Unworthy

It’s Wednesday night, and I’m sitting on my couch with warm socks on my feet and a very large smudge on my forehead. The socks are neither here nor there. I just wanted to write a neat symmetrical independent clause about one thing and then another thing. But I do need the socks. My feet were cold.

If you’re Catholic then you don’t need to ask why I have a big hot once-flaming mess on my forehead. If you’re not, then I’ll explain. It’s Ash Wednesday, the very first day of the long season of penance that we call Lent. Six weeks without chocolate, and unto dust I shall return. The ashes are a reminder of the unto-dust part. 

You don’t have to go to Mass or receive ashes on Ash Wednesday, but the whole point of Lent is making sacrifices that you don’t necessarily have to make. It's good for your soul, and mine needs all the help it can get. So I went to Mass even though I didn't have to, and now I have a dirty face. It’ll wash off. That’s why we have soap and water.

Speaking of soap and water? Today was not only Ash Wednesday, it was  critical mass day for coronavirus. Yesterday, I could have sneezed right in someone’s face and they would have said “God Bless You,” and gotten on with their day. Today, the whole world is obsessed with coronavirus and what we should do to ready ourselves for the inevitable spread of this newest viral plague. I’m going to do exactly nothing, except to wash my hands as often as possible. Soap and water can wash the Ash Wednesday memento mori right off my face, and it can wash away most of the germs, too. Soap and water solves a lot of problems.

*****
There are some things that soap and water can't fix, though. Sometimes, you need to see a professional. So I'm sitting in a chair at Nail Club at Plaza del Mercado, as a very kind woman scrubs my scaly winter feet.

It's Thursday night, a busy night for manicures and pedicures, but I was lucky enough to walk in just as they had an opening, so I didn't have to wait. I'm only getting the pedicure. I don't have the kind of life that allows me to maintain a manicure for more than a day, but pedicures last forever.

I don't spend a lot of time getting spa treatments but on the rare occasions when I do, I am never not conscious that another person, a person whom I don't know particularly well, is taking care of me in a very personal way. At work, at my white collar job in a Federal government office, I'm surrounded by hothouse flowers who are afraid that an errant sneeze from three cubicles over will land them in a quarantine ward. Meanwhile, this lady is uncomplainingly touching a near-stranger's feet. Jesus washed the Apostles' feet, too. They weren't worthy, and neither am I. No one is.

*****
My face and my feet are clean now, and I'm ready to do penance.. It's only six weeks. It'll be over in no time.

All quiet on the Portrait Gallery steps

It’s cold but sunny, and getting warmer as afternoon approaches on this late Sunday morning; and I'm on my way to Chinatown to watch my beloved Capitals play the Pittsburgh Penguins, the most evil franchise in the history of organized sports.

Is that an exaggeration? A slight overstatement? Maybe. Maybe.

*****

The Capitals are in a slump. This is almost routine in February so I'm not worried. Not much. All the same, though, I'm taking some steps to turn this situation around.

I have an old red cordura nylon handbag that's not very stylish, and I don't like it very much. But I carried this ugly bag for the entire duration of the 2018 playoff run, and look how that turned out. So I'm carrying the bag today. And I'm wearing my least favorite of my two jerseys, because they always win when I wear it. This is all I can do.

I've never actually never seen a Penguins game live. I've never seen the fan showdown on the Portland Gallery steps. I've never gotten to yell "Mur-ray!! at Brian Murray. I'm looking forward to it.

*****
So that turned out exactly as I’d hoped; meaning the Capitals won and the Penguins lost and it was very very quiet on the Portrait Gallery steps. It was almost 60 degrees, sunny, and still broad daylight as we (meaning 40,000 or so happy Capitals fans and a handful of gloomy Pens fans) streamed out onto F Street and into the sunshine. Cars passed, honking three quick “Let’s go Caps!” blasts, and the crowd responded with cheers. A win against the Penguins at home is a big deal.

It was a nice day. I wish I didn’t feel so bad today, and I wish I knew why I do, but there it is. Sometimes even watching Sidney Crosby break his hockey stick in frustration on a beautiful Sunday afternoon isn’t enough to keep the demons at bay. But this will pass, like everything else. Good triumphed over evil at Capital One Arena yesterday, and this too will pass.

A tale told by an idiot

I’m reading Conversations with Friends right now, because the whole internet told me that I should be reading Sally Rooney. It’s just as good as everyone says it is, and I keep trying to take it apart to figure out why. The best thing I can say is that it’s alive throughout. That was Flannery O’Connor’s standard for literary merit in fiction, and so it’s mine, too.

*****
Google, of course, knows exactly what I’m up to, because as soon as I started reading this book, Sally Rooney stories started popping up in my newsfeed. Here’s a headline: “Sally Rooney is capturing what it feels like to be alive now.” Here’s what actually happens: A person reads a book and five seconds later it’s a data point in someone’s AI-generated algorithm. That's what it really feels like to be alive now.

*****
I’m almost finished Conversations with Friends. I’m rationing the last few pages, because I’m not ready for the story to end; and because I don’t know what to read next.

(A few days ago, I heard a radio commercial for a coming stage production of “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” and I thought about my woefully inadequate Shakespeare knowledge, leading me to the brilliant idea of reading all of Shakespeare’s plays. And then I thought about spending the next six months obsessively reading all 37 plays and checking them off a list, possibly annotating as I read, possibly writing about each play. And then I thought better of that and decided that i could live with my continued ignorance. I’ve read “Hamlet,” “Macbeth,” “King Lear,” “Henry V,” “The Merchant of Venice,” “Romeo and Juliet,” “A Midsummer’s Night Dream,” “Julius Caesar,” “Measure for Measure,” and “Othello.” That’s probably enough for now.)

Anyway, I’ve been sick for a few days. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Nothing serious, I’m sure. We had to rearrange some furniture last night; and when I say “we,” I mean “they,” as in my husband and sons. I sat on the couch reading my book as the men worked. There’s something very restful about remaining still amid a flurry of movement and activity. Better them than me, I thought.

