60 Is Too Many Years: Part Two

 

        13 May 2026

        Sitting in my office while both the Spanish band and the Shredder band rehearse for the concert tonight. It's a beautiful metaphor.

        Where was I?

        Hold please.

        Right.

        My country hates me.

        That was about it. 

        Scene.

        I just took a Nyquil, and I hope to sleep through the band concert. No Disrespect. But I'm old. Have I mentioned that?

        I'm 60.

        My colleages in performing arts are collectively my age.

        Their relationships with the kids are weird to me. We were all on the stage after setting up for something last fall, and the instrumental teacher's phone rang. Weirdly, he's 30 and answers his phone. Didn't text.

        His side of the coversation consisted of ordering two different meals from two different fast food places, with specific drink requests, depending on which one the kid on the other line was going to for lunch.

        The choir teacher was laughing encouragingly, as she's had the same experience, and I was dead quiet.

        I never give kids my phone number.

        Unless you are my stage manager or we're going to New York on a tour, I never give kids my number.

        I'm now the old teacher. I'm now JK-the guy who was the theatre teacher when I started at Littleton. 

        Oh my god....

        I passed out. Hold on.

        Wait. I have to lie down.

        Gray hair. Bad knees. Jokes nobody gets. More experience and education about theatre than these kids could possibly ever absorb.

        Old OLD old old oldoldoldoldoldoldoldoldoldoldoldold and irrelevent.

        Not as bad as the reanimated corpses in Washington. Still young by that standard.

        But most teachers have retired by my age. I only have 23 years in, and the country is burning and gas is $5 a gallon so I'm not retiring. Ever.

        I wish to have a choice. I can die here; I've rebuilt this department and I can keep going and die at the light board or quietly choke on a DayQuil in my office. Or I can cut loose, sell the house, move to the western slope and die working at a Luv's truck stop.

        None of this was planned. Because I thought I was going to die in a fiery nuclear apocolypse at 20. Since the Federal Center was obviously a first strike target, I figured I'd take a lawn chair down at the 30 minute warning and catch the last rays.

        That did not happen.

        Clearly, as I'm whining at you right now.

        My colleagues are perfectly nice, but they don't get me. I'm the same age as their  parents. And I do not fit in, which was fine when I was younger and pretty, "quirky" was acceptable. Now I'm just an old crone with a colored headband around my neck, which is the Gen X version of a scrunci on my wrist. You never know when it's going up in my hair, or around my turkey neck. 

        And it isn't cute. 

        Because they know I'm hiding my neck. I used scarves at Littleton, very "Theatre Teacher Chic", but now those scarves are too bulky and hot and itchy because I Am The Fuck Sixty.

        I've only once had a real team mate. At Litteton my work wife was the person who had my job before I was hired, but took a full time lang arts position. She did my tech. It was great. She made us badges with "Carl" and "Lenny" from the Simpsons.

        It is the only time in my life I felt like I had a colleague. I felt like I belonged.

        The choir and band guys had bonded---they were the long term teachers who had come in together and fought the same battles, and I was the small dog that followed them around hoping they would pet me and say "And I will love him and keep him and call him George". My eventual flame out seventeen years later caused them undue stress, and while one still stays in touch via facebook, the other does not. We were colleagues. Work colleagues. That was all.

        The two kids here...band and choir... I need a nick name for them...The Twins (they both have dark hair and are 30)...are stupid close. Laugh. Inside jokes. Help with set up and strike. Share kids. 

        Do they know how rare that is? Do they know how lucky they are?

        Does it matter?

        Nothing matters. Nothing happens. Nobody comes.

        We sit posting angry emojis on social media while our country burns around us.

        That was out there. Must be time to go.

        

60 is too many years

 

        My buddy Will died at 52.

       In that span of time, he wrote 154 sonnets and 39 plays. Yes, 39, I believe Pericles, Two Noble Kinsmen and Edward III should be included.

