It's been unusually wintry in Las Vegas this month, and wintry weather (even when the sun is nearly always shining) puts me in mind of stews and casseroles and baked goods. I rarely admire photos of stews and casseroles, so I never take any. Somehow, all that lumpy, molten deliciousness looks disgusting in two-dimensional form. So you'll have to trust me that the beef stew, chili, chicken tetrazzini, and barbecued pulled pork were everything you might hope for in warming winter food.
Baked goods, on the other hand, manage to look as mouthwatering in two dimensions as they do in three. Photos of bread just pulled from a super-hot oven evoke the fragrance of the yeast and the cracking sound a crisp crust makes as it cools (the French call this "singing," which I love). Go ahead - try it. Can you smell the whole wheat and olive oil in the rustic Italian boule? The semolina in the scored loaf? How about the cinnamon, raisins and oats in the second boule?
My first attempt at homemade bagels a few months ago (sorry, no pix) was a huge success, so much so that it made me wonder why it's all but impossible to get a decent bagel out in the world. Time and patience were the main ingredients; the tangible ingredients and the process couldn't have been much simpler. Buoyed by that success, I decided pizza crust probably wasn't overly difficult either. And it wasn't! I'm not a big fan of pizza (shocking for a Chicagoan, I know), but I do love a crisp, brown, chewy, slightly charred pizza crust.
You can absolutely smell the pizza, can't you?
I can't decide if I want to resume blogging or not. I reread old posts and am pleased with them, and also with the memory of what fun it was to craft them, usually out of an explosive kernel of an idea that niggled and prodded until I gave it its due. The habit of blogging was so infectious. Once I got going, ideas piled up and popped
all over the place, begging to be chosen, pinned down and expressed in
words. It would be good to experience more of that particular pleasure. And to take on more of that kind of short-term, quickly gratified intellectual challenge.
I didn't deliberately turn away from blogging. For a few weeks after my last post in January 2012, I thought often about posting. After a couple months, I thought less often (and more guiltily) about it. After a couple more, the idea flitted vaguely through my mind every now and then. I took pictures on trips and composed descriptive paragraphs in my head, thinking to write travel posts, if nothing else. But the inspiration was never sufficiently compelling to prompt an actual post. Not even when it got to be November and December and I had to see that accusing January 2012 date looming at the top of my blog whenever I checked it to see if the bloggers I follow had posted anything new. (They had. Often. See "Interesting Blogs" in the sidebar to your right and look them up.)
Twitter was the same. When I tweeted regularly, my brain developed a whole Twitter compartment, a bustling, observant mechanism that parsed the world into 140-character bursts of revelation. Twitter, too, was fun. It, too, was infectious and challenging. And it, too, fell by the wayside in 2012.
Why?
It could be laziness or a sense of diminishing returns. It could be that I got busy with other, more captivating, things. Or maybe it was merely the end of a natural life cycle. Hobbies, interests, even passions come and go.
I spend the bulk of my time crafting words. For a time, a long time, the challenge of crafting blog posts and tweets complemented my writing work. It was hugely entertaining, it made me some great friends, and it honed my skills. Ultimately, though, blogging and tweeting stopped complementing and started distracting. At first, the distraction was a welcome diversion. I was at a difficult juncture with my book; expressing myself pithily elsewhere served as a needed outlet and a reassuring relief. But eventually the distraction was only a distraction. It lost its enticing appeal, and I turned to different side dishes.
I rediscovered two former passions in 2012: baking bread and cooking. Like all good hobbies, neither of these can ever be entirely mastered. There's always something to improve on or something new to learn. They offer a constant challenge, and one that, unlike blogging and Twitter, is not verbal. You decide what you want to create, assemble ingredients, apply techniques, and - presto! - you very shortly have what you wanted and it's a tangible thing. This may be a metaphor for novel-writing, but it's the antithesis of writing an actual novel - and not only because you get to eat your results.
It's been cold and cloudier than usual in Las Vegas this winter, and the clouds make for gorgeous sunsets. As I was uploading photos of a recent beauty to my computer, it occurred to me that a sunset is a worthy and enjoyable phenomenon whether or not it precedes a sunny dawn. I may blog or tweet regularly again; I may not. For now, here's the sunset:
I wonder if it's possible to appreciate beauty in a vacuum, without reference to other things one has seen or read or heard. I imagine that it is, in large part because of scenery like that around Lake Tahoe. It seems to me that the splendors of Lake Tahoe would be perceived as gorgeous by everyone, no matter his or her frame of reference, experience or aesthetic preferences.
