Swimming has taken over our life. We are at the pool four days a week. Each girl swims three times, M from 5-6:30, E from 5-6. On Mondays, only M swims, and E and I go home. On Thursdays, only E swims, and M and I hang out, because home is not worth the drive for an hour. On Tuesday and Friday, I have an hour to myself, before I go get E at 6, shower her in the locker room, and wait for M to be done.
This would be a great time to work, except that Swimming Town is pretty much bereft of places to go--the library is a possibility, but down an annoying rush hour road, and I hear there is a Starbucks in the other direction which M and I are going to look into tomorrow, but that's about it. So lately I've been using that time to go for a walk, or to run, which are actually lovely ways to use the time, except soon it's going to be dark, but I'm sure it's the kind of neighborhood where I can walk in the dark, only then it will be cold, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.
One place my walks and runs have taken me is the Swimming Town cemetery which is huge and beautiful and strikingly still in action. We have a cemetery a few blocks from our house where we ride bikes and play hide-and-seek. There are a few newish graves, and some graves have flowers, but mainly it is pretty 19th/20th century, and feels very much like the past, which is how I think of cemeteries.
But in Swimming Town, the cemetery, which is really quite vast, goes back at least to the early 19th century, and maybe further--I haven't fully investigated the little fenced off plot which seems to have the oldest graves--but it also has plots for all the 20th century wars (haven't seen an Iraq war section--that would totally make me lose it), and yesterday in the far corner I saw a lot of 2005s, and there are big swaths of lawn for the future.
I often see runners and dog walkers there, but I also always see cars at graves, and people standing by graves, so it is a very present kind of place. Yesterday, I saw a new grave covered with flower arrangements. There were pictures of a one-year-old boy propped against the stone, which had the name and dates of a grandmother. I hope it was the grandfather who died, and the pictures of the boy were just to keep him company, but somehow I don't think so.
Death is my greatest (and omnipresent) fear, and the idea of the full disappearance that cremation entails is just too much for me, so I know I want to be buried. But where?
In this day and age, cemeteries so often seem so abandoned. My grandparents are buried somewhere in the outer reaches of New York City, one set, I think, in New York, the other in New Jersey. We only go when someone else needs to be buried, and now I think everyone who will be buried there is gone, so I wonder if we will ever go again. Certainly not if I don't even know where they are. L is in a beautiful cemetery in City, perhaps the most beautiful cemetery in the world, but I don't know if D, E, and L ever go. We don't, though now that I think of it, maybe we will, I'd like to show the girls that cemetery, and have them know that L is there.
People move away and leave their dead behind. But not so much in Swimming Town, it seems.
I suppose this is the kind of problem we should think about in advance, but it's just so hard.
Edited to add: This post has nothing to do with Halloween. It's just what I was thinking about yesterday afternoon as I ran through the cemetery. Then I posted it, and then I saw something else and remembered again that it was Halloween (how I could forget, given my children's excitement, is a sign of my true lack of interest).
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Little Women
E has been reading M's copies of Beth's Story and Meg's Story from the Portraits of Little Women series--and you probably already know this, but my position on prequels, sequels, and abridgements is that they are A-OK, so long as they are upfront about their status, and E's reading of these is a perfect case in point: she really is not ready for the full book, and I think in fact is next going to tackle the abridgement that was my childhood copy, which I only realized was abridged when I went to read it to M when she was around seven, but she--now we're back to E--is falling in love with Little Women, and these books will bridge her right to the real thing, just like the Little House picture books led her into the novels.
But this post is not about literary principle, it's about Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy, and more broadly about sisterly attributes.
