Annals of Libtard Life

It’s a confusing time for your white American woman of a certain age and class (somewhere in the upper middle, anxiously hanging on.) Here are some things running through my mind in this particular time. 

My next door neighbor is weed-wacking my across-the-street neighbor’s yard, as I walk towards home with the labradoodle Milo. It’s a bazillion degrees out and two bazillion percent humidity, and honey, I moved north to escape this kind of semi-tropical shit I grew up with in Washington, DC. And here it is. 

Will my next-door neighbor weed-wack my yard next? I almost hope so, because I sure as hell won’t, but also I fear it; even as I know that if he doesn’t, it will only be because he has forebearance, and not because our yard is weed free. In particular, the patch that runs between my house and his is a riot, and I feel terribly guilty not weeding it. I fully intend to weed it. I could do it, a few minutes a day, but we’re in the middle of a heat spell. I realize this hasn’t stopped my neighbor from putting on his straw fedora and sweating through his t-shirt, but it has stopped me.

There are some recent asylum-seeking immigrants detained at the Albany County Jail, and some may be children and all should not be in a prison or jail and I’m beside myself. 

Also, I looked at my knees today. That was a mistake. I wore a skort to work out at the gym and there they were, my knees, looking exactly their age. 

We are supposed to wear white to protest the detainees and #familyseparationpolicy. My white jeans are shot, and also too heavy to wear in the heat. So, am I supposed to go shopping before I protest? Or can I wear another color? 

Trump may be re-elected and this is so upsetting that I want to leave the country. This gives me a deeper insight into the bravery of all those who do leave their known environments and I wonder if I have what it takes. I think working out is probably a good idea, in case we need to walk to Canada and leave our things behind. In Canada, temperatures will be favorable for pants most of the year, which will be a plus. (Knees.)

The highlights in my hair are a little too streaky and stripey and I worry that it looks awful and fake. You don’t really want people commenting, Oh, I like your hair color. You just want them to say, You look great. Did you do something? So then you can say, Oh, no, it’s just a good night’s sleep is all. 

I bought a book called How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tricks For Big Success in Relationships. I immediately flipped to number 92, of course, and now I’m encouraging people to gravitate towards me by showing them my wrists, the soft undersides of them, and palms, never my knuckles. Wrists and palms. I don’t really get it, but I suppose showing wrists and palms denotes openness, a subliminal message of willingness to embrace. Perhaps not literally, but perhaps literally. 

We have a RESIST HOPE LOVE CHANGE yard sign in our yard. Our neighbors down the block, a widower with twin daughters and his new wife just put in a really serious sign: Martin Niemöller 

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—

Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— 

Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— 

Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Interesting tidbit about this quotation, which has been modified over the years to start with Muslims and Communists and other groups. Niemöller was calling out those Germans complicit through inaction in the mistreatment of others, but he was an anti-semite until the war.

So the good news is that people can change their attitudes, or at least counter them with appropriate behavior. The bad news is it took ovens and six million deaths of mostly Jews, with a bunch of Catholics and homosexuals and others thrown in, to change his mind. 

The college student is in Rome for the weekend and I want to be in Europe. She’ll be returning to her internship at CERN via overnight bus, which sounds like hell. I really want to be in Europe but we bought a bed instead. I guess that was optimistic: sleep might actually be a possibility, and it will be hard to carry across the border. (More pushups?)

Another neighbor slash friend told me that the family on the main road by us who has a sign saying in English, Spanish, Arabic, and something else I don’t recognize that all are welcome had their mailbox demolished twice. This is scary. 

Someone has chomped off the tops of all my turtlehead and now the back garden is destroyed. I know it’s not the bunnies, who have nibbled everything at ankle-level. I know who it is. The deer. Very annoying. On the plus side, I saw an opossum in the yard, which means fewer ticks. 

Someone spray-painted anti-semitic graffiti on a building near the rail trail in town. The town supervisor went out and painted over it himself. That was, you know, very nice of him, but really brought the tenor of the times into my bones with a chill. 

There is a lot of upset and confusion around, but my daily concerns continue unabated. Why do I have ridges on my nails? I forgot to ask my docter at my annual physical, so I asked Mo, who was giving me my summer pedicure. Is it some sort of vitamin deficiency? I hate to say it, said Mo, But it’s just, you know, getting older. Oh, I said. Just part of the whole drying up and turning into a dessicated locust shell called aging? Yeah, she said. 

So that’s great. Another thing to work on accepting. Some things you just have to accept, otherwise you make yourself miserable. 

