In Which Life Resembles a Murder Mystery

Whodunnit? We break from vacation to comment. I should have known not to believe the official version, which was furthermore heavily sold to me and whose 'other side' I never heard. I believed the narrator and I should perhaps not have done so.

In the official version, Group A is the culprit. Group A victimized a minor victim, B, and a major one, C. Group D sacrificed B, because B was in her own way also a culprit, but rode to the rescue of C, who was a hero. Now it is revealed to me that C is also a culprit, perhaps a greater one than A.

Some questions: who really victimized B, and was B really a culprit? Is it possible that C actually victimized both A and B? And if this is the case, is D protecting C out of friendship . . . or has D been bamboozled by C? Or, on the other hand, is the mystery even deeper: did D use C to take revenge upon A, with B as collateral damage? Would that explain why D is so protective of C, and why C is so nervous?

EPA HEY!

En vacances

Rent Party is on vacation and will be until August! Unsane, Geoffrey, and Stephen are just going to have to post! Meanwhile we will be dancing La Bamba in Veracruz.



EPA HEY!

ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES

Women in Congo need your help

White Hot

This is a guest post from a friend, not normally a collaborator here, who for reasons of discretion cannot post it on her own site.

Another of the reasons I do not work with 'feminist' or Women's Studies faculty is that so much of their energy seems to go into justifying the boorish behavior of men. "He means well," they say, "and he is surely struggling with his behavior and attitude." The rejoinder "Consider what he did" falls upon deaf ears.

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Another reason I disagree with the Twelve Step movement is that they do not encourage people to leave abusive relationships. "S/he will only get into another one," they say. In the first place I find that terribly condescending - that is to say, abusive. In the second place I note that people who are in one abusive relationship may be in two or more - at home and at work, for example. Getting out of one such relationship may in fact show them that abuse has an exterior. It may help them see how to get out of the other. They may also live in an entire culture where abuse is the norm and non-abuse the exception.

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I do not like the way women my age treat teenagers - they are so snide and condescending it makes me want to cringe. I just told the dueña of my ceramics studio that I did not want to have to watch her speak to the resident seventeen year old in the tone she uses to her. The dueña said she speaks to her in that tone because she likes her. My stomach turned over, and my shoulders and lungs froze. I wanted to take my lovely, newly glazed Japanese tea set out into the concrete yard and throw it piece by piece against the wall. I resisted that temptation by promising myself I would write this post.

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I do not like having to engage in, and parry teasing by the lady's husband, either. He thinks it is amusing banter but I think it is abuse when not just a distraction. I try to laugh at him, make him see the silliness of his ways, because I have already paid for this month's kiln use and I do not want him to ruin my things. He wants us to "talk" about my disagreement with his behavior but I think that is just another attempt on his part to take up my time.

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When I was a small child my brother used to bully me and my mother would egg him on with an eerie grin. I protested but it was explained to me that since I was older and smarter than my brother I owed him the opportunity to bully me. To protect myself, I should pretend it was not happening. This would make it stop.

Then I went to school and boys bullied me. My mother did intervene and understand when some girls bullied me. But she said bullying by boys was a compliment. It was something to be glad about, even grateful for. Something to grab onto and negotiate with.

When I found out in the second half of the fourth grade that marriage was not obligatory, I felt the strongest rush of relief I have ever felt in my life. If I did not marry, I would not have to share living space with a bully.

Nevertheless I may now be sharing studio space with two. It makes me jittery for the reasons I have already explained and also because I suspect these two people are acting out with or on me the tensions in their marriage.

That, of course, is what my parents did, and when I find this replayed I am ready to use any weapon I have against the perpetrators - the larger and the more destructive, the better.

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I still need to learn better ways of dealing with abusive people. Negotiating with them is not the answer, and just ignoring them or pretending one is not, or should not be affected is no answer, either. I find myself trying to ignore or negotiate with abuse for all too long a time. Then consciousness of what is happening breaks through in white hot rage and I am capable of advancing upon people as my father did, and hitting them right where I know it will most hurt with precise and damning words enunciated perfectly through my sharpened teeth.

Witnesses sometimes tell me I have been justified in my reactions but I know when they have been out of line - too mild or too strong - by how I feel physically.

EPA HEY!

Francis Bacon

In my company we have a President, a Vice President, a Treasurer, and some other honorary figures, including secretaries, at the top. Then there are several Managers, of which I am one. Under us are Supervisors, and under them are Workers.

Today's featured post is by the Field Negro. It quotes Francis Bacon, via Jay Bookman, thus:

'Always tell the king the truth,' Sir Francis Bacon wrote in a letter to his friend. Tell the king what he needs to hear, not what he wants to hear.