Of course the question of which sister E resembles came up, it is sort of an innate kind of thing, there must be a gene attached to the gene for reading which is the gene for identification and sorting of real people by fictional characters. But at any rate E asked which sister I thought she was like, and I said Beth--not that she is musical or sickly, but that she is very alert and somewhat shy and gentle--except when she's not, oh my god, did I just call E, the feral maniac child, gentle? OK, but this actually supports my point: E said that she thought she was like Amy, and we did not have time to get into why, and I'm sure it has nothing to do with pickled limes, but I said I thought she was a combination of Amy and Beth (spoiled, baby of the family, observant, loving), and then we started talking about M, and realized that she is a combination of Meg and Jo (loves fashion, domestic, responsible, adventurous).
And that made me think that perhaps there are a series of sisterly attributes, or perhaps I should say sibling attributes, and if there are only two of you, they sort out among the two of you, and if there are four of you, they sort out among the four of you, kind of like differentiation of labor--is that even a real thing? You know, if there's one person in the restaurant, they cook and serve and do dishes. If there are two, one cooks and one serves and probably they both do dishes. Three: cook, serve, dishes. With four, you get to divide up the cooking. At seven, probably, you get a host.
Then again, when you get to a dozen siblings, I think the characteristics start to double up, like in Cheaper by the Dozen, where the kids are in groups: big sisters, little boys, etc.
Anyway, just a thought.
But this post is not about literary principle, it's about Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy, and more broadly about sisterly attributes.
Of course the question of which sister E resembles came up, it is sort of an innate kind of thing, there must be a gene attached to the gene for reading which is the gene for identification and sorting of real people by fictional characters. But at any rate E asked which sister I thought she was like, and I said Beth--not that she is musical or sickly, but that she is very alert and somewhat shy and gentle--except when she's not, oh my god, did I just call E, the feral maniac child, gentle? OK, but this actually supports my point: E said that she thought she was like Amy, and we did not have time to get into why, and I'm sure it has nothing to do with pickled limes, but I said I thought she was a combination of Amy and Beth (spoiled, baby of the family, observant, loving), and then we started talking about M, and realized that she is a combination of Meg and Jo (loves fashion, domestic, responsible, adventurous).
And that made me think that perhaps there are a series of sisterly attributes, or perhaps I should say sibling attributes, and if there are only two of you, they sort out among the two of you, and if there are four of you, they sort out among the four of you, kind of like differentiation of labor--is that even a real thing? You know, if there's one person in the restaurant, they cook and serve and do dishes. If there are two, one cooks and one serves and probably they both do dishes. Three: cook, serve, dishes. With four, you get to divide up the cooking. At seven, probably, you get a host.
Then again, when you get to a dozen siblings, I think the characteristics start to double up, like in Cheaper by the Dozen, where the kids are in groups: big sisters, little boys, etc.
Anyway, just a thought.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Aesthetics
I grew up under a regime of modernism. Mies, Wright, the Glass House: that was architecture. Our kitchen table was Saarinen (white laminate--it's in my basement, waiting till we renovate the kitchen) and the chairs were Thonet (black with padded seat--in the attic) (I look at the prices on those today and gasp). My dad built our bookcases and beds--boxes with mattresses on them, I have never slept on a box spring--and painted them in red and blue lacquer. Marimekko was the house fabric (we got one of these nightgowns every Hanukkah--me, my sister, and my mother) (again, the prices!).
Antiques were for people we didn't know. Rich people. People in the country. I couldn't imagine why people wanted antiques, or what they did with them (how ironic that modernism is now vintage).
I shouldn't say regime, because that sounds like oppression, which it wasn't for me (perhaps for my mother, who embraced ethnic folklorica after the divorce, but I was gone by that point). Modernism is another part of my childhood which inhabits me, or perhaps, I should say, which I inhabit. Sometimes my modernism is indistinguishable from minimalism: I have slept on a mattress on the floor in more homes than I'm willing to admit. I suppose you could also call it cheap, which is, of course, its own irony. I built my first bed--a box with a mattress. These days I sleep for the first time on a bed with a headboard, but it's just a slanted piece of wood above a platform.
