What it means to be a Crone.
When God was a woman, she was worshipped in three aspects: Maiden, Mother/Warrior, Crone – the original Holy Trinity. Over the millennia, just as older women became less and less honored and respected, so did the image of the Crone-as-Wise-Woman become tarnished.

To be a Crone is to no longer be either maiden or mother; to have moved past those female roles into a place of personal freedom, self-knowledge, and deep experience; to understand the dark places, the dream places. The archetype of the Crone brings death so that there can be rebirth.

What does a Crone look like? She can look like Margaret Thatcher, Bella Abzug, or Janet Reno. She can look like your favorite grandmother or your little blue-haired neighbor. And, in this day and age, she can also look like Tina Turner or Judy Dench, Julie Christie or Blythe Danner, Jacqueline Bissett -- or even me. (I was going to mention Marlo Thomas, Jane Fonda, and Dyan Cannon --Cannon is the same age as Janet Reno and me --, but they’ve had too much surgical enhancement to qualify as authentic.)

So, when I promote myself as the Resident Crone of Blogdom, please don’t imagine the patriarchal stereotype of the “old hag.”

And, as Halley Suitt continues to cast her version of Anything Goes, I’m auditioning for the part Mitzi Gaynor* played in the movie. I am a dancer, after all.

*In 1989, when she was just about my age, Mitzi Gaynor embarked on a 36-city, 11-month tour with Anything Goes.

It's Snowing on My Tomatoes!!
Forty years ago, by early May, we would throw on our shorts and tank tops, take our books and Coca-Colas out to the quad and start working on our tans and cramming for finals. As I sit here deciding whether to turn the heat on or not, it's snowing on my six beefsteak tomato plants, eighteen basil plants and assorted other herbs. The parsley will make it; it made it through the entire winter. I did mulch. In Jeneane's world it will never snow on tomato plants.

Last night, I had one of my recurring dreams: I parked my car (white 2001 Subaru outback sedan, loaded) in some parking lot and then couldn't find it. At one point I was walking down to the parking lot after work in very high heels and slouch socks which kept falling down. I saw my reflection in a store window and was embarrassed at how tacky it looked. And then when I got to the huge parking lot, it was dark and I knew that I had to change my shoes so that I could walk around and look for my car. I spent the entire rest of the dream trying to change my shoes. I never did find my car.

I have had frequent dreams about my car ever since I was married and we lived out in the country and only had one car -- which never seemed to be available for me. I used to dream that my husband would pack up the car into a briefcase size and leave with it. Heh.

Elsewhere in cyberspace, Halley Suitt and Chris Locke attempt to exchange brains. Personally, I think the only way it will work is if we do a massive cyber-ritual where we all get online and chant Boy George lyrics.
Ain't nobody's business
How I live my life
I learnt my lesson
Whether it's wrong or right
Ain't nobody baby
Gonna tell me how
I should live my life
Do live my way now

Satisfaction can be hard to find
I go crazy keeping it all inside

Funny. I've never wanted to be Chris Locke. At various times, I've wanted to be Tina Turner or Erica Jong. Today, I like being a blonde, sassy, sexy Crone -- a dancing Coyote Woman (I saw a t-shirt with an image of that and now wish I had bought it) and, mostly, today, I just want it to stop snowing on my tomato plants.

And, personally, if we're going to use technology to create the kind of male mate all of us (well, almost all of us) heterosexual females wish we had, I opt for the cyborg in Marge Piercy's He, She, It. Drool.