candy pork

I can still smell the candy pork I made yesterday. I'm not sure if it's good -- it was hard to assess it last night, what with the smell overwhelming the taste. I'm hoping it will make a good lunch or two during the week. At the very least, it was good to do some cooking. I haven't been all that ambitious in the new kitchen. I've relied on staples and intuition, and there's nothing wrong with that. But I think I've been a bit depressed, too -- in the vein of "is that all there is?" Even though the "all" is miraculous, when I think about it, there's an inevitability about getting depressed, feeling low. It's part of being human. That doesn't sound too terribly trite, does it?

I did some scraping, priming, and painting last Sunday but was overly ambitious, what with the short winter day -- I decided to paint the ledge underneath the front windows. So I didn't have enough daylight to paint the shed door. I covered it with a blue tarp to protect it from the rain we had during the week, and today I will put on a couple of layers of paint.

I have to remind myself that I can fix some things, and other things can be fixed by others. The anxiety that wells up when I discover something amiss, the fear that I'll muck it up, the sense that I don't deserve to own a house . . . the primordial ooze of childhood. My parents, bless them, were not shy about punishing our lapses of responsibility. That wasn't all bad, of course -- I like to think that I try to behave responsibly -- but their anger left scars. Also, there is our family fear of failure. "Don't do anything dumb!" -- a family joke that was also a warning.

The feelings themselves are inevitable. But the way they overwhelm me has to do with the way they overwhelmed my parents.

december

2018 is almost over.

It is chilly with sun and blue sky. I really should get the ladder out and paint the strip of wood at the edge of the front window. And while I'm at it I could also paint the shed door. There's no excuse for not doing it. We've gotten a lot of rain in the past week or so, but it will probably be dry today and tomorrow.

Instead I am sitting here watching the traffic streaming along 101; it's far enough away to seem interesting.

I went to Berkeley last night for pizza and games. Am really, truly, the only one who is only one. Why is that? I really don't know. It's not very interesting, but this is the question that runs through my head at the end of every year. The truth is that for a long time I didn't feel all that much urgency about it, and now I'm heading straight toward 60 without a partner. I think I'll be alone when I die. Aren't we all, in a way? Looking at my parents, who have been together for more than 60 years, I wonder.

the only one who is only one

For me, living as a single person has been a long-term proposition -- only partly by choice. I don't like to think of myself as living in a bubble, or of not "putting myself out there" (ugh, what a terrible cliche). I'm pretty sure that I've taken more risks and moved through more zones of discomfort on my own than I ever did when I was in a relationship. 

That's not to say that I don't fantasize about someone coming along and seeing me for who I am (whatever that means)! And lord knows I've tried the personals, more than once. But I think the holiday funk I usually fall into mostly has to do with feeling like an "odd woman" -- like one of the Victorian gentlewomen in the George Gissing novel who were "left over" after all the men were married off. It's not a coincidence that "odd" [also] means "strange."

I find it annoying when people in long-term relationships tell me that they have problems, too. This is partly because when I get to the point of needing to talk about the way I'm feeling, I'm hoping to talk to someone who will try to understand what I'm saying. But it's also because when people talk about relationships being hard they are forgetting that relationship problems are "normal,"  whereas being single is . . . odd. The norm of being part of a couple (not to mention having kids) exerts a pressure that is not so different from the norms of appearance or sexual orientation. I feel that pressure, and I sometimes feel like there's something wrong with me. I reject that notion, of course, but my feelings don''t always fall in line with my convictions. 

armistice day

From John Quiggin at Crooked Timber:

[F]or rich countries, war no longer has any real impact on most people. As in the 19th century, we have small professional armies fighting in faraway countries and suffering relatively few casualties. Tens of thousands of people may die in these conflicts, but the victims of war impinge on our consciousness only when they seek shelter as refugees, to be turned away or locked up.

relief

I want to write more than I've done recently. Here's a start.

I was pessimistic about young Josh Harder's chances on election night and for a couple of days thereafter. But I was wrong. I had forgotten about the mail ballots. It was a relief, though, that Dems flipped the House, unambiguously, that night. And now the Senate doesn't look as bad as it did.

So, assuming we make it to January, things will seem less hopeless. More rancor, once the Dems start investigating, and possibly some division in the Dem ranks -- here's hoping they hold together. Meantime, Trump is escalating, always. It's exhausting and demoralizing.

