Musings: The Coffee Mugs

Over the years, thanks to my students and my friends, my collection of coffee mugs has outgrown the shelf space. I don’t like to donate the mugs to a thrift shop since I prefer to believe that someone took some time to select an appropriate mug to offer at Christmas time. The overflow is safely stored in another bin and I will occasionally take time to open the bin and remember the person whose name is inked on the bottom. However, these mugs, these everyday mugs, are particularly special to me since they have come from longtime friends, my son, and from particular places that touch my heart. Every morning when the coffee has been brewed, I pause to check out the mugs on the shelf: Whom do I need to think about this morning? With the exception of my Macbeth/ Stratford Shakespeare Festival mug reserved for Saturday mornings, the choice varies daily.

A few of these mugs are close to 50 years old; one is older and hand thrown by a friend who left teaching to become a potter. All of them represent someone dear to my heart. Sometimes I choose a mug because that someone is going through a difficult time. Sometimes it’s because that someone has been in my heart simply because. . .perhaps because they are no longer with me and I need their presence. But yes, first thing in the morning, I take time to send a thought into the universe and drink deeply with their essence in my heart.

I don’t need to go into detail about each one, dear reader. Know that this particular morning ritual has become important to me. If you are a friend, I hope on some level the warm thoughts I send your way make your life a bit better, if only in a tiny, subliminal way. You are in my heart and on my mind. May your day be a better one for this moment of thought. If you are a reader I don’t know, there is actually a mug for you, wherever you are.

No matter where you are, you are enough. I’m glad you’re here. I’m grateful you are in my life. I am delighted that you paused to read something I wrote. I hope yours is a day in which you can thrive.

Musings: Ten Thousand Students

My father worked in construction–heavy work. Grading. Excavation. Trucking. When we drove around the city or talked over coffee, he would tell me of the various buildings in which he played a role in their construction. This included everything from massive building projects like schools or office buildings to such smaller projects as private homes. He, like an architect or an engineer, could see tangible results of his work, his contribution to the world. His work had a beginning, a middle, and an end that had a physical existence. Teachers and first responders of all sorts don’t have that. We encounter people over short periods of time—a school year or, in the case of first responders, people who may have experienced the worst moments of their lives so far.

Teaching is like that. I may have a student in class for a year, or in the case of performing ensembles, over the course of several years. Relationships are important in any case. Nevertheless, at this point in my life, I have been thinking about my own choices. When I was making lifetime decisions, the world was such that my choices other than housewife and mother were more limited. To my knowledge, there was nursing, teaching, secretary, waitress, sales. We weren’t counseled about much else. As far as I know, there was only one young woman in my class of 485 who went to law school. We had several nurses, at least one librarian, a few secretaries and me, the teacher, among my group. Moreover, I was the only female band director in the group–something unusual at the time. Retirement is, after all, a time of reflection. Looking back, I wonder what has become of the 10,000+ students I have encountered over the 48 years of my career.

My information as to what has happened to some of those students is limited. It is easy to lose track of who has done what after they leave one’s classroom. To date, I have been “replaced” in the band or choir room by at least four other students. Another has become a paralegal in order to pay the bills so that she can continue to play bassoon in other venues. There have been a handful of college graduates, some of whom have gone on to and completed graduate programs. Three were killed in vehicular accidents, two more to gunfire. I have met a few who are working retail or service jobs, a few have started their own small businesses. Two have gone into entertainment. Two became engineers, one of those was also a journeyman player in the NBA. One had a walk-on opportunity in the NFL. Two went to ivy league schools, one of whom became a Rhodes Scholar, the other went on to a PhD in history. One went into the creative arts and pharmacy. Five are incarcerated, two for homicide. One of those five told the judge that he was bored one summer and so he and his friends took up armed robbery. It is difficult sometimes to remember the successes in light of the far more tragic failures. Perhaps that is the nature of simply being human. We remember the negative because the negative is a teaching experience. We learn.

The problem is, of course, that there is little we can do once a student leaves our classroom. Several quiet students confided in me that they were Dreamers. Ironically, these were among my best, hardest working of my AP Language students. They came in for extra help, they read the extra “stuff” I suggested, and yes, they passed the AP Lang exam where students with greater English skills simply blew it off. Other students confided personal issues—parental divorce, custody battles, pregnancy, aging out of foster care. We observed and worked with girls in abusive dating relationships. One reached the age of 18 mid-year and was told to get out now that she was grown. She had a home one day, then Happy Birthday, child. Get out. Together with skilled school counselors, we found a place for her to sleep until we could figure out more. Everyday serious drama is part of teaching in high school and it’s not limited to urban high schoolers.

All of it leaves me wondering if I did any good. By the time a student leaves high school, they’ve had many teachers. The number totals into the double digits. Students do not connect with all teachers, nor do all teachers connect with students. Still, as my mom told me, you don’t have to love teacher you find irritating, but you are obliged to treat them with respect and to mine their knowledge and learn from it. I am still haunted by that last year in the classroom where I dealt with the whiners and the pretty girls. The whiners missed their former English teacher, a young, highly talented, smart woman who had that class for two years. I understood that. I consider their former teacher to be among the closest of my friends today. She is an amazing educator. I wasn’t jealous, but the whiners certainly didn’t make my life easy. Among the pretty girls, one was the class valedictorian to-be. At graduation she thanked Quick-Lit for getting her through AP Lit. Evidently she used the Cliff Notes equivalent rather than encountering the author and doing the hard work of thinking. The other girls in her posse rode on her coat-tails. To her credit, she did lead the group and got them thinking even if their work ethic was a little questionable.

