Film blanc

I now have almost everything I need for my trip. All I have to do is get on the plane and fly roughly 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean and away from home. I don't get out much.

Oh, and I have to exchange some money. Dollars to euros. I'm monitoring the exchange rates, which makes me feel like a wheeling, dealing day trader. Not to mention an international traveler. I do live an interesting life, don't I?

*****

So, so interesting. I bought a rain jacket, and then I tested it in the actual rain. The rain jacket looks nice and it kept me as dry as a piece of toast in steady, though not heavily pouring rain. So with the jacket and bag situation under control, I just have to figure out what to pack and how to pack it, because I'll probably need more than the rain jacket.

Did I mention that I hate leaving home? Is that inconsistent with liking travel? Because I do like to travel and see new places and people. I just don't like to be away from home.

When I bought the rain jacket, I also bought a gray full-zip fleece jacket with a collar, because I believe in truthful packaging, so when I'm in a foreign country, I should probably dress like a middle-aged suburban American lady. The people should know what they're getting. The fleece jacket is very warm and comfortable with deep hand-warmer pockets. It's a little big and not particularly stylish or flattering, but it feels as secure as a turtle's shell.

You get where I'm going with this, right? The ugly, but comfortable fleece as a metaphor for home? OK, let's move on.

*****
It's Sunday night now, and I'm watching the Oscars. I'm not sure what to think about this crazy new host-less format. I guess it doesn't matter that much. I was disappointed that Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Maya Rudolph led with a Trump joke, giving him Twitter fodder. And the Adam Lambert/Queen performance was only so-so; which of course, it would be, because Adam Lambert isn't Freddie Mercury. No one is Freddie Mercury, God rest his soul.

And the presenters? Why didn't Sam Rockwell present the Best Supporting Actress award? I'm confused. And although I'm sorry to see Amy Adams overlooked again, I'm delighted that Regina King is finally receiving the recognition that she has deserved for so long.

I don't know how late I'll stay awake tonight, so I can't commit to a full live-blog. Contain your disappointment. Here are some additional impressions:

• Who doesn't love Queen? Glenn Close and Octavia Spencer singing along with "We Will Rock You" were a highlight of the show. 
• Speaking of Queen, my favorite part of "Bohemian Rhapsody" was Rami Malek's speech about becoming what he (he being Freddie Mercury) was born to be. I thought about this as I watched Alison Janney during a pre-show red carpet interview. She's one of the few women her age who doesn't appear surgically altered, and she looks like a woman who has become exactly who she was born to be. Something to aspire to. 
• Why is Pharrell Williams wearing shorts? Silly. 
• I thought I saw Dana Carvey in the audience and wondered what he was doing there. DUH! Who else but Dana Carvey and Mike Myers could have introduced "Bohemian Rhapsody?" We're not worthy. No one is. 

I was so hoping that Richard E. Grant would win for "Can You Ever Forgive Me," a movie that I can't stop thinking about, but Mahershala Ali was also wonderful in "Green Book." It's just hard for me to understand the reasoning behind a Supporting Actor nomination for the actor playing one of the two lead characters in the movie. But what do I know? 

Actually, I do know a bit. I have seen seven of the nominated movies ("A Star is Born," "Black Panther," "Can You Ever Forgive Me," "Green Book," "Bohemian Rhapsody," "BlacKKKlansman," and "Vice"). This is a high number for me. I usually see only one or two of the movies before the show, and then catch up later.

*****
I did end up watching the entire show. I wish that Spike Lee hadn't given Trump any Twitter ammunition, but no one can silence Spike Lee, I guess. I share his disdain for the President, though I don't share his outrage over the surprise Best Picture win for "Green Book." I liked "Green Book." And I like Spike Lee.

As for the show itself, it was fine. That's all anyone can expect from the Oscars now, I guess. It was fine, but it was boring. When Spike Lee turning his back and Melissa McCarthy wearing stuffed bunnies are among your most outrageous moments, then the Academy Awards as a broadcast event is probably all but over. Next year, I guess they can just slap the winners' names on PowerPoint slides, stream the presentation on YouTube, and be done with it. It's a little sad.

On the other hand, the Oscars broadcast makes my raincoat and fleece shopping and near-daily exchange rate check-ins (the dollar and the euro are both very stable currencies--the rates have not budged in weeks) seem interesting, even compelling. In a few weeks, I'll be on a plane flying over the ocean to the land of (some of) my ancestors, so who cares about the Oscars? Real life is always more interesting than the movies. 

Baggage claim

Saturday: After I finished making soup last night, I felt out of sorts. I haven't been depressed in some time, and I didn't really feel depressed, just anxious (more so than usual). I was worried, because things seemed worrisome. Then for some reason, I started singing Donna Summer's "Heaven Knows," a song I haven't heard or thought of for a very long time.

I sang Donna's part and Joe Esposito's part. I don't know the song that well anymore, so it wasn't one of my better performances. But I felt better anyway. I remembered most of the words, and I sang it twice, yielding to my imaginary audience's demand for an encore. Then I stopped, because you should always leave your imaginary audience wanting more.

As I washed the dishes, I had an idea for a story, but then I thought that it might be too close to my real life. Of course, that's where the greatest writers get their best ideas, but I'm not one of the greatest writers, so I'm not going to write this particular story. I don't even remember the idea.

Actually, I totally do remember the idea. But I don't want to write a story about myself. I'm the least interesting topic to write about that I can think of.

Oh who am I kidding. I'm my favorite subject. What else do I write about 95 percent of the time?

*****
Sunday morning:Yesterday was an exhausting day. My mother-in-law had chest pains and shortness of breath, so I took her to the emergency room.

If nothing else, the emergency room on a Saturday is a place to watch people, and I love to watch people. The staff checked us in and hurried us to triage right away, but after the nurse determined that my mother-in-law was in no immediate danger, we sat and waited.

When my husband called from work and asked me to take his mother to the hospital, I was already up and showered and dressed, well into my second cup of coffee. So I had a distinct advantage over most of the other ER waiters, most of whom appeared to have rushed out the door after an unexpected early wake-up call. They wore pajama pants or leggings and sheepskin boots and whatever coat happened to be closest to the door as they ran out of the house. One lady in her 60s or so was the exception; she had obviously dressed very carefully before she left the house, and she looked very nice--neat and stylish. She was alone, and I couldn't decide if she'd already been up and dressed and ready for a day of shopping or museum-going and then had a medical emergency and headed to the hospital instead; or if she just didn't like to leave the house, even for the hospital, unless she has herself organized. Either possibility seemed likely.

It was hard to tell what the other people were there for. The well-dressed lady was a heart patient, I think. She was wheeled away for a chest x-ray just after my mother-in-law returned from hers. Neither of them were thrilled about the mandatory wheelchair ride, but hospital policy is hospital policy. The other patients were in various stages of discomfort or distress, which they had to endure in the very public waiting room on the hard plastic chairs. I hoped that all of them would soon be in private rooms, resting in semi-comfortable beds.

One lady was carrying a grocery store tote bag that was obviously her purse for the day. She rummaged through it every time her name was called, pulling out insurance documents and prescription bottles. After 30 minutes or so of just waiting, she pulled out a magazine and a bottle of water and a sleeve of crackers, and settled in for what she must have expected would be a long wait. She looked a little disappointed when a nurse called her name a few minutes later.

*****
I thought about this woman as I planned obsessively for what to bring on my trip next month, and what to wear on every day, and in every possible weather scenario. I get very anxious when I'm far from home. I usually define "far from home" as any distance from my house greater than 20 miles, so overseas trips are a source of acute anxiety. Control helps me to manage the anxiety, and there's no greater feeling of control than having exactly what I need, and exactly the right way to carry it all. Bags and shoes and jackets are the most important items; but any time I take a trip, I overthink about every item that I'll need to bring or wear.

It would be nice to be the person who could just grab the nearest re-usable grocery bag, throw in her wallet and keys, and maybe a snack and some water, and just run out the door. I should be that person. As many times as I've obsessively planned for every item that should accompany me around the country (or around the corner if we're being honest), I can't think of many times that it made a difference to the trip.

Or maybe it did. Because maybe I'm just so good at packing that I've never forgotten anything and so have never felt the lack of whatever a less-careful packer might have left behind.

