For over a week, I tried to finish reading a book that I didn't like very much. I always feel compelled to finish a book that I start, even when I don't like it; and it takes me forever to read a book that I don't like. I thought about giving up on it, but then I decided to just alternate between it and a different book--there are so many in my Kindle backlog that I want to read.
The book in question is Alison Lurie's Imaginary Friends. It takes place in upstate New York in (I think) the late 1970s or early 1980s, as a pair of social science professors attempt to infiltrate a very small religious sect that believes (sincerely, I think, though I'm only about halfway through) that a higher order of beings from a planet named Varna have achieved true enlightenment, and that a small group of chosen people on Earth can achieve similar enlightenment if they adhere to a series of ever-weirder made-up teachings. A review that I read characterized the novel as a satire of academia, particularly social science, and I guess that's true enough. It's better as a commentary on people who are willing to believe a lie, no matter how obvious. Particularly relevant now, of course, but I can't seem to stay engaged in the story.
It's Sunday now; a rainy Sunday after a very rainy Saturday. So instead of swimming, I'm at home, watching "The Queen," which was free on demand. I love this movie. This is the third or so time that I've seen it. I love the part at the beginning, when the Queen is sitting for her portrait, and chatting with the artist about how fortunate he is to be allowed to vote. She envies him "the joy of being partial." That's the attraction of politics, I suppose. It's the tribal instinct, the joy of being partial, of picking a side.
I love Queen Elizabeth, too. On her twenty-first birthday in 1947, she gave the speech that included the famous passage "I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service." She meant it, and she has kept her promise throughout her whole, long life. I'm a small-r republican by conviction, but a royalist at heart.
*****
Later, the sun came out for just about an hour. I ran to the pool, and swam laps for 45 minutes, stopping only when a thunderclap prompted a long whistle from the lifeguard's chair. The water, after two days of rain, was no longer warm, but not quite cold--a perfect contrast with the still-warm, humid air. I fell asleep later, feeling as if I was still moving through cool water.
*****
And now it's Tuesday, 10:15 PM, and I just finished work. I worked until 10 PM last night, too; and also worked for a few hours on Saturday. So I'm tired. Tired and out of sorts. It's been raining for two days, and I haven't been swimming, and my eyes are tired, and my head is aching; and so obviously, what would I do except sit in front of the computer and write even more?
*****
I finally gave up (temporarily) on Imaginary Friends, but ironically, I'm sort of itching to know how it turns out. So I'll revisit it again, a chapter at a time, until I finally finish. I'm reading a memoir now, Lynn Freed's Leaving Home: Reading, Writing, and Life on the Page. It's quite good, two-part, colon-separated title aside. Tiresome. The title, that is.
And I'm leaving home next week; on vacation, I mean. We're going to Montreal, a place I've never visited, but for some reason, seemed the only reasonable place to go. I reserved our hotel rooms early in the month, and then called last night to confirm. I can stumble along in something that resembles French, but I can't conduct business in any language except English, so when the desk agent answered the phone in English, I immediately said "Bonsoir--parlez-vous Anglais?" And she said, as I expected she would, "Mais oui! Bien sur!" Maybe a week in Montreal will improve my French. I'm sure that it will improve my attitude. Au revoir, until next week.
Saturday, July 28, 2018
Friday, July 20, 2018
Equinox
Monday: Last week, a coworker and friend was suffering some eye discomfort, and I suggested that she look at her eye makeup and eye cream ingredients. She did, and found that a simple product change made all the difference. Maybe I should do the same thing, because it's almost 9 PM and my eyes are burned out like an old string of Christmas lights. So maybe it's just eye cream. It probably has nothing to do with age-related macular degeneration or cataracts or glaucoma or any other of the many blindness-causing ailments that I imagine that I have every time my eyes are tired.
I mean, I don't see any reason why it would.
*****
Tuesday: The Washington Capitals' Stanley Cup win is fast becoming the greatest financial catastrophe ever to befall my family. Do you know how many Capitals Stanley Cup shirts we own? No, I don't either. I lost count. And here's what arrived in the mail today:
That's exactly what it looks like: A custom-engraved, limited edition, Washington Capitals 2018 Stanley Cup Champions wine bottle; filled with wine of some sort, I presume. It showed up in a box the size of a dumpster, and I'm sure that shipping alone cost $50. We kept the box. We might end up living in it.
*****
Friday: Every summer, there's a turning point. Darkness falls a tiny bit earlier, and the air, even though it's warm, starts to develop a barely perceptible but real edge of coolness. The haze lifts and the sky becomes azure-clear blue in mid-afternoon, warmed with a red-pink glow at sunset, which comes just a tiny bit earlier each day. Of course, the hazy warmth will return and linger throughout August, but by the third week of July, it's impossible to ignore the signs of the coming end of summer and the beginning of fall. The pool was noticeably cooler tonight, and even though I know that summer isn't over, I can feel it slipping away. It's always later than you think. I should make that a tag.
I mean, I don't see any reason why it would.
*****
Tuesday: The Washington Capitals' Stanley Cup win is fast becoming the greatest financial catastrophe ever to befall my family. Do you know how many Capitals Stanley Cup shirts we own? No, I don't either. I lost count. And here's what arrived in the mail today:
 |
| Yes, that's a bottle of wine that I can't drink. |
That's exactly what it looks like: A custom-engraved, limited edition, Washington Capitals 2018 Stanley Cup Champions wine bottle; filled with wine of some sort, I presume. It showed up in a box the size of a dumpster, and I'm sure that shipping alone cost $50. We kept the box. We might end up living in it.
*****
Friday: Every summer, there's a turning point. Darkness falls a tiny bit earlier, and the air, even though it's warm, starts to develop a barely perceptible but real edge of coolness. The haze lifts and the sky becomes azure-clear blue in mid-afternoon, warmed with a red-pink glow at sunset, which comes just a tiny bit earlier each day. Of course, the hazy warmth will return and linger throughout August, but by the third week of July, it's impossible to ignore the signs of the coming end of summer and the beginning of fall. The pool was noticeably cooler tonight, and even though I know that summer isn't over, I can feel it slipping away. It's always later than you think. I should make that a tag.
Sunday, July 15, 2018
Fiction and non-fiction
Monday: It's 6:50 AM, and I'm the only person in the house who's awake, but that will change in 20 minutes or so. Meanwhile, it's time to get started on a post for the week.
