Rebel Girl

I checked this book out of the library and read it in one day.

Rebel Girl was disturbing on all counts. First because of the recounting of the endless stories of seedy men who raped young girls.

Second because of how the Riot Grrl movement didn’t witness the experience of Black Indigenous and Women of Color individuals.

Simply reading about these encounters was hard to bear. The book should be read anyway.

Author Kathleen Hanna was the famous singer and frontwoman of the bands Bikini Kill and LeTigre. She had her own band The Julie Ruin.

Hanna is also married to Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz and has a son Julius she adopted with him.

The story turns out better in the end.

Hanna’s narrative of her life as a survivor of trauma and abuse is worth reading.

Every survivor’s story is worth telling and reading and listening to.

We can’t continue to get into fights about whose pain is worse than everyone else’s.

Nor can we act like the pain doesn’t exist when a person says they’re experiencing it.

Just because we can’t see what’s going on from our viewpoint is not proof that there’s no such thing as sexism or racism.

Too often other women (yes!) and Conservative women authors blame women for reporting rape and sexual abuse.

In the climate of no one else believing that a rape survivor is telling the truth. Or in the way the rape is swept under the rug because the man is powerful or allegedly a pillar of the community.

Or in how women are thought to be retaliating over their guilt about having had the sex in the first place.

Too often women silence ourselves. We fear no one will take us seriously. Though it’s not our fault we can feel worthless. Leading to not reporting the crime because we think nothing will be resolved.

Too women have to jump through hoops in a court of law to prove the crime happened. The establishment cries out that the men on trial deserve “due process.”

Of course there’s due process. The old world order doesn’t like when a member of their tribe is held accountable.

I’m a Rebel Girl too who would call herself a Feminist Punk like Hanna does.

If you’re a woman you’re told it’s okay to open your mouth to kiss not speak.

We all of us whatever our orientation must speak our mind or nothing will change in society.

One Heart One Hand

I bought the ceramic dish above at a reduced cost since the Fourth of July had come and gone. I went back to get a ceramic flag serving tray in the shape of the USA map.

I told a friend: “With all its faults I still think America is a great place to live.”

Sometimes it’s better to leave your home country and come here. That’s because if you stayed where you were and tried to change things nothing would get better.

You owe it to yourself to get out and come to the U.S. and get a green card.

In Central America people were called the Disappeared. One day they ‘d be taken out of their home and go missing and you wouldn’t see them again.

People are often forced to flee their home country because of a condition like that.

In America you can “speak the truth to power.” It might not be effective. You might get doxxed.

Yet we have the ability to use our voices to make a difference and challenge the status quo.

That’s on us to do even if we don’t get the outcome we want.

You have something to say? You shouldn’t be afraid to say it.

I protest in a different way by wearing message tee shirts that proclaim:

Coexist

Fight Like a Girl

Pax Sur la Terre (Peace on Earth).

Dreams, fortune cookies, quote magnets, and song titles empower me too.

I say: Let Freedom Ring.

We’re all in this country together.

The quote E pluribus unum stands for “From many one.”

Together we’re better. Always remember that. We are not each other’s enemies.

United we are stronger than the force of the haters sowing division.

We are beautiful Americans all of us.

Sustaining Ability

I’ve ravaged the internet reading numerous articles about the Three Word Method. The writers each list their three words. It has helped me get clear on my three words.

Like I wrote in the last blog entry I wouldn’t want to buy a $3,000 Louis Vuitton Speedy. It’s not sustainable for the average person to plunk cash or a credit card down on a designer bag.

While cheap clothes are often sewn in sweatshops there’s no guarantee that higher-priced items are made under favorable working conditions either.

After donating 20 bags to thrift stores in the last 5 years I’ve changed my mind about how to shop. Even if I came into a truckload of money I wouldn’t want to spend $200 on a shirt.

In fact I want to start a movement focused on Sustaining Ability. This kind of Sustain-ability has nothing to do with being eco-conscious.

