Swimming Pools and Me

Me as a teen in my childhood home swimming pool

When I was eight years old, my dad and I sat together in our backyard and watched the workmen dig our grass and dirt to put in a new above-the-ground swimming pool. My mom referred to our pool as a "15 Round" which meant that it measured fifteen feet in diameter.  The outside was blue, and it had straight white panels going down each side with the words "Esther Williams" printed on them. My grandmother told me that Esther Williams was a very famous swimmer who starred in Hollywood movies many years ago.   

Every summer, my best friend, Ania, and I spent most of our time in my pool.  Even though she had an oval, above-the-ground swimming pool in her own backyard, we were always in mine.  A few times, we stayed in so long that our lips turned blue!  We loved being in my swimming pool so much that we never realized we were cold - probably because we were always moving and jumping up and down.  One summer, I spent so much time doing handstands and cartwheels underwater that I came down with an ear infection.  I had to take ear drops and wear earplugs every summer after that.  Sometimes, I pretended I was a mermaid and that my swimming pool was a big tank I lived in while on land. Nothing felt better than being in my swimming pool.

But then I grew up and left home for college in Boston.  While I was away, my mom sold the house.  For many years after that, I had a recurring dream that I returned to my childhood home, and the water in my swimming pool turned green.  I was distraught that the pool was unusable. I figured I dreamed this because shortly before I had left home, our pool water really did turn green.  I hadn't been very good at keeping up with putting in the scoops of chlorine and running the filter.  My dad was the one in charge of our pool, but he passed away when I was fifteen.  In my dreams, as soon as I saw that the water was green, I went on a desperate quest for chlorine. Sometimes, I'd look in my shed and other times I'd try to find a store somewhere, hoping it was still open in the middle of the night.  Eventually, I'd find one, and I'd spend the rest of the dream measuring out the chlorine.  

Illustration from Instagram

I've never had my own pool as an adult, but I always enjoy them whenever I get to swim.  One of my favorites is this wave pool in Pennsylvania.  I didn't know one existed until I went in.  It was the best of both worlds, as my other favorite place in the world is the ocean.  One time, I was staying at a hotel in Nevada, near Las Vegas, and the hotel pool was an inground pool that had the pool water streaming right up onto the concrete floor at your feet as you approached it. I was only in Nevada for a couple of days and had a jam-packed schedule with family who live there so I didn't make time to go into the pool.  Ever since that day,  I STILL regret that I didn't go in, and I swear I will one day go back to that same hotel so I can get into that particular swimming pool! 

Over the years, the swimming pool water in my recurring dreams began to appear clearer and less green. I haven't had one of those dreams in a while.  Sometimes, I miss having a swimming pool to call my own.  I can't have one in my backyard now because my small yard is on a slanted hill which is nearly all rock.  But I guess it would be possible to put in a pool if I hired an expert to check the yard out. I mean, if I can find a store to buy chlorine  in the middle of the night, then I suppose anything is possible!

Esther Williams in 1953 (cinemasips.com)

My Unintentional Evolution To Unique Artist

 

Me at the Walt Whitman Exhibit at New York Public Library, NYC 

When I was in elementary school at P.S. 53, either third or fourth grade, my teacher asked us to analyze the Harry Chapin song, "Flowers are Red."  These were the days before the Internet, and I didn't even ask my parents to help.  Actually, I thought I would have no problem figuring out the meaning of this simple song, so I just read it and analyzed it the way I was sure Chapin meant it.  I forget exactly what I wrote, but I said that the color red symbolizes something, and the color green symbolizes something else, etc.  After the assignments were graded, our teacher presented two essays to the class.  One essay was the correct interpretation of the song, and the other was the one that she said she wanted to show us because it was so creative and unique.  Mine was the creative essay, and I was embarrassed when the teacher read it to the class because I felt like a failure.  I wish I still had that essay today, but I threw it away after class because I didn't want to remember that feeling of not being able to comprehend the assignment the way everyone else was able to.  

