Playing to win

Oh it's cold. So cold. It's Saturday morning and I am sitting in my car waiting for my son to finish his pre-season baseball workout. My car's temperature gauge reads 19 degrees. A radio announcer just helpfully noted that the wind chill makes it feel like ten degrees. So cold. 

After a week or so of chatter on the Twitter, I finally succumbed to the Wordle craze, as I knew I would. Yesterday's word took me all six tries. I got today's in four. If you have played the game, then you know that it's as much about deductive reasoning than words. I'm quite good at the latter but I'm not so good at the former. And that's the appeal, really. The difficult part is humbling. It keeps me in my place. And the easy part makes it fun. It's an awesome game. Too bad I only get to play once a day. I mean, I'm sure that there's an app that will allow you to play as often as you like, but the shared experience of that one game a day is also part of the fun. I'm two for two now. I'm going for a ten-game win streak. 

*****

It’s Sunday now and I’m three for three (and in only three tries this time). It’s a nicer day so I’ll actually go outside, because I need the exercise and because I need the sunlight to combat the seasonal affective disorder that’s making my low-level depression much much worse. 

My son had a swim meet yesterday, too. As anyone who hangs around here regularly knows, I often write during the dive meet because what do I know about diving? When you’ve seen one teenager do a backflip off a springboard into a pool, you’ve seen them all. But yesterday, instead of writing, I started making a list of five-letter words. I even installed an add-on to Google Docs so that I could alphabetize the list. It’s been three days and I already have an unhealthy and obsessive relationship with Wordle. I also have a running list of words (152 so far) and a three-game win streak. It might be too early to count my Wordle chickens, but I like my chances at ten for ten. I won’t tell you what today’s word is because maybe you want to play. Tomorrow could be anything: Arrow, Bread, Clock, Drive, Egret, Heron, Queen? There’s only one way to find out. A person has to play to win. 

Kierkegaardian

Do you know what today’s high temperature was? 26. It’s January, of course, so it’s supposed to be cold, but is it supposed to be that cold? I didn’t leave the house today, and I’m not going to if I can help it. 

I’m reading Fear and Trembling for no reason other than I hadn’t read it before and I felt that I should. I seldom read philosophy. When I do, I read passively. I let my eyes slide over the words and then I wait for my brain to absorb them. 

Fear and Trembling is about faith, the faith of Abraham, willing to sacrifice his only son to please the Lord. I don’t know very much about Kierkegaard, so I don’t know why he wrote about Abraham, nor why he was preoccupied with the problem of faith, nor why he wrote under the pseudonym Johannes de Silentio. I picture him writing alone in an attic or a sparsely furnished study, trying to keep warm during the icy Copenhagen winter with night falling at 3 pm or so. It’s a very Scandinavian book. 

*****

It’s Wednesday now, one day later and ten to twelve degrees warmer, at least for now. Things are looking up. I’m still reading Kierkegaard, a little bit at a time, and I think it’s getting through to me, a little bit at a time. My brain is thawing now. That’s probably it. 

I’m thinking a lot about resignation in the Kierkegaardian sense. I’m probably getting this completely wrong but who cares because this isn’t a philosophy final, but my understanding is that resignation is a stepping stone on the way to true faith. To be resigned to your fate, to the path that God has chosen for you, even if it is nowhere near the path you want to be on, even if God demands that you sacrifice that which is most precious to you, is NOT to convince yourself that you no longer want whatever it is that God is taking away from you. If you train yourself not to desire whatever you have lost or cannot attain, then there’s no real sacrifice other than the initial sacrifice of loss. True sacrifice is to willingly give up what you most want or love, and to continue to want and love that thing, cheerfully. That kind of freely given sacrifice is essential to being resigned and ultimately, to being faithful. 

*****

It’s Thursday now, and temperatures remain tolerable for a second straight day. If you were looking for a weather report for a day that is now in the past, you came to exactly the right place. 

Last night, I read Kierkegaard on the topic of greatness. I was going to pull a quote from the book but I’ll paraphrase instead. I don’t know that he is limiting greatness to this one characteristic, but he does say that the great have one thing in common: they act without knowing ahead of time what the outcome will be. 

