Which Reminds Me

Interesting how all of those little twerps from my sister's class are so intent on spiting me. Well, guess what? I must needs remind them that I will not be available in the future to be "used" for their spiteful amusement. I say this at the risk of sounding like 'ol Dick Nixon but, anyway, they really will have to find some other form of entertainment in the New World Order because otherwise they will have only themselves to spite. I just won't be here.

Which Reminds Me

One day in 9th or 10th grade I took the dust cover off of one of my books for Spanish class, maybe one of those Greek tragedies, and seeing the white space on the back of the dust cover, decided to fill the white space with words. Being obviously bored, I rolled the dust cover into the typewriter and started typing. I did manage to fill the white space with words, lots of words, nonsensical words mostly. It took a lot of words to fill that white space, including the little ditty about my childhood teddy bear, etc. etc. A couple of years later my sister borrowed that book for her Spanish class and, discovering the typing on the inside of the dust jacket, showed it to all over rude and obnoxious juvenile delinquent high school classmates who made all sorts of rude and untrue conjectures about that. Anyway, I should not be expected to upload the dustcover to meaningless public speculation. It was just a lot of words about nothing just to fill the white space because I was bored that day. Anyway, nobody really cares what those little 10th grader punks think about anything. I will always be two steps ahead of them in terms of high school maturity and that is just the way it will always be. Enough said about that.

Which Reminds Me

That was so unbelievably rude of Harold Moore to go around telling people that I was too dirty, a reference to my housekeeping. For one thing, Moore does not pay my salary so it was not his place to go around critiquing my house, clean or dirty; my kitchen sink, whether empty or piled with dishes waiting to be washed by hand because, for one thing, no dishwasher and also perhaps there was no time after breakfast or lunch when off to class so maybe it is OK to leave a plate or glass in the sink once in a while until enough to justify doing a full load which is how it works when you are just one person with no family, my kitchen floor of yellowish vinyl flooring that always looked dirty anyway no matter what. My roommate Joy, Moore's fiancee, spent all her time over at her place cleaning his apartment but he should not be expecting to get that kind of service out of me, especially when Joy is running a month or two behind on her electricity payment and still finds $200 to buy an expensive gadget for Moore's birthday and also on her wedding preparations. I thought that I was fairly forgiving and patient under those circumstances but, anyway, when I hear those so-called "friends" trashing me all over the place later it is not like they should expect more from me any time soon. Anyway, Moore is not running my life, let alone the church or multinational corporation, only an assistant pastor after all these years.

Which Reminds Me

I vaguely remember Karen Ha, who was in music theory with us, a violinist or some type of string player I am thinking, who married John Howell. I seem to remember seeing them again much later in California, perhaps when I was visiting Diamond Bar although I am not sure. After that I seem to remember reading about them working at the Library of Congress but I really don't very much about that. I really don't know them very well. They were just there in the same college so I remember their faces.

Which Reminds Me

My sister often likes to remind me that in high school we each had a blue cassette tape. My sister's was a Donny Osmond album that included the song, "Until the Twelfth of Never and That's a Long Long Time." My blue tape was Eric Carmen's song, "All By Myself." OK, so? I really don't see why this matters. Following my sister's drivel will get you and me nowhere in real life because it's just all about her. The demo tape also was bluish and my sister used the flip side to tape herself singing that TV commercial.

Which Reminds Me

Many years ago there was a time when our church denomination published the names and addresses of the missionaries' children in a publication that was at some time or another distributed in various prisons. Sometimes prisoners who received those publications would write to some of the MKs in the publication, mostly girls. I might have received one or two of those letters myself but those were thrown away immediately. Of course we never write back to the prisoners because we have no idea who they really are or why they are writing to us from a prison. How nice that free board and housing is provided to those of the criminal mindset. However, we would not want to encourage the prisoners to future communication with us. We would not want anyone to think that we also ever lived there or that were ever complicit in their criminal problem. The publication of MK names was later discontinued so I think that problem no longer exists.

