Personalized

Right after Christmas, I bought a black and white marble composition book. I like to write in it sometimes, when I can’t think on a keyboard, or when I just feel like seeing the black ink marching across pale blue lines on crisp white paper. A white page ruled in faint blue with a faint red margin is so beautiful that I almost hate to spoil it. Almost.

Another good reason to write by hand every so often is that practice makes perfect, or at least better. My handwriting is not so good, but I can write a few neat lines if I do it carefully; and I’m noticing that my pen moves more smoothly now that I’ve been practicing. I had to write a handwritten thank-you note today, and it was actually readable and reasonably nice to look at when I finished.

In most circumstances, I think that email is just fine for thank-you notes. A few sincere words of gratitude are just as good on screen as they are on paper. But when a person you haven’t seen for ten years sends you--in the mail!-- a lovely and thoughtful gift for no reason other than that it made her think of you, then only a handwritten note will do. Luckily my friend will be able to read it.

*****
What was the gift? Well, I’m glad you asked, non-existent reader. It was a tiny gold Carrie Bradshaw-style personalized necklace; my name (Claire) in shiny gold script much neater than my own handwriting, even at its best. I was delighted. I don’t wear much jewelry--a pair of platinum and diamond hoops (much smaller and less flashy than that sounds), a Celtic cross or a Miraculous Medal, my wedding band and engagement ring, another diamond ring, and a few beaded bracelets here and there. Well, that sounds like a lot, but it’s not. Most of my jewelry is silver or platinum or white gold. Yellow gold is a nice change.

But it’s the name that makes it special. I was a little girl in the 1970s, when personalized jewelry and accessories were all the rage. And if you were a Jennifer or a Lisa or a Michelle or a Tracy, then you were in luck. Claire is a very popular name now, but it wasn’t then. I never knew anyone my own age named Claire. And so I never did get a dog tag necklace or a tiny license plate or a keychain with my name on it, until now. A little gold necklace, and a childhood dream fulfilled. Thank you, friend.

20/20

I'm in the pickup line at Rockville High School on this cold and sparkling January afternoon; so sunny that the glare makes it hard to see. I'm listening to the impeachment trial on the radio. I know that a Democrat is speaking but I don't know which one. In the absence of any witnesses I guess they're all going to just make speeches. I can’t see so good but I can hear this scalding hot mess just fine.

*****
While we're on the subject of scalding hot messes, it's cluster concert time. I'm in the Rockville High School parking lot again, because it's too early to go in there.

It's my fifth cluster concert and my younger son's first. I dropped him off at 5:30 and ran errands before returning to attend the concert. We were almost late. We had to hunt for a black bow tie. And we were literally out the door when my son dropped something and bent over to pick it up, displaying a quarter inch of gleaming white tube sock between the sharply pressed black tuxedo pants and the mirror shine of his black dress shoes. "Auuugghh," he groaned when I ordered him to change his socks. "Who cares about my socks?" I'm not the most fashion-conscious person, but you better believe that I care about black socks with black pants. Someone has to stand up for civilization around here.

*****
It’s Friday now. The concert was quite lovely, after a slightly rough start from the elementary school string ensemble. In a reasonable world, there probably shouldn’t be such a thing as a string ensemble made up of elementary school children but we’re long past the hope for a reasonable world. They started with “Simple Gifts,” but they were at least 16 bars in before I recognized it. Their second selection, however, was noticeably better, so I guess “Simple Gifts” was a warm-up. The high school students played last, and they sounded like the New York Philharmonic by comparison. So there’s a performing arts tip for you: Always book an elementary school string ensemble as your opening act. The show can only go up from there.

*****
It’s Saturday today. Not such a good day. I don’t know why. Maybe because January started six months ago and seems to be just getting started. And yes, Netflix, I AM still watching “Schitt’s Creek.” Don’t judge me.

I went shopping today, and I forced myself to try on some clothes. I even bought a few things. I looked longingly at the handbags, but I didn’t buy one. I bought blouses. And a sweater. I needed pants but I couldn’t find any that didn’t have super high waists. I can’t get behind that look. I’ll probably learn to embrace it six months after it’s out of style; but for now, I’m going to stick with what I know, if I can find it. Or I’ll just keep wearing my old pants. I wore very old pants today, and a very old sweater, and raggedy sneakers, and then I wondered why I felt so sad and dumpy. I hate January.

Netflix aside, it’s been a busy day and it’s not over. It’s 6 PM and I could easily go to bed now but my son has a nighttime swim meet, so I’ll be standing on a pool deck in an hour. I need to do something. I'm not so good at picking out Saturday morning outfits, but I'm very good at timing swim meets. I might as well do that.

*****

Did you ever cut your own hair? I used to cut my own hair all the time, but that’s when I was young. We all used to cut our own hair. But middle-aged ladies don’t generally cut their own hair.

I had a bad day yesterday. My hair had nothing to do with that, but it didn’t help, either. So I got through the day, because I always do, and things just seemed better today. I went grocery shopping after Mass, and sang along with a song that was playing on the store’s sound system.

My hair, sadly, was still a mess. So I came home, found the sharpest scissors in the house, spread some paper towels over the bathroom sink, and got to work.

