Suzy Says

Instead of watching Superbowl Ninezillion and three yesterday, I decided to take my sister visiting from England and my Mom to Point Reyes National Seashore (and don’t you just love the whole idea of a national seashore?). This is so positively un-American that I may well be kicked out of the U.S. of A. by a newly revitalized Un-American Activities Committee, but I’m willing to take the risk instead of facing the boredom of football, though I realize that my fear of death could be alleviated if I could only live in football time, which is measured in eternities. 20 minutes left to play on the clock? Walk by the TV an hour later, and there’s 17 minutes left to play. So if my life expectancy in normal time is, say, 75 years, in football time I’d probably live to 300 or something. Just think of the possibilities.

Despite the allure of living in football time, watching it has no allure, so Sunday found us in the beautiful countryside instead of in front of the TV. We stopped at Rouge et Noir, where five generations of the same family have been making and selling cheese from their own cows in the same location in beautiful West Marin, and two generations of ours bought some of their best.

We stopped in the little town of Point Reyes Station (population 700 or so) for lunch at the Station House Caf&eacute, which was excEt. I couldn’t resist having my sister take this picture of me with Mom’s dog in front of a slightly modified “No Parking” sign. Please note that not only is the dog obeying the sign, she is also obeying my request for her to sit nice and have her picture taken.

And here’s the beach on a late January afternoon. Show me anything on TV that can match that.

I was definitely not up to the sartorial challenge posed by Chicago in the dead of winter. I figured: it’s going to be really, really cold, so bring your warmest clothes, which I did (including cashmere socks, which turned out to be my best wardrobe idea on that trip). But I had reckoned without the super-heated interiors of Chicago buildings. Outside, my snuggly sweaters were perfect. Inside, I was sweating. Lesson learned: when visiting Chicago (or anywhere else that has real weather) in the middle of winter, or probably any time, come to think of it, dress in layers. Yes, it does mean that you’ll be stripping and dressing again with a frequency that would tire Gypsy Rose Lee herself, and to the detriment of your ‘do, but you’ll be more comfortable. As usual, it’s comfort vs. style.

There are no hair clips or hair spray on earth that can stand up to the wind in Chicago. You will look (and be) wind-swept, and you just have to hope it looks good on you. Also no lipstick or lip gloss, even MAC’s fabulous lipglass, can stop your lips from getting chapped.

For those who live in places where their weather treats them much like a TV dinner, going straight from the deep freeze to the oven and think they know all about the deep freeze: I’m telling you, that wind makes things cold, and not just to whiny San Franciscans. When I was in Chicago, the high was 19?F (or -7?C), but the wind chill made it 4?F, or -16?C, and I think even you hardy Canadians will have to admit that it’s cold. And that was the high.

No wonder I have never seen so many fur coats in my entire life. It was quite remarkable. Walking down the street, my whole face had the kind of brain freeze you get from eating ice cream too fast, and I had to wonder: if I lived in Chicago, would I overcome my principles and get one? What few principles I have are very, very bendy, and since going to the gym has made me realize that I could stand about .0001 seconds of torture (I’d tell them anything I knew and/or make it up as soon as the torture was even threatened, I’m pretty sure), maybe a week or a month of Chicago cold would send me to the fur salon. I hope not, though. But there are few options as warm as that. Down coats are warm, but make you look like the Michelin man, so forget it, especially after enduring all that gym torture. The last thing you want is to look fluffier. Once again, comfort vs. style.

I have never seen so many steak houses, either, so Chicago must be some kind of Slaughterhouse Central, what with the fur coats and the steak. And the size of the portions you get in the restaurants is positively epic. I was unable to eat everything at any meal I had there, no matter how great it was. Possibly Chicagoans need the fuel to withstand the cold. And anyway, it was fun to feel like I had a Victorian lady’s bird-like appetite, and the food was great.

Besides, look how pretty!

No news is good news, right? At least, I have noticed that if there’s bad news, someone’s going to make damned sure you hear about it, and without delay. So my lack of posting hasn’t been because of death or disaster, but because of the previously mentioned and time-consuming stultifying boredom of the conference.

To rewind: it was 66 degrees and sunny when I left San Francisco on Wednesday, and 19 degrees when I arrived in Chicago, which is really barely endurable. On the bright side, the flight was half an hour less than advertised, so yay.

