Centuries

I’m far behind on writing about books that I’ve read this year, and I’ve read a lot of books, and it’s the last day of the year. It’s time to get cracking. Or not, because it’s not like I’m on deadline or anything. It’s not like failing to write about the books that I read undoes the reading. But this is something that I do and I’m going to do it. So here we are. Here are three books that I read. 

A few months ago, I read Anxious People, a novel. Then I read Maid, Stephanie Land’s memoir of her time cleaning houses for a living; and then Great Circle, which is definitely my book of the year this year. It’s pretty extraordinary. 

Anxious People is about a desperate single mother in Sweden. Maid is about a desperate single mother in Washington State, who eventually moves to Missoula, Montana. And much of the early action of Great Circle takes place in Missoula, Montana. All of this was unintended by me. I didn’t finish Anxious People and then think, “hmm; let me read another story about a struggling single mother living on the edge.” And I didn’t finish Maid and then think, “hmm; let me read more about Missoula, Montana.” 

And with that, I’ve just told you practically nothing about any of these books. Yeah, I know. I’ll get to it. 

*****

First book first. Anxious People, which I read in an English translation (from the original Swedish), is over 70 chapters long but they are very short chapters. As we have already established, it’s about a desperate single mother. It’s also about a bank robbery and a hostage-taking and the economies of Western nations and the world financial system. I can’t describe it in any more detail without spoiling the story. 

Each of the very short chapters tells us a little bit about the characters and their connections to one another going back decades to a single incident. The plotting and the gradual revelations of these connections and their bearing on the story are ingenious. As a reader, you can read it as a mystery. You can try to figure out all of the connections and then try to predict what will happen, but it’s probably better not to. I think it’s more fun to just let Backman tell you the story; see how it all shakes out and allow yourself to be surprised. You’ll feel a little stupid when the plot twist is revealed; you’ll wonder how you didn’t see it coming from a mile away, but then you’ll realize that you don’t care. Even though the book is a little too cinematic in spots, I still believed the characters and the story. 

In addition to a good story and well-drawn characters, this book also contains quite a bit of wisdom. "People need bureaucracy, to give them time to think before they do something stupid." This is Zara, the wealthy banker, explaining why the financial system needs to be complex and difficult for ordinary people to understand. Zara has come to understand that the Western economic system has become a monster, too big to fail and too big to control. Again, no spoilers, but this is as good a reason for bureaucracy as I have come across. An effective bureaucracy will make it just difficult enough to get things done that one person won’t be able to subvert the system and implement an illegal policy or process, but not so difficult that nothing can ever happen. Without bureaucracy, government and quasi-government organizations, such as large banks, can do a lot of damage. 

Of course, as the state of the world right now makes quite clear, banks can do plenty of damage even when restrained by bureaucracy. So can the government. So can large multinational corporations. So maybe Zara doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about. 

*****

After I finished Anxious People, I read Maid, Stephanie Land's memoir about her time working as a housekeeper, cleaning other people's houses for subsistence wages. I heard about this book on (where else) Twitter. It's quite good, though the writing is uneven in spots. The whole book reminds me of something that Miss Manners wrote, something about how poorly we treat people who do actual useful work. Housekeepers and nannies and errand runners and Instacart shoppers do the work that makes it possible,or at least easier, for professional and managerial class people to do their work, and we treat them like dirt. “We” meaning society, not “we'' meaning me because I clean my own house. But you know what I mean. Our economic system is rotten at the core; and much like the banking system and the housing market that Backman writes about in Anxious People, it’s not sustainable. 

Like one of the main characters in Anxious People, Stephanie Land was a single mother living in poverty and struggling to keep her family afloat. Stephanie Land eventually realized her dream of a new life in Missoula, Montana. A happy ending. Then one of the two main characters in Maggie Shipstead’s Great Circle finally realizes her dream of getting the heck out of early 20th century Missoula, Montana, only to find that getting what you want isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be. 

*****

I don’t like the phrase “strong women.” At best, it’s just Cosmopolitan magazine “you go girl” feminist-lite nonsense. At worst, it’s meaningless. Any woman–any person–can be either strong or weak at any time. Any person can be strong when she needs to be. There’s no such thing as an always-strong or always-weak person. Strength is a product of circumstances as well as character. 

So I won’t say that these three books are stories not about strong women. They are, however, about female strength, summoned in difficult and sometimes desperate circumstances. All three books are about women forced to fight for themselves. We don’t have to approve of their choices but we understand them; we wonder what we would do in similar circumstances. Would we fight back? Would we run away? Would we just endure as best we could? Would we be strong? 

*****

Anxious People and Maid are both very good books, but Great Circle is a great book. The former two are about something, and Great Circle is about everything, about the whole amazing, revolutionary, murderous, 20th century. The story alternates between present-day Los Angeles, where movie star Hadley Baxter is filming a movie about the life of vanished aviator Marian Graves; and everywhere else in the world from World War 1 to the early 1980s, where Marian lives a picaresque, daring, improbable life. Before her fateful north-south round-the-world flight, Marian survives two world wars, the Depression, plane crashes, shipwrecks, fires, and an abusive husband, and we read very little about her feelings. She is action personified, like 20th century America. 