Huge (192 square miles), deep (at 1,645 feet deep, the second deepest lake in North America), high (surface elev. 6,229 feet), with cobalt blue water of extraordinary clarity (it's said that a white dinner plate at a depth of 75 feet would be clearly visible; I don't know if that's true since we didn't toss one in to find out, but glacial lakes are always astonishingly pure) and surrounded by snow-capped mountains, Lake Tahoe is quite an eyeful. Glacially carved Alpine scenery is my favorite: its pristine magnitude is all at once majestic, serene, spectacular, evocative, and profound. There is no better example than Alaska, and the Lake Tahoe area is reminiscent of our 49th state, although on a far smaller scale (and with a lot more sunshine).
In fact, our first impressions of Lake Tahoe were somewhat spoiled by our memories of Alaska. It was rather like seeing the Mona Lisa for the first time: the small, dark painting tucked away in a corner of the Louvre was underwhelming until we got ourselves intellectually revved up over it and examined it more carefully. Similarly, Lake Tahoe struck us primarily as not-Alaska until we adjusted our brains and used our eyes to take in what it was, rather than what it wasn't.
Don't miss the moon in this last picture. (Click on the pic to make it bigger.) These photos are all from the area around Emerald Bay. For some reason, I didn't take pictures of the craggy mountains surrounding the lake this time; if you'd like to see some of those in a different glacially created setting, click here.
In a great break from tradition, yesterday's Super Bowl game was not boring. Yes, I was rooting for the Packers (and, once the game started, wishing I'd decided to bet the season's winnings on them instead of sitting this last game out, gambling-wise). But it wasn't only that. The game was not the plodding, conservative, try-not-to-lose-instead-of-play-to-win non-spectacle of most past outings. The Steelers and the Packers actually played. Except for a quarter-length stretch starting in the middle of the third quarter, when I did...let's say, multi-task...a bit, the game held my riveted attention. As it should have, given that it's the last football I'll get to see until I'm literally starving for it - ravenous enough to watch even the lame pre-season games in August. I'm already wistful.
I thought I might be projecting my bias as I watched the teams file through the tunnels to enter the field - the Pittsburgh players flat, unsmiling, sedate, possibly nervous; Green Bay hopping around, giddy, all but bursting with excitement - but it was obvious even then how the game would play out. Is there anything in football more graceful, magnificent or eye-popping than the passes Aaron Rodgers throws when he has time in the pocket? Anything more certain than Ben Roethlisberger's chances of throwing a perfect strike as he thuds to the ground in a thicket of defensive tacklers and then, soon after, standing tall and tossing an inept, brain-dead pick?
The melodic mangling of "America the Beautiful" and the verbal mangling of "The Star-Spangled Banner" struck me as right in line with the apparent belief of younger generations that meticulousness and accuracy are obsolete traditions of the past. The flyover above a closed stadium roof perfectly encapsulated the blithe, wasteful, out-of-touch-ness of Jerry Jones and his ilk. John Madden texting while sitting at a football game next to a former President of the United States was priceless. Whimsical and iconic, it was a beautiful blend of old and young, traditional and modern, the past and the present. (I adore John Madden.)
And throughout the game, I kept wondering what another football icon might be thinking and feeling. A persistent image of Brett Favre sitting in his Barcalounger, nursing his sore muscles, broken bones and equally banged-up spirit while he watched TV, flitted through my head. Was he thrilled for the Packers, for so long his team? Bummed about his own whimper of a final (I presume) season? Texting with John Madden? Or was he, like me, relishing the game and already sad that there will be no more NFL football until August?
I am not a fan of the one-foot-in-front-of-the-other mode of transport. Except when I'm sightseeing in European cities or making my way through vast casinos to the double-deck pitch blackjack tables, walking provokes in me all the mental and physical sensations commonly associated with the word "trudging." So it should come as no surprise that I am not a hiker.
But last week we visited Utah with our daughter, and she suggested a hike through Zion National Park. The hike in question, she noted, was mostly paved, relatively flat and only (only!) 3.5 miles round-trip. I didn't want to disappoint her or cause her to think I'm a wimp, so I agreed. Do kids have any idea how much their parents do to avoid falling short in their eyes? I'm guessing not; I surely never sensed my parents were making any such efforts.
