Tag: diary

Elegy for a fallen cartoonist

A newspaper cartoonist I once admired, Scott Adams, is having his strip Dilbert ceased from publication across several major newspapers. He went on a tirade about race on his YouTube series. He said black people are a hate group, white people should stay away from them, among other things.

This is not his first controversial antic, but it’s one that’s capturing the attention of the press. He’d said Donald Trump was a genius in the 2016 presidential election, nonetheless said he would vote for Hillary Clinton because she terrified him. He’d said he identified as black, though I can’t recall why. Did he want to reap the benefits of affirmative action? Was it a solidarity decision or some form of mockery? For whatever reason, there had been no zeitgeist to punish him. Maybe because he could emerge from those periods of lucidity and later speak calmly about his love of cartoons and storytelling.

I like the Dilbert comic a lot. I insist it still has been funny well past the 1990s. Thus, I was offended by The Plain Dealer‘s statement in their discontinuance of the strip that it was “not a difficult decision.” Adams has been a broken man for some time, and now he drew the line? The comic, clearly, has brought a lot of joy to my life. I’ve been reading it on my own since 2002, and likely before that when my mother or father would read it aloud for me. I didn’t always understand the corporate speak, but I liked the office setting. I liked Dilbert’s silly design, with the cloud-like hair and curved upright necktie. I liked how his dog and cat would not only outsmart him, but his entire workforce. I enjoyed the quirkiness, the Pointy-Haired Boss’s ineptitude, Wally’s mediocracy, Asok’s effort, Alice’s temper, etc.

I also liked how these characters basically worked with my mother, as the office was based on Adams’ time at telecom company Bell Pacific, the former sister to her company Bell Atlantic. Even folks who weren’t exactly in the same industry but worked in an office setting found a lot of similarities in the strange hierarchy and idiosyncrasies that come with white-collar work. The funnies pages garnered my interest in the newspaper and really aided in alleviating my reading anxiety that persisted in my formative years.

I don’t know if Adams would ever admit it, but I think his bigotry is sick. And I mean sick as in a real mental and physiological deficit, an impairment. I do mean it’s sick in a sinful way too, but beyond that. When I’ve read his blogs and interviews, his narrative oscillates between sanity and insanity. Apparently, he and his wife divorced in 2014, and some suspect he could still be upset and bitter about it. He also had a stepson who committed suicide and Adams may have driven him to such. Maybe he feels guilty about it and is trying to inflict cruelty on others so he comparatively didn’t seem so cruel to his late son? I apologize for not sourcing anything here. I suppose I am just awash with the new info that I’m still ruminating in it. Going back and looking at a biography or human interest profile of him will just give me too many variables to analyze him. Anyway, it’s hard to say definitely without meeting Adams. I could run through more primary sources. Look at his blogs and interviews, sift through them, find some morality that I’m sure I’d seen before in him, but I won’t do that now.

Defending him can get tiring, and he may argue he doesn’t need the pity, or at least not that kind of pity. I worry he does not want to pity his mania, but instead his cancellations. Apparently he has already opined in this way on his Twitter. He seems to stand by his derogatory comments, but is dismal that his livelihood can never recover. And sure, at the rate he’s going, if he refuses reconciliation, it cannot.

However, I still hope he has people in his life who can love him enough and tell him not to take interviews with Fox News, OAN, Breitbart, etc. They will enrage him further only make him feel more victimized. And he is a victim, alright…of their partisan brainwashing. I hope someone can convince Adams to seek therapy or spirituality.

I hope while the papers stop publishing Dilbert, he genuinely reflects on why it happened. I hope he realizes the breadth of people who enjoy his comic (including black people) and see that antagonizing them and alienating them is hurtful.

Almost a decade ago, actress Amanda Bynes would act similarly on her Twitter account. She would get cocky, sexually harass men (especially black men, like Drake or Kid Cudi), disparage ugly people, dress provocatively, threaten to release diss tracks, etc. Fortunately, people like her parents caught on, and had her formally diagnosed with bipolar disorder, granted a conservatorship on her, of which she was released this year, and she enrolled and graduated in fashion college. She later became aware of her mania and spoke frankly about it on social media and interviews. She apologized for calling her father abusive and her friend Wayne ugly. She had retired, then unretired from acting. She hasn’t returned since leaving retirement, but her lawyer says she may one day. She overall seems to be recovering sufficiently since her downfall.