Our kitchen table is butcher block, our dining room table is Danish, we are too lazy to build our own bookshelves, especially because we need so many, but we buy plain shelves from the unfinished wood store and stain them oak. M and E have the red and blue lacquered shelves, and E's dresser is a plain square, lacquered green. Our dishes are plain, as is our cutlery, though we do have a nice collection of funky martini glasses (but isn't that just the decorative side of modernism?).
Though I was something of a hippie when I was young, and had my share of vintage (when vintage was the 40s), for a long time now my clothes have had the simplest of lines and vary as far as solids, stripes, and flowers, though at least I am no longer monochromatic in black. I can manage pleats, but shirrs and flounces make me cringe (on me--I love them on other people, and I try them on, but I just can't do it).
I do, in theory, love rambling Victorian houses, my grandmother's china with the gilt rims and violets, and billowy canopy beds. But those loves remain theoretical, except at seder.
Lately, though, my friends have been pushing me into new aesthetic realms. I need a bag--my current bags are a vertical rectangular turquoise leather tote, big enough for a folder, but not a laptop, and a horizontal rectangular orange canvas tote, big enough for the kitchen sink, but finally too dilapidated for anything but the beach. A is going to make me a bag. She has come up with this and these, and I am in ecstasy. I need a website, and Local K insists on designing it. I envisioned white space and monochromes, but she has come up with colors and textures and off-centeredness, and I love it.
My guess is, these new loves could be assimilated into a broad conception of modernism, crossed with retro, which of course modernism now is. But I think my point is not about aesthetics after all, but about the value of trusting other people's judgements, especially when your own are so consistently limited.
This is, perhaps, the most elitist post in the history of this blog.
Antiques were for people we didn't know. Rich people. People in the country. I couldn't imagine why people wanted antiques, or what they did with them (how ironic that modernism is now vintage).
I shouldn't say regime, because that sounds like oppression, which it wasn't for me (perhaps for my mother, who embraced ethnic folklorica after the divorce, but I was gone by that point). Modernism is another part of my childhood which inhabits me, or perhaps, I should say, which I inhabit. Sometimes my modernism is indistinguishable from minimalism: I have slept on a mattress on the floor in more homes than I'm willing to admit. I suppose you could also call it cheap, which is, of course, its own irony. I built my first bed--a box with a mattress. These days I sleep for the first time on a bed with a headboard, but it's just a slanted piece of wood above a platform.
Our kitchen table is butcher block, our dining room table is Danish, we are too lazy to build our own bookshelves, especially because we need so many, but we buy plain shelves from the unfinished wood store and stain them oak. M and E have the red and blue lacquered shelves, and E's dresser is a plain square, lacquered green. Our dishes are plain, as is our cutlery, though we do have a nice collection of funky martini glasses (but isn't that just the decorative side of modernism?).
Though I was something of a hippie when I was young, and had my share of vintage (when vintage was the 40s), for a long time now my clothes have had the simplest of lines and vary as far as solids, stripes, and flowers, though at least I am no longer monochromatic in black. I can manage pleats, but shirrs and flounces make me cringe (on me--I love them on other people, and I try them on, but I just can't do it).
I do, in theory, love rambling Victorian houses, my grandmother's china with the gilt rims and violets, and billowy canopy beds. But those loves remain theoretical, except at seder.
Lately, though, my friends have been pushing me into new aesthetic realms. I need a bag--my current bags are a vertical rectangular turquoise leather tote, big enough for a folder, but not a laptop, and a horizontal rectangular orange canvas tote, big enough for the kitchen sink, but finally too dilapidated for anything but the beach. A is going to make me a bag. She has come up with this and these, and I am in ecstasy. I need a website, and Local K insists on designing it. I envisioned white space and monochromes, but she has come up with colors and textures and off-centeredness, and I love it.
My guess is, these new loves could be assimilated into a broad conception of modernism, crossed with retro, which of course modernism now is. But I think my point is not about aesthetics after all, but about the value of trusting other people's judgements, especially when your own are so consistently limited.
This is, perhaps, the most elitist post in the history of this blog.
