ding dong the witch is dead —

Ding dong the witch is dead — and Malkah cried some, but mostly was in shock.  Malkah was sure she'd live forever, in her witchy way, casting evil spells to disable opponents and take your breath clean away.  Her magic was formidable.

If you told her about a new girlfriend, finally one you'd thought she'd finally approve, she glared and gave her curse:


You'll only hurt her.

And from her mouth to God's ear, that would become the truth.

If she asked you, well, when she's dead do you promise to live in the house and keep it exactly as is, everything in its place? And you're evasive, and talk about how beautiful the dome of the Great Room would be with the ancient Egyptian goddess Nuit painted across the ceiling along with deep blue sky and gold and silver stars — she'd respond with her signature,

I'll curse you from the grave.

Scary shit.  Because when she said it, it sounded really real. Not something you could laugh at.  Not something she'd smile about afterwards.  More like you better duck right now because the sky is falling. Or it will be soon.

She liked to assert preemptive control from the afterlife a lot in those days.

But then, something strange happened as she lay dying for a few years.

She got nicer. Supportive.  Still scary. But scary helpful, instead of scary scary.  She insisted on helping.  On being there for you. On healing you. On telling you how to heal, like you had no idea how to take care of yourself.

Imperious never went away.

Demanding. Penetrating. Glaring.  Regally holding court from her hospital bed.  Looking all the queen of heaven and earth.  She glowed as she reigned. She captured and she captivated. And she still cursed, of course.  You don't give up power like that so easily, right?

But she softened.  Or rather, she let her soft side show.  Well, maybe not to everyone, but at least to Malkah, who was shocked beyond words.  She gave Malkah compliments.

Who knew you could be so competent? she'd say.

I can't believe you're still here taking care of me!  She'd say. Expecting her daughter to up and go poof any second now.

In truth, she had cause not to expect Malkah's care for her at all.  How many of the hired help had up and fled in tears after her rebuke and wildfire rage?  And these were trained professionals, or well, some of them were, with experience of the abuses the elderly can mete out on others.

Ah, that wicked wicked tongue! She was so proud of it.  She boasted of it. Repeated to Malkah over and over some nasty thing she'd said to some good friend or other. And Malkah always wondered why those folks they stuck around.

She loved cursing them. In writing, especially.  How many people have kept copies of her loquacious and lengthy curses?  She was a poet after all. She had a well-oiled facility with words.

Abra-ca-dabra.  I create as I speak. Just like God, the poet uses words to bring evil and good into the world. Which is why it's good idea to keep your mouth shut no matter what just in case you can't tell the difference.

I was silent.  For months on end, I could not write nor speak a word.  I was stunned at her departure.  Yes, I put my shovel full of dirt upon her grave, as did we all, still expecting her to rise once more. To direct me. Forbid me. Coerce me. Condemn me. Demand of me. And to critique my posture, when she just couldn't think of anything else to say.

And then suddenly she was nice. Just like that.

It wasn't her seductive nice that she saved for handsome men.  No, it was the nice that comes from just plain letting go of forcing the world into her mold, her blueprint and requisite dimensions.

Well, okay, I overspoke.  Suddenly she was nice to Malkah at least.

I wonder if this is what Confession is for in religious traditions not my own.  Does letting go bring purity or relief? Especially at the end of life?  I have no idea.  But she let go. She cut the umbilicus that tethered Malkah to her rages.

I'm left here with an emptiness, a dearth of evil.  It seems to be entirely gone inside my being.  No curses from the grave (not even mild admonitions) press down upon my shoulders.  The world feels emptier now.  And emptiness became a theme upon her exit from her gilded stage.

I emptied out her house and gave away or sold her things.  I took the orphaned plants into my garden and watched them up and bloom.  I got a lot of help dismantling her universe. The emptiness feels almost Buddhist in its peaceful glory.

Malkah sold her house to a family of Egyptians.