Chicago is really pretty and has great energy, from what little I have seen of it so far. The hotel doors had signs on them saying “Please use other doors [the revolving ones] due to wind”, which kind of tells you all you need to know about that. The Windy City reputation is not undeserved. It snowed last night, and it was so windy that it was flying sideways. Really pretty, though, and from my window, I can see the lake, which appears to be partially frozen along the shoreline.

Meeting Kelly on Wednesday was the high point of the trip. We had such a great time talking that she ended up having to take a very late train home. She had chosen a fabulous Thai restaurant for dinner, Erawan, where we ate in traditional Thai style. The food was excEt, and beautifully presented – it was like eating art. Kelly took a picture of the gorgeous swan carved out of Japanese radish, complete with eyes and beak, which the garnish on on her entr&eacutee. You’ll have to see it to believe it. It was a wonderful evening.

Note to self: multi-tasking, in the form of picking up two people’s worth of dry cleaning at the end of the dog’s afternoon walk – not the best idea you ever had. One arm fully occupied with clothes covered in plastic bags, both long and slide-y and also surprisingly heavy, the other trying vainly to control a dog composed of 35 pounds of solid muscle and .00002 ounces of brain, alternately sniffing endlessly, or pulling as hard as she can, while wearing a sweater that turns out to spontaneously unbutton itself when you have no free hand to re-button it…well, thank Les Cent Culottes that the bra I was wearing was really cute.

Only 4 more days, if I don’t count today (though there are still two walks to go) or the day Mom goes home with her menagerie, and I can’t bear to, so…4 more days…4 more days…

However, I have nothing to complain about compared to my brother.

Warning: viewer discretion advised. The following contains graphic scenes of grossness that should be found on John’s side of this blog. Yes, that scary. You have been warned.

Yesterday, my brother got the surprise of his life when he went out to the parking lot to repair his truck and suddenly discovered that he was up to his ankles in, well, shit. Our sister Megan is taking care of two of Mom’s dogs indefinitely, and they were apparently bored at home and had gone down the road to Jonathan’s place, where they proceeded to tear open his composting outhouse and scatter its uncomposted contents all over the place until interrupted by the very irate outhouse owner. You can imagine cleaning that mess up, and how popular Mom’s dogs are with him. Almost as popular as the one I’m looking after is with me.

I made the mistake of calling him while he was cleaning up and I don’t think I have ever heard him angrier. I was wise enough to hang up immediately and above all, not to say, “Shit happens.”

I know you’ve all been dying to know how My Slothfulness is faring at the gym, so I thought I’d give you an update.

Remember my distaste for communal showers? So very prison, or worse yet, gym class. Well, I don’t have communal showers to deal with, because when I’m done I just throw on my coat and walk the four blocks to my house, so I can have a bath like a civilized person, in peace and comfort, but the locker room is, well, communal. It’s a good thing that I’m so completely shameless, because we all change in one big area. No private dressing rooms. You could, I suppose, change in one of the stalls, but there are only three and they are tiny. Also, no-one else does, so it would probably be a violation of some unwritten locker room code, as well as making you look very prudish to a room full of girls cheerfully dressing and undressing.

And before you guys start thinking how cool that would be (and yeah, I had to mention prison, too, so I know y’all are thinking about those B grade Women in Chains movies from the 1950’s, and if you weren’t before, you are now), let me tell you that actual girls look nothing like girls in movies or skin mags. We aren’t airbrushed. We have cellulite, even the skinny ones. Gravity has affected us. However, I know that girls are far more critical of the female form than men are, and given the legendary status of National Geographic, in which gravity has really, really taken its toll, I feel confident in saying that pretty much any girl in any state of undress is OK with you guys. I hate to shatter any remaining illusions you may have, but in the 6 weeks or so that I’ve been frequenting the locker room, I have yet to encounter any pillow fights or smooching, or even arm wrestling. The movies are, as usual, much better than real life. Fiction is nearly always better than fact.

I have discovered that the Ramones are the perfect thing to listen to on the treadmill or that elliptical thing, which I do for half an hour after my trainer has spent an hour with me. There’s something so amusing about listening to songs with titles like “I Wanna Be Sedated” while practically running. And if walking/running in time to any given Ramones song doesn’t get you up to target heart rate, you must already be sedated.

