My favorite part of the paper has always been the advice columns. Ann Landers, Dear Amy, Dear Abby, Miss Manners, and more recently, Dear Carolyn and for crowd-sourced advice, Quora.
I enjoy the letters describing the dilemma, which unwittingly tell the reader so much about the author. The advice makes me think critically – what would I have done? Do I agree with the advice? Did it seem like the advice giver “got” it?
The situations and their responses give me a sense of what is socially appropriate, emotionally healthy, and legal.
The advice world, reflecting society at large, has a growing trend toward removing “toxic” and difficult people from your life. I put toxic in quotes not because toxic people don’t exist, but because our definition of them has grown to include not just your pathological, gaslighting uncle, but also your awkward friend who is working on her problems but still sometimes says careless or terrible things.
Can we talk?
So, I always feel a little weird and awkward about this, but I use Google Analytics on my site.
That doesn’t mean I know who you are when you visit me here, but Google does tell me what state or country visitors are from, and which posts people spend the most time on. Analytics came with the blog, and it’s kind of nice to be able to check in on it sometimes and know that I’m not just here talking to myself.
I know that a few people read my book posts, but the ones that get the most action are my sewing posts.
I haven’t finished a sewing project in so long that I can’t remember the last time it happened. There was a magical time leading up to Halloween where I made 6 costumes over the course of a couple of months, but then I totally shut down due to lack of sunlight and did very little after that.
I always tell myself, this is my blog, and I want to write about what I’m doing and what I care about. Even *I* am sick of writing about books, but I don’t have any sewing projects that are ready for prime time.
Healthcare is highly specialized these days. As a healthcare worker, I get why. I work in a highly specialized field. If you have something wrong with your brain or nervous system, we are your people.
If you have a gaping wound on another part of your body, if your endocrine system is off-kilter, or your heart occasionally breaks into a gallop or takes up interpretive dance – then, we have to call in OTHER specialists to deal with those issues.
The benefit of this is that the specialists are really good at knowing what to do with these isolated issues, but I’m never sure if any one of them sees the entire person in front of them.
I’m not sure if anyone has ever seen all of me.
For once, I’m sharing three books in one post that are sort of related to one another.
Let’s start with Founding Father General Washington.
Last year on this day, our family celebrated the birthday of our second daughter. She had submitted a detailed list of what she wanted ahead of time. Among other things, she wanted a party.
We’d just gotten back from our trip to Tobago. We were exhausted. Our state had just gone into lockdown. Like most of the country, we were utterly frozen. I hate birthday parties, and would have taken ANY excuse not to have one: The pandemic was an easy, universal, and necessary NO to nearly every social engagement.
