Queen Mediocretia of Suburbia

Fountain of Youth

Do you want to feel young? Then get with your husband and watch videos that your favorite band made ... what, ten, fifteen years ago? When they were skinny teenagers?

"Look at Ed!" Gary cried. "He's a baby!'  (He wasn't a baby. He was young and slight and shiny.) We danced on the basement floor and closed our eyes and pretended we were on a cruise.

I'm aware the band has a foothold on my pleasure neurons. I hear their music and feel happy and at peace. I didn't realize I had the option of watching their old videos and feeling young.

Rewriting the Novel: Who Said Writing is Rewriting?

Oh, it was Ernest Hemingway in A Moveable Feast. "The only kind of writing is rewriting."

Ernest Hemingway and everyone else quoted in this article.

I particularly like this one by Vladimir Nabokov: "I have rewritten -- often several times -- every word I have ever published. My pencils outlast their erasers."

I'm not even to the point of re-writing words, I'm re-doing the outline itself, because the rising action rose and fell and rose and fell and ... you get it. There was a conflict, and while it was realistic, it didn't build steadily.  When I finish revising a section of the outline I rewrite those chapters.

I bet this is the place when people give up. I am not giving up.

Rewriting the Novel: The Horrifying Realization That It Is Crap

Well, that's an exaggeration. But yes, I did another even more objective analysis of the first draft and thought many thoughts. There was a lot of "What the hell was I thinking?" and even more "This all has to be gutted and done over,"  but still a fair amount of  "I can keep this if I whittle it down to a paragraph."

Strangely, parts that I thought were bizarre (winging tortillas off the church roof) fit in perfectly now that I can stand back and look at the themes that emerged. In fact, the tortillas show up at the very end, that's how important they are.

I am willing to bet I rewrite the whole thing. That's what I'm doing now with the first chapter.

Lost Cheese

I hate that feeling of mindless eating, when you consume food and don't enjoy it. I was dismayed that I two days ago I evidently ate half a slice of American cheese and did not remember it. At all. Then I found it sitting on the earbud box. I'm telling myself the colors matched, only they did not. 

Rewriting the Novel: Essay

Now that I've let the book sit for a month, I am rediscovering things I'd forgotten. Evidently one night I woke up  and typed, "Add a part where there is a dog named Miss Darcy and Maggie thinks it's an actual person but it isn't it's a dog."

I will not be adding that part. Darcy. Seriously, how on the nose.

It was interesting to review what I had with a critical eye. I haven't done that since my college Literary Criticism course, when I'd skim a book, dog-ear the pages that seemed to follow a pattern, and then slap up an essay. This time I was the author and I was surprised to find patterns and themes I didn't deliberately intend. Man vs nature is in there. (I'm a little disappointed I didn't find a Christ figure in there too.)

Unfortunately, the critical eye led to the critical brain saying things like, "Oh this entire first act needs to be completely rewritten."  That was followed by a fun spurt of creativity, but if this continues I will finish draft two, let it sit, look at it with a critical eye, get creative, and then I'll be stuck in a cycle until the end of my days.

Happy New Year's Eve

Which do you prefer? New Year's Eve or New Year's Day?

In my world, New Year's Eve is better. First off, it's an eve, and eves are at night when it's dark and sparkly, whereas the days are in the harsh mid-morning light of early winter. 

Still, I feel I should be more excited about the day, about the optimism of the New Year. Welcome to the hope instead of goodbye to what's gone.

Maybe I need more New Year's Day traditions. I read that some people clean house and stock the pantry, which sounds AWFUL. Others have handsome men cross the threshold to bring them luck, which I imagine I'd have to hire out just like the cleaning and the groceries. 

I need to make plans on New Year's Day. Optimistic plans.

 

Think Outside the Box

Gary often buys "me" Christmas gifts which are transparently technology gifts for himself. Latest stereos, laptops, wireless devices, home assistants, he can only buy himself technology if it is wrapped up as a gift for "me." It's a firm Gary Rule, on par with Never Take the Last One of an Item Off the Grocery Shelf.

This year I unboxed something called a TV Fire Cube, which is similar to a TV Fire Stick, which seems to be a way to play streaming services without having cable. We don't have cable in the basement anymore, so Gary thought "we" could make the basement TV a test bed for transitioning away from TiVos and cable and on to wireless streaming.

