Dignified but not Defensive

The giant dumpster at work gets emptied at noon on Tuesdays.
By Monday night it's overflowing, and all our smaller rolling trash cans are lined up by the door, waiting for room.

BELOW: Emmler & graffiti on dumpster 

Yesterday, Tuesday, after the dumpster got dumped, I rolled the trash cans outside. I'd dumped one, when my coworker Jahar appeared.
He'd seen me taking the cans out and come to help me. 

"Some people lazy as hell," was all he said.

It was extremely nice to have help--the thoughtful camaraderie really lifted my spirits. It's unusual in my workplace, especially coming like this––out of the blue, unasked for. As I've commented before, my coworkers tend to have an 'everyone for themselves' (save your strength) survival attitude.

Jahar is an impressive guy, very dignified but not defensive, and a bit of a mystery to me. He doesn't complain volubly, unlike most of us, though he will make small pointed comments, like the one above.
Within a couple weeks of his arrival, he had slid into running the neglected electronics donation area. Electronics is anything with a plug, from curling irons to chandeliers to snow blowers, and it's been a mess the entire time I've been at the store.
Now it's not.

Why is a good worker like Jahar in a dump like my workplace?
There are others. Grateful-J is one, but everyone knows why-- he frequently talks about his personal problems that led to him being here.
(And there's me. But would I still be there if it weren't for my love of BOOK's? Probably not?) 

I've asked Jahar about himself, but he's not very forthcoming.
I wonder if his religion is a factor in his calm and together presentation.
He's an African-American Muslim––around my age––and he grew up in an African-American Muslim family.
All the other Muslims I've known grew up in families who'd come from Muslim-majority countries (like Turkey, Indonesia, Somalia), or they converted as adults (not that I know him, but like my state's attorney general, Keith Ellison (the first Muslim to be elected to Congress).

Jahar is dignified but not defensive, as I said---I was amazed that he answers when Mr Furniture calls him Idi Amin (though I gather he's let Mr. F that he doesn't agree with him, politically). He has a natural authority because he's not knocked off balance, and because he takes personal responsibility. And he doesn't ask for permission to do things that need doing.

Dignified but not defensive--that's it. That's what impresses me most about Jahar. It's entire opposite of Ass't Man, who complained constantly; rarely acted on his own; told people what to do but exuded lack of authority. 
And I tend to be touchy, easily offended by slights. I would like to stop that.
It's more dignified not to fight for one's dignity, but simply to maintain it, calmly, whatever you're doing, including dumping the trash.

Resilience Now

I. "Whoa, take 'er easy there, PILGRIM".

BELOW: Yesterday I adapted this John Wayne image/quote from a stained old T-shirt I'd pulled out of textile-baling at work.
I sewed a magnolia blossom over the gun in JW's hand; cut the image off its original T-shirt; and sewed it onto this one. T-shirt material is treacherous--soft and shifty. I sewed by hand (I like that), and it took me all afternoon.

I like it! I don't want to wear John Wayne's face though, even ironically.
Marz  has a Star Trek t-shirt she says I could cut up for Capt Kirk's face--I'll do that swap today, I hope.

UPDATE: The Pilgrim T-shirt, now with Captain Kirk!(Bonus—my giant Boston fern that will shelter the girlettes’ little Xmas tree under its plant stand.)

________

This is my first free weekend in weeks (Sun-Mon off) with nothing planned, and that's really good for me, but it's for a sad reason:
bink got Covid for the first time on Friday.
She's not in danger, but she's pretty sick--headache, bad cough (cough cough cough), fever.
Clear lungs, though--whew.

I'd spent Thanksgiving Thursday with bink and Maura, so I've been exposed, and I canceled a couple meet ups this weekend, just in case.
I've not become sick, nor has Maura, or Marz, who was also there.
Fingers crossed.

II. "Hunt for the Good Stuff"

While I sewed, I listened to an episode about grief on the podcast Hidden Brain--"Life After Loss", with Lucy Hone. She was a resilience researcher whose 12-y.o. daughter--and the daughter's friend & her mother--were killed by a car driver who ran a light.

"In the blink of an eye, [Hone said] I find myself flung to the other side of the equation.... Instead of being the resilience expert, suddenly, I'm the grieving mother... my world smashed to smithereens.
Suddenly, I'm the one on the end of all this expert advice.
And I can tell you, I didn't like what I heard one little bit."

--from Lucy Hone's TED Talk, "3 Secrets of Resilient People".

The three "secrets" are teachable, everyday skills, Hone says. "Resilience isn't some fixed trait." They are:

1. "Resilient people get that shit happens.
They know that suffering is part of life. This doesn't mean they actually welcome it in, they're not actually delusional."

This reminds me of Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter not replacing their old microwave that took 12-minutes to pop popcorn:
"Nothing is easy, and why would it be?"
In a funny way, this translates to "take 'er easy, pilgrim"--the idea being, it's not going to be easy (for anyone) to walk through this world, so don't be surprised, and don't make it harder on yourself.

2. "Resilient people are really good at choosing carefully where they select their attention. They have a habit of realistically appraising situations, and typically, managing to focus on the things that they can change, and somehow accept the things that they can't.
This is a vital, learnable skill for resilience.

And, 3.

"Resilient people ask themselves,

Is what I'm doing helping or harming me?

This is a question that's used a lot in good therapy. And boy, is it powerful. This was my go-to question in the days after the girls died. I would ask it again and again.

'Should I go to the trial and see the driver? Would that help me or would it harm me?'

Well, that was a no-brainer for me, I chose to stay away."

