On the Right Side of the Glass

I"m having lunch with my new boss and coworkers next week--yes, before I officially start--and I'm looking forward to it. One of the coolest things about this whole process is that there is clearly a group of people who are eager and enthusiastic about what I bring to the table--rather than, say, shoving me out the door because they just don't think I have anything useful to add. Even though I'm not going to bother with the interview with the third organization, and I'm not sure I'm the best person for the job for which I interviewed last Friday, the fact that three organizations were interested enough to want to talk to me is very nice. On top of that, of course, one of the organizations did handstands and cartwheels to get me on board as quickly as possible. The second person with whom I met briefly on Wednesday asked NewBoss how s/he found me, the implication being that it was a great find.

Seriously? I feel like I'm back on the right side of the looking glass, where up is up and people want to use what I know and what I know how to do, where people consider me a valuable find rather than a thorn in the side. I had lunch yesterday with someone from the old place--someone who is also outside the bubble team--and s/he confirmed again what I was experiencing (and is experiencing his/her own version of it). So, oddly enough, my ex-boss's original statement, that s/he thought I would be a better fit and would be happier elsewhere, is accurate. The problem, though--for the old organization and for ex-boss, not for me--is that the reason that is true isn't because of some deficiency on my part.

But I don't want to spend any more energy on the old place. I have an opportunity here to continue building on what I've learned, and I'm excited to get to do that. The things I ended up doing at the old place because there wasn't anyone else to do them gave me the knowledge I needed to be able to step into this new role, and my new boss knows all kinds of stuff, and can teach me all kinds of stuff, that will expand my capabilities even more.

It's all a little surreal, because of the speed and intensity with which it happened. I'm trying to be calm about the success, too, just as I tried (and sometimes succeeded) to be calm about the challenge of being unemployed. So I'm making some bread right now, because that's my default activity these days, and later we're heading off to cheeseland for the night (fab dinner plus college hockey game), and the bread will be something of an experiment, because the final rising will be done in the back of the vehicle (where it will be cool) or in my fridge, i.e., will be a very slow rise. No idea if that will work, but no big deal if it doesn't.

Tumble Down

Now I been lookin' for a job but it's hard to find
Down here it's just winners and losers and don't get caught on the wrong side of that line
--Bruce
"Atlantic City"

I can feel myself sliding down a ravine. It's happening kind of slowly, and I keep thinking I should grab a boulder or a tree or a clump of grass and haul myself up, or at least pause the fall until I can get my bearings, but instead I just keep slowly sliding.

Oddly enough, the fear of falling is making it worse; I know that it can get very dark and deep and painful.

Back when I finished grad school, I was unemployed for more than a year. I had some temp work, and some small jobs, but it took me 15 months to find a full-time job. On top of that, I realize, in retrospect, that I was seriously depressed for probably two years before that.

It was hellish. I was miserable, and I knew that I was miserable to be around. I was sad and angry and scared. I was unemployed and deeply in debt and being forced to change careers. Despite having spent seven years and accruing the aforementioned debt to do what I truly loved to do, I wasn't going to get to do that, and I had to find something else to do, and I had to pay off all that debt.

When I finally got a job--literally weeks before I would have run out of money--I immediately set to healing myself. I worked through the shit, as best I could (pretty well, actually), and slowly rebuilt a new life. As I left that job, four years later, to work at the startup company, I got involved with Chuck. And despite the many, many good things that came out of that, nearly eight years later, once again, my life blew up: the company for which I worked went out of business (and the companty for which Chuck work moved, so we were both in dire straits there), my marriage blew up, and I was working in a low-paying, grueling job that had been intended to be an apprenticeship before I started, yes, something else I loved to do.

And then I pieced things together again, and quit the bakery, and found a new job, where, over the nearly four years I was there, I was promoted twice, and left the job making 60% more than when I was hired.

None of that matters.

What matters, right this minute, is that I have no fucking clue what's going to happen. I have some capacity for dealing with uncertainty, and some capacity for rebuilding, or moving to a new plot and building something else entirely. But will I be able to do it this time, before my money runs out? I'm over 50. Unemployment is at record levels. The jobs that are out there are either back at the level I was at in 1994 or they're just enough above my level of experience that I don't think I can do them; there's no guarantee that I can talk someone into hiring me for the former, and I don't see the point in trying to talk someone into hiring me for a position that I don't quite know how to do and don't think I can figure out in time.

Even that, well, something could turn up, or I could maybe get one of the lower-level positions that pays enough and, once again, work my way up (or not; there's a lot to be said for not).

But I'm sliding. I've spent the better part of the past two days sitting and doing not much of anything. (No, computer cards does not count as any fucking thing at all, except an exercise in mind-numbing.) I managed to work out Monday and Tuesday, but today, I managed to miss a train and I got off at the other end 15 minutes too late to get to the rowing class I had signed up to take, and I just turned the fuck around and got back on the train and came home. Otherwise, I have done almost nothing.

I was supposed to meet an ex-co-worker tomorrow, but it turns out that there's a board meeting s/he must attend--which added to my funk, as I was required to attend a board meeting in, what, September? maybe? And that means, if anyone I met remembers me, there will be questions, and my ex-boss will be making shit up or badmouthing me--most likely the former, about how I "chose" to pursue other options. I'm fucking UNEMPLOYED. Who the fuck would choose that? All I can say is that I hope s/he breaks out in suppurating sores and bloody pustules every time s/he says something about me that's bullshit. I'm trying very, very hard to keep away from the anger--I know, from the above-mentioned experience, that it is not a good path, and will only lead to more tears--but I think I can ask that bad karma rains down upon those who spew bullshit about me.

Then again, maybe no one will even notice.

For the ones who had a notion,
a notion deep inside
That it ain't no sin
to be glad you're alive
--Bruce
"Badlands"

(Yeah, sorry, Palladia is showing "Live in NYC" at the moment, presumably in honor of Clarence's birthday, and, as we know, Bruce is my personal deity. Or, at least, he keeps me going, and I'll take what I can get right now.)

So I know I have to find a way to stop the slide, to grab a boulder or a sapling or just dig in my heels. Because i just do not want to go back down into that ravine. I lived there for maybe three years, maybe more, in the early 90s, and revisited briefly five years ago, and I do not have the energy to drag myself out again, and the farther I fall the more dragging out of it I have to do. I have no fucking clue how I'm going to do it. But there it is. Drag myself out of it, right the fuck now, figure out a way to hold on and stop sliding.

Said and Not Said

As I believe I've said before, when I was 14 or 15, I realized two things, nearly simultaneously: that, first, in some very fundamental ways, my mother didn't understand me, and, second, that there was absolutely no way to make that statement at the age of 14 or 15 and have anyone take it seriously--but it was still true. That conundrum might be apt for my current situation, but I can't tell for sure, and that particular uncertainty is one of the more difficult aspects of the whole thing.

Plenty of people, including ex-co-workers, have said that I was sort of doomed from the moment Ex-boss was put in charge, not because I'd fuck up but because of the particular situation into which I had to fit. That is, I have people telling me that my ex team, including its head, do not truly appreciate or understand what I bring to the table. While that is a satisfying thought in some ways, it doesn't sound any more "say-able" than my observations at 14 or 15. And, more important, I don't know whether it's true.

If it is true, that I was never going to fit into that team, because of fundamental problems with the make-up of the team, rather than because of some fundamental flaw in my abilities or skills, then of course there isn't anything I can do about it. On the other hand, if I was fucking up in some way--more than we all generally fuck up on a day-to-day basis--then I would want to know that, painful though it would be to hear it. I can't learn from mistakes if I don't know what the fuck they were, and, in this case, I don't even know that I was making any.

Back when we had our first conversation about my leaving, Ex-boss really didn't give any reasons for wanting me to leave. S/he said one or two things, but they didn't make much sense, s/he backed off very quickly when I basically said "Whaaa?", and I had the distinct impression that s/he was . . . trying to build a case of some kind, but then realized s/he didn't have what would be needed. S/he probably also realized (or had been advised) that it would go better if s/he just got rid of me, rather than engaging in a protracted argument. (And, frankly, if it's really fucked up, then on some level s/he also realized, perhaps only subconsciously, that fighting about it would open up a whole can of worms about the Bubble Team that s/he didn't want opened. If you're going to present a standard of behavior that I supposedly violated, then you had best not have fellow team members who violate those standards all over the place; that will not go well. I doubt that was even at the edge of awareness, however.) The few things that were mentioned were ludicrous--or perhaps I am incapable of seeing how it was me that was fucking up. My gut tells me it was the former (and tells me pretty strongly, which isn't exactly empirical evidence, but isn't insane, either, and is in complete accordance with various other parties' reading of the situation).

