I can deal with too much everything, but am laid bare by nothing at all." What a line, worthy of Samuel Becket himself. But of course he had no sense of humor, and you do! Bravo! Thanks for brightening a very rainy Sunday morning!
The best part of the photograph of the ice box is its crumpled top surface. Unrepentant about a usefulness too constant and necessary to interrupt with shallow concerns about appearance. Like old ladies with essential energies and purpose ( looking a bit worn) preserving useful content for the nourishment of those heeding and needing such. Rock on, Abby.
Oh I just love this - and you! Sentence after sentence, your writing blows me away. “I waited for the why, but there was no why. I can deal with too much everything, but am laid bare by nothing at all.” It’s so true. You are so wise. Thank you.
PS: I love this, too: “Luckily I quit behind my own back.” I’m going to try that myself.
Thank you, so happy you had fun with it. So did I. I'm not really wise, I'm just eighty-four and you can't help but learn a little something along the way. Yeah, behind your own back. Weird, don't know how that happens. but thank goodness it works now and then. Thank you again.
"I can deal with too much everything, but am laid bare by nothing at all." A keeper. And, yes, icebox, the term was used somewhat generically also. How was the one wild and prescious beer?
Well, it's a very good Belgian beer so it was very good. Made for a nourishing breakfast.
And cleared my head a little and turned out it gave me something to write about, that was the best part. Thank you for liking that sentence. I can recommend Rochefort tens.
Yes, whatever the fuck we want! Light up!! At this age, I need at least one good vice. Thank you, and I bet your sister's birthday pie and ice cream was delicious. Not really brilliant, Kate, but thank you.
I still call it an icebox too. I'm 4 years younger than you and don't remember that we had an actual one -- I only recall what must have been a late prewar actual refrigerator, a Kelvinator I think which must have been a Sears brand. But my father's mother had a real icebox. We did have a milkman who delivered to the back door whatever we'd checked on the milkman card, and an old clothes man who ambled down the alley calling out "Old Clothes Man! Old Clothes Man!" We had a watermelon man (like in Herbie Hancock's song -- he's my homey from the South Side of Chicago) who came down the street in a horse-drawn cart selling watermelons and other fruit out of the back, and a knife-sharpener guy who, like the old clothes man, used the alley, but I don't remember his cry. People (and presidents) were much nicer then.
Oh, I love the guy who shouted, "Old Clothes Man!" Where did you grow up to be so lucky? People probably were nicer back then. Too much progress, too many billionaires. On the other hand, you probably know a lot of nice ones, and I do too. But the mean are getting meaner, and if possible, dumber too.
Thanks, Nancy. It's like that now, isn't it? Sometimes? But maybe why is like fair, "it isn't fair," people say, but of course it isn't. It never was. That's sort of not the point. I'll shut up now. I feel a rant coming on. Sending you a big hug back.
I love the term "icebox". We had one when I was growing up. Remember the milkman? He came to our house a couple times a week with all things dairy (and eggs, of course!).
Yes, the milkman and glass bottles with cream on the top and the nice cap that you could take off without a wrench or scissors. I love that you love icebox too.
Were those bottle caps made out of stiff paper? I remember using them for arts and crafts projects with children, flattening them out into jagged circles and pasting onto paper, then drawing petals all around the circles to make flowers.
Abby, thank you for setting us all off into so many memories.
I remember the ice boy pushing a long block of ice on his bike up the dusty hill and admiring the shit out of him. I was ten. He was a couple of years older.
78. It was on the island of Ibiza, still undiscovered. He just wore black shorts. He would pass me going up the path. I’m okay. I would like to visit. I need new tires. How are you?
I love that so many of us say icebox. I just love knowing this. We should form a club. I wonder what else we say in common. My daughter hates when I say rock&roll. Mom, it's just ROCK. Then when I start to sputter she just looks at me and sort of apologizes, telling me her boys are embarrassed by her too.
I am of the generation (born in ‘65) that generic objects were mostly referred to by the most popular brand name. So, “tissues” regardless of which company made them were known as “kleenex” and our avocado green refrigerator called, “the frigidaire”.
I often call it an ice box, too, and I can also remember them. We had proper refrigerators when we lived in Washington and NYC, but our country house in Durham in the Catskills definitely had an ice box. We drove to a local place with a barn and bought ice. Didn't get electricity until the mid-1950s.
