Bibliography 2025 - BLTN Edition

I never did finish my 2025 book list. I’ve become very lax about tracking and documenting my reading, and now I’m looking at a list of what I read last year and I’m finding two things: There are several books that I read and vividly remember but never added them to my list; and there are books that are on my list but I barely remember a word of them. 

Does it even matter? Some people just read books and move on and never even think about adding titles to a list or writing down their thoughts about the books they read. Those people aren’t me, though. It bothers me that I haven’t published a 2025 book list and so I’m going to do it now, just as we’re approaching the middle of 2026. Better late than never. So here’s the list: 

The Hard Crowd (Rachel Kushner)

We Want Everything (Nanni Balestrini). I’d never have picked this up if I hadn’t read Rachel Kushner. It’s about social upheaval and revolution in 1970s Italy, and it’s great. Whoever came up with the phrase “Become ungovernable” must have read Nanni Balestrini. 

The Let Them Theory (Mel Robbins). What was she thinking, you might ask? Click the link and find out. Five eye rolls. Highly unrecommended.

The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde). This was my first time reading Dorian Gray, and I went in knowing nothing other than what everyone knows, which is that Dorian Gray remains ever young while his portrait in the attic ages hideously. And rightly so, because as it turns out (SPOILER ALERT), Dorian Gray is an absolutely hideous person. I’d expected that he would be vain and selfish and trifling and dishonest, but he’s a straight-up murderous monster, lacking in all human decency. He’d be right at home in 2026. 

The Beauty of Everyday Things (Soetsu Yanagi). I’ve actually not yet finished this book. It’s on my coffee table, and I read it a page or two at a time. It’s a series of essays about ordinary household objects made by Japanese craftsmen and artisans. The essays and accompanying photographs are quite beautiful - inspiring, too - and I like his Yanagi’s idea that patterns and technique and their limitations are prerequisites for beauty, not hindrances. No one, not even a genius, is endlessly creative. Structure is helpful. But I hate his blithe dismissal of the craftspeople themselves. He insists that craftspeople are artisans NOT artists, and that anonymity is essential to their work. He disdains the idea that a craftsperson should try to put her personal stamp on anything she makes. He seems to believe in a permanent underclass who should quietly work their lives away creating beauty and comfort and ease for their betters. Another one who'd be right at home in 2026.

Demon Copperhead (Barbara Kingsolver)

David Copperfield. Charles Dickens.

Family and Other Calamities (Leslie Gray Streeter) and Trespasses (Louise Kennedy)

The Crow Trap (Ann Cleeves)

Mansfield Park (Jane Austen)

Iris in Winter (Elizabeth Caddell)

The Pursuit of Love, Love in a Cold Climate, and Don’t Tell Alfred (Nancy Mitford)

The Truths We Hold and 107 Days (Kamala Harris). I read the first book early in the year, amid the early Trump 2.0 chaos of DOGE and USAID and plane crashes, when people on the internet were seriously, with a straight face, asking why Kamala wasn’t “doing something about all of this.” Never mind that Kamala actually asked for the chance to lead, by running a near-flawless campaign for President. Never mind that she warned us - repeatedly and clearly and convincingly - that everything that happened last year and that is happening now would in fact happen. And never mind that 76 or so million Americans looked at the smart and compassionate and principled and accomplished Black lady and the 34-count pu$&y-grabbing corrupt racist insurrectionist felon and said “yeah, we’ll take the White dude.” Kamala was RIGHT THERE, ready to lead, and this country said “no thanks, we like the conman.” Yes, it’s been almost two years, and no, I am not over it. 

Lovely One, Ketanji Brown Jackson. I often wonder what it’s like for Justice Jackson to finally fulfill her highest ambition, only to be surrounded by the six worst Supreme Court justices in history. And Justices Kagan and Sotomayor, too - but at least they had a chance to serve when the Supreme Court wasn’t a wholly owned subsidiary of a corrupt Executive Branch. Anyway, it’s a very good book. I just finished Uncommon Favor, Dawn Staley’s memoir, and there’s a common thread connecting them. Both of these women knew what they wanted to do from a very early age. Both of them knew that they were extraordinarily gifted. Both of them were singularly dedicated to pursuing their goals. And of course, both of them had to be twice as good as white men to get half as far. 

Black Widow (Leslie Gray Streeter) and The End of the World is a Cul de Sac (Louise Kennedy)

The Sum of Us (Heather McGhee). I’m not sure why I didn’t write about this before, because it is very good. I have always been impressed with Heather McGhee when I’ve seen her on discussion panels, and I am consciously trying to read more books by Black authors, especially women. McGhee’s central thesis is in her subtitle: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together. She touches on some of the same themes that Heather Cox Richardson wrote about in Democracy Awakening, which explains what Richardson calls the “liberal consensus,” the social welfare system that pulled us out of the Depression and made America free and prosperous in the post-war years; and its gradual dismantling beginning with Ronald Reagan and continuing through the first Trump administration. McGhee covers this as well, but with a much closer examination of the role of race in the dismantling of the social welfare system and the ways in which Reagan and others in the public and private spheres exploited racial fears to hoodwink the so-called “white working class” into believing that equality for Black Americans would equal poverty and deprivation for them. Sadly, their tactics worked and continue to work, to everyone’s detriment. We really could have a just society and a fair distribution of wealth, but only if we understand that racism is the major obstacle. 

Ten Days that Shook the World, John Reed. As I mentioned here, I re-read Ten Days after watching Reds for the first time right after Diane Keaton died. Fair warning - this post touches on pretty much everything, so don’t expect a book review. 

Erasing History: How Fascists Rewrite the Past to Control the Future, Jason Stanley. God, I spent a lot of 2025 neck-deep in fascism, didn’t I? No wonder my brain is in the state it’s in. Anyway, this book touches on some of the same things that Heather McGhee and Heather Cox Richardson and Timothy Snyder and Anne Applebaum have covered in their recent books, with a bit of a narrower focus. Stanley examines a specific tactic of fascists - the rewriting of history, the flooding of the zone with bullshit, making it harder to tell truth from lies; and of course, the framing of oppressors as victims. It’s DARVO on a macro scale. Jason Stanley and Timothy Snyder are both in Canada now. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to characterize their departure as fleeing the US. I worry about HCR sometimes.  

I read a few other things here and there, too. I listened to an audiobook version of Jonathan Alter’s His Very Best, a biography of Jimmy Carter. I don’t consider that I really read it, not because I don’t think listening to an audiobook is reading (keep me out of that debate) but because I didn’t really pay attention to the recording. I ended up buying a copy of the book, an actual copy, because it was right on the front table of a new locally owned bookstore that I really like. The parts that actually penetrated the brain fog when I was listening were quite good so maybe I’ll actually read it this year. If I do, you'll see it on my 2026 book list. God willing, I will publish that sometime before the end of 2027.

Rodent vandals

There’s a new bird feeder outside my window, with an Arlo camera trained on it, as my husband’s long battle to keep the squirrels out of his birdfeeders enters a new and deadly phase. The new feeder is hanging from a length of copper tubing mounted to the fence, and angled so that the feeder is too far from the trees and the fence for the squirrels to reach. But the squirrels are determined and daring. 

