Neighborhood children

I was writing something yesterday; something about wristwatches and freedom from digital tyranny. I’m at an impasse with that post. It’s not quite cooked yet. I’ll probably finish it but I have to clarify my ideas first. I can’t just write about my watch. 

Wait, maybe I can. 

*****

Instead, I’ll write about spring. It’s late March in Maryland, and it’s truly spring. We’ve cycled through all four seasons at least three times in the last few weeks, but spring is about more than the weather. Our forsythia are in full bloom right now, and our daffodil bulbs came up, and our cherry trees are just a day or so away from peak bloom. We have just a few days of overlap between forsythia and cherry trees in bloom. I’m predicting that it’ll happen on Friday. I’ll report back. 

Spring is also the season of longer days and evening daylight. I stayed outside walking until after 7 last night and it was still daylight when I arrived home. In the winter, I always feel like shutting myself in at 5 PM. It’s nice to have more outside time. 

*****

I was about a block and a half from home at 6 PM, just wrapping up my walk, when I noticed a small group of people clustered together on the sidewalk, surrounding a little boy who appeared to be about 9. The boy had taken a turn on a friend’s much-too-large scooter, but lost control and wiped out on the asphalt. Thankfully, he was with friends and able to get out of the road and onto the sidewalk. 

The boy’s friends and two passersby were all trying to convince him to stand up and start walking home, but he remained on the sidewalk. The other kids told me what had happened, and a man and his young daughter were encouraging the boy (I will call him Jose) to get in the car and ride home with them. I offered to walk him home or to ride in the car with him. He just kept shaking his head. His hand and arm were bleeding, and he also had blood on his shirt that turned out to be from a scrape on the scooter’s sharp edge. 

Eventually, Jose (who turned out to be 11 and a 6th grader at the middle school that my sons attended) stood up and started to walk toward the neighborhood park where he’d left his backpack and jacket. The other boys and I walked with him. Jose’s hand had started to swell and I kept encouraging him to go home and take care of his injuries, and he kept refusing. 

At this point I wondered if he was in an abusive situation and afraid to go home. When we reached the park, Jose sat down at a picnic table, and said no once again when I asked him if he was ready to go home. I was very worried at this point, and I didn’t really know what to do other than to stay with him. A man who was with his two very young children approached us and asked if we were OK. I explained the situation briefly, and the man yelled to his wife to keep an eye on the kids while he ran to his car for a bottle of water. 

Jose seemed grateful for the water. We encouraged him to wash his hand off first, and then he drank the rest of the bottle. The man and I tried again to get Jose to go home, and he said that he’d go “soon” but that he needed to “chill a little” first. We were at our wits’ end. 

Then moments later, two older kids showed up, a boy of about 15 and a girl about 13, who turned out to be Jose’s cousin and his sister. They were out looking for Jose  because he was late getting home, and his mother was worried. The cousin yelled to someone I couldn’t see, “I found him. I’ll text her now!”

Jose sat upright. “Dude! Do not text my mom!” 

“What are you talking about? She’s freaking out. You can’t just leave her out here thinking you got killed or something.” He started to compose a message. “Wait!” Jose yelled. 

Jose’s sister chimed in. “What is your problem?” 

Long story short (too late, I am well aware): Jose’s mother had forbidden him to ride on his friend’s electric scooter, knowing that exactly what happened would happen. Jose did not want to deal with the ensuing fuss, and he was also afraid that his mother wouldn’t let him hang around outside after school anymore. 

Jose’s cousin told him that he could go home with them, or that he’d text his aunt, “and then she’s gonna come running over here with bandaids and shit.” His cousin, obviously a very smart boy, knew that the embarrassment of having your mother fuss over you in front of a bunch of other kids was far worse than the inevitable maternal freak-out when you walk in the house bruised and bleeding. Jose sighed. “Fine,” he said. “Calm down. I’m coming.” 

The three kids (cousin, sister, brother) were all obviously well cared for, and the conversation among them assured me that they were also loved. They walked away together laughing and joking, the older boy carrying his injured cousin’s backpack. At this point, the man and his wife were dealing with the drama of getting young children to leave the park on a beautiful day. We all looked at each other and smiled and nodded. Just as the three kids reached the sidewalk at the edge of the park, they turned back, waved, and yelled “Thank you!” 

*****

That all happened on Tuesday. It’s Sunday now, and March is almost over. The cherry blossoms and the forsythia and the daffodils are in peak bloom now. It’s fully spring. 

20th century

No matter what’s happening in the world, it’s nice to have a proper Saturday. This past Saturday, we went to a hockey game in the afternoon, and left a bit early to meet our sons at the Elephant and Castle for an early dinner. Then we went for a quick drink just before our 7:30 showtime at the National Theater, where we saw “The Simon and Garfunkel Story” for the third time. It’s a wonderful show. 

*****

It’s been months, but I still can’t get used to seeing the National Guard in the Metro stations and out on the streets. We didn’t walk past the Justice or Agriculture or Labor buildings, so we were spared the sight of giant North Korean Trump banners. The area around the White House, though, is an absolute mess, cordoned off for a several block radius. We could barely see Pennsylvania Avenue past 14th Street, and the National Theater is at 13th Street. I know that some crazy person tried to breach the gate last week, but I think they’re also just scared to let people anywhere near the place. 

*****

Well, I didn’t want to see the gaping hole where the East Wing used to be anyway, so it was just as well. There was plenty else to do and see. The weather was beautiful, sunny and mild, and lots of people were out and about. In the little blocks of time before the game, and between the game and dinner, and between dinner and the show, we walked around enjoying the day, like free people without a care in the world. 

It felt like we knew everyone. People smiled and we smiled back. Women, especially older women, nodded and smiled at me in a friendly, conspiratorial way. We all saw each other. We all knew each other. 

*****

“The Simon and Garfunkel Story” is a hybrid concert/play, with singer/actors playing Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, along with a small backing band. They tell stories and play Simon and Garfunkel songs against a huge photo/video backdrop featuring American scenes of the 20th century. 

The stories and songs and images work very well together, establishing Simon and Garfunkel’s place in American life in the 60s and 70s. The cast changes costumes and looks throughout, beginning with the band’s “Tom and Jerry” buttoned-down look of the late 50s to their folk beatnik era in the 60s to their mod 70s style. 

We first saw the show in 2018, and we saw it again five years later, in 2023. The performers were different, but the show was exactly the same both times. The performance we saw last week, which was by far the best of the three (though the other two were quite good) featured a few new-to-the-show songs, and a few story changes, with most of the same 20th century Americana images and film clips. In 2018, those images evoked nostalgia. Now they evoke grief. 

*****

The first two performances we attended were very good, well-produced and very polished. The band remained in the background until the actors introduced them just before the final number. The performers all worked well together and probably went their separate ways after the curtain went down. Which is perfectly fine. 

This last performance was different. The performers seemed less rehearsed, but they were still perfect, hitting every note and every mark with the excitement and joy of musicians who love the music they're playing. Everyone on the stage was young, and the stars shouted out the band members frequently and sincerely. And the energy between Simon and Garfunkel was easy and genuine, like the two were friends in real life. 

And they are. At the end of the show, Jonah Bobo (Paul) introduced himself and Brendan Jacob Smith (Art) and told the audience that the two were theater kids and close friends at the same high school and had remained friends and musical collaborators ever since. They write and perform their own music, as well as performing covers at small venues around the East Coast. Their love for the music and for their band mates and their excitement at playing a prominent venue came across very clearly. They were a joy to watch. Just before they left the stage, they announced that they’d be in the theater lobby after the show to meet fans and take photos and sell their self-produced CDs. “No obligation on the CDs,” Smith said - “we just like to meet the audience.” 