We might clean up the earth down the road. Yet who would want to live on God’s newly green earth if everyone still swilled hatorade and was drunk on fury.

I think of sustainability on a personal not planet level now. By revamping our approach to living our lives and interacting with others we can ameliorate our wellbeing.

This in turn will impact how we treat the earth. Case in point: I no longer need to spring clean after donating everything to charity.

Once we are free of the things “stuffed” everywhere in our homes (often a graveyard for unused objects) we often clear the mental clutter as a result of the physical freedom.

When I got rid of the mounds I also lost pounds (I have no scientific proof that there’s a connection).

Today I’m more interested in what we can do to thrive as human beings on our earth as the planet is now. I would like to be part of a movement to create opportunities for people to recover.

Some of us are in recovery from consumerism!

Others have a mental health or physical or different issue. Whatever a person is in recovery from I think promoting recovery should be the goal first of all before anything else.

I know it was not sustainable for me to buy whatever caught my eye in the store and only remained unworn in my drawers years later.

We have true freedom when we’re not attached to the stuff that weighs us down. I venture to say that there’s a spring in our step and more joy in our hearts when our time is not wasted with the upkeep of material goods.

Lastly I’ll say that there’s only so much we can do to green the earth. We shouldn’t feel ashamed of ourselves for having bought what we bought all these years.

Liking ourselves counts more than whether we have items in our closet that we don’t like. Letting go of the clutter might just improve our mood.

This is the real impact of letting go of what no longer serves us:

We sustain our ability to feel good in a society where Instagram feeds and product marketers and others make us feel bed.

Wear It Well

The book in the photo above intrigued me to want to figure out my Three Word Method.

Your three words comprise the items in your wardrobe that you choose and use to convey your personal style.

Author Allison Bornstein is a stylist who champions expressing your Authentic Self through how you dress. To her fashion is wellness and beauty is wellness.

Getting dressed in the clothes you love and wear well is an act of self-care and nurturing.

As ever I think everyone is beautiful. Today I’ve come to see that how a person dresses is their own version of having a personal style.

More in the coming blog entry about the myth of needing to buy a Louis Vuitton Speedy to express yourself. Is plunking down $3,000 on a pocketbook the way to be original when everyone else is carrying the same handbag.

The Three Word Method is the best most useful way I’ve found to figure out my personal style. Forget taking a quiz to figure out the style type you should be that a so-called expert tells you to dress in.

The second philosophy I’ve been intrigued with is Carol Tuttle’s Dressing Your Truth.

I bought Wear It Well with a gift card. It took me two weeks to figure out my three words which are Chic Quirky Confident.

I recommend reading the definitions of the words you’re considering using. Bornstein tells the reader that it’s OK if your three words are opposites.

On a video she helped a woman find her three words (Oversized Fitted Warm). I wish Bornstein had more videos that feature ordinary women’s three words.

She advocates that you can find your personal style by examining the wardrobe items you own. Then “shopping in your closet” is the ultimate sustainable method for getting dressed. Her AB Closet Editing System is right-on for deciding what to keep and what to donate or toss.

I’ll end here by venturing that expressing your authentic self through your personal style can help a person heal and recover. Dressing well was how I started to become well in my life after I recovered.

The Beauty Issue

The current Harper’s Bazaar is the Beauty Issue. Ever since Samir Nasr was elevated to Editor-in-Chief of Harper’s Bazaar the magazine has gotten better. I like HB more than Vogue. HB features social justice articles together with fashion columns.

Ever month I turn to the Market Memo and other pages in The Bazaar section of the magazine. It’s a great way to get inspiration for new outfits to create by “shopping in my closet.”

I’m set to read the book I Survived Capitalism and All I Got was This Lousy Tee Shirt. It’s geared to Gen Z and Millennials yet I’m going to read it soon.

In a future blog entry I will talk about a better alternative to consumerism that I will title Sustain-Ability. The average person according to research buys 63 or 66 items of clothing every year. How is this possible?

