I’m extremely frugal but I don’t ask friends to drive me 230 miles and not even pay for gas (and if I did I would sure buy lunch at least)

This happened over 20 years ago and I am still mad about it.

Yes I can hold a grudge why do you ask?

I was dating this English guy who lived in Brussels. We both worked for the same company, which is how we met.

He had to come to the company HQ in Memphis and wanted to visit me in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

I said fine but fly from Memphis to CR because the drive between the two cities is nothing but cornfields and it’s boring.

He ignored me and drove and when he arrived, commented that wow that was a boring drive!

Yes I answered. I told you that. I told you that.

His co-worker then went on to Chicago with the car and the British Brussels Boyfriend (BBB) stayed with me for the weekend.

Sunday night, BBB told me he had cancelled his Monday flight from CR to Chicago because if I drove him, we could spend more time together.

He did not consult me on this decision.

He did not ask if I wanted to drive the 230 miles to Chicago and then back again. (I did not.)

He did not ask if I had any meetings I couldn’t miss at work the next day. (I didn’t but that’s not the point.)

He did not ask if I wanted to TAKE A VACATION DAY to drive him. (I did not.)

I was pissed but this was before I was fully versed in the internet and greyhound.com.

(There is a bus! I just checked. Five hours – not much longer than it takes in a car – and $105.)

Now I am really mad, not just at him but at myself for not even thinking about the bus. I knew about the bus! I had taken it from Houston to San Antonio when I was in college.

Damn.

But anyhow BBB announced I would be driving him and LIKE AN IDIOT I said OK because I didn’t know what else to do.

(The nice thing about getting older is you no longer face these situations of feeling like you have no options. You realize that you did not create the problem and you don’t have to fix it and you can just say, “Dang I hope you can figure this out. Bye.”)

So I drove him.

When I stopped for gas, he did not offer to pay.

When we met my friend Lenore for lunch at a pizza place, he watched as she picked up the check.

When we arrived at O’Hare, he did not open his wallet and say, “Let me reimburse you for the gas at least!” which would have given me the chance to decline with a smile but I would not have declined because I was so mad by then.

(You should know that he mentioned more than once that he was a millionaire – that he was good at investing. But he lived like a monk, without even his own washing machine, washing his clothes in the sink or taking them to the laundromat, and keeping his TV in the apartment basement so he wouldn’t watch too much.)

(WHAT WAS I THINKING?!)

One month after he got back home, BBB broke up with me.

I did not shed a tear.

I did, however, mention to him that I would like him to reimburse me for the gas. (I should have asked for 50 cents a mile plus compensation for the vacation day.)

He did not answer.

Months after that, when I had moved to Memphis (with the same company), a co-worker came to my office (those were the days when people had offices)(and good insurance)(and good vacation time) with an envelope.

“I was just in Brussels for a company meeting,” she said, “and BBB gave this to me to give to you?”

The envelope had $39, which I guess covered the gas but nothing else.

I just rolled my eyes.

Six months later, he emailed me that he had to come to Memphis for work and could he see me and I had to let him know ASAP because there were only two cheap seats left on the flight.

Not two seats.

But two *cheap* seats.

That he wasn’t even paying for.

I would rather leave money on the table than leave time on the table

I have been feeling guilty about not working for money.

It’s not just our culture, which seems to equate a person’s worth with her income, but also people I know. A college acquaintance, a very high earner, wrote on facebook, “people retiring at 58 is silly unless your health is compromised and you are about to die at 60…. Try to grow a pair and realize that it’s a journey.”

She did clarify that she meant someone who liked her job should keep working, but I have never liked my job enough that I would prefer working to not working. I have always worked because I needed the money. That’s been my main motivation. I needed to pay my rent and buy food.

The luxury of having a job that you also find fulfilling and worthwhile?

That is something most of us do not have.

---

My grandmother wanted to be an artist. She wanted to study painting in Paris. I didn’t know this until I was in my 30s and I asked her if she could have done anything in her life, what would she have done. My aunts and uncles didn’t know this until I told them.

My grandmother had to leave school, which she loved, after 8th grade. My mom still has my grandmother’s school notebooks, with careful (and beautifully done) drawings of the cross-section of a cell and insightful essays about Christopher Columbus. She loved learning.

Before she married my grandfather at age 28, she worked as a maid in Chicago, walking the miles back to work on her day off rather than take the streetcar so she could buy a candy bar with the nickel instead.

