I boarded my flight ready to sleep. Hope was dashed when I ended up next to a woman with a history of “working in government”. A history she was was ripe to share, with someone, anyone, preferably the person in the seat next to her — ME.
I rank plane chat down there with American sitcoms, and this one sided conversation qualified for an even lower authority, right down there with my recent discovery that an admired colleague (a doctor of all things shiny, and intellectual) is syntactically and lexiconically challenged. Something exhibited by his incessant use of the word “douche” or “douchey” to describe everybody/everything to which he is disinclined.
Good fortune was at my side in the case of the bureaucrat babble however, as my swami taught me well and I was able to induce a trance like state in which I traveled to another place while pretending to listen. I was able to contemplate songs about domestic violence (it being domestic violence month) for my, what now appears to be, monthly blog post.
Alas, the playlist on domestic violence, child abuse, incest or a combination, was way to long. Too many unbelievably sad and telling songs. How could this be? From The Crystal’s He Hit Me(and it felt like a kiss), Alice Cooper’s Only Women Bleed, and Sublime’s Date Rape, to Janis Ian’s His Hands and Tracy Chapman’s Behind the Wall, the list is lengthy, spanning decades. It was exhausting contemplating such a list, never-mind the reasons such a list exists. Such sadness summoned, such despair. A lengthy government career saga started to resemble a delightful fairytale.
NCADV
Violence Against Women Organizations
The Domestic Violence Awareness Project
Women’s Law
1 800 799 (SAFE) 7233 National Domestic Abuse Hotline
October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Find out how you can help in your community.
Peace
I didn’t know it was Domestic Violence month- and it’s funny/fitting that I found out this way because I was just getting riled up over this: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/topeka-kan-repeals-city-law-against-domestic-violence-to-save-money/2011/10/12/gIQAZTgVfL_blog.html
Excellent, right?
Thanks for this post, cooper. Is it too dark to contemplate a playlist for the month? x
risha recently posted..To go.
I am happy to say I think that they rescinded that due to public pressure even though they still say they don’t have the resources to prosecute.
cooper recently posted..Sad Songs
“Every breath you take…Every move you make…Every bond you break…Every step you take… I’ll be watching you.”
Thanks for the reminder, my wife volunteers at a shelter/home and does pro bono work for the cause. Decades worth of songs, decades worth of violence and abuse.
nice to see you on the blog again, hope life is not wearing you out, bureaucrats on planes and all.
Eh, I kind of love it. I do sleep on planes though, I count on that. I used to on’y sleep well if the flight was over 6 hours but now I can do a nice 3 without difficulty.
cooper recently posted..Sad Songs
“My Name Is Luka.”
I’m not a chatty plane person, either. I especially love when two people in the row behind me chat the entire flight, and I’m forced to listen to them discuss their oh-so-important jobs and lives.
But I could never sleep on one. The couple of times I have started to doze off, there always seems to be a screaming kid nearby.
I’m apparently with you on the once a month. Funny we blogged on the same day.
Bone recently posted..More to love
doppelganger, doppelganger.
cooper recently posted..Sad Songs
Airplane chatter is akin to elevator chat, just inescapably longer. I’m reminded of Eminem’s “Love The Way You Lie.”
Bathwater recently posted..Amends
I don’t think I’ve ever purposefully spoken in an elevator.
cooper recently posted..Sad Songs
Still better than a long airplane chat. I think that was a very feminine way of becoming your seatmate’s boyfriend.
cute
cooper recently posted..Sad Songs
Sometimes I am up for a chat on a plane, but I’m with you in that usually I am catching up on my sleep.
There are a lot of songs about domestic violence, or at least alluding to it, that is sad.
“Not To Blame” by Joni Mitchell comes to mind. It was from one of her later works.
I fly a lot and have had some good conversations on planes but usually they are annoying and sleep is good if you can get it.
Planes are the new bedrooms.
cooper recently posted..Sad Songs
I saw a lot of domestic abuse cases when I did ER rotation in med school. The care is so dependent on location. Some areas it is difficult to get the law establishment to do anything, or take it seriously as they are part of the problem.
“The Story Of Beauty” by Destiny’s Child.
There was an interesting piece in the b-sun someone sent it to me – the police department there and domestic violence, basically admitting they n the past have not given a shit about abused women but were going to do better……
cooper recently posted..Sad Songs
Depends on the flight for me. Usually I don’t talk. Ever. Not even in person.
Chris- The Fold recently posted..Romney’s Religion Is What it Is
I’ve would have guessed you for a talker Chris,
cooper recently posted..Sad Songs
I prefer a quiet ride as too.
Pink’s Please Don’t Leave Me comes to mind.
kait recently posted..Ann Taylor
Another good one.
cooper recently posted..Sad Songs
I’m not sure I’m even a monthly blogger anymore. Next week!
If you don’t mind looking silly put headphones–big ones–on before you sit down, It’s intimidating looking and anybody who tries to talk to somebody in big headphones–noise canceling are best–deserves to talk to themselves
I often use headphones to my iPad but sometimes I’m just not fast enough.
cooper recently posted..Sad Songs
All the elevator cam footage I’ve seen on TV….they’re the tried and true bedrooms.
As for the money cab..no comment.
As for abuse…child abuse is what really pulls my heart strings.
Take care.
There is more than enough heart string pulling material out there, enough for everyone I’m afraid.
Was she a self proclaimed conservative? I don’t think I could tolerate more than 20 minutes of that without inducing an epileptic seizure in which I curse the person out, and blame it on Turrets syndrome. I’d blame the spitting on the seizure too.
Yes, monthly is your blog posts. I think you’re out growing us. Such happens. Once, a month?..Hmmmm..I shall abnegate any detailed mordant feminine one monthly comparisons.
If men had to deal with having a menstrual cycle, men’s restroom would look like horrifying murder crime scenes.
Bennet recently posted..Trepidatious Me Vs. Conquest Me
If anything I’m outgrowing me.
I’m also usually up against a clock of some kind.
Dammed clocks
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I guess luck did have it that snakes were not on the plane. Boring convos aside, I got news:
Moved to West laf, waiting on aid (loans) to be approved, school, hopefully, in Spring. Might get it done in 2 years – Economics, Mgmt. minor, International business emphasis. Then 2 years of MBA work – and $100,000 of debt, unless I become rich – and I too can be a middle-class bankrupt person. Yeah!
Hope the future plane rides are next to a circus man, because: a sucker is born every minute with two to take ‘em. Maybe not…;)
Good luck with that and congrats, you will be buried in it for awhile but honestly what else is there?
Beer and Pizza.