Sadly, I couldn't even open the box. I pulled at every edge on the top, and every corner on every side. I thought, "This is why they have those unboxing videos on YouTube."

I whined at Gary who strode over with great confidence and got just as stuck. Eventually he rotated it upside down and pried open the bottom.

I assumed he did it wrong. Nope. This image is 44 seconds into the unboxing link above.

You can click the link and watch as the man confidently opens the bottom and flips it on its belly and turns what was clearly the bottom into a front flap, as you do in the twenty-first century. Someday soon this box will be a test for when they glean out the Olds. "Say shibboleth while you open this box, Boomer."

And if you doubt me, look at what popped up when I searched for how to spell "shibboleth' ...

Yesssss. Shibboleth means stream! (Also, Soylent Green is people.)

Rewriting the Novel: The Return

Well, I thought the next draft of the book was going to be easy, compared to erecting the scaffold and hanging all the plot points. But now viewed as a whole, the novel is a funhouse mirror of my injured inner child, and she is not pretty to look at. Then again, I'm on the other side of the keyboard, so if anyone sees it, they won't see me eye to eye, much less po9nt at me and say, "You have some whiny abandonment issues, get over it."

Awful people write awful books, awful, venal, transparent books. (The Bridges of Madison County.) How do you hide yourself, or do you? And I know it's strange that I am asking this on a blog where I don't hide myself. Maybe that's the thing - because I'm putting characters through my biggest issues I feel guilty becuase I'm dodging what I want to say directly. 

Maybe I need to write up a paragraph of the personal issues I want to paint with my broad brush and heavy hand. Then I won't feel guilty or transparent because then the book will seem subtle. Well, that's step one, anyway.

Christmas Eve

Santa may be busy out in your world, but here, this year, Christmas is about as minimal as Christmas can be. Well, except for the cookies (Eight kinds of cookies plus a fruitcake). 

Merry Christmas!

Speed Covid

I woke up a week ago with a runny nose, headache, weird throat congestion, and a cough. I also wheezed when I was on my back. 

I remembered my friend who had Covid said for the first few days it just felt like a bad cold. I also remember she said the first few pharmacy tests were inconclusive. I contacted the doctor to find my best path forward.

The doctor said come on over, there's a floor of the parking garage devoted to giving tests, and you should come in if you have symptoms, and our test can tell in four hours.

I had meetings until 3, and I arrived 3 minutes before closing. I decided to come back the next morning.

Overnight, everything cleared up but the wheezing. I went in for the test anyway, because what if the Covid was in stealth mode? Viruses do what they can to live, the bastards.

The test was not as easy as my brother described, or as horrific as Gary described. I'd say it was the nasal equivalent of a Pap smear, not an endometrial biopsy. 

And of course, it came back negative for not only Covid but RSV and the flu. If it hadn't, you don't think I could have sat on that news for a week, do you?

Rewriting the Novel: I Miss the Novel

Many nights for the past six months I went to bed guilty because I'd gone another day without working on the novel.

Now that I am supposed to let the book rest for a month, I want to pick at it and futz with it all day every single day. 

All I let myself do is to plan for another revision or take notes on what I want to change. And I can't even do those things at the end of the month. I have to begin with the Great Gutting, in which I pare my words down to the bone just as I did Jerry's.

I'm telling myself that this phase will be less difficult than the first. No doubt it will be just as painful in a new way.

New Chair Redux

Yesterday was a bad day, with work frustrations and spousal frustrations and health frustrations. I'd been crying on and off for no reason since the weekend anyway. (I say "for no reason" but of course I watched the pivotal first episode of a certain show that rebooted on HBO Max.)

Late in the afternoon I was again speaking to Gary enough to list my dozen complaints for the day, and he was speaking to me enough to say, "Well, this will be a bright spot in your day: your chair's here."

It was a bright spot. Until I began putting the chair together.

Step one, read the instructions. "If a part is missing please check if it was left in the corner firstly" ... and I would put a period at the end there but there was no period, in fact there were very few periods, but they made up for it by adding superfluous punction in "it's" and other locations.

So, instructions that didn't inspire confidence. That was step one. 

