Tag Archives: life

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Cannot Bear copy PEOPLE WILL ALWAYS LOOK FOR A REASON to simply dislike you — no matter how good, kind, or generous you try to be.

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They’ll dislike you for your better hair, better skin, better legs, better nose, better profile, better voice, better nails, better eyes, better ears, or better caboose.

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They’ll dislike you for being better educated, better read, better off, better dressed, better able, or better informed.

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They’ll dislike you for living in a better neighborhood, better house with a better lawn, or better garden, better car in the driveway, better job to go to, or better office with a better window and better view from a better chair.

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They’ll dislike you for having a better phone, better computer, better luck, better seats at better events, or a better chance of obtaining a better life with better people.

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They’ll dislike you for having better parents, better siblings, better relatives, or a better childhood.

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They’ll dislike you for your better marriage, better love life, better friends, better boss, better colleagues, better connections, better finances, or better health.

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They’ll dislike you for being a better dancer, better singer, better writer, better cook, better artist, or better lover.

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They’ll dislike you for being better at sports, at games, or always getting the better of them with your better sense of humor.

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The point is — there will always be people who will dislike you in some way, shape, form or fashion because, in their estimation, you’ve got it so much better.

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So, stop beating yourself up, or selling yourself short for not being liked.

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Frankly?

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You should know better!

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Marguerite Quantaine is an essayist, author, and animal rescue activist.

Her latest book of narratives, Seriously, Mom, you didn’t know?, and her highly acclaimed novel, Imogene’s Eloise: Inspired by a true love story are available now on Amazon and in bookstores nationwide. You are urged to LOOK INSIDE for a try-before-you-buy FREE READ of the first 3 chapters on Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Marguerite+Quantaine&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

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I’m A 9th Generation American Homosexual

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Front Cover 4 FB Mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, nieces, lovers, friends. With a public declaration on page one, this candid chronicle reveals how the thoughts and emotional conquests of women who love women differ instinctively from those of their parents and the male dominant heterosexual ideologies of a patriarch society.

Through lyrically warmed words engendering levity and benevolence these forty-nine relatable narratives shed insight on the simple dignity of an endangered female culture vanishing-by-assimilation into an age of artificial equality.

Spanning the course of 70 years, each story embraces a different kind of love and loss that bears witness to women who triumphed in spite of the tokenism shown by both straight society, and the preponderance of recorded gay history that virtually ignores the female perspective of people and events.

There’s never been a colored, a Jew, a Democrat, a Yankee, a queer, or a woman as Mayor of this town and there never will be! Page 167 • Entire worlds exist of just two people in love. Page 78 • Life is a silver lining for those of us willing to scrape the surface of adversity. Page 198 • So let’s stop telling kids that bullies are a schoolroom problem graduation solves, or law enforcement can control, or Congress can legislate against. Page 35 • Sometimes life is a sleepwalk in which we see everything clearly and deny it. Page 147 • I never danced on a grave, but I did steal something from the dead, once. Page 143 • Our existence evolves through exchanges, most of it involving how we choose to spend our time in pursuit of people, places, or things on which we place the greatest value. Page 15 • Eighty days after Bobby Kennedy kissed me, he was killed. Page 111 • I wonder if any other daughter remembers the first time she made her mother cry. Page 183 • There was this dog we loved and lost on Christmas morning, 1951. It changed everything. Page 95 • Back then, those of us in love with another woman conducted our lives without a need for labels or social acceptance. Page 13 • I want every woman to fall in love with the person who has fallen in love with her. Page 63 • There sat a black cat yowling through quivering whiskers. Page 47 • Because I didn’t know that Ann had been told I was queer, and I didn’t know Ann told all our mutual friends her mother said I was queer, and I didn’t know her mother told the parents of mutual friends I was queer, and I didn’t know certain teachers were warned of the same. Page 68 • But I don’t think he understands that most of us don’t want to be enslaved by the duplicities of straight society. Page 176 • et cetera

Seriously, Mom, you didn’t know?

by Marguerite Quantaine

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Available on Amazon and in bookstores nationwide.

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FOR RELEASE ON KINDLE MAY 13, 2019

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TWENTY-FOUR SEVEN

C H R I S T M A S T I D E

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A Merry Christmas
Cleone’s favorite holiday song was Joy To The World directed by the Philharmonic Orchestra and sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. She’d begin playing it as a daybreak reveille on December 12th and continued through the morning of her birthday, December 27th. We were reminded of the fifteen day musical salute while driving Elizabeth’s mother back to Arkansas in November 1990.
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“How come I don’t remember this tradition, Mom?”

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“You’re never home for the holidays more than a day or two, Elizabeth Ann. Besides, your daddy and I only began it after you left home.”

