R's rue

  J.D. Vance, who is now a junior US senator for the state of Ohio, first published "Hillbilly Elegy" in 2016 but I have only got round to reading it this year. I guess that several literate Americans who visit this blog will have read the book long before Vance became a senator - just last year.. I found it eminently readable. It paints a picture of economic, social and cultural deprivation in Appalachian Kentucky and in the places in Ohio that attracted Kentucky job migrants towards the end of the last century. They brought Kentucky with them. Vance's childhood was apparently  a hard one to navigate and he may have got lost without the support of his maternal grandparents - always known affectionately as Mawmaw and Pawpaw.  We see Vance beating the odds that were stacked against him. After high school he joined the US Marines before returning to tertiary education at Ohio State University. It was from there that he won a prestigious scholarship to Yale Law School. ...

 I’m going to address this. A commenter said you didn’t need to be disabled to need mental health. Very true. I’m just saying that if you find yourself disabled since birth, you will need mental health. You better have a therapist on retainer. You will never know normal. And now at almost forty have I come to terms with that knowledge. I give strangers a basic medical overview to not answer more intrusive ones. I shouldn’t have to at all. Self-preservation is essential.  Anyone can suffer, but if you start behind the eight ball even with all the love in the world, just be ready to bare your soul to another human being and be medicated.  from R's rue https://ift.tt/PruXyi4

 Coffee time at the kitchen sink  David Sidaris then Lesley Manville on Desert Island Discs Both nice people . I’ve put a bacon joint in the slow cooker and covered it with butter beans  That will do for supper. Lunch will be noodles, with walnuts and some boiled rice  Apart from dog walking, I’m not leaving the house today The weather is blustery  from Going Gently https://ift.tt/OpBKEF6