Overload/Beauty in the 20th Century

I have so many things I want to write about and no time to do so. Jewish Atheist has a lovely post about listing things one thinks are transcendently beautiful from the 20th Century as a counterweight to the horrors of 20th century history.* So, here's my list. I'm not as selective as Jewish Atheist. While I will limit myself to the 20th Century, I will not limit myself to just five things:

1. TigerGrrl.** Born in 1999, she pretty much was the pinnacle of 20th Century human evolution. Everything else in the century pales in comparison.
2. In 1976, somewhere in Spain (but sold in Barcelona), my classical guitar was made. There may be better guitars out there, but this one is beautiful to me.
3. Dire Straits: Romeo & Juliet.
4. Elvis Costello: Green Shirt, Watching the Detectives, What's So Funny About Peace, Love, and Understanding, A Good Year for the Roses
5. Bruce Springsteen: One Step Up & Two Steps Back
6. Johnny Cash
7. Mary Chapin Carpenter: This Shirt, I Take My Chances, He Thinks He'll Keep Her
8. Nancy Griffith: Great Divide, Tecumseh Valley, Love at the Five and Dime
9. Pretty much anything written by Margaret Atwood, Anne Tyler, Mario Vargas Llosa, and Pat Barker, but most particularly: The Robber Bride, Lady Oracle, Alias Grace, The War of the End of the World, Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter, and Death in the Andes (Lituma en los Andes).
10. Maya Lin's Viet Nam War Memorial.
11. The Taviani Brothers' The Night of the Shooting Stars
12. Tampopo and A Taxing Woman
13. Passion Fish
14. Maria Ewing's performance of Salome at the Kennedy Center in the 1980s.
15. Kathleen Battle's lieder performance at the Musikverein in Vienna (Austria, not Virginia) in 1989.
16. My friends Francesca, Innana, SNV, and Uber.
17. NiQ.
18. DOL.
19. LOS, NSLOS, FoilMormor, Aunt Elsebet, and Cousin Roland. LOS's two sons.

I have to stop now, but of course, there is much, much more.

*Um, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, lynching in the U.S., I'll stop now before I lose the ability to think about the good in the world.

**DestructoGirl isn't on the list because she is a 21st Century creation. Born without any test tube intervention to this then-43 year-old mother, she's about as miraculous as the alleged virgin birth. But she's not a 20th Century miracle.

Gradually Back in the Land of The Living

Not being out and about means I had much interaction with others except Innana and Guy, at neither of whom I feel even remotely inclined to snark.* Innana has been a true friend, picking me up from the outpatient clinic where they sliced-and-diced me, buying me ice cream and bouillion soup, and generally babying me to a degree that made me feel slightly embarrassed and very, very grateful. Guy left the initial care scene to Innana (it occurred to me that I wanted someone I've known for more than half my life to be responsible for me rather than someone I have known for less than half a year -- he seemed to feel the same way) but then stepped up after I returned home to the FoilFlat, brining ice cream and cold beverages and taking me out for a brief keep-Foilwoman-from-going-stir-crazy-after-a-week-indoors.

Actually, I wasn't indoors for a week, but I wasn't out and about, and I do get cabin fever. The day after surgery I had the bright idea of walking to get a newspaper. Just the not-even-exertion of walking a quarter mile had me woozy and my throat all sore. I then contented myself with sitting on Innana's couch looking out of her Snow White window. What's a Snow White window? It's the window where the squirrels and birds gather to admire Innana. Really. (She feeds them, and they are quite easy to corrupt.)

The practice of squirrel and bird corruption was begun just because it's fun to have little winged creatures and rodents gathering round her window, just like a Disney heroine. But it really happens. This has continued for a decade or so now. If the squirrels see you sitting there and you don't get them crackers or bread . . . well, I guess that's what junkies are like when they need a fix. Now, Innana's probably still feeding them because she's afraid these hoodlum squirrels will try to fence her TV to score some Pepperidge Farm Twelve Grain Bread, but also because this provides the all-squirrel/all-bird channel for Rajah the WonderCat. His superpower? Looking handsome and cool and having the softest fur in all creation. The squirrels are not the least afraid. They dis poor Rajah.

I also watched TV. TNT mostly, some F/X, a bit of Spike TV, and of course, the Daily Show and the Colbert Report. And some Telemundo and Univision telenovelas. Law & Order. Charmed. You know, the $50/month I don't spend by not having cable? I'm going to continue to not spend it. I had a blast (I was pretty doped up to begin with, so even reading was too much.) but just as a break from my usual.

Innana had recorded all the Jane Austen adaptions shown on PBS in the last year and that was interesting. I'm rereading Persuasion now for the 3rd time. The more cynical and antiromantic I get, the more I like written Jane Austen. Someone needs to buy the adaptors a vowel and a clue however. She wrote ironically and often sarcastically and she despised the Romantics and romance. Any reference to romance in her works lets you know that the speaker is either a villain or a nitwit. Only the clear-eyed are allowed a chance at happiness in her world. In reading Persuasion, I'm struck by how the values espoused by Walter and Elizabeth Elliot or Marianne Dashwood** seem to be those that most active singles today seem to espouse. I wish I had the talent to write the modern-world version of this world in miniature.

So Innana took me home Friday (so the FoilKids could see me in the flesh before their weekend with their father), and Guy brought me some groceries and took me out for a drive on Saturday. Innana had been in touch with my family and coworkers, letting everyone know I was okay. Innana and I visited again today, working on the whole NiQ-to-prep-school-scheme, but mostly just visiting.

So nothing much of significance, except I am lucky in my friends, including my newest friend, but it's the old friends who really make the difference when you need a friend.

*I may not be the nicest person on the planet, but people who take care of me when I'm recuperating from surgery can be assured a snark-free zone, especially when said surgery makes speech painful.
** Valuing looks and outward appearances (for the Elliots) or shared interests -- books and poetry (for Marianne Dashwood), rather than actual character and worthy behavior.

