Drafts I have just deleted:
1. Rant about trying to figure out music options in the kitchen, now that Amazon’s Echo/Dot devices have removed the part of the agreement where they say the devices can’t listen to you unless you’re actively talking to them, and can’t record you and can’t use those recordings for their own purposes. Now they CAN and CAN and CAN, and I’m OUT, but my other options suck. What if companies tried making things BETTER instead of WORSE?
2. Wishing I still had a secret blog so I could talk to you about Aging Parents without my aging parents here.
3. Talking about the non-Target shopping options I have been trying—but a couple of those options are non-chain stores in my town. And I could have disguised those (since knowing Exactly Which Store isn’t helpful anyway), but also proofreading it was making me drowsy.
4. This was the whole thing: “You know those bracelets that have rings attached to them with little chains? They were popular when I was in high school, generally in a golden/delicate way. Elizabeth ”
5. Boring, middle-aged complaining about how difficult it is to figure out lightbulbs nowadays. (I didn’t actually say “nowadays.”) Boring, non-funny anecdote about how it took literally THREE DIFFERENT MALE CLERKS to help me choose a replacement lightbulb. (It actually did.)
6. Rant about the proposed changes to the process of voter registration.
7. The entire draft consisted of the words “Heart the Lover”. Apparently I was planning to write something about it. All I remember now is that I’d read so many people raving about the book, and I found it perfectly fine but not particularly remarkable. Though, evidently, I was planning to remark.
8. Very boring post about a haircut. (She cut off FOUR INCHES.) (FOUR. I wanted a TRIM. Why didn’t I say NO.) (She SAID it was “damaged.” It was NOT DAMAGED.) (She also acted like she had never heard of long layers, so.) (AND: when I took my hair out of the bun, she said “Oh…it’s LONG,” as if she was saying “Oh…it’s FILTHY.” I think she was ANTI-LONG-HAIR.)
9. The draft was titled “Mystery of the Credit/ATM Card.” There was no content. It was from 2020. I don’t know what the mystery was.
10. Mixed wailing, right after Target broke my heart with their political actions.
11. A post from when Henry was looking into colleges, asking for help finding a college in an area of the country that had “basically no winter” and was also in a state that was LGBTQ+ friendly and hadn’t outlawed abortion.
12. These notes from three years ago that no longer make sense to me, especially together:
kitten eats spiders
enjoying feeding Henry
keto not working feelings-wise
UTI
Well…if Henry ever needs to find another college, he can come hang out with me. Our version of winter is that it rains or there is frost on the grass in the morning sometimes, we have almost definitely successfully dodged the ridiculous possibility that a Republican was going to get elected governor because of our stupid primary system (now we may not even have a Republican for the general election), and the cost of living where I live is not quite as crazy as the rest of the state. It is 99 degrees today though, so you can’t have everything.
where is this delightful political environment?
I would read any of those posts, and I would also read a Secret Swistle Blog if such a thing existed!
The last one is so close to being a haiku.
I have so many posts I have never posted. Most are long and rambling (as are most of the ones that do get published; not really sure why some make the cut and others don’t) but I do have a few fragments here and there. It’s interesting to look back on these things and wonder why they felt important enough to jot down but not urgent enough to finalize.
This reminds me that I am not entirely sure of the current cat situation in your home. And I am wondering if you are still considering the possibility of a dog.
We have four (FOUR) cats, though we like to say (okay, only I like to say) that we have three cats and also one of our cats has his own cat. (We added a third cat; it did not go great; we added a fourth cat and it solved the third-cat problem.)
I still sometimes consider a dog, but dogs seem like a lot of time and effort. I have heard that having a cat is like having a roommate and having a dog is like having a toddler.
Having a dog is absolutely like having a toddler. I had never had a dog, my husband had, he wanted a third child and I didn’t, I allowed the dog instead and while it is better than another child (the dog did not further damage my pelvic floor), he (the dog) is a lot of work. He understands a lot of what we say, can respond to some of it when he wants to, needs to eat only certain things, and makes messes. The kids love him and I kind of get the dog thing now, but it’s like having a child who will never grow up all the way.
My parents have a certain type of dog that they like—a mid-age Bassett Hound—which is kind of the most easy dog. But, yet, that dog is like a well-behaved toddler.