What would I have done had I known otherwise? I wish that I had known about public service. That not all in service are elected officials. There are those who work in foreign service as part of the diplomatic corps. There are scholars and historians who help shape policy. I find this attractive now and wonder why it was never an option. Why were we so limited? Even the boys weren’t counseled about such options. Geographers, language specialists, scientists of all sorts have valuable talents and knowledge that helps to form the greater good for society. To my own knowledge, we were never made aware of the vast opportunities other than the traditional paths. Do I regret 48 years in the classroom? No. I did my best for my students. Given my own restless intellect, I tried to make connections to the greater world and across any variety of subject areas. Right now, I feel that I’ve been there, done that. The world of the classroom has changed since the shutdown. Teachers have an even more difficult task now than they did when I left. I stand and applaud every one of them.

If I could, I would change the way we teach teachers. I would not take a baby teacher who has completed a few weeks of student teaching and toss them into a classroom. Teachers should serve internships much as future doctors do. There should be a similar path in the classroom. On average, it takes five years to make a teacher. Far too many of them leave in the first three. Statistics show that we lose half of the new teachers in the first three years for many reasons, but mostly because there is little support. A new teacher may have a “buddy” who also has a full load of their own and who cannot devote enough time to support a baby teacher adequately. The best part of the first year in the classroom is that it ends and smart young teachers learn and do better each year. First years, even first years in a new district, are difficult. There is always, always a learning curve. One has to learn the language of that district’s culture and sometimes that seems impossible. Teaching takes constant self-evaluation and reflection over the life span of a career. It’s a survival skill.

In the end, I suspect that there are many reasons for the teacher shortage. Why incur incredible student loan debt to work in a profession with low pay for the time, the effort, and the emotional toll that teachers experience? Furthermore, there are many, many more opportunities, particularly for young women, than there were for us when I was starting out. The future is a banquet of riches in the professions as well as the trades. Choosing a path is now the problem. I read once that young people today will have up to as many as six to eight careers—not jobs–careers and that the best thing younger students can learn is how to learn. It makes sense to me. Ten thousand students later, my only regret beyond wishing that I could have done better, is not knowing more about what has become of these young people. I wish them all well, even the ones who drove me crazy.

Musings: A Very Few Random thoughts and getting dumped from FaceBook

It was late July of 2023 when I deleted my Twitter account. That marked the takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk. I haven’t looked back. When BlueSky came online and good old Rachel Maddow said it was easy to create an account, I tried. Then I forgot my password. Then BlueSky decided that I had tried enough. No more BlueSky account I created a FaceBook account so that I could access an alumni group. My participation was minimal because I discovered it was far too easy to go down a rabbit hole on Reels. Though I did like the “perncipal” who posted videos of his dealings with crazy parents and students, I had to stay away. I was spending far too much time on the site. Interestingly enough, though, the end came when FaceBook wanted me to prove that I was human. FaceBook demanded that I post a video of myself turning my face from side to side so that it could see that I was a real person. I don’t have that capability and no, the powers that be could or would not accept a video from my phone to post. I was deleted from FaceBook. Sorry. I do miss my alumni group though.

My next “mistake”? I posted a sarcastic remark on BlueSky and my chat feature was disabled. I was not profane, did not take the name of the Lord in vain. I was a little snarky. Therefore, I have decided to post a very few random thoughts here that neither FaceBook nor BlueSky wants me to post.

I wonder why it is that no one–not dear Rachel or any of her colleagues at what is now MSnow— has considered the concept of the Peter Principal. The 1969 book, The Peter Principle by Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull, is where we find a discussion of the idea that people are promoted to their level of incompetence. We see examples of this all the time. If I had gone into school administration, I would definitely have hit my level of incompetence. I would not be alone. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has hit his. So have Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump. Could I post that on FaceBook? Maybe not. Still, no one has pointed this out using the Principle. I would think that Joe Scarborough might have thought of it. He seems quite well read.

Then consider that Mike Johnson and several of his cohort in the House may lose their midterm elections. There are rumors that the same may be true of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. It was this comment that got my chat disabled in BlueSky: If you are being run out of town, get out in front and make it look like a parade. Hey, it works. Obviously BlueSky thought differently.

Or was it AI??

Musings: AI. The Cliff Notes of Life?

The threat of AI has been a topic of science fiction for a long time. We have seen it in movies–think the Terminator franchise, and certainly in written SciFi, but the latest book previewed today on MSnow may have either the most frightening or the most prescient title extant. It’s Micheal Carter’s IF ANYONE DESIGNS IT, EVERYBODY DIES: How Superhuman AI Marks the Fall of Humanity. (Capslock is the author’s.) The author’s premise is that if we or that which we have already designed, decides to build a super-AI platform, humanity is doomed. We all die. I find that terrifying. However, I suspect that we will have doomed ourselves long before the rise of Super-AI.