Politics

Now, I'll admit, in November, I'm voting for whoever wins the Democratic nomination, but I lean towards Hillary. If Barack wins, I'll vote for him. But he'll actually have to win, and since reading Dr. Socks's excellent question about who the front-runner is, I'm really wondering: are all these men that afraid of a woman commander-in-chief? Because I'm definitely seeing a "I'm afraid of a strong woman who will make me feel like less than a man" vibe that really has a great chance of giving us President McCain. So, after reading Dr. Socks's post, can anyone explain why Barack Obama shouldn't drop out? Other than the fact that TigerGrrl likes him, and I want her to have the candidate that she wants. But she's eight years old, so her vote really doesn't count because she's underage. So other than that reason, why?

Guy has pretty much sealed his Foilwoman Man-In-Her-Life Approval Rating by saying he voted for Hillary in the primary and expressing his suspicion that people who dislike her largely seem to be reacting to having their competent mother in charge (and then asking "why would that be a bad thing?"). I'm going to start getting damn mushy about Guy soon. That's all I have to say.

Surgical Little Whinging

Okay, so I had a uvulopalatopharyngoplasty (UPPP) and tonsillectomy last week. Not for sleep apnea (although that was why the insurer approved the surgery), which is the normal reason, but because every time I have gotten a head cold in the last three years, my uvula has swollen up to golf-ball (really) size, which, if you think about it, means I end up in the emergency room asking some over-tired over-worked intern who really can't see clearly enough to see if I'm a human being or some hyrax-hydrangea hybrid to please, please, please keep my airway open.

The last time this happened it was my weekend on with the girls and I had to ask PdeFF to help me out (he did, without question -- I may rag on the man until I'm blue in the face, but he is a loving and devoted father even if he did blow their college funds on a new Mercedes a few years back*) and I realized that things were a bit out of control.

I'm not a big fan of surgery. I have never understood how anyone can do anything even remotely elective. Plastic surgery -- I'd rather just get old, thank you very much. All the risks, all the pain? Nuh-uh. Yet I was getting tired of being rushed to the head of the line** in the E.R. and envisioning a day when I wouldn't react quickly enough to that feeling of "Do I have a lamb chop stuck in my throat?"

So, slice and dice last week, and I am missing a few more body parts!*** I still can't eat solid food (good thing I like the milkshakes) other than poached eggs, or soggy crackers in soup. I'm looking foward to actually eating things with flavor again. You know: things that aren't bouillion, mashed potatoes, scrambled or poached eggs, etc. Actually, I've been enjoying the soups and the banana-chocolate milkshakes (nutritious and tasty!).

Sunday, Guy is taking me to a wine-tasting, where I can focus on flavor without chewing anything. After picking up groceries for me. Innana got to boss me around unmercifully. She said things like "What's so special about your girls?" when I really couldn't speak at all. Actually, it was like a big sleep-over: we hung out just like when we were roommates in the 1980s. Fun.

I'm just happy the surgery is in the past. Note to ENT docs everwhere: after throat surgery do remember that your patient need liquid or patch painkillers. Not pills that are hard to swallow. Because after throat surgery, how do I say this? Swallowing REALLY hurts. This shouldn't be hard to figure out, but I asked the surgeon about this, then his P.A., and then, when I asked the pharmacist, they were still giving me pills, and she had to call the P.A. pre-surgery. The P.A. told me the pills wouldn't be a problem. "Not for you!" I said. The P.A. said the doctor liked to prescribe Percocet, which didn't come in liquid form. I said "Then the doctor is a sadist and an idiot. Change the prescription." He did. I hadn't seen His Eminence's suggestion of fentanyl patches for pain (no swallowing) at that point. But ENT doctors of the fucking universe -- some fake Pope in Australia could figure this out sight unseen. Why can't you?

Of course, the surgery was complication free, and four days out and I'm feeling pretty good. I went eight hours between pain doses last night (not waking up for the every four hour dose up) and didn't miss the 2 a.m. dose. Innana says she's not hearing any sleep apnea (read: incredibly loud and not mellifluous snoring), and my voice is slowly returning. So I really can't complain, because everything did go well. But the logistical crap? (Pills? After throat surgery?+ Give me a break!) Eish.

*Yes, I'm still bitter.
**Really, just gasp: "I . . . can't . . . breathe" while turning blue and you will see a prompt E.R. response. Of course, you'll also get a tube shoved down your throat, which no matter how well done, isn't ever pleasant, but you will still be able to breathe, so that's a plus.
***Already missing a natural navel (don't ask). Now, I don't have my uvula or tonsils. What next?
+The P.A. suggested I mash the pills up (because that's so yummy and not gritty at all and the bad taste wouldn't make me want to vomit) and I suggested that he actually try to make life easier for people who have just been chopped up a bit. Okay, I was pre-menstrual too, which just gave everything a little added je ne sais quois to every pre-surgical interaction which was already a bit stress-filled.

Because I Am A Retarded Git

I was kindly sent a more visual header by the talented Margaret referred here by the generous Laura and in adding my new snazzy header, I have managed to lose all my links. This is entirely my own fault. Actually, I saved thelinks before trying to update my template, but only a few survived here, and now I have to remember where I saved them. Anyone and everyone, please send me your blog links so I can re-link. Yes, I have a more visually interesting banner, but I've lost everyone. Because I'm stooooo-pid.

Bronze John, Benny, Tournee du Chat Noir, Cookie Monster, Fluffy Bunny Man *ahem* I mean, the Fatalist, Twisty, Dr. Violet Socks, First Nations/Paul, Jamie, CyberKitten, Curlews Guy, Vicus Scurra, Alda Kalda, Amieo/DeltaDiva, Prom, Jenn in Pittsburg, Laurita, Juanita, Champurrado, Jewish Atheist, Crushed Tragedian, XSpot, Kira, Andy, any Useless Men at all (but please, not all of you, 3 billion or so is a bit much), Camilla, Zoe, TheatreChick, OperaGert, First Nation's, Vicus Scurra, Just Jane, Jeanie, Regional Support Clerk, Danny Boy, Cuff, Alex in Oz, and anyone else who I haven't listed (which would be entirely inadvertent, although definitely idiotic), please email me your link at Foilwoman at gmail etc. etc. Thank you, and my apologies.

