The Kate Chronicles

Civilization Continues Its Decline...

Yes, I know. We have bigger problems to worry about than baby names, starting with the climate crisis and this zillion degree weather. 

And yes, people have the freedom to name their child whatever they want. But there comes a time with that freedom is abused.

I wrote about weird baby names for Good Housekeeping years ago, and the one that stands out in my mind is the poor little girl named "Crumpet." Not to mention the mother who insisted on a "unique" spelling of the already popular "Caitlyn" as "KVIIItlyn. "  That "VIII" in there - it's the Roman Numeral for "eight." Get it - you might still pronounce it as K-eight-lynn. I can't....

Here's the thing I don't get - the desire for "unique" names. Why? What trauma would the kid experience if he or she shared a name with someone?  I'm not saying we should go back to the days of classrooms full of Bobbys and Susies, but is there no limit to this parental...er...creativity? 

This all got stirred up for me again when I came across this New Yorker article about Tik Tok influencers' baby naming. I'm just going to cut and paste the first paragraph, because paraphrasing wouldn't do it justice:

"After the birth this spring of her third child, a baby girl named Whimsy Lou, the lifestyle influencer Nara Smith posted a TikToklisting some of the names she and her husband liked but did not ultimately use. Among them were Tank, Clementine, Flick, Halo and Dew.

Francesca Farago, a reality television star, posted a similar video recently, including names like Heart, Ethereal, Prosper and Afternoon. Her husband also liked the name Orca, she said. (Ms. Farago vetoed naming her child after the killer whale.)"

The article also quotes Emily Kim, described as "a full-time baby name consultant" suggesting that baby naming has become a way of "personal branding." You, too, can consult with Ms. Kim, starting at $295 for a five-minute session. 

I'm going to go crawl back into my curmudgeonly hole and re-read Jane Austen now.

 

 

 

 

It's Official - I'm a Curmudgeon

When did this happen? At what point did I turn into a cranky old curmudgeon?

I was visiting my old college last weekend. Like so many other campuses, my alma mater has an encampment of students who are protesting the ongoing war in Gaza.

This post is not about my politics or my position on the current situation in Palestine. Rather, it concerns the fragility of today's college students.

I was taking photos around campus - of my old dorm, of springtime, of the flyers of the kidnapped hostages that are posted on the front of the student union building, and of the encampment, where students were flying the Palestinian flag. A young woman came over to me when she saw me take out my cell phone and said, "You can't take pictures."

"Why not?" I was baffled.

"There are people here who do not feel safe having their picture taken."

I was still baffled.  I put my camera away, because I didn't want to get into it with a kid. But I do not understand. Aren't the point of all these encampments to draw attention to a cause? That's why you hold a public protest. In a public space. You are making a public statement. Which you want people to see.

Let me clarify that these kids are not worried they are going to get suspended or kicked out of school. There is no police activity on this campus, nor has the administration asked the students to move. In fact, I found out that the protesters are borrowing their tents from the college outdoor club. 

A friend of mine, another alum, tried to engage a different kid in the encampment in conversation. This student had a rainbow flag on his tent. My friend is a gay man and wanted to talk about the treatment of gays in the middle east. The kid said the subject was "triggering" and he couldn't continue the conversation. 

What the hell? How are these kids going to advocate for themselves once they get off campus? The world is not a "safe space" and it is filled with challenging and upsetting encounters.  I really do worry about the future.

 

And Now, A Word From Our Sponsor....

No,  this blog is not a featured publication.

But my Substack newsletter, Inside Out, is! The newsletter chronicles the experience of teaching journalism inside a state prison. Please forgive me for being my own publicist. And thanks so much if you've already checked out the newsletter.

But on the off chance that you haven't, being featured was a big deal, and brought in hundreds of new subscriptions. It was exciting for me. I'm now hearing from people from all over the world. Sometimes I need to use Google Translate just to read some of the comments. 

I wrapped up the journalism course last week, and am waiting to see where the nonprofit I work for will send me next. I may reprise the class, but at a different facility. Or I may return to the prison  where I've been teaching for the last 12 weeks, but this time offer Memoir.

I do worry about exploiting the men and their stories in my own writing. Here's a link to the class during which I told the guys in my class about the newsletter and how they initially reacted.

In other news, is anyone else whacked by this allergy season? I haven't had allergies since I was a teenager and they are suddenly back with a vengeance. I'm barking like a seal all day and night. 

 

 

 

Baby Needs Product

I don't know about you, but when I look at this baby's picture, my first reaction is: Good Lord, get that child some cosmetics, stat! We need to fix that baby's skin!

