Someone Else Deciding What I Write (Sort Of, And Belatedly)

Due to a computer malfunction (less embarrassing than a wardrobe malfunction, but still), it's been over a week since Restaurant Refugee did his interview, and sent me some interview questions in accordance with the following guidelines:

If you’d like to play along, just follow these instructions:

1. Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.”
2. I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions.
3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions. Be sure you link back to the original post.
4. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

So, here are the questions:

1. I first came to your blog after a somewhat controversial DC Blogs Round-Up in September of 2008. Do you have any regrets about that posting?
   Yes, I never like offending people (despite doing it fairly often), and I never like finding evidence that I'm not in synch with the community around me, whatever that community might be. At the same time, I discovered some new blogs and writers through that incident (new to me, such as DC Peg) and that was good.
2. On your blog, you have thirty "Fun Foilwoman Facts. What would be number thirty one?
   I can't decide what is more important for a happy life: olive oil; dark chocolate; a good steak; decent ice skates; a collection of yarn and knitting implements; Australian Shiraz; the music of Elvis Costello, Dire Straits, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Bruce Springsteen, the English Beat, etc.; or the works of Mario Vargas Llosa or Margaret Atwood (or any other of my two hundred or so favorite authors. Obviously, my children and friends are most necessary, but outside of the hierarchary of needs and people I love, everything else listed is in pretty tight competition.
3. If you were to view your life as a piece of software, what's your version number (i.e. Foilwoman 2.6?). Please explain.
   I think at this point it would have to be version 7.3 or something. I've had a few careers, life as a kid, life as a young adult/student, life as a single young woman, life as a married woman, life as a mother-and-type-A career type, divorcing-and-just-holding-my-head-above-water-me, and the new-and-improved-me now before you. Obviously, version 8.0 can't be far off, but right now it's a revised version.
4. You were a Hillary Clinton supporter. When was the first moment that you began to embrace Barack Obama's candidacy/presidency?
   Once it became clear that Clinton wasn't going to win the nomination, I decided to support Obama. I didn't become enthusiastic until it became clear that his strategy of ignoring Republican attacks was the right one. Early on in the primaries, I had decided that whichever of the two, Clinton or Obama, was the candidate, that would be the candidate I supported, but it wasn't until fairly late in the game that I really thought Obama could win. I'm glad he did, even though I had some real concerns about sexism in the campaign.
5. Please describe your favorite email received since starting your blog. Bonus: describe your least favorite too.
   Probably Cookie's email saying he was coming to the U.S. Or one of Kira's cheering emails. Actually, it has to be Champurrado's recipe for chicken enchiladas, arriving in the early days of my separation/divorce. A life saver. Also his recipe for pots de creme. As for least favorite, I really can't think of any. I have received surprisingly few negative comments, much less emails, on this blog. I don't know why that is, but I'm not complaining. Oh, one reader once was very unkind to a good friend of mine in comments and email, and that was unpleasant. What's the bonus?

Finally edited to appropriately link to Restaurant Refugee's blog and post on February 6, 2009.

No Computer for the Time Being

My laptop is temporarily dead -- I am not (dead, that is). Until I get the laptop fixed (shortly, I hope) I won't be able to post or comment.

It Can't Be the Perfume, Because They Can't Smell By Email or Phone

Okay, now it's four blasts from the past. I've contacted my former colleagues, and neither was offended by my dilatory responses. I'm not sure why either man felt the urge to connect, but the conversations were pleasant, and these are men I've worked with comfortably in the past, and whose company I enjoy. Nice to catch up on news, etc.

But another former would-be swain called, in addition to the one previously mentioned (http://foilwomansdiary.blogspot.com/2009/01/ghosts-from-thepast.html). And now, except for the fact that I already have plans (dinner with Innana, SNV, and Ex-Marine Fred and a karate demo --two completely separate events, btw) for the weekend, I'd have two dates with two different guys this weekend. However, I don't have the energy or the social grace to arrange two dates on Sunday, so one guy is going to have to wait. Or disappear for another year and a half, whichever comes first.