It's Enough to Make Me Superstitious (and Secretive)

I rag on Innana a lot about how secretive her family is. People don't get told about illnesses and injuries or sales of the homestead or possibly marriages or divorces. Now, of course, I can eat my words as I realize that for the past three years, my family has been doling out information about various catastrophes in a very parsimonious manner.

FoilMormor has a medical condition that isn't going to kill her (it's a type of leukemia that, unless it bulks up on steroids, isn't going to do diddly). She's had this since 2005, but somehow I didn't get informed until Fall of 2007. The Second Mate's myelofibrosis has been around for a while as well, but only got disclosed last fall. NSLOS still doesn't know about the leukemia.

It turns out Aunt Elsebet needed some fairly serious medical intervention last year, and somehow NSLOS wasn't informed, nor was I. Jensemen, over seventy, had a severe enough fall to require reconstructing a wall in his home, and while there are no broken bones, he's in a great deal of pain and is having trouble sleeping.

Cousin Roland's wife, Sylvie, has some pretty severe conditions, most of which spring from Lyme Disease that went untreated for a bit too long. Now she has pancreatitis which just doesn't go away, and she's basically unable to eat. She gets all her nutrition intravenously. She's shrinking.* I just learned about that recently.

And now I'm doing it: FoilMormor and NSLOS don't know about my upcoming surgery, mainly because they've got enough to worry about. FoilMormor, real stuff, and NSLOS, the burdens of mental illness make her worry about everything. LOS and the FoilDad know, and Innana will keep them informed. Works for me.

I tell myself that this sort of secrecy, in these instances, isn't about hiding information as much as gauging how much any individual person can handle at any given point in time. Maybe it even is.

*In an aside, Sylvie has been getting LOTS of compliments for how much weight she's lost -- she's never been fat, just not Anna Wintour-approved-anorexic, which means she's been a normal woman with hips and such -- and she's getting pissed. "I mean, I can't do anything. If this goes on much longer, I'll die! And they say I look great! Morons." Well, she didn't say "Morons", because, well, she's nicer than I am. But there you go.

Oh, Modern Medicine, I Do Hate You

In the interests of full disclosure, my current status of loathing the U.S. medical system, medical professionals (with exclusions for Bronze John and His Eminence, Benedict the XVI, Madder and Badder than the XVth and anyone near and dear to those two fine blokes), and anyone wielding a syringe, a scalpel, or basically anything even remotely medical that doesn't include big time opiates is due not only to the condition of the Second Mate and his treatment by loathsome pharmaceuticals, insurers, and evil imps of Satan who purport to be in the caring professions, but is due to my own impending slice and dice which will leave me, literally, speechless for a week or so. Innana is all excited that I won't be able to interrupt her. She's so excited, she's nursing me for the better part of my first week home from said slice and dice.

This all makes me grumpy and irritable. Even more irritable than the system's neglect of and indifference to my step-father and his myelofibrosis. I'm sure I'm completely objective in the preceding post, but knowing how much pain I'll be in at this time next week, I might be being a pissy bitch right now. You tell me.

If One More Blithering Idiot Tells Me That the U.S. Has the Best Health Care System in the World, I Will Disembowel That Idiot Slowly with a Spork

No, if you think we have the best health care in the world you are unfamiliar with health care for newborns and children in most of Europe, Cuba, and many other countries. You also clearly have never learned the meaning of the phrase "somewhat less than mediocre"*.

Let's be honest: the U.S. healthcare system, whether for the uninsured, the privately insured, or the government coverage for the aged sucks and blows. I'll merely be presenting anecdotal evidence here, but if I were in charge of the system that gave rise to this anecdote, I would hang my head in shame.

As I've said, the Second Mate, my lovely stepfather, has myelofibrosis. He's not doing well, but he's hanging in there with weekly transfusions. However, chemotherapy didn't do much, nor did the common medications. So Second Mate's doctor decided to try less common therapy.

Thalidomide is a not-completely-long shot treatment for myelofibrosis. Since myelofibrosis is largely a disease related to aging, the worry about people taking the thalidomide getting pregnant is really a non-existent worry. So what's the problem with an 80-plus year old man taking thalidomide? Well, apparently it's lack of insurance coverage. FoilMormor and Second Mate's insurer has been stalling on approving treatment (apparently it's not 100% guaranteed to work, unlike everything else in this life). A 30-day supply of pills at 1 pill per day would come to $3,100** per month. So the insurer hasn't approved treatment – it hasn’t denied it either, but when you’ve got a less-than-one-year-life expectancy and you requested approval back in December, at a certain point, the delay becomes a denial. While FoilMormor and the Second Mate are comfortably off, without insurance coverage, they don’t have an extra $37,200 sitting around either. That’s why they have Medicare and supplemental insurance.***

So now, FoilMormor is trying to get Revlimid approved for the Second Mate. This involves numerous phones calls to the insurers, and then to the pharmacy, as this is a special drug for some reason. A pharmacist can’t fulfil the prescription, you have to contact Walgreens’ (or whoever’s) headquarters, the drug manufacturer (waiting on hold), and apparently tech support at Apple or Gateway (anyway, you’re on hold long enough). My mother commented, to the insurer, the supplemental insurer, the drug company, and the pharmacy that if she were ill (like Second Mate) she certainly wouldn’t have the energy for their runaround. No comment. My mother is a retired lawyer. She was educated at one of the Seven Sisters.+ She doesn’t give up easily and she is naturally combatitive. And she’s retired and has time to fight. How does a single parent waitress or welder navigate in this environment?++

Now, I’m not sure how effective these therapies will be, but at what point should an insurer cover a medicine? Many medicines we take for many illnesses are only effective 30 or 40 percent of the time or less. Just look at how psychopharmacologists mess around with antidepressants and the like. Is 10% effectiveness ineffective enough to say “Nope, not worth it.”? What about 60% or 80%? I understand that drawing these lines is difficult, but even so, the decision-makers (who are the insurers in the U.S.) need to be open an honest about the processes they use. It is whether they like an individual patient? Demographics such as age or sex? Prognosis (better or worse)? No-one knows, and the miserable cretins won’t make a decision one way or another.

