“I want my non-women friends to look at Elizabeth Warren’s trajectory and
understand how fucking exhausted I am, every woman is, today. Exhausted.
Climb every mountain, there’ll be a white man there already who
took the lift, and gets the prize.”
I feel this tweet in my gut this morning. I’d just insert “old” before the “white man”, because I’m ever hopeful this will change. One day .…
I got this from a friend’s Facebook page last week and have seen it shared many times since. It originated as a tweet; since I have yet to inflict moiself with that particular form of social disease media, I depend on the kindness of others to share the goodies.
Yeah, it’s been a couple of weeks… [1] and still I hate the fact that this nails how I feel. Why does the glass in this particular ceiling seem like it’s made of titanium?
There has be a word for this phenomenon – most likely from the language that gives us terms like Schadenfreude and kummerspeck and treppenwitz. Maybe….
Screwdenfrauenpolitikscheisse
* * *
Department Of Things I Forget Every Ten Years
Why do I get excited when the census questionnaire arrives…and then am disappointed, every time, to see how boring the questions are?
* * *
Department Of Keep Calm And Curse The Pollen
Pollen, an allergy trigger for one in five Americans, is surging year after year…. A recent study in the journal Lancet Planetary Health found that airborne pollen counts have been increasing around the world as average temperatures climbed. The majority of the 17 sites studied showed an increase in the amount of pollen and longer pollen seasons over 20 years.
(“It’s not your imagination.
Allergy season gets worse every year.” Vox, 5-21-19)
Dateline: earlier this week, at a grocery store. One glance at the friendly checkout clerk and moiself can see that she shares something with moiself and one in five Americans: seasonal allergies (aka, “hay fever.”) Her friendly eyes are red, teary and itchy-looking; she is sniffling, and finally gives in to a sneeze, turning her head behind her and putting her face into her elbow. The woman standing in line behind me sighs oh-so-loudly, which causes me to glance in her direction; thus, I see how she rolls her eyes in disgust and glares at the clerk as she conspicuously reaches for the bottle of hand sanitizer the store has placed by the checkout credit card scanner.
Although the clerk has finished bagging my groceries, I decide to linger and get chatty, in part to annoy enlighten Eye Rolling Woman.
Moiself, to checker: ”I feel for you…and I’m feeling it already.”
(I point to my own eyes and throat).
“Allergy season starts earlier every year, doesn’t it?”
Checker, nodding: “Yes, it does! And now, everyone is so paranoid…”
Moiself: “In the past few weeks, I bet every time you sneeze or cough you feel like you should have a neon sign on your forehead
which reads, “ ‘Hello – allergies! They’re not contagious!’ ”
Checker: “Exactly!” (she flashes me a grateful smile).
“I’m so tired of explaining it….”
Allergy season is here, America.
People, including moiself, are going to be sneezing and coughing.
Try not to lose your shit, and don’t assume every sniffle is an indicator of:
* influenza
* covid virus
* covert prius
* the heartbreak of psoriasis
* Ebola
* E. coli
* eHarmony
….and/or any other viral or parasitic infestation. Okay?
* * *
Department of Addendum/Apology re The Previous Department
I was thinking of the word/sound “flow,” from covid virus to covert prius to psoriasis, and meant no disrespect to people living with psoriasis (an autoimmune disease which, as Someone Who Knows pointed out, can be truly heartbreaking)!
I was thinking of that old commercial, wherein “…the heartbreak of psoriasis,” was used to promote an OTC medication (Tegrin), used for mild scaling of the scalp or skin, and which, like any over-the-counter medications, had no actual/beneficial effects in controlling actual psoriasis lesions. But the alarmism of the commercial had the effect of getting people with just ordinary dry skin or dandruff to fear that they had psoriasis, and, as many doctors feared, it encouraged people who might actually have psoriasis to postpone seeking medical treatment and waste time and money on ineffective treatments….
Also, as MH pointed out to me: “There’s a whole lotta people out there who haven’t seen that commercial….”