Anyway, hike we did, and it was wonderful. Zion is the middle rung of the so-called Grand Staircase that starts in Bryce Canyon and ends in the Grand Canyon. The whole thing was, and continues to be, created by the rain that falls on the 11,000-foot-high Colorado Plateau and then rushes downhill, slicing through and carving layers of rock. This rushing and carving creates glorious scenery, which you get to see from an entirely different perspective when you're walking instead of driving. Frequent forays from the car to see a slightly hidden sight up a little closer or to get the best angle for a photograph aren't the same, I've learned, as experiencing the whole thing on foot.
Zion is spectacular, possibly even more so in winter than in summer. Snow highlights crags and striations in towering cliffs. It contrasts gorgeously with red rocks and creates a charming visual oxymoron with green cacti. There's more visible flora and fauna than in the summer, too, and the cold, cold water in the streams and rivers sparkles with extra extravagance. It could be the ongoing adrenaline rush talking - I'm still thrilled and impressed with myself for having actually hiked - but the park may well be at its pinnacle of beauty when seen on a crisp 40-degree day from a trail that winds through its snow-painted cliffs under the blazing sun.
I didn't really grasp the concept of elevation until I moved to the West. I understood intellectually that higher elevations meant cooler temperatures and different topography, flora and fauna, but knowing something like that intellectually and experiencing several different elevations in the course of one afternoon are two very distinct ways to comprehend.
Our travels today took us from 2500 feet above sea level to over 7200 feet, then down to around 5,000 feet. The temperature swung from 104 to 72 to 86. Desert scrub and sandy, barren mountains gave way to tall pines and green-carpeted slopes, which in turn transformed into the dusty greens and gently rolling contours of the high-desert railroad towns along Route 66. The air stopped sucking the moisture out of everything not already bone-dry and started hydrating skin and tightening curls. (I imagine the wildlife also differed significantly from elevation to elevation, but I'm not particularly interested in fauna, and we saw neither snake nor mountain lion nor buffalo.)
Unless I've forgotten or something's changed in the last five-and-a-half years, one cannot travel by car from Chicago in any direction and encounter in the course of a single afternoon meaningfully higher elevations. (Lower elevations need not be mentioned; Chicago is barely above sea level.) So my Midwestern-born-and-bred understanding of elevation was based on book knowledge and the intelligence gleaned from travels by plane. Taking a plane to a destination that's novel, whether by reason of elevation or other attribute, is not the same as experiencing entirely different environments within 30 miles of one another.
I've been wondering all afternoon what else I might know intellectually, but not truly get because I haven't actually experienced it. I bet elevation isn't the only such thing.
*I really did write this post in Winslow, Arizona. Though I wasn't standing on that corner (or any other) at the time, how could I resist using the title everyone (or at least everyone alive in the 1970s) associates with this sleepy little town full of railroad- and Route 66-related history? Here are a few photos from Winslow:
I'm getting ready for our trip to explore the Rio Grande Rift. Like the Rift, our route will bisect New Mexico, from north of Santa Fe all the way down to Las Cruces. There will be geologic glories galore, including calderas (volcanic craters), lava frozen in place by millions of years of time, mountains (ditto), and the sparkling water of the Rio Grande itself. This trip will also feature the sophisticated man-made glories of Santa Fe, which will be our home base for a variety of mostly geology-related side trips before we head south.
I'll post a travelogue with photos while we travel, but the rift I want to write about today is the one caused by Arizona's immigration law. For the first time in over fifty years of traveling within the United States, I feel obliged to take my passport.
I am not a fan of "shoot first, ask questions later" type laws. I'd just as soon not visit Arizona or patronize any of its businesses until its state legislature decides to recommit to the principles of democracy. But the only sensible way to drive from Las Vegas to Santa Fe is via Arizona's roads, so out come the documents proving we're U.S. citizens.
It's very strange to think we might need our passports to travel to an adjoining state. I'll be surprised - and horrified - if we actually do need them. But who knows what some over-zealous officer in some middle-of-nowhere Arizona town might conclude based on my curly brown hair and my and my husband's tanned, olive skin? I don't relish the idea of spending part of our vacation being detained, interrogated, confined to a jail cell or deported.
I'm a law-abiding sort, and I do not support illegal immigration. I also do not support racism, racial profiling, intolerance or fear-based legislation that fails to take into account or respect inalienable Constitutional rights. Appearing to be "foreign" or, for that matter, actually being from somewhere other than the United States is not an appropriate basis for being suspect under the law.
