The book is so much better than the meme...

It occurred to me, not too long ago, that the Internet sometimes takes things out of context. You’ve noticed this too, haven’t you? Sharp as the proverbial tack, that’s what we are. Sharp. 

*****

I finally read Hyperbole and a Half, ten years after everyone else read it and then filled the entire World Wide Web with ALL THE THINGS. After Hyperbole and a Half was published, “all the things” became the dominant Internet slang of the early 2010s. It replaced “threw up in my mouth a little” (good riddance) and “meh” (meh). It was everywhere. If you were too busy, you had to DO ALL THE THINGS. If you were emotional, you had ALL THE FEELINGS (or God help me, ALL THE FEELS). If you were a glutton, you ATE ALL THE FOOD. You get the point. 

Naturally, I resisted the idea of reading the book that was personally responsible for ALL THE ALL THE THINGS variations that littered every blog and every social media post for literally years. Years! But then one day last summer, H and a H showed up in my daily discount e-book newsletter, and I caved. I read it on Kindle, which is not the best way to read it. Some of the drawing captions are hard to read in the electronic format. 

Format aside, Hyperbole and a Half is quite wonderful, including the essay that spawned the ALL THE THINGS memes, which is hilarious (the essay is hilarious--the memes vary). But as a whole, Hyperbole and a Half is actually quite serious. When it tries to be funny, it’s hilarious; but when it’s serious, it’s as serious as can be. Right after I finished Hyperbole and a Half, I read The Reading Life, a compilation of C.S. Lewis’ essays and letters about reading. You might not think about Allie Brosh and C.S. Lewis in the same literary thought, but you would be wrong, because both writers are intensely religious, though I suspect that Allie Brosh doesn’t intend to be. 

In “Identity Part Two,” the last essay in Hyperbole, she writes “...I am someone who would throw sand at children. I know this because I have had to resist doing it, and that means that it’s what I would naturally be doing if I wasn’t resisting it. I would also shove everyone, never share anything, and shout at people who aren’t letting me do exactly what I want.” 

Well, duh. In those few words, Allie Brosh describes just about nearly everyone in the human race, now and ever, from the beginning of time to the end of the age, though she doesn’t seem to know this. She seems to think that most other people who appear to be good people, who present themselves as good people, are actually good people, all the time. She writes about the “system of lies and tricks” that she uses to convince herself that she’s not a bad person; as if she is the only person who has ever had to fight her selfish impulses, or force herself to do the right thing rather than the easy thing or the fun thing or the vindictive, satisfying thing. She writes about her constant struggle not to act like a shitty person, when she knows that she is a shitty person. She doesn’t seem to realize that everyone else is shitty, too. Shitty is the default human condition. 

*****

After the huge success of Hyperbole and a Half, the Internet waited with bated breath for Allie Brosh’s next book. It waited a long time by any standard; and an eternity by Internet standards. Her second book, Solutions and Other Problems, came out in 2020 and not only did I not wait around for a discount copy, I actually pre-ordered so that I’d have it in my hand on the day of publication. And I wasn’t disappointed. 

Solutions is like Hyperbole in some ways; very funny but very serious, even dark. It’s been long enough now since I read both books that I don’t really remember enough to distinguish one from the other. That is not to say that they are alike, because they’re not. Solutions just expands on the themes that Brosh introduced in Hyperbole. It’s more personal and revelatory; it goes a little deeper than Hyperbole. But there are still ridiculous dogs. I don’t have a dog, but I do love other people’s ridiculous dogs. Hyperbole and a Half and Solutions and Other Problems were among my favorite books of 2020. I will be first in line for Allie Brosh’s next book, even if it takes ten years. 

How to Be an Antiracist (book note)

I started writing this months ago, but now I’m determined to wrap up my 2020 book reviews, such as they are, so I’m going to finish it. 

Ibram X. Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist was the book of the moment last summer, and I’m all about being of the moment, so I read it. It’s very good, and it made me think about things that white ladies don’t always like to think about. But too bad for us, because it’s long past time for us to be a little uncomfortable. 

Although How to Be often reads as a little dry and scholarly, it’s also very personal and very honest and very self-reflective. When he was a young boy in Queens, Dr. Kendi was riding a bus home from school when a bully and his friends began to taunt and threaten a classmate. “I did nothing,” he writes. He doesn’t spare himself an inch. He doesn’t say “I was young and thoughtless and so I did nothing,” and he doesn’t say “I was outnumbered and scared and so I did nothing.” He doesn’t excuse himself for failing to defend his classmate, even though the incident happened when he was very young. 

He’s also honest about his own racism, against White people and against other Black people. As a high school student, Dr. Kendi won an oratory contest, with a speech that was highly critical of other Black teenagers. By exploiting negative stereotypes about Black youth and so-called “hip-hop culture,” he won the approval of authority figures, both Black and White. As in the bus incident, Dr. Kendi doesn’t excuse himself for this, though he could easily have fallen back on his youth and inexperience, or the prevailing thought at that time. 

*****

Both Black and White are capitalized throughout the book. This is a change from standard practice of just a few years ago, but most writers now are capitalizing Black and White as they apply to race, and I think that this change will be formalized soon enough. I would have chosen “anti-racist” rather than “antiracist,” and I’m not clear if the latter is just a preference against the hyphen with the anti prefix or a statement that antiracist should be a word of its own and not just an opposite of racist. 

These are pretty minor style considerations. But there’s another style choice that was a stumbling block for me, at least for a while. Dr. Kendi often refers to Black people as “Black bodies.” He also uses the word “people,” but more often he writes about Black bodies, living in the world. Part of me gets the distinction. The body is what’s visible. It’s like the old Eddie Murphy joke about Stevie Wonder: How does he even know he’s Black? Black people, like Asian people and Latinx people and Arab people, are targets for racism and discrimination firstly because they look different from the White people who have always had the most power. 

