Laugh Instead of Cry?

Published August 9, 2025 by Nan Mykel

The E.P.A. said this week it would revoke its own ability to fight climate change. It’s the latest move in an extraordinary pivot away from science-based protections. -nytimes

It has come to my attention that I have an “inappropriate laugh.” I’m pretty sure it’s an unconscious trade-off that actually works pretty well, except for those caught in its crossfire, accidentally. So it’s no surprise that given my helplessness, and being so near the end of myself, I have to see some dark humor in the little rich boy getting richer at our expense (I speak for the lower tax brackets) and messing the world up as he goes out. Just for instance, destroying AIDS food, then acting horrified at resulting starvation. in Gaza. Can’t you see a little humor in that? I guess not, huh.

Another situation that almost makes me grim is the current spread of lying, modeled by Donnie whose advice to other men was, “never admit. Never.” I was reminded today on the news of his having told someone that he prefers married women because it’s so “wrong.”

The lyin’ AI and the ubiquitousness of purposeful misrepresentation and embrasure of lying has spread, even to discredit science. [Suspect science papers submitted]. What would be an apt metaphor for our current reality? OH! I don’t have to make up one! It’s right before us, via usatoday: Denmark’s Aalborg Zoo says donate your pets to feed our predators.

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A FORMER HELPER WROTE THIS:

87

And times short

She might not remember

today, tomorrow or a minute from now

Something important for the next generation

A central tremor waves the lines of each written letter

But she’ll never surrender

Just Hold down the fort

condo 1004A

Stockpile the amo!

Half a dozen pens and pencils

Between the bedsheets

Notebooks and tissues

Magazines and books afloat the unmade bed

A trail of trail mix down the hallway

fiery passion

And a zest

Words of wisdom are held captive on the page

Waiting to be released

As each one of them is read

And that’s how you win a war with time

While sitting in bed.

(Thanks, Carrie from 2023.) In September I’ll be 90…or not.

Short Fiction

Published August 4, 2025 by Nan Mykel

TARGETS

My folks were unable to accompany me to the meeting with my rapist, since they had retired to Costa Rica. The Restorative Justice people made an exception and allowed a friend to join me in the session, for emotional support. They didn’t realize that Mitzi had also been raped by hairy Harry Findley, the perp.

I’m Allison, another survivor. I first met Mitzi in my living room, when she attended a small women’s consciousness raising group composed of women survivors of sexual assault who were slowly learning not to think of themselves as victims, but as survivors.

We waited for Hairy in the prison psychologist’s office at Newcom State Prison. The phone had been pulled to avoid interruption, and Mitzi and I had to wait ten minutes, alone, in the office. An effort had been made to bring a little cheer into the office: a cacti arrangement and a large Vermeer print. A one-way mirror across the room offered reassurance of safety. I remember wondering at the time who the reassurance was for; him or me, since although my rage had cooled during the last year, I knew it was capable of swift re-ignition. For all my moxie, I was conscious of a dry mouth and banging heartbeat.

Mitzi and I both wore loose shirts, loose jeans, and tennies, presenting as asexual as possible for the session. The stated purpose of Restorative Justice was to heal, not dissuade reoffending, but my purpose was the latter. I’ll admit, however, that the motivation for the meeting was (I thought “confrontation” was a tad murky–I wanted to look my attacker in the eye.

We heard a small click, the doornob turned and a corrections officer ushered Harry in, handcuffed, and sat him in a chair opposite us, across a table. He was anything but appealing as he sat slouched in his bright orange prison suit that revealed long black hairs that covered his arms and the back of his hands. A five o’clock shadow had apparently sprouted in the past hour or two, but his head was shaved. The officer left us alone, hopefully behind the one-way mirror.

Although I assumed his presence was due to the hope of making an impression on the parole board someday, I said, “Thanks for coming.”

He dropped his head in acknowledgement, without making eye contact. My ears started ringing and I had to briefly shut my eyes and get centered. I said, “Why are you here?”

“Here? Do you mean in prison or in this room?”

I silently gritted my teeth. “I know why you’re in prison, believe me. But why are you in this room with me?”

He paused. “Curiosity.”

“What do you want to know?”

He was silent.