I'm hunkered down today. The sky is yellow with smoke from the fires. It's distressing to think about all the damage being done to homes and lives.

how to get out of here

Struggling to figure out how to deal with what I guess is reality out there in the world, even though it feels like a terrible anxiety dream. We are suffering from white supremacist fever, again -- it remains a viable political strategy, at least in the short term. What is wrong with so many white people? What do the prominent people who are pushing this stuff -- or making excuses, or pretending like it's not happening -- think they are doing? I ask these questions several times a day.

funny cuz it's true

An LGM commenter on investigating Kavanaugh (et al.):

It’s a violation of dude process. That is the process that a dude gets when he is Just Asking Questions and some killjoy chick starts bugging him. Under dude process procedure the dude processes the criticism, decides it is wrong, and goes about his life remaining powerful and wealthy and care free. Dude process is connected to quid pro bro, which is an exchange of favors between two brosephs in positions of power who watch each other’s backs and take care of each other’a secrets.

Dude process protections are under threat from #metoo, which is one of the reasons that movement is unconstitutional.

Dude diligence is the amount of dilligence you do when you have sworn an oath of service and are looking into the background of a dude who might become one of the most powerful people in the country.

“Should we investigate Kavanaugh’s debt or what these emails that talk about secrets that must be hidden from spouses mean?”

“No. We don’t need to look into stuff. We’re just doing dude dilligence in him. Just putting on enough of a show to claim he was vetted.”

Sometimes the application of dude dilligence to a person can qualify as quid pro bro, and being investigated according to the standards of dude dilligence is definitely a dude process right for rich white guys.

elections

Elections are not about electing saints, or giving power to parties who will then automatically do the right thing.
-Bill McKibben

another quiet week

A lovely, windy Saturday. This morning I walked through Silver Terrace, stopping at Florence Fang garden for a bit. I had read that there would be produce for sale from local community gardens. There were only two booths with small amounts of lovely looking greens and herbs. I strolled around the garden -- I particularly admired the bathroom -- and then continued on my way to Alemany. I bought raw honey from the Bariani guy, a quart of blueberries, green beans, and broccolini. Walked up to Cortland to get wine and chocolate and tortillas. I waited a few minutes for the 24, along with a few other people -- that was unusual. Got off at Newhall and walked the three blocks home. As I passed the party house on the 1400 block, a guy standing on the porch said, hey, white girl -- not to much a greeting as an observation. It made me smile because I haven't been called a girl for a long while.

Last night I went to RAK with Ellie and Des, and we had a neighborly meal together. Ellie seems unfazed by motherhood, though she will admit that she has momentary fears -- is he breathing? did the milk go up his nose? At one point we got onto Des's past and I learned a few new things. I knew she spent some of her childhood in a cult that exposed her to sexual abuse, but I didn't realize that one of the cult tenets was that parents should have sex with their own kids. Gulp. When she was 16 or so she moved from Hawaii to Oakland, by herself; she lived in a cult house and "serviced" the single men for a while, until she decided she might as well earn some money turning tricks out on the street, which got her kicked out of the cult house. She ended up legally adopting her current name, which she'd been given by a pimp. I've been turning it over in my head -- but I can't really absorb it. Maybe that's because she talks about it in an offhand sort of way, keeping it at a distance. Or maybe it's because of the awfulness.

power station

I toured the old Potrero power station -- the one with the enormous natural gas turbine that sits right on the water, about a quarter mile off of Illinois St. A private developer is proposing to convert the old plant into a hotel and build housing and retail around it. And contribute a strip of the coastline to the Blue Greenway, of course.

It was fascinating. I've already forgotten most of the historical and architectural details we were given, probably because I was so taken by the industrial aesthetics and, of course, the view. But I do remember hearing that this patch of land was once quite densely packed with industrial buildings and infrastructure. There was a sugar factory (Spreckels) in the late 19c. -- the building (or one of the buildings?) is now leased by DHL. I think I remember something about a barrel-making facility, but I can't remember the when or the where of it. Apparently, the water in this part of the bay is unusually deep right offshore, which is good for shipping purposes.

Anyway, I really enjoyed the experience. I don't know if these developers are overly optimistic but they plan to have the site built up in five or six years.

Today I met Nola at PPIC and we bought tickets for India -- $1,600 each. We plan to get trip insurance, just in case something keeps one or both of us from going. But we've taken a big first step -- today was our third round of deliberation about cities of arrival and departure, airlines, and (of course) flight times and fares.

