I Never Bragged

Of course, I never bragged about not cheating. I am not saying that cheaters have no talents either. But obviously if the authorities were playing fair the cheaters would get their desserts and eat their humble pie instead of trying to shove it in my face. I do feel sorry for David but he was wrong about many things and I cannot in good conscience pretend that I agree with him on ideological and philosophical grounds. In order to do that, I would have to agree that Martians built the pyramids of Egypt and that the Mayan Indians are descended from an alien race that apparently dropped out of the sky, arriving by space ship driven by giant squids who left their greeting in the form of mysterious pictures drawn in the sand of the Chilean desert. It would be easy in the 1700s to speculate that the Mayans were some sort of subhuman creatures born of an alien race but with all the current scientific advances in terms of DNA research it can no longer be argued that the Bering Strait is not the land bridge that connects all of America's native peoples to the rest of humanity probably all the way back to Adam and Eve. The idea that native Americans were subhuman and that European was blood was necessary to reconnect the natives to Western Civilization is somewhat naive, an interesting relic of a past age when Europe was the center of civilization and very little was known of Asia and Africa, even less of America. Certainly the native Americans lacked Christianity and thus were living in a spiritually oppressed condition, their religions filled with demon spirits and pantheistic notions. If their minds are renewed and transformed by Christ, then we see that native Americans are capable of doing much. Still, many of them refused to accept Christianity and thus their descendants still suffer the effects. This is a free country so if they want to live on reservations that is their free choice. We gave them a place of their own because they insisted. Of course, it is interesting to note that great-grandmother's diaries refer to various mission trips to Indian reservations by herself and others. I am certain that she was not referring to casino excursions because for one thing nobody in my family gambles that I know of and also that was before the appearance of casinos that now divert a huge amount of cash to native American pockets, so that we imagine those people now live in huge luxury mansions and drive Cadillacs and BMWs and no longer require economic assistance from the United States of America. They are sort of like separate countries or states, those reservations where discounted cigarettes and liquor provide a constant stream of income for natives only. The natives profit richly from the vices of the white man, their reservations functioning as magnets for persons looking to indulge their baser passions. We thought about patronizing the restaurant at the Indian casino near where we live that was advertised but then we realized that we would not want to be seen there. There is no telling who one might run into in these places and they might get the wrong idea. We don't really gamble and even if we did the odds are against us. It is equally likely that we would just be eaten by sharks or struck by lightning. These things do happen, we know.

Dirty Catholics

Yes, how odd that all of these Catholic are pretending to be "good" as compared to Protestant me. That's a joke. We all know that cheating is rampant and these supposedly "good" people have no problem playing dirty tricks to get ahead in the race game. All those crib sheets with the answers painstakingly printed in tiny little script ensure that it really doesn't matter that they never did their homework and didn't really play by the rules. It is a world of double standards where cheaters are rewarded because their parents were rich and powerful and so they could get away with that whereas things that I never did are invented or construed to ensure that it does not really matter that I did my homework and played by the rules most of the time. It is just a dirty game ruled by people who play dirty tricks to keep themselves ahead of the game. I am on the wrong side of the racial divide so the whole thing is rigged against me. It is not like anything I do or say matters because the outcome, my dismal failure, was already planned from the beginning of time by them and nobody in authority cares what happens to me when the money speaks.

David's Portion

I really have no idea why there was no inheritance allotted to David. Probably because he had already died and so the inheritance was not split three ways, only two ways between his sister and brother. If David had lived long enough I imagine that he too would have had a share but he died so that is just what happened. If I die sooner than my parents, my sister would probably get everything that was supposed to go to me. That is just the way it goes with inheritance matters. No one is entitled to David's share because it just doesn't exist and there is no reason to discuss the matter further. What Karen and Richard do with their share of the dough after taxes is their personal business. I don't tell them what to do with their money and likewise they have no reason to discuss any of that with me. It is not a matter for public discussion, what we would or would not do with any discretionary income. They would not appreciate it if I tried to bring up the subject and vice versa. We don't tell people what they can do with their money here in America because this is a free country. Enough said about that.

College Devotions

During my first year at SCC I remember one night I was reading in Psalm 42 and the Lord showed me something about that passage of Scripture. The very next day we were having a devotional in the dorm and Kim Coffaro was explaining something that very Psalm and also something about the word "mara" which means bitter although I forget now what her point was. I remember speaking up and saying that I also had some insight on that verse. Kim got in a big huff and said that I was just trying to imitate and copycate her and that I really did not know anything and that I should keep my mouth shut and let her run the Bible study. So Ok, whatever, excuse me for trying to share something personal with another obnoxious Italian from San Jose. It is not like I need Kim Coffaro's babblings for my own spiritual life but anyway in the interests of keeping the peace don't ask other people to comment if you really don't want to listen to anything but the sound of your own voice. Kim was a dear friend of Dollly so that figures.

Which reminds me that in great-grandmother's diaries we learn that there was a voice teacher, I think her name was Elizabeth, who lived in the San Jose area and was giving singing lessons to Murlene who was my Dad's cousin. I never knew that obviously because I never had access to the diaries until recently, unlike every other Tom, Dick and Harry on the planet, oddly, not that those people know what they are doing with the diaries, just spamming us with trivia mostly.

Crosses

Yes, that was so weird what Stacy was saying about why I don't I wear cross jewelry. How can I call myself a Christian when I never wear cross jewelry? Maybe I am Moslem because there was a moon in a picture that I used to have on my desk which you would not know anything about as I never told you this. Shouldn't there be a rule requiring Christians to wear crosses so that they can identify one another? Obviously Stacy is incredibly stupid to be saying such weird things. Hopefully someone keeps Stacy's stupid mouth locked shut so I don't have to listen to her garbage all the time. Like I was saying, no, we cannot have laws requiring Christians to wear crosses. For one thing, wearing a cross does not mean that you are really a Christian. And would we also have laws requiring Moslems to wear moons and Jews to wear little yellow stars? Things like that only happen in Nazi Germany. And besides, wearing a cross only means that you are a nominal Catholic which is not necessarily the same thing as being a Christian. Lots of people who wear cross jewelry have no clue what it means. Perhaps you are afraid of encountering vampires in dark corners of the local cemetery but there actually is no such thing as a vampire. That is just occult weirdness that should not be explored. Just because my cousin might have been fan of "Dark Shadows," that does not mean that I share his interests. For another thing, I am a Protestant which means that I do not subscribe to the superstitious use of icons and statues and crosses as aids of faith. There is a big push in current culture to readopt icons and idols but I am not so sure that is such a good idea. I would not want to wear a cross around my neck and be mistaken for stupid dogs like Stacy so I don't. Cross-shaped trinkets have no intrinsic power except in the minds of certain superstitious small-minded Catholics. The only cross that means anything is the one on which Jesus died so that I would not have to do that.

