It is a new year .  Yes, another.  They do sprint into view with too much haste, just as you are again making promises to do better during the year not yet finished............it is indeed finished.  How can it be 2024?   I just came back to this blog.  Had almost forgotten I had one.  I originally began blogging (if you can call this very occasional revisiting to the site) back in maybe 2008?  (I don't remember - and while on this page I cannot figure out how to get back to that information).

I decided to go back to it in 2017 and actually published a few times.

Now, I have been lying dormant (or rather, this blog has been lieing dormant) until today when, trying to comment on Neil Steinberg's "Every God Damn Day" I was shunted into the "Blogger" site and..........here I am.

This is intended to be just a toe in the water kind of thing because , honestly, I have no time today,  However, if I do one small entry, and promise to do better, perhaps I will start actually posting almost daily.

I just read some of my older ones, and they werent bad.

So - for today - let's just say.....I'm baaaack.

Or, at least I will try to be.

This week, it is very cold - Alaska tundra kind of cold - and usually I don't really go outside when the chill arrives since I can scurry across  a narrow alley-like street into the Prudential building and from there go most places on foot through the Chicago "pedway" - or I can call a Uber.

But Sunday at 4:30 I walked a block, wearing layers that I had learned to use when I ran daily..............a short sleeved t shirt under a long sleeve t shirt under a cardigan sweater under a wool zippered hoody under a faux fur vest I hadn't worn in years; with a knitted cap pulled down to my eyes to hold down the long pony tails I had rubberbanded over each ear ( I have a lot of hair - warming as earmuffs); and both fingered gloves and mittens (found in my old runners drawer) and a wool scarf to wrap around my fact..

I had to go out because I read on Facebook about something called "Drunk Shakespeare" at a theater on Wabash that I never knew existed.

I recommend it.

You walk into a long narrou corrider which is a bar, into a doorway on the far side which leads to a rectangular room with two red thrones on the other side from the door and bench type seats on either side - on your right and left; plus a second row of seats on the right, and both a second and third row on the left. All of the walls are lined with shelves holding old hard covered books.  

An actor greets me with "welcome - here is a libation. let me show you to your seat".  The young man hands me a small shotglass with something pink and sharp, and to the left side where I am in seat no. 14 on the bench.  He points out there is a cubby under my feet in which I will find a menu and into which I can stuff my layers of outerwear.

I then am regaled with a strange but hilarious performance of a raucous version of MacBeth in which one of the five actors is chosen to become a "drunk" actor - and is given several shots of mezcal at the start of the show (two extra shots are imbibed by him and an audience volunteer to prove to all of us that it is really liquor - it was, she reported).

When there are two deaths in the plot,  two members of the audience are handed white bib type shirts spackled with blood (paint) to wear so as to stand in for the killers.

Lady MacBeth is a young and sexy woman who moves like a cat and makes it very clear she is randy , so that MacBeth can forget about his problems from time to time as she writhes in front of him.

Audience members bid to be seated in the two "thrones" where a couple (they paid $100) received free food, a bottle of champagne, and involvement in the action from time to time.  For example, the woman ("Lady " whatever) is asked mid show to decide if the one drinking actor is drunk enough and if she determines that he is not, then he must imbibe again. 

At one point, they all dance down the aisle to the toon of Michael Jackson's "Beat It".

I ordered food and drinkby using a QR code on the menu, and a server brought me a coktail and hummus with pita

It was definitely worth the walk.

And this entry is not a very good sample of my blogging, but is here just to start out and prove to myself that I will indeed start doing it daily.

Daily?

Well, maybe , at least, from time to time. 

New Adventures in Theater and Travel

Im sitting on a big intercity bus in the parking area of Midway airport watching the black sky lighten and a yellow/ orange edge emerge and climb from behind the trees. Its 6:44 am and this was our first stop
 I  boarded in front of Union Station on Canal at 5:45 am after young people with bleary eyes and unruly hair emerged clutching pillows and backpacks, arriving home for the weekend from school in Madison Wisconsin, where I will arrive at about 10:45 am. From there, I pick up a rental car I reserved yesterday and drive 45 minutes to Spring Green where I will check into a small hotel and then drive through the woods to the American Repertory Theater to attend a 2:00 pm outdoor performance of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night Dream.

Let me explain

Last summer I attended a panel of authors at the Printers Row Litfest because the Sun Times author and "Every Goddamn Day" blogger Neil Steinberg was a participant.

Also on the panel was Michael Lenehan, author of "Much Ado" - "A Summer With A Theater Repertory Company" .

 His conversation about his book was ntriguing enough to cause me to purchase the book and ask him to sign it.

Also. it is  small and red and not covered in an extra paper coat.The feel of the cloth cover in my hand is warm and cozy in a kind of quiet friendly way and the size perfect for holding and fondling as I read.

Yeah- Im a little crazy when it comes to books- the old fashioned kind you can hold.

I finished it in July and I was surprisingly stunned by how the story affected me.

Expecting to find the book mildly interesting, I was instead fascinated by the infinite insider details from every aspect of the complex planning and staging of performances at such a small but renowned venue.
The author covered with a kind of wide eyed awe everything from choosing the actors and working with them on alternative performance nuances and choices, to deciding where and what and how much in connection with furnishing and props, to standing behind the wigmakers as they performed their detailed and demanding tasks.

I thought maybe some day I could see for myself but I hadn't focused on the name of the theater or where it was exactly- just somewhere up in the woods, I recalled.

 Then in August I found that my friend Zoe was busy one weekend because she was going to "APT".  Thats what her text said. Strange, I thought. It sounded familiar.

Sure enough. The theater was in Spring Green Wisconsin, not far from Madison.

Though busy clearing my desk and getting ready to run off to Paris, I purchased a ticket online for a 2:00 Saturday performance at the end of September, thinking I could worry about getting there later.

Then, last week - while still recovering from jet lag and juggling six real estate transactions all closing during the same one week period - I went online to discover that Madison was not all that close ( Think Chicago to Woodstock), that almost every jotel, motel or b&b was full, and that driving the last leg was the only option.

I sold my last car years ago since I decided at the time that it made no sense to own and support what I had started calling a "junk sculpture sitting under the building depreciating and costing me a fortune to keep there."

So I drive maybe once a year.

Yeah, it IS sort of like riding a bike in that I dont really forget how to do it- but I nevertheless do face the prospect with a healthy bit of trepidation each time.

However- below is a description of what awaits me at 2:00

So I am on a bus with my backpack and a small wheely bag filled with toiletries and a change of clothes. On the seat next to me are the printouts of my round trip bus reservations, my reservation for one night at the Round Barn Lodge in Spring Green, my Enterprise Rental reservation ( I must call at 8;30 am to confirm their pick up of me at the bus stop at 10:55 am) and a BIG cup of coffee.

Life is an adventure
 It has to be or you might as well sink under the covers and into oblivion.

Im tired but having fun.

There's no one on this bus but me and sleepy youngsters who look both tired and stressed. Life is so difficult when you have classes and exams and not much else to worry about. Awwww.

Its now over two hours since I started this entry and the sun is up and bright and the day is looking beautiful.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DRE

AM

By William Shakespeare
Directed by John Langs
What better way to christen our new stage than with the quintessential APT experience? An iconic fairy tale, spun by these funny, fabulous players in the moonlight. Like APT itself, Midsummer offers a mingling of realms, the everyday with the fantastical, with all the poignancy and humor we’ve come to expect from our favorite tales. The ones we want to see again and again. It’s a heart-expanding journey, and one that feels like it was born of this stage on the Hill. See it in its true home – in our own enchanted woods, on a gossamer evening. There’s so much magic in that. So much good. Come take your fill. 

Surprise and Love

Paris is the kind of lover you always wish you had.  It is quiet when that is your mood - raucous and fun on the other hand if that is what you yearn for- and always, always, if you are open to it, full of surprises.

Take the last few days.

One day, I sought calm, so I sat in a park with the birds, a breeze and the intermittent sun (it IS September, a month during which one always carries her parapluie) and read a book and wrote quietly on my wonderful new, light computer that is easily stuffable into a less than gigantic back pack.

Then another day I again was looking for  calm and an emotional and spiritual experience when I sat in the back of the church before the 9:00 a.m. Sunday morning service at St. Etienne du Mont - and I did, indeed, find what I sought since it is during that time when the grand and beautiful old church is solemn and silent so that  the calm washes over you .

I attended the service to continue my quietude and also experience the accompanying sounds of the St Etienne organ, not knowing that there was to be much more since the organist sometimes has his own plans.

