Could You Repeat That?

etc., family, health, humor, ,

It’s been said that when a couple is old, their primary form of communication is being in separate rooms, yelling “What? What?” a lot. My husband and I do it multiple times a day. So, yes, we are old.

We’ve determined that Dan needs hearing aids. (I probably don’t. Since Dan can’t hear well, he talks softly, imagining that he’s speaking loudly enough and that the other person can hear him. I can’t. But I digress.)

Years ago, he had a hearing test that said his hearing banana is rotten enough to be covered with fruit flies. Since then, he has struggled along until we reached the “What? What?” phase. (The “hearing banana” is a measure of your ability to hear. Your results on a graph look something like a banana. Where the banana is located determines which pitch of sounds—high, low, or medium—are problems for you. Dan had trouble with midrange sounds. But I digress again.)

Now that his hearing is a bad banana with a greasy, black peel, I began shopping around online for hearing aids. And let me tell you, there are many different brands and kinds available. All sorts of price ranges, too, from $99 to nearly $2000.

Shopping online is one of my family responsibilities. I know enough not to pay attention to the ads that say a product is a fabulous innovation at a low, low price. Even online reviews are iffy. Some companies invent their own comparison sites and rate their own products highly. Eventually, I decided to buy a subscription to Consumer Reports. I figured that the savings on the hearing aids alone would make the cost worth it.

The Consumer Reports article on OTC hearing aids didn’t even rate the $99 ones. There was a large chart that compared the choices in different categories. (I once had a job that required proofreading large charts. We had to print them in sections and tape them to a wall. Then one person read from the manuscript and the other checked the printout. It was beyond tedious, especially all the yes/no columns. But I digress yet again.)

The device (devices?) I chose cost $250 and had pretty good ratings. They included features I liked, like a rechargeable recharging case (if you can follow that) and different-size “cups” to accommodate fat and skinny ear canals. (There were also features I ignored, like the ability to control the devices from your smartphone. Dan uses his for phone calls from exactly two people (me and his mother). But I digress some more.)

Dan won’t even look older because of wearing the hearing aids. The little piece that goes behind the ear, and indeed the piece that goes in the ear, will be pretty much invisible. With Dan’s more-than-ample locks of Jerry-Garcia-like gray hair, they will be completely hidden from view.

The hearing aids won’t be delivered until the end of the week, so it remains to be seen—or rather, heard—what effects they will have on both Dan’s hearing and our relationship. I know I won’t miss the shouting from room to room or having TV shows set to window-rattling volume. Those are my goals—not to restore Dan’s hearing to preadolescent levels, before he started going to large rock concerts and cranking the sound on his stereo to 11 and yanking off the knob, but to cut down on the yelling from room to room. Our cat seems to have gotten used to the cacophony, but I worry about his sensitive ears. The cat, at least, has a fine hearing banana.

On the other hand, I most likely won’t be able to sneak snacks without Dan hearing me rattling the packages. This will lead to a more equitable distribution of cookies, of course, but every advance has its drawbacks, and I suppose it is simply one of the sacrifices I must make.

My Journey Through the Vast Wasteland

books, cooking, etc., food, humor, television, , , ,

I used to read a lot of books. I still read more than the average or even above-average American (though that’s not saying much). But increasingly, I’ve been journeying through what F.C.C. chair Newton N. Minow in 1961 called the “vast wasteland” of television. It’s only gotten vaster and waste-ier.

I’m not going to hold up my TV viewing habits as lofty and noble. What I watch is easily scoffed at, and you may do so if you choose. If you do so quietly, that is. I don’t need to hear how I’m disgracing my two English degrees. Think of it as my “Dare to Be Shallow” phase.

Reruns

These shows are what I call my “comfort shows.” Sometimes I actually watch them. More often, I just have them on in the background while I write. I think of them as my “emotional support noise.” (My mother used to do this too when she lived alone after my father’s death. She put on baseball games, but didn’t watch them. I’m not sure what she did after baseball season was over. Game shows, I think. But I digress.)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I’ve already seen every episode dozens of times, so I don’t have to actually watch them, just glance over when a particularly interesting bit comes on, like the musical episode. (Oddly, my husband got me hooked on Buffy. I don’t know why he was hooked on it. But I digress some more.)

