Acquiring a Nemesis

I have decided to acquire a nemesis.

I am, traditionally, bad at maintaining grudges, hexes, and nemeses. It is not in my nature to dwell on the bad that people do. My friends tease that I am quick to point out someone's best features, outstanding qualities, everything that makes them special, broken, delicate, or good. One mid-summer dinner, a friend brought up an acquaintance of mine. "Oh, she's just had so much to deal with," I said, trying to rationalize her behavior, "Can you imagine being raised in that house? What she had to internalize?" The friend leaned over and said, "Carina, she's just a bad person." Well, you could have fooled me. 

And too often, I am fooled by seeing the good in everyone. It's still a good quality to have, I think, and one I would be loathe to give up for the alternative. But since we're all trying to develop new skills during this quarantine, why not improve my capacity to draw from a deep well of antipathy and send it into the universe to do my dark bidding? 

This newly acquired nemesis has no idea who I am; she couldn't pick me out from a crowd. I've seen her around this town before and have never given her a second thought. What changed my mind was an encounter in a place of business. 

I entered, wearing a mask, as the sign on the door asked. I've patronized this business many times over the years; I wouldn't want to get the people who work there sick. And of course, I wouldn't want to get sick, either, or, God-forbid, carry a viral load to the people in my family who are immunocompromised. But there she was, my future nemesis, with her daughter, both of them unmasked and speaking loudly with each other, and to the people working their shift. 

The longer they spoke, the more restless I became. It's true, she said, social media is censuring conservatives, we're looking into whether we can sue Instagram for censuring her. At the very least, Tucker Carlson said Instagram could lose their insurance, which would put them out of business, she asserted, brimming with the full force of Dunning-Kruger in effect. 

Gross, I thought, and stupid, so unbearably stupid. I almost said something several times. I recognized her but couldn't place her. One thing I have learned is there are times one needs to breathe deeply, count to some number, plus look at your phone so you can calm down and not light up the space between you and a stranger, because sometimes it ends up you know the same people. That's a lesson I keep having to learn, let me tell you, and sometimes I even remember it. Instead of confronting her (which is always my first instinct) I tuned her out. That's called personal growth. I'm glad we could share this moment together.

The next time I ran into this person who was soon to be my nemesis, yes this is an origin story, it was a Saturday at Costco. The store was holiday-busy. It was not great. I went to get a cart when who should stride past me but this woman, with her mask hanging well below her nose, barely covering a thin lower lip. Now that's IT, I thought, this entitlement cannot be born. So I have decided NOT to bear it. It is unborn. 

She is now my nemesis. 

She was, of course, not alone. A good quarter of Costco-ites were wandering the store with their masks well below their noses and their whiteness worn like impotent shields. One fellow had on a mesh mask--A MESH MASK--but since it was our first time seeing each other at the Costco, he lives to be un-nemesied. They can't all be my nemeses (...can they?) 

My tolerance for people who do not wear a mask is extremely low. You can fool yourself in your own home by consuming poisonous media intended to profit from your ignorance, but don't you bring that into public with me. I will tell the 70-year-old lady in Hobby Lobby to put her mask on and continue to shoot her glances so she keeps it on. But that lady isn't my nemesis, she's just a product of her raisin'*, bless her heart. 

I'm not sure what to do while waiting for my nemesis to deliver her next affront to my general sense of decorum and logic. This has to be a part time, easily ignored, long-simmering nemesis situation, as I have no time or inclination to seek her out; this is a crockpot of nemeses. 

Also, please remind me that I have a nemesis because chances are I will absolutely forget about it by noon tomorrow. I would like to see this one through, for once, just so I can say I accomplishes something important this year.

*consumption of poisonous media intended to scare conservatives to profit from their ignorance in what one might recognize as resembling a secret combination. 

How We Live in Interesting Times

She curled up under the gray kitchen table. Her legs alternately stretching and contracting. Her face a mess of tears. "I DON'T UNDERSTAND," she screamed, sobbing. The laptop open across the room, streaming a dance class, full of little windows of other girls, pointing their toes and arcing arms.
"You don't have to participate. The video is off. The computer is on mute. You can just watch and dance only if you want."
"BUT I DON'T UNDERSTAND," she screamed again. "WHY NOW?"

