Month: February 2022

Breaking Radio Silence – Standing Up to Bullies

Over the last few days, I’ve been doom-scrolling and watching the news out of Ukraine (and I blogged about it yesterday, too). And I began to ask myself why I’m having such a strong emotional reaction to it other than fear of a huge conventional war breaking out in Europe or worse, nuclear war. But then I realized it was because I was watching a nation of forty-four million people stand up to the bully that is Russian President Vladmir Putin and the corrupt government and military leadership of the Russian Federation.

Now I’m not equating my life with what the Ukrainian people are going through in any way, shape, or form. They’re fighting for their lives, but they’re also fighting to live on their own terms. Under seventy years of Soviet-Russian occupation, the Ukrainian people were brutally oppressed. They were banned from speaking their own language and practicing their culture and customs. And now they’re being told by their neighbor that they can’t determine their own path in this world by joining the European Union and NATO simply because some asshole in the Kremlin is a joyless, soulless ghoul? Fuck no.

Bullies are loud, rude, obnoxious, and totally convinced they’re in the right even when they know they aren’t. And it’s not my job, or anyone else’s for that matter, to figure out why they’ve jammed their heads up their asses and decided being asshole is better than being a decent human being, or to figure out why they have decided to live without conscience, empathy, and compassion. I’m here to talk about the damage these people cause and what I’ve learned to repair some of it.

Some of my earliest memories are of being teased and bullied as a young child because I was fat and clumsy. I am probably one of the most un-coordinated people you will ever meet. I have balance issues like my late mother did though not with her motion-sickness thank goodness. But it lead to a lot of teasing, bullying and worst of all, alienation. Or to simplify that, it sucked and hurt like hell to always be picked last for any team.

While I suffering through the hell that was PE (physical education) class, I was suffering from another hell in the classroom and elsewhere by being shy then proving I wasn’t stupid for not babbling and running my mouth without trying to think about what I was going to say first. I have a brain that runs at about a hundred and fifty miles an hour on a good day and that means I over-think a lot of shit and have since my age was in the single-digits. I still do that though I’m really trying to get that under control.

Now here’s the really shitty part about all this: the human brain imprints repeated exposure in order to learn. Basically, if you hear something often enough you start to believe it even if it’s not true or just plain wrong and awful. And because of that, the human brain itself doesn’t really learn how to filter out things negatively impacting you emotionally as well as it should. Learning not to believe the lies and bullying about yourself is very hard to do. It took me over thirty years to realize that not only were people wrong about me being stupid and weak, but the way I had internalized their shit was wrong, too.

By the time I reached my late thirties, I believed every single person on this planet had their shit together and knew everything, and that I knew absolutely nothing and was a total loser. I did this in the severely-misguided belief that if I beat the shit out of myself first then other people wouldn’t do it to me. But then I realized something: most people honestly don’t give a shit about you after they’re through mouthing off at you about something. Because I used to fear people mouthing off at me then if I made even just one peep of noise or movement, they’d pound the shit out of me and put me in a cage somewhere far away.

That never happened. All my bullies were gutless cowards who didn’t have any heavy weaponry to come after me, and if they’d had access to any of that they wouldn’t have known what to do with it. I realized this when I had this thought come into my mind and started believing it: everyone else is just as full of shit as I am sometimes but that doesn’t make me a bad person. What that means is no one has all the answers, and if they try to bullshit and bully you into making you think they do, call them out on it even if it’s just in silence and not letting them live rent-free in your mind, or saying it to their face.

From that lesson more came to me and they all culminated in the big one: people can say whatever the hell they want to, but I have the right to respond in any way I choose to, even if it’s in a way they don’t like. If you stand up to someone and say they’re hurting you, you’re not wrong.

I think the best way to stand up to a bully in daily life is this: you don’t run and hide. You say, “I’m still here. And you need to go off and ask yourself why you think and feel the way you, and keep asking until you find all the answers you can though I will warn you, you might not like the answers you find. And sooner or later you will have to deal with them. Just like I’ve been dealing with mine.”

The Heroes of Ukraine

This past week Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine and within three days had not taken a major city and their army on the ground was beginning to run out of fuel and supplies. Now I don’t how this war will turn out because no one knows the future but I do believe in one big thing: I think the Ukrainians have one hell of a shot at winning. Why? Because their leadership, their President and all government leaders have stayed to fight alongside their army and regular citizens who have taken up the fight, too.

