Get out your best long staple, Egyptian cotton hankie, dear Reader. It will be necessary.
I stalk old lovers on social media. Long happily married, it's not out of any desire to imagine what might have been. I have no interest in what might have been. But I am a profoundly curious person, and so I wonder what has become of the handful of men I spent months and even years of my life with. The economics major, now a pharmacist in Florida, who was so kind; the MBA at George Washington, now a Manhattan IT director, who was not. The first one, a high school scholar-athlete, now an executive in upstate New York, our hometown. As the cliche on TV goes, "Been through a lot..."
The first one.
According to Ellen McCarthy's Washington Post article on first love, our "first," "maintain[s] some power over us, a haunting, bittersweet hold on our psyches."
Really? Perhaps I'm odd.
Yes. Thirty years on, his Facebook page was the one I checked most often, once or twice a year maybe, when curiosity struck. After all, we were together for almost four years, in a relationship that began with the headiness and confusion of first everythings, survived the angst-suffused negotiations of teenage and adult expectations and mellowed into its own kind of love. Give yourself 40 years. First loves become a dim memory.
I don't remember much angst. I knew I didn't know what I wanted, but I assumed I'd figure it out.
There seemed no harm in looking in on him occasionally. In the past ten years, he'd married and had a son. With two sons of my own, I was happy for him. It all seemed very innocent.
Until it wasn't. Until the moment, a few months ago, late at night, when I was scrolling through my feed and decided to see if there was there was anything new in his life.
At first, the page looked the same as always. The wedding portrait that was his profile photo, him in his gray morning coat, standing tall, broad, with a little less hair, his darkly beautiful Indonesian wife seated and smiling beatifically at the camera in a stiffly beaded white gown. The banner photo of his oddly somber preschooler under the carnival lights of a merry go-round.
No new posts. I should have stopped there. But I didn't.
I pressed the link to his "likes." The Celtics, "A Fish Called Wanda," "Excalibur"—which we'd watched on video, curled together on my parent's sofa, back when VCRs were new. "The Last Samurai." "Battlestar Gallactica." And then, my fingers stiffened over the keyboard.
Ex-boyfriend needs to tighten up his security settings. This is creepy.
Donald J. Trump for President. Oh no!
Perhaps it was a joke site. I squinted, brought the screen closer.
It wasn't.
I stared for several minutes in disbelief, my eyes stinging. Later, when I laid beside my husband, who breathed peacefully in sleep, the tears would run sideways into my hair. My ears.
Donald J. Trump for President. How awful!
And the thing we know, to the deepest core of our being, is that the writer is defined by the fact that she first gave her heart to a future Trump-lover, which places her far beyond the pale of polite society. At this point the only thing she can do is mark her ballot for Trump, then do right by the husband and sons she adores by quietly disappearing from their lives until the day she dies. No wonder she weeps inconsolably. After all, she destroyed four lives that day in her fifteenth year when she noticed that bright, gentle athlete.
In the old days she would have made herself a nice, warm bath and opened her wrists...In the Post article, Jefferson Singer, a psychology professor at Connecticut College (coincidentally my ex's alma mater and also my own) says the first relationship is important because it is the one we will measure every relationship that follows against.
For years after we parted ways, I sat in movie theaters dramas or romantic comedies silently amazed that I had allowed myself to stay for so long with someone who would only watch Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson or Chuck Norris movies. Who regularly lost entire weekends to college football or basketball, while I sat beside him idly paging through Glamour or Mademoiselle, one game blurring into the next. Who believed the only fiction worth reading was the work of J.R.R. Tolkien, while I had begun to wander haphazardly from Fitzgerald to Anne Beattie, Hemingway to Chaim Potok. Who? Chaim Potok is excellent, but he's an acquired taste.
And still I never would have prophesied: Donald J. Trump for President. You poor dear!
I was only 15. Easily led. Then 16. 17. 18. Almost 19. He could be gentle, my first love. He could be tender. In spite of the physical intensity of those years, he never forced himself on me. Not once. He was tall, muscular, and I always felt safe in his arms at a time in my life when I wanted nothing more than to feel safe in someone's arms.
Long after we had broken up, my mother told me that during those years together he had sent my father, who chain-smoked Salems, a package containing a smoking cessation program he'd ordered from TV, along with a letter begging him to quit. To see my father die of lung cancer, he implored, with the sweet, brash audacity of youth, would surely break my heart. Seems like a nice guy to me. My father never did quit, not then at least, though he would go on to break my heart in other ways.