Overall, I got the impression that s/he had made this decision and didn't want to go through any kind of performance improvement effort--s/he had decided I wasn't going to be useful to the team and just wanted to be rid of me. Which, as I've said before, is a perfectly legitimate thing to want. It fucks with MY life, of course, to which I will return in a second, and I think it's fucked up in about 87 other directions, but it is what it is. And if that's the case, it's kind of like my mom not really understanding me, especially when I was 15: it's true, and it has significant effects on my life, but it's not something I can say and have people take it seriously (outside of my close circle of friends, of course, but even with those people saying it just feels . . . weird).

So was I fucking up? I'll never really know, I suppose. It's possible I'll know if they really made a mistake in getting rid of me, which is a different thing: There are a number of things that could break or crack in one way or another, but it seems unlikely that anyone on Team Bubble would then conclude that the reason they're broken is because they got rid of me.

All that aside, it still fucks with my life. If I was making mistakes, then I would have preferred an honest chance to find that out and fix it; if I wasn't making mistakes, then it doubles the karma ginned up by getting rid of someone who wasn't fucking up. Even if I'm right, I'm still unemployed, and satisfaction in my own rightness won't pay the bills. Of course, if some luck falls my way, I could end up in a better situation. (Yeah, I know, unlikely; even the unemployment guy was saying to me yesterday, "You need to get a job, especially because you're over 50." Um, yeah; knew that. But he was being nice, and ended up telling me about how he lost his job when he was over 50 and this job is a result of an enforced career change.) But there's no way to predict how that will go, and it doesn't fix any of the 87 aspects of the fucked-up-ness of getting rid of me. All in all, it seems like yet another exercise in random events causing major changes in my life--and people wonder why I don't have plans.

Anyway; let's hope that's my last spewing about that for awhile.

So yesterday and today I made (wait for it) bread! I riffed off of the Maple Oat Sourdough formula in the KAF Whole Grain Baking Book (or, as I think of it, one of my holy scriptures), by using a lot of levain instead of doing an overnight preferment with a little levain; using some barley flakes in addition to the rolled oats for the soaker and only soaking the grains for a couple of hours instead of overnight; and throwing in some KAF high-fiber flour. It was really quite lovely yesterday, so I made it again today to see if I could do it again, and it was even more beautiful--seems like I have a keeper. If I weren't such a slug and if I hadn't already hacked off the crusty tasty end, I'd take a picture for you.

Playing Center Field

"I'm just not happy, I'm just not happy. I'm just not happy because my life didn't turn out the way I thought it would." Hey, join the fucking club! I thought I was going to be the starting center fielder for the Boston Red Sox.
--Denis Leary
Quite a year it's been, eh? Any year that involves a promotion and a "separation" in less than six months is going to make one's head spin a bit, I suppose, and mine is probably spinning a bit less than I might have predicted. I'm finding that my biggest problem really is getting some kind of order established--but, then again, the holiday season probably isn't the best time to do that, either. Partly to give myself a handy excuse, and partly because it is, in fact, a time of year when things are closed and people are vacating and not a lot is going on, I've been cutting myself some slack.

But I've also tried to think a bit about what might work for me--ways to stay busy and productive, essentially, and ways to get regular exercise. If nothing else, perhaps I can get into some kind of decent shape again. None of that will happen by magic, of course, and I have well-documented motivation issues, which are exacerbated by not having any particular schedule, but it's something that's in my control, so it would behoove me to, you know, fucking DO it. Yes, I know that exercise, per se, is really fucking boring; that's why I much preferred playing an actual sport. Not an option now, so time to STFU and get off my ass. I'm currently planning on a yoga class tomorrow--my favorite teacher is actually teaching--so I'm going to drag my sorry ass over there in the hope that starting the year with a positive effort will somehow help. Yes, I know, that is magical thinking.

Food for the weekend planned so far: tonight we're having tuna steaks (frozen, vacuum sealed, purchased months ago by Friend, and we might as well use them up), and I'll probably do some kind of garlic spinach. There will also be fresh sourdough bread; a loaf just came out of the oven a little while ago, and it's pretty tasty. The leftovers will become Toast from France tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow there will be collard greens and black-eyed peas, along with a little pancetta to make the spirit of my grandmother happy. I'll probably make another loaf of some kind of bread, and possibly something sweet if I get really motivated, and we'll probably have some venison, too. Monday will involve pizza of some kind; I have broccoli rabe, two kinds of mozzarella (because, really, why not), and a variety of tomato products, including bolognese sauce in the freezer and multiple jars of roasted pureed tomatos from the CSA people; I'm sure I can make something out of that.

Anyway. Lots of la-di-dah-ing going on here, trying to pretend I'm not unemployed, but whatevs. I'll keep hacking away at it, and maybe I'll find a job.

As for you all, have a wonderful new year.

Reasons to Be Enjoying Unenjoyment

I spent the early part of last week cleaning and doing laundry and cleaning some more--plus going out to dinner with my furniture guy and with friends--and then . . . then I spent some time staring vacantly into space. I managed to get various small tasks accomplished, but I felt like I was doing them in a fog. Not surprising, I suppose. I even got a taste of schadenfreude on Friday, when I had lunch w/ an ex-coworker, who informed me that a proposal on which I did not work did not get re-funded (it's money the organization had been getting for multiple years). Yes, I know it's a little evil of me, but there it is. One of the advantages of the timing of my leaving is that there isn't anything due any time soon (except a big data report, about which I warned everyone), so it will be difficult--though, of course, not impossible--to blame me if there are issues with upcoming items.

As I vegetated last week, I realized a couple of things. First, this is the first time I've had two weeks off in a row since approximately 1994. Yes, seriously. I'm sure it will get old if it goes on too long (much the way it got old by the end of 1993, much less well into 1994), but a part of me was enjoying just being able to hang out. I will never be accused of being assiduous about housekeeping chores, but it was nice to be able to make a very long list of things to do and actually get them done, even while building in some baking and some slacking. There are still projects to be done--get more paint off of the sunroom brick; make curtains for the kitchen; clean up the desk in the back bedroom--but I accomplished a lot of crap.

Second, in case I have only mentioned this 472 times, sourdough is magic. It just kind of blows me away that I can use this goo to bake bread, with no added yeast. I've already gone through 10 pounds of flour, and I have resorted to giving away wads of stuff just to make room for more wads. Today, though, I made a batch of rolls that has extra fiber (in the form of barley flakes) and various fruity bits (cranberries, candied orange peel, date nuggets, dried apricots, and dried pears), and I glazed the rolls with a combination of ginger syrup and maple syrup. I'm thinking that these will become breakfast food; I haven't been eating well (or exercising, despite my resolutions to do so), and the Week of Slack has led to concrete strategies.

Third, the more I'm away from that job, and the more I think about the info I got on Friday, the more happy I am that I'm out of there. Yes, there is still a lot of fear and anxiety about finding a job, and yes, I realize this could be post hoc rationalization at its finest, but I think my gut is right about this one. The fundamental problem--and the problem at the core of my "separation" from the organization, I believe--is that the Head Honcho (my ex-boss) and his/her team don't know that they need to know things that they don't know. They think that they have it covered, and they cannot see beyond the bubble they've built. Personally, I think it's going to bite them, and the organization as a whole, in the ass, and I do not want to be around for that. When shit hits the fan, it splatters everyone in the vicinity, and there are people on that team who will do their level best to duck behind others when that happens. The thing is, if they manage to eliminate everyone outside the bubble, then they won't have anywhere to hide, or anyone to blame.

Don't get me wrong--I don't really wish for this to happen. For one thing, the bad karma generated by that kind of wish is not something I want to invoke. For another (much more important) thing, the people who are likely to suffer most, either in terms of reduced services or reduced staff, will be people who are way lower on the food chain. Even if the bubble team members lost their jobs (which I would be hard-pressed to predict), they will be better fixed, in terms of income and savings, for example, than line staff or program beneficiaries. And I think there's a very real risk here, because there are enormous changes in the works; many or most of those changes are systemic, i.e., outside of any given organization; and the changes will be centered around the part of the business that I was in but that the bubble team is not.

They could pull it off, of course; they are not stupid people, and they have at least a modest recognition that Things Must Change. But they are also systematically ignoring (or "separating" or reagarding as Negative Nellies) the people who know the most about the side of the business that will be changing the most and that will be the core of all the other changes. Bubble team members are doing a mediocre job transferring my knowledge and tasks to other people. And they are putting into moderately key positions people who do not know enough about the side of the business that will be the core of the new arrangements--but they are people who are subordinate to the bubble team, and are therefore Good & Knowledgable. There will be hiccups--as there always are--but the size and strength of those hiccups will be related, at least in part, to how much of the world outside the bubble they truly comprehend.

