“Oh Lordy Lordy.”
That is what my mother might have said. Were she alive today, she would be 102. She was born before women had suffrage in the U.S.
I’ve been looking for a phrase that is tame enough to not offend, but that anyone who knows me will know I am turning something on its head when I use the phrase. I am considering this one. I am not one for Lords. Nor even Ladies. Caste systems do not appeal to me. When something wonderful happens and I want to acknowledge it, I throw my hands to the sky and say, “Thank you Goddess.” I do not believe that the great organizing principle in the sky is male, nor female, nor even sentient in any way we understand the term. And me, well, I am egalitarian to the core, grown up on a farm where horse drawn plows tilled the land until shortly before I was born, tossed from a public U.S. Senate Armed Services committee for calling, rather loudly, Donald Rumsfeld a liar on my 49th birthday in 2006. That about sums it up.
For the last few days I have been quiet, thinking, listening. Doing a lot of listening… to audiobooks. I am also looking forward to attending an evening with John Cleese and Eric Idle later this month in Together Again At Last…For The Very First Time. My choices for reading/listening are telling.
First, I finished listening to The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood the award winning author of The Handmaid’s Tale. This is the second title in the MaddAddam Triology. Oryx and Crake was the first book in the series. I am on the hold list for the third volume with my local library. I listen via Overdrive, an app I love. Somehow reading, re-reading, listening to end-of-the-world, disaster, and dystopian novels always improves my mood when I am really down. I used to read Lucifer’s Hammer by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle every time I was really, really depressed.
I cannot praise the Maddaddam series enough. The Canadian author blends contemporary scientific knowledge with a nuanced understanding of what religion does for society and individuals as well as a rather enlightened ability to talk about society and cultural evolution. Intelligent, pertinent, and skilled. What more than that can I say?
Oh, I can wish Margaret Atwood a happy birthday. Margaret Eleanor Atwood was born on November 18, 1939. She lives in Toronto.
The second book was different from my usual dystopian fix. It was Zoo by James Patterson. I’m not a James Patterson fan. I made it through the listen, but I was disappointed. The characterization was lacking and personal motivation in characters was almost totally lacking. The science was not even laughable – more like groan provoking. I should have listened to Animal Farm. But it is good to stay on top of what the masses are being fed. Best-selling should never be confused with award-winning.
The third book is an old one, Neal Stephenson’s Zodiac from 1988. Greenpeace and monkey-wrenching are thinly disguised as slightly different entities and actions in this eco-thriller. He captures the era, the feel and mindset of the 1980s incredibly well. I wanted to revel in anti-corporatist elements of the novel but instead I am listening with an ear to how he conveys the time in which he is writing. But the thoughts of monkey-wrenching are very pertinent.
American women have an enormous task ahead of us to hold the fabric of our society together. Environmental degradation is escalating and empowering corporatism, as we have just done, will only hasten the collapse of the ecosystem. Devaluation of women and all we do destabilizes progress toward equal pay and creation of support structures that allow us to act as full citizens in a society where family probably doesn’t live nearby to help with daily family functioning such as childcare.
Mrs. Snellback
by Irene McHugh
For months, I watched my peers cringe every time a new essay was assigned to them. I didn’t really fear the essay or her. I did my work, socialized with a small group of friends, and paid attention. While I rarely raised my hand, I generally knew the answer if called upon. I liked her class because everyone had to be kind to one another there.
About halfway through the year, Mrs. Snellback asked me if I had read The White Mountains. She gave me a brief teaser about a boy who runs away from his village because, in his world, he’s about to be capped by a machine that will control his mind. Once the words mind control were out of her mouth, I’m pretty sure I was salivating.
Up to this point, I had never read science-fiction. When I went to the library, I usually chose Nancy Drew or any novel about horses. Sometimes, a kind adult would recommend books that were pretty safe bets: Bridge to Terabithia, The Secret Garden, and Where the Red Fern Grows.
Once I devoured The White Mountains, Mrs. Snellback handed me the rest of the series. And then, she changed tactics. She gave me The Endless Steppe, a nonfiction book about a Polish family banished to Siberia in 1941. Even better? Mrs. Snellback paired me up with Kim, who also read The Endless Steppe. We needed to present our book report together.
Video about book upon which Mrs. Snellback had Irene and Kim report.
Kim was popular with cool clothes and a pretty smile. And I had never really spoken to her before. Since some adults had told me I was shy, I was horrified at the thought of working with someone new. I couldn’t possibly have anything in common with a person with such high social ranking.
