You remind me of the first time I tried “good” champagne. I knew I was going to enjoy it, but I was as yet unaware of the subtlety and nuance that make it so extraordinary. Of course, the taste, once acquired, stays with you, and can spoil you for lesser offerings.
You, Queen G, are the ultimate spoiler.
Carefully rinsing my crystal flute but keeping it handy in anticipation of the next sparkling installment.
1) To pry the bubble gum my sister jammed up into a padlock on my bedroom door (I was 16, trying desperately to maintain my privacy.) It didn’t work. It removed some but mostly it just rammed it even deeper into the mechanism.)
TL;DR unbeknownst to me, my younger sister was born to be an OSS-caliber saboteur.
2) As a pipe cleaner. (the necessity of which may or may not have had a distant connection to the padlocking, but I can’t quite remember the specifics. The sibling affronts were myriad and my response justified, I’m quite certain I was certain of that!)
3) As a temporary diaper pin when I tried to wedge my kid into the only diaper I had in the house (a size too small—it was a “keep it for an emergency” thing) after I ripped the tape closure clean off which, once liberated, refused to anchor itself on two corners simultaneously. Nope. One or the other, lady, them’s your choices. (sorry! Reliving my exasperation, it seems 😂) Anyway—I had one of those bigger-than-standard-issue galvanized paper clips, and I straightened out one end and used it as a very rudimentary fastener, which held until I could get to my mom’s to raid her diaper stash before I went to the store.
Hahaa! You’re so right! Had duct tape been on my radar, I may well have opted for it, although I don’t recall it being something ubiquitous in our teeny-tiny house. My experience was garnered changing diapers of younger sibs using the pre-tape-closure Pampers of the early 1970s.
This piece left me speechless in the best way possible. The kind of quiet, deliberate resistance you illustrate feels so deeply familiar. Not just as a concept, but as something lived, something survived.
There’s a particular sharpness in how you render these moments—not in a way that wounds, but in a way that cuts through the noise. Precision. That’s what it is. The way Vivian handles bureaucracy, the way resistance tucks itself into seemingly mundane motions, the way adaptation doesn’t always mean surrender but sometimes means survival—it all speaks to something I’ve known in my bones for decades.
I woke up this morning thinking about the forty-six years I spent within a system that demanded compliance. Adaptation was my way through. Compliance, at least outwardly, ensured survival. And yet, within me, something never yielded. A part of me—what I call my little Gaulish village—stood its ground. Hidden, protected, never extinguished. A stronghold of self that neither society nor my mother could erase, no matter how deeply they pressed.
You write about resistance without turning it into a spectacle, without drenching it in grand gestures. Instead, you show its quiet, unassuming power. The kind that lives in details, in paperclips, in bureaucratic mazes so dense they swallow the very mechanisms of control meant to oppress. I see echoes of my own path in this. The way I couldn’t voice certain truths aloud, not even in the safety of a coaching session, because the weight of silence had been imprinted so early. And yet, silence never meant absence. The words existed. The resistance existed. Just elsewhere, where it was safe.
And it’s not just my story. Every woman, every person from a non-dominant group knows these truths. We have all navigated systems built on dominance, on structures never meant for our thriving. A dominance that was never truly questioned—only appeased with breadcrumbs, tossed in response to demands for influence, power, resources. Western cultures, deeply patriarchal, have long upheld the narrative of strength belonging to one group while all others must yield. And yet, through a lifetime of learning, we have done more than exist. We have survived. We have found ways out—not by fighting oppression head-on, but by absorbing it, by turning toward it and dissolving its hold from within.
Oppression thrives in darkness, in erasure, in shame. It occupied my every thought, filled my mind with its presence, made me relive every injustice, every wound. And yet, even there, resistance was alive. Not as open defiance, but as something deeper—an unyielding knowing, a refusal to disappear.
Your words speak to this knowing. To the truth that survival is just the beginning. That liberation is possible. That the system may still exist, but we are no longer bound by it.