I'm mildly flattered that in one instance, one date a year ago, and in the other, two meetings, over two years ago, have made enough of an impression on someone to inspire that person to take any action to see me again. Especially when I'm in "make absolutely no effort whatsoever" mode -- it's not that I don't want male company, I just have no energy to dedicate to obtaining male company. No energy at all.

While I completely accept that people do things for whatever reason, totally unknowlable to me, and that waiting for a year or more to contact me does not exactly communicate enthusiasm, I still wonder what triggered both of these men's outreach? It's not the new, slightly slimmer (but still not slim) me, or any newfound confidence, unless these guys have hired detectives. I know it's random, but that isn't as satisfing as having a coherent reason rather than -- hey, I just thought of you, that's all.

But that's all.

Goodbye, Dubya (Don't Let the Door Hit You On the Way Out)

Yup, let's wave Dubya a fond farewell. My girls are thrilled that their guy, Obama, is being sworn in later today. I'm somewhat excited, although I was/am a Clinton fan, and Obama seems so cool I wonder on occasion if he's dosed up on Nembutol. The Rick Warren thing really was a disappointment, and I wonder about excessive pandering to the right. Since the left in the U.S. really doesn't exist, any pandering to the right just moves the dialog that far over.

But we'll be watching the inauguration, TG doing her Obama dance ("Obama! Obama!" with hip shake, wiggle, and that wierd, parallel to the ground, circular hand thing), and both girls getting all excited.

And while I liked Clinton better, Obama's coolness and reflective nature seem like good things right now. And he's historic and all that. And Michelle Obama is basically my height, so that's good. I wish our soon-to-be President well. Given the condition his predecessor leaves the country in, we should all be wishing Obama well, and making every effort to ensure his (and our) success.

TigerGrrl Is Scared

Well, she's not all THAT scared. But it's enough of a "man bites dog"story, that I just had to write about it. TG is reading some annoying manga in between reading Erin Hunter's Warriors series, The Tales of Beedle the Bard, anything in the Magic Treehouse series or Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate events*, and any other of the 14 books she has checked out of the library this week.

On weekends, I make TigerGrrl go to bed an hour later than her weekday bedtime, and then she's allowed to read in bed until she conks out and starts snoring. So I just got a call, and I went to her room. She told me she had reached the scary part of her book. Good to know. "The pictures are scary." I told her she could always skip the scary parts. She was shocked and appalled. So I brought her the next Warriors book, saying nice cats would be better to read about whilst falling asleep. "Yeah, they're nice;" she said. "they have tea togeter." Yup, scared, but not too scared for sarcasm.

*Sadly, Captain Underpants in his tighty-whities has been left behind with third grade.

Where the Day (or the Year) Takes You

Vacation planning has become a simple process: I visit family members I want to see who want to see me and my girls. I am bless with family in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont as well as Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Northern California. FoilMormor winters on the Southern Atlantic coast of Florida. So I have very good vacation options.* Having just had a lovely New England Christmas vacation, I've now made arrangements (with generous underwriting from FoilMormor) for TigerGrrl to have a Vermont winter sports extravaganza with LOS, and BigGrampa has made arrangements for the girls and me to have a summer vacation on the Pacific. Summertime will also bring my offspring and me back to northern New England.

These vacations have been so much more fun than the produced vacations with PdeFF where we would spend a lot of money and travel to some highfalutin place. I have nothing against highfalutin places, but I'm not much of a tourist or traveller** -- I'm a visitor. I probably would do well in the Victorian era as a houseguest nonpareil. Except for the misogyny and corsetting and suffocating social strictures, of course.

And I'm blessed with friends and family who live in lovely places -- northern New England (particularly the Maine coast), coastal Carolina, Atlantic Florida, just south of San Francisco, Vienna***, Oxford, Copenhagen, Barcelona -- none of these places are are hardships to visit. So, poverty-stricken as I am, I'm still managing to provide my daughters with wonderful vacations that I think they will remember fondly for years to come.

