Money

Today I'm feeling frustrated in my career. It started when I saw, quite accidentally, an ad for a public transportation services communication assistant (yes, I know that doesn't mean much - but essentially they wanted someone to help soothe angry people when the trains are running slow, and write little articles for the internal newsletter). The qualifications were a bachelor's degree and the salary was three times what I make.

I didn't realize, when I chose to go into environmental, non-profit work, exactly how non-profit it was. I always wanted to have an environmental career, and I loved studying ecology in college, and I turned down a couple of soulless jobs so that I could hold out for one that I felt would help me make a difference.

Now I have that job, and most days it's great. But. I am earning less money than anyone I know. I am earning less money than before I went to grad school. It frustrates me because while my fiance is on a good career track, I don't want to count on him financially. I should be capable of paying my own way - but I am not, and it's not a matter of not working hard enough or not being smart enough, because I do work hard, and I am bright, but I'm still not earning enough money for us ever to qualify for a mortgage (his paycheck isn't enough to make up for mine being so far below average). And as important as the environment is to me, having a home and a family is also important to me. I feel upset thinking that I may not be able to have those things, and it's my own damn fault.

Looking for a Pattern

Sophia has an interesting entry in her blog about originality/redundancy of thoughts. I know I blog about a lot of the same things, over and over. But I kind of like it when I look back through my blog and start to see themes emerging. It makes me feel like I am one step closer to developing my Theory of Everything.

When I was a kid, I was always generating sentences that began "All of life is about...", trying to capture the essence of existence. Then I'd check back in a few days to see if it still rang just as true. There was probably some kind of progression as I got older, from thoughts like "All of life is about being told to do things by other people" through "All of life is about longing for things you can't have" to "All of life is about jostling for rank in the social hierarchy" or "All of life is about trying to find other people to love you."

Love and Marriage

Here’s a question for you: If, after marriage, you could flip a switch and never feel romantically attracted to anyone again except for your spouse...would you? Or would you let that part of you stay alive?

It’s tough because while marriage is the dividing line after which people (ideally) don’t experience intimacy with anyone other than their spouse, interest in other people doesn’t go away. At least, I don’t think it will. Any attraction I’ve felt to others has been muted for the past few years because I’m happy in my relationship. But will it be muted forever? What if boredom strikes a few years down the line? Or what if I meet someone sparky, someone who, if I was single, I would like to date? Or someone with lots of flaws – just different flaws from the ones I’m familiar with. No matter how committed I am to never crossing the line, it seems unrealistic to expect that I would never have a desire to. So in a way, being able to flip that switch would be a relief. I could relax and stop policing. On the other hand, those flickers of excitement when you have a crush on someone or even just a passing interest are one of the great joys of human experience. It seems wrong to neuter yourself.

How come pre-marital classes never cover things like this?

Not Just a Job

Today I watched a crossing-guard tweeting her whistle at a car, in increasingly strident blasts, and finally, when it became clear the car was not going to stop at the crosswalk, actually throw herself up onto its hood. The car slammed on its brakes and she rolled off the hood, cussing at the driver. She put her head close to the driver side window and screamed at him, pointing at the pedestrians. She was so mad she kept muttering and twitching even after he had driven away. It’s really noble when you think about it, to be that invested in your job – to have the safety of strangers so paramount in your mind that you apparently take any threat to them personally. All the pedestrians were just watching her in awe.

Too Late

This morning, my bus was just starting to pull away from a stop when a girl ran up alongside, calling, “Wait!” A bunch of people on the bus called out on her behalf: “Hold it!” “Wait!” but the bus driver, after a moment of hesitation, put his foot down hard on the pedal and pulled away from the stop. I felt sorry for the girl, who would never know that she had a bus-full of advocates. Such is the way of the world – it doesn’t matter how many people you have on your side if they are powerless.

The Sensational Nightingale

I'll never be as good a writer as Billy Collins. Sometimes I like to take refuge in thinking that I am young, still developing my abilities - Grandma Moses didn't start painting until she was in her seventies. I have good ideas stored up, some things that, if I can get them recorded properly, might make people try to smile and cry at the same time - the hallmark of the best writing, in my opinion. But Billy Collins does that to me with practically every poem. I can see the trajectory ahead, and I can see I'll fall short, perhaps disastrously short. I should just sigh and be grateful that there is a Billy Collins out there, producing all of the poems I wish I could.

Indecent Exposure

I just took my clothes off for a total stranger, and let him look at me and touch me all over. And I even paid him to do it.

This blatant exhibitionism was triggered by a friend's cancer scare - she was urging everyone she knew to get screened at a dermatologist. So I made an appointment, not really thinking about what screening would entail. I got a better sense of what was coming when the nurse asked me to disrobe and put on one of those paper gowns. Then the doctor came in. He was young and handsome, which ironically helped - made me feel less like what was happening was perverted. He asked me to take my robe off and I stood there stark naked in front of a full-length mirror, while he looked me over. We had a brief conversation about some freckles on my ass, with him staring at them from a distance of about a foot and me looking at them in the mirror. He was kind enough not to mention the hearts with arrows through them which my fiance had drawn all over my hip, and which I had forgotten to wash off. Then he removed a mole on my back that I've had since childhood. It was very quick - I didn't even get a chance to say goodbye.

Afterwards, when I was dressing, I was sort of stunned by my lack of embarrassment. I felt like the encounter should have shaken me up a little more than it did. Either his superb professionalism put me at ease, or I really am a shameless exhibitionist, or I am finally getting to the point where I'm just not embarrassed about any part of my body. It's about time.

A Lovely Film

Once in a while I get a flash of just pure happiness. The other night, I almost didn't get into the film screening - I found out about it half an hour before it was going to start, and it was being shown at a location nearly two miles away from my apartment (hence, the racing). When I got there, I hadn't RSVPd and the screening was booked up. I hung around in the entryway, trying to look pitiful and stand kind of in the way so that the organizers would want to let me in, to get rid of me. Finally they nodded and said I could go in, just as the film was starting. Yessss.

The film was wonderful. It was about a year in the life of a tiny farm in the Netherlands, that a couple in their 70s still work all by themselves. Long, paced shots of the old man doing patient work: milking cows, melting the ice in their trough with hot water from a kettle, carrying hay bales, sowing by hand, tasting the grain kernels to see if the grain was ripe for harvesting. Everything he did, he did with the skill of a lifetime of experience, but also with obvious effort - a lot of it was really heavy work, especially for a man his age. Meanwhile, his wife did the cooking and laundry (by hand), and pored through farm catalogs at their tiny kitchen table. I could tell how the kitchen would smell, how everything in the house would have that musty, old-person, comfortable smell. Their nostalgic commentary on the problems of overproduction, subsidies, the mechanization of agriculture, and social change was fascinating to me. I also loved seeing how they did things - watching her pluck and prepare a chicken, watching him pitch hay to make a haystack. I've never seen anyone do these things before, and I feel like they're something of a dying art. Overlaid on these themes was the pathos of the fact that no one would inherit their farm, their son having chosen not to become a farmer - so they were farming it, in her words, "for no one," just working every day until the inevitable time when one of them would suffer an accident or ill health. Although it was obviously a hard life, they both said they wouldn't have chosen any other. And the farm itself was beautiful - long landscapes with straight rows of trees marking the field divisions, flooded with pure, clean light like in Vermeer paintings. I came out of the film glowing.

As if that wasn't enough, afterwards they served us wine and there were trays piled with cheese and green grapes. I stood there sipping my wine feeling just really happy and grateful that I got that experience.

Racing

I've been racing a lot lately. Last week I was meeting my friend for lunch at noon, but I was stuck in a meeting and couldn't leave when I was planning to. So I ended up running a mile and a half to the restaurant - weaving in and out of pedestrians, catching my breath on street corners when the light was against me. I arrived right at noon. I was happy that I got there on time, kind of proud I guess, but seeing her there - composed and perfectly calm, having arrived early and without rushing - made me wish I could be more like her. Why do I always have to rush all the time? Why, over the weekend, did we have to rush to return the rental car, rush to get to church on time, rush to the cake-tasting, rush to meet our friends? Why did I have to run two miles yesterday to get to a film screening? Why am I going to have to run another mile and a half today in order to get to my doctor's appointment, which I can't leave early for?

I want to blame it on my job, since I'm often required to work through lunch and don't have time for myself, or on having too many things to do, or on poor scheduling. In general I'm just starting to feel like too much is expected of me. I want to fall asleep some night without racing through the whole long checklist of things done, undone, priorities for tomorrow, etc. I want to spend a weekend doing what I want, instead of frantically trying to get as many things off the list as possible. I want to *walk* to an appointment sometime. I'm just...tired.

Opposites Are Attractive

A great and I think unappreciated category of pleasures in life is the luxury of contrasts. It's particularly relevant with temperature. For example, sitting in a hot tub on an outdoor porch when it's January and snow is falling. Your body is immersed in nearly scalding hot water, but you have icy air washing your face and shoulders. It's terrible from an environmental perspective - all that energy! - but it sure feels nice. Or sitting outside on a porch glider while it's snowing, wrapped in a comforter with a mug of hot chocolate. Being really thirsty, and drinking, at the same time, is related but not quite what I mean.

Tough Love

One of the most useful things anyone ever said to me was in college, when my roommate said, one afternoon when I was lovesick and miserable, "Well, for starters, you could stop feeling so damn sorry for yourself." Nothing like a bucket of ice water in the face to wake you up. She'd never spoken to me like that before, and never has since. It really did help.