Forged in Fire. I like competition shows where the contestants actually make or do something. On Forged in Fire, they make knives and swords from scratch (or scrap). I can even put up with Project Runway. But cooking competitions are my go-tos: Chopped, 24 in 24, Top Chef, and such. (I never make any of the recipes—except once when I made Ina Garten’s Triple Ginger Cookies, as I’m a ginger freak. But I digress yet again).

Medical, legal, or medico-legal shows. House. Bones. Forensic Files. Mystery Diagnosis, Monsters Inside Me, and Dr. Pimple Popper (another show hubby got me hooked on).

Science fiction series. Star Trek, of course. Firefly, even though there are few episodes. And Babylon 5, which is eerily relevant even now. (See the “Nightwatch” episodes if you don’t believe me. But I digress even more.)

New-to-Me Shows

Recently, I was burned out on the shows I was watching and needed something new, so I asked a dear friend for recommendations. (We used to watch Simon & Simon, Magnum, P.I., and MacGyver together, back in the day. Simon & Simon was particularly good, as we each lusted after a different Simon. But I digress still more.)

My friend recommended Will Trent, High Potential, The Rookie, Matlock, Elsbeth, and Sheriff Country, which, alas, I had to explain to my husband as “Inara in khaki.” Unfortunately, these are all shows that, while I like them extremely well, have only one season or so. I have to wait months now for new episodes.

Dexter and NCIS are shows I’ve never seen before. NCIS, at least, has plenty of seasons, so I don’t expect to get caught up on it any time soon. (Dexter is particularly interesting, in that he kills people who kill people because killing people is wrong. But I digress yet again.)

One new-to-me show that I tried to watch for a little comic relief was How I Met Your Mother. I had to stop watching it, though. After the first season or two, it became “All About Barney,” and he’s such a misogynist-sleazebag-horndog that I can’t bring myself to watch.

(Let’s not even talk about my husband’s viewing habits. Suffice it to say that when I go to bed, I have to remind him not to watch the S&E Channel (Screaming-and-Explosions). And that’s enough digressions for one week.)

Where Do Novels Go to Die?

books, etc., humor, literature, writing,

“The last day of ten-year-old Nicky Fontaine’s life was nothing special.”

That was the first line of a mystery novel I once wrote. I thought it was a damn fine first line, but apparently the next line and the next and the next and so on weren’t. It was a book about death that was fated for death itself.

(It was the second time I had tried to write a mystery novel. The first one I wrote mostly in order to kill off My Rotten Ex-Boyfriend Who Almost Ruined My Life. I figured if that didn’t satisfy me, I could kill him again in a sequel. There never got to be a sequel. There never even got to be a novel. It was written for the desk drawer, as they say—really a file folder in a computer that died, too. But I digress.)

The mystery manuscript I quoted above, titled Cold as Stone, died in an extended, spectacular fashion. I worked on that novel on and off for a couple of years, alternating between spells of despair and rushes of enthusiasm. Then, one day, I declared the novel done, mostly because after rereading it, I couldn’t think of anything else to do to it. It was, I thought, time to seek out an agent and/or publisher. I was, of course, deluded.

I went through an online database that said what the various professionals were looking for. In a fit of—let’s call it hubris—I sent queries and samples to more than 100 professionals who dealt in mysteries and waited to hear back. (I fantasized getting a call from the Mystery Writers Association telling me that I had won Best First Mystery Novel. I told you I was deluded (or having a fit of hypomania). But I digress again.)

The response from each was a resounding empty silence or a politely worded but resounding “no.” Finally, one agent added to the rejection slip a sentence or two about what I had done that sent the manuscript from slush pile to scrap heap in 100+ different offices.

The naysayers were right, and I could see it as soon as that lone agent pointed it out. (My beta readers had not been prose pros and had enthusiastically said the first chapters were fine, except for a quibble or two, like overuse of the word “and,” which I couldn’t deny if I tried with both hands. But I digress some more.)

Even published novels have places they go to die—the thrift shop, secondhand bookshop, and the dreaded remainders table of books with yellow $2 stickers. (There was once a musical supergroup called Rock Bottom Remainders, formed by Dave Barry, Amy Tan, Scott Turow, Stephen King, Barbara Kingsolver, and a cast of other famous writers. Their music has been described as “energetic, if sloppy.” I never got to hear them perform, though I’ve read many of their books, which are often energetic but never sloppy. But I digress musically.)