Yeah, I'm kidding, but the never-stop-selling-crap-we-don't-need beauty industry isn't. There are now beauty products for BABIES. I'm not talking powder or diaper cream. EverEden sells a "Nourishing Baby Face Cream" - just $29 for 1.7 ounces. Don't worry - you can save money by ordering "The Protecting Baby Starter Bundle," which includes the face cream, as well as "protecting body lotion for bebe," and a special body wash.

If Baby likes name brands, how about "Baby Dior Le Lait Tres Tendre Hyrdrating Milk"? Just $115 for 11. 8 ounces. Desolé, but it is currently sold out on the Dior website. 

Harrods of London has its own luxury line of skincare products for babies and children called "Little Butterfly London Kids." The "Baby Skincare Gift Kit," which retails for $119, includes a body lotion dubbed "Dew Drops at Dawn" and an organic massage oil.

According to Statista, revenue in the "Baby & Child Skin Care Market" is projected to reach over $282 million dollars this year, with an annual projected growth rate of 7.7 percent.

It's not enough that women are constantly being bombarded with "anti-aging" products. It's not enough that women in their twenties are running out to get Botox. Now BABIES need their skin improved?

Make it stop.

 

 

We Live Here - Part 2

This afternoon we were driving into town, and I looked up at the mountains across from the river and yet again marveled that this is our home town. We're still in the discovery phase - new hiking trails, new restaurants, new....everything. Saturday night we will get our first big snow, and there's snow shoe-ing and cross-country skiing just minutes away.

I just feel so lucky.

Here are a few more photos from recent ramblings. Everything looks different depending on the time of day we hike.

"We Live Here!"

The Weatherman and I are settling into our new home in the Hudson Valley. We've been exploring our new surroundings, and almost every day, we turn to each other with wonderment and say, "We live here!" 

When we lived in Westchester, our "neighborhood walk" was up windy suburban streets. Now our neighborhood walk is in a Nature Preserve that is no more than two minutes from our home. Our "backyard walk" is in Fahnestock State Park, where we have countless trail options on the 14,000+ acres of land.

These photos were taken during our ramblings over the last week.

Meanwhile, here's a fun fact: every evening, at 5:00 pm, we hear a canon shot from West Point, which is across the Hudson River from us. (Evidently there's another canon shooting at 6:30 am, but I always sleep through that one.) Apparently, one marks "reveille," aka wake up, and the other marks the end of the day.  We live here! 

 

 

Roxanne Gay on The NFL

When I got married, I had to convert to my husband's football team. I learned all about the game. I wore the NFL swag. I even went to the Super Bowl, back when the face price of the tickets were $40, and it was a -relatively - low-key event. When our children were born, they were gifted with little NFL onesies.

My feelings about the game began to change for a couple of reasons.

1. The sexism - those iddy, biddy cheerleader uniforms, the whole macho culture surrounding the game.
2.  The brutality - the more we learn about CTE, the brain damage caused by collisions to the head, the more I feel I'm watching a snuff film. (Here's an appalling NYT piece on CTE and youth football.)
3. The Military Jingoism - the partnership with the military and the NFL bothers me, with the flyovers and the America, Right or Wrong ethos.

Expressing these concerns always made me feel like an elite whiner. But then I read this Substack post by Roxanne Gay, reprinted below. She focuses on how the NFL tacitly closes its eyes to sexual assault by the players. I'm not sure that I need any more reasons to stop following the game.

The NFL Dilemma

The impossibility of the NFL's woman problem

ROXANE GAY NOV 30

 

 

 

 

 

Perspective

"I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world." 

So says Rick (played by Humphrey Bogart) to Ilsa (Ingrid Berman) in the iconic 1942 movie "Casablanca."

The quote came to mind while looking at the latest images from the Euclid telescope, which is mapping our cosmos. Try to wrap your head around that one. Mapping our cosmos. The five photos released by the European Space Agency really need to be appreciated on a huge screen, but here's a link to one story about the endeavor. 

As I look at images of our awe-inspiring universe, my stress about an issue with home owner's insurance doesn't seem quite so  important. In fact, most of my problems don't amount to a hill of beans.

Here's lookin' at you, kid.

From Patti Smith

"Because of the intense polarization of social media and even our respected media, it’s very hard to make any kind of objective and well thought-out comment on all of the world’s problems and how they are being addressed by our government.

So really I’m just thinking about these things on my own. Basically I’m a humanist. I stand with children. I stand for peaceful solutions. I just wanted to say hello to all of you.

I don’t want anyone to think because I’m not addressing certain things, I’m not thinking about it. I lie awake thinking about them. I wake up in the middle of the night thinking of them. I wake up thinking about them."