For example, when I am online and click on an article, I get a ChatGPT message that says “This looks like a long article. Would you like me to summarize the main points for you?” No. Though I know that there are many readers out there who are more than willing to answer in the affirmative, I am not one of them. ChatGPT has even offered to summarize knitting charts for me. Honestly, I probably should have clicked on that one if only to see what it does in summarizing color/stitch grids. What are the main points of a recipe? Nevertheless, I want to let good old ChatGPT know that I am not feeble (yet) and no, I am perfectly capable of reading an entire article. I wish there was a way to turn the thing off. There is far more in a piece of writing than the bullet points. What about the writer’s use of language? What about their word choice? Sentence structure? What does the writer’s skill reveal about the quality of thinking that underscores the article? I know there are people out there who still care about good writing.

Yes, I have used Cliff Notes. I confess I used them twice–once in getting through King Lear when swamped with work in other undergraduate courses, and once when in need of a quick summary. That’s twice. Both times I was an undergrad. As a teacher, I had to keep abreast of the more recent iterations of Cliff Notes–SparkNotes, Blinkist, QuickRead. No Fear Shakespeare offers side by side “translations” of Shakespeare’s dialogue into modern English. It is possible to get four-minute book summaries. There is danger in this, though. English teachers prowl these sites and use them to create questions that take another tack on the same discussion points. Still, it is becoming difficult to create something that will reveal whether the student actually encountered to author. Yes, all of this is faster. It’s geared to accommodate shorter attention spans and smaller vocabularies.

Smaller vocabularies? Yes. We used to talk about courage, fortitude, perseverance. Now, people are brave. They demonstrate bravery. Occasionally, they demonstrate braveness. We used to hear that fatigue was a side effect of a particular medication. Now it’s not fatigue. It’s tiredness. We may be tired, or we could be exhausted, weary, drained, worn out. A character might be frightened, terrified, fearful, alarmed, panicked. They might be anxious, nervous, daunted, or horrified. Nope. Today they are merely scared. Characters do not laugh, chortle, whine, shout or whisper. They “say.”

Much has been written about the effects of screen time on developing brains. I wonder about those same effects of adult brains. A friend once challenged her students to check the digital wellbeing setting in their phones to learn how much time they were spending on their devices. They were shocked. I average 35 minutes daily on my phone. That’s it. If I go much over that, I consciously put it down and avoid contact. I think that it won’t be simply some giant superhuman AI that will do us in. I think that by the time the giant superhuman AI comes about, we will have done ourselves in simply by forgetting how to think and how to think critically. We have fallen for the excerpt, the cheap summary, the boiled-watered-down condensed version. We will succumb, ensorcelled by superhuman AI much in the way that far too many of us have fallen under the spell of humans who have, in the name of progress, led us down a path that may eventually lead to our destruction. The things that connect us as communities in the US are waning: church, fraternal organizations, scouts, service groups. Even the mega churches with their giant pastoral staffs may not engender the close communal ties that smaller congregations have. Like Pogo of the eponymous comic strip: We have met the enemy and he is us.

Musings: James Lovell

Jim Lovell died a few days ago. He was 97–a good run, and certainly an incredible life. He was a Milwaukee native, a graduate of Solomon Juneau High School and of the University of Wisconsin flagship campus in Madison, WI. The city of Milwaukee named a street after him in 1996. He was part of NASA’s second group of astronauts, joining the space administration’s projects in 1962 as part of “the next nine.” His first spaceflight was Gemini 7–the last, Apollo 13. His Apollo 8 flight took him around the moon, but was not to include a lunar landing. After Apollo 13, he retired from NASA and went into private life. He did, however, write a book, Lost Moon, which became the source material for the film Apollo 13. It seems appropriate that Tom Hanks played Lovell in the movie, a star also known for his genuine humility. Hanks wrote the following after learning of Lovell’s death:

I remember the launch of Sputnik. I remember the reaction on the news to such an unprecedented event, and the impact on my own interests. On summer nights in 1957 we would stand in the middle of our quiet street and watch it blink across the sky—a lonely traveler around planet Earth. My mother bought a book on space satellites for me. I was, like many children then, fascinated by the saga of the Mercury 7 astronauts, of Alan Shepherd and John Glen. I wanted to be an astronaut in the worst way. Alas, at the time, the program was open only to men who were test pilots and had at least a master’s degree in engineering.

Fascinated by space exploration for a long time, I still look to the stars each night before crawling into bed, occasionally decrying the amount of city light pollution that limits the numbers of stars I can see. The moon is an endless source of enchantment. That we could watch the first moon landing on a television set up in the do-nut shop where I worked the night shift was a real treat. The world watched together. Early that morning, the atmosphere played tricks in our latitude. The moon was huge—an orange ball, magnified many many times its size, as if to embed in our memories the importance of that dawn.

High school is a strange place in many ways. During those four years, we search for who we are and for whom we might become. It’s full of highs and lows, some of which are remembered in vivid details. We call them flashbulb memories. Not all flashbulb memories are traumatic. They can be of an event so rare and special that everything surrounding that memory stands out–that flashbulb picture of a moment.

