I’m reading an essay in the current New Yorker aboard a plane. It’s about the latest “It” girl novelist who happens to be from County Mayo, Ireland.
Sally Rooney’s sophomore book, which will not be in the US until April, has already been short listed for the Mann Booker Prize, and it seems she can communicate in our digital language like only a twenty-something could…
The marketing tag line for her debut novel, “Conversations with Friends” was “Salinger for the Snapchat generation!”
Anyway, there I was sitting in my cramped seat and feeling offended. In an excerpt from Conversations, a teenager is at a party of thirty somethings that is “full of music and people wearing long necklaces.”
Looking down at my three, long pearl necklaces I felt immediately dated and dowdy. Even though I had strung all those tiny beads myself, and I wouldn’t mind being thirty again, I began to wonder if maybe I needed a new hobby?
“Look Look,” Ada said yesterday pointing at CNN, ” she’s not wearing a necklace!”
Ada had taught me how to string beads awhile ago, so naturally she noticed that Nancy Pelosi, surrounded by her grandchildren while being sworn in as Speaker, was NOT wearing her signature short baroque pearl necklace.
What’s up with that?
I made a note to ask Aunt KiKi what she thinks. Is jewelry so last year?
Congratulations to the new Madame Speaker! With Tony Bennett in the House, I felt like singing “I left my heart in Nashville,” or um San Francisco? What a propitious start to the new year!
A woman’s place is in the House, and the Senate, and the SCOTUS, and the Oval and…
MountainMornings 
I overheard two (young) coworkers discussing helping their aged relatives with technology and the phrase “but she’s so cute” was uttered. I shuddered. Much as I did reading your description of the long necklace. And all I can say is “UGH!”