Gen X

Curse therapy

~ MaryG ~ 13 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What strategies do you use to cope with negative feelings?
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My strategy depends on the particular shade of negativity I’m experiencing.

Since 2016, I’ve been mad – a lot. Anger can be channeled into productivity, but sometimes it needs to be unleashed. I find swearing to be one of the best ways to deal with anger. Sometimes (usually after watching the news), I let rip a loud string of F-bombs and then I can move on. Thank goodness my husband and I are 100% in agreement on politics. I don’t know how anyone is surviving in a politically “mixed marriage” at this point.

Do you remember when Trump visited Scotland in 2016? The coverage of their reaction was the absolute best. Does any other brand of English-speakers curse more creatively than the Scots? I don’t fucking think so.

Related posts:

GenX Mom not Calm

March stew

~ MaryG ~ 10 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What activities do you lose yourself in?
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March in New England 😑

It’s when we get our first good look at the snowplow damage.

Now that I have extra time and fewer obligations (no job, no kids at home), I’ve been enjoying cooking more. I wouldn’t exactly say I “lose myself” in it, but I’ve been enjoying eating what I make a lot more, especially if it’s something new and different. In my opinion, a glass of wine or a bit of weed before dinner will enhance your savoring experience. Taste the flavors, enjoy them, eat SLOWLY.

I recently shared some soups and stews from New York Times Cooking. I have one more for you. It’s similar to the Tortellini Soup, but it adds chicken (so it’s heartier) and is made in the crockpot, rather than the Dutch Oven (Le Creuset). It’s easy and good. NYT recipe attached (for free). My only note would be to avoid “Muir Glen” canned tomatoes. They just don’t taste as good as some of the other brands.

Here’s how mine came out:

Lots of healthy spinach in this stew
Slow-Cooker Chicken Tortellini Tomato Soup Recipe – NYT Cooking.pdfDownload

Star Wars & the musicals

~ MaryG ~ 7 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What movies or TV series have you watched more than 5 times?
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As an adult, I’ve not been a big re-watcher of movies, or re-reader of books for that matter. Once is usually enough. Sometimes, if I really like a movie, I’ll see it twice in a movie theater. As an adult, I saw both Good Will Hunting and Barbie twice on the big screen.

As a kid, I watched a few movies five or more times. Other than Star Wars, they were all musicals:

Sound of Music (1965)

Leisl and Rolf in the gazebo

Stars Wars (the original 1977 film)

Grease (1978)

Hair (1979)

For the musicals, I also bought the soundtrack albums, so I could listen to them over and over, and act them out with my neighborhood friends. I remember fights over whose turn it was to be Liesl (from Sound of Music) and whose brother could be roped into playing her Nazi boyfriend Rolf. Unfortunately, nobody in the neighborhood had a gazebo, so we had to act that one out by jumping on and off living room sofas. (I am 16… going on 17…thud)

For Star Wars, I bought the sheet music for the main theme by the great John Williams and learned to play it on the piano. I still have it.

I had to pencil in the base notes, because they fell so far from below the staff lines.

Has a more perfect movie theme ever been composed? Are you really even GenX if this piece of music doesn’t give you at least a couple of goosebumps?

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…

Related post:

Favorite films seen on the big screen

Dragonflies

~ MaryG ~ 8 Comments
Daily writing prompt
Are you superstitious?
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No, I’m not superstitious, but my grandmother Lena was. She was an “Old World” Italian-American. She used to say something about dragonflies. I think it was that they would sew your ears shut, if you were bad (or maybe if you lied).

It’s funny, because I’ve always liked dragonflies, but from just one Google search, I see that there are tons of superstitions around them, many involving sewing things shut. I guess they do resemble sewing needles a bit.

I have a dragonfly necklace, dragonfly Christmas ornaments, and more than one dragonfly pin. I like how they look as if one randomly landed on your shirt or jacket.

My favorite dragonfly pin

And how about those dragonfly ornithopters in Dune: Part Two? Those were cool!

Related post:

My two grandmothers

Dear Mary

~ MaryG ~ 7 Comments
Daily writing prompt
Write a letter to your 100-year-old self.
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Dear Centenarian Mary,

Congratulations! We made it to the big ten-oh. I hope 2065 is treating us well and that we haven’t run out of money. Seriously, we’ve lived 8 years longer than our financial planner modeled. (I hope I didn’t fuck us by retiring at 58.)

