Links to my "Life After Mother" Column, Senior Reporter: Jan. '24-Apr. '24

Below you may find the links to my "Life After Mother" column as featured in Senior Reporter for the first third of 2024:

Senior Reporter January 2024, "Swedish Death Cleaning" 

https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/jan-2024-vol-50-no-1/

https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/issues/senior-reporter-cateblanchett-jan-2024.pdf

Senior Reporter February 2024, "The Way We Were" (photo essay)

https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/feb-2024-vol-50-no-2/

https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/issues/senior-reporter-melbrooks-feb-2024.pdf

Senior Reporter March 2024, "Spark Joy and Love" 

https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/mar-2024-vol-50-no-3/

https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/issues/senior-reporter-jonimitchell-mar-2024.pdf

Senior Reporter April 2024, "Magical Thinking, a Sense of Disbelief"

https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/apr-2024-vol-50-no-4/

https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/issues/senior-reporter-bodenkirk-apr-2024.pdf

Links to "Life After Mother" in Senior Reporter, May '23-December '23

Below you may find my links (web page and PDF downloads) for mid-to-late 2023 installments of my monthly column, "Life After Mother" in Senior Reporter.

Senior Reporter, May 2023, "Stock Security" (p. 27):

https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/may-2023-vol-49-no-5/

https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/issues/senior-reporter-bschields-may-2023.pdf

Senior Reporter, June 2023, "Make it Simple, Make it Home" (p. 27):

https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/june-2023-vol-49-no-6/

https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/issues/senior-reporter-whmacy-jun-2023.pdf

Senior Reporter, July 2023, "Curb Appeal" (p. 27):

https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/july-2023-vol-49-no-7/

https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/issues/senior-reporter-tinaturner-july-2023.pdf

Senior Reporter, August 2023, "Design for Outdoor Living" (p. 27):

https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/august-2023-vol-49-no-8/

https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/issues/senior-reporter-paulsimon-july-2023.pdf

Senior Reporter, September 2023, "Enough to Lose a Garbage Bin" (p. 29):

https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/sept-2023-vol-49-no-9/

https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/issues/senior-reporter-zellweger-sep-2023.pdf

Senior Reporter, October 2023, "Horrors of Dementia" (p. 29):

https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/oct-2023-vol-49-no-10/

https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/issues/senior-reporter-patsajak-oct-2023.pdf

Senior Reporter, November 2023, "Five Winters with Photos and Memories" (p. 37):

https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/nov-2023-vol-49-no-11/

https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/issues/senior-reporter-qlatifa-nov-2023.pdf

Senior Reporter, December 2023, "Home for Christmas" (p. 37):

https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/dec-2023-vol-49-no-12/

https://www.seniorreporterofoc.com/issues/senior-reporter-eltonjohn-dec-2023.pdf

Job Interviews from the Dark Side, Part 8

For most of these "Interviews from the Dark Side" that I've related in this series, the focus has been on women's negative job interviews--but they happen to men, too. Back in the eighties I had a male friend who worked as a radio announcer (disc jockey), and he sent his resume to a station, that was advertising a job opening, in a distant part of the state. That station wasn't in a big market, but it was in a little bigger market than the stations on his resume. 

The station manager called my friend, said he received the resume and was very impressed and wanted to talk to him right away. So my friend bought a bus ticket and took a bus across half the state, to what he believed to be a discussion about being hired for a job--one that was advertised.

I asked him the next day what happened. "That guy dragged me all the way up there to tell me I'm no good!" he vented.

He told me how he walked into the guy's office, and the guy had my friend's resume on his desk, and the guy launched into a spiel about, "Pay your dues and get some experience. Come back after you pay your dues and get some experience. I'm very impressed with your fine resume, but first you have to pay your dues and get some experience. I'll be looking forward to talking to you again, but first you have to pay your dues and get some experience." 