Why a new bird feeder, you might ask? We had to replace the old bird feeder because a little black squirrel knocked it down. How do we know that a little black squirrel is the culprit? Yes, that’s right, we have video footage of the little black squirrel sitting on top of the fence, calculating its trajectory before taking the flying leap that took down the bird feeder and a good-sized tree branch. The squirrel escaped unharmed after stuffing itself on the scattered bird seed. I am that squirrel’s biggest fan. I’m not saying that I would deliberately sabotage my husband’s squirrel defenses, but I do continue to oppose this unwarranted prejudice against squirrels. I don’t see why the birds should have everything handed to them. I don't see why the squirrels can't get a break. 

*****

Even with the rather extreme heat and humidity this summer, we’ve had few thunderstorms, but we’re making up for it now. It’s Tuesday, the second day in a row of thunderstorms. We need the rain, but I also need to go swimming. Me vs. nature: Nature wins, every time. 

Really, that’s true for anyone vs. nature, but some of us, like the person I’m married to, will try to fight the inevitable. In brand-new Arlo footage released this morning, a small black squirrel (the same one? A new one?) leapt from the fence and landed on the new bird feeder and hung on for a few minutes before finally dropping to the ground. The new bird feeder is slippery, and the little ledge where the birds roost, stuffing themselves on free birdseed, is nothing but a narrow wire, so there’s not much for the squirrel to cling to. But my husband is not the only one who’s not giving up. That squirrel is going to keep trying, and I’m here for him. He’s an underdog, just like USA Men’s Gymnastics, and look what happened there. 

*****

I’ll continue to root for the squirrels but I draw the line at raccoons, especially the agile and daring variety of raccoon that climbs trees and hangs upside down and then digs right into our bird feeder, which is there for the birds. And the squirrels. My husband got up in the middle of the night to chase the raccoon away after an Arlo notification on his phone alerted him to its presence. Later footage revealed that the stupid raccoon came right back and stuffed itself on bird seed. The bird feeder is still in place, but it won’t be for long if this fat-ass nocturnal rodent keeps swinging from it. Bird feeders are not designed to hold ten pounds of obese trash panda. So we’re going to the mattresses. My husband bought a humane trap, and will take his prisoners to the woods adjacent the Turkey Branch Parkway. This of course will avail us nothing except for new raccoons, but my husband will never stop fighting nature, no matter his win-loss record. 

L'Air du Temps

When is the last time you smelled perfume - not from a bottle in a store, but just out and about in the world? One day at work last week, I walked down a corridor and into some perfume, just hanging there, lingering in the air. It hit me like a physical force. It had been years since I had smelled perfume - real, old-fashioned, lady-with-a-spritzer-at-department-store perfume - and it took me all the way back. I think I understand Proust and his madeleine now. 

The scent was maddeningly familiar; heavy on the Oriental notes, and a little bit floral but not rosy floral.  Something like Opium but not Opium. Maybe I should just Google a list of popular perfumes of the 1970s and 80s and then match a name with a scent. 

*****

Of course you understand that I actually did this, and I promptly ended up in a rabbit hole of mid-20th century beauty culture nostalgia, from which I emerged only days later.

*****

When I was growing up, lots of women - maybe even most women - wore perfume. The women in my working-class Philadelphia neighborhood wore Tabu or Charlie or popular Avon scents (if you’re young, then you might not know that Avon used to be known mostly for perfume - the cosmetics came later). When I was in high school and college and then a young person in the working world, I learned about expensive perfumes, classics like Chanel No. 5 and Joy and Arpege. Perfume was very popular among young women in the 80s - we favored overwhelming heavy scents like Opium and Lauren and Chloe, suitable for the aspirational luxury ethos of that decade. Every city still had fancy downtown department stores, marble floors and high vaulted ceilings and full-service restaurants and dressed-up salespeople and elaborate Christmas displays that families made special trips to visit. You couldn’t walk into one of those stores without being chased by a young woman wielding a spritzer of perfume. Just thinking about those department stores makes me miss my grandmother. 

*****

I read Chuck Klosterman’s The Nineties early in 2022, and I started writing about it, but I never finished. Here’s a preview - if you were a young person in the 80s and 90s then you might remember that right around 1991, there was a very abrupt popular fashion 180, from glamor and high heels and big hair to hippie revival and grunge. In 1987, young women dressed up to go out - full hair and makeup, high-heeled shoes with designer jeans and dressy tops, and of course, perfume. In 1992, the aesthetic abruptly changed. This is not to say that young women no longer cared how they looked - they very much did care. But it was no longer acceptable to act or look as if you cared. It really took just as much time and effort trying to appear as if you didn’t make any effort at all as it did to look flawlessly put together. Perfume did not survive this fashion transition, perhaps because it was an obvious olfactory clue that a woman cared about being conventionally attractive. 

*****

When I was very young, age 5 or so, we lived with my grandparents for a time. I think we were there for about a year, more or less. My grandparents went out most Saturday nights and my grandmother would usually let us sit on her bed and watch her get dressed and fix her hair and put the finishing touches on her hair and makeup. Perfume was always the last step. 

Eventually, I realized that my grandparents’ nights out were not particularly glamorous - they went to movies sometimes, or to VFW or American Legion events, or mostly to friends’ houses to play cards. Perhaps it was that perfume, lingering in the air long after my grandmother left the room, that made grown-up life seem very exciting and romantic.

I never did figure out what last week’s perfume was, even after my internet rabbit hole research. It reminded me of Opium or Chloe, not because of how it smelled but because of how it felt. It was like John Wanamaker or Strawbridge and Clothier, circa 1980. It was like midnight Mass at St. John the Baptist, circa 1975.  It was like my Nana’s bedroom on a Saturday night in 1971. It was like my childhood in the middle of the American century. 

Prime rate

Today was a coworker’s last day at work, so a group of us who share an office with him ate lunch together. We ate at a picnic table in the courtyard, right beneath a nice shade tree. It rained yesterday (it rains every day now) so we grabbed extra napkins so that we could wipe everything down.  We noticed a few ants around the table; in fact, there were a few ants on the table by the time we finished. But no matter, we all said. They’re just ants. They won’t hurt anyone. 

The itching started an hour or so later, and I couldn’t tell if it was real itching or just the creepy crawly feeling that a bug or an insect or some other vermin had gotten between your skin and your clothes. Eventually it subsided, and I went home without a care in the world until my husband texted me that a neighbor’s house had been burglarized earlier, and then the creepy crawly sensation followed me home. 

*****

It’s the next day now and I'm sitting in a conference room. And when I say "conference room," don't picture your average table and chairs with screens and projectors and telecom equipment. This is the single fanciest conference room I have ever seen. It 's large. I'm not going to count, but I think it seats about 90 people, in 7 rows arranged in semi-circular theater-style tiers. One side of the room is almost entirely windows that look out onto a semi-nice view of a brand-spanking-new building, a patio, and some trees. The light is excellent. The other walls are paneled in light wood. Each seat has its own table space, with charging stations and push-to-talk microphones. There is a large podium on a semi-circular dais at the front, backed by absolutely gigantic, Super Bowl-sized screens. 

We learned, when we arrived for this day-long offsite event, that we are the first group to ever use this brand-new room. No wonder it smells so new. Some of the chairs still have tags on them, including the one that I'm sitting in, which is exceptionally comfortable for a conference room chair. I'm very likely the first person ever to sit in this chair. It's quite excellent. Even the soap in the bathroom feels luxurious. 

