Waynesville author uses humor to close the gender gap
Rine covers topics such as marriage, parenthood, aging, stress management and living in the moment. His advice is generously seasoned with wit and his quick-wittedness. She describes how she had to deal with health issues from an early age and how that experience deepened her sense of what really matters.
Essay titles provide hints as to what’s in store; the light heart tackles serious subjects. Here is an example: “good news: marriage is easy when you’re not stupid; bad news: we are all idiots. Here’s another: “Being naked in public has brought me closer to God.”
His ruminations on aging are spot on. She looks at how our society puts so much pressure on women and their looks. Many men navigate life without such concerns while women spend billions on products whose “ads are loaded with women who have angelic expressions and puffy hair gazing into the distance as they delicately put a finger on their face and pucker their lips, implying the cream exempts them from the natural aging process.
She shares this discovery; that women themselves create a lot of pressure on aging and how they look, that most men don’t focus on that at all: “actually, most of the men I’ve asked want very little; so that we are happy and confident with ourselves, so that we can all have a good time.
The book is aimed at female readers, but it also contains a lot of valuable material for men. If we men seek to better understand what women care about, how they think, and what makes them happy, there is a storehouse of such ideas in these pages.
Rine’s humor is the saving grace that makes this book special. She says she sobbed in front of a television program while her husband sat impassively next to her, munching on popcorn. She turns to him: “Do you ever feel anything?” The husband keeps snacking. “Did you even hear me?” He finally answers: “what?” Truly priceless.
Vick Mickunas of Yellow Springs interviews the authors every Saturday at 7 a.m. and Sundays at 10:30 a.m. on WYSO-FM (91.3). For more information, visit www.wyso.org/programs/book-nook. Contact him at vick@vickmickunas.com.