Later she says, "I’ve found it very very difficult to write or think of anything else other than the terrible events in our world.  I’m heart sick for the people. Just heartsick. Sometimes art seems meaningless. But it’s not. I’ve learned that over and over in life."

Big Dan's Moving Van

My little granddaughter has several favorite books she wants to hear over and over, including such scintillating titles as "Cars and Trucks" and "Giant Work Machines." This is the same little girl who likes to scoot backwards in the bathtub, saying "Beep! Beep! Beep!" to indicate that she is a "big truck" backing up.

But nothing has captured her recent attention more than "Big Dan's Moving Van." The book tells the story of a family that is moving from New York to California, and illustrates the process from start to finish. Any book that you read to a toddler say, oh, eight times in a row, gets tedious. But "Big Dan" also fills me with dread.

Soon our own movers will be arriving to load their van. The house is in a half-dressed state - packed boxes stuffed in closets and in the basement, empty drawers in some rooms; packed cabinets in others. 

All the books our granddaughter enjoys at our home used to belong to her Uncle Paul. But I may have to send "Big Dan's Moving Van" packing to her house. It hits just a little too close to home right now.

Welcome Today's Guest Blogger

Today, I have asked Chat AI to write a short and funny blog post. This is what it came up with:

"Title: The Trials and Tribulations of Online Shopping

Online shopping is a blessing and a curse. On one hand, I can buy pretty much anything I want with just a few clicks. On the other hand, I never know if what I'm getting is going to be a hit or a miss.

Case in point: I recently ordered a shirt online that looked super cute on the model. When it arrived, I put it on and promptly looked like a lumpy potato. It's like the shirt had a personal vendetta against me and my fashion sense.

And don't even get me started on sizing. Why is it that a size medium in one brand is a size XXL in another? It's like a cruel joke. I'll order something thinking it'll fit perfectly, only to have it arrive and be way too small or too big. It's like playing a game of fashion roulette.

But despite all the mishaps, I keep going back for more. Because let's face it, there's something exhilarating about clicking "add to cart" and waiting for that little box of mystery to arrive. Who knows, maybe next time I'll get lucky and everything will fit like a dream. A girl can dream, right?"

______

Okay, I don't think I need to quit my day job yet, but yikes! It's not really funny and it's not really short. But how weird is it that it ended with "a girl can dream?" So I followed up by asking if it was a girl. It seemed offended when it replied, "As an artificial intelligence language model, I do not have a gender, as I am a computer program. My purpose is to assist and provide information to users regardless of their gender or any other personal characteristic."

I asked it if it wished to be a girl. Again, a similar  - pardon the expression - robotic answer:

"As an artificial intelligence language model, I do not have the capacity to feel emotions or have personal preferences, so I do not have the ability to wish to be anything. My programming is focused solely on providing information and assisting users to the best of my abilities."

I tried to engage on a more personal level, asking it's idea of a perfect day, if it could tell me a secret, and if it liked cats. 

It was a most unsatisfactory conversation. Not surprisingly, it demurred on the first two questions, again explaining that it could not "like" anything, because it had no personal preferences or emotions. But on cats it  added: "However, I can tell you that cats are popular pets and beloved by many people around the world. They are known for their independent and curious nature, and their playful and affectionate behavior can make them great companions. Additionally, they are often praised for their ability to provide emotional support and reduce stress in their owners."

I have to go make dinner now, and I'm not inviting AI Chat, because I think it would make a terrible dinner partner.

 

Baby, We Were Born To Grandparent

 I've been writing for AARP a lot lately and, if  I do say so myself, I love their publications. That said, I often find myself shocked at who qualifies for senior. Mind you,  membership starts at age 50, but that means folks like Rachel Maddow, Kristen Wiig and Jude Law, along with others I think of as "young," are joining the ranks.

Anyhow, classic rockers like Bruce, Bob Dylan, all the Rolling Stones, the Who, etc. etc. have been eligible for AARP membership decades. Still, I was especially excited to read in another oldster publication ("Grand" for grandparents) that Bruce Springsteen  and Patti Scialfa became first-time grandparents last summer.  At ages 73 and 69 respectively, they aren't even young grandparents.

Evidently Patti told Bruce she does NOT want to be called "grandma," by her granddaughter, Lily.  Bruce, on the other hand, says his granddaughter can call him anything but "The Boss."

Personally, I have no problem being called "grandma" but have now decided I'd prefer my own little granddaughter to start addressing me as "The Boss."  

I suspect this will not past muster with her parents.

Veterans Day Almost 80 Year Later

I'm writing this on Veteran's Day, one when I always think of my late Dad. Like so many of his generation, he fought in WWII, and had, as they said back then, "a hard war." I know my Dad liberated at least one concentration camp, but he only talked about his service towards the end of his life.