The ultimate place where novels go to die is Hollywood. Oh, there are books adapted for the screen that produce a movie that’s better than the book. Hopscotch and Three Days of the Condor, I’m looking at you. Repeatedly. But for the most part, filming a book produces something heinous. I could name a lot of titles here, but let’s stick with one—The Hobbit. Sleigh bunnies and three films from a slim children’s book. Feh.

The sad truth is that most novels (or attempted novels) go somewhere to die. The odds against a new writer making that big breakthrough are astronomical. But we keep trying. I’m starting research for a sequel to Cold as Stone right now. (I know it sounds silly to have a sequel to a book that doesn’t exist. Stop me before I digress again.) I hope the hypomania holds off this time.

The Line: Who’s Next?

etc., funny things, humor, language, , ,

I’ve heard it said that the last three people waiting in any line—at a bank, at the DMV, at the deli counter, or wherever—are clinically depressed. They simply lack the wherewithal to move to a shorter line or the determination to abandon the line and come back later.

(I don’t know if that’s true. At least nowadays, everyone has a phone to distract them while waiting. But I do know that waiting in line is a universal experience, one that anyone can relate to. But I digress.)

But how do lines form? At the grocery store, lines are defined by the number of checkout lanes that are open. A line for an ATM couldn’t suddenly become a jumble of people crowding around the one resource, though they do that in other circumstances, like when standing on a corner waiting for the “Walk” light.

In college, three friends and I tried a little experiment. There was a theater on campus that showed movies weekly. We had noticed that while waiting for the doors to open, people followed the jumble philosophy. One evening, though, the four of us were the first ones there.

There were two doors, side by side. Instead of forming a jumble, we aligned ourselves in two lines of two each. When other students arrived, they automatically lined up neatly behind us in our two lines. This continued until the doors opened, and we all filed in. So we determined that as few as two people could cause a crowd to form lines. It was an example of groupthink, we hypothesized.

(While we waited for our fellow liners to arrive, we had a discussion on whether the correct phrasing was to stand in line or on line. (This was in the Olden Days, when the word “online” was not a thing.) It was linguistically interesting and led to a game we called “Gee, You Talk Funny.” Other debates featured “change for a quarter” or “change of a quarter.” We examined “My hair needs washed,” “My hair needs to be washed,” or “My hair needs washing.” And don’t get me started on what we called the things in supermarkets that you push around and put groceries in. Our choices seemed to be regional variants, governed by where we grew up. But I digress again.)

But back to lines. There is also great debate as to whether someone can save a place in line for someone else, and what to do if someone crashes the line. In the case of waiting at an airport, you can hold a place in line at the ticket counter line for someone you’re traveling with, but when the plane is beginning to board, the jumble in the waiting area becomes a line, or ought to anyway, when the airport employee calls row numbers.

If someone does cut the line, there are two possible responses: side-eye and quiet grumbling if in a more formal situation, and shouting “Hey! Back of the line! No cuts!” in a casual one. (I once tried to yell “Back of the line!” in Spanish at an airport when a Hispanic couple performed an end run around the baggage line. I doubt my high school Spanish held up. They kept going. But I digress some more.)

The premiere of Star Wars or tickets for the Rolling Stones going on sale used to result in lines around the block. People would bring lawnchairs, snacks, and sleeping bags; get to know their line neighbors; and share the anticipatory thrill. As annoying as it was to have to get someone to watch your stuff while you sought out a restroom, buying tickets online just isn’t the same. The most positive parts of the line-standing experience have disappeared—the connection, camaraderie, and linguistic debates. No wonder all that’s left for line-standers is depression, frustration, and doomscrolling.

The Writers I Love and Why I Love Them

mental health, funny things, books, etc., blogs, writing, , , , ,

Last week, I wrote about why we should love writers—and how we should show it. This week, I’m going to take my own advice and write about writers whose work I love.

There are lots of writers I admire. Jon Krakauer, for example. I started with his book Into Thin Air and went on to read more of his work—Missoula, Under the Banner of Heaven, Eiger Dreams, Into the Wild, Where Men Win Glory, and his essays. (Many of his books are about mountain climbing. For some reason, I like true adventure books that describe things I will never do. Dramatic thrills, maybe, or a longing for experiences that I can only live vicariously. But I digress.)

But the writers I love most, the ones whose books I buy as soon as they are published and move instantly to the top of my TBR list, are Mary Roach, Sue Grafton, and Jenny Lawson.