But again, as Dr. Kendi emphasizes, racism is not solely the provenance of White people. We’re just the ones who have gained the most from it. More and more of us acknowledge this now. Even a year ago, most White people I know bristled at the idea of “white privilege.” Now more of us get that white privilege doesn’t mean that our lives are easy. It just means that our lives, easy or hard, are not made harder by the color of our skin.  

People can learn. That’s actually the most hopeful message in a book that I think is pretty full of hopeful messages. Racist isn't necessarily a permanent state; it’s a thing that we can change. Racism is a state of mind that we can choose to recognize and resist and overcome. People are racist or antiracist based on what they do or say or believe in a given moment. They can change. We can always change. 

*****

Still, I kept stumbling over the references to “Black bodies.” A person is a thing separate and distinct from a body. A body is just the physical container for a person. It’s the outer packaging. Referring to people only as bodies, I thought, diminishes their humanity, makes them less than they are. 

And then, at the end of the book, I finally got it. After his young wife, a newly graduated M.D., recovered from breast cancer, Dr. Kendi himself was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. Breast cancer and colon cancer are both rare for people in their thirties; it’s extraordinarily rare (and unfair) for a married couple of that age to suffer breast cancer and colon cancer back to back. This is why Dr. Kendi writes about “Black bodies.”  Racism corrodes the body as well as the mind. It doesn’t just give rise to violence; it is violence. A lot of the impacts and effects of racism, from slavery to lynching to segregated spaces to police violence are physical. They cause physical harm; they damage or kill the body. 

Leave it to a clueless white person not to get that until someone beats her over the head with it. But I do get it now. I can still learn.  

Hilary Mantel: (parenthetical) Author of the Year, 2020

If I were to create a dashboard or a visualization of my reading history for 2020 (in theory, I mean--I will spare you in reality), then it would be all about Hilary Mantel. I read six of her books last year: Wolf Hall, Bring Up the Bodies, and The Mirror and the Light (the Wolf Hall/Henry VIII/Thomas Cromwell trilogy); AND Giving Up the Ghost, Eight Months on Ghazzah Street, and Mantel Pieces. I wrote about the Wolf Hall books several times. I feel like I know Thomas Cromwell. I don’t want to hang out with him or anything, but I know him. 

After I tore through the Wolf Hall trilogy, I read Giving Up the Ghost.  Then I wanted to read another novel, so I read Eight Months on Ghazzah Street, which was loosely based on Hilary Mantel’s own experience as an expatriate living in Jeddah. She wrote somewhere else, perhaps in an essay, that the day she left Saudi Arabia was one of the happiest of her life. And if her life there was anything like the eight months depicted in this book, then I don’t blame her. 

Eight Months reminds me very much of a Muriel Spark novel. This is very high praise, coming from me. Hilary Mantel reminds me of Muriel Spark in general; but specifically, Eight Months reminds me of the novels The Hothouse by the East River and The Takeover, and the story “The Go-Away Bird.” Eight Months is a first-person narrative told by Frances, the young wife of an engineer hired to work on a major building project in Jeddah in the early 1980s. Frances is a modern Englishwoman who struggles to adjust to her position as a woman in Saudi Arabia. She is also a person who is constitutionally unable to keep her feelings to herself, and unable to see things except as they are. She lacks the ability to deceive herself or to talk herself into accepting the unacceptable. Events occur and situations develop that a less observant person would fail to notice and a more astute and cynical person might notice but decline to acknowledge. But Frances is not capable of failing to notice; and having noticed, failing to act. People like Frances tend to struggle in places and times when the truth is not particularly valued. And I don't know that Hilary Mantel intended the book to be allegorical, but I think it is. I'll leave you to decide what it's an allegory for. 

*****

My last Mantel for 2020 was Mantel Pieces, a collection of essays and reviews. And reviews of reviews, if that’s a thing; and it is, if Hilary Mantel says it is. This collection includes what was apparently a famous essay about the bodies of royal women; both in general and in particular; and especially Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge. The press coverage about this essay focused more on Kate Middleton herself and far less on what Hilary Mantel actually wrote about her, which was a little bit about Kate Middleton herself and a lot more about how famous women’s bodies are assessed and critiqued and generally treated as public property.  Hilary Mantel doesn’t suffer fools or foolishness; but she also has no patience for criticism that is cruel for cruelty’s sake. I don’t know how better to describe this than that she takes a jaundiced eye toward jaundiced eyes. Having now read Hilary Mantel’s fiction, autobiography, and essays, I am naming her as my author of the year for 2020. This is an honor that conveys absolutely no prestige or financial reward, but I do congratulate Ms. Mantel anyway. A win is a win.

Meg Wolitzer: 3 Novels, 2020

2020 was a memorable reading year for me; not least of all because I discovered four new authors. That is to say, I finally read four authors who have been around for many years (two of them are now dead). I catch on slowly, but I do catch on. 

The four authors are Hilary Mantel, Helene Hanff, P.D. James, and Meg Wolitzer. I list them in order of preference. And don’t read anything into fourth place for Meg Wolitzer. She’s pretty great, and she’d be first on lots of other lists. But this is a high-octane group, and someone had to come last. Anyway, this post is about Wolitzer. I read three of her books in 2020: This is My Life, The Wife, and The Interestings. 

*****

I read This is My Life sometime during the summer, and I was sure that I'd written about it. And I did actually write about it, but I never published that post. I just read it over and realized that it was kind of half-baked, which makes it exactly like everything else I ever write, so here you are. 

