F Phillips

writing to make it through

[francinephillips-blog]

The Children of Sandy Hook School

Visions of sugar plums danced in their heads.

The mysterious Santa Claus was about to sneak into their warm, safe homes

and bring presents!

A  wonder!

What thing is this?

But instead, a broken man got an evil impulse

And sneaked into their school.

Not safe.

And bullets danced in their heads, their hearts.

Making us all wonder.

What thing is this?

[francinephillips-blog]

NeuYear. New You.

  I’ve been a writer for 40 years – more if you count the paragraphs I contributed to my weekly church bulletin about the Dorcas Circle quilting group or the camping adventures of The Youth Group.

 For years I had daily deadlines. I decided on a story, made some phone calls, gathered facts and wrote like crazy after lunch until the 4 p.m. deadline. Or later, when I was an editor, would plan coverage at a daily “budget” meeting of news stories, get the graphics in place, supervise the layout, get the staff going on the static pages – classifieds, advertisements for the day, cartoon page, editorials. As the page deadlines ticked off, the day ended with the decision for front page coverage (the reporters competed for it), signing off on pages and usually a drink or two. Journalism at its best.

But then I wrote books. Deadlines were set in months, stretching into 18 months on one project. Long swaths of time deciding how to best tell the story, support the message, describe the scene.  Writing. Rewriting. Editing. The leisure of being unchained from a printing press roaring like a lion for pages. Part of me missed the adrenaline and for 10 years and 10 books, I spent lots of time thinking about writing and then, finally, a marathon frenzy to finish. That’s how mistakes get in books.

So, in 2012, the six authors that I meet with monthly to critique and encourage each other decided to set goals and plan the year. Seven pages a week. If I wrote seven pages a week, I would finish the book in November. I wrote in dates for blogs, certain conferences where I would meet agents, weeks when I would send out queries, weeks when the proposal had to be done, edited, and ready to go. It was all laid out in plain view. This was what was necessary to sell my book, on pen and paper with unfailing clarity. The only question was, could I do it? Seven pages a week.

It worked. God bless the tortoise and the hare.  I plugged away at my plan, finished the proposal, met an agent and completed the book a month ahead of schedule. Added some bonus pages. Added a study guide. An agent has it as we speak.  NeuYear created a new me.

I will never again write a book without breaking it into doable goals. It just can’t happen any other way. And that pleasure of ticking off the accomplishments over the course of a year – amazing.  (I’m not a dry erase type. Give me the year in black and white. Non-erasable.)

So bring on the NeuYear. I’m going to finish that YA novel I’ve been toying with for the past five years. And it’s only the first of a series.

[francinephillips-blog]

Widow. Window.

I see her reflection as she walks past the mall shops,

Head slightly bent,

Looking down.

Her chin is thickening; her waist too,

And the stylish hairdo has the shimmer of silver beneath the brown

if you look closely.

But you don’t look closely.

In fact, you can almost imagine that she is on the inside of the glass,

Browsing among the colorful throw pillows,

the shelves of neatly stacked wines,

the dresses and scarves and belts within reach to wear to a party,

The Before Life.

Inside the glass.

For a minute you can’t tell.

But then the inevitable rhythm distinguishes her from the changing scenes and bright reflections as she walks, shoulders a little stooped, looking straight ahead. Not browsing. Black sweater starting to lose its shape.

I see her stop to watch a flock of ravens swoop down from the sky and gather, nodding and squawking at each other; pecking here and there, jostling for recognition and approval, showing off shiny black coats. She pulls her sweater over her low breasts and rising stomach.

With a start, I feel the softness of the wool, the stretch around my hips. I recognize the eyes.

It’s me.

In the After Life.

The widow is me.  

[francinephillips-blog]

There's no quick fix to Healthcare

                The healthcare system is broken in this country and based on profit for a few and financial devastation for many. Hospitals, medical equipment manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies and government have created a co-dependent house of cards that thrives on fraud and greed. The rich live. The poor die. And if you think otherwise, you are fooling yourself.