******
Thursday: So my mother-in-law is fine now. Her chest x-ray, EKG, and blood work were all clear. She'll see a cardiologist next week, just in case, but she's in very good health and I'm hopeful that we'll have her for many years to come. I suppose I should have told you that right away, but then you'd lose the element of suspense that's so important to a rambling, no-point blog post about absolutely nothing. Nothing but me, of course. I'm still my own favorite subject.

A week in the life: Seven days, three handbags, three books, 57 chocolates, and a pot of soup

Saturday: I don't have anything to write about right now, but it's a day, and I try to write every day. So here I am.

OK, here's something. I bought a travel handbag. There is no reason on earth for me to buy another handbag of any type whatsoever. But I thought about what I wanted to bring with me on the plane, and then pictured those items in each of the many bags that I already have. None of them worked in my imaginary plane scenario. So I bought a new one, and then learned that it was far larger than Aer Lingus's "personal item" size limit allows.  So I returned it and bought another one. The old ones are all mad that they don't get to go to Ireland. But they'll get over it.

*****
Sunday: The freezing cold has returned, after a short reprieve. I went walking/running this morning, thinking about how the beautiful thin January sunlight makes the cold bearable, and even a little pleasant. And then I realized that it's February, and has been for some time. It's always later than I think.

I just finished reading Emma Cline's The Girls, a really good, though disturbing novel, a fictionalized re-imagining of the Manson murders. The titular girls are devotees of the novel's Charles Manson figure, Russell (his last name is mentioned once, and I cannot remember it). Like Manson, Russell manipulates, abuses, and drugs the girls until they gradually surrender their humanity and willingly commit a horrific crime. The author does a very good job of illustrating Russell's control over the girls, without excusing for one moment their choice to remain with him and do his bidding.

The Girls is told in the first person from the point of view of Evie, a 14-year-old hanger-on who doesn't participate in the crime. That's not a spoiler; you learn about 10 pages in that Evie wasn't present on the night of the murders. The surprise comes in how that came about. Evie is an American archetype-- a young, affluent, neglected child of divorce so desperate for family and belonging that even a filthy band of drug-addled and depraved hippies will do.  But she's also a very emotionally complex and compelling character.

The adult Evie tells the story in alternating chapters--early 21st century, and 1969. In 1969, Evie, the granddaughter of a famous movie star whose mother inherited her wealth, is adrift as her newly divorced parents pursue new relationships and fail to notice their daughter's loneliness and alienation. Present-day Evie moves haphazardly from job to job and  relationship to relationship, mostly remaining anonymous but occasionally running into people who remain fascinated by the murders and who know about her past. Knowing better than anyone the intense vulnerability of a young unprotected girl, she tries to save the teenage girlfriend of her former boyfriend's spoiled and heartless son--not from physical danger but from self-destructive devotion to a man who doesn't care about her. We don't learn the girl's fate.

Though we know exactly what happened (in the actual Manson murders) and so almost exactly what will happen in The Girls, it's still suspenseful--intensely so during the last 20 pages or so. It's also filled with amazing writing--vivid (often horrifying) description and uncomfortably close observation of the worst in human nature. It's not something that I would want to read again, but I'll probably at least re-read some passages. This one will stay with me for a while.

*****
Monday: I watched the news for a few minutes but had to turn it off to demonstrate my utter disdain for the social media scandal du jour. Of course, I think that Trump would make fun of the Trail of Tears, but I don't think he did. He was referring to the campaign trail. He probably doesn't even know what the Trail of Tears is. All of the Democrats--all 50 of them or however many are running for President--are going to have to do so much better than high-horse faux outrage over every stupid tweet and every stupid identity politics offense. Because if they don't, he'll win again.

Meanwhile, let's talk about something important. Let's talk about my second unsuccessful handbag purchase in as many weeks. I want something utilitarian, but not ugly. Is this too much to ask? Apparently, it is. So I'll try one more time, then I'll give up and carry one of my old ones.

*****

Tuesday night: It's hard to believe that it's been almost a year since I wrote this but it was and here I am again. It's 6:45 PM and I'm just one of the milling crowd, waiting for the cluster concert to begin. It's my son's last cluster concert, so I'm a little verklepmt.

Talk amongst yourselves. I'll give you a topic.
The Cluster Concert: Both a Cluster and a Concert. Discuss. 

The auditorium filled quickly when the doors finally opened. The high school musicians will make their customary grand entrance, after spending a few minutes watching from the corridor outside the auditorium, marveling at how young the elementary and middle school kids look.

It's cold and rainy today, just a few degrees above the freezing temperatures that would have given my sons a much longed-for two-hour delay this morning. I almost never drink coffee after noon but I had to stop at the store to buy snacks for the bake sale and a hot drink seemed like just the thing. So I went to Starbucks and got a latte. I always say that I can't afford a three-dollar coffee every day so imagine my dismay which I found that a Starbucks latte actually costs five dollars now. It's been a while. Again: It's always later than I think.

I just finished my coffee. Now the young musicians are taking the stage and the lights are going down, so it's time to stop blogging and behave like a respectful audience member.

*****

Wednesday: The concert was lovely, and over by 8:15. Meanwhile, today is another day, so I have another handbag. My handbag habit is one of the many reasons why I can't afford a five-dollar coffee every day of the week. This latest one is almost exactly what I wanted: just the right size with a narrow, but not skinny strap; enough pockets, but not so many that I can't figure out what to put in them; reasonably durable and waterproof, and pretty. So I'm going to keep it. With that decision out of the way, I only have to figure out what else to bring to Ireland. I thought for five minutes about going carry-on only, but that's crazy talk. We leave in just over a month, so I have time to figure it out.

*****

Thursday: Valentine's Day. Every year, my husband gives me a Whitman's Sampler, my favorite-ever boxed chocolates. The boys also received their own Samplers, and the three of us have been trading for our favorites. Come to Mama, Cashew Clusters.

After the rather grueling experience of The Girls, I'm now reading I'm Judging You: The Do-Better Manual, by Luvvie Ajayi. I usually lose patience with hilarious-blogger-turned-author books very quickly, but this one is OK. Ajayi has a voice and something to say, and I'm enjoying her company. I'm also reading Martin Stannard's Muriel Spark: The Biography. Muriel Spark will require a separate post.

*****
Friday: I ate too much chocolate, as I always do on Valentine's Day (except for last year, when Valentine's Day fell on Ash Wednesday). It's 6:30 PM, and I'm making soup. A lot of stuff happened in the world today, but that's all I have--too much chocolate and just enough soup. And a three-day weekend, just in time. Maybe I need a rest. 

Things that go bump in the night

Things always seem worse in the middle of the night, when you should be sleeping but you can't. Problems seem unsolvable. Weird things seem weirder. Scary things are much scarier. Things that would seem ridiculous in daylight seem possible, even likely, when you're alone in the dark.

I'm a city girl who doesn't relish any encounter with wild animals, small or large. But I live in the suburbs. and although Silver Spring is a pretty close-in, urbanized suburb, it's still home to lots of animals. And I'm a fair-minded person. As far as I'm concerned, it's their turf just as much as mine. I'm not thrilled to run into foxes in daylight, or swarming bats at dusk, or rocket-launched frogs; or snakes, real or imaginary. But I acknowledge their right to our shared habitat.

I have to draw the line somewhere, though. There are limits, you know?

A few days ago, a neighborhood friend posted a picture of a very large paw print in her backyard snow. And according to commenters on the post, the print belonged to a bear. And according to the Internet, bears are not at all unheard-of visitors in Silver Spring. And according to me, WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? What, as my 17-year-old son says, in the ACTUAL HELL?

I mean, really. Bats and squirrels and deer and raccoons and foxes? Fine. But bears? This isn't Yellowstone, for crying out loud. A bear. A BEAR.

Clearly, it was time to get off social media for the day, and so I did. And I didn't give the bear another thought. Until I woke up at 3 in the morning for my regularly scheduled anxiety attack, and realized that I could never again go outside unarmed. A BEAR! I've seen "The Revenant," and I am in no way equipped to survive a similar encounter with a bear in the wild, even if the wild is the DMV suburbs.

Having resolved never to leave the house on foot again, I went back to sleep. And then I woke up. And the sun was out. And the snow had melted, not completely, but enough that roaming bears wouldn't have had enough snow in which to leave a decent footprint. This made a difference, for some reason. Even if the bear was hiding somewhere, I wouldn't have to see its footprint. Out of sight, out of mind. So I went running, picking my way around the remaining patches of ice and noting likely options for shelter if the bear were to appear. And I returned home unscathed after an uneventful morning run.