Some things you should never accept, though. The other day, the Fourth of July, to be exact, the husband and I made a sign and went to stand on a street corner with about a dozen other people. Women, of course, as this political movement has fallen under the umbrella of women’s work, for the most part, the husband excepted on this day. Keep Families Together. Families Belong Together. It’s Not Illegal to Seek Asylum. And ours, Make America Humane Again. People mostly honked and waved and gave us friendly hoots as they drove by. Thumbs ups were common and heartening. There were the one or two cars full of white men in caps who yelled at us that we were losers and should go home. We kept standing. Some of the other women yelled back at the naysayers. We all waved at the supporters. In between chatting with a mom in her 60s and her two daughters, who were up from the city, I thought about who might argue with the word “again” on our sign. Idle thoughts about getting gunned down presented themselves. Happy Fourth of July in America the beautiful. 

I’ve taken out books from the library on developing charisma, conversational skills, and making people like me. I can’t help think there is some connection between the political situation and my curiousity. I’m hoping that this represents that ever-wise Stephen Covey habit of focusing on my circle of influence. It might just be an all-too-human tendency towards self-centeredness. I turn my wrists and palms upward and outward, hoping to draw something to me that will give answers. 

Cool the Hot, Heat the Cool: Successful Self-Control

So, with thoughts of riots in Baltimore and conflicting reports of how they started and who was doing what violent and out of control thing, let me return to good old white guy Walter Mischel and his book The Marshmallow Test.

The test, as I have mentioned before, became misconstrued in the popular news as a definitive test. That is, people assumed that if a four-year-old could delay gratification long enough to win two marshmallows instead of one, that determined something fundamental about their self-control. The assumption was that self-control was of a fixed nature, probably genetically determined. Reams of anxiety built up around this question of delaying long enough to get into Harvard versus turning out to be a total wastrel – or perhaps, “thug,” a word that is getting much attention these days.

But it was not so. Mischel devoted his life to studying this marshmallow effect in various permutations, and he realized early on that self-control is something that can develop. It is not fixed. (Shades of good old Carol Dweck, one of his colleagues) And therefore, it can be taught. Self-control depends on executive function, and executive function can be developed. In short, Mischel learned that it is never too late to build up self-control.

So. While some four year olds might have an advantage with a marshmallow, that advantage might be more about being raised in an environment that is safe, consistent, and leads the child to trust the adult who says, this thing looks pretty good, but if you wait a while, you can have something even better. Children raised in middle class or higher homes, for the most part. Children raised in much more stressful and unsteady environments have a much harder time, not because there is something intrinsically less developed about their brains, but because their brains are overtrained to react quickly. Why is this?  

Psychologists talk about the brain having two systems. System 1 is impulsive (hot) and System 2 is more rational (cool). System 1 is related to that good old lizard brain, the part of the brain keyed to survival. The fight or flight system of arousal is part of System 1. System 1 is very attuned to stress, and stress, what Mischel calls “toxic stress”, is rampant amongst, for example, poor black children from violent neighborhoods….Remind you of anything in the news lately? These kids might just have a bit more trouble understanding that the adult who promises two marshmallows later is actually going to deliver. For these kids, it makes much more sense to just go for that one marshmallow that exists right now.

The fundamental principal of self-control is “cool the now, heat the later.” So cool the now, heat the later means to cool down System 1 long enough that System 2 can activate. This is difficult, because the hot system is all about now. Gimme now. Me want cookie. We tend to discount rewards that are delayed, even if we know, rationally, that they are good for us. Like going to the gym. We know without doubt that the future rewards of going to the gym are great – better health. But overcoming the immediate reward of relaxing, or not putting all the sweat and effort into your day, make the future reward seem much smaller than it actually is. Self-control is about reversing our natural tendency to make the later reward seem more appealing. It’s about using our Executive Function to help us make choices, rather than acting on impulse.

So how do you cool the now and heat the later? You have to exercise that Prefrontal Cortex and develop Executive Function. In general, relieving stress helps. So, you know, providing for the basic needs of every human would go a long way toward setting up people for success. For those already provided basic needs, reducing stress through exercise, solid supportive relationships, and – wait for it, even 84-year-old white guy Walter Mischel advocates this – meditation and mindfulness. Also therapy helps.

There are also specific strategies that build self-control.

• Distraction. (If I don’t look at the cookies, they won’t tempt me.)

• If-Then Implementation Plans. (If I am polite to others, then they will be polite to me.) (Usually.)

