Book of D: Let's Go to the Movies

The Menu (2022): It's a movie I have been wanting to see ever since the first promo trailer premiered. It stars Ralph Fiennes, who is one of my favorite British actors. Fiennes plays a world-class acclaimed chef who prepares a lavish tasting menu, along with some shocking surprises ala unexpected ingredients. TBC. Our UTPB's annual Celebration on the Quad awaits. I have volunteered to help set up the event, which starts at 6 PM. BRB!

Book of D: The Feels

Ughhh. Why do I allow myself to feel this way. I wish there was a magic pill that could make the feels go away. All these days of anticipation for answers about my workspace appear to be leading up to nothing. Nothing has changed. El jefe is still being evasive and nonconforming. Hell, he can't actually succumb to being a nonconformist if he hasn't even been around to hear my pleas and ideas. Hell, I'm not asking for much. I just want what my peers are getting: a nice office with carpet, ceiling tiles, new desk (sit-to-stand) and matching shelves and hutch. The shithole that has been proposed - last week, mind you - is pathetic. My colleague spoke to me about it earlier this morning. As usual, he and I were the first ones to work in the area where our offices are located. The other two cohorts had not yet arrived and neither had our student workers.

My colleague said he heard from the grapevine that I was being assigned an office sans carpet and tile. I said, "yeup" and proceeded to show him the pictures I had taken last week. The area I will be taking on as my "office" used to belong to the literature department; they used it as a library. The reason there is no carpet or ceiling tile is because they wanted as much space possible, vertically as as well as horizontally, that would allow the tallest shelves, and as many of them that would fit the circumference of the room, thus providing more space for books and such. It was a tight-fit according to the communications specialist who is helping me with the move by providing me with a phone line and access for my computer and laptop docking station. To revamp one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite romcom movies, "I'm also just a girl standing in front of 'her boss' asking him to 'get her a decent office.'" It's seems so elementary to solve the feeling of crappiness - or feeling crappy - but I assure you that it is not that simple. If it was easy, most therapists would be out of a job and the person who figured out the magic pill or potion would be more rich that Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Warren Buffet combined.

Book of D: Crimes of Racist America

Till: Till is a 2022 biographical film about Mamie Till Mobley whose 14-year-old son Emmett Till was lynched in 1955. Till became an activist and fought for justice following her son's unmerited and abominable death. The movie is really good, and most of the time, it is jarringly painful and infuriating – as it well should be. Lest we forget.

The murder of Emmett Till continues to haunt the American imagination and tarnish the decadent southern reputation. Although Emmett was from Chicago, his visit to the Delta in August 1955 to visit relatives, will forever be nomenclature regarding the racist South. The younger Till was castigated for communicating with Carolyn Bryant in the store owned by Carolyn’s husband, Roy, in Money, Mississippi, where Emmett had entered to buy bubble gum. Apparently Till whistled at or spoke to Carolyn; no one knows for certain, but it was enough to infuriate Roy Bryant and his half-brother J. C. Milam to ruthlessly murder Emmett. It took three days to recover Emmett's body from the Tallahatchie River, where Bryant and Milam disposed of Till's body, by tying a seventy-five-pound cotton gin fan tied around his neck to weigh it down – after they had already cracked open Emmett's skull and gouged his eye out. Mamie insisted on an open-casket funeral so that everyone could see what had been done to her Emmett. Jet magazine and other media sources published pictures of his mangled body, which horrified the world. Adding to the infamy of their crime, Till’s murderers were acquitted by an all-white, all-male jury in Sumner, Mississippi, on September 23, 1955, and a few months later sold the story of how they abducted, tortured, and killed Till to William Bradford Huie for a Look magazine interview. Although justice was never served in the case, Till’s brutal death and the subsequent sham trial were a catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement. 

I dare anyone to Google "Emmett Till death photos" and not become indignant over the injustice nor to be able to refrain from despondency or commiseration over the severity of his savage injuries.

Book of D: Self-Reparation

I remember yearning for a love that didn't exist . . . at least not in this worldly realm called earth. If someone did or didn't do something for me that made me feel safe and secure - I saw it as a sign that the person didn't love me. In actuality, it was me not loving myself enough and not being able to find the security that can only be obtained within oneself. I punished others for not being able to help me find the love I was so feverishly craving  - from myself. 

Unbeknownst to me, there was never going to be any one person who would be able to love me enough or make me feel secure enough until I was ready and cognizant enough to love myself. True story.