Smultronställe 🍓

Temperature: a sunny cloudy sunny then cloudy 29.5/85 degrees.

Drinking: is not a good idea in this heat, sweetie darlings, alcohol is a diuretic.

Watching: Black Monday. The cast and the writing, the costumes, hair and makeup...two thumbs way up.

Listening: to plans being made, we’re leaving the city for a bit.

Reading: God Equation: The Quest for a Theory of Everything by Michio Kaku.

Writing: birthday invitations now that it’s okay to gather outside, and we have two birthdays to celebrate this month, including mine. Yes, you’re invited. Bring bubbly! Yes, I know what I just said about alcohol hydrating you. I’ll provide the water, snacks and cake. Chocolate? Strawberry? Mango, lime, some other fruit? RSVP ASAP!

Thinking: The heat, the humidity, the droughts, the rains, the fires, the extremes the flora and fauna, our bodies, homes, infrastructure can’t and should not be forced to adapt to…damnation, dearest denizens! Can we sue the fossil fuel industry for criminal intent of the reckless kind? They knew. And decided not only not to care but actively obfuscate the hell out of it.

Feeling: Pride Month is done but the work is not so let’s keep banging that drum and supporting our fellow humans in their fight for autonomy because equal rights are human rights and WTF Poland and Hungary (et al. mind you) no seriously WTF how dare you marginalize the marginalized even further and conflate queer with pedophilia NO SERIOUSLY self-determination look it up your policies are damaging and your attitude an insult and your values so dated and so regressive Europe gasps in shame and no child no youth no adult should be afraid of being and showing their true self as we only get to ride this roller coaster once and how dare you squeeze yourself into someone else’s car and spoil the fun of living and strip others of the right to live with dignity no se-ri-ous-ly how dare you how could you ever think it's about turning someone into someone they are not it is and has always been about allowing every single soul to be who they are because we are who we are and love is love and love is the higher law.

Unity

It's International Women's Day and I'm exchanging clinking glasses, kisses, hugs and flexed biceps emojis with friends. It's a celebration, a chance to lift and carry one another, but one laced with sisterly sorrow. The world keeps torturing women in such subtle and sadistic ways that it's hard not to take it personally. The mere knowledge of millennia of torment can be dispiriting and debilitating, as if we can feel the fates of our foremothers in our bones.

And to those now thinking "I'm sorry but it's 2021, get over it and get on with it": I'm sorry but I can't help you, I simply don't have time to educate you, get smart and then get cracking, it's an emergency and we are all on call. 2020 was a major setback for women and women's rights (women's rights!! we need a separate term for what ought to be universal and inalienable, for fuck's sake) and we will keep on sliding in 2021.

In a perfect world we present our case, a perfectly justified one, and presto, the world tips the scales and we find ourselves on an equal footing. In the real world life is a steeplechase without handicaps; men have a disproportionate, institutionalized, age-old advantage over women. It's possibly the stupidest thing humanity has ever invented and perpetuated. Gender inequality hurts women and men alike. Our lives would be easier, happier, more prosperous and peaceful were women given a fair chance. Gender equality is in everyone's best interest, economically, ethically and environmentally. Every vote, voice and act against gender equality is self-defeating and self-destructive.

And if you still don't know what I'm talking about then you've just figured out what I'm talking about: men and women share a planet but live in two different realities.

All hands on deck

I know it's Friday and you're gearing up for a fun night and a funtastic weekend but it's also International Day of the Girl Child so could you do me a favor and lend me a hand in support of girls' right to quality education?

Thank you! Love you!!

Here's how:

Sign the petition

Raise your hand using Facebook

Or tweet a picture of you and/or your friends raising hands, just please make sure you add the hashtag #bcimagirl

Why should you care if some girl you don't know can't go to school or some woman you'll never meet can't work? In this economy, global, connected, skewed, screwed, can we really afford not to educate girls and employ women?

He-men and gentlemen, women are more than happy to carry their own weight, share the burden. We don't consider it your responsibility or right to act, speak or choose on our behalf so why do you? We're here to help. So let us. All of us. Each according to their talents. Can we really afford to waste a single pair of capable hands?

Go mess with Texas

Dearest Texans, do you sometimes wonder where the money goes? An extremely topical issue in these cost-cutting, downsizing times of ours, is it not? Let me enlighten you. To make a long story short...

The Texas Department of Transportation recently tried to stop distribution of romance author Christie Craig's novel Don't Mess With Texas. A U.S. District Judge denied the request stating the trademarked slogan did not apply to book slogans. Dear Texan taxpayer, thus ruled the federal court in Austin. The TxDOT is pursuing a trademark infringement suit all the same. So. If you want to file a complaint with TxDOT, if this is not where you want the money to go, I mean, deficit and all, you can do so here.

Dearest Texas, in the immortal words of one Georgios Panayiotou, "If you're gonna do it, do it right." If this is the avenue you want to pursue, if you want to be hailed as a hero of democracy instead of hypocrisy, if you want to do right by your citizens and the almighty buck, you need to go after the countless male artists misusing your motto, immediately, retroactively, and just as relentlessly. Until you have, the work isn't done. If you can't or won't, let it go or be pegged as the most sexist state that ever made it obvious in front of a worldwide audience. 

Up and at 'em! Leave no stone or pocket unturned.

Attack of the Amazon Women (and A Few Good Men)

This is bad, I commented on Jaci Burton's blog. This is unacceptable. And I'm madder than Howard Beale. I sent Amazon my seething sentiment, nothing as coherent and structured as Jaci's fine lines I'm afraid, only something as illogical and absurd as what Amazon came up with.

Dear Amazon.com

Some alarming gagging, binding and blindfolding action was brought to my attention. Since said action was mostly done by you, I would like for you to extend the invasion of my tastes, free thinking and bedroom to other parts of my mental and physical health as well, to say nothing of house and garden.

We have a snail problem I suggest you help solve by removing all mention of books that even refer to the nasty vermin eating their way through my vegetable garden. Rafflesias are rather ugly and smelly; please keep a vigilant watch in case they sprout. Keep hits pertaining to carbs and fatty foods to a minimum lest people take to eating them as they may be bad for you. I'm also deeply, heartily offended by any and all mention of tobacco and smoking; they are surely worse.

Since you have made individual taste an objective issue, I will keep adding to the list until we are all safe as mother's milk. Or is it safe to mention breastfeeding? Oh no, I almost said 'boob', and maybe insulted bottle feeding moms while at it. Help me, Amazon; you're my only hope.

OR you can rethink your policies, apologize for the patronizing liberties someone took with the freedom of others, and make sure that as long as no laws are broken, writers not only get published but read as well, and your customers keep getting top-notch service in the form of all-inclusive information and open access.

If you concede that only gods get things right the first time, a) you turn this around, b) you grant that none of us are casting defected. All different - All equal; all the world knows this yet still does not practice. Please do not join that caravan.

Proverbially yours,
Dita Parker

Yeah, I climbed on that soapbox, didn't I? Couldn't help it. I get teased all the time for my intolerance against intolerance, so there you have it. I saw red. Customer Service replied that they had "recently discovered a glitch in [their] systems and it's being fixed." I sure hope so, or there will be Listmania galore.

They didn't ask what I might be referring to. They knew; so good for you, i.e. all those of you who took and are taking action.