Author: Bev

There are invisible lines drawn all over the place, in my life.  I’m not sure why this brings to mind the actress, Catherine Zeta-Jones.  In the movie, Entrapment, she skillfully maneuvers through a dark room with red laser beams that intersect in an asterisk-barrier pattern in protection of an ancient artifact which she is about to steal from across the room.

Unlike me masquerading as Lucille Ball, awkwardly and comically trying to get out of my loved-one’s garage while badly dodging the closing garage door past one single security beam, Zeta-Jones performed an intricate ballet, or gymnastic feat fit for an Olympian.  I was, by the way, unable to successfully get out of that garage without the blasted door doing its best impression of a jumping bean, up and down, up and down, endlessly up and down no matter what acrobatics I tried in order to avoid that security beam.

Meanwhile Zeta-Jones got the object.  This was her reward for dodging, crossing, and landing between the laser lines of her fictitious life in that one movie.

These are not the same lines that I draw, cross, escape from, notice or ignore, most days of my life.  Some of us are agile at maneuvering those lines and others of us are just plain slapstick entertainment for the voyeur’s who watch us make fools of ourselves.

About the “lines between” this and that, the most oft articulated “fine line between,” is that between “genius and insanity.”  This particular fine line is tied to the idiom’s origins in English poet, John Dryden’s (1631-1700) quote in his essay, Absalom and Achitophel, “Great wits are sure to madness near alli’d and thin partitions do their bounds divide.” 

Okay, there’s some Old English for you.  However, the concept of “a fine line between,” or “walking a fine line,” has thrived into the twenty-first century.

We humans often observe that when we compare and contrast options between stuff, there is sometimes a nearly invisible boundary between the two.  The thing that is between them is known as “a fine line,” or Dryden’s “thin partition.”

Often these comparisons, are supposed opposites.  For example, many have concluded that there is a fine line between love and hate; pleasure and pain; self-confidence and arrogance; stupid and clever; success and failure, and so on.

It seems paradoxical that these things that appear to be opposites could also be considered so similar as to be separated only by the thinnest of boundaries.  However, if you look closely, society usually deems one of these narrowly divided options acceptable and the other one, not so much.

I’ve seen in print a number of comparisons with a fine line between them.  For example, anxiety and excitement.  Presumably anxiety is the unacceptable option when you consider its twin, excitement.  How about a groove and a rut?  Maybe a groove is acceptable because it’s planned, carved out, and purposeful, but a rut is something of a gully that you fall into but stay because it’s easier than climbing out.

An eccentric is colorful and quirky and interesting.  But their counterpart is just plain nuts.  There’s a fine line between deliberation and procrastination.  I guess deliberation is thoughtful preparation.  My husband calls deliberation, “getting ready to get ready to do thus and such.”  I dare say, he doesn’t procrastinate, that would be a delusional but optimistic hope that it’ll either get done like pie in the sky, or it’ll go away until another day, like the “rain, rain, go away, come again another day.”

I’m not bossy, but I’m assertive.  “I’m not bossy.  I have skills, leadership skills.  Understand?”  And you couldn’t possibly be stubborn.  You have determination.

There’s apparently something about losing, that begs a fine line.  The fact is, sometimes you win and sometimes you lose.  The fine line, however, separates losing and defeat which belittles the “try, try and try again” mantra of the work ethic, and permits you to give up.

In today’s political climate, there are invisible fishing lines running amok like laser beams protecting a treasure.  We have a fine line between information and propaganda as well as between cultural criticism and bitterness.  There is all manner of barking and biting between this faction and that one.

One has to walk a fine line these days in order to keep in balance between this side and that one without falling to either side of the line.  When acts of kindness can be mistaken for people-pleasing, a disorder of self-worth and fear of rejection, we might have a cultural balance issue.

I was okay at coping with the balance beam in gym-class, back in the day.  I wasn’t doing flips across it, mind you, but I could walk with a modicum of grace across its span, even trot at some speed.  But a circus tight rope, it was not.

When I wish my occasional craft-work to be rather invisible, I use fishing line.  It’s handy for hanging wreaths, tying things together that you don’t want to show that they’ve been tied, and what not.

