family friends

My father was, for a few years, a leading member of a pack of three. Three friends who worked together, who plotted together over money-making schemes in the evenings (usually at our house), who sometimes gathered their families to go out for coffee at one of the local cafes.

One year I went home, and I asked my father where his friends had gone to. He told me, George died. George died? Why didn't you tell me before? And with a little chuckle that I recognize, because I seem to have inherited it, as nervous energy bubbles to the surface when it needs an outlet, he said- George and his whole family.

The family had gone on a vacation by car to Syria. It was George, his wife, their two children, a relative of theirs, and the driver of the rented taxi. On the way back, a car hit them from behind. A potentially survivable accident. But, the containers of cheap gasoline bought in Syria were in the back, and they lit.

And it gets worse.

The ones in the back seat were found climbing towards the front, trying to escape the flames.

All this, and there's more.

The car, out of control, veers into incoming traffic and gets hit again.

You can breathe out- that's the end.

The story came out in the papers at the time. A human tragedy. Even if you didn't know them, you would have cried a little bit over their fate. There are so many questions- even the trivial ones like what happened to the house they had just bought and moved into? where do you start to pick up the pieces of all of these people? who does that? whose job is that when there is no one left? would it have been better to have one survive so some trace of the family could remain with us? Juliana, George's wife, worked passionately in a home for abused children- could those kids handle another loss?

Sometimes I remember this family. It seems to be out of the blue. I have people closer to me that I mourn like a subtle hum that stays with me. But, somehow, there is room in my heart for George and his family, too.

visit from a neighbor

Tonight I got a drop-in visit from a neighbor. She is an old lady, retired, a little afraid of people. But she still somehow made a connection with me and JQ, and she stopped by today to ask some questions about moving house. And I did not buy it, but I accepted it- her way of putting a reason for the visit. And we talked about whatever we could pull up between the two of us. Two unrelated, very different people. She, retired, no money, looking to buy a house in the middle of Pennsylvania to save money in the long run, obvously thinking that is where she will end up at the end. Me, younger, starting out, trying not to think about those years in the distant future, trying to focus on life now with energy and time. It was a nice cup of tea, and I feel connected again to life, complete life, not just my bubble.

back, baby!

My best friend's back. Yippee!!!

Kafka on the Shore by Murakami

Well, I finished reading this a little while ago. And I guess I had no strong urge to write up about it because I was a little bit disappointed. I enjoyed reading it. It grabbed me pretty early on and held me in throughout. But in the end, it felt way too science-fictiony. And that is one of the genres I really do not like. Not in books, not in movies, not on tv.

So, should I leave it at that? Speak up! The truth is that it felt too contrived, for one. He seemed to sort of know what would sell, and he told a story based on a formula. And it didn't really seem to come naturally. Secondly, he himself talked about how things have to stay vague to be able to capture the full meaning- yet he goes against that. Let me explain. He is talking about the subconscious, and while he usually keeps it very vague, in this book he defines a space where you can enter that world (based on an entrance stone) and totally deflates the grand notion of the subconscious as something you can, well, be conscious about.

Not sounding so good. Enough rambling. Anyone out there read it?

yummy cake

This is the cake I'd made for Anne's baby shower. It's a three-layer lemon poppy seed cake (really nice cake) with white chocolate cream and strawberries. It came out pretty yummy. Love those strawberries! Luckily there were some leftovers... mmmmm  

first step

Well, I thought just to be fair, I should keep everyone updated on what happens with this Northwest Airlines fiasco that took place- if you'd really like to be caught up, check out the first few days of the blog.

Anyway, I received a check saying that they were reimbursing me for my airport hotel room. And that they were sending my letter along to the next office for review. And I got some frequent flyer points. Good step. We'll see what happens next.

I met another Alaunde

First of all, check out Alaunde's blog: Alaunde's blog .

Secondly, we met Alaunde at a New Year's Eve party, and we were instant friends, just like instant oatmeal. Without a doubt. Right, Alaunde?

Thirdly, I met another Alaunde today on the train! Same size, same humor, only Slovakian and not Celtic/Scottish/Irish(?). We talked and talked on our prolonged 5 hour train ride! And Shoshana was her name-o. Ok, there were definite differences, but she just reminded me so much of Alaunde!

One thing I liked was her telling me about getting married a year or so ago. She said, it's so much fun. It's hard, too, because when you get mad you can't run away, but it's just so much fun. Basically, your best friend at home. I tell all of my friends to do it.

Nice attitude.