Here's another thing: there's no guarantee that, if I had been involved, the organization would have kept the contract that was lost--but I would have been Blamed, even if what was submitted was something that I did not fully support or something I did not think was what should be submitted. That's going to happen going forward, too. Contracts will be lost, or poorly managed, or whatever--it's a fact of life, particularly in an organization that now has no managers on my old side of the business (the other side is rife with them, but many are foot soldiers more than anything else, and no one has seen any urgency to get managers involved in my old side). It was one of the things that had become a serious challenge over the past year--not enough managers (and how often do you hear THAT said) to, well, manage.

My friend pointed out that I was doing three different jobs, with three different skill sets--not because I'm so spectacular, but because those tasks needed to be done. As we tried to mix our staffs and managers and directors and tasks together, I was increasingly being expected to follow a new set of rules (though finding out just what the relevant rule was remained an exercise in futility), hand off my tasks, and create a new job description/job for myself. No way is that going to work out well, unless the head person can communicate what s/he wants and the other members in the bubble are willing to break the bubble and build a new structure.

Yeah, as I said, failure of one kind or another was really the only thing that was going to come out of that, and I'm just as glad to be out of the way of the shrapnel. I'll figure out something, some way, somehow. I hope.

Day 2: Enjoying the Unenjoyment

So now I'm officially unemployed. I'm not eligible to collect unemployment until the vacation pay runs out, I think, but I didn't go to a job yesterday or today, for the first time in awhile. Most of last week was just fine; I met with people, I provided information, I cleaned out my office. The business person kept asking me to try to take care of this and that before I left, and I basically made non-committal sounds and didn't do those things. You know what? I handed it off to you. I gave you the info I had so far, and the work I had done on those things, and they are now not my fucking problem. Seriously. I am not running around on my last couple of days to do tasks of any kind, but most especially not those tasks, because they're tedious and annoying and why the fuck should I do that? Bite me.

If you want to know the truth, I actually enjoyed ignoring the requests. Although I actually like this person in many ways (s/he is funny, for one thing), this person can be more than a little imperial, and it was delightful to just not do it. The other thing from which I took great joy was deleting files. The same person said, when I asked, oh, yeah, if you wouldn't mind, please do delete files and clean out your drive on the server. Certainly! With pleasure! Clearly you didn't value the work I did anyway, and clearly you assume that someone else knows what I knew about the various fiddly bits in the budget even though I've repeatedly said otherwise, so I'm sure you'll have no trouble at all, with either the various contract budgets or with the fiscal year budget.

I've ordered a case of schadenfreude, and I will be enjoying the consumption of it. It may need to age a bit, but that's okay; I have other things to do.

Meanwhile, though, I've realized that I need to find another topic of conversation, difficult though that task may be. It's time to settle into a routine that works--and that isn't about either my unemployed state or the complaints about the old job. The old job is a dead parrot, an ex-job, and there's no point in continuing to spend my time thinking about it. There are still some details to take care of: applying for unemployment; getting the cobra papers filled out; getting the final checks, which will happen in two weeks and then again after the first of the year, because I'm taking some of the income in 2012; transferring the retirement money. But that's all paperwork

Sunday I went to an exercise class (rowing) followed by a yoga class, and yesterday I got some exercise in the morning and then spent several hours with the hippy-dippy-restaurant folks. (I'm trying to help them figure out how to get out of the major hole they're in. Not clear i can do that, but it seems to be helpful to have them talk about it--I'm basically doing therapy with them, on some level.) Last evening I planned out the rest of the week a bit and watched the hockey game.

Today has been all about filling the freezer: chard, kale, and spinach are the items of the day, plus I made a batch of sourdough bread. I still have leeks, turnips, more turnips, lettuce, turnips, and potatos to address. And turnips. And lettuce. No matter; I'll think of something to make with all of it, or most of it, anyway. And I have to go to a pot luck on Saturday, so I might well take a salad, no matter what else I take.

Unenjoyment

Remember that scene in Bull Durham where the manager calls a player into the office and says, "This is the hardest part of a manager's job . . . but the organization has decided to make some changes"? Yeah, that speech. Kinda like the one I heard this past Monday. I have a little more time than the player did--I'm still working, and we're going to start working out the details, probably Tuesday--but I don't expect to be there much longer. A couple of days? A week? Two? No way to know.

During the week, I went to several meetings the boss was in, and went out of my way to be professional (eloquent and brilliant and incisive, even), not least to demonstrate that I'm not going to be an asshole. It's tempting at times, of course, but I don't see the percentage in it, and, more important, it's not how I want to be. I can't control anyone else's behavior, but I can control mine, and I have no desire for this to devolve into anything that's more unpleasant.

At one point, I asked whether there was anything I could do or say to change his/her mind and was told no. So, there you have it. I haven't been let go before, but I have been wooed and then dumped, and it sure seems a lot like that, given the amount of effort this person put into getting me on his/her side over the first six months of working with this person.

So Monday night kinda sucked, as did Tuesday; Tuesday night Friend and I went to the hockey game as planned. By Wednesday I started getting better, and by the weekend I had applied for a bunch of jobs (like a zillion other people out there). As long as I can keep the fear at bay, I'm okay. It's a non-trivial task, of course, but there's only so much worrying I can do at this point. Depending on the terms of the leaving, depending on the cost of health insurance, depending on about 3 million things outside my control, it could work out fabulously well, it could be the worst fucking thing that ever happened, or it could be whatevs. No way to predict, and not much I can do to control the outcome.

The one thing I did do, though, was wait until the end of the week to apply for the jobs I identified. For one thing, it just felt like bad karma to apply when I was in a panic and such, even if all I was doing was sending a resume. Yeah, I know, kinda dumb and superstitious, but the prospect of being unemployed in this economy would make anyoe superstitious. Speaking of which, light a candle, say a prayer, cross your fingers, whatever it is you do, on my behalf, and I will be grateful.

On a better note, I called a halt to the paint-stripping project. It is by no means complete (but, hey, looks like I'm going to have some time on my hands soon!), but it is complete enough for now, and I moved the chairs into the sunroom yesterday and was pleased. So I got that going for me, which is nice.

Sing With Me

Rest in peace, Big Man . . .

Today is a big kumbaifuckingyah day, and, as you might imagine, I am absolutely breathless with anticipation. The fact that I have a major fucking competing grant due next Friday and have done not nearly enough work on it yet, and the fact that I'm going to be losing Wednesday afternoon to training on some new purchase order system (a four-hour training? is calculus involved? because otherwise four hours seems excessive), aren't bothering me at ALL! You know why? Because I simply love, love, love all-day retreats. It just excites and energizes me So. Much.

Was that convincing? Yeah, I figured not, but it's the best I can do. Welcome to the world of senior management, where you slap on a happy face and do the needful. And get paid for it, mind you. But still; I have so much fucking work to do. I hate these things to begin with, but when I am completely overwhelmed, it just makes them worse.

In non-work-related news, I have managed to find someone to fix my broken paneling, which excites me to no end. He'll do the work after the beginning of July, and he won't be cheap, but he really does seem to know what he's doing. I also ordered the chairs for the sunroom, and they're under construction at the moment--I'm also getting a third chair, plus footstool, for the living room, at half price. Turns out some bozo decided he didn't want what he ordered after all, and returned it and made a huge fuss about it, and my furniture guy was happy to get rid of it. I also seem to have located someone who can move the stuff when it's complete, for cheaper than the shipping costs would have been, so that's exciting news, too.

And rowing classes! Those turned out to be totally cool. It turns out I was, in fact, Doing It Wrong for all those years, and that doing it right is harder. I liked the classes so much I bought a package, too, and am aiming for once or twice a week, plus the workouts at home.

I had intended to go to a class last night, but work got in the way, and, by the time I got home, I simply could not motivate myself, despite the fact that these days I look at pictures of food and my clothes get tighter. I'm trying not to stress out about that, but not doing very well. Some of it is vanity, of course; no denying that. But some of it is practical--I really do not want to have to buy new clothes; and I really like the clothes I have, but I can't wear many of them without looking like an overstuffed sausage and feeling very uncomfortable (physically: they're tight); and I can't help but think that hauling around an extra 20 pounds is just tiring in and of itself--it's like having a load of groceries strapped to me at all times. Actually, it IS groceries strapped to me--in the sense that I've already consumed them and they're now attached. And of course this morning I had all these grand plans of a workout before the kumbaifuckingyah event, but that didn't happen, either. Too bad; so sad.

