Editing past memories

I am not someone who keeps a steady journal or diary (we all know this blog is come and go, and sometimes I’m gone for a long time). But I have written things down, in special note books that I am careful when I write in so that they are not messy, although my handwriting is never the same from one entry to the next.

Memories, feelings, events that happened that I think I will want to remember one day when I will need that written prompt.

This morning, I was reading through some of those written-down memories, reveling in nostalgia from a decade and a half ago, and had to pause and edit what I was reading in my head.

The pronouns were wrong.

Someone I had written about back then had since come out as nonbinary, and changed their name and pronouns, and the discord in my brain was real. At first, I didn’t know who this person was that I had written about. I used to feel this discord often in conversation with folks who would ask about them using their deadname, and I would have to pause to figure out who they were asking about. But that was with someone else; someone who either didn’t know about the transition or didn’t respect it.

In my head and memories right now, they have always been nonbinary, with this name and these pronouns. My brain has fully made the transition to their nonbinary status (they are not nonbinary now and not back then – they just finally recognized it and grew into it enough to determine labels). But in this handwritten memory, it took me a minute to adjust.

These were my words. My memories. Unchanged with time and progress. And they were at odds with the memories in my head. Because a part of what I had written was not true.

And I was tempted to pull out a pen and edit, make a mess in those old pen strokes.

But when I’d moved past the discord, I realized something else, something that I had told mutual friends and family members, but maybe hadn’t actually seen and only felt: that they were indeed the same person back then as they are now. Younger, obviously, but still the same. In these old written memories, the descriptions of how they looked and dressed and acted, their nonbinary status is plain. That balance of the masculine and the feminine is there, on paper.

And though I haven’t picked up that red pen to mark up the text, because a part of me wants to, another part of me wants to leave it as is, because it shows something else about this person. How they grew and accepted themselves, and how even though they hadn’t had a label for it in their youth, they were still that person, the same as they are now.

And seeing that written down is its own sort of truth that should never be forgotten or glossed over or changed.

Winter Wonderland (Not!)

It’s cold here in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. We were preparing for anticipated snow that, of course, didn’t happen. Sometimes it does, just not when it’s hyped and multiple warnings are issued.

So now we have cold (below freezing) temperatures without any of the pretty stuff to make it worth while.

I grew up in an area (east of Maine) that got snow (lots of snow some years) and I miss it, sometimes. But that was a place where houses were built for the cold, and snowsuits and snow boots were in every department store.

I grew up skating and snowmobiling and shoveling where the plow missed. We had school snow days rarely; our school busses had snow chains and some had plows attached to the front.

I was taught how to drive through snow and on icy roads. We put snow tires on our cars every October. And added the subzero-rated antifreeze and the special wiper fluid that wouldn’t freeze.

After 30-plus years away, I’m not sure I could live with that much snow again.

But I do wish the short winter season in Southern Virginia had a few more dustings of the pretty stuff to make the cold worth it.

Matilda/Matilda

Recently, my husband and I watched the 1994 film The Professional (or Leon, The Professional), extended director’s cut. He picked it out of a list of 50 best movies to watch. I’d never watched it and neither had he.

Although, about two thirds of the way through, he thought that maybe he had watched it, but he thought it had been titled “Matilda.”

Which made me think about the 1996 film Matilda, based on the popular children’s book written by Roald Dahl in 1988.

You see, both films had very similar setups for their young heroines, although the movies themselves were very (VERY) different.

Both Matildas had parents that were not interested in them, were self-centered and even cruel. In The Professional, the young heroine is told to go get food (it seems that is a regular task for her) for the family; in Matilda, the main character is always tasked with making dinner for her parents. There are similarities in the parents, too, but that may have just been that they were made in the 1990s (the parents fighting, the New York accents, the tank-style undershirts the father’s wore over their beer bellies.) In Matilda, though, the girl only has an older brother; in The Professional, she is the middle child of three.

In both movies, the parents don’t seem to care if their daughter goes to school, although in The Professional, the girl runs away from school and the parents don’t seem to question her being home, while in Matilda, the parents actively deride going to school and think it’s a waste of time. Corruption play a big part in both plots, although The Professional is the more violent (drugs and murder) as it is meant for an adult audience, although, what happens in Matilda (corrupt car deals and the school punishments) would be horrible for a child to endure.

In The Professional, Matilda rebels by swearing and smoking (it is a movie for adults), while in Matilda, Matilda rebels by going to school and loving to read books (kind of a backwards take, but it is a Roald Dahl story for children) and eventually takes revenge on her family in non-bloody ways.

In The Professional, is is the neighbor, a hit man (or a cleaner), who rescues the young girl and trains her to be a cleaner, so she can take vengeance against the men who killed her 4-year old brother (she doesn’t really care that they shot her abusive parents or older sister.)

