Author: elenloth

Posted on

The Last Rose of the Season

I have some knockout rose plants by my house. They’re not fancy, just cheap hybrids, but every year they produce beautiful flowers for me.

This year, in November, when everything was going dormant. the one closest to my door suddenly decided to produce a flower. I made a big deal about it – roses in November, The Last Rose of the Season, etc. I picked it and put it in a vase, and when it began to wilt I hung it up on the wall to dry.

Then, the rosebush made ANOTHER flower in December. It’s wilting right now in the front bed, in the most perfect “seven for beauty that blossoms and dies” dramatic pose.

And what I am taking from this is: There is no guaranteed Last Rose of the Season. Even something that you might think is final, is the end of all things, might not turn out to be.

And yes, it’s important to cherish those Maybe Lasts. When my daughter was in preschool, I thought often about “is this the last time I’ll be able to pick her up?” Children grow. I’m not a power lifter. There was, indeed, a last time.

But we never know exactly which one will be the Last. So cherish those moments; but never give up hope just because you think it’s the end.

I know this is contradictory, but contradictions are just the nature of the world, like roses in December.

(I’ve written and deleted about five paragraphs’ worth of Discourse about whether “nature” includes manmade things, and then I decided: let’s not. This is “nature” in the sense of “reality,” not in the sense of “a human didn’t influence this.” Humans are part of nature.)

Anyway. My point in all this is: Keep hope alive. Don’t give in to the despair. Allow the world to surprise you, and to be wacky and obstinate and uncaring about social or horticultural norms.

There is no Last Rose. There is always another.

The dramatic November Rose

Bonus! Songs featuring roses!

Posted on

 A surprising note of sanity

I read this op-ed by a conservative politician about Harvard, and I very much appreciate it. 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/12/08/harvard-eric-holcomb-indiana-governor/

The way some media personalities talk about college campuses is absurd and fear-mongering, and I don’t appreciate it. I didn’t appreciate it in 2005 or so, when my own university was in the cross-hairs of the national conservative media apparatus, either. 

There needs to be more recognition of nuance in the world. Harvard is not a “woke lions’ den,” as this guy puts it. We can and should continue to disagree on some subjects – nobody is advocating for groupthink! But the disagreements need to be based in reality and our shared humanity, and in a non-strawman understanding of what the other person thinks. (And I almost wrote “the other side,” but I also think it’s important to remember that these are *people* we are disagreeing with.) 

This paragraph about his political strategy really stood out to me: 


We approved a 1,500 percent increase in public health spending, expecting that a novel set of solutions — designed and driven by people who trust each other at the community level — will better reduce overall spending on health care. It costs less to keep people healthy than to intervene when they’re sick.

This is the way. And it’s heartening to see a Republican finally recognize that pre-emptive health care spending can save money AND lead to better lives for Americans in the long run. The myopic “does this benefit businesses in the next spending quarter?” attitude needs to go. 

Contrary to my side’s worst fears, I found students from a wide range of circumstances. Harvard’s freshmen hail from all 50 states; one in five is a first-generation college student; half pay no tuition thanks to Harvard’s endowment; and 16 are military veterans.

However, this part made me laugh. Sir, your “side” thinks that level of diversity is a bad thing. It is their worst fears. (And they can’t keep the story straight about whether my “side” is Rich Woke Elitists or Greedy Resource-Hogging Poors, either.) So…clearly, he’s got some beams in his eyes that he still needs to work on. But overall, I applaud his spirit and attitude here. And this paragraph just goes to show, once more, the weakness of looking at this as “sides” rather than individuals. 

I’m glad he gave Harvard a chance. And I’m glad to see sanity in this op-ed from someone I disagree with on most issues; and I’m glad to see that I agree with him on at least one issue.

Posted on

Hearing loss simulation

Today I learned about this Flintstones video, which simulates the effects of hearing loss, and its perfect.

This isn’t precisely the way mine sounds, but it’s close. I’ve described it as being muffled in the way snow can muffle sounds before.

Posted on

It is okay to have low ambitions.

I agree STRONGLY with this Tumblr post. People should be ABLE to work at the grocery store and make enough to support a family. That is how a functional society works. Grocery store workers (and other people in the service sector) are absolutely essential members of our society, and should not be disrespected and told that their jobs are only suitable for children.

Screenshot of a Tumblr post discussing societal expectations regarding job ambition and income, featuring comments about working at Taco Bell and personal definitions of success.
A reflection on the value of low-ambition jobs in society, emphasizing the importance of fair wages for essential work.