At 18, I was a songwriting student at Berklee College of Music, and I resisted following the advice of my teachers who taught us formulas to use while writing. I had already studied piano since I was 6, so I just took to the keys and composed my own way.   At the time, I thought my songs were great.  In total, I have written nearly 100 songs and recorded at least half of these, all between the ages of 16 and 21.  However, years later, when I listened to a CD of several of them, I noticed how similar many of them sound to each other.  Although I utilized different key signatures, I often used the same chord progressions. Still, I think they are catchy. They are sometimes melodic, sometimes dissonant, and they don't sound like anybody else's. I like my art to be unique.  My songs sound like me: upbeat with singing that is slightly off-key. During that same period, I worked at Tower Records in Boston.  One day, a coworker of mine told me about the rock band he just joined, and as he explained their typical "rock band of the moment" style to me, I had a revelation.  Why even bother putting in the work with the band when they weren't creating anything new?  It made no sense to me to make the effort when his band was just going to sound like everybody else's.

In my early twenties, I shifted from writing songs to writing stories because I felt confined by the songwriting format.  I believed the music was more important than the lyrics in songwriting so I focused more on the music, and that made the words of my songs take a backseat.  In turn,  I felt a need to express more and more of my thoughts, but I didn't want wordy songs. My other dilemma was that I couldn't stop rhyming!  The same problem happened in my Women's Writer's Workshop when I wrote rhyming poetry.  My teacher told me people aren't rhyming that much anymore.  Walt Whitman had the opposite problem in his day as the first non-rhyming poet.  He got rejected by publishers and had to publish "Leaves of Grass," his masterpiece, on his own.  That's also what writers who wanted to do something different did in the past: writers like Virginia Woolf and Anais Nin.  Writers still do it today which brings me to mention the independent publishing company, New Pop Lit, run by the very unique and talented writer and publisher, Karl Wenclas.  

New Pop Lit is doing what I've always strived to do which is to create and publish a new type of writing.  Why not invent something new? They keep it clear and relatable.  They don't just mimic what everyone else is doing.  Just like how the MFA creative writing programs grind out identical writers, Berklee can grind out identical songwriters which wasn't the songwriter I wanted to be.  I am proud to have my writing featured in two of New Pop Lit's zeens: "Zeenith" and "Literary Fan Magazine." New Pop Lit's zeens redefine the Literary Journal.  They are "technicolor literary journals" and feature really cool artwork as prominently as their stories, articles, novel excerpts, and poetry. They make literary journals fun to read. They bring uniqueness back to the writing business.  Because what is the point of spending all this time writing if you're just going to sound like everybody else?

You can find unique, original and talented writers and artists featured at NewPopLit.Com and purchase their zeens at NewPopLit.Com/Shop/.

I'm Recovering From Covid

 

My last two blog posts were about quarantine, so I guess it makes sense that #3 would wind up being about me actually coming down with COVID-19.  The whole ordeal started the day after Election Night.  My daughter felt sick with a headache, runny nose and fatigue which I originally assumed was due to her staying up late to watch the election.  But the next day, she felt the same. I didn't think that she had COVID because the infection rate was only at 1% in Staten Island - or so I thought.  That day, Thursday, 11/5, I noticed that I felt unusually fatigued.  I remember saying to my daughter, "Usually when I stay up all night, I'm only tired the next day, not two days later.  Well, I guess I'm just getting older."  I also noticed that every time I stood up or bent down, all the blood rushed to my head.  But again, I thought there was no way we had COVID because I mistakenly believed the infection rate was SO low at the time. Sure enough, by Friday, 11/6, my daughter still felt the same.  Her nose was running, but she also complained that her headache felt different than any other headache she'd ever had.  So I took her to her pediatrician, and her COVID test came back positive.  By this point, I had a post-nasal drip, and since I'd been wearing masks everywhere, I couldn't imagine that I'd caught a cold or sinus infection from anyone while I was out and about which was hardly ever these days anyway.  So when she tested positive, I assumed I was positive for COVID too.  

I spent a very sleepless Friday night even after taking a Librax to calm down my IBS which had acted up from the anxiety.  I woke up every single hour.  The knowledge that there was now COVID in the house was terrifying. My daughter's pediatrician assured me that 99% of teenagers like my daughter are better in a few days and completely better in a week, but what about a woman my age?  I got my COVID test first thing Saturday morning, 11/7, and it was negative, but I still asked the doctor to give me an exam, check my throat, lungs and oxygen levels.  He said that everything was fine except that my throat was red.  