Sharing the News

I finally told people at work that I'm getting married. I don't know why I've been weird about telling people. From the start, I had a hard time sharing the news, because it seemed too much like boasting. I always used to hate it when I was single and girls went around talking nonstop about their boyfriends. Once, a girl I knew who was married chipped into a conversation about bad dates with, "I'm soo glad I'm married and I don't have to go on dates any more!" The rest of us just felt like crap when we heard that. Like we didn't want to be married, too - or weren't trying our hardest to meet someone so we could stop going on bad dates.

Anyway, I'm sensitive enough to it that it still rubs me the wrong way when I hear people going seemingly out of their way to mention their relationships, and it's still hard for me to say the words "my boyfriend" or "my fiance."

I also had the sense that people at work wouldn't be particularly happy for me, because most of them aren't in relationships. Maybe that was unfair of me to assume that. Anyway, I finally had to say something because I need to ask for time off for the honeymoon. They were very happy and excited for me, and even told me I should feel more free to celebrate these things.

I'll probably be just as weird about it when/if I get pregnant - put off saying anything until I look like I have a beach ball under my shirt.

In the Tradition of Good, Fast, Cheap

Clean, fed, rested: Why is it that I can never manage to be more than two of these at any given time?

Disdain at the Doctor's

I was in the waiting room at the doctor's office when I saw, encapsulated in the space of three seconds, a marriage I wouldn't want. A woman in her seventies was shuffling out from having seen the doctor, to the window where you have to pay for your visit. As soon as she was within sight of her husband, who was waiting in the lobby, she barked, "Getcher coat on." Then she turned her attention to the secretary.

He quietly put his coat on and shuffled over to join her, and together they fussed and mused over the new phone number for the office that was posted on the window, trying to figure out whether it was the same one they had written down. (It was, but they went back and forth for several minutes confirming it, in the slow, muddled way of old people.)

They've probably been married for fifty years, twice as long as I've been alive, so it's not my place to say anything about their relationship. But I hope my marriage never degenerates to that level of disdain. It just made me sad.

Why I Am Not A Sommelier

Wine is confusing to me for several reasons. I love reading the descriptions of different wines: "rich apricot overtones", "hints of melon and cantaloupe", "smoky oak", "jasmine and vanilla notes", "creamy follow-through", "approachable tannins," etc. I can never taste any of those things when I drink wine though. To me it's tart, somewhere along a sweet/bitter continuum, with an alcoholic bite. Where is the cream? or the vanilla? The other thing is that it never tastes the way the color looks. I keep buying pink wine, thinking it will taste like peaches and nectar, or red wine, thinking it will be like pomegranate, but it never is. Clearly, I'm going to need more civilizing than Beethoven alone can accomplish.

People-Watching

The weather's too nice for me to feel sad for long. I ate lunch outside in the park today and saw, within a short period of time, the following interesting people:

- A woman wearing a weird knee-length skirt/pants thing - like capri pants, but wide; like a skirt, but split into trousers. A hard look to pull off. She had paired it with knee-high leather boots.
- A pair of businessmen walking slowly together, both in blue shirts and black pants, looking like confident alpha males as they patrolled their domain.
- A girl confiding to her friend, "She got a big-ass stomach."
- A woman wearing a professional-looking suit and sporting a severe mullet: short, curly gray hair all over her head, then about two-thirds of the way down, long straight gray hair cascading down her back. Yikes.
- Two harassed-looking teachers trying to get a bunch of six-year-olds to play kickball. At one point, one of the teachers was getting them to raise their hands in the order that they were going to kick, and clearly forgot one of the kids' names: "So Ashley's next, who's after Ashley? Blake, okay, who's after Blake? Umm... you, who's after you?"
- A couple of lovers walking hand-in-hand, not talking, just looking at each other and smiling.

Depressed Like a Mouse

Today I'm feeling beaten down. It has to do with having a job that isn't up to my intellectual ability, and being the lowest-ranking person in my department. While most days I like my job, occasionally I get these flashes of fear - like where is my career going? is it going to stall out at the administrative level, when I am capable of doing so much more? and - how will I ever progress, if I am repeatedly given these low-ranking assignments that don't allow me to develop any experience to prove that I can handle more?

In studies where mice were repeatedly confined with more dominant and aggressive individuals, they became withdrawn and exhibited symptoms of depression. They actually experienced permanent changes in brain chemistry reflecting greater susceptibility to depression, fear, and other emotions related to low social rank. I am afraid this is happening to me. All through school, I was one of the brightest and best, and I still have that intelligence and drive and creative power and passion. It's just not getting any outlet, and instead I am repeatedly handed menial tasks, and getting disciplined about my place in the hierarchy every time I try to take initiative. My self-esteem is flagging, and I'm worried that over time all that promise that I had is just going to dry up.

I Will Be Cultured!

I spent two days walking around with a theme from a piece of classical music in my head. Yesterday I finally called my dad to find out if he knew what it was. All I had to do was hum a couple of bars, and he said, "Beethoven, 7th Symphony, Allegretto." I was so impressed. I want to be able to do that. I'm on a classical music kick now, got out all my old CDs (and bought Beethoven's 7th) and am going to listen to them over and over (lying on the floor with headphones on, conducting at the ceiling), until I really know them by heart.

I also need to learn some foreign languages, take a dance class, read about art history, etc. There are such huge gaps in my cultural competence. What was I learning, all those years in school?

Side note: I like both Beethoven, and beets, very much. Coincidence??

Hot Air on a Cold Day

I went to lunch with a blow-hard. I'm not sure if I made that term up, or if it's in common use - anyway, I mean a person who dominates the whole conversation. Blow-hards always seem to have an agenda for what they want to talk about, and (sometimes very entertaining, but ultimately scripted) rants about specific issues. The challenge for me is trying to insert enough of my perspective in during a rant that it might actually get incorporated into the script and I'll recognize it next time it comes around - "Ooh! That's mine! that bit right there.."

Another friend of mine was there and she knows what he's like, so she was taking him in stride, but I felt sorry for her husband, who seemed a bit overwhelmed. He didn't get a chance to say anything the entire meal.

I know this is the nth rant about people who talk too much. I'll try to cut back on talking so much about people who talk. It just really irritates me. It's clear to me that I don't have any telepathic powers, because if I did, they would surely be getting my mind-blasts: "Stop. Stop talking. Let me go. I want to leave." etc.

A Paradox

It's funny that sometimes you get angry about a situation only after the fact. You'd think the anger would come first, then the desire to get out, then the getting out. Instead, there have been a couple of situations in my life where it didn't kick in until months later. I wondered at first if it was 'false' anger - figured if I had a genuine reason to feel aggrieved, I would have felt that way earlier. But now I think there is a kind of self-preservation instinct that blocks aggression when you're in the thick of things. Acting upset then just draws fire from the aggressors. It's only later, when you're extricated, that you have the emotional distance to react, in safety.

A Bunion is Small Fry

A lot of people I know are suddenly dealing with scary illnesses. One of my friends has ulcerative colitis, and another was recently hospitalized with an antibiotic-resistant staph infection. A friend who is only my age was just diagnosed with melanoma (which has a 30% survival rate, but hopefully she caught it in time). My other friend's boss was diagnosed in January with uterine cancer, given six months to live, and died last weekend, and I heard today that the security guard who always used to talk to me has a pretty far advanced form of some kind of cancer. It's sad and unsettling to hear.

Speaking Up

So much of life is about making choices between doing what you need to do to make things better, and keeping other people happy and treating you nicely. This has relevance to the entry from a couple days ago, too, I think - re speaking up about cruelty. Actually it's relevant to any activism and, broadly speaking, any social situation. Why is it that doing the right thing is so seldom met with social rewards?

The Top Ten List

I read a lot about childbirth. Not because I'm excited about having kids, like my friend Rachel, or planning to do so imminently. Mostly because I'm scared to death of it, and for me, having more information about something tends to make me feel better equipped to cope with it. I keep hoping to read a childbirth story that says, "It's not that bad." Instead, I just seem to be accumulating tales of excruciating pain and terrifying complications. I'm sure it will all be worth it in the end, that the pain will be fleeting compared to the excitement and enormity of raising a child, yada yada yada. But I still have so many questions about the experience, that nothing I've read has answered. Such as:

10. Why does it hurt? Flexing other muscles in the body doesn't hurt.
9. Why does it take so long? I don't understand why the cervix can't just open in the space of a few minutes, like opening your mouth - what is going on that makes it take hours or even days?
8. Where does all the blood come from? Is the uterus bleeding from the force of the contractions? Unless there is a wound, nobody should be bleeding, right?
7. Is a contraction the whole uterus squeezing to push the baby out? or is it the muscles around the cervix flattening out?
6. What is the physiological basis for the common feeling during transition of wanting to give up?
5. Does it still hurt during transition, after the cervix is open?
4. Why are doctors so mean to women who want a natural birth? So many stories I've read are about doctors screaming at women, doing unrequested procedures on them, ignoring their requests, etc. It's almost like they resent a woman who is educated about the birth process and wants to do the best thing for herself and her child.
3. Why do some fetuses develop heads that are bigger than their mothers' pelvic openings (before the advent of C-sections, they would have automatically died, and their mothers too)?
2. Why do some women have life-threatening problems with blood pressure? Why do their bodies respond to pregnancy in such a dangerous way?
and my top question that nothing has answered:
1. Will I be able to do it?

The Words You Can't Say

Last night I said goodbye to my brother, who's moving to England, at least for the time being. If he likes it and finds a job he enjoys, he might be there for years. As we hugged goodbye, we both wanted to say, "I love you." But you can't say that to someone who's going on a long trip, because in that context it doesn't just mean "I love you", it conveys all your fear that there will be a tragedy and the person will never come home and you want them to know, in case it's the last time you see them, that you love them. Those things are too scary to think about. You have to just say it with your eyes, and know that they know.