Deceptively simple, no? Using Mary the Mother of God as an example of greatness, Kierkegaard explains that Mary’s greatness lies not in her pre-ordination as the Blessed Mother, nor in her Immaculate Conception (look that up if you’re not Catholic, because it’s not the same as the Virgin Birth). Her greatness lies instead in her willingness as a young teenage girl to obey God with no promise of protection, and no assurances whatsoever that things would turn out OK. As Kierkegaard points out, the Angel Gabriel announced the Lord’s will to Mary and she readily complied, but Gabriel didn’t tell her what else to expect, and he didn’t communicate on the Lord’s behalf to Mary’s friends and neighbors. No one went around knocking on doors explaining that Mary’s premarital pregnancy was the Lord’s doing, and that they should give her a pass. Except for St. Joseph, the poor girl was on her own. 

*****

Do you know what I did? I bought ANOTHER handbag. Madness. Sheer madness. It’s now in the box in which it came, labeled for return shipping. I wish that I could claim that I was returning it because I recognized the sheer ridiculousness and self-indulgence of me buying yet another handbag, but that’s not true. I’m returning it because I just don’t like it as much as I thought I would. It is not the handbag of my dreams, as I had hoped it would be. 

So that’s January so far. I’m reading about detachment and resignation and great faith and self-sacrifice, but I’m also buying stupid things that I don’t need with money that I don’t have. Well, that’s not really true. I do have the money, and I always pay for everything I buy with actual money, and not with credit. But I have a child in college and another one soon to start. I need to buy a car. And I’m getting old. I should be saving money so that I don’t spend my dotage in poverty. I must do better. I MUST do better. 

****"

"DIVERS! LET'S GOOOO! Sorry."

It's 9:10 on Saturday morning, and we're here at the MLK Indoor Swim Center, waiting for the dive meet to begin. Our swim and dive coach has a loud voice in any circumstance, but the echo in the swim center makes it that much louder, especially for the two unsuspecting Clarksburg parents who were standing right behind him at the scorers' table, minding their own business, waiting to sign in and collect their stopwatches. 

I'm a stroke and turn judge today. I would do this job anyway, because I am certified and because so many other people really hate doing it. And now thanks to the Omicron surge, volunteering is the only way I can watch the meet. Mere idle spectators are not allowed to be in the swim center, and we’re not technologically sophisticated enough to live stream the thing. My younger son is nearing the end of his swimming career, which means that our family is almost done with swimming altogether, and I don't want to miss a meet. So I'm here with my clipboard and my name tag and my white polo shirt, ready to officiate. 

*****

Even the natatorium was cold yesterday. I brought a cardigan, and I wore pants rather than shorts with my white polo shirt. This was the right call, but in the end, the pants and shoes and socks didn’t do much good. A stroke and turn judge has to stand right in the splash zone to see the turns and finishes; and at the end of the meet, as always, I was damp from the waist down. . A Clarksburg boy who came in for a strong finish in the 100 fly, splashing me from nearly head to toe, said “sorry!” as he waited in the water for the rest of the swimmers to finish. 

“No worries,” I said. “If you don’t want to get wet, you shouldn’t hang around at a swimming pool, amirite?”

“True,” he said. “Very fair.” 

And that’s me. Truthful and fair as possible. I approached the building exit, fearful and trembling at the idea of walking out into the 20 degree cold in wet clothes. And it was just as horrible as I feared it would be. That was my pain and suffering for the day. That was my sacrifice. That was the thing that somebody had to do, so why not me? We do what we can. 