I hope Adams can make a recovery. But the difference is, Bynes was 26 during her downfall. Adams is 65. Maybe old dogs can learn new tricks, but who knows. Like Bynes initially, Adams is standing by his misdeeds and insisting he is not in need of pathological help, but that can’t always endure. People can see through it in due time. Scott Adams deserves the accountability here, but I really hope he does not make his situation worse for himself.

Progress

Job interviews are picking up, and I did a paid freelance project for the first time in a few years! I’m often updating this blog here, sometimes writing notes or stories for myself, but it’s always good to get a monetary recognition, or the glory of a byline… Or both. The project I did will only have the former, sadly. But I’ll have more opportunity to pursue a byline as I just wrote a flash fiction, which I’m submitting around the lit mag and contest scene. I’m pretty proud that I wrote a flash fiction. I’m so verbose, and in college I’d written a flash fiction that was almost a thousand words, which gets into more short story territory. The one I wrote recently was just under 500, which is the sweet spot.

Oh, but I saw the dermatologist today, and this problem I have with my hair loss might be gynecology related, so now that’s incentive enough for me to finally go. The derm ordered some blood tests to figure it out, but I’ll visit regardless. I just hope they can find my veins when they draw it.

Epiphany, January 6th reflection

I spent the morning of January 6th, 2021 drinking tea, chatting about the news, as always. I was actually feeling happy, as today was Three Kings Day, or the Epiphany. It represents an incredible journey of perseverance and wonder, as Melchior, Caspar, and Balthazar traveled the desert following the North Star to see the newborn messiah, Jesus.

I laughed at these people gathering with no cause and passion like these Magi. They are sore losers. I spoke with my therapist that afternoon about how ridiculous they are. But when our session was dismissed, it got worse. The mob breached the Capitol, and everyone had to hide.

Excerpted from my diary entry on January 11th, 2021

The diary entry above is somewhat incomplete, as it was done as part of a timed exercise at a work-based wellness zone. During the time I mentioned, not only was it the Epiphany, but John Osoff and Raphael Warnock had won their senate runoff races in Georgia. I was rooting for them not simply because they are Democrats, but also because the Republican party in America has become a perverted, reactionary heap who views lack of hygienic safety as a “personal liberty,” among multitudes of other problems. Both bring refreshing, faith-informed perspectives to our governmental system. Seeing them win, I thought this contempt for humanity had died, but alas.

In the morning, there were people outside the Capitol building. They were shouting, they had flags, signs, Trump-themed paraphernalia, some Revolutionary and Civil War paraphernalia, mostly those which signified sympathy towards reactionaries, and some megaphones. It was, in its formation, a protest. But protests have a movement, and keeping a tyrant who lost his reelection in office isn’t a movement. It’s just sore losership. I chided them. It was pathetic.

But the pathetic often becomes the disturbing. Seeing them breach the building, knowing lawmakers and their staff had to hide, watching rioters loot, vandalize, and defile is just disgraceful. Knowing a US Armywoman had been deluded by her president to attack fellow law enforcement and defense officers for his sake is disgusting. This veteran held a duty to defend the country and its electoral procedures, not to subterfuge them. While she survived her tours of military duty, she died after being brainwashed into believing fellow defense-men were her enemies. But even after seeing one of their own get killed, many rioters will still defend their perverse actions.

The Attack on the Capitol in 2021 was a journey. Caravans loaded up on buses, trains, cars, taxis, and bikes. Similarly, the first Epiphany approximately 2021 years prior to that day, there was another journey. Magi and shepherds came to visit a new miracle. It was a messiah that Jewish prophecy foretold about. He was a poor infant boy, living in a manger. Mangers tend to be dirty, and magi tend to be neat, but they overlooked the mess because they knew there was something awesome among them. There was a righteous ruler. Naive King Herod presumed this meant the child would usurp him one day. but the child never expressed such an interest, even in his adult life. The magi visited the infant Jesus in a tender, fleeting moment. Soon after, he and his family would have to return to Jerusalem to take the census, then to Nazareth to escape a draconian decree to have every infant boy killed.

