The perfect hostess

One day of poor concentration and difficulty with problem-solving: Isolated incident or symptom of early-onset Alzheimer's?

One very bad photograph, taken at 7:30 AM after a night of very fitful sleep: Isolated incident or proof that the irreversible descent into hideousness has already occurred?

Yes, the inside of my head is a non-stop party, and you're invited.  If you're smart, you'll send your regrets, claiming a prior commitment.  Meanwhile, I'll replenish the snacks and send one of these other poor suckers out to make a beer run.  Trust me, we'll need it.

Wild Kingdom

(A short post while I wait for an answer to a work-related question, without which I can't proceed.)

I saw two things today; A dead deer, covered with flies; and a snake.  The snake was alive.  I'm only slightly more fond of deer than I am of snakes, so I didn't really mourn the former, but had the choice been mine, the deer would be frolicking around Rock Creek Park right now, and the snake would be deceased.

Actually, I'm not particularly fond of any animal in the wild.  I was raised in the city, and 16 years in the suburbs have not made me accustomed to everyday encounters with wild animals.  I don't count squirrels, of course, which are more urban than mass transit, but I still can't get used to the sight of foxes on my front lawn at 6 in the morning, and the deer around here are have become overly comfortable with humans.  When I first moved into this house, ten years ago, I'd walk my then-little children around the neighborhood; one walking beside me and the other in his stroller.  The deer were still timid then, and they'd turn tail and run as soon as we got within 20 feet or so.  Although I have no empirical evidence to this effect, I feel sure that they have become bolder with each passing year.  They stand their ground now as I pass, and more than once I've seen an aggressive expression on a deer's face.  Within a year, I'll be backing away from them with my head down; in five years, I'll probably be running.

"Running," of course, should be read as "walking pretty darn fast."  If you ever see me actually running, you'd better run too.  Don't ask questions, don't turn around to see what's going on, just run.  Save yourself.  There might be another snake coming after me, or the deer might finally have turned predator.  It's only a matter of time.

Avoidance

So  I figure if I just ignore them, my pile of paperwork will straighten itself out, and my list of phone calls will dial themselves.  This approach has always worked very well for me, very well indeed.

I'm reading Eminent Victorians right now.  It's almost 100 years old now (not my actual edition, which is electronic), published in 1918.   A paper copy of this book had been sitting on my bookshelf for many years, but when I saw a 99-cent electronic copy, I decided to actually read it.

Apparently,  a contemporary of Lytton Strachey condemned the book as mean-spirited and cruel. I wish I could remember the context; it wasn't a review (because even I don't sit around reading 97-year-old book reviews); perhaps it was in an article for one of my history or English classes.  I don't find it either mean-spirited or cruel, only a little presumptuous.  Strachey seems to have invented a form of writing that became very important in the seventies and eighties.  His sketches (especially of Florence Nightingale, the only woman covered) contain a slightly smug undertone, suggestive of the author's apparent belief that his superior modern viewpoint gave him an understanding of his subjects' psychology that they themselves lacked.  It's as if Gore Vidal or Gail Sheehy had written Vanity Fair profiles of Mother Teresa or Ronald Reagan or some other iconic target of literati scorn.

I suppose that this was the point of Eminent Victorians; to take four of the most important people in Victorian England (truthfully, though, I had only heard of Cardinal Manning and Florence Nightingale when I picked up the book; I assumed, incorrectly, that the Dr. Arnold was Matthew Arnold, and I had no idea who General Gordon was) and cut them down to size.  So although Strachey's short biographies don't even approach the level of meanness that Internet-bred 21st-century readers have become accustomed to, I suppose that the whole project and its determination to destroy idols and humble the mighty was rather mean in itself.

General Gordon awaits.  I'll decide, after I finish with him, what other reading will keep me away from bills, files, and phone calls.

Placeholder

I wrote a newsletter article today.  That counts.

Whirlwind

Once again in a moving car en route from a party, the third in two days. Anyone would think that I live in a nonstop social whirlwind,  but anyone would be wrong.  

Memorial Day weekend always marks a sea change. I'm naturally introverted and would be a downright recluse if I didn't have children.  I do have children,  though, and I live in the friendliest and most social of neighborhoods. Contrary to my own nature,  I'm one of the friendliest and most social among my neighbors, and summer is high time for parties,  cookouts, and get-togethers of every sort. We'll be all but a commune until Labor Day, and as much as I love it,  I'm not quite ready. I wish I had another week to steel myself.

The drama. "Steel myself" for three months of swimming, margaritas, and picnics. It's possible,  perhaps, that there are a few people here and there who have bigger problems than this.  This too shall pass, and I'll be sorry to see it go,  as always.  Onward.

