Death of a Shower Curtain

I bought this oh so nice shower curtain for my old apartment. A month or so ago, my old landlord installed a shower door and I retired the curtain. It's been sitting around, needing a washing, until we moved into our new place. It was dirty from being stuffed in a corner of my old studio. It needed a cleaning. The tag said dry clean only. I thought, heh, I'll just wash it. So I did.

I should've thought to not dry it in the dryer, but I didn't. It came out of the dryer about 1/2 the size it was when it went in. I'm taller than the curtain by a head.

The death of a shower curtain. But will we be able to find another use for it? Can it be a table cover? Can it be a mini picnic spread? I dunno. But I am sad. My big boy shower curtain is dead.

Comments

[Melissa]

"My big boy shower curtain is dead."

Aww, That was too cute. I grieve for your shower curtain and I'm sure one day you'll find another one worthy of your love. :)

[Jerome Gaskins]

I see you've forgotten about Ms. Figueroa as well...

[Jerome Gaskins]

She's dead:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/08/20/Philadelphia.missing.ap/index.html

[Jerome Gaskins]

here's the CNN video (WMF): http://www.cnn.com/video/player/player.html?url=/video/us/2005/08/20/misisng.philly.woman.affl

[Jerome Gaskins]

Can you help keep her plight in the spotlight? Can you help to arrange now for a public trial of this bastard who killed this woman and her baby? PLEASE???

I'm in El Paso, TX, but I'm a Philadelphian. There has indeed been a dearth of coverage of LaToyia. The best efforts got her story covered once in July, and just today. No outrage, just a matter of fact entry in the ledger that is the mainstream news. A few people lamenting the "facts" and statistics of why her abduction was insignificant.

Are you going to just let this continue? Are you going to let LaToyia die as if she was insignificant as they say she is? Are you just going to accept that America is a LIE unless you are white?

Or are you going to support this issue and, at the very least, find out why she was killed thru a public trial?

[ALa]

Shower curtains can be great for re-covering kitchen chairs or for making throw pillows (or a valance for the bathroom that will match if you re-purchase the same one)

I love the Mitch Hedberg line:
"All my shirts are 'dry clean only'...that means they're --dirty." ;)

[albert]

Jerome-
There has been a steady stream of coverage of LaToyia's case for the past month largely due to the efforts of Rick at ASZ and the entire Philadelphia blogging community of which I am a part.

Are you going to just let this continue? Are you going to let LaToyia die as if she was insignificant as they say she is? Are you just going to accept that America is a LIE unless you are white?
Or are you going to support this issue and, at the very least, find out why she was killed thru a public trial?

I have no idea where this attack is coming from. What are you doing? What have you done? I know that Richard, the community at PhillyFuture, other local bloggers and myself will keep up the heat in a case that we all volunteered to become a part of. What's the point of throwing this stone needlessly at me? What the fuck crawled up your ass and died?

[albert]

ALa-
I hate pillows! Thanks for the options though. Dunno what will become of that thing. It'll be put aside for now, we still have tons of more pressing things to deal with in the new place.

[Jerome Gaskins]

I know, Albert. It's just that I heard about her death by chance, because I was flipping past CNN. It was all of the coverage of her, and I felt (and still feel) the begrudging manner with which her plight was treated reminded me of the attacks on black civil rights almost from the day the laws were passed:

It's okay for the media to spend millions of dollars covering dead white people like Joan-Benet Ramsey years after the child is dead. It's fine to spend countless hours looking for and pursuing almost as a nation some little white chick that goes somewhere to spend money getting drunk and I won't say what else I think she was doing. This "child" was old enough to act like an adult, right? So where's the criticism of her for being so damned naive that her life is now gone???

Day in and out it's nothing but a constant stream of what white people do on TV. Anything about a brown person gets extruded thru the square hole that is America's distorted perspective of the lives and values of them.

