Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
I’m not sleeping at all these days; I wake up 30-45 minutes after I go to sleep and that’s it, I’m awake all night long. So I’m exhausted and starting to feel especially awful. Plus I have a lot of work, more than I can humanly do, so I’m stressed about that. I’m kind of not doing that well right now, but I think it’ll pass and it’ll certainly improve if I can ever get some sleep. Because of all this, I’m not posting much right now — no good brain power, nothing much to say. But this:
In the subway yesterday, a woman was standing on the train with a dog in a little carrier, between her feet. Everyone around her was grinning at the dog, and chatting with the woman. Another woman caught my eye, and she wasn’t exactly grinning, though she was looking at the dog. There was something else in her expression, something kind of razor-like. I don’t know how else to describe it, that’ll have to do. She was Vietnamese, so I wondered if she was having different thoughts about that dog.
And sitting next to me was this hulky scowling man. Huge muscles, the kind I don’t like, angry looking expression on his craggy face, menace radiating off him. He stared at people, first him, then her, then me, then that one. Long squid stares, unblinking mean expressions. Creepy. And then a man got on the train with a small boy and a toddler in a stroller. The angry man next to me completely lit up — he started grinning and talking goo-goo talk to the little toddler. He leaned forward and was yakking away, tapping the toddler’s little forearm as he goo-gooed. He asked the dad how old the baby was, and he just couldn’t stop grinning. It was the most incredible transformation I’d ever seen. He was just silly about that baby. People so often, as Whitman told us, contain multitudes.
Dinner with a friend tonight, hallelujah!
76 trombones led the big parade, with 110 cornets close at hand. and there was one guy in the subway.
A couple days ago, I entered the subway and heard a musician — perfectly normal. There’s almost always someone in my subway station, usually a guitarist of some kind but occasionally a saxophone player, a one-man-band kind of dude, or even a saw player. The other day, though, the guy had a trombone. I retreated into myself, dreading having to listen to Trombone! Playing! As I walked to the far end of the platform, he started playing, and it was stunningly beautiful. He played Christmas music, and it was warm and rich, and resonated in the fully-tiled space.
Will peeking out from behind his 'bone
As I stood there waiting for the train, listening to the beautiful music, I wondered why I’d been so dreading it. Was there some kind of trombone stereotype I held? My son Will played the trombone in junior high, but I didn’t hold that against the trombone. (No instrument sounds good when the player is just learning. I played flute and piccolo, one of my daughters played cello and one played viola, I have a lot of experience with new musicians and it ain’t pretty.)
Why the bad attitude about trombones? Sure, there’s “76 Trombones” from the Music Man, but I loved that song! It’s not like they make a hard sound, like trumpets. They’re kind of loopy, slide-y, nice. When I got home I googled “trombone stereotype” and found this hysterical page with more funny information about trombone players than you’d have imagined existed.
Anyway, lovely beautiful trombone Christmas songs in the subway. Just one of the great surprises of life in Manhattan, and one more reason I love living here.
[bonus link: If I got you in the mood for The Music Man, click here for the fantastic scene Pick A Little, Talk A Little. I'm grinning. Baaaalllllzac.]
New Yorkers are friendly, we really are!
Well….it’s who a great many of us are, a good deal of the time. Last night on the subway, I saw something happen that is pretty ordinary, but I’ll bet it doesn’t fit with most people’s ideas about New Yorkers. I didn’t know any of the people involved, but for the purposes of telling the story, I’m going to randomly assign names to the primary people involved. It’ll make the story much easier to follow than if they’re called “the guy” or “the other guy.” So here goes:
The train is packed, like it has been lately. People are jammed against the doors, those in the center of the aisle are reaching their hands up to touch the ceiling in order to stabilize themselves a little bit since they can’t reach a pole (though, it’s probably true that they couldn’t fall if they wanted to, given the crowd). People are mostly patient, even if someone else’s bag was poking their back, or touching their face. Mostly patient. When the train is crowded like this, it can be hard to get out at your stop if you’re not standing right by the door. So anyway, we come to one of the major stops, the doors open, and Bob, a somewhat older guy, gets up from his seat and pushes through the crowd to exit the train. Jim, who was sitting next to Bob, sees a folded piece of paper that Bob apparently dropped. Jim picks it up and starts waving it and shouting at Bob, trying to get his attention and return the paper. But Bob is already out of the train and in the crowd on the platform. The crowd in the train just relays the dropped paper, person to person, out of the car and into the crowd on the platform, where it finally makes its way to Jim, who looks surprised. I saw him smile as the doors closed and we pulled out of the station.