As I read This is My Life, I wondered to myself how I, a middle-aged suburban American woman, had managed to live as long as I had without reading a single Meg Wolitzer novel. This one came up as a Kindle recommendation, probably because of the Nora Ephron connection. Kindle knows how I feel about Nora Ephron One of Nora’s first movies was an adaptation of This is My Life, which was originally published as This is Your Life. Meg Wolitzer apparently re-released her novel as This is My Life, because people tend to do what Nora tells them to do. Nora has been dead since 2012, but she's still the boss. 

I remember seeing a TV review of "This is My Life" (the movie) when it was first released. I don’t remember if the review was part of a movie review show or maybe an entertainment segment of a news show, but I do remember that the snide male critic did not like the movie. I don’t remember the substance of his criticism, the reasons why he didn’t like the movie. I just remember that when discussing the cast and their recent credits, he dismissively referred to the movie’s star, Julie Kavner, as “Julie Kavner, of nothing in particular.” I wasn’t listening to him in the first place but if I had been, he’d have lost me right there, because Julie Kavner, of course, was Rhoda’s sister, and that is a long way away from being “nothing in particular.” And you know what else? I don’t remember the critic’s name, nor the name of the silly inconsequential show that foolishly broadcast his stupid opinions. I know who Julie Kavner is, but that critic was just some guy, from “nothing in particular.” He will remain anonymous here; not least of all because I don't know his name. 

Anyway, back to the book, which I loved. This is My Life is a deceptively simple and unpretentious story of a single mother and her two daughters, who are young girls when the story begins and young women when it ends. The point of view transitions back and forth between Opal and Erica Engels, daughters of Dottie Engels, a hugely successful stand-up comic whose broad, self-mocking fat lady humor is enormously popular in the 1970s, and then becomes all of a sudden quaint and unsophisticated and old-fashioned in the 1980s. Dottie doesn’t understand the cultural shift that suddenly renders her irrelevant. She doesn’t understand the new young comedians on “Rush Hour,” the SNL-like late-night show where Opal becomes an unpaid intern; and when her agent can no longer book her to perform on stage or on television, she becomes the TV spokesperson for a new line of mass market fashion for larger women. 

Dottie is a larger-than-life figure, and the reader learns about her almost exclusively through Erica and Opal, who each try in their own way to separate themselves from Dottie and forge their own identities. But they can't. They can't be who they are supposed to be without acknowledging their mother's DNA, her role in shaping their personalities and their destinies. As hard as they try to get away, they return to Dottie again and again, in their thoughts and in front of their television sets when Dottie’s commercials begin to appear; and then finally in person, when Dottie suffers a heart attack. 

This is Your Life was published in 1992, just long enough after the 70s ended and the 80s began that Wolitzer could convey the dramatic shift in the tone of popular culture between about 1975 and 1984 with the benefit of distant hindsight. The character of Dottie Engels was probably inspired by Phyllis Diller or maybe Joan Rivers or Rose Marie or maybe a combination of all three. In 1975, the world still thought that Phyllis Diller was funny; in 1984, she was a shlocky relic of the past. Phyllis Diller didn’t change, though. Audiences changed and critics’ ideas of what was good and bad and funny and unfunny and relevant and irrelevant changed, leaving comedians like Phyllis Diller and Rose Marie and the fictional Dottie on the dust heap of pop culture history. Things change slowly, over many years; until something accelerates that change and makes it seem very sudden. That's how I read it, anyway. 

I never saw the movie version, but I intend to remedy this. I'll report back

*****

The Interestings (a great title) was one of the last books I read in 2020. When I read This is My Life, one of the first things I thought is that Meg Wolitzer tells a story by just telling it, right from the very beginning. The Interestings is both similar to and different from This is My Life. It’s similar because the main characters’ personalities and voices are clear right away, almost from page one. It’s different because the story develops a bit more slowly. But just when you begin to wonder if anything is going to happen to these characters, things start to happen. 

The Interestings are a group of talented, mostly privileged summer camp friends. The novel follows them from their teenage summers at an exclusive arts camp in the Berkshires through middle adulthood, so it takes place over a long period of time. And it also reads as though it was written over a long period of time, like maybe Meg Wolizer stopped and started and forgot some plot details when she picked up the manuscript again. There were some tiny holes, some minor inconsistencies here and there. Dates and times and “wait a minute, how did we get here from over there?” kinds of inconsistencies.  And then there are one or two times when Wolitzer explains away a contradiction, as if to tell the reader “Oh, I meant for that to happen; that little missing link was intentional.” But it’s a very good and compelling story. I missed the characters when it was all over. 

*****

I read The Wife in between This is My Life and The Interestings, because I loved This is My Life and I wanted more Wolitzer. I liked The Wife much less than This is My Life, but not so much that it put me off Wolitzer for good. The Wife is a rather bitter story, as of course it would be (no spoilers but if you read it you’ll understand what I mean) but that’s not why I didn’t like it. Humanity is bitter sometimes, and novelists are supposed to tell the truth about humanity. 

In The Wife, a woman who is married to a famous author spends most of her life supporting his illustrious literary career and ambitions. The book has a big twist at the end, and I still feel stupid for not having seen it coming, because Wolitzer drops pretty broad hints throughout, pretty much from the first page. So maybe my annoyance with myself colored my judgement of this book. But I don’t think that’s it, either.  I think it’s just not as good as This is My Life and The Interestings. And that’s why I don’t really think of these little book notes as reviews, because I don’t really have much more to say than “I really liked this book” or “I didn’t like this book very much.” 

