Happy Father's Day!

I'm reposting an entry from several years ago when I blogged on Live Journal. I've written some about my father before, and when I do, I almost always end up in tears and being incredibly mushy (or as he would have said with an eyebrow raised, Tender). So I guess I never venture too far into what I feel about loving him and missing him because, well, because I'm afraid I might never get out. The last paragraph of this, the last sentences--that says it all. I'm sharing it with you today because I can't with him.

The World Cup--and Harold darling...

It's a draw--1::1, USA and Italy. {Sound of cheers}!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm sure a computer saavy person could actually give you a link to that sound, but it ain't me.

I can't believe I actually watched the game. I didn't intend to. I turned the TV on to just hang out for a while, and there the game was. And I never moved throughout. I'm amazed at myself.

I've never been a sports fan particularly. My father, from whom I would have gotten the bug, wasn't a a sports fan either. He was a star fullback, first for Cornell, and then for one of the early league teams, the Long Island Bulldogs--or maybe it was the BlueBells. He played in the days when the helmets were leather caps and the only padding they had was Kotex. He considered contemporary players, with their complicated underlay of plastic and metal, to be (his word) sissies. So I never learned to love games by sitting on his knee. I learned to love reading by sitting on his knee. And arguing any topic at any time whatsoever....

...it's a funny thing about this blog. I started out to write about watching the soccer and how I couldn't believe how absorbed I was in it and how it took me back to that time long ago and far away, when I loved a footballer in England and spent many a Saturday watching him play...

...but then my thoughts took a right hand turn to my father--and I suddenly realized that tomorrow is Father's Day.

Happy Father's Day, Dad. You would love all the new stuff computers can do. You would cheer my blog on and write Anonymous comments and maybe you'd have your own blog. I miss you. I miss your mind and your wit. And I miss the way you loved me. And liked me. Especially that.

Tim Russert: Some thoughts

I wasn't going to watch NBC's special "Remembering Tim Russert." It seemed like too much, another time when the news goes into entertainment mode, hyping a sad occasion into a three-ring orgy produced to wring tears and ratings.

I heard the news where I hear most news these days, on-line, from Twitter posts actually. I watched CNNs pathetically maudlin coverage this afternoon while I rode the bike at the gym and then turned to NBC, figuring they would do something more dignified, something that didn't smack of having to fill the 24 hour news cycle. But NBC was showing Tiger Woods playing golf. I tuned in later to NBC's Evening News, assuming they would give Russert the kind of dignified, two-minute send off that they have done for other collegues who have died. Instead, the entire half hour program was devoted to talking heads, one journalist or politician after another after another, each with a minute or so with some memory of Tim Russert. Nothing else happened in the world today, according the NBC News. No fires in California or floods in the MidWest. There were no demonstrations in Pakistan and although the Nightly News originated tonight in the Middle East, nothing of note happened there either. Tim Russert died today, and that was, it seemed, all the news fit to broadcast. So I wasn't going to watch another hour from NBC. What for? What more could be said? And, more important I thought, why was NBC doing this?

But I did watch it, and from it I got some, not answers so much as elaborations on my questions. I'm putting them out here because I want to know what you think. To answer the last first, I think that NBC did it because the individual journalists involved were so full of grief and shock that they were collectively taking us, the viewing public, by the collar and saying, "Look, this is who this man was. You didn't know him like we did and we cannot let him go without you seeing his full measure."


In that, for me, they succeeded. I liked Tim Russert when I thought about him, which wasn't often and rarely on Meet the Press. I hated that he was so sure--and so right--about the Democratic nomination. I was annoyed by that gleam in his eye when he was doing political analysis. I saw it as a knowing smirk. Now I think that it was simply his enthusiasm for his subject, for politics, that created that gleam. But I didn't know him, or really care about him, and mostly what shocked me was how young he was. Now, however, after watching an hours worth of clips and interviews and lots of tape of Tim himself, now his death feels personal. Now I really will miss him, and in some ways that makes me mad at NBC, because to feel little is so much easier than to actually mourn.

I don't have a clever conclusion to this post. Mostly I'm wondering--what do you think?

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How I Keep My House Clean, byJane

Simple answer: I don't particularly. I am not one of those women who is deeply houseproud (much to the chagrin of a former SO of mine who thought this was a sure sign of my degredation). I was not raised by a mother who fostered family cleaning events, such as my friend G, whose entire family devoted Saturday mornings to cleaning the house. Typically, my mother devoted some portion of her budget to paying a cleaning woman to devote one day to cleaning our house. I don't know what the going rate was but I do know that it included carfare and lunch. I didn't pay much attention, I must confess. Consequently, not only did I never really learn the how-tos of cleaning, I didn't learn how to manage those who cleaned for you. That, added to the fact that my sense of justice and fair play is such that I cannot ask someone to do for me what I won't do for myself, means that on the odd occasions when I have had a cleaning woman, I have generally hovered tying her shoelaces and make sure she was sufficiently hydrated.

This comes to mind today because I have just spent as little time possible getting ready for a meeting at my house. I have shut all the doors to every room except the guest bathroom. I have Swiffled, in a manner of speaking, the visible parts of the floor. I have cleaned off all tables, etc. by transferring the Stuff on them to my desk--and closing the office door.

I am ready for company, in a manner of speaking, and I dare anyone to judge me. Please don't.

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Sex and The City: Does It Work at Midlife?

From the files of: Here's What It's Like To Live Without A Man Around The House

I wish I had taken photos, but really, I was too shocked to even think of it. This morning, just after I brushed my teeth (in all innocence), I spied through the corner of my eye: my brand new outdoor umbrella go sailing across the yard.

I ran. I flung open (or should that be shoved, considering it's a slider?) the back door and raced to the Good Neighbor fence off to the left. There tottering teetering precariously about to pitch itself head first into my neighbor's yard was my unfurled umbrella. I grabbed it, hoping that I would not pull a Mary Poppins. The umbrella and I did the Texas Two Step for a couple of beats before I brought it to heel (aren't you excited by the wild mixing of my metaphors here?). I managed to find the crank and turned it as fast as I could. The umbrella furled. The crisis was averted.

Until I looked at the redwood table. Here it is. The umbrella fits into a hole in the center of the table and then extends down to a cast iron umbrella stand. I repeat, cast iron. I paid almost as much for the stand as I did for the umbrella because I'm smart and I know that these umbrellas require steady footing of some sort. Clever, aren't I.

So back to the table. It wasn't there. Not there at all. The chairs were there, but the table, she had gone elsewhere. Perhaps to Oz.

Ah, shit, I said, because I'm eloquent and articulate that way. I did a three eighty of my backyard and, oh yes, I see it now. The table has been tumbled this way and that and is now on its head over by the fountain. Because I'm clever, I got immediately what had happened: the Mary Poppins scenario had happened to my table.

Since I live alone, there's no one to share this mighty feat of nature with. But then my gardener, Bob arrives and despite the fact that I know this will extend his time doing my yard work from 5 minutes to 7, I take him around back and show him my table. He is most appreciative. And helpful. He gets down on the ground and shows me that there's this screw thingie on the cast iron umbrella stand. One is meant, he tells me, to put the umbrella in the stand and then tighten the screw thingie. That, he assures me, is what is necessary to keep the umbrella where it belongs.

He was right. The wind blew like a bitch all afternoon, but my umbrella, she stayed put and my outdoor scene is restored to normalcy. Except for the vinyl tablecloth. Which is probably in someone's yard a house or two down.

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The Third Rail

For me, that third rail is proving to be the 2008 Election. I cannot read or hear or watch a piece of coverage without shorting out. Smoke comes out of my ears; my hair stands on end; and I'm sure my blood pressure must soar to the Jackpot mark. And that's a shame, because this was supposed to be the election cycle where I finally got my oar in. I covered politics in the past, but with the end of my journalism career, I've had no viable outlet. Until ByJane, that is, and the legitimization of political bloggers. At the beginning of the primary season, I was set to go. I had my credentials from the Huffington Post and I planned a season of thoughtful, considered impartial posts which would focus on a meta-analysis of political coverage. By so doing, I thought, I would enable people to make those Informed Decisions that are supposed to guide us, rather than the ones solely derived from Emotional Appeals. A worthy cause, don't you think?

Well, ha! And ha! again.

