Live streaming

Thanks to the damn ‘rona (still! Still the damn ‘rona!) I am on my couch, live-streaming the PMSL All-Stars meet, the last swim meet of the summer season. All-Stars is at an indoor pool. No spectators are allowed. My son is swimming in one event, and he rode to the meet with a friend who drives. The live stream is available only on Facebook, which I hate, and it’s glitchy, and I missed the first event, a relay that included four of my son’s friends. 

Everyone inside the facility is wearing a mask, other than the swimmers, who wear their masks to the start, then place them in ziploc bags marked with their names, then throw the ziploc bags into a big basket from which they retrieve the masks at the end of their races. 

It feels a little like last summer. Low-level dread and anxiety hangs over everything. We’re going to the beach next week, and I’m holding my breath just hoping that we can get through the week without anyone coming down with a case of breakthrough Delta variant. It occurs to me that all of this was avoidable, but this is about swimming and not politics, especially not COVID politics, from which Lord preserve us all. 

I’m watching Olympic water polo as I live stream the meet, so I’m hearing splashing and referees’ whistles from the TV and my Chromebook. Our swimmers are holding their own, and the US is playing a close match against Hungary. Is it a match? Or a game? I don’t know anything about water polo. 

We’re on event 12 now. My son swims in event 29, but these races are fast and we’re moving rapidly from one heat and one event to the next. The PMSL doesn’t play. Their technical skills are suspect, but they don’t play. And who am I to talk? I couldn’t run a live stream to save my soul from Hell. 

*****

Yesterday, I forgot to write; or rather, I almost forgot to write. I fell into bed at 11:20 last night, and realized a moment later that I hadn’t written anything. I thought about just letting it go, but my phone was right there, so I added a few short paragraphs to a work in progress, and then I went to sleep. Neither those paragraphs nor these are anything special but there’s something to be said for consistency and persistence and routine. 

*****

Event 18 already. The meet is near the halfway mark, and I’m going to wrap this up so that I don’t miss the race that I’m here for. And just that quickly, it’s over! My son was in the lane farthest from the camera, so I could see him only as a faint outline moving through the water, but he moved pretty fast. A best time, a better-than-expected finish, and another summer swim season is in the books. No more excuses for forgetting to write, at least not for now.  

Bittersweet

Now we’re in the bittersweet late heart of summer, late July and the end of the swim season, crape myrtle in full bloom, deep blue skies and sudden biblical thunderstorms, baseball on the radio and the Olympics on TV. We are days away from August, month of vacations and languorous weekends of reading and swimming and hanging around. The busy weekends and hustle of June and July, months of daily swim practices and twice-weekly meets and weddings and graduations and Father’s Day and 4th of July give way to a slower pace and shorter to-do lists and a little bit of time to breathe, and it’s lovely except that it’s also the beginning of the end. School starts at the end of August. The long days will get the tiniest bit shorter, barely noticeable until about the third week of August when we’ll suddenly realize that it’s getting dark and it’s only 8:15. The back-to-school displays in stores will expand and grow more insistent, demanding that we consult our school’s list of required items and stock up on notebooks and pens and folders right now. Baseball and the Olympics will give way to pre-season football. A few mornings here and there will be cool and misty and almost autumnal. 

*****

It's been a nice summer but COVID is back and it’s threatening to ruin everything again. I can't get away from news about the dreaded Delta variant. "Wear your mask," my old lady told me today, when I called to get her grocery list. "Even though you're vaccinated. The CDC isn't telling us the whole truth." So the COVID conspiracy theories are back, too. Awesome. 

My brother has a health issue that I hope won't turn out to be serious, but it's worrying. Even the Olympics are a little disappointing. Silver for Katie Ledecky in the 400 (and a 5th place finish in the 200) and no Simone in the team gymnastics final.*  I suppose we could just watch kids fall off their skateboards in the concrete skate park. And people are putting their masks back on. It's voluntary now but not for long, I'm afraid. 

*****

Yesterday, I backed out of my driveway and the crape myrtle, heavy with blooms, scraped the hood of my car and left some flowers behind. A tree could not be in fuller bloom than that crape myrtle, I tell you what. It's like a sign that my brother will be OK. And if we have to wear the masks again, then we'll wear the masks again. There are worse things. And Katie Ledecky won gold after all, in the 1500. She’s still unbeatable in that race. 

