What Did Lynda Say?

Lynda was telling us, Dauna and I, about her strange encounter with Warren, which involved some kissing and yet Lynda said that she and Warren also discussed their desire not to get married because they would not want to feel obligated to kiss and hug a spouse every night. Apparently the practices of marriage seem revolting to Lynda and Warren. That was such a shocking thing for Lynda to say. I had not realized that she was in such dire need of psychological counseling. It is a good thing that the school year was almost over and Lynda graduated about a month or so later and was rarely seen or heard from after that. I wouldn't want anyone to think that I was in solidarity with Lynda's weird comment about marriage not being desirable, solidarity being a stupid Pollack word invented for use by stupid Pollack Europeans, not by intelligent Americans such as myself. Just because I heard Lynda say this, that does not give Dauna license to go around pretending that I said it. Like the Bible says, there will be two women grinding flour and one will be taken and the other left behind. Just because I was at one time in a music class with Lynda, that does not mean that I will always be there to listen to her mindless chatter.

Gary's Opinion

Perhaps Gary Arnold was also in our music class and he may remember something about the prank that involved Lynda, Dauna, and Dennis, also Mary Lasley and others, mostly second floor people rowdies, but not me. Although Gary Arnold was in our music class, I can see where Gary might not have understood that I was not involved in the prank. Of course, what would a worthless married man know about such things? Nothing, obviously. It is not like Gary and his wife, whose name I do not recall, were ever seen much at college so we really don't know anything about them except that they moved north to the Valley where so many California people go to live out their sunset years in blissful ignorance.

Money

I wonder what makes Wicked Witch Lee Bueno thinks that I would want her money? She must have me confused with Wicked Witch Sherri Turnbull, MK-Panama. What did those people do down there in Panama, anyway? It really makes you wonder, the way those Panama dogs carry on, whether they ever did any missions work at all or just performed in a special Canal Zone soap opera, living so high on the hog in Canal Zone splendor, where Americans lived isolated in a special Canal Zone conclave, housed in specially built Canal Zone dwellings and with easy access to U.S.-quality food that we in other countries knew nothing of. It's not like missionaries ever had commissary privileges at the U.S. embassy in El Salvador so no Hershey bars could be bought anywhere even if one could scrounge up enough colones. It's not like a Panama transfer ever went through so perhaps I just will never know.

Lynda's Big Fat Zero

So Lynda assigned to herself a big fat zero. That was back during college days, when she was driving that little Honda Civic that was given a special treatment by herself, wrapped in toilet paper and moved onto the front lawn across from music theory class. The night before several students pulled a huge prank, painting slogans all over the windshields of every car in the college parking lot as well as some other vandalism. Someone else's car was assigned $1 million.

I slept through the whole thing. Nobody told me anything about it. I just woke up the next morning and everything was a mess. I went to music theory class that morning and sat near Lynda and Mr. Elliott, our teacher, gently chided  Lynda, "Why did you do that, Lynda?" I learned later that Dennis and Dauna also were involved.

So just because I happened to be sitting there in the same music class as Lynda, that does not mean that I would have wanted to do that or knew anything about it or that I would want Lynda's Big Fat Zero transferred to me. No, I am not taking Zero.

Ok, so maybe it is not my place to assign the exact amount to the penny, but still I do get the distinct impression that someone owes me something if only as recompense for putting up with all of these Wicked Witches as long as I did.

It

Back when I was in college at SCC some of us were talking and one girl said something about not liking to feel like an "it" and I, just trying to be nice and sympathetic to a troubled and depressed person, said, "Yes, I know what you mean." I LIED. I actually don't know what she meant by saying that. I have no idea how to answer this question. Maybe she wanted something from a certain guy that was not due her and not something that she should be expecting from him. Don't we all have our moments when we get our priorities all mixed up? Sometimes we are just treated poorly by certain people who we really should be avoiding because they are not right for us, especially in a college setting. I am thinking that Dauna probably knows more about what "it" meant than I do because I personally don't remember anything specific. I was just trying to express empathy and be a nice friend but, anyway, sometimes it is just not worth it. And if I someday managed to recall what we were talking about at that specific time and place, would I get a prize for this extraordinary extraction of memories best forgotten? No, obviously I am not going to get a prize for dredging up these tidbits that nobody wants to remember. Nobody cares what "it" meant except some horrid witch owned by Dauna and her "Cross" minions. Otherwise, it just doesn't matter. I don't remember anything.

