Sunday, May 31, 2020

Syllabus #55

I don't have a lot to say that would be of value in this moment.  Racial injustice has been a cancer in this country since before its inception, and what's happening right now is sickening but it isn't new.  In this moment when so many of us have more free time than usual to pay attention to the news, and so little else is happening aside from the pandemic, it's harder to ignore what's going on.  I hope the escalation and increased attention finally bring about real and positive change.  I hope it brings us together instead of dividing us further. 

I think the best thing I can do right now is listen, and direct attention towards perspectives that have been ignored or overlooked for too long.  Also a couple things just for S's and G's, because we're only human.

---

Things that make you go hmmm

What happened to 'serve and protect'?

Here is a pretty solid roundup of actions we can take and places to donate

This list is from last year, but we should be educating ourselves:  An Antiracist Reading List

Italian tupperware.  I guess it wasn't just my family who called it that.  For the longest time I thought the name came from the fact that most of our so-called food storage containers were those Maggio ricotta cheese containers that look like the Italian flag.  Then I realized it was being used more or less as a slur, but now it turns out actual Italian people in New Jersey refer to their plastic food container upcycling as such, and my life has come full circle.

Sharing this Gilmore Girls eating challenge for my mom.  This sounds wonderful yet frightening.  I feel constipated and broken out just reading about it, so let's never do this: 

This all sounds eloquent and like the kind of leadership we need, but is this just Biden paying lip service to the cultural moment we are in?  Does he really stand behind these words?  I hope so.

Analog Reading:

Finished The Woman in the Window.  Yikes.

Read Trust Exercise by Susan Choi.  The format is inventive, in that it's a book within a story, wherein one of the characters on whom the book was based uses the remainder of the story to set the record straight.  It gets at the fallibility of memory and the subjectivity of experience, and does so in a way that makes me want to keep reading even though pretty much every character is grotesquely unlikable.

Started Baby, You're Gonna Be Mine by Kevin Wilson, another story collection.  The stories so far are a little darker than the ones in Tunneling to the Center of the Earth, but I'm becoming a big fan of Wilson's work.

The Isolation Journals - Day 61

No snappy intro, no photo today.

Prompt:  Only when we deepen our collective spiritual consciousness can we begin to implement genuine and lasting change. As you listen to the first song, called "Meditation," write about how you’re doing your part.

---

How am I doing my part?  There's no answer I can give that would signify that I am doing enough.  It wouldn't even be virtue signaling to get into the specifics, it would just be admitting what a crappy job I've done putting my money where my mouth is.  I know that what I have done and will continue to do will never be enough, but it's not a reason to stop trying.  It's a reason to try harder.

There are direct and indirect ways for a person like me, a white woman, to do my part.  Directly, we can call legislators, we can give money to causes.  There are specific causes like bail funds for protestors or funds to support the families of victims murdered by police.  There are more general organizations like the ACLU or SPLC.  Directly, we can put our bodies on the line by attending peaceful protests which, in this moment, don't always remain safe and peaceful.  However, if I can move through the world with a general expectation of safety and freedom due to my demographic profile (ignoring for a moment the inherent vulnerability of being a woman), I can give that up for a few hours at a time to stand in solidarity with my fellow humans who don't ever get to enjoy that assumption of safety.

Indirectly, we can start by not leveraging our whiteness to get what we want at the expense of harming other people.  We can listen.  We can shut up and open our minds to what POC have to say.  Read their words, listen to their voices, follow their platforms.  Develop empathy for and awareness of an experience that is, in so many critical ways, different.  Understand and root out unconscious biases and ways in which our privilege is hurting others.  So I'm going to take my own advice and shut my trap, and listen to some other perspectives.

Saturday, May 30, 2020

The Isolation Journals - Day 60

It's our 10 year anniversary today!  Like a proper Wife with a capital W, I've been in the kitchen all day, barefoot and making all kinds of shit from scratch, as you shall see.






Prompt:  Write a letter (a real one on paper!) of love and support to an elder. Tell them stories about your life and what you’re witnessing in this moment, and ask them to tell you theirs. When you’re done, mail it off! 

Love for the Elderly
P. O. Box 24248
Cleveland, OH 44124
USA


---

I'm going to cheat here and write to my actual grandmother, who is 87 and lives alone.  I intend to write another letter for the actual organization, but I want to send Iowa a little sunshine in her mailbox.

Dear Grandmom,

I hope it's a warm, sunny day when you collect this letter from your mailbox.  What are you cooking today?  Anything good?  Have you had any fresh Jersey corn, tomatoes, or asparagus yet this season?

I made Andy some blueberry pancakes with sourdough discard this morning.  I also prepped some dough so I can bake sourdough bread tomorrow and I made a strawberry galette to have for dessert tonight.  We are going out for dinner for our anniversary - we have a reservation to eat on the patio of a restaurant down the street that we really like.  