She liked the baby blanket I'm crocheting for my friend. And she talked so loudly, I think everyone around us heard. And since we talked about everything, everyone heard everything. And because the train kept stopping for repairs, everyone suffered together, and as my history professor in college pointed out, that makes people bond. And so by the end, everyone was commenting on the blanket. Well, maybe not everyone, but the ones sitting around me. I'll show you when I'm done. It's actually rather pretty.

farewell, Lois Lane

Superman's wife died this past week. And it's sad, not because she was a celebrity (who was she?), but because she was with an amazing man, she did great things, and she died shortly after him, not having time to really enjoy life. Breast cancer, I think, and she was only 44. She should have been rewarded after all of that, she should have had time to find a new love, to sit back and enjoy a normal life, if that's really possible. Maybe she didn't have any energy left in her. Lois and Superman, they fought some good battles. My respects.

so good it hurts

When the weather hits a certain temperature, when you walk outside and can't distinguish where your skin ends and where the air begins, when it feels so perfectly right outside, there is a pain that is ever so slight that settles in. The sensation is similar to what you feel when you have a fever, when the lightest touch on your skin hurts so good. And when the air is perfectly still, it feels that everyone is holding their breath at once, the earth itself holding its breath. And if you held your breath so you don't drown out the sound that you're waiting for, you'll be able to hear the whispers that everyone else is waiting to hear, if you would only tilt your head and lean your ear up a little closer.

Above all, at these times, a feeling of nostalgia overwhelms me. Where does it come from? What am I nostalgic for? The only explanation that comes to mind is that a part of me is nostalgic as a forethought, that at that perfect moment, a part of me is already missing the passing of that perfect moment, already nostalgic about a time in which I lived in that perfect moment. It is not a sad nostalgia, more of the romantic kind. At one and the same moment, I seem to be living and looking back at myself living. The making of memories, I guess.

beautiful, beautiful

Oh, these are the most beautiful flowers I've ever gotten! Happy Valentine's Day! (I realize it's late, but I'm still catching up with photos.)

going to all that trouble

Ok, since I'm on a roll of putting pictures out there, I wanted to share this. It seems to me someone thought that this fire hydrant would be bored if it did not have a little window to look out from- being cooped up might be too much for it? I just liked that they were so considerate. It's the simple things in life that make me laugh out loud- I love my walks to work for all of these little details.


 

and one more, as promised

Oh, and here is the hand dryer that says do not touch with wet hands- see the little sign? Funny. 

as promised

Here is the photo I took in the Amsterdam airport. As I had promised, I put it on the blog as soon as I downloaded it- yes, a month later. It takes me a while to get things set up with my new computer, etc. I'm becoming technologically up-to-date. Not technologically advanced, mind you, just catching up. Even though I'm a scientist, my home life is led more like a bohemian. Who likes to have Martha Stewart-style dinner parties. Martha in hippie clothes surrounded by hand-me-down furniture. Imagine that.

So, this is the toothbrush-ready-to-go-with-toothpaste dispenser I had mentioned. Pretty cool. How does it come out, I wonder. Wish I had tried that out. Enough to attempt that airport again? Perhaps (perhaps, perhaps).

 

jackson pollock dissected

Not literally. His work has been explained by fractal analysis, which I think is really cool. Check out the latest from "Nature": Fractals and Art: In the Hands of a Master .

Not that I know what fractal analysis is, really. It's just cool to know that there is a mathematical pattern in his work. What I'm still not clear on is whether the fractal pattern that is found in Pollock's work contributes to its mesmerizing nature.

For those of you who poopoo abstract art, ha! Perhaps those of us who like it are ok with making sense of it at a more abstract level. It's very much like classical music, I think, and unless you study it or create it, you can appreciate it without knowing exactly why. It's not all about being able to talk about it or name what it is or be able to verbalize what you get out of it. Abstract art is not about saying "it looks like a..." Obviously there is a fine line between what is art and what is not, and I guess it is defined, at least on a personal level, as something that does something to you, even if you do not verbalize what it is.

Oh, that reminds me of a quote from the current book (Murakami's Kafka on the Shore): "But listening to the D major [Schubert's Sonata in D Major], I can feel the limits of what humans are capable of- that a certain type of perfection can only be realized through a limitless accumulation of the imperfect. And personally, I find that encouraging."

So, that's a little bit about Pollock, too, that the sum of all of his squiggles amount to something that is rather perfect. He perfected that style. This Murakami quote is very abstract, in and of itself. That's the hallmark of Murakami's writing because he plays with the subconscious. Good book, by the way, but more on that later.

i'm back, baby

Your Candy Heart Says "Get Real"

You're a bit of a cynic when it comes to love. You don't lose your head, and hardly anyone penetrates your heart. Your ideal Valentine's Day date: is all about the person you're seeing (with no mentions of v-day!) Your flirting style: honest and even slightly sarcastic What turns you off: romantic expectations and "greeting card" holidays Why you're hot: you don't just play hard to get - you are hard to get

What Does Your Candy Heart Say?

quote from The Autumn of the Patriarch

This bit has a lot in it, but it really caught my attention:

…when after so many long years of sterile illusions he had begun to glimpse that one doesn’t live, God damn it, he lives through, he survives, one learns too late that even the broadest and most useful of lives only reach the point of learning how to live, he had learned of his incapacity for love in the enigma of the palm of his mute hands and in the invisible code of the cards and he had tried to compensate for that infamous fate with the burning cultivation of the solitary vice of power, he had made himself victim of his own sect to be immolated on the flames of that infinite holocaust…

The part that really got me was “that even the broadest and most useful of lives only reach the point of learning how to live”. The other parts talk about what I had mentioned in a previous post, about how he tried to fill his life with power to overcome the feeling of something lacking.

the saga continues

You thought this would be about Nobel Prize-winning literature, the saga of the Patriarch. But no, it is about something much less impressive, but I just can’t let it go. It’s about what those horrible people did to me at the airport.

I went into the KLM office here to change my reservation. And as she was giving my ticket back to me, I asked her if everything was ok because I had a lot of trouble on my way over. And she said to me- get this- feeling very Elaine in the doctor’s file episode- I know, there’s a note here about it!!

Oh my gosh! And then she gave me confirmation of my change of reservation, and it says on it: “due to own mistake psgr did not pay tkt” followed by “psgr not entitled to hotel psgr missed flight”!!!!

Oh, what I would like to do to them. But all I can do at this point is send in my three page typed (and I’m not talking about super wide margins either) complaint letter. And to say it was Northwest and KLM that did this to me. It may not mean anything, it may get me in trouble, but I have named the guilty parties. Beware because they might not only screw you over, but then they will use their power to put a note in your file that it was your fault, leaving you to cry in the airport, stuck and bored out of your mind, and marked forever. Or at least until your trip is over and they erase that information from their system. It doesn’t matter though- the damage has been done.

book club session

This may be a good way to have a book club. Anyone who has comments- whether you have read the book or not- please speak! The book of the blog: The Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

In the end, I feel truly sorry for the dictator. For those of you who saw The Fog of War about McNamara (Fog of War), you may know what I mean. Although these guys were very different- the Patriarch being illiterate, a commoner, a general and McNamara being a sharp, well-educated, witty man- in the end, they both do horrible things to people on a large scale, and when you look inside, they are sad, old men.

This is a story on a more personal scale. There was a professor (let’s call him M.) in my department who was known to be quite the jerk- yelling at people when he felt like it, harassing the girls, just overall moody and arrogant. Once we had a visiting speaker, and M. invited us to his lab for lunch. They ordered pizzas, and he laid out a row of fruits and vegetables, which was apparently his customary lunch. And as everyone was talking, he would peel and cut the fruits and vegetables and offer them to the people next to him. He was in his older years at this point, and this gentle gesture, this fatherly gesture, it really got to me. And what finally did me in was watching him eat- chewing his food softly and slowly like an old man, his jaws moving side to side, softly grinding away, in no hurry. He ended up an old man, and his bitterness had faded, leaving his kindness more evident. And now whenever anyone brings him up in conversation, I come to his defense with this story.

The problem is, you know these guys can’t be pardoned just because they are- themselves- vulnerable and weak, just because sometimes they yell out at people to cover their fear or insecurities or whatever. They still are guilty for what they’ve done, but I guess this evil side comes from the same basic human fears that we all relate to. And in The Autumn of the Patriarch, you just feel with this guy who does crazy things for his mother and for his one love, this woman who taught him to read and eat properly at the table. And at the end, he dies alone- lonely and sad.

I could go on, but I guess here’s a good spot to stop. There will be more about this, I'm sure.

equal shares

Today, I started the day off right- brunch with a good friend of mine at this great place here called Blue Fig- a favorite. This friend happens to be single (only sharing this because it's an important point in the story), and she told me that a friend of hers, who had been divorced, recently got re-married. Her comment was-

She gets two guys and me none! What’s up with these people? They should leave some for the rest of us.

I couldn’t help but laugh. Partly because she was not upset at the luck, she was upset with those people- that they should accept two. Funny. What should they do- throw one back in and say - no, I've already had one?? Like those people who go fishing but throw the fish back. (Don't they think the trauma of having been caught may scar the fish for life?)

the patriarch

Could be reading, but the book I'm reading, The Autumn of the Patriarch by Garcia Marquez, is not exactly the easiest read, ie not something you can read to pass the time, without too much energy, he writes in a style where he uses very little punctuation, and he uses almost a free-association kind of writing, but he doesn't just associate freely, he directs it, and you end up miles away from where you started, but you don't know exactly how you got there, because really there are no pauses, and a few pages take you forever because you run out of breath reading them, and when the chapter ends you take a long time out just to stop and orient yourself, because he creates a world that is remarkable, but so dense you need vacations from it to absorb it, an experiment for him, this book, that style, playing with language, seeing what it can do. Quite something.