The sassosphere microphone is open, sistas and mistas.
Please step up and dish whatever you like. We're listening.
The Sassistas!TM woke to the news of Julia's passing (see post above).
Please post your condolences for Julia there.
Also, please feel free to still use our microphone to express whatever you like
today and throughout the weekend.
The sassosphere is deep and wide and open for you.
Not trying to inspire a topic for today's open mic, just making it all about me for a moment.
FIVE THINGS YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT ME, AND WHO CARES, ANYWAY:
1. I have a picture hanging in my garage next to the water heater called, "Wiggling Jesus".
2. I have had my nose broken 3 times.
3. I love snails, especially the way they cook them at the Clearwater Country Club.
4. I went to Studio 54 in it's heyday, and watched the hive of activity from a distance.
5. For years, my only means of transportation was a motorcycle.
Thank you. I feel better now.
Posted by: Carolyn | February 27, 2009 at 08:54 AM
No need to justify what you want and/or need to do, Carolyn. Besides, I like the topic and already am contriving a Sassistas! contest so I can win that "Wiggling Jesus" picture. Perhaps when I send you John Wayne on a piece of redwood you'll loan it to me for a while. I haven't forgotten about the plastic orange slice harmonica necklace, either.
FIVE THINGS YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT ME, AND WHO CARES, ANYWAY:
1. I hate morning ablutions and and in and out of the shower and dressed in less than five minutes . . . on days when I actually shower.
2. About four months ago, I walked up to an airport limo driver holding a sign that said, "SAM DONALDSON," and said, "I'm Sam Donaldson."
3. I prefer a cherry pie rather than a cake on my birthday.
4. When friends email me stuff like "Five Things You Don't Know About Me," etc., I never respond.
5. When I was a junior in high school, William Hagmaier, a former student teacher saw me walking home across the Slippery Rock University campus. He was in a black convertible. He offered to drive me home. Instead he drove me to Slippery Rock Cemetery where he took a blanket out of the trunk of his car, spread it out on the ground and said, "Let's enjoy the breeze." He then attempted to seduce me. I resisted. Today he is the executive director of the International Homicide Investigator's Association after becoming famous for being the FBI Agent to whom Ted Bundy confessed his crimes. Really. Just google, "Ted Bundy and William Hagmaeir." When I saw the CNN videotape of Ted Bundy talking to Hagmaeir the day before Bundy was executed, it wasn't Bundy who horrified me.
Posted by: Flannista | February 27, 2009 at 10:30 AM
FIVE THINGS YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT ME, AND WHO CARES, ANYWAY:
1. I was able to swim by the age of three.
2. My nickname as a kid was "Tough Tessie," given to me by my pediatrician.
3. I was in my high school marching band. (Yes, I know all of the jokes, but it was fun anyway.)
4. I can balance a rake in the palm of my hand, on my chin, and on my nose. (Much like Philippe Petit did with the Oscar statue.)
5. I can tie a cherry stem with my tongue. (Yes, I know that this will create the most comments.)
Posted by: Matissta | February 27, 2009 at 12:23 PM
Matiss -- I did NOT know about #'s 1 and 4.
Your swimming coordination, clarinet-blowing coordination, rake-balancing coordination and tongue coordination, really deserve a better nickname than "Tough Tessie," no? I'm thinking that a more appropriate nickname may be something along the lines of "Wiggling Jesus." I'll ponder it a bit, though I'm certain others in the sphere will offer sassgestions for your new nickname.
And now I'm wondering if Carolyn broke her nose three times because she tried to balance a rake on it.
Posted by: Flannista | February 27, 2009 at 12:33 PM
I played the flute, but I'll give you points for the clarinet as it is in the same family of instruments. Woodwinds, for those of you who don't know.
I too wondered about Carolyn's broken nose. Once seems like it would be enough. Perhaps she earns extra money as a female boxer?
All kidding aside Carolyn, how did you break your nose...three times?
Also, I hope you still have that motorcycle. Because if I ever get to visit you at your home, I want a ride!
Posted by: Matissta | February 27, 2009 at 12:43 PM
Yeah, Carolyn, "Tough Tessie" was born to be wild.
Posted by: Flannista | February 27, 2009 at 01:24 PM
"Tough Tessie" is not the typical name of a flute player --perhaps a rake balancer (which I do look forward to seeing one day, perhaps a Sassistas! talent contest with "Wiggling Jesus" as a prize?). I would like to see you balance a rake WHILE playing a flute . . . I'll let you slide, Matis, on the cherry-stem tie.
Broken nose?
