Five weeks... Seems oddly a long time and yet an eye's blink since the ceremony. There are images that are embedded in our hearts and others that seem already to have escaped, and we are lucky to have friends' photos to remind us and show us some parts of the day that we never saw. I never saw the array of potluck dishes nor the decorated cheese cake, and despite Patty's entreaties to come start the food line, I was too...busy.
But now in retrospect, I understand some things that were mysteries before - notably why this wedding was so important to a number of our friends.
I have already noted that one neighbor noted that if I could get married ("oh! Your mother must be so happy!"), then maybe her 40 year old son might marry. Funny. And there are a number of people who have noted that if I could get married, maybe so could they. Somehow that can be read in a number of ways and some of those "readings" are not good for the ego! But I had a conversation with another friend, whose daughter is hearing the biological clock ticking. She has had her eggs frozen but has yet to make the decision to go it alone. I admit that seems an order of magnitude more daunting to me, than getting married. A single parent has to contend with all the decisions for another person for the next two decades or so. H and I can make our decisions together and can still live independent lives--but being fully responsible for another human being with no one to share that responsibility seems enormous to me. In any case, I asked my friend whether my wedding at this tender age eased that fear of being alone for her daughter (if she can do it, I can) or made it more difficult (if she can do it, why can't I?). "Well, my daughter would like to get married sooner rather than later," my friend said. "But it was great to see the two of you so happy. Some ...[pause]..some.. ah... older women just seem to get married for the... companionship."
This wedding has clearly surprised some people. Far more friends have described tiny ceremonies in a judge's office or with a small group of people at a high end restaurant. They have been surprised by the number of people we invited, and the stories they have told have been of marriages for health insurance or a green card. And this seems more common among our friends than the Busby Berkeley productions of "My Fair Wedding."
So now, from the other side of this great divide, as a married woman, I realize that the state of matrimony is more than a promise made between two people. It is an opportunity to look at one's own life and remember, compare, dream. When H asked me to marry him, nearly a year ago, we had no idea that my answer would mean so much to so many.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
New Food!
As I mentioned yesterday, different communities are identified by their foodways, as the anthropologists would call habits and rituals of consumption. So I did make it up to Peabody and World Class Billiards last night, and it was jam-packed. I waited for over an hour for a table, listening to a conversation between a young couple also waiting at the table behind me. The world is full of stories...
Anyway, the two guys at the closest table were both in their mid-20s, probably high school or college athletes. Tall, broad-shouldered, good looking. Terrible pool players, but the blessings of life are not all given to the same person. So I'm talking with John, the owner, listening to his litany of problems about the business. He's a really sweet guy, friendly to everyone, but I think he's related to Job. While we're talking, the handsomer of the two guys at the first table comes up for a beer. John remembers without being reminded that the guy is drinking Coors Light (as I say, the blessings of life are not all given to the same person) and uncaps a fresh bottle. The kid also reviews the very slim snack offerings -- two or three different kinds of chips, two candy bars (KitKat and Snickers, which I later heard a Latino woman ask for as "Sneakers," which baffled both John and I for a few seconds), just a miscellany. "Gimme some Swedish fish," the kid says.
So picture this. You've got a strapping young Abercrombie and Fitch model, drinking Coors Light in a dingy pool room, and he's asking for... what? A tin of sardines? Kippers? Do they come with crackers?
Given that John and I were having a conversation, I have a reason to be hanging out at a pool room counter, and therefore I must be trustworthy. I spend some of my social capital. "What the hell are Swedish fish?" I ask.
"They're like gummy bears, but hot," John says. Now nothing makes sense at all. "Give him one," he suggests to the kid, who tears open the package and drops a few into my hand.
"Thanks." I look at my hand, which is filled with ovals of toxic, transparent red rubber.
Well, when in Rome... I pop one into my mouth and chew. And two things hit me at once. First, the texture. John didn't say they were "hot," he said they were "hard" in a Boston accent. Hahd. Well, they weren't really hard, they were stiff. And sticky. It's probably the stuff dental molds are made from. You crush it with your molars, and it just smashes sideways and sticks to every tooth surface it comes into contact with.
The second thing I noticed was the flavor. It was red-flavored. Every American kid knows exactly that flavor. It's no identifiable fruit, even though it might be called "strawberry" or "cherry." It's just red, the flavor of red Kool-Aid and red Jell-O and Faygo Red Pop.
So I'm left with many questions for further anthropological study.
Anyway, the two guys at the closest table were both in their mid-20s, probably high school or college athletes. Tall, broad-shouldered, good looking. Terrible pool players, but the blessings of life are not all given to the same person. So I'm talking with John, the owner, listening to his litany of problems about the business. He's a really sweet guy, friendly to everyone, but I think he's related to Job. While we're talking, the handsomer of the two guys at the first table comes up for a beer. John remembers without being reminded that the guy is drinking Coors Light (as I say, the blessings of life are not all given to the same person) and uncaps a fresh bottle. The kid also reviews the very slim snack offerings -- two or three different kinds of chips, two candy bars (KitKat and Snickers, which I later heard a Latino woman ask for as "Sneakers," which baffled both John and I for a few seconds), just a miscellany. "Gimme some Swedish fish," the kid says.
So picture this. You've got a strapping young Abercrombie and Fitch model, drinking Coors Light in a dingy pool room, and he's asking for... what? A tin of sardines? Kippers? Do they come with crackers?
Given that John and I were having a conversation, I have a reason to be hanging out at a pool room counter, and therefore I must be trustworthy. I spend some of my social capital. "What the hell are Swedish fish?" I ask.
"They're like gummy bears, but hot," John says. Now nothing makes sense at all. "Give him one," he suggests to the kid, who tears open the package and drops a few into my hand.
"Thanks." I look at my hand, which is filled with ovals of toxic, transparent red rubber.
 |
| Our bag only had the red ones. And yes, the fish does have the word Swedish molded into its side. |
The second thing I noticed was the flavor. It was red-flavored. Every American kid knows exactly that flavor. It's no identifiable fruit, even though it might be called "strawberry" or "cherry." It's just red, the flavor of red Kool-Aid and red Jell-O and Faygo Red Pop.
So I'm left with many questions for further anthropological study.
- Who would make a gummy bear shaped like a fish, and market it BASED ON its fish-ness? It's not cute like a gummy bear, or gross-out-the-grownups like a gummy worm. Why not Swedish bears?
- And why Swedish Fish? What the hell kind of brand name is that? You don't order a St. Louis Cylinder, you order a Budweiser. Okay, so Swedish Fish were originally made in Sweden (and you can, it seems, buy them at Ikea). Who cares? Now they're made in Hamilton, Ontario, so they're Hamilton Fish. I mean, call them Fruit Flounders or Wrigglers or something...
- In the midst of a rack of Doritos and Snickers, what kind of snack-bar owner has a box of Swedish Fish?? Is there a big demand for those among the misguided youth of Boston's northern suburbs?
- How does a 25-year old develop a taste for red-flavored dental mold?
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Landing
Well, I was going to go play pool tonight, but the weather reporters made it sound like the deluge was pending, so I came home to make sure windows were closed. So far, it's sunny.
I had a long but productive day at work today. I developed an assessment plan for our new curricula, and also developed a method for putting those curricula side by side so that we can make final decisions about what parts of all degrees should be the same and what parts have to vary by discipline. Happy colleagues, happy boss, satisfying work day. The 1950s TV families would now have me arriving home to greet my happy, aproned wife.
But it's 2011. Even if Nora were here, it's unlikely she'd be wearing an apron. Black linen and dirty nails from the garden, more likely. But more importantly, we're far distant.
Today's song...
I need to feel your heartbeat, heartbeat
so close, feels like mine
all mine
I need to feel your heartbeat heartbeat
so close it feels like mine
all mine...
I remember the feeling
my hands in your hair
hands in your hair
I remember the feeling
of the rhythm we made
the rhythm we made
I need to land sometime
right next to you
feel your heartbeat heartbeat
right next to me.....
