Beautiful inside - but wait. That's what counts.

I promised myself long ago that I would never get cosmetic surgery, and I'm going to stick to that.  But these days I better understand the women who do choose that route.  Especially now that I'm not wearing glasses, which used to hide how small my eyes are, and the marsupial-like pouch under each eye.  (I swear, I half expect a baby possum to poke its little nose out any moment now.)

When I look in a mirror, I can still see, or at least remember, the girl, the teenager, the young woman I was.  She is there and she has also disappeared into the hoary mists of antiquity.  She has given way to this very nice, perfectly fine, but sort of tired-looking middle-aged woman.  All I can say is, I feel very fortunate in this moment that I didn't become famous, as I used to want to be, because famous people are examined and judged and criticized for every part of themselves, but especially for how they look, especially women.  It's easy to say I won't get cosmetic surgery when I'm pretty sure no one cares one way or another.  If I thought anyone were looking, I don't know that I would have the courage to allow myself to age naturally and gracefully, as some European actresses seem to do.

If Sweet Hubby dies before me, well, it's a good thing I have all this personality, because nobody's going to go for me for how I look.  They used to, but even then, even when I was young and juicy and slim, I was never a first tier beauty.  I always thought I should be, because of all this personality, but I also didn't do to myself what truly beautiful women are supposed to do.  You know, make-up, styled hair, tight skirt showing off a rounded butt, enhanced breasts, dangerously uncomfortable shoes. I think I knew even then that every effort I made would just make me look like someone who was trying to be beautiful, not someone who actually was.

You know, all this talk of beauty is actually making me feel a little disgusted, and only reveals that I have bought into this Beauty Culture even as I resist it and decry the damage it does.  It seems so unnatural how much emphasis we in this country, and maybe in the world, put on the external, when we all know on some level that the external doesn't really count for anything, not anything real, not anything true and genuine.

I did have an insight last night which rather caused my head to spin.  I was feeling all affectionate and in love and decided to tell Sweet Hubby all the things I love about him.  Not all, of course; that list is infinite, and isn't really a list but an essence.  Anyway, I was going on and on about how much I love his artistic side (ceramicist, actor, director, writer, loves color and music and asymmetry), which is coupled with his eggheadiness (worked for NASA, understands computers, you know, the brainiac at school who didn't fit in because he was smarter than almost everyone else, who loves solving puzzles and problems), which is coupled with his man's manliness (loves tools, loves working with his hands, good at whatever activity he tries [skiing, kayaking, parachuting, archery, etc], coupled with the fact that he is an absolute love god.  He might not be for everyone, but he sure sends me to the moon.

And as I was going on and on about how amazing and wonderful he is, I suddenly realized that someone like this wouldn't, couldn't fall in love with anyone who couldn't stand toe to toe and eye to eye with him.  Which means maybe I'm amazing and wonderful, too.  Wow.  I may faint.

Letter to Lindsey Graham, Republican contortionist

I did actually send this letter to Sen. Graham, although I don't expect him to read it.

Dear Senator Graham,

Before Donald Trump was elected, you were quite frank in your evaluation of his character.  I find I am intensely interested in what inspired you to transform yourself from his critic to one of his most vocal champions.  Did it involve days of wrestling with your conscience, or was it only a moment, and easy?  What was the prize that made it worth the price?

Was your turnabout “aspirational” (to use Sen. Collins’ word)?  Did you hope that the gravity of the office of President would cause him to rise above his character and become more wise, more kind, more serious?  You must have recognized almost immediately, as so many of us did, that the international spotlight and the power he was given only served to exacerbate his worst qualities, and that he has still, to this day, never read the Constitution, whose principles he - and you - took an oath to protect.

I’m sure you’ve heard the speculation that Trump must have something on you (as well as on Sen. Cruz and the other Republicans who went from repudiating to praising him), some way to blackmail you into supporting him.  But I don’t believe that.  You are too eager to put on this four year show of support for it to have been coerced.

Was it the proximity to his power which drew you to his side?  After all, Henry Kissinger said long ago that power is an aphrodisiac.  Or was it fear of his power, when you saw the retribution with which he responds to every critic?  Again, you seem far too enthusiastic in your support for it to have been simply going along to save yourself.

