I think that I shall never see

I’m looking out my window right now, the corner window in our living room that has my favorite view of the trees in our neighbors’ yards, for several houses up the street. It’s a picture postcard October day. The sky is as blue as it gets without even a hint of a cloud and leaves are falling and the breeze is blowing through the branches and the gold and red and orange and green leaves are rustling. Someone is revving an engine somewhere; close enough that I can hear it but far enough away that the sound is faint. Otherwise, it’s very quiet. 

Two of the trees I’m looking at - an evergreen of some sort and a deciduous tree right next to it that looks like an oak - are extraordinarily tall. Sometimes they scare me. A high wind could take any of these big trees down, and someone’s house would go with them. It’s happened before. But mostly, I just love looking outside and seeing the sun stream through tree branches 30 feet high. This neighborhood is almost 60 years old, and those trees have been here since the beginning. Those trees are almost as old as me. 

*****

I sometimes wonder how I used to do all of the things I used to do. I worked part-time when my kids were young, but I returned to full-time work when my oldest started high school 10 years ago. I worked in the office every day, and then I came home and made dinner. I had several volunteer jobs. I went to every swim meet and every baseball game and every band concert. I was still in school during my part-time years, and my husband worked all the time, at odd hours. If I wasn’t working, I was cooking something or cleaning something or driving kids somewhere or teaching catechism or officiating at a swim meet. I was relentless. I was a force of nature. 

At 60, I’m still working full-time, and I expect to continue working for at least five more years. I HOPE to continue working for at least five more years. I like working in general, and I love my job. Working is easy. Working is a blessing. 

But nature and I have a different relationship now. I'm not so much of a force of it anymore. 

*****

It's Saturday afternoon now and we're driving home from the Eastern Shore after a swim meet at Salisbury. I'm riding shotgun now but I was the driver this morning and the Bay Bridge crossing was somewhat less terrifying than usual. It was clear but a bit overcast so there was no sun glare. It wasn't raining. It wasn't windy. Both spans were open so I didn't have to face oncoming cars. And traffic was light so I didn't have to worry about getting stuck at the top of the bridge. It was fine. 

Does that seem like a lot of fuss over a bridge? Maybe, but that bridge is four miles long and 200 feet high at its highest point, and everyone in Maryland is scared of it. There's actually a drive-over service for people who can't bring themselves to drive over the bridge themselves, and they do pretty good business. That bridge is no joke. 

*****

Leaves changing color and college swim meets and hockey - we went to our first Capitals game of the season, so it really is peak autumn. The Irish Channel on Friday night was a whole Capitals fan vibe, but it was a family of Wild fans getting up to leave who waved us over to grab their table. “We saw you come in before the other people waiting so we wanted to make sure you got a table,” the man said. We thanked him and he said "Hey, Minnesota nice, right?” 

"If you were Penguins fans,” I said, "you'd have looked us right in the eye as you ordered another round.”

“And if we were Rangers fans," he said, “we'd have stayed here all night just to spite you." We all laughed. 

My older son was with us, and there was another older couple with a young woman sitting in the booth directly across from us. The man and the older woman appeared to be in their 70s, and the young woman could have been any age from 24 or so (my son’s age) to late 30s. Everyone that age looks very young to me. She could have been the couple’s daughter or their granddaughter, depending on their age and hers, but I guessed that she was their daughter. The three of them had the self-contained family intimacy of late-in-life parents with their treasured only child. They weren’t dressed for the game, and the mother spoke with an Irish accent so I imagined that they were just out for a nice dinner and a few pints and some live music. They seemed lovely. 

Really, almost everyone in the Channel seemed lovely. Most of the patrons were Capitals fans, with a few Minnesota supporters in their green jerseys. I’m glad our jerseys aren’t green. The non-hockey crowd were dressed for a casual October Friday pub night - colorful sweaters and t-shirts and hoodies and well-worn jeans. Almost no one was in work clothes - so many people are furloughed right now that the Friday night happy hour felt much more like Saturday afternoon. It was much quieter in general than usual, and the Metro trains were practically empty, but the people who were out and about were in good spirits. And we didn’t see a single Guard member. 