The main character in Conversations is sick, too, with a mysterious illness that turns out to be endometriosis. I’m not yet sure how things will turn out for her because I’m still not finished with the book, but I feel better than I have all week. I ignored it, and it went away. I’m telling you, that always works.

It’s Saturday morning now, and I have a plan for the day. I have places to go and things to do and a book to finish reading. And then I have to figure out what to read next. Maybe I WILL read all 37 Shakespeare plays. Or maybe I’ll just think and talk about Shakespeare for the next few days, and then Google will magically tell me all about the 20+ Shakespeare plays that I never got around to; and I’ll tell you all about that, too. “To write and read comes by nature.”

#amwriting

It’s 6:30 in the morning, a rainy Tuesday, New Hampshire primary day. Morning Joe is taping in a cafe in Nashua or Concord or maybe Dixville Notch, in front of a live audience of dressed-for-winter New Hampshire primary voters. Lots of ragg wool and Fair Isle. I wonder if these people are born and bred Granite Staters, or transplants dressing the part.

I always thought that it would be fun to be in New Hampshire during the last few days before the primary. I’m sure they’re happy when it’s over, but there must be a letdown, too, as the candidates and the media abruptly pack up and head to South Carolina, not to return for three and a half years.

I usually write in the evening, but I have an unexpected hour this morning. My son has early-morning baseball workouts on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I was supposed to drive him today because my husband had a physical therapy appointment. Stuck behind a bad accident, the therapist cancelled at the last minute, so my husband came home and picked up my son, leaving me with the choice between going to work absurdly early or writing. Even at my normal time, I’m among the very first to arrive in the office. If I get there any earlier, the place will just feel deserted and creepy. So here I am.

I noticed a new hashtag this week. Well, I don't really know if it's new, or just new to me. Probably the latter. I'm slow to pick up on trends. Anyway the hashtag is #amwriting. As in “I am writing.” People post bits of their works in progress or pictures of their laptops and their half finished coffee, along with a few words about how whether it’s going well or badly, and the hashtag #amwriting.

*****
Daphne Gray-Grant says that you shouldn’t try to edit as you’re writing, and I think she’s right. I'm trying not to edit this as I go along, but it’s hard.

*****
Right now, I’m reading Carrie Fisher’s The Princess Diarist. God rest Carrie’s soul. I loved her as an actress, but I love her even more as a writer. This is the book in which she famously revealed the long-suspected affair with Harrison Ford, who appears to have been a bit of a jerk. She shares long entries from her 1976 journal (she was 19 at the time), and they are astonishingly good. I write every day, but when I read writing that’s so effortlessly beautiful and incisive, I wonder why I bother. But then I go back and read some of my own work, and I know why. It’s because I’m good at this.

So back to the hashtag. I could share a post about almost any moment in my life, tag it #amwriting, and the post would be true. Even if I don’t have a pen or a keyboard, I’m almost always writing something in my head. There’s always a running narrative under construction (and edited live as I go along--sorry Daphne). I write every day not just because I’m good at it but because I can’t not write. It’s 7:09 now. Time to get dressed and go to work. It’s nice to have a head start on the day.

Ninotchka

Early last Sunday morning, I watched a few minutes of “Ninotchka,” one of my favorite movies. I just love Greta Garbo’s performance in this movie. It’s so hard to reconcile Ninotchka with the Garbo of popular myth--the forbidding, unapproachable, unsmiling Swede who famously wanted to be alone. The movie poster for Ninotchka reads “Garbo Laughs!” because it was the first time moviegoers would see Greta Garbo as anything other than serious.

Garbo plays the lead character, Ninotchka Ivanovna Yakushova, an ambitious Soviet bureaucrat and party apparatchik. She is stern and earnestly dedicated, but full of wry cheer. Ninotchka is torn between her genuine commitment to the ideals of the Russian revolution and her honest and clear-eyed realization of its grim reality in practice. The political conflict is real and timely (“Ninotchka” was made in 1939, just as the worst of Stalin's purges were winding down) but it's also a metaphor for Ninotchka's personal conflict, between her desire to succeed in her work and her desire to be a happy woman. Ninotchka is resigned to the demands of life as a rising star of the Russian Communist party but she can't hide her love for life and people and her lively sense of humor, especially from Count Leon, played by Melvyn Douglas. He falls in love with her and she with him. Their only problem is the jealous Duchess Swana. And the vise grip of the party, of course.

Greta Garbo as Ninotchka with Melvyn Douglas as Count Leon.
Was there a more fun couple in any movie, ever?
No, there was not. 

"Ninotchka" is a comedy about the most serious of subjects. It was banned in the USSR and its satellite states, possibly for brilliant dialogue like this:

Buljanoff (the errant party apparatchik whom Ninotchka is sent to Paris to retrieve): How are things in Moscow? 

Ninotchka: Very good. The last mass trials were a great success. There are going to be fewer but better Russians.

Despite her determination to complete her assignment in Paris and return to Moscow, and her uncompromising dedication to the Revolution, Ninotchka falls in love with more than Count Leon. She falls in love with the beauty and joie de vivre of pre-war Paris. “I’m so happy,” she says. “Oh I'm so happy. No one can be so happy without being punished. I will be punished and I should be punished.” Ninotcha’s devotion to the Fatherland and her guilty love for Paris form just one of the movie’s love triangles. The other is between Ninotchka, Count Leon, and Grand Duchess Swana, a White Russian exile in Paris and Ninotchka’s rival for Leon’s affections. Ninotchka and Swana first meet at a Paris nightclub:

Grand Duchess Swana (commenting on Ninotchka’s elegant evening dress): Isn't it amazing? One gets the wrong impression of the new Russia. It must be charming. I'm delighted conditions have improved so. I assume this is what the factory workers wear at their dances?

Ninotchka: Exactly! You see, it would have been very embarrassing for people of my sort to wear low-cut gowns in the old Russia. The lashes of the Cossacks across our backs were not very becoming. And you know how vain women are.

Grand Duchess Swana : Yes. You're quite right about the Cossacks. We made a great mistake when we let them use their whips. They had such reliable guns.