And this, my dear readers, is what the Russians were NOT counting on. They were counting on the government fleeing into exile so they could roll in and set up a puppet regime like they’ve done before. But when a government stays and fights, that doesn’t happen. It didn’t happen in World War II when the Nazi’s bombed the shit out of Great Britain, and it’s not going to happen now in the Ukraine. Because as Ukraine President Zelensky said to a US government offer to leave: “The fight here. I don’t need a ride. I need ammunition.”

And they’re getting it. The US government is sending an emergency aid package and for the first time ever, the German government is allowing transport of rockets and other armament into Ukraine. Also, it looks like the Russians are about to be cut off from their most lucrative financial source (the SWIFT banking transaction system), and the world is rising up and standing with Ukraine.

President Zelensky is the unlikeliest of heroes, at least on paper. He’s a former television actor and comedian who played a character on a tv show who went from being a history teacher to the president of Ukraine. Real-life mirrored his tv show when on a lark President Zelensky ran for president and won. But he’s not a bumbling fool. No, he’s got balls of steel because he’s stood up to two bullies and not backed down either time.

In 2019, US President Trump tried to bully and blackmail President Zelensky into helping him establish himself as dictator-for-life by providing non-existent dirt on current US President Joseph Biden’s son Hunter. Zelensky refused and lost out on four-hundred million dollars worth of military aid. Then in 2022 Zelensky refused to kneel down and suck Russian President Vladimir Putin’s dick by refusing to back off on Ukraine’s desire to join both the European Union and NATO. He knew that both decisions would cost him dearly but they were the right ones.

President Zelensky is Jewish, and his great-grandfather died in the Holocaust, and his grandfather fought Nazis in World War II. He honors both of them by standing with the people of Ukraine, armed and ready to fight. He knows that by staying he’s not giving in to Putin and the Republican Party here in the United States. He’s not giving in to bullies, and in the Ukraine right now his people and the Ukrainian Army are literally kicking the shit out of the Russian bullies trying to take over their country.

And not without losses and pain. There have been casualties on the Ukrainian side, and they’re Heroes of Ukraine.

Thirteen Ukrainian border guards became heroes when they told a Russian warship who pulled up to their island outpost, Snake Island and ordered them to surrender: “Russian warship, go fuck yourselves.” They all died as vheroes and their words are now a battle cry in the Ukraine (and on digital road signs on the highway to Russian invaders now).

A Ukrainian Army combat engineer, Vitaly Skakun Volodymyrovych, stayed behind when the charges he set along with his team couldn’t be detonated remotely. By destroying the bridge, and giving his life in the process, he stalled a major Russian Army advance and gave his fellow soldiers time to regroup and fight on.

There are other stories, some unknown, of other heroes of the Ukraine. I hope after this is all done a memorial is built to honor them.

And yet another inspiring quote from President Zelensky (a baby girl was born in the subway of Kyiv under intense Russian bombardment this past week): “But today is also the first day in the life of the baby girl born in the shelter in Kyiv metro station… When babies come into this world even under shelling and fire, then the enemy has no chance in this war.”

Short Story Saturday – Two

Last year I wrote two short stories in which the first one started in an unnamed Eastern European country where an American soldier and a Russian soldier met. At the time, there were rumblings of Russian aggression against Ukraine and I thought that if war ever broke out in Europe that’s where it would start.

As of this writing, the Ukrainian Army is fighting like hell to repel a Russian invasion and so far, American soldiers are not in it. But I know the average Russian soldier and citizen is not the enemy here, but the oligarchs and dictators are.

I wanted to give two soldiers a happy ending so I wrote a sequel to the initial story prompt. I was inspired by an old episode of the 1960’s television series, ‘The Twilight Zone’ called ‘Two’. It starred Charles Bronson as an American solider and Elizabeth Montgomery as a Russian soldier facing off in an unnamed war-zone. Now in that episode Elizabeth Montgomery’s character said nothing but I gave my Russian soldier-character, Tania, a voice, and a love of ‘Star Trek’.

I’ve posted the stories here as two Adobe PDF files for viewing. Please note these stories, like all written material here, is Copyright 2022 Michele Sayre with all rights reserved, so don’t try and steal it. You can share it from this page if you want to on social media, though.

I hope you like these stories because as my father used to say, “The world needs happy endings.”

