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. 

Vera and the Crow Trap

I can’t be bothered with American police dramas, but I’ll watch British crime all day long. Well, not all day long. But I really like British detective shows. 

“Vera” is one of my very favorite British TV shows of any genre. It stars Brenda Blethyn as DCI Vera Stanhope, a brilliant, quirky, irascible detective. Vera and her crew of Detective Constables and Detective Sergeants are a veritable murder-solving machine in Northumberland, which is apparently a hotbed of homicide. 

I love “Vera” for lots of reasons - the bleak but beautiful Northumberland landscape, the far north accent that sounds like a blend of Manchester and Scotland, the clothes and interiors, …but mostly the characters, and especially Vera herself. I love the way the characters look. Even the most beautiful actors (David Leon, Clare Calbraith, Wunmi Mosaku, Kenny Doughty, Brenda Blethyn herself) look like normal, real people in this show. Vera’s rumpled clothing and her careless appearance are sometimes the subject of comments or jokes, but not mean or critical jokes. The other characters, and by extension the viewers, know that Vera is perfectly comfortable as she is, and that her unorthodox fashion sense and her refusal to conform with a boss-babe appearance standard do not make her less powerful or less effective in any way. 

Vera is complex. She lives alone, and has very few relationships other than with her subordinates, with whom she is very demanding, and sometimes mean. In almost every show, she has a moment of kindness or humor that softens her enough that we viewers still love her, but we’re also still glad that she’s not our boss. We learn a little bit at a time about Vera’s lonely and difficult childhood and her early career, and we see her at home in the isolated cottage that she once shared with her alcoholic father, but these personal moments are few and far between. Most of the show’s action takes place in the police station or at crime scenes, and most of Vera's interactions are with fellow police officers, or criminals and victims and witnesses. 

*****

“Vera” is based on the crime novels of Ann Cleeves. She wrote a series of novels about Vera Stanhope, and another series of novels on which the series “Shetland” was based. I also liked “Shetland” quite a bit - and now you know what I did during the pandemic - and I thought it might be time to read an Ann Cleeves book, just to see if I like them. I started with The Crow Trap, the first Vera novel.

Vera is a very static character in this first novel - we see her rough edges and her rumpled appearance but we don’t know what she’s thinking. She is not even mentioned until about a third of the way into the book, unless you count her brief appearance at a funeral, where she’s described as a mysterious middle-aged stranger. Those of us who have seen Vera on TV will guess, as I did, that this unnamed stranger was Vera but readers who are beginning at the beginning won’t have a clue.  

The Crow Trap is about three women who live in a rustic cottage together while they complete some field work for an environmental study. The three are not friends. In fact, they don’t like each other much. When the youngest of the three is murdered, Vera comes in as the lead investigator. The book formed the basis of one of the show’s early episodes, but I couldn’t remember what happened until the very end. Like any good mystery writer, Ann Cleeves throws lots of red herrings in with the clues, keeping us guessing until the end. But I don’t really read detective novels and on the rare occasions when I do, I don’t really care who the killer is. I just like to become absorbed in a compelling story with interesting characters and great writing, and Ann Cleeves delivers all of this. Vera herself is not so much a character as a personage with whom everyone is forced to contend; and their reactions to her reveal something about themselves. While Vera is fairly static (she comes out of this whole story exactly as she is at the beginning) the other characters, even the minor characters, are complex and interesting and flawed and unpredictable. 

I have two more Ann Cleeves novels in my Kindle queue, so maybe I do read detective novels now. Maybe I’ll start gardening and watching birds. Maybe I’ll find a diner and go there every day and order nothing but soup. I’m 60 now and it’s time to embrace my elderly lady era. Vera Stanhope can be my fashion inspiration. 

Oh yes they call it The Streak

I didn’t write anything yesterday. Well, I wrote all day, but I didn’t write anything non-work-related. I write every day, 7 days a week, and I think it’s been at least three years since I’ve missed a day. I also broke a little NYT Connections streak. I started the puzzle in the morning and set it aside to finish later, and then forgot. I even have a reminder set up on my phone so that I don’t forget Wordle and Connections, but I guess I didn’t hear the alert.

