All sales are final

Forewarned is forearmed: This is a ridiculous post and you probably don't want to spend the next ten minutes of your life reading it. If you decide (unwisely) to do so anyway, then please be aware that there are no returns and no exchanges. All sales are final. 

*****

Today is Easter. It’s a beautiful spring day - perfect, really. Sunny, warm, softly breezy - an every-window-in-the-house-open kind of day. I’m sitting next to one of those open windows now. The slight rustling of the trees, some birdsong, a very distant lawn mower, an Orioles game on TV in another room in our house - it sounds very spring-into-summery out there. 

I’m hosting dinner. We’ll have a lot of food, but I didn’t make much effort at presentation this time. I don’t have a lot of Easter-themed dishes or decor. We’ll be eating our ham and asparagus and macaroni and cheese and fruit salad from paper plates. I forgot to buy wine, so I hope that my sister-in-law brings a bottle. The whole thing is much more haphazard than my holiday dinners usually are. It can’t be helped. I’m hanging on by the proverbial thread so I consider it an accomplishment to be cooking and hosting dinner at all. 

*****

Why am I hanging on by a thread? Well, I’m glad you asked but you won’t be, lol. Actually, I couldn’t really tell you other than all of this (gesturing around wildly at everything) combined with the annual spring PTSD attack, which is worse than usual. I’m very tired. 

*****

OK, here’s one thing that’s getting to me. The old lady whose grocery shopping I’ve been doing for five years has been querulous and fussy lately, much more so than usual. Her house is in appalling shape - dirty and dilapidated outside and I can only imagine what it’s like inside. I’m very sorry for her but I’m also not a doctor and cannot cure a hoarder, which is what she is. I can see the stacks of newspapers through the windows, and the enclosed porch is a pit of despair. I used to leave her groceries by the front door, as she requested, and she would bring everything in. But she has been asking me lately to bring the items all the way in through the enclosed porch by the front door. She gives arcane and detailed and specific instructions for how she wants everything arranged - some things double-bagged, perishables separate, certain items closer to the door, be sure not to block the door even though she wants everything near the door and there’s very little room in that nightmare of a porch to put anything at all, etc., etc. 

The way this works is that I drop off the groceries, and she leaves a check. She will not use the internet and so I always have to call to get her list and then call to let her know when I’m dropping everything off. Last week, she placed the check inside a large Ziploc bag, and wrote me a very long note in felt-tip marker ON THE ZIPLOC BAG. And so of course, what I saw was a salutation, a few words and then three lengthy paragraphs of illegible smear, and then a few words about a blessed Easter, and her signature. 

It turns out that the letter was additional detailed instructions for how she wanted her groceries separated and organized and placed in front of and as near the door as possible but not blocking the door even though the “enclosed porch” is nothing more than a junkyard filled with piles of old household items and empty bottles and cans and so much other stuff that you can’t even see the “porch” part. It’s not even really safe to walk through this mess. But sure, tell me all about how we need to neatly organize the grocery delivery, after packaging the canned goods and cookies and yogurt like they’re Hermes bags. 

I couldn’t read the letter, as we have established, so I couldn’t follow any additional instructions that it might have contained. I did the best I could, and got out of there. My phone rang on Saturday morning. She was sorry, so sorry, so very very sorry to bother me and she’s absolutely not complaining but she can’t find the 70% isopropyl alcohol and she needs it and she wondered if I saw the note asking me to place it with the paper towels right near the door. I said that I was sorry about that, without saying a word about the illegible note, and promised that I’d stop by later and find the bottle of alcohol and place it near the door on top of the box where she could reach it. “The box,” she said, although there are literally dozens of boxes in that crazy porch, several of which are right near the door. I didn’t bother to ask her to clarify because she would have, at considerable length, so I just assumed (hoped) that when I arrived, it would be readily apparent which box she meant. 

But it wasn’t. There were several boxes near the door, any of which might have been the one that she described, but I couldn’t be sure, and she will not come to the door.  I found the alcohol and a few other items that I thought she might need, arranged everything as best I could, and I got out of there as quickly as I could. 

The phone rang again, at about 9:45 on Saturday evening. I was tempted to let it ring but she’s old and crazy and alone and maybe it was an emergency, so I picked up. “Can you help me to understand something?” she said. This is never a good faith question. The person who says “help me understand” already understands perfectly - they just want to complain or argue. They just want to start shit. And right now, I am in no way in the mood for anyone to start shit with me. Not that I ever would be, but right now? Just please do not. 

“Can you help me to understand something? I have been advocating for people with disabilities for my whole life (this was news to me - she has told me 20 different things about her prior occupations) and I always seem to be able to clearly express what they need, but I can’t make myself understood when I need something.” I started to ask her what she meant specifically, but she kept talking. The alcohol was placed just out of her reach. There was a jar of instant coffee placed with the alcohol, and she didn’t want it there. Something wasn't double-bagged. The container of pre-cut fresh fruit that she had asked for had leaked and made a mess. Everything was bad and wrong and terrible, and it was all my fault. I couldn’t even respond - partly because I was upset, and partly because she wasn’t even pausing for breath. And then the call just dropped and the line went dead. 

At that point, I was tempted to just go to bed and forget about the whole thing. But I called her back several times, with no answer. I might have worried that she’d fallen or had some other medical emergency, but earlier the same week (just three days earlier, actually) I had called her multiple times and just as I was about to call the police to do a welfare check on her, she had called me back, cool as a cucumber, saying that she’d been listening to a radio program and hadn’t been able to pick up. I wasn’t going through that again. So I called her on Sunday, just to see if she was OK, and it was as if the entire conversation hadn’t taken place. She was fine. Everything was fine. Later, I sent her a plate of food, for which she was very grateful. 

So again, she was fine - which is great - but I was not. I felt gaslit and ill-used and manipulated, and not for the first time. I call this woman every Wednesday night to get her grocery list, and when she doesn’t pick up, about ⅓ of the time, she later tells me that she saw my call coming in, but had been on another call, or listening to the radio, or something else more compellingly important than talking to the person who is literally keeping her alive. 

What was the point of all that? Am I going to stop helping her? No. But I have to complain to someone. Sorry it’s you. 

*****

It’s Friday now. The lady and I had a reasonably pleasant conversation on Wednesday. I mentioned the Ziploc bag, and suggested that she write her notes on paper from now on because I obviously missed her instructions and she was obviously upset about that. “No no no, I wasn’t upset,” she insisted. “I wasn’t criticizing! I wasn’t complaining!” Reader: She was upset. She did criticize. She did complain. But whatever. I did her dumb shopping and I bagged her dumb groceries the way she wants them, and I dropped them off in the den of disarray that she whimsically refers to as her front porch, and I picked up the check (which she had stuffed inside a disposable glove for reasons best known to herself) and I went on my merry way. 

*****

And Easter was perfect. I did get that bottle of wine (two, in fact!) and dinner was very very good, and everyone had a wonderful time. And I will be absolutely fine - despite crazy old ladies and anxiety attacks and mama drama and all of this (gesturing wildly at everything) - I will be absolutely fine. 

Five years, give or take

I went to an Orioles game once, in 1998. It was just a random, late-season game. I’m not a particular Orioles fan but my then-boyfriend, now-husband was a huge fan, and he got tickets, and we went. It was fun in the way that all low-stakes baseball games are fun. The Orioles were not in contention for anything that year, so no one other than the most die-hard fans cared if they won or lost that game, but it was a nice night to sit outside and drink beer and eat popcorn and watch baseball with middling levels of attention. 

The game was not exciting but around the sixth inning, a buzz began to grow throughout the stadium. Cal Ripken Jr., who had the longest consecutive games played record in baseball history (a record that will likely stand forever) had not yet entered the game. Cal was nearing the end of his career and he was no longer starting every game as he did in his superstar early and mid career years. It wasn’t uncommon for him to sit out a few innings. But it was the bottom of the sixth inning, and Cal was nowhere to be seen. Was he just not going to play? Was he injured? Was he going to suddenly announce his retirement? The stadium grew more restless and the buzz grew louder, until Cal finally came out of the dugout at the end of the game, to formally announce what everyone had by then already figured out - he had decided that the streak had gone on long enough, and had chosen to sit out the game to end it that night. 

*****

We had a busy weekend. The very last summer swim meet at our home pool - the B Division championship - followed by a quick road trip to Avalon NJ to watch my son compete in the Murray Mile Ocean Classic. He did very well in both things, and it was a lot of fun. But it was hectic. The meet didn’t end until 11:30. We got on the road by 12:30 but the already-horrendous summer Saturday traffic on I-95 was made much worse by two accidents, probably about 40 miles apart from one another. By the time we checked into our fleabag (oh my gosh so terrible more detail later) hotel and dropped our stuff off, we just barely had time to get to the beach to watch the race, which started at 6:30. My son finished the mile in very good time, beating all of his friends who had also caravaned to NJ following the meet, and scored age group honors among the men. My sister and her husband had come to the beach, and so we went out with them and had a very good time. We collapsed on our (terrible terrible terrible) hotel room beds at about 11 pm, and left at 8 the next morning, while all the young people (who stayed at the beach for the day) were still asleep. It wasn’t until we were about 20 miles inland that I realized that I hadn’t written a single word the previous day. It wasn’t intentional; I just forgot. 

