Game 82

I thought that I didn’t care if the Capitals made the playoffs or not. The season was an uneven one at best, with an 8-game losing streak toward the end; and I thought it was fine to just let this one end quietly, and then hope for better next year. Alex Ovechkin is getting so close to breaking Wayne Gretsky’s all-time scoring record, and that makes every game fun to watch even if you don’t expect many wins. 

But then the season got down to game 82, and a very last-ditch chance for the last wildcard playoff spot. Last night’s game was do or almost-certainly die against the Flyers. Had they lost to the Flyers, there were still a few complicated “if Detroit and Pittsburgh lose” scenarios that might have opened the door to the last playoff spot, but the best thing was for them to win in any way - regulation, overtime, or shootout. And they did, against a team that was also down to the wire and also fighting to get into the playoffs. 

*****

Does anyone else agree that John Tortorella was absolutely born to coach the Philadelphia Flyers? I can’t imagine that guy doing anything other than coaching a Philadelphia sports team. Maybe he can take over the 76ers or the Eagles, too. 

*****

I’m not going to say that the game was fun to watch because it absolutely was not, especially the last period. It was stressful. It was a wracking of nerves that a person my age should not subject herself to. But all’s well that ends well. We get four more games now. The online haters are already predicting that the Rangers will sweep us in four and maybe they will. But maybe they won’t. Anything can happen in the playoffs, as the 2023 Boston Bruins can tell you. Let’s go Caps. 

Low speed

I’m WFH today even though it’s Thursday because I don’t feel well and if I was a normal and reasonable person I’d be in bed or at least on the couch napping and watching Netflix or something but instead I’m at my desk because I feel duty-bound not to take a whole sick day. I have a lot of work to do. 

MSNBC is on as background noise. I turn it off every so often but then I hear weird noises from the attic or the walls or the refrigerator, which sounds like it’s committing axe murder every time it drops a load of ice, and so then I turn it back on so that I don’t freak out at all the weird noises. Whatever is causing those weird noises is still going on, to be sure; but if I can’t hear it, then I don’t worry about it. 

OJ Simpson’s face was the first thing I saw when I turned the TV back on and I wondered for a moment if he’d confessed to the murders of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman, or if he’d been arrested again for some unrelated offense. I was actually shocked when I saw the chyron. He was 76 - not that old but not so young that his death should come as a shock. But it did come as a shock. 

A few years ago, the subject of the OJ Simpson trial came up in our house. I think it was because my husband was watching the "American Crime Story" dramatization. I told my kids, who were probably 17 and 14 at the time, that it was just not possible for me to convey exactly how big a deal the OJ arrest and trial were in 1994 and 1995; how completely that story dominated the cultural conversation. “Imagine,” I said, “if Tom Brady or LeBron James or Aaron Judge was suspected of murder, and then they tried to escape into Canada or Mexico with a posse of police cars chasing them. That’s how big a deal it was.” I think they got it, but it’s also one of those things that you had to experience first-hand. It’s a Gen X thing. These kids wouldn’t understand. 

And that’s all I have to say about OJ except that I hope that the Goldman and Brown families have found some measure of comfort and solace. I hope that OJ reconciled with God before he died. I hope that all the dead rest in peace. 

All She Lost

My life is pretty good. It’s pretty good objectively, and it’s also really good compared to the lives of many many many - most - people in the world. Five seconds’ exposure to news coverage or even social media is enough to confirm this. 

But I don’t take my good fortune for granted. Quite the opposite, in fact. I’m very well aware that a natural disaster or a terrorist attack (real or engineered) or a financial collapse (real or engineered) could upend my whole life. We could go from relative security and comfort to abject poverty in the blink of an eye. We could end up refugees. Anyone could. Sometimes when I’m feeling cynical or pessimistic (even more so than usual, that is), I think about how little power most of us have, and how few of the people who do have real power actually care about the rest of us. 

*****

A few weeks ago, I heard an NPR (I forget which program) interview with Dalal Mawad, author of All She Lost, a book about women’s experiences following the 2020 explosion in the port of Beirut. I was ashamed to realize that I barely remembered this explosion, which killed hundreds and caused a ripple effect of political and economic consequences that devastated an already-falling-apart country. 2020 was a hard year for everyone, but this was a pretty major and memorable event that I should have recalled immediately. There's no excuse for that kind of solipsism. I’m the worst sometimes. 

Anyway, I bought the book that day. It’s a series of stories based on the author’s first-person interviews with women who lost children, husbands, parents, siblings, friends, homes - who lost everything in the explosion - and who are now four years later still trying to figure out how to go on. It’s a very simple and beautiful book, but not easy to read. The book is short and the individual women’s chapters are short, but it still took me over a week to get through. 

One of the central themes that Mawad returns to over and over is the consequences of a failed state, which Lebanon essentially is now. What happens, she asks (and answers) when there are no functioning institutions; no real government to enact new laws or to enforce existing ones. One of the main functions of a good government is to protect the weak from the rampages of the strong. What happens when the weak and the strong are left to fight it out among themselves? 

Mawad knows what happens. So do I. Given the opportunity, the strong will always crush the weak - always and everywhere, without exception, without fail, 100 percent of the time. 

*****

Last week, I celebrated the failure of Ted Leonsis, whom I once rather liked but whom I now consider to be nothing more than a greedy billionaire sports owner just like the rest of them, to move my beloved Capitals from Capital One Arena in Washington DC (hence the “Washington” in Washington Capitals, Ted) to a yet-to-be-constructed multi-billion dollar retail and entertainment complex in Alexandria, VA, a place that looks close enough to DC when you’re looking at a map but that is really  kind of a nightmare to get to from Silver Spring, even if you’re taking Metro (Note: I love Metro, but I hate changing trains. If it’s not on the Red Line, it’s dead to me.) There are of course lots of Capitals fans in Virginia but it seems that most of them, except for their stupid Trumpity Trumpster of a governor, also didn’t want the team to move. Northern Virginia is already insanely congested and it certainly isn’t in any need of economic development projects. Leonsis, who had explicitly promised never to move the Capitals or the Wizards out of Washington, just wanted a new arena and like most billionaires in this country, he wanted other people to pay for what he wanted. For weeks, local media shared Leonsis talking points about how public financing of a project that will yield massive private profit is really good for everyone. This is the standard argument every time some greedy billionaire sports owner (that phrase is redundant) wants a local or state government to pay for a new arena from which he and his team will reap all of the profits. I haven’t run across a single convincing variation of this utter nonsense, and there are many variations. 

Anyway, because he’s accustomed to getting what he wants, Leonsis was blithely confident and sure that everything would go according to his plan. But it didn’t, to my great satisfaction. Of course, he ended up getting lots of money from the District of Columbia, which has more than enough other places to spend tax dollars, to stay put, and I think that he was playing both sides against one another. But I also think that the absolute refusal of Democrats in the Virginia House of Delegates to allow a vote on the bill to fund the Alexandria boondoggle was real and not a show, and I applaud those Delegates. 

The news about the Capitals’ decision to remain in DC was reported the day after the freighter Dali collided with the Baltimore Francis Scott Key Bridge, which seconds later collapsed into the Patapsco River. The ship had managed to signal mayday soon enough that MDOT was able to close the bridge to traffic, but six people - construction workers - still died. 

What does an explosion in Lebanon have to do with a bridge in Baltimore? What does a warehouse full of ammonium nitrate have to do with the future home of the Washington Capitals? I don’t know, except that the more I think about it, the more these things seem related. In a functioning state controlled by an of-the-people, by-the-people, and (most importantly) for-the-people government, a billionaire shouldn’t get to hold a state and a city hostage to his demands for money and tax breaks so that he can build a new arena or refurbish an existing one, both projects that he can well afford to pay for out of his own coffers. In that same functioning state, bridges shouldn’t tumble into the water. 