Once she married my grandfather, who had bought his parents’ farm, she, too, became a farmer, getting up before dawn every day to trudge through the northern Wisconsin snow to the barn to milk the cows, sewing her clothes and her children’s clothes, washing those clothes (including diapers) in the washtub and then putting them through the wringer and hanging them out to dry, growing and canning their produce, baking bread almost every day.

I don’t think it wasn’t until after her children and four foster children were mostly gone from the house that she started taking painting classes. Once a week, she went into town for her class with Mr O’Brian. She painted what was beautiful in her world: mothers holding babies, children, puppies, and flowers.

Had she actually gone to Paris, she would not have been considered a Great Artist if she had continued with these themes. The domestic sphere not Art unless a man does it. (See Jennifer Weiner vs Jonathan Franzen.)

---

My grandfather, who also had to leave school after 8th grade, had dreams. He had traveled to California to work with the CCC. He loved California and had wished he could stay.

He was an avid reader his whole life, keeping a globe next to his armchair so he could find the places he was visiting on the page.

My other grandparents also were not allowed to continue their educations after 8th grade. My grandmother persisted as best she could by getting a job at the library, working or volunteering there the rest of her life. My grandfather died at 59 from a stroke. (A stroke he would have survived today thank God for modern medicine.)

---

Mr T’s grandfather also didn’t go past 8th grade and worked the line at Ford for 40 years.

Forty years of backbreaking work. Forty years of getting up early, filling a lunch pail, and trudging through the harsh Detroit winter to a loud, dirty factory. Forty years of dealing with bosses and no power and no way to say no or to protest.

In his retirement, he and Mr T’s grandmother bought a small place in Florida. Grandma Mr T died early and Grampa Mr T spent what remained of his retired life without her.

---

When I was in college, my farmer grandparents, by then retired, drove to Texas to visit my family in San Antonio. My mom drove them to Houston for the day to visit me at college.

I was the first of 26 grandchildren to attend college. My mom’s younger siblings had attended local state schools (my mom dropped out her freshman year), but my grandparents had not been able to pay for anything, so it was a low-budget experience for all of them. My uncle told me he could barely keep his eyes open during class because he would work until 3 a.m. at UPS, getting only a few hours of sleep every night.

I still see my grandmother, standing in the middle of the quad, wearing her worn but clean and tidy cloth coat, carefully-mended stockings, and sensible thick-soled laceup shoes, and clutching her pocketbook in front of her as she beamed in delight.

I was getting to have the college experience that people dream of – I was immersed in learning in a setting of great beauty.

I was living part of her dream and she was delighted.

---

My dad died when he was 62.

He was not retired.

For years, he had talked about renting an RV and driving around the country with my mom, visiting all the parks. I rolled my eyes because at the time, that sounded dumb, but now? Now it sounds great. I mean, except for the driving all day and living out of an RV – but spending my days walking in beauty? Is that a bad thing?

I’m not 62 yet, but I can see it from here.

I think a lot about how I would want my last years to be if these were my last years.

---

When Mr T’s parents died in 2015, we already knew he had been disinherited. But because his parents were so lazy about their death preparation, they hadn’t bothered to update their IRA beneficiaries. Mr T was the secondary beneficiary on his dad’s IRA, which meant that despite his dad’s wishes, Mr T did inherit money from him.

It was a life-changing amount not in a “Wow we have so much money we never have to worry about money again” way but in a “Well if we add this money to what we have already saved, we can think about retiring a little bit early, especially if we live very modestly.”

(PS This is a warning to keep your will and other financial information up to date. You could accidentally leave money to someone you want to disinherit!)

---

A dear friend – who makes a ton I mean A TON of money and also holds a position of great social status – asked me, when I quit my last job, how I could walk away from the money.

I can see how it would be hard to walk away from a very high salary and a job where you are the boss and are respected and people know you have Made It.

But I was making less money than I made three years out of college. I was the lowest-ranking person in the group and the person of last resort for dealing with crap. It’s easy to walk away from being a cog for very low pay. It’s easy to walk away when your entire career has been a series of just jobs and you’re kind of a professional failure.

---

I think about all that human potential – so much intelligence, so much yearning – unrealized.

I think about my grandparents, working so hard every single day that they looked old even in their 40s.

I think about how they didn’t complain.

And I think about the dreams they held in their hearts. The dreams they never got to fulfill.

