bright lofts and curving shapes 

bold skylights and pipes against dark, old timber 

Strawberry season

There is this obnoxious trait that some people have of wanting to take free stuff if it is offered to them and they have a need for it.

For example – you are in a hospital ER room, it’s time to go, all kisses and goodbyes, thanks, you’ve been wonderful, so you’re finally inching out and you remember: wouldn’t it be nice to take with you one of the ice packs to use at home? It’s “free” if you take it from the hospital.

I guess I am one of those obnoxious people, because I did turn around and hobble back last night (during my trip to the ER room) and asked (meekly) – do you suppose you could spare….

The nurse hardly looked up. You don’t have ice at home? (you know, putting those jagged bricks from your ice dispenser against a sore leg is just not as much fun as using an ice pack) No… -- unbelievable answer, but I wasn’t in the mood to explain.

Do you have any frozen fruits or vegetables? -- she counters. Caught me dead on. I could not lie. I have bags and bags of frozen strawberries from last year. Frozen blueberries? Raspberries? All gone: they’re wonderful to slowly munch on when you want to restrain your midnight greed. But strawberries are too big to just pop in your mouth, so there they are, in my freezer and the new season is upon us and so I may as well put them to ice-pack use, digging into the ziplock bag every once in a while for a nibble.

But I got my chance at a freebie: on my way out (for real now), I passed one of those anti-bacterial gel dispensers (that’s what they’re all using in the ER room – none of this hand washing stuff; I know – 99.9% germs are killed with the gel, it says so right there on the dispenser, but it just doesn’t seem in my old fashioned mind as fresh to go from wiping someone’s butt, to putting a little gel on the palms, to picking up your hand to take your pulse). From said dispenser I loaded on the antibacterial gel. For free. You might say I walked out of the hospital clean. Germ free. That’s nothing to sneeze at, btw.

Simulblogging the ER. No, not the TV show, we’re talking about reality reality.

Notes from the night that followed the bike crash:

By ten at night my upper leg had ballooned to such a large size that it felt like I had gone on an 365 day Michael’s Frozan Custard binge. Moreover, I could not walk.

Call to clinic. Nurse plugs in data into her triage computer program and comes up with result that is probably the result in 99% of cases: go to the ER room immediately. I mean, maybe if you call and say that you are at a nursing home and that the staff person was mean to you and would not help you go to the bathroom (the issue confronting the patient in the space next to mine at the ER headquarters of UW hospitals), maybe then they would have said: deal with it. For the rest: there’s the ER.

I was also told that I am absolutely forbidden to drive and that an ambulance would be forthcoming if I hadn’t a friend to take me in. HOW PATHETIC! That’s just an insurance set up! How many people will say – oh, okay, I have no one, no one at all to ask for a ride, so sure, go ahead, send the ambulance.

I called a friend. Friend came, friend drove. Thank you, friend. You saved me the humiliation of appearing pathetic.

Lots of police cars at the entrance to the ER room. I tell friend that if you go in at night, you’re gonna be rubbing shoulders with the overdose victims and gang shootings. Earlier, it’s poor people without health insurance who desperately need to see a doctor. Friend says it has been suggested that ER visits go up immediately at the end of prime time TV.

Inside the waiting room, everyone looks sick. I am thinking: I am going to get your germs so quickly, so please face the other way when you vomit – that kind of sick. Germ avoidance strategy: I use my own pen to sign wavers and death statements. Yes, if you kill me rather than cure me, you can take my remains and burn them quickly before someone discovers your mistake.

I am told: wait here in the wheel chair until your room is ready. Room is ready? Sounds like a Paris hotel that you arrive at early in the morning. Bonjour, not ready yet, excusez moi, quelle damage!

Background music is positively funereal. I had a friend die on me some years back and she requested classical music nonstop in her last hours of life and ever since, when I hear classical music in a hospital, I think of her. I think: had she known the effect it would have on me, she may have substituted it for hip hop. Hip hop in hospitals would not make me think of death and dying.

There are little insects flying around as I wait. Ugh! Germ carrying, all of you! Get OFF of me! You are contaminating me – I saw you buzz over near the vomiting woman there in the corner, go back, go back!

Three times, by three different staff members I am asked the question: is there anyone you do NOT wish to give access to your information from here? I don’t get it. YES! The world! The Dean of the Law School. Does he really need to know about my innards? Do students? In fact, 99.99% of the people out there should not have access to my medical records. Whatever are you thinking?? (Of course, then I go ahead and post everything on the blog. So private!)

Finally, I am wheeled to a segment of an ER room. I am a woman of many health dramas and so I know these places well. Too well. I know the ropes. I know what to say to get service and what to say to get out asap. I am ER savvy! [Mumbling something about being a law prof and teaching torts and malpractice helps; damn it, they always ask, so what, I am supposed to not mention it?]