*****

I missed the protest on Saturday, but I got to honk my horn and wave at the protestors in Salisbury. It had not occurred to me that there would be protestors in Salisbury, the largest town on the very red Eastern Shore, but I was delighted to see it. There were hundreds of people holding signs and wearing crazy costumes and funny hats and t-shirts, all smiling and friendly as they peacefully exercised their First Amendment rights. And then the next day, the President of the United States shared an AI-generated video of himself wearing a crown and piloting a bomber with “King Trump” painted on the side, dropping tons of excrement on protestors. 

And I’m not even mad. I can’t muster even the slightest outrage over that gross video. Honestly, it was one of the most honest and forthright statements that has ever come out of this administration. Donald Trump hates America and most of its people, and if he could fly over American cities dropping actual shit bombs, he would absolutely do it. The White House social media team is just telling it like it is. They’re keeping it real. 

*****

October just started, and it’s already almost over. It’s time to figure out our Thanksgiving plans. It’s time to do my Christmas shopping. Everything seems up in the air right now, though. Everything is in flux, and I can’t decide what to do from one minute to the next. 

Still, it’s strangely comforting to know that the world is a mess because it always has been and it always will be. And it’s also beautiful and it always has been and always will be. It’s a week later now, and I’m back at my window. It’s another picture postcard October day. The trees are a little less green and a little more gold and orange and red than they were a week ago. They’re still rustling in the breeze and the sky is still clear blue. There’s not a shit bomb in sight, at least not now. 

Three Days that Did Not Shake the World

I do love a three-day weekend, even if it’s for a minor holiday - especially if it’s for a minor holiday, because I don’t have to shop or cook or decorate for Indigenous People’s Day. It’s just a nice little break. It’s a lovely Saturday morning, sunny and cool but not cold and very autumn-like. I’m still not reconciled to the end of summer, but I’ve been sitting outside for an hour, and nothing has bitten me, so I have to acknowledge that fall isn’t all bad. And I do like to wear sweaters. 

*****

I keep thinking about October 2024, the gosh-darn good old days, when I had 99 problems but Donald Trump being President wasn’t one. I never thought that he COULDN’T win but I did think that he WOULDN’T win. I was hopeful, even optimistic. I miss the October 2024 version of me. 

*****

It’s Sunday now, rainy and gloomy and very October-ish. It’s a soup-making day, so I’m going to make some soup. Yesterday turned out to be a rather nice day. I did my usual Saturday household tasks and errands, and we spent most of the afternoon hanging around outside in the absolutely perfect early fall weather. Then we went to the movies. 

*****

I’ve never read any of Thomas Pynchon’s novels, but I think I’ll read Vineland, which was apparently the inspiration for the movie we saw last night, “One Battle After Another.” That movie was insane (and insanely long), but very good. I’m sure that Leonardo DiCaprio and Sean Penn will be nominated for all the big awards, but Regina Hall is the one who stood out for me. She’s only on screen for a short time, but her performance as the kind and courageous revolutionary Deandra was beautiful and memorable. DiCaprio was very good, too, as was Teyana Taylor as the revolutionary femme fatale Perfidia Beverly Hills. Sean Penn was Sean Penn. He’s fun to watch, if nothing else, and the rest of this cast was more than equal to his scenery chewing. 

*****

It’s Monday now, and I’m not working because it’s a holiday. Today is Indigenous People's Day, FKA Columbus Day. When my children were growing up, IPD was never a school holiday. Instead, it was open house day because so many Montgomery County parents work for the government in one way or another, so it was a good time for parents to visit their kids’ classrooms. My husband and I also always went out for a late morning breakfast on IPD. We'd eat eggs and toast and laugh about how mad our kids would be if they knew we were at the Tastee Diner without them. 

The Tastee Diner is gone now, may it rest in peace. Our kids are grown, but the IPD breakfast tradition continues at our beloved Silver Diner. Eggs and toast taste so much better with diner coffee in a thick white mug. 