So it was that in February of 1966 I got to go to Milwaukee’s Riverside Theater to attend a student press conference with James Lovell. To this day, I don’t know why I was picked from among the students in our high school to attend. Yes, I was on the staff of the student newspaper, but wrote for the literary page. I was a Senior Honor Girl, a member of the band and orchestra, worked on the plays and musicals. None of that would, I think, singularly qualify me for this event. No girls were in the school’s aeronautics class–the one that built a biplane over five years–so that was out. It could simply be that the powers that be pulled my name out of a hat that held a list other students who would be good representatives. Who knows? But for me, it would be a lottery win. On that Wednesday noon, I got to board a yellow bus that made the rounds to other south side high schools picking up those who were to attend, and sit in the balcony on the plush red velvet seats of the Riverside Theater and look down on the panel of dignitaries and what I think were school newspaper editors on stage and James (not yet Jim) Lovell. Amazing!

While I don’t remember all the details of the questions, one did stand out: “What would you do if something happened in space that meant you might not get home?” Lovell’s answer was much like the answers we have heard: In spaces, disasters don’t always happen quickly. Disasters can also develop slowly enough that we can think our way out of them. Indeed, history shows that his answer was prescient. Apollo 13’s explosion spared the astronauts and enough of the structure to allow them and ground control to work through the disaster and bring them all home alive. Lovell’s answer skirted the issue of a slow death in space and whether the astronauts had some sort of suicide pill—at least that’s not part of my memory.

After the press conference, some of us hung around the stage door hoping to get an autograph or a handshake, but that was not to be. The times being what they were, the yellow bus may have dropped us off at the theater, but it was our individual job to get home from there on the city bus system. I don’t recall even needing a permission slip. It was “here’s this opportunity, now go for it.”

Now, almost 60 years later, this memory is still vivid. I still have the program from the event glued on a page from my scrapbook. In retrospect, I should probably not have glued it down, but it’s what we did in an age before page protectors.Below are the photos I have managed to take from that faded program. For me they are a real treasure. I wonder these days, after the loss of James Lovell, how many more of the students who were there that afternoon feel similarly. He was part of my life in a particular and personal way.

Yes, James Lovell, Godspeed. You had an amazing and a long run. From the days of Gemini to Apollo 8, when you were close, when you photographed fragile planet Earth from space, when you read from Genesis, to Apollo 13, when once more, you were close, but not moon-bound, when you and your crew and all of NASA labored under the rule: Failure is not an option.

Earth rising. . .Photo by James Lovell, Apollo 8, December 24, 1968

Musings: The More You Know

The more you know–a star gold shoots across the television screen trailing a comet’s tail of red, green, and blue sparkles. The more you know increases the richness of one’s life,the depth of one’s knowledge, and the skill with which one can communicate. The short snippets of knowledge on NBCUniversal stations are designed to enlighten the viewer in all sorts of areas. The first The More You Know PSA hit the airwaves in 1989 and can still be seen all these years later. Like the old Schoolhouse Rock moments, The More You Know drops bits of knowledge into the breaks in all sorts of programming. For me, these moments are always interesting, and honestly, the logo makes me smile.

I’ve been thinking lately about my own particular corner of knowledge–that corner of hard-earned musical knowledge. One finds all sorts of musical influences in movie soundtracks. There’s an old joke: A film composer drops by to visit another film composer who is busy working at his wonderful grand piano. Scattered across the closed lid of the piano are open scores: Tschaikowsky, Ravel, Glazunov, Stravinsky. When the visiting composer noticed this, his comment was “Oh friend, I thought you composed from memory. . .” The Star Wars soundtrack is rife with references to other classical composers. It’s fun to listen simply to try to discover what inspired a particular melody.

Then there are, of course, direct quotes. While Samuel Barber’s poignant Adagio for Strings in Platoon accompanies a scene of fiery destruction, we can also find it in Elephant Man, Lorenzo’s Oil, and Amelie. It is well known that Johann Strauss’ Blue Danube Waltz as well as Richard Strauss’ opening moments of Also Sprach Zarthustra appear in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Greta Gerwig used Kubrick’s opening sequence of 2001 as a framework for her own opening in Barbie. Knowing the reference means more fun the opening of Barbie is. By accident or design, Scent of a Woman, Schindler’s List, and True Lies all use Carlos Gardel’s Por una Cabeza tango. If you are need of a trivia question that pretty much stumps everyone, ask what all three of those wildly different films have in common. John Williams quotes When You Wish Upon A Star at the end of Close Encounters. Carl Orff’s Oh Fortuna from Carmina Burana shows up in all sorts of places, including Excalibur. Excalibur also takes from Wagner–the dragon leitmotiv from Siegfried’s Funeral Music in Götterdämmerung shows up as well as the Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde underscores the moment when Lancelot sees Guinevere for the first time.

