Cooler than You: Stupid Things I Say and Do

Thanksgiving comes but once a year  . . . yea, that’s an in-your-face-you-gotta-be-stupid saying.  None-the-less, even this jaded chick of the moment celebrated the American holiday this weekend.  Did I do it with copious amounts of alcohol? Did I see friends? Did I have another epic Lifetime Movie drama develop? Did I sacrifice sleep and body safety for bone-crushing sales of plastic crap, holiday glitter fashions, and electronics? Well . . . Last year I had the infamous “I still love you” followed by my throwing up .  Yea . . . the two bottles of wine helped, but . . . None-the-less, this year I was hell bent on having my drama free holiday of wine, French movies, and day old Chinese without the insanity of some dumbass crossing my path.  Did I get it? One word . . . no two words: Hell yes! Now, I sit with trepidation hoping that jackal has finally moved the fuck past me.  Time will tell.  Now, to this one. Old friends, from the land of Ke...

Christmas needs to stop throwing up on my fall.  Seriously.  Thanksgiving, the gloriously mystified American holiday, is still a week away.  Yet, everywhere I look white lights, colored lights, red holiday coffee cups, and signs of Christmas trees and the impending wraps for presents underneath abound.  The reds and greens post a stark contrast to the brilliant golds, reds, and oranges of fall leaves.  Fall needs no decorating, as the leaves and changing plant life do the job splendidly.  Instead, in the uber fast world of consumption and bringing in the highest dollar amount fall has taken a backseat to the high consumption and fast-paced Christmas Season.  I sigh.  I sigh some more.  I’ve always had a fond affection for fall.  The changing leaves, the smell of dying leaves in the air, the smell of fires for the first time of the coming months.  The browns and tans.  Sweaters, sweater dresses, and boots s...

I find myself eating pickles and peanut butter, as I’ve had a hankering for days.  No, I am not pregnant.  Far from it.  Instead, pickles and peanut butter are an old staple I picked up from my days in the borderlands of Dixie, which is really just Dixie under a defensive name, in Kentucky.  More so, the Maysville kids generally all know the simple joys of pickles and peanut butter.  That town, a sleepy little one of about 9,000 along the Ohio River in northern Kentucky, has resonated in my mind’s eyes for nearly twenty years now.  We lived there for two years of high school, but those two years—and not withstanding the total of nine states I’ve lived in—seemed to have shaped and marked me the most.  Perhaps it was that I was in high school, perhaps it was that the kids did well on bringing me into the many folds, clichés, and complexities of Maysville.  Perhaps . . . perhaps it was just the natural course of life, and the trials of existenc...

Late last week, an encounter with a student set the stage--so to speak--with the roller coaster du jour.  In short: Student: "Mrs. Babic. . . " Me: "Mrs. Babic is in Jarratt, VA." Student, looking befuddled and sighing while rolling eyes, "Well, Miss Babic . . . " Me: "Miss Babic is in Fayetteville, NC." Student, with a huff, "Well, then, who do you think you are?"* Well . . . I'm your professor.  But . . . the point: when I told a later class about this encounter mouths did drop open, but--as with so many times before--"Do you want to get married?" was assaulted my way. Good grief.  There are many things I could say, but . . . My weekend boded with work and more work.  Then, somewhere along the way, a neighbor friend died.  He played guitar, was a teacher, and was generally nice.  More pointedly, he didn't just die.  He killed himself.  Word is that it connects to him loosing his job.  In reality, in a selfi...

I stood in the cold in February 2003 and voiced my mind against an ensuing war. The NYPD pushed us into barricades, to let the horses come through, and then released us into horse manure streets. My friends and I reveled in the glory of it.   In March of 2003 I lied down in DC for a die-in. My Dad, in town for a NRA meeting, told his friends his daughter was out protesting the war. I was there for research that weekend. Very few know that a cop yanked me from the ground seconds after a chalk line was made, I got lucky that weekend. Even luckier, since I was protesting without friends of my own in the crowd. I downed Jack and Cokes all night as I listened to the stories of "my finger was on the nuke button" from the NRA crew. The RNC Protest of 2004 took me from Chelsea to Madison Square Gardens. It was hot that day. My halter top was too hot. Booing, and feeling the sounds of thousands, was something to not forget.   On Saturday 25 September 2011 I went to voice...

An old memory has been haunting my memory as of late...that of a manager at Denny's in Las Cruces (Shush, it paid the rent thank you very much--not much else though). Anywho, while getting my MA I moonlighted there. That was also the semester I got into Stony Brook. I knew I was moving to New York. I was elated. The desert was fun, but my time was on a proverbial time line...when I told my manager, or really he heard through the grape vine as someone had seen me celebrating at a bar the weekend before, he was filled with disgust. He called me into his office and said, "I heard you're going to NY." "Yup." I was still smiles. "Have you even been there?" "Yea, in..." Cutting me off, "Well, I don't think you really know. I took my daughter there and when I asked for directions a cop told me he didn't know, that everything takes an hour or more, and I was told to 'fuck off' by people on the street." At this poi...

In light of other things . . . the greatest of the ooze that comes my way. I got this lovely from Mount Sinai Queens Hospital: So while my health insurance comes back sooner than not, I wouldn't go back here if someone paid me.  Aside from an asshat nurse, a doctor who borders on incompetent, a billing department that sent me a letter last fall saying they wanted me to call my insurance company and see where its payment was (for real!), and a lab that lost my blood-work and then the doctor called to say everything was fine (when two other MDs said it was not) . . . get the drift? I'll roll around in bloated Lupus hell first.   Yet, what is so perverse is the underlying implication that either it is ill-willing my not being ill and falling down on its door or that someone there knows I have days to live and won't let the secret out.  I vote that these chumps are just greedy bastards with a piss-poor PR team.   But, this is not my only encounter o...