Gentle Readers, Please Keep This in Mind

 Dear Gentle Readers,  

 

I no longer have any home internet access.

 

I can access the internet only in public places. I am in a public place now.

 

My ability to accomplish anything in public places is limited.

 

I am a lifetime workaholic and I have spent much of my working years doing the kind of manual labor that a blue-collar child of Eastern European, peasant immigrants does. I have been a cleaning woman, a live-in domestic servant, a cashier, landscaper, carpenter, door-to-door canvasser, exam reader, tutor, zoo keeper, pet sitter …

 

But I've spent almost all of my life reading and writing. Certainly I spent my years as a graduate student and as an adjunct professor hunched over books, student papers, and computer screens.

 

I now am disabled when it comes to this work. I have a chronic pain condition and I need physical therapy, serious prescription medicine, and mechanical support to read a book, to write anything, and certainly to work at a computer, and I can't access what I need to function when using computers in a public place, so the amount of time I can spend computing in a public space is limited to perhaps thirty minutes on a good day. In any case, the nearest – safe – public library is miles away from where I live and I'm lucky if I can make it there once a week.

 

Paterson has a public library. It's a lovely, antique building constructed in better days. It's on Martin Luther King Way and near the intersection with Rosa Parks Boulevard. Lots of shootings there. I almost never go to that building. I hope and pray that the day comes when it is safer, and when Patersonians make different decisions about their lives.

 

Twenty years ago, I had, and could afford, an Earthlink dial-up home connection. If I remember correctly, it cost me about $20 monthly. I also had, and could afford, a landline phone. After Earthlink disappeared, I shared an internet connection with a near neighbor. She had the account, and I paid her a, to me, affordable portion of her bill. She moved, and I began sharing with another person. That deal has similarly ended, and I can't afford to pay for my own home account.

 

Yes, I go to public places to check on things, but that ability is limited by the above-mentioned factors.

 

For blog readers specifically, I say the following. I have wanted nothing more in my life than to do the work I've done in my publications and on this blog. I want to educate as many people as possible about Poland and Polonia, and about why the Brute Polak stereotype is wrong.

 

For the most part, I have done all this for free. I have gone several winters, in Indiana, of all places, without heat. I have gone without health care, which damaged my body. I was repeatedly told I was the wrong ethnicity, the wrong politics, the wrong social class, the wrong skin color, the wrong religion – yes – in these words exactly – to be considered for a tenure-track job. Polonia tsk tsked, but offered, again, for the most part, no support. I've lived my entire life well below the poverty line. Tsk, tsk.

 

I don't mention these facts for pity. Internet pity is worthless. And believe me Poles will just tell you to quit yer whinin'. I offer these facts because, Polonia, you ask why your story is so rarely told. Your story is rarely told, my dears, because you don't, for the most part, support those who do the telling.

 

And here I am, someone, who, in however small a way, tried to tell your story, and I can't, now, afford something as simple as a home internet connection to get even a word of that story out.

 

On a more practical level, please know the following:

 

I will, alas, be slower to respond to any messages you send me or your comments on posts here. I wish I could respond more quickly. Verbal communication, whether written or oral, in person or via international deep sea cables, means a great deal to me. When someone says something to me, it keeps me awake nights if I can't respond in a timely manner.

 

Please forgive me if I am slow to respond to you, or if I don't respond at all. Please keep all of the above in mind.

 

I very much do want to post others' work on this blog. A couple of people have written to me asking me to post their work. I want to do that!

 

Anyone reading this, if you have material appropriate for this blog, please send it to me.

 

Please do the following:

 

Send it in absolutely FINISHED format. Do not ask for editorial changes after it appears.

 

Send it in Times New Roman or Arial font. No added spaces between paragraphs. Don't use italics or bold. Use quotes around titles rather than italics. Double spaced. Send as a WORD or compatible attachment.

 

Thank you. Trzymaj sie.

 

Facebook darlings: I will post this on Facebook as well. Please read the above post before responding, and note that I have no home internet access. I will most probably not see your posts, or be able to respond to them. In the limited time I have in public internet-access places, I am handling emails from doctors, from insurance companies, etc. I would love to chat with you, as I have done for years, but those days are now gone. I apologize for not being able to engage in a back-and-forth conversation with you, or to read the private messages you have sent, or to read and respond to them slowly. Without an internet connection, we are no longer audible to each other. USPS still works. Be understanding. Thanks.