The U.S. as we know it has benefited from the contributions of immigrants ever since the Pilgrims first arrived at Plymouth Rock. Immigration and immigrants aren't the problem - illegal immigration is. Immigration reform is certainly necessary, but ill-thought-out, misguided, and fundamentally un-American responses like Arizona's have no hope of effecting it.
We decided to spend a couple days visiting the Mojave Desert before it gets too hot. Actually, most years it's already too hot by mid-May, but this year we're enjoying an unusually cool spring/beginning of summer around these parts. The drive through the Mojave National Preserve was wonderful: spectacular desert scenery via a bumpy two-lane road, full of roller-coaster rises and dips. The road would be annoying if there were traffic, but we saw maybe a dozen other cars the whole time.
I'll get to the scenery and some photos, but we stayed overnight and spent a delightful day in Palm Desert before we headed home, and I have to exclaim over how incredibly friendly the people were. They were super-friendly, Midwestern-level friendly. We felt like much-loved regulars as we enjoyed fish tacos, queso fundido and entertaining conversation at the bar at Armando's on Friday night. It was like being at a great dinner party. Not only do we feel like we now have friends in Palm Desert, we also have a bouquet of California-related vacation suggestions for future trips. We had similarly convivial experiences with everyone we encountered on Saturday. What's this about? Southern California has in the past struck us as much more...well, let's say standoffish.
The journey from Las Vegas to Palm Desert through the Mojave Preserve swings back and forth between elevations barely 600 feet above sea level to nearly 5000 feet up. At the low point are the salt flats near Amboy, CA, and they are about as cool as scenery gets. Check this out:
Looks like snow, doesn't it? But no, it's salt. Here's another flat, this one less liquid:
And here are some snaps of the crazy rock mountains*, scrub and Joshua trees in the Mojave Preserve:
*I've written about these crazy formations before, in the second paragraph here and the ninth paragraph here. They are outlandish; it's hard to believe they're a naturally occurring phenomenon.
Rather to my dismay, Jamie Harding (a normally delightful person whose blog, The Life and Times of a Househusband, I love and who is a complete kick on Twitter) "honored" me with the above-titled award.
I don't usually react to honors with dismay, but this one comes with a suspiciously meme-like obligation. Here are the rules:
1. The Honest Scrap Blogger Award must be shared.
2. The recipient has to tell 10 true things about him/herself that no one else knows.
3. The recipient has to pass on the award to 10 more bloggers.
4. Those 10 bloggers should link back to the blog that awarded them.
I don't plan to follow these rules. What a rebel, huh?
I'm not one for chain letters; in fact, I can be counted on to break the chain, no matter the entreaty, the cause or the direness of the promised consequences. (Hmm, I wonder if this bit of explanatory narrative could count as one of my 10 things. So it will if it turns out I can't think of 10 others.) But, hey, I can be a good sport about Rules 1 and 2. We'll see about 3 and 4.
My 10 things (some of these aren't quite known by nobody; it's hard to come up with those when you've been married for over 30 years to someone you met in high school):
1. When we were children, my youngest sister ate French fries slowly. She always had some left by the time my other sister and I finished ours. We would ask her for a few, and she would command us to bark like dogs: Bark! Bark for French fries! Yep, we did. Woof.
2. I have never owned or come into contact with a toaster that worked properly.
3. No, I did not get married in high school. Or in college. I'm just older than you think.
4. If I had to choose one favorite song, just one, it would be "Roll Me Away" by Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band (as recorded for "The Distance" album way back when). If naming it meant listening only to it and nothing else, then I would choose the first movement of Schubert's Ninth instead because I'd hate having to get sick of "Roll Me Away" and I appear to have an infinite capacity for listening to the best first movement ever. (Just ask my husband or kids.)
5. I routinely slather my feet with Bag Balm, a lanolin salve meant for cows' udders, before I put on socks.
6. After knee surgery in 1989, I spent an entire week on the couch, determined to conquer Super Mario Brothers 1, 2 and 3. By the end of the week, my knee was fine, I could rescue the princess in every game, and I was very popular among my kids' friends.
7. I have been in every state in the U.S. except South Carolina and South Dakota. I don't have a problem with states named South something; this is just an odd coincidence. Oh, and by "been in," I don't mean drove through or changed planes in; I mean actually visited long enough to have to take a shower in.
8. I try to understand it and, failing that, to be tolerant of it (at which I also fail dismally), but I can't shake my sense that Facebook is the dumbest f*%#in' thing on earth.
