P.J. Colando's Blog, page 2

A Bookholic Bond

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My husband and I both love reading. We’ve been avid readers since we were tykes, and I suppose it was a natural thing that we’d somehow find each other, get married, and stay married while maintaining several different bookshelves these past (almost) fifty years. We like browsing book stores – if a brick-and-mortar version can be found – and we absolutely love book sales, because they combine our two favorite activities—reading and saving money.

Barnes & Noble is a great place for a book date and we know where they can be found, gas at nearly $5.00/gallon be damned.

Like many bookaholics, we already own more books than we will ever read, even if we live to be 157 (our combined ages). Since we’re now retired, the piles do not lessen, they grow. We have more time to read, but we also have more time to shop. Further, we pass around books among other retirees who are also not spendy. My husband thinks nothing of spending several bucks for novels that show promise via a tantalizing cover and jaunty description suggesting a power-and-politics theme.

I’m a mystery devotee and have favorite authors I follow without end.

Here’s a blast from the past, a post I wrote in 2013, when I learned the truth of why I devour mystery books: https://www.pjcolando.com/mystery-solved/

Among the framed writers to whom I’m novelly devoted are the following: Baron Birtcher, James Lee Burke, Robert Crais, Janet Evanovitch, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Meg Gardner, Sue Grafton, Joe Ide, Jonathn Kellerman, Marcia Muller, and John Sanford. That is, I’ll read every novel in their series – and have – though some entries are more worthy than others.

There are few authors on which my husband and I agree. For example, he binge-read Tom Clancy, but I could not – too technical and detail-oriented for me. This fact is what adds to the massiveness of our over-filled bookshelves. Thank goodness we have a beacoup bookcases, disposable income, and the shared affinity for books.

What are your favorite authors and/or book genres, fellow bookaholics?

Socialized Medicine

Independence is a wonderful thing; ditto alone time. It’s one of the privileges of adulthood.

But we’re often at our best when we’re together. Here’s a queue – what do you think they are lined up to achieve? Purchase the last video game, iPhone, or a clothing sale with magnificent discounts? (note the canes, a certain clue that those waiting online are Seniors) Perhaps they’re waiting to buy movie tickets rather than remain home to Netflix-and-chill.

That’s the central tenet of “social prescribing,” an approach to health that centers on getting involved in your community. Whether you’re taking a group exercise class at a studio nearby, volunteering with your favorite non-profit or joining a group focused on furthering a cause you care about, social prescribing is all about deepening connections to our fellow humans to improve our mental and physical health. (Crucially, it’s meant to complement, not supplant, conventional medicine.) The company of others mediates being stuck in our own heads and moderates our views and opinions. Sometimes we can learn and/or tell some good jokes to laugh aloud and limber a jaw tightened by tension and angst.

Here’s a blast from the past that addresses this issue obliquely: https://www.pjcolando.com/lifes-third-act/

But how to go about finding the right prescription? Author Julia Hotz, who wrote the book on social prescribing, identified “five pillars” to help find solutions:

movementnatureartservicebelonging.

I treasure the time I spend solo, a fugitive from regmentation and structure imposed by a clock. I’ve recently written about be a dink pro: https://www.pjcolando.com/category/dink-pro/

But that time is even sweeter when it’a contrasted with a day full of productivity and friendship in social service.  I find my best self doing service projects among a small group of like-minded peers. Recently I found myself in the fellowship hall of a church in the midst of the barrio in Santa Ana, CA. The shared purpose bonded us rapidly and completely and I’m eager to join the group endeavor again.

 

The Antidote to Simmering Disquietude

These days I’m suffering with simmering disquietude nearly all the time. I know you know why… the world, our country. I feel as if I must return to biting my nails or stuff a fist in my mouth to suppress a scream worthy of a B-Actress in a bad horror film, due to the reality shoved down our throats by the Prez’s capricous choas and cruelty. His thin-skinned pettiness that his minions enable and applaud. Consider this: https://www.theatlantic.com/national-security/archive/2025/07/james-clapper-cia-dog-trump/683575/?utm_campaign=trumps-return&utm_content=20250718&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Trump%27s+Return

Our country is going to the dogs, but not in a good way.

My salvation: being cared for by a quietly competent, enduringly capable man who shares my views, holds my hand, and assures me that all is well in our world, our hearts full of mercy for all mankind. Complemented by an endlessly happy dog who scampers after my husband wherever he goes. Few things rival the joy of summer: basking in the sun, lathered in sunscreen, getting lost in a good book, and sipping something ice-cold. Our proximity to the ocean assures cool breezes and the arid air assures no bugs. We can afford the ever-rising prices of groceries each week and our small garden’s produce is steps from our door… Sometimes I feel contrite for having all of this while others nearby fret and fear.