These two young men were so sweet and patient with the line of older people who wanted to chat and take selfies. I didn’t need a selfie, or even to meet the performers, but I make it a point to buy people’s self-produced CDs, so I got in the line. Their manager, a young woman who is obviously also their friend, was working the crowd, and when she got to me, I told her that I just wanted to purchase a CD, and that the performance that evening was the best of the three times I’d seen the show. 

“Jonah,” she yelled. Jonah Bobo turned toward us, and she told me “Tell him!” When I told him that we’d seen the show three times, and that this was the best of the three performances, he broke into a huge smile. “Really?”

“By far,” I said. “Well, it’s not a competition,” he laughed, “but I’m glad we won.” 

*****

That was almost a week ago. It’s Friday now, and my mom has been here all week, so I’ve been too busy to document every detail of my days. She arrived on Sunday morning, and we’re taking her home tomorrow. 

My mom is a Simon and Garfunkel fan. She was young, barely 20, when she had me, and she always listened to pop music at home - sometimes the radio, but more often an album from her collection. She had several Simon and Garfunkel albums, including “Wednesday Morning 3 AM,” which I’m pretty sure I listened to in utero. They’re all octogenarians now - Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel, and my mom. They were born at the height of America’s importance in the world. But everything is different now, and nothing is what any of them could have expected. Paul Simon is nearly deaf in one ear now, and Art Garfunkel walks with a cane, and my poor mom is literally falling apart. They were children of the American century, and the American century is over now.

“It’s all right, it’s all right / You can’t be forever blessed.” We can’t be forever blessed. 

Friday the 13th

Some stupid jerk on the stupid internet pointed out that the last time we had a Friday the 13th in March, the whole world went to shit for more than a year. I did not need to verify that March 13, 2020 was a Friday. I remember. And as it turns out, we have another Friday the 13th this week. I did not need to know this. I need to just stay off the stupid internet. Stupid jerks. 

*****

I wish I could just stay off the stupid internet altogether, but that’s not really practical or even possible. Instead, I’m doing little things like leaving my phone in a different room when I’m home, and setting time limits on social media. I also block trolls and chaos goblins on social media like it’s my job. If it was my job, I’d be good at it. I’d be highly paid. 

*****

Let’s talk about what’s good. My son is home for spring break, and even though I can’t really take any time off to hang around with him, it’s really nice to have him here. My husband went to a hockey game last night, and so I took both of my sons out to eat at a neighborhood restaurant and bar. It’s a low-key, easygoing place, part pub and part sports bar. My sons each ordered a beer with their dinner, and were subject to careful driver’s license vs. face scrutiny, which I found entertaining since I’m obviously their mother, and I’m not the kind of mother who’s going to aid and abet her underage child in an attempt to order beer in a restaurant. After the ID check, the waiter looked at me as if for confirmation, so I told him that I’m their mother and they are truly 24 and 21 years old, and he was satisfied, and the boys got their beers. It was a really nice evening. 

*****

In the movie “Hanging Up,” directed by Nora Ephron and based on her life, Meg Ryan plays Eve, a woman who is hanging on by the thinnest of threads - running a business, raising a child with very little help from her husband, managing a Martha Stewart-esque household, and caring for her cantankerous, early-Alzheimer’s father, played by Walter Matthau (his last role, I think). Diane Keaton plays Georgia, her famous and successful older sister (the Nora Ephron character) and Lisa Kudrow plays Maddie, the bohemian actress younger sister. It’s a good movie, despite a pretty tepid critical response when it was released. Critics can be stupid. I should know, because I write my own inept criticism and commentary all the time, and I can be stupid. 

Anyway, there is a scene in which Eve is rushing to work from the hospital where her father is a patient, and she backs into a Mercedes. The Mercedes driver, a doctor, admonishes Eve for her carelessness, but he’s not a jerk about it; and as a doctor, he can also see that she’s struggling. He hands Eve over to his mother, who is so kind that Eve breaks down crying about her father and everything else in her chaotic life. The mother tells her son that Eve has been through enough and that she shouldn’t have to pay for the damage. 

“He’s an uproar person.” That is the doctor’s mother, describing Eve’s father. A person who is never happy unless everyone around him is miserable, a whirling dervish of crazy who is always in the midst of an uproar, who creates uproar when none exists, and who thrives on the confusion and fury and misery that results from uproar. Does that sound familiar? 

Yes, this entire country - in fact, this entire world - is run by uproar people. Once again, Nora Ephron explains it all. 

*****

I wonder if God is in His heaven, looking down at us all and thinking “What the hell do I have to do to make you morons believe that climate change is real?” After work yesterday, I took off my sweater and put on my sunglasses to walk to my car, and drove home with music blasting and the moonroof open and summer in the air. The high temperature on Wednesday reached 82, and then an intense, high-wind August thunderstorm blew through, threatening trees and roof tiles and patio furniture. Today, Thursday, the windows were closed and the heat was turned back up and I sat at my desk working and watching the snow fall. We’ve cycled through all four seasons twice in the last two weeks. If I were to personify Maryland weather, I would call it an uproar person. 

*****

I started grocery shopping for an old lady in our neighborhood right at the beginning of the pandemic, and I’m still doing her weekly shopping, six years later. My younger son, who was 15 in March 2020, used to help me. The first time I went shopping for the old lady, she wrote the check for $20 more than the total I gave her. I told her not to do that, but she insisted. So I asked my son to come along and help, and I gave him the extra $20. 

School was closed during the first few months of the pandemic, and then summer came, and activities were drastically curtailed, so he always had time to help with the shopping. But even when school and activities resumed, my son made time to go shopping with me. We would laugh about the old lady’s crazy ass grocery requests, and talk about everything and anything. Those grocery trips are among my fondest memories. 

My son is home this week for spring break. He’s working and studying and training and seeing his friends, but he set aside the early part of Thursday evening to accompany me to Safeway. We talked in the car, about everything and anything, and we dunked on our poor old lady’s weird grocery requests. Literally the highlight of my week. And of course, I gave him $20, even though $20 isn’t what it was even as recently as 2020. 

*****

I’d never heard of Kharg Island until yesterday, which was finally Friday the 13th. I suppose I’m relieved that we didn’t drop a nuke on Tehran yesterday, but I think that the Kharg Island bombing is going to turn out to be a very big deal. I think that decades from now, people will talk about Kharg Island like we now talk about the Tonkin Gulf or Mosul or Kandahar, all places that most Americans had never thought of before we barged in with soldiers and tanks and bombs. 

Yesterday being Friday makes today Saturday, and we have plans. We’re going to an afternoon hockey game followed by a show at the National Theater. I kind of can’t believe that I’m doing two things in one day. My energy is limited right now, what with all worst-case-scenario forecasting and resulting panic. And it doesn’t feel right, flitting around to sporting events and theatricals. But it will be good to be out, and necessary since I’ll be on lockdown for the next week. My mom arrives tomorrow and that’s a whole thing in itself. I’m going from macro problems to micro ones. It’ll be chaos around here, but it’s the kind of chaos that I’m used to and can manage. My mom likes having me take care of her, and I kind of like taking care of her. It’s the least I can do. 

White Teeth

I just finished reading White Teeth, and my gosh. Zadie Smith has done it again, and by that, I just mean she’s done it because this was her first book. I always meant to read it, and I finally did. 