How do you reconcile such a gesture—my Michael Furey moment—with: Donald J. Trump for President. I don't. You must be sooo devastated! Singer again, who has also written a great deal about the psychology of autobiographical memory, says too of first love, "It's not just about the other person. It's about who we were at the time."
Finally, I was someone who walked away, when I was 19 and he was 21, because his world, the world he defended so ardently, as if shielding a fragile army of war game tiles painstakingly laid upon a board, was too narrow and dark. Oh jeez. A wargamer! Strike two! Leave that man for your nearest metrosexual. You'll be much happier! So narrow. So dark. I could not broaden it and I could not stay, those first steps leading me to fall in love forever one day, five years later, in front of Frederick Edwin Church's "Rio de la Luz" in the East Wing of the National Gallery of Art. Upper-level. December 18, 1989.
A room flooded with light.
And yet. Right or wrong, I could not have foretold this. Any of this.
Round-ups. Bloody rallies. Women on their knees.
Donald J. Trump for President. Find a nice bottle of Tennessee sour mash and drink it down. No glass. Neat. You'll feel much better having passed that loser by!
Still I return to the page, hopeful the link might be gone one day, deleted in a fit of sanity. Instead my heart rends more ragged each time, memory growing more faint. Like the photo of a couple on the sticky leaves of an old album, we vanish to a yellow nimbus, the acid steadily erasing us.
The number of literary cliches in this travesty of self-indugent emoting would have gotten her an A when she was fifteen, a solid C in her college freshman English class, and is thoroughly embarrassing in a middle aged woman who assesses herself as superior, cultured, and sophisticated.
#2
Athena moaned, sad and befuddled
That she and a moron had cuddled.
A pale yellow nimbus
Shone down from Olympus
To Earth, where it presently puddled.
#4
Smart, athletic, fun guy who goes on to a successful life avoids sad-sack stalker bitch.
Here's a hint toots, if it isn't too late - your nutty professor is wrong. If I measured other relationships based upon my first I would never have had any and no kids.
I mean, shit lady, you cry yourself to sleep next to your, um, man, thinking of boyfriends past who have not thought of you in 10 years or whatever.
I'd say your own article is your hint you are off.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
10/13/2016 12:13 Comments ||
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#6
"How do you reconcile such a gesture—my Michael Furey moment—with: Donald J. Trump for President."
Perhaps as an executive in NY he is more aware of the economy, has been forced to fire people, perhaps even spent time unemployed. Perhaps the writer who goes out of her way to show how elite she is by naming off her books is living in a sad little bubble.
Last Friday the U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) publicly named the Russian government for directing "the recent compromises of emails from U.S. persons and institutions, including from U.S. political organizations." It claimed that the disclosures of hacked emails "on sites like DCLeaks.com and WikiLeaks and by the Guccifer 2.0 online persona are intended to interfere with the U.S. election process", while "only Russia’s most senior officials could have authorized these activities."
President Vladimir Putin in a recent interview to Bloomberg denied that Russia on a state level had anything to do with the email hacks, but his claim that "the important thing is the content that was given to the public, and not the search for who did it" suggested more than a cursory knowledge of the matter. His further claim that the Russian government did not possess the kind of sophisticated sense of U.S. domestic politics to pull off such a tricky game sounded lame. The Russian Foreign Ministry maintains a granular understanding of the intricate details of U.S. presidential and party politics. The Russian Embassy in Washington keeps about a dozen diplomats on the beat. It is not, as some claim, that the Russians suddenly discovered the DNC last year.
While the publicly available evidence linking Russian intelligence to the hacks is inconclusive and may even suggest a false flag operation to entangle Moscow in a brawl with Washington, the U.S. Intelligence Community had a high degree of confidence in Russian involvement even in July and the fact that they publicly named Russian intelligence as perpetrators suggests that they have definitive proof. 'The greatest threat to the U.S. is Russia.' And the Obama response was ?
#3
My question, too. Not to imply the U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is the bagful of crap weasels they are, but this has all the makings of an engineered media controversy.
This also raises the question: Why don't you morons secure your servers? If you leave the front door open, don't be surprised when a raccoon walks in.
These people can't manage an email server but they want to run the country. If NBC only knew...
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
10/13/2016 12:15 Comments ||
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#5
If NBC only cared.
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/13/2016 13:41 Comments ||
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#6
A naive question, but did somebody actually provide any evidence that it's Russians?
I'm skeptical. A lot of leaks came out before the end of the democrat primary; my first thought was pissed Bernie supporters, then deflect and say it was Those Russians! because an inside job would be embarrassing.
