Stay of Execution

Belated Requests: Misc. Quickies

Some more requests:

1) Tell us a joke.  I don't remember jokes very well.  Is this a female trait?  I think I'm funny and I laugh a lot with my friends but I almost never tell jokes.  The last joke I heard (last summer, I think) that made me laugh is the one about the pirate with the steering wheel in his pants.  You can find it, and many others, here.

2) Are you still paying back your law school loans?  Yes.  I have about $40K in loans.  It's a burden, but not a crippling one.  That was part of why I decidGood Riddance Projected to go to UMaine.  I didn't want to be trapped by loans into doing something I really didn't like.  I am very, very grateful that I don't have a higher debt burden.  It means the freedom to choose a life I want.  That's a big deal to me. 

3) What is the status of the Good Riddance Project?  The  was an undertaking with a specific timeline, in January of 2005.  We didn't repeat the Good Riddance Project this January, opting instead to do a boot camp during those two weeks.  But we could have done some decluttering.  Clutter creeps back.  It never sleeps.  Today I am actually on my way to a friend's house to help her declutter.  It seems somehow easier when it's someone else's junk, and when you make specific times to do it.  That's why having a friend help makes it more effective.  Maybe I should make some dates to do it myself, now that Neighbor and 517 have moved out.  It won't happen until May, though.  I have very little time to myself right now. 

4) Is it true that the food at Bowdoin is the best on any campus?  It's the best on any campus I've been.  It's very high quality.  It's not haute cuisine, but the ingredients are fresh and there's a good variety and things are well-made.  The students like it.  People are happy -- including the dining hall employees, which is not something I've seen before.  I haven't eaten at too many colleges, but I suspect there aren't many places as good as this. 

I Confess to Unfashionable Tastes

Although I know that saying this will keep me from ever being invited into the circle of Literati, I am underwhelmed by Mary Gaitskill's book of short stories, Bad Behavior.  I'll try one of her novels, and maybe that will work for me.  She's a good writer, I'll acknowledge that.  But I don't like her characters, and I find the landscape bleak and depressing, and when I'm done with the stories they don't really stay with me.  They're supposed to be haunting and razor sharp and all that.  Everyone raves about her.  I'm not getting it.  I will have to try one of her novels instead.  Then maybe I can join the smart people who think she's Seriously Good.  I know I'm wrong, and admitting this reveals my pedestrian tastes.  But I cannot tell a lie. 

I'm enjoying Gone With The Wind, which is also unfashionable to admit.  Although the prose is overwritten and purple, the book is very scene-driven and visual, and there's a momentum that keeps you turning pages.  One thing Mitchell does very well is create dozens of very memorable characters.  I'm 100 pages in or so, and I can name at least 12 characters with distinct personalities and identities.  That's pretty hard to do.  Dickens does it well, too, although sometimes I mix people up in his books.  Not many authors do a good job with so many characters.

More than 10 years ago in a writing class at college I read a short story I've remembered for years, but I forgot the author and title.  And on Monday my writing teacher handed it out to us, and I read it with the delight of rediscovery.  It's so very good.  It's "White Angel," by Michael Cunningham.  (You can find it in the Best American Short Stories of 1989.)  Michael Cunningham has been on my radar for years but I haven't gotten around to reading him yet.  He's just been bumped up toward the top of the reading list.

Belated Request: Visceral Dislike

I let some requests fall by the wayside in the hectic travel schedule of March.  April proves to be just as crazy, but I'll try not to neglect things.  L. asked what I thought is a good question:

How do you deal with people you dislike immediately and instinctively, even though they are obviously fine people? (Meaning it's not like they bother you because they're racist or nasty or something that would justify avoiding them completely). I mean the ones that make you feel judgemental for disliking them, but that you still dislike. Have you ever felt that and gotten over it? How?

Well, the first answer is that of course I've felt this.  I'm more inclined to like people than many of my friends, but my uncritical acceptance isn't universal.  There are people who just rub me the wrong way, who I don't trust but can't say why, who irritate me more quickly than other people do.  Worse, there are people who I think are tiresome, people whose choices I disapprove of, people who strike me as smug or misguided or selfish and who I feel superior to.  This is ridiculous, and I'm ashamed of it, and it doesn't require a session with the therapist to uncover that what pushes my buttons in such people is the recognition of a lot of their bad qualities and impulses in myself.  And in a lot of cases I feel like I can see why someone acts the way they do, like I can see their blind spot and how it stems from insecurity and how it is getting in the way of being authentic and likeable and happier.  But seeing that someone is a jackass because they're insecure doesn't make them less of a jackass.  So what I'm saying is that a lot of times the dislike doesn't stay visceral -- I can tug out and untangle the reasons, and often they're bad reasons, but the dislike is still there even though if I were a more enlightened person I could be more accepting and tolerant and kind. 