Steven Wright cuts a fine line with his saying, “There’s a fine line between fishing and standing on the shore like an idiot.”  Do you think he wanted us to catch his figurative hint at fishing line being a fine line, when comparing fishing, to standing on the shore looking idiotic?

I could dance around fine lines all day but not to put too fine a point on the matter, that’s a line I would never cross.

Sometimes I get a giggle out of how we as a culture decide whether we like or don’t like strangers, for the silliest of reasons.  For example, we like or don’t like celebrities or public personalities, based on what we “hear about them” in the media or on the internet.

We all know that everything on the internet and in the headlines of supermarket tabloids is all factual, true and accurate.  Some celebrities and influencers count every “like” they get, accumulating “likes” along with cash, indirectly from those who bother to “like” them.

People appreciate being liked.  Few people from back in the day would forget the highly publicized award acceptance speech from actress, Sally Field, “you like me, you really like me.”  Being liked is never a glass half full.  Folks can’t get enough of being liked.

It’s the rare bird who doesn’t give a hoot “if you like me or not.”  But I think, that’s a defense mechanism based on being disliked by somebody who at some point in their life, meant something more to them than “the average bear.”

On social media there is an informal but powerful opinion poll, called a “like”-button.  One-click of your finger and you have empowered and approved someone’s opinion shared.  This approval means the world to some, is an accumulation of kudos to others, a popularity contest to yet others, and closer to meaningless to a few, I suppose.

The concept of “likes and dislikes” seems “high-school” to me, with the proverbial “walks on the beach,” heading up everybody’s likes, and snakes probably hitting the top ten of dislikes.  What is it about “liking” and high school that implores me to associate the two?

Perhaps most high-schoolers are insecure as to who they are and whether they’re acceptable, thus liked, for who they are at the moment.  High-schoolers test personas so as to eventually come to a conclusion about who they are.  How much they’re liked is the test-grade.  This persona, or that which gets a lot of likes, is a confirmation that this might be me.  If another persona gets no likes, then I guess I don’t want to be that person.

I believe there is a fine line between being liked and being authentic.  I suppose that if you are liked for who you genuinely are, then being liked is a reasonable gauge of acceptance.  But if you are deemed “liked” if it’s akin to the participation trophy, and not based on the merit of your skills, abilities and accomplishments, I’m not so sure that the “like-button” is all that meaningful.

I wonder if there should be a “lukewarm” button on social media posts.  Personally, I would probably be more honest if I could express “slightly warm” feelings toward a Facebook or Instagram post rather than “like” it.  Face it, many of us click “like” in order to be supportive rather than truly liking the subject matter.

Then again, English doesn’t always have the best adjectives, to describe feelings, as well as other languages.  I might like a social-media button that says chambré, which is French for bringing wine to room temperature.  I feel “room temperature in-a-good-way” about some of those formerly “liked” photos, comments, jokes, memes or gifs; but I didn’t have the option.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that, about most things that could be described as popular culture: celebrity, politics, comedy, influencers, and everything TikTok, I feel little enthusiasm, indifferent, unenthusiastic, lackadaisical, dispassionate, noncommittal, unenthused, even Laodicean.

I am neither hot nor cold, I am lukewarm about popular culture.  I like serious stuff.  This reminds me of my mom who once explained that she was not what, today, we would call a lol, or “laugh-out-loud,” -kind-of-person.  She is the source of my sarcasm and dry sense of humor.

I guess, often when I comment lol to someone’s online material, I really mean to say, “I’m lukewarm, in a slightly moved, half-smirk, giggle, kind-of-way.”  I don’t like it nor dislike it.   

“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.”  This is a popular saying in this high-tech computer, smartphone age.  We need encouraged to disconnect a bit and give some things a rest.

Have you ever had a telephone IT professional/technician tell you to “turn it off for 20 seconds, then back on?”  Or, “IT Support here, have you tried turning it off and on again?”  And the more brilliant of their troubleshooting questions, “Is it definitely plugged in?”

I may sound like I’m making fun, but often those highly trained technicians hit upon the simplest truth, that if all else fails, disconnect.  Turn the blasted thing off for a bit. 