“Do you regret the sexual attack?”

“I regret prison.”

“But not causing the physical and psychologcal harm you did to me?”

He did not answer.

“Have you ever been raped? I hear that sometimes happens in prison.”

He rolled his shoulders and snarled, “Not likely.”

“Were you mad at me? Did you want to hurt me?”

“Yes. Yes, I wanted to hurt you and all women that play so hard to get. I belong to Intel, and women won’t have anything to do with us. We can’t get any!”

“Any–love? Tenderness? Friendship?”

“Pussy!”

I had read about this group of men who clustered on an internet blog, and that their activities have been referred to as “weaponized misogyny.” Mitzi, beside me, was squirming uncomfortably as he ranted.

“It’s true,” I said in an aside to MItzi. “Evolution scripts females to be attracted to males with the most regular features.”

Hairy’s face turned red and he emitted a subdued roar when he heard me speaking to Mitzi. “It isn’t fair.”

“Nor is it fair to rape and destroy a woman’s healthy sense of self for a life structure she’s a victim of herself!” I frowned. regretting have used the victim word myself.

Hairy didn’t respond immediately, but began fingering his fly, whereupon I rapped sharply on the one way mirror. I was glad ro note that Hairy wore a puzzled expression on his face as he was led out to rejoin the prison population. Mitzi sighed. I squeezed her hand and sighed, myself.

By Nan

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HORIZON

The train doesn’t stop here anymore,

but tonight it did, and the conductor

was impatient for me to board.

The ride was free but the destination

unknown. Goodbye, my dears.

POEM

Published June 1, 2025 by Nan Mykel

Come jump into my arms, you furry-feathered verse!

I’ll know you when I see you, either wordy or terse.

Let your metaphor roll in like an occupying force

sit up high on your literary horse!

A shining black stallion, he snorts and passes by

leaving a desolated mule who gives a piteous sigh.

My metaphor has four legs and is not a happy guy.

He does not jump into my arms or even give a try.

But nuzzles me as though to say,

“Thanks for waiting for me today.”

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SURELY I CAN GRIPE ABOUT SOMETHING

On the boob tube I see the show on Spain, and they are eating what appears to be a baby pig’s face….

And then I recalled those words from Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death: Creation is a nightmare spectacular taking place on a planet that has been soaked for hundreds of millions of years in the blood of all its creatures. The soberest conclusion that we could make about what has actually been taking place on the planet for about three billion years is that it is being turned into a vast pit of fertilizer. But the sun distracts our attention, always baking the blood dry, making things grow over it, and with its warmth giving the hope that comes with the organism’s comfort and expansiveness.

Today I read “How the Rights of Nature Movement Is Reshaping Law and Culture,” available at https;//observatory.wiki/w/index.php? “We need to develop this advocacy strategy and create new and better ways to protect our planet and all the living things that call it home. This won’t happen overnight. Legal change, cultural change, and shifts in worldviews all take time, but we must keep up the fight. By working together we can ensure that all living things on this planet can continue to thrive and survive.”

I know what rabbit and beef tongue taste like, but only because I didn’t know better, was young, and lived on a farm. But I never ate an octopus and won’t. They are reported to be “insanely intelligent” and can show affection for humans.

One year I gave spider catchers as Christmas presents.

When my daughters are out driving, they both stop to help a turtle cross the road.

DOESN’T SEEM FAIR…

Published April 29, 2024 by Nan Mykel

IT DOESN’T SEEM FAIR…

that the word black has so many negative meanings. They could/should push “Black is beautiful” more, I guess, but then that’s such a divisive topic, like turning over a rock to see if is covers a black widow spider.

I can remember my beloved dixiecrat grandfather saying of the maid, “The only thing black about Charlotte is her skin.” “Black humor” isn’t funny, and now I have “black mold” in my condo, which is much less funny than green. I shant include a photo of it so as not to add to the unfortunate pairing of the word with bad. I thought of calling the shades of black “rainbow”–so it would be a “rainbow man.” Then I thought of the link between “rainbow” and “homosexual,” so I went to Google for more info and found it: “Sexuality, or sexual orientation, has to do with who a person is or is not attracted to either sexually or romantically. There are many ways of identifying sexually, and a person may identify more with one sexuality than another at different points during their life” The Medical News Today article discusses what sexuality is and provides some definitions. To date, I guess there’s LGBTQIA+…

They could/should push “Black is beautiful” more, I guess.