In "Stranger Than Fiction," Will Ferrell plays an accountant who is also the lead character in a work-in progress novel written by a neurotic novelist played by Emma Thompson. He discovers (I forget how) that he is not only a fictional character, but a doomed one; and he spends the rest of the movie trying to change his fate and convince the author not to kill him off. It's a good movie.
I'm not a novelist, but I write. Some days, I do little else. Sometimes I write about how or why to do things that must be done--a procedure, or a policy, or a weekly email that lets swim team families know what meets and events are happening this week, and what everyone has to do to make sure that those things happen. Sometimes, I write about things that have already happened--a past performance narrative for a proposal, or a blog post about a new product release, or another email newsletter with highlights of the last month's events and accomplishments.
I realized yesterday, as I wrote a weekly newsletter, that writing about events and plans is almost the same for me as actually making them happen. In fact, it's the only way that I can make something real and concrete.
*****
And now it's Wednesday, and who even knows what I was thinking when I wrote that. It was a bad day.
But Tuesday was a much better day. At 12:30 or so, I was in a meeting at the government site where I work, when a senior Fed interrupted the meeting to announce that the Thai soccer players and their coach had all gotten safely out of the flooded cave where they'd been trapped
That night, my sons were watching "The Martian," a pretty good movie, on TV. I wondered aloud if the movie had already been scheduled to air, or if the network's programmers had made a last-minute decision to show it after the miraculous rescue. My older son asked me what one thing had to do with the other. What does a high-budget movie about an improbable space mission have to do with 12 little boys and one man trapped in a dank, cold, pitch-black underground pit, that could so easily have been their tomb?
A world waiting with bated breath, watching a race against life and death. A no-expenses spared all-hands-on-deck rescue mission. Volunteers willing to endure great physical hardship, even extreme danger, just for the possibility of saving one life, or 13. The heartbreaking sacrifice of a hero who gives up his own life to save others'. And a cinematic happy ending. No matter how awful humanity can be (and we suck sometimes), we will still bear any burden and pay any price (JFK, I think) to save another person's life, whether he's lost in space or trapped in an underground pit. You couldn't write a happier ending.
Saman Kunan, rest in peace.
In "Stranger Than Fiction," Will Ferrell plays an accountant who is also the lead character in a work-in progress novel written by a neurotic novelist played by Emma Thompson. He discovers (I forget how) that he is not only a fictional character, but a doomed one; and he spends the rest of the movie trying to change his fate and convince the author not to kill him off. It's a good movie.
I'm not a novelist, but I write. Some days, I do little else. Sometimes I write about how or why to do things that must be done--a procedure, or a policy, or a weekly email that lets swim team families know what meets and events are happening this week, and what everyone has to do to make sure that those things happen. Sometimes, I write about things that have already happened--a past performance narrative for a proposal, or a blog post about a new product release, or another email newsletter with highlights of the last month's events and accomplishments.
I realized yesterday, as I wrote a weekly newsletter, that writing about events and plans is almost the same for me as actually making them happen. In fact, it's the only way that I can make something real and concrete.
*****
And now it's Wednesday, and who even knows what I was thinking when I wrote that. It was a bad day.
But Tuesday was a much better day. At 12:30 or so, I was in a meeting at the government site where I work, when a senior Fed interrupted the meeting to announce that the Thai soccer players and their coach had all gotten safely out of the flooded cave where they'd been trapped
That night, my sons were watching "The Martian," a pretty good movie, on TV. I wondered aloud if the movie had already been scheduled to air, or if the network's programmers had made a last-minute decision to show it after the miraculous rescue. My older son asked me what one thing had to do with the other. What does a high-budget movie about an improbable space mission have to do with 12 little boys and one man trapped in a dank, cold, pitch-black underground pit, that could so easily have been their tomb?
A world waiting with bated breath, watching a race against life and death. A no-expenses spared all-hands-on-deck rescue mission. Volunteers willing to endure great physical hardship, even extreme danger, just for the possibility of saving one life, or 13. The heartbreaking sacrifice of a hero who gives up his own life to save others'. And a cinematic happy ending. No matter how awful humanity can be (and we suck sometimes), we will still bear any burden and pay any price (JFK, I think) to save another person's life, whether he's lost in space or trapped in an underground pit. You couldn't write a happier ending.
Saman Kunan, rest in peace.
Thursday, July 5, 2018
Red, white, blue
As a veteran government contractor, I am highly fluent in Beltway acronym. But every time I think I've heard them all, a new one comes along. Three different times last week, I heard people describe a plan or a project as "OBE" (technically an initialism and not an acronym, because it's pronounced "O B E" and not "obe" as in rhyming with "lobe"). It didn't really register the first two times, but when I heard it a third time, I had to investigate.
"OBE" does not mean "Order of the British Empire," at least not in this context. It means "overcome by events," which is now my favorite-ever government insider slang term. I'm going to find at least 10 reasons a week to describe something (or someone, even) as "OBE."
And now, you might be thinking to yourself, as you contemplate the minute of your life that you spent reading this, a minute that you will never regain, that this blog is or should be OBE. You would not be the first person to think this. The author beat you to it.
*****
It's the 4th of July. Normally, I'd write "fourth" rather than "4th," but the ordinal number is acceptable in references to Independence Day. My sons are looking forward to their favorite 4th of July dessert: Yellow sponge cake dessert shells filled with strawberries, blueberries, and Cool Whip. Not whipped cream, but Cool Whip. My Korean mother-in-law introduced them to this mid-century Americana treat, and now, they consider the holiday incomplete without it. Apparently, my mother-in-law's friend, also Korean-born, told her that this red, white, and blue dessert is an American tradition, and she or my sister-in-law have made it for every 4th of July gathering since.
Having married into an immigrant family, I've learned that most immigrants are eager to understand what is uniquely American, and to adopt it as their own. For some immigrants, this means observing and imitating American ways of dress and speech. For others, like my neighbor from Vietnam, it means growing and cultivating the greenest and most American of front lawns, complete with garden gnomes and American flags and barn-shaped mailboxes. For my mother-in-law, it's food. She cooks, and eats, mostly Korean food, but she always insists on traditional American fare for American holidays. Turkey for Thanksgiving and ham for Christmas; and of course, strawberries, blueberries, and Cool Whip in a little cake shell for 4th of July. Sons and grandsons of immigrants, my children have the most American of families.
*****
So between one thing and another, my week has gone off the rails. Last week at this time, I was ahead of or at least on top of every task and chore on my list. This week, a combination of a midweek holiday and other unexpected occurrences has thrown the whole operation into chaos. Overcome by events, I will end here. Until next week...
