November

It's Thursday now, two days after the election, and I still can hardly believe what happened on Tuesday. The lack of shrieking and crying about voter fraud from Trump and the Republicans is a little unsettling but for now I'm just going to look forward to January and the possibility of consequences for 47 and his henchmen.

*****

I think that Abdul al-Sayed calling JD Vance "Habibi” was my favorite thing this week. Second favorite thing was learning that soon to be former Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith blocked Scott Colom’s nomination to the Federal bench, thus freeing him to run for her Senate seat. She done lost her damn mind.


*****

I feel like I missed most of October because I spent most of the month down the pre-election rabbit hole. Yesterday, I looked out my window and saw pale sunlight filtered through nearly bare trees, and I realized that it was November. I hate that darkness falls at 5:30 PM, but I love the beautiful soft light of the waning days of the year. Smack-dab in the middle of November is the most beautiful time - from say now until about Thanksgiving.


Tomorrow, we’re taking a little road trip for a college swim meet. I won’t be driving, so I can look at trees. We’re going to stay overnight after the meet. We’ll have a nice dinner, with maybe a nice glass of wine, and then maybe we’ll do something or maybe we’ll just go back to our room and flop in front of the TV in our pajamas. On Sunday morning, I’ll wake up early and drink hotel room coffee in the dark while my husband is still asleep. Then we’ll drive back home in the November sunshine, and I’ll look at the same trees again. Oh, and somewhere in there will be a college swim meet, which is one of my favorite things. It will be nice to decompress. It’s been a rocky fall.


*****

It's Saturday morning and we're on the road. An accident on 95 North between Columbia and Baltimore shut down all lanes, forcing us to take a detour but we're back on track now and should arrive at the aquatic center by 12:40. The meet starts at 1 and I hate to be late because my son always swims in the 200 medley relay, and I really love the 200 medley relay.


One thing that I love about a one night trip is that I can truly pack light. Which means that I can still pack an extra outfit and 3X as many socks and underpants as I'll actually need but it's only one night so it all still fits in a small duffel bag. I didn't even bring shoes - I'm wearing black sneakers and they'll be suitable for anywhere else we might go.


*****

I don't like winter and I don't like standard time, but I love November. If I was an artist, I would be outside every day in November, trying to capture November sunlight and November gray gloom and November mist so that I could have them all the time. But I wouldn't do any better at capturing November with paint or pastels than I do with words. Being in November is the only way to have November.


*****

That was a fun little trip. We arrived just in time, and I mean Just. In. Time. I heard “please stand for the National Anthem” just as I walked into the natatorium. The girls swam first, so I had a two-minute grace period to find a seat before the boys’ relay started.

They won the relay, and my son won the 100 breaststroke. And the Marymount boys won every single other race. It was a rampage. The competitive meets happen in the second half of the season. If you want a duel in the pool, you have to wait until January.

I don’t know why, and I won’t try to figure it out because it’s magic and you can’t figure out magic, but 3:30 on a November Saturday afternoon is the most perfect time. The meet ended just before 3:30 and we sat outside for a bit, looking at the perfect trees and sky and breathing in the perfect air. Then we checked into our hotel and had a nice cup of tea and took a nap, college football glowing on the TV as the afternoon light faded into 5:15 PM darkness.

Later, we went out to eat, and then stopped at a local spot for drinks. After just one beer, my husband started trash-talking Trump, an activity that I completely approve of, but a few gentlemen at the bar seemed to be looking at us with something of a gimlet eye. My husband’s voice is loud in any case, but he was absolutely bellowing, and I feared that we might not get out of that bar in one piece. He insisted that we stay for one more beer, and we did. I liked that we stayed put and didn’t allow ourselves to be intimidated. And we walked out of there unscathed and unbothered.


*****

Here’s what I did today: I read my book. I cleaned my house. I did yoga and took a walk. I started my Christmas shopping. I watched two episodes of “Detectorists,” which is an absolute delight. I took a nap, and woke up with late November afternoon sunlight streaming through the window. It’s 5:17 PM on Veterans’ Day. I was the only person in the house who had the day off, and it was just lovely. I’m very fond of these non-major holidays. An ordinary day, smack-dab in the middle of the week, that’s just free and unscheduled - it’s like a gift, and it’s not even my birthday.

It is my friend’s birthday, though, and we’re going out to dinner with her to celebrate. In my family, we have family-only birthday celebrations, unless it’s a major birthday; but my friend and her husband always invite friends and family out for dinner, so there will be at least 18 people at Villa Maya tonight. My friend’s birthday is almost a holiday in itself; or rather, it’s a pre-holiday. We’ve been going to her family birthday dinner for years, and it feels like a holiday lead-up event now. Veterans’ Day/Maggie’s Birthday, followed by the Patriot Invitational mid-season championship meet at George Mason University, followed by Thanksgiving. November is busy.

It might be too busy. My energy is low, and I wonder if I’m up to the festive season. Christmas shopping yesterday was supposed to be the first in a series of errands, but it did me in, and I came home at 2 o’clock. Mind you, I had already cleaned my house and exercised, but the exhaustion that came over me as I was leaving Barnes and Noble was far out of proportion to the day’s activity. Thankfully, the dinner party was not until 7:30, leaving me with the rest of the afternoon to pull myself together. This weekend is pretty solidly booked, and I might need to prioritize my commitments and see if I can drop whatever ends up at the bottom of the list. I’m going to have to pace myself for the rest of this year.


*****

And in more ways than one (the pacing myself, that is). I’m spending money like I can just get ChatGPT to generate more of it. At work, I’m taking on every project someone asks me to, and then sitting still and panicking for minutes at a time every time I look at my to-do lists. Yes, lists - plural. Am I hosting the holidays? Of course I am. Did I agree to run for another three-year term on my neighborhood association’s Board of Trustees? Of course I did. Do I still stick to my compulsive housecleaning schedule? Of course I do. Am I still cooking multi-course chef-inspired meals made up of the finest organic ingredients every day of the week? Oh absolutely not. I may be driven by a guilt-inspired sense of not ever doing enough, but it doesn’t extend to cooking every day.