After we finally made our decision -- Cathay Pacific via Hong Kong, with extra legroom seats -- we went to Chinatown for a late lunch. Now it's sometime after 7pm and I'm semi-hungry, but I don't feel like making anything. Crackers with cheese and sliced tomatoes, perhaps?

raccoons

Well, I did not break out of the pattern last night. In fact, I think it was my worst night of sleep in quite a while. A lot of that is attributable to a large family of raccoons -- five or six of them. They spent a lot of time teetering on the fence outside the bedroom window, and at some point at least two young ones fell into the light well with a heavy "thwump," and then slowly and noisily climbed and chirped their way back up to the fence. Oy. I listened to several podcast episodes, streamed some TV shows, got up a few times, took ibuprofen, stretched, tossed, turned. You get the idea.

I can't blame every minute of my sleeplessness on the raccoons, of course. My left eye was sticky with goo -- an irritation on the inside of my lower lid has been annoying me for a while. My hope is that the goo is a sign that the infection is subsiding. But who knows. The inside of the lid is still red, but it's less itchy.

On the bright side, I worked for several hours
, so it didn't really matter that I was tired.

sleep and disorder

Every other night I have big trouble with sleep -- it's almost as if I crave the anticipatory pleasure of being dead tired and crawling into bed. But I wish I could bust out of the pattern. I am hoping that tonight is the night.

I spent some time at the art book fair -- I thought I was meeting n and t there but it turned out that they were planning to meet me there tomorrow. So I was there alone, and that was OK, except that I probably would have stayed longer if I had been with those two. I walked home by way of Building Resources -- on Mendell near Evans, I encountered two brussels sprouts, one in the street and the other on the sidewalk. Now it's getting to be late afternoon and what have I done? Not a whole lot.

I wrote to one okc prospect, bought a small plant stand online that I'm hoping will serve as a shelf for my coffee cups, and hesitated, fatally, about buying a pair of jeans. I need to get up off this couch and maybe bake some cookies. It has been a long time since I baked anything; for whatever reason, I've been craving handfuls of chocolate chips mixed with peanuts. With mint tea.

Let's see, what else happened this week, other than the usual national awfulness? I finally spent some time with Ellie and her baby. What can I say, he's a month old and he smells like a baby and he didn't fuss much when I was holding him. I saw the Magritte exhibit with KW, which was fun. The Dominion of Light series is especially lovely. I think my favorite was Clear Ideas -- a frothy white cloud and a faceted rock hovering, the one above the other, in a dark sky above what looks like an ocean.

Modesto

I canvassed in Modesto yesterday -- with 100+ other volunteers (an all-time high turnout, according to the organizers). We were sent to an interesting neighborhood -- older than the subdivisions I'd covered on previous Saturdays. There were tall trees! And funky topiary efforts. Despite all the "Beware of Dog" and other unwelcoming signs, several people answered their doors and even the uninterested were kind. It seemed like a heavily Latino neighborhood, with a few African American households here and there. Come to think of it, it's the old white men who ramble on angrily about Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi. I don't know how hot it was but I got a bit pink in the face toward the time we called it a day. I was grateful that Meg drove -- I left my car at North Berkeley BART. Meg dropped me off sometime after 5:00. I stopped to shop at the Bowl and then crawled across the bridge, with the Giant pregame show keeping me company -- the traffic could have been much worse.

The fog was rolling in as I crossed the bridge. It's still hovering, though I can see a band of pale blue above Bayview Hill. Mel and Zach's fish is not eating the food I tossed into the bowl. The water looks dirty but I am not going to change it -- Zach said I didn't need to. It's a sad comment on my caretaker abilities, but I'm looking forward to handing the fish back tomorrow.

free speech: iokiyar

The theory of New Deal liberals, which commanded a majority of the Court for nearly a decade in the 60s, is that judicial review was particularly important in cases where the rights of “discrete and insular minorities” are under attack, and where democratic processes are being thwarted by powerful interests. The theory of the Roberts Court is stands this precisely on its head: the Supreme Court is much more solicitous of the rights of powerful interests, and has been an active collaborator with state efforts to disenfranchise voters.

-Scott Lemieux, LGM

same as it ever was

Once more, with feeling:

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is … the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season."

MLKjr., "Letter from Birmingham Jail"

Humpty Dumpty is a man for our times

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master—that's all."

pessimism, or realism

There's no reason to think the world could be any better than it is right now. But somehow there is always the sense that things might have gone differently. I can't understand it. I can feel myself withdrawing, looking for a way to live outside of it.