Heartbeat, King Crimson
On my drive home, I heard news that the US Postal Service is examining the possible fall closure of over 3,000 rural post offices, so once I got here, I immediately checked to see if Middletown Springs is on the list. Phew... dodged that one. But we purposefully buy our stamps and mail our packages from there, to add our small contribution to the town's USPS ledger. The better their sales, the more likely they are to remain open.
There are some institutions that matter in a small place. Not many Middletowners get home mail delivery, so throughout the day, the lobby is filled with people checking their p.o. boxes, and stopping in to chat for a few minutes with Alida or Liz. Mail is important, bringing news from away, but chat is also important, bringing news from nearby.
Grant's Store is another one, but it serves a somewhat different group. Even in Middletown Springs and the immediate surroundings, there are hundreds of people we don't know. Grant's is where the local deer pool is judged, with the scale and hoist in the side yard. Grant's is where you go to buy Bud Light, rent a movie on DVD, pick up that flour or butter you're missing from your recipe, pick up your bagged ice and your propane canister for the barbecue. And it's where a different community goes to chat.
Sissy's is a third, a little less hangout-ish than the others since she sells takeaway. But we usually see people we know while we're waiting for lunch or browsing the cookies and cupcakes on the side table. That group is more nearly our own, since we're sort of food snobs. We remarked after a friend's son's funeral that the food that group brought for potluck and the food at our wedding potluck had almost no items in common. Wilbur Zelinsky once wrote that you could tell when you were in a Union or a Confederate region by the size of lard containers at the grocery store. In Middletown, it's the difference between Bud Light and Otter Creek Copper Ale, between casseroles with hamburger and casseroles with tofu, between cookies with M&Ms baked in and cookies with dried cranberries baked in. It's the difference between the Subaru Legacy and the Ford Ranger.
There's good people and there's jerks in both groups, of course, but the groups seem to be more visible than the individuals. We each keep to our own turf. Even in a town of 800, there are divides. Divides of age, of religion, of class. Of casseroles.
The dump is the great leveler. Officially, it's not a dump but rather a transfer station; material doesn't stay there, but is trucked away to a landfill someplace else. Just as with the mail, there's no home garbage pick-up in Middletown Springs, either, so once we can't stand looking at all that crap in the garage for another minute, we all arrive on either Saturday morning or Monday morning. Cardboard, deposit glass bottles, other glass, deposit aluminum cans, mixed household metal, mixed household plastic, paperboard (like cereal boxes), newspaper and brown bags, magazines, and mixed office paper. After all that's sorted, everything else goes into the compactor. We talk with those in our tribe, nod quietly to the others.
Pool halls are just like that. You'd figure in a small place populated by adult men who all like the same endeavor, everyone would get along. But not really. You've got the white collar guys who love the challenge, and the blue collar guys who love the bluster. You've got the self-styled hustlers with the sideways baseball caps, the plumbing contractor who's played since Kennedy was president, the multi-million-dollar salesman who plays one-pocket, and the psychotherapist at the billard table. You've got the mile-a-minute chatterbox, and the guy who won't say four words in an hour. If we had a potluck, we'd bring different kinds of food.
There's a common guy greeting that occurs across those divides, when you encounter someone who inhabits your home range but isn't part of your tribe. It doesn't matter how loquacious either party might be among his own flock, the exchange across those lines consists of exactly two words.
"Hey."
"Hey."
It's a good thing there are women in the world, because guys would never have invented language.
It's 7:20 pm, and not anything but sunshine. I'm closing the windows and going to play pool.
I had a long but productive day at work today. I developed an assessment plan for our new curricula, and also developed a method for putting those curricula side by side so that we can make final decisions about what parts of all degrees should be the same and what parts have to vary by discipline. Happy colleagues, happy boss, satisfying work day. The 1950s TV families would now have me arriving home to greet my happy, aproned wife.
But it's 2011. Even if Nora were here, it's unlikely she'd be wearing an apron. Black linen and dirty nails from the garden, more likely. But more importantly, we're far distant.
Today's song...
I need to feel your heartbeat, heartbeat
so close, feels like mine
all mine
I need to feel your heartbeat heartbeat
so close it feels like mine
all mine...
I remember the feeling
my hands in your hair
hands in your hair
I remember the feeling
of the rhythm we made
the rhythm we made
I need to land sometime
right next to you
feel your heartbeat heartbeat
right next to me.....
Heartbeat, King Crimson
On my drive home, I heard news that the US Postal Service is examining the possible fall closure of over 3,000 rural post offices, so once I got here, I immediately checked to see if Middletown Springs is on the list. Phew... dodged that one. But we purposefully buy our stamps and mail our packages from there, to add our small contribution to the town's USPS ledger. The better their sales, the more likely they are to remain open.
There are some institutions that matter in a small place. Not many Middletowners get home mail delivery, so throughout the day, the lobby is filled with people checking their p.o. boxes, and stopping in to chat for a few minutes with Alida or Liz. Mail is important, bringing news from away, but chat is also important, bringing news from nearby.
Grant's Store is another one, but it serves a somewhat different group. Even in Middletown Springs and the immediate surroundings, there are hundreds of people we don't know. Grant's is where the local deer pool is judged, with the scale and hoist in the side yard. Grant's is where you go to buy Bud Light, rent a movie on DVD, pick up that flour or butter you're missing from your recipe, pick up your bagged ice and your propane canister for the barbecue. And it's where a different community goes to chat.
Sissy's is a third, a little less hangout-ish than the others since she sells takeaway. But we usually see people we know while we're waiting for lunch or browsing the cookies and cupcakes on the side table. That group is more nearly our own, since we're sort of food snobs. We remarked after a friend's son's funeral that the food that group brought for potluck and the food at our wedding potluck had almost no items in common. Wilbur Zelinsky once wrote that you could tell when you were in a Union or a Confederate region by the size of lard containers at the grocery store. In Middletown, it's the difference between Bud Light and Otter Creek Copper Ale, between casseroles with hamburger and casseroles with tofu, between cookies with M&Ms baked in and cookies with dried cranberries baked in. It's the difference between the Subaru Legacy and the Ford Ranger.
There's good people and there's jerks in both groups, of course, but the groups seem to be more visible than the individuals. We each keep to our own turf. Even in a town of 800, there are divides. Divides of age, of religion, of class. Of casseroles.
The dump is the great leveler. Officially, it's not a dump but rather a transfer station; material doesn't stay there, but is trucked away to a landfill someplace else. Just as with the mail, there's no home garbage pick-up in Middletown Springs, either, so once we can't stand looking at all that crap in the garage for another minute, we all arrive on either Saturday morning or Monday morning. Cardboard, deposit glass bottles, other glass, deposit aluminum cans, mixed household metal, mixed household plastic, paperboard (like cereal boxes), newspaper and brown bags, magazines, and mixed office paper. After all that's sorted, everything else goes into the compactor. We talk with those in our tribe, nod quietly to the others.
Pool halls are just like that. You'd figure in a small place populated by adult men who all like the same endeavor, everyone would get along. But not really. You've got the white collar guys who love the challenge, and the blue collar guys who love the bluster. You've got the self-styled hustlers with the sideways baseball caps, the plumbing contractor who's played since Kennedy was president, the multi-million-dollar salesman who plays one-pocket, and the psychotherapist at the billard table. You've got the mile-a-minute chatterbox, and the guy who won't say four words in an hour. If we had a potluck, we'd bring different kinds of food.
There's a common guy greeting that occurs across those divides, when you encounter someone who inhabits your home range but isn't part of your tribe. It doesn't matter how loquacious either party might be among his own flock, the exchange across those lines consists of exactly two words.
"Hey."
"Hey."
It's a good thing there are women in the world, because guys would never have invented language.
