The Therapy Marshmallow Kit
The Therapy Marshmallow Kit
[As extracted from the soon-to-be-published A Bohemian in a Precarious Belfry, Vol. I: Poetry & Prose]
Trigger Warning: Those who believe that “micro-aggression” is anything but an oxymoron will be triggered.
‘K, I’m sitting in a writers’ group meeting. Everyone is super-sensitive about everything. In their world, that’s what it takes to be hip these days: You must be aggrieved, wronged, abrased, injusticed, woke, able to cry, and have the so-called strength to carry your grievances and abrasions incurred through your rub with rubes in perpetuity: In other words, you don’t get over anything. For these people, it is helpful to have the “courage” to point a finger and get in people’s faces.
Either that, or you’re an “oppressor.” Jeez. That’s a drag. That’s gonna be my life: Either identifying as a victim or a “victimizer” - an oppressor. Wait: I can toggle between the two, depending on contexts and circumstances! Oh, rancid flavor for this kind of joy! Like living under a bandage of infection, pus, hate, and dispensed-hate. At last: The answer to life!
What am I doing here? I like to be amazed at the members’ stupidity and ignorance (two different things; their lack of intelligence, and their lack of knowledge/data/facts, respectively). I also enjoyed triggering them. I no longer belong to the group formally, and never really did in the larger sense anyway. Fun while it lasted. Every once in a while, I’d meet someone truly hip but, like me, they bailed.
So, that day it was a “picture prompt” – a visual cue to prompt a story or essay or poem… some bit of writing drivel. I knew my story was likely to trigger some rude examination (which it did) and, as a lark, I had the foresight to bring along a bag of marshmallows: A bag of therapeutic marshmallows with instructions (which I had pasted on the bag, and which I also read aloud):
INSTRUCTIONS
Break open in cases of:
- feelings of isolation
- social disorientation
- perceived micro-aggressions
- the need for dispensation of micro-affections, or more…
- exigencies requiring the creation of a virtual safe space or spaces
- lack of corner space(s) for crying
- lack of spaces with the appropriate measures of diversity, equity and/or inclusion
- extended periods away from avenues for “pride” expressions
- any cases of received-victimization
- any and all instances of discomfort… and so forth
People actually looked stricken.
Fun times, fun times…
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Some levity:
Someone please, please, please tell Alan Dershowitz to do a couple things when he appears on television from home: Put your laptop/camera (whatever) on some books so it’s not shooting straight up into your giant nostrils. Also, get a makeup kit for home and dust your face. Your nose is huge, it’s red, and it has pores you can put BBs in. Your teeth are yellow. Mine are not white, but they are not the color of the daffodils in my backyard. I mean, c’mon, man. Seriously, folks, I thought James Carville was the ugliest man I’d seen on a screen, but Dershowitz… whew! I think he’s tryin’ to be bugly (beyond ugly). [If you think I’m being harsh, recognize: I’ve done the man a favor - if he’s smart enough to pick up on it].
Sticking with levity: Ok. It’s official. I hate Democrats. All of ‘em. There are no “nice” ones. No “good” ones. If you identify as a Dem, there is something seriously wrong with you. It’s not the party of old, the party of classic “liberals.” If people aren’t smart enough to know what they’re supporting, fuck ‘em. I’m not a Republican and I’m not a Conservative. I’m independent. But it is unimaginable to me that anyone who is a legitimately productive member of society can be a fucking Democrat. (Ha, ha. I was kidding. I love Dems. After all, what’s not to like?)
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I am a U.S. Army veteran (HQ, 500th Military Intelligence Brigade [Japan]; 1st Personnel Command [1st PERSCOM, Europe]; Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans [ODCSOPS, Pentagon], more) and a retired Fortune500 I.T. executive (Young & Rubicam, Inc., DC-NY; Burson-Marsteller, LLC, DC-NY, more) as well as employment at major non-profits (Nat’l. Food Processors Assoc., N. VA [now GMA]; Water Environment Federation, N. VA, more); as well as Top Secret contract work for clients. I have passed four FBI background checks, the most recent in June of 2022. I am also the author of the novel THE GRIM GRIND OF LIFE: A PI’s strange bounces through a surfeit of eateries, juke joints, and dark doorways. Prior, I authored the MBA-text I.T. WARS: Managing the Business-Technology Weave in the New Millennium (UofW, UofMD, more than a dozen others). The latter book’s last chapter discusses energy and U.S. grid vulnerabilities, and remains a leading-voice in those realms. Books and expanded bio are available on Amazon.