Like everything else in “Ninotchka,” this conversation is about more than one thing. And like almost everything else in the movie, it is both modern and timeless. It’s a perfect verbal sparring match between two beautiful and brilliant women who both want the same man, and the political passive aggression makes it as relevant today as it was in 1939.

Political intrigue and aggression aside, "Ninotchka" ends happily because love wins over all. Given a choice, people prefer beauty and friendship and art and fun and laughter to ideology and dialectics and the vanguard of revolution. It’s 1939 again, and most of us prefer Paris to Moscow. 

One Person in New York

I was listening to "All Things Considered" one day last week, and I heard a story about a snowplow driver in Montana (or Wyoming) who wrote a song about being a snowplow driver. He recorded it on YouTube and (as they say on the Internet), the silly thing went viral. People liked the song so much that they called their local radio station and asked to hear it over the air. The radio station offered to produce a professional recording of the song. Asked what he thought about the song’s success, the man said that people like the idea of an ordinary person with an ordinary job doing something creative or artistic.

Later the same day, I scrolled my news feed and was shocked and saddened to read about Jason Polan’s untimely death at age 37. Jason Polan was an artist. His best-known project was published in part in Every Person in New York, a book of his sketches of New Yorkers (he also had a blog of the same title). Polan drew quick sketches of thousands of people, some of them famous and many of whom didn’t know they were being captured on paper. He aspired to draw literally every person in New York, an impossible goal no matter how long he might have lived, but he finished over 30,000 drawings. Who knows how many he might have done if he had more time?

According to his New York Times obituary, he held informal drawing meet-ups, usually at Taco Bell restaurants. Anyone could show up, and lots of people did, many of them non-artists. They drew pictures of each other, or of their food or the contents of their bags, or whatever else was in front of them. It didn’t matter if they were talented or skilled or not. Something about the idea of carrying around a sketchbook and drawing what you see appealed to Polan’s roving band of part-time would-be art students. Maybe they were ordinary people with ordinary jobs, but they were also artists, because they made art.

Jason Polan wasn’t ordinary at all. His other major project, Every Piece of Art in the Museum of Modern Art, was apparently an attempt to get a job at MoMA. MoMA didn’t hire him, which is probably good for the rest of us, though I have to wonder about the competence and vision of museum curators who aren't capable of recognizing and rewarding such obvious genius. Their loss.

I don't write songs (though I do sing quite a lot) and I don't draw much, but I do this. I write about whatever I think about, whatever is interesting, whatever is in front of me. I'm just one of a million other ordinary people who try to spend a few minutes a day making something. Jason Polan was a great artist who saw the beauty and value of ordinary people, not just as subjects but as fellow artists. It's a terrible loss.

Estate planning

It's Saturday afternoon, cold and drizzling. It's 5:15, not quite dark yet, but soon. 

January finally ended after three months or so, and it's the first day of February. The groundhog will come out of his little hole tomorrow to let us all know if we should expect an early spring or another six years of winter. Six weeks. Six months. Whatever. 

I made a will today. No, I don't have a terminal illness, nor do I plan any especially dangerous excursions. My husband is a police officer and he made me go to a Wills for Heroes event today. It was fine. I know now, not that I didn't know it before, that I would never want to be a lawyer. My volunteer attorney looked exactly like Walter White, and he was very particular about where the notary placed his seal. 

*****

It's 5:40 now. I'm at MLK Swim Center for the high school swimming divisional championship. It's going to be a long meet, and my son is swimming in exactly one event. But my friends are here and there aren't many other places where I'd rather be. Winter will end, eventually; and my affairs are in order, so it's all good. It's all good. 

Personalized

Right after Christmas, I bought a black and white marble composition book. I like to write in it sometimes, when I can’t think on a keyboard, or when I just feel like seeing the black ink marching across pale blue lines on crisp white paper. A white page ruled in faint blue with a faint red margin is so beautiful that I almost hate to spoil it. Almost.

Another good reason to write by hand every so often is that practice makes perfect, or at least better. My handwriting is not so good, but I can write a few neat lines if I do it carefully; and I’m noticing that my pen moves more smoothly now that I’ve been practicing. I had to write a handwritten thank-you note today, and it was actually readable and reasonably nice to look at when I finished.

In most circumstances, I think that email is just fine for thank-you notes. A few sincere words of gratitude are just as good on screen as they are on paper. But when a person you haven’t seen for ten years sends you--in the mail!-- a lovely and thoughtful gift for no reason other than that it made her think of you, then only a handwritten note will do. Luckily my friend will be able to read it.

*****
What was the gift? Well, I’m glad you asked, non-existent reader. It was a tiny gold Carrie Bradshaw-style personalized necklace; my name (Claire) in shiny gold script much neater than my own handwriting, even at its best. I was delighted. I don’t wear much jewelry--a pair of platinum and diamond hoops (much smaller and less flashy than that sounds), a Celtic cross or a Miraculous Medal, my wedding band and engagement ring, another diamond ring, and a few beaded bracelets here and there. Well, that sounds like a lot, but it’s not. Most of my jewelry is silver or platinum or white gold. Yellow gold is a nice change.

But it’s the name that makes it special. I was a little girl in the 1970s, when personalized jewelry and accessories were all the rage. And if you were a Jennifer or a Lisa or a Michelle or a Tracy, then you were in luck. Claire is a very popular name now, but it wasn’t then. I never knew anyone my own age named Claire. And so I never did get a dog tag necklace or a tiny license plate or a keychain with my name on it, until now. A little gold necklace, and a childhood dream fulfilled. Thank you, friend.

20/20

I'm in the pickup line at Rockville High School on this cold and sparkling January afternoon; so sunny that the glare makes it hard to see. I'm listening to the impeachment trial on the radio. I know that a Democrat is speaking but I don't know which one. In the absence of any witnesses I guess they're all going to just make speeches. I can’t see so good but I can hear this scalding hot mess just fine.

*****
While we're on the subject of scalding hot messes, it's cluster concert time. I'm in the Rockville High School parking lot again, because it's too early to go in there.