Mary Roach

• Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

• Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife

• Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex

• Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void

• Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal

• Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War

• Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law

• Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy

Mary Roach writes the least stuffy science books I know on an impressively wide variety of topics. She’s not afraid to insert herself into the narrative as she explores a wide range of topics. Her encounter with the space toilet, for example, is a riot. The thing I love most about her books, though, is the footnotes. They are copious, fascinating, and humorous, and add texture and interest with aspects of the topics that just don’t fit neatly into the narrative.

(I must admit that Roach’s footnotes were the inspiration for my digressions and thus the genesis of this blog. The footnotes for Packing for Mars, for example, include the story of Enos, the chimp that went to space. But I digress again.)

Sue Grafton

• The Alphabet Series

Sue Grafton is justly famous for her series of Kinsey Milhone mystery novels that begin with A Is for Alibi and end with Y Is for Yesterday. She died of cancer before she could write the last book in the series, which she intended to title Z Is for Zero. Mystery fans everywhere mourned her loss.

Grafton’s mysteries are often mentioned in the same breath as Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski series. They do share many qualities, such as strong female private investigators and a cast of interesting supporting characters. But, to me, Paretsky writes from anger (or rage), while Grafton writes from insight and bemusement. Over the years, I’ve gotten away from reading every one of Paretsky’s books that comes out (she’s still writing), but never tired of Grafton’s. I just wish she had lived to write more.

(When I was writing a mystery novel (which never got off the ground), I attended a writing conference where Sue Grafton was one of the speakers/instructors. She read the first 30 pages of my book and gave me some very good advice. But I digress some more.)

Jenny Lawson

• Let’s Pretend This Never Happened: A Mostly True Memoir

• Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things

• Broken (in the Best Possible Way)

• How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay

Jenny Lawson, aka the Bloggess, writes wonderful books on some of my favorite topics. Her writing style is chaotic, wildly funny, and ultimately uplifting. I was reading her “Mostly True Memoir” and couldn’t stop laughing. My husband asked what the book was about. “I don’t really know,” I said, “but she talks a lot about her vagina.” For a long time, he called her “the vagina lady.” I haven’t told him that sometimes she talks about her labia.

There was plenty of other stuff too, a lot of it involving her bemused but steadfast husband Victor and the trouble they get into, separately or together—like the time she bought a six-foot metal chicken that she named Beyoncé and left outside Victor’s home office window.

Her later books contain essays with plenty of humor and anecdotes, but they are loosely on the subject of mental illness and coping with it (or not). How could I resist a book like that?

(I met Jenny Lawson twice, once at a book signing and once at a writer’s conference. At the book signing, there was a Q and A session. I asked, “If you could be any animal, what would you be? And why?” She replied, “A tapeworm. Because I could just lie there and someone would feed me.” But I digress even more.)

Of course, there are other books that I like a lot, including more mysteries, more science, science fiction, some history, some biographies (except ones about Prince Albert), books about shipwrecks, books by Lois McMaster Bujold, Dick Francis, Simon Winchester, Jared Diamond, and Steven Pinker, and true crime. (I don’t read as much true crime as I used to. The ones with atrocity photos no longer interest me. I like the ones involving forensics and legal maneuverings. But I digress yet again.)

Got any books/authors to suggest? My TBR pile (well, electronic shelf) only has 1,000+ books on it. There’s room for lots more!

Love for the Writers

books, etc., film, literature, music, television, writing

My friend Beth messaged me one day last week to inform me that she had been watching Tales From the Darkside and recognized one of the writers’ names as someone we both knew from attending science fiction conventions: Michael Kube-McDowell. She said she found his episodes very imaginative.

I happen to still be in touch with Michael (who has since dropped the Kube part of the name) after all these years, so I messaged him to tell him what Beth had discovered.

“Where did she see it?” he asked. (He meant on what streaming service, I think.)

“She was watching it on her old collection of DVDs.”

“I didn’t even know they were on DVDs,” Michael said. It turns out the only copies that he had of his own work were some VCR recordings he had made at the time the episodes first aired. And he no longer had a VCR player.

I pointed out where he could get all four seasons of the DVDs online for about $20.

And so he did. “A mere 43 years later, I finally have a professional copy!” he said.

This happy incident happened because Beth watched the DVDs and noticed the writer’s name, something not many people bother to do.

Perhaps because I’m a writer myself, I do, too. I find myself saying, “Wow! David Gerrold wrote this episode of Babylon 5!” or “Theodore Sturgeon wrote this episode of Star Trek!” (I then often have to give this announcement some context for my husband by telling him who the writer is and what else they’ve written. But I digress.) (Oh, and not completely off the topic, did you know Ray Bradbury wrote the script for the movie version of Moby Dick? But I digress some more.)