*****

Well, that was interesting, wasn't it? It'd be bad enough if we had a corrupt government or an incompetent government or a flat-out evil government. We have all three. I have no idea what really happened yesterday that prompted a total ground stop, but I know that whatever Sean Duffy and Markwayne Mullin are citing as the reason is not the reason. I didn't see the press conference. I didn't need to. Maybe electing the worst, most venal, stupidest, and just plain shittiest people to run the country was not the best idea. The next two months are going to be a shambles. We should probably all buckle in. 


*****

It's Saturday morning now, the type of morning that could happen nowhere else but Maryland and no time other than mid-November. It was overcast and gray when I woke up but now there's thin golden late fall sunlight streaming through almost bare trees. The clouds are dark and dense but the sky is blue. It's a flawless day. And we're on our way to a college swim meet, which makes it even better.

*****

A perfect Saturday morning and now a perfect near-twilight late Sunday afternoon - November is just so lovely. The Saints rolled over Immaculata yesterday, and my son won all three of his individual events, with his best-ever dual meet times. Then we all went out for a late lunch together at an Asian fusion noodle place in Arlington, a place that normally has a line out the door, but we arrived at 3:00 or so, just after the lunch rush and just ahead of the dinner rush. Six of us (including my mother-in-law, who handed my son a $100 bill for winning his races; and my son’s girlfriend) sat around the table sharing dumplings and noodles and spring rolls and chili garlic edamame. I could have remained on my couch for the rest of the evening, but I went back out to see my friend’s daughter perform in her high school play. She was very good. That was a 10/10 day.


It’s not quite 5 PM , and the light is fading and the darkness is collecting in the corners of my family room. My screen and keyboard are glowing, giving me just enough light. In a moment, I’ll turn on a lamp and I’ll start making dinner. Tomorrow is Monday and I need to be in a meeting room at 0730, and who knows what else is in store for us this week. Maybe a giant cyber attack. Maybe an attack on the electrical grid. Maybe a false flag fake assassination attempt. Maybe another war. Anything is possible, and you’ll notice I didn’t use the word “or” in that list because it’s never an either-or proposition. But I still have college swim meets and dinners with family and friends and amateur theater and a house full of books and hilarious British comedy and November sunlight. That list was all “ands” too. It’s such an embarrassment of riches that I don’t even mind cooking. Not much, anyway.

Decision 2026

Today is Monday Oct 26, and I voted this morning. We have a pretty brief early voting window in Maryland - just a week. I used to like to vote on Election Day, but that’s because I used to love Election Day. 2016 and 2024 put an end to that. Now I’d rather get it done early just in case I can’t get there on Election Day for one reason or another. 

I remember the last week before the 2024 election. I was very hopeful, very optimistic. I thought Kamala Harris could win and during that beautiful first weekend of November, I thought she WOULD win. We all know what happened a few days later (well, we know the official version of what happened a few days later), and so my optimism is tempered with quite a bit of caution, and not a little cynicism. I think the Democrats will win back the House and Senate, and I also don’t think for a minute that Trump and the Republicans and their billionaire friends are going to just accept the will of the voters. It’s going to be chaotic. 

*****

It’s Tuesday Oct 27. Election Day is one week out. I’m going to write about (kind of) the election every day this week so that I have a record. 

It’s a precarious time in the United States and in the world. France is roiled by unrest. The Serbians unseated a dictator, and Lula withstood a Bolsonaro Jr. challenge in Brazil. Who knows what will happen in those countries in the wake of those elections - Brazil in particular seems shaky. The Bolsonaro family aren’t known for respecting the will of the people and the rule of law. And speaking of the rule of law, the Department of Justice is vigorously prosecuting criminals like former FBI Director James Comey and Rep Ilhan Omar and Rep LaMonica McIver, while Jared Kushner is apparently out here actually employing paid assassins, and he remains at large. These are the interesting times that the Chinese proverb warned us about. And let me tell you, interesting times are way overrated. 

We’re still waiting for the results of the Israeli elections. Trump and Putin and Netanyahu might be the top villains on the planet right now, and if one of them falls, maybe the other two won’t be far behind. Hope springs eternal. 

*****

It’s Wednesday now. Netanyahu did not win, but he did not exactly lose, either. I’m still hopeful that he will not remain as Prime Minister - I’m thinking that other parties might not be willing to join a coalition that includes him, and although I don’t know much about Israeli politics, I do know that no one party has enough support to form a government on its own. They have to build a coalition. 

Our own election is six days away and I’m just starting to realize how long those six days might be. Worse is that there’s a two-month gap between the elections and the transfer of power, and the people currently in power are going to spend those two months stirring shit up and doing the most to overturn any results that they don’t like. I can’t concentrate today, and it’s only going to get worse as the week wears on. 

*****

I went to my first Capitals game last night, and saw a pretty decisive win against the Flyers. There were anti-Ovechkin protesters outside the Capital One Arena, and they’re not wrong, I guess. And now even hockey is problematic. Putin, Trump, and Netanyahu haven’t found anything that they can’t ruin. 

When we were in Seattle, I bought one of those stupid clear plastic purses and even though I don’t like carrying an upcycled Ziploc bag, it was nice being able to carry my stuff to the Mariners game without having to stuff it all in my stupidly inadequate pockets. We went to a concert in Baltimore last week, and I remembered just in time that I had this dumb but useful little purse. Last night, I expected to sail through security at Capital One, but apparently, the little clear bag is too large (the size limit dropped from 5X7 to 4X6) and I had to either store it in a locker for $10 (the purse cost $12) or get rid of it. I took all my stupid stuff and jammed it all into my stupid pockets, and my husband took the purse. He said that he was going to put it in a locker, and I told him not to even bother, and he didn’t. Instead, he stuffed that bag down the back of his shirt, cruised past security, and handed it back to me when we got to our seats. It was awesome. 

And let me tell you that my husband is a law-abiding, rule-following, decorated police officer. If he’s sticking it to the Man, then the Man has finally gone too far. If my husband is fighting the power, then the power is fucked. 

*****

Someone - CS Lewis, probably - once said something about how mockery is a powerful weapon against the devil, because he can’t bear to be laughed at. 

