Tuesday Midday, March 12

Yes, there’s got to be a morning after. “When one has been exaltée ,” as Lady Longstreet said in Willa Cather’s beautiful short story “The Old Beauty,” . . . oh, blah blah, something about the harder they fall the next day. Willa said it a lot better. Go read the whole story.

1) TECHNOLOGY ISSUES: a) for the last couple years I’ve been awkwardly straddling three ISPs, and the original ISP seems to have let its security certificates expire (!), b) installed the new Myjyve operating system over the weekend, and the stupid thing includes Evil Nefarious Siri! I have neutralized her, but . . . but I just don’t want her there at all; and c) yTynes not playing newly downloaded movies.

1a) I have become the old man I always complain about. :-(

2) Interestingly, since Mother died I have just stopped acknowledging birthdays on ye Fycebykke. I have no idea why. For all the February and March birthdays I missed, many belated returns of the day.

3) Ye Fycebykke is overflowing with news of the Yale Admissions Scandal because a prominent Interlochen alumna (with whom I have performed) is implicated. Sadness.

4) BONUS: Pull yourself out of it with this intoxicating (I choose the word carefully) waltz from Madame Bovary featuring Jennifer Jones, now sadly known only for falling from an elevator in The Towering Inferno. I must thank my dear friend Miss Percy Larsen for introducing me to this a year or two ago.

4a) Poor drunk Van Heflin! If he’s not being shot to death by Joan Crawford, he’s being humiliated by Jennifer Jones.

Saturday Morning, March 9

1) Allowing myself to be downright sluggish this morning; it’s after 11 AM and I’m still in bed with my third cup of coffee! Why so? Yesterday evening I took a friend for an early birthday dinner to Bar Lyon, the new French bistro at the corner of Washington and Mass. Ave. Pre-dinner French 75s chez lui, kir royale at the bar while we waited for our table (seated at 8:15 for an 8 PM reservation), glass of excellent rosé with dinner, and then a nightcap of curaçao brandy on the rocks. That last one set me buzzing . . .

1a) But the dinner! Oysters (I never order oysters), mind-altering cassoulet, and mousse au chocolat. I may very well go back on Monday for dinner. And the staff were all so delightful (although there was one moment when I had to ask myself if this was French French or Disney French).

2) Research assignments this weekend: counter-depth refrigerators, interstate moving companies, mourning stationery (at least that one’s completed).

3) On ye Fycebykke briefly this morning, excitement that a friend was discovering Harriet Craig without any prompting from me got overshadowed by a lot of political stuff that is just . . . well, I just can’t let it into my head this weekend. I just can’t. All I’ll say is that Freedom of Speech is our most valuable freedom, because it helps identify us, and our fellow citizens, for who we really are. Use that freedom wisely. Think before you speak.

Wednesday Morning, March 7

1) Seed catalogs seem to arrive with the snow, leading to expensive daydreams.

2) Yesterday’s conference included a brilliant presentation on loyalty. The word itself always reminds me of fifth grade, when we were hectored about the “What Loyalty Day Means to Me” essay contest sponsored by the local chapter of the DAR (of which my Granny was a proud member). Mrs. Green was annoyed that NO ONE even expressed interest - but then, no one ever explained what Loyalty Day was. It’s not like it’s on the calendar like the Fourth of July, or even Arbor Day! How can you write about what something with no meaning means to you?

3) I have been wickedly lax in responding to so many very kind condolence notes. I’d feel virtuous about getting up and writing six replies this morning if I can’t gone to bed at 7 PM last night.

Tuesday Midday, March 5

1) It just came to me, reading this article, “A new Luxury Retreat Caters to Elders in Tech (Ages 30 and Up”: I don’t have time to think! I’m either on the hamster wheels (work, domesticity, creativity, guilt about lack of creativity) that I don’t have time to think. And of course all the Big Issues are on the table right now, much more so than at any other time in my life.

2) Pink is kind of a borderline color in the mourning palette; mourning is now generally considered as black, white, gray, and purple, while second mourning or half mourning is just the absence of red, blue, green, and yellow. But pink was the only clean dress shirt in the closet, so pink it is today.

2a) When I’m in mourning I tend to notice more when people dress in the mourning palette, and one of my colleagues showed up today in quite a stylish look of black and pale grey with what looked like a bib necklace of faux moonstones. Fabulous.

3) “The blazing sunshine and the biting cold” should be a line in a poem, but it perfectly describes today.

