Month: March 2022

Uber Tales: Do You Like It, Five Years Later Edition

Today is the fifth anniversary of my sign-on date with Uber (the date I went live on the app and could start doing rides). As of today (before I start my run this afternoon), I’ve done approximately 12,900 rides and I probably have driven around the planet a few times (lost some milage counts a while back). When I tell people how long I’ve been doing this I get asked this question, one I’ve been asked a lot in the last five years:

Do you like it?

I’ve always wanted to ask what prompted this question but I don’t want to come off as rude or presumptuous or some crap like that. So instead, I’ll do my best to answer it here.

First, the answer is yes even after five years. And there are several reasons for that.

One, the unpredictability. As a driver, you never go the same route day in and day out though there are some constants in the job like going to and from the airport or downtown in a major tourist city like my hometown here of San Antonio. But there are days when I am literally all over the city, and on a few occasions I’ve gone from one end of the county to the other and into the surrounding counties.

Two, meeting new people. I’m shy and introverted by nature so this has really helped me learn how to gauge whether or not people want to talk and what to talk about. I’ve had a lot of conversations about a lot of different things and some have made me laugh, and a few had me fighting not cry behind the wheel.

Three, being managed by an algorithm. I’ve heard people say if you do gig work you’re managed by a computer algorithm and I will always say in reply, “And your point is?” Having been managed by both humans and algorithm I’ll take the algorithm because although I had some good human managers, most of them I wouldn’t give you a dime for because of their sheer incompetence and a few I wouldn’t piss on if they were on fire because of their sadistic cruelty. The algorithm doesn’t micromanage you as long as you keep your stats up and stay out of trouble, which I find very easy to do. Also, the algorithm I work for doesn’t say jack-squat to me if I go offline to use the bathroom or for any other reason. I’ve been micromanaged more than I ever want to remember and I sure as hell don’t miss it.

Four, I get to see my city and everything in it. I’ve been in some of the wealthiest enclaves with multi-million-dollar mansions, and parts of the city with houses worth a fraction of that. And yes, I’ve been a few parts of the city that are more than a little rough around the edges but I didn’t stick around for autographs as I’m fond of saying. But I’ve never had any trouble in any area and people are really good wherever you go.

Also, this gig has kept me from sinking into a depressive hell because as my full-time job, if I don’t drive I don’t eat. So no matter how awful I have felt mentally and emotionally, once I get on the road I leave that behind and focus on the ride. And I’m forever grateful for that and also even if something has gone wrong on a run I’ve been able to leave it behind once I park the car at the end of my run.

Is gig work perfect? Heck no. I’ve had more than my share of ups and downs with it, days where I couldn’t get any action going, and crap to deal with like any other job I’ve had. But I didn’t get into this job (or any job I’ve ever had for that matter) expecting things to always be sunshine and rainbows.

Is gig work for everyone? No. With this job I always say you have to be able to roll with things as they come and be able to think on your feet, or behind the wheel. Like yesterday for example, a passenger left a phone in the car and that’s hard to get back to someone (though I was able to, thank goodness). Also, on Tuesday this past week the app glitched just as I started my afternoon run at the airport so I lost some time there till they got it fixed. But as I like to say, things work out eventually.

I think a part of me will miss this gig once I’m able to move on to something else but one big thing I’ve learned is how much I like being on the road seeing the world and being my own boss. I’m far from perfect but I know I can function best when I’m on my own having the freedom to do my job without anyone micromanaging me.

And if you’ve ever asked an Uber driver if they like their job, can you tell me why? I’m just curious as to what prompts that question because my thoughts on it are pure speculation and I’d like to know from people who’ve asked the question instead. Thanks and here’s to more days on the road.

Breaking Radio Silence – The Forest and the Little Girl

(I know I said last week I’d tell the story of the ‘first break’ in my silence as I called it but I’ll table that for another time)

Over the last week, I began to realize there was still unexplored territory to explore in this journey of breaking my silence. The unexplored territory is the true origin story that I’m just starting to work through. It’s of a little girl, a forest, and a silence that wasn’t.

When I was in elementary school, our recess area was bordered by a patch of forest with lots of trees, thick undergrowth, and lots of room to hide. More than once, I stood there looking at it thinking how much I wanted to walk in there, sit down, and never come out. Why? Because going back into a classroom or a playground where I didn’t quite fit in wasn’t what I wanted to do.

I’ve hesitated (to say the least) to write about myself back then. I’ve been afraid of hearing people come at me and say I should just get over all that shit from back then and let it go. I’m glad we’re talking about bullying and mental health like we are now, but for me it’s still a challenge. Yet I’m up to that challenge because here I can say ‘fuck off’ to any voice inside my head that tells me to just get over shit. So I’m going to bring that little girl, aka me, back to life here for a little bit.