I'm hoping they'll paint the ancient goddess Nuit upon the dome of that extraordinary Great Room. With deep blue skies and gold and silver stars twinkling from above the vaulted hall.  Bringing peace on earth, of course, and good will to absolutely all.

the tzaddik and the auction

I never really understood the tzaddik's obsession with auctions, but if I ever were going to, now would be the time.  As we speak, the last of the tzaddik family possessions are being auctioned off at the very same auction house from which the tzaddik had purchased so much of it.  End of an era.

You'd think I'd have kept this stuff.  But no. It's just not mine.  Somehow, it just seemed right to send it all off back into the world from whence it came.

Redistribution.

Let these things inhabit someone else's home for a while, and let the pattern start all over again.

I think this is why I liked the movie The Red Violin so much. Here was this object, so lovingly created by a master craftsman, passing through quite different hands in different countries, generation after generation.  Objects have a life of their own long after their fabricators (creators?) are dead.

So. This stuff.

Mostly gifts that the tzaddik brought home to Mrs Tzaddik that she either accepted or rejected, claiming that he had paid too much (though to his credit, he generally fudged on how much he'd really paid).

And now, somehow, unbelievably, they're both dead.  The tzaddik and his wife. I just can't believe it.

End of an era.

But the stuff just keeps passing into someone else's hands.

There's this chair I sent off to auction.  The tzaddik had actually gotten it for me and not for her.  I saw the receipt many years later.  It really had been a bloody fortune.  Also from Clars Auction.  I loved that gaudy chair. Hand carved in impossible detail. Almost 200 years old. Beautiful!  But my kitty loved it way too much and the seat was getting wrecked.  Let someone else have the pleasure.

Then there are the Arts and Crafts beds that Mrs Tzaddik was sure were worth their weight in gold.  But nobody else seemed to want them after we were all done with them.  Back to the auction house.

Redge, the head of Clars, assures me that everything, everything finds its place.

Online bidding was something the tzaddik was unfamiliar with, being entirely computer and internet illiterate. Instead, he'd go to the auction previews the day before, case the joint, and leave a slip of paper with his bid on it.  If it looked like the thing might be Jewish, you can bet the tzaddik could find it a home.  His apartment had been cluttered floor to ceiling with those pieces that had not yet been adopted out.  After his death, it took almost a year to find homes for all those orphans that my father loved so dearly.

I finally get that Mrs Tzaddik was telling the truth about the tzaddik. That she got him to marry her in order to give her child a father.  And he, in his tzaddikhood, agreed to the deal.

He was a great adoptive father!

Not just to me, but to every unloved, homeless (primarily Jewish) object he encountered. He had a whole museum full of the stuff.  An apartment full. A car packed full with orphans looking for homes.

"I have something special for you," he'd say. "Come out to the car..."

All that junk. Treasures all. He'd research their secrets, discover their histories, and tell their stories. They were alive to him.

But the really beautiful objects, they all would be brought directly to the queen herself to pass judgement on each and every one.  If Mrs Tzaddik accepted a little found treasure, the tzaddik's face lit up in relief.  And if she rejected it with a scowl or a shout, back it went into the trunk of his car. To be figured out later.  Sometimes she changed her mind. Sometimes she didn't.  Sometimes he'd try me out next. Sometimes he didn't.

The problem for me was that most of the stuff that Mrs Tzaddik liked was breakable.

I can't stand breakable stuff.  It's breakable.

So. He used to bring me only unbreakable orphans.

Books. And brass trays. I was okay with that.  They're useful. And unbreakable.

But for her, the more delicate and fragile (and breakable) the better. Figurines of beautiful women from the '40s. Marble statues of beautiful women from the 18th century. Textiles of beautiful women from the pre-Columbian period.

Beautiful women.

She saw herself in all the beautiful women that ever walked the earth, in myth or real life.

I can't stand that stuff.

And then there's the delicate and fragile pottery. Art glass with hand painted scenes, iridescent lamps, vases with improbable glazes.  Each one having found it's home in hers. Orphans with special privileges. Adored and daily dusted and coddled.

Do not touch.  Her house was more museum than the museum was. Every orphan had found its precious home and should not be disturbed.

But there they are again. At Clars.

Should I feel guilty about this? Was I supposed to keep them all? Preserve them in their preciousness, preserve her beloved breakable things?

