Grace Davis's blog

Older Women and Sex Tourism

2007-11-28T01:42:34-06:00

As I was surfing the blogosphere for the elder beat, I came across this Reuters report:

Older white women join Kenya's sex tourists
By Jeremy Clarke

MOMBASA, Kenya, Nov 26 (Reuters) - Bethan, 56, lives in southern England on the same street as best friend Allie, 64.

They are on their first holiday to Kenya, a country they say is "just full of big young boys who like us older girls".

Hard figures are difficult to come by, but local people on the coast estimate that as many as one in five single women visiting from rich countries are in search of sex.

The 2006 movie Heading South comes to mind, described by the New York Times reviewer Elizabeth Hayt as a film...

"...about older single women visiting 1970’s Haiti in a female version of sex tourism.

The women in the film, in their late 40’s and 50’s, are spending a vacation at a resort where impoverished local beach boys serve as holiday gigolos. The teenagers devote themselves to nourishing the women’s starved libidos in exchange for food, gifts and temporary refuge from the perils of the island’s repressive regime.

Are these indicators of sexual liberation for older women? Amy at Amy's Robot emphatically says yes and salutes these women in her post Young Kenyan men enjoy same gifts-for-sex benefits young women have had for centuries..

She gives a nod to the old adage of what's good for the goose is good for the gander:

Old, wealthy sugar daddies everywhere have long enjoyed taking much younger women out, showering them with gifts, and having sex with them. Some might go so far as to marry them (Billy Joel, Donald Trump, Fred Thompson, Ben Kingsley, Les Moonves, I could go on all day) but plenty more just enjoy the arm candy for a while then drop them (George Soros).

She also believes that the young men in service to these women receive benefits in return:

At last, young men from poor countries with little opportunity for living in economic security get to enjoy the same temporary access to nice clothes and fancy dinners that young American women have been hustling to get their hands on forever! Why should sex-for-goods be exclusively a rich man/poor woman transaction? I'm so glad to see these enterprising young African men are finally able to exploit their youthful hotness with all the savvy of a midwestern high school dropout draping herself over aging producers at Hollywood parties.

22 year-old Joseph, a Kenyan man who says he has slept with over 100 white women, says:

"When I go into the clubs, those are the only women I look for now," he told Reuters. "I get to live like the rich mzungus (white people) who come here from rich countries, staying in the best hotels and just having my fun.

At Under the Canopy, blogger Ipanema suggests there might be no harm in these holiday trysts:

Perhaps these ladies are having a good time. And I think it is not bad to enjoy the years when personal happiness is underneath sagging skin. At 50+ and 60+ and financially secure, they have means to satisfy what seems to be an arid sex life. I am beginning to think that perhaps 60 is the new 40.

But, African American author/blogger Monica Jackson calls out the racism in these sex holidays:

...older white women are sex tourists in Kenya! They are going there just to get boned by fine young black men. Don't they realize that once you try black you don't go back? (snort)

And, Jill at Feministe calls out the power imbalance and exploitation in this arrangement "...where black men are accessories for consumption, kind of like the beaded African necklaces the women take back home."

People are not souvenir beads; they are not exotic pets to experiment with on vacation. I’m not against sex work, and I’m not suggesting that the men discussed in this article have no agency. But I am suggesting that it’s impossible to divorce this scenario from a history of racism, colonialism, and the use of black bodies for the pleasure and service of white people.

You can count on me to be the first to jump up and applaud older women who are comfortable and confident in their sexuality, particularly in a culture where such women are reduced to unseemly caricatures (the current ageist/sexist lexicon being the MILF and the cougar). I also appreciate why some bloggers sing the praises of bold women who visit a tropical locale to pursue their sensual desires, women who know what they want and go out and get it.

However, as explored in the feminist and African American blogs, this is a scenario with many disturbing intersections, a collision of racism, economic and social inequality, European colonialism, the possible emergence of another AIDS vector in these groups of women (the incidence of AIDS in people over 50 increased by 500% between 1995 and 2003), and gender stereotyping.

An aspect that has not been considered is the sheer sensationalism of this Reuters report. Female sex tourism has a long history, mentioned in academic papers and popular literature (James Michener's voluminous "Hawaii" includes an entire chapter dedicated to the story of a virile Waikiki beach boy charged with the intimate care of wealthy female visitors). Clearly, this story has been told before, why is this being brought up now?

The racist and exploitative issues notwithstanding, what has been most troubling to me were the ugly ageist responses to this story from primarily male bloggers:

"What hath the feminist revolution brought? In Kenya it has brought wrinkled white women looking for a good time with a young man."

"A word of warning: don't think about a middle-aged or elderly woman you know while you read this story. It'll put you off your lunch."

"It seems lot's of old gals are hiking up their support hose, smearing on the red lipstick, festooning the wig and headin' off to Africa for a safari....a love safari...a very wrinkly love safari."

But, what's new? These same tired insults are hurled at any older woman enjoying her sexuality, whether on the beaches of Mombasa or Miami, with a hired lover or her own husband.

Grace Davis, Contributing Editor, Life/Elders, also blogs at State of Grace

Empathy for our Elders - "Aging Sensitivity Training" and a return to the Multigenerational Household.

2007-11-14T03:18:13-06:00

Last month, in the entertaining blog, Linda's Backroads Musings, Blogger Linda, a "rural mail carrier" on the Kansas prairies, wrote an entry about an NPR story on aging:

Talk of the Nation on NPR had a show entitled, “Teaching the Young to Empathize with the Old.” The guests were Jason Wilson, editor of The Smart Set, an independent magazine published at Drexel University; author of the article "Old Like Me" and Peg Gordon, intergenerational coordinator at the Macklin Intergenerational Institute and teacher of the class "Xtreme Aging."

Jason Wilson told his experiences simulating being old. This involved corn in his shoes, Vaseline on his glasses, earplugs and bandages tied tightly around knees and elbows. He almost gleefully told of his difficulties going to the bathroom and other daily activities.

Wilson's description of the aging simulation exercise in his article from The Smart Set:

My feet hurt. My knees are so stiff that walking has become a chore. When I climb stairs, I’m out of breath by the time I reach the top. It takes a special effort just to tie my shoes. My vision is so poor that I require a caregiver to accompany me on my morning stroll. I can barely hear when she asks what I’d like for a snack. But it doesn’t matter anyway. Food just doesn’t taste the same as it once did.

After I’m told I’ve been eating an oatmeal cookie, I face an even worse indignity: shuffling and feeling my way, alone, into the men’s room — or at least I hope it is the men’s room. After fumbling with my zipper, I can barely make out the urinal. It is my sincere hope that my aim is true. As I exit, I’m nearly knocked backward by a couple of young guys barreling through the door. “Damn kids!” is what I want to shout.

This, apparently, is what they call aging. I’m told that my tribulations are common, and I’ll likely be labeled a complainer around the senior center. Aging is not for sissies, I’m told. But here’s the big difference. Twenty-five minutes ago I was a relatively fit 37-year-old. Not a triathlete, but certainly someone who didn’t need help opening a pill bottle. Now I am suddenly old and feeble. Allow me to be perfectly candid: It really sucks.

I’m undergoing an aging simulation administered by Monika Deppen Wood, a sociology professor at Rutgers University in Camden, New Jersey. Wood teaches an undergraduate course called the Sociology of Aging, in which she requires all of her students to undergo the same simulation. “Reading about aging is not the same as experiencing it,” Wood says.

Such classes offer a new twist on sensitivity training - "aging sensitivity training".

Again, from Jason Wilson:

Aging simulation exercises like the ones I underwent at Rutgers and several other locations around the country lie at the heart of so-called “aging sensitivity training” that’s been practiced now for at least two decades. Originally, these exercises were designed for nurses, physicians, therapists, social workers, and others who work with elderly patients.

For instance, at Valparaiso University’s College of Nursing — highly regarded nationwide for its emphasis on gerontology — every student must take a junior-level course called The Aging Process, regardless of what field of nursing they intend to enter. One of the first assignments in that course is an aging simulation.

“Even some of the nursing students, when they first get here, will tell you, ‘I hate old people. I’d never want to work with old people.’ They want to work with babies, or in the ICU,” says Kristen Mauk, a nursing professor at Valparaiso and one of the nation’s leading experts in gerontological nursing.

“We have to prepare our students, because there are going to be so many more older people in years to come,” Mauk says. “We’re preparing our students to be nurses in the future.

The Macklin Intergenerational Institute, founded by philanthropists Marilyn and Gordon Macklin, has been in the forefront of such formal training. This is reflected in the Institute's mission statement: "To continually improve lives of all ages through multi-age programming, care, community relationships, and creative communication."

One of the Macklin Institute's program is "The FamilyRoom Approach™":

Daily, children and senior adults come together in a home-like setting referred to as the FamilyRoom Approach™. In this relaxed environment that emulates the family home, interaction is emphasized and multi-age relationships are built. It is not all uncommon to find a grandpa feeding a baby, a grandma rocking a toddler, or several preschool children folding clothes with the participants from the...Adult Day Center. It's all a part of the spontaneity of everyday life that occurs naturally within the center. Through observational research, the Macklin Intergenerational Institute identified that the FamilyRoom Approach™ is the best environment in which to cultivate meaningful age-integrated experiences because learning through routine and ordinary experiences provides more opportunities for children to discover the world and for senior adults to rediscover it.

While I applaud these sophisticated and creative courses and certainly the admirable intentions and efforts, I find it disheartening that we have come to a point in contemporary life where our interactions with elders are so rare and infrequent, we have to learn about the aging experience in a workshop, rather than in a multigenerational home.

However, there may be a return to the multigenerational household, as their numbers in this country have grown by 38% from 1990 to 2000.

Writer and broadcaster Anita Garner who blogs at The Aging of Aquarius hopes that this trend continues. In her blog post, "What is lost", Garner describes a talk with a friend about the advantages of living with grandparents in the home:

Adam, always a thoughtful and well-spoken advocate for his beliefs, introduced the topic often taught by Margaret Mead, about the value of generations living close together the way we once did, and how much the youngers can learn from the elders. We...stood there on a beautiful autumn day and sighed about how we’ve never had that experience and how wonderful it must be.

... is there a chance that one day our society can take a few steps backward and embrace this idea again? That might be a huge step forward.

It would also be a step in assisting seniors and their adult children on many practical levels. Marilyn Mobley, market researcher and blogger at Baby Boomer Insights, grew up in a multi-generational home, with her "Grandma Jeanie", who was the centerpoint of their family life:

Grandma Jeanne (an apt name... she was an absolute genie in the kitchen and with "Old Bessie," her treadle sewing machine) was as close as my hard-working career mom ever got to having a wife. Not once were any of the five children in my family ever left in the hands of a babysitter. Thank goodness. I can't imagine anyone else being able to impart as much wisdom or command a child to behave simply by arching a single eyebrow like Grandma did.

Mobley sees a return to the multi-generational household "more out of necessity" for Baby Boomer parents:

We boomers now have parents who need care and we want to do it ourselves. According to...USA Today, 41% of boomers who have a living parent are helping to care for them, either financially or by providing personal care. Some 8% of boomers have parents living with them. Of those who are not currently caring for their parents, 37% expect to do so in the future.

Perhaps more than anything, the resurgence of the multi-generational household will deepen our family ties. Wendy Spiegel of Gen Plus, who lives with her mother and daughter, sees "a great opportunity in this big, big village to recapture the wisdom of the elders."

From her post, Multi-generational living. Bring it on.:

When I grew up in the 60's and 70's, it never, ever occurred to me (perhaps naively?) that I might some day live in a city far away from my parents. As an adult, I came across country and settled in Los Angeles. My mother eventually moved in with me. In our case, it felt very right. I now have a multi-generational household. My daughter benefits from the wisdom of my mother. My mother feels useful and I gain a perspective I might never have gained on my own.