"We have survived." That's the statement, the beginning and hopefully the end. Thank you for the thoughtful post. I appreciate your response on many levels.
Can you think of a single book where a 92-year-old woman is the lead character and also sex on legs? I can’t. And believe me, I’ve looked.
Women, in general, get boxed in early—sweetheart, wife, mother, maybe a tragic divorcée if the plot needs a little tension—but older women? We don’t even get a box. We get a footnote. A supporting role as someone’s wise but vaguely eccentric grandmother, or worse, a cautionary tale in a cardigan.
And personally? I can’t go anywhere with my wife, Crystal, without someone assuming I’m:
— Her mother
— Her aunt
— Her grandmother
Never her wife. Never her lover. Never the person she chose, out of everyone on this entire godforsaken planet, to share her life with.
Because the idea that an older woman could be anything other than a kindly relative handing out butterscotch candies is simply unfathomable.
And that, my friends, is why we don’t have a novel about a 92-year-old bombshell making men and women weak in the knees. Because somewhere along the way, the world decided that once women hit a certain age, desire stops applying to us.
Nope, I can’t—especially not in a women-loving context. The only books I’ve read that truly centered resistance, especially for women, weren’t just about rebellion—they were about strategy, survival, and desire that didn’t come with an expiration date. J.E. Leak’s Shadow series comes to mind: heroines who weren’t just fighters but tacticians, wielding OSS methods not as historical trivia but as lived experience. And in effect a cougar love story within. J.E. Leak's stories didn’t box women into roles—they showed how precision, patience, and the underestimated power of women could shift the tide. If the world can’t imagine a 92-year-old bombshell commanding desire, maybe it’s because it’s too used to underestimating us..https://www.goodreads.com/series/344558-shadow
Oh, absolutely. A thousand times yes. Because if resistance is only ever framed as a fleeting burst of rebellion—a single act of defiance before the credits roll—then what are we even fighting for? Real resistance, especially for women, has always been about longevity. It’s about strategy, survival, and, yes, desire that doesn’t come with an expiration date.
And let’s talk about that, shall we? Because if the world can’t fathom a 92-year-old bombshell commanding desire, then the world has a very limited imagination. It’s been fed a diet of stories that cut women off at the knees the moment they hit an age deemed “unmarketable.” But in reality? The most dangerous thing a woman can do is continue. Continue thinking. Continue wanting. Continue planning. Continue seducing. Continue outmaneuvering.
Which brings me to you and this post—because I read it, and I felt it, and before I knew it, I was one-clicking my way straight to J.E. Leak’s Shadow series. I haven’t read it yet, but your words sold me. Heroines who aren’t just fighters but tacticians, wielding OSS methods not as historical trivia but as lived experience? A cougar love story within? Women who don’t just resist but endure, evolve, and outlast? You had me at precision, patience, and the underestimated power of women.
And maybe that’s why stories like these unsettle people. Because if they acknowledge that women’s power doesn’t fade—that it only refines with time—then they have to face the terrifying truth: women aren’t a phase. We’re not a fleeting spark. We are a force—one that outlasts, outwits, and outlives anyone who dares to underestimate us.
So thank you for this. For the recommendation, for the reminder, for setting my mind on fire. I’ll be diving into the book ASAP—and I have a feeling I’ll be coming back to this post again.
Because what is resistance if it isn’t about longevity? If it isn’t about women—and those of us who were born female—refusing to be edged out of the narrative, refusing to disappear? The most dangerous thing we can do is continue.
And you captured it—how stories have conditioned the world to believe that women over a certain age are done. That we fade into irrelevance, that our desires, our ambitions, our strategies, our presence somehow expire. When in reality? That’s when the real power settles in. That’s when we’re at our sharpest. That’s when we’ve seen enough, learned enough, endured enough to play the long game in a way youth never could.