The Firing of Eva — More

If I remember rightly, Eva was fired mainly on the advice of Cathy and Bonnie. I am not saying that Cathy and Bonnie don't have their own personal writing problems. Cathy moonlights for a pornography company so it is no wonder that she acts like she is drunk half the time. Bonnie is a good writer but every lead paragraph starts with a mind-jangling metaphor which is a cool writerly thing to do but gets sort of monotonous if used in every single situation for every single story. Still, I have not much sympathy for any continued discussion of the matter of Eva, especially since I don't know anything about it, only remember something that Bonnie said a few weeks after the fact. Eva obviously went on to AP fame and fortune so probably she has completely forgotten about the whole thing by now. I certainly have. I wasn't there very long before Eva was gone so I don't really remember anything except that she was rarely seen in the office and never said anything to me.

The Firing of Eva

Yes, I was not involved in the firing of Eva, the Puerto Rican reporter at our small community weekly who then returned to her homeland and immediately got a job working for the Associated Press. Someone who was somewhat involved in the firing said that it seemed amazing considering that she cannot really read and write English, her prose shapeless, without form and void, or something like that. Our staff members did not know how that could happen but sometimes these larger media organization have their ethnic quotas to fill and if you are the only thing in a 100-mile radius who can sort of speak English, well, lucky you. But anyway, most of us take our opportunities where we find them, sometimes not realizing all of the strings attached, the booby traps hidden there, until much later. Things get sticky but, well, the alternative is to not have a job, to be unemployed and unable to pay the bills, and so often we have no choice but to trustingly allow ourselves to be led to the slaughter because, well, that's what we thought we were supposed to do for some unknown reason

How Can I Kill Myself?

There are several ways that I could kill myself. Anything to get out from under these horrid Latina bitches who are always hovering around waiting for me to die so they can have my mother all to themselves. Such thieves they are, these Latinas. I know what they want. I see through their manipulative, controlling ways but my mother seems oblivious to their devious tactics or she just doesn't care happens to me, something like that. She wishes that I had brown hair and no freckles but that's just not who I am. I can hardly wait until I get back to the States and I never have to have an obnoxious maid poking around in my room and messing with my personal stuff ever again.

Forgiveness vs. Injustice

I don't understand why everyone is worried about me forgiving someone. It's not like I don't forgive some people who did me wrong, but still I see no reason to pretend to be friends with people who are stabbing me in the back every time I turn around. There is a limit to what can be expected, realistically speaking, from me. Some of these people really need to find other lives because I am not going to give them a prize for treating me like garbage. That is just the way I feel about that.

Creepy Chic

Yes, if only I had the money to exit this miserable situation in which I find myself and also get the creepy Mr. Chic off my back. Mr. Chic is not so cool when he is working to undermine everything about my life and erase me from the planet. How nice is that? Yuk! How can we send Mr. Chic packing so that we never hear another word from his creepy minions ever again? Wouldn't that be nice?

Sing Sing

One really must ask why Neil Cavuto is so obsessed with finding Sing Sing connections. After all, it was Earl Blighton, the Catholic priest from New York, who served time in Sing Sing, not anyone with whom I am even remotely connected that I know of. Father Blighton, as we have learned, was a client of Dr. Edward R. Riffle, the chiropractor who ended up with all of the dough in the 1950 case involving my unfortunate great-grandfather, it being his business colleague Samuel Longwell who ended up serving time in the San Francisco jail as far as we can tell from the documents, although we are not sure what really happened. And there is no reason to believe any of the silliness emanating from Grand Dragon Schmidt who obviously has more money than he knows what to do with, perhaps the guilty conscience from having scammed all of us poor people is driving him to do stupid things like give it all away or something like that. It is apparently hard for those Grand Dragon Schmidts to keep their facts straight when their deep hostility apparently is deeply rooted in San Francisco. Something about the KKK coding makes us want to vomit, but we are good little Thumpers so we are not really going to say what we really think about that.

The Cambridge Seven

Although my great-grandparents went to China as Pentecostal missionaries of a sort during a time when Pentecostalism was new and lots of people were just up and quitting their jobs and hopping ships to China and Africa and other places to deliver the Gospel message that was such a new and amazing thing to them at the time. Many of those people were just regular working folks, not trained clergy with advanced theology degrees, and yet they accomplished quite a bit in spite of themselves. Certainly no one would confuse Pentecostalism with the "Cambridge Seven," although maybe there was a slight connection through the Pentecostal Missionary Union, of which one of the Cambridge Seven was possibly a founder, Cecil Polhill, not that I would know anything about that. We in America are mostly not aware of the English connection although there is one. It's just that no one ever really explains this so we don't understand.

Paycheck Blues

BADGER

So here I sit answering all your silly questions and what do I get? Nothing, just some lame excuse about how you don't do paycheck journalism. Perhaps you imagine that I think of myself as the only phone number in your bulging Rolodex? Of course I am not that stupid. Why don't you choose someone else's life to ruin with your pesky nonsense. I am sure that you could easily find someone even worse than me to badger and coerce into making one's name the laughingstock of culture and society. I imagine that plenty of other obnoxious people have already chewed on this material and that I am just the tail end of someone else's huge mess. I am thinking that some people should be ashamed of themselves for dumping all their garbage on poor little me but obviously it is not my job to tell them so. I am just the messenger. Stop shooting at the messenger and get your priorities in order because I am not your problem. Perhaps you are your problem. You used me and abused me and then tossed me aside but I cannot force you to see the error of your ways, as if you were a dog whose nose I could rub in it. Only you can face your own demons and admit that you were wrong and that you do owe me a paycheck fair and square. Just because the story was not what you had imagined at the first, that does not mean that I did not write the story that was there to be written. One cannot rewrite reality. Things just are what they are. Perhaps you would rather be publishing the Fictional Times of the New World Order but we already have enough fiction to wallpaper the planet a million times over. What people want is the truth, even if it does not suit the agenda of your cronies of one side or another. Sorry that I could not help Mr. Batmasian when he threatened me but actually he is the one who spent time in jail, not me, so obviously I was not doing anything wrong.