Two In the Woods – pdfDownload
Two at Sea – pdf docDownload

Uber Tales – Origin Story

Created by my friend Deborah Ratliff

On March 31, 2017 I became an active Uber driver. At that time I was working a part-time gig as a contract delivery driver for Amazon and needed some more money. Then at the end of May that year that contract gig ended and I went full-time with Uber because I needed to keep earning money and no one was responding to my resumes being submitted. Then I discovered I liked being an Uber driver and managed by an algorithm with no human support available at that time.

It’s now been almost five years, over twelve-thousand rides, a lot of miles, my own vehicle followed by four rentals, and numerous app updates. I’ve also survived the business crashing in March 2020 when the covid-19 lockdown happened here in San Antonio and the usual ups and downs of the ridesharing business in general.

One question I’ve been asked a lot over the years with this job is, do I like it?

I find that question odd even after being asked it for five years because before I started doing this job, no one ever asked me that before. But then before I started doing gig/rideshare work, I worked in call-center Hell. When I told people about that job the number-one question was how I put up with people yelling at me over the phone all day. I’ve told people the worst thing about call-center work for me wasn’t the yelling over the phone, but the incompetent to downright-sadistic management in the call-centers I worked in. I told them the places I worked where were run by penny-ante, nitpicking, bullshit-loving assholes for the most part. So when people say that I’m managed by an algorithm and not a human I say in return, “And your point is?” After five years of being managed by an algorithm I’ll take the algorithm over the humans because I had only a small handful of human managers I actually liked and respected.

Now I will freely admit I have not taken my Uber job nowhere as seriously as I probably could have, or should have. I mean I’m not the most organized person in the world with it nor am I the most ‘rah-rah-rah, go team!’ person about it either. For me, it’s been something I can do with the least amount of fuss and muss and as long as I maintain my numbers I’m good to go. But I’m also good to make my own schedule and take it one ride at a time. Because there has only been a few times when I came off the road flaming-hot mad unlike call-center Hell where that was almost a daily thing.

As of right now, I don’t have any truly insane, off-the-wall bonkers story to tell but I’ve got a lot of other ones to tell. Also, I’ve got a good number of observations about human nature, the world we live in, and life before and after the covid-19 epidemic.

I’ve read a lot over the years from economists and other egg-head types about how gig work truly sucks and takes advantage of people. Some of what they say is true but as someone who also worked for wages for a lot of years, I can make a lot of comparisons and contrasts between hourly-salaried work and independent gig-work. I went into this job with my eyes wide-open and no expectation of a red-carpet roll-out experience. To me, it’s just about making money and leaving it behind at the end of the road for the day. No two days are the same with this job and I’ve always said that the only predictable thing about this job is its’ unpredictability. Sometimes you hit the financial jackpot and some days you can’t get any action going at all.

One time after I’d answered a rider’s questions about my job he said to me (this is an exact quote): “So basically, you drive around all day, meet new people, and listen to music.” I told him that was about right though in addition to that I dealt with traffic, bad drivers, weather, and on occasion delivered food (back then I was doing food delivery to offset the reduction in regular rides).

So each week here till the book is published, I’ll share stories and behind-the-scenes bits like with my other three books. Hopefully I’ll get something off-the-wall nuts before I go for publication.

The Written Road – An Origin Story

I started toying with the idea of doing a how-to writing book around the same time as “Breaking Radio Silence” and “Stand or Fall” with some personal experiences mixed in. But then I had a thought one day:

My relationship with writing is complicated.

And as I asked myself why that was, I fell down another rabbit hole like with the other two books and had to take a whirl around the demented Wonderland of my past to answer that question. One answer that jumped out at me and knocked me back hard was this:

Did my father try to use writing to deal with his untreated mental illness?

All my life my father told me he had been diagnosed as manic-depressive, now referred to as bi-polar depression but had refused treatment. I can’t independently verify that diagnosis (as my father is dead and he had no proof to show me when he was alive). But after reading about bi-polar depression… let’s just say he would have checked pretty much all of the boxes for symptoms and behavior.

I was about eight years old when my dad blew an ulcer and in recuperation started writing. He wrote at first on yellow legal pads then hammered away on a typewriter in the bedroom next to mine late into the night. He was obsessive and a major pain the ass about his writing at times especially to my mother (who he raged at in incredibly-horrible ways). And when I began writing when I was about ten years old, I put myself in a precarious position of not wanting to be an asshole about my writing like he was but wanting to pursue it with the same passion like he had.