• Precommitment strategy. This is related to If-Then plans. (To help you quit smoking, you promise someone that if you smoke a cigarette, they will automatically send a check to a cause you despise – say, the NRA).

• Cognitive Reappraisal (That drink may seem like a treat, but imagine what it’s doing to your liver – picture yourself with end-stage cirrhosis, and it won’t seem like such good idea.)

If all these strategies seem draconian, and you’d just like to eat a damn marshmallow, I leave you with this:

 …. A life lived with too much delay of gratification can be as sad as one without enough of it. The biggest challenge for all of us – not just for the child – may be to figure out when to wait for more marshmallows and when to ring the bell and enjoy them. But unless we learn to develop the ability to wait, we don’t have that choice.
                                                - Walter Mischel, The Marshmallow Test.

System Breakdown is Part of the System

The other day I went on the treadmill with my old friend Kimberly the StarTrac coach, and even

Milo with part of my Container Store score

though I’ve been jogging outside, the treadmill whipped me. That is pretty pitiful, since people say the treadmill is easier than running outside.

Since everyone including me knows sports function allegorically, I left the gym feeling not only exhausted, but depressed. I had a realization on the treadmill - a realization being de rigeur if sport is to function allegorically. (Did you note my use of the Britishism “sport” rather than the American “sports”? It’s because I’ve been reading the marvelous Old Filth by Jane Gardam and I have the voice of an 80-ish English gentleman judge in my head.)

Anyway, my realization was that I don’t push myself enough. I need a coach. I need hand-holding. I need a team. Something to make me work harder, because left on my own, my default is to work under my capacity. If I had that drive to overachieve, then my runs outside with music would definitely have gotten me into better shape and the StarTrac treadmill lady whatsername wouldn’tve whipped my double melons.

The above isn’t really allegorical yet, since I’m only talking about my approach to sports up there; but the approach seems to apply to other parts of my life as well. Take my book. Because I’m waiting to be pronounced upon, I have pages and pages of drafts, but no final draft. Sidling, Readers. I’m sidling towards my goal instead of running full on towards it. The obvious downside to this approach is that if I don’t have pages to send, I am not going to get this book out there, so I need to make those pages.

Maybe I’m being too self-critical. That would be a first, huh?

Let’s pull back and get a little persective, shall we? In fact, with the help of a friend, I pulled together my proposal, and now a couple agents have it. A couple have passed on it. But a couple still have it. And I know that if they’re interested in the proposal, the next thing that they’ll want to see is the actual book, or at least a chapter or two of it.

This is the glitch. People can and do help with many aspects of my work, but one I have to manage alone is waiting. That is what I’m doing poorly. Waiting to hear from agents. Waiting to be pronounced upon. I am a terrible waiter. When I’m waiting to be pronounced upon, everything else breaks down, too.

While I’m waiting to hear from agents, my brain is skewing negative, not positive. My brain is saying, Hope, you haven’t heard from these agents, which is probably a bad sign. This makes me feel like writing the book is futile. Therefore, I avoid it.

However, I could skew towards optimism. I mean, people do. I love those people. I wish optimism came more naturally to me, but I’m a Jew whose mother died, so I expect abandonment and rejection. I could say, Hope, no news is good news, and you might as well get your first chapter ready, so that when an agent wants to see it, you can send it right off to her. I could say, Hope, maybe this batch of agents will say no, but if so, you’ll fix your proposal and sent it out to another batch, and then you’ll need to have that chapter ready to go, so get to work.

Apparently I have that voice inside me, too, only she goes dormant when I’m waiting to be pronounced upon from on high. That voice waits, and then the writing waits, and then because the writing is dormant, I’m not doing what I want to be doing. This makes me cranky, and is the time I start thinking that the husband should get a different job, or a raise, or we should move, or I can’t stand to see one more hair elastic used as a bookmark. Pretty soon everyone but the dog is avoiding me.

Recently a writer friend sent me an article by Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert comics, titled “Scott Adams’ Secret of Success: Failure.” Scott Adams has a brand spanking new book out called “How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big.” In my broken down state, I remembered I’d tucked the article away a couple of weeks ago when I had to clear off the dining room table for a dinner party. The secret to success, according to Scott, has two elements: One, know that you will encounter a long string of failures; and two, “one should have a system instead of a goal.” That means that if your current goal or project fails, you have a larger view. You learn from your mistake, and take another longshot. That way, success depends not on attaining a particular goal, but on continuing to take risks and set new goals; meanwhile you’re getting “smarter, more talented, better networked, healthier, and more energized.”