The mother of invention

I was about to give up on writing for today. We're en route from one party to another, and won't be home until after midnight, but I'll be in the car for at least 30 minutes and I have a phone, so here we go.  A moving car (which I'm not driving) and the slightest of beer buzzes will not deter me in the least.

These young people. I didn't know that anyone other than Women's Studies grad students and Jezebel writers actually used the word "agency" to refer to anything other than the offices of temporary placement specialists and travel brokers, but apparently, it's quite common in conversational use at birthday parties for two-year-olds. And when they're not upset about lack of agency among cartoon princesses,  they're determined not to "gender" their children too early.  Needless to say, I exited that conversation as soon as reasonably possible.  Feminism and gender theory are one thing, but use of "gender" as a verb was a step too far. Civilization has already deteriorated enough,  thank you.

I think that I correctly punctuated a three-paragraph post on a phone, in a moving car, while somewhat less than sober. Let's not push our luck,  yes?  Until tomorrow.

I never learn

So I said that I'd do this every day, and to my surprise, another day followed upon the previous one, and here I am.

I think that Mother Teresa once said something about leaning to endure the trial of being unpleasing to yourself.  I could find out for sure, but I won't, because that's not the point.  The point is that I'm enduring this particular trial right now, and I have been enduring it in one form or another for my whole life.  It's no fun.  Nora Ephron felt bad about her neck and I feel bad about my whole body (my neck, however, is fine for now.)

When you're young, you can just hibernate for a day or so when you get a bad haircut, or your skin erupts, or you face some other appearance-related disaster.  You know you'll recover and look just fine again in a day or so.  At almost 50, though, I'm realizing that pretty days are no longer a dependable and regular occurrence and that even the OK days are few and far between.  (And I just had to spell-check myself on "occurrence", too--will the cruelties of age never relent?)

I'm not going to hibernate, as much as I'd like to (even on good days, my avoid-all-human-contact instinct is rather strong) so I'll have to do as Mother Teresa did and learn how to endure the trial.  And really, she looked just fine.

Tous les jours

It's been so long.  In yet another supreme irony, I am now paid actual money for my writing skills, and I hardly ever write anything.  I've given up my amateur status, I suppose.  I'm going to return once again to daily writing, and whatever ends up on this page will be published.  Well, not WHATEVER.  I'll correct misspellings and incorrect uses of the semicolon.*

On Sunday, I was on my couch watching the last episode of "Mad Men."  I'd summarily dismissed the DB Cooper theory, but the Coke theory had seemed plausible, even likely.  So I liked the ending, and I scoff at the ridiculous idea that it exposed Don as completely cynical.  If advertising is intrinsically cynical, then so is all of commerce and by extension, almost all human endeavor.

And that's all, apparently, that I have to say about that.  I miss "Mad Men" already, both the show in particular and the absorption in a story in general.  I'm sure there's some other serial drama that I could become attached to available on Netflix, but the contemporaneous shared experience would be lacking, and that's the best part.  Binge-watching has very little appeal for me; even if I could overcome my belief that it's wrong to binge on anything, I just wouldn't have the time.

Memorial Day Weekend: Two days until the pool opens, five days before swim team practice begins, and just over a month before I start to panic about the fast-approaching end of a long-awaited summer.  Hyphens: even better than semicolons.  Discuss among yourselves.

* As if either of these would ever happen in the first place.  So unlikely.  Still, anything is possible.

Things that I didn't feel like doing today, but did anyway

1. Got out of bed
2. Showered
3. Got dressed, in real clothes
4. Went to Mass
5. Cooked breakfast
6. Cleaned up breakfast
7. Went for a walk 
8. Came in from my walk
9. Cleaned my dirty kitchen counters
10. Cleaned my really dirty kitchen floor
11. Remained upright
12. Converted oxygen into carbon dioxide

A good day's work, all things considered.  

Gray Flannel Infinity Scarf

I'm the opposite of an early adopter.  When I jump on a bandwagon, it's already nearly empty, its former occupants having long since moved onto more current things.  I sent my first text message in 2009, which was also when I joined Facebook.  My sister gave me an infinity scarf for my birthday.  I'd ridiculed the silly things for three or four years, and then I tried one on and what do you know?  I liked it. I'd be right on trend now, if this was 2011.  Open-front cardigans are another current favorite; I bought my first one a few months ago, just in time for them to be over.

So that's why I'm now watching the first season of "Mad Men" (I am current, though, on "Portlandia".)  I'm all agog.  The period details are fun to look at, and I'm also interested in the social history aspect of the show, although I don't really know how accurate it is.  The sexism is so exaggerated that it's almost hard to take seriously. Not having been there, of course, I have to take pop-culture interpretations of everyday life in past eras on faith.  Maybe the sexism was just as bad as the show depicts.  On the other hand, most of the women at Sterling Cooper, if they had any interest in watching football with their husbands on Sundays, wouldn't have had to watch semi-nude dancing girls on the sidelines.  And can you imagine Joan Holloway or Betty Draper participating in "The Bachelor"? The Sexual Revolution: AWESOME for Women.