In case you’ve forgotten, 2024 was quite a year. If the United States is now a dictatorship under Baron Trump, it’s not due to lack of effort on our part. We worked hard to try to stop his wretched orange father from overturning democracy.

Here we our with our activist friends in 2024

Hopefully things took a turn for the better in 2025—the year we turned 60. Hopefully. Fingers crossed that we get to go out on a high note.

Love,

Middle-aged Mary

Related post:

The Big One

Roma 🇮🇹

~ MaryG ~ 4 Comments
Daily writing prompt
Where would you go on a shopping spree?
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OK, so it’s fantasy Saturday?

I’d be miraculously transported to Rome, with no airports, passports or wait times involved. (Beam me up, Scotty)

I’d spend the morning shopping on the Via del Corso and then head over to Trastevere for the afternoon. I would replace the buttery-soft, knee-length black leather coat that I bought on my semester abroad (which was subsequently stolen in NYC) and also get some new black leather gloves and whatever the heck else I want (it’s a fantasy, right?)

I would have plenty of time to take breaks in outdoor cafés. The weather would be 70 degrees and sunny. My feet would not hurt. My husband would cheerily accompany into every single store and carry my purchases without complaint. The dollar/euro exchange rate would be in my favor.

My friend Andreada and me in NYC in 1988. This is the one and only picture of my Italian black leather coat. It was so soft. It got stolen that very night from my chair in a Manhattan bar.

Related posts:

Semester abroad

Europe calls me – still

Honor Thy Mother

~ MaryG ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
What is your middle name? Does it carry any special meaning/significance?
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I’ve posted before about my double name: Mary Sue. Sue is my mother’s name, so I like it. Most of us get our last names from our fathers (because patriarchy), so it’s nice to get your first and/or middle name from your mother, or your mother’s side of the family. We followed that tradition with our kids.

I kept my own last name when I got married (even though it’s much harder than my husband’s to pronounce and spell). This could’ve caused a fight about our kids’ last name, but it didn’t, because I’m a pragmatist and a feminist. 😉

My mom and me, late 1960s

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY

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Freaky Friday

Novel lessons

~ MaryG ~ 1 Comment
Daily writing prompt
What is the last thing you learned?
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Sometimes I feel guilty that I read mostly fiction books. Typically, I read a couple of memoir-type nonfiction books each year (i.e. Michelle Obama, Anne Lamott, Prince Harry – couldn’t resist!), but I don’t prioritize the big, serious nonfiction bestsellers, like The Persuaders, which I know I should read.

Still, I learn a lot from novels by great writers. (I realize this is not an amazing revelation. Readers of fiction know this already.) Great novelists do so much in-depth research that you end up learning a lot of stuff, while engrossed in the lives of fictional characters.

Yesterday, I finished “Unsheltered” by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Barbara Kingsolver. As with all Kingsolver books, I learned new things about the natural world, but I also learned a few things about Cuba in this one. There’s an endearing character named Tig, a GenZ anti-capitalist who has returned to the US after a year in Cuba. She tells her mother about “the yellow guy” (El Amarillo) in Cuba, which is a government-organized hitchhiking facilitation system. (The facilitators wear yellow/beige uniforms.)

Who knew? I mean, it doesn’t put Cuba on my bucket list or anything, but it’s interesting that they’ve found a way to cut down on all the wasted seats—in all the gas-guzzling vehicles—that are heading to the exact same destinations. American soccer moms could use a yellow guy.

A yellow guy in Cuba

Related post:

Book group

Are you retired?

~ MaryG ~ 19 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What is one question you hate to be asked? Explain.
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Having recently been through a bunch of toxic workplace bullshit that resulted in me resigning my position a couple years earlier than originally planned, I’m not loving the question, “So, are you retired now?”

I mean, yeah, I guess I am. I can afford to stop working for money now. But it does feel unusual and rather lazy, when nearly every other able-bodied person my age is still working full-time.

I know, I know. This is a First World problem that I’m lucky to have.

If I answer unenthusiastically, “yeah, I guess so,” sometimes I get “oh, I only ask because you look too young to be retired,” which is 100% the correct way to recover from asking me the question in the first place. Playing to someone’s vanity, when put your foot in your mouth, can work quite well.

Selfie, March 2023

The one question that is truly non-recoverable from, if you ask the wrong woman, is: “when are you due?” Just don’t. Ever.