When I was her age, there was a park behind the houses in the subdivision we lived in at the time. And I will confess here that I rode back there on my bike and walked around it all by myself. There was a swampy pond in the middle of it but I was never afraid of being around that swampy-pond like I still am sometimes around open bodies of water (residual past-life fear I’ll go into at another time). Instead, my overactive childhood imagination kept a lookout for Swamp Thing. I’d seen the movie when I was that age and yes it’s low-budget and campy, but I loved it because Swamp Thing was the hero of the story (he was a scientist who through an accident in his lab turned into this creature that everyone feared except the heroine of the story played by one of my favorite actresses of that day Adrienne Barbeau). But what I really liked about that swampy-pond forest space was that I could hear my own thoughts and no one else’s bullying belittling bullshit like I heard so much back then.

I love nature and have always felt comfortable in a wooded area or anyplace that’s without other humans. I’ve always been more than comfortable being alone but looking back I realize it was a matter of survival. Being alone was a place where I wasn’t being looked at and laughed at, or ridiculed for being clumsy, or intelligent. Not all my childhood was that shitty but there was way too much shit then and later on that I shouldn’t have had to put up with. Yet I’ve come to realize I found a way to deal with it. And no, retreating into silence was not running away from it. No, in ways I’m just beginning to understand my retreat into silence didn’t mean I lost my voice like I’ve thought. My voice was inside me all along. Now I’m just putting it out into the world.

Back then I used to have a rebellious thought: why do all the mediocre loud-mouth bullying jerks get to speak out and shut me up? Answer: because they don’t give a shit about anyone but themselves and empathy is an act of rebellion they have to fight against because they don’t have any. No, I’m not being mean here because of this: does anyone who mouths off about someone to their face or behind their back ever really think about the consequences of their actions? Answer: no. Because if they did maybe that would have stopped them from shooting their mouths off in the first place. But as I’ve come to realize now, that lack of thought and conscience isn’t my problem to deal with. And that’s something I’ve been telling that young girl I’ve been visiting these past few days.

Because if I could go back in time and sit down next to my younger self in the woods I’d tell her the following:

First, her imagination will always be with her no matter how awful things get. It will always be her safe and secure place and someday it will be what gives her a life of independence.

Second, I would tell her she is so much stronger than she will ever know. And that anyone who says otherwise or calls her weak is full of shit.

And then I would pull her into my arms and hug her like I wouldn’t let her go. I’d pour all the comfort I could into what little time we had together.

So yes, I will be writing about that little girl who grows up and all the shit and hope she finds in this life. And maybe over time, that big wound she’s made me see will close enough to where I can stitch it close to give it thicker scar tissue.

Stand or Fall – In the Shadow of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD)

Recently, I read an article where a college professor asked his students if they knew what the strategy of Mutually-Assured-Destruction was. Now please note his class is mostly under forty (Millennials and Generation Z) and they had been inadvertently downplaying the threat of nuclear war and the resulting nuclear winter because they thought there were missile-defense systems and also because they had no idea of the MAD strategy. They were shocked when their professor told them there were no real missile-defense systems because the funding for them got cut back in the 1980’s, and that MAD was still in effect. And I have a feeling they couldn’t list all the countries with nuclear weapons either (the United States, Russia, China, England, France, India, Pakistan, North Korea, Israel).

I think this lack of knowledge is yet another failure of the American educational system, and the fact that these two generations did not live with the saber-rattling like my generation (Generation X) and the generations before did. But it doesn’t excuse the Millennials for downplaying shit like this and that a significant number of them don’t believe the Holocaust was as bad it was (see next week’s blog entry for my take on that). This is why I think there has been a huge rise in support of right-wing bullshit like the Russians aren’t bad guys and Nazis weren’t that bad. No, they’re worse. Ask the people in Ukraine how bad the Russians truly are, and what the rest of the world has known for over seventy years.

In the 1950’s, the Cold War began. In school, we were taught it was a war of ideas, communism versus democracy (with the Russians being the Communist bad guys). From the beginning of the 1950’s, there was a massive development of nuclear arsenals, thousands of ICBM’s (Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles: missiles that are launched from across continents and oceans). Then there was the development of MIRVS (Multiple Independent Re-Entry Vehicle Systems): nuclear missiles with multiple warheads (aka nuclear bombs) on top of a single missile. Now multiply that by hundreds if not thousands of these types of missiles around the world possessed by the nine nuclear nations and by the 1970’s the world began to realize that might not be a good thing. This led the first arms-control and arms-reduction treaties between the United States and Russia and older weapons were supposedly decommissioned and no new ones were built though I’m just cynical enough not to totally believe that. This is why my blood boiled pretty damn hard when the previous US Presidential administration talked about increasing nuclear stockpiles instead of reducing them.

We don’t need to blow ourselves to Kingdom Come. We don’t need to kill billions of people and kill the survivors slowly and painfully and destroy our planet in what is called a nuclear winter (that’s the theory that if enough nuclear weapons are set off there will be so much radioactive dust it would choke out the sun and freeze our planet to death).