But nothing breaks the vibe faster than a bad headline, which happens almost hourly under the current regime.

A mediating strategy has evolved: I’ve determined something meaningful to do, an antidote to my anxiety, mirrored and magnified in barrio neighborhoods. Via our gardener, who’s become a friend, we’ve learned of two families who are struggling with money matters and the free-floating fear that ICE ignites, no matter that the parents are documented and the children are birthright. With a list we are shopping for food and staples, boxing, and delivering the goods to the families along with our love and support. The Prez has power to thwart many things, to jail innocents, and spread evil via the airways. But he can’t kill our spirits, our faith, and our freedom to be and do who we need.

Confessions of a DInk Pro

My father used to like to putter (my mother’s term) and he did it well though many years of retirement, relishing the busy-ness he alone could create, free of the demands and constraints of other people’s demands via work, but always guided by purpose. He was dutiful wage-earner until age 65, the sole breadwinner for forty years for a wife and four kids. He never complained, as far as I knew, keeping his nose to the grindstone with little time for hobbies as the family – and his financial responsibilities – grew.

I seem to have inherited the puttering knack, though I describe my dawdling, seemingly unpurposeful behavior as ‘dinking’.

I am my father’s daughter.

Others have shared that my father had the skill set to become a good engineer and I know that he applied to Purdue University, known throughout the nation for its excellent school. But lack of married student housing sent he and my mom to attend Indiana State, where he followed the path of my mother’s parents, to become a public school educator. My Aunt Marilyn, his youngest sister, also shared that he aspired to be a Disney cartoonist and to live in California, where he came to train when he enlisted. I’ve seen his drawings from his pre-marriage and retirement and I agree that he would have excelled. But he denied his aspirations, subrogating them to his love for my mother.

Here’s a family photo from the ’60s… he doesn’t look burdened, does he? Work-life balance existed, wrapped in family commitment and love.

I’ve written about my shared traits with my dad – and you can see a photo of us together when you click on this link: https://www.pjcolando.com/first-daughter/

I believe that, subconsciously, I longed for a better work-life balance than my 50s parents were afforded. I learned that if you design a life that feels like a vacation, you never feel the need to escape from it. Whether intended or not, my father’s life pattern led me to form my own successful and self-satisfying version.

I’ve been an accomplished dink pro my entire adult life, increasingly after I retired.

 

Curiosity Re-Wires Your Brain for Change

I penned a recent blog post about personality particulars. In today’s missive, I’d like to ponder curiosity, a trait my husband and I have in common, but our relatives in Elsewhere USA don’t share. I know because we’ve just returned from a visit and, as usual, few showed interest in our daily lives. It used to be highly disappointing – well, it still is – but we are no longer dismayed or surprised.

It seems as if we only exist when we are with them… Californians as a concept, if you will.

Curiosity is sometimes considered a personality quirk, but neuroscience paints a different picture. I like when science in on my isde, don’t you.

Some people’s brain’s amygdala responds to change and uncertainty with a classic flight or fightresponse because it regards change as a threat akin to physical danger. This type seems to prefer a highly patterned, predictable life. An assembly line life, if you will, without changes on the horizon. “No” is their brain’s default mode. No changes desired or accepted, no siree.

Spare me, please – and Larry agrees! Adventure is one of our care values. Let’s go! our souls say.

Neuroscience has provided the reason: curiosity helps reframe uncertainty as an invitation, not a threat. Curiosity increases our tolerance for prediction error, the gap between what we expect and what we experience. This makes us more flexible in our thinking, less reactive, and better at revising our mental models, that is, preconceived notions. In fact, I might even state that neither my husband nor I have many set opinions and/or preconceived, set-in-concrete ideas.

Flexible is we.

This way of being enables travel, acts as an emotional buffer (important in these chaotic and fearful times), and helps us deal with surprises in a positive way.

Life as improv and “what if? Is a wonderful way to be.

Unlike many of our friends, who are as advanced in age as us, there’s no need to remind each other of our younger selves (with the exception of pain-free knees). We’re still the same adventurous spirits for whom the word “no” was a challenge to be overidden with spunk and enthusiasm. Whoopee!

Fake Future Fracas Averted

Pardon this humble brag as entry to a blog post:

My husband and I have pro-level social skills.