Not A Package Deal

I wonder why Mark thinks that he is a package deal? Actually he's not. Mark might be the property of the Rockettes and divas who dine on Park Avenue, having sold himself into Broadway slavery as pianist for hire, but I personally was not part of the deal that I recall. His mother happened to be my voice teacher in college but that was a long time ago and Broadway was never the endgame for me. I never thought much about it and never had any other communication with Mark. Thus, Mark and friends has no reason to imagine that I am attached to his Broadway portfolio. Since when do these mindless bimbo Rockettes think they have cause to send stupid messengers to serenade me with their theme song, "Short people got no reason..."? Obviously someone needs to remind those robotic mannequins that they did not get their jobs by virtue of having any content in their empty heads. For them, it was just a matter of being a clothes hanger, mostly. Otherwise nobody wants to hear from them and Mark, especially not now, not after that show of rotten attitude.

Confusions

Yes, if only I could figure out how to wring Dauna Kammerer's wicked little neck. I can't figure out what she did, only that she took some things that were said and added a whole other twist of which I have no memory so I just don't understand where all these dumpy little trailer trash dogs are coming from. Huh? Since when did anyone ever take seriously anything that silly Dauna says about anything, anyway? I never did. She is such an example of the type of dumpy dog that is obviously produced by a village of idiots, not by anything I said. She always needed someone like Lynda to keep her from spinning herself to death which apparently happened anyway. Just because her mother's maiden name is Cross, that does not mean that she has any brains in her empty skull.

Mark

Have I forgotten that Mark Hummel despises me and wants nothing to do with me? How stupid do these people think I am, anyway? Obviously, I am not going to go to New York City expecting any favors from Mark Hummel. During college I did sing at one workshop taught by Mark, only because either it was my voice teacher's idea or my accompanist was in Mark's class, and that was the only time that I ever had any interaction with Mark, who was my voice teacher's son. He took a dislike to me and said that he would not want to work with me in the future. As it turns out, it seems that I am not missing anything important anyway. It would seem that Mark Hummel favors only trashy cabaret dancer types and anyway I never had any Broadway ambitions. The things that one would have to do to succeed on Broadway would be too horrifying to contemplate. In a speech given to music students at our college, Mark described the wild partying that goes on after the shows, hotel rooms trashed and riotous carrying on late into the night. Most of us were not impressed with Mark's priorities. I just couldn't care less about New York and the Broadway music scene.

Driving Around

So I was over at Margot's house working on a school project and later her Catalonian boyfriend and the other guy came over and we got in the boyfriend's car and drove around town for a while and talked and then when we got back to the street on which Margot's house was located, there on the street corner straining for a glimpse of the bizarre sight of big sister was little sister and also Cindy Bell and that other girl whose name I don't quite recall. And later my sister was going on and on about how I looked terrified to be in a car with a guy and blah blah blah and talking about this with her friends. So this is one of the drawbacks of having a little sister, because every little detail of my life gets spun out of control by these little brats and everything just gets ridiculous. There ought to be a separate planet for me and a separate planet for them so that I can have a normal life.

The 9th Grade Fight

I vaguely remember that in 9th grade there was a fight between Margot de la Guardia, who is originally from Panama, and Patricia Cruz, who is a very scary person, very politically connected and buddy-buddy with the CIA trash who I never liked very much and who were always hostile to me, myself being the U.S. citizen in this picture. Just because I am a U.S. citizen, that does not mean there is any law requiring that I suck up to the nasty CIA dogs in order to maintain my U.S. citizenship. My purpose in life does not involve them very much and their nasty little digs never made any sense to me. Where in international law does it dictate that I must take sides in this conflict between Margot and Patty, the particulars of which I know nothing about and understand nothing? I think that Margot was the aggressor in the conflict that involved hitting each other or something, and I am not trying to excuse her behavior in that regard, but anyway I don't remember Patty ever being nice to me or inviting me to her house for lunch to work on a school project or inviting me on a double date, Margot with her Catalonian boyfriend and for myself a blind date with some guy whose name I do not now recall. Almost the only thing I remember about that is that he was talking about Comandante Che, which is a scary subject to be talking about on a blind date, and anyway I never saw him again. Anyway, it is very clever the way Patty is trying to expand her personal conflict into something that it never really was. I never gave Patty much thought because she had her rigidly inflexible clique, never thought of her as a friend of the United States, which includes me whether she likes it or not. All of this trashing of white women, this transference of the map of Spain onto the United States, serves very well the purposes of Fidel Castro. Perhaps Patty and her buddies would feel more comfortable residing in Cuba once the emigration papers have been worked out.

I am surprised to see Carol and some others jumping on the train to Havana. I don't recall ever discussing these matters with her, nor did we ever talk about the particulars of Spanish literature that I was studying in high school, things such as the novel about the president of Guatemala, where Carol has some connections although I don't know anything about that.

Thus, all these bad jokes about nuns, "Sor" being the nunnery's designation for sister, are doubly bizarre. I never studied the works of that Uruguayan nun, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, so I am totally baffled by these allusions to nunnery. Hamlet's line, "Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?" was spoken to Ophelia, who apparently deserved to be abused and cast aside by the man who was supposed to be her husband because she trusted him too much. So, like, huh?