So in the light of this insane rush to kill everyone a strategy was developed: mutually-assured-destruction. The idea being that if one side launched their missiles then the other side would launch theirs with the goal to try and knock out the enemy from launching more missiles after the initial strike before they could take out the retaliating side.

And if you don’t believe this shit watch the old 80’s movie, WarGames. It was a movie based on this MAD strategy. And as the computer says in the movie at the end of the simulation of the MAD strategy: “The only way to win is not to play”. But back then, the powers-that-be wanted you to think nuclear war was a game and that everyone wouldn’t die and there would be enough survivors to carry on.

In 1945, the United States dropped two atomic bombs on two Japanese cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing over two-hundred thousand people (estimates). These were civilians, men, women, and children. I was taught it was done to force Japan to surrender unconditionally to end World War II, and to prevent a long and drawn-out invasion of Japan. Today that would be considered a war crime, a crime against humanity and I agree with that. There had been enough death and destruction and the world didn’t need that. And most of all, nuclear weapons are not what has prevented World War III.

I grew up on that bullshit-idea, too, that nuclear weapons kept the world relatively free of war, that the ‘little’ wars that have happened since (Korea, Vietnam, the Balkan Wars, etc.) didn’t mean jack-shit in the face of what happened in World War II. Tell that to the people of the world who survived those wars, and especially try telling that to the people of Ukraine right now. Also, nuclear war hasn’t happened because cooler heads have prevailed in countless crises (like President Kennedy keeping General Curtis LeMay from running wild in 1962 – watch the film ‘Thirteen Days’ to see that), and also people brave enough not to follow orders (such Russian colonel Stanislov Petrov who in 1983 refused to call the Kremlin to order a nuclear missile launch because he knew his equipment was malfunctioning and the United States would not just launch five missiles to start nuclear Armageddon).

So young ones, and Millennials, this is why your elders and not-so-elders get freaked out when there is talk of nuclear war. We know how close we’ve come, but we also know there are people on this planet who honestly don’t care whether they live or die (because they’re under the totally-fucked up and misguided belief that if they commit mass murder they’ll be welcomed into Heaven and not Hell) and who wouldn’t hesitate to hit the big red button and end it all. And for what? To not live in a world beside people who are different from them, who don’t want to live their lives in hatred and anger, and who don’t want to destroy but to create and heal?

It was said Albert Einstein called the development of nuclear weapons akin to opening Pandora’s Box and unleashing pain and suffering on the world. He was right. He also said, “I don’t know what World War III will be fought with, but I do know what World War IV will be fought with: sticks and stones.”

Breaking Radio Silence – The First Crack at Forty

In 2014, I turned forty. Around my fortieth birthday I took stock of my life and thought I was doing pretty good for myself: I had a decent job, a nice little apartment, a nice car (I loved my Saturn Ion), and a cat. I had no social life of course, and I was just playing at being a writer and not giving it near enough of my time and effort. But I was being nice and warm and cuddly to the world and therefore I thought I was doing the right thing. But to my surprise, and what I didn’t know at the time was this: telling myself that I was doing pretty good with my life gave me a sliver of self-confidence that would begin to crack the silence around my mind, my heart, and my soul.

In the summer of 2014, I went to a training class at work to learn how to handle dental insurance. Now if you’ve ever had dental insurance you know how convoluted and downright awful it can be. In the past I would never have voiced any of this out loud but one day in class I did and got a result I did not expect at all.

We were going over some dental policy that gave new meaning to the term ‘convoluted’. It was like someday tried to cover all the bases but just for a few people. And I muttered loud enough for everyone in the classroom to hear, “Who in the world came up with this?” I was sitting at the very front of the class by the wall so I had to turn in my seat to look at the rest of my classmates, all of whom were the dumbest ninnies I ever worked with (let me put it this way, if someone yelled ‘boo!’ in that classroom they would have shot out of their seats like rockets). They looked at me with wide-eyed horror like I’d broken the great seal on the tomb of an evil ancient Egyptian priest and hell was about to break loose.

But my instructor fielded my comment perfectly when she said the following: “Well, a group of executives got together one night at Twin Peaks (a restaurant-bar near our office where the female servers didn’t wear a lot of clothes) and had a few too many drinks.” I burst out laughing and went, “Say no more.” And after that every time I saw some convoluted piece of shit on the projection screen I’d look at her, roll my eyes, and together we would go, “Twin Peaks.” (Yes, it became a running joke between us that no one else got in on). She was one of the best instructors I ever had and not just because she could get a running gag going, but because she treated me and everyone else with genuine respect and dignity.

As I look back at that time, I also realize that some of that newfound self-confidence came from my very first instructor on that job, someone who would later become my supervisor-manager.