I do listen with envy to people who plan their dream vacations to Costa Rica, Macchu Pichu, Cinque Terre, Prague, the Seychelles, or whatever. Those are places I'd like to visit too. So I need to start a campaign for people who like me enough to tolerate me for a few days to move to any of the following locations: Helsinki (or anywhere else in Finland), any Greek Island, New Zealand, Australia, Chile, Peru, Berlin, Florence, Rome, Lucca, Ferrara, Madrid, Alaska (anywhere, really), Paris, Provence, Bhutan, Nepal, the Pacific coast of Mexico, Banff, Vancouver, Hawaii, Bali, Tahiti, Oslo, Stockholm, St. Petersburg, Moscow, the Faroe Islands, Greenland (yup, I want to see it, and travel around during the big dark, don't ask me why), Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. That is not an all-inclusive list.

Oh, and all those people are welcome to visit me here, right outside of PowerTown.

*Also included in the family category is DOL, Innana's mother who lives in the Carolina coastal area, which is also lovely vacation territory.
**I don't mean that in the "I despise tourists" way. I don't. I like being a tourist. I mean that in all my vacations that I have really enjoyed have been me visiting friends or family, people I truly like, in their homes (or in bed and breakfasts near their homes), staying for a fair amount of time, with much of the visit being hanging out with people I love.
***I do need to get back to Austria and London,but that will have to wait a few years.

Is It a Full Moon? (Weird Metro Behavior Alert)

No, it's a waning gibbous moon. Maybe it's the pending inauguration that's making my fellow Metro riders more than unusually hinky. But I'm seeing more and more of the not-stinking-with-uring-homeless-but-nevertheless-slightly-off behavior during my commute and errand running Metro rides.

A few days ago, walking relatively slowly down one of the long long escalators (think Rosslyn or Wheaton), there was a man walking down even more slowly. As I neared him, I realized he was walking slowly so as to keep pace with a woman, six or seven steps ahead of him, who was wearing high enough heels to make descending a long escalator quite difficult. Since he was a much taller and was wearing comfortable (guy) shoes, he was visibily holding himself back with every step he took. I passed him, and then her, and then stepped to the side to watch.

They didn't know each other. She appeared to be completely oblivious to her literal follower. When she slowed to check her purse for something, he maintained his distance behind her. He placed himself on the platform to ensure that he remained within a few paces of her, slightly behind her.

Stalker? Spy? Any-woman-will-do guy? He didn't look weirder than your average guy, but I just got a whiff of "off".

The other stuff I've witnessed was just weird without making me do any personality analysis guesswork.

Guys, listen good and listen tight: unless you want to travel to I-Still-Live-With-My-Mom-And-Aimlessly-Follow-Women-Who-Don't-Want-to-Know-Me-Land here's the deal and the real rules about pursuit of women who you don't know:

(1) You are allowed to look, but for Chrissake, learn to be discreet. You really shouldn't want everyone to know who you're drooling at, ok? If you buy into the "guys are super-competetive" sexually world view, telegraphing your interest in a woman only announces to other males that you consider this woman [what's the male equivalent of spongeworthy?].

(2) You are only allowed to follow to the extent you aren't changing the path you had planned to follow. The minute you jump on a train in the wrong direction just to prolong your existence in the presence of your inamorata, you've crossed the border into stalker-land, and you need a passport to get back into Normal-I-Recognize-Women-Are-Actually-Human-Beings land.

(3) Just because you like what you see doesn't mean what you see likes you. Really. Attraction isn't always mutual.

(4) Understand that any behavior based on some fool-proof method for winning over women is a method that proves who the fools are: first, women aren't prizes to be won (we're actually autonomous individuals whose existence really doesn't depend on your approval or affirmation, and some women aren't interest in any guy) and second, women aren't a monolith bloc with just one set of preference.

I'll stop for now. And subway stalker guy: Yes, I noticed what you look like.

Bad Housekeeping Award

Yes, it's still the Mouse House. And coming home from FoilMormor's pristine New England abode (yes, she has a cleaning lady, but she also can spend an hour or two vacuuming a room that looks clean to me), the FoilFlat looks a mite shabby and grotty. Most notably, the artwork on the walls. Not the artwork taped to the walls, the artwork drawn on the walls (also, the numbers 1-5 in the hall, by a DestructoGirl showing that she can write counting up to five as well as count to twenty -- well, high teens, anyway).