An alternate way of putting this that I like, from the Ignatian practice of discernment: Is this consolation or desolation?

What jumped out at me from the Hidden Brain episode was an addition to Hone's point no. 2--(pay attention to where you put your attention):
HUNT THE GOOD STUFF.

"Hunting the Good Stuff counteracts the negativity bias to create positive emotion, and to notice and analyze what is good."

"As humans, we are really good  at noticing threats and weaknesses. We are hardwired for that negative. Negative emotions stick to us like Velcro, whereas positive emotions and experiences seems to bounce off like Teflon."

I was thinking of changing "hunt" to "search" or something friendlier like that, but "hunt" is best:
while hunting has been a normal survival skill in the history of humanity, it can be quite difficult.
(What do I know, I've never hunted. But you know.)

Anyway--"good stuff" sounds chipper, but it is hard.

And we all have some hard stuff to do.

III. To Hunt, or not to Hunt

BELOW: My 49-year-old mother, Lytton Davis, left, seeing 23-year-old me off on my ten-day bike trip to Duluth and along Lake Superior.

Hunting, about which I know almost nothing, reminds me of The Deer Hunter (1978, USA).
I'd first seen the movie on a bike trip I took when I was twenty-three (photo above). I'd stopped on a rainy day at a crummy motel outside Duluth, where I watched the movie on TV.

Have you seen it? It's a strong movie about a group of friends-- steelworkers in Pennsylvania--going to fight in Vietnam, and the disturbing aftermath.

It stunned me, and--weirdly--it encouraged me.
Gave me strength.
(I'm reminded that the etymology of "comfort" is with {co–} + strength [fort, like fortitude].)

Retrospectively, I see that it spoke to me about surviving horror––with and without resilience (mostly a matter of luck)––
including the horror of being unable to save someone you love (the famous Russian roulette scene with Robert DeNiro and Christopher Walken).

CONTENT NOTE: Suicide

We all have something. 

In my case, the person I couldn't save was my mother, from her own despair, which I was still trying to do at that time...
Did I sense that that wasn't in my control, my power?
Maybe?
Anyway, though it would be seventeen years from the time I saw The Deer Hunter until my mother shot herself, that ending for her was always a possibility, and no one was surprised when it came.

I recently read a book of Anne Sexton's letters, edited by her daughter Linda. I'd never cared for Sexton's poetry, but wow, did the voice in the letters remind me of my mother's. Expressive! Smart & funny!
Manipulative.

Linda writes at the end of the book,
"Anne's death was not unexpected. All those close to her had known that one day she would choose to commit suicide."

I wouldn't say my mother's death by her own hand was inevitable.
It wasn't. Time and chance play a hand in all things.
But yeah, no one was surprised.

Uh, anyway, I guess that makes me the Robert DeNiro character, who survives, and is left wiser, more compassionate, and more resourceful, at great cost.

Am I?

Are you?

I guess I am... and I guess I call on that in my work and life, in crafting the Philosophy and Theology of Slob Knob Alley.
But I think I'm also … worse than I might have been/—shut down, in some ways I wouldn't have been if my mother had been . . . luckier.

But as I keep saying, we all have something. 

We get to keep using whatever resilience we gain, because life isn't hard just one time, right?
When Lucy Hone's daughter died, Lucy and her family had already survived a massive, destructive earthquake in Christchurch, NZ, a few years earlier.

Why bother hunting the good stuff, though, when bad stuff just keeps happening?

Besides having a naturally upbeat personality before her daughter's death, Lucy had teen sons and a husband she loves.
So there's that, which not everyone has.

She also wanted to help other people, and that's something too. She went on to write from her own experience Resilient Grieving: How to Find Your Way Through Devastating Loss (2017).

The possibility that you might help other people--that we need you--the unexpected stranger, even--is a life force. It might/could seem sort of cruel to ask someone who's suffering to hang on for other people, but there's that.

The life story itself is a life force--curiosity--wondering, what happens next?
The other day a customer told me that her sister, who has advanced Parkinson's, said that one thing that makes her sad about dying is not being able to read anymore.
You can't turn the page if you're dead.

My mother ran out of all those reasons, and that's something that can happen. I wish it didn't, but that was never in my power.

I do seek out tips about resilience, and I do appreciate help such as the reminder to hunt the good stuff, and I am very curious about where this is all heading,
but I hate when people imply that other people can Just Do It. Just choose the good.
You can choose, but you have to be able to want to choose.
(You can have what you want, but you have to want it.)
If we are able to choose to hunt––and if we can choose to pull the trigger, or not, like the DeNiro character––we're lucky.

And now I'm going to go find Capt Kirk's face to cover John Wayne's because I want to tell a different story, and in this case, I can.

_______________

988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline

If you need suicide or mental-health crisis support, or are worried about someone else, please call or text 988
or visit the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline chat to connect with a trained crisis specialist.

Calls, texts, and online chats to 988 will reach a trained Crisis Specialist.

15ºF = –9ºC; Thrift the World Up

Well, darn it. This is the coldest morning we've have so far.
I was going to chicken out and take the express bus to the U. It stops kitty-korner from my apartment, and then I transfer to the Lake St bus...
But then I remembered the U is on Thanksgiving break and the bus won't be running...
I could walk a few blocks to the city bus, but I still have to transfer, and if I'm going to do that, I may as well brave myself and bike!

I WANT to bike as long as I can into winter--it's the ice that's the problem more than the cold--but I balk at the first cold days...
I want to bike because . . .
it helps with stress reduction, to and fro work; it helps with exercise; it helps me stretch out my calves which get tight from standing all day;
AND< I want to avoid the distressing daily scenes of tragedy on the bus: riders on drugs almost tipping out of their seats; moms alone juggling groceries & a double stroller, vying for space with people in electric wheelchairs; teenagers smoking in the back...

