WTAF

I've kept blogs and journals and diaries off and on since I was 12.  There was a big gap after I married Rich in 1985.  We were busy with his unexpected diagnosis of Marfan Syndrome and raising three wonderful children.  After he died in 2001, I did a "Letters to Rich" journal and wrote about my grief, feelings of loss and anger, and coping.  When I remarried Ted, we were busy blending our families and starting over again.  Both of us had been widowed.  Another gap followed until 2020 when Covid hit and quarantine began.

In 2020, I called my journal "Isolation Journal".  Very creative.

In 2021, I started over on January 1 and called it "A New Day."

In 2022, I started over on January 1 and was at a loss at what to call it. But now I  have a name for it and this is what I wrote in it so far:

I may need to rename this journal WTAF (What The Actual Fuck) 22 because of all the bullshit we’ve had going on since January.  I read that in a Washington Post poll, President Biden’s approval rating fell to 35% and I wondered:  WTAF?  He’s performed strongly and the best he could under strong obstruction from the GQP and has been supportive of Ukraine during this recent invasion. 

Who is The Post polling anyway? 

The entire media seems focused on bringing President Biden down down down even when he’s had  good accomplishments.  Like, the economy is stronger but the press focuses on inflation.  He’s gotten the infrastructure bill passed but the media wants to focus on the failure of Build Back Better.  Employment rates have been up but the press ignores it.  The press underplays anything positive by the Biden Administration.

The press also ignores the treasonous behavior of the GQP and its followers.  They seem to relish events like the stupid truck convoy protesting a mask mandate that doesn't even exist.

WTAF?  I think they are fanning the flames of the conservative right.  I think they’d enjoy armed conflict between red and blue states, figuring their ratings would go up.  

I remember when I could rely on good press coverage.  I miss Walter Cronkite.  I miss Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein.  There's a couple of media newsletters that I will still read: Crooked Media, Press Run and sometimes National Memo.  But, man, I miss the days of impartial reporting.  Don't you?

Kodas

 

A koda is a kid of deaf adults, usually referring to a younger child -- maybe up to the teenage years.  When I was a koda, there were no professional interpreters for the deaf.  As the oldest, I was the family interpreter.

There are lots of issues with koda interpreters.  Among them:

1.  not having adequate skills (a lot of kodas learned to sign but I didn't).  When I interpreted for my parents as a kid, I mouthed my words slowly and carefully but didn’t realize there were easier-to-read substitute words to use.  When my parents didn’t understand, I would try pantomime.

2.  not having adult vocabulary, especially the jargon of different professions.  Yeah.  Like the time my Uncle John (mom’s brother) sent a telegram to call him.  He was taking care of my parents’ property on LI after we’d moved to MD.  There was a troublesome tenant not paying rent.  My uncle kept talking about escrow and I didn’t understand the word.  He couldn’t break it down so I could understand so I latched on “crow” and told my parents the bank was putting the house in a bird cage.

3.  emotional involvement (after all, these are your parents)

The earliest disaster when I interpreted for my parents was when I had to call Uncle John about our house on LI.  The new tenants weren’t paying the rent and the mortgage wasn’t getting paid.  Uncle John was moving to have the tenants evicted but it was a time-consuming process.  I managed to get that across to my parents but then Uncle John began talking about escrow.

Escrow?  I’d never heard the word before.  Uncle John explained something to me but I couldn’t grasp what he was talking about.  My parents stood by, looking at me expectantly and impatiently and I panicked.  I told them Uncle John needed to put our house in a bird cage.  Escrow.  Crow? Must be a birdcage.  My parents looked completely confused and I realized I’d made a mistake and now was really panicking.

Uncle John realized what was happening and said he would write a letter to my parents explaining everything.  He did and they must have understood the letter because they became very grim and irritable.  A few weeks after that, they had a big fight.  My father was ranting that this was Mom’s fault, Uncle John was HER brother and she’d picked him.  After a few rounds of this, I figured out what was happening:  we’d lost our house on Long Island.