...I find my mother wise. She considers herself a "young old". I enjoy our political discussions, her views on books and films, her take on the world at large and in microcosm.

She also hopes that her daughter will be just as willing to take her on when she becomes "old old":

If I cannot afford to support myself when I become an "old old", then I sure as heck hope that my years of wisdom will come in handy in securing me that extra bedroom in my career-oriented kid's house while I watch over her seven-year old, just as my mom does for me.

Grace Davis, Contributing Editor Life/Elders, also blogs at State of Grace

Running "with body and mind." - The Magic and Drama of the New York City Marathon

2007-11-07T04:14:48-06:00

I have just returned from my third trip to the New York City Marathon. I am passionately in love with this event, the biggest marathon anywhere. And, in the most badass city on the planet.

The first time I watched the race was in 1985. I was only running the occasional 10K in the 80s and spent most of my time skiing and wind surfing. After having my daughter, I became interested in running distances and had the great fortune of having my application picked for the 2003 New York City Marathon entrant lottery. Last year I participated as a runner-guide for a disabled athlete. Unfortunately, a tweaky knee curtailed my training this summer and I had to cancel this year's entry that I won once again in the lottery.

However, my brother, who just turned 50, won a place in this year's race. He trotted with style into middle age by running the course as his very first marathon. I joined my family members and an estimated two million spectators to cheer on my brother and the rest of the 38,000 athletes through the five boroughs of New York City. The marathon is also a grand excuse for a street party. Combine that festive atmosphere with the upbeat sensibility of a motivational workshop, add the 'Rocky' theme song blaring as background music and you just may begin to tear up while you're smiling your face off. It's thrilling, inspiring stuff, witnessing a chunk of humanity sprint/jog/slog past you, all those sweating and earnest faces, all that heart and sole, and yes, that pun is intended.

Blogging women covered the event from both sides of the course barricades -

The very charming magickat, a "not-so-starving-anymore actress and magician's assistant living her crazy dreams in New York," watched the race while handing out swag goodies for Dunkin Donuts. She captures the sweetness of the race in this post:

It was herds of people. So many people it was almost overwhelming. There were people running for themselves and people running in memory of other people. There was a blind man running. There was a man with metal posts for legs running. It was amazing...I would yell out names (if people had them written on their shirts) as they were running past us. When they would hear their names they would look over and smile or raise their arms triumphantly. It was great.

There was a woman running. She was dressed like an angel. She had a t-shirt on with a photograph of someone. I imagine that person is no longer alive.

A man ran past with scars all up and down his thighs. Same scars on both legs. I don't even want to think about what surgery he had or why he had to have it. But he was running. I know that for sure. He was running and he was determined.

This one group of people were standing near the route. They were waiting for someone they knew in the marathon to run by. In a sea of 38,000 + people, this group was waiting. They saw the person they were waiting for and went nuts, screaming and yelling, and cheering. And she saw them and you could see she was so moved. So charged up from that. After she went past, the group all stood there and talked about how good she was doing, how strong she looked. And then they went underground into the subway, to go further up the route, to find her again, and cheer her on again.

...It was truly inspiring. Not only the runners, but also the people in support. Being there for them. Waiting on the sidelines for them. Searching the sea of people for them. Just to be there and shout their name and give them some love power to make them feel good and proud and alive. It was just beautiful.

Marathoner Natalie Wolf, aka, I Am The Big Bad Wolf was in the sea of athletes and posted a wonderful race report complete with a certain little song from a guy named Sinatra. Some excerpts:

If you are going to run the New York City Marathon, you've got to wear an "I Love NY" t-shirt. The spectators in Brooklyn were amazing -- they LOVE New York! Instead of screaming my name they screamed "We love you too!" or (the best one) "I love you too, Babe!" I wore my Girls on the Run tiara which I had decorated with my name and heard "Go Natalie" and "Go Natalia!" I high-fived kids. I love Brooklyn!

...As I started up the long, incline that was 1st Avenue, I looked ahead and all I could see was thousands of runners ahead of me and the streets lined with thousands of cheering people. For the second time, I thought about what I was doing, here in New York, running a marathon right through the streets of Manhattan and my eyes welled up with tears.

...When I saw the 24 mile sign, my body was ready to quit, but my brain was actually saying, "slow down -- you don't want it to end." Fortunately, I listened to the other part of my brain that said don't slow down -- finish strong. So I told myself (outloud) to dig harder. With 800 meters to go, a young guy passed me and shouted "C'mon Wolf, let's go!" (back of my shirt said "I Am The Big Bad Wolf"), but I couldn't quite keep up with him. A quick jaunt onto Central Park South, then back in the Park and uphill to the finish!

...I gave the NYCM everything I had. I ran with my body and my mind. I crossed the finish line with nothing left over...I must have looked scary, because no less than half a dozen medics asked me if I was ok. I could barely walk, my lips were blue, and I was crying. My fingers turned white from the cold and I stopped in the medical tent for a pair of surgical gloves. I don't know why I was so emotional. When I finally got out of the park and saw (her husband) Scott on Central Park West, the tears really came. I can only speculate that I have been so focused on this race, that when I realized that it was over, I was completely overcome with emotion.

Also in the race was Lisa Prosser who documented her workouts and races at Lisa's Marathon Training. She "woke up with a sore throat, stuffy nose and bad headache," but was determined not to let that stop her from running her first marathon in New York. But, the cold symptoms were nothing compared to some tough moments in the race:

Mile 19 hit my lower body like a sledgehammer. My back had been hurting since early on, but it was bearable. At mile 19 though, it turned into the worst pain I'd ever experienced. So in my infinite genius I decided to stop just before the bridge to the Bronx and stretch for a minute. As I bent over to stretch my back, every single muscle in my legs seized into the most unbelievable muscle cramp. I didn't even know it was possible for all your muscles to cramp at the same time, but guess what, it is! So I let out this little squeal, I didn't mean to, it just hurt so bad. And the medic came over to me to ask if I was okay. I was so scared that he'd try to stop me from running further that I ran away from him. Well, okay it was more of a hobble, but either way, no one was stopping me.

So on I went, convincing myself that if I could just put one foot in front of the other that was all I needed to do. By mile 21 I felt like the pain had again become somewhat bearable, actually I think it was hurting more but that I'd become delusional. Crossing back into Manhattan was great, knowing I was so close to finishing my goal! But at mile 23, I couldn't believe I still had 3.2 miles left, it seemed so far! I tried walking for a minute, but that seemed to hurt worse. And I realized that if I walked it would take me twice as long, so I decided the best thing to do was (in the words of my highschool basketball coach) "suck it up"!!

Mile 25, almost done! I had this burst, this completely insane, sudden burst where I could taste the finish. I was sprinting past everyone in front of me, I could see their glares. I don't know what it was, I was in more pain and more exhausted than I have ever been in my entire life, but the thought of that finish line was so sweet. My eyes welled up with tears and I will always remember the feeling of crossing that finish line.

A new blogger, Sarah of Sarah Writes, a runner who was not in the race, spoke of her pride as a runner and as a New Yorker:

The scale of the New York Marathon is a delight. All along its route and all around Central Park, the city is given over for a day to running (though, as one woman remarked to me as I was trying to find my way into the park in a vain attempt to run my usual route, it’s actually not a good day to be a non-marathon runner). So what if the blue and gold nylon banners flapping in the wind are corporately sponsored? If that’s what it takes to put on such a party, so be it.

...the marathon, in all its corporate-sponsored pomp, is wonderful. It finishes on the same Central Park drives that hundreds and probably thousands of us walk or run every day. For a weekend, our sport is the star of the city and the city and its runners are the star of the sports world. It’s a sport few can excel at but anyone can do, and so anyone can taste its wonder. Without fail, I find myself crying as the lead runners come into the final stretch.

Certainly, one of the most amazing of all the New York City Marathon stories is the return of British Olympian Paula Radcliffe, an international star athlete who has won the Chicago, London and New York City marathons and is the holder of the current world record in the women's marathon. Radcliffe won New York on Sunday with a finishing time of 2:23.

This January, Radcliffe became a mother with her first child, Isla. She trained through her pregnancy and resumed her workouts directly after Isla's birth. Mommy, pregnancy and fitness blogs are a-buzz with Radcliffe's accomplishment -

From The Baby Bump Project, a blog by pregnancy body image researcher, Meredith Nash of Australia:

New mum Paula Radcliffe won the NYC marathon for the second time yesterday...She led for the entire race and says her daughter was her source of inspiration:

"I just kept repeating to myself 'I love you Isla' to keep my rhythm going."

Paula ran throughout her pregnancy last year, right up until the day Isla was born. She resumed training 12 days after the birth. Paula is one of the first elite athletes to train seriously through pregnancy. For the first five months, she ran twice a day, 75 minutes in the morning and 30 to 45 minutes in the evening. Then she cut back, running an hour in the morning and riding a stationary bike at night. She even did training regimens like hill repeats — repeatedly running up hills to build strength and endurance. She was closely monitored by her doctor.

Rachel Sarah at Johnson and Johnson's parenting blog,
The Baby Center, delighted in Radcliffe's achievement and reported some of the media's response:

Women like Paula Radcliffe simply blow me away. Just nine months after giving birth, 33-year-old Radcliffe won the New York City Marathon yesterday.

Radcliffe became pregnant in 2006, but that didn’t stop her training, according to CBS News correspondent Bianca Solorzano.

“She ran the entire time, at least an hour a day, up until the day before she gave birth,” according to CBS News. “And just 12 days after having her daughter, Isla, Radcliffe was back out running again.”

“She crossed the finish line in 2:23:09 and then held one thing that made the win even more impressive,” writes Solorzano. “No, not that trophy - her baby.”

In the New York Times, James Pivarnik — director of the Human Energy Research Laboratory at Michigan State University and one of the few scientists who have studied athletes during and after pregnancy — said that her “experience is a rare one.”

“As far as I know, no one has ever done what she’s done,” Pivarnik said.

Martha Edwards at That's Fit praises Radcliffe for "not letting pregnancy get in the way of her fitness goals" and picking up her training even after a long and difficult delivery:

(Radcliffe's) 27-hour labor even lead to a stress fracture in her sacrum. Wow. That is one fit mama.

Of her win so soon after giving birth, Radcliffe says, Generally, the happier I am, the better I run. Certainly I'm a lot happier with Isla in our lives. I think your body is just a little bit stronger after pregnancy."

Interested in running? Thinking you'd like to race in a 10K, half-marathon or the mighty marathon? Here are some resources to get started:

Venerable running magazine, Runner's World, has one of the best websites for beginning and elite runners alike. Excellent section for issues related to women's training.

A wealth of information on the sport can be found on runner's training blogs. The Running Blog Family Directory lists many women's blogs on its extensive roster of sites.

MarathonGuide.com provides information and runners' reviews on every single marathon offered on the planet, like the Antarctica Marathon.

Contributing Editor Grace Davis is no Paula Radcliffe, but she is a two time marathoner who also blogs at State of Grace

Blogging the Southern California Wildfires

2007-10-23T23:35:56-05:00

The infernos engulfing thousands of acres in rural and residential Southern California are being amply covered by bloggers in and around the region. Here is a sampling of citizen journalists/live bloggers documenting and photographing the disaster:

Kathy Nida, a fiber artist in San Diego, is ready to evacuate:

Watching the news, they call a mandatory evacuation for Rancho San Diego, the community just south of me. What the heck? Mandatory?! I start calling around, get confirmation that there is an evacuation, start packing clothes and medications and papers. Call mom, mom calls back, says her neighborhood is supposed to get a call (it’s by zip code, apparently, not logic), so she’s coming to me. I’m packing clothes and one of the kids starts yelling, then the other…they just reversed the evacuation order, it was a mistake.