Interesting, don’t you think? A system. Well, I do have a system of sorts. It involves writing, blogging, attending monthly writers’ lunches, a monthly goal checking conference call, exercise, meditation, reading, refueling. It also includes temporary breakdowns. Those are hard to see for what they are: part of the system, not total collapse. So if I’ve contradicted myself here, it’s all part of the system. When things get cludgy, I get down on myself. Optimism idles. Optimism idles, but it’s there. In fact, part of what I get down on myself about in these periods of idleness is that I won’t give up and pick something more practical and lucrative to do with my time.

So how to get restarted? Well, there’s usually a brief wallow in misery, followed by a cry for help, and a little shopping. I finally ordered the things from the Container Store that have been on my list for three years. Then there’s Kimberly the StarTrac coach. Once I get moving again, it’s not too long before the whole jalopy’s rumbling down the road.

Other People's Successes - & Bayonets of Hate

Readers, I have finished Bruce Feiler’s book, The Secrets of Happy Families, and I have things to say about it. I want to write, for example, about our foray into one of his suggestions: the family meeting. But before I do, I have a compulsion to tell you something terrible about myself. Here’s why. See, to tell you about the family meeting involves mentioning an awards ceremony for one of my children. As I’ve discovered, the slightest mention of anything about one’s children’s possible accomplishments, no matter how slight, puts you out there in front of the bayonets of insecure parents who want to immediately kill you for bragging, even if it’s only the most incidental kind of mention of anything about your child, even if it’s the humblest. You’re a braggart and jerk and deserve to be beheaded and for all your spawn to grow warts on all their visible epidermises (epidermi?), or you’re even worse – a humble-bragger, begging for notice while seeming not to and therefore deserving of none but contempt. Which is a problem if you want to actually get across a message of some kind. Why not just leave out the bit about the award/event, you ask? Well, that would be fine, except in this case, the occasion for the meeting depended on it. In other words, if I talked about calling our first family meeting without mentioning this event, then I’d have omitted the reason AND the content of the meeting, which would make for a pretty short and meaningless blog post.

So the thing is, before you get all bayonet-y at me, let me tell you about how my child didn’t win an honor and how well I handled it. Then you can decide if I deserve that beheading and if my child can go forth wart free into her uncertain future. And I can tell you about our family meeting (in the next post, because this one is already too long.)

Now the reason I know about these bayonet-y tendencies is that I’ve been jabbed by them – certain comments on my Motherlode posts qualify – but I’ve also been guilty of them. On occasion. And for only the very goodest and most understandable reasons; but I have felt some of those feelings I describe above. In fact, I felt them pretty recently.

I think the compulsion to tell you something unflattering about myself is also related to Anne Lamott. You see, Anne Lamott was giving a reading in Troy, and I was planning to go, even though she’s promoting her new book, Help, Thanks, Wow, which is all about prayer, and which might just be a little much for me, the atheist-ish, sometimes agnostic Buddhist Jew. Then I realized that the 5^th grader’s DARE graduation was the same morning, and I thought, Oh crud, I can’t miss the DARE graduation, because DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) is, you know, the kind of program it’s important for a parent to support and for a child to see her parent support.  Since the graduation was at 9:30 in the morning, the husband immediately bowed out, citing some lame excuse about having to attend rounds on patients with strokes.  This left me to represent.

The day before the graduation, the 5^th grader came home from school saying the essays written by four boys and four girls (one of each from each 5^th grade class) had been selected to be read aloud at the graduation (can we please just call it an assembly, for God’s sake? NO? Okay. Crup. Anyway.) By the way, it’s possible that the DARE assembly is called a graduation for the exact same reason I felt compelled to be at it: to make the students feel it was important. It’s also possible the assembly is called a graduation to make the parents feel important, which sort of thing happens, but I think not in this instance. Perhaps it’s called a graduation to make the police feel more important….

Anyhoo,  I had a vague recollection of my child showing me an essay, a few weeks before, and of me suggesting that it could be stronger if she added a little more detail by way of examples or something. That was the last I thought of the essay until a few days before the DARE finale, when I was driving the 5^th grader’s band carpool and the 5^th grader and her friends began talking about the essay. They spent several minutes wildly proclaiming how much they had “sucked up” to Officer Friendly in it, and how much they didn’t care if their essays got picked. They all agreed the whole exercise in writing the essay had been to suck up to Officer Friendly. Of course, I’d thought. Essays would be picked.