As the first sentence above says, even our brains benefit from a time-out, a disconnect, or down-time.  God, in fact built in down-time, after six days of creation, which we label Sabbath.

In the book of beginnings, Genesis, the Sabbath, or seventh day was established as a day of rest.  Most Christian churches observe the Sabbath on Sunday, but Jews and a few outstanding Christian denominations observe the Sabbath, as it was established, on Saturday.

Then came Jesus, the consummate Jew who made it clear in the biblical book of Mark, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.”  This was in defense of some of his disciples, who plucked grain for some food along their path, and were accused by some rule-police of breaking the Sabbath.

But what I remember most about Jesus’ explanation of Sabbath rules had something in my Sunday-school recollection, to do with pulling your wayward goat out of a well or off of a hanging precipice.  As it turns out, when I looked it up, it was an ox in a well in the book of Luke and a sheep in a pit, in the book of Matthew.  Oh well, I got the gist of the sentiment.

Jesus clarified that if we must work on our usual Sabbath day, it’s okay because God the Father made Sabbath as a day of rest, for our benefit.  But it’s not a crisis, as my husband would say, if you must do some necessary work on that day, as long as you observe some sort of day of rest.  The respite is for you.

I admit we have had to dig a few goats out of sticky situations on our Sunday day of rest.  We have had to do the rare yard maintenance at the home of our loved one because of weather constraints and our own yard maintenance schedule.  We meant no offense to those of you resting on that day.

So, a spiritual Sabbath is tradition.  But I wonder if maybe we should establish a technological sabbath as well.  Just turn it off once in a while. 

I reluctantly observe momentary sabbaths from technology.  I admit, I only do this when I’m forced to, by a glitch.  These brief sabbaths, however, as well as the physical and spiritual ones are extremely beneficial for my mental health and overall well-being.

Do you ever want disconnect and silence so badly that you resort to rudeness to get it?  For instance, maybe someone is going over something repetitively, “like a broken record,” screeching and scratching like “fingernails on a chalkboard?”

Perhaps you can’t take it anymore and you picture yourself saying “won’t’ you give it a rest!”  This is fractionally less rude than saying, “shut up!”  When someone goes on and on and on and won’t stop, in order to get them to stop, we want to unplug them like a jukebox in mid-record, brought to a screeching halt.

Don’t you wish, once in a blue moon, that you could unplug and disconnect the world, stop the incessant chatter, just for a blessed, peaceful moment?  Just to catch your breath or exhale, “world, would you just give it a rest!”

I wonder what it would be like in today’s highly buzzed culture if we gave the gift of sabbath rest to one another.  What would it be like if we extended to each other rest from the usual twenty-four-seven expectation to be what we want them to be, do what we want them to do, keep up the pace and stay turned on, tuned in, activated, and jazzed to serve and produce and give and give and give, to my cause?

The expression, “give it a rest,” always appears as a command in the imperative form.   The phrase must be born out of the supply and demand of commerce, as in, “I demand and you supply.”  It’s quite tyrannical and I would like you to note that this woman has taken a sociocultural “chill pill,” and you can “rest assured” that I demand nothing from you today.

(Postscript – This is as she hands her column to her partner for proofreading and says, “I’m on a deadline, so please read now.”)

What is it about what we wear?  I think for some people it’s a big deal and for others it’s “just clothes.”

In fact, some items of apparel are labeled “statement pieces.”  That means, they say something about the wearer; maybe even shout who we are, or who we want to be known as.

Nobody forgets what they wore for their wedding.  I’m guessing most of us remember what we wore at other significant moments in our lives.

What does this say about clothing?  Perhaps clothing is a symbol of our identity, at least to a certain extent.

Surely costumers for film and television, study the characters, setting and tone of the project when they propose wardrobe.  “What do I want to convey through the clothing choices of this character?”

A buttoned-up collar suggests cultural or social frigidity.  A mini skirt on a middle-aged woman might be saying that she’s trying too hard to stay young.  The dark, plain pant suit and plain neutral shirt worn by a female detective says she’s one of the guys.

The frilly, girly chiffon dress screams Stepford Wife, a woman accustomed to “pleasing her man.”  The business suit hollers, “establishment.”   A polo shirt or skort, say “I’m casual and relaxed.”