I’m sure people who knew my father, and even others who didn’t, won’t be comfortable with me referring to him in the ways that I will. But my father, and my mother (both of my parents are dead, by the way), would be the first ones to tell you they weren’t perfect. One thing I’ve read about bi-polar illness is the extreme mood swings people with that illness have and my father had those in full-blown stereo. But my writing journey is about me but he will be along for the ride just like my mother is along for the ride with my ‘Breaking Radio Silence’ project.

I was around twelve years old when I decided I wanted to be a full-time working writer. In junior-high I wanted to be a songwriter/lyricist but I couldn’t find an Elton John to my wannabe Bernie Taupin. Then I wanted to be a journalist, then a screenwriter, a filmmaker-director, then a novelist. When I graduated high school I just wanted to write and my dad went to bat for me with my mom (though my mom only agreed to let me live at home and write if I did chores and errands, which I did without a second’s hesitation). Then my dad had his first heart attack when I was nineteen and my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was twenty-one. But all throughout my twenties when I was living at home and taking care of them (and later working part-time then full-time), they supported my writing. They paid my writers’ group dues, conference fees, and made sure I had time to write. This wasn’t a popular decision of theirs with other people in my life at that time but my parents asked me not to say anything and I stayed silent to keep the peace. But the damage was done (and a lot of it you can also read about in my book ‘Breaking Radio Silence’).

In the years since my parents died, I didn’t fully pursue my writing and creative endeavors due to the extreme bullshit of my twenties that twisted me into a huge knot of fear. Luckily I’ve worked through that shit and un-knotted that fear and am now pursuing my writing with a passion and determination like never before.

Most of all, I have never taken writing for granted and it’s never felt like a grind to me. And I will never let anyone try to make it a grind for me, or shit all over me for writing. Despite all the bullshit I’ve been through and the time away from it, writing has always been there for me. And yes, it’s been a form of therapy for me, too. My father kept journals that he destroyed shortly before he died so I have a feeling that writing was his therapy, too. Mine is just more public than his, and I’m also not prone to huge mood swings and raging paranoia like him (just anxiety I’ve learned to gain a significant measure of control over).

So I would say ‘The Written Road’ is a memoire of my own writing journey, a conversation with my late father, and any writing how-to I can work in.

Stand or Fall – An Origin Story

The idea for this book came to me after the US Presidential Election in 2016, a time when I simply asked, “What the hell happened?”

I’ve been a flaming-liberal progressive Democrat all my life and have voted that way since 1992. I’d gone from the high of the first Clinton administration to the low of the second one. I’d gone through eight years of war-mongering and rising right-wing bullshit of the Bush, Jr. years. I fought to maintain hope through the Obama years and thought it would be Hillary’s time after that. But my gut was also telling me it wasn’t her time and hadn’t been since 1992 when she became the right-wing’s favorite villain.

But in the six years since that fateful election in 1992, I’ve seen just how bad things can get. They make the nuclear scares of my 1980’s childhood look tame because in addition to those nuclear fears (which have never gone away), I also fear the slow and painful destruction of our world through environmental destruction, pandemics we won’t be able to respond to, and genocidal violence from far-right groups around the world who want to finish what the Nazi’s started over seventy years ago.

I have struggled hard to even start writing this book because I was watching history happen before my eyes that would culminate with millions dead around the word from an pandemic that may have been contained if the right leadership had been in place worldwide. But most of all, I struggled to write this book after being told all my life that I have no ability to talk about politics or political and social issues. And all from people who honestly didn’t give two shits about me or what I think and feel about the issues of our time. I’ve been an avid follower of political and social issues since my age was in single-digits and though I’m not an expert by any means, I feel I have a perspective that’s not dry, too scholarly, or inaccessible.

I was born in May 1974, three months before Richard Nixon resigned from the Presidency. My late father was an avowed Nixon hater and at times I thought it was mostly just his raving paranoid lunacy. But as I learn more about Nixon and the rise of the modern right-wing conservative movement from the early 1970’s onward, I’ve begun to realize my father was right when he used to go on about Nixon and company wanting to bring back the Fourth Reich as he called it.

For me in the 1980’s, I felt like conservative Republican were just like the bullies I dealt with in school. These bullies singled me out for abuse simply because I was ‘different’ though I was only different because I was fat, shy, and clumsy. I’m a straight, white, heterosexual female but add in the ugly appearance, creativity, and compassion and you can see why I was targeted. So yes, my feelings towards conservative Republicans are personal. To me, any argument that politics isn’t personal is total fucking bullshit perpetuated by people who only want to silence anyone who isn’t falling into lock-step, jack-booted, Nazi-red MAGA hat wearing perfection.