Step two, attach the casters to the base. I put the roll-y casters in, I pulled them right out. They did not snap in. This annoyed me, and it also got me close to the base, which I saw was scratched.

That's a scratched brass leg. I know it looks all Georgia O'Keefe-y.

"Damn Wayfair human-traffickers," I thought, "I'm going to have to call them."

Step three, call the customer service line, where a very nice lady helped me conclude that I needed a refund, but that I didn't need to return the chair. This surprised me. "Well, wouldn't I just go to the hardware store and see if I can't fix it myself?" Evidently I could.

Step four, tell your husband that the child-slavers at Wayfair have sent you a defective chair with bad casters. 

Step five, watch your husband as he looks at you steadily and picks up a caster and JAMS it into the slot until it clicks. 

Step six, wail, "Damnit, now I have to call them back and tell him to undo the refund."

"Yes, you do."

"Or do I?" I asked, because I am a bad person.

"Yes, you do, because you are a good person."

As it turned out, the baby-eaters at Wayfair just told me, "Don't worry about it, it's all right," which either means they never submitted the refund or that I have a free chair.

(If they are giving out free chairs as a business model that does support the human-trafficking theory, though, because they would need a revenue stream.)

New Chair

Just about everything in "my" room suits me, with one exception. My office chair simply doesn't  fit in with the wallpaper and cherry wood and Queen Anne aesthetic.

Even after research I couldn't find a chair that fit my brief:

• Ladylike
• Rolling, but not a typical office chair
• No black metal arms or legs
• Weight limit over 250 for the hubby 
• Low arms to fit under the desk
• Cream upholstery 

I'm not surprised that I didn't find anything for months. 

However, the medical bathroom toilet brush broke and that led me to Wayfair.com to see if they  might have a medical or apothecary-themed replacement toilet brush.

(I went to Wayfair because it has been accused by Q-Anon for human trafficking, because of course it has. ("Goody Wayfair is a witch!") Thus I was disposed to throw some money at them to offset any conspiracy-theorist bullshit boycott.)

After I put a vaguely apothecary-themed toilet brush on the order, I was one penny shy of free shipping, so I poked around for chairs. And there it was, the Holy Grail, even unto the built-in Queen Anne curves.

Ticks all the boxes. And, bonus, the stripes sewn into the upholstery echo the stripes in the wallpaper. Score. Plus, at first it wasn't going to come until February, and now it is has shipped already. And the frosting on the cake? All this angers Q-Anon. 

Domestic Mystery #2

I was fishing about in the dishwaasher, extractiving something from the fork and spoon area. Of those compartments in the fork and spoon area we have one with a lid. It's semi-loose lid, but not so loose that something could just show up in there without warning.

Last week this showed up in that compartment without warning:

 A stainless steel name plaque, 3 inches long, for a KitchenAid ... thing. 

The last thing I put in that compartment was a glass jar. It had no such plaque. 

The only KitchenAid thing I have is my mixer, and I see no spot where this could have been. There is some glue on the back; no similar glue is on the mixer.

The only other explanation I could think of is that the washer itself is a Kenmore, which are just brand-name appliances rebranded for Sears. I suppose it is possible our dishwasher started life as a KitchenAid and then was stripped of any personality so it could be sold at Sears, and then the one remaining bit still clinging on of its birth identity finally let go.

That still doesn't explain how it ended up in the special compartment, except I don't think I locked the lid down.

I don't know. I feel like someone is gaslighting me.

Domestic Mystery #1

The smoke detector downstairs began to chirp, and we had it so long I decided to assume it was the chirp that says "Don't trust me, I am an aged smoke detector" and I just got a new one.

The new one chirps too. Nothing is raising an alarm, just a pouty "pay attention to me" chirp.

I love debugging things, while Gary does not. Gary says, "Ignore the chirp." Instead I cleaned out the housing and turned off the light bulb that is just inches away instead of the recommended 3 feet.

Then Gary said, "That chirp is coming from the back of the basement, not where I replaced the smoke alarm." 

It turned out that it was an old CO2 alarm we'd forgotten about. Gary agreed we could relocate it up to his room and see if it had any complaints. 

Yesterday morning I heard eight chirps in a row. Not three. Eight. Now that I hear they can network together I think the eight chirps are  "Mom? Where are you? Mom? Mom?"