*****

I don’t know exactly how long my daily writing streak lasted. Looking at my blog entries, I see references to it going back as far as five years. So it was at least a five-year streak of daily writing. And when I say "daily," I MEAN daily. Seven days a week, 365 days a year, weekends and holidays included. I never missed a day until Saturday. 

*****

Are you thinking that it's stupid and shallow and clueless and solipsistic to compare my small-time daily writing streak for which no records exist and which I can’t even prove really happened to one of the greatest baseball achievements of the 20th century? Of COURSE it is. If I wasn’t clueless and (sometimes) shallow and (occasionally) stupid and (a little bit) solipsistic, then what would I have had to write about for five years? How would I have sustained that streak for as long as I did? 

*****

Well one way was to write everywhere and anywhere. Any time I had five or ten free minutes, I'd open Google Docs and just start writing. Now, for example - it’s 9:18 AM and I'm at work but our whole network is down and the IT people are trying to figure out what's wrong, and the rest of us are just sitting around waiting. Well, the rest of them are sitting around waiting. I'm using these spare ten minutes that might turn into hours to write about writing (or about failing to write). Saturday was just the last day of the old streak. It's Tuesday now and day 3 of a brand new streak. You can miss a day and still be a person who writes every day. See you in five years, give or take. 

99 problems

After a week or so of bleak and cold weather, we had almost - summer warmth and sunshine today. I walked around the track, which was very well populated after a few days when it was nearly deserted, not because of the weather but because of the bear. They shipped the bear to parts unknown where I very much hope he will remain. I harbor no ill will toward that bear - I wish him all the honey he can eat, as long as it’s at least 50 miles away from Rockville and Naval Support Activity Bethesda. This Navy base isn't big enough for him and me. 

I started to round the corner today, figuratively speaking. Most people love the beautiful month of May but every year I have a mental health crisis that  has May's name written all over it, and I can't wait to see the end of this most Godforsaken of months. Everything is always better in June and June is right around the corner. Less than two weeks really because June begins with Memorial Day weekend as far as I’m concerned. Once MDW arrives, spring is dead to me, and I have no problems that summer can't solve. 

Well that's not actually true. I have plenty of problems that summer can't solve but they don't matter that much in the summer. Everything is bathed in sunshine and things that look like problems any other time of the year look like clear water and blue skies in the summer. Come June, I got 99 problems but a problem ain't one. 

*****

It’s late Friday afternoon now and I’m contemplating a walk in the 85-degree sunshine. In just over two weeks, the pool will open and if the weather stays warm between now and then, then it might just be warm enough to swim on opening weekend. And I’ll swim even if it’s not warm enough, because that pool is only open for a few short months and during those short months I count the minutes wasted that aren’t spent immersed in clear blue chlorinated water. Just two more weeks, and I'll be free of May and its bullshit. I still got 99 problems but the countdown has begun. 

Open House

I’m getting close to finishing the essay that I’ve been working on, on and off, for several weeks. I keep visiting it, like it’s an open house. I look around for a while, and I move a piece of furniture a bit to the left or the right. I stopped in yesterday and hung a whole bunch of pictures on the wall, and I was pleased with my work. It really popped, I thought. Lots of color and texture; lots of different shapes and images. Today, though, the light changed quite a bit, and what looked charming and eclectic and artistic yesterday looks like an explosion today. Cluttered. Disorganized. No unifying theme. Maybe I should just empty out the whole place, slap a coat of neutral paint (Swiss Coffee! Parchment! Eggshell! Sand!) paint on the walls, and start the hell over. 

That doesn’t make any sense, does it? Because why would I redecorate a house that I don’t own? I don’t know why I bother trying to get fancy with the metaphors. It seldom works. 

*****

My annual spring anxiety and panic is back to its pre-pandemic intensity so at least something is returning to normal. Yesterday on Twitter, I found that a certain right wing white supremacist Trumpy internet dope who is quite popular among the Tucker Carlson-watching public was trending because he was opining on the subject of anxiety as a mental illness, which it isn’t, according to the Trumpy trolling internet dope. Slow news day, I suppose. This is a person who is well known for talking directly out of his ass, so after a quick visit to see why the topic of anxiety was trending along with the internet dope’s name, I muted the whole thing and moved on. How’s that for mental health? 

Anxiety and its place in the DSM-IV aside, I am really just stalling. I did make some progress on the thing that I was writing, enough that I now feel compelled to finish it but not enough that I can easily do so in one sitting. So why not write about something else, even if “something else” means imaginary real estate and online dumbasses? What with the state of the housing market, the former might be the only kind or real estate available for purchase right now; and the latter? Well, they’re everywhere, so that’s an of-the-moment topic if I ever heard of one. 

I have some renovations to do. Sigh. 

They DO have eyes...

I’ve always wanted to write something that would give me an excuse to use the term “murder of crows.” But did I want that excuse to be an actual murder of crows colonizing my front lawn? No. No, I did not. But we don't always get to choose the circumstances under which we get to write about crows. We don't invite them. They just show up. 

And two days or so ago, they did show up, in considerable numbers. I heard them before I saw them. They were screeching or squawking or whatever crows do, and I could tell that there were more than a few crows making that racket. So I decided to investigate, and holy crow. A murder of crows, whose specific number can be best described by the word “shitload,” were swirling around my front lawn, helping themselves to birdseed that was never intended for them and just generally making a nuisance of themselves. The sky was literally almost black on an otherwise sunny day. It was creepy, I tell you what. Creepy, and more than a little menacing. 

The crows swooped and dipped, landing on low branches and on the grass, pecking around for seeds or worms or whatever it was that attracted them in the first place; and then one of them strutted up the driveway, bold as brass, looking for all the world as if he were going to march up and ring the front doorbell. Maybe the bird feeder was empty, and he wanted to complain. Maybe he wanted directions. Maybe he wanted to ask if the house was for sale. 

What are the schools like? (Image: Wikipedia)

And it would have been, if those crows hadn’t cleared the hell out of here. But they did. They flew out almost as abruptly as they arrived. I don’t know if that’s because they got what they came for, or because they didn’t, but that’s their business. I wish them the best in their crowish pursuits, as long as they pursue those pursuits in some other location.  

Dressed for the occasion

 

Like everyone else in the United States with a mobile device and a social media account (in other words, everyone except the former President), I joined the “Put Bernie Anywhere” fun this week. My effort appears below. I know, I thought it was hilarious, too. I wanted to put Bernie on my living room couch, too, but I know what will happen if I try that. I’ll spend two hours trying to tweak the photo and crop out the background to make sure that Bernie is positioned perfectly. And then I’ll notice some flaw; maybe a crooked picture on the wall, or a cushion that’s crushed at an odd angle, and all of a sudden, I’ll have spent an entire afternoon on an internet joke. But I digress. 

I am once again asking Bernie Sanders to get off my lawn.

*****

Jackets rank almost as highly as handbags on my obsession list. I think about jackets all the time. When I’m out walking or at Mass or at the grocery store (almost the only places I go right now), I notice other people’s jackets immediately. A jacket is almost like a portable home, like a turtle’s shell, for its wearer. Jackets have pockets to carry things, and a shell or insulation or both to protect against the cold and wet. With color and stylistic details, jackets combine with the wearer’s outfit and accessories to express something about that person, either intentionally or unintentionally. I never get tired of looking at people and their jackets. 

*****

Thanks to the damn ‘rona, I am now addicted to British murder mysteries and police procedural dramas. I can’t get enough of British police detectives getting in and out of cars, interviewing witnesses and suspects, checking their smartphones while they drive on the wrong side of the road, always wearing jackets. 

And by the way, stay the hell out of the UK. People are always getting murdered there. 

Female police detectives in British TV shows always rotate among at least three or four jackets, mostly utility-style jackets with lots of pockets, alternating occasionally with dressier, more formal jackets. Even before the pandemic made it necessary for me to work at home all the time, I was definitely a utility jacket person. My life is, then and now, a utility jacket life. But I do like to imagine myself in an Armani blazer or a Burberry trench; or maybe something even fancier, like a Chanel jacket or a perfectly fitted full-length dress coat. 

The point is that few jackets can do everything. I think sometimes that I’d like to have just one jacket that is suitable for all occasions and all weather conditions and all moods and all circumstances. I have at least a dozen jackets, and they cover most of my requirements, but not all.Maybe that’s why I keep shopping for jackets. 

*****

Bernie Sanders, however, seems to be perfectly satisfied with one jacket. I think the famous Inauguration Day jacket is a Columbia. I recognized the sleeve label. Columbia is the most utilitarian of American jacket brands. I have several Columbia jackets, and they are well-made, reasonably priced, and practical. A Columbia jacket keeps you warm when it’s cold and dry when it’s wet. They’re also not very stylish. You can’t have everything. 

My son and I talked about Bernie and his jacket and his crazy hand-knit mittens. The jacket, I suggested, was a gesture of solidarity. Bernie Sanders is not a poor man, but he understands the realities of poor and working-class life in the United States better than most politicians; and many poor and working-class people make do with one jacket or coat, for all conditions and occasions. People who criticized Bernie for failing to dress for the occasion are missing the point. He was representing a large percentage of Americans who, if invited to the Inauguration, would have had to wear whatever coat they happened to own, appropriate or not. 