I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it because from the gitgo, I was overwhelmed by the overwhelming amount of opinion that was passing for news. I was overwhelmed by the myriad of ways in which different reporters would by virtue of an introductory statement or a closing one signal their emotional attachment to That Which Is Supposed To Be Unsaid, their preference for one candidate or another. Staci Schoff of A Mommy With An Attitude talks of that in her post today, and I'm going to quote a good bit of it just because, because I want to:

All of that is to say nothing of how irritating it is that every time the media's beloved Obama eeeks out a win in a state, the media cheers at the top of its lungs that he's pretty much won the nomination nee the election in November. And every time Clinton takes a state by a landslide the media headlines say, "Clinton wins -- why won't she just quit?" And if that doesn't work they just ignore the fact that it's fine to point out that the demographic group we refer to as "black" is overwhelmingly supporting Obama (and certainly it doesn't make them "racist"), but if the (much larger) demographic group we refer to as "white working class" is supporting Clinton then that's racist. I like it even better when journalists go out of their way to point out that those people didn't have the privilege of going to college, as if democracy should only be for the people who are smart enough and rich enough to not have to flip our burgers and pump our gas.

And yes, I realize that Staci's own political preference is obvious here, but then, she's not passing herself off as a journalist, is she?

So I've managed to avoid another aneurysm by just not paying too close attention--when I could avoid it. I managed to ignore the so-called legitimate press, but I couldn't really forego BlogHer for the entire primary season. And BlogHer has its own punditry, doesn't it? I'm proud that our coverage was so, so fulsome. Way to go, everyone, for making BlogHer's political coverage viable. But did it have to be so, so pundit-ridden? My sense on reading the coverage on the site is that if I'm not for Obama, then I'm a blithering idiot who should turn in my Girl Credentials.

And now that Mr. Obama is the presumptive Democratic candidate, this tone continues. Two posts from yesterday snared me and I couldn't resist touching that Third Rail. Catherine Morgan wrote a post stating that given John McCain's positions, no woman could possibly find a reason to vote for him. Go read it, as well as the on-going comments (including the lone guy who so eloquently advised Clinton supporters considering voting for McCain, that "if you cut off your nose to spite your face, it makes it easier to stick your head up your butt." Nice going, James. I always love when the men add their little soupcon of wisdom and wit to BlogHer.)

The other post that got me was from our very own Pundit Mom, who actually wrote a rather, sort of, lovely essay about Hillary leaving the race. She raises the dreaded spectre of sexist coverage which I then countered with my theory of the Death Kill of Pundits. She agreed with me (lovely lovely Pundit Mom) and then she asked, "Do you think pundits pushing their own agenda was because more were men trying to view Clinton through a male lens?" To which I answered all that you have read above as well as this:

No, I don't think the problem was a preponderance of male pundits viewing Clinton through a male lens. The problem was gender-neutral; it came from the women as well as the men. I think the problem is rather more complicated. Let me see if I can boil it down a bit:

• We are in an age where everyone can and does have their fifteen minutes of fame. Thus, those who are already legitimate must outdo the hoi polloi in order to get attention.
  
• We seem to have recovered from the so-called civilizing effects of the Enlightenment. We're now just as nasty, just as vile, just as insulting as The Tatler, et al.

These two things (and some others that are tangential) combine to create SuperPundit: he or she who is clever and educated and thus has the background (or at least the research skills) to come up with The Perfect Putdown or The Especially Effective Encomium. Such remarks are money in the self-esteem bank for SuperPundit; they are, in fact, the Supreme Validation. And given the breadth of the social network these days, SuperPundit has an audience that is limitless (not to mention always up for a chuckle or a fight).

So here I am, lolling about on the Third Rail. I'm considering closing the comments because, well because this is my blog. I get to say whatever I want and you don't. That begs the question of why, after all this time, I'm throwing myself back on the Third Rail. Because, of course, I'm a former SuperPundit myself--and therefore, I know of what I speak.

Hello! Hello! Hello!

I'm back, on-line, WiFied with Excellent signal strength. For the first time in weeks, I can write my post with aplomb and acumen, knowing that I will not be dropped in the middle. I will not narrate the various and sundry vagaries that my Comcast modem put me through in the past three weeks. Suffice to say, IT WAS HELL AND BACK. Okay, maybe I should reserve that for something a tad more dire. But still--.

The Comcast person was set to arrive this morning between 8 and 10. These are not, normally, hours that I'm spry--or even, often, up. But I lurched out of bed at 7-something, stuck my contacts in my eyes, combed my hair and wondered what the hell I was going to do for the next couple of hours. At 8 sharp, a lovely lady from Comcast called to ask if I was still wanting my visit between 8 and 10. Yes indeedy, I said. See you soon, she replied. At 9:55 the doorbell rang.

Molly and I answered the door together and there before us was the Comcast person. It was a kid. A kid that looked to be twelve at most. I opened my mouth and in true Jane fashion, the following flew out: "Are you old enough to be doing this?" Evidently the Comcast person was not unfamiliar with that response and was generous enough not to spit on me or otherwise show intensely masculine displeasure. As he worked away fiddling with the wires and such, I studied him.

He had a small face, sweet really, and very pale. His hair was red, cut very short and his head was dwarfed by a too large Comcast cap. He wore jeans, which couldn't mask the fact that his ass was the size of a 52" big screen TV, and his sports shirt hung limply from shoulders that were half of that. He had all the requisite paraphernalia hanging from his belt and steel-toed work boots, but still, something wasn't right. He was mushy, soft and I wondered for a moment if he suffered from one of those endocrine issues that make you age prematurely, or maybe not at all. Then I looked some more, did the whole up and down check, and saw that he seemed to have breasts. Were these man-titties? I have several relatives who have man-titties and they're not so, so There, present over a great expanse of chest. Suddenly it hit me: strapped- down girl-boobs of a generous size, say C cup or better, would spread out in just such a way. And I wondered if the lovely lady who called to confirm the appointment was not a secretary back at the office, but the tech himself.

Still, he diagnosed and fixed my Comcast problem, which was the router, router, router being old and broken and bad. Now I have a new router, and I'm absolutely good to go. At last. Computer consistency, thou art mine again.

It's the witching hour....

...and I have no brain. My Comcast has been in and out all day. I am, to say the least, pissed beyond belief. What little money I earn comes from my work on the internet. So Comcast, you shit heads, are costing me money! BLECH!!!!!!

MIA but not AWOL

So here's where I was yesterday: watching Miss Kaitlyn Rose perform Little Mermaid at her dance recital in Mountainview. It was, I must say, terrific. Not just Kaitlyn and the nine other five-year olds in the number, but the entire evening.

I am an old hand at dancing school recitals, having tapped to "First You Put Your Two Knees" when I was just five as well. I did ballet every year until I was fifteen when it became obvious that I was growing TOO TALL to be a dancer, and thus I decided that my calves were TOO MUSCULAR to attract boys. At the end of almost every one of those years, there was a production of some sort. Well, except for the year that Miss Maddy decided we hadn't progressed enough to show our stuff off. She was a stickler like that. Last year I didn't go to Kaitlyn's recital and I heard from other family members how INCREDIBLY BORING IT WAS. Bullshit! They just don't know how to enjoy dance.

There is nothing so heartwarming as watching a group of little kids posturing and prancing to music. And this particular recital from the Harmony Dance Center was one of the best I have seen. Maybe The Best, barring one or two where I was part of the pas de deux and en pointe. The choreography and staging was top notch (not to mention top drawer and hat), the costumes were fantastic (with nary a Jon-Benet lookalike among them), and the dancers--well, they danced their hearts out (trite but true--albeit not literally).

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Los Angeles, San Jose, or Elk Grove - Take Three

So back to our regularly scheduled programming. I'm so sorry to have interrupted it and with such NASTINESS. I can tell by the abundance of comments that you all were just quivering over the MMA Championships. But now you must stopped shaking and come along with me again to The Grand Decision: Should I stay in Elk Grove? move to San Jose? return to LA?

Thus far, we've covered the pros of staying in Elk Grove. Please, as you're considering this, do not make the mistake of thinking this is a choice to stay in Sacramento. That--moving to Sacramento--is a whole other option, but I think we're overloaded enough as it is.

So--what I like about the idea of moving back to LA:
1. I still have friends there, people who do not [necessarily] think I'm weird or too much.
2. I've made some new blogging friends there, which is more than I can say for here (sorry Margaret, but you moved, remember...sorry Steph, but we only communicate on the computer).
3. My family is there. This, however, is not totally positive. All of you who have wonderful, best friend relationships with your sister can go dunk your heads. Mine is fraught with angst, trauma, and drama. In fact, the first time I left LA, it was to move away from her, and I didn't return until I felt relatively certain that I could maintain some boundaries. She is, one might say, a lot of work. But my niece and her family are there too, and I've built good relationships with her kids.
4. I know the city, can scoot around on the surface streets, up and down the canyons like the wind (yes, I realize that scoot and wind are not exactly compatible, but whatever...)
5. I did my MA in Psych there, so all of my internship/job contacts are in SoCal. That's been a real problem for me up here.
6. LaLa Land is, as we all know, home to the greatest density of shrinks and shrinkees and in country. Thus, the opportunities for an internship position down there are considerable. And this, remember people, is what I must do to make money.
7. I feel like LA is My City in a way that it would take [how much, too much] time for me to feel about another place.
8. My doctors, dentists, and hair stylist are there. Not to mention my synagogue, Temple Israel of Hollywood, where I can worship with Leonard Nimoy in the sanctuary where Eddie Fisher and Liz Taylor were married. And my hospital, Cedars Sinai, which I love because every door has a mezzuzah on it and the gift shop sells Seder plates and menorahs.
9. I could go back to California Graduate Institute and work on my PhD, which is--yes--something I vowed I wouldn't do, but that was only when D was breathing down my neck. The fact is that I like being in school. There's an order to it that I need, I guess. I like the rhythms of the term, the excitement at the beginning, the slogging through the middle, and the push to the glory of the end. At which time I get a grade and that's like a little gold star to me.

