Continued Confeeions
what is a body to do
It’s Thursday morning, so I am self-obligated to write here on Substack. I’m beginning to wonder, though, whether I have anything relevant left to say. Every time I turn around some part of my technology is updating for some unknown reason. Then I have to adjust to whatever so-called improvements have been made. Honestly, could we please just leave well enough alone?
And with that out of the way, I must give the publication details of the Eudora Welty book I so enjoyed. It is entitled One Writer’s Beginnings and it is a compilation of three lectures which she gave at Harvard University in April of 1983. Her talk was part of “The William E. Massey Sr. Lectures in the History of American Civilization” and the book was published in 1984 by the Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England. I learned also that Eudora had a lengthy correspondence with the author Ross Macdonald (which is a pen name by the way), and I have sent for their collected letters. I’m looking forward to reading that soon.
In light of current events, I must continue to share that we have been fighting for equal rights for all of my life. And I mean everyone except white men. My first foray into purchasing property was stymied until I proved that my husband at the time had no objection—at least that’s how I remember it. I’m not totally sure of the details because I believe that I finally did get a mortgage in my name. But honestly, I am becoming more and more furious if I go down memory lane and realize that certain obnoxious insecure men are attempting to undo all of the gains society has made. And what on earth does giving of A’s at Harvard have to do with putting food on the table for people living paycheck to paycheck? Full disclosure, I am a great believer in education of all kinds—did you know that there is the New England Laborers’ Academy here in Pomfret, Connecticut, which is a vocational training center for the construction industry, operated by the New England Laborers’ Trust Fund. I wonder whether the children of those proud graduates will be considered nepo babies if they choose to attend?
Anyway, I’m rambling on. Thank you to everyone who wished me better health after my last post, but honestly I wrote it only to describe my connection to NYU Langone. If I spent my time documenting all the things that seem to require attention, I’d never talk about anything else. I just had a flash of a beautiful classic car and all the loving attention it requires to restore and maintain it. Thank goodness for all who love me and care for me with words and deeds (and occasional cash infusions as I attempt to maintain my hedges and the rest of my garden). And now I have to enjoy my print newspaper with extra tenderness because I was reduced to online only over the weekend. Changes like that make one appreciate all the more what we still have, such as a home-delivered actual paper and my print version of The New Yorker. Small mercies indeed.
RESIST ALWAYS
TTFN
I "read" you loud and clear!! Tech that does a face plant (and when it does work, you have to figure out how it actually works, since reality differs so widely from what the vendor offers for instructions!) is one of the banes of my own life. It's not 'cuz I'm an old geezer, it's the tech that's screwed up I tell ya!
They *could* maintain current device settings when they do those upgrades. Enough people have surely complained about it. That they don’t tells me that they don’t want to. Have you noticed font sizes, particularly announcements, business letters and the like, have gotten smaller? I can’t process tiny font, so I’m glad to be able to use a device to adjust font and switch to white on black. My preference though is slightly large print on paper with audio alongside.
As for the lifelong fight for equality, right on. I think people don’t remember that it was in our lifetimes that married women couldn’t have money or make investment transactions independently. If the SAVE Act passes or if MAGA continues post-Trump (“post-Trump,” doesn’t that sound good?,) Sisyphus’ rock will be in free fall. It’s sad to me that people continue to not see how oppression ripples out to include everyone. If indirectly, eventually directly. Even the final white cis straight man on the hill.