It's 7:20 pm, and not anything but sunshine. I'm closing the windows and going to play pool.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Mondays at the marriage
I woke this morning to a cool and cloudy day. The cats had a quiet walk in the garden, and I picked a few raspberries. There are a half dozen peas ready to be picked and I will need to plant some new ones to replace those that have been eaten by the critter(s). But as I sat at the desk(s) finding my way through old emails that had been deposited back in my inbox when I backed up my computer at work, it seems oddly familiar and oddly disconcerting. This is a familiar routine, though I am building back into my days, the reading and writing that has been so missing from my life in Boston. I will shortly walk to the post office with a few thank you notes and an envelope of others that I have written and signed, but that Herb will want to add his "2 cents" to... and that is the disconcerting part. I am sending our thank you notes to him in Boston, so he can add what he wants and send them out to our friends. I have stamped them and put a return address in Vermont on all of them. But he is in Boston.
After a month of 'together' and a week apart and another weekend together, we are apart. It's just better together than apart.So it's disconcerting to be writing thank you notes and our blog from different places.
Yesterday, we wrote a joint blog entry from the desk in the office. I wrote in the morning; he wrote in the afternoon. Today, he will read this on-line with everyone else who is lurking out there.
When we married, I wrote something about our differences: Herb is systematic and careful about framing his work; I am always working with a kit of parts spilled on the floor. We both get "it" done, but in very different ways. When I write, I NEVER know what I am writing about when I start. I think Herb always does. But we get to the end of the paragraph or the essay with something we admire in each other, even if the route is different. E.L. Doctorow is often quoted for saying: "“Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way." Herb and I are taking different routes, but we expect to end up in the same place. En route, it can be disconcerting to have this shift from being together to living apart.
We decided to continue this blog after the wedding, in part because it was fun, but also because we haven't found much that chronicles the character of a married life. This is what that looks like -- for us anyway. And we are looking ahead as far as the headlights illuminate.
After a month of 'together' and a week apart and another weekend together, we are apart. It's just better together than apart.So it's disconcerting to be writing thank you notes and our blog from different places.
Yesterday, we wrote a joint blog entry from the desk in the office. I wrote in the morning; he wrote in the afternoon. Today, he will read this on-line with everyone else who is lurking out there.
When we married, I wrote something about our differences: Herb is systematic and careful about framing his work; I am always working with a kit of parts spilled on the floor. We both get "it" done, but in very different ways. When I write, I NEVER know what I am writing about when I start. I think Herb always does. But we get to the end of the paragraph or the essay with something we admire in each other, even if the route is different. E.L. Doctorow is often quoted for saying: "“Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way." Herb and I are taking different routes, but we expect to end up in the same place. En route, it can be disconcerting to have this shift from being together to living apart.
We decided to continue this blog after the wedding, in part because it was fun, but also because we haven't found much that chronicles the character of a married life. This is what that looks like -- for us anyway. And we are looking ahead as far as the headlights illuminate.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Married life...4 weeks and counting...
It's a lazy Sunday morning. I have encouraged H to sleep in, and I have taken a morning stroll with the cats. The garden is doing well despite the bunnies who have nibbled the tops of all the pea sprouts, the spinach, a few basil leaves and the Romaine and leaf lettuces to a nub. They don't seem interested in either our red lettuce which frankly is not my favorite, or the Swiss chard. However, there was plenty left for a salad yesterday, and I harvested enough basil for three snack bags of pesto. There's some neglected parsley that I harvested yesterday (also for pesto) and the remainder seems happy to have those leaves gone. The sungold tomatoes have outgrown their tall cages and are now about 6 foot high, and the one that I broke off at the top has regrown a sprout to replace it. The radishes are up, marking the rows of carrots, and the corn, planted late, is about to the top of my thighs. The winter squash that had about 5 sad leaves when I left for NYC has grown over the radishes and the potatoes and peas. And the raspberries are ready for picking if I ever get to them.
I started the garden really only to clean up the yard before the wedding, and now, as with many things wedding related, it has taken on a life of its own. Alida and Rodney had their son-in-law Jordan till and manure the big garden, and Rodney drilled holes in the oak barrels and filled them with gravel and soil as a wedding present. Without that we couldn't have planted this amazing bounty. The rudbeckia that Judy gave me are thriving, and the lilies, though they didn't flower, seem happy, as does the red petunia. Lois' pulmonaria, geraniums, nettle, little rudbeckia are also thriving, and Nan's Johnny jump-ups are at last starting to fade after having done extremely well in the stone circle and in pots around the house. The poppies she gave me have bloomed pink, with the cilantro and several sunflowers. And the dahlia bulbs from Emmet and Kerstin have formed a thick green hedge, though they have yet to flower. And of course, I am leaving many things out.
Yesterday, I put fish emulsion on everything except the pepper, and then watered again late in the afternoon as everything was looking peaked with the 95 degree heat. The house plants that have been vacationing outside in the shade of the maple were glad of that. I weeded again... that never seems to accomplish anything, but it is oddly satisfying, if hard on the back. I should put down mulch, but I never seem to get around to it.
So this morning, as the temperature is more comfortable, I am going to take a walk, and do some writing to the sound of Ed's snoring (and yes, Ed IS the cat, not the husband). The town is quiet. And Herb (the husband, not the cat) and I will write some thank you cards. Those cards won't begin to convey all we feel about those we think of as we write...
We hope yours is a peaceful morning.
My husband is awake...time to pour him some iced tea.
Later in the day...
Not only did Nora generously pour me some iced tea, she also put on a kettle so that we could make more tea for later. Such a dear girl.
We invited friends down for a birthday celebration this afternoon, and then got underway making rhubarb cake. Nora had cut fresh rhubarb stalks this morning, and we measured one leaf at 28" across.
While the cut rhubarb was soaking up confectioner's sugar, we drove up the hill to see a house recently listed for sale. It's clearly a survivalist's special--a new-enough house, but set almost a mile off the closest road, up a steep and rutted two-track. This is clearly someone who did NOT want neighbors. And we suspect that track was all plowed by that homeowner, since the Town responsibility ended at the intersection, eight-tenths of a mile away (or further). If you lived there and had to plow that out once or twice a day for five months at a stretch, you’d be tempted to just let yourself get snowed in and live off your canned goods until April.
We got home and continued the rhubarb adventure, about which the less mentioned, the better. This is something Nora’s made a dozen times, and one of my favorites, but this time it was like poltergeists interfered at every turn. NOTHING went correctly. Is the stove haunted? Or is it just that we’re distracted, knowing that I’m going back to Boston in three hours for another week away?
After a very fine visit out on the deck, we washed dishes, put leftovers away, started a load of laundry, and wondered what comes next. We’d spent two hours talking about economics, about downtowns, about business plans… none of us are naïve, but none of us see the next steps yet.
Note my use of the word “yet.” I really do think there are next steps here.
I started the garden really only to clean up the yard before the wedding, and now, as with many things wedding related, it has taken on a life of its own. Alida and Rodney had their son-in-law Jordan till and manure the big garden, and Rodney drilled holes in the oak barrels and filled them with gravel and soil as a wedding present. Without that we couldn't have planted this amazing bounty. The rudbeckia that Judy gave me are thriving, and the lilies, though they didn't flower, seem happy, as does the red petunia. Lois' pulmonaria, geraniums, nettle, little rudbeckia are also thriving, and Nan's Johnny jump-ups are at last starting to fade after having done extremely well in the stone circle and in pots around the house. The poppies she gave me have bloomed pink, with the cilantro and several sunflowers. And the dahlia bulbs from Emmet and Kerstin have formed a thick green hedge, though they have yet to flower. And of course, I am leaving many things out.
Yesterday, I put fish emulsion on everything except the pepper, and then watered again late in the afternoon as everything was looking peaked with the 95 degree heat. The house plants that have been vacationing outside in the shade of the maple were glad of that. I weeded again... that never seems to accomplish anything, but it is oddly satisfying, if hard on the back. I should put down mulch, but I never seem to get around to it.
So this morning, as the temperature is more comfortable, I am going to take a walk, and do some writing to the sound of Ed's snoring (and yes, Ed IS the cat, not the husband). The town is quiet. And Herb (the husband, not the cat) and I will write some thank you cards. Those cards won't begin to convey all we feel about those we think of as we write...
We hope yours is a peaceful morning.
My husband is awake...time to pour him some iced tea.
Later in the day...