It’s Friday now, the beginning of the last weekend before Election Day. Things seem to be getting crazier by the day. Trump has cancelled his weekend rally appearances, and although the conspiracy theory speculation on the reasons for this seem quite reasonable, I like to think that the heckling is getting to him. The older lady who got dragged out of a rally with both middle fingers still high in the air is my heroine. The Jonestown Massacre guy is an absolute legend. President Obama has been roasting Trump on a spit all week long, and “Shove that ballroom up your fat ass" is a battle cry for the ages. No wonder he can't take it anymore. 

“President Trump has cancelled his weekend rally appearances. He has a ballroom stuck up his ass and is seeking medical attention." Jokes like these are the reason why I will never drop social media altogether. 

*****

Saturday morning, 10 AM, and another beautiful day. We have had a run of absolutely gorgeous fall weather - a little bit warmer than normal if normal actually even exists anymore, with abundant sunshine and pale blue skies and vivid fall color on the trees and on the ground. 

It’s also Halloween. I’m giving out full-size candy bars this year. I’ve always wanted to be the full-size candy bar house. 

And it’s also three days from Election Day. I’m optimistic, but cautiously so. I well remember the beautiful weekend before the 2024 election and how on that Sunday, I was sure - only for a moment, but absolutely sure - that Kamala Harris would win. I do not want to go through that again. I don’t want to relive November 5, 2024, and so I’m keeping my optimism in check. I should try to avoid all news media this weekend, but I definitely won’t do that. Trump and his henchmen could get up to all kinds of shit this weekend, and I’d rather maintain some situational awareness. 

*****

“Miss, you’re an angel, for real” - Three Black teenage boys trick or treating at my house, choosing from the selection of full-size Hershey’s, Reese’s, Kit-Kats, Twix, Snickers, 3 Musketeers, and Milky Way. 

“Mommy, they have big candy!” - Tiny blond princess running down my driveway waving a Kit-Kat at her waiting parents. 

“You’re a legend, Mrs. P” - A gang of neighborhood swim team kids. 

*Applause* - A non-verbal Hispanic boy, probably 7 or 8 years old, prompted by his sister, probably 15 or 16, to say thank you. We all laughed together, and the girl was surprised when I insisted that she pick something for herself. “I love Reese’s!” she said. 

This is Silver Spring, where I live. Our little neighborhood of single-family houses, which was built by the Levitt Company in the 1960s, is surrounded by apartment complexes, and the kids from the apartments love to trick or treat here. And thank God, most of my neighbors are not assholes, and most of us love seeing all of the kids out together, and most of us love seeing teenagers trick-or-treating because they don’t have much time to be children. They’re all our kids, all of them, everywhere. That’s who I voted for. 

*****

Today is Monday, Election Day minus one. It was a big news weekend, with Senator Murphy's stroke followed immediately by Congresswoman Stevens’ cynical and contemptible decision to endorse Mike Rogers over Abdul al-Sayed. That's just the official news. But it's the unofficial reports that Trump is going to drop a nuke on Tehran that kept me awake way into the small hours last night. 

I'm checking news feeds and headlines every 20 minutes. It's not healthy but I can't stop myself. In some ways, this time is worse than the last time; because the last time, at least we had a peaceful interregnum and an orderly transfer of power. This time, the transition period is going to be absolutely insane, no matter who wins the election. Hopefully, if the nuke story is true, then JD Vance and the Krusty Kabinet Krew value their own lives enough that they'll invoke the 25th Amendment. I'm not ready for Armageddon. 

*****

And today is the day! It’s Election Day! It’s Shove that Ballroom Up Your Fat Ass Day! 

I’m working from home. It’s lunchtime, and I’m not hungry, so I’m writing instead. It’s been a long day so far and it’s going to be a long afternoon and evening. We won’t know a darn thing about the results of today’s election until at least 8 PM Eastern, and in some races, a winner won’t be declared until tomorrow or later. It seems a very long time to wait. 

And it’s also the first Tuesday of the month, which means that at 7:30, I will be attending our monthly neighborhood association Board meeting. My attention will be elsewhere, and my meeting notes will be a mess. We should really just cancel this meeting, but our governing documents require that we hold a meeting on the first Tuesday of the month, which means that we always have a meeting on Election Day. I’m going to suggest that we stick strictly to the agenda, keep discussion brief, and wrap this up NLT 8:15. All politics is local, but not today. 

*****

Well, that didn't work out. The sticking to the agenda and the keeping it brief part, that is. I was on that call for over an hour, and I wrote a few things in my notes that will not be transcribed for the record. 

After the meeting finally ended, I turned on the TV to watch what turned out to be very good news. I would have loved to see Angie Nixon win in Florida but other than that and a few other losses, the Democrats ran roughshod over this election. We now have a Fetterman-proof majority in the Senate in addition to the huge majority in the House, and Democratic governors in places like Iowa and Ohio and TEXAS! 

I watched returns until about midnight and then I went to bed and thought about November 5, 2024. I was up all night after that election. I fell asleep immediately last night and I didn't wake up until 5:30 this morning. 

We're not out of the woods yet. But the Trump nightmare might be coming to an end. We might have some checks and balances again. We might actually have a constitutional government again. 

Put a bird on it

I think that my husband might have finally won the battle against the bird feeder-raiding squirrels. He bought a new feeder that’s hanging outside my office window now, and the squirrels can’t seem to get near the seed for two reasons - one, it is designed with a mechanism that closes the openings when anything heavier than a bird tries to sit on the perch; and two, this feeder is very popular with the birds. It has four perches, and it’s not at all unusual to see all four of them occupied, with more birds waiting impatiently on the fence. I’m guessing that a bird left a five-star Yelp review, and then all of the other birds thought “what the heck, we might as well try it,” and here we are. I have my own private aviary, and I’m not mad about it. 

*****

In “Put a Bird on It,” one of the best-known Portlandia sketches, a Portland shop owner puts birds on everything she can’t sell, and all of a sudden, the merchandise is flying off the shelves. No one wants to buy that $25 canvas tote bag? Put a bird on it! Handmade coffee mugs gathering dust? Put birds on them! Framed art collection isn’t attracting attention? Hang up some framed bird prints, and you’ll have the trendiest gallery in town! It’s brilliant because it’s so simple and so true. People like birds. 