White Teeth was published in 2000, which was essentially still the 90s. Zadie Smith and the book got tons of attention at the time - she was quite young (still in her 20s) and a critically acclaimed first novel by a young author is always a big deal. Not long after it was published, I remember reading a blurb that described the book as a novel about a multicultural group of young people coming of age in London. That is not an untruthful description, but it’s a very incomplete one. White Teeth is about almost everything - family, sex, love, friendship, war, politics, history…it’s about the end of the British Empire and the history of 20th century England from World War II to Margaret Thatcher. 

*****

Every generation has some conflict with the generations before and after. Well, except Generation X because we are not out here looking for drama. Let the Millennials fight it out with the Boomers and Gen Z, and leave us out of it. Don’t start none, won’t be none - that’s our motto. 

Multilayered generational conflict is interwoven throughout White Teeth. Longtime friends Samad and Archie, who fought in World War II, both marry women a generation behind them. And so Millat and Magid (Samad) and Irie (Archie) are really young enough to be their fathers’ grandchildren, and are far removed from the England of the war years. Meanwhile, Archie’s wife Clara and Samad’s wife Alsana are the middle of three generations and torn between their native lands (Jamaica and Bangladesh, respectively) and their homeland, England. Samad doesn’t really consider himself English and in fact, he remembers Bangladesh when it was still India. It’s a lot. 

But it’s not all. Add in the scars of World War II and the beginnings of global radical Islam and the supreme arrogance of scientists who don’t distinguish between what can be done and what should be done, and you have a veritable ticking time bomb. 

Every character in this book has a distinct and complex personality - furious Samad, fierce and long-suffering Alsana, awkward Irie and her white father Archie and Black Jamaican mother Clara, Samad and Alsana’s twin sons Millat and Magid, the ridiculous but monstrous Chalfen family. And they all have a reason for being. The book needs every one of them. 

*****

I read novels for the characters more than the story, but White Teeth does not neglect one at the expense of the other. Something happens on almost every page, and reading it feels like reading Dickens, when there’s sheer joy in turning the page to find out what happens next. Fittingly, the book ends on New Year’s Eve 1999. Technically, 2001 was the first year of the 21st century, but the transition from 1999 to 2000 was really the end of the 20th century, and the 20th century is practically a character in White Teeth. It might be the main character. 

*****

I have at least three more Zadie Smith novels to catch up on, and then I’ll have read everything she’s published; in book form, at least. I’m hoping to read all of them this year. Stay tuned. 

In like an absolute jerk

It’s a beautiful Saturday morning with the promise of sunshine and spring temperatures all day. February is almost over. It would be a pretty much perfect day except that we are now at war with Iran. Apparently, the Board of Peace got bored with peace. 

I have no idea how my Trump-supporting friends and family members (who are fortunately very few in number) feel about last night’s bombing raids and the wider war that will almost certainly follow. I’m not going to argue with them anymore. There’s more than enough proof that he’s the worst President in US history. There’s plenty of proof that he’s the worst American ever, full stop. What can I say that they don’t already know? 

War with Iran was inevitable, I guess, and it’s not at all surprising that it’s happening the day after the Clintons sat for depositions before the House Oversight Committee. I’m beyond furious that Hillary Clinton had to sit through this clown show answering questions from people who aren’t worthy to sit in the same room with her. I’m so sick of seeing her made a scapegoat for the worst people. I’m sick of the He-Man Woman Haters Club that runs this country.  

*****

It’s Sunday now. Three Americans died yesterday, along with many Iranians, including about 100 students of a girls’ school in Tehran. And I am once again sick. Sick in both senses of the word, that is - I’m horrified and sickened by the death and destruction, but I’m also just sick. Chills, fever, and some other symptoms that you don’t need to know about. Gross. 

I absolutely hate being sick. Sometimes when I feel overwhelmed, I think that a well-timed positive COVID test or a quick stomach virus would be just the thing. But then I get that little quick stomach virus and I’m just miserable. 

But that’s enough about me. 

*****

It’s Monday now, and I’m better, I think. I thought a little bit yesterday about sickness and why it exists and what we’re meant to learn from it. From our own sickness, we learn to appreciate our health; and from the sickness of others, we learn compassion; or rather, we should learn compassion. Illnesses are clues about the human body that medical science can eventually decipher, and when all the clues are solved, they can cure all disease or even eliminate it altogether. And then what? Everyone just lives until age 95 or so? The place would get crowded. 

Wait, is that it? Is the earth too crowded? Is that why crusty old men start wars every decade or so? Just a big old Marie Kondo clear out the human clutter population purge? I took a break to watch the President’s speech today; or rather, I watched it until he veered off topic and started yammering about pile drivers and curtains. This took about five minutes. How is it possible for anyone to be so evil and yet so entirely unserious? And how is it possible that this is the person who is now running the country with the literal power of life and death? 

*****

It’s Tuesday and I worked in the office so I didn’t see today’s Q&A session. I also didn’t see any of Kristi Noem’s Senate hearing, but I read that even Republican Senators were roasting her. And they probably roasted her for all the wrong reasons - because she’s making Trump look bad and because (of course) she’s a woman - but I don’t even care because she’s just that awful. If Kristi is roasting then I do not care who is turning the spit. Just make sure she’s done on both sides. 

*****

And now Ecuador? We’re at war in Ecuador? What in the actual hell? 

OK, what else is going on? Let’s talk about Maryland weather for a few minutes. It snowed all day on Monday, and the high temperature was about 35 degrees. In Maryland, March comes in like a jerk. March comes in like Stephen Miller around here. And it’s way too early to predict how March will go out, but we’re expecting temperatures in the 70s and low 80s next week. Madness. 

We could also talk about books. I just finished Zadie Smith’s White Teeth, about which I will have much to say. Right now, I’m reading The Little Princesses, Marion Crawford’s memoir of her time as governess to Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret when they were little girls whose father wasn’t supposed to become King. It’s surprisingly good, but there’s quite a sad history behind it. I’ll report on that one later, too. 

*****

Well, well, well. No more private jets and high-fashion tactical gear for you, Kristi Noem. 

Noem’s firing is actually neither good news nor bad news. It’s fun to see terrible people get their well-deserved comeuppances, but nothing is really going to change. Her successor is just as terrible and possibly even more stupid, which scarcely seems possible, but we’re a long way from the bottom. Senator Markwayne Mullin is the guy who tried to square off with the President of the Teamsters during a Senate hearing. He’s just dumb enough to think that a few MMA fights prepared him to go mano a mano with a Teamster. Sean O’Brien would have dog-walked Markwayne Mullin. 

Senator Mullin also made some comments that seemed to indicate that he did not know that the Ayatollah who died in the US bombing raid last week was not the same Ayatollah who oversaw the attack on the American embassy in Tehran in 1979. Khomeini (old guy, now dead) and Khamenei (new guy, also now dead): two different guys. Hopefully, soon-to-be Secretary Mullin is doing his homework and will assume his new role with a basic understanding of the Iranian hierarchy seeing as they are one of the chief threats to homeland security right now. And at least he’ll be out of the Senate. Always a bright side. 

*****

At this point, my blog is nothing more than a personal journal, so I’m not even going to worry about tying this post together in a coherent and logical way. You didn’t come here for logic and coherence, did you? If the answer is yes, then you're in the wrong place. Allow me to introduce myself. Please refer to every other entry in this blog ever. Please refer to the rest of my life. 

