Carry on

As a child, I used to feel ever so sorry for my mother and her friends and my aunts and my grandmother, all of whom carried handbags that they called "pocketbooks." My mother's pocketbook was a shoulder bag, but older women  still carried satchel-style bags that they carried by their short little handles, or hung on their forearms. Like all children, I hated to carry anything, and I thought that having to carry a thing full of other things, every day, even on the weekend, would be an intolerable burden on my life.

I gave this considerable thought, in fact. I planned to get around the pocketbook thing the same way men seemed to: with pockets. If every single article of clothing I ever bought and wore had pockets, then I'd never need a pocketbook. One pocket for my money, one pocket for the keys that were the one thing that I envied adults, and maybe one more pocket for random small items. I was also certain that I would never ever wear makeup; and I didn't see any reason why I wouldn't continue to wear a ponytail every single day, which would obviate the need to carry a comb, and so voila! Problem solved.

*****

So last week, I finally finished reading Lina and Serge. I learned a lot about artists and musicians in the early Soviet Union. For example, I learned that Serge Prokofiev was a jerk. I also learned that in the most dire of circumstances, a woman needs a handbag more than almost anything else. Lina was a musician, too; a singer, though not a very successful one. When she was shipped off to the gulag, she carried some sheet music with her. During her eight-year-long imprisonment, she managed to piece together a tote bag and to embroider it with her own designs, all using whatever scraps of fabric or thread she could scrounge up. Of all of the things that she could have used her limited energy and resources toward, she chose a handbag. And of all of the things that might have survived her trip to and from the gulag, and then her later travels around the Soviet Union and abroad, the tote bag survived. No recordings of her singing are known to exist, but the tote bag remained with her until she died and was preserved by one of her sons for years afterward.

*****

I'm not a fan of the NFL. I think that football is boring, and not just boring compared to a real sport like hockey, but super-long meeting with a monotone presenter kill-me-now BORING. I think that NFL cheerleading degrades women (not that anyone cares about that). I think that NFL owners are either greedy cowards or cowardly greedy people (noun for greedy person--anyone?) for failing to stand up to our ridiculous President on the anthem-kneeling why-is-this-even-an-issue issue. But my biggest objection to the NFL and all its works and pomps is the clear handbag rule, about which I haven't decided yet which is more astonishing:

• That the NFL has the nerve to demand that women expose the contents of their handbags not just to security screening (a necessary evil, I suppose) but to public scrutiny.  Not even scrutiny, because to scrutinize is to examine carefully, and you don't have to look that carefully to see through a damn plastic bag. 
• OR that so many women still attend games, carrying their clear plastic NFL-branded handbags, paying for the privilege of being insulted by the National Football League.

Men and women are different. I'm perfectly fine with according men their privileges (no, not THAT kind of privilege), as long as women can have theirs. My privileges are few but treasured: I park my car in the garage, and not in the driveway. I'm not responsible for pest control. And my handbag is sacred.

*****

The Kate Spade bag arrived, and I've been carrying it for a few weeks now. And because I couldn't get it out of my mind, I also bought the little Coach bag. The Kate Spade is a little nicer, and it's a light color, so I don't carry it when it rains. And it rains all the time. So it's not quite true to say that I've been carrying it for a few weeks; more like I've carried it two or three times during the last few weeks. But they're both beautiful and practical bags that accommodate everything I need for any day not spent in Siberia or Kolyma.

Never say never; that's what I always say. Or almost always, because I guess you should never say always either. My ten-year-old self would never have believed me if I'd gone back 40 years to tell her that when she grew up, she'd not only carry a handbag every day, but that handbags would be among her favorite things. I still wish I had more pockets, but I'll always have a pocketbook.

American Tune

I was born in Connecticut, in a small town near New Haven, and I lived there until I was six. We lived in an apartment; in the converted second floor of an old house, not in an apartment building. My parents didn't like the landlord. In fact, it wasn't until I was a bit older that I realized that "landlord" wasn't an insult.

*****
My memories of that place are of course very vague, but I do remember a few things. The house had a big yard, with trees and a stone wall that was covered with ivy and moss or something. We played out there every day. My sister and I liked the fuzzy caterpillars that hung out on the stone wall.

I got pneumonia the winter that I was in kindergarten, and I remember spending all day, for several days, in my mother's bed. Like most parents at that time, my parents didn't allow the children to play in their bedroom, so I remember feeling very privileged to be allowed in there, especially in the giant bed.