A full night's sleep would be nice, too. I don't need all that much, but more than four hours would be nice . . .

Gone, Baby, Gone

My boss, that is. Yesterday they eliminated his position. Hard to say what happens next.

Stress? What stress?

It's Not Death, It's Only Cake

Which is one of the most awesome things a judge on Top Chef (or, in this case, Top Chef Just Desserts) has ever said. Sylvia Weinstock, who is a wedding cake maven, apparently, was a guest judge last night, and one of the contestants was getting sniffly (as opposed to last week's full-out breakdown by a different contestant--a breakdown that involved weeping and sobbing, "The red hots were for my mommy") because her wedding cake kept getting worse and worse. It was difficult to watch, because I've had that sensation, where every single thing you do doesn't just not help or not work, it actively makes things a whole quantum level worse. In her case, the cake basically started to fall off the cake stand as she stood there. And Sylvia was tactful, and gracious, and very nice to her, and she also reminded the contestant that hey, it's only cake.

So I think I need to embroider that on a sampler or something, especially as things at work continue to get weird. The new person is apparently going to be making Large Changes, though not all of them have been revealed yet, and s/he's doing a number of things that I suspect are likely to fail, and s/he is definitely listening to some of the wrong people. But you know what? It's another thing about which I can do nothing, so I'm trying to keep my head down, stay calm, do my work and find another job. What the fuck else can I do?

Yes, it's very disappointing, because I like the organization, in large part, and I like the work well enough, and I feel like I'm doing something useful. It's not my life's work or anything, though, and I'm waiting to see how a few things play out (e.g., will my boss lose his/her job? betting says yes), and I'm absolutely not jumping (will I be pushed? hard to say for sure) into just anything. But.

And, of course, it has been unpleasant since I returned from vacation. It's clear that we've been maligned--in some cases, by people with whom we work closely--and it's looking like, if the boss goes, some of the people who have been doing the maligning will be my/our new overlords. But unless the lottery comes through for me, or a new job does, they'll be my overlords and I will need to obey them.

In any case, Sylvia's comments made me think of a running conversation that K. and I have been having (for nearly 25 years . . .). She, like me, buried a sibling (though she was much younger than I was when it occurred). We have realized that, even all these years later, we have a tendency, when things are really shitty, to say, well, nobody died. Both of us being relatively strong people (and I do not pretend to know the direction of the causal arrows on that), that realization is a shorthand for put your grownup pants on and deal with it. And, really, that is a useful bit of perspective.

On the other hand, we have decided recently that we probably need a spectrum of good and bad that is more than binary: somebody died = bad; nobody died = not bad. There really are more gradations than that. For example, when Chuck was basically having a breakdown? That completely sucked, for both of us, and especially for him, in oh-so-many ways. There wasn't a single fucking thing about that whole hot mess that was good at the time. (Yes, sure, in retrospect, he has gotten the help he needs--and is doing quite well; I had lunch with him and CK on Saturday--and so on, but at the time? Awful. As I'm sure you all remember, and you didn't read about more than about 25% of it.)

So, now, at work, I find myself being the calm one. Well, more or less. But in general, I've been the Voice of Reason and Calm, or one of them, anyway, and I find myself thinking, yeah, this sucks, but not only did nobody die, this isn't nearly as terrible as about six other times in my life. Possibly it's age at work, too; when you get to be an old broad like me, especially when you've done the kind of shit I've done, you kinda figure something shitty will happen, and you'll have to do something about it, or get through it, or . . . something. But there's no point in worrying too much about it, because what good will worrying do? Oh; right; none.

So, dinner tomorrow night, then off to Farm Aid on Saturday (back Saturday night), and possibly some cooking over the weekend. At the moment I have two batches of graham crackers in the kitchen--for one thing, I'm trying to find a version of the recipe that I really like. It tastes fine, but is missing something. One of the original recipes called for molasses, and that was fine, but very strong molasses flavor, which I like but not everyone does. So I swapped out some of the molasses for honey, and that works well enough, too, but it's still not quite right. The next attempt will include some malted barley sugar, I think; see what that does for the flavor. The reality is, I have a huge wad of leftover ganache from last week's bake sale, so I'm going to be making graham crackers until I run out of ganache. Yeah, I know, another tragedy. But nobody died.

And then . . .

It was, in fact, very nice. It was also funny, because the guy who waited on me earlier in the week--and whom I'd told that I'd gotten married there (but was now divorced)--saw me and came over and said, glad you made it back again, and I said, and here's my ex-husband. He was a little taken aback, I think, but amused as well. It was also bittersweet, of course, but it is what it is. We know each other's lives so well, and much of the fundamental liking for each other remains, so we can have a good time talking to each other. Apparently I don't know how to be divorced any better than I knew how to be married, given that most people don't seem to manage amicability. Then again, we've both worked hard at that, and struggled through a lot of difficulty, so it's not as though it happened by magic, and it certainly hasn't happened easily. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, if I use the generally available narratives about relationships and divorce and marriage and whatever, but if I throw them out and accept it, it works a lot better.

Meanwhile, my dad is going through some changes of his own. The bladder cancer keeps reappearing, and he's reaching the point where they're going to want to take it out completely and replace it w/ a bag. At first, he was absolutely opposed to that idea, but my mom was telling me today about a conversation she overheard. Some friends of theirs were visiting, and the other guy also has bladder cancer--more advanced than my dad's so they're pretty much stuck with removal--and my dad was telling this guy that it would be okay, that you have to do what you have to do, that he golfed with someone in Florida (my parents used to spend a few months each winter down there) who had a bag and it was okay, and so on. My mom was kind of (okay, totally) eavesdropping, because this was a rather significant change of position on my dad's part.

My dad's a pretty sensible person, and I think he's capable of evaluating quality of life and figuring out what it's worth to him. The thing for him is that he'll be 80 in a couple of weeks, so his balancing act has different constraints than someone who's younger, for example (or older, for that matter). As my mom and I were discussing, chances are pretty good that he'd have a pretty good quality of life with a bag--he'd still be able to do all of the things he likes to do, he'd get to hang with his grandkids a while longer, so . . . there it is. I suspect he'll go for it.

Of course I'd like to have him around awhile longer--I like my dad! But I also know he'd rather die sooner and happier than later and more incapacitated, either mentally (especially mentally) or physically. One of the great advantages to having spent so much time working on my relationship with my parents is that I don't feel like we've left a lot unsaid. We don't have unhealed wounds in our relationships. To be fair, we haven't had many to begin with; my mom and I have always had the most difficult relationship--remember when she didn't speak to me for more than a year?--but even that is bounded by the knowledge both of us have of the love we have for each other. The other contributing factor is that we talk nearly weekly, and have done so for the 24 years I've lived out here. Some weeks there's not a lot of conversation, other times we talk for awhile, but it means we have a dense fabric of interaction to sustain us.

The difficult part of our relationship is, and always has been, that I haven't lived my life in a way that she completely understands. It is so different from what she would choose for me, and, in some ways (more ways than she knows, actually), so different from what she considers a proper life, that she can't always get her head around it. I've known this for 40 years, and, when I'm not having difficulties of my own, I can deal with it. We have problems when my life is going to shit in some way--she tries to help, but her suggestions are so contrary to what makes sense to me, for me, that I get defensive and upset and she gets more entrenched. In my heart of hearts, I know that she just wants me to be happy--what all parents want for their children--but she cannot for the life of her figure out how I could be happy doing the things I do.

The other thing for her is that, all things considered, the patriarchy has been very good to her. She married someone she loved, they've been happily married for 54 years, he's more of a feminist than she is in some ways. This makes it difficult for her to identify and recognize the subtle (or not-so-subtle) incursions of patriarchy into people's lives. She played by the rules and she hit the jackpot, so she sees a causal conneciton there, where I would argue those things are really not causally connected at all.

No matter. At heart, I know she loves me, despite the many challenges I pose for her, and that's the important part.

Say What?

i cannot seem to finish a post and then actually post it. I have several that were probably minutes away from readiness and . . . I just didn't.

Because whatever.

It's been a full couple of weeks. Lots of beer last weekend, and tasty food, and lounging about. Four days of work and annoyance, and now I'm off again--until next Wednesday, actually. The original plan had been because Friend and I were considering another trip this weekend, but then he had to tuckpoint his house and I have a special assessment and we decided to stay the hell home. Even if we go out and do some stuff, it'll be cheaper than going away. I ended up with several appointments to keep, including my gynecologist (I have to see him every six months, and I'm already two months overdue); I called today, expecting the usual two-month wait, and they have a cancellation for Monday. Oh well; not exactly what I want to do on my day off, but whatevs. I can still get up in the morning and make tea and sit around for awhile.