Notes on Fran Lebowitz

• I started writing this almost a year ago. Now I am looking at the calendar and seeing that it’s 2022 and thus long past time to finish writing my book notes from 2021.
• As always, I refer to my book posts as “book notes” and not “book reviews” because who am I to review anything, and because I seldom stay on topic; and thus a book note could meander off in any and all directions. Consider yourself warned.
• Why bullet points? I don’t know. I don’t know.
• Anyway, the rest of these bullets are what I started writing about Fran Lebowitz back in early 2021.
• I’m always on trend, you know. I’m always doing the thing that’s the thing to do at any given moment. So of course, I watched “Pretend it’s a City,” the Netflix limited series of one-one-one conversations between Martin Scorsese and Fran Lebowitz. I hadn’t thought about Fran Lebowitz in absolutely forever, and it was delightful to make her acquaintance again.
• I’m not a huge fan of Mr. Scorsese. I do like some of his movies, especially “Goodfellas.” I also liked “The Departed” quite a bit; although I have to say, the rat scurrying along the balcony railing at the end was the sort of bludgeon-subtle imagery that I would expect from a high school film class. But “The Wolf of Wall Street” (in which Fran Lebowitz had a cameo, which I had forgotten all about) really bothered me. I get that the movie had to depict the excess and sexual license that Jordan Belfort and his Wall Street bros indulged in, but it could have done that without turning into a veritable porn film. I got the sense, watching the party scenes, that these were young, aspiring, vulnerable actresses who would have done anything to please Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio, and I really hated them for taking advantage of that situation. Oh, and Leonardo, here’s another review for you: ”The Revenant” was stupid.
• But I digress. Leonardo still retains some goodwill from “The Departed” (and “Titanic,” I guess. Whatever.) and Scorsese redeemed himself with “Pretend it’s a City,” which was definitely my favorite streaming experience in a long time.
• One of my favorite parts of “Pretend it’s a City” was the scenes of Scorsese and Fran Lebowitz walking carefully through the Panorama of the City of New York, an enormous art installation that is just a giant 3-D map and architectural model of New York City, complete with streets, rivers, and scale models of every building in the city at the time of the Panorama’s construction in 1964. I read that the Panorama was updated in 1992, and that there have been a few additions since then, but no more comprehensive updates are planned, and so most of the buildings and streets will remain as they stood in 1992. Maeve Brennan would approve. I’m sure that most visitors to the Queens Museum are not allowed to traipse through the Panorama, but Martin Scorsese and Fran Lebowitz aren’t most visitors, and even they had to take off their shoes.
• When I was young, I really liked reading Fran Lebowitz’s columns and notes in “Interview.” Reading “Interview,” and reading anything written by Fran Lebowitz, seemed to me to be the pinnacle of New York cool in the 1980s, when I liked that sort of thing. But I had never read her books, so I joined the bandwagon of people who watched “Pretend it’s a City” and then immediately bought or borrowed The Fran Lebowitz Reader, a compilation of her humor and critical essays (actually two books of essays–Metropolitan Life and Social Studies).
• Not long ago, I discovered Poshmark, which is an online selling platform and application that is supposed to be focused on fashion. I say “supposed to” because people sell everything on Poshmark. I have seen toys and books and bobbleheads and antique hair dryers and wedding china and artwork and electronics and who knows what else on Poshmark. I shop on Poshmark because I like to buy pre-owned things, but even better than shopping is just looking through people’s listings and seeing a glimpse into their lives and their aesthetics. People write their own descriptions (sometimes hilarious) and take their own pictures, and it’s like a giant virtual estate sale catalog. I imagine the homes that these objects reside in, and the people who wear them or use them or carry them around. I never tire of seeing and reading about and thinking about people and the things they choose to own and use and live with.
• This is why my favorite essay from the Fran Lebowitz Reader was “The Frances Ann Lebowitz Collection,” because it’s hilarious and because it’s about this very subject. “Collection” is a send-up of a Sotheby’s-style auction catalog of Fran Lebowitz’s “estate,” with curatorial descriptions of her poor-person household junk, complete with badly framed poorly lit pictures, probably snapped with a Kodak Instamatic or some other relic of the pre-digital photography age. The pictures, especially the picture of a 1970s toaster oven and the picture of not one nor two but three Westclox alarm clocks, made me laugh out loud. Yes, it was partially a laugh of recognition, but those pictures and descriptions would be funny even to a person who didn’t grow up with a giant toaster oven on the kitchen counter and a Westclox alarm clock in every bedroom. Tune in again, and I’ll have posted my own Sotheby’s catalog page complete with poorly framed and badly lit pictures of books, Washington Capitals memorabilia, Fiestaware dishes, and Longchamp Le Pliage tote bags, along with droll descriptions. What did I tell you? That’s right, don’t come back here complaining that you weren’t warned.
• As I mentioned, I hadn’t read Fran Lebowitz in many years. I remembered some of these pieces, but others I had never read at all. People wonder why Fran Lebowitz hasn’t published a book in a long time, but it’s pretty clear why. Most of these essays will put you in mind of two things, assuming you’re familiar with both of those things: One is Judith Martin, aka Miss Manners. Like Miss Manners, Fran Lebowitz issues wittily dictatorial (or maybe dictatorially witty) pronouncements about how people should and should not behave, with liberal use of the impersonal pronoun. The other thing is blogs, circa 2007 or so. Many of Fran’s bulleted lists of what one may and may not do, or what one should and should not wear or read or buy, read very much like blog entries from that era. Many of those bloggers were probably inspired by Fran, in fact. But now everyone can write bulleted lists of their own quirky pet-peevy observations, and we all do, and no one is going to buy a book of the same for $27.95, not even one authored by Fran Lebowitz.
• A-ha! Now I remember why I wrote this as a bunch of bullet points. I’d forgotten. It’s been a year, for crying out loud.
• Reading old Fran Lebowitz is like watching a 1980s movie comedy. Some of these essays or at least parts of them, are as funny and relevant now as they were 30-plus years ago. Some bits, on the other hand; some whole essays, in fact, are more than a little “problematic,” as the young people say on the Twitter. Consider “Notes on ‘Trick,’” for example, an essay about lopsided relationships between rich older people (usually men, but not always) and beautiful but impecunious young people (both men and women). The beautiful young people, who are presumed to bring nothing to the relationship other than sexual attractiveness and availability, are called “tricks.” The main idea is that in entertainment or high fashion or high society circles, one person in any relationship is always a “trick.” This idea is meant to come across as witty and sophisticated in a jaded haute New York kind of way, and maybe that’s how it came across in the pre-Weinstein and pre-Epstein age. Now it reads as predatory and creepy. But to be fair, I’m sure that many of the relationships that inspired this essay were actually predatory and creepy. Fran doesn’t seem to acknowledge this, though. In fact, her sympathies seem to lie squarely with the non-trick half of the relationship; i.e., the person with the money and the power.
• So yes, I enjoyed “Pretend it’s a City” very much, and I was happy to rediscover some of Fran Lebowitz’s work. But if you ever needed a reminder that not everything stands the proverbial test of time, this book would be that reminder.