After a week of wind and fog, the sky cleared this afternoon. The sun might change my mood.

loners and vanity

Anthony Hopkins, Guardian interview:

“When I was at the National all those years ago, I knew I had something in me,” he says, “but I didn’t have the discipline. I had a Welsh temperament and didn’t have that ‘fitting in’ mechanism. Derek Jacobi, who is wonderful, had it, but I didn’t. I would fight, I would rebel. I thought, ‘Well, I don’t belong here.’ And for almost 50 years afterwards, I felt that edge of, ‘I don’t belong anywhere, I’m a loner.’ I don’t have any friends who are actors at all. But in The Dresser, when Ian [McKellen] responded, it was wonderful. We got on so well and I suddenly felt at home, as though that lack of belonging was all in my imagination, all in my vanity.”

ALSO:

"You know, I meet young people, and they want to act and they want to be famous, and I tell them, when you get to the top of the tree, there’s nothing up there. Most of this is nonsense, most of this is a lie. Accept life as it is. Just be grateful to be alive.”

against (afro-)pessimism

Darryl Pinckney in NYRB:

Afro-pessimism and its treatment of withdrawal as transcendence is no less pleasing to white supremacy than Booker T. Washington’s strategic retreat into self-help. Afro-pessimism threatens no one, and white audiences confuse having been chastised with learning. Unfortunately, black people who dismiss the idea of progress as a fantasy are incorrect in thinking they are the same as most white people who perhaps believe still that they will be fine no matter who wins our elections. Afro-pessimism is not found in the black church. One of the most eloquent rebuttals to Afro-pessimism came from the white teenage anti-gun lobbyists who opened up their story in the March for Our Lives demonstrations to include all youth trapped in violent cultures.

windy weekend, with wedding

N left for the airport this morning and I felt lonely. Momentarily. Then I got caught up in the royal wedding -- watched some video, read some "analysis," got teary eyed. I grow increasingly sentimental with age. Even though I know there's a big dose of delusion underpinning any relationship, I hope those two crazy kids spend a lifetime feeling good about doing good works -- symbolically, at least -- together.

I am getting myself ready to go to the farmers market, or rather, getting my phone ready (I forgot that the battery was very low). I can hardly ever leave the house without it these days. I also have to return a book to the library because somebody put a hold on it. I only just got through the first section, which takes you to the end of the Civil War. I'll have to put my own hold on it so I can get to the part where the Africans build their own community during reconstruction. But that last bit is haunting:

Elbert Head, who had been enslaved in Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama, had mixed feelings: "I felt great joy that we were free, but it made me feel sad to think that there was a whole nation of us set free and none with homes." 

And then these freed people mostly just got on with it as best they could, in a vastly inequitable and hostile society.

tomorrow, 4:50 AM

I downloaded three photos that I'd emailed to myself. The date modified is tomorrow, 4:50 AM.  I am too tired to write. I have to pee and brush my teeth and get into bed. I am not unhappy. That's the best I can say for myself.

hikes

Last weekend I did two hikes -- one muddy and short, in Redwood, on Saturday morning, and one in Marin (Tennessee Valley) on Sunday, an absolutely perfect day. I got a haircut on Friday and then crashed MAG's bday dinner at N+T's (with her permission). T had been planning to be in NYC for a furniture fair but the snow cancelled his flight. But he went out on Friday and left us to our own devices. I had a lovely martini and some good red wine (which I had brought), and we three had a lot of fun. At one point I was laughing so hard that I thought I might bust a gut.

I have no plans at all this weekend. I walked to the farmers market this morning and then walked up the hill to buy chicken and eggs and tortillas and other things at Good Life. I ran into neighbor O and her father at the farmers market; we were both buying carrots and cauliflower. The energetic guy who sells bunches of veggies (3 for $7 or 5 for $10) gave me a free bunch of carrots today.

It has cooled off after a few very warm days. I am determined to make pizza dough this afternoon, for the first time since before my kitchen was gutted. It'll be interesting to see how hot the oven can get.

a poem for the day another black man's shooting death is unaccounted for

I saw Emmett Till this week at the grocery store,
looking over the plums, one by one
lifting each to his eyes and
turning it slowly, a little earth,
checking the smooth skin for pockmarks
and rot, or signs of unkind days or people,
then sliding them gently into the plastic.
whistling softly, reaching with a slim, woolen arm
into the cart, he first balanced them over the wire
before realizing the danger of bruising
and lifting them back out, cradling them
in the crook of his elbow until
something harder could take that bottom space.
I knew him from his hat, one of those
fine porkpie numbers they used to sell
on Roosevelt Road. it had lost its feather but
he had carefully folded a dollar bill
and slid it between the ribbon and the felt
and it stood at attention. he wore his money.
upright and strong, he was already to the checkout
by the time I caught up with him. I called out his name
and he spun like a dancer, candy bar in hand,
looked at me quizzically for a moment before
remembering my face. he smiled. well
hello young lady
hello, so chilly today
should have worn my warm coat like you
yes so cool for August in Chicago
how are things going for you
oh he sighed and put the candy on the belt
it goes, it goes.