*****
It's Monday now, so warm that the snow has completely melted, leaving mist to rise from the sidewalks in the bright sun this morning. Maybe a rodent is just as reliable a predictor of weather conditions as NOAA. And speaking of the wild kingdom, I haven't seen so much as a squirrel today. Not even a pigeon.

*****
Tuesday: I worked from home today. It's not my normal WFH day, but I wasn't feeling well. I don't have the kind of job that lets a sick person just rest and get better (who does?) but staying at home helps. I'm still not 100 percent, but I'm better than I was.

I'm torn about the State of the Union. On the one hand, I'd like to continue with my Trump embargo. I just don't want to look at his face or hear his voice. On the other hand, I want to maintain some level of informed-ness, some situational awareness. Plus it'll be fun to watch the reaction when he declares the state of emergency, as I expect he will.

I should call the White House. Maybe they can do something about the bear.  Some sort of neighborhood enclosure, to keep the people on one side and the bear on the other. It doesn't have to be a wall; any sort of physical barrier will do. Steel slats, maybe, or a chain-link fence.

*****
Wednesday: So that was interesting. No state of emergency, and even the Democratic women in white were forced to applaud--standing, no less--when the President spoke about the record number of women in Congress. And even I was moved, once again, by the story of Alice Johnson. Criminal justice reform is long overdue, and if there's any reason to be hopeful, it's that even some of the most conservative Republicans are championing the idea that our incarceration rates represent a sinful waste of human life and potential. I'm happy for Ms. Johnson, and I'll give credit where it's due, even if it's due to Donald Trump and Jared Kushner and Kim Kardashian.

I fell asleep before the thing was over, and didn't get to see Stacey Abrams give the Democratic response. And the usual post-Trump-speech fact checks gave him better truthfulness ratings than he usually earns. Apparently, at least half of what he said was actually true.

On the other hand, he loses points for the "war and investigations" remark, which doesn't even make any sense. So it's a C-plus.

Yes, that's right, I'm giving Trump a C-plus. Factor that into his GPA, accounting for every other speech and public performance since January 2017, and he's still failing.

And if a bear wandering around Silver Spring isn't a damn national emergency, then I don't know what is.

*****
It's Thursday now, and a week into February. My trip to Ireland is just over a month away, and I'm figuring out how to pack. I thought about trying to manage the week with a carry-on alone, but I don't know. I have some planning to do.

And why does a kid jump into my seat on the couch every single time I get up?

I bought a travel handbag, and I'm not sure if I like it or not. I think I do. I want all of the handbags. It's a problem. Next week, I'll discuss my packing strategy and my obsessive-compulsive what-to-bring decision process. There might be flow charts, or maybe a Tableau visualization.

It would be nice to be one of those people who don't panic about every minor detail and who can take a trip without spending weeks worrying about what to bring and what to leave home.

But you know what? I almost completely forgot about the bear. Sometimes my gnat-like attention span and my obsessive overthinking work in my favor. There is always a silver lining.

An early spring

My son swam in his last high school swim meet today and joined his fellow seniors for the traditional senior recognition. During the break between the 50 Freestyle and the 100 Butterfly, the seniors walked through a human tunnel of underclassmen as a parent volunteer read each senior's name and a short biography. As the seniors emerged from the tunnel, they shook hands with their coach, who has been with them for all four years; then another parent handed them balloons. Holding their balloons, the seniors lined up one by one on the bulkhead that separates the aquatic center's two pools; and then they stood for a few moments, smiling, posing for pictures, and waving to acknowledge the cheers of their fans.

The group, 12 seniors in all, is not particularly close. They swim for four or five different summer and club teams, and most of them don't share interests outside the pool. But they're still friends, connected by the shared experience of pre-dawn practices in the chilly water of the county aquatic center pool. They shoulder-hugged and exchanged fist bumps as they lined up on the bulkhead, laughing as their bios and favorite swim team memories were read aloud.  The whole thing took no more than 10 minutes, and then it was time to get back to work. I blew the whistle to start the 100 Fly races, and the meet continued.

And that's what the rest of this year will be like. A last band concert, a last track meet, a senior cut day, prom, and then graduation. Time marches resolutely on.

*****
It's Monday now, a regular work day for me, and the first day of work since before Christmas for thousands of federal employees. I'm not the first person to comment on the timing--a ground stop at LaGuardia, followed less than two hours later by the President's decision to reopen the government in exchange for zero dollars for the wall. There's no national emergency more pressing than rich people missing their flights. Anyway, I'm glad it's over, for now.

*****

So now it's Tuesday. I worked in the office until about 12:30 PM, and then I followed all of the rest of the lemmings home to beat the blizzard. I've been in the DMV for 20 years, and I'm exactly like everyone else here. Two inches of snow is an emergency, and the only reason why I didn't stop on my way home to buy every roll of toilet paper and every ounce of milk in the store is that I'm me. I was born bracing for a siege, and I don't run out of anything, ever.

The snow hadn't started this morning, so my sons went to school on time, much to their dismay and chagrin. They often complain when there aren't enough snow days. "This is a rip-off," they'll say. My answer is always the same: "Who did you pay?" They're getting their money's worth now--early dismissal today, and an already-announced two-hour delay tomorrow morning.

*****

Wednesday: The two-hour delay turned into a full day off, so my sons won't have to demand a refund. It's icy icy freezing horrid cold, so the county has already called a two-hour delay for tomorrow. I'm home now, and after the short walk from my car to the parking lot across the street, I abandoned the idea of going to the gym. I'm in for the night.

My house is old, and in the coldest weather, it's drafty. The family room and kitchen are fine, but the bedrooms are cold.  The hot water takes a long time to reach the bathrooms, and it runs out quickly, so cold-morning showers have to be quick. On days like today, I'm tempted to just go to sleep in my clothes, so I don't have to undress in the cold. But sometimes, I'm glad for a little discomfort. I drive a nice clean car from my nice clean house to a desk job in a nice clean office. A cold bedroom or a lukewarm shower save me from being spoiled.

*****
It's Thursday now and I think I wrote some nonsense yesterday about gratitude for the character-building cold. Who knows where I come up with this crap. It's freezing. Whatever.

But it will get warm again. Eventually. Meanwhile, let's talk about my hair, shall we? I got what appears to be a non-terrible haircut. This, as I have mentioned before, is rare enough that it's worth writing about. I say "appears to be" a non-terrible haircut because I legitimately can't tell for sure. The stylist blow-dried my hair to within an inch of its life and it's so straight and shiny right now that I don't even really recognize it. This will last exactly one day. Ain't nobody got time for that kind of hair effort. Tomorrow morning, I will perform my usual five-minute styling routine, and we'll see what my hair really looks like. I do love a surprise.

*****
So it's Friday now, and my hair is fine. It looks like my normal hair, only about 3/4 of an inch shorter. I worked from home today, and left the house only to pick up my son at the bus stop, so that he wouldn't have to walk home through the Antarctic cold. I picked him up 2 1/2 hours early--unexpectedly heavy snow prompted yet another early dismissal, so they went 5 for 5 this week: one scheduled day off, one snow day, one late start, and two early dismissals. A full week of school is going to kill these kids.

It was a productive day, and now I'm waiting out the last few minutes of the Capitals' All-Star break, which followed a horrendous 7-game losing streak that included a 7-2 loss to Nashville, a hideous overtime loss to San Jose after the Sharks scored to tie the game with ONE SECOND remaining, and a brutal beatdown at the hands of the Toronto Maple Leafs. The puck drops in ten minutes.

*****
OMG, that was the longest 57 seconds. The streak has ended; and a rodent meteorologist is apparently promising an early spring. It's already above freezing, so things are looking up. Until next week...

Counting the days

Monday, January 21. Trump Shutdown, Day 31. It's a holiday; a lovely, paid holiday, and I don't have any work to do today. Normally, I'd have gone walking/running (lots of walking, with very little running) as soon as I woke up but it's about 50 degrees below absolute zero right now and I'm not stepping foot out that door.

Well, eventually I suppose I'll have to step foot out that door. But not at 7:30 in the morning.