I have discovered that jumping rope is not at all the same as it was when I was a kid. As a child, you can jump rope happily almost indefinitely, and as I recall, it was fun. Doing it for 5 minutes as an adult feels more like something devised by the Spanish Inquisition on a particularly bad day. As I suffered through it the first time, my trainer informed me that Jennifer Lopez does it for 4 hours a day. I shot back, “Well, she’s paid for her looks,” whereupon my trainer laughed and changed the subject.

My ability to make people confide in me hasn’t deserted me, either. Total strangers on planes and other confined public spaces have told me their problems, and I once had the nurse practitioner administering a Pap test to me tell me all about her boyfriend problems throughout the entire procedure (bonus: distracting). My trainer told me all about her boyfriend problems last week, and before we knew it, we had worked out for almost an hour and a half (also distracting and why people watch soap operas, movies, read, and listen to music while they’re at the gym). I should have my own talk show.

When I get out of there, it’s usually about 4:30, and the bus boys from La Folie are sitting on crates on the sidewalk, polishing silver for the evening, laughing and talking in Spanish, and they always say hi as I walk by.

I have a confession to make.

The name of my site makes no francophone sense. You’d think that a noted Francophile like myself would know this, but non. Kim’s boyfriend David explained to me that “c’est la bombe”, like me, makes no sense, though it’s close in words and intent to two actual French expressions:

1. C’est une bombe, meaning “She’s a hottie”; and
2. C’est de la bombe, meaning something is cool.

Linguistics major that I am, and possessor of trivial mind that I am, I found it fascinating. And it doesn’t hurt that I can blame the mistake on John, who bought the domain name for me and who doesn’t really speak French, though he tries hard whenever we are there. In fact, he is less shy about it than I am, for reasons that I can’t fully understand.

And for those of you who subscribe to the widely-believed notion that the French are, as a nation, rude to tourists, I can only say that I have never, from my first visit to France more than 20 years ago to now, ever had that problem. Perfect strangers there have been as kind to me as Blanche Dubois could ever have wished for, and even cops have given me directions, one of them with his arm around me to better show me the map, which my father found unnecessary.

The first time John and I were in Paris together was in mid-April, and it was everything Paris in the spring should be. We were walking along the river, looking at the bouquinistes, when John went ahead of me to have a cigarette (France is the polar opposite of California in that smoking in public is tolerated and even encouraged). It was pretty crowded and we managed to lose each other in the crowd. After looking fruitlessly, I decided the best thing was to go back to the hotel, where he would surely find me.

But non. What John did after looking fruitlessly was to go the police, who pretty much laughed at him and suggested that I had obviously ditched him for some passing and irresistible French guy. An international incident very nearly ensued. John repaired to a nearby tabac*, where he was defeated by the intricacies of the French payphone and the phone book. However, a couple of students showed him how to find the hotel phone number and make the call, whereupon I answered the phone and burst into tears as soon as I haerd his voice.

By the time John had calmed me down, the students had vanished before he could say thanks. But merci anyway, both to the unknown students and to David. You’re the bomb!

PS: Julie pointed out the same thing in the post below! Guess it’s about time I learned something.

*Tabacs are very, very useful. You can not only, as the name implies, buy cigarettes there, you can also get the cards no pay phone works without; debit cards for parking meters; stamps; M&eacutetro tickets; gum and candy; lottery tickets; racing forms; and at some, displaying a red diamond, renew your car registration. Most have a caf&eacute/bar, so you can get a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, too. God, Paris is civilized!

I really don’t seem to be cut out for a life of crime. At least, crime doesn’t seem to pay for me, though it generally does seem to be one of the better-paying occupations for everyone else.

I thought I had successfully impersonated my stepmother earlier this week. It’s only fair to say right away that she asked me to impersonate her. I’ll try and make a long story short.

My stepmother has a bank account here. When she set it up, she used my Social Security number (being English, she doesn’t have one or need one). I realize that this is probably wrong in bankworld, though not technically illegal. The account has one of those ATM cards you can also use as a credit card. The card was either lost or stolen in the m?l?e of the post-Christmas sales in Oxford Street, and she sent me a fax with the account number and card number, asking if I could have it replaced. I took the fax to the bank, and they said my stepmother would have to call, since our accounts are separate.