It turns out, more than Fantastic, more than 409, more than Bartender's Friend (a less abrasive scouring power), or Awesome or any other cleaner declared to clean anything, generic glass cleaner with a scrubbing sponge cleans pencil, crayon, and washable marker off the walls. Well, glass cleaner, a scrubbing sponge, and A LOT of elbow grease. I've been scrubbing, off and on, since 9 this morning. With time off for a run to the library, of course. I'm exhausted. So it's movie time now, with plans to let DG know that all future wall marking is being cleaned by her chubby arms. Also, she wanted me to mend her injured nousnous (teddy bear -- injured, of course, by her). I did. No more mending until walls are clean. Despite most of a day spent scrubbing, there are still art-adorned sections of the walls that are not pristine.

And that's not even touching on the state of the carpets.

Jeez, I can't wait to get to work tomorrow where coffee stains are the worst sanitary crises that are likely to confront me. I'm a wuss.

Reading Right Now

This is my first weekend in four weeks without the Foilkids, and I am wallowing in time to myself. Time to play the guitar (except I have a bad paper cut on the index finger of my right hand, so the playing's a bit clumsy), knit (ditto with the paper cut), watch movies (no papercut handicap there), and read books (cause of the paper cut, but that's not going to stop me).

I've been reading The Strongest Tribe by Bing West, but I had to give that up about a third of the way in. He's got an agenda -- pulling out is bad (he's reliving Viet Nam and clearly hasn't seen the George Carlin riff on the macho-ness of not pulling out -- "Because that's what we're doing to that country, right?" -- which proves the whole a man who doesn't know his history and the relevant comedians are doomed to repeat said sad history). However, everyone who writes a book about a war has an agenda, so that alone wouldn't have stopped me from finishing the book.

What threw me off the book is this: the book is a history and analysis of the U.S. war in Iraq, with lots of characters, military units, government agencies, locations, organizations, and other players and places to take into account. Multitudes of parties flitting on and off the pages. Despite this, there is no index, so when you bump into a character on page 101 who seems familiar, but you don't remember exactly where the character showed up before, you can't look that character up in the index to place them. What gives? Russia at War has an index. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich has an index. The Long Death has an index. A Frozen Hell has an index. Band of Brothers has an index. The Longest Day has an index. The Spanish Ulcer has an index. Bury the Chains has an index. What do all these books have in common? These are war or social movement histories with multitudes of characters, players, and places, and you can keep track of those characters, organizations, and locations through the handy dandy index. So Mr. West, what gives? Was your publisher just too cheap? I would have read the book in full, but that defect was just too darn annoying (especially for someone who primarily has time to read on the subway, so I'm constantly picking the book up again after a break, and need a refresher). So Mr. West, and your annoying publisher: unless you mean to say your book is as ephemeral as a newspaper article or is fiction, index the damn thing. Thank you.

So I've switched to a less substantive, but quite enjoyable read: No-Man's Lands by Scott Huler. Why someone would want to follow in the footsteps of a three thousand year old mythical character on mythical journey, I don't know (but fans of James Joyce do it with a 100 year old character every year, which is what inspired Mr. Huler to leave his pregnant wife* and wander the Mediterranean. I've just started, and the treatment seems pretty facile and superficial, but it's gotten me rereading the Odyssey too. So go Scott Huler.

Next on my list (or somewhere on my increasingly long list) are a biography of Queen Christina of Sweden, Team of Rivals, and The Peabody Sisters, all loaned to me by Innana (so I do need to read them and return them, you think?).

*He openly admits that, which isn't something I'd be proud of, but hey. Well, he left her to travel and then returned. He didn't leave her leave her, and she sounded cool with the idea of being rid of him for a while, which is something he should definitely stop and think about for a bit there. Normally, pregnant women want husbands they love nearby, not across an ocean wandering around heaven knows where. But he thought it was a good thing, so let's not confuse him.

