False Summits

Last night was the third Democratic primary debate, down to ten people from twenty. I get so frustrated at the lack of depth and the limited topics. There are so many important things to talk about, and health care is important, but we have a lot of bad shit going on in this country and we need to deal with it. I wouldn't call that spectacle last night a debate, because they aren't really going back and forth with each other to dive deep. I'd like to see real, everyday citizens ask questions about a variety of topics and then let the candidates answer, followed by a real back and forth debate. Even if we did one topic at a time. They are going to have town halls, and maybe those will turn out to be more revealing about where the candidate is coming from and how they would handle it. I like Elizabeth Warren best, always have, even before they were asking if she was running for President. I like that she can explain complex topics in simple terms that people can underst

It's 9/11. On this day in 2001, I was living in Arizona, on my way to a client's house, and saw it on TV when I got there. I knew someone whose husband died in the Towers on that day. The shock and horror and lack of clarity that surrounded those events and in the months and years that followed seemed like we had tipped the scale, heading in the direction that is so obvious today. The hate and bigotry, anti-Muslim sentiment, and what I call the hijacking of our flag, with willfully blind loyalty to some high ranking government officials who were rushing to decisions not based on fact, was the beginning of our backtracking. Suddenly everyone had those flag decals, ribbons, and was rushing to judgement. John Ashcroft, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and George W. Bush took our country in a scary direction, on false premises, and got a bunch more people killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. And here we are, eighteen years later, with a complete nutcase in the White House who just fire

It's true when they say age is only a number. There is no reason why we have to act our age, live up to somebody else's expectations of how we should look, talk, dress, and present ourselves in the world. Same with gender. It's only a label, but it's dangerous when enforced. In a world where we make assumptions and generalizations like we eat and breathe, it's funny to watch people react to what other people say. I was born in 1964. I lived a long time before the #MeToo movement ever happened. I know how objectification feels. It sucks being treated as the sum of your looks and in comparison to some unrealistic ideal. Ever since my hair grew out gray, I have definitely noticed a difference in how men react to my presence. I know most older women are not as visually appealing to straight men as we once might have been, and even though you guys still largely make the rules, you aren’t so great-looking either. Older women might be gravitationally challenged,

Welcome to my new blog, False Summits. It's my personal effort to stay grounded in a world that seems to be flying out of control and randomly headed for a massive collision at any time. It's not about climbing mountains. At a time when I feel like I'm moving into a different phase of my life, I wanted to write my deeper thoughts and the random ideas that cross my mind, no matter how weirdly shocking, outrageous, and unusual they are. In life, we often think we are right- and then get proven wrong. You can never assume anything. That’s another reason I gave the blog its name. Life is a series of false summits. But that means we get to keep climbing and rising higher. I'm a better than 55 year old woman, an ultrarunner, and much more. I like to think I still have meaningful, utilitarian, and functional experiences and thoughts that are valuable for people to learn from or are worth sharing. I'm finding myself discarding a lot of things that no longer serve me