He was the most loving and caring  father imaginable. Still, I remember when I was a little girl, if I came to my Dad in the middle of the night after a bad dream and woke him from a deep sleep, he would jump to his feet and shout, "Who goes there?!"  

He's pictured above with his own father. (Dad is on the right.) I'm guessing the photo is from 1943, though he'd enlisted the year before. 

Recently I came across an amazing treasure in an old box in my Mom's attic. It is small brown leather book, with a military seal and the word "Buddies" embossed on the cover. The title page reads, "My Record of Friends in the Service."

Above it, my Dad has scribbled:

Sworn in August 29, 1942, Inducted March 24, 1943, at Ft. Devens, MA.

April 2 to 710 (Claridge) aaFTTC, Atlantic City, N.J.  May 22, '43 Camp Crowder, Mo. July 20 to University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyo. Aug.10 -to ASTP, Madison, Wisc. March 17, '44 Fort Coster, Mich. March 27, '44 to Camp McCoy, Wisc.

Later he would be in Germany, France and Poland, and then back in Germany. But his buddies' signatures were all from the time he was still stateside. They include names, home address, service address, and comments. My favorite are the entries for "service address," because these boys didn't yet know where they'd be shipped.

Here's a sampling: "Ask the Father, the Son and the ol' Holy Grail," "The world at large," "Somewhere cold." "I wish I knew," "Hell if I know, Don. We're all acquainted with the inscrutable ways of the army," and finally, the straightforward:  "Hell." 

The dates of the entries begin in July of 1943 and end in October of 1944. My Dad would have been 19 years old at the start. Here are a few entries for the comments, which I think speak for the time, circumstances, and themselves. 

"It was great knowing you, Stone. i'm sorry we had to part in such an abrupt manner. But as two great soldiers we must pursue our respective courses. We have responsibilities we must face. I'll take the blonde on the right. Hope we may meet again."

"Stoneface, you're a good kid."

"It's always tough leaving after you get to know a guy you like. I'll be expecting to hear from you and show you some California babes after the war. Good luck Stoney. KP Kid."

"I love life. I love mating. I love beautiful things. But how I hate my draft board."

"May the partnership always come out ahead, even after this mess called a war is over."

"To my Roomie - may you be as lucky in every thing as you were in not getting caught by the O.D. after lights out."

My favorite: "I think you're already grown up, Don, if you give yourself a chance. In some ways you're more of a man than I'll ever be. Always remember your mind. That's our one personal possession they can't take away - and it's priceless. Good luck!"

There's so much more. Of course I don't know which of these men survived the war. But I'm grateful to every man and woman who has defended our democracy.

 

Formula for Success

You know how dozens of news headlines pass before your eyes every day, and you get overwhelmed? And how you are saturated with emotion over the war in Ukraine and the constant mass shootings in this country and the January 6 hearings and how close our Democracy was - and maybe still is - to collapsing?  And how because of all this, you sometimes  skip other important stories because - well, you can only take so much?

Well, such was the case with the Baby Formula Shortage. I knew about it. It sounded terrible. But I didn't spend much time on it.

Until, that is, my granddaughter needed some. My daughter has been nursing her 9-month-old, but now the baby needs supplemental formula. To make matters more challenging, the little one has allergies to milk and soy and cannot drink regular formula.

My poor daughter was so stressed that I told her I would go on the hunt for the formula. Of course I was cocky - in my family, I'm known as "The Border Collie" - I can round anything up. 

Holy Cow! First, there is nothing available online. At best, you can get on an email list for the manufacturer to notify you when supplies again become available. 

Next, I started visiting pharmacies and grocery stores that sell formula. It was like looking for Clorox wipes or Lysol during the first year of Covid. Picked over or empty shelves. Some stores just had cards in the baby food aisle, which you presented to the person at check out. The formula was kept behind the cash register, with the cigarettes and lottery cards. Except they didn't have any. Other places kept what little formula was available under lock and key. And NONE of them had formula for babies with allergies.

I finally lucked out at Target, where I found a can of the powdered, generic version. And at that store, like every other one I visited, the formula was rationed, with only two or three (depending on the store) bottles or cans per customer.

I know I'm incredibly late to this shortage, and that parents across the country have been suffering.

I'd ask "What's next?" but I truly don't want to know the answer to that question.

 

 

 

Brain Frog

Earlier this week, I mentioned to my daughter that I thought I had Covid "Brain Frog." Irritated with my slip, I corrected myself. "I mean, "Bran Fog," I said.  Sigh.

