Light and Momentary

The stereo or the brain?

This afternoon I got in the car and Tracy Chapman's song Talkin' 'bout a Revolution was playing. "That's a groovy little bass line," I said to myself. It was the second time in recent weeks I'd had the same reaction to a song I thought I knew well. Back in late October I was listening to Aretha Franklin on Spotify and I thought the selfsame thing.

When I was in college I played the heck out of both those albums. Dissatisfied Women was kind of a theme in my dorm room; Melissa Etheridge and Patsy Cline were also in heavy rotation. But I had never noticed the bass parts that stood out to me so clearly on my recent listens.

It is possible that my college-era stereo didn't render the bass parts very faithfully with its cheap little woofers. I did not own a subwoofer until I married Elwood and became a subwoofer owner-in-law, and from that point on the Dissatisfied Women got less airtime. It is also possible that I just didn't pay much attention to bass parts until I learned to play the bass last year. It has changed the way I listen to music, because I always keep an ear out now for that percussive floor.

I am curious: was the issue that I couldn't hear the bass part clearly back in 1989, or did I just not pay attention to it because the voices seemed more important? I suppose I'll never know.

Some of the things I am not saying to the gym manager

I am really motivated to keep lifting weights, and also I do not love the news about the transmissibility of the omicron variant. I did not expect to find it so satisfying to move barbells around, but here we are. I'm not going to buy a powerlifting setup, so I keep going to gym, aiming for the times when it's likely to be empty.

There are usually a few other people there wearing masks, but not today: today I was the only one. Maybe all the other cautious people are staying home because they know omicron is coming? Maybe they're waiting for the data on how sick it seems to make people? Who can say? 

There's lots of talk in my Facebook feed about the left's overreaction to COVID, and I was thinking about it as I was driving home from my workout this afternoon. Have you seen this graph? In both September and October, COVID was the #2 cause of death in this country. Only heart disease killed more people. In three of the last 13 months (Nov '20 through Feb '21), COVID killed more people than heart disease. Do you know anybody who had a heart attack last month? or the month before that? I do not. I don't actually know a whole lot of people who've died of heart disease across the 51 years that I've been alive. But it would be a grave error for me to extrapolate too far from my personal experience. If I were to say, "Heart disease is no big deal! Hardly anyone dies of heart disease!" -- obviously, it would be a false statement.

My gym acknowledges the reality that sometimes people's hearts stop beating unexpectedly. They have paid to install defibrillation units; someone on staff gets paid to inspect them at intervals. They have paid their staff for the time required to get trained in AED use. They've invested time and money into protecting people at the gym from the adverse consequences of a cardiac event. They've done so not because people are keeling over every other week, but because cardiac events are (usually! maybe not this winter!) the thing most likely to kill American adults.

AEDs aren't magic bullets. More than half of people who experience cardiac arrest are going to die, even in communities where AEDs are widespread. We invest in them because they shift the odds; they have significant potential to reduce suffering and death, even though that potential isn't always realized.

So here's my question: in September the number of deaths caused by COVID (1899 of them) was just slightly under the number of deaths caused by heart disease (estimated at 2056). How is that not serious? In October the number of COVID deaths dropped to 1683, but that number is higher than any other cause of death recorded in this country -- even when you group every form of cancer together. More serious than cancer = pretty dang serious.

And yet-- the same folks whose membership fees pay for seldom-used AEDs are balking at the idea that they should wear masks in the building. It's true that masks, like AEDs, aren't magic bullets. It's also true that masks, like AEDs, have the potential to reduce suffering and death.

I don't understand the discrepancy.

Was that weird? or is it just the social anxiety talking?

This is the time of year when my brain chemistry is least cooperative, and today something happened that happens every year. 

There was a candidate interviewing for an open position in our department, and she said something about the back-to-back scheduling. Academic interviews are intense: every half-hour is scheduled, all day long. In a 28-ish hour period you eat three of your four meals with interviewers. It's exhausting. So I answered in a way that was intended to be sympathetic, something like, "Yeah, when I left the building at the end of my interview day I just wanted to go sit in a dark and quiet closet for 20 minutes." (I even blogged about that feeling at the time -- #5 at the link.) Did I really get a raised eyebrow from one of my colleagues when I said that, or did I imagine the raised eyebrow? I kept talking in hopes of smoothing things over if I had made them weird. "Maybe that sounds a little odd," I said, "but it's such a long day of being ON-ON-ON. I hope you have a peaceful evening."