After the service, the priest and congregation filed out as the organist played a suitable up tempo escape or run-away kind of tune, but then came the surprise.  After the green robed priest had shaken the hand of the last congregant filing by him and decided the rest of us were not coming his way and  he, too, exited  the church- the organist kept on playing. And playing. And playing.

Five or six of us just stood there, heads turned upwards towards the giant piped monster behind which he hid, and listened.  Five minutes. Ten minutes. Almost fifteen minutes.  He swept down and up the scale, pounded out giant sonorous chords, slowed his pace for almost (not quite) pretty passages, and then revved up once more.  I could picture his elbows out and his arms jumping on and off the keyboard with an emotional vigor as if the Phantom of the Opera married Liberace.

I asked one of the men collecting the hymnals if this was a regular thing.  He said it often happens, not necessarily just on Sundays, and sometimes not on Sundays, but it is a fairly often recurring phenomenon.

Then there was yesterday- a day that presented me with a number of unexpected turns.

My plan?  To go up to Montmarte and revisit Espace Dali - my favorite little museum where in barely an hour you can wander among a  huge sampling of his scuptures and watercolors.   I assumed the museum would be back to its old normal self after having cleared out the special bande dessinee exhibit I visited and wrote about last year.

After the museum,  I was to meet my friend Raluca at the Relais de la Butte, a lovely restaurant on a terrace part way down from the butte - a little off the rue Norvins tourist laden beaten path, but still with a great view.

A simple plan.

But it was to be an afternoon of surprises.

Not all surprises are welcome.

I knew that there are a number of metro stops one can emerge from around the Butte Montmarte to get there, but Abbesses is my favorite since you arrive on a lovely little Place with a colorful merrygoround, right across the street from a church, and the walk up to Sacre Coeur isn't bad, and..........................there is always an elevator to take you up to street level ..........which is a looooong way up!

Not yesterday.

The signs that the ascenseurs were under repair appeared on the platform after I emerged from the train.  I think I lost my French for a moment and used a word beginning with "sh..." while others were just sighing or uttering an "oh la la" or such.

So it was around and around and around up the quaint and lovely but very taxing circular stairway up and up and up until I reached the street .

But then, the museum provided gifts that overcame the ascenseur issue.

I regained my breath and stretched my legs, I arrived at the Musee.  I found that  , after clearing out the bande dessinee exposition,  the Dali museum had  put back the regular sculptures and artworks as I had expected - but in locations other than where they had once been, PLUS they had added some additional ones I don't recall seeing there in recent years. And everything was configured in a clear and interesting organizational method.  The artworks were grouped  in themes, with each themed area marked by a large wall sign describing in two languages the meaning of that theme in the works of Dali and, sometimes, in the history of the world.

The section on  time and science included the sculpture that Dali had done of Sir Isaac Newton - which I don't recall seeing  in the museum last year - where the figure holds a ball at the end of a string (the apple in its gravitational pull) and there  are large holes where Newtons face and vital organs would be.

The explanation is that   Dali felt the living Newton had become to the public a "mere name in science, stripped of his personality and individuality."

I have always loved the Espace Dali, and now so much more.  The changes were a surprise.  A wonderful one.

 Then there was the unexpected historical cabaret entertainment up on Place de Tertre.

I   had wandered into the Musee Montmarte just before reaching Dali  because I knew Claudia Hommel had that stop  on her schedule for her Chicago Paris Cabaret Connexion activities this week (see http://Chicagopariscabaretconnexion.org )  and, since I had not been able to reach her by phone,  I wanted to ask her about the time when  her  Saturday night concert really started (after the talks and panels) .

I found her and her group in the museum garden.  She answered my question, but then also told me they were ending up at 3:30 at the Boheme de Tertre on Place de Tertre to give a presentation on black women singers in Paris.

I don't eat at the tourist places on Place de Tertre and I was looking forward to the Relais, but told her I would come a bit late.

After lunch, Raluca and I entered the lower "club" level of the Boheme to find a  full room listening to Claudia and an African American woman explain the successes and tribulations of Josephine Baker and Eartha Kitt etc. while at intervals, the African American woman sang the ladies' songs from the era.  Spectacular voice!

Then, Claudia brought up to the stage a woman who had been Josephine Baker's personal assistant. She told interesting an intimate stories, such as when Walter Winchell was being unkind to Josephine but Grace Kelly stepped in (she was still Grace Kelly at the time) and later when Queen of Monaco, she helped Josephine back onto her feet with a gala concert in Monaco.

At the end, a woman sitting near me stood up and told the room, in French (claudia translated) how she had been at Josephine's last concert - just before she died.  She described with emotion the see through costume on the then 77 year old woman, her voice, and the electricity felt in that audience.

The woman described how Ms Baker expressed her life choice, despite her age andv failing health, to continue to enjoy the highs even if death was to arrive.

Indeed, she died the next day of a cerebral hemorrhage.

Finally, as I left the Butte to head down to sit in on a service at St. Gervais (to hear the harmonic voices of the acolytes and the old and wonderful organ), I passed a small terrace just below the walkway along the bottom of Sacre Coeur and watched a theatrical group in costume putting on a play for the  few who stopped to watch.

It's Paris.

You never know what will happen.

If you are open to it, the day can go many different ways you have not anticipated.

I love her.

A Day in the Life of a Restaurant

La Verre A Pied is little.  And sweet. And local.  And the food is spectacular- well cooked with  small but perfectly filling portions, lovingly put together by the woman who co owns it.

At lunch it seems generally  to be packed.  I walked  down rue Mouffetard on Tuesday and arrived there just a little after 1:00 in the afternoon with my paraplui since it had been raining all morning (still was as I wrote the first part of this entry, sitting at a table in the restaurant at 5:00 ).  Only two seats were left when I arrived, and I was given a choice.  One was right up against the open door which I thought was cool since I could people watch as I ate - but it turned out to be not so much "cool" as too cold so they moved me to the back on a comfy thin cushion on a bench  next to two tourist Paris newbies from Jerusalem.

The server/owner  Hendricka, when asked, recommended the dinde - "saute de dinde a la citronnelle - riz" which was spectacular.  She was right. The sauce was aromatic, tasty, memorable - the kind that you can't help finishing and even sopping up with the remaining riz and some bread - even if  not hungry. 

Afterwards, as the restaurant emptied out, I stayed in my seat for an allonge. (a large and diluted coffee a la America).

Then the young woman who works at the counter in the afternoon showed up and since it was still pretty nasty outside, I decided to take an empty table up front.  Actually, by then all of the tables were empty.  And with my phone plugged in and my hotspot turned on my computer can get the internet, so I sat there  with a Ricard pastis - one of my favorite drinks,  and then a second Ricard -  typing away and feeling like a local and a writer.

Others walked in for a coffee or a wine, and talked to the young woman, or perused one of the local papers sitting on the bar with pamphlets about nearby theatrical performances and the like. 

The small woman with the well toned body and the well coiffed and banged  red fuzzy hair was back.  She was there Sunday  when I walked in  for lunch too late and they served  me with a plate of cheese and charcuterie anyway (very nice of them).  and the somewhat scuzzy man with the  8 oclock shadow, a belly  apparent  behind his sports type casual shirt and little earrings - he was also back.  She treats him as if he were a boyfriend with her giggling and touching and laughing too loud. I'm thinking he is not.  But they are apparently here often at the same time.

I came back yesterday for a quick bite  on my way for a get together with friend Monique at Verse Tourjours.  It is very pleasant to be in such a warm and  welcoming place and even more so as it becomes more familiar to me as a once or twice a year regular..  I could do this a couple of days a week if I lived here. I keep filling in the spaces in my picture of life as a pretend resident of Paris in general, and this little neighborhood in particular - the neighborhood that Hemingway lived and wrote in during his earliest Paris days and wrote of in "Moveable Feast."   My apartment this time is just around the corner from his apartment on rue Cardinal Lemoine and down the block from where he wrote on rue Descartes.

Yesterday I  walked in to Verre a Pied  only intending to eat an entree and a wine - but when Claude told me the kitchen was still open if I ordered quickly - and Hendrika came out to get my order, I could;t help having a second chance at the dinde.  It didn't disappoint.