Later, when the tears were dry and our breaths normal, we lay next to each other, warm in a bed.
"I'm sorry," She said.
"It's OK. I'm sure this feels so weird to you. Nothing is the way it usually is, and you don't like it when you don't understand changes."
"It's just the virus, and we aren't in school, I do school on the computer, and earthquakes, and all of the above! Nothing is normal!" she said, letting all her big feelings escape into the space between us.

No one counted on a pandemic.

It's been two weeks since we've all be inside. Schools closed. Stores closed. People in their homes. We casually call it quarantine, even though we are not sick. It feels like quarantine describes what we feel. This isn't distance, it's sequester. It's barricade. Keeping EG away from friends and hanging out feels like a futile battle we must fight. In a time where phones and Playstations allow for virtual hanging, the edit of distance makes him resent us and the circumstance.

We work from home now. J and I at our white desks that float in the middle of the room. Facing each other. Monitors blocking the view. We take turns having the room on conference calls and teaching lectures. We prioritize in the mornings who will have the room when. It's a nice room. It's a warm room.

I sit close to the window. I can see more people than ever walking on the street, spaced to keep distance. The crabapple trees are so close to erupting; I anticipate their blossoms. The lawn grows and greens every day. This is the time when our cabin fever breaks and we tumble out to find parks and playgrounds. Braving cold days and a bright sun. But now, when every trip outside needs to be considered, and we work all day, spread out from the office, to the table, the island, the smaller table in the living room, in our beds, glad of the internal distance, but still in reach.

We have enough to eat. The Nest thermostat doesn't know yet that we don't leave, we stay, so it drops after the morning warm up. I walk past the sensor, triggering the display. Turn it up to habitable. I consider slippers, a needless accessory in times past. But now, when I don't wear shoes all day, I suddenly want warmer feet.

I cycle through playlists. They don't seem right. I want smarter algorithms to deliver dance beats when I want them and cycle down to calming flows when my heart ticks too much.

At night I lay in bed. It seems like my heart beats louder and faster. My normally low blood pressure doesn't feel low. My baseline heartbeat at midnight is 60. It feels faster. It feels louder. I wonder what a heart attack feels like. I know what losing my job feels like. I worry a lot.

Years ago, six weeks after an abdominal surgery, I moved rocks. A friend needed help landscaping. I took medium and large rocks across the dirt, piling them in corners of the yard. I arranged and moved. It felt good. But it tore my internal stitches. In the weeks and months that followed, my organs would squeeze through the small hole in my abdomen, arresting me where I stood. Another surgery resulted. I have not moved rocks since.

But now there are rocks where my stomach should be.

I studied history once. Knowing what happened before doesn't help now. It just makes me upset to see the things that happened before happen now. I thought it would be different if we just knew. We could stop the worst of it. But there are enough people who don't know and don't care, who feed the growl inside, who love the base nationalism, driven by greed and latent racism. I don't know what to do about them. They put us in this position. A venal, narcissistic monster in the highest office in the land. Will this be the time when their delusion will dissipate or will they keep choosing that horror, even as more of us die to feed his ego? I don't know anything anymore.

Richard Rorty the philosopher wrote a book called Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Contingency centers on the idea that the end of the story isn’t written yet. Everything could have happened one way or another. Nothing is certain, not progress, not regression, everything is contingent. The arc of the universe doesn't bend to justice unless we choose to make it bend. This may seem simple, but it's also contrary to the idea that things eventually get better. Because progress doesn’t work itself out. History is not a march of progress. There is no natural course of history. It has to be decided.


I once read that progress breaks down along ideological lines: conservatives, in large, often believe that progress is inevitable, that it will happen no matter what; progressives do not believe that progress in inevitable, that "progress" requires action. The break is now a schism between people who think that agitation and action are unnecessary—and possibly distasteful—since the world would have gotten better anyway, and those who see agitation and action as necessary to create a better world. Contingency philosophy says that both things can be true: things can get better, things can get worse, it will just depend on a thousand small actions and either will be true.