What I love is redistribution.

The notion that one's 'place' is only temporary in the world. Call it home for a while, and then it's time to move on. We adopted souls know no place is really home unless we've made it for ourselves. On the other hand, maybe we orphans are supposed to stick together.

No. It doesn't work that way.

I took the plants. They were the only ones I really felt sorry for.  I gave them a new home, and you know what they did?

They bloomed. Just like that.

Next step, the books.
Come one, come all.
Take these orphans all...
Clars.

in the land of the ice giants

I've been visiting the castle of the Ice Queen in the land of the Ice Giants. Anthropologists do things like that.  Spend time. Get to know the natives. Learn the language. But this time, it's a language made up of primarily vowels. O's with lines through them, and the like. My mouth can't capture the language at all.

The castle is tall, and I feel like Alice. Need to drink a bottle of grow-me in order to reach the kitchen cabinet for a cup or a dish. The plates weigh at least three pounds each. The bowls are papa-bear bowls.
And there are all these machines I have no idea how to use—but that's not to the point.

Everything's in black and white and chrome. Scandinavian designs or with a capital D as well. Sleek bleak and shiny. White paint. Black leather. Shiny chrome fixtures.

Anthropologists love such places. Cultural identity on every surface. And in the frig and freezer. The Ice Queen knows who she is. She celebrates her identity. Maintains it in this Nordic diaspora. Even her sweaters speak to her identity. The ring upon her royal hand. Her— well, her everything.

In this, she's just like me.

But I'm a short Jewish person. With short Jewish icons in my house. And short Jewish foods. Like yaprakas (stuffed grape leaves). Doesn't get any shorter than that.

We both eat lox, however.

So. Here's the deal. Anthropologists are committed for the long haul, despite the impossible vowels. But what we want is to immerse in the other in her native ecosystem. That would be: delight in the land of the ice giants. Participant/observation in the castle of the Queen. I mean, how lucky can you get to have a gig like that? I myself am used to peasantry.  Short peasants. Not that dissimilar from me.

While we anthropologists have long observed that there are no pure cultures (or not any more, at least) (and likely never were) (diffusion, and all) (and trade) (etc etc) this comes as close to anywhere I've been to studying an intact culture.

And, miracle of miracles—she's basically doing the same with me.

Mutual exotification.

She laughs when I call her exotic. She's more used to hegemonic. Blonde and blue eyes and white and all that goes with it. Guns and alcohol and hunting-and-fishing. And baseball hats. And Christian of a certain persuasion. In my book, she's a rare species of bird.

I laugh when she calls me exotic. I feel more the global norm. Dark. And dark. And darkness. We peasants ought to stick together, right? But no. I'm drawn to the Ice Queen.

You know the old adage. It's straight out of Fiddler on the Roof. Tevya. Get the lilting accent right.

"A fish may love a bird, but where would they live?"

We're okay, if she's the native and I'm the anthropologist. We're okay, if the Ice Queen's slumming it down here where the short Jewish peasantry resides.

But build a home together?

Disrupt and taint pure systems?

The only way to even think about that is with a sense of humor. Whimsy, crinkly eyes, and a great appreciation for the eclectic. Celebrate diversity, and all that. Syncretism. Heterosis. Mix it up and depurify.

It's the dream I had when I first learned about genetics and evolution. Fifth grade, as I recall.

All the people of the world would blend together. No more pure-bloods. No more this-land-is-my-land/this-land-is-your-land. Lift the borders, mix it up.  And we'd all be merely human.

But that would mean no more ice giants, no more Ice Queen, and no more short and zaftig Jews.

I've never been able to figure it out. Have appreciated those who know their own identity. Who celebrate the intactness of their heritage. How wonderful, right? But I've admired more those who have the courage to let go. Not the ones who steal indigenous ways and take them for their own. But those who bring together the best of multiple ways—and live it.

I'm balled up inside the argument. Ambivalent at best. Pure systems lead to prejudice and outrage. But syncretism makes a mess.

gummy bear lessons in mothering

I'm pretty sure that gummy bears taught me some important strategies in mothering. Note, I did not say good mothering. But maybe it was good mothering. All I can say is it took my daughter about 22 years to figure out what I'd done.