I have loved this place for years but never until recently understood the ebb and flow of its daily life - from the crowds at lunch and dinner to the regulars and walk ins who turn it into a pleasant place to relax during the afternoon

My friend Lynn - who, sadly and surprisingly  passed away this year after a hitherto successful battle with cancer on and off for over 15 years - wrote a wonderful description of the restaurant  two years ago. It was published in friend Richard Nahem's "Eyepreferparis" blog.  There is no way I could top her description - so with due deference to her and the talent she showed in her writing of it and to  him for  publishing it - here is Lynn's wonderful piece from 2015: (SEE www.ipreferparis.net for Richard's wonderful daily blog featuring his insightful Paris articles, his tours, etc.)

September 29, 2015

Lunch with Lynn/Under 20 Eats- La Verre a Pied

Lynn is back in Paris and wrote today's Lunch with Lynn.

How would you like to return to the days of the French Revolution while eating lunch--hear the horses galloping by, watch a blacksmith making horseshoes?  Le Verre a Pied (The Stem Glass), a tiny, very old world café/restaurant right on the narrow cobblestoned rue Mouffetard in the Latin Quarter can offer you that. Claude and Hendrika have owned the enchanted place since 1983, the two of them working as a solitary team to bring you marvelous French dishes, different daily. They bought it in 1983 from Madame Paulette who bought it in 1947 from her father who bought it in 1919. It became a café about 1870, during the French Commune, and before that (here comes the Revolution) it was a long passageway at the end of which was a forge, where the kitchen is now (time to use your imagination).

Richard and I and a Chicago friend, Michel Kurlander,had lunch there on my birthday two weeks ago (not a pivotal birthday but one that seemed appropriately symbolized by the French Revolution).  Hendrika makes the various plats each day –but no appetizer, simple fare is simple fare --and a variety of desserts that are so French you think you are having dinner with Parisian friends on a Sunday chez eux --and you really are. I had the rabbit in mustard sauce; Richard and Michel had the lamb stew. The rabbit and the lamb were deliciously tender and the sauces so divine your tongue can never forget, leading you back to the same dish over and over again.

You get homemade desert with the formule plat/dessert, and we could choose chocolate cake, crème brulée, or fromage blanc with raspberry coulis. Which one do you think I chose?  Right!  Richard had crème brulée and Michel the fromage blanc. We waited a bit longer than usual until suddenly out of the kitchen/forge stepped Hendrika with my chocolate cake and one 
lovely discreet candle (I heard the horses gallop by!) And it was a huge piece of cake, the size of a map, French obviously.

Magnificent. I made my wish, blew out the candle in one blow (sooo talented)  and voila! 

The wish of course has come true. 

If you are wandering down rue Mouffetard, the oldest market street in Paris, do stop in at Le Verre à Piedand step back in time. Say hello to Claude and Hendrika for us. Let’s all be part of  the food revolution. “Ah ! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira!”

La Verre a Pied 
118 rue Mouffetard, 75005 
Metro: Censier- Daubenton 
Open Tuesday to Saturday 9AM-9PM
Sunday 9:30AM -4PM
Tel. +33 (1) 43 31 15 72

Getting Serious

ok.  I started this blog in 2008 or 2009 but have never been particularly serious about it - witness just a few .over the years.

Yesterday, I was sharing some of my latest Paris insights with a group of Paris expat residents gathered for Adrienne Leeds' "Apres Midi" get together, and one said "you should publish a blog" and I recalled I had already tried that, but never discovered how to do it on a consistent basis, or how to cause folks to tune in.

So today - it took me 30 minutes just to find out how to get back onto the blog - I will at least write something and, if I can, I will see if I can change my bio and my picture.

Yesterday I saw Paris through the eyes of my young Israeli cousin who I had just met for the first time Friday night when we both arrived in Paris that day(for me it was a return after several days once more  wandering the F. Scott Fitzgerald and Picasso paths on the Cote d'Azur, and for her it was a first time visit  from Israel )

Talya only had a few hours yesterday morning and at first wanted to visit a "small" museum.  The Cluny would have been perfect - but it was closed. Tuesday is one of those days when a number of museums are closed.

So instead, we visited the church St Etienne du Mont (the Midnight in Paris Church).

St Etienne du Mont is not on the regular tourist track - not like Notre Dame - but it is a very special, beautiful and historic church.  I actually prefer it not to be so well known, since one of the charms of such churches as St Severin and St Etienne du Mont is the silence in which you can meditate, or look quietly at the awesome architecture and artwork and sculptures without being interrupted by crowds - and definitely without such annoyances as electric cords to facilitate loudspeakers, long lines of camera laden wide eyed folks, and gift shops.

St. Etienne du Mont is the 15th century successor to the original church built by Clovis on that Paris hill in the 6th century.  He wanted him and his queen to be buried there alongside St. Genevieve, the patron Saint of Paris.  That original church resulted in the area being referred to as "Montaigne St. Genevieve" and the current church, across from the Pantheon, is on what is now known as rue Montaine St. Genevieve. It was constructed when the original church became too small for its congregation. The bell tower (Tour Clovis) from the original structure is now on the grounds of Lycee Henri IVacross the street.

Not only does the church feature the only remaining rood screen in Paris (an imposing and filigreed white structure ranged across and above the center), and a beautiful organ, but a cloister through which you can walk and, after picking up a pamphlet, view the details of the 12 beautiful hand painted windows that are along the cloister wall - put together from the remains of the original 22 windows.

On Sunday morning, I attended a mass at the church and discovered that the organist often continues to play for 10-15 minutes beyond the end of the service, for practice, fun, or just to provide an experience to the few (which that morning included myself and only five others) who choose to  remain behind for a few minutes.  It wasn't quiet music but loud and ranging up and down the scales with an energy and speed, alternating with areas of quiet, that was exciting and fun.

Talya and I then had lunch at Café Panis - my favorite café simply because one can eat, charge a phone, and observe Notre Dame  just across what I call a sliver of the River Seine, while eating and drinking.

Finally, we visited the Memorial de la Deportation, the stark and stunning and emotionally draining memorial behind Notre Dame, commemorating the 200,000 souls sent to Nazi camps by the Vichy regime.  From behind her, I took a photo of Talya sitting quietly on the stone in the courtyard contemplating the River Seine through the bars created by the tall iron pointed stakes at that corner.  I think she was particularly moved by  the corrider just inside the building, which is seen through a window with iron bars ,  extends to an eternal light at the other end and is lined by 200,000 crystals.   I was also so moved the first time I came to this site, and still am each visit.

I also am grateful for the opportunity to  know a relative I didn't know existed,  since of the Israeli family branch, only my cousin Chickie, Talya's grandmother, had been in contact with me over the years - through a "Facebook friendship." I feel as if I have found a new, dear friend.  I am sure we will keep in touch.

THE GREAT GERTRUDE

Woke up in the middle of the night again (actually - first thing in the morning under Paris time) and wrote a bit and then started to read "Narration", the book that includes the four lectures Gertrude Stein gave in 1935 at the University ...of Chicago, during the trip that marked her first return to the States since her 1903 move to Paris. According to the back cover, these lectures cover her thoughts about the American people, literary form & modernism, the nature of history, and the "inventiveness of the English language." Knowing the nature of her writing and her life - I'm excited.

Also, this is the only Stein I didn't already own. Until I spotted it in Shakespeare and Company last week, I didn't know it existed.

Just into the introduction, I found some information that brought me to posting this status - apparently, Chicago was her favorite American City and she came back here four times! Also, she had her book signing at Marshall Fields, where it was so crowded that a Tribune reporter noted that she couldn't even get to the floor of the signing!

Know how many times I have walked by 27 rue de Fleurus in Paris where Gerturde lived with Alice b. Toklas? and now, there is the Chicago connection. Wow!!!i

I love her "Three Lives" and some day I may even be able to make sense out of "Tender Buttons", where she used words almost as a painter paints in the abstract - favoring verbs and prepositions over nouns, interested in the "melody and color" of the words as if doing a cubist painting with them (according to one description): examples: "Water astonishing and difficult altogether makes a meadow and a stroke." a"Little eyelets that have hammer and a check with stripes between a lounge, in wit, in a rested development." (this last one is called "END OF SUMMER" would you believe).
Putting Tender Buttons right back on the Stein shelf. (There's a shop with that name by the way just north of the Loop. I think it actually sells buttons).
In the meantime, I'm reading her lectures. See More

 

Death, Life, Irrelevancies

This morning, in the throes of a newfound (and probably temporary) resolve to blog - even though not one damn person has ever read this bog other than me (next, I will try to somehow ascertain how to spread the word - assuming I decide i want to do that) - anyhow, throes and all - in between readying the Blue Apron ingrediants for a cheese on foccaccia dish later, putting on sweats,  making a quick assessment of what I must do today (most of  which is in the list of the things I didn't do yesterday - making lists is an endeavor that does not seem to move me one iota forward from the deep pit of lethargy and discarded good intentions) -and preparing to do a run/racewalk for maybe 30 minutes, ending at Marianos for an oatmeal, and  restocking of kale, chard, peppers, a small milk, and some olive oil - after preparing for all that.

