Metrics

After 12 years of dedicated Fitbit use, I finally gave up my Fitbit, and I don’t miss it. I don’t like the Fitbit integration with the Google industrial complex, and I wanted to return to an analog watch, like the Timex Snoopy watch that my husband bought for me a few weeks ago, just because. As I’ve mentioned before, I love Timex watches, and this one is a return to my Timex roots. Is it silly for a 60-year-old lady to be wearing Snoopy on her wrist? Possibly. Do I care? Absolutely not. 

*****

Even though I don’t track my step count anymore, I’m pretty sure that I’m maintaining the same daily mileage. After 12 years, I am very familiar with the amount of walking it takes to reach the daily 10,000-step goal, and I continue to walk that much every day, more or less. 

And I’m tracking several other streaks, too. Streaks are rather important to me. I swam for seven straight days, a very short streak ended by a thunderstorm. That’s the thing about a summer swimming streak - even with the best intentions, you’ll lose your streak as soon as it thunders. That’s the rule. 

My maximum Wordle streak was 177, a figure that I’m trying to match and then surpass. I’m at 34 now, so it’s going to be a while. My Connections streak is at 20, but my maximum with that game is only 42, so I could surpass that in a few weeks. Connections is a harder game, though. Winning 43 straight will not be easy. 

Then there’s writing. I write every day, and I mean every day, except when I don’t, because I forgot yesterday. I just completely forgot. I hadn’t kept a day by day count but I had written every day for months. So now I start over. Every new streak begins with the first day, which is today. 

*****

And that lasted one day. I skipped writing yesterday, quite deliberately, because I had a colonoscopy and didn’t feel up to anything afterward. Thankfully, my results were good; and thankfully, it’s over because holy cow, it was awful - not the procedure itself, which was fine, but the prep, which made me so sick that I still don’t feel like eating, even though today is Friday and my last solid food was on Tuesday. I’ll write all about it later. Fair warning - it’s disgusting and I won’t spare the details. 

I’ll get to that tomorrow. Today begins the new writing streak - yes, me threatening to gross you out with a 0/5 review of ClenPiq as a colonoscopy prep method does so count as writing. I’ll start a new swimming streak this weekend, too, but the weather forecast is not promising, and I’ll be lucky to get three straight days. But my Wordle streak is up to 36 now, and my Connections streak is at 22. I’m unstoppable. 

Volunteer

I had a very odd conversation on Monday. I’m the Secretary of our neighborhood association’s board of trustees, and people occasionally call me to ask a question or make a suggestion or complain about something. Of the complaints, about 40 percent are reasonable and/or actionable, and about 60 percent are not. 

This last call falls into neither category. A woman called me at 3:30 PM, and I asked if I could call her back. She said that she would not and could not possibly provide a name or number and that email was also completely out of the question. “Well, I’m still at work and I can’t talk right now. So I’ll need at least a number to call you back,” I said. The woman said that she was disabled and needed an answer to a few questions, and I told her that I would be happy to help but that I can’t do association work when I’m at my job and that absent a phone number, I’d have no way to reach her. She sighed and asked me when I might be available to talk. I told her any time after 5:30, and I braced myself for that phone to ring at 5:31. 

That phone rang at 5:31. She summed up our earlier brief conversation, and said that she was blind but that her “assistant” (in scare quotes for a reason) had noticed that her neighbor had a very tall, very oddly constructed fence. She wanted information about the neighborhood covenants to see if the fence was too high. 

Neighborhood covenants are a sticky little wicket, given that some of the early HOA covenants from the 1940s and beyond restricted communities by race. Our covenants, however, are the more garden-variety type that govern things like accessory dwellings and sheds and driveways and of course, fence height. Those covenants exist but we do not enforce them. Our Board is all-volunteer, and it exists primarily to maintain our shared property - the pool and parking lot and tennis courts and basketball court. 

We went back and forth on this point. She felt very strongly that we should take a very active role in enforcing aesthetic standards, and I told her that as volunteers we had neither the time nor the inclination to police our neighbors’ properties, and that our county has enforcement mechanisms that she can make use of. As per our name, I pointed out, we are a recreational association, not a homeowners’ association. 

She was not nice, and I got less and less nice as this very unpleasant conversation dragged on. I finally told her that I’d said all I could say and that I was going to end the call, and that if she wanted another Board member to call her, I’d make sure that happened but that she’d have to give me a name and number. 

That’s when she saw fit to tell me that she was actually the interpreter for the actual homeowner she’d been pretending to be. I should probably have picked this up on my own because at one point in the conversation, she said “I’m reading the newsletter right now and it clearly states that you are the homeowner’s association for the neighborhood.” As a blind person, she would not have been able to read from our little community newsletter, which is not offered in Braille. 