Not only did Nora generously pour me some iced tea, she also put on a kettle so that we could make more tea for later. Such a dear girl.
We invited friends down for a birthday celebration this afternoon, and then got underway making rhubarb cake. Nora had cut fresh rhubarb stalks this morning, and we measured one leaf at 28" across.
While the cut rhubarb was soaking up confectioner's sugar, we drove up the hill to see a house recently listed for sale. It's clearly a survivalist's special--a new-enough house, but set almost a mile off the closest road, up a steep and rutted two-track. This is clearly someone who did NOT want neighbors. And we suspect that track was all plowed by that homeowner, since the Town responsibility ended at the intersection, eight-tenths of a mile away (or further). If you lived there and had to plow that out once or twice a day for five months at a stretch, you’d be tempted to just let yourself get snowed in and live off your canned goods until April.
We got home and continued the rhubarb adventure, about which the less mentioned, the better. This is something Nora’s made a dozen times, and one of my favorites, but this time it was like poltergeists interfered at every turn. NOTHING went correctly. Is the stove haunted? Or is it just that we’re distracted, knowing that I’m going back to Boston in three hours for another week away?
After a very fine visit out on the deck, we washed dishes, put leftovers away, started a load of laundry, and wondered what comes next. We’d spent two hours talking about economics, about downtowns, about business plans… none of us are naïve, but none of us see the next steps yet.
Note my use of the word “yet.” I really do think there are next steps here.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Saturday mornings, then and now
Dastardly emulsion. Those are the two words Nora woke up with today... not necessarily connected, but when you've got an adjective and a noun, the temptation is great.
I was raised on 1960s Saturday cartoons. I used to get up early... EARLY early, like 5:00... and go downstairs and turn on the big Sylvania black-and-white console. This was before cable, before 24-hour broadcasting, and before remote controls. So I would turn the dial to either channel 3 (CBS), 8 (NBC) or 13 (ABC) -- why do I remember these things? -- and wait for the shows to start.
The first show that was on was the test pattern. I used to sit and study that in puzzled wonder. The circles, the grid, the numbers, and the Indian portrait on the top... what was that about? I was like a caveman who'd stumbled across a Philips screwdriver... I knew it was something momentous, but what?
Then at 6:00, the agricultural report. Farmers were supposed to be up at 6:00, not little suburban boys; so I heard about the price of corn and the price of hogs and the state legislature deciding what to do about rural roads. None of it really sunk in, but they sounded so serious that I knew it was Important Stuff.
Then at 6:30, there was the College Quiz Bowl.
Even when I was 8 years old, I recognized that the set probably cost about $20. The curtain, the felt pennants hung with fishing line, and worst of all, that big seam running right straight up the middle of the team's desk. When little kids can see that your craftsmanship is bad, it must be really bad. But I knew some of the answers to the quiz questions, so that made me feel good.
Then, finally, it was 7:00, and the cartoons came on. First it was a locally-produced full hour of old Warner Brothers, which was really the high point of the day on most weekends. Then later, there was a lot of schlock that advertised cereal. I do remember that George of the Jungle was pretty good... but I really loved Jonny Quest! The notion of a little boy and his dad with a friend and an older mentor and a dog, running around the world from one adventure to another... sigh... . And that show was SCARY, too. Mummies, and giant mechanical spiders, and terrorists, and ghosts in the Sargasso Sea. But the best part was the theme music. There's some music that didn't talk down to kids. And if somebody had only TOLD me that most of the lead lines were played on a trombone, I'd have practiced harder.
Anyway, all this comes to mind because of Nora's word dastardly, which I vaguely remembered as the name of a cartoon character. And sure enough, he was a villain (along with his sniggering bulldog Muttley), Dick Dastardly, who ended up getting his own show later on.
My Saturday mornings are just as lazy now as they were then, but I don't watch as many cartoons. Nora's out watering the garden before it gets hot, while I write and reminisce and look up words. (The other word, if you'll remember, was emulsion, which to my knowledge was never a cartoon character.)
I was raised on 1960s Saturday cartoons. I used to get up early... EARLY early, like 5:00... and go downstairs and turn on the big Sylvania black-and-white console. This was before cable, before 24-hour broadcasting, and before remote controls. So I would turn the dial to either channel 3 (CBS), 8 (NBC) or 13 (ABC) -- why do I remember these things? -- and wait for the shows to start.
The first show that was on was the test pattern. I used to sit and study that in puzzled wonder. The circles, the grid, the numbers, and the Indian portrait on the top... what was that about? I was like a caveman who'd stumbled across a Philips screwdriver... I knew it was something momentous, but what?
Then at 6:30, there was the College Quiz Bowl.
 |
| Phyl. Hurwitz is now probably a Professor Emeritus of Women's Studies somewhere, no? |
Then, finally, it was 7:00, and the cartoons came on. First it was a locally-produced full hour of old Warner Brothers, which was really the high point of the day on most weekends. Then later, there was a lot of schlock that advertised cereal. I do remember that George of the Jungle was pretty good... but I really loved Jonny Quest! The notion of a little boy and his dad with a friend and an older mentor and a dog, running around the world from one adventure to another... sigh... . And that show was SCARY, too. Mummies, and giant mechanical spiders, and terrorists, and ghosts in the Sargasso Sea. But the best part was the theme music. There's some music that didn't talk down to kids. And if somebody had only TOLD me that most of the lead lines were played on a trombone, I'd have practiced harder.
Anyway, all this comes to mind because of Nora's word dastardly, which I vaguely remembered as the name of a cartoon character. And sure enough, he was a villain (along with his sniggering bulldog Muttley), Dick Dastardly, who ended up getting his own show later on.
My Saturday mornings are just as lazy now as they were then, but I don't watch as many cartoons. Nora's out watering the garden before it gets hot, while I write and reminisce and look up words. (The other word, if you'll remember, was emulsion, which to my knowledge was never a cartoon character.)
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
The Breatharian Economy
Back in the dismal ‘80s, there was a small group, led by a fellow named Wiley Brooks, that came together under the banner of the Breatharian Institute of America. The core tenet of Bretharianism was that food and water are unnecessary, and that only sunlight and air are necessary to sustain the prana or life energy. (Brooks himself occasionally would break his fasts with a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese, which contains a “base frequency” and puts the eater in touch with fifth-dimension beings such as cows; and Diet Coke, which Brooks calls “liquid light.”)
I was put in mind of the Breatharians while moving the car today from one parking spot to another at work, listening to a piece on NPR about returnships. A returnship, for those of you not in the know, is the opportunity to take an unpaid internship after a long period away from work as a way to regain work skills and convince your prospective employer that raising a child or caring for a sick parent doesn’t call your organizational commitment into question. The more typical internship takes place earlier, commonly during or just after college, and is intended to give you a jump-start into professional life.
There are many critics of internship (me among them) who suggest that it offers networking opportunities and resume bolstering only to those whose families can afford to pay for them to have a summer or a semester off from work. Us commoners often had to work during the summers in order to save for fall tuition, thus precluding the internship with Goldman Sachs. And internship recruitment most often takes place at elite colleges anyway, since those are the kind of people born into the professional and capital classes who a) can afford to take the internship and b) already understand the unspoken rules for how to play the corporate game. Good luck getting an internship while you’re a junior at Castleton State College…
It seems we’re moving more and more fully into a Breatharian economy, in which we are expected to be sustained only by the satisfaction of work well done and the complements and attention of others. If we expect things like “payment” or “benefits,” then that only reveals our primitive and unenlightened state. (The owners of the Breatharian economy, just like Wiley Brooks, are paid handsomely, but never mind…) YouTube is part of the Breatharian economy, where people put together video entertainment of greater or lesser quality and post it for free; so are blogs, Twitter, freelance writing, adjunct teaching, and now “returnships.” We already know that for the vast majority of Americans, incomes have been flat or declining for 40 years while at the same time the owners’ incomes have risen at supersonic rates.