That whole weekend, my daughter was quarantined to her bedroom, and I wore a mask to bring her all her meals.  Physically, I felt exactly the same as I had for the past few days, just fatigued and still had the post-nasal drip, but I didn't feel sick, so I thought that MAYBE I really DID escape getting COVID myself.  Maybe I had allergies and was just overly tired from the sleepless nights and stress of my daughter having COVID? But by Monday, 11/9, my post-nasal drip was so bad that I had to keep swallowing, and I felt very congested and uncomfortable.  I took a spoonful of honey and gargled with salt water.  A few hours later,  I got these terrible gastro feelings where I felt like my stomach and my lower abdominal muscles had tightened in a way that I had never felt before, even with my IBS. The pain and stiffness was traveling up and down, and there was no relief.  I assumed it was either the honey or that I had reclined too soon after eating tomato sauce.  I didn't even remember that gastro symptoms can also be a sign of COVID.  When I got into bed, I had to keep a heating pad on my lower stomach and prop myself up with two pillows until I fell asleep.  Then, throughout the night, the gastro pains were replaced by a headache where very time I turned my head, I felt pain that wouldn't stop. I kept falling asleep and waking up, turning my head, and feeling the headache again. When I finally got out of bed Tuesday morning, 11/10, I took my temperature, and it was 100 degrees.  It was then that I knew I definitely had COVID.  

That's when I panicked.  I called the Teledoc phone number to get a telephone conference with a doctor.  A very nice female doctor called me back, and I told her I first had symptoms on Thursday, 11/5, which would now put me at the beginning of Day 6 of my COVID illness.  I had remembered from reading countless news articles and seeing many news stories on TV that in adults, COVID often worsens several days after the initial onset of symptoms so I asked the doctor which days in the COVID cycle are considered the scary days where one has to worry about his or her symptoms escalating into something serious? She said the scary symptoms happen between Days 5-9, but not to worry, as since my daughter's exposure was contact traced to either 11/2 or 11/3, and since I was already experiencing symptoms on 11/5, most people would have shown the serious symptoms by now. She said I could probably expect to feel more of the same symptoms that I felt right now at my peak.  I tried to hope for the best and remembered that 99% of adults with COVID only experience what is considered minor illness: headache, body aches, congestion, fever, etc., but not serious illness consisting of shortness of breath, chest pains and pneumonia.  But I knew the next few days would be some of the most anxiety-filled of my life.

After I got off the phone with the Teledoc doctor, I took two Tylenols and continued to take them every six hours that day, but my headache didn't go away until nighttime. This meant I had a twenty-four hour headache WITH medication. That night, during my sleep, I broke out in sweats and changed my T-shirt three times, the way you do when you have the flu when the fever finally breaks.  But unlike nearly all the times I've had the flu which started with high temperatures of 101 and above, with COVID, my temperature never went above 100, it was mostly 99, so that surprised me, but I guess I still had to sweat it out.         

The next two days, Wednesday, 11/11, and Thursday, 11/12, which were Days 7 and 8, I was so tired that even going up the stairs made me feel completely exhausted.  That put me in a panic because I couldn't tell if I was now experiencing the "shortness of breath" symptom, or if just the act of climbing the stairs was making me completely exhausted. I still had a feeling of heavy congestion, and I constantly worried I would get a bad cough and chest pains.  I checked my oxygen levels regularly with the pulse oximeter that I immediately ordered from Amazon the night my daughter tested positive, and it really did come in handy to calm my nerves.  My oxygen was usually 98 or 99 (normal readings are from around mid to upper 90's), but my pulse was always in the 100's which I thought was a little high when up to 90 is considered normal.  I read online that sometimes when your body is fighting a virus, your heart has to work harder to pump out the blood which makes your resting heart rate increase, so I tried not to worry about my unusually high pulse rate over the three days that I felt the sickest.

There was one positive note regarding the sickness I felt.  During the afternoons, on the days I felt the sickest, I slept more relaxed and calmly than I ever had in my entire life.  It felt like I was floating on clouds as long as I kept perfectly still.  It was like my body was rewarding me for not using any energy because it needed all the energy it had to fight this virus.  