As a Marine Corps cop, continually breaking up brawls in a bar known as "The Flying Dutchman," I neglected to duck some flying fists and a swung pool cue.
Posted by: Carolyn | February 27, 2009 at 02:29 PM
I keep forgetting, Carolyn, that you were THE LAW in a prior life. THE LAW. THE LAW. THE LAW.
So you were injured in the line of duty? Wow. Where was this "Flying Dutchman" bar, anyway, and why were you on patrol there? Were you in another country? Did the bar serve Diet Coke or Coca-Cola Zero? Did it serve snails? Cherry pie? (Notice how I'm trying to tie in many details revealed in today's "Open Mic" comments.) Did Ted Bundy ever take a swing at you? What kind of motorcycle did you ride?
"Wiggling Jesus" is a very appropriate prize for the winner of a Sassistas! talent contest.
Posted by: Flannista | February 27, 2009 at 03:03 PM
Not to be a downer, but I am very sad about the news I heard last night. A college friend was murdered in grad school, and the man convicted of her horrific death was just granted parole after serving 22 years of a life sentence. I have written many letters to the parole board on her family's behalf. It is all within the bounds of the law, but it still seems like injustice.
http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009902260351
Sounds like Ted Bundy was a bigger sucker than you, Flannista. I wish William Hagmaier would take a crack at Douglas Hodgkin.
Posted by: babysis | February 27, 2009 at 03:31 PM
There are no right or wrong things to post during "Open Mic," babysis. You can post whatever you like, and we'll listen.
I read the article and subsequent comments in the link you provided, and in the spirit of one of the comments, this news makes my blood boil.
First of all, I'm so sorry you lost your friend, Jean, and her unborn child in such an unspeakably violent way. Second, you honor her memory by writing many letters to the parole board on her family's behalf. Third, I want this son-of-a-bitch behind bars, too. Some crimes ought not to be paroled. This is one of those crimes.
William Hagmaier? Hell, I want to take a crack at Douglas Hodgkin.
Posted by: Flannista | February 27, 2009 at 03:59 PM
babysis, Flannista is correct. There is no right or wrong.
I read the article that you linked to, as well. This was a particularly brutal murder. I was moved that you wrote letters to the parole board.
It really makes me wonder what the parole board was thinking. 22 years seems like such a short time for this type of crime. Life in prison seems so much more appropriate.
Posted by: Matissta | February 27, 2009 at 05:14 PM
Hey, 'sphere.
Don't know if anyone is checking in today. That's okay. I'm spending the day reading and cleaning. DCsistah and treesta are coming to dinner here tonight and Matissta and I are baking salmon, steaming asparagus, roasting potatoes, tossing a salad, mixing margaritas and scooping Ben & Jerry's with a side of shortbread cookies.
Anyhoo -- here's a quote from one of the books I'm currently reading: An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith by my current spiritual hero, Barbara Brown Taylor:
" . . . people could learn as much about the ways of God from paying attention to the world as they could from paying attention to scripture. What is true is what happens, even if what happens is not always right. People can learn as much about the ways of God from business deals gone wrong or sparrows falling to the ground as they can from reciting the books of the Bible in order. They can learn as much from a love affair or a wildflower as they can from knowing the Ten Commandments by heart."
I found this liberating because scripture -- with the exception of The Psalms and the Gospels -- often bores the hell out of me.
Posted by: Flannista | February 28, 2009 at 11:37 AM
Me again.
Yesterday I started a book called: The Mercy Papers: A Memoir of Three Weeks by Robin Romm. I had read a couple of very favorable reviews. It's about the death of the author's mother. When she died, the mother was my age. She had battled breast cancer for nine years. Romm writes with astonishing, unflinching honesty. Check out the opening paragraph of the book:
"Barb, our hospice nurse, has bluish teeth and frizzy black hair styled to look like a hunting cap. The skin around her eyes droops and when you talk to her, she takes too long to respond. She wears loose cotton blouses with patterns of clocks or vines. The woman needs to be startled. In one of my fantasies I've concocted over the last few weeks here, I own a mess of owls and they wait, talons clutching the branch in their ornate cage. When Barb comes -- when she looks past me to my mother, past my mother to that voice she listens to when she's not listening to any of us -- I will set them free in her face."
Searing, no? And that's just the OPENING paragraph.
Posted by: Flannista | February 28, 2009 at 11:54 AM
A poem I came across in the August 4, 2008, New Yorker
BEFORE THE STORM by Louise Gluck
Rain tomorrow, but tonight the sky is clear, the stars shine.
Still, the rain’s coming,
maybe enough to drown the seeds.
There’s a wind from the sea pushing the clouds;
before you see them, you feel the wind.