Almost nobody has understood how to make money on the Internet, where our expectation is that the world is available to us for the cost of a mouse click. All the .coms try to live on advertising income—but eventually, somebody somewhere has to make something or offer a service that can be advertised. The crass term is “monetize,” which is to convert an idea into money. Really, we’re only able to monetize ideas through the proxy of converting those ideas into an object or a service or a labor that someone else wants badly enough to pay for. And increasingly, we don’t want to pay. Newspapers are digging their own graves by providing extensive and excellent online content; who spends two bucks for the San Francisco Chronicle when they’ve got SFGate.com?
We’re in the intermediate stages of the Breatharian economy, in which many people believe that they’ll be the one who gets noticed—the one whose video goes viral or whose blog gets them a book offer from Farrar Strauss & Giroux or whose excellent teaching as an adjunct puts them first in line for the next actual teaching position. There are enough people giving away their work that it puts downward pressure on payment for everyone else; if you don’t want to write an article for my newspaper for $60, then there are twelve other people who will. The fact that your article is good carries no weight in the Breatharian economy; the other not-so-good ones will still fill column inches, and we can get the product out. To borrow from the Existentialist philosophers, existence precedes essence. Who knew that Heidegger understood freelancing?
The terminal stages of Breatharian economics are when almost no one is paid, when the cult member realizes that his organs are failing and he’s too weak to stand. At that point, when enough people are desperate, change can be made. Until then, take a deep breath…
I was put in mind of the Breatharians while moving the car today from one parking spot to another at work, listening to a piece on NPR about returnships. A returnship, for those of you not in the know, is the opportunity to take an unpaid internship after a long period away from work as a way to regain work skills and convince your prospective employer that raising a child or caring for a sick parent doesn’t call your organizational commitment into question. The more typical internship takes place earlier, commonly during or just after college, and is intended to give you a jump-start into professional life.
There are many critics of internship (me among them) who suggest that it offers networking opportunities and resume bolstering only to those whose families can afford to pay for them to have a summer or a semester off from work. Us commoners often had to work during the summers in order to save for fall tuition, thus precluding the internship with Goldman Sachs. And internship recruitment most often takes place at elite colleges anyway, since those are the kind of people born into the professional and capital classes who a) can afford to take the internship and b) already understand the unspoken rules for how to play the corporate game. Good luck getting an internship while you’re a junior at Castleton State College…
It seems we’re moving more and more fully into a Breatharian economy, in which we are expected to be sustained only by the satisfaction of work well done and the complements and attention of others. If we expect things like “payment” or “benefits,” then that only reveals our primitive and unenlightened state. (The owners of the Breatharian economy, just like Wiley Brooks, are paid handsomely, but never mind…) YouTube is part of the Breatharian economy, where people put together video entertainment of greater or lesser quality and post it for free; so are blogs, Twitter, freelance writing, adjunct teaching, and now “returnships.” We already know that for the vast majority of Americans, incomes have been flat or declining for 40 years while at the same time the owners’ incomes have risen at supersonic rates.
Almost nobody has understood how to make money on the Internet, where our expectation is that the world is available to us for the cost of a mouse click. All the .coms try to live on advertising income—but eventually, somebody somewhere has to make something or offer a service that can be advertised. The crass term is “monetize,” which is to convert an idea into money. Really, we’re only able to monetize ideas through the proxy of converting those ideas into an object or a service or a labor that someone else wants badly enough to pay for. And increasingly, we don’t want to pay. Newspapers are digging their own graves by providing extensive and excellent online content; who spends two bucks for the San Francisco Chronicle when they’ve got SFGate.com?
We’re in the intermediate stages of the Breatharian economy, in which many people believe that they’ll be the one who gets noticed—the one whose video goes viral or whose blog gets them a book offer from Farrar Strauss & Giroux or whose excellent teaching as an adjunct puts them first in line for the next actual teaching position. There are enough people giving away their work that it puts downward pressure on payment for everyone else; if you don’t want to write an article for my newspaper for $60, then there are twelve other people who will. The fact that your article is good carries no weight in the Breatharian economy; the other not-so-good ones will still fill column inches, and we can get the product out. To borrow from the Existentialist philosophers, existence precedes essence. Who knew that Heidegger understood freelancing?
The terminal stages of Breatharian economics are when almost no one is paid, when the cult member realizes that his organs are failing and he’s too weak to stand. At that point, when enough people are desperate, change can be made. Until then, take a deep breath…
On the bus to Boston
It’s an old saw: “Make the most of what you have.” We tell each other all the time, that things can change in the blink of an eye. We nod and go on with what we were doing. How long does that advice remain with us?
I am on the bus to Boston after working on the development of a new class to be taught in NYC in the Fall. I could go on about that, but won’t for now.
I saw my lawyer yesterday and changed my will. He asked, "what would you want to have happen if you were hit by a bus when you left here"? We talked. He said he’d prepare the paper work and I could sign it when I return to NYC in August.
I am on the bus to Boston. I said that, didn’t I? The driver was 15 minutes late to pick us up. I was annoyed. It was hot, but there was a lovely breeze on 34th St and 8th Ave that I didn’t expect. I thought about how I want to use the idea of micro-climates in my Fall classes. We know that there are places of shade and breeze in our daily lives, but we don’t think much about them ‘til it is too hot and we need the shelter of a building or a cross-breeze. I was listening to Carlos Nakai’s Native American flute on my i-pod. I thought about how music can take you somewhere else. I wonder if I can use that in the Fall.
I am on the bus to Boston. I am sitting in the front row where I have enough room to work on my laptop as we drive north. I have a full view of what is in front of me.
The driver has plugged in a Blackberry and is listening to music through earphones. It is something with a tinny repetitive beat that I can hear from where I am sitting. He took out the Blackberry to text, saw that I was watching and put it away. I took a drink from my bottle of iced water and answered an email from an old colleague. He lost his computer and was testing an old address for me to see if it worked and to check in. I told him about our conundrums about work. I told him that I had gotten married a little more than three weeks ago. He will know Herb and I think he will be happy for us.
We passed a convertible sports car. I think it was red. There were two young men in the car that looked as though they might be Hispanic. On the roll bar were two plush monkey toys, one a vivid pink and the other purple. The bus driver looked me and laughed. “I saw you were looking too.” More miles. Closer to Boston. I got an email from a student who wants to take my class in the Fall. I am hoping she won’t. She is what my mother would call “an injustice collector” and she lives in a state of constant crisis – the roommate's boyfriend moved in or out, her step-sister has asthma, and she wants to help, but the place smells like smoke and there's the cat hair, and she'd like to help, but her teacher wouldn’t understand that her paper was late because she had to move out...
And then I heard the driver’s sharp intake of breath. Did he say anything? I don’t know. When I looked up, a black sedan was perpendicular to the three lanes of traffic. Just ahead of us. As I watched, it fishtailed several times in arcs which seemed to change direction – first clockwise, then counterclockwise, then clockwise again, while somehow all of us moved forward. Then it went through the taut wire barrier and onto the shoulder, spraying dirt behind it. We were past before I saw where it landed.
“I didn’t see nothing,” the driver said.
It took about 20 rings for the police to answer my cell phone. “Troopers are already on the way.”
Witness reports are notoriously unreliable.
I hadn't seen it from the beginning. It had looked as though the black sedan was trying to pass another car in the right lane, but all I really saw was that the black car had been fishtailing and went off the side of the road. I asked the driver what had happened. "That other guy swerved into him," he said. And now he's up ahead. Just kept going," he said...
Witness reports are notoriously unreliable.
I hadn't seen it from the beginning. It had looked as though the black sedan was trying to pass another car in the right lane, but all I really saw was that the black car had been fishtailing and went off the side of the road. I asked the driver what had happened. "That other guy swerved into him," he said. And now he's up ahead. Just kept going," he said...
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Connections of many sorts
As usual, I have a series of nested stories…
Story 1: So Herb and I have certain rituals. He is always up earlier than I, so he checks the blog and changes the date and checks for new arrivals on our international “guest list.” You can see it in the column to the right below the archive listing. We are happy to have been read in 34 countries as of this date, and there is something nice about knowing that someone is “connecting” from places like Ghana and Antarctica –places that are so different and seem so unimaginably far away.