After my leg healed somewhat, my parents wanted to consult a lawyer.  They felt that the miniature golf course was liable for what happened to me because of negligence:  they should have cut the grass and noticed the broken pipe and fixed it before I got hurt.  They had me make an appointment with a lawyer and I went there with my mom.

I was scared to death.  He intimidated me, an older stern man in a dignified suit.  He used lots of big words that I couldn't understand.  I explained what happened to me and he began to rip holes in the story, asking me questions that confused me.  He gave me to understand that we didn't have a case because I must have been careless or messing around when I got hurt.

My mom was furious.  She knew better but was frustrated in that there wasn't a good enough way for her to fight with this attorney -- other than through a scared kid.  She was angry with me, too, and I was very upset by that.  Remember, I was just a little kid and was frightened enough to begin with.  My mom told me I must have told the story wrong and ruined everything.

Looking back now, as an adult, I see how awful it must have been for her, too.  She sat there watching me become flustered.  She didn't know what was going on because no one told her.  The attorney was too busy confusing me and I was too busy having a meltdown to try and explain what was happening.  I don't think the attorney and my mother exchanged any written notes at all.  They may have but it was such an awful experience I just blanked most of it out.  Anyway, mom must have been extremely frustrated not to be able to express her own thoughts and feelings.  That happened more often than not with my parents and hearing people.

That's why, in the late 1970s, interpreting became a profession.  Deaf people needed an impartial person who could interpret for them without making judgments or editing what was said.

What happened to me is why kodas should not ever interpret. #memoir

 

What If Mom Wrote This To Dad?

 

February 26, 1972

 

Dear Eddie,

 

I have decided to go to the one place I know you won’t follow me and finally I will be free of you.

 

I really did love you once, you know.  I remember thinking you were the handsomest man I’d ever seen, and I couldn’t believe it when you told me you thought I was beautiful.  You were wonderful to me in the beginning, so romantic and considerate.  When did it all begin to change?

 

I think it was when we moved away from our hometown and you didn’t have to worry about what my family and friends thought of what you were doing.  Going to the club and drinking was the beginning of it.  It didn’t help that I liked to drink too, first because I was too lonely not to and later because I needed it to endure the day.  The gambling came next, and I never knew from paycheck to paycheck if we would have enough money to pay the rent or to buy food for the kids and me.  The first time you hit me you cried and said you were sorry, but soon that stopped.  I think it was because I had no relatives or friends to see or stick up for me.

 

What I don’t understand is why you can’t let me go in peace?  We have not really loved each other for years.  We hardly touch.  We sleep in separate bedrooms.  Why would you miss me if I left?  And yet, every time I try to go, you follow me.  You drove away any friends I was able to make because when I turned to them for help you would show up and make such an ugly scene, I would have to go with you.  I would be too embarrassed to face these friends again and so it came to this point, where I only have you and yet I can stand to be with you no longer.  Even the pills the doctor gave me to ease my ‘change of life’ depression doesn’t numb the desperation I feel to get away.

 

I know that you will follow me if I go back home to my sister.  I don’t want to lose her love or friendship.  I know that you will follow me if I go to our children and I want to spare them the pain of seeing your anger against them and me.  No matter where I go you will find me somehow and find some way to bring me back.  But I have finally found a place that I can go where you will not follow because no matter how much you say you love me, you will not want to go here.  I will be finally free and at rest.

 

I waited until I knew you were leaving for the club to play ‘guts’ with the other members.  I didn’t object when you took our checkbook even though I know in the past you’ve thrown blank unsigned checks into the kitty.  I know you will not return until the morning and the first thing you will notice is that all of your whiskey bottles are empty. Maybe you’ll see the empty pill bottles in the trash can, all of the pills I didn’t take even though the doctor kept prescribing them. You will be very angry and you will look for me and you will find me, holding this picture of the two of us when we were happy close to my heart.  You will find this note in my hand and if there is mercy in this world, you will read this note and know that I am gone.  I will be in the place of happy memories, where you and I were once young and loved each other.

 

Your Maggie