9. I played Ado Annie in a high school production of Oklahoma! Lots of bizarre things inherent in that experience, but the ones I recall/care to disclose are the thrill of being cast, the surprising raciness of the old-time musical's lyrics, and the appalling smell of the costume (eau de years and years and years of sweating teenagers).
And ta da! Number 10 is that I always break chain letters. Now you know who deserves the blame for the promised riches that never arrive.
I got the nicest note from one of my Twitter friends a couple days ago. She noticed I hadn't blogged in a while and wanted to know if I was OK. She also said she missed me. This started me thinking about how oddly wonderful Internet friends can be.
The term "Internet friends" has more dubious connotations than anything else, at least for me - can't help remembering the end of Old School, when Juliette Lewis' character invites Will Ferrell's character to a party: "yeah, you know, just some Internet friends."
But I've found some of the most charming, intelligent and delightful people on the Internet. And it's weird: we've never met, we've never spoken voice-to-voice or face-to-face, but I have the sense we know each other. Turns out a lot can be communicated in the accumulation over time of 140-character snippets.
Anyway, I feel remiss about blogging, but I've been in a writing frenzy for several weeks. I'm working feverishly on my new novel; my characters have co-opted all the space in my brain. I have no unexpressed thoughts that aren't going into the book. Every now and then, I get a nubbin of a side idea, but both these and my will to explore them are too weak to flower into a blog post. They're barely enough to sprout a tweet.
So how about a clip show instead? (Cue the Simpsons singing about how lame it is "when a long-running series does a cheesy clip show.") Still, I'm always a little sorry old posts get buried in the past. Even if the ones linked below aren't new to you, I hope you'll enjoy the encore.
What it's like to write obsessively
Where blogging fits into life
Where blogging doesn't fit into life - or the value of privacy
A little tidbit about the new book
Glaciers
Why I dislike and try not to use the noun "bitch"
The dangerous silliness of political correctness
A spreadsheet approach to sex and parenting
Ode to a lost friend
In what must have been a fit of inspired creativity, the holiday decorators at the Palazzo came up with utter brilliance. The bedecked papier-mâché bears were good, the snaky branch, flower, ornament and light thing was super-cool (if a little reminiscent of one of Lord Voldemort's scarier incarnations), but the ornamental pool filled to the brim with cranberries was pure genius.
(Click on the picture to get a better idea of the full force of a profusion of cranberries.)
I can just imagine the corporate meeting at which this design was pitched. Purchasing: We're going to need a cranberry guy. Number-Crunchers: How do you measure ROI on a gazillion cranberries? Idea People (all but the one who came up with the idea): I wish, wish, wish I'd thought of that! And the Suits: Top this, Steve Wynn!
Actually, in the context of the Strip's fanciest over-the-top hotel/casino/shopping/dining/entertainment extravaganzas, the whole concept of business meetings in conference rooms is hilarious. In what other corporate setting could cranberry-related agenda items nestle comfortably and sensibly right alongside occupancy rates, profit margins, Impressionist art exhibits, and the latest in uniform concepts for leggy cocktail waitresses?
Thanks to the bookshelf review I undertook for this post, I'm now rereading Mary Renault's The King Must Die. It's the story of the mythical hero Theseus, King of Athens. One of Theseus' early adventures (before he gets to Crete and deals with the Minotaur, the book's centerpiece) takes place in Eleusis, a kingdom ruled by women. The women are like despotic rulers throughout time: contemptuous and dismissive of those not like them. In Eleusis, men are considered childish, weak-minded, and utterly unfit for the worlds of business, government, religion and everything else the society deems important.
Women rule in Eleusis because the society is an antiquated one, still wedded to cultural dictates developed in response to the ancient notion that women and the gods create life. Although the Eleusians in Theseus' time know the role earthly men play in conception, Eleusian culture has not evolved to take that into account and elevate men above second-class status. Everyone seems OK with this except, of course, our hero.
As events spin out, Theseus ultimately finds himself in position to modernize (it's killing me, but I'm not going to put that word in quotation marks) Eleusis. The following passage made my hair stand on end:
Later that day, I appointed my chief men, from those who had been resolute in defying the women. Some of these would have had me put down women from every office in the land. Though I tended myself to extremes as young men do, yet I did not like this; it would bring them all together to work women's magic in the dark. One or two, who had pleased my eye, I should have been glad to see about me. Only I had not forgotten Medea, who had fooled a man as wise as my father was. And there were the old grandmothers, who had run a household for fifty years, and had more sense than many a warrior with his mind only on his standing; but besides their magic, they had too many kindred and would have managed the men. So I thought again about what I had seen in Eleusis of women's rule, and chose from those sour ones who took their pleasure in putting the others down. And these did more than the men to keep their sisters from rising up again. A few years later, the women of Eleusis came begging me to appoint men in their stead. Thus I was able to make a favor of it.