Favorite Post-Game Quote So Far
"Year after year," Henry said, "the Yankees will be Halliburton." [link]
If he had just gotten Britney, George Eliot, and Dave Alvin in there, this blog would no longer need to exist.
If he had just gotten Britney, George Eliot, and Dave Alvin in there, this blog would no longer need to exist.
Good Times Never Seemed So Good
So good! So good! So good!
Actually, I'm one of the people who thinks it was better last time. Or at least, I was more thrilled last time. But in the bottom of the 9th, after we'd woken the girls up to see the end of the game, as Papelbon ground out those outs (don't you think that inning was a metaphor for the whole season?! we're ahead, but it's close, and it's still nerve-wracking, and then we play kick-ass ball and WE DO IT! I'm still an old school sucker for nail-biting), I was pretty damn happy.
Yes, it's good the second time.
And now I am ready for a baseball break.
Except there are two small matters that need to be taken care of:
1. Mike Lowell--Yes. Yes! YES!!! (World Series MVP?! Come on Theo, just do it.)
2. A-Rod--No. No. Please please please please, put away your charts and statistics, and just say no.
(But what I really want to know is, did Beckett dance with Papelbon?)
Edited to add: I guess not, but man, I love this team.
Actually, I'm one of the people who thinks it was better last time. Or at least, I was more thrilled last time. But in the bottom of the 9th, after we'd woken the girls up to see the end of the game, as Papelbon ground out those outs (don't you think that inning was a metaphor for the whole season?! we're ahead, but it's close, and it's still nerve-wracking, and then we play kick-ass ball and WE DO IT! I'm still an old school sucker for nail-biting), I was pretty damn happy.
Yes, it's good the second time.
And now I am ready for a baseball break.
Except there are two small matters that need to be taken care of:
1. Mike Lowell--Yes. Yes! YES!!! (World Series MVP?! Come on Theo, just do it.)
2. A-Rod--No. No. Please please please please, put away your charts and statistics, and just say no.
(But what I really want to know is, did Beckett dance with Papelbon?)
Edited to add: I guess not, but man, I love this team.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
My Little Paragon of Self Awareness
E (after weeping all the way home from an apparently unsatisfactory evening at a friend's house): I know why I'm crying. Because I'm hungry.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Defensiveness in the Face of the Liberal Media
Defensiveness Stimulus #1: Alice Waters
It started with the Times magazine and the piece about the single mother browbeaten into cooking a la Alice. And I first got defensive on poor Kelly's blog. Here's the thing: I'm all about Alice, truly. And I do a lot of what she wants us to do: I go to the farmer's market, and I know lots of farmers, and, oh, I don't know what all she wants us to do, eat organic, have family meals, I do all that stuff. But still, I am not good enough, because my children eat six pounds of frozen peas a week, and I want to make my food fast, and I want to use my microwave, and the bottom line is: cooking is not my meditation, I do not like to cook, I value lots of things, like I even value cleaning the sink, but my meditation is going for a walk or a run, and my life really does have meaning and I'm sorry, Alice, I'm sorry!! REALLY, I AM SORRY! Can you just leave me alone with my quesadillas now?
[Here's the quote that set me off:
Get out of that mind-set and tell yourself cooking is a meditation. I like to do it. It's relaxing for me to come home -- it truly is! -- and wash the salad. I love to see the salad in the sink. To spin the salad. I like to dry it. I like to pound to make a vinaigrette with my mortar and pestle. I enjoy grinding coffee and putting it in the filter and warming up the milk. It's part of a ritual that gives my life meaning and beauty.
Bah.]
Defensiveness Stimulus #2: Corinne Maier
I know, you've never heard of her. She's French, that's why. She's French, and she wrote a book about how women shouldn't have children. And I say bully for her, right on, you go girl. The contemporary pressure for maternity is absurd, as is the fetishization of the baby, not to mention the fertility industry (go find your own links, you know where they are, you can start with Babble). Except, well, I always wanted to have children, and I like having children (except when I don't), and I think that even with children I'm doing pretty well on the feminist front.
