“When you look at yourself from a universal standpoint, something inside always reminds or informs you that there are bigger and better things to worry about.”
— Albert Einstein
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Posts Tagged ‘#365Ways’
And Isn’t that Actually Kind of Nice?
Posted in Likes, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2021, life, quotes, some days are just like that on May 20, 2021| 1 Comment »
Dear Fashion Industry
Posted in Other, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2021, fashion, feminism, minor rant, pockets on May 19, 2021| 1 Comment »
Today, a minor exercise in venting, over-the-top opinionation, with a bit of history on the side.
This is a photo of me this morning, about to head out to the wilds of Costco:
Yes, that’s my phone, perched precariously in my woefully inadequate pocket. (And off screen, Mr. Man is laughing at the mismatch between the two.)
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Dear fashion industry: Pockets matter.
You know this. Jeans for men have perfectly adequate pockets. Mr Man carries a wallet, pass, and iPhone 12XS Max in his pockets just fine. And don’t get me started on the differences between men’s and women’s suit jackets. There was a reason I borrowed my father’s suit jacket as a teenager. (Ok, the fabric shifted between green and bronze and cool doesn’t even begin to describe it, but yeah, also functional outside pockets and actual inside pockets. So many pockets!)
I could carry my phone in my back pocket. It still sticks out, but would stay in place just long enough for me to walk at a more-than-geriatric pace and break the thing. And purses? I find purses deeply annoying, not least because I know for a fact that they are often a solution to a problem that doesn’t need to exist.
There is a time and place for bags. For example, I spent two weeks traveling through Latin America with a backpack, and took a portable bag for my round-the-world tour. And if I had kids, I’d definitely rock a backpack. That’s what bags are for! For all else, pockets.
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Now, there can be downsides to keeping things in your pockets. Mr Man has sent more than one USB key through the laundry, and you can bet this woman will never keep anything important in her pockets ever again:
Lottery jackpot ‘winner’ says she destroyed $26m ticket in laundry wash
Still. In case of emergency or just plain forgetfulness, I want everything critical with me at all times. No “Where’s my phone, I need it to find my AirTag-enabled wallet.” No “Goodness, where did I put that handbag with all my cards and cash?” while the flames encroach. No “Wait, a zombie apocalypse? Like, now now?”
No, thank you.
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I’m hardly the first to make this observation (and this isn’t the first time, either), but sadly, I doubt I’ll be the last. More reading on the long and sexist history of pockets, because it’s good to show your work:
When it comes to women’s pockets, size really does matter
The Bewildering and Sexist History of Women’s Pockets
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On the plus side, women no longer have to climb mountains in a corset and skirt!
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Progress, it can be made!
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A Glorious Specificity of Purpose
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2021, purpose, Tuesdays on May 18, 2021| Leave a Comment »
While Tuesdays are not highest on my list of favorite days, there is something to be said for knowing exactly what needs to happen. No waffling, weighing of options, dithering or otherwise wasting time identifying (or attempting to stray from) the prescribed path.
There is only the path.
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King Queen
Posted in Holidays, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2021, around the world, Egypt, travel on May 17, 2021| Leave a Comment »
I’m still thinking about travel, so today we have a short excerpt from my trip to Egypt (and apologies to anyone from Cairo, but that taxi ride made an impression).
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June 29
Thursday
Cairo
I’m liking Egypt. Even the boys’ open stares and the sticky heat don’t deter me, and the organized chaos seems creative rather than threatening. That’s how I know I’m infatuated, not truly in love. No clear-eyed observer looks out from the back of an Egyptian taxi and sees anything but fear and death.
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Our guide picked us up in yet another van, but this time we were the only ones aboard. It seemed that no one else was crazy enough to tour the Valley on a June afternoon. And yes, it was hot.
The guide was very well-informed, trained in the States, and proud. He took us to many burial sites, tomb after tomb baking in the hot sun. As the day went on the heat made it harder to listen and certainly to remember all the facts being thrown at us. This caused us some trouble as the guide kept giving pop quizzes. At first we thought he was joking, but it turned out he really did care if we knew exactly which Ramses we’d seen (three in total), what the symbols on either side of the tomb entrances meant, and how the tombs were built. It was a little disconcerting, but kept us on track. We spent most of the time in the Valley of the Kings, but also headed around one of the mountainous valley sides to visit the Tomb of Queen Hatshepsut, the only woman buried as a king.
