“FREE CRACK!!” (sugar, I mean)

Once, at JAVA JOE’S (it’s been called just JAVA’s for 16 years)
in Rochester, NY (I just told another story moments ago about this same coffeehouse, my first.)
they took all the “solidified” sugar from the bottoms of the glass sugar containers, (most of which were like two inches across, as if they were frozen) and put them on a white paper plate on the counter, and made a sign that said
“FREE CRACK!”
I ate one.
it was delicious.
and I LOVE that they would make a sign that said that.
that shows a sense of humor.
to hell with corporate FAKE cameraderie. sp.
I’m for the REAL thing.
now gimme some free sugar and call it crack.

punishing kids like this is wrong

here is a petition to get rid of an apparent policy where they make kids SIT AND STARE AT A WALL for NINETY MINUTES as punishment, in, of all places, MY SCHOOL DISTRICT in rochester NY where I am from (I’ll not say “grew up”… cause… well, that would imply that I did so.)

https://www.change.org/p/west-irondequoit-board-of-education-overturn-jeff-crane-s-abusive-sit-and-stare-policy?recruiter=10947751&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=autopublish&utm_term=des-lg-share_petition-reason_msg&fb_ref=Default

Hey. I’m from here. I went to numerous schools here. As a creative artist, I’m ADHD and proud of it. I learned a lot about music in Irondequoit schools from grade 4 all the way through high school graduation (after which I continued to study music (and to perform and teach it) to this day.
School was hard enough, what with other kids berating me for talking fast and being different.
I persisted, even got a lot of A
s in high school. (and I WASN’T on adhd-meds at that time.)
If I had been treated like this, FOR BEING DIFFERENT, for being higher energy (which, to put it politely, is no crime,) if I had been “Labeled” MORE THAN I ALREADY WAS….
to this day I suffer from believing that I am unlovable and invalid, and “how I was treated by mom and dad AND kids (and teachers) at school has
EVERYTHING to do with that…
if I had been made to sit and stare for NINETY MINUTES… BECAUSE OF HOW MY BRAIN WORKS, the SPEED of it.., my DIFFERENCES in LEARNING and THINKING than “AVERAGE PEOPLE” (that, normal people,)
Imagine how much MORE guilty and shameful I’d feel, JUST BECAUSE I AM MYSELF and not someone else!
I DESERVE TO BE HAPPY whether I think and learn and act the same as everyone else or not.
there are plenty of ways of “helping” children of ALL varieties GET THROUGH school.
treating them like they are broken and bad and criminals isn’t one of them.
stop this now.

suffering, compassion, and not judging

judging… sometimes I find it easy to think that people who have suffered less than me, don’t REALLY understand suffering at all…
yet…. what would people who have suffered far MORE than I think, of ME, if they thought this way?
I shouldn’t judge.
but it’s hard not to, sometimes.
surely that (?) means that I am not fully at peace with MY OWN suffering yet.
good thing there’s more of life left, and more therapy left.

Norms, Interesting, Abnorms, etc.

if music with cooler rhythms and harmonies was NORMAL, I’d be normal in a heartbeat.

but it’s not about being normal, it’s about what’s INTERESTING… to ME…

so, are you telling me,

A. many people ARE interested in “norms”
B. many people are in fact NOT, nor are they even IN TOUCH with what THEY ACTUALLY ARE interested in, and they just “conform because for some reason they are afraid of, even noticing that they don’t know what they would like,” much less admitting it, much less looking for or discovering it?

(it seems so.)

or, maybe many people just have simpler tastes than I and ARE satisfied by what is typical. maybe a lot of both.

I wanna do what’s interesting to ME.

don’t see what’s wrong with that.

either many people are just boring (to me,) or many people WOULD BE interesting, but haven’t faced up to it and become their would-be selves yet. likely a lot of both.

Gamelan, what have you done to me

every time I arrange a little marching band drumline type music (which happens, but I wish it did more often)
I always seem to, as some of the keyboard players are less experienced than others,
I always seem to have some of the melodic parts be “simplified” versions of more notey ones, with like half of their notes removed….

Gamelan,

what have you done to me…