The Little Words Mean the Most

Who told you this shit was easy?

My Las Vegas love....

As you say, "words are hard." And unexamined, place-holder, endlessly-repeated, jargon-ista words have the dangerous life-span of radioactive waste. "Well, they said it that way ... so we should say it that way, too!" Blah, blah, blah, etc.

The industry's been through this ... more than once. It's a BIG reason (IMHO) why average donor-comm performance (and US household giving) is in decline ... because new practice unwittingly copies bad practice.

My latest real-life example? A good, beloved, award-winning, life-saving nonprofit community hospital system that got ZERO response to a massive email appeal. Hey?!? Me, too! Been there, done that, once upon a time ... before I gulped down 2 decades of training re: "words are hard."

Who told you this shit was easy?

 

The witch and I: Grief therapy is complicated, turns out

This is a Sheela na gig, defined as a "naked woman displaying an exaggerated vulva."

My witch brought Sheela up today, for loads of healthy reasons that said nothing good about the Roman Catholic church (my upbringing) and its focus on original sin. (As noted: therapy is complicated.) Sheela was a good thing. Every Irish door had one ... until the priests arrived and ripped her away.

I mentioned to our nephew Dave that I had 2 psychotherapists ... and a witch.

"Witch?"

"You know: broomstick."

I learned about Kat from a Ph.D. psychologist whom she'd helped get through an assortment of crises. She calls herself the "helpful witch." That and more. In our hour-long chats, as she flips through her designer Tarot cards, revelation after revelation waft ... and I feel my heart softly padding toward a real future eventually, both with Simone Internal/Eternal and without her physically by me in bed and across so many tables. And yes there will be pain. A fucking lot of it. Thank you, Hillary C.: it does take a village. The lucky ones have a good witch.

 

She wants to know why, me, loud athiest, listens to Christian rock....

 

????

 

I dunno.

 

Good rock is good rock. Great musicians? Half the time I can't understand the lyrics anyway.

 

I'm moved is all. And you know what's the amazing part? I learned this from Alan Clayton in Slovakia. He started his workshop by playing some hard-rock song. He told us to get up on our feet ... and dance. And then after a minute or so he shut off the music; we settled back into our chairs. He said, "That's how fast you can change someone's emotions."

 

Now that's teaching.

 

love

 

dad

 

 

 

 

Ashley & Amy's new chair, made cat-claw-proof (once felines learn to read and obey); creepy Roger Williams; Andrée Joy-Ox

Barb & I went hiking in RI last week

 

One of the worst arguments I've seen

How's your email feed?

Mine feels like an untreatable mental hemorroid, whipped to a fury by idiots.

Got this e-message today: "Biden is likely to cancel student debt, but there’s a catch."

OK! Ready!

Whom should I hate? The REAL assholes? Or my very-own party's assholes ...and their bleeding hemorroids. Apparently I should hate Biden, according to screamers trying to raise money. (I don't disagree. America's 2-party system now seems like a yard sale.)

This incoming email's offensive bottom-line: Shun our own! You're not nearly pure enough.

Untrustworthy liberals cling to power. By the way: ignore those shiny, scrubbed new boats in the harbor. Quaint vessels, sturdy? Late-breaking news: the Puritans have landed again. Sigh.

You want to be perfect?

You want to be useful?

 

I vote useful.

Exactly one thing matters this November 2022: How many of you self-identified Americans will vote?

 

The numbers matter.

Either side? Doesn't matter. Raw numbers matter.

The better the turn out, the fairer the 2022 elections.

 

Sim One & I run/ran global businesses off a small brown cable lying on the ground. Then a shovel severed it....

 

Wednesday: the incredible Sam was here, trying to turn some of our acreage into meadows (for bird and deer support and amusement) ... and so she excavated a pest shrub (wild fake-olive takes over if you don't control) ... and with one foot-propelled slice of her pest-popping shovel (a.k.a., the shovel of death) she severed my fiber-optic feed.

Sam knew about this danger. It was danger #1 for me/us to carry on a global consultancy from this obscure rural nest. But a momentary ... some lapse ... and I was done; machine says: "can't find the router" ... >>> [timing is everything] thank goodness this calamity happened an hour AFTER I'd presented a smokin' 40-minute webinar on cases to the Nashville AFP.

Sent a request for repair into Verizon immediately.

After navigating an hour's-worth of "customer service" artificial (QUITE artificial) intelligence, I finally reached a responsive human ... who scheduled a fix. And then that scheduled repair person never showed.

So another 24 hours without phones and Internet fluttered out the window. Tried again this morning (I'm learning how to play the artificial intelligence customer "not-real-service" game)  ... & miracles!!! (yes, prayers work) >>>

I once again reached a human! (Saint Sim One, resident in existentialist heaven, be praised) ... a superior being who checked on everything and rescheduled a repair visit. A visit that arrived early!!! And featured a genius.

And now I'm back online. Thank you, St. Sim One.

 

 

 

Amy challenge haiku: Spring

 

I'd love to say sad

This tho my flab day ever

SEE crocus blooms mad!

 

a bit more human after loss

 

I have ears

left ear no longer quite as acute as my right

as in: Last night it took four tries to hear

"How's your meal?"

 

Intriguing, excellent, surprising, innovative

well-plated, with attentive staff who

mustered care and enthusiasm around 4 diners, 3 with canes,

together moving slowly as the Fall of the Roman Empire

> could lecture on that very topic

in classic Latin

aging brains and muscles

 

now so much

really

I don't care much WHAT I hear

except what I invite in

Eminem LOSE YOURSELF is one; just

about right; on repeat

 

Enjoying a good wind this spring this midnight

 

Twist open the windows!

trees knocking about

their drumbeat settling, Gene Krupa takes over

dead branches declaring left and right

lichens flying, frog peepers coming soon to choral us

 

getting sorted for another year

bring it on

 

 

Amy challenged me to write a blizzard haiku, based on my last-chance visit to a local grocery store where "deli butts" wooed my shopping cart, as the storm embraced us all!!!

 

 

Deli-knife outcasts

 

strike hard my empty belly

 

"Make him strong for snow!"