My mom had a radio in the bedroom, and I remember hearing "Sounds of Silence" over and over again as I slept and woke. "Sounds of Silence" was released in 1965, so I don't know why the radio station was playing it so frequently in 1970. Maybe it was about Vietnam. I don't remember that I understood anything about Vietnam when I was five; I just remember that I knew that Vietnam was something that grownups talked about. Or maybe I only heard the song once and remember hearing it over and over. I was five.

My parents' marriage was troubled, and they divorced. I barely remember my father. He left and I never saw or heard from him again. We moved to Philadelphia, my mother's hometown, when I was six. My mother used to take us there to visit her family; we took the train from New Haven, because my parents had only one car. On one of these trips, my mother had the three of us children and herself in two seats. My brother, a baby at the time, was on her lap; and my sister and I, who were probably five and four, shared a seat. The train was full of mostly young people. I remember the train ride.

Apparently (this part I don't really remember), I asked my mother if the young people across the aisle from us were hippies. And apparently, the hippies heard me, and thought I was hilarious, and they entertained my sister and me for the rest of the trip. One of the boys had a guitar--that part, I do remember. I don't remember what songs he played, but I think of the train ride every time I hear "Scarborough Fair (Canticle)," so maybe he played that. Or maybe that song is just another hard-wired memory of my early childhood during the Vietnam War, riding trains to the city that would become my home.

Our first few months in Philadelphia were confusing. We lived with my grandparents, whose tiny three-bedroom rowhouse barely accommodated them, my youngest aunt (who was 8 at the time), and their German schnauzer, Toby. I slept on a cot in my aunt's bedroom. My mother, sister, and brother slept in the spare bedroom, which had a trundle bed. My mother worked during the day and was unhappy when she was home, and my grandmother was overwhelmed, having quadrupled the number of young children in her house.

*****
I'm watching old episodes of "The Office" as I'm writing this. Two separate Chewy.com commercials feature two different white women of about my age. Both women have shoulder-length wavy blondish hair and they both wear stretch jeans and long open cardigans. It's like they screen-tested two different actresses and then just decided, "what the hell, we like both of them."

*****
Soon enough, my mother found us a place to live--another rowhouse less than a mile from my grandparents' house. She got a car, and I started school at St. John the Baptist, where she had also gone to school, and we settled in to life in Philadelphia, and I grew up there.

Before the days of Apple Music and Pandora, kids listened to the radio. Kids still listen to the radio, because there's nothing like the random serendipity of just hearing your favorite song while you're driving along. It's even better when you're in a car full of people who love the same song, and you can all sing along together. In 1973, "Kodachrome" was one of those songs, and not just because we got a bad word pass on the word "crap" when we sang along with Paul Simon. I loved "Loves Me Like a Rock" even more than "Kodachrome," but "Kodachrome" is the song that recalls my childhood, like a photograph, like my mother's Instamatic, like the Fotomats that occupied every other street corner in Philadelphia.

I didn't think much about Paul Simon after 1973 or so, until 1979, when we sang "Sounds of Silence" at my first high school choir concert. I remembered it, and I dug out my mother's old Paul Simon and Simon and Garfunkel records, and then I was a fan all over again.

A few years later, I was out of college (not finished, but out) and working as a proofreader for an old-fashioned offset printing company. I was 21, with the wrong job and the wrong man and the wrong apartment in a very wrong neighborhood. Not gonna lie, as they say on the Internet: My life was a bit of a mess.

I was at a party one night, and the TV was on, tuned to "Saturday Night Live." Paul Simon was the musical guest (and maybe he was the host, too).  I went out and bought "Graceland" the next day, just so I could listen to "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes" a  hundred more times. There are lots of albums that I really love, but "Graceland" is the one that I know best. I could sing every single word of that album. That's not a threat, just a statement of fact.

*****
In another of my favorite songs, "The Cool Cool River," from the 1991 "Rhythm of the Saints," Paul Simon sings "Sometimes, even music cannot substitute for tears."

But sometimes, it can. Music has substituted for tears for me more times than I can count, and no one's music more than Paul Simon's, which I have listened to for literally as long as I can remember and even longer. I probably heard it "Wednesday Morning 3 AM" in the womb.

Tonight is the last date on the "Homeward Bound" farewell tour. Who knows what "farewell" really means--lots of artists and athletes "retire" only to return a month or a year later. And last Friday night, when I finally got to see him live for the very first time, he sounded great. So maybe he'll perform live again--maybe he'll even tour again. But I'm glad I was there, last tour or not. I'm glad I got to share over 50 years of music with 40,000 or so of my closest friends, many of whom weren't even alive when even "Graceland" or "The Rhythm of the Saints" were first released, let alone "The Sounds of Silence" or "There Goes Rhymin' Simon." I bought a t-shirt, and then I bought another one. I can still hear the music, a week later. I've been hearing it for my entire life.