Here I am.............writing nothing.

There are words spewing out onto the white screen as my fingers (newly painted in silver- don't ask) move with resolve and energy and speed , tap tapping on the keyboard - but words are just that unless they attach themselves to other words that in the entirety of their joining become something worthwhile, or at least interesting, or at a minimum - articulate.

Apparently, no hope of that this morning.

At least my new phone - the gifted Moto X - the one I am, after four days, still slowly getting to know (it's the same with most new relationships) - at least it now displays Chicago time.  After mucking arund with it for almost an hour yesterday when I discovered it thought I was on the east coast, and finally (I really don't recall how) , after going into every possible setting and app that could affect the time, made it understand that it was indeed Central time here...................well, I woke this morning and the window across my bedroom - the narrow sliver of window in which a wicker basket of small teddy bears sits - that window showed a grey sky perhaps an hour or two away from daylight.  The damn Moto, however - which I reflexively punched when its alarm rang (at what it told me was 7:30 am) and then rested against my bent knees to use to check e mails etc. - it  displayed a clear digital white reading on its black surface - yes, indeed, it was 8:30 in the morning.   I shone the screen onto my wristwatch as a mini flashlight - and my wristwatch told me it was 6:30 am.   That of course jibed with the sky and the world as I could see it from my under-quilt snuggly position.  So, 45 minutes later - again, after trying things too numerous to describe - all over the screen, general settings, clock settings, location settings, etc. - discovered when I checked the online 'help" menu and then went to reset "time and date" (had not even thought of that, since it is something on this damn machine that happens automatically,including initially) that it was set for central america - Bogota Columbia, to be exact.  How did that happen in the middle of the night with the fucking  thing on my nightstand?   Probably the same gremlins who periodically make my AOL software freeze so that nothing can be touched or pressed without a complaining "beep beep" that says in translation  "nah nah nah nah nah- I'm on strike". Oh - I DID try to "reboot" the Moto (that usually works with PC related shit) but no.................after three reboots and revivals, I was still in Bogota.

So it has thus far not been an auspicious beginning to what will I am sure be a shit day anyway, what with the client projects I really need to get to, the  run I probaby won't take (ok - probably will racewalk to Marianos since I'm already dressed, and do need the kale), the NAWBO article I just recalled I have to finish by today,  the dust and piles of papers collecting around me (I am way overdue in cleaning the apartment ), and the fact that now yet another week has passed, another week without the progress I promise myself will suddenly start occurring.

I am down another pound.

I have counted WW points for the last three days, and done well.

I did read the Washington Post this morning on the Moto while still in bed (at least the hard articles and commentary on the Russian situation - disturbing).

And I have written this blog entry - this lousy , meandering entry.

Which I called "Death, life, irrelevancies."  Why?

Oh, yes.  Death.  Too much of it lately.  I know it is inevitable and a constant, but dammit, I don't need to suddenly be reminded of it so vividly.  In the last 9 months - Amos, Sandra, Myrna, Catherine, and now Pat's spouse Vernita  (she was Pat's  first real relationship  after she came out, and Pat and Vernita were the first GLBT couple to marry in Illinois under the new law - with much fanfare).   The last one - Vernita's passing -  is in some ways the hardest for a number of reasons.  She was an important, vivid, exciting figure in the GLBT movement, civil rights, and other progressive causes - ever since her first awakening at Woodstock I recently discovered.. And that is the problem - my personal problem - the word "recently".  Her spouse Pat has been a friend of mine for many years, and I have met Vernita several times, though briefly, at her apartment during their annual Xmas bashes - but I have never gotten to know her.  I did ask Pat and Vernita to join me for lunch or dinner, but that was only in the last six months, after she had become so weakened that it was a hard choice to make such plans.  Now, I am getting to know her - since the announcement of her death yesterday morning - by watching You Tube videos of her speeches,  reading her biography, seeing the NBC piece about her - incuding the lovely Mary Morton description of who she -Vernita - was, and watching their wedding on You Tube.  And the result is that I want to get to know her better.  I want to sit with her over a glass of wine and talk about the history of the womens' movement, and civil rights, and politics, and this country, and black and white, and just girl talk and the talk of intelligent articulate people with similar world views.  And it is too late.  She is gone.  So many things that we delay can no longer happen.  That is the reality that the death of Vernita, and of others, and my aging body, and the bulbous face of Kim Novak on the Oscars, and the death of Philip Seymour Hoffman through a drug overdose in the prime of his talent and creativity after having kicked the habit and found a loving relationship,  and .............and...............and................all of the reminders smacking me across my face - more so lately than ever - that this life is going to end, and nothing and no one can tell you when and how - and if you (I) want to do something there may not be a "later" or "after I get this one other thing done"  or even another horizen.

That is the shit fact.  The truth.  The reality.

Most of us ward it off by forgetting it exists.  We live each day as if we have forever.

That was easier when I was twenty.  And forty.  But now, I'm approaching.................................(I almost cannot say it).........seventy!  

I cannot live even one day with the theory that..............I'll do that or get to that or write that or call him or her later.  Always later.

I already made that decision years ago, when that four year period from Hades occurred - during which my law firm and marriage broke up, my mother and father died, two of my children were injured, and I discovered and had surgery for breast cancer.

And I have run off to France when I feel like it, and written short stories, and spent a lot of time hugging grandkids.

but

A big but.

In the daily living of life, in between those life affirming and living -in-the-present actions - in the daily living, let's face it.  I'm a time waster - big time time waster.  Real Housewives and NCIS and computer games and re reading Travis McGee books etc.

For Philip Seymour Hoffman, later has stopped.  And for Vernita, and Catherine, and Sandra, and Amos and Myrna, and Paul Newman (I cried while crossing the Grant Park swale when I read that on my old smart phone a few years ago), and for I.J. and Bernice and Bobo and Herby.

The world keeps getting emptier.

They say - whoever the Hell "they" are - that you should live each day as if it were your last.  Well, that doesn't work because if it were really my last I would take every last penny in my puny - very puny - 401(k) accunt and do something with it - something that involves a foreign country and all of my kids and grandkids celebrating that last day in a glorious way.

But at least one should live each day with the knowledge that things may be over soon.  or not.

When the Hell am I ever going to write that novel?  Or those short stories? or read the rest of Proust?  Or read, thoughtfully, and with recall, all of the books i have on writing?  Or get a physical checkup?  Or become a runner again (recalling now the wind in my hair and the clarity of thought and clearness of breath and joy  I felt and had when I was running down the Lakefront in good condition) or  tighten my muscles (recalling the prideful high I had when I passed a mirror on a street and saw the then fifties firm body that was me) .????????

Ok - now I have managed to cause a deep lump in my gullet, and moisture behing my eyeballs.

I need to take that damn run or racewalk.

I'm done.  With this blog post.   I will be back for another tomorrow (I think).

JUST WENT BACK TO THIS SITE ON A REAL COMPUTER = MY PC - WHICH IS THE ONLY WAY I AM COMFORTABLE REALLY WRITING ON IT - SO NOW, AN HOUR AFTER THIS ENTRY WAS ORIGINALLY POSTED, I CAN EDIT IT: (originally psted at 6:29 am; now editing at 8:59 am)

My son in law said I should blog instead of entering my wandering thughts onto facebook. Well, there are several problems.  One is that I have no audience for his blog.  No one knows about it.  And what good is it to throw thoughts out ito the universe if no one out there listens?  Secondly it is more dificult.  Just took me five minutes to find the thing and figure out again how to post entries.  It is now on my android's home screen, yet typing on the god damn android keyboard (loosely called such since it is only an interactive picture of a keyboard without keys) is challenging and annoying and I hate it.  For today, I have just paired the separate "real" keyboard that I use with my I Pad to the android using its Bluetooth.  But that is not practical since it is large and not generally in my pocket or on my nightstand with the android.  So for now, Chris, here is an entry but no promises for the future.  And you will admit, I am sure, in your own  articulate but curmudgeonly way, that this entry is shit.  Right?

Starting Again

This is an experiment to see, now that I have a mini I pad, whether typing on its screen will be a means to facilitate writing again, and more regularly, in my long ago created blog.