Tomorrow I'll do Why I Would Even Consider San Jose as well as The Problems with Elk Grove and LA. Please do say tuned. And don't be so silent....

The MMA Championship Fights

I just watched them. Can you believe that? If I didn't know that it was me in front of the television, I wouldn't believe it either. BLOOD SPORTS! Bah! Nasty!

But I got curious because:

• My stepson had aspirations to be an MMA fighter at one time, so I wanted to see what attracted him and what I could have expected if I was to be ringside (cageside?) cheering him on. Thankfully, he's moved on to fly fishing, where only the fish feel pain and then only until he throws them back. Which he always does. And then if wants to eat fish, he has to go to the market and buy it like the rest of us non-fisherpersons. Go figure.
• The defending champion was billed as The Sacramento Kid, which seemed to fit nicely into my own on-and-off aspirations to be a part of this town.

So I watched. The champion kept his belt, but not before five or was it six grueling rounds. There seem to be no holds barred in MMA fighting. The challenger got knocked in the nuts and both fighters had ears that were beyond cauliflower. In boxing , the ref breaks up the clinches. In MMA fights, he doesn't and the two guys just hold on, twisted in on each other like pretzels, so that who knows who's arms or legs are flailing in the air or whaling away. It was quite shocking, actually. Like street-fighting legitimized.

And yet, there was an odd tone of civility about it. Everyone said and then resaid and then emphasized again that these guys RESPECT each other. NO TRASH TALKING. Many hugs and you're wonderfuls at the end. The challenger introduced his fiance when it was over. The champion rehugged the challenger. This was very confusing, especially since my experience watching fights is Friday Night Boxing, which for a time was the date night of choice for D and me. Watching boxing, I'm always hyper-aware of the class issues involved. How else can these poor schlubs crawl out of the underclass? What other talents could they possibly be encouraged to develop?

I suffered no such angst tonight because I don't know if it's true for all MMA fighters, but these boys tonight? They're college graduates. As is my stepson. As are some other MMA aficionados I know. What's that about, huh? Is this Fight Club come to life?

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Los Angeles, San Jose, or Elk Grove - Take Two

Here's what I like about living in Elk Grove, which is a suburb to the south of Sacramento.

1. It smells like the country. Last thing at night, when I take Molly out, if the wind is blowing my way, I can smell cows. That should surprise no one, since the dairies are still just up the road Not all of them; actually very few survived the land grab that has turned farms into housing tracts in the past five or so years. The Machados, for example, sold their dairy and now they have a little park with swings and a slide and I think there's a basketball hoop as well named in their honor. As a proud member of the Board of the Franklin Reserve Neighborhood Association, I attended the ceremonial cutting of the ribbon at Machado Park. It is a lovely little site (have I said little enough?), a splotch of grassy green in the middle of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds (have I said hundreds enough?) beige houses. The green is a welcome sight because so many of those beige houses are fronted by dead lawns and wind-whipped For Sale Bank Owned signs. But I digress: what I actually started out to say was that I couldn't stop myself from asking the current Mr. Machado what his grandfather would think to see what had happened to his dairy. I got no response. Still, when I go outside my beige house in the evening, I can often smell cows, and that pleases me.
2. When I actually leave Elk Grove to journey into the nether reaches of Sacramento, the freeway I take is picturesque beyond belief. Sacramento is the City of Trees, so they say. Not to mention creeks and rivers and the odd pond or two. Driving along Interstate 5 is often breathtakingly beautiful and how many city freeways can that be said of? This is not insignificant if you consider the stress levels that most freeway driving produces. When I'm driving on 5 and I take in the scenery, I can feel myself getting calmer. This, I imagine, can only add to my years of life, not to mention its current quality. No small thing, right?
3. I like that this area is still in a state of becoming, as opposed to LA, say, which is darn near finished. I feel as if the Sacramento area, which includes Elk Grove, is waking up, getting with the program, feelin' alive. That I'm here now means that I have the opportunity to be a part of creating the area. I've become involved in organizations in a way that I couldn't have in LA. Here, if a job needs doing and I say I'll do it, it's mine. In LA, I would still be passing the pretzels.
4. I like my house. It's mine. All mine. I can do with it whatever I want. Even if it is beige. Hey, I could paint it some other color. Or glue bits and pieces of broken crockery to the outside lintels. Or grow morning glories up one side and down the other. Okay, I tried that already, and for some reason the morning glories were not amenable. Despite my nicking the seed casing and soaking them in water, the little creeps did not sprout. The same thing happened with the moonflowers that I planted in along the back fence (the one I share, should you be interested, with DeathChic(k) who recently fed her morning glory seeds to her daughter, but that's her story, not mine.) However, all manner of other things do grow in my garden, and I love that. It is a veritable wealth of flora, etc. etc. etc. Roses, roses, roses like you've never seen or smelled before. And a huge peach tree that bears luscious white Freestone peaches in great number. A Meyer lemon tree, as well, which was so prolific that I ended up freezing a good number of lemons just to throw down my garbage disposal when it needs a bit of deodorizing.
5. Speaking of garbage disposals as we were, here's another thing I like about living here: my kitchen.
6. And I like the fact that there are seasons in Northern California. As a Pennsylvania girl, born and bred, I was offended by the puny little drop in temps to 62 degrees that passes for winter in Los Angeles. I like my Winters robust, requiring the wearing of many layers and the laying of many fires. I love that the trees do get Fall colors up here, and they bud out in Spring. We will not speak of that other season, because this is a list of all that I like about living here.
7. I like the fact that despite the enormous growth that overtook Elk Grove, nature will out and much of the landscape is returning to fields. Along with the things I planted in my garden, the wild flowers and grasses that were in what was formerly pasture are insistent on claiming the land as theirs.
8. I like that I'm just 10 minutes or so from the Delta which is, as well, wild and free.
9. I like that my backyard faces West, so that every single evening I get a sunset that is a Kodak moment.
Next I'll do what I like about LA. Or should I do what I don't like about Elk Grove/Sacramento. And what about San Jose? What's with San Jose anyway; why is it even in this headline? Ahhhh, tune in tomorrow for Take Three.

Los Angeles, San Jose, or Elk Grove

The subtitle for this post could be, "To move or not to move; that is the question." Not exactly Shakespearean, perhaps, but vexing all the same to me. The other day Karen of MidLife's A Trip posted a piece on Choices on MidLifeBloggers. It spoke to me because I've got this whole where shall I live thing going on.

When D left, much of my reason for living in Northern California slithered out the door as well. We moved up here because he hated LA. I didn't; I loved it. But dutiful wife that I was (so sayeth I!), I went along with the selling of the LA house and the buying of the Elk Grove house and the subsequent moving of much shit and a few good things to our brand-spanking new Elk Grove house, where we were supposed to live--tra la!--happily ever after.

I don't want to rehash the whole thing, but suffice to say the happy part was very short-lived. For him and for me. I never feel like one of The Gang anywhere I go, but up here in what is basically a suburb of Sacramento (which, forgive me, should really be considered be suburb of the Bay Area), I am that proverbial Sore Thumb.

However, I am a determined Sore Thumb and so I have, over the past almost three years, worked hard to make a place for myself here. And I have not been unsuccessful. Thus, when D left and everyone thought I'd hightail it immediately back to LA, I didn't. I bravely stayed put. I earnestly believed I was DOING RIGHT by make a new life for myself here, in my house, with my stuff. Then the housing market tanked and my new house was right in the middle of the implosion. Now it seemed important to me not to sell my house at a significant loss. So I've kept on keeping on.

Except that along with the housing market, the economy has now tanked and my house just sitting here minding its own business has lost considerable, VERY CONSIDERABLE value. That's equity, people. And speaking of same, that's what I'm living on, basically, 'cause the job, she is not coming. I'm starting to get a wee bit concerned. (I'm also starting to sniff Molly's dog food to see if I could actually eat it if I had to.) The fact is, I need to be earning money, and while I did cash my first BlogHer check the other day (hooray!), it wouldn't keep Molly herself in dogfood for a month. So what to do, what to do, what to do....

