Be Natural, Just Be Natural

The thing I've noticed most about women is how natural they are at being women. They go about being women without a second thought. They eat, sleep, dress, work, interact, and go about their business as women. They simply live their lives as women.

I've watched men a lot too. Men, per se, are boring. I've never been interested in things men and boys do. My memories of Little League are a nightmare. You can imagine.

Why would I want to go out and trade hockey cards, when I could stay in and rearrange the furniture in my sister's dollhouse. Actually, she hated when I did that.

The boys read comic books. I read my mom's magazines. I'm laying here with the new issue of Good Housekeeping open on my lap, for chrissakes!

But even with all the thinking, supposing, wishing, pretending, and regretting; even if I could snap my fingers and be fully transitioned, it would never be natural.

I was talking to a lifelong friend named Carl, whom I've, shall we say, admired since I was fifteen. I was more jealous of his numerous, good-looking girlfriends than I was of him.

When we reconnected on Facebook many years ago, I had long since openly identified as bisexual. This came as no surprise. Basically a "Duh!" moment.

Flirtatious does not begin to cover my attitude towards him, yet he has taken it all in stride. He knows it's just banter, and our friendship is too deep for that to change (as he has assured me).

Recently, since I've identified as transgender, certain hypothetical questions have turned more serious, and the bottom line is never in our lifetimes.

Carl is uber-hetero, and does all sorts of amazing manly things. In his late fifties, he still makes me weak in the knees, so to speak. (Hi Carl, I'm waving my pink-nailed fingers at you.)

But all kidding aside, it kinda illustrates my point.

Whatever gene or chromosome or brain chemistry got mixed up, for me it will never be natural.

E Equals MC Squared

Late in life, Albert Einstein remarked, "I'm too old to explain arithmetic to children."

I know how he felt.

I was called on the carpet yesterday for adding to the hate that is overwhelming our country in some of my posts.

Time after time I state clearly that I AM NOT A NICE GUY!

Here is what I am:

First, I am Jewish. Denying that fact to a bunch of nazis is like a black man denying he's black to a KKK lynch mob.

Second, I am an atheist. I believe that we are biological creatures, and when we die, we die. Religion is merely mankind's reaction to its own petty ego. To think that this universe cares about any one of us or all of us is a lunatic fantasy.

The whole story of Adam and Eve is totally misunderstood. Eating from the Tree of Life had nothing to do with sex, and nakedness, and fig leaves, and had everything to do with the knowledge of our own mortality.

One side note. A lot of my career was in retail and gourmet foods, and at holiday time, I ALWAYS said, "Merry Christmas." And I meant it!

Third, I use marijuana. Even though, at this time, I am getting it legally through the State of Illinois, all the paperwork that you sign carries warnings that cannabis is still classified as a Schedule 1 drug and you can be arrested and prosecuted by the federal government.

Fourth, I've been checking into AntiFa, although so far all I've done is read articles about them, and Like their Facebook page. However, I believe the DOJ just listed AntiFa as a terrorist group (even though they're not a group at all), comparable to ISIS! Yikes. It's a no-brainer for the FBI to track down everyone who has Liked the page.

The government doesn't even have to prefer charges. I could be held indefinitely, without council, trial, or right to habeas corpus.

Do you have any conception of what a SWAT raid consists of? Two hours before dawn, they launch flash-bang grenades through the windows of your home. These doozies give off a report so loud, and a light so bright that it momentarily KILLS THE BRAIN!

Next, they use steel battering rams to disintegrate your doors. A dozen fully armored thugs throw every man, woman, and child in the house to the floor, pointing combat shotguns at the backs of their heads, and screaming conflicting orders at them at the top of their lungs.

They seek out your family pets and shoot them.

They secure you in handcuffs (which fucking hurt, BTW) behind your back, while they seize every electronic device in your house, including the coffee maker if it has a timer. They intentionally rip your house to SHREDS, destroying and smashing everything you own.

Even if you are never charged with a crime, they are not liable for the damage.

Lastly, I have become a transgender activist. I went out in nail polish for the first time yesterday to my library's Independent Authors Day. The response was overwhelmingly positive, supportive, and fun!

None of that stands me in good stead with the current regime and prevailing mood of this country. I am NOT going to try to win over a torch-carrying, slogan-chanting nazi with love. I am not going to try to win over a Trump supporter with logic or compassion.

I will not sit idly by, like the German populace did, and bury my head in the sand while a holocaust rages around me. The right are stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. Can you say Las Vegas? What if there had been three, four, or five coordinated shooters overlooking that plaza.

Wake up! This country is at war for its survival. Yes, there will still be an America, but if that's your idea of great again, then you shouldn't be on this page.