Can you believe it's been 10 years already?  Looking at the photos, Gianna was just a kid which is really the only way to notice how much time has passed.  I feel like the rest of us still look the same.  Aging like a fine wine, we are.  Or at least let's tell ourselves that.  It doesn't feel like that long, and I guess I still like Andy well enough even after being quarantined with him for over two months, so there's that.  

Are you reading anything good?  Did you ever get the package I told you to watch out for after Mother's Day?  There was a delay in shipping, so I hope it gets to you soon!  

Do you have lots of things blooming in your yard?  Have you seen any more of those turkeys strutting through?

I'm sure I'll talk to you on the phone before you get this, so you don't have to write back unless you feel like it.  Just thought you might enjoy something other than a catalog or a bill in the mail, although Vermont Country store has really been knocking it out of the park with their muumuu designs lately!

Love,
Katie

Friday, May 29, 2020

The Isolation Journals - Day 59



Prompt:  Write a letter to a healthcare worker. It could be a person who took care of you or a loved one years ago. It could be someone you know who is working on the front lines of Covid-19, taking on the obvious risks but also contending with the very real compassion fatigue that comes with the job, all the more so now. Write without expecting anything in return. Write to say thank you.

---

Ways to express gratitude:  "Thank you."  "Thanks."  A smile.  "I appreciate it."  Flowers.  "I'm so grateful."  Applause.

Ways to acknowledge gratitude:  "You're welcome."  A smile.  "It's nothing."  "Of course."  A nod.  "Sure."  "No problem."  A dismissive wave.  "My pleasure."

Of all the possible permutations of that transaction between patient and healthcare worker, the most uncomfortable might be to applaud for your gynecologist or proctologist, who responds with, "my pleasure."  Ew.

Through a combination of general good health and frequent moves, I haven't had a longstanding relationship with a medical professional since my childhood pediatrician, who is no longer living.  So this is a shoutout to healthcare workers everywhere.  

Thank you for your courage, thank you for your tireless effort.  Thank you for your endless font of compassion, or for faking it if the well runs dry.  Whether you entered this profession for the prestige, the money, cultural or familial expectations, or genuine passion for the field, this moment must hardly be what you dreamed your career would entail.  Keep fighting the good fight, and I hope not to see you any time soon.  No offense.

Thursday, May 28, 2020

The Isolation Journals - Day 58




Prompt:  Write about the earliest moment that you remember in overwhelming detail—from a journey, at home, or among people you loved (or hated). Write about it as Nabokov set out to do in his work: “to transform [it] into something that can be turned over to the reader in printed characters to have him cope with the blessed shiver.”

---

There are the barest, shimmering moments from earliest childhood.  Pretending to "mop" the deck like Cinderella, using an unidentified object (an upside down Barbie?  a paintbrush?) and water from the kiddie pool, resulting in a giant splinter in the bottom of my bare foot.  Answering "no" when my dad asked, "Do you love me?" and watching a tear roll down his cheek. 

Not all bad or sad or painful things, though.  Swimming in Grace's pool and then sitting on her top bunk, mainlining Nerds straight out of the box, our hair still damp and wild with chlorine and humidity.  Riding in the back of Mom's Bronco, probably on the way to the mall, listening to the Beach Boys.  

Mostly bad or sad or painful things, though.  Funny how those memories are always stickier.

The day I broke my wrist was so hot and bright and long.  I was four.  That year we lived in Florida.  I hated my preschool.  I hated the teacher, I hated the other kids.  I'm sure both were objectively fine, but at the time, it was awful.  The first day, I had to be dragged in, kicking and screaming.  I held onto the door frame until my chubby hands were pried loose, one at a time.  I still remember one kid, Stephen Jenkins, who used to pick PlayDoh out of the grooves of his sneaker soles, and eat it.  Pick his nose, and eat it.  Smear paste on his hands, let it dry, peel it off, and eat it.  He's lucky he has a generic name, or I would 1000% Google him to learn whether he became a chef, a dentist, or a serial killer.  My money is on serial killer.

But I digress.  We aren't here to fixate on weird little Stephen.  So I broke my left wrist one day at preschool.  Out on the underwhelming playground under the white-hot Florida sun, I sat on the seesaw.  The metal seat so hot that on first contact, you wonder if you've possibly just peed your pants, warmth and numbness all at once.  A bigger kid sat on the other side, sending me up, up impossibly high.  

The bigger kid refused to budge, wouldn't seesaw, wouldn't let me down.  Did I call for help?  No.  I just bailed.  The old tuck and roll.  Only it didn't work the way it might in a cartoon.  I landed wrong, very wrong, and the blinding pain in my wrist was unlike anything I had ever felt before.  I cried and cried, cradling my injured arm like it was a damaged baby bird.  The teacher just sat me in a lawn chair and let me wail.  

I remember just crying, ceaselessly, the rest of the school day.  No visit to the nurse, no phone call home, just sit in the corner and cry it out, kid.  Still crying when my mom picked me up.  Probably still crying when I eventually returned to school a couple days later with a cast.  Ah, the 80s - the waning glory days of neglecting kids without fear of litigation.