Perhaps I was too conservative once, carrying with me the belief that we are on our way to a better world, but that belief was just a rock to tear my stitches.


So this is how we live in interesting times: up late, dishes all the time, the shoes are everywhere, emotions at the surface, days bleeding into days, spring around us but not emergent, everything contingent.

Blocks and Bits

On a late summer Sunday, when the air still held smoke from the season-long western wildfires, and after the wasps terrorized dinner, we sat under the pergola, me, mom, dad, Jenn, and the kids. EG sat, a sullen from having to spend time with humans, his lanky frame spread over the chairs, with one earbud in, and giving one word answers. The little ones are joking with grandpa, eating the carrots they grew and he candied, picking ice cream flavors. We are content on this patio, where the heat isn't punishing, and paper decorations from a long-ago birthday hang from the curtain rod on the pergola. The little ones run off to raid the raspberry patch.

My parents are off to Spain soon, with a stop to see my sister in Germany. I wish I was going, too, leaving behind the obligations of schools and the lawn, daily dinners and home maintenance. I indulge in a daydream of working from anywhere, but really from a house overlooking a beach, where we do not much of anything.

The day before was one of those parenting oddities, where we were hanging lights, trying to hang shelves, and the children destroyed both the home and the environment under our diverted attention.

The shelf installation had gone wrong, again, leaving the mudroom in more disarray than when we began. While I put up a mirror in the foyer, Lulu, seeing her chance for fun, purloined several blocks of styrofoam. She took them upstairs with a few friends and banged them into pieces, covering the room above the garage with tiny, static electric bits of never-decomposing white styrofoam. When the fun upstairs exhausted itself, she took more pieces into the yard. The blocks and bits covered the lawn, blew into the gutters, and down the street.

Just then EG called, he had unintentionally ended up in Woodland Hills, 40 minutes away, could I come pick him up? I have to call you back, I said, the giggles coming on full force. J and I looked at each other. Guess the light fixture would have to wait. I would pick up our teenager, he would manage the styrofoam remediation at home. I agreed to pay Proximo $5 for help vacuuming the exterior, before making the drive.


It's a lovely drive, at a lovely time of year, it was just unexpected. After 35 minutes in the car, I knew I was close when I ascended the mountain lanes and had to slow for the herds of deer in the road. I turned for the view.





I need to start bringing my real camera with me, that's for sure.

"Can you also take my friends to the party?" asked EG, as he got into the car, apologetic and nervous at asking me to pick him up so very outside the range of his normal wanderings.

I drove back to Provo with all the teenagers, and to a party in the hills. I went to drop EG off, when Em came out of the house. The party, at her house, and at the behest of her daughter, had grown, would I please stay? Em sneaked me into her house, offered me a Diet Coke, and we sat for a while, marveling at our age, at being on this end of a party, at wrangling destructive children, living with teenagers and little ones, this fun time, where we are no longer young, but are still strong.

The party turned, Em and I broke it up. I embarrassed EG by making him and his friends help with the clean-up. Off we wound through the hills back home. I turned on our street and noticed styrofoam wasn't just on our lawn, but on a neighbor's. Their child had asked for a piece of ours and taken it home, for her own blocks and bits. Oh dear, I thought, sending a text to their mom offering our help to clean it up in the morning.

These are good days, I think. The house is mostly done. We are all healthy. I got that promotion. J is in his last year of his master's degree. The little ones are still little, content with silly jokes and playing as much as they can. EG is serious, but very fun, trying his best at school, unhappy with chores, making plans for a band--he can repair the guitar, a friend plays the drums, another the bass--and wishes he was a sophomore.

It's going faster, I can tell.

Deactivations and Delusions

"The failure of people to draw the clear line between the fascism of 1944 and the fascism of today is exhausting, debilitating, and I cannot for my own mental health, continue this charade," is what I wrote this morning in the required form when you mark "Other" on Facebook's deactivation screen.

It's not just Facebook, it's all of it, everything.