I bet you thought that this wasn’t going to end well, but it turns out that I can cut my own hair. Use lots of clips, twist sections and trim the ends, cutting tiny points; and stop every few minutes to make sure the whole thing isn’t getting away from you, and you’ll end up with a pretty reasonable facsimile of a haircut. It turned out fine.  That’s probably a one-time thing, of course. A person can get away with one DIY haircut every so often but even I know that I can’t make a habit of taking scissors to my head every time I have a bad hair day. Beginner’s luck runs out eventually.

Is there a more beautiful song lyric than “Here is that rainbow I’ve been praying for?” Not today there isn’t. The sun is out again today, and I can see clearly this time. I got the hair out of my eyes, you know?

Bibliography 2019: Heated Mess Edition

It's almost the end of January, and I'm just getting around to posting my book list from 2019. These are listed in no real order. I kept a handwritten list, but as I ran out of room in my planner, I scrawled titles in margins and between lines. By the end of the year, I couldn't remember when I had read what book, so chronological order was out of the question. Then I started to rank the books, from favorite to least, but I grew tired of rearranging the list as I remembered more books, or changed my mind about one book or another. So this is a very disorganized list.

Oh, and another thing. I wrote about almost all of these books soon after I read them, and I link the original posts here. But most of the original posts are not only about the books. If you click on a title to read about a book, you might have to dig through 600 or so words about swim meets and handbags and anxiety attacks and Mary Tyler Moore reruns first. Don't say you weren't warned.

Without further ado, here is my 2019 book list.

Milkman, Anna Burns. This was my favorite book of the year, and I read some pretty darn good books in 2019. So congratulations to Anna Burns for winning the prestigious honor of a mention in this obscure blog, my everlasting esteem, and absolutely no cash whatsoever. Well done. I wrote about Milkman here, and I'll be writing about it again. If you have read any reviews of Milkman, then you might think that it's a difficult read. It's not at all difficult, though it is different from any other novel I've ever read. Comparisons to Joyce are apt, but it's much more closely akin to Dubliners than to Finnegan's Wake or Ulysses. Like Dubliners, it's a book that could take place in no city other than the one in which it is set. And like Dubliners, it's a book that only an Irish person could have written.

Say Nothing, Patrick Radden Keefe. A very close second to Milkman, and something of a companion piece. Another of the few books that I dedicated an entire post to.

Thatcher, Jacob Bannister. The very opposite of an in-depth biography; and completely appropriate for my level of interest in Margaret Thatcher, which is low. I read it right after Say Nothing, and learned almost nothing about the British perspective on the Troubles. I did learn that Margaret Thatcher began her working life as a chemist. Maybe she should have stuck with science. I don't know. I don't even want to debate American politics in 2020, let alone British politics in 1982. Anyway, there's lots more to learn about Margaret Thatcher, but this will probably represent the extent of my reading on this particular subject.

The Woman in White, Willkie Collins. I would never have chosen this. I read it because Nora Ephron liked it. She was quite right.

Heartburn, Nora Ephron. A book about everything that was wrong with the 1970s and early 1980s, disguised as a comic novel about the breakup of a marriage. Not Nora's best.

I Remember Nothing, Nora Ephron. If you have a choice between Nora in novel form and Nora in essay form, choose the latter. I never tire of reading Nora Ephron's essays.

I Feel Bad About My Neck, Nora Ephron.  Yes, it was my year of Nora Ephron. Handbags and hospitals and strudel with noodles.

My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Ottessa Moshfegh. I couldn't tell at first if it was brilliant or lazy. I lean strongly in favor of brilliant now, but I still have some reservations. I might read it again. But then again, I might not.

The Abolition of Woman, Fiorella Nash. I wrote about this one way back in January (it seems so long ago), but if you don't feel like reading what I wrote then (what?!?) then I will leave you with this quote: "It is the fatally disastrous blind spot in current human rights campaigning, the failure to acknowledge the rights of every member of the human family, but prolife feminism represents a human rights movement which excludes no human life under any circumstances." People on both sides of the political divide might do well to note the emphasis (which is mine).

Resisting Throwaway Culture, Charles Camosy. A+ for ideas, C+ for execution. When I started writing this, I had execution at a B-, but I just knocked off a few points because I'm mean.

Becoming, Michelle Obama. This was a Christmas gift from my husband--Christmas 2018, that is. I read it early in the year. I was carrying it with me one day and a young black man stopped me and asked me if it was good. I told him that it was, and I told him that Mrs. Obama had an upbringing (working class, inner city, magnet high school) similar to mine. And then we commiserated about how much we missed President Obama, and even President Bush. It was a nice conversation.

Elizabeth the Queen, Sally Bedell Smith. Poor QE II. 2019 was not such a good year 2020 isn't off to a great start either.

Motherfocloir: Dispatches from a Not-So-Dead Language. Darach O'Seaghdha. Just remembering how to spell the author's last name without having to refer back to the other browser tab makes me unwilling to even think about tackling the Irish language. I have no talent for languages other than my own.