        Mr. Albee died at 88. He wrote his first play for his 30th birthday. He had three Pulitzers, a Kennedy Center Lifetime Achievement and two Tonys for playwriting plus one lifetime achievement. He also deeply impacted my psyche, and he is the one I blame for becoming a teacher. Not a playwright, a teacher.

        Tina Fey was head writer at SNL at 29.

        And that's all I'm listing because she was young and I'm depressed.

        I am 60.

        I do not have the talent of those I admire, nor do I have the drive to "achieve my dreams".

        I never had any dreams. Dreams mean expectations, and those only leave you full of anxiety in a snow storm when your dad runs out of gas because he never planned ahead.

        I remember thinking vaguely that I could go to New York and Do The Things when I was younger. Then I realized Do The Things meant spending all of my money on dance and voice classes, an agent, time off my paying job to go to auditions and living with six other people in a one bedroom in Astoria.

        Teaching was something to do because I had failed at running a theatre and I could get insurance. I had failed as a playwright. I had failed as an actor.

        Teachers teach because they failed at The Thing they are teaching. I fit that horrible stereotype.

        I hear Saleri in my head daily now, "I'm slowing watching myself become extinct."

        I decided to teach because I could do it while I took a class and was mentored while I was teaching, which was the only way it was going to work. When I called around, even with my BA they were gonna make me teach for free (student teaching) before getting my license. So I found a way around the side door, through MSU. All you have to do is get hired by a school willing to let you teach while you learn. Which I did. And it was the hardest thing I had ever done up to that point in my 37 years.

        I did it, and just four years later Jim lost his entire career, and the bottom fell out of the economy. The Recession. My job couldn't keep us afloat--we had to borrow money from his dad so we didn't lose the house. That plus cashing in all of his retirement. For which we are punished every year by paying too much in taxes and not getting a refund. Because How Dare You take your retirment money out early to save your ass in the moment. You will be punished for a recession that you did not cause. Those who did cause it got bailouts.

        It'll happen again. Gas prices and grocery prices have us stretched to the max, as we also help out the kids who have real, full time careers and still cannot pay rent and make their car payments because Fuck You Americans, the billionaires need more tax cuts.

        But I digress. Shocking, I know.

        60.

        I had no intention of living this long and it sucks.

        I'm tired of living through the same fucking history because only geeks like me paid attenion in class and learned.

        I'm tired of "teaching" people who have techno brain damage. That's real, not slander. Kids can't concentrate, think around problems or remember anything.

        I'm tired of colleagues half my age who believe they are entitled to a work/life balance.

        I'm tired of amin half my age who believe they have new ideas.

        I'm tired of parents who shuffle off their feral children to school and then refuse to answer the phone when we call because their kid flipped a table/started a fight/refused to attend class.

        We are not supposed to live past 50.

        Our bodies used to tell us that, before medical breakthroughs enabled the reanimated corpse brigade currently hogging political office.

        Mamdani is just a guy with a moral compass and a uniquely well adjusted world view. We don't like that here, we're 'merican and we don't do empathy. Or have a moral compass. Or consider views outside of our own. So cearly he must be....A Communist!

        Because we didn't pay attention in government class and missed out on the real definition of communism and the historic examples of Why It Has Never Worked. We also ditched lang arts when we did close readings, and missed the many printed interviews where Mamdani openly identifies as a Democratic Socialist.

        But you go ahead and waste your time and energy on hate. It's what you do best.

        I still have one friend who fires on the right--not correct, I mean "constrictive"side of the spectrum, god bless him. He posted a meme blaming Biden for the Spirit airline bankruptcy. Because the Biden admin denied a merger with Jet Blue. Two years ago. Ummm...kay. I'll be over here in reality with Aaron Parnas, you enjoy your looney snack time. Would you like to blame Biden for the rising cost of gas and lack of fertilizer for planting as well?