*****

My son had a few days off at Easter, which was lovely. I took a few days off as well, and I drove to his school on Thursday to pick him up. His college is in Arlington, VA, not far from home. But again, the map is deceptive when you live in the DMV. If you’re not from here, you’d think that our house to Marymount University would be a 20 minute trip. It’s not remotely like that in real life. The drive there always takes an hour, though it’s usually a pretty easy and pleasant hour. I don’t love the Beltway but I can handle it - I’ve been driving it for years. Then you take the Cabin John Parkway to the Clara Barton Parkway (I can never tell the difference between the two but they’re very picturesque) and then the Chain Bridge to Glebe Road in Arlington. 

The Chain Bridge is really not a scary bridge at all, but it’s old and it spans the Potomac near the rapids at Great Falls, which is not a place where you’d want your car to plunge into the water. I was holding my breath as I drove across that bridge. But it was fine. I got to Arlington in one piece, and then took an alternate route home because the George Washington Parkway is still under construction and it’s a road of terror. 

And that’s enough about the condition of roads and bridges in the DMV. This isn’t a traffic report. IYKYK. 

*****

As I mentioned last week, pretty much everyone in Maryland is still shaken following the Key Bridge collapse. Baltimoreans are especially shaken, particularly the ones who drove back and forth across that bridge (which was kind of a terrifying bridge to begin with) every day and know that but for the grace of God, their cars could have been on that bridge that night. I was definitely thinking about the Key Bridge as I white-knuckled my way across the Potomac last Thursday. But that’s not all I was thinking about. I was thinking about who’s in charge; who do we trust to make sure that bridges remain intact and above rather than in the bodies of water they span? What’s stored in all of those warehouses in nearby ports and industrial parks? Who’s making sure that they’re not filled with toxic chemicals or unexploded grenades or cages full of snakes that Samuel L. Jackson will eventually have to fight, one by one? What happens if a large employer decides that they’re going to pick up stakes and go to another state or another country where labor is cheap and regulations are few and far between? Who’s going to stop them? Who is looking after the proverbial little guy?

We are far from a failed state. I know this. But it’s no longer reasonable to think that we could never be one. 

*****

The sad thing about All She Lost, the thing I keep thinking about now that I’m finished with the book, is that four years later, most of these women seem to have nearly given up hope. The ones who do seem a tiny bit hopeful are the ones who have moved away from Lebanon. The author herself took her daughter and moved to Paris, leaving her husband behind to try to rebuild his family’s business. All of the women, whether they stayed or went abroad, seem to agree that a normal, reasonably happy, reasonably safe life is no longer possible in Lebanon. They’re not talking about rebuilding or transforming their country. They don’t have the energy to fight anymore. They haven’t moved on because how can you move on? 

Burying the lede

I feel like I write quite often about looming government shutdowns. There’s a lot of shutdown-averted-at-the-last-minute content on this blog, and I have to say that it’s not my favorite topic. I’m posting about continuing resolutions almost as much as I post about handbags and books and irrational fears. It’s turning into Politico around here. I need to return to my regular beat. 

Friday was a rather heavy news day even without the stupid “will they or won’t they fund the government, which is literally their only fucking job” drama. I was home working that day, and listening to and checking the news all day long, because a shutdown would have put me temporarily out of work. Any other day, shutdown brinkmanship would have been the top news story on every broadcast and site, but between Kate Middleton’s cancer announcement and the terrorist attack in Russia, the Capitol Hill crisis was pretty much an afterthought. 

*****

I’m not sure why none of the online conspiracy theorists seemed to even consider the possibility that the Princess of Wales, who had just undergone major abdominal surgery, might have had cancer. It was the first thing I thought of. Of course, I hoped that I was wrong. But when she disappeared from view for a few weeks, the Internet in its dubious wisdom imagined everything from a bad haircut to marital turmoil to plastic surgery gone wrong. I’m not a royalist, and I couldn’t care less about the Princess’s hair or the state of her marriage to the future King, but I am very sorry for her, as I would be sorry for any seriously ill mother of three young children (and for the record, even if she was laying low because of bad hair or a fight with her husband, it would be nobody’s business). I hope she recovers quickly and regains full health. 

And speaking of conspiracy theories, I know that ISIS claimed responsibility for Friday’s horrendous mass murder in Russia. But the timing is a little suspicious, isn’t it? Ever since I read Anna Politkovskaya’s A Russian Diary, which contains much of the reporting that got her killed, I immediately suspect a Putin-led or at least a Putin-enabled plot any time there’s violence or even a natural disaster in Russia. I believe Politkovskaya’s theory (and I think many experts believe it too) that the 1999 apartment bombings in Russian cities were not the work of Chechen terrorists, but a Putin-engineered false flag operation that gave him the excuse he needed to escalate his war in Chechnya. Putin has a whole network of violent criminal gangs to carry out his orders, and he’s not above working with ISIS, either. I’m not sure why he would have chosen ISIS rather than one of his usual gangs of thugs, but maybe he’s planning something in the Middle East again. Maybe he actually believes that he can fight wars in Ukraine and Syria at the same time. I’m sorry for all of the victims, no matter who is responsible, but I’m pretty sure that ISIS didn’t act alone. 

*****

The shutdown, as you probably know, was averted. I went back to work on Monday morning, as I always do; and had a pretty good day at work, as I almost always do. I’m very lucky. I like my job, which is neither dangerous nor physically demanding. I’m not in a war zone or in a refugee camp. And I wasn’t on the Baltimore Key Bridge (we have a DC Key Bridge too) last night, unlike those unfortunate construction workers. That must have been terrifying. It was terrifying to watch on TV, especially if you’ve driven back and forth across that bridge many times, as I have. Seeing the video of the bridge just dropping like Lincoln Logs into the Patapsco River, I thought that January 6, 2021 was the last time I’d watched a news broadcast with that much “what the hell is happening” disbelief and shock. It’s still hard to believe - a boat crashes into a bridge, and the whole thing just collapses, in seconds. A major local landmark is just gone. It’s Tuesday now and it’s another big national news day; but in Maryland, the bridge is all we’re talking about. 

Equinox

It’s March 19, the first day of Spring. I don’t recall a Spring Day 1 earlier than March 21, but the vernal equinox comes when it comes. It’s a Leap Year, so maybe that plays into the early-ish start of the season. I’m not going to delve too deeply into this. This is math and science, which are not my departments. I like to stay in my lane. 

*****

And it’s a beautiful beautiful day, though 20 degrees colder than I would like. Our neighborhood, gray and drab just a few short weeks ago, is a riot of color; cherry blossoms and daffodils and forsythia and flowering pear and tulips and irises coming out all over the place. The grass is green, thanks to a warm spell a few weeks ago. It’s lovely. 

That's my mailbox, hiding in the forsythia
that is in turn shaded by a cherry tree

We are very lucky, we here in my little neighborhood. Our streets are lined with cherry trees, hundreds of them. We don’t have to go anywhere near the Tidal Basin if we don’t want to. I do love to see the original cherry trees with the monuments sparkling behind them, but the Tidal Basin is a scene this week. It’s no place for the faint of heart. I’ma stay right here and look at my own cherry trees. I can see them right from my kitchen window. 

*****

WTOP is our local news radio station. Like most other news radio stations, WTOP covers the same stories all day long, repeating the same program every 30 minutes with slight updates as information changes, especially concerning the all-important traffic and weather. Like everyone else in the DMV, I’m obsessed with traffic reports, so I listen to WTOP a lot when I’m in my car. 

