Review: Malled: My Unintentional Career in Retail by Caitlin Kelly

Let's face it...in most areas of the United States, the economy has tanked. Everyone is scrambling for a job, and it's really difficult if you're "over-educated."
Kelly, a journalist for several publications, but on the staff of The New York Daily News, had relied not only on the steady employment she had at that newspaper, but also freelanced. However, as many who write know, freelancing, unless you've already got superb credentials, doesn't pay that well.
So, to help meet expenses, Kelly decided to try working at a department store which was opening in a local shopping mall. The wages were near minimum wage, and that didn't cover much when part of your earnings were required for parking. (Yes, employees had to pay to park at the shopping mall.)
      There were parts of her book to which I can relate. She mentioned working at a pharmacy as a teen, as did I. Low wages despite education, or being overly educated, check, same here. While I only paid for parking at some jobs briefly, it still was something I consider unfair.
     While I have never worked in a clothing store as Kelly has, I know how rude and demanding some customers can be, how children who aren't supervised by parents (something I've noticed is increasingly the case) can wander off, cause messes, possible injuries to customers by running wildly through stores. So those were parts of Kelly's book I could nod my head in agreement. As I could also agree with having worked with immature co-workers, and that's not just related to age.
   One thing Kelly admits about herself is that she has a great deal of confidence and ability to confront in most situations. Alas, that rarely is my modus operandi.
   My current job often requires confrontation, but it's more of a therapeutic tool in the situation, not one meant to be tied with etiquette.
   I enjoyed the book, and recommend it to those who really need to find out what it is like to walk in someone else's shoes, particularly those who are trying to work in retail without becoming indifferent or rude, a difficult task that Kelly admits in her book, especially when customers are indifferent to treating the salesperson like another human being. It's a lesson in learning how to be respectful, no matter what your educational or economic status in life is at this time. It can always change, given the uncertainties of life.

   

Book Review: History of a Suicide

Suicide is not a cheerful topic, yet it sometimes needs to be addressed. The belief among many therapists is that if you don't talk about suicidal feelings, you're more likely to follow through with the action, even if unsuccessful. Of course, that's also not saying it will prevent the suicide from being repeated or ultimately lethal.

Yesterday, there was a news story about a gentleman who had attempted suicides on numerous occasions, but something had prevented it. He was spotted by someone, put under observation, given medication, and every thing that could or should have prevented his suicide had been done, short of locking him in a non-lethal room for the rest of his life. In one suicidal attempt, his legs were damaged, but he remained alive, though needing artificial limbs.

Writers and artists tend to have a high rate of suicide, noted psychotherapist Kay Redfield Jamison in her book, Touched With Fire, which examines the lives of several writers and artists who ended their lives due to inner turmoil.

In fact the biting wit of writer Dorothy Parker expressed such ideas of suicide in several of her poems, the  most noted being Resume':

Résumé

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

But in Jill Bialosky's book about her sister, History of a Suicide: my sister's unfinished life, Bialosky tells the psychic pain (some refer to it as psychic ache) of her younger sister, Kim. Without retelling the story entirely, Kim had been in pain for some time, which was not easily pinpointed. Kim's suicide at the age of twenty-one, left a void in those she left behind who had tried to help her, most notably, her sister. Bialosky has sought for over two decades to understand why her sister chose suicide over life, and expresses the pain and guilt of those left behind after the untimely death of a loved ones in situations where there is no clear answer, while she gains insight and shares it with the reader.

Review: Faith Interrupted by Eric Lax

  Something about the title of the book by Eric Lax intrigued me: Faith Interrupted: A Spiritual Journey and browsing a blurb about it piqued my interest further. So I bought a copy of the book to see what it was about.
  Like me, Lax is the adult child of an Episcopal priest. Besides a few differences related to gender, regional placements during childhood and adulthood, our stories intersect. He makes an observational comment with which I can identify. "For all my childhood, it was as if faith were part of my DNA, determining but unseen." But in many ways Lax's DNA and mine diverge, despite we both had grown up, literally, in the Episcopal Church.
 Lax's father had been an Episcopal priest for as long as Eric had been alive. My father did not become a member of the clergy until attending a theological seminary when I was in second grade, after he'd been in the U.S.Army Air Corps during World War II, and had been an automobile mechanic for many years. I can still recall my father's standard black lunch box carried by many blue collar workers back then, and the grease and oil under his fingernails when he came home from work, removing it with the rough texture of bars of Lava soap.
  Lax writes about his memorization of many parts of the Episcopal services within the Book of Common Prayer, the book of worship adapted from the Anglican prayerbook used by the Church of England.
 But Lax also recalls his time as an acolyte, something girls weren't allowed to do until I was nearly out of high school, and often that factor was left to the discretion of the parish clergy, which my father, being on the traditional, conservative side, was a bit slower to introduce.
 As a counterbalance more serious than the gender of acolytes, Lax recalls his decision to become a conscientious objector to the war raging in Vietnam, which was a real issue with males of my generation at that time because of the military draft system in place then. As a female, I never would be faced with such a hard decision. I don't want to say what happened in Lax's life as he made his way through his own spiritual decisions, because I would give away a large section of the book, but I know he and I both traveled our own spiritual journeys, again sometimes intersecting, other times diverging.
  Even if you aren't the child of a member of the clergy (be it Christian, Jewish, Muslim on Hindu...even non-denominational) if you've ever been on a search within yourself, especially trying to get in touch with the spiritual side, I recommend this book.