(U) I used an AI assistant to generate alt text and a caption there. It did a good job. Interesting.

I used Google Drive’s Optical Character Recognition to OCR the text, so here’s that, too:

User “youthincare”:

people should be allowed to have low ambition, and also be able to feed a family on the salary of a cashier at a convenience store.

User “kidsomeday”:

My very first job was at Taco Bell, and most of us working there were horrible young adults with horrible young adult problems, but one of my coworkers was a woman in (I think) her 50s.

And us horrid young adults would ask her why she still worked at Taco Bell, because it was starter job and who would want to stay there forever? Her response?

“I make enough money to make sure I always have roses in my bedroom.”

This answer changed me as a person. It changed the way I thought about what makes someone successful, and made me step back and realize that I was so caught up in what I thought success and

happiness should mean that I didn’t know what I wanted them to mean.

Which is to say that sometimes ambition is making enough money to keep fresh roses in your bedroom, and you should be able to do that working at Taco Bell.

I like that.

And yes, low ambition means this person will never have a 7-bedroom house. That is OKAY. It is okay that not everyone will always be able to have the nicest and biggest things. But people should be able to have basic things on a basic salary: an apartment, health care, enough food to eat, access to information and education. It is a problem when people cannot have those things.

(And I know nobody argues with me anymore now that I’ve moved to this blog instead of Facebook; but if you want to go toe to toe on “frivolous” expenses, bring a real life budget and let’s dissect.)

Posted on

“The categories were made for man, not man for the categories”

Many years ago, my friend shared this Slate Star Codex essay with me. It really crystallized a lot of my feelings around the concepts of trans rights and how ultimately, we should be able to be good friends and neighbors to trans people even if we don’t understand them on a deep fundamental level.

It may not be the full-throated “how dare anyone believe anything else” defense of trans rights that many might prefer; but I actually find it more compelling for that very reason. (And it’s okay if your mileage varies on that. It’s not personal for me in the way it is for many of you.)

Give it a read.

Posted on

Tithes

Today on the Internet I saw a post that said this:

Leave your church today.

Tithe by helping someone in need

God is not in a building

I replied:

Even when I was religious, I considered any charitable donation part of my tithe.

I have a still-religious friend who considers the portion of his taxes that go towards social welfare programs to be part of his.

There are many ways to be the Body of Christ in the world.

And I stand by that.

I should do that calculation myself, sometime. The back-of-the-envelope that I just did (62% of federal spending, 15% effective federal tax rate) gives me about 9% of my salary Helping People via taxes. That’s not too bad.

Posted on

Dalmatians and Bassets

One of my friends this weekend said that it’s rough being the parents of a Dalmatian child when your friends have Basset Hound children, because we end up giving them useless advice, like “Why not just have them sit and play video games?” when the kids will not sit still for that.

(This came up when I expressed surprise at a hotel room/suite not being sufficient for a family trip. My child is a quiet Basset Hound.)

Posted on

A generalizable word of advice

As I told someone earlier today:

This is not an “others have walked so that you can run” kind of situation. This is more like, an “others have run straight into the electric fence, so you should strongly consider walking” kind of thing.

This can apply to many things.

Go slowly. Make careful, measured decisions.

Posted on

Scalzi on “Poor Little Rich People”

Really excellent essay here.

Poor Little Rich People

But that’s not surprising. The first essay I ever read by John Scalzi was “Being Poor,” twenty years ago; and it stuck with me.

Then someone in the comments posted this Substack link, about 100k, which is MUCH easier to feel poor on! You just have to live in a HCOL (high cost of living) area, and boom, you’re cooked. As the kids say.

And so now, let’s tug on that loose thread… I’m sure many of my left-leaning readers will say, “This is obvious, we have been talking about it for YEARS!” Yes, many of you have; but you were using language of emotion (“Pay a living wage!”) rather than showing the math. My bad for not paying closer attention; your bad for not showing your work or coming up with workable solutions. Let’s rectify it rather than cast blame.

The bit about how “a living wage” is not a useful phrase is spot on. We have to do math for this part. A living wage in NYC is not a living wage in Galax.

I had seen a quote from that Substack going around on Bluesky the other day, and I do have some quibbles with it. Specifically, the 21k for “other essentials” part, plus the fact that it doesn’t control for location. But for my part of the country? It’s pretty much there.