Of course there's comedy too--people being friendly and funny, but you just never know.

Also, viruses.

I appreciated Linda Sue's comment yesterday, on my post about a customer who lived in a house for DIY punk/queer community [article in Rolling Stone*] that was the scene of a mass shooting this summer:

"Your world seems extreme, but I think the dysfunction and despair is woven into USA fabric , a tight weave."

Yes. Thank you, LS, for seeing and saying that--it's like the scene in Star Trek: Picard in LA encampments-- reflecting for me that THIS IS HAPPENING, and not just locally here, in the blighted area where I work.

It seems extreme to me too. Because it is extreme! (I'm like, WHAT?)
It IS extreme, and yet, it's also kinda the new normal. For a segment of America, it was always bad there, and now there's fentanyl, and more guns than ever, and a national political scene that gives the thumbs up to tribalism.
And not just nationally, either--there's Argentina tipped now... and many more places.

What on Earth will happen, I wonder? Really, on Earth.
Will we get worse before we get better--much, much better? (That's the Star Trek scenario.)
Or, will we slam on the brakes, reverse, and choose to improve? (I vote for that!)
Or get worse, and never get better?
Who knows?

I'm going to live as if we just might choose to improve. Maybe we won't, but we could!

I don't know any individual of any stripe who thinks the situation is good. As BJ said, "those people on the street hate being there as much as you do." They're trapped in the hell of addiction, a lot of them.

As individuals, except the few who want to watch the world burn, we're almost all wanting freedom from dental pain (!), cheesecake and football, good tv/sex, a safe place to send the kids to get them out of our hair for an afternoon; and that old-fashioned sounding peace, love, and understanding.

But somehow as a group, we create the opposite.
Our lizard brains say, Your sexuality & cheesecake are the WRONG FLAVOR. My group's football is worth dying for. Dentistry for me, but there's not enough not for you.
Etc.

We are ridiculous. I am very fond of us. I wish we would get it together.
Good example of a good try:
The city put in a new, two-way bike path along the street where bink & Maura live. IT'S GREAT!!! The street is safer for everyone, not just bicyclists, and quieter and greener. And of course people complain, people who say it inconveniences THEIR car drive home (oh, the sacred right of car drivers!);
but it's a done deal.
And it's a big, good step for public health, community, everything.

We can do that.
_____________

*The Rolling Stone article is a tribute to August Golden, the musician killed in the shooting. It's a good, loving description of what I call Thrift Life:

'His bandmates spoke to Rolling Stone from his room.
“He had really beautiful stuff,” Brown says.
“He took care to repair old things. He saw the value in stuff. He never threw things away. He would always fix it. And he fixed things for all of us as well: tape players, record players, guitars, cars, and trucks.

“It was a choice, since he enjoyed doing it, but it was also an ethos,” they continue.
“It was about taking care of each other and taking care of things. He wasn’t just helpful to be helpful; he really believed in mutual aid and community and taking care of each other.

He was inspired by that, and we were inspired by him doing that.”'

Photo, below, of August Golden from Rolling Stone, August 16, 2023,"Friends Remember ‘Punk as F-ck’ Musician Killed in Minneapolis Shooting".
"A gunman killed 35-year-old August Golden in an unprovoked shooting during a show last Friday. Friends say he 'embodied the values that our world of DIY punk rock hopes to embody and hold'."

rollingstone.com/music/music-features/minneapolis-nudieland-shooting-august-golden-1234807228

Grateful for Creative Shields

I'm grateful, this Thanksgiving, for an encounter yesterday that showed me that I AM getting better at walking in the world with suffering and pain--open to it, but protected--
and specifically that the girlettes really do serve as shields, and they can also be bridges between me and other people...

I can't remember if I've mentioned here that a regular customer in BOOK's, a transman I'll call bobby, lived in a collective punk-house where there was a mass shooting this summer--about a mile from the thrift store?

I didn't know this right away.
We'd exchanged phone numbers re a certain book, and I'd texted him  that that the book had been donated.
He texted back that there had been "some deaths in my community", and he would not be in for a while.

I put two and two together, googled, and discovered that, yes, bobby's community was the punk house, which was queer/trans community too. (Big overlap there.)

Oh, I think I did blog about this--about the bizarro question that arose for me, What's the etiquette around mass shootings?
What do you say?
I actually googled that and the answers I found were uninspired.

I turned to the girlettes.
I knew bobby had written his masters thesis on Jean Genet. I texted back that I was sorry about the deaths and while I wasn't sure what to say, I wanted to show my sympathy by sending this photo of one of my dolls (SweePo) dressed like Genet (from five years ago, with--how weirdly apt--Genet's novel Funeral Rites):

bobby didn't reply, but I didn't take that as a bad sign, necessarily, but I did hope sending a DOLL didn't come across as too slight...

But no. Yesterday I finally saw him at the store, looking at books. The first thing he said was, "thanks for that message", and we got talking about Genet.
I said I'd been surprised at Genet's tenderness in Funeral Rites, which I loved, while much of his stuff is disturbing to me.

bobby agreed. "Genet is drawing on his own grief in that book..."

Then I said, "I don't know you well, but I want to ask if there's anything you need that I could do for you."

"No," he said, "but just that you asked..."
And, I was so surprised--his eyes got teary.