Cherry trees bloom in multiple stages - eight I think. The cycle begins when the very first signs of blossoms begin to appear to the much-anticipated peak bloom. That whole cycle, from early signs through peak bloom, takes about two weeks. Somewhere between March 1 and March 10, the first signs appear, and then WTOP reporters are on 24-hour cherry blossom watch. As the cherry blossoms mature, WTOP devotes at least 5 minutes of every 30 to cherry blossom updates. It’s a big local story; even bigger this year because the National Park Service just announced its plans to cut down 150 cherry trees ahead of a project to shore up the seawall around the Tidal Basin (don’t worry, there are about 4,000 trees around the Basin, so the 150 won’t make a hugely visible difference). 

The National Park Service shares predictions on peak bloom (surprisingly specific - not “sometime in the third week of March” but “1 PM on March 22”) and then updates their forecast based on expected weather conditions. An early warm spell will speed up the process but will also speed up the end of the blooming period; whereas a cold snap that follows an early period of warmth, will extend the peak period by a few days. That is where we are now. We had a few warm days last week, and peak bloom occurred very early. But then it got quite cold, and the blooms are holding on nicely. Everywhere I go, people are discussing the cherry blossom forecasts - either first-hand reports from their own Tidal Basin visits, or second-hand updates from the live feeds or WTOP. It’s the talk of the town. Everyone in DC is a botanist in March. 

*****

I got my hair cut on Tuesday night (my hair lady had just been to the Tidal Basin the previous day) and rejoiced in the still-present daylight as I drove home at 6:15 PM. A wave of nostalgia hit me - hit me hard - as I caught a glimpse of a Rockville High School kid getting out of a minivan, backpack on one shoulder and softball gear bag on the other. Was it just a year ago that I was still a Rockville baseball mom? On that very day a year earlier, I thought, I was probably on my way home from a baseball scrimmage. It was cold on Tuesday, so I looked on the bright side. I loved high school baseball but at least I don’t have to spend two hours sitting in a camp chair wrapped in a blanket on a 40-degree windy March day. And then I noticed the signs advertising Rockville’s annual mulch sale, an all-hands-on-deck volunteer effort that takes up a whole Saturday, a Saturday that is invariably rainy or cold (it snowed on our first mulch sale day in 2016). I miss being a high school parent. I miss band concerts and swim meets and baseball games. But I don’t miss mulch sale. Mulch sale can go fuck itself. 

*****

Well, that was rude. But you know what I mean. 

*****

It’s Friday now, still cold but bright fresh spring-y cold, which is the best kind, I guess. The Washington Capitals just got in on the cherry blossom action, releasing a new sky-blue jersey festooned with cherry blossoms. They’re late to this game. The Nationals and the Wizards have had cherry blossom gear for several years now. We’ll see what these jerseys look like tonight, when we attend what is likely to be our last Capitals game for the season. Hockey is a winter sport unless your team is in the playoffs, and the Capitals are not going to go very far in the playoffs if they make it at all, which isn’t likely. 

For years, the Capitals were a playoffs mainstay. They only won the Stanley Cup once, in 2018, but you could pretty much always depend on them to at least reach the post-season. But nothing is permanent. Gray early March gives way to screaming pink and  yellow late March and then just as you get used to the forsythias and the cherry blossoms; just when you start to think that all this beauty is yours to keep, it’s gone. If you remember nothing else that late March in the DMV teaches us, remember that everything is fleeting. 

Wouldn't it be nice to keep walking under these
trees all summer long?
They'll only look like this for a few more days. 

Wearing of the green

Five years ago today, I landed in Dublin at 5 in the morning. It was St. Patrick's Day, my first time in Ireland. I didn't expect to love the place but I did, pretty much the minute I got in the taxi and rode into the center of town as the sky began to brighten. It turned into a bright and sunny and cold holiday Sunday. We spent the late morning and early afternoon having brunch in the hotel restaurant, mingling with happy Irish families enjoying a three-day weekend. I dragged my mother to the parade, and then returned her to the hotel where my sister and her friend were already sleeping after the all-night flight; and I wandered the city by myself for a few hours until I was literally too tired to take another step. Another taxi took me back to the hotel, where my sister’s friend and I sat in the bar and had a drink and made friends with an already-drunk Irishwoman named Orla who was just getting started on her holiday drinking. Later that evening, we would wave goodbye to poor Orla as the Garda escorted her out of the bar, whose staff had had quite enough of Orla’s shenanigans. 

Dublin quays, March 17, 2019

****

It's Sunday today too. We'll probably not go to any Irish pubs or restaurants to celebrate. They will be too crowded. In Dublin, the crowds are the point; but of course, inconvenience in a foreign country is an adventure. Inconvenience close to home is just inconvenient. 

I'm wearing green, at least. A green cardigan (one of exactly three green garments in my wardrobe if you don’t count t-shirts) with a white shirt, and claddagh earrings. When I was young, I purposely avoided wearing anything green or Irish-themed on St. Patrick's Day or any time in March. Now, I like St. Patrick's Day. It'd be nice to be in Dublin right now. I hope Orla is having a nice holiday. 

Burn Book

Could I have chosen a more different book from Middlemarch than Kara Swisher’s Burn Book? Possibly. But Kara Swisher is a very big departure from George Eliot, and 21st century Silicon Valley is a long way from 19th century England. It’s a very different reading experience. I’m a little whipsawed right now. A little confused. 

If you spend any time reading online book discussions, then you’ll know that Burn Book is mildly controversial. I haven’t gotten to this part yet, but apparently Kara Swisher is pretty hard on Elon Musk and the social media book commenters complain that she was once as taken in by Elon as she is now critical. 

I’m not wading into that discussion; first of all because no good ever comes out of an online argument about books or anything else, and because I haven’t been following Kara Swisher for years as many of these Threads commenters appear to have been, so I can’t comment on her early coverage of Elon Musk. 

*****

I’ve read some of Kara Swisher’s work here and there over the years, but not much because until recently, I didn’t have much interest in her journalistic beat, which is the internet and social media and all of the technology that powers pretty much everything. I’ve also seen her on TV, mostly in short commentary sound bites. She is not just a writer and thinker, she’s also a mover and shaker and a bit of a personality - brash, confident, even pugnacious. And so predictably, lots of people, especially lots of men, don’t like her for the usual reasons that people don’t like opinionated women who say what they want to say without worrying if men will think that they’re shrill or aggressive or unfeminine or God forbid angry. Kara Swisher doesn't care. 

And really, it’s not just opinionated and outspoken women - lots of people don’t like women at all, full stop. And that’s something that I’ve been thinking about lately, I have some things to say about it but maybe another time. 

Or maybe now. Misogyny in tech is pretty much a byword - even people who “don’t believe in glass ceilings” (lol Nikki Haley) acknowledge that the technology sector is notoriously hostile toward anyone who is missing a Y chromosome. And Kara Swisher is not afraid to call them on their misogynist bullshit. She could stay quiet about it, and remain as the only girl in the room, the only girl who plays on the boys’ team while all the other girls are relegated to the sidelines, jumping up and down and waving pom poms. She could be the cool girl. But she calls out the misogyny because she doesn't care if the boys like her or not. 

