Have you heard? The youthful Gen Z term,“rizz”, was crowned 2023’s word of the year by the publishers of the Oxford English Dictionary:
What it means: For those of us who haven’t heard the term before, “rizz” is slang for “style, charm, or attractiveness” or “the ability to attract a romantic or sexual partner,” according to Oxford University Press (OUP). Struggling to describe a certain je ne sais quoi about someone’s personality? “Rizz” might be just the word you’re looking for.
How to use “rizz” in a sentence: It can be used as a noun or a verb, depending on the sentence. For example:
Noun: “They have a certain rizz about them, an effortless ability to charm someone.”
Hello, Sue.
Yep. My mom, Sue had rizz galore and she used it to keep darkness at bay. A superpower that kept onlookers engaged, curious, charmed and enthralled.
That’s Sue – smack dab in the middle of the luau pic above, circa 1971 with new-found friends – three flanking her left and three to the right. The fete in question? A Hawaiian-themed charity event thrown together in a matter of hours. My mama on a mission.
For most of her life, Sue had the capacity to create instant social networks. Given that we moved repeatedly across a ten-year stretch as I grew up, I saw firsthand how Sue could captivate. Over time, I understood how alcohol empowered and accentuated her natural charisma, but alcohol alone wouldn’t have been enough. Sue had rizz.
Brand new acquaintances wanted to follow Sue. She was funny – bordering on dangerous – and her joie de vivre was irrepressible. She glowed with an energy that drew people toward her. Sue was a party. A human hard-wired for fun and philanthropy, often mixing fundraisers with splashy soirees.
You might say Sue put the FUN in FUNdraiser. She used her loud and proud social justice voice, lobbying to create programs for disabled children. Sue was a fearless and outspoken advocate – followed and admired.
If she could pop back for a day or two, I think one of the things Sue would chuckle about would be this very blog post. (Assuming she’d still want to speak to me after she found out I wrote a book about many of her secrets.) Despite her faults and failings, my ability to see her glimmery bits, her “rizz” would delight her to no end.
Sue’s charms diminished as the swirl of mental health issues and dementia changed the trajectory of her life. I wish Sue could’ve found a path to age with grace, retaining her trademark humor without slipping into madness.
One of the first glimpses that she was losing the battle? A shuttle bus incident at her retirement home as she tried to rouse the passengers into singing “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall”. At first jovial and light but it morphed into chaos when she later hijacked the shuttle. Here’s a snippet from “Surviving Sue”:
Sue rode the shuttle a few times with Arlene to get the hang of it and other than a couple of minor gaffes where she thought Randy was just her driver – directing him to vary his route and take the residents through the McDonald’s drive-thru (her treat), her behavior was typical quirky Sue schtick, but not problematic.
Arlene and the other residents got a major giggle out of Sue, and I suspect the spotlight was a pick-me-up for her. Maybe that’s why she tried to organize a sing along at one point but misjudged the crowd with her selection of 99 bottles of beer on the wall. Too much.
“Surviving Sue” – p. 251
I love and miss Sue – despite her failings. In just two weeks’ time, my mixed-up charismatic mom would’ve celebrated her 85th birthday.
Love one other, despite our imperfections.
Yep – that’s one of the gifts that came from being Sue’s daughter. The other? Every now and then I think my sense of humor is a bit of ‘rizz residue‘ from Sue. And it makes me smile.
Vicki ❤
Thank you so much for reading. I appreciate your interest and feedback about “Surviving Sue” and I’m pleased to have great reviews on Amazon and Goodreads…and I welcome more. If you’ve enjoyed the book and my story, please pass along your positivity to a fellow reader.
Victoria Ponders 
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