I'm not just telling your all this to entertain you (you're laughing at my misfortune, are you?). Rather, I'm telling you all this because in the next couple of days, I'm going to lay out the pros and cons of moving and not moving. I'm doing it because I believe your collective wisdom is exactly what I need right now. So will you please come along for the ride? It will be a short one, and while there's no prize at the end (okay, I could come up with something if you insist), you will have the tremendous satisfaction of knowing you've helped a pal along the way.

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MidLifeBloggers


and two additions to the Blog Roll here and there:

Average Jane
The LazyBCooks

Wordpress, templates, blog design and other things I should be doing

I spent most of today hunched in front of my computer trying to make the template I'd chosen for MidLifeBloggers do what I wanted it to. I learned any number of things about CSS and such, but not enough to be able to make the freakin' thing DO WHAT I WANTED IT TO. Then I put up another template that I had waiting in the wings and--while it isn't exactly, voila! it's a lot better than what was there before. I think. I hope. Oh fuck it, it better be.

I suppose I should be a little gentler with myself since it's only been a month since the first post went up. But gentle with myself is something I've never been. Are you????

New Post Up at http://midlifebloggers.com

Memorial Day: Thoughts, in no particular order

• I was married, the first time, on Memorial Day. Funny, but I didn't remember that until just now, after I wrote the title. Of course, the year I was married, Memorial Day was not on May 25th, so I suppose I could be excused for not remembering my anniversary. Since it wasn't.
• I was about to say that mine was not a military family. Until I thought about my Uncle Bert, my dad's brother, who served in World War II. And my Aunt Teddy, my mother's sister, who was a WAC in World War II. And my brother-in-law who served in no war, having enlisted and gotten out just before Viet Nam.
  
• My dad was exempt from World War II because he was Needed At Home. That is, he worked in a job in an industry that had priority. He had extra gas rations because of whatever that priority was, but the story my mother always told was that my father hated not being in uniform during those years.
  
• One of the careers that I contemplated during that period in my 20s when I didn't know what to do with myself was joining the Navy. It is a good thing that I didn't because I now realize that I would have been a Court Martial Waiting To Happen.
• Dateline had an excellent (except for Keith Morrison's delivery) hour long segment called "Coming Home." The gist of it was that to have killed someone during war marks these soldiers forever and is often the precurser of PTSD.
  
• When I was in grad school, one thing I hoped to do with my MFT degree was work with vets who had PTSD. I was all geared up to do that until I learned that you need a doctorate to work for the VA. I don't know if I would have been good at it or not, but the urge is still strong.
  

I don't think it's appropriate to say Happy Memorial Day, but I want to thank every soldier, then and now, who fought for our country. Hokey? I don't think so. Or rather, I don't care.

Life Under The Table At Knitique

Molly and I spent a couple of hours this afternoon at Knitique. Usually Molly amuses herself by searching for any crumb of food she can find. Today, however, she had a playdate. In the lower left corner is a black and white mop called Baya. Molly has never spent so much time with another dog, and really, they got over smelling each other's butts pretty fast. I thought perhaps they would do a tear up and down the shop chasing each other, but Baya's mom had TREATS in her
knitting bag. Greenies to be exact, and frankly, there is nothing that will get Molly's attention quite like Eau de Greenie. In fact, this dog, who is usually glued to my side and would prefer that I NOT shut her out of the toilet when I'm in there, refused to come when called. She lurked, instead, in the general area of the knitting bag that that had once held the Greenies. Even when I threatened to leave her, she would not move. She plunked her curly white butt down as close to the knitting bag as she could get and stared at me, with great meaning. In fact, she might still be there--!

EDITED TO ADD: I entered this post in a weekly meme called Camera Critters. You can see the others here.

You Will Not Be Surprised...

...if I tell you that I spent no little time today pulling out all the cards and envelopes from the trash. I just couldn't go through with it, dear and gentle reader. Perfectly good cards, which I shall now add to my stash awaiting the day of Sitting Down To Create Collage.

MidLifeBloggers: a new post is up

Cleaning Out My Parents Desk

Now, isn't that a fascinating headline? They say--you know They, the SEO people--that one's blog titles are crucial, critical and direly important to what kind of traffic one gets. So you can see, what with the creativity that's just burbling out of me, why my blog traffic is so, so, so-so.

However, I couldn't think of any jazzier way to announce what I have spent the day doing. Yes, absolutely. Cleaning out my parents' desk. It's a lovely desk, mahogany, with a drop down writing surface,
and multiple cubbies as well as several small drawers in the top. And three drawers in the bottom. It has, for as long as I can remember, been the repository for the flotsam and jetsam of my parents' life. Once my mother died and bequeathed the flotsam and jetsam to me, I just kept it as it was, allowing it to grow a bit with my own stuff--dead cell phones and the like--shoved into the top drawer. But I've long known that one day I would have to deal with My Parents' Desk, and I've known as well that it would be difficult. None of us--my father, my mother, nor I--liked to throw things out. My mother was, in the early years, probably better at it than my dad and I. But once he died, she seemed to inherit all of his pack rat traits and then some. Thus, the Macy's receipts and Screen Actors' Guild cards from the 90s. Thus, it is left to me to make the hard decisions about what to toss.

That carton you see contains but one, the smallest, drawer and the top cubbies of the desk. It is, you will note, half full. What I threw most easily were my mother's bills and receipts, circa 1998. A twinge or two at tossing all of the Lee C. Gassner address labels, but none for the all the dessicated ballpoints, souvenirs of CPAs and insurance companies and, of course, now-defunct motel chains. I did experience some feelings of guilt at getting rid of stacks of perfectly good, albeit dreadfully dull greeting cards that my mothers gathered from somewhere or other. These are not of the Hallmark genre; think more along the lines of Birds of the World and Flowers of Fall. And with them went the handsful of perfectly good envelopes. It was hard to throw them as I know my father is flipping in his grave at the sheer wantonness of my waste. But if I did what my every instinct is telling me--put them in a box to keep and use some day--then they would become my flotsam and jetsam, and I have no daughter to will them to.

The Things I Did Not Throw (and yes, the allusion to The Things They Carried is intentional):

• the collection of perfectly good, not-been-cancelled stamps that my father maintained through the years. Not that he collected stamps, but for the actual postage, you know. I'm sure I'll use them. It would be a sin not to, a waste of perfectly good money. Of course, I do wonder if there's a statute of limitations on postage. I know we now have Forever Stamps, but will the 5cent Washingtons and the 3cent Liberty's fly as well?
  
• their passports, each in its own leather case, initial-stamped in gold--HG...LCG. I don't know why I'm keeping them. They just seem too good, too fresh to throw out. But still...
  
• medical reports, because that's now the only record my sister and I will have, and we may need it some day
• a letter from my first husband, to my parents, written after I left him, in which he told them how much he loved them--and me.
  

Tomorrow I'll go through the other two drawers.....

How To Be A Better Writer

I have just finished writing the fiftyeth million response to a blogger who feels she is frittering her life away on line. Okay, it wasn't the fiftyeth million, but it seems like I'm saying the same thing to a lot of people. So I'm gonna say it here too. But first, my bonafides: I have been a writing teacher. People, universities even, have paid me to teach students of all ages and capabilities to write. I've taught elderly ladies and male felons, but those are stories for another day. I tell you this so you'll know I know what I'm talking about. And believe me!

All the desire in the world won't make you a writer. For that, you have to work. And working for a writer is reading and thinking and writing and rewriting.

Blogging is just another genre of writing, not inferior or superior to any other in and of itself. You can practice writing the Great American Novel by writing on your blog. You can learn how to write by reading other's blogs. The work involved is this: when you're reading blogs, try to figure out what it is you like (or dislike) about a particular writer. Try on techniques that they use. See if you have a like-sounding voice that you can fool around in. Figure out what you don't like about a blog or a writer's voice or...or...whatever. You figure it out. Think about it.

Then, when you're writing your blog, don't just hit publish and let it go. I've had years of experience at writing fast, but I NEVER do a blog post that is first draft, final draft. I preview my drafts and reword and rewrite and--goddamit--REVISE the thing until I deem it publishable. That doesn't mean it's perfect, because God knows I'd never publish if I held myself up to that. But it does say what I want it to say clearly and in a way that makes me proud. At least for that day.

All the talk about blogging being inferior and self-indulgent is just so much hoo-hah. It's genre-ist, if I may coin a word, coming in somewhere under racist and sexist and ageist and ist-ist. Don't let Them--be they friends, family or artful critics--get away with it. Don't allow blogger to become another word that must be known only by its initial.

BlogWriters of the World--unite! Stand tall and stand proud. When you're asked what you do, answer "I'm a writer." And when the followup question is, "Oh, what do you write?" Look them in the eye and say, I publish my writing on-line. Because that's what a blog is: writing that is published on line. It's neither better than nor worse than writing that has been published on paper. It is what it is, and that's the best we can say about any creative work.