But calling an American 800 number from England is not easy. I think you can do it by calling the operator and asking him/her to connect you to the 800 number, but it’s expensive and annoying. I called Margaret to tell her all this and to suggest that I call the bank’s 800 number and say I’m her and get the card replaced. So I did, and all seemed to go well. I congratulated myself on the (apparently) successful impersonation and for helping her out.

On New Year’s Eve, I tried to take some money out on my way to meet John at the movies, and my card was declined. I thought it might have something to do with the holidays and decided not to worry about it until after New Year’s, but as of yesterday, it was still not working, so I called the 800 line and was informed that the card had been cancelled at my request.

I explained that I had not requested this, and that clearly someone at the bank had made a mistake. They said that Margaret must have asked to have it done. Now, I knew perfectly well that she hadn’t, but I couldn’t tell them that. I did ask them if I had two accounts in my name and lost the card for one, would they cancel both and they said no. Essentially they refused to take any responsibility, and my card is cancelled and I have to wait for a new one, which is making me feel naked, and not in a good way. I actually had to go into the bank today and get money out the old-fashioned way! And I know better than to think the post office will be quick in getting the new card to me.

Need something to look forward to (or celebrate) this new year? There’s something for everyone in this list of 2003 Milestones.

As usual, we let the old year slip away and the new one arrive without fanfare, though I was awakened around midnight by fireworks and the howling accompaniment of our neighbor, unaffectionately known to us as Cap’n Chunk (due to his build and penchant for stomping as hard as he can up and down the stairs, shaking them like a 4.2 earthquake), and his maturity-challenged buddies. They were standing up on the roof whooping and hollering unintelligibly at the top of their voices. If I were the new year, I’d turn around and leave after a greeting like that.

When I walked the dog for the first time this year, there were far more people on the street than is usual at five in the morning, which was somewhat disconcerting. And since most of them had been drinking for many hours by then, they tended to want to engage me in incoherent conversation, despite my usual dog walking appearance (completely uncaffeinated; wearing glasses; tangled hair; long black coat buttoned up over bunny pajamas and shoes with no socks) and the fact that I was walking what could be considered a dangerous dog. There were parties still going on, and empty bottles in the streets, even though this is a very rich and snotty neighborhood.

In keeping with Amy’s suggestion, I have started to think about the things I’m planning to Do for Suzy this year. When I’m in Chicago for that stupid work conference, I’m going to stay a couple of extra days to visit the Art Institute and Frank Lloyd Wright’s house, and hopefully meet up with the one and only Kelly. I’m seriously considering going to the Impressionist Landscape exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston in the middle of March, too. I think that would be a good way to spend my father’s birthday (March 17). To quote Goethe: “Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.”

It’s nearly the last day of the year, the traditional (and obvious) time to look back and reflect on the past twelve months.

I always say that I didn’t make any changes in my life after my father died, but it’s not really true. I didn’t make any outward changes – that much is true. All of my siblings changed their careers after we lost Dad, and they all chose new paths which help people: Beth runs a shelter for homeless people who are working hard to get back on their feet and regain their independence; Jonathan is a member of the local volunteer fire department and teaches science part-time; and Megan has become an Emergency Medical Technician. They are all giving to their communities, and I am very proud of them.

I still have the same job and live in the same apartment with the same guy and the same cats. Yet I’m not the same person I was a year ago. Most of my changes have been internal, but nonetheless real, and hard-won. With the help of my therapist, I have learned to understand my fear of flying, and at least some of my feelings about my parents. I have been able to take care of my mother when she needed me, in spite of our battle-scarred past. I went to England, visited Dad’s friends and cleared out his things as my stepmother requested. I have kept in touch with my stepmother at least three times a week by fax, and I believe I am a source of comfort and support to her, despite being thousands of miles away and not her actual child, but instead, a person who has grown to love and respect her for the remarkable person she is.

The most outward change would have to be that I am definitely thinner. I found that walking to work and back every day, over three miles a day, up and down all those famous hills, the best way to deal with my stress. It really helps, and it really makes a girl thinner. Then there’s the whole gym thing, another slimming stress reliever and I hope a defense against the worst effects of old age. So I am in better shape both mentally and physically than I was at the beginning of this year.