He went on to tell me the police have done nothing to catch the shooters, had clearly signaled that they didn't care about the community.
(I've seen enough of our neighborhood cops to know this is not paranoia speaking.) But also that justice wasn't justice, and he wasn't sure he even wanted the killers to be subjected to it!

(I've heard people on the street say this too--that even if they were beat to a pulp, they didn't want to call the cops on their attacker, because they wouldn't wish that on them.
That's some effed up justice system we have.)

And then bobby and I talked more about creative distancing--my dolls and his performance art--and overall, ways to be in the world and to stay both open and protected...
Tender in grief, and brave in art.

Whatever it takes to protect ourselves so we can be Intrepid Galactic Explorers, I am grateful for that.

Thanks to all you, out there!

Play to Your Strengths (There's Nothing Wrong with You)

There's time before work for an Auntie-Vi style chit-chat this morning... We always talked about the weather.
Auntie Vi, I miss you!
How's the weather in heaven?
I picture it as a perfect Green Bay Packers football game day.
It's so weird here, the day before Thanksgiving--it's 28ºF this morning, due to warm up 21 degrees to 49º.
Then back into the 30s for the next ten days.

I heard from my cousin Donna again recently--a card in the mail.
She's the only one from that family to stay in touch with me, and I'm the only one she's in touch with too. Family connections were often riven with discord, so no surprise, but I am a little sad about it. But only sad IN THEORY--the idea of seeing my actual cousins doesn't appeal. They're almost entirely 'Trump in Jesusland' people.
Funny because our grandparents were immigrants, but I get it:
We got ours, now we're not sharing.

Auntie Vi would want to hear about yesterday's work lunch, too.
It all came together perfectly, and everyone seemed to like making their own sandwiches.
Funny little detail--I'd hesitated but decided to buy a jar of sliced dill pickles for sandwiches. I don't put them on my sandwiches--I prefer banana peppers––but I thought of all the offerings in the Subway cold tray, and pickles are one. Sure enough, half the jar got eaten.
Gotta cater to all tastes, not just mine.

I'm pleased, too, that I thought to put the ham on a separate tray from the sliced turkey and cheese. J. is Muslim and won't touch pork. Funny, because I know he'll drink a beer, but whatever. I don't care--it's an easy fix--I just had to THINK of it.
I told him, "This ham and this turkey have never met--they don't even know each other's name!"
And he laughed.

Play to Your Strengths

I guess that's a strength of mine--to see what people like, even if it's not important to me, and to (try to) engineer for that.

Vi would love that I've started to read Help! I Work with People: Getting Good at Influence, Leadership, and People Skills  (Chad Veach, Bethany House, 2020). She liked upbeat stuff, and this is that.
Veach's premise is that in life, you'll likely find yourself in some sort of leadership position eventually, even if without a formal designation. And you might not be great at it, but you can LEARN to do it better by harnessing and supporting your strengths.
I'm sometimes finding myself in that position, Leader by Default, simply by being older in age, and also being one of the longest lasting crew at work.

BUT, I'm not comfortable with leadership, have always avoided stepping up to it--especially avoiding coordinating other people or asking for help. I try to do whatever by myself.

This lunch was a wee, tiny bit different for me:
Big Boss & Manageress had offered help, and I told them what was needed. Then, Manageress was sick, so I recruited someone else for her task--to decorate the break room. Her replacement wasn't stellar at that, but it was better than nothing,
and the feeling of willing cooperation was nice.
I thought, I COULD GET BETTER AT THIS.

I'm not very far in the book, but the first section is about getting to know yourself, as a leader--and his main advice is to strengthen your strengths, and to work around/farm out your weaknesses.
For instance, discover the kind of communication you're best at, and engineer that. If you hate answering the phone, you could spend energy getting better at it, and that might be good;
but it might be easier to ask someone else to do it, or to request instead that people text or email you.

I've found this to be true--starting with the key:
Be honest with yourself. Kinda gotta get outside yourself a bit to do that--lots of paths to that: I've found that learning to recognize cognitive biases (list here)--our brains' 'blind spots'--was super, super helpful.

I'm always using Ass't Man as a counter example, but he's such a good one--he always blamed other people instead of being honest about himself and saying "I'm afraid of this"; "I'm inexperienced"; or, simply, "I don't like this part."

Know your whole self; support your strengths; don't get caught endlessly analyzing "what's wrong with me?".

Nothing's wrong with you!
Limitations aren't "wrong"--there's stuff you aren't designed for, and will never be good at or enjoy (but might have to do anyway--there's a skill to that too);
and there's a whole lot of skills that you simply haven't learned or practiced (enough) yet, but will get better at, if you want to try.

(Of course, there may be so much 'never-learned' stuff, you are buried in it--like Willy who was drowning in alcohol. But I bet he wasn't born like that...
After he was fired for sexual harassment, I learned he was a Vietnam vet, on top of everything else. That sadly wouldn't have changed how I viewed him, because he'd become a hazard to others, but it did make me see again (again) that factors outside our control can really get on top of you.)

This is pretty one-oh-one stuff, I guess, but I'm finding it a helpful boost--and it's good to circle back and review because it takes a long time to DO it well.

At work, the thing is, often there is no one else to step up, so if I don't do something, it doesn't get done.
Frustrations aside, I'm mostly okay with that situation because, due to the lack of management, I get to choose what I step up to.
I would love GOOD management, would I ever! But since most management I've ever experienced hasn't been good, I kinda prefer this non-management.
Our Non-Management is sometimes so very NOT good, it tips into Bad; but mostly in this workplace it simply doesn't stand in my way. I have room to experiment and learn.
And doing that is up to me--and while I'd love some support, I like the freedom.