MidLifeBloggers: a new post is up

This Post Was Meant To Be About Something Else

Today Nanny Goats In Panties and I had coffee. Well, she had coffee and I had some strange iced tea blend that was a little more jasmine-y than I would have liked. Jasmine. What is jasmine doing in iced tea? Is this a cultural thing that I'm just not getting. And should be. Because God knows, Elk Grove is nothing if nothing not bi- and multi- and many-cultural. Despite this, it is not what one would call cosmopolitan. That is, to meet and have coffee, Nanny Goats in Panties and I met not at some sidewalk bistro but at the local Raley's. Raley's is a supermarket. This is what we have come to in Elk Grove, sipping our brew while relaxing in leather armchairs at the local grocery store. Nanny Goats in Panties went food shopping afterwards; I came home.

While we were enjoying our drinks in the, okay, pleather armchairs, we discoursed on:
the lack of interest our friends and family show in what for us is our passion, our blogs; the lack of salon-worthy companions in our separate circles of friends; the intellectual energy, the very zeitgeist of Manhattan, where we both wished we were; the fact that save each other, we had no friends off-line who also had an existence on-line.

Do you ever feel this way? Or are we the only sad sisters in the group and the rest of you have burgeoning and budding on/off-line relationships with multiple fascination geeks? Or do you too feel as if sometimes the people who understand you the best, who hear you the clearest, who give you the most of what you need are people you know solely through your blog? And if you do feel this way--how close are you to Sacramento??????

If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Monday...

Just pretend it's Monday, okay? Humor me.

Last night when I sat down to post, my !@#$%^&*()_+ WiFi was out again. So this is Monday's post, just a shade over the dateline late.

Wanted: One Dog Shrink

Why does my dog go under the bed to sleep sometimes? Like last night and the night before, when it's just marginally comfortable temperature-wise on top of the bed without any covers on.

Why is my dog under my desk right now? At my feet.

I'm guessing that this has something to do with security, but what makes her suddenly feel insecure? Does she have PMS?

MidLifeBloggers on Flickr

Yes, indeedy, we now have our very own Flickr group where we can post our very own photos from midlife and before. I've put two of mine up: one is a very soulful photo in which I am trying to look like a BEAUTIFUL THING THAT SEVENTEEN MAGAZINE WOULD WANT TO PUT ON THEIR COVER. Obviously, I was not successful. The other is a photo of my left foot, which is much the better of my two feet in that it has aged well. My right foot, unfortunately, is not now and never will be ready for a closeup.

So--if you're a MidLifeBlogger and are on Flickr, go and join the group and upload your photos. When we have more than my two, I'll put a widgety thing on MidLifeBloggers, that will give a rotating show of all our pix. If you're not on Flickr, join. It's free.

Ice Cream & Me - BFF

I just ate two of the three scoops of ice cream that I bought at my local Rite-Aid. Do you have one of those drug stores where you can get three scoops for $1.99--and they give you the penny back? Poor you, if you don't. Poor me, that I do--because ice cream is my drug of choice for anything that ails me. Others may drown their sorrows in alcohol; I prefer to smother mine in frozen flavored cream.

Why I'm Wired in a Wireless World

I am writing this so delicately, my fingers barely tap tap tapping on the keys. I don't want to disrupt the incredibly tenuous, don't breathe on it connection between my laptop and the world. It is, right now, jerryrigged more or less. I am hooked into the modem for my wireless service. Which means that I'm not wireless anymore. It also means that logistics being what they are, I am playing Mother May I with the cord every time I want to leave the room.

Oh woe.

Yesterday late morning my wireless went kapuey. I spent many hours on the phone with the Comcast techs in Canada (yeah for speaking English!) and the Toshiba techs in whatever offshore third world country they're in (boo for mangling English). The problem seems to be within my little laptop. It doesn't want to maintain the wireless connection. I enable and enable and enable and--pfffft! it disables. To figure it out and hopefully maybe please God fix it, I have to run all sorts of Restore shit. And of course, you know what I have never done on this laptop: begins with a B and ends with a P.

I must have known this was coming because for the past couple of weeks, I've been feeling Backup urges. But I ignored them, of course. So much else to do: websites to create; blogposts to write.

First order of the day this AM was to transfer some of my files onto CDs. But whatever ails my wireless adapter seems also to be ailing my D drive. And then, I remembered. One of our MidLifeBloggers, Carolyn Bahm, has an ad or something way down at the bottom of her blog. I went, I got the url, and I am now, even as I write having all of my hard drive sucked up into Carbonite where, for a mere $49.95 a year it will reside along with regular, I-don't-have-to-think-about-it Backups.

And tomorrow, after I am well and truly BACKEDUP, I can figure out what the flippin' deal is with this computer.

My computer is Down...be back soon

Iron Chef Sacto-style

Chef Yossi Ben Dayan, Head Teaching Chef at Hadassah College's Culinary School in Jerusalem, made a whirlwind tour of the West Coast. I was there! I prepped for him. Molly was there. She supervised him (look to the right side of the cooking table). Tomorrow I will report on this exciting event with RECIPES!!!!!

A Film for the MidLife Folks

So while I was being all silent, I was watching a movie. A Previous Engagement, a new film starring Juliet Stevenson, Tcheky Karyo, and Daniel Stern. It was written and directed by Joan Carr-Wiggan and all awards for producer will be going to David Gordian. Okay, now that we've got the basic credits out of the way, we'll go right into the critique. It's a comedy. Think An Unmarried Woman crossed with Same Time Next Year. The premise is this: a man and a woman had such fantastic sex on a beach in Malta when they were young and foolish that they vowed to meet on the same beach twentyfive years later. We don't get to see the sex, but they both agreed the earth moved, etc. etc. Okay, fast forward to twentyfive years later and a middle-aged librarian travels to Malta with her boring, bored husband and two whiny twentysomething daughters. The other half of the equation, the now middle-aged publisher of a literary journal, travels to Malta with his secretary, who he occasionally bonks. Meet cute, cute meet: what's going to happen? Will they fall into each others arms? Will they even meet again? Will they have sex? Will it be good? Will she leave her husband? Will her daughters stop whining?

I watched this movie because I was asked if I wanted to see it to possibly talk about it on my blog. I said yes, and now I'm talking about it on my blog. Okay, now I can tell you what I really think.

I really think A Previous Engagement is a sweet little movie, but over-long. The twists and turns of the will she/won't he/do they seem to go on forever. It's been a long time since my British film-watching credentials were polished, but it seems to me that this is an example of a particular genre of British comedy that has some name, except I'm blanking on it now. It's farce meets meaningful subject, which is a bit of a contradiction in critical terms, if you know what I mean, but saved by superior acting. The Brits do that, you know. Except Daniel Stern is American and Tcheky Karyo is Turkish. The former is quite good (isn't he always) and the latter is not bad, albeit no Alan Bates (where is Alan Bates these days, anyway?) But Juliet Stevenson is really quite, quite good. Quite. She's a bit mannered, in a quirky manner, but she pulls the character off.

The problem for me with this movie is that, well, how long ago was An Unmarried Woman? Twentyfive years, you say? Then the concept of beleaguered wife being sucked dry by a dull husband and LEAVING HIM was revolutionary. Today, it's not. So the movie is cute; it's sweet; and it definitely made me laughoutloud (LOL!) from time to time. Thus, I say it is worth whatever the hell they're charging at your Cineplex these days. Just in time for the summer blockbuster, we've got a movie for us midlife folk, and if we go to this one, maybe they'll give us some more.

I'm not here.

Blah blah blah blah

So--another day, another dollar. Oh, no, that only worked when I was earning a living. Now I'm just--not.

Last night I had one of those nights where my tiny little brain would not stop racing. It may have had something to do with the several ounces of chocolate I had right before turning out the light. But surely the milk chaser should have had some sort of soothing effect. One would think. Wouldn't one?

Today was one of those days when I suddenly realized at about 8:22 pm, that I had not spoken to another human all day. I talked to Molly, and she seemed to listen. But maybe not. I tried to work up a bit of a pity party for myself, but I just couldn't get there. I am realizing these days how much of my isolation is, well, it's My Isolation. It's how I like things. I do like to be alone. I like not having places to go and things to do. Except when the point comes, as it did about 8:20 pm, when I really wish I had SOMEWHERE TO GO AND SOMEONE TO SEE.

Tonight I watched Wednesday night's cooking shows: Hell's Kitchen and Top Chef. I find the incessant screaming in Hell's Kitchen a tad wearing. And the male egos always on display there a tad pitiful. Top Chef, on the other hand, offers a relatively calm kitchen (relatively, I said!), but there too the male egos--why, sometimes they're being exhibited by the women.

Tomorrow (are you beginning to pick up the theme here?) I will continue my ambidextrous machinations of the now two new websites that I'm creating. Me, Wordpress and Liquid Web--we're just like THAT.