Or maybe I do. Back to The Wife. There’s a streak of meanness in the book; but this also doesn’t completely account for my overall negative feeling about it. Meanness alone is not a bad thing, from a literary perspective. Again, novelists are supposed to tell the truth about humanity, and humanity is as mean as a snake sometimes. And I don’t find it necessary to like a character, even a main character, in order to like a book. But I do need to feel that I know how the author feels about that character, and I couldn’t really tell how Meg Wolitzer felt about Joan Castleman. I haven’t seen the movie yet. I might watch it, just to see if it’s one of those rare cases in which the movie is better than the book. I suspect that it will be. 

Now that I think about it, I still don’t necessarily like The Wife; not in the sense of enjoying reading it and missing the characters when I leave them. But it has something important to say about the importance of truth, and the corrosive nature of lies; how perpetrating and living with a lie can damage a person or a family. 

Or a whole country. 

But I digress. 

Anyway, two (let’s say two and a half) out of three is good enough for me, and my 2021 to-read list includes several more Meg Wolitzer novels. I’ll read them, and write about them. Eventually. 

*****

Note: This year, I'm going to try to do a better job writing about books as I read them, rather than all at once a year later. Not only is it hard to remember details many months after you read a book, but when you're writing about several books in one post, you have to italicize titles multiple times. This is no small effort. 

Dressed for the occasion

 

Like everyone else in the United States with a mobile device and a social media account (in other words, everyone except the former President), I joined the “Put Bernie Anywhere” fun this week. My effort appears below. I know, I thought it was hilarious, too. I wanted to put Bernie on my living room couch, too, but I know what will happen if I try that. I’ll spend two hours trying to tweak the photo and crop out the background to make sure that Bernie is positioned perfectly. And then I’ll notice some flaw; maybe a crooked picture on the wall, or a cushion that’s crushed at an odd angle, and all of a sudden, I’ll have spent an entire afternoon on an internet joke. But I digress. 

I am once again asking Bernie Sanders to get off my lawn.

*****

Jackets rank almost as highly as handbags on my obsession list. I think about jackets all the time. When I’m out walking or at Mass or at the grocery store (almost the only places I go right now), I notice other people’s jackets immediately. A jacket is almost like a portable home, like a turtle’s shell, for its wearer. Jackets have pockets to carry things, and a shell or insulation or both to protect against the cold and wet. With color and stylistic details, jackets combine with the wearer’s outfit and accessories to express something about that person, either intentionally or unintentionally. I never get tired of looking at people and their jackets. 

*****

Thanks to the damn ‘rona, I am now addicted to British murder mysteries and police procedural dramas. I can’t get enough of British police detectives getting in and out of cars, interviewing witnesses and suspects, checking their smartphones while they drive on the wrong side of the road, always wearing jackets. 

And by the way, stay the hell out of the UK. People are always getting murdered there. 

Female police detectives in British TV shows always rotate among at least three or four jackets, mostly utility-style jackets with lots of pockets, alternating occasionally with dressier, more formal jackets. Even before the pandemic made it necessary for me to work at home all the time, I was definitely a utility jacket person. My life is, then and now, a utility jacket life. But I do like to imagine myself in an Armani blazer or a Burberry trench; or maybe something even fancier, like a Chanel jacket or a perfectly fitted full-length dress coat. 

The point is that few jackets can do everything. I think sometimes that I’d like to have just one jacket that is suitable for all occasions and all weather conditions and all moods and all circumstances. I have at least a dozen jackets, and they cover most of my requirements, but not all.Maybe that’s why I keep shopping for jackets. 

*****

Bernie Sanders, however, seems to be perfectly satisfied with one jacket. I think the famous Inauguration Day jacket is a Columbia. I recognized the sleeve label. Columbia is the most utilitarian of American jacket brands. I have several Columbia jackets, and they are well-made, reasonably priced, and practical. A Columbia jacket keeps you warm when it’s cold and dry when it’s wet. They’re also not very stylish. You can’t have everything. 

My son and I talked about Bernie and his jacket and his crazy hand-knit mittens. The jacket, I suggested, was a gesture of solidarity. Bernie Sanders is not a poor man, but he understands the realities of poor and working-class life in the United States better than most politicians; and many poor and working-class people make do with one jacket or coat, for all conditions and occasions. People who criticized Bernie for failing to dress for the occasion are missing the point. He was representing a large percentage of Americans who, if invited to the Inauguration, would have had to wear whatever coat they happened to own, appropriate or not. 

That, however, is not why everyone loves this picture so much. First of all, it’s hilarious. As one internet joker put it, it looked like Bernie was stopping by the Inauguration, but it wasn’t his whole day. He just grabbed his Columbia jacket off the hook by the garage door, threw his keys in his pocket, and went out to run errands, including a quick stop at the Capitol to watch the swearing-in. No big deal. Whatever. 

But there’s more to it than that. Everything about that picture suggests a man who is completely comfortable with himself in every circumstance. He’s not thinking about himself at all, in fact. He’s in a particular moment, on a cold day, and his clothes and body language reflect practical preparation for the circumstances, and nothing more. He looks neither self-conscious about being too casually dressed, nor self-satisfied about refusing to adhere to traditional Inauguration Day dress standards. Except for warmth, he really doesn’t care about what he’s wearing. Who doesn’t aspire to that kind of insouciance? Who doesn’t want to be that cool? 

*****

That’s what I’m going to think about, next time I feel like I need just the right coat or shoes or dress or handbag for an occasion, if there ever is another occasion, if this pandemic ever ends. 

Still, if I ever attend an Inauguration, I’m going to buy a dressy coat. 

Things We Didn't Talk About When I Was a Girl (2020 book review)

 As I mentioned in my last post, I'm trying to publish my 2020 book list, but it's getting too long, so I have to break out a few of the reviews into separate posts, to which I will link. So here is one. 

