dual personalities

I learn about a surprising amount of news (granted, celebrity news) from Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Instagram. Most recently, this was where I learned that Valerie Harper had died at 80 years old. It turns out that in SMG’s first role in a movie, she played Harper’s daughter. Who knew!

At any rate, the news made me think of Mary Tyler Moore’s death 2 and a half years ago, which, at the time, made me very sad. When she died, I re-watched a number of episodes of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, one of a few shows that we, as a family, unanimously love. (Others include Buffy the Vampire Slayer, appropriately, and The Simpsons, and Designing Women, newly available on Hulu.)

Well, if you’re in a Rhoda mood, I gather that MeTV will be airing a marathon of “best-of” episodes, from The Mary Tyler Moore Show as well as Rhoda. If only I could figure out what MeTV is!!

Daughter #1 here. My mom texted me Tuesday afternoon asking if I could cover for her dual personality today. I said I’d be happy to. Now, though, I’m struggling to come up with a cohesive topic. It’s hard on short notice!

I thought about how every time I read Women’s Health, it is just one alarming or really-duh-they-have-to-write this? tidbit after another. Eating grapes will kill you (this one I made up), losing weight will give you wrinkles (duh, you’re literally losing fat in your face), eating when you’re stressed will make you gain weight (not a joke, something they actually published).

This is why I eat so many carbs, obviously. 

I also thought about writing about the Rick Trevino song I heard on the radio on my way back from the gym. Remember Rick Trevino? I did not know that he released the first country song that was also released in espanol. Go, Rick.

There is nothing about this that is not amazing. I don’t know what I like more–Rick snapping to the beat or when he mimes playing the fiddle. Also, the suggested videos that go along with “Bobbi Ann Mason” are some A+ time machine material.

Finally, I thought about the embarrassment I experienced by laughing at this video so much. I understood way too many of the jokes.

Happy Wednesday!

Happy Labor Day — and long weekend!

After going to bed at roughly 9 p.m. on Friday, we spent Saturday driving to Binghamton, NY, for a pool party with DN’s college friends. But lo and behold, it is a fully different season New York state. One cannot sunbathe in overcast, 70-degree weather!

But we coped. Our friends have a sprawling old house, a perfectly amiable golden retriever, and a very sweet one-year-old baby. It’s quite a life, and we were happy to join it for roughly 20 hours, after which we drove all the way home! Luckily, 10 hours in the car in 2 days feels more manageable in our comfy Subaru. We paused a number of times to exclaim, “You know, I just really love this car.” We really love this car!

“Subie” earned more points when we stopped at an antique store in Baltimore to check out a Hitchcock dining room table I had spied online a number of weeks ago. After confirming that no one had purchased it, I got up the courage to ask for a lower price (!!!) and we took the plunge. The drop-leaf table and 4 chairs fit with no problem at all in the hatchback trunk.

Moving boxes and road trip supplies had to make room for our score

Easy peasy!

It feels like every weekend we have something new to haul up or downstairs in our building — but such is life in a new apartment. We set up the new table to our satisfaction:

Full-size will be great for entertaining (and there is even an additional leaf for extended space), but in the day-to-day, we’ll keep things more compact. What shall we hang on the bare walls?!

It feels very nice to have a place to eat (or type one’s blog post!) after years of using a multi-purpose coffee table. Things are getting a lot more sophisticated around here!

I try to keep up with the news, but as parsing it reveals more and more deliberate misdirection, the exercise seems futile. And it’s not good for my blood pressure. Recently, after giving up and returning to my book, I found solace in this passage:

“The future of the world no longer disturbs me; I do not try still to calculate, with anguish, how long or how short a time the Roman peace will endure; I leave that to the Gods… Catastrophe and ruin will come; disorder will triumph, but order will too, from time to time. Peace will again establish itself between two periods and there regain the meaning which we have tried to give them. Not all our books will perish, nor our statues, if broken, lie unrepaired; other domes and pediments will rise from our domes and pediments; some few men will think and work and feel as we have done, and I venture to count upon such continuators, placed irregularly throughout the centuries, and upon this kind of intermittent immortality.”  Marguerite Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian

Our fictional Hadrian was correct; not all our books will perish, and at least some of our achievements will survive, even if memory of us doesn’t survive with them.  Some monuments remain in tact,

Hadrian’s Pantheon in Rome

while others fall victim to political trends,

Vandalized Confederate monument in Durham, NC

and most things just crumble away in obscurity.

Everything has a story. Find out what you can and save what you can, but don’t worry about it. Everything will work out.

Don’t think I’m giving up on the present — far from it! It’s just that taking the long view helps me endure it with greater equanimity.

Have a grand weekend!

As you might expect, unpacking our boxes of books is reminding us of all the things we haven’t read yet or could read again. DN and I are both book hoarders, so there are entire syllabi of books from sophomore years of college (and so on) to be consumed. Should I see how Marcel Proust fares for me now compared to when I was 21? Should I select a volume from DN’s entire shelf of Evelyn Waugh? Should I ever read the seventh Henry James novel I ambitiously purchased while reading for comps?

With great bookshelves comes great responsibility (or something).

Well, starting small is always a good method. So the other day I did at least flip through my favorite Rilke collection, Sonnets from Orpheus.

Breathing, you invisible poem!
World-space in pure continuous interchange
with my own being. Equipoise
in which I rhythmically transpire.

Single wave
whose gradual sea I am;
of all possible seas the most frugal,–
windfall of space.

How many of these places in space have already
been in me. Many a breeze
is like my son.

Do you recognize me, air, full of places once mine?
You, once the smooth rind,
orb, and leaf of all my words.

A bit Whitman-esque if you ask me!

*The painting is “Reading” by Pierre Bonnard