Stacy Stories

Yes, I really don't know this racy person Stacy so I don't have anything to say about her and her friends. Just because these people were attending the same church as myself does not mean that I have a clue about where they came from or what they thought they were doing here. I imagine that someone probably said that it is obnoxious how she expects and demands everyone defer to her, a licensed teacher and operatically trained singer, when actually she behaves like a ghetto trash high school dropout. She is proud of having taught at a ghetto trash high school, but descending to the level of your 15-year-old pushy foul-mouthed students does not get you very much respect in administrative circles I would imagine. The only thing that saved her was having snared a white husband even if he is a creepy weirdo in my opinion. Just because I happen to live within a 50-mile radius of these people, that does not mean that I have any connection to them so don't ask my opinion because I cannot think of anything nice to say. As Thumper Rabbit always said in that record I used to have as a child, "If you can't say something nice, Shhh, say nothing."

Golden Rule

It is amazing to see how all these high-powered nasty "mothers" think they can dispense with living by the "Golden Rule" which says that they should do unto others as they would have things done unto them. So gleeful are they about "firing" me. Have they no fear that what goes around comes around? Do they think that I alone am to blame for everything that ever went wrong? And besides, it was my sister, not me, who mentioned in her gossipy way that Sue Craig of Ocala was fired several times, over and over again, for whatever reason. I don't know anything about that. I don't want to know anything about Sue and all those other hyper-connected uppity-up whiners so that I cannot be blamed for any of the gossip that circulates in reference to them. The firing didn't come from me.

Know You?

Kiss you? I don't even know you! This is a serio-comic joke line often heard during college years. I am not sure where it came from but I do remember some people being able to use this line to comic effect in various situations. I could also try to use this line but it probably wouldn't work as well for me for various reasons.

Pinecrest Whiners

I vaguely remember that at age 12 I was at junior high youth camp staying at a cabin with some girls, some 12 and some 13, and we were talking about various things such as the problem of what to do if some guy wants to kiss you and the rule is that you cannot kiss until the third date. I said that I thought that I would have to say to him, "No, I can't do that." Then another girl who was perhaps more savvy about these things in her way, or maybe she was 13, said that she would not want to say no to a boy because then he would be crushed and hurt. What she said was a surprising thought to me. I had not thought of it that way before. Yes, perhaps boys do have feelings, too. I had not thought of it that way before. As it turned out, no boy asked me on a date to the final banquet that week at camp so I did not have this problem. Still, I see no reason to revise what I had said. After all, I would not want every Tom, Dick, and Harry to think that I would always say yes. Yes, they say that some boys will not ask me out unless they know ahead of time that I will say yes, but perhaps then again in reality some boys do not get the message clearly. There are times when I might have to say no, like the time when creepy little twerp from Louisiana Randy Gay asked me on a date and I said no. There are reasons why I need to reserve the right to say no. I might say yes and I might say no.

Threats of Eminent Domain

There may be an expiration date on my belongings, which would be the day of my death, but you will not find this date printed on my backside as if I were some milk carton to be discarded. I think tattoos are disgusting, for one thing. Also, the grim reaper is not welcome here. There is no way for you to know how long I will live. I could die this very night or I may have a little longer to work things out. Either way, there are no guarantees in life. Some things that I could not work out in my lifetime may be left for the nephews to sort out in the next generation's garage sale but their time is not yet. For that you would have to wait another 20 or 30 years until they are established if you live that long. By that time, I imagine they will be men with families to feed and perhaps not so easily intimidated and disdained as are the women of my generation. I deeply resent all this intimidation and being put on a guilt trip by these eminent domain enthusiasts who only care about taking everything I've got and leaving me sleeping under a highway bridge with all my belongings heaped in a rickety old shopping cart so that they can finance their luxury real estate empire. My heart is not warmed to hear of all their evil intentions towards me.

More "Leaves"

Yes, I imagine that tediously technical English lit dog Margaret Walden may have a few more "Leaves of Grass" stoked away in her chimney pipe but I could not care less what that piece of trash thinks about anything. She looks vaguely like tedious whiner Robin from college so probably she can be disposed of without giving further consideration given to stupid babblings birthed of a boring navel-gazing pseudo-spirituality that has nothing to offer to persons like me who already have more than a stupid Calvary Chapel dog could ever imagine. I never should have shown some of my personal poems to tediously yappy Robin. I really don't want her opinion about anything because then I will have to listen to all of their garbage and I don't have time for that. I have other priorities. Better to dump those boring yappity-yap dogs Robin and Margaret into the trash bin of long-forgotten useless rubble of the past than to entertain another thought of them. I don't mean to be mean but they are always so mean so I also will have to learn to be mean in order to put them back in their places and punch them out black and blue. It's only fair.