*****

“There’s nothing original about my story, and that’s the point.” This is the opening line of the third or fourth chapter of Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl, a rape memoir. There’s nothing original about the story because women get raped all the time, as I know from personal experience; but the author’s approach to telling her story is quite original. 

At 19, Jeannie Vanasco was raped by a close high school friend. Almost 20 years after the attack, she contacted her rapist and told him that she was going to write a book about the rape. Surprisingly, he agreed to talk with her; and in a series of recorded conversations, he admitted to the rape, apologized, and tried to explain himself. She transcribed her recordings of their calls and then examined her own part in the conversations, while also looking back at the broader context of the event and the years that followed - - another sexual assault, her father's death, her hospitalization for bipolar episodes. 

*****

One of the most compelling questions to come out of the #metoo movement and the 2020 racial justice reckoning is this: Can a good person commit a terrible act and then remain a good person, or resume being a good person, after a period of contrition? I think that the answer is yes. Another question: Does one terrible act make a person permanently bad and beyond redemption? I think that the answer is no. These are very big questions, which Vanasco tries to answer in this book. The call transcripts make the attacker (whom she calls Mark) if not necessarily sympathetic, then at least not an evil, irredeemable person. He accepts responsibility for his actions and seems sincere in his sorrow and regret. He's also a little manipulative, which Vanasco recognizes but doesn't really address otherwise. 

The book also explores the idea of gender performance, which is a term that I had never seen before or heard before. It's a useful expression. Vanasco's friends and therapist describe her sympathy for her former friend and her tendency to excuse or absolve him from full responsibility as gender performance. So I suppose that a woman's natural tendency to consider the feelings of others is a tendency that we are meant to root out and destroy. But who decides these things? What is the underlying assumption? That women should emulate men in every way, even in our thoughts and feelings? This seems the very opposite of feminism to me. 

When the police arrested the man who raped me, he confessed almost immediately: and he pled guilty at his arraignment, so there was never a trial. I testified at his sentencing hearing. I watched as the bailiff led him away in shackles to serve a long prison sentence. As far as I know, he’s still in prison. When he becomes eligible for parole, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is supposed to contact me and seek my input regarding the parole decision. And if I think this man is contrite and unlikely to re-offend, then I will be inclined to support parole for him. I don’t know that this inclination could be described as forgiveness. Any forgiveness that I extend to the man who raped me would be conditional; the condition being that he never contact me in any way, ever again. But even if I don’t completely forgive him, I’d be willing to give him a chance to be a decent person again. Just because I don’t ever want to see someone again, doesn’t mean that they’re beyond all hope of redemption. 

*****

Last year, probably about a month before the pandemic hit, I attended a meeting where a very smart woman presented on a pretty complex technical topic. Population in the room was about 70 percent male and 30 percent female. I knew exactly what was going to happen; and voila! It happened!

Five or six of the men peppered the presenter with technical questions of varying degrees of complexity. She handled herself beautifully, and answered all of their questions very capably (at least in my layperson’s view--it could all have been bullshit and I wouldn’t have known the difference). And the thing is that none of the men were even remotely disrespectful to the woman. In fact, every single question seemed sincere (if long and windy) and every single questioner seemed to respect this woman’s professional expertise. It’s just that she was really smart, and the men were terrified that a smart woman might leave the room without knowing that they were smart, too. 

Anyway, this is neither here nor there. It’s just the kind of thing you think about when you’re reading a rape memoir and the author constantly second-guesses her own emotions, and subjects herself to “gender performance” critiques from everyone and their brother. Women aren't the only people who "perform their gender." And it’s OK to forgive, or to at least give a person another chance, even if they don't deserve it. Especially if they don't deserve it

. 

A matter of hours

It’s January 19, 2021, well past noon, which means that we have less than 24 hours remaining in the terrible, terrible Trump Presidency. 

I worked on my book list for a little while, but I won’t get through it today. I have a lot more to do with it than I thought. That last sentence could describe any number of ongoing tasks and projects in my life. Anyway, at my current pace, next year’s list will be shorter. I’m only on my second book of the year and it’ll be several days before I finish it. I think that we all need to see Trump safely out of the White House and on his way to Mar a Lago before we can relax enough to think about books and blogging. Or at least I do. It’s less than a day but it only takes a minute to press the nuclear button, right? I don’t even know how that works, actually; and I’m better off for that lack of knowledge. Ignorance = Bliss. 

*****

So tomorrow, I’ll be back at work on the list, which I do hope to publish before the end of the month, even if “before the end of the month” means January 31, 2021 at 11:59 PM. Maybe I’ll have something to say about the Inauguration, too; or about the beginning of the new administration. Probably not, though. It’s enough that this one is ending. I don’t want to get greedy.

Distraction

Oh technology. You confuse and confound and (sometimes) amaze me. 

As threatened, I waded back into the Twittersphere, thanks to the recent vacancy. And I tweeted, or I posted a few tweets. I’m not quite sure on the verb choice, but it doesn’t matter, because I don’t think I’ll be around for long. 

A reasonably well-known actress and high-profile Twitter personality posted a comment that I objected to, though I agreed with 90 percent of the rest of her (many) tweets this weekend. So I commented, noting my objection. And surprisingly, she responded, almost immediately. She kindly acknowledged my concern, clarified her position, and added a few additional details, for context. We chatted back and forth for a minute or so, and then I put down the phone and walked away for a short while. When I returned, I found that at least ten other people had added their comments. And I wondered “who are all of these internet randos inserting themselves into this conversation?” And just as quickly, I realized that I myself was an internet rando who had inserted myself into the conversation. 

Ask not who is the Twitter troll; she is me. 