Empathology

I went to an interesting talk yesterday about empathy - its importance in a world that is growing more interconnected, why people feel it sometimes and not other times, the need to overcome "us/them" distinctions in order to feel empathy for people we don't know, etc. The speaker suggested that empathy is something we not only want, but need - we spend a significant part of our lives looking for a partner we can count on to empathize with us, and often the simple experience of receiving empathy from someone is enough to heal emotional wounds.

It reminded me of the Prisoner's Dilemma in game theory - when facing a competitor for resources, you each have a choice to play nice or cheat. If you both play nice, you both benefit. If you both cheat, you both lose. But if you cheat and they play nice, you get a huge benefit, and if you play nice and they cheat, you take a huge loss. Lots of applications for ecology and for human behavior. For a game with repeated play, the best strategy is to start off playing nice, and then after your first turn just copy everything your opponent does. If the game is long-term enough and if you are consistent in rewarding nice play and punishing cheating, your opponent will eventually play nice all the time. It's harder with a short-term game though (a competitor you will only interact with a few times).

Anyway, the connection with empathy is that when you offer empathy to someone who does not intend to empathize back, someone who doesn't share your philosophy or is just mean or is, say, funded by the pharmaceutical industry, it really stings when they don't return the favor. It feels like the worst outcome in the Prisoner's Dilemma. And the playing field is often unequal - if they have economic or political power and you don't, you don't have the option to punish them in your next turn.

I think one way to overcome that is to not expect empathy back. We get so outraged when we bend over backwards to be nice to people and they ignore us or take advantage. When you're up against someone who you know is not going to return the favor, you just have to school yourself not to expect anything back - to look at the encounter as an information-gathering exercise, or building credibility for the future, or just life experience on the path to enlightenment.

A Vision

Riding home on the bus yesterday, I heard a woman sitting behind me say to her friend, "Oh, look at the cathedral. It looks like Monet's Rouen." It was bathed in pink light from the sunset, every carved detail of the stonework on the towers standing out clear. I wish I was intellectual enough that my friends and I would say things like that to one another.

Cruelty

There is some sneaky, terrible, but undeniable aspect of the human psyche that gets a little kick of pleasure out of watching someone else be frustrated. I was thinking about it today in the context of cruelty to animals. To my mind there's nothing more despicable than animal cruelty; it's something that I passionately hate. Yet I have to admit that I'm not immune to feeling, on occasion, that flicker of satisfaction from watching an animal be frustrated. It can be as mild as holding my guinea pigs on their backs, where their little legs frantically churn the air as they try to flip over. Every time, I have to laugh - they're so cute. But at the same time, I feel bad. I shouldn't enjoy it, and the fact that I do disturbs me.

The other day, my friend saw some kids teasing a horse. They would hold up a handful of hay to the horse, then jerk it away as the horse reached for it. Each time they did this, the horse got more upset - stamping its feet and fussing - and each time the kids laughed harder. My friend stepped in and yelled at them. The oldest kid said, "We were just having fun." But why is it fun? Is it something about the horse's gullibility - falling for the same trick over and over? Is it funny because the horse can't predict they will jerk the hay away, so they get to feel superior? or because the horse is getting upset over such a little thing? I can't put my finger on it.

I don't think that holding a guinea pig on its back or teasing a horse with hay is actually cruel. It's obnoxious, and over time it could have consequences like making the guinea pig more skittish and less willing to be held, or making the horse into a biter, but it doesn't cause true suffering or anguish to the animal. But the sense of enjoyment that drives these mild situations is the same as the one that shows up in cases of real cruelty.

I've read stories of animal abuse from the Humane Society that literally keep me awake at night - cases where people deliberately set out to hurt or torture an animal. For most people, the distress they would feel from seeing an animal in real pain would eclipse any pleasure they'd get from the incident. But for a few, I guess the emotional wiring is off and that sneaky little kick of pleasure is magnified. I wish I could put my finger on why it brings people pleasure, so we could figure out how to short-circuit the process. What could be more important, of all the things we could teach a child, than an aversion to causing suffering?

One Writer...Nine Editors

Like an unruly child, the article I put to bed keeps popping up again. Each time I am more peremptory with it; the first few times I tolerate long rambling discourses from the various reviewers on detail and context and underlying messages, entertaining these potential changes in direction as I might smile benevolently at a small child's suggestions to be allowed to stay up late, sleep in my room, etc. But over time, I allow the course of the story to deviate less and less. I make smaller adjustments, spend less time composing tactful replies to my editors (who, after all, are responsible for the story's refusal to go to bed; they are the loud siblings who are playing some game thundering up and down the stairs, giving the toddler ideas). My vision for the story hardens. As it peeks nervously out of its bedroom for the umpteenth time, I bellow, "Into your bed! Now!" and it vanishes. I hear its feet scurrying back across the floor, then moments later a squeak of bedsprings and rustle of covers. All is peaceful at last.

Water

I was washing the dishes yesterday, thinking that running water is really a nice thing to have. It's amazing when you think about it, how you can be in an apartment ten stories up and turn on the faucet and water comes out - no delay, no sputtering, just a nice steady stream of water that is clean and safe to drink. In some areas of the world, women spend half their day walking back and forth between their homes and the nearest waterhole (which can be an hour away) to fetch water for their families. For them, being able to turn on the tap and get water - as much of it as you want - would seem like a miracle.

If I had to fetch all my own water, on foot, I don't think I could do it. Especially in the heat. I'd probably use up all the water I was bringing back, just drinking it.

Fire

Great excitement last night - we had a fire in our apartment building!

The alarm jolted us awake at about 3:30 am. I knew it was a real fire right away because I could smell the smoke. I had a moment of panic - what do we do? - and then fell back on my years of conditioning from fire drills in elementary school - oh yeah, get out of the building! and line up on the playground outside! I grabbed some sneakers and a coat, and caught the surprised guinea pigs and put them in their traveling case. Their reaction to the whole thing varied between confusion and disbelief. They wrinkled their noses at me: "You have to be joking!"

When we stepped into the hallway, the smoke was stronger - kind of a thick, yellow smell like burned toast or overheated dryer, but much more concentrated. It was worse in the stairwell. Luckily we were only on the fourth floor. We got down to the lobby and spilled outside with the rest of the population. I was hoping some people would be wearing interesting pajamas, but everyone was pretty much in sweat pants and jackets. A couple women had big fluffy pink slippers. The quintessential gentleman who lives on the second floor and never goes anywhere except in a three-piece suit with a carnation in his lapel, was wearing - a three-piece suit. He probably doesn't own any other kind of clothing.

After a few minutes the police arrived, and ten minutes after the alarm first sounded, the fire trucks pulled up. It was very exciting to see those big flashing trucks parked right next to us on the sidewalk, and the firemen unrolling hoses into our building. We heard a police woman calling out the apartment number to the firemen as they went in - it was on the second floor. I walked around to try to see it, but nothing was apparent from the outside. Shortly thereafter they let everyone who didn't live on the second floor go back indoors. We opened all the windows to get the smoke out, and went back to sleep.

This morning, because I was curious, I called the resident manager to find out how the fire got started. She said that a woman was cooking a midnight snack and left the stove on by accident, then went to bed. Fortunately, no one was hurt.

So that's the story of the Great Fire!

God's Dogs

I read an article today about urban coyotes. Apparently they're living in lots of cities in the U.S., even thriving. Urban coyotes need less land to survive (only about a sixth of the land area that rural ones need) and they live longer. A coyote in urban Chicago has a 60% chance of surviving for one year, compared to a 30% chance for a rural coyote. Imagine if your chance of living until next year was only 60% - and if that was considered good!

When Hope Ryden studied coyotes in Yellowstone, they were so fearful of humans that she couldn't risk being seen by them - they would have abandoned their den. Any disturbance in their environment freaked them out. She parked a truck on the next hill over from their den, shuttered all the windows, and spent six weeks lying in darkness inside the truck watching them through a tiny telescope. She had to pee in jars and couldn't heat any of her food or even move around much, for fear that they would hear her. They still got upset enough that they moved the pups to a new den, but she was able to follow them and they tolerated the truck's presence long enough for her to complete her observations. It's hard to believe that these shy, skittish creatures could be the same species as urban coyotes that coexist with traffic, noise, and a constantly changing environment.

Olympians

I've finally reached an age where nearly all the athletes in the Olympics are younger than me, which seems incredible to me. I guess I have the rest of my life to get used to it. I guess for most people, watching the Olympics is a week of being astonished by the feats of youngsters. It's weird to be on the other side of it, though, looking back. I always felt in the back of my mind that it was natural for them to be stronger and faster and more amazing than me, because they were older (never mind that you have to start training around the time you're born, so by the time I was in elementary school I was probably already out of the running).

I still don't think I'll ever lose my wonder at what they're capable of. In fact, knowing how young they are might even enhance it for me - remembering where I was at age 19, or 22, and comparing it with where they are.

I really felt for a couple of the skaters last night who muffed their jumps. They looked so crushed afterwards, getting their marks. I don't think I'd want all the pressure and risk that comes with being a skater...but I wish I had speed-skater legs.

A Novel Point of View?

I read a couple things recently that hit home: In The Mind-Body Problem, Rebecca Goldstein refers kind of sarcastically to "one's first novel (you know, the autobiographical one?)". In Beverly Cleary's My Own Two Feet, she remarks on the triteness of writing about a young woman's coming of age.

Darn. But that's really what I want to write about. And not in a self-absorbed way, like my life and my growing-up story are so fascinating everyone should want to read about them. More because even if it's an age-old story, no one has ever told it the way I plan to. And besides, college was one of the richest and most interesting periods of my life so far. I have the sense that even if I tried to write about something else, it would devolve into a college story - one of the characters would start hanging out at a local campus, or something.