And speaking of the Liebestod, there was a wonderful moment at President Carter’s funeral. The commentators were discussing Carter’s vast knowledge base, mentioning that when Carter interviewed with Admiral Rickover, the admiral asked Carter who his favorite composer was. Carter responded “Wagner.” Then Rickover asked which movement. The speaker said that Carter had said “the second.” That’s pretty general, and perhaps implies that the commentator (or his producers) hadn’t done their homework. While Wagner had completed a Symphony in C at age 19 and a Faust overture, most of his work was done in opera. The telling moment–the rich moment was to realize that underscoring this conversation in the National Cathedral, the orchestra was playing the Liebestod— the Love-Death final moments from Tristan and Isolde. Put it all together and what we have is a moment that embodies the relationship between Jimmy and Roslyn Carter, and is, I feel, Carter’s favorite Wagner. It’s too bad that the commentators either didn’t know or hadn’t been listening to the music that was underscoring their conversation.

Sometimes great connections are made accidentally–or accidentally on purpose. During one of the impeachments of Donald Trump, Rachel Maddow discussed how it was NBC that broadcast the proceedings of the House Committee on the Impeachment of Richard Nixon. The chyron then showed the opening, musically underscored by Hector Berlioz’s Symphony Fantastique. I had scheduled my TV time around watching these proceedings, and now, re-viewing that opening, I realized that I had forgotten that the music was The March To The Scaffold. It was a happy moment of remembering. A few moments later, Rachel announced that very fact, crediting sharp ears among those who were in the control room.

Nevertheless, the final bit of musical irony (out of what I am certain are far more that I have listed here) was a moment on Fox Business channel. It happened during the first term of the current president. Fox Business was in the habit of showing a still picture of something–a landmark, a scene–and then identifying the music that was taking the program to break. And so it was that on this particular summer day we saw a photo of the White House with the note that we were hearing John Phillip Sousa’s Liberty Bell march. On the surface, that’s all pretty innocuous. However, either someone didn’t know and was innocent, or someone knew and did it on purpose. John Phillip Sousa’s Liberty Bell march is the opening music for Monty Python’s Flying Circus.

The more you know. . . .

Musings: Authors and Characters

I don’t ever consider myself to be a writer of novels. I suspect that’s because I don’t deal well with conflict. I confess that I have tried, but failed miserably at the long form. It might be because I haven’t found a compelling enough narrative or a character has not knocked on the door from the ether to whisper their story into the dark recesses of my brain. Perhaps that character is there, but my brain has simply kept the door closed. There is too much else for one brain to work on right now. Maybe that part of my brain is under renovation and can’t be accessed. Who knows? At any rate, this does not preclude the reading brain from thinking about characters that seem to have become either stereotypes or possibly archetypes.

I just finished re-reading Lessons in Chemistry in preparation for this, the first meeting of a new book club. It got me thinking about how female characters are portrayed. Elizabeth Zott is brilliant. She is also beautiful, which gets her on camera to do her cooking show at a time when she desperately needs some income. It seems beauty and brains have to go together. It is not enough for a woman to be smart. She has to look good too. Consider Beckett, the main character in the the series Castle that started on television with Nathan Fillian, the writer, and Stana Katic, the detective.

Earlier in this blog, I wrote that it seemed that strong women also had to have long hair. That both in cover art and in film, animated as well as live-action, female leads grew their hair from short and practical to long, flowing locks. Of course, the opposite happens when women have to disguise themselves as men: those locks are shorn. The TV series spawned a collection of crime novels, the Richard Castle “Heat” series: Naked Heat, Heat Wave, and Heat Rises. And how do we describe detective Nikki Heat? She’s “tough, sexy and professional.” Could she be dynamic and effective if she were merely tough and professional?

Stacy Abrams new book, written with Selena Montgomery, Power of Persuasion, has a central character, A.J. Grayson, whose royal employer is “Expecting a computer geek, and skeptical of A.J.’s highly touted secret invention, he is stunned to find a strong-minded beauty who arouses much more than his suspicions.” I have enjoyed reading Ms. Abrams’ other works, but I am weary of these main characters. Somewhere in the world of publishing can there be a character closer to that of Amy Farah Fowler, the beloved of Sheldon Cooper in The Big Bang Theory ?

Amy’s growth through the series informs us of her own mental/emotional toughness. I thoroughly enjoy her occasional cameos in the spin-off Young Sheldon. She clearly knows how to get Sheldon to do what needs to be done. . .even though Sheldon, in his own egocentric way, doesn’t really want to do it. Would we call her manipulative? Is Sheldon whipped? I am sure there are those out there who would think that. If she is, she is for good reasons. Young Leonard needs to have his dad there for the hockey game. Sheldon should be present for more than Leonard’s conception. Yes, after they win the Nobel, Amy is distressed about looking frumpy. The ensuing shopping spree with Raj results is a well-dressed, fashionable Amy who has clearly embraced a level of strength that comes with feeling and looking well put together. Is she “sexy” in the sense that Abrams’ A.J. is? I think not, but Amy’s confidence is clearly up a notch, and confidence is sexy.