It's been one week...

How does that new meme go? Oh yeah–a horrified person or a horrified cat or dog realizes that “2022” is pronounced the same way as “2020, too.” Or “2020, two.” Hilarious. 

Last year, on December 31, I was giddy with excitement at the prospect of 2020 finally coming to an end. Whatever 2021 would bring, I thought to myself, at least it wouldn’t be 2020. Well, well, well, was that not adorable? Was that not precious? 

It’s December 31 again. It’s 10:30 in the morning Eastern Standard Time, so 2021 will be over in 13.5 hours. 2021 wasn’t all bad, I guess. It was just confined and small. The worst part was that people I love died, and I was sad a lot; sad about isolation and limits and sad with loss and grief.  And right now I don’t know if I can face another halfway year, another year of half-life. 

*****

It’s January 1, 2022. You know, I wrote that trash talk about 2021 BEFORE I heard that Betty White had died. 2021 had just one more little punch in the neck in store, but it’s over now and it can’t do any more damage. 

We spent part of the last day of 2021 in Annapolis, Maryland’s state capital. Annapolis is a lovely town, steeped in history, charming and lively, with a picturesque harbor waterfront. It was a mild day, and we were able to stay outdoors, so as to avoid catching or spreading the COVID. Then we came home and ate leftovers and started a fire in the fireplace and watched hockey and stayed up to see the ball drop. It was a surprisingly nice New Year’s Eve. 

