let's all get freeiPods.com

- posted by barbara @ 8/23/2004 04:44:00 AM  0 comments

 
pictures taken by my son the navy journalist

- posted by barbara @ 8/22/2004 10:13:00 AM  0 comments

 
please tell me if i sound crazy, or reasonable...thank you!
August 22, 2004

To: GREEN HILLS MEMORIAL PARK

Grounds people and supervisors:

Twice in the past couple months you have taken away my daughter’s chimes and turtles left in her tree by her friends and family. I was extremely distressed when I came to visit Bekah’s grave in July [the month she was born, and the month she was murdered] and her tree had been completely denuded! How could you do this without even calling me? The butterflies that were in her tree for less than a month [I haven't been able to find any turtle chimes] cost me $15. I am a single mother, not a rich woman, but even more important to me than the money you cost me is what Bekah's presents symbolized.

I complained to the front desk and to inquire whether you had saved Bekah’s presents for me. I was told, "Chimes are against the rules.” I'm still looking for the sign that declares chimes "against the rules," though i have seen the sign that cautions against fake flowers and statuary, while observing grave after grave after grave decorated "against the rules," and undisturbed. I’m not blind. It is discriminatory and in fact CRUEL of you to strip my 21-year-old daughter’s tree as you leave untouched elaborate statuary and fake flowers on so many graves, and chimes in practically every other tree in this park. I've taken pictures, and if and when I find another set of turtle chimes and you take them out of her tree without any notice or recourse I will take action against this park.

The items I put in Bekah’s tree comfort me because I believe they please Bekah; the items left by others comfort me because they assure me that she is not forgotten. The decorated graves and the chimes throughout the park do not bother me; they comfort me. It is a comfort to this bereaved mother to observe how others work their way through grief. How they honor their loved one's memory and maintain the love they share with those they have lost.

I don’t fathom the reasoning behind your “rule” outlawing these mementos that mean so much to me, but I don’t have to agree with it or even “get” it to be bound by it I suppose. What I will not submit to again is your unconscionable, baffling decision that Bekah’s grave and Bekah’s tree [we chose the site because of her tree as well as the view from her grave], of all the graves and trees in the park, will be summarily stripped of every memento left upon it while other graves and trees are left undisturbed. It is unfair and unnecessarily hurtful to a mother who still grieves as she always will because her daughter, who should be alive, who was healthy and beautiful and full of promise and only 21 years old, is dead while her remains rot inside the ground in this cemetery. Your actions have really wounded me when you did not need to do that. Why single out Bekah’s grave? I am very angry.

Barbara Bales
Mother of Bekah Zask
pen and ink drawing by bekah zask 

the eldest son 
here's another that kinda conforms to the theme of feet:bekah with feet 

- posted by barbara @ 8/22/2004 06:44:00 AM  0 comments

 
freeiPods.com
click up there, spend some money you would have anyway [i bought Advantage for my chihuahua puppy who is suffering with the fleas, and prior to going ahead with the transaction i checked petco, where i get everything for chase. Petco was $2 more expensive. though if i had free shipping going for me....anyhow] and pretty soon i'll have an ipod!

blame CC for this. please, before you do, click freeiPods.com and sign up for your free ipod.

quick question? i don't know anyone who owns an ipod. i have a feeling this burning desire within me for one is only proof that even though i realize that advertising invades and pervades all aspects of our lives beyond what nature ever intended, i'm still a soft touch for it.

i want my ipod, hope i get it, hope it all works out. on the other hand if i don't get anyone to spend money off my referral i won't be mad...i throw out all chain letters summarily. i understand...
- posted by barbara @ 8/22/2004 01:51:00 AM  0 comments

 
epiphany
i just was thinking, i'm too old for bullshit...and realized: i was born too old for bullshit.
- posted by barbara @ 8/20/2004 05:24:00 AM  0 comments

 
A Picture's Worth - essays on photographs of personal significance
happy first year anniversary - thanks david
- posted by barbara @ 8/09/2004 02:04:00 AM  0 comments

