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. 

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. 

Post-operative

It’s Wednesday. I worked from home today, unusual (though not unheard-of) for a Wednesday. I have far too much work to do right now, and the panic helped me to focus and direct my energies. I got quite a lot accomplished today, enough that I have some breathing room. Enough, in fact, that I can stop working now and write about having too much to do, instead of just doing it.

Yes, I know.

I finished Not that Kind of Girl, and now I’m reading Nora Ephron’s I Feel Bad About My Neck. I like Nora Ephron, God rest her soul, though I sometimes find her intimidating. She was a very successful journalist and writer and cultural observer and influencer, who probably accomplished more in a day than I do in a month. I don’t think I could have kept up with her in real life.

I Feel Bad About My Neck is good, though not nearly as good as Wallflower at the Orgy. It reads as a little lazy and scattershot, a little fast and loose. It was published in 2006, when she was NORA EPHRON, Nora Fucking Ephron, and so people were willing to read anything she wrote. I’m still willing to read anything she wrote, but I know the difference between really good Nora Ephron and phoning-it-in Nora Ephron.

I don’t feel bad about my neck just yet. But I don’t feel good about it either. I’m aware of it. I suppose that’s the first step, the beginning of the slippery slope. Once you start to notice your neck, a completely utilitarian body part that you used to be able to ignore, you’re on the downward spiral from middle-aged to old. And I hate turtlenecks.

*****
What is middle age anyway? What does it mean to be middle aged? I have heard comedians and others suggest that it's absurdly optimistic to call 50 middle aged because it assumes that a person should expect to live to be 100. Not an unreasonable argument, I suppose. But if you remove childhood from the equation and count only the phases of adulthood, then 50 or so is right in the middle of middle age.

Let's establish the ranges right now:

• Young adulthood, 21 - 39
• Middle age, 40 - 64
• Old age, 65 and beyond 

That's my final word. If you're 40 or 65, don't @ me to argue about your placement. It is what it is.

By these final and incontrovertible rules, my husband (almost 50) and I (over 50) are both middle-aged. Because we have been middle-aged for a while, it's long past time for at least one of us to accept that there are certain things that middle aged people shouldn't do. Like playing softball.

By now, you're thinking "this is going somewhere, isn't it?" And it is. We're at Montgomery Medstar Medical Center right now, waiting for an anesthesiologist to put my husband under so that a surgeon can fix his mangled hand. Softball. Ridiculous.

We're in the pre-surgery waiting area, in a semi private little curtained-off cubicle, with just a tiny hospital bed, a visitor's chair, and a hand-painted ceiling tile that I suppose is there to relax the patient. It's a nice, thoughtful touch.

Don't worry about the guy with the scalpel.
Just look at the ceiling. 

My husband is uncharacteristically nervous. He's wearing a hospital gown and hospital-issued fuzzy socks and he has an IV for fluids. He can't eat or drink anything and he can't sleep because of the IV. The surgeon, a very energetic, wiry Asian man with close-cropped gray hair and an unnaturally unwrinkled face, just stopped by to check on my husband. He seems like a nice man and he comes very highly recommended, but I'm not sure I trust a man who has what appears to be quite a bit of Botox. And his neck is very very tight. Nora Ephron would be envious.

I don't know about your neck, Doctor.
You're suspect. 

*****
This is the second time this year that I've been here at this hospital, waiting for someone else to endure the attentions of medical professionals. Last time I was only in the waiting room, feeling sorry for the obviously sick people who had to sit in a public place, visible to all, when they were at their most vulnerable. Today I'm in the pre-surgery waiting area and even here, the patients are exposed to the prying eyes of every passer-by. I feel intrusive and unfairly advantaged, with my street clothes and my shoes and my car keys that allow me to walk out of here and drive away if I want to.

*****
My husband’s surgery went well. He spent Thursday afternoon in bed, napping and watching sports and recovering. He returned to work on Friday, at least three days before he should have, but there’s no stopping him. I hope that everyone else who had surgery last week is doing as well.