Any Shiny Thing - Life after 50
Midlife Fiction
As we Boomers stare into the 7x magnifying mirror, trying not to stab ourselves in the eye with the mascara wand and bemoaning the crevasses in our skin, we should remember there’s some compensation for getting old. [Read more…]
My friend Nanci just retired from a career in public education, first as an elementary school teacher and then as principal. We met in the eighties when we worked for the Jurupa Unified School District in Riverside, California. Here’s what Nanci did to kick-start her retirement:
Holy shxx!!!
Who took these pictures?! Dude’s an awesome multi-tasker.
Ta da!
Sure, you’re laughing now.
Nanci, thanks for sharing your experience with us. You always did set the bar high, for yourself first and then your staff and students. All of your friends at Any Shiny Thing wish you a joyous retirement. Looks like you’re off to a flying start.
According to neuroscientist and stroke survivor Jill Bolte Taylor, PhD., feelings generated by negative stimulus don’t have to last more than 90 seconds. [Read more…]
If you want to get a roomful of chatter, bring up the term MILF with your girlfriends. For those of you who are still sweetly unaware, it’s a grade men give women based on the latter’s sexuality. It stands for “Mothers I’d Like to F….”
Here’s what my friends say:
MILF implies that the default setting is that mothers are un-F-able, unless they earn the prized designation of MILF. Then, oh baby, then they rate. Woo hoo. Winner.
My girls recommend we retire the MILF award and start handing out MWDH.
Men Who Do Housework*
Now, that’s sexy.
*Apologies to DRM and WFS, both of whom totally win this prize.
Kindle readers can reach me at LMSpreen@yahoo.com.
If you have to ask, you're too young.
Do you remember the Summer of Love?
1967, baby. I was 13.
A certain older sibling who shall remain nameless introduced me to pot that summer. We were camping in Big Sur, and my sis got it from a new friend, a tall woman with an auburn Afro and rust-colored, fringed boots. I don’t remember feeling high – I was probably too excited to inhale properly – but I remember the magic. Even touring the Haight with my parents in our vacation-loaded station wagon seemed otherworldly, blissful. All those hippies flashing peace signs.
The Sexual Revolution was in full swing, and many of us Boomers were right in there with it. We were a shockingly uninhibited generation. It was all there for the taking, and we did whatever we wanted. There were no consequences! We had the pill to prevent pregnancy, and any STDs were (we thought) treatable with a little dose of this or that. With the specter of Viet Nam hanging over us, we felt justified in partying our asses off. Who knew what tomorrow would bring, with those old fogey warmongers in Washington DC calling all the shots?
Eric Burdon's "San Franciscan Nights." Click on the picture for the music.
What made me think of this whole period of my life was a post this morning on my friend Vonnie’s blog, Boomer Women Wise and Wonderful. She reports that many Boomer Women are angry that they’re not feeling the love. Many of our generation, now baggin’ and saggin’, are bummed out that a good number of our men can’t get it up. Or can’t be bothered.
And some of the women are fine with that.
Time passed and we got older, with all the changes that brings. I often wonder where the carefree-hippie part of our generation went. We seem so conservative now, and the younger generations see us as a bunch of consumption-happy gluttons who’ve run the country’s budget off the rails. I wish they could have known us back when we lived in communes and talked about living off the land. Making our own bread, doing things organically. Bricks in our toilet tanks to conserve water.
I miss the purity of our intentions.
Click here for the song, "Age of Aquarius."
Sure, we were young and naive. I miss that sense that we can fix things, especially now, with the country divided into colors and our elected representatives sinking into the quicksand of intransigence. I wonder if, maybe when we’re really old, we’ll be able to go back to that openness and tolerance? Will anybody have the nerve to hang a peace sign in their 55+ community?
But as for dancing naked in the rain? Maybe some things are better not revisited.
Kindle readers can contact me at LMSpreen@yahoo.com.
A few years ago, I took on a serious physical challenge: I agreed to babysit my infant granddaughter when her parents went back to work. [Read more…]
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