*****

It was a bleak and dreary week, but it’s Friday now. I love my job but I’m tired. A little downtime might be just what the doctor ordered. Still, weekends are dodgy under Trump 47. God willing, the President will restrict the bomb-dropping to the countries where we’re already at war. Hopefully, we won’t wake up on Sunday morning to find that we sent troops into Canada or that we’re blockading Guam. I was going to be really petty and say that I hoped it would rain on Mar a Lago all weekend long, but we can’t have him bored and restless. I guess I’ll have to indulge my pettiness by celebrating Kristi Noem’s downfall. Meanwhile, keep your dogs inside. Someone has a lot of time on her hands. 

SOTU

The state of him! I read somewhere that that’s a potent insult in Ireland, to huff and shake your head at someone who is a mess, literally or figuratively, and exclaim “The state of him!” 

Yeah, you know who I’m talking about, even though I’m not going to mention his name. Considering it my civic duty, I was going to watch at least a good part of the State of the Union address last night, but I had to walk away. I don’t like seeing him or hearing his voice; and between the smirking faces of the Speaker and the Vice President and the Krusty Kabinet Krew and the whole Republican side of the House chamber leaping to its feet to hoot and holler like jackasses at every stupid lie, I was finished after only ten minutes. I’ll read the transcript. 

*****

He won’t live forever, but I can’t be sure that the end of the Trump crime spree will be the end of MAGA and Trumpism. The Republican Senators and Representatives and the KKK all seemed pretty pleased with themselves and not at all ashamed of their role in enabling this vile man and his cruelty and corruption, and that just makes me think that we’ll see more of the same in another Republican administration. They’re proud of how evil they are. 

They’re also so far beyond “saying the quiet part out loud.” Representative Al Green got kicked out of the House chamber for holding up a sign that read “Black people are not apes!” What was inappropriate about that sign? Why was Representative Troy Nehls so offended by that sign that he tried to tear it out of Green’s hands? Those are rhetorical questions whose answers I already know. White supremacy is no longer a subtext for MAGA. It’s the whole book. 

*****

I never did read the transcript, and I never will. I read and heard enough post-speech coverage to get the gist. 

The state of this country! The state of it! 

Fasting

Today is Shrove Tuesday, also known as Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras. It’s Pancake Day in some households. It’s Paczki Day in others. But tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, no matter what you call the Tuesday before. 

You probably know that Catholics and some other Christians observe a tradition of fasting and sacrifice during Lent. We are supposed to mostly fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and to avoid meat on Fridays throughout the 6-week season. We are encouraged, though not required, to “give something up” for Lent - sweets or alcohol or social media or something. I always give up chocolate, a hard sacrifice for me. And Lent is about giving as well as sacrificing. More time spent in prayer, charitable contributions beyond the usual, selfless action toward others - it’s all part of the season. 

Lent is actually relatively easy now. In the pre-Vatican 2 Catholic church, Catholics gave up meat for the entire season, not just on Fridays; as well as butter, eggs, and sugar. Hence the Fat Tuesday tradition - Catholics needed to use up all of their butter and sugar and eggs before Lent began. 

*****

The winter of 2023 - 2024 was when I started to feel some grudging affection for winter. It was my youngest son’s first year in college and by January, I had gotten used to not having him at home. I still missed him, but it was easier. And of course, we got to cheer at college swim meets, and there are few things more fun than cheering at a college swim meet. 

My husband was working a lot that winter (as always), and my older son, who lived at home while he finished college, was often out. I spent a lot of time by myself that winter, and I remember looking out the window at the calm winter twilight, feeling the darkness gather and close in like a blanket. I’d only turn the lights on when it was fully dark outside. I read a lot of books that winter. I made soup. I watched movies. It was nice. Peaceful. 

This winter is not a peaceful time for me or anyone, but I still have cozy little winter twilight flashbacks. I still hate the cold, but I must admit that I’ve become rather fond of certain aspects of winter. 

*****

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, and we’re now in the season of Lent. As always, I’m giving up sweets, including sugar in my tea. As always, Lent is going to be hard. It’s only the second day and it’s already hard. But it’s fine. Life is hard. 

Life felt especially hard yesterday for some odd reason, and not just because of the Ash Wednesday fast and the sugar deprivation. Everything felt sad and dreary. I worked from home and my oversize sweater and stretchy pants felt like sackcloth, which goes well with ashes, I guess. There’s something about the Ash Wednesday timing this year - right after President’s Day and right after the Conference meet - that makes it feel like winter is coming to an abrupt end. And in very uncharacteristic fashion, I am not ready for winter to end. What is wrong with me? Who am I, even? 

*****

Isn’t it weird how other democratic modern industrialized nations can hold their elite to the basic standard of “the law applies to you, too, buddy” and we can’t manage to do the same? Shout out to the UK. Shout out to South Korea. May it be here as it is there. 

*****

Yeah, I get sidetracked sometimes. Anyway, it would appear that I spoke too soon about the abrupt departure of winter because we expect another winter storm on Sunday, and another few days of stupid cold temperatures, and it turns out that I might just be ready for this to end after all. The thing is that I just feel like hibernating for a few weeks longer. I want to come home from work in the evening and watch the darkness close in and not go anywhere. I want to come home and stay home. But I’ll want to be out in the world again as soon as the weather and the longer days make the outside world a bit more hospitable. 

“Outside world” - listen to me as if I’ve been housebound all winter. I’m out in the world all the time. ALL the time, I tell you. 

*****

I haven’t paid much attention to the Olympics, but I’ve watched Alysa Liu’s free skate at least five times now. I’d heard her extraordinary comeback story and I knew that she had won gold so I found the YouTube video so that I could keep up with the conversation. I teared up like a baby the moment I heard the opening chords of Donna Summer’s “MacArthur Park,” one of my favorite childhood songs and still an absolute banger. I loved everything about that performance. Every single woman who remembers being a girl who was too loud or too quiet or too fat or too sexy or not sexy enough or too smart or too silly loved that performance. Every single woman who has ever been told how to dress and how to act and what to eat and and what to say and when to smile, smile, smile (but not like that because boys will get ideas) loved that performance. Alysa Liu had had enough of all of that, so much so that she quit skating at age 16. And then she came roaring back at 20, determined to do everything her own way, with joy and without fear. And she won. I’d follow that 20-year-old girl into battle. 

*****

It’s Sunday morning now. I was going to go to Mass. I really should go to Mass, but it’s raining hard and it just feels like a day when I’m not going to leave the house. At least the month-old dirty snow is almost gone, soon to be replaced by fresh clean snow. As always, the DMV snow forecast is less than definitive. Latest reports indicate that we’ll see anywhere from zero to 48 inches. 

I’m watching the gold medal US vs. Canada game. Connor Hellebuyck is the truth, as my son says. If the US manages to win this thing (it just went into overtime), then he’s absolutely the MVP. 

This is crazy. I’m too old to watch 3 on 3 overtime. 

*****

USA! USA! That was an absolutely amazing hockey game. I didn’t think I’d miss the Olympics when it was over, but I’m definitely going to miss it a little bit. 

I’m watching the medals ceremony and texting with my husband, my son, my cousin, and my boss. I love a lot of the Canadian players, especially Tom Wilson and Logan Thompson. And I’m one of the only Capitals fans in the world who likes Brad Marchand. I feel bad for those Canadians. But not that bad. Americans have been through some shit this year. We needed a win. 