Tuesday Morning, March 5

1) You know, I don’t even remember if I made New Year’s resolutions or not. At this point, who cares? Just keep going forward!

2) As soon as a big packet of snow arrives, so does the seed catalog. I’m sure they do it deliberately. It’s a beautiful dream catalyst, considering all the flowers and herbs.

2a) They all disappear when I remember that spring, when most gardening needs to get done, is the Most Wonderful Time of the Year at the office.

3) Nellie Taft was so discreet. Disabled by a stroke during much of her time as First Lady, she described it only as “an attack of illness” in her memoirs.

Tuesday Morning, February 26

1) Awake at 5:19 AM, decided to start the day. Chicory coffee black (I never did got grocery shopping over the weekend) in the parlor. Devotional included the last chapter of Galatians "(Let every man prove his own work”), Walt Whitman, The Art of Worldly Wisdom (“Never outshine your boss”), and the daily rituals of Gertrude Stein in Daily Rituals: How Artists Work.

1a) I’ve said this before, but I do love the dark, quiet pre-dawn hour (though I see that dawn is just beginning out there). It defines cosiness.

2) Who knows what the rest of this year will be like?

3) I have a black thumb, to be sure, but I have managed to keep this white hydrangea and this pink azalea going on my coffee table since I came home from Lago di Carlo, and that gives me a great deal of satisfaction. They are very pretty, and I hope they will transplant well to the garden this spring.

Monday Evening, February 25

1) This evening I must:

  • Make up the bed since I slept in the study the last two nights.

  • Pack for New York!

  • Pay the bills.

  • Round up stationery for condolence correspondence.

  • Clean off the piano since the neighbors will be using it while I’m away.

  • Tidy the dining room.

  • Wash any remaining dirty dishes.

2) In tonight’s mail I received the latest condolence card, from one of my very favorite volunteers and his wife (who is also one of my favorites), including a really touching poem he received from someone to commemorate a family death many years ago. It was spot on. And it reminded me of so many other people who are probably wondering if I ever received what they sent me because I just haven’t written back yet.

3) An exceptionally busy day today interacting with alumni and volunteers, but the most delightful part of it was taking an inquiry about an oil portrait of a Prominent Person on campus, including an assertion that it was really by Sargent and that its donor required it to be modified. Imagine, modifying a Sargent! The quest for information ended up involving five or six different alumnae and staff, everyone providing something useful and entertaining to the search. As it happens, the portrait is NOT by Sargent, and it remains to be seen if the Rumored Alteration actually took place. This is the sort of thing I just love.

BONUS: Tonight I had to spear Luxardo cherries onto a corn cob holder for my manhattan . . .

Sunday Morning, February 23

1) From this morning’s devotional, Matthew 6:23: “But if thine eye be evil, they whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!”

1a) Also, for the first time in a very long time, picked up Haunts of the Black Masseur: The Swimmer as Hero and found the pages that had to deal with Shelley and his fatal fascination with the sea. His wife described him coming into the dining room for lunch “naked as a needle, glistening with sea water” and with bits of seaweed through his hair.

2) For a few days, a hard little lump in my throat like a large marble or a chestnut. Only this morning did it make me think of Uncle Davy in Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love, who left Louisa’s wedding earlier after he “twisted his tonsil” while singing the hymn “As pants the hart.”

3) Last night, after some ridiculous trouble with ye yTynes and ye Ypple, I was able to watch The Favourite on the Yewtybbe. Billed as a comedy, it’s actually much more brutal - much too brutal - for my taste, but there are some fun and funny bits. The duck race near the beginning, the rabbits . . . but then the scenes in the brothel are horrifying.

3a) All that said, I am rather tempted to read up on the history now.

Saturday Morning, February 23

1) Parlor coffee, devotional, and now on to the news.

1a) Mother, as you know, received armsful of junk mail every day from every possible conservative organization in this country. Often she would ask me to research some of the claims they put forward, and often they were easily debunked by simple searches on the internet. One of these organizations (which I will not name) came to mind this morning when I read this NYT article about the muted Republican response to Republican voter fraud in North Carolina. Last fall, when the story was first making national news, this organization sent out an appeal for funds because of the voter fraud crisis perpetuated by [Insert Name of Prominent Democrat Here] in North Carolina. And I thought, “Ha ha, they probably think that’s a clever tactic to confuse people.” But it makes me angry how these “paper mills” crank out these fearsome lies to con people out of their money.