Also, the eight chirps came from the basement.

Language Uptick

It seems like everyone in my Facebook feed is learning Spanish or Portuguese or some language. DuoLingo is this year's sourdough. I am really enjoying learning Russian. It reminds me of Latin: they strip out all the useless articles and "helper" words. "The taxi is there?" Not four words, but two. "такси tam."

In high school I had a very interesting Latin teacher who taught us by acting out all the nouns and verbs. There was a time mid-semester that he used his hands to act out a line graph, that would go up ("super", he said as his hands went up) then "conplano," (his hands drew a plateau), then "super" again. Eventually he broke down and explained in English that we started out learning a lot, then didn't appear to have learned much in the middle of the semester, but our recent test scores showed we had risen again, and sometimes that's how people learn: in spurts.

That's how I feel about Russian. Suddenly I know what they're saying. It's a lot like when I learned the guitar and suddenly I could play without engaging my brain. My hands just knew.  They say some combination of letters and I know they are saying, "This is a cafe and not a circus" or "Here is Russia and here is Ukraiiiine!"

On a related note, I cannot hear the news about the impending Russian invasion of Ukraine without saying "Ukraaaiiiine!"back at the anchor.

The Root Canal: Second new thing of the day

Yesterday I did two entirely new things:

1. I made a fruitcake. 
2. I got a root canal, which, like the fruitcake, was better than I expected, given what it was.

I asked for and got a view of myself in the dental dam. It looked a lot like this.

I have become tooth.

I didn't get to see how I looked in the bite block, but below is a bite block, a genius bit of low-tech:

It nestles right in the hinge of your jaw and takes care of your one dental responsibility: opening wide. 

Finally, just as phase two of the root canal began, I heard the beginning of One Week by Barenaked Ladies, as proof from the Spirits that they are on my side.

I did not have to have my tooth extracted immediately after, unlike my poor husband, and I will not be tempted with any drugs more powerful than Advil, though a new drug would have been a nice third New Thing to Try Today.

Rewriting the Novel: This is What Happens When you Finish a Draft of a Novel

I am giving the novel a rest until Christmas. Still, I woke up this morning hashing out a scene in my mind: a scene in which our heroine scrabbles though some nuclear waste in a mine that is on the outskirts of her depression-era oil boom town.

My thoughts in order:

• I need to revise that scene so there is more "show" and less "tell."
• Is that scene before or after the scene where she's sick?
• Is she sick from radiation poisoning while she's rappelling down the side of the church?
• It's so weird that I don't remember what section that scene is in.
• Did I delete that scene in some early revision? I need to check my synopsis.
• Why is there nuclear waste in 1931? That's an anachronism. I might need to take that scene out entirely.

That was followed a full five minutes later by, "Why am I convinced there's a nuclear radiation scene in my book?" And then I fully woke up.

I think it took so long because my imagined description of the wooden bins in the mine where the radioactive waste is stored was so compelling. I could see them, I could see her scrabbling away. 

I blame the two obvious catalysts: 1) I have gone several full days without thinking, "I should be working on the book," and 2) clearly Kiss Me Deadly and its incongruous radiation made a great impression on me. 

Rewriting the Novel: Draft One is Done

It was nice to have Thanksgiving week to devote to finishing up the empty spots in the book and the hard spots. The hard spots were ultimately not that hard, because I allowed myself to do a crappy job, to be fixed later.

Then again, I refer you to every painting I've done for the last three years, and as you know I don't go back and fix the bad spots.

Gary immediately said "I want to read it," and I shut that down. It goes against my theory that if you want to do something, you have to do it really badly first. 

What is remarkable is how much free time I have now. I am taking off for a few weeks. I might go in and fix quotation marks. (There are many quotation marks finished up with apostrophes. Or more often, less than signs, for some reason.)

My inner child and I had a cocktail of vodka, Chambord, and grape Kool-aid to celebrate.

First and Second Kisses with Gary

The first time I kissed Gary, there was nothing. No sparks. No chemistry. Then I went home and went to bed and resigned myself to a cold loveless marriage, because I did really like him. 

