A lady is an uptight, suburban, church-going bitch who thinks I might be dangerous. And you’re calling me a lady? A lady is hairspray and perfume shuffling down the Campbell soup aisle of the local King Soopers. Do I look like a lady to you? A lady eats salad with the proper fork and never all of it because she can’t imagine what cucumbers might do to her girlish figure. Have you seen me eat? A lady speaks softly. “Excuse...
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An older friend, retired now, signed-up to volunteer for a charity that required a half-day of sensitivity training. Next day, he took me aside. ”What’s wrong with the word ‘lady?’ My mother would have slapped me up-side my head if I didn’t show a woman proper respect.” I tried to explain that to be a lady a woman is expected to conduct her life in a ladylike manner, following rules she didn’t...
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At dinner with friends, my husband mentioned Mad Men. He’s been catching up on that old television series. Our friend shook his head. He couldn’t watch that series. There was nothing about the fifties and early sixties that he wanted to relive. The conversation moved on. Maybe it’s a sign of having really moved on because I was home getting dressed for bed before I realized what he meant. He was a black man starting his...
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Took a class in the ART OF TRAVEL at University of Colorado recently. Not how to travel. The philosophy of travel–why we go; what we report, etc. etc. We talked about explorations, pilgrimages and tourism. In every case, unless someone recorded the adventure, it was lost to history. For example, we learned Lief Ericsson wasn’t the first Viking to arrive in America. According to the Vinland Sagas, he found evidence of earlier Viking...
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Our son announced that he wanted to be an animator when he was five years old, sitting on the couch, watching Saturday morning cartoons. “Fine,” we said, thinking he’d outgrow it. When he was sixteen, still watching Saturday morning cartoons, and still saying he wanted to be an animator, we started to wonder—where do you send your kid to college if he wants to make cartoons? The answer is California Institute of the...
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“So what?” “What’s the point?” “And the moral of the story is . . .?” Unfortunately, a lot of people seem to think a story needs to prove a point or why bother. These are usually the same ones who think everything has to be useful, or it’s useless. If you happen to come from a family with a strong religious background, you likely have two problems. 1. That engrained idea that stories have to have...
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