*****

We can’t have nice things for five minutes, can we? Thankfully, I turned the TV off right after the medals ceremony so I didn’t have to watch Kash Patel ruining the locker room party. I can’t even muster outrage about the stupid Trump call because OF COURSE he made fun of the women’s team and OF COURSE they all laughed. But I can absolutely muster outrage about stupid Kash Patel flying to Cortina in his little private jet at the taxpayers’ expense, and then making the whole thing about him. Every member of the Krusty Kabinet Krew (see what I did there) should just quit and spend their time making “own the libs” social media content. That’s all they do anyway, and I’d prefer that they do it at their own expense.  

*****

The snow fell overnight, leaving us with maybe 5 inches of new white snow. The sky is pale gray, almost white, and the trees are weighed down with heavy, damp snow. This latest snowfall will melt by the end of the week. We’re about to enter the first full week of Lent. And it’s Monday, so it’s time to get to work. It’s fasting season now in more ways than one, but cheering season will return. 

A week in February

I’m reading a book now, and I’m only a few pages in so it’s too early to write about it but I will be writing about it soon. Stay tuned. Watch this space. 

So what should I write about, other than the collapse of America, a topic of which I never tire. But maybe my vast readership would like for me to change the subject. So I will. 

It’s Super Bowl Sunday and I don’t care one little bit about this game, although I do hope Seattle wins, for reasons. It’s extraordinarily cold and bright outside. Sunlight always seems so much brighter on crisp, cold days, especially when it reflects on the snow that fell two weeks ago and that is nowhere close to melting. 

*****

My sons and I went to Barnes and Noble yesterday. I wanted to buy books, but I really can’t justify the purchase of any additional books until I read all the ones I already have. So it’s going to be a while. Instead, I paid for the books that my sons had picked out for themselves because I can and because I like to treat my kids.

*****

We go to the same Super Bowl party every year, and that’s exactly what we did on Sunday. It was lovely - fewer people than usual, and we were quieter than usual, but it was still a good time. It was nice to be out. It was nice to be with people. 

*****

My younger son has always liked the grocery store. He always went shopping with me, while my older son, given the choice, would stay home with my husband or on his own when he got old enough. We both liked the one-on-one time. My son also had (and still has) very specific preferences for breakfast and lunch and snack foods, and accompanying me was the best way to make sure that I stocked up on his favorites. 

Last weekend, he was home overnight. When I announced that I was going shopping and asked if anyone wanted anything, my younger son stood up and said “Can I go?” Can you go? Of course you can! My son is 21 and he doesn’t get home as often as I would like and I will take any chance I can to hang out with him, including a grocery run. Especially a grocery run. 

And that’s really all there is to that story. It was just one of those mundane and ordinary little bits of time that wouldn’t seem memorable from the outside but it was memorable to me. I will remember that grocery store trip and that bookstore visit. 

*****

The temperature is going to claw its way out of the 30s today - maybe even out of the 40s - and the sun is out and I’m watching my favorite fat little squirrel sitting on the fence outside my window. He appears to be grooming himself. Or maybe it’s a she. The squirrel does appear to be up the spout, so I think she’s a she. Anyway, she just finished her morning routine, and she’s on her way. But she’s always welcome to return. My fence is your fence, Squirrelly Hemphill. Take care of yourself. 

*****

On Thursday, we leave for Lexington Park, where we’ll be spending the weekend. The Atlantic East Conference Championship is at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, too far from Silver Spring to drive back and forth between prelims and finals. And it’s a really fun weekend. The Benito Bowl was great, and the Olympics are fine (I’m a Summer Olympics person), but this is the real sports highlight of the year for us. 

*****

Imagine spending 15 weeks walking all day and into the night, carrying all of your belongings, eating one meal per day, sleeping wherever you find room (sometimes outdoors), through highways and trails and city streets and suburban neighborhoods, in all conditions and no matter how much your body might be crying out for rest, you keep going. The Buddhist monks who have been walking for peace for 15 weeks wrapped up their 1,800-mile walk from Texas to Washington, DC. Marymount University, where my son is a student, was one of their last stops. They arrived late on Monday afternoon and spent the night on campus - I’m not sure where, because they barely have enough dorm rooms for the students. Maybe some students volunteered to give up their rooms for the monks. Or maybe they spent the night in the gym. 

My son sent me a video of the peace walk arriving at Marymount’s tiny campus, and I think that not only the entire university, but the entire neighborhood, turned out to welcome the monks.  I wish I could have been there, but I’m glad he got to be there. 

*****

It's Thursday afternoon and I'm in the car on the Capital Beltway (not driving, of course). It's 2 PM, bright and sunny, and we're on our way to do our favorite thing, which is to watch college swimming. The only thing better than a college swim meet is a 4-day multiple session college swimming extravaganza. It's Atlantic East Conference championship weekend. The Super Bowl and Olympics cannot compare. 

This is our third year as Marymount swim parents, and we have a routine now. We're staying at our usual hotel, and we'll have lunch and happy hour with the other team parents at the usual spots, and we'll spend an afternoon at Solomon's Island, and we'll chill in the hotel room in the evening. But mostly we'll sit in the bleachers at the Saint Mary's College of Maryland pool and we'll cheer for the Saints. What could be better?

*****

On a typical Thursday night, I would drive home from work, do some household chores, drop off my work bag, and then go grocery shopping for my old lady. Then I would eat sushi and do laundry and write something and then read or watch TV or both until it's time to go to bed. Last night, I watched my son's 200 medley relay break their own program, conference, and meet records, and his teammates’ 800 free relay also break all their records, and then I sat in a hotel lobby drinking wine and chatting with my favorite team parents. That was a pretty good Thursday night. 

It's Friday morning now. I woke up early and sat quietly in the dark hotel room, reading and drinking hotel room coffee. Waking up in a quiet, dark hotel room and making room coffee and then getting back into bed with a book is such an underrated human experience. It's one of my favorite things about any overnight trip. 

Friday is 200 IM day. 200 IM is not my son's best event, but he'll final, and one of his teammates will probably win. As always, the Marymount parents group shows up and shows out. We have team lanyards (it's a swimming thing) and pom-poms and T-shirts, and we cheer loudly and enthusiastically. The other teams are catching up. The pool at the Michael P. O'Brien Aquatic and Recreation Center was a hub of excitement last night, and that excitement will build throughout the weekend as Marymount and St. Mary's trade leads. No disrespect to the other four teams, but this thing is pretty much a dual meet. 

*****

It's Saturday morning now, and the Marymount boys hold a 16 point lead. In a college championship meet, this is a veritable tie. So it's going to be an interesting day. 

Saturday is 100 breast day. My son is nervous and so am I. He is the defending champion in this event and everyone wants to take down a defending champion. And there are three or four swimmers here who could do it. This race could go any way. 

I know that it's silly for me to be nervous but I am. And all of the swim parents out here saying that they don't really care about their kids' times or placement or if they win or lose or make a relay or not are lying. I say stupid shit like this all the time and when I do, I am lying. 

We all care. But why we care is what varies. A few parents might really feel that their kids' athletic performance reflects on them and so a bad race is something they could or should have done something to prevent. But most of us care because we hate to see our child's disappointment after a bad race. And more than that, we really love seeing their elation after a best time or a flipped race or a win or even a record. That moment of triumph and sheer joy is something to witness. We love to see it. 

*****

And we got to see it last night. Even though it was a silver finish, it might have been the best and most exciting race of my son's career, and it wasn't just me saying that. 

My son's senior teammate, also an excellent breaststroker, has been trying to beat him in the 100 breaststroke for three years, and he finally did it last night. Both boys swam best times and they were neck and neck, trading the razor thin lead throughout the four lengths of the pool. The finish was so close that we had to check the scoreboard to confirm the winner. I'd have loved to see my son win it and swim the 400 medley relay, but I certainly couldn't have asked him to do better or try harder. They left it all in the pool last night. 