One of my co-workers remarked to me the other day that I was “more at peace than she had seen me in the past 18 months” (read: since Dad died). I was very pleased to hear that, and you know what? It’s true. Since Dad was so suddenly taken away from me, I have had to finally grow the hell up and learn to take care of myself. I have walked through the fire and come out of it as glass does: shining, fragile, yet surprisingly strong.

My new year’s resolutions:

1. Do things for Suzy.

2. Find peace in my relationship with my mother.

That’s plenty.

I wish all of you and those you love a year of health and happiness.

Once upon a time, in a beautiful city by a beautiful bay, there lived a beautiful princess. Like many princesses, she was indulged more than was really good for her, both by the handsome prince who had married her and the handsome king who was her father.

In those long-ago days, stocks were high and so were property values. The leader of the country was beloved in spite of his faults, which were neither small nor few, but as we all know, that is the best kind of love.

In those long-ago days, it hardly ever rained, and the sun shone on the beautiful city almost every day, making its residents, from the wild green parrots to the slightly spoiled princess, even happier than they already were to live in such a beautiful place. The people were happy and optimistic, which means that they expected to keep on being happy. Optimism is a very dangerous thing, as we will see, and very difficult to maintain for any length of time.

In those long-ago days, a magical being called Peapod brought groceries and other necessities of life, like champagne and spring water and cat litter, to the residents of the beautiful city. Peapod was never late and had cute white vans with peapods painted on the side. They always brought everything the slightly spoiled princess wanted, which made her slightly more spoiled and her expectations of every day life slightly more unrealistic.

Then one day, the beloved leader of the country retired. The people were scared. Who would run the country now? They were right to be scared, because a wicked and stupid man appointed himself leader, and things started to go wrong almost right away. The stock market fell, and property values with it. It started raining. Unnatural and natural disasters occurred. People stopped being optimistic.

But worst of all, Peapod left the princess’s city forever. Now there was no-one to bring her the necessities of life, no matter how much she offered to pay them. Webvan, Safeway, and Albertsons all disappointed her, one after the other. They could not, would not, bring cat litter to the slightly spoiled princess’s apartment for her slightly spoiled cats. Yet the cats did not stop needing the litter; quite the reverse. The princess was outnumbered four to one by the cats, and she did not like those odds. She began to feel pessimistic, which is the opposite of optimistic.

The princess was in despair and asked the prince what to do. If you do not have a prince of your own, you may not know how useful they can be at times. They can empty out litter boxes and bring you presents and walk dogs and even open jars. They make the dark less scary and can often solve problems, too.

The prince had not always been a prince, so he knew secrets about ordinary people that you can only learn by being one. The prince told the princess not to worry, which was good, because she did not like to worry and it gave her wrinkles, which made her worry even more. The prince went to a small shop he knew of and explained the problem to the storekeeper, who agreed to bring cat litter to the prince and princess’s apartment whenever they needed it.

This is not the only reason that the prince and princess lived happily ever after, but it is one of them.

Well, I’m horribly disappointed in my immune system. I didn’t have a cold for two years, and then I had that cold in October after the hell trip to Europe and now I have the flu or something: fever, yet freezing and shivering; aching everywhere, including places that I didn’t know could ache, like where my jaw connects to the rest of my skull; headache in actual skull; stuffy yet dripping nose; sore throat. How unlovely is that? I feel, in case you couldn’t tell, extremely sorry for myself, and you should, too.

I’m going to go back to bed with tea and C Monster and a death wish and watch Gilmore Girls with my cats. It’s like I’m already a crazy old lady. Oh yeah, and it’s still dark, rainy and freezing, so I feel like I’m living on the set of Dark Shadows. Mmmpf.

Love/hate for Friday, December 20, 2002
Bare feet

Not only is this a very unseasonable love/hate (unless you live in, say, Tahiti or Australia), it’s the last one for the year. We’re going to take the last two festive weeks of the year off, to be festive. Or slothful. But rest assured: we’ll be back in the new year, maybe better than ever, or maybe exactly the same.

But I digress (as usual).