My routine includes checking the search terms that people use to get to our metaphorical door and while some are obvious: “Herb and Nora” or “Nora and Herb,” others seem rather odd: “sore hands after weeding” or “amanda carter artist Atlanta” or “hourly rate of adjunct teaching, Singapore.” OK so the first one is a line in something I wrote, but the second one? If I google this phrase, there is an artist named Amanda CarDer who has oil paintings of flowers, animals and landscapes, and a lesbian rapping lawyer named Amanda CarTer neither of whom seem to have any obvious connection to us. And while my friend Deborah has accused me of being in the running for the adjunct Olympics, I am not planning to teach in Singapore. And remember “Claudette psychic Middlebury” from an earlier blog post? How does someone looking for a psychic, connect to our blog? Wait! Don’t answer that! Anyway, all things are possible in google.
Hold that thought.
Story 2: As most of you know, my contract at the BAC terminated this past June, and so the re-building of our work lives has been launched, but in the meantime, I am going to take advantage of the vaunted “Federal social safety net.” I got up this morning to call the office of unemployment and while I was on hold, I “multi-tasked” by following up on an overdue email to someone who is working on a Vermont project called “Staying Connected.” They are looking at what people “value about the local community and landscape,” and seeking to “inspire people to explore some of the special places and features of the local region.” But within about 2 minutes, I received an automated response to my email that read: “Thank you for your message. Between June 23rd and September 1st, 2011, I will be checking email only once or twice a week. I may therefore take several days to get back to you. In September, my schedule will again become more regular. Thanks for your patience!” Hmmmm….
At about the same time that I received that email response, I was connected by phone to someone at the unemployment office in Boston, who turned me over to another automated queue, and after answering a host of automated questions, I got a recording that said, “Due to unusually heavy call volume, your call can not be answered at this time. Please try again later.” Right. “Unusually high call volume.” The vaunted social safety net at work. Pun intended. I was disconnected.
Story 3: 20 days ago, Herb and I were married overlooking this place that we love. And on June 25th, I fell in love (again) with something beyond this place or the man I married. I fell in love with the connection between people who hadn’t known each other before, but liked each other enough to keep talking about these new friends long after they had gone their separate ways. Presumably addresses were exchanged. Certainly two friends connected through our blog and were looking forward to meeting each other. Kathleen did you meet Josseline?
So I find myself considering connections. And disconnections.
How is it that the international and electronic community can connect us, or seem to, when we don’t make time for those who live and work next door? I was startled when friends from this tiny town told me they don’t “visit” anymore for fear of interrupting someone’s work.
How have video chats on the I-pad made up for what is missing in the real communities we live and work in? This is not a new question. Certainly it is easier to simply push a few keys and know that someone has been looking for you, leaving a message, or just “lurking” on your blog. It requires little expenditure of energy and it isn’t time sensitive. But architectural theorist Christopher Alexander said 30 years ago, the result is a kind of “social anomie.”
IMHO (:->), I think something beyond Herb and I happened on the 25th. Too many people have called, and written both paper and electronic messages telling us that this was a day that mattered to them and that they were glad to have been there… and wait!… that it had an impact on their own lives. Maybe it was the amazing weather or the view or the food, but…maybe the connection that Herb and I celebrated made other connections happen. And maybe there is a way to keep that going.
Herb is now in a meeting in Boston, considering the meaning of “independence from organizational dysfunction.” I am ensconced in a chair in the living room, with the computer in my lap. I could go visit a friend, but my work is at the computer keyboard.
H and I are in different places today, disconnected. But we are trying to reconnect, to live in one community- a place where connections are made that matter in large and small ways. And some of that is geographic, and some of it is based in deep values no matter how anyone votes or worships. And yes, the geography can make the connections possible--small townspeople in rough climates have to depend on each other when they go off the road and there is no cell service. But geography is not enough. Our friend Amanda lives in a small town where people don’t support each other. And connections can happen in the city at the dog run. Either way, both require the opportunity, to see each other frequently and spontaneously, and maybe the opportunity to “break bread.” And the time. And the sense that your presence there makes a difference, even if you “only just” stopped in. But increasingly, rural people are also finding that they are overwhelmed. I have been thinking about something I am temporarily calling “rural burnout.”
Middletown Springs has an active community life with the Historical Society and the Library and the churches and the school. People say that they move here for these opportunities. But as we increasingly have to do two jobs, or work after work, there is less time for volunteering, less time to take a walk, less time to simply see the place and the people. Potlucks are the flowering of the well sown seed, but are they enough? Our wedding was effectively an elaborate potluck with a lot of hands helping. Was it more? We will only know that over time when we see if those connections sprouted. But to do so, they will need nurturing. And Herb and I are wondering how to do that.
I met Herb’s brothers for the first time, 20 days ago, and he saw them for the first time in 8 years. We will be visiting them as soon as possible. A connection.
Last Friday, we went to the funeral for a friend’s son. He had been in and out of jail and drug programs, and one of those who spoke for him said, “I met him in jail when I was new and the others were trying to take my pants. He told them they’d have to fight both of us. And wherever I was sent, he was already there.” A connection of a different sort.
We received a congratulations card on my engagement, and another on the marriage, from someone I only know by seeing her walk with her husband on the same route I take. We had a terrific conversation on the phone today. “I thought of your mother and how happy she must have been. Our son is 40 and shows no indication of ….” I will be inviting them over for wine and cheese soon. “I miss seeing you walking. Would you consider joining ‘Bone Builders’ again,” she asked, referring to the exercise group that meets twice a week at the church. A connection.
There was an old one-liner when I used to live in New York… I can’t be your friend, unless someone dies or moves away. There isn’t any room in the calendar for someone new.
Herb asked last night, “How do we keep the connections going”? I don’t yet have that answer, but the answer isn’t just a potluck or a wedding. It most certainly isn’t living in two different states. It most certainly isn’t depending on the computer, though this blog appears to be creating a kind of community of readers.
I will be going to Bone Builders soon – that much is for sure- and baking for the next event at the Library or the Historical Society. But we need more to build that connection back, to take it back from the electronic media. Herb and I think this is the right geography. We always have something in the fridge for “breaking bread.” We hope you will “interrupt” our day by visiting. We have issued an open invitation to use the little room under the eaves if you need a place to get away (if you don’t mind the mice!). But the rest is …”under construction.”
Ed's Story
Hi, everybody. I'm Ed, the cat. Simon is a cat too, but he's the other one. He's a pain sometimes; he hogs everything. But I like him. (Don't say that to anybody!)
So days and nights ago, Mom and Dad did this thing where they locked us in the middle room upstairs. It's like this tiny little room, like we were having a time-out because we did something bad. WHICH WE DID NOT! And then all these people came over, like the whole back yard full. And they put up this weird tent thing, but it was a stupid tent because it didn't have any sides, so like chipmunks and bugs could get in... but all these people sat around in chairs outside under this tent thing that wasn't a tent. When I get to go outside, I look for chipmunks, but nobody seemed to be doing that.
They were eating, though.
Everybody stayed until really late, and then they went away and we got out of the room. That was good, but then the next day, Mom told Dad to go away and then she had all these ladies over. They stayed outside too, but they didn't go under the tent thing. Then everybody left. They left us some food, so that was okay. Mom and Dad came back like really late, and they had a ton of presents, which they didn't open. That's stupid. When I get a present, I open it right away. Like, that's the POINT, right?
Then the next day, another ton of people came over and stayed around outside. Some of them were in the tent thing, and some of them weren't. Like, are you going to USE this thing, or just have it around? There were people there all day. The blinking lights on the stove started out at 943, and then went to 1259 and then back to 100 like they always do (I don't know why the stove can't count past 1259... like, it should say 1260, and then 1261, but it's like a dumb little child that can't count and always gets to a particular point and then has to start over at 100) and then back all the way up until 1049. That's a lot of numbers; I was tired. And then Mom and Dad did the dishes until the lights went up to 1259 and then back to 100 again (dumb stove) and all the way to 208.