On the daily

Monday: Dreary, for the third straight day. Gray, wet, bedraggled, and droopy; that's how everything looks right now and that's how I felt when I came home from work. Dreary.

A walk almost always helps, especially a walk with music. It was still raining, but only a little bit, so I started rice for dinner, changed my clothes, put my iPod on shuffle, and went. I skipped a few songs, and then landed on Erasure's "Heart of Stone," which never fails to cheer me up.  How could it not:

I cry for your heart of stone

I´m gonna wait until you come home
Oh why am I all alone?
I´m as good as dead yet

I know. But it's upbeat, as songs about despair go. And it's not real despair, anyway. It's pop music heartbreak despair. Not the same thing at all. 

Last week, I wrote that I had finally tackled the back-to-school pile of paper, and I did, but I didn't finish, so I'm trying to do that now. I have to set up an account on a new website, because of course there's a new website. There's always a new website. More tomorrow. 

Tuesday: See yesterday if you're looking for the weather report, because today was nearly identical to yesterday, and we have days more of this to come. Considering what's bearing down on North Carolina right now, I shouldn't complain.

I was planning to write a newsletter article today, but I didn't quite get to the writing part. I thought about it, and made mental notes, and then planned to set aside time to actually write it. It's a multi-step process. I should have a newsletter article ready to go by December or so. Give or take.

Wednesday: We live in the Old Testament now.

Thursday: Eighth grade back-to-school night. My sister-in-law, now mother of a kindergartner, texted me from her first back-to-school night:

Back-to-school night is BRUTAL.

She's not exaggerating. Kindergarten BTS night is when you learn the hard way that Montgomery County Public Schools owns your sorry ass for the next 13 years. If you've never considered homeschooling, then one MCPS back-to-school night might drive you right off the grid.

Friday: We're pretty far from Florence's path, but we're also on day 7 of gloom, with no end in sight. I won't complain, though. I have been selfishly monitoring Florence's route landward, because we have tickets to Paul Simon tonight and I didn't want to miss the show. And now, it's not even going to rain tonight.

Saturday: I finally turned in my newsletter article. Paul Simon will require an entirely separate post, which I'll write next week. The sun might come out on Wednesday. 

The real enemy

It's Friday afternoon. I procrastinated with my latest proposal assignment, and so instead of being finished at 5:00 PM, I'll need to continue working for two hours or so. Or three, if I continue to waste time writing about my random thoughts and observations, rather than about IT quality assurance.

*****
Now it's Saturday morning, and my proposal assignment is in the red team's hands. My biggest problem now is the ever-growing pile of forms and paper that the first week of school always produces. I'm ignoring it for now. Maybe it'll go away.

*****
I took a walk after some morning housework and miscellaneous tasks, not including the paperwork, which sadly remains, having failed to deal with itself. Hope springs eternal. Anyway, I listened to music, as I often do.

In 1992, Sinead O'Connor, appearing as the musical guest on "Saturday Night Live," performed Bob Marley's "War." At the end of the song, she held up a photo of Pope John Paul II, said "Fight the real enemy," and tore the photo in half. I was actually watching the show at the time, and remember feeling vague shock, but I didn't think it was a big deal otherwise. Then, like now, pop stars tended to do and say shocking things. But of course, it was a huge, controversial, scandalous big deal. Sinead O'Connor was vilified, for years afterward. Even Madonna took a shot at her.

Hindsight is always 20-20, isn't it? When the first revelations of sex abuse in the Catholic church were made public in 2002, certain priests and bishops were exposed and punished, but I don't remember anyone even suggesting that the Pope (John Paul II or any other Pope) might bear some responsibility. Of course, I wasn't really a practicing Catholic at that time, so I wasn't paying much attention. I was a full-time working mother of an infant. I wasn't paying much attention to anything.

Now the scandal has re-emerged, and this time, it seems to go all the way to the top. Cardinal McCarrick, once-beloved Cardinal-Archbishop of Washington, resigned from the College of Cardinals amid revelations of his apparently habitual sexual misconduct; and his successor Cardinal Wuerl is accused (probably correctly) of covering up hideous abuse by priests when he was a bishop in Pittsburgh. And of course, Pope Francis has been accused of protecting abusive priests when he was a bishop in Argentina.