Men of Mark

Yes, it may seem a bit peculiar that in the 19th century there were many books published on the theme "Men of Mark." The Biblical book of Revelation warns against us as Christians from taking upon our bodies, hand and forehead, the "mark" of the beast, which is thought by many to be the number 666 and yet Ralph Waldo Emerson rattles on about the virtues of being a man of "mark." In a lecture delivered in 1844, Emerson says: "The consideration of an eminent citizen, of a noted merchant, of a man of mark in his profession; a naval and military honor, a general's commission, a marshal's baton, a ducal coronet, the laurel of poets, and, anyhow procured, the acknowledgment of eminent merit, —have this lustre for each candidate that they enable him to walk erect and unashamed in the presence of some persons before whom he felt himself inferior." So is John saying that it is wrong to be a distinguished person and to strive to do amazing good deeds? Is there any physical mark that these "men of mark" share in common with each other? This terms seems to be used mainly to refer to WASP men, as I seem to remember someone saying, and yet plenty of unrenowned non-WASPs have scars and birthmarks and also have done good deeds of various kinds and have earned various laurels and honors by their good deeds. Many of us here in white U.S.A. look upon this regard for "mark" as a quaint usage obviously tied to a certain train of thought originating in 18th or 19th century England and America. Nobody uses this term anymore, and yet many out-of-date non-WASPs are still playing by the 19th century rulebook in which being "better" than other races was part of the Christian missionary method of a bygone era of centuries past. I am sure I could find more examples of such thinking in 19th century missionary lore but we in America have been taught in the 20th century by our missionary gurus in Springfield to not try to be "better" than other races in such obviously advantageous ways and to sort of step aside and let the local natives do their thing without any help  from us in order to give them a chance to improve themselves and so that they can stick it to America. And what reward do we get for obeying the "indigenous missionary" rulebook? Nothing really, just basically a huge pie smashed in face. So I was robbed and yet I am expected to be grateful for nothing. I think this whole thing stinks but it's too late now to fix it. I was just another casualty of the "indigenous" missionary scam.

Tax Time

Year after year another tax day rolls on past and never once do we see great-grandmother mention having filed her federal income tax report or having talked to a tax accountant or anything of that sort. One tends to assume that one's ancestors and relatives obviously filed their taxes on time without needing to be reminded by obnoxious little pests like me. I never even thought to ask about this, but anyway I imagine there is knowledge somewhere of the reasons why this may have gone unmentioned in the diaries. It is an obvious thing to do, much like the occasional trips to the grocery and the bank and the post office and other places frequently mentioned in the diaries. But there are just some things that one never mentions in a diary that might be read later by persons unknown. Perhaps that is because only the IRS needs to know the details. Whatever the government wants is what must be paid and nothing more. That is just how it is when financial obligations are duly enforced by the strong arm of the law.

No Man's Land

Yes, it is quite frightening to realize that the most powerful televangelists on the planet have cursed me severely and placed a powerful hex against me which entirely ruins everything that matters to me. There they sit on the screen speaking out of both sides of their mouths. From one side emanate all of these promises of blessings if I will do whatever they say. From the other side emanates a curse because I can never do what they want or satisfy their demands enough to appease their immense wrath echoing from wave to wave. In a way, it is a Baptist game they are playing, this contempt for and loathing of Pentecostals, especially AG Pentecostals who are despised by Pam Roberts who imagines herself related to televangelist Oral Roberts and thus looks down her nose at any denominational pretense because Roberts and other televangelists are an independent law unto  themselves not subjected or bound by governmental and denominational authorities. Although unbelievers who are not Christians just will not understand these doctrinal differences, these Baptist televangelists are just getting too big for their britches, as the saying goes, and trying to expand their debate way beyond their merits. The Baptists have a mental block when it comes to certain doctrinal points and they never will understand it by rational argumentation and discussion. It is a matter of faith that they have rejected long ago and so we cannot expect them to like us and in fact it makes sense that they would feel extremely threatened by the growth of Pentecostalism around the world. Baptists think that everyone should get everything from their centralized dogma structures, which makes them in a way much like Catholics. They imagine that Pentecostalism will be extinct in a few generations because subequent generations will fall away and also various ruses will be devised to prevent surviving Pentecostals from mating and having children. Thus, in a few generations there will be nothing left of the AG Pentecostals and the Baptiholics will likewise expand to fill the vacuum, even though the meaning of Baptiholic will be anyone's guess.

Brain Power

Yes, how well I remember that Dawn always got Bs and Cs to my As and Bs. So Dawn has this huge chip on her shoulder trying to be uppity-up and look down her nose at me without being very smart. Those Britishy people have a hard time because their social rules require them to be uppity-up at all times even when they are not right. So anyway of course lots of people who are quite stupid go on to have normal lives with families and lots of work and plenty of things to do and many friends while plenty of people with much brain power live isolated in their ivory towers, grumpy and grouchy and cranky and always out of sorts, snappy and scary to apporach, such a stark contrast to the lively spirited catty friskiness of dippity dumb Dawn and similar dippity dumb bimbos. This is how the die is cast in their sick little two-dimensional minds. Thus while all these things are arranged to fit with their worthless imaginations, these things cut severely into my imaginations of a very different nature. If Conchita wants to take the low road, well, the United States at least is a free country. Nobody is going to say anything about that. However, there is no law requiring me to conform myself to the silly stupid notions of their tiny little minds, nor that of their wicked men of which I know very little, not to mention some other obnoxious people. Frankly, to be completely blunt, I couldn't care less what those think about me or about anything, not that I would be wise to say what I really think. It makes it hard for me to formulate a healthy self-concept when I am surrounded by these blithering idiots always chipping away at reality and trying to drag me down to their level of stupid blithering idiot. Actually, they often play dumb in a cunning way to make us look like idiots later. They think that we are easily manipulated with the use of flattery and groveling servility but we, well, at least I know what their trick is. So anyway, these severe conditions hard for me to grow and develop anything when they are always chopping all my branches off. It wouldn't be so bad if it were just one or two people, but when everyone in society is conspiring together take me down, it's just not fair. It's just sick. Maybe I can't win, but I really don't care to continue playing the game by their silly rules. I am better off just dropping out of the picture so that they will have nothing on me. That was the plan.

May 26, 1975

Ralph and Esther took Mary Olive and I to Anita’s. Jim and Virginia were there on their way to Carlsbad to visit me. Fortunately I arrived before they left or we would have missed each other. I played games with the children and had a nice time. We had dinner about 3 o’clock. Art came home after 5. We left around 7. Mary Olive bought hamburgers in Oceanside and we ate them and tea at Esther's and arrived home before 10.

April 24, 1975

Quoting from great-grandmother's diary: "All upset about my income."

January 4, 1975!