Despite the undeniable fact, given that I have 30 pairs of shoes, that I love shoes, I also love having bare feet. One of the first things I do when I get home is to take off my shoes, which is generally followed by removing all the finery and other appearance-enhancing efforts I had so painstakingly applied that morning, which just goes to show that I really do it for the good of mankind and not for myself. Granted, having bare feet in our apartment does have the delightful contrast of walking on smooth wood floors and soft area rugs, but it also carries with it the hazard of walking into a hair ball, a thoughtful gift of one of our cats, or tiny little rocks of cat litter, deposited by Jack courtesy of her famous litterpaws^?. But this doesn’t deter me from shedding the footwear.

There are few feelings nicer than walking barefoot on the beach, and I’ll take every opportunity I get. When I was in Devon in September, my friend Colin took me to the lovely beach near the little town of Beer. I wasted no time in taking off my shoes and wading in the water. It was warm enough to swim, if only I had imagined that England in mid-September would allow for such things and had brought a bathing suit, or anything that could be made to resemble one. But instead, I had brought sweaters and had to content myself with walking on the pebbly sands in the cold Atlantic water, reminding me of childhood summers in Maine (where I did have a bathing suit and wasn’t afraid to use it).

When I am at my brother’s and sister’s in the country, I love to walk on the grass of my brother’s croquet lawn or the soft soil of my sister’s garden, cushioned with fallen redwood needles. For those unfamiliar with pygmy forests, the soil is unforgiving and gardeners either have to import huge quantities of expensive topsoil or container plant, as my sister does.

When visiting my stepmother in London – including this past September, when the weather was more summer-like than it had been in the actual summer – I often walked around her garden in bare feet, despite her disapproval (when she was a girl, bare feet signified poverty). It’s such a pleasure to feel the blades of grass, dewy or dry, and be closer to the earth and more connected to it than I am in my every day urban life.

At home, I often have my morning coffee on the roof of my apartment building on the weekends. I love to sit there with my bare feet on the sun-warmed wood of the roof deck, watching the sails dotting the Bay and the traffic going sedately across the Golden Gate Bridge. Often, the wild parrots will fly overhead, calling with their distinctive voices and clatter of wings, and hummingbirds will zoom past quicker than any man-made time can measure. It’s a wonderful way to start the day.

The comments on airport security on last Thursday’s post, together with taking Mom to the airport on Saturday, made me think about the security (or lack of it) that I have encountered both pre- and post-9/11.

When I went to my mother’s place at the last minute in June this year, I set off the metal detectors both coming and going, and had to remove my shoes for examination both times, too. And that has been the most airport security I have encountered in this post-9/11 world, and it was for a flight within California. It does seem less likely to me that something would happen on a flight that’s barely more than an hour long within the same state than one going across the country or overseas, but then, I don’t think terrorists are known for logic.

I arrived at Heathrow on the first anniversary of 9/11, and although they asked me more questions at Customs than they do customarily, no-one searched my bags or anything. Some of the questions seemed really out of left field to me, like how long had I worked at my job and did I have family back in California, but then, I was 1. Completely hung over; 2. Completely lacking a night’s sleep; 3. Completely worn out from a scary 11 hour flight; 4. Completely emotional at the prospect of clearing out Dad’s things and being in his house, so pretty much everything seemed weird to me at that point.

Heathrow is the only place I have ever had my bags searched, and both occasions were long before 9/11. Once I was coming back from Russia, and they took every single thing out of my bag and looked at it. If you haven’t ever had your bag searched, be warned: they take things out, but they never put them back in. Instead, they leave your stuff all over the place, so you somehow have to fit it back in, which for some reason is harder than re-folding a map correctly and takes twice as long as packing it in the first place.

The other time, I was coming back from a long weekend in Amsterdam. They not only looked through everything – including opening a box of face powder and sifting through it and dismembering a tampon – but asked lots of questions, like “Where were you staying, who were you staying with, how did you meet them”, etc. I omitted to mention that I had been staying in the Red Light District, which was true, because that’s where my friend Alice and her husband live, but I answered everything else truthfully and without comment. These guys did not seem to have a sense of humor and I felt that I was teetering on the brink of being strip-searched, so I tried to play nice. I swear it took about an hour for them to do all this, and in the meantime, people were walking by looking at me like, “I wonder what she did?” And the thing is, I actually began to feel guilty. Eventually they let me go. I guess I just look like a drug dealer.