I returned to the Church, after a long absence, in 2010. I've been a faithful Catholic since then. The horrible crimes of priests and bishops and maybe even Popes (I can't have been the only person who wondered if Pope Benedict's resignation had something to do with with misconduct by priests under his supervision when he was a bishop in Germany), though horrifying and heartbreaking, have not shaken my faith. The Church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints, and priests are sinners like the rest of us. And the sins of priests don't alter the truth of the Church's teaching, not one bit. But something has to change. The Church has to suffer now, probably for a long time. Priests and bishops will have to stand trial, and some will probably go to prison. Cardinal Wuerl should certainly resign, and maybe Pope Francis should, too. And I love Pope Francis. It's a sad and confusing time to be a Catholic.

*****
The Sinead song that made me think of her SNL performance was "The Emperor's New Clothes." And that's a whole other subject, for a whole other day. The ground beneath our feet is no longer solid, if it ever was. But I did fight my way through the pile of paperwork, including enrollment forms for my eighth grader's last year of religious education. Shit's going to get real, but we already know how the story ends. The gates of Hell will not prevail.

Annual complaint

Every time I look to see where my huge number of readers come from, I find one visitor from Portugal. It's probably Madonna.

*****
It's 12:15 on Sunday, Labor Day weekend. This is my least favorite time of the year, because summer is almost over. The pumpkin spice trolling has already begun. But there's still a day and a half of pool time left. A day and a half of pool time, but also a day and a half before school starts. I just realized that I probably need to buy school lunch food, and school supplies. I assume that people have backpacks, or that they would have said something by now if they don't. I assume that their summer reading is done. When it comes to school preparation, I'm less hands-on than I used to be. It's only a year before at least one of them will have to take care of all of this on his own, so it's probably good for him to get some practice now.

*****

I don't want to think or write any more about this guy; and with this guy, I can't even begin. It's all too much and my mental and emotional resources are limited. Maybe later. For now, I will write about handbags.

I'm pretty relentlessly practical, in most matters. I have far too many handbags, because I love them, but even my too many handbags are very practical. They're almost all nylon of some sort, with lots of pockets and organizational features, and 2-inch-wide seatbelt webbing crossbody straps that never wear out and that allow me to carry everything that I or anyone near me could possibly ever need. That's the way I have always liked it. And then a few weeks ago, I felt like I wanted to stop carrying 40 pounds of stuff with me, everywhere I go. All of a sudden, I wanted to carry a bag that is small and elegant and stylish and expensive-looking and incapable of accommodating more than a wallet and keys and a phone and maybe a lipstick or something.  I don't want to be a pack mule. I don't want to wear a seatbelt unless I'm driving a car.

When I was in Montreal, I almost bought a little Coach bag that I saw someone carrying. I looked at it at the Hudson Bay store, and then visited it online a few times, but decided against it. Too busy a pattern. It wouldn't go with everything. I have to be at least somewhat practical. Then, when I returned to work, I admired a new coworker's Kate Spade bag. It wasn't exactly the right bag for me (I want small, but not too small) but it made me want to own a Kate Spade bag again.

Did you know that Costco carries Kate Spade bags? I didn't either, but I checked online, because I love Costco. I'd rather shop at Costco than Neiman Marcus. Again, I'm very practical. The selection was very small, which is a good thing in my case, because I'd rather not have too many options. Of the four or five Kate Spades that Costco was offering, one looked like just the thing, so I ordered it. It should arrive this week. I'll share a full report.

*****

It's Tuesday now. School is back in session, and the pool is closed, and the easy rhythm of August has to yield to conflicting schedules and overlapping activities and Halloween displays that will disappear weeks before Halloween to make way for Christmas decorations. Night will come a little earlier every day. And of course, the pool is closed, and that means that summer is officially over, meteorological calendar notwithstanding.

As much as I love to swim, I didn't really hang out at the pool very much this summer. I swam almost every day, but that's all I did--I would swim laps for 30 minutes or so, and then go home. Yesterday, I stayed at the pool all afternoon, and was in the water for over three hours, swimming and floating and talking to my friends and watching the neighborhood kids frantically wringing every drop of chlorine-soaked fun out of the last day of summer. As the darkness fell and the air grew a little cooler, I realized that I was too tired to continue, so I finally had to get out of the water. The last whistle blew  a few minutes later, and it was over again, just like that.

*****
Curse you, pumpkin spice. Curse you. This last weekend was nearly perfect, and I'll be sad for a few days now that it, and summer, are over. Maybe a new handbag will cheer me up.