Ian's Meme

I know. I know. One of my 2007 blogging goals was to quit being enticed by memes, and this makes two in a row. But, I just had to run with Ian’s satirical meme (especially since his descriptions of my memes made me laugh out loud). And since it's satire, it doesn't really count as a real meme. So here it is.

Oh, and Ian, P.S. you must have picked up all my bad spelling habits while copying your sisters, because I didn’t even realize you’d misspelled “gnat” (silent “k,” silent “g,” who came up with these ridiculous things? Why not just spell it “nat?”) until my spell check caught it. Then again, I think that bad spelling gene just runs in the family, and there’s nothing we can do about it. We’re in good company. Gerald Durrell was a self-described notoriously bad speller.

If you fell through the rotten boards on your front porch and got stuck and became parched with thirst, what would you rather have to drink, chilled dirty sock water or warm flat Sierra Mist?
I don’t have a front porch, so, thank God, don’t have to make such decisions.

What would you rather do, make love in an outhouse or win free tickets to see the Eagles?
Are the Eagles playing somewhere like Hawai’i? And are all expenses paid? If so, then, I’d take the free tickets. (I ask, because these are the kinds of deals offered by a lot of the “classic rock” stations in Connecticut: be the ninth caller and go see some has-been band you never liked in the first place – in The Bahamas!)

When you were a child, what would you rather do, climb a tree or copy your sisters?
Copy Tarzan by climbing trees (hey, Ian, we should do a post on such games as “Tarzan and the Jungle Boys” over on Ian and Emily one of these days).

If you were stuck on a desert island would you rather have a TV/ DVD player that doesn’t work because there is no electricity on a desert island, or ten of your favorite books that are unreadable because they were drenched by the monsoons?
The TV/DVD player, because I don’t have as much hope and expectation wrapped up in TV/DVD players as I do books. Thus the disappointment wouldn’t be as great.

Of all of your neighbors, who is your favorite?
Cheyenne and Riley, the two huge mutts who live across the way and always race out to bark at me ferociosuly, even though they know perfectly well who I am.

How many gnats do you think have bitten you while you have been out on the porch writing this post?
None. The gnat problem in CT isn’t nearly what it is in NC. Besides, it's still winter up here.

How far are you willing to go for a cheap laugh?
I would start a blog that was supposed to be on-going commentary about my first year of telecommuting, realize that didn’t provide me with enough funny material, and then just start blogging about anything that came to mind, if I could make it funny.

How far would you go to get more people to read your blog?
Shhhh. I don’t want any more people reading my blog. Don’t tell anyone about my blog. Only a very special select group of people gets to read and comment on my blog.

Why do you blog?
It’s an addiction almost as bad as reading.

If you get to heaven and you can find out how many times you did something throughout your lifetime, what would it be?
How many times I've stubbed my toe.

If you were making up a fake meme and you ran out of ideas for questions, what would you do?
Ask my brother for some ideas.

If you were sitting in a hard wooden chair with the gnats biting you would you be: a) uncomfortable, b) ready to end this post, c) hungry and very itchy, d) torn between your desire to get attention through humor and your desire not to be consumed by little flying ants?
I'd probably be pissed, because I'd paid a fortune to come to this gnat-infested place on vacation, thinking I'd get to sit out on a front porch, sipping Sierra Mist, and enjoying myself.

If you are secretly superstitious and have a fear of the number 13, how many lame questions would you add to your fake meme in order for it not to end on the number 13?
I’d add 2 to make it look like I meant to have 15, as so many things come in multiples of five.

If you had the opportunity to drop Dick Cheney in the middle of an extremist Sunni militia encampment in only his briefs, would you take it?
I know I’m supposed to be a Christian, but…

Meanwhile, in keeping with this being an evening focused on Ian, I've also posted over here. Two posts in one night. Can you tell I'm procrastinating? I'm supposed to be packing for the nearly week-long whirlwind trip Bob and I are about to make down South to visit with two churches that are interested in him and squeeze in some time with family members (unfortunately, not far enough south this time to get all the way down to Ian's)? Tell you all about it when we get back.

Does Size Matter Meme

I got this one from Charlotte. It seems she and I could have a contest to see who walks the loudest.

How do you feel about your height?
I wish I were taller. I’m not particularly short for a woman (5’3”), but I was short all during my youth and still think of myself as short. Besides, we live in a man’s world, and in that world, 5’3” is short. 5’8” seems like a good height for a woman to me. But knowing my luck, if I were suddenly to wake up 5" taller, that five inches would be added to my neck or my forehead, say, rather than to my legs, which is where I want them.

Has your height helped or hindered you in your professional life?
Neither, that I know of, as far as promotions, etc. go. I will note, though, that at my former company, for a period, I was the only female manager in my department, and three of the four men with whom I worked towered over me. There were a few times when I can remember walking into a managerial meeting before everyone had sat down and taking a mental gulp, despite the fact I adored all these men and wouldn’t have called any of them threatening in any way. I chalked this feeling up to leftover instincts emanating from the oldest region of my brain, which still believes we all live in caves and might get knocked over the head and dragged to one that’s not so nicely decorated, and convinced myself I was ignoring it. In reality, when we got down to the business of talking, I probably spoke up and stood my ground more firmly than they would have thought I could to compensate for these feelings, so maybe my short stature has helped me.

Is society biased against short people?
“Yes,” says the one who wishes bookstores and libraries would spring for more than six stepstools and ladders to cover their thousands of stacks and who recently had the very embarrassing experience of having to ask a tall man (okay, he wasn’t even really that tall, but he was tall enough to reach it) who was walking by to please reach for her the last coconut cake on the back of the top shelf of the grocer’s freezer. Of course, now I’ve just embarrassed myself further by proving how desperate I was for a frozen coconut cake.

Is society biased against tall people?
Against tall women, I think so, but not against tall men. Again, it’s a man’s world.

Do people make annoying remarks about your height?
Not really annoying, but because I always seem to fall in love with men who are at least a good ten inches taller than I am, I have always been attached to men who have come up with some sort of nickname that incorporates the fact that I’m short. For instance, Bob affectionately refers to me as “The Midget,” but I call him “The Giant,” so no harm done in our politically incorrect name-calling.

Invitations and Some Very Nice Pens (Oh Yes, and a Book or Two)

Having been someone who’s loved to write since she first started tracing letters onto paper at age five, I’ve always had somewhat of a pen fetish. Deliver any bad news you have to deliver (“your house is being repossessed,” “I’m leaving you for a nineteen-year-old exotic dancer,” “the company is reorganizing your job out of existence…”) accompanied by a fine new pen just dying to be rolled across blank pages, and I’ll probably smile, give you a hug, and go in search of said pages.

When I write stories (and sometimes even blog entries), I almost always write the first draft in pen (or pencil). I’m not exactly sure why: I can just as easily compose with a keyboard. I suppose, though, I find composing without one more soothing. And I do love the convenience of it. I can write anywhere without having to worry about plugs, power cords, batteries, sun glare, etc. It stands to reason, then, that if this is my preferred method of creative writing, I need nice pens, right?

I married a man whose pen fetish is as bad as mine. Worse, really. I worry if I spend too much money on a pen, always aware of my absent-mindedness and the fact that I could very easily lose it. Bob, on the other hand, has no such worries, and he collects fine pens the way some people collect fine jewelry (or rather, I give them to him on present-giving occasions, which makes such occasions nice and easy for me). I’m often sent into a state of panic when I see him casually slip one of these into a shirt pocket and walk out into the big, wide world where I am sure it wants to leap, never to return (mine aren’t allowed to leave the house, except on very special occasions, and then only in boxes in tightly secured bags).

A week ago Saturday, we had a real dilemma. I got an invitation to go to a tea in Manhattan hosted by Persephone Books. Bob got an invitation for a special pen expo at The Fountain Pen Hospital, also in Manhattan on the same day. We hemmed and hawed, considered going to both, but since there were other things we also wanted to do while in the city, finally decided being tempted to buy more books was a bad idea, since we're going to be moving soon (at least we hope. A post on that is waiting to be written, and it's bigger than the telecommuting ones that are still lined up, so it will probably beat its way to the front of the line soon). Pens are much easier to transport than books. Besides, the Persephone Tea cost money, and the pen expo was free.

Big mistake to think we’d be saving money. You can’t take two pen fanatics, put them in a store full of mouth-wateringly beautiful and heart-attack-worthy expensive pens and expect to get off cheap. I’m proud to say I did not succumb to the $3000 glass and sterling silver pen that made me understand why some people feel the need to push others to their deaths on their way to the top of the corporate ladder where they can rake in my yearly salary in a mere month.

I did, however, decide I needed to complement the Faber-Castell pencil my former boss gave me as a Christmas gift a few years back with a similar roller ball and ball point. I mean, doesn’t everyone need a complete set? And then there was the Mark Twain signature fountain pen. Everything was 25% off. When else would I ever find these pens at these prices? We got Bob a beautiful Caran d'ache pencil (this purchase was not the least bit influenced by the delicious Swiss chocolates the Caran d'ache woman was giving away). I love Caran d'ache. I used to get those metal boxes of colored pencils (the ones with the Swiss Alps painted on the top) when I was a child, and I wouldn’t have any other. So, we bought four writing instruments and didn’t even come anywhere close to spending even a quarter of the cost of that silver and glass pen. What a bargain!

