Black Opinionated Woman

S5E20 The Sacred Car Ride vs. the 11-Minute "Astronauts"

• Black Opinionated Woman • Season 5 • Episode 20

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Speaker 1 (0s): Good morning, everybody. Good morning Rose and bow ties. Those of you who are new to the channel, I'm a black woman, also known as a bow, so I just wanna get right on into it. I mean, I don't know if you guys can see me really good. Let me turn the line off for a second. I am wearing my transitions. I'm still getting used to them. I mean, they're cute though, but like, let me tell you, getting old is, let me tell you, like these transitions, I'm, I'm, well, I'm getting used to them.

All right, so look, I wanna talk about my car ride, and I'm gonna get into the 11 minute Astronauts for a moment. So for those of you who don't live in the United States, you are probably like, why is she trying to tell me about her car? Getting in the car, the car ride, the quiet car ride? Let me explain something. As you can see, I am driving to work right now, and usually by the time I get on and I create a video, six, seven minutes, I go out and drive.

Well, just because depending on where I am, you know, getting good signal, blah, blah, blah, you know, so you got all that going on. I gotta figure out which way I'm gonna go today, which lane decides which, which route I'm gonna take in multiple routes. And so when you do that, when you, when, when, when you are, when you are living in the United States and you're driving to work, or you're someone like me and you take your time before you get on because you know that depending on which route you take, there are areas where I think video reception is not as good. Based off of every once in a while I will go play back a video to see how it looks and sounds.

And when you are doing that, it's like a quiet place. It's like a secret time. And then for those of you, while you, if you're not in the United States and you're listening, I have approximately a 35 minute drive to work ish, depending on traffic. Maybe 45, but it's 30, 35 minute drive. I live a, I live a little bit out in the country. It's definitely suburbs, but probably a little bit more like country. I like it, I love it.

It's peaceful, whatever. Now I want you to listen for a second when we talk about the car ride. If, for those of you who don't live in the United States, because country is so big, see everybody like judges us based off of like, oh, you don't have really good like mass transportation, blah, blah, blah. Well, some areas are more developed for mass transportation than others, but we're not as small of a country as some of these other, like maybe European countries, for example.

We have to travel to work, right? So our vehicles become a source of comfort for us, okay? So there's certain things that we look for. Like right now, believe it or not, even though it's spring, supposedly it's April, my car scene is like 36 degrees outside now. It's supposed to be in the fifties, I think today. I don't know. Anyway, it'll warm up. So I like to have my seat heaters on. I know you guys all have these things. The point I'm making is, 'cause I know you guys all have your wonderful vehicles.

So I like to have certain things in the car, and I enjoy a certain level of peace because what happens is, and I'm going to use this more so for when I leave work, I go to a place where there's a lot of people who don't look like me. It's not the end of the world, but you constantly have to be mindful of maybe microaggressions or just cultural differences, right? So there's things that I enjoy or that other people that look like me that we enjoy that may not be shared by other people, which is totally fine.

But when you're a woman who's in a tech field, sometimes you have to be mindful of people constantly wanting to like, talk over you. Or they'll talk in a manner that's more condescending at times And they don't even realize they're doing it. Now, it's not everyone. There's a lot of great people out here. The point I'm making is when you go into work, it's kind of like you're definitely putting on your armor. And I shouldn't say it's like, like, like this is horrible place, right? But what I am saying is I definitely, I, I I, I feel like, like, like everybody brings a representative to work.

So when you are definitely at work and you're dealing with certain things, and then you get, when you leave work and you get in your car, your car becomes like this sacred place, right? I shouldn't say sacred because it's not a religious place unless you play gospel music or something. So like, it becomes a safe, it's a safe place where you can go decompress. And I actually use my vehicle for, for such, a lot of times when I get in my vehicle, I may not turn on anything at all.

Like I will enjoy a quiet ride or at least a period of time, sometimes for the whole ride, depending on what's going on. It is a place where I can actually just have my thoughts, my bow thoughts, I have my thoughts. Sometimes I think of videos. I mean, when I talk about that don't always come to fruition. Sometimes I think about things that may have transpired during the day, but oftentimes I'm mostly thinking about the things that I need to get done for the rest of my evening. You know, I got a million kids, so there, there's a million activities going on.

So, you know, my husband and I are tag teaming, right? And we try to be intentional with each other too, because we're just at, in this really busy period. Sometimes we can support both things at the same time. And sometimes we have to divide and conquer. Where I'm going with it is my vehicle becomes like this quiet place. It's place healing sometimes. 'cause it's safe in here. It is safe in here. There's times when I'm like, I can't believe this so and so, so and so, and then I move on, right?