Take a look at the “Ask Your Doctor” advertisements for pharmaceuticals. Millions of dollars are spent by these companies on television and print ads to get patients to try to tell their doctors what drugs to prescribe instead of the other way around. And it works because doctors are only allowed to see patients for 15 minutes per visit and don’t really care which drug they are taking and have to retain patients at any cost. Meanwhile, no one has any idea what these drugs actually cost because insurance companies pay the costs. And until recently, the cost of insurance was paid by industry. It all ran amuck.

Now that more insurance costs are being shifted to individuals, families are expected to hold up their end of the mirage and they can’t. Millions cannot afford insurance and that has pierced the illusion that all is well. It’s all unraveling. Hospitals have consolidated into big businesses to maintain profits, further depersonalizing services to patients and instituting strict protocols to protect themselves from law suits that have nothing to do with the patient’s best interests.

            The answer is not quick or easy but individuals cannot bear this burden. Government steps in to help, but the healthcare industry and the insurance industry have to cut costs and the whole system needs to be dismantled. The old paradigm is broken. People who promise a quick are fooling themselves. 

[francinephillips-blog]

It's Become Shameful to Receive

On the Receiving End - Chapter 38

     How do I go about asking for help?  I had never heard a sermon titled, “10 Tips for Asking Your Neighbor to Do Something for You,” or “Ask and You Shall Receive…From Your Friend in the Next Pew,” or “Be a Receiver…It’s What God Expects of You.” Never had the plate been passed full of money and people invited to take money out if they needed it. Even our culture has preached, “’Tis better to give than to receive,” even though that may be a Christmas slogan drilled into Americans since the Sears & Roebuck catalog was carried across the wide prairies of the frontier. The church has never taught believers how to receive.

     Well, not never. When Paul the Apostle took Jesus seriously about taking the news that a savior had come to all corners of the earth, pockets of believers banded together throughout the known world. They were so overjoyed to feel the security of everlasting life and a God who forgave them that these early followers sold their goods, held things in common and met every day for a meal and prayer. Not everyone was a giver, but EVERYONE was a receiver.

     Later Paul explained that believers can behave and interact like a body – some are hands, some are feet, some are hearts, some are heads. All are needed and the giving and receiving is in balance in the Kingdom of God. Even then, a hierarchy was developing that decided the left brain was the body part that was top dog.

     So that by the time it came to post-WWII 1950s Southern California where I grew up, learning to lead and serve became the mission of the church. Men were to lead; women to serve, and we made idols out of Major Donors and it was a sign of weakness to be in need, possibly the result of sin. Being on the receiving end became a cause for deep shame.

     So the church began to separate the givers from the receivers. The receivers got farther and farther away. Naked tribes in Africa, starving children in China who wished they could eat our brussel sprouts, Mexican orphans living at the city dump and the weirdest, farthest away receiver of all - an unborn fetus. Could any giving be less balanced than that? In the meantime, Bibles were smuggled behind the Iron Curtain and banned from our own school districts.

     This gulf of separation between the givers and receivers has created a distortion of the Kingdom of God. So pronounced is the belief that God loves the giver more than the receiver that it’s common now to hear that a life with Christ will result in prosperity, high status, political dominance, expensive clothes and hot cars. Christians in need can ask of God, but not so much their Sunday School class. 

     How was I supposed to find a "sitter" for Mike?

[francinephillips-blog]

Shake up the vote

     Voting is so easy to let slip. No one has to walk for miles or risk getting shot in the back or hung from a magnolia limb.  Women aren’t parading down Broadway with signs as they once did, or being locked up with loose women from the Stingaree district to be allowed to put their X next to the name of a candidate that they still weren’t allow to run against.   Corporations aren’t encouraged to issue ballot slates to their employees and bosses aren’t even allowed to discreetly put campaign placards on the desks of employees, as they did at my first job in San Diego in the ‘80s.

      No voting is fairly legit here in America’s finest city and the county taxpayers spend a lot of time and effort to keep it that way. Your money.  If 70 million people can take the time to vote on American Idol (Jessica from Chula Vista got robbed) can we muster at least a quarter of our population to have a say in who sits in the big chairs behind the bullet proof desks. Take a minute to locate your precinct on your smart phone and meet the grandpa who hands you your ballot and has done so for 36 years.