Excerpt from great-grandmother's diary: " Trying to catch up in diary."

Not My Idea

It was not my idea to interview Mr. Taylor regarding the 1991 exhumation of his ancestor, the late President Zachary Taylor. Someone mentioned this possibly story. Brenda knows every single person int that entire area and every detail of every person's life there so she might have said something. I really don't remember. He arrived at the newspaper office and I took his photo. I interviewed him in the conference room or over the phone, I don't remember which. I was surprised that he had so much to say about it because I knew nothing, only noticed it later on the news. If he wanted a followup story he could always call the local newspaper office and I am sure they would have someone there to talk to him.

Angry Men

During 10th grade English class role playing, Tom Hills assembled for himself a jury of twelve to reenact the television drama, "Twelve Angry Men." I don't remember anything about that drama. Everybody always liked all of the role playing dramas that were staged in Miss Marken's class. I was always terrible at role playing so I always tried to get away with the minimum amount of role playing required because improvising stupid behavior is not my forte. Everything I say or do might be taken the wrong way so it just isn't fun for me. If I can memorize some lines then maybe I could act but not if I have to improvise.

Buffet Rulers

I am not so stupid as to not have figured out that these people rule by buffeting. They beat me up first before I even know what hit me and then when I have finally figured out that there is a plot it is already too late for me to hit them first or do anything in self defense, not that I had ever thought of attacking them without provocation. It is just their low opinion of all white people, or at least me in particular, which leads them to believe that I have some thought of their existence and am waiting to squash them like bugs because that is what they would do and that is all they know. That is how they they think and behave, those buffeters, and it is explain why they cannot be trusted. Their crude and vulgar minds think only of killing first whatever people they imagine will kill them later, even if that is just all in their heads. Thus, the warm words on their lips do not reflect the evil thoughts of their wicked hearts. It is very clever how they sit around saying all kinds of nasty things about me behind my back and then they expect everyone to believe that I said those things about them when actually I didn't think about them very much at all. It's just a lot of tricks.

Miscast

I was miscast. Truth be told, I was miscast and chosen to represent some other person that is not me. I am not myself. Someone else may be pretending to be me. I don't know who I am. Blah blah blah.

Dixon Dogs

Why are we being dogged by these boring whiny Dixon dogs? Every once in a while we glimpse the Dixons posing as ministers. Obviously they are wolves in sheeps' clothing, because they look more like actors performing in some kind of demonized Dixie plot to rule the universe of Atlantis, capital of the lost continent. This is deduced because it is not like these Dixons are real people who ever have anything to say to real people like me as in, for example, explaining their connection to James Dixon James, who was a missionary to China along with my great-grandparents although we get the impression they had an argument there and parted on a not-so-friendly terms. Nowadays these modern-day Dixons are just posing and posturing and pretending to care about the "people" because they are powerbrokers of some sort. They have some obscure point to make which may go all the way back to China or may have absolutely nothing to do with us. There is no way to figure it out because we can't really communicate with them. The only sure thing is that it obviously has nothing to do with me. I am just a spectator of some sort in this Dixon drama that they are continually reenacting in their monotonous and tedious way.

"Missing" People

OK, it is time for all of these people who have been "missing" me to get captured and herded, lined up against a wall to be fired and dispatched forthwith to the mentally retarded holding tank where you all belong. I say this because obviously "Ole Miss" is a school in Mississippi, a state where I have never lived nor ever had any interest in living or going. Other than driving through without stopping except maybe for gas and restroom break, although I really don't recall, I have never been to Mississippi. I vaguely remember Barbara Miller saying something about "Ole Miss" but what would she know about anything? She is just a silly Dixie-demonized Southerner, a native of Jackson, Mississippi, who happened to live in El Salvador for a year, the year I was in 11th grade. During that time Barbara lived in the Navarrete home, renting a room in a home where there was a son who was a young man near her age, and she taught school at the little school for MKs. She is a teacher that Stevie Bueno often complained of for being too weepy and depressed all the time which is not surprising to us because wouldn't any American single woman be sort of depressed in those circumstances? My mother always feels sorry for these single women teachers and drags them around with her and takes them shopping and sigthseeing and invites them over to our house for dinner because otherwise they would not have much of anything to do. The other missionary families were not as "generous" as my mother, which is good in some ways and also annoying in some ways because sometimes it gets really tedious having this silly Barbara underfoot all the time, especially all these many years later, always ridiculing me and poking at me as if nothing worthwhile should be expected of me. How did they find this silly Barbara person anyway? We were from Southern California District so we have no real connection to these Mississippi whiners. We were just trying to be nice.

Dixie Devils

Aren't these Dixie devils getting a little too big for their britches, as the saying goes? All that pie and cake is kind of a waste when we all know that the Dixie dogs lost the war a long time ago. They might be surprised to learn how little interest in or thought we ever had of reconnecting to that old demon spirit of Dixieland. The Dixie devils may still be raising hell trying to push their way back out of the bottomless pit but we all know that it won't work. Eventually they will get squashed again with that rotten on attitude on display, but not before ruining my life I suppose, just another mostly innocent bystander on their hate mail list. It is confusing about the Texas relatives, like were they really Confederates if they didn't really have that much slavery except maybe in some easternmost parts of Texas? And also are the cousins who moved to Louisiana and Alabama, the heart of Devil Territory, actually related to us when actually we couldn't care less about getting back together with them, at least not on that basis of commonality? What a swamp!

Strangers Whose Names I Do Not Recall

Yes, who was that hideous Italian woman standing next to me in the choir at the Hummel church that night in Long Beach? I think that she was either the pastor's daughter or married to the pastor's son or something like that. I do not recall those people's names nor do I have any idea why I should care to continue any kind of relationships with any of those utterly nasty people when obviously they were not really my friends anyway nor did they want me there. It is not like they ever had real affinity or affection for me nor I for them. I was there for a few short months and then I left. They had no husband for me in Long Beach so it was a huge waste of time to spend even a day there. I don't know what I was thinking. They were perhaps expecting me to expect more from them but I am really not that stupid. Long Beach was nothing to me, actually, only a possible stepping stone to somewhere else but as it turned out Long Beach was only just another dud. My life will be fine without these Long Beach tricksters tripping me every time I turn around. And now it is nothing to me, just a closed book that will never be reopened in this lifetime. I am on my way to some other place and I must keep my eyes on the goal which is the prize of the high calling of Christ, of which the people of Long Beach obviously have no part, being themselves the most despicably godless swine a Christian girl such as myself could ever have the misfortune to encounter however so briefly.