It's my fifth cluster concert and my younger son's first. I dropped him off at 5:30 and ran errands before returning to attend the concert. We were almost late. We had to hunt for a black bow tie. And we were literally out the door when my son dropped something and bent over to pick it up, displaying a quarter inch of gleaming white tube sock between the sharply pressed black tuxedo pants and the mirror shine of his black dress shoes. "Auuugghh," he groaned when I ordered him to change his socks. "Who cares about my socks?" I'm not the most fashion-conscious person, but you better believe that I care about black socks with black pants. Someone has to stand up for civilization around here.

*****
It’s Friday now. The concert was quite lovely, after a slightly rough start from the elementary school string ensemble. In a reasonable world, there probably shouldn’t be such a thing as a string ensemble made up of elementary school children but we’re long past the hope for a reasonable world. They started with “Simple Gifts,” but they were at least 16 bars in before I recognized it. Their second selection, however, was noticeably better, so I guess “Simple Gifts” was a warm-up. The high school students played last, and they sounded like the New York Philharmonic by comparison. So there’s a performing arts tip for you: Always book an elementary school string ensemble as your opening act. The show can only go up from there.

*****
It’s Saturday today. Not such a good day. I don’t know why. Maybe because January started six months ago and seems to be just getting started. And yes, Netflix, I AM still watching “Schitt’s Creek.” Don’t judge me.

I went shopping today, and I forced myself to try on some clothes. I even bought a few things. I looked longingly at the handbags, but I didn’t buy one. I bought blouses. And a sweater. I needed pants but I couldn’t find any that didn’t have super high waists. I can’t get behind that look. I’ll probably learn to embrace it six months after it’s out of style; but for now, I’m going to stick with what I know, if I can find it. Or I’ll just keep wearing my old pants. I wore very old pants today, and a very old sweater, and raggedy sneakers, and then I wondered why I felt so sad and dumpy. I hate January.

Netflix aside, it’s been a busy day and it’s not over. It’s 6 PM and I could easily go to bed now but my son has a nighttime swim meet, so I’ll be standing on a pool deck in an hour. I need to do something. I'm not so good at picking out Saturday morning outfits, but I'm very good at timing swim meets. I might as well do that.

*****

Did you ever cut your own hair? I used to cut my own hair all the time, but that’s when I was young. We all used to cut our own hair. But middle-aged ladies don’t generally cut their own hair.

I had a bad day yesterday. My hair had nothing to do with that, but it didn’t help, either. So I got through the day, because I always do, and things just seemed better today. I went grocery shopping after Mass, and sang along with a song that was playing on the store’s sound system.

My hair, sadly, was still a mess. So I came home, found the sharpest scissors in the house, spread some paper towels over the bathroom sink, and got to work.

I bet you thought that this wasn’t going to end well, but it turns out that I can cut my own hair. Use lots of clips, twist sections and trim the ends, cutting tiny points; and stop every few minutes to make sure the whole thing isn’t getting away from you, and you’ll end up with a pretty reasonable facsimile of a haircut. It turned out fine.  That’s probably a one-time thing, of course. A person can get away with one DIY haircut every so often but even I know that I can’t make a habit of taking scissors to my head every time I have a bad hair day. Beginner’s luck runs out eventually.

Is there a more beautiful song lyric than “Here is that rainbow I’ve been praying for?” Not today there isn’t. The sun is out again today, and I can see clearly this time. I got the hair out of my eyes, you know?

Bibliography 2019: Heated Mess Edition

It's almost the end of January, and I'm just getting around to posting my book list from 2019. These are listed in no real order. I kept a handwritten list, but as I ran out of room in my planner, I scrawled titles in margins and between lines. By the end of the year, I couldn't remember when I had read what book, so chronological order was out of the question. Then I started to rank the books, from favorite to least, but I grew tired of rearranging the list as I remembered more books, or changed my mind about one book or another. So this is a very disorganized list.

Oh, and another thing. I wrote about almost all of these books soon after I read them, and I link the original posts here. But most of the original posts are not only about the books. If you click on a title to read about a book, you might have to dig through 600 or so words about swim meets and handbags and anxiety attacks and Mary Tyler Moore reruns first. Don't say you weren't warned.

Without further ado, here is my 2019 book list.

Milkman, Anna Burns. This was my favorite book of the year, and I read some pretty darn good books in 2019. So congratulations to Anna Burns for winning the prestigious honor of a mention in this obscure blog, my everlasting esteem, and absolutely no cash whatsoever. Well done. I wrote about Milkman here, and I'll be writing about it again. If you have read any reviews of Milkman, then you might think that it's a difficult read. It's not at all difficult, though it is different from any other novel I've ever read. Comparisons to Joyce are apt, but it's much more closely akin to Dubliners than to Finnegan's Wake or Ulysses. Like Dubliners, it's a book that could take place in no city other than the one in which it is set. And like Dubliners, it's a book that only an Irish person could have written.

Say Nothing, Patrick Radden Keefe. A very close second to Milkman, and something of a companion piece. Another of the few books that I dedicated an entire post to.

Thatcher, Jacob Bannister. The very opposite of an in-depth biography; and completely appropriate for my level of interest in Margaret Thatcher, which is low. I read it right after Say Nothing, and learned almost nothing about the British perspective on the Troubles. I did learn that Margaret Thatcher began her working life as a chemist. Maybe she should have stuck with science. I don't know. I don't even want to debate American politics in 2020, let alone British politics in 1982. Anyway, there's lots more to learn about Margaret Thatcher, but this will probably represent the extent of my reading on this particular subject.

The Woman in White, Willkie Collins. I would never have chosen this. I read it because Nora Ephron liked it. She was quite right.

Heartburn, Nora Ephron. A book about everything that was wrong with the 1970s and early 1980s, disguised as a comic novel about the breakup of a marriage. Not Nora's best.

I Remember Nothing, Nora Ephron. If you have a choice between Nora in novel form and Nora in essay form, choose the latter. I never tire of reading Nora Ephron's essays.

I Feel Bad About My Neck, Nora Ephron.  Yes, it was my year of Nora Ephron. Handbags and hospitals and strudel with noodles.

