patricia volonakis davis

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

July 29, 2011 By Patricia V. Davis Leave a Comment

“Stubborness does have its helpful features. You always know what you are going to be thinking tomorrow.” ~ Glen Beaman

Hi there!

Thanks for stopping by Patricia’s Opinion Dot Com. Due to time constraints and other considerations, there have been a few necessary changes around here. Beginning August 1, 2011, I’ll no longer be posting at this site. But if you’d like, you can find my articles, essays, podcast interviews and “Expert in Failed Relationships Advice Column at:

HS Radio e-magazine: www.harlotssauce.com

For press releases, press photos, events, workshops and other appearances, please have a visit over to my personal author website at:

http://www.patriciaVdavis.com

To request my consultation, interview, or speaking fees, please contact my author liaison, Jane Hunter at:

jh@johngalvisagency.com

And if you just want to say hello, please send me an email:

patricia@patriciaVdavis.com

or visit my Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/patriciaVdavis

or find me on Twitter:

@patriciaVdavis

or Google +1

..or heaven knows what else by the time you read this!

Thank you for your interest in my writing. I look forward to hearing from you!

Arts Critic Jan Wahl from KRON 4 News with Patricia V. Davis at "Diva Doctrine" Launch

Filed Under: On Writing and Publishing, Patricia Volonakis Davis' Blog, Podcasts and Technology Tagged With: harlots sauce radio, patricia v. davis, patricia volonakis davis, The Diva Doctrine

Just One More Thing to Worry About

March 9, 2010 By Patricia Volonakis Davis Leave a Comment

Gwen Conliffe and Lon Chaney Jr.

“What are you thinking?”

Men say they cringe when women ask that question, because very often they’re thinking “nothing.”

What they probably don’t understand is that most women can’t imagine what it’s like to be thinking ‘nothing’. Much to our chagrin, we’re always thinking ‘something’, and more often than not, that ‘something’ has a worry attached to it.

I thought I’d grow out of my penchant for worry, but I finally have to come to terms with the fact that that will just never happen. My knack for worrying hasn’t diminished one whit; it’s only adjusted itself for my age bracket. Instead of staring in the mirror at my outfit, worrying whether or not it’s ‘trendy’, which if it weren’t, would invite social ostracism, I now stare in the mirror at my back, to see whether or not its ‘curvy’, which if it were, would indicate osteoporosis. Instead of worrying about whether or not I’m ‘making a good impression’, I now worry about whether or not I’m making a good enough living. And instead of worrying about whether or not I’m going to survive a group of idiot politicians putting us through a nuclear war, I now worry about whether or not my children will survive a group of idiot politicians putting us through a nuclear war.

At least, I can contain my worry a little bit better than I used to when I was younger, but it’s sort of like restraining myself from eating too much. As with that hard-earned discipline, every once in a while, I succumb to my old habit of worry; just like every once in a while, I succumb to that nachos-with- guacamole-and-two-margaritas urge. And then, I’m in big trouble. Because if I lapse back into worry, it can, if I let it, obliterate all else that is wonderful in my life, just like that extra weight that seems to show up on the scale immediately after the nachos.

For example, I don’t know what triggered it ─ maybe it was a hormone imbalance, maybe it was those margaritas ─ but Thursday of last week was my “Worry Day.” I woke up absolutely ballooned with worry, a bloat which lasted for no more than 24 hours, until it just as inexplicably dissipated. But over the course of those hours, my worries ranged from the tiny to the colossal:

I worried about the fact that I still hadn’t replied to my sister-in-law’s email. Would she think I was snubbing her? When did she send that email, anyway? Actually, now I was thinking of it, there were a lot of personal emails to which I still hadn’t responded. How could I be so selfish, so self-absorbed, so busy with work, that I hadn’t responded to my friends and my family in a timely fashion?

In fact, I’d been neglecting my husband, too. Hadn’t I? I’d had such a busy week, and I’d been so exhausted at night, that I just fell straight to sleep. Oh migosh ─ when was the last time we’d made love? Had it been three days already? He must feel so unwanted, so dismissed and lonely. The poor man. What a lousy wife. What if he gets fed up and leaves me? I’d miss him so much if that were to happen. How could I be so inattentive, when he is so important to me?

I must be the only wife who’s woken her husband out of sound sleep to make love. Clearly he didn’t mind, but look at the motivation – it wasn’t that I was overcome by lust or love, but worry.

Certainly not the best aphrodisiac. (Not that he seemed to notice.)

And, after we were done, and my husband fell back to sleep, I couldn’t. I lay there, and continue to worry.

I worried about the fact that we hadn’t heard anything recently from our son about his upcoming wedding. Was something wrong? Was the bride getting cold feet? He’d be devastated if she called things off. Was everything okay? Why hadn’t he phoned?

While I was on ‘sons’, I started thinking about the other three. One was just laid off and not happy about it at all. One was in a job he liked, but living in an area he wasn’t keen on; one was still in school, but conflicted about his course of study. Were they depressed about these things? Would they be alright? What could I do to help? Should I ring them and ask, or would they resent that, as they’re all grown men? Maybe it was better if I didn’t phone, and let them sort it out themselves. On the other hand, if I didn’t phone, maybe they’d think I no longer cared about them. What should I do?

My anxious thoughts suddenly switched tracks from the personal to the professional. Which offers to speak should I accept? Or should I accept them all? I probably should. But… realistically, I couldn’t accept them all…could I? Alright then ─ which ones, and what would I say to those I had to turn down? And then, there was my new book – was that first chapter the ‘grabber’ I thought it was? I should look at it again. Should I look at it again, or wait until the entire draft was completed? Maybe I should wait. But, maybe I’d miss something important if I waited. Then there was the magazine. Some of my writers were over deadline. Should I send them an email, or leave them be? They all had their own lives, too, after all. But…wouldn’t they feel left out if their work wasn’t in the upcoming issue? I know ─ I could send a friendly, light-hearted email, so as not to make them feel pressured. Then again, it’s hard to read tone in an email, isn’t it?

Professional segued to political. Congress was making me sick. I hate Congress. Congress was keeping me awake. Do those emails we all sign have any effect at all? Was Obama going to restore habeus corpus, and do all the other things he’d promised, or had he duped us? I wouldn’t be surprised if he duped us. He’s a politician, after all. I sure hope he didn’t dupe us.

On from political to global. How terrible for those people in Haiti. Just terrible. What if I lived in Haiti? Do those donations we make ever really get to those poor people? It’s just terrible. I shouldn’t ever complain about my life, really. I have it so much better than the people in Haiti right now, I really do. And those in Chile. I mustn’t forget about them.

Eventually I switched back to personal again. I needed a haircut. But Maria, the girl who did my hair, was away, and she’d be very hurt if I made an appointment with someone else. But I really needed a haircut. Should I go to another salon, and just not say anything next time I saw her? She’d notice…wouldn’t she? Don’t hairstylists recognize their own work? Yes, she’d know. What if I just told her the truth? Then again, I could just not say anything, and wait to see if she brought it up.