And then I don’t feel guilty about not working for money.

If all you see are penises, you think ectopic pregnancies can be transplanted and periods can be contained by squeezing your legs together

What don’t we usually find in the women’s room?

Men.

Which is another way of saying we don’t find people with power.

Which is why when a friend jokingly sent a photo to Mr T of the friend and his senior executive co-workers, all out of town on a client entertainment beach trip, standing in front of the urinals in their scuba gear, I got furious.

(Nothing against the friend – this is the water he swims in.)(Haha.)

Mr T did not understand my anger.

“That’s the power structure of the company,” I said. “Of the world.”

“They’re all men. This is how they develop their bonds. This is how they hang out with each other. How they decide whom to ask to play golf. How they decide who has ‘executive presence.’ How they decide whom to promote. How they decide whom to invite into the power circle.”

“This is how the system perpetuates itself. By making decisions in a room where women are not allowed.”

(It should go without saying that everyone in that photo was white.)

---

Last week, I was at a talk. One of my state’s Supreme Court justices was also at the talk. I had never met her before, but after the talk, I saw her in the ladies’ room. She was the only other person there and she was wearing a fabulous jacket so I complimented her on the jacket and we started talking and I told her how happy I was that she had been elected and how Mr T and I had campaigned for her and how my Bonus Daughter in another state had written postcards for Justice’s campaign and to keep up the good work.

She thanked me and said she was giving a speech in another state soon and wasn’t sure what to say or how to reach those voters about abortion and I told her that when I had campaigned, I had been in a conservative neighborhood but almost every single older woman I had met had told me that although she personally would never have had an abortion, she would be damned if she would tell other women what to do.

One woman was a retired nurse. She said she was against abortion for herself but she started to cry when she told me about the ten year old girl who came into her ER after being raped.

“We took care of it,” she said. “We never even let her know. She didn’t need that on top of everything else.”

My state’s current law, since Roe was overturned, allows no exceptions for rape. Or the age of the girl who might be pregnant.

(Quick reminder although I’m sure none of you need it: By definition, any girl who is pregnant – unless a state has Romeo and Juliet law, which my state does not but also doesn’t really matter as most underage pregnancies are a result of adult predators – has been raped. The age of consent in my state is 18. By law, a girl under 18 cannot consent to sex. No matter how grown she looks.)

The best way to get the law changed is to get more people with vaginas on the court and in the legislature.

---

Mr T and I were at a play. The executive director of the theatre said that one reason they are doing big renovations next year is because there aren’t enough women’s rooms, which makes intermission too long.

“Why don’t they convert one of the two men’s rooms to a women’s room?” Mr T whispered to me.

“Because then men would have to wait and we can’t have that,” I whispered back.

And because men will never willingly give up their power.

Are leftovers bad? Also, how do you divide a check when there are more people in one group than the other and you hate one of the other people?

You all know I’m weird about eating out, right?

But I think you will be on my side on this one, even the Go Out To Eaters. (I love you all! I do! I love my going out to eat friends. I just feel poor all the time. 🙂 )

This is a story about Mr T’s older brother. I never want to eat with him again, even if he would pay for it, which he would not.

Years ago, we were visiting my sister, who lives in the same area as Mr T’s older brother, OB the Jerk (OBtJ).

Mr T, for some reason, had let OBtJ know we were in town, so OBtJ invited us over to dinner.

Only it wasn’t to dinner, it was to meet him, his wife (who is actually pretty cool but I do not have a relationship with her because I cannot stand her husband), and their very hungry teenage son at a restaurant.

They picked the restaurant. It was a hot pot restaurant, where they cook soup at the table and you share it. Everyone is eating the same thing from a communal pot.

It was good food and there were a ton of leftovers.

---

Let’s talk about leftovers!

How do you feel about leftovers?

Yes! People actually do have feelings about leftovers!

Mine are that when I prepare food, I might as well make a huge batch so we have leftovers because that way, you get more out of your setup costs.

Are there people who would rather cook a small batch of something fresh every single day?

What a waste of time. You could just double the recipe and then you cook only every other day. Or you triple it and put some in the freezer and that way, you don’t have to eat the same thing every day.

But Mr T’s brother, years before that, had proclaimed that he and his family did not eat leftovers.

I still don’t know why.

I should have asked him, but my strategy with OBtJ is to minimize interactions.