So that’s two streaks inadvertently and carelessly broken, which means I start again with day 1.  

That's fine. Every streak begins with day 1. 

*****

Is this important amid all of this (gesturing wildly at everything)? No, not really except that little things are always important to me. I live for the mundane. I love everyday life and as much as certain people and certain Administrations are trying to ruin everything good about everything, I refuse to roll over and let them win.

*****

A few days later and I'm on my way to the first meet of the second half of the college swim season. Marymount vs. Randolph Macon. Marymount won that meet by five points last year, a very close margin for swimming, so it should be a good, competitive meet. 

It's Saturday morning and raining steadily. I'm glad I'm not driving - the windshield wipers are lulling me into a sleepy fugue state, which is not a good state to be in on the Capital Beltway. But I'm sure my husband will yank me right out of this nice little fog with some crazy hair-raising aggressive driving move.

And there we go. That took sixty seconds. I'm wide awake now. 

A few weeks ago, I was thinking about this time of year. Holiday stress and the shit show known officially as the year 2025 had me hyperventilating a little, and I thought that I just wanted to get past the New Year and into peaceful winter hibernation enlivened by weekly swim meets. We don't get our peaceful winter hibernation this year, but at least we still have college swimming. The 200 Medley Relay will sustain us as a people. 

*****

I wear contacts for presbyopia. Most of the time, they work as well as I need them to, but there are days when I can see either distance or up close, but not both. Yesterday was such a day. Up close was sharp and clear, and distance was a fog. I couldn’t see the record board on the opposite side of the pool (I like to look at it because my son’s name appears on it several times) but I could easily read the text messages of the lady in the bleachers in front of me. To be clear, I did not ACTUALLY read her texts, but I COULD have if I’d wanted to. 

The lady with the phone was, I surmised, a Randolph Macon grandmother. She took a photo of her grandson, and then got her daughter to help her put the photo on her lock screen. They were both adorable. 

The meet ended in a split, with the Marymount boys winning by a comfortable margin. The girls fell short but it was closer in the pool than it was on paper. My son won two individual events and was a close second in his third event. And of course, the powerhouse 200 Medley Relay dominated the pool as it’s done all season. We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging around with my son and his roommate at their favorite sports bar, which was nearly empty when we arrived at 245, and nearly full when we left at 5 for a quiet and cozy Saturday night at home. A 10/10 day. 

*****

My sister texted me on Sunday to let me know that she’s already booked her beach vacation. I’m not even capable of thinking about anything past the day in front of me, let alone renting a beach house for a week 7 months from now. And as much as I love the beach, I think we need a change of pace this year. I’ll figure it out later. My sister can talk to me in April. 

*****

Other than the swim meet and a few other little things here and there, I mostly laid low this weekend. I can’t really sleep but I did rest for a bit. I went outside and I watched hockey and I took a break from the gotdang news. After a few hours of sleeplessness on Sunday night, I fell asleep at maybe 4:30 and I woke up to find that we hadn’t yet invaded any new countries and that ICE had managed not to shoot any civilians. It’s the bare minimum, but I’ll take it. Meanwhile, if you’d told me in 2019 or so that Jerome Powell would one day be my hero, I’d have scoffed. 

*****

I thought that if I just kept writing this post, then a theme would emerge or a point would occur to me. If you continued reading this all the way through, then I’m sorry, but all sales are final. It’s time to wrap this up. I’m now several days into new writing and Connections streaks. Maybe I’ll get good at writing again. Maybe I’ll figure out how to make connections again. A demain. 

Ringing in the new year, like it or not

It’s January 1, 2026! I have no idea what this brand-new year will bring but 2025 has left the building and no one will miss it. 

New Year’s Eve was a rather nice day. We went to the Capitals game, which started at 12:30 PM, meaning that we arrived and left in full daylight. We were home by 4 PM, just as the daylight began to fade. We ate soup that I had made the previous day, and then my sons began preparing for their New Year’s Eve get-together. My younger son’s girlfriend arrived right from work, at 5:30 PM, and spent an hour lounging and reading and decompressing in the spare bedroom. I love that she feels at home here. 