Got a puppy last year. First 6 weeks were exactly like having a baby who didn’t need breast/bottles, which is to say it was all-consuming and awful but I survived. Now it’s exactly like having a toddler who eats the same thing every day and will never be able to talk.
He can communicate just fine, but he will never be able to say “Mom? Will you play with me? Mom? Can we play now, Mom? Is it later yet? How about now? Mom? Mom?”
It is exactly the amount of toddler I need in my life and I love him so much.
I think an Aging Parents post is a great idea! If you can’t talk about your situation at all, maybe you can throw it out as a topic for discussion and ask some big open ended questions for people to chime in on? I suspect many of your readers are in this demographic of starting to address these issues.
Oh man. Aging parents is A. THING. My 76 year old dad has Parkinson’s and it is progressing slowly but surely. My mom is showing signs of memory slipping and is turning kind of mean. And it’s hard to know what to do with them. My dad legit lied to my mom about doing their taxes in April, so now we kind of have to take over some of the bigger administrative stuff. Which is fine and understandable. But it’s hard too. And having 4 siblings is sort of great, but we also all don’t agree on what are the priorities for them.
And my sister, who was left by her husband 8 months ago and has a 6 month old baby, has decided that she wants to date. The divorce is barely started. She’s clearly not ready. But she’s found someone online (insert my own jealousy at not being able to find anyone online for years and she hits water on the first try?!?) and she’s going full steam ahead. It will probably turn into nothing or it will move slowly until she is legit ready. But…those same aging parents RENTED A SECOND HOUSE near her to help her with the baby, pretty much full time. Me and another sister have spent a lot of time watching the baby and now all of a sudden she’s dumping the baby to go on two dates this weekend? I was just telling her that I thought she was handling everything as well as could be expected in such a crappy situation, but man she’s really gone off the deep end this week ;). And I’m not sure how much of my hesitation is my own personal baggage and how much of it is legit hesitation related to her. And I also don’t want to babysit my nephew if she’s having some hot girl summer, but I also want to spend time with him because he’s great and I don’t have kids and it’s likely my last niece or nephew.
I suspect I am not the only one in this comments section who is HERE FOR all such news about your sister.
Subscribed.
Well….she thinks it went fantastic. Her sisters are less sure. He’s been separated even less than she has (FEB OR MARCH!!!). And isn’t it just crazy how his wife is doing to same things as her husband?!! I mean that just seems too good to be true! She’s disappointed it didn’t get physical (and that’s detail I don’t not love having). But don’t worry she’s back over at his house today. So I’m not sure what uncomfortable details await me today!
Meanwhile she left her kid all day yesterday. Which is fine but also makes me a little sad.
The whole things just reeks of 2 people not at all ready. But my sister makes a plan and wills it into existence so I’m not super convinced she will see that before this is drug out for a long time.
This is correct!
The bracelet/Elizabeth item reminds me of a young man I know who is probably about Elizabeth’s age. He wears a loaded charm bracelet and crocs with abundant jibbitz and I love it. That generation has been dealt a bum hand by history and they are dealing with it by wearing whatever the hell they want.
I do so love this for them.
I was talking to my fellow teacher about a morning meeting game that I had found online and might be fun. The very next day she said she had social media videos about the same game. Our phones were listening to us when they were not being used! My 19 year old son was not surprised.
Yeah. So my anecdote about this is I was talking to my brother about a co-worker of mine who I thought would be his type. We were in the car going somewhere together. When we stopped for gas he showed me his phone and she had magically popped up as a friend suggestion on his social media even though he’d never heard her name until that convo. Yikes.
What I’ve read is that they are not so much listening to you as talking ABOUT you to each other. Is that more or less creepy??
Oh, I could say so much about my aging MIL in my secret blog, if I had one. It’s a really sad and complicated situation that makes the stuff I’m actually writing about now (beach vacation) seem like only half (or less) of the story and kind of dishonest.
YES. Yes. It is one of the issues with letting people know we have blogs. Now we have to be careful when we write about parents, careful when we write about kids, careful when we write about siblings or friends—in a way I DIDN’T have to be in the days when no one knew I had a blog. And as you say, it can make the story feel dishonest, and lacking. It’s a problem.
Swistle, how about a little DEAL?
I promise not to look at your post about aging parents. In exchange, you promise to let me read all the comments of said post!
