Ramblings of a Middle Aged Lunatic

                I’m not comfortable expressing anger.                 Like many women, I’m like Dr. Jekyll and Mr.   Hyde.   If I was the weather, I’d have only two forecasts, sunny and thunderstorms.   There are no mediums with me.   I’m either happy or I’m in a rage.This is not because I’m bipolar. (or is it)?   It’s because, like many women, I’ve been taught to swallow back my anger until I erupt in a volcanic rage.   Probably most of you had mothers that were 99.9% Donna Reed but a memorable .1% was Incredible Hulk.   And usually the transformation happened over something slight.   After all, the woman smiled bravely while your baby brother vomited all over her and then flew into a blinding rage over a forgotten Lego that migrated under the couch.        ...

Mansplaining.  It’s one of the trendy terms being tossed at men in the midst of the #metoo movement.  Like most words that enter popular word usage, half the people lobbing it around don’t even know what it means.  Men find it insulting, women find it hysterical because we’ve all experienced it.   I encountered it with my last serious boyfriend.  I didn’t know there was a name for this phenomenon back then, other then, um, annoying.   Basically, it’s this irritating way some men have of telling women they’re doing something wrong and then correcting them.  Men enjoy this to some degree, because it makes them feel good.  Correcting someone else, showing them the right way to do something, helps while at the same time asserting superiority.  Men achieve self worth through competition, women achieve it through getting along with others.  So, historically, women have often acted helpless and allowed men to correct us and instruct u...

                I woke up this morning thinking of Lehman Dining Hall for the first time in at least a decade.                 Lehman Dining Hall was the primary eating establishment on the SUNY Potsdam College campus, where I attended college.   I worked there for about two years.   I was officially a dishwasher, but there were always open shifts for every position posted on the bulletin board that you could pick up to make extra money.                   As with any job that is low skilled and boasts plenty of peers to pal around with, it was a fun place to work.   My job was gross but easy.   There were four dishwasher positions.   Two people stood at the conveyor belt where students shoved their trays loaded down with unea...