Excuse my heart attack. Deep breaths. Might as well stay packed for a while.

Photographer Joanie, aka Da Goddess is uploading images of the fire in Poway to her flickr photostream and describes the situation in her area on her personal blog:

I just moved into Poway a few months ago from Rancho Bernardo. I'm glad I did. My old condo was 100 yrds from where a church burned. I don't know the situation of the condo now, but as of yesterday morning, I was never so glad to be out of there.

Apartments across from where I went to elementary school burned, too. And my son's school is very close to current fires.

While in the process of evacuating our area, we stopped at Walmart. I ran into an old family friend who was, like so many others, trying to figure out where he could take his horses and mules. The parking lot was packed with RVs and folks just not sure where to go.

The women's spirituality blog, Ponder Ethereal is posting reports from blogger Carrie. Understandably, Carrie and her family are on edge:

The Witch Creek and Rice fires are at our doorstep. The areas around us were all evacuated and my car was packed - and still is - ready to leave if we were told to. The neighborhood we lived in six months ago, 13 miles away, burned. Carlsbad, Fallbrook, Del Mar, Encinitas, Escondido… all evacuated. Ryan came home from a long day at work and then slept on the couch so that he would hear the police cars with bullhorns if they came through our neighborhood. I was so exhausted, I fell into bed and slept hard until morning. The morning of the sunrise that lasts all day.

BlogHer 07 attendee Becky who blogs at Miss Priss is 35 weeks pregnant and waiting, not just for the baby to arrive, but for shifts in the wind over her home in San Diego:

Right now, we’re holed up, waiting. Fires and evacuation areas haven’t reached us. Yet. But it really depends on what the wind does. So we’re stuck in our house, windows closed, no central air, a couple of fans, waiting. We have nowhere to go right now. So we wait.

My upper back hurts from all of the sitting, lying down, sleeping. What else is there to do?
So we just continue to wait. And tomorrow, no work. More waiting.

World Golf blogger Heather McMichael is providing the golfing community with the status of courses in the fire zone:

Sadly, wildfires are destroying a great deal of land and homes throughout Southern California with reportedly up to 700 homes lost. Here are some blogs reporting on the fires, particularly in relation to golf courses.

Geoff Shakelford is reporting that Phil Mickelson is among the 250,000 that have been evacuated due to fires in the San Diego area.

Curbed Los Angeles is reporting on the fire in Lake Arrowhead and that it is burning near the lake and Grass Valley Golf Course. No word of damage to the course but homes have reportedly been lost. An Ordinary Life has more on it.

LiveLeak.com has video of a helicopter grabbing water from the lake at the ninth hole of the TPC Valencia Golf Course to fight fires in the areas.

Many of us have been keeping track of Contributing Editor Erin Kotecki Vest on Twitter where she's been apprising us of her evacuation status. Erin didn't fool around with her escape plans - at this writing she's at a hotel near LAX with her family and will board a morning flight to Florida. Good thing, as one of her kids has asthma and the fire is closing in on their home:

My son is coughing, but not badly. Meds and the indoor air are keeping him breathing without trouble. As I type this, a fourth fire has sprung up just miles from us

If you are keeping track, we have one fire less than a mile to our northwest, we have another fire about 8 miles to our north, we have another fire about 3 miles to our east, and yet one more now to the southeast that is about 4 miles away.

More blog-oriented resources on the Southern California fires:

LAist - Extra, Extra: The All Fire Edition!!!
Some snark, some hard news.

Bloggers Blog - Southern California Wildfire Resources
Newspaper blogs (such as the frequently updated LA Times Breaking News Blog); local radio and TV websites; resources for weather, pet care, Red Cross.

If you haven't joined Twitter, this is a good time to sign up (always free) and witness how this unique Web 2.0 tool can function as a communication link in a regional emergency. Many news outlets - KPBS, LA Times - and individuals - Nate Ritter, Hannabanana - have been "Twittering" evacuation orders, road closures and weather reports.

flickr members in the disaster zone are posting eyewitness photographs in the flickr group, Southern California Fires - 2007. Most intriguing and poignant are images of personal property - furniture, memorabilia, home equipment, books - uploaded by members to document their belongings in the event of losing their home. Group administrator Heather on the Go noted this in the group discussion:

Over the last day, I've done a lot of searching for fire pictures to encourage people to post them here and I have been noticing the saddest phenomenon.

I would come across a bunch of pictures of people's random things...a box of DVDs, a chair, a child's bedroom...all tagged with the word fire so they would pop up in my search.

It wasn't until today that I finally figured out what it was. People are quickly taking pictures to inventory their houses for insurance purposes and then uploading them to Flickr before they evacuate. Some are even tagging them as such.

I just have the saddest image of somebody scared walking around their house taking pictures wondering if the images will be all they have left once they leave.

It's also a really interesting reflection of how technology changes how we do everything...to the point that people even turn to it instinctually during times of panic and great stress.

UPDATE, 10/24/07

More links below. I will be posting these as I find them. Feel free to add any blogs/web resources in the comments. Thank you!

There is now a wiki called San Diego Fires.

The Metafilter item, San Diego Burns has been active since Monday, October 22. Interesting contributions from the MeFi-ites including first person accounts and links.

Sign On San Diego, the blog for the San Diego Union Tribune, is serving as a critical source of breaking news.

HOW TO HELP

From Heather White's remarks in the comments, the link below is a comprehensive and verified list of recovery and aid organizations from the CBS affiliate in San Diego, News 8:

http://www.cbs8.com/misc/fires_oct_07/help.html

Grace Davis, Contributing Editor, Life also blogs at State of Grace

Tales from the Front Lines of Nursing

2007-10-17T02:49:42-05:00

My mission as one of the Contributing Editors for the all-encompassing topic of 'Life' is to seek narratives from everyday living as captured in the wealth of women's blogs. I am particularly intrigued with stories from the kaleidoscope of our working lives. Most compelling are the "war stories" of vocations I admire greatly but, because of a myriad of inabilities, character flaws and a lack of courage, I could never perform the work. And, at the top of that list of those occupations is the noble profession of nursing.

I was supposed to have become a Registered Nurse. As the daughter of Filipino immigrants, I was expected to obtain a college degree in a major that would guarantee a well paying job. Nursing is what my mother and father - and many other Filipino American parents - wished for their daughters. Or, accounting. Or, in the case of my brothers, engineering. All respectable and sure pathways to success.

Thankfully, my siblings fulfilled our parents' desires. One sister did an accounting program and ended up prospering in real estate. My brothers went into engineering and live in Silicon Valley.

On the other hand, I majored in English Literature, a degree destined to land me a job in the restaurant industry. Accounting was not at all appealing for this left brainer. Nursing was definitely not for me, being a squeamish sort and something of a klutz. I am better suited for poetry and prose, not numbers and needles. Thus, I was a literary waitress and bartender until I returned to school to train for work in the corporate realm.

Our eldest sister became an RN. Her career has spanned over 30 years at a distinguished university medical center. We used to ask her a lot of questions like - what's the worst case you've ever seen? Or - what's it like to stick an IV into somebody's arm? Though she will discuss some aspects of the ward and clinic, there is a considerable amount of information she won't disclose, certainly because of our layfolk ignorance of terminology, acronyms and inside jokes, but also because she's learned to put her demanding work behind her after each shift.

But, now, my sister's off the hook from my unrelenting curiosity because I read blogs by nurses, many of whom are exceptional writers offering intimate and enlightening access to their patients' bedsides as well as their own lives. The following are three wonderful storytellers along with samples of their craft:

Terry is a nurse anesthetist and blogger of the aptly named Counting Sheep. Her recent post, While you were sleeping... reveals what goes on while we're knocked out in the surgical suite as well as a portrait of two types of surgeons:

What really goes on in the Operating Room while you are asleep?

I get asked this question by friends and family all of the time. “Are they talking about me?” “Laughing at me?” “Commenting about my thighs?”

None of the above, really.

Conversations in the OR can range from sports to politics to gossip, or, no conversation at all.

Take the room I worked in today. We did 2 spine cases, with a different surgeon for each case.

Surgeon #1 insists upon total silence in the room, no phone conversations; in fact, all cell phones must be turned off. NO MUSIC. All energy and activity during the case must pass THROUGH the surgeon. “Independent thinking hurts the team” he has been known to say. He wants to know what’s going on at all times in all spheres. Control freak, yes, but in the very best sense of the words.

Surgeon #2 brings into the OR his iPOD and Bose speakers; in fact, they’re the first things he sets up. The music is always LOUD, and the mood is upbeat. The atmosphere is what I’d call “loose,” and laughter frequently flies.

So, who’s harder to work with, and who’s easier? Tough question, surprisingly! With Dr. Laidback, you actually must pay closer attention to your work; between the music and the conversations, these can be major distractions. With Dr. Serious, the mood is so somber (and spine cases can be so long) that it can be easy to get a little bleary-eyed and zoned out by mid-way through the case.

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about a nurse is the blog of May, a nurse on a telemetry unit. Her powerful post, the last thanksgiving, is published here in its entirety:

i worked thanksgiving night.

i dragged my heavy ass to work determined to have a grateful spirit.

well, the freeway was almost empty. also, i parked closest to the building. the hospital gave us free food. i have my loved ones. i have my friends. and i left the house showered with wet kisses from the little ones. it is always an overwhelming feeling, to drive away with three men (one grown up, and two, trying to look grown up) standing at the garage, waving endlessly nonverbally saying, “come back soon, okay?”

also, whether others acknowledge it or not, i know for sure that there is Someone faithful who always gives me free air to breathe, and lets the sun shine. i have everything i need, and as if i am really nice, i have a lot of the things i want. i am grateful. beyond words.

i clocked in with a real smile on my face.

then, i looked behind me, and i saw the “blue leather covered thing”. i have no idea who designed this corpse cart; but i hate it. well, maybe not really because of its design, but the fact that it is telling me somebody’s son, or daughter, or mom, or dad, or spouse, or friend, just left.

i found out very little about the dead guy. in his early 40s. married. he just came from the cardiac ICU. he was terminally ill. it was expected. they’ve been “prepared”.

still. it sucks that people die on a holiday. it sucks because everytime you remember that holiday, you remember something sad. you spent your life celebrating thanksgiving with all the joy and noise of having your family. then, all of a sudden, your memory never goes back to those lovely years. all you remember is that chilly thanksgiving night when you have to sign the death certificate. and the sight of that ugly, cold, blue leather thing that wheeled the body away.

i tried to think of that guy being grateful. i mean, if he could have raised his voice in thanks before he passed, he probably whispered to his wife that he was happy to have her there. he probably thought of how he finally can have that needed “rest”. no more needles, no more tests, no more pain. no more uncertainties, no more frustrations, no more sadness.

it lightened my mood a little bit.

but still. it sucks that people die on a holiday.

not that it doesn’t suck when people die on a regular day.

it’s just that some turkeys can be pretty big and heavy, it is difficult to prepare it alone.

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Kim, a nurse for 28 years, blogs at Emergiblog, the life and times of an ER Nurse. She sums up the emergency nursing experience in this excerpt of her post, Emergency Nursing: It Is What It is:

Emergency nursing is:

… your fourth septic work-up on an elderly nursing home resident with automatic admit and 58% more paperwork.

… your fourth six-month-old-with-fever who smiles while you talk, at least until you go for the rectal temperature.

… the frantic parents of a newborn who aren’t sure about the difference between spitting-up and vomiting.

… telling a woman who is 14 weeks pregnant that there is no fetal heartbeat.