I've returned from nine days in France; I've managed to reduce from 154 pounds to a range of 134 to 136; and didn't gain a single pound back while in France - though this week back (rationalization- " its my Birthday Week") has thus far been pretty bad, what with pasta at both Giordano's, the Fabio restaurant (Sienna Tavern) and Trattoria No 10;, then quiche, much chill and smooth white wine at Cyranos with Di V, Emily, Michele Katz, and Toni King ( along with bread, escargot, a potato leek soup, and chocolate mousse), plus TWO iced chai lattes- and the only exercise? I walked to and from .Cyranos- grand total of two miles.

So, until my birthday brunch to be served by Kathy Sunday morning, and birthday dinner to be shared with Brett and Bobby after Goodman's Jungle Book on Sunday afternoon, I will be back to goodness, and next week I will start going to that yoga on thr beach thing regularly, and running/ walking)

And I still intend to lose another 20 pounds and become tight and fit by year end.

Living Life - Coehlo

I finished the Paulo Coehlo book about the girl who wanted to die - writte in 1998.   There were fascinating discussions about madness and conformity and the idea that it is considered mad to follow your instincts and loves and desires for life instead of being in conformity with what is expected.  And the lead character tries to commit suicide, and is saved and brought to an asylum, where she is told that the pills she took to kill herself created an irreversible damage to her heart and she has only a few days to live.

She ends up (after going through some satisfaction with the job about to be done for her) learning to enjoy life as she has never before, and falling in love, and escaping with the so called schizophrenic who it turns out is also more sane than those who put him there, and they appear to be treating each day as a gift and are surprised that she is not dead the next morning.

But then, we find out that the doctor has lied to her about her illness in order to experiment with the concept (that to me does not appear all that new or innovative) that by facing death, a person often is forced to finally confront life and deal with the daily enjoyment of life in a way never possible before

So what else is new?  Now isn't this just a pat and old idea?  Isn't that the reason that I started spending so much money and runnng off to France?  (after confronting that period of time when I had breast cancer, lost bothmy mom and dad - one from cancer and the other an accident, almost lost Brett, got divorced, and saw my law firm break up and formed a new one.)...................the combination, a death of sort - or at least the possibility of death - or endings  - or both.

This is such a common part of human nature.

And Coeholo is considered so brilliant and his voice so fresh and new - he has such a large following.

Ok - the writing was good, and the book held me all the way to the end, but then, that rabbit out of a hat or deus ex machina thing at the end "She's really not sick".   Give me a break!

Matisse - Reinvention

Yesterday, after a lovely and unexpectedly gourmet lunch at the new cafe' in the modern wign of the Art Institute, I slowly wended my way around the new Matisse exhibit. It took a bit over an hour, even with careful reading of each of the wall descriptions, and close observation of each of the larger paintings that I learned had been reworked and scraped and repainted and re thought so many times. That was the fascinating part - that, and the fact that this watershed period of Matisse's life as a painter occurred during a wartime period when art was probably the most difficult to accomplish - what with moving, and shortages of necessities, and such.

In one room, there wss a display of small drawings - portraits - that Matisse had sold during that period to make a living.

But the largest part of the exhibit was the display of how he moved from bright color and somewhat greater representation in his art, to just a few colors, and different methods, drawing on Cubism but never actually going that direction, including the reworking of a painting, or a sculpture, or doing it over and over on different canvases, during that period of 1913 to 1917 until he felt it was not exactly "right", perhaps, but at least more "right" than it had been several iterations earlier - witness up close the extra layers of paint taking away - deleting portions of a face, changing the outer dimensions to render it a bit more abstract - or in one case, the scraping away of long curved lines of the dark paint to create white curved lines emanating from and around the figure which melded with and enhanced the figure.

I did not buy the book - $45 for just the paperback vedrsion - but I am rethinking that. I just read online that the book is very unusual in the care with which it describes this entire metamorphosis.

It also shows the xrays of the paintings, to truly see the various stages of development and redevelopment.

I will go back to the exhibit and see the x ray evidence in the one room I missed - the hands on information room that apparently accompanies the exhibit. It was 5:00 , I had entered at about 10 minutes to 4:00 , and the museum closed at 5:00. But I'm a member, it is two bl0ocks away, and there is no reason that I should not revisit it a couple of times.

From here, it will go to the MOMA in July.

I think I need to write an article about this exhibit, from the standpoint of someone who is far from an expert - who, in fact, had never known very much at all about Matisse previously. I had to read one of Arnie Greenberg's articles in Bonjour Paris to get some background (and purchase a small $5.00 book in the gift shop and read it during my meal) so that I had at least some background.

Nevertheless, the exhibit was not just an exhibit, and not just the kind of learning experience that such art exhibits always are, but a very different learning experiend - one in which I really was fascinated each step of the way, and had not desire at all (as I often do) to skip any part of either the art on display, or the explanatory material on the walls.

Wild Things

I had thought for a time that I might take my 18 month old grandson to the new "Where The Wild Things Are" movie, but now I guess not. This morning (after a full day yesterday of payment and time entry bringing me inches from finishing and creating/printing the bills) I woke this morning realizing it was Sunday, and I had yet another full day to finish that task - then I watched tv till I realized it was 10:25, and went onto my Blackberry for the hell of it to see what time the earliest show started and it was at 10:45, so I threw my toothbrush and toothpaste into my purse, washed my face and put on a bit of eye makeup (just in case the man of my dreams appeared in the next seat), put on my new MDB shoes with the rocking sole that is supposed to reduce my butt and gut and force me to stand up straight, and put on my stretch jeans with the unwashable blue inkspot (now, at this 145 pound stage, actually almost too tight) and the new black sweater coat that was $35 at Old Navy, wrapped my wool Kenzo scarf (the one in shades of turquoise and pink) around my neck, and hailed a taxi.

Sitting in the theater with a small unbuttered popcorn and a bottle of water, I noticed a young man with a little girl of about 5 and her younger brother, perhaps 3.

The studio announcement with the logo had a crayonj outline of a wild thing's head over it, and the credits had crayon words and scribblings on them. A good sign, indicating that the movie was perhaps really aimed at children.

And the creatures on the island looked large and fuzzy and just like the Sendak drawings. And so did Max in his white wolf suit.

But, the movie, though not really frightening (except for a couple of moments - such as when the wild things at first threatened to eat Max, something true to the book but much more vivid with actors and closeups), there was a bit too much violence (though generally playful - such as when one of the large creatures jumped on top of Max, followed by all of the others, one at a time, until there they were, with Max at the bottom of the pile, having created a gigantic furry Max-plus-creatures pile for sleeping; or when they took Max's lead and waged a "war" by throwing hard dirt balls at each others' heads)...................as I said, though it was not really frightening, nevertheless it was lengthy and primarily about complex interpersonal relationships.

I of course appreciated the concept of how loneliness, and self involvement (and immaturity, of course, since even the giant creatures had the personalities of children) can sabotage close familial relationships by resulting in violent acting out-angry outbursts rather than caring and concern. And I do think that perhaps a child of 8 or 10 might get it. Nevertheless, it is not a movie for small children.

And what about my two little neighbors down the row? They sat thrugh much of it (it IS a large screen and a relatively small theater, rendering the screen that much larger) but they also seemed a bit restless. At one point the little boy walked by his dad to stand in front of his sister , at one point the girl leaned over and curled into a bored sleeping position, and they did ask questions from time to time.

Did I like it? Yes. I enjoyed the special affects and the personalities. On the other hand, I love fantasy and the fantastic. I can have a great time at Disney all by myself. I remember the first time I visited EuroDisney (I think that now it is called something else). I took the train from Paris, got off at the stop, and within a few minutes found myself standing in a tiled plaza with the magic castle rising into the blue sky just on the other side - and my heart jumped, my eyes teared up a bit, and I had to stop myself from clapping and chortling and jumping and saying out loud what I was yelling inside my head - "oh boy, oh boy, ohboy, it's Disney! Yeahhhhhhhhhh!"

So, what else did I do today?

Well, though yesterday was cold and dank and dreary and wet and I shivered when i ran across the street for a coffee, today the sky was blue and the sun shone warmly and the air had that nice slightly cool but smooth perfumed smell of a spring day. I think it was maybe 55 of 60 degrees.

