Weirder than normal – Retirement Confidential

I’ve been feeling weirder than normal, which is saying something.

It started with a jaw ache. I mentioned it during my regular visit to the dentist and after x-rays and all that, he said nothing looked amiss. Then he asked if I was clenching my teeth. I said probably. Lots to clench about these days.  

He fitted me for a mouth guard to wear as I clench my way through the night. I pick it up next week. When I mentioned it to Dale, he said that might explain why his jaw hurts. It looks like we’re in this together. ‘Til death do us clench.

Then I was reading about the new Republican ideal woman. Thin, white, obsessed with healthy eating. Geez, that sounds a lot like me, with some obvious omissions on the healthy part. But my hair could pass for Republican. It scared me at first, but I’m not surrendering in advance. They can take my bob when they pry it out of my cold dead hands.

Fortunately, I realized it doesn’t matter anyway. The thin, white, Republican women they were talking about are young. Uterus-forward. Having babies, they hope. Childless cat ladies of a certain age are already off the radar for anyone who cares what women look like. And you know what? I’m good with that. I’ll just ride this whole thing out under cover of agedness.

Let’s see. Oh, pop culture. It turns out everything I know is dead.

On the bright side, I’ve been trying to be more sociable and had a tiny win this week. As an introvert, I’m terrible at chit-chat and just want to be alone with my puzzles. I went back to the basics and asked a question. Several of us were relaxing after golf, and someone mentioned music. I said, “What was the best concert you ever attended?”

That started a fun conversation, and one of the women said and I quote, “Great question!” See? Now we’re talking positive feedback. You, too, can improve your social skills with one quick lesson from Retirement Confidential. Call now for this exclusive offer!

The other weird thing is my car. Sometimes on the way to golf, I eat a PBJ burrito – peanut butter and jelly rolled up burrito-style in a small flour tortilla. I got gunk all over my hand and my cute white skort one day and assumed some of the jelly squirted out as I was eating. I wiped up what I could.

But then it happened again, and while I did not do a taste test, I realized it was not jelly at all. That’s the good news. I can eat and drive. But it appears some sort of adhesive is bubbling up through the center console. I dropped the car off at the dealership this morning, and the service guy gave me the side eye. Like, seriously, lady? I have to waste my time on this?

He said they would take a look at it, but he wasn’t sure what they could do. I said I don’t know a lot about cars, but I imagine you could remove the console, clean up the mess, apply new adhesive and replace the console. He said probably.

For backup, I was prepared to say, “I’m sorry, but the car is less than two years old, and I’m new to sticky substances bubbling up through my ride.” My backup backup is for when they try and charge me for all this. That’s when I’ll be ready with, “Oh, toxic messes leaking from the console is considered normal wear and tear?”

I’m hoping we won’t have to go there.    

So, Substack. I have to say something about Substack. I started reading The Contrarian on Substack after Jennifer Rubin left the Washington Post. That led me to Robert Reich, Paul Krugman and Heather Cox Richardson, who are reputable writers with important content I’m not seeing in the mainstream media.

Nothing wrong with Substack, per se. But there are also lots of people you’ve never heard of pumping conspiracy theories that are sometimes consistent with my world view. And I’m like, oh, goodie, that explains it. I want more! Except you don’t know who or what to believe. Now I understand how people get sucked into this sort of thing.

I had been thinking of either switching to Substack for this blog or at least sharing some of my content on the platform. Even though there’s some high-quality reporting to be found, the feed (Substack Notes) is no better than Facebook, X or any of the other social media sites. As I see it, there’s really no way to filter out misinformation.

I’ll still read the stuff I read – but after clenching my way through several nights, I decided I’m not going to play in that sandbox.

Weirder Than Normal. That could be my legacy. The leading candidate is currently She Tried Hard.