The candidate immediately started talking about how she herself has an affinity for dark and quiet places, and the colleague who might or might not have raised an eyebrow followed up with a story about her experience in a sensory deprivation tank. So probably they were not thinking to themselves, "that was such a bizarre thing to say." Or at least maybe they were not thinking that. 

See, this is where I get stuck at this time of year. Am I just having a social anxiety flare, even though I am only being my usual amount of quirky and my colleagues are accustomed to it? It is a little quirky to talking about wanting to go sit in a closet by yourself, I get that. But it is also possible that my recalcitrant brain chemistry is causing me to be a little less tuned in to conversational signals, with the result that I am saying more weird stuff. 

Whether I am actually being weirder or just worrying more about being my usual level of weird, it is a reliable contributor to the pre-solstice blues. I get into these social anxiety tailspins: that was so weird! why did you say that? the candidate is not going to want to work with people who like to hide in closets! adults do not hide in their closets! no one could tell it was a joke! that was so weird! why did you...? Etc. 

Do you do this too? Tell me you do this too sometimes.

29

Look, I made it to November 29 before I said, "Whoa, this is a lot of blog posting and I might be out of things to write about."

Sunday night blues

The big kids are all gone. The leftovers are mostly eaten. I head back to work tomorrow.

I told my students a month ago that we would not meet in person tomorrow. It seems likely that there will be a lot of new COVID cases incubating on campus this week after everyone's Thanksgiving travels, and I thought it would be sensible to move class online for a day while we give the virus time to announce its presence.

I am trying to view the omicron variant with equanimity. We don't know enough yet; it will take time to gather data. I am not encouraged, though, by the post I saw on Facebook asserting that it's a myth designed to persuade people to give up more of their freedom.

OKAY, these things are true: grading is temporary, the fall semester is temporary, the pre-solstice darkness is temporary, the omicron variant is temporary. One day at a time.

This is kind of a wacky idea but we might do it anyway

One of the first friends I made here in Gladlyville is moving away, and she is selling a baby grand piano. A piano I can open up to let the music wash over me is pretty high on my list of "Things I Might Like To Own Someday," and tonight I went over to her house to check out her piano.

First I had a conversation with Elwood. "How implausible is this idea?" I asked him. "Fairly implausible," he said. Our house is under 1800 square feet, and we already own a piano. We have a little music room, emphasis on the little, but acquiring this piano would mean a fair amount of rearranging.

We both laughed at the preposterousness of shoehorning a baby grand piano into our little house, but we also both like the idea of buying this piano. I suggested a new home for our upright piano, and he said, "Hey! That could work!" He emailed the friend in question while I went over to check out the piano.

It is not beautiful. It is an old instrument; its keys have yellowed and its frame is a little battered. But I sat down and played the beginning of my favorite Schumann piece, and the sound came pouring out and the world felt a little brighter. "I'd love for it to go to a good home," my friend said. Because it is not beautiful, and because she is selling her house in less than three weeks, it is far less expensive than I imagined a baby grand piano would be.

So these are the things that would have to happen: (1) find a new home for our upright piano (2) find a new home for the loveseat that currently occupies one wall of the music room (3) find a new home for the living room furniture most likely to be displaced by the loveseat (4) figure out piano moving for both the upright and the baby grand (5) call the tuner. Elwood says we also need to (6) buy more games, because if I'm going to squeeze more musical instruments into our small house then he would like to squeeze in more games.

"I mean," says Joe, "if we have space for a grand piano we probably have space for another bookshelf too." 

"It's a baby grand," I told him.

"Well, a baby tiger is still a tiger," he reminded me. 

Career Advice

I was driving Alex to the airport this evening (bummer bummer bummer, I miss that boy when he goes away), and we were talking about jobs and money and the future. He is running a tech startup that is doing well, and he was telling me about finding investors. These conversations have always seemed disconnected from my actual life, but tonight he surprised me.

"I sometimes think," I told him, "that if I could do anything at all that I might want to do, I would write books. I have that novel in progress, and I also started a book of food essays, and I have other ideas too." Alex jumped right on that food essays idea.

Do you know the Laurie Colwin essay collections, Home Cooking and More Home Cooking? They are comfort reads for me, and a couple of years ago I thought to myself, "I wish I had more books of food essays like these. Maybe I'll just have to write one." Kind of like the ones in the Laurie Colwin books, my draft essays are a mix of musings and how-to tips and paeans to my quirky kitchen favorites.