Fuddy-Duddy Alert (Or, Possibly, Crotchety and Cantakerous Cow Alert)

For those of you who wait for these, with longing in your hearts, it's another Metro eavesdropping post.

It had to happen sooner or later, and it was sooner (before the inauguration). I overheard my first totally annoying Obama-wonkfest conversation on the train. Some kid in his twenties (yeah, he's a baby -- he still had peachfuzz on his chin) was talking about our President Elect and his transit policies, and kept referring to the future commander-in-chief as "Barack".

Call me old-fashioned, but Barack Obama is the soon-to-be President of the U.S. Don't call him Barack when it's clear that at best you folded letters and stuck them into envelopes on the campaign trail. He doesn't know you. You and he aren't friends. Call him "the President Elect" or "Mr. Obama", or, if the first two feel too formal to you because hey, he's your main man, just refer to him as Obama. We know you don't really know him. And even if you did, we REALLY know he doesn't know you.

Ghosts from thePast

Not real ghosts, just odd that three men, two from old jobs, and one man I dated briefly* in 2007 have been calling and emailing these last two weeks. Which means they think I was ignoring them, because I wasn't recieving email of checking my voicemail regularly until I got back here from Northern New England**

It's odd. I've done nothing regarding seeking a mate for several months, and certainly am not dressing or acting in any way to send the signal that I am looking (which in my experience are key to finding a mate), and yet men are turning up, although the first two are just reconnecting friends. The first two are far away (West Coast and Canada) so those will just be a pleasant conversation of past friendship. The third is someone I met over a year ago, went out with a few times.

Now, I know. I'm average attractive or slightly above, if you like a tall, muscley, none-too-skinny woman. But I'm attractive for an almost fifty-year old. I don't dress or act to impress and I'm not exactly doing my bestest (right now) to draw in the boys. The general understanding expressed by the ev-bio, PUA blogs, and the media in general (just go read The Atlantic) is that a woman's marketability (isn't capitalism dead, even when using it as a metaphor for relationships) to the opposite sex wanes with each decade after her teens. Yet here I am in my late forties, and I'm not feeling that invisibility (which I actually crave and embrace when I find it). I was much more invisible as a young, attractive, woman with deep insecurities. As a confident, moderately attractive middle-aged woman it's much easier.

Not that that means I'm doing anything about the third blast from the past. I have no idea what I want to do (too tired), so beyond responding to the hello, I'm waiting to see what changed his mind, other than time. I remember liking this man, but not being overwhelmed with desire or anything. And I'm more tired than I was before, so we'll see.

I'm really not in a very social mood write now. But I do need ot call back and reconnect, at least with the old colleagues.



*By "dated briefly" I do not mean "had sex with": I mean I had more than one date, but nothing happened.



**Being completely unplugged is just damn good. I don't understand those incapable of unplugging.

Things I Just Don't Get

Obviously, it takes all kinds (that's why Baskin & Robbins has 31 flavors, right?), but sometimes I just wonder. Okay, I wonder most of the time, without ever figuring it all out. But here's what I'm wondering about now:

(1) How we women get sold the femininity bill of goods and and then are convinced enough to spend the time, money, and energy to spend hours on our appearance in the hopes of appearing totally natural.

(2) As a corollary to (1), how the things that many men seem to find sexy in women seem to have a high cost in time, money, inconvenience or discomfort.

(3) The ads for Viagra touting the man's concern about his partner's pleasure. Like the vaginal orgasm isn't mythical.

(4) Any and all real estate advertisements that don't simply say "Please, please, please, pretty please buy this property before the owner files for bankruptcy."

(5) The human inclination to rate words ("He said he loved me!") above actions.

(6) The tendency of bosses to believe that their subordinates are candid with them. Right.

(7) That Dubya has any approval rating at all.

(8) The idea that if there is a deity based on the Bible, that it is a "loving god".* Or the idea, based on the history of humanity that any deity who created us might be loving.

