My friend, let’s call her GeGe because she’s trying to wean her grandchildren from calling her Granny, and I , a proud, strong, very very astonishingly young looking MeMaw, like to step out and have a couple. two, tree. This ,in her husband’s Bronx accent, means havin’ a tipple or two. Her husband is not from the Bronx, and that doesn’t even matter. All that matters is we get our regular Heckle and Jeckle stools, ergonomically correct for my right and her left handed ways. >
Happy Early Hour
May 11th, 2010Virginia ( ! ) Homes
April 28th, 2010
Virginia Homes was not named for Virginia Woolf. The building company was originally named for a lovely local lady named Virginia, quite a few years ago. I visited Charles E. Ruma, president of Virginia Homes, because I heard about a big step they had taken in the right direction.
Remember how angry I told you I got at HGTV’s House Hunters in my first blog here? Virginia Homes has appeased me a bit.
BIG NEWS
April 26th, 2010Sorry to yell,but I am excited to tell you that today my blog, Designated Daughter, has been launched by WomansDay.com
Check it out here ( please), and often, and p.s. please tell a friend.
http://dailywd.womansday.com/
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, I will be there.
And here of course!! I have some interesting news on the solitude front to share with [...]
You CAN try this at home
April 18th, 2010
I saw this story in the New York Times. Maybe some of you saw it, too.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/garden/15alone.html
The story is about seeking isolation and going to great lengths to find it. Kind of the Eat, Pray, Love of the survivalist set.
Late-Breaking Tee Shirt
April 14th, 2010
What an inopportune moment to find in my spring clothes of yore, a West Coast Choppers, Jesse’s Girl ( as in James) red rhinestone – studded tee shirt. With a skull.
Secret Taboo
April 13th, 2010
Coveting time alone can feel like the last taboo. It is a hunger we are reluctant to acknowledge, except maybe to each other, whispering furtively on the phone . Some married women admit to liking a night to themselves as if it were a sexual deviancy. A woman whose husband travels a lot exclaims, ”You can have cereal for dinner if you want!” I heard a women say that she claps her hands when she comes home to an empty house. Even little girls understand. A friend read Goldilocks and the Three Bears to her daughter who then asked what was wrong with the bears.
“ I mean who barges in like that?” she said.
The Picture Book of Working Breeds
April 12th, 2010
My preference for time alone has been so persistent I think of it as a pre-existing condition that has utterly shaped my life. I acknowledge that I am an extreme case, if only from this memory. I can’t believe that I can think back fifty years about anything, but I can and here’s what I see.
I am eight, maybe nine years old. I am awaiting the mail in my plum-colored bedroom, wondering if this, at last, would be the day. The day the first issue of my first magazine subscription would come. My subscription to Dog World.
Speaking of Dylan
April 2nd, 2010In The Ballad of Frankie Lee And Judas Priest, Bob Dylan wrote:
He just stood there staring
At that big house as bright as any sun,
With four and twenty windows
And a woman’s face in ev’ry one.
I think Dylan meant a whorehouse. But to me the big, bright house is an apartment building, and [...]
Except I mean more than that about solitude
April 1st, 2010Solitude comes in different shapes and sizes. I use the word to mean many things. It is not always about being single; it is not always about living alone. The solitude / privacy / space/ time I am talking about is the minute to yourself or the hour to yourself, the day to yourself or [...]
The Big, Big Question
April 1st, 2010This is the question I ask of you, as I tell my own story.
Over 80 years ago, Virginia Woolf introduced this daring concept : A Woman Needs Time Alone.
Here we are, in 2010, many complicated generations later. How do we fulfill that need amidst all the clamoring others?