Kim’s mom dropped her off at my house one Saturday morning and we started working. Our mutual love of this book instantly tied us together, and we determined that we did not want our report to be boring. We outlined what we thought were the most important scenes, and scoured the house for props to help everyone see the horrible circumstances this family lived through.
I don’t recall all of our props, but I clearly remember finding train cars from an action-adventure set, and filling the cars with Fisher Price People to illustrate the crowded trains that families were forced into. Our report was a hit with our peers and Mrs. Snellback.
I was truly proud of our grade. Mrs. Snellback did not hand out high marks easily. Kim and I were never part of one another’s inner circles, but we continued to be friendly. My presumptions about working with someone popular were proven false.
While Mrs. Snellback continued to recommend a variety of books to me, her science-fiction picks were spot on. In particular, she handed me Z for Zachariah and my obsession for all stories dystopian began!
Over the years, I have frequently thought of her and the impact she has had on my life.
If she had not encouraged my reading, would I have discovered science-fiction on my own? My enthusiasm for anything geeky is very much a part of my identity. And while I do enjoy a variety of genres, I get goose-flesh excited at the idea of reading the latest science-fiction hit.
If she had not created a safe environment where I could risk working with a popular kid, how long would it take for me to realize that popularity doesn’t measure quality or worth? Thank you, Mrs. Snellback for helping me see an individual and her quality of character rather than merely her reputation.
If she had not modeled the embodiment of an engaging and caring educator, would I have chosen a different career than being an English teacher myself? There are days I rue my decision to become a teacher. Pay days, mostly. Overall, teaching brings me joy. And I can’t be certain that I would be a teacher if I had not had Mrs. Snellback as a model.
P.S.: If you’re wondering, I was assigned one 500 word essay in her room. I don’t remember what I said or did, but I think my offense was minor because when I asked for my topic, Mrs. Snellback told me I could choose. I distinctly remember writing about how writing 500 words was not actually difficult. She laughed when she read it.
A Simple Life Truth
The Quote
I ran across a variation of this quote this morning on Pinterest attributed to Shakespeare. The quote is not by William Shakespeare. It is by David Viscott from a 1993 publication Finding Your Strength in Difficult Times: A Book of Meditations, as best as I can tell after researching it without having a copy of the book in my grubby ol’ hands.
The Graphic
I used GIMP (gnu image manipulation program) which is an open source program, much like Photoshop, and that requires no purchase to download, to create this image.
The image of the girl reading is a public domain image from Pixabay.com. I made the image square so it will look good when I post it on Instagram.
The Meaning
The quote itself embodies the essence of my new business project, The Women’s Legacy Project.
Small differences can change everything. Women honestly recording their lives, just regular old life, and stories and sharing them with the world may be the biggest and best gift every given by women elders to future generations.
The Worlds Inside My Head and The Worlds Outside My Door
I've been neglecting my virtual world in favor of the physical world. This is atypical for me. The world inside my head, my thoughts, ideas, and my written expression of them have always been real to me. I can keep myself entertained for days on ends with my own thoughts. I tell people I could live in a cave if it had wifi. Actually my pencils and paper would see me through an awfully long time too.
Expeditions out into the physical world have been more frequent that typical for me even though I am limping around from an almost two week old ankle sprain. I attended two Meet Ups, Women Entrepreneurs Who Mean Business, and the Tucson eBusiness Owners, and I held the Meet Up which I coordinate, Tucson Women Bloggers, and made my weekly trek to my therapist on the other side of town, and headed just west of downtown, across I10 to the Microbusiness Advancement Center of Southern Arizona, one of 112 Women's Business Centers across the country, and the only one in Arizona, to an orientation session and an assessment session. I also almost made my target date for launching beta version 0.3.1 of BoomHer.net.
I am an ENTJ in Myers-Briggs speak. But the E is just over the Introversion/Extroversion line. Extroverts get energy from being around people and Introverts use energy being around people. I think there are long cycle and short cycle considerations. I'm an E for short cycles and an I for long cycles. I think heavy person to person interaction for many days in a row taps into my long-term personal energy reserves.
I've worked in tech positions with people who could be termed as healers. I know they have learned how to protect their personal energy reserves. Sometimes they would emerge from a session with someone often called a psychic vampire and look exhausted. This is all a bit woo woo for me, but there are individuals who are simply “draining” or “exhausting” just to be around.