I don't usually think about a whole lot of things. I feel like I must have the a, DD or something. But this space here, I get to be vulnerable. It's, it's my space. If I wanna be vulnerable in the car, if I want to be, if I wanna sing, if I wanna do all these things, I get to do those things in here. And there's no one in here to judge me other than me. And God, I'm trying to get around this vehicle. This vehicle is just taking his suite old time.

But this is why like my car becomes important to me. The quiet time, the solitude to be able to process things without any distraction. I can be vulnerable. I can be brave in here. If I wanna sing a song in, in a, in a way that I'm like, probably should not have been sung, you know, I, I get to do those things. Sometimes I talk to myself in a car. People probably think that I'm a little bit on the crazy side. I very well could be, but I get to be that person when I'm here.

But anyway, I get to, yeah, that, that's basically where I'm going with that. So now I wanna segue into the 11 minute Astronauts, because yeah, lemme make sure I just ripped in a couple of bullets about the quiet car, car ride. I didn't write anything down about the Astronauts, huh? All right.

So anyway, I think I hit my main points about that. All right, so this was kind of like an awkward video, but I should talk about those Astronauts for a second. Lemme see if I can turn this light off. Do I still need this light on? No. So the Astronauts, I'm not, I forgot what the official definition of an astronaut is, but I think there's also the spirit in which something is meant to be said. So I know how to cut my stake, right? And, and I can cut my stake in a way that's small and precise.

Well, precise is relative, right? But that doesn't mean I'm a surgeon, right? It doesn't mean I'm a surgeon. It doesn't mean that just someone is gonna give me a scalpel. It doesn't mean that I'm trained to be a surgeon, right? And this is probably a stretch of reach, but I think you understand the point I'm trying to make. Typically, when Astronauts go up in space, they're usually testing something, experimenting on something. They might even be collecting data on their own body, whatever, whatever, right? Because there's physiological things that we have to learn.

There's biological things that we have to learn. There's scientific things we have to learn. And so when they went into space and came back claiming to be Astronauts or someone claimed they were Astronauts, there's a spirit in which we use the word astronaut. I, for one, would not consider them Astronauts. I'm like, you didn't do a space walk. You didn't do anything. Like, I'm like, I don't, I I don't even under understand why.

And then Gail King got out there talking about, well, if this happened to, man, would you have called this, that and the other? And it's not that she's wrong for making that comment saying that this, this would've been called like a journey or odyssey, probably true. But at the end of the day, I'm like, you're not gonna gaslight us into thinking that you did some great thing. I don't know what it was that they accomplished. It was just giving secondhand embarrassment, listening to Gail King and Katie Perry talk, how she's just connected to love. Katie Perry.

I think she's talking about how she was like connected to love or something like that. And I was like, what is happening right now? What if they had gone up and just simply said, Hey, this was a dream to go up in space and to experience what it's like to float around in microgravity and that, you know, and, and, and, And they had said that, I mean, people probably still wouldn't have liked it, but they, people would've been like, okay, more rich people stuff, right? But they tried to make it seem like they, they did a thing.

And I'm like, well, what exactly did you accomplish that was advancing us? I don't see what advancement was happening. And, and maybe we've all got it wrong. Maybe it was never about advancement at all. Or maybe it was all about, you know, hugging it out with other women in face. I, I don't know, maybe there didn't have to be a purpose, but I just kind of felt like, what a way to rub this into the faces of like, people right now who work here, who, there are a lot of people who are struggling.

And so it's just kind of like adding insult to entry for more wealthy people to go up in space to hug it out and say dumb things. They said dumb things. Like I, I was just so baffled. I'm like, I don't understand what's happening here. I don't understand why. It seems like Gail King, who supposedly is a, is a journalist, can totally not read the room. I, and I think that with Gail King, she's giving me token vibes.

And like I said, tokens do get spent, right? So I, I don't understand what she was talking about. She's talking about, we asked Katie Perry a sing song. It's just, you know, I'm trying to figure out what they were doing up there and, and like, the experience is supposed to be transformative, but I wasn't quite sure exactly what they got out of it. I'm not sure what they got out of it.

You know, I don't know. What, what do you tell people? I I was floating. Well, yeah, we know you were floating, you were a micrographic, right? Like, anyone could read a book and say, okay, well you know what? You were traveling at, what is it? Is it 17,000 to 18,000 miles? I can't remember. So basically you were in a constant state of free fall, right? So you had the effect of the earth's gravitational pull on your body, but you were in free fall. 'cause you were, you were traveling at a speed that allowed you to constantly try to escape earth's gravity, even though you, you can't escape it.