I don't know what happened, but when we kissed after our second date -- wow. Lots of chemistry. Big beakers of chemistry. There was no alcohol swirled in the chemistry either time, so it wasn't that. Big catalyst that second time though, whew.

What would have happened if I'd written him off after that first date? That's the lesson kids: always go for a second make-out session. 

Wattle Watch 2021

Thirteen years ago I began tracking the progress of my wattle.

Over a month I graphed it, starting with this drawing on my laundry room wall. (The laundry room wall is the best expression of the variety of winter light - I should paint the contents of the laundry room, like the iron, instead of the birdbath and the sundial. It changes colors dramatically.)

Here it is when I started.

Here it is in March of 2008.

Here it is in April of 2008.

Then Mom died, and I lost track of my wattle. 

I think it's time for a Wattle Watch 2021: Return of the Wattle. I look at my fully-grown wattle every day in Zoom. It drapes over my collar.

Here it is today:

Could be worse.

Will it be worse? Have I reached Maximum Wattle?

TENS

Someone at work was extolling the virtues of her TENS unit for the relief of pain. I was doing floor exercises to work on my neck pain, and they worked intermittent and temporarily, so why not use electrical shocks to get the same effect?

Besides, ten years ago they'd used it to some success when I went to the physical therapist for my frozen shoulder, and I often extend my arm over my head just to revel in my recovery.

So I bought this fancy little home TENS thing for about $36.

Gary saw it and said, "Why did you buy that? We have one of those already. I got it for my back pain."

And he actually found his Secret Naughty TENS unit tucked in a bookshelf.

"Then why don't you ever use it?" I asked. He claims it came with acupuncture attachments and the needles stabbed him when he had the device lying exposed in a drawer. (More likely, he read the directions that people with epilepsy should not use it.)

So now I could get totally amped up with eight electrodes all at the same time. Not that I would -- I used it and it was an effective distraction, but even at the lowest setting it was almost too much for me. But then again, I hear you build up a tolerance. I didn't jump like a frog the second time I used it, but I put everything on differently. Clearly I need to do more research. 

All things said, I don't turn up my nose at the placebo effect.

My Ancestry.com Commercial

Here's a warning for those who are considering enrolling at Ancestry.com. Even if you ditch the service (after your interest wanes in the strangers we call relatives), Ancestry never ever stops emailing you.

I mean, I liked having the DNA track all the relatives, but I did not click any leaves that made me swell with pride like the people in the commercials. If I made an Ancestry.com commercial, it would be me saying breathlessly:

"It was the little things that were the most interesting. Like, I always thought everyone was lying about my maternal grandfather, but he really was a hard-core alcoholic! And then I was so was proud to see my paternal great-grandfather was a pillar of the community, even though I know he was tied to a tree to help him get over his opium addiction. It really opened my eyes how my family is inclined to substance abuse!"

 

The Never-Painted Bathroom

Gary's bathroom is the neglected bathroom. The hall bathroom ("my" bathroom) is the glorious medical themed bathroom. Gary's bathroom is the sterile virgin bathroom. It has never been decorated in any way. It is a 1980's bathroom preserved in amber, with the initial original paint job applied by scab painters. (We'd already signed the contract before the picket signs appeared.)

Paint color: Scab sad

The scab paint job has been all this bathroom has ever known. Thirty four years on the whitish walls have now faded into the original Sheetrock tint. It contrasts with the white fixtures and white towels. (There were never any color towels except for a disastrous foray into fancy ones that lost their color on contact with Noxzema.)

I'm just now thinking of painting it. It wouldn't take me even four hours to do it. I could even paint it white (but of course I won't). The problem is, of course, the sibling bathroom has a glorious theme, and this bathroom has to live up to it. 

Gary's been reading a lot about astrophysics, maybe a mural with an astrophysics theme. Then again, I hear one selling point for a house is if very little has been done to it - bad paint jobs, bad cabinet renewals, and so on.

I once considered making having Gary's bathroom into a museum of foreign toilet papers. I need to research that.

 

This Week in Stupidity

I have said or done a number of particularly dumb things this past week or two, but this was Gary's favorite. 

Gary and I were watching some crime heist movie involving a very labor-intensive caper.

I said, "That seems like a lot of trouble to steal 300 million dollars. Especially since after taxes, it's probably only 150 million dollars."

