fierce attachments

a mother-daughter blog about the fierce attachments in our lives… title inspired by Vivian Gornick's wonderful memoir

Category: odds and sods

Quote | January 23, 2018

governor brown bows to pressure and reverses former manson family member leslie van houten’s parole approval

by nikki meredith

I’m discouraged that Governor Brown, for the second year in a row, has refused to follow the parole board’s recommendation to release Leslie Van Houten. I’m also surprised. For those of us who have followed his political career from a law-and-order hard liner as a young governor to a humane, seasoned and, we thought, wise leader as an older governor, this is a major disappointment. When he was younger, he didn’t believe in rehabilitation. Now he’s known as a governor who believes in second chances, but not in this case. Here, he’s bowing to pressure from the loudest and the most reactionary voices in the criminal justice system.

The murders of Mr. and Mrs. La Bianca were horrific. No one disagrees. To this day, the description of the events of that night takes my breath away but to keep Leslie Van Houten locked-up almost 50 years later is not just, by any stretch. If it had not been a high profile crime, she would have been paroled many years ago. There isn’t a single person who actually knows her who believes that she’s dangerous and that includes mental health professionals who have evaluated her, professors she’s studied under, journalists who have interviewed her, correctional officers she’s worked with side-by-side. Her case file is filled with reports demonstrating that she’s not only rehabilitated now, she has been for several decades. Read the rest of this entry »

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September 22, 2017

that brief period where I tried to hold on to my sanity: news blackout in the time of trump

by nikki meredith

 

I took a break from life in the mainstream – a six-month break to be exact. After the election, I dug a hole in the sand, firmly planted my head in it and vowed that I wouldn’t pull it out until there was evidence that my husband had won the worst fight we ever had. Let me explain.

On that dreadful morning when the country, at least the civilized portion of it, was trying to comprehend what had just happened, I looked across the breakfast table at my husband and noticed that he didn’t look terrified. “Don’t you dare not be undone by this,” I said. “I don’t want to hear any of your optimistic bullshit. This is a disaster of disastrous proportions…there is no good face to put on it.” He, nonetheless, dared: he said he continued to believe that our checks and balances were, eventually, going to right the ship. I told him he was dead wrong. The Republicans controlled everything. It was over. Read the rest of this entry »

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June 27, 2016

where the rubber hits the road: a closeted prude listens to modern sex advice

by nikki meredith

dreamstime_s_13347370
I have a new secret pleasure. It’s not actually secret — I’ve mentioned it to a few people – and, though it involves sex, it’s not exactly pleasurable for reasons I’m about to explain. Come to think of it, it’s not even very new.

Every Tuesday, for the past six months, I put a leash on my dog, ear buds in my ears and head out the door to my local gym and on the way to that gym I listen to the Savage Lovecast, billed as love and sex advice from America’s sweetheart, Dan Savage. I kind of love Dan Savage. I say kind of because a while back he would occasionally go on fat people rants that I found offensive and not consistent with his generally compassionate approach to people. He doesn’t do it any more but I haven’t quite forgiven him. He is, however, an ardent advocate for LGBT rights…actually for lots of rights, gay and straight and, with the fat exception, I agree with him about 99 percent of the time when he’s not talking about sex. When he’s giving advice about sex, I agree with him about 97 percent of the time. Maybe it’s actually 95 percent or possibly 90. Sometimes it’s closer to 50 percent of the time or 20 percent. Perhaps, it isn’t his advice I disagree with. It’s the whole premise of the show. Read the rest of this entry »

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May 10, 2016

I helped elect Richard Nixon in 1968.

by nikki meredith

nixon with fist

I recently had to remind myself of this fact. It was the only way to stop my rant against Susan Sarandon, a Bernie surrogate, after she told Chris Hayes on MSNBC last month that she wasn’t sure she’d vote for Hillary against Donald Trump. My adrenalin oozed a liter or two when she said that electing Trump wouldn’t be so bad because it would hasten the revolution…and, with an impish smile on her face added, “…if he gets in, things will really explode.” My forbearance does not extend to a rich white movie actress who cheers on a revolution in which neither her life nor her lifestyle would be imperiled.

I find it astonishing that Sarandon failed to learn anything about consequences when Ralph Nader helped defeat Al Gore in 2000. She was serving as co-chair of Nader’s national steering committee when he argued that electing George W. Bush wouldn’t be so bad because it could serve as a “provocateur,” awakening the power of the left. “If it were a choice between a provocateur and an ‘anesthetizer,’ I’d rather have a provocateur. It would mobilize us.” Hey Mr. Nader, Ms. Sarandon, how did that turn out for you? For us? For the people of Iraq? For all of the Middle East?

