Tag Archives: Random Topics

Oct 03 2021
Posts

Scenes from a Marriage: Keys to My Life

“Do you think people who live together can ever be completely honest?” — from Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage

Sometimes a series of events coalesce randomly, serendipitously. Such is the case this past month when I began watching the HBO remake of the groundbreaking relationship drama, Ingmar Bergman’s 1973 Swedish TV mini-series, Scenes from a Marriage. When it was originally released in 1973, I had been married for a couple of years to my husband, Frank. We watched the theatrical version released in theaters in the U.S. We were foreign and avant-garde film buffs. Our friend Hal, a French professor at UW – Parkside, curated the campus film society. We attended lots of films together and I learned about the art of filmmaking from Hal and I quickly became a cinephile. Continue reading →

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Dec 26 2020
Posts

Random Topics VI

Doomscrolling, Flight Diapers, & Zoom Face

Dateline – Christmas Day, 2020

As I write, I’m celebrating a ‘Home Alone’ holiday this year due to the pandemic. This morning after 6 a.m., just as I made coffee and logged onto my laptop, I turned on CNN, which is part of my routine during my safer-at-home, semi-lockdown, life.

A bomb exploded in an historic district in downtown Nashville. As the day unfolded, so did the investigation and developing story. An RV arrived overnight, parked, and in the morning, in what was described as a female voice, broadcast an announcement of an impending blast including a countdown. Earlier, witnesses heard shots being fired and called 911 which is why first responders arrived at the scene and heard the bomb warning. The area was evacuated and at 6:30 a.m., the RV exploded, injuring three people. It’s suspected the explosion was intentional, yet suspects or motive for the blast are unknown at this time. Continue reading →

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Oct 19 2020
Posts

Random Topics V

Sealioning, Chukars, Pandemic Fatigue  

As I write, it’s Sunday morning. The temperature is 40 degrees (feels like 34) — raining with the possibility of snow today — the first of the season — as we prepare for the l-o-n-g, dark, and cold Midwestern fall and winter ahead. COVID-19 cases in my home state of Wisconsin are surging; we are hot spot, logging an infection rate just under 25%. Trump campaigned here Saturday in Janesville, risking the lives of the citizens he was elected to protect. It’s an increasingly dystopian time, 15 days away from the election. Will our lives be mentally, physically, and spiritually restored, or how many more of us die? Continue reading →

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Jun 30 2019
2 Comments
Posts

Random Topics III

Sober Bars, Emotional Labor, and Salad Frosting

“So much of life, it seems to me, is determined by pure randomness.” — Sidney Poitier

“Creativity is the ability to introduce order into the randomness of nature.” — Eric Hoffer

From the introduction of the first in the series of Random Topics:

“As a blogger, I mine my daily life for topics to write about. I set out to find something timely and meaningful, something that my readers can relate to, a universal message or lesson to discover in my lived experience. Another option is to choose a subject from the news of the day to comment on, however sometimes current events are tragically overwhelming.”

“I’m often left to choose from the mundane or subjects that pique my curiosity. When this happens, the only common theme is the randomness of my choices. Today, I offer three random topics with absolutely no connection or relation to each other at least that I’m aware of at the outset of this essay. Perhaps as I write, I may discover the subtle relationships that bind them together. Life is like that.” Continue reading →

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Jun 25 2017
Posts

Random Topics II

Mansplaining, Man Buns, and Manspreading 

I introduced the first installment of Random Topics for Mixed Metaphors, Oh My! in October 2015 as follows: “As a blogger, I mine my daily life for topics to write about. I set out to find something timely and meaningful, something that my readers can relate to, a universal message or lesson to discover in my lived experience.  I’m often left to choose from the mundane, or subjects that pique my curiosity. When this happens, the only common theme is the randomness of my choices. Today, I offer three random topics with absolutely no connection or relation to each other at least that I’m aware of at the outset of this essay. Perhaps as I write, I may discover the subtle relationships that bind them together. Life is like that.”  For the most part, the same is true for this new offering in the series, Random Topics II, except man is at the root of every story. It could be more precisely titled, Almost Random Topics.   Continue reading →

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