We left Fountain Pen Hospital, and I decided we needed some nice, new, blank books on which to test our new purchases. I wracked my brains (I mean, we were in the middle of Manhattan, where it’s just so difficult to find anything you want) and couldn’t think of any place better to buy these than the Strand Bookstore. After all, it was so conveniently located a mere forty blocks up on Broadway. While there, I decided I might as well check to see if a few books on my TBR list were available. The Strand, although a fabulous place to browse, with its “18 miles of new and used books” is typically disappointing if you arrive with specific titles in mind. Wouldn’t you know it? This was the day, of all days, I hit pay dirt when I checked the shelves for Rose Macaulay (some of you may have figured out that I’ve become quite obsessed with her lately). Last time I was there, they had nothing of hers. This time, they had five books, The Towers of Trebizond being the only one I’d read. I chose two. I toyed with T. of T., because I love it so (it was lent to me, and I don't own it), but then I decided against it. You know, that would have been conspicuous consumption. Bob, not to be outdone by me, found two books of his own: a short story collection by Wallace Stegner and another by Raymond Carver. And, then of course, there were the blank books.

All right, so we decided to save money by going to the free pen event. We decided we shouldn’t add to our book collection when we expect to be moving sometime in the next half year or so. We spent a fortune on pens, and we came home with four books. There’s something wrong with this picture.

I've posted over here today.

Blogging for Newspapers

Yesterday morning, I was listening to a story on NPR about a newspaper in Boston that’s looking for bloggers who live in the city to act as local news reporters. It’s a very interesting idea, and I immediately perked up, even though my coffee hadn’t yet finished its own perking. The argument was that bloggers know more about their communities than some reporter coming from outside does. What an interesting idea. I bet many bloggers know more about certain subjects than many reporters do. Here’s an example, just off the top of my head: math educators might happen to know a little more about the “math wars” going on in the American education system than a self-declared-math-hating journalist. If papers like The Wall Street Journal tapped into math educators blogging on the subject, and got one of them to write their articles, maybe I wouldn’t be so infuriated every time I read an article on the subject and would stop coming away thinking, “That reporter doesn’t have a clue. How could she have written that? Didn’t she do her research?”

Now, I know, reporters are supposedly more objective than those in the field, and maybe it’s a good idea to try to have an objective voice when discussing controversial topics like: why do American students lag so far behind students in other countries when it comes to mathematical ability? But let’s take a different sort of example. Yesterday’s New York Times had an article about chimpanzees in its Science Times section. One can’t have an article about chimpanzees without mentioning Jane Goodall. Wouldn’t it be cool if that article had been written by someone who’d actually worked under her rather than some reporter who was just researching her? I’m not saying there’s someone out there blogging about his/her experiences working with Jane Goodall, but there could be (honestly, I haven’t looked). Think about how much more information that person would have. The possibilities for this sort of reporting seem endless when one thinks about the vastness of the blogosphere.

Even more interesting about this report was that the bloggers for this Boston paper would actually see their names in print. The idea, as I was able to gather, is to print their blog entries in an actual newspaper. What a nice transition for those who are eager to be published. They wouldn’t have to abandon their comfortable blogging zones.

It doesn’t sound like there could be a downside to this for the blogger, does there? Well, then I listened on to find out that this paper doesn’t plan to pay the bloggers. Maybe. Eventually. But not yet. What? Can you imagine a paper approaching someone and saying, “We’d like you to write stories for us, but we’re not going to pay you?” Unless you’re a college intern, doing it solely for experience, or happen to be independently wealthy, you’d be nuts to agree to that. I hope any blogger approached by them realizes this, especially if he or she wants blogging legitimized. Everyone knows that the key to legitimization is cold, hard cash. I mean, lawyers don’t run around providing free legal representation in the hopes that they’ll become recognized in the field. Aspiring writers shouldn’t either. And imagine how much money the owner of a paper can rake in if he doesn’t have to pay his reporters (or at least is only having to pay those few he hires who aren’t bloggers). Even more important, though, is: what’s in it for the blogger at all? Bloggers already get to blog about anything they want with no pay. Suddenly, people are going to be asked to blog about things someone else dictates, and still not get paid, all for the slight chance that they might be recognized and maybe then be able to publish something that pays? As far as I’m concerned, Corporate America strikes again. Only this time, the worker bees aren’t getting even a tiny drop of the Queen (or King) Bee’s honey.

Not Much to Say

I don't think much can be said this evening except that my heartfelt thoughts and prayers are with all those in The Virginia Tech community and their friends and family members. I hope others will pass on thoughts as well.

Sense of Humor: R.I.P.?

Somehow, somewhere, over the last few months, I seem to have lost my sense of humor. I just can’t figure out what’s happened to it. I’m a bit suspicious, knowing it, that “lost” may not be the word I want. I think it’s playing a trick on me and is hiding somewhere, because every so often, for a few special occasions like on Thursday nights when 30 Rock is on or when Bob and I go see a performance of The Cocktail Hour on stage, it materializes. But most of the time, it seems to be hiding in some deep, dark tunnel underneath a city street somewhere, the sort of place that echoes with mysterious voices and maniacal laughter where it knows I won’t dare set foot to try to find it.

I first realized it was missing when I picked up the audiobook version of Little Children by Tom Perotta a few months back. The jacket on the CD cover declared that this book was nothing short of brilliantly funny (granted, the subject matter didn’t scream “funny,” but I’ve been surprised in the past by good comic authors who can make any subject laughable). I was looking for a good laugh and eagerly inserted it into the CD player as soon as I got out to my car to find myself somewhat amused by the opening playground scene and its depiction of suburban motherhood. But that was the only amusement I was able to squeeze from what I found to be a hauntingly sad portrayal of 21st-century suburban life where people haven’t a clue what they want or need, and everyone is looking for a scapegoat for his or her own unbelievably wretched unhappiness.

Shortly after that, I picked up the audiobook version of Prep, a book about which I’d been curious for some time. This one also promised to be “funny.” I found absolutely nothing – seriously, N-O-T-H-I-N-G – funny about this gut-wrenchingly poignant portrayal of one of the most painful periods of a girl’s life. I did, one morning, find myself crying while listening to this book on my morning walk, but not once did it elicit even a slight chuckle. When I returned it to the library, I decided to take a look at the print book to see what its jacket copy had to say. Guess who endorsed it as funny. Tom Perotta. Well, if those two think they’re funny, I’d hate to see what they’re like when a loved one dies, and I hope I don’t ever end up in their company at a dinner party.

Thinking that maybe my sense of humor is just becoming wary of audiobooks, I decided to try a DVD. Holy Smoke was hailed as a comedy. Okay, I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t call a movie that takes me from butterflies-in-the-stomach in the beginning to cats-with-sharp-claws-in-the-stomach at the end a rip-roaring comedy. Maybe I’m odd, because although it was a very good movie, it just wasn’t the sort of thing I would describe to a friend thus, “Ohmigod, I was laughing so hard, I couldn’t stay in my seat while watching this one.” That’s the sort of thing I might say about, oh, I don’t know, There’s Something about Mary, maybe (I’m waiting to read somewhere that that one is a three-hankie tear-jerker).

Finally, encouraged by rave reviews in The New York Times and The New Yorker, Bob and I, desperately in need by this point of some gut-bursting laughter, decided to watch The Sarah Silverman Program. After the first episode we watched, I decided I was just being a bit dense or dumb. I must have missed something, because it had promise. It seemed like it could be so funny. So, I waited a week and watched it again, which is when I decided “dumb” was the right word but not to describe me.

You don’t know how much I’ve been missing my sense of humor. I count on it, especially when I’m down. I don’t understand why it’s chosen to desert me. Oh, wait a minute…hold on…I think I hear something. Was that it peeking through the pages of Rose Macaulay’s Crewe Train? Oh, and there it seems to have been flashing subliminally across the TV screen as we watched Casanova. It even came along and popped up to say “boo” a couple of times while I was sitting in the theater watching The Queen. I guess it’s not really gone after all. Maybe it’s just chosen to be a little more subtle these days, which is something I can truly appreciate.

Books Aren't My Only Passion

Buoyed up by my first litblogging imitation, I’ve decided to confess I have an obsession with something other than books. It seems to be one shared by most book fiends I know: music. I probably don't need to note then that books aren’t the only objects to accumulate at the rate of breeding mice in our house. CDs do as well. Say what you will about Amazon and the demise of brick-and-mortar stores (okay, if you won’t, I will, “Damn the demise of good brick-and-mortar stores where you can chat with knowledgeable clerks and flip through and hold the merchandise!”), but what a fabulous one-stop-shopping place it is. If someone had told me when I was thirteen that one day I’d be able to go to this place to order books and music together and have them delivered right to my door, I would have wished the years away at Mach speed rather than my more leisurely “please-just-a-little-faster-so-I-can-be-a-grownup-and-do-what-I-want” speed. Well, we all know that grownups don’t always get to do what they want, but it’s nice to have my own money with which to frequent Amazon.

I love all kinds of music, but what I want to discuss today is maybe the equivalent of the best of the “chick flick” or “chick lit.” Too bad I can’t think of any musical term that rhymes with “chick.” I’m stuck with “chick music.” (Feel free to help me out here if you’re aware of some clever phrase for this genre.) I’m not talking here about sappy, supposedly romantic singers who rarely write their own lyrics and who are played ad nauseam on Lite FM. I’m talking about those tough, passionate, sexy women who pull you up on stage with them and ask you to participate, making you forget you can’t carry a tune to save your life and that you weren’t even able to master the recorder when everyone was taught to play it in music appreciation class, let alone the guitar.

