Personal Musings

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.

Keep on Moving Forward

~ MaryG ~ 2 Comments
Daily writing prompt
How has a failure, or apparent failure, set you up for later success?
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Sometimes failure is just failure. The plays I didn’t get cast in, the rejection from my first-choice college, the math class I dropped because it was too hard, and the fellowship and jobs I didn’t get, are all examples of times I objectively failed.

People talk a lot about “grit and resilience,” usually in the context of blaming today’s parents for being too protective and helicopter-y. Well, failure forces you to build those qualities, even if your parents somehow messed-up.

What other choice do you have in the face of failure? You gotta keep going.

“Keep on Moving Forward” by Emma’s Revolution is my all-time favorite protest song. I think it inspires personal fortitude, as well as strength to keep fighting for a better world.

KEEP ON MOVING FORWARD
© 1984 Pat Humphries
Moving Forward Music, BMI
www.emmasrevolution.com

Gonna keep on moving forward
Keep on moving forward
Keep on moving forward
Never turning back
Never turning back

Gonna keep on moving proudly
Gonna keep on singing loudly
Gonna keep on loving boldly
Gonna reach across our borders
Gonna end the occupations
Gonna stop these wars together
Gonna keep on moving forward

Pat Humphries and Sandy O (Emma’s Revolution)

IT’S SUPER TUESDAY in the USA. Don’t waste your right to vote.

Alabama
Alaska
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Maine
Massachusetts
Minnesota
North Carolina
Oklahoma
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia

Gadgets (and a brief survey)

~ MaryG ~ 4 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What are three objects you couldn’t live without?
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I’m assuming nobody wants to hear about how dependent I am on my phone, car and TV. I’m thinking favorite gadgets might be more interesting?

Per Merriam-Webster, a gadget is “an often small mechanical or electronic device with a practical use, but often thought of as a novelty.”

Based on that definition, my top three gadgets du jour are:

My Ember smart mug, which is pictured here. It keeps my coffee warm for a very long time. No need to nuke it* over and over again.

My Oxo citrus squeezer, which is pictured here. I bought it at Whole Foods. It’s the perfect size for juicing limes, specifically.

My Pure Enrichment tabletop humidifier. I like it because it also has a calming blue light. I bought it for $35 at CVS two years ago, kept the receipt, and the company sent me a new one this year when the original developed a slight crack. I like a company that stands behind its products.

*Nuke it means “microwave it” in the above context. My GenZ son thinks that my husband and I made this up and that nobody else in the whole wide world says “nuke it.” If you would kindly let me know whether or not you say “nuke it” when you mean “put it in the microwave oven” and (if comfortable) your approximate age and home country, I would be very grateful. (The results may be used to convince my son that I am not weird.)

TYIA

The College Experience

~ MaryG ~ 17 Comments
Daily writing prompt
What experiences in life helped you grow the most?
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For me, there was no greater growth experience than college. The college experience is like no other. The sheer number of new people and new ideas you’re exposed to in a short timeframe is bound to change even the most “set in their ways” 18-year old.

I was lucky my parents paid the bills and my college had no core requirements whatsoever, so I could take whatever classes I wanted—from poetry to Russian history. (Amazingly, I didn’t take a single science class.) Throw in my semester abroad, internships, guest speakers, drug experimentation, and a winter trip to the Soviet Union, and it really was a mind-expanding time for me.

Hanging out in college: my roommates Ann and Carla and other friends in our on-campus apartment in 1984 or 85. The three of us shared one bedroom, but we had a nice living room and a kitchen.

It’s sad that the liveaway college experience has become so expensive and debt-producing. It’s not fair. I think the four-year model needs to go. Three years of college is plenty, and would be significantly cheaper. “Uni” – as they call it in the UK – is only three years. I mean, maybe a few select majors (like Engineering) need four years, but everyone else (Liberal Arts, Fine Arts, Business, etc.) could be done in three.

Speaking of the college experience, we went to see One Love, the Bob Marley biopic, based on DanLovesFilm’s recommendation (American critics be damned) and I had fun. There are definitely some weaknesses in the script and I had a hard time understanding the Jamaican/Rastafarian accent, but the music is the music and it’s great. Marley is played by Kingsley Ben-Adir and he’s 🔥

Kingsley Ben-Adir as Bob Marley

So, GenX: I recommend you have yourself a cocktail or a weed gummy (or both) and go see One Love. You’ll have a good time jamming in your theater seat to one of our key college soundtracks.

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Legend

College: 80s edition

Semester Abroad

Back in the USSR

Ralph Nader

Pragmatist

~ MaryG ~ 1 Comment
Daily writing prompt
Do you believe in fate/destiny?
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Honestly, no. And I don’t believe in “soulmates” either. (I don’t think there’s just one person for each us.)

We have free will. And choices. And circumstances. And plain old luck – good and bad.

I guess I’m not a romantic. I’m more of a pragmatic pragmatist.

Rose Reflected, one of my drawings from college

Drawing

Under One Roof

~ MaryG ~ 4 Comments

Describe a phase in life that was difficult to say goodbye to.

There’s a phase of life that ends before true empty-nesterhood begins. It’s the “under one roof” phase.

As a young mother, it’s hard to get to sleep at night until all your kids are home in their beds. You want the whole family under one roof – safe. This gets more challenging as your children grow up. They’re out with friends and it gets late. They say they’re on the way, but what if something happens? Sleepovers, camp and other things sometimes require you to go to sleep with your kids NOT under your roof, but in those cases, I always made sure the ringer on both the landline and my cell phone were turned on high. If someone called, I wanted to hear it.

The “under one roof” phase inevitably ends and you just have to accept it. It’s very hard at first. What if they’re not safe? What if there’s an accident? Eventually, with practice, you can get to sleep having no idea where your offspring are.

As Hillary Clinton once said, “having a child is like deciding to let your heart forever walk around outside your body.” Letting go of the “under one roof” phase is just another step in the process.

Freaky Friday

~ MaryG ~ 6 Comments

If you could be someone else for a day, who would you be, and why?

I think this may be a GenX thing: a question like today’s prompt automatically makes you think of the movie “Freaky Friday” that came out in 1977 with Jodie Foster and Barbara Harris.

It’s about a girl and her mother who wake-up in each other’s bodies on Friday the 13th and have to live life as the other one for the day. (It was remade in 2003 with Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis.)

There’s something about the mother-daughter relationship that makes the premise of these films irresistible (to girls anyway). If only she got me.

When you’re young, nobody can bug you quite like your mother. It’s a special skill! But I assure you, nobody—and I mean nobody—is ever going to love you like she does.

At 58, I am very lucky to still have my mother (and father) with me on earth. I am just wrapping-up a nice visit with them in Florida.

Mom and me on Saturday night

Related post:

Honor Thy Mother