Life and Living Archives - Brain Dumping in Retirement

He’s Different, But So What?

By Jim Bauman July 7, 2025Books and Commentary, Life and LivingDifference, Flamboyance, George Saunders, Grandfather, Kindness

It must be that George Saunders knows a lot of people and also knows much about the quirks that drive them. He gets people. Fortunately, he's bent to portraying his characters sympathetically, enough so that you can often read yourself into his stories

Regrets of a Poor Choice

By Jim Bauman May 6, 2025Life and Living, Opinions and EditorialsChoices, Consequences, Culture Clash, Grandparents, Parents, Politics

Part memoir, part discourse on American politics in 2025, part speculation. How all these themes connect in Germany, Poland, and the United States.

Difficult People You Can’t Help Loving

By Jim Bauman April 16, 2025Books and Commentary, Life and LivingBook Review, Death, Partners, Relationships, Restoration

Anne Enright's novel, The Gathering, concerns the death by suicide of the narrator's brother. The gathering refers to the mostly family mourners at the funeral. The suicide was conflicted, of course, but also described as the kind of person you search out for friendship. He reminded me also of my deceased partner.

Early Birthing and Later Consequences

By Jim Bauman April 6, 2025Books and Commentary, Life and LivingAging, Birth, Book Review, Howard Norman

An appreciation of Howard Norman's novel Come to the Window, with relevant tie ins to my own birth and disjointed trajectory into old age.

Playing a Role

By Jim Bauman March 26, 2025Life and LivingActing, Aging, Making Mistakes, Self-Criticism

The lesson learned from trying to be something I was not; that is, an actor.

Black History Month 2025

By Jim Bauman February 1, 2025Life and LivingBlack History Month

Black History Month has a half century history, since Gerald Ford inaugurated the celebration in 1976. Until 2025 the month was actively celebrated by our government. That has changed now in the emerging Trump dictatorship.

How to Be a Bully

By Jim Bauman July 2, 2024Life and LivingBullying, Politicians

Bullying is widespread, even endemic, in American society. It's a behavior that many of the powerful segments of society, including politicians, engage in.

Keep Going Or Jump Off

By Jim Bauman April 21, 2024Life and Living, Opinions and EditorialsAI, Choices, Medium, Retirement, Writing

With the advent of artificial intelligence, Medium, the writers' collective is getting a lot of writers submitting articles using AI. This article explains why I don't use AI to do my writing for me.

From “I Wish You Weren’t” To “I’m Good With It”

By Jim Bauman April 21, 2024Life and LivingAcceptance, Coming Out, Conversations, Gay Men, Mothers

A history of the long process of coming out to my mother and the reasons she had to fear accepting me.

Strong Gay Men

By Jim Bauman March 2, 2024Life and LivingDouglas Murray, Gay Men, LGBTQ, Living Authentically

Douglas Murray's book The madness of crowds is an antagonistic conservative reaction to identity politics, including gay men. This response is a consideration of why adopting a strong identity is necessary for groups to create strongly grounded individuals.

Loss and Disappointment

By Jim Bauman January 29, 2024Life and LivingComing Out, LGBTQ, Life Lessons, Relationships

When is the right time to tell someone you're gay? Two instances of when it was too late.

Becoming Different: Opening the Door to Gay Society

By Jim Bauman January 8, 2024Life and LivingAging, Gay Society, LGBTQ, Relationships

The stereotype of the gay man fated to be lonely and alone has with the gay rights movement gotten less true. There's still a gay life after 40 or at least there can be.

Talking With Strangers

By Jim Bauman December 12, 2023Life and LivingConversations, Linguistics, Making Friends, Strangers, Talking to Strangers

Making friends from strangers has never been easy. The reasons I've analyzed in my own case are tied to who I am as a personality, but also who I chose to be.

Think You’re Too Old to Start a New Language?

By Jim Bauman November 15, 2023Life and LivingAging, Fluency, Golden years, Language Learning

Learning continuously is important in aging well. Learning a language is shown to be especially beneficial.

This Is Who I Am: Why I Tell People I’m Gay Even If They Know

By Jim Bauman November 9, 2023Life and LivingEquality, Gay, Masculinity, Truth

A personal account of how and why I became comfortable with telling others, including strangers, that I'm gay.

Places To Go and Places To Be

By Jim Bauman November 1, 2023Life and LivingBarry Lopez, Fitting In, Going Home, Indigenous People

I love where I live and this is the story of how that came to be. The story is also an appreciation of one of Barry Lopez's essays about connection to place.

The Proverbial Fat Lady Is Still in Good Voice

By Jim Bauman October 16, 2023Life and LivingAging, Retirement, Staying Positive

Going from one later decade of life into another. Looking back, looking forward.

I Playacted at Being Straight. Here’s Why I Stopped.

By Jim Bauman August 20, 2023Life and LivingComing Out, Gay, Masculinity, Religion

Coming out as a gay male in the 1060's was a lonely process. This is a story about how I arrived at the decision to come out and why it was necessary.

What is it like to be an LGBTQ teenager?

By Jim Bauman August 3, 2023Life and Living, Neighborhood WatchLGBTQ, Queer Youth

Some thoughts about what it's like to be queer and young and have to contend with the false expectations the dominant society has about you.

Downsizing and Packing Up

By Jim Bauman August 1, 2023Life and LivingDave Cook, Downsizing, Moving On

What's the plan to reduce your glut of stuff after you lose your partner. Are you giving up just stuff or memories too?