*****

Kara Swisher started reporting on the Internet and everything arising from it, from e-commerce to chat rooms and email and social media, in the 90s, when lots of people - even smart people - thought that it was all just a fad that was going to go away. She saw things that other people didn’t see, although I’m sure that there’s some truth in some of the online criticisms of the book. In some places, she comes across as a boastful know-it-all. I think that most of the time, she really did and does know it all when it comes to tech, but I get just a slight sense of 20/20 hindsight in a few stories. She claims that she knew certain things or predicted certain outcomes before they materialized. For example, she tells us that she once told a then-unknown Jeff Bezos that the early Amazon was not so much a tech company as a retailer with a very good logistics operation. If she really said that at that time, then that was a brilliant observation. Ultimately, as Kara Swisher explains it, Jeff Bezos used technology as a tool to transform the essentially non-technical business of selling merchandise and Steve Jobs, whom Swisher admires very much, transformed technology itself. The question I have is, is there really a moral difference between those two accomplishments? I’m not so sure. 

*****

I like the very casual, immediate style of the writing in Burn Book. Swisher is very much at ease with internet slang (she probably invented most of it). In one of the few passages that is truly a memoir-like observation about herself, she writes that she has always been brash and confident and impervious to others’ criticism - “it’s hard to neg me,” as she puts it. This is, by the way, a trait that I would love to claim for myself, but I cannot because I am exactly the opposite. She also uses the word “grok” quite frequently - once would have been enough, but I guess it’s just one of her everyday words. I had never seen or heard either “neg” or “grok” in writing or conversation, but it was easy enough to infer from context. There's also lots of tech-savvy bravado - "Who emails?" she writes. Everyone, Kara. Everyone still emails. 

*****

Yesterday, I spent a good part of the afternoon working on a presentation about AI in medical education. I know pretty much nothing about AI but that's not going to stop me from making a slide deck about it. I’ll make a slide deck about absolutely anything. I’ll write about absolutely anything. Give me a topic. One time when I was writing a speech, my smart-aleck son asked me why I didn’t just use ChatGPT. I don't need ChatGPT, I told him. I am ChatGPT. 

Or maybe ChatGPT is me. Maybe I didn’t write this at all. Maybe all I wrote is an AI prompt: “Crank out a half-baked, scattershot review of Kara Swisher’s Burn Book, and throw in some random non-sequiturs.” 

I might try that, actually. Let’s see what happens. Let’s see how this shakes out. 

*****

In all seriousness, I learned a tiny bit about AI as I worked on this slide deck, and I’m going to learn more. This is one of Kara Swisher’s key messages. AI is here to stay, and we should, collectively, figure out a way to control it before it controls us. We can’t make the same mistakes that we made with the World Wide Web and social media. When the young geniuses who are inventing new technologies by the minute promise us that we don’t need to bother our pretty little heads with annoyances like regulation and oversight because everything is under control and they have our best interests at heart, we have to not believe them because nothing is under control and they absolutely do not have our best interests at heart. Mark Zuckerberg and Tim Cook and Satya Nadella do not have our best interests at heart. Elon Musk REALLY doesn’t have our best interests at heart. 

Middlemarching

It was a beautiful day yesterday, unseasonably spring-y and mild. I went for a walk at lunchtime, two quick turns around the track, exchanging greetings with a few medical students running in their PT gear. 

After a few days of deliberately slow reading, I finally finished Middlemarch. It was just as I had hoped for Mary and Fred, and even Dorothea and Will ended up together, against considerable odds. Happy endings all around, and you had to keep reading until the very very end. 

I thought about Middlemarch yesterday as I made my second pass around the track. When Dorothea refused a carriage from Middlemarch back to Lowick, how long a walk would it have been? A mile? Five miles? A few meters? I hoped she would have had a balmy early spring day for her walk, no matter how long or short. 

*****

I loved Middlemarch, and I love Dorothea Brooke, who is almost perfect, almost too good to be true, but not quite, thanks to her impulsive and slightly megalomanic nature. Dorothea is virtuous, generous, kind, selfless, idealistic, uninterested in material wealth and comfort; and of course, she’s beautiful. But she is also inflexible (even rigid) and convinced of her own moral superiority. But maybe these aren’t even flaws - Dorothea really is morally superior to most of her fellow Middlemarchers so why should she not be sure of herself? And why should she be flexible on the question of truth versus falsehood? Some things are not up for debate. 

*****

I’m in the middle of minor but troublesome controversies on two separate fronts (paid work and volunteer work), and I find myself wondering WWDD? What would Dorothea do? I’m pretty sure that I’m right in both of these debates, neither of which involve matters of great importance, but both of which will have measurable impact on my work. It’s kind of a long story (that’s the only kind I know how to tell) but it boils down to this: I have to convince one person to do something, and I have to convince another person not to do something. This is all I can say. Dorothea would use all of the tools at her disposal - her social status, her wealth, her youth and beauty, her impeccable reputation - to convince others to do her bidding. Dorothea and I don’t have much in common except the impeccable reputation, but I’m also pretty good at talking people around and convincing them to see things my way, even without the benefit of beauty and wealth. I’ll report back. 

*****

One down, one to go. I managed to quiet one of these teapot tempests, and although I didn’t get exactly what I needed, I did get a clear path forward. The second one is a little more sticky. I might ignore it until it goes away. This is exactly the opposite of what Dorothea would do but as we have already established, Dorothea is not just a paragon of virtue; she is also an impulsive megalomaniac with a messiah complex. As much as I love Dorothea, it’s not always a good idea to follow her lead. It’s not always a good idea to do what she would do. It wasn’t even a good idea for her to do what she would do. I mean, everyone told her not to marry Mr. Casaubon, and she didn’t listen, and we all saw how that turned out, didn’t we? I admire Dorothea very much, but she’s not a role model for middle-aged, middle class ladies in the 21st century. 

*****

My first problem is pretty much solved now, and the second one seems much less bothersome than it did two days ago. Dorothea would have attacked it head on and maybe she’d have solved it but maybe she’d have made it worse. We don’t know, because Dorothea isn’t real and even if she was, she’d be long dead. I acted on my first instinct, which was to pretend that the whole situation didn’t exist and you know what? I’m pretty sure it DOESN’T exist, at least not anymore. My plan worked. I was right. 

And it’s Friday now, a beautiful sunny afternoon. Our daffodils are out now, and I’m starting to see a few crocuses and tulips, too. The cherry blossoms are in the very earliest bloom stages and everything looks bright and fresh and hopeful. Dorothea and I would agree, I’m sure, that today is a perfect day for a spring-is-around-the-corner walk around the neighborhood. I’m finished solving problems for today. I have some flowers to look at. 

Documentary footage

If I had my way, my home would be free of all “smart home” technology. The so-called smart thermostat (about which I have much to say - stay tuned) would be replaced with a good old-fashioned Honeywell. My appliances would keep silent - especially the refrigerator, which if it’s so smart would know that you have to keep the door open in order to wipe down the shelves, but instead chimes at me relentlessly as soon as the door is open for more than five seconds. We’d get rid of the Google Home smart speaker and just Google things the old-fashioned way, with a phone or a computer. And the cameras. My gosh, the cameras. 

Of all the technological innovations that have wormed their way into my house, I hate video surveillance cameras the most. Yes I know that they have their uses. I know that police can solve crimes with the aid of Ring or Arlo video footage. They can even prevent crimes. In 2018, my husband got an Arlo alert at 12:30 AM on a Sunday night. A person unknown to us had rung the doorbell several times and receiving no answer, had wandered around to the backyard, where video showed him peering into the patio doors and the back windows. We were in Montreal, hundreds of miles from home, and so we had no way to do anything to prevent this person from breaking in. It was some comfort that we were all together and that if the man did break in, he couldn’t hurt anyone. But we also didn’t want to return home to a ransacked house. When the man returned to the front door again, my husband used the remote communication feature to say “Can I help you? Do you need something?” The man didn’t respond, but he did go away. My husband called a few police colleagues and gave them the entry codes so that they could check the house and perhaps arrest any burglars who might attempt to ransack the joint. They visited every day for the whole time we were away, but the burglar never returned, that night or for the rest of the week. 