This is the advantage of working for a very well-funded foundation. I myself don't make a lot of money but I don't need a lot of money. But it's nice to work in beautiful surroundings, even for a day. But speaking of work, the break is over. Time to return to meeting mode. 

*****

It’s Friday now. The meeting ended before 4 yesterday, leaving me free for a bit before it was time to head to my son’s baseball game. It would not have made sense, driving route-wise, for me to return home and then drive to the game. So I shopped for a bit. 

The thing about shopping now is not just that I can’t find things, it’s that I don’t WANT things. It’s quite freeing, although I do feel a sense of loss because the not wanting of things is related to being older and not wanting to be burdened with stuff. I watched young women and girls hopefully browsing the racks of clothing at Nordstrom, sure that they’ll find the top or the dress that will change the course of their lives or at least the course of their summers. I wish them the best and I wouldn’t trade places with them for a kajillion dollars. 

A gazillion, maybe. But not a kajillion. 

I finished shopping and drove to my son’s game without incident, watched a few innings, and got in my car to return home. I was in the car for the next 2.5 hours. After a terrible accident, Maryland 200 was closed in both directions, and I was stuck there, with all of the other unfortunate commuters, until we actually finally all u-turned in the middle of the highway and drove down the wrong side of the road and got off at the first exit, hoping that the oncoming lanes would be properly blocked.

It was really a bit terrifying. For a long time, there were no police directing the traffic. People just started turning around. People were getting out of their cars to take photos, just as others were u-turning to try to escape down the shoulder. Eventually, I heard on the radio that police up ahead at the scene of the accident had begun to turn people around and so I took it on faith that this was the best and only escape route, and that I’d just have to pray that I’d be able to figure out how to safely exit a major highway from the wrong direction, using an on ramp to exit. Terrifying. 

*****

All’s well that ends well. I guess. No one was hurt in the burglary, and the miscreants didn’t get away with anything especially valuable. One person died in the accident and although that's one too many, it could have been so much worse. And I got home eventually.

But I still have the creepy crawlies. That's two minor mishaps in one week and the last time I experienced two minor mishaps in one week, something awful happened later that same week. It's Saturday now and I'm not usually superstitious in any area of life other than Washington Capitals hockey, but I won't be at ease until this week is officially over. 

But who am I kidding? I’m never at ease, no matter the circumstances. Low-level fear and anxiety is my default setting, and so this is just another day. Even after this week ends, I'll find something else to worry about next week. Interest rates are climbing but I am still borrowing trouble. 

Project planning

Last winter and spring, I started work early every day, and I usually finished my day at 4. (I still start early but I don’t finish early). I would go for a walk outside, returning home by 5 when it was still deep winter and a bit later as the days grew longer. My sons and I would reconvene after we finished our remote work and school days from our desks in various corners of the house. Then my husband, who was no longer working remotely, would come home. I would make dinner and we’d spend the evening in the family room, sometimes watching a game or doing an online crossword puzzle together and sometimes entertaining ourselves separately. 

Weekends were completely unscheduled. As restaurants began to re-open, my husband and I would go for sushi at our favorite local place. We’d go together to pick up groceries or other supplies and then we’d return home for a quiet evening in semi-lockdown. There was a lot of reading. There was a lot of Netflix bingeing. Someone was always napping on a couch. 

The thing was that I knew at the time that this state of suspended animation was artificial and temporary. And I wanted it to be temporary. In fact, despite how pleasant it sometimes was, I really couldn't wait for it to end. I wanted to go places and do things and see people. I wanted to take the mask off. I wanted my normal, busy, over-scheduled life.

*****

Now, of course, in a case of “who could have predicted this,” I am nostalgic for early 2021. But this is not just me being neurotic and ridiculous, and it’s not just “be careful what you wish for.” I’m not just missing the slow pace and lack of scheduled obligations. It’s something else. 

In the early spring of 2021, things seemed to be taking a little turn for the better. The vaccines promised an eventual end to pandemic restrictions and a return to whatever constituted normal pre-COVID. TFG was gone from the public spotlight, or at least he was no longer the center of attention. He couldn’t even tweet. I walked around my neighborhood in the sunny early spring chill, and the cherry blossoms seemed to promise a new beginning. 

Last week, my son’s high school sent an email about a coming delivery of free test kits, and I was like “what? COVID tests? Still?” I know that the pandemic is not over yet. As a matter of fact, when I called her on Wednesday to get her shopping list, the old lady I shop for helpfully told me that I should be careful because there’s a new variant coming because of course there is. Still, COVID seems like a dim and distant memory now. Even the dreaded Omicron surge of late 2021 seems ages in the past. And amid 24/7 coverage of the dreadful war in Ukraine and the worsening humanitarian crisis and the growing danger that we’ll end up in a bloody ground war or nuclear war with Russia, the quiet mid-pandemic languishing of early 2021 seems like the gosh darn good old days. 

*****

Two years ago, on the first Saturday in March, my son played in his first high school baseball game, a scrimmage against a Middletown school. Middletown is in Frederick County, about 30 miles north of Silver Spring, and according to Google, about 200 feet higher in elevation. I remember that it was chilly when we left our house in Silver Spring and that it was absolutely freezing cold in Middletown. The other Rockville mothers and I huddled in our folding canvas chairs, bundled in winter jackets and wrapped in blankets. Later that evening, I shared pizza and spinach-artichoke dip and a bottle of wine with two other mothers while our gang of young teenage boys, who weren’t yet able to drive on their own, celebrated a friend’s birthday at the Stained Glass Pub. That was the very last normal Saturday before March 13, 2020, when Maryland and most of the rest of the United States shut down.  I remember almost everything about that day. And now it’s Saturday morning and the sun is shining and although it’s cold, it will warm up today to a spring-like 60 degrees. Rockville will play its first scrimmage later today, against Winston Churchill. We have Capitals tickets. I have errands to run. The cherry blossoms are starting to bloom and I have even started to see a little bit of yellow on the forsythia bushes. It’s a prototype of a normal early spring Saturday. 

Spring used to be a time of crushing anxiety and panic attacks for me. Part of this is related to an old trauma that happened in the spring. Part of it was just over-scheduling and over-commitment and too much to do. The trauma part is long in the past now, so far in the past that I hardly ever think about it. The spring onslaught part is very different this year, because my younger son now drives and has his own car and so all I need to do is show up at his games and cheer with the other parents. I don’t have to drive him back and forth to practice, and I don’t have to get him to his games 90 minutes before they actually start and then try to fit as many errands or to-do list items into that 90 minutes before I return to watch the game. I just wave goodbye and watch him drive away. 

That’s it, I guess. Other than the worry and sadness about the state of the world and the plight of Ukraine, I am acutely conscious that I’m almost done with all of this, the school concerts and sports and PTA and all of the other mom things that have made my life very busy and very good for the last 21 years. Pretty soon, I’ll wave goodbye and watch them drive away knowing that it will not be hours, but days or weeks or even months before I see them again. Last spring, when the world was on hold, my children seemed years away from adulthood. Just one year later, and they’re already 80 percent out the door. I guess I just don’t know what I’m going to do with myself when they’re out on their own. I guess I’ll need a project. 