I can’t think of a single good reason to put PERFECTLY GOOD FOOD IN THE TRASH rather than save it for the next day.

You should know that OBtJ likes to name drop (he’s friends with the daughter of a senator!) and likes to act like he’s rich (buying groceries at Dean and Delucca even if it means he can’t pay off his credit card – I know this because he asked his dad for help paying the credit cards years ago when he was a grown-ass adult).

Maybe he thinks leftovers is something only poor people do?

But he was adamant that his family did not lower themselves to leftovers.

---

Back to the meal at the restaurant.

The check came.

I thought, Total dollars divided by five people.

Right?

Because we all shared from the same pot and there were five of us and Nephew ate A LOT but I was still going to count him as only one.

Nope.

OBtJ asked the waiter to bring some to-go containers.

“You’re in a hotel so we’ll take the leftovers,” OBtJ announced.

But you don’t eat leftovers! I thought. You said you don’t eat leftovers!

Then the waiter brought the check.

“We can share, right?” OBtJ asked.

Mr T nodded. That was fine with me. I did not expect them to buy our dinner.

OBtJ tossed down his credit card, as did Mr T.

When the waiter returned, OBtJ said, “Just split it in half. Half on each card.”

My jaw dropped.

There were three of them and two of us and they were taking all the leftovers?

But we were supposed to split the bill in half?

This place was not inexpensive.

And we were supposed to subsidize them?

The We Don’t Eat Leftovers people who were taking the leftovers?

Mr T and I were shocked into silence.

(I would not be silent today, now that I have had a decade to stew on it. Also, Mr T and I are no longer trying to make nice with OBtJ.)

(Yes I said a decade. Maybe longer. I can hold a grudge.)

I am happy to split down the middle with my friends. I am happy to split a check with people I like. I am happy to treat my friends.

My. Friends.

But people like Mr T’s brother? Where I didn’t even want to be around him in the first place?

Nope nope nope.

But neither of us knew what to say, so we paid for half the meal.

And we have never eaten with them again.

And I never will.

I gasp every time I see my neck

I didn’t used to think I was vain because I never had anything to be vain about.

That is, I thought I never had anything to be vain about. My entire life, I have been surrounded by girls and women far more attractive than I.

When we were little, strangers would stop in the street to marvel at my sister’s beauty – her rosy cheeks and her blonde curls tumbling down her back – and pinch her cheeks, cooing, “Ay que preciosa!”

I was not cooed after or admired.

I was called “fatso.”

My best friend in high school was avidly pursued and asked out.

I was not.

I got used to it. That’s just the way things were.

I thought I was nothing special to look at.

I thought I had no reason to be vain.

And then I saw my neck. The neck I have now. The neck middle-aged me has after a childhood spent in the sun, the neck I have after not wearing good sunblock until I was 30 neck.

And then I became vain.

But not for how I look now.

For how I looked then.

---

Do we all have that same epiphany?

That surprise view of our neck/our hands/our upper arms when we weren’t expecting it?

That harsh view of us that we can usually not see if we avoid mirrors and cameras?

That realization that even though in our minds, we are 18, in our bodies we are not?

How do you deal with it?

I mean, it’s not like we have a choice. We can’t change it.

But I have to admit I’m a little mad at my younger self for taking it all for granted.

For not even knowing!

---

Why don’t we know this when we have it?

Oh wait I know why.

Because the entire world tells women that we are not enough. That we need this makeup or these clothes or this surgery or this diet to be enough. That we need to change who we are and how we look. That we need to be thinner/curvier/firmer. That we need to smile more. But to laugh less or, at least, don’t laugh at men. That we need to talk less and listen more while the menfolks pontificate. That we need to dress sexier but not too sexy because what about the men who can’t control themselves and will want to rape us? That we need to LeanIn #girlboss but not too much because we don’t want to be bossy.

That we just can’t be.

I am so tired of this.

You mean, What’s it like to be over half of the world’s population?

@georgiagolfcoach

Can you believe he said this? 😳⛳️👀 #golf #golfswing #golflife #golftok #golftiktok #golfer #golfing #golfgirl #golfpro #golftips #golfclub #drivingrange

♬ original sound – Georgia Ball Golf

In the Year of our Lord Twenty and Twenty Four, at an event I attended, a man did ask a woman the eternal question “What’s it like to be a woman in [A MAN’S SPACE]?”

He meant no malice, I am sure.

He was truly curious.