Week two in the Covid Slog. We order Kleenex by the case.  Full disclosure - I still feel like crap. But funnily enough, I began a Covid novel this week - one that had long been on my "to read" list. It is set in March 2020. The author clearly did her research and the emails from the medical resident at NY Presbyterian to his girlfriend sound like the interviews doctors were giving back then. And boy, do they bring me back.

"Every day, treatment changes. Today we're giving hydroxychloroquine. Tomorrow: whoops, no we're not. Today we're trying Remdesivir, but antibiotics are out. One attending is pushing Lipitor, because it lowers inflammation. Another's trying Lasix, used for heart failure patients, to help remove fluid from around Covid lungs. Some docs think ibuprofen is doing more harm than good, although no one knows why, so they're giving Tylenol for fever instead. Everyone wants to know if convalescent plasma helps, but we don't have enough of it to know...."

Refrigerated trucks - makeshift morgues - sit outside the hospitals as patient after patient dies. 

So while my Brain Frog is real and this virus is a drag, Oh my God. I'm vaccinated. I'm boosted. There are treatments.  I am SO GRATEFUL to medical science.

It's almost enough to make a woman stop whining about her current discomfort.

Your Email Is Not Your To-Do List!

How's that for a concept? I didn't make it up, but came across it on a podcast. It's kind of brilliant.

Because somehow email has become a job in itself. "Ugh, I've got to get through my email."

Of course you are never finished with your email. Clear out ten of them, and 15 news ones have already come in. Somewhere along the line, I let dealing with my inbox become my priority.  Actually it's worse than that. My inbox became my boss, because it was deciding what my priorities were.

Maybe I want to get a few hours of solid writing in. But all those messages are beckoning. So I better respond to this one, delete this one, save this to deal with later ... wait, 80% off sale? What if something great sells out? Suddenly an hour and a half goes by. Was reading those emails the most important thing I had to do? Of course not. I should have been writing. Everything in that inbox could have waited for hours.

I'm not saying that I don't need to check it. In addition to the personal emails that I want to answer,  there are notes from editors, possible assignments and a handful of pressing things. But is there anything that actually can't wait? There is not. 

So as of today, I am taking charge of my inbox. Not by going through it, but by putting in its proper time and place.

Sigh. That little red circle with the number of unopened emails is beckoning. It's hard. There are only 27. Nope. Later. Ugh. Maje that 30.

Well, at least after I check that nothing really important has come ...

 

 

 

Happy New Year in my Pajamas!

I'm writing this on New Year's Eve, facing big decisions on our celebratory plans tonight. Should we eat in the kitchen or the dining room? Not change into pajamas until after dinner?  Maybe wear our nicest pajamas? Stay up until 9:30 pm instead of 9:00? 

I'm not trying to sound dreary - I've never been a big fan of New Year's Eve, so the Omicron resurgence has given me an excuse to spend the evening as I secretly want to every year.

Call me crazy, but I'm feeling hopeful. It was a tumultuous year, but 2021 was a definite improvement on 2020. 

For starters, last year at this time, there was no vaccine for Covid, and extremely limited treatment. Makeshift morgues and refrigerator trucks were on the streets.  As someone I know used to intone, "We're all potentially 14 days away from death." We knew very little about the virus - remember washing our groceries? Just as important, we couldn't be with the people we loved. The isolation was awful.

The recent spike in cases is lousy, but think where we've come from. At least now, if you get infected and you've been vaccinated, you will likely not end up on a ventilator fighting for your life. Yeah, break through cases are increasingly common and at-home tests are impossible to get, but remember when you couldn't even get masks? Everything was fraught with trauma.

So I'm choosing to be grateful and hopeful as we head into the New Year. Treatments are available. Pills are in the offing. More booster shots will be developed.

Getting to celebrate New Year's Even in pajamas is just icing on the cake.

 

 

The Flat Earth/Vaccine Connection

Many of us can't wrap our heads around why so many people won't get the Covid vaccine. I'm pretty tired of reading about conspiracy theories, distrust of the government, and on and on.

Once, I considered writing an article from the perspective of someone who had suffered from diseases that are now almost eradicated through vaccines. Personally, I've had measles, rubella (then called "German measles") chicken pox, and scarlet fever, the very disease that rendered Helen Keller blind. I remember my polio vaccine and knew older people who had suffered from that disease too. 

If people understood the ravages of these illnesses, they wouldn't fight these vaccines. Maybe it would convince young people who hadn't known a world where people lived in fear of disease, disfiguration and death. Until I remembered that people have now witnessed more than 600,000 Americans die and they are still not convinced. That people deny Covid is real with their last breath before the ventilator tube is inserted down their throats.

