night chess

my photo offering before bed.

xoxo

An Embarrassment of Riches

"It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach." ~ Franklin Delano Roosevelt

***

I don't know what it is exactly about my particular malady of the moment, but despite the fact that I cannot seem to stay awake for more than an hour or two during the day, at night I have these vivid, crazy dreams or my mind is awake and filled with essays and far-flung ideas that all seem to connect, as if I have a high fever. But I'm not feverish at all. My head hurts and I can't put my mind to rest after dark. I'm becoming a creature of the night.

After tossing and turning for over an hour, plus it's quite warm here now (75º at 12:42am as I write this), I've decided to just write write write until I can go back to sleep again.

***frieze above the Villa Taverna, Hotaling Place
a private club where only being rich makes you worthy

I'm thinking a lot about having money, about not having money, and what having an extreme amount of money does to atrophy the human heart. For the past thirteen years, I've been working for and around extremely wealthy people, mostly women. I've been culling these snippets and observations for such a long time now, at first fascinated by a world that most of us will never have entree to, and now have left it for good, with a reserve of disgust built up by what I've seen. It's a specific segment of the ruling class, and by no means a statement on those philanthropists who use their wealth to improve lives, but to those petty lesser nobles whose only cares run the gamut of designer shops, country clubs, spas, bridge games and gossip.

I think about this now, as my iPhone beeps daily with little sweet messages from K and the kids over the past week: Aunty Julie, we LOVE you. Get well soon! Aunty Julie, we miss you! BIG hugs!!!

I miss them, too.

I am so fortunate. I cannot think of a single wealthy woman I've ever met (except with one brilliant and generous exception) who would have helped K. In fact, those who have been in a position to help in a profound way have completely ignored my story.

Most of these women (and again, I haven't much experience with the husbands, just the wives) are obsessed with their appearance and are deathly afraid of aging (is that the precursor to losing the husband who pays all the bills?). Plastic surgery aside, getting facials, manicures, pedicures, eyelash tinting, eyelash extensions, hair color, blowouts, massages, fat reduction ... all of these sometimes weekly activities, not counting the endless hours of private designer trunk shows at Neimans, Saks and Chanel, tea parties, socials and the like... a life so unexamined leaves little time for anything of substance. In fact, it renders many helpless, if not downright ignorant (why learn to use a computer if you can have someone use it for you? Or even possess the skill to write a complete sentence, for that matter?). Of course a staff is needed to cook and clean and maintain the home so it looks like a perfect hotel, not to mention the retinue of gardeners that are on site five days a week.

One employer who begrudged me a measly $2 hourly increase in pay and never failed to mention it with a sigh ("I never paid my previous assistant as much as I pay you"), as if I was robbing her blind, as I filed her numerous bank statements, each account holding monies well into the millions, had three closets. One contained only shoes from floor to ceiling, the cheapest pair starting at around $400, and many of them unworn because her bunions were too painful. How many trips did I make to the shoe repair man to have these perfect shoes stretched to accommodate growing bunions? And still she made a hobby of buying expensive shoes she couldn't wear.

Again, I am fortunate. That sort of wealth without the heart or mind to claim some common sense and decency instead creates a prison of the soul. These people are so afraid of not having money that they're probably worse off than people who really are impoverished. Not having money means not having the right friends, power and position in "society." It sounds very Jane Austen-ish, and it is. Nothing much has changed in that regard where position and money rule. At one time, I thought I'd write my own version of The Nanny Diaries, and capitalize on the inanity I've been exposed to, but when I think about it now, I realize these people just aren't worthy of my attention any longer. I am grateful for that.

I am looking forward to feeling better soon (!) so I can see my little family of friends again. This week Aunty Julie will be ready for them, BIG hugs having been stored up for days on end.

Full of riches that don't cost a cent but that still can't be bought at any price.

All or Nothing/Starting Small

Words of wisdom: As you advance in age, falling asleep on the sofa is not a good thing for your back.

It is either very early in the morning or very late at night as I write this. If I was dancing tango, it would be very late at night. As things stand now, it's just very early in the morning.

A year ago today I wrote this post.

I still have that dress, that perfume, that bracelet and those shoes. I still can conjure up the feelings I had that evening just by reading my words again and listening to the music in the clip. The tango is still in me; it's like riding a bike or having sex. Even if you don't do it for a while, at your core you still know how to. For the scant remaining tango dancers that might still read my blog once in a while, you know exactly what I mean. For you new readers that came later and have never danced tango, you can use your imagination about that feeling and you'd probably be right.

I often think about why I haven't danced in months. I could say it is my personal finances that prevent it, or I could paint sweeping generalizations about the drama of participating in tango society or I could point fingers at specific people disguised in anonymity. Part of the reason is that tango, for some, requires a kind of immersion that is not copacetic with "real" life. To experience tango, for some, it's an all-or-nothing scene. Compromise is hard.

And I tend to be an all-or-nothing person.

Some people come to tango and it's like enjoying an apertif: they drink their cocktail, enjoy it, and then move on to dinner. And then there's the other people: they start with one drink and then stay until the bar closes. For them, tango cannot be practiced in moderation.

I think about going back to dance, but in the limited way I could manage, that would put me in the perceived lower echelon of random occasional dancer and that doesn't seem to be worth the effort. The retirement home of Tango.

So now I'm in this space where not dancing is like coming out of a bad romance: I don't want that guy in my life anymore, but I still think about him. Perhaps if I was younger, I would have made the sacrifice.

***

Speaking of being younger, last night I went to see something that was pretty awesome. In the inspiring, look what kids are doing today kind of way.