I recognize that Mary Renault wrote those words in the 20th century, but they haunt me anyway. There were written records in the times the book depicts; I presume she relied on them for political and cultural realities just as she did to paint the book's remarkable depiction of the time's religious rites and its architectural, scenic and other physical realities.
Obviously, the passage says a great deal about the nature of power and how and why institutions as well as individuals promote on the bases of sexism, opportunism, tokenism, protectionism and atavistic fear, rather than solely on the basis of merit. But does it also illustrate something fundamental in the nature of women? Or does the passage simply confirm that in times of oppression and discrimination, when power is scarce for one gender or the other, some of those with power will do anything to hang onto it?
Most career women have at some point in their careers run across a successful woman who's reached an elevated position and acts as if she believes there's some honor and glory in remaining alone there. Instead of trying to help other women succeed, she revels in her exclusive status. This sort of queen-bee behavior does as much to mask opportunity and hold women back as do sexist men or the pressures of the status quo. It horrifies me to think it might have been going on since ancient times.
Either way, I'm feeling galvanized. I'm determined to do something right this minute to help another woman succeed. I hope you will, too.
I am at the coffee shop, having been driven out of my normally quiet home by the clatter and bustle of the cleaning people. In four high-backed upholstered chairs that don't match and have, in any event, seen much better days, sit four teenagers. They have the chairs pulled close around a tiny table - one of those short side tables that serve as central tables in coffee shops.
The little table above which the teenagers' chairs loom is crammed with food and drink, and the teenagers are gobbling. This is surprising. I doubt the three boys and one girl combined weigh 400 pounds. They are, all of them, freakishly skinny, drug addict skinny.
Their clothes and haircuts seem to have been chosen for maximum ugliness. Underwear is visible on all - the boys are sporting colorful tight briefs (the kind little children wear) with either jeans or slimy nylon basketball shorts slung on their palm-width hips, defying gravity; a ramshackle bra, which she does not need, pokes out of the girl's skimpy sundress, itself a plaid the colors of jaundice and fresh bruises. Two of the teenagers are dirty blond, two are dirty brunette; all of their hair is pasted greasily to their skulls and none of it appears to have been cut with any sort of plan or symmetry in mind. One of the blond boys wears a red woolen stocking cap. (This is Las Vegas and it is currently 104 degrees Fahrenheit).
The teenagers' skin keeps the drug addict imagery alive: they have no glow, no tan, no ruddiness, not even the slick shine of acne. They are gray. But for their oddly loud clothing, they could be characters in a black and white movie shot by a bad cinematographer.
How do I see all this? They cannot sit still as they gobble. First one, then another, then the first, then yet another pops up, wanders around the shop, texts, makes a quick call, sits back down. Perhaps all this fidgeting is why their food creates no bulk. Standing, the boys look like long-waisted optical illusions. Their legs are skin-wrapped sticks, seemingly nowhere near sturdy enough to support even emaciated bodies. One of the boys slings his arm around the girl. She smiles, but does not look up at him. Both the line of her jaw and the knobs where her arms meet her shoulders look sharp enough to cut glass.
It is impossible to think of any of them writing a term paper, running for public office, raising children, curing cancer, working in an office building (or, for that matter, in the Peace Corps) or in any other way assuming the mantle of adulthood.
There is no denying it: I am old. What a relief. I am giddy with the realization that my own transition from awkward awful adolescence to adulthood is so far in the past as to be all but beyond recollection.
How I wish it were possible to meet other people's behavior in kind without having to think of oneself as equally churlish. It irritates me to feel obliged to take the high road, even though I know it's the right thing to do, and the only realistic option, when others are ignorant, unresponsive, unreliable, rude, ungenerous, thoughtless or so wedded to their own agendas that the mere hint of a differing viewpoint pushes them to dizzying heights of defensive anger and uncivilized restatement or to awkward depths of sulky withdrawal.
I would give a lot never again to have to deal with people who, as William James put it, think they are thinking when all they are really doing is rearranging their prejudices. I'm tired of "you scratch my back; I'll refuse to acknowledge you even have a back" behavior. I'm weary beyond belief of people unwilling or unable to keep their promises, people who don't follow up, people who ask and take but don't listen or give, and people who don't mean what they say (or maybe they do, but it doesn't matter because what they say has no apparent influence over what they do).