During those long gone 30 years, Elizabeth’s father died and Cleone remarried several times. As a southern lady born and bred in Montgomery, Alabama, she was raised to believe a woman’s life wasn’t complete without a man in hand. Her current husband, Bill, was confined to a nursing home, diagnosed with violent hysterical dementia. He hadn’t recognized her (or anyone) for six months and never would again, but that didn’t stop Cleone from visiting him daily, ignoring his foul-mouthed curses and dodging food flung in her direction.

We promised to stay with her through Thanksgiving, but those plans changed after she asked me to sort through stacks of personal papers to determine if any needed keeping.

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The first item of interest I came across was Bill’s membership in a local white supremacist group. He kept propaganda, recruitment paraphernalia and a loaded .38 in his desk drawer next to a box of hollow point bullets. I immediately disposed of everything burnable and buried the gun in his asparagus garden. Other discoveries were as serious.
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(more…)

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THE ABOVE EXCERPT IS FROM:
Seriously, Mom, you didn’t know?
by Marguerite Quantaine © Copyright 2019

Paperback & Kindle
Available on Amazon and in bookstores nationwide.

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Happy-Dance Occurrences

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Swift's Pride Soap

I NEVER LEAVE MY FINGERPRINTS on any surface other than pants and shirts, not necessarily my own. Call it obsessive compulsive disorder (because that’s what it is), expediency is key to me cleaning my hands. If something foreign gets on one, anyone standing near me can expect a spontaneous pat on the back.
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A compulsion to keep my hands clean has been with me since kindergarten when I refused to finger-paint without a brush. Chaos erupted when all the kids wanted one. It christened ‘fastidious’ as my Star of David to bear (personally and professionally) ever since.
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As an art and antiques columnist for a string of east coast trade papers during the late 70’s and early 80’s, I was commissioned to do an article on 19th century Commonplace Books. These oversize tomes were maintained by women in lieu of journals, decorated with pressed flowers, calling cards, idioms, autographs, photographs, news clippings, and exquisite chromolithographed die-cuts of animals, birds, bouquets, angels, hands, hearts and holiday images — no doubt the forerunner to modern day scrapbooking.
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In hopes of gaining a personal perspective, I tried keeping a Commonplace Book, but failed miserably. At the time I claimed it was because I feared damaging the vintage die-cuts I’d collected. But truth be told? Elmer’s Glue-All did me in.
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After several frustrating attempts, an editor suggested I settle for substituting one daily commonplace occurrence of joy, instead. I never actually completed the assignment, but I am still keeping the book.
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These are randomly selected happy-dance (commonplace) occurrences.
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September 22, 1996
It’s Sunday and still pouring sheets of rain, as it was when we went to pick up the papers and I spotted a poor old dog lying hurt in the gutter at the edge of the Methodist church parking lot. It enraged me! The mere thought that, even though the parking lot was packed with worshiper’s cars, there wasn’t an indication anyone had stopped to help that poor dog. I loudly denounced the depraved indifference of people in general (and this group in particular) as I jumped out into the deluge, only to discover the dog was dead and drown to boot. I make no apologies for the blubbering that overcame me as I dialed 911. They promised to send an officer immediately. In the interim, we dashed home (4 blocks) to get a clean, dry burial blanket to wrap the dog in, and returned just as animal control pulled up. After conversing briefly with the officer — a kind and sympathetic man who recognized (even through the blinding rain) how distraught I was. I gave him the blanket before I kneeled down into wastewater and petted the mongrel, apologizing for the cruelty of mankind, and blessing it’s soul and spirit, asking that I might be the best of it. Between sobbing and the downpour I was pretty much waterlogged by then, making it a struggle to get up before motioning to the officer that it was time. As he leaned over to drape the blanket, the mutt jumped up and ran away.
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June 19, 2000
Before heading back to Michigan today, my mom hung a pair of her underwear on the pink room’s doorknob to dry, along with specific instructions. “Leave them there because I have plenty of panties at home and I’ll know right where to find them on my next visit.”
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———– TO CONTINUE ————
THE ABOVE ESSAY REPRESENTS AN EXCERPT FROM:
Seriously, Mom, you didn’t Know?
by Marguerite Quantaine © Copyright © 2019
NOW ON AMAZON & AVAILABLE IN BOOKSTORES NATIONWIDE
You are urged to LOOK INSIDE on Amazon for a try-before-you-buy FREE READ of the first 3 chapters.