Not all strong, smart female characters are the same. Sometimes we read the other extreme. There’s Plum Kettle, protagonist of Sarai Walker’s Dietland. According to the plot summary, Plum Kettle does her best not to be noticed, because when you’re fat, to be noticed is to be judged. Or mocked. Or worse. With her job answering fan mail for a popular teen girls’ magazine, she is biding her time until her weight-loss surgery. Only then can her true life as a thin person finally begin. Then, when a mysterious woman starts following her, Plum finds herself falling down a rabbit hole and into an underground community of women who live life on their own terms. There Plum agrees to a series of challenges that force her to deal with her past, her doubts, and the real costs of becoming beautiful.” In the world of the reader, women are smart, sexy, strong, and beautiful, or they are fat, in more humble job titles, and desperate.

This I understand. After years of trying, of a yo-yo existence, I understand Plum. However, can we find an author who can write a strong, complex character who simply looks ordinary? Can confidence be the force multiplier rather than looks? Perhaps the answer lies in Maria Semple’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette? The “notorious, hilarious, volatile, talented, troubled, and agoraphobic mother Bernadette Fox is notorious. … To her Microsoft-guru husband, she is a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she is a disgrace; to design mavens, she is a revolutionary architect, and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, simply, Mom.” Neither in this description, nor in the narrative itself is Bernadette ever described as beautiful or hot or sexy. According to the same blurb, she’s agoraphobic–something with which I strongly disagree.

Bernadette, in my opinion, is simply pissed. She is a winner of a MacArthur “Genius” Grant, an incredible, creative architect known for a working philosophy of sustainability, whose amazing “20-Mile House” is a winner on many levels. And then disaster happens. Cruelty in it’s most deliberate form. And no, I am not going to spoil this for you, dear reader. It is enough to say that Bernadette simply retreats. Reading it, this the valley of the geniuses in Atlas Shrugged came to mind. Retreat. Take your genius, your creativity, your energy, and keep it to yourself. Take it away from a world that doesn’t appreciate or understand what you have to offer. This is not fear. It’s anger. Of course she hires out her every day “stuff” to someone else. And yes, she cannot manage to work her design magic on her own dwelling. Anger can do that. Anger can be paralyzing. On one level, Bernadette’s nursing of her anger far overshadows that far more positive energy that comes of being creative. My question is, though, why is a highly creative woman who retreats treated as agoraphobic when a male character doing the same thing is staging a protest–is on strike?

Maria Semple has two more books: Today Will Be Different and This one is Mine. Call it research. Call it curiosity, but I’ve added these two to the list. What will her protagonists be like here? Will they, like Bernadette, be other than the beautiful sexy archetypes in the thriller/crime novels? Is smart enough?? Are the beautiful, sexy protagonists simply that–archetypes? Stereotypes? Do they exist because that heightens the tension between the female lead and the male character in this genre? I suspect so. What’s a little titillation, a bit of sexual tension in the mix when it sells well? After all, getting published is among the best of highs. There’s nothing quite like it I think. That’s the goal line. Over the goal. . .the celebration of being on the best-seller list, even better. Writing something of lasting value is, I suspect, deeply satisfying. Paralysis comes when aiming to write the Great American Novel. It might be better, even easier, to write the smart, sexy, confident, strong, long-locked female lead and simply get to see one’s name above the title on the cover.

Musings: Time Flies

I knew it has been a long time since I have written anything. I simply haven’t realized HOW long. Dang.

August of 2024. Amazing. I have no excuse. I simply have been preoccupied with renewing and repairing things around the house. It wasn’t that I hadn’t thought about writing, I simply hadn’t done it. Things have been busy.

Since August of 2024 I have painted two bedrooms, a hallway (Two coats and 7 doors to paint around!), a dining area and a kitchen. Ok. So I had help on the kitchen. I learned how to pull nails from sheet rock without damaging the wall. (Thank you Youtube) and how to patch other places on said wall. I planted a garden, harvested its bounty and shared with my neighbors. The bad railing on the upstairs porch was replaced as was the icky molding around the garage doors. The biggie, though was the renovation of the bathrooms.

I had to have both bathrooms done. The damage on the first floor bathroom was done, in large part, by the issues on the second floor. None of this one-day-bathroom reno was possible. We went out to the studs. The first floor had to have a deadline and my amazing “guy” made it to the day. . .even early. I needed it done the first week of November. He was done November first.

What do I have now?? I have a wonderful tub-less-walk-in-shower first floor. Everything is new. We replaced the windows on both floors. Amazingly, there is incredible natural light flooding the rooms. We installed exhaust fans on both floors. Oh, and new baseboard heaters. When I asked for a pause post-first floor success, it was all good. I needed to save for the next push. Since there’s no deadline for the second floor, we can do it in stages starting next month and as long as we finish in 2025 before the next big materials price increase, we’re in good shape.

No one could be happier than I to have this beautiful room. Both my son and a friend bought me new towels to go with it. When he came to visit, his reaction made me smile. He truly knows what I have accomplished.

Next: The paint for the last room: the living room. On one hand, I feel a little overwhelmed both at the size and the amount of “stuff” that has to be relocated. On the other hand, I have help. I am not in this alone. Between the two of us, we can get this done. My son, the amazing guy at choosing color, helped with the colors and I have a solid idea of how to redo the makeshift TV stand. We are moving right along.

I am loving progress.

