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'if the world didn't suck, we'd all fall off.'

 

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jessica - see my blogger profile - ju blog home - photojournal - one hundred things - booklist - quotations - movie quotes - lyrics and lines - email me

my scribbles

a blog filled with things that have been written, things for you to read.
this page is a small part of the universe.

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posts by title

ha ha ha
a love story, part one
a love story, part two
a love story, part three
a love story, part four
a love story, part five
a love story, part six
from 'Cold Case Squad'



It was a pleasure to burn. - Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

'Cause Sadie moved like water poured
The shapes she shaped had angels floored
She knew her walk turned wind to fire
A wink from Sadie turned brains to mire"
-Tim Seibles, The Ballad of Sadie LaBabe





Monday, May 29, 2006

ha ha ha

from the QotD, this is funny:

"The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting." - Charles Bukowski
posted by jessica at 3:02 PM -   0 comments Comments: Post a Comment

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Sunday, May 07, 2006

a love story, part one

I have returned home to a place I left eighteen years ago. I left on the day after graduation. a day, where up to that point, I had never been happier.

The house is not exactly as I remember it. But mostly. I walked in through the kitchen door, as I always had done. The same wallpaper - sick with dying flowers - lines the walls. Pushing farther into the house, I see the same - can you believe it? - couch and chairs. On second thought, I can believe it, as dear old mom and dad are predictable like that. The curtains are not the same as those I grew up with. Replacing the blue frilly ones are blue straight panels. Always blue. I am still surprised by people who consider blue neutral and outfit their world with it. The carpet is the same as that I walked on for the first eighteen years of my life, just more ragged and worn the way only shag carpeting can be.

The biggest difference I see in my childhood home is the expansion of an office. A room that used to serve solely as the place my father escaped by mother. The room is now lined with books and plays host to a personal computer. Books I am sure have never been read. The computer, well, I cannot imagine what purpose it was to serve.

The phone rings and scares the hell out of me. Who would call? No one knows I am here and everyone knows who's not. Telemarketers, I concluded.

[part i, ii, iii, iv, v, and vi.]
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a love story, part two

I'm here because my parents have suffered a horrible tragedy. Anyone who needs to know knows. Mom and Dad both lost their parents at a young age and they lost my brother and me at an unfortunate later age. As far as I know, they had only a handful of friends. Acquaintances, rather. There were Tom and Ellen, my parents only friends, the mailman, the only regular visitor, and my dad's boss. He'd talked to him recreationally all of five times in the decades during his employment. I have no idea if they've seen each other since.

As tragedies go, this one is not the worst. But try to tell that to the five hundred people who live in this town. Okay, in all honestly, it may be eight hundred, but when the population is so small they know when you take a shit, it doesn't matter a whole lot.

My parents were murdered. Well, one of them was. It is the general consensus that my mother killed my father and then herself. I blame my imagination for the resentment I feel in that. Typical woman to give in to such guilt.

[part i, ii, iii, iv, v, and vi.]
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a love story, part three

Here I am, 36 years old and walking thorough the house I left half my life ago. Stop, don't judge me yet, I had a good reason to leave. My father kicked the shit out of my mother for the 42nd time - to my knowledge - and my mother loved him regardless. That day was no different. But that day, the day after my high school graduation, he got me. And my mother loved him regardless. I packed a bag, got in my car, left that town where everyone knew what was happening and pretended that if you went to church on Sunday, all was forgiven, and never went back. Not until today. My brother arrives tomorrow for the funeral. I'm thinking about leaving today.

I spent the afternoon and night going through the house. Family photos lined the tabletops and hallway walls, but they, too, were the same as I last saw. Pictures of Mom, Dad, and kids. My brother was always big; tall and slightly thick through the middle. I have seen him once in my years since high school, and he looked the same then as he does smiling in these pictures. I, too, was smiling in the photos. Considering it was a time of youthfulness when all you needed was mascara and some chapstick to be gorgeous.

[part i, ii, iii, iv, v, and vi.]
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a love story, part four

I awoke, however, quite differently. My brother was crying, sitting at the foot of the couch. At first I wanted to ask what was the cause of such hysterical crying, but then I remembered. Our parents are dead.

Instead of having a normal conversation about the funeral that was to take place in six hours, I rose, dressed, and left the house. It was selfish of me, but I couldn't do that. Not now.

The weather was pleasant and I walked the streets of my small hometown, confident that no one would place me after so many years. I was wrong. In less than a half hour, I was spotted and forced to have awkward chit-chat with four different people. It was all the same.