The point here is that I do acknowledge the value of this technology. I’m pretty sure that our late night visitor was casing the place, and I think it’s very likely that he’d have broken in if my husband hadn’t scared him off. I understand why we have cameras. I concede that they are useful and even necessary. But they’re also extremely intrusive and downright creepy. I don’t want to be captured on video as I go about my daily business. I don’t want to be watched even if technically, I am watching myself. 

*****

But maybe those cameras are more useful than I thought. Last Tuesday, I was working at my desk at home and when I looked out the window, I saw a black and white cat sitting calmly on top of my six-foot-high backyard fence (I also hate that fence but it came with the house). How, I wondered, did that cat get there? There’s nothing close enough to the fence for a cat to climb on, and yet there he was, placid and content, lord of all he surveyed. 

I got up to get my phone so I could get a picture and when I came back, he was gone. I looked out another window to see if he was in the backyard, and there he was, sitting calmly on top of the back fence. In a span of thirty seconds then, this super-agile cat had scaled or jumped two fences, and positioned himself on top of two fence posts, all while taking the time to strike photo-ready poses. I wished I had gotten a photo, but I didn’t, and I thought that was the end of it. 

I went about the rest of my day and didn’t think about that cat again, until my husband texted me late in the day. He had gotten Arlo video of the whole sequence of events: Cat approaches backyard gate and finding it closed, backs up a few feet and leaps, landing neatly on top of the gate and then stepping over a few feet to position himself on the fence post, which is where I came in. Cat then leaps down from the first fence post, darts across the backyard, and scales the next fence in just two quick moves, landing exactly on the fence post this time, a perfect vantage point from which to look for birds or rodents or other moving objects upon which to pounce. It was very entertaining. And that wasn’t all. Later that day, I watched video of a squirrel scheming and planning a way to get himself from the top of the fence to a birdfeeder suspended from a tree. Other squirrels have successfully breached this birdfeeder, but not this one. His frustration was apparent, and I felt sorry for him. 

In a third video, a small gathering of birds enjoyed Costco’s proprietary birdseed blend from that same feeder. I wondered if they’d been roosting in nearby trees, waiting first for the cat and then the squirrel to go away. 

You know, I really should just set up a squirrel feeder. I see no reason for this unwarranted and unjust preference for birds over squirrels. Squirrels need to eat, too. Squirrels have rights.

*****

When it comes to decorating and furnishing decisions, I usually get my way. My husband is a pretty selfless person, and he defers to my (obviously superior) judgment on aesthetics and design. On the subject of smart technology, though, he will not budge. He LOVES the stupid Google Nest thermostat, which I hate. He loves the Google Home smart speaker, and never misses an opportunity to ask it a question. I think we have more cameras than we need, but I don’t mention this because if I do, it just reminds him that there are still blind spots around the house and that he’s been meaning to install even more cameras. I choose the battles that I can win, and I’ll win 95 percent of them, but even before the Montreal incident, which occurred in 2018, the cameras were a lost cause. I have reconciled myself to their presence. I’m learning to live with them. 

And I might even be learning to embrace them, a tiny tiny bit.

Happenings in the village

*****

Thanks to constant distractions and distractibility (two different things, I assure you), I have been reading Middlemarch for weeks. But unlike other times when it has taken me a long time to finish a book, I’m not in any hurry to get to the end. I’m completely absorbed in the goings on in Middlemarch and Lowick Manor and environs. Mr. Casaubon is dead, good riddance, and I have no idea what Dorothea will do now in her wealthy widowhood. Dr. Lydgate is up to his neck in debt, while his beautiful and spoiled wife Rosamond keeps spending money. Mary and Fred, who have always loved each other, have finally acknowledged this fact to one another, but this is no guarantee that things will turn out happily for them. And Mr. Brooke is standing for Parliament, but he’s not very good on the hustings, and I don’t like his chances. 

*****

My gosh, Rosamond. Mind your own business, girl. Handle your own problems - you have about 99 of them right now, and the codicil on the vile Mr. Casaubon’s will is not one.  

*****

OK, enough of what’s happening in Middlemarch. Let’s discuss what’s happening in Silver Spring. It’s Saturday morning, bright and sunny but cold. The cold isn’t bothering me, though, because I can see the light at the end of the proverbial winter tunnel. I actually mean this literally. I worked until almost 5 yesterday and thanks to a 5:52 sunset time, I still had plenty of time to go for a walk. It’s still going to be cold for a while (until after Memorial Day if the last few years are any predictor) but at least it’s not dark at 4:45 anymore. 

That’s the good news. The bad news is that I lost at Wordle today, just a day short of tying my all-time consecutive win streak of 103. My win percentage remains at 99% but now I have to start over on the consecutive game streak. Today is day 1. I’ll get it this time. 

*****

I have no idea how things are going to shake out for the widowed Dorothea Brooke Casaubon and her late husband’s distant cousin Will Ladislaw. If I were to make a prediction, I’d guess that Mary Garth and Fred Vincy are heading toward a happy ending, but Dorothea and Will will go their separate ways, each of them never knowing for sure if the other feels the same way about them. They are both highly principled - rigidly so - and brilliant but impetuous people who seem brave and fearless in most situations, but neither of them can bring themselves to declare their feelings until they’re sure that the other person feels the same. Someone has to say something first. Someone has to take the risk. I hope that one of them will speak up before it’s too late but I’m not optimistic. I think there’s only going to be one really happy love story at the end of this thing. 

*****

It’s Tuesday afternoon now, and I’m just finishing work for the day. I had planned on a walk but it’s gloomy and damp right now, and it’s going to rain any minute. That’s all true of course but what’s also true is that I’d rather read than walk right now. Middlemarch awaits, and now I’m really slowing it down. According to my Kindle “location in book” indicator, I’m about 85 percent finished and I’m already sad about having to leave it behind. I do have some other excellent reading lined up (including two books that I just bought right this minute because writing this paragraph reminded me that I wanted those books - this post just cost me $25) but no matter how good they might be, they won’t be as good as Middlemarch. 

*****

It was Zadie Smith who inspired me to read Middlemarch but it was Martin Amis who said that it was the best English language novel ever published. George Eliot was very obviously influenced by Jane Austen - her sharp but kind, witty but profound observations of human flaws and failings (and virtues and brilliance) were very Austen-like. But Middlemarch is modern in a way that no Austen novel really is. Her imagined world of competitive materialism, politics and punditry, careerism and ambition was very much of the 20th century (George Eliot died in 1880) and her analysis of the complex inner lives of her characters, especially the women but the men too, was way ahead of Freud and Jung and the rest of the early modern psychologists. George Eliot saw the future. 

LIke most 19th century novels, Middlemarch proceeds at its own pace and that pace is slow. But that doesn’t mean that things don’t happen. Even when I read just a page or two, something is going on on that page that is indispensable to the story, even if the thing that’s going on is happening exclusively inside a character’s head. Especially then, really. No words are wasted. Nothing is extraneous. And I know that I’m missing or forgetting details from the early chapters, but that just means that I’ll discover new things the next time. I can see myself re-reading Middlemarch, a little bit at a time and over and over again, for the rest of my reading life. Martin Amis was right. It’s just that good. 

Champions

I’m almost finished writing my 2023 book list. Any day now! I might even publish it tomorrow. Maybe Wednesday. I’m this close. 