Life Is Too Short

Sunday is Mother's Day, the tenth one that I've not had a mother to celebrate. Yes, I get sad around this time, but it is what it is.

That's not a philosophy my mother ever subscribed to. She was more of the 'figure out what you want and then go get it' sort, an Action Figure in miniature, since she was barely five feet tall. She was a remarkable woman and a remarkable mother, albeit one who's mark is still impressed rather more heavily than is good for me. I started a blog about her several years ago, and then I choked. I'm still choking, a Kudzo kind of choking, though, one where the roots and vines and tendrils of what I want and need to say are too ingrown still for me to see them clearly. But this year BlogHer has a series going of posts about what your mother taught you; I can, I think, handle that.

My mother taught me, Life Is Too Short. Life is too short to put up with a job or a mate or a way of life that is bad for you. Life is too short to accept the status quo. Life is too short to live on 'what ifs.' Life is too short to wait to for the situation to be right. Life is too short to say "maybe next time." Life is too short to hang around waiting for it to happen. Life is too short to save dessert for later.



New post up at MidLifeBloggers.com

Wasted Effort

I keep tryin' to write a juicy post tonight or at least one of my more or less pithy ones, but frankly, I'm just not up to it. And frankly, I'm disappointed in myself. I haven't any explanation, or maybe I do but I don't feel like giving it. Yeah, that's it: it all seems like too much of an effort right now.

We Built It Because We Needed It

If you want to see why MidLifeBloggers.com had to come into being, go check out the comments that the post on plastic surgery is generating. I crossposted it from ByJane. Compare the different conversations the two sites are evoking.

This is what community is about, and I am so proud to be a part of it.

Announcements...

1. My computer is behaving itself again, thank you very much...

thus

2. There is a new post over a MidLifeBloggers. Menopause Has Stolen My Brain, by Janis Smyth of Jan's Sushi Bar

and

3. The "About" page, titled Who Are We, and Why is also up at MidLifeBloggers.

Go have a look.

WTF, Again

But this time it's my computer. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKKKK!

Blogging: It's Where We Get Community

In my diatribe the other day against those who get off on the Dump on Dooce bandwagon, I did not link to her site. Normally, you reference a blogger, you link to their blog--that is, I believe, the etiquette. But I didn't after thinking about it for a while for this reason: I have heard that some bloggers try to up their ante by linking to A list bloggers. It gets their stats going, I guess, not to mention their hearts. I didn't want anyone to think I was writing that WTF post defending Heather Armstrong for any collateral reason (I'm not sure that even makes sense, but I trust you will know what I mean). Thus, I left off the links. However, this post I am linking to her site, to the monthly letter she has written to her daughter. It's here; go read it. In it, Heather is answering those who criticize her and other bloggers for writing about their lives. This is the bit that I want you to get, to think about, to really know:

"I know I am not alone when I say that when I sit down to update my website I do it to connect with other people, I do it to reflect on the absurdity of everyday life with the hope that the people who read it will find similarities in their own routine. I did not know that wanting to be a part of a community qualified as egotism."

For much of the time that I've had a stat counter on ByJane, it registered an average of about thirtyfive readers a day. In the time that I've had Google and BlogHer ads on my site, I haven't seen a penny. So why do I spend so much time at my blog? Why is it the one thing I do without fail every day (okay, I brush my teeth as well)? I do it because that I have a community of readers, however few or many, means I am not hollering into the wilderness.

Life is pretty lonely these days, for all of us. If you've taken a psych or soc or polysci course, you've heard the term anomie. Our society has fragmented and our connections have frayed over the past century or so, and we are each of us left along with a very personal drive for meaning, for community. It's a human urge to search out others of the same ilk, to be not-alone. Some wrap themselves in the vestments of their work or hobby. Others find it in their church or athletics or political causes. Bloggers, particularly those of us who write about our day-to-day lives, find it on-line.

Recently I moved beyond the confines of ByJane and started a whole new community: MidLifeBloggers.com The site is barely operational now, but ultimately it will be a gathering place for all of us who consider ourselves to be in the middle of our lives. It is growing out of the same need that motivated the Mommybloggers to band together: the urge for a community that speaks to our particular interests and gives us a voice. That's what blogging is about. It's not an ego trip; it's a conversation.

And furthermore....

I have nothing left to say. Well, I do. I always will. But I won't.

WTF???!!!

In my trip round about the blogosphere today, I came across a number of posts in which the blogger was taking to task other unnamed bloggers for being critical of another unnamed blogger because she--I dunno, there was so much not naming that I couldn't really tell, but it seemed to have something to do with success, or some such thing. From all of this, which I won't link to because, well because you can easily find these posts yourself, I gather that there is a small swell,if not a tidal wave of miseryguts aimed at Heather Armstrong YET AGAIN.

There have been several well-reasoned posts written about the sin of envy and there being room at the Inn for all of us. Mine is not of the well-reasoned ilk. Mine is the fucking pissed off and disgusted genre.

Dislike someone for better reasons than that they are succeeding at something that you wish you were doing. Don't you realize how small that makes you seem, those of you who say, Oh, I just can't stand Dooce; she's so, so, whatever. I remember at Blogher'o6 after Heather's session listening to several women bitching about the fact that she had copped to feeling real anxiety that her family's well-being was a function of her being able to come up with a short essay every couple of days that would keep people entertained. God, they said, she's complaining about being successful. Give me a break. What she was doing, assholes (see I told you I was pissed off), was sharing herself with you. That's what she does in the blog. That's why so many people are regular readers. And if you're going to dislike someone simply because they're better than you, at least have the balls to admit it.

Plastic Surgery: yes, no, and if not now, then when?

Aaryn Belfer's got an article in the San Diego City Beat in which she takes apart a new picture book for kids called My Beautiful Mommy. It was written by a plastic surgeon in order to help, he assures us, the children of his patients get used to mommy's new nose or belly or tits (I think he's a tad gentler in the book). I'm not going to name the good doctor because I don't want him to get more attention than he's already bought with (I'll bet) some megabucks PR firm. If you want to know more, go read Aaryn's article, which is one and at the same time funny and mad and incisive, in other words just the kind of writing I love.

Susan Myrland turned me onto Aaryn's article because she "wanted my opinion." I started to email a response to her, but I got wound up and wired and thought--whoa! plastic surgery, is this not the very thing for MidLifeBloggers? I had a selection of titles for this post. Cosmetic Surgery: Kindness? Cure? or Cruelty? But the c/k sound seemed a bit more alliteration that even I was willing to go for. Then I thought Plastic Surgery: Kindest Cut, or Cruelest? That was marginally better, but it really didn't sum up my thoughts. The title I've used above does just that.

One can't have spent as much time living in Los Angeles as I have without being exposed to a variety of what we euphemistically call Work. Some of it wasn't bad, and some of it was pig-shit dreadful. The Work that was good--well, that, like the cheerful American tourist, just passed on by without notice. Okay, there is one case where I visited a friend of mine post-face lift and to thig day, I wonder if her surgeon just wrapped her in bandages and told her she'd had surgery. Twentyfour hours after the lift, I couldn't see a thing except that with the full head bandages, she looked, as she put it, like a Q-tip. So, while I have never had Work Done myself, as we say euphemistically, I certainly can say my opinion is "informed" by visual sightings of the good, the bad and the truly awful.

Why haven't I had Work Done? That facelift that my friend, the Qtip, had was $20,000--and that was just the doctor's charge, never mind what the suite at the Four Seasons Recovery Unit cost her. So bottom line is really the bottom line; I just don't have the spare thousands. If I did, would I do it? I'm not sure. The idea of having the skin on my face peeled back, flayed actually, is sort of scary. Sort of--hah!

As I write this, I'm realizing that my reasons for not having plastic surgery are mostly to do with fear that I would be the dreaded After example. I'm scared shitless to let someone mess around with my face, I don't care how many letters after his name he has. And so I tell myself that I'm proud to wear my wrinkles and sags and bags and dips and brown spots and--oh my god, I am so depressing myself. I've earned every one of these little fuckers: yada yada yada, fill in the Jamie Lee Curtis tape.

So what about some less INVASIVE procedure? Well, there's Botox. I would have Botox except that, drat it, I don't need it. My forehead has no wrinkles; it's as smooth as a baby's bottom, etc. etc. etc. I do have some crow's feet and I could get Botox shot in them, but really, they're not sufficiently bad, or maybe I just wear my hair hanging over my eyes and I can't see them.

No, the procedure I would have is something to eradicate those marionette lines that have now taken over my lower jaw. I'd like some Restylane pumped into them, not too much, just enough so that they're not so deep. I've noticed that when I look in the mirror and smile, they ease up nicely. And I find myself trying to remember to smile in repose. Except I fear that too much of that and people will wonder 'what the fuck is she smiling at?' I've got a big wedding in New York that I'm going to at the end of June. I'm thinking I'll make a doctor's appointment about the end of May. Or maybe I'll just smile at the wedding. Depends on where I am on the Adventure-O-Meter this month.