I think about how arduous travel is. It takes hours. How could these rioters drive and ride, watching clouds and roads go by and think “yes, this is what I’m meant to do”? “Yes, this is my pilgrimage”? “Yes, this is a cause worth dying for”?

Donald Trump cheats tax collectors instead of befriending them. He denies knowing prostitutes and sex workers instead of outwardly acknowledging them. He snubs the paychecks of tradesmen like carpenters, such as Jesus’ adoptive father, despite the fact they had performed finished and satisfactory work for him. He had violently accused his late first wife Ivana of infidelity (despite his own wayward libido) and pressured her into sexual situations instead of telling adulterers to “sin no more.” In his continuance of presidential power, this is your epiphany? This is your pilgrimage, your hill to die on? Your revolution? Someone who, should he meet a carpenter’s apprentice-turned preacher in present day, would scoff?

This post has been almost a year in the making, so I’ve ruminated on this for a while. Point is, make sure your journey is meaningful and you chose battles that are worthy and have momentum. I am truly no one special. Just a former church youth choir girl and catechist’s pet at CCD. I’m also someone, who, in her adulthood, gained innate sense of justice and passion for persuasive diction. I may not be a clergy, pastoral associate, political aide, investigator, or lawyer, but nonetheless, I encourage you all to do everything with purpose.

Merry Little Christmas, Epiphany, Three Kings Day, Befana, or however you prefer to call it. Additionally bless the lives lost, tarnished, or periled in the events and aftermath of the Insurrection Attempt on the Capitol. Amen.

Oh hello. I’m being noticed.

I’ll let you in on a secret… Well, a lack thereof. This blog is no secret. It’s attached to my LinkedIn, it’s in my resume, and it generally ranks pretty high when you put my name in a search engine (I’ve looked myself up on Google, Bing, Duck Duck Go, and a few other engines that have gone in and out of vogue over the years).

But, regardless, I have my doubts that it gets much traction at all in my professional life. My resume is already pretty verbose, and a lot of the compositions here and elsewhere with my byline attached don’t always have much to do with positions I apply for. Nonetheless, I was in an interview today and the man I spoke with mentioned he had viewed some of my work. Granted, he didn’t say if it was here, or Medium, LinkedIn, Rooster Global News Network, Patriot Ledger, or wherever. But it’s good to know people actually read my resume and the links I provide. I often presume they go ignored. Well, if a company is overly reliant on ATS, they probably are.

This blog is kind of helter-skelter collection of thoughts, not quite a formal portfolio. I worry it’s dismissed as a trivial vanity project. And maybe it is, but those can sometimes be entertaining I guess. I know most of my stuff is pro bono and/or hosted on a platform that’s part of the user-generated content (UGC) space, but it’s good to know that despite the fact that a lot of my words are present on the web as a lay-user rather than a paid/hired worker, they still have an impact.

Anyway, if you got here after looking at my resume somewhere out there, likely on the internet, thanks for reading my blog. I’m sorry for being a scatter-brained hostess, moving from Stardew Valley, to SpongeBob SquarePants, to holiday stress, to going to church, to The Bell Jar, to taking public transportation, to the importance of pediatric vaccinations, to my trouble with friends, my yearning for self-actualization, to my quest for glory… Thanks. Thanks for noticing.

I didn’t get to finish my interview today.

I was almost done, but I foolishly knocked my Webcam and mic out of the USB drive while I was talking with my hands. My interviewers inquired for a little, asking if I was still there. I kept trying to get back, I said “yes, I’m here!” but the mic didn’t reconnect. They agreed to end the meeting.

I get my connection back, and I emailed them saying I’m back and we can resume the meeting. But they are interviewing someone else, one responds, thanks me for my time, and they will be in touch if they have more questions. I am bewildered that we are putting this important meeting to an abrupt halt. I am stunned and step away from my email and vent to my family about what happened.