No one ever said that random acts of violence were ever intended to make any sense.

To Control is to be Different

I am not very socialistic in my inclinations. I believe that social groups are only one of many factors that determine who I am, not the only thing, and should not be that much in control, especially not social groups that do not represent who I am at the core and only played a peripheral role in my life, especially persons that I never even met and don't know anything about. Thus we see that I cannot be defined by any single "village" no matter how compelling the story seething with concealed ethnic hostilities might appear to these simplistic liberal Democrats who rake in millions of dollars publishing mindless tomes about "villages." Did the thought never cross their minds that this concept of "village" could be a nightmare of unending horrors if fully explored? Thus, I would prefer to follow the Biblical prescription which advises not to carry away very much from these dark places, these abysmally underdeveloped "villages" and, if treated poorly, to shake the sand off my shoes and move on to the next place without ever looking back, keeping the eyes on the goal that is ahead, the prize of the high calling of Christ, for which high school contributes not very much and which, if dwelt upon too heavily, produces nothing of any significance to me and only reminds of adolescent pangs best forgotten in adulthood.

Agencies

That was strange the way Stacy was yapping about cleaning fluids and the virtues of being a paid housecleaner and how she got housecleaning jobs from the housecleaning job agencies to fund her opera singing lessons from the teacher whose studio is at the Met and to pay her living expenses while auditioning for opera jobs in NYC. Of course, that was all before she fell and got pregnant out of wedlock and had to leave town. And don't I want to go to New York and be another wannabe showgirl who cleans houses for a living? As I was saying, I think that I did not go back to school for a journalism degree with the expectation of auditioning for opera and Broadway revues and the related accompanying garbage that goes along with living in NYC. Surely a college degree is worth more than that. What kind of misery would await me in NYC? I can't think of anyone in NYC that I would actually want to meet up with. Better to find a job that fits my personality and skills than to waste a lot of time beating the bushes trying to find something that won't work for me.

Frizzed Out Days

Those were the days of high school, when people came for a short time and then quickly disappeared. Shortly after an earthquake in Nicaragua, there was a new girl in our class. She had been living in Nicaragua but her school was damaged so she was sent to El Salvador for a few months or to finish out the school year or something. She was Jewish and had white-blonde frizzy hair. I don't remember what her name was but she definitely was not Elizabeth Lobos, another classmate whose frizzy hair is more like dark brown and whose family owned the bread factory company whose delivery trucks should not be confused with those trucks that carried the Mennonite bread. I perhaps vaguely remember chatting with the Nicaraguan transfer outside of history class or else overhearing her talking or something but I don't remember anything else specific about her except maybe her parents were Israeli diplomats or at least something diplomatic. Perhaps Ivonne Chavez would remember this. Anyway, the Nicaragua trasnfer was not there for a very long time. Obviously the Nicaraguan transfer should not be confused with the Jewish daughter of the owner of the ice cream company, Estrella Polar (or was it the chocolate bar company Popeye?), who never attended our school but whose house was located next door to and adjacent to the mission house and Bible Institute. I personally never lived in that house. During the war those companies were severely affected by bombings and violence but I was gone by then so I don't really know anything about that. I only know that they were Jewish and had a daughter near our age because of something that Susie Stewart said. Otherwise, I never saw them or had any contact with them and have no clue what their story might be.

Spanish Ladies

Yes, who was that horrid Spanish lady who was married to Albert Snell? I do not remember a single thing about her, not even her name, because she was such a nothing, just nobody, just some sort of attachment to the "Get-Rich-Quick" scheme that Al Snell was cooking up somewhere, not that I personally ever clearly understood what he was up to, just something about making a lot of money and he was from San Diego so somehow connected to some church people that were known to somebody and Rick was her stepson, not really his mother. When we were back in the U.S. and visiting San Diego we drove by their place to chat but did not get out of the car. I personally do not care if we ever see them again and anyway I heard that Al died so we probably won't be hearing from them again, although this abundance of clues is just way too much overkill. It's not like I cared about hearing from Rick again anyway, such a bore he was, even more so now, but obviously I am being provoked and am expected to fight back although I have no idea why I should care. You have your place.

The Central American Question

A speech by Eli Thayer (1819-1899) on the "Central American Question" is a peculiar Appendix tacked on near the end of a book about the Kansas Crusade, which mostly has to do with the Kansas Territory's appeal for statehood, which was attained in 1861. Thayer was a Massachusetts Congressman who did much to establish anti-slavery settlements in the Kansas, hoping that Kansas would be admitted to the Union as a free state. The result was "Bleeding Kansas," a series of violent clashes between anti-slavery and proslavery settlers that presaged the American Civil War soon to follow. Kansas was admitted to the Union as a free state in 1861, about three months before the outbreak of hostilities between North and South.