But still. It's a little eerie that these two women, whose writing I admire so much, are already "on" to me.

Having Your Cake, and Weeping Too

Even when you have everything, it's still possible to feel depressed. I don't know why. These bleak, hollow-you-out-from-the-inside moments just come out of nowhere. Any way you look at it, I have a good life - I've had every advantage growing up, and all my ducks are pretty much in a row now. I'm looking forward to marrying a wonderful man. Everything is good. Yet, while I am nearly always conscious of these things and grateful for them, I still manage to feel swamped by a wave of sadness from time to time, for no apparent reason. Then I feel guilty for feeling sad, when I have so much. It's ridiculous.

Inevitable Imperfection

Yoga is so hard. I always get inspired to try to "do it perfectly" and for the first five minutes of my yoga DVD, I succeed - I am breathing perfectly, standing with my toes spread perfectly, my wrists aligned. Today is going to be a wonderful practice. Then the yoga teacher stands on one foot and holds onto the toe of the other and stretches the whole leg up straight pointing to the ceiling, and that's it for me. From that point on, I'm just imitating her the best I can. My hamstrings are so tight that my legs stay bent, while hers stretch out long and straight. Plank pose and boat pose are the hardest, my muscles tremble the whole time. But she talks right through it like she's comfortable. She is amazing!

Therapy Conversations

One job I wouldn't want is that of therapist. It's so much work trying to pull people up, when they're intent on dragging themselves down. I know what it's like from the other side, of course; I've spent lots of energy trying to 'prove' how miserable everything was, while patient friends argued with me. It feels weirdly satisfying, like biting a hangnail - hurts, but in a tingly way you want to explore, not in a way that makes you want to stop. Anyway, things are better now and I'm more often on the pulling-up side of the equation.

Talking to my dad today, I just kept wanting to say, "Don't look at it that way. Assume they will like you, and if they don't, so what? To hell with what they think!" etc. Actually most of my therapy-advice boils down to "Why do you care what other people think?" which is such a great mantra for life (yea Feynman). I mean, really. We're all so self-conscious and neurotic all the time. We would all be a lot happier if other people's opinions didn't matter so much to us. But I know that just deciding not to care isn't an option when you're in the situation (and this applies to me too). I guess a good therapist knows what to say so that people will find their own way to being capable of not caring. From where I am, it's like someone is asking for help getting over a brick wall, and I can't see a wall so I just keep saying unhelpfully, "Pretend there is no wall!"

Inevitable Perfection

The essence of being good at something - anything - is to make it look like it couldn't be any other way. Like having skin so good it looks like it can't break out. A girl in my dorm had skin like that, smooth and golden-tan and somehow thicker-looking than other people's. We all envied her because even when our skin was technically clear, it still looked likely to break out at any moment. Or ice-skating with such strength and skill that it's like the jumps are pulling you up and whirling you around, and the edge of your skate is drawn back to the ice like a magnet - like there couldn't be any other way for you to land. There's a world of difference between a skater like that and a skater who lands the jumps but it looks like work, and you're all clenched up watching them afraid that they will fall.

I have mastered this only as far as traffic lights. When you're waiting at a light, instead of willing the light to turn green and being frustrated that it's still red, you should imagine the light on the cross-street being inexorably drawn to turning yellow, like it just can't help it. The difference is pulling in your imagination, instead of pushing, and seeing the change not so much what you want, as inevitable. Thinking of it this way makes the time pass faster than if you're trying to force it to happen. I have not yet been able to transfer this trick to skin or skating.

Year of the Dog

Yesterday I went to the Chinese New Year parade downtown - dragon dancers, red banners, drums, and lots of people throwing poppers in the street. The crowds lining the street were five and six people deep, and the windows of restaurants and shops overlooking the parade route were packed with people watching. After the parade, everyone spilled into the street and milled around while they set up a giant six-story string of firecrackers suspended from a crane.

As we were waiting for them to light the firecracker, we suddenly heard some commotion behind us. I turned around and a man was saying "My son! Where's my son?!" He was staring around frantically. A few people asked, "What does your son look like?" but the man was so distraught he seemed incapable of answering. He cried out, "He was right here, right here beside me!" I glanced around but there were no little kids in sight, just a forest of grown-ups. Someone asked, "What color coat was he wearing?" "I don't know!" the father said. "He was right here! Oh my God, my son!!" He started dashing back and forth, wild-eyed. His face looked like a caricature, his mouth wide open like he wanted to bawl. His terror communicated itself to me so completely that I started feeling sick. I could see that his mind was already leaping ahead to encompass the magnitude of the tragedy - his son was lost; someone had taken him; he was one of the thousands of kids that go missing every year; the rest of this man's life would be looking back in regret and horror at these few minutes that were transpiring before us right now, this critical time.

Someone grabbed the father and said, "What's your son's name?" "Sammy!" the man replied. "SAMMY!" he suddenly bellowed. He plunged back and forth, yelling, "SAMMY!" A few other people called "Sammy" halfheartedly, but most turned their attention back to the firecracker preparations. "Think: what color coat was he wearing?" someone asked again. Next to me, my mother murmured, "No. What kind of shoes is he wearing. Whoever takes him will take that coat off first thing." Her comment made me feel sicker - the father and I weren't the only ones thinking, not just lost, but taken. "Blue!" the father burst out finally. "It was blue!" A few people nearby scanned around looking for blue.

Just then the firemen arrived, and the dragon dancers started beating their drums. The crowd gave a cheer of pleasure. Their happiness formed a counterpart to the father's desperation - just like all those classic movie scenes that blend a giddy amusement park atmosphere with sinister and terrible things. His cries of "Sammy!" were harder to hear over the drums and cheering. He tried to push through the crowd, but people were surging closer to the firecracker and wouldn't let him through.

Finally, just before they lit the firecracker, he found Sammy. We saw him hurrying past holding his son, a little boy who looked about four years old, in his arms. His face was still crumpled with grief, but the crowd clapped when they saw him. I swallowed the tears that were piled up in my throat. Sometimes, I'm afraid to have kids.

Beware of the Stare

Today I was reading about the thousand-mile stare. Apparently if you're in a bar fight, you should watch out if the other guy gets this look on his face, because he's about to punch you. "The thousand-mile stare" is what cops call it. I tried doing it, staring unfocused into space and imagining I was looking at some guy, and it was amazing how it worked. I could feel the rage simmering to a head; it was like I was so angry I couldn't even look at him straight, just through him at where I was going to sink my fist. I think it's a real physiological phenomenon that allows people in a confrontation to dissociate themselves from the personal reality of their opponent, so they can overcome the social taboo of touching another person in order to - beat the crap out of him.

Labyrinthine

Last night I walked the labyrinth at the cathedral. It's painted on a canvas cloth that they unroll once a month for Labyrinth Night - the cathedral stays open late and they play dulcimer music while people shuffle around the paths in their socks. I used to be really interested in labyrinths, I visited cornfield and stone labyrinths, and once helped paint one. This is the first time I've walked the one at the cathedral though.

The good thing about it is the feeling of peace that radiates from everyone - they're all in a New Agey frame of mind, and if you make eye contact with someone they give you a warm, accepting smile. The bad thing is that you can feel like you are supposed to have deep thoughts, and it's frustrating if you don't.

Here are some thoughts I had while I was walking:
- Mine were the worst socks in the room. Most people had nice, thick wool socks. My socks were dingy white and had holes in the toes that I mended with brown thread. I should just throw them out, but they're still wearable so I'd feel guilty.
- If the journey through the labyrinth is supposed to represent your life, and the way you walk it reflects who you are, then two things about me are that I am fast and non-confrontational. I walked as slowly as I could, but it was still about twice as fast as everyone else. I couldn't help it. I also couldn't stand being behind someone. I had to get around all those slow-shufflers and have a clear path ahead. And every time I came to a point where someone else was walking toward me on the same path, I was the one who dodged to the side. I think fast and non-confrontational are very much the way I am in the rest of my life. It's worked so far, but what will happen as I get older, and I can't simply speed away?
- Men don't hug each other very much. I saw lots of women hugging, but only one hug between men, and they looked like very old friends. Why is that? Do men not enjoy hugging as much? Maybe they don't get the same rush of endorphins from it? It always seemed kind of unfair to me that kids run to their mothers for a hug and don't seek out their dads the same way - the dads are usually hovering awkwardly in the background, as though waiting to be included. Do they wish their kids would hug them? or are they frankly embarrassed by the whole thing?
- It's easy to feel pure and clean and spiritually at peace when everything in your life is pretty much okay. What's hard is remembering that feeling and calling it up in times of crisis.
- In the same vein, I thought as I walked around how affectionate I felt toward the people in my life, how if anyone I knew was there, I would be glad to see them, and would readily forgive whatever there was to forgive between us. Today, that spell has worn off and I feel as aggrieved as ever toward certain individuals.
- So much of life is beyond our control. The ability to enter a "state of denial", as a mother told me recently, about the constant danger to loved ones, is vital - or you could never bear to let them out of your sight. I used to wish I could gather together everyone I loved and have us all live together in a kind of dormitory - just so I'd know they were all safe. But even then I wouldn't be able to protect everyone. You just have to hope, and take the precautions you can, and try not to think about a lot of things. It almost makes me feel like I shouldn't have kids, because it will only mean more people to worry about and potential for devastation if anything happens to them.

And that's it for my labyrinth thoughts.