***
… knowing drug-seeking behavior when you see it.

… wanting to give the patient the benefit of the doubt.

… getting chewed out for the wait time by the patient with a stubbed baby toe.

… not being able to move fast enough to keep up with a GI bleeder.

… explaining for the bazillionth time why a fever is not dangerous.

… explaining to the parents why their child needs transferring to a pediatric facility.

***
… wishing your co-workers would move a little faster…

… and then pulling an extra shift so they are off for THE concert of the year.

… hating your job with a passion today and

… realizing you wouldn’t want to be doing anything else tomorrow.

… ending your shift with the feeling that maybe, just maybe, you made a difference to someone.

Emergency nursing.

It is what it is.

Many more links to nurse bloggers can be found on the blogroll at the bottom of Emergiblog's home page.

Grace Davis, Contributing Editor - Life
Personal Blog, State of Grace

Taking Tips from the Blogosphere

2007-10-10T03:10:02-05:00

We don't know everything. I, for one, don't know Jack. I don't even who Jack is. Shows how much I know. And, should my teenager encounter this post in her web surfing, she'll be nodding her head so hard and furiously that she'll whiplash as she taunts - "Yup, that's for sure. Mom doesn't know Jack." Well, good, there's something we can agree on.

Because I walk the planet guileless to so much, I depend on the kindness of bloggers who generously extend the wealth of their knowledge and the bounty of their opinions to the ill-informed such as me. Hence, I dedicate this entry to those wise women who share their rules of thumb, guidelines, counsel and recommendations. Let's hear it for those bloggers who give us tips!

We all love good tips, don't we? I'm especially fond of tips in a list format. Numbered or bulleted, it doesn't matter as long as I can rip the lists out of the magazine or print them out from the web so I can pop them on the refrigerator under a magnet.

The following bloggers offer enough tips to paper the entirety of my refrigerator door. A wealth and bounty of good advice, indeed:

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From another Grace! In her post, Listen Ladies...This is How it Is, this other Grace lends the world her advice on "moving to a new city with a guy, living with him, getting ditched, feeling lost, slowly recovering, learning how to make friends, growing sturdy survival legs, and moving on." A sampling from her hard earned wisdom:

1. Unless you’re okay with endless dating, don’t live with the boy. Get your own place.

2. Don’t devote your time to his every need. Examples: Don’t sacrifice happy hours with your coworkers to go to his work events.

3. Don’t get involved in his family drama. As a follow-up, pay close attention to the relationships within his family. If they don’t sit well with you, take that as a predictor of your future together.

4. Reserve chunks of your life for yourself, like drawing a line in the sand which he can’t cross over. The hard part? Really meaning it. If you pick up painting, don’t paint and think, “I wish I was with him on the couch in front of the T.V.”...

...15. Plan your life as if you were going to have to do it all alone. While this isn’t the best case scenario, it’s a contingency plan. Anything above that is gravy. As I’ve heard in a movie: “We come into this world alone and we die alone.”...

...19. Stop leaching off your parents. It’s one thing if you need a place to stay when something goes wrong, or if you’re between leases, but don’t depend on them to bail you out. Remember: live life like you’re doing it alone. It builds strong legs to stand on.
20. If your goal is to get married, raise a family, and move forward in developing your relationship with your significant other, share that from the outset of a relationship. Once it’s out there, stick to your guns and be ready to leave if your instinct tells you it’s not going to happen. This is why #15 is important. You’ll be more likely to survive a break up if you feel you can take care of yourself no matter what.

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British artist Kirsty Hall provides motivation and inspiration in her 10 Top Tips for Artists. This particular recommendation resonates for many women:

8: Make Art A Priority

You need to make a space for art in your life. If art isn’t a priority then it simply won’t get done and you’ll get to the end of another year wondering why you haven’t made any work.

I do know that it’s difficult: if you’re working another job to pay your bills or raising children, then finding time and energy to make art can be especially tough but you need to keep hold of the idea that you’re an artist, that it’s central to who you are and that you’re going to keep making work somehow.

You may need to work in the margins of the day - on your lunch break, on public transport, as you’re waiting for a meeting to start, while the kids are napping or when the rest of the household is asleep. When I worked in a hospital, I used to sketch the visitors to the canteen on my lunchbreak. I didn’t do it every day but I did it enough that it noticeably improved my drawing at a time when I had no access to life drawing classes. I know several writers who’ve written zines and even novels in spare minutes at work. Other artists find ways to incorporate their paid work into their art, perhaps by using it as the subject of their work.

It’s easy to think that you need vast swathes of time in order to be an artist but that’s not always the case: what you need is a steady and regular commitment. Yes, having lots of time can be great but it can also make you freeze. When I was at college I used to spend most of the day talking to people, pottering around the studio and drinking endless cups of tea and then in the last hour I’d finally get myself in gear and do some work. I’ve learnt that I tend to do much better with a limited amount of time and a deadline.

If you’ve got serious limitations to contend with, then another option is to temporarily alter your practice. If you can’t make sculpture because you don’t have the space, then maybe you can draw, if you can’t get access to printmaking equipment, then maybe you can do monoprints instead, if your oil paints are toxic to your toddler then switch to gouache. Don’t be afraid to explore the options - you’re an artist, you can surely come up with a creative solution.

When my son was small, I couldn’t even draw because if he woke up and threw me out of that creative zone, then I wanted to throw him out of the window! I decided this wasn’t an ideal frame of mind for parenting, so I switched to photography and writing - both forms I was able to pick up and put down much more easily - until he was older and I had more mental space. And let me tell you, I came out of that restricted period like a bat out of hell, I had so much stored up creative energy that it powered me for years.

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These gems are for audience members who want to pose a question to a speaker in the smartest and more effective way possible without stammering or breaking into hives. From author Gretchen Rubin, lawyer and creator of the blog and soon-to-be-book, The Happiness Project, here are some of the Ten tips for asking questions from the audience, plus a bonus Secret of Adulthood:

1. Wait for the microphone, if there is one.

2. Pause for silence – don’t talk over a chattering crowd.

3. Don’t make excuses for yourself. This is tiresome and unnecessary.

4. Don’t address speakers by their first names. Some people will disagree with me, I’m sure, but this always strikes me as affected and inappropriately familiar, unless the mood of the presentation is extremely casual.

As for that "bonus Secret of Adulthood"? It's a good one:

You know the situation when you’d like to talk to someone who is surrounded by chattering people—whether after a lecture or at a cocktail party? Here’s a Secret of Adulthood: In a group, it’s okay to stand next to a person, and just listen, while that person finishes a conversation, and in time, that person will turn to speak to you. Other people understand this. Other people do this. They won’t think you’re rude, or clueless. Yes, it feels awkward, but it works.

Ms. Rubin's blog features life tips every Wednesday. It's all part of her plan for The Happiness Project, "...a memoir about the year I spent test-driving every principle, tip, theory, and scientific study I could find, whether from Aristotle or St. Therese or Martin Seligman or Oprah. THE HAPPINESS PROJECT will gather these rules for living and report on what works and what doesn’t.

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Last, but hardly least, is an entire blog devoted to beauty and fashion advice for women and men of the cloth. Beauty Tips for Ministers - Because you're in the public eye, and God knows you need to look good. preaches the word of "the encouragement of self-care, the sharing of tips, and the celebration of shoes, lip gloss, fragranced shaving cream, and all of the other accoutrements of vanity which have hitherto been considered wholly unholy, and therefore generally discussed only in hushed whispers among the servants of the LORD."

Amen!

Blogger PeaceBang, a Unitarian Universalist minister, offers grooming and wardrobe tips beyond the clerical collar. And, the good reverend means business, from eye makeup:

The Maybelline waterproof liner has been a blessing these past humid summer Sundays when I would spend all day going from church service to church service, clapping, praying, singing my heart out, and sweating. I constantly feared a Tammy Faye Bakker (of blessed memory) situation, but this Maybelline stuff doesn’t budge no matter how damp I get.

To appropriate footwear:

No, you may not wear Crocs.
Not unless your title is Minister of Landscaping or Lead Pastor For Volleyball.

Repeat after me: “Shoes are not all about my personal comfort. Shoes are not all about my personal comfort. Shoes are not all about my personal comfort.”

And as I’ve said before, just because Jesus wore sandals everywhere doesn’t mean they’re appropriate for ministers. You aren’t Jesus.

And, of course, there are lists for days (maybe even 40 days and 40 nights?). A fine example - Rev. PeaceBang's general tips for Ministerial Attire:

4. Church going is an entirely voluntary option in today’s society. In most parts of the country, no one will look askance at you if you do not attend church. So clergy can no longer slide by assuming their and their congregation’s relevance to today’s world. If clergypeople believe their ministries are hip and relevant to today’s world, they should look hip and relevant. Even if you wear a collar, you should have a hair style of some kind, and there’s no need to persist with those aviator frames you bought in 1972 because they looked so good on Lee Majors or the guy on “Welcome Back, Kotter.”

5. If you wear a chalice necklace, there’s no need to wear chalice earrings. And vice versa.
P.S. Sticking a chalice around your neck does not mean you’re “dressed.” Did you shine your shoes? Are your pants appropriately hemmed? Did you check that your blouse isn’t gaping at the bosom? Are there sweat stains at your armpits? Have you asked anyone you trust if your perfume is too strong? Have you trimmed your beard and if necessary, your eyebrows? (Milo O’Shea can get away with crazy stickin’ out eyebrows. It just makes you look eccentric and distracts from your eyes). Have you cleaned your spectacles and gotten off the smudges? You know you were up ’til 3:00 a.m. working on your sermon. Your congregation shouldn’t be able to tell. That’s why God made ice packs and concealer (which works just as well on male skin as on female).

God bless PeaceBang.

And, God bless all of the tipsters.

Contributing Editor Grace Davis, collector of tips and refrigerator magnets, also writes on her personal blog, State of Grace.

Boomer Memories of Macrame and Mr. Ed

2007-09-26T14:32:25-05:00

Baby Boomers. We started showing up in 1945 and kept rolling off the conveyor belt until 1964. There's 78 million of us, 28% of the American population. We are a huge tribe. We are the target of marketeers. We are running for president. We are in your face. We are everywhere.

Everywhere except the blogosphere. At least, that's what I thought until recently.

I will admit to a case of myopia. I couldn't find many Boomer bloggers, but I really didn't try as I was already nestled in the comfort and community of the mommy blogs. I didn't care that I was one of the few 50 plus year old mothers ranting online about grounding my kid and fretting about her grades. The job of mothering is fundamentally the same for both toddler and teen wranglers. After all, the dynamic of toilet training and making sure the homework gets done consists of an identical teaching: Sit down and do it. Don't get up until you're completely finished.

The rigors of parenting requires solidarity and peer companionship, but my "real life" circle of friends were well beyond me when I had my Molly at age 36. Their kids were in high school while I was in labor with my daughter. Now, at this time in our lives, my Boomer sisters are luxuriating in their empty nests while I continue to wash and fold the Great Pyramid of laundry that only a teenage girl could generate. My Boomer sisters spend weekends hunting down antiques in quaint rural towns and my Saturday consists of hunching up in a chair at Abercrombie and Fitch and sticking my fingers in my ears because the music is cranked up louder than any of the concerts I attended at Winterland, one of which was an insane Rolling Stones show before the members of the bad boy band became clean and sober, (with the notable exception of Keith Richards who famously continues to eschew the clean and sober lifestyle).

But, any mention of a Winterland concert, or the Mod Squad or where you were when JFK was assassinated (I was in my third grade classroom and our teacher cried as she broke the news), flies over the heads of my beloved mommy bloggers. In turn, I am unable to participate with any intelligence in their detailed discussions of John Hughes movies, Scooby Doo and the horror your elementary school class felt when Space Shuttle Challenger exploded in the Florida sky.