I like to look for the names of directors, too. I don’t recognize them as often as I do writers, but sometimes I notice that an actor on the show has directed one or more episodes. I always think, “Good for them! Way to branch out!”

I feel the same way about songwriters. People give love to the singers, but barely notice the songwriters much of the time. (I have a little game I play with Dan. When I’m listening to iTunes (or Apple Music or whatever they call it these days), we’ll hear a song, and I’ll say, “Okay, who wrote this?” He’s right a lot of the time, but when he doesn’t know, he’ll guess Kinky Friedman if it’s a funny song or Willie Nelson if it isn’t. Once he said, “I don’t know his name, but he wrote that song that goes ‘living and dying in 3/4 time.'” It was Jimmy Buffett, and he was right. I was impressed. But I digress again.)

So I say, “Pay attention to the writers! Show them some love!” It’s hard to throw your arms around ChatGPT and say, “Thanks for the memories!” (Or, if you’re not close enough to the writer to throw your arms around them other than metaphorically, send them money. I once sent Michael a quarter to make up for royalties when I bought one of his books at a used book store. But I digress yet again, for the last time this week.)

Luck in the Library

books, etc., family, humor, literature, music, , ,

Jimmy Buffett wrote a song called “Love in the Library.” It’s a little disconcerting to hear a Buffett song that includes the name “Flaubert” instead of the word “beach” or “sailboat.” But he did, and I love it. It belongs in Buffett’s oeuvre along with other songs he’s written, like “He Went to Paris.” Gentle, reflective, and nothing at all like “Cheeseburger in Paradise.”

I may not have fallen in love in a library, but I’ve gotten lucky in plenty of them. (No, not that kind of “getting lucky.” What do you think I was doing during all those hours I’ve spent in one library or another? Canoodling in the stacks? But I digress.)

I was lucky that my parents, who didn’t read much themselves, valued reading enough that they took me to the library often. Sometimes the library would come to me—or if not directly to me, to the parking lot of a nearby shopping center. It was the bookmobile, and I loved it dearly. When I was very young, I would visit the marvelous vehicle and check out Green Eggs and Ham, still one of my favorite all-time books by one of my favorite authors. In fact, I would check it out on every visit. My mother made a rule. I could check out Green Eggs and Ham every time we went to the bookmobile if I wanted to, but I also had to check out something else as well. (It was a good thing that I learned to read when I was four, or I would have kept her reading it to me every day. But I digress again.)

I was lucky when I cruised the “New Arrivals” section of the big library and found something new to me and unexpectedly fascinating. It broadened my reading enormously.

I was lucky when Ms. magazine had an article on women mystery writers. I went to the library with a copy of it, burrowed into the mystery stacks, and fell in love with Sue Grafton’s and Sara Paretsky’s works, which have stayed with me for decades.

I was lucky when I went to college and got a job in the graduate library, fulfilling requests. (People filled out little slips of paper, which were sent to the upper floors where I worked via vacuum tubes. I located the books and sent them downstairs on a sort of dumbwaiter. When there were no requests, I spent my extra time delving into the stacks. Most of the time, I was on the history/sociology floor, where I learned lots. (The antiquated system of vacuum tubes is still used at the pharmacy drive-through where I pick up my prescriptions, if nowhere else. But I digress some more.))

One day, however, I got really lucky in the library. As I browsed the shelves, looking for my next read, I picked up a book that had a bookmark in it. People use all kinds of things for bookmarks. Some use proper bookmarks and forgetfully leave them in the library book, but others use anything at hand: business cards, envelopes, postcards, playing cards, ribbons, ticket stubs, sticky notes, receipts, the cards that fall out of magazines (these actually have a name: blow-in cards), and even photos.

On the day I got lucky, I picked up a book and noticed someone had used a lotto ticket as a bookmark. And whoever had used it for a bookmark had accidentally used a winning ticket! Going on the venerable, ancient philosophy of “finders keepers,” I cashed in the ticket, which was worth a whole $2.

Naturally, rather than buy something useful like gum or mints with “my” winnings, I decided that my lucky find was meant to bring me even more luck. So I used it to buy another $2 lottery ticket.

It was a loser. But at least that lucky library find had given me a momentary thrill and a soupçon of hope for a million-dollar payout. And that’s in addition to all the books I checked out that day!