-Eve Ewing

[I took this from LGM because I wanted to keep it handy]

March rains

The sky seems very large. It has been chilly today but I don't think any rain has fallen since I got up. The sun is intermittent.

I am gearing up to go to a GOTV workshop at the Palace of Fine Arts this afternoon. Not exactly looking forward to it -- it's not my kind of thing, really. But I feel like I should at least see if there's anything I can do that I might be good at doing.

Yesterday I had lunch with three of my favorite coworkers. MM (of course! he's our unofficial social director), KH (her birthday was our prompt), and JP (a Buffalo native). We went to one of those old-school Italian places in North Beach and snuggled into a booth (the place only has three or four tables). I've worked with all three of them for almost a decade. There was nothing unusual or even notable about our lunch; I just want to take a minute to appreciate their good humor and kindness.

guns and violence

This from the Atlantic:

The reason guns cannot be regulated in the USA is because of the violence, not in spite of it. The violence is necessary to maintain the fear, and the fear is necessary to maintain white male privilege. The idea that white men can and do shoot people causes every interaction with a white man to carry a tinge of threat: If you disrespect him, or merely fail to please him enough, he just might explode. When they say that two dozen dead children are the price we pay for freedom, what they mean is that they are willing to pay that price to preserve white male privilege. As recent events demonstrate, white male privilege is the preeminent policy goal for them, outweighing even honor, truth, and democracy. That they pursue it through terrorism should not be surprising; it was ever thus. That they cannot admit their true goal, even to themselves, is a side-effect of the defeat of the Confederacy. They cannot bear to be called a "racist" because to them, that term evokes "loser." When the South lost, we tied the shame of defeat to the cause of racism, hoping to kill it. Instead, it appears we have killed shame.

interesting people

I went out to dinner on Friday with five Palou Ave neighbors -- Des and Paris, Ellie and Tomo, and Joseph. It could've been a triple date, except that Joseph and I are not dating. Joseph is handsome and smart -- he's a massage therapist who lives sometimes in Santa Cruz and sometimes comes back to the house he grew up in to check on his 90-year-old mother. But he's damaged -- it's understandable, given that his father beat him (and his brothers) regularly and his mother doesn't exactly exude warmth. Desiree, who also had a damaging childhood, was gay until she got involved with Paris. She's ambivalent about relationships of all kinds -- she has difficulty with boundaries, you might say. Paris comes over on the weekends -- that's all she can manage, and he seems to be OK with it. As for Paris, well, he's a character -- a former pro (flyweight) boxer who grew up poor in Berkeley, abused his share of substances, and developed a highly personal, boxer-philosopher approach to life. Ellie is an animal control officer -- a blunt and kindly Brit who became a US citizen years ago. She met Tomo -- a Japanese chef -- through the online personals about ten months ago. Now he has moved in with her and they are expecting a baby in June. 

Speaking of damaged childhoods, Nanci and I had lunch yesterday with our cousin Mike and his wife, Natalia. They are on vacation, escaping the Michigan winter. It had been decades since we'd seen Mike -- he's the son of our cousin Martha and was adopted by our uncle/his grandfather/my dad's younger brother, Carl, after Martha died. Martha was a heroin addict, and she died just after xmas in 1984, when she was 21 and Mike was about 4. The story has always been that Mike's biological father was Martha's pimp (that sounds very movie-of-the week, I know), that he was Asian (Chinese? Vietnamese?), and that he died before Mike was born. I've never been sure that being raised by his solipsistic grandfather was the best thing for Mike. When he got old enough, he distanced himself from Carl and grew close to Carl's ex-wife, Kathleen (Martha's mother). And he's been doing fine -- he owns and operates a small raw food restaurant in the Detroit area. He clearly yearns for family, in an introverted sort of way. He talks about my parents very fondly -- about visiting with Carl when he was a kid, loving everything my mom cooked, and the sweetness/awkwardness of keeping in touch with them as an adult.

I think he gets a lot of help from Natalia, who is clearly NOT introverted, and who experienced some childhood drama of her own: Her large Colombian family moved to the US after her father was kidnapped (and ransomed) in the mid-80s. I know I'm getting sentimental in my old age, but they seem like wonderful people -- bright, funny, handsome, warm-hearted. I hope we see each other again soon.

400 years

Crosses burning
Such a long time ago
400 years and we still don't let it go

-John Mellencamp (can't believe I'm quoting him! But that last line really sums it up)