Marian’s story is told in the third person, because she is far too busy living her life to write about it for us. Hadley, on the other hand, narrates her own story. She tells us about how she drifts through her privileged life, flitting from one movie set or red carpet or exclusive club to another. Hadley is almost passive; she seems to wonder why she does the things that she does, as if an external force were controlling her and making her decisions. She occupies her own life as though it’s a movie set. She seems to be waiting for direction, waiting to see how her audience will react to her performance. 

*****

I don’t know what this says about the 20th century and the 21st century. People like Marian would not recognize people like Hadley (or Stephanie Land for that matter, or the desperate abandoned mother in Anxious People). They would simply not comprehend the feeling of helplessness, of utter lack of control that drives people to do the things that these characters (or real people, in Land’s case) do. Why would a successful actress–a movie star, for crying out loud–nearly throw away her career on a foolish little social media scandal? Why would a person endure unendurable working conditions on unsustainable wages? Why would a person feel that her only option is to rob a bank? Why not just go out and shape the world, remake it in your own image, force it to bend to your will? 

At least that’s what I think that Marian and people of her generation would think. I think that people at that time believed that they had more control than people actually do. Though most of her book is set in the 20th century, Maggie Shipstead was really writing about how we ended up in the 21st century. When I really think about it, Marian isn’t that much different from Hadley. She makes foolish decisions, too. She allows herself to be trapped, too. But she moves forward and doesn’t look back. Her approach to life is based on possibility, on wide-open spaces and freedom and an intrepid spirit of adventure. She doesn’t ruminate, and she doesn’t second-guess herself. She makes a decision and she sticks to it, for better or for worse. She suffers, but she doesn’t think much about her suffering as she undergoes it. She doesn’t allow herself to think of herself as a suffering being. 

Beginning in the late 19th century, the world had begun to shrink thanks to the telephone and telegraph. It shrank further during the 20th century, thanks to radio, television, and especially air travel (a central theme of Great Circle). But it was still big enough and wide-open enough that most people would not really have much interaction with people or things or ideas that originated in far-away places. Then thanks to the internet, the world shrank so much that everything became global. 

And that was supposed to be a good thing. A global economy, with free exchange of ideas and commodities and products, was supposed to benefit everyone. It was supposed to alleviate poverty, expand opportunity, and spread the wealth. Instead, it made everything seem claustrophobic. It took the literal poles of the world and made them metaphorical; everything is polarized now, left vs. right, rich vs. poor, have vs. have-not, lucky vs. unlucky. 

The protagonists of these three books, three fictional and one real, are wildly different but they all have one thing in common: They are all white women, born in 20th century America or Europe and thus arguably among the luckiest people ever to exist; certainly among the luckiest women ever to exist. In "On the Morning After the Sixties," Joan Didion (another lucky Western white woman), writing about college life in the early 1950s, lamented "the extent to which the narrative on which many of us grew up no longer applies." 

More than anything else, these three books right in a row made me think about how a whole frame of mind about possibility and the future, especially for women, but really for all people, all non-rich, non-powerful people, is endangered. Maybe it’s gone forever. The narrative on which these characters grew up, on which I myself grew up, no longer applies. Maybe it never will again. 

Fast away the old year passes

It’s the day before Christmas Eve. Christmas Adam. Christmas Eve Eve, as it were. I’m not working today, except that I kind of am working. I can’t really disconnect altogether, so I have to check in, monitor email, answer the phone, that sort of thing. But I’m not going to sit at my desk. I’m not even looking at my to-do list or my calendar. I’m here to respond to crises and to put out fires. I’m here if anyone needs me. All I ask is that no one should need me.

I got my COVID booster on Tuesday, and I felt OK, though tired, on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. But when my immune response kicked in, it really kicked in, and I spent Wednesday evening on the couch, immobile, until my husband finally woke me up and made me go to bed at 9 o’clock, where I remained until 7 this morning. Today, I feel just fine. Bring it on, Omicron. Do your worst. 

OK, don’t do that. That wasn’t a challenge. That wasn’t a gauntlet thrown. It was just a figure of speech. 

*****

It’s Christmas Eve and I normally love Christmas Eve. It’s usually a peaceful day of quiet preparation and surrender. Anything that hasn’t been cleaned, purchased, or prepared by December 24 is going to stay just as it is and we’ll find a substitute or a workaround or we’ll live without it. Today doesn’t feel peaceful. I feel unprepared and scattered and panicky that time is running out because time is always running out. 

I also usually get to take off for the last week of the year, so Christmas Eve is usually the first or second day of a lovely time at home with family, going to movies and museums and visiting friends and family and just being. This year, however, I can’t take the whole week off. It seems that no one can. Everyone I know is working harder than ever, and we’re all tired and out of sorts and stretched too thin. It’s been a year of loss and grief and now Omicron is coming to suck the last bit of fun out of life, just in time for Christmas. Maybe you are feeling Christmassy and joyful and peaceful today. I hope so. But Scrooge has absolutely nothing on me right now. 