My friend was probably tempted to rub the guy's nose in every line of his resume. Anybody who actually bothered to read it could tell that the job applicant already had years of "paying" his "dues" and getting "some" experience, at small-time station job after small-time station job. If the station manager had been serious about hiring my friend, the job would have represented something a little more than small-time, a little more stable, a little bit bigger market, and if the guy didn't want to hire him, then he didn't have to schedule an appointment for an interview.

I've long wondered what the station manager was thinking, first calling my friend about how he was very impressed with his fine resume and he wanted to set up an appointment right away, only to turn around and just about literally show him the door when he arrived for said appointment.

Did the station manager mix my friend up with someone else? Did he think the person who sent the resume and the person who walked into his office were two different people, and the person who walked in was some never-had-any-job teenager who needed to hear some grown-up give the pay-your-dues-and-get-some-experience lecture? That's unlikely because the station manager could have simply verified the name and experience of the person sitting in front of him.

Was the station manager a sexual predator who called up young men to look them over, and if he found them not to his taste, he showed them the door? That, too, is unlikely because such men quickly develop reputations--word gets around--and this man, the word wasn't getting around about.

I can only think of one other possibility--that the station manager was a living example of "a legend in his own mind," thinking that because he was the manager of some jerkwater radio station, that he was running his own little media empire, where he could "encourage" job applicants to "come back" and they'd be forever grateful for having been invited into his presence to hear his mansplaining lecture about paying dues and getting experience. 

No, Sir, that's not what was happening. I don't know how many people you toyed with the way you toyed with my friend, but I doubt that any of them looked forward to ever coming back into your "legendary" presence ever again. 

Job Interviews from the Dark Side, Part 7

Not all job interviews from the dark side involve potentially illegal questions, sometimes they're just experiences that make me wonder what the interviewer's motivation was. One job-search experience that has me puzzled to this day involves an application I made at a particular Barnes & Noble.

A day or two after I filled out my application that expressed my interest in working as a bookstore clerk, the store's manager called me about an interview. Of course, silly me, I assumed she wanted to talk to me about working as a bookstore clerk.

I got appropriately dressed and groomed, got to the interview on time, went into the manager's office, and started talking about my sales experience and my love of books. The woman's nose was so high in the air it practically scraped the ceiling. 

"I'm just looking for someone to work my coffee counter, and you'll just quit after a few days," she declared, as if somebody died and made her God.

I asked her why she'd called me for an interview, if that was what she wanted and that was what she thought of me. Her nose came down off the ceiling, she was looking at the floor now. She mumbled something about, "Sometimes you just want to look someone over."

What did she expect me to do? Burst into a "Hey, look me over!" song and dance? Get down on my knees and beg for a chance to please, please, let me get behind her coffee counter, please, please?

I kept talking about how I would like to work as a bookstore clerk, and could she please keep me in mind for future openings, and she practically herded me out of her office, and wouldn't even look at me as I tried to end the interview on some kind of positive note. It was like she was afraid someone might see us together.

So why did she waste her time and mine? Some people have suggested, "She found out you weren't some young chick," but if she had actually bothered to read my application beyond my name and phone number, she could've figured that out and just not bothered to call me in the first place. 

Who was she to just predict the future based on what she saw and heard when I walked in the door? Couldn't she have summoned the courtesy to ask, "Well, I saw that you're applying for sales clerk, but would you consider working at the coffee counter?" She could've lied and said it was just for a few days until she could get a "real" barista, or pull the "you can transfer to the sales floor" bait-and-switch routine. That's the one where you promise the prospective employee, yes, yes, we can transfer you, until the person actually starts the job, and then turn around and tell them, "we don't transfer between those two positions."

Either she needed someone to work her coffee counter or she didn't. If she was desperate enough to just pick up my application and call me without even reading it, what would it matter to her whether I quit after a few days, if she could get a few days' work out of me? On the other hand, if she wasn't desperate enough to just hire me for the sake of hiring a warm body, then why did she bother?

She couldn't even muster the common decency to blow me off with, "Well, if I do get an opening to work the bookstore section, I'll keep you in mind." I've been filled with loathing for that particular Barnes & Noble branch ever since.  