That, however, is not why everyone loves this picture so much. First of all, it’s hilarious. As one internet joker put it, it looked like Bernie was stopping by the Inauguration, but it wasn’t his whole day. He just grabbed his Columbia jacket off the hook by the garage door, threw his keys in his pocket, and went out to run errands, including a quick stop at the Capitol to watch the swearing-in. No big deal. Whatever. 

But there’s more to it than that. Everything about that picture suggests a man who is completely comfortable with himself in every circumstance. He’s not thinking about himself at all, in fact. He’s in a particular moment, on a cold day, and his clothes and body language reflect practical preparation for the circumstances, and nothing more. He looks neither self-conscious about being too casually dressed, nor self-satisfied about refusing to adhere to traditional Inauguration Day dress standards. Except for warmth, he really doesn’t care about what he’s wearing. Who doesn’t aspire to that kind of insouciance? Who doesn’t want to be that cool? 

*****

That’s what I’m going to think about, next time I feel like I need just the right coat or shoes or dress or handbag for an occasion, if there ever is another occasion, if this pandemic ever ends. 

Still, if I ever attend an Inauguration, I’m going to buy a dressy coat. 

Roman a clef

They say that you should write what you know. I don’t know who they are, but that’s what they say. So last month, as I mentioned, I started writing a novel. I wrote just over 50,000 words, and it’ll be at least 50,000 more before it’s finished, if it’s ever finished. I don’t know. 

The novel isn’t about me (that's what they all say, right?) But of course, I used details and memories from my own life. What else do I have? What else does anyone have? Including one scene in which a character is making cookies; or rather, her children are making cookies, and all she can think of is how fast they can get the cookies in the oven so that she can clean the flour off the black countertops, and wash the bowls and the baking pans and throw away all the eggshells and the chocolate chip packages and put away the cookies and restore order. 

Most of the other real-life details that I used were just that--details, scene-setting, atmosphere. But the cookie part is one hundred percent me. I have a very hard time with disorder, and cookie-baking is inherently disorderly. 

Today is cookie-baking day, but yesterday was cookie-dough-making day, and cookie dough making is the hard part, the crusty countertops and dirty dishes part. Today, all I have to do is take a melon baller and form 300 or so little balls of cookie dough, laying them out in neat parallel rows and baking them until they turn into cookies, which I will freeze for a week until it’s time to deliver them to neighbors. And eat them, of course. 

*****

So if the worst part of cookie baking is the mess (it is) then the best part of cookie baking, even better than the eating of cookie dough, is the moment when you finish cleaning up and all is once again right with the world. I don’t have to bake cookies again for another year. I know that there are many people who love to bake, and who do it just for fun. Sometimes, I wish that I was one of those people. But I am not. I never will be. I’m just too neat. 

In fact, I’m too neat to even sleep. When I wake  up too early, sometimes I get up because I can’t go back to sleep. But sometimes, I get up because my need to restore order is greater than my need to sleep. My socks are on the floor where I kicked them off, and my half-finished water is on the nightstand with my jewelry and my weighted blanket needs to be folded up and my bed needs to be made. So I get up and I put everything back in order, and I make my half of the bed, leaving undisturbed the sleeping form of my husband. 

Yes, I know. But at least I don't wake my husband up to make his side of the bed. 

*****

I have a new day planner for 2021. So now I have another reason to look forward to the end of 2020, which can go fuck itself as far as I’m concerned, because my 2020 day planner is really messy, and I’m running out of room for lists. Without lists, the whole operation will fall to pieces. I can’t emphasize this strongly enough. Plus, the pages are fraying a bit, and there’s a mark on the cover, and I just need to start fresh, with clean white pages that I will write on ever so carefully.

*****

Today, a person at work asked me to fix a tiny error in a presentation. I had pasted a screenshot into a slide, and I hadn’t noticed the little indicator marks that still remained at its edges. There was a time when such a glaring and obvious blemish would have jumped right out at me and demanded that I address it immediately, but my eyesight is not what it once was. The person pointed it out in an apologetic manner, suggesting that it might be “too anal” a detail to worry about. I responded immediately that there’s no such thing as “too anal,” and realized too late that this could be interpreted very wrongly, very wrongly indeed. But I think that they know what I meant. I certainly know what I meant. My baking skills are so-so, my handwriting is terrible, and my eyesight is going from bad to worse,  but my commitment to neatness is everlasting.

50,000 and change

Did you miss me? I took a whole month off from blogging to write a novel. And I didn't actually write a a whole novel, but I wrote 50,000 words, divided into chapters, with characters and dialogue and scenes. Those 50,000 words might eventually whip themselves into shape and turn themselves into a novel. I'm going to leave them alone for a while, and see what happens. But you don't have to finish a novel to win NaNoWriMo; you just have to write 50,000 words, and I wrote 50,000 words. 

I also wrote this almost-daily NaNoWriMo diary. Soon I'll writing once again about absolutely nothing in particular. It's nice to be back. 

November 1: Time to get started. I had an idea for another novel, but that’s for next year. This year, it’s this book or bust. 

November 2: 3,800 words on day 1. I was hoping for 5,000 but almost 4,000 will do. That’s a lot of words in one day. 

November 3: I passed the 5,000-word mark, so I’m 10 percent there. Oh, and there was an election. 

November 4: You know, if I could write a novel made up of nothing but snappy dialogue, I’d be done in a week. Meanwhile, we have no idea who’s going to be President on January 20. 

November 5: Why can’t I write a novel made up of nothing but snappy dialogue? Who’s going to stop me? 

November 7: I forgot to write anything for yesterday, though I did get about 1,000 words in. And in unrelated news, we have a President-elect. 

November 8: I think I’d get more done if I stopped congratulating myself for my hilariously clever chapter titles. That’s about twenty words out of 50,000. Do the math, as they say. 

November 9: It’s Monday night. I should be writing and instead, I’m re-watching Chapelle’s monologue. 

November 10: 50,000 words in a month does not necessarily equate to a novel in a month. As long as I have the former then I can worry later about the latter. That was fun, wasn’t it? See what I did there? 

November 11: A Federal holiday. Trying to pile up the words to build a cushion. 

November 12: Yes, readers do need to know how a character makes meatballs. So I’m gonna tell ‘em. 

November 13: That meatball part was my favorite thing to write. Maybe someone will make some cookies or caulk a bathtub, and I’ll describe that, too. 1,000 words is 1,000 words. 

November 14: It’s Saturday and I want to try to get 5,000 words in. I have about 250 so far. So I only have to do that 19 more times. 

November 15: Season 4 of "The Crown" might interfere with my plans to get this thing past the halfway mark today. 

November 16: No it didn’t! I’m past 25,000 words now. The second half begins. 

November 17: I was very tempted to quit today, but then I snapped out of it and now I’m cooking with Crisco. 

November 18: You know what "cooking with Crisco" means, don’t you? That’s figurative language. Because I’m a novelist. 

November 19: Can I attend a virtual community association meeting, give a speech, and write a novel all at the same time? Only one way to find out. 

November 20: I kind of like writing fiction, but I can’t wait for this month to be over. 

November 21: I’d rather read than write. I can read 50,000 words in a day, easy. But if I’m going to get to 50,000 words written by November 30, then I have to put the book down and get going. 

November 22: I had an idea that I don’t particularly love, but it’s an idea and I’m going to write through it because 50,000 words is all I care about right now. I’ll sort out the details later. 

November 23: 14,500 or so to go. I will need to ramp up production if I want to get to 50,000 by next week. 

November 24: Sometimes you have to write on your phone, while you’re sitting in your parked car. 1,000 words. 

November 25: It’s the day before Thanksgiving, and I feel a little sick, so of course I’m afraid I have the ‘rona. But I can still write. 

November 26: Turkey, wine, a nap, and almost 2,000 words. 

November 27: Today was not as productive a day as I had hoped. Day-after-Thanksgiving torpor is not compatible with productivity. 

November 28: 46,000 words seems like a lot but I have only three days, (well, two and two-thirds) to write 4,000 more, and I don’t know if I have that many left in me. 

November 29: 50,024. I made it with one day to spare. 

November 30: And now I’m not going to look at this thing for at least a month. Maybe longer. See you next year. 

In earnest

Monday, October 19. It’s Monday, late afternoon, and I’m finished work for the day; or rather, I’m all but finished. I’m waiting for the answer to a question. That answer might or might not come today, but there’s no point in wasting time, so I’ll kill this bird and then pick up the same stone again if I need to kill another one. 

Forgive the poor choice of figurative language. I’m not in the habit of killing birds, with stones or anything else. I am in the habit of doing two (or more) things at one time, an approach that yields mixed results. Multi-tasking isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. 

Anyway, it was a fine day, except that I couldn’t do several of the tasks on my to-do list because I could not read my own appalling handwriting, which grows worse by the day. It’s what I call a problem, because it is a problem. Though I swore that I would never sit for another exam ever again, I’m studying for a certification exam, taking copious notes, and I don’t know how much use these notes will be when it comes time to review them. But the act of writing things down helps me to remember. Except, apparently, when it comes to my to-do list. I still can’t read three of the items that I wrote down on Friday, and I don’t remember what they might be. 