*****

I went shopping yesterday. It was raining, and so the mall was as good a place to go as any other. I don't shop in actual stores very often, and maybe I should, because I left that mall empty handed, which is perfect because I don't need a darn thing. Nordstrom has some very nice clothes right now, and I tried things on but nothing inspired me, and so I went home with all my money. 

And I did make soup, and then found out that no one else was going to be home for dinner. This was also perfect because now I have a huge pot of soup and I don't have to cook anything tonight. Soup is always better the next day, anyway.

*****

My husband had to go to work after our late breakfast on Monday, and it was a gloomy wet day, perfect for hanging around the house and watching a movie, so that’s what I did. I had never seen “Reds” before, and so I watched it in honor of Diane Keaton. My feelings about this movie are complicated. First, it was quite brave of Warren Beatty to make a 3.5 hour epic about the Bolshevik Revolution, when “Doctor Zhivago” was not all that old in 1981, and comparisons were inevitable. BLUF: “Reds” is very good, but “Doctor Zhivago” is better. 

Things that I really liked about “Reds” - I loved all of the witnesses’ first-hand stories, but I cannot understand why Beatty didn’t identify them onscreen. Maybe they didn’t want to be identified. Once a radical, always a radical. I also loved the great acting (especially Maureen Stapleton as Emma Goldman), beautiful cinematography, and amazing dialogue. But of course, misogyny is always going to be one of the biggest stars of any movie made in 1981. Louise Bryant, played by Diane Keaton, comes across as whiny and entitled and a little boring. John Reed (Warren Beatty directed himself), on the other hand, comes across as selfless and heroic and charming. But Louise comes through at the end, so maybe the perceived misogyny is just my imagination. 

See? I’m gaslighting myself now. 

Warren Beatty as John Reed is one of those performances that makes me think that the actor wishes that they were the character. I thought the same thing as I watched Brad Pitt play Billy Beane in “Moneyball" (one of my favorite movies), and Morgan Freeman playing the President or the Speaker of the House in who knows how many different movies. Julia Roberts won an Oscar for “Erin Brockovich” because she wanted to be a tough working-class broad sticking it to the man. I can watch “Hidden Figures” any time because Taraji P. Henson and Octavia Spencer and Janelle Monae played it as though they wanted to be Black female mathematicians at NASA in the Jim Crow south. I bet Warren Beatty still thinks it would have been cool to be an intrepid American reporter witnessing the Bolshevik Revolution first-hand. 

*****

I was sad on Monday night. I should have done more this weekend, I thought. I should have had people over, or gone hiking or done something memorable.  But I’m in survival mode right now, like the rest of non-MAGA America. At least I made soup, right? At least I went to the movies. The Capitals beat the Islanders and the Rangers. I read Nancy Mitford and added two more books (Vineland and 10 Days that Shook the World, which will be a re-read) to my TBR list. I took the money that I would have spent at the mall and donated it to our local food bank. It was a nice though not spectacular weekend; a quiet little interlude. Sometimes, that’s enough. 

Artifice

Have you heard about “work slop”? Work slop is AI-generated work product that looks really pretty and professional but is actually - wait for it - slop. LinkedIn is all abuzz about work slop. People are shocked - shocked! - that people who would use Gemini or ChatGPT to write their memos or their slide decks or their data tables would also not bother to check their work and to correct what doesn’t make sense. 

Not long ago, I was handed a pile of work slop. Someone asked me to edit a document and I realized just a few words into the first paragraph that I was reading something whose only human contribution was the initial AI prompt. I had to rewrite it completely. 

Part of me felt vindicated. AI thinks it can take my job, does it? Well until they come up with a generative AI application that can write like a human being who actually uses and understands the English (or any other) language, good luck to it. 

But I’m me, of course, so I immediately imagined a worst-case scenario. The WCS is my default setting. What if AI becomes so dominant that it no longer needs to try to mimic us, because we will be mimicking it? What if we all end up speaking and writing - and even thinking - in the language of AI-generated social media scripts and marketing collateral? 