I thought I’d highlight five of my favorite examples. These are women who just don’t get nearly the attention they deserve as far as I’m concerned. And, in case you haven’t heard of one or two, in my eagerness to force my taste on others, I’m providing CD recommendations, so you can go sample some snippets over at Amazon.

(In alphabetical order, lest you think I have a favorite.)

Iris Dement – I actually got to meet her once: so shy and sweet. Her music is much more country than folk with, at times, a hint of the influence of rock. Thus, she’s got a bit more of a twang to her than others I like. She hits you with beautifully sad melodies, as well as an extremely critical eye focused on our culture, especially in songs with these sorts of lyrics:

“Living in the wasteland of the free
Where the poor have now become the enemy
Let’s blame our troubles on the weak ones
Sounds like some kind of Hitler remedy…”

If these words are striking a chord with you, wait till you hear the actual chords. Try The Way I Should.

Deirdra Flint – funny, funny, funny, funny folk (and great fun to see perform). But she also surprises with some very poignant songs. I used to walk around talking about how I wished I could be the Tin Man and have no heart. Little did I know she’d written a song about this very thing. If you’ve ever been a bridesmaid or had to escort one, you should love “The Bridesmaid Dress Song,” in which a bridesmaid’s huge, pouffie dress saves her from drowning. You can find both songs on the superb The Shuffleboard Queens.

Michelle Shocked – I had the pleasure of seeing her perform in her home state of Texas. I’d just arrived in Austin from Dallas where I’d seen Michael Stipe of R.E.M. stand up on stage and mock the audience (just a little aside here: I’m a huge R.E.M fan, but had been down on Stipe for years for his smugness until I saw him in New York two nights after Bush won the 2004 election. He was terrific! Or maybe it was just the fact that – smug or not – he looked so good when he stripped down to his underwear). Michelle was so refreshing after that evening in Dallas. You’ve never seen a performer so happy to be there and so into what she was doing. Her story-telling ability was surpassed by anyone I’d seen on stage up until that point, and we got the added bonus of her father joining her for the last few songs. She’s a wonderful combination of country, folk, and rock and has a beautiful, haunting voice. If you’ve never heard her, try Arkansas Traveler, which highlights her folk-y side (and has the added bonus that she worked with a lot of other great musicians to produce it).

Syd Straw – you don’t get much better than this when it comes to fabulous bluesy-rock with a strong and very beautiful female voice. Her songs will make you think (I love the line “My sphinx is a jinx.”) I was lucky enough to see her onstage in a small venue back when she was with the Golden Palominos, but I like her much better on her own. She’s only produced two solo efforts, and of those, I’ve only got the wonderful War and Peace, one of those rare CDs on which there isn’t a single song I don’t like. Maybe I should go buy the other one...

The Nields – their energy on stage is truly amazing. I love the way they sort of jump around to their folk-rock sound like excited children, and their strong, edgy, and sexy feminist leanings are very powerful. How can you not like a group with lyrics such as:

“I used to be young,
Now I am old,
I used to be hot,
Now I am almost cold.
I used to be hard as candy,
But I’ve been sucked on too long…”?

And their version of “Lovely Rita” is better than the one by what's their name? The Beatles? A good first listen is Gotta Get Over Greta.

In writing this, I’ve realized I’m quite partial to folk. I’ve also realized that by limiting myself to five, I’ve made this exercise quite difficult. I have many, many other favorites in the world of female performers, but these will have to be it for now. Would love some recommendations from anyone reading this who has any, especially if you know of some who are similar to these five.

Telecommuting: One Year (and a Bit) On

On Thursday, I had a couple of meetings with people from my sister company, where I used to work, so I decided to spend the day working from that office. Doing so made me very aware of thoughts and questions I have pertaining to telecommuting, which I have now been doing from my home for just over a year (to be exact, I moved home on April 1, 2006). These thoughts and questions have decided they belong somewhere other than inside my head where no one can see or hear them. They’ve been pounding on my skull, reminding me that I once created a blog that was supposed to be all about them. They were supposed to have a special home where they could reside and not be overcrowded by worries and sudden cravings and depressing thoughts, all of whom seem to think they own the inside of my head. So, I’m letting the telecommuting thoughts free this morning, and let me tell you, they are some very happy campers, as they line up, ready to take the plunge from brain to computer screen. Here’s what they have to say:

1) Please, please, please don’t ever make me go back to working in an office again. The 45-minute-turned-one-hour-for-some-mysterious-reason commute with all those idiots on the road, tailgating me and trying to get ahead of me (why? So they could hurry up and get to their places of employment, which I’m sure 90% of them complain about being so awful?) left me in anything but the relaxed state I’m used to being in these days when I sit down at my computer in the morning. I didn’t get my morning walk. Listening to NPR while those same tailgaters are coming dangerously close to head-on collisions in their eagerness to get around me in no-passing zones is not the same as listening to NPR while making coffee and getting breakfast together. For that matter, drinking coffee from a travel mug is not the same as drinking coffee from my favorite flowered mug.

2) How does anyone ever get anything done in an office? Did I really used to be able to tune out all those conversations going on around me, along with the ringing telephones and the urges to look up every time someone walked by?

3) Why didn’t I go broke when I worked at an office? At the moment, I don’t tend to leave the house unless I have to. Thus, I’m not tempted by those things on the “outside” nearly as often as I was when I had to leave the house every single day and drive to a place that’s dangerously close to a Barnes and Noble (the closest super bookstore to my home is a 25-minute drive away). Granted, on Thursday, my former boss took me to lunch, so I wasn’t tempted to forego the perfectly good lunch I’d packed in order to run out and get some sushi (something I was prone to do back in the day), but B & N was calling my name when I hit some traffic trying to get home and decided it might be a good idea to just wait for the traffic to subside. After all, I’ve been meaning to pick up a new moleskin notebook. Of course, once through the door, I had to pick up a book as well (Ella Minnow Pea, for those of you who are curious, a book I’d forgotten I wanted to read until I found it just staring me right in the face, asking to come home with me). Oh, I also had to go to the drugstore to buy a sympathy card for a friend. While there, being a good capitalist, I decided I’d better get some Easter candy before it’s all gone, because, after all, I’m sure all the Cadbury Cream Eggs in all the stores around here are going to sell out by Easter.

4) Telecommuting is something best done when husbands are not home all day ostensibly job hunting, but really wanting your undivided attention, or at least wanting your help with mailing things, writing letters and essays, and finding the leftover soup in the fridge. But, I’m beginning to realize, he’s less of a nuisance than all that noise in the office was. Still, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I’m looking forward to the day when he’s gainfully employed in a non-telecommuting position. Of course, then everyone can look forward to hearing me, The President of The Grass-Is-Always-Greener Society, complaining about how a pastor’s wife should really just call herself a widow.

5) I love my “celebrity” status when I do visit the office (either my old one or my new one). These are people who would probably all be whining about me and sick to death of me if they had to see me everyday, but instead, I get greeted with warmth and affection whenever I’m around. It’s like the long-distance relationship in which two lovers never see each others’ faults, because they’re always on their best behavior when they do get together.

6) That being said, this long-distance lover still wishes she could hang out more with her colleagues. I always have such a great time when I do.

7) My early fears of not being able to balance work and home life in an effective way have proven to have been completely unfounded. I suspect this is because I so enjoy what I do, I’m not tempted to avoid work and become a daytime-TV addict who never changes out of her pajamas. What I’ve discovered is that I also value my personal life enough to be thrilled to have more of it now that I don’t have to commute to work and work on other peoples’ schedules instead of my own. That’s not to say I don’t have the occasional day in which I’m still at work at 9:00 p.m., but I also have the occasional day in which I’m really not very productive at all (things which happened even when I wasn’t telecommuting).

8) I’m more of a loner than I ever thought. I love the solitude telecommuting gives me. Now, if I need or want to interact with others, I have to schedule those interactions, which gives me more control over them, and more time to prepare for them.

9) I still hate telephone meetings. I much prefer face-to-face meetings, even when it means a long drive. But I want to have my meeting and immediately leave the premises.

10) I still have no idea how to convince others that working from home does not mean “available in ways others aren’t.” I hope I figure out this one before I officially become “the pastor’s wife.”

There you have it: proof that I sometimes still use this blog as a forum for talking about telecommuting.

Bait and Switch by Barbara Ehrenreich

(My apologies to all you wonderful litbloggers out there for this rather cheap imitation, but I promised Cam I’d post on this book today. Also, I’m keeping up with one of my 2007 blogging goals of embracing my inner litblogger: this is my first blog devoted solely to a book I’ve just read.)

When I read books by Barbara Ehrenreich, just as I do when I read books by Sarah Vowell, Mary Roach, or David Rakoff; I first have to get past the green hue my skin takes on as I think about the fact they all managed to catch the calling I missed while I was so busy worrying about such things as food, clothing, housing, and health insurance (like those I just read about in this book). Am I the only one who would love to be able to visit all kinds of historical sites, interview residents and tour guides, pretending just to be a very interested tourist? How about traveling all over the world to try to discern whether or not ghosts are real? And then there’s posing as a white-collar, corporate-America-type, trying to get a job, as Ehrenreich did for this book. Once the acting’s done, you get to spend your time putting together a collection of witty essays or chapters for books people have already agreed to publish (probably with a nice little advance against royalties to help pay for all that travel).