With my husband working a special NYE detail, and my kids entertaining friends, I went to my neighbor’s house. I had just taken my own quiet decompression hour in my bedroom, where I could have happily remained for the rest of the night. But I didn’t. I got dressed and set out into the cold, clear, still darkness for the short walk down the street. 

*****

My neighbor is also one of my best friends, but we're not as close as we once were. She is a Trump supporter. She would probably say that she's not a Trump supporter just because she voted for him three times, but that is the very definition of a Trump supporter. She's never worn a red hat nor displayed a Trump sign on her front lawn (which would be unwise in Silver Spring) but on the few occasions when we've had it out about Trump, she has defended him and his minions with vigor. 

We had a fight last January over Elon’s Nazi salute, which she denied was a Nazi salute, and by way of owning the lib (me) she waved a meme in my face, a photo collage of prominent Democrats with raised right arms. I pointed out that anyone who is waving goodbye or hailing a taxi or raising a hand to speak in a classroom could be photographed at the moment that their right hand was raised over their head, and that I was basing my correct opinion that Elon’s gesture was a Nazi salute on video footage and not a fluke of a still photo. And then I pointed out that right wing influencers would not feel compelled to make such a meme and that she would not feel compelled to show it to me if they and she didn't know perfectly well that it was a Nazi salute. That’s when she stormed out of my house. 

We made up very soon after - within the hour. But it was with the tacit understanding that we could no longer talk about politics in general or about Trump in particular at all. And what with Trump chaos completely dominating the news and what with my unhealthy but entirely reasonable preoccupation with said news, it’s a little hard to have a real conversation with her without stepping on a landmine. 

There are still a few Trumpity Trumpsters in my family, too. And I keep hoping, as I keep hoping with my friend, that he’ll finally go too far and that one day, they’ll all say “that’s it, that’s enough, I’m out.” I thought that maybe the East Wing demolition would do it, but they were ready with “well what about Obama’s basketball court” because of course those two things are exactly the same. I thought that the Epstein files release would maybe do it but “you know that there are Democrats in the Epstein files too” which is so easy to rebut because of course there are Democrats in the Epstein files and I’d happily see them all in jail. 

*****

But back to New Year’s Eve. It was fine. My friend had two new cats, both 6-month-old kittens from a rescue, and they are absolutely delightful. Playing with kittens is a great way to spend an evening, not to mention a perfect landmine avoidance tactic. So the evening was fine. I went home at 11. 

*****

It’s January 4 now, and apparently, we are going to “run” Venezuela even though we don’t seem to be able to run the country we already have. And once again, I fell into the same trap that’s ensnared me every year for really the last decade. I say “Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out” to the outgoing year, only to have the incoming year say “Hold my beer” as it barges its way in here. I remember wondering, when I was young, what it would have been like to live through 1939. I might find out now. I just wish the United States was still the good guy, or at least not the bad guy. But there’s always a bright side; always a silver lining. Maybe this will be the thing that finally breaks the Trumpity Trumpster spell. But I won’t get my hopes up. Maybe after he actually stands in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoots someone. 

Cookie crumbs

We’re all out of cookies. It’s December 27, and all of the cookies are gone - eaten or given away. The cookies usually hold out through closer to the New Year, but this year they barely made it through Christmas. Cookies were really the only thing holding me together at the tail end of 2025. I guess I’ll have to resort to drink or hard drugs. 

I have to go to Philadelphia in a little while. Well, I don’t have to but I’m going; or rather, we are going. We’re staying overnight at my sister’s house. We’ll have dinner and open presents and sit around an outdoor fire. It’s always a lovely time, so I’m not sure why I’m dreading it but I am absolutely dreading it. I want to stay home. I want to sit around my own fire and look out my own window. One thing, though. My sister will have cookies. I’ll drive 100 miles for cookies sooner than baking more cookies, that’s for sure. 

