Archives June 2024

Humans are great ones for predictability. We categorize and stereotype. When it comes to naming our children, we choose names that we feel are befitting of a certain cultural standard or current style. When I was in grade school in the olden days, there were a lot of Bobs, Bills, Toms, Sandys, Pattys,  Marges,and some exotics, like Michelle and Renee.

Let’s examine a few examples of what happened to, for instance, a Bill:

Bill would fall off his bike and skin his knees. He would only eat cereal for breakfast, no toast or anything. He would excel at baseball and later on shoot a lot of hoops, in hopes of becoming an NBA star, which of course never happened. Bill would grow up, become a doctor or attorney, and marry a Pam or a Sally. They would have kids, live in a glossy suburb, and maybe stay married.

Or what about a Marge: Marge would have sturdy legs. Her mother would plead with Marge to put her dirty clothes in the hamper to no avail. Marge might say her prayers every night, but she couldn’t be relied on to participate in saying grace along with the rest of the family at dinner. Marge would become a secretary and marry her accountant boss. They would remain childless, because Marge had “female problems.”

When I had babies, styles had changed. There were Whitneys, Merediths, Chads, and Daltons. These kids were typical, still riding bikes; but they carried backpacks and rode skateboards, too. We lived in a suburb with sidewalks, but most kids got driven to school. They asked for kiwis in their lunchboxes. The majority of them got good jobs and had families. Their kids are our grandkids.

These days, I am unable to attach a stereotype to a name any longer, because kids have names like Denyse, Cace, Alinia, Caden, Rebeknia, and Mylan. I have no idea how these children might grow up, but I will take a shot:

Mylan is gifted. His parents noted it when he was 18 months old and stacked his Legos in rows by color and size. He refused to wean from the breast until he could actually tell his mother he was finished with that whole phase, and he used complete sentences. Mylan is so gifted that he became an influencer on TikTok, and he feels confident he will be able to pay for his own college tuition with the proceeds.

Rebeknia has trouble with frustration. She bit her preschool teacher on the arm when they ran out of chocolate milk. Her mother is afraid of her, because Rebeknia is shrill when provoked. Rebeknia spends most of her time on Snapchat or gaming. She has ten thousand friends. She has met five of them in person. “Reb,” as her friends call her, has no desire to get a driver’s license or a part-time job. Instead, she is preparing for a life as a celebrity.

So what can the folks of my generation do? How do we cope with all of these unusual kids, this new world of gens X, Y, Z, or whatever they call them?

We name our dogs Bill and our cats Marge.

You are going to a) play tennis b) take a walk or c) do any other activity requiring sneakers, for instance. You are not a complete nerd. So what do you do? You put on your half socks–you know, the ones that don’t show when your shoes are on. Because remember your grandpa who wore white crew socks and a white patent leather belt when he put on his Bermudas? How embarrassing was it to be seen with him?

But hold on. I have it on good authority that as of today–right now–if you go out wearing shoes with your ankles showing, you are totally out of it. That’s right. The days of old, when the guys on Miami Vice made bare ankles popular? Those days are gone. The style setters, otherwise known as influencers, wear socks. Crew socks and knee socks. Socks with ballet flats. Socks with mules. Socks with loafers (or whatever kind of leather shoe people like Ryan Gosling wear).

I am not kidding. I have seen pictures of Billie Eilish wearing a skirt, knee socks and heels that would make me wonder what she was thinking. What? You don’t know who Billie Eilish is? I don’t either, but trust me, she is famous. With the socks.

Do you have Birkenstocks? My God, you can wear them with socks and actually hold your head up high! And guess what else? Bermudas are back in style, too! Don’t feel ridiculous putting on a pair of bright green Bermudas, a polo shirt (French tuck; that’s for another blog post), threading a belt through the loops, and pulling on a pair of white crew socks before slipping into your Birks. Or even KNEE SOCKS. Those are totally stylish, too! Could black socks be far behind? Of course not! Because socks of any color are totally IN.

This creates a problem for us Boomers. We used to be able to run into a perfectly normal friend, we’ll call him Bob, at Costco; and  if Bob was wearing plaid Bermudas and black socks with his sandals on, it was a  safe call to lean over to your spouse and whisper, “Oh no, I think Bob may be losing it.”

You could be entirely wrong about Bob. Bob may be an influencer. For all we know, he could have 57,000 followers on Instagram, all of them admiring Bob and his socks, despite the fact that Bob’s wife is mortified to be seen with Bob. No–Bob is actually riding the new wave of style, and it is the rest of us who are living in the past.

You can get really good quality socks at Costco. They are a bargain. Bob and I, and if we are all lucky, Billie;  will see you there.

I took a hiatus. Originally, it wasn’t a hiatus; it was the end. But it turned into a hiatus when I realized that taking a long time off from writing could not be permanent.

So here l am again, getting used to a new laptop with a very sensitive keyboard that causes me to make a typo with every other word. Frustrating, but it’s a learning curve.

Here is what happened while I was gone:

• My hair turned white
• I took up pottery; I am getting minorly proficient
• I stopped vacuuming so often
• I became addicted to crime shows
• I realized that the crime shows are shams, because the murderer is always the spouse or boyfriend/girlfriend
• I did my own nails for a year, then realized they looked terrible; so I went back to the salon
• I got “old people skin”
• Crepe Erase does not work; don’t buy it
• I became a “Swiftie”
• Travis Kelce is a hunk
• Thank God for Taylor, who made granny underpants stylish again
• We eat so many chickpeas it’s ridiculous, but at our age, it’s the fiber, baby
• I read at least two books a week, but never remember the book title, the author, and in most cases, the plot
• I spend way too much time on social media, thus I have no attention span whatsoever
• My favorite Taylor Swift song is “The Man”
• I am afraid to use emojis, in case they don’t mean what I think they mean
• Don’t call anybody, for God’s sake, TEXT THEM
• I binge watch everything

Stay tuned. I will be showing up regularly!