*****

A few months ago, I read The Portrait of Dorian Gray for the first time. Dorian Gray was published in 1890, so we can’t say that preoccupation with the superficial and desire for an unnatural level of physical perfection are 21st century phenomena. Oscar Wilde recognized obsession with youth well over a hundred years ago. I wonder what he would have made of Kristi Noem or Martha Stewart or that crazy tech CEO dude who spends millions of dollars trying to stay young forever (unsuccessfully, I might add - he’s in his 40s, and he looks like he’s in his 40s - he could have achieved those results for free). 

I’m thinking about how AI would figure in a modern retelling of Dorian Gray. Maybe instead of a portrait, there’d be an AI double who would deteriorate with age while the real Dorian Gray built billion-dollar electricity-gobbling data centers and exploitative gig work platforms and sports betting empires and cryptocurrency exchanges. The forever-young Dorian Gray would have 1b followers on social media watching him hustle and grind and self-optimize, and wondering how he manages to never look older than 21. The AI Dorian Gray would look like Stephen Miller at age 80. Real Dorian would employ Blackwater mercenaries to guard the safe room where the holographic AI Dorian is projected on a wall, aging in real time. 

Look at me, out here writing fan fiction. 

*****

“Have you ever heard about the dot com bubble?” That was my 24-year-old son to me at dinner the other night. Yes, I had heard about it. I lived through it lol. My son believes that we’re sitting on top of an AI bubble, and he can’t wait for it to burst. He might be right. If enough people have to read and edit the kind of “writing” that I dealt with this week, and if enough people start to notice that their electricity and water bills are much higher than they should be, and if enough older people like me understand that AI is a big part of the reason why their new college graduates cannot find jobs, and if everyone finally realizes that the AI edgelords actually don’t have our best interests at heart, then the AI backlash could gain steam. 

I read somewhere that Microsoft “invested” in OpenAI by giving them “credits” for free use of Microsoft supercomputer labs. Microsoft then claimed those credit redemptions as “revenue.” If one company claiming an imaginary multi-billion dollar “investment” in another company and then calling that company’s use of its imaginary credits “revenue” isn’t the clearest ever example of fake accounting, then I don’t know anything about anything. And I don’t know anything about anything, really. The stock market and the futures markets and the currency markets have always been black boxes to me, completely incomprehensible. But I have a grasp of the basics, and one of the basics is that bubbles that burst are usually built on dodgy financial practices. 

*****

It’s all very grim, but despite my initial WCS projection, I am uncharacteristically optimistic, at least about this one thing. I think that people are going to push back, and we’re not going to let AI take over and do all of our thinking and creating for us. Other than a certain very creepy college professor, I don’t know anyone who actually wants to watch Tilly Norwood on screen. 

One day out of 107

Oh what a time to be alive in America. I’m reading 107 Days, Kamala Harris’s memoir of her 107-day presidential campaign and my gosh, I cannot believe that this all happened just a short year ago. Less than one short year, we are 70 percent down the road toward the fascism finish line, and the rest of the road is downhill and icy (in more ways than one). 

I was about to say that I can’t believe how bad it’s actually been, but I absolutely can and do believe it. I’ve been expecting the worst since 2015, pretty much since the day Trump came down that infamous escalator. Ten years later, he is still wreaking havoc and still riding escalators and every day is proof of the idea that you can be shocked and unsurprised all at once. Every day, I’m shocked by what these people are doing to this country, but I’m never surprised. 

*****

One of the many things that I find really humbling is that when I read books about recent history, I will realize as I’m reading that I remember little or nothing about episodes that were huge news just five or ten years ago. Same thing goes for biographies of contemporary figures, people I think I know a lot about - I find that I know pretty much nothing. But I read VP Harris’s earlier memoir, The Truths We Hold, just a few months ago, so I was pretty solid on her biographical details. As for the historical details of the 2024 campaign, I found that I remembered pretty much everything Kamala Harris describes almost exactly as she describes it, and as though it all happened yesterday. I mean, it DID happen yesterday, relatively speaking - it’s not even a year since the 2024 election. But it also seems like part of a bygone era. When I look back to the very recent time just before the 2024 election, it feels like I’m looking across a deep chasm, like we have crossed a line from the before time to now that we’ll never be able to cross back again. 

