Light and Momentary

Things I read while mostly holed up in my bedroom

Today is the tenth day since I developed COVID symptoms, and even though I am only 75% of the way through it I am eating dinner with the family like a rebel. 

I have been thinking so many thoughts about Friday's decision and the reactions to it, but none of those thoughts are ready to be aired at this point. So instead I am going to tell you about the books I read in isolation. (As usual, these are affiliate links.)

COVID book #1: Under Heaven. One summer when Joe was looking around for something to read, I suggested Tigana. He loved it, and then he and Pete got way, way into Guy Gavriel Kay. They've both been telling me for a while that I should read more Kay. I had bought Under Heaven during a Kindle sale, and last Sunday after my positive COVID test I was grateful for a different world in which to immerse myself. I enjoyed it -- enjoyed the characters and their relationships and following the imperial machinations. Last Sunday I was chatting about it with Joe via text and I said: "It's probably hard to write about women in that era in a way that’s rooted in history but also doesn’t come across as 'she’s pretty smart for a girl!' The powerlessness of the women was difficult to read about." 

I had no idea just how much I was about to be reading about women and power.

COVID book #2: Crazy to Leave You. I can't remember the last time a book left such a bad taste in my mouth. I'm not linking to it; don't buy it. Don't even borrow it. It's ostensibly about a woman who gets left at the altar, but it is actually about the way that a lifetime of immersion in diet culture will break your brain. I am not amused these days by humor that hinges on the reality that when grown women restrict themselves to a daily caloric intake more suitable for small children, their bodies push back. It could have been funny. It tried really hard to be funny. But these days I am firmly of the opinion that no one else gets a vote on how my body ought to look, and too much of this book smacked of self-loathing rooted in impossible expectations.

Huh, I also had no idea just how much I was about to be reading about women and their bodies.

COVID book #3: The Great Believers. Best book I've read this year. It had some personal resonance for me, because it is set in Chicago and Evanston during the very years when I was living and working in those same parts of Chicago and Evanston. You will probably not read it and say, "I bet that's the laundromat on Halsted where I used to wash my clothes!" (unless we used to be neighbors), but I think that if you read it you will be gripped by the characters and their stories of living in Boystown between the mid-80s and the early 90s, when AIDS was widespread and almost uniformly deadly. This is the thing I kept thinking: where was the Church? If we really believe we are called to go to the margins and serve the vulnerable, it seems in hindsight like a clarion call to serve people with AIDS. There is nobody more vulnerable than a person whose immune system has failed him: his own body ceases to fight on his behalf and the whole world teems with threats against which he no longer has functioning defenses. And yet when this particular disease hit that particular marginalized community, the US Church as a whole did not say, "Christ has no body but ours; let's go! Unto the least of these; let's move!" The characters in this book do not say to themselves, "You know who is sure to offer me compassionate assistance? The Catholics, that's who." Unsurprising, and yet...

Wow, I ALSO had no idea just how much I was going to be thinking about strategies for protecting the vulnerable and marginalized.

COVID book #4: Wish You Were Here. I borrowed this one because my mom recommended it enthusiastically. There's a twist in the middle that I didn't like, and I spent the second half of the book feeling annoyed about it. The descriptions of the early days of the pandemic were evocative, but I am lukewarm about this one. And if I think too much about the ending, my bibliothermostat dips below the lukewarm range. Gotta say, though, I'm glad I got COVID in year 3 of the pandemic and not in year 1.

COVID book #5: What We Wish Were True. As soon as I finished the library's copy, I bought my own copy and a copy to give away to a friend. Tallu Schuyler Quinn died in February of an aggressive form of brain cancer, leaving two young children. She was the founder of the Nashville Food Project. She wrote at length about the gifts and limitations of life in a body, as she was watching hers come undone, and she wrote too about her own movement from an emphasis on charity (doing for the poor and marginalized) to an emphasis on justice (doing with them). Even if this were not a particularly critical time to be thinking about charity and justice, and the gifts and limitations of life in a woman's body, this would be a book to come back to.

A visit to June 24, 2015

I am wondering what would happen if 2022 Jamie were granted a brief conversation with her past self, who might say, "Hello there, self, what's the news from the future?"

Well, says 2022 Jamie, where to start?

