Susan Thatcher's Blog, page 8
January 18, 2017
Lacing up the Sneakers
“We hold these truths to be self-evident…”
I’m sure this will trigger a memory of high school civics (or American History) and the need to memorize the Declaration of Independence.
“…all men are created equal.”
Men. Got news, George, Thom, John, and Benny Boy: women are, too. And we’re going to marching this Saturday to drive home the point. If you’re interested, you can find a march here:
Nothing personal, but there are issues of personal sovereignty at stake here. It took from 1783, when Britain signed the Treaty of Paris acknowledging the sovereignty of the United States (and I have copious notes for a story about that. They’re 3,000 miles away. Please buy a shit ton of my books so I can use the royalties to go get them) to 1789 when the Constitution was ratified and became effective (By the way, all of you “State’s Rights!” junkies: we tried that under the Articles of Confederation from 1781 to 1789. Weak central government with strong regional government failed miserably. Really. It did) to figure out voting and representation and how the machinery of democracy would work. The Founding Fathers screwed up on a few points: slavery wasn’t outlawed, in fact enslaved people were counted at 3/5 of the number of white inhabitants, and neither the Constitution nor the Bill of Rights did not specify that gender could be used to deny the right to vote. That didn’t get straightened out until 1920. It didn’t say we couldn’t, but that’s the way the guys interpreted it, because God knows, they love their boys’ clubs.
It took until 1974 and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act before a woman could get a credit card or a mortgage in her own name.
Until 1978 and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, a woman could be fired for being pregnant.
The “boys will be boys” and sexual harassment of “Mad Men” was perfectly fine until 1977. Of course, in 1991, we saw that it didn’t stop because the chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Clarence Thomas, was accused in graphically detailed testimony by Anita Hill of engaging in a pattern of sexual and hostile behavior WHILE HEADING THE OFFICE TASKED WITH ENFORCING EQUALITY. Didn’t stop his ascension to the United States Supreme Court (and he’s done zip minus while on the bench except to “me, too” everything Scalia wrote). And I can attest that that shit still goes down without much fear of reprisal unless the victim gets a lawyer and sues the employer.
Not so much this…
as this
The biggie…
1973, Roe v. Wade. Wherein the Supreme Court said that a woman’s right to choose whether or not to terminate a pregnancy was legal.
Right now, we are a day away from swearing in as President of the United States a man who has a track record of contempt and disrespect for women. Never mind that he’s cool with sexual assault, that he makes comments about his daughter that leads me to believe he has actually had inappropriate relations with her. He has said he thinks women should be punished for getting an abortion. He’s in favor of defunding Planned Parenthood. Since the rise of The Consecrated Con Man, Jerry Falwell, and his “Moral Majority” (which was neither), a woman’s right to choose has been under focused, high-powered, relentless assault. Personally, if a woman I’ve never met wants an abortion, it’s none of my business. I had a friend tell me he was “morally opposed to his tax dollars paying for abortions.” Thanks to that shithead Henry Hyde, and the Hyde Amendment of 1976 (which keeps getting polished and renewed), they don’t. And the maker of the statement was shitting his diapers when it passed. I’m morally opposed to war, and I don’t want my tax dollars paying for that. However, I don’t get a say in the matter. Even Henry Thoreau couldn’t get away with not paying taxes because he objected to the Mexican War. The incoming President, on the other hand,…not as a moral objection but because it was “smart” and “good business” for him to carry forward a $900,000,000 loss and legally avoid paying taxes for years. (The $900,000,000 loss being a mark of “good business”? Not so much).
I’m not sitting this out. I may be beyond reproductive age and I have no daughters, but I see a big picture here. Women ARE the majority in this country and we should not have our gains rolled back. Read “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood sometime.
Thus the march.
No reason resistance can’t be fashionable
I figured this would be a peaceful thing. However, I was given information on recording police violence, what to bring in case of tear gas and arrest; who knows what’s going to happen. But it’s important enough to take the risk.
I urge you to also lace up your sneakers, RSVP to your local event, and make it known that we, the majority of Americans, will not stand for our rights, our personal sovereignty, to be eroded or taken away.
Now watch this video. And share the hell out of it.