Wednesday, May 27, 2020

The Isolation Journals - Day 57



Prompt
:  Write about a time when you learned something that seemed to upend a long-held story or belief—but in fact revealed the complex truth of human experience.

---

I used to think that I couldn't stand children.  They were annoying and gross, they should be seen and not heard.  I didn't much like other kids when I was one; I preferred hangin' with the Olds.  So, it was as surprising to me as it was to anyone else when, six years ago, I made a career pivot to work as a children's librarian.  Honestly, the move was more of an act of desperation to get away from a gnarly workplace sexual harassment sitch than it was a change of heart.  I just needed to change my job.  The change of heart came later.

I always had this idea stuck in my head that kids had nothing interesting to say.  They were just empty flesh sacks that needed to be filled with knowledge about how to navigate the world.  The kids who were especially rotten had been filled with the wrong sorts of knowledge; their parents were to blame.  What was wrong with those parents, by the way?

And look, none of this is rational and none of it is flattering to me.  And I still don't want any sticky, loud, tiny humans in my actual home, but boy was I wrong about them!  Kids, many of them at least, are delightful!  They are hilarious!  Their minds work in ways that fascinate and frustrate me in equal measure.  

And those kids that suck?  The ones that teachers warn you about?  The ones no other kid wants to sit near?  Well, that's more of a mystery to me than it ever was.  Sometimes you meet the parents and it's clear - the kids are a chip off the crusty ol' block, and it's up to you and your fellow educators to try to be a positive force in the kid's life.  Other times, the parents are trying their damndest and are as baffled as anyone by their kid's behavior.  

Life is a rich tapestry - one that kids sometimes stain with Kool-Aid or try to unravel, but other times they add to it in unexpected and wonderful ways.



Tuesday, May 26, 2020

The Isolation Journals - Day 56



Prompt:  Compose ten neologisms inspired by the year 2020. They can be shorthand expressions you’ve been using when texting with friends and family. New coinages to describe novel quarantine behaviors. Old phrases that now hold new meaning. Outdated expressions from youth you’ve rediscovered since moving back in with your parents. Expletives that emerge from a primal place—ones you didn’t know could be unleashed by the presence of an unmasked stranger in the frozen foods.

---

Quaran-jeans - noun.  Literally any pants, the stretchier the better
ex.  I've been wearing the same quaran-jeans for so long they practically stand up on their own when I take them off to sleep.

Quaran-Tina Turner - noun.  A state of being in which one's hair looks insane because one's hairbrush has been used solely as a microphone for bathroom karaoke
ex.  I think I went in the bathroom to brush my teeth but then I just belted Lizzo's Good as Hell into my hairbrush and called it self care.

Rear Windowing - verb.  Aggressively and openly watching one's neighbors for extended periods of time.
ex. John Oliver took the week off so instead of watching TV we just Rear Windowed those naked people across the street again.

Adult Summer Camping - verb.  When one's living room becomes the Arts & Crafts Cabin, and maybe one also starts talking to a can of vegetables
ex.  I was adult summer camping all day and I made some friendship bracelets, but then I remembered I have no friends except this can of green beans.
(see also Wet Hot American Adult Summer Camp, noun)

B.C. - adjective.  abbreviation of Before Covid, which refers to the time prior to shit hitting the fan
ex. My B.C. commute used to take 45 minutes on the freeway but now I just walk from my kitchen to my desk.

Quaran-team - noun.  Whomever or whatever provides a support system during one's lockdown.  It may consist of a people, pets, plants, sourdough starters, books, shows, booze, vibrators, or some combination thereof.  
ex.  We've assembled a really strong quaran-team over here with the cat, a fully loaded Kindle, and a case of wine.

Managing up - verb.  To parent one's own parents who fail to fully comprehend the risks attendant to their own aging bodies
ex. It's really above my pay grade to do this, but I think I have to manage up and ground my own parents so they stay the hell home.

Defragging your hard drive - verb.  To accept that one's living space has become such a disaster there is no path forward other than to pause everything, return belongings to their proper place, and purge useless items.
ex. It took me 20 minutes to wade through the clutter and find the remote, so I broke down and defragged my hard drive.

Grey Gardens - noun.  The state of a woman's hair after multiple months of root growth.
ex.  I was past due for a hair appointment when lockdown started, now I've gone fully Grey Gardens up in here.  

Frednesday - noun.  Whatever the hell day it is.
ex.  I dunno if I can make it to that family Zoom, I'm booked solid until next Frednesday.

Monday, May 25, 2020

The Isolation Journals - Day 55



Prompt:  Write a journal entry about why you journal. Are there certain stories or forms you gravitate toward? People or places you prefer to leave out? Do you imagine anyone reading your entries? Do you notice a difference between journaling with prompts and without? As a private practice or one you share with others?

---

Getting meta, indeed.

Why do I write?  That's like asking why I breathe.  It's an exhalation of thought.  I have to.

I mean, I won't die if I don't write, it isn't that dire, but it's close.  I guess it's more like holding in a burp or a fart.  Sometimes, when you're in polite company, you keep it together.  But when you have a moment to yourself, you gotta let it rip.