So the answer to your question, Susan, is: I'm not sure. I don't have a philosophical or moral or ethical problem with plastic surgery. I don't think it's a denial of aging; nor do I blame our youth-obsessed yada yada society. Frankly, we live where and how we do, and my feeling is we've got to deal with life as it best suits us. Not someone else. Us. Me. Jane.

And you?

Crossposted at MidLifeBloggers

Lobbying, byJane

Today I went to the Capitol to lobby some legislators about some stuff. I was part of a largish (as opposed to smallish) group and ultimately I was one of four who saw three different Assemblymembers. Well, make that one Assemblymember and two Aides to Assemblymembers--who they refer to as "The Member," as in "Let's go to The Member's office." No one else seemed to think that was strange, but it struck me as hilarious. Probably because when I think of The Member, I see a humongously large penis. I did not laugh, however; nor did I share my thoughts with anyone--until now.

My part in this play was quite small, and I believe I acquited myself if not admirably, then at least satisfactorily. My fellow lobbyisters were a tad more involved than I: to say that I really didn't give a shit pretty much sums it up. They, on the other hand, were VERY SERIOUS.

Okay, here's the thing about me. Maybe it's my stage in life (mid-midlife) or maybe it's that I survived a catastrophic illness, but really, I can't get myself too worked up over a lot of stuff that others take VERY SERIOUSLY. That doesn't mean I don't take life seriously; I do. But I tend not to get overinvested in things I can't change, which includes most things that aren't under my direct control. Which includes most things.

What do you take seriously? And what of those things do you actually, really, truly have some say in?

The problem with having a social life...

...is that I get home too late to do a decent blog post. Of course, my social life isn't really a social life. It's more of an organization meeting life. Still, I got out the six inch heels again. I did so figuring I didn't have far to walk: I'd do valet parking at the hotel and just take the elevator to the event. Ha! The hotel parking lot was full. So I parked down the street and under a large tree. Amid the shattered remains of someone's windshield. Precarious terrain in those six inch heels. But I navigated my way to the party, stood in line for my vodka and tonic ($8.50) at the no-host bar and talked to people I didn't know. I'm good at that. I'll talk to anyone. I'm real fun in a supermarket line. But that is not the point of my story. The point of my story is that some of my new friends invited me to go to dinner with them. Sure, says I. We'll walk, says they. And walk we do--about six or seven blocks. Okay, I'm still not at the point of my story. Which is: on the way back from dinner, 'round about block five, my leg gave out and I started to list. Well, it was actually more of a stagger as I struggled to keep my balance. Fortunately, my new friends rushed to my aid, one on each side, and got me upright again. I did the rest of the walk in my bare feet--on the streets of Sacramento. And now I'm going to bed--after I wash said feet real good.

If I were twentyfive or thirtyfive, I'd just laugh it off. But at my age, I feel like an old lady that can't even stay afloat. Thus, I am going to tag this post accordingly.

Things I'm Thinking About MidLifeBloggers.com

There are a number of thought threads that are warping and wefting through my mind about our site. I'll start off intending to write about one, but then another floats into view and grabs my attention. Part of this is that I do have ADHD, so sticking to something is, was, and will always be an enormous effort at times. Over the years (see, the advantage of having lived those years), I've learned that the best way for me to get something done is in bits and pieces. Do a little of this and then a little of that--eventually it all comes together and eventually the fabric gets woven. So, that's what I'm doing here in this post, which I'll also put up at MidLifeBloggers.

• How to create conversation? to get and keep people talking on the site?
• Should I be doing the editor thing and actually suggest ideas to specific people?
• How much trolling over other sites do I want to do? And how much should MidLifeBloggers just grow on its own as it will?
  
• Carol of A Different Nest wrote this in response to our first post: Great job. I, too, have a goal of writing beyond my blog. But, life keeps getting in the way. Maybe this site can be the start of some kind of anthology - who knows? Immediately I thought, yes, anthology, that's one way of explaining what I'm hoping for.
• Are there people on our blogroll that would like to 'cover' certain topics? Who? What topics?
• How to maintain and extend the inclusion of ALL...ages, opinions, interests? The very political and the apolitical, the scholars and the jokesters, the high-minded and the low-brow?

Some of these are mere fragments; others may die before dawn; of all, I ask for your thoughts.

My Saturday, An Essay - by Jane

My Saturday contained all the excitement and romance that one could possibly want.

First, there has been the on-going debate over at BlogHer about some guy's book suggesting that the answer to the problems in the Middle East was to ship all the Jews somewhere else . Said "conversation" (ahem!) actually started last night and of course I was in the middle of it from time to time which not only put me to bed all roiled up, but rooted me out earlier than usual this morning. And that, in turn, required that I put myself back to bed for another hour or so after I had checked to make sure that the world was still turning.

Said nap resulted in my being eh eh eh, so I hied myself to the darkened living room to watch a movie IN THE AFTERNOON !! There was a time when I would cheerily spend my Saturdays cleaning and tidying my little abode. That time seems to be over. But the romance, oh yes, the romance was: I watched Message in A Bottle. That is the name of the film with Kevin Costner and Paul Newman playing father and son to Robin Wright Penn's good gal, Teresa. I had not read the book because you know, la de dah, I have all that education in literature and so I only like romances written by dead white women. I suspected it was a tear jerker--all that soft focus is a dead giveaway--and I figured I might as well go for it. The love story didn't really get me going because--well, it just didn't. I got all weepy at the end, but then my life in the current and not so current moment lends itself to that. Still, I made myself feel better by imagining that Robin and Paul consoled each other over Kevin's death. Certainly I would rather have the former than the latter. But that's just me.

Must I go on? Must I tell you that I did a quick turn into the drive-through at Jack in the Box. And then I hied to the drug store where I entertained myself by browsing in the cosmetics department. Okay, MIDLIFEBLOGGER ALERT: I got something called Bio-Oil, a South African product which contains the "breakthrough ingredient PurCellin Oil" and promises to "help smooth and tone aging, sagging and wrinkled skin on both the face and the body." All these breakthroughs and promises I could definitely use, and I'll report back as soon as I have something to say.

And then, and then, and then!! I watched reruns of Law & Order SVU and began the long process of filing and clipping that will culminate tomorrow in a painting of the toenails. O joyous Sunday--one can hardly wait.

Taking The Leap

That's the title of a post by MerlotMom. It's also the title of this blog post, because I've done it: published our first MidLifeBlogger post. Go look....http://midlifebloggers.com

MidLifeBloggers.com - how's it gonna work?

Here's one explanation, long-winded probably, but jeeze, folks, I thinking out loud here. I mean, isn't the normal thing for a web site to be presented, all pretty in beta, with the major issues worked out? Am I capable of doing the normal thing? NO.

So look at it this way: you are being treated to an insiders look at the creation of a website...by someone who knows nothing about creating websites. This is flying by the seat of my pants, people, which is how I've always done it. Problem is, you're all on the plane with me. However, I promise that we will not crash and burn. Equally, expect a bumpy ride from time to time.

Here's what I'm imagining: The main blog posts of the site will be written by all who have and will join the group. We'll take turns. At least in the beginning, I'll serve as the editor. So say you've written a post on your blog that you think would be perfect for MidLifeBloggers.com. Write me an email, send me the link, or just copy it into the email. I, in turn, will post it on MidLifeBloggers.com.

My vision for this whole project is a place for all of us. I can see other avenues within the site that would work for less formal dialogue. I'm hoping that the category Conversations will work in a quasi-interactive way. Ask a question; get a bunch of answers. Okay, that's vague, but maybe by tomorrow, I'll have sharpened it up. Or maybe you'll join me in brainstorming this thing. How 'bout that...huh? huh?

Love,
Jane

Themes and Content at MidLifeBloggers.com

I've now looked at countless Wordpress themes and actually uploaded four. Of those, the two I like the best are not widget-friendly. One has to do some manipulating to widgitize them, and I'm thinking I'm so over the manipulation bit. But maybe not. Maybe now is when the tough get going, etcetcetcetc.

This is the one I'm liking now:


But then, I'm drawn to this one too:

Clearly I'm a fan of the rounded corners, odd-ball designs.

And I liked the one I posted yesterday as well, but I'm afraid all those separate windows would end up confusing me, if not the rest of you. I think I'll just pin the tail on the template and go for whichever.