I think I will begin doing some sort of ritual, perhaps something like this, to allow me to consciously remind myself of, and recognize, my energy levels. I will work this in to the Deepak Choprah and Oprah Winfrey's 21 Day Meditation Challenge.
I also need to read more fiction. I'm staring with Cory Doctorow's Homeland.
This all should help me focus on creating energy by working out at the gym too.
What do you think of all this? Are some people givers and others takers?
J is for Journey
I’m trying again and this time it feels like success. But no matter what it is, it is part of my Journey; and my journey is good. I had to find just the right niche and build it out.
My post, The Feminization of the InterWebs, is a tech article, although it could also be categorized as a “feminist” post, and it probably fits into several other categories too. Most of my stuff can be categorized in more than one way… which is why I love tags…but I digress. My article on “Home is a Feeling of Place Without Pretense ” is also garnering a lot of positive comments and attention, as is my F is for Feminist and It Isn’t an “F Word.” Of these two posts, one is warm and fuzzy, and one is edgy. I think that maybe these posts qualify me to be an entry in the running for a Voice of the Week feature on BlogHer. Yes, I even threw one of these into the hat for Voice of the Year, too. (Don’t forget to vote for me!) I have FINALLY learned that there is, most often, no promotion when there is no self-promotion. Took me ages, literally, to figure out and internalize that one. BlogHer is the writing community where I feel at home. It helps me figure things out, and “Oh Lordy” as my father used to say or “Lordy, Lordy, Lordy” as my mother used to say. I have lot to figure out.
I have only recently recognized that one of my measures of success, or even mileposts (in TQM speak, ick, ptooey, and gag me with a spoon) is measured by interaction with the BlogHer Community. I am so oblivious at times that I astound myself when I realize something I should have recognized all along or at least for years. And some of these times I absolutely fall over in dumb struck awe that I’ve been doing what I have just realized I should do, and doing it for years! My unconscious mind is a wonderful thing, but I don’t understand it at all. And for that I am truly blessed. I cannot say from where these blessings come, for I am just a Billy Pilgrim adrift in time and space.
I think my post for the letter P this month will be centered on Billy Pilgrim, yes, that sounds right. But I digress…yet again…argh!
Anyhoo, I do feel blessed. My journey in this life has not always been smooth, middle of the road, or followed a straight, unerring path, but it is good overall because it has brought me to a good place in the company of good people. Some of these people who accompany me through this life, physically, in spirit, digitally, or in memory, would say, variously and independently, that Angels, the laws of the Universe, Gaia, Light and Love, intellect, spirit, consciousness and many other “Great Organizing Principles in the Sky” are the powers behind blessings. But me, well, I think “all of the above” is the best answer on any test on ultimate truths I might be given.
The journey is wonderful and I am so grateful that things are falling together into what I think I have been planning, but at a nearly subliminal level I have been keeping from even myself, for several years. I have had two long running topically focused blogs and several less well maintained blogs. I have learned a tremendous amount about blogging, writing, software, graphics, and community. I struggled with pseudonym use, lack of comments, massive surges of readers when I did some original reporting and when I tapped into a couple memes when they were forming, as well as struggling with links, networks, and monetization concerns focused on the ethics of corporate support and advertising.
The whole time I was starting blogs with various degrees of success, I was testing out different models and voices. By participating in programs that looked at the business of writing I was able to reframe my experience of blogging and apply the info that fit and throw out the info that didn’t. I learned how to do the things I needed to do to consolidate my writings and tracked what type of posts got positive responses and which didn’t, what types of voice and style of comments I felt comfortable making. I learned how to use the networks and the tools they provided and prepared to use them properly given my constraints. I had spent time over the last few years participating to the degree to which I felt comfortable in a network of women bloggers. I tried and succeeded at some things I attempted in the network, and failed at others. But steady, persistent participation allowed for a few marketable successes, and a whole lot of learning within the network. The community functioned for me as a professional organization or society would.
When I realized, as I started to launch, that I really was ready to launch, it gave me permission to trust myself more fully in the future. I have been doing the things that interest me and learning all I can about one form of the thing I love – writing. I knew that I would have more time to pursue my own interests, and build on a career I had allowed to stagnate a bit, once I again had control over larger portions of my life and time with the beginning of the empty nest phase of my life.
Your journey is different than mine, undoubtedly, but I think many of my life lessons translate to others: trust yourself, experiment, find and build community, participate, and keep trying.