"OBE" does not mean "Order of the British Empire," at least not in this context. It means "overcome by events," which is now my favorite-ever government insider slang term. I'm going to find at least 10 reasons a week to describe something (or someone, even) as "OBE."
And now, you might be thinking to yourself, as you contemplate the minute of your life that you spent reading this, a minute that you will never regain, that this blog is or should be OBE. You would not be the first person to think this. The author beat you to it.
*****
It's the 4th of July. Normally, I'd write "fourth" rather than "4th," but the ordinal number is acceptable in references to Independence Day. My sons are looking forward to their favorite 4th of July dessert: Yellow sponge cake dessert shells filled with strawberries, blueberries, and Cool Whip. Not whipped cream, but Cool Whip. My Korean mother-in-law introduced them to this mid-century Americana treat, and now, they consider the holiday incomplete without it. Apparently, my mother-in-law's friend, also Korean-born, told her that this red, white, and blue dessert is an American tradition, and she or my sister-in-law have made it for every 4th of July gathering since.
Having married into an immigrant family, I've learned that most immigrants are eager to understand what is uniquely American, and to adopt it as their own. For some immigrants, this means observing and imitating American ways of dress and speech. For others, like my neighbor from Vietnam, it means growing and cultivating the greenest and most American of front lawns, complete with garden gnomes and American flags and barn-shaped mailboxes. For my mother-in-law, it's food. She cooks, and eats, mostly Korean food, but she always insists on traditional American fare for American holidays. Turkey for Thanksgiving and ham for Christmas; and of course, strawberries, blueberries, and Cool Whip in a little cake shell for 4th of July. Sons and grandsons of immigrants, my children have the most American of families.
*****
So between one thing and another, my week has gone off the rails. Last week at this time, I was ahead of or at least on top of every task and chore on my list. This week, a combination of a midweek holiday and other unexpected occurrences has thrown the whole operation into chaos. Overcome by events, I will end here. Until next week...
Friday, June 29, 2018
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:
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.
*****
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.
Wednesday, June 20, 2018
Washed and clean
Tuesday: I intended to start writing yesterday morning, and then the morning got away from me. Yesterday was the first no-school day, so our morning routine has changed a bit, and I thought that I had more time than I actually did. It's always later than you think. Well, it's always later than I think, anyway.
So now it's 7:15 (AM). Cloudy, with silvery pale sunlight and dense humidity, and it feels like a morning at the beach. I’m keeping track of the time this morning. I’m on top of things.
And now it’s 9:15 PM. Today was a back-to-back meeting day. I'd planned to go outside and take a short walk between meetings, but a sudden heavy rainstorm derailed my plans. And then within ten minutes, the rain stopped, as suddenly as it had begun, giving way to intense, mad-dog-and-Englishmen noonday sun and the smell of ozone as the pavement dried. The air was dense; so humid that it was just short of condensation back into rain. The grass and trees and shrubs were jungle-green and dewy. You know how sometimes a garden or a lawn goes from lush and verdant to sloppy and overgrown, all in the space of minutes? The whole world looked like those few minutes. I walked in the sun as the rain dried. Fifteen minutes later, I was back in the office, and then the rain started again.
The rain stopped, again, and I finished work, came home, made dinner, and went swimming. The pool water has been warming gradually, from icy to chilly to tolerable to just right. All of this is to say that it feels like summer, finally.
*****
*****
I use spell-check, but only as a fail-safe for typos. My eyes aren’t what they used to be—when I was younger, no typo had a chance against me. I’ve noticed something with Word’s spell-check feature. When you spell-check a document, and spell-check doesn’t find any errors (this still happens fairly often—I’m pretty good), the pop-up reads “Spelling and grammar check is complete—You’re good to go!” Not only confirmation that the spell-check has done its job, but a congratulatory exclamation point. But when you run spell-check and ignore any of Word’s grammar or spelling recommendations, the pop-up reads “Spelling and grammar check is complete.” Full stop. It comes across as a little bitter, a little truculent. No “good to go,” no exclamation point…it’s as if Word is washing its hands of you.
*****
It's Wednesday now. I'm at a Wednesday night swim meet, with no job. Not as in unemployment, just no swim meet job. This is very rare for me; very rare indeed. Rumbling thunder cut the meet short, and there was a mad scramble to clean up the pool as quickly as possible before the rain started. A friend and I, both of us long-veteran swim parents, were walking toward the parking lot to stow our handbags so that we could come back to help clean up, and we saw the meet manager walking toward us.
“Let’s say ‘Good night, Lois—see you Saturday’ and keep walking, just to see what she says,” I said to my friend.
“Awesome,” she said. We executed perfectly, and then cackled like idiots when she fell for it. Then we all cleaned up together, and I thought about how lucky I was that I got to go home over an hour earlier than I expected; and even luckier to clean up a swim meet with these people, who I love and whose children I love; all during my beloved summer.
*****
So as I mentioned once before, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. And as I also mentioned that last time, I won't really compare the President to a stopped clock, because he's not right anywhere near twice a day. But he did the right thing today, so he deserves credit. It doesn’t matter that he did the right thing for the wrong reasons; it only matters that it was the right thing. Hopefully, most of the children will soon be reunited with their parents.
Sunday, June 17, 2018
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.
*****
*****
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.
*****
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.
Tuesday, June 5, 2018
GIrl-on-girl crime
Sunday: I have a busy week this week, and will be away next weekend, so I could just not write anything, but I have a more or less continuous once-a-week-at-least streak underway and I feel compelled to maintain it. It's Sunday, and I have to do some actual work for my actual job today, but I thought this morning that if I could choke at least a single paragraph out of myself, then I'll have a start for the week. And then I realized, as I wrote this, that this IS actually a paragraph, which I DID choke out of myself, so I DO have a post started. Mission accomplished!
*****
But really. There's so much to write about, in life and in the world. I could write about a certain hockey team, but apparently, I'm now a sports superstition person. This is why I've been carrying my least-favorite red handbag since the end of April.
Or I could write about media bias and the double standard that so-called conservatives always complain about. This week, they're actually right. I think that Ivanka Trump is a silly, shallow, stupid, and yes, feckless person. I think that her thoughtless little Instagram post featuring her beautiful self holding her beautiful baby was insensitive to the point of cruelty. And I also think that Samantha Bee should be fired.