Friendly neighbor says, Oh my, it's good to see you! It's been so long. I wasn't sure you were coming back [with an uncomfortable look and pause]. It's been too long. Then I say, Yes, it has [trying to get over the remark]. FN says, I'm so sorry…

Then their voice trails off and the head bows. I am then put in a position to say something uplifting as though it was their pain. The weather's nice today is something along the lines of my response. Man, it was to be a long day.

I did manage to speak with my brother before we left for the church. He cried. I cried. We confessed our sorrow for the way it ended. We asked the hypothetical; How could she do that? and Why? to empty air.

[part i, ii, iii, iv, v, and vi.]
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a love story, part five

My brother lives just as far from our hometown as I do, but he visited regularly. He was still very much a part of life in this town. I, on the other hand, had only been whispered and rumored about through the years. Despite my brother's encouragement, I still felt like the town itself was throwing me out.

Our arrival at the church was quite similar to how I had pictured it. More of the conversations I experienced earlier in the day. My brother was easing through the tension with charm and grace. I wondered how many people will show. Surely, most of the town will, although they had no real relationships with either of my parents.

Then I began to think of my funeral. Who would be there? Just as I saw the chief of police approach, I mentally concluded my funeral would be a small one.

He wanted to update me about the status of the case. He was trying to appear sympathetic, but I could see his excitement about having a big case on his watch. This was not kids trespassing and occasional acts of vandalism. This is two murders.

I realized at that point I had not yet come to terms with the gravity of the situation. Prior to this, I was angry at my mother, but only for killing herself, not for killing my father. I began to think I needed to feel some real loss. I was tangled in what the appropriate feelings to your mother's killing your father when I was bumped by someone to my left.

It was the man in the photo with my dad. He told me a story I was not prepared to hear. Or believe. I said nothing.

[part i, ii, iii, iv, v, and vi.]
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a love story, part six

He began:

You don't know me, but I have watched you for eighteen years. I know as much about you as there is to know. I was hired by your father a lifetime ago. He hated that you left. It tore him up and your mother knew. Hell, everyone knew by the way he was always going on. Your mother knew why you left. She didn't blame you. She was proud of you, because you were able to stand up for yourself. And your parents knew about you, watched you through pictures. They watched the successes and failures of your life.

Your father was always on - playing the role of father to his little girl. But you weren't here. It drove your mother mad. She thought your father was delusional, living in a part of your world and you didn't know it.

I know your father hit your mother. I know he hit you. Your father continued to control your mother with force. I will not try to forgive the behaviors of his life now that he is dead. But I thought you needed to know that what happened here was not about your mother finally defending herself for a lifetime of abuse. This was not retaliation. And your mother did not give into the guilt of having killed her husband by reacting with suicide.

I'm your parent's attorney. I live in this town. Everyone, like you, is thinking this is what happened. But there is something else, something no one knew. You didn't know because you missed your father's expressions of both love and hate through the years.

It was a plan. Your parents won an incredible amount of money and killed themselves.

He looked at me at this point carefully. Don't make that face, he seemed to say. I thought that he must really know who I am. What my problems were. Then, he continued:

A carefully constructed plan. Do not feel guilty, this is not what they wanted. Many options were considered, but this one made the most sense to your parents. It was a plan where everyone would win. Everyone would get what they deserved. They killed themselves and left you the inheritance. It was all your father could do to help, given your current financial troubles.

The End.           [part i, ii, iii, iv, v, and vi.]
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Friday, May 05, 2006

from 'Cold Case Squad'

by Edna Buchanan:

Like all things good and bad in the world, it began with a woman.
posted by jessica at 5:08 PM -   1 comments Comments:
Seems to be the case...
 
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i recommend

The Sneetches by Dr. Seuss. This is one of my absolute favorite stories. Focusing on prejudice, it demonstrates the silliness of segregating people based on categories (race, religion, gender, etc). The story's strength is that it shows just how arbitrary these categories are.

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. In this classic story, a new mother suffering from what we might today call 'post-partum depression,' sinks into a still-deeper depression invisible to her husband, who believes he knows what is best for her. Alone in the yellow-wallpapered nursery of a rented house, she descends into madness.

Lies My Teacher Told Me (1995) - James Loewen

The Covert War Against Rock (2000) - Alex Constantine

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"Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?" He asked. "Begin at the beginning," the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop."

"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked. "Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad." "How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice. "You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."

(both quotes from Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland," available in full-text here.)