And here’s where I come in: non-binary, born female—the most invisible of the invisible. Yet I have always found a way to make myself known. And most times? People were annoyed just because. I once thought that meant I had no worth. I have since known that is my worth. To exist. To take up space. To be undeniable.
Maybe that’s why books like J.E. Leak’s hit differently. Because they don’t just write women in—they refuse to write them out. They show what happens when a woman isn’t just a moment, but a force that adapts, evolves, and refuses to yield.
And I love that you one-clicked straight into the series. Because if there’s one thing that needs to keep happening, it’s this: We find the stories that don’t cut us off at the knees. We see ourselves not as a phase but as a presence that stays.
I used our age difference to my advantage (she was 25 yrs my senior)…in a world where one ‘mustn’t touch’ (decades ago), my older ‘friend’ needed me to hold her arm while we were walking downtown…nevermind that she was the mover & shaker in our duo! Sometimes the closet just makes one more creative. Can’t wait to read your next installment! PS…I use paperclips to repair broken chin rests on my students’ violins & anything else that needs fixing.
Oh, Kathy, you absolute genius—I knew there was a reason I liked you. Paperclips as chin rest repair? That’s the kind of resourcefulness that separates the mere mortals from the legends.
And yes, the closet does tend to make one more creative—sometimes out of necessity, sometimes out of sheer rebellious delight. It’s a little like learning to cook in a kitchen where half the appliances don’t work. You adapt. You finesse. You pretend that holding an arm downtown is just practical, when really, it’s a lifeline.
And let’s be honest—those of us who have danced in the margins know that age gaps, social expectations, and the occasional need for plausible deniability are nothing if not excellent tools for mischief. Because sure, maybe you were the one “helping” her across the street—but we both know she was the one leading the charge.
Can’t wait to hear more about your violin MacGyvering, and thanks for the nudge—next installment coming soon.
Oh, I love word play. I’ll ask again—what exactly does your comment have to do with my Substack post? And while we’re at it, let’s talk about the nature of predicting things. When you say you’re going to predict something, you’re essentially placing a bet on it happening. That’s the deal. That’s how it works. Otherwise, it’s just throwing words into the void and hoping they sound important. Although it is oddly satisfying to word spar with you. ❤️
Holding a hem in place. Keeping an Orchid stem from bending. FOLDING A TUBE OF TOOTH PASTE AS I pushed the paste forward. A bit of OCD there. I am aware.
Sounds a little like the Czechs’ Good Soldier Schweik. Or maybe a lot? It’s been ages since I read it in translation. What I remember is fierce resistance disguised as bumbling idiocy. Innocently doing clumsy things ti throw monkey wrenches into an over structured and super strict German system. The approach described here is a lot classier but I suspect both are effective. Glorious Gloria!
These rules are the bread and butter of every good spy book, and I just love spy books. Even James Bond relied on the same principles. In fact, almost all hero*ine stories do. And I’ve used a paperclip to eject the SIM card from my phone, hold up my trousers after the button gave way, and prevent a door from locking.
My sister has a Ph.D in modern European history. I have read MANY books about women in the resistance in France and Germany and Poland during WWII. They were the bravest women!
I’m a first generation immigrant from Germany. Both of my parents lived through the atrocities of Nazi Germany. They immigrated to the US in 1955 with me and my three sisters.
And yet, when viewed without emotion—from a place of metacognition—I’ve come to a difficult realization: there may have been a certain inevitability to this unfolding. A development many arrogantly turned a blind eye to—one that might have been averted if not for that willful ignorance.
The American system was never built for true equality, and the more people demanded it, the more resistance it provoked from those desperate to keep things as they were. DEI, gender theory, women’s rights, Black rights, Indigenous rights—human rights in general—have become the modern red flags taunting a patriarchal bull.
And now, that bull has been set loose. It has broken free from the confines of the arena, charging unchecked, much like the ancient spectacle of Pamplona—one that has claimed more than a few lives over the years.
And it will endure as long as those bulls run free.