*NO, I am not disappointed in Simone Biles--I am disappointed for my own sake, because I won’t get to watch her compete again. She did exactly the right thing. Anyone who has suffered sexual assault understands the aftereffects of unprocessed trauma, and I’m glad she’s finally going to take care of herself. And anyone who hasn’t should sit this conversation out. Especially weak, small, cowardly right wing men spewing their stupid hot takes on the Twitter.

Silver linings

A person can drive herself crazy asking why other people do the things that they do, but I still do it. Why, for a non-specific and not at all real life example, would a person sit next to me in the nail salon, talking incessantly on her phone, rather than just sitting quietly and enjoying her pedicure, as I myself had hoped to do. I do not wish to hear this conversation but I seem not to have a choice. 

It's Friday, a very nice and sunny July day, not exactly cool, but not mid-July hot, either. People are already talking about fall. Stores are stocked with school supplies and swim season is almost over. August is around the corner, and September is around the corner from August and then we're packed on to a freight train to the holidays with a short stop for pumpkin spice latte hatred right around mid-October. But for now, it's still July. It's still summer. 

*****

Somebody offended my nail salon neighbor and they're about to find out because she's not having it. She's not here for anyone's nonsense. They don't know about her. 

*****

That was yesterday. It's Saturday morning now and I'm sitting in my official team representative chair, awaiting the delayed start of the PMSL Division B Championship meet. Why was it delayed, you might well ask. Well, reader, I don't know you, and I don't know if you are squeamish, so let's just say that there was a bio-hazard incident last night, and clean-up is a 12-hour process. Let's also just say that COVID is the very least of our public health concerns right now. That’s the bad part. The good part is that I've been saying for years that swim meets would be awesome if they started at 10:30, and here we are. Always a silver lining, amirite? 

Two hours later and we're about to wrap this thing up. A short break between the individual events and the relays, a few more minutes of cheering and fast races, and the season is over, as fast as a record-setting swim. The relay teams are checking in at the Clerk of Course, and the senior swimmers are leading the cheers. The season is over, but again, it’s still summer. More silver linings. 

No two alike

I’m looking out my “office” window right now. “Office” is in scare quotes, because my office is really just a corner of my living room. Anyway, there is a bird perched on top of my backyard gate, with his head turned toward something, looking for all the world as though he was scanning the sky for UFOs, or possibly posing for a portrait. He’s been frozen there in that position for so long, in fact, that I wonder if he’s still alive. But how would he remain upright otherwise? 

I can’t really take a picture because the blinds are down, though the slats are open. I try to remember sometimes to open the blinds all the way because I like to take pictures of the backyard wildlife, and I tend to scare them away when I pull open the blinds. 

This bird, though. He’s definitely watching something. His head moved slightly, so I know he’s alive, but he hasn’t moved from his perch in six or seven minutes now. I’m going to open the blinds to take a picture. We’ll see how determined he is to remain in place. 

He moved, but only slightly. He didn't fly away. The picture isn't very good because the window has a screen. According to Google Lens, he's a robin. Actually, based on coloring, it's more likely that SHE is a robin. Here I was thinking that she was some sort of exotic and rare example of avian stoicism, and it turns out that she's a robin, one of a million. But let's call her one IN a million, because I have never seen a bird stand its ground like that when the blinds open. She's a gangster. 

She stood her ground, even
when the blinds opened. Gangster. 

*****

As I've mentioned before, my desk window looks out into the side yard, adjoining the neighbor's side yard, which attracts many and various birds. Although this one was a bird of the most common type, it was not unreasonable to expect something more unusual, based on my previous experience watching out this window. I've seen some pretty interesting birds out there, let me tell you. But maybe that's just human prejudice on my part, judging the interestingness of a bird by the rarity of the type and not by the bird's own merits. This one had personality and spunk. Robins are a dime a dozen in this town, but no two are alike. 

