared suddenly in the late 80s, just like somebody scooped up Orange County CA and ploped it down next to the freeway. Next the North West exploded with Summerlin etc. The only places still left the same are downtown near the strip and North Las Vegas, and they are gang-ridden neighborhoods now.
I have been on disability for a while now, but I was teaching in 4 schools before I moved here (they called it freeway flying lol). My Dad and brother moved the family business here after my Mom died in 1986. I had taught long-term Special Ed at a High School in Palmdale, and then one of my "students" moved into our apartment complex. She decided to pick on me and mine-- she told her mother that I had been the one to go into their apt. and steal her cocaine. Then while I was visiting a girlfriend in L.A. she broke in and totally trashed our apartment. She found the spare key to my car, and gave it to her Pacoima gangsta buddies so it disappeared. Then she and her friends followed my daughter on her way to school and broke her arm. No other choice but to move as fast as possible out of there, which meant moving me and my 3 kids in with my Dad here in Henderson. That was Christmas of 1990, and we have been here ever since. My kids married here and all my grandkids were born here. I hate it here.
I was actually raised in Santa Monica, which is pretty much like SF weatherwise. My Ex Suzi lives in SF, and I lived there with her for a year or so in the West Sunset district. She was a shopaholic, so we got to go all over the city and I let her drive unless we were going on a long road trip. She still writes me by email and phones once in a while-
My ex the doctor lived in LaJunta CO, near the Badlands. We had a well and had to take our garbage to the dump in the truck. There were cows out the back window and prarie dogs in the driveway lol! The weather was extreme-- thunder and lightening, hot and dusty, snow and blizzards. High altitude but much lower than Denver. The worst part was being closeted and having to act straight.
I haven't had a wife for years, and have just about given up on it. I am living with my daughter and her family since my Dad died. The electric bill is about $100 higher in the summer, but we have gas water heating and dryer. I pay them $400/mo rent so I know I couldn't do better lol! The State Institution I worked for in the nineties was the school/residence facility for teenagers in Caliente NV. They were very upset at me because I treated the girls with respect and didn't slam them up against the wall like the rest of the workers. I always ended up on graveyard shift. But the hardest thing I had to do was strip search the girls when they came back from a furlow (spelling?) I was more embarrassed for them than they were.
Our cat just gave birth. I know that all the kids and
grandkids are excited, and jumping up and down about it, but the cat was
not impressed. She had four; one was stillborn, and she slept on another
and suffocated it. By this morning she was sick and both she and the
remaining kittens were a bloody mess, one was half dead and barely
breathing. I was asked today if I thought a friend's icy reception at a suburban dance club might have been due to racism, (She is a womon of color) I have recieved similar treatment as an "older" lesbian (starting at 35!) This is my short answer to THAT untouchable question:
Racism is unfortunately just what it is. Just like ageism and lookism, there it is! One would hope that in a community that is much maligned (glbt) there would be more acceptance of racial and economic diversity.
The phenomenon is similar to the patriarchal theme Bell Hooks described, where a black man devalues black women in a reaction to himself being devalued by the white man. Or, as said in "Jesus Was A Capricorn",
"everybody has to have somebody to look down on". I'll close this with the last line from that same song "If you can't find nobody else then help yourself to me"
It took a lot of chats, a year of living in Caliente NV, traveling the "UFO Highway" to visit Las Vegas, and of her hiding whenever she saw a light, for us to piece it together. But who says these are spaceships and space aliens? Or humans from the future? Ever notice how much of this is near government top secret areas? Has the government ever been open and honest with you? The sky is crystal clear. In this weather the old ones would dance while hot breezes whistled through the canyons and sang along to their rhythm. The shaman would sing of hope and pray for her people. She would draw on the walls of the sacred caves to tell the Mother of their needs.
It's 118 outside so I don't go out. I haven't been "out" since I moved to Las Vegas. It may be a mecca for gay men and transvestites, but lesbians are hiding away with few places to meet. I have met 50 in 15 years here. I lived in Los Angeles until 1989, and I could be whatever I was. (I was some sort of radicalesbian nudist sociologist poet philosopher with children, and affiliated with various alternative lifestyles organizations, communes, and poetry groups)
Well there I was complaining about the weather being so hot and dry and here
comes the storm of the century. Of course, it's the third storm of the
century in the last five years. Hey, taxpayers, looks like we're a
disaster area again! You gals are going to pay to fix all that stuff you
payed to fix last year!(1998)
Do you know that they built a phoney lake for an upscale housng development and built a tunnel UNDER the lake for Las Vegas Wash to access Lake Mead? It plotzed. Lake Las Vegas is a big mudhole. Sounds a lot like Lake Los Angeles in Palmdale.