*****

Twitter was fun for a few minutes, but I’m not going to make a habit of it. After a few more minutes of acknowledging and responding to the other tweeters’ comments (all of whom agreed with the actress with whom I had disagreed), I was all tweeted out, but I felt that it was necessary to tell my vast internet audience that I wasn’t ignoring them; I was just exiting the thread so that I could go for a walk. I don’t think I’m cut out for an endeavor that makes me think I have to explain myself to total strangers. 

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In other technology news, I’m writing this on my brand-new Chromebook, delivered into my hands this very day. It took me all of three minutes to set this thing up, and now here I am, telling you all about it. 

You might remember that I bought a Chromebook three years ago, but I gave it to my 10th grader when schools closed and classes moved online. When my old PC died, I decided to replace it with another Chromebook. It’s a beautiful little device; nice to look at and hold and wonderful to use. Now I just have to get accustomed to Chrome OS again. I have a lot of keyboard shortcuts to memorize. And Google Drive is its own thing altogether. But I like a challenge. I like to learn new things; at least, I like to think of myself as a person who likes to learn new things. 

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I finished wiping the old computer and now it’s ready for recycling. Setting up the new laptop took a hot minute, but shutting down the old one took forever. Apparently it’s harder to destroy than to create. That sounds like a metaphor for something, doesn’t it? 

As a rule, I avoid New Year’s resolutions. I have plenty of character flaws, and plenty of things I can try to do better, but it’s a process, not a once-yearly to-do list (though I do very much love to-do lists). But it’s the beginning of a new year and I think that one thing I should resolve is to try not to be the kind of person who is made so easily happy by new things. This new Chromebook makes me pretty happy. It’s clean and pretty and the backlit keyboard responds so well to my tapping fingers. It’s nice to look at and it’s fun to watch the words appear on the screen as I type. 

There’s nothing wrong with that, I suppose. But I wish I was less attached to the things of the world. I’m watching impeachment coverage and that’s only one of the ten million things that are more important than my new Chromebook.  

*****

So I’m too materialistic. But it’s not only material things that make me happy. I’m watching the fading winter light right now at 5:15 PM. Not only is it pretty, but it’s still light at 5:15. And the days will keep getting longer; at least until June, and that’s ages away. So that’s a happy thing. 

And here’s another thing. Capitals hockey begins tonight! No, I can’t go in person, but I do get to wear my new reverse retro screaming eagle jersey while I watch on TV. OK, so the jersey is a thing, but that’s not what I’m most happy about. And then there’s Donald Trump. He’s desperate to tweet, and he can’t, and that makes me happy. Vindictively happy, yes; but happy is happy and I’ll take it. 

*****

How did I end up here, anyway? Didn’t I start with technology? I did. At least I maintained some thematic consistency with the Twitter references. Adult ADD is a constant struggle for me, especially now when I can’t look away from the news for more than five minutes. I guess we’re all in that together now. Everyone in the United States has adult ADD this week. New stuff can’t change the current state of affairs. Neither can hockey. Not even a winter sunset can quiet the noise and chaos. But I welcome the break. I welcome the distraction from the distraction. 

What about another thing...

Because I was curious, I spent a few minutes on Saturday morning watching Newsmax’s coverage of the January 6 insurrection, which I am calling an insurrection because it was an insurrection (and a bloody one), and not a protest, as Newsmax characterized it. Here is a (probably partial) list of things that they did not cover, and images that they did not share: 

• Guy wearing Camp Auschwitz sweatshirt and more than one guy wearing 6MWE shirts (look that up)
• Vandals smashing windows
• Nancy Pelosi’s ransacked office
• Puddles of urine and piles of worse in the corridors of the Capitol 
• A noose hanging from a balcony
• Confederate flags literally everywhere
• Guy carrying zip ties
• People chanting “Hang Mike Pence!”

I share this partial list as a public service, in case Newsmax or OAN might be your primary source of news. They’re not telling the full story. 

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One thing that was particularly telling about the Newsmax story was its reliance on “at least” and “what about” logic. When your argument begins with the words “at least” or “what about,” you’re probably already on shaky factual and rhetorical ground. So I won’t bother with my counter “at least” and “what about” list. 

But it’s pretty fucking long. 

*****

Donald Trump, soon to be former President and hopefully soon to be current inmate, is very very upset that he can’t tweet, and notably less upset at the deaths of at least five people whose blood is on his hands. Did you hear about what the President said to Mike Pence when he called him in the Capitol bunker to make sure that he and his family were safe? Nothing. He said nothing because he didn’t actually call. He also didn’t call the family of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick. I guess he’s too busy calling lawyers to see if he can pardon himself. I guess that some "blue lives" matter less than others. 

*****

Are you outraged that Big Tech can “silence the President?” Well, maybe you should be. And if you are, maybe you should think about Republican tax and regulatory policy since the mid 20th century. It seems asinine, does it not, to spend decades cutting regulations, cutting taxes, refusing to enforce anti-trust legislation, and fighting labor unions; and then to cry sad sad snowflake tears about out-of-control corporate power? What exactly did you think would happen? “Let’s not ever tax billionaires! They are job creators!” They’re creating jobs, all right. Considering the current pace of growth of the wealth of Jeff Bezos and the rest of that gang, there will be in ten years or so a very small group of men who will have as much money or more than the U.S. Government. And then they’ll employ everyone, and they’ll own everyone. 

The people who are whining about Big Tech’s suppression of free speech didn’t mind corporate excess, back when major corporations (oil companies, banks, agricultural conglomerates) tended to support Republican politicians and policies. It’s a problem now that a corporate sector that makes what we used to call “big business” look like a Mom and Pop shop tends to support Democratic politicians and policies. And it will only end when people come to the realization that unlimited corporate power is ALWAYS a problem, no matter what its political leanings happen to be. 

