I read recently about a woman, a new mom, in another country who had wanted to have a baby for all of her married life, which was a very long time considering her age as of this writing, but was unable to. Finally, she conceived at the tender age of seventy, or something close to assisted living age.
Every time someone tells me a story about a marital dispute someone they know is having, or some other calamitous, or even stupendous happening, in someone’s life I may or may not know, I invariably want to know the back story.
Awards are pleasant things, and are given for many things, including to adults for perfect attendance, as I found out recently. Being awarded something is a pleasant and exciting concept. It intrigued me enough that I was willing to waste some time on it with Google. I wanted to know when the first award was awarded.
Privacy was the subject in two posts in two blogs I read recently, both written from two points of view. One was decrying the lack of privacy in today’s world, though it was a reminder that privacy is, and always will be an illusion, unless we manage to live like the early trappers, and get lost in the forests somewhere.
Annoying myself should not be my main goal, despite the title of this post, which is already raising my blood pressure, thinking about the self-imposed challenge of going for thirty days without getting annoyed.
I realized this morning that I get annoyed on the average of every five minutes while driving the surface streets. If I hit the freeway at a quiet time, that’s no sweat. The idea of this challenge came to me when I found myself dawdling behind an Echo, which was driving at approximately the speed that an iceberg melts, and I swung over to change lanes and pass it.
Forging friendships shouldn’t be hard. We all know, perhaps may even be, one of those paragons of virtue who are kind, compassionate, and helpful, and have a flashy personality to boot. Maybe even a flashy personality who likes to wear boots.
Most of us love those people. Not everyone does, because some people are just miserable, and hate all kind, compassionate, flashy, boot-wearing paragons, most notably those who are arch-enemies and nemeses (the plural form of nemesis, an arch-rival) of superheroes and urban legends. I’ve always thought how interesting life would be with your very own arch-enemy, or nemesis. If anyone ever doubted their own importance in the world, they could rest assured of their value by whether they keep a superhero up at night with their shenanigans.
In pursuit of my ongoing quest to ‘get rid of things’, I came across, once again, one of my favorite shirts. It is camp style, with nice pockets. It is made of linen, so that when you wear it you are suddenly transported to Gatsby’s backyard, if it could be called that, instead of perhaps the lower forty, where you are having afternoon Bloody Marys in your tennis whites. Except my shirt is beige. Which is where my life diverges from Daisy’s in more than one way; she only wore dresses, and she would never buy anything in a color simply because it ‘goes with almost anything’, the reason I own so much black.
As I was blogging, meaning looking for inspiration, I read about a scale that is a kinder, gentler device that measures your body weight. It is called a Quantum scale and only tells you how many pounds you’ve lost, keeping you blissfully in the dark about what you currently weigh.
I just finished a book titled ‘The Bachelor and the Baby’ by Gwen Davenport. Probably few people out there have heard of her, or if they have their numbers are few. The shelves are full of books like this. When I realize just how quickly books become old, stars become forgotten, it puts everything in perspective. There is no guarantee that anything any of us write will be remembered, or read. I heard an author speak of this on NPR once; he said that even if we did become famous posthumously, we will certainly never know. And if we become famous and read before we die, will we continue to be read by anyone?
I am a proud beneficiary of self-publishing. I say that with a touch of sarcasm; since I am too lazy to send my manuscripts to a zillion publishers, and I am not a famous person who writes an immediately successful children’s book, I took advantage of self-publishing. I think my writing is pretty decent, but I have no assurance that a traditional publisher will feel the same way about it. The hell with them. I’ve got Kindle and Smashwords.