We Are Who We Pretend to Be Friday Round-Up

I’m going to channel this look of Durant’s at the No Kings demonstration tomorrow. Time worn, tested, determined, able, forward facing. Yesterday, I made a Facebook video to encourage folks to attend our local (Milwaukee) No Kings demo. I like when I am able to say this is what I believe and do it without any notes or preparation. I’m getting better at that the older I get. It’s a peculiar but lovely feeling of feeling completely at home with what I think. Just like Durant in this picture. That is a dog who knows his own mind.

The Milwaukee Brewers are sinking like a stone. They’ve lost three in a row to the Dodgers with Game #4 tonight. No one’s hitting and they’re all moping around in the dugout. Analysts are quick to blame the Dodgers’ astonishingly huge payroll, but I don’t think it’s that. I think the air got let out of the Brewers’ balloon. And the reason, if you ask me, is because Christian Yelich, their ace Designated Hitter, has done bupkis this whole playoff series, and everybody’s pretending it’s a temporary thing. Like, oops, he missed that one. Nope. The guy is in a certifiable slump and ought to sit down, never mind how beloved he is. It’s the elephant in the dugout.

I am reading Lee Hawkins’ I Am Nobody’s Slave, How Uncovering My Family’s History Set Me Free. This is a memoir. And it is brutal, unvarnished, and heart stopping. I’m about a third of the way through and I know that so much that I didn’t know or understand lies ahead. It is dicey being a white person spectating a Black man’s life, part of me thinks I shouldn’t be reading such intimate recollections about his family. But I have to think that’s why he wrote the book – not just to sort out his own feelings but to unscramble assumptions about Black life in America. Reading the book is an experience that is uncomfortable and exhilarating at the same time. I am learning things I did not know – that I didn’t know I didn’t know.

On a joyful note, I love the guy who cuts my hair. He tells me all about his family, catching me up on his sister’s babies and his nephews’ horses and his mom’s new marriage. He talks fast like he has been waiting for me but also because once he starts cutting my hair, we can’t talk because I have to take my receivers off and then, of course, I am deaf. This is when the artistry happens. I walked in wearing a baseball cap and walked out with a million-dollar haircut.

On another joyful note, I’ve signed on to a little group of resistance writers. This is a group run by my beloved Red Oak Writing that will look at how writing can be used for good in these dreadful times. During our hour together, the group leader shared a video about the Grapefruit Ladies of Ireland. I’m sharing the video here. Watch it. You’ll love it.