On June 24 in 2022 you will be lying alone in bed, sick with a disease no one in 2015 has ever heard of, a disease that has killed a million people (and counting) in the US and at least six times that many worldwide-- [2015 Jamie's eyes widen]

--when social media, and media-media too, start to convulse because the three Supreme Court justices who were appointed by President Trump-- [2015 Jamie's eyes narrow, and she says, "President who? Is this your idea of a joke??"]

--no, not a joke; they joined with the other conservative justices to overturn Roe. And Casey too-- [2015 Jamie takes a subtle step backwards, moving away from this clearly delusional person who looks so much like her, only a little grayer and wearier]

"Well," says 2015 Jamie, casting about for a subject change, "what are you planning for today's name day festivities?"

"They moved the feast day," explains 2022 Jamie. "It's not being celebrated today."

"ALL RIGHT," says 2015 Jamie, "I was trying to listen to you but this all just sounds like lunacy. Mass death? President Trump? Did you forget about stare decisis? It's a thing, you know. AND THE FEAST DAY IS JUNE 24th EVERY YEAR; DO NOT ARGUE WITH ME."

"Okay," says 2022 Jamie, "that's what I thought you'd say. Back to my sickbed I go."

And down

I tested positive for COVID this morning.

I feel okay, as if I have a mild cold. In the before times I would never have dreamed of missing work for something like this. I should have known something was up yesterday, when after a lot of staring and thinking I got tangled up in a Killer Sudoku that should have been straightforward. (I look forward to the Saturday Killer Sudoku starting on about Thursday. It is my favorite puzzle of all. Perhaps I will write a journal article: A Novel Method For Diagnosing COVID-19 Infection. It could be very useful for the -- oh, 12 or so people in the US who share my obsession.)

On Friday night just before bed I said to myself, "Hm, is that a sore throat?" But I have asked myself that question so many times over the past two years that I don't give it much weight these days. I woke up yesterday morning and thought, "Hm, that seems like it might be a sore throat; should I take a COVID test?" But I have taken so many negative COVID tests in the wake of hypochondriacal thoughts about possible symptoms that I didn't.

And lo, those possible symptoms were actual symptoms.

I am very curious about where I picked it up. There were a ton of people at the concert on Wednesday night, but it was all outdoors on a breezy night and neither one of my roommates is sick despite identical exposure. And the test turned positive double-quick, which makes me wonder if I was exposed earlier. Could have been at Mass last Sunday despite the KN-95 mask, but Stella was right next to me and she is not sick. Could have been in the adoration chapel last Sunday afternoon, courtesy of the person who spent some time in the opposite corner, but we were a fair distance apart in a high-ceilinged space. Nine days ago I ate at a restaurant with two other people; they don't seem to have COVID.

Elwood and Pete traveled for a board-game convention last weekend. Although they wore masks at the convention, it also seems possible that Elwood brought home an asymptomatic case which he shared with me while sleeping next to me.

No one else is sick so far. Stella has a drippy nose and a negative test. I breathed all over her yesterday, though, while thinking, "Isn't it strange how often I wonder whether I have a sore throat?"

Anyway, say a prayer or wish me luck, according to your preferences. Feel free to speculate about which route of transmission seems most likely and/or dispense advice about getting through it.

And done!

Today I completed one of my new year's resolutions: I finished the Palliser Chronicles. Turns out that if you just keep reading them, even big books come to an end.

In the end I didn't like it quite as much the Barsetshire Chronicles, but it was well worth doing.

This is the 169th day of the year, and I have read at least a chapter of Trollope on all 169 of them. I think tomorrow I'll start The Way We Live Now.

A little bit more traveled

I had so much fun last night. I met up with two of my college roommates to see The Chicks in concert, and we had the best time. Great show, great crowd, great friends -- who could ask for anything more?

I roped in one of the roommates even though she knew pretty much none of their music, and I wasn't sure what she would think about it. She invited me to stay overnight at her house afterward, and this morning we were talking it over with her husband. "It was just a GEM of an experience," she told him.

I've been listening to their music a lot this year, and I loved hearing it live. It was fantastic to be with long-time girlfriends, listening to a band made up of long-time girlfriends. I was a little stressed about it beforehand-- the driving, the parking lot chaos, the crowds, the late night. I've never been a big concertgoer, and COVID didn't help.

One of my roommates doesn't love having her picture on the internet, so you will just have to imagine the photo of the three of us, leaning in close, smiling big. We have been in pictures together for almost 35 years now, and these days we are looking a little bit more traveled, as The Chicks sing in Texas Man. But you know, I think I'm favor of being a little bit more traveled.