When my heart broke into unidentifiable pieces, after November 2016, I didn't realize it would be a permanent state.

The months after the election were probably the worst, but in many ways, the worst still happens every morning, all day, into the exhaustion of night.

I didn't know I could be so angry, so furious, all the time. This morning, on a drive down a bucolic road, I thought about the tragedy of the 2004 election, when I was despondent about the reelection of President Bush. I couldn't see how so many Americans accepted his lies, sending us into a war of whim, resulting in the deaths of a million people, destabilizing the region, the creation of ISIS. But to be honest, I should have known in 2004 that a 2016 would come. Truth isn't truth, it's whatever you decide to consume. Truthiness is reality, not satire.

Last week I burst into tears just thinking about the election.

I try not to think about that night, or Secretary Clinton specifically, because it hurts so bad. My fellow Americans picked, on purpose, a man who assaults women, who thinks nothing of women, who is a racist, who wants to turn away refugees, who wants to break up families, a willfully ignorant person who considers no one, not even his family, more than himself, especially not the sacred work of leading America.

I asked Siri how long it had been since the election, "It has been 500 days." The roundness of the number felt like a weight.

The election breakdowns showed 53% of white women voted for him, and it broke me.

Last Saturday, after a morning spent encouraging a reluctant young participant to try a new sport at the rec center, I took my kids to a local place for lunch. I happened upon a meeting of young Republicans. About 1/4 of them were women. I could feel the shriek building in my throat. I fantasized about yelling at them. I didn't. Not even when they dwindled down, to two men in blue blazers, and one woman.

I didn't pull her aside and say, "You can leave, it's OK, they hate you, they hate me, they'll never respect you, you are nothing but a vessel for them, a prize, a thing, not an actual human with rights, the president isn't an anomaly, he's the actual expression of conservatism today, you can leave, I will help." But it wouldn't help.

Nothing helps a white woman complicit in her own repression, economically dependent on a white man, and therefore propping him up, to the true detriment of our Republic. Poisoned against other women, all our sisters. Tangible economic ties from patriarchy through structural racism lead us to perpetuate the precarious position, continually throw women of color under to maintain our position.

Women aren't delusional, they're economically invested in Trump being "ordained by God to be president." Creating this fiction of a man who is divinely inspired, placed where he should be, to help bring Christianity back to America, a place where 80% of us are Christian. What if he is just the manifestation of our rot, not our divinity, the worship of money and idols in one avaricious form.

That's what I think about when I hear you're still a Republican, can't wait to vote for another Republican. Because you don't understand what the world is like for people who are not like you, who don't have your privileges and security, people who just need to pull themselves up by the bootstraps and stop complaining so much!

I want a shirt to wear, a card to hand out, to say, "I'm 47%, not 53%. I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry."


You'll notice I haven't even brought up the hacking of the election by Russians, obstruction of justice, the misinformation of fake news and our social feeds, because that's the most predictability of this all. He told us who he was. You thought it was entertainment.

It should have been enough when he made fun of a disabled man, but it wasn't.

It should have been enough when he called Mexicans rapists, but it wasn't.

It should have been more than enough when he sneered about a professional woman's menstrual cycle. He was just having fun, just poking the establishment in the eye! It's funny! Well, your children will be just as drafted as mine in this hilarity.

I’ve been considering how we used to think things would get better—the arc of the universe bending toward justice—and I just don’t know if it’s true anymore, if it ever was. The hubris of our time, coming of age at the end of the Cold War, young adults at the turn of the century, maybe gave us a misplaced sort of hope in what was possible.

On dark mornings I don't know what's possible, the air a vacuum, the Republic shredding.

Trump isn't an anomaly, he's not a freak accident, he is the culmination of 40 years of appealing to a base with racism, sexism, nativism, and hollow morals. The fact that good Christian people voted for him, is not only disgusting, it makes me realize that all the 90s moralizing was nothing but hollow lies anyway.