It’s Monday, the day after the Super Bowl. Taylor Swift, the inevitable Chiefs’ win, so-so commercials, and Usher on roller skates. I watched with friends, so the company was the best thing. But now we’re gearing up for the really important sporting event. This weekend, Marymount Swimming will try to defend its men’s and women’s titles at the NCAA Division III Atlantic East Conference Championship. A four-day college swimming extravaganza is about 100 times more fun than a six-hour football game. We can’t wait. 

*****

The psych sheet came out yesterday, and it’s just as we expected - our son is expected to do well, but he’s not seeded first in anything. This is a good thing - top seed in a championship meet is a lot of pressure. 

*****

And I finally finished my 2023 book list, a few days earlier than last year. It’s a nice feeling - freeing. Freedom from what, I don’t know, because no one pays me to write incompetent book reviews of books published years ago, and no one is banging on my door demanding my next review, and any deadline associated with this thing (the deadline was President’s Day FYI) is completely self-imposed, but self-imposed deadlines are the most stringent, are they not? I am my own harshest taskmaster. I should quit before I fire myself. 

With the books out of the way, all I need to do now is overpack for a three-night road trip, and then arrive at my hotel and realize that I brought all the wrong things. Well, that is what I usually do but I’m not doing it this time. I know exactly what we’ll be doing all day each day, and I know exactly what clothes to bring. It’ll be fine. It’s a swim meet, for crying out loud. 

*****

It’s Thursday morning now. I’m working for part of the day today, and then we’ll get on the road for the not-too-long but not-too-short drive to St. Mary’s City. It’s a little colder than I’d like but it’s clear and bright and a perfect day for a road trip. Our original plan was to travel on Friday, skipping the Thursday night and Friday morning sessions. Thursday night, we assumed, would be distance events, and the morning sessions are all prelims. But it turns out that Thursday night is a relay session and we are all about relays. So I’m taking a vacation day on Friday and we’re making this a three-night trip. I’m packed now. Yes, I’m packing a bunch of stuff that I probably won’t need but I don’t care. I’d rather have it and not need it than the reverse, and since this is a road trip and I don’t need to worry about airline luggage rules, I’m going to just bring everything and not stress about it. I wish I could travel without overpacking but packing light is just a habit, not a virtue. And now I can change my clothes if I want to. 

*****

It's 9:30 on Friday morning and ordinarily, I would be at my desk at home, writing a newsletter or making slides for a presentation or something. But it's day 2 of the AEC championship, so I'm in the stands at the St. Mary's College of Maryland pool, waiting for warm-ups to end, and the morning prelim session to begin. The only thing better than a swim meet is a multi day swim meet, and the only thing better than a multi day swim meet is a multi day swim meet whose morning prelim sessions begin at 10. 

Last night's relay session was a blast. The boys medley took second place in a close and exciting race and even though they didn't win, they held their second place seeding and broke the team record. Not bad for two sophomores and two freshmen. If they stick together they will be hard to beat next year. 

And it was kind of a perfect day. A beautiful drive, fast swimming and close finishes, a bomb playlist, a dinner that I didn't have to cook and then an evening of chill in a basic but clean hotel room. It was a good time. It was a whole vibe. 

*****

It's 7:30 on Saturday morning, my favorite time when I'm staying in a hotel. My husband is still asleep and I'm sitting with wet hair and hotel room coffee enjoying the quiet in the room and the traffic noise outside. Soon enough it'll be time to get in gear but there's no rush. The morning prelim session doesn't start until 10. 

The boys had a very good day yesterday. They didn't win every event or even close but what they did do was to swim fast enough in the prelims that the finals were stacked with Saints and when you finish in 2nd, 3rd and 4th in the finals, the points add up. They're ahead by a solid margin today but it's not over. There's still two whole days of competition. 

We went to Solomon's Island yesterday during the break between the prelims and finals. I had never been there even though it's a noted Maryland point of interest. That is always the way, isn't it? You miss all the interesting places that are right in your own backyard. 

The weather was just right for an outdoor afternoon. Clear and bright, February chilly but not cold, breezy but not windy - just right. We walked along the waterfront and looked at boats and had lunch in a dockside seafood restaurant and visited a local shop owned by an elderly couple who noticed my husband's Marymount swimming hoodie and told us all about their own son, now in his 50s, who was also a high school and college swimmer. That's Maryland. Any room containing Maryland parents will include at least one person who will tell you all about their child's swimming career. These are my people.

It was supposed to snow overnight, and I think it did at home, but Southern Maryland just got some rain. The morning started cloudy and gray and now the clouds are blowing away, yielding to the sunshine. We just pulled into the parking lot at MPOARC. It's time to go. It's time for another great day of swimming. 

*****

It's Sunday morning now, the fourth and final day of AEC Championships, and I'm a little sad to see it end. It's been the most fun weekend. My son finished third in the 100 Breaststroke final last night, and then his 400 medley relay swam a conference record time, but St. Mary's 400 medley was a little faster. And that's fine because they still came away with silver medals and a program record for the event. Two silvers and a bronze in his first conference championship is not too shabby. He has one more race today. More importantly, the Marymount boys are in a very good position this morning, points wise. That's all I'll say about that. 

The campus of St Mary's College of Maryland is really beautiful. Most of the buildings are red brick with slate roofs, connected by diagonal brick walkways across grassy quadrangles, some with pergolas over the entrances and some covered with new ivy. The campus is situated on the Chesapeake Bay, surrounded by pine forests, and studded with tiny nooks of natural beauty. The architecture is reminiscent of classic American Ivy League college campuses but more modern and welcoming and democratic. There's no mystique, no air of privilege or exclusion. It's just a beautiful place. 

But it's cold here, too. We're staying in Lexington Park, ten minutes away, and it's always so much colder here because of the wind from the bay. It's relentless, that wind. 

*****

A college championship swim meet lasts for four or five days and if you’re lucky enough to be able to attend for the entire meet, then you’re going to make some new friends. It’s like that one wedding where you became instant friends with everyone, and maybe you don’t see them again or keep in touch with them regularly, but you think of them fondly. The connection remains. We have been making friends with Marymount parents throughout the year because we are within two hours’ driving distance of most of the meet venues. But we have swimmers from Florida, North and South Carolina, Minnesota, New York, Washington State - all over. And so some of the parents at Conferences were seeing their first Marymount meet of the season, and meeting other parents for the first time. We ran into some of them in our hotel, easily identifiable in the coffee line with their bright blue Marymount shirts and hoodies. Others we met in the natatorium, or in local restaurants for lunch or dinner. We also made friends with rival team family members, including a lovely Cabrini grandmother whose senior granddaughter was swimming in her last-ever meet. She told us that she was rooting for Marymount, except in her granddaughter’s events, since Cabrini had no chance to win the meet. 

*****

Disappointment is part and parcel of every athlete’s life, and my son had a hard reminder of that fact thanks to a rough prelim in the 200 breaststroke. He swam a great time, but two others who were seeded to finish behind him swam their best ever times, leaving him in fifth place rather than third. He was crushed. But disappointment is a set-up for a comeback and he came back strong in the final. All five of the top qualifiers swam best-ever times again, and my son dropped enough from his previous personal best to finish back in the top three. His final medal count was two silvers and two bronzes. 

And that was great, but it wasn't the best thing. The best thing is that both the boys and the girls finished first to win the entire meet, and we got to watch the celebration, 40 happy swimmers crowding onto the podium, posing with their medals and their brand-new t-shirts and hats. The celebration almost went sideways when one of the boys who ambushed the head coach with a Gatorade cooler full of ice water slipped on the ice and banged his head on the way down, but he’s fine, thankfully. Soaked from the ice water bath, the head coach jumped into the pool, followed by the assistant coaches, and followed by the rest of the team. We parents stayed on the deck, taking photos and hugging and saying our goodbyes. 