I did eventually leave the house, to run some errands, literally. I went to several stores, running from my car to the store and back. Those mad dashes through the cold will count as my exercise for today. I made banana bread and there's chili cooking in the Instant Pot that I bought just about a year ago, and wrote about during another, much shorter government shutdown. I remembered writing about the Instant Pot, but I had forgotten that the other shutdown was going on at the time. Things change and they stay the same.

*****
Now it's Tuesday, Day 32.  We are still funded, so I'm still working. I don't know how much longer that, or this shutdown, will continue, but I can't worry about that right now.

I suspect, though I don't know for sure (because I don't know anything for sure), that some Trump supporters are secretly sick of him but they can't give in now. They don't want to hear the I-told-you-so, the what-were-you-thinking. Of course, lots of Trump voters are still firmly with him. They think he's doing a great job. But I think that more and more of them are on to him by now; they're just not ready to say so just yet.

I have noticed that people who support (or used to support) Trump are hyper-sensitive to the slightest criticism or mockery of the President from any news or entertainment source. They're tired of constant Trump-bashing; so much so that even a slightly negative comment about him sounds to them like bashing.

And maybe they have a point. Maybe the media should shut up about Trump for a while. SNL's Trump sketches haven't been funny since Melissa McCarthy played Sean Spicer; and no one who watches MSNBC needs any more convincing that Trump is a heartless crook and liar. And as I mentioned here, what would be worse from Trump's point of view? More vitriol and satire from liberal journalists and comedians? Or stone-cold nothing--no attention at all. No SNL sketches, no MSNBC monologues or CNN panel discussions, no Washington Post editorials--nothing.

Of course it will never happen, but think how awesome it would be if Trump had no liberal bias to push back against, no convenient media foil, no Twitter fodder. What would he do during all of those hours and hours and hours of executive time? What would Sarah Sanders and Kellyanne Conway have to huff and puff about if no one attacked Trump? How would Fox News hosts fill their time?

It would drive Trump and his most vocal supporters crazy if his critics decided to just ignore him altogether, and that alone is a good-enough reason to try it. But there's an even better reason. Without any "bias" or "fake news" to complain about, the President's media enablers might have to defend him on his own merits. As they say on the Internet, how would that work out for them? How would Fox News and Sarah and Kellyanne and the Freedom Caucus explain why the administration didn't just get funding for the wall when the Republicans were in control of both houses of Congress?

Or how the tax cuts for billionaires will benefit the "white working class" whom they claim to love so much.

Or when we'll see an infrastructure plan.

Or why a President who claims to love the military can't get retired generals to remain in his cabinet.

Or how he plans to solve the opioid crisis.

Or how defunding the FBI, the Coast Guard, and the Transportation Safety Administration is consistent with the administration's alleged commitment to "national security."

I read today that Sarah Sanders stopped giving press briefings at the President's direction; because, as he said, the reporters are all rude to her. I suggest that they stop being rude. I would suggest that if she ever holds another press briefing, everyone in the room should treat her with great courtesy and respect, even deference. Don't ask about Russia--let Mueller worry about that. Don't ask about Cohen and Stormy Daniels. Don't call anyone a big fat lying liar. Just ask simple questions, which would force her to either answer them or not answer them. Either option would be instructive.

*****

The President has had two years to build a wall.
He's had two years to propose a solution to the opioid crisis.
He's had two years to propose a way to defund Planned Parenthood and divert the funding to free clinics that can provide healthcare to poor women.
He's had two years to come up with an infrastructure plan.
He's had two years to work on reforming the Veterans' Administration.

All the press has to do is to report on what the administration has done about any or all of the above. The answer, of course, is nothing. And that's because Trump doesn't care about any or all of the above (including--especially--the stupid wall). He cares about tax cuts for rich people and big corporations; and he cares about appointing judges who will protect the interests of rich people and big corporations. And of course, he cares about Trump. And those are the things that he has managed to take care of. Mission accomplished.

*****
Wednesday, Day 33. Oddly enough, SNL and CNN have not sought my advice, so I don't expect the media to change its Trump approach any time soon. I can't wait to not read the latest speculation about what might or might not be in the Mueller report, or when the House Democrats might or might not start impeachment proceedings. Tomorrow will be Day 34 , and no end in sight.

Rectangles, folded toward the middle

If you don't live under the proverbial social media rock and you have any female friends at all whatsoever, then you are probably aware of the existence of Marie Kondo, a tiny Japanese woman and exemplar of the 21st century phenomenon of organizing as a paid profession.

Professional organizers are nothing new. For about two decades, HGTV and Real Simple magazine and ten million blogs have proclaimed the life-altering power of cleaning and organizing and arranging. And I like to clean and organize and arrange. I am the prototypical suburban woman who can't function amid chaos. I'm a bit more compulsive about neatness than most people, but I'm a bit more compulsive about a lot of things than most people.If you are looking for mental health advice, you have come to the wrong place.

But much as I love a clean and well-organized room or closet or life, I don't like professional organizing advice at all. When it comes to cleaning up, it's my way or the highway. So when I heard and saw all of the buzz surrounding Marie Kondo's Netflix show and her earlier YouTube videos, I ignored it. I don't like to binge-watch, and I was also sure that the show would be exactly like every other before/after home renovation show.

I continued to ignore Marie and her joy-sparking, but she wouldn't go away. My friends on Facebook and Instagram continued to post before and after pictures of chaos turned to order. After I read an online review of the show that included the words "unmitigated kindness," I finally had to see it for myself. Unmitigated kindness is in short supply and if Netflix is handing it out, then I'll get in line. I watched a few episodes during the snowstorm last weekend, and although the show is produced and scripted just like lots of other before/after home improvement shows, it's quite different, even radical.

There's an episode in which a young family of four (the most delightful people you will ever see) is trying to organize and tidy their cramped two-bedroom apartment. During the entire 40 or so minutes that the episode runs, Marie Kondo doesn't speak a single word about eventual homeownership or the need to upgrade to a better and larger space. Nor does she just take a "do the best you can with what little you have, poor people" approach. Instead, she treats the apartment with great respect, showing the the viewer that this tiny apartment is a dignified and private family home, as important and worthy of care and attention as any HGTV after picture.

Speaking of the after picture, this is a big difference, too. In the episodes that I have watched, no new items are purchased or even suggested. Nothing gets painted or recarpeted or refurnished or resurfaced in any way. Marie uses boxes that are already in the house--shoeboxes, in one case--to arrange and compartmentalize belongings. The only difference from before to after is that a cluttered room or closet becomes clean and orderly, without the aid of expensive baskets or shelving systems or other organizing products.

The first step in what Marie Kondo calls the KonMari method is a huge purge of old belongings, by category, not by room. Although her Shinto-inspired Japanese approach is different from the American approach to organizing (she asks people to express their gratitude to each item before letting it go), the idea of purging old items is nothing new at all if you're an American woman who has been exposed to any form of media at all, any time during the past 20 years. What's very different is that Marie Kondo has no interest at all in making room for new things, which is the real reason why women's magazines and home improvement TV shows want us to clear our clutter. The KonMari method is focused only on clearing out belongings that don't bring beauty or happiness to their owners' lives. She calls it "sparking joy." If a thing doesn't "spark joy," you should let it go, and that's all. In the context of a TV show devoted to home organizing, letting go of a thing without any plan to exchange it for a newer or nicer thing seems almost revolutionary.

And it's lovely to watch. "Unmitigated kindness" is exactly the right phrase. Watching Marie Kondo is like watching Mr. Rogers, reincarnated as a smiling, beautiful Japanese woman in a twirly skirt and black ballet shoes.

*****

Just like the author of the review that I linked here, I watched for just a few minutes and was inspired almost immediately to do something, though not everything. There's no way on God's green earth that I'll ever follow the KonMari method exactly as it's prescribed because the sight of every piece of clothing in my house heaped in a pile will induce paper-bag-breathing hyperventilation that cannot be good for a person my age. I have to do it piecemeal or not at all. My way or the highway. I started with my spice cabinet and kitchen towels, and then moved on to a few drawers.

I spent part of my youth in the retail trenches, and I thought I knew how to fold. And it turns out that I do. I tried the KonMari folding method in my t-shirt and underwear drawers. The underwear folding method, I have to admit, is quite brilliant, and I will probably stick with it. But she's dead wrong about  the t-shirts. They're much better folded flat. I mean it's nice that I can see which one is which, but I didn't have any trouble finding them before, and I'll probably go back to the old way. My sweaters and long-sleeved knit shirts are folded on shelves in my closet, and I'm going to leave them that way.