All I ever wanted

I thought I had a beach house reserved, but it turns out that I don't. Having given up on the idea of Ireland once again (next year!) I decided that we should go to the beach this summer. Unfortunately for me, everyone else who had to cancel their other travel plans also decided to go to the beach, to the same beach town where I want to go, at the same time that I want to go. For the last almost three months, I've been searching for an available rental for the second week in August; and for the last three months, I found nothing. Until last Thursday, when I found just the right place in just the right location for just the right price. And I quickly reserved it, and I signed the lease, and I sent a check for the security deposit, service fee, and half of the rent per the agency’s requirements. And I thought, having signed paperwork and mailed checks and whatnot, that the thing was in the bag and that all I had to do was mail the other half of the rent in July, and show up in August with my bicycle and beach umbrella and cooler in tow. 

But no. Because today, the rental agent emailed me that she was terribly sorry, but she had to cancel my reservation, because the owner just called her and told her that the house shouldn’t have been available for the week that I rented it. This would seem, wouldn’t it, a classic YP not MP (your problem not my problem)? See previous paragraph’s discussion of signed leases and mailed checks. 

I emailed her again later, because the whole thing just bothered me. A full five days had elapsed since I had reserved the house and confirmed my reservation, and it seemed unlikely that it would take that long for the owner to notice that the house was listed in error. Something seemed off. And I was right, as it turns out. When questioned, the agent freely admitted that the owner decided that she wanted the house back for a family friend, and so they cancelled my perfectly legitimate reservation to indulge the owner’s whim. 

Yes, I understand private property. She owns the place, so she can do what she wants. EXCEPT that if you don’t want to rent your house out, then don’t list it as available for rent. You don’t get to have it both ways. You don’t get to capriciously cancel a valid reservation because you changed your mind. You can change your mind BEFORE the listing rents, but not after. 

I don’t at all understand why the agency is allowing her to do this. In their place, I would drop her as a client. I’d drop her like hot garbage. I saw her name on the lease (which I signed and mailed and which is now in their hands and could even be used against me if her friend damages the place during the week that I reserved it for), but I don’t remember it now. I DO remember the name of the real estate agency. They are the ones I blame for this. They are the ones that I will not do business with again. 

Do you know what’s the worst part of this whole thing? Even worse than the disappointment of losing the perfect house in the perfect location with no stairs so my mother could join us for the week? It’s having crossed a task off my list, brushing the dust of a completed chore off my hands with a flourish, and then finding that I have to start over again. I was done, and now I’m not. Checks were written, paperwork was signed, envelopes were dropped in the mailbox at the post office that I drove to myself, and all for jolly well naught. That is the worst part. 

No, it’s not really the worst part. The worst part is that I really wanted to go and now I’m sad that maybe we can’t. I know that this is a first-world problem. And that some people, maybe most people, don’t have the money or the time to take any vacation at all. And I feel bad about this. But right this minute, I feel worse about my own stupid situation. I’m petty that way. I’m petty, and I’m not letting it go, either. It’s just one more battle, one more City Hall to fight. And I’ll probably lose, but I do hope that I can make the real estate people remember that they were in a fight. 

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.

Ear to the ground

Well, I don’t know what’s wrong with me because here it is, 2:30 in the afternoon on a day when we were supposed to be smack in the middle of a hurricane and instead it’s sunny and warm and dry, but I’m still filled with dread and fear. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Did I say that already? I think I did. 

I had planned to remain inside all day. I was going to work a full day if we didn’t have a power failure (but I was fully expecting a power failure), finish battening down the hatches; and then hunker down, maybe in an interior room, and wait for it all to blow over. But it blew over without waiting for me to finish waiting for it to blow over. That seems rather rude, doesn’t it? 

*****

Advice from the Maryland Department of Health: “Call your healthcare provider if stress reactions interfere with your daily activities for several days in a row.” And I think, define “several days,” because I’ve been alive for over 19,000 days, and stress reactions have interfered with my daily activities for at least half of them. Maybe I should call my healthcare provider. I’ll do that right now. 

*****

It’s Wednesday now. It was Tuesday when we were supposed to sustain a direct Isaias hit, and then nothing really happened; but in typical fashion, I found something to worry about. I’m still worried; still checking the overnight COVID numbers every day, looking for some indicator, however small and inconclusive, that things are beginning to look up. 

We dodged a weather bullet yesterday. No flooding, no trees down, and the lights didn’t even flicker, not for a moment. I even went swimming--by 4:30 PM, the rain had stopped altogether. I could smell the ozone as the sidewalk dried in the sun. It’s almost 4:30 again, and I think I just heard thunder, when it was supposed to remain sunny and dry all day today. The National Weather Service is trolling us. But it doesn’t matter, because I should stay out of the pool. Thanks to a newfound love for backstroke, my ears are clogged with water, and I don’t need an ear infection when I’m working overtime to avoid coronavirus. I can only monitor one disease trend at a time. 

Data driven

My job has taught me lots of things, including how to read dashboards and data visualizations. Generally, this knowledge is useful. Sometimes, though, a little knowledge is dangerous. 

Every morning, for example, I do what every sane person does on a beautiful summer morning, which is to check the overnight COVID numbers. What’s the positivity rate today? What’s the percentage change since yesterday? Up or down? How many new cases? How many hospitalized? How many have died? I have no idea how much money is in my checking account but I know how many people in Maryland have the ‘rona, and I know where the micro hotspots are by ZIP code. How is this knowledge useful for me, a person with no medical or public health background? I don’t know, but staying informed gives me an illusory sense of control. 

Although I can interpret a dashboard pretty well, I never could read weather radar. That, however, is not stopping me from tracking the radar for Tropical Storm Isaias, checking every five minutes to see how bad it’s going to be in Maryland when this very early named storm makes landfall. The predictions are all over the place, depending on where you look. 

As my project team likes to say, data can tell stories, and it can answer questions. Right now, it’s answering the age-old question: How much will things suck today? More today than yesterday? But not half as much as tomorrow? The plague is already here, and the storm is imminent. Will pestilence be far behind? I’m sure that there’s a Power BI dashboard somewhere that can answer that question. We have your live, interactive, real-time visualization, right here. 

Birds of prey

It's a cold Thursday night, with snow in the air. It smells like snow and the roads are salted in anticipation of the overnight storm. Le sigh.

I'm in the auditorium at Rockville High School, waiting for the senior parents meeting to begin. The PowerPoint presentation is ready to go, with a title slide that reads "Class of 2019: Congratulations."

(Auto-suggest: Really? When I type "con," your first suggestion is "Congolese?" And when I add the letter "g," you helpfully offer to complete the word "Congresses?" Plural? Really?)

But I digress. Back to the PowerPoint slide, which should read "Your firstborn child is leaving you soon, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it."

*****

The auditorium is filling up and the principal is on stage now so I'll have to stop writing soon. I sat in one interminable meeting after another today, so my patience is strained and I'm praying that no one will feel inspired to stand and ask a question just for the sake of asking a question. There are about 300 seniors in this class and about 100 parents here already; and in my meeting experience (extensive), about 10 percent of meeting attendees really really really love to prolong meetings by asking really sharp, insightful, good questions, so this might be too much to ask. But hope springs eternal.

*****

It's Friday now. Of course people asked questions, but not many, and only one that I would have characterized as an unnecessary show question. And it did snow, but not enough to close school. I worked from home. It was a stressful day for some reason. I almost sent an angry email reply to someone who I thought was scolding me unfairly. Then I thought better of it, and it turned out that the scolding had been meant for someone else, so I'm glad I didn't send the reply. No good comes of angry emailing. 