A Facebook friend posted recently about going to the Anne Frank home in Amsterdam, about visiting a concentration camp on this family trip. It made me so, so, so angry I had to leave Facebook. This is the same friend who took her son to see Trump when he visited our state because "he was such a big fan." That level of disconnection between what is happening now and what once did makes me feel like I'm crazy.

Don't you see this is how it started? With people saying America First, then blood and soil? By marginalizing and blaming minorities? By making their country about the few, and not all? Nazism didn't happen by accident. It happened because 1/3 of people started destroying another 1/3 while the other 1/3 just watched. Good people watching, but not the right things. I don't watch the news! It's too much! It makes me feel bad! So much negativity! Because it's not about you, not yet. It's always too late when you wake up. How are you raising a boy who is a "fan" of a man who assaults women and moves through the world defrauding anyone he can, who has cheated on every wife, especially right after she has given birth.

Meanwhile I'm the Cassandra in a cul-de-sac, forever the hysteric.

I turn sometimes to J and say, "I hate him, I hate him so much." He shrugs the shrug of the pessimist. It's easier, somehow, to be in this world and expect nothing, or to expect the worst from people, because then you're not disappointed or anguished, you're just right.

I had to leave because I was so angry.
I had to leave because you're not angry enough.

Avarice and corruption are fine as long as Ivanka's dress is pretty, I guess.

I unfollowed another person when they posted about how family friendly and wonderful the Trump resort was. A nice place to stay is fine, I guess, never mind the corruption, the ties to organized crime, line the pockets of wicked Russian oligarchs, put my greenbacks next to the emoluments clause, take your daughters to this place, because they do not matter, they are things, as all women are.

Every time I see a mother torn from her children I think, you voted for that. I fantasize about posting those ICE videos on the pages of people I know voted for him. This is what you voted for, I say, let them watch the children crying and the police state built on racism and nationalism.

I don't post the video, it might be over the line. A line I drew, not them, because they do not care. Better for me to walk away. The votes of the misinformed, the easily fooled, the "low information."

"This is all your fault," My mother said, when I walked through her door the day after the election. "Your fault and all your friends," she continued, "You didn't do enough."

She might be right, I don't know.

I thought America was smarter, kinder, bigger picture than this, and I was wrong. How is this livable? So that's what I'm mostly thinking about.

Oh HAI blog

So it's been more than a year since I posted on my own blog. That's...that's...a long time?

Blogging isn't dead, it's just that I blog for other people now instead of for myself. Only now it's called "content" and I get actually paid to write, as opposed to this, which I do for the love. Or for the pain. Or when I am bored.

But it turns out I am not bored, and wasn't bored for the 6 years after I left my office job for the greener, free and cloudless pastures of self-employment. Working around the clock, day and night, weekends, never taking a holiday, precludes boredom; it is the opposite of boredom. And then, one day, late last year, I started slipping down a hole of exhaustion and had the ganas to change. Working mostly from home is wonderful, and there is also never a break. And the pressure you feel when if you don't work you don't bring home utility payments, it was a lot.

So I said BYE to all that and got a new job. This new job was written for me, doing what I love, with cool people, and for cool software product. It's kind of amazing. They brought me on to launch a product, build a community, and content strategy for customer marketing. I got bored writing that so we'll cease this recap and move on to the more important things...

Like...

How has your style evolved in the past years? More yoga pants? Less boot-cut jeans? I'm going for modern with an edge of sport lately. It's important that you know this for no good reason. Old Navy black medium rise rockstar skinnies with 77% cotton, 21% poly, 2% lycra are life.

What do you love at Costco right now?

The most important question I was asked in my job interview was, "What shows are you watching right now?" and then I was like, "You are my people. I will work here. I will accept this rose." What are you watching on TV? Do you miss Trading Spaces? I feel so bad for Cat Deeley and the So You Think You Can Dance crew with this kids edition that I can't even watch the show. My DVR is at 89% and I am severely behind on all my stories. I'm for sure going to watch that NOVA special on Petra. No one erase it.

I want to remodel my house which also terrifies me. The horror stories! The money! I will be crippled by faucet indecision and existential lighting crises.

The kids are fine, thanks for asking, they are giants who barely love me and are way too tall.