Okay--off to work! Have a good day!

More thrift-life love…

A friend sent me this article from People about Jimmy and Rosalynn Carters’ thrifty lifestyle, and it cracked me up with delight. Their grandson Jason said (in 2011):

“They were super excited — legitimately excited! — when the Dollar General store opened in Plains. They buy their clothes there.
My grandparents, their microwave is from 1985," Jason, a former state senator, added. "It goes tick tick tick tick! It takes 12 minutes ticking down to pop popcorn, because why would you buy a new microwave?
The point is that nothing is easy, and why should it be?”

BELOW: Eleanor Rosalynn Smith (later Carter) at twelve 

" [Rosalynn's parents] Edgar and Allie Smith were neighbors of the Carters, and in the summer of 1927, Lillian Carter helped deliver their first child, Eleanor Rosalynn. Jimmy, then a 3-year-old, and newborn Rosalynn met just a couple days later for the first time."

So sad. So cute. So much!

So much this morning.
I just saw that Rosalynn Carter died yesterday. She was a good person who did good things, and that's really something.
I feel sad for Jimmy Carter--the first candidate I voted for to be president* (in 1980, when he lost to Reagan). He's ninety-nine--his wife gone, and the Middle East, where he'd helped bring a smidgen of peace, now worse than ever.
I think, I hope, he shares with Star Trek's Captain Picard the “deeply flawed inability to not hope in the face of hopelessness,” as the Borg Queen so awkwardly put it.

I saw the news on Orange Crate Art, and in the comments we talked about maybe Jimmy held on for Rosalynn, who had dementia, so that she would not be the one left. It seems like him (or her, if the situation had been reversed).
JC said, “Rosalynn was my equal partner in everything I ever accomplished”.
_______________________
* Speaking of awkward: "I voted for to be president"? What? How do you say this? LOL, I need my own personal "improve your writing" team!
Uh... let's see... "the first presidential candidate I voted for"? Yes, that's better, but I'll leave it the funny clunky way I first wrote it.

I. Cute, Neat

Let me put up a cute thing!
This morning sitting with coffee by my front windows, I heard a woman walking by say "Awwww" to her friend when she saw the holiday mice I'd set looking out. (From the thrift store, of course.)

And, below, a neat thing!
I spent yesterday mending with Julia at her place, and she helped me lay out the wool scraps from the Faribault Mill in various patterns. They'd given the pieces to me for the bears and dolls; but if I cut them down to toy-size, I'm afraid the un-edged woven material will fray away. Left as is, there's enough for a lap blanket. Love!
(And still lots of little scraps for the toys.)

The green yarn ^ is blue yarn that Julia dyed in turmeric. I had the idea of the Mississippi River running through the landscape. I think this will be my winter project, to hand stitch the pieces together.

II. Lunch Lady

Today is my day off, and I'm going to finish the girlettes 2024 calendar. Then, I return to being Lunch Lady.
I'd taken a break from making hot lunch for my coworkers after only six weeks--going to the food shelf, planning what to do with whatever was on offer, transporting food by bike, etc., was starting to bug me.
I am not poor-poor (thank you, dead relatives!), but mygod does poverty eat up time. There's a whole lotta waiting in line.

Anyway--I'm up for it again, and someone handed me a donation in a box on Friday.
"What is it?" I asked, so I'd know which area it went to.
"It's a frozen ham."

Okay!
I told Big Boss I'd slice the ham and set up another make-your-own-sandwich lunch spread for our coworkers Thanksgiving week (this week). Everyone likes those.

"How can I help?" he said.
Help? Oh, happy day!

He's going to pick up heavy stuff in his car---pop and ice cream (to go with pie that comes in the weekly bakery donations)--and on my bike I'll pick up the lighter stuff––sliced cheese and non-pork meats, lettuce, tomato, mayo, potato chips––which the store will pay for!
Manageress said she'd like to decorate the break room for our Thanksgiving lunch--something she's got a good touch for.
And--ta da, it's a party!
Nice.

III. We are in the middle of this story.

My, my. What times these are. As all times are. But these are ours.

I got Star Trek Picard, season 2, on DVD from the library. The season got terrible reviews, but I'm loving it--its theme--that humanity will reach a juncture (ANY TIME NOW) where we have to choose for or against a fascist future (one which looks like the Hunger Games in this show).
"The only moment is now" says one of the characters.

Most personally to me, I love the show's take on the USA, 2024, when the characters travel back in time.
Raffi, below, lands in a homeless encampment in LA that looks just like the ones I pass on my way to work--complete with accurate details such as plastic bags tied on shopping carts.

In the background (below), a billboard for a forthcoming interplanetary mission rises above makeshift tents. Raffi comments,

"I've never been able to understand how a society can exist with so many contradictions
and not collapse sooner than it did."

[It's Star Trek canon that Earth will beyond 'hit bottom'--we will crash land on bottom––nuclear war––before we undergo a paradigm shift and achieve world peace. (Make it so.)]

Above photos via Trek Movie.

This episode weirdly cheered me up.
Maybe just to see my life--our lives-- reified, placed in historical perspective: "Yes, this is really and truly something humanity is living through, that I am living through. Other people see it too and spin it into story."

And I felt buoyed when one of Picard's crew says, "It's not all bad," and we see through their eyes people handing out water on the street, and later, a doctor (Sol Rodriguez, w/ Penelope Cruz vibes) who runs a free medical clinic for undocumented people--including one of our time travelers.

It reminds me that I WANT to be doing the work I'm doing.
I don't usually doubt that (well . . . not much), but sometimes I do feel bitter and envious when I hear, for instance, how much $$$ money other people make, while my coworkers and I make minimum wage.
Talk about galling contradictions!