      If that’s too hard, join the more than 700,000 registered voters who use mail-in ballots. If it’s sitting on your dresser with the cable bill, fill it out, slap a stamp on it and slip it down a mail chute.

      We know that lots of you will vote the way your husbands or wives tell you, or for the candidate your friends like or against the one they hate. We know that the issues are difficult to figure out sometimes, and the ads make it even more confusing. Yes, it might take a little thought or a little questioning or a little reasoning. Or it might be totally random or by alphabetical listing or by party. Or for only men or only women or only gay candidates or only Hispanics. Never for incumbents. Only names you recognize.  Whatever. It’s a free country. That’s the point.

      Take the time to vote on Tuesday, June 5, 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.  With all the hype being directed to “likely voters,” wouldn't it be fun to shake it up?

[francinephillips-blog]

The weird, gross, shocking root of a story

They say that writing a story is a lot like pulling teeth. I think they know a thing or two, whoever they may be.  You sit down and have it planned out in your head. Open the computer. Open the program, adjust your coffee cup over the coaster. Turn your mouse pad so it's straight. Adjust the chair. And when your space is perfect, you put fingers to the keyboard. 

There's a little nub sticking out from a wet mess of swollen gums.  It's been irritating you every morning until you get busy and let yourself forget. Every morning it's there -  doesn't go away. Then, one morning pain reaches the point where there is no avoiding it, it has to come out. 

You start out just getting through the mess. Writing like mad, tossing typos on the screen, digging into the pain a little, piercing the tight swollen skin.  You can grab that nub, finally and start to pull.

It looks dark, maybe cracked, but you get an even better grip. As you pull, blood pours out and stains your hands, mingling with saliva. You have to stop sometimes to spit. Rinse. Start again with the tugging as the stained enamel loosens, underneath emerges a long - shockingly long - hard fang that was embedded under that flawed tooth - soft as a baby's bottom. Smooth. Pointed like a knife and revealing so much more than you thought it would be. But there's more to come out. 

It won't release. It's there, you've gotten to the polished part, the hidden is revealed and you think you are done. But you have to keep tugging. Slowing, you pull, eyes squeezed shut, it all comes out.  Blood, flesh, pain and the tooth is out. The story is written.

You open your eyes and stretch out your clenched fist. It's never what you thought you were pulling out. It's never simple.  Attached to the bottom is a weird, deformed, twisted root that had been hidden, forming below the surface. It's where your story came from and what it really means and the frightening influences that you don't want to admit have created it. There is the root.

[francinephillips-blog]

The Annoying Laugh

Book Review

Surprised by Laughter: The Comic World of C.S. Lewis

Terry Lindvall, Ph. D.

Thomas Nelson, 1996

Terry Lindvall’s Surprised by Laughter: The Comic World of C.S. Lewis is a brilliant title. What? The serious doctrinarian, the weighty theologian, delving into the realms of grief, repentance, conversion and evil, for goodness' sake, has a funny side? I wish I had written it.

No, I really wish I had written it. Lindvall’s writing stumbles all over itself and the title puts the bar way higher than the reality can ever reach.  And there is nothing funny about that.

You kind of know you’re in trouble when he writes in the acknowledgements, “This book owes itself to the merry band of friends, colleagues and guides who contributed generously to my seeing and thinking and to my learning and laughter.”  Who writes like that? Oh, that’s right. C. S. Lewis does. Lindvall’s continuous slipping into the “voice” of Lewis is like hearing a soft chuckle turn into a series of snorts and gasps.  Not really laughter. Not really good writing.