In Matilda, it is her kind, book-loving teacher that eventually saves her (the whole point of the story leads to her being adopted by the teacher).

I find it interesting that both films have young girls named Matilda with similar characteristics and situations. I would guess that the screenwriter of The Professional read Roald Dahl’s tale, and created a similar character in a gritty adult film. After all, if just looking at the films, The Professional came out first, but the book predates both films.

I think the characters of Matilda in each of these films illustrates an important aspect of audience in storytelling. Thought these characters are very similar (even down to their straight dark-brown bob haircut and big brown eyes), their circumstances are what set the stories apart and what makes it appropriate for the audience (adults or children.)

Have you watched these movies? And have you noticed the similarities in these Matildas (as well as their differences)?

Not so Smart Cookies

This is about the ones websites put on your computer, not the ones you eat. So, yeah; this is a rant post.

I know what website cookies are and what they are used for. Honestly, I don’t mind them. I might even like them, especially when they are making it easier to get into my favorite websites.

But sometimes…I don’t know. I find them annoying.

For instance, this old blog and my new editing blog (www.taramoellerediting.com) are hosted by WordPress. I like WordPress. I access this site a lot. I know I have WordPress cookies on my laptop and phone.

YouTube knows it, too. Everything is connected now.

That is not what this blog is about.

This blog is about how I am already a user of WordPress, and have been for probably a decade now, but YouTube thinks I need to see advertising for WordPress because I accessed their site.

Same for Misfits (I have a subscription). It seems that whenever I access the platform to place an order, and then open YouTube to watch a video, guess what ad it shows me? Misfits Market. Same for Thrive. Same for Shopify (although, sometimes the Shopify ad is for a training video.)

What exactly is the purpose of showing me advertising for products or sites that I am already using? I understand when I’ve accessed a site to check out a product and buy nothing, advertising can help sell it in the future. But why would a company want to waste advertising money on loyal customers? Wouldn’t you rather spend that money on a potential customer?

I just don’t understand how this benefits the company (like WordPress).

I mentioned this gripe to my husband, and he supposed that to do that, the information in the cookie would have to include subscription or purchase data, and we probably don’t want that.

I guess. I’m not in the marketing field (LOL) so maybe I’m missing something.

What are you’re thoughts?

It’s never “just” an opinion…

…especially when its published in a newspaper like The New York Times.

My husband and I had an “interesting” discussion (more like a heated near-argument) this morning (Sunday, 4 January 2026) about an opinion piece published in The New York Times on Saturday, 3 January 2026 titled “We’re Living Through the Great Detachment.” (Here is a link to the opinion piece: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/02/opinion/americans-marriage-loneliness-love.html; although it’s behind a paywall, you might get that first free article.)

He read it first (he’d purchased a physical copy of the issue) and read aloud a couple of paragraphs to me.

I reacted. He knew I would. It’s why he does this.

I don’t mind, most of the time.

I know I have strong opinions. I have been told this by many people; usually when having a discussion about the topic I have a strong opinion about, when I don’t change my opinion to coincide with theirs. I do not deny that my opinions are strong. I read a lot (fiction and nonfiction.) I feel most of my opinions have merit. I try to listen to the other person’s opinion, unless they refuse to listen to mine (see the catch there?)

My husband got upset with my quick reaction and said I should read the whole piece. So I did (even though he interrupted me to show me a picture of a Jeep.) And my opinion did not change.

I explained to my husband that I thought the writer was trying to blame society’s issues today (this Great Detachment) on liberal young women not choosing marriage and children. He said he didn’t come to the same conclusion, implying I was “wrong.” When I tried to explain how I came to my conclusion about the opinion, he said I should read it again.

We continued our heated discussion. And then he told me it was “just an opinion.”

[Sigh.]

This essay seems to have been written by a man born in the early 1960s, so a little older than my husband and me (he writes about being 17 in 1979). The author uses the essay to attempt to explain his opinion regarding WHY we are in the Great Detachment. Although, it is a very circuitous route to get there.

[Here are some links about the Great Detachment if you are not familiar with the term:

• TechTarget https://www.techtarget.com/WhatIs/feature/The-Great-Detachment-explained-Everything-you-need-to-know,
• Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/lucianapaulise/2024/10/02/the-great-detachment-why-workers-are-disengaging-from-their-jobs/,
• Gallup https://www.gallup.com/workplace/653711/great-detachment-why-employees-feel-stuck.aspx.

(Note: most links I found were about detachment from jobs and the workplace.)]

[Googles automatic AI summary provided this definition: The Great Detachment refers to a philosophical and psychological concept that emphasizes the importance of distancing oneself from emotional attachments and material possessions.]

