Rhubarb Pie

How to Be Captivating

An old college friend got married recently, and although I couldn't go to her wedding, she's been on my mind lately.  Maybe that's why I remembered a conversation she and I had back in college.  She was telling me about a conversation she had overheard, between Dreamy Guy 1 and Dreamy Guy 2.  They were talking about Bitchy Girl, a particular rival of ours who we acknowledged was prettier than either one of us, though not *that* pretty, and who was not outstandingly smart, and certainly not very nice.  Definitely not nice, not warm, not kind, not friendly.  Dreamy Guy 1 was telling Dreamy Guy 2 that he'd gone on a few dates with this woman, and "she's captivating."  My friend and I fixated on that word, because it seemed so implausible that a college guy would say that in the first place, to another guy.  And we wondered, bitterly, what this woman had that we didn't have, and what on earth we would have to become in order for any man to find us 'captivating.'  She certainly didn't seem captivating to us, but rather good-looking, snooty, and prone to social cruelty.   

You've remarked to me that you think Twitter and its ilk satisfy a sort of primal need we have to seek (you referred to this book, which is now on my dratted to-read list).  That reminded me of something I've been thinking about a lot in the past eight months or so, about social networking services and why they feel compelling, even though mostly the content of them is inane and insipid.  It's the reason people think slot machines are fun but vending machines are boring, even though vending machines are a better place to put your quarters.  We are fascinated by intermittent rewards.  (Everyone knows this, and I think BF Skinner is the guy who gets the credit for proving this, but I can't remember quite where I last read it.  If you really want a citation, here's the best one I could get in a quick Google Book search.)

So your comment that seeking is a source of dopamine in itself reminded me of this observation I've been mulling over for a while, that we come back to Facebook or Twitter or blogs not because we need to know what our 7th grade classmate had for lunch, nor because what is written in these places is always more compelling than the physical world around us, but for the ever-renewing possibility that we will discover something really interesting.  It is the constant novelty and the constant refreshing that triggers our interest.  Someone's always pulling the lever and you just have to watch to see how the tumblers line up.  Maybe this time you'll hit the jackpot.  It can be captivating, even if it isn't reliably high-quality. 

Which made me remember my very high-quality friend, and think about how mystified we were, and how eager we were to figure out how to become captivating.     

Extraordinarily mature, too.

Hey, hon.  I'm going to the doctor in an hour, for the first time in twenty years.  I am both curious and grumpy about the prospect.  Grumpy because the staff have already been annoying, giving me precise directions in the parking lot that I won't use because I ride my bike, telling me to fill out paperwork (I'll grant this one some useful purpose), and telling me to be half an hour early, so that the doctor doesn't wait for me.  How about I be on time, so the doctor doesn't wait for me?  I could use that half an hour to dick around and do nothing.  But they act like the doctor is the important one here, even though I am the one hiring her.  Well, I'm already grumpy, so I should stop dwelling on very small annoyances.

I am also a little curious about the physical.  Will she tell me that I am extraordinarily strong?  That would be good.  I wonder a little about my cholesterol.  I think my family has genetically high cholesterol.  Will that show up again, even though I don't eat meat?  Will she say that I am obviously in glowing health, and don't need to come back for another twenty years?  We can hope.

I  don't even dislike going to the doctor.  I haven't avoided it so much as not-needed it.  If I weren't intending to get pregnant soon, I wouldn't be going now, either.  (Although I did have a scare a month back when someone from my gym was thought to have swine flu and I realized I had no clear path to medical treatment if I came down with anything.  One should have a doctor, I suppose, whom one never sees.  Best of both worlds.)  I get injured occasionally, which I treat with ice and massage.  I rarely get sick, which I treat with feeling sorry for myself, ginger ale and romance novels.  So far, I've gotten better.  I am afraid a doctor will try to add in other annoying things, like following directions and schedules for medication.  I should tell her this morning that that is off the table.  (Unless I come to her begging for help and newly obedient.)

Anyway, going to the doctor in an hour, for the first time since my pediatrician.  If I get sick any time soon, we'll all know what caused it.

UPDATE:  It was uneventful.  She was pleasant, thought the gap in medical treatment was fine for a healthy person.  She did not exclaim on my amazing muscles, so I retain some scepticism about her professional judgment.

We're having unusual weather too!

Oh hi, darlin'.  We've had a cooling streak here, in which the weather got down into the mid-nineties.  A break from the real heat, about 105, where you can actually feel the sunlight land on your skin.  I have to admit, and I know this is reveals a lack of willpower, I am less eager to swim at lunch on these cool days.  I mean, on the hot days, I can't wait for the contrast between the heat that radiates from the concrete walls and floor and the hot yellow light, and the cold, cold water.  But on these days with a bit of nip to the air, I don't especially look forward to that first shock of jumping in.

Fortunately, despite the cooler days, the evenings have been staying warm.  This is the glory of Sacramento, sitting on a porch late in the evening with the air perfectly warm and gentle.  No need to put a shirt over your tank top, no need to put on jeans, no need to go inside.  The nights are so very soft (even if a hot day did pound you a little), meant for talking on the couch on the porch, sipping water with crushed mint and ice and cucumber, watching folks ride by on bicycles, creating their own dark warm breeze.