Fine, you say, it's your choice to have children, and isn't feminism all about choice? Ah, but when it comes to other choices, I am not so sanguine, am I not? Changing names? Other choices I won't bring up so as not to rekindle old fires with dear friends? I insist, in those cases, that the perpetrators of choice must Acknowledge the Feminist Implications of Their Choices.
Yes, but I acknowledge the feminist implications of my choices, and I support Maier and my childless friends in their choices. Except, not so much. I mean, I am totally fine with people not having children who don't want children, but my ambivalent friends? I've been known to tell them it will be worth it. My unhappy friend who chose not to have children because it would interfere with her work? I think she made the wrong choice.
Can I reconcile my inconsistency? Should I just go hide in the dark cave of motherhood? Will I ever be able to show my face in France again? How about at French farmer's markets? With my children?
I think it's time to go to the supermarket and buy me a stack of tabloids and some chips.
It started with the Times magazine and the piece about the single mother browbeaten into cooking a la Alice. And I first got defensive on poor Kelly's blog. Here's the thing: I'm all about Alice, truly. And I do a lot of what she wants us to do: I go to the farmer's market, and I know lots of farmers, and, oh, I don't know what all she wants us to do, eat organic, have family meals, I do all that stuff. But still, I am not good enough, because my children eat six pounds of frozen peas a week, and I want to make my food fast, and I want to use my microwave, and the bottom line is: cooking is not my meditation, I do not like to cook, I value lots of things, like I even value cleaning the sink, but my meditation is going for a walk or a run, and my life really does have meaning and I'm sorry, Alice, I'm sorry!! REALLY, I AM SORRY! Can you just leave me alone with my quesadillas now?
[Here's the quote that set me off:
Get out of that mind-set and tell yourself cooking is a meditation. I like to do it. It's relaxing for me to come home -- it truly is! -- and wash the salad. I love to see the salad in the sink. To spin the salad. I like to dry it. I like to pound to make a vinaigrette with my mortar and pestle. I enjoy grinding coffee and putting it in the filter and warming up the milk. It's part of a ritual that gives my life meaning and beauty.
Bah.]
Defensiveness Stimulus #2: Corinne Maier
I know, you've never heard of her. She's French, that's why. She's French, and she wrote a book about how women shouldn't have children. And I say bully for her, right on, you go girl. The contemporary pressure for maternity is absurd, as is the fetishization of the baby, not to mention the fertility industry (go find your own links, you know where they are, you can start with Babble). Except, well, I always wanted to have children, and I like having children (except when I don't), and I think that even with children I'm doing pretty well on the feminist front.
Fine, you say, it's your choice to have children, and isn't feminism all about choice? Ah, but when it comes to other choices, I am not so sanguine, am I not? Changing names? Other choices I won't bring up so as not to rekindle old fires with dear friends? I insist, in those cases, that the perpetrators of choice must Acknowledge the Feminist Implications of Their Choices.
Yes, but I acknowledge the feminist implications of my choices, and I support Maier and my childless friends in their choices. Except, not so much. I mean, I am totally fine with people not having children who don't want children, but my ambivalent friends? I've been known to tell them it will be worth it. My unhappy friend who chose not to have children because it would interfere with her work? I think she made the wrong choice.
Can I reconcile my inconsistency? Should I just go hide in the dark cave of motherhood? Will I ever be able to show my face in France again? How about at French farmer's markets? With my children?
I think it's time to go to the supermarket and buy me a stack of tabloids and some chips.
Okajima and Papelbon
That's all I have to say.
Okajima and Papelbon.
It's worth saying again.
Okajima and Papelbon.
Time for bed.
Thanks to Okajima and Papelbon.
Okajima and Papelbon.
It's worth saying again.
Okajima and Papelbon.
Time for bed.
Thanks to Okajima and Papelbon.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Taco Bell? Taco Bell?
