A couple of rants about mess.

Down to my last nerve. How about you? WSG 68

Death at the Grocery Store

The painting above is called “Death at the Grocery Store.” I think the general feel of the piece conveys how I feel this time of year. I did a series of them a few years ago. Having grown up adoring the work of B Kliban, George Booth and Gary Larson my sense of funny is greatly affected by them. These were the bathroom reads in my house. I do my own drawings of women’s lives from an absurdist point of view. Click HERE to see some of them and Here to read the writing I did to accompany the drawings years ago. They aren’t in any order anymore but I really crack myself up when I do these. As my mother says, I “love my own material.” I do.

Onward

Rant # 1: Get thee to an office…

I don’t mean to point fingers. I honestly don’t. But, I hear a lot about the lives of young workers from friends who parent them and it isn’t all rosy.

I was chatting with a friend yesterday who has a second home in a very nice location. She has two kids in their mid to late twenties who love to come and “work” from her beach home for the Summer. And she’s glad! Generally. But, is she? Are we? Glad when a bunch of kids come into our super clean, peri/post menopausal homes and act as they did in high school despite being 25? For a week? Sure! But for the Summer…?

Not long ago, everyone had to work in an office five days a week. As newbies we got weekends off and drove insane numbers of hours to get to a gross share at a beach. My friend and I were remembering our early twenties jobs with a smile.

We dressed in our little Anne Taylor suits we got on sale. The two inch heals and stockings in which we walked to work, took the train, taxis were too expensive. No one wore a back pack then, unless you were a bike currier. We had “brief cases.” It’s kind of funny to think how cumbersome they were. Large, leather, hard rectangles with handles and a long strap that you put on one shoulder full of who knows what because we didn’t have lap tops or phones (and the laptops weighed fifteen pounds) and we weren’t important enough to have “papers.” Between the heels and the shoulder strap it’s amazing we aren’t all crippled. I also had a little tote bag that I carried my “work out” stuff in for after work (sneakers wouldn’t fit in the brief case). I went to a super gnarly basement level industrial fitness factory. After I worked out, I showered, changed and met friends, or, ran home to watch something on TV that I wouldn’t be able to see again because that was the way TV worked.

Was a lack of choice a good thing? Remember when the TV would actually stop for the night? And you had to either read or go to bed? Nothing ever stops now. Good or bad? Please share!

As a young twenty something, working in an office you had colleagues you saw every day, all day. Your work colleagues were also your after work friends. So, they were your friends, in general. You really did talk to people “around the water cooler” at work. You really did go out to lunch together and sit in a park and see other people your age doing the same thing. You might have found your soul mate at work. You went out to fun bars on a whim together. Most importantly, you were surrounded by people you didn’t choose to be around. You had to deal with people of all kinds and learn to work with them. But like the news media today, you can choose with whom you spend face to face time, if you work remotely. This is not actually a good thing for anyone, long term. Finally, you do not see YOUR BOSS or any other higher ups on a day to day basis, working remotely. To get ahead, kissing up to the boss can be key! And, to get noticed, it helps to be physically near the boss, not at your parent’s on the Cape.

All this stating the obvious is leading to my plea: go back to work, youngsters. Don’t live like you’re retired. Save that for when you actually do retire! Yes, it totally sucks not to be able to call your own shots on a daily basis. But, that is what getting more senior does for you and the freedom is that much sweeter. Go play with your friends and learn from your bosses who seem to be asking you to get your butts back to work. And leave your parent’s summer house. It’s hard to meet the love of your life if you’re sequestered with the same group of people you have been with since COVID began (and are related to). Capiche?

Rant #2: Summer Crapping Extreme, or, SCE

One of my daughters told me it was super lame to be talking about this again. Is it? Probably. But, I’m writing what I know and what I know is that the following is happening…..I want you to send me your pics so I can put them on Instagram…they are funny to see.

Remember when I was writing about cleaning the girls’ rooms as a gesture of love and respect an edition back or so? WSG 65. I think the visual above says it all. Ain’t it the truth?

I love having my girls back. They are fun and full of energy and bring friends into our quiet realm. Now that they are old enough to trust to shut the door properly at night, feed themselves, put the dishes in the dishwasher, get groceries, cook etc. It’s easier to go about our business. BUT. But. I do believe the crapping of the house at school’s end creates a stress on parents that doesn’t have to be. SCE (Summer Crapping Extreme) is a plague that affects parents in the years when their offspring have to bring Every. Single. Thing. They ever schlepped to school, or their first apartment home with them and into your dining room.

To be fair, no one is really using the dining room anyway, and it’s cheaper than paying for a storage facility. But, the cost on your psyche, is big. The agony of seeing the one room in your house that stays tidy, desecrated with tons of student/recent grad- detritus. It hurts. And, no one cares.

Is there a way to fix this? Not really. I’m curious: Parents of older kids, out of college…when do you clean most of the kid stuff out of the house and they stop bringing piles of it home?

Parents of older kids, out of college…when do you clean most of the kid stuff out of the house and they stop bringing piles of it home?

I wonder.

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The painting at the start was one of mine in a “Death in the Grocery Store” series. Send me an email if you are interested in a print or original! womenssurvivalguide@gmail.com

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That’s all for now..very soon I’ll have new interviews! Rose Prieto is coming back to do an update on all the skin treatments that a lot of us do not understand. She will spell it all out for us! Please send me any questions you may have for her!

Please let me know if there is a topic you would like me to cover OR, if you have a topic for me to interview you about! I do anonymous interviews about sensitive subjects, if preferred. womenssurvivalguide@gmail.com