Which I could take as a commentary on my age, but I’m not gonna go there.
* * *
Department Of Life Is Tough But It’s Even Tougher If You’re Stupid
Chapter 5 in a series
Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn’t.
(Erica Jong, American author)
Not that I think people who request advice (in particular, from advice columnists) are stupid. Far from it.
It’s just that, sometimes when I read a Dear Abby-type letter, I can’t help but think,
“No, really – we’re supposed to believe that you *don’t* know
what to do in this situation?”
I started reading advice columns when I started reading newspapers, which was…I can’t remember, but my father once told me it was when moiself was in first grade. From the nationally syndicated columns of yore such as Dear Abby and Ann Landers, and today’s Dear Prudence (slate.com), Ask Amy, and sometimes even Savage Love [2] and many more, I found (and still find) them to be one of the more entertaining (and sometimes educational) features of the paper.
Even the bad columns could be “good” in some ways, as in the jaw-droppingly sexist, regressive (even for its time) admonitions of The Worry Clinic, by George Crane . The Worry Clinic (an advice column which appeared in my parent’s favorite newspaper, The Orange County Register, and which I have previously trashed described here) had some excellent take away nuggets: mainly, that its consistently contemptible, anti-wife/anti-woman admonitions were a useful eye-opener for the budding feminist that was moiself.
So many of the issues presented in letters from advice-seekers – from dealing with the expectations of demanding friends, unreasonable workplace dilemmas, nosy neighbors, clueless extended family, partners disagreeing over sex-love-money-pets-careers-whatever – seem to me to have one thing in common. What you’ve got is grown-ass people asking for permission from (supposedly) objective grown-ass strangers to make the grown-ass decision to tell people the truth.
Dear Moiself,
Blah blah blah blah blah blah something funny blah blah blah
something WTF blah blah blah blah,
and, I mean, really – blah blah, right?
I’d appreciate your perspective.
No real names, please, I live in a small town.
Just sign me,
She Hates It That Friends Are Calling Every Day
Dear SHITFACED,
First of all, thank you for the lovely acronym opportunity.
It seems seems like you already know what you want to do;
you just want a stranger (with credentials!)
to give you permission to do it. Consider yourself permitted.
Moiself
And she wonders why her advice column career never made it out of space dock?
* * *
Department of Epicurean Excursion [3]
Featuring this week’s cookbook, author and recipe:
The Way To Cook, By Julia Child
Recipe: Steamed Eggplant With Parsley Sauce
My rating:
☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼ ☼
Recipe Rating Refresher [4]
* * *
May you never be too emotionally exhausted to try and tear down the glass ceiling;
May you receive (and give) advice with good humor;
May you be patient with allergy sufferers (and grateful if you’re not one of us);
…and may the hijinks ensue.
Thanks for stopping by. Au Vendredi!
* * *
[1] Since Warren and Klobuchar dropped out of the Presidential race.
[2] Although I admire Dan Savage as a writer (and activist), his advice column, Savage Love (subject: sex, sex, and more sex) is not for the squeamish. Many is the time I have quickly scrolled past questions and answers as I – who would likely be described in his column as a straight cis vanilla middle aged lady – see things I would just rather not read about, thank you very much…and, eewwwww….
[3] A recurring feature of this blog, since week 2 of April 2019, wherein moiself decided that moiself would go through my cookbooks alphabetically and, one day a week, cook (at least) once recipe from one book.
* Two Thumbs up: Liked it
* Two Hamster Thumbs Up : Loved it
* Thumbs Down – Not even Kevin, a character from The Office who’d eat anything, would like this.
* Twiddling Thumbs: I was, in due course, bored by this recipe.
* Thumbscrew: It was torture to make this recipe.
* All Thumbs: Good recipe, but I somehow mucked it up.
* Thumby McThumb Face: This recipe was fun to make.
* Thumbing my nose: Yeah, I made this recipe, but I did not respect it.