*****

Last year, the Rockville High School boys’ swim team won the Maryland Public Secondary School Class 3A state championship. Four of the eight boys who represented Rockville in the state meet were seniors, and all four seniors went on to swim in college. Three of the four colleges (Marymount, Catholic University, and Stevens Institute) won their conference championships last week, and the fourth (Indiana, the only D1 of the four) will swim in the Big Ten conference championship next week. They could win, making it four for four. I’m strangely invested in this now, and I’m very much hoping that at least some of the meet will be broadcast on TV in between basketball games. I don’t care about March Madness but I’m an Indiana fan  for now, until after the Big Ten men’s swimming championship is over. Swim fast, Hoosiers. Swim fast. 

Bibliography 2023

I bought my first Kindle in 2016. I’d had a Barnes and Noble Nook and loved having an e-reader but more and more I found that books that I wanted were available only on Kindle so I finally caved to Amazon. Almost every book I’ve read since 2016 has been in Kindle format, including almost every book on this list except Mrs. Obama’s (hardback, a Christmas present from my son). 

Say what you want about Amazon, but Kindle e-readers are awesome - compact and light, easy to use, dependable, and nice to hold and carry. I’ve had at least three phones since 2016, and I had to replace a 3-year-old Chromebook last year, but the Kindle kept on keeping on, until just a few months ago. It wasn’t charging consistently, it didn’t hold a charge, and sometimes I had a hard time connecting to wi-fi networks away from home. So when my husband asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I asked for the newest Kindle and asked him to pay the extra $20 for the ad-free version. The new Kindle was wrapped up under the tree on Christmas morning, and it’s so pretty - a light green color that looks beautiful with the case, even lighter and quicker than the old one, and it charges on a USB-C cable so I can use the same charger for all of my devices. And it has all of the advantages of the old one, too. It fits in almost every handbag I own, so I can read wherever I am. This year, I read wherever I was - in between baseball game innings, waiting for swim meets to begin, in the dentist’s office, on the beach, in planes, trains, and automobiles. Here are all (most) of the books I read in 2023. 

The Light We Carry - Michelle Obama. 

Child 44 and The Secret Speech - Tom Rob Smith. I read these early last year and was thinking about them and all of my other reading about the horrors of Soviet totalitarianism under Stalin when I heard the news that Alexei Navalny is imprisoned in a penal colony inside the Arctic Circle. I hope he survives. I hope he outlives Putin. 

On Beauty, Intimations, and Changing My Mind - Zadie Smith. Zadie Smith is my 2023 Author of the Year. I know she's excited about this. 

The Country Girls (trilogy) - Edna O’Brien. This was the beginning and end of my foray into the literary work of Edna O'Brien. 

An Unsuitable Attachment, Some Tame Gazelle, A Glass of Blessings, and Jane and Prudence - Barbara Pym. I can’t get enough of Barbara Pym, but I’ve read almost all of her work and sadly, there won’t be any more. Zadie Smith was my Author of the Year, but Barbara Pym earns Honorable Mention. 

Snobbery, The American Version - Joseph Epstein. Since 2020 or so, my social media feeds have been full of influencers urging women to jettison any and all unpleasant tasks and responsibilities and interactions. I have very mixed feelings about this trend. On the one hand, it's certainly true that most of us are doing things that we don't really need to do, and that don't really bring value to anyone. If ironing or canning preserves or maintaining your roots makes you miserable, don't do those things. They're unnecessary. Superfluous. On the other hand, there are many necessary and important things that we have to do, whether we want to or not. Doing things you don't want to do is part of adulthood. But listening to music you don't like or finishing a book you hate are not necessary or important things and you should feel free to turn off the radio or close the book rather than waste one more moment of your mild, precious life (see what I did there), and you shouldn't feel bad about this. Snobbery was one of the few (and the only one in 2023) books that I have started and deliberately didn’t finish, and I have absolutely no regrets about that decision. 

Wrinkles - Charles Simmons. Absolutely bananas. I have no recollection of how this ended up in my library, nor any recollection of plot details. I read it mostly at night, as I was falling asleep, which added to the story's bizarre and dreamlike quality. And it was not good. I did not enjoy it. And that is all I have to say about this ridiculous book. 

Red Notice and Freezing Order - Bill Browder. I still worry that the Russians will get Bill Browder one way or another. If Trump ends up in the White House again, he'll probably wrap the poor man up and ship him to Moscow as a gift to Putin. Maybe Canada will offer asylum.  

Here are three extremely dissimilar books that I happened to read one after the other, and wrote about in one post, right here. 

• Two Souls Indivisible - James Hirsch
• Against Memoir - Michelle Tea
• American Prometheus - Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin. Definitely a job for two authors. 

Enough - Cassidy Hutchinson. I was thinking about what I wrote about this book this morning, as I watched news coverage of Nikki Haley's outraged reaction to Donald Trump's "where's her husband" taunts at one of his stupid Klan rallies. Mr. Haley is of course a National Guardsman who is currently deployed and although Ms. Haley's outrage is justified, I must also point out to her (because I'm sure she's reading this) that he's the same Donald Trump now that he's always been, just with fewer marbles and more loose screws, and he's spewing the same kind of garbage and vitriol as ever, and you supported him then, and what's the difference now? Don't pretend that you know who he is now but you didn't know who he was then. You're too smart for that. 

The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath. I managed, as a white woman who studied English at an East Coast university in the 1980s AND who attended high school at an all-girls institution, to avoid The Bell Jar. It was never assigned in a class, and I never thought of reading it on my own. I probably thought, at some point, that I should try to read The Bell Jar one day; I should put that book on my list. The thing is that I’m 58 now, and it’s definitely time to recognize that things I haven’t done, places I haven’t gone, books I haven’t read may well remain undone, unvisited, unread. I don’t have forever. I won’t get around to everything. So I read The Bell Jar, and have very little to say about it except that it’s probably not ideal reading for a person already in the throes of a mental health crisis, and except that even a person who is legitimately mentally ill can also be a jerk. Those things can coexist, and they do in the person of Esther Greenwood, The Bell Jar’s protagonist, who is spoiled and petulant and often pointlessly cruel. It’s hard to root for her but oddly, you do root for her. Annoying protagonist aside, I’m still glad I read the book (although I definitely won’t read it again - once was enough). I’m fascinated with these relics of mid 20th century exceptionalist postwar America, the time in which I was born and raised and that I thought was as solid and immovable as the ground beneath my feet and that I now know was fleeting and temporary. And it is filled with carelessly beautiful writing. And it’s a classic, I suppose, and so there’s one more of them that I can cross off my list. 

Say Nothing - Patrick Radden Keefe. I read this in 2019, but I read it again this year. I was in Cleveland and had just finished reading a book, but I couldn’t download a new book because my old Kindle wouldn’t connect to any non-home Wi-Fi network. I never mind re-reading a book that I love, and I had also just returned from Belfast, so it was the perfect time to read this, with the memory of the Falls Road and the Divis Tower fresh in my mind. 