All this worry, all in one day.

Elizabeth Berg has a great collection of short stories, titled, The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted: And Other Small Acts of Liberation. My collection could be titled, “The Day I Worried over Whatever I Wanted: And Other Giant Acts of Self- Flagellation.” For the reason that worrying like this, as we all know, does nothing for the worrier or those around her, other than to cause sleeplessness. And possibly pimples.

My husband, who’s been through interludes like this with me before, knew I was having a particularly bad one, when in the middle of that night, the lurching and pitching from my side of the bed woke him up.

He: What’s wrong, hon?

Me: I can’t sleep.

He: That’s obvious. Why not?

Me: I’m worried about Maria.

He thought about that for a minute or two.

Finally, he said, “Hon – you come from a big Italian family, and a lot of your friends are Greek. Not to mention that we live in California, where there’s a large Mexican community. That means we know a lot of ‘Marias’. And it’s two o’clock in the morning, so you’ll have to help me out ─ was there a specific Maria you were worried about, or is it all of them, in general?”

And so, for the men who are reading this, I hope this has helped decode what’s going on in a woman’s head when she asks, “What are you thinking?”

Note: VOX has messed up on the software on this page, which is why the comments are switched off. (Sorry.) Please feel free to remark on this post (or just say “hello”) at http://patriciasopinion.com Thank you!

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Filed Under: Divas and Harlots, Parents and Children, Telling it Like it Is Tagged With: anxiety, email, Gwen Conliffe, harlot’s sauce, Lon Chaney, love, lovemaking, patricia volonakis davis, sister-in-law, sleeplessness, sons, the wolfman, worry, writing

If I Designed Government Committees

February 4, 2010 By Patricia Volonakis Davis Leave a Comment

I wonder if anyone’s noticed that there are two websites for the US government’s Committee on Homeland Security ─ one Democrat and one Republican. Homeland Security Committee also has six subcommittees (and for anyone who’s might be interested in knowing what these do, there’s much more information about them on the Democrat site than the Republican, for some reason.)

But I don’t need to know what they do. You know why? Because, after the main committee came up with color code alerts, enforced the use of plastic baggies for liquids (in 3 oz. bottles, maximum), subjected me to fungal infections by insisting I take off my shoes, and nearly confiscating my brand-new, 45-dollar bottle of Clinique Aromatics Elixer perfume at the SFO airport, I am convinced that the subcommittees will do an equally bang-up job of allowing me to feel safer, while not actually making me any safer, whenever I fly, try to send a package overseas to or from an ‘address unregistered to the TSA’, surf suspect sites on the internet, or even board a slow boat to China.

And I also understand why there are so many people on these committees. Back scratching. Let’s face it, every President, whichever party they belong to, has a useless, incompetent someone to whom they owe a favor.

But I’m not too bothered by this since I live in hope that I, too, may someday be able to form committees that I think are vital to our nation, which would be comprised of all my friends, whose lucrative salaries would also be paid for by the American taxpayer.

Allow me, if you will, a moment to dream of what those would be:

1. The Committee Against the Defamation of Pizza

When I moved out to the west coast of the U.S., I made the horrific mistake of thinking it was safe to order a home-delivered pizza from a chain called Rip-Off Boy Pizza. But I discovered that this wasn’t ‘pizza’ – it was robbery. The delivery boy may as well have pointed a gun at me, and asked me for 25 dollars (!!??) plus tip, because when I opened that square cardboard box, all I found in it was another piece of cardboard, only this one was round. And on that round piece of cardboard was a sprinkle of imitation mozzarella cheese and a smear of tomato paste.

And so, to protect the integrity of what constitutes ‘pizza’, I would appoint a committee of first- generation, New York Italian-Americans to oversee every existing pizzeria and every application for new pizzerias in the United States. Any of those in violation of what this group would constitute as “real pizza, goddammit” would be fined and ordered to go to pizza-making cooking school run by my cousin, Domenick.

2. The Cookie Monster Commission

In response to the concern over the growing national problem of childhood obesity, rumor has it that an entourage of soulless, coldblooded vegans, headed by Pam Anderson, are attempting to hijack the Sesame Street Cookie Monster and hold him hostage until PBS agrees to rename him ‘Veggie Monster’. And with public opinion now against him, poor CM has already been seen on The Colbert Report, perspiring and backtracking from his public pro-cookie stance, with the statement, “Cookies are only a sometimes food.”

Therefore, in an attempt to win back at least one American’s civil rights, I would form this commission to officially protect Cookie Monster’s name. If necessary, the Cookie Monster Commission would address the pros and cons of a “The Right to Eat Cookies” Amendment to the Constitution. Naturally, for the purpose of nepotism, I’d appoint my husband to be a major figurehead on this team, simply because he’s displayed the ability to scarf down more of my homemade peanut butter cookies in one sitting than all of our four sons combined. But as a “fair and balanced” counterpoint to their mom’s first official national campaign, I would allow it to be co-chaired by Sasha and Mahlia Obama.

3. The OH! Coalition

This would be a group in favor of banning reality TV fashion shows. The reason for which is that these shows undermine the self-esteem of the out-of-work, blue-collar American who, thanks to the poverty forced upon them by unscrupulous banks, and their lack of education due to boring high school teachers and lies told to them by both Glenn Beck and Ariana Huffington, can only afford to shop at Walmart, IKEA, and Costco. (And even then only when there are sales.) The Oh! Coalition’s work to ban fashion TV would prevent these Americans from every having to discover that:

a) the glassware and area rugs they buy at IKEA are made by people being unlawfully and forever detained in Turkish prisons, and/or by Pakistani children whose tiny, underfed ankles are chained to sewing machines.

b) in order to give them such cheap prices on ten pound bags of sugar and giant boxes of breakfast cereal, Costco bribes government officials to take the individually-owned land where they wish to build their warehouses by Eminent Domain, and then resell it to Costco for one dollar.

c) photographs taken by cell phones of how ridiculous these poverty-stricken Americans look while shopping at Walmart are causing internet congestion.

The first person who’d be under indictment by the Oh! Coalition would be Stacy London. During her testimony she would be compelled to let her hair dry naturally and frizz like everyone else’s, as the Good Lord intended, and carry a $19.99 ‘lookalike designer’ handbag made only by American Union Workers.

Notes: The “OH” in ‘Oh! Coalition’ Stands for ‘Old Hippies’. By my decree, they will no longer be confined to Fairfax and Haight Street in California And the statements listed under a, b, and c are all true facts, unfortunately. (I’m not joking there.)