What is with the Fox announcer interviewing the Taco Bell dude in the stands, while Schilling is pitching?!? Do we now get product placement in our ball games? Who thought that was a good idea?
Oh yeah, it's Fox.
Oh yeah, it's Fox.
New Internet Addiction
My favorite game online.
My scores are usually in the top part of the middle, between 1/3 and 1/2 way down. The thing is, they use every word in the dictionary, and a lot of them are just collections of letters I've never seen before, and I know a lot of words. So I don't see how people get the top score, unless they play all the time and learn those ridiculous (non)words, or they just stab at all plausible collections of letters as fast as they can. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just not my thing. But I'm getting better, and I think this will only help me beat my brother-in-law and K and D's son by even bigger margins than I already do!
Because, you know, it's not like I don't have enough to do...
My scores are usually in the top part of the middle, between 1/3 and 1/2 way down. The thing is, they use every word in the dictionary, and a lot of them are just collections of letters I've never seen before, and I know a lot of words. So I don't see how people get the top score, unless they play all the time and learn those ridiculous (non)words, or they just stab at all plausible collections of letters as fast as they can. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just not my thing. But I'm getting better, and I think this will only help me beat my brother-in-law and K and D's son by even bigger margins than I already do!
Because, you know, it's not like I don't have enough to do...
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Amy Winehouse's new hit
(#2 on the British charts this week) rocks the world.
OK, you could call it a Mark Ronson hit, and it's a Zutons song, but I'm all for covers.
Here's the video which had me confused until I figured it out.
Here's audio.
Here's live and acoustic.
Every time I listen to it, any which way, chills run down my spine.
OK, you could call it a Mark Ronson hit, and it's a Zutons song, but I'm all for covers.
Here's the video which had me confused until I figured it out.
Here's audio.
Here's live and acoustic.
Every time I listen to it, any which way, chills run down my spine.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
A Whine
This was my ninth evening in a row of solo parenting.* And I was completely on my own from Wednesday before kids woke up to Sunday after they went to bed.** And I have had a semi-sick kid since Thursday morning (including E home most of Thursday and all of Friday). And I am so close to finishing a huge project, and all I want to do is work, but instead I am taking kids to swim team and making them dinner and supervising their homework and putting them to bed.
I am really sick of my kids. And I am not being very nice to them. And E is particularly high-spirited and chatty these days, and I just want her to shut up and finish her dinner. And M is mopey and not feeling well, and I am trying hard to be patient, but we both know I am failing.
And that's it.
*Necessary disclaimer to show I am aware of my privilege: Many parents are on their own all the time, and they have it much worse than I do. People whose houses are burning and people in Iraq have it worse too. But I'm just me, and this is how I have it.
**Factual disclaimer: There were grandparents involved on two of those nights, but I was still the only parent.
I am really sick of my kids. And I am not being very nice to them. And E is particularly high-spirited and chatty these days, and I just want her to shut up and finish her dinner. And M is mopey and not feeling well, and I am trying hard to be patient, but we both know I am failing.
And that's it.
*Necessary disclaimer to show I am aware of my privilege: Many parents are on their own all the time, and they have it much worse than I do. People whose houses are burning and people in Iraq have it worse too. But I'm just me, and this is how I have it.
**Factual disclaimer: There were grandparents involved on two of those nights, but I was still the only parent.
Papelbon Dances Again
The multiple layers of screen mediation on this one kind of boggle the mind, if one feels like thinking critically about postmodernism. But I don't.
Monday, October 22, 2007
By Special Request
This guy says what I was trying to say. This guy is full of it (and I'm just praying the Red Sox don't go after A-Rod, because if they do I will have some serious difficulties). And I don't know what Selena Roberts' problem is (uh, sour grapes?).
So, yeah, we did it. I have to say, I was much more gleeful on Saturday night than on Sunday. Sunday was a bit of a slog. Then Dustin Pedroia reminded us what's it all about. But the locker room celebration? Why did they present all the plaques in the locker room instead of on the field? So we could keep an eye on the popping champagne corks? You know how I feel about that. It all just felt a bit flatter than winning the division, which was kind of what I was trying to say too.