Howards’ End - E.M. Forster. This really counts as another Zadie Smith book because I wouldn’t have thought to read it had Zadie Smith not urged me to do so. Last year, when I read Zadie Smith’s novel On Beauty, I learned (maybe from the introduction or maybe from a review, I don’t remember) that On Beauty is a modern-day retelling of Howards’ End. Zadie Smith is out here writing fan fiction, and I’m all for it.  But I read Howards End months after I finished On Beauty, and so had forgotten completely that it was it was based on Howards End and so when I reached the part when Mrs. Wilcox invites Margaret Shlegel to visit, I had a moment of literary deja vu, and then I remembered why that scene seemed so familiar. Thanks to Zadie’s E.M. Forster essay in Changing My Mind, I’ll be reading a lot more E.M. Forster next year. I'm also smack in the middle of Middlemarch, which is great, because of course it is, because Zadie Smith says so. Zadie Smith has convinced me to read Philip Roth, E.M. Forster, George Eliot, and who knows who else? When it comes to books, I do whatever Nora Ephron and Zadie Smith tell me to do. Neither Nora nor Zadie have ever steered me wrong when it comes to literary recommendations.

Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing - Matthew Perry. 

Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen - Mary McGrory 

Ex-Wife - Ursula Parrott. Ex-Wife was a bestseller in 1929 and then it disappeared into literary obscurity. Then the internet discovered it and all of a sudden, my newsfeeds were filled with think pieces about this book and its modern-day relevance. I can imagine how shocking it might have been to an early 20th century audience (lots of adultery and domestic abuse). And I can also see why it was a bestseller. It’s a page-turner, and it depicts a life of freedom and glamour and independence - and yes, loneliness and grief and despair - that would have been unfamiliar to most women of that time. I wouldn’t call it a great novel but it’s certainly a worthwhile read especially if you’re interested in early 20th century New York (and who isn’t). I think I’d be interested in reading a biography of Ursula Parrott. Maybe I’ll do that this year. Check back with me around February 2025. 

Oath and Honor - Liz Cheney. As with Cassidy Hutchinson’s book, I pre-ordered this and read it the moment it showed up in my library. And as when I read Cassidy Hutchinson’s book, I didn’t learn much that I didn’t already know (I followed the J6 hearings pretty closely) but I wanted to read a personal perspective from someone who lived the investigation and the hearings day in and day out. No matter what you think of Liz Cheney’s politics (I disagree with her about almost everything), she’s an American hero, and I hope she remains in public life in some capacity.

Every Day is a Gift - Senator Tammy Duckworth. I read this for work - my boss was introducing Senator Duckworth at an event, and I was drafting remarks for him. I read her book so that I’d know something about her other than that she is a Democratic senator from Illinois. I ended up reading this in about a day, during my early summer bout with COVID. Senator Duckworth has an amazing and inspiring story, and she tells it very well. I recommended the book to a very conservative friend who likes military biographies and memoirs, and she was impressed. Tammy Duckworth is a uniquely American figure, the child of an American father and a Thai-Chinese mother; born in Thailand and raised there and in Malaysia and Singapore and Hawaii. She spent her early childhood in comfort and security; and then when her father lost his highly paid job as a property manager, the family fell abruptly into poverty. An excellent student and athlete, the young Tammy joined the Army for the secure pay, benefits, and tuition assistance; and then she found that she was born to be a soldier. She would likely have remained in the Army, ascending to high rank, had she not lost her legs in the attack on her helicopter in Iraq in 2004. 

I didn’t set out to read a series of  of heroic American women's memoirs, but I did set out to read a lot of Zadie Smith and Barbara Pym. Everything else on this list is random, just a bunch of books that found their way into my Kindle queue. There’s a nice serendipity to just reading what’s available and in front of you. It’s like listening to old-fashioned radio. You never know when you’ll hear that one song that you’ll want to sing along to forever. 

*****

A few days ago I saw a social media post that said something about how it doesn’t matter if you read a paragraph, a page, or a book every day - as long as you’re reading something, you can call yourself a reader. By the way, this also applies to writing. Sometimes I write three sentences and sometimes I write two or three pages in one sitting, but I write every single day and that makes me a writer. Anyway, even though I don’t need validation from social media strangers (or at least that’s what I tell myself), this message was strangely comforting - some days, I’m so distracted (by scrolling inspirational social media content, for example) or so busy that I only read a few pages, and I wonder if I’ll get through more than a handful of books this year. A handful of books would be fine if they’re the right books. I think I read somewhere around 30 books last year - yes, I could just count but I’m pretty sure that I read at least one or two that I forgot to write down. I just finished my fourth book of 2024 (it was a long one) so I’m not quite on the 30 per year pace for this year but who cares. That’s just fewer books for which I have to write meandering and incoherent reviews for next year’s book post. See you in 2025. 

Carrying light

We are about to begin the second week of February. This is when I always decide that it’s time to finish my book list for the prior year, but I still have to finish writing about a few books. I started writing about Michelle Obama’s The Light We Carry early last year, just as I finished it, and then I started writing about other things and I forgot all about it. 

Note: My whole life could be accurately summed up in sentences that go exactly like that last one: “I started doing (ABC) and then I started doing (XYZ) and I forgot all about (ABC).” 

****

Last year (meaning 2022), we went to Florida for a few days right after Christmas. We went for just four nights, and flew home on New Year’s Day 2023. This was not a trip planned by me and I wasn’t on board with the idea at first because first of all, Florida; and secondly, I don’t really love traveling during the holidays other than a quick overnight to Philadelphia.  

Not only was I not on board with the trip, I actually really dreaded it. It was Florida during Christmas week, so I expected a worst-case scenario of flight cancellations and missed connections and being stranded in an airport or forced to rent a car and drive home from somewhere far below the Mason-Dixon line. I also really like being at home during the Christmas holidays, and I didn’t want to give that up. But my husband convinced us that we should get away and that we’d have a good time, and so we drove home from an overnight visit to Philadelphia, packed our bags, and the next morning, a friend drove us to Glenmont Metro, where we got on a train to Reagan National Airport. 

It was on the Metro ride that I started to feel a little bit better about the trip. For once in my life, I hadn’t overpacked (taking Metro to the airport is a very effective overpacking deterrent) and it had been terribly cold for a few days, so I was happy about getting out of the cold, if nothing else. The flight took off on time and landed on time, and we had no trouble summoning an Uber. And then we walked out of the terminal at Tampa airport and stepped into the Florida sunshine, and I was so happy to be there; happy with my whole body. Traffic from the airport to our hotel was dreadful (Tampa is no joke) but I didn’t care because I had never been there before and it was nice to see new sights. 

The next morning, far from home and work and school with no household chores or other responsibilities, we left the hotel and just walked around Clearwater Beach, getting the lay of the land, visiting shops and strolling on the beach and stopping wherever we liked to see a sight or to have a drink and a snack or to buy a silly souvenir. We put our feet in the chilly Gulf of Mexico, collected shells, and just sat around in the sun. When we returned to our hotel, we swam in the pool and I sat on a lounge chair wrapped up in towels and a hoodie, and I read like there was no tomorrow. That was a good vacation. 

The last book that I read during the trip was Michelle Obama’s The Light We Carry, and it appears on my 2023 list because I finished it on New Year’s Day on the plane ride home.  It was my 2022 - 2023 crossover book, and the only book that I read last year that was on actual pages between actual covers (ir was a Christmas present from my son). 

I hardly remember a thing about the book itself, except for some funny stories about Michelle Obama’s older brother. It was vacation reading and I experience vacation books differently from books that I read during odd moments of everyday life. Vacation reading has a dreamlike quality - vacations are the only time when I read like I used to read when I was young, as though the book and I are the only things that existed. Thinking back on it now, the whole trip had a dreamlike quality; a few sun-drenched days when I really truly didn’t think about anything that I needed to do. I just swam and walked and slept and ate and read in Florida’s winter warmth and sunshine. A few days in the sunshine can get you through the darkest time of year. It’s like a light you can carry through the winter.