It is a well-written opinion piece, I will admit that. Which is one reason I claim that it is not “just an opinion” piece. It starts with a personal story about the writer’s life and an experience about love and the pain it can cause and how proud he is of himself that he went out and tried love again. He also explains how there are different loves: love for a spouse, for a child, for a job, for a hobby, for your country. This makes it seem that he is truly writing about all the different ways love can enhance your life.

[Personal observation here: he DOES NOT list self-love.]

But by the end, it is clear (to me anyway) that he is specifically writing about familial love; love for a spouse and love for a child. This is because about half-way through, he starts including “statistics,” about how many conservative young women prioritize marriage and children vice how many liberal young women do, vice what young men prioritize (I found it odd that young men prioritize having children higher than having a spouse.) He also includes “statistics” about how many young conservative women are happy vice the number of liberal young women.

[I did a deeper dive into some of the statistics he uses, and this is very important. You can read about that on my editing specific blog, here: https://taramoellerediting.com/?p=43 (available on 14 January 2025).)

And he, an old dude married for decades, implies (in my reading) that this discrepancy is because young liberal women are not prioritizing marriage and having a family.

My husband told me I jumped to a conclusion that was not there. That the writer was just giving his opinion.

The writer led us on a circuitous path, includes some vague statistics, to lead us to make our own opinion on what is causing this Great Detachment. This essay is trying to persuade us to conclude that young liberal women are at fault.

You see, as an ENGLISH MAJOR, I recognize this piece as a persuasive argument, which is a piece of composition meant to change your mind, or sway your opinion. It is not “just an opinion,” but an essay written specifically to sway you toward thinking the same way the writer does, even if he does not explicitly state his opinion. [Another editing blog post about persuasive arguments here: https://taramoellerediting.com/?p=37 (available on 7 January 2025).]

So, what is his opinion?

Here is a quote from the article, near the end: “If you want to lead a fulfilling life, fill it with loving attachments.” This comes just after all of his statistics about the prioritizing of marriage and children. Even though in the beginning of his essay, he described several different types of love, when it funnels toward the end of the opinion, he’s basically writing about marriage and family.

About a third of the way into his essay, he mentions that Americans are having fewer children. There are verifiable statistics about this and several articles have been written. We’ve known this was happening for a while (Time https://time.com/6970873/us-declining-birth-rate-2023-total/.) He immediately follows this by stating that Americans also have fewer friends and spend less time with the friends they have. I’ve seen articles about this, but as someone who only has a couple close friends and am perfectly happy that way, so what? Here are a couple of specific articles I found to get more information: a quick article from the APNews https://apnews.com/article/loneliness-social-disconnection-community-building-23edcca171347383787170cc5072f85a, and a more in depth article from the Pew Research Center https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/10/12/what-does-friendship-look-like-in-america/.) The article from the PRC mentions impacts from the COVID pandemic but other factors, as well.

Another quote, even closer to the end: “If you lead a life designed to maximize personal independence and autonomy, you’ll get to live a relatively unrestricted life. But you’re more likely to live a low-energy life, slower to harbor those great loves for people, places, God, vocation and nation that arouse fervent passions and yield ardent lives.”

As I observed before, no where in this article does it mention love of self. He mentions “individual autonomy” several times in his piece, usually with a negative connotation. As a woman who reads articles and follows experts who discuss bodily autonomy, specifically how this pertains to women right now (abortion, care during pregnancy, etc.), this made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. (Was the word autonomy used like a dog whistle here? What are your thoughts? Go ahead and give me a comment about that.) This alone was a red flag for me; not so much for my husband, but then, none of his bodily autonomy has ever been taken away.

It seems that the individual autonomy he is writing about pertains solely to the young women who are choosing not the get married or have children.

Huh.

I think this is a piece of propaganda, disguised as “just an opinion”, from those who want society to subjugate women again. The writer has picked statistics, using them without the context of the origins of the statistics, to lead the reader into making a specific conclusion.

And in my opinion, that opinion is that women should be married and giving men the children they want, regardless of what those women want.

[Final note: After rereading several parts of this piece to write the other two editing posts, I realized that this piece was written by David Brooks. [blink, blink, heavy weighted sigh.] If I had realized that at the beginning, when my husband handed me the newspaper, I never would have read the article to begin with.]

I won an Award!

Like Second Skin, my science-fiction semi-dystopic military novel, won two third-place awards from The BookFest Fall 2025; Fiction Romance – Science Fiction and Fiction Sci-Fi – Military.

This was the first manuscript I ever completed to “the end”. And it sat around for over two decades waiting for me to finish editing and rewriting parts of it. My kid read it in their late teens and liked it. I knew I should publish it, but over that two-decade it sat stagnant, I figured it had “aged” and would need some updates.

A year ago, I read it from end to end, and I found that I thought the story held and really just needed some minor updating.

So I completed those edits and updates and published it through DreamPunk Press early this year.

And submitted it for The BookFest awards early this fall.

