All posts by X Teri

To Be An Ass

02/09/2025 X Teri Leave a comment

If you need proof that sometimes I’m an ass..

I waited patiently at the counter of the inconvenience store. Not only is it perennially short staffed, but it was shortly after the expected shift change. I waited two to three minutes for the clerk to do her thing.

A woman came in behind me. I could hear her stamping her foot and muttering under her breath. “Geez, take your time buddy.” That’s not all she said. But you get the idea.

I turned politely and said,”I apologize for the wait. It’s shift change.” I smiled and nodded. The look on her face could best be described as a hybrid between spoiled milk and what a fart would look like if it took human form.

She rolled her eyes and ignored me.

To my delight, it took the clerk another two minutes to finish. The clerk exchanged a commiserating glance with me at the other customer’s behavior. The staccato click of the woman’s feet tapping the floor sounded like a drummer who took too much ephedrine.

I’m fairly quick on the draw. But giving me even a minute to plot my verbal revenge?

When I was done, I thanked the clerk and told her it was no imposition at all for her to have taken a bit to get her day started.

The woman behind me flung her items on the counter as if she had been attacked by wild bees.

“Hey, Karen, I hope you have the day you deserve,” I told her as she briefly made eye contact.

I heard the gears grind in her head as she attempted to understand exactly how I had had insulted her.

The clerk burst out laughing before she could stop herself.

Because I was already in an altered mood, I bowed slightly and made my exit.

I hope Karen does have the day she deserves.

X
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Government, Justice, Law, Opinion, Protest

Social Security

02/03/2025 X Teri Leave a comment

PSA

The Social Security income threshold is about $176,000. In simpler terms, no income above this amount is subject to Social Security taxes. Anyone fretting about the future of available funds should take note of the billions of dollars we could raise by removing the cap entirely. That there is a threshold cap is one of those things that most people paying into Social Security don’t know about. For most of the people I know, this means you’re paying 6.2% of your total income, compared to those who make a staggering amount more. You’re paying 6.2% of every dollar you earn while the wealthier contributors are not. And of course since I recognize that no system is without complexity, there are issues inherent in raising the threshold. {Such as dropping the additional burden on the employer.} I have this weird feeling that if the average person had this explained to them one on one, their attitudes about the lack of equity regarding Social Security pay-ins would be quite different.

Music, New Word, Personal, Poetry And Prose, Writing

If Or Why (Original Songs)

01/29/2025 X Teri Leave a comment

I don’t expect people to take the time to listen or absorb the message. Whether other people think so or not, some of the lyrics are insightful. The female voice version seemed to have an unpleasant tone, even though it resonated with me, and I worked diligently until I achieved that sound.

I don’t create things with the exclusive motive of it being liked. If I had that fear, I would do what most people would and fail to summon magical words from the air.

I have three versions of this song.

Here are the lyrics:

the January sun shone on your hair
your shirt clung to you like a glove
I held my breath for a fleeting moment
as I watched you walk toward me

I knew your mind was elsewhere
I waited for our eyes to meet
A smile, a glance, flickering enthusiasm
The reciprocal charm of being waited for

I couldn’t do what came to mind
I couldn’t say the things in my heart
I swallowed down the hungry tingle
and instead urgently looked away

When you feel like you’ve been hungry
The difficulty lies in thinking straight
You don’t buy a house just for the kitchen
But try living there without one

The gradual wither of my affection
Leaves me a little shredded and uncertain
I can’t find the words to explain the color blue
When you don’t see the things that I see as true

Beauty truly lies in the eye of the beholder
its value diminishes when someone grows colder
Confidence and esteem have their place
Yet it’s a tango, a duet, and a mutual dance

One person’s truth is another’s lie
It’s easy to forget that it takes two
Both being nurtured, seen, and felt

One person’s truth is another’s lie
And I can’t find the words to tell you why
I crave a life filled with overflowing
Freely shared and effortlessly showing

Dancing alone just isn’t the same
It moves your feet yet traps the pain

if art is food for the soul
of what use are eyes if not to see
of what use are arms
if not to hold and behold

One person’s truth is another’s lie

No one should be left wondering if or why

….

The original version…

The second version, more of a rock feel…

An alternate rock version…

Love, X
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Airbnb, Fayetteville, Lemon Moment, Personal, Travel

Dickson

01/25/2025 X Teri Leave a comment

Dickson Street is a ghost town early in the morning, after all the night zombies make their exodus. I love the experience of seeing and hearing things when the world is silent. It’s a little warmer this morning but the wind puffs and reminds me that it’s still cold. The crescent moon hangs in the southern sky.