Hey: denial by not deciding is denial just the same as a flat “No.” Have the courage of your convictions. A flat no can be appealed and the patient or his or her family can then marshall their resources and decided exactly how close to bankruptcy they want to skirt. I am so angry.

*If you need a definition, just check out the spouse and offspring of the current incumbent in the White House. The incumbent, needless to say, rates much worse than "somewhat less than mediocre." The women in his family rate a tad better, but that's not saying a whole heck of a lot.

**I am flummoxed at the cost of Thalidomide. It was sold in over forty countries from 1957 to 1962. Presumably, when it’s teratogenic effects were discovered and the drug was pulled from the market, all development costs that were not then recovered were written off as absolute and total losses. Who was going to make a profit. Over fifty years from when it was first marketed, exactly what causes this drug to be so expensive? Risk of birth defects? I don’t think an 82-year old man dying of myelofibrosis is going to be at high risk for gestating deformed children, thank you very much. Someone explain the economics to me, because I just don’t get it.

***N.b.: FoilMormor and the Second Mate have better coverage than the average U.S. citizen.

+Which were: Radcliffe, Barnard, Mt. Holyoke, Wellesley, Smith, Vassar, and Bryn Mawr. Radcliffe and Barnard have been rather absorbed into Harvard and Columbia, but the others remain.

++My suspicion: they don’t.

All You Need Is Love

No, I am not writing about me. I'm sometimes a little slow on the uptake. One of the reasons Guy is getting the new-and-improved-non-skeptical-and-more amenable Foilwoman* is because of something that's not even happening in my town.

I'm more relaxed and easygoing with Guy because (1) it has been over a year since I got divorced and it's not recent and embittering my memory, (2) Guy is really flattering, yet sincere and apparently thinks I'm all that, and (3) (and this is the key fact): PdeFF (the Insane Ex) has a very nice woman friend and apparently has decided that I haven't ruined his life by divorcing him. Go New Lady Friend of PdeFF! You're the best! I like you buckets! And if you manage to have satisfying sex with that man (he has ONE move in the sack -- originally it seemed like more, but it shrank to one move. Actually, no, two moves: (1) insert penis, and (2) move back and forth -- is it time to get up now? I really need to wash my hair. Okay, that's mean, but, hey, he earned it.) you should win the Nobel Peace Prize. Or maybe the Pulitzer Prize for something-or-other.

But PdeFF's new woman friend (a nice Canadian woman who I clearly owe some sort of duty to warn, but who is kind of on her own here) really has done me a favor. No questions about my whereabouts. No attempts to launch into dissertations about my badness.

And I am not particularly concerned, now, about the previously inevitable insanity following PdeFF meeting Guy. Now, he'll tell himself I connected with Guy to make myself feel better following his big romance. Go ahead, think that way. I just don't have to be so secretive.

Of course, PdeFF invited this woman to visit him from Memphramagog or somewhere in Quebec and didn't make any effort to inform the girls of anything. So the week she was visiting, I got to explain the relationship to TigerGrrl, prefacing every statement with: "You really should ask your father."

But I got questions like "Is it just like a big sleepover? You told me boys and girls generally don't have sleepovers together. But Papa had Marie visiting. Why can't Sami and I (or Giuseppe and I, or Sanjay and I) have a sleepover? Thanks a bunch, Insane Ex. But while TigerGrrl will be asking no questions about Guy anytime soon (because she is unaware of his existence as yet), I'm not so worried about PdeFF discovering the existence of Guy (kind of like the discovery of another galaxy or something: it's threatening to the fundamentalists who think the Earth is the center of the universe).

On the Guy front: I just checked my cell phone and SNV has announced that as soon as Ex-Marine Fred is back in the U.S. from weapons sales(or possibly purchases, I'm clueless here) unknown, Guy should join SNV, Ex-Marine Fred, and myself for dinner. I'm sure Guy will be thrilled.

*For all those guys I met in the last three years who met the old-non-improved-tough-old-bird-hard-as-a-box-of-rocks-didn't-believe-a-word-you-said-but-was-happy-to-snog-you-if-you-smelled-nice-Foilwoman, don't come whining to me. That's courtship in the post-modern era and your just going to have to toughen your non-macho selves up, you big wimps.

Metro Miscreants: What Should One Do?

The last few weeks have produced a surfeit of subway sinners, and I'm just about fed up. Especially the rushing woman who tripped the blind woman, the man who didn't rise from his handicapped seat for a blind woman with guide dog until she told him that she was entitled to the seat and would he rise? Then he commented that she could have asked him politely.

No, dude. You sit in the handicapped seats you rise like a damn jack-in-the-box upon the appreance of a frail or limping or pregnant person, no? On the same subway car, a woman sniffed upon being asked to allow another rider to sit in the inside seat that she was blocking (every other seat on the train was full and there were plenty of standees around her). Upon hearing the murmured comment: "Maybe you didn't realize it's rush hour?" she thanked the speaker for making such an obvious statement and said she had her reasons for blocking the seat and "Anyone can ask me to move." Yeah, ill-bred biddy, but they shouldn't have to do so, should they?

Lastly, gentlemen, do not spread out into your seat partner, especially if that partner is a woman. You're really not that big, or if you are, you should stand. And if the woman has the nerve (yeah, this happened) to say: "Stop touching me" do not take this as an opportunity to explain how the subway seats require you to touch the person sitting next to you, full body style. Really. Apologize and tuck yourself in a bit.

One of these things happened to me, the others I witnessed. Especially charming is the attack-mode response rather than apology or silence. I'm not looking forward to the Monday morning commute. I really hope I see some kind and considerate behavior. That would be a trend reversal I'd like to see.