I'm probably not the most impartial observer here, because I find Samantha Bee even less likable than Ivanka Trump, if that's possible. But that word used to describe a woman is beyond the proverbial pale, and it's even worse when a it's a woman who says it. Like Ms. Norbury said: "You all have got to stop calling each other sluts and whores. It just makes it ok for guys to call you sluts and whores." And worse.
*****
To the two girls who flung side-eye at me as I walked and sang along to Cascada's "Evacuate the Dance Floor:" Keep walking, ladies. Nothing to see here. Worry about yourselves. Maybe go and do something useful, like learning CPR. Because what if that beat actually was killing me? Did you think about that?
*****
Tuesday: I read two stories today, one that made me sad, and one that made me even sadder. And I can't help but think that the two are connected. I'm not sure why.
I don't care much about shoes or jewelry, but I have always loved handbags, and Kate Spade's were exactly suited to my taste when I first started to earn enough money to buy a real, grown-woman handbag. In the mid to late 1990s, before I was married and had children, I owned at least 10 Kate Spade bags and wallets. I still have one tiny evening bag; all of the other original nylon Kate Spades from the late '90s are gone (they were beautiful, but not very durable). Kate Spade once wrote or said something about how in the Midwest, where she was from, a woman chose a handbag because it was pretty and she liked it, not because it was a status symbol or the must-have accessory of the moment. Ironically, her simple nylon black-labeled bags became the must-have accessory of the moment; and I won't pretend that I have never been interested in having the must-have thing, just because it's the must-have thing. But the real reason why I bought Kate Spade handbags was because they were pretty and I liked them.
Sometime in 1998 or 1999, I came home from work one night, so exhausted that I took off my shoes and my coat, and fell asleep on my couch, still in my work clothes. A few days later, I was paging through a magazine (I used to love magazines) and saw a Kate Spade advertisement, in which a young woman, just home from work, was sound asleep on her couch, still in her work clothes, her Kate Spade bag sitting on the floor in front of her couch. The young woman in the advertisement was pretty, of course, but not intimidatingly beautiful. Her apartment was colorful and book-filled and cheerful and just a little shabby. It was as if someone had taken a photo of my life, and then made it a little bit nicer and prettier and more glamorous than it really was. And that made me really happy, just for a minute.
Now I wish just for a moment that I'd been the scrapbooking type of girl who cut ads out of magazines and saves them. I also wish that there was some way for Kate Spade to have known how much her work, and her ideas, and her inspired, down-to-earth but completely original vision meant to me and so many other women. Maybe she didn't know. Or maybe she did, but whatever she was suffering was so awful that she couldn't find solace even in her great success and tremendous accomplishments. I'm so sorry for her family, and I hope that they and she will find peace.
*****
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/. 1-800-273-8255.
*****
But really. There's so much to write about, in life and in the world. I could write about a certain hockey team, but apparently, I'm now a sports superstition person. This is why I've been carrying my least-favorite red handbag since the end of April.
Or I could write about media bias and the double standard that so-called conservatives always complain about. This week, they're actually right. I think that Ivanka Trump is a silly, shallow, stupid, and yes, feckless person. I think that her thoughtless little Instagram post featuring her beautiful self holding her beautiful baby was insensitive to the point of cruelty. And I also think that Samantha Bee should be fired.
I'm probably not the most impartial observer here, because I find Samantha Bee even less likable than Ivanka Trump, if that's possible. But that word used to describe a woman is beyond the proverbial pale, and it's even worse when a it's a woman who says it. Like Ms. Norbury said: "You all have got to stop calling each other sluts and whores. It just makes it ok for guys to call you sluts and whores." And worse.
*****
To the two girls who flung side-eye at me as I walked and sang along to Cascada's "Evacuate the Dance Floor:" Keep walking, ladies. Nothing to see here. Worry about yourselves. Maybe go and do something useful, like learning CPR. Because what if that beat actually was killing me? Did you think about that?
*****
Tuesday: I read two stories today, one that made me sad, and one that made me even sadder. And I can't help but think that the two are connected. I'm not sure why.
I don't care much about shoes or jewelry, but I have always loved handbags, and Kate Spade's were exactly suited to my taste when I first started to earn enough money to buy a real, grown-woman handbag. In the mid to late 1990s, before I was married and had children, I owned at least 10 Kate Spade bags and wallets. I still have one tiny evening bag; all of the other original nylon Kate Spades from the late '90s are gone (they were beautiful, but not very durable). Kate Spade once wrote or said something about how in the Midwest, where she was from, a woman chose a handbag because it was pretty and she liked it, not because it was a status symbol or the must-have accessory of the moment. Ironically, her simple nylon black-labeled bags became the must-have accessory of the moment; and I won't pretend that I have never been interested in having the must-have thing, just because it's the must-have thing. But the real reason why I bought Kate Spade handbags was because they were pretty and I liked them.
Sometime in 1998 or 1999, I came home from work one night, so exhausted that I took off my shoes and my coat, and fell asleep on my couch, still in my work clothes. A few days later, I was paging through a magazine (I used to love magazines) and saw a Kate Spade advertisement, in which a young woman, just home from work, was sound asleep on her couch, still in her work clothes, her Kate Spade bag sitting on the floor in front of her couch. The young woman in the advertisement was pretty, of course, but not intimidatingly beautiful. Her apartment was colorful and book-filled and cheerful and just a little shabby. It was as if someone had taken a photo of my life, and then made it a little bit nicer and prettier and more glamorous than it really was. And that made me really happy, just for a minute.
Now I wish just for a moment that I'd been the scrapbooking type of girl who cut ads out of magazines and saves them. I also wish that there was some way for Kate Spade to have known how much her work, and her ideas, and her inspired, down-to-earth but completely original vision meant to me and so many other women. Maybe she didn't know. Or maybe she did, but whatever she was suffering was so awful that she couldn't find solace even in her great success and tremendous accomplishments. I'm so sorry for her family, and I hope that they and she will find peace.
*****
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/. 1-800-273-8255.
Friday, June 1, 2018
Guided tour
Summer swim season is officially underway. This means (among lots of other things) that between my normal weekly work newsletter, the weekly news update for the government project, weekly emails to the swim team, and this hot mess, I'm writing four once-a-week bulletins. It's hard to keep it all straight. By July, swim team parents will be reading about IV&V and SharePoint development; while government IT people will get to read all about 15-18 boys' freestyle results. Everyone will learn something new. Everybody wins.
*****
I had to correct a recent Instagram post because of a typo in a hashtag. This was not the result of carelessness or poor spelling skills (as if) so much as failing eyesight. And it's only going to get worse.
