I’m thinking about undergarments.

Lest you think that’s peculiar, I’m a writer, working on a historical novel. And thinking about what my characters wear.

More about the undies later. Let’s talk about what goes over them.

My long-running Jeri Howard series is contemporary, set in the present day. Jeri is a private investigator. I was a woman in my thirties when I began the series, but I’m aging faster than Jeri is. As an investigator, Jeri wears comfortable clothing, usually pants, though in Where the Bodies Are Buried, she dresses up in a business suit and low heels to go undercover as a legal secretary.

Most often she wears comfortable shoes, since she may need to walk distances as she tails a suspect on a city street. She certainly doesn’t want to stand out in a crowd when she has to duck into a doorway or a coffee shop to avoid being seen. In Cold Trail, she hikes over the hills in a regional park, following a lead.

So, Jeri dresses a lot like I do. I favor casual and comfortable. My wardrobe consists of a lot of T-shirts and stretchy pants. As I write this, my feet are ensconced in warm comfy slippers.

I’ve never felt the need to detail Jeri’s undergarments, though I do mention at one point that she sleeps in an oversize T-shirt.

Then I started a new series, set in the early 1950s, featuring Jill McLeod, a Zephyrette on the California Zephyr, the sleek streamliner train that ran between San Francisco and Chicago from 1949-1970. The current Amtrak version is a successor to that passenger train. Jill is a train hostess, the only female crew member. Her job is to walk through the train from time to time, keeping an eye on the passengers and what they need. While she’s on duty, Jill wears a uniform. It’s teal blue, with a skirt and jacket worn over a white shirt, and a military-style cap. When Jill is off-duty, however, she dresses in the styles common at that time. It’s the era of full skirts and dresses with waists, and Jill’s hair is styled in the popular poodle cut.

Speaking of undies, that was the era of girdles and bullet bras. I’ve never written about Jill’s undergarments, but in one book I have her climbing into her berth in a pair of comfortable pajamas.

On to the historical novel—and more about undies. The book I’m working on is set in the late 1870s. I am currently obsessed with researching what people wore. I bought a book called Clothing Through American History: The Civil War through the Gilded Age, 1861-1899. I found a sidebar titled “The Layers of a Proper Lady’s Toilette.” It describes nine layers and 25 pounds of clothing to make up the proper undies for a lady, and goes from stockings to drawers, to chemise, petticoat and corset. We won’t even talk about the damn bustle.

How in the hell did women function when confined in this cage of fabric and metal? I suspect we could have another blog post on how women’s fashions interfered with their lives as well as their movement. And not just in the nineteenth century, and earlier. Remember when it was scandalous for women to wear pants? And when many women, my mother included, strapped themselves into girdles?

We will draw a veil over those bell bottoms I wore, just about the same time I bought those platform heels and fell through a door. Jeri would never do that, at least I don’t think so.

I’m not sure the protagonist in my historical novel wears all that clothing, though. Things were different on the western frontier, where farm wives sewed weights into the hems of their skirts to keep them from blowing up and showing off their undergarments. In the late nineteenth century, women did in fact wear split or divided skirts for riding horses, something I’ve eagerly adopted for my protagonist, since she’s traveling in the first part of the novel, sometimes on a wagon seat and sometimes astride her own horse.

I haven’t decided what to do about her undies. She’s independent enough to push against societal norms. Will that extend to foregoing a corset? I guess I’ll find out.

I’m working on a historical novel set in Colorado and New Mexico in 1877-1878. The book, based in part on real events, is one I’ve been wanting to write for years. I’ve done a lot of plotting, planning, research and thinking about it, as I weave together fact and fiction.

My protagonist, Catriona, is the daughter of an officer in the frontier Army. I’ve gotten to know her well, though on occasion she surprises me. She’s resourceful and independent, as a young woman must be following her father from fort to fort. But she’s also constrained by the strictures of the times and the restrictions put on young unmarried women. She’s particularly annoyed by officers’ wives who keep trying to find her husbands among the unmarried officers.