And now it’s the first day of a new year, and 2022 seems full of possibilities. I don’t usually make resolutions, but I’m going to do that right now. Of course, I don’t know what those resolutions might be just yet, but I’m definitely going to try to break out of my routines. Well, not the writing–I’m going to keep doing that every day. And not the compulsive housecleaning because I can’t actually change my DNA or anything. But I’m going to try to think differently. I’m going to try to do better and be better. That’s enough of a resolution that I feel that I have something to strive toward, but not so specific that I’ll feel like a failure if I don’t accomplish it. After all, even a little bit better counts as better, right? 

*****

Have you ever had a back spasm? I’d never had one before last night, but now my lower back is seizing up, and it’s hard to stand up or bend over without pain. It’s exactly the same way that back pain is depicted in movies and TV shows. I’m grimacing and sucking in my breath and shuffling around like an old lady. I don’t know what I did to myself. I was fine and then I wasn’t. 

I took some ibuprofen, and I did some stretches, and I’m going to take a hot shower. Other than that, I’m going to do what I usually do about medical and health issues, which is absolutely nothing. I’ll wait for it to get better. I’ll sit around and see how it shakes out. When it does get better, I’ll pretend it never happened. If it gets worse, then I might call the doctor or something. This approach has gotten me through 56 years, and I see no reason to change. 

It’s January 2. According to a news story that I read this morning, Omicron is raging nearly uncontrolled, but public health authorities think that new infections could peak by mid January. That counts as good news, I guess. But I’m going to avoid the news for a bit, good or bad. That was one of the things that I was planning to do differently. I’m too connected. I need to unplug for a bit. Anyone who needs me knows where to find me. 

******

Throughout my years of school, I hoped against hope for a snow day on the first day after Christmas vacation. I didn’t mind school (I was a good student) and I always liked the first day of school in September (New teacher! New classes! New pens and pencils and notebooks!) but the first day after Christmas vacation was always miserable. The holidays were over, and the world seemed cold and dark and dreary, and we were going back to the same old stupid teachers and same old stupid classes and desks. Even the teachers were sad on the first day back after the holidays. So we always hoped for that last-minute snow emergency, that one-day reprieve that would delay the inevitable end of the holidays and return to school. And it never happened, not even once; not that I can remember, anyway. 

Today, January 3, should be the first day back at school after the holidays; instead, it is a snow day. My son got the reprieve that every student hopes for. Not only is school closed, but swim practice was cancelled. The 4:30 AM wake-up time is never fun, but it’s especially bleak on the morning after the Christmas holiday. 

My back is still messed up but it’s noticeably less messed up than it was yesterday, so I’m sure I’m fine. I Googled my symptoms and am following the self-care instructions for the non-serious condition that I believe that I have, and I expect to be back to normal by the end of the week. If not, then maybe I’ll actually call the doctor. I resolved to do things differently this year, so I guess I should stop ignoring medical symptoms in the hope that they’ll just go away. 

On the other hand, they usually DO just go away. Let’s see what happens, shall we? 

*****

Well what do you know? It really is better today! “Ignore it and it will go away'' remains solid medical advice, from me to me. 

I feel so much better, in fact, that I even like winter a little bit. It’s hard not to like winter a little bit when you look out your kitchen window and see a cardinal roosting bright red in a sparkling snow-covered forsythia bush. The snow is still fresh and gleaming, clean and bright. It’ll be gray and grimy in a day or so, but it’s certainly pretty right now. Let’s see how I feel about it on Friday. Watch this space. 

So winter is just getting started, but Christmas is over, at least in my house. I know that the season continues until January 6, but by January 2, I am finished with the joyous riot of Christmas paraphernalia, and ready to restore my house to its customary neat and orderly state. 