She claimed that not only did she not have to disclose her status as an OPI (on the phone interpreter, which I learned is the term) but that she was obliged not to do so. This isn’t true. I looked it up. Not only is an OPI obliged to disclose her status to her interlocutor, she is also obliged to say exactly and only what the person she is interpreting for says. Not only was she not interpreting verbatim (because a blind person is not reading aloud from any newsletter), I suspected that she wasn’t even in the same room with the blind woman. I think this woman might very well be an assistant or interpreter or whatever for a neighborhood resident, but I also think that this call was nothing more than an opportunity for a person who wanted to pick a fight about fences and other nonsense. 

******

Did you think this was all there is to this story? Oh no, I’m just getting started. Part 2 begins with the retired head of the association who is also a retired Congressional Budget Office lawyer. He likes to remain very very involved, and we are generally all very deferential to him because he’s done a great deal for the community. He also has a huge ego and a rather thin skin. 

Just to be respectful, I emailed him to ask if my interpretation of the law regarding OPIs was correct. Bear in mind that this email was clear and detailed, outlining the entire situation. This man, who for years has labored under the impression that I’m one of the dimmest bulbs in our community chandelier, responded that I should just ask the woman to email him and that he’d help her with her questions. 

I know that this man thinks I’m an idiot, and I’ve never cared enough about his opinion to disabuse him of this notion. But he didn’t even bother to read my email, because if he had he’d have known that A. the woman refuses to communicate via email and that B. she also refused to provide a name or any contact information of any sort, making it quite impossible for me to follow up with her and ask her to email our elder statesman. 

Do you think that this man was chastened in any way by my pointing out his obvious failure to read my email? Well let’s see. Here is his second response, verbatim: 

It is best that she emails me. We are away, will be back before July 4th.  I also can chat with her at that time. Can you get her name, address and phone number, email?  Tell her that she needs to communicate with me?  That you have said all you can?

This is a man who has consistently over a period of 15 years or so let me know in ways that I’m sure he believes are subtle but which absolutely are not subtle, that he thinks that I’m not very bright, and that I should just let the grownups handle things. And I have never pretended to be a mastermind, not for a moment - however, I do possess basic reading comprehension skills, and the most basic of reading comprehension skills would be all that’s necessary to understand why both of his responses to me, but especially that second response, are the work of an idiot. 

Smug in the knowledge that one of us is indeed an idiot, and that the one is not me, I responded as follows: 

I did tell her that I've said all that I can. And as I mentioned, she absolutely refuses to provide a name or contact information. We went back and forth on this point. She called from a private number so I don't even have the number saved in my phone. And as I also mentioned, she will not communicate via email. If she calls me again, I can give her your phone number with your permission. I'll see if someone else can answer my question about rules for interpreters because I'm still curious. 

His response was curt: 

Yes, she can call me. Here’s my number. 

And that’s how I knew that I’d finally gotten through, because whatever else this man is, he’s never rude; in fact, he disguises his contempt for morons like me with exaggerated and verbose courtesy. This man loves to use his words, spoken or written. The very brevity of this response proves that I have done what literally no one else in this community has ever done in the last 40 years: I left him speechless, so to speak. I’d just as soon not have wasted my time on any of this, but I’ll be riding the high of shutting this person up for the next few days. Pro tip, genius: Read the email before you respond. 

Here she comes back

It’s the middle of June now and it’s finally hot, and I mean hot. High temperatures for the last few days have been in the mid 90s with the kind of densely humid air that you don’t so much breathe as absorb. Throw in some ice cream, a graduation party or two, and a pool that’s finally warm enough to swim in, and you have what could actually pass for summer. 

Current events are much as they have been throughout this year. The terrible news is constant, but there are bright spots. The Iran war keeps running hot and cold, and the Epstein conspiracy appears to be even worse than we thought (and it was already really bad), and Elon Musk is now a trillionaire, which is a thing that should not exist. On the other hand, it’s been really fun watching New York celebrate their beloved Knicks. And Trump’s name is coming off the Kennedy Center today! And far be it from me to ever wish for bad weather, but maybe it’ll rain on his MMA birthday party on Sunday. 

*****

This year is the first year since 2007 - since Bush 43! - that we haven’t had any connection to our neighborhood swim team. My older son started swimming in 2007 and my youngest aged out of summer swimming in 2023, but then he came back as a coach for the 2024 and 2025 seasons, which meant that he lived at home and went to daily practices and Wednesday night B meets and Friday night pasta parties and Saturday morning A meets, and so our household routine felt very much the same as it had every summer for 19 straight summers. 