*****

It actually was a wonderful time. Nothing exciting, just family and Christmas movies and football on the basement TV and food and drink and presents. And cookies. I think I'm pretty much cookied out. I think I want to eat salad and apples and poached chicken for the next month or so. 

We're on our way back home now.  It's 11 AM and we're heading south on Pennsylvania 202 toward Route 1. It's a bit colder here than at home and there's still a light frosting of snow on the road shoulder and the bare trees. It's cold and still and the sky is leaden and heavy looking, like it might snow again. 

We didn't do many Christmas things this year. No lights, no concerts, not many parties, not much of anything. I'm a little sorry about that but I'm not going to ruminate. A new year is just a few days away. The last few years have taught me not to tempt fate by gloating over the end of the old year but I'm optimistic in the most cautious and circumspect way. A new year is a new start, no matter what it might bring. 

*****

The internet says we’re all supposed to choose a word for 2026, a word meant to inspire and guide us. I couldn’t boil anything down to a single word (and five minutes reading this blog should make that perfectly clear) but maybe I should come up with a phrase or a sentence. 

This is normally where the jokes would come in, where I’d sit here and crack myself up writing funny sentences that would sum up my state of mind as we careen into 2026. But I won’t, for two reasons. First, as I mentioned earlier, I’m not going to ask for trouble from the incoming year because I’ve done that and look what happened. Last year, I was all “See ya, 2024, and don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out,” and 2025 came in all “Hold my beer.” I won’t make that mistake again. 

Secondly, it’s really not a bad idea to start a new year by writing down my intentions, which is different from making resolutions. A resolution is a promise or a plan to do or not do a particular thing in the new year. A new year’s intention is broader - less specific, a guiding principle rather than a to-do (or to-don’t) list. I have a few days to think about this. I’ll report back. 

*****

Maybe intention is the actual word for me. One of the many (so many) bad things about 2025 is living in constant survival mode in which I just drift from one thing to the next. I don’t plan things, I don’t look forward to things - I do each task as it arises, and I go where I need to go or where I’m invited, but nothing is fixed. I’ve even stopped writing things down. Nothing is intentional. Intention, or maybe intentionality, would be a good thing to have again. 

Purpose is another good word; related to but not the same thing as intention. Purpose is higher level. Purpose is the driving principle and intention is the way you go about your daily routine so that you accomplish your purpose. I’m not saying that I don’t have a purpose but I’ve lost sight of it. 

And then there’s energy. I used to have it and I don’t anymore; or rather, I have less energy. I have sporadic, intermittent energy. I miss consistent energy. I miss consistently purposeful, intentional, energetic days. 

*****

It’s the last day of the year. The Christmas tree is coming down in a day or so - I know that it’s supposed to stay up until January 6, but the Christmas clutter is just about to lose its charm, and it’s time to get my house back in order, in more ways than one. And 2025 is finally coming to an end, and even though I know 2026 could well be worse, I’m going to claim victory for making it through 2025. And that’s another word for 2026. Victory. 

It's Christmas time in the suburbs

It’s December 21 and it finally feels like Christmas, despite the dreadful and/or ridiculous events of this month. Last Thursday morning, someone asked me if I watched the President’s speech. Did I watch a crazy old man sundowning on live TV? Is that what you’re asking me? No. No I did not. And I won’t be watching the Patriot Games or the WWE fight on what remains of the White House lawn, and I absolutely won’t be calling it anything but the Kennedy Center, ever. I don’t even include the name “Reagan” when I mention National Airport, and that happened decades ago. 

*****

And now it’s December 23, or Christmas Adam because tomorrow is Christmas Eve and Adam came before Eve. The stupid renaming of the Kennedy Center is old news, supplanted by the even stupider news about a new class of battleships named after Trump. We’re five minutes from going to war with Venezuela and Denmark is threatening to detain our “Envoy to Greenland” as soon as he sets foot on that island. The stupidity persists, but so do I.

But enough of that. It’s Christmas now. I’ll be working on and off throughout the holidays, but on no particular schedule, and more off than on. 