There have been times when I didn't write, and without realizing it at the time, I felt stifled.  Like when someone makes a healthy change in their lifestyle and begins to feel better, I didn't realize how bad I was feeling until I discovered it was possible to feel better.  Not bad as in depressed, mostly just uncomfortable, like an over-inflated bike tire, ready to burst.

I write to entertain, at least that's the hope.  I write to make sense of what I believe, how I feel.  I seldom write without an audience in mind, even if realistically the audience is usually a party of one (hi, mom!).  I do love writing from a prompt, as we all know restriction breeds creativity.  However, in non-pandemic times, my life and the world at large usually provide enough fodder.  When I write without an external prompt, I'm usually telling a story about a specific event in my life or opining on a current event.  Often that writing takes shape as a comedy set, or a blog post, or both.  

There's always an audience, however small.  If I didn't want another soul to read something, I'd probably never write it down in the first place, though I'm not judging people who write only for themselves.  People who keep private diaries - what motivates you to do that?  Do you write things you truly don't want to share?  What happens if someone reads your diary, without your consent or after you're gone?  

Sunday, May 24, 2020

Syllabus #54

And just like that, another week has passed.  Now that we're bumping up against June, I guess I should probably put away the sweaters and corduroy pants I was wearing to work when I was last in the habit of regularly exiting the house.  I've pretty much been wearing the same 10 year old fleece zip up and 20 year old lounge pants that used to be part of my gym uniform in high school, for the past two months.  It's been super cute.



What did Internet Santa bring us this week?

---

I find myself feeling very shook by Lynn Shelton's passing, which seems unwarranted because I obviously don't know these people personally.  Even so, Marc Maron is such an open book on his podcast, and the bits that he has shared about his life in quarantine with Lynn made them like real people to me.  The way he mentioned her non-COVID sickness in the episodes leading up to her death, it's clear how utterly shocking this all must be.  I don't mean to fixate on one specific death when there are tens of thousands of people dying every day.  But can you imagine doing everything you can to avoid coronavirus, and then suddenly, unexpectedly losing the only person with whom you can currently have human contact to another illness entirely?  That's bonkers, man.


John Oliver shared this on Last Week Tonight, but some Dutch products are not meant to be kept to oneself, and must be shared with friends - a delicious Gouda, a fat spliff, and Jelle's Marble Runs.


I went to the dentist on Monday, and it wasn't much like this article described.  I wasn't allowed inside until my chair was ready, there was one other patient in the whole building, and every employee was wearing a mask.  The hygienist wore a full face shield as well as a mask, but she did the cleaning by herself, and I DID NOT receive a goody bag.  Probably because I told them I had an electric toothbrush (thanks, Mom!) and they knew I didn't need their bullshit free toothbrush.  Also, it would have been a real slap in the face to receive a travel size toothpaste.  Cool cool cool, can't wait to use this in my own bathroom while staring at a picture of a beach on my phone.

Dammit, Joe.

 Jonathan Safran Foer with a poetic endorsement for vegetarianism:  "With the horror of pandemic pressing from behind, and the new questioning of what is essential, we can now see the door that was always there. As in a dream where our homes have rooms unknown to our waking selves, we can sense there is a better way of eating, a life closer to our values. On the other side is not something new, but something that calls from the past — a world in which farmers were not myths, tortured bodies were not food and the planet was not the bill at the end of the meal."

This smiling loaf -

I combined two recipes, Joy the Baker's tahini banana bread and Izy Hossack's sourdough discard banana bread.  Really, what I did was eyeball the two recipes and decide it would be okay to swap the portion of white flour in Joy's recipe with the portion of sourdough starter in Izy's recipe.  It's good!  It's not life changing, but it gets the job done.  Next time I think I'll swirl some tahini in at the end for a marbling effect in addition to the portion that gets fully mixed with the other wet ingredients.

Analog Reading:

Finished Tunneling to the Center of the Earth by Kevin Wilson.  Witty.  Nihilistic.  Recommend.

Almost through with The Woman in the Window  by A.J. Finn.  It's like Rear Window has a prescription drug- and alcohol-addicted baby with the The Sixth Sense, but saying that is kind of a major spoiler, so if you haven't read it and intend to, please forget what I just said and I'm sorry.

The Isolation Journals - Day 54




So much for Sunday Funday - this prompt actually scared me when I read it.  Then I remembered that I make the rules around here, and I'll interpret it as I wish.  Today's prompt comes from writer and mental health advocate, Kate Speer.

Prompt:  Start at the beginning. Catalog all the difficult moments you have survived, from little things to the big things. Write about how you worked your way through adversity, and how even if it doesn’t feel like it, you’re still charting that course forward.

---

You've used the bathroom, you're settled in comfortably with a blanket, some popcorn, a strong tall glass of something?  You really want the whole back catalog of all the ways I've suffered?  It's been a long and illustrious career thus far...sure we can't just stick to the greatest hits?