Which Reminds Me

I am wondering whatever happened to that old notebook that I used for a diary in high school. I have not been able to find it for quite a few years now. It is frightening to think that all of my words of adolescent angst could be out there twisting in the wind. No one other than myself is entitled to read the half-baked ramblings of my high school diary, all that stuff about how the greatest calling in life would be to serve the Lord and everything is for the glory of God and blah blah bah. I cannot have some ignorant Catholic reading that stuff and deciding that I should be a nun. Wrong! I am a Protestant so in order to have a ministry I would first need to get married and have a family but that never happened so I cannot have a ministry of the sort earlier envisioned. And if the workers of the vineyard would kill a son to make the vineyard their own, would they not also kill a daughter? Sure, Alan Skogerbo was trying to pose as a martyr because of he preferred to have a children's ministry and not get married, but nobody was saying that couldn't happen. We tend to believe that the authorities had a good reason for reprimanding him, that there was probably some other problem there not full explained and not really our business. And will not the Lord himself also rebuke the children's workers, and not because of anything that I said. Their own murderous intentions and seething hatred toward me speak for themselves. I don't have to say anything about that. I myself am a joint heir with Jesus even if the technicalities of the present day may prevent licensing, but anyway, whatever.

Which Reminds Me

I am somehow reminded of the story of Jeremy, a baby that we cared for while a couple in Washington finalized adoption papers. My sister and I might have each taken a turn or two at changing diapers a time or two but it was my mother or the maid, Margarita, who did most of that because we were at school weekdays anyway. The couple from Washington took Jeremy away when he was about 5 weeks old. We heard that they returned later to El Salvador to adopt another baby, Jeremy's sister, but we were gone by then and do not know anything about how they made those arrangements. The story of Jeremy has been retold in various ways so strange that I don't even recognize myself in the story, as if I had done something wrong. Accidents happen but it was not that kind of accident. Leave it to Conchi to make me look like an idiot every time, as if they were ever really my friends anyway and not just Rene's leaches. They sometimes like to have useful white connections even if they don't really like us truth be told.

A Little Bird Told Me

How nice that Miss Sex Doctor has lined up lots of rich billionaires to fund her "programs." How nice! But the approval of that creepy old rich man, Rocky the Toad, will be cold comfort on rainy nights. She always did grate people the wrong way, not that we ever had a chance to explain about the fingernails on a Chalk & Post bourds effect. I just never really wanted to get caught in the cheerleader web because they always were so pathetically tedious and boring.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, it really is very insulting to have these people basically spitting in my face and telling me that I cannot "use" them, as if such a thought ever crossed my mind, and as if I were a less than human creature they are entitled to trample upon in this stereotypical way. It does sort of make you want to "use" them just to pay it back to them somehow, because they are so utterly rude sometimes, but we are Christians and we are instructed by Jesus to turn the other cheek, walk the extra mile, etc., even though they really don't deserve anything from us. We never imagined high school as a game that we were required to "lose." Perhaps our cooperative participation would bring them to their knees in repentance of their own unbridled greed and selfish ambition but somehow I think probably not. And yet they are allowed to "use" me in this grossly insulting and contrarian way, which is so wrong, but anyway, life is short. Hopefully the next time this scenario plays out they will learn that things do not always work in their greedy selfish way.

Which Reminds Me

Perhaps I forgot to mention that I am not at all interested in interacting with Maria Smith. Who set me up to do that anyway? I have no conversation there to recall, so it is very irritating to have all of these people trying to needle me into commenting on Maria, as if I ever had anything to say on that account. I was not planning to ever say anything about her but since she obviously has been busy trashing me behind my back I begin to feel that I really must strike back somehow, if I could. However, I Obviously have no way of knowing how to do that, combat being a job for men, so I will just leave it to the military complex to decide what to do with these obnoxious people because I have no idea and anyway it really is not my problem whatever happens to them. Life is short. I really couldn't care less.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, how convenient for "Rainy" to have so many powerful and influential friends before whom she can pose as victim when actually she was quite the aggressive little monster. I never got any respect, is the way they would derisively put it. If only someone would rescue me from this miserable life. There was supposed to be a separate life after high school but somebody forgot.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, if only I could remember the joke about Swiss cheese. It has a lot of holes in it but I can't quite remember how it went.

