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Jillosophy

Fiction

Thank You and So Long, Vanna White

To:  Bellville BookclubCc:Bcc:Subject: April (In-Person!) Meeting Hi Ladies: Now that we’ve all been vaccinated, we can ditch our Zoom accounts and return to our monthly, in-person meetings! It’s my turn to host, which means it’s also my turn to pick the book. I select “Stop Trying So G-D Hard And Just Be You,” a newly published self-help book written by yours truly. Yes, I wrote a book during the pandemic. And yes, I know we rarely read self-help books, since we all agree that they tend to make us feel even worse about ourselves. Sure, we might get excited about

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Political

The Ghost of Lessons Past

You’ve been vaccinated (yay!) and you want to take a trip, only you’re not sure where to go. It’s March, so heading to Phoenix sounds nice. But Chicago is always fun and you haven’t been there in ages. How to decide? Many of us would think about where we’ve been, as well as where we are, in order to figure out where to go. Reviewing your past vacations (hmmm, I’ve been to Phoenix a half-dozen times in the last few years) and surveying your current condition (I have two vacation days to use right now), might help you make the

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Non-Fiction

The Art of a Virus

I’m walking along my usual path through a familiar forest. It’s almost sunset on a late winter afternoon and I’m alone, hiking through knee-deep snow that feels as if it’s been falling forever. The hike seems just as endless, as if the path has become one long, circular loop. My toes and the ends of my fingers are stingingly cold; they prickle and burn like they’re on fire. My lungs feel the same as I heave myself through the drifts. I’m exhausted, so I stop for a moment to take a look around. The sky is melting into a dazzling,

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Non-Fiction

Truth Before Unity

My husband and I got into a fight. He yelled at me, I yelled back at him. And then, silence. For a full day. When we started speaking again, we didn’t talk about why we were mad at each other. Just swept it under the marital rug. To anyone else, we didn’t look or act like we were still seething inside. But we were. I’ve been thinking a lot about unity. That’s what everyone wants, right? But what is it, and what’s the best and fastest way to get it? As it so often does, history may provide an answer.

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Take the Stairs

A CEO carrying a leather briefcase and dressed in a cashmere overcoat hurries through the glass doors and into the marble-floored lobby of his office building. He pushes the elevator button as he’s done every week day for the past thirty years. He waits, but the elevator doors fail to open. He pushes the “up” button again. Nothing. Perplexed, he gives it another try, but still, nothing happens. He impatiently checks his watch and then pushes the button three more times. Still, the elevator doors refuse to budge. A scowl crosses his cleanly shaven face as he leans forward to

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Political

Taking a Ride in the Wayback Machine

For those Wisconsinites who’ve waited far too long to collect unemployment benefits and can’t understand what in the damn hell took so long, perhaps a trip in the Wayback Machine will bring some clarity. Please stay seated during the trip. It’s going to be a bumpy ride. Our first stop is 2001. Wisconsin’s jobless fund, which pays out unemployment benefits, has been severely weakened by the recession. If you look out your windows, a quick stop in 2009 reveals that the jobless reserve is now borrowing money from the federal government in order to keep paying benefits.   I ask

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Political

Shock and Awe? Not So Much

I feel embarrassed. Demoralized. Angry. Afraid, even. But what I don’t feel is surprised. And that, more than anything, makes me heartsick. Anyone else feeling similarly? We’ve heard so many lies during the past four years, thousands of them, told over and over again. Yesterday’s lie (shouted from a podium to thousands gathered in Washington, DC) was that the vice president could somehow break his oath to the Constitution by overturning the results of a free and fair election. And when it failed to come true, the mob attacked. Why would that surprise anyone? After four years of near-constant vilification

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Fiction

Lost and Found

Louisa was washing her hands after spreading yards of mulch when she noticed it: the diamond in her wedding ring was gone. Why hadn’t she taken it off first, or worn gloves?

The jeweler eyed the ring’s fractured prong. “Was it a smallish diamond?”

It hadn’t even been a half carat. Still, her then-boyfriend, now-husband had valeted all summer to pay for it. A blue-collar boy parking cars for white-collar people, Robert had eyes the color of cornflowers and a smile that should’ve been illegal. Tips were good. So good, he graduated college nearly debt-free. He wanted to go to grad school. She wanted to finish her degree in landscape architecture. He said investing in his education was the more practical decision. They couldn’t afford both.

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Political

Silver Linings: Our opportunity to rethink everything

The American economy is like a schizoid yo-yo: On the way up, when times are good and getting better, some say “Government regulation of industry slows down growth–it’s anti-capitalist.” But when times are tough and on the way down, it’s all “Government to the rescue—where’s my bail out?” And it isn’t just industry or businesses sharing this seemingly bi-polar economic belief system. Take this quote from a recent poll regarding whether the federal government is doing too little to deal with the health and economic repercussions of COVID-19: “Gary Tidball, 52, a Republican from Overland Park, Kansas, has been relying

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Non-Fiction

Are You Ready For a Change?

There were mostly middle-aged white people, residents of the city in which I live, congregating on the front lawn of city hall when I arrived that night. A state assemblyman from my district was speaking on a bullhorn, urging people to stay until 7pm, when the curfew would begin. At 6pm, a line of military trucks from all over the state came cruising down the avenue before stopping at the light, flexing their military muscle to the people lining the sidewalk. Residents shouted, “Go home” and “We don’t want you here.” We moved to this community nearly 30 years ago

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