I look up, stretched there on the ER table, with my leg now twice the size of a football stadium, and I see this cartoon pasted on the joint of the swivel overhead lamp. It’s a picture of a fist with a thumb up, and the words underneath, in bold, with an exclamation mark: yes! For some reason this totally disarms me. I feel the stress of the day, the night, the week and I want to cry. But that’s antithetical to the upbeat mood of that little sticker sign and so I reign it in.

In the “cubicle” next to me is the guy with the nursing home problem. It is indeed a problem and I do not want to detract from it even as he proceeds to describe the bowel movement he is having at the time he is telling the story. But it seems – from my meager qualifications to assess these matters – that it is not an ER problem. It is a call-governor-doyle-and-have-him-commence-a-criminal-investigation-against-the-nursing-home-facility type of a problem.

But then, his woman comes in and they have these rhapsodic exchanges while the staff is out. He is an old fart (literally) with an amputated leg and she is patient and he is so appreciative. I don’t even mind the putrid smells coming from their neck of the woods (remember: we are in the middle of his bowel movement). These guys are so touchingly respectful of each other. I wanted to get up and visit for a while, but the nurse was wiping his butt forever and ever and after that, the moment passed.


Sigh. It was one of those days when you are reminded of how lucky you are for a shrilling number of reasons. I got home minutes ago and transcribed my notes. I am thinking of going out for a bike ride first thing tomorrow, if I can wrap my giant leg around the seat. Hey, the doctors, with their multifarious almost-degrees (this is a teaching hospital after all) told me to move as much as possible, especially in the next few days, to undo the blood clot. I’m with you. Life is all about movement.

I'm feeling a bit woozy so I'll let others speak about my event of the day

Comments from readers concerning morning bike crash:

(a proper subject heading might be:) For whom the Bell…

My sympathy for your loss of Mr. Bell…

Was it Bianchi’s fault? Infatuation is a dangerous thing.

Comment from the sidelines (i.e. Mr. Bianchi chimes in – I am merely transcribing his thoughts; I know him that well):

Dear high-ups who make all the important decisions in this town, like about road stuff:

Cut us a break already. Today, Nina took me for a tour of the downtown. She was looking at some old warehouses there (her ideas come from who knows where) and she took me along for the ride. Never mind that the warehouses were along pebbly lanes (see photo below) that caused me severe nerve damage and rubber attrition. I’m not that young anymore.

Then she spun me around her stomping ground – the campus. I was pleased as pickles: a special bike line, important like, right in the middle of the main drag (University Ave)!

And look, I said: it continues on the little highway called Campus Drive! Man, this downtown stuff is cool! Good bye bike lanes, hello an urban existence!

But then, LO! It’s gone! Right there, in the middle of Campus Drive, the bike lane has disappeared! I had to think quick, take Nina by the ass and made her do a sharp turn off the drive toward the hospital, where we picked up roads and byways all the way to the Shorewood area.

The rest is history. I was out of breath, there was a bump, no warning, just like that, she wanted to turn, I missed the beat and threw her. I stood off to the side sulking (she got all the attention) as doctors and trained people with sirens and flashing lights emerged out of nowhere (the Shorewood factor, she tells me). I wasn’t even asked to help her home. Someone perched me on top of their van and gave Nina the comfy inside seat (the Madison=everyone-helps factor, she tells me).

Before signing off, I wanted to tell you high-ups that I think you treat bike lanes poorly as compared to regular traffic lanes. When I was scooting with her on U Ave, man those ditches, real DITCHES I tell you, many inches deep and wide, every couple of paces – WOOMP, and another and another: that’s just unreal. No wonder my nerves were frazzled and my rubber lost some its punch. I was made years older today.

Nina – she seems bouncy if not totally sprightly. That peasant stock line again. She has sprains and bruises but she, kind soul, is showing no ill feelings. She even took me out for an afternoon latte. True, she could not hold on to the cup well (embarrassing the both of us), but we managed the back and forth trip alright (between you and me, she’s a little off balance, but hey, at least she’s still kickin’. Or rather splashing, since I just saw her crawl up to soak in the bathtub).

Sincerely,
Mr. B

Mr. B waits while I look downtown at Madison's old tobacco warehouses 

A brief (because my typing hand hurts) ode to Mr. Bell

I know you well
My stunning Bell!

On a ride from hell
I up and fell
And lived to tell
This story well.

My head wont swell
Thanks to my Bell.


Thanks, Mr. Bell. I’m sorry that my gain is your loss. You do look awfully beat up. So do I, but I expect to be in good form soon enough whereas you – I’m afraid I’ll have to find a replacement. But here’s a photo of you from just a few days ago when you were looking mighty fine. Please know that I’ll always remember you. You saved my life.
love,
Nina

p.s. Now I know what you're thinking. Given what I wrote before, I was probably not cautious enough, it was my fault, bla bla bla. Not true. I was going slowly and encountered a bump in the road. Mr. B. could not handle it and threw me. I think I need to better understand Mr. B's limitations. He's kind of quirky sometimes. Now I know. BTW, he and I are still friends, really we are. No one's perfect.

my hero (not the latte, Mr. Bell) 

My summer vacation: essay written on the first rather than the last day of summer.

