Joan Mangan

Joan N. Mangan   1928-2016

A fine and noble lady has left this world. This past Saturday, almost two years after the sudden death of her beloved daughter, Jean (see blog entry about this from 2014), Joan

 Mangan died. What a life she had! And so blessed she was, to be given such a long life--and to pass from this earthly realm in the loving presence of her children. My heart breaks for this family; they have endured more than their share of pain, but they've maintained their sense of humor and loving hearts. To them, I dedicate this post,

I met Joan (pronounced Jo Ann) Mangan around 1987 when her daughter, Jean, began work at Rockford Public Library and later became one of my supervisors. We soon got to know what a lovely lady Jean’s mother was, and what a great bond Joan and Jean shared. Jean loved to tell us all the wonderful Mangan stories, with her dear mother (who was her best friend) shining always in the center. What a rare family--what a wonderful mother the Mangan siblings had! She had room in her heart to mother others, as well--many a time Joan dried my tears, over the phone, when I'd call to speak to Jean about some drama at work and Joan ended up with the call.  I'm so glad Joan got to go to Ireland with Jean--was it just once or more than once? Such memories to cherish. Later in Joan’s life, she and Jean shared a wonderful home together. I can hear their laughter as they are now reunited; I’ll tell you all, those two made me howl with mirth so many times! You see, they both thought that the baby names in the newspaper were hilarious. So, Joan would clip them out for Jean's delectation.  Jean would laugh until she cried and then deliver them to me at work. Our favorites were "Gassy," “Timmy Tinkletop,” “Clinton Renee,” and "Anastazia Earth Fire."  That's just one of the many ways in which I remember the fun and the joy that Joan radiated wherever she went. I thinks she was the purest soul I ever knew--she was a grand lady with the rare combination of a deep spirit and a true appreciation for silliness.  Truly, I felt a connection with Joan that went beyond ordinary.  Her sense of humor rarely faltered. Her empathy floored me.  Her sincerity, concern and caring must have had such a positive impact on others!   Her deep love for her children was evident in everything she said and did. Her dignity and grace when life dealt her tragedy and sorrow was unsurpassed; it came to be a great source of strength for me, as I am sure it was for her children and for all who knew her. And Joan had so many gifts to share with others! Did you all know what a beautiful singing voice she had? At the age of eighty-six, she absolutely blew my mind with her pure soprano. And I'll never forget the way she made me feel so at home in her presence--as if in her heart resided a home for all of the often-troubled souls whose trials and tribulations provided fodder for the countless "library stories" Jean would share around the dinner table.. I'm sure Joan laughed the most, but there was always respect and kindness toward the people who touched Joan's life in one way or another.  Joan was the heart, the muse, the grace note, the jewel of a remarkable family. All of you: Larry, Diane, Kevin, Eileen, Michael, Lori and Patrick, know that now your mother and your sister sit as angels upon each of your shoulders and will be with you always.  Ar dheis Dé go raibh tú, Joan.  Suaimhneas síoraí or. I love you, Joan.

                                       

Revisiting My Book

It has been 8 years since I wrote The Five Notebooks.   I was recently asked to submit a "horror selfie" to a website put up by the Horror Writers Association (HWA) to feature photos of a pet in costume, or "reading" horror, or with a sign supporting a local animal shelter. I couldn't come up with anything - there is no way I could get costumes on Willow and Beauregard and I have grown tired of those "face in hole" sites. So, I've submitted the following (below)  in hopes that they will publish it. I think it's pretty frightening....

                            

I had to fill out a form that included links to my social media websites as well as an author website. Since I don't have an active author website, I though I'd paste these two photos from 2008, when my novel first saw publication. It is still in print, available on amazon.com in both trade paperback and Kindle formats, and I'd be delighted to use this opportunity to give it some publicity.

From Outskits Press

from amazon.com

Do I have another book in me? I haven't attempted to write for publication since The Five Notebooks came out. Perhaps renewed interest in this first effort will give me the impetus I need to awaken my muse and write again.

Paul Dale Anderson, How DO you do it?

I just read Paul Dale Anderson's blogpost for today on Wordpress: (link below) and felt inspired to leave a comment. Here's the link to his post: How I Do It

and here is a corrected version of my lengthy response, which I didn't know how to edit, since I'm not a power Wordpress user. So, to get it right, here it is on my own blog, but please read his first!