*****

Merry Christmas! Yes, it’s December 25. I’m not quite so out of sorts today. It’s 9:45 AM and I’m waiting for my children to wake up. That’s what happens when they grow up. You wake up early on Christmas morning, and you wait for them. I made bacon this morning, and a pan of cinnamon rolls is in the oven now. That is our traditional Christmas breakfast. Don’t come around here looking for vegan spa cuisine. 

I did what I thought was my last shopping trip on Thursday, and then I found that the asparagus that I bought was rotten, and I also forgot an ingredient for the pineapple stuffing that my husband loves with his Christmas ham. So I went to the store to get my last-minute ingredients. While I was there, I remembered that I hadn’t gotten sunflower seeds yet. My older son likes sunflower seeds, so I always put a bag in his stocking. And then I thought that I didn’t have enough stocking stuffers for either of the boys, so I went to the drugstore to get some candy and gum and random odds and ends. 

The store’s PA system was playing a song that I hadn’t heard before, a song that had a Christmassy instrumentation and beat, with lyrics about slapping someone in the head. Well, I thought. That is a bracing lyric, a stand-up-and-take-notice kind of lyric, but not exactly the words of comfort and joy that I needed to hear at that moment. I found what I needed and I got in line, where an old lady was standing in that hesitant, half-in and half-out kind of way that suggested that she wasn’t sure how the line worked and where she should stand. 

“Are you in line?” I asked. 

“No, no,” she said. “I’m waiting for my husband. You go ahead.” 

“Thank you,” I said, and I did. And then I saw a very old man walk toward the old lady. “You go ahead now,” I said. 

“No no no,” they said in unison. “We’re still deciding.” 

I got in line. “Stocking stuffers?” the lady asked me.

“Yes!” I said. “I realized this morning that I had forgotten the sunflower seeds and the candy and gum.” 

“I remember,” she smiled. “Yes, we always got candy for their stockings. They all liked different candy.” 

“Exactly,” I said. “Mine are 20 and 17, and they still love candy in their stockings, but they like different kinds.”

The man chimed in. “20? Is he a local student or is he home for the holidays?”

“He’s at University of Maryland,” I said. After two years of community college, my son was just accepted as a transfer student at the University of Maryland, and we paid his enrollment fee, so he is officially a Maryland student. He’s very happy about this, and we’re very happy for him.

“Maryland,” the man said. “Good for him!” 

And then really nothing happened. I paid for my stocking stuffers, and I said Merry Christmas to the nice old couple and they said Merry Christmas too, and we went on our way. I got into my car, and another very old lady, probably too old to drive, had just gotten into her car, parked in the space facing mine. She was waiting for an opportunity to drive through and avoid backing out, so I backed out quickly so she wouldn't have to wait. It was the least I could do. Merry Christmas. 

*****

Now it's December 27, and I'm driving home from Philadelphia. Leaden gray sky, bare trees, still and cold air, and light snow falling. A perfect Christmas vacation weather day. 

It's Monday but it doesn't feel like Monday, just like yesterday didn't feel like Sunday. Even if you're working Christmas week, the days blend together until you can't tell one from another. I'm not working today, unless you count the flurry of emails that I wrote and answered this morning, but I'll be working tomorrow and Wednesday and Thursday. 

Christmas was lovely and we had a nice day yesterday, too; but now I can't pull my head out of the gloom again. I don't know why. Grief, COVID news, work stress, and everything else just keep piling up and I don't feel like doing anything I have to do. I'm just sad. And I hate being sad. 

*****

But enough of that. Let's talk instead about my sister's dumbass dog. Well, he's a sweetheart and he's adorable but he's a dumbass. I walked him this morning. The rest of the house was asleep and the neighborhood was peaceful and quiet, and Duke and I set out for our annual Christmas week walk. 

I sent him out to the backyard first, hoping that he’d take care of his morning routine on the premises, obviating the need for me to clean up after him. Nothing doing. Then I waited while he sniffed around his own front yard. “Go ahead,” I said. “This is the perfect place. Do it here, and then I can make Will or Ethan clean it up.” He looked at me, clueless but eager, ready to explore. 

Of course, he did his terrible business five minutes later, in front of a house two houses down from my sister’s. He did it right on top of a pile of leaves and twigs and the whole pile of organic matter stuck together in an utterly revolting clump. As I bent over scooping up the mess with my plastic bag-covered hand, I wondered, having already been seen trying to clean up, if I could get away with just leaving it there. Who would know, right? But I did the right thing, and we kept going, me carrying the plastic bag of poop and Duke strutting happily along as though he hadn’t just dropped toxic waste on his neighbor’s lawn. 

The morning was damp, and Duke loves to sniff the grass on damp mornings. I tried to get him to walk in the road, quiet and deserted on the Monday of Christmas week, but he kept pulling back to the curb, to his beloved grassy-smelling grass. “Does it not all smell the same?” I asked him. He crouched down and pooped again, this time on a clean, dry spot, making it easy for me to collect with my one remaining bag. “That’s it, buddy,” I said. “We gotta go back home now. I’m out of plastic bags, and I’m carrying two sacks of crap, which is two more than I want.” And is that not a metaphor for life at the end of 2021? I don’t know a single person who’s not carrying around a load of crap in each hand. 