Orange Crush

I went to the mall one day last week. I’m fond of saying that I hate going to the mall, but that is not 100 percent true. What’s 100 percent true is that I hate going to the mall for a specific reason, to buy a specific thing, like a dress for a wedding, or an interview outfit, or new shoes to replace shoes that I love but that are worn past the point of no return. In those cases, a trip to the mall is a chore, and I can’t get in and out fast enough. But last week’s mall trip was for no reason except that I had an unexpected 45 minutes to fill, and the mall was right there. 

My son is playing baseball this summer, in addition to swimming and lifeguarding and learning to drive and (not) doing his summer reading in preparation for the IB program. Summer baseball was no part of my plan, but my son and husband were all for it and I’m along for the ride. He had a game at a field less than a mile away from Montgomery Mall, and rather than sit on the blazing hot field waiting for the game to begin (players arrive an hour early for warmups), I decided to spend a few minutes in the cool and fragrant quiet of the mall. I didn’t plan to shop. I planned to just walk around for a bit, have a lemonade, and then proceed to the field. And I didn't really shop, though I did try on a dress. It looked silly on me. 

In any other store, I wouldn't even have tried that dress. I would have known, just seeing a trapezoid-shaped pink cotton thing dangling from its hanger, that it wasn't meant for a person of my age or body type. But the third floor of the Montgomery Mall Nordstrom is a seductive place. When you get off the escalator, you step onto a gleaming marble floor that forms a path separating the carpeted designer departments. The air conditioned chill makes the cashmere sweaters and wool jackets look cozy and right-now appropriate, and the soft overhead lighting in the huge and luxurious dressing rooms makes almost any fashion option (other than that dress) seem reasonable and appropriate, even for a slightly overweight middle aged lady. 

*****

Although I knew this when I was young, I had forgotten one thing about clothing and fashion, which is that really beautiful clothes are all about possibilities. In the right dress, the right jacket, the pants that fit exactly right, anything can happen. Humming along with R.E.M.’s "Orange Crush," which was playing on the store's music system, I also tried on a $200 Ted Baker blouse without even balking at the price tag. A few more minutes of Michael Stipe singing over R.E.M.’s jangling guitars, and I might have succumbed and handed over my credit card. Luckily, the song ended and a new one that I didn’t know started playing, and common sense prevailed. I hung the blouse back up where it belonged, which is in the designer department at Nordstrom and not in my closet, and I went on my way. 

*****

Nordstrom has changed a lot in the 20+ years since I worked there. I was the customer service manager in that very store. When I think back on that job now, about the piles of cash and thousands of dollars in daily credit transactions that I was responsible for, I think that there are few jobs for which I was less qualified. But Nordstrom promoted from within, and although I was not the best person to put in charge of cash operations for a $100 million store, I was a really good customer service representative, and the prevailing thought was that a person who was good on the front lines could be trained to be a good manager. And I was a pretty good manager, as far as managing people was concerned. As for the daily accounting and cash processing, Nordstrom is a big company, and I had manuals and standard operating procedures for everything. Eventually, I memorized all of the daily sales reconciliation routines and all of the cash register closeout processes (the store had over 150 cash registers and I was responsible for all of them), and the store balanced to the penny almost every day. 

The customer service counter isn’t there any more. The back wall of the designer department where I was trying on silly expensive clothes blocks what used to be the lobby and counter area. I’m sure that my old office and the cashroom and the gift box storage area and the office supply closet are all still back there, just no longer visible to the public. Everything is automated now. No one needs a customer service rep to look up her available credit, or to take a payment, or to verify that a return is posted. Nordstrom still looks a lot like it did when I worked there, but the energy is different. Salespeople are few and far between. A young woman unlocked a dressing room for me (locked dressing rooms are another change) and she smilingly assured me that she’d be happy to help me find another size or color if I needed it, but then I never saw her again. That’s just as well. My resistance was low, and anyone could have convinced me to drop $200 on a blouse that would hang in my closet all summer as I wear my usual WFH uniform of khaki shorts and a swim team or Washington Capitals t-shirt. I have several of each. 