“Artsy-fartsy” folks wear unusual patterns, styles, and often, colorful clothing which speaks to their creativity.  Uniforms give away “what I do for a living,” …. I’m a postal carrier, a medical professional, a technician for “so and so….”

My husband and I, who work from home, have a bit of a “uniform,” that we wear around the house.  In the summer for my husband, it’s a colorful t-shirt and shorts and in the winter, a long-sleeved colorful t-shirt and jeans.  He’s “plain, Book,” – did you ever watch the movie, Witness?  My uniform in the summer is often a t-shirt as well, with shorts or carpi-pants, and in the winter, sweatshirt and sweatpants – old-fashioned workout clothes, because I work out and I’m old-fashioned.

Through some clothing choices, people, specifically women and girls are deemed, “asking for it,” or blamed for assaults on their person.  I think the best rebuttal of such ridiculous thinking is a current exhibit in Leola, Pennsylvania (Amish country), titled “What they wore.” 

As it turns out, the modest clothing traditions of Anabaptist cultures which include Amish, Mennonite, Brethren, Charity, and other “Plain” churches such as in Holiness, an offshoot of Methodism, do not make little children or women immune to sexual assault.  Organizers of the exhibit of clothing worn by sexual assault victims in these “Plain churches,” are trying to make everyone aware that “you can be harmed no matter what you’re wearing.”

The assailant, not the victim, is the twisted human being in these scenarios.  No one asks to be assaulted.  If a child is wearing a long cotton dress and bonnet or a woman is wearing a tight animal print mini dress and high-as-the-sky heels, and these females are accosted, it’s not the clothing that “made him do it.”

Also, what is it with the new concept of “cultural appropriation,” as a bad thing when we wear clothing associated with other cultures?  If a white woman wears an Asian-inspired garment, or a Hispanic woman wears an African-print or head piece, or we wear jewelry reminiscent of a different culture than our own, it used to be considered done so in honor of that culture.  Today, however, we might be verbally attacked for appropriating a minority culture.  I really don’t get it.

Are you comfortable in your skin?  Is your “I’m okay, you’re okay” attitude reflected in the clothing you wear atop that skin?

Do you iron your clothes, making them “just right,” or do a few wrinkles or creases exemplify a “live a little” position toward life?  Can you live with a stain or small tear in something you wear?  Or is that garment instantly a throw-away?

“Will you be seen” in certain styles and never in others?  Most of us have seen visuals of “what people will wear to Walmart.”  Oh my!  From pajamas to derriere-exposing short-shorts, to what one would consider costumes or t-shirts with messages better kept private, people will wear just about anything, most anywhere – but Walmart is often the destination of those wearing crazy stuff.

There’s also the daring possibility of wearing nothing at all.  A naturist of that sort, I am not, but hey if that works for you…. Nudists are another personality type entirely.  What do you wear, and why?

The United States has long been known as the “land of plenty.”  We as a people have owned our identity as hailing from a nation of economic abundance.

We’ve been trained up from childhood to expect to go out into the world and become economically successful.  But, If we get “some,” we want more.

In the early twentieth century, wealthy business magnate, John D. Rockefeller said, “just a little bit more,” when asked “how much money is enough money.”  I heard it years ago, as “one more dollar.”

When is more, enough?  We’ve all heard it said, “there’s more where that came from.”  Well, here we are in 2022 and I’m not sure about that.

We have a supply chain crisis.  If you’ve shopped for yourself lately, unlike the elite among us who pay others to shop for them, you can easily define “supply chain,” and you know it has gone terribly, terribly wrong.  “Supply chain” was heretofore just a concept in economics books and banter among geeky economists.

To be fair, shortages in supplies started with the pandemic, because of staffing problems, supply shortages were soon followed by an economic slowdown, and now we have inflation.  Essentially inflation is increased prices for consumer goods or an increase in the general cost of living.

As to supply shortages, can you say cat food, or baby formula, or your favorite product which you have been buying “forever,” but cannot find it in any of the stores you frequent, not to mention the internet?  But inflation when experienced by the consumer, not the corporation, means that the cost of your everyday product has increased, in the case of Canola oil, one hundred percent, a jump from $2.89 to $5.85. That’s one item.