'If you flatter him, you betray him,' Bacon warned. 'If you conceal the truth of those things from him . . . you are as dangerous a traitor to this state as he that riseth in arms against him.'

This is of course very useful to me in my current struggles with the President, one of whose names actually is King (to be fair, while we are naming names, I will reveal my own name: Cybèle).

Those are parts of our true names, but now, using false names, I will list the managers in my company who have left, and those who are now here in their places. I will not include those who have come and gone in the meantime, nor of those who have stayed, as I have. I will list only those with whom I started and who have left, and those who have replaced them.

The reason I am doing this is that although I had not thought of it in a direct way, our company has changed. I think it has changed for the worse, and it may have changed its color or its culture. I would like to see if that is true.

Members of the original crew of Managers who have left are: Benedito, Deborah, Domingo, Francisco, Marie, Oscar.

The new Managers are: Amadou, Antonio, Carolina, Fabrizio, Monique, Nicole.

And so I get it. All of the old Managers were interesting and colorful, but three of the six new ones are mere organization 'men'.

How many, then, are left in my cohort? Let us see: Alonso, Jean, May, Rose, Susan, Ricardo, and me.

Ah, what a reduced group! Half of the original crew is gone! No wonder things seem so colorless nowadays!

How many new ones are we hiring? Two. How many of these are colorful? One. Should we offer him a salary supplement to make sure he comes and entertains us? Yes.

This brings us to our other featured post for the day, on the importance of personality in the workplace. I favor personality, and in this I am apparently unusual.

EPA HEY!

Yo no soy 'americano'

"Yo no soy americano, pero comprendo el inglés." This is the Corrido de Joaquín Murieta, sung by Los Madrugadores, and it is very beautiful.

EPA HEY!

May Rent

Now having studied expenses for several months and discovered how and where I overspend - I really, really must cut and it is hard to see where and how and maintain any sort of quality of life, but it is necessary - I am going to a new system.

We know there are $3000 each month and that about $2000 of it, or less if I am lucky, go to standard expenses and fees, most if not all of which are automatically deducted from checking. These include mortgage, another loan, various fees, and utilities.

That means there are $1000 left to spend. This is for everything else: food, fun, shopping of all kinds, charity, gifts, health, beauty, home repair, office expenses, research costs, everything. It is not enough. And it varies.

What I do see consistently is that groceries and things bought at grocery stores are $400 each month. What I can do is buy in bulk, never eat out for anything except social occasions, join the new organic co-op I have heard of, and cut.

What I will do is spend everything in cash. I will take $200 every week and spend that or less. This will leave something to save, or for problem moments - or so I hope. I will or will not keep notes / keep track of things here, depending on how things go, but I will not keep the same kinds of records I have been keeping because it seems so obsessive.

General guidelines are that I must keep from buying anything, or spending any money on health, travel, and so on that is not paid for from savings. I was always taught that health was a necessity, and my travel is a business necessity so I always just did it. I also do not really have excessive shopping habits.

I am not a penny pincher but for a non penny pincher I am economical. Yet I must now live more like a penny pincher because I want to keep traveling (even travel more) ... and to spend money on health and beauty (even more) ... and occasionally buy beautiful objects (although less than I have in the past) ... and do things to the house, as house situations arise. So I am going to find some ways to penny pinch.

EPA HEY!

A Perception

Something my mother said made me see her, through a glass darkly. The reason she is chronically depressed is not just because of my father's alcoholism but because she wants to leave and does not feel she can. The reason she does not feel she can is not that he supports her but that she does not feel she should.

It is his alcoholism that makes her so lonely. It is her feeling she must stand by him, not an unwillingness to work or be on her own, that makes her feel so trapped. That is why she feels suicide would be her most graceful exit. Unwillingness to work or be on her own are ways she has of covering up for my father - that is, if she said she was staying because she felt bound to do so, it would dishonor them both, so she says it is her unwillingness to work.

It is easier to say that she is unwilling to work and that she wants to commit suicide than it is to say she wants to leave. Suicide is a metaphor for the death she suffers in the marriage and also the social or identity death, or transformation, she would have to suffer if she left it.

I am a reproduction of her although I do not play this dynamic out in the realm of marriage. I play it out elsewhere.

EPA HEY!

Iansan

Wednesday is the feast of our saint, Iansan, so it is time to get ready. See her dance!

EPA HEY!

An Update

I have heard from Katya!

In honor of this I have created a new drink: mix in a blender equal parts by volume of freshly squeezed orange juice and very ripe canteloupe pieces. Serve with ice cubes. It is subtle and sophisticated, you will see.

EPA HEY!