I've also started going back to the acupuncturist, because the SI pain is back, along with heel pain that I think is possibly completely unrelated. It's quite tedious; some days or activities that you think would stress it out and make it hurt have no effect at all, and other days, blammo. So I'm going back to the needles, and I'm trying to go back to the yoga mat; that project is less successful, for reasons that aren't entirely clear to me. I like the practice, I really liked it when I practiced regularly, I know that I feel better in so many ways when I do it, but actually getting my ass on the mat? Not so much. At least I've been better about exercising--including when we were out of town last week! I looked it up and saw that the hotel had workout facilities, so I threw some gear in the vehicle, and I actually worked out Friday before we went out to dinner and Saturday morning, so I felt very virtuous. Didn't stop me from ordering dessert at breakfast on Sunday, however.

Tomorrow is going to be another chapter in the weirdness that is my life. The restaurant where Chuck and I got married is closing next week. They're going to reconceptualize it (cue the eyeroll) so it's for hipper people than I am. Whatever, the point is that I love the place; it was one of my favorites before I met him, and we enjoyed it together, and I've made it a point to kind of "reclaim" it since we split up, because I liked it so much. (I went by myself on Tuesday night, and had a fabulous meal and even talked to the chef.)

Anyway, I told Chuck about the closing, and he asked if I wanted to have dinner with him there tomorrow. Yes, I know it's a bit odd, at least for most people, but it feels like the right thing to do in many ways. I realize I'm taking a chance that it's going to upset him or freak him out, and I will check in to make sure before we meet, but it feels like a way to honor the parts of our relationship that were good. I've begun to truly believe that we had the best possible relationship we were capable of having (and still are, for that matter). I have never doubted his feelings for me, or mine for him, for that matter, but so many things, including our own habits and behaviors and wishes, made it nearly impossible for it to work as a marriage.

I realize that's a mighty convenient conclusion, but I have been thinking about this for nearly five years, in one way or another--more, in some ways--and I think the odds were really against us. The fact that we managed to create as much good stuff as we did is a testament to both of us, I think. And, here's another oddity for you, sometimes what I would like most is to find a good companion for him. He's a good person, in so many ways, and I'd like him to have that, even as I recognize that I'm not that person.

One of my biggest realizations, when we had been separate for awhile but were still waffling around, was that getting back together would be poisonous for both of us. I know myself, and I know that I would never have really trusted him; I would have wanted to look over his shoulder all the time. And the thing is, if he changed the behaviors related to my lack of trust, then he would deserve to be trusted. There is absolutely no way for that to work out well. I don't say this to point fingers at either of us, but, as I hope I'm making clear, it's a combination of the behaviors of both of us. Perhaps you could say that, after a certain amount of time, or some kind of evidence, I should have been able to let go of my own needs for Proof of Trustworthiness; I don't know. My point is that it's an interaction, and both people contribute to it, and not necessarily in ways that are good for either of them.

And here's the other thing: people get into patterns of behavior. As they say in the substance abuse treatment world, practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent. The same is true of friends, lovers, whomever; we have habits in our relationships with people, and we fall into them, and that isn't all bad. It's the foundation of intimacy, probably. My point is, even if Chuck and I had the best intentions, even if we could have gotten past the trust issues, our own habits may well have led us back down the paths that would be harmful to us, individually and together. I don't know if that part is true, of course, but I also believe that it would have been much more corrosive, to both of us, than the first time around, if that happened.

So, yeah, dinner with my ex at the place where we got married.

Piles of Crap

Budget Heck took up the vast majority of my energy last week, and an acrimonious exchange with Chuck added that special something. There's nothing to restrain him now, and, of course, I actually want something from him (a relationship with his son) but don't have anything he wants in return, so he often doesn't hesitate to spew.

Not that he held back all the time when we were together, mind you. One of the things I liked least about that was that I found myself torn between engaging in the stupid back-and-forth, and trying to defuse or disengage from it, to try to work toward something positive--it was a lot of work (in which he participated, too), and, not being anywhere near perfect, I engaged in the back-and-forth way, way more often than I wanted. I really fucking hated it; it brought out the worst in me, and the worst in him, and any pattern that does that isn't a good one. I had a hope, a fantasy, I suppose, that we would continue to be able to make space for each other, to work toward something positive in our own and each other's lives. And, really, we did do that, much of the time--or, at least, I thought we did--or I wouldn't have married him. Fool that I am, I even thought we might find a way to do that after he left me, and even after we divorced.

Which, sometimes I think we're doing, until the next wake-up call.

Ah, well. It's depressing as all hell, but I can't control Chuck's behavior. And, really, at this point, I don't have to deal with it much, either. I have continued to do so, in order to try to see CK at least once in awhile, in the hope that things would eventually improve. But Chuck continues to insist that I don't really care about CK (and then he lists a litany of reasons why), and then ends up with how he needs to Protect His Son. Basically, he's convincing himself that I don't care about CK, not really, so it's okay for Chuck to withdraw him. And no matter what I do, I guarantee you that, in Chuck's eyes, I'll eventually fuck up somehow. It's been made especially painful because, as I unpack, I stumble across pictures, or little drawings, or the "letter" that CK wrote when he was first learning his letters, and each of them is a little stab, another reminder.

Anyway.

As I continue to pick away at getting things organized (or, at least, as organized as my things will ever get) I'm finding (a) multiple skeins of embroidery thread (which is what I use for my needlepoint, so, when I finish a piece, the odd skeins are still around--and not put away, in a single place, oh no, not THAT), and (b) endless scraps of paper on which recipes are scribbled, printed, or printed and amended. Typically, they're not labeled, especially the scribbled bits, so I have to skim the ingredients and see if I can tell what the formula is for. I'm better at that than I might have predicted (I suppose I should be, given my experience), but still. I'm making piles of those things, toward the end of eventually putting them away. A third thing I'm gathering: the little knobby things that have fallen off my dining room chairs. And a fourth thing: blank paper of various sorts.

Yesterday K took me on a Massive Shopping Expedition. She met me at Whole Paycheck (I got there when it opened, and arranged for her to pick me up an hour later), and then we stopped at Target (paper shredder; hangers; cutting board for the tile-making class) and then the Container Store (a.k.a. the gayest store in the universe), where I got a bunch of stacking bins for clothes and for paper of various sorts.

Saturday I unpacked nearly all the books, and I did the rest of them yesterday, more or less. This morning, while I wait for the security people to show up and activate my alarm system, I went through more crap in the second bedroom, which has become the junk room. You know how, when you move, the last few boxes are all the little crap, all the things you don't have time to sort, or you don't quite know whether you want them but you don't feel like taking the time to think about it? Yeah, well, those are also the last things to put away at the other end, too, it turns out, and no surprise there.

But I'm getting there. I need furniture, and I have some ideas about that, but I don't want to empty the bank account getting it, so I'm trying to come up with some intermediate solutions until I sort it out. So, yes, a virtual housewarming and tour will be soon, now that my decorating theme is no longer only "still-packed boxes of crap, with other boxes opened and spilling out on the floor."

Wild Turkey Rag(u)

First, the inspection. By and large, it went fine. There are a couple of smallish things, mostly plumbing-related, but I hope they don't derail the thing. My understanding from others is that this isn't unusual; given my lack of experience, I will only be convinced when I take possession of the property. Or, rather, take residence therein; I won't take "possession," per se, until 2040, at which point I would be 81 years old. Which kind of freaks me out a little, so I'm not going to think about it.

I was further distracted/depressed on Sunday by news that a cousin was killed in a motorcycle accident this weekend--he was 54. His mother (who is my mother's first cousin, so i guess he's my second cousin?) and sister are favorites of mine (he lived on the west coast, so I haven't seen him in years and years), and it's just terribly sad. My parents are upset, too, not surprisingly.

Yesterday Friend and I hung out, watched hockey, played cribbage, and finally got around to doing some cooking. He had some wild turkey legs and thighs that he had cooked in his slow cooker last weekend; he has discovered that that method makes it easier to separate the meat from the tendony fibrous bits, and he likes to make gumbo with the meat. But he had more than he needed for the gumbo, so I got to use some of it.