In my first class on that job in 2013, I deliberately kept a very low-profile. I stayed quiet and only asked questions when I needed to, or when I felt the rest of the class wasn’t clear on something but didn’t know to phrase a question to clarify that. After a couple of weeks, my instructor had a talk with me complimenting me on my participation and encouragement of my classmates. My instructor admitted she was worried that with all my experience I’d try to flex my ego so to speak and I then told her why I kept a low-profile.

Years before, I had two training classes at two different jobs that were absolute Hell. One had an instructor who raked me over the coals and wouldn’t let me get a word in edgewise when she basically told me to keep my mouth shut and say nothing in class (this was a place I had worked at before and I had only been away from for a year and nothing much had changed). I will admit with this one I may have showed a bit too much enthusiasm but the way she handled me was wrong and I went along with her power-trip/insecure bullshit and shut myself down from that point forward. My classmates later asked me why I wasn’t very vocal or too helpful and I told them the instructor basically asked me to keep to myself. And I asked them in return not to say anything to her and just leave me be, which they did (I didn’t want them to get in trouble because back then I didn’t think I was worth defending or really supporting at all).

The other training class incident was at the first call-center gig I got after my dad died. We were in class one day reading along and I raised my hand because I had a question about something. As soon as the instructor called on me and I started talking, all of my classmates began talking at top volume and drowned me out. But the instructor, being the worst bitch-instructor I ever had, threatened to throw ALL of us out of the classroom including myself. There was NO demand from her to them to apologize to me and she didn’t make one damn effort to defend me in any way, and she never apologized to me for how she handled this situation. And I was paralyzed with extreme humiliation and fear and said nothing at the time (I fought like hell that day not to fall apart and break down into a shaking, crying mess).

When I told my instructor in 2013 the story in the previous paragraph she was horrified. And then she made a promise that she would never, ever allow that in her classroom (and that was a promise she kept). After that, she and I developed a really solid working relationship and when she became my supervisor she went to bat for me when my gallbladder acted up and I was out of work for a week (this place had one of the most chickenshit attendance policies ever and I was terrified I’d have to beg and plead for my job). My supervisor excused all my absences saying I’d followed procedures for calling out and she also called me every day I was out to check on me, too. She was one of the best I ever worked with and if she ever got in touch with me and needed a favor, she’s got one coming from me.

So when two people who I respected greatly for their honesty, their integrity, and their genuine kindness and empathy believed in me , I think that’s when I really began to believe in myself. I didn’t realize that at the time nor did I have the words for it. But that little spark of belief became a laser inside me that began to cut through the silence I’d encased myself in. And that crack would lead to the first break in my silence almost one year later, which I’ll tell you the story of next week.

Stand of Fall – Crosses

“Some of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses”

From the song, “Killing In the Name” by Rage Against the Machine, 1995

This song was written after the beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles but the phrase ‘burning crosses’ has come into my mind as a rebuttal against people who hate anyone who isn’t like them, such as people of color, LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender, queer), Jews, and others. Hate-mongers say that those people of color, LGBTQ, Jews, and others are coming for them. They say those people are trying to exterminate the white race, or oppress white people, or deny the existence of heterosexual people. They say that people of color, LGBTQ, Jews, and others not like them are hell-bent on destroying the world.

I have one thing to say to that: has any person of color, LGBTQ, Jews, or others who are not white, heterosexual, fake-Christian, burned crosses?

Answer: No.

Has any LGBTQ person or organization tried to pass legislation to ban the discussion of heterosexual health and well-being?

Answer: No.

Have Jews ever rounded up Christians and sent them to gas chambers?

Answer: No.

Now, at this point I’m sure someone is thinking: what about the Los Angeles riots in 1994, or in Watts in 1965, Boston/Newark/Detroit and other cities in 1968 after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr that burned down whole city blocks?

Answer: They weren’t predominately-white neighborhoods. Beverly Hills was not burned to the ground in 1994. Anger and rage were turned on the poverty and neglect of Watts and other places and that’s why those areas were destroyed by rioting and looting.

Another question: was any all-white area bombed and razed to the ground like the Greenwood area of Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921? The first time aerial bombardment was used in the United States?

Answer: No.

No single group of people or individuals are completely innocent or without sin. I’m not saying that here. But in the United States and the Western World, governments and other political, social, religious, and business institutions are led by predominantly-white, heterosexual people, men mostly in top positions of leadership. And when they’re leadership is threatened, they don’t take it well. What they fear the most is people like them (white, heterosexual, etc.) will turn on them and reject their greed and hatred.

Right now, the true evil I see in this world is the oligarchs, and not just the Russian ones. Oligarchs live all over the world as people who acquired wealth and power through illegal, immoral, or unethical means. People who steal and hoard wealth and resources and drive people into poverty, disease, and death. People who oppress others in order to keep them poor and struggling just to survive.