And also, if only I could remember all those funny stories about junk that people dump on missionaries, like the poor missionary in South America who supposedly received a box or barrel full of used tea bags. I mean, how rude can those people up there be, to send such a useless thing expecting us to find some use for it, was sort of the way it was passed around. But these stories about "white elephant" gifts have been more recently suppressed, I remember someone suggesting. We had apparently forgotten our places on the social scale. We were not expressing the proper measure of gratitude for the trifling benefactions bestowed upon us by the snooty arrogant rich people who condescend to permit our existence on the planet. OK, perhaps I exaggerate slightly on this point but sadly these funny stories are no longer so easily extracted from the archives of joke history given the shifting context of missions. If we will not be allowed to put that stuff into its proper perspective, then we cannot really go there. It just wouldn't be worth it. Missions just are not what they used to be.

Which Reminds Me

Actually I don't remember Heather all that much and I really get annoyed at this irritating presence out there in the periphery of things, as if she were anything but a pathetically horrid and nasty rich girl whose presence never meant anything to me. She was just there in ninth grade acting like the nasty person that she always was. And where would I go to sue her wickedness? I don't have the requisite millions of dollars to pay lawyer fees nor sufficient library resources to lay out a credible lawsuit against such a horrid and nasty person as Heather. I don't even have a clue where all of this nasty Heather garbage started nor do I care to pretend that she herself was not the sole source of all of this worthless nonsense. I certainly never knew anything about it until now nor was Heather ever discussed with me in high school probably because nobody really cared about whatever happened to that nasty Heather person. Life is short. If Heather is going to be so pathetically inhospitable then she should not be expecting my phone call because it won't ever happen.

Which Reminds Me

A while back I thought I heard the shrill and shrieky voice of that vile creature Maria Smith saying a bunch of nonsense. How nice that Maria managed to get herself licensed a science teacher. The pathetic creature will need such a certificate to detract attention from her humble origins. How ridiculous to hear Maria pontificating in such an ignorant way. The only Maria I can remember from those years was the maid who cooked better than she cleaned and could barely read and write, having never advanced much beyond an elementary school education. The questions and comments that Maria sometimes made were mildly amusing in their unbelievable ignorance but we understand that it is hard for you to get the big picture when you only lived in a tiny Salvadoran village most of your childhood and did not have the opportunity to get out and learn about how things really work.

Which Reminds Me

Years ago Philip Kirsten and his parents had dinner at our house. I think that Susie Stewart was also there at the time. If there was Grey Poupon on the table I cannot recall. I only remember that the subject of Evangel arose and suddenly Philip launched into a description of the biology teacher at Evangel College whom he described as being someone he had a personal problem with. I was not sure exactly what he meant by that. I cannot even recall now what the teacher's name was. However, at the time I did remember that I, too, had taken biology from that same teacher during the year that I was at Evangel and he had seemed to me boring in the extreme, monotone in his delivery of facts, which put me to sleep, even though he probably did know plenty about biology. Anyway, science always was my least favorite subject. What Philip's problem was with Evangel's biology teacher I really could not say. Phil had served as some type of assistant in the science department at Evangel but he was sort of vehemently incoherent on the subject over dinner. Anyway, I don't understand why I should care or be implicated in Philip's emotional problems, his immaturity and lack of communication skills. Anyway, Phil's Ph.D. is in chemistry if I remember rightly. However, I find it hard to understand these geeky science nerds. In my opinion, school politics is a subject to gloss over in a noncommittal way if you know what is good for your own career in academia because these little comments can come back to bite you later if you are not careful. Just look at what university politics did to Kent Stone's "Ph.D." career. So sad.

Along a similar vein, sadly we cannot give the Danish any credit for so devotedly obeying the Stereotypical Orders outlined in Nash's brilliant treatise. We are starting to think that Nash knew whereof he spoke, so generously have the Scandinavians attributed lavish credit to Nash's reputation as a scholar.

Which Reminds Me

Oh, did I accuse someone of smoking pot? I actually don't remember doing that. I don't remember anything specific now. Obviously I would not know anything about that. I would not want to have to press charges when I have no evidence of that but certainly that funny smell in the air makes you wonder what is going on over there.Was that incense burning or something? I don't remember.