        Y'all don't get to continue to point out "Sleepy Joe", who had cancer, and ignore or blow off The Orange Buffoon napping during every single cabinet meeting. Biden was shoved into the job simply to block Trump, as the democrats were shitting their pants instead of backing a viable candidate. They don't have anyone like Trump and this is a GOOD thing. Except Bernie, who I would have voted for, but they also decided to Fuck Bernie.

        I'm 60 and annoyed that nobody seems to have learned anything in the last...60 years. I can't imagine being 80 and watching this shit show. Knowing you fought for civil rights. Your friends were beaten and killed defending other people's right to vote and use a public restroom and attend school with white folks. Your mom fought for the right to vote---also beaten and jailed. You may have been a woman who got married because that's the only option you had, only to be trapped financially, unable to earn your own money, open your own bank account or get a credit card. 

        Why are women the target? Why are black folks the target? Why does our government hate us?

        More soon...

actual monologue

 Theme: The fragility of the American Dream 9 April 2026 12.15 pm

One of the greatest plays ever written, in my opinion, is The American Dream by Edward Albee. Of course I’m partial as I studied with the man for a year, and he produced my writing and coached me as a writer and human and teacher—I owe him A LOT. But I digress. He’d be disappointed. 

The American Dream takes place in the living room of Mommy and Daddy. Grandma lives with them but is being packed off because she is old. Mommy is domineering, Daddy is weak. In the scope of Mr. Albee’s work, these characters are familiar as they resemble his own adopted family in the Hamptons. As a man raised in wealth and privilege, Mr. Albee gratefully swung left of that and instead embraced free thought, art, expression and teaching.

There is a level of intellect necessary to process-let alone enjoy- Mr. Albee’s work. I do not feel like a snob saying this. Overall the intellectual capacity of people who attend plays over musicals is superior. It takes an understanding of language, philosophy and the human condition as well as stamina to sit through three hours of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Which I did–at the Alley theatre—because Mr. Albee directed it.

He was insistent that playwrights do not direct or act in their own work until after the first production. He said you can’t stop editing and fully engage in the power of your words if you’re always editing. I’d say he’s right. And I’ll also say I've acted in my own work, but only after it was produced the first time. It’s a way to get perspective, so many writers exist in a vacuum, and I guess that’s great if you’ve the confidence and ego—I’m looking at you David Mamet—but the rest of us value distance and another voice.

I blame Mr. Albee for my vocational choice to teach. I was full on going into theatre–acting sometimes, directing a bit but primarily writing. I wanted to Be A Playwright. That was my version of “the American Dream”, to do What You Love fully and make a living at it.

This was not my mom’s American Dream. Hers was tied to getting married and having kids and a home. That generation is the only one —arguably—that fully received the true American Dream: work an honest job for a good salary that allows you to buy a house and a car, an occasional vacation and retirement. The American Dream they were sold worked out for them, which is problematic when it comes to them understanding the struggles other generations fought through later. They elbowed their kids into it, and we are not OK–let alone recipients of the dream. Greed took hold of America in the 1980’s and never let go. Those unwilling to play Wall Street were left out. Left to lesser salaries as nurses, teachers, mechanics, clerks, cosmetologists, oil rig workers. Paid less to contribute to society, as inflation rose exponentially but salaries did not keep pace. The Trumpers sold empty bonds and hollow stocks to line their own pockets. And now our own children, who understand the fragility of the dream by calling out The Dream itself as false, will never have one career that pays the bills and buys a home,get married. Raise kids. Enjoy retirement. 

I feel like I let them down. I have never voted for a presidential candidate that won–a dubious distinction. Twice I voted against someone, not for someone.