The oligarchs are the ones that burn crosses and fund the ones that drop bombs on hospitals in a place called Ukraine. They are the ones that have stolen trillions and are also the ones trying to kill our planet. Wealth without conscience.

Some would say I’m being an extremist here. I’m not an extremist or alarmist when I see the world on fire, when I hear hatred every day, see it in legislatures here in my own country of the United States of America. When I know there are people in this world, in my own country, who would finish what Nazi Germany started over seventy years ago if given the opportunity.  

And to those reading this who ask why don’t people of color/LGBTQ/Jews, and others reach out to those who speak out against them and risk their lives and well-being? I believe it’s a choice people are free to make whether or not to engage with those that spout hatred.

And please don’t spout the bullshit of hating the sin but loving the sinner. Being a person of color speaking out against oppression and discrimination, or being LGBTQ, Jewish, or anything defined other is not a sin. As John Pavlovitz said in his book, ‘If God Is Love Don’t Be a Jerk’: If someone is uttering the phrase “Hate the Sin, Love the Sinner”- They’re usually doing something hateful to another human being and trying to pass the buck to God.” True sinners burn crosses, not die on them.

Breaking Radio Silence – Expressing My Opinion

Yesterday I participated in a focus group. I can’t say what it was for or about due to confidentiality agreements but myself and my fellow participants were there for our opinions (we were also fed breakfast and lunch and paid for our time). I’ve done focus groups before and they’re interesting because you get to meet new people and learn a few things. Now I’ve done these focus groups not just for free food and money, and to meet new people, but to try and break out of my silent shell.

All my life I’ve been told by various people I have no ability or no right to express my opinion regardless of what my opinion is. I’ve been told no one wants to hear my opinion because it’s total bullshit. Why did I believe these people for so long?

1. In the extremely-misguided notion that if I just shut up and went along with their bullshit they would include me in their group. That never happened because it wasn’t my silence they wanted in the group. They didn’t want me in the group at all but they just didn’t have the tits or the balls to come right out and say that.

2. Because they knew my opinion might be different from theirs and they were not tolerant or open to other opinions despite lying to my face and saying they were.

Okay, I know I sound kind of mean and petty, or that I’m fishing for pity and sympathy.

First, people who really can’t accept an opinion or anything that deviates from their extremely narrow-assed existence are not tolerant but for the most part, they don’t have the tits or the balls to come right out and say that.

Second, if you come at me with pity and sympathy I’ll tell you right now to shove that back up your ass where it belongs.

Most girls are raised to be ‘nice’, and I put the word ‘nice’ in single-quotation marks because it’s not nice to be quiet and submissive so people can shit all over you whenever they want to. Our society right now is still deeply patriarchal in that men still take precedence over women, and too damn many women still defer to men even when those men are totally full of shit and don’t deserve any help in wiping their asses like women are expected to.

Okay, I know I’m being blunt and ugly here but we live in a world where the most opinionated people are the ones that are the first to whine and bitch when someone has a different opinion, or is just different from them in any way.

Now, are all my opinions right and true? Hell no. I’ve fucked up things before and will continue to do so until I’m just a bunch of dust particles sailing through space. But guess what? Everyone is just full of shit as I am sometimes, too. Life is a learning experience and I think the only grade that matters is at the end when you face off with God or whoever the Supreme Being in charge is.

Getting back to yesterday, at the last session of the focus group we were all together and the guy running the session was trying to push us pretty hard. He got to me and he said something to me about being slightly angry as I was responding to his questions. Most men don’t like women to express any shred of anger or negative emotion but I didn’t dial it down and I didn’t apologize like I would have done years ago. Instead, I shut him down with one razor-sharp statement from my heart and soul and I looked him right in the eye when I said that. And guess what? No one gave me any shit about that. No one avoided me like the plague or muttered shit about me behind my back. My worst fears from my past were no longer true. I came out of it whole and strong.

Yesterday was a direct result of my ‘breaking radio silence’ project. Years of soul-searching and questioning have given me a confidence I always had a right to all along. My opinions do matter and I have the right to have them, and to speak them out loud. If someone doesn’t agree, or doesn’t like them or just doesn’t like me because I’m delightfully quirky, they can find their tits or balls and tell me to my face. I’ve heard so much shit to my face that I honestly don’t know if anyone can come with anything original anymore. But I know I can survive shitty words said to me and shut people down if I have to. And I don’t have to walk away a shaking, neurotic mess like I used to whenever my hold on myself slipped enough to where I spoke with honesty. That’s something I don’t miss and I will never, ever go back to.

So in addition to having thoughts and feelings, I have opinions, too.

Ukraine On My Mind

Last week I wrote about the heroes of Ukraine but this week, those heroes are just fighting to survive. Over a million Ukrainians have fled creating the worst refugee crisis in Europe this century so far and more are fleeing every day. Thousands are returning to fight and save others and the pressure is on the Russians economically. But things will get so much worse before they get better because it seems the Russian strategy is to bomb as much of Ukraine into rubble like they did in Chechnya and Aleppo in Syria and then murder as many fleeing civilians as possible, all while trying to create false narratives such as the latest one that Ukraine was secretly developing nuclear and biological weapons (which isn’t true at all).