Speaking of Privacy

I wonder why it is that everyone is so worried about "fixing" me in ways that never would have occurred to me to do even to my worst enemies. They almost give the impression that I am something less than human, something akin to a canine critter and not really on the level of human being. As if Richard were himself entitled to something that does not belong to him. I am sick and tired of hearing about that decandently obnoxious and whiny Richard and his family, as if I "owe" that creepy thief anything. I am not feeling myself inclined to submit to his wicked schemes. Richard will have no control in this story. We will tell him where to get off. I do not feel like rifling through infinitely more books, as for example Richard Green's "The Mirror of Modesty," a medieval retelling of the apocryphal book about Susanna, for no particular reason, as if that were the only thing to say about virtuous womanhood and trashy wicked Richard the sole source of all truth. There is the quote about not catching much with only a bare hook, which is the most applicable thing to say on this point. And there is also part where the two lechers talk about cracking her credit so that she will have to rely on them for mercy in the future, thus undermining her husband's credit and community standing, if she agrees to submit to their evil scheme. The two lechers have snuck into her husband's garden where she is preparing to bathe, having sent the servants away for soap, and encounter her in a state of some disrobement. The conversation is prolonged long enough for the servants to return and witness this strange encounter between the wife and the two lechers who are really only employees of her husband's business. They have been watching her secretly and are bedazzled by her beauty. But if she submits to them, they will have the upper hand in her husband's business. So what can one woman do when two or more men are conspiring against her and it is only her word against theirs? There is no solution for her dilemma until Daniel decides to question them separately. Under which tree in the garden was she standing, Daniel asks them? Each man names a different tree, thus revealing, according to the story, that their alibis do not exactly match. The two lechers received the death sentence they had desired for Susanna, which seems a fit and just end of story. After all, they were bearing false witness against her so it was all just a big lie.

Which Reminds Me

I vaguely recall during high school that Michael O'Farrell was kidding Martha 'Matty' Brizuela about her possible "Mata Hari" connections. I always thought it was just a somewhat juvenile and sophomoric joke typical of high school days. However, the seriousness with which this minor comment has been treated gives us pause to reconsider the possibility that there might actually be something to that, not that I would know anything about it or be able to explain the context of that. I only vaguely recall hearing this reference to the wicked spy lady of World War I. For more details you might get more information out of Michael O'Farrell. But it is also true that often these Frenchified people have some rather bizarre and intriguing connections in continental Europe that simple-minded American white people such as myself could not be expected to understand. We might get a few clues here and there but some things that are just too personal to discuss with them, obviously.

Scripting Problems

Ok, so this is the part of the script where I am supposed to launch into a tirade about all of these yappy little  Japanese attack poodles, cheerleader Kelly being a prime example of the Japan problem. "Were two atomic bombs not enough? Will we need to nuke stupid Kelly also, if only to zip Kelly's stupid mouth shut and thus advance this conversation beyond this annoying Japanese hangup point?" Yes, I really don't understand what the Japanese problem is at this time. I did feel a certain degree of pity in high school for Yasushi Takeda when describing his ambivalence and mixed feelings toward the United States, Japan's ally that had formerly nuked two major Japanese cities in order to terminate World War II early partly to cut down on U.S. casualties. And then we heard that he went on to work in the White House press corps representing Japan although I haven't heard anything recently. And there was the issue of Japanese people in the U.S. who spent the war years in prison camps. Yes, how sad. It must be sort of weird for Kelly Misaka to pretend to be a Christian when she is actually working for the Devil. Huh? Well, the U.S. treatment of Japan is puzzling and strange and I don't pretend to understand what the issues were but in wartime conditions anything can happen. There are no guarantees in life. And I have yet to understand why this should be my problem when I am not even remotely Japanese and not connected to this issue in any way. I heard the same speech that everyone else heard in high school but I don't know anything more about this than the average U.S. citizen. There are various types of Orientals, not only Japanese, even though sometimes it is hard for us foreigners to tell them apart. Certainly Japan could not reasonably expect to someday be running China in the democratic and self-governing view of things so what is their problem anyway? They have their island kingdom all to themselves so there should be no other expectation emanating from Japan that I know of, and yet I know nothing. Don't ask me. How would I know? In wartime conditions anything could happen.

Which Reminds Me

The various MAPS teams who came through El Salvador were always a source of fresh humor. There was, for example, the guy who fancied himself as fluent in the Spanish language by virtue of tacking an "o" onto the end of every word English or Spanish. Sometimes this works: el carr-o, el perr-o. But other times the results are not so fortunate. As the team was leaving the country he was heard to say that he was going "home-o." This story was retold various times obviously.