What else? In May lovely piano arrived courtesy of Marketplace, I have written two new solos–one for flute/piano and one for xylophone. I’ve spent more than a few hours simply trying to regain the fluidity of my keyboard work that I once had. I bought a Sibelius writing program and put into finished manuscript several of my other works. About this I feel good. If I am not writing words, I am writing music.

And in addition to all that, I still sing in the choir and volunteer at the local Humane Society. Trips to they gym recently have not been the three times a week of the past; I’m using the excuse of below-zero temperatures and freezing drizzle. To this, though, I intend to return . The exercise is good for my spirit. Moreover, I can shower at home in a spacious shower rather than a tiny gym cubicle. I don’t have to schlepp towel and shower shoes and shampoo any more. Go. Work out. Come home. Shower.

I guess I have been a bit busy since last August. It just doesn’t feel like it. I spent the summer doing survey work for our local Shakespeare in the City and the fall working craft services for Spirits of the Silent City. I loved it all. I’ve added dog-sitting to the list. I care only for dogs I know and they come to me. Recently I started the process to foster dogs from the shelter. My goal is to give the benchwarmers–dogs that have been in the shelter for a while—a break from shelter life. I have a few more hoops to hop before I’m qualified. I’m pretty good at hoop-hopping. As with everything, it just takes time.

In the end, I can say that I’ve been a bit busy. That’s really no excuse for not continuing to write, but there it is. Looking back (It is January after all-that two-faced Roman god Janus who looks back and forward, when we are encouraged to do likewise.) I have walked miles since the Hubs died. Not all miles have been easy, but they all have been in the right direction.

Right now, it’s cold out. I am meeting a friend for lunch. I have grocery shopping to do and things to check off the list for today. As for this moment, what I can say is: Write in the blog: check.

Musings: Notes from the BOOK LOG, first of 2024 (Fiction edition)

I apologize for being sinfully neglectful of the blog. I have no excuse save for the lame usual: I’ve been busy. I also have been dry. Chalk that up to feeling unfocused on much of what I want to be doing and stressing about what I should be–and am—doing. I have survived the first year since the death of the Hubs and am beginning to feel more like my real self. Much has gone into this, something for another day. At the end of 2023, the log totalled only 47 books, far from the high 80s and 90s of previous years. So far this year, the total is, once more, lower than usual. I’m not sure whether that’s because I have been pushing in other areas or because I have learned that my speed has slowed. Apparently I have cataracts. Chalk that up to simply aging. However, none of that is a comfortable excuse for not getting back to writing.

Still, in the past year I have constructed an Excel document for my friends that lists the book hangover-worthy titles from two volumes of book logs:

book-hangover-worthy-listDownload

I hope, dear reader, that you will find something interesting.

And so on to the latest entries from the book log.

T. Kingfisher’s A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking is a YA novel that pulls the reader into the world of Mona, a young wizard whose talents do not include the control of lightning or of water. Instead, her familiar, a tub of sourdough starter, and an animated gingerbread man join with her in the defense of the city she loves. An assassin stalks the streets of the city, leaving a dead body on the bakery floor. Mona joins with her friends to find the assassin and solve the mystery of what is happening to the other, adult, wizards in the community. There are some dark moments, certainly, but the ending is triumphant and made me cheer for the youngsters.

This book was recommended to me by a middle school teacher. I had passed the title on to other teachers of middle schoolers and lower grade high school students. Those who had taken the book to the students report that they loved it. It’s bright, it’s dark, it’s sad, it’s humorous. I laughed, I cried, I thoroughly enjoyed T. Kingfisher’s tale. If you need a bit of fluff, try this one.

All The Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby is a gripping read. Titus Crown is the new black sheriff in small town Charon county, Virginia. There have been only two murders in the past several decades, but when a teacher is murdered by a former student, Titus’ investigation reveals that there has been a serial killer walking in plain sight. If you are into a mystery/thriller, this one is for you. The plot has many threads that, as in all good writing, finally weave into a hair-raising conclusion. This one stayed with me for some time. Definitely book hangover-worthy.

I have been increasingly concerned about climate change and the sort of apathy that seems to surround the topic. For years I have watched trees cut down and good farmland plowed under and cemented over in the name of progress. My heart breaks. The Overstory takes on the issue of preserving old growth forests. We learned in history class that it was once said that the continent was once so heavily forested that a squirrel could travel from what is now New York state to the Mississippi river without touching the ground. Richard Powers’ novel covers the loss of the American Chestnut of the east and then looks to the Pacific northwest and the majestic redwood and old growth forests. We come to learn of the tree-sitters of fifty (or so) years ago and their time living in the limbs of one of the most majestic of trees in order to spare it from the chain saws of progress. Weaving together several stories, the narrative is both enlightening and heart-breaking. It was well worth the time it took to read.

I have come to enjoy the recent spate of novels about the Trojan war from the point of view of the women. The latest, Natalie Hayne’s A Thousand Ships relates the Iliad from the point of view of Helen, the incredible beauty whose kidnapping set off the tragedy of the war. Several women dominate this narrative, Helen, yes, but also Penelope who waits for Odysseus, and the three Fates whose feud started the whole thing. The story starts at the end of things–the fall of Troy–and gradually unspins like the threads the Fates hold to reveal that the war did not involve only the men, but also affected the women. If you like looking through the eyes of others, this offers another interesting view.