LaToyia's plight hurt me in my heart. She was a woman living her life and guiding her children, but when are we gonna see a memorial service for her? When is her biography gonna be written? Hell, it seems to me that nobody even cares why the bastard killed her!!!!!

I got caught up in her. It wasn't hard to do: anyone who saw her would love to have her for sister, wife, child or just a good friend. But I'll never know anything about her life other than she was 5 months pregnant, she visited a friend when she came from her doctor's office, she was abducted and one month later the man she trusted was dumping her lifeless body in an empty lot.

Talk is cheap. We BARELY got her onto CNN, and I'm sure they felt safe dropping her like a bad idea because THERE WAS NO FOLLOW-UP. Folks flocked to her plight but treated her like a lapel button. Now that she's dead, who's even gonna save that memory?

Now, I've heard a lot about the pile of unsolved cases, and I know one thing: if you people who were so passionate about the plight of non-white victims of crime, you will follow this issue thru until the status quo is no longer.

There are many women and children that LaToyia represents. What are you, as a media device, gonna do for them? Aren't they more important than Matt Drudge's eating and sexual habits?

Otherwise, stop bullshitting people about how much you want to end racism and support the issues of women and children. If you can't handle something as important as this, what good is the damned "blogosphere"?

[albert]

Her memorial service was yesterday and the story was front paged today on Philly.com, the website for the Inky and DN, it get's more hits than the cable networks have viewers. I don't watch much TV so I can't tell you how much coverage it got on the local or national channels.

There are many women and children that LaToyia represents. What are you, as a media device, gonna do for them? Aren't they more important than Matt Drudge's eating and sexual habits?
Otherwise, stop bullshitting people about how much you want to end racism and support the issues of women and children. If you can't handle something as important as this, what good is the damned "blogosphere"?

Are you trying to say that I give a fuck about what Sludge eats and fucks? I don't. Have you read through my blog at all? Stop bullshitting me. Who the fuck said I can't handle this? You? Well, fuck off. If you don't think the people who helped bring this case to national attention [the bloggers] are doing good, then why don't you go change the world in a different manner or start a blog yourself and start a community of you own and dictate it as you see fit.

[Jerome Gaskins]

I don't know how to do blogs. Tried.

What I want is for you guys to make sure your buddies in the other media don't starrt slacking off again. LaToyia should not just be a bone thrown to appease this issue's supporters. As often as a Laci Peterson hits the airwaves, some non-white woman's plight should be there, right beside her. I want it to be reflexive for them, and I know you guys can do it, but right now I do doubt your (general) committment.

Don't take it personal, it's what happens when you're not white in America and someone white claims to care or wants to be supportive. Can you blame me? And no, I was speaking generally when I mentioned Drudge.

Now, about that anger I provoked: guess I didn't make it clear that I was speaking about "you" in the general sense. I do that sometimes because I think, as I write what I do, that it should be plain from the context that I'm not talking about a specific person. In this case, my use of "you people" is what distinguished what followed as not being personal.

Am I being clear this time? I want you people, who have shown that you can get the media's attention enough to bring a situation like LaToyia's to the national stage, to make sure she does not disappear from that stage until America is as aware of the abductions and killings of non-white women and children as they are when some white woman or child goes missing. I want you people to step up to the plate and destroy the racism that we see in our everyday images. Because that's what it sounded like you wanted to do when LaToyia was shown as missing.

I'm not asking. The time for that is over. I am demanding. No, I haven't done any polls, and I don't know all the stats, but all of the black people I know feel this way. It is time for white people to respect all of the rest of us as you respect yourselves. I don't want to hear anymore about what racism has done, I want to see what America is doing EVERYDAY to end racism in all of its forms.

Now, I hope I've made it clear that I did not attack you personally. I'm trying to change a bad thing by holding your community accountable for what it has already acknowledged as wrong. I want your community to take all the steps necessary to correct it. I obviously do not know how to get it done myself, else it would be done.