Part of this expertise comes from our careers. His as a sales and marketing manager and mine as a speech-language pathologist. We can read body language, note tone of voice, and have bodacious vocabularies. We are empathetic listeners with great bullshit detectors, though I admit his is better honed than mine.Part of our social ease comes from having living among people of all shapes, sizes, and variety for seventy plus years. Between us, we’ve lived in large cities, mid-sized cities, and small towns. We’ve lived in rural and suburban settings, though nothing as urban as Chicago or New York. We’re both highly averse to the rat race that logically comes from over-crowding in a faceless, tasteless landscape. Give us blue skies and green grass over concrete. Living amidst the sensory settings of nature promotes kinship, we agree.Our social repertoire has been magnified by our extensive travel throughout the States and abroad. Different cultures, different climates, different points of view have been experienced and appreciated.Part of our social savviness derives from our teamwork, the fact that our experiences and values are similar, so we can agree.

This final element of the trifecta of social awareness fosters our insight that certain family members can only promise a fake future for closeness, love, and appreciation. Our radar, as cited above, helps us see the truth of words and deeds, whether we like it or not.

Heartache and lasting aggravation avoided!

In a recent incident, we immediately recognized that the individual who cited a fake future of “kicking your ass” was a brash and fractious ass incapable of doing it. In past incidents, we’ve recognized the “queen bee” whose envy blighted care and concern for us – and who tried to take a wrecking ball to our reputations. In another, the person was “in the spectrum” and unable to truly see or feel my point of view, so I gave up trying. Need I go on?

Bosses, co-workers, and others in your and our lives have offered a fake futures as enticement to get you/us to do something for them in the present. Do you recall empty promises made? Did you catch onto the ploy in time? Care to share in the comments?

Read more about the fake future notion here: https://katiecouric.com/lifestyle/relationships/what-is-future-faking/

The 30-second rule

Fearing of public speaking is often cited as fear numero uno when such lists are made  – and what’s more public that social interaction topped by talk. It might be true that everyone alive anxious about making small talk with other peeps…

Small talk doesn’t make me anxious but I do try to avoid it… it seems like an empty place holder for real and caring conversation.

People who avoid small talk believe those who excel at it are naturally charismatic or have been blessed with the “gift of gab.” Not so – that’s just envy’s opinion. Great conversationalists honed a skill set of rules and strategies they use when speaking to people, just like people who do improvisational comedy or acting have a set of rules to follow to establish common ground.

A well-honed sense of humor goes a long way in cultivating and keeping relationships, too. So does being well-read. Lots of topics primes the pump for being a voluble person.

Confident, sociable people make engaging with others look effortless because they have a strategy.

New York Times bestselling author and founder of the Maxwell Institute, John C. Maxwell’s strategy for whenever he struck up a conversation: “Within the first 30 seconds of a conversation, say something encouraging to a person.” This can work in any social or professional situation. It can also work with far-flung relatives when you see them at the obligatory family reunion – ask me how I know. (wink-wink)

Whether you are complimenting, relaying positive information about the person, or encouraging them, ply them with honesty, not flattery, please. Be genuine rather than fake, which may leach into your tone of voice and come off as condescension. You want to to draw people to you, not repulse them. You don’t want to be known as a gossip or a phony or a bore either.

Ultimately, a direct connection exists between being likeable and being genuinely interested in other people.

That’s the best strategy.

 

 

Silence is Golden

Silence is very good for you.

Noise, not so much. Stress, insomnia, heart disease—all possible adverse results of the world’s screaming, relentless, insidious, invasive. The cacophony of opinions, endless chaos and catastrophes – both man- and Mother Nature-made – as well as the convoluted actions of the current President are the antithesis of calm.

Composer and Stanford music professor Jonathan Berger wrote in Nautilus, the word noise “shares its etymological root with the Latin ‘nausea,’ which, in turn, is rooted in the Greek ‘naus‘ or ship. Noise, although an auditory phenomenon, is strangely related to seasickness” Hmm…

Silence is, purportedly, a healer. The quiet spaces between audible sounds stir a region in our brain called the default mode network, but don’t regard it as downtime. As journalist Daniel A. Gross writes in “This Is Your Brain on Silence,” “even in the absence of a sensory input like sound, the brain remains active and dynamic.” In fact, when the default mode network is in session, the brain cells involved in concentration are sent to their rooms and told to be quiet. Too much conscious focus narrows the mind. Time-out may be just what the doctor ordered

Neuroscientist Daniel Levitin elaborated, “the default mode network is also known as the daydreaming mode. If you’re a carpenter and you’re hammering, you’re really paying attention. That’s the central executive mode. Its opposite is this daydreaming mode.” Mentally lounging in daydreaming mode can be restorative. He compared it to sleeping: “During sleep, there’s a lot of cellular housekeeping going on, getting rid of dead cells, purifying the bloodstream, organizing the thoughts of the day and consolidating them into memories. And that’s also what happens in a waking state during the daydreaming mode.”

