writing…

2026–Minimal

What causes the urge to ACQUIRE?

The feeling is gone so soon after it is home, on a hanger, on a shelf.

The hunt is the thing; a dopamine rush.

Hard-wired into the meaning of homosapien is hunt, gather!! (Own. Possess!!) Show your self-worth to others by the things you have!

This coming year-2026-I want to push past that; to get the same satisfaction from what I already have. I will need distractions until the feeling I need to “hunt and gather” passes. (Play with the fabric I already OWN as opposed to buying more)

Shopping is like hunting. Even one of the Christmas commercials this year came out and admitted it.  (Homegoods, maybe? TJ Maxx?)  

Resisting the urge to after-Christmas shop is hard– we have been acclimated to the giant rollup of BUY BUY BUY for two months, the payoff being finding those steals the day after, when you “say” you are looking for Susi’s February birthday but you come home with everything but. Shopping has become an activity to share with others. It’s the “let’s go do something” and the something is talking each other into BUYING that, you deserve it!

I collected a dozen new gift bags at Christmas from the gifts we received and I have a tub of wrapping paper still unused in the attic. And, NO, I don’t need a better container to hold it all!! (but, it’s so PRETTY! I could be more organized if the container was perfect…) The Semi-annual BBW sale is hard to say no to, but there is a vanity full of shower gel, lotion and body spray in the cabinets; there are enough candles for a week or more of no electricity. And July will arrive, in due time, for the second half of “Semi.”

Scrap-cooking, as a friend calls it, means adjusting the recipe if you are out of something. It may be amazing and it may be ehh, bad idea, don’t try that combo again. But applying that to most everything as I go about my days– Minimizing my $$ output can’t harm anyone!  

We are past The Depression. We are past Little House on the Prairie. We can’t do two pairs of shoes and three shirts and a single cup and plate per person any more. We think “deprivation” means not having matching holiday hand towels for each holiday, for all three bathrooms. We forget we were raised with a single bathroom for a family of 4, 5, 8? I remember fondly the giant Hellman’s mayo jar of broken Crayola at Great Aunt Gene’s house. When we visited we had something to do as the adults chatted. But crayons are ubiquitous and inexpensive today. Reduce reuse recycle. Easy enough, with a bit of thought.

I read Marie Kondo. She is not me. She has some good thoughts (does it spark JOY?) The concept, good. The will to live it? Not so much. Most declutter books/articles etc, are like that, one size fits all. Wear only black or grey tee-shirts! Eliminate color and life from your world and free up closet space the easy way!!! My grandmother only and always, in all the years I knew her, wore Windsor Rose nail polish. She ate a soft-boiled egg with bread, a cup of coffee and a cigarette for breakfast. Her lunch was a ham sandwich with mayo on rye bread. Her dinner was a hamburger on a plate with a slice of tomato. This was her routine. No matter what we ate. (Our menu choices were slightly more eclectic)

I can’t do “sterile”. I don’t want a magazine spread of soulless grey and white (or whatever two colors are currently de rigueur) and no, this isn’t a hint I am planning to paint. I like my things and I like them out where I can see them and touch them. This butts right up against “I love boxes and containers for things, so things have homes.” People are complicated.

I had someone once tell me my home was like a museum. It’s not of valuable things, to be sure! I am not hiding a $100,000 baseball card payout someplace on a bookshelf. There are no  placards of the stories of everything, hung at the bottom right corner, but there’s little without a story.

I could do “curated”. (my curator needs a bit more focus, maybe)  I don’t want my mother’s house! We had to leave it ALL. Someone climbed through the mess to rescue great grandma’s china, but there was no way we could get the china cabinet out of the house. That was a sickness.