I really hadn’t expected much; I consider it part of my early writing, when I was still learning and weak in my storytelling. Maybe that was just my imposter syndrome making itself known, and now I think I should read more of my early unpublished writing (much of it is short stories, like “Guilty Conscience”, that I also revisited and was accepted by Tundra Swan Press for its anthology, The Haunted Zone.)

Time to go and revisit those writing archives.

Like Second Skin (a novel)

This is a sci-fi novel that was published earlier this month (4 March 2025), and I forgot to post about it. Go me! Honestly, so much was happening that it’s not a big surprise that I forgot.

In 2114, the future is bright and the world is burning.

Kaalinda is studying botany to rebuild her family’s farming legacy, but making it work in this scorched world.

When she’s drafted into the CFoR, it offers an opportunity to seek vengeance against the rebels that destroyed her home, her community, her family.

Not a typical recruit–more petite, not as strong or as fast–she passes the initial test.

She’s not the only person who notices that she’s different. Someone thinks she shouldn’t have been recruited in the first place, someone thinks she has ulterior motives. And they intend to make sure she fails out—or dies—before training is complete.

~~Determine to be the RIGHT in the WORLD~~

The first draft of this novel was finished so long ago (I am not actually going to use the number because it’s been so long). I was taking a creative writing course (like, the fourth one from this professor) and he told me I wasn’t going to get a passing grade unless I finished the manuscript (I’d been workshopping the first few chapters in class for a while).

So I did, and I got an A.

He told me that he pushed for “THE END” because too many writers get mired in the weeds of edits and never finish – and he wanted me to finish.

I’m sure he never imagined it would take me this long to finish the edits and get it out into the world.

Interested in purchasing? You can buy it directly from the publisher (DreamPunk Press) or from your favorite LOCAL bookseller (they may need to order it for you). And as always, if you do read it, let me know what you think.

Christmas Bound

Well, it’s been a minute or a month now, and I’ve already blown my posting goals.

But Christmas and Hannukah and Kwanzaa and Yule (and more) are upon us. I hope that you are safe and well for the holidays, and are ready for the new year.

Honestly, I am not sure I am, mentally speaking. The election was…yeah, nuff said. Even my (white) husband is having trouble settling into the sh!tsh0w that is to come. I’m blessed to be part of a family that didn’t vote for the nation’s biggest grifter.

The last two weeks have been hectic at work; 2 retirements and the holiday party. I was the narrator (i.e., emcee) for both retirements and did it well enough that I’ve been asked to do more. Success is its own punishment, I guess.

But one retiring coworker chose to sing the national anthem instead of the usual recording, and it was truly inspiring. It’s been a while since I’d heard it sung in a way that gave me the right kind of chills.

Hearing the love and pride of fellow countryfolx in her soaring alto made me believe a little bit in the future. Because this country isn’t its “leader”, its it’s people.

And I am one of those people, as are you. And “we the people,” at least those who understand what this incoming leadership plans, will have each others’ backs, and we will persevere.

Rituals

Personally, I’m not big on rituals. It’s probably due to the mix of autism and adhd that dances a tango in my brain.

I’m thinking about rituals because I work for the Marine Corps, and my Activity has its own, small USMC Ball. It is being held tonight and I am going.

It is not as fancy and high brow as the one HQ holds in Crystal City, but the important part is the ritual of it. The symbolism of what the Marines do in their ceremony.

There is always the small MIA/POW table set for one with a white tablecloth, red rose, yellow ribbon, lit candle, inverted glass, salt, and slice of lemon.  It is set in a place of honor in the room where all can see and pay respects.

Then, there is the cake cutting. The cake is brought out by a color guard of Marines in dress blues, marching stiffly, with precision. The script is read aloud in the otherwise quiet room. The oldest Marine and youngest Marine cut the cake, then each take a bite of the first slice.

The Guest of Honor, usually a decorated Marine, is introduced and gives a speech. Their pride in the Corps always comes through in their words and their tone of voice.

As a Navy Veteran, I know the Navy has its  own rituals, as do the other military services.

But there is something about the pride and solemnity that Marines project during this particular ceremony, that is enough to bring goosebumps.

What Rituals or Ceremonies have you attended that speak to you like that?

Snake Eyes won 2 awards!!!

I have a couple of pen names, and Zahra Jons/Z. A. Jons is my pen name for contemporary-style fiction. I have won several awards for this type of fiction, and maybe I should stick to only this pen name, but I just love writing in other genres, too.

Anyway, besides earning that “get it” checkmark at Kirkus, it just won 1st place (!!!) for Romance – Military at The BookFest Fall 2024! It also won 2nd place in Chick Lit.

If you are interested in getting your own copy of Snake Eyes, it is available from DreamPunk Press, Bookshop, Barnes and Noble, and Amazon.