"When lovers go poof"

Someone sent me this link to a short piece in today's Boston Globe Magazine.

The writer's curse - "Hey, why didn't I write that? I could have written that!"

But aside from missed opportunities on the writing side, it opened a door in my head to set someone free. The door was already unlocked so it was fairly easy to kick it a little more so it's open enough for me to kick him through it.

I say with great authority that we women are kind of living in the 18th century, in the days of Jane Austen, when if a man was paying particular note to you, escorting you places and etc. (courting you), he was more or less obligated to follow through. Or so they thought.

If you read Austen, or even Edith Wharton in the early 20th century, you think you know how difficult it was to get out of entanglements of the heart. And if a man, for example, took advice from a trusted friend and did vanish on a woman (read Pride & Prejudice if you don't know what I'm talking about), everyone said how unworthy you were.

Well, your wacko mother did, at any rate.

Nowadays, I think, women will blame the 21st century, the golden age of throw-away something as soon as you're tired of it - or when one or more of your friends tells you to - when a man goes "poof."

But I guess what I'm saying (in the most roundabout way possible) is - the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Austen really marvelously caught what is the essence of relationships, I think.

The problem is, there was always a happy ending (man's friend changes mind about woman and gives him "permission" to marry her in the end of P&P).

So I've given up thinking that either or any of the men who have vanished on me in the last 2 years (even as just friends, for goodness sake) will ever come back, except to occasionally post something on a status report on Facebook.

Actually, I'm deleting people from my friends' list on Facebook because that is the one awful rub that has taken the place of seeing someone at assembly balls and such in the days of Austen - seeing someone's name appear on your Facebook chat list and knowing they will never again chat with you or reply to your invitation to chat.

Ladies, pay attention to the red flags. Red flags don't deceive.

The defiant one

I just came across this, on the Newburyport page on Facebook ... or one of them, at any rate ... It's from March, but somehow I missed it.

The woman in question is 80 years old.

Fran Dalton, a retired artist, survives on about $600 a month, checks from Social Security, and the Veterans Affairs Administration. She lives in a small, subsidized apartment in Newburyport. The next-to-last time she bought a carton of Lucky Strikes, it cost something like 60 bucks, and that was in New Hampshire.

"Every cigarette I have, it's a joy," she says. "It calms me. It soothes me. But I couldn't afford them."

Someone told her about a cigarette company run by Native Americans in New York that was selling by mail at discount prices.

And in that last sentence is the burn (pun intended).

In April, she got a letter from the Dept. of Revenue saying she has to pay taxes on her cigarette purchase from the tribe. She, at least at the time the piece was written, is refusing to pay the $91.58.

Now that it was in the Globe that she bought cigs in New Hampshire, I'm sure the state will be right on that, too.

I love this last paragraph:

So, if anybody from the state is looking to pinch the dangerous, seditious, and defiant Fran Dalton, she'll be easy pickings any Wednesday, around noon, at the corner of Water and Fair streets. You can't miss her. She's the one smoking Senecas.

The corner of Water and Fair streets is where the Salvation Army is. They serve free lunches there.

Heavy days

I've been so busy, what with writing stories and finalizing my taxes - god, even typing "taxes" makes my head hurt - I feel as if I haven't been very observant. Until yesterday, that is.

So speaking of the "T" word, my whole situation has cast a new light on a lot of issues for me.

It struck me yesterday, when I realized that I would be better off hanging up the freelancing and going on welfare (it's true), how brutal the current tax code is on non-traditional professions and entrepreneurs.

Artists have always had it tough, unless they had a patron. I'm not exactly clear on why that is because art is such a vital part of existence and can give such joy.

As can a well-written story.

For all the talk a certain ex-president spouted about wanting to encourage entrepreneurship (something of which he once said the French didn't understand the meaning - what a buffoon), I don't see how small businesses survive at all.

My brother yesterday pointed out that 50 years ago, you could support your family on a small business or being a bus driver, or whatever ... actually, bus drivers probably make good money, so check that ... but you get my point.

I don't want, nor do I intend to, go on welfare. It was just that I realized that I would be better off on a state program - which would in turn make it oh so tempting to 'cheat' and take money under the table for the odd job.

They don't make it easy ... but who said it was going to be easy?

So while you may be sitting there expecting or spending a tax refund, remember that there are people out there who every day have to struggle with the decision to make an honest buck that doesn't stretch far enough or go on welfare - or worse, cheat.

Every experience I have is so enriching for me. You really do have to walk in someone's shoes ... and then you can write about it and still not be able to pay your enormous tax bill!

Which reminds me ... as someone else said to me on Friday, "It's the choice between being rich or being happy."

We non-traditional folk need help! And work ... but sometimes we can be happy being poor.