Meanwhile, the NY Covid Hotline called every single day since my daughter tested positive on 11/6.  They had a file on me too since I was the parent and was exposed to COVID myself.  So by Tuesday, 11/10, after four days of my answering the hotline's questions where I had to respond "Yes" or "No" to a list of COVID symptoms, I was now answering "Yes" to many of them.  The hotline told me, "You are now experiencing symptoms consistent with COVID-19."  After that call, I really looked forward to their daily calls where they would go over the symptoms checklist with me, and I felt reassurance that I was still saying "No" to the serious symptoms of COVID.  I also felt relief at being able to agree that the symptoms I said "Yes" to were improving.  

By Friday, 11/13, I finally reached Day 9, and I continued to improve.  By Day 10, my pulse was back to the 70's, but on Sunday, Day 11, I woke up with no sense of smell.  I noticed it when I went to do my daily cleaning of the bathroom sink when after spraying the Lysol spray cleaner and anticipating its strong smell, suddenly there was nothing.  I couldn't smell the hand soap I washed my hands with either.  I went all around the house and finally found one thing I could still smell which was this huge cinnamon caramel swirl candle.  I was further thrilled when I opened up the jar of peanut butter, and I could smell that too.  But I couldn't smell anything else. I went downstairs to bring up some more scented candles and found one red vanilla chai one in which I could faintly smell the vanilla. When I sat down to eat,  I could taste salty, sour and sweet but only on my tongue.  I couldn't taste the actual food, I could just identify salty, sour and sweet.  I assumed this was because I am a supertaster with many taste buds.  When I ate my meals, I tried to focus on textures more than taste because I couldn't smell my food.  When I made pasta, I couldn't taste the tomato sauce at all, and it was depressing, so I put some raw, shredded mozzarella on it, and the texture and the fact that I could taste a bit of creaminess cheered me up.

Finally, three days later, my smell returned while I was eating an egg sandwich, suddenly noticing that it tasted exactly the way it was supposed to.  I went into the bathroom to spray the Lysol cleaner in the sink to test it, and I was able to smell it.  The vanilla chai candle now smelled like a spicy vanilla, not a very faint vanilla. I went to my bedroom and sprayed perfume on my arm so I could keep smelling it on my wrist all day because I was SO thrilled that I could finally smell again!

It has been a slow recovery though.  Once I had gotten much better and no longer had to quarantine, any time I went out of the house, I got a terrible headache just from the exertion. Even as I worked from home, my hand would sometimes shake while I was typing,  I would get a headache again, and my temperature sometimes went to 99.  This never happened to me with the flu.  I'd have a high fever on the first day, bad body aches and chills, but after about a week, once it was done, it was done.  I might have felt a bit tired over the next week after I'd recovered but not crushingly exhausted as I did now.  It seems to take a much longer time to kick COVID completely.  I think you just have to listen to what your body tells you and rest if it needs you to.  Each day that is a good day, I can tell I'm getting better, but now, even after three and a half weeks of my initial symptoms, I'm still very tired and not back to 100% yet.  

So that's my experience with COVID.  It ran through my entire household, as it is VERY contagious.  My advice is to wear a mask when you're anywhere outside of your house and to take this illness seriously.  Our COVID experience was contact traced back to someone who habitually wore the mask as a chin guard, exposing the nose and mouth.  Avoid indoor areas with anyone who is doing this.  It's not a joke, and it's not a hoax.  Listen to the scientists and stay safe!

5 Ways To Have Fun During Post-Quarantine Limbo

Remember in January when we referred to 2020 as "The Roaring 20's" so we could feel like our new decade would be as wild and free as the original 1920's? Back in 1920, people were happy that World War I was over, and they celebrated through decadence and carefree living.  But by 1929,  the stock market crashed which facilitated the Great Depression causing many months of fear and anxiety.  Turns out our Roaring 20's were headed in the same direction but instead of it taking a decade to crash and burn, it took us only a few months!