But back to Nixon and me. Read the rest of this entry »

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January 1, 2016

Carol Doda, Rest in Peace

by nikki meredith

Screen Shot 2016-01-01 at 9.52.59 AMA national treasure died last month and because I had the opportunity to intersect with her, my life and even more, my husband’s life, was a tiny bit more thrilling. Carol Doda was a true pioneer — one of the first women, at least in the Bay Area, to have her breasts pumped up with silicone injections. One morning her bust size was 34B, later that day it was 44DD. A star was born. She was widely credited with triggering a nationwide topless revolution as a 26-year-old go-go dancer in 1964 and it was that year that I first saw her. Screen Shot 2016-01-01 at 9.53.28 AMI was a student at Cal eating my lunch on the grass when I saw her walking across campus with the student body president, Mel Levine. In those days, Levine, who later served in the California State Assembly, was known as a bit of a prig but that day, strutting next to the lovely Miss Doda, he looked like he’d won the lottery. Pleased as punch comes to mind. In my memory he was wearing a three-piece pin striped suit but, in fact, it might have been a blazer – it was clear, however, that he was dressed for an occasion. As I watched them make their way to the Student Union, I was a little worried about Miss Doda. She seemed a little wobbly in her three-inch heels and because she was so tiny, gave the illusion of being perilously top heavy. (I say illusion because I don’t think liquid silicone is heavy.) It looked to me that Mr. Levine was trying hard to focus on walking and talking and not stealing sideways glances at her breasts. Anyway, they were on their way to some kind of appearance, though, for the life of me, I can’t remember for what event. A lecture on quantum physics? The history of the rotary engine? The silicone chip? Maybe I don’t remember the topic because I didn’t attend, I only read an account of it the next day in the Daily Cal.

Before I relate the account, let me set the scene. Read the rest of this entry »

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July 29, 2015

rice sock: pretty weird, sometimes useful

by caitlin meredith

Screen Shot 2015-07-29 at 9.12.18 PMI just opened a better-forgotten drawer at the bottom of my dresser and a flutter of tiny moths burst from dark to light. Though I should’ve just shoved the drawer closed and deleted the event from my working memory so as to not have to launch counter warfare (which we all know is impossible – my favorite line from an article about how to eradicate moths from your home: That said, it is possible to defeat moths. You could, for instance, burn your house down.) I peered into the drawer to see what piece of clothing I’d be dumping in the bin. Instead of cloth, however, I saw….rice. What the fuck? There were tufts of pastel pink and blue threading surrounding the main pile, with a nicely tied twine bow laid to the side. I’ve been accused of moderate hoarding (I say it doesn’t count if your favorite childhood bathing suit is in a box labeled “can’t throw away for some reason”) but pantry supplies in the bedroom were never my weakness. Finally it hit me: The fucking rice sock.

Did you know that you can go your whole life without hearing the term “rice sock” and then all of a sudden have it rain down on you like bird poop in a bad parking spot? Read the rest of this entry »

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May 26, 2015

the shrinks were in on it? we need to talk about torture again. and again. and again.

by caitlin meredith

Screen Shot 2015-05-26 at 10.01.54 PMI am disgusted. A few months ago, my mom wrote a post about the Senate Intelligence Committee’s torture report, imploring us all to not let our outrage with the government-sponsored (ineffective) “intelligence-seeking” barbarities fade with the news cycle. A new bombshell released last month makes her call to action even more salient. The American Psychological Association not only participated in this program, they changed the wording of their ethics code in order to do so.

It’s one thing for our government to commit these atrocities – governments are no strangers to using lethal force to achieve their goals – it’s quite another for the governing body of a “helping profession” to collaborate in any way with a program that seeks to debase the human body and soul for any purpose. This scares the shit out of me. (If you want to see how the APA is dealing with this, click here.)

I’ve lived in many places where the government’s use of torture wouldn’t even make headline news. Not because it doesn’t exist – because it’s not news. Spending time in Sudan, Zimbabwe, Congo and other places where human rights abuses are justified in the name of protecting the State, it’s easy to feel a little smug as an American. We have the rule of law. We have certain ethical lines we do not cross. We have a transparent government where leaders are elected and defeated according to the will of the people. And of course all of these things are mostly true when compared to most of these countries. But the line that separates “us” from “them” gets thinner and thinner until it vanishes with the use of torture. Read the rest of this entry »

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November 29, 2014

we’ve come a long way, baby. or have we?: is women’s sexuality a substitute for women’s equality?

by nikki meredith

vintage pornI’ve been thinking about sex a lot lately and it all started when I read an account of an all girls circle jerk in a Manhattan Upper East side apartment.  Okay, to be fair, as far as I know, no one but me is calling it a circle jerk.  Jenny Block, a columnist for The Huffington Post, attended a masturbation party…or, more precisely an orgasm party — after all, the former without the latter wouldn’t make much of a party. Again, to be fair, and I’m trying to be, sort of, it wasn’t a party it was a workshop though it had many aspects of a party, or a kind of party. All of the participants were naked and there was lots of sex, and booze.  Okay, actually, I don’t know about the booze.  I can’t seem to stop myself from trying to make the event sound ridiculous as though I don’t trust that the participants can get there on their own. And, speaking of getting there on their own, or, rather, not getting there on their own, a traditional young boy’s circle jerk, as far as I know, doesn’t involve a teacher. (If it did, someone would call the authorities.) The teacher of this, uh, class, was 85-year-old artist Betty Dodson who, in the buff, pranced — okay, maybe she didn’t prance –  she floated from woman to woman administering hands-on instruction.

