Odds & ends: Updates and some good reading

A couple of updates:  

• First, an update to the Internet/TV saga that I posted about recently (in case you didn't see my later comment on the actual post).  After publishing huge long rants/vents -- here, on Facebook and elsewhere -- and having been told that it might be NEXT FRIDAY by the time we got our new receiver... guess what showed up on our doorstep at lunchtime the very next day?? -- less than 24 hours after we ordered it?? (Maybe after reading the critical comment I left on the survey, they sent out the word to put a rush on it?? lol) 
• Once again the instructions bore no resemblance to the equipment/setup we had, but between us, dh & I managed to hook everything up. We did ultimately wind up calling for help, and I'm sure the young guy we spoke to was rolling his eyes (although he was very polite and patient) but WE HAVE TV AGAIN! Yay!! :)
• (My dad saw my rather irate post on Facebook, and called me the next morning because he was afraid I was being scammed, lol.  It really was "Big Blue," Dad, although yeah, sometimes the ridiculous prices they charge really do feel like a scam...!) 
• A not-so-happy update:  Older Nephew is back in the hospital :(  -- for the THIRD time since he served as his dad/BIL's organ donor in July. :(  He had a mild fever this past week, had his bloodwork checked on Saturday and his numbers were off, so he was advised to head back to the hospital, where he's awaiting yet another non-surgical procedure that will (hopefully!!) correct the problem once and for all. Sigh.  :(    

And now -- some great reading lately that I'd love to share with you! 

• Dani Shapiro's essay in the New York Times, "Why My Fall Made Me Feel So Ashamed," gave me a feeling of deja vu. (Although my story turned out better than hers, I think!) 
• I'm (obviously) not a parent, but this NYT opinion piece from Jessica Grose really resonated:  "Stop Micromanaging Halloween — Let Your Kids Be Free." (The "Switch Witch," anyone?  How about "Boo-ing" your friends and neighbours??)  Along with "holiday inflation," the post covers the high costs of "helicopter parenting," to both parents (mothers in particular) and children. 
• As I read, I remembered other pieces I'd read about "holiday inflation" -- what Grose calls "the ever-encroaching parental project management of holiday madness" -- and a rant I wrote -- 10 years ago now! -- about the Elf on the Shelf. ;)  (Also the piece by Anne Helen Petersen mentioned/linked to in this post.) 
• See also this Twitter/X thread by Helaine Olen of the Washington Post, referenced by Grose in her article. 
• I was also reminded that (1) if this is what it takes these days to be considered a "good" parent, perhaps it's just as well that motherhood didn't work out for me...!  and (2) I am sooooooo glad that I grew up in the time & place that I did...! 
• Says Grose:  "Every year, a holiday becomes just a little bit more labored, a little bit more controlled. It’s just one more party to monitor, just another fresh costume, just another gift bag, until all your free time and money are gone, and your children have no time or space to let their imaginations run wild, which I thought was the point of Halloween in the first place. If your kids are left to manage their candy harvest by themselves, the world will continue to spin on its axis."  (Amen!) 
• In her Culture Study newsletter, Anne Helen Petersen recently asked subscribers "How has your Internet changed?"   A surprising number of people wrote that they missed blogs!  (Google Reader also came up!) 
• I piped up to comment that blogs are still out there, and that I in fact was still blogging after almost 16 (!) years. One person asked me to send her my URL. I haven't, yet. I'm not sure she realizes just what KIND of a blog I write...!  ;)  
• Other notable themes that popped up in the responses:  
• More recently, Petersen asked "Are You in The Portal?"  She begins by relating how she'd been chatting enthusiastically with her mother about some of the projects she was working on. 

“What are you now, 42?” she asked. “I think that’s exactly when I started writing textbooks. I just had this huge creative surge.”

What an amazing way to reframe the energy I’ve been channeling this last year: energy to write another book, energy to figure out a Culture Study-related podcast, energy to dahlia farm. What if it wasn’t ambition pushing me forward….but a swell of creativity? And what if that swell of creativity was possible because I’ve become a whole lot less concerned with bullshit?

Earlier this year, I was flailing around after my dog Peggy’s death, trying to figure out what I wanted to write about next. On Instagram, Anja Tyson (follow her, she and her daughter are so great) suggested: “the weird spiritual / emotional / professional / transitional portal that women ages 37 to 45 are in.”

I became obsessed with this idea of a portal, and when I brought it up — on IG, but also in casual conversation — it seemed to resonate. Something was happening. Maiden-becomes-crone, sure. Destabilizing, yes. But it was also an experience of transformation, of refinement.

So I started talking to people about what this portal might be. And here’s what they told me.

Interestingly, I'd just been on a Zoom call that morning with a group of childless women. Many of them were in their 40s (some of them young enough to be my daughters -- GULP!) and had only recently, within the past few years, realized that motherhood was not going to happen for them. We all got talking about the moment when the door to parenthood closed for us -- slammed shut in some cases, closed quietly ourselves in others -- and yeah, it happened at 40 for me too -- and we had to begin contemplating "Okay, what next?"  In some ways, I think I'm still figuring that out...! But yeah, my early 40s was when I had to start rethinking and rebuilding my life. 

Warning: A lot of the stories Petersen's interviewees relate are parenthood/motherhood-related -- and one of them is actually a single mother by choice -- so, caveat emptor.  (The comments are better. Some mom-related, to be sure, but a few even mention pregnancy loss and hysterectomies!) 

• On a related note, Lyz Lenz asked subscribers to her Substack, Men Yell At Me, "What happens after 40?" 
• "How did your life change after 40?... What has pleasantly surprised you about getting older? What did you think about expiration dates? And have you blown past them? What did you wish you had known?"
• In the comments, I recounted the story of my 40th birthday weekend and its aftermath (among other things)... and in one of those "believe it or not" moments, someone recognized the story and responded, "Hey this is random but I used to read your blog! Small world!"  Small world indeed!  :)  (And if you're back here reading again, hello!)  
• Lyz also had a great rant about "The eternal allure of Engagement Chicken: Feminist backlash and the food of marriage."  (I remember Glamour magazine's "Engagement Chicken" very well, albeit I was already married by then, and I was amused to see it being reinvented as "Marry Me Chicken" in the NYT recently.) 
• On her Substack "She Tried," the always-wonderful Nora McInerny reminds us that "Suffering is not self-improvement." Sample passage: 

The hard parts of our existence are not an aberration or interruption to our life, they are life.

This pressure to make lemonade puts an unreasonable expectation on us as humans, it perpetuates a narrative that says it’s all in your head, or at least in your control.

Um, it’s not...

When life gives you lemons, you do not owe anybody a glass of lemonade. [boldfaced emphasis hers]