*****

I mean, I thought it was funny. 

******

I keep thinking about why it feels like I don’t have any time. I don’t think I’m doing any more than I used to. I don’t have to drive to work, so that’s time saved. I still have a full-time job and several volunteer jobs and a house to clean and laundry to do and cooking to avoid but I have always had those things. I’ve always been this busy. But it always feels like I have so little time, like I’ll never be able to finish anything. So I tried to figure out why I feel that way, and I think it all comes down to mortality. It feels like I have less time because actually, in the actuarial sense, I do have less time. The older I get, the less time I have to live, statistically. 

It’s December 29. It was dark at 5 PM but tomorrow it won’t be dark until 5:01 or so. 2021 is dying but the darkest part of the year has passed. My life is not getting any longer but the days are about to and when that happens, I’ll probably stop writing about death and dog poo. No promises, of course. Meanwhile, we still have a houseful of Christmas treats. The tree is still fragrant and twinkling. We’re all cozy and safe. Everything is fine. Happy New Year. 

Ask not

Well hello there. How are you? Well, I hope. Me? Oh fine, just fine. Just absolutely totally fucking fine. Couldn’t be better. 

And now that we have that out of the way, let’s address the fat-ass elephant in the room, shall we? Welcome back, COVID. Nobody fucking missed you, and nobody invited you back, but here you are, so I guess we have to offer you a drink or something. Tell you what. There’s a big bottle of bleach in the laundry room. Help yourself. 

My inbox is full. Just today, I received notices about the Rockville High School boys’ basketball game (cancelled) and the girls’ basketball game (cancelled) and morning pre-season baseball workouts (cancelled). RHS sends letters to let us know when someone has tested positive, and then they contact the affected person’s close contacts separately regarding quarantine requirements. New cases have averaged one per week since the beginning of the school year. Today, there were 11 new cases. Parents are understandably freaking out, and rumors are spreading faster than the fucking omicron variant, may it rot in Hell. 

Other than that? Nothing new. Nice to see you. Have a great holiday!

*****

Now it's Tuesday. December 21. Winter Solstice. I'm in a very long line at the Leisure World Giant pharmacy counter, waiting for my COVID booster. A lady in line behind me declared the whole thing "crazy" after a five-minute wait, and abandoned the line. If everyone does that, I'll be out of here in no time. 

It looks and feels like winter; damp and chilly, heavily overcast and still, with a faint smell of snow. I feel like I should be listening to Trans Siberian Orchestra's ominous and vaguely threatening "Carol of the Bells" medley. TSO makes Christmas bells sound like the bells that we should not ask for whom they toll because they toll for us. Apocalyptic. Appropriate, really. 

I'm about third in line now. The crowd behind me is getting restless. "This is ridiculous! This is crazy! I can't believe this!" These sweet summer children have lived through the last 21 months, and yet they remain shocked at the ridiculousness of a 15-minute wait at a supermarket pharmacy. It’s adorable, really. I think it’s lovely that they’ve managed to maintain their wide-eyed innocence amid the shit storms formally known as the years 2020 and 2021. But they might want to toughen the hell up. 2022 hasn’t even started yet. 

*****

It’s Wednesday now. I got my booster shot, just 10 minutes later than my scheduled appointment time, and I came home to wait for my immune system to start flexing its muscles. Last evening was fine. I was a bit tired and my arm was a little sore, but I felt fine otherwise. Today is a whole other story. I dragged myself up, and after a shower and coffee and an orange and two Tylenols and two Advils, I felt human enough to commence with my workday. I attended meetings. I wrote emails. I organized and planned and managed stuff. The truck didn’t really hit me until about 1 PM, at which point I considered simply lying down on the floor and pulling the carpet over myself. I kept working for a bit, but then I gave in to the fatigue and the muscle aches and the low-grade fever; and I dragged myself to this here couch, where I intend to remain for the rest of the evening. Tomorrow is December 23, also known as Christmas Eve Eve, also known as Christmas Adam. It’s going to be a busy day for me. For the rest of today, I’m going to rest. 

Ghost of cookies past

I’m multi-tasking right now. My company is having a virtual holiday party and I’m sitting in front of my camera wearing my Nordic reindeer sweater with my Christmas tree in the background. I’m smiling and looking for all the world as though I’m fully engaged in the virtual festivities, but I’m writing my daily writing instead. 

A week ago, I thought it was completely ridiculous that this “party,” which is really a year-end all-hands meeting with Christmas sweaters, was going to be virtual. We have to sit through a year-in-review PowerPoint and we don’t even get a snack or a glass of wine? 

Now, of course, Omicron is spreading like I don’t even know what. I can’t say “like the plague,” because it’s an actual plague. Like mold? Like gossip? Like wildfire? Pick your stupid simile. They’re all terrible. Anyway, it’s probably better to avoid a big gathering. But I don’t want to avoid gatherings. I don’t necessarily want to attend a big gathering (because I don’t really ever want to attend big gatherings because that’s just me) but I don’t want to avoid them because of the COVID. I don’t want to quarantine. I don’t want the world to shut down again. 