"Flippancy is the laughter that keeps one out of the kingdom of God. For those who would feast on tainted laughter, and not be satisfied with daily bread, it is the sad, cotton-candy taste of death. Flippancy does not nourish, but devours and even cannibalizes others and eventually the self. And yet at the table of this earthly life, when one is hungry for a laugh, it appears the tastiest and most tempting dessert and the easiest to make." (p. 431)

I’ve read nearly all of Lewis’ works – several times. There was a touch of this malady in Sheldon Vanauken’s A Severe Mercy as he describes his correspondence with Lewis.  There was even a touch of this voice plagiarism in the recent Surprised by Oxford by Barbara Weber. Lindvall’s insistence of adding homilies in the voice of Lewis are a huge distraction. And not funny.

The book does a good job of presenting material from the Lewis catalogue into various types of humor, such as “Humor of the Self,” “Joy and Suffering,” “Laughter as Thanksgiving,” “Humor and Humility,” “the Fun in Nature,” and the “Sword of Satire.” Within these various chapters are examples from a range of works and then a discussion of the use of humor by others close to Lewis, heavy on G.K. Chesterton.  There are extensive examples of what is NOT funny – examples of laughter mixed with pain, laughter mixed with longing, even laughter mixed with sarcasm or meanness.

The book is a serious, scholarly tomb. It has thorough information packaged in a way so Lindvall gets to indulge his Lewis-like, advice from a great-uncle using archaic language – type commentary. Getting past that annoyance, it’s a good summary to counteract the characterization of Lewis as a heavy-handed, serious doctrinarian.  But the audience for this book, those who have read and enjoyed Lewis’ works, already know that.

That’s the joke.

[francinephillips-blog]

Mercy Killing - Mercy Me

My daughter wrote her first college paper last weekend on “Euthanasia.” Her dad got sick when she turned 10.

“I wrote one in high school, do you think it’s still on your computer?”

I didn’t know. It wasn’t saved, turned out. I had no idea.

“It has to be five pages!”

She got it right in the first paragraph. “Last April my father died after eight years of a rare brain disease. Why should people have to go through the torture of being unable to take care of themselves, be confused all the time, be in pain, wet their pants and have constant seizures?” she wrote.

I kept reading, “My father was hospitalized 16 times in the last 18 months of his life.”

I looked up at her from the page. “I can add some details,” I said. “He also had 26 MRIs and 11 lumbar punctures. They call them ‘spinal taps’ and are one of the most painful procedures anyone can undergo.”

Her paper went on to say that euthanasia is practiced in the Netherlands and the state of Oregon legalized it with the Death with Dignity Act. Her writing was good; descriptive, but solid and factual. It was compelling even though she struggles with writing, with laying down words to tell a story. She’s a scientist. Facts and measurements tell it to her satisfaction.

“Euthanasia frees up medical funds for those who have a chance to make it,” she wrote.

In one simple, cool sentence, she accepts the present reality that people with money live longer and people who run out of money have to die. And if they have to die, they should be able to choose to do it sooner than later.

We talked about the DNR order as a step toward giving the patient control over the timing of death.

“But that doesn’t always work,” she said. “Dad died a few times and they brought him back.”

Sharp girl. “Yes, sometimes the medical community doesn’t want to accept the DNR as the authority in the matter,” I admitted.

“That’s because they don’t want to accept the patient as the authority,” she said.

Very sharp girl.

“Do you think Dad would have wanted to die sooner than he did?”

She stops to think.

“I think he always tried to make the best of it and be positive, but I also know that he hated being disabled and there were lots of times that he cried and prayed for it to end.”

“Well, in a way, he got some control because I brought the DNR to the hospital and refused any treatment or any procedures. ‘Only painkillers’ was what he said when we went over it on Thursday. On Saturday, he was unconscious and that’s what he got. Only painkillers.”

“That’s when it was the worst. The last few days, when he was unconscious and we had to suction him and hold him down during seizures? He was in misery. He didn’t die until Wednesday. That’s just cruel.”

“Horrible.”

“Mom, how do you think I’ll do on my paper?”

I had no idea.

“Fine, honey. I think you’ll do fine.”

[francinephillips-blog]

Fallen, September 11, 2001

Fallen, September 11, 2001

by Francine Phillips

The air beckoned

As the fire threatened.

A wall of power and heat

Melting the structure of The Important Things -

My Starbucks mug,

My laptop,

My corner office.