Let’s pretend I suddenly lost all writing skills. Let me rephrase that: the pretense has to be in the fact that I do have them but then am managing to disguise them well tonight in order to act like one who does not.

So let me give a brief synopsis of My Summer Thus Far:

The Daily Show was very funny.
Or was it that I was in the mood for it to be funny?
It was warm outside but I managed to not use the AC.
Who needs the AC anyway.
At work, I tidied up loose ends from the previous semester. [This was MONUMENTAL! Yay me!]
I cooked dinner for a change.
I walked in the morning, I walked in the evening, I biked in the afternoon.
I missed the full moon.
But my day was full.
The summer is a good season: it allows you to move forward in ways that winter would not.

A sign that had “Nina and Mr. B” written all over it

A friend passed this on, straight off of someone’s bike rack:

"Faster faster until the fear of death is overcome by the thrill of speed"

Yeah, I’d say that’s a pretty good way of looking at our current movements around town.

Motivation

I have heard so many talk about it lately: are you motivated to work steadily, clean up your space, eat less, exercise more, meet new people? Are you motivated? Well are you? Work on it, damn it!

It sounds like a nightmarish rendition of New Year’s Resolutions. Resolve, resolve! Work, discipline, perseverance, determination. A Manifesto! That’s it, a Manifesto for a Better Life!

Better life.

Me, I want to learn to let go, to not be so charged and damn motivated. To think of a day where I accomplished nothing much and went to bed not buzzing or spinning as a good day. To not make to do lists, to work through projects methodically without rush or even much thought. Because most (I admit, not all) projects are rather low-pressure and are well served by insouciance rather than a mad rush of adrenaline. Oh, to not feel anguished and pained at the thought of a week ahead of me! To keep the windows open on the first day of summer and just listen to the sounds out there. And think they’re beautiful. And think about nothing more, for long stretches of time. Hours maybe.

Okay, I got that last thing going now. I’m motivated to work on the rest.

tlc

Would you eat a whole box of TLC crackers just because you liked the name? I would.

my pals 

Bianchi and me, we're getting a little carried away with our passion for each other

Okay, I think I am getting too bold on the bike. I think I ought to wear a bike seatbelt or something. I think I should not be making left turns from busy six lane roads and darting between cars at full speed. Stop me from being a jackass on wheels!

I am a careful driver. So why this defiance, given that I now have two fewer wheels to support and sustain me? Why this feeling of power on the road when I should be cowering and trembling? There are some mean looking SUVs out there and I know they basically have one goal in life and that is to do me in right there on the road. So why am I these days not scared of them? Of traffic? Of life? Why do I feel a special bond and camaraderie with fellow cyclists, wanting to high-five them each time we obstruct traffic with our presence and make life miserable for those wanting to effortlessly speed home in their damn machines?

All those drivers, polluters, spoiled air conditioning addicts – they are suddenly them and the bikers and I, we are us, a fellowship of man woman and spinning wheels. Yeah!

Still, I am putting a little post-it on the handlebars as a little prod: fearlessness gets people in trouble. I should remember how much I hated cyclists like myself just two weeks ago. Road hogs, I used to mutter. Find a bike trail and leave me alone. Of course, that was then. Two weeks can make a new person out of you. Really. One small event -- a bike, a phone call and you're a different you. Pull over, cars, that right lane is now mine, damn it, mine!

the sweet smell of relief and vindication

There is this service out there (for every need, real or imagined, there is a service provider) that comes over and attends to things you’ve neglected in and around your house. As it was gently suggested to me last Friday that my yard and roof need some tlc, I called them and they came dashing over (the big thing about them is that they are like the Roto-Rooter Man – they come out immediately, like your life depended on it).

They walked, looked, poked, inspected. I sweated it out. You just feel so helpless: you start thinking that you truly are a worthless human being who rides Mr. B out west instead of attending to gutters and branches on a regular basis.

Finally, their verdict, delivered slowly but emphatically:

Ma’am (it’s better than miss, alright?) you don’t need the roof edging replaced. Just trimmed. Should take no time. As to the yard: leave it alone. The flowers are great. If someone doesn’t like your densely planted flowers, then they wont like them. But I wouldn’t touch a thing outside. Maybe trim a bush or two, that’s it.

God, I love service providers who tell you you don’t really need much of their service!

Just goes to show that one person’s jungle is another’s Eden, right? Admittedly, I did let things slide a little outside, but I am reassured that I’ve kept at it enough not to make eyes bulge as people drive by (I’m in the suburbs; people don’t walk much in the suburbs – too folksy, I guess).

Inspired, I went to the city park and loaded up on free mulch: your cuttings, pulverized to shredded garden garbage, to be applied now as dressing to my… sweet, dense jungle.

beautiful, right? 

Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine*

Which day in the calendar stands out for a northerner? Which one has “revel” written all over it? Which one has you in an apoplectic state toward the third week of December, because it seems So Very Far Away?

Obviously it’s tomorrow. Summer solstice (this year it happens on June 21st, early in the morning). When daylight (in Madison) will stretch luxuriously for 15 hours and 23 minutes (with visible light extending for 16 hours and 34 minutes).

Full moon tomorrow. A long hot day. Windows open. Breezes making their way through, from one end of the house to the other.

Midsummer. Dreamy, crazy midsummer.

*Shakespeare: Midsummer Night's Dream

this morning's rose: color so intense, it radiates 

I feel better: my yard is less chaotic than Owen Woods

So here’s what happened: on Friday, I had a visitor who was here specifically to give feedback on how I was managing the upkeep of the house. His words: the yard looks like you are a woman in despair. You need to hire someone [translate: at a minimum of $40 an hour] to help you deal with it.

It stunned me. I mean, here I’d been trying to stay on top of things and I got this slap: woman, you are a failure! You talk big about perennials and plants but your yard looks so overgrown that even rabbits are staying away for fear of losing their way in the jungle that you call a garden.

Crap. Something needed to be done. First, I hovered under my quilt (this is my response to pretty much anything problematic these days). Then I took B out for a spin. Then came the walk in Owen Woods. Finally, as dusk was turning into darkness, I took the shears to my yard and started hacking away. I made progress. It now needs 9 people with 49 hours and extra sharp shears and blades to take care of it. But I feel complete. Like my coping skills are no longer subject to challenge.

Owen Woods at dusk 

my front garden: you know, all those green stalks will eventually produce blooms. just you wait. 

What was I thinking – first in a series of posts indicating that I basically have lost the ability to draw inferences of the sort: if A, then B.

Here’s a story from last night which, if not offering definitive evidence of the above, certainly is suggestive that my brain has crossed wires and unsound connections within:

In the early evening I biked over to Rowley Street (maybe a half hour away, toward downtown Madison). I intended to drop in on a get together of sorts, even though I knew only a small number of people in attendance. And because I knew only a small number of people in attendance, I thought I would surely drop out pretty quickly. And bike home. With maybe a stop over at a blogger’s house, because she appears to be okay with drop-bys and she lives near there.

It didn’t happen. Turns out there were four people who, in their second (or first?) lives played guitars very very well, and one who played harmonicas very very well and as night set in, the Beatles songs accompanied by multiple guitars came forth and people sang and ate and yes, drank beer and – this is a new one for me – organic cigarettes were passed around and although I did try a puff so that I could later brag that I’ll try anything as long as it’s legal, I wasn’t much into the smoking. But I am a sucker for people singing together, outside, late at night and so it was close to midnight before I left.

But wait, what was I thinking? If A, then B. If you take your bike out late at night to a gathering on the other side of town, then you have to imagine yourself capable of riding it back. I did attach a nice little cateye to Mr. B, so I was fairly certain I could see the road, but others thought I was insane to be riding the hilly roads at midnight.

I retorted that at midnight the roads are emptier than at noon and besides I can always hop on the sidewalk if I feel uncertain. I read the rules for bike riders, I know what is permissible. At which point someone said that the alcohol limits are placed on bikers as well and of course they are correct, but I had been doing more singing than drinking so I felt I was safe there.

What got me finally was someone’s description of what it’s like to ride on the sidewalk at night with even just one beer under your belt: you feel every bump even if you do not see it. It’ll knock your insides out.

So I caved. Which was okay. Someone took me and my bike home and during that car ride I found out that they sailed regularly and so out of the evening I got a lot of Beatles, some promises of joint bike trips from those who were boggled (not necessarily in a good way) by my determination and at least one sailing adventure, if I promised to work the ropes, or whatever it is that one does on sailboats.

If I were to summarize the evening in one sentence, I would say that it reminded me a lot of my earlier trip peddling west: I sang and sang and talked out of some kind of desperation, hoping that something would snap and then I could just glide and be done with it. I can’t say that anything snapped and I certainly did not glide in any shape or fashion, but the process of peddling and/or singing feels better than staying home under a quilt – which is the way I had spent the first half of the day.

How far?

Letters I wish I could write:

To someone far away --
Remember last year at this same time when you shared a song with me? When you, in your life out there somewhere had been listening to How Far and decided that I may enjoy it and I did, only I am such a music baby that anytime I hear a plaintive voice, I get too choked up?

And to another --
Remember when last year we listened to Pokarekare Ana on a blanket outside? And how you did not know then that you’d be hearing it in New Zealand a year later? And that I’d be composing imaginary letters on Ocean? Because one just cannot know these things and I am basically your terrible predictor anyway. So much so that I am prone to asking others about what they think next year or the year after will look like, because I typically have no idea and in my Polish angst about each day, I always assume that by tomorrow life will topple and I will find myself wasting away in some state of discombobulation in a Benedictine abbey in southern Italy, or, horrors of horrors, digging ditches in a Russian kolkhoz with a burly фермер standing over me telling me to dig harder.