2) Quote of the Day: “Poor Lillian, she’s had so much illness.” — Alma Kruger as Aunt Ellen Austen in Craig’s Wife with Rosalind Russell and John Boles (and Billie Burke!)

3) Looking ahead, there is just so much to do on every front: home, work, the life inside my head. But as I wrote to someone this week, the only possible direction is forward. I just wish forward included a nap! :-)

Wednesday Midday, February 20

1) The term “self care” - so recently coined, so popular - seems to come with a soft filter so that it encompasses only vaguely glamorous things like massage, scented candles, spa treatments, lounging in bed, and flowers. Tear away the gauzy curtains and you get everyday “self care:” hanging up coats so they don’t clutter the parlor and washing the frying pan so you can cook out of it the next day.

2) This interesting column asking the question “Can I turn down family requests for money?” reminded me of the stories of the Marchesa Casati and Mary Astor. Because of course it would, right?

2a) The “mad Marchesa,” having plowed her way through an enormous fortune by indulging in costume parties and portraits of herself, found herself destitute in London. The artist Augustus John and some other friends sought to help her and established a bank account for her. But they learned quickly never to have more than five pounds in it at any given time, as the Marchesa would withdraw the lot and splurge on something entirely inappropriate.

2a.1) Her granddaughter was told by her mother “NEVER let your grandmother into your house, because once she’s in it becomes HER house.”

2b) Mary Astor’s father was notorious for appropriating her income as a child performer, and even beyond. She finally “closed the bank,” and later found out on the set of whatever movie she was making that her parents were suing her for abandonment because she wouldn’t continue covering the bills on their estate. Her response: “I’ll give them $100 a week for food.” (This in the 1930s, when that was a lot more than most folks had in a year.) The parents were laughed out of court.

3) Today could be described as unfocused. That’s not good.

Tuesday Morning II, February 19

1) Reading the news on the bus, the odd juxtaposition of Bernie Sanders and Karl Lagerfeld sharing the headlines, the former with his presidential announcement for 2020, the latter’s death. My first thought was of Princess Diana and Mother Teresa being linked in death, but of course Bernie isn’t dead.

2) Blazing sunshine and bitter cold.

3) I have replied to 19 condolence notes, and I need more stationery.

Tuesday Morning, February 19

1) Just a quick scroll through my feed on ye Fycebykke reconfirms for me that Fycebykke is not the solution, it IS the problem.

2) My prayer has been for no little time, and I told Mother this more than once, not just that Truth be known to all, but all would recognize Truth as the truth!

3) Now comes the day, a Tuesday that is really a Monday. I loved having three days at home, getting stuff done, doing that column on winter white, and looking ahead to the rest of the year. I can’t say I was physically active yesterday, but wow, I slept like a slab of concrete. Now - energy up!

Saturday Morning, February 16

1) I may just possibly be returning to a regular sleep rhythm now, which would be a blessing. I woke up quite naturally at 6 AM after a night of heavy sleep and chose not to remain in bed past 6:08.

2) As part of this morning’s devotional I turned to “On Death” and the final - I guess you’d call it a monologue - from Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet. “ And I was so taken by the line “Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour.”

3) For Christmas my sister’s family found me a wonderful gift: a white T-shirt with the entire text of Alice in Wonderland printed on it in purple. On the front there are gaps in the text that form a picture of the White Rabbit. What a coincidence that white and purple fall into the mourning palette.

3a) Of course in Alice in Wonderland I am associated with the Mad Hatter, having played the role at least twice: first with the Cotton Candy Players, and then junior year at Interlochen using the hallucinatory script prepared by the Manhattan Project. (I remember the Mad Hatter has the line “Why don’t you take off your clothes?” in that production.) And there is a photo someplace of Mother as the Mad Hatter in a sorority tableau when she was in college. But I also remember Mother singing the White Rabbit’s song at different times, that goes “I’m late! I’m late! For a very important date! No time to say hello, goodbye, I’m late, I’m late, I’m late!”

Wednesday Night, February 13

1) Grateful for: unexpectedly plowed sidewalks on this morning’s commute, a colleague who made me an entire container of chocolate chip cookies just for me, and a lovely gift basket from the office.

2) Quote of Yesterday: “Twyttyr is not the place for the most nuanced conversation.” — Sorry, I can’t remember who said it, but it was in the NYT.

3) Black is not always slimming - at least not when it’s the filling of a second coffee eclair it isn’t.