What I’m fighting like hell right now to contain is my rage at the conservative Republican establishment in this country who spent the last five years praising the butcher that is Vladimir Putin and his corrupt and extremely poor Russian Federation. To these motherfuckers, Russia is an idealistic utopia with no people of color, gays and lesbians, and transgendered people to live with, and no Jews, Muslims, or anyone not of the state-approved Russian Orthodox faith.

Over the last twenty-two years since Vladimir Putin came to power over a trillion (yes that is trillion with a ‘t’) dollars has been taken from the Russian people and stashed in banks, yachts, real estate, and in lawmakers and organizations to de-stabilize and take down the free world. And over these past years, there are people who have said this was all fake news, or paranoia, or that why shouldn’t Russian oligarchs get rich off the backs of poor working-class Russians?

I’m fighting like hell not to scream and rage at Republicans and conservatives who are speaking out against Putin now and trying to support the Ukrainian people. I’m trying not to scream and rage at them that Trump was impeached the first time for unlawfully withholding military aid to Ukraine. I’m trying not to scream and rage at them for their silence on this.

Over the years of my adult life I’ve heard this bullshit-saying that people tend to get conservative as they get older. I call bullshit on that because I’ve never been conservative to begin with, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve worked to embrace the idea that the best time to do something is NOW. Because all my life I’ve heard that sometimes you have to wait to make real changes. That’s a bullshit diversion tactic by gutless cowards who shouldn’t be able to make any real decisions because they have no conviction or courage to begin with.

Because over the last six years, in addition to trying to figure out just how fucked up I am mentally and emotionally and what I could do to repair as much damage as I can, I also really dug into my political and ideological beliefs. And I realized the side I chose as a child, the liberal, progressive, democratic side was the right one. I just wished I hadn’t given in to silence on that but the best time to break that silence is now.

I’m going to be completely honest here and say I’m worried when I speak out like this with all my colorful language that I’m just further alienating myself from people. But then I tell myself I’ve been alienated and alone all my life, and maybe the course of my life is to be the traveling old lady telling stories and always alone. I say this because when I write like this, I’m showing the world I will not compartmentalize my emotions, especially my compassion and empathy. I will not part-and-parcel them out only to a few people. I fight with every ounce of strength I have not to embrace the lure of rage-turned-hate. When I feel that lure I respond simply with: 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 you will have to deal with them sooner or later. Because I have not stopped asking myself the same thing and I never will. I will never have all the answers, but neither will anyone else.

The fires of the ‘culture wars’ against black and brown people, Jews and Muslims, lesbians/gays/transgendered people have all been complete and utter fucking bullshit. They’ve been used by the oligarchs of the world to steal and drive millions of people into poverty, and into mass graves from poverty and disease. In the United States alone, next month a million people will have died from COVID-19 and many of those deaths (250,000 at the latest estimate) could have been prevented had there not been opposition to public health guidelines such as mask-wearing and vaccines.

The people of Ukraine are taking a stand against a country that has been trying to subjugate and take them over for the last century. Whether or not they will succeed remains to be seen. This could devolve into a guerilla war, or a proxy-war between the West and the Russian Federation. Or it could all end a blinding flash of light under a mushroom cloud.

At this point I say all you can do is take it day by day. I get up now and check the news and for the last eleven days the city of Kyiv still stands free. I see President Zelensky is still alive. But I also see the dead, the burned-out ruins of cities, the masses of refugees and my heart aches. That ache hurts but it reminds me time and again that I’m human, and that ache is pain, and compassion, and empathy. And I will fight with every ounce of strength and courage not only to feel those emotions, but to speak out with them, too. “Slava Ukraini!” (Glory to Ukraine!) 

Uber Tales – Do I Like It, Edition

In the almost five years I’ve been driving for Uber there is one question I still get asked a lot, and that still baffles me though I’m not quite sure why.

Do I like being an Uber driver?

I always say yes of course but I wonder why I get asked the question in the first place (I haven’t asked that of my questioning-passengers because I don’t want to come off as rude or ungrateful, or something like that). I think for me the big reason I’m baffled by this question is that in all the other jobs I’ve had, I never got asked this question. In fact, when I worked in call-center Hell most people asked how I could stand dealing with people yelling at me all day over the phone. I told them it wasn’t the people yelling at me on the phone that made that job a crap-fest but the management I worked under (for every good manager I had, I had at least five I wouldn’t piss on if they were on fire).

I wonder if being a gig-worker as Uber drivers are sometimes referred to is still very alien and dare I say, unique to a lot of people. Like some people see us as free-spirits, or losers they secretly admire for not being a part of the corporate rat-race so they have to wonder if we really like it or we do it because we can’t hack it elsewhere.