And I'd do it again in a heart beat if needed. Still. It was deceptive, if not cruel.

Here's what happened.

I put my precious daughter in her stroller and we zoomed down the hill to the produce market around the corner. The one with all the ethnic woven baskets hanging out front and piles and piles of sweet smelling long-stems to choose from. And wheatgrass baskets. And a machine to juice your own wheatgrass right then and there. And bins of coarse-ground bulghur. And three kinds of couscous, including dark whole wheat (which nobody in their right mind in North Africa would ever eat). And kiwis and mangoes and papayas when they were available. And Acme sourdough baguettes that you put in long bags yourself.

And on the bottom row of bins were gummy bears. And gummy worms. And chocolate covered raisins. And dried cranberries.

And I was lingering admiring the bulghur and filling a bag full for dinner (with caramelized onions and simmered in stock and wine)—when I looked down in horror.

My precious daughter had a mouth overflowing with bright colored twisty gummy worms and two fists full of gummy bears, mostly neon reds and orange. She looked like a gummy medusa who'd just devoured her own snakes.

She looked up at me, sugar-rush not kicked in yet. Innocent big brown eyes that refused to be admonished. I mean, the bins were placed exactly at her level, right? They were put there purposefully to tempt her. What's more—she was in that developmental stage that's pre- right-and-wrong. Although that innocent look looked like she was working it.

This vision went through my head right then and there. A vivid picture of a fat (I mean super-fat), unhappy, acne-faced, caries-ridden teenage girl who was my daughter. And it was all my fault for not taking action right here and now. My daughter, I suddenly realized, had sugar-lust. And probably gummy-things were made of much worse than sugar.

And as I cleaned up the gummy mess as best I could, and paid for our Acme sourdough, tomatoes and avocados, a new vision came to me. A vision of rules.

Until that point, I'd been mothering without rules. My first-born son didn't seem to need any. He was (and remains) reasonable in all things large and small (with very few exceptions). I don't remember any rules with him at all.

Clean-up time, for example when those Brio trains covered the entire family room with little pieces of everything, clean-up time was simple. A game we played either by color-coding or by letters of the alphabet. And the carpet magically reappeared in its totality after a full day's disappearance.

Games like that never worked with my precious daughter.

But this was serious. That horrible vision required an intervention.

Walking back up the hill, the rules began to take shape and form all by themselves. And they weren't all about gummy-things.

The ice cream rule:  No ice cream unless it's over 85 degrees outside.

The hot chocolate rule: No hot chocolate unless you've been skiing all morning or afternoon.

The cookies rule: No cookies unless you (we) bake them yourself.

M & M's: Allowed in gorp (aka trail mix) along with nuts and raisins. One sandwich baggie allowed while hiking on the weekends.

Gummy bears and worms: I couldn't think of a reasonable rule at all. There was just never a reasonable time to eat gummy worms.

But wait. Halloween to the rescue to cover everything else:

Candy and crap of every persuasion: You may keep all your Halloween candy that fits into a large mason jar. That's the candy and crap for the year. Ration it as you will.

Here's the weird part: It worked.

My daughter became an expert at weather prediction. Eighty-five degrees is pretty hard to achieve when you live in the foggiest part of San Francisco. But it does happen for a day or two in late September, early October. And in the High Sierra where we'd go camping. There were a few hot days then as well. And she managed to get her rule's-worth of ice cream in each year.

And she became an avid skier. And snowboarder as well. Earning her hot chocolate.

The cookies we baked were really awful. That solved that one.

And almost nobody gave gummy bears for Halloween. That kinda took care of that.

The loophole: Playing at other kids' houses.  Precious daughter found the loophole pretty quick once she was post-stroller. But by then, the rules had pretty much been internalized.  Although she was still trying hard to control the weather. Global warming, however, has had little impact in the Inner Sunset. Look outside: it's as foggy as ever.

So. Here's the thing. Both kids embraced the Rules. My son, the-future-lawyer, devised trick questions to get the rules more precise:

"What if it's only 85 degrees for five minutes that day?"