Then sometime this morning, and I don't remember when, probably while I was reading the umpteenth article (why the first or third or eighth article didn't do it, I don't know), but long after I opened my inbox to the thrilled emails, the excitement hit. WE DID IT!!!! And Dustin Pedroia is what it's all about.
(And Jacoby Ellsworth, who can't be more than 14, and Jonathan Papelbon, who I've decided is Bill Lee reincarnated, which totally works for me, and Coco Crisp, who so totally deserved those last two out of three outs, and Youk YOUK YOUK!!!!).
I love this team.
So, yeah, we did it. I have to say, I was much more gleeful on Saturday night than on Sunday. Sunday was a bit of a slog. Then Dustin Pedroia reminded us what's it all about. But the locker room celebration? Why did they present all the plaques in the locker room instead of on the field? So we could keep an eye on the popping champagne corks? You know how I feel about that. It all just felt a bit flatter than winning the division, which was kind of what I was trying to say too.
Then sometime this morning, and I don't remember when, probably while I was reading the umpteenth article (why the first or third or eighth article didn't do it, I don't know), but long after I opened my inbox to the thrilled emails, the excitement hit. WE DID IT!!!! And Dustin Pedroia is what it's all about.
(And Jacoby Ellsworth, who can't be more than 14, and Jonathan Papelbon, who I've decided is Bill Lee reincarnated, which totally works for me, and Coco Crisp, who so totally deserved those last two out of three outs, and Youk YOUK YOUK!!!!).
I love this team.
About Me, Cryptically
One thing about me is that I am hopelessly pessimistic. I am always certain that the worst will happen, even in circumstances where the worst is no big deal. Every single time I follow directions (I mean it: every single time), I'm sure they are wrong. I know the cake won't work. I won't get the job. Nobody will come to the party.
In my 43 years on the planet, this negativity has been disproved many more times than not, infinitely more times, in fact. So I have taken to keeping a constant IV of cognitive behavioral therapy dripping into my veins. I think I know things will not work out, I tell myself, but the high likelihood, given past performance, is that they will work out, so I must remember, I tell myself, that this is not what I KNOW but what I FEEL, so I proceed as if things will work out, even though I know that I feel they will not, and that my feeling feels like knowledge, and then they usually work out, and I am on to the next potential failure.
It works, most of the time, but it would be so much easier to see the world through the lens of sunny optimism.
Another thing about me is that I am certain that I Know Better. Than who? Than everyone.
Remember that scene in Broadcast News? Actually, it's two scenes.
The first scene is the one where Holly Hunter tells the cabdriver where to go. I used to always tell the cabdriver where to go--ON THAT EXACT SAME ROUTE. And then I thought, this is ridiculous, you are way too controlling, just let the damn cabdriver go, and he went hopelessly wrong and got us in terrible traffic on some convoluted route that cost way more than mine would have cost and took longer too.
The other scene is the one where William Hurt tells her, sarcastically, that it must be terrible to always know better than everyone, and she weeps and says, yes, yes, it is terrible. And I wept too (OK, maybe not, I'm not so much of a cryer [crier?] at movies, but I felt her pain, truly I did). Because it is terrible: you always know better, and people are always doing things wrong, and if you tell them how they could do it better, you are an ass, and if you don't tell them, you go crazy over how badly things are being done, and it's just terrible all around.
Now this is another one where I basically know the difference between what I KNOW and what I FEEL, but I won't explicate it, so I don't get twisted up in some other insane sentence, and I've learned, or rather, I'm learning, or at least, I'm trying, not to constantly proclaim to the world my Greater Knowledge of Everything. These days I am in fairly regular contact with someone who is certain they Know Better, and truly, it is excruciating to be around this person, and I hate to think that it could be excruciating to be around me, though I KNOW and FEEL that often it is.