So in reply to the question of do I like being an Uber driver, I’ll list some of the things I really like about the job.

First thing I like: no set schedule. Uber will post about potentially busy times and also any incentives during certain times (incentives are extra money given in addition to fares and tips- and all tips go directly to drivers). So if I take an evening off the road I can do a morning run (five a.m. to about nine a.m.). My preferred time is currently three-thirty p.m. to about midnight, especially with airport runs because those are usually pretty good money fare-and-tip wise. But if you’re feeling like crap, or if you want to cut out and you’ve got the money to do it, you can and no one says anything.

Because yes, as a driver you are managed by an algorithm. And when asked how that’s going I always say, “I’ll take the algorithm over the human.” Uber’s algorithm has always been good to me as long as I maintain my numbers (customer rating/acceptance/cancellation) which is easy to do with this gig. In call-center Hell, I was micromanaged by people who had no business managing anything other than a stapler. It was so bad I used to get dirty looks from managers when I stood up to stretch or go to the bathroom. With the algorithm, I don’t get any dirty looks for either stretching or bathroom breaks.

Another thing I like is tenure and top status has its’ perks. There is a four-level tier system for drivers and I’ve been in the top tier since the system was implemented. And they don’t keep adjusting the goalposts for this tiered system to make it damn near impossible for anyone to get into the top tier and stay there. It’s like having an ongoing performance review without having to sit down and go through one of those every year and be grateful for whatever pitiful raise you get.

And yet another thing I like- no yelling or screaming people. I’ve had a few people mutter shit about me or just treat me like something they scrapped off the bottom of their shoe at the dog park. And I’ve had a few indecent proposals. But the good thing is I haven’t had to deal with anyone like that in a long time, and if I really had someone go off on me and not back off and apologize I could report them and not be matched with them again.

One of the things I really like about this job is the diversity of the people I meet every day. I’ve met people from all over the world and from all walks of life. I’ve had a ton of conversations about everything under the sun and then some. I’ve laughed my ass off behind the wheel, and I’ve fought like hell not to lose it at some things I’ve heard, too. And yes, what’s said in my Uber stays in there because I don’t have any details about the people I shuttle around and I don’t ask a lot of questions in my line of work. So in response to my top FAQ: yes, I like being an Uber driver. And I’ll keep doing it as long as it works for me, and as long as they’ll have me. Thanks for riding with me today.

The Written Road – Not Stealing Writing Time Anymore

When I began writing I felt like I had to hide it from the world. A lot of that was because my dad was a major jerk about his writing at times, especially to my mother. My father was like a lot of male writers in that he expected instant and unquestioning devotion and acceptance from my mother about his pursuit of writing, which she refused to give him because that was her choice. A lot of male writers succeed because they have a wife or significant other to take care of their day-to-day shit so they can pursue their high-and-mighty craft.

Female writers as I learned very early on don’t have that kind of support system and sure as hell don’t ask for it or expect it at all. For female writers, writing is something done late at night, early in the morning, and most of all, hidden away. From Jane Austen hiding her manuscripts under a desk blotter in the sitting room anytime someone came over, to Margaret Mitchell and Danielle Steele setting up their typewriters in the laundry room, to Jackie Collins and Nora Roberts writing on spiral notebooks in the carpool line, women write but feel the need to hide it until they achieve some measure of success or at least are able to make it pay for itself. But it’s a hard-fought battle to feel like you have the right to pursue your writing even though you’re doing your best not to bother anyone with it.

In my teens, I tried my best to keep my writing to myself. I didn’t really talk about it with anyone other than my father and I felt like I couldn’t because I hadn’t paid my dues. I wrote in between classes in school, and in class with my papers hidden under my textbooks (my teachers probably thought I was taking notes until my grades showed otherwise).

In my twenties during the years I took care of my mother is when the shit began to hit the fan writing-wise for me. I knew my parents took flack for letting me live at home rent-free and write when I wasn’t busting my ass taking care of much as I could so my mom didn’t have to while the cancer was slowly killing her. I’m forever grateful for my parents for their support of my writing at the time but knowing they were having to waste precious time and energy defending a decision that was no one’s business but mine and theirs still pisses me off now. Back then, that flack dug a fear deep inside me that took me over twenty years to put into words.

In my thirties, I tried to make it look like writing was a nice little hobby because I didn’t want anyone to use it to drive a wedge between my father and me. I was his sole caregiver and it was a choice I made knowingly and willingly, and without regret like the decision I made to sacrifice my own goals and ambitions to care for my mother.

But this sacrifice came at one hell of a price because it’s taken me close to a decade to see that I didn’t need to hide my writing, or justify it to anyone in any way, shape, or form. It’s taken me close to a decade to fully realize my writing is mine, and mine alone. And if someone doesn’t like that, that’s their opinion that they’re fully entitled to. Just as I’m fully entitled to respond to that in any way I choose to, like writing this here.