Gloria, I hear you. Seeing all of this unfold is hard.
For me, the question isn’t just about recognizing what’s happening—it’s about what can actually shift. Pushing back is one part of it, yet that alone won’t change the system itself.
If the way power operates isn’t clear to those caught in it, the same patterns will keep repeating.
I don’t need to explain what the system does; you and those around you are already living it. What I try to do is shift the perspective—from the daily details to the bigger picture. From the tree to the forest, and beyond.
The movement in the U.S. risks fighting a phantom, pushing back again and again while the forces they resist morph and spread.
Yet if it is possible to show how the system operates—not just at the surface, but deep down—to make clear why it functions this way, then the point where change is possible, and more importantly necessary, to truly instill lasting change becomes clearer.
Germany, after WWII, took steps to expose these structures. Not perfect, but effective enough that certain boundaries still hold. The recent Bundestag decision on stricter asylum laws, led by CDU and AfD, is not final. It still needs to pass the Bundesrat, which is unlikely. Parts of it don’t align with European law and may even be challenged in Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court for violating fundamental rights. There are multiple hurdles to eroding rights here, and no one in Germany holds unchecked power like the P-Person. The EU, for all its flaws, has built-in limits. Orban in Hungary is testing them, and he isn’t unrestricted (at least as long as he is in need form EU Money)
In the U.S., those boundaries couldn’t hold in the same way. Partly because they’ve been eroded since the 1970s. Instead of limiting executive power, it has only expanded.
And partly because even the structures that could have slowed this down are only working partially—because some of the very people who claim to stand for democracy and the Constitution have failed their oath. Why? Greed. The hunger for influence. The thirst for power and wealth. No one willingly saws off the branch they’re sitting on.
That’s where the work is—to understand not just what is happening and why and where the root cause of this lies. That's where the real leverage points for change exist.
Don’t be quiet. It is your right to speak up. Pick your moments. Never relinquish a right. If you believe in a creator, he gave you that right. Don’t let him down.
You remind me of the first time I tried “good” champagne. I knew I was going to enjoy it, but I was as yet unaware of the subtlety and nuance that make it so extraordinary. Of course, the taste, once acquired, stays with you, and can spoil you for lesser offerings.
You, Queen G, are the ultimate spoiler.
Carefully rinsing my crystal flute but keeping it handy in anticipation of the next sparkling installment.
🥂🍾🖇️
I have a quick question. Indulge me for a moment. Tell me three ways you’ve used a paperclip for something other than clipping paper.
A. Open an interior door.
B. Clean inside my ear.
C. Hold my bra together.
Ditto! Absolutely same!
Unfolding it and stabbing my little brother.
Shooting it with a rubber band at the blackboard in class.
Poking it in that tiny hole in the back of the router to re-set it.
To poke into an electrical outlet ... wowwzer!
1) To pry the bubble gum my sister jammed up into a padlock on my bedroom door (I was 16, trying desperately to maintain my privacy.) It didn’t work. It removed some but mostly it just rammed it even deeper into the mechanism.)
TL;DR unbeknownst to me, my younger sister was born to be an OSS-caliber saboteur.
2) As a pipe cleaner. (the necessity of which may or may not have had a distant connection to the padlocking, but I can’t quite remember the specifics. The sibling affronts were myriad and my response justified, I’m quite certain I was certain of that!)
3) As a temporary diaper pin when I tried to wedge my kid into the only diaper I had in the house (a size too small—it was a “keep it for an emergency” thing) after I ripped the tape closure clean off which, once liberated, refused to anchor itself on two corners simultaneously. Nope. One or the other, lady, them’s your choices. (sorry! Reliving my exasperation, it seems 😂) Anyway—I had one of those bigger-than-standard-issue galvanized paper clips, and I straightened out one end and used it as a very rudimentary fastener, which held until I could get to my mom’s to raid her diaper stash before I went to the store.
Little sisters are nothing but PAYBACK.
Have not thought of a pipe cleaner in decades!