*****

Soon enough, it was game time. I rode the escalator down to the Espresso Bar, ordered a large lemonade with extra ice, and reluctantly exited the cool, softly lit hush of the store into the glaring sun. The blacktop parking lot shimmered with heat and the car that I’d parked only 30 minutes earlier was easily 120 degrees inside, maybe even hotter. The scoreboard thermometer at Cabin John Regional Park’s baseball field showed a temperature of 94 at 5:45 PM. I took a seat in the bleachers and opened an umbrella for shade. I’d have felt silly sitting under an umbrella on a bright and sunny day, but everyone else was sitting beneath open umbrellas too. Two hours later, with the sun lower in the sky and a slight breeze, the game ended and I drove my son to the nearest cold drink. He got a large cherry Coke with extra ice, and without designer clothing and accessories, and we went home. Total expenditure: $9. 

Things to say

Like every other June and July weekend, this weekend is a test of my ability to do as many things as possible in two days. It’s 5:30 on Saturday afternoon, and I think I’m on pace to get through my entire list by Sunday night. We’ll see what happens. 

I interviewed for a job yesterday. It’s a job that I did not apply for and I didn’t even know if I was interested in it or not, but they asked me to interview via Zoom and I had time and I thought “OK, why not?” And now I might want that job, but I’m also afraid that they will offer it to me, because then I will have to make a decision and I’m not ready to do that. I’ve known for some time that I might have to change jobs. I just didn’t expect it to happen so suddenly. 

*****

A new job of a different kind altogether than the job I have now, in a field that I worked in a long time ago and didn’t think that I would return to but never ruled out either, is just one of the things that could change around here. The other thing is that I don’t want to write anymore. See that? That doesn’t even make sense, grammatically. It would be better to say that the other thing that is going to change is my daily writing habit, because I don’t want to do it anymore. And that’s also not quite accurate because I do want to do it (or rather I want to have done it, which is a different thing altogether) but I don’t think I can. 

And even that’s not right because I clearly can. I wrote that paragraph in about 90 seconds. But it’s about nothing, and there’s no point to it. I have words for days, but I don’t have anything to say. My mind is blank. 

*****

It’s Monday now. Everyone in the household, except me, is on a day trip to Hersheypark. I could have accompanied them if I wanted to but one thing that really doesn’t change about me is that I don’t like amusement parks. I’m taking a break to write, because it’s kind of lonesome around here. It’s odd, because I’m home by myself all the time, but it feels different being home alone when everyone else is two hours away and they won’t be home until late. It’s like I’m REALLY home alone. I don’t like it very much. It’s nice not to have to worry about dinner tonight, but I like having everyone else around. 

And I have plenty to say. PLENTY. At least half of it is stuff that I can’t say on the Internet, but the other half is fair game. Everything is copy, just like Nora Ephron said.

No word about the job yet, but I’ll report back as soon as I hear anything. Everything is copy. Well, half of everything, anyway. 

A plan comes together

I’ve been writing something for a few days, and I’m stuck, and I have to write something, so why don’t I just write about how I’m stuck? Just as good a topic as any other, and it’s all I have right now. 

When I write about something, as opposed to writing about nothing, or nothing in particular as I often do, I sometimes have to circle around my target for a bit. It’s hard to explain. I write sentences that approach but don’t actually touch the point that I’m trying to make. But I get closer and closer as I keep writing random sentences and short disjointed paragraphs. Then I rearrange stuff, and the essay starts to take shape, but then I need some sort of transition, something that connects the paragraphs and sentences that I shifted around. It’s usually that transition (actually, usually more than one) that gets me to the moment of clarity when I can figure out and then precisely express what I have to say. 

*****

I’m still circling. It’s Monday morning, the official Federal holiday in observance of Independence Day, which was yesterday. I do love a free day off. But I’m too busy this summer, and it will be anything but a relaxing day for me. I am trying to figure out if this summer is truly too busy, or if it’s just normal but normal is busy compared to the enforced languor of summer 2020. It’s the former, I’m pretty sure. I have too many things to do, and too little time to think. Maybe that’s why I can’t seem to write anything. 

I’ll make a list for today. I feel overwhelmed and writing a list will help me to cut through the fog and panic and confusion. I’ll prioritize and clarify and get things down in black and white and I’ll feel much better. I love it when a plan comes together and a person has to make a plan if she wants it to come together. It’s the only way. 