When consumers see, and actually observe that the price of one item in their shopping cart has gone up from a couple dollars to several dollars; that’s inflation.  And, it’s more than the 8.5% touted by those who calculate only the increased price of raw materials, and resources to manufacturers of goods.

The decline in purchasing power which explains inflation from the point of view of the consumer, is real.  A decade ago, we joked that our household could count on every home improvement project that we contemplated, was sure to cost in the neighborhood of two hundred dollars.  Now, we can’t seem to do anything for under five hundred dollars; and “there’s always something.”

My family’s weekly shopping trips used to cost about one hundred dollars.  It’s never less than two hundred over recent months.

Obvious reductions in package sizes, labeled “shrinkflation,” is the new norm.  From toilet tissue, to almonds, packages are smaller but prices remain the same or in some instances increased.  We’re not supposed to notice this sly maneuver by manufacturers and advertisers.

Generally, we Americans are used to having “more than enough.”  The economic abundance that our country is known for has spawned some interesting language associated with what we consider “enough.”   Has the “land of plenty,” become the “land of not enough?”

Our language hasn’t changed from the idea of readily available abundance, even though our experience has definitely changed.  One of my pet peeves is the nonsensical phrase, “I agree with you one hundred ten percent.”  In that context, one hundred percent is enough, because it means everything, all, total, or complete.

Or, we frequently go “over and above,” when completing a task.  It’s often not enough to just complete the task, but we have to do more than expected, asked, or called-for.

Have you ever been offered “all you can eat,” in a restaurant?  Or have you been asked to “say when,” after being offered grated cheese on your salad or pasta?  In many instances, in America, we’re still given the opportunity to have “one more.”

When is enough, enough?  Thank you so much for listening to me rant about enough.  Really, thank you very much.  Thanks again.  Merci beau coup.  You’re “more than welcome” to join in.  Thank u….

Once upon a time there was this white rat or was it a baby possum, and a rose-gold ballet slipper shoe, and a sandwich missing a piece of ham.  It happened, but it was in a dream.

In order to process this story, you must be privy to the fact that rats and possums, twinsies in the critter world as far as I’m concerned, give me the creeps.  In actuality, I’ve had few experiences with both of these animals, and this is cause for happiness in my world.

The main gist of the dream was that I picked up the critter and held it in my arms in the baby-holding position and gave it a talking-to about stealing the ham from my sandwich.  This particular rat had anthropomorphized, big, blinky eyes and partly curly hair; not your usual white rat.  This animal was cute only because it was a dream and I made it so in the depths of my unconscious.

The “cuddly rat” and I are “strange bedfellows,” to say the least.  In fact, every detail about the dream was unlikely – from mention of the West coast, ideologically not for me; to rose-gold, not my color palette; ballet-slipper-flats, not my style; to cozying up to a rat-thief, an unlikely buddy.

Dreams aside, Charles Dickens said, “adversity brings a man acquainted with strange bedfellows” (The Pickwick Papers, 1837).  Me becoming friends with a rat-thief is the strangest pairing of bedfellows, ever.

Have you ever been chucked together by some circumstance not of your making, with a person or person with whom you would never have chosen to be acquainted, yet hit it off?  These are strange bedfellows.  They are also, as I’ve experienced, unlikely friendships.

I like having a conglomeration of friends.  Friends from work, from childhood, from school, from neighborhood and family relationships, from every skin color and ethnic background, from mixed religious, economic, social, philosophical and political perspectives, all bring me back to the center.  These humans contribute to my life and make me whole, with my true self firmly centered in the middle where I’m most me.

Homogeneous is boring and dangerously self-centered, if not bigoted.  If your thinking is reinforced only by those who think the same as you, your thinking will never progress beyond your box.  Even if you don’t agree with someone else’s thinking, at least they have made you think outside of your usual, programmed pattern.

Unity can be found within diversity.  Agreement is vital for stability.  But diversity stimulates intellectual curiosity which is vital for progress.  Compromise is a good thing.  It allows for combining the best of many worlds.

One of our first business associates when we started our business over thirty years ago, was a hard nut to crack.  He was crunchy and everything we did for him seemed wrong.  But we persisted and we got over any temptation to harbor hurt feelings.