I think Gen X means we’re the generation at the crossroads. Our kids will be the ones to walk the change across the finish line, but not until the billionaire boomers and tech turds are struck down. Our job is to use everything we have in us to keep them afloat. And that does mean financially as well. Even those with “good” college degrees find themselves unable to find work in an oversaturated  field, or up against massive Trump cuts to research and environmental support. My oldest is very into art/work trade—they’ll cut someone’s hair in trade for vegetables from their client’s garden. This is going to be the future, the way we will have to function when the financial apocolypse explodes. This will be how we respond after being bombed back into the stone age by corporate greed and unhinged gluttony.

The American Dream was pure once, but always fragile. It relies on everyone —government and society—working together to keep us all afloat.

Eat the rich is only the beginning. We must build a new society and make sure this never happens again.

        _________________________________________________________________________________

    My beloved Mr. Albee died in 2016. The same year we lost Alan Rickman, David Bowie and Carrie Fisher. They saw this coming and ducked out.

    They are collectively people who never bought into the American Dream, in any capacity. They saw it as both fragile and corrupt. Tenuous and false.

    A Lie.

    Mr. Albee's scope of work scathes the ideaologies that prop up the American Dram. For a man adopted into a rich family and given the freedom to float around Greenwich and Be Gay, he had no issue biting the hand that fed him.

    He held the honor of a Pulitzer committe member quitting because Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf was "vulgar". He never finished a traditional Bachlor's degree because he didn't want to take math. He bounced through universities like a bee gathering honey, getting the art and literature education he wanted, and leaving when they tried to force him to take classes he had no interest in.

    The first time I had a piece read out loud in the playwriting class---which was the precursor to production the next year---I sat next to the actor who read my words at the front of the room and faced Mr. Albee. I curled into a ball which he only sneered at. Not cruel, just his way of letting me know that wasn't going to work. I was there voluntarily for his feedback, and I was going to hear his feedback.

    The first day of that class, he said "I can't teach you to be playwrights." He had that low growl of a voice and persistent twinkle in his eye that let us know he both meant that and did not mean it.

    What he taught me was how to think. How to listen, how to respond. How to write exactly what I want to communicate and how to stick to the central theme.

    And how to teach.

    Without knowing it, I was not being trained as a playwright. I was being taught to teach.

    I was still and English major when he chose my work for his class. By the end of that class, I'd switched back to theatre.

    I blame Mr. Albee for many things and one is dragging me back into theatre. Which --to be clear--he said nothing. He cared naught for degrees or titles. There were English majors in both production classes the two years I worked with him. It was the collaborative nature of theatre that I missed. That pulled me back.

        HOW AM I GETTING A MONOLOGUE OUT OF THIS

    The first time I ever heard my own words read by an actor, outloud in front of people---people who were also writers, and a professor who was a Broadway legend--- was in Mr. Albee's playwriting class. I worked with him for two years, and he kept insisting we call him "Edward". He even introduced himself to my husband at a cast party as "Edward". I could never do it.

     I sat at the front of the room next to my friend who had read the piece, pulled my knees to my face and wrapped my arms around my knees. Mr. Albee glowered. Once you got to know him, you knew that look and the perpetual twinkle in his eye. He was not cruel, he was just right and he had the Pulitzer and Tonys to back him up. And you were chosen---over three hundred writing samples were submitted for this class of ten people. The production class---the next step, where Mr. Albee would produce your play on the UH stage--was even smaller. That year it was three plays being produced. The following year---the year I was selected---it was four.

      My class that year was literally the audition class for the following production year. The ten of us plus whomoever applied from outside. This year, the year I was just in the clas, I also stagemanaged one of the productions. The playwright-Kevin- wasn't even enrolled, he was a local playwright    

    So no pressure.

    I sat and received all of his feedback, wordlessly. I wasn't angry and I didn't shut down: I listened. As he spoke to my piece, I sorted through every syllable. I breathed in every word, and exhaled the word with my feelings attached.

    He wasn't wrong.

    Absolutely everything he said was correct, and I made adjustments in my head before ever getting to the keyboard.