They take away a baby’s Winnie the Pooh fork and plastic hairclips and nail files, and now even in business class you have plastic forks, though I bet you could kill someone with plastic tableware if you really wanted to. Just ask any prisoner. I think George Carlin is right, and airport security is all an illusion. You just have to decide if you want to take the chance. I’ll leave the last word on the subject to George:

“Airport security is a stupid idea. It’s a waste of money and it’s there for only one reason: to make white people feel safe. That’s all it’s for. To provide a feeling, an illusion, of safety in order to placate the middle class. The authorities know they can’t make airplanes safe; too many people have access. You’ll notice that drug smugglers don’t seem to have a lot of trouble getting their little packages on board, do they? No. And God bless them, too.

As far as I’m concerned, all of this airport security — the cameras, the questions, the screening, the searches — is just one more way of reducing your liberty and reminding you that they can fuck with you any time they want, as long as you’re willing to put up with it. Which means, of course, any time they want. Because that’s the way Americans are now. They’re always willing to trade away a little of their freedom for the feeling, the illusion–of security.”

In addition to all that running around on Friday and Saturday, I spent most of what should have been my day of rest on Sunday (though can you claim that if you are not a member of any organized religion?) battling the elements to get to Oakland and back.

The object of the Oakland expedition was to see my friend Carrie and her daughter Miranda, and to deliver Miranda’s Christmas and birthday presents. Miranda will be a year old on January 3, which I find amazing. It doesn’t seem that long ago that she was a guest at Thanksgiving dinner, though an in utero one. Carrie went to the doctor once to confirm her pregnancy, and that was it. Her view was that she was pregnant, not sick. She had a glass of wine with Thanksgiving dinner. She was not your traditional expectant mother.

I don’t know if that has anything to do with the results, but Miranda is one of the very few satisfactory babies I know. She is good tempered, observant, and amusing, as well as very cute. You know how I am about aesthetics. Unfortunately, I don’t have any recent photos of the divine Ms. M., so you’ll have to take my word for it. I do, however, have one of the other satisfactory baby I know, name of Matthew (oh, and his Dad, too), so you can see his cuteness for yourself. This picture makes me smile every time I see it.

Love/hate for Friday, December 13, 2002
Blankets

I love them. And lots of them. The ideal sleeping conditions for me are a cool room, window open to let in the breeze (though this also lets in the noises caused by those other people who insist on living in close proximity to me, and other auditory undesirables, such as sirens and the roar of traffic, not to mention olfactory undesirables, such as cigars and barbecues), two feather pillows, and lots of blankets.

Even though we live where the temperature range is only about 40 degrees at the most, and we don’t get the extreme cold that curses much of this great country in the depths of winter, I love having lots of blankets on the bed. It makes me feel all snuggly and warm. Freudians will tell you that it’s wanting to be back in the womb, but given my ambivalent feelings toward my manic-depressive, passive-aggressive mother, that seems unlikely to me (as do most of Freud’s theories, to tell you the truth). But I do find it comforting to have a certain weight of blankets on me in the dark night. And of course, a cat or two is essential.

There is generally one or two of our four cats sleeping with us, though since they are cats, it’s unpredictable as to who it will be and when. Cats are as capricious as I am, and it’s impossible to distinguish and kind of pattern in their sleeping arrangements. They just honor us with their presence when they feel like it. Nothing helps you get back to sleep faster than a purring cat cuddled up to you. And you can count on them to hunt down those demons and monsters that lurk in the fearful dark as efficiently as they dispatch any stray bugs that venture into their home territory.

My good friend Kathleen, that Renaissance woman who is equally at home with matters spiritual, artistic, and sports-related, mentioned that today is Ernest Howard Shepard’s birthday. He was born on this day in 1879 and was the original illustrator of the immortal Winnie-the-Pooh stories, including the drawing above. Shepard also did what I consider to be the definitive illustrations for Kenneth Grahame’s timeless Wind in the Willows. In both cases, his sensitive and beautiful line drawings added to the magic and beauty of the stories.