My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Ottessa Moshfegh. I couldn't tell at first if it was brilliant or lazy. I lean strongly in favor of brilliant now, but I still have some reservations. I might read it again. But then again, I might not.

The Abolition of Woman, Fiorella Nash. I wrote about this one way back in January (it seems so long ago), but if you don't feel like reading what I wrote then (what?!?) then I will leave you with this quote: "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." People on both sides of the political divide might do well to note the emphasis (which is mine).

Resisting Throwaway Culture, Charles Camosy. A+ for ideas, C+ for execution. When I started writing this, I had execution at a B-, but I just knocked off a few points because I'm mean.

Becoming, Michelle Obama. This was a Christmas gift from my husband--Christmas 2018, that is. I read it early in the year. I was carrying it with me one day and a young black man stopped me and asked me if it was good. I told him that it was, and I told him that Mrs. Obama had an upbringing (working class, inner city, magnet high school) similar to mine. And then we commiserated about how much we missed President Obama, and even President Bush. It was a nice conversation.

Elizabeth the Queen, Sally Bedell Smith. Poor QE II. 2019 was not such a good year 2020 isn't off to a great start either.

Motherfocloir: Dispatches from a Not-So-Dead Language. Darach O'Seaghdha. Just remembering how to spell the author's last name without having to refer back to the other browser tab makes me unwilling to even think about tackling the Irish language. I have no talent for languages other than my own.

The Madwoman in the Volvo, Sandra Tsing-Loh. I had a book of Sandra Tsing-Loh's essays, written sometime in the early 90s, and I remember re-reading it several times. She was hilarious, like a manic Asian Merrill Markoe. The Madwoman in the Volvo was just sad. It made me sad, mostly because I found myself judging the author, and pretty harshly, for her selfishness and stupidity. And who am I to judge anyone for either of those sins? I'm just as bad as everyone else. Maybe it's because she seemed to feel entitled to be selfish, that her suffering was more acute and terrible than everyone else's. Or maybe I'm just an unsympathetic jerk. Probably that.

The Opposite of Fate, Amy Tan. I didn't deliberately set out to find an Asian antidote to Sandra Tsing-Loh, but there it is.

Making Comics, Lynda Barry. This was the last book that I finished in 2019. I bought it at the National Gallery of Art's amazing bookstore. I didn't buy it to read; just to have and to look at, because it's so beautiful. It's printed and bound like a marble composition book, and every inch of every thin, delicate page is covered with gorgeous, richly colored drawings and hand-lettered text. Then I started reading it, and I couldn't stop until I finished. And then I went immediately out and bought my own made-in-Vietnam marble composition book. I'm not going to make comics, and I'm not going to draw every day either, but I think I'll write by hand sometimes now. Or maybe I'll doodle to better purpose.

The Little Friend, Donna Tartt. This counts as both my first book of 2020 and my last book of 2019. I finished it on January 2. I'd have finished it sooner except for the temporary Lynda Barry detour. Like all three of Donna Tartt's novels (the other two are The Secret History, which I read in hardback when it first came out in 1992; and The Goldfinch, which I read in 2015 or so, I think). The Little Friend was published in 2002, and I don't know why it took me so long to read it. The electronic version was on sale a few months ago, so I bought it and finally got around to reading it in December.

As a southern female writer, Donna Tartt is probably often compared to Flannery O'Connor. I don't know; I don't read much literary criticism now that I'm out of school and don't have to. Neither of her other novels really resemble O'Connor (not just because they don't take place in the American South), but no writer could possibly have imagined The Little Friend without having read and re-read the stories of Flannery O'Connor. The character of Harriet, a furiously angry, brilliant and doughty little girl, determined to resist the influence of her weak mother and her strong but very traditionally feminine grandmother, could not have been written if not for O'Connor's Mary Grace and Hulga and Mary Fortune Pitts and Mrs. Cope's daughter and the child in "A Temple of the Holy Ghost." Gum Ratliff is a direct descendant of Mrs. Greenleaf and the white trash woman in the doctor's office in "Revelation." And Edie Cleve owes her existence to Ruby Turpin and Julian's mother and Mrs. May, and all of Flannery O'Connor's determined, outrage-fueled Southern women fighting losing battles to maintain a system that is rotting from within and under attack from without.

But that's not to say that The Little Friend isn't original, because it is. Though Harriet could not have existed without O'Connor's characters, Flannery O'Connor could not have imagined Harriet exactly as she is in The Little Friend. Harriet's dismay and horror of puberty, which is both hilarious and devastating, could only have been written by a woman who reached adolescence during the mid 1970s, a particularly horrible time for young girls, especially rigidly moral and sensitive girls like Harriet. SPOILER ALERT: You will never find out who murdered Harriet's brother. And it almost doesn't matter because that's not the point. I hope that Donna Tartt will publish something new soon. I might have to re-read The Secret History this year. I'll report back in 2021.

The Girls, Emma Cline. Not quite as good as Milkman or The Little Friend, but very, very good. I'd almost forgotten about it, but then I was at a holiday party with people who had just seen "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood," which prompted my husband to talk about when he read Helter Skelter, which reminded me of The Girls. I read somewhere once that the Manson murders brought about the end of the 60s (or caused the beginning of the 70s). It was a horrifying crime (though no worse than millions of other hideous crimes before and since), but it has had a disproportionate impact on American life and culture. Worth reading.

The Future is History, Masha Gessen. In the words of Sara Bloomfield, "Nazis didn't just fall out of the sky in 1933." Masha Gessen knows that history repeats itself, in Russia and the United States.

Goodbye, Mr. Chips, James Hilton. I loved this book.

