Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Oh, So Talented, Aren’t We All?
My talent is catastrophizing. For example, every time I go over the Hoan Bridge in Milwaukee, I envision my car flipping over the guard rail into the water and knowing that the power windows probably wouldn’t work under water. I watched a video once that said to just take a crowbar and bang out the rear window. But my crowbar (if I even have one) is in the trunk. Who carries a crowbar in the front seat? And could I even hit the window hard enough to break it? And then what? Cuts, no doubt. A lot of cuts.
Another talent, just now emerging at a later age, is striking up conversations with strangers. The only place I don’t like doing this is the dog park since I’m all about my dogs and calling my reps on 5Calls. Otherwise, being sociable has become my new thing. Chatting and joking and carrying on. It’s wild.
Speaking of talent, the Artemis II crew. Talent, competence, humor, and grace sent to us by some weird happenstance to lift us up at this frightful, fearsome time in our country and on the planet. We’re going to be happy, grateful, and really sad when they splash down tonight. Man, it has been a long time between heroes.
I’m publishing a chapbook of 67 very short stories. It’s called Snippets. I’m doing this to celebrate my upcoming birthday. It’s not so easy to organize a chapbook – there’s a lot of arranging and pagination that I hadn’t thought about which is why it was a gift from above to have my very experienced and quite talented artist friend offer to figure it out for me.
And then, there is the remarkable talent of cats to own whatever space they occupy with authority and complete abandon. Here is Herc in repose after all the hubbub and commentary of the Artemis II splash down, his reclamation of attention and affection complete.
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Snow Door | wisconsinacademy.org
Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
I can easily relate to each of those…except maybe the chapbook, although sometimes just turning out a blog post feels way to daunting.