Thayer's speech of January 1858 is quite peculiar and the printed version in the book even includes a laugh track, laughter cues inserted for no apparent reason because nothing that he says in the speech is at all funny, and neither is the subject of slavery in any way funny, which is why probably no one really laughed. The speech is horrifying, actually.

Thayer proposes that the central question is how to "Americanize" Central America, yet Thayer does not seem to know anything about Central America other than mainly that probably American interests should be protected there. He seems not to know that Central America abolished slavery in 1823. If he is such a proponent of abolition, why does he admit that slavery might be practiced in Central America and even says some peculiar things about the practice of slavery? It is fairly obvious, then, that he is probably talking about British Honduras, where large plantations were established along the Atlantic coast for the large-scale cultivation of bananas, and also probably Nicaragua's Mosquito Coast, where bananas can be easily shipped to ports in the Gulf of Mexico such as New Orleans.

Thayer talks much about the possibility of organizing colonists to establish white settlements in Central America but also admits that most of the focus of immigration policies of the United States at the time was focused on directing incoming European immigrants to sparsely populated territories such as Kansas that had not yet attained statehood. Thus, there was no real impetus for Kansas to send settlers to Central America.

Thayer suggestst that perhaps the proslavery Gulf States would be interested in taking up the challenge of colonizing Central America and assuming the duties of slave master there. After all, slavery is legal in the Gulf States so those Deep South folks would not have a problem with assuming the duties of feeding and clothing the Negroes they purchase to harvest bananas.

Thayer basically says that a Yankee attempting to practice slavery would be too perplexed by the ethical dilemmas posed by owning Negroes and having to assume this tax on the sensitive conscience of the abolitionist.

"Black" Central America

Like I was saying to someone who asked, maybe Stacy although I don't remember, there really are almost no black people in El Salvador, at least not when I lived there that I recall, not that I would know a whole lot about that. It is not like I ever studied that in depth, but although some people there have frizzy black hair rather than straight black hair, most of the people there are of the mestizo race, which means a blend of Spanish and Indian. There could well be a little bit of African mixed in but it is not very noticeable or predominant on the Pacific Coast. Of course, the Atlantic coast of Central America is a very different story. There are some black people groups that settled in Atlantic/Caribbean coastal areas of Honduras and Nicaragua and Panama, but over hundreds of years there was not very much migration of black people across the hilly border areas into El Salvador, which was originally inhabited by Indian tribes, the Pipil and the Lenca and possibly others. Much has been said in history books about the Pipil but very little about the Lenca and other tribes all striving for dominance there, the Lencas pushing out the Pipils or something like that. Anyway, the racial designation of "mestizo" is a useful device that blurs these original tribal distinctions, both Spanish and Indian, and possibly even African. If you scratched the surface, you might find more distinctions than are readily apparent to an uninformed white person such as myself, but actually they probably know who they are.

Carol

Of course we all know that Carol, MK-Brazil, was the one who takes the prize for trashiest drug addict-slut of them all. Carol is the one who sinned much more wickedly than I ever thought of. Carol was very lucky to marry Nathan Mintle, whose politically powerful family can protect her from the consequences of her own bad behavior. Still, I don't see where I did anything to deserve all of this wrath. As a consequence of the Mintle's political machinations, I have less respect than ever for that sleazy piece of trash known as Carol Mintle. Not an intelligent thought ever emitted from her empty brain and I would not want to have to include that piece of trash in my social circle, speaking of course of Carol Mintle.

Dante's Heaven?

So in Dante's version of Heaven, Beatrice is the beloved one who gives the guided tour of heaven, although in Spanish literature class we really didn't get past the "Inferno" part. We ran out of time for "Purgatory" and "Heaven." Of course, that was only literature. In real life we all know that Beatrice is the wife of Harold Mintle, a missionary in Ecuador, and that a guided tour of the Mintle institution would be like a nightmare to us. Who knows what vile things might lurk in the den of the Mintle cases housed there? I don't know and I really don't want to know anything about those wicked sinners. We all know that the Mintles were not really any better when compared to other missionaries on the planet and that they are for some baffling and mysterious reason extremely overhyped given that they never did anything except talk too much. We don't have any fond memories of the whiny Mintle trash.

High School Misery

I remember high school mostly as a time of miserable misery, a time when I had no real friends, a time when there was nothing to look forward to except a future time beyond high school when I would have returned home to the U.S. and met my real friends and found a real life for myself beyond the confines of the limited and miserably depressing social structures of high school in a foreign country, where the only American people are really not all that American, as for example obnoxious Libby Penders who always was completely useless in terms of being a high school classmate and whose face, in case you did not get the message, I really don't care if I never see again in this lifetime, certainly not after high school graduation. Did I not say farewell loudly enough? So why are these obnoxious high school people still trying to extend their days of glory long after high school is past? Just because you drove a car in high school while I did not even learn how to drive until age 19, that does not mean that your "advantage" will matter in the long run. There is no reason for you to be constantly sticking your nose into every little thing that I do in my long lifetime, hoping to preserve your artificial "advantage" into eternity. In the end, it really won't matter what your descendants do later if you yourself are burning in hell.