4. The Cakehole Panel

This would be a committee that would re-patriot English as the official language of the United States of America. Enough of this “Spanish spoken here”, because this is America, do you hear me? However, the official English language would have to be Australian Slang English, and the panel would be chaired by Snowy’s and Dr. Peter McCarthy, who by their blog writings which use ingenious terms like, “taking the micky”, “two-can screamer”, “ankle biter” and “wankers”, have convinced me that Australians have the coolest language on earth.

5. The (You’d Better Have) Fire Insurance Group

This would be a group of loan sharks who would use “whatever means necessary” to force former and current CEO’s and CFO’s of banks to sell their multi-million dollar personal properties during this crappy housing market which they caused. The Fire Insurance Group will be co-chaired by Donald Trump and Jimmy Carter.

6. The Pungency Agency

In a new clause under The Disabled Americans Act, this committee would be formed so that people with severe foot odor problems would be categorized as ‘disabled’ and therefore have permission to go through special airport security lines far away from everyone else. This agency would be chaired by Jerry Stiller , and the TSA agents assigned to this special airport detail would be… why, all the former members of the Committee on Homeland Security, of course.

p.s . I can’t see comments on VOX posts due to an ongoing glitch. If you would like to respond, please visit http://patriciavolonakisdavis.wordpress.com Thank you.

Filed Under: Political Satire Tagged With: airports, ariana huffington, australia, banks, child obesity, clinique aromatics elixer, colbert report, committees, con carlyon, cookie monster, costco, democrats, disabled americans act, eminent domain, fairfax california, foot odor, glenn beck, haight street, harlots’s sauce, homeland security, ikea, loan sharks, michelle obama, new york italians, pakistani children, pam anderson, patricia volonakis davis, pbs, peta, peter mccarthy, pizza, real estate, red boy pizza, republicans, rugs, sfo, soluntp baking company, stacy london, turkey, turkish prisoners, walmart, what not to wear

2009: The Year That Ended Dangerously

January 1, 2010 By Patricia V. Davis Leave a Comment

Happy New Year, Everyone! Today I have some significant news to share.

On December 17, 2009, in the very early hours of the morning, I nearly bled to death. I’m afraid I’m serious ─ by the time I was admitted into hospital from the emergency room, I was down to about a quarter of the amount of blood needed to sustain life.

The irony of this situation is that I was under a doctor’s care at the time, and that’s one of the reasons that I’m going public with this today. The second reason is because since I have been off Facebook, my blogs, and other social networking sites, I’ve been getting emails from ‘fans’ asking questions such as: “Are you in rehab? You can tell me! My brother was in rehab last year at this time.” and “Did you have Demi-Moore-head-to-toe-plastic-surgery? Please post pics!”

I was inclined to let these strangers think what they would, but I’ve also been receiving messages of genuine concern, and those are why I’ve decided to write about this very personal experience publicly.

As boring as this probably makes me, a drug habit and/or a craving to own gravity-defying boobies had nothing to do with my absence from the internet. What actually happened was that on November 9, I had what should have been routine uterine fibroid surgery. I wanted to keep the knowledge of that fact limited to my family and closer circle of friends, because to me there is nothing more cringe-worthy than people announcing these things on their Facebook status updates: Jack is …”getting out of jail this week!” Jane…”’s a husband is a lousy cheat!” Patricia…”had a fibroid the size of a baseball removed from her uterus.”

Yuck.

So, I didn’t announce it, (until now) and only made vague references to “not feeling well”, and even those mentions were only because I’d missed some social and business events. However, the “not feeling well” stretched on and on, and when I questioned my doctor, he went from voicing some concern to being brusquely irritated, “You must be patient. You’re not a patient person.”

And that’s where he got me. I’ve heard that more than once. Even my own husband seconded it. So, I tried to be patient. And, as it turns out, I can be patient. Actually, I was so patient, I nearly died of it.

I’m sorry, I still squeamish about writing the specifics, but suffice it to say that I was bleeding, but in such an unusual pattern that it didn’t raise any alarm bells with the doctor. To be fair to him, the symptoms were atypical. Coupled with this detail was my enormous energy level that was only somewhat depleted by the anemia that was increasing weekly. In fact, the day before I was driven to the Emergency Room by my panicked husband, I attended a business meeting, then went to the market, and ended the day with a walk on the treadmill at my gym!

So, I can’t completely blame the doctor and others around me for missing the signs. But I do blame myself. For the reason that I knew something was wrong, and yet, I allowed myself to be talked out of that gut feeling, because an authority figure’s opinion on that was different than mine. I allowed my criticism of myself for my renowned lack of patience to cow me into accepting advice I knew I shouldn’t have accepted.

This really galls me. In the aftermath of a surgery from which I was not even remotely recovered after six weeks, followed by near-death in which I could literally feel ‘things shutting down’ on the way to the ER, a frantic blood transfusion of six units of blood, a second surgery to correct the problem that was causing the internal bleeding, and a stay in hospital that was like a Saturday Night Live skit (they actually woke me up at 2 a.m. after this ordeal to weigh me), and now looking at another few weeks before I’m able to resume all my normal activities, that one fact that I conceded precedence is what still disturbs me most about this experience. Because if I hadn’t, if I’d trusted myself, none of it would’ve occurred.

Usually, I am confident, capable, and secure in myself. In my writings, especially my political ones, I’m constantly stating how we must all think for ourselves, not cling to an ideology or allow some rhetorical speaker to do our thinking for us. And yet, it took this illness to discover that on some levels, I am still trying to be that ‘good little girl’ who is liked by everyone. Given the right circumstances, press the right buttons, and I will still defer to the instincts of others rather than my own. This was a more shocking realization than the ER doc’s words, “Wow- your blood counts are dangerously low. Lucky for you, you’re so fit. You wouldn’t have made it here otherwise.”

And now, because I’ve been so sick for so long (close to two months, now) I have to work twice as hard just to get back to that fitness level I worked so hard to attain in the first place. I also left the hospital with a cough that makes me sound like a TB victim, due to the second surgery temporarily diminishing my lungs capacity, and am short of breath just walking up a flight of stairs. I have to drink a horrid iron potion that tastes like rotted prunes and old coffee grinds. My skin feels like sandpaper, and I have been warned by my hairdresser that some of my hair might fall out due to the trauma. Pitiful, right? You bet. And stupid, too.

But I did learn some lessons, and oh, boy ─ they were big ones. And I think they might be important enough to share:

First is that this year has been an amazing year for me, and not just because it was almost my last one. I didn’t know when I first published my book that there would be a number of people who’d dislike me as a result. Never thought of that aspect of it, but there it was. So that was a lesson, if not learned for the first time, reiterated: Your true friends are the ones who stick with you not only when times are bad, but also when times for you are really, really good. A sad thing to realize, but an important thing.

On the plus side, there were yet a far greater number of people who were tremendously pleased for me and supportive of my first book. Friends I hadn’t seen in years contacted me to offer sincere congratulations, and new people I met through my writing groups, blogs, etc., were equally enthusiastic and complimentary. I feel truly blessed by this. I’ve always thought that the media overhypes the evil of humankind, and now that the average person has his/her own way of communicating globally through the internet, I find that this is true ─ humanity is mostly good, not mostly bad. It’s a shame that we only get reports about the bad from our mainstream news sources. This was a terrific thing to discover.