The End of the Affair, Graham Greene. I bet Phoebe Waller-Bridge read some Graham Greene, for no reason other than that during season 2 of "Fleabag," I kept thinking about The End of the Affair. Did you watch "Fleabag?" Do you remember the part about the fox? Fleabag and The Priest are sitting in a garden at night, and The Priest panics when he thinks he sees a fox. “They’re after me,” he says. “They’re watching me--they point at me and say 'You. We see you. We’re havin’ you.' I don’t know what they want with me.” I feel exactly the same way about the deer. I’m certain that they know me. I’m sure that they have plans for me, plans that I want no part of. And you know what? I don't think that there's a single mention of foxes or deer in The End of the Affair (nor probably in any other Graham Greene book). But there's plenty of God in both. As Fleabag says to The Priest at the end of the last episode, "It's God, isn't it?" Of course it is. It always is.

21 Stories, Graham Greene. I read this just about a year ago. I never did re-read any of the stories. But I'll definitely read more Graham Greene.

Educated, Tara Westover. One of my best  books of 2019. I think about it whenever I cut myself in the kitchen or bump my head on a table or stub my toe or trip over a carpet.  Every time I injure myself or almost injure myself, I think about how easily a person can really hurt herself and how fragile and ridiculous the human body is. Of course, there's so much more to Educated than the frequent and horrifying injuries that Tara and her siblings suffered while working at their father's junkyard. I've just been a little more accident-prone than usual lately. And it's all about me.

I'll Tell You in Person, Chloe Caldwell. Another memoir by a young American woman. I really can't remember if I read this before or after Educated (after, I think), but I know that I didn't read them back to back. I liked this in spite of myself.

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, Mark Manson. Well, it's on my list and I know that I read it, but I didn't write anything about it and I don't really remember anything about it. I don't even remember why I read it. So that's my review. I guess I didn't give a f*ck. Maybe I learned that from reading this book! Well done, Mr. Manson!

I'm Judging You: The Do-Better Manual, Luvvie Ajayi. Neither here nor there. I enjoyed reading it, but I don't recall a single word of it. I looked at what I wrote about it earlier to see if I'd remember something. What I remember is that I was also reading a biography of Muriel Spark at the time, which I never finished. Muriel Spark, who was one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, had to have been more interesting than Martin Stannard made her seem. I'm judging him. Or maybe I'm judging her.

Frances and Bernard, Carlene Bauer. A kind of ridiculous novel that I really liked anyway. I liked it so much that I read the very next book on this list.

Not That Kind of Girl, Carlene Bauer. Kind of an incoherent, roundabout, meandering memoir, which is the best kind; probably the only kind.

The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis. I've read Screwtape five or six times. A hardcover copy of Screwtape is my standard Confirmation gift because I think that every teenager should read it, though I didn't read it until I was a grown-up. I'll probably read it at least five or six more times, just as a reminder that "the safest road to hell is the gradual one – the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts."

A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman, Margaret Drabble. This is a short story compilation that I liked very much, though don't ask me for details, because I won't remember anything. Well, I remember something about a beach; a very English, Broadchurch type of beach. That's all. I'd never read any of Margaret Drabble's work before this. I thought I remembered writing something about it so I searched "Drabble," but I was searching the Internet, not just my blog, and I learned that a "Drabble" is apparently a 100-word work of fiction. That seems like a fun challenge, so maybe I'll try to write one. I'll probably read more Margaret Drabble this year, too.

South and West, Joan Didion. I won't even link to the post where I mentioned this because at the time, all I remembered of this was a part where Joan Didion ate a grilled cheese sandwich. I'm not sure how anyone as thin as Joan Didion gets to swan around the place eating grilled cheese sandwiches, but life isn't fair. Joan Didion is not much like Nora Ephron. I think of Nora Ephron as "Nora," but I never think of Joan Didion as anything except Joan Didion. But here's one thing they have in common--I like Joan Didion's essays much better than her fiction.

The Anti-Mary Exposed: Rescuing the Culture from Toxic Femininity, Carrie Gress. I read three pro-life books this year and this was the least convincing and by far the least interesting of the three. I won't suggest that there's no such thing as toxic femininity because of course there is. But Ms. Gress (Dr. Gress, I think) comes across as a woman-hating woman and is thus not an effective defender of the argument against mainstream feminism. I also question her scholarship, for two reasons: 1. She presents Mallory Millett as a credible source, which she is certainly not. 2. She can't even correctly quote Meryl Streep in "The Devil Wears Prada." It was a "lumpy" blue sweater, not  "droopy" one. It was not a "lovely Gap Outlet," it was a "tragic Casual Corner;" and Andie didn't "find" the lumpy blue sweater, she "fished it out of a clearance bin." Although Gress makes some very good points in this book, I can't get past her failure to use the word "cerulean" in her mention of this scene. I get that she was citing the screenplay and not the actual movie but if you're trying to make a case to young, feminist women, then you better get Miranda Priestly right. Cerulean!

By all means, confuse Gap Outlet with Casual Corner.
You know how that thrills me. 

Can You Ever Forgive Me? Lee Israel. I didn't really write about the book when I read it, though I wrote about the movie multiple times. I saw it three times (twice on airplanes) and it made a deep impression. The book was good, too, though not quite so memorable and not something that I would have read at all had I not seen the movie. Can You Ever Forgive Me? was not the last book I read in 2019, but I feel that I should list it last so that we're ending on a note of forgiveness; specifically, you forgiving me for making you read this soggy pile of old gym clothes and wet towels disguised as literary criticism. Well, no one made you read it, so I guess if you're in it this far, you're on your own. But please do forgive me.

This post is--how do you say it? A heated mess.
A mess where heat is applied, so it becomes even more messy. 

OMG, am I done? I'm done! That's it! That's the last book on my barely legible handwritten hot mess of a list, and the end of this even hotter mess of a post! Read (most of) these books, and then maybe you'll forget that you spent 30 minutes of your life reading this trash pile! Or maybe you won't, but that's not my problem, is it?

But really, please do forgive me.

Fog

It's game night, Capitals vs. Hurricanes, and we're on our way to Capital One Center. The puck drops in a little more than an hour.

I love game night. Even on a Monday night, even after ignominious losses in two straight games, Capital One Center is a happy place. We celebrate when our team wins and we share the pain when they lose. It's all good, either way.

But winning is better. They need to beat these bitches.