*****

Tuesday, October 20 (two weeks away from the biggest shit-show of an election in American history). It’s Tuesday now. I’m in the middle of at least half a dozen drafts, and I’ll finish them soon. But in addition to writing, I’m also reading P.D. James’ Time to Be in Earnest, a one-year diary of her life from 1997 to 1998, and this inspired me to return for a bit to the daily diary form of writing. Of course, a day in P.D. James’ life generally consisted of having lunch with former Prime Ministers, or delivering an endowed lecture, or meeting with her publisher to plan an international book tour; and mine right now consists of sitting around the house in sweatpants editing IT service catalog pages and creating PowerPoint presentations and wondering what to cook for dinner; but each life has its place, you know?

Oddly enough, I have never read any other of P.D. James’ books. I don’t know what attracted me to this one, but it’s very good. P.D. James happened to have been born at the right time (1920) and the right place (England) with the right talents and gifts to become the perfect first-hand witness to history and social change. The book is supposed to be a daily diary of just that one year, but she also writes quite a bit about her entire life; enough that this is almost an autobiography or memoir. Because the book covers a year that overlaps 1997 and 1998, James records her immediate reaction to the death and funeral of Princess Diana. I’ve watched “The Queen” about half a dozen times, and it’s very interesting to read an Englishwoman’s real-time impressions of the events depicted in the movie. I’m going to watch “The Queen” at least one more time; and I’m also going to read more P.D. James. It turns out that she also wrote The Children of Men, the movie version of which I have also seen about half a dozen times. 

Sweatpants and PowerPoint and half-finished essays and re-watching old-ish movies--I can’t imagine why Prime Ministers, former or present, aren’t lining up to get me on their luncheon calendars. But enough about lunch. I still need to figure out dinner. 

*****

Wednesday, October 21. A neighborhood friend has been posting daily updates on Instagram, with captions that always begin “Social Distancing: Day (number).” He passed Day 200 a few days ago. I didn’t look at a calendar to count and see if he started with March 14 as Day 1, as I would have. It’s enough to know that 200 days is too many days. 

Since March, we’ve had little pockets of normal life here and there, for which I’m grateful. But the abnormal has far outweighed the normal. I’m losing my social skills, and they weren't that great to begin with. I never know what to wear. I spend several minutes every morning puzzling out this question, accounting for weather and video calls and if I’m likely to leave the house and for what reason. And then I put on leggings and a sweater, or shorts and a t-shirt, and that’s what I wear for the rest of the day. 

I keep thinking that I want life to return to normal; that I want to be out in the world, busy from morning to night, and that I want to wear real clothes every day, and to take a bit more care with my appearance. But do I? Do I really? Every day, all 200-plus since March, seems to rob me of a tiny bit more of my energy and initiative. I walk every day, weather permitting; and I still have work. I still keep the house clean. I write every day, and I keep in touch with people. But if I’m honest, and I’m always honest, then I must admit that of all the things that call my name, my family room couch has the loudest and most compelling voice. If I did only what I wanted to do today, then I’d have spent the entire day on that couch, finishing P.D. James and re-watching “Miranda” and “Mary Tyler Moore” on Hulu. And sleeping, because I can’t sleep at night. It’s Day 200-whatever. 

*****

Thursday, October 22. Today is a better day. After a thick morning fog that hung on until nearly 10, the sun came out, and everything looked much cleaner and brighter than it did amid yesterday’s gloom. And yesterday got even worse after I wrote that entry, with pestilence on top of the plague; pestilence in the form of SNAKES. THREE OF THEM. 

I live in Maryland, in the Washington DC suburbs, not in Florida or Australia or the fucking Mekong delta and so I do not expect to have to dodge serpents when I take my daily walk. Yes, they were garter snakes (and one of them was definitely dead) but THREE snakes in one little 2.5 mile suburban stroll is at least two more than I would expect to see and absolutely three more than I ever want to see, because I never want to see any snakes, not even little ones, not even deceased ones. 

You and me both, Samuel L. Jackson. You and me both. 

Today is the the day of the last of the three presidential debates; and I can’t wait to not watch it. It’s also ten days until the start of NaNoWriMo, and I’m going to try that again this year, because what could go wrong. I have a character and (kind of) a plot and everything. It’s very tempting to start writing now, but other than writing down a few ideas (because I don’t want to forget), I am going to follow the rules. I’m going to begin writing on November 1 and I’m going to stop on November 30; and hopefully, I will end up with a 50,000-word novel. That’s 1667 words a day. I can write 1667 words a day on my head. I can’t vouch for the quality or coherence of the words, but I can write them; and if I’m following the rules (and I’m always following the rules) then that’s all I have to do. The editing comes later. P.D. James died in 2014, so she probably knew about NaNoWriMo. I don’t know what she might have thought about it. I suspect she would have disapproved, but I could very well be wrong. And she's not the boss of me anyway. 

*****

Friday, October 23. I am not a TGIF person, not as a rule. It’s not that I don’t love weekends and time off, because I do. But I also like work; and counting the days until Friday has always seemed tantamount to wishing away days of one’s life (one P.D. James book, and I’m already throwing around the impersonal pronoun like it’s dolla dolla bills in a hip-hop video), and that seems unwise. 

But this week? I think I hit the wall with the COVID-enforced WFH this week, and Friday couldn’t come a day too soon. Two days away from my computer and I’m sure that I’ll return to next week’s onslaught of virtual meetings and teleconferences with my customary good cheer, but I spent today teetering on the edge, and one more call would have pushed me right the hell over. 

I was going to continue writing this post for two more days, but I haven’t published anything since October 8 and I don’t want you all to forget about me, so I’m going to wrap up this little dear diary week today. I have a few more pages of P.D. James left; a few more days of 1998, when Microsoft Teams didn’t exist and Donald Trump was just a loud-mouthed real estate developer. A person should live in the present rather than dwelling on the past or worrying about the future, but it’s hard sometimes, I tell you. It’s hard sometimes. 

One Line a Day

 I have been drafting a project charter, which is more interesting than it sounds. It’s like writing something into being. I worked at a biotech company many years ago, and the QA Manager had a favorite saying: “If it’s not documented, then it didn’t happen.” I could say the same thing about future events: If it’s not documented, then it won’t happen. 

Speaking of documenting, I have a little journal that has a title: One Line a Day: A Five-Year Memory Book. It’s a five-year diary, with short little entries for each day of the year, for five years--the same day on one page, so you can, I suppose, compare August 26, 2020 with August 26, 2024 and see what’s changed. 

My sister gave me the One Line a Day journal for Christmas, and I almost just put it on a bookshelf as a quasi-decorative item. It’s very pretty, with an abstract-design pastel design hard cover and gold print, with gold leaf trim on all of the pages. So it’s nice to just look at. But then I thought that it might be nice, as a project, just to add an entry every day. Too bad I didn’t have this last year. It would be interesting to see the difference between 2019 and 2020. 

Anyway, you see what’s coming, don’t you? Yes, the journal went from being just a nice, middle-aged sister Christmas present to yet another anxiety-fueled compulsive must-do daily task. I already write every day; I also already keep a little planner. So this is a completely unnecessary layer of documentary complexity in my already well-documented life. But it’s not that much of a burden, really. Sometimes one line a day becomes just one word; just a single word that sums up or expresses something about my state of being on that day. 

One day last week, I wrote a very cryptic entry, thinking that I’d look at it next year and see if I could remember what it meant. Joke was on me (as it always is) because I looked at the entry 48 hours later, and I had no fucking idea what I was talking about. The thought of encroaching senility is never far from my mind. I should write more about that. I should make a note. 

*****

Oh, I know what it meant! And it was funny, too. Gosh, I crack myself up. 

*****

Sometimes I record several days’ worth of entries at one time. Cheating, I know, but a person has to find efficiencies wherever she can. (And there is proof, in case any was needed, that I have been working as a Federal government contractor for too long, because no one other than a Federal government contractor would use the plural form of the noun “efficiency,” except maybe a real estate agent in New York City.) Until yesterday, though, I hadn’t written entries for any future days, only for the current and past days. Yesterday, I wrote on today’s page “First real haircut since January.” As soon as I wrote it, I realized that I really should have waited. What if I changed my mind? What if the hairdresser didn’t show up for the appointment? What if some catastrophe prevented me from showing up for the appointment? Then what? Then I’d have falsified a record, or I’d have to cross out an entry and write something else. 

To make a long story short(er), my long(ish) hair is now short(er). Not only did I avoid catastrophe, but I got a really good haircut. Or maybe it’s just so much better than the cumulative results of my own DIY scissor work during the last six months, that it just seems like a good haircut. Does it make a difference? No, it does not. I’m glad I wrote it down in advance. If it hadn’t been documented, then maybe it wouldn’t have happened. 

Pilgrimage of Mice

It’s 12:35 PM, Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. In a normal year today would be one of my favorite days of the year but this is not a normal year and today is a little sad.