Stuff like that.

We built up rules together. Amendments to rules. For some reason, the kids were okay with the rules. Especially given the loophole.

Results: First-born-lawyer runs the NYC marathon and is licensed as a personal trainer. Precious daughter and sometime vegetarian aspires to Vegan-hood at some point.

She was in her early twenties when she figured out how unfair it was.

I mean, she really had worked the weather angle really hard. And no matter what she did, we just didn't live in hot weather. Whereas her friends across town in the Mission, Noe Valley, or even Pac Heights—all had sun. And we didn't.

We were in NYC when she called me on it. Yes, I admitted. Yes, I knew those ice cream days were going to be few and far between.

"Thank you," she said. "Thank you so much!" She was effusive.

Can you believe that?

And she meant it.

homeland finale's insanity

Okay, so I've been hooked on this show. Best thing on since Caprica got axed. Why am I hanging on every word, every scene? Because it's about the larger picture.  Sure, it's got good story, good characters, and a good time slot. But I've never been swayed by good characters. In fact, the more the focus on them, the more annoyed I seem to get.

I don't care about characters, really. I don't care what happens to them. Their petty little lives. I think this why I can't watch a show like Nurse Jackie or the one with Laura Linney about cancer, or that other one with William H. Macy.  Or, god forbid, Dexter. See. I remember the names, but the shows are close to unbearable to me.

They're just not important enough.

Then there are the shows that focus on character, but pretend to have a longer arc. That would be stuff like Bones or the Mentalist or Warehouse 13. Maybe Eureka (that pretends to be about science). I'm embarrassed to say that I check in with these shows to see if maybe this time they're worth the bother.  And no. They're just bleeping not.

They're entertainment, you say.  Right. Exactly. And I want them to be important. Treme important. But even Treme isn't large enough for me. I want the larger picture. La longue durée.  I mean, isn't there enough large going on in the world to ask TV to contemplate it with us, rather than hand us escape?

Maybe nobody else wants what I want out of scripted TV. Fiction lets us imagine possibilities that the news just can't provide. Lets us think about the real world in new ways. BSG and Caprica did this. And Homeland does it now.

But the season finale, and last scenes thereof, just pissed me off.

I am sick to death of the strong-woman-turns-to-blithering-needy-idiot scenario in movies and TV. And sure, I know, they'll revive Claire Danes character and make her strong again or else have no show at all. But still. Electric shock treatment?

I'm not even against it. I know it works. It doesn't Cuckoo Nest me at all. It can indeed jolt the recipient back into functionality.

And I'm not strictly speaking against the Cassandra storyline, as frustrating as it is.

Partly, it's that I remember the weeks before what we now call 9/11. I remember being at the CDG, wondering what all the security was about. And asking. In my nicest French.

"Is this about the Israelis?"

"Non," the gendarme with the bayonet said. "This is about you. You Americans."

He didn't say, you con Americans, but I heard it in his voice. Con is a very French vote of disapproval.

"We have gotten warnings all summer of an attack on your planes..."

All summer. Before 9/11.

And that's what Claire Danes' character deals with in Homeland. Episode after episode. Knowing. And having no effect at all. And not being able to stop the march of history. Or, not much, anyway. Or, having an effect (season finale) and never knowing that she's made a difference.

It works. The Cassandra thing. It makes for good TV. It makes for good real-life, too, I guess. Thinking or pretending that somewhere someone gets it.  Someone like Lawrence Wright, who got so much flack for writing The Siege. Read everything he writes that you can get your hands on.  Or Greg Palast. Cassandra indeed. With next to nobody listening who can make a difference.

Homeland's first season is filled with that frustration of knowing, or trying to know. Of doing one's homework. Of (quite literally) banging one's head against the wall. Of insights that are ignored. And (yet another) tough female character who's blithering and raving and helpless in her final scene.

the ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny diet

I've been reading these amazing diet books, which could drive a man insane.  At the one extreme is Dukan (recommended reading from my daughter) and at the other extreme is Skinny Bitch, before which I'm probably the last person in America to stumble and fall.  Reading these two together is, as I said, completely crazy making.