How far, how far do we go each day, how far did you travel? Did I?

Today I took the bike out and, in a straight line, headed west. Everyone talks of doing that. Driving, running, without stopping, until you run out of steam, breath, or gas. Well what if you biked? How far can you go before you encounter the first corn field? Farmland that rolls onto itself with no end in sight? A red stable with horses? The end of the road?

The thing is, however far you take yourself, you always have to figure out a way to get back. Leave yourself enough gas, or, with a bike – enough energy to peddle those hills again and head home.

The first cornfield these days is many miles out... twenty-six years ago, when we first moved to Madison, our apartment looked out onto a cornfield -- an interesting experience after south Chicago. 

right away you notice the quiet... 

oh, a visitor, all the way out here! let me trot over and check her out. 

Ocean author reaches out to horse. Hey horse, did anyone ever tell you that you sort of look like a donkey?

the end of the road. 

Holding a hand

I was in Paris a year ago, waiting to cross the street and I looked up to see this small scene. My camera was out and so before the light changed, I took the picture. Today I remembered it. Oh, that look on the man’s face! The girl seemed a little sad as well. But he – he had all those additional years of haunted worry. The look comes through just a little on the photo here:

if only... 

This morning, I was imagining the course of a simple conversation between a mother and a child, one that all parents have at somepoints, many points, in one form or another, and as I was thinking of it, I remembered another photo – one that I took last month on a Warsaw playground. Here are both, the imagined conversation and the photo:

Mommy, what’s a cloud?
It’s a bunch of tiny droplets of water and ice, suspended in the air…

Oh. Why is it covering the sun?
It has to do with the wind and the movement of air. Imagine it being pushed and pushed until it can’t help but cover the sun.

Can you unpush it? Can you make it go away?
No, I cannot.

How about my sore knee from when I fell down because someone pushed me on the playground, can you make it go away?
No, I cannot.

Mean people, mashed turnips..
I can probably do something about the turnips…

But mean people, bullies that push you?
No, I cannot. Listen, I can’t even make the weeds go away in my front garden. Look at it: It is a jungle. Out of control! It would take ten strong people with fifty long hours and shovels and shears and who knows what else to make this yard look pretty again.

I don’t care about the yard. I want you to make the tiny droplets of water and ice go away.
I cannot do that.

On a Warsaw playground: tangled up in ropes

To be blunt

In an interesting development, I went to the movies tonight with neighborhood friends, but could not really actually make myself go in through the movie door. This had never happened to me before. Typically I see a door – I go through it.

We had been eating dinner earlier and I knew it was coming – that inability to go through the door. So I left.

One person in this group said to me -- I know how it is about doors and June 15ths, so you go right ahead and return home and I’ll check on your attitude about doors after the movie.

As my earlier post indicated, I think, I did not much like June 15th. Something happened on that day that was perhaps the lowest of low points for me. I cannot explain it now, but someone told me later that they would analogize it to seeing your name spelled out on a gravestone. I think that is an apt characterization.

My previous post was meant to correct the impression that this week (and especially June 15th) has been calm. I have a handful of people living far away whom I care about deeply who should not think that the days flew by in some kind of enchanting bike ride, with a tickled tattoo and a smile at Bluephies. The post below was really, more than anything, for them.

How to write… kep said it well when he reflected how Ocean seems to convey an over-simplification of a mood sometimes (a friend emailed me this thought as well recently, even as I really mean for Ocean to be more bland these days). I suppose I am more frightened than ever of conveying something incorrectly. Still, I remain vague. I have been variously told by so many now that I am being oblique, elliptical, etc. I’m sorry – I do not know how else to write. It is my way.

How well do you know your Ocean blogger?

A quiz, to test how closely you’ve been tracking this blog (or perhaps how tedious it has become to barrel through it ever since kep left and I took up with B) (correct answers are highlighted for the clueless):

1. which photo from today creates the perfect image of where I am at:

a. this one (in my backyard so bright, cheerful, smiley, so... ??)

b. this one (I keep it in my office year-round. today it just looked so ... me)

2. which June 15 is my favorite ever, of all time?
a. 2005
b. some June 15 between 1953 and 2004

3. how many Poles does it take to drink a whole bottle of wine in one evening?
a. Poles prefer vodka
b. one

4. if I were to look out front, what would I see?
a. a beautifully kept up front yard with perennials springing forth in rapid succession
b. something that someone described today as a nightmare, or jungle or maybe it was a disaster, tended to by a person who has basically given up.

5. which word best describes my mood these days:
a. lugubrious
b. sprightly

So where am I and what am I doing?

The nice thing about this world is that when you ask for time from these particular* friends, they deliver.