So then the 5^th grader came home with this announcement. She was detailed in her reporting of the teacher’s selection of the essays. The teacher had described narrowing the selections down to four girls’ and four boys’, but had been unable to decide among them, so she had mixed them all up and picked at random. The 5^th grader’s essay was not selected. But, she was quick to say, maybe hers had been one of the four among which Mrs. M had been trying to decide.

Readers, I would like to tell you that this didn’t bother me, but I would be lying. It bothered me a little that my child’s essay hadn’t been chosen and that my child would not be up there reading her essay at this graduation that would be keeping me from hearing Anne Lamott. What also bothered me, was how my child rationalized the situation by saying hers could have been one of the finalists. Was this some weird ego-protection device on her part? Or a pre-emptive assuaging of feelings I might not hide as well as I think I do?

As I said, it only bothered me a little. A first. It was just one essay. It was just DARE. What bothered me more was that the 5^th grader had done a pretty half-assed job on the essay, but still thought she might have been chosen. Or hadn’t thought about the long-term effect of doing a half-assed job. She hadn’t been strategic. Neither had I. I thought, my kid should’ve sucked up more. That’s what you’ve gotta do in this life to get noticed. You’ve gotta suck up. You’ve gotta be strategic. And you’ve gotta be whole-assed.

Directly I thought this thought, I became much more bothered by this non-winning. If I didn’t mind that she didn’t get selected, I did mind if other kids did. Certain other kids. Like the 5^th grader’s best friend, who hasn’t been so best friendly to her this year and has delivered one too many put-downs. It might not be so bad that my child hadn’t won; but what if this girl had? What if some of the other girls, who from time to time, had done things like turn their backs on my child at recess (true), won?  I tried to find out from my child who the other winners were, but she showed an annoying lack of knowledge, concern, or interest, so I would have to wait until the morrow.

Natch, the first mother I saw at the graduation was the mom of the 5^th grader’s bestie. She was chatting with Officer Friendly. Sure, I thought, Suck up, suck up. I sat down far away from her. I beamed hate bayonettes at her. Look at her in her yoga pants. So smug.

The first essay, read in a spindly voice by a nondescript girl, provided several details and facts that the 5^th grader’s had not. Next up was a boy. More facts. I began (continued?) to have uncharitable thoughts. Chief among them was involuntarily imagining these kids reading these essays aloud in ten years, whilst a montage of their descents into drug-addled depravity played behind them on a large screen. It was possible that these essays were selected by Officer Friendly and the 5^th grade teachers, not because they were so well written about the positive lessons their authors had learned from DARE, but because these kids needed the whole community of students and parents to bear witness to their promises to never smoke or drink or do other drugs; because, clearly, they were likely to become abusers. So it was actually good, in other words, that my child, had been overlooked.

Let me say, Readers, that I was aware of my state of mind. Envy, insecurity, anger, check, check, check. They were all present, and I knew it. Thanks to mindfulness practice and years of therapy, I was in touch with my mental formations. Helpless before them, but at least aware of that, too.

Now, I’m late posting to my blog this week. In fact, I missed posting last week. Not for lack of subject. I wrote this last week. It’s just been hard to click “publish” on this one; because this essay really makes me look bad. I mean, here I am, searching for a definition of success, and resenting others who have some. I know this is not pretty. Yet I feel compelled to go on. I might as well say it. I think, in my heart, I am no worse than many in my pitiful inability to channel what Oprah might call “My Best Self.”

In conclusion, I must say that the bestie’s class was announced next, so my suspense came to an end. The essay selected was – not the bestie’s. I sagged back into my chair. There was a second of relief. Immediately after the relief, though, came the remorse. I’d done a disservice to the friend, and worse, to her mother, with whom I’ve been quite friendly. It was ugly, people, ugly. I tell it to you now. 

Next week: The Family Meeting....

Climate, Economics, and Plywood

I was all set to write about Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg, but then, OMG, Readers, did you read the New York Times Sunday? The Sunday Review? The Gigantic Lettered article, “Sundown in America” by David Stockman, to be specific? Because I did. And I haven’t emerged from underneath my dining room table yet. I haven’t yet emerged from underneath the slab of plywood perched atop the IKEA table that is my dining room table, to be specific. A slab of plywood, by the way, is perfect seating for twelve. Even fourteen, if your chairs are skinny. So most of the time, it is my desk cum repository of things that need to be returned to mail order catalogs cum missing scissors and books I am reviewing and so on. At Christmastime, though - and I mean Yuletide as only a secular Jew can mean it - the plywood lives up to its full potential. Sometimes at New Year’s Eve, too. But that’s on top of the table. Plywood. And this is April. And I am underneath. Because. Jaysus. Basically, according to President Reagan’s former budget director, the stock market is going to pop, the economy is going to drop, and we really are going to be in Mad Max land, before I even get to trade in my plywood and IKEA contraption for a grown up dining room table.