It's Sunday now. One more day of championship swimming and then it's over again until next year. My son swims the 200 breast today, and he's not likely to win but he could very well medal. The Marymount boys have a solid lead now, and the girls are behind by only 6 points. Hoping for a two way Saints win tonight. 

*****

I overheard two parents talking - one asked where the other’s wife was, and the man said that she was skipping the meet this year and the first person laughed and said “How is she getting away with that?”

These are two really fine people who happen to have other children who are D1 swimmers. I couldn’t tell if they were being performatively blase or if they’d really rather have been somewhere else. No judgement, but I would not have been anywhere else this weekend. 

It’s Monday morning, and the 2025-2026 swim season is over. The Marymount boys won the meet, with the girls a close second. And my son did medal in the 200 breaststroke - he finished second just behind the conference record-holder, a St. Mary’s junior. My son’s girlfriend told me that the St. Mary’s swimmer’s parents were very nervous during this race, as they should have been. It was very very close until the last 25. 

*****

This is Presidents’ Day. This week’s internet joke is that Presidents’ Day should be cancelled until we have a real President, which is not only a lame joke (even though the principle behind it is quite sound) but an outrage because I am not willing to give up the free gift of a day off. It was a wonderful weekend, but I have some catching up to do - bills to pay, groceries to buy, laundry to do, and a house that isn’t going to compulsively clean itself. The promised book review is coming. I’m sure you’re all agog.   

Burn it all down

This last week, meaning the last days of January through the first days of February, has been quite a week. Quite. A. Week. Day and night, the temperature in the DMV hasn’t risen above 36 or so for about 2 weeks now. I’m acclimated. It was 21 degrees this morning when I went to work, and I breezed in there wearing nothing but a midweight jacket that I didn’t even bother to zip up, and I was fine. 

And the cold is the very least of it. The Epstein files are taking down powerful men all over the world, except here in the US. Yes, a few American men have lost their jobs and their reputations, but I can’t think of a single one who has suffered real consequences. 

OK, one - Ghislaine Maxwell. 

Oh wait - she’s not a man now, is she? 

*****

I’ve always thought that Trump was a Russian asset, and Tulsi Gabbard, too. And now it looks like the Epstein scandal is connected to international intrigue of the very worst sort. And it also looks like the President of the United States is not just one of many evildoers mixed up in this horrendous web of crime - he’s one of the ringleaders. And for me, an American raised smack dab in the middle of the American Century, the granddaughter of men who fought in WWII, the idea of the United States of America controlled by a truly evil cabal of rapists and traitors is too much. 

Years as a government contractor and I have never lost or misplaced or forgotten my PIV (Personal Identity Validation) or CAC (Common Access Card), until Friday. I was scheduled to work from home and when I went to turn on my computer at 7:30, I found that my badge holder had no badge. I panicked immediately but then just started methodically looking for it - in my purse, my work tote, my coat pocket, my car, the pocket of the pants I had worn on Thursday - everywhere it could have been and a few places where it couldn’t. Nothing. And now I’m really panicking, because I can’t work without it, and because it’s easier to replace a driver’s license or a passport than a CAC card. Ain’t nobody got time for that. 

I was just about to call the security office to see if anyone had found and returned my CAC card when I received a text message from my coworker, who had found my CAC card at the front desk. I drove to the base, I met him at the gate, he handed me my CAC card, and I was back home and at my desk by 9. All’s well that ends well, I suppose. 

Except that this little incident was further evidence that my brain is not working, and it hasn’t been for some time. Everything is too much now. Everything is falling through the ever-widening cracks. I’m nothing but cracks now. I’m “crashing out” as the young people say on the internet. 

*****

One of the most fun things this week has been Hillary Clinton out here with “I wish a motherfucker would” energy. I’d like to actually take the day off, make popcorn, and watch that hearing all day long, but I don’t think it’s actually going to happen. James Comer is a trifling and stupid man but he’s not stupid enough not to recognize that he’s no match for Hillary Rodham Clinton. Still, that would be a fun day. 

*****

How fast the White House has gone from “cry more libtards it was just a joke” to “an unknown staffer posted that racist video, which we have now deleted and which we hereby order you to forget about” to “yeah I posted it but I didn’t watch it first and no I won’t apologize.” But despite conflicting stories, one thing is clear (well, two, counting the racism) and that is that someone has a very bad case of Obama Derangement Syndrome

*****

It’s Saturday now and extremely cold but bright and sunny. My son is home for the weekend and I’m going to get out of the house like a normal person. I need to take a little break from my not-at-all fake outrage. A bookstore visit should do it. I’ll be back again on Monday, and I’ll still be furious. 

Dead or Alive

If I’ve learned one thing in the last few years, it’s that picking up a new Zadie Smith essay collection is going to send me down a rabbit hole of knowledge-seeking about artists and writers and musicians whom I have never heard of. That book is also going to cost me some money because when I read Zadie Smith’s essays, I’ll almost always learn about a book that I didn’t know existed but that I must buy and read immediately. 

This time, the essay collection is Dead or Alive, and the book that I must buy is Hilary Mantel’s Beyond Black. I thought that I had read all of Hilary Mantel’s novels, and I had resigned myself to the knowledge that there wouldn’t be any more new ones coming because Hilary Mantel died in 2022, may she rest in peace. 

Zadie Smith loves Hilary Mantel just as much as I do because of course she does, because she has flawless taste. She knew Mantel personally and recalls a conversation about the then work-in-progress Wolf Hall, describing Mantel’s animated explanation of her forthcoming book as a performance worthy of any stage. Zadie Smith didn’t read Wolf Hall until Bring Up the Bodies and The Mirror and the Light had been published, and was just as awestruck as everyone else who read Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell trilogy. Who would ever have thought that Henry VIII’s henchman and consigliere and victim would be the best literary character since Jo March or David Copperfield or Dorothea Brooke? 

Not only Hilary Mantel, but Flannery O’Connor, Muriel Spark, Joan Didion, Martin Amis, Philip Roth, Shakespeare, and Dickens all make appearances at some point in these essays. So do Stormzy, Madonna, and Eminem. A Zadie Smith essay collection is a bit of a party. You're lucky to be invited, and you never know who’s going to show up. 

*****

Zadie Smith sometimes writes about her childhood and youth in London. Her father was a white Englishman and her mother a Jamaican immigrant. She writes about what it was like to be a mixed-race child in 1980s and 1990s Britain. She writes with sadness and anger about the erosion of Britain’s social welfare system, which allowed her working-class parents to build a good life and to provide for their children. 

I love all of her personal writing, but she’s best and funniest when she writes about her mess of a teenage self - self-centered, self-important, self-dramatizing, messy and petulant and stubborn but also sensitive, brilliant, and hilarious. She writes about being a teenager like she really remembers what it was like and like she fondly remembers and accepts her teenage self, flaws and all. I was also a mess of a young person, and only began to think kindly about my teenage self when I had teenagers of my own and finally understood that they’re pretty much all self-centered, self-important, self-dramatizing, messy and petulant and stubborn but also sensitive, brilliant, and hilarious in their own way. 