It’s really not unusual. When I was first visiting New York before I moved here, I was often lost or confused and I always received kind help from complete strangers. Once, a woman overheard me talking about my destination and told me that I was on the wrong train, how to get to the right one, and when we got to the appropriate stop, she got off the train and escorted me through a huge station to the right train. That one still floors me – I’m always happy to give people directions, or steer them in the right way if they’re confused, but even I wouldn’t do that, mostly because I don’t have that kind of time to spare. When a tourist asks someone for directions in the subway, other people standing around are likely to chime in and suggest different/better routes, if appropriate. What I typically see is an open willingness to give directions, but not gushy overt friendliness – after giving directions, New Yorkers immediately turn back to what they were doing, reading the paper, talking, thinking, playing a game on their iPhones, whatever. So it may not be the kind of friendliness you’ll see in the southern states, but it is just the kind you need in New York.
a mishmash of thoughts, plus a picture of monkey socks
A random mishmash o’ stuff today:
* It’s been a hell of a week – 12.5 hour workdays, which were nowhere near enough. By the end of each day, I was still too far behind, how does that work?
* I saw a friend I usually see once a week, and the evening I was on my way to see her, I thought ‘man, it feels so long since I saw her!’ It took me the whole trip to realize that I hadn’t seen her in 2 weeks, and that’s because last week I was on vacation. In Honduras. Last week feels like forever ago. And not real.
* Until this moment: for my vacation, I took the electric kettle, a huge coffee mug, a plastic cone for making one cup of coffee at a time, and a stack of filters (plus a bag of fresh-ground really good coffee). So every morning on vacation, my routine was to make a cup of coffee and drink it on the porch and knit. So this morning, I just made my coffee and poured a cup into that particular mug. The vacation feels real, I remember it. And I wish I were there.
Two sides of me:
* The not-so-nice side – I always get really mad on the subway when an adult with small(ish) children expects other adults to give up their seats so the kids can sit. What??! Kids have all the energy! They haven’t just worked a terrible job all day, they’re not stressed out, their backs don’t hurt! I’m sorry, if you’re 4 or 5 years old and there’s enough space for you to very safely stand and hold onto a pole, I am going to keep my seat. Bite me, adult giving me a dirty look.
* The nicer side – I have a friend who had a major stroke last year and who is currently in the darkest place of suicidal depression. She’s very brave but she doesn’t know that (or anything good) right now. So yesterday I wrote her an email that included this: “The bravery of us poor little frail people in this world, going forward as if we know what we’re doing, going forward as if it’s all somehow guaranteed (until something happens and we’re reminded that it’s not……but we go back to our old habits of thinking it’s all guaranteed). It makes me feel quite tender toward humanity whenever I think about this. Here we all are, with all our troubles, with the pain and trouble that we all bear in one form or another, with our small joys and our fragile hopes and plans. Here we all are, tiny little specks in an unimaginable infinite, on a tiny little planet whirling around a tiny little sun in just one little galaxy, here we all are, doing our best. GREAT. Now I’m starting to cry. I think we are all amazing, and that includes you. And I guess, then, that it must include me.” See? I can be kind towards people. Just don’t ask me to give up my seat to a 4-year old.
Finished the monkeys – will block them and get them in the mail to Katie first thing Monday morning:
one's a little smaller than the other - i'd bet the smaller one is more tightly-knit and therefore the one i knit here in Manhattan. looser = vacation.
blocking the monkeys to make them closer in size to each other; actual color is closer to the photo above this one, which came out weirdly golden.
I have a 3-month plan: I am putting all my ducks in a row, getting everything lined up to quit my job in 3 months. Period. I’ll teach, as much as I can; I’ll do writing and statistical consulting, as much as I can; I’ll try to do developmental work and rewriting on manuscripts for publishers, as much as I can; and I’ll make things and sell them, as much as I can. I’ll pare down my expenses, as much as I can. I cannot persist in this job that sucks the living life out of me. I’ll be 52 in November, and I say uncle. I want to have a life that’s not just bearable and happy on the weekend, you know?
This week, 3 people at work quit. Two of the editors in my group are going on interviews and will leave the second they get another job. Granted, I don’t know everyone on my floor, but everyone I do know is looking for another job. No exception. My boss even told me that she suspects our brand new assistant is already looking for another job. My company is based in the U.K., and there, it really is an enormous honor to work for this company. People stay with the company their entire lives – so very proud to work for this company. And I get it – it’s an amazing amazing and old company! It published the very first book. BUT (1) it doesn’t hold the same cachet here, (2) the Madison Ave experience is 100% different than the experience on that lovely lane in that beautiful town in the U.K., and (3) publishing is under such pressure now due to the economy and the transitional moment between books and online presentation of [free] content, we’re all turning into diamonds from the pressure.
Anyway. Lots to get done this weekend! No easy traveling knitting right now, as my knitting time is turned entirely to the wedding shawl. I’d hate to carry that in the subway – snowy white cobweb-weight wool, complicated Estonian lace patterns. My only other knitting alternative right now is the lettuce-green Ishbel, which is also a bit hard to do on the subway. So this weekend I’ll get back to the shawl, and I just have so much other stuff to do towards my eventual release to freedom. I feel myself getting lighter, just thinking about it.
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