Alright, cool.  And I'm warning you, even my greatest hits are...underwhelming.  They feel monumental to me, sure, but it's all relative.  In the grand scheme of things, they never even made it onto the charts.  I've never known hunger or homelessness, I've never been abused, never been seriously ill.  Sure, my dad's dead and he was a drunk while he was alive.  I've broken some bones, I've struggled to find employment.  I've been chronically socially awkward, forever, which creates all sorts of problems, both real and imagined.  

The key to surviving these and other calamities?  To quote the great Kurt Russell in his iconic role as Captain Ron, "I've always been a fast healer.  'Course, I believe in Jesus, so that helps."  Except replace Jesus with Jokes or Flat Out Denial.  They're interchangeable, and both work wonders.  Is it emotionally healthy in the long run?  Probably not.  But they've been there since the beginning and they've gotten me this far.

Saturday, May 23, 2020

The Isolation Journals - Day 53

Schoooooool's out, for the summer.  Schooooool's out, forever!  Has never had more of a possible edge of truth to it.  What will happen in August?  Shrug emoji.



Prompt:  Write a variation on “This Is Just to Say” by William Carlos Williams. It could be a parody of an apology, or an homage to the everyday messiness that we often convey through to-do lists or passive-aggressive notes left on the kitchen table. Make it short, and make it snappy, and make it sweet.


THIS IS JUST TO SAY 

by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold


---

I'm Not Saying, I'm Just Saying


I have secreted
the empties
that you placed
in the sink

Which you must 
have been saving
for posterity
or utility

Find them
in your sock drawer
or placed back
in the sixpack

Friday, May 22, 2020

The Isolation Journals - Day 52

Today is the last day of the school year.  It's kind of an anti-climax.  That's kind of an understatement.  I'm glad I fleshed out and realized an elaborate Docket of Shit to Do last summer, because this summer is going to be...unprecedented.  Is that another word we can feel free to toss on top of the dumpster fire and never use again?

Today's prompt is from author, memoirist, and podcaster Carvell Wallace.

Backwards Garfield hates Fridays


Prompt:  Imagine you are able to speak to someone in your community, family, or lineage, even after you have passed on from this earthly plane. It is a person who was born after you were gone, so you do not know them personally. But they are able to find the message you have left behind. What would you say to them? What things do you want them to know about you, about this moment we are in, and perhaps about life and time as a whole?

---

Hi there!

If you're reading this message in a bottle, congratulations and I'm sorry.  Congratulations are in order to you and your ancestors for surviving whatever calamities I can't foresee, but I just know are coming.  And I'm sorry for the ways I and others of my generation failed to turn the ship around.  

I'm tossing this bottle into the Atlantic Ocean, this bottle that once contained hand sanitizer produced by a local vodka distillery (don't ask).  And I have a feeling this bottle will find you one day on the sunny shores of The Republic of Kansas.  If that's the case, there's a lot you might have missed, but the long and short of it is that much of what used to be the United States is now underwater, and I bear some responsibility for that.

I just want you to know that we tried.  We tried so hard.  We took public transit when it was convenient.  We recycled when we remembered.  We brought our own bags, until they told us to stop, which was confusing.  We composted for a week until it got too stinky.  We forwarded the articles, we shared the memes.  We clung to what felt normal and tried our hardest not to change at all.

But hey, maybe things still worked out for you, and I can stuff my sorries in a sack.  Maybe you're laying on a beach on the East Coast, where it always was, getting just a little sunburned, like we always did.  Or maybe, in the intervening years, we got the hang of automation, really did it right, and everyone, truly every human, is living a life of leisure.  Maybe this bottle drifted up alongside your yacht.  Maybe that's the vibe in the future.  

Look, I don't know your life, but if you studied history (Did you?  Is that still a thing?), I suspect that you know mine.  Not mine, specifically, I'm nobody.  Mine collectively.  Our life.  Our time.  And so you know all the ways we screwed up.  You also know things I can't know.  Ways we've yet to screw up.  Ways we still have a chance to get it right.  

Listen to me.  Learn from our mistakes.  Hug your loved ones, if you can.  Appreciate the little things.  Whether it's the gentle way your robot butler applies SPF 900 sunscreen to your back as you lounge on your yacht, or the joy of finding a non-radioactive jellyfish to roast and share with your apocalypse colony.  Cherish those moments, for you are alive and you are trying, and that's the best any of us can ever do.

Thursday, May 21, 2020

The Isolation Journals - Day 51

We're deep in our feelings this morning, and as usual, the pinnacle of my feelings, as you will see, is triangular and coated in cheese.  Spoiler alert:  It's Pizza.

Today's prompt comes from a fellow journaler and illustrator, Sky Banyes.

Prompt:  Write a “to-feel” list. Start by naming your deepest yearnings and aspirations. Then take a moment to reflect on each—to study your own feeling compass, teasing out the nuances of what each contains with more depth and specificity. You can make your list as a row or column, or lay them out in a fluffy brainstorming cloud. Feel free to use colors and to get creative.