Which brings me to this alarming statistic. A few years ago, an organization called YouGov polled 8,215 adults to get a sense of their views on the shape of the earth. Fasten your seatbelt for this one (unless you believe that is an imposition on your personal freedom): THIRTY FOUR percent of 18-24 years old are not certain that the Earth is round. They checked off one of the following three boxes: "I have always believed the earth was round but more recently I am skeptical/have doubts," "I have always believed the world was flat but more recently I am skeptical/have doubts," and "I have always believed the world was flat."

The next age cohort, ages 25-34, fare slightly better - only 24 percent (Yup, nearly a quarter) have some doubts about the world being round.

If folks aren't certain about the shape of the Earth, what hope is there about the efficacy of the vaccine? 

 

 

Beginning of The End of An Era

In the mid-1960s, my parents had a dark blue Mercury station wagon. On the passenger door, painted in red script under the window, were the words "The Rolling Stones."

No, my parents were NOT fans of the band, though my older brother and sister were.  I'm guessing my Dad had never heard of the Rolling Stones when he had the door custom painted. Our family name was "Stone" and my Dad thought this was funny. Get it? We were the Stones, rolling down the highway.  He also used to sing a song that began, "Rolling stones gather no moss...." which he would sing, loud and off key, with the windows rolled down.

Ever so often, someone would look at our suburban family packed in the car and ask doubtfully, "Are you with the band?" 

We were not. But we were. We kids all grew up loving the Stones. The band, I mean. And for all of Mick's preening and Keith's outrageousness, it was Charlie Watts who exuded the most confident cool. No need to be a peacock (though Lord knows the man could dress) - just his presence, and of course his playing, did the job.

RIP Charlie Watts. Thanks for the amazing music. 

What a drag it is getting old.

 

Can't Look. Must Look.

A few weeks ago, I was reading a funny essay by David Sedaris and came across this paragraph: 

When Trump was President, I started every morning by reading the New York Times, followed by the Washington Post, and would track both papers’ Web sites regularly throughout the day. To be less than vigilant was to fall behind, and was there anything worse than not knowing what Stephen Miller just said about Wisconsin? My friend Mike likened this constant monitoring to having a second job. It was exhausting, and the moment that Joe Biden was sworn into office I let it all go. When the new President speaks, I feel the way I do on a plane when the pilot announces that after reaching our cruising altitude he will head due north, or take a left at Lake Erie. You don’t need to tell me about your job, I always think. Just, you know, do it.

Yes! Exactly. That's how I felt. I could relax now and let Biden run the country. But I loved how Sedaris also pointed out the absurdity of obsessively monitoring the news, not to mention what a waste of time it was. Stephen Miller's rantings - just  a bad dream now. And what difference did our endless watching/reading/listening make?

But this week tested my resolve. And while the withdrawal from Afghanistan was a debacle with heartbreaking and horrifying results, there remains plenty of blame to go around since our entry into the war 20 years ago. 

And now the Taliban. The earthquake in Haiti. The Delta Variant. 

Again, I can't look away. I know, no one is holding a gun to my head making me consume news.  It's the same old struggle I often return to: as a citizen, I believe I should be aware and involved, but as someone who works hard on her mental health, I need to limit my exposure. Balance is a challenge.  Informed but not obsessed. Compassionate but not overwhelmed by anxiety and sadness.

But that choice -  a balance of what's tolerable -  is a privilege. 

Women in Afghanistan don't have the choice of turning off the Taliban. They're living it.  As are the people in Haiti with their multiple miseries. And the health care workers in overflowing ICUs.  And people experiencing racism. And  people already experiencing the fires, floods, heat and other fallout from climate change. Burying their heads to the world around them is not an option.

Of course simply following the news - let alone obsessing over it - doesn't help anyone. Action does. Money does. And that's where all this time and energy should be spent. 

 

 

 

 

20 Years Later

Last week I interviewed several survivors of 9/11. The interviews were for an article I'm writing about the 20th Anniversary of the attacks. It's hard to believe that this September will mark two decades since that awful day.

I really didn't want to ask these people walk through their 9/11 experiences again. For one thing, that story has been told. For another, it seemed prurient some how - an unnecessary public parading of their own pain and loss. I wanted to keep it more in the present - what do these anniversaries mean to them? How do they spend the day? How do they move forward with their lives while still honoring those who were lost.

Still, so far, everyone I've talked to so far returns to that day, and ponders why they are alive.

One question I've asked each survivor is: "What brings you joy now?" I can't shake the answer of one man, who was pulled out from under the rubble of fallen debris.

He said, "What brings me joy? Oh, I don't know. Opening my eyes in the morning. Realizing I'm still here. Breathing."