So I left the theater, unwound my scarf and hung it over my arm, and started just walking . A few blocks later I heard the musical sound of La Francaise and sure enough there were three young men walking just behind me. They were good looking and casually dressed in that European way of nicely fitting jeans and nice shirts and jackets, and they were chattering away in Parisian French. I had been walking quickly to get my heart rate up, but hearing their voices slowed me down. I let them stay within earshot so the sound could wash over me. Finally, they stopped at a Bentley dealership and window shopped for a bit, then pushed each other through the door to look more closely.

Then, a block later, a thin young man in a dark suit was talking into that earpiece-mouthpiece contraption that let him talk on his "portable" hands free as he stood by a black towncar waiting for whomever he was driving - and yes, he too was talking in French.

Finally, two blocks later, a group of young men and women were standing at the curb talking about their days activities in..............yes, French! As if the world knew how strongly I am feeling my urge to jump back to Paris, even if just for a weekend. Or perhaps it was just that I was near the Hotel Sofitel - but I have walked by that hotel many times and never had this "on the streets of Paris" out of body experience before.

Then, I went to Bistro Zinc and had an oeuf poche' avec epinards and Hollandaise on English muffin, with little pieces of well spiced potatoes (that I only ate part of), along with a smooth glass of beaujolais, and finally a cappucino . I drank a lot of water and at the same time read the first two stories in the Murikami book "After the Quake".

Then, I left the restaurant and breathed in the warm air and felt the sun on my fact and decided to walk for a bit, and ran into a couple standing on a street corner with an unfurled map of Chicago, looking confused. They were in their fifties - he had white hair and a red face, she had blonde/brown short hair and wore a blue jacket. I always ask such people if Ican help them, and they took me up on it . They were staying at the Palmer House and had just fnished an architectural tour on the river where they were told of the Tiffany vaulted ceiling at the Cultural Center and wanted to somehow get there without navigating the oh so crowded Michigan Avenue so I told them they could head east and take the Lake route, and decided to accompany them. So this nice couple from Seattle and I then . walked to the Lake, back south to Navy Pier where we walked part way down the Pier (and I got someone to give them a tour of the Shakespeare Theater when intermission started), and then we walked the Navy Pier, North Pier, past the Sheraton, under the Columbus bridge along the Lake and River route back to the Cultural Center where I waved goodbye.

So I have not eaten badly today, and I did exercise of sorts, and I have blogged somewhat, and it is now 1:18 a.m. and I need to get some sleep, so I think I will set an alarm for very early so I can first finish the billing, and then walk to the end of Navy Pier or the Museum Campus to see the sun rise.

My Sister's Nostrils

I just watched that commercial about some kind of sucking candy that makes your lips pucker- the one where parents are moving their son into a dorm room, and the roomate (an Indian, or Native American kid with dark hair , moist dark eyes, and large nostrils at the tip of a prominent nose) gives the Mom a sucking candy, then interior monologues first the question of whether she likes it, then, from observing her puckered mouth sucking with exaggerated movements, and a slight glaze of joy in her eyes and upturn of her lips, telling himself that yes, indeed, she likes it -all the while sucking his candy with even more exaggerated motions that are something like kissing. And the dad and son walk in and observe the two with their eyes fixed on each other, their faces a couple of feet apart, their mouths sucking, and the very slight smiling upturns of their lips, and the son says "Mom!" and the dad drops his carton (which has a coffee pot in it).

That reminded me of my sister's nostrils. Strange, right? I remember noting to myself when we were young girls that she had rectangular, almost square shaped nostrils. Mine are oval. Most nostrils are oval. I just did a moment's research by obsrving the actors on an episode of "The Practice" (black and white) and in the advertisements between scenes, and sure enough, they are all oval. That's what I thought! But when I referred to those oddly shaped nostrils to myself (and sometimes others, or her) in the context of their shape, I always used the term "flagpoles." Not "flags" but "flagpoles". My mind was too lazy to complete the thought. Clearly, I was thinking of the rectangular piece of cloth, not the pole on which it hung, but nevertheless I used a simple shorthand the first time I voiced the thought, a wrong shorthand that was a reminder of what I really meant, but not the accurate metaphor, and then, after having done it once, my mind was too lazy to rethink it, but simply, repetitively, used the same wrong phrase always. Why?

That is the question I never thought of, until lately. It was simply a proclivity to fall, easily, into an habitual pattern of thought or action, without thinking. An avoidance of being fully aware of what I was thinking, or doing, once done. A need for repetition? For habit? For familiarity? A fear of change? A fear of the untried? A fear of failure? An anesthetizing of full awareness? Can I take this one small habit and see in it what has become a life habit? And, in so doing, if it has indeed become so, by seeing it, change that habit?

I don't know.

I know that as a child I feared change, as do most children. But more so than others? When my mom wanted me to go to camp I fought her and she gave in. I remember my fear. I feel it again clenching its fist in the bottom of my stomach. I didn't want to go away. I hated the idea of being in a strange bed, with people I didn't know. They might not like me.

I was very small, and I was very shy. "Shy." I don't know what that means exactly, except that I remember being very afraid - of so much. I was afraid to talk to people I didn't know . I was afraid to telephone anyone other than best friends. I was afraid of my teachers. I recall in the second or third grade how horribly embarrassed I was when I was too afraid to raise my hand to ask for a toilet break and, finally, the sphincter loosened from the pressure, the damn broke, and warm yellow liquid wet my pants and then my chair and then spilled onto the floor. "Look - she peed on the floor!"

I was little, and the rest of the world was big - so very big - like a giant in a Grimm fairy tale. I liked The Brothers Grimm, but I don't know why. I recall that those tales were rather gruesome - trolls and giants and horrible creatures. I also liked the Oz books, not just "The Wizard of Oz" but also "Ozma" and "Rik -i-Tik" and the others - and they, too, were filled with witches and other horrible beings, including a frightening Nome King living in a deep cave surrounded by wraith like Nome creatures whose bodies flowed and swayed against and into the stone walls, along with their long streaming hair and beards.

But in my real life, I didn't want adventure. I wanted to stay home with my mom and dad (and sister, my sometime enemy). I was afraid to be away and I still remember the comfort of walking back into my house after school each day, petting the dog, pulling out a bag of chips and some dip.

Fear and that "shyness" (a failure of self worth) ruled so much of my life. I dreamed of being a popular cheerleader, but I never tried out. I was so certain that I could never have made it. Nevertheless, years later, I learned to run a marathon, and to do yoga, and lift weights.

Today, I avoid the "shoulds" in my life by retreating to my quilted, kitty occupied couch life. I love so much curling on the couch in my messy apartment, a soft drink or water (every so often a glass of Bordeaux) and the remote and my Blackberry and a good book and the newspaper (and a bottle of Excedrin for my occasionally tweaky lower back muscle) all within easy reach to my right on the coffee table, my cuddling kitty just at my left shoulder on the top of the couch with her soft paw reaching for my arm, a quilt on mylap, clicking past unfamiliar shows into those I have learned to know and love - even reruns of episodes.

On the other hand, last month I attended an open house at a nearby college for a possible MFA. In July I ran off to France again for two weeks during my birthday month, including not only a week in my familiar neighborhood, at the left bank hotel where I know the owner and all of the employees, but also, and first, a week in the Aveyron, first taking two trains (with a short and uncertain connection) to the unfamiliar town of Figeac for two nights, then renting there a stick shift car (not having driven one for years) and driving on narrow country roads to the town of Villeneuve d'Aveyron, turning right down an even narrower road to the tiny Village of Mayrinhagues, and spending the week in a stone cottage, lighting a gas stove, listening to the morning sound of birds and barking dogs.

On the other hand, I failed to visit the town of Conques because of my fear of taking that little stick shift car onto highways for the hour or two it would require, fearing the speed, and the large trucks bearing down on me.

So, who am I? Am I a creature of habit, someone who needs to feel and taste the familiar to avoid fear? Or an individualist who salivates at the adventure of untried experiences and places ?

In college I didn't try anything truly new (except for some sexual experimentation, but never "all the way" out of fear of either my reputation or my skill, or perhaps both). I never thought to take a semester in Europe, to travel, to join the Civil Rights movement ( or even notice it existed or to care if I had noticed) I didn't join or even recognize the womens movement. . I wanted to do something creative but ended up first getting a teaching certificate and then going to law school - as I have called it so often , taking the paths of least resistance suggested by my parents. Who could I have been if I had instead travelled with a backpack through Europe, used my writing skills in any disciplined fashion?