But, all jealousy and envy aside, I picked up this book thinking I wasn’t going be all that sympathetic. I didn’t think I could feel the pain of whiny, laid-off executives who have always felt a sense of entitlement, and who are having trouble finding new six-figure-salary jobs. As they so often do, my prejudices astounded me. Despite these prejudices, though, I was still well aware of the fact that it’s easy for me to be dismissive of such people, because I have no debt, have no children, and have had steady employment since graduating from college, and that means I’ve been making a decent salary for some time now. If I were suddenly to lose my job, rather than grasping for another job in the corporate world, I’d probably see it as an opportunity to explore other career paths (psychologist, nutritionist, freelance writer all spring to mind).

I had approached the other Ehrenreich book I’ve read Nickel and Dimed with a much more sympathetic and open mind. That book is about the blue-collar workers of America: people working their butts off in jobs most of us white-collar pansies could stand for maybe two hours, many of them working more than one job, and they were still unable to make ends meet. That book made me feel there’s something very wrong with America, and it also reinforced my long-held belief that “The American Dream” (like winning the lottery) is only really attainable for a very lucky few.

But then I started to get into Bait and Switch and realized that this book also reinforces my long-held belief. I gather from Ehrenreich’s experiences (she decided to pretend to be an out-of-work public relations specialist and gave herself a year to try to find a job with a corporation) and from what she tells us, we have a glut of people (many whose parents were probably those work-their-butts-off-blue-collar Americans who wanted more for their children) who are finding life in the corporate world to be tougher than the lives their parents had. Their parents probably pushed them to get an education, believing a college degree would guarantee success. They’d never lack for a decent job with decent pay. They’d move up in the world. Well, it just “ain’t so.”

Remember how in the old days, only those with the right connections got jobs? Well, it’s not the “old days.” Nothing’s changed. I guarantee if you grew up in a family in which your father was CEO of Major Corporation, and you went to Ivy League School of Choice, and joined the right clubs and fraternities, you’re not one of the ones suffering today. However, if your father worked on the assembly line of Major Corporation, and you went to State U on scholarship, and you couldn’t afford to join clubs and fraternities, but made straight A’s in all your business and communications classes, the subject in which you majored, you probably lost your job at Minor Brothers Company going on twelve months ago now, have applied for countless numbers of other jobs, and still barely get a response from anyone.

As this book got into the details of how difficult it is for these people to find jobs, my sympathies rose. Ehrenreich approaches the subject with a wonderfully wry eye (why I like her so much), but after a while, even she can’t hide the fact that hidden beneath all the absurdity (job “coaches,” “networking bootcamps,” etc.) is the incredible sadness and disillusionment. When she reveals the life of the “bootcamp” leader, it’s almost enough to make one cry.

One of the most disturbing chapters in the book is The Transformation. Here, we basically learn that women can’t win in the corporate world when it comes to appearance. They’re either too beautiful and can’t be taken seriously, or they’re too masculine when they need to be more feminine in order to be “approachable.” My question is: why aren’t men seen as “unapproachable?” Aren’t they the prototypes of “masculine?” (But that’s a subject for a post on What We Said.)

Ultimately, I came away with very similar conclusions as Ehrenreich’s, which is that despite the fact that those selling advice to people looking for jobs will say that the most important factor is “attitude,”

...What they need, too, is not a “winning attitude” but a deeper and more
ancient quality, one that I never once heard mentioned in my search, and that is
courage: the courage to come together and work for change, even in the face of
overwhelming odds. (Barbara Ehrenreich, Bait and Switch, New York:
Metropolitan Books, 2005, p. 237).

I also came away from this book more aware than ever that I’m extraordinarily lucky, that somehow I’ve managed to find the Summerhill of companies in and amongst all the Etons and Harrows. She quotes Steven Covey, noting that he says that to achieve a level of passion in the workplace (“passion” is apparently a very important part of “attitude”) you need to:

...induce pain…As long as people are contented and happy, they’re not going to
do much. You don’t want to wait until the market induces pain, so you have to
induce it in other ways. (Stephen R. Covey, The Eighth Habit: From
Effectiveness to Greatness, New York: Free Press, 2004, p. 4)

I work in a place where people are more passionate about what they do and more productive than anywhere else I’ve ever worked. We avoid pain. Ask any of the employees, and they’ll tell you they’re contented and happy. When our parent company conducts its employee satisfaction survey every few years, ours is the only one that consistently scores sky high, way above the rest of the pack. We’re also financially successful. We’re proving Stephen Covey wrong.

I, like Ehrenreich, believe America can change. More companies could be like the one where I work. However, it isn’t going to happen unless those who work for corporate America decide to shake it up a little, until people start joining together, putting their feet down, and saying, “this isn’t right.” Corporate unions might be a radical idea, but they just might change things for the better.

Now Leaving from Gate...

I wish when “givens” were being passed out to babies the year I was born, I’d been at the front of the fast-moving line. I would love to have had such “givens” as: leave twenty minutes before having to be at a destination ten minutes away and never arrive late. Or this one: never have to wait at a doctor’s office or in an emergency room. And wouldn’t it be nice to be the person who lucked out with: breeze into any restaurant and always get a table right away?

But no, I was stuck in the back of the slowest-moving line (a predestined “given,” I suspect). My givens were all floating around in muck at the bottom of the barrel. Some of them, I’ve just come to accept without much thought these days: if there's a stall in a crowded women's room that won't lock, that's where I'll end up, necessitating all kinds of acrobatics with arms and legs to at least suggest a sense of decency to those on the outside, because there certainly isn't an ounce of it on the inside. Blizzards will only strike on days in which I’m supposed to be somewhere far away. I will never get sick at a convenient time when I’m dying for an excuse to lie abed reading Agatha Christie, eating crackers, and drinking tea for a few days, but rather when I’m traveling, have company, or have tickets to some once-in-a-lifetime event.

However, the given that never fails to frustrate me time and again is: my plane will always be departing from gate Z99. No matter what airline I’m flying. No matter what city I’m in nor where I’m going, I will always have miles to walk to get to my gate, and the less time I have to catch my plane, the farther away the gates will start to get from each other. I might think I’m almost there when I’ve reached gate Y79, but silly me, I’ll soon discover there’s this whole other wing of the airport, once you get past the Y gates, where the Z gates reside. Or, maybe I’ll get a little excited, because I get my boarding pass and discover my plane is leaving from Gate C3, but after following the poorly-marked cement-tiled trail that leads to the C gates, I’ll find I’m being herded onto a train that drops me off at a building in another city (you think I’m joking, but have you ever been to the Atlanta airport? I’m convinced half the planes that fly out of it are really leaving from Savannah), and I still have another mile to walk once I'm in building C to get the the actual gate. Every once in a while, I’ll get a boarding pass that announces I’m leaving from gate A10 (never “1,” but maybe “10”). This will be the airport designed by sadists who had a great laugh over the fact that they were going to put the gates in reverse order, so A99 is actually the first gate one reaches after making it through Check Point Charlie Security.

I’m sure I wouldn’t be quite so frustrated by this given of mine if I were one of those women who checks huge bags of luggage and carries on nothing but a tiny little purse and a Reader’s Digest magazine. But, I’m not. I’m one of those women who even if she’s checked luggage, still has a computer bag whose zipper is going to break any minute from the overload of laptop, plugs, books, toiletries, and work files. It weighs about as much as a hefty toddler. (Another given is that I will forget when I’m packing such a bag that I’m going to have to carry it for ten miles.) If I’m bringing my wheelie carry-on with me, it will not roll smoothly along like everyone else’s wheelie carry-on (probably because theirs has nothing heavier in it than a pair of slippers, a toothbrush, and a lightweight pair of pajamas), but will teeter on its wheels, get cranky if it spots something in the distance it might at some point have to maneuver around, and topple over at the mere suggestion of turning a corner. Place a computer bag on top of it, and it will refuse to move.

I’ve decided I’m turning over a new leaf, though. I am no longer going to let this given frustrate me. I’m going to laugh at it and tell it what a favor it’s doing me, with all the aerobic and strength-training exercise I’m getting. I’m going to make it wish it could go back to the bottom of that barrel.

Now, I just need someone to come along and remind me of this tomorrow when I’m gasping for breath, racing to find gate Z99, as my computer bag strap slips off my shoulder, yet again, causing the bag to go smashing into little old ladies, sending them to the ground to break their hips. Anyone want to volunteer for the job?

I Still Loathe Clothes Shopping

Some of you may recall that I'm not a big fan of clothes shopping. Well, I think I’m beginning to discover yet another reason I so hate it. I’ve always blamed it on the mall. The mall is really the best bet if you’re looking for a wide selection from which to choose, but I get exhausted just saying the word. I can’t imagine thinking of it as a great place to waste a Sunday afternoon, as so many Americans seem to do (and as I once did when I was a teenager and a twenty-something). You might as well suggest to me that for fun, let’s go sit in a hospital bed, hooked up to an IV (actually, I prefer the hospital bed. I could read all afternoon and have someone bring me food). Top that with the fact I can never find anything that looks as good on me as it does on that size 0 mannequin.