On a normal Memorial Day weekend Saturday,  my kids would already be at the pool, there to remain until 9 PM. My older son would be working his first lifeguard shift of the summer. And now that I remember, my younger son would maybe be working his first lifeguard shift ever. He was supposed to get his certification in March, but his class was cancelled just like everything else. I’d be doing some swim team work, then a little bit of housework, and then I too would be packing my swim bag and heading to the pool to see my friends and celebrate summer, my all-too-short favorite season.

But it’s still summer. I’m still wearing shorts and a t-shirt. The windows are open and the breeze is blowing, and the sun is streaming in and it’s a three-day weekend. Maybe I’ll have a drink later. Maybe I’ll have a drink now. There’s nothing stopping me.

*****
It’s Sunday morning now, late Sunday morning heading toward Sunday afternoon. It seems less summery today. There’s no sun. Well, there’s obviously a sun because the earth is not pitch-dark and frozen over, but it's not blazing overhead.

I didn’t do very much yesterday other than reading and walking and hanging around. We all hung around, and it wasn’t a bad way to spend a day. A holiday weekend always feels like a pause in regular life and so it doesn’t really bother me that nothing is normal now. Talk to me on Tuesday. I won’t be so sanguine.

*****
It's Monday now, Memorial Day. When I wrote this yesterday, I didn’t know what to do with myself, but my company’s proposal manager solved the problem for me, and I spent most of Sunday afternoon and part of the early evening rewriting past performance content. The section that I had to rewrite wasn’t badly written, it was just all wrong from a just-the-facts standpoint. So I fixed it. When I finally finished, I was cross-eyed and tired, and missing Thomas Cromwell and the Tudors; so I poured a glass of wine and rejoined Henry VIII and his courtiers as they discussed how to handle Robert Aske and the rest of the Pilgrims. Right now, Henry is promising safe conduct to Aske if he’ll just come to Windsor to negotiate. And I don’t have a direct line to Aske but if I did, I’d advise him not to fall into that trap because it’s not going to end well for him.

But 16th century gentlemen didn’t take advice from women, especially women of common origins, so he’s on his own. He can take his chances with Henry and the Lord Privy Seal. Maybe if he’s lucky, the execution will be a quick beheading with a sharp axe.

*****
Do you want to know who doesn’t get safe-conduct; not from York to London and not from Antwerp to Calais and DEFINITELY NOT from my house to my backyard or anywhere else? Mice, that’s who. Yes, the little fuckers are back and I do not grant them diplomatic immunity and I will not offer a pardon, not even if they pledge loyalty and recant their grievous heresies.

It’s probably just one mouse, actually. We saw evidence of its presence on Saturday, and then my son saw the actual creature, IN MY HOUSE, on Saturday night. It was very small, he said, so it might even be a vole. Did I not give them fair warning? Did I not state expressly and without qualification that this warning would be their only warning? They probably failed to read my blog that day, but as in Henry’s time, ignorance of the law is not an excuse. The mouse or mice or vole or voles are condemned as surely as Robert Aske and all of the rest of the rebels and eventually Thomas Cromwell himself. I might lure them to engage in peace talks, dangling false promises of clemency, but once they’re on my territory, their fate is in my hands.

*****
So yes, Memorial Day has come and gone, and it’s officially summer, and we’re still on lockdown, and someone has to pay. I’m going to post notices around the house, to give them one last warning. It’s them against me, and I don’t like their chances.

And the people with too much time on their hands wrote bullshit poetry...

So you know this poem, I assume.

"And the people stayed home. And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still. And listened more deeply. Some meditated, some prayed, some danced. Some met their shadows. And the people began to think differently.

And the people healed. And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways, the earth began to heal.

And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed."

I first saw it during the week of March 16, the first week of the stay-at-home order in Maryland. At that time, the person who shared it attributed it to an anonymous poet, writing during the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. I was skeptical even without reading past the first line (because there was no way that I was going to read more than one line of a poem that opens with the words “And the people.”) But people kept sharing it, kept commenting on the uncanny relevance of this poem from over a century ago, and my curiosity got the better of me.

And so I finally read it. And I called bullshit. And then I consulted Snopes and it turns out that I was right.

What gave it away? Well, “made art” was the first hint. People didn’t say that 100 years ago. “New ways of being” was another hint, as was the reference to exercise. But the earth-healing was the biggest giveaway. I think that people in 1918 valued human life a little bit more than we do now, and they wouldn’t have celebrated a deadly disease outbreak because carbon emissions are down a bit.

I don’t blame the author for the 1918 story. I blame her only for writing this drivel. Many of us have been lucky enough to have a comparatively pleasant time at home for most of this, though we’d much prefer to have our normal lives back. Many more people, though, have suffered terribly--are still suffering terribly. I’m not mad at anyone who is enjoying the quarantine. I just think that they should have the kindness and the common sense to keep that to themselves. That way, when the danger passes and we all join together again, no one will have to smack them.

Time for me to go meet my shadow. I'm not fit company for anyone else right now.

Wardrobe

It’s six weeks in, I think. I haven’t looked at a calendar. I know that it’s Saturday because I’m not working today. At least I hope it’s Saturday, because I’m not working today.

Six weeks in and we don’t have many rules for this, other than mask-wearing and six feet of social distance. I go through my closet every morning, wondering “What do I wear for this? What is fitting? What is proper?” I haven’t worn a skirt or dress in six weeks. I hardly ever wear a nice blouse. I wear, almost every day, some combination of a t-shirt (long- or short-sleeved; graphic or print or plain), a cardigan (usually an open-front style) and either yoga pants or jeans.

There’s nothing stopping me from wearing nicer clothes, but it just doesn’t seem appropriate. But what’s appropriate? I don’t know. There are no rules.

*****
It’s Sunday now, 9:15 AM. I’ve been up for an hour, but I’m still in my pajamas. It’s raining. I’m wondering what I should do. Take a shower and get dressed? Get dressed without showering first? I don’t have to be anywhere at any particular time, so there’s nothing forcing me to act. No rules.

I’ll take a shower, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll get off the couch and start moving and get ready for the day, even if the day won’t include any activity for which getting ready is required. That’s the only way to prevent inertia from gaining a foothold.

*****
It’s hard to believe that it’s almost May. With everything suspended and every week much the same as the last and the persistent gray and chill it seems more like March 57 than April 26. I’ll always remember this whole time as an extended, endless March.

*****
Today, someone texted me a hilarious video about teachers teaching during the pandemic. Or maybe it was a video about parents homeschooling their kids during the pandemic. Actually, it might have been about children trying to deal with spotty technology and inept parents who don’t understand new math? I don’t know, because I didn’t watch it. I sent the sender a laughing emoji, though, just to be polite.

Although, God help me, maybe that wasn’t polite because maybe it wasn’t a funny video at all? That would be awkward, wouldn’t it? I hope it was a funny video, and that my ha ha ha emoji was the appropriate response. Two points: One, I’ll never know for sure unless the person tells me because there’s no way in hell that I’m going to watch another hilarious coronavirus video. Two, if it was a funny video, then maybe the laughing emoji was not the right response, because do I really want to encourage this sort of thing? No. I do not.

*****
Someone else sent me this meme, which I did and do find legitimately hilarious.

I didn’t buy a dragon or a crozier or a miter, but I did buy a sweater and a pair of earrings and a wallet and a bunch of t-shirts for my husband and sons and a pullover anorak from my high school alumnae association and some skincare products. And some pants. And some wine.

This is embarrassing, now that I see the list; and I’m sure I forgot something. On the other hand, I’ve also donated over $1,000 since the crisis began. Every time I see an online fundraiser for people who are suffering, I throw some money at it.

I honestly don’t know how it is that I have so much money, both to spend and to donate. I haven’t put gas in my car in over a month, and I only grocery shop once a week, so that accounts for some of the extra cash. I’m not buying lunch but I never really did buy lunch--I bring my lunch to work almost every day. We get takeout twice a week--probably about the same as before all this. I think that when I’m out in the world, I spend money carelessly and thoughtlessly and it just runs through my fingers and I never really know where it goes. Now that I hardly ever leave the house, I don’t have any chance to spend little sums here and there. That leaves me with extra, for charitable donations and for unnecessary earrings. And bracelets! I forgot that I bought a bracelet, too.

I’m worried about money just like everyone else. I’m lucky that I’m still working but I’m aware every day that this state might not continue and that I could lose my job any day. I should probably save more than I do, just in case.

*****
Or maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe I should just keep giving money away, because you can’t take it with you. Maybe I should continue to buy new clothes and Kindle books. I’ll need plenty of reading material in the coming weeks; and even though I can’t go anywhere, I can keep upgrading my wardrobe so that I’m ready when it’s time to actually leave the house. I have or will soon have new tops, a jacket, earrings, a bracelet, a scarf, and a sweater. I’ll try out some outfit combinations, and see what works. If I need to accessorize, I can always buy a crozier or a miter. It’s a lot of look, but I can probably pull it off.

On the inside

Someday when all this is over, someone will conduct a forensic analysis of my best-selling coronavirus memoir, with Power BI visualizations to illustrate use frequency for certain words. “Netflix” will certainly be among my top twenty words.