After regaining my composure, I respond to the email, saying thank you for talking with me, I enjoyed the discussion, and I apologize for the dropped connection. I still want to finish the interview, as I may have answered their questions, but I still had my own questions. I had hoped we could speak again tomorrow or next week to finish. But the response I got was discouraging.

“Unfortunately, we are no longer interested perusing your application.” I’d only interviewed a half hour ago, and didn’t get my conclusion. I’d appreciate it if they at least pretended to consider my candidacy.

I don’t know if it had something to do with my screw-up in that moment or a poor reputation I may have with my former coworkers and managers. This was an educational nonprofit I worked at for three years while in college. I withdrew from my duties somewhat during my final year, but this was due to a physical change in my appearance that the children I tutored noticed, and I did not want it to attract more attention. My boss noticed my performance issues, but I did not have a confiding enough relationship with him to explain my insecurity that caused them. I went through the academic year without much worry about the job, only to be shocked the following fall that my boss replied to my email that he was not rehiring me that year due to my “repeated issues,” which, though I don’t defend my distance, it was never indicated to me at all that these would cost me the position. Later the student employment specialist had emailed me saying she had been trying to get in touch with my boss several times throughout the summer about the paperwork needed to hire me for the coming academic year and he had not returned any of her messages.

I wonder if this incomplete interview was connected at all to my former job at this place. Does my reputation stink that much? I had been trusted in my job there for most of my college experience. I had thought I was well-liked. Was I just interviewed today for quota purposes? Because I doubt much time had been given envisioning me in the role. Why would an employer not allow a candidate to finish an interview?

I just want people to give me the chance I deserve.

Remembering those lost in the World Trade Center attacks, 2001

It’s an appropriate time to reflect. Some sad occasions have happened in recent days for me, the death of a relative, a family friend, and a global public figure, though I will reflect on those experiences in a later post. The World Trade Center attacks were a formulative experience for me to witness. My memory is murky as the years go by, but each time the memory is revisited, I make more connections to those vignettes that still exist in my mind’s eye.

I was five years old, approaching six in four months. My parents were shopping for a new house in our city to make room for our new baby brother, who was then around nine months old. I had just started kindergarten, and my parents wanted to stay within the same school district. My sister was four, and she and I detested visiting open houses with them. Our brother could just sleep through them, but we had to walk around and try to admire stuff we didn’t understand. Our previous house had been sold before we’d picked a new one, so we stayed with my grandparents in the meantime.

There was this strange movie on television occasionally with burning buildings. My parents enjoyed action and detective stories, so I figured it was one of those. But my mother acted differently when this movie came on. She’d rush to turn it off or change the channel when she’d see it with us children in the room. My grandparents hosted visitors often, so sometimes my uncles, aunts, or adult cousins would come over and want to play this movie. I didn’t get the fuss. I’d sometimes watch Law and Order with my mom when I couldn’t sleep, but the violent parts were short and she’d cover my eyes. Why was this shot of burning buildings so long? Did this movie have any other scenes?

The day of the attacks was a Tuesday, which was a day off for kindergartners and a half day for the rest of my elementary school. My teacher briefly explained to us the following day that some bad people attacked our country with planes. I feel like I learned pretty early on some of these planes came from Boston, departing from Logan Airport, so several of the casualties were local to our metropolitan, but I can’t remember when exactly I learned this. But the day she informed us was otherwise an unremarkable day.

The repetition stuck with me. People said “never forget,” flew the American flag, and just generally exhibited nationalistic pride. But people did it outside of patriotic holidays like Veterans’ Day, Memorial Day, Flag Day, or Independence Day. I didn’t understand it. Over time, I heard the phrase “9/11,” and I’d be shown pictures of those towers that got burned in that movie I saw in kindergarten. Overtime, I realized I’d seen it. That was the real news at the time, not the fictitious news in some doomsday movie.