*****

December 24, Christmas Eve. I have things to do, Christmas prep things, but apparently I am not doing them. I’m sitting here writing about having things to do. 

I think I finally understand why all of this is getting to me. It’s not because of the President and his henchmen and women. As bad as they are, I’d still feel hopeful if there seemed to be any possibility of any kind of consequence at all for any of them. I guess it could still happen, but they keep pushing the envelope of being absolute shit, and they still seem to have a vise grip on their supporters, including people I love but don’t want to see or talk to right now. People who used to know the difference between truth and lies, and who used to think that difference was important. That’s why it’s getting to me. As they say on social media, I hate this timeline. 

*****

That was fun, wasn’t it? Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals. Yes, it’s December 25. Cinnamon rolls and bacon are in the oven, the Christmas tree lights are sparkling, and all is calm and bright for now. It’s 8:30 and the rest of my family are sleeping but not for long. Several members of the family are spending part of Christmas Day at the Commanders game at what used to be known as FedEx Field. I don’t know what it’s called now, and I don’t care. I’ll call it whatever I want. I’ll call it Twitter Stadium. I’ll call it Kennedy Center Arena. I’ll call it Kamala Harris Field. Anyway, they’re all going to have to get out of bed soon so that we can open Christmas presents and eat cinnamon rolls and be the jolliest bunch of assholes this side of the nuthouse. It’s fine, they’re leaving the game early so we can have Christmas dinner. I thought for a moment about making my famous exploding turkey, but I decided to go with the traditional ham instead. 

*****

And it was a beautiful Christmas. A houseful of people whom I love opened presents and snacked on cookies and ate a lovely Christmas dinner and watched Christmas movies, surrounded by twinkly lights and pretty decorations. I made all of that happen, starting at 8 AM with bacon and eggs and cinnamon rolls and continuing on to about 9 PM with the last of the cleanup. Sometimes I worry that I’m too self-involved and solipsistic. And I am, I guess. But not on holidays. On holidays, I do everything for everyone, and then I watch everyone appreciate my work, and then I collapse a little bit, in a good way. I’m still tired, so today is a day of rest. A few more days, and we’ll have a new year. Not a moment too soon. 

If it's not documented...

It’s December 18, so not only is it almost time for Christmas, it’s time to start my new day planner. I love my little pocket day planner with its crisp white paper and gold leaf edged pages and world maps. I especially love the maps, which are absolutely useless for navigating but they're pretty. 

I usually track everything in my day planner. I have weekly to-do lists, a book list, a very unsophisticated spending and saving tracker, and almost daily records of small daily details. Except that recently, I haven't been tracking anything, so the last few  weeks of pages are pretty much empty. 

***** 

I worked for a biotech company a long time ago. We manufactured diagnostic devices and reagents; and when I say “we," of course I mean the company and not me. But I also mean that we the company actually manufactured those things, right onsite. The company had about 400 employees in administration, operations, finance, sales and marketing, R&D, and manufacturing. Manufacturing and QA/QC were the biggest combined departments. This is apropos of nothing, except that it was only about 25 years ago, and the world has changed so much in that short time. I can’t imagine a company like this existing today. It was like working at a small paper company in Scranton.  I have so many stories about that job. One day, I’ll write them all down. 

Well, here’s one. The reagent manufacturing labs and manufacturing floor operated under what is called Good Laboratory Practices and Good Manufacturing Practices - GLP and GMP. These are official terms, which is why they are capitalized. And not being a scientist or a manufacturing engineer or a QA/QC professional, I’m not going to explain in any more detail except to say that the terms refer to a series of rules and procedures governing absolutely everything that happens in a GLP lab and a GMP manufacturing facility. Everything is written down, step by step - both before and after the fact. 

Our QA/QC director used to talk about accurate and complete documentation all the time. “If it’s not documented, it didn’t happen,” she would say. It was her catch phrase. She was so well known for that saying that it spread company-wide, and we said it about everything. 

*****

Wait, maybe this is why I’ve been lax with my planner - if I didn’t write 2025 down, then it didn’t happen. 