Duct tape would have worked on the diaper. Just sayin’
Hahaa! You’re so right! Had duct tape been on my radar, I may well have opted for it, although I don’t recall it being something ubiquitous in our teeny-tiny house. My experience was garnered changing diapers of younger sibs using the pre-tape-closure Pampers of the early 1970s.
I
U ?
Wow, I can hardly wait for your next installment!
You are such a very talented writer, and I joyfully follow you.
Keep putting those emotions, observations, and
grand feelings on paper so that we all can identify with your main characters.
peppermiller3011@gmail.com
Thank you! 🙏
Love love love this,waiting with baited breath for continuation
Thank you. Stop holding your breath. You are turning blue... LOL
Gloria,
This piece left me speechless in the best way possible. The kind of quiet, deliberate resistance you illustrate feels so deeply familiar. Not just as a concept, but as something lived, something survived.
There’s a particular sharpness in how you render these moments—not in a way that wounds, but in a way that cuts through the noise. Precision. That’s what it is. The way Vivian handles bureaucracy, the way resistance tucks itself into seemingly mundane motions, the way adaptation doesn’t always mean surrender but sometimes means survival—it all speaks to something I’ve known in my bones for decades.
I woke up this morning thinking about the forty-six years I spent within a system that demanded compliance. Adaptation was my way through. Compliance, at least outwardly, ensured survival. And yet, within me, something never yielded. A part of me—what I call my little Gaulish village—stood its ground. Hidden, protected, never extinguished. A stronghold of self that neither society nor my mother could erase, no matter how deeply they pressed.
You write about resistance without turning it into a spectacle, without drenching it in grand gestures. Instead, you show its quiet, unassuming power. The kind that lives in details, in paperclips, in bureaucratic mazes so dense they swallow the very mechanisms of control meant to oppress. I see echoes of my own path in this. The way I couldn’t voice certain truths aloud, not even in the safety of a coaching session, because the weight of silence had been imprinted so early. And yet, silence never meant absence. The words existed. The resistance existed. Just elsewhere, where it was safe.
And it’s not just my story. Every woman, every person from a non-dominant group knows these truths. We have all navigated systems built on dominance, on structures never meant for our thriving. A dominance that was never truly questioned—only appeased with breadcrumbs, tossed in response to demands for influence, power, resources. Western cultures, deeply patriarchal, have long upheld the narrative of strength belonging to one group while all others must yield. And yet, through a lifetime of learning, we have done more than exist. We have survived. We have found ways out—not by fighting oppression head-on, but by absorbing it, by turning toward it and dissolving its hold from within.
Oppression thrives in darkness, in erasure, in shame. It occupied my every thought, filled my mind with its presence, made me relive every injustice, every wound. And yet, even there, resistance was alive. Not as open defiance, but as something deeper—an unyielding knowing, a refusal to disappear.
Your words speak to this knowing. To the truth that survival is just the beginning. That liberation is possible. That the system may still exist, but we are no longer bound by it.
Jay
"We have survived." That's the statement, the beginning and hopefully the end. Thank you for the thoughtful post. I appreciate your response on many levels.
I hope you know that you are very welcome on many levels.
*chef kiss*
Thank you!
I am greatly enjoying the thoroughness of Riley and Vivian. I love me a classy, elegant, brilliant woman.
Can you think of a single book where a 92-year-old woman is the lead character and also sex on legs? I can’t. And believe me, I’ve looked.
Women, in general, get boxed in early—sweetheart, wife, mother, maybe a tragic divorcée if the plot needs a little tension—but older women? We don’t even get a box. We get a footnote. A supporting role as someone’s wise but vaguely eccentric grandmother, or worse, a cautionary tale in a cardigan.
And personally? I can’t go anywhere with my wife, Crystal, without someone assuming I’m:
— Her mother
— Her aunt
— Her grandmother
Never her wife. Never her lover. Never the person she chose, out of everyone on this entire godforsaken planet, to share her life with.