I’m going to write about Sustain-Ability which is also Beauty in its own way. I will detail how spring cleaning has become a thing of the past for me.

In the coming blog entry I will talk about a book I bought for my birthday from Barnes & Noble. Reading this guide kickstarted my focus on Sustain-Ability.

Giving Fear the Boot

Tabitha Brown on Day 6 tells readers to: Wear Something That Makes You Feel Good.

In further encouragement to buy the book I’ll quote the author:

“And let me say this: if you are scared to do something as simple as wear what you want without caring what other people are going to say or think, then I’m going to encourage you to spend more time with yourself. You don’t know who you are. You are afraid of you.

That’s the real truth. You might be saying that you are afraid of what other people might think, but really you are afraid of you. The power of you.”

How true it is that we (especially women!) fear letting our light shine. We’re often told and conditioned NOT to shine our light. As if there is something wrong with us for promoting ourselves.

As the caboose of my fifties started rolling in my life my train of thought ran towards an exit track. No longer could I care what other people think of me.

Like Tabitha Brown has figured out the fear of doing something like wear a hot pink pantsuit is rooted in being scared to express ourselves. The term I’ve coined is “self-power.” As the train rolled into the station of 59 I started to think about how every one of us has the self-power to achieve our goals.

Even in the face of experiencing a trial (or two or three!) I make the case that in ways that might be small if not big we can change our lives for the better.

I’ve learned firsthand what it was like to be afraid of the Power of You. Tempted to believe that by not making waves other people would like me and accept me.

Only how is it possible to like ourselves if we cower in the face of the cowards who expect us to know our place and not get out of line. Has repressing our identity or personality ever gotten us anywhere or where we wanted to be.

Why is it we’re afraid to get what we want and be who we are and take a stand for what we believe in.

Fifty-nine is rightly the caboose to that train of thought.

Coming up on this birthday all sorts of insight hit me about how to grab life by the horns and enjoy the wild ride.

Fifty-nine is the time to KO the fear once and for all.

More exciting epiphanies coming up. The train to freedom is now boarding.

Magnetic Appeal

I turn 59 soon. In the coming weeks I’ll have more to write about what I’ve realized on the cusp of the last year of my fifties. I call my sixties the “This is It!” Decade. I want to go out of my fifties with a bang.

One thing I realized that I’ll share today is that post-50 it’s high time to do not just dream of doing what we want. To make our goals come true we must act true to ourselves. Living as a pale imitation of someone else is the surefire way to waste our precious time on earth and make ourselves ill.

Uncorking our full-bodied selves is the only way to succeed.

I wanted to talk about self-presentation. Angelina Jolie first used this term in an interview in a fashion magazine about her new atelier shop in lower Manhattan.

Self-presentation lies in how we dress in clothes. More than this self-presentation is the act of showing up as yourself wherever you go. This is the only way to live.

Otherwise, ill health is the guaranteed outcome of repressing your real self to get people to like you. They might prefer the you who conforms to how they want you to be. Not the bold assertive champion you long to be.

Yet acting false to yourself will cut you off from experiencing the pure joy that comes from being your real self. Let the rivers of emotion flow that you feel in living your life.

It can seem facile to tell readers to do what the quote magnet above tells us to. I submit that as hard as this is to do (in the face of the shame wars and the bigotry going on) it’s imperative to let your beauty shine through.

The fact that nobody else sees your beauty or mine or thinks that we’re worthy is often shame-inducing when we want others to love and accept us for who we are.

In the face of the judgment, I will always make the case for showing up as yourself whether people like that you do this or not. You are not here to mollycoddle people who are uncomfortable that you take up space. What if you dare not only to exist you demand full equity and inclusion in society.

A person like me is content to be a Visionary trendsetter who doesn’t follow along in the mainstream and in doing what’s popular and following and repeating hearsay.

You might want to be given a shot at having the kind of job and life that is ordinary.