But Cosmos be damned. I’m on safer ground here.

* yes yes, others too -- you know who you are!

blue at Bluephies 

Limp evidence

Men? Prefer impotence to lack of hair? It is so stated. Check it out here.

But I don’t buy it. Faulty data, I say. Here, I’ll give you an example from today that to me clearly illustrates that sex, good sex, the desire for it and worries about it are always hovering, threatening to intrude on Life As We Know It.

B and I went out late this afternoon, as promised, all the way down to his old hang out place…I was happy just to stay to the sidelines. I had taken some work with me so that B wouldn’t worry about me being bored while he went in for his fix of the good life. After a short while, I felt nudged in a direction where some items were on display. It was as if B was telling me – here go ahead, check out this. So I looked.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. In our outings together, I was dreamily wrapped in my images of our togetherness, as breezes played gently with my tattoo. B on the other hand, was callously thinking about my rear-end all along (see photo below).

butt-r: it's all about making the butt smoother 

Postcard from the edge

Today I received a postcard from someone whom I care about, but who has demonstrated an intermittent kind of interest in our dealings with each other over the years, oftentimes being absent and unavailable, when I really would have appreciated consistency and concern (no, no, ms. sometimes-smart-ass-herself, it’s not your card and most certainly it’s not you!).

And I thought: how cool is that! I’m reading it again and again and I am really touched by it. It's so expressive! It 's so sweet! It's so easy to forget all those months of quiet! I see the postcard and at least for now, I am floored, in the best of ways.

It seems to me that even a longtime pattern of bad conduct should readily be obliterated if good conduct suddenly appeared, out of nowhere. Really, that is as it should be.

And conversely, a recent act of perceived bad conduct should not obliterate a history of care and concern. It should not even make a dent.

That is as it should be. That is as it should be. But most often, that is not the way it is.

A tale of two cities, birds and houses

As if I haven’t written enough about my feelings toward Warsaw and Krakow, I yet again encountered the phenomenon of deep Warsaw derision and so here I am, returning to what would appear to be a beaten horse: why bother going to Warsaw, when you've got Krakow just three hours away?

Most conversations of this sort run like this. Incredibly dense person: Warsaw doesn’t tempt me at all. Me: have you ever been there? Incredibly dense person: No, and I wont go there because it sucks.

After this kind of provocative (if not especially evocative) statement, I am then typically offered a fistful of irrelevant reasons for the opinion, ranging from: Prague is cooler, to Krakow is prettier – all statements about places other than Warsaw herself.

I suppose, at this point, my desire to engage in the debate of whether one can see Krakow and let that be the end of one’s sojourn in Poland has been sucked out of me and so now I mostly just say profound things like “oh really” and “is that so.”

For me it’s like these two birds that I brought home this time (see photo below). I have all sorts of beautiful birds on my window sill in my office and these guys will soon join them in some manner of pomp and ceremony. One is called Warsaw and the other Krakow (for the dumb reason that each came from their named city). Note that Krakow is the looker. But when I stand them side by side, I'm remembering something else. The little one charmed me on a rainy day where you had to look beyond the clouds to find anything to smile about. The dazzling rooster – I got him under brilliant sunny skies, but it was a blah moment. I walked in, saw the very real prettiness of Mr. Krakow and whammo, the bird was mine.

Is it possible for the less splendid to take on a glamour of its own? For a smaller, lesser house, for example, to rise above the big and beautiful counterpart? Sure. Getting beyond the door helps. Listening to its story adds value. A city square, a bird, a house – they are nothing but visual props, right? They jog the memory, they create a context and help us think about what’s inside, that’s all.

props

For where no hope is left, is left no fear, pt.2

No, the previous post is not meant to be a statement about losing hope in all things that matter and plunging ahead now without fear given this great loss of hope in life. It is about… writing. You can go ahead and read additional stuff into it if you want, but if I wished to place that kind of subtext into it, then I would do it way more elliptically than that. I would not, for example, put the Milton quote right into the heading. That would be too obvious for me, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t it?

For where no hope is left, is left no fear

If John Milton has it right, then I should (fearlessly) plunge into the (hopeless) world of writing. Not blog writing. Real writing.

I admit it: in the back of the head there is this idea that “someday I will really write.” Like, sit down and eek out a novel, for example.

Last night, however, any hope of ever becoming one of the greats (meaning: someone who actually does produce a text) was seriously shaken.

It happened at Borders. B and I took a run down in the evening to listen to Karen Fowler talk about her newest novel – The Jane Austen Book Club. Actually B did not listen – he waited outside. There are never many men in Fowler’s audience when she talks about Jane Austen. Madison astonished her with 4, which she said was twice her highest thus far.

Me, I absolutely love, almost more than anything else, listening to authors talk about their work. But eventually we came to the Q/As. Someone asked Fowler if, when she wrote, she found herself stealing the stories of people she knew.