Because the idea that an older woman could be anything other than a kindly relative handing out butterscotch candies is simply unfathomable.
And that, my friends, is why we don’t have a novel about a 92-year-old bombshell making men and women weak in the knees. Because somewhere along the way, the world decided that once women hit a certain age, desire stops applying to us.
And that? That is the real fiction.
Nope, I can’t—especially not in a women-loving context. The only books I’ve read that truly centered resistance, especially for women, weren’t just about rebellion—they were about strategy, survival, and desire that didn’t come with an expiration date. J.E. Leak’s Shadow series comes to mind: heroines who weren’t just fighters but tacticians, wielding OSS methods not as historical trivia but as lived experience. And in effect a cougar love story within. J.E. Leak's stories didn’t box women into roles—they showed how precision, patience, and the underestimated power of women could shift the tide. If the world can’t imagine a 92-year-old bombshell commanding desire, maybe it’s because it’s too used to underestimating us..https://www.goodreads.com/series/344558-shadow
Oh, absolutely. A thousand times yes. Because if resistance is only ever framed as a fleeting burst of rebellion—a single act of defiance before the credits roll—then what are we even fighting for? Real resistance, especially for women, has always been about longevity. It’s about strategy, survival, and, yes, desire that doesn’t come with an expiration date.
And let’s talk about that, shall we? Because if the world can’t fathom a 92-year-old bombshell commanding desire, then the world has a very limited imagination. It’s been fed a diet of stories that cut women off at the knees the moment they hit an age deemed “unmarketable.” But in reality? The most dangerous thing a woman can do is continue. Continue thinking. Continue wanting. Continue planning. Continue seducing. Continue outmaneuvering.
Which brings me to you and this post—because I read it, and I felt it, and before I knew it, I was one-clicking my way straight to J.E. Leak’s Shadow series. I haven’t read it yet, but your words sold me. Heroines who aren’t just fighters but tacticians, wielding OSS methods not as historical trivia but as lived experience? A cougar love story within? Women who don’t just resist but endure, evolve, and outlast? You had me at precision, patience, and the underestimated power of women.
And maybe that’s why stories like these unsettle people. Because if they acknowledge that women’s power doesn’t fade—that it only refines with time—then they have to face the terrifying truth: women aren’t a phase. We’re not a fleeting spark. We are a force—one that outlasts, outwits, and outlives anyone who dares to underestimate us.
So thank you for this. For the recommendation, for the reminder, for setting my mind on fire. I’ll be diving into the book ASAP—and I have a feeling I’ll be coming back to this post again.
Gloria, this. All of this.
Because what is resistance if it isn’t about longevity? If it isn’t about women—and those of us who were born female—refusing to be edged out of the narrative, refusing to disappear? The most dangerous thing we can do is continue.
And you captured it—how stories have conditioned the world to believe that women over a certain age are done. That we fade into irrelevance, that our desires, our ambitions, our strategies, our presence somehow expire. When in reality? That’s when the real power settles in. That’s when we’re at our sharpest. That’s when we’ve seen enough, learned enough, endured enough to play the long game in a way youth never could.
And here’s where I come in: non-binary, born female—the most invisible of the invisible. Yet I have always found a way to make myself known. And most times? People were annoyed just because. I once thought that meant I had no worth. I have since known that is my worth. To exist. To take up space. To be undeniable.
Maybe that’s why books like J.E. Leak’s hit differently. Because they don’t just write women in—they refuse to write them out. They show what happens when a woman isn’t just a moment, but a force that adapts, evolves, and refuses to yield.
And I love that you one-clicked straight into the series. Because if there’s one thing that needs to keep happening, it’s this: We find the stories that don’t cut us off at the knees. We see ourselves not as a phase but as a presence that stays.