Anyway, I was watching Netflix yesterday, during my daily break between work and compulsive housekeeping. I must be a huge snob because I never watch American political thrillers or crime procedural dramas, but I love this kind of crap when it has a British accent. I’ve never seen a single episode of “Law and Order” but I watched all three seasons of “Broadchurch” and I also watched a season of “Hinterland” because murder in Wales is even better than murder in England.

RIght now I’m midway through “Bodyguard.” Spoiler alert--I looked up a spoiler because I wanted to know how it all turns out. So I already know what happened, even though I’m only on episode three of six.

“Bodyguard” features Gina McKee as a high official of some British security service. She played the friend in the wheelchair in “Notting Hill,” a movie that I don’t particularly like or dislike, but have seen. Until “Bodyguard,” that was the only thing I’d ever seen her in. She looks much older now as of course she would and should because “Notting Hill” is an old movie now. Age aside, though, Ms. McKee is instantly recognizable and looks very much like she did in 1999--just older. Does that make sense? I find that people fall into two categories vis-a-vis aging: Some older people look completely different than their younger selves where others look just like older versions of the people they always were. I’d rather be the latter (I think), but only an observer who knew me then and knows me now can say for sure which category I fall into. I’m not a screen actress so there’s not much video or film evidence of my existence as a person in her thirties.

*****
My body is falling apart. Not really, I guess, but every day I find some minor thing that’s wrong that wasn’t wrong the day before. My left knee and my left shoulder are both messed up and in typical fashion, I’m ignoring the pain until it goes away on its own. I used to be able to do the stretch where you connect both hands behind your back, with one arm  high and the other low; and I can still do it with my left arm high and my right arm low but I can’t do the reverse. Not even close. I also can’t really do the one where you clasp your hands behind your back and then bend over as if to turn yourself inside out. I mean I can clasp my hands and I can bend over, but doing both at the same time is really so much harder than it used to be.

On the upside, I can bend over at the waist and place my hands palm-down on the floor and keep them there. I can still walk long distances. I haven’t been running for a few weeks because I’m afraid that I’ll injure myself and then be forced to divert valuable medical resources away from coronavirus victims. But I could probably run a little bit if I needed to.

*****
I haven’t gotten sick, thankfully. I’m trying to eat properly (a losing battle) and I’m exercising and drinking water and taking vitamins and forcing the rest of my family to do the same. But I still feel a lot more creaky and exhausted than normal. Why is this, I wonder? Wouldn’t you think that with more time on my hands because I’m not rushing here or there all the time, and I’m not spending time dressing up for work and making lunches and putting gas in the car and all of the other million time-consuming daily normal-life tasks, I’d be more rested and less stressed?. Well, that’s ridiculous; first of all, because I’m me and secondly because this isn’t a damn vacation, is it?

So maybe my body isn’t really falling apart, it’s just feeling the effects of this unnatural, uncertain, open-ended crisis. I look in the mirror every day; and other than the shaggy, still-longer-than-usual outgrowth of a self-inflicted haircut and several additional pounds, I don’t think I look much different than usual. But I feel a lot different. It feels different in here, inside my body.

*****

How did I get from British crime dramas on Netflix to creaky joints and hot-mess hair? Oh, how do I ever get from A to completely non sequitur B in these ridiculous posts? That’s a completely different subject; in fact, maybe I’ll write about it.

Oh, I remember! Gina McKee! I was thinking, as I watched “Bodyguard,” that even though she looks older, she doesn’t really look different, but she probably feels different. We can see that she’s the same Gina McKee who sat in the wheelchair in “Notting Hill.” It’s been almost 20 years since “Notting Hill;” and in 20 years, a lot of things happen in a person’s life and in her body and in her mind. Things change, and not only in a bad way. For every wrinkle, there’s probably a new insight or experience. Every gray hair corresponds with some deep sorrow or some hilarious joke. Only Gina McKee knows what it feels like to be in her body; but watching her performance, I got the sense that she's comfortable where she is.

*****
Or maybe she’s not. Maybe she has good days and bad days. Maybe sometimes she doesn’t mind looking older and maybe other times, it bothers her a lot. Anyway, that’s how I feel, so maybe I’m just projecting. What do I know about anything, anyway?

I do know one thing. I realized a few days ago that my recent pain and creakiness might be the fault of the hard wooden chair that I’ve been sitting in during the last six weeks of working from home. I got a better chair and I’m thinking that it will make all the difference. I’ll report back later. Meanwhile, I finished watching “Bodyguard.” As I said, I’d already found out how it ended, but not in detail, so I didn’t really know until I watched all the way through who among the police and intelligence agents would turn out to be a villain. Gina McKee’s character stayed on the right side of the law, which made me happy. I’d been rooting for her.

Bibliography 2019: Heated Mess Edition

It's almost the end of January, and I'm just getting around to posting my book list from 2019. These are listed in no real order. I kept a handwritten list, but as I ran out of room in my planner, I scrawled titles in margins and between lines. By the end of the year, I couldn't remember when I had read what book, so chronological order was out of the question. Then I started to rank the books, from favorite to least, but I grew tired of rearranging the list as I remembered more books, or changed my mind about one book or another. So this is a very disorganized list.

Oh, and another thing. I wrote about almost all of these books soon after I read them, and I link the original posts here. But most of the original posts are not only about the books. If you click on a title to read about a book, you might have to dig through 600 or so words about swim meets and handbags and anxiety attacks and Mary Tyler Moore reruns first. Don't say you weren't warned.

Without further ado, here is my 2019 book list.

Milkman, Anna Burns. This was my favorite book of the year, and I read some pretty darn good books in 2019. So congratulations to Anna Burns for winning the prestigious honor of a mention in this obscure blog, my everlasting esteem, and absolutely no cash whatsoever. Well done. I wrote about Milkman here, and I'll be writing about it again. If you have read any reviews of Milkman, then you might think that it's a difficult read. It's not at all difficult, though it is different from any other novel I've ever read. Comparisons to Joyce are apt, but it's much more closely akin to Dubliners than to Finnegan's Wake or Ulysses. Like Dubliners, it's a book that could take place in no city other than the one in which it is set. And like Dubliners, it's a book that only an Irish person could have written.

Say Nothing, Patrick Radden Keefe. A very close second to Milkman, and something of a companion piece. Another of the few books that I dedicated an entire post to.

Thatcher, Jacob Bannister. The very opposite of an in-depth biography; and completely appropriate for my level of interest in Margaret Thatcher, which is low. I read it right after Say Nothing, and learned almost nothing about the British perspective on the Troubles. I did learn that Margaret Thatcher began her working life as a chemist. Maybe she should have stuck with science. I don't know. I don't even want to debate American politics in 2020, let alone British politics in 1982. Anyway, there's lots more to learn about Margaret Thatcher, but this will probably represent the extent of my reading on this particular subject.

The Woman in White, Willkie Collins. I would never have chosen this. I read it because Nora Ephron liked it. She was quite right.

Heartburn, Nora Ephron. A book about everything that was wrong with the 1970s and early 1980s, disguised as a comic novel about the breakup of a marriage. Not Nora's best.

I Remember Nothing, Nora Ephron. If you have a choice between Nora in novel form and Nora in essay form, choose the latter. I never tire of reading Nora Ephron's essays.

I Feel Bad About My Neck, Nora Ephron.  Yes, it was my year of Nora Ephron. Handbags and hospitals and strudel with noodles.

My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Ottessa Moshfegh. I couldn't tell at first if it was brilliant or lazy. I lean strongly in favor of brilliant now, but I still have some reservations. I might read it again. But then again, I might not.

The Abolition of Woman, Fiorella Nash. I wrote about this one way back in January (it seems so long ago), but if you don't feel like reading what I wrote then (what?!?) then I will leave you with this quote: "It is the fatally disastrous blind spot in current human rights campaigning, the failure to acknowledge the rights of every member of the human family, but prolife feminism represents a human rights movement which excludes no human life under any circumstances." People on both sides of the political divide might do well to note the emphasis (which is mine).

Resisting Throwaway Culture, Charles Camosy. A+ for ideas, C+ for execution. When I started writing this, I had execution at a B-, but I just knocked off a few points because I'm mean.

Becoming, Michelle Obama. This was a Christmas gift from my husband--Christmas 2018, that is. I read it early in the year. I was carrying it with me one day and a young black man stopped me and asked me if it was good. I told him that it was, and I told him that Mrs. Obama had an upbringing (working class, inner city, magnet high school) similar to mine. And then we commiserated about how much we missed President Obama, and even President Bush. It was a nice conversation.

Elizabeth the Queen, Sally Bedell Smith. Poor QE II. 2019 was not such a good year 2020 isn't off to a great start either.

Motherfocloir: Dispatches from a Not-So-Dead Language. Darach O'Seaghdha. Just remembering how to spell the author's last name without having to refer back to the other browser tab makes me unwilling to even think about tackling the Irish language. I have no talent for languages other than my own.