    Then it was my classmates' turn to give me feedback on my writing. The difference in feedback cannot be understated. Some wanted to impress Mr. Albee by sounding very intellectual (mostly English majors), and some wanted clarification for certain allusions in the script (theatre majors), and some gave nothing but positve feedback for the effort, but clearly did not believe I belonged among their ranks (English Masters' majors). My friend Paul was the only one who just spoke like a person to a person.

    Paul and I both felt like frauds in this class. Paul wasn't a 'reader', he liked Star Trek. Albee would push the reading agenda, and while I could respond because I read, just not always intellectual material, I could contribute to conversations. When Paul was called out by Albee to contribute, he was honest but not belligerent. He's not a stupid person (he has his Masters n English and works in Spring Texas at an alternative high school), and he doesn't judge himself as less. Also, he was chosen with me the following year. Proving that being authentic is the best approach. I've alwas attributed that to the Entitled White Man Comfort. Where as I--a skinny white woman with myriad self esteem issues--would have lied if I had to to look better.

    But I never had to. Because Mr. Albee believed I could write, and he believed I could take criticism and he even bought me lunch once to talk about my play.

    WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS MONOLOGUE

    I suppose that's ultimately why I becamse a teacher. To believe in kids who would otherwise sit with their knees in their face, curled up into a ball. To let them know that feedback is relevent, and your response and defense is irrelevent. Learn or don't. It's on you.

    But I believe that you can, because I was taught by the best.

    

9 April 2026

 

    In a desperate attempt to feel  control...I'm making my Theatre 1 kids write monologes based in a theme. As I am wont to do, I write with them.

    Turns out I've been writing blogs so long I have no idea how to write monologues. Here's what I barfed up:

     Theme: The fragility of the American Dream 9 April 2026 12.15 pm

One of the greatest plays ever written, in my opinion, is The American Dream by Edward Albee. Of course I’m partial as I studied with the man for a year, and he produced my writing and coached me as a writer and human and teacher—I owe him A LOT. But I digress. He’d be disappointed. 

The American Dream takes place in the living room of Mommy and Daddy. Grandma lives with them but is being packed off because she is old. Mommy is domineering, Daddy is weak. In the scope of Mr. Albee’s work, these characters are familiar as they resemble his own adopted family in the Hamptons. As a man raised in wealth and privilege, Mr. Albee gratefully swung left of that and instead embraced free thought, art, expression and teaching.

There is a level of intellect necessary to process-let alone enjoy- Mr. Albee’s work. I do not feel like a snob saying this. Overall the intellectual capacity of people who attend plays over musicals is superior. It takes an understanding of language, philosophy and the human condition as well as stamina to sit through three hours of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Which I did–at the Alley theatre—because Mr. Albee directed it.

He was insistent that playwrights do not direct or act in their own work until after the first production. He said you can’t stop editing and fully engage in the power of your words if you’re always editing. I’d say he’s right. And I’ll also say I've acted in my own work, but only after it was produced the first time. It’s a way to get perspective, so many writers exist in a vacuum, and I guess that’s great if you’ve the confidence and ego—I’m looking at you David Mamet—but the rest of us value distance and another voice.

I blame Mr. Albee for my vocational choice to teach. I was full on going into theatre–acting sometimes, directing a bit but primarily writing. I wanted to Be A Playwright. That was my version of “the American Dream”, to do What You Love fully and make a living at it.

This was not my mom’s American Dream. Hers was tied to getting married and having kids and a home. That generation is the only one —arguably—that fully received the true American Dream: work an honest job for a good salary that allows you to buy a house and a car, an occasional vacation and retirement. The American Dream they were sold worked out for them, which is problematic when it comes to them understanding the struggles other generations fought through later. They elbowed their kids into it, and we are not OK–let alone recipients of the dream. Greed took hold of America in the 1980’s and never let go. Those unwilling to play Wall Street were left out. Left to lesser salaries as nurses, teachers, mechanics, clerks, cosmetologists, oil rig workers. Paid less to contribute to society, as inflation rose exponentially but salaries did not keep pace. The Trumpers sold empty bonds and hollow stocks to line their own pockets. And now our own children, who understand the fragility of the dream by calling out The Dream itself as false, will never have one career that pays the bills and buys a home,get married. Raise kids. Enjoy retirement. 