I took two pieces of bacon and cooked them, mostly to render the fat. I removed nearly all of the rendered fat, as well as the cooked bacon, from the pan, and then sauteed a diced onion and several pressed cloves of garlic in the bacon grease. When they were done, I added some onions, shitakis, and wine sauce from last weekend's sauce for the venison steak, as well as the crumbled bacon. That cooked for awhile, then I added the shredded turkey, a drained and rinsed can of white beans, and a bag of frozen herbed slow-roasted tomatos from my freezer that I'd brought over there awhile ago. I added a splash of madeira and a splash of balsamic vinegar and I let it simmer away for a little while. I made some whole wheat fusilli, and, a minute or two before it was done, I added a bag of baby spinach (i.e., just long enough to barely cook the spinach). Sauce on top of the spinach/pasta mixture, with some grated cheese of some kind on top. (I have no idea what the cheese was; I'd brought it over, but quite awhile ago.) Extremely tasty, I must say. For dessert, last week's caramel plus bananas plus walnuts, except this time I had chocolate ice cream and Friend's freshly made banana bread over which to put everything, plus I fucked up the caramel sauce (crystallized the sugar instead of having a nice smooth caramel).

As i worked out yesterday morning in Friend's basement, I was listening to my iPod but also had the Food channel on for visuals (the sound was down). I was guessing that I was going to be able to follow along. One of the shows was something about five ingredients--I think no dish had more than five ingredients? In any case, yesterday's show featured:
1. oven-roasted grape tomatos, with garlic and olive oil
2. creamed spinach (with heavy cream)
3. beef filets stuffed and topped with a butter/stilton cheese mix
4. white chocolate mousse (egg yolks, cream, white chocolate, sugar)

All I could think was how much fat would be in that meal. My arteries ached just looking at it.

And it's not as though I never eat like that--Friend and I had French food Friday night. He had scallops with some kind of creamy mashed potatos and about a pound of butter, as well as a cream-based soup and a shared chocolate mousse for dessert, and I had coq a vin over black pepper noodles, and started with french lentils and carrots in endive, with some kind of wonderful sauce, as well as half of the mousse, and we both had plenty of bread with roasted garlic spread on it.

Both of us were stuffed as a result--I even took some home--despite not having had lunch that day. It was quite good, of course, but I truly don't want to eat like that more than once every couple of weeks. And that's what kind of irritated me about the TV show. It wasn't being presented as "special-occasion" food, it was being presented as everyday food--look, only five ingredients, so easy to whip up! Yes, i realize that grains and veggies and beans aren't all that exciting, at first glance, and don't make exciting television . . . or would they? Actually, I'd like to see that (I'd like to DO that): making quick, tasty meals that don't give you a heart attack. Even better--the leftovers heat for lunches, and/or can be combined to make whole new meals. Wouldn't that be a more useful cooking show?

In Which More Things Suck

Be forewarned: I have other, possibly more-profound, thoughts rummaging around in my brain, but I'm out of the patience necessary to write them down, so you're stuck with yet another narrative about how work sucks, how my parents are doing, what I'm reading, and what I baked and/or had for dinner the past few days. Specifically:

Despite my best intentions--and, for that matter, at least some of my desires--I did not come home and work out tonight. Also? No yoga today. And whatever, is all I can bring myself to think about the whole thing. And? Popcorn, dried strawberries, cheese, and cookies for dinner. Also don't care about that.

Why, yes, you're correct; the suckage continues. We're beginning to piece together all the problems--or, rather, diagnose them--but it's still going to be a very long haul. If this were the only thing on which I needed to be working, it would suck, but would be manageable; as it is, though, there are several other important things I must be doing that I need to squeeze in where I can. There are several good, or, at least, useful things about the current annoyances, however. For one thing, I have sent people crap, kept people informed, showed my work, distributed spreadsheets, and so on, all the way along. If I have made mistakes--which I surely have--I have at least provided my work to other people, giving others the opportunity to identify those mistakes. That has not happened--if anything, I'm the one who has identified my mistakes. But the point is, I have shown people what I'm doing, rather than hiding it, which makes it very difficult for someone to say that we haven't inFORRRMMMMed them what's going on. Second, all those years where I wrote detailed accounts of shit, and tried to assemble my facts to make an argument? Turns out that comes in handy, and not so I can point my finger at someone else and say gotcha.

For example: if you tell me that I am "over budget," what exactly do you mean by that? In our context, that could mean:
(a) When we developed the FY budget for the organization back in May, we estimated our costs for widgets for the fiscal year to be $100. After six months, we have spent $60 and it looks like we're on track to spend $120 for the year. We are just plain buying too many widgets, and we need to cut back for the next six months. (Alternatively, we planned to spend more in the early months and less in the later months, but the dollars budgeted were spread evenly over the fiscal year, just for convenience.)
(b) We budgeted $100 back in May for this fiscal year, but, since then, we've reconsidered, and submitted several grant budgets, which allot a total of $120 for the fiscal year for widgets (more or less, because the grant budgets don't exactly line up with the FY budget, by dates). Thus, we are over budget on the FY budget--which the board examines--but just fine according to our grant budgets.
(c) We budgeted $100 back in May, and we've submitted grant budgets that allot $100, but we've seen more patients with insurance than we predicted, so we can afford another $20 in widgets, i.e., we are "over" budget on income as well as expenses.
(d) We budgeted $100 for widgets and $100 for mergatmacaters, both in the FY budget and the grant budgets. However, it turns out we need $120 for widgets and $80 for mergatmacaters, and both of those fall into the "supplies" lines of our grants. (In federal grants, you can move things around within your large categories, e.g., buy more dental supplies and fewer medical supplies than you originally said in your contract budget; you can also move things between categories--e.g., between supplies and salaries--but not quite as much. It's based on percentages, rather than dollars, and you can move a higher percentage of dollars within a category as opposed to between categories.) Thus, while we're over budget for widgets and under budget for mergatmacaters in the FY budget, we're absolutely fine in the grant budget, and we may draw down all $200 from our grant; the current internal rules say we can still only draw down $100 for widgets.
(e) We budgeted $100 for widgets, in both the fiscal year and grant budgets, but we should have budgeted $120, because that's just the cost of widgets, and we can't reduce that cost.

The solution to the "over budget!!11eleventy!!" crisis depends on which of the above scenarios is the case; no one solution will fix each of those issues. Thus, just telling us that we are "over budget" does not help us. In fact, it leads to us being told (as we have been) that, on a given grant, we are both over budget and under spending. Um, well, no, both of those things can't be true simultaneously, folks.

In any case, this is precisely where my analytical abilities come in handy (or we hope they do, anyway). What I've laid out above will actually be reasonably useful in this exercise, I suspect, and, in fact, each of the above is probably true in different parts of the budget. As noted, I'd be enjoying this more if I didn't have several other important things screaming for my attention.

However, some good food was also had this weekend. Saturday night we went out to a local hip expensive restaurant and had some fabulous food. Sunday Friend made some of his gumbo, which included wild turkey, venison sausage, andouille sausage, two kinds of beans, onions, celery, okra, corn, tomatos, rutabaga (my idea), and carrots, and I made the lemon tart again, and, once again, was disappointed by its bitterness. Monday we made squash soup (butternut squash, leftover sweet potatos, the rest of the rutabaga, onion, orange juice, homemade applesauce, all pureed), cracked wheat (I'd thought it was barley when I brought it over; oops), and a bit of wild turkey breast and a bit of venison tenderloin (garlic, black pepper, and a sauce of reduced wine, onions, and shitakis), both pan-fried in a little bacon grease. I had reduced some blueberries with orange juice as part of our breakfast, and the rest of that compote turned out to be a fine addition to the lemon tart; I suggested to Friend that he simply warm some honey and orange juice together to put over the tart for the rest of his enjoyment. I'd also made a batch of the barley sugar meringues, and these failed in a whole other way from the last batch, but were even better eating, so that wasn't a total loss, either. I also made a batch of soft pretzels and pretzel rolls Monday, which turned into more of a project than I really wanted but ended up being reasonably successful.

So, really, working out would have been a useful addition to tonight's program, in more ways than one.

Meanwhile, I'm reading "Get Real," by Donald Westlake, and I'm finding it kind of . . . sad. The book itself is quite funny (it's another Dortmunder and Kelp novel), and I keep laughing out loud at various bits, but, as you may remember, Westlake died a year ago New Year's Eve, so this is the last of the Dortmunder books, which bums me out. For 30+ years my dad and I have been reading Westlake and keeping each other apprised of the latest one. And Westlake was so prolific that he wrote under several pen names--he could write four or more books a year, but the publishers didn't think people would believe that he could write that many good books. In any case, I strongly recommend him.

Speaking of dad, apparently the dermatologist has decided that, yes, the rash is an allergic reaction, but likely not directly a reaction to the chemo. I pointed out to my mom (and apparently the derm guy said the same thing) that it's possible that when the chemo whacked dad's immune system, that basically facilitated an allergy to one of the other meds he takes (the usual blood pressure/cholesterol/etc. combos that men in their late 70s who have had a quadruple bypass would take). The doc also did a skin biopsy (which I had also recommended, thanks to one of the NPs at work, but mom dismissed), but the results weren't back yet.

