Introducing a sateric, secular humanist take on life, the universe and everything. Plus, solutions?
Hi. I’m Toni Petniunas, a person who does a lot of inappropriate and inadvisable things on a whim and then writes and produces videos about them, hopefully for your amusement and edification.
I’m that most terrifying of beings – a leftist, nothin’-to-lose boomer woman who actually loves and roots for young people, the planet, and the poor – which is pretty much 99% of everyone right now. Retired, I finally have the time to distill my long, random life experience into – if not wisdom, at least tidbits of info you can use – and maybe just say stuff that will make you snort your soda through your nose. (In my day, we snorted other things through our noses, but that’s a story for the future.)
I have a lot of experience and hard-earned empathy to call on. Even if I haven’t led a rational life, it has been broad. You might say I’m a broad, broad who has been abroad.
I’ve been a poor, bullied Pentacostal child in small town Illinois, an atheist tween, a popular, penniless, over-sexed teen living on a farm in Wisconsin, a decades-long Hollywood writer/producer, a battered woman, a brand strategist, a single working mom, a horse trainer, an English teacher in China, a language teacher to international immigrants, a home repair maven, a dyslexic book author, and now I’m a retired wilderness rehabber tucked away in the most racist yet visually stunning part of California. And what am I going to say about that? We shall see.
You can’t really talk about people until you’ve traveled, and I’ve jumped in with both feet and little else. I don’t do it the normal “reservationy” way. I just grab a bag and go. Have you ever been totally lost in a remote Chinese village, although you don’t speak the national language – and neither does your cab driver? Hoisted yourself over the fence surrounding the Acropolis to see the sunrise or climbed an Egyptian pyramid at dawn? (Note: These events occurred years apart. I’m not really that much of a morning person, but I have discovered that a great way to get over a hangover is a nice, bracing infraction of international law.)
I have done all these things, and remember them fondly, though I have to admit I’m not sure how I get myself into these sketchy situations. Bizarre experiences just seem to follow me around like the tiny pet rooster who used to tap at my bedroom door every morning begging to come in, which is, in itself, one must admit, kind of odd. His name was Harry, and I bought him from a guy who said he was a show chicken, whatever that means. I mean, Harry was the show chicken, not the salesman. The salesman didn’t even have hair, let alone feathers. He could never have earned the title of show chicken without an elaborate feather toupee, and you know judges see right through that sort of thing.
A hawk got Harry, who was, in fact, not hairy at all, but rather feathery as I just mentioned. RIP Harry. RIP.
So, perspective? I think I’ve got it, and I want to share it.
Please, follow, read, subscribe and come back monthly to learn about my latest doomed-from-the-start projects, experience encounters with peculiar people, and ideas about how we can fix the latest messes. Or, for the short versions, go to my YouTube channel YouTube@SubstituteGranny
You can also get my latest book, I Spy China: Irreverent Insights From An Ex-Expat. Buy the Kindle version for only $2.99