*****

107 Days is written in short diary-like chapters, titled for the number of days remaining until the election. Most of the entries have an in-the-moment or just after the moment quality. The book reads as though Kamala Harris still hasn’t really processed the events of the summer and fall of 2024, and she probably hasn’t. Most of us haven’t. Some critics have complained that she blames others for the campaign’s (few and far between) mistakes and for the “loss” to Trump, but that is nonsense. I think Kamala Harris was near-perfect in that campaign, but she made a few minor mistakes as anyone would, and it feels like she’s still beating herself up over those mistakes. 

A few takeaways: Tim Walz is great but she probably should have gone with Mark Kelly or Josh Shapiro or even Pete Buttigieg even though he wasn’t on the short list. The Venn diagram of people who won’t vote for a Black woman and people who won’t vote for a gay man is a closed circle, so Buttigieg would not have harmed the ticket, and he is the smartest, sharpest politician in the United States. Mark Kelly is also brilliant, and he’s tougher than Walz. Kamala is 100 percent right that Tim Walz was far too nice to JD Vance during that debate; and that’s partly because he is a decent man who is nice to everyone but it’s more because (like a lot of politicians) he is still playing by the rules of two decades ago when we thought that “both sides” had the country’s best interests at heart. This is no longer the case. 

*****

My son had a swim meet at Gallaudet University the weekend before the election last year. Gallaudet has an absolutely terrible swim team but the Gallaudet meet is great. Some of their swimmers are completely new to the sport, and it’s amazing watching them compete. Last year, a Gallaudet swimmer who is almost 30 years old took over two minutes to swim the 100 freestyle. Both teams applauded enthusiastically as he finally finished, jubilant and exhausted. 

We walked from the NoMa-Gallaudet Metro stop to the Gallaudet aquatic center, just about a mile. It was a gorgeous autumn day. Harris-Walz signs were everywhere, right next to Halloween decorations that hadn’t been taken down yet. People were out walking and sitting on their front porches. People smiled and waved at us as we walked by, and we smiled and waved back. Marymount won the meet, of course, because a lot of high school teams would beat Gallaudet. The walk back to the Metro was just as lovely as the walk to Gallaudet, with the autumn sky turning pink and orange and purple and the leaves crunching underfoot on the tree-lined neighborhood streets. But that’s not why it was a perfect day. 

*****

107 Days does not end happily, as we all know. As much as I enjoyed this book, I did not enjoy reliving the night of November 6, 2024, when Kamala Harris and her team and all of her supporters watching the returns on TV realized with growing apprehension and eventual horror that Donald Trump had “won” the election and that we were facing a second Trump presidency. And everyone knew that the second Trump term would be far worse than the first, and everyone who knew that was right. 

When I think about how much has happened in just a few short months, I think back to that Saturday in November, walking the neighborhood streets from the Metro to Gallaudet and back and smiling back at all of the smiling, hopeful faces, and feeling not exactly sure but extremely optimistic about the prospect of Kamala Harris as our next President. It was a beautiful day. 

Deadline: A week in autumn

It's payday, and I didn't get paid. Well, actually, it appears that I did get paid; or rather that a direct deposit was generated for me, but the money never made it into my checking account. 

My bosses are looking into this, and I trust them. I trust our new Oracle payroll system a lot less; and my little local bank, which was just acquired by a large regional bank, I don’t trust at all. But no matter who is responsible for this little snafu, someone has my money, and I would like to have it back, especially since I fully expect to be furloughed in a few days. 

*****

But let's talk about the good news, shall we? College swimming kicks off today, and we're on our way to Durham NC for Marymount vs. Duke vs. Boston College. Duke and BC are both D1 teams so Marymount is the most under- of underdogs. But do not count them out. Those Saints have heart, I tell you what. 

*****

It's Saturday now and we're on our way home, a long drive on a very rainy day. The Saints finished last at Duke, as expected, but there were some good swims, especially from our freshmen in their first college meet. My son did well, a little off his best times, but very solid for the first meet of the season. His medley relay split was especially good, faster than both BC swimmers. 