(In fact, the electricity company (Con Ed? not sure) wanted to put huge pylons all over the countryside in and around Durham and we suspect they thought it was a sleepy place and they would be able to walk all over everyone, but they didn't know that there was a hot-shot lawyer from NYC who had a country place down the road and he took them on big time, they didn't know what hit them. It was a wonderful battle!)
abby i love this so freaking much. it's one of my top ten favorites clear and clean as a mountain stream and crisp too leading us exactly to the source. the clarity of each sentence brings me joy and a wonderful freedom. truth is better than any anesthesia but sometimes a woman needs both.
I love this whole thing! I'm especially fond of: "I know what I want and what I don’t, what I’m comfortable doing and what I’m not." I have lived by this for 64 years and have received my share of guff about my supposed "inflexibility." I've done my time bending over backward to please people when I was much younger, but as I've gotten older, I drop the various forms of "Nope" as needed. Some people are fine with my being determined to have it my way, while others are irritated with me for being so "stubborn." Apparently, my being like this "inconveniences" them in some way. I don't give a rat's ass if it does, that's a them thing, not a me thing. I'm so glad that after all these years, I no longer feel guilty about it. I'm sure there will be a morning when I'll pour a glass of wine or crack open a Guinness for breakfast and watch as my Fred gives me "that look" and I'll laugh and say: "The sun is shining on the lintel somewhere in the world!" Cheers!
I can deal with too much everything, but am laid bare by nothing at all." What a line, worthy of Samuel Becket himself. But of course he had no sense of humor, and you do! Bravo! Thanks for brightening a very rainy Sunday morning!
My god, what a nice thing to say! Thank you. I'm so very happy you liked it!
just copied the same line to post with a big compliment. Abigail is a wise soul and a poet.
The best part of the photograph of the ice box is its crumpled top surface. Unrepentant about a usefulness too constant and necessary to interrupt with shallow concerns about appearance. Like old ladies with essential energies and purpose ( looking a bit worn) preserving useful content for the nourishment of those heeding and needing such. Rock on, Abby.
I love this comment, Susan. Signed an aging woman still left with much utility.
Oh, Susan. Yes, the similarities are clear. Thank you, you are very funny. And the wisdom just sneaks in.
Oh I just love this - and you! Sentence after sentence, your writing blows me away. “I waited for the why, but there was no why. I can deal with too much everything, but am laid bare by nothing at all.” It’s so true. You are so wise. Thank you.
PS: I love this, too: “Luckily I quit behind my own back.” I’m going to try that myself.
Thank you, so happy you had fun with it. So did I. I'm not really wise, I'm just eighty-four and you can't help but learn a little something along the way. Yeah, behind your own back. Weird, don't know how that happens. but thank goodness it works now and then. Thank you again.
You never cease to amaze me with that brain of yours. I'll always stop for an Abby post.
Same here!!
Thank you, Bridget.
DITTO,
Thanks, Carolyn. How are you nowadays? What are you making?
Thanks for the like!
Yo couldn't say anything nicer, Cyn, thank you.
"I can deal with too much everything, but am laid bare by nothing at all." A keeper. And, yes, icebox, the term was used somewhat generically also. How was the one wild and prescious beer?
Well, it's a very good Belgian beer so it was very good. Made for a nourishing breakfast.
And cleared my head a little and turned out it gave me something to write about, that was the best part. Thank you for liking that sentence. I can recommend Rochefort tens.
It's ALWAYS beer-o'clock somewhere in the world!🍺🌎 Or, for me wine-o'clock🍷
Very funny!
Quit behind my own back. Brilliant. You’re just brilliant.
Heading to have pie and ice cream for breakfast— it’s my sister’s birthday — and round here we do whatever the fuck we want, too. Bottoms up Abby 🫶🏻
Yes, whatever the fuck we want! Light up!! At this age, I need at least one good vice. Thank you, and I bet your sister's birthday pie and ice cream was delicious. Not really brilliant, Kate, but thank you.
I still call it an icebox too. I'm 4 years younger than you and don't remember that we had an actual one -- I only recall what must have been a late prewar actual refrigerator, a Kelvinator I think which must have been a Sears brand. But my father's mother had a real icebox. We did have a milkman who delivered to the back door whatever we'd checked on the milkman card, and an old clothes man who ambled down the alley calling out "Old Clothes Man! Old Clothes Man!" We had a watermelon man (like in Herbie Hancock's song -- he's my homey from the South Side of Chicago) who came down the street in a horse-drawn cart selling watermelons and other fruit out of the back, and a knife-sharpener guy who, like the old clothes man, used the alley, but I don't remember his cry. People (and presidents) were much nicer then.
Oh, I love the guy who shouted, "Old Clothes Man!" Where did you grow up to be so lucky? People probably were nicer back then. Too much progress, too many billionaires. On the other hand, you probably know a lot of nice ones, and I do too. But the mean are getting meaner, and if possible, dumber too.