*****

Wait a minute. Are we actually sitting through a report on company demographics? Are we really talking about ISO 27000 at 4:30 on a late December Friday afternoon? Clearly there are worse things than Omicron. 

*****

It’s Saturday morning now, one week before Christmas. The virtual “party” picked up the pace a bit. I won the trivia contest, easily beating over 50 other employees who filled the meeting chat with good-natured (I think) complaints about how badly I was beating them. First prize? $200. I’ll take it. It’s December and I’ve been spending money like a mad woman. 

A week out is when it really starts to feel like Christmas. I am finished with my Christmas shopping. I usually shopped for Nana last but she’s gone and I don’t need to shop for her anymore and so I still don’t feel as Christmassy as I normally would on December 18, but at this time of year it’s hard not to catch a little bit of the spirit. It’s the light, I guess. It’s the light and the sense that things are winding down. 

Maybe the cookies will do it. I have to make cookies this weekend. Maybe you don’t know this about me but I really hate making cookies. Last year, though, I discovered that it’s better to make the dough on one day, and then bake the cookies the next. I’ll make dough today, and I’ll bake cookies tomorrow. If a houseful of cookies doesn’t get me Christmased up, then nothing will. 

*****

It’s Sunday morning. I spent the rest of Saturday morning doing minor household chores and personal tasks, doing whatever I could to avoid making cookie dough. Then I finally stopped stalling and made the stupid cookie dough, cleaned up the resulting mess (how does the faucet end up crusted with cookie dough? And the flour! Everywhere!), and basked in the glow of having completed one of my least-favorite tasks of the holiday season. 

Then my son’s swim meet was cancelled. Half of the opposing team tested positive for COVID. Everyone is panicking again. It feels like March 2020. The news is changing so fast every day. Case numbers are doubling and doubling again. We’re all going to have COVID by January. I’m just waiting for the next wave of restrictions. Schools close on Wednesday for Christmas break, but I fully expect that they’ll start the holiday break early. We all felt a little gloomy last night. We sat on the couch and watched Christmas movies but our hearts were not in it. 

The cookies are only half-finished. I made the dough yesterday, but I have to actually bake the cookies today. My 8yo nephew and 5yo niece will be spending the afternoon with us. Crazy small children and cookies are nothing if not a guaranteed recipe for holiday spirit, COVID notwithstanding. Let the cookie baking commence. 

Clothes..and Other Things that Matter

I just finished reading Clothes…and Other Things that Matter, a fashion retrospective by Alexandra Shulman, former Editor in Chief of British Vogue. The book begins with a reflection on the changing role of clothes and appearance during the pandemic. Having not read any reviews in advance, I actually expected that the entire book was going to continue in this vein, and I was all for it. It would have been nice to know that I wasn’t the only ridiculous person who spent months obsessing about exactly the right handbag and jacket, two essential “going out” items, during a time in which I was going nowhere. 

Instead, it’s sort of a sartorial autobiography going all the way back to the 1960s, examining each of the “icon” pieces that Ms. Shulman owned and wore, through both the magnifying glass of personal experience and the telescope of fashion history and cultural relevance. Ilene Beckerman did something similar in the absolutely wonderful Love, Loss, and What I Wore. I was thinking about another book that I read that also examined a series of style “icons,” a book whose title and author I could not remember, so I Googled “icons book fashion” and I got at least 100 results. The book that I had been thinking of was Dodie Kazanjian’s Icons: The Absolutes of Style, but there are tons more on the subject. 

So this isn’t really an original concept, but that doesn’t matter. There are really only a handful of literary forms. There is nothing new under the sun and all that. What matters is execution, and this book is delightful, mostly because Shulman herself seems delightful. This is a woman who holds an OBE and a CBE, who sits front row at fashion shows in Paris and Milan and New York, who socializes with Elton John and Prince Charles and Anna Wintour, and who still manages to come across as an everywoman who is not always sure of herself and who doesn’t always know what to wear. 

I don’t necessarily agree with all of Shulman’s “icon” choices. I never thought of a beanie as an iconic fashion item, for example; nor do tights really qualify. All of her other choices are the usual suspects–black clothes (including the icon of icons, the LBD), sneakers (trainers in Brit-speak), handbags, bikinis. “Icon” and “iconic” are both tiresome words used in any context outside of religious art, but they’re like business jargon; annoying but necessary shorthand that conveys an idea very succinctly. Most of the items that Shulman writes about are universals, available in every price point from Wal-Mart to couture, and worn or used by women in every social strata. Most of them have been around in one form or another for at least a century. There’s the formula: Universality plus Longevity = Icon. 

*****

In her essay on the boiler suit, the one-piece overall garment traditionally worn by factory workers and plumbers and electricians (and another rather unlikely candidate for icon status), Shulman recalls a glamorous, rebellious high school classmate who boldly appeared at school wearing a boiler suit. She writes, "Yearning for a piece of clothing that I knew would not suit me was still, all these years later, because I wanted to look like Cathy." When the boiler suit became fashionable once again, Shulman, though she knows that the style is not suitable for her body or her life, feels compelled to at least try one. She wants to see if she can replicate the way that her long-lost classmate's boiler suit inspired her, to see if she can find a boiler suit that makes her feel young and rebellious. In another essay, Shulman writes about a dress that she wore for a very important, high profile, red carpet party. She describes the dress and the party, but she writes much more about how that dress made her feel beautiful and powerful, yet completely comfortable and at ease.   