The Madwoman in the Volvo, Sandra Tsing-Loh. I had a book of Sandra Tsing-Loh's essays, written sometime in the early 90s, and I remember re-reading it several times. She was hilarious, like a manic Asian Merrill Markoe. The Madwoman in the Volvo was just sad. It made me sad, mostly because I found myself judging the author, and pretty harshly, for her selfishness and stupidity. And who am I to judge anyone for either of those sins? I'm just as bad as everyone else. Maybe it's because she seemed to feel entitled to be selfish, that her suffering was more acute and terrible than everyone else's. Or maybe I'm just an unsympathetic jerk. Probably that.

The Opposite of Fate, Amy Tan. I didn't deliberately set out to find an Asian antidote to Sandra Tsing-Loh, but there it is.

Making Comics, Lynda Barry. This was the last book that I finished in 2019. I bought it at the National Gallery of Art's amazing bookstore. I didn't buy it to read; just to have and to look at, because it's so beautiful. It's printed and bound like a marble composition book, and every inch of every thin, delicate page is covered with gorgeous, richly colored drawings and hand-lettered text. Then I started reading it, and I couldn't stop until I finished. And then I went immediately out and bought my own made-in-Vietnam marble composition book. I'm not going to make comics, and I'm not going to draw every day either, but I think I'll write by hand sometimes now. Or maybe I'll doodle to better purpose.

The Little Friend, Donna Tartt. This counts as both my first book of 2020 and my last book of 2019. I finished it on January 2. I'd have finished it sooner except for the temporary Lynda Barry detour. Like all three of Donna Tartt's novels (the other two are The Secret History, which I read in hardback when it first came out in 1992; and The Goldfinch, which I read in 2015 or so, I think). The Little Friend was published in 2002, and I don't know why it took me so long to read it. The electronic version was on sale a few months ago, so I bought it and finally got around to reading it in December.

As a southern female writer, Donna Tartt is probably often compared to Flannery O'Connor. I don't know; I don't read much literary criticism now that I'm out of school and don't have to. Neither of her other novels really resemble O'Connor (not just because they don't take place in the American South), but no writer could possibly have imagined The Little Friend without having read and re-read the stories of Flannery O'Connor. The character of Harriet, a furiously angry, brilliant and doughty little girl, determined to resist the influence of her weak mother and her strong but very traditionally feminine grandmother, could not have been written if not for O'Connor's Mary Grace and Hulga and Mary Fortune Pitts and Mrs. Cope's daughter and the child in "A Temple of the Holy Ghost." Gum Ratliff is a direct descendant of Mrs. Greenleaf and the white trash woman in the doctor's office in "Revelation." And Edie Cleve owes her existence to Ruby Turpin and Julian's mother and Mrs. May, and all of Flannery O'Connor's determined, outrage-fueled Southern women fighting losing battles to maintain a system that is rotting from within and under attack from without.

But that's not to say that The Little Friend isn't original, because it is. Though Harriet could not have existed without O'Connor's characters, Flannery O'Connor could not have imagined Harriet exactly as she is in The Little Friend. Harriet's dismay and horror of puberty, which is both hilarious and devastating, could only have been written by a woman who reached adolescence during the mid 1970s, a particularly horrible time for young girls, especially rigidly moral and sensitive girls like Harriet. SPOILER ALERT: You will never find out who murdered Harriet's brother. And it almost doesn't matter because that's not the point. I hope that Donna Tartt will publish something new soon. I might have to re-read The Secret History this year. I'll report back in 2021.

The Girls, Emma Cline. Not quite as good as Milkman or The Little Friend, but very, very good. I'd almost forgotten about it, but then I was at a holiday party with people who had just seen "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood," which prompted my husband to talk about when he read Helter Skelter, which reminded me of The Girls. I read somewhere once that the Manson murders brought about the end of the 60s (or caused the beginning of the 70s). It was a horrifying crime (though no worse than millions of other hideous crimes before and since), but it has had a disproportionate impact on American life and culture. Worth reading.

The Future is History, Masha Gessen. In the words of Sara Bloomfield, "Nazis didn't just fall out of the sky in 1933." Masha Gessen knows that history repeats itself, in Russia and the United States.

Goodbye, Mr. Chips, James Hilton. I loved this book.

The End of the Affair, Graham Greene. I bet Phoebe Waller-Bridge read some Graham Greene, for no reason other than that during season 2 of "Fleabag," I kept thinking about The End of the Affair. Did you watch "Fleabag?" Do you remember the part about the fox? Fleabag and The Priest are sitting in a garden at night, and The Priest panics when he thinks he sees a fox. “They’re after me,” he says. “They’re watching me--they point at me and say 'You. We see you. We’re havin’ you.' I don’t know what they want with me.” I feel exactly the same way about the deer. I’m certain that they know me. I’m sure that they have plans for me, plans that I want no part of. And you know what? I don't think that there's a single mention of foxes or deer in The End of the Affair (nor probably in any other Graham Greene book). But there's plenty of God in both. As Fleabag says to The Priest at the end of the last episode, "It's God, isn't it?" Of course it is. It always is.

21 Stories, Graham Greene. I read this just about a year ago. I never did re-read any of the stories. But I'll definitely read more Graham Greene.