January 15, 2017
Health Tip. From the Fat Lady
And I self-apply the term “Lady” cautiously because I was given leave to work from home due to my unladylike demeanor in an office environment. I took Bette Davis as a role model when I was twelve or thirteen years old reading “Mother Goddamn.” She had a great quote (I think it was in Newsweek around that time, early 70s) “There are two kinds of women, ladies and broads. Me? I’m a broad.” I took that to heart, much to my mother’s chagrin.
I digress, as I often do.
I’d like to suggest a simple daily addition to your routine to help beat back January and maybe help ward off the colds, flus, headaches, etc. that seem to want to be our friends right about now.
Ever heard of dry brushing your skin? Very beneficial action.
Get a natural bristle brush. Get naked (preferably in private right before a shower. NOT the golden kind preferred by our incoming Presi…I can’t bring myself to say it). Start with the soles of your feet (and mine are ticklish, so this gets tricky) and brush from the toes to the heel a few times, then start with the tops of your feet, same direction, then upwards on your legs, always brushing towards your heart. Brush your belly in a clockwise motion to aid digestion, brush downward from your chin and back of the neck. Lastly, raise your arms (one at a time) and brush downward. Pay special attention to the backs of your knees, your groin, inside your elbows, under your ears, and your armpits. These are lymph node locations and the dry brushing (always towards your heart) helps them work better. Every time I brush under my ears, I feel my sinuses drain.
In the shower, if you use one of those scrubby puff things, go through the same routine. Trust me.
I’d also suggest starting the day with hot water and lemon. Get your digestion working properly, detox your body, clear your skin.
Oh, I’m still fat. But my skin looks great.
January 11, 2017
Got Those Steadily Depressin’ Low Down Mind Messin’ January Blues
(With apologies to Jim Croce)
I’m hearing, from friends in real life and friends on Facebook, a lot of people experiencing lows in the first month of January. Emotional exhaustion, outright depression, crankiness (my department. I’m really, really good at it right now), the desire to hibernate until April – I’ve heard them all this month.
January sucks. Apologies to those with January birthdays. You are the few bright spots in a month that otherwise sucks ass. I speak from many many years of sub-zero temperatures, early darkness, nasty slips and falls that have left me with permanent back issues, and frozen boogers.
Not fun.
It doesn’t lend itself to motivation, to be sure. I’m essentially grabbing myself by the scruff of the neck to get to work here.
Except for writing comments in a mortgage file and the New York Times crossword puzzle, I’ve not written much.
However, nothing is going to get done unless I make myself get up and do it. When you are comfortably wedged in a rut, it’s difficult to dig yourself out. It’s familiar, no effort required, and now with all the different series you can binge watch, time is easily wasted. “Wake me up when the Patriots are on.” (It’s January. 13 out of the last 14 years, they’re still playing in January)
Time, however, is something you don’t get back. And you never know how much you have left to you (unless you’re Steven Wright. “I know when I’m gonna die because my birth certificate has an expiration date.”)
So, if you’re lying (NOT LAYING. LYING) there in your fuzzy jammies, or stretched-out yoga pants and thinking of the fifteen different things you could be doing, pick one. Do it. Get out of the rut.
Don’t let suck-ass January win.
January 8, 2017
Shake It Off
I have not posted anything to this website (other than upcoming signing appearances) since August 2015. Quite remiss of me. I need to engage my audience or they will leave the theater.
I can make excuses: demands on my time exceeding my available time. They do, but I still found it in me to sit on my ass and watch TV or sleep on the couch in front of the TV (dozing off, noisily, runs in my family. Unfortunately, I have more in common with the men than the women in that regard).
I piss and moan how “I suck at marketing” yet make only a half-hearted attempt to engage.
I have a stack of books from other authors that I have set myself the task of reading and reviewing (in this space. Hey! Blog posts!) in the hopes that they will reciprocate. And a small part of me that feels like the world is tearing me to pieces for its own use and my wants and needs don’t matter just wants to be left the fuck alone. Those authors won’t review my books. The others promised and didn’t (says the small part).