Heat Wave

Friend, it has been over 90 degrees for days and days.  Like, for four or five days, in a row.  It is impossible to think in such weather.  I lie in bed with a wet towel on top of me and listen to the fan and a fly buzzing somewhere, and I can't imagine mustering the strength to lift my head.  I can't sleep, but reading would require turning on a light, and lights produce heat, which is totally unacceptable.  How do people live in places where this is part of life?  When it is cold, you can put things on your body that make you less cold.  When it is hot and thick like this, what can you do except dive off the dock into the ocean?  (I did that at lunch on Monday, and it was wonderful, but unfortunately I couldn't stay in the water all day.)    

Today we will get a thunderstorm, I am told, and this terrible heat will break.  

What I'm Thinking About

Hi friend,

This is a more a placeholder than a post.  Summer gallops along around here and I just hang on.  With fall is always the promise of sharpened pencils and a new routine, a fresh notebook and a new schedule, and more time to keep track of my thoughts.  In summer they slip by unmarked.

And I'm about to dash off somewhere, but I noticed that I've been thinking lately about vanity.  I have an uncomfortable combination of vanity and indifference.  If I were only vain that would be easier, because I would be motivated to do what is necessary to be as pretty as I could be.  Or if I were only indifferent it would be easier, because I could live the life I wanted and not worry about how I look while living it.  But I'm in between, and that combination is very hard -- I can't seem to let go of either the vanity or the indifference.  So instead I am often disappointed in how I look, and then impatient or ashamed of myself for thinking about it.  Or if vanity takes hold I don't particularly have the skills (because of a lifetime of indifference) to prettify myself even when I try. 

I don't know whether it is possible to change, through earnest self-improvement, either the vanity or the indifference.  Perhaps the solution is technique and skills.  Perhaps they should write magazines about improving one's appearance, in three or four easy steps.  Perhaps I should look for something like that.

Okay, dashing off outside to a beautiful place near the water.  No time to write.  

My cat has learned new tricks, I guess.

My cousine is here, from Paris and I am SO EXCITED.  Well, she's in Oakland, where I'm about to be.  I can't wait to see her; she's the only cousin we've got.  For a while, during my parents' second marriages, I had 35 first cousins.  But those marriages ended and we're back to one cousin.  That's cool.  She's the one we'd have kept anyway.  I want to show her all around Sacramento, the house I've put so much of myself into and my city with amazing trees.  I want to take her to Old Sacramento and let her get a look at some history, show her some real old buildings, from the 1800's!  My sister wants to take her on BART.  That'll impress her!

Anyway, I'm about to head out to Oakland, came home to grab clothes and do the turnaround.  But I just noticed real quick as I ran in.  I'm all casual about my house and all and lots of my friends know where my emergency key is.  So there are lots of explanations.  But I don't think I made my bed this morning.  I could have, I wouldn't necessarily remember.  But I don't think I'd make it like that.  Well, nothing's missing.  Place looks fine.  Huh.

Exploring High Island

One thing I'm trying to learn and get good at for my job is making and editing short videos.  Every so often, I might experiment on you.  Please forgive the poor filmmaking.  But maybe you'll see why I think there is no place more beautiful than the coast of Maine.  Please imagine ospreys and bald eagles circling over head, seals popping their heads up in the water to take a look at you, and two or three great blue herons flapping by, legs trailing after them.   One of my favorite things to do on the Maine coast is to row ashore and see what there is to discover on the islands.  

This is a 2 minute video of a place we went a couple of weeks ago.  It's an island that was a big granite source back at the turn of the century.  Now it's abandoned, but the island has an old wharf made of huge granite blocks, and there are piles of granite stones and, in the center of the island, a granite quarry with sharp cliff ledges.  The hole is now a lagoon of fresh water, and an osprey guards it (he was circling overhead, and you can hear him in the video, though you can't really see him).  There are no signs, no real path, so finding the quarry is kind of a neat surprise.  You're in the cool shade under some big steep granite faces, and there's nobody around except the osprey and something, maybe a turtle, rippling the pool.      

Fun trip.

Sherry!

I went sailing during my trip!  Now I'm a sailor, like you.  We'll have so much to talk about.  I did this sailing during a regatta, so we were racing and shit.  It was pretty fun.  I got to help.  I was a grinder, winding up the ropes that aren't called ropes onboard because they have to be called something different apparently.  This is the ignorant brute force position I am so well suited for.  On instruction, I also switched to the high side, which I enjoyed.  I don't usually get to help out just by having mass. 

Sherry, there's something you've never mentioned.  Surely you've noticed, but maybe you are used to it?  Or perhaps it doesn't happen in Maine.  Sherry, a lot of the time, the boat was sideways in the water.  Not flat, with a pleasant horizontal deck.  Sideways, tilted, sometimes substantially so.  Hon, I am not used to that.  Usually when my transportation is angled far from horizontal, I expect things to be very wrong within seconds.  I mostly got used to it, but am still a little suspicious of the whole idea.  I liked the flat parts, and the idea we were moving without a motor. 

My trip was great.  I ate fish after all.  It was delicious.  I ate piles and piles of tropical fruits and went to gorgeous beach after gorgeous beach.  I was by Ali's side for a week straight.  Sadly, the weightlifting competition was after I left. I took a million pictures, including pictures during the race.  So I have lots and lots of pictures of tiny white triangular smudges on the horizon that I know you'll want to see.  I took the picture below the fold during our victory lunch, back in the harbor after the regatta.