I also understood from being ill, that my husband and children, to borrow a phrase from Sally Field, “really do like me”. My son slept at hospital with me the first night I was there, and my husband, whose idea of cooking is to make a sandwich, delivered hot, homemade meals to my bedside every night once I got home. And then there were my friends who rallied ─ Thanksgiving dinner, two Christmas dinners, flowers, get well cards, and phone calls. Messages on Facebook and emails from my colleagues, new friends and former pupils, (who feel like nieces and nephews to me) all meant so, so much.

I’ve always valued my friends and my family, but I admit it was wonderful seeing the tangible proof that they value me, too. It was one more reason to get well, so that I could appreciate and enjoy them all the more.

But the biggest lesson I learned is from now on, with no worries about how others will feel, I’m going to embrace my impatience, rather than try to change it. It’s full speed ahead for me, now and always, because I’m made that way. And never again will I not trust myself. Never again will I feel intimidated by others’ opinions, be they valid or not. And when I find myself wavering from this resolution, I’m going to remember the bruises on my arms from IV needles, the feeling weak and dizzy, the crying as the questions ran around in my head as to why I wasn’t recovering, and all the other momentous experiences of this illness now burned in my memory. They all happened because I still haven’t completely shaken the “Good-Girls-Don’t-Make-a-Fuss Syndrome.” Screw that. From now on, I AM MAKING A FUSS. And it will be your choice to like me for it or not, however you please.

I challenge everyone reading this to do the same. If we do one thing differently this year, let’s embrace ourselves, even with all our faults. I don’t mean ‘be a sociopath and proud’. I mean that while not deliberately causing harm to others, let’s acknowledge that we will make mistakes, that we are not perfect, but we are still worthwhile human beings who have something to offer our friends, our family, and the world. Let’s acknowledge that we can and should have faith in our own selves, even with those imperfections. If we start with that attitude, the year ahead will open us to new encounters. Since we’ll feel more confident, we won’t be afraid when one of our beliefs is challenged, because if we learn that that belief is wrong, it will make us feel empowered, not weakened. We’ll have the courage to fail, not feeling that we are “failures”, but rather human beings on a journey to ever-increasing knowledge. And while none of this will necessarily make the year ahead be filled with all the health, happiness and success we all wish each other every January 1, it will certainly help it be filled with less anxiety and self-doubt.

So, look out 2010 ─ here we come!

Patricia and son, Niko at San Francisco’s Litquake Black and White Ball, 2009

Filed Under: Divas and Harlots, Telling it Like it Is, Women's Issues Tagged With: amily, friends, harlot’s sauce, hospital emergency rooms, patricia volonakis davis, san franciso, self-doubt. litquake, uterine fibroids

The Angel and The Ladder (For Kzinti and Baria, with much affection and many thanks for your comments here)

September 23, 2009 By Patricia V. Davis Leave a Comment

Roger Moore as The Saint

Once upon a time, a man died and went up to Heaven, where Saint Peter was waiting for him at the Holy Gates.

“I’m very sorry,” said Saint Pete, “but I can’t let you in.”

The man was shocked and very disappointed. “Why not, Saint Peter?” he asked. “Wasn’t I a good man on Earth?”

“You were a very good man, indeed,” replied Saint Pete.“But here’s what your problem was – you could not stop yourself from telling other people how to lead their lives. If they were making a mistake of some kind, you felt compelled to point it out to them.”

Once again, the man was shocked by Saint Peter’s words. “But I don’t understand, Saint Peter. Why was this a bad thing? I was just trying to help them. Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do on Earth - help people?”

“Not in this instance,” replied Saint Peter sternly. “You never learned to mind your own business. And for that reason, I’m afraid you’ll have to go to Hell.”

The man pleaded with Saint Pete. “Please, Saint Peter, I didn’t mean any harm. I was just trying to help, that’s all. I didn’t know I was doing a bad thing. Please, please, give me another chance?”

Saint Peter looked at the man and could see that he honestly hadn’t meant any harm. Because that was so, he thought that perhaps he might bend the rules…just this once. However, before he did, he would test the man’s sincerity. Unbeknownst to the man, of course.

“All right,” decided Saint Pete. “I’ll go to the Higher Ups and see what I can do. In the meantime, you wait in that room over there. Just go in, and close the door behind you.”

The room to which the man had been directed was large and empty, save for a bench. As directed, he closed the door as he went in, and sat on the bench, waiting for his verdict. And as he sat, he noticed there was a narrow, open archway which led to an anteroom at the far side, opposite to where he was sitting.

As he was pondering what might be in the anteroom, the door he’d closed opened, and an angel came in. He was carrying a very tall ladder.

“Hello,” said the angel. “I hope I’m not disturbing you. Do you mind if I come through? I’ve just got to take this ladder and leave it in that anteroom over there.”

“Please, go right ahead,” said the man. “You don’t need my permission.”

And then, an odd thing happened. The man watched as the angel walked across the room towards the anteroom, turned his ladder horizontally in his arms, and attempted to walk through the narrow archway with it. Naturally, he was unable to get through, as the ladder held horizontally was now much too wide.

The man observed with incredulity as the angel made attempt after attempt to get through the archway while holding the ladder thusly. Each time, the ends of the ladder banged against the wall on either side of the opening, propelling the angel backwards, and making quite a mess of the walls it kept hitting, in the process.

Naturally, after about fifteen minutes of this, the angel was winded and perspiring.

“Whew!” he exclaimed. “I didn’t realize this was going to be so difficult.”

The man couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Are you serious?” he blurted. “If you want to get through, hold the damn ladder vertically!”

The angel shook his head and looked at the man regretfully. “My friend,” he said, “this ladder’s not damned, but you are.”

And the next thing the man knew, he was in Hell.

_______________________

I can’t remember how old I was when my father told

me the story above, but I was still young enough that

my questions were only just starting to become

annoying to him. Those questions were on every

subject from “Why do you support the war in Vietnam?”

to “Why don’t you ever do anything to stop all the

terrible things going on in this house?”

Since he couldn’t seem to come up with any reasonable

answers for me, the parable above was an attempt to

stave off the inevitable, which was that my

questioning of him would eventually go

from annoying to unbearable… for both of us.

Even my response to this story was not what he’d

hoped. He thought I’d feel forewarned that my quixotic

nature was taking me closer to Hades every day. But

ironically, all it prompted was another litany of

questions: “What kind of angel is stupid enough to

behave like a human?” and “What kind of God would

send a man to Hell for questioning human stupidity?”