Now, take a look at your list. Are your priorities, habits, and rituals serving these feelings? What steps can you take to honor the items on your “to-feel” list?

---


Docket of Shit to Feel


Wes-low's Hierachy


Pizza

Confident

Inspired  /  Curious

the edge of Comfort and Discomfort -
where growth HAPPENS

calm  /  APPRECIATED  /  warm

TO UNDERSTAND  /  TO BE UNDERSTOOD

Wednesday, May 20, 2020

The Isolation Journals - Day 50

Day 50!  The real and true halfway point of this now 100 day project.  Reaching day 15 felt monumental when that was the original halfway point, but now this is a deeply ingrained habit.  I hope when we are cut loose to fend for ourselves and the world tiptoes back into a slightly more urgent routine, that I continue to make space in my day for writing.  Having some structure and sense of accountability helps, but so does having no plans whatsoever for the foreseeable future so who knows.

Prompt:  Imagine you’re not home (already a leap) and a friend you don’t know well is staying in your house. This friend looks around at all your framed photos and trinkets and coffee table books but they stop at one object and can’t figure out why it’s on display. Maybe it’s a strange drawing or a plastic piece of fruit or a coaster with Elvis’s face on it. Write a little narrative essay explaining the backstory of this item and why it has meaning for you.

---



Just this morning I pointed to the still and said to Andy, "We've missed a real opportunity.  We could have been making small-batch hand sanitizer this whole time."

Visitors to our apartment might gaze upon the miniature copper still displayed on the bottom shelf of the side table Andy built.  "Y'all moonshiners?  What does this make, a shot at a time?" they might ask.  Actually, no one has ever asked.  We didn't have a lot of visitors even before COVID.

But it is rather unusual.  In fact, I'm not even entirely clear on why we have it.  The story, as I understand it, is this: 

A couple Christmases back, my step-dad got a little baked and started paging through the Hammacher Schlemmer catalog, as one does.  He ordered, among other things, a set of tilted wineglasses designed to fool with a drunk person's equilibrium, and a miniature copper still.  The still was meant to be a gift for my mom, whether for some kind of essential oil distilling hobby or just as an objet d'art, I cannot say.  At any rate, Chuck paid for one still, but due to a warehouse error, received two.  For some reason, the fine folks at Hammacher Schlemmer didn't seem to want the superfluous item returned to them.  Thus, Andy and I became the proud owners of this curious object of questionable provenance.

And now, I'm kicking myself.  Had it occurred to me two months ago to actually (figure out how to) use the still, I could have been a local hero!  Instead, it sits, shiny and dormant, full of untapped potential - a metaphor for our times:  Still.

Tuesday, May 19, 2020

The Isolation Journals - Day 49

We're sticking with the topic of home today, and today's entry is sweet.  Just not in the way you'd expect.  Maybe a little too sweet.  So I just want to preface by saying my oral health is excellent. 

I actually went to the dentist yesterday, which was strange on multiple levels.  Weird to interact with another human, let alone be touched by them, weird that all the topics of small talk with the hygienist were off the table.  Did I have a good weekend?  How the hell should I know?  What is weekend?  Any plans for the summer?  Well, sure but I guarantee you don't want to hear about my plans to maintain a mundane daily routine and perform the mental gymnastics necessary to convince myself there's a point to life.  Just scrape that plaque and get on with it.

Prompt:  Think about a memory attached to a specific room in your childhood home. Write about the feelings and/or lessons you extracted from it that anchor you even in the present day.

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There's a room in my grandmother's rambling 1800s farmhouse that we call The Pool Room.  The walls are paneled in wood planks that were salvaged from an old barn when the house was relocated and renovated in the early 1960s.  There's an out-of-tune piano in one corner, two faux-leather recliners, a set of the 1966 edition of the Encyclopedia Americana on the mustard-colored built-in bookshelves.  A couch, a TV.  And, naturally, a pool table.  

The pool table's massive bulk dominates the room, which truly isn't quite large enough for the billiards table to be functional as such.  One must get creative to finish a game of 8-ball without causing property damage with the back end of a cue.  Given that, the pool table has served many alternative purposes over the years - building LEGO cities, doing puzzles, wrapping gifts, and hiding evidence.

Like any self-respecting grandmother, mine kept a candy dish fully stocked at all times.  But Iowa did not play.  This was not your bush league hard candy that every woman of a certain age is required to keep moldering in the bottom of her purse.  None of that Werther's Original nonsense.  This was the good stuff.  Hershey's Kisses.  Reese's Cups.  Sometimes even fun-size Fifth Avenue bars.

The pewter candy bowl lived on the dining room hutch cabinet.  One had to pass through the dining room , and thus, the candy, to get to the pool room.  It was unavoidable.  It was irresistible.

I spent a massive amount of my childhood on the couch in the pool room, watching Saved by the Bell, all the TGIF shows, and also a bunch of shows a kid had no business watching, like Oprah and Seinfeld.  The amount of candy I put away during that time is, in retrospect, truly horrifying.  My teeth hurt just thinking about it.  Even at the time, I knew I was doing something wrong.  Not from a perspective of body shame or nutrition.  I just knew I was being greedy, I was being sneaky, and I was 100% ruining my appetite for dinner.  I could not get caught.  