Thus, we are presented with a great cultural divide - the Nostalgia Gap. The fact is, that Gap will never be crossed. So, as it's compelling to entertain our memories of pop culture and historical events, it's always a good deal to seek out our sisters of these shared experiences. For myself, I'm thrilled to encounter bloggers who knotted up macrame plant holders, remembers Ike and ponders, to this day, how they got Mr. Ed to move his equine mouth in conversation. (Some claim the crew stuck peanut butter in the horse-actor's oral cavity. Others will attest to the 'marionette' theory).

So, "Wiiilburrrrr", this is what I found:

Boston journalist Rhea Becker of The Boomer Chronicles mixes it up with a blend of Boomer news retirement advice, health tips, and sweet blasts from the past, like this pic and description of the Betty Crocker Cook Book for Boys and Girls, circa 1960. I know that cookbook. I coveted that cookbook. I would have crawled over crushed glass to get my hands on that cookbook.

An ode to that music-festival-thingy-from-a-long-time-ago and the changes in that particular community is one of the many fine offerings on The Wastrel Show. 'Boomer', describes the present-day Woodstock as nirvana for aging flower children:

I have found great peace and tranquility here. Plus a lower cost-of-living. When I first moved up here no one cared what car I drove, what clothes I wore, where I had been or where I was going. People just wanted to know ME and judged me on my own true, authentic self.

Except for the lower cost-of-living, this corner of earthly heaven sounds like my own hometown of Santa Cruz, California.

Ruchira Paul, founder of the group blog, Accidental Blogger, grew up in India. However, her university student experience was not unlike what was happening on American campuses in the 1960s:

Coming of age at the edge of those socially and politically turbulent times, my friends and I experienced from afar smatterings of what is now popularly called the Baby Boom culture in America...things were different but not entirely placid. Drugs and sex were not what most young people indulged in freely. But the domestic political scene was interesting and identification with global causes popular. Bus burnings, sit-ins, college closings and massive student-labor joint rallies were products of radical campus politics.

In her post, Fifty Years After Saul and Dean, Ruchira reviews one of the three essential spiritual guidebooks for Boomer youth, Jack Kerouac's On the Road. Though Ruchira's take on the novel is a negative one, her description of Kerouac's tale of post-World War II America as "self-conscious spontaneity, alcoholic insanity, brutal casualness" is part of what made 'On the Road' revolutionary, iconoclastic, and a cultural keepsake.

(The other two spiritual handbooks for Boomer youth according to your Elder/Midlife Contributing Editor - Be Here Now by Ram Dass and Hermann Hesse's Siddharthra. At least, that's what got me through growing up in the unenlightened suburbs.)

From a talking horse on TV to the beat poets of San Francisco. That pretty much summarizes the breadth of Boomer nostalgia. Makes me want to dab a little patchouli oil behind my ears.

Two more Boomer sites worth mentioning:

I Remember JFK Pretty much the repository of Boomer nostalgia in the blogosphere. Leisure suits and Radio Flyers, anyone?

Boomspeak This very nicely designed website "...offers original content that is FOR baby boomers and BY baby boomers."

Contributing Editor Grace Davis can recite all the lyrics from Joni Mitchell's Blue as well as the theme song from 'Green Acres'. Ms. Davis, born in 1955 and a proud member of Washington High School Class of 1973, also blogs at State of Grace.

Flickr Stories - True Tales and Snapshots

2007-09-20T16:17:10-05:00

I'm fond of taking pictures, but I am not a photographer. The noble endeavor of photography is an activity best avoided by non-arty philistines like me. I do, however, think of myself as an old school snapshot taker who loves to take pictures to tell a story. I am such an old school snapshot taker that I used to own and wield the lazy woman's snapshot machine, a Kodak Instamatic camera. Nothing fancy, everything was easy: Snap that E-Z loading film cartridge into the pocket sized Instamatic, aim, shoot, unload the cartridge, take it the drug store, pick up the snapshots one week later. And, woe to me if I forgot to order extra prints; Mom demands a set of pictures from the wedding, the baptism, and the vacation at Lake Tahoe ,and I will need to narrate each and every picture as she thumbs through the glossy photo stacks.

Digital cameras and Photoshop changed everything for this humble snapshot taker. With auto focus, it's still a simple matter of aiming and shooting, but now I can review the pics, like the moment the bride shoves cake into the groom’s mouth. I'd save that, but, if I'm feeling charitable, I could delete the pic where the groom blows frosting out of his nose. With Photoshop, this former Kodak Instamatic owner can mess with images like a 35 mm pro - deepening contrasts, messing with the dispersion of light, saturating colors and airbrushing away red eye and acne with just a click of the mouse. Finally, that trip to the drugstore is no longer necessary; we can print out as many copies our heart desires, including that obligatory set for Mom.

I started taking digital pictures at the same time I launched my personal blog. Nervously, I would insert one of my snapshots into a blog post, usually a safe subject like my kid and her friends throwing gang signs in their Halloween costumes. But, I would squirm with trepidation while clicking the publish button. I was actually showing the entire World Wide Web one of my photos, nay, a snapshot, of the kids throwing gang signs! These snapshots were once reserved only for my mother! Who do I think I am, a photographer? Poseur!

I didn't feel worthy treading into the photographers turf, a sacred ground where my snapshots would never qualify as a photograph. Real photographs consist of studies – the macro view of a flower’s stamens; the painstaking detail of a beaded Valentino gown; the solemn face of a Mexican child in her party dress. My snapshots do not have that singular, compelling power and they are certainly not statements. The pictures uploaded to my blog were included only as bits of illustration surrounded by text, like the "chapter books" we read as kids.

Then, like many online citizens in early 2005, I noticed flickr. Cool chick bloggers I admired like Heather Armstrong and Heather Champ - truly superb photographers, hardly snapshot takers - included rotating flickr galleries in the sidebars of their blogs. As a fairly new blogger, I wanted to embellish my site with all the new widgets, bells and whistles, so I dutifully signed up for a flickr account.

And, much to my delight, I discovered that flickr was teeming with snapshot takers and photographers who used their bandwidths to tell stories. Sometimes a story would be revealed in the captions of serial images. Or, one solitary image would provide the backdrop for a narrative. In some cases, flickr accounts take the role of a blog, with each uploaded image and description serving as a journal entry.

When I come across a great story, I save it in my flickr "favorites". Here are some gems from that collection:

From sakura's flickr photostream, a childhood memory comes alive. Sakura also blogs at the little things:

Reprinted here per terms of Creative Commons.

My first passport photo. My family moved to Canada from Japan in 1973? I remember the thunder storm and the turbulence in my first plane flight. The flight attendants were nice - I think they gave me some colouring books. Apparently I was scolded by my mother about wanting to take my favourite doll - there wasn't enough room. My mom feels guilty about that to this day... and I don't even remember that episode.

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The backstory behind a curious hem on a jeans skirt, explained in lively and poignant detail by writer Kate Musgrove:

Reprinted here with permission from the author/photographer. Access to the author's flickr photostream through flickr membership and request from Kate Musgrove only.

Okay, the story behind the skirt: I got it when I was sixteen. It was a normal, ankle-length denim skirt. When I was eighteen, I took it on vacation to the Hamptons with my best friend. I was working in a hospice at the time and a weekend in the Hamptons was this otherwordly, decadent experience with things like sushi (for the first time ever) and art galleries with actual Warhols and Steven Spielberg walking down the street. While we were away I lost my bathing suit. Lost! My bathing suit! On vacation in the Hamptons. I am so smart. I went wading anyway, just to be in the ocean, wearing my denim skirt and my white tank from Lands End. (It was the nineties. I was a hospice worker. All my clothes came from Lands End.)

A wave came up and tipped me over and I was soaked from head to toe. I took off my skirt, put on a towel, and found this Bible Camp playing volleyball down the beach. They had just finished grilling dinner. Perfect! I borrowed their hot grill and grilled my skirt until it was dry. And then I put it back on without my underpants, which were of course still wet, and which I was not willing to dry to the Bible Camp grill.

The next time I washed the skirt, holes appeared. They were where scorch marks from grilling had weakened the fabric. The only possible solution was to patch! Or, to take the Grand Tetons National Park fabric that I had picked up in Wyoming (my boyfriend lived there) and make sort of… hem on the skirt. A Grand Tetons National Park hem.

Ergo, the skirt. Ten years after I bought it, it still fits. My husband hates it with the fire of a thousand suns, because 1. It makes me look like a dirty hippie 2. The Wyoming fabric reminds him that lo, I did much “backpacking” with other men before we met and 3. It really is, in all honestly, hideously ugly. I almost never wear it.

I paired it with a black tee and a jade necklace. My best friend, the same one from the Hamptons trip, gave it to me for my twenty-fourth birthday when we were living on Martha’s Vineyard together. She was dying of cancer. Everyday we flew tiny planes back and forth between MV and Hyannis for her radiation treatments. It was such a quiet September.

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From Sashala, on the utter grief of losing a dear friend:

Reprinted here with permission of author/photographer.

It doesn't get any easier. Even after 17 years. She would have been 36 today. We should be having drinks and talking about the crazy things we did when we were young. I miss the life we should have had. I miss her so much.

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I "met" both Kate Musgrove of the above story about the jeans skirt and "Nanirolls" through Contributing Editor Susan Wagner's popular flickr group, The Working Closet. Participants post photos of their everyday ensembles and, though that may sound fairly humdrum, it's one of the funniest and liveliest groups on all of flickr. I took a look at Naniroll's other photos and found this picture of her childhood home:

Reprinted here with permission of author/photographer.

While I was on Long Island this weekend, visiting a friend, we drove to Rockville Centre. I lived in this house for the first eight years of my life (with exception of my first 6 months in Malverne). I marveled at how small everything seemed compared to the picture I've carried around in my mind, from the perspective of an eight year old. When I was eight, the backyard was gigantic but when I peeked over the fence, it was not the size of a small park as I remembered. (The new owners put a POOL back there! It seemed sad to me, sacrificing all that great space for a swimming pool, that gets used, at best, maybe 4 months a year.)

The house itself was white with green shutters back then, so I don't know how I feel about these "Martha Stewart" colors.

Nanirolls also added a very funny memory in a flickr "note" adjacent to the front door:

1985: My older sister and I watched Hurricane Gloria from this spot, until my mother caught on, yelled at us and dragged us back into the house.

**************************

Beyond my list of flickr favorites is a veritable universe of flickr storytelling. The group, Pictures with Stories, requiring a minimum five sentences of accompanying text, offers a wealth of sad, funny and just dang interesting true stories. Here's an excerpt from Andrea R's 'Meghan's Quilt', one of the groups' 11, 245 images/stories:

Reprinted here per terms of Creative Commons.

...Five years ago, when we moved here, I noticed that the seams were coming undone on the front, the back was worn, the stuffing loose where it wasn't bunched and the hastily folded corners poking out and dragging everywhere. After many years of being loved to death by a little girl, and many trips through the washer, it was showing its age...

More flickr storytelling groups:

My Story
"Post a photo and write a story to go with it...This group is not about 'the story is in the photograph'. Make your story at least a couple of paragraphs."

Tell That Story
"Pictures with history. Pictures that make you want to tell the story about why it's important to you. Pictures that JUST have to have a story told."

Ticket Stub and a Story
"Scans or photos of ticket stubs with a related story in the description or comments. Any kind of ticket, any story - long or short, funny, sad or inspiring in any language."

You can peruse these and other flickr groups without signing up, but getting a flickr basic account (with a limited amount of image storage) is free. Why not upload your snapshots and tell your stories?

Flickr addict and Contributing Editor/Life, Grace Davis, has demonstrated considerable improvement in her photography skills, but her favorite subject continues to be of her kid throwing gang signs.