I do resent the unfairness of our society--and especially for my coworkers who have no options––but I chose to be here, and while I'm not doing anything grand, if Picard & Co. came to visit, I would not be personally ashamed to be seen doing it. (Yup, just making lunch.)
That's really something.

IV. Speaking of Aliens...

This, below, is an Earth life form named Julia holding an Earth life form named a SCOBY––a Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast, you know, created from the fermentation of tea––the "mother" for making kombucha.
I'd had one long ago, but let it dry up (die). Julia is fermentation royalty--she has many floating in her endless brew and was happy to give me some.
And I'm happy to have it.
It does look kinda scarily alien to me, though.

"Take a Book to Bed" with a blanket

I used my favorite of the bookmarks Art Sparker designed for BOOK's a few years ago–– "Fall Is Reading Weather"––in the display of prizewinners I set up yesterday:

"It's dark out! Take a book to bed."

I didn't have enough of any one prize for a display; these novels won a mix of awards--Pulitzer, National Book, Booker, Nobel (for the authors), even a Newbery--with some nonfiction winners too.
The only one of these I loved, personally, was The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie. (Oh, no--also The Warmth of Other Suns. Amazing!)
I haven't seen anything by Alexie since he was accused of sexual harassment in 2018.
. . . Oh! There he is--like so many writers, he's on Substack now (since 2022). I'll read him up later (maybe).

Yeah, so... Substack. Thoughts, anyone?
As the blogosphere emptied out over the past decade, I've wondered, "Where have all the long-form writers gone?"
Not everyone wants to write in short bursts or rely on images on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, etc. (Is Twitter/X in its final death throes?)

It was only this summer when Deanna moved her blog over to Substack, where she continues as Revision, that I looked around there--and there many of them are, the writerly ones.
Some Big Names, including Alexie, restrict certain posts—newsletters, I think they call them—to paying subscribers. I get that as a business model... Like Patreon, a way to pay people for their work. But I want a free exchange by ordinary writers.

I don't know. Google is bad--the latest is that they've been paying big bucks to Apple to support their search engine, Safari--surprise, surprise. Substack seems (seems) livlier, more diverse, smarter... More independent (in business terms, I mean)? 

But for now I am staying in this backwater, where we blog about our laundry. (“Not all of us.”) I guess it's more my speed. Or, home + habit, which isn't bad.
Also, because I am so permeable, I fear that if I were around people talking intelligently in The Latest Terms, I might absorb them into my writing--the in-vogue groupy-think terms.

I want to be plainer than that. (Deanna remains so on Substack, but I fear I wouldn't.)
See? Look! Laundry, of a sort.
Me, below, in mirror (smudged already--great, another thing for me to do)––and a Faribo blanket by Faribault Mills--(for a while they spelled their name "Faribo"). I found it in a 1960s ad: "Pioneer... in the traditional Canadian style". I don't see that they make it currently.

 

The blanket is a little stretched out of shape, and no one has bought it at $60--too high for its condition, I realize now (and it's not a full bed blanket, it's a throw). I'll mark it down, and if it doesn't sell, maybe I'll buy it for my growing collection (I have three).

But for some reason, I don't love this blanket design.
I think maybe my mother had one like it... Yes, I think that's it!
And so, for my body's memory, that makes this blanket the opposite of what I was trying to describe yesterday--an object that gives comfort when held close to one's body.
(I am saying that ^ so clunkily--is there a name for it?  like "transitional object" for a child's toys, blankies... (I don't like that name though--so clinical. Also, transitional to what?))
Like an apotropaic, but for wearing (pin a holy medal to your bra strap) or wrapping around yourself.

As for laundering these blankets: Faribault says you don't have to.

"Wool is the original miracle fiber. It’s naturally stain, wrinkle and water-resistant, so our products rarely need cleaning. In fact the best way to refresh your woolens is the natural way: Simply shake or gently brush the woolens and hang them outdoors."

"Magical Little Adventures” in AI Captions

Mixbook, where I design and print my calendars, now offers AI-generated captions, with the warning that they "might not be completely accurate."
Yes. This is true.
But some are accurate, and I even like some of them, like "Little Adventures Finding the Magic of the World"; "Intricate characters awaiting adventure".

Some are boringly accurate: Cozy nights. Snow play day. Unleashing the Imagination of Toyland.
Some seem philosophical:
"Tech and Time in these little details"; "Floating Dreams", and, oooh-- "Garden Doll's Time Machine".

But, wait! Penny Doll Chronicles? Nowhere do I mention Penny Cooper's name in the photos. What is going on here?

Others are hilarious. On a photo of the girlettes' Solstice Parade:
"Unruly yet elegant additions to every home".
THAT is true: Do not let these dolls into your home without taking into account that they are unruly.

I (almost) admire the AI's valiant efforts to label this photo collage of "Judith & Her Maid Abra with the Head of Holofernes" and my laptop. "Shared moments in one space"? Well, that's true... Also, "From candlelight chats to screen time"; "Furry friends and tech advances"; "Sisters Bonding in the Dark" (spooky much?)

A few more, from other calendar pages:
"Their Journey from Plastic to Life" (!)
"Toy Tales, Hairy Dreams"
"Minding Our Manners Through Darker Days"
On the moth funeral: "Moths and dolls, a cozy duo"

You can hit "regenerate" too, and get more and more of these odd phrases--they remind me of cumbersome, quirky translations of Japanese into English.
"Crocheted Comfort on the Shore"--could the AI be aiming for Kafka on the Shore? (There is no crochet.)