Spring Season

Yesterday we had our first day of practice.  It was warm, relatively, meaning in the upper 40s.  The kids wore drysuits and winter hats.  I had a winter hat, a down jacket, gloves, and waterproof pants on over my jeans. 

The tide was at a spring low and we couldn't launch our Larks, but a troop of sailors carried six FJs down over the seaweed and the rocks to our muddy beach, with a line tied to their bows.  When the tide trickled in enough to lift them we hauled in the bowlines and pulled them out to the floats.  I was excited when I got in the motorboat, a cold breeze on my face.  With only 6 boats not everyone got to sail, and the motorboat had only a few ounces in the gas tank.  A rookie move.  So it wasn't an ideal practice.  But we ran a bunch of team races, and it was beautiful to be back on the water in our harbor, with our rocky shores and our herons and our gulls and our sun dipping slowly down over the trees on Harpswell Neck, leaving us chilly but satisfied.

World of Wonder

When I was growing up I was pretty sure I wanted to be an entomologist.  I still think that would be pretty fascinating, although I realized that a lot of what entomologists do is figure out how to kill certain bugs.  That's not what I want to do.  I want to look at them, and learn about them, because I still find them amazing science fiction creatures in our midst, all innovative design and futuristic construction, living lives of mystery in the cracks and small places we don't even notice.  Go look at these pictures, and see if you aren't filled with a sense of mysterious intricacy. 

My Exercise Routine

Monday: 1 hour power yoga
Tuesday: run 3-5 miles
Wednesday: lift approx 1 hour
Thursday: run 3-5 miles
Friday: 1 hour power yoga
           lift approx 1 hour
Saturday/Sunday: varies, but generally lift 1 hour, run 45 minutes. 

I feel pretty good.  I want to keep lifting more, and I want to get better at running (faster, further).  I'm signed up for a 10K in August and am vaguely hunting for a half-marathon. I'm also getting very curious about adventure races and triathalons, something that would force me to learn a new physical skill.  Today Turboglacier and I made a pact to start playing tennis in May.  It would be fun to do some rock climbing, outdoors on actual rocks, too.  What am I missing? 

My Internal Debate While Driving This Morning

This morning as I was merging on the highway the guy in the blue and white Suburban coming in from my right was holding a cup of coffee, and I felt a pang of envy.  I still miss coffee.  As I drove, I considered trying to start back up drinking it again.  I occasionally drink iced coffee without ill effects.  And I ordered a soy latte a few months back and actually forgot that a latte has espresso in it, so I was surprised by what I got.  But it wasn't unpleasant.

Why not start drinking coffee again?  It makes me feel bad -- that's why I haven't started up since I quit in 1997 or 1998.  Not in a moral or ethical sense, but physically.  I get a physical sensation of toxicity, dirtiness, when I swallow coffee.  There's a recoiling, a feeling that I'm harming my body, that makes it hard to drink more than a couple of sips.  Trust me, I'm no temple of health -- I'll happily drink gin or whiskey, or eat the french fries off your plate.  And I drink at least 6 cups of tea a day, usually with caffeine.  This isn't conscientiousness.  It's something physical about coffee that happened after I quit. 

But as I checked the rearview mirror and saw the guy in the Suburban -- middle aged, baseball cap, overweight -- holding that white cup in his left hand, I held a jealous grudge and started to scheme about overcoming my physical coffee aversion.  I'm sure I could reacclimate myself to drinking coffee again.  I could introduce it slowly, in small doses, gradually increasing to a full cup.   Mmmm, a full cup.   Oh, it's been so long time since I had that pleasure.  I used to take it with a little cream.  I loved to pour the cream in and not stir it, just watch the white liquid dispersing itself in irregular but intricate patterns into the dark brown.  I liked watching it and smelling it and waiting until it was ready to drink.  I'd drink it with cream if I started up again.  Or maybe I'd drink it black....

Why would I do that?  Coffee's not good for you.  It's addictive.  It stains your teeth and gives you bad breath and makes you jumpy, and you get a headache if you have too much or too little.  Besides the caffeine, there are all kinds of toxic molecules in the beans, and loads of those are sprayed with some pretty gnarly pesticides.  Back in college I took an environmental studies class from a professor who was very seriously studying pesticides and food toxicity, and I remember one of the readings about coffee.  I highlighted a paragraph summarizing the bad stuff in coffee (not including caffeine) and hung it over my coffeemaker, which scared me off the stuff for a couple of weeks.  In college, that was a big deal.  I used to drink it by the pot.  Even organic coffee doesn't solve it, if my  memory is right.  Some of the compounds within coffee are pretty bad for you.  Of course I can't confirm or deny this hunch on the web, but the memory is strong.   Was it formaldehyde that's a by-product of roasting?  I came away convinced that coffee is a pretty serious toxin. 