But meanwhile, do please spare me the “free speech” complaints about social media companies and publishers that are now exercising their own First Amendment rights not to publish or host ideas that they find abhorrent. To paraphrase a widely shared tweet, think of Twitter as a Christian bakery and think of Donald J. Trump as a gay wedding cake. 

*****

And another thing: He’s still the President, at least for now. He still has some outlets for mass communication, should he need to speak directly to the American people. If he’s solely dependent on Twitter, then that’s his fault, not Twitter’s. 

And still another thing: Too bad for you, Ivanka and Don Jr. and Kellyanne and Kayleigh and Mike Pompeo and Stephen Miller and all of the rest of you who thought that you could just hold on for a few more weeks and then sign multi-million dollar book and media and lecture tour deals. No one will hire you now. “Big Tech” and “the Mainstream Media” are going to “silence your conservative voices” and you have one person to thank for that. You might have to keep working for a living. Sad. Very sad. 

Or maybe not. Maybe Newsmax or OAN will hire the whole sorry lot of you. Maybe you can build a new alternative reality media universe, where you can host your own content and publish your own books and broadcast your own news coverage. I guess that’s your First Amendment right, and Godspeed to you. But the truth will always remain the truth, no matter what.

Written record

So I finished with the kitchen and the results were so satisfying that I decided to continue with the cabinets and the closets in the rest of the house. 

Yes, as a matter of fact, that is my idea of fun. 

Anyway, if you haven’t ever thought about how much the world has changed in the last 25 years or so, then try cleaning out a cabinet full of old pictures and documents. There’s a cabinet in our foyer that for the fifteen years we’ve lived in this house has served as a catch-all for all of the random stuff that we accumulate but aren’t quite ready to discard. Yesterday, I emptied the cabinet, clearing away all of the random stuff that I am now quite ready to discard. Then I started opening boxes and I fell down a rabbit hole into the mid 1990s. 

I had my first email account in the late 90s, probably 1998 or so. Before that, I wrote letters, long handwritten letters to everyone and anyone. I didn’t realize quite how many letters I used to write until I started going through the letters that I received throughout the 80s and mid-90s. I didn’t even remember some of my correspondents’ names, but we must have known one another well enough to write. I read through pages and pages of detailed personal letters from friends and acquaintances from all over the place, and they were conversational and full of life and color, and many of them were long, multiple typed or handwritten pages long. I must have written letters at least as long and detailed.

As the sheer volume made manifestly clear, we had plenty of time to write letters, and not just because most of us were young and still single and childless. There were fewer immediate demands on our time and attention. A few pioneering friends had mobile phones (I got my first one in 1998) but they were communication devices only, used for short conversations (because you didn’t want to exceed your minutes) or for the briefest and most rudimentary text messages. Social media did not exist and if you wanted to create a website, you had to have some serious coding skills. Letter-writing was more than a way to keep in touch. It was a means of self-expression, a creative outlet for people who liked to document their lives and relationships, to tell stories, or just to make their friends laugh. We do all of these things online now, which is just fine, but it’s all very dispersed. If you’re on multiple platforms, and you’re blogging and emailing and texting, then you have to figure out how to consolidate and preserve all of your correspondence, unless you want it to be lost in the internet ether.

*****

So right now, I have a few minutes free before I join my first (virtual, of course) neighborhood association board meeting. When I won my election in a landslide, my first thought was not “Victory!” but rather “What have I done? What have I gotten myself into?” I’m about to find out. 

My son is watching a sports show, one of what seems like ten million different daily highlight/commentary/prediction shows on cable. There’s only so much actual sport that these shows can cover in their 15 daily hours of broadcast time, give or take, so they have to cover events and occurrences outside the proverbial arena. And that’s why I’m half-watching a story about yet another stupid idiot saying yet another stupid thing on the internet and I just have to wonder when everyone’s just going to reach saturation point with social media dumbassery. We say that we’re sick of Twitter and all the rest of it, but the news remains well-populated with stories about Facebook dust-ups and drunk Tweets and TikTok fails. 

*****

I wrote all of the preceding a day or so before January 6, which brought a whole new dimension to the conversation about social media toxicity. My favorite part of that whole awful day was imagining Donald Trump desperate to tweet and furious that he couldn’t. The second best part was imagining all of his supporters up in arms about big tech “silencing conservative voices.”  Republicans spent the better part of the last 50 years or so resisting every attempt to limit corporate power and now they're very very sad because out-of-control corporate power is biting them in the ass.

Speaking of Twitter, I reactivated my long-dormant account but I’ll probably de-activate it again. There’s really nothing that I can say in 140-character form that won’t have been said sooner or better, and I don’t feel any compelling need to have my voice heard amid the chaos. It’s a useful outlet, though. If I can post my stupid comments in a place where no one follows me, with no hashtags that make them discoverable, then I can get them out of my head, because there’s only so much room in there. 

*****

On September 11, 2011, my oldest son was an infant, less than three months old. I was still home on maternity leave, and I worried a little bit about what effect my constant news consumption might have on his developing brain. I’d wake up to nurse him, and turn on MSNBC before I even picked him up from his bassinet. I was constantly on edge, constantly anxious about what might be happening, what might come next. After a week or so, when additional attacks no longer seemed likely, I got a grip. I turned off the TV and the radio, and I focused on daily life. I nursed my son in the quiet dark, and I sang him silly songs as I changed his diaper, and I prepared to hand him over to my mother-in-law when I returned to work. 

