An Unretiring Gap Year

I haven't written in a long while, but this post felt so Lady of Leisure that I had to repost it.

I like that notion of space and a gap year -- though perhaps it's more of a gap decade, in my case? I do feel that pull to be busier. Why is that? Like this week, when deadlines have been met and new assignments are just getting underway without any urgency at the moment. Spending time reading the paper doesn't feel useful enough. I, too, am taking a Coursera course. Mine is on Google and its impact on traditional media out of my alma mater Medill at Northwestern. It's been intense and fun, awakening that inner Type A student in me. Though, sadly, the fam is not as excited about my 100 percent on a writing assignment as my mom used to be.

What would you do with a gap year?

A Purse for Every Season

   For most of my life, I've had one workhorse purse, carried day in and day out until it frayed and I needed to purchase another one. I usually refused to spend more than $30, splurging up to $50 as my life moved from high school student dependent on Mom's pocketbook to poor college student on work/study to finally pay-check-earning journalist. 

  Mostly, I bought bags that smelled more of vinyl than leather but looked pretty and got the job done. One ambitious summer in the late '70s, I made my own purse, repurposing an old pair of flowery cotton shorts. I sewed the legs across and added a strap. It was funky cool.

   Then I became a Lady of Leisure. All the other LOLs had fancy purses that changed with the season or often the outfit.   I had to keep up. Well, I couldn't really keep up with these Imelda Marcos' of purses -- at least to an extent. I just couldn't bring myself to buy dozens of handbags. Cost, of course. But really, my problem was time. 

  Who has time to change out the contents of a purse that's really a carry-on piece of luggage packed tight with lip gloss, reading glasses, sunglasses, bulging wallet, credit card slips, cell phone, spare valet key, wads of coupons, lens cleaning cloth, gum, mints, tissues, mirror compact, pens, hand sanitizer, small flashlight (read earlier post about challenges with menus in dark restaurants), house keys, Kindle and scraps of paper? I'm already late for everything. Imagine if I had to switch out my purse on a daily basis. 

  But I did decide I could at least have a purse for the fall/winter seasons and another for the spring/summer seasons. Off to Macy's I went. Purse One, for the fall/winter, had to have a large arm strap to fit over my winter coat. I chose a red Tignanello tote with brown accents. Not Coach, I know. But real leather and very well made, not to mention a bargain after my Macy's coupons. Purse Two was a flowery print with greens and pinks made by Fossil. That I could handle. As the summer gave way to fall and the winter to spring, I did the big change over.  

  Then I was at the mall, as LOLs are wont to do. And saw a bright orange Giani Bernini that I had to have. So now I had a fall purse as well. It was perfect this past season as color blocking and orange took off. Ah, but then Tignanello came out with a mini tote in yellow with a pretty floral print. It was a tad on the small side, but so pretty,so summery. I broke down. I bought it.  Before I knew it, I was upto four purses, one for each season. I was beginning to understand my fellow LOLs. My handbag tally doesn't count, of course, the little black purse to wear with the (not so) little black dress that really can only carry a driver's license and tissue. The Bossband doesn't understand why I even bother with it. 

  As the seasons change, I have every intention of switching out the purses. But I usually remember after I'm out the door and in the car in a mad dash to someplace. Sometimes, I realize that my orange purse really clashes with my mostly red or yellow outfit. But it's either late for lunch or accept my fashion failure. Eventually, half way through the season, I get the job done. I tell myself, clearly, I need to stop while I'm ahead. But the siren of the handbags keeps calling. Wouldn't a yellow crossbody look grand for spring?

Where Was My Sir Walter Raleigh?

