NaBloPoMo

Connection

Elastica – Connection

I woke up early this morning but still was nearly late for this recurring Monday morning meeting at the office. When we were fully remote I was never late for anything, but I am not a morning person and the physical effort involved in all the things one must do to arrive at the office in time for an early meeting, on a Monday no less, is just never going to be easy.

I live along a popular jogging route and every morning I see people out there super early walking their dogs and getting their exercise in before getting ready for work. That will never be me. I can wake up, I can get out of bed, I can move around the house, slowly. But I need to have my coffee and give my body and mind the time they need to actually function.

The best way to get myself to a more conscious state is to sit down with a cup of coffee and hit my usual word games. This gives my brain enough of a little challenge to get those synapses firing. Start with Wordle, then move on to the Spelling Bee, when I hit a wall there I do Connections. Connections sometimes drives me crazy. But when I get it right in the first four guesses, I hear this Elastica song in my head and I make a sneer just like Justine Frischmann. Somewhere in there I am actually awake enough to get ready for work.

If I have to, really have to, I can get showered, dressed and out the door quickly. But my brain is not really working, it’s all muscle memory. I am definitely not firing on all cylinders. And I still need that time for my brain to catch up with my body, so I can be at the office, or airport, or wherever, but without having had that time in the morning I am not really all there, mentally, until about 10:00 a.m.

Occasionally someone will suggest that I can train myself to be up earlier and get moving faster in the morning. To which I say, why? Why is it seen as better, more virtuous, to be an early bird instead of a night owl? My dad once worked for a company that had a policy of flexible work hours with a common block of time from 10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. You could work any 8 hour block you wanted to, so long as you were in the office during that common block. Meetings could only take place during that time frame. To me, this is a great idea and one that I wish would really catch on. You can get up at 5 and go for a run and be in the office at 7, meanwhile I will try to get the Connections in four guesses while sipping my coffee.

Deceptacon

Le Tigre – Deceptacon

It is Kathleen Hanna’s birthday, which seemed like a good reason to post this song. I was not that into Bikini Kill (or any of the Riot Grrrl bands really) at the time, I didn’t dislike them but I was kind of on the whole shoegaze kick. Le Tigre came along when I was in what might be described as a holding pattern, where music was concerned.

But it’s never too late to go back and listen to music that you knew but it didn’t grab you at the time. Or maybe you just missed it the first time around. We can’t be aware of every new band that comes along, even if we are trying to keep on top of new releases. I used to think I was actually doing pretty well with that but I follow my favorite venues online and more often than not I’ll look at the shows being announced and think, who?

The show last night was the last one I had planned. It feels a little weird to not have anything on the horizon, but winter is coming and that brings weather complications so maybe it’s just as well. If you have recommendations, though, pass them along!

Save It For Later

The English Beat – Save it For Later

On June 1, 1983, my mother started her new job up in Maine, leaving my oldest sister, who had just graduated from college, in charge of the house and the rest of us kids who were not done with school yet. New York schools ended in late June since there was a week of final exams followed by a week of Regents exams. I don’t remember where my second oldest sister and my brother were, but my little sister was finishing up sixth grade, the last in elementary school, and I was in 10th grade, my other sister was in 11th.

Needless to say, with my mom hundreds of miles away and busy in her new job, our house in New York became party central. My oldest sister had spent her junior year abroad in London and came home with lots of music she’d heard while over there. She made a tape called “Mom Goes to Maine” which featured many of those bands and served as a frequent soundtrack for those last weeks of school. She also had the album Special Beat Service by the English Beat in heavy rotation.

My sister invited this guy she had met in London to come and stay for two or three weeks. Lindsay, this drop-dead gorgeous British guy, tall, curly hair, swoony accent, was just there living it up with us. He wasn’t even my sister’s boyfriend so all of our friends were super eager to come over and hang out. With classes over, they would tell their parents they were coming to our house to study.

I suppose we did do some studying but we did it while sunbathing in the backyard, gin and tonics in hand and music playing out of the window in the den. By night the sunbathing gave way to games of badminton or croquet with the flood light on, music still blaring out the window, gin and tonics still flowing. If it rained, we were inside playing Trivial Pursuit, making Lindsay read the questions so we could listen to his accent. I’m sure it drove our neighbors crazy, but those were fabulous days for not quite 16-year-old me.