*****

Did you know that original editions of John James Audubon's The Birds of America sell for anywhere from $1 million to $10 million? This fact came up in a conversation among several characters on a TV show, and I did my own fact-checking research. And astonishingly, it is true. That is Gutenberg Bible money. That is original Shakespeare folio money. And to think that I own this treasure myself. 

Well, I own a miniature paperback replica that cost $15 new and that is probably worth about one dollar now, but the point is that it’s still really beautiful and it’s a treasure to me. I’m glad that someone thought to democratize Audubon and make him available to the 99%. Everyone should have access to beauty. 

Still, full disclosure: If I ever come into possession of one of the few extant copies of the real thing, I’m going to sell. I have bills to pay, you know? 

*****

My sister hates birds. Well it’s really more of a phobia than hatred. She doesn’t mind knowing that birds are flying about and conducting their business in the same world that she lives in, but she doesn’t want them anywhere near her. My sister would never have a bird feeder within 500 feet of her house. But other than my sister and a small percentage of the population who share her anti-bird sentiment, most people love birds (and more as we get older if the jokes about middle-aged people and birdwatching are based on truth, which they are). They are adorably shaped, with beautiful color patterns and markings, and they’re very entertaining to watch. Birds always look neat and tidy, no matter the conditions or circumstances. And of course, they can fly. Compared to birds, humans are infinitely capable, but we do envy any creature that can fly. 

*****

My husband just came in from doing some yard work. “We have a whole bunch of crows out there,” he said, “or maybe they’re ravens.” 

“They’re crows,” I said. “Someone once explained to me how to tell them apart: If you see a black bird and you ask yourself ‘Hmm, is that a crow or a raven?’ then it’s a crow. If you see a black bird and you ask yourself ‘Holy shit, what the fuck is that?’ then it’s a raven.”

*****

If we were to rank the creatures that humans love best, birds would probably come in fourth place, behind dogs, cats, and horses. We like to be with dogs and cats and horses, but except for a few exceptions (parakeets and canaries and budgerigars) we mostly like to just look at birds. And while cats and dogs and horses are all depicted in art, only birds have a whole genre of art dedicated to them. It could be a t-shirt or a tote bag or a handmade coffee cup - all you have to do is put a bird on it, and it’s art. 

Live, laugh, read - wait, why did I come into this room?

Yesterday, I was part of a social media conversation about adult ADHD and how to cope with it. I read through the comments to see if anyone had any good ideas, and I added my own: the Pomodoro Method. I think I’ve written about it before. It’s very simple. You set a timer for 25 minutes during which you focus on one task and one task only. When the 25 minutes is up,  you can take a break, check your email, stretch, or do whatever. 

The Pomodoro Method is named after those cute little old-fashioned kitchen timers that are shaped like tomatoes. I don’t have a pomodoro timer, but I have an app on my phone. The reason why you might want to use an app rather than your phone clock’s timer is that the app will track your 25-minute intervals (called “pomodoros”) so you can set goals and track your progress. 

It’s a remarkably effective tool, and I haven’t used it in some time, because something distracted me and I forgot about it. And every word that follows that second comma is the reason for almost everything I do or fail to do. 

*****

I’m reading Kristin Kobes DuMez’s Live, Laugh, Love: The Secret History of White Christian Women and the World They Made. It’s not as quick and easy a read as her first book, Jesus and John Wayne, but it’s very well researched. I didn’t think that I needed to know anything more about the worst of white American Christianity, but Kobes DuMez makes connections and traces trends and influencers and events back to their origin in a way that makes me question so much of what I thought I knew. Complementarianism and inerrancy are pretty much made-up concepts, and just as certain white Christian men used those made-up concepts to exert coercive control over women and everyone else in their charge, white Christian women used those same made-up concepts to curry favor with men, gain power via proximity, and keep other women in their place. “The world they made” is not an exaggeration. So much of American life from the 1950s to the present day is built on a foundation of white supremacy, misogyny, free market absolutism. It makes sense that the people who benefit from that foundation would reimagine Christianity to strengthen it. 

*****

I finished the book last night, and I was glad to have it behind me. The thesis is sound and the facts to support it are solid, but it’s not especially well written - not in the sense of writing quality, because Kobes DuMez is a very good writer, but in the sense of storytelling. There are places here and there where she tries to help the reader understand a subject and her story, but most of it reads as a recitation of facts - this happened, and then this happened, and here is how these two events are connected. It reminds me of a high school textbook. I give it a B. 

What does this have to do with adult ADHD? Well nothing - that’s the point. Seriously, though, back in the day, I’d have finished a book of this length in a day or so, but this one took me over a week. Clearly I need to get back on the pomodoro.   

A single consequence

“Ukraine has gone too far.” - Elon Musk

Telling, isn’t it? Russia bombs residential districts of Kyiv almost nightly. They destroyed Mariupol and Bucha and Oleshky. They kidnap Ukrainian children. But none of that is “too far.” Human life: expendable. Data centers: Inviolable. Well, not that Elon cares what NPCs like me have to say, but for the record, I hope they’re just getting started. I hope they destroy every data center in Russia, and every diesel refinery too. 

*****

And once again, cancer has come for the wrong person. I’m hoping for a full recovery for Pope Leo. I’m also hoping that the most evil people in the world will someday have the day that they deserve; but at this point, I don’t even need consequences, plural. I will settle for one single consequence for any one of them. And Kimberly Guilfoyle getting fired does not constitute a consequence - she’s small potatoes (in the words of the President describing dead service members). 

Of course, Guilfoyle could be a consequence all on her own. She can’t be happy about being yet another female sacrificial lamb for this Administration, nor about the President casually saying “I think she used to date my son.” In fact, she definitely DID date Trump’s son, and she spent a lot of time with the Trump family, and I bet she knows some things that they’d prefer that we didn’t know. Burn it down, Kim. What do you have to lose?

