We Can’t Blame it All on Race

     I’ve been reading Hillary Clinton’s Living History, the book she wrote about her life before she became Secretary of State. She was a superstar in her own right before she met Bill. Her intellect, on full display since President Obama selected her to serve as his Secretary of State, was evident from a very early age.

     Hillary tells a fascinating story about her life, a story that so many of us can identify with, though hers has reached higher highs than most of ours have. She was a great student and went through all the angst of growing up and trying to make the right decisions about her education and her future. The charismatic Bill Clinton won her over and together they tried to improve the healthcare system for our country. 

     Reading the account from Hillary’s viewpoint is fascinating and sheds  a different light on the entire era. All that is history and can be ascertained in news accounts and a myriad of books.

     What has shocked me into reality and forced me to take another look at my current view of our political system is that the pushback and virulent attacks on the Clintons and their attempt at reforming healthcare was no less vile than what has gone on since the election of our first Black President. It has been so easy to blame everything that has been going on in DC on hatred directed at Barack Obama because of his race. They did the same thing to Bill Clinton, a good old white southern boy.

     The Clintons didn’t pass healthcare reform. President Obama did. How he did it against all odds, who knows?

It's a Hair Thing

Why do I love Debbie Wasserman Schultz? Until we were so rudely gerrymandered apart, DWS was my representative. I loved to listen to her, follow her career, plan for her political future. But no, that wasn’t it. It was the hair, the curly yellow hair.

All of us who are blessed/cursed with curls can identify. I grew up in the 60s, the era of long, straight, shiny, parted in the middle, hair that went right along with the long, thin legs and bodies that were the ideal. And I had this mop of mud-colored stuff that was identified as hair.

When my mother was accosted in the supermarket by one of her friends to tattle on my newly bleached blond tresses, my mother’s response was “I did it for her.” The hair might have been turned from mud to yellow, but it was still curly/frizzy/impossible. We tried everything: heat, irons, chemicals, big rollers, frozen juice cans. Nothing worked. The curls were no more cooperative than the GOP.

My wedding day dawned warm and free of humidity and we were all able to breathe easier. My hair was as cooperative as my husband. A day at the beach—not so much. We all laugh at the hats, wigs, scarves, and misery. Fighting with curly hair was a war that lasted much longer than the one in Afghanistan.

That was then. Look at a picture of a group of Congresspeople. You can always pick out DWS; her hair identifies her. Two years ago I attended a conference with 1500 neurologists. They kept coming up to me and asking me where we had met before. No, we hadn’t met. They just recognized me by my Facebook page, the picture with the curly yellow hair.

Fighting with this hair has been a second job for me. Liberation came in the form of a book that told me never to use shampoo. I only use shampoo twice a year, when I frost my hair, and my hair isn’t smelly or greasy, what a concept. Yes, I frost it myself, another advantage of having curly hair. You can do everything yourself. I cut it, color it, frost it, style it, do it all myself. The curls hide all the mistakes. How much money have I saved in the last 40 years?

One of the biggest problems used to be drying time. Yes, drying time is a problem in more ways than one. I finally solved the nail polish dilemma with a UV topcoat, but hair drying is another story. You can’t use a hair dryer on curly hair.

When I lived in New York, my hair used to freeze while I was waiting for the Long Island Railroad train on the platform in Port Washington. It was then that I learned all about the Eskimos and their igloos. Once my hair dried solid, my head felt warm inside.

Now I live in Florida and my hair no longer freezes when it’s wet, but if I have an early appointment, either I arrive with a wet, stringy mop on my head or I have to get up in the middle of the night to wet my hair, the only way the curly hair manual taught me to handle my hair every day. Eureka, this week I figured out a solution: braids. If I braid my hair in a few places before I go to sleep, I can get up and take out the braids and my hair is good to go. See, you’re never too old to learn something new.

Am I Reading Historical Fiction?

          Wow! I just took a break to check my email and found this headline on Salon.com: North Carolina GOPers want an official state religion. 

All I could think of was the line from Cinderella, the TV movie, not the cartoon: “Impossible things are happening every day."

I wasn’t the most attentive student of history way back when, but I remember something about religious freedom. Has the political climate oozed so far to the right that we have to add religion to the ugly mess that already includes gay rights, white supremacy, male superiority? The black hole is getting deeper and slimier. 

What are these people thinking? We’re supposed to live in a democratic society where everyone gets a vote and the majority rules. I was one of those who waited in line for over four hours in the South Florida sun to vote. By choice I voted at a polling place where I knew I would meet lots of my African American neighbors. For the second time I shared in their excitement as together we elected President Obama. Funny thing was that people started to show up, having waited for hours at the other polling place, the one near the exclusive shopping mall. Ours was better organized.

Is it possible that the people who are trying to take over the minds and hearts of the North Carolinians really don’t remember any history? Or maybe they really want to continue to fight the Civil War, during which at least 618,000 people were killed. I loved Gone with the Wind, the book and the movie. Remember "Frankly, Scarlett, I don't give a damn?" I do give a damn about freedom of religion.

We’ll be traveling from Florida to New York in July and always enjoyed what North Carolina had to offer. Google Maps, help me avoid those people. We’ll find a route that skirts North Carolina (I guess that’s called a boycott.) even if it takes us longer, a lot longer, and consumes more fuel. Unless the saner members of the state legislature come out against the supporters of choosing a state religion, we’ll take our business elsewhere. North Carolina, you have until July.

Mother in Law

Back in 1966, when the doctor said “It’s a boy,” all I could think of was “Oh my God, I’m going to be a Mother in Law.” Why didn’t I ever picture myself as a Mother in Law?

My mother’s definition of a Mother in Law was someone who kept her mouth shut and her purse opened. I vowed to try to keep quiet—not so easy. My kids tell me I’m opinionated and getting worse. If they don’t want my opinion, why do they keep asking for it, at all hours of the day and night? I try not to be too harsh, but I’m not so good at it.

Today is the day I awakened with a new question: Am I still a Mother in Law? I keep laughing at the skim milk/whole milk description of marriage. Clever it may be, but it isn’t really funny. 

When I had suspicions that my daughter might be gay, I asked a good friend, one who had lived with me through the ups and downs of a middle child who is still trying to figure out how to handle her intellect, coupled with other assorted issues, her answer was simple: “So what if she is?” Would that the only question we all asked about the gay community were “So what?”

People who have gay relatives, friends, co-workers know the answer to the question. We laugh with Ellen and ask“so what?” We even marvel at her beauty as she appears in advertisements for cosmetics. What a stereotype buster. Spend some time with a bunch of Lesbians. It’s fun, sort of like a sorority house—with no men to add tension to the mix. 

My children were married during the short time before California was so viciously attacked by the proponents of Proposition 8. The wording on the ballot was confusing. A vote in the affirmative was a vote against gay marriage (Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.) They had a beautiful, formal wedding, attended by family and friends, and have been living as a married couple since 2006. 

Now they wonder, will they be “unmarried?” What a funny word. Doesn’t unmarried mean divorced? Why would they get divorced? They love each other, love living together, and have a life together. They don’t want to be unmarried and I like being a Mother in Law.