The air beckoned

"Throw yourself from this pinnacle and angels will lift you up,"

lured the Evil One.

So I leapt,

Fell,

Exhilarated.

Heat on my face,

Cool loft on my neck.

Swirling, but falling.

Floating - will I float?

Will the laws of gravity suspend to let me live?

Will God let go of order to stop

For me?

Falling?

Fallen?

The air beckoned.

Below,

Scurrying, crumbling,

Smoke billowing.

Can smoke hold me?

Can a crowd break a fall?

Come back! Don't run! Come break my fall!

Death by elements.

Earth, wind, fire.

Fire, then wind, then, finally, earth.

But not finally.

Earth passed away.

The Holy Spirit rushed like a Wind.

The Refiner's Fire yielded a river of gold

Flowing around me.

And the Evil One spoke the truth, after all.

[francinephillips-blog]

Lost and Found

Surprised by Oxford: A Memoir by Carolyn Weber

Thomas Nelson 2011

The easy opening is to say that I was not surprised by Surprised by Oxford.

But that’s not entirely the truth. I love the writing of C.S. Lewis and was a little put off by the riff of his title, Surprised by Joy. Yes, the Oxford don wrote within the very walls of the same hallowed university, sat at the same pub benches, walked the cobblestone streets, gazed at the same stained glass windows. But, was this exploitation?

And there could have been a sense of “been-there, done-that” from Sheldon Vanauken’s amazing story of coming to faith, A Severe Mercy in which Oxford played a hand in bringing the author and his wife, Davy,  to the foot of the cross. Was Weber’s book just a feminist, more hip version of that tale minus the soft touch descriptions of the sky, the estate, the yacht and the love? The “Shining Barrier” of love, so unexpectedly breached by God?

Weber’s memoir is more than that. Like the aforementioned books, the intellectual approach to believing is central. And the intellectual analysis of faith among her scholar friends is fresh and up to date.

“No one gets their knickers in a knot about anyone except Jesus,” Mark said plainly. “If you were telling your fiancé you were considering Buddhism, or Islam, or Wicca, you wouldn’t be so clearly anxious. And he would likely have taken it all in stride, because you would be tolerated, even celebrated…But Jesus, Whoa. That’s a whole other gig.”

But the heart is present in the book as much as the mind. Lucky for Weber, there is a man, nicknamed TDH (tall, dark and handsome) also pulling her to consider the need for salvation. The memoir traces their push/pull relationship that mirrors her own halting steps toward faith.  Will she find love?  Will she fine Love?

If nothing else, however, buy the book for the writing. Weber is gifted at presenting authenticity – wrapped in words that capture anger, irony and longing. She brings us inside and we feel the mind, the heart and the soul entirely. And recognize the feelings.

     I remembered how I stood at our back screen door, yearning but unable to put the desire into words.  I press my hands together against the mesh until tiny find crosses stung into my palms…the inconsolable crux of the human condition; an ache that reminds us of that eternal joy and beauty for which we are made.

     What? What is there?  Only the hush rising up from the evening haze settling on the unlistening grass. No crickets. No birdsong. The smell of a storm. In the distance thunder was tearing through still sky like the opening of an envelope.

I think she puts in all into words just fine. Amazingly fine.

[francinephillips-blog]

Mike at Sea

He sailed through life.

Careful preparation was his secret.

Checklists.

Survival was given every opportunity to prevail over

being a helpless speck on a wide, wild ocean.

He was careful.

But once underway, he sailed into the headwind,

preferring the sail to the rudder.

He didn't like to tack.

Straight ahead.

Confident.

Capturing the wisps of air and current

and channeling them into power.

Powerful.

Until...

a rogue wave, strange and rare,

sucked the bottom out from under him,

pounded relentlessly,

overwhelming,

coming out of nowhere.

Slammed and tossed.

Powerless...

but still afloat.

And he navigated the strategy of letting go of the rigging.

Forsaking the sail after all.

No option to come about.

Allowing himself to float.

His buoyancy maintained

by being positive, cheerful, accepting and loving.

And loving.