And then they went to bed, but in the morning, more people came over and stayed some more. Dad took the trash away. I like when he does that, he always smells really cool when he comes home. And then they all went away, and Mom and Dad did more dishes. It was nice that all these people came over, because some of them rubbed my belly (YAY!) and the house smelled like pig. Mom and Dad never eat pig, so somebody else must have brought it. We didn't get any, but like I say, pig smelled kind of good too. Mom's breath smelled like pig for days. I'm like, what's up with THAT?! But I don't ask questions. To each her own, you know?
And then Mom and Dad were together for a lot of days. That was nice. They seemed really happy. And I was happy, because there was always somebody there to rub my belly (YAY!) and Dad didn't seem all whacked out like he does most of the time. He's a nice guy, but he gets distracted and forgets to pet me. But he petted me a lot for a lot of days. But then he had to go away again, for a lot of days and nights. But our friends Mo and Will came by. They're mice. We had a good time, talked for a while, played runaround. Mom seemed upset. Doesn't she WANT us to have our friends over? Jeez.
Then Mom put us in the car. I HATE the car! It's loud and bumpy and we have like even less space than in that little room upstairs, plus when you look out the window, it's like everyone is throwing things at the window really fast. BIG THINGS, like trees and other cars and stuff! But then we got to Dad's house, which is okay but like there's no chipmunks or anything, and Dad won't ever take us outside. And now Mom's gone. I don't understand why one or the other of them goes away all the time... they seem to like each other when they're together. And now Dad's on the computer thing like he always is, so even though I'm lying on the floor next to his chair, I might as well be in like Toledo for all the attention I'm getting. I mean, look at me! I'm lying on my back with all four paws in the air... irresistable, you'd think, but no, he's just going to sit there and type stuff. I want to throw a paper ball at him sometimes!
Anyway, I thought I should tell you some of what the rest of the family thinks about all this stuff. Sorry I went on for so long; cats don't Tweet (duh!).
So days and nights ago, Mom and Dad did this thing where they locked us in the middle room upstairs. It's like this tiny little room, like we were having a time-out because we did something bad. WHICH WE DID NOT! And then all these people came over, like the whole back yard full. And they put up this weird tent thing, but it was a stupid tent because it didn't have any sides, so like chipmunks and bugs could get in... but all these people sat around in chairs outside under this tent thing that wasn't a tent. When I get to go outside, I look for chipmunks, but nobody seemed to be doing that.
They were eating, though.
Everybody stayed until really late, and then they went away and we got out of the room. That was good, but then the next day, Mom told Dad to go away and then she had all these ladies over. They stayed outside too, but they didn't go under the tent thing. Then everybody left. They left us some food, so that was okay. Mom and Dad came back like really late, and they had a ton of presents, which they didn't open. That's stupid. When I get a present, I open it right away. Like, that's the POINT, right?
Then the next day, another ton of people came over and stayed around outside. Some of them were in the tent thing, and some of them weren't. Like, are you going to USE this thing, or just have it around? There were people there all day. The blinking lights on the stove started out at 943, and then went to 1259 and then back to 100 like they always do (I don't know why the stove can't count past 1259... like, it should say 1260, and then 1261, but it's like a dumb little child that can't count and always gets to a particular point and then has to start over at 100) and then back all the way up until 1049. That's a lot of numbers; I was tired. And then Mom and Dad did the dishes until the lights went up to 1259 and then back to 100 again (dumb stove) and all the way to 208.
And then they went to bed, but in the morning, more people came over and stayed some more. Dad took the trash away. I like when he does that, he always smells really cool when he comes home. And then they all went away, and Mom and Dad did more dishes. It was nice that all these people came over, because some of them rubbed my belly (YAY!) and the house smelled like pig. Mom and Dad never eat pig, so somebody else must have brought it. We didn't get any, but like I say, pig smelled kind of good too. Mom's breath smelled like pig for days. I'm like, what's up with THAT?! But I don't ask questions. To each her own, you know?
And then Mom and Dad were together for a lot of days. That was nice. They seemed really happy. And I was happy, because there was always somebody there to rub my belly (YAY!) and Dad didn't seem all whacked out like he does most of the time. He's a nice guy, but he gets distracted and forgets to pet me. But he petted me a lot for a lot of days. But then he had to go away again, for a lot of days and nights. But our friends Mo and Will came by. They're mice. We had a good time, talked for a while, played runaround. Mom seemed upset. Doesn't she WANT us to have our friends over? Jeez.
Then Mom put us in the car. I HATE the car! It's loud and bumpy and we have like even less space than in that little room upstairs, plus when you look out the window, it's like everyone is throwing things at the window really fast. BIG THINGS, like trees and other cars and stuff! But then we got to Dad's house, which is okay but like there's no chipmunks or anything, and Dad won't ever take us outside. And now Mom's gone. I don't understand why one or the other of them goes away all the time... they seem to like each other when they're together. And now Dad's on the computer thing like he always is, so even though I'm lying on the floor next to his chair, I might as well be in like Toledo for all the attention I'm getting. I mean, look at me! I'm lying on my back with all four paws in the air... irresistable, you'd think, but no, he's just going to sit there and type stuff. I want to throw a paper ball at him sometimes!
Anyway, I thought I should tell you some of what the rest of the family thinks about all this stuff. Sorry I went on for so long; cats don't Tweet (duh!).
Specificity
As Nora and I are plotting out our economic path, we're looking at what others have done in related kinds of work. And for the most part, as I see what other companies do, I don't trust them even a little bit. There's SO MUCH business-speak, complex ideas crammed into one meager package. How can I trust someone to be a sensitive, contextual, thoughtful partner when every sentence is packed with meaningless marketing phrases like innovative and best-in-class and no longer optional? The business cheerleaders move into cliche generation with remarkable pace and alacrity.
They must really think we're stupid.
The reason why Nora and I are good at the kinds of work we've done is because we're captivated by the specific. We listen to the exact words that people use. We notice the things they have on their walls. We know how to read beliefs and decisions through physical objects like clothes and truck bumpers and decoration.
And we also know that categories aren't always helpful. "Teenagers," for example, are a multitude—divided by music and activities and social class and economic conditions and rural-suburban-metropolitan communities and a dozen other major groupings. To "make something that teenagers want" is to fail.
But "to make something that teenagers want" is the goal of most of the people who might hire us to help them think about young people. The single solution is what they want; but multiple, smaller, specific outcomes are what they really need. Most organizations are still set up to provide one thing really well to one group; we want to help organizations provide many things pretty well to a lot of groups.
Nora's going down to New York this afternoon for a meeting tomorrow about teaching her course at FIT this fall. She's also teaching two courses at the BAC, as am I. Plus my regular job. Plus writing, putting on workshops, doing consulting with other schools, helping a friend with a real-estate development plan... We joked about calling our company Intellectual Piecework. We do a hundred things, pretty well, for anybody. It's a lot of work. Making one thing and perfecting it and selling it ten million times would be a lot easier, if we believed in it.
They must really think we're stupid.
The reason why Nora and I are good at the kinds of work we've done is because we're captivated by the specific. We listen to the exact words that people use. We notice the things they have on their walls. We know how to read beliefs and decisions through physical objects like clothes and truck bumpers and decoration.
And we also know that categories aren't always helpful. "Teenagers," for example, are a multitude—divided by music and activities and social class and economic conditions and rural-suburban-metropolitan communities and a dozen other major groupings. To "make something that teenagers want" is to fail.
But "to make something that teenagers want" is the goal of most of the people who might hire us to help them think about young people. The single solution is what they want; but multiple, smaller, specific outcomes are what they really need. Most organizations are still set up to provide one thing really well to one group; we want to help organizations provide many things pretty well to a lot of groups.
Nora's going down to New York this afternoon for a meeting tomorrow about teaching her course at FIT this fall. She's also teaching two courses at the BAC, as am I. Plus my regular job. Plus writing, putting on workshops, doing consulting with other schools, helping a friend with a real-estate development plan... We joked about calling our company Intellectual Piecework. We do a hundred things, pretty well, for anybody. It's a lot of work. Making one thing and perfecting it and selling it ten million times would be a lot easier, if we believed in it.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
What Shape Are Our Lives?