Initially, there will be two places that need your thoughts and words. The main page will feature a different blog post by you at least three times a week. Right now, I'm going to function as the editor of the site, so you'll submit your post to me and I'll put it up on the site. This will, of course, be cross-posted from your blog, unless you'd rather not (and I know some of you would rather not!). The other arena which will depend on you will be what I'm calling, for want of something snazzier (!) "Conversations." Basically, it will be a comment page on a specific topic. Anyone gets to start the topic: again, tell me what it is and I'll put it up there.

There--that's the beginning. Whaddaya think?

Almost...almost...almost there!

Eureka! I have finally conquered Wordpress 101. I'm thinking that the site will be up tomorrow. That's what I'm thinking...and hoping...but not promising. What I can promise is that MidLifeBloggers will evolve over time as WE create it.
In the spirit of that, what do you think of this look? It's not typical...but then, neither are we!

Two More MidLifeBloggers

Eyes right, please, and check these out:

Twentyfour At Heart

Oneida in the Ozarks

That is absolutely all I have to say. I'm wiped......

The Seder, She is Over

I just walked through the kitchen on my way into the office and, frankly, it's a train wreck. Cabinet doors are open, the dishwasher racks are pulled out and both sinks are full of the debris from our Seder. I'll deal with it tomorrow. That's the blessing of living alone: my housekeeping is purely at the whim of ME!

The Seder was a great success, although I don't know what the rabbis would have thought. I was the only Jew at the table and, frankly, I ain't so up on the finer points of my religion. But what I wanted was a family dinner where people really wanted to be there and really, yes really, liked each other. So rather than making the schlep down to LA to spend Passover with my sister, et al, I made a Seder for my Northern California family: my two stepsons, daughters-in-law, and my granddaughter. As I said in my toast-- I may not have been lucky in love, but I was definitely lucky in my marriage.

Making Passover

This is something that Jews do: we make the holiday. I don't think that Christians make Easter, do they? You get ready for it, you bake the ham, you fill the basket, you dye the eggs, and then the holiday is there and then it's over and --whoosh! that's it until next year. We make our holidays, and this strikes me as interesting, at least etymologically speaking. Make implies effort, creation, work--oy vey!

I'm making Passover this year: the brisket, the matzoh ball soup, the kugel, the whole nine yards (if you'll forgive the inappropriate metaphor). And all that work--I'm loving it.

Stubborn, Stupid, or Determined?

I started to write a response to the comments I got on yesterday's post about my frustration with knitting socks and creating a website. Mainly, my blog friends were telling me to get a grip and ask for help. So my response had to do with the issue of not asking for help, but when it threatened to turn into Book Two of Gone With the Wind, I decided it merited it's own post. And now, faced with the proverbial blank page, all the profundities of GWTW-byJane have passed unmarked from my mind. So let me start again.

I read the comments this morning and I spent Molly's poop walk working out why I don't want help on creating a website. It does, actually, have something to do with why I'm determined as well to finish that pair of socks (despite the fact that, yes Jennifer, one can BUY perfectly lovely socks ANYWHERE).

All my life, when the going gets tough, I tend to get going. Thus, there exists behind me a veritable trail of unfinished thises and thats. There also exists, inside of me, as a consequence an often deep and always nagging feeling that I'm not quite (and sometimes even sorta) the person I pretend to be. I'm getting away with stuff--with failure, with disappointment, with success as well--by opting out of the game. I do it with such an offensive tactic that I dare people to even think I'm giving up. But I know. And I also know I have to stop--if I'm to continue to grow and enjoy my life.

So, my determination to finish the socks and my insistence on sorting out Wordpress myself are part of what I have to do to get past the point where I give up. It's Tough Love, but sometimes you gotta do that with your kids, even when it's your Inner Child.

By the way, check out the newest member of our MidLifeBloggers blogroll: Sonia of Aging Inappropriately.

Frustration!!!!

I'm running in place, or so it feels, on so many things in my life. That sounds direr than I mean it (btw, is there such a word as 'direr'? there is now!), but of the things I've tried to accomplish this week, a big zippo is happening. To wit:
1. Wednesday Night Knitting at Knitique: I decided to bite the bullet and FINISH THE GODDAMN SOCK THAT I STARTED OH, ABOUT NINE MONTHS AGO. We all know, since I have whined continuously, that I hate knitting socks. I do not knit socks. I love sock yarn. I buy lots of sock yarn. This is a joke among those who knit with me and, goshdarnit, I've decided to change and amend my ways. I WILL master that freakin' sock, or, or,--whatever. So I took said freakin' sock to work on last night and after I had done eight rows turning the heel, I decided it was all wrong and I frogged it. Then I went, crumpled instructions in hand to Danielle, who cheerfully told me I had done it right the first time. So I knit and I ripped and now I have to knit again. FRUSTRATION.
2. I am trying to get MidLifeBloggers.com up and running. By myself. Because I am, wouldn't you know it, a "Mother I'd Rather Do It Myself" kind of person. But myself doesn't know diddlysquat about building websites. So I'm sitting at my computer with OMSH's Wordpress Wednesdays handouts on one side, Wordpress's Codex on the other, and Wordpress for Dummies on my lap. I know just how I want the site to look and to work, but, but, but--. I wish I could just stick my hands into the computer and make it do what I want it to. I wish I knew what I was doing. I wish I wasn't so fucking independent!

The Petard Upon Which I Am Hoisted

I wrote this post last year, September 10, 2007 to be exact, when I was feeling like the loneliest voice in the blogosphere talking about issues of aging. And in fact, there were no comments, nary a response to what I wrote. Rereading it now, and knowing that there's actually a dialogue going on, I'm going to republish it.

The original title was: Today's Blog Is Brought to You By......What I Read In Bed At Night. It was a rather lackadasical title, truthful but not especially meaningful, or appealing. Some titles are like that for me, but others come out of some hidden place and insist on being, despite seeming nutty, wild gibberish. Then after a time, I'll suddenly see how absolutely perfect the gibberish was, how it so summed up things I felt but couldn't articulate. The one for this post today is that kind of a title, and after you read this post, see if you can tell me what that petard is.


Last night, and the night before actually, [I was reading in bed] Living in the Light of Death and The Northern California & Nevada TourBook. The second was a function of the first and, obviously, they have very different authors and completely different subjects. The former (the first, that is) is a book by Larry Rosenberg on breath awareness meditation or, as the subtitle says, "On the Art of Being Truly Alive." This is so what I'm needing to foster in my life: breathing, being alive, and a knack for taking the piss out of topics that I really do believe in. Ooops. Can I suck that last sentence back? Or at least the final clause--or is it really a phrase with an adverbial in it?

But I digress. The TourBook is the AAA's tome on where and what to visit in--hey!--Northern California and Nevada. If you belong to the AAA, you can go to one of their offices and slide your card in the appropriate slot, punch the appropriate buttons and--woila!--maps and tourbooks come falling out. Sort of like the candy machine at a Motel Six (not that I'd know what that's like, since I foreswore motels with numerals in their names about a decade ago).

I got the TourBook (I hope you're noting the unique capitalization) several weeks ago when I was looking for a likely spot for Molly and I to visit. I found one, but we didn't go; we knitted instead. That is, I knitted at Knitique, my LYS, and Molly veered between greeting the customers and sweeping the floor searching for and finding all manner of crumbs, a task which leaves the floor cleaner and a black low water mark on her chin or beard or muzzle or whatever you want to call that curly white hair that grows on her face.

But again! I digress. I had the TourBook in bed with me because there are three practice centers for Insight Meditation in California, and I wanted to see which was near me. Instead, I got caught up the first chapter of Rosenberg's book: "Aging Is Unavoidable." That's a contemplation, and Rosenberg says it's one people want to avoid. They accept it intellectually--oh, sure, big deal--but to actually take in the real fact of it, of the eventual disintegration of the body--? Nope, that's for someone else. Part of it is a question of self-image, he says, and that, that point is where I got nailed to the wall.

"Self-images are a problem. They are designed to help us feel adequate and secure but also often cause a great deal of suffering. We all have them, and most of us aren't aware we do. We spend enormous time and energy and even money creating and protecting them, trying to keep them intact while our daily experience is chipping away at them. Then when someone sees us in a different way, we are shattered. They mention a senior-citizen discount, and suddenly we see ourselves in Bermuda shorts and canvas shoes, wearing a funny little straw hat. That isn't the image we want to present at all. The pictures we have in our own head are way out of date."

I've been thinking on that. It's a gendered description, so I'm not caught by the Bermuda shorts and funny straw hat. Except--except, the image in my head of a senior citizen is my mother. Short little Libby, who loathed being called cute. Who wore Bermuda shorts and Keds in matching colors. And berets--she was famous for her berets (in fact she was buried in one). There is a whole world of negative images that I have attached to aging, not only clothing, but behaviors and attitudes and ways and means of being that come from watching my mother age. Things I vowed I would not do or feel or say. Except...except...well, you know what I'm going to say, don't you.

ByJane is MIA due to the IRS and FTP

My brain is fried.