Did you think you had taken the pulse of the country and convinced yourself you were serving the will of the people?  No, that doesn’t seem likely, since Clinton won the popular vote in 2016.  Was your rationale that a Senator must serve the sitting President, not matter what?  No, it couldn’t be that, given how gleefully the Senate obstructed President Obama’s efforts.

You must have hoped that the country would forget your past criticisms of this dangerously flawed man and accept  your praise of him as sincere.  If only it weren’t for that pesky ad produced by Republican Voters Against Trump, it’s possible that we might have.  But alas, it is recorded for all to hear that you believe the Republican party lost its moral authority to govern the people when it did not reject Donald Trump. 

Also on record is that you believe Joe Biden to be “as good a man as God ever created”.  So how will you conduct yourself in these next four years?  Or in the next several months, for that matter?  Are you going to continue to trample on your own best instincts and your own integrity by continuing to champion Trump?  Are you going to join Mitch McConnell in giving President Biden as difficult a term as the Senate gave President Obama?  There is time to recover your soul, Senator Graham.  That time is now.  It’s not too late for you. 

Those Boxes

I’ve been  using some of the time afforded by the coronavirus lockdown to go through Those Boxes.  You know the ones I mean.  You may have a collection of your own, those boxes and bins which hold photo albums, scrapbooks, letters, memorabilia, all the artifacts one accumulates through the years.

It has been rather like doing an archeological dig through the relics of a lifetime.  So many memories have been stirred, mostly happy, a few bittersweet.  Sharing rediscovered photos with Sweet Hubby has allowed him a glimpse of the person I was and the life I led before we met.

It’s a relief to get to this task at last.  “Go through boxes” has been on my Someday list for years, as I  carted them from apartment to apartment to house to house to house, adding to them now and then, but seldom taking the time to organize and enjoy the contents.  I have found myself wondering “Why did I keep all of this?”  I don’t have children to pass it to.  And I have finally accepted the fact that no one is ever going to write my biography and so won’t need research materials.  Why, then, do I find it so difficult to let any of it go?

I have finally come to see what these photos, this memorabilia means to me.  It is the evidence of who I have been, who I am, and what my life has been made of.  While I hope it doesn’t happen for many more years, I can imagine that there may come a time when I am in surroundings in which I am regarded as just another old lady, or just another patient.  The content of these boxes are my proof that I have been so much more than that and have lived a life in full.

I saw the Beatles in concert.  I trekked in the Nepali Himalayas.  I’ve camped in deserts and forests, won money on game shows, had dogs and cats and ferrets as pets, written letters to newspaper editors, traveled to England, Spain, Germany, and South Korea.  I’ve worked in a bank, a real estate office, a vehicle maintenance garage, and modeled for art classes for more than thirty years.  My heart has been broken many times and I am now in the happiest possible marriage to the loveliest possible man.

I don’t need to be famous, but I do want to be known and remembered, even if only for one more generation.  And so I have decided to put together carefully curated bundles of photos and artifacts to pass to my nieces and nephews.  They are the ones who have known me best and can keep my candle burning just a little bit longer, just as it is my honor and my siblings’ to cherish the memory of our parents.  It is the honor of every generation to remember those who came before and be remembered by those who come after.

Having realized what this memorabilia means to me and decided its fate has allowed me to take an easier delight in it all.  What a pleasure to see the closet and shelf space that has been opened up by the removal of Those Boxes.  Now I get to cross one more item off the Someday list.  Up next?  Time to tackle the garage.

More musings from Granny Owl

I walk around a lake several times a week with friends, and today I noticed that there was a lightheartedness to our conversation that is new and delicious.  We talked about all sorts of things: acrophobia, documentaries, skydiving, morning woodies, autumn, exes.  And I realized that for four years, virtually every conversation I've been engaged in has been devoted, at least partly, to Trump and his vile shenanigans.  I am certain I have never spoken anyone's name, not even Sweet Hubby's, as often as I have spoken Trump's, and always spoke it with outrage and disgust.  Now that he is so close to gone (although no doubt he will not leave the public eye soon, if ever) (but one can hope he drowns in enough lawsuits and debt to be made a minor figure), I am one of millions who feel as though a weight, a great depressive, has been lifted, and it's all right to talk about other things and to laugh with unmitigated joy again.