But don’t worry, I won’t leave the left out on this one either. I don’t like left-wing purity culture that’s only minus the fucked-up sexual purity of right-wing purity culture. I also don’t like the doom-and-gloom of the left-wing sometimes, so much that I would love to bitch-slap anyone who jams their head up their ass instead of taking names and kicking ass by voting and giving a genuine shit about the world we live in.

What really prompted this book is the right-wing desire I see to destroy this entire world and everyone in it if they can’t have it all for themselves. In the 80’s and 90’s I thought right-wing Republicans were mostly harmless. Since the 2000’s, they’re deadly. They started two wars, one on false pretenses, and let an epidemic kill a million people in this country. And worst of all, they’ve openly embraced fascism, neo-Nazism, and attempted a coup on January 6, 2021 they still haven’t answered for in a court of law.

I have fought like hell to maintain hope that we’ll put this one out but sometimes I’m fond of saying, “I’ve seen this movie before and I know how it ends.” I grew up on dystopian science-fiction and it always gets worse before it gets better. Just how much worse, I don’t know. Before my generation got bogged down and gave in to the latchkey-pessimism we were raised on, I had hope. Or at least I did in 1992. By 2000, that hope had been broken and I’ve been trying to pick up the pieces ever since then. This book is the story of hope found, lost, and hopefully found again.

Breaking Radio Silence – An Origin Story

In the Fall of 2016, I set out on what I thought would be a straightforward journey: to use writing to try and figure out why I thought and felt the way I did. At that time, I knew there were things I needed to deal with and I thought writing them out would help me see exactly what they were and what I could do about them. I titled this project, “Untitled Self-Help/Memoire Hybrid” as I felt this project would be a combination of self-help and memoire used to illustrate the things I was working through. But in the Spring of 2018, that began to change when the title, “Breaking Radio Silence” came to me.

In the Summer of 2018, I felt like I was going through a Category Five hurricane of emotional storms every single day. I was physically exhausted by this and just barely holding on. In time I realized I was breaking the silence I had imprisoned so many thoughts, feelings, and memories not just to try and get away from the pain, but to keep them from coming out of me and being used against me as a weapon. I felt like I was having a conversation with myself like I never had before, felt like I was allowed to.

In the last months of 2018, I reached what I call the ‘storage unit’ of my mind. This is where I put my most-painful thoughts, feelings, and memories. In those last months of 2018, I went through that storage unit and opened some very painful boxes and sorted the contents out. Most of all, I put those contents into words in my mind and by doing that, I lifted weights of shame and guilt I never should have carried around in the first place.

But I still had a very long way to go to get to the point I’m at now. From 2019 till now, 2022, I had to keep asking questions to figure out why I couldn’t write this book. The big question that got answered over the last six months was this: why have I never followed through on anything I ever wanted to do? The answer to this one was one of the most painful realizations about myself because it was full of regrets and anger, a very volatile mix I had to work through.

The emotional storms are nowhere near as intense as they have been in the past. There is a calm and focus inside me because I’ve come to the most important conclusion about myself and the answer I didn’t know I was looking for. And that answer is at the end of the day, I am worthy and capable of love, and being loved in return. I have also realized that I can try my best to truly connect with people in any way I can, including through writing.

I will tell you right here and now that “Breaking Radio Silence” will not be an easy read, but it will be a hopeful one. And I hope that readers will get something out of it that will help them deal with their own thoughts, feelings, and memories.

The ultimate purpose of writing this book is to help other people, people like myself who have been through things like I have and are trying to deal with the wounds and find healing, and for people who are going through things like I have and need something to hold on to.  

In the end, healing can be had. It’s a long, hard road that never really ends. But it begins with one thing: breaking radio silence. And it continues with a conversation that wasn’t had before.

In the coming weeks, I’ll be posting excerpts from the book in progress along with related pieces to the theme of breaking radio silence. I feel this is going to be an ongoing project for me even after the book is finished and published.

Breaking My Silence – A Manifesto and a Conversation

I call this blog ‘Conversations from the Road’ because I view my writing as a conversation between me and the world, and from the road because I feel life is a road we’re all on. This will be a daily blog and this week I’ll be showcasing what each day will be dedicated to for the foreseeable future (or until some book projects are finished).

Today I’m starting with a manifesto and a brief explanation behind it. This has been very hard for me to post because I’ve never really said anything like this out loud. But I know I have every right to say what I want to say, and respond in the way I want to even if someone doesn’t agree with it. The piece below is razor-sharp and is about as plain and straightforward as I can make it. But it’s all about me and no one else.