It turned out he had a savior.

Jesus.

Yes, that Jesus.

"Even the wind and the sea obey him."

He survived tumultuous seas on faith, 

forsaking sail and rudder altogether,

and discovered that he had an Anchor.

Now he sails again on glassy seas, the wind at his back.

[francinephillips-blog]

Reconnecting Francine

There’s a screensaver on my monitor that I can’t decide if I love or hate. I don’t remember how I came to use it and I have no idea how I turn it off or change it. Computer functions such as these are beyond my patience to parse. Let’s just call it magic.

What happens is a photograph is pulled randomly from memory and dances across the screen for 10 seconds or so – a smiling face of a friend, a Halloween costume from 15 years ago, that day at the lake, a kiss from my husband, the cover of a book I’ve written. And because the photos are so fleeting and there is no continuity between them, it’s almost a kaleidoscope of emotions to watch. Pieces of memory falling into place then instantly shifting and falling again, then falling again.

If I watch the screen for 60 seconds or so I’ve skimmed 25 years. The down side is that I have a ten-second peek at things I have forgotten but there is no way to go back there, no way to find the file path the photo was pulled from. Somewhere in memory there’s the next moment as well – the hug after the kiss, the lake sunset – but there is no way to get there. If you click on the photo the screensaver disappears. The joy of seeing the image turns to pain as it slips away from view and another appears. At random.

Recently I’ve been reconnecting with friends I haven’t seen in years; friends I’ve shared joys with in the past. It started with my husband’s funeral in April, where so many people came from so many places in our memory. Family. Colleagues and former co-workers, distant relatives, clients he served and employees who served him sitting row upon row in a sanctuary filled with love and remembrance.

Next has been the reconstruction of my career after being laid off in June. I went to the San Diego Magazine open house and shared wine and laughter with people I used to work with under deadline. This week I went to the Press Club party and discussed the Coronado murder with folks whose last discussion with me centered on the Republican National Convention coming to San Diego in 1996. Yesterday I had lunch with Sue Garson, last seen some 12 years ago at a fabulous party in her home. For years we were close and I watched her parlay her Reader press pass into free entrance to museums in Istanbul and interview access to royalty in Europe. Amazing woman. We’ve made plans to walk in Balboa Park.

Finally, I’m moving back into a home that I used to live in 25 years ago, newly divorced with two small children. I peeled back the carpet this week – so new and fresh when it was installed, now matted and frayed. Front stoop so small where we stood for that first day of Kindergarten photo. The arbor sagging above the stone patio where icing dropped in globs from cupcakes at the High Tea where rough and tumble Girl Scouts dressed in their mothers’ finery and wore hats. The heater that burned my daughter’s leg. The sidewalk where my son fell again and again and again until he learned to ride without training wheels.

Images startling in their clarity but also fleeting, a wisp only, of the past I want to reconnect to, resurrect, and reconstruct for the future. Let’s just call it magic. 

[francinephillips-blog]

Obama/Shriver 2012

by Francine Phillips

It makes perfect sense to me. Joe Biden, no offense, can retire now, capping a significant career with leadership of the Senate. He offered the tie to the Old Guard that Obama needed to capture traditional voters the last time around. Thank you, goodbye.

Maria Shriver should be the Obama running mate in 2012. The charisma factor will shoot through the roof.  Shriver is media-savvy, smart, beautiful, she has the political pedigree, and is someone who gets things done.

In the last few years she took on the issue of Alzheimer’s in honor of her father’s battle with the disease and brought it out of the closet. She produced an award-winning HBO series, wrote a book about it (which included an essay from Reagan’s daughter, Patti Davis) and got on every news program in the country to start an Alzheimer’s conversation in America. If she can get people to engage with a horrifying, fatal disease that no one wants to admit happens to anyone under 70, think what she can do with issues of hunger, unemployment, and corporate gouging – things that America WANTS to talk about. I say let her at it. Especially now.