Educated, Tara Westover. One of my best  books of 2019. I think about it whenever I cut myself in the kitchen or bump my head on a table or stub my toe or trip over a carpet.  Every time I injure myself or almost injure myself, I think about how easily a person can really hurt herself and how fragile and ridiculous the human body is. Of course, there's so much more to Educated than the frequent and horrifying injuries that Tara and her siblings suffered while working at their father's junkyard. I've just been a little more accident-prone than usual lately. And it's all about me.

I'll Tell You in Person, Chloe Caldwell. Another memoir by a young American woman. I really can't remember if I read this before or after Educated (after, I think), but I know that I didn't read them back to back. I liked this in spite of myself.

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, Mark Manson. Well, it's on my list and I know that I read it, but I didn't write anything about it and I don't really remember anything about it. I don't even remember why I read it. So that's my review. I guess I didn't give a f*ck. Maybe I learned that from reading this book! Well done, Mr. Manson!

I'm Judging You: The Do-Better Manual, Luvvie Ajayi. Neither here nor there. I enjoyed reading it, but I don't recall a single word of it. I looked at what I wrote about it earlier to see if I'd remember something. What I remember is that I was also reading a biography of Muriel Spark at the time, which I never finished. Muriel Spark, who was one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, had to have been more interesting than Martin Stannard made her seem. I'm judging him. Or maybe I'm judging her.

Frances and Bernard, Carlene Bauer. A kind of ridiculous novel that I really liked anyway. I liked it so much that I read the very next book on this list.

Not That Kind of Girl, Carlene Bauer. Kind of an incoherent, roundabout, meandering memoir, which is the best kind; probably the only kind.

The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis. I've read Screwtape five or six times. A hardcover copy of Screwtape is my standard Confirmation gift because I think that every teenager should read it, though I didn't read it until I was a grown-up. I'll probably read it at least five or six more times, just as a reminder that "the safest road to hell is the gradual one – the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts."

A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman, Margaret Drabble. This is a short story compilation that I liked very much, though don't ask me for details, because I won't remember anything. Well, I remember something about a beach; a very English, Broadchurch type of beach. That's all. I'd never read any of Margaret Drabble's work before this. I thought I remembered writing something about it so I searched "Drabble," but I was searching the Internet, not just my blog, and I learned that a "Drabble" is apparently a 100-word work of fiction. That seems like a fun challenge, so maybe I'll try to write one. I'll probably read more Margaret Drabble this year, too.

South and West, Joan Didion. I won't even link to the post where I mentioned this because at the time, all I remembered of this was a part where Joan Didion ate a grilled cheese sandwich. I'm not sure how anyone as thin as Joan Didion gets to swan around the place eating grilled cheese sandwiches, but life isn't fair. Joan Didion is not much like Nora Ephron. I think of Nora Ephron as "Nora," but I never think of Joan Didion as anything except Joan Didion. But here's one thing they have in common--I like Joan Didion's essays much better than her fiction.

The Anti-Mary Exposed: Rescuing the Culture from Toxic Femininity, Carrie Gress. I read three pro-life books this year and this was the least convincing and by far the least interesting of the three. I won't suggest that there's no such thing as toxic femininity because of course there is. But Ms. Gress (Dr. Gress, I think) comes across as a woman-hating woman and is thus not an effective defender of the argument against mainstream feminism. I also question her scholarship, for two reasons: 1. She presents Mallory Millett as a credible source, which she is certainly not. 2. She can't even correctly quote Meryl Streep in "The Devil Wears Prada." It was a "lumpy" blue sweater, not  "droopy" one. It was not a "lovely Gap Outlet," it was a "tragic Casual Corner;" and Andie didn't "find" the lumpy blue sweater, she "fished it out of a clearance bin." Although Gress makes some very good points in this book, I can't get past her failure to use the word "cerulean" in her mention of this scene. I get that she was citing the screenplay and not the actual movie but if you're trying to make a case to young, feminist women, then you better get Miranda Priestly right. Cerulean!

By all means, confuse Gap Outlet with Casual Corner.
You know how that thrills me. 

Can You Ever Forgive Me? Lee Israel. I didn't really write about the book when I read it, though I wrote about the movie multiple times. I saw it three times (twice on airplanes) and it made a deep impression. The book was good, too, though not quite so memorable and not something that I would have read at all had I not seen the movie. Can You Ever Forgive Me? was not the last book I read in 2019, but I feel that I should list it last so that we're ending on a note of forgiveness; specifically, you forgiving me for making you read this soggy pile of old gym clothes and wet towels disguised as literary criticism. Well, no one made you read it, so I guess if you're in it this far, you're on your own. But please do forgive me.

This post is--how do you say it? A heated mess.
A mess where heat is applied, so it becomes even more messy. 

OMG, am I done? I'm done! That's it! That's the last book on my barely legible handwritten hot mess of a list, and the end of this even hotter mess of a post! Read (most of) these books, and then maybe you'll forget that you spent 30 minutes of your life reading this trash pile! Or maybe you won't, but that's not my problem, is it?

But really, please do forgive me.

Fog

It's game night, Capitals vs. Hurricanes, and we're on our way to Capital One Center. The puck drops in a little more than an hour.