*****

Things move so fast around here, don't they? I was literally just talking about female sacrificial lambs in the Trump administration, and I could still talk about Trump administration female sacrificial lambs, but it would be another one altogether. As they say on the Internet, Katie Zacharia didn't even last a half Scaramucci. Ostensibly, she was asked to resign (fired) because she claimed to be an attorney. And maybe that actually is the reason. Never mind the ridiculousness of the White House either not knowing that she isn't a lawyer or knowing that she isn't but was claiming that she is and hiring her anyway. The thing is that the Press Secretary doesn't need to be a lawyer. She was just very bad at the job and should never have been appointed in the first place. Just like Shane Gillis is very bad at being a comedian and he should never have had an opportunity to call women whores on Saturday Night Live. 

Gosh, we're getting greater every day. Thank goodness we're no longer living in a woke DEI hellscape. 

*****

It’s Saturday afternoon, and I’m in between activities. This morning, I went to a protest, dropped off a skirt for alterations, and spent $203 on groceries that would have cost about $125 a year ago. Now I’m sitting in my family room with the late afternoon October sunlight filtering through the trees and through my window. 4:30 on Saturday afternoon is the most autumnal time of day. 

The protest was at a different location than my usual spot, which is near a shopping center, which I suspect might have pressured the No Kings organizers to keep the sign-waving crazies away from their property. The new location, the sidewalk in front of a church on New Hampshire Avenue, was just as good.  The church allowed us to park in their parking lot, and there was lots of traffic. As usual, most of the drivers honked and waved at us and as usual, we mocked the few who flipped us the bird. I was out for about an hour and then I walked back to my very conveniently parked car and went about my day. 

*****

Last year, I ran into a neighbor at a protest. “It’s kind of a boring protest, isn’t it,” she said. “I was thinking there would be more music and dancing.” The music and dancing part was ridiculous but she wasn't wrong that a peaceful protest in the suburbs is kind of boring. You hold up your little sign and you wave to supporters as they drive by, and you go home, and the conditions you were protesting still exist. But eventually, we’ll wear them down. And even if we don’t, I’ll know that I tried to do something. 

Election Days

I’m the secretary for our neighborhood association (God help me) and our monthly meeting is tonight. I used to take notes on my computer during the meeting, but I switched to handwritten notes, because I found myself transcribing every spoken word (I type fast) and I’d end up with ten pages of Godforsaken drivel to condense. Now I just hand write the important points and transcribe it all. You’d think that this would be harder, but you would be wrong. It’s much easier. 

*****

During the summer, we meet in person, and transition to Zoom in the fall. Last night was our first Zoom meeting since spring, and I forgot how much I hate trying to take notes during a Zoom meeting. There are too many voices talking all at once, and it’s hard to keep track of who’s speaking when I’m looking at a dozen little video thumbnails. It’s very overstimulating. It’s a lot. 

Our annual election takes place next month, and I’m one of the three members up for re-election. We serve three-year terms, and assuming that I win, I’ll have served for nine years at the end of this term. Thanks to multiple mergers and acquisitions and force reductions, I’ve never even worked in the same paid job for nine years. And so this next term will probably be my last. Nine years is enough, I think. 

*****

It’s Thursday morning and I’m working at home, only I’m not working, I’m writing because my computer is once again behaving like an absolute jerk. It’s updating now, again, which is good because that computer needs a little bit of quiet time to think about its life choices. It needs to reflect. I’ve been told by the IT powers that be that I am “on the list” for a replacement computer. But I have absolutely no idea how long the list is, or if I’m at the top or bottom of the list. I don’t even know if there IS a list. They might have made that up. 

*****

Every October, our neighborhood association sends out a mailing, with instructions for electing the trustees (that is what we are - we are a Board of Trustees, not a Board of Directors), an official ballot, a SASE for people to mail their ballots, a draft budget for the coming year, proposed changes to the governing documents, etc. It is my job to write the cover letter, assemble the rest of the materials, and send everything out to the 800 or so households in the association. Thankfully, we outsource the worst part - the envelope-stuffing, the stamping and addressing, and the actual physical mailing - to a mailing house. I’d lose my mind if I had to collate 800 stacks of paper and then stuff them into little envelopes. 

*****

It’s Saturday now. I woke up this morning with a very bad headache that got worse and worse. It’s better now, but not gone altogether. The annual mailing and meeting minutes might have to wait until tomorrow. My head still hurts enough that I can’t quite think straight. Or maybe I can’t think straight because of all of this (gesturing wildly at everything). It’s hard to even joke about it anymore. The government is shooting people in their cars while their five-year-old children scream in terror from the back seat, and we’re now one of maybe four countries in the whole world that holds public executions. No wonder my head hurts. The human body wasn’t designed for 24/7 shock and outrage. 

*****

Our next Board meeting happens to fall on Election Day, and two days later, we’ll hold our annual meeting and Board election. I’m only worried about one of these two elections, and it’s not the one in which I am a candidate. I’m pretty popular in this neighborhood and I’m going to win in a landslide. Of course, I’m also running unopposed. And even if I did have a viable opponent, I would not really care if I won or not. In fact, I’d probably vote against myself, just so I wouldn’t have to write meeting minutes anymore. 

The point being that my neighborhood election is completely lacking in peril, while the real election is absolutely fraught with it. The Republicans could hold on to the House and the Senate. Polls have been wrong before, as anyone who suffered through 2016 and 2024 can tell you. But that’s not my biggest worry. My biggest worry is that this Administration is not going to allow the outcome of this election to be determined by voters. It's about to get perilous. 

Lingua Franca

I have never had a talent for foreign languages. I speak English, and that’s pretty much it, other than a smattering of French and Spanish. My husband is Korean and I can’t speak the language other than a few key words and phrases, but I can usually figure out what people are saying. 

But there are lots more languages than French and Spanish and Korean and even English. There’s lingo, jargon, in-jokes, terms of art - and I excel at all of them. I pick up on acronyms and initialisms and slang terms really quickly and from there, I can usually get the feel of a new place or a new group of people. When I’m in a new environment, I can learn the language, so to speak, and I can pick up on visual and auditory clues to puzzle out the place and the people in it. It’s a useful skill to have. 

Sometimes, though, just when I think I know a place and its language inside and out, I get pulled up short and reminded that I’m still relatively new and that I don’t know quite as much as I thought I did. It’s the beginning of the fiscal year and the discussion in almost every meeting revolves around contracts and grants and funding mechanisms and burn rates. Having been in and around federal government offices for a long time, I can keep up with that discourse reasonably well (though do not ask me to provide a recap afterward). But there seem to be a ton of new acronyms and catch phrases with which I am not yet familiar. 