Yes, they all spark joy for me. Even the Capitals shirts.
Even after the Nashville game. OMG.
And no, I'm not going to show you my underwear drawer. Weirdos. 

I have only watched a few episodes, so I haven't seen the infamous "30-books" episode. I suspect that the uproar about this episode is another manufactured social media controversy cooked up by grievance fetishists with finely tuned passive aggression skills. Anyway, I have a lot more than 30 books, by a pretty big order of magnitude. I might be willing to part with 10 or so. So in addition to t-shirt folding, Marie Kondo and I might also disagree on book collection size.

*****
The world is a little chaotic right now, even more so than usual. I think that it could get worse before it gets better. Maybe taking a few extra minutes to fold a shirt just so will make someone appreciate the shirt a little more. Maybe by appreciating things a little more, we will appreciate people, and life itself, a little more. That would be nice. But right now, I have an organized spice cabinet, and neatly arranged kitchen linens and drawers filled with stacks of compact little rectangles, folded toward the middle. And that's pretty good.

January

It's Saturday afternoon, and my house is full of teenage boys, gathered for what has become an annual playoff-watching chicken wing fest. I don't like football or chicken wings but my sons' friends are lovely and it's quite nice to sit by a fire and watch football players run around in the snow. Better them than me. But it's really really loud in here, and I think I'll retreat to a quieter room.

*****
Well. That's better. I can hear myself think. Better still, I can't hear Cris Collinsworth or the other guy. Al Michaels. I just looked him up. They're fine, I guess, but they're not Joe Beninati and Craig Laughlin. And football is definitely not hockey.

It's Day 22 of the now longest-in-U.S.-history government shutdown. I know that at least 30 percent of my fellow Americans agree with Trump's characterization of the Russia-collusion investigation as a "witch hunt" (or "Witch Hunt," I guess), but I think that investigation, when it concludes, will reveal that the President is is a paid agent of the Russian government. And whatever Putin is paying, it's money well spent.

*****
Enough about him. At least for today, I'm not going to write any more about Trump and his crazy tweets and his wall that he could have built any time in 2017 or 2018, except why would he when it was obviously a better political destabilization strategy to wait until the Democrats won an election to force the longest government shutdown in history? Putin is probably paying a by-the-day bonus.

No, I think I'll write a little more about this particular Saturday in January. I returned to my place of authority on the pool deck this morning, with my clipboard and my whistle and my favorite lanyard. Someone has to be in charge and it might as well be me.

I used to hate January, and I still hate winter, because it's cold and dark. But even though I don't like football, I like the festive mood that surrounds the NFL playoffs. I couldn't care less who wins any of these silly games, but I'm happy to have company and eat snacks and drink beer. On sunny days, I like the light in the afternoon. And we also have a three-day weekend in January, so it's not a month that's altogether without redeeming qualities.

Afternoon light in January. 

But I still can't wait for summer.

*****

Sunday morning, Day 23. It started to snow yesterday and we have about six inches on the ground now, with more still falling. It's the first real snowfall of the year. I'm not sure if we'll make it to Mass this morning or not. On one hand, I feel that we should at least try to get there; on the other, I don't want to get stuck in the snow, and our street has not been plowed. So we'll see.

I finished Graham Greene's 21 Stories. 10 of the 21 were quite good. The other 11 were the kind of stories that I read all the way through because the writing is beautiful but then I wonder what the heck it was that I just read. And that's not a bad thing at all. I might re-read one or two of them. But probably not. I have a lot of stuff to read, and I'm not getting any younger.

Now I'm reading The Abolition of Woman: How Radical Feminism is Betraying Women, by Fiorella Nash. So good. Of course, me reading this falls under the heading of choir members listening attentively to the proverbial preacher. I already believe that abortion is terribly anti-woman.  But in case I needed convincing, Ms. Nash makes the most compelling case I've ever read for the pro-life position as the only reasonable one for feminists.

(By the way, speaking of Day 23? In addition to having two years of Republican control to build his stupid wall, the President also had two years of a so-called pro-life majority, but Planned Parenthood remains fully funded. Weird, right? You'd almost think that they were cynically deceiving and exploiting pro-life voters during election years, and then just forgetting about them once they gain power.)

Among the most clear and logical of the author's arguments concerns the problem of maternal mortality in developing countries, which the abortion-industrial complex would solve by means of "reproductive healthcare," meaning abortion. Their real agenda, of course, is to cull the herd of poor people and non-white people. Nash asserts, correctly, that all of the causes of maternal mortality could be easily addressed as they have been in the West, in countries such as Great Britain where maternal mortality improved dramatically from the mid-19th century to the early 20th century, long before legalized abortion. It's a question of will, not capacity. If women and children were truly valued, we as a society would find a way to save poor women from preventable pregnancy- and childbirth-related deaths.

I would suggest that this argument could be applied to any number of issues that we treat as intractable and unsolvable. We are (for now, at least) the richest country in the world and we could easily make room for migrants and refugees. We have the most advanced technology and science in the world, and could solve the opioid crisis (how is that going, Kellyanne?) if we cared enough about the people who are suffering because of it. Our approach to most issues that affect poor people can be summed up in one sentence: There's just enough of us, but way too many of you.

*****

Tuesday night, Day 25. I'm watching the Capitals take a beating at the hands of the Nashville Predators in what is likely to be their third straight loss. You can't win them all, and I'm not going to worry about it. At least I'm getting a paycheck, unlike a million or more federal employees and contractors almost a month into this ridiculous fight to keep Central Americans on the other side of the Rio Grande. Maybe it's part of a grander Russian-financed strategy to make the U.S. such a terrible country that no immigrants will want to enter. I'll leave with a few words from Fiorella Nash:

"It is the fatally disastrous blind spot in current human rights campaigning, the failure to acknowledge the rights of every member of the human family, but prolife feminism represents a human rights movement which excludes no human life under any circumstances."

The Capitals are losing 6-1 now. Until next week.

Dawn patrol

It's Monday morning, quite early (5:20 AM). I watched almost the entire Golden Globes broadcast last night. It was kind of boring, but I was still on the edge of my seat, hoping that no one would mention Trump. I applauded every Trump-free acceptance speech. It was like talking about a perfect game during a perfect game; I didn't want to jinx it, but I was too excited not to say anything.

Christian Bale had me worried for a minute, but he stopped with Senator McConnell (of whom I share Mr. Bale's opinion). Alfonso Cuaron expressed love for his native Mexico, and someone else (maybe the "Assassination of Gianni Versace" people?) said something about creating connections between people, rather than building walls around them or blah blah blah; and I'm sure that Trump and his little media minions will find a way to interpret those speeches as attacks on Trump. But for the entire time that I watched, I didn't hear a single direct reference to the President or his tweets or his 16-days-and-counting shutdown. I hope he's really disappointed. I hope that a whole bunch of Fox producers are scrambling to fill airtime that would have been filled with complaints about Hollywood bias against conservatives (by the way, Trump is not a conservative). I'm vindictive when I'm sleep-deprived.

Other than the Trump embargo, the show was pretty boring, but there were a few highlights:

• I love Carol Burnett SO MUCH and was so happy to see her receive this well-deserved honor. My children know who she is now, and they know how much people my age love her. I never watched "The Office" when it first aired, but I'm a fan now thanks to my children (it's on Netflix now and extremely popular among teenagers) and Steve Carell was a great choice as presenter. I choked up a little when he said that presenting the award was the greatest honor of his life. And my beloved Bill Murray was first on his feet for the standing ovation. This five minutes made the entire show worthwhile.
• Lady Gaga was the style star of the night. Of course, lots of women looked beautiful, but they're so scared of the fashion police snark-pundits that they don't take any risks at all. Lady Gaga doesn't care, and I love her for it. 
• Mahershala Ali was lovely and gracious, and he was great in "The Green Book," which I saw with my sons. I wish that Viggo Mortenson had won, too, but I guess you can't compete with crazy Christian Bale. Satan? Really? Come on, man. 
• I haven't seen "Beale Street" yet, but Regina King has been so underrated for so long, and I was delighted to see her get the recognition that she deserves. And her speech was great, too. 

