Six Percenter

Went on a charity run this morning (ostensibly a Thanksgiving run for a food bank, but it would really be charitable to describe it as a run on my part, as I sloshed and shuffled alongside 9yo DD for about an hour's worth of 5k) then heard Roseanne Cash on a radio interview on the way home, extending some advice a friend had given her: "Sing for the 6 percent who are poets. They will always hear you."

Well, this one among the 6 percent may not hear you, because her ears are fucked up from Meniere's, but I will ask what, what, what did you say over and over because I WANT to hear you.

I was up over and over all night with headache and anxiety. One of those 5 a.m. mindswirls was built around what you can and can't say to people, and how to handle these things with DD. She no longer believes in Santa Claus. But it's a good bet some of her friends do, and so how do you deal with that? It requires a certain amount of social finesse. To not be rude and mean, but to just be secure in one's own convictions, tolerate ambiguity, listen with an open mind, but never let those nutjobs gain an inch when it comes to policy.

It's like me trying to converse about (or to avoid conversing about) monogamy, or Creationism, or the impartiality of Fox News. At this season, with all the togetherness, these things just...come up.

I'm sorry, what was that you said about Don't Ask Don't Tell? My hearing is just terrible.

Special Offer Extended--Tell Me to Fuck Off Thru April 14!

The new deadline for finishing my book manuscript is April 14. New moon. So many stupid work interruptions. I'm furious frustrated over not being able to write what I please. I want to write about a very good writer who died but it just doesn't seem right even if I could. I want to write about Massey Energy but that could take years. And I really want to write about Erykah Badu, but the perspicacious Wanda Sykes has pretty much said it all.



PS: Perspicacious is a good thing to call someone. Someone called me it in a letter to the editor once. It was then I discovered that it doesn't mean sweaty.