Now he’s living in Virginia - not far from home, which is nice - and coaching a big-deal summer team in Division 1 of the Northern Virginia Swim League. It’s a big promotion for him and he’s making a lot more money and he’s excited about doing something new, so I’m happy for him. But a hot Saturday morning in June with no one in the house running out the door to a swim meet? I’m not used to this. 

*****

And I’m a little sad about it, and about many other things. My mental health has not been so good lately, for a lot of reasons with which I will not bore you. Except that I will still rail about evil billionaires and even more evil would-be dictators - they are not the only reason why I’m depressed but they’re not helping matters, either. But swimming outdoors on a sunny day fixes a lot of things, and I felt much better yesterday after a swim. I don’t really swim in the winter anymore, so I’m working my way back on speed (from slow to less slow) and form and endurance. Yesterday, I did about ⅔ of my usual lap swim and I’m a little sore around the shoulders. But I’ll get back up to speed, so to speak. 

*****

It’s Sunday morning now, and I didn’t go to Mass. Maybe next week. I’m very happy for New York and the Knicks, even though Philadelphia and Washington are my cities, and I don’t pay much attention to basketball. Let’s call it East Coast Urban Solidarity - Boston and Philadelphia and Washington reserve the right to hate New York’s guts but the rest of the country better show some respect. Our New York family has been through a lot, and they deserve this win.They have the best mayor in the United States, and now they have a sports championship. Good for them. 

Later today, we’ll go to a graduation party for one of my younger son’s best friends and his older sister (who also graduated with her Master’s degree). His parents are our very dear friends too. This is one of the very few parties that I would not miss right now. And I’m hoping that the threatened thunderstorms don’t materialize because even though I’d love to see Trump’s birthday party ruined, I don’t want it to rain on my friends’ party. Maybe there will be a little microclimate event with derecho storms right over the White House. That would be nice, and fitting. 

*****

The weather held, for both the graduation party and for the $60 million taxpayer-funded birthday party for the worst octogenarian in the world. A MAGA MMA fighter insulted the former First Lady because nothing else he has to say would get any attention whatsoever, and I’m sure that everyone laughed when literally no one in that audience is worthy to be in the same room with Michelle Obama. The good thing is that last night it was too hot outside even for me, and I’m sure that it was miserable for everyone sitting in the seats surrounding that stupid octagon. I hope so, anyway, because I’m just that petty. Mrs. Obama once famously said “When they go low, we go high.” And I respect her for that, but from now on when they go low, I go subterranean. 

*****

It was nice while it lasted, that little summer blast. I shouldn’t complain because most people really prefer the weather we’re having now - sunny and very dry and breezy and not at all humid and rather cool. But it’s summer, and I love hot hazy summer days. I went swimming last night and the water was still warm, but the air was September cool. Getting in the water was fine. Getting out was not. And that’s a metaphor for a lot of things, isn’t it? 

Revolution on paper

I have this little book journal that I received as a free Barnes and Noble member gift. It has a cute little book patterned jacket, a section for a list of books, and then individual pages for each book, with spaces for the book’s title, author, publisher, publication date, and genre and then the rest of the page for the reader to write her notes or reflections on the book. Earlier this year, I thought that it would be fun to actually use the book journal but predictably, it became another anxiety-fueled compulsion; just another item to add to my to-do list. But then I did something very much unlike me - I just stopped. I put the book journal back on the bookshelf, and I went on my way rejoicing. 

*****

Last night, I attended the monthly meeting of our neighborhood association’s board of trustees, of which I am a member. We usually meet on Godforsaken Zoom but now that the pool is open, we met in person at the pool pavilion. Maybe it will be warm enough to swim someday, but that’s a conversation for another day.

It was nice to see everyone in person. I took notes by hand rather than on my Chromebook, which made it easier to participate in the discussion, but when it’s time for me to type up those notes, I might be questioning my life choices. My handwriting is not so good. 

When I wasn’t taking notes, I was looking at our treasurer’s notebook. If I could have taken pictures of that notebook, I would have, but that would have been weird. Still, though, that notebook was photogenic. It was a hardcover journal, possibly a Moleskine, with a ribbon bookmark and an elastic band to secure the cover. When the notebook was closed you could see the very clear demarcation between the crisp and undisturbed virgin pages and the pages that were already filled, slightly crinkled and puffy. When the notebook was open, I saw pages completely covered with tiny delicate script, from end to end and top to bottom. As the pages turned, I saw neatly aligned bulleted lists of things to do, with the completed things carefully crossed out. It was really quite beautiful. I wanted a closer look. I wanted to see if this notebook was mainly for work or if it contained her entire life. 