But wait! There's anthropological distance!

So. I've decided, with all of my knowledge of 19th century unilinear social evolutionary false categories, to make up a diet of my own.  Clearly the field is wide open to all takers.  Oh. Don't worry. I know the name's a misnomer. But I like the sound of it better than Morgan's Unilineal Social Evolutionary Diet. Which is not as appetizing.

I call it the 'ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny' diet.  Cookbook to follow.

And this is my first go at it, so you're welcome to add in your own two cents worth of sea salt (or whatever).

I've decided to make it Creationist-friendly. Who am I, after all, to discriminate?

So. This diet is seven days long. And then repeat.  This should keep you in touch with either the evolutionary process or Creation, take your pick.  On the seventh day you can rest.  Just wait and see.  (And please note, this is right off the top. No edits. Not yet).

Day One—Gather:  On the first day, you may eat what has fallen from the trees and bushes and shrubs.  We haven't even invented hunting yet. We're barely even scavengers of the carnivorous beasts yet. Still too dangerous. We're pre-hunting-and-gathering, being of the gathering-only persuasion.  No fire. So don't cook.

Note that I'm not saying on Day One eat eggs and on Day Two eat frogs.

Day Two—Scavenge: On this day, we commemorate our vast leap into the realm of following the big predators and eating their left-overs. This includes sucking out left-over bone marrow, and sucking on bones.  We've managed fire. Yay us. So. Take that stuff you're still gathering. Add the bones. And a bunch of flavored grasses (like chives...), as well as the miracle of salt, and appreciate soups today. And the acquired taste of stuff thrown into fire.

Day Three—Huntin' an fishin': Oh, how we've progressed! Now we kill things. And boy, with that invention of fire, have we gotten a sweet-tooth for it. So. Pig out. Literally. Catch your limit and don't throw any back. Wrap those trout in bacon (something I've recently learned from my favorite hunting-and-fishing family in the world) and stick 'em on the grill.  Throw on some roasted almonds. More of those chives and a sprinkle of sea-salt. Enjoy the innocence of killing for food. A shame the killing part got so addictive.

Day Four—Horticulture:  It's an early stage of growing stuff.  Really early. As in, plunk it in the ground, go off still hunting and fishing. Come back a season later, and voilà!  Manioc! That you get to beat with a stick and leach out the bad stuff. And then wow, the possibilities are endless. And not just tapioca pudding.
Oh, but now we've got the taste for the really starchy stuff.

Day Five—Agriculture: Which first started out pretty good until we decided to make everything refined and white.  So. On this the fifth day, you can have your cake and eat it too. Just today and not tomorrow. All the home-baked breads and pies and cakes that you can imagine. This is the stage Real Estate agents love. They trick home buyers who just can't resist.  Cinnamon rolls baking in the oven!

Note that Jacob and Esau play this dietary battle out. The competition between hunter/gatherer's stage (roasted meat and lentils) and agrarian diet (pita and hummus, with baklava for dessert). In case you don't remember, Jacob (agriculture) wins. Esau is hypoglycemic which leads (it's a long story why) to his losing his birthright. Jacob (agriculture) not only wins, but gets an additional prize: to be renamed 'Israel'. But that's another story.

Day Six—Chemicals: If you're not totally revolted by the deterioration of your evolutionary recapitulation yet, this is the day for you. For now, we've invented better living through chemistry. Additives. God, how we've evolved! Twinkies! If you're gonna go out and commit a crime, do it on Day Six and call it a sugar/carb/additive overload.

Day Six might feel like the pinnacle of the evolutionary process in your week's recapitulation, but no. Day Seven is always what it's about.

Day Seven—Cholent: Here it is. The Sabbath.  Mom's authentic antidote to the entire week slowly drying out in the oven. Not to worry. It's kosher. Cholent and chicken soup will make you long to start the week all over again. Long for nothing more than picking dried cranberries off the kitchen counter. Or dipping into the dry-roasted almond jar. Simple fare, you're longing for. Realizing not that we've come a long way, baby, but that all we really want to do is return to simpler days and simple pleasures.