There’s a secondary character named Martha, who has become more important. She’s every bit as resourceful and independent as Catriona, with a far different back story, though the two women have things in common. They are both young, unmarried, and seeking their own way in the world.

Martha is African American, born enslaved on a plantation in Missouri, five years before the start of the Civil War. How does she get from a Missouri plantation to a frontier fort in Colorado in September 1877? How does she travel? How does she support herself along the way?

Domestic service comes to mind. Martha can cook and clean, and look after children. While doing research, I discovered that that servants were in high demand at frontier forts. An officer’s wife would write to an employment agency and hire a young woman to help out around the house. The maid would arrive and quickly get a marriage proposal from a homesteader or a soldier.

Martha could also be a laundress. The Army employed women who spent their days on what was called Suds Row, washing all those blue wool uniforms. These women were often Black as well as White, and frequently older laundresses were the wives of higher-ranking enlisted soldiers. And Martha can sew–she’s very good with needle and thread. Maybe somewhere along the line she’ll become a dressmaker.

So, Martha has skills and resources, enough to hire on with a family that’s moving out west. How do I bring Catriona and Martha together at that fort? There is a point at which their back stories intersect, and it has to do with the frontier regulars, as the post Civil War Indian-fighting Army was known.

After the Civil War the Army shrank to a fraction of its wartime size. Officers who had higher rank while commanding volunteer troops during the war found themselves stepping back in rank when commissioned in the regular Army. For example, George Armstrong Custer was a brigadier general commanding volunteers during the Civil War. When the war was over, he was commissioned as a lieutenant colonel in the regular Army, sent off to fight the Plains Indians. We know how that ended at the Little Big Horn.

After the war, promotion was slow. It could take years for an officer to advance. Black troops, many of them former slaves who volunteered to fight for the Union, also joined the regulars and became known as Buffalo Soldiers. Some White officers, with the prejudices of the day, didn’t want to command them. The Army then provided incentives. Officers who agreed to command Buffalo Soldiers got faster rates of promotion.

So, there is the intersection. Martha’s brother is a Buffalo Soldier, Catriona’s father is his commanding officer.

I had a back story in mind for Martha, but it’s currently taking a few detours. She has a mind of her own and other ideas about where she came from and how she got here. She’s taking me in a different direction, and I am paying attention to that, researching her, getting inside her head to see who she is and how she wound up in my story.

It’s a fascinating journey for Martha—and for me. I haven’t figured it out yet, but I’m getting there. I’m doing my research, happily burrowing down rabbit holes to find answers to questions. With this book, my rabbit holes include life in the post-Civil War Army, Buffalo Soldiers, the Indian Wars, especially related to the Mescalero Apache tribe, and women in the trans-Mississippi west.

I find inspiration for Martha’s story in the colorful history of Black women in the west. Such as Stagecoach Mary Fields, who owned cafes, took in laundry, looked after children—and used a stagecoach to deliver mail in Montana. From all reports, she packed a wallop and didn’t suffer fools gladly. She also like baseball and gardening. She impressed a young Montana boy named Gary Cooper, who met her when he was a child and talked about her years later.

Then there was Cathay Williams. She was from Missouri, too. Born a slave, she worked as an Army cook and laundress. When the war was over, she enlisted in the regulars, under the name of William Cathay. She served for three years as a Buffalo Soldier with the 38th Infantry. When a post surgeon discovered she was a woman, she was honorably discharged and went on to work as a cook at Fort Union, NM.

There’s a song lyric I think of a lot. From the musical Follies by Stephen Sondheim—it’s called “I’m Still Here.”

In the lyrics, a character reviews the hills and valleys of her life. With equal parts humor, bravado, triumph and bittersweet, she declares that she made it through all of last year.

That’s what I feel like on this New Year’s Day. Particularly since 2023 has been one for the books. The year was far more dramatic and eventful for me than I would have liked. Lots of hills and valleys. One of the ups was the publication of The Things We Keep in March. The 14^th Jeri Howard novel was my 20^th book and that’s quite a milestone. Hey, call it a mountain.