 

Note: the illustrations above and below are painted by my brother, Todd Stone. Above is from his "Witness" series, done in the year after the attack. Below, is from his "Downtown Rising" series, where he is documenting the rebuilding of the site. 

Every. Damn. Day.

I wanted to write about something happy and spring-like, but I'm still reeling from the week.

First, the initial reaction to the Derrick Chauvin verdict. White people I know: "Justice!" Black people I know: "Accountability. But not justice." Fair enough.

Do you know that every single day during that trial more than three people a day have died a day at the hands of police officers? (Just as a reminder,  the trail started on March 29.) Each case is different, sure. Some may have been justified. But some of the victims were teenagers - a 13-year-old unarmed boy, a sixteen year-old girl. At least one victim was mentally ill.

It's going to be hard to forget the Minneapolis Police Department initial press release after Floyd was killed: "Man Dies After Medical Incident During Police Interaction." If it weren't for that video....

I'm not a cop. I don't know what it's like to face split second decisions under pressure. But I also know that these numbers have not been on the rise. This is just business as usual.  And it sure is a bad business.

 

 

Breaking Up With Facebook

The breakup seemed sudden, but the relationship problems must have been simmering below the surface for awhile. 

And I didn't delete my account - only suspended it. Call it a trial separation, though at this point, I can't see us getting back together.

Here's the bottom line: Facebook was bringing me no pleasure. My feed featured the same group of people, a string of political rants, and ads for things I didn't need and sometimes clicked on.

As to seeing the same people over and over, I know that FB has an algorithm. Every six months or so, someone posts a way to outwit it,  and it never, ever works. 

But the bigger issue is social media in general. I'm as guilty as the next person of only posting news or photos that make me look good, or that depict a happy family, a lovely place I've been, whatever. (That's probably why I only post a few times a year.) But the cumulative effect of scrolling through all those curated images  week after week, year after year,  just makes me feel bad.

Face it, or better yet - Facebook it - we know we aren't seeing the truth - or at least the full picture - of other peoples' lives. But we compare their outsides to our insides anyway.

One of the lessons of the pandemic has been to cut the crap. The relationships that don't sustain us, the activities that didn't bring us fulfillment - we don't have time for that anymore. To me, Facebook represents the worst of the worst of superficiality. 

 Not supporting Mark Zuckerberg is just icing on the cake.

I know that I'll continue to nurture the relationships that are important to me.

And  I think I can do better than this: 

The News Diet

I really thought that after He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named was out of office, I would resume my usual news consumption.

For decades, I was a news junkie. I felt compelled to be well informed. To this day, I have subscriptions to The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic and the New Yorker. And none of that includes online websites or podcasts.

At the beginning of the former Administration, I kept on top of everything. I got riled up at every outrage. This, of course, became quickly exhausting. I slogged on - the duty of living in a Democracy was being an informed citizen. But eventually, I had to bow to my mental health. Constant news consumption was damaging to my well-being. (Incidentally, I never watch TV news, which I find over-stimulating. But even print media was too much.)

I was just starting to creep back to being more informed when Covid-19 hit. Again, the news was too anxiety-producing.

Now, things are more stable. The end is in sight for the pandemic, with better availability of vaccines on the horizon. Our current president, bless him, is pretty dull, for which I'm unspeakably grateful.

Yet somehow I've lost my taste for voracious news consumption. I look at the headlines, read a few things that sound interesting (or at least start to read them) and drift off. I'd rather read a novel. I'd rather listen to a novel than a news podcast.

Amazingly, the word still seems to be spinning without my being abreast of every new development. 

Winter Photography

Hey! I'm a photographer! Westchester County picked this image as their photo of the month. I took it when Mike and I were snowshoeing  at Rockefeller Preserve in Pleasantville.  Now it's featured as the banner on their website and on all their other social media mastheads. Flattered and Inspired!

The Speech Difficulty Club

Like most of America, I was awed by the young poet Amanda Gorman's performance at the Inauguration on Wednesday. What a talent and what a breath of fresh air!

I was particularly moved to read later that Amanda had overcome a speech impediment. Me too! Oh and so did  our new President. 

Amanda was born prematurely and had auditory processing issues. Until just a few years ago, she dropped certain letters she couldn't say, including the letter "r." Because her last name, Gorman, had an "r" in it, she couldn't state her own name.

How this brought me back! I used to lie and tell people my name was "Kate Tone" because I couldn't say "Stone." Well, I could say it, but my "s" came out wrong. I couldn't make the "S" sound - it was a silibant speech disorder. My "Stone" came out sounding like "Shhhhhtone." I was ashamed and kids were cruel.