Late Bloomer Jocks - Older Women Runners Train Hard and Run Fast

2007-09-12T04:23:29-05:00

Last month, our prolific and much admired Contributing Editor for Travel, the witty and lovely Pam Mandel, offered an opposing view in her comment to a blog post where I got all jiggy in extolling the virtues and benefits of aging.

I crowed: "...let go of your irrational fears of aging."

And, reminded readers of the obvious: "...aging is far superior and definitely preferable to its grim and final alternative."

Pam responded with her typical candor:

Having embarked upon the annual exams and suffered the requisite indignities, I vote no to aging...The brain works FINE, thank you very much, but the body? At the crest of the hill, she doth protest too much. I ain't saying there's not plenty of good living to be had, but oy, my back, knees, etc. amen.

I didn't comment on Pam's remarks because really, what could I say? The girlfriend has a point. My body, not unlike Pam's, is whining and bitching. She has lots to bitch about - bursitis in the left knee, a weird pulling sensation in the right hip, bad mojo in the lower back. My once strain-free body never experienced such maladies until turning 50 two years ago. And, because of these maladies, my body and I had to defer from running not only the 2006 New York City Marathon, but this year's race, as well.

In spite of the disappointment in missing the glorious New York City Marathon once again, hope springs eternal for this aging jock. I've eased back my running regimen considerably and I hope to get back to racing in 5Ks and 10Ks this winter. I've been working on strengthening my knee, hip and back with yoga and resistance training. I'm determined to give running another shot.

A recent article by Gina Kolata of the New York Times shined a ray of hope on my ambitions. The thesis of Kolata's piece, "See Jane Run. See Jane Run Faster and Faster", is that older (over 40) women runners are more focused in their training and many of these dedicated racers out-run their younger competitors. Kolata's observations:

Men, as might be expected, get slower as they age. At a recent five-kilometer race in Pine Beach, N.J....the fastest man was 24 years old and the men’s times increased with each five-year age group.

But the women were different — their times were all over the place with older women beating younger women in almost every age category. The fastest woman was 37 years old; the fastest woman in the 45 to 49 age group beat the fastest woman in the 20 to 24 and the 40 to 44 age groups.

The same thing happened in another five-kilometer local race, the Eden Family Run, in Princeton, N.J.

There, the top female runner in the 50 to 54 age group beat the top females in the 20 to 24, 25 to 29, and 40 to 44 age groups.

And it’s not just a New Jersey effect. Others have noticed it elsewhere and when I did a random check of race results in California, I saw it there too. On Aug. 8, in a 10-kilometer race in Alameda, the 53-year-old woman who won in the 50 to 54 age group was faster than the woman who won in the 25 to 29 group. A 38-year-old woman beat every other woman in the race.

What does this mean? Why are these middle aged women gliding past the 25 year olds?

When posing this question to experts, Kolata learned what might separate the mindset and abilities between younger and older runners:

(1) Many older women could care less if someone is watching them do their pre-workout stretching routines . However, such lunging and reaching may be inhibiting for some younger women:

Mary Wittenberg, president of New York Road Runners, thinks part of the answer is that most female runners shortchange themselves. Look at them before races she said. Men warm up and do strides, short runs to prepare to take off at the starting line. A lot of women hang back, often because they are embarrassed to be out there with the men, acting like determined athletes, Ms. Wittenberg said.

“They are too inhibited to put their full passion out there,” she said. “They are almost afraid to be serious about a sport. They think that if they’re not the best, they shouldn’t care so much.”

(2) The older female runner simply puts more into her training:

Ralph Vernacchia, who directs the Center for Performance Excellence at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Wash., has worked with elite runners including Olympians. And with elite runners, there is no question about competitive drive.

But with average runners, he said, older women may be faster because, oddly enough, they are trying harder than younger women and discovering for the first time what they are capable of.

(3) And, as Coach Vernacchia explains further, older female runners are perhaps more inspired by their athletic pursuits:

Most middle-aged women grew up when track and cross-country teams were for men only. Some of those women, who had no opportunity to race when they were young, are just learning to be athletes and are running faster than younger women who may not care as much.

He described the experience for women as “a kind of wakening, an epiphany.”

Sophie Speidel, a 44 year old ultramarathoner ("ultra" marathoners run on courses longer than the 26.2 miles of the traditional marathon), who just started her running blog,
Shining's Ultra Blog, recalled the NYTimes article upon completing the Virginia Happy Trails Running Club Women's Half-Marathon (WHM):

I was marveling at how fast the ladies in the 40-45 age group were (this is my age group, of course). I had just read this interesting article in the New York Times about women runners getting faster as they get older, and the WHM not only confirms the author's observations about speed, but also about embracing competition: when women are given opportunities to be competitive in a supportive environment like the WHM, they can shed their inhibitions about being passionate and can find physical, emotional, and spiritual energy they never knew previously.

However, commenters on the group blog, Mother Talkers, took issue with the article's premise that younger women don't try hard enough. From the post, Women Runners:

I don't buy the notion that younger women, who grew up in a post-Title IX world, would be so self-conscious. My theory is that younger women are in life-building mode. They are putting together a lifestyle, relationships and careers. They've got a lot going on and are less likely to focus on any one thing. Not that we older women don't have a lot going on, but our lives are more settled and it is easier to put ourselves into the single-minded training mode when we want to.

Asthanga practitioner, yogamum of yoga gumbo, also agrees that it's not about inhibition or a lack of rigorous training on the part of younger women, but that older women have identified and set their priorities:

The Times reporter suggests that perhaps younger women are too intimidated by the idea of setting goals and positioning themselves as an athlete to train as hard. Personally, none of the 20-something women I know seem to be intimidated by sports; I think it’s more likely that the 40-something women have gone through the process of winnowing down their attention and energies, and have decided that running is one of the things that really matters to them. It took me until my late 30’s to realize that it might be better to choose to do one or two things really well than to keep trying — and failing — to do it all. Maybe the same phenomenon applies to women runners.

I concur with yogamum - at this point in my life, I have narrowed my interests and participate in fewer physical endeavors, focusing on what I enjoy and do well. There was a time when I did try to do almost everything - wind surfing, SCUBA, rock and ice climbing, sailing, downhill and cross country skiing. My closets were heaving with sports equipment and every weekend I was away on some adventure.

I was also reckless as a younger athlete. I skied as if I had a death wish, schussing headlong down crevasses in the High Sierras. I trained for no more than two months for a race, but would still manage to finish with an easy 7-minute mile pace.

Both the gully skiing and 7-minute mile elude me in my 50s. And I don't trip over skis and SCUBA tanks in my storage areas. However, I now possess deeper concentration, awareness and even a sense of reverence when I put my physical abilities to the test. My sense of accomplishment in finishing a race is far greater and more precious than it was 25 years ago. It makes sense to me that if I integrate the focus and the inspiration, this would readily translate into harder training and, maybe, running past a few 30 year olds.

But first, I have to ice my knee.

*******************

I would be remiss if I did not mention two blogs of accomplished over-40 women athletes:

One of the greatest American rock climbers of all time and a hero of mine and many, the magnificent athlete Lynn Hill, writes an "expert" blog on rock climbing at the Saturn Motors site for weekend warriors, Detour.com. She covers a lot of ground, both on the vertical and horizontal planes, and reports on her climbs, the environment, her young son Owen, and women's issues.

Run...here...now is the beautiful ultramarathon blog from Sarah of Oregon, whose training and races I've followed since discovering her site last year. Sarah's photographs of her trail runs and races are vivid and stunning. She keeps her mileage stats on her sidebar and, at this writing, Sarah has run 1,329 miles this year.

That's a lot of miles. Pass that ice pack, again, would you?

Aging athlete Grace Davis runs, conducts a yoga practice, pumps a moderate amount of iron, wrangles a Jack Russell Terrier and mothers a teenager in Santa Cruz, California. She uses her personal blog, State of Grace as a repository for numerous complaints about exercise induced aches and pains as well as equally numerous parenting woes.

That Touch of Gray (it kinda suits you anyway)

2007-09-05T03:01:08-05:00

I have returned from our Cialis Holiday, as I described with plucky relish and perhaps a tad bit of "TMI" in my last post. My husband and I spent five days playing tourist in our hometurf of San Francisco, spending days and nights wandering, laughing, wining, dining and doing a mind boggling assortment of ooo-la-la stuff that, if I elaborated on said ooo-la-la stuff, our kids cringe in horror but Dr. Ruth would nod and grin in approval.

I will refrain from going on about the ooo-la-la. I will, however, tell you that while lounging with a cup of room service coffee and luxuriating in the hotel's thick and fluffy bathrobe, I read an article in the New York Times on an issue dear to my heart and one of great interest to hair colorists and feminists alike - the question of dyeing one's graying/gray hair.

God help us, they're calling this the Gray Wars, and here are the calls to battle from each camp:

I'm going gray because we can't let the beauty industry rule us! We must embrace our ever-evolving, natural selves! And, besides, those visits to the salon cost a pile of bucks, damn it!

- or -

We live in a culture that is brutal and dismissive to old people, why put up with that? Coloring over my gray helps me maintain an energetic and capable image at the workplace. And, the bottom line is that I look better as a blonde/brunette/redhead, damn it!

Bringing this debate up front and center is author Anne Kreamer, whose new book Going Gray, What I Learned About Beauty, Sex, Work, Motherhood, Authenticity And Everything Else That Matters was described by New York Times reporter Natasha Singer as "...partly a memoir of her addiction to and withdrawal from hair dye."

“It feels deeply liberating to be off the treadmill of ‘Oh God, I have to get my roots done again,’ ” said Ms. Kreamer...

...But the book is not another New Age paean to midlife self-acceptance.

At a time when more than half of American women ages 13 to 69 color their hair, Ms. Kreamer argues that hair dye is the great divide that separates those who are in denial about aging from those who embrace it. Dyed hair looks as artificial as a toupee, she concludes, whereas gray suggests candor.

“We have been brainwashed to think hair dye looks good,” Ms. Kreamer said... “I wanted to open up the conversation and get people to ask themselves why they are doing it.”

Heady stuff, and no, I couldn't resist the pun because the decision for a woman to let her hair go gray is a heady, exhilarating, daring act. I know this by experience. When I turned 45, I stopped my monthly trips to the salon and saved big bucks by foregoing the reddish-blonde highlights woven into my dark hair (I called this curious combination "blondasian"). I considered this an everyday feminist action and blogged about it last year, to the applause of my beloved readers.

But, my self-congratulatory blog post aside, it is a tough call, particularly for women in the workplace. Reporter Singer asked clients at Manhattan hair salons for their take:

(the) clients said they viewed coloring their grays as a means to maintain professional currency, attract romantic partners, mask their age, and, of course, express their inner blondes.

At the John Barrett Salon at Bergdorf Goodman, Marilyn Bevington, an investment adviser, had her gray roots touched up with light gold, a shade that recalled the natural blond of her youth.

“In New York, there is tremendous emphasis on being young and fresh, on keeping current and having your hands on the pulse of the market,” said Ms. Bevington, who declined to disclose her age. “Speaking of gray hair, a lot of young entrepreneurs would be much less apt to take advice from someone who looked like their mother or their grandmother.”

At the Warren-Tricomi Salon on West 57th Street, Jonelle Caro, a singing teacher from Fort Lee, N.J., also had her roots touched up with a bright blond.

“Gray hair? I hate it! I don’t think it does a thing for me,” said Ms. Caro, who is in her 50s. She recounted how some of her elementary school students recently complained to her that a gray-haired substitute teacher looked old. “The better you look, the better people relate to you, even children,” she said.