(Signed) Aging Parent in Question who will not even peek at post 😇.
I am all in for mixed wailing. Please have at it! I am probably the only one who wants to hear about #6, proposed changes to voter registration process, which I am assuming would be pure wailing, given the times we are in.
I could have benefitted from a secret blog about my aging relatives. And could now benefit from a secret blog where I can write about my adult children. But I won’t, because they are my most loyal readers (although they never comment).
I do not have aging parents, because my parents did not age. (It’s ok, it was a long time ago, and I’m (mostly) fine about it.)
BUT. My husband has aged (not aging, as they are 89 & 90) parents and they are A Worry! They live in a condo (not an aged care place, just a regular condo) and don’t have help apart from grocery deliveries.
They don’t tell us what’s going on with them until Weeks Later! Like, they recently bought themselves mobility-scooters, about 6 weeks ago. And 5 weeks later they told us that when Mom got hers delivered, she drove it into Dad’s because no-one told her how to brake. And she damaged both, and they had to be taken back to the store to be fixed.
Deep Sigh.
Heart the Lover WAS just meh – compared to Writers and Lovers anyway…
My mom has Alzheimer’s and it’s a fucking nightmare and I would love to discuss tbh
When my kids were babies and toddlers, there was so much easy commiseration with other parents who were caring for kids of that age. Exchanging a knowing glance with another toddler parent when their kid was melting down at the checkout line. There’s all that you have to consider with your posts re: family and friends, I get that and appreciate that you’re walking a tightrope. Nevertheless, it would be so interesting to be able to discuss a parent who can’t drive anymore or a teenager who just went through a dramatic break up in a space like this.
Haircuts are the worst. Why don’t they do what you ask for? I went to Great Clips last week. Showed her where I wanted it cut. She tried talking me out of that and then cut it longer than I wanted. Then she feathered the ends, which was nice. Then I said I wanted it shorter, as I had initially said. So then she cut off two more inches and did not feather the ends so it seemed super choppy and weird. Ugh.
Argh haircuts. I go to a semi-retired hairdresser, who is awesome! I am concerned she will fully retire and then I don’t know what I will do. I recently moved and now I drive an hour and 15 minutes so she can do my hair. I have not gone back to Great Clips since I had similar problems like you.
My almost 12 yo daughter wanted a razored pixie cut 2 years ago. She brought in pictures. She discussed length. She was in her blue soccer uniform and I don’t know what happened but the Great Clips stylist ran the clippers up the back of her head and proceeded to give her what can only be described as the “businessman’s special” – a classic men’s cut. Did she get distracted? Forget my pre pubescent daughter was a girl? Hate children? I do not know. But she (who dresses comfortably in baggy t shirts and cargo pants in neutral colors so nothing hinders her outside play or crafting was called “little buddy” “sir” “man” and “my guy” for about a year has never gone back to great clips. And it is worth the money!
I was just thinking about the secret blog this week! My parents have just moved back from FL and are living with my sibling and it’s … not great. It’s super bad, actually and super depressing. The sandwich generation is real for me and maybe a little worse for me because I’m such an old mom? I have my first hs graduate this year and am also contemplating my octogenarian parents argh blerg
also we have solved the music problem by – well I don’t know if it’s solved but we use a bluetooth speaker and play our music that way. I do miss asking for measurement conversions, though.
Oh, I bought a new home and moved with my DH and then-middle-schooler and my mom moved in with us into a separate apartment that is part of said new home in 2019 and … I have thoughts! For the record, I am glad we did it, but there are (surprise, surprise!) positive and negative aspects of same I’d be delighted to have a place to discuss.
Swistle, I’d be very grateful if, if nothing else, you could put up a post that said, “This is the post where you can put thoughts and comments about Aging Parents in the comments section” and we could go to town. MY mom doesn’t read your blog.
Can you password protect a post and then have anyone interested in discussing aging parents email you for the password? I feel like I’ve seen that in the past when someone with a no-longer secret blog wanted to discuss something sensitive to them. I have no idea how that would work administratively, or even how it would feel on your and Aging Parent’s side to know that you are having a discussion about them that they are not privy to, but it’s just an idea!
Just for the record, I’d read the pants off a secret blog. Just for the record.
“You know those bracelets that have rings attached to them with little chains?”
I don’t, actually, but that sounds very cute and I need more information!