What does being a woman mean to me? Being subjugated. My father’s teaching on the subject was perfectly clear: women exist to serve men. My ex-husband probably had good instincts, but my father and his father shaped his behavior. More than that, *I* shaped his behavior. I held the pedestal steady, and he climbed on. I’ve always known I didn’t want to have kids, because I couldn’t risk raising them the way I’d been raised. None of the traditional womanly landmarks were big deals for me. I shook off most of the subjugation in my mid-twenties, and now, in my sixties, there are still shreds of it. Being a woman isn’t a big deal for me, except for the times I’ve been proud to be wanted for what men want women for. Sex and support. It’s had advantages, though. I might not have had the opportunity to love some particular men if I’d had a different body. (Some, I’d have had the opportunity to love more completely.) Still deciding whether there’s a female spirit.

The USA has no official language. (30 states do.) Most of us speak English as our first language.

Oh, Dan Rather! I adore that man. Love watching his face and hands, hearing his voice, respecting his choices and opinions. Great to see him again… thanks for the video. As far as I’m concerned, he could have been reading the phone book. Unfortunately, I don’t think he can write his way out of a paper bag, but ya can’t have everything.

I enjoyed my few hot flashes too, Maggi. I moved to AZ partly for the heat, and as bad as it gets, it’s less harsh for me than cold climates I’ve lived in.

I think setting back the cause of feminism is more of a side effect here than a primary purpose. Follow the money. This video is posted on this site to entice beauty products advertisers, like other editorial content is here to entice perfume or yacht advertisers.

C A Rose, I agreed with you automatically, that I want my parts to work as long as my mind does. Then my mind shook its head and realized that my parts don’t all work NOW. I’d have agreed with you when everything was fresh - and that’s not my criterion any more. The reverse, if anything. I want my mind to work as long as my body does.

My menopause wasn’t a problem. When I was 39, the intervals between periods started lengthening, and by the time I was 44, there were no more. I wasn’t moody or physically uncomfortable during that time, and I had a total of 3 hot flashes, which were kind of fun, probably because there were only 3 of them. Something like niacin flushes. Don’t expect to have a hard time and there’s a good chance you won’t. No need to believe that everything that happens in an ordinary lifetime is due to a lack of doctor visits and medicines, or needs to be altered by medical intervention. I never had the feeling that menstruation was mystical or affirming or the various values I see attributed to it. I had no reason to menstruate because I didn’t want children.

I do eat breakfast, sort of. I eat only fruit in the morning because it’s easy to digest. Fresh fruit, or dried, or fruit juice. Coffee first, though, very weak, and a glass of water with my morning supplements. It’s a pleasant ritual.

… and here I thought this was actually going to be lists and discussions of books we’d bring to a fantasy desert island. I’m really slow to learn sometimes. The first book that came to my mind was, of all things, Anna Karenina. For me, that would repay many readings because it engages my mind and my emotions. Then the collected works of Edna St. Vincent Millay. I’ve been reading her since my teens. I’d bring books in the handful of languages I know well, to keep up my fluency and my mental flexibility. Erotica was a good idea. Creative Visualization, maybe, to remind me that power is available to me. Printouts of my favorite person’s emails.

Liza, that’s interesting. For me it’s just the opposite. I find that those who have the least, find the most pleasure in little things and intangibles.

I stole from family members. The first I remember is stealing 50 cents from my father. I must have been pretty young - that was my allowance. Every week, he’d tell me to go take 50 cents from the bowl of quarters on his desk, and every week I did, until it occurred to me that he wasn’t likely to count the quarters. A few years after that, he did some prison time for theft, so it’s probably just as well that he didn’t punish me, if he noticed. Later, I stole my sister’s friend’s green knee socks. I had plenty of knee socks, hers were just a pretty color. When my mother and I were the last two family members, and I was visiting her in her assisted living home by flying cross-country every few weeks, eventually I started using her money to buy my plane tickets. Not that she had any other use for it, and she liked the visits even though she didn’t know me… but that felt like cheating.

Do you suppose that maybe sometimes telling other people what to believe can be dangerous too?

Healthy and smart. Wisdom would ideally come with time, more time than I may get. The other options, beauty and wealth, don’t matter to me. Sounds like you’re very okay with where you are too.

Am I superstitious? I think all of us do (say, think, feel) things intended to put us on the same wavelength as the positive force of our universe. For some people it’s rituals of religion, for some it’s rituals of cats and ladders, for some it’s purposefully doing the next right thing. I think anything we do to appease or gratify something we don’t control, i. e. anything outside ourselves, is superstitious.

Yes, I know what you mean, Charles, although my other favorite was Dan Rather. We’re running out of stabilizing forces.