It never occurred to him that behind his question was the belief that she was intruding into a domain where women do not belong.

---

I had thought initially that I would write about how women have been and are in this specific space, but then I realized that nope, this question gets asked in just about every category. It’s not limited to women in [the thing he asked about].

And it’s not the only stupid question women get asked that men do not.

“How do you manage motherhood and career?”

“How do you manage running for office while being a mom?”

“What’s your favorite cookie recipe?”

“How are you going to do your hair in space?”

“Why aren’t you smiling?”

BTW, I should mention that when I googled “stupid questions women get asked,” I got answers about stupid questions women ask men.

Even when I changed the search term to “stupid questions men ask women,” the fourth answer was “What questions do women ask that drive you crazy?”

---

Years ago, I met an older man who complained that his company was hiring women and it was ruining things for the men, who felt like they could no longer cuss and be crass at work.

Poor guy.

His life is hard.

---

A friend shared the post that Beyoncé is the first Black woman to have a number one country song.

One of her friends – male, white – said good for her but I don’t really care for the song.

Because – why?

What does his opinion of the song add to the discussion?

Who told him that his opinion matters?

OH WAIT I KNOW THE WORLD.

Or so he has been told most of his life.

---

The woman who was asked about being a woman in a man’s world at the event I attended laughed. Instead of asking why her questioner had not asked the same of the five men who were also performing, which I would have applauded but I understand why she didn’t want to go there, she just said that OH YOU KNOW SHE HAS TO DO HER HAIR.

Which is a stupid answer but it was a stupid question and that’s the only answer that question deserved.

Although if it weren’t for Mr T’s jerk relatives, I would lose most of my writing inspiration so there is that

Have I talked about Mr T’s brother?

Oh man.

He is a piece of work.

I can’t remember what I called him if I have talked about him, so let’s just call him Brother.

Brother is actually Mr T’s half brother. Their dad left Brother’s mom for Mr T’s mom. Mr T’s mom and dad always referred to Brother as “stepbrother” (which is incorrect) or “half-brother,” which I don’t understand. Why would you qualify the relationship like that? Just say “brother.” Mr T’s parents worked very hard to distance themselves from everyone.

---

When Mr T’s mom and dad died (within six weeks of each other), he cleaned out their house. Brother claimed that Mr T’s mom had told Brother’s Wife (BW) she was leaving her a bracelet.

Mr T sent bracelet after bracelet to BW, but each time, they said “That’s not the one!”

Mr T finally just dumped his mom’s entire jewelry case into a box and mailed it to Brother.

(He also sent them his parents’ silver-plate fancy silverware, which was a beautiful act of passive aggression and one I applauded. Brother was pissed, which was the intention.)

Brother said they had taken the bracelets to the jeweler and they were all costume jewelry and then he suggested that Mr T had kept the Good Bracelet for himself, which is completely unlikely as Mr T does not wear jewelry and I would not have put something from his mother on my body even if I were dead.

(Mr T did not steal the bracelet.)

Mr T was also named the executor of his parents’ will, from which he and Brother and Other Brother (who is nice) were disinherited in favor of the Brothers’ children, and named trustee for the grandchildren, an appointment that will turn out to run about 12 years.

Brother, who has a disabled son, has accused Mr T of stealing from the trust.

(Mr T has not stolen from the trust.)

(But Brother asked the trust for reimbursement for his expenses to attend their dad’s funeral, even including an airport parking receipt FOR THE EXPENSIVE PARKING AT THE AIRPORT, NOT THE OFFSITE CHEAP PARKING.)

---

I should note that yes, I am talking trash about a relative, although neither Mr T nor I want anything to do with this relative.

I figure your right to privacy – even as a relative – disappears once you are a jerk to me or to someone I love and Brother calling Mr T on the phone and screaming at him when Mr T refused to reimburse him $800 a ticket for his and his family’s tickets to their dad’s funeral even though he had gotten those tickets with frequent flyer miles and could have bought them for under $400 each with cash, counts as being a jerk.

It also counts as being a jerk when Brother refers to the funeral for Mr T’s mom as a “gig.”

It also counts as being a jerk when you try to convince Mr T to spend the trust money on a fancy dinner the night before our sister-in-law’s funeral (Other Brother’s Wife). That is, Brother wanted his nieces and nephew’s trust money to pay for a fancy supper – their money – on the night before they buried their mother.