Sheik Nightmares

I wonder why frumpy dumpy housewife thinks she just has to have a "Majestic Destiny"? Doesn't she realize that she is just another household slave of Sheik Corea, the polygaminous villain of harum scarum repute? She had better not burn dinner or forget to vacuum the floor! Majestic Destiny belongs only to the motherless and fatherless orphans who are the sole recipients of the rich man's beneficence. The orphans will rise from the ashes of disaster to become the Horatio Algers of tomorrow, although they may not get there by hawking newspapers on street corners, not in the new online economy. Only the desperately poor will be eligible for upward mobility in the flatlined New World Order still to be seen. For the rest of us middling poor to middle class, there is only a relentless monotony of servility and groveling before the Almighty Rich Man, meaning the ruling class who have the entire money supply hidden away in a mysterious Wall Street locker and also tend to think that money alone can solve all the problems of humanity, which is sort of mechanistic and assumes we are basically machines. Perhaps if you are extremely talented or intelligent you will be plucked from the dreary routine to serve as a showcase trophy. Otherwise, for the ordinary person there is nothing but duty and work, work and duty. You are a cog in the machine and if you do not function as prescribed, you will be replaced and replicated. This may be a scary way of thinking about the future but it is also true in some ways.

Gene Napier

Gene Napier moved to Lodi last I heard but before that he was a co-worker at the Lockman Foundation in La Habra, Calif. where he also was a proofreader and possibly did some other things. He asked me to help him with a school project for his psychiatric counseling class so I did although I don't remember much about that. He just asked me some questions about whatever and I remember talking about how I felt compartmentalized, like there are different parts of me for different places. So that was all that was about, just something that he needed to finish his counseling class and get his diploma so that he could move north to get a job. Interestingly, a few months later when I was visiting my cousins in the Bay Area my cousin Richard and I drove over toward Lodi and stopped at a grocery store and there was Gene and his wife and so we said Hi and Richard met them and that was all there was to that. I don't think that Gene had any other contact with my relatives that I know of. I really don't know Gene very well. Sorry about the chicken sandwich. Don't know what I was thinking.

Beating Around the Bush

Everyone is always beating around the Bush. Why not beat on the Bush itself? What is so sacred about a boring Bush? When did Machelle ever have anything intelligent to say? I don't recall anything much. Just because the Bush family was from Texas, that would not be a reason to discuss anything personal with them. Lots of Texans are irrelevant in terms of my personal life and there would be no reason for me to pretend that those murderous Bush knives poised to carve out my heart are not real. In fact, their intent is entirely murderous and derogatory and they fully intend to leave my fileted carcass left behind on the roadside of Texas history even if I have no clue why Sam Houston hates my guts so much. That is just the way it is when I am a girl, I suppose, and have no money to secure myself any kind of future. There just is no future for me in the land of the turntables.

Nothing To Say

Truth be told, I have nothing politically correct to say about all of these putrid vomit-inducing lesbian women, such as vile disgusting Joan of the slitheringly decadent Italian heritage with whom I never talked anyway or David's former "girlfriend," so don't ask me what I think about them. I will only get myself into a lot of political hot water if I say what I really think about those people and nothing will be accomplished so I won't say what I really think about the ones who were possibly in my high school and college classes and elsewhere. Certainly they did not get that stuff from me. I want nothing to do with that and I want them to all go away and leave me alone. I don't really like all those busybody women just buzzing around as if they were ever going to get something out of me and I also don't like how a lot of people are trying to pin something on me when actually I only happened to be sitting nearby, behind or next to or something like that. I was just an ordinary American girl and I was supposed to get married and have a family and nothing else will really work for me so there is nothing else to say about that.

Taxing Talk

All this yakking about the lottery jackpot means nothing to me. As I have said before, in case some people never forgot, I never buy lottery tickets so obviously I am not going to win the lottery. Also, I am not a governmental entity so I have no authority to tax anyone, much as I might like to see some fundraising income. People who give to missionaries do it of their own free will and volition out of the surplus of their abundant harvest because they believe in the cause of Christ, not because they have to pay and owe anything necessarily to missionaries and their families. My parents were missionaries which means that they were fortunate enough to get some financial support from churches and church people to fund our life in El Salvador. However, I am not a career missionary so obviously I cannot expect any self-respecting rich person to send me a lot of money just because I want to move over to Easy Street. With so many thousands of people smearing my reputation from age three forward, obviously I would be wasting my time to try to do any fundraising. I would just be the laughingstock everywhere to pretend that I could do anything or have anything to offer to anyone in terms of missions. In fact, I should apologize for existing because the world would be so much better off without pathetically worthless me still on this planet taking up too much space and consuming too much food and water when all of those people starving in China could use everything I have got. If only it were practical to mail them the daily food but then I would starve to death so that would not work. It would be better if I were to just eat whatever food is served and never dare to complain because, unlike other people who get to complain all they want day in and day out, I would never heard the end of it.

Lottery Losers

Most of us did not win the lottery. In fact, I never bought a lottery ticket in my entire lifetime so there is no possible way that I could ever win the lottery. That is all that I would ever need to say about that, no need to rub it in. The fact is that it was the Smeyas who moved from here to Arizona not long after they heard that some relative of theirs had won the lottery in that state, if it was Arizona although I'm not sure which state it was, somewhere out west anyway. I don't even know who their relatives are so I really have nothing to say about that and no clue what this lottery joke is all about or how it got started. I really couldn't care less.