Now, if something like that was the case and I were Russia being thrown under the bus, I could see why then they would get active.
As for the Hillary server, I would guess, who didn't hack it?
#8
The Russian education system is very good at technical subjects and they have always produced good engineers. It's no surprise they have some of the best hackers.
My guess is that the Russian authorities got involved after the hacks occurred when the hackers were shopping around for a buyer for the material.
[Federalist] This is the break that Donald Trump has needed since the first Presidential debate.
The latest Rasmussen poll shows that Trump has gotten a much-needed boost from his second debate with Hillary Clinton, and has now taken the lead in this race.
Trump is beating Clinton 43% to 41% which is up from the 43%-39% lead Clinton held yesterday, and significantly better than the 7-point lead that she held on the Monday after the debate.
As it sits right now, Gary Johnson dropped in popularity to 6% and Green Party candidate Jill Stein is sitting at a whopping 2%. 4% of people would still like to see another person in the race, while another 4% remain undecided.
Of the 84% of people who are certain they will vote in the election next month, Trump leads Clinton 49%-46%, and among those who may change their minds between now and November, Clinton is ahead of Trump 40%-37%, with Johnson picking up 19% of support and Jill Stein jumping up to 4%.
Trump is garnering 75% of Republican support and a surprising 15% of Democrats, while Clinton has 76% of Democrats backing her, and 13% of Republicans. Gary Johnson is receiving 13% of the "unaffiliated" vote, but Jill Stein is among the single digits with both Republicans and Democrats.
This is just the news Trump needed and with the end of the election season coming up shortly, he’s going to need all of the good news he can get.
#1
State by state is what matters. And that looks far worse. Utah for instance, what the heck is going on there? Wicsonsin has flipped for CLintona s well, and Trump is reducing his operation in Virginia 9i.e. giving up those electoral votes).
Ask President Gore how important National votes are compared to state votes.
Posted by: Clem Protector of the Texans8088 ||
10/13/2016 13:23 Comments ||
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#2
It's as if all the media hysteria of the past week was designed to demoralize the Republican establishment. Not Trump voters (myself now included), because they understand the media industrial complex is the Democrat Party. At least I an now a bit more positive about our ability to climb out of the shit we've been mired in for some time now, as a significant number of citizen finally see the light, and they are pissed.
#4
This goes to show you just how bad Hillary is. Put it this way - Hillary still trails, despite the US Government injustice department covering her crimes up, the press in a headlong rush to cover her scandals up, and then holding damaging things until the worst last moment on Trump, and Trump himself being the worst giant turd of a candidate.
Remarkable just how bad Hillary is. She (and Trump, ironically) goes to show you just how badly some people can fool themselves into supporting scumbags because of a personality cult.
The best this means is Trump may actually beat her. The worst is that she wins but is so crippled even the press and bureaucrats can't hold her humpty dumpty government together and she becomes an abject lesson in failure as president.
The very best outcome for the country is that they both have illnesses which keep them from office, and we welcome President Pence to office.
(FYI, many of us warned you about the dirt on scumbag Trump not coming out until now, back in winter and spring when we could have elected someone other than this bozo, because any of them were polling as stomping Hillary flat - this is a fight that didn't need to happen had the whole personality cargo cult been a driver in this election).
#9
Typically they sample more Democrats than Republicans to account for the supposed percentages among the population. I wonder if they are keeping those percentages up to date.
#10
The problem is this is a national preference poll, not the state by state. The reality is, Trump now needs to figure out how to win the electoral college without Pennsylvania (down by 9 at the latest) and Virginia (pulling out).
With formerly solid GOP states like AZ, NC, GA and OH as tossups, this becomes unlikely. Not to mention big must-have states like Florida.
To win the election, All Hillary has to do is hold the states that are polling "solid" or "likely", and grab 10 electoral votes more from the "tossup" states.
That means Trump MUST run the table in OH, NC, GA,FL,AZ, and *Minnesota*. Period. Trump loses even one of those and Hillary takes even ONE of those and she is President.
Now after doing that, there are 2 EV left in Maine, 6 in Iowa and 6 in Nevada. Maine doesn't matter, its not enough to put either of them over the top. Trump needs 1 of the 2, Hillary needs both.
So there you have it. Popular polls mean nothing. State polls mean everything, especially in those must-win formerly GOP states OH NC GA and AZ, and of course Florida.
The joker in the deck, the one that could give Hillary the race is Minnesota - the state where the state penitentiary inmates fraudulently elected Al Franken to the senate.
#11
One last note: if McMillian (or whatever the guy's name is) wins Utah, and Trump otherwise runs the table, the US House of Representatives will elect the President.