I live in New York City, and these days, our numbers of COVID-19 cases are less than 1% positive among those  tested.  This is an all-time low, considering our number of virus cases had skyrocketed in March, April and May.  We are now partially reopened, and people can be less afraid of going outdoors.  Personally, I feel as though I am in a "Post-Quarantine Limbo." I can't go back to a "life is normal again" routine when such a large portion of our country currently has their hospitals overfilled with Coronavirus patients.  These states didn't follow New York's example of not reopening until the cases were down. They didn't wear masks and participated in large indoor gatherings. Even scarier, some New Yorkers are also guilty of this right now, convinced that our previous high number of cases is a thing of the past. Between my own state's complacency coupled with the reality that people from all over the country will try to travel to New York City this summer, it may be just a matter of time until we New Yorkers have to go back into full quarantine.  Realizing this, I think that before we crash and burn again, why don't we just have a bit of fun during this little reprieve of low infection rate and pleasant (albeit very hot and rainy) summer weather while we can?

Here is a list of 5 things we can enjoy while in Post-Quarantine Limbo:

1.  Visiting Outdoor Markets, Outside Dining and a Limited Amount of Indoor Retail Shopping 

Finally, we can feel safe to do small trips out.  After not leaving my neighborhood for half of March and the entire months of April and May, I was hardly able to contain myself when June rolled around, and I took my first trip back to Stop & Shop!  Home deliveries of food kept me fed during quarantine, but back when I gave up actual meat in the year 2001, I never thought that one day I would also have to give up meat substitutes! I couldn't find any home delivery method to get Morningstar Bacon, Boca Burgers or Amy's Spaghetti and Meatballs, so I was thrilled to load my shopping cart and freezer with all of those again.  Later in June, I shopped and ate at Empire Outlets, an outdoor marketplace near the Staten Island Ferry.  Fantasizing about returning to Empire Outlets kept me sane back in March. I told myself that by July 1st, I'll be outdoors at Empire Outlets, feeling the ocean wind in my hair.  I assured myself: "I WILL shop and eat outside food again!"  So this summer, I plan to make every minute count. I need to just in case by winter, my biggest thrill will again be the fact that my Misfits Box contains those little yellow potatoes that I can cut into quarters and microwave. 

2. Reading Romantic Fiction About Pandemic Heroes

Think of how anxiety-ridden New Yorkers would have been back in March and April if we didn't have our quarantine hero, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (the Luv Gov), to reassure us with daily Coronavirus briefings? Dr. Anthony Fauci's soothing and intelligent words were also there to comfort our souls. So imagine my thrill when I heard about a 1991 romantic novel in which its author, Sally Quinn, based her romantic hero, Dr. Michael Lanzer, on none other than our very own Dr. Fauci!  You too can dig up this old book (I found it on Amazon, but you have to look every day because copies under $40 are few and far between) and enjoy escaping into steamy prose starring one of our quarantine heroes.  Bearing that in mind, why not just write a story yourself?  For instance, CNN host Christopher Cuomo and his frequent guest, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, can also be materialized into dashing romantic characters.  Or, if you're a male, why not write a romantic story about that beautiful brunette reporter who asks Trump the tough questions on CNN?  Just now, I Googled exactly that: "beautiful brunette reporter on CNN who Trump hates," and the first thing that popped up was exactly the name I was trying to remember:  Kaitlan Collins! I believe we should keep up the skill of escaping into our minds through reading and fantasy so our imagination muscles can stay flexed if we have to go into full-time quarantine again.  Nothing and nobody can ever stop us from reading and writing.

 3.  Baking Shih-Tzu Sugar Cookies

Seems like everyone was cooking, baking bread, and making their own pizza dough during quarantine.  Since it's such a healthy and enjoyable habit, I think we should keep this indoor hobby up whether quarantined or not.  I think I'm going to expand to buying cookie cutters in the shape of Shih-Tzus so I can bake sugar cookies from scratch which I haven't done in about two decades.  I'll also continue to utilize my giant box of Bisquick purchased during quarantine because with it, I can make everything from biscuits to muffins to pizza crust.  If there's anything anyone can think of that Bisquick CAN'T be turned into, please comment below and let me know.

4. Laughing at Funny Memes

Keep reading those funny memes because if you don't laugh, you'll cry.