So, back to the salt mines tomorrow, or the spreadsheets, anyway. I'd actually kind of enjoy it, because it's a kind of puzzle-solving, if the consequences of being wrong or fucking up weren't so bad (e.g., needing to make major budget cuts).

Going Bananas

Such a long, long time to be gone
and a short time to be there

If my sister hadn't died, she would have turned 50 today. Instead, she's been gone for 26 years--more years than she lived, which means I've lived more years without her than with her. And, of course, that's the case for life in general--we're dead for more years than we were alive, and pretty quickly, in the scope of the world's time. At this point, it's not just missing her qua her; of course I miss the stupid jokes we shared, and the rest of our shared childhood and adolescence, but the sadness, at this point, has at least as much to do with not knowing what she would have become, what she would have done, how she would have transformed into an adult. Would she have gone on to become a force in the world of international development? Would her budding feminism have grown? Or maybe she would have come home from the Peace Corps, gotten married, had a few kids, and had a boring office job somewhere. I kinda doubt that, but I also recognize that the work she might have done is my fantasy about her; there's no way to know what she really would have done. It's like reading a really wonderful novel, one of those big juicy ones with lots of interesting characters, and having the author quit writing after only a third of the novel, and it's not in any library anywhere, so you'll never know what might have happened to the characters.

And, of course, Chuck's mother and the mother of a close friend from college both died this year, and I knew them both reasonably well--the latter for as long as I've known my friend, which is coming up on 32 years; and Sara committed suicide. (I can't bring myself to erase her number from my phone. It'll go away when I switch phones eventually, as will the last call I received from her, but she lingers electronically.) (I have known three people who committed suicide: a cousin, a friend/lover in Philadelphia, and Sara. Is that a lot? Because it seems like it to me.)

On the other hand, my parents' health, despite a variety of bumps (some of them literal, in the case of my dad's rash; Ron, my mom doesn't have a plant, so it seemed easiest to recommend a jar of the goop, and the steroids are doing their thing), continues to be pretty good, all things considered; my mom got a kidney; my brother and I both have jobs (and I even got a promotion and raise); I saw more events this year, between concerts and hockey, than any other year in my life; and I had good company to share while I did it.

I guess, when it comes down to it, I don't know how to sum it up and reach a single evaluation: "good" or "bad" year. I try to go along with as much equanimity (and even joy) as possible, and I try to share as much of that as I possibly can, but it's not as though we can take any of it with us--which, for me, is all the more reason for dancing along as best we can, when we're lucky enough to have the basics. Not needing to worry about food and shelter and meaningful work and so on really is priceless. Given a sufficiency of the basics, it's the little things that improve our lives and that really make a difference.

For example, when I talked to my mom this morning, she was about to have a banana, and I suggested she put peanut butter on it as well. She was absolutely delighted at the prospect of the banana, with or without the pb. Why is that significant? Because, for those of you who haven't dealt with kidney issues, things like peanut butter and bananas are too high in forbidden elements. For several years now, my mom, who loves bananas, has had to limit herself to a few bites, and definitely not every day. Being able to eat whatever she damn well pleases, not needing to soak potatos overnight, not needing to go to dialysis three days a seek, is a radical realignment of her world. Knowing my mom, she won't go crazy--for her, it basically means she can have fruits and vegetables again, without having to worry that it will wreak havoc on her potassium or phosphates or whateverthehell. I realize that the kidney itself is a huge thing, rather than a small thing, but my point here is that the effect of the kidney is in how it alters a lot of small things about her everyday life.

Anyway. I don't have any grand conclusions today. I did manage to do the laundry and make the banana bread and clean up a tiny bit, plus I shlepped north and got some good chocolates and some collard greens. Friend and I are going out to an early dinner tonight, then heading to the sweatpants and the couch. Tomorrow we'll make pork (to make the spirit of my grandmother happy); I found a recipe for collard greens stuffed with a mixture of rice, currants, tomatos, pine nuts, and some other stuff, all of which I had around (except the greens); and I have some sweet potatos I need to use. If any (or all) of y'all were around, I say hey, come on over! That not being possible, may your new year be full of sweetness and light and joy and love.

More Reviews

My personal favorite chef didn't get into the final of Top Chef, and my favorite of the final three didn't win, and the editing sucked in a major, major way. That said, one of the things I liked most about the last two shows is that all of the competitors wanted to beat the others at their best. One of the most telling scenes, for example, was when one of them told another that a sauce was boiling or burning or something. (Sorry; I forget who was involved in that interchange.) One of them--Jen, maybe--even said that; none of them wanted to win because one of the others screwed up.

Side note--one does not "cook" a cake. One BAKES a cake. Yeah, I know, what can you expect from a bunch of people who aren't pastry chefs or bakers. Speaking of which, apparently one of the spin-off series they're putting together is one that's just desserts. (Any guesses on what they'll name it?) Needless to say, I'm looking forward to that one.

The other movie I watched this week was "Imagine Me and You," the plot of which is this woman gets married (to a man) and, at her wedding, sees and falls and love with the woman who does the flowers for the wedding. There's lots of backing and forthing and so on, of what is supposed to be the usual romantic comedy drama, I think, and in the end--pretty quickly, like in less than six months, it seemed--she leaves her husband and goes racing after the florist.

Gotta say, it annoyed the fuck out of me. Let's enumerate the reasons, shall we?

First, I absolutely do not believe in love at first sight, and I say this as someone who arguably experienced it at least once in my life (many many years ago--like, 30+). More accurately, while I think that attraction can be immediate, any real relationship--with a lover OR with a friend--takes time. And it's not the big stuff, it's the everyday bullshit. A thunderbolt of attraction isn't going to get you through the crap. Thus, to me, the notion that she was willing to declare herself sufficiently in love with someone she'd barely met, someone she'd spent fewer than 24 hours with, someone she barely knew, was really pretty appalling.

Second, she seemed to regard her marriage as all but irrelevant. Oh, sorry, darling; I met this person--at our wedding, no less--for whom I'm leaving you, even though I've only been around her a few times, and I've suddenly realized I love her. Some of my puzzlement here is the notion of leaving one person to be with another person. I know that it happens, of course, and I am not judging other people's experience of that. (I do know that, for me, I really could not have lived with myself if I thought or felt that I was somehow leaving Chuck to be with Friend. I think Chuck believes that I did that, but he is simply wrong about it--and not just because Chuck moved out and left me. It's also worth pointing out that, although Friend and I have obviously continued to see each other, "baby steps" doesn't even begin to describe the circumspection with which both of us proceeded, and there's no guarantee at all that we would have ended up still seeing each other four years later.)

I have known other people whose marriages had difficulties in their first year, and it's nothing but agony, no matter the circumstances. If you really think you're going to leave Person A for Person B, mere months after you marry Person A, and you think you're going to live happily ever after, then you are a fucking fool. It's also worth pointing out that Person B should be worried--it means you're just as likely to leave Person B as you were to leave Person A, on some level.

So, third, I think the notion that she was leaving her husband for a woman is merely a senseless plot twist, and one that trivializes the crap that gay men and women have to deal with. I also find it it a bit odd that she apparently had never given any thought at all to whether she was attracted to men or women. I am sure that people's experiences differ greatly on this, and I have known a number of men and women whose recognition of their gayness took some time (and possibly some therapy), but even the people who came out later in life didn't have a whole lot question about it. They may have hoped it would go away; if it occurred 25 years ago, they may have suppressed it; they may have been in denial about it; they were maybe attracted to both men and women, but the notion that, in this day and age, in Great Britain, it would never have occurred to someone that oh, yeah, actually, I prefer to play on the other team, just seems unlikely to me.

I'm still slogging through crap at work. Tomorrow I'm locking myself in my office and chaining myself to my desk so I can write the proposal that's due on the 4th; cross your fingers that I can get 85% of it done tomorrow and thereby enjoy the holidays.

Extra Hour

Apparently, the new way to describe suicide, at least among the clergy, is to call it a death that is "chosen." Which seems to be a problematic description to me for all kinds of reasons, but I'm going to let it be and return to the trivia that generally occupies this space.

I opted to go to bed last night before the baseball game finished, once it became less likely that the Phillies were going to be able to rally. As a result, and because we got that extra hour in the day today, I was wildly productive. I did three loads of laundry; worked out (while watching the last F1 race of the season); baked a batch of breakfast muffins (I think I have finally gotten that recipe where I want it); baked a batch of chocolate muffins made with malted barley syrup, in a not-quite-successful attempt to make something that tasted like malted milk balls; stirred up a batch of nougat; and made dinner. In addition, I talked to two friends for a total of about 2.5 hours and cooked up a batch of black beans, which I'll get around to using later this week, most likely with the sweet potatos I have in the fridge from last week's farmers' market. And it's only 8:00, so I feel like I've managed to fit two or three days' worth of chores into one day.