Speaking of sizes, there’s that whole size factor that really irks me, too. I wish I could just go somewhere and know exactly what size I am. I used to sort of have an idea, but then everything switched on me. When I started wearing women’s sizes, around age fourteen or so, I was a size six, at least in regular stores. If (for some very strange reason, because I paid for all my own clothes when I was a teenager and didn’t have that kind of money. Maybe my grandmother took me to one or something) I went to some upscale boutique, where they want to make their customers feel good about themselves (read “skinnier than they are”), or something, I might be a size four. No one had anything smaller than a size four. Four was it, and fours in most places were way too small for me. My biggest problem when it came to size in those days was finding a pair of pants that didn’t need hemming (nearly impossible. Still nearly impossible, because I’m this odd height in which “petite” is too short, and everything else needs to be hemmed so much a whole new pair of pants can be made from the cut-off material).

At this point in my life, I weigh about fifteen pounds more than I did back then. I’ve never been what anyone would call fat (although like all female teenagers, at the time, I thought my butt was too big. How anyone who doesn’t even weigh 110 pounds can think her butt is too big, is beyond me, but teenaged girls are not known for being the most practical and rational people). Let’s take a look at what size I wear today: your guess is as good as mine. First of all, we’ve introduced the aforementioned size “zero.” Size zero: the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard. You mean you’re no size whatsoever? Do you even exist? And the only person I’ve ever seen who could possibly wear a size zero is maybe Keith Richards. No one with hip bones could squeeze into something like that; yet they don’t appear to be made for eight-year-old girls, unless ten-inch-heels or maybe stilts are now all the rage for eight-year-old girls. Size two, another size I never saw when I was a teenager, maybe makes a little more sense, although I can’t tell the difference between a size two and a size zero when I see them side-by-side. I weigh fifteen pounds more than I once did, and yet size four, which never used to fit me, seems to be the size that most often fits me these days. I used to be a “small” t-shirt. Now, having gained weight, I’m an “extra small.” That is, depending on what store I’m in. In some places, I’ve become a “medium,” just like in some places I might be a six or even an eight, and that “upscale boutique” theory doesn’t work anymore. I can find myself wearing a four at K-Mart and a six at Saks Fifth Avenue. I can even find myself buying one K-Mart skirt in size four and one in size six. But I’m truly digressing here (obviously, this size thing is extremely annoying, if I can waste two paragraphs on it), because what I want to do is talk about my newest discovery.

Last year, on a shopping trip with my mother and sisters (the only time I like to go shopping is with my mother and sisters, because my mother has a knack for finding clothes that look great on me, and because it’s fun and often turns into a hilarious adventure), I was trying on a few things that just looked plain horrible on me (chosen by me, not my mother), and she explained to me that I look best in “classic” clothes. Translate that as “boring, preppy, tweedy.” I joked that, “yes, I look fabulous in a schoolgirl uniform,” but I wasn’t really joking.

The problem is, this isn’t what I want to look fabulous in. I want to look fabulous in “funky.” I want to look fabulous in “cool chic.” I want to look fabulous in “artsy.” I want to wear Indian skirts and crocheted tops and long flowing tunics and short black velvet jackets, and turn heads rather than watching them bounce all over the place, having been laughed off by those catching a glimpse of me in the ridiculous get-ups I’m sporting. And don’t tell me women over the age of thirty can’t dress like that. I’ve known plenty of women in their sixties and seventies who can pull off cool and funky and look stunning (my grandmother was like that), and even when I was eighteen, I couldn’t dress that way and look stunning. Both my sisters can pull off these different looks. It’s not fair. We’re related. Why can’t I? Why did I have to be the one who in order to look good has to look like she walked out of the pages of an L.L. Bean catalog or out of a banker's convention? No wonder I hate shopping! It’s like loving chocolate and suddenly discovering you’re allergic to it. You wouldn’t go hang out with Willy Wonka, then, would you?

So, I’ve spent a whole year in denial. I’ve ignored what my mother said and kept on wearing some of the things I’ve bought over the years that aren’t the least bit classic. I’ve been drawn to street shows in New York and done a tiny bit of shopping there (so much less painful than going to the mall when you know you can get some great, authentic ethnic food nearly every step of the way), but then I found myself in Atlanta, at a hotel that conveniently has some shops attached to it, and I needed some new dress slacks for all this business travel I have to do these days. Better to look for some there than to have to tackle the mall back home. I walked into Brooks Brothers, where I decided I might as well try on a few other things. I didn’t try on a single thing that – well, with the exception of the inevitable hemming – didn’t fit me perfectly (in case you're interested, at Brooks Brothers, I'm a size 4 for tops, 6 for bottoms) and that didn’t look like it was made with me in mind. But then I realized the other reason I don’t like “classic:” I don’t like forking over $200 and walking out of a store with nothing but a shoelace to show for it.

Oh well, though, why fight it? I might as well accept the fact, at age 43, that these are the sorts of clothes I ought to be wearing. “Classics” last forever, right? Anyone have any blue pinstripe pants you’re terribly sick of, having bought them twenty years ago, you’d like to send my way? If they’re that old, I’m probably a size eight. While you’re at it, you can send me your suits and coats and sweaters that are twenty-years-old as well. I just might have a few funky things to give you in return.

The Bookish Meme

All right, I haven’t been officially tagged for this one, but this is the first evening in four that I put my foot down and decided not to go out schmoozing and entertaining till 11:00 p.m. (realizing that I would be a very poor representative of our company tomorrow if I engaged in one more night of that), and I wanted to escape all the madness by doing some writing. However, after desperately trying to get a few things that are floating around in my head ensnared in some coherency nets, so I could put them in writing, and finally realizing they just do not want to be caught tonight, I’ve decided it’s time for this meme, which I’ve seen in a few places, most recently over at Charlotte’s (I seem to be finding tons of stuff at Charlotte’s these days).

Hardback or trade paperback or mass market paperback?
Whichever one the book I want to read/someone wants to lend me happens to be. I will say, though, that if I could design my own hand-held ebook device, I’d call Apple and tell them to design one for me that was the size of a trade paperback (and dark green, please).

Amazon or brick and mortar? Amazon, if I know exactly what I want and want it soon. Brick and mortar (preferably independent brick and mortar) if I want to spend an afternoon somewhere other than the library (but brick and mortar library over everything, especially one that has a coffee shop attached, which many of ours in CT now do).

Barnes & Noble or Borders?
Borders, because, for some reason, they more consistently have what I’m looking for.

Bookmark or dogear? Bookmark, especially a nice leather one, but any will do.

Alphabetize by author, or by title, or random?
If I ever got my act together: by author, but since that never happens: random.

Keep, throw away, or sell? Keep until I get into a fit of needing to weed to make room for more and then give away.

Keep dust jacket or toss it? Toss? Do people, other than those with young children who might have destroyed them really toss? The idea never would have even occurred to me for a private collection. Thus, this one goes in the “learn something new everyday category.”

Read with dust jacket on or remove it? If it’s a borrowed book: remove. If it’s mine: read with (unless it’s an old book and is falling apart, then remove).

Short story or novel? Novel. Short stories are acquaintances, some I wish I could get to know better, but acquaintances nonetheless. Novels are friends. But this all goes out the window (without having to open it, of course) if we’re talking about ghost stories. I mean, most of the time, I really only want to be slightly acquainted with ghosts, and then I want them to disappear, although there’s a time and a place, as well (e.g. a few weeks in October), for ghosts who hang around for a while before disappearing.

Collection of short stories or anthology? Depends on the author/subject of the anthology. If it’s an anthology of science fiction (not one of my favorite genres. I hate to say that, because I’ve read some fantastic science fiction, but I have to admit I don’t tend to seek it out), I’d probably go with a Ray Bradbury collection, say. If it’s an anthology of humor, well, I’d go for that, hoping to discover some new authors who’ve also written novels I can read. (But really, if I’m making this choice, and I’m not in some sort of class or reading group, I must be stuck on a freighter trip whose library only has a short story collection, and for some unfathomable reason, because I packed a whole trunk full of novels and nonfiction books before I even packed my clothes for this month-long trip, I’ve run out of other books to read).

Harry Potter or Lemony Snicket? I like both, but I haven’t read much of either. I think if read all at once, though, Lemony Snicket would get old more quickly than Harry Potter would.

Stop reading when tired or at chapter breaks? Stop reading when a. I fall asleep b. some major catastrophe (e.g. ceiling falling in) captures my attention or c. interrupted by some poor soul whose parents may have told them never try to take food from a dog but forgot the “never bother reading fanatic when her nose is buried in a book” rule.

“It was a dark and stormy night” or “Once upon a time”? Depends on my mood.

Buy or borrow? Borrow, because then I’m guaranteed to have at least one other person with whom I can talk about it (although, then I can’t write in it or force it on others to read).

New or used? Couldn’t care less.

Buying choice: book reviews, recommendation or browse? Something I wouldn’t have said two years ago: blogs. What I would have said two years ago: all three.

Morning, afternoon or nighttime reading? Anytime I can. I mean, really, would you ask a heroin addict such a question?

Favourite series? Ross Macdonald’s Lew Archer

Favourite children’s book? That’s like asking me: favorite adult book or movie or food or smell. I just can’t answer such questions.

Favourite book of which no-one has heard? Juan in America by Eric Linklater (although I’m learning since I started blogging, some people have heard of it).

Favourite books read last year? I posted on this twice but am too lazy to go back and find the links for you. If you’re really, really curious (which I’m sure you’re not), you can wade through all my posts from last year and find them.

Least favorite book finished last year? I don’t finish things I really, really don’t like, so maybe of those I finished, I’d have to say The Kite Runner, but I haven’t got my book journal with me and have probably forgotten something truly awful that I trudged my way through despite not liking it, maybe hoping it would get better, or something.