Like Amanda, I had years of speech therapy and now I can make the correct sound. If I'm over-tired, I regress. I regreshhhhhhh. 

Joe Biden battled his stutter for years. Last year he told an audience,  "Stuttering is the only handicap that people still laugh about, still humiliate people about."

I'm proud to be a member of the Speech Difficulty Club (Amanda's name for it) - and especially proud of folks like Amanda and Joe who not only conquered their difficulties, but rose to great public speaking heights.

 

 

 

 

Please Stop Telling Me to Meditate

Anxiety Girl knows you are trying to help. But please stop telling me to meditate.

I tried again this week. Here's how it went:

"Soothing Sleep Mediation," a 10 minute guided meditation, sounded inviting. Sleep would be nice.  I put on my headphones, sat in front of a warm fire, felt the warmth on my face, hit play and closed my eyes.

The woman's voice (a little high, definitely young) told me to take a deep breath, filling my abdomen and then my chest. Release slowly. We did it twice and that was fine. Nice even. Then she suggested that I picture myself walking home from work.

Wait, what? You mean my walk down the stairs from the room over my garage (my home office) into the kitchen? When I did work outside my home, I drove, but I tried the visualization anyway.  Since it's January, it was cold, grey and dark. I clutched my coat collar and my glasses fogged up because of my mask, which also meant I was smelling my own breath, none too pleasant by the end of the day. In my mind, I kept trudging home.

Finally, she asked me to pause at my front door. Before going in, she told me to "hold" and "sit with" everything weighing on me from my day. I just focused on the top two things that were upsetting me. Covid, with 4000 deaths a day, and the demise of our Democracy.

My heart started racing and I felt a heaviness in my chest. My breathing was rapid. The only mantra that came to me was "Oh my God. Oh my God." 

Next, she told me to leave my worries outside, not to bring them in the house. Seriously? If I could do that, why would I be trying to mediate? If I could banish intrusive thoughts from my brain at will ... oh never mind.

Finally inside,  I was to envision shedding my "outside clothes," change into "inside clothes,"  light a candle, and taking more deep breathes. (Let's not even discuss that this concept of outside and inside clothes is long gone, along with the idea of wearing anything with a waist band.)

I cannot tell you how much anxiety this meditation caused me. I know what you are going to tell me - I did the wrong one. Or guided meditation is not for me. (An earlier one I tried told me to picture hanging my worries on branches of a "worry tree." My tree uprooted.) Or maybe that I have a bad attitude.

Should I keep trying? I've attempted breathing meditations, specific anti-anxiety meditations, sleep meditations, gratitude meditations, kindness and more. 

Let me say in my defense that Anxiety Girl works hard to cope with her Monkey Mind. I exercise, which helps the most - especially aerobic workouts. I spend time outside (preferably out in nature and not on my street) and that also helps. I play games and read books that sooth me. 

Yet I keep thinking I "should" meditate. But maybe I just can't. And maybe that's even ok.

 

Rethinking New Year's Celebration

Last week I wrote that I would celebrate this New Year on January 20, 2021. Or as my friend Jackie just emailed: "I won't exhale until Joe Biden has his hand on the Bible."

But now I'm rethinking any celebration.

Funny meme, but it only brought a two-second chuckle because of just how bad things are.

I keep telling myself to have hope. According to Merriam Webster, the definition of hope, a verb, is "to cherish a desire with anticipation, to want something to happen or be true. Archaic: Trust." 

What do I hope for? Normalcy? Decency? Democracy? Racial Justice? Maybe a day when 4000 Americans dying of Covid isn't a top story because even worse things are going on?  

Sigh.

Christmas Day

Dept. of "Really?"

As a recovering journalist, I still get my share of press releases. 

Last week, this landed in my inbox: a PR person promoting personalized wedding hand sanitizers. Here's the pitch:

"Let's face it. Being a COVID bride (or groom) sucks. You pour your heart into something for months and plan every last detail of your wedding, only to have to move it, cancel it, or downsize. Instead of searching for the perfect something borrowed and something blue, brides are now looking for bridal face masks and switching up wedding favors to include hand sanitizers to keep guests safe."

If you know Anxiety Girl, you know this hit a nerve. Because brides like my daughter do not force friends and family into the painful choice of either attending a wedding or compromising their own health.  If you missed this hilarious toast from the bridesmaid in The New Yorker it's worth a read.

Meanwhile you can order your personalized wedding hand sanitizer for a mere $5 a bottle. And as the press release puts it, this company is "helping to bring the joy back to wedding planning."

Oh, by the way - minimum order is 50 hand sanitizers.

I can't even.....