SH and I are re-watching Grey's Anatomy from the beginning, currently partway through the second season.  We have both noted that any time anyone has sex on that show, it's always the tearing-off-clothes-while-stumbling-breathlessly-and-frantically-toward-the-bedroom kind.  I have never had that kind of sex, or I guess it's foreplay, in my life.  Not once.  Maybe the show chose to portray sex that way because of how awkward and slow it can be to get undressed, or maybe it's to convince us that the characters are passionate in the extreme, or maybe to justify that, even though so much of the sex they're having is unwise and ends badly, they are simply too turned on to stop themselves.  But to me it's sort of annoying because it's just a Hollywood idea of sex.  Also, they're all always drinking coffee, but the paper cups they drink out of are clearly empty.  And whenever someone is drinking a soda through a straw, there is always that gurgling sucking noise, as though the drink is almost gone.  Always.  Stupid.

Lindsey Graham (and Ted Cruz and quite a few other Republicans) let us know years ago what he really thinks of Trump (xenophobic, racist, ignorant) and then did some sort of contortion and became one of his most vocal and loyal supporters.  So we know what Graham thinks of Trump.  I wonder what he thinks of himself.

I'm guessing we're all going to be thinking about the role of the Vice President in the coming four years more than we have during any other administration.  A woman of color who is intelligent and fierce and strong and vocal.  Quite a relief after the blank-eyed toady occupying that position today.  Hallelujah!

To all the people who are one-issue voters (and usually that issue is abortion): There is no such thing as a one-issue vote or a one-issue candidate.  If you vote someone into office because of that one issue, you're going to get everything else that he or she brings to the table, every opinion, every act, every  prejudice.  So you'd better be sure you're voting for the right person for the right reason.  It's like marriage.  If you marry someone because they're good in bed or have a lot of money, you're also going to have to put up with his miniature train obsession or her love of golf or his insistence on no pets or her crying jags.  I say again: There Is No Such Thing As A One-Issue Vote!

Speaking of marriage, it took me a long time but I finally learned the one and only key to a consistently and fully happy marriage.  Marry the right person for you.  If you don't, not much can help you.  If you do, nothing can get in your way.

Speaking of clear and simple solutions, I know the perfect, never-fail, six word diet.  When I just now Googled (don't you love that Google has become a verb?) "diet books", 807,000 results immediately showed up, but really, the basics of weight loss are so straightforward.  Eat less.  Eat better.  Move more. 

And another simple solution.  If you want to be a better conversationalist, listen.  Ask questions.  Take an interest.  I used to try to fill conversations with witticisms, bon mots, and show-offy factoids in an effort sparkle and be interesting but all I was really doing was performing, and that was because I was terrified of being boring and terrified of even momentary pauses.  I must have been exhausting to be around sometimes.  I was always so nervous talking to someone I didn't know, and often even to someone I did know.  Now I can talk to anyone because I learned to listen  Life really can be so much easier than we make it.

Cataract Surgery, A friendly guide to

This is my experience, of course.  Yours may vary, although I imagine mine was fairly standard.  I had mine on Tue. Nov. 3, which puts that date in the history books.  There was something else going on that day, but I can't remember what it was, some minor political scuffle.

Like a colonoscopy, cataract surgery (hereafter called c.s. for brevity's sake) is one of those procedures which sound much ickier than it actually is.  And, like a colonoscopy, it's the prep that's actually a bit more challenging and, in the case of c.s., a lot more time consuming.  It consists of putting 3 different drops into one's eye 4 times a day with 5 minutes in between each drop for 3 days pre-op and 7 days post-op.  Eye drop times come to rather dominate one's schedule, but they're painless, as long as you don't poke your eye with a dropper.  P.S. Don't poke your eye with a dropper.