As the year progressed, I had my share of downs—a computer crash and the loss of a book I was working on, followed by my mother’s passing, then the condo flood. But another up—I finally took that trip to Greece I’d been contemplating for several years, after taking an art history course. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Climbed all the way to the top of the Acropolis, marveled at the remnants of ancient civilizations in Delphi, Corinth, Mycenae, Crete and Akrotiri on Santorini. I ate delicious food. Olives, especially Greek olives. And the scenery! Lots of hills and valleys there.

A year of ups and downs may hold true for you as well.

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. Haven’t for years. I prefer to think of the new year as a new page in the journal, where I can write dreams, aspirations, and list the things I’m grateful for.

It’s also a time when I make year-end donations to various charities, my way of making the world a better place in the new year. For the most part I keep it local—the food bank, Meals on Wheels, the animal shelter, and the San Francisco Chronicle’s Season of Sharing Fund.

Things that happened in 2023 will affect what happens in 2024, and that can be good as well as bad. The past is always an influence. For me, this is a time to let go of the bad things that happened last year, the things that can clutter up my life and impede my progress. It’s time to consider the possibilities of what comes next.

So here comes a year of possibilities. New Year’s Eve will be a quiet evening at home with a favorite movie, surrounded by my feline foursome. New Year’s Day will bring a celebratory brunch with friends of long standing. After that, I’ll take down the Christmas decorations and work on my book.

Happy New Year to all of you and all the best for 2024.

“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug.

That’s the first line from the 1868 classic Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. It makes me think about this time of year. We’re heading from Thanksgiving to the holiday season—Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa, and a host of other holidays. Plus birthdays. Always birthdays. It’s definitely gift-giving season.

To a certain extent, I’m with Jo. Christmas means presents, among other things. But I’m at that age where I don’t need any more stuff. I’m valiantly trying to get rid of stuff.

Please, no more socks. How many pairs of socks can one person use? Over the past year or so I went through the sock drawer—and the scarf drawer and the jewelry. The local thrift store, which benefits the local animal shelter, got plenty of donations.

And clothes. It’s difficult to buy clothes for another person, though I’m a sucker for a T-shirt with a catchy saying. Did I mention the T-shirt drawer? See thrift store, above.

I’m also retired. I confess that I wear the same clothes over and over. After all, it’s just me and these cats, hanging out at home, writing. I do spiff up when I go out, though. I put on shoes. That counts. That reminds me of a sweatshirt I once gave my father for Christmas. It said: “I’m retired. This is as dressed up as I get.”

Getting back to gifts. Books are much appreciated and I have been known to give the title and author of the desired book when asked for suggestions. My mother was of the opinion that I already had way too many books so she never would give them to me as gifts.

I’ve come to the conclusion that at this stage of life, giving people things they can eat is a really good idea. There are several people on my gift list who like chocolate, so that always works. I have a friend who loves fruitcake, a substance she can take and I will gladly leave. My brother is fond of oysters in any form, so tins of smoked oysters find their way into his Christmas stocking. I make wonderful pumpkin bread and people on my gift list are always pleased to get a loaf.

If you’re as old as I am, perhaps you remember Geritol commercials. Geritol was and is a vitamin supplement (it’s still on the market!). In early TV commercials it was promoted as a cure for “iron poor, tired blood.” The commercial I’m thinking of, from the 1970s, features a woman saying, “We’ve got so much to be thankful for. We’ve got our health and when you’ve got your health, you’ve got just about everything.”

It was hokey back then. These days, I see the truth in the statement. That’s one of the Christmas presents I already have. I am in good health, despite occasional twinges and familiarity with ibuprofen and Tylenol. I have a roof over my head, a warm bed, kitties to cuddle and books to read. I have time to write and lots of ideas to write about. And memories of all sorts, the good outweighing the bad.

Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents. They’re already there, under the tree and all around me.

Bad luck comes in threes, right? You’ve heard that one. Where does that saying come from?

In a post back in 2017, the website Folklore Thursday looked at the origins of what it called the superstition of threes.

For example: “Three strikes of a match.” That originates from wartime. The bad luck of “three strikes of a match” comes from trench warfare. If a match burns long enough for three men to light cigarettes, that’s enough time to be spotted by the enemy, pinpoint the position, and launch an attack.