At one point in my walk, the thunder of distant sirens wailed for a bit. It was a strained metaphor for the wild and uncertain world spanning out around me. Beauty and horror are constant companions.

We’re all visitors here, no matter where we call home. Just because we have decades to call a place our home, it doesn’t conceal or deny the fact that impermanency is our master. Yet we keep arguing and fighting, as if our efforts are more than personally significant milestones.

I can’t walk around deserted towns without being introspective. It feels like there’s an elusive revelation just around the corner each time I do it.

Government, Justice, Law, Opinion, Personal, Politics, Racism and Prejudice, Safety, Security, Social Rules, Trump

Immigration

01/22/2025 X Teri Leave a comment

Francisco looked at me before he ran. Had he not, the immigration officials never would have looked twice. He came back to work later under another name. When he came to the United States, he worked hard. He rode a bicycle everywhere. I learned a lot of culture and language from Francisco.

After he ran, I went to the back docks were immigration officials were zip-tying people I knew in a refrigerated trailer. I had left my identification in my locker and diligently tried to be detained with the rest of my coworkers. I demanded in Spanish that the people I knew be moved out of the cold trailer. I refused to identify myself or provide identification. While I was not eloquent, I had to remind immigration that these were people being needlessly scared and put in discomfort for no reason.

I watched some of the agents half-heartedly perform their duties. They knew that the problem wasn’t the immigrants. It was the system and companies that relied on their labor. There were also agents who relished doing their jobs.

Later, I looked out at the back acres adjacent to Bethel Heights. At the work smocks hanging from the fence, left there by human beings fleeing.

It’s impossible to describe the people who didn’t experience it. Or to those who don’t speak the language and understand the need and drive to have a better life.

What a f mess.

I forget these experiences until I am required to remember. Every person rounded up or diminished by political grandstanding is still a person. And needed by the demands of our economy.

I did countless interviews and I-9 forms. The law required me to take a cursory look at identification prior to employment. If their identification was rectangular, it was good enough for me. Because anyone who wanted a job could have one. We constantly had unlimited positions available.

As immigrants become targeted, you can of course nod or applaud. But in so doing, you’re ignoring the bigger problem of economic necessity. Removing workers is a harsh solution that does not address the shadow economy or why we need so many additional workers.

Each time I see raids, I see Francisco. He was a hard-working man brought here by the fact that countless companies need workers. I think of that look of desperation on his face as he stood there zip-tied, knowing he faced a trip to Brownsville.

The raids were pointless. One man came to work with his suitcase. Instead of fleeing from immigration, he came to work ready for a free trip back to Mexico. He understood the economic reality that a job would be waiting for him when he came back across the border. And that it would likely always be this way.

Raids don’t address the problem.

They amplify it.

Companies who need labor anywhere they can get it will continue to do so.

Even if only 10% of undocumented immigrants disappear, it will have a devastating impact to our economy. Even if you’re unconcerned about the fact that these are people just like us, you probably won’t consider it to be an issue until prices rise and the reality of your choices results in discomfort for you.

We are not a nation of laws. We’re a nation of economics. Current events consistently prove this to be true.

Que desgracia.

X
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Government, History, Justice, Law, Opinion, Politics, Religion, Social Rules, Trump

On Pardons

01/22/2025 X Teri Leave a comment

Dumb Things Seen Today:

“Innocent people don’t need a pardon.”

Uhh…

You’re wrong. It should be written this way:
“Innocent people DIDN’T need a pardon.”

When a convicted felon with a penchant for felonious misconduct threatens you, you protect the innocent ones around you. Doubly so if the felon in question actively attempted to violently overthrow the government – and proceed to threaten anyone trying to hold him accountable.

Trump is the embodiment of what’s wrong with politics. He’s broken so many of the expectations and requirements of a President.

He’s the only president who wanted to pardon himself.

But I digress.

Using the logic of the above quote, Trump pardoned 1600+ people. If “innocent people don’t need a pardon,” it follows that these 1600+ people were guilty. Anyone citing the quote suffers from massive cognitive dissonance.

You can’t have it both ways.