Three Redheads

There were three redheads in my high school class. I include myself in that category although some think my hair is too dark and dull to be considered red but it was a very dark auburn type of red. The other two redheads were Libby Penders and Ronit Meissner who was Jewish. I can't say that I ever discussed this subject with either one of them. I remember that Ronit Meissner was considered very good at giving advice, or at least I overheard someone saying that once in 9th or 10th grade. I personally would not be interested in applying for the position of advice columnist. The thought never crossed my mind. I am always surprised when people ask me for advice because I have no idea what they should do. I don't even know what I should do.

Gulliver's travels

Yes, I think maybe Miss Marken did suggest this book although I don't really remember. I can't believe anybody remembers that because I don't. I completely forgot about that immediately afterward. It was just a book report, after all, just like every other book report that everybody else gave. We all have to give these book reports for English class and we have to read the books to do that. No fair giving a book report if you haven't read the book, in my opinion, and even if you have it's no big deal. I have read a lot of other books between here and there so I can't be expected to remember every book I ever read. That would be ridiculous.

Charades

Yes, I did fairly well at the game of charades that time that I was at that party over at the CBN apartment complex. It might have been at Katherine Pyle's place or Kristen Jeffries or someone like that. Names of books and/or movies are always good for charades because that is generalized information that almost everyone is familiar with and can bring easily to recall with just a clue or two. More complicated information would require some actual context. Actual communication requires a lot more than just charades. Beyond that, I have nothing else to add to these random clues. I would not want to guess wrong because I have guessed wrong in the past and it always creates a huge mess so better to wait until I know what the right answer is. I can't even remember who those people were anymore and it is not like I would get any prize for remembering anything about that so it really doesn't matter anyway. In fact, there probably is no real purpose to this whole charade other than to make me look like an idiot because, as I often recorded in my own diary, everybody hates me and nobody likes me and there is really nothing that I can do to change any of that.

Dixie Arnold

Ah, yes, there is that hideous witch Dr. Dixie Arnold pretending to be a nice person. Does that hideously wicked woman think that I do not remember the way she chewed me up and spit me out when I was at SCC during my senior year there? I remember it well. How utterly humiliating to have this strange unknown woman screaming at me and telling me that I will never make it, that I am terrible, my presentation for elementary music class so pathetically bad that everyone felt sorry for me, etc., etc., (as if preppy snobs Jennie Cerullo and Kathy Wilson would ever have anything nice to say about me.)  How utterly unmotivational and discouraging to see that this foul-mouthed witch Dixie Arnold is the type of woman who easily gets promoted to the upper echelons of professionals in higher education so that for a huge tuition fee I could go back to school to again be eviscerated by the hideous witch Dr. Dixie Arnold. What a nightmare!

Presidential Concerns

I never thought of running for president so there is no reason to vet me. I would not qualify for frontline combat because I am not male and anyway I don't want to be president so I really don't care to participate in a stupid test that is meaningless. What bigshot can I call at the top of the heap to express my profound disagreement with this terrible joke? I don't recall ever having any thought of running for president and don't understand why I should care. I do vaguely recall Machelle Bush talking about the sarcastic jokes she heard at the 700 Club when she walked across the street to talk to the employees over there but I do not recall her saying anything specific and anyway I didn't go over there to find out who she was talking about. I really don't care about anything that Machelle Bush ever said about anything. She was so obnoxious that I really don't care about talking to her again. Machelle's hometown of San Antonio, Texas, is a big danger zone as far as I am concerned.

Ups and Downs

Reviewing the Ancestry.com records, we see that Uncle Art's mother's maiden name was Downey. Ok, so did someone use that fact to make some dumb joke about the Butterfields being "downs"? I don't remember that. Yet that is the impression that was given, even though Larry Downs would probably have something to say about that except that he now works for a competing company so he will not be consulted. And would being "uppity-ups" resolve this "Downey" problem? We like Downey laundry softener so we really don't care nor were we aware of this dumb "down" joke nor do we get it or think that it is funny forty years later. We are aware of psychos who would turn a tiny fact like that into a huge out-of-context blizzard but it really means nothing to me.

Art Lessons

Yes, we heard that when cousin Ralph was young he won art contests and was very talented. His parents greatly discouraged his art ambitions for various stereotypical reasons and the result was that what they feared most became a reality and Ralph turned gay and also he never did very much with art, just managed a Taco Bell after getting out of the Navy before dying of AIDS. Lots of talented artists could easily find honest work in today's visually oriented culture, I mean, like, someone has to draw those Veggie Tales cartoons, but anyway Ralph's parents did not allow him to develop his God-given talents for not really any good reason except that they are kind of ignorant and primitive. Reviewing Ancestry.com we learn that Uncle Art was from Iowa so I guess that explains it. Some of the most obnoxious people I know are from Iowa and anyway the only president ever from Iowa was Herbert Hoover, that one-term Republican, so we should not be surprised to learn that Uncle Art did not have a clue about art.

A Possible Question

Yes, I suppose that a question that could reasonably be framed might be whether the Mrs. Warren who lived next door to great-grandmother in Carlsbad and is occasionally mentioned in the diaries is related to the Stephen Warren who married cousin Vanessa. I actually have no idea. I don't think that Stephen was the boyfriend she brought to the family get-together at Aunt Cindy's house that time so I don't think I ever met him and, anyway, it's not like it matters to anyone on the planet now. I really couldn't care less about the obnoxious Butterfields because I always seem to be returning their mail for some reason. The Butterfields really do have a lot of baggage strewn all over the place. But, like the song says, "go get it yourself at the baggage claim."

Family Issues

You obviously are either not related to us because if you were really "in" our family you would realize that nobody takes the Butterfields at all seriously. Everything that Art and Anita say is so ridiculous and patently false or misleading that everyone just sort of listens to them and then lets whatever they say go out the other ear because obviously they don't know what they are talking about. Oh, did I say that? Well, I can only say what is true or rather what I heard my parents say. However, we are really not interested in picking a fight with them, trying to keep peace within the family, so we just shrug it off like water off a duck's back. That is how it is with a lot of relatives, not only the Butterfields, and even some people to whom I am not related, but anyway, that is how it is in America when you have the crackpot Butterfields in your family tree.