I fell asleep toward the end and missed the surprise wins for "Bohemian Rhapsody" (which I haven't seen yet, but will) and Rami Malek. And no recognition for "Can You Ever Forgive Me," which was a huge disappointment. Had it not been for Carol Burnett and Lady Gaga, I'd probably be mad that I missed a hockey game to watch this.

*****

Now it's Tuesday night (Day 18--I think my count was off last week) and I can't wait to not watch the President make his case about the "national emergency" on the southern border. I'm in the car on my way to Chinatown, where the Washington Capitals will face the Philadelphia Flyers at Capital One Center. Alex Ovechkin and Evgeny Kuznetsov are the only Russians I care about right now.

This is the first time I'll actually attend a Capitals game against my hometown team. I liked baseball when I was young, and I followed the Phillies very closely. My grandfather was a huge fan, and I was the only grandchild who was interested enough to sit and watch games with him (or listen, more often--we sat outside and listened on the radio). He taught me how to score games, a skill that I have lost altogether; and he taught me how to watch a baseball broadcast, a skill that I have retained. I still like baseball. I love the sound of it in the summer. I still miss Harry Kalas and Richie Ashburn. 

But even though Philadelphia was (still is) a hockey town and even though my grandfather also loved the Flyers, I didn't pay much attention to hockey. I remember the Broad Street Bullies, and I remember all of my neighbors pouring out onto the street to celebrate their 1974 Stanley Cup win (I don't remember 1975 for some reason). But for some reason, the game and the team didn't really speak to me. After the excitement of the Flyers' back-to-back championships, I don't think I gave hockey another thought in my life, until about 2010. 

My husband has been a Capitals fan since 1980 or so. So for as long as we have been married (since 2000), I have been hearing and seeing games. But for years, the Capitals faded into the sports background, along with the Maryland Terrapins and the Washington Redskins and the Baltimore Orioles (pre-2006) and Washington Nationals (2006 and after) and all of the other sports teams that my husband follows. 

Then in 2010 or so, I sat down with him to watch a Capitals game, and I found myself drawn in. Joe Beninati and Craig Laughlin were a big part of the appeal. They reminded me of Harry and Rich. The broadcast team is a huge part of the culture of hometown sports fandom, and Joe and Craig are a delight to watch and listen to. I started to watch more games here and there, and by 2014, I was watching games even when my husband wasn't home. So even though Philadelphia is and always will be my  hometown, the Washington Capitals are my hockey team. And they beat Philadelphia on Tuesday night, after making the game more interesting than it needed to be, as they tend to do. 

*****

It's really early in the morning on Thursday (Day 20). My son, who is 17, has high school swim practice on Mondays and Thursdays. For his first three years on the team, my husband drove him to 5 AM practices, and although I would wake up when they turned the lights on, I'd usually go back to sleep. Now, however, he is driving himself to practice, and I can't go back to sleep knowing that my son is out driving in the pre-dawn darkness. I have gotten used to having a child driving, and it's fine when he drives at night, but 4:45 AM is completely different.

So for the past two months, I've been up at 4:30 on Mondays and Thursdays, and I actually like being up this early. I don't like GETTING up this early, but I like BEING up this early. Given the choice, I'd still be asleep, of course, but since I don't have a choice, I can at least use the time to write a bunch of stuff that ten people will read. Time well spent.

*****
Friday morning (Day 21), 6 AM. I have no idea why I'm up so early this morning. No one is out on the mean early-morning streets; they're all asleep. But here I am.

It's not only Day 21 of the shutdown; it's also the first federal payday for about 800,000 feds who won't receive their paychecks. At least that many contractors will also go without pay, and there won't be any congressional appropriation to restore back pay for them. If anyone can explain to me how it's reasonable to shut down the actual government of the United States for any political reason at all, I'd be interested in hearing it.

Meanwhile, one of my retirement accounts lost $2,000 in one quarter. So thanks, Trump! Yes, I know it's not fair to blame him for the stock market downturn because I didn't credit him for the gains of 2017 and 2018, but it's 6 AM and life isn't fair.

I still think that they should just give him his stupid stupid wall. A wall is just a thing. It's not a policy, and it's not an immorality in and of itself. Forcing low-wage TSA officers to work without pay is an immorality. Ruining business for contractors and subcontractors and every food truck that sits outside a shuttered federal building for no reason other than political showmanship is an immorality. I could list 20 things worse than a wall without even thinking hard. Taking a job (President, for example, or Member of Congress) and accepting pay for it and then blithely refusing to do the work that the taxpayers are paying you to do would be one example.

Speaking of jobs, it's time for me to go do mine. Until next week. 

Ready and waiting

It's Friday, and I worked from home, with MSNBC as background noise and the shutdown clock counting up the days and hours and minutes. It's Day 13 now.

I was super-productive today. With far too much work to do and too little time in which to do it, I was forced to prioritize and focus, and I did. More work this weekend, but I have a plan and I'm going to stick to it, because I love when a plan comes together.

*****
Saturday morning; Day 14. It's 8:30 AM and I'm 10 pages into the proposal that I'm editing. The proposal manager emailed me last night to let me know that they're 8 pages over the limit, and they're hoping that I can help them figure out how to get rid of the extra 8 pages. Piece of proverbial cake. I can write ten pages on a subject that could probably be addressed in a single paragraph, but I absolutely excel at cutting the fat out of other people's writing. It's going so well, in fact, that I wish I didn't have to stop, but high school swim meets wait for no one.

*****

It’s almost noon now, and I’m in the spectator loft at the Martin Luther King Swim Center. Rockville vs. Einstein. I don’t have a job today, other than to sit here and maybe take some pictures, and cheer. It’s a nice change of pace. I do miss my whistle, though. But I suppose there’s no reason why I can’t wear a whistle around my neck. Who would dare to question such an iconoclastic fashion choice?

In the transition from parenting babies and toddlers to young children to school-age children to teenagers, many things change but still others remain much the same. You would think that teenage boys, having heard me explain the definition of “ready” so many times in their lives, would actually ensure that they are truly ready to leave when it’s time to leave, just so they wouldn’t have to hear me explain it once again. But it almost never fails. When it’s time to leave for a swim meet or any other need-to-be-there-on-time event, when I ask if everyone is ready, they will invariably say “yes,” all evidence to the contrary. Then, I will be forced to point out that people who claim to be “ready” but who are half-dressed, barefooted, and blissfully unaware of the location of their possessions, are not in fact “ready.”

There’s “ready” and there’s “getting ready to get ready.” They are two different things.

*****
 Sunday morning; Day 15. It's 11 AM. I went to Mass last night and went running this morning, so now it's time to work. I forgot my Fitbit when I went running, which means that thousands of steps won't count. Fitbit steps for me are almost like to-do list items. I can't overemphasize how obsessed I am with the Fitbit. I'll write and tell you all about it, but another rime.

The Golden Globes are on tonight, and I'm not even looking forward to watching. If I had anything to do with the Golden Globes, I'd ask every single presenter, nominee, attendee--everyone--to not even mention Trump, or the shutdown, or the Mueller investigation, or Putin, or the fucking wall. Not a word, not a hint, not even a look to suggest that anyone is thinking about Trump in any way. What would bother him more--the usual biggest-resister competition, or nothing--no attention at all? Plus, wouldn't it be fun to screw up the Fox News producers' production plans for the week? They're all ready to spend the early part of the week complaining about Hollywood's bias against Trump, and they'll have to go back to the drawing board if no one plays along.

It's later now, about 7:30 PM. I'm watching E's "Live from the Red Carpet." Initial impressions:

• Lady Gaga was perfect, as always. 
• When I exclaimed "Oh my God, Carol Burnett!" one of my sons asked me who she was, and I realized that I have failed as a parent. Failed. 
• I have no idea what Henry Winkler is nominated for, but I can't help but root for him. 
• Melissa McCarthy also loves Lee Israel, as of course she must to have played her so brilliantly. How am I supposed to make a sensible whom-to-root-for decision between Lady Gaga and Melissa McCarthy? 
• Elisabeth Moss and Taylor Swift video-chatting? Adorable. 
• No one is wearing a whistle. Probably just as well. A whistle is a lot of look, and few of us can pull it off. Not everyone can aspire to the fast-lane life and runway style of a high school swim referee. Don't hate me because you ain't me.

OK. I'm totally going to watch the show. 