Rewriting the Novel: the Last Stretch of the First Draft

When last seen I had only 17% more to go on draft 1 of the book, and it was fun. Now there's just 8% to go and it is not fun. I think my problem now is that 1) I realize that finishing means I am going to go over my word goal, so all these percentages mean nothing, and 2) what's left is hard.

I haven't been writing in chronological order, so I am writing the post-middle. These things still need to happen:

She needs to hit bottom. She needs to be Scarlett after her mother's dead and her father's deranged, but still before she declares she'll never be hungry again. Circumstances have put my heroine at the bottom, but she hasn't faced it. Because I haven't written it. Because I don't wanna. Even if I give myself  permission to write a really crappy version, I still avoid it.

She needs to cover a lot of time. The beginning covers three months, the next section covers days, this part I'm writing now covers ten weeks, and the last section tears along over a weekend. In this last ten week bit either I have to detail what she does every day, yawn, because she does very little except try not to starve, or I have to summarize it all and I think that makes things too easy on her. I suppose I need to find a balance.

She needs to get out of a hole. My girl is on the street and I have to get her fed  by bartering off a pair of  shoes, two dresses, soap, two spoons, a fork, and a knife. Oh, and damnit, a deed to a farm. That means she could sell the farm and get out of her jam, which would be an early end to the book. Now I need to go back and put the deed in the husband's pocket again.

(Moments later) Done. The bastard takes the deed when he leaves. That wasn't so hard. 

Anyway, I realize now that I can still fill in the shift away from the dark night of the soul, when things take a turn for the better. But after that 3% there will be no escape.

As God is my witness, this thing will be finished Thanksgiving week. 

Fluid Memory

The other day I consumed something new: a sip of a chocolate Premiere Protein shake.

Immediately I was transported back to the 1970s. The drink tasted exactly like my favorite childhood treat:

SPAAACE.

FOOOOOD.

STICKS.

It was what the astronauts ate. My brother and  I were wild for them. 

I'm so sad I missed their brief resurgence in the 2010's. Until then Premiere Protein Shake will have to do.

Russian

It's time to shift hobbies. Hello Russian, goodbye guitar, at least until I finish all the drafts of the book. Russian takes only five minutes a day, whereas I have plateaued on the guitar.

I've only been on Duolingo for five days but I can identify who owns that bicycle (это мой велосипед). I could probably identify the same in Spanish or French, but Russian sounds like it would involve more neural pathways. 

And boy, they really know how to train out there at Duolingo. Any run of failure is countered by revisiting three of your previous successes.

I tried spelling my name in Russian. Arty backward 3, cartoon legs, cartoon legs, arty backward 3, and surprise, a capital H for the N. I just assumed it would be a backwards N, but no, backwards N is the letter I.

I'm going to be obedient for three months and then see where I am. If nothing else I can say my typos are because the Russian alphabet has confused me.

Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Songs of All Time

The latest issue of Rolling Stone arrived. It keeps coming, though I don't remember having paid for it, and think I'm the only one here with the vision to read the tiny print. 

I was intrigued when the cover promised a list of  "THE GREATEST SONGS OF ALL TIME." Certainly Rolling Stone would have compiled this list before, then just linked to it after that. However, it appears the list varies with time, and turmoil, and tastes.

I expected that there would be a number of songs I didn't know, given that I ignored all music during the eighties and nineties and then became spectrum-level-laser-focused on Barenaked Ladies. Turns out, not only were there numerous  songs I didn't have on my playlist, there are songs I should know but I have never heard. What really astonished me was I have never heard A Change is Gonna Come (Sam Cooke) or A Case of You (Joni Mitchell).

I have added both of them to my Favorites playlist, not because they are favorites (how can it be a favorite after one try), but I feel my never-ending subscription to Rolling Stone should be used for something. 

Memories of the Old Romances

For our first date, I asked Gary out with the patented line, "We've been talking for hours, why don't we continue this conversation over dinner?"

The other day I was thinking about boyfriends other than Gary, and I realized I couldn't remember how any of those guys asked me out. I remember every detail of the flirtations, then I remember the dating ... but how we got from one side to the other? I have no idea how any of the guys got off the dime.