(Mr T refused. He told Brother that “the trust” was not their dad’s money anymore but belonged to the grandkids.)

(Also how tacky is that to want the bereaved nieces and nephew to buy your meal? If anything, you pay for their meal.)

---

Brother has a disabled son, as I mentioned, and for years Mr T was the trustee for Son’s trust. He finally got the trusteeship transferred to Brother and BW (which is where it should have been in the first place), sighing in relief at the idea of not having to deal with Brother or the hassle of administering one of the trusts anymore.

Which is why when Brother sent a long email to Mr T asking for very specific investment advice about the trust assets, Mr T wrote a reasoned, calm response about how nope, he would not be offering advice, mostly because he is not qualified to act as a financial or tax advisor but also because he is happy to be done with that shit.

But Brother had asked one question for which Mr T was able to find an answer quickly by googling, which BROTHER COULD HAVE DONE.

And Brother pounced, replying that that answer is precisely why Mr T has to be involved in the trust.

• (Mr T) I know almost nothing about ABLE accounts, but is it possible that income from the SNT could be distributed to an ABLE account for Son without issuing a K-1 to him?

(Brother) Great fucking idea; hadn’t crossed my mind. This, frankly, (don’t call me Frank) is why you should and shall be involved in Son’s trust management! I continue to “executive-produce” and refuse to lose, refuse to take no for an answer.

Mr T has not answered that email, which is from mid January.

I think Brother thinks he’s won?

I’m curious to know how Brother intends to enforce his edict.

Because Mr T is done with him.

Finally.

Lelaina, we tried to warn you

It’s Year 30 after Lelaina has chosen Troy, the LOSER who was mean to Lelaina and who was so smart that he couldn’t be bothered to get a job but instead slept on his friends’ couch and didn’t contribute to the rent or buy food but he did read Being and Nothingness so we knew how very smart he was.

Now Lelaina is a successful documentarian. She makes money making movies and she has won awards. She’s really good.

(Although every time she goes to an awards show, they ask her about her clothes and how she balances motherhood and career instead of asking about her work, which pisses her off.)

Troy is still unemployed, although he has had brief stints at the 7-11.

But he usually does not have a paying job because he is Too Smart and he will not Bow To The Man and also because of his Art, which Lelaina supports by talking about on Instagram, showing videos of his band in rehearsal. Through her connections, she has gotten the band a gig or two at the local Ramada.

They have two kids.

(Maybe he’s good in bed? They did have that “I want a Bad Boy to be good for me/I want a Good Girl to be bad for me” vibe.)

(They don’t have sex much anymore. Troy doesn’t do anything to seduce Lelaina, plus he has a nasty cough and gross breath from all that smoking. Lelaina quit years ago.)

Troy doesn’t even get off the couch to feed the kids, waiting for Lelaina to get home from work and make supper after her long day of making sure she can pay the mortgage and that her kids have health insurance.

When she travels for work, she leaves casseroles in the freezer, but he finds it easier to order DoorDash. He is a bad tipper because he thinks the gig economy exploits people. He’s right that it exploits people, but he should be tipping if he’s going to participate.

He also does not clean the house or do laundry or go to the grocery store.

He doesn’t do shit.

Lelaina keeps up a brave front, posting on Instagram any one of the rare times that Troy does something nice for her. Like he bought her flowers once last year. They were on the discount rack at the gas station, but flowers are flowers, he thinks.

On her birthday, he made her coffee and brought it to her in bed.

He took the dog out for a walk once before she got home.

“HASHTAG FEELING LOVED!” she writes next to a stock photo of a cappuccino.

She ignores his nasty comments to her friends on Facebook, where he takes brave stands against The Man and corrects everyone’s grammar.

Her friends say nothing to her, but wonder in the privacy of their own homes why Lelaina doesn’t leave his sorry ass.

---

Mr T had never seen Reality Bites (it came out shortly after he married his first wife and started helping raise her two daughters), so I got it from the library and we watched it.

He was most shocked by the smoking – it’s not something we’re used to seeing anymore.

And then we saw in the credits that Renee Zellweger was in the movie, so we had to go back to find her.

He agreed that Troy was a jerk, but did not join me in screaming at Lelaina DO NOT CHOOSE HIM! HE’S NOT EVEN APOLOGIZING AND SAYING HE DOESN’T DESERVE A SECOND CHANCE BUT WOULD SHE PLEASE GIVE HIM ONE!