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SPIDERS ON MARS?

Not really

Seasonal, spider-like features have been spotted sprouting through cracks in Mars’ surface. The European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter captured new images of small, dark features that resemble spiders scuttling across the Martian region known as Inca City near the Red Planet‘s south pole. This phenomenon appears when spring sunlight warms layers of carbon dioxide deposited during the dark Martian winter. In turn, carbon dioxide ice in the bottom layer turns into gas, which builds up and eventually breaks through overlying ice up to 3.3 feet (1 meter) thick, according to a statement from ESA.

IF THESE were really spiders on Mars, would we not have already sent Orkin aloft to make room for humans with souls? What is the policy if and when we come across another life form in outer space? (I would add a photo of the suspected spiders if my helper wasn’t sick nor I so lazy).

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WHAT I DO FOR FUN

I read in bed but I write at my computer because not even I can read my handwriting. Anyway, I guess this is a tricky way to get into my first entry. I was taken by the writing this week (in bed at night) of parts of

Dean Koontz’s Odd Hours, and I wanted to share a couple of paragraphs with you. They occur at the opening of Chapter Twelve, and had an effect on me in the middle of the night:

“Paw after paw silent on wet blacktop, the fog crept along the alleyway behind Hutch’s house, rubbing its furry flanks against the garages on both sides, slipping through fence pickets, climbing walls, licking into every niche and corner where mouse or lizard might have taken shelter.

“These earthbound clouds swathed nearby things in mystery, made objects half a block away appear to be distant, dissolved the world entirely past the one-block mark, and raised in the mind a primitive conviction that the edge of the earth lay near at hand, a precipice from which I would fall forever into eternal emptiness.” p. 86, Bantam Books. Then he ate a chocolate-Pumpkin cookie he had made.

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TYING UP ENDS

I once wrote a poem

called Tying Up Ends,

but never acted

on my Muse’s hint.

Now there’s so much more

to be confessed–yes,

flaws and selfish genes,

weaknesses galore.

I’ve so much unsaid,

and thoughts unproclaimed

if I started now

it would never end. Nan 12-12-22

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ON READING FALKOWSKI

Published April 22, 2024 by Nan Mykel

The first science best seller was in 1665, and kept Samuel Pepys up until 2 a.m. reading “the most ingenius book that I have ever read in my life”. (Falkowski 2015, 27). Falkowski describes the author of the book Micrographia (still in print) as “Roert Hooke, then a 30-year old hunchbacked, contankerous, neurotic hypochondriac who was also a brilliant natural scientist, polymath, and an original Fellow of the society.”

Falkowski’s research is impeccable. “Darwin indeed took a microscope with him on the Beagle. Along with his Bible and natural history books, he took two pistols, 12 shirts and two books to help him learn Spanish and a coin purse.” [And pants?]

He quotes Carl Woese and George Fox who state that all extant life on Earth is derived from a single, extinct microbial organism. “There could have been only one common ancestor from bacteria to us…a microbe.”

“Indeed, microbes are not mentioned in the Bible….They certainly weren’t taken deliberately by Noah on the ark, nor are they woven into the Turkish tapestries depicting the Great Flood.”

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BOOKS WITH HUMAN SKIN COVERS?

No thank you. I won’t bother you with that one today…

____________

OUCH

Environmental Group Asks RFK Jr to End Presidential Bid

I’m glad, but that must hurt!

____________

HOME SWEET HOME

The median home-sale price as of February 2024 was $384,500, up 5.7 percent from one year ago, according to NAR data. The nation had a 2.9-month supply of housing inventory as of February, which is low enough to be considered a seller’s market.

Mom, you would not

recognize your boy today.

Without a home or job

he is lost to the world.

____________

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:

The Freedom Caucus, where many of these extreme conservatives call home, has long cared more about upsetting apple carts than using them to deliver apples. …Keith Wilson

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THE END?

We came, we tried, we fought

and ate each other up.

We lived and died by our own hands.