*****

What I like to say is that if it’s not documented, it won’t happen. I used to be the secretary for our kids’ summer swim team, and one of my responsibilities was to write the weekly email updates. In the first half of those updates, I would recap the most recent meets - because if it’s not documented, it didn’t happen. In the second half, I would let everyone know what was happening in the coming week: Spirit wear and suit order deadlines, Wednesday night B meet, Saturday morning A meet, Friday night pasta party, social events - summer swimming is a lot, and if it’s not documented, it won’t happen. Sometimes, I felt like I was writing things into being, as though the act of writing a thing out was what actually made that thing happen.

*****

I have two planner options for 2026: a Gallery Leather pocket size planner similar to the ones I’ve had for the past few years, or a very pretty Rifle Paper Company planner that my son gave me. The Gallery Leather has my beloved maps, and it also has a good number of extra pages for my additional notes and lists. I don’t love the color, though. I ordered what I thought was hot pink, but it turns out to be just pink, somewhere between bubble gum and carnation. The Rifle Paper one is prettier and it’s a gift from my son, but it’s an odd size and it only has five or six extra pages and no maps.  I have a week to decide between them. The recent documentation lapse is not the only thing that is making me feel unmoored, but it’s definitely a factor. The rest of this year is a wash, documentation-wise, but I’m going to start fresh in 2026. 

Photojournalism

When I was a  young person in the 1980s, I was a big fan of Tina Brown’s Vanity Fair. It was very glamorous and sophisticated, showing a world of beauty and luxury populated by brilliant and talented and interesting people. That world was mostly in New York, but VF also took us to London and LA and Paris and St. Bart’s and Aspen. I knew that I would never live in this rarefied world, but that was what made it so appealing. It was like reading fairy tales. I bought each new issue as soon as it hit the newsstand, and read it from the front of the front cover to the back of the back cover, including the masthead and the editor’s notes and the ads. 

It’s honestly been years - decades - since I’ve read Vanity Fair, but the entire internet was talking about the Susie Wiles interviews, and I had to read the article, so I subscribed. The subscription, a holiday special, was cheap:  $12 for a year, renewing at $36 a year. I’d have paid more than that just to read the Susie Wiles article and see Christopher Anderson’s incredible photos. 

The brilliant thing about this article (it’s really two articles; parts 1 and 2) is that it absolutely does not read as hostile or even especially critical of Wiles or even Trump. Chris Whipple just lets Susie Wiles speak for herself, and what she says is far worse than anyone could have written about her or her colleagues. Ms. Wiles comes across as polite and friendly and perfectly at ease with herself. She probably never thought for a single moment that she couldn’t charm a seasoned reporter into printing a puff piece about her. She probably also never thought for a moment that a reporter and photographer might be smarter than anyone in the White House. Either Chris Whipple and Christopher Anderson are geniuses, or the core of the White House senior staff and the Secretary of State are all idiots. How could Susie Wiles have spoken so freely and not realized that the resulting article would not show her or her boss in a good light? How could Marco Rubio and JD Vance and Stephen Miller and Karoline Leavitt have posed for that photographer and not realized that he wasn’t there to make them look pretty? 

The whole crusty crew are in damage control mode now, but the damage is done, and I’m here for it. I don’t feel sorry for Susie Wiles or for any of the rest of them, not even a tiny bit. For all the chaos and misery and destruction they’ve wrought, an unflattering feature story and some stark photos are the very least they deserve. I’m glad that the White House had a bad day yesterday. And I’m really glad that there are still some journalists out there. 

Waving at a squirrel

It’s the middle of December, 7:30 in the morning, and quite cold - cold for everywhere, but especially cold for Maryland. Something is wrong with our furnace, so it’s cold inside and out, but I have a space heater blowing right at me, so I’m fine. The rest of the house feels like a postwar bedsit in London, but my little spot is fine, even cozy. 

