Jacquelyn's Space

The house next-door to us, to the east, was for sale. It looks like it sold already, and it was only formally listed for a week or two. That was fast! It was listed for $229, 000.  It bodes well for the value of our home at this moment…barring no housing market crashes in the future.

So we will be getting new neighbors. Bye bye daycare! I hope anyway…I hope the new ones won’t want to open a daycare too.

We got new neighbors on the west side around Christmas. We’ve met the guy, but not his woman. Not sure if they are married or even “serious.” They seem to have a couple of young daughters that are there only part of the time. I was out with my cat one evening and the guy gave me beaucoup compliments on my pussy. LOL

Truly my husband and I suck at being neighbors. We didn’t introduce ourselves to the new neighbors…we didn’t really know the old neighbors. I get the feeling that they didn’t like us because the old neighbor complained of the noise (when we had the boys–he couldn’t stand the sound of the triggers on their play guns, or was it air-soft when my stepson played…regardless, it was a very silly complaint and I probably rolled my eyes at him), our back light shining in his window, and once our Ryder dog playfully attacked their little yapper (everything was okay). I know the daycare neighbors didn’t really like us, at least the guy didn’t (my husband says, “she’s nice enough…”). That went back to before I ever lived here and started because of the way our yard is higher than his yard and his yard floods in the spring –not much I can do about that bub. But since I didn’t feel the love from the neighbors, and I am an introvert, AND I am usually pretty busy and stressed, I never made the effort to get to know our neighbors or mend any fences.

I should try a little harder this time. It would be nice to have nice neighbors and a good neighborly relationship.

I am crying right now because I am so thankful. For one, I am so happy that I have two men in my life that are hard workers and that are not asshole trumphumpers: my husband and my father. They strive hard to be productive, smart(er)/educated, sensitive and all-aroung better men.

I am super thank and amazed that my dad just posted an anti-racism and pro-African American video on Facebook. I will not be shy in saying that a I have seen a great change in him– a super amount of growth that I didn’t think was possible when I was growing up. I don’t know how or why it occurred but I am so thankful that it has. You see, growing up, I knew my dad was a racist. I felt so horrible about it. Whenever he would say something derogatory about black people (horrible names I will not repeat) I would try to talk him out of saying those things but I never felt I had an impact. Maybe I never did but something over the past 20 years or so has changed him. I never knew how he felt about President Obama and voting for a black man until, perhaps, Obama’s second term. He had positive views about it! He voted for Obama same as me! I really found out once trump was in office though–that he thought Obama was a class act and that he had learned a lot about black people and racism.

And somewhere (perhaps during the Obama years, maybe before) my dad had kicked his racist views to the curb. I don’t know how much Obama had to do with it either but it has happened and I am so proud and thankful. Now when I talk to my dad, I see that he had done the work and has learned about black history, black culture…that he no longer views them as the “other” but as people, as they should be. Just people.

So thankful for this. It gives me hope — some people can change. But of course, not too many people are as smart as my daddy. Too many aren’t as willing to learn.

I’m feeling pretty darn crappy today. My back and knees hurt. My damn bowels aren’t moving (that is what makes my back hurt). My ears were plugged up this morning. I am tired and weak. I was feeling kinda crappy yesterday but I pushed myself to do things. I guess I pushed it too far. Ugh. I need to find a new doctor because I changed insurance so I can’t see anyone about all this…not that they ever do much for me. Tired…

So I’ve went off the antidepressants I was taking. I don’t know why, really, other than I was having intestinal issues and didn’t want to ingest a bunch of medications. They didn’t really seem to be helping anyway. Now that I am off them, I want to write more. Perhaps it was the medications dulling my creativity? I hope I am not bipolar and that this isn’t just a manic phase. I know I have struggled with depression and anxiety since I can remember but never thought I was bipolar because I never seemed to have manic episodes. I’ve never felt energetic enough to be manic. But now some of my behaviors give me pause. Like the overspending, the overeating. Could those be my manic phases? There were a few times in college that I thought I was a bit manic–took too many classes, took on too many projects, had too big of ideas. And I did feel a bit manic bordering on psychotic when I was taking Adderall at that time. I don’t know. I guess I should go and speak to counselor again. I have seen counselors in the past and was never diagnosed with bipolar–well, not that they told me anyway. I worry that this may be something that presents itself more a I age. It seems that has happened to my mother–bipolar depression was certainly spoke of in regards to her behaviors in 2012…as well as schizophrenia, which is odd since schizophrenia usually presents in teens to early 20s. I don’t know. All I know is I feel the same, as far as depression and my energy levels go, whether I take the meds or I don’t. My doc supposedly gave them to me to help with my fibromyalgia pain but they didn’t seem to be helping with anything other than to dull inspiration and creativity, thus making feel, well, like a dullard. It really made me feel a low key depression but not that low, just at the edge of the falling into….