I haven’t met a white picket fence that I wanted to live inside.

Coming up a review of part of the Tabitha Brown book that gets at a common way that a lot of us cower in the face of the cowards who are afraid of the Other of those of us who appear different.

What makes you and I different gives us an advantage.

Seeing the Eclipse

The one thing I did today was spontaneous. At first I didn’t want to view the eclipse. Then I took the chance using the free solar eclipse glasses the New York City public libraries gave out to customers.

This is how the eclipse appeared through the glasses. Another solar eclipse will come around in 21 years. I’ll be 79 then.

It was quite a spectacle in the sky to view the solar eclipse. A moment of transcendent awe on an ordinary Monday afternoon that turned into a Wow!

Living Free

The book above I recommend buying though I checked it out of the library.

In I Did a New Thing: 30 Days to Living Free Tabitha Brown cheers on the reader. The more of us who motivate each other like Brown does for her readers the better off America will be.

I was mistaken in the previous blog entry: Brown isn’t an Emmy-winning actor she was Emmy-nominated. Instead of having sour grapes when she didn’t get the award she hosted a celebration for herself simply because she was nominated.

Day one of the 30-day challenge was to Do Something Fearless. For this I swiped on a deep purple lipstick. Not earth-shattering in terms of a bold move. Yet awe-inspiring nonetheless.

Couldn’t find a lavender or lighter shade like the tube I was using that wore out.

Brown has this to say: “Your freedom and transformation aren’t about how big or small that new thing is. It’s about what God is saying to us all through them.”

She believes her whole life: “Is a testimony to what can happen when you release the noise, comparisons, and outside perceptions and simply do the new thing.”

Swiping on the deep purple (the Sephora matte collection Watch Me shade) was a big deal. Precisely because I’ve thought that with my black hair and pale skin I look like a Gothic clown wearing dark lipstick.

Finding a statement lipstick that doesn’t make me look garish was the start of a grand tour in doing new things.

What new things might each of us do if we didn’t care what others think of us?

How to Be Old

I bought this book last week. Critics on Amazon railed against her privilege to do the things she’s achieved. I wasn’t turned off by her lifestyle. In fact it inspired me to think positively about my sixties: the era I call the “This Is It!” decade.

For all my adult life I had a different haircut every three years. That changed three years ago when I fled the second former hairdresser who subjected me to haircut horror.

In 2021 I risked going to a trendy salon. E. expertly cut my hair the way I wanted it showing her a photo of the first woman president of my alma mater. Ever since then I have what is going to be my forever haircut.

Too short my hair resembles what Andy Warhol’s haircut would look like if his hair were black. The haircut costs $90 today not a cheap sum.

I’m thinking of my now forever haircut considering having read How to Be Old by Lyn Slater the Accidental Icon blogger. She has become famous and is 70 years old.

As I turn 59 this spring, I would like to go out of my fifties with a she-bang. I’m exited to turn 59. The eight years since I turned 50 have gone by like eight days. I’m glad to be getting older.

Like Slater who originally quoted David Bowie in her blog I’ll do so here:

“Aging is the extraordinary process whereby you become the person you always should have been.”

Ever since I was a teenager, I did NOT want to get married and raise a family. I was only 15 or 16 years old when I knew this. While in college the only thing I aspired to was to have “an artist’s life in the city.”

My goal as I turn 59 is to break the rules at every opportunity. While I might not reach icon status it’s clear that I might always be an iconoclast.

To get you to buy the book I’ll quote Kim Gordon the former bassist of Sonic Youth who wrote in her memoir Girl in a Band: “I’ve always believed that the radical is more interesting when it appears ordinary and benign on the outside.”

How a person appears often belies that they’re radical in their thinking and how they approach living life.

For better or worse my claim to fame will always be living life Left of the Dial.

The older I get I find myself rebelling the status quo as a matter of course.

Your age should be all the rage regardless of the number of candles on the cake.