I’m looking out the window, watching a fat little squirrel who appears to be watching me, too. He’s very still, and his little paws are resting on his very round belly, and he’s just staring. This fat little squirrel (no fat-shaming, it’s December and a squirrel should be fat) has a rotund, dark brown and light brown mottled body - an unusual phenotype. He also has a very fluffy tail. I want to open the blinds all the way to see him more clearly but then I’d scare him away. 

After a few minutes, the fat little squirrel climbed down the fence on his own. I guess he realized that he wasn’t getting any food from me, and that he’d have to go out and find his own breakfast. I hope he found some good birdseed on the ground. The birds get everything handed to them, and they’re wasteful with the seeds. 

*****

We thought that the furnace was fixed yesterday. Someone came and fixed it and left with more money than he had when he came in, and it did work for a few hours, but then it stopped. The furnace guy is coming back to figure out what he might have missed. It was cold in most of the house last night, but we had a fire in the family room and a space heater in the kitchen, and we were very comfortable. It’s cold outside, so I do hope we can get the furnace fixed but if not, I think we can live without it for a bit. 

*****

It’s Friday now, 13 days before Christmas. I have a lot to do but I have already done quite a bit. My tree is up and decorated, and I wrapped all of the presents that I have already bought. I still have some shopping to do but I won’t have a huge pile of parcels to wrap on Christmas Eve. 

Yesterday, my mother turned 81. I tend to get into full Christmas gear on my mother’s birthday, December 11, exactly two weeks out. When we were children, we started the Christmas countdown on the 11th. It’s the same length of time now as then, but a countdown to a long-anticipated celebration is a different thing from a countdown to a hard deadline. When you’re a grown-up, Christmas is a deadline. It shows up on December 25 whether we’re ready or not. 

*****

It’s Saturday now, 9:15 AM and I have a plan for today. Two pounds of butter are sitting on the kitchen counter, and everyone has been warned not to put the butter back in the refrigerator. That butter is exactly where I want it. I also have flour, sugar, brown sugar, baking soda, vanilla extract, eggs, and four bags of Nestle semi-sweet chocolate chips. 

Yes, that’s right - it’s Cookie Day, bitches!

Please excuse me. You’re not bitches at all. You’re lovely people. I just like to say “It’s Cookie Day, bitches!” Laughing at my own jokes is one of my coping strategies. I’m easily amused. That’s why I’m such a delight. 

Yes, Cookie Day is coming a week earlier than usual. I mean, it seems like Potato Day was just yesterday. But my son will be home next weekend after a weeklong swim team training trip in Florida, and he wants us to do something together as a family, and I also have Christmas parties to attend, and so I moved Cookie Day up a week so that I can be social next weekend. I know from experience that I can’t handle cookies and parties in one weekend. So today, I’ll make the cookies and freeze them. As always, I’m not looking forward to cookie baking at all - AT ALL - but I’ll be happy not to be spending next weekend in the kitchen. 

*****

It’s Sunday morning, clear and sunny and very cold, and it snowed a bit overnight, so it’s sparkly and bright outside. Even better, my freezer is stocked with hundreds of cookies that I made yesterday. We have cookies for days. We have cookies to serve guests and we have cookies to give as gifts. 

It was an all-day thing, making those cookies, a task that combines two of the things that I like least: Disorder and tedium. Making cookie dough is tedious, and rolling out the little balls of dough and laying them out on cookie sheets and putting them into the oven and taking them out and laying them out on the cooling racks while monitoring the next batch in the oven is mind-numbingly tedious. The only thing that keeps me from lapsing into a coma when I’m making cookies is the heart-palpitating anxiety of being surrounded by a mess and not being able to do anything about it. It’s hard to express just how happy I was to slide the last batch of cookies into a freezer bag, a happiness surpassed only by finally getting my kitchen clean. I’ll still find little bits of cookie dough or tiny spills of flour for the next few days, but it looks clean in there, and I don’t have to make cookies again for another year if I don’t want to. And I won’t want to. 

