Authors Electric

 Just before the pandemic (the 2020s, to clarify for when I beocme nothing but a blip in history), we sought a better situation for our daughter and enrolled her in a private school. Moving from a class of 30 to one of 12 transformed her academics, though it strained our finances. Among her new classmates was an unexpected addition—a guinea pig named Miss Addie. The school asked for volunteers to care for Addie over Christmas break, and we eagerly stepped in. Addie and I bonded instantly (I’m a self-proclaimed pet whisperer), and when it came time to return her, I delayed by almost a week, because I just couldn't! I mean, look at those lovely, soulful, pink eyes! Pink! When the pandemic closed the school in March, they asked me to take her in again. By May, the school announced its closure (lack of funds... and at 1500/month, in a rural farm area, I understood why), and Addie became a permanent part of our family. During lockdown, my daughter discovered, through taking a guinea pig...

  In high school I remember that the boys seemed interested in girls, but that what seemed important to them was that there was a girl, there, for them, but not so much which particular one, or the permanence of it. The girls I knew were certainly different from that. What mattered to my female friends, and to me too, was yes, there must be a boy, but it must be a specific one, and never changing. What often happened was that girls did things they weren’t very interested in doing, like watching college football, or waited around doing nothing, just in case the guy wanted to hang out. In that time and place, and under those differing expectations, I think that the boys were generally happier than the girls. And wasn't it the same in our homes? We all had what you would reasonably describe as good fathers, but, to a man, they went off on most weekends to do their men things with other men. Sons, of a certain age, could sometimes go too, but the daughters and wives were left at home. ...

I am a new blogger here at Authors Electric (welcome, me!) and I was going over and  over  what to write to you for my first post. So, you should  know  a teensy bit about me, because  why am I even here? One thing people find out about me fairly quickly is my tendency to be tangential. So let me tell you about  my mother’s friend, Nancy. Nancy worked as a telephone operator (Directory Assistance 411 in the USA) in Upper Darby, right on the edge of Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania. Nancy was married to Bud, a blue collar guy. My mom was "from the 50s." Nancy was probably "from the 40s," so she'd never learned to drive. Bud would drive her to work, or my mom (also a telephone operator) would. But sometimes it just didn't work out, and, finally, Bud said Nancy had to learn how to drive. Nancy was in her mid-fifties then. And she did learn how to drive, but she was terrified of making left turns, so she only turned right, meaning that she’d drive a...