5.   Setting Off or Just Watching Fireworks, 1990's-Style

I'm still hearing fireworks go off nearly every single night, and this 4th of July, they were completely out of control!  It was like the early 1990's again! This year, nobody heeded the usual fireworks warnings to not buy them because they are dangerous and illegal.  But I'm not complaining, as they were truly beautiful to see, and I didn't even have to leave my house!  I marveled at all their beautiful colors from my second floor window.  It's something we can keep on doing even if we get thrust into full-time quarantine again because they are an outdoor activity.  Plus, people will continue to socially distance while using them because who on earth wants to get their face that close to another person's flaming firework?

So while we remain in Post-Quarantine Limbo, let's just continue the fireworks show.  Let's be reckless and decadent in our imaginations and indoor forms of escapism.  But when the fun gets carried outside of our homes, let's just remember we must continue to stay socially distanced and Wear. A. Mask. 

Be Careful What You Wish For

I spent the entire month of January working on a new short story. I edited it and cut it down drastically to adhere to the word count requirements for a submission call.  That meant putting aside the novel I've been writing for the past two years. By February, I knew it was time to get back to the novel, but I always found some reason to procrastinate. I was too exhausted from working all day, or on my days off, I was too agitated from being around people at the grocery store or overly irritated from waiting on a long line at the bank.  I always seemed to need another a break before I had to wake up and do it all over again tomorrow. I told myself: "If I could just have a few weeks home, I could really dive into this novel, make a dent in it, and finish a first draft. I just need a big bulk of time at home." Then, of course, March rolled along, and this wasn't at all what I'd wished for!


I worked my last day in Manhattan on March 16th, and on my walk home from the train station, I realized it would be a long time before I could go into the City again. After reading a few news stories and watching Governor Cuomo's press conferences, I predicted that the earliest I would be back to work was July 1st. This made me sad because I liked being in the City.  I loved eating my lunch in cafes and the hustle and bustle of walking outdoors.  I even enjoyed hurrying around to make the train and ferry connections.  I went to bed feeling awful. But the next morning, I woke up from a dream that I'd met a male stranger (a made-up one I didn't recognize from real life), and in the dream, the chase was so exciting, and I couldn't wait to see how things would unfold.  Then the next night, I had the same dream but with a different mystery man. The third night, same thing, yet another unknown man.  Why was I having pleasant dreams when all the news around me was so tragic, and nearly the entire planet had just been forced into quarantine with terrible fears of this new virus?

Possibly because subconsciously, I was excited about the idea of finally having enough time to do my writing at home. As a natural born introvert, I've always spent most of my time at home.  I crave alone time. I long to write. But even though I was home, the state of the world was tragic and scary, and I found it difficult to concentrate on my novel. I was fortunate enough to be able to earn money from home, and the only thing I feared particularly about being in quarantine was running out of things I needed. Luckily, home deliveries of food and chocolate, non-food essentials and, of course, liquor, kept those fears in check.  So, as long as I stayed home and didn't have to worry about catching the virus, I felt okay.  But many of my friends and people talking about quarantine on TV weren't feeling okay at all. I could understand their continued anxiety and their depression if they were out of work and struggling with money, but many of them were either also working from home or being supported by someone who was.  They just couldn't get used to the idea of being indoors and not being out in the world, but I had adjusted. I tried to figure out why.

My best theory is because as a writer, the joy and satisfaction I feel is not related to being out among other people but rather in challenging myself.  Creative writing is not dependent on crowd interaction.  I think if a person's art is dependent on outside validation and applause, then being quarantined must be extremely difficult.  Another theory is that as an introvert, I gain energy by being indoors whereas extroverts are energized by being outdoors. I believe that my extrovert friends' lack of energy has slowed some of them down into a deep depression.

On a more positive note, judging by what I see on social media and TV, it seems that many people, both artists and non-artists, although somewhat depressed and anxious, are trying to make the best of quarantine by doing things they wouldn't have time for if they were out in the world right now. I'm checking off the same things that they are: I've already made homemade pizza and baked brownies; I've binged new series on Hulu like "Dollface" and "High Fidelity"; I've watched as many indie movies as I can find on Pluto TV; and I regularly watch "Cuomo Prime Time" so I can laugh at the banter between the Cuomo brothers. On weekends, I go for walks in the neighborhood or to the harbor. I've also cut my Shih-Tzu dog's bangs and often hang out with her on the deck when weather permits.