Coincidentally, A.A. Milne, the author of the Pooh stories and also a playwright, adapted the Wind in the Willows as a play, Toad of Toad Hall. Both Milne and Grahame wrote their stories for their own sons, and I think that makes them better stories and is part of their continuing success. Many of the best-loved children’s tales, from Alice in Wonderland to Peter Rabbit to the Harry Potter series, were written for actual children known and loved by the author.

Contrary to popular belief, Shepard based his drawings of Pooh not on a bear belonging to Milne’s son, Christopher Robin (who grew up to be a grumpy old man who repudiated anything to do with Pooh), but on a bear belonging to his own son, Graham, named Growler.

Shepard lived to be 96 and died on the 50th anniversary of the publication of Winnie the Pooh.

Milne wrote these words in the copy of Winne the Pooh he presented to Ernest Shepard:

“When I am gone
Let Shepard decorate my tomb
and put (if there is room)
Two pictures on the stone:
Piglet from page a hundred and eleven,
And Pooh and Piglet walking (page a hundred and fifty-seven) . . .
And Peter, thinking they are my own,
Will welcome me to heaven.”

I’m waiting for John to get ready to accompany me to the post office this morning to mail all those packages to his family in distant, snow-bound Canada. After nearly 12 years of marriage (on Christmas Eve!), I can truthfully say that I end up waiting for him far more often than he waits for me. Despire the afore-mentioned decade+ experience in this area, I am at a loss to explain it.

I’m the one who has contact lenses to put in, make-up to apply, nylons and lingerie and jewelry to grapple with, yet I consistently get ready faster. In the days when we left for work together, I could put in my contacts, wash my face and apply various unguents and make-up, and walk in the bedroom to discover John struggling to get his pants on. It’s an enduring mystery, though not always an endearing one.

While I’m waiting, I’ll tell you about yesterday. I went and got my hair cut after work. Don’t worry, I just had an inch trimmed off, and I had it trimmed when I was in London in September, too, so it’s in pretty good shape. Long hair is, after all, old hair. Anyway, my hairstylist is still married after 6 months, unlike Lisa Marie Presley and Nicolas Cage, and is happy, which is great.

I walked home past Union Square, so I could admire the giant Christmas tree and the other Christmas decorations. It was cloudy and cold enough for me to be wearing a coat, so it made it seem more like Christmas. I have to say, I really don’t like the newly remodelled Union Square. I guess it does its job of repelling homeless people, but it repels me, too, with its vast acres of concrete and stone, not to mention the incongruous palm trees. I will never understand why the powers that be insist on planting them here. They are not native. They are expensive. They are high maintenance.

I just realized I just described myself.

Love/hate for Friday, December 6, 2002
The Dark

Despite my advanced age, I’m scared of the dark. My parents always told me I’d grow out of it, but I’m still waiting. I don’t know why I ever believed my father, anyway. He spent his formative years in London during WWII, and was so used to blackout conditions that he could only sleep in total darkness. He required the very thing that I feared. He was also the lightest sleeper I ever met. When I had nightmares (rendered that much more horrifying by waking up in the dreaded dark), I’d go to my parents’ room and as soon as I put my hand on the doorknob, Dad would bolt awake, calling out, “Who’s there?”

He was no help at all with the dark fear, either. He’d just tell me to go back to sleep and think of nice things. As if. Like you can lie there in the dark and not imagine monsters under the bed, or in the closet. Is that the rustling of leaves outside your window, or something more sinister? What’s that strange shadow reflected in the moonlight? And is that the beating of your own heart, or someone else’s? What on earth was I thinking, reading that Stephen King novel so close to bedtime? And why did I go and see The Ring? Now the imaginations of others are added to my own, making my tiny mind a horrorfest.

When you are a kid, everything is so weird, including the inexplicable behavior of most adults, that anything seems possible. Which means that there can be really scary things in the dark as easily as nothing being there. Also you are more likely to believe in the scary or the strange because things pretty much are. Add in not being able to see more than three inches in front of you sans glasses and you have all the makings for being scared of the dark.

I am now pretty much resigned to never getting over it, but there are ways to handle it. I have a small lamp on my bedside table which I leave on at night to chase away the shadows. I keep my glasses in the same place so I can find them readily and see if it’s monsters or just Jack, the demon cat, up to no good. Jack I can handle. OK, maybe not. But she’s still better than the dark and its unknown horrors.