The Madwoman in the Volvo, Sandra Tsing-Loh. I had a book of Sandra Tsing-Loh's essays, written sometime in the early 90s, and I remember re-reading it several times. She was hilarious, like a manic Asian Merrill Markoe. The Madwoman in the Volvo was just sad. It made me sad, mostly because I found myself judging the author, and pretty harshly, for her selfishness and stupidity. And who am I to judge anyone for either of those sins? I'm just as bad as everyone else. Maybe it's because she seemed to feel entitled to be selfish, that her suffering was more acute and terrible than everyone else's. Or maybe I'm just an unsympathetic jerk. Probably that.

The Opposite of Fate, Amy Tan. I didn't deliberately set out to find an Asian antidote to Sandra Tsing-Loh, but there it is.

Making Comics, Lynda Barry. This was the last book that I finished in 2019. I bought it at the National Gallery of Art's amazing bookstore. I didn't buy it to read; just to have and to look at, because it's so beautiful. It's printed and bound like a marble composition book, and every inch of every thin, delicate page is covered with gorgeous, richly colored drawings and hand-lettered text. Then I started reading it, and I couldn't stop until I finished. And then I went immediately out and bought my own made-in-Vietnam marble composition book. I'm not going to make comics, and I'm not going to draw every day either, but I think I'll write by hand sometimes now. Or maybe I'll doodle to better purpose.

The Little Friend, Donna Tartt. This counts as both my first book of 2020 and my last book of 2019. I finished it on January 2. I'd have finished it sooner except for the temporary Lynda Barry detour. Like all three of Donna Tartt's novels (the other two are The Secret History, which I read in hardback when it first came out in 1992; and The Goldfinch, which I read in 2015 or so, I think). The Little Friend was published in 2002, and I don't know why it took me so long to read it. The electronic version was on sale a few months ago, so I bought it and finally got around to reading it in December.

As a southern female writer, Donna Tartt is probably often compared to Flannery O'Connor. I don't know; I don't read much literary criticism now that I'm out of school and don't have to. Neither of her other novels really resemble O'Connor (not just because they don't take place in the American South), but no writer could possibly have imagined The Little Friend without having read and re-read the stories of Flannery O'Connor. The character of Harriet, a furiously angry, brilliant and doughty little girl, determined to resist the influence of her weak mother and her strong but very traditionally feminine grandmother, could not have been written if not for O'Connor's Mary Grace and Hulga and Mary Fortune Pitts and Mrs. Cope's daughter and the child in "A Temple of the Holy Ghost." Gum Ratliff is a direct descendant of Mrs. Greenleaf and the white trash woman in the doctor's office in "Revelation." And Edie Cleve owes her existence to Ruby Turpin and Julian's mother and Mrs. May, and all of Flannery O'Connor's determined, outrage-fueled Southern women fighting losing battles to maintain a system that is rotting from within and under attack from without.

But that's not to say that The Little Friend isn't original, because it is. Though Harriet could not have existed without O'Connor's characters, Flannery O'Connor could not have imagined Harriet exactly as she is in The Little Friend. Harriet's dismay and horror of puberty, which is both hilarious and devastating, could only have been written by a woman who reached adolescence during the mid 1970s, a particularly horrible time for young girls, especially rigidly moral and sensitive girls like Harriet. SPOILER ALERT: You will never find out who murdered Harriet's brother. And it almost doesn't matter because that's not the point. I hope that Donna Tartt will publish something new soon. I might have to re-read The Secret History this year. I'll report back in 2021.

The Girls, Emma Cline. Not quite as good as Milkman or The Little Friend, but very, very good. I'd almost forgotten about it, but then I was at a holiday party with people who had just seen "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood," which prompted my husband to talk about when he read Helter Skelter, which reminded me of The Girls. I read somewhere once that the Manson murders brought about the end of the 60s (or caused the beginning of the 70s). It was a horrifying crime (though no worse than millions of other hideous crimes before and since), but it has had a disproportionate impact on American life and culture. Worth reading.

The Future is History, Masha Gessen. In the words of Sara Bloomfield, "Nazis didn't just fall out of the sky in 1933." Masha Gessen knows that history repeats itself, in Russia and the United States.

Goodbye, Mr. Chips, James Hilton. I loved this book.

The End of the Affair, Graham Greene. I bet Phoebe Waller-Bridge read some Graham Greene, for no reason other than that during season 2 of "Fleabag," I kept thinking about The End of the Affair. Did you watch "Fleabag?" Do you remember the part about the fox? Fleabag and The Priest are sitting in a garden at night, and The Priest panics when he thinks he sees a fox. “They’re after me,” he says. “They’re watching me--they point at me and say 'You. We see you. We’re havin’ you.' I don’t know what they want with me.” I feel exactly the same way about the deer. I’m certain that they know me. I’m sure that they have plans for me, plans that I want no part of. And you know what? I don't think that there's a single mention of foxes or deer in The End of the Affair (nor probably in any other Graham Greene book). But there's plenty of God in both. As Fleabag says to The Priest at the end of the last episode, "It's God, isn't it?" Of course it is. It always is.

21 Stories, Graham Greene. I read this just about a year ago. I never did re-read any of the stories. But I'll definitely read more Graham Greene.

Educated, Tara Westover. One of my best  books of 2019. I think about it whenever I cut myself in the kitchen or bump my head on a table or stub my toe or trip over a carpet.  Every time I injure myself or almost injure myself, I think about how easily a person can really hurt herself and how fragile and ridiculous the human body is. Of course, there's so much more to Educated than the frequent and horrifying injuries that Tara and her siblings suffered while working at their father's junkyard. I've just been a little more accident-prone than usual lately. And it's all about me.

I'll Tell You in Person, Chloe Caldwell. Another memoir by a young American woman. I really can't remember if I read this before or after Educated (after, I think), but I know that I didn't read them back to back. I liked this in spite of myself.

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, Mark Manson. Well, it's on my list and I know that I read it, but I didn't write anything about it and I don't really remember anything about it. I don't even remember why I read it. So that's my review. I guess I didn't give a f*ck. Maybe I learned that from reading this book! Well done, Mr. Manson!

I'm Judging You: The Do-Better Manual, Luvvie Ajayi. Neither here nor there. I enjoyed reading it, but I don't recall a single word of it. I looked at what I wrote about it earlier to see if I'd remember something. What I remember is that I was also reading a biography of Muriel Spark at the time, which I never finished. Muriel Spark, who was one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, had to have been more interesting than Martin Stannard made her seem. I'm judging him. Or maybe I'm judging her.

Frances and Bernard, Carlene Bauer. A kind of ridiculous novel that I really liked anyway. I liked it so much that I read the very next book on this list.

Not That Kind of Girl, Carlene Bauer. Kind of an incoherent, roundabout, meandering memoir, which is the best kind; probably the only kind.

The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis. I've read Screwtape five or six times. A hardcover copy of Screwtape is my standard Confirmation gift because I think that every teenager should read it, though I didn't read it until I was a grown-up. I'll probably read it at least five or six more times, just as a reminder that "the safest road to hell is the gradual one – the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts."

A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman, Margaret Drabble. This is a short story compilation that I liked very much, though don't ask me for details, because I won't remember anything. Well, I remember something about a beach; a very English, Broadchurch type of beach. That's all. I'd never read any of Margaret Drabble's work before this. I thought I remembered writing something about it so I searched "Drabble," but I was searching the Internet, not just my blog, and I learned that a "Drabble" is apparently a 100-word work of fiction. That seems like a fun challenge, so maybe I'll try to write one. I'll probably read more Margaret Drabble this year, too.

South and West, Joan Didion. I won't even link to the post where I mentioned this because at the time, all I remembered of this was a part where Joan Didion ate a grilled cheese sandwich. I'm not sure how anyone as thin as Joan Didion gets to swan around the place eating grilled cheese sandwiches, but life isn't fair. Joan Didion is not much like Nora Ephron. I think of Nora Ephron as "Nora," but I never think of Joan Didion as anything except Joan Didion. But here's one thing they have in common--I like Joan Didion's essays much better than her fiction.

The Anti-Mary Exposed: Rescuing the Culture from Toxic Femininity, Carrie Gress. I read three pro-life books this year and this was the least convincing and by far the least interesting of the three. I won't suggest that there's no such thing as toxic femininity because of course there is. But Ms. Gress (Dr. Gress, I think) comes across as a woman-hating woman and is thus not an effective defender of the argument against mainstream feminism. I also question her scholarship, for two reasons: 1. She presents Mallory Millett as a credible source, which she is certainly not. 2. She can't even correctly quote Meryl Streep in "The Devil Wears Prada." It was a "lumpy" blue sweater, not  "droopy" one. It was not a "lovely Gap Outlet," it was a "tragic Casual Corner;" and Andie didn't "find" the lumpy blue sweater, she "fished it out of a clearance bin." Although Gress makes some very good points in this book, I can't get past her failure to use the word "cerulean" in her mention of this scene. I get that she was citing the screenplay and not the actual movie but if you're trying to make a case to young, feminist women, then you better get Miranda Priestly right. Cerulean!

By all means, confuse Gap Outlet with Casual Corner.
You know how that thrills me. 

Can You Ever Forgive Me? Lee Israel. I didn't really write about the book when I read it, though I wrote about the movie multiple times. I saw it three times (twice on airplanes) and it made a deep impression. The book was good, too, though not quite so memorable and not something that I would have read at all had I not seen the movie. Can You Ever Forgive Me? was not the last book I read in 2019, but I feel that I should list it last so that we're ending on a note of forgiveness; specifically, you forgiving me for making you read this soggy pile of old gym clothes and wet towels disguised as literary criticism. Well, no one made you read it, so I guess if you're in it this far, you're on your own. But please do forgive me.

