Economic Opportunity Be Damned!

Every time I think about it, which is an expression that is giving me pause and has thereby evoked the use of a second expression about having been given pause, thus annoyingly requiring me to decide where to meander next in this tortuous process of torturing words, I amaze myself.  And the reason, I believe, that I was given this unsought pause, is that it is substantially possible that I rarely think about “it” at all.  But that is untrue, or at the least, un-truth-y, because I think about it from time to time and am certain in a world plagued by uncertainty that you think about it too.

What we think about, you and I, is this darling blog, New Media Martini, and how astoundingly feature-filled it has become!

Its latest feature which blog management added today, unless it did so earlier without notice or acknowledgment highly likely, is the Misleading Blog Post Title.

Because the truth of the matter is that I, Kay Ballard, LOVE Economic Opportunity, and the last thing in the world I would want to do is to consign it to hell.  Oh no!  That, in fact, is the job of others!

But I must admit that even though I LOVE Economic Opportunity and sing its praises loudly and off key whenever the melody might matter, there was a time in the past, when Paul McCartney and others of us were younger, when I as a parent failed to preserve and protect the rights of my former daughter, currently my sister, to the Economic Opportunity that would have been hers by virtue of disobedience.

Now we might pause here and ponder together the nature of disobedience and whether and when disobedience is a virtue, except for the obvious perilous fact that Deep Philosophical Discussions are not yet an official feature of this feature-filled blog.

So, we shall barrel forth with my story and you and I shall celebrate the fact that my story is finished in the event that it ever is which becomes more and more likely and unlikely with each progressive sentence.  But therein lies one of many problems.  In trying to get this story told, expressions appear, like “progressive sentence,” with meanings to ponder or not.

Oh, my!  More pause evoked.

Here, it is, Darling Reader, because you don’t have the time for pause.  You have proven that amply by not showing up here on rare occasion and you know who you are.  I forgive you.

So here it is:  When my former daughter was a child, she liked to write on herself.

I know that you don’t understand this.  Neither did I.  At the time.

In fact, I found it quite vexing.

My at the time daughter would write words on her hand or on her wrist.  Random words?  Probably not.  Probably the names of boyfriends or candy bars, or perhaps even words of self-encouragement.

So vexed was I about the practice and the way that it interfered with her natural and inherited loveliness, that I bothered not to inquire about the scientific or literary value of her writing.  Instead I merely asked her in the most adorable and persistent fashion that she cease and desist from the practice.  In dulcet tones, I asked her to cease and desist writing on herself over and over again.  Because despite being an occasionally obedient child, (the use of said expression once again tempting us, you and me, to veer off into a philosophical examination of the meaning and value of obedience) she frequently ignored my maternal entreaties.

Eventually, Paul McCartney grew older, signaling to the rest of us the passing of time, and Phoebe, my former daughter abandoned the  practice of hand writing.  Rather she abandoned the practice of hand writing upon her hand.

But now, in retrospect, I believe that my well-meant instruction many have caused my daughter economic harm and loss for which I as a lawyer and former mother officially disclaim legal responsibility.

You see, it is apparently possible to obtain income by writing upon oneself   To receive revenue by advertising for commercial entities in the most personal and unfashionable fashion.  It is an Economic Opportunity for her foreclosed by the training she, my former daughter, received from me, her adorable and modest former mother.