It wasn’t until many, many years later that I recognized

that my father had a point, though perhaps not in the

way he’d believed. Anyone at all, with an average

human intelligence, understands very well which

way one needs to hold a ladder in order to get it

through a narrow archway. But pretending that he

doesn’t, he accomplishes one thing – he can tell himself

he tried to get through with everything he had and

just couldn’t succeed.

The fact is, he doesn’t want to succeed. He says

he has to get through a door and deposit a ladder in

an anteroom, but he doesn’t truly want to.

He just wants to pretend to himself and everyone

else, that he really, really tried.

And because this is actually what he wants – that

illusion of the attempt of a completion of a ‘task’, which is

another word for a ‘change’ – rather than the actual

change – he doesn’t want anyone to point out to him

that his ‘attempt’ is in actuality no attempt at all.
He doesn’t need anyone getting in the way of
his self-deception. Like my father, it will more
than irritate him, because by pointing it out, making him aware that you are aware that he’s lying to himself, you will make him hate himself and, as a result, (especially if your own attempts at change are real, and your desire to help him is motivated out of genuine caring, rather than smug superiority) – he will hate you, too.

A fast way to hell, indeed.
Remember that the next time you

(metaphorically) observe an intelligent adult holding a ladder horizontally, trying to get through an archway.

Say nothing. Wish him “good luck,” and get out of his way.

Filed Under: Food for Thought, Friends and Relationships, Telling it Like it Is Tagged With: angels, baria, harlot’s sauce, harlot’s sauce: a memoir, kzinti, patricia volonakis davis

Just to Clarify- I AM an Expert

July 30, 2009 By Patricia V. Davis Leave a Comment

I have been receiving a lot of emails from readers ever since my book, Harlot’s Sauce, was published. The emails have ranged from “good book, but change the cover” (more than one person has said that, and finally the publisher has listened, but more about that later…) to an outpouring of admiration and assignations to me of wisdom and expertise, as in, “You’re SO wise when it comes to relationships. I wish I were more like you.”

And this feels… weird. Because, first of all, a letter filled with adoration received from a person who doesn’t know me is, to paraphrase Amy Alkon, a bit like having a stranger come up to you and give you a foot massage- it feels good, maybe even a little exciting, but at the same time, it’s unnerving. It’s too intimate, too fast. And I haven’t really earned that intimacy with some of the people who write to me. If anyone who doesn’t know me wants to trust me on anything, trust me on this- no one should be wishing to be more like me.

And the part about me being wise? Ha ha. That’s funny. The only thing I’m an expert on- a REAL expert – is FAILED relationships. I have failed so many times at love- whether it’s romantic, sexual, filial, maternal, daughterly, or comradely, that I guess those who send me emails are right- I probably could predict for anyone when they’re headed for tragedy in any of those relationships. But only because I’ve BEEN there- in a big way. So let’s say then that not only do I have that Ph.d in Patrichism, I have also earned my DFR- Doctorate in Failed Relationships. I’m an expert, alright – at breaking my own heart.

My first serious romantic relationship was with a man who used me and my naive virginity, along with my marked lack of self-confidence as his beard for sexual picadilloes I will never repeat, unless they are tortured out of me. I followed that up by worshiping at an altar I created for a man who for decades, considered my dedication to him his ‘money card’. He withdrew on that card, and withdrew, and withdrew, with no re-investment, until finally there was no balance left to extract.

During that same time, I had a ‘best friend’ to whom I was also devoted, and she dropped me not too long after I finally dropped this man. That hurt almost more than the failure of my romantic relationships did, when it finally dawned on me that we’d been ‘friends’ only because my psyche was in worse shape than hers, and my discontent made her feel better about her own.

And there is so much more, with father and mother and siblings and an extended family group on one side that was less a ‘family’ and more a ‘coven’, blood-sworn in their dedication to dysfunction and maliciousness. A cult which cannot admit people who try to be, or are, happy or whole, because somehow that slackens their dark, powerful clutch on one another. I’m talking about the kind of people Anthony Hopkins in some film would warn you to stay away from, unless you were covered in garlic and Crosses.

I developed a terror of getting too close to people generated by all of the above. Why? It was pure self-protection – I only had so much blood in my veins and I’d let those I cared about suck on it for way too long.

As a result of that fear, I screwed up yet again, and almost lost the one man who truly loves me, who is my best friend, as well as my husband and lover. Fear was never going to allow me to make the honest and true friends I do have now, if it hadn’t have been for the intervention of some seed of good sense that managed somehow to grow into the great, sturdy tree it’s become inside me, despite the soil deprived of minerals in which it’s had to blossom. Or maybe it grew because of that, who knows?

And this is me- the real me, without the cleverly written descriptions of my life that make you laugh, the anecdotes which on some days are so tricky to get down on paper – after all, how easy is it, really, to find ‘the funny side’ of your own foolishness and pain?

Why am I confessing all of this now, and in this unusually maudlin way? Simple. I want you to know who exactly it is you’re writing to, asking for advice, and venerating for her ‘wisdom.’ I want you to know that sometimes the only way to become wise, is to make your own mistakes and live through the agony of them, so that the lesson sticks.

Remember this the next time you come across someone who sounds like an ‘expert.’ Because they may have become experts the same way I have – not through success after success, but through disaster.

And you know what? It’s not nearly as bad as one might think, to learn to be wise that way.

Filed Under: Divas and Harlots, Friends and Relationships, Women's Issues Tagged With: amy alkon, failed relationship expert, harlot’s sauce, patricia volonakis davis, patricia volonakis davis’ memoir, the advice goddess

Why Do You Have So Many Kids?

September 15, 2008 By Patricia V. Davis 127 Comments

Sons 1

Uber-Liberals can be just as off-putting as uber-Conservatives. I’m not talking about the type of Liberals who look at you with disappointment as you discreetly try to eat your cheeseburger, while they’ve ordered the veggie platter. I’m talking about the kind of uber-Liberals who, after you’ve invited them to dinner, respecting their beliefs enough to serve them up ‘Tofu Surprise,’ they still look at you as though you’ve handed them nuclear waste to consume because you heated their food in a ─ gasp! ─ ‘energy-bleeding, cancer-causing’ microwave.
I’m talking about the kind of Liberal who wanted to hang Michael Vick publicly by his…well, rhymes with ‘Vick’, and cut out his bowels, because of his mistreatment of dogs, but yet picketed San Quentin State Prison in order to save Stanley ‘Tookie’ Williams from execution. Not because they were at San Quentin protesting every execution of every inmate on death row, opposing the death penalty in general. That I can respect. However, Clarence Allen’s execution went virtually unnoticed in comparison to Stanley’s, because Stanley, who was the co-founder of The Crips ─ a Los

Sons 2

Angeles street gang that still exists today ─ had written some children’s books while he was incarcerated, books against street gang violence. Oh, and he also apologized for his brutal murder of a family of Chinese immigrants who were running a motel that Stanley robbed, and additionally for the shots at point blank range he put into the back of a 26-year old convenience store clerk during another robbery.