About five blocks away from my house is a circus school. I kid you not. The whole works: acrobatics, juggling, contortion, aerial silk and ropes. Of course they have adult classes, but I wonder how many adults could stick with such an education, even if they had comprehensive health coverage.

But those bendy and talented kids--they put on quite a show for us, a crowd of friends, family and a few random neighbors like me. It was a cross between an Andy Hardy movie (hey kids, let's put on a show in the barn!) and a seedling class of Cirque de Soleil future talent.

As much as I was enthused by the young performers and how capable they are (and slightly cringing at times in a protective reflex that someone was going to get hurt), I mostly felt so glad that these kids had the opportunity to discover something they loved from a very young age, practice it so they were advanced and talented enough to perform, and still have many years ahead to make their talents deepen. The little Julie inside me was more than slightly jealous of them having that chance. The older Julie knows not having found that creative niche as a kid has driven me to explore many kinds of outlets, tango included, but that creates the bedrock of my personal dilettantism, too.

Sometimes I feel like I'm too old to be good at anything at the deepest level. And the other part of me thinks I just haven't found that thing yet. And a tiny voice says that all of these thoughts surface in the wee hours because I should be sleeping right now.

But you'll be relieved to know for my own personal safety that I did not sign up for circus school.

Yet. They have an open house where you can try the flying trapeze and more on December 20. Hmmm.

Image: Tight-Rope Walker by Jean-Louis Forain, 1885.

A Paean to Penicillin

I guess I could have also titled this post a "Canticle to Ciprofloxacin hydrochloride" since I'm actually allergic to penicillin but then you might not have known what I was talking about. (Although I know you are all very brilliant minds and you would have figured it out quickly.)

Last night I finally took myself over to Urgent Care to get a prescription for this stuff because after a week of "oh, I think it's going away..." I realized that I needed some real medicine. (No worries, I'm fine.) But anyway.

The thing I walked away most grateful for last night, besides the extremely nice people that helped me-- from the intake lady to the doctor to the pharmacist who let me sneak in and filled my prescription in like 30 seconds even though they were closed-- was how freaking lucky I am to have received a slim plastic bottle of pills that will make me feel all better by tomorrow or the next day. Even though I am going to take the entire week's dosage and I hope that you take ALL of your antibiotics like you are supposed to because it's very very very important and I'll get back to that later.

I can't help thinking about what it must have been like to live 100, 200 years ago with a minor illness, which although not life threatening is certainly life-annoying and can get much worse if left unchecked, without the benefit of something like penicillin. I've always loved to read the biographies of scientists who made major discoveries to the benefit of all mankind. Louis Pasteur, you are the man. Marie Curie, you're even more the man because no one wanted you to study science in the first place.

One of the books on my nightstand that I'm chipping away at before bedtime is about Joseph Priestly and Antoine Lavoisier, one a humble English minister type and the other a French nobleman who was eventually guillotined during the Terror, and their quest to discover oxygen. Subject might not sound like a blockbuster but in the history of important knowledge that's benefited humankind, it is. What strikes me about both these guys is that their lives were not easy, got totally messed up by religous zealotry (one in the strict sense, and one by the religion of political fervor) and how the human mind can be so single-mindedly brilliant when it wants to be.

The tiny list of scientific explorers I mention here helped to pave a way to an improved quality of life for all of us, and they did it without the benefit of government grants, readily available ingredients, laboratories or assistance, and sometimes working under life-threatening circumstances. That type of perseverance, to the understanding of our physical universe with the side effect of benefiting fellow humans and generations to come that could build on their discoveries, always fills me with pride and hope that we can do more and be more as a species, regardless of our gender, religion or nationality.

I am not going to talk about Sarah Palin and the fruit flies again. But to me, now, she is the ready poster girl for a subset of people who not only walk around clueless, but could possibly impede the future and direction of scientific inquiry. This is not a rant but if you want to read a well-reasoned and informed one, check out Andrew Sullivan. Now I'm not saying that all of us have to geek out on science like me. I used to hang out after school in junior high and help my biology teacher separate and count fruit flies, not for extra credit, but because I thought it was very cool to be a tiny part of a scientific process, even at the age of 12. So even back then, I knew that studying fruit flies wasn't just blowing smoke up someone's ass. (Certainly at age 12, a person can find lots of things to do after school besides observing Drosophila melanogaster.)

What I hope is that our country will turn back the clock on eight years of morality-induced prejudice leading to anti-scientific inquiry. I wrote a post recently about change and what we might be willing to do to help move our country forward, to the benefit of all Americans and the world. I'm thinking maybe one avenue for me might be to help support issues regarding the advancement of scientific research. Not just because of the Cipro. But because to me, Science can be a tool to advance Hope, and wasn't that also a theme of this election? Making life better for all of us in a measureable, meaningful way?

But first I must address why I woke up at 1:20am and found myself here in front of the computer. (Actually, I was thirsty. So I'll get my drink of water and catch you all later.)

***

ps.: For a hair-raising but very important read on why we all need to do our share to help prevent the development of super-resistant strains of bacteria, read Laurie Garrett's The Coming Plague. It's like reading The Andromeda Strain or The Stand and then coming to the uncomfortable realization that you're reading non-fiction. Want to believe in a real Armageddon? Good chance it could come from a microbe. And there's no mention of the Rapture, either.

Nothing Like a Little Pollock

To help deal with insomnia. Is there some condition called Post-Election Sleep Disorder? There must be.

Don't ask why I am up at 2am reconfiguring my modem. The bright side of it is a) the modem works, and b) I just made my own Jackson Pollock.

You can make your own here. It does feel quite therapeutic to throw some virtual paint around the internet. You should try it.

I'm going back to sleep.

xoxo