 

There’s something else healing and restorative. When the daydreaming mode is activated by quiet, and our brain wanders across the landscape through our senses, we are freed to hear not one thing but everything. That opportunity widens the mind.

Expanded thinking is good, all good.

 

Easy-Peasy Life

As a well-funded retiree – that is, reliant neither on Social Security nor the whims of stocks — I have an easy-peasy life. A life that flows, like canoeing down a river, one mile leads to the next, Tuesday follows Monday, obey the rules, portage around dams, don’t approach alligators unless their eyes are closed. (sounds like profound Carl Haissen wisdom, doesn’t it)

For those of you who know me, you’re wondering how I know about canoeing, something I don’t do. The answer, of course, lies in reading, something I do a lot. I also have a good imagination and a wild amount of empathy, so I can relate to canoers I’ve read about in recent books, including the Pulitzer Prize winner. (the protagonist didn’t canoe for long and didn’t have an easy-peasy life)

I am a writer. I wake up in the morning with an urge to use words rather than canoe or attempt another recreational activity. I’ve been dedicated since the early praise of Mrs. Johnson, my third grade teacher. I was only eight and she made me feel important, as if I had something to say. That my mother helped craft the metaphor that won the teacher’s praise was bonus.

I retain this confidence, despite having written plenty of overly fluffy, egregiously awful stuff. As a novice, I couldn’t even apply the common wisdom, attributed to Faulkner, to “kill your darlings” because I couldn’t separate the darlings from the dumb in my early drafts.

Being a writer by habit means that I spend time thinking to myself, which disturbs some people. They think I’m aloof, bored, or wishing someone would amuse me with anecdotes from their life, but I’m likely not: I’m contemplating, plotting, and cogitating.

I also may be absorbing myself in a better reality than the present one provides. Ah, the sweetness of my imagination, where I can bend and shape people, places, and things to my desires.

I’ve married a man who’s unintimidated by my silence; he is a reader, too. He likes to be quiet for long periods of time without engaging in book club-type conversation about themes, plot points, and Interpretations. He’s also a jock, though he’s never tried to make me canoe. Best of all, he’s Beta One when I write!

I don’t mind that he’s the Alpha in my life, my easy-peasy life.

Life as a Miracle: Inclusion in a Select Anthology

Welcome writers of the world, especially those who confess to a wee bit of insecurity. Raise your hand and hold your head high – tis no sin to admit to what we all feel. They say you can fool all people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you can drop the foolish act here. We feel you, uphold you, and support you!

Become a member of the Insecure Writers Blog Hop and you’ll never feel lonely again! Click this: http://www.insecurewriterssupportgroup.com to join in the camaraderie!

We check in with each other on the first Wednesday of the month. The awesome co-hosts for the June  posting of the IWSG (one or all of whom will respond directly to you and your blog post) are Jean Davis  http://jeanddavis.blogspot.com/,  Melissa Maygrove  http://melissamaygrove.blogspot.com/,  Kim Lajevardi  http://kimlajevardi.com/,  Pat Garcia  http://www.patgarciaandeverythingmustchange.com/, PJ Colando  http://www.pjcolando.com/, which would me, myself, and I.

As always, the group’s creator, Alex Cavanaugh, deserves acknowledgement and a bold shout-out – www.alexjcavanaugh.com

Every month, we announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Include your answer to the question in your IWSG post or let it inspire your post if you are struggling with something to say.

June 4 question – What were some books that impacted you as a child or young adult? 

I’ve written on this topic before – and, when you click on the link, you’ll note that it was for this blog hop. It’s a question of enduring and abundant interest among writers and their readers. https://www.pjcolando.com/my-childhood-reading-list/

Additionally, I have cause for applause: I was delighted to be included in this highly competitive story compliation.A new anthology titled, California Is a State of Mind, will be out in two weeks. The Southern California Writers Association, of which I am a longtime member, has curated 22 stories of creative significance that explore the many aspects and moods of California.You’ll enjoy diving into its pages, I promise peeps! It’ll be live on Amazon soon.In the interim, here’s my author interview. You’ll hear why I wrote my emotive tale and why I believe writing in vital in my life.