Better look at the fields now,
see how they look before they’re flooded.
A full moon. Yesterday a sheep escaped into the woods,
and not just any sheep—the ram, the whole future.
If we see him again, we’ll see his bones.
The grass shudders a little; maybe the wind passed through it.
And the new leaves of the olives shudder in the same way.
Mice in the fields. Where the fox hunts,
tomorrow there’ll be blood in the grass.
But the storm—the storm will wash it away.
In one window, there’s a boy sitting.
He’s been sent to bed—too early,
in his opinion. So he sits at the window—
Everything is settled now.
Where you are now is where you’ll sleep, where you’ll wake up in the morning.
The mountain stands like a beacon, to remind the night that the earth exists,
that it mustn’t be forgotten.
Above the sea, the clouds form as the wind rises,
dispersing them, giving them a sense of purpose.
Tomorrow the dawn won’t come.
The sky won’t go back to being the sky of day; it will go on as night,
except the stars will fade and vanish as the storm arrives,
lasting perhaps ten hours all together.
But the world as it was cannot return.
One by one, the lights of the village houses dim
and the mountain shines in the darkness with reflected light.
No sound. Only cats scuffling in doorways.
They smell the wind: time to make more cats.
Later, they prowl the streets, but the smell of the wind stalks them.
It’s the same in the fields, confused by the smell of blood,
though for now only the wind rises; stars turn the field silver.
This far from the sea and still we know these signs.
The night is an open book.
But the world beyond the night remains a mystery.
Posted by: Flannista | February 28, 2009 at 11:57 AM
Uh-oh . . . I wonder if nowayasista is around.
The news media just released portions of Warren Buffett's annual shareholder letter in which Buffett opined that the economy will remain "in shambles" and won't be getting better any time soon.
Here's the link to the story from MSNBC:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29441863/
Posted by: Flannista | February 28, 2009 at 12:06 PM
I read about Hodgkin, and the crime he committed. It's impossible for anyone to realize the horror and pain inflicted on this young woman's family and friends. That's the way crime of this magnitude works, rippling far beyond the immediate victim. Can you imagine sitting in a courtroom and hearing about the terror your daughter suffered before her murder? Identifying her brutalized body in the morgue? It seems that her loving family and friends, like babysis, did what they could to see that this sociopath stayed behind bars. To know that their loved one experienced such a horrific death at the hands of a man soon to be released -- to be given the gift of resuming his life -- has to plunge them all into new depths of suffering.
We all hope that fortune, or God or whoever controls whatever, will prevent these truly unbearable things from entering the cordoned circle around our lives. Unsettling to think that willy-nilly they visit and violate us through no fault of our own.
Posted by: Carolyn | February 28, 2009 at 12:10 PM
Carolyn -- I don't need to open a book to read unflinching, searing prose.
Damn, girlfriend, you can write.
Sweet Jesus, there are so many wonderful writers here in the 'sphere. Can't tell you how often my jaw simply drops open.
Posted by: Flannista | February 28, 2009 at 12:20 PM
I started "The Mercy Papers" about two weeks ago and have been taking it in small doses. I have to agree with a review that I read. This book shows "anything but mercy" in its unrelieved portrayal of emotional suffering. The prose is indeed unflinching and searing. One thing that sticks with me from the book is the recurrent portrayal of the caregivers being boat builders.
Posted by: Jerseysista | February 28, 2009 at 01:06 PM
Hey, thanks for checking into the sassosphere today, Jersey . . . a book reader after my own heart.
Don't TELL ME HOW THE MERCY PAPERS ENDS!
Sorry, that's just macabre.
I, too, love the metaphor of boat building . . . undoubtedly inspired by Charon, the boatman on the River Styx.
I'm really hooked by Romm's style, though. I love a writer who gets in my face.
Posted by: Flannista | February 28, 2009 at 01:18 PM
Hello, all! I just need a safe place to vent - wondering if anyone else out there has noticed how much work has changed over the past 10-20 years? I remember my stepfather really deriding the term "human resources" instead of "personnel", because he felt it just dehumanized the workplace. I think he was right. I've worked in several places where there was a true team spirit, and I miss that so much. Those good places seem to have gone by the wayside - I was just reminded yesterday that as a contractor, I cannot trust or confide in anyone at my client's office, because I cannot depend on anyone's discretion or apparent friendship. It seems like every place I've come in contact with lately, the employees are very cut-throat and "snakes in the grass". It makes me feel very sad & disconnected - I can't stand the thought of working with people I can't trust. It seems to me that there's a connection between the way employees are treated as disposable resources, or eminently replaceable resources, and the way employees treat each other. Am I making any sense, or is it just in my head?