So tonight, 40 years later, I went to see the English Beat. It is basically just Dave Wakeling with a backing band at this point, but I was on my feet dancing the whole time. The crowd was all middle-aged people, some gray and bald heads, most of us wider than our younger selves. But if I closed my eyes, I could picture our friends in the backyard, Lindsay looking like he walked out of a movie with a drink in one hand and croquet mallet in the other. Ah, youth.

I Should Have Known Better

Yo La Tengo – I Should Have Known Better

Yesterday I took my car in to have the brakes looked at since they had been feeling spongey. I had read that somewhere and it seemed to fit the way they felt but I don’t know if that’s a real thing car people say. They took off the wheels assessed the situation and said, the rear brakes need new shoes, drums, pads, but mostly the cylinders were leaking and it should all be replaced. $600. What are you going to do, say no, put the wheels back on, charge me $100+ for the time and then what? So I spent $600 and headed home in the evening feeling like I had done a good thing and had put myself and the car in better shape for the winter.

Hahaha! My car decided that those new brakes were just the opening act. About 2/3 of the way home the battery warning light came on. I managed to get home and backed the car into the driveway so we could come have AAA take a look in the morning. They came, looked, and said, you need a new alternator. But also, your battery is a mess and has a bad cell and you should replace it. I had specifically asked for them to send someone with a battery in hopes of that solving the problem but it did not. The AAA driver wasn’t in a tow truck so I couldn’t have it towed, but as the battery needed to be replaced, I told him to go ahead and install it. Consensus from the repair shops I called around was that I shouldn’t try to drive it to them, have it towed.

So now I’ve spent $800 on a car that still isn’t driveable. And it’s likely at least another $600 for the alternator. At this point I need to spend the money on the alternator to get my money’s worth on the previous two fixes. Did I mention it’s got 215,000 miles? It is a Toyota but still. Argh!

And there’s a show on Saturday that I have a ticket for and I’ve been looking forward to it. There is no reselling this ticket since it’s a small independent theater. That money was spent months ago but why not add it to the tally?😵‍💫

I just can’t help but feel like every decision I make when it comes to cars is the wrong one. Then I become paralyzed and don’t want to do anything because inevitably I will have made the wrong choice. I wanted to sell my husband’s car to CarMax or someplace, then get something with fewer miles on it for me to drive and let him have my car. But he felt like it could limp along a while longer. Until the serpentine belt broke a few weeks ago and it turned out it also needed a new compressor. $900.

Wish me luck. I am really not looking forward to blowing more money here but I also think I have run out of options.

Walking at a Downtown Pace

Parquet Courts – Walking at a Downtown Pace

Today was pretty chilly and gray, a little raw. My mom even had some snow this morning. Thankfully we’re not that far north so it was tolerable but when I went out for my lunch time walk with a friend, I had to zip up that coat that used to be my son’s. FYI, coats for young teenage boys are cut pretty straight and I really had to work to get it zipped.

In the summer when we’re walking, we slow down. Faster than a saunter but not fast. Then we take breaks in the shade to cool off. Today, we had our power walk on. No stopping, walking at a downtown pace. It really gets the blood moving and you warm up pretty quickly. I think we have kind of a reputation for our lunch walks. I need that sunlight, and it’s also my only exercise for the most part. I surpassed my 10,000 steps today so people can chuckle if they like, I am not losing my New York walking cred.

The Overload

Yard Act – The Overload

I am trying to figure out what we are all doing about Thanksgiving this year. There are so many variables that it’s hard to find a plan that will make everyone happy. Complicating matters is our car situation and a couple of appointments that I made for my son bookending the holiday.

Originally my plan was to take off the whole week, but now some work stuff is probably going to make that a bad idea. Time is running out on getting things organized though, so whether I like it or not, I am going to have to make a final decision in the next day or two. My family members have all tried to be helpful by saying different versions of “don’t worry about me!” But that’s actually making it harder.

Life would be easier if there were two or three of me. One who can just do the work commute and be at the office, one who can stay home cleaning and prepping, and one who can drive around picking up everyone from their respective spots. Each is time consuming and exclusive. I can’t eliminate one and do the other two. My husband can do some cleaning but he has work too, and only one of the cars can really go any significant distance.

Anyway, tomorrow is likewise jam-packed with obligations so I’d better wrap it up and get to bed.

Vote, Baby Vote

Deee-lite – Vote, Baby Vote

Yesterday we got a text from my son, who is off at college, wondering if there was a plan to get him home to vote today. Um, no? I had meant to remind both kids to send in for absentee ballots but I kept not remembering and then it was too late. My son registered in school last spring and turned 18 over the summer so this was going to be his first election.