I love game night. Even on a Monday night, even after ignominious losses in two straight games, Capital One Center is a happy place. We celebrate when our team wins and we share the pain when they lose. It's all good, either way.

But winning is better. They need to beat these bitches.

*****
We're here now, waiting for this Metropolitan Division match-up between the Carolina Hurricanes and YOUR Washington Capitals. Thanks, Wes Johnson. I like being here early and I love having an end seat. I don't mind having people climb over me, but I hate climbing over other people. It's a thing.

Slapshot is skating out with his giant flag. It's his 25th anniversary, and it's Tom Wilson's 500th game. A night of milestones.

*****
You know who I feel sorry for? Well, a lot of people; but today, I’m feeling sorry for Londoners during the Blitz.

It’s Tuesday now. I worked from home today and although it’s not really that cold outside (mid 40s), it’s foggy and misty and damp. All day long, I couldn’t get the chill out of my bones. I have heat and hot water and plenty of tea, and no one is dropping bombs on me, but I’m still miserable. January. Who needs it?

The Capitals did win last night, snapping their two-game losing streak. Doesn’t that sound ridiculous? A two-game losing streak? Almost as ridiculous as me comparing myself to bombing victims living out World War II under near-famine conditions. I like to think of myself as not a complainer, not prone to drama, but that’s clearly ridiculous. It’s a dreary day and I feel dreary.

*****
You know, if I’d had to live through the Blitz, I’d be so dirty. I can’t stand taking my clothes off in the winter, even in a central heat-equipped house with a reasonable supply of hot running water. What if I was living in a cold-water bed-sit with a tiny coal stove for heat? I don’t even want to think about it.

*****
It’s Wednesday morning now, 7:15, with fog so dense and heavy that I can barely see my neighbor’s house across the street. The gas lamp is glowing softly, leaving a hazy golden halo hovering in mid-air. Postwar London.

Normally, I write in the evenings but my husband drove my son to school today, leaving me a few extra minutes. I made eggs; two fried eggs, to be exact. Postwar Londoners had to make do with one egg a week and I can have two in a day if I want to. I read somewhere that it’s not safe to put your broken eggshells back in the egg carton, but I do it anyway. If London could withstand the Blitz, then I can probably resist a few wandering salmonella germs. My immune system is pretty tough. Bulletproof is not too strong a word. Come at me, salmonella. Come at me, bro.

The fog has begun to lift and thin a bit. I can see the grass in my backyard now, and I can see across the fence into the neighbor’s yard. It’s 7:30 now, and I want to get to work before 8, so it’s time to stop and not a moment too soon. I mean really.

*****
I’ve never been to Atlanta. I’ve been over it and through it but never in it. But that will change next month because apparently, I’m going to Atlanta. I woke up this morning with absolutely no plans to visit Atlanta (no offense, of course, because I’m sure it’s a wonderful city) and now I’m making a packing list. It’s all good. I’m always happy to see a new place, though I’m not always so happy to get on the plane that will take me there.

In any event, it’ll probably be warmer there than it is here. It feels like winter again today; appropriate because it is winter, but I don’t have to like it.

*****
It’s Friday, WFH day. That’s work from home, of course. I finished a little before 4 and went out to walk and run in the sunshine, which didn’t warm the even a little bit. And I didn’t even hate it. There was almost no wind; the bare trees barely rustled, and the stillness made the cold feel not quite so cold.

In recent days, my thinking has been muddled and foggy. I thought I’d mention that just in case this ridiculous post doesn’t adequately demonstrate the cobwebby state of the inside of my brain. It’s a mess in there. Like an episode of Hoarders, Extreme Cases, if that exists. But just one pretty fast walk in the sunshine and the sharp, clear air, and some of the cobwebs are gone. The pistons are firing again, if that’s what pistons do. I’m not a mechanic.

A week of fog outside and a week of fog inside. But the fog has lifted for now. Just for now.

Storms and sunshine

It’s Tuesday, and the first snow day of the year. It’s not really a snow day, it’s a snow half-day (or a half snow day--take your pick). Schools closed early, as did the Federal government, so we all spent the afternoon at home. I had the most unproductive and frustrating day yesterday; so much so that I began to question my competence. Well, I question my competence every damn day, but not at work. I’m pretty good at my job. But today, I got shit done, and then I got more shit done. I was firing on every cylinder. It was a good day.

*****
Yesterday, one of my coworkers said that he was making poached chicken for dinner. And I pictured him stuffing a squirming, squawking chicken under his trench coat, feathers flying as he runs toward his car, with a shotgun-wielding farmer in hot pursuit. “Hit the gas, honey,” he says, slamming the car door as his wife shifts it into gear. “We’re having poached chicken tonight.” And then I laughed and laughed.

Maybe this is why I couldn’t get any work done.

*****
Now it’s Thursday. It’s seasonably cold, which means that compared to the rest of this so-called winter, it’s freezing. It’s 5:30 PM, a dead of winter kind of day. All of the lights in the house are off, and I’m surrounded by sleeping people. My 15-year-old had 5 AM swim practice this morning and band rehearsal after school, and now he’s exhausted, sprawled out on the family room couch as ESPN glows softly on our ridiculous-sized TV. My husband, with a short break between his full-time job and a part-time evening gig, is also napping, on another couch in another room. My older son is at work. The house has finally warmed up and although I don’t usually like to sit in the dark, I have to admit that it feels cozy up in here. I can’t sleep right now, but watching other people sleep in a dark and peaceful house is the next best thing.

