Rhubarb Pie

But that's what the internet is for.

I would very much like to sit in your backyard and listen to you rant.   How I love a good rant.   I remember particularly fine rants fondly and refer to them later.  My own rants can be good, sometimes.  They're best when I find a flow and can come back to the outrageous part from different angles.  When I am especially frustrated, that all breaks down.  For me, when I lose it completely, the rant breaks down into me jumping up and down in place shouting WHY?  Why?  WHY?  I'm sure it is fun to watch, but it isn't all that witty.

I am so glad you pressed her on her accusation until her gaze dropped.  I have frequent fantasies of doing that.  A friend will call to tell me something similar and I say, but what did that bad person do when you called her on it?  Of course, during the situation there usually reasons why you can't call out the person.  But I always wonder.  Can that person mean what her words implied?  Would she own them outright?  Has she thought through the implications?  I spend a day or two making up conversations in which the other person is forced to sit with the meaning or feel the dissonance.  But of course I am not so quick-thinking and direct in real life.  I'm very glad you held your ground.  I'm very glad your sortof accuser felt a little sheepish.

I Am Not Ranting

Oh, my friend.  I had a fascinating day, and the funnest part is something I've decided wouldn't be prudent to write about here on the Internets.  But it consisted of a person making a veiled accusation of unethical behavior, against me and my colleagues.  I didn't believe what I heard at first, so I drew it out of her, and she persisted, a little bit weakly, eyes dropping to the table.  I asked some more questions, trying to understand the nature of her qualms.  

I am pretty convinced that we are ethical.  It is pretty important to me to be ethical and to work alongside ethical people, so this was a very interesting conversation. 

It wouldn't be responsible or ethical for me to sit here and rant about why I think she was wrong.  But I learn so much when I bump into people with different assumptions than me.  I am still learning the landscape of this new profession that I belong to.  There are a lot of silly people who call themselves career experts.  There are a lot of silly people who are in higher ed administration.  (There are also a lot of silly people in my former profession of lawyering, as most everyone knows.  There are not so many silly people in the profession of teaching sailing; I'm not sure why that is.) I guess I haven't yet identified the folks outside my office who I really admire and consider mentors and colleagues, teachers and friends.  That's been a project I've begun over the last few months, and both the failures and the successes have helped me articulate my own assumptions and philosophy better.  

Why don't you come over tonight and we'll make dark & stormies with thick slices of lime, and we can sit in the backyard and I will rant and rant and rant?  

Further Thoughts on Being Seen

Last night NBT and I went out to dinner at a little place on the other side of town, that we've been meaning to try for a while.  On the drive over we both swore and grumbled about how lousy this weather is, this monthlong stretch of grey gloomy sodden rain-fog-mist-drizzle.  I try not to complain about the weather, but it's gotten to me. 

We got in an even worse mood while we watched the people at the table the hostess told us would soon free up sit and linger, ask for refills on their water, nurse half a martini.  Finally, after glowering at them unsuccessfully for a while, we gave up and sat at the bar. 

And our night turned around.  The bartender, Andrew, turned out to be personable and exacting, with strong opinions about cocktails that he was eager to share.  The couple beside us was friendly and interesting.  The way this town works is, when you meet somebody good it turns out you already know them, somehow.  Beth and Jos live two blocks away from us, it turns out, but they also spent years on the Island where I ran the sailing program the last couple of years, and we know lots of the same people.  And the bartender and Beth had lots to talk about: both teach art to kids.  Candlelight flickered on the bar and the warm radiance was an approximation of the sunshine I've been longing for.   

The owner of the restaurant came out and talked to us.  Beth complimented her on the feeling of intimacy in the place, and she told us about Danny Meyer, a famous restaurant guy, who said that people need to feel seen and heard.  That's the most important thing they want when they go to a restaurant.  Not seen like a celebrity wants to be seen in the hottest new place, but acknowledged emotionally.  We're trying to make a place like that, the owner told us.  You've done it, we all said.  The bartender said to the owner, I like working here because of that.  I feel like I'm part of something.  

It made me think of you talking to folks at your gym. People want to be seen. It's powerful magic. The glow from the evening kept us warm and even today, another day where the ground is slick and wet and the view is closed in by a layer of fog, I feel warm enough. 

Maybe this evening.

Did I tell you guys when Chris moved away?  Chris moved away in March.  I was very upset at the time.  I'd waited patiently for him to come back from grad school and all I ever want in life is for everyone to be in one place, so Chris moving away again is a big step in the wrong direction.  We found the solution pretty quickly, though.  I have refused to acknowledge that he is gone, calling and texting him to invite him to drop by as if he still lived eight blocks away.  He agrees and accepts the invitations, then calls me after to explain why he didn't make it.  He has been a terrible flake the past few months, I tell you.  (Sometimes I can't make it, but then I apologize.)