*****
So that's a lot of writing about why I'm not actually writing this week. Instead, enjoy this photo tour of the scenic Twinbrook neighborhood in Rockville, Maryland. All photos taken with my old Samsung Galaxy S7, which I just replaced with a Google Pixel 2. Maybe I'll tell you all about it. Next week, that is.
*****
So that's a lot of writing about why I'm not actually writing this week. Instead, enjoy this photo tour of the scenic Twinbrook neighborhood in Rockville, Maryland. All photos taken with my old Samsung Galaxy S7, which I just replaced with a Google Pixel 2. Maybe I'll tell you all about it. Next week, that is.
*****
 |
A mailbox shaped like a barn, because why not? I have no idea what kind of bird that is. |
 |
| No parking sign: One of the few indicators that the neighbors of Twinbrook might not welcome the daily office worker invasion. |
 |
| Flower walk |
 |
| A trailer with a cat face. Again: Why not? |
 |
| Neighborhood watch. Someone probably called the cops on me. |
 |
| A Little Free Library! |
 |
| I read somewhere that bamboo, once it takes root, cannot be eradicated, so I hope these people actually like their bamboo. |
 |
| Hand-painted storm drain next to Twinbrook Elementary School. |
Sunday, May 27, 2018
Fancy
There didn't seem to be any point to this when I wrote it, but a point occurred to me today during my lunchtime walk. Just like how everything old becomes new again; sometimes, everything that was once too-new can become charmingly old , with only the passage of a few decades or so. When it was built, Twinbrook must have seemed garishly new and modern to the Victorian-home dwellers of Rockville. Now it's settled and quaint, with its patina of World War II history and its architecture reminiscent of the late 1940s and early 1950s, which are after all part of a previous century. It's like strolling through a day during the Eisenhower administration.
*****
As I walked, I saw two little children get into a car and drive away. Well, teenagers. It was 12:30 in the afternoon, and I wondered why they weren't in school, but wondered even more how it's possible that people who were born during the Bush 43 administration are now driving cars. I've become almost accustomed to watching my own son get in his car and drive to school every day, but when I see other young people driving, the whole thing just seems ridiculous and improbable all over again.
*****
My husband is Korean, in case you didn't know that. One thing you learn when you're married to a Korean is that Korean people don't necessarily plan family visits--they just show up. Once a year or so, my mother-in-law will call us, and tell us that relatives from Toronto or New York (but not Korea--not many left over there) have arrived, and that we need to drop what we're doing and commence with the family visitation. And so we do. When I was younger, I might have seen this as an inconvenience but the older I get, the more I realize that nothing matters more than people, and whatever you have to do to accommodate them is worth whatever inconvenience results.
So on Tuesday afternoon, my husband called me at work and told me that his cousin was in town for a conference, and that he wanted to have dinner with us that night. We met him at my sister-in-law's house, and went to our favorite local restaurant.
*****
When I first started shopping at Korean grocery stores, I discovered Shilla Bakery. Shilla Bakery is a small chain of stand-alone bakeries that serve the Korean communities, but the company also sells products through Korean stores, like Lotte and H-Mart. We once bought a Shilla Bakery cake to take to a party, because I liked the slogan printed on the box: "Shilla Bakery. It Make a Deep Impression on Your Mind." The cake tasted like a stick of butter mixed with confectioner's sugar, and then lightly dusted with flour. Ten years later, I can still taste it.
So wait. That box was telling the truth!
Anyway, my husband's out-of-town cousin came bearing gifts, including a box of giant Korean pears (which are a story all to themselves) and a fancy cake from another Korean bakery. I knew that it was a fancy cake, because it said so, right on the box:
Most of the box is in English and French. I didn't check the French grammar, but the English is idiomatic, to put it kindly. I do love the little truck drawing in the upper left-hand corner. With almost 20 years of experience as a Korean by marriage, I'd have recognized this as a Korean product even without the very small Korean label on the bottom of the box. Bon appetit. 잘 ë¨¹ê² ìŠµë‹ˆë‹¤.
*****
Every year, on Memorial Day weekend, I joke hat I have no problems that summer can't solve. But a family that I know--not close friends, but friends--have suffered something so awful that nothing in my life can even aspire to problem status. So for now, I have no problems, period. Happy Summer.
*****
As I walked, I saw two little children get into a car and drive away. Well, teenagers. It was 12:30 in the afternoon, and I wondered why they weren't in school, but wondered even more how it's possible that people who were born during the Bush 43 administration are now driving cars. I've become almost accustomed to watching my own son get in his car and drive to school every day, but when I see other young people driving, the whole thing just seems ridiculous and improbable all over again.
*****
My husband is Korean, in case you didn't know that. One thing you learn when you're married to a Korean is that Korean people don't necessarily plan family visits--they just show up. Once a year or so, my mother-in-law will call us, and tell us that relatives from Toronto or New York (but not Korea--not many left over there) have arrived, and that we need to drop what we're doing and commence with the family visitation. And so we do. When I was younger, I might have seen this as an inconvenience but the older I get, the more I realize that nothing matters more than people, and whatever you have to do to accommodate them is worth whatever inconvenience results.
So on Tuesday afternoon, my husband called me at work and told me that his cousin was in town for a conference, and that he wanted to have dinner with us that night. We met him at my sister-in-law's house, and went to our favorite local restaurant.
*****
When I first started shopping at Korean grocery stores, I discovered Shilla Bakery. Shilla Bakery is a small chain of stand-alone bakeries that serve the Korean communities, but the company also sells products through Korean stores, like Lotte and H-Mart. We once bought a Shilla Bakery cake to take to a party, because I liked the slogan printed on the box: "Shilla Bakery. It Make a Deep Impression on Your Mind." The cake tasted like a stick of butter mixed with confectioner's sugar, and then lightly dusted with flour. Ten years later, I can still taste it.
So wait. That box was telling the truth!
Anyway, my husband's out-of-town cousin came bearing gifts, including a box of giant Korean pears (which are a story all to themselves) and a fancy cake from another Korean bakery. I knew that it was a fancy cake, because it said so, right on the box:
 |
| Any questions? |
Most of the box is in English and French. I didn't check the French grammar, but the English is idiomatic, to put it kindly. I do love the little truck drawing in the upper left-hand corner. With almost 20 years of experience as a Korean by marriage, I'd have recognized this as a Korean product even without the very small Korean label on the bottom of the box. Bon appetit. 잘 ë¨¹ê² ìŠµë‹ˆë‹¤.