While this is fun, I do sort of worry about anything that encourages us humans to think even LESS for ourselves. Could it be worse than our own efforts?
There's a small library of books that say, Why yes, it could.

Still, I might use some of the bizarre captions...

(I will post the final calendar layout next week, I think, if people want to order one.)

Magical Fabric Field Trip

There is magic in dolls and bears, and if they want to, they are not shy about sparkling their way into things...
Today bink & I, three dolls and a bear took a field trip to the 157-y.o. Faribault Woolen Mills, an hour south, and there the dolls and bear charmed a manager into giving them a whole bunch of wool remnants for free! The mill doesn’t even  sell them—she went into the back and chose out beautiful scraps for them—some large enough to make a short scarf for a human.

ABOVE: Red Bear, left, wears a golden milk & scavenger gray scarf, while Penny Cooper is wrapped in a scrapyard navy sweater, constructed from a strip of wool.

Then the girlettes charmed me into letting one of them go LIVE with the manager because she has a sister named Madeline and the sisters love the Madeline book.
I could stand--just barely-- to part with the most recent girlette, One Shoe, who was hopping to go. "Me, me! Choose me!"
(Penny Cooper would never leave the Orphan Pod.)
The manager seemed genuinely thrilled.

I've become interested in wool blankets, of all things. It started when I did a kids book on the French and Indian War (ten years ago?). Researching it, I ran into all sorts of fascinating history of fabrics, which were a big trade good, both directions. (Fur is considered a fabric, "from Latin fabrica ‘something skillfully produced’".)

Then, old wool blankets get donated to the store, and they attract me, like the holy medals on safety pins I posted yesterday---intimate objects that help people who love them feel safe with them close to their bodies.

Safety Pinned

Holy medals on safety pins, in the morning light on my windowsill

(These come donated this way.)

Help & Be Happier

Did you know that “prosocial spending”—spending money on other people—can increase your happiness?
(from Time magazine: "Being Generous Really Does Make You Happier")

Because I'm always giving cash-money directly to people in SlobKnob Alley (Em's name for our surroundings), I don't usually donate to relief organizations. But with the recent uptick in global nastiness, I decided I would send away some electronic money. Why not?

I. It's the Easiest Thing We Can DO, right? to write a check donate money online, for almost any amount.(Doctors without Borders has a minimum of 5 US dollars.)

Q: If you donate too, please tell me, what is your favorite charity? (Doesn't have to be international relief--I'm interested in any charity.)

To choose a charity, I looked at Charity Watch's Top Rated Charities for International Relief:
www.charitywatch.org/top-rated-charities/international-relief-development

I donated to two:

1. Doctors without Borders gets an A. (I especially like that their top salaries are "only" a quarter of a million/year--lots of charities pay double that.) They're in 70+ countries, including Congo.
I sent them $50.

2. Catholic Relief Services gets an A+.  They operate in more than 100 countries--you can donate specifically to Jerusalem/West Bank/Gaza, Ukraine, Congo, etc.
The girlettes like them because "they have toy altars" (?!), so I donated $50 to Where It's Needed Most: support.crs.org/donate/help-where-its-needed-most

________________________

II. Is the World . . . Awful/ Better/ Could be much better?

Yes.
I love this graphic from the wonderful Our World in Data––one of their thousands of charts to help understand the global situation––here, illustrating that all three views are true at once:

1. AWFUL: 5.9 million children die every year = 4.3% of all children.
2. MUCH BETTER: But in the past, 50% of children died.
3. Could Be EVEN Better Yet: In the European Union, fewer than half-of-1-percent (0.45%) of children die.

via ourworldindata.org/much-better-awful-can-be-better
____________________________

III. My new Lift Up My Heart policy is working--tho' it sputters...

This morning I wrote an ill-natured post about how we've forgotten Congo––we look where the atrocity mongers tell us to look––then I DELETED IT.  (I did sneak that little dig in though...)

I'll post a tiny bit of info:
Conflict in Congo (including conflict around mining minerals for your and my smart phones) leaves 5.5 MILLION+ displaced people as of 2023 (in a population of 91 million),
making it the fourth largest crisis of IDP [internally displaced people] in the world, per a report from the UNHCR, the UN refugee agency.

Congo doesn't get much news coverage in the US: I only know about it because I wrote a geography book for middle-schoolers on the country, and I check in every once in a while.

A Lighter-Hearted Me

Donated to work this weekend, now living by my work desk as a spritely reminder.

PS. I put out the copy of Prince Harry’s Spare today for $4.99 (usually hardbacks cost $1.99), and it sold in minutes. 

Lift Off

(Did I lift this from Getty? Why yes, I did.)

For most of my life, the question of body weight has been cling-wrapped in emotional pain, like cantaloupe wrapped in prosciutto.
Now at sixty-two,there’s a lot less emotional pain… but now I must add physical pain. Weight has become more a matter of physics:
"Weight is actually a measure of force––the force of gravity on a physical object, of how forcefully objects are pulled downward."

I. "Getting off the floor is a huge motivation."

. . . And, weight determines how much force you need to lift physical objects, such as one's body, upward. Gravity does a number on bodies, eh? 
Looking old photos recently, I was envious of myself leaping into the air with abandon only ten years ago.
Now my knees are reluctant.

Last week, when I was in the middle of moving books for three days in a row, there came a moment when I was sitting on the ground shelving books on a bottom shelf, and I had to hold onto something to hoist myself up, with some effort.
Had to!
This is new.
"I need to get serious about losing some weight," I thought.