I want you to help LaToyia live on, like Amber does when children go missing. You know how to mobilize people to get this done. All I'm doing is reminding you that the job isn't done.

[Jerome Gaskins]

Oh, by the way: I am doing this only becase my heart is Philadelphia. I don't want any credit for any thing that comes of what I'm trying to catalyze, I just want it done.

I just hope that you'll take me seriously and, along with other bloggers, make it impossible for anyone to think or believe that they can abduct ANY woman or child, and not have the weight of America brought down upon their sorry ass.

[albert]

Jerome-
I don't know how to do blogs. Tried.
That's a shitty excuse/attitude. Granted, blogging isn't for everyone, but there's a difference between not knowing 'how to do blogs' and actually trying and ending up not liking it. And it's so easy to go on someone else's blog and just rant away, isn't it?

Don't take it personal, it's what happens when you're not white in America and someone white claims to care or wants to be supportive. Can you blame me?
And to clarify, I'm not white. I more than claim to care, I'm acting. So why not blame you?

Now, about that anger I provoked: guess I didn't make it clear that I was speaking about "you" in the general sense. I do that sometimes because I think, as I write what I do, that it should be plain from the context that I'm not talking about a specific person. In this case, my use of "you people" is what distinguished what followed as not being personal.
When you come onto someone's personal blog and start firing of "you this" and "you that" how else am I supposed to take it? You obviously started off by attacking me with your first invective comment I see you've forgotten about Ms. Figueroa as well...

No, I haven't done any polls, and I don't know all the stats, but all of the black people I know feel this way. It is time for white people to respect all of the rest of us as you respect yourselves. I don't want to hear anymore about what racism has done, I want to see what America is doing EVERYDAY to end racism in all of its forms.
You should do just the teensiest bit of research before labelling people. Once again, I'm not white.

I want your community to take all the steps necessary to correct it. I obviously do not know how to get it done myself, else it would be done.
Now it's solely up to the few thousand bloggers to change how the world looks at racism? And how easy it is to just toss it aside for someone else to handle. Maybe you should lend a hand, but then, you selflessly don't want the credit for it, so why bother even getting more involved, right?

I want things to change too. I don't know what it would take for you to understand and it's not a big concern of mine if you don't understand. I'm going to do my part. I think I make a difference, no matter how small. I don't know what you've done at all.

I just hope that you'll take me seriously
When are you prepared to take me seriously? To take the words and actions of a large network of bloggers who brought this single case to the national forefrunt seriously? We've acted already. I'm continuing and I'm sure other Philly bloggers will continue to do the same.

[Jerome Gaskins]

I did take you seriously. I apologize for not knowing the right way to express myself, keeping my frustration in check or doing the necessary research. I came here and posted because I had just found out that she was dead. I learned of her abduction here. It had been a happy day because I had just discovered your blog. My mood changed to embarassment and a rage started when I read about her. Every time I heard about that Aruba girl I wondered about and prayed for LaToyia, and my rage toward the media grew.

I'm a little embarassed about pissing you off, but I hoped you would understand. People listen to you and your group of bloggers, they don't listen to me. I felt helpless to affect what I see on TV, but I saw that you guys did.

Then it seemed like you guys had dropped the ball. "How is it that CNN is telling me about her, but none of the blogs seem to notice?" is what I thought.

I'm not one to normally say much about racism, even in the cases where I suspect it happening to me, because I know how easy it is to mistake someone's intentions. But while I was writing here, all that I felt in private came out. I didn't think much about the details. I felt desperate to make the world see that people do care when this thing happens, people who have more dimensions than thuggery, extreme entertainment, "cutely bad" grammar and "minority" status.

What else can I say? I didn't want to anger you, but I intended to keep as much attention on her as possible.

As for me and blogs, email me and I'll show you what I tried. I visit it every now and then, but more and more it's like returning to the scene of an accident. Then you'll see why I feel I tried and failed.