The Salem Witch Trials and Me

So, I just went back to my Ancestry.com account to make sure I had the name of Sue’s step-dad right and that it was the same as the guy the lady mentioned today. Okay, fine. Someone had added more information to Mary Walcott, did I want to add it to my tree? Mary Walcott and the Salem Witch trials.

So, I already knew I was related to Ann Putnam on my mom’s side. She’s my first cousin nine times removed.

But it turns out that Mary Walcott was also one of the accusers and she’s my 8th great aunt on my dad’s side.

Maybe, statistically, that’s not that weird, but it had me saying holy fuck for about five minutes. And it means that my 9th great grand uncle’s wife was the woman who taught Tituba how to bake a witch cake, whatever that is.

Clearly, I am related to the creepsters of history.

The City Cemetery

I spent my beautiful afternoon on the historical tour of the city cemetery. I was pretty much morally obliged to go because Jack Macon was one of the historical people this year. And the guy doing him was great! Younger than I imagine Dr Jack, but still, build like I imagine, with just the right touch of theatricality.

Also cool was that Sue Allen’s mom got a name drop. The kid, White Whomever, his mom mentioned that he was nursed back to semi-health in Mrs. John Ewin’s home on the Franklin Pike before being carted off to a Union prison where he died. That’s Sue’s mom. John Ewin(g) is Sue’s step-dad.

I really like that they do such a good job of featuring both black and white Nashvillians. The stories are really good and I don’t know, maybe it’s just the time of year, or me at the end of the nine days, but I think this was the best one of these.

Holy Cow, Is This Stupid

I hope, with all my heart, that this is like the tales of the rainbow parties where kids give blowjobs in such a way as to leave rings of different kinds of lipstick on a dude’s penis (which, really, should have been a tip that this was not really happening since “I am going to briefly place my lips on your penis in order to leave this gob of colored wax” has got to be one of the least satisfying blowjobs in the history of blowjobs, second only to “I’ll get very near it, okay?” Hard to see how that would actually catch on.) and it ends up just being mostly made up and then blown out of proportion by the media.

Because, if not, holy shit, the anti-vaccination crowd has just gone from “people I think are misguided and risking their children’s health” past “people I think are misguided and risking their children’s health and the health of children who can’t be vaccinated” straight into “Holy fuck, are you stupid or evil or both?!”

Sending contagions through the mail?! Okay, no harm no foul if the virus is dead before it gets to your kid. Except, what about the mail carrier who handles your envelope? What if she’s just come back from maternity leave? Or if your mail ends up at the wrong house? Or rubberbanded in a bundle next to your neighbor’s mail? What the fuck kind of selfish asshole risks the health of everybody between her and the mom who’s sending the virus because she doesn’t trust the government?! How does that not make you some kind of bush-league terrorist? “I send contagion through the mail because I hate the government.” That’s their reasoning.

And let us pause to think about the level of complete and utter idiocy passed off under the guise of “doing what’s best for my children” of putting something in your kid’s mouth you know is going to make them sick that you don’t actually know the sender of. I mean, just dwell on every step of stupidity–you take candy from a stranger and give it to your kid. You give your kid something you know will make him or her sick, but you don’t actually know if the thing you’ve given your kid is the thing you think you’ve given your kid. What if you think you’re giving your kid a chicken-pox laden lollipop and it’s arsenic?  If you’re procuring contagions over the internet, you don’t even know that you know the truth about the person who’s sending you shit–whether the person you’re corresponding with is actually who she says she is, whether she actually has a sick kid, whether that sick kid has actually licked said lollipop. All you know about them is that they’re willing to break federal laws.

And you trust them over doctors with your kid’s well being?

And this is supposed to be safer and more natural than the chicken pox vaccine?!

These parents are very, very lucky no one’s ended up dead, yet.

Cannot Get Moving

I just cannot get moving this morning. I want to be down to the city cemetery for their historical thing early because they’re featuring Jack Macon and you know I have to go support that. But I’m still in my pajamas. And I’m having a leisurely morning farting around on the internet.

I heard back from my trusted beta-reader about the story I was most worried about and she really liked it. So, today, I clean it up and submit it. Keep moving forward, you know?

Which is harder on days when you just want to sit on the couch reading a book.