So I did what any kid would do.  I hid the evidence, and I hid it poorly.  If I would have tried to dispose of my trash like a normal human, I would have risked exposure on my journey through the dining room and into the kitchen with an alarming fistful of candy wrappers.  So I'd ball them up individually and stuff them into the pockets of the pool table, where they would, I dunno, disappear?  I did this for years, imagining the table's insides mimicking my own, full to bursting with the detritus of my candy binges.

The ruse was successful.  I thought I was pulling it off, until the fateful day when one of my younger cousins crawled under the pool table, which, it turns out, was mostly hollow.  He surfaced, fists full of ancient artifacts like some kind of triumphant archaeologist.  The jig was up.

Was there a lesson to be learned from this naked exposure of my dietary indiscretions?  Sure, there were plenty.  Don't be greedy, don't be a sneak, don't be a glutton, find better hiding spots, your cousin is a narc, etc.  Did I learn any of the right ones?  Probably not, but I did start putting my candy wrappers in the trash.







Monday, May 18, 2020

The Isolation Journals - Day 48, Redux

Coming in hot with the real prompt, from writer Judith Hannan,

Prompt:  Write about a time when you felt a shift in your relationship to your home. This could be your present home, your childhood home, or a temporary shelter. Think not only about the physical structure but the people there with you, or those who are not. Was there an event that led to this shift, like a major life change or extended time away? How do you feel about home now? Are there any revisions you’d like to make to how you define home?

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What is home?  Is it a place, an idea?  Is it where you get your mail, where you keep your stuff, or who is there with you?  What if you have a PO box, a storage unit, and terrible roommates?  What then?  Does the definition change?  Does home change?  Was Thomas Wolfe full of crap?  Can you go home again?

For most of my life, home was my grandmother's house.  It was Mom, Grandmom, Boomer, and me.  It was New Jersey.  I started college in 2003, and pausing to enumerate all the transitions in my domicile since then will make your head spin.  Two different universities, 6 or 7 different dorms or apartments, a summer spent working down the shore, a couple others making up credits and working in the library on campus.  

After graduation, I moved back "home" for a few short months, until my mom moved.  Just a few minutes down the road, but I (and all my stuff) moved with her.  Home.  Is it Mom, Linus, and me this time?  New house, new dog, and what about Grandmom?  Can more than one place be home?

A few months later, I moved out.  It was a rash decision at the time, moving in with a new boyfriend, but I think our twelve year relationship going on ten year marriage puts to bed the grotesque hypothetical, "why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?"  Since that first apartment, if you were to plot all our moves on a map with push pins and red string, you'd have yourself a murder wall.  New Jersey -> Idaho -> New Jersey -> Utah -> different house in Utah -> South Carolina -> different house in South Carolina -> Nashville.  

For those of you keeping score, that's 8 different addresses and 4 cross-country moves.  Now, whenever I live in a place for longer than 6 months, I don't get a notice from USPS about my mail forwarding service ending, I get a knock from the police.  "Hello, ma'am, the Postmaster General sent us out to do a wellness check, it's been a while since you requested an address change and they're worried you might be dead."

Throughout all that, "home" was relative.  Home with a capital H was always New Jersey.  Mom.  Grandmom.  Home with a lowercase h was where Andy and I woke up every day and went to work, where we returned after vacations and unpacked our suitcases.  But Home, the proper noun, grew and expanded - it came to be Andy and Ajax and me.  Then also Hadley, then Charlie.  Home was either, or both.  But now Ajax is gone, and my mom and stepdad are leaving New Jersey, and these new changes have thrown my definition of home into another state of flux.  In another twist, Mom and Chuck are moving to South Carolina.  A place that, when I left, I swear I heard whisper, "Don't let the door hit you in the ass on your way out...bless your heart."  And the feeling was mutual.  And yet, here we are.  

So, what is home, you ask.  I'll answer that with a question.  How much time do you have?

My mom sent me this drawing from college today while she was packing.  It's home?  

The Isolation Journals - Day 48

The one where we invoke the 15 minute rule when the professor doesn't show up?



Please stand by.

The prompt came late today.  In the meantime, I wrote something on my own, like the consummate brown-noser.  The response to the real prompt will follow later today in a bonus post.

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Today the training wheels come off.  It appears no one has received the writing prompt.  There is comfort in knowing we are all feeling rudderless and adrift, separately, together.  No FOMO here.  I've come to rely on this practice so heavily, and I sincerely enjoy making it a mandatory part of my daily routine.  

I wouldn't dream of bailing, skipping out on today's practice just because we weren't given explicit instructions.  I wouldn't dare invoke the 15-minute rule just because the prof didn't show.