In her defense, I would have been equally stupid at 21, picking the hot brooding intellectual (although I have never found Ethan Hawke attractive – sorry Ethan – I think it’s because you play such unappealing characters) over the safe guy in the suit. Sex trumps sense at that age.

---

Helen Childress was only 20 years old when she wrote the script.

YAY HELEN! How awesome are you that you sold a movie script when you were 20!!! You are amazing!

But – would you write the same ending today?

Not even that Lelaina should have chosen Michael, who was a nice guy with a job and who made no secret of how much he adored Lelaina.

But that Lelaina should have told both of them that she wanted to do her own thing and to leave her alone.

---

I want Childress to write an update.

I want Childress to show the kids graduating from college and Lelaina telling Troy to get out she is tired of his lazy ass.

Yes, she will have to pay alimony but she will have her freedom.

Does she meet up with Michael again? Does she find someone else?

Or do she and Vickie, who has risen through the ranks of The Gap and is now SVP of Merchandising but really only does it as a hobby because she made a lot of money from her stock options, start to hang out again?

(Vickie hated how Troy treated Lelaina.)

Yes. That’s what happens. Vickie retires early and helps Lelaina make a “Where are they now the voice of my generation?” film. After that one is done and premieres at Sundance, winning the Gold Prize, they make another one about how women’s rights are being stolen from us, which inspires thousands of young women to register to vote, ensuring that Trump is defeated.

I don’t want to say Troy gets lung cancer and dies because that’s mean, but he is ignored, even on the Andrew Tate sites, because nobody cares what he thinks. He had his chance and he blew it.

When do you let yourself be parted from your money?

Where do you all stand on lending money?

Let me expand on that.

Where do you stand on lending money to relatives?

Especially where do you stand on lending money to relatives with whom you are not very close, as in they have never sent you a Christmas card or wished you happy birthday and you have never gathered intentionally except for mandatory family events that include funerals? (Asking for a friend. Really!)

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I borrowed money from a relative – my mom – twice.

Once was to buy a car. The bank loan would have cost 18%. My mom said she would lend me the money at the current T-Bill rate, which was about 7% at the time. She had me draw up an amortization and payment schedule and every month for a couple of years, I sent her a check.

The other time was when I was in a cash-flow crunch. I had just moved to Miami to start a new job. I had to pay the first month, last month, and deposit on my duplex and I wouldn’t be paid either my salary or my signing bonus until the end of the month.

My mom lent me $3,000 for a month, no interest. I repaid her as soon as I got my first paycheck.

I thought both deals were very generous of my mom. I have since learned that some parents do not charge interest to their adult kids when they lend them money and I think that’s just weird. Maybe these are rich parents?

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When a close relative asked to borrow money – about $2,000, I think – from me, I thought I should pay it forward. I asked the borrower to prepare an amortization schedule and to pay me every month. I think I was charging whatever interest my money would have gotten in my savings account.

That borrower – didn’t pay. Well, didn’t pay regularly.

She finally paid it all a while after the loan was supposed to have ended, but I seethed that entire time.

And I learned my lesson.

Do not lend money you are not prepared to lose.

The borrower and I are cool now. But I would not lend money to her again.

Or to anyone.

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A friend’s sister asked to borrow money from him.

The friend and his sister are not close. The sister is 11 years older, so they didn’t really grow up together.

They don’t live near each other and they don’t exchange birthday or Christmas cards.

Friend doesn’t even have his sister’s mailing address. He likes Sister well enough, but shrugs and says that he doesn’t even really know her. Their parents died when Friend was in college and the siblings do not make an effort to get together.

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Have you read Ruby Payne’s A Framework for Understanding Poverty?

It’s been a few years since I read it, but some of it has stuck with me.

In particular, I remember her talking about how hard it is for someone in the working class to save money because the money is seen as a communal resource. If your cousin gets thrown in jail Friday night, you have to give him the bail money because if he doesn’t get to work on Monday, he will lose his job. And if he loses his job, he won’t be able to pay his rent. And if he can’t pay his rent, his kid don’t have a place to live. And so on and so on.

You don’t get to say that you’re saving that money to go to college in two years when your cousin needs it right now.

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I don’t come from that kind of background. I suppose within my immediate family, I would give money to my siblings to get them out of jail or help with something urgent or help my mom if she needed it, but that’s where my circle of lending ends.