That's the real reason why we buy clothes, of course. It's so much more than warmth and comfort and decency and even fashion. We need clothes to help us not just look a certain way but to feel a certain way, to be a certain way. We can spend months or even years trying to find that one dress, that one jumpsuit, that one handbag that will help us feel the way we did at that one party or on that one day in school when everything came together and it seemed like life and friendship and love and adulthood might be manageable after all. 

Think about putting on a piece of clothing and looking in a mirror and being completely satisfied with your appearance. Then think about wearing that piece of clothing and feeling that you can do anything. Then think about also feeling physically comfortable; neither too warm nor too hot, neither overdressed nor underdressed, neither overly covered up nor immodestly bare. Think about one dress or one jacket or one boiler suit that allows you to stop thinking about yourself altogether, even for just a little while. When you really think about what an absolutely perfect piece of clothing can do for a person, you understand why a person would spend an unreasonable amount of time shopping for that one thing. You understand why a person would spend a ridiculous sum of money to buy that one thing. And you understand, finally, that “icon” might not be too big a word. 

My cup runneth over again

I am writing much more about my own life and the ridiculous things that sometimes happen to me than normal. It’s easier to write about my day or about whatever happens to be going on in my head rather than to try to write about events or books or movies or anything external. It’s been a stressful year and work is occupying so much of my time and my mental energy that writing has to take the proverbial back seat, but I’m not ready to kick it out of the car altogether. I’m still writing every day. 

*****

Like right now, it’s early in the morning, almost 6:30. I woke up too early and couldn’t go back to sleep so I thought I’d get up and get some things done before the day begins in earnest. I’ve been writing a few little book notes for my end-of-year list, which won’t see the light of day until February 2022 at least. I might even have something ready to post some time next week. Anything could happen. 

*****

It’s the next day now, right in the middle of the workday. I am going to take an actual lunch break today, and instead of eating lunch I’m going to write more Seinfeld-esque nothing about nothing. It’s Thursday, and I wake up very early on Thursdays. My son has early morning swim practice on Thursdays, and he drives there, with my husband riding shotgun. Having been in the car with him for his first accident a month ago, I’m not quite past my fear that he’ll crash the car again, and so when they leave at 4:45, I am up for the day. I suppose I could have written this earlier, but I moved my regularly scheduled anxiety attack to the early morning part of the day, leaving the later hours free to write. 

*****

I told you that I was going to write about nothing. I wasn't kidding. That's truth in advertising, right there. 

Yesterday, I really did write about something. I'm still working on it. Need to let it sit for a bit, get ripe, know what I mean? It's a thing about a book. 

What's that line from "You've Got Mail"? Something about how so much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn't it be the opposite? Nora Ephron wrote that. Of course she did. Nora always knew what was what. 

Anyway, while I let the other thing stew for a while, I'll write about what's happening now. It's Saturday morning and I'm leaning against a railing at the Kennedy Shriver Aquatic Center, known to us locals as "KSAC," waiting for the early meet to end. Then it'll be 30 minutes or so for the dive meet and swim warm-ups, and then the main event, Rockville v Magruder. It's two weeks before Christmas, and the kids are all in, wearing red and green plaid pajama pants and Santa hats and tinsel garland leis. 

We're in the natatorium now. It's an unseasonably warm day but the lobby at KSAC is still December chilly. But the natatorium is like a greenhouse. I'm wearing my officials' uniform of navy shorts, a white polo shirt, and flip flops. I shed my sweater the moment I entered this little haven of tropical warmth. Any minute now, and I will be summoned to attend the officials briefing. And when duty calls, I respond. 

*****

It’s Sunday now. That was a productive Saturday. Swim meet, Christmas shopping, grocery shopping, 5:30 Mass, and performance reviews (which I wrote while sitting on my couch wearing a sweater and pajama pants, the long day behind me). I even managed to watch a movie and to read a book and to write all about it.  An altogether successful day. 

After some rain, a windy cold front pushed yesterday’s odd spring-like warmth out of here, and it’s clear and sunny and dry and rather chilly. It’s 11:10 AM, and I’m trying to decide what else to do today. I thought about starting to make cookies but it’s too early to have cookies in the house. Everyone will eat them and then I’ll have to make cookies again. And I hate making cookies. 

I’m not finished shopping yet, so I suppose I’ll do that. I didn’t have time to exercise yesterday, though I did rack up 11,000 just-walking-around steps, so I think I’ll do that, too. I went to bed too late last night and woke up too early, so maybe my brain will cooperate with my body and allow me to take a nap on the couch with the Christmas tree lights on and the 4:30 December twilight turning to darkness outside the window. That would be nice. Anything would be nice, really. It’s nice to have a day. 