Luckily, that part of the meeting had nothing to do with me, and no one would ever expect any input from me on budget or financial matters. I zoned out until we moved on to other topics. Still, it’s troubling to feel so out of my depth. I’ll pay attention next time. 

*****

The language of football is one that you’d think I’d have mastered by now, considering that my husband and younger son are avid fans, and my house is all football all the time every Sunday from September to February. I have not, however, mastered the language of football, but that is not because I couldn’t if I wanted to. I can hold up my end of any discussion of baseball or NHL hockey, and don’t get me started about college swimming. But I look at that gridiron and the goal posts (is that what they’re called), and its mysteries remain obscured to me. I have no idea where the line of scrimmage is, and although I know that “safety” has two different meanings, I don’t know either of them. 

But who cares, because everyone is home and watching football, and it’s fun just having everyone here. The Commanders are my family’s team, and they’re playing in London, and my husband and both sons and my son’s girlfriend are all here having breakfast and watching the game, which started at 9:30 our time. We made eggs and bacon and pancakes and fruit salad and biscuits, and everyone filled their plates and ate in front of the TV. Right now, I’m sitting outside next to a space heater with raindrops tapping on the metal roof of our outdoor pavilion, having a nice latte before I go back inside to clean up the kitchen and then hang out in front of the game with my people. You don’t have to be fluent in the language to enjoy the culture, is the way I look at it. 

Gnat-like

You’re 7% there. Please keep your computer on.

OK, Mr. Computer, I’ll do that, and I’ll write all about it while I wait. 

I’m working right now, only I’m not really working because I’m waiting for updates to install. I snoozed the restart notification this morning, but snoozing is all you can do. That update is coming for you whether you want it or not. You can put it off, but you can’t escape. The spinning wheel will not be denied. 

*****

It’s 15 minutes later, and I’m still waiting, and it’s a welcome break because I’m distracted and can’t concentrate. Inability to concentrate has always been a problem for me, but it’s so much worse than usual right now. I can keep my mind on one thing for five to seven minutes at a time. No matter what I am doing, I’m thinking about something else that I should be doing. I certainly don’t envy a gnat, but I do covet its attention span. 

Yes, it is that bad. 

And yet, I still accomplish stuff. I even won an award at work this week and while I would not say that I win awards all the time, I win them enough to know that my confidence in my work is not misplaced. I have a lot of satisfied customers. 

I'm making the gnat-like attention span work in my favor. I always have many projects underway; some big and some small, and some immediate and others more long-term. On any given day, I work on ten different things, at a minimum. When I can’t focus, I take a breath and shift to another project. I do that multiple times a day. My goal is always to finish at least one thing every day - doesn’t matter if it’s a big thing or a small thing, as long as I can cross it off the list. I crossed two things off the list today, and I made enough progress on some other things that my list-crossing prospects for tomorrow look very good too. I should be a LinkedIn influencer. No wonder I’m out here winning awards. 

Paper and ink

I’m keeping up my daily writing habit, but for the last few days, I’ve been using a notebook and pen rather than a keyboard and a screen. The flow is different. It’s a nice change, but a temporary change, because I can’t sustain legible handwriting for any length of time. 

*****

I don’t even know what I’ll do with the pages that I’m writing by hand - I suppose I could transcribe them here. But I probably won’t. I’ll just see how long it takes me to fill that notebook, and then I’ll put it away and probably never pick it up again. I save all of my old notebooks and very seldom refer to them again. 

Saving those notebooks is probably a waste of space, but writing by hand is definitely not a waste of time. Words come to me quite easily when I have a pen in my hand, and the physical act of scratching that pen across the paper is oddly therapeutic. My brain is making connections, and my powers of concentration are improving a tiny bit. And it’s just fun. Notebooks are among my favorite things on earth, and it’s nice to use them for their intended purpose and not just as decorative objects. Plus if I write in a notebook every day, I’ll go through notebooks even faster, giving me a perfectly valid and legitimate reason to shop for more notebooks. 

*****

It’s Saturday morning now. The sun is shining and my husband is cutting the grass and I’m sitting here typing on my keyboard. I would not characterize what I am doing right now as writing, but it’s words on a page, at least. That’s all I have today. 

*****

Later in the day, I filled several notebook pages with whatever was in my head at the moment. I don’t even remember. I’m very depressed, and I don’t have much to say. That won’t stop me from writing (and at considerable length) but I don’t expect anything that I write in the next few days to be worth reading. 

Why am I depressed? Oh who knows. It’s recurring depression combined with the change of season combined with empty nest syndrome combined with exhaustion combined with all of this (gesturing wildly at everything). Even when I’m doing something, I feel like I can’t get off the couch. It’s a figurative couch, but I’m glued to it, even when I’m in motion. 

*****

My poor mother-in-law had a migraine last night, and the pain was so bad that she was in tears. My husband was working and my sister-in-law was out with her kids and I was home doing not much of anything so I changed out of the pajamas that I had just changed into, and I drove over to her house. She was in the kitchen, standing over the sink, so I got her to lie down and I put a cool compress over her forehead and eyes. I held her hand in the darkened room and got her to breathe deeply. After 15 minutes, she was well enough to sit up again. I got her some ibuprofen and water. My sister-in-law came a bit later, with more ibuprofen (she was running low) and some melatonin to help her sleep and some Gatorade. After some Gatorade and another cool compress and some quiet time, my MIL felt much better and she ordered us to go home. I’m glad we were able to help. The headache would have gone away on its own, but the presence of two people who love her - the fact that we showed up - made it bearable. And I felt much better too. It’s nice to be needed. 

*****

I have a lot of ideas now. There are lots of words in my head demanding to get out in front of the reading public, but they’re not quite ready. I’ll get my notebook and my Bic 4-color pen, and I’ll see what happens, and I’ll report back later. 