*****
Every year, on Memorial Day weekend, I joke hat I have no problems that summer can't solve. But a family that I know--not close friends, but friends--have suffered something so awful that nothing in my life can even aspire to problem status. So for now, I have no problems, period. Happy Summer.
Saturday, May 19, 2018
Dum-Dums and Bolsheviks
My husband, as my sons and almost-5-year-old nephew settle down to watch "Guardians of the Galaxy 2": Be careful with this movie. It might not be appropriate for him.
Almost 5-year-old nephew, loudly, about five minutes in: Showtime, A-Holes!
Me: Too late.
Next time I have to run a meeting for the government client (oh my God, the meetings and the PowerPoint presentations), I think that will be my introduction. In fact, "Showtime, A-Holes" might be my first PowerPoint slide.
*****
I work in a pretty large office building that sits on the edge of the Twinbrook neighborhood in Rockville, Maryland. Twinbrook was built just after World War II, as the flood of returning soldiers gave rise to a housing shortage, which was mitigated by construction of what used to be called "tract houses." The streets are named for World War II sites and battles and military figures: Ardennes Avenue, Marshall Avenue, Farragut Avenue, Halsey Road, Midway Avenue.
Most of the houses in Twinbrook are small; 3-bedroom saltbox-style houses on 1/4-acre plots. After 60-plus years, the neighborhood, filled with mature-growth trees and shrubs and flower gardens (some better-tended than others) is a riot of growth during a rainy spring.
The residential part of Twinbrook gives way very suddenly and abruptly to a burgeoning business district surrounding the Twinbrook Metro stop. For people who don't live in Rockville, I suppose it's just the opposite--the place where they work turns very suddenly into a mid-century residential neighborhood filled with the kind of homes that some journalists would condescendingly describe as "modest." I don't live in Twinbrook, but I live just 15 minutes away in a neighborhood not unlike it. So for me, it's the former--it's as if I'm out for my usual walk and I turn the corner and there's a 10-story office building two doors away from a neighbor's house.
Oddly enough, the business district doesn't appear to encroach upon the neighborhood, nor the reverse. A residential neighborhood is very peaceful during the middle of a weekday, and I like to walk for a few minutes at lunchtime, both for exercise and to gather my energy for the afternoon. Just a few steps away from the building, the street feels completely suburban and residential, so much so that more than once, I've turned around to return to the office and feared for a moment that I walked too far to get back in time for an afternoon meeting. It's the trees--the curtain of green completely blocks the view beyond a few steps, making it impossible to see the rest of the neighborhood beyond the block where you're standing. It's like you can't see the forest for the trees; or more accurately, you can't see the trees for the lack of forest.
*****
All of that? Apropos of nothing. Description for its own sake.
*****
Me to coworker: There's a big basket of candy in the kitchen.
Coworker: I saw it, but it's just a big pile of Dum-Dums.
Me: There's a lot of good stuff in there, too. You just have to dig past the Dum-Dums.
And is that not a metaphor for life itself?
*****
I'm reading A Gentleman in Moscow, as my friend recommended. She didn't steer me wrong. I'm only about 20% in, and I'm all agog. It's like reading a Wes Anderson movie: A quirky Russian nobleman befriends a sassy 9-year-old Ukrainian girl, and the two of them explore every corner of the huge Moscow hotel where the nobleman is under lifetime house arrest. It's all fun and games now, of course, but I'm afraid to keep reading. No good ever comes of a Russian nobleman once the Bolsheviks get hold of him.
It's Saturday morning now. I watched some of the royal wedding, though not live. In 1981, I watched the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana live, but I was a teenager and it was summer. Full-time working mothers don't wake up at 4:30 on Saturdays unless we have to. Anyway, it was lovely, and the gospel choir singing "Stand by Me" made me proud to be American. If pressed, I couldn't come up with a single reasonable practical justification for the existence of the royal family. But not everything is meant to serve a practical purpose. If the Bolsheviks had understood that, then a lot of suffering could have been avoided. But as Isabelle Sallafranque tells Princess Luba Couranoff in another of my favorite novels, there had to be a revolution.
Almost 5-year-old nephew, loudly, about five minutes in: Showtime, A-Holes!
Me: Too late.
Next time I have to run a meeting for the government client (oh my God, the meetings and the PowerPoint presentations), I think that will be my introduction. In fact, "Showtime, A-Holes" might be my first PowerPoint slide.
*****
I work in a pretty large office building that sits on the edge of the Twinbrook neighborhood in Rockville, Maryland. Twinbrook was built just after World War II, as the flood of returning soldiers gave rise to a housing shortage, which was mitigated by construction of what used to be called "tract houses." The streets are named for World War II sites and battles and military figures: Ardennes Avenue, Marshall Avenue, Farragut Avenue, Halsey Road, Midway Avenue.
Most of the houses in Twinbrook are small; 3-bedroom saltbox-style houses on 1/4-acre plots. After 60-plus years, the neighborhood, filled with mature-growth trees and shrubs and flower gardens (some better-tended than others) is a riot of growth during a rainy spring.
The residential part of Twinbrook gives way very suddenly and abruptly to a burgeoning business district surrounding the Twinbrook Metro stop. For people who don't live in Rockville, I suppose it's just the opposite--the place where they work turns very suddenly into a mid-century residential neighborhood filled with the kind of homes that some journalists would condescendingly describe as "modest." I don't live in Twinbrook, but I live just 15 minutes away in a neighborhood not unlike it. So for me, it's the former--it's as if I'm out for my usual walk and I turn the corner and there's a 10-story office building two doors away from a neighbor's house.
Oddly enough, the business district doesn't appear to encroach upon the neighborhood, nor the reverse. A residential neighborhood is very peaceful during the middle of a weekday, and I like to walk for a few minutes at lunchtime, both for exercise and to gather my energy for the afternoon. Just a few steps away from the building, the street feels completely suburban and residential, so much so that more than once, I've turned around to return to the office and feared for a moment that I walked too far to get back in time for an afternoon meeting. It's the trees--the curtain of green completely blocks the view beyond a few steps, making it impossible to see the rest of the neighborhood beyond the block where you're standing. It's like you can't see the forest for the trees; or more accurately, you can't see the trees for the lack of forest.
*****
All of that? Apropos of nothing. Description for its own sake.
*****
Me to coworker: There's a big basket of candy in the kitchen.
Coworker: I saw it, but it's just a big pile of Dum-Dums.
Me: There's a lot of good stuff in there, too. You just have to dig past the Dum-Dums.