Better Call Saul for LGBTQIA+ Rights

By Jim Bauman July 17, 2023Life and Living, Opinions and EditorialsACT UP, ADIS Activism, LGBTQ rights, Saul Alinsky

Saul Alinsky wrote the book on how to get what you need from your society when the powers that be don't want you to have them. He laid the groundwork for the methods that the ACT UP movement used to poke the government to respond to the AIDS epidemic in the 80's and 90's.

The Writing Life Late in Life

By Jim Bauman June 6, 2023Life and LivingAging, Citizen Journalism, Resilience, Writing Life

The story of how I came to call myself a writer and what it does for me.

Celebrating LGBTQ Resiliency in Appalachia

By Jim Bauman May 31, 2023Life and LivingLGBTQ rights, Resilience

West Virginia has historically been accepting of LGBTQ people. This article talks about an event I participated in to showcase the stories of a collection of queer individuals across the state.

LGBTQ Safe Spaces in the City and in the Country

By Jim Bauman May 31, 2023Life and LivingCountry Life, Equality, LGBTQ

A personal recollection of gay bars and a reflection on why there aren't as many of them today as there were.

Is Hoping Worth the Effort?

By Jim Bauman May 17, 2023Life and Living, Opinions and EditorialsAI, Determination, Hope, Risk Assessment

Hope is a word we typically utter with the expectation of some outcome, usually a positive outcome, but not necessarily. It’s typically triggered by some actual or imagined threat. The hope is made with the prospect of reducing that threat.

Go North Old Man

By Jim Bauman May 10, 2023Life and LivingNewfoundland, Relocating, Retirement, West Virginia

The story of how I came to be for a while, maybe not long enough, in Newfoundland.

Who Am I to You?

By Jim Bauman May 10, 2023Life and Living, Opinions and EditorialsBigotry, Labels, Naming, Politics, Psycholinguistics

There is a pervasive tendency to label people we don’t like for some reason that offends us. Many labels are pejorative, meant not just to describe, but to tar.

The Tyranny of the Minority

By Jerry Collins April 17, 2023Life and LivingMajorities, Minorities, Political Balance, Politics

Photo by Randy Fath on Unsplash How is that polls consistently show ---- sometimes by a margin of 70 to 30 --- that Americans favor stricter gun control measures such as comprehensive background checks, but there is no chance that Congress will pass stricter gun control legislation? Is it some sort of fluke? Not really. Americans consistently favor --- by…

The Morality of Dishonesty

By Jerry Collins April 17, 2023Life and LivingBigotry, Bill of Rights, Dishonesty, Don't Ask Don't Tell

Photo by Samuel Regan-Asante on Unsplash I read with interest and incredulity Father Alexander F.C. Webster’s article published in Stars & Stripes on 24 August (Chaplains in no-win situation on ‘don’t ask.”) Father Webster asked me to read the article and tell him what I think. This is what I think. Father Webster begins by asking the reader to believe…

Straight Father and Gay Son

By Jim Bauman April 17, 2023Life and LivingCatholic Church, Family, LGBTQ, Masculinity, Parenting

Fathers raise their sons with their own idea of how they will turn out. Straight fathers often don't realize their sons may be gay. This can put a strain on what it means to love and be loved.

Thwarted Ambition

By Jim Bauman April 8, 2023Life and LivingAmbition, Career Change, Choices, Disappointment, Family HIstory

The briefest history of me voluntarily or being forced to change career directions.

Gay and Out In Very Red West Virginia

By Jim Bauman April 8, 2023Life and LivingAppalachia, Equality, LGBTQ hate, Rural America, West Virginia

A positive piece about how West Virginia is not as hateful to LGBTQ people as states farther to the south.

Poet Friends

By Jim Bauman April 8, 2023Life and LivingAging, Friendship, Lynn Kernan, Poetry, Resilience

The story of me and Lynn Kernan. One a would be poet, the other an actual poet.

The Road Taken: Figuring out when, where, and why to turn

By Jim Bauman March 31, 2023Life and LivingCancer, Decisions, Old Age, Partners, Retirement

Decision points in life can come at you unexpectedly or you can plan for them. This piece relates some decisions of both kinds I made in my life.

That Awkward Feeling

By Jim Bauman March 26, 2023Life and LivingDiversity, Groupthink, Journalism, Opinion, Polarization

Political polarization weighs heavily on people who don't feel comfortable at either pole. How do you find a comfortable position on the spectrum?

Beyond Lectured

By John Splaine March 22, 2023Life and Living

(Not to be distributed or copied without permission) There is considerable evidence that learners learn best when actively engaged in meaningful activity. Yet, in many instances students are subjected to fifty or sixty-minute lectures during which they sit passively accepting words showered upon them without the learners afforded an opportunity to question or explore what is being said. Even though…

Ambition

By Jim Bauman March 15, 2023Life and LivingAmbition, Goals, Golden years, Publication, Writing

Why does a person at 78 decide to take on what is essentially a new job that they have no formal preparation for? There's got to be a reason, yes?

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From Jefferson County, WV, USA, the random thoughts, remembering, and projects of Jim Bauman, former linguist, former teacher, former citizen journalist Opinions and Editorials Published and unpublished pieces that got my blood going Read Posts Neighborhood Watch Columns from the Spirit of Jefferson Researched and published columns about the good things going on in my community Read Articles Life and…