There were one-off dates (George - all wrong for me, can't remember why I ended up with him, much less how) to multi-month liaisons (Joey - I vaguely recall it was prefaced by an high school emissary who delivered the intel that Joey 'liked' me).

You say -- I can hear you when it's quiet -- that perhaps I don't remember the guy's Big Asks because I wasn't the one putting myself out there. That may be true, you may be right. It's a shame though, I wish I remembered. Perhaps that will be one of those things that come back to me in full detail when I'm 90.

Scary Covid Halloween

Halloween made me wistful this year. I had to avoid the germy kiddies with the porch lights off, plus no front room lights, so essentially I hid in the dark in the back bedroom.

I look at graphs and see how close we are to getting out of all this nonsense.

Here's the graph for the whole US - you can see Delta show up at the end of May

Then I look at just my area for last week and think, "I would have to drive 20 minutes and knock on just the right door to get infected."

Of course, that's just the reported cases. All those empty grey patches are filled with people sniffing in and coughing out the virus with no ill effects, either because they're vaccinated or because they're in denial. 

I thanked the host of our work Zoom party for giving me a chance to acknowledge Halloween -- even though I hate Halloween (strangers plus children plus greed, as you know), so I don't know why I feel so wistful. I worry that I am neglecting almost all of my friendships, and when retirement hits I'll have very few avenues for making new relationships, so if I continue on this path things will be bleak. Then again, I am given to understand that if we can avoid any other variants we might be out of it in the spring. Good lord, wouldn't that be wonderful?

I think the faux Halloween "fear" just didn't sit right when I pile it on top of real fear.

College Decisions vs Retirement

I remember 1980, thinking about college and struggling with my major. Education major? English major? Education major with English minor? The other way around? Didn't matter, less than a year out of college I was in the computer field. 

Now on the other side of my career I have another set of choices. Stock Index Fund? Fee-based fund? All Fixed income funds? And this time around, what I pick actually matters for the rest of my life. You pick the wrong choices or pick the wrong year to retire and you are in trouble. Retire in an "up" year and you are golden, but if you retire right before a slump -- well, that graph is terrifying, because that money is gone. 

Retirement. It's on the horizon. I haven't had to think about the rest of my life since college, and I don't like it. 

4k

I suppose I can say I did a 4K without even noticing.

About a hundred posts ago I crossed the 4,000 post mark. It was only today that I noticed. It is entirely possible that 100 days ago I made a fuss about post 4,oo0 and I have simply forgotten.

I made quite a fuss on post 1,000. So, so long ago.

So, another greeting for the new 4,000. Hello to all you Dots out there, big and small. That includes the five fine folks in China: 欢迎 to you. (I trust that says "Welcome.") 

Don't think this will end until Typepad closes shop.

Rewriting the Novel: It's Fun Again

Well, even though it is always the last thing to do with my discretionary time, I am enjoying the book again now that I'm done with the ending. 

I have made myself calculate how far I am every day every time I write, and it looks like I am 83% done with the first draft. The end is in sight, and the only remaining mystery is how she does not starve to death after she is abandoned.

I thought about having someone throw out some congealed oatmeal ala Jane Eyre, but it's set in Oklahoma and it would get very dusty. I wonder if Charlotte sat at her desk thinking, "Is anyone going to believe this? Or is this overused, having someone throw out oatmeal? Is it too convenient? Should it be gruel? Is that the same as oatmeal?" (Charlotte Brontë looks up oatmeal and gruel.) "Ah," she says, "I must use gruel, to parallel the gruel in the orphanage. Charlotte re-reads the entire book looking for references to gruel to see if she has overused gruel and wishes someone like her friend Ada Lovelace would invent software to help people process words.

Red Hat Society

There was once a time in the 1990s when you couldn't go to a tea room without seeing ladies sporting red hats with purple trim. There were the Red Hat Society, and back when they were new I was still too young to join. They were all ladies over fifty who dared to be fun, even though they were growing old. They faded out of my thoughts, possibly because I didn't see many of them at the rock concerts I attended.

Yesterday I thought of them again, Now that I am almost sixty (next August) I thought thatI would pass the age requirement.

But now there is no longer an age requirement to be a fun, distinctive older woman in the Red Hat Society.  So now you don't need to be old to be old enough to not act your age. I shake my head and shake my cane.