Five copies for your mother

I was on my way home from work one day last week, and “Cover of the Rolling Stone” came on the radio. I hadn't heard that silly song in years - decades, maybe. “What a fun song,” I thought, singing along happily. I remembered the chorus but not the verses, so “We got all kinds of blue-eyed teenage groupies/who’ll do anything we say” came as kind of a rude shock. 

I mean, what? You can’t even sing along with the radio without some predatory man being a predatory man. No wonder I’m like this. No wonder we’re all fucking like this. 

But on one thing, Dr. Hook was right: people do like to see their pictures in print. I write and edit the medical school’s annual report, and we overdid the print order this year, so I made a list of all of the students who appear in the report and emailed them to see if they’d like a copy, and the response was quite enthusiastic. I’ll have that box of annual reports out of my hair in absolutely no time. I'll give them all five copies for their mothers. 

25 and 61

Do you remember the first time that someone mentioned a thing that happened 25 years ago and you realize that you actually remember the thing and that you are now a person whose memory spans a quarter-century? Did you feel old? 

When I was growing up, our parents and aunts and uncles and grandparents would tell us that they remembered exactly where they were and what they were doing on November 22, 1963 when they learned that President Kennedy had been shot and killed. I heard about it so often that it took on the quality of myth. When other kids my age went through their ancient Greece and Egypt phases, I had a Kennedy assassination phase. The assassination happened about two years before I was born, and even though I couldn’t claim any memory of November 22, 1963, it was still a fixed point in history for me, a clearly marked line between a before and after. I suppose that 9/11 is that for young people, even the ones who weren’t born yet and who have no real memory of the day itself. 

I remember 9/11 and lots of other things that happened 25 years ago very vividly, of course, because I was a 36-year-old working mother and not a child just old enough to retain memories. This is when you can call yourself old. 

*****

And I am old. Wednesday was my birthday. I turned 61. There’s no particular significance to that number, but I do think that it marks the official descent into old age. 60 was the end of the 50s, which a lot of extremely optimistic people still consider middle age (I mean, do the math, right?) 61 is the first step toward 70, and 70 is old by anyone’s calendar. People can say that 60 is the new 50 (I don’t say that, but some people do) but 70 is just the old 70. 

The word “descent” might leave you with the impression that I’m sad about my age, but I’m not. I actually really like the peaceful, settled quality of early old age. And I’m sure that there are still (God willing) lots of interesting things ahead. 

*****

I know it seems a little solipsistic to tie the 9/11 25th anniversary to my birthday, but both things happened during the same week. And memories are all about us, anyway. Unless we are one of the few people who happen to have been there or who lost friends or family members, we talk about the 9/11 attacks in personal terms. We talk about where we were and what we were doing and who we were with. And our children listen and wonder what it was really like. 

Winter is coming, eventually

As terrible as things generally are in 2026, one little nice thing is that the pool water temperature was just about perfect for six weeks or so. Even after rainstorms or cool nights, the water retained its warmth. I didn’t have to brace myself before entering the water, and I didn’t have to swim desperately fast (in relative terms) to recover from the initial cold shock. The water was soft and temperate. It was perfect. 

It couldn’t last forever, and it didn’t, which is fine because I actually like swimming in chilly water. It’s fun to be the person who’s willing to get in the water when it’s cold. It makes you feel alive. Still, I miss the warm water. 

*****

The pool closes in less than a week. I’m on the clock. I went swimming after work on Monday night, with the skies cloudy and a little threatening. Although it had been hot, the pool was quiet when I checked in at 6. With school back in session, the neighborhood kids had gone home to have dinner and do their homework. The other swimmers were exactly the people I expected to see; people like me who love outdoor swimming and who grab every available chance to get in the water.  Every time I run into one of my fellow pool denizens, we talk about how fast the summer has gone and how much we’ll miss the pool and how we’re all planning to swim every day between now and Labor Day. We’ll be having that same conversation all week long. And of course we’ll talk about the thing that outdoor swimmers always talk about - water temperature. Today, the water was cold. 

*****

Tuesday was a genuinely hot day, midsummer hot, almost as hot as 4th of July weekend. I had to attend a neighborhood board meeting but the meeting didn’t start until 7:30, giving me plenty of time to swim after work. I was tired and out of sorts and overheated, but a 30-minute lap swim was just the thing. I could have stayed in the pool all evening, but I went to the meeting. 

It’s Wednesday night, and I’d planned to swim tonight, too. The weather forecast predicted another very hot and sunny day, very much like Tuesday. Then at 3 o’clock or so, the sky darkened very suddenly, and we had several hours of on-and-off thunderstorms. But I pivoted. I got my weekly old lady resupply trip out of the way so that I can swim on Thursday, which is expected to be hot and sunny. 

Of course, today was supposed to be bright and sunny too, wasn’t it? Weather forecasts are just guesses now. Walk outside - that is your forecast. 

*****

For example - the Thursday to Friday overnight storms in the DMV with what was apparently the most frequent lightning in a storm in years, along with torrential rain and 70 MPH winds in some places. Literally no one saw this coming, including the people who are supposed to see things like this coming. And oddly enough, I slept through the whole thing. I never sleep through monster storms. I never sleep through anything, but I slept through the weather event of the summer, which is fine by me. 

Friday was clear and sunny until about 4:30 when the sky started to darken just a tiny bit. I finished work a few minutes early and then put my suit on. I no sooner said the words “I’m going to try to beat the weather,” when the thunder started. Foiled again. Which brings us to Saturday. It’s officially Labor Day weekend, my least favorite holiday of the year. Barring any weather surprises, I plan to swim today and tomorrow and Monday. I’m trying not to think about how much I’ll miss the pool when it closes. 

*****

And I’ll miss it so much. It’s Sunday now, a beautiful sunny late summer morning, and I’m sitting outside listening to cicadas and watching birds. It’s almost completely still. The only way I can tell that there’s a slight breeze is that a few tree branches are rustling, ever so slightly. 

We’re having a cookout today, not for Labor Day, but to celebrate my husband’s birthday, which was on Friday. When I asked him what he wanted to do for his birthday, he said that the only thing he wanted to do was stay home and grill steaks and corn and hang around outside, so that’s what we’re doing. I’ll slip away to swim at some point. My niece and nephew (10 and 13, respectively) will be here so they can come and swim with me. They’re good company. 