I was born and raised on Chicago's South Side and proud of it!
Lucky you and lucky Chicago's Soouth Side for raising you.
I love your pieces and your drawings. Thanks for sharing. You’re a great teacher, thinker, leader.
Thank you very much. You made me happy. Such a nice thing to say.
“I don’t know why ANYTHING right now.” That line, Abigail…it contains everything. Sending you a big hug!
Thanks, Nancy. It's like that now, isn't it? Sometimes? But maybe why is like fair, "it isn't fair," people say, but of course it isn't. It never was. That's sort of not the point. I'll shut up now. I feel a rant coming on. Sending you a big hug back.
I love the term "icebox". We had one when I was growing up. Remember the milkman? He came to our house a couple times a week with all things dairy (and eggs, of course!).
Yes, the milkman and glass bottles with cream on the top and the nice cap that you could take off without a wrench or scissors. I love that you love icebox too.
Those bottle caps were awesome!! Haven't thought about them for years. :-)
so easy and even sort of pretty, too.
Were those bottle caps made out of stiff paper? I remember using them for arts and crafts projects with children, flattening them out into jagged circles and pasting onto paper, then drawing petals all around the circles to make flowers.
Abby, thank you for setting us all off into so many memories.
Yes! They did! What you did with them is pure genius. Lucky children!
I remember the ice boy pushing a long block of ice on his bike up the dusty hill and admiring the shit out of him. I was ten. He was a couple of years older.
Rick! wait a minute. Are you as old as I am? That's not how I remember you...
You had an iceboy, my god. What a kid he must have been to gt that done. how are you?
78. It was on the island of Ibiza, still undiscovered. He just wore black shorts. He would pass me going up the path. I’m okay. I would like to visit. I need new tires. How are you?
Oh good. Soon, I hope. I love that you remember what he wore.
Because my parents called it an icebox, I do as well. My daughter's friends think it's hysterical.
I love that so many of us say icebox. I just love knowing this. We should form a club. I wonder what else we say in common. My daughter hates when I say rock&roll. Mom, it's just ROCK. Then when I start to sputter she just looks at me and sort of apologizes, telling me her boys are embarrassed by her too.
I am of the generation (born in ‘65) that generic objects were mostly referred to by the most popular brand name. So, “tissues” regardless of which company made them were known as “kleenex” and our avocado green refrigerator called, “the frigidaire”.
I always say Kleenex, come to think of it. Tissues sounds sort of prim, don't you think?
Where did that word come from, I wonder.
I often call it an ice box, too, and I can also remember them. We had proper refrigerators when we lived in Washington and NYC, but our country house in Durham in the Catskills definitely had an ice box. We drove to a local place with a barn and bought ice. Didn't get electricity until the mid-1950s.
(In fact, the electricity company (Con Ed? not sure) wanted to put huge pylons all over the countryside in and around Durham and we suspect they thought it was a sleepy place and they would be able to walk all over everyone, but they didn't know that there was a hot-shot lawyer from NYC who had a country place down the road and he took them on big time, they didn't know what hit them. It was a wonderful battle!)
That's the kind of story I wish there were more of floating around. I know there are many more. And I love how you told it.You're a writer for sure.
abby i love this so freaking much. it's one of my top ten favorites clear and clean as a mountain stream and crisp too leading us exactly to the source. the clarity of each sentence brings me joy and a wonderful freedom. truth is better than any anesthesia but sometimes a woman needs both.
Dakota, thank you! So nice of you. And yes, sometimes a woman needs both. What lovely words you wrote here. Thank you again.
No filtering, just being a beautiful, honest human. And I honestly don't want to read anything else now, because it pales.
What a very nice thing to say, really. Thank you very much.
I love this whole thing! I'm especially fond of: "I know what I want and what I don’t, what I’m comfortable doing and what I’m not." I have lived by this for 64 years and have received my share of guff about my supposed "inflexibility." I've done my time bending over backward to please people when I was much younger, but as I've gotten older, I drop the various forms of "Nope" as needed. Some people are fine with my being determined to have it my way, while others are irritated with me for being so "stubborn." Apparently, my being like this "inconveniences" them in some way. I don't give a rat's ass if it does, that's a them thing, not a me thing. I'm so glad that after all these years, I no longer feel guilty about it. I'm sure there will be a morning when I'll pour a glass of wine or crack open a Guinness for breakfast and watch as my Fred gives me "that look" and I'll laugh and say: "The sun is shining on the lintel somewhere in the world!" Cheers!
I loved this, and thank you very much. Cheers and happy days to you!!