*****

It’s Tuesday now. It turns out that I had already made a list, so now I just have to do all of the stuff that’s on the list so that I can cross everything off. Is that any way to live? I don’t know. I don’t know. Right now, it’s 7:22 PM and I’m waiting for a Zoom meeting to begin. I’m eight minutes early. No Zoom, I’m not a robot, and I’m sure that my ability to enter a check mark in a box should prove this beyond any doubt, because certainly no robot could ever click on the enter key to check a box. 

Zoom wants to know if it can send me notifications, or if I’d like to block. Block is my default response to such requests, but sometimes I am passive aggressive, and I simply close out of the dialog without selecting either the allow or block option. Let Zoom wonder, is what I’m thinking. Let it stew for a while. Maybe I’ll have an answer for it tomorrow. 

I’m going to do my best to stay focused and engaged in the meeting that starts in two minutes, but I can’t promise that I will succeed. I’m Zoomed right out, just like everyone else, and I’m also very easily distracted in any circumstances. But I have the agenda in front of me, along with a notebook and pen, and I’m going to keep my camera on, just to keep myself honest. 

*****

So I stayed focused, although of course I ended up wishing I hadn’t. Sometimes you give a challenging person the benefit of the doubt, assuring yourself that despite how contentious and unpleasant and difficult this person is, that they at least have good intentions, that they are acting in good faith. But then you see clear evidence that this person is not at all acting in good faith and that their disingenuous complaints about how others are disrespecting or ignoring them are really no more than attention-seeking attempts to derail the agenda and turn an entire meeting on its head, and you become a little bit cynical about the whole idea of volunteer community service. Or maybe that’s just me. One thing I know about myself, and that is that if I am promised that a meeting will end at a certain time, then I cling to that promise like a barnacle to the hull of a ship, and when that promise is broken and the meeting drags for five and then ten and then FORTY MINUTES past the appointed time, then I become blinded by rage and unable to maintain perspective on any situation. 

But really? I think that someone is just a big jerk. 

*****

It’s Thursday now and I haven’t returned to the piece of writing that started this whole thing. I was thinking about doing it now, but I couldn’t decide between writing now and swimming later or swimming now and writing later. And then Maryland summer decided for me, with a nice big crack of thunder. The pool will be closed for at least thirty minutes now and maybe more, if this is more than a passing storm, so after I finish writing about not writing and not swimming, I’ll go back and finish writing. If I’m lucky, I’ll get to swim, too. Maybe my plan will come together after all.

Precision

Three weeks ago, I wrote about my hair, which means that I’m due to write about my hair again sometime in let’s say 2024. I find few topics of writing or discussion to be less boring than hair, mine or anyone else’s, and yet here I am, three weeks later, writing about my hair again. My last haircut is not working for me at all, and today, I was seized--SEIZED, I tell you--with the urge to cut it again. And when I say “cut,” I mean “get someone to cut.” And so I’m about to have my second haircut in less than a month. I’m going to a new salon this time. I think I need someone who doesn’t know me and who doesn’t think that she knows that when I say A, I really mean B. I really mean A this time. We’ll see how this all shakes out. 

*****

It’s the next day. I’m still undecided about this new haircut. It’s a very good haircut, in the technical sense, which it should be, because it cost $80. I am aware that stylish women would not consider this an outrageously high price, but it’s a lot more than I typically pay for a haircut. Maybe that’s why I keep getting bad haircuts. Anyway, it’s a very precise cut. I think that’s what I’m struggling to get used to. I’m accustomed to lots of crazy misplaced layers and random ends that stick out. That’s my look. 

The stylist was a man, which is another new thing for me. He dried and straightened my hair before he cut it, and he had me stand up for most of the time, reminding me to be sure to keep my shoulders back and my back straight. When he finished, I had a very smooth and shiny straight bob. I liked it a lot. But then I went swimming, and I just let it dry by itself as I tend to do, and then my hair wasn’t very smooth or shiny anymore. I pulled it back into a clip, and it was fine. Maybe I’m not an $80 haircut person. It was nice while it lasted.