Camilo Connection?

1. I remember in high school agreeing with Carol that Camilo Sesto's music is just too racy and embarrassingly explicit for a girl to actually listen to, sadly like a lot of Spanish music and poetry because he does have a good voice.
2. In high school English class we intensively studied Ernest Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea," about the Cuban fisherman who lands a whopper.
3. Earlier today while trolling the Internet I read about the existence of Camilo Guevara, son of Che, who is apparently some sort of Minister of Fishing for the Cuban government.
4. One of my Spanish literature teachers might have been of Cuban origin although I really don't remember.

Question: Are these dots connected?

Conclusion: No, these dots are not connected in any way. Nowadays there are Cubans everywhere in the U.S. but especially here in Florida. So does this make me a Communist? No, I am not a Communist and not interested in being stuffed in that political box, a simplistic closed-box system that ultimately doesn't actually work just like my sealed ecosystem jar in biology couldn't last forever without getting very cloudy in there. Obviously, they get a lot of help from their friends, too.

Menudo

That was very strange how someone, maybe Stacy, was asking me about the musical group Menudo, sort of insinuating something like that's probably the only Spanish music I ever heard of. I have heard of Menudo, that being a famous group of little boys who do teenybopper music that little junior high girls like to listen to and from which emerged the famous singer Ricky Martin, who does mostly mindless bar-hopping dance music that I mostly never listen to although I am aware of that. I never go to nightclubs so have no connection to the Ricky Martin scene and have no idea why Stacy would be so fascinated with the thought of Menudo. I may have heard talk of Menudo or read an article about them in a magazine but I am really not familiar with their music. It would be just like a silly Puerto Rican dog to think that Menudo is the only Spanish music on the planet and Ricky Martin the only Spanish singer. Like I was saying to Stacy, I remember from high school listening to songs by Mocedades, a Spanish group that Stacy, for all her "Spanishness," says she has never heard of, but I don't know anything about Menudo, a word that could also be mistaken for a bowl of soup or used to indicate the passage of time, such a menudo or por menudo, frequently or often. However, I see no reason to post on Facebook music by Menudo which was not really something that I ever listened to or know anything about. Of course, more recently I have posted a lot of things on Youtube that I never noticed before when in high school. Suddenly seeing all these things put together a certain way, I realize that I am not the first to assemble this thing, whatever it is. Likewise, I see no reason to post on Facebook that song that Mocedades did about Che Guevara. I was shocked to see the video there on Youtube because I did not realize that Mocedades was that political, although they are ethnic Basques in Spain, but I don't remember seeing or being aware of that in high school and I don't know anything about it. I only remember some of their older songs that played on the radio that were not so political, just nice songs about the things of youth that are sort of universal to human existence, although maybe there was more politics to that than I realized at the time. I did like their song, "Eres Tu," "El Vendedor," and some others but I did not buy any Spanish records in high school so I really don't remember other than some things I heard here and there.

Representation

I wonder what makes the sleazy unelectable Bob Hoskins and his tribe of Labor trash idiots think that I would want them to represent me at the collective bargaining table? I would rather die free than be thrown under the bus driven by the creepy worthless Bueno-Hoskins family and their brood of unspeakable dogs. Of course this cannot be expressed in actual words in a civil society, but still something should be done to disable the Hoskins machine before it gets any worse. After all, I am an adult now. It has been a very long time since I was three years old and so the naughtiness of early childhood is entirely irrelevant in the course of current events. Thus, my life story is entirely unconnected to the wicked basketball antics of Dave and Rob. I am not about to sign over anything to the control of thieving cook Robbie, who knows nothing but food, and his bratty descendants and kin. Everything must stay in the family, and my family does not include the wicked Bueno-Hoskins thieves. I am not related to those whiners and they will have no role in any estate planning that I would ever do, assuming that I would ever have an estate. I should not have to explain this.

Valley of the Dolls

How many times do I have to explain that I never read that novel "Valley of the Dolls" so I do not have a clue what that book is about or have anything to say about that. Like I already explained to someone, maybe Stacy, I vaguely remember seeing this trashy novel around high school, maybe I remember seeing it in Joan's locker or somebody's desk and some people, maybe including Joan although I don't remember who, talking about it or something like that but I did not read it so nothing really sticks in my mind. It's not like dippity dumb Joan ever had anything of intelligence or merit to say about anything, being a categorically mindless Labor trash Democrat, so it is not like I would be impressed by Joan's book report on "Valley of the Dolls," although I don't remember anything about it if it ever happened. I can see where a crude and vulgar primitive like Carmen Alfaro would probably be impressed by the idiotic ramblings of Joan but I never was.