The surgery itself goes fairly quickly.  One is given a mild relaxant and, off course, the eyeball is numbed, as it must be, since it's going to be sliced open, a tiny incision.  From what I understand, the old lens is broken up and sucked out and a new one inserted.  It's all rather mysterious to me; that it's even possible seems rather miraculous.  There's a lot about the current era that I don't care for (Trump, Facebook, identity theft, robo calls), but I'm grateful as hell for modern medicine, even while realizing that a hundred years from now our modern medicine will look primitive.

One is sent home with an eye patch, although I was disappointed to find it's a clear plastic patch held to the face with soft tape instead of a jaunty black one with a strap.  So there went my yo ho ho jokes.  My eyeball was a little achy, but not as bad as I had anticipated.  The patch is worn for the entire day post-op and then at night for a week.  I didn't find it troublesome nor even distracting in bed, which surprised me.

Some of the post-op restrictions are that one mustn't exercise nor bend over for a while.  I can manage not to exercise, except for walking (and thank goodness that's still allowed or I would have gone crazy already), but it's really difficult to go through a day without bending over.  Taking the laundry out of the washing machine, for example, or putting the cat bowl on the floor, or putting on shoes, or etc. etc. etc.  Still, it's important to mind the medical advice so as not to shift the new lens.

One of the biggest difficulties after c.s. is that one eye now has better vision, but the other doesn't.  What to do about that little puzzle?  I have (soon to be had!) presbyopia, which means I don't (didn't!) have clear vision at any distance, so I wore my trifocals all the time, with another pair specifically lensed for looking at my computer.  I tried first taking a lens out of the trifocals on the amended side, but that didn't work at all, gave me terrible double vision.  I figured I was just going to have to be purblind for two weeks, until the other eye is given its new lens.  However, I gradually came to see (hahaha!) that I can already see fairly clearly out of the new eye.  Full clarity of vision is not possible because of the unamended eye, but I already anticipate that after that one is repaired, I may not have to wear glasses at all.  Right now I've settled on going without glasses most of the time and using my computer glasses for reading and the computer.  It's rather annoying to have to put them on and take them off and put them on and take them off all day (if this isn't a first world problem, I don't know what is).  It's still too soon to know if I'll need glasses at all once the second eye has its new lens, but if I do, they will probably be just for reading, or will be a much, much lighter prescription.

All in all, in spite of a few days of mild achiness in the eye, the demanding schedule of eyedrops, and not great vision for a while, not to mention the fact that I'm not one of the women who take off their glasses and suddenly become beautiful, the surgery was absolutely and without question worth it, and feels like a new chapter of seeing the world.  Oh, and something else has happened that feels like a new chapter, but I can't remember what it is.

What if and slapping Rudy

What if the first moment COVID showed up in this country - and we saw it coming, remember?  We saw it arise and watched it travel - what if the federal government, in partnership with state agencies, had immediately isolated those infected, locked down the local area, and begun rigorous contact tracing.  What if the government had made sure that local health professionals were fully stocked with safety and testing equipment, and that local hospitals were fully prepared.  What if that had happened every time a new case arose.  What if there had been actual leadership?  How many people might still be alive?  How many businesses still thriving?

And speaking of contact tracing, Mr. Giuliani, I want to have a word with you.  I still remember an interview you did, with Fox of course, in which you made giggling fun of contact tracing as though it were a ludicrous idea.  What next? you asked.  Contact tracing for cancer?  Mr. Giuliani, you are a moron.  How do you not know that contact tracing is done to follow and inhibit the spread of infectious diseases?  Or do you think that cancer is infectious?  How do you not know that contact tracing has been used for a century and is partly responsible for the eradication of smallpox?  How do you not realize that the professionals who recommend contact tracing are miles smarter than you are?

You seem to take delight in mocking intelligence, even though every single significant contribution to the human race and to our lives today was imagined, created, refined, manufactured, and made available by people of intelligence.  Fabric, paper, the harnessing of electricity, canning food, internal combustion, radar, GPS, symphonies, movies, the list of astounding accomplishments goes on and on.  Do you think someone who spent his time mocking people could have created any of that?  It's as though you have brain envy, and can't stand anyone whose are bigger than yours.  You sad, little man.