Ebby Said

“Start a blog,” they said.

Really? It’s come to that? You’ve got me doing the fucking Facebook! (Facebook! A full time job, am I right?)

And now a blog.

They said, “You’re 65 and you wrote a musical so blog about that!”

(I blog. I blogged, I am blogging. We do this now. We make up a word and then give it the whole “real word” treatment. When did this start? With “trend”?)

ANYWAY, I did write a musical and goddammit, I AM 65.

How AND WHY did this all begin?

So, think back to two years ago. Did anyone have a doubt who would lead our country through the 4 years ahead? I sure didn’t. In fact, I didn’t even want to vote that night. I’d worked all day (I’m probably alone in that, right?) but I will go to great lengths to do my duty. (Ok, if this is my blog, and it is, there will need to be a running joke about that word. I said “duty” but yaw’l get to hear dooty and snicker, ok? I will also laugh when you say “duty” Deal?) Off I went to my daughter’s old elementary school a few blocks from home. Although it felt completely unnecessary (did anyone doubt she would win?) it sure felt HISTORIC wearing my “I voted” sticker. As an old – er – older woman, I could tell my grandchildren what it was like to vote for the very first female president. That was SO worth dragging my butt and doing my duty (laugh, here).

I remember that evening, and I bet you do too.

Let’s see…there’s that horrible day in ’29 when people lost their fortunes, and, yeah,  we all have that one bad day that changed our lives forever. (I got caught shoplifting at the Giant Eagle in Pittsburgh in 1971) It’s not hard to name a BAD day, but heck, name a day more impactful that November 8^th, 2016!

For me, a numbness set in. I felt like someone had started up a new movie over the one which had been playing. I tried to blink REALLY hard to make the new images go away, but they persisted. What parallel universe had I entered? The punchlines were now the headlines! It was truly astonishing and I sure as shit didn’t know how I could fit in this new world.

See, I’m an old hippie (can I get a Boon’s Farm Apple Wine shoutout?) so we had been down this road ages ago. Eons ago. We had marched for equality and, seemingly, achieved it. My generation’s pivotal “day” happened at Kent State in 1970. You just HAD to pick a side. I just couldn’t look over the PA border and say, “That’s Ohio”. Gloria Steinem nailed it when she (cough) repeated Carol Hanisch’s line “The personal is political.” Our friends – and a whole shit load of them were in body bags from Vietnam – were dying.

(So this is where I interject my background a bit. I am from Appalachia. Yes. The place with shacks and yards filled with car parts and at least one car/truck sitting on cement blocks. Believe it or not, as an AVON LADY (always tryin’ to make a buck!) my “territory” was those shacks and I made the rounds enough times to know that the wonderful gals with 3 or 4 naked babies running around who were SO HAPPY to see me, needed Pampers more than Skin-So-Soft. I did not last long as an Avon Lady.

In that part of the world, our boys were easy pickin’s for Nixon’s draft. My brothers all knocked up their girlfriends (THANK GOD) so they got married and couldn’t go. (Wait - Mike, Deb, Jim - you were all planned, ok?) Whew. Others weren’t so lucky. My high school graduated 70 of us that year, but not before they took us all out together to see the memorial built in front of our school. We read the names of those kids we knew who didn’t come back from that draft. Talk about surreal.

So that’s part of a future rant about who does America’s dirty work. Later...

Back to the - um - now.

Trump was – apparently – president of the United States! And IMMEDIATELY that Bizarro World grew. Looking back, it’s mind-blowing to see how quickly black was white, up was down and yes, those are fine duds, emperor!

Here’s where the “being 65” thing kicks in. I cannot change the world. And unlike my much younger self, I won’t be around to see it through anyway. (Them’s facts, folks!) So I started my own revolt, all on my own. I will share that with you now… Everything I do must be EASY and FUN.

I know. You are thinking “Good luck with that!” because the world is – fo’ sure – not easy and fun. As our leader says, “Storms are wet” and such. There is so much suffering in the world! So, my mantra “Easy and Fun” may seem like good-ol’ denial and hell, it might be. I just know that it’s MY job to make me happy. No one can do that for me.

And, it goes without saying that not all things CAN be easy and fun. Say you get in a bad car crash… not easy, not fun. But what I’ve observed is that any onerous task is helped by the Easy and Fun motto because most HARD things can be made a bit fun and most NOT-FUN tasks can be made easier.

Like this… you need to confront someone or worse, apologize! Now, that might not be easy, but you can have a plan to reward yourself afterwards by doing something fun (I am not talking about spending big bucks. For me “fun” is hugging a dog – any dog.) Now, the way this almost always works is that looking forward to the fun part makes the confronting or apologizing easier!

So shoveling shit in the backyard becomes “Oh! What reward am I gonna give me?”

This new plan – easy and fun -  was simply necessary for me to thrive as a human with this new paradigm of - what? - hate? in the world. I am a Pisces and we FEEL THINGS DEEPLY. How could I make this Trump era easy and fun for me?

I immediately started writing and – no shit – a silly and irreverent musical tumbled out of me. Really! I know people struggle and work FOREVER on scripts but mine showed up – complete with music – in less than a year. (This year also included working full time and caring for my ill husband. Am I something, or what?)

I should probably mention I have never written a play or a song before.

I love what I’ve done. I hope others will or if they don’t, that they won’t tell me..

Oh shit… do I gotta thank Trump?