It was the latter. Oddly enough, someone else was as interested in that notebook as I was, and that person asked about the notebook, which meant that I got to hear all the notebook lore without having to be the weirdo who asked about it. 

The notebook owner seemed pleased by the question. “It’s a bullet journal,” she said. Of course! That’s where I recognized those hyper-organized pages with their bullets and check marks and other tiny symbols. “I need to write everything down,” she said, “and it’s much better if I keep everything - work, personal, kid stuff, volunteer stuff - in the same notebook.” 

Having tried the bullet journal method a few years ago, I know that it doesn’t work for me. Or rather, it does, but it becomes a compulsion-driven job in itself, just like the abandoned Barnes and Noble book journal turned out to be. It’s tempting, though. That notebook made me want to go home that minute, start with a fresh new notebook (I have several in reserve at all times) and to turn that new notebook into a gosh-darn work of art. 

*****

Thanks to social media, I know that I am definitely not the only person preoccupied with notebooks. Even in that quite small meeting on Tuesday, at least one other person was interested enough in someone else’s notebook to actually ask a question about it. Thank goodness I’m not also obsessed with pens because that could run into money. My favorite pens are the classic 4-color Bic pens that I have loved since I was 8 years old, and they’re pretty inexpensive. 

The thing is that those 4-color pens are perfect for bullet journaling because you can color code without switching pens all the time. They’re also great for making decorative little scrolls and doodles. And if I start keeping an organized bullet journal-style notebook, I’ll definitely improve my terrible handwriting because I won’t want to mess up my nice notebook. 

*****

I don’t carry a notebook everywhere I go. I always have a pen (usually several) and I can always find a scrap of paper if I need to write something down. If I need to really write something when I’m away from my laptop, I just use my phone. But I’m tired of my phone. I’m tired of phones in general. Everyone is. Maybe I’ll go out there and throw my phone into the nearest fountain like Andy Sachs at the end of The Devil Wears Prada.  Maybe other people will throw their phones into their neighborhood fountains. Maybe that’s what will start the revolution. 

Untimely reviews

Chris Rea’s “Fool (If You Think it’s Over)” is one of those songs that I can’t skip through. If it starts playing on the radio just as I’m parking, then I’m going to sit in the car until it’s over. 

This song was popular in 1978. I was 12, and I remember hearing it all the time and not particularly liking it. I liked up-tempo pop and disco at the time. “Fool” is not quite a ballad but it’s not really a pop song either. And something about it felt off. At 12, I was quite aware of creepy men, and I thought that the song’s voice was that of a creepy older man chasing after a young girl. But I was wrong. The lyrics that I thought were creepy turned out to be actually really sweet when you know the backstory. And thanks to the internet, I know the backstory. 

I hadn’t heard “Fool (If You Think it’s Over”) in literally decades, but it played on the radio one day, and I listened to it all the way through for the sake of nostalgia. And then something about the song grabbed me, so I listened to it again, and then again. Then I looked up Chris Rea, who was a pretty successful singer and musician in his native England. When he wrote “Fool (If You Think it’s Over),” he hoped to convince Al Green to record it, but the record company liked his demo recording and insisted that he record the song himself. It ended up being his only hit in the US.    

The real story, though, is the song’s inspiration. Chris Rea wrote “Fool” about his younger sister, Paula, who was heartbroken after her breakup with her first boyfriend. “The pains of 17/unreal they’re only dreams” is just the sort of infuriating thing a know-it-all big brother would say to a younger sister. But it’s clear somehow that he doesn’t mean “unreal” in the sense of imaginary or unimportant. The singer knows that the girl’s pain is real in the moment, but he also knows that it won’t last and that it won’t have any real impact on her life.  He wants her to know that she’ll move on and that things will get better. 

Context changes everything. “I’ll buy your first good wine..ooh we’ll have a real good time” was the line that made me think that the song was about a predator trying to groom a young girl. Instead, it’s a brother promising his younger sister that there’s so much more ahead of her - both good times and bad - than a teenage romance. And now, every time I hear that song, I imagine a brother consoling his younger sister over a bottle of wine. And I imagine the young girl cheering up and realizing that her brother is right and that the boy wasn’t worthy of her in the first place. And I imagine that the brother and sister actually do have a real good time. I hope that Chris and Paula Rea had a real good time. 