My friend’s sister told him that she needed to borrow a few thousand dollars because she needed to lend money to her adult son, who is 28 years old and underemployed. Sister was running out of her own money to lend her son. (Sister has a good job. Sister’s ex’s dad just died and Ex will inherit some money as soon as the estate closes.)

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Do you do it?

Do you lend money to Sister for her to lend to Son?

If you do it, do you get a say in how Son spends the money?

(Do you even want a say in how Son spends the money or would you rather just not have that level of involvement in someone else’s life?)

What do you do if Sister does not pay you back?

What do you do if Sister asks you for more money?

This is just what the forced birthers want – a trapped underclass

I didn’t know she was pregnant when the young woman – let’s call her Ruby – who was cutting my hair asked me if I regretted not having children and I told her that nope, I had never wanted them – that my mother, who had me when she was 20 and just seemed – stuck, her many many talents unused or underused.

I didn’t know she was pregnant when I told Ruby that I have so many friends whose moms also seemed very unhappy with motherhood – that the women in the generation before me were trapped and stuck and wanted so much more but didn’t have options.

I didn’t know she was pregnant when Ruby told me that she was still in high school in the International Baccalaureate program and she wanted to be a crime-scene tech but had switched to beauty school because it was easier for now.

I didn’t know she was pregnant when I told Ruby it was pretty impressive to be both completing high school and studying in tech school at the same time.

I did know Ruby had just turned 18 because I asked her, as I ask all young people when I meet them, if she was registered to vote and she told me no, she had just turned 18 a few weeks ago.

I didn’t know Ruby was pregnant until she explained that she had missed school the week before because she had been in the hospital for some pregnancy complications.

I did know she was pregnant when she told me she wished she had appreciated the free rent and food she got when she still lived with her parents – when she told me that she was now living with the father of her baby, who is older and has a job with health insurance.

I did know she was pregnant as I counted back silently when she told me she was due in May, just after graduation.

I did know she was pregnant when I thought about when Roe was overturned.

I did know she was pregnant when I thought about how the Republicans in the Wisconsin legislature don’t want to expand Medicaid coverage for new mothers from 60 days postpartum to a year.

Democratic lawmakers and advocates are urging Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) to schedule a vote on a bill that would expand Medicaid coverage for new mothers from 60 days to a year after giving birth.

The bill — SB 110 — would instruct the state Department of Health Services to seek approval from the federal government to expand Medicaid coverage for postpartum women to 12 months. It passed the Senate on a 32-1 vote in September but hasn’t moved any further in the Assembly in part because of Vos’ opposition. 

“We are here calling on Speaker Vos to bring this bill to the floor and help address disparities and maternal outcomes in our state,” Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) said during a press conference organized by Protect Our Care on Wednesday. “Wisconsin must act so families in my district and across the state have the opportunity to access a crucial support system that will address the racial disparities brought to light by the Black maternal health crisis.”

Wisconsin Examiner

I did know she was pregnant when I thought about Wisconsin’s infant mortality rate, which is not the worst but is also not the best.

I did know she was pregnant when I thought about maternal mortality rates, which are worse for Black and Hispanic mothers.

U.S. maternal mortality worsened during the pandemic, especially for Latinas. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. saw 23.8 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in 2020, up 18.4% from 2019. For Black women, the maternal mortality rate jumped 25%, while for Hispanic women it surged 44%.

While researchers are not clear on why Latinas saw such disproportionately higher mortality rates in 2020, the overall trend in the U.S. has been that women of color have had poorer outcomes in childbirth.

Latinas with private insurance plans have a 22% higher rate of severe pregnancy complications than non-Hispanic white women, according to a Blue Cross Blue Shield Association study. Low-income Hispanic women on Medicaid have a 28% higher rate of complications.  

CNBC.com

I did know she was pregnant when I thought about the public schools here and access to childcare.

I did know she was pregnant when I thought about how the Wisconsin Republicans want to relax child labor laws. This in a state where we already have companies breaking existing laws in ways that are very harmful to children.

Wisconsin-based meat packing contractor Packers Sanitation more than $1.5 million for employing at least 100 children, some as young as 13, to clean dangerous equipment such as bone saws and skull splitters in plants across the U.S. The company claimed it wasn’t aware that those workers were minors but said it has since taken steps to improve the way it verifies employees’ ages.

AP

And I knew she was pregnant and had not had a chance to not be pregnant when I thought about how her dreams were now dead.