I had kind of wanted to do a lot more nothing today, while lounging on the couch--maybe even digging out the needlepoint that I wanted to start four years ago--but the chores actually seemed more appealing. Go figure.

I'm contemplating sending a box of tools to my parents' house before i go, so I have what I need while I'm there. My mom's kitchen is reasonably well-stocked, but I guarantee there are things she doesn't have that I'll want, and it would certainly be easier to send things back and forth than to shlep it with me. On the other hand, it's not at all clear that there are going to be very many people there for dinner, seeing as how my mother hasn't actually invited anyone yet.

A couple of weeks ago, I asked my mom how many people were going to be there and she said, oh, she didn't know. "So who have you talked to," I asked.

"Oh, I haven't even called anyone yet."

"Okay," I said (knowing my mother), "who are you mad at?"

"Nobody!"

"And, again, who are you mad at?"

"Your brother."

Turns out my brother and SIL and nephews are going to SIL's sister's stepdaughter's kid's baptism, or something, in North Carolina, the day I get into town, and the older nephew has a football banquet the next day (Sunday), and my brother is taking older nephew bear hunting on Monday and Tuesday. Mom thinks time should be spent with me. The nephews don't have off of school that week--older nephew is just going to miss school--so I can't corral younger nephew, most likely, but I'm angling to get him on Sunday, or maybe on Wednesday so he can help on Thursday. We'll see what my mom can arrange.

I try to tread as lightly as possible with my mom, because I don't want her to be caught in the middle between me and my brother. She knows how I feel--i.e., that it is reprehensible that my brother has never managed to bring my nephews out here, though they have been all over the country visiting my SIL's family, both with my brother and, this past summer, by themselves. My mom even agrees with me, but I have told her explicitly that I do not want her to intervene in any way, shape, or form, and I mean that. Between her kidney issues and my dad's cancer, she does not need to be dealing with that kind of crap.

And, really, there's no point in making a big hairy-ass deal out of it. Actions do speak louder than words, at least some of the time, and if my brother wanted to visit or wanted my nephews to visit, he could do that. Clearly it's not a priority for him in any way, and I see no point to bringing up the subject again. (Because, yes, I have brought it up: when I visited two years ago, right after I quit the bakery, I stayed with him part of the time, and I said, hey when are you guys going to come visit? I'd love to take the kids to some museums, etc. He said, oh, they play sports every season, they're so busy, it's just really impossible to find the time. A day later, unprompted, my SIL excitedly said that, because the kids had off for MLK Monday, she'd take them out of school on the previous Friday and go visit her mother for a long weekend in Florida. So, apparently, it is possible to find the time, if one wants to find it. I should also note that I do not hold SIL responsible for getting my nephews out here.)

Anyway. My Team isn't doing as well as I'd hoped they would, though I'm not terribly surprised, either. My only consolation is that my brother--who is a Mets fan--won't be happy either way.

Found Out Today

that one of my friends from pastry school died last week--at the age of 37. The funeral is tomorrow, and perhaps I'll find out more then; no one w/ whom I've been in contact knows the circumstances. She's one of the two who made that fab 50th-birthday dinner for me last year, and she was my first partner in school. Among the weird things is that I was going to call her today to see if she wanted to get together this weekend. I'm gonna miss you, Sara.

Stuffed Cabbage

Whenever I start looking at my stuff, I'm reminded of one of the 2,000-year-old man conversations, the one where he claims he doesn't eat anything, except cool, clear, mountain water, because nothing is good for you, it's all bad, just the water . . . and stuffed cabbage. Because who doesn't like a little stuffed cabbage?

I don't have that much stuff, I tell myself, and then I rummage around in a closet for something and think, um, yeah, actually, I do have a lot of stuff. (And that's not even when I'm boxing things up to move.) There's a disconnect, because, on one hand, I know that things do not bring happiness. Being without necessities, constantly worrying about eating or sleeping or clothing oneself, wondering how the mortgage or rent will get paid, using hope as an insurance policy for one's health or home or vehicle--all of that will bring UNhappiness, particularly for those of us who've had the luxury of not worrying (or not worrying much) about those things for long stretches of our lives. That is, I don't look to things to make me happy, or fill a void, and I don't have to worry about the necessities. But still, stuff seems to accumulate.

Partly, I suppose, it's because I don't throw stuff out as much as I should. Pencils I'll never use; scraps of paper I won't use, even though I've only printed on one side; old clothing that I won't wear, that isn't in decent enough shape to take to the Salvation Army, and that I'll never get around to using for rags (because I don't use the rags and then toss them, no, I wash them and reuse them, so I have more fucking rags than you can imagine); plastic bags that are big enough for trash or mailing, but, well, I just don't have that much trash or mailing; shoes that are worn out--but not completely!, I can still wear them a few more times (unless it's raining, because there's a hole wearing through the sole of one of them). Partly it's also that getting rid of stuff--or, more to the point--recycling stuff that's still useable--is difficult without a vehicle; even I have a limit to what I'm willing to haul on the el.

Some of this is a result of growing up in a house where there wasn't a lot of money for what we regarded as luxuries. We were by no means poor or in want; we were solidly working class, and my parents were good at husbanding the resources we had available, and I was a kid at precisely the juncture in time when solidly working class meant you could actually afford some things. (Buying in bulk and/or stocking up when things are on sale is something I learned at my mother's knee.) But we also were expected to take care of our stuff; mend things and reuse things and squeeze nearly every ounce of usefulness out of something. (And, frankly, I regard this as a good thing.)

But take, for instance, the Fiestaware bowls I have: there's one dark blue serving bowl that Chuck got for me one year, and there's a set of three green ones that a friend gave us as a wedding gift, and there's a red platter and an orange gravy boat from Chuck's mom. I love them all--but how often do I use them? Almost never. I barely cook for myself any more, much less for a dinner party. Yes, I cook at Friend's house, but you'll note that it's at Friend's house, not here, where the bowls are. (I'd like us to spend more time here, but he has a cat and a fireplace and more TV channels and couches than I have, so he is somewhat reluctant to dislodge himself, and even I have to admit that the cat and the fireplace are nice things to have at one's disposal. On the other hand, my apartment is much much (much) warmer than his house is in the winter.)

So I end up with stuff. Despite my best efforts, despite the occasional sort and purge that I do, there are piles of stuff, and I find myself getting MORE stuff. Lately I've been reassuring myself that I am going to, once again, go through all of my stuff before I pack it for the move I'm anticipating in May, and, who knows, maybe I'll actually do that. It would be appropriate, somehow.

Back in 1993, for a tedious set of reasons, I ended up packing all my worldly possessions, such as they were, over Memorial Day weekend, and moving the following week. I'd been living in furnished university housing, so I didn't have a lot of furniture (which was fine with me; it meant I could leave behind stuff that had mostly bad memories for me), but I had clothes and books and kitchen stuff, as well as all the papers and notes and whatever from seven years of grad school. I had no time to sort anything, I just crammed it into boxes and moved on to the next pile, and the apartment into which I moved was sufficiently spacious and had enough closets such that I could avoid dealing with the stuff for years.

When I decided to move in 1998, I started going through my crap two months before the move--every single thing I owned. I got rid of a lot of stuff--at least 80% of my books, and just a lot of papers and things that I hadn't had time to sort through in 1993 and that I had avoided in the intervening years, because it just reminded me too much of that awful time at the end of grad school.

Scroll forward to 2006, when Chuck had more or less moved out and I had to move because i could not afford to stay in that apartment by myself (and probably could not have afforded to stay there with him). When I had to find a new place, I had no clue what was going to happen with us or whether he'd ever move back in with me, but I had to find someplace to live. Then he was diagnosed around the time I signed a lease and prepared to move, so there was still tremendous turmoil. Plus, just to add a delightful note to everything, as I was packing my stuff, a lot of it was stuff we'd gotten as wedding gifts, less than a year before. It was horrible for me, and, I know, for him as well; my gut still wrenches when I think about it. End result, though, is that I still have boxes stuffed into closets that I have not sorted through since I moved here in 2006, and it's time. So many things have ended in that time--my employment at the biotech company, our marriage, my dream of owning a bakery, my job at the bakery--that I have hesitated to rummage through the detritus, but it's time.

It's just stuff, after all, and it's time to reduce the amount of it.