*****

During the early pandemic months in 2020, I started to watch “The Americans,” and I didn’t make it past episode 1. After a brutal rape 20 minutes in, I turned it off, absolutely furious. I’m tired of sexual violence as a plot point. Oddly enough, those of us who have actually endured it (and trust me that there are more of us than you think) don’t find brutal rape scenes very entertaining. 

Anyway, I started watching the show again recently. I skipped that scene, knowing that it was coming, but of course there was other sexual violence to come. And the almost lost me again, and not only for that reason. I just had a hard time believing in some of the period details and in the premise itself. But it started to grow on me. A few episodes in, I began to see how well it captures the period; not so much in visual details (but many of the visuals, especially the fashion, are spot-on)  but in the settled comfortable certainty of the upper middle class characters and their unshakeable belief in the mid-century idea of America. Then I watched three consecutive episodes when I was sick (again!) and the constant sex and violence and family drama felt repetitive. 

But the acting is absolutely brilliant. Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys and Noah Emmerich and the brilliant Alison Wright and Annet Mahendru. And while I still think that the sexual content is largely gratuitous and exploitative, the story and the pacing and the world that it creates are absorbing and compelling. Bottom line: This is a show best consumed a little at a time, with long breaks in between. 

Side note about Matthew Rhys - I’d heard somewhere that he was Welsh, but I’d never seen him play anything but Americans - mostly cold-blooded killers or dour misanthropes (I loved his performance as Lloyd in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood). I guessed that maybe he was born in Wales but raised in the US. Then I saw an interview with him, and that man is as Welsh as Dylan Thomas and also an absolute delight. I imagine a director saying something like “I need an actor to play a remorseless, pitiless murderer and/or an absolute miserable son of a bitch” and the casting director responding “I know! Let’s get that charming Welsh chap who sounds like he spends his days singing with his friends in a cozy seaside pub!” Uncanny. Matthew Rhys is really good at his job. 

*****

Our neighborhood civic association sponsors a summer movie series. “Song Sung Blue,” a movie that I assiduously avoided when it was first released, was the summer’s first selection, and I went for two reasons: My friends asked me to go, and no one else was home so what else did I have to do? 

Why did I try to avoid this movie, you might ask? Because I grew up hearing Neil Diamond all day every day and even though I still like him (how can you not), I didn’t need to see a movie about crazy Neil Diamond fans. I lived with one. That was my whole childhood. At one point in the movie, the Neil Diamond tribute singer portrayed by Hugh Jackman argues with his manager, trying to make a case for “Soolaimon” as the band’s opening number. “Nobody knows Soolaimon!” the man yells. “I fucking know ‘Soolaimon,’” I thought to myself.  I haven’t heard “Soolaimon” in decades but I bet I remember every note. 

The movie is based on a true story, and was different and much better than I expected. Kate Hudson deserved that Oscar nomination. I might even listen to some Neil Diamond today. 

*****

I just finished reading Leaving Aberdeen, a memoir by Estell Sims Halliburton. Mrs. Halliburton is a Black woman who was born on a sharecropping plantation in Mississippi in the 1940s. Her memoir tells the story of her early childhood picking cotton and living in a plantation shack through her family’s first real home in the town of Aberdeen to her first year in college at Tuskegee to her first summer in New York City as a 19-year-old on her own for the first time. That summer then turned into years, as the young Estell takes a break from school, works as a model and bookkeeper and store clerk, and marries a young soldier who ships out to Vietnam shortly after their wedding day. 

Halliburton’s writing style is uneven, but in a good way. She veers back and forth between formal and colloquial language, and the tone is inconsistent. Sometimes, she just recounts events as she recalls them. Sometimes, she places those events in the context of the Civil Rights Movement and other major historical events of the mid-20th century. The emotional tone varies, too - from her righteous anger as a Black woman who came of age in the Jim Crow South and learned that often, the North wasn’t any less racist; to love for her husband, children, parents, siblings, and friends. The book reads as if it was written in spurts, a few pages here and there as time permitted. The resulting variations in tone and voice make it very readable and human and moving. 

The young Halliburton family seemed to have had a rich and interesting life as working people and parents in 1970s New York, and I was surprised by their decision to return to the South. Mrs. Halliburton wrote a second memoir about the family’s life in Atlanta after the move, so I’ll read it and find out if it was the right decision. I do hope so. I’m invested now. 

*****

I started this as just a little journal of short reviews - a song, a movie, a TV show, a book - and then I realized that it reads like I spend all my time reminiscing about the 20th century. And I do. 

No, I really don’t. I don’t miss most things about the 20th century. But I do miss believing that I lived in the greatest and most benevolent country in the world. I miss the world in which everyone knew more Neil Diamond songs than “Sweet Caroline.” I miss pop music on AM radio.