There are really three powerful women in America with name recognition – Hilary Clinton, Sarah Palin, and Maria Shriver. Ok, four. Oprah doesn’t count. Loudmouth Michelle what’s-her-name-running-for-president REALLY doesn’t count. She’s Palin-lite and since Palin herself is a lightweight, that makes her pretty much a – dare I say? – flake. No apology forthcoming.

Hilary is stodgy – which makes her a diplomatic gem. She gets the entire global connection while the rest of us are trying to remember who we are at war with, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan?  How many countries have Taliban presence?  Is there really a Muslimization of Africa campaign. (I first heard this term when I interviewed one of the  Lost Boys of Sudan and it made things so clear.)  Hilary should stay put.

Maria would be great as Vice-President. She can handle the media spin duties so Obama can get back to fixing the country and she can send the e-mails. She can talk the pants off talk show hosts.  She’s had an insider window into the Republican Party as wife of Arnold and knows where the weaknesses are hiding.  Ok, not exactly hiding. Even the Republicans know where their weaknesses are – they can’t unite. Maria could blow them all away in any debate.

Aside: Donald Trump and the birth certificate – really?  Isn’t this the same party that wanted to change the law of the land so Arnold could run for president?

And speaking of Arnold. This is a golden moment.  What woman in America wouldn’t want to support Maria who gave up so much for love – her political views, her home, her career - and got burned? Who wouldn’t want to elect her to an office higher than Arnold can ever attain?  Vice President Shriver is just too delectable to pass up as we stab our ballots in that little private booth.  It’s an extra bonus that Maria is doing what we all wanted Hilary to do – she’s leaving him.

America is just not going to go back to white men aging gracefully to rule our land. Sorry Mitt and that other look-alike guy.  Sorry Joe. 

I think Maria’s next step should be into the dais of the Senate Chambers. Adding her to the ticket will electrify voters. Leave it all behind and go kick ass. 

[francinephillips-blog]

I’m Over Oprah

I’m reading a book from the Oprah Book Club.  It’s a sad book, the story of misfits and misguided fits and the consequences of their actions, which are tragic – beautifully described, but tragic. In fact, it’s a lot like other Oprah Book Club books I’ve read. There’s a sense of obligation almost, like the reading lists in college or on Facebook. But you read it at arms length, letting in only tiny bits and pieces – turning on NCIS in the background so you don’t completely fall under the spell, the shockingly fascinating spell of people completely screwing up their lives and their children’s lives. Not really reading it, but unable to put it away – quickly forgetting as soon as you’ve turned down a corner and spread it on the side table, breaking the spine. Needing a break. 

  I blame the Chicago diva. She who creates millionaires with the wave of her Book Club wand. Then that made her feel guilty and she stopped it, but not really, so it’s still out there. The power is unimaginable. Power Oprah. With favorites.

The thing is – I used to love the gutsy, robust woman with the country phrases and the big laugh.  I loved the magazine – finally a publication that made me feel good about myself instead of bad about myself!  I loved the search for the spiritual, the center, the new norm, the love of self.

  But somewhere along the way the contradictions have become too much. The little school for the “right” African girls – again the life-changer waves a wand. That hasn't gone too well. The advocacy for simplicity juxtaposed with the lavish gifting. Who are we kidding, girlfriend? And the scourge of existence – body image – going on and on and on and on in endless, belly-button-examination about eating and exercising and denial and freedom and getting coaching and doing it on your own, liking yourself, but changing your belt. This never-ending dance around self-loathing. Please stop. Step away from the navel.

  So, what is the Oprah Winfrey Network except taking it all to a deeper level?  Behind the shows? Show business about the reality behind the show business? Does anybody still care that much? OWN?  No, Oprah, what happened to Let it Go? Dr. Phil? Nate Burkas? Gayle? Do we really have to see everyone cash in this last year?

  I happened to be home today at the time the show comes on. Thought about it. But couldn’t really bear the thought of twirling on that merry-go-round for an hour. In the end, it’s all been a phenomenon. There will never be another Oprah.  And I don’t think there should be.