I wonder how many writers feel like thieves stealing time to do something that they think people will destroy if they find out how much it means to them. I want to say to those writers no one can take your writing from you or destroy you because of it. People who mouth off at you for pursuing something in silence and on your own time are just bullies. And the easiest way to get a bully out of your life is to stand up and call them out on their lies and bullshit then walk away and keep doing what you do.

Most of all, my fellow writers, don’t waste any time trying to figure out why people don’t want you to write or just don’t like your writing. You are not responsible for figuring out other people’s thoughts and feelings, or to work their bullshit. I spent way too much time in my past trying to do that and got nothing in return so don’t even take one step in that direction. Write, and keep writing and do whatever you have to in order to shut these naysaying morons out of your mind.

You don’t have to steal time to write. You have to find the time, or make the time you have work for you. But that’s not stealing time at all if you’ve taken care of your responsibilities.

Just write and keep writing.

Stand or Fall – In the Shadow of the Mushroom Cloud

The title of today’s blog entry comes from the song, “Hammer to Fall” by Queen. I first heard it on the soundtrack to the film ‘Highlander’ though the song was released first as a single from Queen’s 1984 album ‘The Works’. Written by Queen guitarist Brian May, it’s about growing up during the Cold War when both the United States and Soviet Union (now Russian Federation) would get into a dick-swinging contest but swing around nuclear missiles instead of their own pencil-dicks.

Two days ago, Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin said he put Russian nuclear forces on high alert and of course all of us Cold War-babies had flashbacks to duck-and-cover drills, ‘The Day After’, ‘Threads’, and other dystopian nuclear apocalypse imagery. My father used to tell stories of watching nuclear bomb tests on live television in the late 1950’s and also that he got sent to the principle’s office one time for saying during a duck-and-cover drill, “Shouldn’t we all just put our heads between our legs and kiss our asses goodbye?” (when my grandfather came to pick my dad up from school and my dad told him what he’d said, my grandfather said he couldn’t punish my dad for being honest).

By the time us Generation X kids came of age, we grew pretty fatalistic about nuclear war. We hoped we’d be close enough to the blasts to get vaporized because that’s a pretty quick death. If we survived, we knew we’d have to forage for Pop-Tarts to survive (Twinkies are the foraging goal for the zombie apocalypse). But we also knew since 1945, cooler heads had prevailed, and there were people who had the balls not to push the big red button or make phone calls to the Kremlin or the White House. Because if those missiles launch, it’s all over and there won’t be anything to do except sing REM’s classic song, “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (and I feel fine)”.

I saw something yesterday online where a teacher asked his Generation Z students if they knew what the strategy of MAD (Mutually-Assured Destruction) was. They didn’t know and he had to tell them and they were pretty shocked. I grew up with that like my dad and his generation did. Because that’s the nuclear strategy the world has lived with since 1945 when the first and so far, only atomic bombs were dropped. The strategy is that if anyone launches a single missile, everyone else launches all of theirs in the totally fucked-up misguided idea that if we launch a counter-strike we’ll knock out some of their missiles. Yeah, I don’t think they thought that one through.

What I will say now is this: pray that cooler heads will prevail and keep the monsters from hitting that big red button and blowing us all to Kingdom Come. Pray for steady leadership like President Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and for people to stand up to a President and tell him to quit joking around about bombing Russia (thanks to President Regan’s White House advisors for telling him to knock that shit off). Pray for their counterparts in Russia who are probably risking their lives and hoping they’re not near a meat-hook or a window to get thrown out of.

Most of all, stand up for what’s right and true. If a politician or pundit has voiced support for murderous dictators like Vladimir Putin, make sure to remind them at every opportunity and hold them accountable. If they’ve taken dirty money to destroy democracy in this country and around the world, hold them accountable. Vote them out of office and support investigations into their criminal and treasonous behavior. There is no middle ground when it comes to preventing nuclear war or the dirty war of misinformation and the destruction of democracy.

As I write this, the people of Ukraine are getting the living shit kicked out of them by the Russians. They’re fighting just to stay alive and hold out long enough to get reinforcements and hope for a coup in Russia. They’re hoping the world doesn’t cave in and abandon them like the world has before.

It’s hard to live in the shadow of the mushroom cloud. Yesterday I looked up at the clear blue sky above me and thought what a total waste it would be to see it on fire. Instead of getting scared and sad, I was pissed off as hell. I was like, “Not this fucking shit again!” I reminded myself all I could do was get on with my day and pray that cooler heads will prevail yet again. I know we got a cool one here in the United States in the White House. The one in the bunker in Russia I’m not confident in at all but I hope enough of his stooges find their balls and keep him away from the red button.

To those who are feeling the terror of that mushroom cloud, come on in. Grab a pack of Pop-Tarts, take a seat, and turn up the music.

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