#12
Oldspook, the other 16 Pubs ran poor campaigns were just as bad as Hillary. Sadly.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
10/13/2016 15:43 Comments ||
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#13
Utah for instance, what the heck is going on there?
Mitt Romney, Ted Cruz and Glen Beck.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
10/13/2016 15:44 Comments ||
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#14
..so Utah would rather have Hillary appoint the next 2 to 3 SCOTUS justices to strike down the 1st and 2nd Amendment? At least the Mouth released his list of potential appointees which didn't send tectonic shocks among 'conservatives'.
#16
Save Mr. Trump being the beneficiary of the most incredible Hail Mary pass in political history, I believe we should get used to another President Clinton for that time which we as a Nation have left.
#17
Abu, telling me Rubio or Cruz is just as bad as Hillary? REALLY?
Im going to give it to you Army style: Are you genuinely that fucking stupid? Saying they are the same as a criminal, an abortion promoter, a Soros lackey, a serial liar, someone who leaks classified, someone whose political enemies conveniently end up dead - that takes an intellect of the sort that spends most of his slack-jawed time drooling on his shoelaces.
Stop and think about what you just said - and consider that grand idiocy of that sort is exactly why people think Trump supporters like you are angry fools.
#18
Prepare to fight now. We know the battle coming up. We pretty much know its going to be Hillary. We now have to target Congress to win it, and then find them some spines - and concentrate on replacing McConnell and other appeasers in the next round of elections.
#19
Neither Romney nor Cruz are active in Utah. Stop with the conspiracy idiocy. Trump dissed Mormons, and expects it to not have consequences? Its Trump who is screwing up by opening the door for the morality play, which fed McMullen and the splinter group. Stop being blind and having to make stuff up to excuse your candidate's horrible performance. The adults are getting tired of this crap from childish minds - and we are the ones who are going to have to try to clean up your mess.
#20
Why am I still fighting? Its what I know, and I owe at least that much to the generations that follow. Otherwise why do any of the things we did to win the cold war, and all the conflicts following them?
"The entire leftist media is told exactly what to print, what to ask and what to think by the Clinton campaign. The bottom line of what's coming out so far is that the entire mainstream media is controlled and scripted by the Clintons and democrats. In other words, the "mainstream" media is now nothing more than an extension of the state. They are banning together to destroy Trump and protect Hillary. In doing so they have become Hillary."
Thinking more like Benny Hill -v- Caligula, but whatever works.
Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy ||
10/13/2016 11:42 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
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#1
Trump giving a real stem winder now. But..but..but..he's supposed to be running away!
Btw, the "Benny Hill" reference includes his personal life. The man was a little quirky, but a true and honest man. And funny as hell.
[DailyMail] 'He was like an octopus,' she told the Times. 'His hands were everywhere.'
Leeds, who told the newspaper the incident 'was an assault', said she rushed to the back of the plane to escape Trump's advances.
The second woman the newspaper claims was touched inappropriately by Trump is Rachel Crooks. Crooks was a 22-year-old working as a receptionist at Bayrock Group, a real estate company based in Trump Tower in Manhattan, when she says Trump kissed her on the mouth without permission while in an elevator.
'It was so inappropriate,' Ms. Crooks told the New York Times. 'I was so upset that he thought I was so insignificant that he could do that.'
Crooks told the newspaper the incident took place after she shook hands with Trump in an elevator and he allegedly refused to let go. She says he then began kissing her on the cheeks, before then kissing her lips.
Con't.
Very much. And an attempt to Herman Cain him in the process. I truly hope it does not work.
Not a fan of trump, but rather much more fearful of the alternative.
and to be honest- trump does cause apoplexy in all the right people. Even if he does turn out to be a dud, it will be worth it just for the schadenfreude!
#5
I'll do some serious bragging now. Maybe as a foreigner I understand Americans better than they do. And I tell you this: If I were in charge of the Trump campaign, he'll look a lot better.
A man with the personal (and public) history can never be defensive and "sex scandals" in the U.S. will kill you if you retreat.
So do not hide. What Trump needed to do when the Alicia Machado trap was laid out was not to attack others. No, what he should have said was this:
You know who I am. It's all out there. I'm that larger than life person you want, not a conniving politicians. I'm a man. Hell, a macho. I love women. Always have. Treated them well most of the time, sometimes I didn't. Sorry. Dig out all you want about me. I lived my life to the fullest, and all you hypocrites out there wish that you could say the same about your life. Deal with it.