Right now, the TV set is off. Yeah, I know: THOSE THINGS ACTUALLY DO HAVE AN OFF SWITCH! They don’t have to be on all the time! I don’t have the radio going, CDs, MP3s, Pandora, nothing. Just quiet (except for the soft whir of the ceiling fan. I may fall asleep shortly. That’s my white noise for sleeping). Don’t be afraid of quiet. Yes, you are there with your own thoughts, but you may as well process them and send them on their merry ways. Better during the day than lying (NOT LAYING. LAYING IS INCORRECT. OKAY? WHEN YOU PLANT YOURSELF IN A HORIZONTAL POSITION, YOU ARE LYING DOWN) awake when you need to sleep and having them pester you. Got decisions to make? Pen, paper, make a list of pros and cons. Worry? Fuggedaboutit: worry accomplishes nothing and robs you any joy you may find in the moment. Or just…be. That’s meditation. Sit and focus on breathing, or a ray of sunlight, or watch your dog sleep. It’s beneficial.
However, I digress.
I want books sales in the thousands of units, but as I am a one-woman show, marketing is up to me. Therefore, I will be engaging with readers (like giveaways! Ooh!), firing up a newsletter, more on Facebook, Twitter (when I am not ranting about politics. May need a new Twitter handle because for the next four years, I’ll be frothing at the mouth online unless I get jailed as a political prisoner. Oh, it can happen).
I know I can make this happen. I can manifest this if I get off my ass. I wrote books. I have a Facebook page called Medieval Merriment (and this is to make a point, not promote that page, so no link here) that I started as a goof with no expectations. That was August 2014. Today, it has 21,250 followers. That’s a lot of people. None of them buy my damned books, but that’s a lot of people. I made this happen, too:
I have had a couple of people tell me I should have a video podcast and/or Youtube channel. Oy. I have a face for radio and a voice for silent movies, but I’m funny. I’m smart. I know stuff. Maybe. (Catalina? Whitney? Let’s talk)
So, for the 2 or 3 people who read this and the thousands of spam comments about goose down parkas (I shit you not), let’s shake off the rust and do this. Mondays and Thursdays. Right here.
And now, Miss Taylor Swift.
August 7, 2015
BACK TO SCHOOL SALE
‘Tis the season for new clothes, backpacks, pencils, and…BOOKS
I’ve created 50% off coupons at Smashwords for my e-books.
Here’s your link: http://bit.ly/tftsmash
And input COUPON CODE RW27P
And here’s your link: http://bit.ly/alSmash
COUPON CODE: PM88M
If you want to check them out, there are reviews on Amazon and Goodreads.
http://bit.ly/ReviewsTFT
Buy yourself a couple of books. Proceeds go towards buying myself a new computer so I can continue this story.
May 24, 2015
Houston, We’ve Got a Problem
Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, Practioners of the English language…
Nous avon une grande probleme.
Wier haben eine grosse Problem. (Bigger even than auto correct’s attempts to turn French and German into English)
The National Spelling Bee is this week where grammar school-aged kids spell words that I swear were made up five minutes before being given to them, and TV news anchors try to guess the meanings…
while the scroll flying by under them is riddled with misspelled everyday words.
I read articles by paid journalists in USA Today, the LA Times, various blog sites (presumably places with trained editors) contain errors of homonyms, usage, punctuation, and inability to differentiate between contractions and possessives.
One site posed the question, “should we still teach spelling even with auto correct?” I was going to answer, “Are you fucking kidding me? Hell, yes!”, but stepped back and toned it down to “Hell, yes!” By the way, that comment got 20 likes.
I am a beneficiary of advancements in publishing technology in that I have been able to publish two books with it that had been rejected by every publisher and agent I approached (they liked the writing, just didn’t think there was a market). You can upload a file, push enter and voila; you have a book available for sale. It’s that easy.
Unfortunately, too easy, in some cases.
I have read offerings by some independent authors in which the mechanics of their writing was so bad, they completely distracted me from the story. Now, I KNOW these people have earned at least a high school diploma in the U.S., and that requires several years’ worth of Language Arts and English studies. 12 years worth of study. Couldn’t tell it by the writing.
The truly appalling one was an article about a man reunited with his dog after several years. The author used this phrase to describe what the man had done in between losing and regaining the dog “He had became a dog trainer.”
In case you don’t get it, the proper choices are either “he became a dog trainer” or “he had become a dog trainer.”)
I did some Google research on the author and it said she’d been a Language Arts teacher for several years.
Too harsh?
R 
I repeat myself. In other blog posts and on other blogs, I have urged the 5, 6, or 7 readers to not rely on auto correct or word processing programs in lieu of learning a broad vocabulary, mastering spelling, usage, punctuation, and grammar.