And, then, as I was writing this, pondering whether Minimal was the right word for 2026, this story popped up on Bluesky. >>>>  https://archive.ph/jXbVt  Boomers Are Passing Down Fortunes — And Way, Way Too Much Stuff

How easy it could be to tell myself that if I get it at Goodwill, it doesn’t count. It does minimize my financial output! I already get most of my clothes there. Which means I probably need to stay out of Goodwill –which is shorthand for thrift stores, writ large. (No lectures please, about how Goodwill has issues of X or Y or Z. You shop at hobby lobby, Target and Walmart. Pick your poison.)

And I don’t need any more craft supplies! Honestly. Because being creative should mean working with what you have, not buying your creativity. More thread? Well, sure, thread is a consumable. Running out of glue or sewing with dull needles would be foolish. (but, to be honest, it will take some time to use up those things, too)

If I get the THINGS part sorted, then maybe the DOING parts… getting out to do the  things/go places …I’ve got what, 25 good years left?

ON MOTHER’S DAY—I don’t begrudge your life choices

I don’t begrudge your (private) life choices.

You do you.

Be HONEST about it, though.

When you made the choice to have one child or four children or no children, THAT IS PRO-CHOICE.

ALL of the childless adults I know can’t ALL have had fertility problems.

How many of you COULDN’T have kids? (Not my business—good. Right. Be aggravated I asked or presume to know, but—- Keep that thought front level, however, as you continue to read)

(The rest of) you made the choice to have no children, whether it was because you hate kids, or whether it was because you had an incredibly horrifying childhood and you can’t imagine being able to recover and do the job well. Or you wanted your career that was so challenging and demanding of (both parents) time. Or travel! Or. Or. Or. Not my business. (Privacy, right?)

The reason that you were able to survive to this period of your life (menopause? Close to it, way past it?) and not have children was:

-Birth control pills/ IUD, vasectomy

-Abstinence (repressed lives that suggest the sex act be saved ONLY for when you WANTED to CREATE another child?)

-Rhythm method (luck AND a partner who was willing to follow it)

-Abortion

-Infertility

So, since 1973 if you find yourself in a childless marriage by choice — NEWS FLASH— you are pro-choice.

None of that “there was a medical reason for your child-free status” —you could adopt! So, to all the “infertile as an excuse couples”, why did you not adopt? That is what is supposed to happen, right? That is what all those pro-life marchers display on their signs “ADOPTION not ABORTION”….

All those pregnancies caused by incest and rape…you SAY that they are all adoptable! You (royal usage) all are talking about how someone is waiting for a baby to love, so….? (I am NOT asking you to TELL ME why you are childless and haven’t adopted)—privacy about what goes on in your marital bed is a constitutional right. For the moment. —->>>Again I AM NOT berating and I AM NOT criticizing you OR your choices. I can’t imagine the pain of multiple miscarriages, etc. <<<<—- AND IT IS NOT MY BUSINESS.

I am NOT saying you should’ve made another choice. I am not saying you should have done X or Y or Z, just because. No one who can’t or won’t parent (the verb) should be forced to become a parent (the noun). But you made that CHOICE. BE HONEST ENOUGH to accept YOU ARE PRO-CHOICE (for yourself)

For you to make the determination that OTHER people should follow YOUR belief system, and therefore if they get pregnant they should have to carry a child to term —when you would not carry a child to term for whatever reason —does not sound particularly fair. (Although to be honest, the majority of us do force those of different religions to have the random Wednesday off because we want to celebrate Christmas, so there is precedent in our inability to be logical.)

And if YOUR religious belief system disallows abortion, don’t have one. But, those whose religion disagrees with you— or those who are free from religious belief, should NOT have to follow the edicts of your religion. This country does NOT have a state religion. Yet.

When you decided to go on birth control because your husband lost his job in 1982, that was a pro-choice decision, because by rights you should have just been accepted the extra mouths to feed or been celibate until hubby was back on his feet.

Also, and this one is important—if that first pregnancy that you had almost cost your your life, too bad so sad. Deny your husband sexual intercourse, or get pregnant and possibly die of a second pregnancy, because apparently the fetus is more important than the mother of the toddler at home.