The best part of my quarantine is that I'm finally getting some writing done. I've started a brand new short story and have been working on it nearly every day which is a regularity I could never achieve before the quarantine. I'm entertaining myself and keeping up my writing chops, but I still can't really dive into the novel! I can't make a dent in it, and I haven't gotten close to finishing its first draft. Maybe the key to being comfortable in quarantine is to lower our expectations. I'm not making great progress on the novel, but I have started a new short story that wouldn't exist if I hadn't been put into quarantine.  Overall, the most important thing any of us can do is to try and stay as healthy as possible and do our part to keep others healthy as well.  We won't be indoors forever.  Time always passes much more quickly than we wished it had, and sometimes, we need to be careful of what we wish for.

Play It As It Lays

Me at Spring Lake, NJ

In Joan Didion's 1970 novel, "Play It as It Lays," lead character Maria is slowly losing her mind and unraveling through flashbacks told in very short chapters. According to Google, the term "Play it as it lays" means: "Take what you get, and figure it out, and make the best of it so that you can move forward." I'd never heard the expression before, so after reading it, I came to my own conclusions about what the phrase might mean, and that is: "Take it as it comes, just let each day unfold the way it wants to, and make no plans." Unlike Maria, who recalls several tragic events throughout the novel, my interpretation of the phrase is more suitable to mundane, everyday life.  Letting each day unfold and making no plans is a chill way of living.  I never followed it in my youth. I always planned, and waited, and definitely tried to control things. But these days, I realize how little control I have, so I find myself "taking things as they come" more often than ever before.

Me, Poolside in Canada   

"In Maria's own garden the air smelled of jasmine and the water in the pool was 85°. The water in the pool was always 85° and it was always clean."


Now that I'm older,  I never go to bed early enough. I guess it's because I'm more aware of the passage of time and how quickly it goes. It's like I don't want to miss anything. I stay up until midnight watching "The Twilight Zone" and "Alfred Hitchcock Hour," then have to wake up at 5:30 a.m. for work. I can fall asleep easily but often wake up in the middle of the night and have trouble getting back to sleep. My solution to daytime sleepiness is napping. First, I nap on the ferry on the way to work, then once at home, I nap anywhere I can think of. I used to sleep on the couch a lot, but now that I have my two-year-old Shih-Tzu, I can't because she won't let me. She seems to think it breaks routine,  so she paws at me and at the pillow as if to say: "You are not supposed to be sleeping on the couch!" So I try and sneak a nap on the recliner when she isn't paying attention. In "Play It as It Lays," Maria has trouble sleeping and finds that she can only fall asleep, and stay asleep, outside beside her swimming pool, lying on the lounge chairs along it. I think that in a larger sense, Maria has a feeling of unrest that goes beyond not sleeping. She doesn't feel comfortable anywhere and is unable to relax or let her guard down in order to enter a proper sleep. The act of sleeping outside on a pool chair resonated with me. I hate not being able to sleep, and if I found that sleeping on a chair in my backyard beside a swimming pool was the only way I could get some sleep, I would do it too, just like Maria.

                                                                                      Me and my Shih-Tzu


"Maria was listening to someone talk and every now and then she would hear herself making what she thought was an appropriate response but mostly she was just swaying slightly with the music and wondering where her drink was..."


We all, at times, find our minds wandering off when people talk to us. Often, I'll find myself drifting into different thoughts while someone is telling me a story. But suddenly, I'll see their animated expression or I'll notice a slight pause in conversation, and I'll usually respond with a "Wow" or an "Oh that's crazy." Otherwise, I'll just nod my head in agreement and hope my response was not way off. Maria has lost control in this scene and can't plan her responses as people often do in social situations.  Throughout the book, she is increasingly unable to adopt a persona, and by this point in her life, she is tiring of "the game," and through no other choice, she is only able to be her authentic self. She is real, but it is killing her. Throughout the story, she can only "play it as it lays," just like in this party scene, until she can escape with her drink.  It's exhausting trying to live as your truest self in a world where so many people work hard to perfect their outward personalities and control their responses, and you're over there taking every statement at face value and missing the inside jokes and the hidden innuendos. People don't want to take themselves as they are. Instead, they want to create the kind of person they think they should be. I think it's exhausting on both sides.