"You," he said, "are a very good writer, and good writing is sparse in food-focused corners of the internet." His plan: I start a food essays Substack, I build a reader base there, I get a book deal on the strength of my Substack writings. So far, so not-totally-implausible. But he's not done yet.

I also, in the Alex Plan for Mom's Next Act, hire a team to build me an app that will feature my putatively very good food writing. I said, "Alex, honey, my whole shtick would be 'let's build a thing with fun recipes and genuine if slightly quirky enthusiasm and zero autoplay videos ever.' I am not sure that long-form writing about food is very app-friendly." "Right," he said, "you'd be attracting an older market and they have more money to spend! Very attractive to investors." But you guys, in his vision I would be establishing a media empire. I pulled the emergency brake on the Vision Train when he started talking about Instagram. Alex is extraordinarily persuasive but there are limits.

"Alex," I said, "I don't ever want a big Instagram presence. Instagram makes people think they need Botox." "Well," he conceded, "you can hire out the Instagram stuff."

We were at the airport at that point, and I hugged him goodbye. I came home and peeked at the file called "Untitled book of food essays." I think that maybe this winter I will write a few more of them.

Day in the life

5:46am. I jolt awake from a dream in which I am an uneasy accessory to attempted murder. Can I get back to sleep? 

6:15am. Nope, I cannot get back to sleep. There are a lot of things to do. First up: coffee, Lauds, NYT puzzles. I don't see the Spelling Bee pangram but I need to get moving anyway.

7:15am. Sweet potatoes and beets go in the oven. Except -- wait -- I forgot to make a List. I am going to remember how to cook a big Thanksgiving dinner for company, right? I'm going to ease back into it, just like riding a bike or perhaps like childbirth? I microwave the pumpkin to make it easier to peel and put in my salad. This might have been a bad idea, because now I have very damp pumpkin. I marinate thin-sliced red onion in lemon juice for the salad. I start the bread dough and take the pastry out of the fridge. I definitely put too much water in that pastry yesterday.

7:40am. The Spelling Bee pangram plops obligingly into my brain. I write part of this post and wonder when I can reasonably wake people up to help cook. When does the turkey have to go in? I can't remember how to cook a turkey. I'm going to remember how to cook a turkey, right?

7:58am. I google "how to cook a turkey" and count backwards. Time to roll out some damp pastry. 

8:40am. The pastry rolls out like a dream, but the pumpkin is definitely too wet. What kind of mutant pumpkin is this? Who told my squash it could be squashy?

9:05am. Everybody is awake except Alex, who was coding late into the night. He is sleeping in the room where we keep the batteries, and I need batteries for the kitchen scale so I can make the pecan pie. Should I wake up Alex? Should I wing the pecan pie measurements? I decide to wing the pecan pie measurements. I also discover that I have roasted salted pecans. Eek, they are so salty. Will it be weird if I bathe them to get the salt off? Is bathed-pecan pie a terrible idea? What if this entire meal is a regrettable aggregation of unsuccessful attempts at people's favorite foods? Or...wait...what if I pause and eat a little breakfast?

9:56am. Pies are in, starchy vegetables are all roasted, bread dough is rising, dishes are done. Time for breakfast + KenKens + another installment of this post. I feel some delegating coming on, my friends. I will take a shower while the kids chop and prep.

11:05am. The turkey goes in. The potatoes are peeled, ten pounds of them, and the celery and onion are chopped for the stuffing. 

11:54am. It takes a long time to cube ten pounds of potatoes, but they are done. The Brussels sprouts are roasted and the salad greens are washed. The naked sweet potatoes and beets are awaiting their destinies. I am feeling a little wave of stress. Our guests might be here in half an hour and I am looking decidedly ulotrichous. (This is a word I learned on Tuesday, courtesy of the NYT cryptogram: having woolly or curly hair.) I am going to do battle with my hair so it is more curly and less woolly, and remove all the knitting bags and electronics from the living room, and assign someone to wipe down the downstairs bathroom, and ask Elwood to be the person in charge of beets.

12:30pm. Company arrives. It would have been better if the stuffing and sweet potatoes were already prepped, but I will get them ready now instead.

1:40pm. Marie is here!! She walks in from the train station wearing the giant purple shawl I made for her.

2:05pm. You guys, the turkey is doing something deeply weird. The meat thermometer is up in "probably dry and sad" territory, but there is a puddle of pink juice spilling out of the cavity. How can the top be dry and the juices be pink? Am I going to serve up turkey that is both dry and salmonella-laden? Also, I think I did forget how to host Thanksgiving. I still have to mash the potatoes? and make the gravy? and bake the rolls? and warm up the room-temperature things without drying them out? and share the oven with Joe so he can make a cranberry cake? St. Martha, I'm going to need some help here.