Yeah. I know. Vasectomy, tubal ligation, birth control pills— but once they don’t have abortion to rile you up about—once abortion is gone, do you think they’re going to STOP?

Understand, that once abortion is no longer a legal option, that it will not be the end of abortion. First, your well-heeled friends will suddenly be discovering a newfound love of spontaneous travel outside the country… or possibly CAMPING in another state. Second, you will start to hear about young women, daughters of your friends, DYING of “back alley abortions”.

It will be the beginning, only.

Because the GOP, the powers that be in the Grand Old Party, will NEED to have a culture war, still. A rallying cry to get you so hot and bothered that you vote AGAINST YOUR BEST INTERESTS, just to “own the libs,” fight AGAINST antifa (you do UNDERSTAND that that is against FASCISM and not an actual group AND also A GOOD THING?)

They have to have something to rile you so once they have finished eliminating the option for legal abortion, they WILL come after your birth control. You may not believe that but that doesn’t make it any less true.

This is gonna be a flex for them—but they are up for the challenge. Griswold —the right to privacy, the STATE says you do not have a right to know what other people are doing with their own bodies, in their own beds and bedrooms, because that disrespects their privacy—that will have to end.

And maybe YOU are now of an age that you escaped with your family the exact size you wanted. You are able to pay for your ONE child’s college education, take your ONE child on summer vacations to France, not just because you made the RIGHT CHOICES through your life. (I know, I know. You’ve never been to France. So therefore you going to think that everything you read here has nothing to do with you.) I’ve never been to France, either.

But you made the CHOICE to have one child, or to use birth control to control so that you had your four children six years apart. YOU made a choice; actually that’s pro-choice.

BUT.

Even today, when you see a large family, may be a darker-skinned family of a possibly not Anglo-Saxon background, and they are walking with their five or six children, possibly speaking a language you don’t understand, you hear derisive comments— or you THINK THEM— or YOU say them, sotto voce, “How could ‘THOSE’ people have so many kids? They are replacing us. Who do they think they are. Doesn’t she know how to keep her legs closed.” (Where’s that pro-life Rah Rah now?)

Do you know that there has not been a woman who has gotten pregnant without the help of a very human male, except 2000-odd years ago when teenaged Mary found herself pregnant?

Every woman that you see that is pregnant, there is a man that is responsible for that. The man had to initiate sexual intercourse. The man. (Don’t be pedantic and @ me with IVF— that’s a medical procedure, that is highly orchestrated-AND still requires a man, and ALSO on the chopping block, once they get rolling) A woman cannot cause herself to get pregnant; she can’t wish herself pregnant. *DONT HAVE KIDS IF YOU CAN’T AFFORD THEM!!!,” they scream into the void.

Oh, and now now comes the new fun new thing, because all the people who did not have children for “whatever” reason are complaining that forgiving some student loans is UNFAIR! “They” get their student loans forgiven and I PAID MINE OFF!” So? Maybe because you had no children you were ABLE to do so? You didn’t spend YEARS paying the MINIMUM on all your credit cards and student loans because you had to put half your paycheck into daycare and diapers? You were able to accept that promotion, with it’s funky work hours, which is impossible to find childcare for, or so much travel time, or that transfer to another state on a whim because you didn’t have to uproot your family.

“I don’t have children so they are not getting any benefit from it! OMG.”

But. Here we are. Not only is the draft, leaked Roe decision awful, they are booking hard for Griswold, for Obgerfell. You know that same sex wedding you went to a couple of years ago? And how they ADOPTED and are the most amazing parents? Yeah. Soon to be ILLEGAL, if you follow the LOGIC of the arguments in this decision.

Don’t QUITE know how they plan to dissolve entire families, but.