Weyward is an ancient word for “weird” as in Shakespeare’s weird sisters. Expect to deal with witchcraft in Emilia Hart’s Weyward. Weyward Cottage, a small cottage deep in the woods, links the stories of three women whose family histories are tied to the cottage: one in 1619, one in 1942 and one in 2019. Yes, all three possess the ability to access the deep knowledge of using nature for healing and a connection to the powers of nature around them. I usually view debut novels with some skepticism. It seems that sometimes the authors try too hard. This novel reads as beautifully as The Cloud Atlas, another debut novel I love. This is a novel to dive into. Bring a pot of tea or a glass of wine and a comfy chair. You’ll be in this world for a while.

Musings: High Maintenance?

For some reason the other day I wondered if I was verging on becoming one of those high maintenance people. We all know them, we’ve seen them on television and in the movies. There are urban legends built around the high maintenance of rock stars on tour and their demands for whatever snacks they want in the green room and backstage. Yes to M&Ms, no to the red ones. Yes to bottled water. No to anything other than a particular brand. Yes to the water being chilled to a particular degree. No to anything that deviates from that.

In recent years, Sheldon Cooper, late of the Big Bang Theory was, in my opinion, the epitome of high maintenance. His weekly order of Chinese food always involves specifics:

Sheldon: Did you remember to ask for the chicken with broccoli to be diced, not shredded?
Penny: Yes.
Sheldon: Even though the menu description specifies shredded?
Penny: Yes.
Sheldon: Brown rice, not white?
Penny: Yes.
Sheldon: You stop at the Korean grocery and get the good hot mustard?
Penny: Yes.
Sheldon: Did you pick up the low sodium soy sauce from the market?
Penny: Yes.
Sheldon: Good. See how it’s done, Leonard?

And then there are Sally Albright and Harry Burns in When Harry Met Sally. While the fake orgasm scene is classic, Sally’s food order reveals much about her. She, like Sheldon, is high maintenance:

“But I’d like the pie heated, and I don’t want the ice cream on top, I want it on the side. And I’d like strawberry instead of vanilla if you have it. If not, then no ice cream, just whipped cream, but only if it’s real. If it’s out of a can, then nothing.”

Me? I don’t know if I’m high maintenance, quirky, or simply a little odd. I won’t eat blue food of that shade that does not appear in nature. Think Blue Moon ice cream, blue M&Ms, blue Jolly Ranchers, and blue Slushies from the local gas station. I think it comes from the year that Jolly Ranchers introduced the blue raspberry flavor. My sixth graders thought that if they tucked a Jolly Rancher in the side of their cheeks during class, I wouldn’t notice that they were eating candy in class. However, first, Jolly Ranchers have that sticky-sweet smell. Second, and more important to the issue, blue raspberry Jolly Ranchers turned their lips a disconcerting purplish-blue. The lovely, innocent children would swear up and down that they weren’t eating candy in class all while sporting that infamous color. Never mind that I don’t like to be lied to, never mind that “no candy in class” was one of the rules, it was that color–that implication that they were oxygen starved that turned me away from any food that was blue raspberry. So, rule #1: no blue food.

Second, I don’t go into establishments whose name begins with the name “Club.” I am not sure why beyond the fact that as a child, I was sent to the neighborhood tavern to collect my father from “Club KK.” It was a dark place that smelled of stale beer and men and I hated that I had to fetch him, and hated more that he was there in the first place. I wanted my dad home. Even though things got so much better and Club KK became a thing of the past as I grew older and Dad made those positive life changes, such things have stayed with me.

Third. This one is easy. I have seen too many old Westerns and Gangster movies. I don’t sit with my back to an entryway door if I can avoid it. That’s it. Plain and simple. These days, given issues with crazy people and guns, perhaps it might seem more logical. My “spot” in the computer bank at the library is on the side that places me not in direct line of the main door. I can see through the big windows to the street side and might have a split second or two to hit the floor before some ne’er-do-well goes ballistic. Likewise do I get into the car and immediately lock the door, or lock the door upon exiting to pump gas at the local Kwik Trip. Call it urban survival skills. Moreover, in a parking lot I always try to park in such a place where no one can park next to me on the driver’s side. I don’t care if it adds steps to the door. I can always use extra steps. Careful parking means that I never have to deal with being unable to open the driver’s door because someone else parked far too closely. That’s not a part of hypervigilance, that’s about convenience.

So am I high maintenance, a little odd, or simply quirky? Am I overly reactive to a bad time in my childhood or dealing with unresolved trauma? Am I right in consistently looking over my shoulder or am I simply a hypervigilant urban dweller living in an era of perceived dangers? Finally, am I simply overthinking this issue? The people I care about, my son and my friends, seem to take me as I am, so perhaps I should just do the same and accept that this is simply me. It is likely that I could make a change about all but blue food and parking if I had to, but unless I can see that it affects relationships, I think really I don’t have to. In the words of John Lennon and Paul McCarthy, Ob-la-di, ob-la-da Life goes on, brah! La la la la life goes on. . . .