Did you see that movie “Contagion” about society collapsing in the face of a pandemic caused by Gwyneth Paltrow shaking hands with a famous chef somewhere in China? I did. I probably shouldn’t have, considering that I attempt to live my life without pharmaceutical aids. David Stockman’s article reminded me of that.

I am waiting for Paul Krugman to make me feel better. So you can see where this is going. The dog and I are going to cozy up under here. He doesn’t mind sharing his bed. Because Paul Krugman, while I love him, doesn’t offer much hope. He’s always saying, “Here’s what’s wrong with what Congress is doing, but it’ll be okay if Congress just changes things a wee bit.” Only then Congress doesn’t change, but still there’s the tantalizing possibility of change. However, compared to the obliterating vision of that article in the Sunday Review, Krugman’s just a tiny keylight of reason. Barely visible.

The husband, meanwhile, read the first two paragraphs of David Stockman’s piece and said, “He’s a conservative. I don’t need to bother.” Which is probably a healthier attitude than mine. Less open-minded, let’s be honest, but less likely to cause unrest.

That “Sundown in America” piece isn’t the only thing that’s been bothering me. Last week, returning from my allergy shot, I listened to some éminence grise from Yale about global warming, and when I got out of my gas guzzling vehicle, I couldn’t help but wonder what the point would be of continuing to examine success, when the planet is going to fail. This professor from ole Elay told the nice public radio host that only 16 percent of Americans are concerned and ready and willing to help avert climate disaster. 25 percent of us are concerned, but think the problem is sometime in the future no rush no bother we’ll figure it out eventually. Meanwhile, according to the professor, all reputable scientists agree that global warming is happening, and that while in the past, warming periods have happened spontaneously, this one is a result of human behavior. So why do we waste time arguing about the science, when the science has been proven?

Well, because 8 percent of us are climate change deniers. A very loud 8 percent. A politically active 8 percent, many of whom have ties to the petroleum industry. A small, vocal minority hijaking politics while the majority of us write blogs. Sounds distressingly like every other issue important to me. Guns. Reproductive rights. Equal pay. Marriage equality.

Splurggggghhhhhh. (Noise of despair discouragement face planted in dog’s bed.)

Then I thought, well, okay. I will say my piece. I want to try to make the planet healthy. I want to make the economy better. I am even entertaining strange thoughts about getting politically involved. Which  would really be a disaster, since I am decidedly lacking in politesse, or tact, or strategic thinking skills.

And then I thought, well, okay. I’m in the 16 percent, and I will do what I can. But also, in the meantime, I should continue my inquiries into success, which is really an examination of how I think it best to live. After all, what are we going to do? Totally give up? Meals still need to be made. The children still need teaching. They are our only hope. This is not so much fiddling while Rome burns as it is being part of the band playing while the Titanic sinks. A little bit futile, a little bit foolish, a little bit noble. Making art of life, knowing it’s going to end, but still hoping to see that rescue ship pulling up alongside at the last moment.

So if I’ve been silent on the blog for a while, that’s why, in part. Also, I’ve been reading Sheryl Sandberg’s book. And I will comment on that next. Promise. 

One of These Days I'll Be Proactive

Neighbors

A family finally moved into the house across the street. The previous owner was a single guy who bought the house two years ago, planning to marry someone with kids. Those plans fell through. The result was a poorly kept yard with a statue of St. Francis that bothered me more than I like to admit, and a mostly empty house that took a long time to sell. Now, there are kids, one in 5^th grade like my 5^th grader, and one younger, and the parents are about my age. Knowing how miserable I felt when I moved here, I baked some blondies with the kids and brought them over to them when they moved in. Then, the first day of school, when the mom, let’s call her Lulu, cried when her children boarded the bus, I  invited her over for tea. I felt all “I did a mitzvah” for inviting her, while also thinking that I didn't want to be too friendly. Because. Uh. Because maybe being friends with the neighbor across the street is just too "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and could get awkward.