“But that’s all memorization. It’s boring.”
Tough. Shit. It’s training.
In “The Paper Chase,” the Contracts Professor, Charles Kingsfield, admonishes one of hi students for being unprepared for clas by telling him, “You come in here with a skull full of mush, but leave thinking like a lawyer.”
Training. He’s talking about training. Learning the difference between correct and incorrect; what is the proper word or arrangement of words for the given situation.
We live in the information technology age, which makes the (rather small) dissemination of this essay possible. Computers can do a lot of great things for us, but we need to use our own brains or the skulls aren’t even going to be full of mush. More like month old oatmeal. One crucial things word processing programs and auto correct have not learned is that the English language is loaded with quirks, exceptions to rules, homonyms, and other holdovers from Angles, Saxons, the odd Viking raid, and a millennium long pissing contest with France. Word cannot completely grasp the tangle of Germanic and Latin roots that describe things like lactose (Latin) in milk (Germanic).
In other words: the machines don’t have your back. You cannot rely on them to fill the gaps in your own Language Arts knowledge.
The current terminology to describe a seemingly random collection of words (usually to describe Sarah Palin’s utterances) is “word salad.” Without knowing the rules and how to build the solid structures for sentences and paragraphs, AND APPLYING THEM, it’s just a jumble without syntax.
Not only have these millennial (and Gen Y and Gen X) writers seemed to have ignored the rules of good writing, but they use beta readers (trusted friends who are avid readers that you choose to be an additional pair of eyes on your work) and editors who either don’t know them or don’t care to apply them. As a result, self-published authors as a whole get a bad rap for the poor quality product hitting the market from these sources. “This is why the traditional publishers don’t want work from self-published authors. They don’t know what they’re doing or don’t care as long as it sells.”
It’s time for remedial Grammar School.
Find those DVDs of Schoolhouse House to learn parts of speech. (Everybody loved “Conjunction Junction” conjunction Junction)
Start following a grammar blog. I was considering starting a YouTube channel to teach spelling and grammar, but one of my cousins told me there was already a “hot chick” teaching grammar.
Actually, that’s a picture linked to a grammar blog. You get the idea.
I love Weird Al word Crimes. #Yankovic
Some who continually slapped a bunch of bricks and masonry together, yet never built a usable structure, could call himself a mason. The same for hammering together a bunch of boards without consideration to measurement, support, and function ; that’s not carpentry.
Yet, we have stories, novels, articles, and essays made public that lack the basics in written communication because of electronic means of dissemination. No need to bring something to an editor for approval or rewrites.
There is a scene from “All the President’s Men” (1976) showing editor Ben Bradlee with pencil in hand (the age of typewriter) copy editing articles by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein that would expose the Watergate break-in as being the tip of a corruption iceberg in the Nixon White House. Bradlee was their highly trained and experienced pair of eyes to catch and remove errors, streamline, and improve the story. Woodward and Bernstein are not slouches as writers, but they know they aren’t perfect. (I couldn’t find a clip showing this scene) the quality of their writing, in terms of mechanics, was a helluva lot better than a lot I’m seeing lately.
Get copies of Strunk & White, a good dictionary, Roget’s, Zinsser and USE THEM when writing. Train your brain. In fact, try writing the old-fashioned way; paper and pen. Do this as an exercise, then correct it or get it corrected. Think of this as a drill.
“Drop that laptop amd five me 50 sentences. in cursive.”
Do you write? Get an editor, and not just your best friend Jo Jo, unless Jo Jo has been teaching writing and has a degree in it. There are sites to hire freelance editors for copy and for style. You need someone who knows more about this stuff than you do. Like maybe a professor at the community college, or a high school English teacher (although, that one woman with the “Had became”…be careful out there).
TLC channel just freed up hours per week by finally ditching those goddamn Duggars (Before anyone jumps: child molestation is neither godly nor moral. It’s sick. And we don’t know that he has actually stopped). Were it up to me, I’d have them filling that time with interactive educational programming hitting math and Language Arts (let the History Channel teach…I’ll go on a limb here…history), different hours geared to different levels. If AMC can create content to sync up your computer to program that’s on right now, then it shouldn’t be difficult for a student with a question about homonyms to be able to get it answered by a teacher on TV. We have the technology to make better, stronger, faster writers.