*****

It’s Friday afternoon, almost five o’clock and still light for a little while. The days are getting longer and not a moment too soon. I’d love to stay in tonight but I have to go to a thing and be social and whatnot.

I worked at the office today, rather than at home as I normally do on Fridays. I had too much to do when I went in this morning, and now I have way too much to do, having added (or been assigned) more stuff to do. I’m going to make a big list and figure out how to break the whole mess down and spread it out and get it all done. I’ll do that later. Because thinking about it for a while and then writing about it, and then writing it all down, is obviously more efficient than just doing it, right?

I’m starting to hyperventilate a little bit, just thinking about it.

It’ll be fine, though. Because anxiety-prompted procrastination that leads to full-blown panic fueling further inaction and paralysis until I have no choice but to work like a fiend just to keep up is always the right way to approach a surge in workload. That’s free life coaching.

*****

Another Saturday morning, another high school swim meet. I'm sitting on a bench with two stopwatches around my neck. I need two because I'm the assistant head timer. A significant promotion, and a long-overdue recognition of my accomplishments in high school swim timing.

A team parent is skulking around the deck, taking pictures for the obligatory end-of-season slide show, and he's pointing his stupid camera right at me. What is wrong with people? Does he think that I'm camera ready at 9 o’clock on Saturday morning at the aquatic center? I'm going to keep my head down and ignore him. Maybe he'll go away.

Warm-ups are underway now, so I'll have to put the phone away. I take my timing responsibility very seriously. They don't promote just anyone to assistant head timer. Well, they do. But they shouldn't.

You keep working on those stopwatch skills, and you'll be
lead deputy assistant head timer in no time, I tell you what. 

The head timer and assistant head timer don't have much to do during the 500-yard freestyle events, so I can sit and write as the swimmers settle in to their distance rhythm. Two things I'm good at: timing and multitasking. Well, the timing, anyway. I was running around the house multitasking like a crazy person this morning and only now does it occur to me that I don't remember turning the stove off. I don't remember leaving it on, of course ; I just don't definitely and clearly remember turning it off. I'll find out soon enough, won't I?

*****
It’s Sunday now and I’m sitting on the couch in my family room in my house that is still standing because I did turn off the stove. Now I’m planning my week. It’ll be fine. I can’t really think today.

I’ve been working on my 2019 book list, and I hoped to finish it this weekend, but I probably won’t. I like to write about books, but I’m distracted right now. I need clothes and shoes, but i want to buy more handbags. I’ll end up wearing handbags to work as my work clothes gradually wear out or go out of fashion, and I replace them with nothing but handbags. Handbags on my feet, handbags instead of sweaters or skirts. They probably won’t fit. I’ll have to buy clothes and then just carry one of the 20 or more handbags that I already have.

I didn’t sleep much last week, or last night. January thunderstorms, and then 65-degree sunshine. It’s a nice day so I think I have to get out of the house and out of my head. This post has hit rock bottom and I don’t want to join it. Until next week.

Anyone could do that

I'm waiting in the pickup line at Rockville High School and the bell just rang. In a moment or two, hundreds of happy Friday afternoon high schoolers will pour out the front doors into waiting buses and cars, ready to start their weekends. I have a few minutes to write because I'm hemmed in from all sides. I can't go anywhere, even when my kid gets in the car, so I might just as well write about it.

I worked from home today and I'm not quite finished. Another hour and I'll start my weekend, too. It's going to be a utilitarian weekend. Some Christmas un-decorating, some soup-making, a swim meet, and some book reading. I have so many books to read, and so much ephemera to write about. Just yesterday, I wrote a whole two-page essay about daily planners, one of my very favorite topics. Keeping track of the days might be a better occupation than paying attention to what’s happening on those days. But let me leave you with a quote:

“Our president will start a war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate. He's weak and he's ineffective. So the only way he figures that he's going to get reelected — and as sure as you're sitting there — is to start a war with Iran. Isn’t that pathetic?

--Donald Trump on Barack Obama, 2011

*****

Now it's Saturday, and I am waiting for the first swim meet of 2020 to begin. We just finished the timers' briefing (mercifully short this time) and we're watching the dive meet. I'll be on duty in 15 minutes.

A young diver just executed what looked like a very good dive, but what do I know? Nothing.

Well, not nothing. I know all about timing. This might be the 100th time that I have stood on a pool deck with a stopwatch around my neck, and that stopwatch is not just an accessory, l tell you what. Timing is serious business and they don't just let anyone do it. Well, they do, actually. But they shouldn't.

Did you complete the training course?
No? Then put down that stopwatch. 

Warm-ups have commenced so we'll be underway in five minutes or so. My son is hard to spot. He's one of eight or nine orange capped, goggled kids sharing a warm-up lane. They're hard to tell apart. But he looked over at me as he was climbing out of the pool and gave me a quick teenage boy nod of recognition. He never fails to acknowledge his mother. He's a good boy.

OK, it's go time.