  Chivalry is clearly dead -- at least in my backyard.
   Recently, the bossband and I went for a walk around the block, a regular attempt at exercise. Of late, some old teens/young adults have decided to turn our newly paved street into LOVE Park, that is skateboard central. Thing is, they don't seem too adept at balancing on a board with wheels while staying atop it.
  On our outbound journey, I was grumbling about the damage to the street. Yes, I've become one of those. Now that I'm on the neighborhood committee that makes decisions about things like paving the road and general curbside appearance, I'm a cranky old lady that's irked at the skid marks left behind by the Tony Hawk-wannabes/ain't gonna happen types.
  Anyway, as we walk, talk, complain, the bossband and I do our one-mile trek around the area. Thirty-minutes later, we neared our street's entrance. The skateboarders were still at it. I heard a screech, was about to say, "See, that's what I mean -- not good for the pavement," when I saw a skateboard sans skateboarder from the corner of my eye hurtling toward me at Concord speed. I screamed and went down for the count as it rammed into my ankle. My husband picked me up off that new pavement, and I cursed. My ankle hurt, my shoulder hurt, my wrist hurt.
   The skateboarder, who himself had flown off in the opposite direction onto the grass, but appeared none the worse for wear, apologized profusely and kept asking if I was OK. When I said, "No, I sprained my ankle," he said one more sorry and vanished, Houdini-style, from the general vicinity. I limped home. This time I was grumbling about how these things always happen to me.
  Then it occurred to me. The bossband was walking next to me on the outside. How come the skateboard didn't hit him? I enquired. "I stepped out of the way," he said, matter-of-fact.
  "How come you didn't save me?" I persisted.
  That led to an intense several minutes about primal instinct versus concern for your loved ones. His instinct was to save himself -- each man, or woman, for himself/herself. He didn't have time to think about anyone else. I should have been paying better attention when I heard that initial screech and jumped for dear life. I should have saved myself, in other words. This is, after all, the 21st century, equal rights and all.
  That has its share of sense and logic in it, the bossband's forte.
  But am I unreasonable to expect my one and only to take the fall for me, or at least grab me out of harm's way? A little chivalry would have been nice, don't you think?

Leaving Our Lives at the Curb

  Every other Wednesday is Show and Tell Day on the block. Actually, it's Recycling Day -- but it can feel more like a National Enquirer expose. There at the end of the driveway are our three cans full of recyclables: the Lucky Charms and Cocoa Puff cereal boxes, the bottle of wine, the plastic jugs of Welch's grape juice, the Amazon cardboard boxes, the Gatorade bottles too many to count, the crumpled Uno's Pizza box, the Biotene dry mouth rinse, and so on.
  We don't have to wait until a distant civilization unearths our landfills of detritus that will explain how we lived. We put it on display curbside every two weeks. We know the neighbors who prefer beers, and the ones who prefer one too many. We know who eats healthy and not so much. We know who drinks skim milk and who lives on pizza.
   Recently, our recycling company started accepting almost everything in a single stream. Our trash has gone from a couple of cans a week to nearly nothing. Now, we recycle almost everything. It's a grand feeling, helping out the environment and all that. But as I drive by my pile of recyclables, I can't help but think what it says about my lifestyle -- and my family's. I clearly feed my child too much sugary cereal. Does the low-fat and skim milk cartons compensate? And surely the tofu tray that juts out on top earns me some bonus points.
  Perhaps this public display of culinary and otherwise consumption will be the real fix for America's (and my) bulging waistline. After all, the true way to help the environment is not to buy it in the first place.

One-Year Anniversary

 This week was my one-year anniversary of becoming a Lady of Leisure. What a ride! As I wrote in my piece for the Philadelphia Inquirer, I viewed my early retirement as an adventure. And it has been. I've had the opportunity to write magazine-length pieces, essays, go to art shows (Capuccio at the Phila. Art Museum is excellent for any shopaholic), and throw myself into volunteering at the resident teen's school. Today, six month's of work has come to fruition in the school's house tour book! It was incredibly hard work but such a blast, and I'm proud of the result.
  So this Lady of Leisure is raring for year two. I guess I should rename my blog My YEARS as a Lady of Leisure!
  When I wrote my piece on early retirement, the reaction was divided. I got an email -- the first reaction -- from a reader who accused me of having "one rich husband."
 "Choices, what a joke! Most women I know who work and have kids do not feel as if there is a choice.  You won't do bathrooms?  Hmmm next life time I need to be so spoiled."
  Of course, many, many women have no choice on the matter. But many others do -- or find a way to make that choice a possibility -- and  yet still struggle with expectations, real or imagined. Other readers got that. "I could relate to it on so many levels," wrote one woman.  "It is somewhat comforting to know I am not alone in having a small panic attack when anyone asks me do you work.  As a retired successful advertising account executive, I sometimes say, "yes I work I just don't get paid for it."  This leaves the person wondering what in the world does that mean. I want to thank you for your beautiful words and for letting me know I am not alone.  I hope you are enjoying your leisurely tub soaks!"
  Yes, I do.