My Personal and Writing Manifesto

  • My writing and how I live my life are not an act of defiance, or an act of revenge. My writing and my life are not about getting even, settling scores, winning an argument, making a point, or any bullshit like that.
  • I will not apologize for anything I don’t have to apologize for, or just for being myself. I will not defend myself or my words and actions when I don’t have to.
  • I will not bend or break for anyone, and I will not go silent for anyone.
  • I will always have hope for a better future and I will always work towards that.
  • I will always believe in myself and my abilities, and that I am so much stronger than I will ever know.
  • I will always remember that everyone is just as full of shit as I am somethings but that doesn’t make me a bad person. No one has all the answers or knows what the future will be even if they say they do.
  • Most of all, I will always believe in love, and that I am worthy and capable of love and being loved in return.

I wrote this on January 9, 2022 by hand and told myself I could not throw it out under any circumstances and that I had to publish it. Why? Because these are my core beliefs that I live and work by, and I know I’m going to piss someone off with what I say or do so I might as well go all-in. That fear of pissing someone off and having to deal with their bullshit has held me back more than anything in my life. I’ve always backed down and gone silent even though the people who have mouthed off at me or bullied me forgot what they said ten minutes after they walked away from me. People have the right to say whatever they want to me, and I have just as much right to respond to them in whatever way I choose, even if it’s in a way they don’t like. People say they can agree to disagree but that’s not the case most of the time. They can agree to disagree if the other person shuts up and runs and hides like I always did but will not do anymore.

The story behind all this is very long and complicated and will be told over time here through blog entries and my non-fiction triumvirate of books as I call them (Breaking Radio Silence, Stand or Fall, and The Written Road). But I’m not all doom-and-gloom and writing-therapy here. I’m also about having fun, finding joy and peace in this world, and sharing knowledge. So let me give you the low-down on the tag line under my headline banner: Writer, Creator, Explorer.

Writer

I have wanted to be a full-time working writer since I was twelve years old. I’ll be forty-eight this May so you can see how long that’s been in the making. A lot has happened and the world has changed a lot, too. But the dream has always been there and has refused to die. And my goal in life is to live simply out of an old shuttle-bus I want to convert into a house-on-wheels so I can live and work on the road and see as much of the world as I can. To get that started will be this blog, my three non-fiction books, my Uber book (Uber Tales), my fiction-writing (novels and short stories), and extra writing features like Deep Dive Friday. This week I’ll go into more detail on each one.

Creator

Since I need to earn money I need to create stuff to sell or monetize. I will be putting out fun merchandise to help me develop graphic design, branding, and marketing skills. I’m also going to be putting out YouTube videos and working on developing a podcast.

Explorer

I’ll be starting out locally here in San Antonio, Texas (my hometown) but I will venture out into the world using writing and photography to show everyone here how lovely our planet was before it’s nuked or poisoned to death (hopefully I’m wrong on that but I’m a Generation X pessimist sometimes).

Now, a bit about me.

I’m single, never married or had kids. I’ll be forty-eight in May of this year (2022). I have a dog and a cat. My dog is Darcy, a ten-year old rescue mix who I think look like the result of a blind date between a border collie and a golden retriever. She loves people, cats, but hates other dogs (long story there). My cat is Ronan, an eleven-year old black-and-white chonky boy who isn’t the sharpest claw in the paw sometimes but very sweet.

I’m a flaming-liberal progressive Democrat and have been all my life and always will be.

My tastes in entertainment and culture are all over the place though I do have a very special love for 80’s music and the bygone era that was MTV and cable television. I love all kinds of music in addition to rock ‘n’ roll: jazz, soul, r&b, rap/hip hop, country, blues.

My favorite foods are tacos (I’m from San Antonio so tacos are life down here) though I will try anything new. I drink my two cups of coffee a day and the world should be forever grateful for that. I am trying to eat healthier and exercise more for a woman entering middle-age that’s a good thing (it could keep me from becoming a hunchbacked old crone).

I currently work full-time as an Uber driver because I fell in love with the freedom to make my own schedule and not have a human boss to deal with. Prior to driving, I worked in call centers for seventeen years, also known as call-center Hell. I don’t miss my former life and have decided of all the bosses I’ve ever had I’m my absolute favorite.

I hope you enjoy what you see here and will come along with me on this conversation from the road of my life going forward now.

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