M Is For Me

And Then It Was Time For Me To Say Goodbye

/ Ally Bean / 272 Comments

The following may come as a shock to some, less so to others, but after bouncing around in the blogosphere since 2004 I’m ending The Spectacled Bean, an almost 15 year old blog*. I feel it is time for me, a free spirit, to move on.

I need a change of scenery.

Something simple and new.

Without a doubt I’ve enjoyed being here, sharing my flapdoodle & twaddle, chatting in the comments, learning about how other people live their lives, introducing bloggers to other bloggers. I appreciate the support and attention that you, my gentle readers and kind lurkers, have shown me.

Thank you. You are awesome.

But you know that, right?

Truth is I don’t know what I’ll do next online. Maybe another personal blog with a different name and focus? I’ve seen that done successfully. Maybe a Substack? They’re a thing now. Maybe I’ll join former bloggy friends who currently post exclusively on Instagram? That’s another possibility.

No need to rush into anything.

Something will pique my interest when the time is right**.

And with that I shall formally say goodbye knowing that this little corner of the blogosphere is the best. A smart place where ideas flow and solutions abound. A magical place where dreams unfold in real time. A fun place where cool people hang out.

Do good. Play nice. Take joy.

Later, kids.

* First post here.

** Leaning into one of my favorite sayings: when the student is ready the teacher will come.

[PLEASE NOTE: I’m aware that WP comments are glitchy again. I feel this is providential, a confirmation that it’s time for me to end this blog. It’s like WordPress is saying don’t let the door hit you on your backside on the way out. 🫤]

Meandering Thoughts About Grittiness While Meandering Through A Bookstore

/ Ally Bean / 226 Comments

✅  I WAS WANDERING AROUND Barnes & Nobles enjoying the positive vibe that comes from being around people who like books when I saw a copy of the latest book about Gwyneth Paltrow. I’d read skimmed a few reviews of Amy Odell’s Gwyneth: The Biography, so I knew it existed, but hadn’t seen it in the wild.

Yet there I was face-to-face with Gwyneth’s smiling face.

Or at least a portion of it.

• • •

✅ SEEING THIS BOOK sent my addled brain into overdrive.

My first thought was decidedly practical: I wonder what brand and shade of eyebrow pencil/powder Gwyneth has on. As my blonde hair has gotten grayer on its way to, I hope, silvery white, I’ve had a difficult time finding very pale blonde/light warm gray eyebrow colors.

My second thought was happily snarky: I wonder if she knows she looks like Janice on The Muppet Show? The resemblance is amazing to me. I bet Gwyneth can play an electric guitar as well as Janice.

My third thought was idly curious: I wonder what it’d be like to be a Hollywood nepo baby who’s lived your entire life with a financial safety net under you.

Not that Gwyneth hasn’t been successful, but is it because she knew she couldn’t fail, free to give her career her best shot unencumbered by the soul-sucking tedious financial realities most people face?

OR

Is it because she’s so innately talented, filled with drive and grit that regardless of anything in her life she was destined to be a star?

• • •

✅ THIS LAST THOUGHT REMINDED ME that years ago I read psychologist Angela Duckworth’s book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. According to Duckworth:

Grit is passion and perseverance for longterm goals…. Talent and luck matter to success. But talent and luck are no guarantee of grit. And in the very long run, I think grit may matter as least as much, if not more. 

I remember feeling empowered and comforted by her sensible assessment of what it takes to succeed— and how grit, something I possess, plays into a person’s success.

Back when I read the book I took a free online 10-question quiz that is still available for you to take. It is the GRIT SCALE QUIZ. From my results I learned that my Grit Score is 4.20 meaning that I’m grittier than 80% of Americans.

Discussion about whether this grittiness has helped me become the swell blogger I am today is something I’ll leave for another time.

• • •

✅ I DIDN’T PICK UP the book about Paltrow because, as you my little chickadees can probably guess, my interest in biographies of Hollywood stars is nonexistent.

Do. not. care.

But seeing it did remind me that I was in this store to buy a book and that if I was going to read a book about a real person I’d best mosey meself to the memoir section of the store where I could find books that are presumably truthful, blessedly idiosyncratic, and often inspiring.

That’s what interests me.

Thus I ended up buying and enjoying Peggy Orenstein’s funny thoughtful pandemic memoir, Unraveling: What I Learned About Life While Shearing Sheep, Dyeing Wool, and Making the World’s Ugliest Sweater.

Which, as fate would have it, also had a compelling up-close photo of a face on the front cover.

QUESTIONS OF THE DAY

Do you enjoy shopping for books in a brick and mortar store? If so, do you meander around like I do enjoying the atmosphere before purchasing anything?

Do you ever read biographies? Or memoirs?

Thinking back to where you were 5 years ago when we first started grappling with + adapting to the new Covid 19 pandemic realities, what did you do to keep yourself sane, assuming you stayed sane?

If you took the quiz, how gritty are you?

+ • + • +

Highlights From August: I’m Not A Flower. I’m Not A Fork. I’m Not A Foe.

/ Ally Bean / 179 Comments

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The Flower Part

Late one afternoon while sitting outside on the deck, I was viciously attacked dive-bombed by a hummingbird who mistook me for a flower. Why, you may be wondering, did this little piece of flightiness think I was a flower?