And is that not a metaphor for life itself?
*****
I'm reading A Gentleman in Moscow, as my friend recommended. She didn't steer me wrong. I'm only about 20% in, and I'm all agog. It's like reading a Wes Anderson movie: A quirky Russian nobleman befriends a sassy 9-year-old Ukrainian girl, and the two of them explore every corner of the huge Moscow hotel where the nobleman is under lifetime house arrest. It's all fun and games now, of course, but I'm afraid to keep reading. No good ever comes of a Russian nobleman once the Bolsheviks get hold of him.
It's Saturday morning now. I watched some of the royal wedding, though not live. In 1981, I watched the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana live, but I was a teenager and it was summer. Full-time working mothers don't wake up at 4:30 on Saturdays unless we have to. Anyway, it was lovely, and the gospel choir singing "Stand by Me" made me proud to be American. If pressed, I couldn't come up with a single reasonable practical justification for the existence of the royal family. But not everything is meant to serve a practical purpose. If the Bolsheviks had understood that, then a lot of suffering could have been avoided. But as Isabelle Sallafranque tells Princess Luba Couranoff in another of my favorite novels, there had to be a revolution.
Sunday, May 13, 2018
Packed and ready
When I was little, I was sure that the ground beneath my feet was 100% constant and permanent. Not in a figurative sense, of course. Quite the opposite, in fact. Figuratively, I was always sure that the world was about to end. Some things never change. But in the topological sense, I believed that any surface that was covered with asphalt or concrete (I lived in the city, so most of the outdoors as I knew it was covered with one or the other) was firm and solid, right down to the core of the earth. How could it have been otherwise?
I don't really remember how or when I came to the realization that the manmade ground on which I walked was anything but stable. But I thought about it today, as I left work. The government building where I work has a three-level parking garage beneath it. Thankfully, I don't have to park there--my company buys inexpensive monthly parking passes from the little community church across the street, where we can park our cars outdoors, as God intended. The building also has a small parking deck, supposedly for visitors only, but usually filled with employees' and contractors' cars, despite the threatening "we'll tow your car, we're really serious, not kidding at all" signs that are posted everywhere. As you walk across the parking deck, you can clearly feel and hear the hollow cavern underneath.
I have to assume that the parking deck is constructed properly, and that it's able to sustain the weight of several dozen cars in addition to the weight of the many people who walk across it every day. It feels and sounds as if the asphalt-coated concrete is only a few inches thick, and that the whole thing could cave in, at any moment.
That's a metaphor for something, but I don't know what. Pick something. It's DIY day.
Oh, and good morning, good afternoon, and good night Pittsburgh.
*****
I have wanted a backpack for a long time. I love handbags and purses in general, but I've secretly longed for a colorful but practical and sturdy backpack. But I didn't buy one, because I thought that a middle-aged lady would look silly carrying a backpack to her job as a technical writer for a government contractor. I suppose it shouldn't matter if other people thought I looked silly, but it does matter. Now, however, backpacks appear to be all the rage, and not just among college students and tech nerds and would-be iconoclasts who are determined to show how little they care about fashion. Some of the most stylish people I know are now carrying backpacks to work.
This trend couldn't come at a better time. When I worked at our company headquarters, I usually left my giant 40-pound laptop on my desk. I used Google Drive to sync everything (and don't get me started on why why WHY they replaced my beloved Google Drive with FileStream) and so when I needed to work at home, I could just use my own computer, and everything would just magically sync. Oh, the wonders of the cloud.
Now, however, I have a GFE (Government-furnished equipment) laptop that I have to carry back and forth every day. It's actually a much nicer laptop than my company-issued laptop (well, it's much smaller and lighter, which to me means that it's nicer) but it's still more than I want to carry back and forth in my tote bag, which also has to accommodate my lunch, my phone, my wallet, my little cosmetic pouch, my power cord, my notebooks, and my water bottle.
I guess I could carry less stuff.
Get outta here. That's crazy talk.
So although all of this stuff is very hard to fit into my work bag, it fits with tons of room to spare in this lovely and cheerful backpack. In fact, I can carry even more stuff if I want to! Who knows if I'll need an extra pair of shoes, or a change of clothes, or maybe some gardening tools--and if I do, I can carry it all. Go ahead and laugh, but when it all hits the fan and you need some water or a band-aid or some kleenex or a granola bar, you'll want to be with the person carrying the giant backpack.
*****
I haven't posted about books in a while. My friend Megan, whose judgement I trust, recommended A Gentleman in Moscow, so I'm going to read that soon. Early-revolution Russia--all fun, all the time. I can't wait. Meanwhile, I just finished Plum Sykes' Bergdorf Blondes, a silly novel which
A. Took me forever to read because I couldn't stand more than a few pages at a time, and
B. I had already read, a long time ago, and didn't remember until I was halfway through it.
In a shocking and unpredictable plot twist (spoiler alert), the young squire whom the protagonist's social-climbing mother had been pushing her to marry and the hot young movie director whom she's secretly dating are--THE SAME PERSON. So there you are--listen to your mother, because she has your best interests at heart. Happy Mother's Day.
I don't really remember how or when I came to the realization that the manmade ground on which I walked was anything but stable. But I thought about it today, as I left work. The government building where I work has a three-level parking garage beneath it. Thankfully, I don't have to park there--my company buys inexpensive monthly parking passes from the little community church across the street, where we can park our cars outdoors, as God intended. The building also has a small parking deck, supposedly for visitors only, but usually filled with employees' and contractors' cars, despite the threatening "we'll tow your car, we're really serious, not kidding at all" signs that are posted everywhere. As you walk across the parking deck, you can clearly feel and hear the hollow cavern underneath.
I have to assume that the parking deck is constructed properly, and that it's able to sustain the weight of several dozen cars in addition to the weight of the many people who walk across it every day. It feels and sounds as if the asphalt-coated concrete is only a few inches thick, and that the whole thing could cave in, at any moment.
That's a metaphor for something, but I don't know what. Pick something. It's DIY day.
Oh, and good morning, good afternoon, and good night Pittsburgh.
*****
I have wanted a backpack for a long time. I love handbags and purses in general, but I've secretly longed for a colorful but practical and sturdy backpack. But I didn't buy one, because I thought that a middle-aged lady would look silly carrying a backpack to her job as a technical writer for a government contractor. I suppose it shouldn't matter if other people thought I looked silly, but it does matter. Now, however, backpacks appear to be all the rage, and not just among college students and tech nerds and would-be iconoclasts who are determined to show how little they care about fashion. Some of the most stylish people I know are now carrying backpacks to work.