In addition to the writers and artists and musicians I learned more about while reading Dead or Alive, I also learned something new about Zadie Smith, which is that she once fell from an upper floor window, breaking several bones and spending months recovering while also figuring out how to respond to the rumors that her fall was an intentional attention grab or a suicide attempt. The truth is that she was trying to look interesting while smoking a cigarette out the window of her teenage bedroom, and she lost her balance and toppled out of the open window. I never smoked as a teenager, and I never fell out of a window, but I did many many stupid things while trying to look interesting or cool, and sometimes those stupid things had even stupider consequences. Here’s something that Zadie Smith and I have in common with every other person born before 1985 or so - little or no video evidence of our stupidity exists. Thank God we didn’t have access to social media in the 80s, because we did stupid things all day long, and we thought we were hilarious, and we would have documented everything. 

*****

“Men can always be blind to a thing so long as it is big enough.” That is Zadie Smith quoting yet another writer, G.K. Chesterton, about whom I have mixed feelings. But here he’s dead right, and so is Zadie Smith, pointing out the unfortunate human tendency to fall for frauds and charlatans and to fail to see the truth even when it’s right in front of them. Zadie Smith can write about art, literature, history, or music from any decade or even any century, but she’s never not relevant to the present moment. Lucky for me, I haven’t read all of her novels yet. I’ll get on that next. 

Without a paddle

It’s Monday January 75th here in the DC suburbs of Maryland. It’s very cold and will remain so for several days - at least a week. I worked at home today because we got a foot or more of snow and ice, and the DMV shuts down in these conditions. OPM ordered maximum telework today and I’d have had to stay home anyway because my rinky dink little street will be among the last to see a plow. 

I didn’t leave the house at all on Sunday, not even for a moment. It snowed almost all day, with some sleet for good measure; and it was freezing, freezing cold. Everyone who is protesting in the streets of Minneapolis is my hero right now, especially Alex Pretti, who tried to help a woman who’d been knocked to the ground by ICE thugs and who ended up dead on the street, shot 10 times. And despite overwhelming video evidence to the contrary, the criminals at the head of DHS and ICE and the Border Patrol claimed and are still claiming two days later that Pretti was brandishing a gun. 

“They lie to us. We know that they’re lying, and they know that we know that they’re lying, and we know that they know that we know that they’re lying. And they keep lying to us and we keep pretending to believe them.” This is paraphrased and an approximate translation from the Russian quote attributed to both Aleksandr Solzenhitsyn and Elena Gorokhova. Soviet cynicism seems particularly relevant now. 

*****

It’s Tuesday now. I was very happy to learn earlier today that Greg Bovino had been unceremoniously yanked out of Minneapolis and shipped off to California to sit behind a desk from which he will not even be able to shit-post for eight hours a day because they cut off his social media access. Considering that most of this administration are nothing more than content creators who think their sole job is to own the libs on the internet, this is a very big demotion indeed, and I’m here for it. I’ll be happier still to see Bovino, Noem, Lewandowski and the rest of them fired in disgrace and left to fend for themselves as Trump washes his hands of them. People who sell their souls to the devil usually learn the hard way, and too late, that they are getting absolutely nothing in return. 

*****

Speaking of shit-posting, I sent something about Minneapolis to the wrong group chat yesterday, and I don’t even care. Anyone who is going to be mad at me for talking about government agents murdering people in the streets can stay mad. Stay mad! 

*****

It’s Wednesday now, and I left the house for real, as in driving down the road, for the first time since Sunday. The driving down the road part took a little time because I made the mistake of turning my wheel too soon at the end of the driveway, where I promptly got stuck in a micro-tundra of snow and ice. My husband had even reminded me to pull all the way out of the driveway before trying to turn my wheel and drive away, but I forgot. So I was stuck. And I was absolutely determined to get unstuck, without any help. So I got out a shovel and I started digging out the snow and chipping away at the ice and I could see the tundra shrinking a bit. I tried again and I was still stuck, but I’d moved a little bit farther back. So I pulled back up and started shoveling and chipping again, and got back in the car again, and bumped my way over the snow and ice and was on my merry way. 

I had texted my boss to let him know that I’d be late. He told me to just go back in the house and telework, and I was tempted, but the car was stuck halfway out into the street so I had to move it anyway. And I also wanted to win. A little ice isn’t going to scare me back into the house.  

*****

It’s so hard to concentrate lately. I’m constantly anxious and distracted at work, and it takes me forever to finish reading a book. I’ll probably fold a load of laundry, clean a few countertops, check my email, and straighten the shoes in the mudroom before I even finish this paragraph. 

Oh, and the government might shut down again. I will not be affected unless it’s a protracted shutdown, but lots of other people will. Three of our four snow shovels broke, and there are no more snow shovels to be had. The Washington Capitals can’t win a game to save their lives. And it is STILL JANUARY. My gosh. 

***** 

There’s supposed to be a general strike tomorrow. I have mixed feelings about this. I believe in strikes, but I also believe that most people in the United States need to keep their jobs and it’s not at all unreasonable to choose your family’s livelihood over activism. But I won’t buy anything tomorrow, and if enough other people don’t buy anything, then maybe the powers that be will get the message. Business leaders are already starting to speak up a little bit - far too late and far too little but better than nothing. Minneapolis got rid of Bovino. Yes, they ended up with Homan in his place, but they still made a difference. They still forced a response. If CEOs and rich people in general start to feel a little bit of economic pain, things could start to change. 

Or maybe not, because it looks like Jeff Bezos is passing along the economic pain resulting from the almost certain failure of the $40 million Melania movie to a few thousand Amazon workers. The billionaire “job creators” giveth and they taketh away - very little of the former, and a lot of the latter.

*****

It never fails. Bruce Springsteen says (or sings) something about injustice and fascism in America, and a bunch of idiots who have obviously never actually listened to a Springsteen song in their lives start crying about rock stars “getting political.” “Streets of Minneapolis” brought them out of the woodwork. The song actually isn’t very good in strict songwriting terms - the lyrics are pretty clunky, and I wish that he had been a little less literal, not least of all because Trump and Noem and Miller do not deserve to have their names mentioned in a Springsteen song, even a song that calls them out as the criminals they are. But it’s still pretty impressive that he wrote, recorded, and released it within two days of Alex Pretti’s murder. I’m glad he’s on the right side of history. 

*****

Catherine O’Hara? Are you fucking kidding me? 

I haven’t been this sad about a celebrity death since Carrie Fisher died. We watched “A Mighty Wind” tonight. This was the first movie in my Catherine O’Hara movie marathon. Or maybe I should just move to Schitt’s Creek. 

Wait. I think I already live there.

*****

It’s Saturday morning now, beautiful and bright and sunshiny and very cold. I’m getting used to it, and it’s a good thing, because the cold is going to continue for at least another week. It’s still quite early and I don’t yet have a plan for the day. I’d like to try to stay away from current events for the next day or so but if the rest of you have to watch this shit show, then so do I. I still think it’s going to get better; rather, I hope that things are going to get better. But not before it gets worse. I’ve heard that the latest Epstein documents are pretty horrifying, which means that we’re due for another violent distraction - maybe an attack on a foreign country or maybe a bloody crackdown on domestic dissent - or maybe both. Anything could happen.  

But anything good could happen, too. It would only take a bare handful of Republicans to force Congress to do its job and stop these criminals. I remain hopeful. The Capitals even won two in a row!! Anything is possible. And January is finally over. 

Retribution

I read Jonathan Karl’s Retribution right after Christmas. This is a book whose cover is adorned with the infamous “Fight” photo taken right after the 2024 “assassination attempt” in Butler, PA and left to my own devices I wouldn’t have touched it with a barge pole. But it was a Christmas present, so I read it. 