What are you reading now? I’m reading many things at once (as always), but tonight it’s Crewe Train by Rose Macaulay (wonderful, brilliant, very funny, thus far), because it’s one of the two books I brought with me on this trip.

What are you reading next? Gone with the Wind (already started), because it’s the other one I brought on this trip with me (I’m in Atlanta, and hoped – one of oh-so-many dashed ones – I might find some time to go tour Margaret Mitchell’s house).

Consider yourself tagged, if you want to do this one.

Burst Bubble #? (I Lost Count Around Age 8 or So)

The past couple of months have not been good ones for someone like me, that is someone with hypochondriacal tendencies and an extraordinarily low pain threshold. It all began with my annual physical in January, in which my doctor proclaimed I was fit as a fiddle: low blood pressure, fantastic cholesterol levels, etc. He praised me for my wonderful exercise (thanks again, Mandarine) routine of walking in the morning and the evening, telling me he’s usually desperate to get people just to do half that.

Fit as a fiddle I was, that is, until I started describing some rather disturbing symptoms I’d been having for about six months or so, noting those months had been rather stressful ones (stress being the typical source of any disturbing symptoms I suffer). The most alarming of these symptoms is that my right arm has decided that since I’m sleeping six to eight hours a night, it might as well do the same. Every morning, I wake up to a numb hand, and sometimes it takes quite a while to rouse it from its slumber. The other symptom was pain up and down my spine that comes and goes, but is sometimes unbearable. I suggested maybe the numbness was some form of carpal tunnel syndrome or something, but he automatically pooh-poohed that idea in the dismissive way doctors often do when a patient is bold enough to actually suggest a diagnosis. He immediately ordered a Lyme Disease test and a series of X-Rays.

The Lyme test came back negative. Then I forgot about the X-Rays, because we were struggling with Lady’s sudden illness and death. In the midst of all that, we got a call from the nurse informing me that something had shown up in my chest X-ray and that I needed a CT Scan.

Well, if you’re a Web MD aficionado (as some of us just might be, especially when the companies we work for give us special accounts through our insurance benefits), I don’t need to tell you that “something” showing up in a chest X-ray is alarming, even if the nurse is telling you she doesn’t want you to be alarmed. Even more alarming is what she says next, “It could just be an enlarged heart. But it could also just be a bad X-ray.” Yeah, right. A bad X-Ray, in this day and age of technology, and with that extraordinarily meticulous X-ray technician I thought was never going to let me go?

Again, even if you only have a fleeting acquaintance with Web MD, you’ll know that an enlarged heart is not a good thing. It’s not a problem in and of itself. No, it’s a symptom of all kinds of horrible things, from Lupus to heart valve problems to lymphatic cancer, just to name a few possibilities, although I wouldn’t want to alarm you.

So, off I went for a CT scan. The results? Still inconclusive. Seems something was going on in an unclear area that could be my heart or my lungs. Discussing what sort of funeral I’d like with Bob and calling up friends I’ve been neglecting for way too long, I made my appointment for the MRI.

Finally, some results. It wasn’t my lung. Nor was it my heart. I have multiple benign cysts on my thoracic spine and a protrusion that could point to disk problems in the future (God, I sound so old). The solution? Go see an orthopedist.

And here’s where my bubble gets burst (but I’m also vindicated). The first thing this rather humorless orthopedist and I discuss is my mysterious right arm and its seeming need for at least six hours of sleep every 24 hours. Here’s the vindication part: he suggests it might be carpal tunnel, explaining to me that we have a tendency to hold our arms in curled positions when we sleep, which can cause carpal tunnel (take that, Mr. Know-It-All Doctor #1). He prescribes a wrist brace for nighttime wear. He then, after a series of tests, in which he asks me to bend in different ways, prescribes physical therapy for my back (phew! No surgery).

Then he poses the big question, “What do you do for exercise?” When I proudly announce my routine (you know, the one that Dr. #1 thought was so terrific), he immediately dismisses me with, “That’s nowhere near enough.” (Mandarine, what were you thinking?) He goes on to say, “You’re not 80 years old, you know.” I’m walking an hour a day, brisk walks too, up and down hills. How many 80-year-olds do you know who do that? I wonder what he says to those people who come in and say, “Exercise? Well, I push the buttons on my remote to change channels.”

So, now I’m being told I need to get back on the exercise bike and the Nordic Track. I need to add weights back into my routine (I’d rather have surgery than to have to engage in the excruciatingly boring activity of lifting weights). Yoga’s good, but only when combined with many other activities. My morning and evening “commutes” had better be by means other than walking. There goes what I thought had been the perfect answer to my hatred of exercise for the sake of exercise. You can see that big, oh-so-beautiful-and-perfect bubble exploding, leaving me with nothing, can’t you?

You may be wondering why I mentioned pain in the first paragraph. None of this seems like it would be very painful (at least not physically), especially since I have yet to start the physical therapy, thanks to a huge snow storm last week and the fact I’m now on the road. Well, on top of all this, my tooth began to ache. Not ache. Pound and scream at me that it wanted my undivided attention. A visit to my dentist revealed that I had an infection under my tooth. Solution for this newest calamity? Oral surgery (which, by the way, may or may not work. I still might have to have my tooth pulled).

So, the day after my visit to the jolly, bubble-bursting orthopedist, I was sitting in a chair at the oral surgeon’s, hearing him, through a laughing-gas-induced haze, discuss with his assistant whether he should buy jewelry or give a spa gift certificate to his wife for her birthday. Before I can pipe up with “go with the spa gift certificate,” which he seems to be leaning against, I’m waking up, and he’s telling me the surgery has gone fine, and I’m asking one of the most idiotic questions I’ve ever asked in my life, “So, can I chew on this side today?” Luckily, he must be very used to idiotic questions from half-anesthetized patients, because he didn’t laugh at me.

Ahhh! for anesthesia and Novocain. Eeeek! for Novocain wearing off. Ahhh! again for Percocet. Will I ever be able to chew on that side again? Or eat hard, cold, crunchy foods? The verdict (a week later) is still out.

The spring and summer months are somewhere way out there on the horizon, right? I’m a winter soul at heart, but even I could use a little change in the weather these days.

I've Been Foxed

First, I want to begin by noting I’m a savor-er, not a gobbler, by nature. I pride myself on my self control, my ability to appreciate every second of a glorious experience. I always save the best for last. I can make a box of dark chocolate truffles last weeks. When I discover a magnificent author, I don’t race out and read everything he or she has written, most especially if he or she has only written four books, but even when it’s, say, Anthony Trollope or Agatha Christie.

That being said, I finally received my first issue of Slightly Foxed yesterday. This magazine is a quarterly. Quarterly. That means it needs to be read slowly. It’s going to be ages before I get my next fix the next issue arrives.

I examined the table of contents as soon as I took it out of its white mailer to note it has sixteen articles plus the “From the Editors.” This meant, basically, five articles per month. A little more than one per week. No problem. I’ve plenty of other things to read. This would be my evening chocolate truffle.

I went about the rest of my day and sat down by the fire with it just prior to dinner, planning to read only the “From the Editors.” Can I tell you I’ve now read all five articles, plus some, allotted for March? Oh, yes, and may I add that poor Bob kept asking, “Umm, are we going to eat dinner anytime soon?” only to be either a. ignored or b. snapped at.

I’m telling you, though, this issue is so, so sly. It knew exactly how to lure me into its den. I mean, the first article about a fabulous-sounding parody of surviving life in Cold War England, written and illustrated by two regular contributors to Punch magazine was not something anyone with the slightest sense of humor could ignore.

The next article was titled “Daphne’s Moment of Decadence.” Yes, of course it was about Daphne du Maurier whom I’ve loved since I was fifteen. Following that were two extremely interesting articles on M.F.K. Fisher. Some of you may have noted her Gastronomically Me is on my classics list for 2007. I had to read those.

Then I decided, “Okay. Enough!” and thought I’d just sort of idly flip through the rest of the pages to see what I have in store over the next few months. An article called “Riding the Leopard” caught my eye. I paused just long enough to read the first paragraph. You be the judge.

The more you read, the more you realize you want to read, for each book
generates a further reading list. Only occasional readers imagine that reading
is a matter of working through a list of classics, like moving a pile of logs.
The rest of us know that every “classic” multiplies infinitely into minor
classics.” (John De Falbe, "Riding the Leopard," Slightly Foxed, No. 13,
Spring 2007, p. 52)

How can a reader not be drawn into reading an article that begins thus? Hell, forget reading the article. If I were single, my question would be: how can a woman not be drawn to marry a man who says such things? Should I be blamed for reading the whole thing, especially when it turns out to be so much about a particular, remarkable publisher (Harvill), of all things?

And then there was the terrific article on Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf (which translation I’ve been wanting to read, but haven’t. Now I absolutely must). Beowulf was one of the few things I was required to read in high school that truly excited me, probably because it was a work that couldn’t be ruined by drab exercises, discussions, and quote memorization. I read it again in college, and it still excited me. I haven’t read it since, though.

When I flipped through some more and got to the article on A Passage to India, I finally decided truly enough! Someone please help me! I’ve got to get out of this den, more powerful than those where heroin runs like water. Thank God it's only a quarterly. Imagine if it were a daily. I’d have to answer “yes” on one of those addiction quizzes to questions such as “Has reading Slightly Foxed ever interfered with your work or social life?” and “Have friends and family members ever complained about your habit of reading Slightly Foxed?”