I went from College, to law school, to a pretend marriage with someone as immature as I (a marriage that was more like two little kids playing house and having tantrums, then a mutual relationship between two adults - we pretended to be in love, neither of us having the ability to even guess what that should really mean) - and all out of fear of saying "no" to my parents, or "no" to my husband. Out of that failure to say "no" I entered the practice of law and a marriage , and moved on to motherhood (ok - let's not put motherhood into that inadvertant category - I was never sure I wanted to be a mother, and started that family out of my husband's insistence, but from the moment when my first son kicked against my innards, motherhood has always been a joy - had I followed my independant conscience instead of my fear of making the wrong choice or losing my last chance, had I developed a significant sense of self worth, and therefore had I not married at that time, I would have never produced my two sons and daughter and they would not have produced my grandchildren - a thought that is inconceivable).

But, continuing on into my analysis of my life of fear and stagnation and inertia . In the practice of law, the only thing I was confident of was my intellect - not my ability to talk to people, or my ability to think on my feet, or to reason, or to manage subordinates, or to do any of the things required of me as a lawyer. I admired one of my partners' ability to do all of those things. I would sit in his office and listen to him, with confidence and that Ivy League arrogance and that equally Ivy League humorless but socially acceptable (and required) laugh, questioning and advising clients on the phone, and fear that I could never learn how to do that. (Now, I am proud of my ability to deal with clients, and equally proud that I never developed any of his other characteristics, including his crying need to do what is considered "appropriate")

Today, in the context of law and business I have somehow developed the confidence that I could, if given the time, learn how to do anything, and the confidence and skill to deal with the interpersonal mind games needed for client control and relationships.

So, who the Hell am I? To what extent do fear and inertia rule my life? To what extent am I fearless and independant and free?

Why do I spend so much time here, on the couch, instead of here, at the computer, or there, on the road running as I once did and thereby bringing back that Audrey Hepburn body?

Why do I let so many months elapse without having written?

Why do I develop so many ideas for travel articles, and never get to them?

This blog is clearly erratic, badly written, meandering all over the place, and written without thought or writing skill. When, if ever, I develop a feel for it, and subject matter control, then, and only then, will I permit it to be read by others. In the meantime, at least it is something that I can go back to, and a place to save my morning thoughts.

Daily writing . That is at this point the only purpose. And a means to analyze who I am and out of that analysis perhaps discover a means to kick myself in my butt and move forward. I have been making some of the same promises to myself for now almost ten years. I know that by reading earlier writing, which I did this last week. Enough!

Start Again - and From Now On

Haven't posted since November of last year. Several posts, and before that it was April of that year.

It's 8:12 a.m. and with the lights off the apartment is dismally dark. Rivulets run down my window and the sky is a thick blanket of grey-white merging with a misty grey Lake. With my long tie die t shirt and jeans on, the scale hit 146 this morning. Even allowing for a crapload of crap still stuck up the colon, and the weight of the clothing, that is still probably 144. The specter of 150 - a number I never thought I could ever reach is just over the horizon of a few more engorgements. Stop! I mean it - really - this time - Stop! Stop...stop.......stop.STOP!

The world is dismal and dank and dark and my life a dismal daily display of sameness....promises unkept, apartment unkempt, work undone.

I have a blog so I must use it.

The rivulets are more insistant now. Plummeting separate drops followed by streaks with long undulating tails racing down the window. Some are competing for space, crossing each other on the way down. There must be a wind, though the trees down in the park seem still - but the water runs at an angle.

There's a certain beauty in the juxtoposition of the still lushly green lawn and green haired trees just north of the flat metal of the bandshell roof, and the melange of orange and rose and dull yellow in the more tousled crowns of the stand of trees just west of the sculpture path.

Yesterday, as I lay on the couch willing myself up and at it (at something - whatever), the sky turned pink as the day rolled in over the lake. That was a day of more promise, if its entrance is indicative of anything other than the happenstance of the temperature and precipitation. I choose to believe that it is. But, then, what did I do yesterday? I worked on the MFA application, and in the process I read old articles, travel pieces, political prognostications, and a cuple of stories, dating back from before year 2000. Some were not bad, some were pretty good, and all of them reminded me of how long I have been promising myself that I will get to it, get at it, start writing, start reading, develop discipline, lay out an even slightly marked though meandering life path.

So today, perhaps there is a dankness that the pushy part of my personality needs to break through. A challenge. Better than the smooth sailing of a pink and clear sky? With the pinkness comes hope and a quiet smile and perhaps a lethargy. With the dark and the wet (and perhaps even some cold) comes a need to do something.

And 146 . If that isn't a challenge! And a horrific sign. A precursor. A future. A failure of hope. An evaporation of my still continuing self image - that interior self of Audrey Hepburn who just requires some discipline to break back out. Those pictures of myself on the refrigerator. That picture not on the frig but still clear in my head of me standing in a large room filled with revelers one evening at Club Med (at the age of forty plus), wearing tight and very short cut off jeans and a little tank top and looking damn good!

So what about today?

Well, I AM writing. Drivel, repetitive drivel, but nevertheless something. And in the blog. At least I HAVE a blog.

And then there is France. I have this insistant hunger in my stomach to be back on a narrow street with cobblestones, to sit at Cafe Panis with a glass of red wine, to talk about le truc and how I am desole' about quelque-chose, and to decide that I want to prendre un verre and apres ca peut etre something simple, and to read Le Monde, and sit on the second floor of Shakespeare & Co. with writers and readers and Lynn or Thirza and to feel a part of an arts community, to be someone with something to say, and the ability to say it with panache and metaphor .

Today is a day of writing drivel, expressing my unhappiness with my lot, and watching, still (now at 8:40) the hypnotizing streaks and drops racing down my window, and the glow of the red blinking light on the land line on which I never check messages, and feeling the accusing eyes behind me of the piles of papers and books on the table and before me on the desk and surrounding me on the book shelf and the floor, and the undone dishes slogging in the sink, and the tightness of my jeans over my stomach, and the filthy feeling in my mouth.

And then, I watch a quiet cat with large round eyes looking at me lovingly from the arm of the couch, and hear the soft movement of another snuggling in the basket on top of my blue and gold flowered cloth bag, and decide to close up this useless blog (till later?) and walk to Starbucks for some coffee, and then get to it................whatever...............get onto something.

It's 8:55. My teeth are clenching and scraping against each other. I realize I am hunched over the computer. Need to move things from the floor so I can wrap my legs around the wheeled table , move it closer to me, and sit up straight. If possible, it appears to have become even darker and more dismal outside and in this room.Only the computer screen and the hall light that I neglected to turn off last night when I dozed off after Greek food.

This day must start.

Now.

(Whatever).

On Not Enough

Ok. So I think, in the middle of my second West Wing rerun this morning, I've just felt an "aha" thought shoot its way into my ear and take a seat somewhere in the cognitive portion of my brain. "Aha!" I watch tv from time to time (sometimes more than others) to anesthetize myself and escape. That's a fact. But why, when I watch West Wing reruns - which I started to do during the final weeks of the election - do I feel not so much a sinking into short term oblivion, but instead, a rising of some kind of need. Aha! I just watched C.J. Craig sitting there in front of the tv monitor with Josh Lyman (the Rahm Emannuel clone, I've just learned - talk about another aha! - sure - should have known - but that's another topic). Anyhow, they were sitting there, watching Jed Bartlet (my very favorite President in my dream world -at least, he was until Barack Obama came along - and he may very well take Jed Bartlet's place). And, as I was saying, Jed Bartlet is rehearsing for the State of the Union, and he doesn't look well, and C.J. is fondling and sometimes sipping from a paper cup which I assume contains coffee, and Josh say something like "He doesn't look so good - sweaty and not so good. Do you think he has swollen glands?" and C.J. says something like"Omigod! I forgot! I didn't check the President's glands today." And Josh says "Ok. Perhaps your joke reflex is what is keeping you from keeping a man." and then, "seriously." and they discuss it for a bit, until the President collapses onto the floor (I don't remember whether he has a flu, which is what the doctor thinks, or whether this is an early season precursor of the M.S. thing).

Anyhow, I started thinking. And "aha", I realized that the reason I started watching them so regularly, even to the point of putting on the dvds late at night when the early morning reruns weren't on was not only the reason I allowed myself to think and told others during the campaign -that I was so worried about the possibility of things going wrong, I wanted to watch a Presidential election that felt similar (with Matt Santos and Arnie Vinick - which I discovered later, after recognizing something in Santos' speeches and checking on google, WAS similar, since apparently Jimmie Smits had talked to Barack Obama as he was preparing for the role, and, also, David Alexrod was a close friend of the writer who wrote the character. Hmmmm). Anyhow, I used these reruns to dream, and to pray to whatever is out there (or just cross fingers and toes) that reality would follow fiction, since (what with the Obama/Smits thing) reality had already followed fiction which had followed reality etc.l - particularly when I saw, during that last Florida campaign spot, the one with Bill Clinton, that Matt Santos - or rather Jimmie Smits dressed as Matt Santos - was there on the stage with them!)