 
Sheriff blames lack of funds, deputy errors in jail killings
baca reminds me of a kid who's left a mess or a crying peer in his wake. responsibility will be delegated anywhere else, upon anyone else, so avidly is it avoided. really kinda makes me wonder how he keeps his job.

mmmmmmmm...sheriff? elected position i believe. okay. i have a sneaking feeling mr. "not my fault" will be looking for different work after the next sheriff election.

i have been in the custody of the los angeles sheriffs for five long and harrowing days. it was 1997, and a nightmare of such proportion that years before suffering the worst possible loss in a mother's life i struggled with a post traumatic stress situation for months after i had theoretically paid my "debt to society [i was arrested for a dui and kept in jail for 5 days due to poverty]."

to the sheriffs the inmates are lowlifes less worthy than a stray dog and i know that because they made it very clear not only to me but to every prisoner i saw them interact with. the day after my arrest i was bused to the los angeles county jail. as i assumed my place in the first of what seemed countless lines of female prisoners who would work their way up the eight or so stories of the "twisted towers" via one line after a few hours in a holding cell followed by more lines and different cells, none of them designed for sleeping, a male deputy remarked upon the passing parade of prisoners, "they all look terrible."

his voice dripped with contempt and he made sure most of the women heard him. and you know i was feeling pretty shitty already? i had been arrested, handcuffed, put into a cell with a door made of metal bars, a door that someone else could open and close. i could not open up and walk out that door.

the realization of that impotence hit early and often, engendering some of the lowest, meanest, bleakest feelings i had experienced to that point in my life. JAILED. the loss of freedom was punishing and my own culpability my guilt were immense and any and all excuses i could make for where i was no longer meant jack shit. because here i was at consequences boulevard and eh it was a fucked up world...i pretty much hated my own guts.

the sheriffs apparently perceived perpetuating and exacerbating inmates' most desolate responses to their incarcerations as either a necessary part of the job, or a fun fringe benefit. like the job description for officers, at least while working in the jail, read like so: "treat inmates worse than shit. make their lives as hard as you can, degrade humiliate dehumanize and verbally torment them at every opportunity. show inmates no kindness; never acknowledge the possibility of human worth in an inmate. do not look upon inmates as people who deserve respect: they are criminals who deserve contempt, and the sheriff's deputies are just the people to give them what they deserve."

well no one promised us bad girls a rose garden after all...they wouldn't call it jail if it was a fucking vacation right? jail's supposed to be miserable right?

i dunno. i thought my inability to walk out the door was punishing already. i was paying consequences that could not be fully explained by any crime i may have [or may not have; remember the assumption of innocence?] committed, i got that...but before those five wretched days in the LA County Jail, it was news to me that the sheriffs represented a whole other consequence, the punishment you got for the crime of being in jail. i suffered the contempt of the sheriffs along with the other women inmates for five days and nights. after the first night, my extended stay in jail was clearly the result of my being a poor, single mother.

processing in as i recall took something like three days of lines on ramps and naps on concrete, after which i was given an address in a "pod" i guess it's called, and a top cot with a light blanket [requests for a second blanket were never acknowledged; nor, in my 5 days in jail, was i ever provided with a bar of soap, shampoo, or toothpaste. i may have managed to ask, once, but that's as far as i got].

on the fifth day i was woken up by the thundering, contempt-dripping voice of another well trained deputy announcing, "the following people have won today's release lottery." it seemed almost a miracle when i heard my name [after five days in jail i had already convinced myself not to wish for a speedy release - how sick is that!?]. i leapt from my cot and beelined it to the door. it was about 6, 6:30 a.m., maybe even earlier than that.

i don't know if he really could have, but the deputy convinced me that if i did not rush up and out to line up at the door of the pod, the door would shut and it would be just tough shit for me. i would be stuck in jail for at least one more day...in my haste i left my papers on the wrong side of the door, and was yelled at while i waited as a woman i'd befriended in there slipped them under the door to me. i barely got my phone number to her, so there would be a ride home once i was outside...by this time it must have been at least three to five minutes after his yelling had woken me.