Elizabeth Flygare says:

October 14, 2015 at 12:58 am

Lizza's musings: I didn't know what a "pantser" was! I had to look it up.  (https://thewritepractice.com/plotters-pantsers/) I like to think I'm a plotter, but there is something pansteresque about my process. I think I wrote about five different endings for my novel, and submitted it with a plot twist that came right out of that weird space we all inhabit when we're exhausted and suffering from severe "Magic Number Seven Plus or Minus Two.” With regard to your post, I am still mulling over our conversation today over pizza, in which we compared our thoughts on how we are drawn to a book - from mild interest to a compulsion to read. I agree that marketing is an energy drain. Anything that takes a writer away from writing had better be worth it. So how to self-promote, in today's publishing world where midlist authors have to cultivate the art of essentially saying, "READ MY BOOK!?" I think a recommendation or blurb from a major author is a plus. I will read a book that is praised by Curtis Sittenfeld or J. Courtney Sullivan or Chris Bohjalian or Diana Gabaldon---who else? Wally Lamb. Liane Moriarty or Laura Moriarty (who, in fact, are not related to each other). Diane Chamberlain, Meg Wolitzer, Donna Tartt (when is she ever going to write another book?) -- and, yes, Jodi Picoult.

So now that my response to your post has turned into a personal digression and a list of my favorite authors, here is a plug for you, Paul Dale Anderson.  Take a good, long look at who I read. Anyone who reads my response, consider my list... And YET--- I firmly believe that those with my reading preferences would also not only enjoy but become addicted to the Winds series --- and I daresay that even though they are by no means chick lit, they are definitely literary fiction within the realms of genre-bending. They are marvelous. I asked you yesterday, in that phone call about a review for Amazon, "HOW am I supposed to review your books?" And this segued into my question, "Paul Dale Anderson, how do you do it?" How indeed do you do it? I see your workflow above; I am more than honored to be one of your deviations. (smile) But you simply have an extra chip, rather like the individual who can replicate music by ear with no sheet music. You write by ear. By soul. And yes - by discipline. But you have a great gift. Yup, I'm your girlfriend, but I'm also a fierce critic and I am extremely fussy about what I will read. You get it right - the tone, the cadence, the storytelling. And sadly, I'm not the person to promote you. I want to hear you interviewed on "All Things Considered." I want to read an article about you in a scholarly book selection periodical. You've already nailed it with a great review of Light from Kirkus. I want a blurb from Stephen King to appear on the jacket of your next book. I want every indie bookseller in the country (how many are left?) to hand-sell your book, and every librarian to talk it up.

So - anyone from the Rockford area reading this, do show up at the Nordlof Center on October 28 for the event you listed: a talk followed by a showing of the movie Psycho. I promise you that this panster will scare the pants off you, and leave you wanting more!

Learning how to be dead so I can be alive

Almost six years ago, I was forced into retirement from a job that I despised. I should have seen it coming, and I should have been elated; I walked away with a great payout: a signing bonus after I'd agreed on the dotted line not to seek employment there again  The four of us who were still left standing when the rumblings of war had appeared in August of 2009 lucked out; in November the union and the board did some outrageous jerryrigging of the seniority language; we were told that by classification, the employees with the highest evaluation scores would be kept on, and those eligible were offered an early retirement package. Having had two successive bosses who marked me down on several points that should never have been on an evaluation, I heard the bell toll for me. To further explain, there was nothing on the form that allowed setting of goals and objectives, discussion of projects completed, and overall quality of work; the ratings were based on personality and ability to adapt to the strange new corporate atmosphere that had gradually spread throughout our organization since the Reagan and Bush years. My "creative" personality fell outside the required curve; others before me felt the plague early and bailed out it they could; this group consisted of people who were more like me. They believed that the mission of a public library was to serve everyone; the New Order's line was, "There are some groups that we just have to leave behind."

I won't go into the details. By now you know it was the library - it was the public library of our city. Currently the building is slated to be demolished because it was discovered that toxic materials from an old factory are leaking into the foundation. Maybe after the building is gone, I can let go. Because since the day I left, I have been plagued several times a week with dreams about continuing to show up for work every day and even perform my job, without pay, knowing I was retired but seemingly accepted as a volunteer. In essence--in those dreams, even though I realize I am retired, I am like a ghost who doesn't know she's dead.

I had the dream again last night, only this time it was different. I met a real ghost in that setting: a former boss who had died from AIDS in 1991. He gently took me aside, in my dream, and told me, "You cannot come here any more. You cannot come into the staff areas. Do you understand?" And then he gave me a train ticket to go to some unknown place, accompanied by his mother,(?) to learn how to accept retirement --- to learn how to be dead.

Postscript: I wrote this a month ago. I haven't had the dream since.

Blasts from the past: Culled from 2008 saved e-mails discovered tonight

1. From an e-mail to my sister Nancy:

Yes, the fear that the external world does not exist except in the imagination is a terrifying thought - akin to what hell would be. Jean-Paul Sartre, who was an existentialist, probably felt the other way - you remember No Exit - I read it in French (Huis Clos) His motto was: "Hell is other people."