May 9, 2015
Free Range Woman *
(I’m trademarking that sucker)
Tis Mother’s Day weekend and I am not a participant. I have no children and my own mother passed on in 2013. (She wasn’t crazy about the holiday. I pointed out to her once that she seemed to be as far away from her children as possible when it rolled around. She didn’t deny it)
I am not, nor ever have been, married. I’m not alone. (And I’m not defective, either. Let’s be clear) I’m also well past my twenties, which is the traditional age range for marrying and starting a family (although, that seems to be stretching on the back end onto one’s thirties). The labels women of my situation have had to endure are such quaint terms as “spinster” and “old maid.” Men get to be bachelors all their lives. I know; it’s an old complaint, but I suspect men are the ones who made the naming rules.
Without the task of bearing and raising children, I’ve been free to, quite literally, move around the country, as wanted (or needed. I’ve been in that situation), pursue a career that I wanted as a child (without much success, but I pursued it), and go through some serious shit without worrying about dependents and what would happen to them.
I propose that, in the 21st century, we shed the old, rather derogatory terms and replace them with a new one:
The Free Range Woman is just that: she is able to pursue her own path (which may lead to marriage and family even in middle/old age) and does so.
With the advent of animal rights, locavore, farm to table, food-related movements, “free range chicken” has become part of the lexicon. These hens are allowed room to be chickens rather than penned into a tiny space.
“Spinster” and “old maid” are terms that have been around at least 200-250 years. They’re antiquated and carrying the baggage of patriarchal expectations that girls would grow into wives and mothers or be on the fringe of society because they didn’t find a way into the acceptable status. Think of Miss Havisham in “Great Expectations”: not being married wasn’t her fault, but the shame and humiliation of having been jilted left her mentally and emotionally stranded at that moment for decades. She had one job…
“Unmarried woman” brings up images of a Jill Clayburgh movie from the 70s and a line from “Private Benjamin” where Goldie Hawn, the newly widowed and unhappy about being single Judy Benjamin, wails “I would have been Mrs. Alan Bates in a heartbeat.”
Free Range Woman also looks good on a T shirt. And may have mathematic meaning. (I didn’t do well in algebra and math, and my mathematic consultant passed away 12 years ago).
The next time some dipshit asks me why I’ve never gotten married (A more subtle version of “What’s wrong with you?”), I shall smile and answer, “Because I’m free range, Baby.”
Then end the date.
May 4, 2015
I’m Takin’ Over Facebook!
well, not really, BUT I am taking over a couple of event pages in the next 7 days:
On Thursday May 7 at 11 AM Eastern, I’ll be answering questions and giving away e books at All About Books Divas 7,000 Likes Takeover
On Sunday, May 10 at 1 PM Eastern, I’ll be in charge over at T.K. Leigh’s Chasing the Dragon Release Week Party
Chasing the Dragon Release Party
Do me a favor, come by and engage. Ask me a number between 1 and 10, why is there air, who’s on first (Whats on Second, I Don’t Know – Third base), what’s the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything (42. Everybody knows that)
May 3, 2015
Tra La, It’s May! I’ve E Books to Give Away!
And if you don’t recognize the reference, it’s to “Camelot,” as sung by Julie Andrews. I listened to that cast album a lot. What can I tell you? I’ve been a Julie Andrews fan since I was 3. Richard Burton appreciation came later after I’d seen him in “The Taming of the Shrew.”
Anyway, I am participating in a MEGA AUTHOR GIVEAWAY (it’s a big deal and deserves all caps).
Want this?
Then follow this link: MEGA AUTHOR GIVEAWAY LINK
And enter.
Simple.
Also, I will have more promotional activities later this week, so stay tuned and join in.
May 1, 2015
“That’s Not Typing, That’s Writing”
(and that’s paraphrasing Truman Capote criticizing “Valley of the Dolls”)
I gave an interview for the Stormy June blog that was released today. Yea! (And that’s how it’s spelled. NOT “Yay.”) and I saw grevious typos.
Okay. Hers a link to the interview: interview link
For the record, I do not steal stories. I CREATE them. And I looked forward to making up something for class assignments. Honest.
Anyway, go, read, come back, comment.