That's it. That's all I've got. A good meditation on what it really means to be human, and how hard we've worked to get here.

procrastination makes the heart grow warmer

Let's see now. I've gone to a holiday party. That for sure counts as major and desperate procrastination. I've  spent hours searching for the perfect set of specs. Oh. And a perfect pair of socks. I've watched worse than bad TV on the tube, almost puking my guts out over 'Christmas Specials.' I ate leftover Thanksgiving pumpkin ice-cream. Blech. You'd think I'd be ready to sit down and grade the effing term papers by now, but no. Oh. Here I am writing about procrastinating.

Let's take them in order:

Spectacles: Do you know how many eyeglass frames there are out there? This alone should be enough to procrastinate well into Retirement when I won't need any more excuses. I found a company I like called Mykita. Had fun reading more about the internal fights between the founders of the company, and their philosophy on Asian nose bridges than searching for the perfect pair. Further procrastination: finding a place in San Francisco that covers Mykita (there were two retro frames I actually liked). And then a whole evening in the Castro and Noe Valley— Funny that opticians here are open very late. This seems to be an evening entertainment in the City. For first dates? Nothing else to talk about? Procrastination? Oh. Let's look at spectacles.  I found Spectacles for Humans looking like it was closed. But no, I think they were just saving energy. There was a parking space, so we went in. We talked Mykita. We talked the Ukraine. We talked Zeiss mostly. I've been looking for frames for almost two years. Mostly in procrastination season. Dmitri showed me the exactly perfect set of frames. I spent almost $700 in one night of not grading papers. They weren't Mykita.

Socks: The socks were at least cheaper, but they weren't cheap. This bit of procrastination only wasted about an hour and a half, but it was well worth it.  And, in my own defense, it wasn't my fault we walked into Any Mountain—a place I'm generally too snobby to set foot in, what with Marmot down the block one way, and REI down the road the other way. T was looking at shoes. Blame him. Or, thank him for another hour's diversion.  There were three different sections carrying socks. Oh. Why did I need socks in the first place? I gave my cushy thick socks to my precious daughter, who's working on a film in the cold and snow of Vermont.  So. Hiking socks: boring. Skiing socks: wow. Did you know that skiing socks have built in shin guards? I found a couple pairs I thought might keep me warm. Oh, but then! The snowboarding socks! Brilliant and perfect in every way. Cushy, with the most outrageous sense of humor I've ever seen in real live functional socks. I picked up a pair of chicken feet. And I'm going back for more. The best gift ever! And good for hours more procrastination, given that I bought the last pair at AM.

Christmas effing Specials: My brain is surely mush by now.  And here, it's not my fault. I thought the new season of Eureka and Warehouse 13 had started up. But no, just utter and total Christmas crap that doesn't even fit in with where the season left off. If it weren't for the procrastination value, I'd boycott these shows forever more, not being the forgiving type. But. Credit for two wasted hours not spent grading.

What happened to the good old days, when I spent not-grading-papers painting the house? Or getting tattoos? Or belly dance for the very-very-timid. God I've become an indolent slug.

Ice-cream: This was just sheer self-loathing, I think, at all the procrastination. Self-punishment of the worst kind: leftover pumpkin ice-cream from Thanksgiving still in the freezer. Revolting. And only worth 15 minutes procrastination time. The function of the ice-cream was somehow supposed to make me brave enough to go to the holiday party. If you understand the logic there, be sure to let me know.

The holiday party: Something under normal circumstances I avoid like the plague. What was I thinking? But my good friend, O, the most tolerant friend a friend could have, did the driving and got me out of there when the music started blaring. Whew. Along with the bad-TV antidote, this bit of procrastination was worth about 6 hours, and by then, of course, it was too late to start grading. I got to bed late, and—

Read a book curled up in bed: Which is worth the rest of the night and the next morning. Which means that after walking Rosh at Fort Funston, it is now almost 4:00 PM on Sunday, and I have yet to pick a single paper.

No more excuses! Time is just plain running out now.

But first:

A cup of tea...
Oh. And maybe I should work off that ice-cream first...