A Pandemic Thanksgiving Memorial
A Pandemic Thanksgiving Memorial My mother died on Pandemic Thanksgiving. She spent the last two years of her life in hospice, in a nursing home, and most of the last year of her life cut off from family and visitors. She did not die of the virus. She was blessed to have care staff who […]
Forever 51 The Menopausal Vampire
Forever 51 The Menopausal Vampire I ran across the new vampire novel Forever 51 The Menopausal Vampire in a list of newly published books online. I’ve now had hot flashes for a quarter of a century, so of course I was intrigued by the premise of a vampire in eternal menopause. What would a menopausal woman […]
A Week of Nobel Queens
A Week of Nobel Queens What a week for older women! Poet Louise Gluck, 77, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature “for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal.” Gluck is a professor at Yale who previously won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. Her lifetime of […]
Who Says Erotica is Porn?
Who Says Erotica is Porn? I got into a minor spat with a romance writer one day. She was talking online about how much writing romance means to her as an older woman, which I totally understand. Just like writing erotica, writing romance for older women has that wonderful ability to bring our stories to […]
Ubuntu – I Am Because We Are
Ubuntu – I Am Because We Are After six months of pandemic, it’s clear that this strange time exacerbates fear and brings out the human tendency to distance ourselves, to label one another as “Other”. It is easy to see when a group I belong to is labeled Other. When the health risks to older […]
Life in the Third Act with Plague
Life in the Third Act with Plague. What it’s like to get what you want in a pandemic I recently read a fabulous article [registration required] by Caitlin Moran with the subtitle “Goodbye, nice, jolly, happy Caitlin. Hello, angry Caitlin.” Moran’s premise is that women spend most of our adult lives drunk on a biochemical cocktail […]