No More Intimidation

There is absolutely no reason why I should feel intimidated by the spectacle of dumpy dog Joan Calabrese pretending to be a "fashionista." Joan was never anything but a minor nuisance in the alphabetical order of things, her locker very near mine but I really couldn't care less and don't remember what she had in there. I could say pretty much the same thing about that dishonorable dog Marta Brizuela, a whiny nuisance who has way too much money for her own good. Just having a sister who attended the Sorbonne does not mean that you ever did the homework or ever held the political office in the family.

All of which makes me wonder who bombed the SAT. My score wasn't that bad, all things considered. Although I did not achieve the genius range of creepy weirdo Dave Hoskins, obviously test scores are no guarantee of future success as we see from the pathetically bad example of Dave Hoskins.

So obviously someone bombed the SAT and I don't appreciate a creepy stranger such as Dave Hoskins, who has no business pretending to know anything about me or having any connection to my high school class, insinuating that it was me. I am not that dumb. I always did my homework. My GPA was affected by various factors so obviously I did not make the National Honor Society, not that it matters. Almost the only person who did get into the NHS was Carmen Alfaro so obviously that does not mean very much. Huei-nin Liu also made the NHS but she was smart.

Thus, there is no reason for anyone to expect me to share Joan's "pain." In fact, I couldn't care less about that filthy wicked witch, speaking of Joan, and I don't want to ever see her poking her putrid nose into my personal life that way ever again. She has her place on the high school alumni list and that is all she is going to get from me.

Bill

Yes, what a joke, Bill Maginn pretending to be my friend. We all know that Bill's body is just a shell and that he is possessed by a thousand or more spirits of other people. The lights may be on at Bill's house but there is never anybody there. In fact, I think that Bill is not even a real person, just a composite of something else.

Boxcars

It is unfortunate for me that the Bueno-Hoskins mafia syndicate has me boxed into this corner. They keep telling me to "do" something, but what am I supposed to do? I am as good as dead for all intents and purposes. You say you're sorry now but you waited until I was as good as dead and lost everything before even trying figure out what happened because that is how these Nazi-Fascists work. Stop pretending to be sorry for me when you know good and well you did this on purpose. Stop pretending that I have any reason to go on living when you already stole my life. I have no friends other than these parasites they send to hover around waiting for me to die, as if I were some type of cancer, not really a human being, so that as soon as I die they can take whatever is left over, not that I have much, just a car and some books and clothes and a computer and some other miscellaneous items of no special interest. To me they never say anything of any significance or importance, just some worthless garbage chatter, but obviously some other type of conversation is going on out there in the dens where the Buenos and Hoskins congregate with other parasitic criminals of like mind. How can I have a real and healthy social life when I cannot get these parasites off my back? And the FBI and the CIA and everyone else is working on their side, collaborating with these mafia criminals  to steal my livelihood for no particular reason, apparently just because they don't like me very much and I wasn't friendly enough in high school to suit certain people, as if there were a law requiring me to suck up to certain people on their payroll. All I know about high school is that Chester Stemp always was the principal and I cannot imagine things some other way. I might have been overly shy in high school but that is not a crime to be punished. Lots of people are very shy and nobody puts a gun to their heads, so why me? In fact, I was pretty smart to avoid certain people, truth be told. I don't need their garbage.

It's Only Fair

I think that if I am going to be dumped willy-nilly into the bucket of newspaper owner, sight unseen, that I should have the millions of dollars at my disposal and power to make my own decisions which naturally come attached to such a categorical dismissal of everything that I am and stand for. After all, it is not fair that I submit to being led around with the "Woolsey" pulled over my eyes. This is how the game is currently rigged and the cards stacked against me. If I were a chain smoker driving a Mercedes-Benz I probably would have a clue about Joan and Heather and what they did with their lives but as it is I never liked either one of those nasty people and never had any contact with them so I cannot have them making decisions about my money when I am quite intelligent and capable of thinking for myself. They have no rights and I have no money so these numbers just don't add up.

Public vs. Private

If truth be told, nothing important is accomplished by sharing important information with these shirttail dogs Stacy Cox and her paramour Gilbert Southwell the Third of Wisconsin. Obviously, the Cox family of Ohio did not retain private ownership of a newspaper for all these years, and treating their employees very well I must say, by sharing confidential information with the dippity dumb Cox family of North Carolina, represented locally by Stacy's blithering idiot husband. The Cox family of Ohio is not really connected in modern times to the Cox family of North Carolina, obviously, so unless they want to get themselves qualified with appropriate education and get a job working for the Post, they are not going to get a piece of the action by just hanging out on street corners and gossiping in bars.