Yeah, you see, even though Stan refused to aid police investigations with any information against his gang, and was implicated in attacks on guards and other inmates, as well as in multiple escape plots, he and his supporters still maintained he’d had a change of heart, albeit too late for the people he slaughtered. Nonetheless, a battalion of lawyers was utilized, and piles of state tax money were spent on stay after stay of execution for Tookie. Tookie’s death sentence was protested because he was a celebrity in his own right. But Clarence Allen, a 76-year-old heart patient and diabetic when he was executed at the same prison, went pretty much unnoticed by the press and any uber-Liberals.
So, this is the sort of Liberal I’m talking about.

In fact, I’m pretty sure my husband and I came across a husband and wife team of this precise type of person the other night. And the husband part of the set, with the wife nodding along her agreement, asked us this in exactly these words:

“How come you have so many kids? Doesn’t it bother you the impact they have on the environment, and the adding to the problem of overpopulation?”

Now, my husband, bless his heart, took that as a genuine question, and not as the two-part accusation framed as a question that it actually was. That’s why he proceeded to answer it genuinely,too, explaining at length how much we love kids, etc. Heck, he practically whipped out his bank book to assure this fellow that, not to worry, we can indeed afford these offspring. In fact, we pay handsomely, to the tune of forty-percent of our hard-earned income in taxes, to offset any harmful consequence our children have had on our planet, based solely on their existence.

But, while he was doing that, I was looking at this couple who were looking at my husband while he was explaining himself, thinking, “Would you have posed that pseudo-question to us if we were covered in black skin instead of white?”

Probably not, would be the answer, because that would be an uber-Liberal “no-no” for so many reasons. But it’s okay to say it to us, because not only are we white, my husband is really, really white. My background is Italian, but my husband has roots that go back as far as the next boat after The Mayflower. And, between us we had five children, all sons.

Yow ─ five white males. Not good. It almost sounds like we’ve birthed a clan of neo-Nazis, doesn’t it? But we are a blended family, so only four of our sons are just as WASP-y as their father, while my one biological offspring ‘sprang’ from the loins of a Greek.
Now that I’m thinking about it, that particular son doesn’t even look all that white. He’s got very dark eyes and his hair, in long dredlocks now, is also dark. In addition, as far as his politics go, in the few short years he’s been old enough to vote, I’m fairly certain he’s voted Democrat every time. He’s also a musician and film major at university, two other aspects about him I’d imagine uber-Liberals would embrace.

So, do we get a ‘pass’ on him? I think we should, from a Liberal’s standpoint, anyway. The other four are likely more problematic, though, given their background and occupations.

Let’s start with the twins. One of them is a long-haul trucker, trekking people’s furnishings back and forth across the U.S. as they are forced to move because banks are repossessing their homes.

Ick, a long-haul trailer truck ─ that’s a huge carbon footprint. That son might have to go.

On the other hand, if there were no long-haul trucks, there’d be no way for people to move their possessions which are made from various materials, including, probably, plastics. What would happen if we forced everyone to abandon their possessions along with their homes? They’d have to get new stuff wherever they moved. That would cause twice as many non-recyclables per repossessed family to be present on the planet, causing that much more pollution.

Therefore, on second thought, that son is probably a necessary evil. So, I think we should get to keep him, too.

(Sigh) I wish I could come up with a reason to keep the second twin, but unfortunately, I can’t. The second twin builds houses for a living, and that occupation is naively optimistic, given that the housing market has gone to hell in a hand basket, and is not going to get better any time soon. So really, he’s just wasting trees. Also, even though he bought my husband and me both Al Franken and Barack Obama books for Christmas, I know he’s voted Republican now and again. And, I must confess, he owns guns. You can see there’s just no good reason he should be on the planet, despite the fact that he’s really rather sweet, has never been out of work, pays all his taxes, and even has a very liberal Poli-Sci degree.We’d be sorry to see him go, but he was part of a two-for-one, so I suppose it’s okay, as no one had really planned on him originally, anyway.
Oh wait ─ I know! ─ we can offer him up as an exchange. We lost his younger brother in a car accident several years back. Now that son wasn’t even 19 when he left us. He didn’t have much of chance to “add to overpopulation,” and unless you count playing some really badass baseball as having a “negative impact on the environment,” he didn’t get a chance to do much damage in that way, either.

So, the way I see it, is we have four surviving sons, who came originally from two sets of parents. That’s four for four, so doesn’t that make us even?

I also think there’s no way anyone would want us to get rid of the only one I haven’t mentioned, because he’s an accountant. With trillions of dollars in federal debt, trillions more being spent on Iraq and Afghanistan, and trillions additionally that the banks loaned out so capriciously, and which we are now having to give back to said banks with even more of our tax dollars, the country needs as many accountants as it can get to keep track of all that money as it slips through all our fingers.

You know, after careful consideration of all the combined factors, I think people should lay off us and our sons. So, the next time someone asks us how come we have so many kids, I know exactly what I’m going to say:

“My husband used to sell birth control pills. These boys are customer complaints.”

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Filed Under: Family, Marriage, Parents and Children, Social Satire Tagged With: boys will be boys, harlots sauce radio, patricia v. davis, patricia volonakis davis, tookie williams, uber-conservative, uber-liberal

Declaring Myself

September 2, 2008 By Patricia V. Davis Leave a Comment

As I roam around various blogs, I notice that though I don’t know many of my blogging friends’ real first and last names, I do know that they are “Christian” or “Atheist,” “Conservative” or “Liberal.”

It seems important to many that others know what bunch they’re part of, and certainly that they are part of a bunch—any bunch. It’s also important to many to know which bunch others are a part of, because in this way they can gauge that other person based on whatever that other person’s particular bunch signifies to them.

For example, if someone states, “Hi, my name is Such-and-Such, and I’m a Christian,” or, “Hi, my name is So-and-So, and I’m a Liberal,” there’s bound to be someone hearing either of those introductions thinking, “Uh Oh,” or, “Thank goodness.” So, without knowing anything else about this new person, we experience either a warm mental welcome towards that person, or an uncomfortable wariness.

Declaring oneself part of faction serves two other purposes for some, too: It allows them to cheer for their particular faction, just like we do with sports teams. Most of us, when we have a favourite sports team, don’t really care much about what that team does to win. As long as it does. After all, that’s the one purpose of team sports these days, isn’t it? To win… regardless of how that’s achieved?

Choosing to be part of a group also means to some that they can let their group do their thinking for them. Let’s face it ─ mulling over our country’s foreign policies, or which candidate we should vote for, or where we stand on each individual issue is hard work. To start, we have to find the hour in our already busy days to read about what those issues are, and from more than one source in order to get a balanced view. Then, we have to analyse all that information and decide what we believe regarding every issue on a one-by-one basis. But, most of us have to work eight hours a day, at least, then come home and take care of chores, houses, kids, maybe even a pet. Much easier to let our group simply tell us what we think. That saves us a lot of trouble, doesn’t it? At least in the short term, it does.