Meanwhile, now that I have all of the graduation details sorted out, I can just relax and dread the part where my son leaves high school and then leaves home.

*****
Saturday afternoon. My 14-year-old son has a Confirmation retreat this weekend, and I dropped him off this morning. I hate even a single-night sleepover, so the idea of shipping one of my sons off to college is causing me some anxiety. He is actually considering spending a year or two at the local community college before transferring to a four-year university, and I would be very happy if he did that, but I don't want to tell him that, because I don't want him to make this decision based on what he thinks will make me happy. So I'm going to proceed on the assumption that he's going away, and prepare accordingly.

*****
Sunday morning. More snow to come. We had a brief thaw yesterday. Most of the previous day's snow melted, and the sun fought its way through the clouds, and you could just start to sense the promise of spring. Thinking that it might be the last decent weather day for a while, I went for a run in the afternoon. My older son was out with friends, driving around in his car. When I heard the sirens, I texted him immediately. He was fine; the sirens were for something else--I still don't know what. (Everyone in my neighborhood texts or emails me when they hear sirens, thinking that the wife of a police officer must necessarily be the best source of insider information. But I'm always the last to know.)

With the sirens off my mind, I noticed the buzzards. Or vultures. I think those words can be used interchangeably, but I'm not going check. I trust my vast reading public to look it up, and to correct me if necessary. Anyway, buzzards were circling; more than half a dozen of the icky ragged-feathered things swooping and swirling and waiting for something to die. I was walking, and I started running again, hoping to get away from whatever it was that was dying so that I could avoid witnessing the disgusting feast.

I'm a terrible runner, as I've mentioned before. Really really terrible.  Slow, awkward, extremely limited stamina--only when it comes to running, though. I can walk or swim or work all day long and into the night, but I can only run for a couple of blocks before I'm winded to the point at which a casual observer would guess that I'm having a heart attack.

Gasping for air and cursing the day I was born, I ran down the street wondering what unfortunate creature was on death's door and about to become a buzzard gang's late lunch.

And then I realized that me running is not the most lively looking thing. And I looked up, and I swear that one of the buzzards looked back at me, in a rather pointed way. And I realized that a person should not ask for whom the buzzard swoops. It swoops for thee.

*****
So it's Monday now, and I survived the run, obviously. I don't know if the buzzards went home disappointed, or if some suburban woodland creature expired in time for the buzzard dinner bell. It's not my problem, is what I figure. When it comes to buzzards overhead, it's every creature for itself, and if a rabbit or a squirrel or a chipmunk is still working its way through some buzzard's digestive tract, then I can't waste time crying about it.

The brief thaw has ended and the cold has returned. But it's still broad daylight at 5:50 PM. The sky outside my window is clear, cold blue-gray warmed just a tiny bit by the soon-to-set sun. Both of my children are under my roof and will be for the next few months. And there's not a buzzard in sight.

Don't cry for me Argentina

Monday: Did I promise more book notes this week? I think I did, I think I did. I remember writing something about abandoning Edna St. Vincent Millay and Nancy Mitford after one page. And then the FAFSA intruded.

I realize that people file the FAFSA, and the 1040A, and passport applications, and all kinds of other bureaucratic forms and applications all the time. I just hate it more than most people.

Anyway, back to the books. I just read The Clancys of Queens, a memoir by Tara Clancy. I liked it a lot, and not just because I have some things (but not all) in common with the author. Like me, she grew up urban working class Catholic; and like me, she had an unorthodox family situation, in a time and place when most families were of the traditional variety.

The similarities end there, but I felt a sense of kinship with her, and I like her writing. I like her voice. Rough around the edges, a little boastful, but sensitive and thoughtful and genuine. A nice break from the early USSR.

*****
Now I'm reading Evita, First Lady: A Biography of Eva Peron. 

Yeah, I know. Just when I get out, they pull me back in (in as in early to mid 20th century). But at least it's not Europe or the Soviet Union. I'm just a few chapters in, but it's very good so far, and I'm learning a lot. I know absolutely nothing about Argentina under Peron, except the part where Madonna sings from a balcony, and it's starting to occur to me that that might not have actually happened.

*****
In other news, I submitted the FAFSA and I didn't punch anyone (that you know of).

*****
Thursday: Heart-attack stressful day at work today; the kind of stress that seems not to affect other people in the slightest but that leaves me a hyperventilating, panicking mess. But I think I held it together well enough that observers wouldn't have suspected that my chest was about to explode. It's 7 PM now, and my heart and respiratory rates are back to normal.

When I get stressed out, I get scatterbrained and foggy, and maintaining my compulsive housecleaning routine helps me to settle my brain and organize my thoughts. But scatterbrained and compulsive, terrible traits individually, are even worse combined.

Let's say you were a normal person, who just likes to vacuum on alternate days because she likes a clean house. And it's Thursday, and you can't remember if you vacuumed on Wednesday or not. Do you:

A. Look around and say to yourself "Well, it looks pretty clean around here, and so I could just let it go until tomorrow regardless?" OR

B. Vacuum, because you can't remember if you vacuumed yesterday or not; and if you didn't vacuum yesterday, then you HAVE TO VACUUM TODAY.

For our hypothetical normal person, the person for whom cleaning is an activity prompted by the presence of dirt, the answer would be A. For me, of course, the answer is B. So I have to vacuum. And I'm pretty sure that I also just dusted the same room twice. Pretty sure, but not 100% sure; this is why I had to dust it (again) just to be 100% sure.

Are you thinking to yourself that it must be exhausting to be me?

OMG, you're so right.

*****
Friday: Much better today; the crazy is under control and I accomplished quite a bit today, performing each necessary task once and only once. I'm still reading about Evita, and although I sometimes envy women like Evita, who never waste a moment with anxiety and confusion and panic and indecision, I can also take comfort in knowing that at least I'm not a Nazi sympathizer. So that's something. Adios until next week.

Picture yourself in a boat on a river

It's Thursday, our next-to-last day in Montreal. We haven't decided what to do tomorrow. My vote is for one more climb up Mont Royal, but we'll see.

We visited VIeux Montreal again today, after a stop at the Bell Center, because hockey. I watched another family as we waited to board the Bateau Mouche for a cruise on the St. Lawrence River. A father, a mother, and three children--a boy of 12 or so, and two girls, maybe 10 and 14. The older girl leaned on her father, and he wrapped his arm around her shoulders. The younger boy talked and joked with his mother, while the younger girl hopped around, singing, making faces, and generally competing for attention as best she could. Later, I saw that the older girl had fallen asleep on the boat, as the younger girl leaned on her father, basking in a few minutes of attention focused only on her. 

Back on the lower deck, a young mother worked to calm and comfort a fussy baby girl, eight months old or so. The baby flailed and howled, but the mother remained completely calm, bouncing and rocking the baby, and doing her best to soothe her. First, she tried to nurse the baby, who refused to participate. Then she offered toys, sang songs, and made silly faces. The mother seemed to be enjoying the challenge of finding and solving the baby's problem. Finally, she pulled a teething biscuit out of her bag, and the baby grabbed it eagerly, shaking it and munching on it happily. A snack and something to do with her hands--problem solved. The baby was also asleep as the boat returned to the dock. 