A Book and Its Cover

etc.

I belong to a number of writers’ groups on Facebook. Participants often post paragraphs from their works in progress (WIPs), ideas for stories, questions about writing and publishing, and opinions on AI. The discussions are lively, sometimes helpful, and sometimes contentious (especially the ones about AI).

The ones that I find most interesting are the ones in which group members post the proposed covers of their books and ask for feedback. Sometimes they post multiple versions of covers and ask which works best.

I have plenty of opinions on covers and the graphic elements that make them up. I’ve worked at publishing houses that produced magazines, textbooks, children’s stories, religious workbooks, and more. During those two decades, I met with many designers and other editors and learned from them, and had input on magazine covers and illustrations for stories. One of the cover ideas that I had and the designer implemented with improvements won an award.

So when group members have questions about their proposed covers, I have lots of opinions. Here’s some of what I know, or prefer, about cover art. Take these suggestions or leave them. They’re not laws or even rules.

The most common comment is deriding “AI slop,” a charge that is laid about most covers. Sometimes, the person who posted the cover explains that they hired a professional artist or designer to create it. Nevertheless, almost any cover posted leads to a discussion about the merits, or lack thereof, of using AI for cover design.

I usually don’t get involved in those discussions. They are never resolved. Like political opinions, judgments about AI use seldom sway anyone to change their way of thinking. They’re largely exercises in announcing your opinion to the world.

What I do find interesting are the details of the covers—the illustrations, fonts, titles, and colors.

Memoirs are perhaps the hardest books to choose cover illustrations for if you yourself don’t want to be pictured on them. You too often get generic illustrations. What might work instead? You can use a subhead that makes it clearer—”Broken Pieces: Growing up With a Schizophrenic Mother,” for example. The best advice I can give is to look at popular memoirs or covers that grab you and see what they have in common.

Many proposed covers are too cluttered. They have the title and the author’s name, a muddled illustration that has too many elements—tries to do everything—evoke the genre, have a skyline of a city, maybe a car from a certain era, and/or both the protagonist and the antagonist. Because there are so many elements, none of them stands out.

A major aspect to consider is how the book cover will look in a thumbnail on the page of a catalog, list, or website. It should at least be readable. The title, author, and one graphic element may do the job.

One of my pet peeves is the colors and fonts authors or designers choose. Again, they should be readable. A subtitle that has to appear in little, tiny type gets lost. White (reversed out) type on a light-colored background (light blue or pale yellow) is difficult to read, especially for readers whose eyes aren’t 20/20. Just because you’ve written a noir mystery or a vampire novel doesn’t mean that most of the cover needs to be black with dark purple accents. Choose colors with contrast. You can pick up a color from another part of the cover illustration to use for the title. Go through a page of fonts until something catches your eye. It will probably catch the potential reader’s eye, too.

Finally, imagine how your book will look displayed on a shelf in a bookstore or on a webpage with multiple books. Will a potential reader stop and look or glance right past it? One gets you sales; the other doesn’t.

The Daily Snorgle

cats, etc., family, humor, pets, , , ,

Sounds like the title of a newspaper in a small town or a cozy mystery, doesn’t it? But it’s not. It’s not even worthy of being reported in a small town newspaper. (I could see such a newspaper in a comic novel, though. After all, I’m using it in an amusing blog post. But I digress.)

What it is, is a daily interaction between Dan and one of our cats. Right now, the snorgler is Toby. And that makes Dan the snorgle-ee.

Dan has had peculiar interactions with some of our other cats. There was one (aka “Sir Boinks-a-Lot”) who tried to have carnal knowledge of Dan’s elbow. There was another (aka “The Gallic Strumpet”) who would writhe sensuously whenever he cooed her name.

But it’s different with Toby (pictured here, with Dan, basking in the glow of Toby’s love). Toby loves to put his arms (okay, front legs) around Dan’s neck and knead. I maintain this is a sign of deep affection. Dan claims that Toby is trying to strangle him or pierce his ear. (It is true that sometimes Toby’s claws do get entangled in the hair at the nape of Dan’s neck, and he needs to be rescued. (Toby needs rescue. Dan is basking in Toby’s love, as you can see.) But I digress again.)

That’s not a snorgle, however. A snorgle is when Toby gets right up in Dan’s face and rubs his nose all over Dan’s nose, for minutes at a time. It’s a sign of affection, but also a little disgusting when you think of where that nose has been (Toby’s, not Dan’s).