The Landlords from Wisconsin

So perhaps you are the wicked landlady and her husband from Wisconsin of the El Dorado apartment complex to whom I owe not one penny of outstanding rent payments. Did I not leave a forwarding address there? How utterly rude to be screaming at my music when actually you are despicable hideous woman weighing about five hundred pounds by now probably. These disgusting riff-raff landlords have no place in my future life. Just because perhaps we walked past each other on the stairs a couple of times and thus had to endure your obnoxious presence for such a long time as that, I don't see how that entitles you to intrude anywhere into my personal life. Go back to your office where you belong and don't poke your nose where it doesn't belong. I had to be nice when I stopped in to pay the rent due to the laws of courtesy and civility but I really could not handle the pending rent increase so I left and, anyway, you really have no right to dictate how many magazines I can stack at one time or toss on which day of the month. Unbelievable!

Bills

Yes, I have often wondered whether I ever received a couple of bills that were outstanding when I left California and disconnected my telephone number and changed my address. So instead of forwarding the bill to my new address, you just screamed and yelled at me and so I never want to hear from you again ever in this lifetime. Go to hell Pat! You will get no benefit from trashing me because I will take you with me or against me. Either way, you lose! Ha ha ha!

Church

At church in El Salvador people are always hugging each other. Every time I leave church on Sunday morning I have to smile and hug that mentally retarded lady who is there standing near the front door with her mother who is always with her. She is a Mongoloid. On New Year's Eve church service at midnight especially everybody has to hug everybody else around them. It's just something that they do there, hugging each other to show Christian love. Of course, the people at school are not Christians and I guess sometimes I forget that. A lot of those people are pagans and Jehovah Witnesses or whatever so they would not have any real understanding of Christian love. They would rather kill people than hug them. Sad but true.

Mejía

Reviewing the high school yearbook recently I suddenly noticed something that I had never thought of in high school, that Antonia Mejía from church, the boyfriend of my sister's friend Conchi, and China Mejía, a from high school, someone I never thought of or met or spoke to or would ever have been interested in mingling with, just vaguely remember seeing his face there, have the same last name. I never noticed that during high school and it doesn't necessarily mean anything. After all, lots of people in Spanish have the same name and are not that closely related. There really aren't that many Spanish last names in comparison to English for some reason so the list of Gonzalez, Rodriguez, Sanchez is endless. It is impossible to say from just seeing a last name whether there is much connection if any. So it is interesting and yet means nothing to me because the two worlds, church and school, don't mix very well for some reason. Mainly it is because the wealthy people who attend the expensive private school would probably prefer not to mingle and rub elbows with the hoi polloi common middle class down to very poor people one finds at our churches. It is the case that in Latin America society is much more stratified in terms of social class which explains a stricter separation there between rich and poor, not that I would know anything about that. I was only visiting that country, not planning to stay forever in that social limbo land. It's not like I would ever have any reason to exchange information or go back there because nobody ever asked me nor would they ever.

Book Burning

Yes, it was my parents who had a book burning and thus destroyed several old books that were considered extraneous and surplus or in horrible condition beyond repair, including the volumes that had holes bored through them by bookworms because there actually is such a creature or else unsuitable for the eyes of children attending the little school, San Salvador Christian Academy. Yes, it is rather horrible and sad to contemplate the fact that some books were obliterated from the face of the earth. Just think of the horrible loss of library books that ensued when the library at Alexandria, Egypt, was destroyed by fire in 48 B.C. Julius Caesar didn't mean to burn the library, only his own ships for military reasons, and yet countless manuscripts are lost to posterity because of a careless warrior playing with matches. And so it is that various books were burned at the MK School although I don't remember which ones. It wasn't my idea. If it were up to me, no book would ever be discarded. If there were only some place to put them all I would have a huge personal library because I love books and it is hard for me to let the books go. Better to pass the books along to someone who wants them rather than toss them in a landfill. Still, I am sure that books get thrown away all the time. Thus, it makes no sense to slit my throat over some books that my parents burned. Just because they had a huge bonfire out on the basketball court, that does not mean that it was a witch burning kind of thing. There were some strange books there of which I remember almost nothing, just that they were stashed in the back of the storage room so that nobody could find them until my parents got busy cleaning things out, and my mothers always did love to throw things away.

..A "Lead Pipe" Cinch

Yes, like I was saying to someone, probably that mental retard Stacy Cox, "lead pipe" simply refers to the game of Clue, like, you know, Colonel Mustard in the study with the lead pipe. Everyone in America understands the reference to "lead pipe" so there is no need to explain. But my words are wasted on this blithering idiot Cox family. They don't own a newspaper. They are just a stupid hick from the sticks math teacher who never got a clue that he is way over his head outside of his hillbilly hometown.