By the time he passed away, twenty-five years later, we had become just short of friends but we understood each other and had grown into warm colleagues and respected associates.  In the beginning, we never would have predicted such a long and fruitful relationship with this guy.

They are Catholic, when you’re Protestant.  They are Jewish, when you’re Christian.  They are Liberal, when you’re Conservative.  They are Gay and proud, when you’re Straight and happy to be so.  They are struggling with mental illness, when you’re struggling to understand depression, bipolar, or substance dependencies.

These are strange bedfellows, but we all engage in some unlikely friendships, just like cats and dogs.  We shouldn’t be so surprised to find that cats and dogs living under the same roof can become tolerant, if not unlikely friends.  Would you consider becoming strange bedfellows with a rat?

Are we as a society, angrier than we used to be?  Are we so frustrated with our world, as it is, that the least little thing sets us off?

How testy are you?  Are you tetchy?  Does, irritable, or upset frequently, describe you on most days?  This is not a test or valuation of your mental health, or is it?

“That makes me so mad.”  Haven’t we all said it?

Should we have said, “that makes me angry?”  Does it really matter, how we say it?

Are we angry or are we mad?  It seems that there is a fine line between the two.  Both are adjectives, words used to describe, in the case of angry, an emotion related to anger.  The second, as in mad, the word describes something related to serious mental illness, for example, “I think I might be going mad.”

Brits call the American use of mad to describe, “being beside oneself with anger,” maddening or upsetting.  They use the word mad just to describe something insane or crazy.

So, if you’re ticked off beyond belief, is it accurate to describe yourself as mad?  In this case you might be bordering on insane, with strong emotion.

And I wonder if that extreme emotion, such as when we tell a beloved, “I’m mad about you,” may not be “mad” in the sense of insane, but just intensity of feeling.  Could it mean emotion that is out of control, beyond rational thought?

“Being beside oneself with anger,” was the definition of mad as early as the fourteenth century.  After all the word mad derives from the Old English word gemædde which meant “out of one’s mind.”  That pretty much means “really, really angry.”

It’s common to use the word mad in this way, throughout the United States; not so much in the United Kingdom.  Brits don’t like that we Americans use mad to mean angry. In 1781, labeling it a derogatory, “Americanism,” some British word-critic described our use of “mad,” for “angry,” as “not found in any accurate writer, nor used by any good speaker.”

But mad, meaning angry, is not an Americanism, and not new, because Shakespeare used it (Henry IV – although he used mad to mean crazy more often than mad to mean angry); and in the King James Bible, specifically in Acts 26:11 the word mad is used to mean angry.

As it turns out, most dictionaries acknowledge “mad,” as synonymous with “angry.”  Dictionary editors also have found in published works using these two words, that “angry,” is more often used to mean “angry,” than “mad” is used to mean “angry.”

Did you know that it is the job of dictionary writers, not to decide what words mean, but to document how writers across the board in all manner of literature, use certain words?  That’s why most dictionary definitions give you a number of possible usages, such as in engineering, or music, or aeronautics, etc.

So, if the bulk of writers use a word a certain way, dictionaries will reflect that common usage, even though some folks might not like that we use a word “that way.”  This is the case with the word mad.

Language usage is fluid and adaptive to the vagaries of social norms. Dictionaries chronicle, not prescribe how we adapt words to describe our experience in the world. 

Don’t be mad at the dictionary writers.  They’re not mad for documenting what we write.  Although they might be angry from time to time for being blamed, just for being the messenger.

“People are so mad about things these days.”  I’m not so sure that intense anger is anything we can attribute solely to these days.  After all, in the classic 1975 film, Network, the longtime news anchor, Howard Beale started the catchphrase, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore,” and people everywhere threw up their sashes and joined in his madness.

Whether you’re mad or whether your angry, either way I think it’s accurate to say you are experiencing an extreme emotion.  Most of the dictionary definitions of both words utilize the adjectives, wildly, overcome, extremely, greatly, or strong.

In either case, our mental health is challenged in the current sociopolitical climate.  This might not be new to the times, but it might be new to us as a people.  Take care, out there and please don’t be mad at the messenger.