I used our age difference to my advantage (she was 25 yrs my senior)…in a world where one ‘mustn’t touch’ (decades ago), my older ‘friend’ needed me to hold her arm while we were walking downtown…nevermind that she was the mover & shaker in our duo! Sometimes the closet just makes one more creative. Can’t wait to read your next installment! PS…I use paperclips to repair broken chin rests on my students’ violins & anything else that needs fixing.
Oh, Kathy, you absolute genius—I knew there was a reason I liked you. Paperclips as chin rest repair? That’s the kind of resourcefulness that separates the mere mortals from the legends.
And yes, the closet does tend to make one more creative—sometimes out of necessity, sometimes out of sheer rebellious delight. It’s a little like learning to cook in a kitchen where half the appliances don’t work. You adapt. You finesse. You pretend that holding an arm downtown is just practical, when really, it’s a lifeline.
And let’s be honest—those of us who have danced in the margins know that age gaps, social expectations, and the occasional need for plausible deniability are nothing if not excellent tools for mischief. Because sure, maybe you were the one “helping” her across the street—but we both know she was the one leading the charge.
Can’t wait to hear more about your violin MacGyvering, and thanks for the nudge—next installment coming soon.
Ms. Marple???
I’m going to make a prediction:📣📣📣📣📣
1/2 to 2/3rds of anyone appointed to office, in any capacity by Trump, will be fired by this time next year.
Oh, I love word play. I’ll ask again—what exactly does your comment have to do with my Substack post? And while we’re at it, let’s talk about the nature of predicting things. When you say you’re going to predict something, you’re essentially placing a bet on it happening. That’s the deal. That’s how it works. Otherwise, it’s just throwing words into the void and hoping they sound important. Although it is oddly satisfying to word spar with you. ❤️
Ok. I’m confused. I did not mention Trump. Nobody in their right mind would take your bet. LOL. His so called staff was a revolving door last time.
I did not offer a bet. It’s a prediction.
I'm hooked on Riley and Vivian, Gloria! Thanks for sharing their story, as well as a
government-sanctioned sabotage manual.Waiting for Chapter 3...
I quite like them myself.
Please please add to this
I have a new chapter I’m posting tomorrow.
Thanks much love. It’s very powerful!
Holding a hem in place. Keeping an Orchid stem from bending. FOLDING A TUBE OF TOOTH PASTE AS I pushed the paste forward. A bit of OCD there. I am aware.
That! All that. Has peaked my curiosity.
Sounds a little like the Czechs’ Good Soldier Schweik. Or maybe a lot? It’s been ages since I read it in translation. What I remember is fierce resistance disguised as bumbling idiocy. Innocently doing clumsy things ti throw monkey wrenches into an over structured and super strict German system. The approach described here is a lot classier but I suspect both are effective. Glorious Gloria!
Marian, do these instructions sound familiar?
Demand everything in writing – Create endless paper trails and unnecessary reports to bog down efficiency.
Hold excessive meetings – Ensure that discussions go off-topic, last far too long, and result in no real decisions.
Be as literal and unhelpful as possible – Follow rules to the letter, even when common sense suggests otherwise.
Refer matters to multiple committees – The more layers of approval needed, the longer everything takes.
Prioritize unimportant tasks – Work on trivial assignments while neglecting urgent and critical projects.
Misuse equipment subtly – Overload or underuse machinery so it breaks down over time.
Mix up inventory and parts – Slightly mislabel or misplace crucial items so they are difficult to find when needed.
Damage tools in minor ways – Loosen screws, dull blades, or leave small obstructions in machines that can cause gradual failure.
Work at an inconsistent pace – Speed up briefly, then slow down dramatically, confusing workflow and frustrating supervisors.
Perform tasks poorly but not obviously so – Ensure repairs are not done quite right, making the problem reappear later.
Give wrong directions – Slightly mislead shipments or direct vehicles down inefficient or dead-end
Well Gloria I don’t think I’ve ever done what you write I’ve always been too much of a goody two shoes. But not too old to learn.
Oh, Marian. It's going to be a wild and wonderful ride.