Here's an insider tip. If you're going to time at a swim meet, try to get yourself positioned on an outside lane. We have had no swimmers in our lane for the last three events so I have all the time in the world.

*****

I thought that my eyesight was bad, but one of my fellow timers just asked to see the order of events, and she held that clipboard as far away as her arm could stretch. I thought that she was going to throw out her shoulder.

*****


Seriously, that made me feel so much better about my own terrible terrible eyesight. Next time I introduce myself to someone, I’ll say that my name is Claire, but that all my friends call me Hawkeye.

*****

It’s Monday now. I watched the Golden Globes last night; or rather, I half-watched it and half did other things. A few observations:

1. Ricky Gervais: There’s a difference between a fearless, flame-throwing, free-thinking speaker of truth to power and a jerk. Mr. Gervais is the latter, and boring.
2. Olivia Colman: Yay! She’s so lovely, and her dress and overall look were among my very favorites. 
3. Patricia Arquette: Why? Why did you have to mention him? It was a pretty Trump-free evening until you took the stage. Why can’t you guys understand that paying him no mind is the very worst thing you can do to him? No, I don’t think that celebrities should just shut up and play or act or sing or whatever they do--I just think that Donald Trump and his followers live for the idea that the crazy radical left is obsessed with Trump, and you prove them right every time you attack him at an awards show. Oh, and I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: It doesn’t take that much courage to criticize Donald Trump at a Hollywood gathering. Sheesh.
4. Michelle Williams: Anyone who is “pro-choice” should be appalled and outraged that this poor young woman felt that her only hope of achieving her dreams lay in the “choice” of ending her child’s life. This isn’t a choice. This is women, once again, forced to conform to the unreasonable demands of a working world built by and for men. As they say on the Internet, let’s do better, shall we?

High school swim season is already halfway over, but awards season is just getting started. I only saw a handful of movies in 2019, but the Oscars are right around the corner so I’ll have to catch up. How else will I write meaningless and ill-informed reviews and half-baked commentary? They let anyone time at a swim meet. They let ANYONE write a blog.

Planning

Happy New Year! It’s the second day of 2020, and I’m sure you want to know all about my planner for the year.

Yes, you do.

I thought about it, but decided not to buy Filofax refills this year. My love for Filofax will never die, but I do like to try something new every so often. My second-favorite day planners are made by a company called Gallery Leather. Barnes and Noble sells them, but this year, they didn’t have any colors that I liked. I could have ordered one online, but I was in Barnes and Noble and I wanted to cross something off my to-do list, so I bought a Moleskine pocket planner, because they had them in stock and because I liked the compact size and the pretty red color.

This isn’t actually my first Moleskine planner. I had one in 2017. It was a yellow fabric-covered pocket size page-a-day planner from their Peanuts collection, a gift from my sister. Normally, I have to (HAVE TO) choose my own planner, but I loved this one and I used it for the entire year. I loved the yellow cover with the picture of Sally jumping rope, and the words “I have a new philosophy: Life goes on.” It’s a good philosophy. And I love Sally. Not as much as Lucy or Snoopy or Charlie Brown or Linus, but I do love Sally. I still have that planner. I still have all of my old planners.

The 2017 Peanuts Moleskine, as much as I liked it, had a few flaws. The cover was light yellow fabric, as I mentioned--very pretty but very susceptible to dirt and impossible to clean. My solution to this was to carry the planner inside a ziploc bag. This worked very well, and I enjoyed imagining my millennial coworkers going out with their friends and telling them about the crazy older lady they work with, who keeps her planner in a ziploc bag. But it was also a little too big. The page-a-day format is nice, but it makes a thick book that’s a lot to carry around every day.

In 2018, I bought another Gallery planner, in bright pink. It’s a near-perfect planner. If the pages were crisp white rather than off-white, and if it had a pocket, it would be just right. But it’s still pretty good and I’ll probably get another one next year. For 2019, I used the French-language pocket planner that I bought in Montreal.  It was quite a nice planner, and very durable (the cover still looks very nice) but I didn’t love the complicated page layout and I wouldn’t have bought another one, even en Anglais.

Wait, where was I?

Oh right. The Moleskine planner, the new one for 2020. I’ll begin with its virtues, which are considerable. It’s the perfect size, and it’s a beautiful color. It’s a week on one page, the left page; with the right side of the folio a lined, blank page. This is ideal for me--little notes and appointments on the calendar side, and my weekly to-do list on the blank page. Genius. It also has a bookmark ribbon (last year’s Franch planner didn’t have one, and I sorely missed this feature) and an elastic closure. The paper is beautiful, and it has a pocket in the back for cards and notes and my tiny tiny ruler. So it’s a pretty good planner. 8 out of 10.

Oh, of course, I’ll be HAPPY to tell you all about why I’m deducting two critical points.

First of all, I don’t know how to pronounce “Moleksine.” Is it “SKEEN” or “SKIN?” I don’t know, and if I hang around looking that sort of thing up, then when will I have time to write two-page essays about day planners? Did you ever think of that, Moleskeen or Moleskin or whatever your name is? DID YOU?