Well, I must not be as old as Einstein because I'm still explaining arithmetic to children.

Holloween

I tend to wake up in the wee hours from the pain, and it is always a quiet, introspective time. Due to circumstances, I stay downstairs in my home hospital bed, while my wife and son sleep in the upstairs bedrooms.

The house is quiet. My cat is snoozing by my side. I do a few puffs of my medical cannabis, and if I'm lucky, I might catch an old episode of Sea Hunt.

My mind wanders. I experiment with thoughts. I play with words a lot.

This morning, I thought about the word Draconian. What a great Halloween word, Drac-onian. Oooh. The Universal monster movies - Frankenstein, the Wolfman, and of course, the psycho-sexual creature of the undead, Bela Lugosi's Dracula.

Dracula is a fictional character, created by Irish author, Bram Stoker, in his 1897 book. The book is ponderous and difficult to read, but the story it tells still dominates popular culture.

But when I looked up the etymology of the word, I found out it has nothing to do with Dracula, and everything to do with a guy named Draco.

Draco was a 7th century B.C. Athenian legislator who was charged with turning the oral laws and blood feuds that ruled Greek justice, into a unified written code.

In many ways, we have Draco to thank for some of our most cherished principles of liberty. Oral laws were arbitrarily administered in favor of wealthy landowners. Now a unified code was administered to all. He created the right of appeal. And he developed the concept of differentiating between intentional murder (death penalty) and involuntary homicide (exile).

What the Athenians didn't bargain for was the harshness of his penalties. Stealing a cabbage was a capital crime. Under the Draconian Constitution, a debtor of lower class than his creditor was forced into slavery. Yet, a debtor whose station was higher than his creditor went unpunished.

Plutarch wrote: "Drako himself, when asked why he had fixed the punishment of death for most offences, answered that he considered these lesser crimes to deserve it, and he had no greater punishment for more important ones."

But what of the word derived from Draco's name?

The definition of draconian reads: adjective (of laws or their application) excessively harsh and severe. Synonyms include: extreme, drastic, stringent, cruel, oppressive, ruthless, relentless, punitive, authoritarian, despotic, tyrannical, and repressive.

Halloween is the time of year when we let our nightmares loose.

Yes, draconian is a very good word for this time of year, indeed.

Miserable

There's a lot of talk about ignorance these days. People fear what they don't understand, so they react violently to it. So we plan our social and political policies on them.

I say, fuck those people.

Simply by putting a picture of my hands on Facebook and Blogger I am opening myself as a target of violence for no other reason than IGNORANCE.

In Charles Dickens' classic, A Christmas Carol, the Ghost of Christmas Present opens his cloak and reveals two children, "wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable."

The Ghost says to Scrooge, "This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both...but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased."

As far as I'm concerned these fearful, ignorant, violent people have forfeited their right to draw air. But, I'm a reasonable man. Let's say we're too humane to do away with them outright, but we can, should, and must take away their right to vote!

For 60 years, I have had to live under the whims of stupid, ignorant people. Whether it's civil rights, social justice, or economic policies. I was a criminal for most of my life for smoking weed (now I'm on medical), my sexuality was inconceivable, my very thought processes were treasonous, scandalous, but most of all CORRECT!

I really am not a nice guy. I grew up mean, in a mean time and place. Plus, I had to be twice as mean. Twice as willing to take risks.

More than once my intellect kept me alive. And yes, it was my own wits. Not a guardian angel. Not Christ, and certainly not some bearded, old man in the clouds.

I am arrogant about my intelligence, I flaunt my knowledge, I use my insight like a surgical laser.

And the thing of it is, I'm only of average intelligence! There are so many people way smarter than me. All I have to do is watch one episode of Jeopardy to teach me humility.

Here's my point. There should be a basic intelligence test that you have to pass in order to vote. Anyone who can walk into a voting booth (or sign an absentee ballot) should get to vote. I don't care if you're a citizen, a prisoner doing time, an illegal alien, or an alien from another fucking planet. (Superman should get to vote.)

As long as you pass the test, you vote! (Twice if you're from Chicago.)

And I'm talking an EASY test. 10 questions or so.

Of course, the liberal side has the clear advantage in education and intelligence, but that's exactly my point.

Plus, the test would not be developed by some congressional committee, university think tank, or panel of scientists. It would be written by ME.

Questions like, who was our first president? What day do we celebrate Independence Day? Name any three presidents. (It's a trick question. If they say Trump they are automatically disqualified.) What year did the battle of 1812 start? How old is planet Earth: a) 6000 years b) 4.54 billion years c) it doesn't matter because reality is an illusion d) all of the above?

You get the idea.

Tickled Pink

Hard to believe these are the hands of a 59 year old man.

Photography by Roan Dunn