"Always when I play back my father's voice, it is with a professional rasp, it goes as it lays, don't do it the hard way.  My father advised me that life itself was a crap game: it was one of two lessons I learned as a child.  The other was that overturning a rock was apt to reveal a rattlesnake."

Me and my Dad. He used to love gambling on the horses.

Maria's dad is the one who advises her to "play it as it lays" at the end of the book. He says life is a crap game. He keeps on investing his money in shaky business deals, and keeps on losing, but he never loses his positivity and optimism. He advises Maria to relinquish control.

My assessment is that life can sometimes make you messed up like Maria:  There are times you only want a drink, and other times, you have insomnia because you are aware of the passage of time and how quickly it all goes.  But you have to realize you can't control these things. You have to learn to "play it as it lays" and do the best you can with what you've got because, really, you have no other choice, and most of the time, that's perfectly OK.

“I am what I am. To look for reasons is beside the point.” 

Joan Didion (brainpickings.org)

Bingeing Bourdain

Photo by John Reardon from article on theguardian.com

Last month, we celebrated "Bourdain Day" to honor Anthony Bourdain - the former chef, writer, and star of the TV shows "No Reservations" and "Parts Unknown." In these two series, he traveled to different parts of the world to have meals with the locals, or sometimes he brought a friend or fellow chef with him to eat in different restaurants. June 25th was chosen as Bourdain Day by his friends and fans because that was his birthday.  Tragically, June is also the month he took his own life last year, however, the motto for Bourdain Day is "Get out and live," and I think that's a better way to remember him.

Last summer, I binge-watched "Parts Unknown," so this summer I decided to binge-watch "No Reservations."  I watch his shows to escape. I'm not traveling this summer so I like to see all the faraway places he goes to. Many are around oceans and have vacation vibes to them. But he also visits poverty-stricken places and never hesitates to sit down for a meal at a family's home and eat the same things they do. I enjoy listening to his monologues during the shows. He explains each place's history and his own feelings about how the meals taste and how the people treat him and each other.

Bourdain was definitely a storyteller. He philosophized about life. I particularly enjoyed the Vietnam episode of "No Reservations" where he spoke about the desire to move there for a year to write his own novel. I think a big part of the allure of his shows for me is that I like people who write. I like and relate to people who can tell stories.

My only criticism about his shows is his obsession with eating meat. He constantly talked about wanting to eat meat, and we'd have to watch him eat meat, and sometimes we even had to sit through watching the locals trap pigs and other animals so they could slaughter them, all while Bourdain observed and told us about it. As a person who doesn't eat land animals at all, I hate these segments.  But actually, for meat-eaters, I think it's essential that they show the entire procedure that goes into eating meat so people can learn. Otherwise, they are just cooking and eating the packages of plastic-wrapped red squiggles that they pick up at the supermarket. Even though Bourdain ate so much meat, at least he saw first hand how the animals were killed rather than how the usual meat-eater just turns a blind eye and doesn't want to think about the fact that it is an animal they are eating as opposed to a cooked red squiggle.  I'm not a vegan (although I wish I were), and I still eat fish. My reasoning is that I can handle watching people catch fish and then cooking them so I'm being realistic about where my food comes from.

In addition to eating tons of meat on these shows, Bourdain also eats fruits, vegetables, noodles, and desserts. Oh, and if you happen to binge-watch his shows, notice how many times he mentions eating "sea urchins." He seems to eat sea urchins in about every other episode!

So this summer, I'm again living vicariously through Bourdain's travels and meals. It's devastating that even though he traveled the world and seemed to have a job he really loved, he still couldn't get over his depression. It got me thinking: Even though I love how much of a realist Bourdain was, maybe too much reality isn't good?  Considering how he left us, it seems it wasn't good for him.  Sometimes we need to turn that blind eye - like the meat-eaters do during dinner - in order to survive.  Escaping is good for us. Or more accurately, it's necessary.

IMDB.Com

With President Barack Obama (Vox.Com)