*****

Later, my husband and sons went ziplining. My older son was hesitant, and I urged him to try it, thinking that he'd later regret not having gone. I didn't zipline, because I was wearing a dress; and even though the ticket seller assured me that the harness would "close that right up," (what?) I knew that I'd feel ridiculous on a zipline in a dress. 

My husband told me that my son had a panic attack at the take-off point, and then he took a deep breath and jumped. He was happy to have done it, but I shouldn't have pushed him. And who am I to tell anyone to try to conquer their fears when I can't even conquer my fear of looking silly? 

On the boat, before the zipline incident.
My arm wasn't long enough to get a good selfie of both of us.
Plus I'm inept with a camera. 

*****

I'm in the midst of a crisis, and am not sure how to solve it, other than to suffer through it and wait it out. That approach usually works. It's harder this time; I'm not sure why. And now I'm rereading this and realizing that it's even worse than I thought, because I just wrote a sentence that includes the word "midst." "Amongst" can't be far behind; that's when I'll know that it's serious. Bonne nuit pour l'instant. 

Je me souviens

Bonjour! It's Sunday morning, and I'm writing from beautiful Montreal, my home for the next week. We drove here from the Washington D.C. suburbs. It's a long, but pleasant drive, via my beloved New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway, and then through the Catskills and Adirondacks. Yes, I know that "beloved" is not an adjective that is usually used to describe the Garden State Parkway or the New Jersey Turnpike, but I love New Jersey, including its highways, and especially its mandated-by-law full-service gas stations.

*****
We crossed the border at about 6:30 PM last night, and because we weren't paying close attention to the (few and all but invisible) signs, we ended up, completely by mistake, in the NEXUS line. My husband (who was driving--I had taken the first driving shift) realized his mistake a split-second after it was too late to correct it.

"Uh-oh," he said, as an angry-looking Canadian border guard approached the car. My husband started to explain/apologize, when the border guard asked "Sir, can I ask you a question? What would make you think that you can jump the line in front of all of these cars, when this lane is clearly (not at all clearly BTW) marked 'NEXUS only'?"

The question having been asked, my husband attempted to answer it, only to be interrupted by the border guard, who held up his hand, saying "Wait, let me finish. You see a traffic jam at the border, and you decide that you should just blow past all of these people, hoping that breaking the rules will save you 15 minutes?"

"I apologize," my husband said sheepishly. "It was an honest mistake. I really didn't notice the sign."

"REALLY?" the border guard demanded. "What did you think that all these people were waiting for?"

I chimed in, as I do sometimes. "Again, we apologize. We have been driving for 13 hours and weren't paying as close attention as we should have."

The hand went up again. "Ma'am, there are people who crossed this border today who drove from Florida, 20 hours or more, and they got in the right line." I didn't argue. I hadn't seen a single U.S. license plate in the line of cars waiting to enter Canada, but maybe I had missed the earlier caravan of alert Floridians.

My husband tried again to apologize, and the border guard held up his hand once more. "Do you have any guns in the car?" he demanded. He asked for our passports, and after giving them the most cursory of glances, explained that in the future, we should remember that the NEXUS line is reserved for immigration cases. "It's not rocket science," he pointed out helpfully, therefore disabusing me permanently of the notion that Canadians are naturally witty. Having visited Toronto a few years ago, and having attended many NHL games, I already knew that they're not any nicer than Americans. After accepting another finger-wagging and scolding from a second border guard, we were waved through and just like that, we were in another country.

"Well," my husband said.

"I know, right?" I said.

"I mean, if 'it's not rocket science, sir' is the worst abuse I have to endure, then I can live with it. We probably saved 45 minutes, don't you think?"

Easily. EASILY.

*****
It could only have gone up from there, and it did. Montreal is lovely, and its people are delightful, proving that it's not hard to be kind to strangers, even if their French pronunciation leaves a great deal to be desired. Ce n'est pas sorcier.

*****
Last week, I finished reading Lynn Freed's Leaving Home: Blah Blah Blah. It's a memoir, and so it is of course filled with the author's memories, including her recollections of vague childhood envy of families who vacationed in what she called "caravans," or "trailers" as we say in the U.S. I thought for a moment that this was another reminiscence of a thing that used to be done, that is no longer done; and then I drove through upstate New York on a Saturday in August, and realized that at least half of Quebec vacations this way. We saw dozens (no exaggeration!) of cars bearing the "Je Me Souviens" Quebec license plate, towing vacation caravans on their way back to Montreal and Quebec City and Sherbrooke and Drummond. Years from now, a French-Canadian memoirist will lament her family's unconventional city vacations, wishing that just once, she'd had the chance to tow a caravan from Quebec to the Jersey Shore like all of her friends.

*****
Who knows what my 17-year-old son will do when he can't have poutine with every meal. During his first college visits, we explained the Freshman 15, cautioning him not to overindulge in dining hall all-you-can-eat pizza and soft-serve ice cream when he goes away to school. The Freshman 15 could easily give way to the Montreal 20 if we stayed here for too long. I don't get the appeal, but my son loves it.

*****

Last night, our crazy Arlo security system (another story, for another day) alerted my husband of a visitor at hour house. A person was knocking on our door at 1 AM. He knocked, peered in through the kitchen window, knocked again, and then disappeared. Apparently, our house was not burglarized, but it's a little disconcerting to know that something or someone might be threatening your home when you're too far away to do anything about it. Being me, I naturally had a panic attack that grew into a full-blown existential crisis. Bonne vacances! Eventually, I did go back to sleep, and woke up this morning feeling much better.

Henri Matisse, Portrait au Visage Rose et Bleu, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
Last night, I was the blue part; this morning, I was rose. 

It's Monday evening. Time to swim. More on Montreal later this week.

Artificial intelligence

In terms of my particular work, there's nothing worse than those days when you're chained to the laptop all day long, as the minutes tick by and the deadline fast approaches. But there's nothing better than when you finally get to the last page, and you do your final spell check, and update your table of contents, and ship the thing off, knowing that it's as good as it can possibly be. Even when that happens at 10:10 on Sunday night, it's still a happy moment of euphoria that will carry you through to the next mad deadline crunch, which you can only hope will happen on a weekday.

*****

So that was Sunday; and now it's Monday, and I'm now the proud owner of this:

Yes, I'm listening to everything you say,
but you have nothing to hide, right? 

I had to replace my phone recently, and I got a Google Pixel 2. Unbeknownst to me at the time (any excuse to say or write "unbeknownst"), Verizon was offering a free Google Home Mini with any Pixel purchase, and it arrived in today's mail.

I'm of two minds about this. On the one hand, it's a fun new thing in a pretty box! It was free! And we'll have so much fun talking to it and telling it to play music and look up random facts and tell us when the puck drops. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure that it will become (if it isn't already) a surveillance device that will report on my every thought and conversation. I've read 1984, and this is how it starts.

I actually thought about just leaving it in the box. I could donate it somewhere, I thought; or we could just sell it on eBay. But curiosity got the better of me, so I opened it, just to see what it looked like when I plugged it in.

It's a very cute little device, and when you plug it in, four tiny lights flash the now-familiar Google colors (red, blue, yellow, green). It's cheerful and fun to look at; it's like Christmas in June. But after I set it up, I didn't know what to do with it. My son started testing it on state capitals, and then I threw it some multiplication questions. When I was 9 or 10, I dreamed of something very similar to this--a machine or a robot that knew everything and that could offer the sum total of human knowledge, just for the asking. State capitals, multiplication tables, and the weather, all in a a little round package.