I was able to leave work at a reasonable time this evening, so I made the trip home, dropped off my briefcase and picked up my cue case, and got back in the car for a trip to World Class Billiards up in Peabody. (My next door neighbor was leaving at the same time, and she rolled down the car window. "What have you got there? Is that a bow and arrows?" If you don't play pool, you probably wouldn't recognize a cue case. It gets opened by TSA every time I try to take it on an airplane...) I haven't played nearly enough lately, maybe a total of ten hours or so in the past two months. I used to play that much in a week when Sacco's was still open.
Anyway, I was driving north on I-95 and listening to NPR like the good liberal I am, and they did a story on a new release of a very old record. When Motown Records moved from Detroit to LA in the early '70s, making the transition from The Supremes/The Temptations/Smokey Robinson to Diana Ross/The Jackson 5/The Commodores, they spawned a number of small sub-labels: VIP Records, Rare Earth Records, and their original LA label, MoWest. There's a new anthology of MoWest songs just re-released, and it takes its name from a song by one of their artists, Odyssey. That song, and this record, are called "Our Lives are Shaped by What We Love."
And I think that's true, but only if we make it true. Our lives can be shaped by what we despise. Our lives can be shaped by what we fear. Our lives can be shaped by what we think we need. Our lives can be shaped by what other people tell us.
Or our lives can be shaped by what we love.
Last night, I was home from work and scarcely able to move. Our friend Ursula once commented on a line from my second book—"There were a lot of evenings when I went home and did nothing." That was Wednesday. But I watched a taped pool match on the DVR, with Karen Corr playing really well to win a tournament against Helena Thornfeldt. And I suddenly saw the table in a new way. I knew what ball was next to be shot; I saw what pockets it could or could not be made in; I saw where the cue ball would have to land to make each of those possible shots; and I understood the relative ease or difficulty of getting the cue ball to each of those places, and thus which choice was most likely successful. It was a revelation, a sudden understanding. "Oh, so THAT's how you make decisions when playing position..." It was like someone sent me the next chapter of the textbook.
So when I went to play tonight, I actually looked forward to practicing 9-ball, a game I usually don't care for. And although there's plenty of rust on my shooting, I played really well in a genre that has been uninspiring to me.
Our lives are shaped by what we love.
I'm feeling like I'm getting closer to understanding how to play position on my own life as well. Marrying Nora has been a revelation, the arrival of the next chapter. So now how do I get from there to Vermont, to writing, to independence from organizational dysfunction? I don't know entirely, but I feel like I understand the layout in ways that I didn't even a month ago.
Anyway, I was driving north on I-95 and listening to NPR like the good liberal I am, and they did a story on a new release of a very old record. When Motown Records moved from Detroit to LA in the early '70s, making the transition from The Supremes/The Temptations/Smokey Robinson to Diana Ross/The Jackson 5/The Commodores, they spawned a number of small sub-labels: VIP Records, Rare Earth Records, and their original LA label, MoWest. There's a new anthology of MoWest songs just re-released, and it takes its name from a song by one of their artists, Odyssey. That song, and this record, are called "Our Lives are Shaped by What We Love."
And I think that's true, but only if we make it true. Our lives can be shaped by what we despise. Our lives can be shaped by what we fear. Our lives can be shaped by what we think we need. Our lives can be shaped by what other people tell us.
Or our lives can be shaped by what we love.
Last night, I was home from work and scarcely able to move. Our friend Ursula once commented on a line from my second book—"There were a lot of evenings when I went home and did nothing." That was Wednesday. But I watched a taped pool match on the DVR, with Karen Corr playing really well to win a tournament against Helena Thornfeldt. And I suddenly saw the table in a new way. I knew what ball was next to be shot; I saw what pockets it could or could not be made in; I saw where the cue ball would have to land to make each of those possible shots; and I understood the relative ease or difficulty of getting the cue ball to each of those places, and thus which choice was most likely successful. It was a revelation, a sudden understanding. "Oh, so THAT's how you make decisions when playing position..." It was like someone sent me the next chapter of the textbook.
So when I went to play tonight, I actually looked forward to practicing 9-ball, a game I usually don't care for. And although there's plenty of rust on my shooting, I played really well in a genre that has been uninspiring to me.
Our lives are shaped by what we love.
I'm feeling like I'm getting closer to understanding how to play position on my own life as well. Marrying Nora has been a revelation, the arrival of the next chapter. So now how do I get from there to Vermont, to writing, to independence from organizational dysfunction? I don't know entirely, but I feel like I understand the layout in ways that I didn't even a month ago.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
A typical American marriage
So as H has already said, I was up ‘til 1:45 Monday morning watching the cat and mouse rodeo. Simon had the bugger in his mouth and then as all the stories say, he decided to drop it and play with it rather than kill it which, being a pacifist, I applauded, until I realized that I really didn’t want it in the house, and that he was the best equipped to dispatch it… but HOW? I couldn’t let him out in the ‘oh! so dark night’… he’d just run off and become a plaything for a coyote or a fox. I can just see Simon in the coyote’s mouth, tail and head drooping, just as the mouse drooped out either side of Simon’s mouth. (Do you remember the old song about the old lady who swallowed a fly? And then a bird to catch the fly? And then a cat to catch the bird?) Well, anyway, I was in a quandary.
So the mouse ran under various pieces of furniture, Simon vaulted over Ed a few times while in hot pursuit. The mouse went nose-to-nose with Ed at least once (really! Nose-to-nose!) and ran into his hip as Herb has said. Ed turned out to have quite a bit of pointer in him, and was quite effective at staring at the spot where the mouse was contemplating existence. But frankly, I was better at identifying exactly where the mouse was hiding, lifting a piece of wood from the winter’s stock beside the wood stove, moving the wood box or my grandmother’s 4 foot high Atwater-Kent radio, and playing a kind of macabre ‘catch-and-release.’ At one point, Ed lay on the floor pointing at a tiny black mouse for at least 20 minutes… and they were only about 18 inches apart. So having moved all the furniture “out of the way” by layering chairs on top of the sleigh bed, and tables on top of chairs, I had expertly accomplished nothing except to make the room a mess.
Then everyone got pretty bored with the game. Simon went to sleep on the sleigh bed with his head across a table leg, Ed rolled over on his side for a snooze, and I put out “have-a-heart” traps baited with peanut butter and crashed in the too warm bedroom rather than sleep in the air conditioned living room that had been the fulcrum of the activity.
Last night, I got familiar myself with a mouse (this one, brown) on top of the fridge. It was chewing on the bag of rice I had put up there temporarily while I was planning dinner, about 15 minutes after I had stowed it there in contemplation of getting it into one of its storage boxes.
So here’s my question… if a mouse shows NO fear of cats or people and it hangs out eating raw brown rice, what is one to do? I am not fast enough to catch it, and the cats have become quite complacent about it. I have taken the winter wood box out of the house as the mouse was running behind it. (Actually “the” mouse is at least two since the brown mouse is definitely different than the black mouse that was communing with Ed (‘What’s your sign, man?’ or ‘What do you think of that Murdoch story’? )
Herb has suggested a paint gun so I will know how many there are - “oh yes, it is the yellow one,” “or the green one” or … Oddly, I don’t find that suggestion particularly helpful except as interior decoration advice. (“Gee I wonder if I should color coordinate the mouse with the color scheme of the room where it hangs out?” Too much time in an Interior Design program?)
So, I have put out peanut butter baited traps. I have vacuumed and replaced the furniture. I have stowed the excess cat food cans and put the extra cat food in the fridge…So here’s the philosophical question…
Are you ready?
If there’s a mouse in the house (or mice) and it shows no fear…
If there are cats in the house and they treat the mouse like a video game…
If the mouse is on top of the fridge supervising my cooking while eating its ingredients…
What’s a wife to do?
I think I need my huh…huh…husband! Isn’t that what marriage is for?
But wait!… He’s thinking about paint guns rather than eradication. So the “real American” marriage begins.
Your advice would be most welcome.
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