Not a lattice

"I'm glad I"m not in school right now," said Stella upon her return from outside. "It'd be miserable doing PE in this weather." 

"They wouldn't let you," I said. "Just like they have a floor temperature in the winter, below which you can't do outdoor PE--"

"--40 degrees--" she reminded me.

"--they'd have a ceiling temperature. Like, above 90 degrees you'd have to stay inside in the air conditioning. Now, when I was a girl...." I trailed off there, because it's a running joke in this house for grownups to talk about The Olden Days. I was thinking back to the half of my childhood that I spent in New Orleans, tearing around outside in ridiculous heat and humidity. Indoor recess was not a thing at Ella Dolhonde Elementary School.

"Don't you mean when you were a lattice?" Stella asked.

"...a...lattice?" I echoed, totally perplexed.

"You know how men say, 'When I was a lad'? So weren't you a lad-ess?"

"A lass," I reminded her. "The word you want there is lass."

In the Garden

I walked down the sidewalk this morning to retrieve the newspaper and the tricolor sage grabbed my attention. It's still fairly small but it is so pretty. There's something about those delicate cream-colored edges on every leaf-- they just feed my soul. "Me too me too!" said the golden sage (what, your plants don't talk to you? maybe you need better plants, huh?) and I just stood there for a minute and breathed it in, soaking up that perfect color.

Yesterday Pete said, "I used to think the herb garden was very untidy, but it has grown on me."

And, okay, the herb garden is a little untidy. I do not care in the slightest.

When I first turned over sod in 2013, I planned for one side to be parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme, and the other to be mostly basil. OH, that linked picture makes me a little nostalgic. There used to be so much plastic weaponry in my house, you guys.

The parsley is intermingled with cilantro, which in my childhood was often called Chinese parsley. (Google suggests this is still a thing -- who knew?) It seems to be happy close to the house, where the shade keeps it from bolting quite as quickly as it would in a sunnier spot. It's fairly self-sustaining at this point-- it bolts and drops its seeds, and they germinate when conditions are favorable, and we eat some and let the rest bolt and drop more seeds. This year we also have volunteer purslane growing there, which I was prepared to root out until I realized that a person could also sing "Purslane, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme." So I'm letting it do its thing for now. Last year we did not see any swallowtail caterpillars on our parsley, and I am watching a little anxiously to see if they return this summer. It's so much fun to watch them getting fatter and stripier that I don't begrudge them the parsley.

On the other side we do have a lot of basil, but there's a bunch of other stuff going on too. The oregano has gone totally feral. It keeps snaking under the sidewalk and popping up in the parsley patch. "Are you parsley?" I ask it sternly. "I think not! Go home!" The lavender, the tarragon, and the lovage have all gone perennial. They want to be BEST FRIENDS and they want to be RIGHT NEXT to the sidewalk. I keep trying to coax them into slightly different positions and they are not having it. We were surprised when our savory, an impulse buy from last season, came back again this year. 

We've never planted vegetables in the herb garden before, but this year we're giving it a whirl. I saw a little pot of dinosaur kale at the garden store and I knew that it needed to come home with me. "Kale?" said Stella with a snort of disgust. "Yes," I said, "don't you ever look at a baby kale plant and say to yourself, 'OH THOSE GORGEOUS RUMPLY BLUE-GREEN LEAVES I MUST HAVE THEM I WILL PUT THEM IN MY MOUTH'?" "...No," answered Stella, with a certain emphasis. But Pete has been observed petting the gorgeous rumply blue-green leaves, and he also planted a kohlrabi seedling that someone at school gave him. We have spotted cabbage white butterflies around both the kale and the kohlrabi, so we may be growing a bumper crop of caterpillars rather than a bumper crop of brassicas. But we're okay with that.

This year we have a teeny volunteer basil plant for the first time; usually our climate is just too unpleasant for basil to come back. We have also planted a new-to-us variety called African blue basil that is supposed to be perennial.

I think I would be perfectly content with the herb garden if I had a chervil plant, but I've had no luck so far finding chervil. Google tells me that Walmart is advertising chervil plants. Do I want chervil enough to go to Walmart for it? I will have to think about that.

When I went looking for the squirt gun picture in my archives, I came across this post from six years ago in which I was gardening but not enjoying it very much. I am not sure exactly why I am finding the enjoyment:drudgery ratio to be so much more favorable now, but here in June 2022 I am seeing the beauty and the bounty more than the weeds and the worries.