Nevertheless, pusher that I am, I’m encouraging everyone to subscribe. Better yet, let’s all make a pilgrimage to the fox’s den.

(Now I'm off for two weeks of business travel and don't know how much blogging time I'll have, so don't expect to hear much from me. Meanwhile, if you haven't already seen it, I also posted over here this weekend. Still waiting for Ian to post).

Revealing the Lie

(If you haven't already, read the previous post first, or this one won't make sense.)

Okay, the lie is number two (although I realized in re-reading this that I inadvertently lied twice). My father did have a first wife, but she was no one anyone would know. Their story was tragic. She was older than my father, from the "wrong" town (these things were important in Virginia in those days), and from the "wrong sort of family" (translate as "not Episcopalian, Presbyterian, or Jewish." Those classifications are odd enough as it is, but even odder if you consider the fact my grandparents were both agnostics. Then again, maybe that was the problem. Her family was deeply religious). My grandparents thought my father was too young to get married (I agree. He was only 22) and sent him off to live in Paris for a year, hoping he'd forget her. He didn't and came home to marry her anyway (which gives you an idea as to what sort of a man he is), even though she'd been diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma. They were married for five years before she finally succombed to the disease, the same year his father died, probably the worst year of my father's life. It was years before I saw a picture of this first wife. My grandmother had even taken scissors to all the wedding photos and cut her out of them, an act that seemed extremely uncharacteristic for the grandmother I knew. I'm realizing as I write this, it would make a great novel, wouldn't it?

That same grandmother (who despite this weird lapse when it came to my father's first wife was a wonderful, wonderful person, not at all the sit-in-the-rocker-and-knit old granny. She was one of those true intellectuals I mentioned in my anti-intellectual post, even though, like so many young women of her day, she'd never gone to college -- extremely curious and up on everything: history, politics, sports. She drove convertibles and played tennis until she was in her eighties) was extremely proud of her father, the one who was fed up while serving his term in Congress. She always wondered how he would have reacted to Watergate. And I wonder how they both would be reacting today. That was the second lie. Did you catch it? It was my great grandfather (her father), not my great great grandfather, as I erroneously referred to him, who was the U.S. Congressman.

And, yes, Dar Williams really is my cousin (second cousin), but before you get all excited, don't. I barely know her. She grew up in New York state, and I grew up in North Carolina, and we've maybe seen each other a half dozen times in our lives. By the time I moved north, she was already at college, so though I've gotten to know her parents who live a half-hour's drive from me and are always welcoming (two of the sweetest and most engaging people you'll ever know -- the kind you're proud to claim as cousins), I don't know her at all. But I'll shamelessly plug her anyway, because her music is so good. If you're not familiar with her check her out. One of these days, I'll post on how I connect to her music, a post that's been writing itself in my head for ages.

My parents were indeed invited to tea at Buckingham Palace. My mother's father was a British Diplomat who was knighted (for some mysterious reason. When I ask my mother, the Queen of Modesty, her response is always, "Oh, everyone was knighted in those days right after the war," and I've never bothered to find out the truth), and my parents were spending the summer with my grandparents. Growing up, I was fascinated by this invitation from the Queen that was glued into one of our scrapbooks, envisioning my parents sitting down and discussing world events and the fact that they would both soon have children who would marry one day (that would have been Prince Edward and me). My father took a bulldozer to my castle in the sky one day when he explained it had been a HUGE garden party, and they hadn't gotten anywhere near the Queen (if she had even been there at all).

That same scrapbook held ancient newspaper clippings that portrayed the mountain hiking group led to their deaths on the Matterhorn by Douglas Hadow. They actually were the first group of men to make it to the top of the mountain, but he slipped on the way down (it was the sneakers. Truth be told, that bit about the sneakers may be nothing more than family folklore, but it was 1865, so God knows what kind of hiking shoes those men were wearing), and he dragged everyone down with him. Douglas's body was the only one never found. Meanwhile, a few years ago, my cousin Pen Hadow (whom I haven't seen since I was fifteen and he was seventeen, and whom we called Rupert back then), carrying on what must be a Hadow tradition of hiking around in the snow, went solo from Canada to the North Pole. Maybe the family genes have mutated to the extent that they've learned it's best to attempt such things without endangering the lives of others.

And finally, my great grandfather Waddy Wood was a rather prominent architect in and around Washington, DC. The lovely little church in which Bob and I were married (as were my parents), nestled in the mountains of Virginia is a fine example of his work. Family folklore, again, has it that this church was designed as a chapel for Lady Astor, but I'm not sure if that's true. And he did design a house for Woodrow Wilson.

That's all the bragging for today, except did I ever mention my great, great uncle won the second Wimbledon Championship, and I'm also related to Meriwether Lewis?

Guess the Lie

I liked Charlotte’s guess the lie post and decided I wanted to do it myself, but then I realized I do so much navel gazing, it would be pretty hard to come up with a lie that wasn’t immediately recognizable as such. Thus, I decided to turn to my family for help. Why not relive that childhood need to brag about my forebears and relatives a bit? So, below are six things that may or may not be true about relatives of mine. Only one is a lie. Take a stab at figuring out which one, let me know in a comment, and I’ll post the answer sometime soon (and maybe elaborate on all the truths a little while I’m at it). And sorry, Froshty, Ian, and Lindsay. For obvious reasons, you’re not allowed to play.

1. My great, great grandfather was a U.S. Congressman who decided to quit after one term, because he was fed up with all the nastiness he found amongst all those “distinguished” gentlemen.

2. My mother wasn’t my father’s first wife. His first wife was a well-known stage actress.

3. Dar Williams, the folksinger, is my cousin, and I’ve attended a number of her concerts with her parents.

4. The summer before I was born, my parents were living in England and were invited to have tea at Buckingham Palace.

5. I have one cousin who is the only person to have trekked solo, without re-supply, from Canada to the Geographic North Pole. Meanwhile, one of our other forebears led the members of a mountain climbing expedition to their deaths while attempting to climb the Matterhorn in his sneakers.

6. My great grandfather was an architect who designed, among other things, a house for Woodrow Wilson and the church in which Bob and I were married.


Invisible Cities in a nutshell: HUGE sigh of contentment! I’m sure this book was chock full of allusions that eluded me, but I’m sighing anyway, because it didn’t matter, its being such a beautifully, mathematically, ingeniously composed symphony of words (and so much more). Anyone read anything else other than If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler they’d recommend next?

Freaky Friday in a nutshell: about halfway through this book, I found myself thinking I could see why it would appeal to pre-teen girls, and why I liked it as a kid, but it really wasn’t something for adults. By the end of it, I’d changed my tune and felt it was a perfect book for adult “girls,” as well, one I will definitely share with my pre-teen friends (who’ve probably already all seen the movie) and their mothers.

Anti-intellectualism and Blogs for Those Who Like to Think

Poor Ms. Bookworld innocently caused a bit of a ruckus last week with her brilliantly funny post on Bloom’s Syndrome, a disorder I began to inoculate myself against at the tender age of eighteen when I entered the hallowed halls of my Institute of Higher Learning to discover what an epidemic it was. Unfortunately, in responses to Ms. Bookworld, the ugly word “anti-intellectual” made an appearance. Am I the only one who sees the irony in this word being used because a satirical piece was written that arose from something Harold Bloom said? I get the distinct feeling people must not understand what an anti-intellectual is. I’ve decided it’s my duty to set the world straight.

An anti-intellectual is someone who is anti-education, anti-study, anti-learning, anti-debate, anti-exploration, and anti-shades-of-gray. Anti-intellectuals are the sorts of people who will say, “Why study history? It’s all in the past,” or “No one needs to read the classics. They can’t teach us anything about today.” If you want some beautiful examples of anti-intellectuals, take a look at America’s current administration, you know, the one composed of people whose idea of improving education is to make sure educational testing companies are making big bucks while also making sure our children are discouraged from ever having any original thoughts. Otherwise, the kids might grow up to be citizens who vote and who pay attention to more than sound bites when doing so.

Walk into a room full of anti-intellectuals, and my guess is you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who even knows who Harold Bloom is. If someone does, I doubt he or she will have actually read any of his books or be able to quote him. And speaking of quotes, anti-intellectuals are also the sorts of people who take quotes out of context in order to ban books.

I wouldn’t label anyone who can laugh at her own tendencies toward intellectual snobbism an anti-intellectual. I also wouldn’t use the word to describe myself. I grew up surrounded by intellectuals, and I have chosen career paths that guarantee constant encounters with intellectuals. However, I would absolutely call myself anti-pseudo-intellectuals (well, except for the fact that I can’t help feeling a little sorry for pseudo-intellectuals and wondering what their childhoods were like for them to grow up into people who constantly want to prove to others how smart they are). Perhaps the real problem is that people are confusing intellectuals with pseudo-intellectuals. I sort of find this hard to believe, because there’s such a profound difference between the two.

Intellectuals are first and foremost curious. That means they would never pretend to know it all. Good grief. Knowing it all would mean having nothing new to learn, and how boring life would be with nothing new to learn. Intellectuals are not afraid to ask questions, a means to learning. Intellectuals are passionate, and their passion inspires others. They love to teach, always aware that those they teach have plenty to teach them in return. Intellectuals are open-minded, truly aware of the fact that, although they may catch themselves doing so (after all, they’re only human), unless they’ve been there and done that, they don’t have much right to criticize. If they don’t understand something (e.g. why someone loves American Idol), they will talk to people, try to understand it, and come away from that conversation with some interesting thoughts, even if they still don’t get it. Intellectuals (at least the ones I know), although they may often be depressed over the state of things, know how to have fun, and they love to laugh loud and hard. But maybe above and beyond all this, I've never met a true intellectual who went around trying to make others feel small or stupid.