I had declared a Trump embargo for the weekend, but after a friend showed me a picture of Trump’s new hairstyle, I couldn’t resist checking my social media to see the reaction. A photo captioned “They’re wearing the gophers! They’re wearing the squirrels!” made me laugh out loud, so it was worth breaking the embargo. We might be down and out right now, but funny people on the internet remain undefeated. 

*****

Well, it’s here. Today is Labor Day. Once again, it’s 10 in the morning and I’m sitting outside on my patio listening to cicadas and birdsong. It’s really perfect outside - sunny and warm but not hot and very slightly breezy. A neighbor behind me is hammering something, and someone at least a block away is mowing their grass, but otherwise it’s very quiet. 

Even though I hate Labor Day weekend, yesterday was close to a perfect day. We hung around with family all afternoon, eating and talking and half-watching baseball, and finished the day with a swim. It was a 9/10 day, with a point deducted because my younger son couldn’t be here. 

When our sons were young, we used to go to the pool at about 2 PM on Labor Day, and we stayed until the bitter end, watching all of the neighborhood kids bouncing back and forth between water polo and beaver and sharks and minnows and diving contests. At 6 or so, after the families with little kids went home, the lifeguards would take out all the lane ropes and the dividing rope marking the beginning of the deep end, and the kids would have the run of the pool with no lanes separating the two wings of the pool and no adult swim whistle to interrupt the fun. The lights would come on at 7:20 or so and the kids would play and swim frantically until the final whistle. They were pool kids and on Labor Day, pool kids squeezed every last drop of fun out of summer. 

And they still do. But I still miss seeing my own children in that mad scrum, so I don’t stay until the closing whistle anymore. I’ll go this afternoon and talk with my friends and swim my last outdoor swim of the summer, and then I’ll go home. 

*****

And that’s what I did. It’s Tuesday now and Labor Day has come and gone. I miss summer already. I missed swimming even as I was swimming yesterday. The water had gotten a bit colder after two nights of temperatures in the low 60s, but I was going to swim even if I had to crack through ice on the surface. And I did (swim, that is, not crack through ice), and it was glorious. I sat in the sun wrapped up in a towel for a few minutes, hoping to warm up enough to stay for a bit longer, and maybe swim one more time. But my teeth were chattering and the towel was wet and it was time to go home. I know that summer doesn’t technically end until the Autumnal Equinox but for me, it ends when I can no longer throw on a swimsuit, grab a towel, and jump into a pool for 30 minutes. But fall has its charms, I suppose. 

Dolly

I don’t like most country music, not even Dolly’s. “Here You Come Again” and “9 to 5” are her only songs that I crank up and sing along with, and they’re not really country songs at all. But I loved Dolly, just like everyone else with a heart and a brain. I was 14 when the movie “9 to 5” was released, and it became a big part of my education. It was a revelation to see a woman who looked and sounded like Dolly demanding respect and equality. I didn’t have any aspirations to look like Dolly - and I couldn’t have, even if I wanted to - but I loved that Dolly’s character Doralee knew that she had every right to look the way she wanted to look and that her beauty and sex appeal didn’t make her fair game for misogynist pigs in the workplace or anywhere else. That movie radicalized me. That movie rewired my brain, and it made me a lifelong Dolly fan. 

And then there was her legendary generosity. She gave her money, her time, and herself to serve and elevate people in Tennessee and around the world. We all know about the Imagination Library distributing millions of free books to children, and then more and more about Dolly’s love for humanity came out in recent months as rumors spread that she wasn’t well. Dolly paid for college for Dollywood employees - even part-time and seasonal employees. She offered cash payments to high school students who graduated, cutting the drop-out rate in her home county from over 30 percent to less than 10 percent. She gave families affected by natural disasters generous, no-strings-attached cash payments to help them meet immediate needs and rebuild their damaged homes. And there are countless stories about her kindness to everyone she encountered. 

*****

Like everyone else, I’ve watched a million Dolly video clips this week. She was so smart, and so genuine, and SO SO SO funny. How could you not love a woman who when asked if she’d had plastic surgery responded “Of course I have - it costs a lot of money to look this cheap.” In another clip, Dolly is taking questions from an audience, and a woman asks her how long it takes to do her hair. “How would I know?” Dolly laughs, “I’m never there.” Then she explains that she lacks the time and the patience to sit still for long hairstyling sessions, so she always wears a wig. Dolly never appeared in public without her full armor of beauty and glamor. 

*****

“I’d like to know exactly what this Jolene character looked like” - comment from someone on Threads about a photo of a young Dolly, who was absolutely beautiful and would have been even without the help of wigs and makeup and fashion. 

******

Herb Ross, the director of "Steel Magnolias," who was famously a jerk to actresses, tried to intimidate Dolly. When Ross wondered out lout in front of the whole cast and crew why he'd even hired Dolly, Dolly came right back with "You hired me because I'm Dolly Parton, and they hired you to make it look like I can act." Legendary for her graciousness and kindness, Dolly was still no pushover. She came across as pretty much herself in all of her acting roles, and we wouldn’t have had it any other way. As much as we love Doralee and Truvy and all of her other characters, no character was as interesting as Dolly herself, and no story was as absorbing as her real-life story. The directors who cast her were smart enough to know that we’d watch Dolly in anything. 

*****

In one of my favorite Dolly videos, Dolly appears on a talk show with Patti LaBelle, another icon of superstar glamor. Just for fun, they sing “Shortenin’ Bread” together, using their acrylic nails as percussion instruments, laughing as they sing and play. That clip is two minutes of fun, creativity, joy, and sheer musical virtuosity. Geniuses, both of them. 

That’s the thing - it’s sad that she’s no longer with us, but how lucky am I to have grown up in a century that produced Dolly and Patti LaBelle and Carol Burnett and Cher and Bruce Springsteen and Aretha Franklin and Prince and Whitney Houston and Julie Andrews and Bob Newhart and Robin Williams and Mary Tyler Moore and Mel Brooks and Paul Simon and all of the other geniuses who did so much more than entertain us. For people my age, their music, their jokes, their characters are ingrained in our DNA. American pop culture has its flaws, but when it’s good, it’s really really good. And Dolly was the best of it.