But like, I mean, you can, but like, you weren't going pass him to escape it, but it was just kind of catching the state of free fall, right? So now you're experiencing microgravity, you're still experiencing like, I think 90% of earth's gravitational pool or whatever it is. A lot of people think that you're completely not experiencing any gravity in space. And that's not true at the Space Station. If I remember correctly, you're experiencing the effect of 88% of earth's gravitational pull on you. Right? But you, but, but what I'm saying is they're far enough the way, and they're traveling fast, fast enough that they are not constantly being put on the ground.

So yes, you're experiencing weightlessness because you are in a constant state of free fall. You don't have what's called the normal force. Now this is old, this is like physics that I'm pulling out from like, so many years ago. There's like, I think this what's called like the normal force. That force of when you're sitting in a seat and you are not, you are no longer free falling. Now you have your, you have a certain amount of weight based off of the gravitational pole, and you have a force that is exerted upon you. That is, that's the force that is allowing you to no longer fall, right?

I don't even know where I was going with that whole part of the ran. Well anyway, the point is, I'm trying to figure out how this whole experience was transformative. I don't know what they were trying to accomplish. It was giving secondhand embarrassment. Gail King and Katie Perry just could not read the room. It was just a waste in resources. Like what did we accomplished? Did we start growing plants in 11 minutes? Like, I don't, I don't understand what the 11 minutes weightlessness was supposed to do, unless, the only thing I could think of is for, you know, being supposed to say like, here's another space ride.

You know, this vehicle is pa has had this many space launches. And maybe they are using that as a way of saying yes. And so, because we've launched stuff into space and, And they have returned successfully, maybe they're looking for grants or something to start building something else. I don't know. I know there's something else at plain, but these women, I don't know why they, they sent them up there. They could have sent a whole bunch of cats for all I know.

Anyway, I was just confused. The, the, the, they, they sound dumb. And it was just one big, I don't know, like pr stunt it, it made no sense. And now they seem to be like trying to like convince us like it was, it was what, what they did was so great.

I'm just like, I, I cut food all the time. Does that make me a surgeon? Right? If, if I, you know, I, I don't, I, I don't, I don't, I'm just so confused. And I, I just stopped really even caring about Gail King anyway because she's giving me pickney vibes and, and token vibes anyway, especially after, was it, was it, what was it that she, it's been a while now, but it kind of like run me the wrong way about like one of the young black men, I think that was shot and killed.

Or maybe it was that interview. I can't remember. But she's, she's too much. She's too much. I don't really care for her. I think she's fake. I think I, I just, I don't know. Anyway, that was my little rant. And just so I can circle back to the car situation, this has been this, right? As of right now, it says that I've been live for 16 minutes and 27 seconds. And remember I've been driving for another five or six minutes or whatever before I came live and I have another 10 or 15 minutes of driving.

So now you know why we talk about our cars so much. Our cars become important because we spend time in them. We spend quite a time in them. You gotta remember when you're going, like if you're living in Europe or someplace And they talk about how far something is they talk about in terms of distance for us, when we talk about how far something is we talk about in terms of driving time. Okay. Alright. That's all I got. Shout out to my transitions.

Yeah, shout out to transitions. I'm, I'm trying to get my life together now. I do have a pair of glasses, the darkening glasses that are cute. By the way, do I have them in the car with me? Oh yeah. Let me pull 'em out real quick. They are cute, but it's not like the sun is out right now, now. So I don't need them. You know, aren't these cute? These are my darkening glasses. But they don't get super dark when they're in the car. When you get out of the car, they get dark. 'cause I already have UV light lighting or whatever they say. They don't really work in cars as much.

They'll get a little bit darker. So I actually keep my regular sunglasses in the car. I know you guys are like, why is she yammering so much? Because I can't, it's because I can't. I just felt like I'm in a yammering kind of mood. And I haven't even began sipping on my coffee. Thought about that. Okay, maybe I should get off now because I'm not seeing anything meaningful. Kind of like the, the woman who went up in space for 11 minutes and called themselves Astronauts, the 11 minute Astronauts. I was like, what is happening here?

All right, so go ahead and subscribe to my channel because I am practically perfect in every way and practically could do no wrong. You know, this is the, the, this is a channel you need to listen to and let me know your bot thoughts. Seriously. I'm curious to think what other content you think I should be speaking on. I need to start coming back on more often, but I've had to like distance myself. 'cause I didn't really have a whole lot to say. I just didn't even feel like being on camera a whole lot.

I just needed some time. But, all right, so next time.

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