I feel like I let them down. I have never voted for a presidential candidate that won–a dubious distinction. Twice I voted against someone, not for someone.

I think Gen X means we’re the generation at the crossroads. Our kids will be the ones to walk the change across the finish line, but not until the billionaire boomers and tech turds are struck down. Our job is to use everything we have in us to keep our kids afloat. And that does mean financially as well. Even those with “good” college degrees find themselves unable to find work in an oversaturated  field, or up against massive Trump cuts to research and environmental support. My oldest is very into art/work trade—they’ll cut someone’s hair in trade for vegetables from their client’s garden. This is going to be the future, the way we will have to function when the financial apocolypse explodes. This will be how we respond after being bombed back into the stone age by corporate greed and unhinged gluttony.

The American Dream was pure once, but always fragile. It relies on everyone —government and society—working together to keep us all afloat.

Eat the rich is only the beginning. We must build a new society and make sure this never happens again.

Outside/Inside

 

        To the five people who read my blather: you're sweet. Thanks. I assume I'm saying something with which you identify. 

        I have been contemplating my coffee travel mug.

        It is metal. It is pink, but the paint is peeling off, so the metal is flaking through.

        It was left behind by a student at Hinkley who never reclaimed it.

        It has a handle. 

        It features a rainbow straw that I received for free at Starbucks - before I stopped going to Starbucks---so maybe a year ago? I do not think she was supposed to give me the free straw, but it's perfect.

        If you have No Idea Who I Am, you would look at this pink flaky rainbow combo and possibly determine that the owner is...gay. Probably a gay man.

        Or a child. Possibly a child. A child who drinks coffee.

        Or a proud female who loves pink and is an LGBTQ ally.

        None of these are accurate. You've met me. 

        I'm cheap and lazy.

        The mug and straw were free.

        This contributes to the confusion regarding 'Who I Am".

        A woman with short hair like mine told me that currently female students---who are growing their hair very long, waist length in many cases-- said they prefer long hair because short hair means you went through trauma. You went through something and cut your hair off.

        My response was simple; the long haired girls have no trauma because they don't have to clean their own shower drains. That's some trauma, and a reason for short hair.

        Nothing is what it appears. Stop trying to attach a reason that fits your narrative to why I look and live the way I do.

        I have only seven students in my Theatre 1 class. Ridiculously small. We meet at the table on stage at the beginning of class to chat about the day's plan. Some days something has happened in the world that I can see is effecting them. Or me. So we talk. I asked if this bothered them, if they'd rather "just do theatre", knowing that what I'm teaching is that Theatre Is Everything----society, politics, religion, history. But I always check. I usually get a silent moment letting me know we're all good. The week before last, they said "Actually, kmart, we appreciate you. You're the only teacher who tells us the truth."

        I gotta say, that hit me. Since leaving Littleton I've had a lot of work to do on myself. Part of what got me in trouble there was being too passive aggressive yet wielding the mohawk. Writing a blog instead of standing toe to toe with the bullies. I don't play that any more. I speak truth.

        Weirdly ( or not), one of my Hink kids who attended Mamma Mia said I look and sound so much happier. I answered---within earshot of the AP who hired me---that I love Kennedy. I don't have a target on my back. The student replied "You speak truth to power. It's about time you're somewhere safe and supported." There are an insane amount of factors against this building, but none of them are against me personally. I told my former student it's a "good" fight, because it's wrong and corrupt, but I'm with others who are standing up, not the one being targeted. 

        Since Littleton I have lived Atticus Finch's words "I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what."