It was fine, I guess - very critical of Trump though not nearly critical enough. Karl is also critical of Biden and Harris and although some of his criticism is reasonable, the book as a whole reads very much as though Mr. Karl is trying to come across as “balanced” and “fair,” things that used to be very important to serious journalists and I suppose still are. But there are not always “both sides.” As they say on the internet, if one person tells a journalist that it’s pouring outside and another tells the same journalist that it’s bright and sunny, then the journalist’s job is not to present both sides of the story - it’s to look out the fucking window and see who’s telling the truth. 

*****

It is interesting that Sean Curran, who was Special Agent in Charge of Trump’s security detail on July 13 2024 is now the head of the United States Secret Service. Kimberly Cheatle, who was the Director of the Secret Service on that day, was fired; but the SA who was actually responsible for the safety of then former President Trump was promoted. Jonathan Karl interviewed Director Curran about how the Secret Service would respond if Trump was convicted and sent to prison in 2024, and Curran assured Karl that the Secret Service would continue to protect the former President no matter where he was, and that Curran himself was prepared to remain imprisoned with Trump. “There’s nothing I would not have done for him,” Curran said. Nothing he would not have done. Interesting. 

*****

I am a chronically well-informed person who lived and breathed every minute of the 2024 election campaign. I remember most of the details, most of the day to day ins and outs of that campaign. I remember the excitement and optimism of October, when I thought Kamala Harris would win. I also read 107 Days, Harris’s book about the campaign, pretty much the minute it came out. So I was already pretty well-versed in the events of 2024, and I didn’t learn much reading this book that I didn’t already know. It’s well-researched and well-written, but it didn’t reveal anything, about Trump or the campaign, that I wasn’t already aware of. Until the end, though, I thought that it might be a fine book to read for anyone who wants a primer on the last presidential election. But Jonathan Karl’s closing arguments tanked the whole thing for me. 

*****

About journalist friends who feared that a second Trump term would be the end of democracy in the United States, Karl writes “I have long believed - and still hope - that those fears are overblown.” This is just stupid, so shockingly stupid, that it outweighs any of the book’s positives. 

This is a book that came out late in the year 2025, a year in which a Congresswoman was arrested for trying to fulfill her oversight responsibility at an ICE holding facility in her district. It was a year in which a sitting US Senator was grabbed and thrown to the floor for daring to ask the Secretary of Homeland Security a question. The first official act of this presidency was a pardon for hundreds of insurrectionists, including people who attacked police officers with flagpoles and bear spray. 2025 was the year in which National Guard troops were nationalized and deployed on city streets. On October 1, 2025, the nation’s top military officers were summoned to a browbeating by the Secretary of Defense with a guest appearance by the President who told the Generals and Admirals that they needed to be prepared to fight the enemy within; i.e., us. We shipped people to a torture prison in a foreign country. We built an actual concentration camp. And that’s just what I can remember right off the top of my head. If none of that was enough to convince a journalist that his colleagues’ fears for the country were not “overblown” then what is he even doing?   

*****

I don’t blame the media for everything. But I blame them for not doing their jobs, and it seems to me that a journalist publishing a whole ass book about the 2024 campaign and the early days of his second term and still downplaying the seriousness of what’s happening in this country is really not doing his damn job. I’m going to go read a real book now. 

Longish weekend

Maryland weather, I will see your crazy ass in hell. 

It's noon on Friday and about 28 degrees outside, and we're in the car on our way to Marymount University for the Saints annual showdown with Pope’s Cup rival Catholic University. Last year, the Catholic meet happened on the Friday immediately following Trump's inauguration, a time that seemed terrible at the time. I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then. 

But I do know. And I don't really wish I didn't know what's happening. I'd prefer to be informed and aware. If you call me woke, I'll say thank you. 

*****

Back to the swim meet, which is a very welcome diversion from the horrors. We lost this meet last year, by just a hair, and my son won the 100 breast against a very talented Catholic swimmer, by .02. So it should be exciting and competitive. 

*****

It’s Saturday now. The meet was fun, but not really competitive. I’m not sure what happened to the Catholic University men’s swim team but the Marymount men crushed them. The Marymount medley relay won at the beginning and the freestyle relay won at the end, and my son won both of his breaststroke events. Once again, the freestyle leg of the 200 IM took him down and he finished second in that event. But 3 out of 4 is great.

My 83-year-old mother in law came with us and she enjoyed herself thoroughly. She hadn’t seen him swim in a meet since he was 14 or so. Being unfamiliar with college swimming, she was quite impressed with the officials and the backstroke flags and the coaches with their whistles and clipboards. It could have been NCAA Division I championships for all she knew. Like me, she was on her feet yelling and cheering every time he was in the water, and she cheered for all of the Marymount swimmers in all of their races. We had a late lunch/early dinner, and we had her home by 6. I think it was the most fun she’s had in some time. A 10/10 afternoon. 

And it's a 3 day weekend, which is normally a really nice thing, but an extra weekend day gives the President an extra 24 hours to unleash more Epstein distraction mayhem. We’re always on high alert. We’re always on guard. 

*****

It’s Sunday now. The Sunday of a 3-day weekend is one of my favorite things, and we haven’t invaded Greenland just yet, so I’m cautiously optimistic. Of course the military incursion that Greenland has managed to avoid might end up advancing on the great state of Minnesota, but I’m not going to borrow any more trouble at high rates of interest. I can’t afford the payments. 

There’s a new bookstore in Bethesda, and that is where I plan to spend my afternoon. Two friends are going with me, and I hope they don’t expect me to talk because I’m not much for conversation when I’m book shopping. I had planned to go to church this morning but Mass starts in 20 minutes and I’m still in my pajamas so that might not happen. Maybe I’ll go to a later Mass. Or maybe I won’t. I don’t know. The bookstore trip is a pretty firm plan and that might be all I can commit to today. 

*****

It’s a pretty cold MLK Day morning. We went to the bookstore yesterday as planned, and I bought two books: A Little History of the World and Trouble Maker: The Fierce, Unruly Life of Jessica Mitford. I also bought two Snoopy keychains (one for my older son) and a fancy notebook and of course, a canvas tote bag because I can’t pass up a canvas tote bag and because I try not to ever leave an independent bookstore without leaving at least $100 behind; or $114 to be exact. I’ll economize elsewhere. 

One of the two friends I went with is the friend I mentioned in this post. And I think she might be cracking. I’ll say crack again - she’s about to crack. The three of us went to a twee little vegan coffee shop (where I had a few sips of literally the worst chai latte ever brewed - so bad that I threw most of it away, despite its $7 price tag). I didn’t bring up the state of the country, nor did my Trump-supporting friend. Our third friend, who is normally the politest and most moderate and even-tempered of our whole friend group, and the least likely to talk about politics, brought up the criminal ICE rampage in Minneapolis. And she did not hold back. 

And for once, my Trump-supporter friend did not take criticism of Trump as a personal attack, nor did she try to deflect or change the subject. She listened and nodded and acknowledged that Renee Good should still be alive, though she stopped short of agreeing with our assessment of the killing as a murder. “They need to turn down the temperature,” she said. Of course she’s missing the point that Trump and his accomplices and lackeys and goons have no desire to turn any temperature down and that they in fact want as much heat and fury and confusion as they can generate. But that’s still a sea change for someone who has steadfastly defended Trump and his policies, and I’ll take it. Eventually the conversation returned to our usual talk of family and animals and books and movies and cooking fatigue, but that was a moment of reality that was sorely needed. Every day, I see stories and social media posts claiming that Trump is losing support and that MAGA is collapsing under its own weight, but this is the first time I’ve seen IRL evidence. Let’s hope this has some momentum. Let’s hope they’re all about to crack.