*****

Bibliography 2018

January 1, 2019, 9:04 PM. Vacation is officially over, though I'm hanging on to the holidays with a nice glass of red wine. I don't mind going back to work. I worked a bit during vacation, so I don't feel completely overwhelmed. And i like my job.

But I'll miss the leisurely mornings. I don't sleep later than 7:30, even on days off, but the rest of my family does like to sleep late, and I love the quiet early morning with the sun streaming in through the windows and the luxury of a second cup of coffee. I'll also miss reading. Well, I read every day, but I'll miss reading for more than 15 minutes at a time.

*****

Speaking of reading, it's time for a new year and a new book list, soon to be handwritten in the back of my 2019 planner. Here's what I read in 2018. I thought that I read more books than this. Maybe I did, and just forgot to write them down. Well, if it's not documented, it didn't happen, so I'll only include the books that I remembered to write down. And they are:

Fire and Fury, Michael Wolff. Ha ha ha ha ha! Who knew that this was the good old days, amirite? In January 2018, Michael Wolff had no idea that shit hadn't even begun to get real. Ha ha ha!

Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance. I wrote about this one here, and have not given it much thought since. That's not a criticism of the book so much as an admission of my tendency to become completely absorbed in something while I'm doing it and then to forget it completely the moment I walk away. I envy gnats their attention spans.

Is It Just Me? Miranda Hart. I wrote about this in the same post, and even found a way to connect Miranda Hart with J.D. Vance. They are both members of very small and exclusive clubs.

Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal, Amy Krouse Rosenthal. This was also covered here. I don't think there will ever be another writer like AKR, may she rest in peace.

Slouching Towards Jerusalem, Joan Didion. I am standing by my original post about this one, including my strong objection to "towards" rather than "toward" in the title. It's a small but important distinction.

The White Album, Joan Didion. Briefly reviewed here, almost a year ago.

Miranda's Daily Dose of Such Fun, Miranda Hart. I follow only four celebrities on Instagram: Katie Ledecky, Michael Phelps, Alexander Ovechkin, and Miranda Hart. I'll watch Miranda in just about anything, but I still can't believe that I wasted two hours on this silliness. I mean, it's not terrible or anything; it is just extremely uneven. Some of the daily tips are genuinely funny and original; many of the others read as if the author was facing a looming deadline and had to just get words on the page, no matter the words.

Going into Town, Roz Chast. Really wonderful. Not quite as good as Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant, but that's a high bar, even for Roz Chast. Going into Town is about New York City, past and present. It's both a practical guide to living in the city (where to eat, how to find an apartment, how to get from Point A to Point B), and an illustrated memoir of Chast's life there. Roz Chast grew up in Brooklyn and spent her young adulthood in Manhattan, drawing cartoons for The New Yorker. She moved to the suburbs when her children were young and wrote Going into Town for them. I hate calling any book or movie a "love letter" to a city, but the book's subtitle is "A Love Letter to New York," so I guess it's appropriate in this case. You should read this if you are one of those people who can't understand why people love New York so much. You should really read this if you love New York. I love New York, and I love Roz Chast. This was one of my 2018 favorites.

Bergdorf Blondes, Plum Sykes. So silly, and that's not even why I didn't like it. I like silly as well as (more than!) the next person. And I sneer at critics who dismiss any novel written by a young woman as "chick lit." But this book is ridiculous. I, however, am even more ridiculous; because apparently, I read it twice. I mean really.

A Gentleman in Moscow, Amor Towles. This list is in chronological order (not by date of publication, but by date of reading), which is the only reason that this book doesn't appear at the very top. It was my very favorite book of 2018; and in a year that included Joan Didion and Roz Chast and Graham Greene and Maeve Brennan, that is an accomplishment. I wrote about this one here and here and here. No, you don't have to read all of those posts; I mention them only to demonstrate that this book was special enough that I couldn't stop thinking about it, even when the Capitals were playing in the Stanley Cup final. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, Mona Awad. I was certain that I mentioned this book at some point last year, but a search of my blog by the terms 13 and thirteen yields nothing. And now I don't remember very much about the book, other than the clever title, a play on title of the Wallace Stevens poem "13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." You might think that a person who spends a third of her life reading and writing would be devoted to poetry, but you would be wrong, because I don't really like poetry very much. But I like this poem, and I liked this book.

Imaginary Friends, Alison Lurie. I mentioned this one here and here. And I never did finish it.

Leaving Home: Reading, Writing, and Life on the Page, Lynn Freed. This one was not on my handwritten list, but I remembered it when I was pulling old posts for this list. I wrote this post in Montreal, after driving past dozens of vacation trailers bearing the Je Me Souviens license plate.

Entering Ephesus, Daphne Atlas.  I mostly hated this book, but I forgave it on account of a few great passages, including one about linoleum and Soviet Russia. You had to be there.

Lina and Serge, Simon Morrison. More Soviet Russians, some luckier than others. I don't have a strong opinion about the musical works of Serge Prokofiev, but I know for sure that I wouldn't have wanted to be married to him. Lina brought a handbag into the gulag. A woman after my own heart.

The Collected Stories of Louis Auchincloss, Louis Auchincloss. No Bolsheviks in this one, but still worth reading.

To the Barricades, Alix Kates Shulman. A so-so biography of an insufferable subject.

The Clancys of Queens, Tara Clancy. Another memoir, which I liked very much. After I read this, I saw a video featuring Tara Clancy and her mother and many of the friends she wrote about in the book. She asked the group why there are so few stories about working-class women, and her mother said that it was probably because they're too busy working to write about their lives. I also heard part of an interview on NPR, when Tara Clancy explained that she named her first son "Ray" knowing that people would automatically assume that a boy named Ray Clancy would be tough. There should be more boys named Ray.

Evita, First Lady: A Biography of Eva Peron. John Barnes. Another so-so biography of an insufferable subject. This was a coincidence, not a literary theme that I selected in advance. Eva Peron reminds me of someone. Who could it be?

The Long-Winded Lady, Maeve Brennan. Really, really good. I wrote about it here and here, and I don't think I'm done with it yet.

It Can't Happen Here, Sinclair Lewis. Well of course it can. Like most of Lewis's novels, this was considered very important and serious. And like most of his novels, it's not very good. Sinclair Lewis might have been an even worse misanthrope than Evelyn Waugh, and he wasn't nearly as good a writer. But the premise--that the United States could descend into totalitarianism after just one election--is entirely valid. This was published in 1935.

My Paris Dream, Kate Betts. My almost-last book of 2018. I was halfway through another book on December 31, but I think I'll count it for 2019.

*****
I wrote half of this after two glasses of wine, and the other half at 4:45 in the morning (I couldn't sleep). Maybe I should have noted this right at the beginning, as a disclaimer. I'll write more semi-literate book reviews for you in 2019. Happy New Year, and don't say you weren't warned.

The End of the Year

Thursday night: I’m at my sister’s house right now and cannot remember the WiFi password. She’s asleep, so I won’t bother her. Thank goodness for offline Google Docs. I can still write even when I can’t get online. Because wouldn’t it be the greatest of tragedies if  you couldn't read this bilge? Too much to contemplate, I know--too great a potential literary loss.

Meanwhile, just about a year to the day after I wrote this, I found myself at the Gateway Pharmacy, once again singing along to Chicago ("Searching So Long") and contemplating the purchase of several different types of fancy soaps. I think I go there just for the music. And the soap, of course. I bought several, and I’m looking forward to a very clean January.

It's hard to believe that the holidays are drawing to a close. Every year, right around December 14, I panic at the rapid and inexorable approach of Christmas, just 10 or 11 days away, with so much of my shopping and baking and decorating yet to be done. And then it’s December 27, and mid-December seems ages ago; nowhere near Christmas. It’s still holidayish, especially here in the Philadelphia suburbs, where holiday nostalgia is a way of life. But the magic is wearing off. The post-Christmas sales already look ragged and picked-over and children are a little frantic, desperately wringing every drop of fun out of their waning Christmas vacation.

*****

Friday: We finally made some decisions on the Ireland trip; most importantly, what place other than Dublin to visit. Our original proposed itinerary had us in five different places in six days, and since I can barely manage to force myself out of the house most days, I suggested that we limit it a bit and try to minimize the driving and checking in and out of hotels and spend more time just being wherever we are. So we have a compromise.