If two survived and met on a plain,

would we hug one another

or kill again? Nan 4-24

BAD POOR PERSON!?

Published April 19, 2024 by Nan Mykel

Opinion Today: The push to criminalize homelessness

The New York Times nytdirect@nytimes.com

Read it. No comment.

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Experts estimate that at least $1 trillion a year is needed to help developing countries adapt to hotter temperatures and rising seas, build out clean energy projects and cope with climate disasters. (I forget why we didn’t raise income taxes on the wealthy?)

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I THINK

Going deep inside to lick

my paws, I wonder whether

the core of my unconscious

knows the truth of existence.

I don’t, that’s for sure, but if

I didn’t have some pillar to

hold onto beyond my ken–

poof! I wouldn’t, couldn’t, be.

Nan 4/19/24

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POEM?

Published April 16, 2024 by Nan Mykel

THINKING’S ENGLISH

Stand up for your rights!

Raise the roof!

It’s a hard life, so

Pay Peter to Pay Paul

and shake up the crowd!

Don’t tiptoe through the tulips.

You’re such a crybaby.

Lend a hand, scaredy cat.

Long gone, I figure, but

you take the cake, mate.

Don’t be down in the dumps.

Chill out. High as a kite?

Shake a leg, hit the road.

He’s a nut on a blind date

and a bear before coffee.

That’s a hard one to swallow,

I swan! Give me a hand here,

Get the lead out. You’re the cat’s

pajamas, knuckle head. Too hot to trot.

Nan 2024

THE ECLIPSE PLUS PEOPLE

Published April 15, 2024 by Nan Mykel

First, there was breakfast at a Cracker Barrel, which I experienced as the most integrated place I have ever eaten. Cheerful mood. Then on and on and on to our destination, Lake Loramie State Park, Ohio, for the eclipse. We arrived midday, and the park was filled to overflowing. We were driving by parked cars slowly, and a good fellow stopped us and asked if we needed a place to park. Seems one was hidden behind his truck. Then we settled down, with Uri the chihuahua, two folding chairs, a pillow, an umbrella and a bag of nibbles by the shore. There was a mixed party near us, and apparently he had recorded apt songs for the occasion, which he shared with nearbys. One that my daughter recognized was Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire.”

Someone from the party next to us took our photo in goggles, and when the eclipse was accomplished you could hear some people clapping and others cheering. We were sitting right by the waterfront with a lovely view of daylight and “moonlight.” Two people had shoved off in kyacks for the viewing. The photo of the eclipse we took turned out to have the corona, but where it was all black it photographed white (see photo). When it was over masses of people in cars headed for the highways. We lingered to shorten our escape and when it was time to go two women from the party next door appeared and helped pack up the car, unasked, making it a lovely, friendly occasion.

Then back on the highway awhile and my daughter pulled into the beginning of a quarter mile driveway which ran up to a large farmhouse in the middle of fields, to check her GPS. No sooner than we had stopped at the beginning of the driveway than an older model van chug a lugged up behind us. The driver was out of gas, and we were blocked in. Momentarily we considered giving him a ride up to a gas station on the interstate, with some hesitation. I learned later that my daughter had taken a snapshot of his license plate, “just in case.” We were torn between trusting him and giving him a ride versus not being humanitarian. Then we spied some figures up the long driveway by the house and decided to drive down the long driveway and see if any gas was available for the stranded man, who truth be told was not very verbal or personable. I tried without luck to see if I could imagine him attacking us, without resolve.

Turns out the farm folks were a nice family and the older male left on foot to carry what gas he had in a can. It was a long walk. Turns out he didn’t have quite a gallon of gas and later reported that the driver said he only got 10 miles to a gallon, but it was enough for him to move along. After having a nice chat with the farm folk, their litle girl and her dog, we headed on towards the interstate, fearing we would come across him again, newly out of gas. A ways down the road my daughter said, “There he is. What should I do?”

I was clearer in my decision now. “Drive on by,” I said, figuring that we had risen to the occasion once and would let someone else have their turn at being the good samaritan, so we didn’t turn our heads and tootled on towards home, hours away.