Reading Goals for 2024

Time to sketch out reading goals for 2024, and as I pour over my to-read list (as posted on the Goodreads site), I find books that have been there since before I moved into my mother's house in 2019. So I'll concentrate on clearing out that backlog, including five books for each of the past five years, for a total of 25 books. This plan is, of course, tentative, and sure to be revised should I find myself finishing those 25 books well before 2024 is over.

Looking back, my plan for 2023, to read 14 novels and 14 non-fiction books, got sidetracked, and I'm now focusing on finishing 37 books in any category by the end of this year, although only 11 of those turned out to be novels. Come 2025 I may attempt a balance of fiction, non-fiction, and general categories again.

So here's my (tentative) plan for 2024, outlined below:  five books I've been wanting to read since 2019, five since 2020, five since 2021, five since 2022, and five recent additions--for 2023--so I can mix in some trending interests. 

Plus I'm promising myself to get back to reading manga, so I've set "five manga" as a preliminary goal. I'm not listing five manga here, though, because whether "five" means five single volumes, or five lengthy multi-volume series, will be a reading adventure that unfolds throughout the coming year.

Five books added in 2023 (this list is very tentative and may be influenced by upcoming projects and activities, as well as last-minute additions):

1. The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron (Anaheim Public Library)

2. Up From the Pedestal: Landmark Writings in the American Woman's Struggle for Equality ed. by Aileen S. Kraditor (in family library)

3. Sun-drenched Gardens: The Mediterranean Style by Jan Smithen (Hawaiian Gardens Library)

4. Forager: Field Notes for Surviving a Family Cult by Michelle Dowd (Hawaiian Gardens Library)

5. Enough by Cassidy Hutchinson (Anaheim Public Library)

Five books, 2022:

1. Too Much and Never Enough by Mary Trump (Anaheim Public Library)

2. Orange County: A Literary Field Guide ed. by Lisa Alvarez (Anaheim Public Library)

3. Bono's book Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story (to buy)*

4.  In Love: A Memoir of Love and Loss by Amy Bloom (Anaheim Public Library)

5. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (Anaheim Public Library)

Five books, 2021:

1. Keep Sharp:  Build a Better Brain at Any Age by Dr. Sanjay Gupta (Anaheim Public Library)

2. I, Jesse James by James R. Ross (family library)

3. Paradise: One Town's Struggle to Survive an American Wildfire by Lizzie Johnson (Anaheim Public Library)

4. Don't Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantanamo by Mansoor Adayfi (Hawaiian Gardens Library)

5.  LA Affairs: 65 True Stories of Nightmare Dates, Love at First Sight, Heartbreak, and Happily Ever After's ed. by Rene Lynch (to buy)*

Five books added in 2020 (this list is set):

1. Me by Elton John (Anaheim Public Library)

2. All I Ever Wanted by Kathy Valentine (to buy)*

3. Pride: The Charley Pride Story by Charley Pride (Hawaiian Gardens Library)

4. This Was Hollywood: Forgotten Stars and Stories by Carla Valderrama (Hawaiian Gardens Library, and also in the Los Angeles city library system--branches in Wilmington and San Pedro)

5. Ending US Wars by Honoring Americans who Work for Peace by Michael D. Knox (to buy)*

Five books added in 2019:

1. Red Eye, Black Eye by Thor Jensen (to buy)*

2. Birth of a Nationhood by Toni Morrison (Hawaiian Gardens Library)

3. 'Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky: The Life of  Jimi Hendrix by David Henderson (Hawaiian Gardens Library)

4. Wait, How do I Write this e-mail? by Danny Rubin (to buy)*

5. The Oxford Book of Caribbean Short Stories ed. by Stewart Brown (Los Angeles city library system)

Alternate selection(s) for 2019:  The Philosophy of Punk: More Than Noise by Craig O'Hara (to buy)* or Roots by Alex Haley (library)

Don't forget, five manga (probably five manga series)!

* Books to Buy:  seven are listed here, but seven more will be decided on as the year progresses. I may be posting a "2024 Book-shopping List" shortly.