*****
We're here now, waiting for this Metropolitan Division match-up between the Carolina Hurricanes and YOUR Washington Capitals. Thanks, Wes Johnson. I like being here early and I love having an end seat. I don't mind having people climb over me, but I hate climbing over other people. It's a thing.

Slapshot is skating out with his giant flag. It's his 25th anniversary, and it's Tom Wilson's 500th game. A night of milestones.

*****
You know who I feel sorry for? Well, a lot of people; but today, I’m feeling sorry for Londoners during the Blitz.

It’s Tuesday now. I worked from home today and although it’s not really that cold outside (mid 40s), it’s foggy and misty and damp. All day long, I couldn’t get the chill out of my bones. I have heat and hot water and plenty of tea, and no one is dropping bombs on me, but I’m still miserable. January. Who needs it?

The Capitals did win last night, snapping their two-game losing streak. Doesn’t that sound ridiculous? A two-game losing streak? Almost as ridiculous as me comparing myself to bombing victims living out World War II under near-famine conditions. I like to think of myself as not a complainer, not prone to drama, but that’s clearly ridiculous. It’s a dreary day and I feel dreary.

*****
You know, if I’d had to live through the Blitz, I’d be so dirty. I can’t stand taking my clothes off in the winter, even in a central heat-equipped house with a reasonable supply of hot running water. What if I was living in a cold-water bed-sit with a tiny coal stove for heat? I don’t even want to think about it.

*****
It’s Wednesday morning now, 7:15, with fog so dense and heavy that I can barely see my neighbor’s house across the street. The gas lamp is glowing softly, leaving a hazy golden halo hovering in mid-air. Postwar London.

Normally, I write in the evenings but my husband drove my son to school today, leaving me a few extra minutes. I made eggs; two fried eggs, to be exact. Postwar Londoners had to make do with one egg a week and I can have two in a day if I want to. I read somewhere that it’s not safe to put your broken eggshells back in the egg carton, but I do it anyway. If London could withstand the Blitz, then I can probably resist a few wandering salmonella germs. My immune system is pretty tough. Bulletproof is not too strong a word. Come at me, salmonella. Come at me, bro.

The fog has begun to lift and thin a bit. I can see the grass in my backyard now, and I can see across the fence into the neighbor’s yard. It’s 7:30 now, and I want to get to work before 8, so it’s time to stop and not a moment too soon. I mean really.

*****
I’ve never been to Atlanta. I’ve been over it and through it but never in it. But that will change next month because apparently, I’m going to Atlanta. I woke up this morning with absolutely no plans to visit Atlanta (no offense, of course, because I’m sure it’s a wonderful city) and now I’m making a packing list. It’s all good. I’m always happy to see a new place, though I’m not always so happy to get on the plane that will take me there.

In any event, it’ll probably be warmer there than it is here. It feels like winter again today; appropriate because it is winter, but I don’t have to like it.

*****
It’s Friday, WFH day. That’s work from home, of course. I finished a little before 4 and went out to walk and run in the sunshine, which didn’t warm the even a little bit. And I didn’t even hate it. There was almost no wind; the bare trees barely rustled, and the stillness made the cold feel not quite so cold.

In recent days, my thinking has been muddled and foggy. I thought I’d mention that just in case this ridiculous post doesn’t adequately demonstrate the cobwebby state of the inside of my brain. It’s a mess in there. Like an episode of Hoarders, Extreme Cases, if that exists. But just one pretty fast walk in the sunshine and the sharp, clear air, and some of the cobwebs are gone. The pistons are firing again, if that’s what pistons do. I’m not a mechanic.

A week of fog outside and a week of fog inside. But the fog has lifted for now. Just for now.

Storms and sunshine

It’s Tuesday, and the first snow day of the year. It’s not really a snow day, it’s a snow half-day (or a half snow day--take your pick). Schools closed early, as did the Federal government, so we all spent the afternoon at home. I had the most unproductive and frustrating day yesterday; so much so that I began to question my competence. Well, I question my competence every damn day, but not at work. I’m pretty good at my job. But today, I got shit done, and then I got more shit done. I was firing on every cylinder. It was a good day.

*****
Yesterday, one of my coworkers said that he was making poached chicken for dinner. And I pictured him stuffing a squirming, squawking chicken under his trench coat, feathers flying as he runs toward his car, with a shotgun-wielding farmer in hot pursuit. “Hit the gas, honey,” he says, slamming the car door as his wife shifts it into gear. “We’re having poached chicken tonight.” And then I laughed and laughed.

Maybe this is why I couldn’t get any work done.

*****
Now it’s Thursday. It’s seasonably cold, which means that compared to the rest of this so-called winter, it’s freezing. It’s 5:30 PM, a dead of winter kind of day. All of the lights in the house are off, and I’m surrounded by sleeping people. My 15-year-old had 5 AM swim practice this morning and band rehearsal after school, and now he’s exhausted, sprawled out on the family room couch as ESPN glows softly on our ridiculous-sized TV. My husband, with a short break between his full-time job and a part-time evening gig, is also napping, on another couch in another room. My older son is at work. The house has finally warmed up and although I don’t usually like to sit in the dark, I have to admit that it feels cozy up in here. I can’t sleep right now, but watching other people sleep in a dark and peaceful house is the next best thing.

*****

It’s Friday afternoon, almost five o’clock and still light for a little while. The days are getting longer and not a moment too soon. I’d love to stay in tonight but I have to go to a thing and be social and whatnot.

I worked at the office today, rather than at home as I normally do on Fridays. I had too much to do when I went in this morning, and now I have way too much to do, having added (or been assigned) more stuff to do. I’m going to make a big list and figure out how to break the whole mess down and spread it out and get it all done. I’ll do that later. Because thinking about it for a while and then writing about it, and then writing it all down, is obviously more efficient than just doing it, right?

I’m starting to hyperventilate a little bit, just thinking about it.

It’ll be fine, though. Because anxiety-prompted procrastination that leads to full-blown panic fueling further inaction and paralysis until I have no choice but to work like a fiend just to keep up is always the right way to approach a surge in workload. That’s free life coaching.