Then, there’s the genius. Lucky are those of us who get to meet a few of those in our lives. I would imagine pseudo-intellectuals don’t meet many. After all, Mr. or Ms. Genius might have just walked out of a low-life bar or a movie theater featuring Hollywood’s latest blockbuster hit, places pseudo-intellectuals peer at over upturned noses. While a pseudo-intellectual is busy bemoaning his inability to find anything worth reading that he hasn't already read at his local Border’s, he may, frowning, walk right past a genius chuckling over Bridget Jones’s Diary.

And that’s the key word: frowning. Pseudo-intellectuals love to frown. They frown at Hollywood. They frown at popular sitcoms. They frown at bestseller lists. They frown at schools that aren’t in the Ivy League or at least one of the “Public Ivies.” They frown at anything considered “middle” or "low brow” (defined, of course, by them). Do they ever laugh? Well, yes, of course they do, as long as it’s at someone else’s expense.

I’d love to be an intellectual. I love hanging out with them. Maybe that’s why Book World was one of the first blogs I ever read on a regular basis. Meanwhile, I was tagged by Dorr for my own blog that makes her think (a wonderful honor, coming from someone whose posts are guaranteed to keep the cogs and wheels in my brain from rusting). That means I need to nominate five others for the thinking blogger award. The rules don’t say whether or not people can be nominated more than once, but I’m hoping not, since that means others have already nominated the many, many blogs that deserve this award, making it much easier for me to choose a mere five. Here they are (and don’t let me catch you calling any of these an anti-intellectual):

Jew Eat Yet – I mean, where else can you find such brilliance as a comparison between Haman and Ann Coulter (who, incidentally, is the Platonic anti-intellectual)?

Froshty Mugs
Ian’sblog

-- Well, I have to note these two, because they’re related to me. If I can’t be an intellectual, at least I can be related to some who’ve been making me think all my life and are now doing so via their blog posts.

Mandarine – a philosopher, a tech whiz, a master with words (even in a second language), as close to a “Renaissance Man” as it’s possible to be in The Information Age

Miss Snark – how can an editor not be made to think by Miss Snark?

May I Suggest...?

A couple of years ago, my friend Becky introduced me to the wonderful British literary magazine Slightly Foxed. She mentions it herself over here. I’ve been wanting to subscribe to it ever since, but it’s incredibly expensive for us Americans to do so, so I’ve been putting it off. Recently, though, I’ve been given some monetary gifts, and I’ve decided to treat myself to it for a year (which will, of course, turn into more than a year, once my subscription runs out, but I’m hoping I’ll have more gift money by then). Sometime shortly before that, my former boss had lent me a collection of Algernon Blackwood stories that included The Wendigo and a book by Kingsley Amis called The Green Man, both of which were wonderfully scary. (Amis surprised me. I’m not a big fan of his, he being one of those smug, “look how clever I am. I’m more clever than you are” sorts of authors.) Earlier this week, Charlotte posted on her experience reading Julie and Julia by Julie Powell.

You may be wondering what all these things have in common. Well, put such things together in my brain and toss them around in that empty space resembling one of those old-fashioned tumbling barrels in a fun house, and they’ll bump into each other. They may not exactly bond, but connections will be made, and they will stick to each other, at least for a little while. The Scotch tape for Slightly Foxed, stories that terrified me, and Julie and Julia is the word “suggestibility,” a word my brain woos with an ardent passion every chance it gets, but most often when I have the written word in front of me.

They happen to all be perfect examples of how susceptible I am to suggestion when I read. These years later, I’m still amused by the fact that when I read Slightly Foxed for the first time, a magazine that doesn’t exactly review books, but rather, has people write about books/authors they like, I found myself thinking, “Maybe I ought to give The Scarlet Letter another try.” In order to understand how absurd this is, you need to know how often since high school, I’ve “given this book a try.” It’s one of those books that’s alluded to so often in our culture, it’s a shame not to have read it. But I just cannot get into it. Here I was, however, reading how much someone else enjoyed it, and I was convinced it must be the classic to beat all American classics and a delight from beginning to end; my own feelings and opinions just being tossed out the window in favor of those of someone I’d never met.

The Wendigo and The Green Man are both stories created from wonderful, woodsy, mythical creatures. Probably because they tap into a primeval fear of being lost in the woods, they provided especially chilling pictures of themselves when I was reading these stories, and I found myself suspiciously looking out the window across the street to an undeveloped wooded lot where one of these creatures might decide to set up camp and keep an eye on me. Ridiculous. More than ridiculous. You don’t have to tell me that. But this lot is attached to the woods whose trail I trek for part of my morning and evening walk, and believe it or not, sometimes when I’m alone, and it’s a bit windy, and I can hear the fabulous, eerie creaking of the wood as that wind knocks the trees about a bit, I expect to look up and see some branchy, leafy creature lumbering towards me from a place far off the trail. This is an image completely placed there by having read Blackwood and Amis, as well as having recently seen an unrelated, but fantastic, movie called The Wendigo, whose setting is basically right where I live. I spent a good deal of my life living around wooded lots, exploring and building forts in woods, hiking all kinds of trails in all kinds of places, and never once did I imagine such a monster following me around (the furry Big Foot, whom I read about as much as I could as a child, yes, but not this fellow). Now, he’s there on many occasions.

Charlotte and others who commented on her post agreed that not only did Julie and Julia not inspire them to want to cook their way through Julia Child, but also that it did not really inspire them to cook anything from Julia Child at all. I wish I could be so unaffected. I read this book and immediately wanted my own copy of Julia Child, just at the point when the latest edition was being published. I found myself wondering if I could ever master the art of flipping a crêpe. If I were to buy and cook lobster, something to which I’ve always been opposed (I won’t eat lobster, not because I don’t like it -- how could one not like something that’s basically an excuse to eat tons of melted butter -- but because I feel so sorry for those creatures floating around in tanks with their poor little claws taped shut, and the idea of boiling them alive horrifies me), would I discover the same animal instincts Powell seemed to find buried inside once she started preparing lobsters? Is there something to the notion that we enjoy the kill as much as the food, but don’t want to admit it? And then there was the liver, which was just like The Scarlet Letter. I know I hate liver. No one has to tell me that. Unless it’s lovingly disguised in a delicious pâté or turned into Liverwurst, I don’t want to see it or smell it, let alone have to eat it. Yet, Julie, with her descriptions of how much she ended up liking it, had me second-guessing this knowledge. Thank God I’m married to Bob. My common sense had lapsed into a coma or something, but all I had to do was imagine his reaction were I suddenly to race out and buy a few pounds of liver to realize what a bad idea it was.

These are just a few examples, but give me a little more time, and I could probably come up with hundreds (actually, that should be hundreds of thousands. Just the topic of illness alone could produce hundreds) of my 110th percentile ranking on the suggestibility scale. But, I haven’t got time. I’ve just heard something downstairs and need to go see if it’s the Green Man knocking at my door, and if no one’s there, I need to find a copy of The Scarlet Letter to peruse after I’ve whipped up a batch of crêpes for dinner tonight.

In Which Emily Discovers She's Not Alone

A few weeks back, after a period in which I’d been seeing some extremely good but extremely violent movies, I posted on the subject. (I’m feeling too lazy today to go find that and link back to it, so just trust me. I did.) Well, now Bob and I have gone to see The Lives of Others, which just exemplifies the sort of movie I was saying I’d like to see more of. This was a movie that so easily could have had some extraordinarily violent death scenes, not to mention excruciatingly graphic torture scenes, but there wasn’t one in sight. Nonetheless, I was gripped with fear and worry throughout this magnificent movie. Casino Royale, that movie most of us would describe as “great fun” was far more disturbing in its depictions of death and torture than this one was.

As we walked out of the theater, I said to Bob, “See? That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about. No hideously violent scenes anywhere, and yet I was on the edge of my seat.” Now, maybe part of me was on the edge of my seat because I was expecting the violence one has come to expect in such movies these days, but I don’t think so. By the time we got close to the end, I’d pretty much figured out these sorts of scenes weren’t coming, but my heart was still racing.

Then, I stopped in the women’s room and discerned I wasn’t alone in my opinion. Two women in front of me were talking about how terrific the movie had been and how it was even more so because there’d been no gratuitous violence. One of them commented on how great it was not to have to see things like fingers being cut off and to still be in a state of horror over what was happening. I, the person who usually likes to play the fly-on-the-wall role in such situations, found myself speaking up to tell her I completely agreed.

So, three cheers for The Lives of Others. Let’s bring out more films like that. And I’ve now forgiven it for beating out my favorite Pan’s Labyrinth for the Academy’s Best Foreign Language Film. If you haven’t yet seen it, do. It will inspire you with its message of hope for humankind even more than Schindler’s List did. And it will remind you, the way Hotel Rwanda did, that no matter how much we might complain about our country and our current regime, how extraordinarily lucky we are to live where we do and to be able to do and say what we like. I’m the first to jump on the “we’re living in a police state” bandwagon, but you know what? We’re not – at least, for now, we’re not. And, at the moment, we have very hopeful signs that we won’t be anytime soon. Let’s hope it stays that way.