Women in politics appear to share the fear of graying. Author Kreamer's take on this appeared in the August 31, 2007 issue of Time Magazine:

Electoral politics is a professional area in which maturity and gravitas would seem to be among the most important attributes for the job. What better way for a woman who might otherwise be viewed as a girly lightweight to convey her experience than by having gray hair? Yet of the 16 female U.S. Senators — the highest number ever — who range in age from 46 to 74, not a single one has visible gray hair. Of the 70 female members of the House, only seven have gray hair. Political professionals say that the double standard is a great unspoken inequity but that candidates and officeholders don't dare publicly discuss it for fear of seeming trivial.

The late Ann Richards, the fabulously gray coiffed former Governor of Texas, explained this disconnect in an interview with Kreamer:

"You can't appear to be too flashy because it will send the wrong message, but at the same time, you need to appear energetic. The issue is much more significant for women because the hurdle is higher in our society. We're not sure what we want our [female] elected officials to be — mother, mistress or caretaker."

As to the matter of attracting that romantic partner, Author Kreamer, who is married, made her gray and not-gray self hypothetically available on dating site Match.com:

For my book, I decided to make myself a guinea pig and put gray hair vs. brown hair to the acid test on Match.com. I assumed that if I accurately reported my age and posted first a photo of myself with gray hair and then, three months later, the same image with brown hair, that the photo with brown hair would be deemed more attractive by more of the Match.com men.

I couldn't have been more wrong. Among Match.com-ers in New York City, Chicago and — most shocking of all — Los Angeles, three times as many men were interested in going out with me when my hair was gray as when it was dyed. This blew my mind. Maybe the men sensed that if I was being honest about the color of my hair, I'd be more accessible and easier to date. Or maybe the gray made me stand out from the overwhelming majority of Match.com women my age who color their hair.

Los Angeles! Who knew?

Anne Kreamer also writes a lively, well-read Health Expert Blog on Yahoo where she continues the dialogue and poses more questions. I am particularly enamored of her post, Aging and How to Have it Both Ways as it validates my generous use of bandwidth on my personal blog that I devote to the savagery of menopausal symptoms:

If we talk publicly and loudly about menopause, maybe it loses its cultural ick factor, and we validate our rite of passage.

But we also cannot bear to feel out of it. So we struggle to find our places in the lightning speed shifts within the techno-world. And while these two impulses - shout out to the world that we're getting older, and also trying to stay with it - might seem contradictory, they both are healthy ways to approach aging.

And now, BlogHer Readers, I would love to read your thoughts on, dare I say it, The Gray Wars:

Do you/do you not color over the gray? Why?

If you're not there yet, young nubile BlogHer Reader, do you think you will/will not hit the dye bottle when the gray shows up? Again, why?

***************************************

Grace Davis, who has been humming The Grateful Dead's "Touch of Gray" while writing this post, also blogs at State of Grace.

Do it in the morning, use lube: Elder and Midlife Sex Lives

2007-08-25T03:47:55-05:00

The past two months have been a bit rough. My father died and, if that wasn't awful enough, there was an ungodly amount of sturm und drang in the aftermath of his passing. As the once official black sheep of my family, I found myself in the role of the family moderator and peacekeeper, an ironic twist in the drama. I need not tell you, intelligent and wise BlogHer.org reader, that all of this would wear on the patience of the best of us, and that a break from the madness as well as the grief that sits heavy and aching in the core of the chaos, is necessary, if not required.

I attempted a solo getaway to a beautiful Zen Center/organic farm in Northern California. I was hoping to find the serenity of a silent retreat as eloquently described by Contributing Editor Mata H., but I experienced a wave of anxiety on the second day. It was clearly not the right time to be alone and I drove back to be with my husband, daughter, dog and, admitedly, to cheer myself with choice television viewing along the lines of The Colbert Report and Project Runway reruns.

Despite the healing powers of Stephen Colbert, I knew that a change of pace and scenery was still a helpful idea. Having witnessed my family's not-fun dysfunction, my husband agreed that a getaway was needed, so he took a look at his calendar, made a couple of calls, and happily announced that I should get on the 'net and look for cozy lodgings, maybe up in wine country.

Then, he went upstairs to the medicine cabinet, shook a bottle and issued another happy announcement -

"Oh, good! It looks like I have enough Cialis for our trip!"

Thus, we were off on our Cialis Holiday.

I suppose we could have called our little sex vacation something tame and cutesy like an Escape to Romance, or a Second Honeymoon, but in our 50s we've become rather blunt and matter-of-fact about our lusty marriage. I hasten to assure you that should you invite us to a dinner party at your lovely home, you need not worry that our conversational contributions would include a play-by-play of our latest romp, or our fondness for certain practices, some of which may or may not involve chocolate sauce.

However, I did let off some shout-outs about our gratifying sex life on the ever entertaining Twitter, the quasi-chat room where participants describe what they're up to in 140 characters or less. Our cozy lodgings, little cabins on the Russian River area of the Sonoma wine region, had no TV, phones or a trendy ipod dock, but it did have blazing fast wifi. We were enjoying a fine bottle of local vintage, so I couldn't help but do a little sharing on a series of 'Tweets':

"...hubs & I were testing out Cialis."

Silence on my Twitter homepage.

"I guess I just told Twitter the hubs and I are having a sex holiday. HELLO TWITTER, WE'RE 58 & 52 AND WE JUST HAD SEX. Thank you Cialis!"

To which someone who follows/subscribes to my Tweets remarked:

"@GraceD has also now told us hubs takes cialis, I'll bet he's craaaazy about this :-p"

(I interpret the :-p to indicate tongue hanging disapproval, perhaps an equivalent to a tsk, tsk.)

I replied:

"Hubs prefers I discuss Cialis rather than the valuation of his start-up or anything that would send the SEC to his company."

I read the discourse to the hubs who said, "Damn right I don't want you talking about the start-up."

He said nothing about the Cialis.

Why be squeamish about this? After all, there's a lot of us healthy mid-lifers and elders enjoying our sexuality, as verified by a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Fellow Twitterite and Contributing Editor Laurie White who noticed my unabashed Twitter commentary, kindly provided me with this link to a Washington Post article on these findings:

Many people maintain rich, active sex lives well into their 80s, according to the first detailed examination of sexuality among older Americans.

The nationally representative survey of more than 3,000 U.S. adults ages 57 to 85 found that more than half to three-quarters of those questioned remain sexually active, with a significant proportion engaging in frequent and varied sexual behavior.

"Older people value sexuality as an important part of life," said the researcher who led a major survey of more than 3,000 adults.
Sexual problems do increase with age, and the rate of sexual activity fades somewhat, the survey found. But interest in sex remains high and the frequency remains surprisingly stable among the physically able who are lucky enough to still have partners.

"There's a popular perception that older people aren't as interested in sex as younger people," said Stacy Tessler Lindau of the University of Chicago, who led the study, being published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. "Our study shows that's simply not true. Older people value sexuality as an important part of life."

Well, "duh" to all that, wrote archcrone of The Crone Speaks:

Why did it take a study to recognize that older folks have sex? Come on people, just because we age does not mean we stop doing things that feel good.

I realize that it’s hard to think of your parents and/or grandparents having sex, but that notion is totally unrealistic. In addition, the notion that sex is strictly for procreation is also a misnomer. Sex for humans is and always will occur for reasons other than procreation. Sex for bonding, caring, and just plain feels good should not be stifled, even into the golden years.

National treasure, sex therapist Ruth Westheimer, Ed.D., more famously and affectionately known as Dr. Ruth, agrees that it's all a big "duh" in an interview on MSNBC:

Q: The study released today says that even in one's 80s, if a man or a woman has a partner, a large number of people are still having sex. What do you think?

Dr. Ruth: I should hope so. Are you suprised? Older people have time, they actually have money, and if they are sexually literate, they listen to conversations like this and know to do it in the morning and not after a few drinks.

Q: In the mornings?
Dr. Ruth: In the mornings, testosterone level is highest. And for women after menopause, use a lubricant.

(writes note to self - "do it in the a.m.")

I was not at all surprised to find that too many of the blog posts linking to this study were filled with disdainful and horrified squeals of "eeuuuw" and "disgusting". Though lots of folks may shudder at thought of their grandparents' passion, it is ageist to assume that only the young and attractive are entitled to a sexual life. This study confirms that we must embrace the reality that significant and pleasurable sex is not - and never was - just for youth.

In the meantime, it looks like the hubs and I are going to spend a few leisurely days and nights in a swank San Francisco hotel next week. We promise not to set off any seismic activity on the San Andreas Fault. And, I will try to behave on Twitter. Or, maybe not.

Contributing Editor Grace Davis also lets her freak flag fly in State of Grace. Ms. Davis blogs and parents from her world headquarters - on the living room couch in her Santa Cruz, California home.

Elder Blogger Round-up

2007-08-11T05:47:48-05:00

Dear Young (under 50) 'uns,

Listen kids (assuring you that my use of 'kids' is a term of endearment, warmth and affection, rather than a dismissive, ageist reference), it's your Elder Blogger and cronemudgeon Grace Davis here, asking you to please let go of your irrational fears of aging.

Really. Give it up. It's a waste of energy and estrogen.

It's also a stressful preoccupation, that unnecessary psychic turmoil about "getting old". All this hand wringing is showing up on your blogs, creating traffic jams along the Super Information Highway with agonizing posts on the tragedy of deepening frown lines and that you're so ancient you can remember laser discs. My dears, when I read these laments, it's all I can do to keep from responding in your comment sections with the friendly but firm reminder that aging is far superior and definitely preferable to its grim and final alternative.

Perhaps what you require, my younger sisters, is inspiration and hope for the future. You could probably also use a swift kick-in-the-behind, and who better to execute that than the following women whose blogs and lives will make you feel that you can't wait until you turn 50. Or, 60. Or, 70 and beyond.

*********************************

NOT DEAD YET - The diary of an oldie who refuses to go quietly.
Now there's a blog title, most worthy of the all caps formatting. NOT DEAD YET is British blogger Judith Taylor's musings on "...thinking, feeling, learning and changing - oh yes, and about laughing; and it's about filling my life with new people and making each new day interesting."

Judith writes with disarming and charming candor, as in her response to a Q&A posted in May:

What is the favourite thing of each of your senses?

Sound: the sea or running water; morning birdsong;
Sight: green growth; country landscapes;
Smell: it’s a tossup between freshly baked bread and roasting meat;
Taste: halva; anything nutty, but it is halva which gets me eating
compulsively, in the way that I understand many people eat chocolate.
Touch: a man’s naked body against mine – at least I think so, but it’s been a long time!

Judith's initial focus of NOT DEAD YET was to lend her voice to the experience of aging. However, she found that her writing transcended age and time:

I started writing this blog 18 months ago under the banner of old age, because I too wanted to dispel the common perceptions of old people. But I have moved on since then, and I am beginning to wonder if I would do better to write as a woman of undeclared age, so that I should be seen purely for who I am, and not as a surprise or an exception to what people expect. Leo, one of my visitors, commented: "Congratulations for your blog and your age! you just seem a 30 old woman ;)" Doesn't that prove something?

*****

The kottke.org, for the rest of us - Ample Sanity- serves up wry wit and plentiful links to random and curious items of the arty/foodie/techy/game-y/musical/newsworthy variety. Ample Sanity is the blogchild of Annie, self-described "Baby-boomer, writer, humorist, (ex)actress. Current Industry: Non-Prophet. Blog+Portal=Blortal."

"Blortal". I like it.