People began talking about censoring things. The Simpsons, a cartoon that tempted me but was forbidden to watch because it was not for kids, had a nuclear power plant in it that blew up sometimes, and over the years networks wanted those episodes shelved because they thought it insensitive to victims and their families. Around 2003 or 2004, my mother finally allowed us to watch this highly-acclaimed show, SpongeBob Squarepants, despite the fact she found it obnoxious. In an episode titled “Just One Bite,” which I felt to be a remake to Dr. Suess’ Green Eggs and Ham, SpongeBob’s cynical colleague Squidward proclaims his dislike for Krabby Patties, despite his never eating one. The first half of the episode has SpongeBob channeling Sam I Am, coaxing Squidward into trying it in a multitude of different settings. Squidward finally caves, but…unlike Green Eggs’ protagonist, Squidward is too prideful to admit his fondness for it. He breaks into the Krusty Krab restaurant during off-hours and suffers two gasoline burns in each doorway in his pursuit. This is done in effort to avoid confronting SpongeBob about his desire for the sandwich.

Except…something was different in the episode around 2007 to 2010. I couldn’t place my finger on it, but it felt shorter and…maybe missing some kind of detail? I shrugged it off for several years, until I came across a Youtube video around 2015 titled “SpongeBob Just One Bite deleted scene”…it was the scene of Squidward getting injured by the gasoline bucket. It was strange. The episode premiered in 2001, during which time I was not allowed to watch it, but the offending scene remained in tact for approximately 10 years after the tragic events of 9/11. Nonetheless, its removal is still seen as aftermath for the occasion.

Similarly, music was scrutinized too. People were sensitive to certain metaphors like “you dropped a bomb on me,” “you light me on fire,” “you are electric,” etc. Lots of pieces in the hip-hop and rock genres were temporarily banned. Today, it seems some circles are warming back up to this kind of hyperbole and explicit displays, but others still seem to have a collective post-traumatic sensitivity of this aggression.

There’s a lot more thoughts I have on this occasion and may create followup posts, especially about the censorship and nationalistic escalations. Anyway, I will conclude to say never forget, and participate in the AmeriCorps day of service if you can to mark this occasion.

So many unethical opportunities

As I’ve mentioned before, I have my pride. I am agreeable, but less so nowadays. I am fatigued at employers offering volunteer work or piteously low rates. With age, I’ve learned to be less patient and make more demands.

There is one editorial industry which does often pay handsomely, but I have my pride and my morals to make me refuse this. It’s essay ghostwriting. Yes, I’ve assisted my siblings, friends, and classmates sometimes with their compositions, but never have I completed an assignment entirely on their behalf, their name next to my words. Perhaps if the platforms that offered these services regulated the practice a little more (i.e. the ideas, theses, analysis and research *must* be that of the student’s, and the writer can synthesize them) I may consider. But the way it is now is just a helter-skelter black market.

I’m not going to name these platforms, but you may already know of them. If you search the writing/editing job board on Craigslist from time to time, you’ll see them. Some even try to give an empathetic angle, that people write these essays for new English learners, people with low to no literacy, people with learning disabilities, etc. That’s no excuse. As someone who grew up with a learning disability it’s fine to have a crutch but to have a proxy complete your evaluations for you is insane.

I do really love the tone and flavor of academic writing, and I’d like to continue it, though indeed, don’t have much opportunity for it now as I’m currently unconnected to a school as a student or faculty. But this is not the way to reemerge in the genre.

Proving myself

The reason I maintain this blog, largely, is to prove myself. In my resume, I list one of my occupations as a freelance writer, and sometimes, I feel that’s untrue. I’ve done a few paid projects here and there sporadically, and worked pro bono for a few years, sometimes consistently, but I’m not actively taking on projects. Part of that may be the fault of my dignity and uneasiness with the “gig economy” or social platforms. Years ago, I’d applied for some projects on Fiverr and Freelancer.com, but never got any attention there. Even if I could attract attention on the content mills like those, I might not want it. Folks look to pay meager wages there, and the only people that want to take that kind of work are third-worlders or, people who I alluded to earlier, those who have no dignity.