Posted by: Chrysosistah | February 28, 2009 at 02:40 PM
Sassistas! is a safe place to vent, Chryso. Step up to the mic! We're listening.
I think I've shared in the sassosphere before that I took to studying original Nazi documents/memos, etc. to better understand how corporate America uses language to dehumanize people. Now don't get me wrong, I don't think corporate America is full of Nazis . . . but some corporate types sure express themselves that way. The Director of Human Resources is now the Chief Human Capitol Officer, like she was leading a cattle drive. Why not just burn a brand on the flesh of your human capitol? We no longer have "tasks," but "action items." We don't "use," we "utilize." We don't have a "reason" for completing our "action items." We have a "value proposition." We don't do things differently, we have a "paradigm shift."
I agree with you that the dehumanization began about two decades ago. Corporate America is extremely cut-throat and snakes in the grass abound and become part of executive management. I think there is a profound connection between the terminology used to define employees and their subsequent behavior.
I remember confronting the Chief Communications Officer of a large corporation about why the CEO didn't simply tell the truth about employee cutbacks rather than call it "re-engineering." She replied, "He wants to tell the truth. He just doesn't want to communicate it." Take that in. Telling the truth and communicating information are TWO different things in corporate America. It wasn't until I worked with it up close and personal that I learned without a doubt that shit floats. It's not in your head, Chryso. Bull shit has become the language of business. Employees aren't stupid. If they are termed and treated as shit -- and see for themselves that it gets you to the top -- what else will they do?
Remember Enron? Want to know why it failed? Check out this excerpt from its Year 2000 Annual Report:
"We have robust networks of strategic assets that we own or have contractual access to, which give us greater flexibility and speed to reliably deliver widespread logistical solutions . . . . We have metamorphosed from an asset-based pipeline and power generating company to a marketing an logistics company whose biggest assets are its well-established business approach and its innovative people."
BULL SHIT. BULL SHIT. BULL SHIT.
Posted by: Flannista | February 28, 2009 at 03:59 PM
bummer. bummer. bummer.
Thanks, Flannista - nice to know I'm not the only one seeing this. I think one of the reasons I keep tripping the alarms is because I don't do the corporate speak. If something isn't right, I say it. Might be right, might be honest, but it's definitely ain't politically savvy. Needless to say, the "face" person for the group is definitely very politically savvy, that's who I keep getting the "love notes" from....
I hate lying, pretense, falsehoods...and backstabbers. And I can't understand (in my soul) how they get ahead. That's there's apparently a lot of people who DO value those things and promote them. BLEAH...
Posted by: Chrysosistah | February 28, 2009 at 05:19 PM
Chryso -- thank GAWD you ain't politically savvy. It's not what gets ya into heaven, okay?
And the Sassistas! have a gift for you, Chryso! Remember how a LONG TIME AGO when you first started to sass with us you bemoaned the fact that the Sassistas! didn't have a "SEARCH" link? Guess what? Matissta added one today in the upper right-hand column before "Recent Posts." We tested it out with the words "alien" and "pipe." Quite interesting what popped up.
Enjoy, sistas and mistas!
Posted by: Flannista | February 28, 2009 at 06:04 PM
Flan, Enron was Bullshit? Come on. Yes it was. I never understood what they did, so stayed away. It is a simple method, does not always work, did not stop values from dropping last year or this. But works for me.
I did read Buffet's letter and the "economy" will probably stay in shambles this year. We are in that layoff period that just stinks. However, take a step back and it is all part of the business cycle. Markets normally start to recover before the economy turns. This has been a brutal period but all of this hullabullo about it being so out of whack with other recessions, just does not wash. Who tried to look for a job in the late 70's in say ... Seattle. Who recalls the New England bank bust and real estate "demise" of the very early 90's. Boston had a vacancy rate of 14%. Who recalls the mid 80's when you could not give a home away in parts of Texas.
We have some shocks to go, but this will end as well. Found wonderful article by everyone's new found Mr. Doom, Paul Krugman. It was timely, dated Feb 27. All about how things will never get better. Oh, I forgot. February 27, 2003. Guess when markets started to move after the last fiasco... March 2003.
Posted by: nowayasista | February 28, 2009 at 06:20 PM
Wow, so the Nazis entered the post today. You never know how this thing is gonna go. I have a challenge for you, Flannista. For the next week, I want you to work the word....trying to think of one....liposuction. I want you to attempt to work the word liposuction into one of your comments every day. I'll betcha, with your way with sass, you could do it.
Posted by: Carolyn | February 28, 2009 at 09:18 PM