Escalator Music

There is one subway station where the weirdly musical wail of the escalators can be heard some distance away as you approach. They sound like kind of a howling lament interspersed with off-key drawn-out yelps and squeals. It's like listening to a chorus of coyotes and donkeys, or maybe whales. The noises are impossible to ignore, so the commuters riding down into the abyss of the subway station usually glance at each other with slight, embarrassed smiles - it's one of those rare shared-experience-with-strangers moments.

Double True

Now that I have these foot problems, I can actually appreciate why some people have a foot fetish. I always took for granted that I could walk around without problems, and wear any shoes in my closet. But I can't walk the distances I want to any more, even in sensible shoes. Some days my foot bothers me more than others. Anyway, I notice other people's feet now, and I feel admiring of nice feet.

I somehow got onto a mailing list for a company that sells orthopedic stuff, and they send me a catalogue every month or so - page after page of a model with beautiful feet showing off the various products. The lines of her feet are so clean, not even a hint of a bunion, and her toes are lined up perfectly. Her arches are ideal. She obviously doesn't need the products, it's a joke for her to be trying on the bunion regulator with an expression of delight, or smiling in approval at the sight of her foot with its toe spacers. I'm so envious of her for having feet like that. I even noticed at a party over the weekend, when we were all sitting around on the floor in our socks, how straight the lines of everyone's feet were. Not a bunion in the room, except for mine.

I complain about this stuff too much. Who cares about my toe woes, when there is genius like "Lazy Sunday" in the world? Today, if you haven't yet experienced it, I invite you to partake. It will get in your head and you will want to watch it over and over, and to reenact it with loved ones. True dat, double true!

Why Women Make Good Spies

Yesterday I felt like a spy because I was doing a lit drop and had to get past the guards. I'm very sneaky about it. I wear stuff to blend in with the crowds, trying to look like I work there; I choose an entrance that's not directly in line with the subway to distance myself from all the other lit-droppers; and I try to walk in just ahead of a group of people so they'll be less inclined to make an issue of checking my bags. I am careful to adopt a slightly bored, this-is-routine expression as I dump my (zipped-up!) bag on the x-ray. I avoid eye contact with the guards, like I'm not expecting any confrontations with them, and I pick up my stuff from the belt without waiting for their permission, as though I'm certain it won't be a problem. The moment I'm through, I don't waste time getting away from the guards by taking the elevator to the top floor in the building, never mind where I am actually heading - I sort that out later. On the top floor, I duck into a bathroom to organize my stuff, where I'm less likely to be caught by a guard roaming the halls. Sometimes my destination is not even in that building, but once I'm in, I can take the underground passage to any of the buildings in the complex.

All these precautions are probably unnecessary, but after a guard caught me last year and really reamed me out, I'm terrified of confrontations. It felt so horrible when she was yelling at me. It's not illegal to distribute literature. But some guards seem to think it is. It's funny to me that I often enjoy being places I'm not supposed to be (gardens at night, the cathedral towers). I've often roamed around forbidden territory where I would have been in trouble if I was caught, and I liked feeling like a spy. I wonder why I dislike it so much in this context. It's either because I actually did get caught once (whereas I've never been caught in other places), or because it's something I have to do for work, not a choice I'm freely making. The forced risk feels bad to me.

Temple Grandin, who writes about animal cognition, says that animals never forget bad experiences. No matter how many times they have a good experience in the same situation, the good stuff just overlays the bad stuff, it doesn't cancel it out. They'll have the residual fear forever. So it's really important not to scare or upset an animal on their first experience with something. I'm that way with lit drops. I've done many since that time with the guard, and never had any problems, but I'm still freaked out and scared.

Oh but back to why women make good spies. It's because, I think, there's a higher threshold at which women are perceived to be a threat. So they can get away with stuff where a man would have been challenged or where at least his actions would have aroused some suspicion. Especially if the guards are male, they respond to women with openness, at a subconscious level. Unfortunately for me, though, you can't fly under the radar when the guard is another woman.

My Inner Dork Shines Through

I have a new cell phone. It's been wonderfully handy so far. I'm a little awkward with it though - it takes me an embarrassingly long time to fumble it out of my pocket and answer it when it starts ringing, and when I use it I feel self-conscious. It's like smoking. How are you supposed to hold the thing? Where do you direct your gaze? Some people are naturals, and they always look cool. I have these trappings of coolness now, but somehow I don't think I'm fooling anyone.

Identifying With the Turtles

The weather was so warm that I decided to walk home from work instead of taking the bus. It's about a three mile walk and I really enjoyed it - the damp evening smells, the woods on my right and the houses lit up in the dusk - until the last block. They're doing construction and there are chain-link fences barricading off the whole block. I figured I would just walk on the curb between the fence and the street, because I didn't feel like waiting for the light to turn so I could cross and walk up the opposite side of the street.

After I'd gone about thirty paces, the fence suddenly pushed out all the way to the edge of the curb, and there was no place for me to walk at all. Just the street, three lanes of rush-hour traffic barreling past at high speed. I flattened myself back against the fence, figuring I'd wait till there was a gap in traffic and there was room for me to walk. After a long time there was a gap, and I scurried forward to cover as much ground as I could. I only had about ten seconds before cars started rushing past me again, and again I flattened myself against the fence.

It was nearly dark now so the cars couldn't see me, or if they did they made no effort to swerve around me. They were hurtling past literally inches from my face, and some of them were SUVs and other big vehicles. I was sure I would be hit. I felt pinioned against the fence (I know the word is pinned, but I had an image of myself spreadeagled to be as flat as possible, so pinioned sounds better). Again a brief respite, and a scuttle, but I hardly covered any ground at all before the traffic started up again. I was stuck about halfway along the block, too far to go back. If there had been a long gap in both directions I could have just run across the whole street, but it never came. I was desperate enough that I thought of climbing over the fence, or getting under it, but it was really high, came all the way down to the ground, and was sunk in cement holders every few feet, so I couldn't.

I thought about all the millions of animals killed on highways every year in the U.S. Some organizations try to build culverts under the road and direct animals like turtles into them by erecting guidewalls along the sides of roads (they only have to be a few inches high for turtles), and channeling them toward the underpass which is the only safe place to cross. These innovations save many animals' lives. I felt like a turtle, too dumb to read signs, unable to see far enough to understand where to cross - just blindly forging ahead on a disastrous path. Where was my culvert? I thought of how my obituary might read: "Throughout her life, she enjoyed challenging the status quo. Tragically, her failure to yield to authority by heeding the signs that directed her to use the opposite side of the street resulted in her downfall one January evening."

My big fear as I hovered there was that a bus would come along. I was right in the lane it would use, and I know those big suckers take up the whole lane. It was just good luck that during the time it took me to travel the block, no buses went past. Finally, about twelve traffic-light cycles later, I made it to the end of the block, and the crosswalk. Whew!

The Fur Trade

Reading about the fur industry makes me feel so sick and angry. I just read an article about a woman who was hiking in a national forest when her dog started pulling to investigate something off the path. It was a steel leg-hold trap - the scary bear-trap kind - camouflaged under some leaves. As she was approaching the trap, before she even realized what it was, the woman's steps accidentally tripped it, and the trap snapped shut - luckily without harming her or her dog. According to the article, it is legal for trappers to put traps like that on public property, where anyone could step on them. Her dog could have been maimed or killed; she could have stepped on the trap herself and been seriously injured.

I think it's awful that fur trappers are allowed to operate at all, let alone use those barbaric types of traps, let alone use them on public land.

Once my parents found a skunk that had been caught in a leg-hold trap. It was half-crazy with fear and pain, covered in blood and froth, and had been trapped so long it had worn a circle in the dirt where it had dragged itself and its shattered leg in the trap, around and around. My father drove three miles down the road until he found a farmhouse so he could borrow a shotgun (this was Texas and my parents were probably the only people in the state who didn't own a gun). Then he drove back and shot the skunk. My mother couldn't bear to look at the skunk or watch, she was horrified and crying. My parents describe the episode cautiously, biting off their words as though they can't bear to remember it, their pain at witnessing something so cruel still evident after many years.

My Awesome Mom

I love my mom. I hope I grow to be more like her as I get older. She always seems to know the exact right thing to do or say in any given situation. She's funny and smart and just really nice. When I see her at a distance with a group of people, I always think she has a pleasant expression on her face; she looks like the kind of person I'd pick out to confide in, if I didn't know anyone.

We saw her at church last week - she was in the choir, so we didn't get a chance to even say hi before the service, but as she processed down the aisle at the end, just as she passed our pew she gave us a wink. In that moment I felt such a rush of love for her. I wonder if I'll have it together enough that my kids will ever feel that way about me.

A Riddle

Q: Where was Erin when the lights went out?

A: In the dark!

Also, unfortunately, in the bathroom!

Crumbs

Ehh, the cookie baking didn't go so well. I used to be great at cookies - they would turn out just right every time, crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside. People would always ask me to bring them to get-togethers. But the last few times I've tried to make them, they've turned out crumbly or burnt or not completely cooked. Last night I couldn't get them off the pans - they were glued on so tight I had to chip them off with a knife. Now instead of four dozen cookies I have four Tupperware containers full of crumbs lined up on my kitchen counter. I'm not sure what I did wrong.

It's raining and I'm worried about religion. It's supposed to make people treat one another better and feel happier about their lives, but too often it's an excuse for them to hurt one another.

Cookies

Today when I get home I think I'll bake some cookies, maybe the kind with oatmeal and butterscotch chips. Cookie baking is a very relaxing kind of activity, full of sensory pleasures. The whisper of sugar hissing out of a bag is a nice sound, and so is the whomph of the oven firing up, like a tired dragon grunting as it does its duty. Then there's the way it makes the whole house smell of warmth and contentment. It's kind of a "luxury" smell - when you walk into a house that smells like fresh-baked cookies, you know that everything is all right, and even if it's not, whatever isn't is not very important.