I never get snorgled. The most I usually get is a dainty nose-to-nose touch, if I’m lucky. (I once got nipped on the nose by an over-excited cat while I was asleep. I … escorted her out of the bed, let’s say. (The word “yeet” also comes to mind.) But I digress yet again.) Sometimes, Toby drapes himself across my capacious bosom and sleeps. Apparently, my boobs resemble a pillow. Or maybe a waterbed.

Dan was also the subject of repetitive and unasked-for grooming by our calico, Dushenka (which means “little soul” in Russian or, colloquially, “sweetheart”). She found his beard and moustache irresistible and adorned them with copious amounts of warm cat spit as long as he would put up with it, while I said, “Aw, she loves you” in the background. (Frankly, I think she was just hinting that he needed a trim, a point of view I’m totally in sympathy with. But I digress some more.)

I’ve learned a thing or two about cats since we’ve had them (various ones over decades). We had one tortoiseshell cat named Laurel who had to have an operation. When we got her back from her convalescence, her shaved belly was beginning to grow a lovely, almost invisible, coating of tender fuzz. I learned that I could zerbert her and feel the warm, barely-there fur, quite a captivating sensation. (You can also zerbert a fully-furred cat, but it only makes a “foof” noise. You have to have a cat that will allow you to touch its belly, of course. But I digress even more.)

I guess Dan is just lucky that none of our cats has had the habit of presenting him an up-close-and-personal view of its butthole, as some cats are wont to do. It’s supposedly a sign of affection, but I just don’t know. Doesn’t seem very friendly to me.

Finding Your Inner Weirdo

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The New York Times recently published an article encouraging those of a certain age to embrace their inner weirdo. They explained it in terms of not being afraid to find your authentic self and not worrying about what other people think. In my opinion, it’s not just a matter of finding your authentic self and embracing what’s weird about you. Nor is it tied to not caring what other people think, though those are all good reasons to explore your own weirdness.

To me, it seems that the NYT is redefining “weird.” When you reach that certain age, you no longer think of “weird” as a pejorative. You either accept it as a fact of life or wear it as a badge of honor. At a certain point in life, you’re allowed to be weird, and it’s a shame if you don’t give in to it. When a woman reaches old age, she tends to become invisible. People’s eyes slide right over her. And many old women make themselves smaller because of it. Being weird is a way to fight back.

I didn’t wait until I reached the age I am now. I’ve always been weird. I was a weird kid. Then I was a weird teen. I was a weird collegian. I was a weird adult. In point of fact, I’m still weird, even at my advanced age.

Call me goofy, silly, or peculiar. Strange. Unusual. Bonkers. Bizarre. Odd. Outré. Crazy. It won’t be anything I haven’t been called before (well, maybe not outré). I won’t mind. In fact, I own it. My friends are weird. My husband is weird. Even our cats are weird. (We had one that would play fetch, and another that liked to throw toothpicks across the room. But I digress.)

So, what have I done to merit the description of weird? Well, there was the time my husband and I cooked naked while doing Julia Child impressions. The only rule: no deep frying. There were times I ate ruffled potato chips with cream cheese and M&Ms. I still quote Star Trek, Star Wars, and The Pirates of Penzance.

My sister thought I was weird when I made lasagna or ratatouille or ordered in sushi for Thanksgiving. I once was able to use the old line, “If I could walk that way, I wouldn’t need a knee replacement.”

I have a weird t-shirt collection, and I wear them in public. (Once, Dan and I went to the bank, both wearing t-shirts with pictures of winged cats on them. The teller said, “I know I’m going to regret this, but what are those t-shirts about?” I replied, “On weekends, we go to the park and fly radio-controlled cats.” But I digress again.)

I have bacon earrings and a sushi necklace. I have earrings of planet Earth, and when I wear them, I like to shake my head violently and cry, “Earthquake!” I had a purse shaped like an armadillo and named her Erma. Many people responded to the weirdness, and Erma sparked many interesting conversations.

I guess all this hearkens back to Jenny Joseph’s poem “Warning.” You know the one: “When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple….” The one that inspired the Red Hat Society.

I may not wear purple with a red hat. I prefer to wear a Deadpool t-shirt and bacon earrings. But I won’t give up my weird or go gentle into invisibility. I don’t think I could, even if I wanted to. I have so much practice being weird.