This post is--how do you say it? A heated mess.
A mess where heat is applied, so it becomes even more messy. 

OMG, am I done? I'm done! That's it! That's the last book on my barely legible handwritten hot mess of a list, and the end of this even hotter mess of a post! Read (most of) these books, and then maybe you'll forget that you spent 30 minutes of your life reading this trash pile! Or maybe you won't, but that's not my problem, is it?

But really, please do forgive me.

Fog

It's game night, Capitals vs. Hurricanes, and we're on our way to Capital One Center. The puck drops in a little more than an hour.

I love game night. Even on a Monday night, even after ignominious losses in two straight games, Capital One Center is a happy place. We celebrate when our team wins and we share the pain when they lose. It's all good, either way.

But winning is better. They need to beat these bitches.

*****
We're here now, waiting for this Metropolitan Division match-up between the Carolina Hurricanes and YOUR Washington Capitals. Thanks, Wes Johnson. I like being here early and I love having an end seat. I don't mind having people climb over me, but I hate climbing over other people. It's a thing.

Slapshot is skating out with his giant flag. It's his 25th anniversary, and it's Tom Wilson's 500th game. A night of milestones.

*****
You know who I feel sorry for? Well, a lot of people; but today, I’m feeling sorry for Londoners during the Blitz.

It’s Tuesday now. I worked from home today and although it’s not really that cold outside (mid 40s), it’s foggy and misty and damp. All day long, I couldn’t get the chill out of my bones. I have heat and hot water and plenty of tea, and no one is dropping bombs on me, but I’m still miserable. January. Who needs it?

The Capitals did win last night, snapping their two-game losing streak. Doesn’t that sound ridiculous? A two-game losing streak? Almost as ridiculous as me comparing myself to bombing victims living out World War II under near-famine conditions. I like to think of myself as not a complainer, not prone to drama, but that’s clearly ridiculous. It’s a dreary day and I feel dreary.

*****
You know, if I’d had to live through the Blitz, I’d be so dirty. I can’t stand taking my clothes off in the winter, even in a central heat-equipped house with a reasonable supply of hot running water. What if I was living in a cold-water bed-sit with a tiny coal stove for heat? I don’t even want to think about it.

*****
It’s Wednesday morning now, 7:15, with fog so dense and heavy that I can barely see my neighbor’s house across the street. The gas lamp is glowing softly, leaving a hazy golden halo hovering in mid-air. Postwar London.

Normally, I write in the evenings but my husband drove my son to school today, leaving me a few extra minutes. I made eggs; two fried eggs, to be exact. Postwar Londoners had to make do with one egg a week and I can have two in a day if I want to. I read somewhere that it’s not safe to put your broken eggshells back in the egg carton, but I do it anyway. If London could withstand the Blitz, then I can probably resist a few wandering salmonella germs. My immune system is pretty tough. Bulletproof is not too strong a word. Come at me, salmonella. Come at me, bro.

The fog has begun to lift and thin a bit. I can see the grass in my backyard now, and I can see across the fence into the neighbor’s yard. It’s 7:30 now, and I want to get to work before 8, so it’s time to stop and not a moment too soon. I mean really.

*****
I’ve never been to Atlanta. I’ve been over it and through it but never in it. But that will change next month because apparently, I’m going to Atlanta. I woke up this morning with absolutely no plans to visit Atlanta (no offense, of course, because I’m sure it’s a wonderful city) and now I’m making a packing list. It’s all good. I’m always happy to see a new place, though I’m not always so happy to get on the plane that will take me there.

In any event, it’ll probably be warmer there than it is here. It feels like winter again today; appropriate because it is winter, but I don’t have to like it.

*****
It’s Friday, WFH day. That’s work from home, of course. I finished a little before 4 and went out to walk and run in the sunshine, which didn’t warm the even a little bit. And I didn’t even hate it. There was almost no wind; the bare trees barely rustled, and the stillness made the cold feel not quite so cold.

In recent days, my thinking has been muddled and foggy. I thought I’d mention that just in case this ridiculous post doesn’t adequately demonstrate the cobwebby state of the inside of my brain. It’s a mess in there. Like an episode of Hoarders, Extreme Cases, if that exists. But just one pretty fast walk in the sunshine and the sharp, clear air, and some of the cobwebs are gone. The pistons are firing again, if that’s what pistons do. I’m not a mechanic.

A week of fog outside and a week of fog inside. But the fog has lifted for now. Just for now.

Storms and sunshine

It’s Tuesday, and the first snow day of the year. It’s not really a snow day, it’s a snow half-day (or a half snow day--take your pick). Schools closed early, as did the Federal government, so we all spent the afternoon at home. I had the most unproductive and frustrating day yesterday; so much so that I began to question my competence. Well, I question my competence every damn day, but not at work. I’m pretty good at my job. But today, I got shit done, and then I got more shit done. I was firing on every cylinder. It was a good day.

*****
Yesterday, one of my coworkers said that he was making poached chicken for dinner. And I pictured him stuffing a squirming, squawking chicken under his trench coat, feathers flying as he runs toward his car, with a shotgun-wielding farmer in hot pursuit. “Hit the gas, honey,” he says, slamming the car door as his wife shifts it into gear. “We’re having poached chicken tonight.” And then I laughed and laughed.

Maybe this is why I couldn’t get any work done.

*****
Now it’s Thursday. It’s seasonably cold, which means that compared to the rest of this so-called winter, it’s freezing. It’s 5:30 PM, a dead of winter kind of day. All of the lights in the house are off, and I’m surrounded by sleeping people. My 15-year-old had 5 AM swim practice this morning and band rehearsal after school, and now he’s exhausted, sprawled out on the family room couch as ESPN glows softly on our ridiculous-sized TV. My husband, with a short break between his full-time job and a part-time evening gig, is also napping, on another couch in another room. My older son is at work. The house has finally warmed up and although I don’t usually like to sit in the dark, I have to admit that it feels cozy up in here. I can’t sleep right now, but watching other people sleep in a dark and peaceful house is the next best thing.

*****

It’s Friday afternoon, almost five o’clock and still light for a little while. The days are getting longer and not a moment too soon. I’d love to stay in tonight but I have to go to a thing and be social and whatnot.

I worked at the office today, rather than at home as I normally do on Fridays. I had too much to do when I went in this morning, and now I have way too much to do, having added (or been assigned) more stuff to do. I’m going to make a big list and figure out how to break the whole mess down and spread it out and get it all done. I’ll do that later. Because thinking about it for a while and then writing about it, and then writing it all down, is obviously more efficient than just doing it, right?

I’m starting to hyperventilate a little bit, just thinking about it.

It’ll be fine, though. Because anxiety-prompted procrastination that leads to full-blown panic fueling further inaction and paralysis until I have no choice but to work like a fiend just to keep up is always the right way to approach a surge in workload. That’s free life coaching.

*****

Another Saturday morning, another high school swim meet. I'm sitting on a bench with two stopwatches around my neck. I need two because I'm the assistant head timer. A significant promotion, and a long-overdue recognition of my accomplishments in high school swim timing.

A team parent is skulking around the deck, taking pictures for the obligatory end-of-season slide show, and he's pointing his stupid camera right at me. What is wrong with people? Does he think that I'm camera ready at 9 o’clock on Saturday morning at the aquatic center? I'm going to keep my head down and ignore him. Maybe he'll go away.

Warm-ups are underway now, so I'll have to put the phone away. I take my timing responsibility very seriously. They don't promote just anyone to assistant head timer. Well, they do. But they shouldn't.

You keep working on those stopwatch skills, and you'll be
lead deputy assistant head timer in no time, I tell you what. 

The head timer and assistant head timer don't have much to do during the 500-yard freestyle events, so I can sit and write as the swimmers settle in to their distance rhythm. Two things I'm good at: timing and multitasking. Well, the timing, anyway. I was running around the house multitasking like a crazy person this morning and only now does it occur to me that I don't remember turning the stove off. I don't remember leaving it on, of course ; I just don't definitely and clearly remember turning it off. I'll find out soon enough, won't I?

*****
It’s Sunday now and I’m sitting on the couch in my family room in my house that is still standing because I did turn off the stove. Now I’m planning my week. It’ll be fine. I can’t really think today.

I’ve been working on my 2019 book list, and I hoped to finish it this weekend, but I probably won’t. I like to write about books, but I’m distracted right now. I need clothes and shoes, but i want to buy more handbags. I’ll end up wearing handbags to work as my work clothes gradually wear out or go out of fashion, and I replace them with nothing but handbags. Handbags on my feet, handbags instead of sweaters or skirts. They probably won’t fit. I’ll have to buy clothes and then just carry one of the 20 or more handbags that I already have.

I didn’t sleep much last week, or last night. January thunderstorms, and then 65-degree sunshine. It’s a nice day so I think I have to get out of the house and out of my head. This post has hit rock bottom and I don’t want to join it. Until next week.