So, anyhow, that was one reason. I wanted to sink into the wonderful dream world of a Jed Bartlet presidency (rather than George Bush) flowing into a Matt Santos presidency, so I could stop being a basket case about what I feared was the very real possibility of a John McCain/Sarah Palin administration. It makes a shiver run up and down my spine just thinking of it now!

Now, for the second reason - the one I just hit on. The one that makes sense, seeing that I am also listening to the audiobook of Merril's biography of Obama while racewalking, and reading "Team of Rivals" when eating (finally - since I love Doris Kearns Goodwin, ever since I read "No Ordinary Time" years ago, and had dinner with her just before she spoke at the NAWBO annual luncheon - and have had the book on my shelf since right after it came out). Therefore, my reading has exacerbated my dissatisfaction with the lack of meaning in the parts of my life outside of my family. I am spectacularly satisfied with my children, their choices in spouses, and the grandchildren. I am not so satisfied with the rest.

Perhaps that is part of the proclivity for sloth and procrastination sometimes. I cannot get energized about helping a wealthy person get richer, or acquire more real property, or acquire or dispose of a business, or win a fight with another wealthy businessman. Yes, I'm good at it, and will need to continue doing it , probably forever, since I have yet to develop the discipline, regularity, and perhaps talent (I don't know - perhaps I have that, and have not had sufficient levels of the other qualities to accomplish anything with it). In any case, simply, my writing is going nowhere, certainly not where I can make a living at it.

And I remember when my high school friend/college roomate was first elected to Congress, and I went to D.C. for the installation, and walked into her office, and saw her happiness and energy. She was thinking, clearly, that now she could really do something - and I was thinking the same. And there she is, rapidly becoming a leader in the party, and appearing on the Rachel Maddow show, and being considered for the Senate. And here am I worrying about whether a client for whom I have just converted a four unit building into condominiums will be able to close two units in time to fight off his foreclosing bank! Wow! What an awesome issue with which to be involved.

And there is C.J., with whom I relate. Sure, she knows so much more than me. (Rather, all of the characters on West Wing are capable of rapidly, machine gun style, spewing well structured verbiage with historical, economic, literary and biblical content. They are all so damned smart and educated! -Or at least, the writers have made them so). I know I'm as smart as them. Absolutely! But I don't know anywhere near as much.

So, as I read (listen to) the Obama biography, and "Team of Rivals" and for the first time, ever (starting with my need to be "talked down" during the last months of this electoral cycle) I'm watching CNN and MSNBC and even Fox, and reading the important sections of thenewspaper (or more often reading them online - New York Times, Washington Post,Huffington, Politico.com, TNR, The Economist, etc.).............................as I do all of this, I feel that maybe I COULD learn enough - or I could have. But it's probably too late. I'm old.

And I want to be C.J. or Josh or Sam or any of them, or my friend Jan. I want to work in the White House, or in Congress, or in a think tank, or to be a reporter, or an important writer. I want to make a mark in this world. I had a taste of looking out at a crowd and talking, and feeling good at it, when I was president of a major business organization ten years ago. I liked it.

I feel good about talking to people about important issues. I feel good when I can help someone, even a homeless guy for whom I purchased some new blue jeans last year, or friends I can put together to help each other in business, or when I helped a friend last week to revise her proposed contract so she could retain some business with a government agency.

I write well. I talk well. I have a huge reserve of energy and strength when I decide that whatever I'm doing is important enough, or urgent enough (more often than not, it is the latter not the former - I'm too often in the wrong "Seven Habits" quadrant).

So, C.J. reminds me of who I could have been had I not been lazy, or willing to follow the path of least resistance.

Unlike Barack, I had it too easy for too long, and never had to gain the qualities that he needed in his life (discipline and organization and a strong need to better the world). He and I both have a strong intellect as well as intellectual curiosity . But he also has an ability to get things done and a much stronger, life moving desire to help others (I have that, but not often enough) . Barack has a unique background - a deep inner turmoil with too many competing definitions of self needing to be resolved, the lack of a father, a mother who idealized his absent father and his black heritage until he discovered through the real world the half truths he had been told, the experience of being the only black face in a white private school with Asians as the only historic minority , the experience of being a small child living among abject poverty in Indonesia, etc. etc. My background has been easy and simple - too simple - a loving and protective set of parents who paid my bills and covered bounced checks in college and told me it was ok when I was too shy to go to summer camp and therefore I didn't go, and were always there for me even well into my forties; growing up in a 98% Jewish and white neighborhood where almost everyone was just like me, my only problem being that I was short and late to develop and maybe too smart so I felt I could not be a part of the "popular" crowd even though, in retrospect, I now know that I probably could have; an intelligence and ability to learn quickly that helped me to become salutatorian in my high school class and to do well (though not spectacularly) in a very good college, and a nationally revered law school, all without ever working very hard at all . I never had to push myself, so I didn't, and therefore I grew up being successful, but only to a point, with the realization that I could have been very successful and changed the world (I truly believe that) but never did, due to my very own inability to kick myself in the pants and do what I had to do to get there!

When I wanted to finish Ulysses and go to the 100th Bloomsday in Dublin - I did.

When I wanted to become a part time citizen of the world by travelling periodically to France, and writing articles for an online publication, I did it (and still do). My dearth of recent articles come from my lack of writing them, not from the publication's refusal to accept them.

And now, with my becoming truly interested in the daily workings of the world, and observing Barack Obama's fantastic success, and working so hard for his election and worrying so much about it - I am back to watching West Wing, and living in a dream world where I am an integral part of Jed Bartlet's administration.

I speak French, because I'm good with languages, but I am far from beingh fluent, because it came too easy, and it is enough for my trips to Paris.

I write decent short stories, because I'm good with words, and my friends, and now, even a professional writer likes them - but I haven't written one since 2006, and have only sporadically edited the old ones for possible publication.

I write pretty good travel articles, because, again, I'm good with words, and particularly good when I'm writing about something that excites me (and going to France and sometimes to places like San Francisco and New York excites me) and I attended a course this Spring where I found that I am probably as good as those who make a living at it, and came back with a plan on how to take steps to get published, a plan that I have not even started to follow.

I was once a pretty good runner, because it came easy despite my having done nothing athletic until then I started running in my mid thirties, I ran farther and faster, and became semi competitive in my age group in my early forties, and then stopped doing it as often, and now, for a number of years, not at all, because it was easier not to, and I've gained weight and feel fat and slothful and no longer fit as I once did.

When I wanted to learn Polish, I quickly learned enough to talk to the folks at a wedding in Poland, and then forgot it through non use.

When I wanted to learn Russian as a teen, I did, and have now forgotten most of it.

I've written pretty decent poetry, and expository articles, and travel articles, and short stories, and legal documents, and I've journalled, and I've succeeded acquiring what my clients needed in negotiating rooms with antagonistic and aggressive lawyers, and I've accomplished legal tasks in areas where I had to learn from scratch, and developed friendships with people from many different parts of society.

I am a deep and wide well of potential - of unused potential - and I'm bursting at the seams with regret.

I've done so much, and still do, but never enough. Not nearly enough. And it's all from my own lack of doing.

This is not a good blog, but I had to get it out. It's very poorly written. Some of that bad writing that the journalling experts tell us is good for us anyhow. I've been writing for an hour. I shouldn't publish it, but I will, and then I'll go get some coffee, and I'll perhaps make today a better one (I've told myself that so often - but here again I have that blank notebook that is a new day,and the sky I see through the window when I raise my eyes from my laptop starts out at the horizon with a thick grey cloud but with the gold of a morning sun breakng through since up near the top I can see the orb of the sun through some thin layers, and through an opening further down a bright blinding light escapes, but just barely. It is visible in front of a backdrop of cloud , and emits some rays that it aims downward towards the lake . The planetarium is in dark relief at the far end of its equally dark spit of land, but the lake around it is a smooth surface on which someone has painted several long, narrow streaks of shimmering light starkly apparent under the dark sky at the horizon and the dull blue grey of the rest of its quiet speckled surface.

It's 9:24 and time to start the day.