I don't know how to change my eating patterns, though, without setting inner alarm bells clanging so horribly, they cause me to stop trying.
I know everything about weight-loss, nutrition, body image, and the psychology of eating that a woman in a weight-obsessed culture might be expected to know---which is a lot–-and every possible combination of foods. (The Donut Diet! "That's all you eat, now, don't you cheat".)

It's not more information I need.

Though uncertain, I'm going to try again (again, again).
As bink said, when we discussed this,
"Getting off the floor is a huge motivation."

II. Lighten Up

It's not just physical weight.
I also wonder if I want to lighten up, socially.

I came to a turning point last week, when I got together with an old friend I'd barely seen since 2019. He asked me about my experiences at the thrift store, and I started to talk intensely about life there, in the armpit of Lake Street, on––as Em calls it––SlobKnob Alley.
My friend looked more and more horrified and withdrawn.
Finally I  stopped, apologized, and changed the topic.

I've been surprised--resentful that many have not been able/wanted to contribute meaningfully to the Philosophy and Theology of SlobKnob Alley.
The stupidest thing people say, "you're overthinking", will never not make me go ballistic.
But I think my expectations are a tad unrealistic.

After seeing this old friend, who I like very much and who is not a lightweight, I thought, I'm being unfair.
I mean, I'd even freaked myself out writing a daily thrift-store diary, it was so dark.

What if I changed tack?

Like, what if instead of talking in terms of crucifixion or lynching (in casual conversation), instead of asking people how they are holding it together as civilization slips off the edge, what if... I told amusing stories? It's not like I don't have them.
Less steak, more popcorn.

Yes, Fresca, why don't you JUST DO THAT already?

Book's Opening Day

I am super proud of BOOK's!

I'd foolishly thought moving all the books would take an afternoon. Ha! Yesterday, three days after we'd moved the bookshelves, I almost finished reshelving books.

BELOW: Me, left, in the old space w/ a new--OPEN--configuration of shelves;
right: coworker Croquette Jeff (not exactly helpful, but I like him--we talk about cooking) coming thru the Back Room door--new Book Nook to right.

This is my baby, and I moved the actual books themselves, (because I wanted to cull/rearrange them) --but a lot of people helped bring the Book Nook to life,
starting with volunteer Dalton, "the Marine", suggesting to Big Boss that we use the nook space better--then, her coming to me for suggestions.

BELOW: Dalton (far left) and Grateful-J (check shirt) moved the white metal shelves into the Book Nook. (G-J did everything that required tools.)
Then Art Volunteer (far right) moved the wood bookshelves ––out of Furniture––into where the white shelves had been.

BELOW, Reflected in mirror:
Emmler (right, holding donut) was a huge help: moving stuff; strongly suggesting that I include shelves for Cool Old Things; and emotionally the most helpful, telling me to calm down. (I was a bit frantic.)
Funny, because she often spins like an off-centered top--"You're acting like me!", she said-- but once she's focused, she is On Target!

Everyone's happy!
Moving my books out of Furniture gives that department much-needed room and gives my books their own dedicated space, where I'm not constantly fighting w/ encroaching dressers, desks, etc. for aisle space.

Yesterday, Saturday, was an unofficial opening day (though lots was still undone). Many customers commented positively--and one, negatively--she didn't like not-knowing where things were.
Me either!
I have lots more to do: I'm not sure how to best reflow the topic-sections. And once everything's in place, I also need to relabel all the shelves--the old labels were in tatters.

Onward!

U and Non-U in Print

U = Upper class; Non-U, not.
Not exactly applicable to Americans, but fun: "Ten Words That Prove You're Not Posh", from BBC Radio 4.
This one made me laugh:

"8. Vintage
There are a lot of euphemisms when it comes to words on the Non-U list. Seemingly those from the non-upper classes feel the need to avoid the obvious when it comes to language usage. That shirt you’re wearing isn’t vintage, it’s old. When it comes to furniture, there’s no such thing as vintage, it’s antique."

LOL: "That shirt you’re wearing isn’t vintage, it’s old."
In my case, it's a rag.

I. U (Very much not you)

It takes a while for best-sellers to start showing up at the thrift store--yesterday the first copy of Prince Harry's Spare arrived--nine months to the day since it was published on January 10.

I thought I might read it, but I opened it at random and read a few lines  about "Mummy". I just cringed.

Poor little kid, I feel sorry for him, but I doubt that reading more about his pain would increase my wisdom, compassion, or resourcefulness.
("More"--I've already read in-depth reviews.)
Reading such tell-alls feels pornographic for me, looping back on itself, never going anywhere, never satiated.

Below: A much more desirable-to-me donation, an "I LIKE MILK" mug, with beavers, penguins and giraffes, and a clown handle.

II. Me, Non-U

I'm looking at my blog in book form (online). A friend sent me a link to a service that publishes blogs:  PixxiBook.com. The site shows you what your book will look like, a preview of page by turnable page, and it's kinda compelling.

Rereading the blog's first year, I'm fascinated by little daily things I recorded, like that I got my first digital camera in 2008.

Also, I make myself laugh sometimes! I like the person who wrote this post (me) about tapirs (not much). It's the kind of brain-hopping-around thing that makes me happy.
I 've posted it original size for readability, so you might need to scroll right to read it (or, link to orig post). It looks pretty as book pages instead of in blog-post format.

I won't be printing my blog with PixxiBook though. The final charge is still tabulating, but at 84% done, printing an A4 photo-quality hardback would be...

• Approximately:
• 8136 pages in 28 volumes
  $3921.12 ($140.04 per volume)