In Love with the Forties

I miss the styles of the late 1930s, early 40s. We've never found any cut for jackets, skirts, or trousers that was quite so flattering as the lines from those days. I love the derbies and long trenchcoats all the men used to wear, the nipped-in waists for women's suits and the rakish little hats tipped forward over their eyes. I saw a women's suit in a 1940s style and almost bought it last week - but the look was too strong, too daring for me. It would've looked great, but it also would've made me stand out when the point of a suit, for me, would be to blend in and look unremarkably professional. I'd buy it if I went to lots of charity concerts, autumn picnics under pavilions, or retro fashion shoots. Alas, I do not. Anyway, everyone says that things come back into style if you wait long enough, but it seems to me we're stuck in a loop that's too short, cycling around bell-bottoms being in/not in style. We never make it all the way back to the sophisticated and elegant styles from the pre-war days.

Fired, With Benefits

Today I read that the chief of transportation for the city got fired. (One paper said he resigned, another said he was "dropped" - I guess when you are high enough up, you can't get fired, you just get asked to step down.) But the kicker is, he's still going to get $200,000 a year for the next three years to finish out his contract, a pension of $100,000 a year, and free health care for life. Wowee kazowie. That just blows my mind. It's so much more money that most people will ever earn.

The average salary in the U.S. is about $40,000 for men and $30,000 for women (according to this website), and 46 million people don't have health insurance at all. It seems unfair to me that someone who got fired would get all that. But life is unfair. It's not true, for example, that if you work harder, you'll earn more money - all the hardest jobs are menial labor that pay barely a living wage, and usually don't even come with health benefits. And look at the $10,000 discrepancy between men and women "with similar work experience."

Maybe the guy really went through hell the past few years, so he deserves this severance package, and maybe he's so invested in his work that being fired still hurts. I always feel a little sorry for people who get fired. But still. I can't help but wonder how all the bus drivers and train mechanics who work under him for petty wages are going to feel when they hear how much money he's getting for doing nothing the rest of his life.

Separation of Church and Erin

We met with the priest at my mom's church who will perform our wedding ceremony. It was kind of an awkward meeting, for me anyway. She quizzed me on my church-going (scanty), my opinions of previous rectors at that church (hmmm... last time I was attending that church regularly was 15 years ago and I was a kid, so my recollections are also scanty), and my involvement with the cathedral (I volunteer there but that's not what she meant). I felt like it was test day and I hadn't studied. It was kind of like when a gay person tries to have a straight relationship, to see if maybe they're straight after all, and it just feels so weird and wrong, they realize, "Yep, I really am gay." Well, I really am atheist.

Everyone says your wedding day should be all about your relationship, and expressing who you are. When I get married, I want to be able to say every word from the heart. But instead I'm going to be faking my way through something I don't believe in. It worries me.

The good stuff: He was wonderful about everything, knew exactly what to say to smooth things over and rescue me when I was starting to stumble. Things like that give me more faith in the strength of our marriage than saying prayers together. Besides, I'm not sure I believe your wedding day should be all about who you are. It should also be about the families that are coming together, and about compromise. Maybe I should view the necessity of doing and saying things I don't believe in as a sacrifice for the families, to make them happy. Viewed in that light, I don't mind nearly as much.

A Difficile Illness

There are so many scary things that can happen, even in our mostly safe society. Today I was reading about C. difficile, a bacterial infection that used to affect mostly the elderly, but is now showing up in otherwise healthy people. Suddenly it's causing illnesses that are really severe, even fatal, and that can't be cured with antibiotics. Last year a healthy 31-year-old woman who was pregnant with twins contracted a C. difficile infection, and died. Her only "mistake" was taking a generic antibiotic for a urinary tract infection a few months earlier (taking antibiotics increases the risk of developing this infection). What a terrible thing to have happen, and how awful it must have been for her family. In another case, a 10-year-old girl was hospitalized and almost died. She hadn't even taken antibiotics. Another 35-year-old woman has been incapacitated for months with an infection that isn't responding to treatment.

A bacterial illness is a spectacularly scary and unusual way to die; I should probably be worrying more about car accidents, cancer, and heart disease, the big killers in this country. They're just as seemingly inexplicable, striking without warning. I wish there were things you could do to stay safe.

Maybe I am just worrying because spending all that time with loved ones over the holidays made me feel so close and so fiercely protective of my family. I've heard it said of enormous grief that you get through it, because you have to, there is no alternative. But if anything happened to my parents, my brother, or my fiance, I don't know how I would manage.

Some Virtues of Guinea Pigs

Squeakiness.
Just the right size to sit in your lap.
Big, beautiful eyes. Their eyes take up most of their head. If they were in a Japanese anime, they would look exactly the same as in real life.
Intense obsession with food - squeaks of anticipation when they're about to be fed, rummaging around the play area searching for it, eating it, checking neighbor's mouth to see if neighbor is eating anything, etc.
Willingness to stand on hind legs, leap through hoops, etc. in order to get food.
Cleaning frenzies.
Nice, kind of musky smell.
When placed on the chest of a reclining human, tendency to move up to snuggle under the human's chin.
Popcorns (an explosive leap in the air that guinea pigs do sometimes).
Freaking out about completely random things, like someone sneezing.
Getting really excited about sounds like the vegetable drawer opening, or a plastic bag rustling.
"Driving" around in their cardboard box.
Cilantro tug-of-wars.
Turning the play area into a racetrack and scurrying laps around the table legs.

Feeling Antisocial...And Also Regretful

I already regret yesterday's entry - it sounds so mean-spirited. I still don't get why I feel that way. Why do I want to avoid people who are so kind to me? Why do I feel trapped and frustrated when they are obviously just being friendly to me? What's wrong with someone talking to me for an hour? - it's not like I have to get home or there's anything else I need to be doing.

And why does this only seem to happen to me? I don't notice other people around me getting stuck in conversations. I have a sense that if they did get involved in a conversation, they would have the skills to get out, that no one could hold them there against their will. I always feel like I'm in quicksand, sinking deeper and deeper even as I smile and nod, totally unable to say what's foremost in my mind: "could we stop talking now so I can leave?" It's like I secretly want to make connections with people, so I go out of my way initially to be friendly, but once they're made, I panic.

Feeling Antisocial

Today I'm feeling aggressive about wanting my privacy. It used to make me feel good that the security guard and my Spanish amigo were my friends and always wanted to talk to me. But after I got sucked into a few interminably long conversations with the guard (despite saying "I have to go" and edging away - he just talks right over me), I started wanting to avoid him, even wishing I could sneak in the building through a different entrance.

Sometimes my amigo will spend half an hour or an hour talking to me too. Knowing this, I've started darting out of the office early, before he starts his shift (then the following time he always wants to know where I was). The language lessons are progressing slowly - I'm just not getting it. I run out of things to say and I get tired of constantly saying, "No comprendo" and laughing. Yesterday he told me I was una amiga hermosa, amable y bonita, and he called me his preciosa. They're compliments I don't deserve, and I know he doesn't have a lot of people in his life so maybe I am doing a good thing by being his friend. But I don't want the responsibility of looking out for him emotionally. I just want to be able to say hola or wave when I see him doing his rounds, and leave it at that. In the mornings or evenings, I just want to say hi to the guard and keep walking, and not have to talk about my weekend or hear about his family. I feel mean writing this. I am supposed to be nice and friendly and open-minded to everyone. It's elitist to limit my friendships.

The General Rallies His Troops

I just came back from hearing Al Gore speak about global warming - an incredibly stirring presentation. The images just rolled on and on - emaciated polar bears, huge cliffs of ice plunging off glaciers into the sea, flooded streets in China, cracking riverbeds in India, perhaps most effective for me Keeling's graph of carbon dioxide emissions with its relentless climb. As I listened, I wavered between wanting to just cry - because so much is at stake, truly no less than the future of life on earth, and as a nation our political will to do something about it is so weak - and wanting to hope that we can avert the crisis.

According to him the technology we need is within reach. If we adopted stricter pollution controls, made cars more efficient, and used renewable energy instead of fossil fuels, we could return to pre-1970 emission levels. It's possible, but the public has to be behind it. Right now it's so far off the radar screen of the average American, no wonder other countries are exasperated with us.

His closing comments stuck with me: "These next few decades are a critical turning point in human history. And this is your moment." (He was speaking to an audience of environmentalists.) "You are here in the right place, at the right time, with the opportunity and the means to make a difference. This is your time."

Starting the Year Upside Down

New Year's is an interesting holiday. Everyone feels the need to get out and do something, and everyone asks, "What are your plans?" but there aren't any real traditions (except maybe, getting drunk and spending New Year's Day with a hangover, which I did once and don't recommend).

I just did a web search and apparently some people eat black-eyed peas, while others eat donuts (to symbolize the year coming full circle). I also heard that in Denmark it's considered lucky to be in the air when the year changes, so you should get up on a chair and leap off at the stroke of midnight. I like that one so I'll do it next year. What I usually do is run outside after the ball drops, listen to the fireworks and horns in the neighborhood, and stand on my head. My boy invented that tradition and it's great fun. Maybe someday I'll live in an area where there are deep snowdrifts around New Year's, which will make it challenging - but I'll still do it.

Gosh!

I spent my Christmas vacation awash in some of my favorite books from my childhood - the Beverly Cleary books. They were interesting particularly because I just read her autobiography, and a lot of the stories are recastings of her own childhood experiences. Henry Huggins, the first one she ever wrote, is still the best.