Here’s the scene: I was wearing a pale pink baseball cap [similar here] + a medium pink fleece top [here] + raspberry-colored moccasin slippers [on sale now here] whilst drinking a pink grapefruit Italian soda [from here] that I’d poured into a clear plastic tumbler [here] with a bright red travel lid [here].

My basically pinkish-reddish ensemble + beverage were not intended to attract hummingbirds, but I nailed it.  And that little birdie with the fluttering wings couldn’t take his sparkly little eyes off me.

I was startled, but flattered.

The Fork Part 

Zen-Den and I finished watching Elementary, a TV series about Sherlock Holmes re-envisioned for modern times starring Jonny Lee Miller as Sherlock and Lucy Liu as Dr. Watson. I enjoyed it and thought the final episode was a good way to end it. Apparently not all fans liked the ending, so I just wrote something potentially controversial here.

Anyhoo, like many TV shows or movies, we sometimes focus on one line that we find absurdly funny and start saying it to each other— like a goofy inside joke. And this show gave us a good one.

In a scene where Sherlock and Marcus, a NYC police detective assigned to work with Sherlock, are kicking back after a difficult day, Sherlock who is often quite full of himself tells Marcus that he knows why Marcus is so taken with him.

It’s a scene of arrogance gone wild.

Sherlock starts babbling on about how his astounding intellect magnetizes people who are then drawn to him. It’s a burden Sherlock must live with.

Marcus, who has the patience of Job when dealing with Sherlock’s ego, replies: “You’re not a magnet. And I sure as hell am not a fork.” 

Thus I, too, want to establish the fact that I’m not a fork. You can’t magnetize me. Don’t even try.

The Foe Part

A friend, who seemed sincere when she said this, told me that she wanted to change something about her behavior so that she’d have more free time.

I was surprised BUT I am one to help others when they decide they want to change. To be clear I don’t believe I need to fix people, yet will help you fix yourself when you’re ready to do so. Think of me as your personal cheerleader.

A few weeks later I see this friend and compliment her on how she has changed herself, how she has followed through on doing that which she told me she wanted to do in order to have less stress in her busy life.

Welp, she lays into me for mentioning she was doing things differently now: things she told me she didn’t want to do anymore.

This was her idea, remember?

She got on her high horse and lectured me about how her well established M.O. was what she was known for and no way would she ever change it for fear of not being known for it.

This was slightly unhinged thinking— and a complete 180º from what she’d confided in me a few weeks earlier.

Obviously at this point I had a decision to make: do I remind her of what she told me about how she wanted to change? Or do I let the conversation drop knowing the more I say, the more she’ll think of me as her foe.

Thus I let the conversation drop, realizing that being a cheerleader for some people is a sure way of irritating them.

Go figure, huh?

~ • ~

SO I’M BACK 

WHAT’S NEW WITH YOU?

TELL ALL IN THE COMMENTS BELOW

I NEED TO KNOW!

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Because You Asked: This Is How I Decide What To Write About In My Personal Blog

/ Ally Bean / 266 Comments

EARLY THE OTHER MORNING the 6:30 a.m. temp was 71º F and sitting outside in nature with my morning mug of coffee was my plan. It was too nice outside to not take advantage of it.

I told Z-D, I’m going to go outside and look at the moon I can’t see.

I sauntered outside onto the deck and plopped down on a chair. I looked up into the sky where a few wandering clouds obscured the bright waning gibbous moon, making the scene look indistinct and otherworldly.

I liked it.

• • •

Once upon a time a light-hearted blogger named KizzyLou created a blogging club for laid-back bloggers. She made personalized membership cards for everyone. This is mine.

• • •

THUS WHILE BASKING IN the hazy moonlight I began to contemplate what I could write about next on ye olde bloggy. I was feeling woo-woo in the moment, allowing my mind to attend to whatever floated into it.

Point of fact, I usually have an idea about what I’ll be talking about before I sit down to write it. I rarely do stream of consciousness posts wherein my unedited disjointed thoughts spill out. Instead I lean into thinking beforehand about what specifically I’ll be going on about, then sit down and write – edit – rewrite – edit – edit some more – then publish.

Don’t bore us, get to the chorus!

[The subtext of how I write everything here.]

Of course as a blogger who primarily writes a character-driven blog the foregoing makes sense. I adore reading plot-driven blogs, which seem to be more the done thing now, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable telling y’all everything I do in a linear Dear Diary approach to personal blogging.

You would yawn.

Instead I allow what happens within me to be the catalyst for blog posts creating what has been described as an old-fashioned newspaper Lifestyle Column approach to personal blogging.

[More information on the difference between plot-driven versus character-driven HERE.]

• • •

Currently WordPress explains who writes & edits this blog as a team of one— meaning I’m chief cook and bottle washer.

• • •

HENCE I SHOW UP to my blog ready to answer the question “What up Buttercup?” not with the exact details of my daily life, but with my subjective thoughts & feelings gleaned, then noted, whilst living my midwest suburban life.

Thoughts that I hope are not stupid, tedious, or pedantic.

Because those, my little moonbeams, are my nagging fears as a personal blogger who’s been writing a blog for decades now— and who would have thought I’d have lasted this long‽

QUESTIONS OF THE DAY

If you write a personal blog, do you generally favor a plot-driven or character-driven approach to your blog?

How do you decide what you’ll write about next?

What worries you about how your blog posts will be received? Do you have any small nagging fears like I do? Or maybe some large ones I haven’t thought of?

Any other questions you’d like to ask me about personal blogging?

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