        I did not have real courage at Littleton. I was buillied and panicked, making horrible choices along the way out of fear. I regret every moment after Amy Oaks arrived.

        I had real courage at Hinkley. That's where I found it. I was targeted for reasons beyond my own control, I faced admin and the district in person and toe to toe, even though I knew I was not going to win. I spoke the truth and I held against complete corruption. I was even called a racist and I went to HR and the union. Nothing was resolved, naturally, but I did not write a blog about it: I faced it. In person. And I was told to my face in front of witnesses that nothing was going to happen, because the admin who accused us-- a young man of color--- did so because he has a "fear of white women".

        OK. I calmly replied that I have a fear of unhinged administrators throwing incidiary false accusations at me, and of men who are several feet taller and louder than myself. I spoke my truth. It did not matter. Though I did get a different evaluator---one month before the end of the year. The issue happend the last week of January. What admin hoped was going to throw me further under the bus backfired, as the admin who took over had been my evaluator the year before, and herself had issues with her colleague. I was in the clear.

     The issue above occured because this particularly large and loud administrator had bullied his way into my face after an outreach event at the middle school, and made inapprorpriate jokes that I "laughed" at. Anyone with any social awareness knew what was acutally going on, I just wanted to be out of the situation. He later tried to claim I agreed with him in that moment because I laughed, and I pointed out that he was my admin and signifuciantly louder and larger than myself, and I was trying to get away. I said "I'm a theatre teacher, and as such I tell kids constnatly that what they are doing and what they think they are doing do not always match. That is what is happening right now: you do not understand that you present differently than you think you do." That is when he stood up, slammed his laptop shut and called the three of us present---all white women---racists.

     There. I blogged about it. That was....three years ago? I dunno. Time has no meaning.

     Young actors frequently argue with me when I tell them they cannot be heard, or understood, or are not communicating their intentions. It is a laborious process to retrain them into understanding that what they think they are doing/ saying and what it appears that they are doing/saying does not match. The sucessful ones understand, and work to be more clear on stage and off. It works in real life too. Shocking, I know.

     Those who do not take the direction fail at theatre and continue to be misunderstood in life. That's not on me. 

    As a Liberal White Gen X Woman With Resting Bitch Face, I know what I'm talking about.

    Unless I'm truly paying attenion, my outside does not match my inside. Particulary as I get older and give no shits about what anyone thinks about me.

    So my coffee mug is/is not me. It was free. It is beaten up and the pink paint is chipping. The rainbow straw was free. I am an LGBTQ ally. I am female. I speak truth.

     Scene.     

Liberal White Woman

        4 April 2025

     I unfriended a family member today.

    That is not like me, but much about me seems to be up for whatever definition fits your perception.

    I have now twice been accused by someone I went to high school with of bullying them. One said I hissed at her.

    I did no such thing. But ever since, I have wondered if I was the bully. Like Liz Lemon discovered when she went to her high school reunion.

    Because of course it's my fault. That's how I was raised. I must have misunderstood the exchange. It's about me without actually being about me.

    I was in a PLT meeting a few weeks ago; performing arts, two art teachers and the AP. Somehow the topic of smoking pot came up---specifically making bongs out of soda cans. Please refer to the list of people in this meeting before wondering how the heck the conversation traveled to that point. I laughed along as one does, however I never made a bong in my life. I never even used one. I smoked pot once and it didn't go well, so I have abstained, claiming the Punk Creed to stay sober and angry at Reagan.

    Everyone in the room went quiet and looked at me. Unsure of what was happening, I merely looked back. One of the art teachers started laughing, and said "I'm sure kmart knows."

    I'm a white Gen X kid, raised on guilt. I'm a white Gen X teacher with PTSD after being attacked for speaking up. So I looked back at them...for exactly one second.