Fowler responded with a resounding YES!!

Then came the hatchet (for me). Fowler said that you cannot write and have an exciting life. Writing obligates you to sit day in and day out at your computer, shunning experience in favor of the dullness of producing something credible.

So how do you come up with material? You surround yourself with friends, she tells us, who make dreadful decisions about their own lives and who then can’t wait to tell you about them. And then you steal their stories.

I fail on both counts. My life is not dull. It grows so un-dull by the minute that I want to shout – alright already! Back off with all the excitement! I am not asking for it, so keep it off my front porch. Jesus.

As for friends? All wise and prudent types who make, in my opinion, wise and prudent choices. Or so they tell me.

And so, if I am to listen to Fowler – an award winning, published author – I should admit defeat. There is no hope for me. Though there on my shelf rests Paradise Regained, with Milton glaring at me, telling me I should tally forth, because what the hell do I have to lose?

If there be worse, the expectation more
Of worse torments me than the feeling can.

Of course, Milton has no real say over my life. His problems are not my problems. Four times married, (twice to the same woman), wives dying on him left and right, sight failing – I mean, he had a choice: go to bed and write about Madeleines brought up to him by his mummy, or forge ahead with his Lost then Regained Paradise.

Me, I’ll probably pick myself up as well, Fowler notwithstanding, and stumble along, without hope, without fear, sort of like I do on Ocean, daily, in the dull way that I do, with excitement raging around me, distracting, sure, but not completely standing in the way of me plunking away at the keyboard.

yesterday evening, at Borders 

An ode to olive oil

I would not be the person I am today without olive oil. I worship the places where it is made. Cold pressed. Virgin. Extra virgin. Sexy words for a sexy liquid gold. A deal-breaker for me: I could not have affect for anyone who did not also like, nay, love olive oil.

Another break from work, another moment to fiddle with the camera, focusing it this time not on a mirror but on my two treasures, pushed back into the shadows of the kitchen, but within sight, so that I can make myself happy just looking at them:

my gift to me, from France 

One of your own kind…

So B and I have been spending a lot of time together. We are not inseparable, but when I need to go somewhere, I usually call on him to go with me.

I do think, though, that when you have this connection going, you tend to assume that the other is comfortable adjusting to your pace, your world, your ideas. You forget that they have a past, that they have roots that are often quite different from your own.

I know very little of B’s background. Since I want to show more respect and concern for his past, today we went exploring it together. Suddenly I was in a place which had more looking like him than like me. For once he was among his own kind. B’s relief was palpable. We’ll go back Thursday evening and hang out. They’re so nice to him there – they treat him like he’s something special. He really is starting to shine with so much attention and I am happy about that. He and I – we do things for each other.

B's world 

Where I politely decline

There is a list of law profs who blog going around. I read that if we put all five blogging profs from our Law School on it, we will boost our position to second place in the country. And we’ll boost the distressingly low numbers of women law profs who blog.

My loyalty to my school abounds. I would do much for the place, and not only because it has done tons for me. But here I must politely decline.

Whereas my colleagues here and elsewhere intersperse light posting with serious notes and commentaries, Ocean sticks to a path that does not fit well with the law prof blog mold. It runs posts on love affairs with B, on Cosmo indulgence and trains speeding through rzepa fields. And the author – me, kep, or the latest name picked by a fellow blogger – coyote camic, I’m just not meant to have my portrait up with the blogging academicians. I’m the type that thinks nothing of taking a picture of myself in the mirror and posting it the next day, just for the hell of it (see sidebar and photo below). And I’m not wearing silken robes or tailored suits either. Yesterday I worked all day dressed… informally, and I don’t mean corporate casual:

work break: playing with the camera 

So, no listing for me, thanks. But I applaud those (here and here) whose efforts are in line with what is expected of a law prof. Their texts are noble vintage. Mine – it’s table wine, nothing more.

Confession

I read with interest Oscar’s deliberations about buying a cup of coffee in Germany. He was posting away at a Berlin Starbucks and assuring us that mutter necessity (really: a better than average brew, in a smokefree environment) drove him to it. Me, I’d do it for the sleek and comfortable looking ambience. (Scroll down to the second photo here.)

I’ve written before about my horror when Starbucks put up a drive-through on University Ave. in Madison. And how I now routinely violate my own “horrified stance” by driving up (only when I am in a hurry, I promise).

