Suziecreamcheese Sings the Blues

I became an aunt when I was only 9 years old. I thought this was the most amazingly wonderful thing that ever could possibly happen. I remember holding my niece for the first time – I was so excited, I had to sit on the sofa and be very careful, while my sister put the baby in my arms. I remember looking down at her face, while everyone was taking pictures of this moment, and feeling nothing but love.
I was a baby, meself. A baby in love with a baby. 🙂
We kind of grew up together. A couple years later there was another baby, and then another, and then another. I was an aunt, and I loved it. I loved having nieces and nephews.
As I got older, I loved being the fun aunt, the one the kids loved, the one they shared their secrets with. I bought them presents on their birthdays and at Christmas. I bought them presents whenever I could, even though I didn’t have a ton of money. I made them stuff, I sewed and knit for them – always it was for the kids.

The oldest one liked to tell “stories.” No, she told lies. From the time she could talk, she lied. She didn’t know how to tell the truth. I realized when she was a teenager that there was something not quite right about her, but I told myself I was imagining things. No one wants to believe that someone they love is somehow wrong. And then she went off to college. She was there for a couple of years, stories she told of that experience were often unbelievable, but love won out over common sense and I let it all go without question.

And then she was somehow going to transfer to another college, and then not, and then she was home with her parents, and no one really knew if she was going back to college or what the heck was going on. We saw her in March of that year, 1994. She was wearing overalls, and obviously pregnant. I questioned her, and she told me emphatically that she was NOT pregnant. When she left, with her mother, I turned to my mother and said, “that girl is pregnant.” Mother denied it as well, but she knew.

And a few weeks later, we got a call. She’d had a baby. A girl. As angry as I was at her, the baby won my heart. Another niece, this time a great-niece, the first of many, and always the first in my heart. I loved her from the moment I saw her, so sweet, so innocent, such an angel. I will never forgive myself for not protecting her from the wrongness that was both my sister and her daughter.

And I am afraid

Some of you may say that I deserve to be afraid

That because I’m a white woman, I’ve had this wonderful, priviledged life where everything was given to me, everything was easy.

Does your desire to cause me fear make you better than those who caused you to feel fear?  Does it not make you the same as them?

I don’t want to be your enemy

I don’t want you to be mine

I want you to realize that there’s an implied “only” in your slogan and a silent, “but so do” in mine.

No, you couldn’t

Never thought I’d see the day that I’d rather work on creating a Connect page for class than watching TV

Why the fuck does he have that shit on?   Shut up, Obama, you lost, go away, don’t let the door hit you on the way out.

Your constant need for extensions on homework, quizzes, and exams has become a thorn in my side, and will cause me to make major changes in my syllabus next semester.   There will be no more extensions, for any reason.

Okay, I really won’t be that harsh.   But there will be a definite “you get a week” rule.   No exceptions

I will get your grades entered in the gradebook when I get around to it.   Get off my back about it.

I woke up on November 9th certain that somehow, some way, Hillary would have found a way to still be declared the winner of the election.

I was astonished when it didn’t happen

20 days till the Electoral college votes

I’m terrified that somehow, some way, she’s going to find a way to get the win, that somehow in those 20 days things are going to go horribly wrong and we’re going to be stuck with this woman.

She conceded.  It should be over. Why is it not over?

are we suddenly a third world country that won’t accept the results of an election but takes months of dithering to finally give it up and accept the winner?

Are we all not tired of the bullshit?

just over it all

I haven’t been comfortable blogging for a while

Every now and again, a rant escapes me

Then I agonize over whether to leave it up or take it down and in most cases, I take it down.   I’m tired of being afraid to say what I think – so why bother to keep this open?