    I did not raise my voice. It was clear and precise-

    "I'm so tired of being blamed for shit I didn't do just becuase you think my demeanor suggests that I did. I don't smoke pot--I don't like it. I don't appreciate the assumption based on my age or mohawk."       

    The current regime has me  pulling out all stops. Speaking up like that is pretty new for me, espeically in a building I just joined a year ago. However, I yell on Facebook. I protest. I speak up in departmnt meetings. I email the district. I email the school board. I left a toxic building---one I ran to because I was bullied out for speaking up--because I was Fed Up.

    I had Had It. It is what I have had and what I have had is IT.

    I've been unraveling slowly ever since.

    Then ...well...you know. Look at the date. It's April 2026.

    My first reaction was to see the doctor about the brain fog, anxiety and general unrelenting anger. I did. I have vitamins now and a therapist.

    Part of my therapy is to use facebook to yell. It's a canyon, most people who still engage on FB are friends and think like me. We rarely comment on one another's posts, we're just using the platform for the Eternal Shriek. The Primevel Shout. And to post news about art shows.

    I do have a few lingering conservative types who do not engage with my posts, and I do not engage with theirs. If we want to talk, we can get a glass of wine. But I won't start a fight on a freaking social media platform. All but one of these folks are female.

    The male, a cousin by marriage, stepped over the line.

    I have ignored his pro immigration posts, his misled allegeince to money and belief that Iran had a nuclear warhead pointed at the US.

    He chose to respond to this post of mine:

          "Guys, why are we still having these conversations?
          Converstion therapy is wrong. Forcing people to  ignore their true selves to be something you think is 'right' is abuse.

          Refusing healthcare to a human due to their social econmic status or gender is criminal. AKA wrong.

         Blocking voting rights to an entire gender because you know they won't vote for you is wrong.

        Invoking the name of Jesus to justify war is wrong."

    The cousin commented "I hope you aren't talking about all conservatives."

     Well, dear, that sounds like a confession to me. And, as a teacher, it is my job to take this apart so you can think about it. I did NOT say "You are responding to a MORAL post with a POLITICAL answer you moron." I just stated that if you are for any of the above policies, you need to check your moral compass.

     Nothing good happened after that exchange. 

    I pointed out that I was referencing a Moral Compass, not "conservative" or anything political. Harp chimed in to tell him "Nobody is judging you" when he started blubbering about his age and his right to like some things but not all things about the regime...and I just...snapped. I won't argue on social media, so I deleted his comments. He commented again. I deleted again and unfriended him.

    He is a 75 year old white rich Texan. 

    Not all 75 year old white rich Texans are without a moral compass.

    But all Liberal White Women are done listening to it.

    I found this label on a Tik Tok collage featuring white men and white women screaming that the PROBLEM WITH THIS COUNTRY IS LIBERAL WHITE WOMEN.

    Who are organizing protests?

    Who are showing up at protests?

    Who are posting news updates on social media?

    Who are the Mama Bears, the teachers, the doctors and nurses, assited living caregivers, paraprofessionals...you know, the ones holding this shit show together with what energy we have left because we are compassionate.

    We're the Liberal White Women.

    And this LWW is done allowing 75 year old rich men mansplain how it's completely moral to accept some things about the Trump administration while disagreeing about other things becuase that's politics dear.

    Nope. 

    This regime has jack bannana shit to do with politics. 

    It's 100% about repression, greed and control. No politics. No Moral Compass.

    But---fun fact--several deadly sins!

    Nice segue, kryssi.

    They didn't invite the Catholics to the Pentagon Easter celebration, because the Pope  is behaving like a Liberal White Woman, and openly states that war is wrong, rounding up immigrants is wrong and greed is wrong. "Wrong" meaning "Without A Moral Compass or Compassion."

    I have a list of reasons to disagree with the Catholic Church, but I will say outloud to anyone interested that I Like This Pope.

    Fun to be a Liberal White Woman who agrees with the Pope.

    Compassion makes strange allies.