Also, whether as the subject of someone's rudeness or merely a witness to it, I don't want to pick a fight with anyone (all too easy -- no challenge there), but at the same time, when I'm in the public sphere it's very clear to me that if one lets one person get away with gross selfishness or incivility, then we are just one step closer to a really horrible public world where no-one feels any accountability to others. Not a place I like to visit, much less live. So everyone, for the love of other people treating you with civility: don't trip the blind, steal their seats, hog two seats during rush hour (thinking "they can ask me to stand!" -- yeah right, and you can remain an asshole), or use the crowdedness of the trains as an excluse to get more body contact than anyone would otherwise willingly allow you access to. The correct response (and there's only one) when confronted on these solecisms: "Oh, I am so sorry!" in a completely heartfelt manner. Not a supercilious sniff that you have to move your backpack off the seat. Not an essay on why you can't keep your body from encroaching on others' space (as everyone else in the same train car is managing). No. Just apologize, correct your impolite and selfish behavior, and do it no more. Don't make me hurt you, as much as I would like an excuse to do so. Especially those tripping the blind and not exiting a handicappled seat when asked to do so by a blind person.*

*Really. I saw this. Also, the rule goes for anyone. It doesn't matter if the handicap isn't visible. He might be needing a lung transplant. She might be in a not-too-advanced-but-high-risk pregnancy.

Running the Gauntlet (Guy, Not Me)

It seems like I haven't had any time to myself for quite some time, but finally it is my non-custodial weekend. Of course, this weekend Guy gets to run the Innana/SNV gauntlet. SNV's boss, upon hearing that Guy was getting the great good pleasure of having dinner with the three of us offered to come along and offer some protection. Yup. Guy needs a military escort, and Ex-Marine Fred isn't available because he's checking out weapons purchases for the Pentagon in Israel or some other country with a military industrial complex.

So everyone, say a prayer for Guy. Him v. Innana, SNV, and me. Of course, I'm just a fluffy little bunny (and he wants to sleep with me, so he'll put up with a lot), but Innana and SNV? They're tough. And determined to screen any new FoilBeau about whom I might potentially move beyond Mr. Right Now status for all signs of insanity. And since SNV is indeed the woman who introduced me to the Insane Ex, she feels some real responsibility. And since Innana has been bailing me out since the divorce (she's the person who paid for TigerGrrl's trip to Vermont -- AnonDave, I do hope the Green Mountains are still standing? And that Mount Peculiar remains so? After a visit from a daughter of mine, one really can't be sure. -- and is paying for TigerGrrl's next incredibly expensive field trip --$55!), she also has voting rights.

Yes, gentlemen of the world, I didn't need my friends' approval or opinions to decide to make whoopie (a great song, btw, which I intend to learn how to play, although I don't really think it's guitar-friendly), but now that I'm actually deciding that there might be some space in my actual life for this man, the hurdles come out. And yes, two of those hurdles are friends of mine who I've known since 1984 (remember, Innana was a precocious three-year old, although a bit more delicate than DestructoGirl is now).

Actually, it's more like this: at this point, we either start meeting friends and fitting into one another's lives or not. It actually seems comfortable (to me, Guy may have another take on this -- we'll have to ask him) to be doing this. Two weeks ago, Guy asked me to join a group of friends going to some museums. I couldn't, because I had plans with SNV, so here we are.

One of the things I like best about Guy is his balanced approached toward becoming closer as a friend: he isn't over-eager, but isn't holding back at all, and he doesn't hesitate at all when offered treats like this weekend's dinner with SNV and Innana. He hesitated about symphony at the Kennedy Center (four seconds, maybe) but not about dinner with my oldest women friends in DC. At the same time, when he suggests that we do something and I can't because of other plans, he doesn't get all hinky. He accepts that I have other plans and commitments without any jealousy or excessive questioning. He also accepts the kids custodial schedule as a clear limitation on his contact with me. He has cleverly figured that he should try to make plans for, get this, nights when my girls are with their father. A genious.

Well, I'll stop before I get mushy or something. We can't have that.

NiQ Clarification

When, in my penultimate post,I wrote that:

NiQ has the defensiveness and smart-aleckyness of a not-well-loved child that will not serve her well.

I was not writing that NiQ is not loved, and well, by Innana or DOL. They do love her and care for her a lot. It's just that NiQ lives with her mother, NOAS, and NOAS doesn't have the knack of telling her child, NiQ, that NOAS loves her buckets, no matter what. Nor does NOAS have the knack of acting as though she loves NiQ buckets no matter what. There's some cause/effect gap there, and it's harming NiQ.

I don't write this to say that NiQ is irrevocably damaged (she is damaged, there's not getting around that). NiQ is smart, she has adults who truly, truly love her, and she knows that. Unfortunately, those adults are not her parents, and those adults have limits (due to age and distance) that restrict their involvement to some degree. NiQ's father is in another part of the country. I believe his contact is limited to sending his daughter $10 Walmart gift cards on her birthday (I could be wrong, but I don't think so). NOAS just isn't able to really step up to the plate for a variety of reasons that have resulted in her blog-handle here. I think if we (Innana, DOl, Francesca*, and me) can get NiQ to a safe and intellectually rich environment where just one (1!) teacher takes a strong interest in her, she will blossom. It's just getting her there, getting her to want to be there (and make the necessary and not insignificant effort) and doing so without offending her mother that's the trick.

Also, I personally have no power to get NiQ the sort of scholarship I had. It's essential that I get people at that institution (the Prep School in Question, or PSQ) to want NiQ to be a member of their community and see that while they could enrich her life, she could also enrich their institution.

Anyway, lots to do, no guarantees, many of the end results completely out of my sphere of influence. Until later.

*Francesca, NiQ is interested in a field of study that you got interested in and that a dear and departed friend of ours established as a field of study at PSQ, so we need to talk. Email to follow.

How Did I Miss This Much Music

I'm listening to Third Eye Blind's God of Wine. I've been playing by six-string Spanish guitar (not the most appropriate folk music instrument, but work with me) playing This Shirt, Rhythm of the Blues, Dreamland (yeah, I'm on a Mary Chapin Carpenter kick), Travellin' Soldier, Lili, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts, Good Year for the Roses (Elvis is King), Pancho & Lefty, and Because the Night.

I've been listening (on Jango internet radio) to Bonnie Raitt singing Love Me Like a Man, someting by the Foo Fighters that I liked, but didn't catch the name of, All Around the World -- Myth of Fingerprints (What's that about? But I like it.), and, on Saintly Babysitter's CD-player, Maria Callas singing Carmen. I'll never understand how people live their lives listening to top-forty music or Musak. Or just one type of music.