If you vote for me you'll vote for an authentic man who will look after you, who will look after America and throw all those hypocrites out.
Try me, you'll like it.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
10/13/2016 0:41 Comments ||
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#6
Maybe as a foreigner I understand Americans better than they do.
The Media will be harping on this for the next six weeks nonstop. Even if its proven that they 4 are liars paid by Clinton or Soros - they will repeat it as the truth nonstop.
#13
The stories wouldn't go far without all that stuff Trump said himself. He knows what he said. And because he knows, his approach to the issue is lethal.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
10/13/2016 1:09 Comments ||
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#14
Trump's lawyers have sent a "cease and desist" letter to the NYTimes. Elsewhere it is reported they are preparing a law suit. It is interesting to speculate that given the blatantly stupid statements by Times editors the successful prosecution of a libel suit might cause the NYTimes to, in effect, repay Trump for expenses incurred during his election campaign.
#17
Clearly, all these women coming forward now would prefer a president who watched them being groped, then defended the groper.
Posted by: Bobby ||
10/13/2016 13:26 Comments ||
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#18
I do have a question.
The "First Class" accuser was skimming along in an aluminum tube being groped by the stranger sitting next to her, and she didn't alert the flight crew?
As I recall, the '80's was the wind-down period for the Second Wave of Feminism where a woman had little to fear in reporting an assailant.
No alarm seems to suggest Ms. Leeds may have had some regrets when the (implied or expressed) "call me" went unrequited?
#20
Anyone that didn't see this coming wasn't paying attention. The news organizations held this from the primaries to make sure Trump won, and then held until now so they could slime Tump when it hurts worst and has the least amount of time to recover.
Who is going to hold the press responsible for manipulation of the election, for choosing a side and then working like Pravda for it?
#21
Trump supporters may not be bothered by this, but people who aren't members of his fan club already are being pushed away by it, no matter how you supporters try to pretend otherwise. Independents are what will decide this race, and Trump is going to lose some of them over this. Stop with the excusing bad behavior from your candidate, condmen it, and move back to the topic of how much of a criminal Hillary is. And by the way. "He (Bill) did it Too" is stupid and is about as valid an argument now as it was in kindergarten. Stop it, it makes you look stupid and detracts from an other argument syou may have.
#24
Defense doesn't win elections. If you give this more attention, and continue to attack the accusers, it calls more negatives on Trump and lets them play the victim card.
Dismiss them once, and get this off the news. Trumps supporters (and his own ego) are his worst enemies in things like this, like the mess with the Khans. Address it, dismiss it, then get back on the attack against Hillary. Determine the subject to the press rather than the other way around.
It's not all that easy to sue a billionaire. You want to have deep pockets.
And think of the Cosby case.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
10/13/2016 18:25 Comments ||
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#27
@European Conservative
Only if the billionaire fights it in court rather than settling, which is what most people would expect. So far there is no evidence any of them even talked to a lawyer.
#28
"Crooks was a 22-year-old working as a receptionist at Bayrock Group, a real estate company based in Trump Tower in Manhattan, when she says Trump kissed her on the mouth without permission while in an elevator."
Without witnesses or camera, impossible to prove. You'd only have a chance if the molester already had a record.
Posted by: European Conservative ||
10/13/2016 18:40 Comments ||
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#29
The claims stink. And the Times.
Waiting for more info.
#30
As I have commented before, I don't like Trump. But I must admit it would have been a fascinating idea to run his campaign. It was winnable. But not the way it was run.
And yes you need to UNDERSTAND the rules if you want to break them. You don't walk into a debate with a seasoned politician unprepared.
Trump seems to be unable to formulate and lay out a thought properly. Every time he is just about to make a point, there comes his terminally annoying "btw", he totally changes the subject and the point is lost.
Hillary is easy to beat. Concentrate on her most important weaknesses: Emails, corruption etc. and make your point. And if you can't do it properly, just return the ball.
Want an example? Don't whine about your opponent getting more debate time than you do. Turn this into an advantage.
So what he could have done when Hillary offered her usual non-excuse. Say this:
"I gladly yield my 2 minutes to Hillary so she can explain in detail why her actions were not a crime. And if that's not enough, she can have my next 2 minutes as well. Or the next 30 minutes."
Posted by: European Conservative ||
10/13/2016 18:54 Comments ||
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#2
I agree Putin doesn't want Ukraine, except for the Russian bits. However, he does want the Dardenelles, which indicates any war will be with Turkey.
Those S300/400 missiles he is bringing in. Are they to defend against the ISIS airforce?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
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Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
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dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