Let’s not forget that 47 insists that the Central Park 5 were guilty, even after DNA and a confession freed them. Trump wanted them to be executed. They are suing him for defamation; Trump tells so many lies that it’s hard to hold him accountable for it. These same lies and disinformation erode our collective confidence in our government. It benefits him, but we will suffer the consequences long after he’s gone from the world stage.

Trump himself declares that he’s always innocent. Even though juries, grand juries, and judges said otherwise. Afterward, he argues that although he’s guilty, it was protected behavior.

Trump is a convicted felon with a long history of fraud, bankruptcies, and legal issues – not to mention the issue of sexual misbehavior.

In my wildest dreams, I could not have imagined that people would look to him for moral guidance, much less directions to Walmart. That the Bibles he touches don’t burst into flames is sufficient evidence that God is no interventionist.

I don’t have a problem with a convicted felon holding office, as shocking as that may be for some people. I believe felons should retain the right to vote. Even Trump. I do have a serious problem with so many overlooking Trump’s ridiculously long list of misdeeds, both personal and political.

He is an embarrassment and a literal threat to our system of governance.

Assuming our democracy survives this experiment with lunacy, history will not be kind to those who enabled it.

I would ask anyone who agrees with me to raise their hands, but Elon ruined that gesture for all of us.

Innocent people do need preemptive pardons. It’s not been a necessity prior to the arrival of 47.

I’m shaking my head at people defending salutes, insurrection, and rebukes toward people such as Reverend Mariann Budde. She spoke the essence of the message Christians claim to follow. When adorational politics lead people to demonize spiritual voices such as hers, the warning bells should be sounding universally.

Trump is a masterful showman and has played multiple groups to rise to power, none more so that Evangelicals and the lower class.

He’s not a ‘good’ person or one I look to for insight, inspiration, or authority. The bulk of his words reek of threats, bullying, and authoritarianism. It’s particularly telling that he rarely displays a positive attitude, acknowledges his own mistakes, and seeks to use political power to insult, harm, or threaten those who don’t agree with his words or behavior.

That he’s my President is beyond my control.

I, of course, hope that our deomcracy can erase this craziness at some point. I didn’t put in my quarters for this circus.

Our government runs at all is due to power being disbursed among the branches and entities of government. While the system is corrupt, it used to protect us from any group or person from subverting the collective mess of groups and interests within it. Trump has broken this compact we share among ourselves.

Trump is the four-year root canal surgery that the rest of us must endure.

The FAFO stage will affect all of us.

I legitimately have a concern that the Gulf of Mexico won’t be the last large part of our current United States to have a new name.

X
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Government, Law, Opinion, Politics, Privacy, Safety, Security, Social Media, Technology

United States Of Idiocy

01/19/2025 X Teri Leave a comment

PSA For people who haven’t used TikTok, it has an invaluable feature that the competitors do not. You can separate your information feed to exclusively show content you specifically follow. Bluesky does the same. TikTok also has a STEM feed if you’re interested in the sciences. Can you imagine the difference your Facebook or Instagram experience would be if you saw only content you chose to follow? Community building is also another feature that’s intrinsic to TikTok. It’s one of the features that threatens the competitors. I’ve been a TikTok fan for years. The advantages of its simple tools are incalculable. Not to mention that it provides a means to earn money for your content. The notion that it is a security risk compared to Google, Meta, Truth Social, or other social media platforms is illogical.

Because I have many acquaintances across the world, I get to observe how they perceive our political and economic systems. We are not held in high regard nor as a standard for governance. The consensus is that our political process is corrupt, possibly beyond repair. Inequitable and corrupt forces aligned to target TikTok. Money wins, of course.

Unfortunately for me, I know a considerable amount about the technology and tracking that allows for some companies to data track us all. It’s why it’s not a concern for me. Even if you choose not to use Facebook or a particular company’s services, these companies still maintain an extensive dossier on you and your interests and activities. Most of our phones default to allowing companies to use our private content to make money.

Five major telecoms were infiltrated last year by hackers. These hacks were not limited to a singular app. I’m surprised by the number of people who are unaware that their private conversations across a variety of apps were compromised.

Finally, I’ll add that the ban currently in effect for TikTok has exemptions for certain government officials. While the app is used predominantly for entertainment for the United States populace, it’s interesting that our government specified an exemption for what could only be described as a propaganda outlet. Which is precisely what our misguided leaders accused TikTok of being guilty of.

Meanwhile, more than 13 million Americans downloaded RedNote. You can’t make this lunacy up.