I love the wholesomeness of the kids on Klickitat Street. They're always saying things like "Golly!" "Doggone it!" and "Well how do you like that!" and they're always doing projects together, like tinkering with their bicycles, or building a clubhouse. They look forward to growing up with interest, not fear. The boys have paper routes and wear beanies; the girls practice twirling batons or sew costumes for the spring parade. There is no excess in their world - money's always tight, and there's always just a single thing that they want and are saving up for, like a down sleeping bag or a sled. I like that kind of simplicity. I have more possessions than I ever have time to appreciate, which makes me feel obscurely guilty.

It's setting my sights ridiculously high to say I'd like to write books that would be as well-loved as hers. (Although I would.) Realistically, I'd like to write just one book that would be enjoyed and appreciated by a few people. Some of the things I'd like to be in it:

likable, funny characters
a crusader mission to right an injustice
having a crush on someone
exploring familiar surroundings at night/being someplace forbidden
very tactile and vivid descriptions of things - ice crunching underfoot, the taste of cantaloupe, kissing
the awkward and delicious experience of hooking up for the first time
emotional turmoil
the terrific pressure young people are under (from themselves or others)
dialogue that if I were reading it, would make me laugh
how it feels to be depressed for no particular reason
no snappy resolution, but rather a kind of understanding

I made a start on this years ago, but haven't worked on it at all recently. It's totally different from Beverly Cleary's type of writing - but still, maybe her stuff will inspire me to start work on it again.

Incense and Hymns

I went to the Christmas Eve service at the church I used to attend when I was a kid. I got there early and picked a seat in a pew about five rows back, to leave room for other people to sit in front of me so I could copy what they did. I was worried I wouldn't know when to stand, sit, kneel, etc. and especially when to go up for communion. I kept waiting for someone else to sit in a row ahead of me, but the church just filled up behind me, so finally, just before the service, I moved back a few rows so there was one person ahead of me. I felt mildly like an imposter, but I also really enjoyed the service, being in the familiar warm church I remember from my childhood, and listening to hymns that are poetry, if not invested with deeper meaning for me. Look how beautiful these lyrics are, for instance:

Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
the silent stars go by.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
the everlasting light;
the hopes and fears of all the years
are met in thee tonight.

It's good stuff.

After the service, lots of people who remembered me from when I was younger came up and hugged me. I wish I could find a secular community that was as friendly and had as many opportunities for involvement, but I don't think such a thing exists.

Xmas Xpectations

This year I'm noticing more people than usual in my circle of acquaintance who don't have "typical" Christmas plans (family, tree, presents). Some of them don't celebrate Christmas, some of them don't have family in the area, some are just kind of disconnected from people right now. I bet it's a really difficult time of year if you're in that situation. Everyone else is running around shopping, making plans, with the knowledge that they have a warm safe default refuge to be in on Christmas Day, saying bland soccer-mom things like, "And what are you doing for Christmas?"

It's not anyone's fault that they don't have a family to go to, but the assumption that everyone does must be tough. You say things like "I'm getting together with a few friends on that day," and it's implied but not said, "And that's fine, that's what I want to do, I don't mind that I don't have a family to go to." And you probably don't actually mind, but you do mind the expectation that you should have more, and that it's somehow sad that you don't. If everyone else would stop implying and assuming and questioning, it would probably be fine.

Anyway, I'm lucky I guess that I do have a family to go to. I can't wait until the office closes this afternoon so I can get home to them. As a kid growing up, I always thought Christmas was hands-down the best day of the year, and not just because of the gifts. I always loved the decorations around town, the way people were moved by "holiday spirit" to make little gestures of kindness. And I loved spending the whole day with my family, all of us together in one room with no other commitments but one another all day.

Happy holidays to all folks - with families and without. May you all have love in your lives.

Strange But True

In order to mop up a spill on the kitchen counter, you have to first get the sponge wet. You'd think it would soak stuff up best when it was super dry. But that is not the case.

Another kitchen tip is that you should not mix mac 'n' cheese in a colander. Cause you can't soak it.

This is unrelated, but I like blogging and email because you can disengage from the conversation any time you like. In real life I don't have that power in my conversations. I feel like I spend a lot of time helplessly trapped while a) coworkers give me stuff and spend time talking to me about it even though it's patently obvious to me what to do and I just want them to leave me alone so I can get to work b) random people tell me their life stories and just keep talking even though I haven't said anything except "wrapping it up" comments for the past 20 minutes and it's clear I am trying to get away. It makes me feel powerless and frustrated at the time, kind of angry later. It's my time too and why should they keep me there, for the purposes of their own social satisfaction? Some day I will defy etiquette, and just turn my back and walk away from someone who is talking relentlessly to me. So there.

New Age Bliss on the Way Home

What a great feeling it is to catch your bus - after a hard run of two or three blocks, dodging overburdened Christmas shoppers, icy air burning your lungs - then the moment of triumph: settling back in a seat, enveloped in warmth, to catch your breath as the bus steams past lighted shop windows in the gathering dusk.

Good first sentence for a short story? It sort of came to me yesterday on the bus and I got out my notebook to write it down. An old man across the aisle looked like he would have liked to know what I was writing. I wish it had been something more profound. But no, just what I was feeling at the moment.

A good motto for happiness, I think, is to live in the moment. Also, don't compare yourself to others, and remember to appreciate what you have. They're easier said than done, especially the second. But when I manage to do them, I am, however briefly, perfectly glad to be who and where I am. I once heard a yoga teacher say, "It is a privilege to live in these bodies." It's a little New Age for my taste, but I liked it anyway.

Words, Words, Words

Today I was thinking about literacy. I've always liked reading and probably spent the majority of my childhood engrossed in books, to the detriment of my social development. I used to hold a book up and read as I walked to the bus in the morning, navigating by peripheral vision. I read in between classes, at lunchtime, and after school instead of doing my homework. When my mom told me to go outside and get some fresh air, I went outside and read. This hasn't been without its consequences. I'm good at spelling and I know a lot of stories, but I'm also introverted and myopic as a myotis.

I think another consequence of excessive reading is that it changes the way you learn. I've found I can't remember people's names unless I write them down and see the name as text (or at least envision it as text in my head). Sometimes when my Spanish amigo is trying to teach me a new word, I can't even repeat it after him, until I've seen it written down. Then suddenly it's clear how to pronounce it. He's not big on writing, himself - when he writes words for me he does so slowly, and sometimes he spells words wrong. I think he's a little mystified about why I can't learn a word by hearing it.

At art galleries, I catch myself looking at titles and captions before I even glance at the painting in front of me - as if I can't appreciate it unless I know the context. This is a little disquieting, seeing as how the world is pictures, not text.

Ironically, this gives me insight into what it might be like to be illiterate. Illiteracy is having people show you text all the time and assume you understand, when that's just not how you learn. As soon as they show you a picture, or a gesture, it's obvious. I guess I'm fortunate that in a society where literate skills are highly valued, I'm oriented the way I am. I wonder if we had only an oral tradition, whether I'd have developed more abilities in that area, or if I'd be considered hopelessly backward.

Keeps on Slipping, Slipping, Slipping

It's a good thing that time is unidirectional. No matter how much you might be dreading something, it comes steadily closer, and then it's happening, and then it's over, and behind you, and you can relax. If time could flow backwards, you could never really sigh with relief that something was over.

I Wonder What the Eskimos Call It

There is a certain kind of snow that you notice on the streets before you can see it falling. Cars driving through intersections stir up a powdery white dust. It rises up in little spiralling dervishes, swirls around, and settles again. It's almost as though the snow is being created at street level. After a few minutes, you start to see bigger flakes tumbling down through the air, and you realize, "yes, it really is snowing!"

Irreverence

Today I was walking around the top gallery in the Hart building, which has a huge atrium with a giant black sculpture in it, and I noticed that there are some tiny paper airplanes resting on the flat surface on top of the sculpture. I walked around to see it from different sides and there are some on several of the level surfaces. They must have been flown there by people leaning out over balconies on various floors.


This isn't a great picture, but you can sort of get an idea of how much space there is and how big the sculpture is. I just had to laugh, wondering who the culprits were, and whether they get a kick out of it every time they walk past and see their airplanes sitting up there. The sculpture (and the building, and the suits) all take themselves so seriously - and then there are those airplanes. I love it.

Wabbits

Yesterday's post gave me the kick in the pants I needed to do something about the rabbits. I called the cathedral grounds office again and talked to the woman who has charge of them. I think most of my fear about making the call related to the sense that I was crossing social boundaries by trying to participate in the care of animals that don't belong to me. But if an animal is not being treated well, I think it's the responsibility of anyone who notices to do something about it, regardless of ownership. So I tried to pretend I was about 45 years old and a staunch community member who had a perfect right to say what I was saying.

The woman I talked to said that the rabbits were under the care of a veterinarian and they were just following his guidelines. I explained that the rabbit rescue societies I contacted said the rabbits should not be kept outdoors, and that if they were, they should be given hay for warmth and should be housed on Carefresh pet bedding, not cedar chips. The woman sounded like she was listening to me, and said she would ask the vet about it and would look into using Carefresh.

There are bigger fish to fry than these two rabbits, I know, and the amount of time I have spent worrying about them is probably ridiculous. But if I was a rabbit living in a wire pen outside, I'd want someone to take an interest in my welfare, so I kind of felt obliged to do something. It also seems like a tragedy of the commons situation. Because they're on public property, everyone probably assumes that someone else will look out for them. But ever since I heard about Kitty Genovese I've felt that I couldn't assume someone else would fix whatever was going on.

I still wish I could do more. But I think that aside from visiting to check on them periodically and give them hay on cold nights if they don't have any, I have done what I can.