We started our Christmas decorating early this year–the halls were decked by Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend. It’s nice to have the decorations for the whole of December and Advent, but Christmas decorations do not improve with time. The tree and the ornaments and the lights and the wall hangings and the knick-knacks and kitchen decorations all look cheerful and charming for the first few weeks. Then it all starts to look a little bit cluttered. And then it starts to look a little bit seedy. Another week and it would have been like skid row up in here. So everything is gone and packed away, except for the tree, which will come down tomorrow. 

*****

I looked back at the last two years of January entries in my one line a day five-year journal, a gift from my sister from Christmas 2019. Me being me, of course I have been compulsive about writing that one line each day, and now I'm beginning year 3. 

I thought I'd see a huge difference in entries from pre-COVID early 2020 and mid-pandemic (as we now know it) early 2021, but most of last January was about weather and books and the insurrection, which happened one year ago tomorrow. The only clear trend in these months of daily journal entries was my terrible terrible handwriting. Really, it's just dreadful. I'm going to try to do better. Yet another resolution to keep. 

Anyway, my one-day love affair with winter is officially over. It's ugly and gray and cold today, and the snow is grubby and dirty and my once clean car is crusted with salt. Winter and I are done and we are never ever ever getting back together. 

*****

Today is January 6, 2022; one year since the Capitol riot, or insurrection, or whatever you want to call it. On his way to work today, a colleague of my husband’s took a picture of a jackass in a Civil War uniform, waving a Trump - Pence flag. The Civil War uniform was appropriate, though it was Union blue. Maybe the man's Confederate uniform was at the cleaners. Or maybe he doesn’t know the difference between Union and Confederate uniforms. Or maybe he thinks that Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant would have been on Trump’s side. 

It’s late afternoon now and I haven’t looked at news or social media since early this morning. If anyone is trying to storm the Capitol again, I haven’t heard about it. 

I worked like crazy today. The last six months or so of work ups and downs have taught me something valuable. Every time I think that I can’t do something, I just do it anyway, and I find that about 75 percent of the time, I actually can do the thing that I thought I couldn’t do. Or I can at least get other people to help me to do the thing that I thought I couldn’t; and that’s just as good, because the end result is the same. This isn’t necessarily what I have learned; I think I always knew that I could do things that I thought I couldn’t do because I already do and have done that. 

Anyone want to take a stab at diagramming that last sentence? Good luck. LMK what you come up with. 

Anyway, what I have really learned is that so many people in leadership positions do exactly what I am doing. They are handed a task or a problem or a giant responsibility and then they panic, thinking that they can’t handle it, that they don’t know what they’re doing. And then they do it anyway, because they have to, because people need them to. Again, not so revolutionary an idea; and not something that I really learned so much as re-learned. What is that saying? God doesn’t call the qualified; He qualifies the called. It’s a good thing to remember

*****

OK it’s time to wind down with this meandering mess. It’s January 7, a Friday, and the last day of the first week of 2022. Winter is trying to seduce me again. It snowed again last night and schools are closed again today, and I’m working in a comfortable sweater and pajama pants, and the sun is doing its sparkling-on-the-snow thing again. I even saw a cardinal roosting in a bush. It was a different bush, and maybe a different cardinal, but it still looked pretty. But I didn’t fall for it. Winter tried that line on me a few days ago, and then when I showed the tiniest bit of interest, it showed its true colors. Rather, it showed its true color, which is ugly dirt leaden gray. So I won’t be taken in this time. Winter, if you want me, you’ll have to figure out a way to give me the beautiful clean sparkling snow minus the 28 degree high temperatures. You have my number. You know where to find me. 

So yes, I’m all but immune to winter’s charms but another handbag called my name and I went running. This is the one, I’m quite sure. This is the handbag that will accommodate everything I want to carry, will look stylish, will match every piece of clothing I own, and will be appropriate for every occasion. Now all I have to do is hope for better weather, and wait for the nice UPS man to bring me the handbag of my dreams. 

Our tree is still up but all of the rest of our Christmas decorations are packed away until December. Work will remain a challenge but it’s Friday and I’ve accomplished some things and solved some problems and that’s enough for now. I got through almost a day and a half without thinking about COVID or insurrections. And my back is pretty much all better now. One week in, and 51 more to go. Happy 2022.