I digress.

I think that what interests me the most is the character of Don Draper as sort of a human wrecking ball and lightning rod in one.  Most of the characters are believable and complex on their own, but almost everything that happens to them is a result of their collision with Don; some of them pursue him and some of them are thrown up against him, but I can't think of a single character who isn't defined to some extent in relationship to Don Draper.

I'm not watching now; I gave up Netflix for Lent (I gave up crunchy snacks, sweets,and buttered bread, too; Netflix was to make sure that my sacrifice is about more than losing a few excess pounds; never mind the fact that I've given up sweets, crunchy snacks, and buttered bread for six weeks every year for the past four years, and I haven't lost an ounce as a result--damn middle age) so I need to catch up from about the mid-point of season 4.  My prediction is that Don's past will catch up with him and that he'll be tried as a deserter, but that he'll be saved by post-Vietnam popular disillusionment with American foreign policy--no jury will convict him.   Whatever happens, it will be nice to be current on pop culture, just for a change.  

(Almost) everything is awesome

I wrote about the Oscars one time, on my old blog.  Maybe 2008 or so. I've been at this for a long time. It occurs to me now that I should have taken notes last night, or that perhaps I should have live-blogged, but I didn't feel inspired, because the show was mostly uninspiring.  I'm so bored with tedious identity politics and delusions of truth-to-power.  Believe it or not, it doesn't take that much courage to speak out on race, LGBT rights, or gender equality, especially in a room full of movie stars.

I'm bored with unnatural physical perfection, because I can't separate a preternaturally youthful middle-aged body from what I imagine must go into achieving and maintaining it.  I'm bored with the tyranny of the red carpet.  But I love movies, and I always hold out the secret hope that someone will do something really crazy and daring, and so I always watch the Oscars.

Highlights:

• Everything is Awesome!  I'm NOT a fan of animated movies, and I have a particular dislike for Disney movies.  From Sleeping Beauty to Frozen, I hate almost all of them.  I went with my then 9-year-old son, his friend, and his friend's mother to see The Lego Movie last year, and I approached the whole enterprise with near-dread.  I expected a hybrid between a Lego commercial and the worst excesses of the Disney/Dreamworks animated movie cartel: dead mothers, wisecracking anthropomorphized animals, and knowing pop-culture references.  The Lego Movie is not only not crap; it's actually (wait for it) AWESOME, and the song is perfect.  My son and I are still outraged at the Academy's failure to recognize the movie as the best animated movie ever, but at least the song was nominated.  The performance by Tegan and Sara and The Lonely Island and who knows who else was delightfully frenetic, silly, and happy.  
• J.K. Simmons.  I haven't seen the movie, and I probably won't, but I love J.K. Simmons and his speech was charming because it reminded people that caring about distant causes and oppressed strangers is worthless if you neglect the people who are right in front of you. 
• LADY GAGA OMG!  Not one single thing that I didn't LOVE about this performance: her dress, her hair, her outspread tattooed arms, and that beautiful face and voice without a hint of irony, without a trace of condescension, with nothing but beauty and love for one of my favorite-ever movies and its music.  She put her heart and soul into that performance and I'm so happy to have seen it. And then JULIE ANDREWS!   Just ten minutes earlier, I'd been so bored with the whole show that I'd nearly chucked it and gone to bed, and thank God I didn't.  That was hands-down the best thing I've ever seen on any Oscar telecast, and I don't think I've missed one since 1983 or so. 

Not highlights: 

• Patricia Arquette.  I'm very happy she won; I was rooting for her.  I just cannot muster any outrage about underpaid movie actresses.  Speak out about the real suffering endured by real women in the world outside of Hollywood: young girls kidnapped by ISIS and Boko Haram, and Chinese women forced to abort their babies, and Honduran women who spend 24 hours a day fearing for the lives of their children.  Then I'll cheer like Meryl Streep.  
• NPH in his underwear.  I didn't understand it. 
• John Travolta. I hate to feel embarrassed on someone else's behalf. 

I'd have liked to see Michael Keaton win, although Eddie Redmayne was hard not to like.  As usual, I haven't seen any of the movies yet, but I hope to remedy that this weekend with either Boyhood or Birdman.  It will probably be another year before I write about pop culture again. 

Note to self:

"...the bitter doesn't last forever, and the sweet never fills the cup to overflowing.  It is enough if you don't freeze in the cold and if thirst and hunger don't claw at your insides.  If your back isn't broken, if your feet can walk, if both arms can bend, if both eyes see, and if both ears hear, then whom should you envy? And why?