Anyway, why would I knowingly go back to a substance that was addictive to me and that makes my body feel bad now?  Oh, because.  Because coffee picks you up like nothing else does.  Because coffee is inexpensive and can make you feel good in almost any situation.  Because not drinking coffee makes me seem prissy and high-maintenance.  It's the last acceptable vice; forswearing it makes me feel humorless and holier-than-thou, like a vegan.  Because drinking coffee makes me part of a universal brotherhood of people who understand one another.  Tea does not have the same number or fervency of adherents.  It's a lonely beverage.  In fact, I still suggest meeting someone "for coffee" now, rather than for a cup of tea, even though that is what I will invariably order.  Having tea is too wimpy and upper crust.  There's something good and hearty to a cup of coffee that's nice to share.  It's a shared vice, a secret treat, a drug.  Mmmmm. 

And then I read a paragraph like that and I think, if I heard a cigarette smoker speaking that reverently about nicotine I would have no doubt it was the ravings of an addict.  I've gotten off coffee.  Why would I take it up again? 

Spring in My Step

Yesterday afternoon we got to the boathouse and discovered that the facilities crew had put the docks in, ahead of schedule.  We tromped around in the mud and moved our boats to the launching ramp, pulling masts out of the racks and putting them in the boats, one by one.  The mud was messy and there was a chill underneath the sun, but everyone was in high spirits.  We'll be sailing soon, here at home.

And this morning Neighbor and I ran to the island and around it.  As we crossed the causeway the water on both sides was glassy still.  The sun, already 15 degrees above the horizon, felt warm on my neck.  We ran around the wooded trail on the perimeter of the island, twisting and turning into small inlets and coming around to new views.  There was a flock of black and white ducks drifting in the blue on the northern side of the island and we both gasped.  We are so lucky, Neighbor said.  The place we run each morning is extraordinarily beautiful.  And we have it all to ourselves, I said. 

Short Story Update

I'm writing a short story.  I'm a little behind where I should be, but this one isn't turning out as hard to write as the last one.  The last one was about two middle-aged drinking buddies at a sports bar who know one another only from watching college basketball together. One of them loses his job -- the other is fearful he'll be asked for a loan.  But instead he's asked to help the first guy move a rug, and he agrees, relieved.  They leave the bar and drive to the first guy's mother's place on the beach.  It's surreal and uncomfortable, because the two don't know one another all that well, and they're both a little drunk, and it gets weirder when the first guy puts on a wetsuit and runs across the street to catch a couple of waves on his surfboard.  It needs some work. 

This one is about a family in Vermont.  For a high school project the daughter installs a webcam in their henhouse back in spring of 2001, and it becomes inexplicably popular.  People at work like to watch the chickens moving around.  The family gets emails from all over the world, they sell ads on the site.  The New York Times does a travel section on their region and mentions the hencam.  After 9/11 a number of New Yorkers decide to relocate to their town, citing "the hencam" and a rosy ideal of country life as their reasons.  The husband becomes obsessed with the hencam and with maximizing "the brand," and even as their family life gets more and more strained and starts to fall apart, he is pushing to depict them on the website as an idyllic farm family. 

Hope I Die Before I Get Old

Hanging out with a bunch of 19-22 year olds for a week is a good way to feel your age.  I laughed a lot this week, even while being the stodgy responsible one, early to bed and early to rise.  Being with college students when they're relaxed and social gives me a dual awareness: I can remember pretty vividly what my own life was like at their age, and I can feel pretty clearly all the ways I'm different now.  For the most part, I'm glad about the changes. 

One thing I notice is that my perspective of time is really different.  I know that April will be over in the bat of an eye, but for my sailors a week or two away is a long time.  When I dropped a group off at the Pier in St. Petersburg, I suggested a pickup at 4.  "What time is it?"  someone asked.  It was 1:40 PM.  "Oooh, that's a long time." 

Anyway, it's good for me to be around their energy, I think, and to keep noticing the ways I've aged.  But David Weinberger is at a conference, and the summary he just gave of one of the talks reminds me of how out of touch I am with youth culture.  I've never explored MySpace, and haven't played an online videogame.  I guess I should, so I don't get left behind.