And I got paid, too, thankfully. I'm spending money like a highly paid person with rock solid job security and not a care in the world, as opposed to what I am, which is a mid level individual contributor for a nonprofit quasi government foundation who is about to be placed on unpaid leave in literally days. I should be hanging on to every dollar. Instead I'm out here taking road trips and staying in hotels and having dinner and drinks in a bar at 930 on a Friday night. Reckless is what it is. 

*****

The paycheck issue was resolved, followed immediately by another minor financial issue - minor enough that it won’t really hurt me but involving enough money ($300) that I can’t just let it go. I’d tell you all about it here, but I won’t because it’s boring. But if I haven’t gotten the responsible corporation to give me back my $300 by the end of the week, then I might need to write about it in detail and at considerable length, just to assuage my feelings and to feel like I’m sticking it to the man. You have been duly warned. 

It’s Sunday morning now. It’s peaceful and quiet, though very messy, in my backyard - it rained hard all day yesterday and the patio is a little bit of a disaster. I’ll clean it up momentarily. Meanwhile, yesterday was just a very difficult day for many reasons that I also won’t write about here because the reasons are pretty much all in my head and you’ve probably seen just about enough of the inside of my head. I certainly have. Meanwhile, I’m probably going to be temporarily (one hopes) unemployed in 48 hours, so let me just go shopping. 

LOL. JK! 

Maybe. 

*****

It’s Monday morning now, and I would ordinarily be working right now but I am having technical issues that I am waiting for the service desk to resolve. 

Other than that, today is a better day. I did buy one little thing, a little thing that I don’t need but that also didn’t cost much money. I pulled myself out of yesterday’s funk with a whirlwind of housework and yard work and grocery shopping and cooking. And the aforementioned frivolous shopping, of course. Now I just have to worry about whether or not I’ll have a job after tomorrow, and that’s honestly the least of my worries given all of this (gesturing wildly, as usual, at everything). 

Meanwhile, I’m working from home today but it’s 8:40 and I still can’t connect to the network so I might have to go in. I’ll change into work-from-work clothes, and I’ll try again at 9, and then I’ll just go to the office. Honestly, I’m probably better off leaving the house today anyway. 

*****

I did end up going into the office. The VPN problem was universal, but the onsite network was fine. Even though I got a late start and even though I was distracted, checking for updates on budget negotiations approximately every five minutes, I powered through quite a bit of work. Then I went home and cleaned an already-clean house. And of course, I kept obsessively checking my phone for news updates, with MSNBC on the bedroom TV. 

I know, I know. I can’t do a gosh-darn thing about the budget or the appropriations bill or the continuing resolution or whatever the heck we are calling it today. At this point, the House Republicans are not even in Washington, which makes a shutdown at midnight tonight a near certainty. And I’m not all that worried about it from a financial perspective, because I have money in the bank, and I have a working spouse, and we’ll be fine. The uncertainty is challenging for me. I don’t like not knowing what I’ll be doing tomorrow. And if a shutdown goes on for longer than a few weeks, then I will have to start worrying about money. 

But not today. It’s Tuesday. It’s still September. If it happens, it happens, and everything will be fine. And now, I’m going to go touch grass or read a book or something. 

*****

Well, what do you know? The government did shut down, and I still went to work. I learned at about 6:30 on Tuesday night that I had been added to the essential personnel list (yes, even contractors can be essential personnel) and I reported for work as always. And because I work for a foundation and not directly for the military, I’ll be paid as usual. It’s a relief.

Oddly, traffic this morning was heavier than usual. The base looked much as it always does, which didn’t surprise me as much as the traffic, because NSAB is a medical center, so it operates as usual during government shutdowns. There are certain functions associated with my job that I cannot perform during the shutdown, but I’ll be covering for a few furloughed Federal employees, so I’ll be quite busy. I’m very grateful that I’m still working. If the shutdown drags on for weeks like the last Trump shutdown, then they’ll probably have to furlough me at some point, but in uncharacteristic fashion, I will worry about that if and when it happens. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.