Heinz 57 Varieties

Whenever my family is asked about our ethnic background, my Dad often tells a joke. He says that we are Heinz 57 Varieties. I must caution that this is a joke not to be taken so seriously. It is just a joke. It just means that we are a little bit of everything, you know, English, Scottish, maybe Irish, German, maybe French, maybe Dutch, etc. Not that it matters very much in white America. Anyway, it's not like my family ever put much stock in genealogical research or ever thought of going back there. What would we find there? Probably just ordinary people, nothing to get excited about. Only in these modern days of online resources have we rediscovered some interesting information about the Calkins who arrived in America in 1640. We used to have no idea, really. My uncle said we were Welsh but I don't know. The name could have Irish origins or maybe it is an English word, an attachment to a horseshoe. With a "u" in the name we might have been caulkers, maybe window sealers or boat builders, but we don't have a "u" in our name, and anyway, we really don't understand why it should be this important. After all, no castle real estate is involved.

Jack Ketchup?

I am endeavoring at all costs to avoid this crude and vulgar British man. His name is Jack Ketch and perhaps he imagines that his endless mental looping will fascinate an American girl like me, but he is wrong about that. I am horrified to see his beady eyes staring out from the page at me. At me? I must be out of my mind to think that he is looking at me because obviously I am not a known person over there, my ancestors long gone from that unbearable place, and besides I would not fit there. My place is America. Just because I once thought of writing my autobiography, that does not mean that my life's story merits being thrown into the same category as infamous autobiographical author Jack Ketch.  As Jack himself has said, "...a tribe of literary locusts, called autobiographers, is at this moment enveloping the atmosphere of letters in Egyptian darkness; a Cimmerian gloom which neither the rod of Moses, nor any other rod with which I am acquainted, is able to disperse." Fortunately, I have not yet ventured pen to paper on my autobiography, despite what I said at age 10, because obviously I would have to have something in my head to say and as yet, nothing of significance comes to mind. Perhaps I will die first and spare myself the trouble of writing. After all, as Jack has said, "Death is the great overtaker of all our schemes; these thwarted, he makes room for the undertaker."

Primary Documents

Mr. DePaul was such a good teacher as far as high school social studies were concerned. I always found his class very interesting. I still remember the time when he talked about looking at the diaries and letters handwritten by pioneer women and men, now donated and stored away in the university library and brought out only to be perused by qualified persons doing valuable historical research. He talked about how fascinating it was to have the actual primary documents in one's hand, with the actual words of the persons in question being almost the only thing left of them, almost the only record that exists of historical events such as, for example, the Donner Pass excursion which came to such dire straits. Yes, I suppose it could be interesting. Back in those 1970s nobody could find the primary documents so I really wouldn't know what he was talking about. Nowadays it is interesting to see that many of these documents are now online and accessible to the general public, to persons not qualified to digest the historical research but who find it interesting and helpful for their personal project of some sort. Take for example the witchcraft collection at Cornell University. No longer do researchers have to travel to New York to find the evidence of centuries past. There it is, a gold mine of useful information handed down by the unnamed physician of Hertfordshire in a letter to his friend, "A Full Confutation of Witchcraft."

The doctor says: "A learned man at Paris was accused of magic, for printing a commentary on the Tenth Book of Euclid; and a Norman gentleman observing from the barometer, that it would not be long before it rained, got his hay mowed whilst the fine weather lasted, which made the country people report, he held a correspondence with the Devil. The water experiment to try witches, is the most fallacious of any, so is that of Marks about the body: a mole or wart, or any excrescency, passing current for the stamp of the Devil. It would be endless to recount the several idle tokens the country people have of witchcraft, and not one of them with the least shadow of reason."

Yes, and who was saying that my birthmark, a giant freckle on my arm, makes me of necessity some sort of witch? As if those "people" ever had anything intelligent to say! Ha!

The doctor describes the battle against witches as a struggle of genders, the male priest eclipsing the mean old woman witch, sort of ignoring the fact of male warlocks fattening their own wallets for no particular reason, especially in the days before Christ when pagan religions were mostly a channel of demonic activity. 

The doctor is elaborating the story of Anne Thorn, a silly woman prone to having fits. Anne Thorn is the maid who concocts a bizarre and illogical story unsupported by the available witnesses when she is found sitting in front of the hearth in disarray, apparently with no clothes on, and confronted by Mrs. Gardiner, the woman of the house. It is thought by locals that Anne Thorn has been bewitched by Jane Wenham, a local person who calls herself a witch.

The doctor believes that Anne Thorn is merely a helpless lunatic.

The doctor says: "But one thing must not be omitted here, viz., that Anne Thorn never complained to these Divines, of the Devil's uneasiness at the frequent removes they gave him by prayer; or that Jane Wenham finding her power wasting by the frequent application of that lip salve, did not amongst other threatenings, warn Anne Thorn against this frequent prayer: No, we find her, by their own account, equally successful, and triumphing over their sham miracles, and themselves exposed as a company of raw artists."