I can't understand why we build and buy houses and roads and bridges on floodplains and washes, then cry when there's a little desert cloudburst and all our stuff gets washed away. On tonight's news there were pictures of a lot of sad looking wet cats
The 1990s
Kittens! 1999
I resusitated that one and wrapped it in a towel. Then I
gave Mama cat a warm bath. She sat in the warm water and soaked. That's
when I knew how sick she was. Then I bathed the two remaining kittens and
force fed them with an old baby bottle, The sick one first. My youngest
daughter went to Wal-Mart, and bought a kitten bottle and kitten formula
(almost $5 for an 8 oz can).
As I write this, I have my kittens
asleep on my belly between my breasts. They are clean, soft, and full of
food, asleep and happy.
Their mother is happy, too. She got to go
potty in peace, and is off resting in the other room. I am supposed to go
on a mini vacation this weekend. Think it will be any fun with two kittens in my bra? Spousal Abuse (a short reminder)
It is a personal problem, I know, but one that I have seen too many times to ignore.
I can no longer deal with users, drunks, or abusers. I've been burned too many times. I was (believe it or not) a battered wife twice!. Now I've turned into a strong womon, after 15 years as a single parent. I put myself through school after I escaped the kids' father. He then drank himself to death at 46.
So my gripe is really about people who say divorces are about squeezing the toothpaste tube in the middle etc. They say "why didn't you just leave the first time he hit you? It isn't that easy. Most abusive relationships that escalate into homicide do so when the woman leaves! It is really dangerous to say "just leave". If you give that advice and it is followed, remember you may never see that woman again!
Prejudice Among Lesbians ~2000
(ps: I told you I taught Sociology, didn't I? I was also a hippy years ago.)
UFOs
I am a skeptic. I feel I must preface this entry with that statement.
My son & I were standing on our balcony in 1990 watching the planes land (it was 10 p.m.) We saw a very unsual acting helicopter or something hovering and darting about in the sky. As we were watching it come closer, it suddenly disappeared. Poof! It was there and then it wasn't. We said, "Gee, that's wierd' and went inside. We had been outside for about ten minutes. When we got in, the clocks said 3:15.
He and I got to comparing notes. Later, without leading questions to cause confabulated memory, we talked to my daughter.
She told us that, as a child, she used to hold her breath and squeeze her eyes tight when "something scary was happening and her brother "went away".
We spent a long time commuting back and forth on that UFO highway, and we frequently saw lights that didn't act like any planes, helicopters, meteorites, reflecting clouds, or rockets taking off in CA. would have. Hugging the curves of the hills, they moved low and silent. They were there whenever we drove late at night, especially near Hiko and Rachel NV.
My Dad's business was installing and repairing light bars and radios for police and emergency vehicles. I have talked to several BLM officers who have seen the same thing as we have many times. One of them has hours of video tape.
I know these things are
happening. I just don't know who, what, why, or how. The scientific method is to form a reasonable hypothesis and try to prove it wrong! The dialectic went out with the last century.
Habitat Destruction Is Rampant
When I came here in 1990 the sheep were still here, in people's back yards. You could see small groups on the hills as you crossed Hoover Dam. I haven't seen one since 1995. The dammed Colorado has very few of its original inhabitants left under the water. So they introduced more fish for the fishermen to catch and finish off the rest of them!
Here It Is Labor Day 1999
I have been wrestling with technology and homophobia all summer. It was a major task to keep the Spiritwoman page and it's sister pages available for these years. But I am still here! My personal life has improved thanks to the net too. I have met some very nice women and shared information and support with them.
I go up into the hills and caves of the Valley of Fire and those writings are still there. You would love this place. It has been the set for uncountable movies and tv shows. This State park is a must see in Las Vegas if you can pry yourself off of the slot machines.
Believe it or not, Sin-City is a right wing religious (mostly Mormon) family values anti-gay small town, and we locals can be blackballed from teaching, government jobs, manufacturing, even casino work if we say the wrong thing to the proper stranger! IF YOU ARE CONSIDERING MOVING HERE, VISIT FIRST AND CONTACT THE GLBT CENTER.