But then I remembered how I got to like country music: through two people I thoroughly loathed by the end of my acquaintance with them (no funny story forthcoming). The worst roommate-hood of my life was spent listening to her favorite radio station (WOKQ out of somewhere in New Hampshire) during the year that Gail Davies had Grandma's Song on the country charts. I had always liked Emmy Lou Harris and Dolly Parton, but they weren't really country. They were friends with Linda Rondstadt, so they were more mainstream. But I discovered Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson, Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette. Patsy Cline. Many others, some of whom I even remember now.

When I met the ex-Mr. Foilwoman his eclectic musical taste won me over: Angelique Kidjo, King Sunny Ade, Baba Mal, Youssouf N'dour, Buena Vista Social Club, any and all salsa, soukous, or anything not mainstream.

But now I've missed about two decades worth of music on the radio. I think I dropped out right about the time Indigo Girls, 10,000 Maniacs, and U2 were coming up. I've got a lot to catch up on. I don't know how I'll learn to play all this on the guitar.

Terrorizing a Teenager

I unintentionally terrorized a thirteen-year old and now know that if there is a hell, I will burn there. Fortunately, I'm agnostic and not due to die soon, so I'm not ultra-concerned.

This weekend in North Carolina, I spent some time with Innana's thirteen-year old niece. She's very, very smart, and her mother, NOAS, isn't really up to the single mothering task.* Niece will need full-ride scholarships to get through college and her best chance of that is starting off with a full-ride scholarship to a fancy-pants preparatory school like my own. So I’ve started the campaign.

Unfortunately, the Niece-in-Question (NiQ, until a better nickname can be found), though very bright, is very sensitive, and doesn’t get the whole meritocracy/East Coast elite process of vetting candidates. Indeed, she didn’t know she was a candidate, or what she might be a candidate for.** She was just being a not-too-sullen teenaged girl watching her beloved grandmother, DOL, expend most of DOL’s energy on two totally undeserving (to NiQ) little kids (TigerGrrl and DestructoGirl).

Despite the annoying grandmother hogs, NiQ remained mostly gracious (a feat I couldn’t manage on any given day or any given time when I resided in the land of thirteen-year olds) to my girls, and participated in an intellectual evaluation game, the import of which remained a mystery to NiQ.

The game was this: You’ve just been offered $1,000,000 to spend six months in Antarctica, studying global warming or killer whales or something important that you like. You’ll have to leave in one hour. If you give the mission organizer your list of essentials in 15 minutes, everything on your list will be brought with you. What ten books will you bring? Innana, TigerGrrl, NiQ, and I played the game. It was loads of fun, with rounds like Innana listing Dicken’s Our Mutual Friend, NiQ listing Paradise Lost (more on this later), me listing Don Quijote, and TigerGrrl saying gleefully: Captain Underpants! Yes. TigerGrrl is eight. She started out listing each Harry Potter book as numbers 1-7 on the list, but we told her they were a boxed set, so she had to list them as one and pick nine other titles. In addition to Magic Schoolbus, Magic Treehouse, the Fudge series by Judy Blume and some other very modern kid titles, TigerGrrl also listed, to my delight Arabian Nights (she has a bowdlerized kids’ version with illustrations) and Gulliver’s Travels (a friend has a bowdlerized kids’ version).

At first, it seemed like NiQ was simply listing books that she thought would sound impressive: her first choice was “Shakespeare”, but she couldn’t name a single play, a single poem, or explain why she would want to bring the complete works of Shakespeare with her to Antartica.*** And then NiQ listed books like Redwall and later Hannibal Rising+.

At some point, NiQ listed Paradise Lost as a book she wanted to bring with her. I asked her: “Why?” She responded with some gobbledegook about not being able to say what she liked about the book, sometimes she just likes books, y’know? At this point, I thought: I am so not fighting for this kid to get a $35,000/year scholarship to my alma mater just to be able to quote books without discussing them. This was an unkind thought, and I was subsequently shown how wrong my initial impression was.

I took a breath and spoke directly to NiQ, and I told her that when someone is talking with you, when you are being interviewed, when you are in a debate or discussion, a statement like “I like Margaret Atwood” or “I hate Hamlet” needs to be followed with a coherent explanation of features of the author’s work (or whatever) that one likes. I gave the example of someone saying “I want to work in this library because I love books” and the interviewing librarian says: “Oh, what are some of your favorites?” and the interviewee then says: “Oh, just books” or something equally non-specific. “Do you think the librarian will think the interviewee was being disingenuous?” Similarly, liking Paradise Lost: what do you like about it? NiQ was clearly taken aback, but began to explain her choice (likes the angels and demons, the fall, actually remembered details of the work).

Now, NiQ impressed me, and remains unaware of that. She thought I was attacking her – I have a problem with challenging people without seeming like I’m attacking them. Innana tells me that the first year of our friendship, back in 1984 when Innana was three (she’s 27 now), Innana wasn’t sure whether I liked her at all. I’m pretty clear that I’m warm and fuzzy as an Angora kitten, but apparently no-one else agrees with me. Oh well. They’re wrong.

We’ll see. First, we have to get NiQ to take the Secondary School Admission Test (“SSAT”). If she scores 90 percent or higher, preferably 95 percent or higher, she has a not impossible chance of getting into my alma mater. They have a need blind admission policy, and anyone admitted whose parents earn less than $65,000++ will get a full scholarship. The best thing about this is that NiQ would be free of her mother and get three meals a day. (NOAS doesn’t always put food on the table.)

Innana afterwards explained that NiQ’s mother picks at her a lot (I can see that, and that’s one of the many reasons NOAS’s blog nickname is NOAS) and that NiQ doesn’t like the feeling of being watched and judged. Subtext: I scared the shit out of this nice kid who I actually want to help. I’m not sure I’m the right person to help her with that, but if we can get her past that (in the environment I’m thinking of sending her to, she’s going to be observed and judged plenty), she’s got a lot on the ball and deserves a chance to grab the brass ring of elite education.