They way my therapist and I got on the subject is that she was trying to get my spin on a new-age book called The Four Agreements. The author argues that you should never take anything personally, because it's all about the other person. I simply don't buy that. Some things I do and will and always shall take personally, because humans are a social species, and if we had been meant to exist alone, we would have given birth by parthenogenesis and lived in little holes in the ground, like moles. Toxic people can and do make others feel like shit. Period. That is why I avoid them if I can/ I haven't given them that power; it is not my doing. Vileness in another person is something I can't even take on; and yes, others victimize us and there are times when there isn't a thing we can do.

I remember well that crap in college about how "it's all within yourself" - all the pompous asses who took Philosophy 101 and liked to pontificate and patronize about how only WE can control our destiny.We don't have that kind of power: read the twelve steps of AA. I am not God.

I believe in free will. I don't believe in fate or/predestination, but yes-- I do believe in karma. I think that how we act toward others in the world has impact on everything. Ultimately what goes around, comes around. BUT--- on the other hand, I do NOT believe that when someone gets cancer, etc, that it is their punishment for something they did or didn't do. I could talk around this for hours.  That is such sanctimonious shit that I see red when I encounter it. I hate that kind of cruel thinking, - to say that someone brought unfair tragedy on themselves. In general, I get nauseated when people spew a lot of new age stuff at me - especially people who have had little to no contact with the real world. The true liberal is the person who encounters unwashed and underprivileged people every single day and can still go home and feel compassion. 

I will get off my soapbox now.  Before I go - do you know what weltschmerz is? It's defined as sort of a romantic "world-pain" - a sentimental sense of the tragedy of physical reality. But I think it goes deeper. Susan and I used to have a "swirling dream" that made us feel alienated - as if we didn't exist at all. And I have had dreams that are positively evil. The mind fascinates and terrifies me. The more we learn about the brain, the more we will be able to manipulate moods with drugs, and the less society will tolerate people with personality variations. I am already seeing this prejudice - people like me were accepted wholeheartedly, especially as library employees working in the 1970s and 80s, and now we are expected to be corporate clones. Susan says that even the school of library and information science at Dominican University weeds out the social misfits and won't admit them into the program, because even if they get good grades, their lack of social skills will prevent them from getting jobs. I think this is sad.

________________________________________________________________________________

2. Written at work:

( Sung to the tune of  If You're Happy and You Know it, Clap Your Hands—by EF /April 10, 2008)

I’m so cold and I’m so tired I could cry

My hands are cracked and bloody ‘cause it’s dry

I’m so cold and I’m so tired

Even though I might get fired

If I don’t depart this building, I will die.

I’m so scared of all the bosses that I shake

With each flogging not a whimper dare I make

I am spied on every hour

I’m a target with no power

If you see that I look happy, it is fake.

When I’m worried, there is no one I can tell

When I’m frightened, it’s as if my fear they smell

When I’m trembling, and it’s often

Or if I’m really feeling rotten

I keep quiet, or they’ll send me straight to hell.

When I’m home, all I can do is eat and sleep

When awake, I write my novel ‘til I weep

Eat and sleep when I’m not working

Write and weep where no one’s lurking

When I’m home, in all my files the bosses creep.

They record each freaking place I go online

They keep track of all the websites that I find

As they list all my infractions

After logging all my actions

They act cheery and assure me all is fine.

I am told how to behave and how to think

My tolerance for bullshit’s on the brink

If I slip and be myself

It will soon affect my health

So I’m spending half my paycheck on a shrink.

You ask me why on earth I don’t retire

Why I tolerate their vileness and their ire

I give you my assurance

That if not for the insurance

I’d be gone, replaced by someone cheap to hire.

Someday they’ll find my body on the floor

They will trip in haste to get me to the door

Then they’ll litigate in force

But you cannot sue a corpse

They’ll be glad that I don’t work there any more.

I’m so cold and I’m so tired I could cry

I want to go to bed and close my eyes

I’m so chilly I could weep

All I want to do is sleep

If it weren’t for daily Prozac, I would die!

_________________________________________

Also--very sad. I was also still drinking at that time. Sober now for two years and two days, and damned glad to have been out of that environment for five and a half years!
.