Bricks

I feel anxious lately. It seems like I have a lot of worries that just don't ever leave me - and often hit me in idle moments like a sack of bricks in the gut. They feel like tasks I've been avoiding. Some of the things on the list:

- The rabbits that live in a hutch behind the cathedral. They're domestic short-hairs and shouldn't be kept outside - they have a wooden hutch but it's only thin plywood, and they don't have any hay or other nesting material to burrow into, just cedar chips which are toxic to rabbits. Plus, they're being kept on wire which is hard on their feet, and will eventually cripple them. I feel like I need to do something for their welfare, because if I don't, who will? But I'm afraid to make confrontational phone calls. The one time I did so far, the cathedral ground-staff guy just told me that they were "fine" and not to worry, and then he hung up. I'm not sure if I should call the humane society next, or what. Every night that dips below freezing, I feel guilty about them being out there in the cold, because I'm not doing anything to help them.

- My friend who teaches me Spanish during his evening rounds at the office. The other night I asked him if he was married, and he said sadly that he was not. I asked if he would like to be, and he said, "Yes, yes, very much. I always wanted. But maybe will not happen." He's so nice, and his whole family is in El Salvador, and he hardly knows anyone here. The other cleaning staff don't even seem to talk to him much. The thought of him going home and spending Christmas alone is very sad. I feel like I can't even talk with him about things I'm looking forward to, like Christmas and getting married, because it will make him feel bad.

- My father. I worry about him being lonely and sad, too. He's got my mom, but he's essentially alone otherwise. I know he feels depressed. I feel like I should be there for him more, and working more to build bridges between him and the rest of the world, but I'm not doing it.

- Having a baby. Sometimes I imagine I'm pregnant, in the home stretch coming down to labor, and I feel a wash of panic sweeping over me. I'm so afraid of labor. It's something I have to do, because I want kids, but it also feels like something I will not be able to do, no matter how much I read about it, so I dread it.

- My job, sometimes. The balance of praise and punishment is exactly arbitrary enough so that I never know what to expect. On the way to work I fret that I'm going to get bawled out for something random, and I race through the possibilities trying to figure out what it will be. I haven't been bawled out recently, and when I have it's been very mild, but it's still been unjustified as far as I'm concerned, and the praise comes randomly too, so I just never know what to expect. I know this is a sort of high-strung racehorse-temperament complaint - my work environment is pleasant and supportive compared to some, perhaps even most. Yet I still can't stop worrying.

- My boy, sometimes. He can be a tough nut to crack, emotionally. Especially because getting married was my idea, I feel it's my job to make him happy. But I'm never quite sure that he is, or that I'm doing all that I should. My instinct is to just pile on extra affection, but that would be for my own reassurance, not what he would want. I spend a lot of time being alert to his moods and trying to pick up on clues about what he's feeling.

Tomorrow's post will be more upbeat, I promise.

Triple X

Today's post is brought to you by the letter X. I love x. It's the weirdest, most unknowable, squirrelly letter there is. Even people who try to use it to be cool, like David X Cohen or Maxx Barry, can't diminish its coolness.

X can mean trans (xfer), cross (xing or xed out), Christ (Xmas), or any variable in algebra. The x entry is the shortest entry in the dictionary, but it contains all the most interesting words. X is forbidden (X-rated), it's foreign (xeno-), it sees through you but it's not seeable (X-rays). It's like a star that is brightest in peripheral vision, and vanishes when you stare at it straight on. X is a secret agent leaning against a wall in Diagon Alley and when you look straight at him, he gives you a half-smile and a long slow blink and disappears.

Winter in the City

I think one of the best feelings in the world is being safe indoors, looking out of your apartment window on a cold winter's night. Traffic swishing through the snowy streets far below. Snow falling, visible only in the pale yellow glow of the streetlights. The tick of the radiators heating up, keeping you warm, and warm kitchen linoleum under your bare feet. Very late at night is good, and the next day being a holiday is good. Someone you love being in bed waiting for you is good. I wonder how many of these impressions (well, not the last one obviously) are leftovers from my childhood when I used to spend every Christmas at my grandparents' apartment in New York City, when the city was always decorated to the max and the apartment smelled of Christmas-tree and cookies, and it always seemed to be snowing.

Today's Rant...

...is about complacency. I feel like I've run into it a lot recently - people boldly making declarations about all the friends they have (and will always have), how much money they make, how well-liked they are. I feel like all of these are a matter of good luck as much as skill and effort, and not to be taken for granted. I don't think I can expect to always have friends (much as I'd like that). Some really nice people end up isolated and sad. I can't count on always being in good health and able to work, either, or always being middle-class. I could end up having my feet amputated due to my Guinness World Record bunions, and then lots of opportunities would be lost to me. Although then I could play wheelchair rugby.

I'm reading Barbara Ehrenreich's book Nickel and Dimed. She spent two years "undercover" working service jobs in the U.S., and her experiences are an eye-opener. I never thought that a lot of waitresses, hotel maids, and other people might not even have a place to live, but among Ehrenreich's coworkers housing was a continual source of stress and disruption. Because they couldn't afford to pay the security deposit and first month's rent on an apartment up front, many of them were living at hotels on a more-or-less permanent basis, spending the first six or seven hours of work each day just earning what they needed to pay that night's hotel tab. A fifth of homeless people are working full or part time, and they still can't afford housing. I think it would be awful to work hard all day and not have anywhere safe or comfortable or permanent to go home to at the end of the day.

I'm so lucky to have had all the opportunities in my life. I've never been homeless, always had two parents who were involved and caring, always had the financial means to go to school. It's crazy that I whine sometimes and think I'm getting a raw deal, when I'm getting advantages most people in the world can't ever hope for.

The People Fight Back

There's an ad campaign that's been running in the city buses, promoting abstinence-only education. Actually abstinence-only is a generous way to describe it. It's essentially anti-birth control. It features pictures of troubled-looking teenagers with headlines like "Give Me A Chance...Not A Condom" and "Just Because You Did, Doesn't Mean I Will" (referring to unprotected sex). The text under the headlines says stuff like "Mom, Dad. I know you think I'm going to make mistakes. But I need you to believe in me. I want to do the right thing. I just need your encouragement to do it...Don't give me condoms, give me your support."

From day one this campaign irritated me - because it purports to speak for adolescents, but actually it's backed by some pro-life group; because it's clear to me that if you want to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies you should offer teenagers more access to protection, not less; because it suggests that parents who are responsible enough to make sure their teens have birth control available to them are "not trusting" or "not believing in" their kids. Please. Every time I see one of those ads, with its smarmy assumptions about teens and sex and parenting, I get annoyed.

This is why I am so happy to see that people have started scrawling retorts on the posters in magic marker. On one poster, the headline was altered to read "Give Me A Chance...AND A Condom." On another, under "Don't Give Up On Me," someone wrote sarcastically "Make Me Have A Baby!" On another, someone crossed out all the text and wrote, "Condoms Protect Against HIV and Pregnancy." I felt like cheering each time I saw one.

To be fair, I suppose the group that sponsors these ads believes that if you don't offer teens condoms, they won't have sex. So they are interested in stopping teen sex, not in making teens have unsafe sex. But that's so naive. I can't help but think the sponsors have seriously skewed perceptions about teen life and priorities, and are more interested in what they wish was true, than in what really is. And their misperceptions have the power to hurt people, if anyone takes them seriously.

I'm still scared to do any magic marker work myself - partly I keep forgetting to bring a marker, partly it's because the bus is always jammed and I feel weird about standing up to scrawl on a poster while everyone watches. Technically it is vandalism, and I guess you could get in trouble. Anyway, that just makes me that more grateful to people who take the risk to speak out against stupid propaganda.

The Lost Love Poem

Here's a love poem that was scribbled on a bookmark in a book bought at a second-hand book store. I don't know if it ever reached its intended recipient, but I hope it did.

Here and now

We have left each other
too many times
The airports of the world
conspire to separate us
But though each time
I am lifted miles high
and each second pulled
farther away
I remain
I am always with you
I can see you right now
I can hear, feel, smell you.

Soon our paths will be one
They will be one
I love you.

Double Take

I saw something really cool today. I was walking around during my lunch hour, and I passed a designer clothing store with models in the window, the kind of store that's so posh they change the outfits on display almost every single day. Today they had a bride in a kind of shimmery silver-white gown and veil, and two girls wearing cashmere sweaters and skirts, in a faux winter scene with big glittery snowflakes hanging from the ceiling behind them.

The cool thing was that the models were alive. The bride was moving through a series of vaguely artistic-looking poses, draping her arm on the ledge behind her, holding her hands behind her head, pointing a toe and gazing at it reflectively, moving smoothly from one to the next and holding each for about the same amount of time. The two girls were turning their heads to look at things, and resting their hands on each other's shoulders or waists. They really looked like mannequins, too. All three of them had very pale white skin and rosy cheeks, and wavy hair sculpted back in a bun. They looked very beautiful, but like they had never smiled before - not a single line in their porcelain skin. I smiled at them, but their expressions didn't change, like beefeaters. I've never seen live models in a window before, I've never even heard of a store doing that. It certainly was eye-catching.

Double Speak

Sometimes I get so bored during meetings at work, I resort to mindlessly copying down the fragments of corporate double-speak I hear around me. There is a set group of phrases that gets tossed around every meeting. I don't think they can adjourn unless each of the following has been said at least once:

leverage the announcement
it resonates with the public
context that for him/her
we'll need to finesse it
table it for now
follow up with them
we can wordsmith it later
this issue has legs
it's the wrong ask
we'll have to sit on it
let's throw that in the mix
it's been a fruitful discussion

Today's meeting was particularly pointless and some of the people in the group seemed to be getting pretty frustrated. At a certain point, when it was clear nothing would be settled, my boss said in order to wrap things up, "Well, this has been a fruitful discussion," and I almost burst out laughing.