NiQ will be up in this area for part of the summer, so Operation: Get a Smart Kid in a Bad School District with an Ineffective Mother and Absent Father to Prep School (OGSKBSDIMAFPS – okay, we need a better acronym) will be in full bloom. All those free DC cultural and intellectual activities? She’s going to ‘em. Plus, my complex has a pool.

Will this work out? It’s a long shot. NiQ has the defensiveness and smart-aleckyness of a not-well-loved child that will not serve her well. But she’s smart and sensible. Innana will talk to her and get her as ready as she can without too much pressure. This is not a wide open door. It’s a slightly ajar door. Or possibly a closed door that isn’t locked. There will be another such door when NiQ finishes high school, but getting through this door, at age 13, will make getting through the college door a lot easier. I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

*Kira and Laurita will back me up and agree – single-motherhood is not for the faint of heart or the marginally competent.
**Actually, she was a potential candidate. Now she’s a candidate who I’m going to push for SSAT exam sitting and a full scholarship at one of the best secondary schools in the country. She doesn’t know she cleared a hurdle, or the hurdles yet to come, and that’s the way we’re going to keep it, thank you very much.
***A simple “I’ve only read a bit, but if I’m going to be stuck in a dark, cold, isolated place for six months with little to do, it doesn’t sound like a bad idea to bring the universally acknowledged bard of the English language with me” would have worked. Instead NiQ said: “I like Shakespeare.” I wanted to say: “Well, I hate Hamlet,” but I didn’t then. (I did later, in a different context.)
+You may have thought I was being a bit harsh in naming NOAS NOAS. But this woman has let her child read serial killer pop fiction for quite some time. This is a child who dresses almost entirely in black.
++A guess, but it’s somewhere in that vicinity.

TigerGrrl's Quote of The Day*

"The power of DestructoGirl creeps me out!"

*Actually, this last weekend.

Bossy Boots

In the park on Sunday, DestructoGirl bossed boys around. Lots. I commented "Bossy little thing" to the mother of one of the boys she was dominating. She laughed, and said: "So she'll grow up to be a good woman." I don't know quite what to make of that, but it pleased me.

Coastal Carolina

Happy Birthday, Cyberkitten (it's still April 7 in the U.S., okay?). I hope it was a good day.

The restorative trip (to help me avoid going into a decline) was great. Innana, the Foilkids, and I descended upon Innana's dear (to me and to her) mother, DOL, and stayed until this morning. Of course, today was a long, long drive with two kids. Friday, we cleverly did most of the driving to the mellifluous snoring stylingsof TigerGrrl and DestructoGirl ("These girls really would make good lumberjacks," Innana said not entirely innocently.)

Friday night we overshot our destination, in large part due to whoever is responsible for signage in a nameless (to preserve NiQ and DOL's identities) North Carolina. Heading from City A to Town B, we missed the turnoff and kept driving for another 30 miles. I was about to get irritated* with my fair driving companion after we connected with the road to Town B and I asked her how far it would be from there: she said "Ten miles." Then we passed a sign that said "[Town B]: 30 miles." So I understood how we missed the turnoff: I though Innana has no sense of distance.

Maybe she doesn't, but to misquote the great Bronze John, it now All Became Perfectly Clear. Two miles after the "[Town B]: 30 miles" sign, we passed another sign: "[Town B]: 24 miles." Five miles later: "[Town B]: 15 miles." Three miles later: "[Town B]: 7 miles." About five miles later, we hit [Town B].

So, someone in North Carolina, or better yet, the county in question: please explain to me exactly who is responsible for signage. And are there any actual surveyers in the state? Is mathematics generally taught? In case not, please note: 30 minus 24 equals 6, not 2. But after that, who can doubt that Innana, a descendant of two tarheels, will have absolutely no understanding ability to accurately estimate distance? From whom would she have learned how long it takes to drive 10 miles at 55 m.p.h. and how would she know the distance was actually 35 miles?

More about the trip later.

*This would have been an error in judgment.

Extended Absence Notice

Well, will have to do one at work, so will do one here. Am travelling, sans laptop this weekend. Will be back online Tuesday, or possibly late Monday. Will be near an ocean. Will be with DOL. Will miss all, terribly, terribly, but still will have a great time. Hope everyone has great weekend. Hope ability to use pronouns reliably and frequently returns after restorative trip.

Miscellany

Sometime this week, it is CyberKitten's birthday. Happy birthday and meow.

I'm still waiting to hear about Cookie Monster's third date. Do we need to send the Barry White tapes? I'm getting worried.

Tomorrow, the FoilKids, Innana, and I head oceanward down to visit DOL. The Carolinas (don't worry, Kira, we're still a few hundred miles north of you -- you don't have to sandbag or anything -- we won't let DestructoGirl loose on your neighborhood), especially the northern one, might want to batten down the hatches, as a strictly precautionary measure.

I got turned down for giving platelets tonight, and I am irked. Yeah, I gave whole blood just a bit over two weeks ago. Yeah, I just had my period and I'm a bit iron-poor right now, but I hate that. The Second Mate is getting at least one transfusion and one other blood product every week now, and I hate missing a donation due to low iron count.

I've made plans for two weeks hence with Guy. He's made plans for three months hence with me. I'm rather in shock. Of course, this could still end at any time. But he's not rushing me. Innana said, in an amusedly tolerant tone of voice: "You really don't do well in captivity, do you?" And that's the problem. The Insane Ex was so darn possessive (yet uninterested, if you can figure that one) that I'm distrustful of any action by a guy (or Guy) that smacks of ownership. So the connect at your own pace plan seems to be the right one, and I'm looking forward to the future plans, not dreading them. Definitely a nice switch from Nguyen and PiousMan (well, with PiousMan, it was the whole religious thing too).

Oh, and I had a little controversy on my latest post over at DC Blogs. Over a cute baby who's apparently not sufficiently local (I'm not aware that babies care much about locality -- they just sit around being supercute -- until they start crawling -- then the move around being supercute and destroying your home). I'm still befuddled. Please imagine Innana's visible and audible tolerance now, as she says, with raised eyebrows: "And that's news, how?"