*****

Another Saturday morning, another high school swim meet. I'm sitting on a bench with two stopwatches around my neck. I need two because I'm the assistant head timer. A significant promotion, and a long-overdue recognition of my accomplishments in high school swim timing.

A team parent is skulking around the deck, taking pictures for the obligatory end-of-season slide show, and he's pointing his stupid camera right at me. What is wrong with people? Does he think that I'm camera ready at 9 o’clock on Saturday morning at the aquatic center? I'm going to keep my head down and ignore him. Maybe he'll go away.

Warm-ups are underway now, so I'll have to put the phone away. I take my timing responsibility very seriously. They don't promote just anyone to assistant head timer. Well, they do. But they shouldn't.

You keep working on those stopwatch skills, and you'll be
lead deputy assistant head timer in no time, I tell you what. 

The head timer and assistant head timer don't have much to do during the 500-yard freestyle events, so I can sit and write as the swimmers settle in to their distance rhythm. Two things I'm good at: timing and multitasking. Well, the timing, anyway. I was running around the house multitasking like a crazy person this morning and only now does it occur to me that I don't remember turning the stove off. I don't remember leaving it on, of course ; I just don't definitely and clearly remember turning it off. I'll find out soon enough, won't I?

*****
It’s Sunday now and I’m sitting on the couch in my family room in my house that is still standing because I did turn off the stove. Now I’m planning my week. It’ll be fine. I can’t really think today.

I’ve been working on my 2019 book list, and I hoped to finish it this weekend, but I probably won’t. I like to write about books, but I’m distracted right now. I need clothes and shoes, but i want to buy more handbags. I’ll end up wearing handbags to work as my work clothes gradually wear out or go out of fashion, and I replace them with nothing but handbags. Handbags on my feet, handbags instead of sweaters or skirts. They probably won’t fit. I’ll have to buy clothes and then just carry one of the 20 or more handbags that I already have.

I didn’t sleep much last week, or last night. January thunderstorms, and then 65-degree sunshine. It’s a nice day so I think I have to get out of the house and out of my head. This post has hit rock bottom and I don’t want to join it. Until next week.

Anyone could do that

I'm waiting in the pickup line at Rockville High School and the bell just rang. In a moment or two, hundreds of happy Friday afternoon high schoolers will pour out the front doors into waiting buses and cars, ready to start their weekends. I have a few minutes to write because I'm hemmed in from all sides. I can't go anywhere, even when my kid gets in the car, so I might just as well write about it.

I worked from home today and I'm not quite finished. Another hour and I'll start my weekend, too. It's going to be a utilitarian weekend. Some Christmas un-decorating, some soup-making, a swim meet, and some book reading. I have so many books to read, and so much ephemera to write about. Just yesterday, I wrote a whole two-page essay about daily planners, one of my very favorite topics. Keeping track of the days might be a better occupation than paying attention to what’s happening on those days. But let me leave you with a quote:

“Our president will start a war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate. He's weak and he's ineffective. So the only way he figures that he's going to get reelected — and as sure as you're sitting there — is to start a war with Iran. Isn’t that pathetic?

--Donald Trump on Barack Obama, 2011

*****

Now it's Saturday, and I am waiting for the first swim meet of 2020 to begin. We just finished the timers' briefing (mercifully short this time) and we're watching the dive meet. I'll be on duty in 15 minutes.

A young diver just executed what looked like a very good dive, but what do I know? Nothing.

Well, not nothing. I know all about timing. This might be the 100th time that I have stood on a pool deck with a stopwatch around my neck, and that stopwatch is not just an accessory, l tell you what. Timing is serious business and they don't just let anyone do it. Well, they do, actually. But they shouldn't.

Did you complete the training course?
No? Then put down that stopwatch. 

Warm-ups have commenced so we'll be underway in five minutes or so. My son is hard to spot. He's one of eight or nine orange capped, goggled kids sharing a warm-up lane. They're hard to tell apart. But he looked over at me as he was climbing out of the pool and gave me a quick teenage boy nod of recognition. He never fails to acknowledge his mother. He's a good boy.

OK, it's go time.

Here's an insider tip. If you're going to time at a swim meet, try to get yourself positioned on an outside lane. We have had no swimmers in our lane for the last three events so I have all the time in the world.

*****

I thought that my eyesight was bad, but one of my fellow timers just asked to see the order of events, and she held that clipboard as far away as her arm could stretch. I thought that she was going to throw out her shoulder.

*****


Seriously, that made me feel so much better about my own terrible terrible eyesight. Next time I introduce myself to someone, I’ll say that my name is Claire, but that all my friends call me Hawkeye.

*****

It’s Monday now. I watched the Golden Globes last night; or rather, I half-watched it and half did other things. A few observations:

1. Ricky Gervais: There’s a difference between a fearless, flame-throwing, free-thinking speaker of truth to power and a jerk. Mr. Gervais is the latter, and boring.
2. Olivia Colman: Yay! She’s so lovely, and her dress and overall look were among my very favorites. 
3. Patricia Arquette: Why? Why did you have to mention him? It was a pretty Trump-free evening until you took the stage. Why can’t you guys understand that paying him no mind is the very worst thing you can do to him? No, I don’t think that celebrities should just shut up and play or act or sing or whatever they do--I just think that Donald Trump and his followers live for the idea that the crazy radical left is obsessed with Trump, and you prove them right every time you attack him at an awards show. Oh, and I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: It doesn’t take that much courage to criticize Donald Trump at a Hollywood gathering. Sheesh.
4. Michelle Williams: Anyone who is “pro-choice” should be appalled and outraged that this poor young woman felt that her only hope of achieving her dreams lay in the “choice” of ending her child’s life. This isn’t a choice. This is women, once again, forced to conform to the unreasonable demands of a working world built by and for men. As they say on the Internet, let’s do better, shall we?

High school swim season is already halfway over, but awards season is just getting started. I only saw a handful of movies in 2019, but the Oscars are right around the corner so I’ll have to catch up. How else will I write meaningless and ill-informed reviews and half-baked commentary? They let anyone time at a swim meet. They let ANYONE write a blog.