Out of deference to the cousins, we can't really say publicly what we think about the Butterfields because after all it is their parents who are so bizarre. However, we know full well that while we were out of the country, the Butterfields were waging some sort of war in California, and Grandma Calkins, who always was very vocal about every little thing, was not very happy about it. However, I don't know any details. I really don't understand that but anyway nobody cares what the Butterfields think about anything, them always obsessing on weird details and going off on tangents about angels. I imagine that it probably wasn't all Grandma's fault.

Hostilities

I was rather surprised to hear that my Aunt Anita and Uncle Art so despise that they actually cursed me and go around saying that I practice magic and witchcraft. Most of these allegations stem from the fact that during the year that we were on furlough, when I was 12 years old, and visiting our grandparents who rented the apartment next door to the Butterfields, I was watching on television programs that my cousins were not allowed to see, and even invited the Butterfield cousins to come over and watch with us such programs as "Bewitched" and "I Dream of Jeannie," TV sitcom featured those blonde bewigged actress-witches Elizabeth Montgomery and Barbara Eden. The magical ladies of television imagine that just by a nod of a head or a wrinkle of the nose they can wreak all kinds of mischief without ever having to actually do anything. Things just magically appear to the characters and they frequently travel through time and space to experience whimsical and fantastical adventures. Of course, this is ridiculous. Nobody with half a brain in head would take that stuff seriously. I certainly never did. It has been a long time since high school when I read the "Satan Seller" which is full of lies but still I think says something about the evils of witchcraft and about what those things can do to distort the minds of sick persons like Mike Warnke as well as other books giving a Christian perspective on these matters which I did not have earlier when I was only 12 years old. I do think that Aunt Anita actually does have a certain valid point to make in reminding everyone that witchcraft actually is an evil thing and that humorous treatments of the subject only serve to camouflage the underlying evil. Still, I think it is a ridiculous amount of overkill for Art and Anita to go around trashing me all over the place. It makes it hard for us to take them seriously when the Butterfields say such ridiculously outlandish things and go around bombarding me with such patently false accusations. I mean, really, we all heard about Uncle Art's rants against art and we all know that he was only talking about cousin Ralph. That had nothing to do with me. After all, it was only cousin Ralph who was gay and also a talented artist so sadly Ralph fell into stereotype hell. I was sorry to hear it but anyway lots of artists are not gay so just ranting about art accomplishes nothing.

Spencer

I do remember that my sister, while living in Missouri, was good friends with Melody Spencer, whose family were missionaries in Nicaragua. While on furlough in the U.S., someone at school slipped LSD into Melody's Thermos during the lunch hour and she tripped out. We all heard this story. I remember my sister saying that Melody now lives in Pennsylvania, a place of which I know nothing. It just goes to show how wicked these high school people can be, and how much reason there is to be afraid of pretty much everyone that one does not know, especially strangers. I really don't know Melody. I only remember my sister saying something about her. But like all of my sister's friends, there would be no reason for me to trust them or tell them anything of a confidential nature because they are probably already owned by her. She has a real knack for buying off people who used to be my friends, but anyway, to me they are only strangers.

The Wicked Don Triplett

Yes, don't we all know that Don Triplett (MK-Nicaragua) is now a missionary in El Salvador? Wouldn't an MK transfer from Nicaragua need to learn a few things that were never understood during his pathetically worthless and terrible upbringing in the impoverished and politically turbulent State of Nicaragua? Obviously no MK-El Salvador with any brains in head would want to transfer the other way around, into that horrid pestiferous disgusting place known as Nicaragua. Personally I never want to hear another word about Nicaragua the rest of my life and I think that the wicked Tripletts should be thrown out on their ears for even suggesting such a ridiculous thing. I already have experienced more than my share of mission trips to last a lifetime during my short childhood years so I don't need those ignorant Nicaragua dogs trying to tell me what's what. I already know a lot more than you might think, not that it would matter. It's just that I'm not that dumb. I realize that Castle Ministries is a clever way to introduce the Europeanization of America. One would think that Don would be ashamed of his wickedly subversive ministry but apparently not.

Out Of Luck

I am just out of luck. If God can't bless me unless I gave a certain amount of money 20 or 30 years ago, and I did not have the money to give oh so many years ago or sent it somewhere else or did not record the cash amounts that went into the offering bag, then I can never ever in this lifetime ever hope to get into a "position" of blessing as dictated by the legalistic financial requirements of the Christian Life Center Country Club or whatever it is. Thus there is no reason for me to expect those legalistic-to-the-penny judges of the Christian Life Center Country Club to ever reverse their universal condemnation of my existence on this planet. I will never in a million be able to satisfy their exacting monetary requirements and thus I really don't care anymore what those obnoxious people think about me anyway. It would be futile for me to expect a miracle from God when I am utterly unworthy and will remain so for the foreseeable short-term future as far as I can tell as long as I would have to labor under and be suffocated by their stifling requirements. Thus, I am removing myself from their jurisdiction and thus avoiding them entirely so that I can still possibly have some semblance of a life even if a lonely one.

Mock

It was my sister who dated Steve Mock the year that she attended SCC. Steve might have been an MK-Mexico although I really don't remember. I think they appeared together in a production of a Shakespeare play during the spring semester. Other than that I don't remember remember anything about Steve other than he dated my sister for a short time. I don't remember ever talking to him, just heard something about him.

In a different vein, the only thing I remember is that in high school we read, "To Kill A Mockingbird," the Southern Gothic novel by Harper Lee that is full of racial issues. This novel is a standard of American literature, as is Mark Twain's "Puddnhead Wilson," which we also read in high school. Both of these books deal with racism from a U.S. viewpoint. Racism in Central America is different kettle of fish.

Jack Nicholson starred in a movie that I never saw, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." I am trying to remember if we read this book in class or only heard book reports about it. Perhaps a mockingbird  atheist lacking rock music talent could end up in a mental ward where order is demanded by the iron-fisted Nurse Ratchett. Those found not in compliance with the dictatorship of Nurse Ratchett will be lobotomized, meaning that their brains are split in half. With the internal connections severed they will no longer function very well because parts of their brain are no longer trading information.

As they say, united we stand, divided we fall. Divide and conquer. Cut off your nose to spite your face and see what happens.