But, GRISWOLD. Oh. That’s the one they will have to be going after next. What is going to be funny—not funny ha ha, but funny— is how suddenly, across this entire nation teenaged children of a certain sex are going to suddenly require birth control pills for very bad acne and very painful menses. There is going to be a sudden increase in female acne and debilitating periods that is so horrific that females of certain financial status will to have to stay on birth control from 11 to 54 to avoid it.

And really, what is the end game? Because their children, well their male children, won’t have anything change in their lives except –oh, well maybe they’ll be less female children competing for the good job, competing for the scholarships because they’re all going to be home birthing and caring for children.

Flowers for you. (this image is for sale —> https://www.rteest42.com/PrettyAsAPicture/i-ZQkCqDK/A

Oh, and call your mother. ((Or text if you don’t want to actually talk to her. But only if it is something you CAN do without being dishonest with yourself.)) And understand that this is a freaking hard day for a LOT of people–who lost their mom, or who lost their kid or who wanted that miscarried child. And for those who didn’t have a mother who gave a damn. And don’t be an ass and tell other people that they will regret not calling one day….

Happy Mother’s Day to ALL the people who’ve cared for and loved and raised and encouraged all children.

https://abortionfunds.org/funds/

It Was 20 Years Ago, TODAY.

These are photos that I took from Richmond Terrace, Staten Island, on September 11, 2001.

Remember? (How could you ever forget.)

Manhattan skyline, Freedom Tower, August 2021
Lady Liberty still stands guard in NY Harbor…(far left of image, as another ferry heads to “the island” from “the city”…

Think about your childhood, and all those times all the grown-ups would visit on a Sunday afternoon and the talk was all about “the olden days” (bborrrriiinggg!) so you would stop listening because that was way back in time and who even wants to hear about it? So, you took your Barbie or your GI Joe and you found a cousin and went outside to play.

In 20 years, skyline of Staten Island has changed as much as the Manhattan skyline.

Now, today, there’s talk about the “olden days,” but to us, it was real life and it happened. We lived through it and past it and made it to this moment. (There’s a meme that is around now, that reminds us that “1981 is as far from us now, as 1939 was from 1981”, and dang it, I REMEMBER 1981!!!)

NYC is the most amazing of places because it refuses to STOP; it WILL keep on keeping on; it will continue to grow and change and be something it never was…. (when “I” was a child, one didn’t VENTURE into Times Square alone, at night, unaware!!!)

Will this be the last time I see or ride on this class of ferry?

We rarely acknowledge the “last time”—yes, at graduation or a funeral, but on the whole? We remember our first kiss (maybe) and we obsessively record the homecoming of each Child, and pet and vehicle, and The First Day of School—years per-k through the day they are deposited at a college dormitory.

Rarely, oh so rarely are we given the foreknowledge that this is the last time that you’re going to see that person, or be in that place or do that thing. Can you honestly recall the last time you tucked your child in at night? Or the last time they let you read to them with you lying cuddled against their warm little body? You don’t really remember because on a random Tuesday night, they say, “no mommy,” and you breathe a silent sigh of relief, because really you needed to finish washing the dishes. But then on Wednesday and on Thursday and on Friday you are given a similar reprieve and suddenly it becomes the new normal and nobody told you to absorb that feeling, to memorize it.

I looked past the Twin Towers every day of my high school career; daydreaming out the window. I rarely acknowledged them when I turned down Victory, although I did once stop when I had film in my camera. They were just THERE.

So, I paid attention to the smells and the textures and the visual of the boat. Because, well, the bright new shiny ones may be smoother and cleaner faster and lighter, it won’t be like it used to be at all.

Nothing ever is.

“It’s wonderful to be here
It’s certainly a thrill
You’re such a lovely audience
We’d like to take you home with us
We’d love to take you home” Sgt. Pepper

And NYC, TODAY, is certainly a thrill, A different one to be sure.

But so are we all, so are we all. And home? You can’t really go back home. Home is a memory, home is your history.

Ten years on…
My scrapbook https://www.rteest42.com/Imagestoown/September-11-2001