Which Puzzles Me

I wonder why so many people were expecting me to "do" something. There was nothing to "do." How would you like it if someone dumped fifty tons of "Other People's Garbage" on your front lawn and just expected you to "take it." Wouldn't you also be calling around telling everyone to get "it" yourself. I just have no idea. Some of these voices I might be able to put names to and others are completely unknown to me. I cannot be expected to know what their problem is when obviously I have problems of my own, like, for example, paying the rent. If I tried to cash in all these Omartian discards I would likely land in a mental hospital. I am sure I could dream up some trash to throw around. But mine is not the address of "Mr. Trashman," referred to in the song from Michael and Stormie Omartian's "The Builder" album. I always did like their music and still own this album but "Mr. Trashman" is not me. Perhaps you could try the Yellow Pages under "Shrink." That might be a good place to start your search.

Which Reminds Me

One of the biggest turnoffs about the Popineau's was their odd fascination with Jimmy Swaggart. Of course that was before everyone knew the truth of that. But really my Christianity is not defined by televangelists. It is nice that people get saved and healed through their ministry but I do not share this fascination with televangelists. Years earlier one day we were watching television and my mother was ironing clothes and Jimmy Swaggart was on the television foaming and frothing at the mouth talking about what girls should and should not wear. My mother said that he probably has a problem or he would not get so worked up into a lather talking about that. Now we know the truth about the crude and vulgar Swaggart camp and all of their pathetically stupid hangers-on. My Christian faith is not based on anything those TV guys say and that is the way it should be. The truth of God witnesses of itself. So it is nice that the TV people also witness of the truth of God but anyway we must have salt in ourselves, is one way the old-timers might have put it. Louisiana is nothing to me. So I was explaining this to Alana Hays but she was too weird to understand what I was saying probably because everything bounced back later all turned around whacky, as if I ever met those people, as if I were that streetwalker who...  Never! How utterly rude and insulting of the Popineau's to suggest such a bald-faced lie. Unbelievable!

Which Reminds Me

Shortly before leaving South Florida I recall that I did attend the Bible study held by Norm and Terra Young at their house. I think it was on Saturdays. It was not endorsed by the church so it was just Norm and Terra's thing. Maybe I did make some comments during the Bible study because questions were invited and Norm was talking about such strictly Reformed/Presbyterian issues which surprised me because while we believe that we also accept other theological ideas that these rigidly Reformed people never thought of. If Norm and Terra are so Reformed they really should not be pretending to be AG in my opinion. So anyway it was nice that there were so many people there, lots of guys. It could have been a good place to meet someone but unfortunately I was being followed by that little creep Randy Gay from Louisiana and that really was getting on my nerves. So anyway I only went there a handful of times before I moved away. I don't remember any of those people now. I probably did not miss anything important anyway. It was just a bunch of not very interesting people, sort of boring as usual for this area.

Which Reminds Me

Recently in reading the diaries of great-grandmother we learned that my Dad's Uncle Ben lived in South Carolina at some time in about 1960. She was traveling through the U.S. visiting relatives and mentions stopping in South Carolina to visit Ben and his family. Oh, I didn't know that. A few years later she mentions visiting Ben in Northern California so it is not clear how long they lived in South Carolina or what they were doing there. One just gets the picture of them being in South Carolina at some time. Oh, I had not been aware of any relatives of ours ever living in such a Deep South state. Of course how we would know that without having read the diaries? Obviously I had not a clue on that point. All these strange mutterings about the Civil War really get on my nerves. Just because Linda Crawley's creepy first husband was from North Carolina, that does not mean that I ever met him or would be invited to the wedding of a nasty rich girl from Canada/Michigan or something like that, as if Linda's "rough" first marriage, a truly civil war of the marital variety, was my fault only because I remember hearing her talk about this. And was Sue also there at the time to hear that? I don't quite remember. What is Michigan's problem anyway? Michigan is nothing to me. I don't even know anyone from Michigan and I really don't care.