These rules are the bread and butter of every good spy book, and I just love spy books. Even James Bond relied on the same principles. In fact, almost all hero*ine stories do. And I’ve used a paperclip to eject the SIM card from my phone, hold up my trousers after the button gave way, and prevent a door from locking.
The paper clip and aspirin keep the world turned on its axis.
I’m enthralled with this story of women deeply involved in resistance! Can’t wait for the next installment
Want to read a few books about real women in the resistance of WWII? I have a list of…
My sister has a Ph.D in modern European history. I have read MANY books about women in the resistance in France and Germany and Poland during WWII. They were the bravest women!
I’m a first generation immigrant from Germany. Both of my parents lived through the atrocities of Nazi Germany. They immigrated to the US in 1955 with me and my three sisters.
This country is careening into the hellsscape of Nazi Germany. It's breaking my heart.
Yes, mine too.
And yet, when viewed without emotion—from a place of metacognition—I’ve come to a difficult realization: there may have been a certain inevitability to this unfolding. A development many arrogantly turned a blind eye to—one that might have been averted if not for that willful ignorance.
The American system was never built for true equality, and the more people demanded it, the more resistance it provoked from those desperate to keep things as they were. DEI, gender theory, women’s rights, Black rights, Indigenous rights—human rights in general—have become the modern red flags taunting a patriarchal bull.
And now, that bull has been set loose. It has broken free from the confines of the arena, charging unchecked, much like the ancient spectacle of Pamplona—one that has claimed more than a few lives over the years.
And it will endure as long as those bulls run free.
I hate to admit it but you are correct.
Gloria, I hear you. Seeing all of this unfold is hard.
For me, the question isn’t just about recognizing what’s happening—it’s about what can actually shift. Pushing back is one part of it, yet that alone won’t change the system itself.
If the way power operates isn’t clear to those caught in it, the same patterns will keep repeating.
I don’t need to explain what the system does; you and those around you are already living it. What I try to do is shift the perspective—from the daily details to the bigger picture. From the tree to the forest, and beyond.
The movement in the U.S. risks fighting a phantom, pushing back again and again while the forces they resist morph and spread.
Yet if it is possible to show how the system operates—not just at the surface, but deep down—to make clear why it functions this way, then the point where change is possible, and more importantly necessary, to truly instill lasting change becomes clearer.
Germany, after WWII, took steps to expose these structures. Not perfect, but effective enough that certain boundaries still hold. The recent Bundestag decision on stricter asylum laws, led by CDU and AfD, is not final. It still needs to pass the Bundesrat, which is unlikely. Parts of it don’t align with European law and may even be challenged in Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court for violating fundamental rights. There are multiple hurdles to eroding rights here, and no one in Germany holds unchecked power like the P-Person. The EU, for all its flaws, has built-in limits. Orban in Hungary is testing them, and he isn’t unrestricted (at least as long as he is in need form EU Money)
In the U.S., those boundaries couldn’t hold in the same way. Partly because they’ve been eroded since the 1970s. Instead of limiting executive power, it has only expanded.
And partly because even the structures that could have slowed this down are only working partially—because some of the very people who claim to stand for democracy and the Constitution have failed their oath. Why? Greed. The hunger for influence. The thirst for power and wealth. No one willingly saws off the branch they’re sitting on.
That’s where the work is—to understand not just what is happening and why and where the root cause of this lies. That's where the real leverage points for change exist.
I'm on the edge of my proverbial seat ...
My seat (ahem) is numb from sitting so long writing yesterday! LOL
Can you hear me smiling?
Yes. Your smile is delightful.
Thank you. I'm still capable. :)
I am eagerly awaiting more! 💙⭐️💙
"Pick your moments" should be embroidered on pillows!
Don’t be quiet. It is your right to speak up. Pick your moments. Never relinquish a right. If you believe in a creator, he gave you that right. Don’t let him down.
Exactly.
This is absolutely fascinating, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it... 😎