It’s almost 20 years later. Not only am I back on Twitter, I’m also back on MSNBC and WashingtonPost.com. After months of avoiding politics and current events as possible, I'm obsessed with news again. I can’t look away. Which cowardly cabinet secretary will “resign in protest” next? (Note: Rats who desert a sinking ship are doing it to save themselves, not the ship. They are still rats.) Will there be anyone left to invoke the 25th Amendment? Will the House impeach this weekend? Will the Senate convict? Will the mobs descend again? 

*****

It’s Saturday morning now. I woke up repeatedly last night. At 5:15 or so, I thought I was up for the day. But I stayed in bed, thinking that I’d just try to rest my eyes for a few minutes. And then a weird sound intruded on my (un)consciousness, becoming louder and more insistent until I finally realized that it was my 7 AM alarm. I’d forgotten to turn it off. 

But back to last Saturday. I kept most of the letters I went through during my cabinet-cleaning marathon, but I discarded a few. Not everything is worthy of preservation for posterity. Not every thought needs to be shared in writing. They’re not all gems. This is what I will try to remember when I start tapping out 140 characters worth of pithy, incisive commentary. And I won’t be on Twitter for long, but I still have a few things to say. I’m sure you can’t wait.

Of the People, For the People, By the People (God willing)

Last night, I attended my first meeting of my neighborhood association’s Board, as a newly elected Board member. The President, who is also my friend, laid out the rules, called the meeting to order, and led us through a long list of agenda items, on which we duly commented, debated, and voted. It was democracy in action, writ small. 

*****

I suppose you know where this is going. I’m not even really surprised by today’s events, though I am really, really sad. Really sad. I can go all day if anyone wants to debate about Trump. I can easily point out that the President was pretty quick to condemn violent protests last summer, and that he seems quite a bit less interested in “law and order” now that it’s his supporters who are breaking the law. And I can drop a cheap shot as well as the next person, notably that it’s manifestly clear now why Trump loves Confederate generals so much, because they are losers and traitors just like he is. But what does that help? What good does it do?  

*****

Our association Board meets once a month. Sometimes, members of the community attend the meeting and share comments about matters of concern. Most of the time, these concerns are non-controversial--someone thinks that the tennis courts need to be resurfaced, or that we need to open another lap lane in the pool. Sometimes, comments address more serious matters, and things get contentious. That’s politics, I guess. It’s contentious. It’s a constant struggle, each side making arguments and counterarguments and hoping to convince just enough people that their position will prevail. 

That’s how it started today in the House chamber, too; contentious debate between two sides arguing opposite positions, and then the armed insurgents stormed the barricades and put an end to the debate. But only for now. According to NBC News, the Senate will reconvene in a minute or so. Democracy in action, writ large; at least, I hope so. I hope so. I'm praying for our country. I'm praying for all of us. 

Another Auld Lang Syne

It’s the last day of 2020. IT’S THE LAST DAY OF 2020!

Who knows what 2021 will bring? Really, that’s a straight-ahead question, so if you know, call me. In all seriousness, no one knows what’s coming next, and 2021 could be a bigger shit show than 2020, which was terrible but by no means the worst year in history. But I’m an optimistic person, and I am hopeful. I’m always hopeful. 

*****

2020 wasn’t 100 percent bad. I read more books than usual, and I will as always publish a full list with brief comments. I’d hoped to finish the one I’m reading now before the end of the year but I’m only halfway through and it’s unlikely that I’ll get through it today. It will be my overlap book. 

Yesterday, my son and I spent the afternoon in Annapolis, the charming, historic, waterfront capital of Maryland. It was a sunny, though cold day, and Main Street and the waterfront were crowded with holiday strollers, families and friends in winter coats and scarves and--of course--face masks. Anne Arundel County is a little more open than Montgomery County and the many restaurants and pubs were open for sit-down dining, mostly outdoors, and my son and I ate lunch on the porch of an over 200-year-old tavern, shivering in the wind, but warmed by the nearby propane heater. It was a short but lovely moment of freedom, a lockdown jailbreak. 

*****

Friday, January 1, 2021. It's 2021! Whatever it is, it’s no longer 2020, and that’s good enough for me right now. It’s been a rather nice half-vacation and thanks to the holiday falling on a Friday, we have a weekend between New Year’s Day and the post-holiday re-entry. 2020 taketh away, but it also giveth a little. 

For example, my kitchen cabinets and drawers are cleaner and more organized than they have been in years. This is not a project I would normally have undertaken during Christmas vacation, but with museums and movie theaters closed and hockey on hold until January, I had time to deal with the messy cabinets. I’m a very neat person and the mess in the cabinets, though hidden from view, had been bothering me for some time. And now they’re clean and neat and the tiny space in my head that had been occupied by worry about the state of the cabinets is now free for other obsessive-compulsive ridiculousness. See? There’s always a bright side. 

*****

Saturday, January 2. Christmas vacation is almost over, which means that I’ll be returning to work, commuting from the bedroom to my corner window office in the living room. Or maybe the commute is from the kitchen? I can’t do any more of the home-as-everything metaphors. That shit is so 2020. 

You know, I didn’t even take a whole week off. I worked a bit on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. And I did my timesheet on Thursday, which is really the worst part of my job. But I did have a four-day weekend last week and another almost four-day weekend this week, and I feel as though I’ve been away for weeks. I haven’t looked at the news all week. I know that the House voted to override Trump’s DCAA veto and I know that another judge threw out yet another attempt to overturn the election result and I know that a bunch of suckers paid a lot of money to party with the President at Mar a Lago and they had to settle for Giuliani and Trump Jr. instead (ha ha ha ha ha!) but I really have no idea what else is going on in the world. I’ll find out soon enough. Ignorance is bliss, for now. Happy New Year!