Which Reminds Me

I wasn't planning to pick a fight with anyone but when Carolina Gonzalez was having such an obnoxious attitude and insisting that nobody touch her stuff and making special deals with Beth, the main editor, and trumpeting loudly the fact that she was elected by the ninth grade class to be their spokesperson on the newspaper and how dare anyone fix her wording whenever that did happen, and perhaps we did get heavy-handed sometimes in that regard, and then Kathy suggested that we edit Carol's last column of the year also, even though Carol had made angry speeches about her writing untouched and also Beth had given special instructions to just leave her stuff alone, and then I agreed that Carol's attitude was obnoxious and then it was done. Oddly, looking back now at the text of that column, it does not resemble anything that I remember of the original text that was edited for various spelling errors. What is there is something about the musical play that I would be appearing in a week or so and from there some rambling commentary about how my voice is not that good and how I will never amount to anything. So obviously the final text is not even what we corrected wrongly without Beth's permission. Kathy obviously had other plans in mind when staging the original corrections, having substituted some other nonsense authored by herself, something about their CIA mission orders to trash me and exalt my Sister-From-Hell, perhaps with some input from the nasty Wilson girls. Because all of these people only remember one thing about me, which is that comment that I made at age 10 about someday being famous and writing my autobiography. To them everything about me is just a cartoon caricature of that one event. So obviously if everyone has already planned my ultimate failure and humiliation in their eyes, there would be no reason for me to pretend to be a friend to them. Years ago I used to agonize in my diary about how everybody hates me but now I realize that it isn't all about me. Now I realize there is more to their rotten attitudes than just me.

Which Reminds Me

Another person listening to Bonnie's loud ponderations might have been the Puerto Rican Eva, who was sitting at the desk directly to my right. Eva was fired a couple of months or so after I started working there. Kathy, her editor, said later that Eva had not yet mastered the arts of spelling and grammar which makes it somewhat hard to succeed in any occupation necessitating written communication of any sort. Not that Kathy did not have her own lack of ethical standards in other ways. Still, despite Kathy's faults, I cannot say that Kathy should have to put up with Eva indefinitely. If the editor has to practically structure and rewrite the entire story then just being an ethnic voice who goes to city hall and brings back a raw notebook was apparently not enough justification for retaining Eva's services. I am just saying what I heard.

Which Reminds Me

Yes, I vaguely recall 2 or 3 years ago running across a missionary article that explained the group mentality of Mexicans. Now if only I could remember the volume and page number. What magazine was that anyway? Of course Irene and Ivonne are not exactly Mexicans and yet I sometimes to hear that foul demon spirit hissing through their channels. Not exactly a Mexican demon then but still you cannot really learn the path of salvation reading Dante's Inferno. It might scare you enough to not want to go there but the anatomy of hell is not a subject to revisit after high school, thanks anyway. Been there done that.

Fight Picking

Anyway, I was not planning to pick a fight with anyone in high school. They were such scary rich people, unbelievably nasty and mean to me in every way, I would rather just leave the country. I doubt that I would ever have any reason to return there anyway. I will go back to the U.S., attend college, get married and have my children and then retire to anonymous oblivion in some place of which they would never be aware as I doubt that I would ever move in their exalted Spanish social circles. It is not like high school people are that important anyway. Maybe in 30 years I will attend the high school reunion and see what happened to everybody, who married who, and that is about all there is to say about high school. But if they want to fight about something it would help if they could more clearly explain to somebody what exactly it is that I am supposedly lying about because I really don't remember anything specific. I mean, punctuation is important but, anyway, if you have nothing intelligent to say then adding lots of commas and semi-colons just isn't going to help.

Lack Of Sympathy

Everyone seems to have forgotten what nasty people there were among my high school classmates. Take, for example, those snarky dogs Irene and Ivonne. Such horrible snobs they were. There is not one good thing that I remember about them to like, just that they were there. They tend to run in packs like dogs, which explains the sharp fangs, but they sadly have no ability to think for themselves as individuals. They are shameless liars but as they are all colluding in their slander of me who can prove otherwise? It is just my word against theirs. They can sit around plotting against me and saying nasty things about me behind my back I imagine because I am just a white person anyway and not nearly so wealthy, only a missionary kid, a lonely Protestant drowning in a sea of clueless Catholics, and get away with it because they are rich and I am poor. They would not be living in the United States now if their families were not incredibly wealthy even by U.S. standards, unlike myself. Unlike myself, they have all kinds of money to pay for Freemason membership for a quick entry they imagine into U.S. society even though lots of U.S. citizens have not much use for that sort of pretentious highfalutin' gobbledy-gook and deeply resent being forced to pretend that we were ever friends with Freemasons when actually not really so much. We were high school classmates but there is only so far that sort of occultic nonsense will get you when the Christian witness ought to be your top priority. You cannot serve two Masters at once or you will end up despising one or the other.