3:05pm. Dinner is served. I always think I don't love Thanksgiving food but I do actually enjoy Thanksgiving food. I know the stories say that the gods on Olympus ate ambrosia but I bet they had some gravy too. The turkey appears to be both cooked and moist. People I love are making happy noises as they eat food I cooked for them. This is one of my favorite things in the world.

4:30pm, maybe, but it's kind of a blur? Dessert! Pecan pie and pumpkin pie and cranberry cake, with plenty of whipped cream. The first dishwasher load gets going and we stash the turkey leftovers in the fridge.

5:15pm-ish. We play Telestrations, which continues to be one of my favorite ways to spend time with groups of 8 or 10 people. Joe is sitting next to me, and he asks me to draw an outhouse with a parking meter and to identify a post-COVID stock market drop. I do my best. I laugh until I cry.

6pm. We play charades. This is a Gladly family holiday tradition. It is, frankly, a little bonkers. I ask Elwood if he thinks TItus Andronicus will be too hard, and then Alex gets it in, like, 20 seconds. It takes us longer to figure out "The Quotations of Mao Zedong," but we get there in the end.

7:05pm. Our guests leave, and Elwood figures out how to fit all of the leftovers into a crowded fridge while I sit on the couch and blog. His task is made more difficult by the fact that I want to save everything. Yes, I want to eat the leftover salad tomorrow (greens with roasted squash, marinated red onions, and pecans -- so yummy and seasonally appropriate). Yes, I want to save the leftover whipped cream. It will go in my coffee tomorrow, naturally. Yes, I want to save all the gravy. ALL THE GRAVY.

7:53pm. I need to go and tackle the rest of the dishes.

7:54pm. Here I go. Tackling in 3-2-1...

8:44pm. That was a lot of dishes. I feel like my batteries are running down as I lurch back to the couch in slow motion. What are the things I want to do before I collapse in a puddle of drool? Finish this blog post, do a quick Duolingo story to keep the streak going, pray the rest of the rosary, brush teeth.

8:52pm. Probably there are some interesting things on Twitter? Maybe I should check, yeah?

8:54pm. I engage Grownup Mode and shut the Twitter tab. I hurl myself bedward.

Apples and Trees

One of the gifts of having a large family is that I am disinclined to give myself too much credit or too much blame for the way my children are turning out. This was the background for the post about the evils of fat-free cheese that I wrote earlier this month. There are some values -- like frugality -- that I have attempted to impart to all of my children. Mostly they are frugal. One of them out-frugals me, actually. But I have not persuaded all of my children that frugality is a desirable trait, and I am feeling pretty relaxed about that these days. They are who they are, and it's not my job to make them into something different.

When my children were younger I felt a great sense of urgency about teaching them to love God. In hindsight I think the urgency was sometimes counterproductive -- partially because it was born of scrupulosity, which is incompatible with true Christian freedom, and partially because urgency is not great for long-term relationships. My hope for my children is that they will grow into certain knowledge of God's presence with them in all circumstances, that they will perceive his love as a shield about them and a fire within them. I worry less about whether they're genuflecting on the correct knee these days. I wonder what damage I might have done in those days when rigidity felt like zeal to me, but at the same time I cannot blame my past self too harshly for being where she was.

The thing about having five children is that they make it clear to me how unpredictable parenting is. Some days I feel like I'm outfitting the White Knight from Through the Looking Glass: take this! you might need this! don't forget the mousetraps! watch for shark bites! Some of those things my children are still carrying across their metaphorical chessboards. Some of my children have laid down their mousetraps and moved on. Sometimes I hear them calling to their siblings on adjacent chessboard spaces: you don't need to worry so much about the shark bites! I could not have predicted what they would lay down and I cannot guess at what they might take up again someday.

Tomorrow night all five of my children will sleep in this house for the first time since 2019. I am not sure what Past Me would say about the shape of our life these days; I cannot hear the words of wisdom or caution that Future Me might wish to share. But Present Me is going to enjoy the heck out of the day tomorrow, and she needs to be up bright and early to bake some pies.

There is a vast sea of grading and I am emptying it with my teaspoon

I am doing that unwise thing tonight: I kept grading after dinner, and now I'm feeling like there hasn't been enough evening quite yet, so maybe I should stay up a little later and see if I feel more ready to go to bed.

But really I should just go to bed.