When Hatshepsut’s husband the king died, she bribed his priests into declaring her a man, transformed through divine will. In that way she was able to become more than a regent for her husband’s heir and take control of the throne directly. Her tomb is backed into a towering cliff wall and covered with carvings. Wherever her name appeared, however, her bitter nephew later scratched it out, hoping to keep the gods from finding her spirit in the next life. No love lost there.
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I find it fascinating to see how much the world has changed, and how much humanity hasn’t.
Sun Day
Posted in Likes, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2021, happiness, in spite of everything, quotes, Sunday on May 16, 2021| Leave a Comment »
“It turns out, somehow, there are a tremendous number of things to be optimistic about.”
― Hank Green
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What Would You Do?
Posted in Other, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2021, Affinity Photo, Jodi Taylor, learning, quotes, time travel on May 15, 2021| Leave a Comment »
What would you do if you could go back in time for, say, one day? When would you go, and perhaps just as importantly, where?
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For today’s educational adventure I learned how to make a portal. Next time I’ll choose an image with a puddle for the reflection, but the effect is still pretty magic.
So, we have a target place, a target time, and a portal. Who wants to go first?
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Fiction-related aside: Time travel usually isn’t my genre (weird for someone with a history degree once upon a time, but there it is), but this series about historians tasked with maintaining the time stream is fun:
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“History does not always repeat itself. Sometimes it just yells, ‘Can’t you remember anything I told you?’ and lets fly with a club.”
― John W. Campbell Jr.
Are We There Yet?
Posted in Holidays, Likes, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2021, distance, family, maps, Sweden on May 14, 2021| Leave a Comment »
Thinking about my grandfather yesterday got me thinking about our trip to Sweden. Here’s one of the best souvenirs I brought back, an adjustable driving distance calculator. The sheet inside slides to show distances from a given starting location. I like maps, and this one is particularly well done.
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For fun, here’s one of the first known distance maps, the Tabula Peutingeriana, with measures for (where else?) the center of all things at that time, the Roman Empire. Although at 22 feet long, it’s not exactly portable!
Eleventy-First, with Memories
Posted in Likes, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2021, 111, birthdays, family, how to remember, memories, philosophizing on May 13, 2021| 3 Comments »
Today would have been my grandfather’s eleventy-first birthday.
Paul Johnson loved golf, travel, photography, his Swedish heritage, fishing, the beach in Florida, women, and a good game of bridge, not necessarily in that order. He and my grandmother married in secret for the usual reasons, then again two years later when he was able to support them both. (She wore a light blue dress, again, for the usual reasons.)
One terrific part of life is that you can choose how you want to look back. When I think of my grandfather, I don’t dwell on the Parkinson’s and how it took so much from him before it finally took his life. I think of his smile as he watched a rocket launch at Cape Canaveral, the heart-felt yet hilarious haircuts he used to give my long-suffering brother, and the way he remembered to call me Princess even after he’d forgotten my name.
He saved sand dollars from the beach, enjoyed hot dogs with sauerkraut and introduced us to tomatoes with sugar, always kept a bag of butterscotch for the grandkiddos, tolerated both hijinks and shenanigans with good cheer, and had the best laugh, right from the belly.
He was a wonderful grandfather.
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It Was a Good Plan
Posted in Other, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2021, optimism, plans, tomorrow on May 12, 2021| 1 Comment »
I had a plan for the day. It was a good plan. It was shiny and perfect and now it is gone. In its place I have a Post-it that looks like a Rorschach test, a list of things I did not intend to do (but did, so that’s nice:) and a handbasket of good intentions.
Let’s hear it for tomorrow!
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“The belief that tomorrow is a different place from today is certainly a unique hallmark of our species.”
― Douglas Coupland
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Imagination Itself
Posted in Other, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2021, birds, home, hope, trees on May 11, 2021| Leave a Comment »
In memory of the pretty tree in full bloom around the corner, which our neighbor just cut down.
Also, it’s Tuesday.
(This is the part where I like to bring it back to a cheerful ending. Right. Hmm.)
Ah yes! I’m making excellent progress on the bird front, lots of goldfinches, robins, cardinals, chickadees, juncos and sparrows. Nature finds a way, even if it sometimes needs a little help:)
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“The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity… and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.”
― William Blake
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