Nana, 1923 - 2021

My grandmother died last week, four days short of her 98th birthday. 

She was, as the expression goes, a character. Passive-aggressive, argumentative, kind of irritable and bad-tempered, perpetually outraged, especially about politics (thanks Fox News), and a compulsive collector of old-lady collectibles, like Hummels and souvenir spoons and I don’t even know what else. 

She was also very talented. She could draw and paint and she had a beautiful singing voice, which she used only in church. She was devoutly Catholic and a born and bred Philadelphian, her entire life lived within a 20-block radius, including 60 years in the rowhouse that she bought with my grandfather in 1961. 

My grandmother was proud of her Irish heritage, proud of my grandfather’s service in the Army during World War 2, proud of his career as a supervisor at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, and proud of her tiny brick rowhouse with its itty-bitty backyard and its perfectly neat and organized rooms. I think she was proud of her children and grandchildren, too, but she didn’t say so explicitly. She loved us, though. She especially loved her great-grandchildren. I think it amazed and delighted her that she lived to see her oldest great-grandchild graduate from college and begin work for a major accounting firm. 

*****

We lived with my grandparents when I was really little. I don’t remember a lot about that time, other than that our living situation was a result of my parents’ very bad divorce. I never saw my father again and from what the people tell me, I was probably better off. 

I really loved my grandparents’ house. I remember that very well. It was a tiny brick rowhouse, as we have already established. You had to walk up two sets of concrete steps to get to the front door, which then led into a tiny tiny tiny vestibule with a hat stand and an umbrella stand, and three carpeted steps into the carpeted living room. The whole tiny house was carpeted, making it even cozier. Now, of course, a tiny rowhouse would pride itself on its original hardwood floors but in 1971, wall-to-wall carpet was considered plush and luxurious, and I was all for it. I was six, after all,. Six-year-olds spend most of their time on the floor, and thickly padded carpet made the floor much more comfortable. 

My grandparents’ house also had a console stereo, a color TV, a china cabinet filled with china and bric-a-brac, a finished basement that was my grandfather’s man cave before there even was such a thing as a man cave, and a huge storage pantry under the basement stairs, which my grandfather built. He built custom shelving throughout the house. The kitchen (yes even the kitchen was carpeted, but the kitchen carpet was a much thinner and and more serviceable fiber than the luxurious sculptured carpet in the living room and dining room) led out to a tiny two-level backyard that I wrote about here. I loved that backyard, especially the upper yard that adults either could not or would not climb up to. 

There were a lot of other things that I loved about that house. I loved the bathroom. It was tiny, like the rest of the house, with tiled floor and tile halfway up the walls, which were then wallpapered up to the ceiling. I think the wallpaper was floral print. There was a skylight in the ceiling. I don’t think they ever opened the skylight, but it seemed very special to me, a window in the ceiling. My grandparents had a Water Pik, and we weren’t allowed to play with it, but we did. The water that flowed from the bathroom sink faucet was always cold and clear. It was the best-tasting water, and I remember drinking Dixie cups full of it. 

My grandparents’ bedroom was furnished in heavy old-fashioned walnut furniture, a matching set with a large, low, dresser and a huge mirror, a tall dresser that my grandmother called “the highboy,” a wardrobe with a two-door cabinet on top and two drawers at the bottom, a double bed with a walnut headboard and frame, and silver-framed family pictures on the wallpapered walls. The dresser was dressed with a lace runner, on top of which were a silver mirror and hairbrush that never actually touched anyone’s hair, and at least a dozen perfume bottles. The only new things in that bedroom were the carpeting, and a valet chair that we would today probably describe as mid-century modern. We always wanted to sit on the thickly padded seat of that valet chair, and Nana always told us that it wasn’t a sitting chair, it was a clothes chair. This made no sense to us. It was one of those weird grown-up things that we just accepted. 

Granddad’s basement was finished with a linoleum floor and pre-fabricated panel walls and a drop ceiling and a bar that he built himself. There was a radio (for Phillies and Flyers games, not music) and a record player (for Johnny Cash) and an old couch. The paneled walls were covered with framed war memorabilia and family photos and sports pennants and goofy signs. Two that I remember really well: A Pennsylvania Dutch woman under the slogan “We grow too soon oldt and too late schmardt,” and a man downing a cocktail next to the slogan “Work: The Curse of the Drinking Class.” Nana gave me the “drinking class” sign a long time ago, and it’s still in my kitchen. 

Granddad died in 1994, and Nana started using his beloved basement as a storage area. It wasn’t the same anymore; it didn't feel right without Granddad's presence. The basement was the only thing that really changed when Granddad died. The rest of the house was Nana’s–from the carpet to the chandelier to the wallpaper to the china cabinet to the clear plastic covers on the living room furniture to the pictures on the wall and the bric-a-brac on the shelves and on the cabinets, every single detail was imbued with her spirit and her personality. I just can’t imagine walking into that house again. 

*****

“When I get old, make sure you tell me if I ever act like Nana.” My mother used to tell us this all the time. Any time my grandmother complained or acted cantankerous or ornery as was her wont, my mother would implore us to please please please let her know if she ever acted like Nana. Once, I told her that she was acting just like Nana (because she was) and she was furious, and she wouldn’t speak to me for the rest of the day. 