I texted him last night to see if he wanted to come drink on my porch.  He did, but said it was raining too hard to leave the house.  Raining?  Really?  At Chris's house on I St?  Sky was clear over Q St.  You'd think I'd see the clouds.  We talked for a hour and hung up promising to try again today.  It's better this way.  He can't really be all the way across the country.  That would be terrible.  I won't have it.

Total nature show.

I can't think why I was surprised.  I know the rules as well as anyone.  Messy web, strong silk, near cement forming right angles.  That means black widow and I know that.  Still, she came as a shock last Monday, mostly because she is big enough for me to see as I ride up on my bike.  That seems excessive, don't you think?  I saw her eat a bee yesterday, which makes me mad, because I generally side with bees. 

I should kill her, I know.  If it were just me, I probably wouldn't.  But little boys visit me, so I shouldn't have a half-dollar size black widow on my front steps.  I find myself a little squeamish and squeaky, but she'll be gone before my nephews come here on Sunday.  Before then, hon, I want to take the chance to pander to blogland and guarantee us traffic forever.  My defunct old blog still gets traffic, which I look at every now and then.  Can I tell you?  Easily half the visits are from people looking for pictures of daring jumping spiders.  Yes.  I wrote heart-wrenching posts about feelings and thoughtful posts about policy and the occasional funny post, but what remains, what endures, is pictures of spiders.  So here she is.

Below the fold is nothing but three pictures of a large black widow.  If you click on it, that is what you will see.

Greetings from The Soggy Frontier

Hi Friend.  I'm sorry I've abandoned you for so long.  I've been inside, moping.  I've been petulant and whiny.  It's raining here, been raining all month, and yesterday we had a glorious warm moment of sunshine but now it's grey again and the whole stretch of days on the weather forecast shows rain.  

(I will take this moment to admit that I liked photograph number 3, myself, which just goes to show what an addled state this rain has put me in.) 

Although I've been on vacation and had Big Plans, I haven't done much, and now I'm back to work.  It's not true that I haven't done much.  What I've spent a lot of time doing is the kind of boring but important errandy tasks that I am not good at or interested in.  Researched tree pruning services and stone masons and made appointments for estimates and waited around and talked to guys about what we think we need done.  Did the same thing for financial planners -- after two years of marriage, NBT and I are finally getting around to combining our financial lives and are looking for a steward or a helper.  That's meant a lot of time digging around in filing cabinets finding statements and entering transactions into Quicken.  Rearranged the clothes storage, did laundry, planted something in the front yard.  I am supremely uninterested in this stuff and it shows.  It all takes longer than I imagine it will, and I resent it, and between the nonstop rain and the feeling of pointless errands I've been grouchy.  

I have been reading a little bit, greedily here and there, and that time doesn't feel lost.  The Year of Planned Reading is taking a beating, at least the Planned part.  I just finished a book of short stories by a woman I knew in college, and I think that's part of my grouchiness.  When I'm not writing, I feel lousy.  Maybe it's because when I'm not writing and not working, I imagine that I'm not thinking, and that feels lousy.  

The resolution of a trivial matter.

I hate to dwell on it, feel silly even bringing it up.  I mean, we're so over it.  We're like enlightened Buddhas who don't need worldly validation or practically every single person to agree with us because it is SO OBVIOUS.  When the Truth and nearly universal public opinion are so clearly aligned, who cares what one judge thinks in some dumb contest?  We don't.  We may have for, like, one second yesterday.  But today we think about new things, like our manifestly superior taste and how much happier our lives must be because we prefer striking beauty to poorly framed blandness.

Nevertheless, because some of you have asked and not because we're still obsessing over it or anything, I asked about those pictures yesterday because my sister and I were temporarily surprised before we forgot the whole thing and moved on with our rich and fulfilling lives.  My sister entered pictures 1 and 2 below.  Picture 3 won the division; picture 2 was runner-up.  Picture 1 wasn't ranked by the blind judge.

If that ref had one more eye, he'd be a cyclops.

Hey friends. If you were judging a photo competition on "Navigation and the Environment" and received the following three photos, how you would rank them? If you would, please list first, second and third place?

Picture 1.

Picture 2.

Picture 3.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm just asking because WE WERE ROBBED, is all.

Giving actual numbers is so gauche.

Psst, I think she’s gone! We got the place to ourselves for a while! Just you and me, baby. Let's do what comes natural, do what feels right. There's no one here but us. I know you want what I want. 