At any rate, just as I am trying not to succumb to or articulate my general perspective of doom, I am trying not to force my Better Ways of Doing Just About Everything onto those around me, but can I just say that it is very, very difficult. Truly, it is.
Now, go cry for me, Argentina.
In my 43 years on the planet, this negativity has been disproved many more times than not, infinitely more times, in fact. So I have taken to keeping a constant IV of cognitive behavioral therapy dripping into my veins. I think I know things will not work out, I tell myself, but the high likelihood, given past performance, is that they will work out, so I must remember, I tell myself, that this is not what I KNOW but what I FEEL, so I proceed as if things will work out, even though I know that I feel they will not, and that my feeling feels like knowledge, and then they usually work out, and I am on to the next potential failure.
It works, most of the time, but it would be so much easier to see the world through the lens of sunny optimism.
Another thing about me is that I am certain that I Know Better. Than who? Than everyone.
Remember that scene in Broadcast News? Actually, it's two scenes.
The first scene is the one where Holly Hunter tells the cabdriver where to go. I used to always tell the cabdriver where to go--ON THAT EXACT SAME ROUTE. And then I thought, this is ridiculous, you are way too controlling, just let the damn cabdriver go, and he went hopelessly wrong and got us in terrible traffic on some convoluted route that cost way more than mine would have cost and took longer too.
The other scene is the one where William Hurt tells her, sarcastically, that it must be terrible to always know better than everyone, and she weeps and says, yes, yes, it is terrible. And I wept too (OK, maybe not, I'm not so much of a cryer [crier?] at movies, but I felt her pain, truly I did). Because it is terrible: you always know better, and people are always doing things wrong, and if you tell them how they could do it better, you are an ass, and if you don't tell them, you go crazy over how badly things are being done, and it's just terrible all around.
Now this is another one where I basically know the difference between what I KNOW and what I FEEL, but I won't explicate it, so I don't get twisted up in some other insane sentence, and I've learned, or rather, I'm learning, or at least, I'm trying, not to constantly proclaim to the world my Greater Knowledge of Everything. These days I am in fairly regular contact with someone who is certain they Know Better, and truly, it is excruciating to be around this person, and I hate to think that it could be excruciating to be around me, though I KNOW and FEEL that often it is.
At any rate, just as I am trying not to succumb to or articulate my general perspective of doom, I am trying not to force my Better Ways of Doing Just About Everything onto those around me, but can I just say that it is very, very difficult. Truly, it is.
Now, go cry for me, Argentina.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
What M's Up To
Learning to do this.
Apparently all the kids are doing it. And it's the #1 song in the country.
Who knew?
I hereby give up my role as the #1 pop culture arbiter in the family.
Apparently all the kids are doing it. And it's the #1 song in the country.
Who knew?
I hereby give up my role as the #1 pop culture arbiter in the family.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Thursday, October 18, 2007
It's Just That Kind of Day
The end of my rope is within sight, and at this point, what is going to push me there is THESE DAMN FOX ANNOUNCERS!!!!!!!!!! And I can't turn them off, because then I have to watch straight through, and THIS GAME IS JUST WORKING MY NERVES!!!!!!!!
Good thing there was an inch of vodka left.
Edited to add: See? That's what I meant. This is not a team that folds. And I'm still down with Manny--because, for god's sake, it is not the end of the world if we lose, and the man had two hits, and the single was as close to a home run as you can get, and what happened in Pakistan today is so much more important than what happened in Cleveland. But still, I'm relieved, and now I'm going to bed, and after all, tomorrow is another day.
Good thing there was an inch of vodka left.
Edited to add: See? That's what I meant. This is not a team that folds. And I'm still down with Manny--because, for god's sake, it is not the end of the world if we lose, and the man had two hits, and the single was as close to a home run as you can get, and what happened in Pakistan today is so much more important than what happened in Cleveland. But still, I'm relieved, and now I'm going to bed, and after all, tomorrow is another day.
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