Secondly, the stickers. I don’t object to stickers per se. In fact, I like them very much. I was actually delighted to find three sheets of tiny stickers in the back of this planner. One sheet has letters and numbers, so I spelled out my name in stickers on the flyleaf. What’s more fun than that? Nothing. But then I looked more closely at the picture stickers, and found that there are at least 20 travel-themed stickers (suitcases, planes, boats, trains) but no work-themed stickers. I work a lot more than I travel. There were also lots of entertainment and leisure themed stickers (theater tickets, wine glasses, golf clubs, skis) but no book stickers. I’ve never been on skis, not even one time (a record that I hope and intend to maintain to my dying day), but I read all the time. And no cars! Bicycles and boats, planes and trains, but no cars, and no buses.

Who are these stickers for? People who fly around skiing and golfing and drinking but who don’t run errands or drive children around or work, that’s who. People who are right now in Aspen or St. Bart’s or Gstaad. Hey Moleskine: Call Ivanka. Let her know that I have her stickers. I can send them to her in Davos. (And tell her to tell her dad that it might be time to get off the golf course and get back to Washington to run the war that he just started.) And next time, add a page of stickers with little cars, and little grocery carts, and little tiny computers, and maybe a pair of running shoes or a baby stroller. People who have the kind of lives that your current sticker selection depicts have secretaries. They don’t need day planners.

I mean, really.

Oh, and Happy New Year!

Does anybody really know what time it is?

It's raining, raining, raining. A Sunday afternoon, late December, the last few days of Christmas vacation soaked and gray, but peaceful.

We're in the car, halfway to Philadelphia to visit my family. We used to come five or six times a year, but we haven't been since June, for my nephew's graduation party, and we won't likely be back until the summer. People are busy.

I submitted my last time sheet of 2019. I thought that maybe I'd wait until Tuesday, that maybe I'd work for a while tomorrow or Tuesday, but I abandoned that idea almost as soon as I thought about it. I'm going to stay on vacation until Thursday.

We're driving past country houses near Bel Air, Maryland, Christmas lights twinkling in the middle of the afternoon. We change the radio station every few minutes as reception fades and returns. Traffic is steady, and the trees are either completely bare or evergreen, Christmas trees in the wild. We'll stop at Wawa for some coffee and then we'll be at my sister's house in about 90 minutes, just in time for the cousins to trash talk each other through the 4 PM football games.

*****
It's Monday now, and still raining. I saw a Christmas tree in the trash this morning, while I was out walking my sister's goofy dog. He sniffed happily at the wet scraggly fragrant evergreen, and then we kept walking.

My sons and their cousins watched football last night, lounging in front of the TV, wearing flannels and hoodies and inexplicably, ski hats. It's not that cold. Surrounded by plates of cookies and bowls of chips, hurling cheerful insults about their respective terrible (Redskins) and mediocre (Eagles) teams, they were the very picture of Christmas vacation contentment.

I made a coffee run this morning, to the Wawa around the corner from my sister's house. I tuned the radio, looking for something other than Monday morning sports talk. I landed on an oldies station because Philadelphia radio does not acknowledge the passage of time beyond 1983 or so. Chicago was asking the musical question "Does anyone really know what time it is?" and I found that I couldn't answer. In full vacation mode, I had lost track of time. But a rainy Monday morning in the winter feels like Monday no matter what, so I knew what day it was.

*****
New Year's Eve, 1 PM. We're on the road now, after a short visit with my grandmother at her tiny, reeking of smoke row house in Philadelphia. She has lived in that house for 60 years. She has a chair lift because she can no longer manage the stairs.

"She should really quit smoking," my 18-year-old son says.

"Yeah, it must be really bad for someone her age," my 15 year old says.

"She just turned 96," I tell them. "She's not interested in any health advice."

96 is very old. My grandmother is frail. Her eyesight is very poor and her hearing isn't so good either. My mother says that she hears what she wants to hear. Maybe that's true. If so, I don't blame her. But I don't think it's a choice. I think that she has moments of auditory clarity, when she can hear exactly what you say, the first time. Most of the time, though, you have to shout at her, or repeat yourself several times.

Physical limitations aside, she's still sharp. Her memory is excellent and her reasoning and judgment are sound. Well, she likes Donald Trump, but her reasoning and judgment are otherwise sound. We don't talk about politics. I'm not going to argue with a 96-year-old woman.

My sons are uncharacteristically quiet now. They visit my grandmother only occasionally, since we don't live nearby. I think she scares them a little and they're not sure why. I understand why. Old age is terrible, and terrifying.

*****
New Year’s Day, the first day of 2020. I turned the Christmas tree lights on this morning. The tree still looks pretty but it’s ragged around the edges. It’s droopy and tired. The tree knows that the holidays are at an end. It knows that the gig is up.

It’s sunny again, and almost cold. It’s been a lovely vacation. I’m back at work tomorrow, and my poor 15-year-old has 5 AM swim practice on his first day back at school. But it’s fine. I don’t mind going back to work, and I don’t think he’ll mind going back to school, though I’m sure that he will mind the 4:30 wake-up call. But a person can't sleep in every day. A week of not planning and not setting alarms and not keeping track of time is a nice way to end a year but it's enough, I suppose. 2020 begins in earnest tomorrow.