Workholic Lady of Leisure: Oh, What Would Mom Say?

The Lady of Leisure when she was twentysomething and a
Lady of Work at the Philadelphia Inquirer.

  To celebrate Women's History Month, the Philly Inquirer, my hometown newspaper, gave over the Style & Soul section to some style & soul. Ten women wrote essays about the type of stuff women debate endlessly with that inner voice echoing in their head. I was one of the chosen. Here's the link. I wrote about my decision to retire -- and how that's going now that I've done it for nearly one year. It starts like this:


  The question always leaves me stammering through a long-winded response.

Do you work?

For nearly 25 years, the answer was a cinch. I was a reporter for this newspaper. It always left folks surprised, sometimes impressed, and often a bit curious.

Last year at 48, I altered my career path - actually, I veered completely off the road and into the meadows of early retirement. That's what I called it, anyway. Now, the question of work and what I do with my time - really, who am I? - is much more complicated.

After all, work is so much a part of identity, and the choice to work or not to work - particularly for women - carries more baggage than a 747.

I watched my own mother juggle scientific research and motherhood. The lesson was clear: Women who are smart work.

And that makes my own choice fraught with layers of complexity that Sigmund Freud himself could not unravel. But, heck, I'll give it a try.

  The rest is at the this link. I'll post about the reaction shortly. And while you're at the www.philly.com site, check out the other rockin' essays.

  The coolest part was the chance to say I blog. Got 15 visitors that day, which is about what I get in the whole month. Though my numbers are going up, thanks to all of you. So keep reading. And start following.

Spiderman Spins a Web of Delights

  Theater critics have taken to trashing Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark as it continues its endless previews to  opening day, next week on March 15 -- assuming it isn't again postponed. My family went with relatives a couple of weekends ago. In a word, I thought it was FABULOUS!
   It had everything I want out of an expensive Broadway show: over-the-top sets and theatrics with wonderful music and not a bad story line at all. After all, good does triumph evil.
 The show was a combination of the circus, theater and rock concert -- all rolled into one. The acrobatics were literally over the top, as in over our heads. That alone was incredible and worth the ticket price. The show has become as well know for its tricks can go wrong as much as its tricks. Everything went right on our night, though there was that moment when Spiderman seemed to miss his footing as he landed on a second-story balcony platform. But he quickly scrambled to safety like a true spider-human.
   It was like the circus in that way. No one wishes for an accident to happen, of course. But the fact that it is a possibility -- and one you just might witness up close -- makes all those acts of teetering on high wires, tangling with tigers, racing on horses all the more exciting. Same here. And unlike the circus, all the action was done without any safety net, just cables. And cables wouldn't protect the stuntmen if they hit the balconies. We joked about wearing helmets.
  The show did a particularly wonderful job on sets, recreating the feel of the Big Apple and the battle between good and evil high above the skyscrapers. It also captured the comic book feel with it's pow! wham! splat! word bubbles, bright colors and spider walk up the walls.
  At the same time, it was a complex take on the Spiderman story with its base in Greek mythology and Greek tragedy, down to the comic chorus of teens who kept the dimmer among us apprised of the story line and balanced Spiderman's angst with silly jokes. I loved the little touches, like the girlfriend who acts in The Fly, another tale of metamorphosis. Or her self-doubt that she'd ever make it to Broadway. It wasn't perfect. It dragged in the second act, in part because of a sidebar of song and dance about a series of villains thought vanquished that reappear. But all in all, it was a wonderful evening of entertainment. And it has set a new standard for the Broadway spectacular. Go see it!