Find Me On Amazon • Friend Me On Facebook • Follow Me On Twitter

Marguerite Quantaine is an essayist, author, and animal rescue activist.
Happy-Dance Occurrences © 6.3.18
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I value your opinion and appreciate you for sharing this essay with others. Please select LEAVE A REPLY by clicking below the headline to express your thoughts on this post.
I’m all eyes and heart.
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IMOGENE’S ELOISE : Inspired by a true story by Marguerite Quantaine is available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle. PLEASE DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK before selecting the Look Inside option over the cover illustration to read the first few chapters for FREE.
~

A Joy To Stand The Test Of Time

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While individuals of a certain age are asked for their secret to longevity, couples remaining together for decades are urged to reveal their recipe for happiness. And even though both invitations are staged before cameras producing edited soundbites, the one thing participants agree on out of earshot of the press is that the quality of time is the essence of both.

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After learning that 60% of society is younger than age 50, we realized we’ve been in love longer than the majority of Americans have been alive. (Egad, did I just type that out loud?)

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No matter. The fact remains that the quality of joyful longevity depends on a continuous curve following life as the lesson of the day and — like history — whatever isn’t learned is doomed to be repeated with someone else.

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Here are 48 things we’ve learned in 48 years of being in love.

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1. Sound sleep requires laughter lastly.

2. The favored parent is emulated, eventually.

3. Lose at fault-finding.

4. Compliment a meal before adding salt.

5. Whatever is collected will someday be hoarded.

6. Think romantically.

7. Please and thank you are bff’s.

8. Holding hands while arguing is a hearing aid.

9. Listen with your entire body, inside and out.

10. Fight rhymes with flight.

11. Neither caress less, nor roar more.

…and more

https://www.amazon.com/Seriously-Mom-you-didnt-know-ebook/dp/B07R95DP4V/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?keywords=Marguerite+quantaine&qid=1557274594&s=gateway&sr=8-1-fkmrnull
You are urged to LOOK INSIDE on Amazon for a try-before-you-buy FREE READ of the first 3 chapters.

Find Me On Amazon • Friend Me On Facebook • Follow Me On Twitter
.
# # #
.
Marguerite Quantaine is an essayist, author, and animal rescue activist.
A Joy To Stand The Test Of Time © 9.26.18
.
I value your opinion and appreciate you for sharing this essay with others.
Please select LEAVE A REPLY by clicking below the headline
to express your thoughts on this post.
I’m all eyes and heart.
.
IMOGENE’S ELOISE : Inspired by a true story by Marguerite Quantaine is available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle. PLEASE DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK before selecting the Look Inside option over the cover illustration to read the first few chapters for FREE.

Miss Edna’s Heartifacts

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I never danced on a grave, but did steal something from the dead, once. I spied it, pried it loose, flattened it against the belly beneath my blouse and walked away without contrition.

It happened one sultry late-summer day when ocher leaves are as omnipresent as the sun a half-hour before high noon. I felt myself liquefying in line while waiting my turn to take a number.

“Who was she?” I asked the fidgeter in front of me.

“Nobody,” he said.

“Everyone is somebody,” I suggested.

“Name was Miss Edna,” drawled the clerk recording the details off my driver’s license. “You be biddin’ on the house?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Cuz it hasta be moved. Otherwise, it’ll be bulldozed in two weeks time. Land ain’t fer sale. Yer number seventy-six. Next?”

The house was one of those classic Cracker shacks built on a farm axed out of a forest that encroachment slaughters and sacrifices to almighty developers. Where highways supplant front yards claimed by eminent domain.

Miss Edna’s epitomized such woe, its slats of ill-fitted wood slapdashed together and embalmed in asbestos shingles that the sun blistered into coarse curls. Rust stained the ridged metal roof, inside and out. You could peer through her windows and peek through her walls.

“Did you know Miss Edna?” came a voice.

I turned to see a wisp of a girl, all blond and bowlegged in mismatched plaids and stripes, with dangling plastic beads being balanced on broken fingernails.

“No, I didn’t. Did you?”

“Of her, mostly,” she conceded, evading my eyes as she spoke in halting speech as broken as her spirit. “Mom died birthing her. Dad made her pay for it ‘til he croaked.”

“Never married?” I asked.

She sighed. “Eloped on horseback to the forest. Honeymooned, camped down by the Silver River. But the old man hunted them with dogs. Beat the boy bloody. Strapped his broken body to a horse and jest whipped it on away.”

“Dead?”

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I’m all eyes and heart.

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Memories by Marguerite Quantaine

Tag Archives: life

THIS IS A RECORDING. (BEEP!)

I’m A 9th Generation American Homosexual

TWENTY-FOUR SEVEN

C H R I S T M A S T I D E

Happy-Dance Occurrences

A Joy To Stand The Test Of Time

Miss Edna’s Heartifacts