(9) Rick Warren. I just don't get him. He's such a puffy, insubstantial human being with an obviously big ego (look at photos of him now, and photos ten years ago and think: hair implants?) -- how can anyone take him seriously. And seriously, Mr. President Elect, WTF?

(10) Social climbers.** Do you not want to be around people you actually like? Apparently a lot of people don't care about actually liking their friends, and want to make sure anyone in the "friend" slot, whether likeable or not, is high status enough. I have one relative, of whom I am fond, but who I tend to avoid, who analyzes every social interaction in terms of the status of those involved and tries to avoid excessive exposure to lower status humans. I guess that's a good plan as long as you are upwardly mobile, but sometimes, don't you just want to be with people who actually like you?

(11) People who don't think the economy is in the crapper and people who are shocked that the economy took a dive. It had to sometimes.

(12) The moronic marketing people sending me an average of two to three credit card applications a day. I didn't know there were that many credit cards out there.

I'll stop now, but I could go on.

*There's a whole lotta smiting going on, that's all I'll say.
**Unfortunately, DC is a pilgrimage destination (kind o like Canterbury or Santiago de Compostela) for the rank conscious.

Thank You TSA, I Feel Safer Already

Last night, flying south from New England back to PowerTown, I got to witness the friendly almost-skies becoming a little safer. Safer if you think taking your shoes off and things like that actually make planes safer.

A woman was detained by the TSA security folks right in front of where I was trying to restrain my four-year old weapon of mass destruction (that would be the famed DestructoGirl) from detonating in childish rage all over the airport. Because my children were being noisy and rambunctious and I was actually trying (futilely, need I add) to control their behavior, I couldn't hear everything that was going on. But the TSA folks questioned this woman, in public, for in excess of an hour. No arrests were made while I was watching, but neither was the woman let through security. She missed her plane. She burst into tears.

What was the problem? Something to do with her medicine. It wasn't (I think) an illegal substance, but apparently they didn't want her taking it on the plane (is there medicine that's explosive?). Apparently she had too large a quantity of whatever it was and have an inappropriate dose or prescription is now grounds for being grounded.

I couldn't see the medicine, but the woman sobbed and said "I'll die without my meds.*" The TSA big-beefy-guy ("TSA BBG") said (with his wideranging medical knowledge): "You won't die."

I couldn't figure out whether the TSA folks were trying to get her to leave the medicine behind, confess to some New England/DC drug prescription drug smuggling scheme or what, but the whole thing just smelled wrong to me. If the drugs were illegal, confiscate them and arrest her. If the drugs are legal but somehow unsafe (how?) on the plane, agree on a small carry on amount (there should be guidance, again, I'm wondering whether tetracycline, clozapine, or ex-lax really do need plane limits) and check or ground ship the rest, or have the TSA call the woman's pharmacist (really, they were talking to her for a LONG time -- they could have gotten through to just about any awful HMO pharmacist) and have a replacement prescription called into a pharmacy at the woman's destination. But no. Everyone stood around and watched this woman cry. To the extent that TigerGrrl asked me what was going on, I explained to the best of my ability, and my genius daughter said: "I don't feel safer."

The worst thing was that the detainee (the woman with the medicine she claimed she couldn't live without) was visibly mentally ill. In really cold weather she was wearing a hankerchief-style mini skirt and had bare, chubby legs (i.e., the effort at the sexy look was a miss). Her grooming was off, and she had the affect of the not quite sane. She had that slightly metallic smell (yes, these people were that close to me) of the population taking the heavy-duty psychotropics.

My plane boarded before I could learn what had happened or why it took four TSA employees to question this woman for at least an hour without reaching any decision. Problem-solving is clearly not a skill the TSA seeks, which seems more than a tad ironic since the whole travel-security thing is a problem in search of a solution. I hope someone came along and said: "Hey, a few extra Zyprexa (or Adderal or Wellbutrin or Nardil or Thorazine or Lithium or whatever) aren't going to bring the airplane down" or, alternatively: "It's illegal and we're arresting you." and ended the eternal coffee klatch from hell.

*The only people I know who refer to their medicines and meds are people taking psychotropic drugs, but that may say more about my circle of acquaintance than anything else.