So, in the interest of fair play, because though anyone who reads my blog knows my name, my occupation and even where I live, they don’t know my affiliations, because I’ve never openly declared them. Now I will:

I am a follower of Patrichism, which makes me a Patrichist. Below, I’ll list the basic principles by which Patrichists live:

1. Patrichists strive to be pro-active, not re-active. Meaning, we don’t take action based solely on our emotions, we try to think rather than just feel. Let’s say that something ‘feels’ wrong to us, like, for example, abortion or gun control. I pick these two issues because Liberals are ‘for’ both, and Conservatives are ‘against’ both. But not all Patrichists have an identical opinion on either. What all Patrichists do agree upon, however, is how we deal with our feelings on these two issues. The first thing we do not do is re-act in a knee-jerk way, by issuing hysterical demands to deem them both unequivocally unlawful.
Instead, a Patrichist will think – what might happen if all abortions or all gun control were to be outlawed? What good could happen as a result? What bad could happen? What might the long term effects be? How would those effects spill over into other areas we might not expect or anticipate? Patrichists think the same way with, say, offshore drilling. Or declaring war on another country. Whatever the issue, a Patrichist acknowledges his/her gut feelings, but does not act upon those feelings, by immediately banding with a group that supports or opposes. A true Patrichist thinks everything through thoroughly before holding an opinion. A true Patrichist entertains all perspectives on every issue in his/her mind, openly and without fear of where his thoughts might take him.

Aristotle said, “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a concept without necessarily accepting it.” Patrichists keep their minds educated by using them and holding their emotions at bay, until such time as their thoughts can be formed coherently.

2. A Patrichist never worries about what others will think if the stance they hold on any particular issue is different than theirs. She doesn’t worry about being ostracized, even from her own group. A Patrichist is unafraid to stand alone.

3. Patrichists are also not afraid to change their minds on an issue if new information comes to light. This does not make them ‘wishy-washy,’ this makes them intelligent. Since Patrichists believe that opinions should be formed based on knowledge and not emotions, it stands to reason that the more knowledge one gains of an issue, the more complex that issue becomes, and the more one needs to think it through, possibly causing a change in perspective. In simpler terms, Patrichists are not blinded to one idea and one perspective only, but are always open to new ones. This is what makes them so powerful. Politicians cannot manipulate Patrichists, because politicians can never get a consensus on what a Patrichist may or may not be thinking about any one issue. Since Patrichists’ thoughts are individually and not grouped-based, that means that the only way any politician has a chance of getting the vote of some Patrichists, (though not necessarily all), is to tell them what he really thinks. Which no politician will ever do, of course, for fear of losing the surer votes of Liberals or Conservatives, or whoever he’s after who can be counted on to have a more predictable mindset.

4. Patrichists use the word ‘faith’ carefully. They never say they have “faith” in a politician, as though that politician is God. Yet, a Patrichist can have faith in their God, if they choose to believe in one. That’s right—some Patrichists believe in God, others don’t; but whether they do or don’t, they recognize that blind ‘faith’ in a politician is the way to loss of free thought and will, but faith in a God is an acceptable choice, as long as it harms no one. No matter what any religious person or any atheist will tell you, there is no clear-cut proof that any god exists or does not exist, there is only each individual’s idea of such. And because religion is an idea, a Patrichist respects every human being’s right to a different one. Even so, all Patrichists recognize that there exists good and evil, and that any killing done in the name of any idea of any religion is evil, pure and simple.
5. Lastly, one of a Patrichist’s main motivations in life is to leave every place she or he enters a little bit better than it was before. But, Patrichists’ thoughts are global when they think in terms of ‘place.’ A Patrichist counts the entire planet, not just one particular state or country, as the place to strive to make a positive difference.

So, that’s the entirety of Patrichism. Five very good points. I try my damndest to practice these every day. In fact, I’ve practiced Patrichism for so long, that I’ve earned a PhD. in it. “Dr. Davis”, that’s me.

Of course, my doctorate is self-proclaimed. How? Because ‘Patrichism’ is my very own ‘ism’ that I made up myself, my personal ‘ism’ by which I try my best to live. This should explain the match of the first six letters of this particular ‘ism’ to those in my first name.

Up until now, I’ve been the only member of my “Society of Patrichists.” But today, I’ve decided to begin awarding ‘honourary degrees in Patrichism’ to those who, by reading their blogs, I’ve come to believe follow (or, like me, try their best to follow) the principles of Patrichism.

Those who receive an honourary degree are under no obligation to accept it, of course. In fact, they can even refute it for any reason at all, and no hard feelings. But for those listed below who feel they have earned a degree in Patrichism and would like to accept it, I’ll happily send you your diploma via email, signed, sealed, and flourished for you to place on your office wall, with my very best wishes:

Diplomas in Patrichism

Honourary Bachelor’s Degree in Patrichism Awarded To (Alphabetically):

All of these ‘Under Thirties’ above have the wonderful ability to think outside the box or group of circumstances they happen to be born into. They are all, in their own way striving to do something special with their lives. I highly recommend their blogs. They have wisdom beyond their years and always teach me something or make me think.

Honourary Master’s Degree of Patrichism Awarded To (Alphabetically):

headwaves.vox.com/

paxblog.vox.com

With all the madness going on in politics these days, reading these two, knowing they’re out there, thinking and caring, makes me sleep better at night.

Honourary Doctrate Degree in Patrichism:

petermcc.vox.com

You know, there just has to be another Dr. of Patrichism out there, and this one feels especially right because he discusses so many issues and he’s (I hope he won’t mind my telling ) even older than I, thus earning ‘experience’ points. I could have picked snowy938.vox.com, too of course, but last I heard he’d already had a reader declare him a ‘Snowy God.’ And being a god beats earning an honourary doctorate any day.

More honourary degree listings coming in future months. And for anyone on this list who wants to accept his/her diploma, on my honour as a Patrichist, I promise I will send you one. To those who accept, I guess I can say, ironically, “Welcome to the bunch!”

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Filed Under: Civil Rights, Divas and Harlots, Patricia Volonakis Davis' Blog, Social Satire, Telling it Like it Is Tagged With: harlot’s sauce, harlots sauce radio, patrichism, patricia v. davis, patricia volonakis davis, pro-active thinking, society of patrichists

September 30, 1987

September 30, 2007 By Patricia V. Davis Leave a Comment

Nick 1989

I used to be one who hated the change from summer to fall. The cool in the air always reminding me of how’d I felt as a child. Summer fun over; no more playing in the garden or climbing trees. September meant back to getting up too early, in what would quickly become too cold weather, to eat a too-hurried breakfast, just to sit in a stifling classroom for too many hours out of too many days.

