if i look back, i am lost
Claire Keane
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@askyermom
Retiring Minds
We can see a lot of retiring minds these days. It’s really just a matter of paying attention. Your own mind may be circling thoughts of retirement at any given time, even if you don’t have a job right now. For me, it seemed like a far off place, retirement. Now it’s coming for me. When I first got sober, people warned me in the way they do–I should not make any big changes or big decisions.…
How Can I Find a Doctor?
[from 2020] Some advice just holds up. Maybe 30% of my eleventy-jillion posts are evergreen, like this one: How can I find a doctor?
Prediction and Pessimism Problems
A peculiar tension is clinging to me these days. Aside from the baseline doom worry, I have a menu of worries a bit closer to home. Somehow dipping in and out of worry about the real things isn’t enough. I have to worry about imaginary things too. At night, I heard noises in my attic and woke convinced that the presence of wrestling weasels would explain the sounds perfectly. While it’s possible…
More on Old Friends
I have several drafts in the pipe, but the topic of old friendships has been bubbling up this week, so here it is again. [from 2015] The only update is that I did actually speak to that 3rd grade bestie and she did not remember anything that happened. I guess that means she’s been my imaginary friend for decades after all. Why should I think about keeping friends? I love my new friends!
The Word Bag
In the course of sorting my mother’s things a few years ago, I held out hope of finding a different sort of treasure. She had a mountain of costume jewelry that was mingled with a few interesting pieces, and she had some peculiar collections, like an embarrassment of Smithsonian replicas, but they were just in the way. What I was looking for was my grandfather’s stories. [The mailman grandfather,…
Tunnel of Love
If you saw me hugging a strange man on the Route I95 shoulder, I can explain. It’s either the next step in making peace with traffic problems or the next step in madness. Maybe there is no difference. Before, if you had told me I would speak with nostalgia about commuting through Baltimore’s Fort McHenry Tunnel in relative safety at the speed limit, I would have stared the way a rabbit stares at…
My Dark Brunch of the Soul
I am not having a dark night of the soul, but I would call it a dark brunch of the soul. I’m having the sort of bad dreams where babies are in peril and mysteries remain unsolved. In one dream, a woman threatened to kill me and I said, “Really? Lethal injection? Are you a veterinarian? She said she was indeed a veterinarian. I woke up laughing. There’s an emotional charge to the information I…
Letting people have bad ideas
Judging only on the way it felt, one of the worst things I ever did was to pants (or is it un-pants?) a classmate at school. I was not a bully ordinarily and I didn’t behave like one–ordinarily. My backward glance at those days suggests I escaped serious bullying mostly by having an air of insanity. While I never experienced Stephen-King-style bullying, I was still bullied a bit, mostly by one…
Giveaway on Goodreads ends in 3 days
Just mentioning, no pressure!! It’s free after all, so do it if you want a 20% chance of winning a free kindle version of Don’t Eat Your Children!! The thing is here: GIVEAWAY It will probably make you sign in to goodreads, so don’t feel compelled on my account. I don’t make the rules… yet!! Thanks for reading!!
A Few Words on Cemetery Problems
I visited a local cemetery recently to see if there were any 19th century graves and–spoiler–there were! A few of the markers were for people born in the 18th century who had the good fortune to live long enough to get buried in the 19th. I didn’t know so many people who enjoyed stone grave markers lived here back then. Ironically, they probably had relatives mining marble nearby. That might…
Who is an American?
I have seen an increase of smearing others with the verdict of “unAmerican.” People are being tossed out of the country rapidly, without the expected ceremonies and procedures, because they are deemed unlawful residents, or “non-Americans.” (Never mind that the law applies to all persons regardless of citizenship). Those who complain about the Government are being labeled “anti-American.” It…
Who can be a Mary?
This idea danced across my thought ticker this morning and I liked it, so I’ll share. It’s weird to have a sudden vivid television memory. I’m not going to research and validate it, but it would hilarious if it’s wrong, so maybe I will and will link after. (Nope. I can’t find a clip of it, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist somewhere). My recollection is of a scene in the Mary Tyler Moore…
What's your scientific opinion?
That’s a trick question of course, in that I’m being tricky and also not asking a question. It just irritates me that people are discussing scientific opinions these days as if it is a real thing. It is not a real thing. See, opinion is defined as a view, judgment or appraisal. Your opinion on any given thing is simply your view based on the information you have at that moment. It’s important to…
Adult Children Are Not Your Peers, Silly Parents
I didn’t know I was thinking of my kids as peers until I realized I was thinking that way. Thinking about thinking: the most portable hobby. I certainly noticed that my connection to my kids felt off kilter. My place in their lives was shifting into the suburbs, the way we’re told it is supposed to. Not exile, but also not in the house or even in the yard. I was to be credited as a guest…
Now in Paperback!!
“Don’t Eat Your Children” is now in paperback and the hard cover edition still exists at the same time!! This book is not the collection of random essays you have come to expect from me and my brain, but rather it is a full and useful work of non-semi-fiction!! It’s especially helpful for anyone contemplating parenthood, who may wonder, “What will I regret if I do this?” Personally, I have a…
Some False Moves
After a week with a group of much younger people, I am feeling a possibly perfect mix of hopefulness and concern. They are so wonderful and intelligent and creative. Despite all that, some of them talk about failing in the way I did at their age and it stings to hear it. I remember thinking of life as a balance beam [if you’ve never seen or heard of gymnastics, a balance beam is the long piece…
Safety Feelings
I found an undated page of notes to myself. It reads: Safety is not just physical; pain is not just physical. Feeling safe to be yourself at home without ridicule or emotional attack seems like a pretty basic requirement. Without a date on it, I can still place the page. It’s from a time when I was working hard to untangle my motives. I was so worried about overreacting to mistreatment I wasn’t…