Which Reminds Me

Years ago about the time that I was working at a community newspaper nearby, I remember that the New Times or one of those alternative newspapers did a huge cover story on the problem of French Canadians. The article went on and on in their most artlessly "Yellow" way about the problem of this flood of horrible French Canadians coming down here to South Florida winters and filling the beaches and stores and parks with their rude and nasty presence. I might not have noticed the article if Bonnie, another reporter, had not pointed it out in the newsroom. Bonnie was loudly talking about it and emphatically agreeing with the general point of the article, heartily sharing as she did this media hatred of French Canadians in Bonnie's extreme way. I was shocked that Bonnie would say it that way, but, well, that was how Bonnie was. Bonnie was really much too extreme. I would never think of saying that sort of thing in print but apparently Bonnie is not shy about such things. I had forgotten about that but obviously someone has forgotten to mainly ignore Bonnie's big mouth. It just wasn't that important.

Which Reminds Me

When my sister and I were young girls our relatives gave us each a $2 bill. I might still have mine, I don't remember. Incidentally, the $2 bill was devised as currency for betting on horse races, which is something that my relatives apparently enjoyed doing. However, as for myself, never in my life have I bet on a horse race. I cannot afford to lose that much money and I just don't have that kind of "in" on the horses. However, it was nice of them to give me a $2 bill.

Welcome to my MIserable Life

I declined to perform on the piano at the Sanchez shindig at their house. It was embarrassing the way they were trying to egg me on to perform because I was not expecting that and not prepared. And besides I am really not that good so they should not have so many expectations. But foreigners like the Sanchez are always so impressed with the persnickety airs of snooty New Englanders, which of course only proves they are yet foreigners in their own minds. They do not seem to understand that the rest of us are often not at all like New Englanders. Many U.S. citizens never read a book twice and never want to think that much about punctuation after college, let alone ever set foot in New England. Book dissection and autopsy skills generally are not useful unless you are applying for admission to some pretentiously secretive club of no practical value. Why would I want to overly complicate life by socializing with that type of horribly nasty New England snob? The thought never occurred to me. I just don't care.

Which Reminds Me

Stacy was asking me about my plans to go to New York which seemed so ridiculous to me for several reasons:
1. I would never in a million years discuss my personal plans with such a horrid nasty person as Stacy. These creepy Cox dogs are not entitled to poke their noses where they are not welcome. Being filthy rich does not entitle this cravenly stupid Byron and Stacy Cox to just butt into my life and trash everything in such a pathetically clueless away just because obviously the Hawaii millionaires are paying them under the table. I am not interested in sacrificing my future happiness so that a crude and vulgar dog named Stacy can disdainfully dismiss me as yesterday's garbage and only on the grounds of opera voice. It is not like Stacy has any other virtue. If I had any influence at all I would use it to bury these vile pseudo-Italian filthy rich Cox swine seasoned with Maltese extract. There is no reason why I should care about the filthy rich slime of Hawaii when their only aim is my destruction.
2. I had read somewhere in a magazine about the Broadway wannabes who undertake their mandatory pilgrimage to New York to try to get into the music business, but I had never considered myself a Broadway wannabe or of the caliber that would benefit from such a trip so there would be no reason for me to go there. Obviously, Stacy reads a lot of sappy magazines but her assumption that readers like me would automatically do whatever advertisers tell them to do is highly insulting and only proves how pathetically devious and dumb, not to mention wicked, Stacy and Byron actually are. I do not want my life story to coincide with theirs on any of these points. Thus I like having the option of flipping off these pathetically stupid Cox advertisers whenever I choose because all this worthless chatter really gets on my nerves.
3. I would not actually know anyone in New York if I did go there, which could be good or bad. I am indifferent to the idea of New York. Most of the people I ever met from New York seem to have odd mental issues and strange behaviors, which does not bode well for the idea of actually going there to be surrounded by the weirdest of the weird.
4. I vaguely recall Jennie Cerullo mentioning that she was from New York. I don't know Jennie or her friends and family that well and all signs seem to point back to Point No. 3.
5. I vaguely recall Sharon Leibowitz talking about being from New York. I don't know Sharon or her friends and family that well and all signs seem to point back to Point No. 3.
6. All persons from New York that I have ever met: Point No. 3.