*****
Last year, I had to write a white paper about data lakes. I don't know very much about databases, relational or non-relational, but that didn't stop me from writing all about them. One of the things that I learned while researching this topic is that when you build a data lake, you don't need a use case for the data you're collecting. You can just gather any and all data, throw it in your data lake, and then figure out later how to use it, and why. That's kind of terrifying, isn't it? With the right kind of data repository as the backend, your Google Home device, or your Alexa, or your Apple Home, could just collect data on every question you ask it, now and forever, store that data indefinitely, and then eventually figure out how to use it, presumably against you.

*****
I don't know very much about algorithms, but I do know that algorithms control how search results are compiled and returned. The day after I received the Google Home device was primary day in Maryland, and I wasn't sure where my polling place was (it changed recently), so  I asked Google, and it suggested that I should visit the Board of Elections, in Virginia. Based on the weather forecasts, it knows that I live in Maryland, so there was reassuring proof that it doesn't know everything. It does, however, know that the Washington Capitals won the Stanley Cup, because everyone in my house has asked it "Who won the Stanley Cup?" at least ten times.

*****
It's Friday now, day 5 of sharing my household with an AI-enabled speaker that actually speaks. I like asking it to tell me jokes; and of course, the daily reminder that "the Stanley Cup was won by the Washington Capitals" (passive voice; another algorithm quirk, I'm sure) will never get old. But I'm keeping it at an arm's length for now. As helpful as it might be to get a quick Spanish-to-English translation (or the reverse) or to get the weather forecast without looking for my phone, I'm still not convinced that it's not spying on us and reporting my every idea to our Google overlords. By the time I finally unplug it, it might be too late.

No, but if you hum a few bars, I can try to play along

Wednesday, June 6: I was just going to write a sentence, which I'm not going to write, because you shouldn't put certain things in writing until they actually happen.

*****
Remember how I was singing along with "Evacuate the Dance Floor?" And then remember how that song was stuck in my head for a damn week afterward? No?

Well let me tell you all about it. I sang along to that song one too many times, and then it was stuck in my head for a damn week. And if that was the end of that story, then there'd be nothing else to say. But that is not, as it happens, the end of that story.

I'm extremely susceptible to the curse of the earworm; and sadly for me, the songs that get permanently lodged in my brain are not always songs that I like. "Evacuate the Dance Floor" and "Just Dance" and "Badlands"? Fine. "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Where do Broken Hearts Go?" and "We are Never (Ever Ever) Getting Back Together"? Not so much.

In fact, just hearing one or two bars of a bad song at the wrong time are an almost-certain predictor of an earworm that will last at least 24 hours, and often as long as a week. It's like the aura that some migraine sufferers experience. It's like that vaguely feverish malaise that within hours morphs into full-blown flu. By the time you recognize the symptoms, it's probably too late.

*****

Sunday, June 10: So now It’s a rainy and unseasonably cool Sunday afternoon, and I’m just a few miles north of Baltimore, driving southward on I-95 after an overnight trip to Philadelphia. As always, I feel duty-bound to point out that I’m not actually driving the car that’s conveying me home. And I’m not online, either. I could write on my phone, but I’ve never learned how to type fast on a smartphone. On a real keyboard, though, I can type like lightning. I can barely see my fingers--that's how fast they're moving.

I’m beginning to resign myself to the likelihood of a cool and rainy summer. My swimming friends and I have been steeling ourselves to the icy water, because we’re determined to swim and if we wait until the water warms up, we won’t get to swim until July. I’m learning to like the cold water, though I’d take warm over cold any day. But once you get used to it...

*****

Friday, June 15. You might have read or heard somewhere that the Washington Capitals won the Stanley Cup (this, of course, is the thing that I couldn't put in writing). My friends and family in Philadelphia, even the die-hard Flyers fans, all congratulated me last weekend, as if I’d scored the game-winning goal. The last time I lived in a championship city was 1980 (Phillies, World Series), and I'd forgotten how much fun it was to be part of a joyous collective celebration. And I'm really happy for Alexander Ovechkin, the world's greatest hockey player. I know that he's a Putin supporter, but how can you not love this face?

*****
Speaking of my favorite Russians, I finally finished with the Count. I haven't read any reviews of A Gentleman in Moscow, and I wonder if any critics commented on the relative lack of suffering in the book. After all, it's set in Russia, beginning in the 1920s all the way through the mid 1950s--Suffering Central. Without giving too much away, the main character, Count Alexander Rostov, was in 1922 placed under permanent house arrest in Moscow's Metropol Hotel and remained there for over 30 years, eventually becoming the headwaiter of the Boyarsky, the hotel's renowned restaurant. Early in the novel, he is removed from his luxurious, expansive suite, and sent to a tiny room on an upper floor. He has an unpleasant encounter with a Bolsehvik aristocrat-hater.  Soviet-style bureaucracy encroaches on his beloved Boyarsky, even its famous wine cellar.

But no one starves, and no one ends up in a filthy cell in Sukhanova. A few major characters disappear, though, lost to the gulag; and the reader always feels the Stalinist menace hovering over the Metropol and threatening all of its occupants, including the Count and his adopted daughter. I might write more about him next week. Once again, Stalinism and all of its totalitarian relatives seem particularly relevant right now.

*****
Stalinist menace or not, the weather has finally turned and it feels like actual summer again. The Count wasn't beaten or starved or sent to Kolyma, but he was held indoors for 30 years, never stepping outside, even during the summer. And right now, on the southern border of the most fortunate country in the history of the world, there are hundreds of children, separated from their parents, and held indoors in prison-like conditions for most of the day.

I have no idea why some people, or some countries, or some times in history are marked for suffering. I'll probably never know why, at least not in this life. All I can do is to not forget the people who suffer, and try to think about them and pray for them when the sun is shining on the pool water in just the right way and all is well in my particular part of the world at this particular moment. 

The Baby and the Bathwater

It's two months post-Weinstein now, and everyone seems to have came to a sort of simultaneous mass agreement to enforce zero tolerance on sexual harassment or misconduct. All of a sudden, any man (well, ALMOST any man) who has ever behaved or spoken inappropriately has to be punished, severely and possibly permanently. 

Like lots of other #metoo women, I have mixed feelings about this. Weinstein deserves his comeuppance (the word of the moment), and so do lots of other prominent men. With super high-profile people like Weinstein and Matt Lauer, the worst offense is not so much the wildly inappropriate or even illegal sexual behavior; it's the gross abuse of power. In those cases, the public downfall is more than deserved. (And it should have happened to Donald Trump. And it should have happened to Bill Clinton. And it's not too late.)

But there's the baby and there's the bathwater. I would like to drain the dirty bathwater, and then thoroughly scrub the tub, but I don't want to discard the baby. I like the baby. I like a lot of men who might, at some point during their personal or professional lives, have said or done something offensive or stupid. In fact, I love some of those men, and I don't want to see them--my friends, or my brothers, or my cousins, or my colleagues might be among them--cast into outer darkness forever. Should we judge the behavior of twenty or even five years ago by the standard of today? Because if so, then who among us will stand up to scrutiny? 