[francinephillips-blog]

Lose the Win Win

So, a new party has “won” the House. The party balance has shifted once again in what seems to be our default love of inbalance in political life. Chaos theory reigns. Take the Congressmembers, shake them up in a cup and scatter them across the White House lawn and they’ll somersault and bounce to a halt at random. Red States. Blue States. Scattered at random.  I don’t really see a winner here.

The last couple of decades has seen it all – House dominance, Senate majority. All one party, same as the President. All one party, opposite the President. Opposite parties. But mostly the default configuration is that the ideas represented and the votes owed to one faction or another are a mix. At odds. In need of confrontation, or, at the very least, dialogue. In the end, that’s not a bad thing. It’s the essence of representative government. It represents my workplace, my family…and, I’ll bet, yours too.

We don’t all get along, Rodney. Ask Adam and Eve what happened to their sons. There is friction, sparks, hurt feelings, competitiveness, smug victory. It’s the human condition. Cutting off the other driver, frosting a prettier cupcake. Everybody needs a “win” now and then. But winning isn’t everything even in a culture that invented the term, “Win-Win.”

“Life is not a dress rehearsal!” Sarah Palin cries in her carefully rehearsed, crafted and packaged series about the last wilderness. (What WAS that?) Sometimes, it is, Sarah. Some would say that’s all it is.  Some would say that this life is practice for an unimaginable eternity where those who would lose in this life become rulers in the next. It’s the cosmic expression of a red slushy being thrown in the face of the football players instead of the Glee club singers.

 What is the antidote to the “Win-Win?” Throw in the towel. Be gracious and kind to all. Drive with courtesy in the slower lane. Don’t show off. Let go of frustration and, win or lose, love each other.

[francinephillips-blog]

Election Day Dance with the Stars

It’s election day. Across America there are hopeful hearts beating hard and fast as candidates for school boards, fire districts, state offices, Congress and Senate think, Wow! This day could change my life. Secret smiles bubble up because, at the end of the day, anything can happen. No matter what the polls say, the commentators, your best friend, or your mother, the outcome of the day is going to be decided by a vote of the people.

 Yes, the voters. And while candidates may wake up excited at the prospect of winning, every voter in America is waking up thinking – thank God it’s over.  The end of the phone calls, e-mail messages that you don’t open (Let’s see, do I know a Joanne? No. Delete.), television commercials that feed on one flavor – disgrace.

Disgrace is the last character flaw that can still be used to distinguish between someone who governs well and someone who cannot, apparently. In a time of Snookie showing her cleavage and Situation scoring with really stupid women; when Sarah Palin’s daughter scuttles her chubby teen-mom ass across a dance floor and makes a fool of herself; when a glib, self-absorbed polygamist can convince his fourth wife that love should expand (or, only HIS love, not hers) – disgrace? Really?

 So the candidates drone and whine and dig up phony flaws and half-truths, accusing their opponents, hoping to paint them with the brush of disgrace. And others make good money – big money – mixing that paint. Because what we tolerate in Snookie or Kody won’t do for those we elected to office. Elected officials have one thing that no other celebrities have.

Power.

We hold politicians to a higher standard because they have power over us. When we get a babysitter and drive to the DMV only to find that it’s closed on the third Friday – that affects our lives. When we plan a trip to the park and the toilets are all broken and little Jason wets his pants – that affects our lives. When we try to get a permit for a deck and it takes all summer to get approval – that matters to us. When we try to find adult day care for our loved ones with dementia and all of the funding has been cut – that matters.

So we respond to the unpacking of a candidate’s character because there is still some vestige of hope that the people we elect to have power over our lives are a little better than we are, a little smarter, a little more stronger in character, more able to figure out right from wrong. More able than we are. Living lives slightly less disgraceful than our own.

 But what if someone made a political commercial about your life? About mine? “Francine Phillips wasn’t thinking about taxpayers when she took the last peanut butter cup out of the Halloween candy cauldron. She was only thinking about the smooth, creamy mix of salt and chocolate melting on her tongue. Phillips should be ashamed!”

Guilty as charged. Disgraced for sure. I guess I’ll never run for office. But if I did, I bet I’d be able to figure out how to keep adult day care open. There’s the real disgrace.