What I like even more are Annie's morsels of observations and reports, often served alongside the links or in a single post. This particular snippet makes me long to drop by her house just to hang out, drink coffee and watch what happens:

I'm constantly doing weirdo things, which is why i'm always late to the blog party. And no, it's not a second childhood, smartypants. Still the first. This morning i was listening to music, played with a wooden catch-ball toy, whipped up some homemade tapioca pudding (which i dyed blue and sprinkled with nutmeg), and drew a picture of a mouse on a surfboard on the hallway wall (good wallpaint, washable fingerpaint). Sniffed a new tub of cosmic catnip for a bit. Makes BigFatKitty mighty laid-back but did squat for me. And i tried to make me a caftan from an old sheet. Looked like i was sporting a lop-sided pup tent. So tell me, what have you done lately to thwart routine?

*****

And, to dispel the highly erroneous myth that with age comes the end of adventure, I present my friend and blogger of Cousin Lucy's Spoon - Some kind of memoir from by an American-Israeli, Savtadotty who, in mid-life, left the familiar comforts of the States to live as a happy expatriate in Israel.

Savtadotty, a world traveler, mother to the wonderfu writer 'elswhere' of Travels in Booland, grandma to elswhere and her partner's precocious daughter and all around bubbe to the Internet was also a computer programmer for IBM in the 1960s. In other words, Savtadotty was a pioneer female tech geek, one of the few women of her time in the male dominated world of Big Blue and the nascent computer industry.

There is something homey, comfortable and slightly eccentric about Cousin Lucy's Spoon. Posts range from sketches of Savtadotty's every day life in Tel Avivto knitting projects and book reviews. In a recent entry, Savtadotty featured photographs of a teapot requiring a good scrubbing alongside doodlings of the "New Middle East". Savtadotty is quite certain that the dirty teapot and the volatile Middle East are "...two problems are somehow intertwined and will have to be solved together." Quirky, indeed, but Savtadotty probably has something to consider in that comparison.

*****************************

More kick-in-the-behind elder bloggers can be found at The Ageless Project, organized by jennett.webthings, where they believe that "the personal, creative side of the web is diverse and ageless".

Elder Bloggers Face Off with Facebook

2007-08-04T16:40:27-05:00

A couple of months ago, invitations from my blog friends to join wildly popular Facebook started showing up in my inbox. I wasn't particularly interested. At that point, I had successfully evaded immersion into these social network "gated communities" and was perfectly happy to stick with blogging, flickr and Twitter, elegantly simple and pleasurable Web 2.0 activities that amply met my social networking needs.

Then Facebook re-positioned itself as a venue for folks beyond college age, the original user demographic. Facebook homepages, less dazzling than its younger counterpart MySpace, offered a myriad of applications (enabling one to send a virtual gift, or become a Zombie, or share movie lists), taggable shared photo albums, and groups for everyone from knitters to skateboarders.

My interest was piqued ever so slightly when the Facebook invitations that were once trickling into my inbox grew to the proportions of a flood. It was clear that my pals were on to something, so I gave in. When the zeitgeist beckons, the modern woman might do well to heed its call.

However, the zeitgeist has a dark side, as Nicole Freydburg discovered while perusing Facebook in search of elder-related groups:

...since everyone I meet through work is over the age of 65, I thought I’d look for Interest Groups on Facebook who are similarly engaged with elders in work, life or love. I searched for “elder” and “elderly.” I thought I’d find other 20 and 30-somethings working with elders. What I found instead, was shocking. I found very few groups - maybe one or two, that were elder-friendly. Instead, I found what I would define as outright elder hate groups. Some were violent and repulsive in nature.

Nicole listed the titles and number of members of the hate groups.

Prepare to shudder:

Violent groups:
Kill the Elderly: 4 members
Fuck old people and their stupid grey hair: 4 members
Fuck old people: 24 members
F*CK** OLD PEOPLE: 107 members
Asking old people for a quarter then throwing it in there face…..hahaha!: 143 members
I Beat up old people: 53 members
I like to beat the living crap out of old people. (sic): 15 members
If this group reaches 2′000 people, i will push a old lady down the stiars: (sic) 164 members
OLD PEOPLE SHOULD JUST DIE: 19 members
I run over elderly people but pretend they’re deer: 39 members
CITIZENS PROMOTING COFFINS FOR SENIOR CITIZENS BEHIND THE WHEEL: 16 members
A Solution to the Problem of Old People and Young Kids: 46 members

Hate groups:
I Hate Old People: 305 members
I hate old people because…: 56 members
Federation against degenerate elderly citizens: 13 members
Old people are aliens under disguise: the very inconvenient truth: 28 members
Old people drive like they fuck: slow and sloppy: 9 members
Children and old people should probably go to hell: 43 members
Old People Make Me Want To Puke: 24 members
An Old Person Has Fought Me On At Least One Occasion: 159 members
Senior Citizens Can Kiss My ASS..! 66 members

But, wait - maybe the creators and members of these groups are just having a harmless little poke at grandma and grandpa?

Former BlogHer Contributing Editor, Ronni Bennett of Time Goes By (temporarily offline at this writing) emphatically disagrees. To demonstrate the blatant bigotry of these Facebook cliques, Ronni applied her Time Goes By/TGB Bias Test "wherein the words “women” or “blacks” are substituted for 'old people'":

1. Old People Make Me Want To Puke
2. Black people make me want to puke

1. old people in school should be taken into the quad and be tarred and feathered
2. women in school should be taken into the quad and be tarred and feathered

1. I like to beat the living crap out of old people
2. I like to beat the living crap out of black people

1. Ugh yeah old people are so gross
2. Ugh yeah black people are so gross

Poet Sharon Brogan of Watermark questioned her membership in Facebook once she read Ronni's and Nicole's posts:

These posts -- which identify 50 hate groups on Facebook -- not racist, or sexist, but ageist to the extreme -- are distressing, and persuasive. Facebook appears to be tolerating this. Can I participate in a service that not only hosts, but apparently condones by inaction, attitudes that are not only offensive to me, but personally threatening?

Ronni, who also pens posts as alter ego, 'Crabby Old Lady', did not hesitate to shut down her Facebook account:

Crabby Old Lady is ashamed and embarrassed to have allowed herself to be part of this website. She has sent her objections to the press email address and deactivated her Facebook account. (Full removal is not allowed.) It would be good if other elder Facebook members would write on their own blogs about the site's tolerance of ageist bigotry and join Crabby in canceling accounts and writing to Facebook.

I will join Ronni in writing a letter to Facebook management protesting the elder hate groups. These groups are in violation of their code of conduct as well as the bounds of human decency. However, I will keep my Facebook account in the "I'm here, I'm old, and I ain't goin' nowhere" spirit of another former BlogHer Contributing Editor, Jeanne Sessums:

Ronni is right that those groups are violating FaceBook's stated terms of service. I don't think leaving FaceBook is the best way to raise visibility--I think staying and representin' is a better way...

Only a Few More Days to Sign-up for the BlogHer On-Site Childcare Program

2007-07-10T17:35:13-05:00

BlogHer parents, there's only a few more days left to enroll your kiddos (infant to middle school age) in our wonderful and low-cost BlogHer Conference on-site childcare program. The last day for advance registration is this Friday, July 13.

There are few conferences that offer on-site, convenient and high quality childcare, as many of you know from attending industry and academic meetings and trade shows. BlogHer's mission to embrace all women bloggers with or without children, inspired a group of us to initiate last year's on-site program, which was a well attended, overwhelming success.

Our childcare program costs are minimal - only $50 for the 10 hour session each conference day. This low rate was made possible by the kind generosity of the following BlogHer sponsors:

PBS Parents

PBS PARENTS supports parents as they prepare their children for success in school and in life addressing the important aspects of kidsâ€™ early years, from their social and emotional development to the educational skills they need to learn. PBS PARENTS provides resources and details about PBS KIDS programs including curriculum goals, co-viewing tips, and activities to entertain and educate when the TV is turned off.

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For more information and to register for the BlogHer childcare program, please click here.

So Mighty, So Deadly, So Bershon

2007-03-23T23:35:58-05:00

Behold the perfect "Bershon", delivered with silent rage by Ms. Sarah Brown, circa early 1990s: "It was the last day of 8th grade, and my mother had the nerve to try and take my picture before I flounced out of the house with my yearbook and purse. This face says, 'GOD! I am WAY TOO BUSY having a mouthful of braces and a hot-rolled ponytail to smile for you, Mom! GOD!'"

I did it. You did it. We all did it.

Any female who grew up in Western Culture did it.

No doubt any female growing up in other cultures did it, perhaps under the cloak of their burqa or into the folds of their sari.

What did we do?

BERSHON, baby. We did Bershon.

The long time blogger and universally loved Sarah Brown deserves the credit and any academic citations for characterizing the look, the 'tude, the "Oh my GOD, do I HAVE TO?" mystique of Bershon. Though she did not coin the actual term (for which Sarah attributes to those "cool girls in middle school rolling their eyes and saying...like, ohmyGOD, whatever, Iâ€™m SO BERSHON." in her introduction to the flickr set, "I'm So Bershon"), it is Sarah's concise defintion in her estimable blog, Que Sera Sera that stands as the last word on the subject:

...the spirit of bershon is pretty much how you feel when youâ€™re 13 and your parents make you wear a Christmas sweatshirt and then pose for a family picture, and you could not possibly summon one more ounce of disgust, but youâ€™re also way too cool to really even DEAL with it, so you just make this face like you smelled something bad and sort of roll your eyes and seethe in a put-out manner.

Christmas sweatshirt. Two simple words that, when combined, has the power to trigger those ugly flashbacks of posing unwillingly for the family holiday picture.

But, you fought back. You were determined to ruin that Kodak moment for time immemorial. So, you deployed the bitter adolescent's most powerful weapon, that poison dart of youth's contempt, the Bershon:

Classic Bershon deftly executed by a young Eden Marriott Kennedy of fussy fame. Note the jaunty Fair Isle sweater, first cousin to the dreaded "Christmas sweatshirt".

Sarah's three year old blog post continues to serve as the universal reference point for all matters Bershon. A Technorati search of this post reveals a bounty of Bershon related links and its vast teenage wasteland of bloggers in their permed hair youth sneering at you from scanned portraits of sullen glares.

As my editorial duty to BlogHer readers, I plunged into the icy waters of the Bershon blogosphere and surfaced bearing these chilly specimens:

I actually sucked in my breath and shuddered involuntarily when I encountered the adolescent Alice Bradley in this quintessential beaut of a Bershon, revealed in a recent finslippy post. It looks like a lovely summer day in that pic, but Alice's frosty countenance says, "Baby, it's cold outside."

The always awesome graduation shot, complete with the Bershon stare-down in its full flower. The disdain is palpable. A worthy contribution to the genre by Tracie of the hysterically funny emotionaltoothpaste ("Once it's out, there's no getting back in the tube.")

Watch out! Updo and date (with eyes closed!) coming at you via the obligatory pre-prom photo op! This truly killer Bershon was culled from the flickr photostream of blogger Heather L. Hunter/This Fish Needs a Bicycle. Pondered Heather of this occasion du Bershon: "I don't know why I look so unhappy... I mean, who with such a hairdo could be anything but thrilled?"

I agree wholeheartedly with BlogHer stalwart Mary Tsao that Bershon can appear as early as pre-school. Here's Mary's daughter Emily, giving Bershon x 6. That's a lot of attitude, and she's only three.

Finally, my 15 year old daughter Molly continuing the proud tradition of Bershon into the 21st century. While the rest of the group chats merrily on the blanket, Molly avoids eye contact, my camera's lens, and pretty much anything to do with our beach party. She just doesn't want to be there. Now, that's Bershon.

And so, BlogHers, what of your Bershon past? Where are your Christmas sweatshirt/junior prom/high school graduation/candid snapshots of Bershon gloom? Share the misery and post those "ohmyGod MOM!" portraits. You'll have plenty of company.