On the other hand (there's always another hand, isn't there? It's why we have two) I have extremely limited patience with the men who are now crying that they just don't know where the line is anymore. They just don't know how to behave! They don't know what they're allowed to do or say! Because it's not that hard. If you're not intimately involved with a woman, then she does not want you to touch most parts of her body. If you work with women, then they do not want to see naked pictures of you or anyone else, and they don't want to talk about sex, either. Because it's work. See? Pretty easy. 

The larger implications of this whole thing are just beginning to become clear. Or at least one specific thing is clear, and that's that the sex-soaked culture of the last 50 years, in which every aspect of entertainment, art, sports, music, politics, and pretty much every other field of human endeavor is permeated and dominated by sex, will have to change. If we're going to hold men (and women, of course) accountable for maintaining a level of decorum that excludes recreational sexual aggression, then we probably can't shove near-naked bodies in people's faces 24 hours a day anymore. 

On its own, that's a good thing. Even if I wasn't a Catholic, I wouldn't actually want to see sex scenes in every movie. I'm disgusted and bored by crude sexual humor on the radio and on TV. I cringe when I hear the lyrics of some of my children's favorite songs. I'm tired of seeing so-called cheerleaders dressed like pole dancers.* 

But the baby is still in the dirty bathwater, isn't he? Bari Weiss** said something about revolutions taking on a life of their own, quickly swallowing everyone in their path, devouring the guilty, the innocent, and the indifferent bystanders, and it's not unlikely that this revolution will have unintended consequences. Ideally, the culture will shift toward an idea of sexuality that acknowledges and respects human dignity. But if you have been on this blog for more than five minutes, then you know that I never expect the ideal outcome. The worst case scenario is my default option. I even have a tag. 

And what's the worst-case scenario? There are any number, but the one that I can see rising to the top is a new Puritanism that combines the very worst of radical feminist hatred of men and radical religious hatred of women, in a country so divided that you won't be sure which standard prevails from one county to the next. In this scenario, Roy Moore wins in Alabama and ten years later, he's part of the moderate wing of whatever new party replaces the Republican party; the moderate wing being the one that believes that a man should only beat the women he's related to, and that a man shouldn't marry a 14-year-old girl without her father's permission. Meanwhile, in what we now call the blue states, men will be fined or arrested for smiling at women they're not married to, and state-financed abortion up to forty weeks will be a basic civil right. 

Or maybe the whole thing will blow over, and everything will be back to normal, whatever that is, in six months. I don't think so, though. I think that a hard rain is going to fall. I think there's going to be a sea change. I'm praying that it's the right one. 

*****

*That's not so much an attack on NFL cheerleaders as a defense of pole dancers. Why should we consider a stripper a social undesirable; while NFL cheerleaders, who dress and behave in the same manner, are held up as examples of wholesome young womanhood? 

**By the way, I agree with a lot of Ms. Weiss's column, but I've never heard anyone say "Believe all women." There's a huge difference between "Believe women" and "Believe all women," always and everywhere, just because they're women. It's the baby and the bathwater again. Don't throw away the very reasonable "Believe women" because it sounds almost like "Believe ALL women." They are two different things. 

What are you talking about? I'm in a great mood.

Monday: As I wrote here, just over two years ago, it's only a matter of time before the deer turn predator, and I think that time is running out. I took a walk around my neighborhood tonight, and I'm pretty sure that the two deer on my neighbor's lawn, who stared at me, holding their ground, would have attacked me if I hadn't crossed the street. Minutes later, I saw a to-the-death battle between two angry squirrels, and then a stray cat squared off at me as if to warn me off its turf, which apparently consists of the whole neighborhood.

It's so rare to see a cat at large anymore. When I was growing up in Philadelphia, people let their cats out during the day. The cats would wander the neighborhood freely until sundown, and then return home. Occasionally, someone would have to go out and hunt for their cat, but most of the neighborhood cats seemed to have unerring homing instincts, and they'd just show up for dinner. People don't let their cats out anymore. And I guess I don't blame them, what with the predatory deer.

Anyway, what is this? Wild Kingdom? Sheesh.

Tuesday: It's fine once you get in. That's what people always say as you dip one tentative toe into the icy cold swimming pool. They won't shut up about it, in fact. "Really. I was really cold at first, but now it feels great. My lips are always blue. It's a medical thing. It's fine, I swear. Get in." So I got in, and swam for a while. And I got used to it. And it was still freezing damn cold, but it didn't matter after I had relinquished my will to live.

Thursday: Is there any possible excuse for any person younger than 85 to hold up the line at the Safeway by WRITING A CHECK OMG for groceries? That was a rhetorical question, of course, but there's nothing stopping you from answering it, as long as your answer is NO, NO, A HUNDRED TIMES NO, FOR GOD'S SAKE.

Standing behind someone writing a check ("What's today's date? What was the amount again? Who do I make it out to? Can I write it for $30 extra? No, wait--maybe $40 extra...") is bad enough. What's worse is standing behind the check-writer in the line manned by the super-friendly, super-entertaining cashier with the running commentary on every facet of life. I must be a misanthrope of the highest order, because every time I end up in his line, the person in front of me never fails to tell him how wonderful he is and how great it is that he's so upbeat and cheerful. And all I want to do is beat him over the head. As I restrained the head-beating urge and willed the check-writing slowpoke to hurry the holy heck up, I noticed a leaflet at the bottom of my cart. "WHERE DO YOU WANT TO SPEND ETERNITY?" was printed in fiery orange and red tones on its glossy black cover.

"Here," I thought. "Right here. I want to spend eternity in the gosh-darn checkout line at the Norbeck Fucking Road Safeway, so aren't I lucky? Because I've been here since the dawn of time and it appears that I'll be here until the sun burns out, and beyond." On my best day, I might have taken that leaflet as a reminder that I do have an immortal soul and that I should maybe take better care of it. But it wasn't my best day.

Saturday: Why did you fail me, Google Drive? Why can't I find the work that I most assuredly finished and saved in the folder where I know I saved it? Please tell me that I don't have to:
A. Rewrite what I already wrote or
B. Lug my 40-pound computer to and from work every day.

I'm normally a good-tempered and mild-mannered person, but technical failures and things not working in general turn me into a flaming torch of rage. I was trying to tear off a sheet of aluminum foil to cover the baking pan of chicken cacciatore that I was about to put in the oven, and the foil tore off in an ever-narrowing spiral, as an ever-widening spiral clung to the roll. I couldn't even. I handed the roll to my husband and said "Fix this please, before I put it through a window." He fixed it, because he knew that I wasn't kidding and that it's easier to stop watching the Redskins and get me some damn aluminum foil than to get a window repaired on a Saturday night.

Computer issues are even worse. I have more than once carried my computer toward the garage, loudly threatening to place it under a rear tire of my car, and then run over it. Someone usually rescues the computer, but one day, it'll be just me and the computer, with no reasonable people between it and the rear tire. Like the predatory deer, it's only a matter of time.

"I'll run it over! I swear I will!"

Sunday: So I just read this over, and I think I'm coming across as the tiniest bit irritable and grouchy. Plankton could take my correspondence course. The panic attacks are back and I'm running on about 12 hours sleep over the past five days, so maybe I'm a little punchy. It'll pass, like everything else does. I think I'll go swimming. It's fine, once you get in.