Last, I've updated my blogroll. One new addition, Jamie, over at Farm Fresh Meat. Help this man with his fear and loathing of taxicabs, okay? If in updating the blogroll I managed to delete anyone (it's happened before), let me know and I'll put you back on. You guys really have no idea how non-technological I really am. Remember, His Eminence sent me Aussie DVDs and CDs in 2005 and 2006. When am I watching them and listening to them? 2008. Why? Because TigerGrrl (age 8) found the volume control on the laptop and showed me how to use it.

Now, could someone please explain to me how to put feed buttons (like an RSS feed?) on this blog? Thank you.

Oh, What a Beautiful Morning

Today it's really not that lovely, but it still is Spring. Guy and I had a lovely evening yesterday (No, you're not getting any detail. This isn't that kind of a blog.) which was helped along by his earlier in the day phone call telling me he had good news and bad news. I steeled myself for something, but not much, because I could tell from the tone of voice that the bad news just wasn't going to be earthshattering. Or even earthenware shattering.

Apparently, Guy has not been able to get tickets to all or even most or the concerts we discussed. He has so far gotten reserved seating for one concert and wondered whether lawn seating (you get wet if it rains) would be okay for another. As someone who otherwise wouldn't be going to these concerts, I said "Uh, yeah." (Would someone actually get critical about something like that? If you meet this person, eschew him or her.) I told Guy that getting to one nice outdoor concert was great, and getting to a second would be scrumptious, and any more than that would be almost criminally indulgent. "Well, you deserve nice things happening to you. Especially after what you've been through."

All right. Now my possibly-better-half (although we're not officially a couple couple yet or anything) is trying to make up for all the crap the Insane Ex put me through. I tried to explain to him that this isn't a debt he owes and I'm not holding him to any reparation schedule. "Well, you're going to see Emmy Lou* with me, aren't you?"

I felt pleased and pathetic simultaneously. We talked a bit more about this when we met, and I decided I'm really not going to over-analyze generosity and kindness. While I can't match Guy in terms of money spent on things, I've gotten him to the Kennedy Center, out on the C&O Canal for a hike, made a few picnic lunches, and, er, graced him with my presence. I don't know if it's a fair exchange, but it isn't a one way street (mixed metaphor alert: Wah-wah-wah siren, you heard it here first).

So once Guy was in an, er, amenable state of mind, I mentioned that Innana and SNV had heard about him and thought it was time to meet and we should all get together for dinner soon. "Okay. I'm game." Not even a hesitation.

I'm beginning to feel like part of a couple again. I never thought I'd live in this town again. I honestly thought I was going to have connections, even meaningful connections, but that I would never have the easy cameraderie and liking that goes with a long-term relationship. Okay, we have only been a couple for a month, we've known each other for three months, this could crash and burn at any time, but there's a comfort level that's really quite nice. Just planning ahead. Talking about our kids. Looking to the future in terms of concert tickets two months from now, dinner plans two weeks from now, a general discussion each week starting with when my kids are with PdeFF or when his kids are working or off with friend.

Oh, in one of the hilarious developments of our relationship, it's mostly conducted in his parents' retirement home condo. The parents are in a nursing home, but the apartment hasn't been sold because they maintain the illusion that they are coming home someday (they can't feed themselves: they're not moving back). So I don't want to make Saintly Babysitter deal with my love life (my apartment is not that big or soundproof) and we both agree that it's not time for any of our kids to know about our sex life (When will it be time? Never. But right now, it's just more comfortable to be elsewhere.) so we head over to Sunrise Living (Shouldn't it be sunset?) where, Guy has said: "I don't think I've ever had this much fun in this apartment." Hee. Yeah, we're that "young couple" to all the retirees. Livening things up, you might say. Oh, the romance.

*Not the concert to which we have tickets -- remember, I preserve anonymity as best I can.

Recently Read

Nothing has captured my mind the way Adam Hochschild's Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves did when I read it over a year ago. Or the way Yann Martel's Life of Pi just grabbed me.

Recently, I've read some good and not so good books, but none was a "I-will-not-sleep-until-I've-read-this-and-even-then-I-won't-sleep-because-I'll-have-too-much-to-think-about" book, a category into which I place both Bury the Chains and Life of Pi.

What have I been reading?

Stephen E. Ambrose, D-Day - June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II. This probably just disappointed because it wasn't Ambrose's superior Band of Brothers nor was it Cornelius Ryan's The Longest Day. I really should read The Longest Day again to do a better comparison. But D-Day suffers by comparison to Ryan's book and Ambrose's better one. Why write this book? It wasn't bad: it was just unnecessary.

Karen Joy Fowler, The Jane Austen Book Club. I enjoyed reading this, but it really was insubstantial. But the "women's world" view of the book (even the one guy has women speak for him, just like in a Jane Austen book where the men are never shown without a female chaperone) was a delight and actually rather clever. Maybe this will grow on me, but right now I'm classifying it as a good read but not much more.

David Lodge, Thinks . . . I love David Lodge, but this book didn't do it. And for a book with a male and female perspective that is largely about thought processes and sex, it's a pity that Lodge can't convincingly write about female sexuality. (The female protagonist's sexual reactions and longings are strictly male fantasy stuff and that really ruins the idea that we're actually in her head. No we're not. We're in his head.)

Pat Barker, Another World. Okay, this is a great book. I actually have to reread now. I'm not sure I've mixed all the different parts together correctly. But the combination of present and past losses and resentments and wounds really works. The characters don't seem quite real though. But reading about memories of Passchendale does always make me think about Nuclear Grammy's long dead father (he died there) and all she lost, and then reading about this British families past losses, well, it rings true.

What am I reading now?

Martin Amis, The Information. Supposedly funny, but Amis is such a crank, and so meanspirited, it's hard to laugh. I don't know whether I'll finish this.

Susan Brownmiller, Femininity. As a feminist, I guess I have to have read this once. So here I go. Actually readable so far, and it seems obvious to me, but maybe that wasn't the case back in 1983.

What will I be reading next or soon?

David Lodge, Therapy.

Salman Rushdie, Shalimar the Clown.

Of course, both Shalimar the Clown and Therapy have been on my to read shelf for over a year. Whether they'll really be the next books I pick up? Who knows.