That changed forever twenty years ago. Now every year when the last days of August roll around, I get a zing! of anticipation, because autumn brings back to me that momentous September when my first child, my son, was born.

I remember every detail. September 12^th was the ‘target date,’ the doctors had said, but we had everything ready long before then. We already knew we were having a boy and that he’d be named after his grandfather. So our tiny dining room in our first flat had been converted to a nursery, complete with white armoire, dresser and crib with blue trim, blue coverlet with a white rocking horse design and blue curtain with white polka dots on the window. On the door, in ceramic letters, we’d put up his name, “Nicholas.” All his tiny clothes were ready, his ‘onesies,’ washed and folded neatly in the drawers, stuffed animals on top of the armoire, ready to welcome him. Every day, I’d go in and look around, just to make sure everything was clean and perfect. I’d smooth my hands over the comforter and my belly and think, Soon, very soon, I’ll finally get to meet you, son.

But he was in no hurry. September 15^th came and went with nothing more than what I recognised by now as his usual stirrings. By September 20th, I was getting anxious. “What if they’re wrong?” I asked my friend, Sylvia. “What if I’m having a little girl? She’ll feel like she was ‘second choice’ if she has to sleep in a boy’s nursery.”

Sylvia smiled a patient smile. She’d had to live this pregnancy along with me, as we were working together. The sudden shift in moods, the descriptions of nausea and insecurity and the too-sensitive nose that had us eating lunch at an inconvenient new place, because the glassware in our regular place “smelled horribly of garlic.”

“So, if it’s a girl, I’ll take the curtain down while you’re in hospital, take it back to Fortunoff’s and exchange it for a pink one. We’ll make a new name for the door, too. No biggie.”

Actually it was “a biggie.” The baby, that is. Almost nine pounds and twenty-three inches when he was born, at long last, on September 30^th, after three days of labour and a c-section. Throughout which the obstetrician grunted, “What is it with you tiny girls marrying such big, tall men? This is like trying to deliver a full grown Great Dane through a cocker spaniel.”

Thanks a lot, doc, for the visual and…uh…sorry to put you through so much trouble.

But now my son was sleeping peacefully in my arms. I was finally holding him, looking at him. Three days of labour and a caesarean hadn’t been kind to either of us, I saw. He was a bit grey, one of his eyes was slightly swollen, making it appear larger than the other and his nose seemed a bit squashed flat and sideways. Apart from his complexion, he looked like Sammy Davis Jr. on a bad day. In other words, perfect. And wonderful and mine.

Twenty years later, the only physical trace on my body of that birth is a thin, white scar across my lower belly. But mentally, the effects are immeasurable. On September 30, 1987, I gave my son life, but he gave life right back to me. A better life than the one I’d had, a better “me” than the “me” I’d been.

Nick 2002

Just by holding him, I understood that there’d better be more to my existence than my perceived shortcomings and inabilities. Those had no place in my life anymore. From then on, I had to be purposeful and confident, because someone else besides myself needed me to be. And because he did, I grew to be courageous and that courage made such a brilliant change for me. I became more compassionate, global and determined. I learned to see more than my insular world, I developed an unbreakable bond with all mothers and all children everywhere. I endeavoured to be everything I knew deep down I was capable of being. Before this, I hadn’t been able to, though I’d so much tried. But now I felt more strongly than ever that I mustn‘t fail, because to fail didn’t mean failing myself only any more, but him, my son. In short, what I’ve been able to achieve and the person I’ve strived to become over the last twenty years, has been because I had a remarkable incentive. I was no longer a girl, a woman, a wife, a teacher or a writer. I was now also someone’s mother. And to me that meant joy, but also accountability. No room for excuses and no room for fear.

So thanks a lot, son, for helping me live my very best life. It started out being for you and then it became your gift to me. I know that someday soon you’ll find your own impetus, whether it’s a child or something else, to be everything you already are inside. It’s just waiting in there, for you to bring it forth. Happy Birthday.

Nick 2006

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Filed Under: Family, Parents and Children Tagged With: birth, c-section, endeavour, happy birthday, impetus, incentive, life, motherhoood, mothers, patricia v. davis, patricia volonakis davis, son, thank you, twenty years ago

The Emperor Has New Clothes

July 31, 2007 By Patricia V. Davis Leave a Comment

It’s never been proven that Barry Bonds takes steroids.”

That’s a statement I hear a lot in the San Francisco Bay Area and it brings to mind another statement I heard a lot a few years back:

“There are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”

The connection between these two statements is this: depending on whether they were for Bonds or Bush, people rebutted them both with this declaration:

“All evidence points to the contrary!”

We can all be so clear sighted, can’t we? As long as we’re talking about ‘the other team.’ But if he’s one of ‘us,’ we’re capable of ignoring facts that are as obvious as an elephant on a bus. We don’t accept “reasonable doubt” when it’s not convenient for ‘us.’ We are a nation in denial.

Like the woman with the black eye who says, “He only hits me because he loves me,” we defend the guy we think is on ‘our’ team, because we think he’s on ‘our’ team.

Here’s the catch - the guy we’re defending doesn’t think he’s on ‘our’ team. He knows he’s on a team of his own, a team that benefits only one person - him.

But that’s something else we don’t want to believe and so when Ann Coulter calls ‘us’ “godless” ‘they’ go out and buy her books and when Al Franken calls ‘them’ “liars,” ‘we’ go out and buy his books. That’s why Coulter and Franken are both getting rich.

And when George Bush, who says he’s a ‘Republican,’ told us all that we had to invade Iraq, Republicans supported him, because they think he’s ‘theirs.’ That’s why The United States military is still looking for those weapons, whilst piling up thousands of dead, more than a few of whom, I bet, were Republicans.

And when Barry Bonds denies any wrongdoing, ‘we’ support him, because we think he’s ‘ours.’ Have Giants fans been watching Bonds carefully, or are they too dizzy from following all those baseballs flying into the stands? Barry Bonds hasn’t done one thing for The Giants, but he’s done everything he can get away with, for himself. That’s why we’ll have more and more of our young athletes taking steroids. Because every cheer for Mr. Bonds is a shout to our kids that we think any lie is okay, great, in fact, as long as it’s for ‘our’ team.

Lastly, now that our nation is so fragmented, it’s a good time to remember that breaking up into teams and fighting with each other, is how the Native Americans lost the country to the white man in the first place. The natives had many teams. The English had one. And everybody learned the hard way, that going along with whatever ‘your team’ does, is not just bias, it’s lazy and deadly.

Instead of choosing teams, why don’t we ever choose facts? I’ll start:

‘Your’ emperor and ‘mine’- whether Bonds and Bush, or Bush and Bonds? They’ve both been walkingaround NAKED for a long time.

Photos- Barry Bonds ‘before,’ G.W. Bush and Iraq war veteran,Sgt. Dobbs,Chris Benoit, wrestler and Kostas Kentelis Greek runner. Credits listed at www. patriciavdavis.com