The final interaction with persons that day was with one crazy kid who passed in and out of post-eclipse traffic on the interstate at–my daughter agrees–at least 100 miles an hour. She observed that when he was going to turn right into another lane of traffic he threw out his right leg, and vice versa when he was roaring into the left lane. Once again we dreaded seeing traces of him dead or alive, in police custody or in a bloody mess. We never caught up with him–of course not, we weren’t going 100 miles an hour! My daughter said that motorcycles going 100 miles an hour are not uncommon in Atlanta. They are on the smaller motorcycle scale for flexibility and speed, I suppose.

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HERE COMES THE SUN*

Waiting by the shores of Lake

Loramie in Ohio

for the total eclipse to cool

the land and gift the children

with a special memory.

Cameras on tripods stand

at attention and waiting.

Daughter beside me sunbathing

and the hands of the wrist watch

move forward as does the moon.

*Mis-named; should be titled “Here Comes the Moon.”

Harry Burns Saves Women’s Right to Vote in 1920

Published April 8, 2024 by Nan Mykel

1890 — On September 6, 1890, Louisa Ann Swain of Laramie, Wyoming becomes the first woman to cast a vote in a general election. In 1890, Wyoming, with a Republican governor and Democratic legislature, insisted it would not accept statehood without keeping women’s suffrage.

Passage of the 19th Amendment

First introduced to Congress in 1878, the women’s suffrage amendment failed several times. In 1915, the amendment failed again without President Wilson’s support.

The United States’ entry into WWI, in 1917, helped to shift public opinion about women’s suffrage and role in the country. NASWA argued women should be rewarded with the right to vote for their patriotic wartime service.

In 1918, another bill was introduced, this time with President Wilson’s support. The 1918 Suffrage Bill passed the House with only one vote to spare but failed the Senate by two votes.

With increasing pressure from the public, lawmakers in both parties were anxious to pass the amendment and make it effective by the 1920 general election. To try and get the amendment passed in time for the next year’s election, President Wilson called a special session of Congress and in the spring of 1919, The House of Representatives passed the amendment followed by the Senate just a few months later.

The amendment was then submitted to the states for ratification, where it would require the approval of 36 states (three-fourths of states) to be adopted as a Constitutional Amendment. Within just a few days, several states ratified the amendment since their legislatures were actively in session. Additional states ratified at a regular pace until March 1920 when the number of states stalled at 35 for five months.

“GOOD BOY”

In the summer of 1920, the Tennessee State Senate voted to ratify the amendment, but the State House of Representatives still had to vote. A young state representative, Harry Burns, wore an anti-suffragist pin and voted against the amendment in what would be a tie vote. Harry had been internally conflicted so when a letter from his mom was delivered to him in the chambers before the revote, he took her advice. His mother urged him to “be a good boy” and vote for the amendment. In the revote, Burns cast the tie-breaking vote making Tennessee the 36th state to ratify the amendment allowing the 19th amendment to be adopted and officially become part of the U.S. Constitution on August 26, 1920..

On paper, the Amendment protected discrimination against all women, but in practice, it only gave white women the right to vote. Black women, Native American women, Asian American women, and women from other racial and ethnic minority groups were discriminated against for 45 more years until the passage of The Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA). The VRA afforded crucial protections to Black, Indigenous, and Women of Color (BIWOC) voters.

I know the ho hum history of it all may be boring, but if I were alive and thought not fit to vote, it would be another story, as far as my involvement was concerned. Familiarizing ourselves with the reality of the recent past should make us more mindful of current ways that women are oppressed, and to vote seriously.

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ALTHOUGH I JUST RETURNED FROM AN ECLIPSE, I had to get this off before turning in. More tomorrow.

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OH YES: While I was musing over my “pages” listed way above, I re-read the one on SECRETS and was interested again. Moreover, I thought I had lost the extended section after 48 items, but found them still there, after a couple of blank spots continuing through entry 81. The world is certainly an interesting place, which brings to mind an earlier poem:

LETTING GO

I don’t believe in anything

but appreciate a lot.

I’m thankful for myself and the

organ music in my ear,

for the existence of all

my family, bless-’em.

Others’ frailings are okay ’cause

they’re just caught in their own net.

We need to feel good about ourselves,

’cause we’re all we’ve really got.

nan