Allowing any age into the society perverts the point. It's like repeating the Lord's Prayer in church. Given an example of how not to pray in public with vain repetition, we now publicly vainly repeat it, and now the Red Hats are a society honoring aging women that any twenty-year old can join. What kind of horseshit is this, as my fun grandmother would say. 

I suppose it is ageist, or anti-ageist, or somehow wrong to exclude young women because of their age, and that makes sense, but ... still, something wiped out the Red Hats. Perhaps their age policy, or maybe the pandemic closing all the tea houses. Or Trump forever changing what 'red hat' means. Or perhaps women my age, even the fun ones, are now invisible to me. That would be sad.

A Sense of False Security

I have thought myself clever by scratching any facial itches with the earpiece of my glasses. I figure it's behind by ear, sheltered from Covid, no one's going to be coughing behind my ear.

Today I realized that I have not cleaned the actual earpieces of my eyeglasses since before the pandemic began. Time to soak the glasses in Lysol.

Rewriting the Novel: Zeno’s Paradox

I would tell you that I am 75% done with the book calculated by word count, but it seems every time I write nowadays I end up with fewer words. It’s not because I’m editing, either. It’s like the Missing Dollar riddle.

The fun parts are in first draft form, but I have almost nothing written for the middle or the bit directly after, because that is the dark night of the soul and unpleasant. 

I should not care so much about how close I am to the end of the first draft, but now that I’ve plotted out the ending, it feels like the end is in sight. Yet I’m dragging my feet. I don’t know why: I’m going to enjoy writing the end, now that I know exactly what it’s going to be. But I think this is like painting. I love the finishing touches but by then I am so sick of it I ignore some last needed bits — that extra depth on the sundials, or the cast shadows on everything. 

I could just put it away, but things make sense now. The puzzle pieces are falling into place. I think I’m at the part of the painting when I like it, and I fear the next brushstroke will make it all go wrong. And that makes no sense - you can re-paint an oil painting, you can rewrite a book — in fact, you’re supposed to rewrite a book.

It’s been a week since I sorted out the ending. I should be having fun. Why isn’t this fun?

New Manners

There have been some surprising social events mentioned recently by The Young Folks at Work. I was familiar with destination weddings and promposals, but the three below were new to me.

Bachelor party weekends - back in my day, men of the bridal party drank and drove to various strip joints and then recovered in time for the rehearsal dinner the next day. Evidently at some point people realized this was a bad idea and now the men hole up in a big house for a solid weekend a month before the wedding. They drink, but sober up for the drive back. I approve this change.

Diaper parties - back in my day, women had to suffer through dreadful baby showers. Now, the men have to endure baby showers too, only they report there is no acknowledgment of the impending baby, talk of baby, advice about baby, just beer and possibly football, and a package of diapers dropped off at the door. You know, just focusing on the crap part of the baby. Sounds just as awful as the distaff version. I do not approve.

Baby sprinkles - back in my day, my mother was the only person I knew who knew you don’t give a baby shower for a second baby. All second babies of my acquaintance got baby showers. Evidently, enough Moms told enough daughters and the daughters rebranded the Second Baby Shower as a Baby Sprinkle. The presents are limited so there won’t be duplicates of the original baby shower.  If that means the only presents are diapers, in that case I approve, but then how is this not a Diaper Party? Is it the gender of the invitees? I don’t know the nuances of this.

Esteem

I think it speaks well my my former boyfriends that each year I go through the list of MacArthur genius grant recipients looking for their names.  

I never find them, but I still look.

It Made Sense at the Time

I had a toothache (technically a gum-ache) and I could not find our OraJel or Anbesol.  No tooth pain goo anywhere.

But I did find this:

We use Neosporin anti-bacterial gel all the time, especially because it has a little pain-relief additive in there.

So it was quite sensible to apply it to my upper and lower gum. It was effective and I was so pleased with myself I told Gary the next day.

”POISON’ he screamed.

”Oh don’t be so dramatic. It’s not POISON.”

He waved the tube in my face.

Oh, damn. It IS poison.

I explained I couldn’t find the other tooth goos, and Gary opened the drawer I had upended already, and plucked out both tooth goos.

So I won’t be doing that again.