I am always hammering home the importance of voting, in every election, so I didn’t feel like I could say, it’s just the municipal election. There should be no “just” when it comes to voting. And your first time voting is important, plus it’s like a practice run before next year’s critical don’t-even-want-to-think-about-it election. That’s why I drove 45 minutes out of the way after work to pick him up and bring him home for the night. We made the polls our first stop then came home. As a bonus I made his favorite dinner and he can sleep in his own bed.

I am happy to report that our candidates won. It’s nice to have that satisfaction for your first voting experience. Let’s hope there are more days like this in the future!

Welcome to the Working Week

Elvis Costello – Welcome to the Working Week

It’s the first Monday since we set the clocks back and it’s always such a shock to my system to walk out the office and discover it’s nighttime. I was able to get outside during the day for a little bit but I don’t have a window in my office so I forgot that it was going to be truly dark.

I told myself yesterday that I was finally going to see the advantage of the return to standard time because I have this early meeting on Mondays and I’m forever racing to get there on time. I thought now it will be easier to get up because it will be lighter in the morning and I won’t be as tired because my body will still be on the old clock. Uh, not so much. I made it in ten minutes before the meeting, instead of zero minutes or being a hair late.

My daughter graduated from college this summer and now she has a “real” job, 9:00-5:00. Even though she was working full-time over the summer, it was just an extension of the student job she had had for the past three years so it didn’t feel as serious. It has been a rough transition for her. The job itself is fine but adjusting to the fact that now this is what your life will be like – get up, go to a job, come home, eat, repeat – that part is hard. We talked to her on the phone this evening and she joked, “Can’t I be a stay-at-home daughter?” I did not say, “Welcome to the working week, oh I know it don’t thrill you, I hope it don’t kill you,” but I sure as hell heard that in my head.

We’re Not Photocopies

The Photocopies – We’re Not Photocopies

I think this song cropped up on my Spotify release radar or discover weekly playlist. Even if I don’t have to drive up to the office every day, I still spend a ton of time in the car, and I just don’t have the energy reserves to stay on top of new music. I tell myself it’s kind of like listening to college radio, which is a little hard in the car since their signals are weak and I’m covering a lot of ground.

Speaking of cars, we are needing to do something about our cars and I’m dreading it. They are both old and need some work, and the one my husband usually drives is borderline unsafe. I would like to replace them but what we can afford is not a whole lot better. And how can you trust used car dealers or random internet strangers to be honest about the cars they’re selling?

I was looking online tonight at used cars and came across one that is the same make and model as my current car, not quite as old, significantly lower miles, and a stick shift! That was even the reason the person gave for wanting to sell it, they aren’t good at driving stick. I got a little excited at the prospect of having a slightly newer copy of my car, in a different color, with my preferred transmission, and mentioned it to my husband. He thought maybe the person had been so bad at driving a manual that they’ve done a number on the gears. How can you know? Ugh. Dealing with cars is the worst. I wish I had a close friend who was “good with cars” and able to size them up.

Fascist

Minutemen – Fascist

Typical. I spent much longer than I wanted to trying to write a post about how fraught it is to open your mouth on a topic like Gaza/Israel, and the stupid app glitched and I lost the two carefully worded paragraphs I had agonized over. To sum up, in case it wasn’t clear, I don’t condone the terrorist attack nor the Israeli blockade and bombing of Gaza and I think it will only fan the flames of hatred. It feels like the rush to make someone pay for 9/11 and look how that turned out. I found this article by Abraham Josephine Riesman and S.I. Rosenbaum to be an informative plea to not go down that path. I can’t help but feel like whipping everyone into a frenzy is what people like Bibi are counting on. There will be no criticism. You are with us or against us. I don’t want to play into the hands of fascists. I want terror attacks, genocide, and hate crimes to stop.

I will also say that it is not helpful to demand that everyone participate in what is basically performative activism. I recognize silence is also a statement. But we should not be expecting people to be exposed to a constant barrage of bad news, then immediately turn around and declare an opinion. It’s a huge contributor to the mental health crisis our kids are facing. There is pressure to be aware of everything that’s happening and to be in a state of perpetual anger about it. Kids are bullied for saying the perceived wrong thing and they are bullied for saying nothing. The pressure to get it right and do it fast is wreaking havoc on society.

That’s two less well-written paragraphs and that’s going to be it. I now return you to the usual bullshit.