The place other than Dublin is Kerry, and now there’s an additional layer of confusion because it appears that Kerry and Killarney might be the same place but I’m not 100% certain and I don’t want to be the person who asks. Later this weekend, I'll have an in-depth chat with Google and settle the matter. Meanwhile, I’m up to my eyeballs in picturesque Irish names and I’m feeling like I just can’t. I steered us away from a trip to Bunratty Castle because I object to the name Bunratty. That name conjures crowds of Boston and New York and Philadelphia tourists, festooned with claddagh jewelry and sentimental about their Irish roots. Not to mention the two rodents in one name. No thank you. I'm sure we will find another Irish castle.  They have a lot of them in Ireland.

Saturday: We're back home now. Our house still feels very festive and Christmas-y, and we still have way too many snacks and treats. Just a few minutes ago, I was looking for another snack. I found a half-empty bag of tortilla chips from last weekend, when we had friends over to watch the sad sad Redskins game. The bag has a clear window in the front, and the words "Great at Parties," with an arrow pointing toward the window.

I thought about that little arrow. Was it meant to prove that there are, in fact, chips in the bag? Or that these particular chips have a special quality that makes them better for parties than other chips? Maybe the consumer is meant to watch these chips in action, on their best party behavior, vying for attention. "Invite me to your party," a chip will exclaim, "and I won't ask to take over the music selection!" A second chip will chime in. "Invite me to your party! I won't say ONE WORD about Trump." Then a third. "Invite me to your party! I won't double dip. I won't even single dip. I'm a chip. I stay away from dip altogether."

I don't make New Year's resolutions, but as I listened to the imaginary chip chatter, I realized that I'd better at least resolve not to eat everything that doesn't move, as I've been doing for the past few days.I put the chips away, and got some carrots instead. Carrots are quiet. They keep to themselves.

Sunday: I suppose I do make resolutions. I resolved to stop eating junk; and then I also resolved to stop spending so much money.  Five minutes later, I spent $150 at Ikea's post-Christmas sale. I went there for a lamp.

I just finished a book that I liked much better than I expected to. My Paris Dream, by fashion writer and editor Kate Betts, is kind of a memoir of Paris in the late 80s and early 90s, but it's more the story of Kate Betts' life and career, told through fashion. My Paris Dream is very different from The Long-Winded Lady, another memoir of a city. Kate Betts takes a broad view of Paris. She doesn't describe much, though the passing details that she does share are vivid and memorable. Her Paris is alive with characters and personalities, and her life there was so fast-paced and achievement-driven that she didn't have time for close observation of physical detail.

Though the books are quite different, My Paris Dream reminded me of  The Long-Winded Lady. Unlike the Paris that Kate Betts wrote about, Maeve Brennan's New York seems a very lonely place, populated only by strangers whom Brennan observed from a distance. But Brennan was very intimately acquainted with her tiny corner of the city, and makes the reader share her feeling of loss every time a building comes down or a restaurant closes or a quiet residential street is taken over by office buildings. Both My Paris Dream and The Long-Winded Lady were written by women who crossed an ocean to find the city that would shape their lives.

After Paris, I was at loose ends, deciding what to read next. I'm now three stories into Graham Greene's 21 Stories, and I'm completely absorbed. Our Man in Havana is the only other Graham Greene I've ever read, and the stories aren't quite as good as that, but they're very good.

It's the last day of the year, so this will be my last book for 2018, and my last blog post, too. This post isn't really finished yet, but I don't want to start a post in one year and finish it in another. Happy New Year.

Process improvement

Saturday: Process improvement is a big part of the work we do on our government contract. That's actually the case on most government contracts. The Feds love nothing more than to have people tell them what to do, and how to do it, so that's what we do all day. It pays the bills.

Naturally, I have been thinking about how I might apply process improvement principles to other areas of life--cookies, for instance. If I, with limited knowledge, can help to improve IT management processes, then why can't I improve cookie baking, a process about which I know quite a bit? Yes, it's cookie-making day; and if you have been hanging around here for any length of time, then you know how I feel about cookie-making day.

Back to the process improvement. Last night I thought that it might be a good idea to make the dough (the worst part of cookie-making) and refrigerate it, so that I'd then have only the baking part to do today. That was one of the best ideas I have ever had. Then, on the recommendation of my cousin, I bought a melon-baller to scoop out the cookie dough. Genius! I had also already bought additional cooling racks, and two of the largest cookie sheets I've ever seen. They just fit into the oven, and can easily accommodate 36 cookies each, so I can put 6 dozen cookies in the oven at one time. So with pre-made dough, a kitchen full of cooling racks, giant baking sheets, and a melon-baller, baking time was just about two quite painless hours. The last batch is in the oven now.  See you next year, cookies. Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

*****
Sunday: It's December 23; or Christmas Adam, as we like to call it. I'm on vacation now, kind of. I still have some work to do, but I won't actually return to the office until January 2. I hope that the shutdown will be over by then; but if not, I hope that the President is stuck in Washington for the whole week. Vindictive, aren't I?

I overindulged in cookies yesterday, so I'm sticking with fruit today. Actually, I only ate two cookies yesterday, but I ate the equivalent of at least a dozen more in cookie dough. The CDC says that I should avoid cookie dough like fentanyl or second-hand smoke, but what do they know?

Maybe we SHOULD shut the government down. I mean, really.

So today, I'm substituting clementines for cookies. I love clementines. They're very Christmas-y to those of us who grew up at a time when certain fruits were only available in season.

When I was very young, I lived in a tiny apartment in my hometown of Philadelphia. I worked for a printing company at 9th and Arch, right around the corner from Reading Terminal Market, where we often went for lunch. I used to go there after work, too, to buy fruit and Italian bread and cheese that I would carry home on the subway, feeling very grown-up and independent with my gourmet groceries.

Clementines were new to me. At that time, they were only available in December and January, but we never had them at home. It was the early 80s, and neighborhood supermarkets didn't have much variety in produce. Iceberg lettuce, broccoli and corn, white potatoes, carrots and onions, and fruit--oranges, apples, bananas, and grapes, with strawberries and peaches and cherries in the summer. The Reading Terminal Market clementines in their cute little wooden crates were a novelty. I hated winter then just as much as I do now, and clementines tasted like warmth and sunshine. Plus, I had leftover teenage acne that persisted into my twenties, and I was convinced that clementines had an astringent effect.

*****

It's Christmas Eve, and we have no real plans other than Mass at 6 PM and an 8 PM showing of "Vice." We like going to movies on Christmas Eve, and this was the only one that we could all agree on. Needless to say, the J-Lo sexy middle aged lady romantic comedy was not among the options. Zero stars.

I worked this morning, though I was technically supposed to be on vacation. Now, I'm going to just eat another clementine, and maybe a cookie or two, and watch "The Family Stone," another of my favorite bad movies. Tomorrow, we will open presents and eat ham and sit by the fire and stuff ourselves with cookies and do everything else that 21st century middle-class Americans do to celebrate the birth of the Savior.

*****

Wednesday: It was a lovely Christmas. Now it's December 26, and we're deep into Christmas vacation mode. I worked again this morning, but only for a little while. Then we went to the Renwick Gallery, and walked around President's Park and the Ellipse. We hadn't been to see the National Christmas Tree since 2014 or so, but we used to go every year when our children were little. "This is the most nostalgic thing ever," said my 17-year-old as they posed for the obligatory picture.

They're wearing Christmas presents. 

It was a beautiful day, sunny and winter-mild; just chilly enough that I needed a coat (because I always need a coat) but not so warm that it was too hot to walk around wearing it. The streets were crowded with other families on Christmas vacation, visiting museums and drinking coffee from holiday-themed Starbucks cups and taking pictures in front of the White House fence. We walked to Chinatown for a late lunch at our favorite pub, and then came home after dark. It's 10:30 PM now, and we just finished some leftovers in front of "Good Will Hunting" on Netflix.

We have been working very hard lately. Even on days off, we're very busy. Even on vacation, we tend to stick to a routine.  A few days of actual stay up late, eat whatever (and whenver), go places just for the sake of going, watch bad movies, bona fide vacation is exactly the thing.

Next week, I'll return to waking up early and sticking to the plan and improving the process. Hopefully, the government will come to its senses and reopen the parts that are closed. But that's next week. Right now, I think I'll have another cookie.