This trend couldn't come at a better time. When I worked at our company headquarters, I usually left my giant 40-pound laptop on my desk. I used Google Drive to sync everything (and don't get me started on why why WHY they replaced my beloved Google Drive with FileStream) and so when I needed to work at home, I could just use my own computer, and everything would just magically sync. Oh, the wonders of the cloud.
Now, however, I have a GFE (Government-furnished equipment) laptop that I have to carry back and forth every day. It's actually a much nicer laptop than my company-issued laptop (well, it's much smaller and lighter, which to me means that it's nicer) but it's still more than I want to carry back and forth in my tote bag, which also has to accommodate my lunch, my phone, my wallet, my little cosmetic pouch, my power cord, my notebooks, and my water bottle.
I guess I could carry less stuff.
Get outta here. That's crazy talk.
So although all of this stuff is very hard to fit into my work bag, it fits with tons of room to spare in this lovely and cheerful backpack. In fact, I can carry even more stuff if I want to! Who knows if I'll need an extra pair of shoes, or a change of clothes, or maybe some gardening tools--and if I do, I can carry it all. Go ahead and laugh, but when it all hits the fan and you need some water or a band-aid or some kleenex or a granola bar, you'll want to be with the person carrying the giant backpack.
 |
| Yes, I know: Dora the Explorer called, looking for her backpack. Bitch is going to have to buy a new one. |
*****
I haven't posted about books in a while. My friend Megan, whose judgement I trust, recommended A Gentleman in Moscow, so I'm going to read that soon. Early-revolution Russia--all fun, all the time. I can't wait. Meanwhile, I just finished Plum Sykes' Bergdorf Blondes, a silly novel which
A. Took me forever to read because I couldn't stand more than a few pages at a time, and
B. I had already read, a long time ago, and didn't remember until I was halfway through it.
In a shocking and unpredictable plot twist (spoiler alert), the young squire whom the protagonist's social-climbing mother had been pushing her to marry and the hot young movie director whom she's secretly dating are--THE SAME PERSON. So there you are--listen to your mother, because she has your best interests at heart. Happy Mother's Day.
Sunday, May 6, 2018
Burn baby burn
Monday: It's a beautiful day. And almost 20 years to the day after this happened, I was walking across Twinbrook Parkway in Rockville, returning from the badging office in one Federal government building to the Federal government building where I work, when a man drove past me and shouted something too obscene for me to repeat here. Three construction workers, walking away from a food truck where they'd just picked up their lunch, all turned their heads, as shocked as I was.
There was nothing I could do, of course. It was 11:45 on a Monday morning, and he was driving, fast. Later, when I told my husband about it, I couldn't even remember what the car looked like.
One of my government bosses has nicknamed me "Liam Neeson." He says that I'm like Neeson's character in "Taken," because I have a special set of skills, honed over a lifetime. Unfortunately, they're not the kind of skills that make me immune to public harassment and humiliation. But that's fine. I'll just use this little episode to fuel my rage. I'll need it someday.
*****
Speaking of bosses, can we talk about how many I have now? Four. I have four bosses. Fortunately, I like all of them.
But still. Four bosses is a lot.
*****
I didn't think about what happened for the rest of the afternoon. Then I went for a walk after work, with the iPod cranked up to 11. I skipped around, looking for a song that was angry enough to sing along to, and settled on Erasure's "Hallowed Ground," which doesn't really sound like an angry song, at least in terms of melody and instrumentation. But what's angrier than "Who will be the next victim of the criminal dawn?" I sang along, like I do. I can be loud on the street, too. I also sang along to the Pretenders "Talk of the Town:" "Maybe tomorrow, maybe someday. Maybe tomorrow, maybe someday. You'll change..." And maybe I will. Maybe someday, I'll change into a person who can have an upsetting experience, and then just let it go, like it was nothing; like the proverbial water off the back of the proverbial duck. Maybe.
*****
Saturday: It was a bad week, and not just because of the stupid man and his stupid verbal assault. But it got better. My son had a baseball game today, during which my husband was nearly chucked by the umpire. He never argues with sports officials or coaches. But he did today. Too long a story to make short, but five years from now, we'll refer to the whole episode as the infield fly rule incident, a day that will live in infamy. But that's another story, for another day.
After the game, I was running errands and listening to the radio. It's almost never so bad that singing along with "Disco Inferno" can't make it better. The Capitals just won Game 5 against Pittsburgh, and April is over, finally. Burn that mother down.
There was nothing I could do, of course. It was 11:45 on a Monday morning, and he was driving, fast. Later, when I told my husband about it, I couldn't even remember what the car looked like.
One of my government bosses has nicknamed me "Liam Neeson." He says that I'm like Neeson's character in "Taken," because I have a special set of skills, honed over a lifetime. Unfortunately, they're not the kind of skills that make me immune to public harassment and humiliation. But that's fine. I'll just use this little episode to fuel my rage. I'll need it someday.
*****
Speaking of bosses, can we talk about how many I have now? Four. I have four bosses. Fortunately, I like all of them.
But still. Four bosses is a lot.
*****
I didn't think about what happened for the rest of the afternoon. Then I went for a walk after work, with the iPod cranked up to 11. I skipped around, looking for a song that was angry enough to sing along to, and settled on Erasure's "Hallowed Ground," which doesn't really sound like an angry song, at least in terms of melody and instrumentation. But what's angrier than "Who will be the next victim of the criminal dawn?" I sang along, like I do. I can be loud on the street, too. I also sang along to the Pretenders "Talk of the Town:" "Maybe tomorrow, maybe someday. Maybe tomorrow, maybe someday. You'll change..." And maybe I will. Maybe someday, I'll change into a person who can have an upsetting experience, and then just let it go, like it was nothing; like the proverbial water off the back of the proverbial duck. Maybe.
*****
Saturday: It was a bad week, and not just because of the stupid man and his stupid verbal assault. But it got better. My son had a baseball game today, during which my husband was nearly chucked by the umpire. He never argues with sports officials or coaches. But he did today. Too long a story to make short, but five years from now, we'll refer to the whole episode as the infield fly rule incident, a day that will live in infamy. But that's another story, for another day.
After the game, I was running errands and listening to the radio. It's almost never so bad that singing along with "Disco Inferno" can't make it better. The Capitals just won Game 5 against Pittsburgh, and April is over, finally. Burn that mother down.
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