"Rub your eyes and purify your heart--and prize above all else in the world those who love you and who wish you well.  Do not hurt them or scold them, and never part from any of them in anger; after all, you simply do not know: it might be the last act before your arrest, and that will be how you are imprinted in their memory!"

Alexandr Solzhenitsyn
The Gulag Archipelago

Back in the USSR (second verse, same as the first)

Several years ago, I was preoccupied, in a probably unhealthy way, with the Soviet Union and specifically, Stalin's purges. I'd taken a class on 20th Century Europe, and from there, I read Martin Amis' Koba the Dread, Simon Sebag Montefiore's Stalin, Anne Applebaum's Gulag, Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich; and then, just for contrast, Anna Politkovskaya's A Russian Diary.

The biotech company where I used to work employed a number of Russian scientists, engineers, and technicians. Although they were a socially mixed group, which included Ph.D.-level senior scientists and considerably less-educated manufacturing technicians, the group ate lunch together nearly every day, drinking steaming tea from styrofoam cups, and eating cafeteria food supplemented with homemade Russian dishes brought by one or the other of the group's members, and then shared among them.

The Russians, true to stereotypical form, seldom smiled, and when they laughed, it was with  a touch of bitterness.  It was easy to make fun of them, and we did sometimes, calling them "the Politburo" or "the Supreme Soviet."  Individually, the Russians were all quite nice, though reserved.  I'm a friendly person, and I became friendly with several of the Russians, although I sometimes wondered if they felt secret, Russian disdain for my smiling American bonhomie.  "Americans," I imagined them sneering after I passed with a cheerful wave or hello, "why are they always smiling? Like eediot children."  At that point, I had only the vaguest understanding of Russian history, and I probably thought that Stalin, while not a particularly good guy, was at least not as bad as Hitler.

In Koba the Dread, which is subtitled Laughter and the 20 Million, Amis asks a simple question: why do we laugh at the gulags and the KGB but not at Auschwitz or the Gestapo? The book is very personal, part of what was apparently a long-running argument with his friend and antagonist Christopher Hitchens, who, like a lot of writers and artists and intellectuals from the early 20th century on, were willing to ignore or excuse the worst excesses of the Soviet political system because they believed that Russian communism was the best hope for a socially just world.  Some writers and artists continued to cling to that belief long after evidence to the contrary had become too overwhelming to ignore.

It was probably five years or so ago when I first read Koba the Dread, and my Stalin preoccupation eventually gave way to other, more immediate worries, but the idea of the purges has never stopped haunting me. Because I don't have enough trouble in life, I like to borrow it at high rates of interest, so I'm reading The Gulag Archipelago now.  I bought a hardcover copy of it for one dollar at the Friends of the Library book sale, and it had been waiting on my shelf since November.

First of all, it's very good reading.  I'm 80 or so pages in, and although most of it, at this point, simply recounts details of arrests and sentences, each account is compelling and individual.  Stalin is supposed to have said something like "One death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic."  He lost, though.  I can't help but imagine the individual people, each unique, whom these short accounts represent.  I don't know their names, but I know that they had names.  I imagine them, and think about them, especially the ones who vanished and whose exact fates don't seem to be known.  I guess they can't be statistics if I'm still thinking about them 80 years later.

*****

My sons and I were watching a rerun of "The King's Speech" last Saturday, which was the same day that I started on the book.  As the movie version of George V asked who, if not for the English, would stand between the "Nazi hordes and the proletarian abyss," I wondered how we would answer that question.  Was Charlie Hebdo the best we could do? Are blasphemy and obscenity the only reasonable responses to savagery?   I've seen the cartoons, and I'm not in any rush to claim shared identity with that publication or its creators, God rest their souls.  Je ne suis pas Charlie.  

*****

As I tell my friends and my children, I completely understand now why old people move to Florida. My tolerance for winter diminishes with each passing year, and every November, a week or so before Thanksgiving, I realize that I won't really be warm again until Memorial Day. Every night, I think, just for a minute, that maybe tonight I'll just sleep in my clothes.  It's that hard for me to face the thought of undressing in the cold. But I live in Maryland, in a house with central heat, and not in a wooden shack in Kolyma.

The chekists and the KGB always came at night.  I usually wake up sometime around 3 AM, and just before I fall back to sleep, I think about the nest of warmth that my body heat and the blankets have created, and how little I want to move from that spot at that moment.  When I think about it (almost every time), I pray for the people who were yanked from the warmth by the 3 AM pounding on the door, which led to the holding cell in the Lubyanka, and then to the freight rail car to the gold mines at Kolyma or the gypsum mines in Siberia.  God help them, and all of us.