But what about the other half of the equation? Consider the phrase, “third time’s a charm.”

Three is a familiar pattern and maybe if we put a limit on those bad things, we can see that the run of bad luck will end. It’s one small way to gain control of our lives in unpredictable times.

And there’s another familiar phrase to consider: What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I’ll go with that one.

When I started writing this blog post, I figured I’d had my three bad things for 2023. But the universe had another surprise in store for me.

To recap: In July, it was the computer/hard drive/cloud storage meltdown. I lost the book I was working on, as well as notes for several others. I had to start the book all over. I am still working to pull the story out of my head. At least it’s in my head. Despite all the claims for the benefits of cloud storage, it certainly didn’t wind up in the cloud.

In August, my 99-year-old mother came to the end of her life. I’d been a long-distance caregiver for years. I hoped that we could see her celebrate her 100^th birthday, but that was not to be. At the start of what I figured would be a two-week trip, I thought I’d see her through the hospital stay and rehab, then she’d go home and get along as before, with more local caregiving assistance. I didn’t think I’d be planning a memorial service. Those two weeks lengthened into four.

September brought the condo flood. It was just after midnight when I woke up, thinking it was raining. It wasn’t, at least not outside. I got up to investigate and discovered water pouring from the light fixtures in the kitchen and dining room, courtesy of a pipe under the upstairs neighbors’ sink. They were unaware of the situation until I pounded on their door. They managed to stop the flow and helped me mop up water, using nearly every towel I had. Then came the water mitigation crews with their industrial-sized dehumidifiers and high-speed fans. All that noise for nearly two weeks. The cats were freaked out and my stress level went through the roof.

Weeks later, I’m still dealing with the fallout. The carpet went away, leaving me with bare concrete floors. Many of my belongings were packed into boxes. Those boxes, and much of the furniture, were picked up and moved to storage. Water in the ceilings and walls meant the sheetrock had to be cut open, those big dehumidifiers set so they would dry out the wood. Next step is sheetrock repairs and painting. Then I can think about new flooring. Before that happens, though, the remainder of my belongings must be packed up and put in storage.

Life in the construction zone was put on hold in October, for my long-planned and much-anticipated trip to Greece. Which I thoroughly enjoyed. I climbed to the top of the Acropolis, and back down again. I went to Delphi and saw the Temple of Apollo. I saw beautiful scenery and ancient sites in the Peloponnese, Crete and Santorini. And ate lots of wonderful food.

All in all, the trip of a lifetime. Except for the part about testing positive for COVID-19. That was definitely not on the itinerary.

I’d had all the boosters. I like to think I was careful. But . . . The tour company protocols said I could not sightsee or eat meals with the group. However, that didn’t prevent me from sightseeing on my own. I particularly wanted to see the archeological excavations at Akrotiri on Santorini. After all, I’d come that far and spent a good deal of money on the trip. I wasn’t going to miss a significant archeological site that ranks with Pompeii. Not able to travel on the tour bus? I wore a mask and took a taxi.

I’m home now, testing negative, back to the construction zone. Neither the cats nor the gremlins made repairs in my absence.

Three, or four, bad things. Are they bad? Maybe it’s how I look at them. Challenges, and I’ve had more than my share this year. Dealing with these challenges has made it more difficult for me to write. It takes concentration to write fiction, to organize and pull those thoughts and ideas out of my head. That’s hard to do with all the chaos I’ve been experiencing. It has certainly made it more difficult for me to get ideas out of my head and into the computer.

That computer meltdown and losing the first draft of the book—I hope that the book I’m working on now will be even better. As for the flood and the resulting construction zone—well, I was thinking about replacing the carpet anyway. Just not right now. And the trip to Greece, COVID-19 or not, I came away with ideas for two books.

Besides, there’s something wonderful about reading Mary Stewart’s classic My Brother Michael, which is set in Delphi, after having been to Delphi. As I reread the book, I could see the terrain of Mount Parnassus—because I’d just been there.

And that book has one of the best first lines ever written: “Nothing ever happens to me.”