It may not sound like it, but my purpose here is not to ridicule the workshop but rather to sort what it is that offends me about the whole enterprise.

Does the visual of Dodson’s hands-on work trigger my heretofore undiagnosed homophobia?   Or, does the mere mention of sex and nudity in the same sentence as an 85-year-old woman elicit from me the same bias against old people and sex as expressed by the likes of Chris Rock and Bill Maher?  (I’m just guessing about Bill Maher, but Chris Rock, in a riff about Sex in the City, once declared that the actresses on that show were way too old to be showing their “titties” on camera.) Or is my problem even more primitive?  Does my discomfort put me in the same category as, say, Rick Santorum, who, I’m quite sure would stroke-out if he found himself in the room with all of those masturbating women.  God knows, there are areas of my mind that are more narrow than wide. But, because I find my judgmental self so distasteful, an alarm goes off when it surfaces.  If I find myself rejecting something simply because it wasn’t done in my time or, if it was done, it wasn’t acceptable, I want to know if I’m just lagging behind culturally or if there are reasonable grounds to object. Read the rest of this entry »

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April 8, 2014

knocking on doors while black: my neighborhood, my neighbors, my confusion

by nikki meredith

front doorLast week, around noon on a weekday, a young African-American man knocked on my front door. He was there to talk me into signing up for AT&T high speed internet.  As most people know AT&T and Comcast are fiercely competing for subscribers. He said he could save me a lot of money if I switched. I told him we had actually scheduled a switch a couple of weeks before but after interviewing neighbors who had made the change and didn’t like it, we decided to stick with Comcast.   I added that all of my doubts about AT&T were confirmed when I was on hold for 45 minutes while I waited to cancel the installation appointment. He laughed. “Yes,” he said, “there’s been a problem with the way customers have been treated. We’re trying to improve the situation.” He works for a company that contracts with AT&T. Their mandate is to improve customer relations.

There was something about this young man I liked. For one thing there was no hard sell. For another, he had dimples. I’ve always been a sucker for dimples and he was boyishly handsome in a way that reminded me of my son when he was in his early 20’s. Also, there was something endearing about his enthusiasm for the new and improved AT&T. I never thought I would find enthusiasm for AT&T endearing, which gives you some idea of the man’s appeal. I told him to come back in a year and maybe I’d reconsider.

He was nicely dressed in a navy blue blazer, khaki pants, a crisp white shirt and a tie. There was not a single thing about him that signaled danger. These facts will later become relevant. Read the rest of this entry »

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February 10, 2014

can david hockney save my marriage?: one overly opinionated wife and her quieter husband

by nikki meredith

a bigger splash 1967 by david hockney

a bigger splash 1967 by david hockney

When I first discovered David Hockney a couple of decades ago, his paintings thrilled me. I found the cobalt cerulean hues of his swimming pools irresistible and his particular rendering of the southern California light evoked a longing in me for my childhood. He once called that light extravagant and said it was one of the lures that drew him to Los Angeles in the first place. It’s a light that owes some of its magic to air pollution and the skies under which I grew up were much smoggier than they are now. Often it was difficult to catch my breath without it hurting but those violet particulates permeated more than my lungs; when I left L.A. my heart missed that lambent glow.

This is not to say I considered Hockney a great artist. His images were so tinged with nostalgia for me, I couldn’t judge.

I recently attended a block-buster Hockney show at the de Young Museum in San Francisco – an exhibit The New York Times called a “sprawling romp.”  It featured room after room of eye-popping color and included portraits of friends and family, still lifes of fruit and flowers and dazzling, giant images of the East Yorkshire landscape where Hockney grew up and returned to a decade ago.   I went to see it with a friend who is an artist. I don’t usually go to art museums with friends who are artists. I don’t have anything against doing that it simply doesn’t come up very often. It came up this time when we discovered over dinner that neither of us had been to the exhibit and it was soon closing. A week later we were standing at the entrance.

“How long do you need?” I asked, looking at my watch. “Should we meet in the café?”

She shook her head. “No, no, let’s stay together.”

I’m not the kind of person who “stays together” in art museums. Actually I don’t “stay together” in any museum. I wander solo, lingering over some items, but speeding past quite a few.  I’m the kind of person who meets in the café post-experience. But I’m also not the kind of person who is able to say, “I’d really rather go it alone.”

One painting in, I realized it was going to be a little more complicated than two friends sharing an art experience. She was to be the teacher. I was to be the student.  I felt a migraine coming on. When I was an official student I did okay with official teachers but I’ve never been too enthusiastic about self-appointed ones.  But, Wait, I said to myself. She’s an artist. A good artist.  This is an opportunity to transcend my usual, I love it,  like it, admire it, hate it routine. Maybe I’ll learn something. And I did. Read the rest of this entry »

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