the trip down the twisted towers took about seven hours [days quicker than the trip up] and about that many lines and holding cells. at about 3 pm five days after being arrested, one excessively ripe and unfortunately changed woman sprinted as fast as her 42-year-old legs would carry her, away from that hellhole and those badass sheriffs, and into the arms of her "true" love [i later learned he had kept his ex-girlfriend in my bedroom and in my bed while i was in jail, hiding her in there as he cared for my 5-year-old son, who was not at the time given the true story of why mommy's not home. but that's a whole other story, not today's].

today's story is about the sheriff who claims he is not responsible for the way the humans inside the jail behave.

according to the daily breeze,inmates in los angeles of late have been behaving as somewhat less than human somewhat more often than usual, based on the skyrocketing murder rate inside. these days the crime of being in jail in los angeles gets the death penalty more often than supportable as inmates kill each other. but that's not the sheriff's fault. no fucking way is baca responsible for what goes on inside the jail he runs.

***
the news - may be getting old, for some...i'm still wanting her to be remembered, right now, remembered.
Posted by Hello
- posted by barbara @ 8/07/2004 03:57:00 AM  0 comments

 
been in the filing cabinet for the first time in years....
and lo and behold if i didn't find a paper copy of the book i started back in 1996, after having commuted from lancaster to torrance and back with a 3-year-old in a breaking down honda for six months of computer school. the same book i abandoned back in 1996 in favor of a paying position and an absurd love life, yada yada...

My book: Bales Law – A few pet peeves/ and shitloads of pith/ From a thoughtful,/ Sagacious, humorless/Bitch
By Barbara Bales

The forward:

Bales Law.
Growing up, I heard it cited to explain everything, from why we eat steak and eggs instead of turkey on Christmas, to why people die out of order. These laws have never been issued in writing until now; most of them have never even been issued orally; in fact, the contents of this book constitute the wisdom I alone have gained driving the same stretch of road so often, for so long, that finally there was nothing left to do but figure it all out.

Why a book? Why now? So the whole world can benefit from my driving. Having pretty much decided everything, and having debated the issues at hand with myself at length (for example, sometimes I spent the whole trip thinking only about the way other people drive), I have not been able to think of a reason I should not go ahead and become the next twenty dollar guru. I think I've driven enough to qualify.

A somewhat more pressing reason for a book is that it is past time that the peeves mentioned in the title are brought to light, so the people responsible for my constant bitching can start changing their ways. But that’s just icing on the cake.

The major goal of this book is to discover, invent, or steal any semi-sensible alliteration, allusion, and/or pun for that very special, very descriptive word, PITH. Here’s one now, for instance:

Pith or get off the pot:
A rude admonishment to people who smoke marijuana to start thinking pithy thoughts already.

Then, a table of contents:

There’s Pith In The Road
The Pith Of Depression
The Peeve Of Repression
Short Bursts Of Pith
Take Pithy On Me

*********************** hehehe *******************

'course i've since gradjee-ated to the building of the bekah church of wonder and the creation of the attendant literature...but also, in the cabinet...the end of romances. in april 1999 i considered myself fortunate to be alive after having escaped from this one. and i like what i wrote to him on 03-26-99 [less than a month before the relationship finally dissolved for good]. i'm pretty sure, though, that he never saw it...these were the kinds of observations he just was not responsive to....


he had written, “I LOVE YOU AND HAVE TOTALLY DEDICATED MY LIFE TO THE PLEASURE OF MAKING YOU HAPPY. PLEASE ALLOW ME TO CONTINUE IN MY MISSION. With Love Forever, [the fire]”

and at 9:31:22 a.m. I had responded on the same page:

the concept of a self-fulfilling prophecy comes to mind…the concept that to have one must release…the concept of psychological manipulation…love that is not really love, but obsession, possession, digression, repression…I love you too, I do, but with each passing day that I am not allowed to do what I am driven to do, that I cannot write what I feel or say what I mean…what was love diminishes into a host of nasty colors, stinging tears, overwhelmed by fear, dread, and the (worst thing of all) loss of hope that it will ever change….

- posted by barbara @ 8/05/2004 05:35:00 AM  0 comments