The gym has been pure awesome for a while. I'm over a plateau and my numbers keep going up up up. I have to say, it is extremely gratifying. I recommend this stage to everyone. Skip the plateaus, which are boring and try your patience and feel like work. Go straight to "all gains, all the time", which is way more fun.

Flamboyant but straight Rob has instituted cheek kisses at the gym. Yep, now arrival and departure requires a round of cheek kissing; real kisses, not air kisses. I completely love this, since I am nowhere near my capacity to absorb kisses. I wish it would spread to other gyms. I wish it would become the norm for powerlifting. I love thinking about the giant triangular men* stopping by each platform as they gather their stuff, murmuring to each other and leaning in for kisses. "Strong lift tonight, bro. Good fight. Besos." *kiss*

I started something that is catching on, although I didn't mean to. After Sherry mentioned that people have a deep need to be seen, I started working that into cheering for people. I say it a lot these days. As a friend sets up for his lift and we gather to cheer, I say "I'm here and I'm watching your lift." Or "I see you lift and you are so strong." I told my workout partner Mike, 'I watch all your lifts'. It is surprisingly intimate to tell someone directly that you see them, but I didn't realize what it felt like until a couple months later, when Mike said (in the middle of our usual course of figuring out what to lift next and chatting) 'I always watch your lifts.' It took my breath away a little, to hear that said so straight. Oh. That's what the receiving end feels like. The several of us who work out together will always gather to watch someone's important lift, but hearing that aloud was very, very nice.

I'm still bemused by my relationship with Mike. He's a baby, in his early twenties. I don't know much at all about his life and we never talk outside the gym. I think he grew up a lot harder than I did. For all that, and within the very limited roles we play for each other, we know each other extremely well and the trust has become absolute. I really do think I've seen 95% of his lifts over the last year. I can say things like 'you know that when you make a jump like that, you get a hitch on the left and have to push your way through.' He always spots me. These days I give him credit for about 20% of my lift. There's the trust, of course, how I give my safety entirely over to him. He's become so good with cues, perfectly timed and specific to flaws in my technique. But mostly, I trust him to never take my lift away. Sometimes you're lifting and you get stuck. An overeager spotter will help too soon, lift the bar away or nudge it up. Not him, not ever, and I only hit my new bench PR because he waited for seconds as I pushed through. He said he knew I had it all along. I adore him.**

So my gym life is going well. We're having a intra-gym mini-meet next week and I'm hoping for more PRs. My opposite from the morning workouts is still on injured reserve, so there won't be anyone in my weight class to go up against. Booo! The rest of my life is pleasant summertime and friends, the usual.

Where I Am

I am in New Haven, Connecticut, for a conference.  The conference is happening mostly indoors, at Yale Law School.  I got here today and mostly was in the conference sessions.  But in between, I have been sneaking out and walking around the campus and the town in a nostalgic happy touristy haze.  It is lovely here, the thick humidity that we don't get in Maine, and all the creeping green ivy and trees dripping with flowers.  And all the people, a whole city's worth of people, with no apparent fishermen so I know I'm not in my little city.  I am walking around smiling and delighted at the whole thing. 

Where does nostalgia come from?  This place seemed normal to me when I was a college student.  Old buildings, big deal, who cares.  The buildings are magnificent, as it turns out, and I didn't much care about that when I was here.  Except somehow I came to love them, deeply, because being near them makes me happy and tugs me back to memories and a time and a different self.  

A friend who also works at the college I work at was talking with me about nostalgia.  It's easy to imagine that it would be nice to be in college again, but he and I agreed that the students, if you know them and look at them, they are stressed and tired and anxious.  We adults think they are carefree but they don't feel that way.  They don't know who they are or what they will become, they are not sure whether they are okay or not, they haven't slept for days, they are behind on their reading and they are disappointing their parents and they can't focus on their assignment because they have an unreciprocated crush.  Also, they are hung over.  And there's a friend of their roommate's sleeping on their couch.  Anyway, my friend told me that when he was a senior in college, he couldn't wait to get out, and he walked around campus on a sunny day, looking at all the buildings and repeating to himself: "This is a living hell.  This is a living hell.  This is a living hell."  He did that so he wouldn't get falsely nostalgic.  

I'm trying to remember that as I walk around this magical magnificent campus, especially when I see students trudging along.  I don't know if I would have said it was a living hell for me when I was here.  I had a lot of fun.  There are so many good memories.  But I was not happy, I wasn't comfortable, I wasn't at ease.  I was not carefree.  I am unequivocally happier now.  

So why does this campus have such a hold on me?  Why do I long to come back?