*****

It’s ten days until Christmas now. I am not 100 percent ready but I’m so much more ready now than I was at this time last week. Most of my shopping is done and everything I’ve purchased so far is wrapped and under a tree that is fully decorated. Between the tree and the other decorations inside and out, the house looks very festive, if a little cluttered. Christmas is the only time that I like a little clutter. I grew up in a tiny rowhouse in Philadelphia in the 70s and 80s. In December, we covered every surface in those little houses with Christmas swag. Watch the original Run-DMC “Christmas in Hollis” video if you want to see what working class inner city homes looked like at Christmas time back in the day. 

*****

There’s just over a week until Christmas now, and just over two weeks until this year comes to an end. I’ve learned the hard way during the past few years not to get snotty with my sendoff to the outgoing year because its replacement will invariably barge in with a bad attitude and a surplus “hold my beer” energy. At least I’m not one of those deluded people out here saying that there’s nowhere to go but up; that 2026 can’t possibly be any worse than 2025. We’re nowhere near hitting bottom. 2026 could absolutely be worse than 2025. So I’m going to keep it respectful. 

I saw the fat little squirrel again today. He’s a distinctive-looking squirrel, so I’m reasonably sure that it’s the same one. No Christmas for squirrels, but he’s still getting ready. He’s burying nuts and eating everything in sight. Between his considerable fat stores and his buried treasure, he’ll be more than able to withstand the winter. And that’s all it is to him, just winter. He won’t observe the passage from one year to the next. He’s lucky because he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. But I’m luckier because I can hope. After all, 2026 could also be absolutely better than 2025. It should certainly try. 

Drift into Christmas

It snowed yesterday, for the first time this winter. I went to work early in the very gray December morning, driving very carefully on streets that were beginning to ice over amid just sub-freezing temperatures. It was rather gloomy but nice. Peaceful. I made it to work in plenty of time. 

December 5, which was yesterday, is early for snow in Maryland, but it’s not crazy early, and it wasn’t a lot of snow. It’s clear and cold and bright this morning and there’s a pretty coating of snow on everything. It looks Christmassy. 

For the last few weeks, I’ve been drifting through the days. To look at me, you wouldn’t know that anything was off, but everything is off. I’m only halfway here. But it’s Christmastime, and I have Christmastime things to do. It’s Saturday morning and I have a whole day ahead of me to shop for presents and decorate the tree that’s sitting in my living room and maybe watch a Christmas movie. 

*****

I grew up in Philadelphia in the 70s and 80s, and the radio was our constant companion. We listened to the radio in the car, of course. But we also listened to the radio at home. I had a clock radio alarm clock, and I listened in my room all the time. We turned the kitchen radio on first thing in the morning, and we brought it outside so that we could listen on the front stoop. WMGK and WDAS and WMMR and WIOQ and WXPN were our soundtrack. 

Riding in the back seats of our parents’ cars, we started waiting for the first Christmas song of the season right around Thanksgiving. Hearing “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” (The Jackson 5 or Bruce Springsteen) or the Carpenters’ “Merry Christmas Darling” or even the barking dogs Jingle Bells song for the first time was a highlight of the year. 

Now I listen to Sirius in the car. I listen to Spotify when I’m walking. I don’t hear commercial radio very often anymore, but on Friday morning, I was listening to a local station, and Elton John’s “Step into Christmas” started playing just as I was about to drive onto the base. The star on the top of the Walter Reed tower was twinkling and the snow was falling. It looked like Christmas; and just for a moment, it felt like Christmas. 

*****

I shopped on Saturday. I’m not finished, not by any means, but I made a huge dent in my list. Then, in uncharacteristic fashion, I got to work wrapping very soon after I got home. The dining room table is piled high with wrapped gifts, because the tree still isn’t decorated, so I can’t put the presents under the tree just yet. We’ll get to the tree in a day or so. Everyone is busy. 

It’s only Monday now, a very still and silent and cold white-gray December Monday, but I’m already planning for this weekend’s holiday tasks. More shopping, more wrapping, and cookies. I could happily skip all of this, but my family loves Christmas, and there’s something to be said for doing something just because it makes other people happy - even (especially) if it’s a thing you don’t really want to do. I’m not in a Christmas mood yet. But I’m going to fake it until I make it.