When did breathtaking inconsiderateness become something basically decent people allowed themselves to indulge in with nary a blush or pang? Get back in touch with me after a decade to request a personal reference, but via a note that makes it plain that you didn't even bother to look at my profile on the LinkedIn/Plaxo/Biznik/Facebook/Twitter route you took to find me and so have no idea that I no longer live in Chicago or that I've written books or have a website. Request that I send you something, then fail to thank me for it or even acknowledge that you received it. Call me when you need something; live the rest of your life in blithe indifference to my existence. Ask me to be your friend, your fan, your follower, to vote for you in some contest, to comment on your blog, to read your book, to attend some event, all with no attempt or intent (or, as far as I can tell, even any awareness that it might be possible) to do the same for me. Yammer on about how relationships are important, engaging is important, generosity is important, then treat everyone else as if they are nothing but numbers who can boost you in some way.
I'd love to be able to make the decision to become a "me first, me only" jackass and still live with myself. The high road is often a lonely, windswept, howling place. I've learned from experience, though, that taking it exacts a lesser cost from me than does grubbing in the crowded mud of ill-mannered, uncharitable, self-absorbed ugliness. But oh how I sometimes wish it were otherwise!
I don't understand the impulse toward hysteria. There's also nothing much to like about the phenomenon. Starting with the word itself, which derives from the Greek hystera, meaning uterus, "hysteria" was originally defined as a neurotic condition peculiar to women. With those misogynistic roots, one would think the term had nowhere to go but up.
But no. Instead, hysteria became a social phenomenon, nowhere more evident than in this recent ridiculous mania over swine flu. As I understand it, statistically speaking your chances of contracting and dying from swine flu are significantly less than your chances of choking to death on a ballpoint pen (which 100 people do every year). They are a tiny fraction of your chances of dying in a car accident (43,000 annually) or from assorted gun violence (17,000). "Normal" flu kills around 36,000 people every year. And these numbers are just for the U.S. The swine flu hysteria is even sillier when considered in terms of global numbers.
So what prompted it? Why were/are people with about as much risk of contracting swine flu as someone living alone on a mountaintop all hysterical at the thought of going to school or getting on a plane or eating in a Mexican restaurant? Why were/are they flocking to already overcrowded ERs because they imagine their tummies hurt?
I've wondered about this personalization of peril before. I was doing some work for a company in Los Angeles right after 9/11. For a couple weeks after those horrific events, a few of the people in the LA office - none of whom had been personally affected by the attacks - were "too traumatized to come to work." Was this their way of empathizing? Of honoring the dead? Or was it an exploitation, however unconscious, of someone else's loss? I hate to think it was anything other than empathy - how dishonorable to attempt to make events like those of 9/11 about oneself!
Why join in the hysteria over something that, if you weren't hysterical, you would plainly see poses no imminent threat to you? Does feeling in peril make people feel important? Or maybe it's the opposite; maybe it makes people feel like they belong, like they're part of the community.
If so, too bad the hysterical community in question is such a silly, self-centered and wasteful one. If we could inject all the energy behind the swine flu hysteria into a community bent on improving healthcare for the poor - or, for that matter eradicating gun violence or fatal car accidents - we'd actually accomplish something important and lasting. Not to mention communal.
I'm feeling bombarded by bumper-sticker wisdom (an oxymoron, I know). It's everywhere! On the aforesaid bumper stickers. On coffee cups and paperweights. In email. Embroidered or stamped on those tacky framed homily things that hang in touristy stores full of kitschy crap. And littered all over social media sites, the online equivalent, it occurs to me, of touristy stores full of kitschy crap.
I guess it's OK for people to take inspiration wherever they can find it, but it's beyond me how anyone could find the following drivel* inspiring:
"If your goal doesn't make you just a little bit sick, then you are not reaching far enough."
"Act as if you have already achieved your goal and it is yours."
"If we set our attitudes by the days of the week, then our actions will remain the same continually."
"Knowing what to do is different than actually doing it."
"I act with balance in my heart. I speak with balance on my lips. I walk with balance in my feet."
"By thought, the thing you want is brought to you. By action, you receive it."
These little gems range from total gibberish to the sort of lame piffle only someone resolutely opposed to employing gray matter could find meaningful, inspirational or worth passing along. There is no legitimate response to this garbage, if you actually think about it, other than a bewildered "Wait. What?!?" or a sarcastic "Really? Ya think??"