But all this made me think that, unlike Oscar, I am without principles – or, at the very least, mine are thinly drawn and definitely arbitrary. I admit it. I make no sense. Here’s my honest list of when I will cave for the love of the service or product (or for the sheer convenience associated with it), overcoming my feeling of loyalty to the little guy and when I absolutely will not touch the tainted stuff:

1. I will drink Starbucks coffee (even though its corporate goal is to operate more than 30,000 retail outlets worldwide);
2. I will shop endlessly at Borders (even though it has some 500 stores, to say nothing of the horrible Walden chain, also under its management);
3. I will shop at Whole Foods and I’ll even write a letter of love and devotion to the owner of the chain for substantially improving my grocery shopping experience (even though I hear he is an arrogant jerk face);
4. I would rather hunt nuts and berries than set foot in Taco Bell, McDonalds or KFC. The last time I was in one was a year ago when the person I was with developed a severe hydration need. I was in pain the entire three minutes we were there. Never, ever, ever will I willingly set foot in one again.
5. And here’s a weird one: champagne. It’ll always be from the little guy. I have such great affection for those who are figuring out ways to turn the fermenting bottles by hand and trying to make a go of it with tiny tiny fields of rock and dirt that I want to put in my pennies into their coffers.

I could go on, but I think this short list says it all: I have sold my soul and conscience. I am without scruples. Mostly, I really like to be surrounded by yummy foods and good books, while sipping a steaming cup of dark roast with frothy milk. Those cravings satisfied, I'll take a look at the corporate ledger. But first thing's first.

Spit spat

B and I have had our first ugly little spat. Things had been running oh so smoothly and then yesterday I suggested an evening run to Borders. Once there, I did indeed intend to leave him to his own devices. At Borders, I like to be unencumbered. B took offense. Something about liking to be by my side – chained is the way I viewed it. Well okay, but I’m not a chainer. I trust that at the end of our separate time, B will be there and I will be there for him and we’ll do our thing and the world will be a cool place.

I was miffed and so I went alone. I was even more miffed because my summer-of-no-car resolve meant that I had to hike to Borders and back, thereby wasting valuable time. When I’m with B, I never consider that time wasted. I am energized. Time flies. My soul is nourished.

This morning I was still slightly put off by the entire episode and so I gave B the cold shoulder. I not only went walking alone at dawn (sacrificing that tickle on the tattoo), but then I ran an errand by car and ignored B’s reproachful positioning of himself, almost as if to block my way out. “How could you be doing this…” B seemed to be saying. Suddenly, in that moment, B looked sad and old to me. I left, but I felt that I was being too unforgiving.

By afternoon I’d melted. I needed an espresso, B was around and so off we went together again. Things are better and there weren’t any significant bumps along the way, but you know how it is: once you have had that first spat, you’re wondering how long until the next one.

Where I am still preoccupied with a yukky phone conversation from yesterday

I read this wonderful book called 2016. Did you read it?
No.

You should. The author takes you through the next presidential elections – shows how the death of Castro just before November would unseat the Republicans, because of Florida you know… and then all the way to the 2016 elections.
Imaginative.

No, it’s not fiction, it’s for real.
Anything that describes what happened in the year 2016 cannot be described as "for real."

You don’t understand, it is for real. A third party will unseat both the Republicans and Democrats you know. That’s after the Republicans carry it away once Osama is surprisingly captured.
(tempted to say “whatever” but instead, offer up the following:) Ah.


But am I being unfair? Let me see: could I write a post that would describe my life in the year 2016 and not call it fiction? Here’s a stab at it: from Ocean’s author in the year 2016:

People tell me that the sixties are the quiet before the storm. I believe they are talking about the sixties age-wise, not calendar-wise. My sixty-three is definitely quieter than the year 1963 was for the country as a whole. The turning point for me, I know will be 64. It will feel weird to pass the age of the song “When I’m sixty four.” The need me, feed me bit sounded then rather poignant. Now, of course, I’ve learned that being needed and being fed are sort of opposites. What you want to aspire to is feeling needed and not needing someone to spoon food into your mouth. It’s worked for me. And I do predict that next year, when I turn 64, I will get both birthday greetings and a bottle of wine, so that’s good.

Someone said to me that they like the place I’m living in this year. I think people say things like that when they first enter an uncluttered house. Clutter is never visually appealing, especially someone else’s clutter. I remember being stunned when I last visited my old family apartment in Warsaw – mountains of clutter, piled high, to the ceiling, all significant to the resident therein but terrifying to the visitor who is standing there worrying that one little move will disturb the balance and it will all come crashing down on everyone in sight. No one likes thinking that any second they may be gasping for a last breath from under volumes of political essays and postcards received and read more than 70 years ago.

Some people think that my clutterlessness is born in part out of my moving so much. But I have moved only eighteen times in my life, which means that on the average, I move every 3 years, but that is so totally misleading because by far the vast majority of my moves took place before I turned 32, meaning in the first half of my life.

The irony is that during the time of all those moves, I experienced the greatest amount of personal stability. Not that I am spinning in some incoherent direction right now. Becoming a grandparent has given me a schedule for one thing. And I stick to it. Little toddlers and big daughters expect that of you. But I think I have to admit that something happened after fifty that blew up the notion of predictability. I would not have predicted ten years ago where I’d be living now, for instance. Nor what I would be doing. It shocked everyone. Most of all, it shocked me.

There – it’s fiction, isn’t it? Isn’t it?