My resolution is to write here once a week, every Wednesday. I'm doing this in response to the class action suits against AI, in which many authors, including myself, are involved. (If you have an interest in what those entail, you can read the details on the Authors Guild website here.) And, since one of the suits includes Meta, apart from wishing people "happy birthday," or sharing fact-checked posts and videos about the inexoriable march to a dictatorship the United States is on, a march which too many people don't seem to realize is taking place even though they're being pushed right along, I'm here instead of on Fartfacebook, here, on my good old-fashioned Wordpress blog, set … [Read more...]
Liked
Recently, I saw an episode of a Chuck Lorre creation, "Mom," a comedy/drama centered around several women who are in recovery. It aired for eight seasons until 2021, but I hadn't seen it, and now I'm hooked, partly because the writing and the performances are so adept, but primarily because women banding together to support one another will always be my thing. Another reason I find the series so compelling is due to the fact that one of my closest friends struggles with sobriety, and the writers do an excellent job of not only portraying that struggle, but demonstrating through plot and action how a loved one can help in that struggle. In one episode, Nora, played by Yvette Nicole Brown, … [Read more...]
Purple or Green?
Here's a photo of a purple sofa. (Not mine, just a photo off the web) We can see it's purple, but depending on what monitor we have at home, depending on what device we might be using to view it, the quality of our individual graphics card, the shade of purple will vary, sometimes quite a lot. So, if we were to discuss what shade of purple, there'd be some debate, some conjecture, but when we hold it up to the light, when we examine it carefully, we are in agreement that it's purple. The human brain is tricky, though. It can be persuaded to believe, or it can, under certain circumstances, persuade itself to believe that this is not a purple sofa. Our environment, our upbringing, our … [Read more...]
Patience
The first four decades of my life, I accepted the dictum that was canon in my nuclear family and later, in my marriage, that my needs should come last after the needs and wants of my loved ones, for that was the only way I would be deemed a good daughter and good wife. I went after those titles "Good Daughter", "Good Wife", as though winning them would put money in my bank account and food on my table. I never allowed my personal satisfaction, my own quality of life, to enter the equation. By age thirty-nine, I had given up my hard-earned profession as a high school English teacher, a diploma and certificate that had taken me ten years longer to earn than it might have, had I not still … [Read more...]
To Women, About Men, On International Women’s Day
I know this is a weird screed for March 8, and I'm probably going to get sh*t for it, but what else is new? [Note: I reference sex acts in this post.] Anyone who has read one of my books or watched LYVIA'S HOUSE knows that I'm a proponent of women's friendships, women helping women, and women's rights. But this International Women's Day, I have something to add to that message: If we, as WOMEN, don't also scrutinize and alter how we think about and interact with MEN, whether we are siblings, friends, colleagues, significant others, or mothers of men, we are only fixing the leaks on one side of the boat. Look, we were all spoon-fed the ideology growing up: A WOMAN can only be … [Read more...]
THEY
My first year of teaching English in a New York City high school, my pruney department chairperson was walking past my open classroom door, and heard me ask my class, "Has everyone finished their essay?" She pulled me out into the hallway so she could chastise me on my usage of the word, "they." "The word 'everyone' is singular, as I certainly hope you know, therefore it is not qualified by the pronoun, 'they.' When you use 'everyone' in a sentence, the correct pronoun is 'he'. 'Has everyone finished 'his' essay?' is what you should have said." As this lecture between us took place centuries ago, she was right, as it happens. Back then, the proper pronoun to use … [Read more...]
Dana White and ‘L’
The quote is all Dana White, the red arrow and underline added by me. It resonates, because it took me far too long to learn this. About four years ago, something wonderful happened for me in my publishing career. It doesn't matter what it was in the context of this post, what matters is that I worked so long and so hard for it, had experienced so much disappointment before it, but had persevered, no matter how many times I'd felt like giving up. So when this wonderful thing happened, I was both elated and a bundle of anxiety all at once. It meant so much, yet at the same time, it felt like I was experiencing a success that actually only happened to other people, not to me. Can … [Read more...]
Conformity
First of all, we’re all susceptible to brainwashing and radicalization. Don't for one moment think you're "too smart" for that. It’s nothing to do with being "smart", it’s to do with what you're exposed to. It has to do with being conditioned, while our brains are still young and malleable, to accept a belief held by our caretakers without being offered facts to back up that belief by our caretakers. Up until a certain age, we accept any and all ideas from those nice people, without whom we wouldn't be housed, clothed or fed. Our parents are the first line of defense against us developing early critical thinking skills and the cultivation of original ideas. Schools and … [Read more...]