I haven't even included coddling codswallop like "Mistakes are the route to success" or treacly tommyrot like "Just as the sun sets & we must find a way to let go of another day, the sun will rise with the promise of a new day & a new beginning." (I also haven't yet used all the synonyms for "nonsense" I can think of without consulting a thesaurus.)
Contrast all this balderdash, if you will, with the following pithy, profound and thought-provoking aphorisms:
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." Albert Einstein
"Example is not the main thing influencing others. It is the only thing." Albert Schweitzer
"The reward for conformity was that everyone liked you except yourself." Rita Mae Brown
"Amusement is the happiness of those who cannot think." Alexander Pope
"Before you speak, ask yourself: Is it kind, is it necessary, is it true, does it improve on the silence?" Sai Baba
And if we must have some treacliness: "The summit of happiness is reached when a person is ready to be what he is." Erasmus
I rest my case.
*I'd attribute these quotations if I could, but I've been scribbling them as I see them and, really, who would want his or her name attached to any of them anyway?
We met in the fall. It was not love at first sight. At first, I wasn't sure I even liked you. You struck me as frivolous, noisy, possibly shallow. A bunch of your friends rushed to introduce themselves, and I wasn't crazy about them either. They were talkers, not listeners, very full of themselves. They seemed awfully pushy. Self-congratulatory, too - always telling me how great they were and getting all agog over some personal "discovery" that anyone not so self-absorbed could have told them has been around since Socrates.
I was cool toward you. But I couldn't shake a sense of fascination, a feeling that you were trying to offer me something great.
So I decided to see you more often. I opened up and let you in on who I am, what I'm interested in, what I care about. Almost immediately, a new bunch of your friends introduced themselves, and this bunch was amazing: impressive thinkers, fascinating talkers, enthusiastic listeners, generous supporters. They introduced me to more people and our circle expanded exponentially.
Suddenly, our relationship was incredible. Every tryst offered a newly woven tapestry of glistening conversational threads, an unending kaleidoscope of ideas, humor, music, poetry, news, recipes, opinions, and intriguing personal tidbits.
I couldn't get enough. I started thinking and answering emails and even occasionally speaking in your unique 140-character cadence. I was tempted to abandon my usual pursuits and spend all my time with you. I couldn't stand the thought of missing even one thing. No matter where I was or what I was doing, I noticed the kind of amusing, eccentric, newsworthy miscellany that I knew would tickle you.
I was crazy about you. After every absence, I eagerly backtracked through our time apart to see what you'd been up to. I listened to everything. I responded, commiserated, offered experience and knowledge, joked around, objected, supported. I was totally exhilarated.
But then a few cracks appeared. Some days, you were more annoying than interesting. You didn't always interact. Sometimes, you took without giving. One of your friends stole something. Another tried to bully me; I stuck to my guns and we patched things up, but it left a bad taste. I felt crowded, pushed, pressed for time. Little, unimportant things started bugging me (who would have guessed that so many smart people can't spell?), and I started to resent your constant bombardment.
So I pulled back - not wholly, but enough to rediscover the joys of my life independent of you. I reduced your claims on my time. I kept listening, but didn't respond every time I had something to say, content to let some opportunities pass. I stopped being offended when every gesture was not responded to in kind. I gave to give, not to get. I got over expecting you to be something you're not and just appreciated you for what you are.
Now we're content, you and I. Our relationship is comfortable and easy, inspiring, educational, fun, challenging, stimulating, non-judgmental and, best of all, reciprocal. Just like a happily married couple. Twitter, I love ya.
OK, first of all, check out the sky in the next-day photos below. Nice, huh? To be fair, I do remember sunny skies immediately following snow in the Midwest too, but maybe not quite so brilliantly blue. My view has reappeared, the mountains are heavily blanketed in white, the rooftops slightly less so, and I can see the patches of snow shrinking in the sun before my very eyes. I imagine the humidity is higher than usual, although it feels cool and crisp. You wouldn't think someone who spent 50 years in the Midwest would be so thrilled by a snowstorm, but hey, context is everything and I like the unexpected.
I especially like the fallen snowman in the last picture below. For some inexplicable reason, people here love to use giant inflatable things as holiday decorations, and the irony of an inflated snowman face-down in actual snow is pretty great.
Click here for a news story about our rare event and, if you do, be sure to check out the picture of snow covering the sides and Sphinx of the Luxor.