Remember blogging, guys?

The Mandolin

I've only wanted to play the mandolin for twenty years.

I don't know why I didn't ever pick one up. Maybe it was 14 years of piano lessons, or 10 years of viola lessons, but I didn't even think learning the mandolin was a real option. No one I knew played, how would I even go about learning? I'd pick up a guitar every once in a while thinking I'd try my hand, but it didn't stick; my heart wasn't in it. I'd hear the mandolin on the radio, double tinkling in a solo, or in the background, and think wistfully, "I wish I played the mandolin."

My friend Nancy picked up the ukelele last year, playing solos on her porch on warm summer nights, teaching herself after her children went to bed. It was important, she said, to do this one thing for herself.  "I always wanted to learn how to play the mandolin," I told her.
"Why don't you!?" She said, her enthusiasm radiating, making the whole world seem possible.

Stepping into a local music shop, I saw the mandolins in the back corner. I picked out a matte model and put it on layaway. You'd crow to hear that it was a replica of models from the 1950s--something I didn't know until I picked it out from the crowd and brought it to the register. I wanted to prove to myself I could earn it slowly: paying for the instrument over months, carefully setting aside the money, deliberately anti-instant gratification. I couldn't just walk in and out with a mandolin, I needed to be sure.

I brought a Gretsch mandolin home on a Tuesday night, in a snug case with a learn-it-yourself spiral book. Every night, after the kids are in bed and the evening slows, I pull out my mandolin and teach myself how to play. I practice the chords and learn the fingering, finally understanding how to fret and strum.

My mother dropped by the house on a Friday afternoon. She noticed the mandolin case on the couch. "What's that?" She asked.

"Let me show you," I said, unzipping the case and pulling out the satin wood New Yorker Gretsch, "It's a mandolin. I've always wanted to learn how to play, I don't know why, so one day I decided I would."

Her eyes started shining.

She told me about growing up in Spain, how her uncles, aunts, and cousins played the mandolin. Gathering on cool nights of coastal Galicia, singing traditional folk songs and entertaining their families. They all played, she said, recounting the names and memories of those long ago nights, in kitchens and around the fire. Smoky and salted fish on worn wooden tables. Fog rising outside. The high, clear, old songs echoing from the mandolins.

Maybe the blood wants what it wants, perhaps our DNA passes along tiny codes for music, tradition, and connection, just like it did our dark hair and loud voices. Who can say?

One thing I can say: I play the mandolin.

Get Ready for Giving Tuesday - December 2nd

Are you ready to join the world in giving more this year? December 2nd is this year's Giving Tuesday, a global day of generosity and giving.

What I love about Giving Tuesday is it's not about any one organization, charity, or need, it's about supporting the causes you feel are most important, regardless of the cause. After several days of wanton shopping (ahem,) Giving Tuesday is my reminder to contribute in a way that resonates with our family.

There's something about being grateful for our plenty enough that we share it. A few years ago I discovered how the practice of gratitude can change the way I see the world. In short, what you put into the world is what comes back to you. If you help others, you will have help when you need it. It's not a tit-for-tat thing, it's a more abundant way of seeing how much you already have and sharing it--because so many of us have resources regardless of circumstance. Giving Tuesday is a day that you can join with me, and the entire world, to share your plenty with those who are in need.


I'll be back on Giving Tuesday with a few of my favorite organizations and I'd love to hear from you about causes that you love to support--it would be great to share them!

Help me get the word out about Giving Tuesday! Giving Tuesday is coordinated by the United Nations Foundation with a presence on every major platform. Follow Giving Tuesday or just post your own Giving Tuesday ideas.

Giving Tuesday on Instagram:
Post an #UNselfie
#GivingTuesday tag

Giving Tuesday on Twitter:
@GivingTues and the #GivingTuesday tag

Giving Tuesday on Facebook:
Post any update and tag #GivingTuesday
You could also upload an #UNselfie

Giving Tuesday on your blog:
Post a blog telling your network about Giving Tuesday, use the #GivingTuesday tag when you share your post.