Jane Roper's Blog, page 12
January 14, 2019
Right on!
The title of this post is a phrase that makes me giggle. “Right on!” is such an awesome, late 70s kind of expression, right? One that conjures Adidas running shorts (too short, green or blue, white piping) and tube socks and shaggy hair and roller skates and the smell of cigarette smoke and a tree-shaped […]
December 24, 2018
Amen to all that
It’s Christmas Eve. I am 5 (or 8 or 10). My father has read “The Night Before Christmas” to my brother and me. We’ve hung our stockings and put out a plate of cookies, and now I’m lying in bed, awake, filled with a sense of wonder and anticipation, laced with a giddy sense of mystery. […]
December 18, 2018
Why did I let the bastards grind me down?
In the story of my life that I tell myself and others, there are several periods that I think of as low ebbs in a mostly quite happy life—times where I struggled or suffered or felt generally crappy more than usual. One of those times, which I’ve been known to characterize as the nadir of […]
December 10, 2018
Closer to Grief
When I look back on this year, one of the themes is loss. Not for me so much (well, not in the way I’m talking about here), but for a number of my friends. I need two hands to count how many—all of whom are in my own general age cohort—have lost fathers or mothers this […]
October 23, 2018
Good for what ails ya
If you’re paying attention, and you’re feeling dismayed by current events or impending climate change or man’s inhumanity to man and other Big Stuff, or you’re stressing about the midterm elections, I’ve got some easy suggestions for soothing your soul. They work for me, anyway. Maybe they’ll work for you too. 1. Buying something cool! […]
October 11, 2018
10 Things I Learned Protesting the Kavanaugh Confirmation
So, as those of you crazy nuts who follow me on Facebook and elsewhere know, I went down to DC last week to join the protests and demonstrations against the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh. I’ve been engaged in issues and causes for a long time, starting in high school. But I’ve never done something as […]
October 2, 2018
It’s Smash the Patriarchy Season, Motherfuckers.
Every year around this time, I post Colin Nissan’s brilliant humor piece, It’s Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers on Facebook. If you haven’t ever read it, get thee to McSweeney’s now and read it. It’s one of the best freaking things on the Internet. I posted it on FB a few days ago, per seasonal tradition. […]
September 26, 2018
God help us, they have phones.
So, this summer we got the girls cell phones. (I wished we called them mobiles (/MO’ byles/) in this country. Wouldn’t that be fun?) I’ve been semi-dreading this transition for the past couple of years. My ambivalence about phones is no secret. I hatehatehate the fact that so many of us spend so much time looking […]
July 19, 2018
Cat Person
If you’ve come here looking for the short story Cat Person by Kristen Roupenian that was published in The New Yorker and went all viral and landed the author a big fat book deal — well, sorry. That’s over here. This is a post by little old non-viral me, about this weird thing that’s happened recently in […]
June 18, 2018
The Privilege of Ancestry
This is a much belated post — I’m embarrassed by how belated, really — but I really wanted to get it up here. (And I want to start posting more in general. But don’t hold me to that!) A few months ago, a colleague of mine, who is black, was telling me how excited she […]