That was HILARIOUS. 

I mean to say, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I rest my case, amirite? 

Anyway, I’m old myself now. Well, I’m in my 50s, which used to be when people started to be considered old; and my mother is in her 70s, which is old by any standard. But do you know who is most like Nana in our family? Oh yes, it’s me, and it’s not even close. I’m much less vocal a complainer than Nana. That’s because I have this blog. But I also write outraged letters of complaint (via email of course). I am also a compulsive cleaner. I’m also a pretty serious Catholic–Mass, rosaries, Confession, all of it. I also never leave the house without lipstick. I also kick people out of my seat on the couch. (I mean, this couch is huge. You have to sit in my seat when the rest of the couch is wide open?) 

*****

I have a red sweater (well, I have a shit-ton of red sweaters) that I realized, when I put it on the other day, looks exactly like something my Nana would have worn. I kept that sweater on, and put on some pink lipstick and some fuzzy socks, and I felt just fine about eventually becoming an old lady who wears sweaters all winter and reads large-print books (mine will be electronic) and drinks too much coffee and rewatches her favorite old movies and TV shows at deafening volume. I'll probably go to Mass every day. I'll never miss a hockey game. I'll complain about the Republicans (Nana complained about the Democrats). I'll meet my friends at a diner, where we will all order nothing but soup. 

*****

One night last week, I spent 90 minutes on the phone with my old high school friend Rhona. I went to high school and college with Rhona, and we shared the experience of young womanhood in Philadelphia in the 1980s. I was a bridesmaid in Rhona's wedding in 1990. We hadn't talked for a long time, and so we caught up on each other's lives and children and husbands and elderly parents. Most of our conversation was focused on the present day, the right now, but we also reminisced a little bit, remembering swimming at the O'Connor Pool and shopping at Wanamaker's and eating at Rindelaub's. We thanked God that we were young during a time in which social media did not exist, because we were idiots who did stupid things all day long, and we would have documented every minute 

After we hung up, I thought about how lucky I was to still have a friend who knew me when I was a teenager. And I realized that the physical and sometimes mental decline that accompanies age is not the hardest part about being old.The hardest part about being really old is losing all of the people you shared your youth with. My grandmother was lucky enough not to outlive any of her children or grandchildren. But she outlived her husband and her siblings and all of her friends and neighbors. She lost everyone who lived with her as a contemporary, all of the people who shared the same history and the same frame of reference. She lost everyone who got the jokes. 

*****

Today is December 7, 2021, the 80th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor, one of the many historic events that Nana lived through. We buried Nana yesterday, beginning with a Mass of Christian Burial at St. John the Baptist church in Philadelphia, and proceeding to Westminster Cemetery on the other side of the Schuylkill for the interment. It was a small funeral. A person who dies at almost 98 leaves few mourners behind. 

It’s cold today, cold and overcast with a faint smell of snow. Normally I'd be thinking about Christmas, especially after two days in Philadelphia, the worldwide capital of Christmas nostalgia. (Yes it is. No I will not be taking questions.) I heard more Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, and Perry Como in the last two days than anyone needs to hear in an entire lifetime. I drove through all of my old neighborhood stomping grounds, lit up to maximum Christmas wattage, and it all seemed Christmas-y, but I didn't feel it, and I don’t think I will. Nana loved Christmas, and it won’t seem like Christmas without her. 

Saturday in December

I thought it might be nice to write about something other than death and panic attacks, just for a change. So today I will write about the long-awaited first meet of the MCPS high school swim season, and the first high school meet since February 2020 before the whole world lost its damn mind. 

It's 9:30 on Saturday morning, and we're sitting through dive warm ups at the Olney Swim Center. Swimmers will warm up next and then this thing will get started. I just stood through the officials' briefing. After 11 years as a swim official, I know the rules pretty well, and that means that I have to attend the briefing, because that's one of the rules. 

Our Colorado starter is making a horrible screeching noise. After almost two years, it's out of practice, just like the rest of us. Now the dive competition is underway and I'm dutifully clapping for each diver, but I don't know a good dive from a bad one. Fortunately, swim officials don't have to judge the dive meet. We just watch and wait until it's our time to go to work. 

We all gathered at a team family's home last night for the pre-meet pasta party. The house was decorated for Christmas, cozy and festive, and it was nice to see everyone again. We woke up this morning and gathered towels and caps and goggles and rule books--and masks,of course, because this isn't over yet--and we rolled up to the pool like the last 21 months didn't even happen. 

*****

And that's our first meet of the season in the books. I'm sitting in my car outside the local Chick-Fil-A, a favorite post-meet lunch spot, and it's just the same as every other post-meet lunch. Kids with wet hair and goggle eyes wearing hoodies and flannel pajama pants, eating chicken sandwiches and fries as if they'd never eaten before. Swimming makes a person hungry. The starter settled down and the meet went smoothly and I don't know who won because it was a scrimmage and they didn't keep score. But we'll see the times later. No one cares, anyway. No one cares about the results. We're just happy to be back in the pool.