The Menstrual Marathon--what I didn't put on Facebook

Unless you've been living in a remote cave for the last week, you've read the article about the woman who ran the London Marathon while having her period, and chose not to wear sanitary protection. Here are a couple of links:

People Magazine article about Kiran Gandhi  

http://www.ryot.org/woman-fights-the-stigma-associated-with-menstruation-by-running-a-marathon-without-wearing-a-tampon/940163

I've read most of the comments under various versions of the article, and they interest me. Generally, there are two points of view: (1) "You go, sister!" and (2) "How disgusting!" I had the opportunity on Facebook to share my thoughts; below is my post,

I'm looking at this from a social scientist's point of view; also, from a purely medical mindset (for lack of a better word).There's an undercurrent of profiling here that gets under my craw. We have a pre-menopausal, attractive woman who is physically fit enough to run a marathon, and her photogenic smile smacks of a certain "image..." as if she knows on some level that any health issue that would put others exposed to her bodily fluids at risk is not at the forefront of viewers' minds. So - me being me, that's the first reaction I have to this story. My second reaction is just "ick!" But again, it's not my marathon, and not my Auntie Flo--she left the room a long time ago, and I thank the Crone Goddess for that.

What I didn't put on Facebook, either because I didn't think of it or thought I'd offend people:

• What if a gay man with a bloody nose were running that marathon? (Of course, nowadays, we don't hear a lot about AIDS in the USA and other Western countries, and I rarely hear of a gay man dying of the disease now) 
• So - she can get by with esposing airborne pathogens from her free-flowing blood because she gets to. Her ethnicity may not be Caucasian, but she's a Harvard Business School gradulate and a drummer for singer M.I.A. As I said in my Facebook post, she doesn't fit the profile. (Only three-tenths of the population of India is infected)
• Have we reached a turning point in our collective thinking where HIV and AIDS aren't a part of our daily concerns? If we think about it at all, it's when we read about Haiti and African countries. AIDS exceeds 20% of the population in Botswana. South Africa has the largest number of people, but a lower percentage since they have a large population. But that's remote, and it's "those people." 
• If Kiran Gandhi has done anything for me by running the marathon with blood running down her leg, she has reminded me how dismissive I myself have been regarding "those people." 
• Considering what happened at the Boston Marathon in 2013, I can't believe the amount of media coverage of this woman's display.
• From the political to the personal,  I have to hand it to her for running 26.2 miles on the first day of her period. If she'd wanted to make a point, perhaps she should have used cloth rags or leaves. That is what our "sisters" without access to sanitary products have done since the beginning of time.
• From the personal to the trivial - did anyone notice that she wore red leggings for the run? And she must have had brutal cramps. It's been 14 years since I bid farewell to my ladies' time, but I have sharp recollections of wanting to chew Advil, curl up in bed and be completely alone on the first day of my period. Of course, I didn't do that - I got up and went to work, along with all my "sisters." Our cycles were probably synchronized - my department was known as the PMS Hall of Shame.

I would love to hear some feedback on this from other bloggers. Right now, even though "surfing the crimson wave" is a thing of the past for me, I believe I'll go eat some chocolate. 

Choice Architecture, Pattern Interrupts and My Fat Ass

I want to share a lesson about behavioral change that I learned from Paul Dale Anderson today, through an e-mail about an unrelated topic. It applies to my situation perfectly.

Today I have to go to my doctor's office for what I presume is a "check in" visit. I know Queen Jane will make me step on the scale. I have gained almost 10 pounds since I was last weighed there, so I'm not thrilled .Last time I was at the royal palace, I weighed a lot less. And - of course - Queen Jane's scale weighs five pounds heavier than ours at home.

Marie has noticed (how could she not?) that I've been in the habit of mixing peanut butter with Hershey's chocolate sauce and eating it every night with a spoon. She hasn't nagged nor criticized me. Instead, last week when she did our grocery shopping, Marie bought me a half-gallon of chocolate and caramel yogurt which tastes like ice cream, and quietly put it in the freezer. A half-cup serving is 130 calories.

Marie has observed, (how could she not?), that over the past week, I've been eating TWO scoops of that chocolate and caramel yogurt at night, and topping it with a glob of peanut butter and some chocolate sauce. This means I'm adding another 130 calories with the second scoop. Two level spoonfuls of peanut butter = 240 calories, and the chocolate sauce would add another 180. And I really need to lose weight. She knows that I want to. She, too, is on a healthy eating pattern.

Today she suggested that I just eat one scoop and dribble a little bit of chocolate sauce on top.

I was NOT OFFENDED. I didn't feel like she was monitoring my eating habits and commenting on them. I didn't feel patronized nor shamed. Why is this? Paul's words in quotes, explains it: Because Marie "did not argue, remonstrate nor berate me". by buying me the lowfat yogurt and suggesting a different way to enjoy it. She "simply showed me that I have a better choice."

The lesson, and I do quote Paul: "Just flip the frame with a pattern interrupt! It's called "choice architecture" -- and it acts as a kind of influence flip-stick: flipping a person from one choice of action to another choice of action." And that's EXACTLY what Marie is suggesting.

Photo of my fat ass