Maybe I should put some gravel down between the sidewalk blocks to cut down on the weeds? Maybe by August of this year I will sound equally grumpy because I will be good and tired of uprooting the recidivist creeping charlie? But right now, you guys, there are tiny flowers on the thyme, even though it had a tough winter and has been coming back slowly. The lavender blossoms are purpling and the lovage is a shade of green that makes my soul sing. 

Maybe I will go pet the kale again.

Recommended

Over the weekend I read Anne Tyler's newest book, French Braid [affiliate link]. When I was in my 20s I loved Anne Tyler's writing, and then I came across a couple of books I didn't enjoy and stopped reading her for a long time. I can't remember why I decided to buy Vinegar Girl in 2016, but I loved it. In 2020 I gobbled up Redhead by the Side of the Road. French Braid reminds me more of the books I loved in the 90s, books like Accidental Tourist and Breathing Lessons. It's the story of a family, with all its complications and quirks and sadnesses. It made me tear up more than once, which is very unusual for me with fiction. I was sad when it was over, which is even more so. (I love finishing books and writing them down on my List of Books Read.) It made me laugh, too -- it's not a downer of a book. But in my memory the poignancy stands out more than the funny bits.

Last week I read Lessons in Chemistry, about a woman who wants to be a scientist and not the star of a cooking show. It is laugh-out-loud funny, salted liberally with zingy observations about life for women in the 1960s, but it is also painful to keep thinking about why that #2 pencil never leaves Elizabeth's bun. There are some fantastical elements -- mostly in the form of a genius dog, but also in the premise of the book. Would 1960s viewers really be all that excited about watching a TV show hosted by a woman who was obviously smarter than they were? I am not convinced about that, but I enjoyed the book anyway.

I am ten chapters from the end of the Palliser Chronicles, you guys. With all the other books in the series, I've read the first half or maybe the first two-thirds at the sedate pace of one chapter a night. By the middle of the other books, though, I've found myself zipping along happily, eager to see what happens to the characters. With The Duke's Children I have still not reached the zipping stage. Even so, I'm excited to be approaching the end of the series. It feels like an accomplishment. It's, like, 4000 pages of Trollope, you guys. I'm going to write it on my List of Books Read with an exclamation point! Or perhaps even two!!

For Madame Maxime

When I unpinned my freshly blocked just-finished stole I discovered that I underestimated its length. It is huge. Vast. In this picture I am thinking, "Ah, yes, a shin-length stole -- so practical."

If I were friends with Madame Maxime I might offer it to her. All the half-giantesses are wearing lace stoles this season, I hear.

The pattern says that the finished product is supposed to be six feet long, which seems a little mystifying. I used less yarn than expected, but somehow my scarf is 30% longer than planned? The pattern specs sound just about perfect: 6 feet by 17 inches. If I am making something in the stole/scarf/shawl family, I like it to be a wee bit longer than my wingspan, and I'm 5'6".

I told myself it would go faster if I could just get in the groove and knit the thing -- stop counting down rows, stop grumbling about how I wasn't delighted with the project. And now instead of a stole I am not thrilled with, I have a...curtain I am not thrilled with. Or a carpet? Or perhaps a yurt? It is a lot of fabric, you guys.

Maybe if Madam Pomfrey slips me some Skele-Gro potion in the night and I wake up with arms that are suddenly four feet long, it will be just the thing.

On the plus side, it is very soft, and cloud-light but also warm. Since our temps will be in the 90s for the next several days, warm is more of a bug than a feature at this point. But perhaps by the time it's cool enough to wear it again, I will have figured out what to do with it.

'Tis the Season

In the summer a middle-aged lady's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of WIP-whomping.

It is a summer tradition in these parts. I give you the bulky-weight funnel-neck sweater, just the thing for a steaming Midwestern summer day. Or perhaps the thigh-length alpaca sweater, also finished just in time for my summer sartorial needs? This year's contribution to the archive is an 8-foot wool/alpaca/silk stole. Who among us has not pined, on a sweltering June day, for an accessory constructed with -- BRB, must do some mathing -- three-quarters of a mile of cozy warm animal fiber?

It's not quite done. Yet another quibble I have with this pattern is that the intersections of the stripe pattern and the two lace patterns make it impossible to knit in the ends as you go. It's probably better if I don't think about how much end-weaving I will have to do once it comes off the blocking wires.

Probably Winter Jamie will appreciate it even if Summer Jamie is giving it some side-eye.