I don’t know. There is a lot going on this year though. It is hard to say.

I am sick to death of old thinking, lazy thinking, or just plain ignorance whether it is purposeful ignorance or just laziness. I am sick of that attitude in people that the 1950s were the good ole days and their longing to go back to that bullshit. That is trumphumpers in a nutshell right there–they long for “the good ole days” where white was right and everything was simple. It seemed to be simple anyway…WRONG!! Shit was bad, shit wasn’t simple, it was just more hidden and swept under the rug more than today. People were bullied into complying with conservative, supposedly moral ideals. It is past time to shed those false ideals.

I for sure am sick to death of trumphumpers and I am heartbroken and disgruntled that I have trumphumpers in my family. One such trumphumber posted this on Facebook:

“Over 25 shootings in Flint last night into this morning. Even at Mega Coney Island (3 there). BUT lets defund the State police. Wake up Whitless. Ems and Police please be safe out there.”

This was my reply:

We need to do something different because obviously what we have been doing hasn’t worked. That is what defund the police is about. Taking some of the money used for policing and putting it to a better use in the community. It isn’t as simple as it sounds nor is the problem as simple as “oh let’s put more police out there to crack skulls” and scare people into doing/being “right”. We all know there isn’t enough police in Flint but there aren’t enough resources period, resources that could better address systemic problems. Only once some of the systemic problems, such as poverty, joblessness, racism, mental health, and gang violence are addressed will we see real change in the community. Throwing more police into the mix will not help address those problems because police aren’t equipped to deal with those issues and apparently neither is our society because we have ignored the issues for so long or had the attitude of let’s bully the issues away using the law. We don’t wanna see the true issues nor do we want to think of complicated solutions beyond cracking skulls and scare tactics. So sure, look down your nose at Flint people, support a fascist authoritarian for president, and call our governor names because yeah, the old ways have worked so well for us–insert eyeroll here. The only “whitless” ones I see are the ones that refuse to think of problems and solutions in new ways, other ways besides what’s been shoved down our throats for so long. The only whitless ones I see are the ones that wanna use a cudgel for every job when the job is a lot more complicated and requires more thinking beyond a sound bite.

–We need new ways of thinking and being. We need to cast aside all that old, Puritanic, supposedly moral, ways of thinking. All it has gotten us is a country full of non-thinkers, people that cannot disseminate information past sound bites, as well as a country full of hypocrites that talk out of both sides of their mouths because while they look down on the obvious and “black” violence they wholly ignore the violent history of this country, the ways in which we have kept people of color down, and still do; they ignore the systemic problems because they do not want to or aren’t mentally equipped to (cannot) deal with it…all the while know they crying and whining about their rights when they feel put upon by the police or government. These “don’t tread on me” hypocrites can go fuck themselves because I want, I long for, a more progressive nation. Let’s finally be the nation we pretended to be for so many years.

This shit really gets under my skin, can you tell?

I don’t know what got into me but all of a sudden I am inspired to start writing again. I haven’t done much real writing, only blogging and jotting down some ideas but I feel like I could be onto something with my ideas. If I can just stick to it and execute them.

It is weird that all of sudden I am inspired to write. I have been so tired lately that I haven’t been doing much of anything. I have also been really anxious and irritable. It has sucked. Now this–I have so many ideas (somewhere in the neighborhood of 20) for a series of novels. Good ideas too, totally doable if I put my mind to it and sit my ass down and write. I need discipline!!

Well, part of it is I actually finished reading a book. I know that sounds very paltry but I really have been having trouble concentrating lately, and getting into reading anything. If it takes longer than 5 minutes I’m over it. But I read the Mary Trump book and I thought,  if this bitch can do it, so can I! Really, it was poorly written. I thought of my stepmother memoir I have charted out and quite a bit of it written –I should work on that. The only thing is people aren’t interested in what I have to say because my work isn’t a tell all about a famous person. So okay…I still want to work on my memoir and finish it. But then I was thinking about other things I have wanted to write, novels, and the ideas (based on a classic author many people absolutely love) started pouring forth. And I’d have a built in audience for these novels, even if they are shit. I want to make them awesome though, I think I can make them good, worthwhile reads. I just have to quit slacking off. I have lots of research done already as well as lots of reference material already at my fingertips. All there is to do is to make an concerted effort to right on a regular basis.  I’d like to make it a goal to have a novel done by May of next year and to be a published author in 2022.