I, of course, want a full-time job. And in the meantime, I try to freelance, but I don’t have any streamlined strategy to find work. I mainly send queries and pitches, or enter contests. Sometimes editors have these freelancer rosters, where you pass your contact info to them via some form, including links to samples, and indicate what subjects you are interested in writing about. I fill those out sometimes. But “auctioning” myself for a job doesn’t seem right to me. I’m not going to devalue my services just because I want work. Unemployment checks are adequate here and often I’d rather just take them then subject myself to tomfoolery.

Maybe another aspect to my problem is it’s hard to balance out looking for full-time work and project work. Ideally, I want full-time, but sometimes I feel like I have to cycle back to going to project work because of my lack of experience in some areas. For instance, I’d love to write copy. And I’d know how to do it. Growing up, I’d pour over the catalogues from Sears, Lands’ End, L.L. Bean, Sharper Image, Oriental Trading, Toys R Us, Circuit City, Best Buy, HearthSong, among others. The copy on ecommerce brands isn’t as human-centered as it is in paper catalogues. It’s mostly stuffed with keyphrases instead of anything meaningful, and I’d love to fix that. I know how I’d do it, but because I haven’t done it before I’m often passed up on offers. Thus, the way to get experience in copywriting could lie in a freelance contract.

Anyway, I want to make an impact more than anything. I want to leave a trail of beautiful prose and verse whenever someone plugs my name into a search engine. Hopefully that will happen one day, if I, and others, allow myself the opportunity.

Civic duty

This week, I had my first jury duty summons. It was…underwhelming. I kept thinking there was something amiss. You see, after arriving at 8:30am our first day, the judge dismissed us around 10:30am. There were two cases on the docket that day. The first had reached a settlement, and the second had a defendant who waived his jury trial. With a docket of two cases, and a pool of around thirty potential jurors, I was almost certain most of us would be picked. But I guess jurisprudence can change at the last moment.

It feels like when I’d complete a test within a fraction of the allotted time in school. Was the test duplex-printed and I didn’t look at the other side? Did I skip something? Was there some other component I hadn’t heard about? It was just astonishing. I’d been told two months in advance of my summons. I’d pushed off appointments and plans until this week’s conclusion because I was unsure of the duration of my service. I was prepared to be interviewed and analyze things. Truth be told, I thought it would be good practice for job interviews and maybe a chance to network, but I digress.

Anyway, the way my state law is, I won’t have to do this for another three years, if that. I was nervous, but those nerves were in vain. I hope I can make a judicial difference…one day.

Back to fiction

As a new adult, I opted to transition into nonfiction writing because I saw it as more commonplace and utilitarian. I was pretty confident the world could find a place for me there. And I am there, sometimes.

But often nowadays, it’s hard to break into the 24/7 news cycle, coupled with so called pundits pontificating their own commentary and opinions. There are often too many aspects to a story to consider. I am not at the frontlines of the Roe v. Wade overturning, nor the Russian invasion of Ukraine, nor Shinzo Abe’s assassination. I don’t often have a lived experience or connection to events like these. I do feel terrible about them, but to make a statement or write an article about such events sometimes feels like preaching to the choir to me. Sometimes there’s a wealth of disaster to dissect. I cannot often pinpoint the one which aggravates me the most. I cannot always suggest solutions.

Fiction is full of allegories and allusions. Public figures, personal acquaintances, and even other fictional characters can come together in fiction. It can propose new ideas and solutions. It’s both escapism and realism, albeit in another plane. For some reason, fiction is where I’ve been getting more ideas lately. Maybe I’m hanging out with Elliott in Stardew Valley too much (although I couldn’t write a novel-length feature like he could; I’m going to start with stuff at a few thousand words before I get to the hundred-thousands).

Maybe it’s the summertime idleness that’s getting to me, but I often can’t talk about life without making a comparison to something that happened to SpongeBob, or what Fran Fine did once, or the way Hamlet manipulated someone, or how Phoebe Buffay got tricked, or how Arthur Read had this great idea…I know, I have a strange combination of fiction that resonates with me in my mundane world.

Point is, nowadays I really see the place fiction has.