I'm reminded of an incident that happened in the 2nd semester of my freshman year at UArts.  My foundation section had a 3-D design class in the morning, which is a difficult time to be alive when you're 18 or 19.  The 1st semester, our instructor was, to us, brilliant.  To our dismay, he left and was replaced in the 2nd semester by this poor schmuck who clearly had the best of intentions but did not know his ass from a hole in the ground, a deficiency that bodes especially poorly for a class that focuses on spatial understanding.  He spent most of each class regaling us with stories of smoking pot in a fire tower in the Pine Barrens, and not teaching us much of anything other than how to run from the cops without getting murdered by Pineys.  

One morning, all the students convened, draping our hungover bodies across the cool metal studio tables.  We waited for the instructor, and waited, and watched the minutes of our morning slip by.  "You guys know about the 15-minute rule?" someone asked.  "If the instructor doesn't show in 15 minutes, it's cool to leave.  They can't mark you absent."

So at 9:15 on the very dot, we pushed back our stools, metal scraping against concrete, and walked out.  As we trudged in a herd towards the bank of elevators, we crossed paths with our instructor. He was clutching an armload of Krispy Kreme boxes, the still-warm donuts perfuming the hall.  His big dopey grin inverted to a drooping slash, disappointment and hurt painted plainly on his face.  

I'd like to say with full confidence that I turned around and went back to class, not for the donut but because I was moved by the sheer pathos of the situation.  Honestly, though, I can't remember whether I turned around at all.  




Sunday, May 17, 2020

Syllabus #53

Hi, guess what?  Today is the Twelve Year Anniversary of Andy's and my first date.  It was a day date, because I already had plans to go to my Aunt Louise's surprise 80th birthday that evening.  Which means it's also Louise's 92nd birthday and that old gal is kickin' up her heels in Idaho, being a delightful human being, as ever.  HBD, Weezer, not that you'll ever read this (good lord, can you imagine).  Anyway, for our date, we drove to Atlantic City and went to the Ripley's Museum and gaped at bodily oddities.   Then we popped into the Irish Pub for a late lunch, where we were treated to a bonus round of the exploitation of human bodily diversity - the host was an actual little person dressed in a leprechaun costume and to this day I'm still not sure where to place that on a scale from 1 to we're all going to hell.

Here's a picture I like but did not take recently, because I miss places.  This one is Quito.

You get the format of these posts by now, right?  Do I need to tell you it's some stuff I collected from the internet over the past week?  I respect you.  You'll figure it out.  Trust your instinct.

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Why are women-led nations faring better with COVID-19?  I dunno, but here's a thought!  Who would you rather have taking care of you when you're sick?  Mom or Dad?  If I so much as sneeze, my mom is fluffing pillows and making soup and ransacking the medicine cabinet for the expired Robitussin or whatever.  I don't know what my dad would have done if he had ever had to take care of me - he'd probably just go to the store to buy some "medicine" and surface eight days later after a massive bender. 


This looks like dog food but I can't wait to try it.  We used to treat ourselves to Jeni's more weekends than not, but lately all I've been able to do is jog past their storefront and stare longingly inside the vacant windows.  I would make a comment about the caloric tradeoff of jogging past Jeni's versus scarfing down Jeni's, but fuck that noise.


It's totally okay to hate Zooming, but is it also okay to kind of like living in a little cocoon and dread having to go out again?


Yes, Jerry Stiller, we all wanted a piece of you.  Festivus will never be the same without you.  Rest in peace.


Yes, open streets, please.  Cars can GTFO.


How The Insufferable Half Lives:  “We decided maybe we shouldn’t have the ocean in the background,” Ms. LeCrone said. “We’re trying to be sensitive.”  So petty.  Also, I don't even wanna know what 'bush tea' is.  


Watching:

A new friend from the facebook group for The Isolation Journals told me I should watch I'm Sorry on Netflix because my sense of humor is similar to the show creator/main character.  That was obviously very flattering and intriguing, so of course I checked it out.  It seems like Andrea Savage is Future Me, drinkin' beer with the guys and talking a whole lot about butt stuff.  It's weird to be so accurately seen by a virtual stranger on the internet, but she was not wrong!  Thanks for the tip!

Analog Reading:

Finished The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehesi Coates.  It was a slow read for me, but not out of any dislike for the book.  My reactions are inarticulate and do not do the book justice.  Whoa, wow, I can't believe that was his first novel, etc.  As I said last week, it was heavy.  Obviously any book written from or about the perspective of an enslaved person deserves all the weight and space it occupies on our bookshelves and in our minds.  But also, narrator was somewhat of a cipher, and I always felt like he was holding things back from the reader.  I suppose that was largely intentional, as he was holding things back from himself, as well.  It was a book to experience slowly and deliberately.

Now I'm on to lighter fare - Kevin Wilson's story collection, Tunneling to the Center of the Earth.  He has a brilliant sense of the absurd and a knack for writing darkly funny, nihilistic characters.  I'm very into it.  Also, the titular story reminds me so much of Mac Barnett's children's book, Sam and Dave Dig a Hole.  Wilson's version came first, and I'd love to know if it was a source of inspiration.