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NauenThen

Tom & Johnny

December 29, 2016
Great meal, gross dessert.
Bessie & I only once have managed to take a photo of ourselves—we invariably are deep in conversation that excludes documentation. Even yesterday, when we and our husbands had lunch, I took photos of Tom & Johnny but none of Bessie & me. I love to see them laughing together, our two handsome men. They have boxing in common and— "What else did you guys talk about?" I just asked. Predictably his answer (in his irritated, why-are-you-even-asking voice) was: I don't know. That's male friendship, isn't it?  Read More 
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Found among my papers

December 28, 2016
Tags: William Carlos Williams
(I miss typewriters.) (Typos corrected.)
Williams taught the same formal message at each ((college)): that the new poetry, esp. the new American poetry, would have to be "consonant—con-sonant—with our age and range of our physical understanding. It must sound with our age and sound new and vigorously." Alchemist of the word as he was, he was looking  Read More 
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Maybe

December 27, 2016
Maybe if the sun came out I wouldn't be sleepy all the time

Maybe if I wasn't ever hungry, I wouldn't be hungry all the time

Maybe if I fixed my office chair, I could sit here all day

Maybe coffee

Maybe Patty Loveless
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I heart my home

December 26, 2016
We don't get a lot of sunlight so when it's bright out back, it always stops me in pleasure. I love our little apartment, our cat, our quilt, our duvet, our books, the gate David Morrison made 30 years ago, the little bit of view we have.

Also, this is the one sunny day in a week.  Read More 
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Christmas

December 25, 2016
Wall on St. Mark's Place, Christmas Day.
The gym: closed.
The dojo: closed.
B&H: closed.
Downtown Bakery: closed.
Whole Foods: closed.

I go for a walk. I end up on 14th Street & the Sabbath security guard is out front of the synagogue. ? I ask. It's a Yiddish event, he tells me, & he didn't go home so he was happy to  Read More 
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25

December 23, 2016
We did our annual check-in:

How're we doing?

Good..... How're we doing?

Good.

Whew. And onwards into our 26th year married (33rd together, 37 since we met).
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Have we turned the corner?

December 22, 2016
It's finally winter but the days are getting longer. I have to say that being born in the winter (February) but during a time of increasing light feels like a fortunate thing.

My friend ("I'm a Republican but I voted straight Democratic") thinks it will be good to have businesspeople in the White House. He's a business guy, so maybe he's right. I can't see how, but I am trying to be willing to see where I"m wrong & change my mind if warranted, since I don't credit those t.Rump people with being willing or able to change their minds. And I don't want to be like them.  Read More 
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Macbeth: #notmyking

December 21, 2016
Tags: MacBeth
Saw a riveting and fast-moving (110 minutes!) Macbeth last night, at a small theater right around the corner on 4th St.

Tyranny. Ambition. The parallels to today are clear.

How did England survive all these centuries with rulers like that? Do monarchies survive when republics don't, thanks to a loyalty people feel to a king or queen that they don't to an institution or even a way of life? Would there be an England without the queen? I guess royalty is an institution but it's wrapped in a feeling.  Read More 
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Strangers in Their Own Land

December 20, 2016
Just finished Arlie Russell Hochschild's exhausting and eye-opening new book, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and mourning on the American right, a journey to the heart of our political divide. She meets and talks at great length over many years with Tea Party–supporting residents of Louisiana.

Her central issue is  Read More 
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Question

December 19, 2016
Is it fair to say that the South finally won the Civil War?
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I heart my neighborhood (#14,528)

December 18, 2016

I fall into a conversation with a lady who has to be at least 80. She is cultured (mentions many places around the world she's visited, quotes Dante in beautiful Italian) & confesses that the place she most wants to visit but never has is England.

England? I repeat, thinking, it's not that hard to get to England.

England. My people are from there in fact, she tells me, although it turns out that was in the 1600s.

As a convert to Catholicism, she continues, I resent how Henry VIII treated the Church, so I've never gone.

You could go and spit on Cromwell's grave, like the Irish do, I wish I'd said.

 

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Hi, coup

December 15, 2016
Tags: conspiracy theories, North Carolina, coup
I took this picture last month in western North Carolina, near where my friend Forrister lives in Murphy. PLEASE CLICK ON THIS LINK.
Up till today I have scorned conspiracies & those who buy into them (for example, see my post of January 27, 2016; click the tag "conspiracy theories in the column to the left). I believed it to be a personality trait—a flaw, really—one I was too sensible to fall for.

Today something changed.

I'd been softened up by the Russia influence on the election, no doubt, but it's the blatant coup in North Carolina that has made me realize that things really have changed. You can have a conspiracy without hiding it. They can do whatever they want.

What am I going to do? How can this be stopped?

p.s. No blog yesterday because I was at death's door. I knocked & knocked, but I wasn't allowed in. Throw up like I did Tuesday night & you'd be begging to die. You'd be thinking it was imminent.  Read More 
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Gettin' it DONE

December 13, 2016
I feel energized for the first time in a long while. It's great to tick off the ol' to-dos, including a few (a lot!) I'd been procrastinating on. Hoping to get re-energized on this blog too. As with life in general, it's sometimes hard to tell where you are on the curve. Which makes me wonder whether Read More 
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Snow dance

December 11, 2016
Update: It's snowing! I added this photo. OK, it's not very much but it's glittering in the headlights. It's for real.
I'm doing my happy little snow begging, thumpety thump, a flake a flake over the lake, oh please please make me a flake.

No wait, not that kind of a flake.

My dad's immortal poem, delivered frequently & solemnly:

Snow snow snow
Ho ho ho

WillisWeather® aka my personal weathercaster aka Steve tells me it's on the way......  Read More 
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My neighborhood

December 9, 2016
In front of my building. The confetti is actually belts, all handmade by "James the belt guy."
I still live here, & the East Village will always resist.

It was so windy today I was riding my bike backwards down the street, practically.
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Men

December 8, 2016
This afternoon at karate I ran into a guy I like a lot, someone I hadn't seen in a while. We hugged & then halfway through listening to another friend talk about his housing issues, I threw my arms around X & said, I'm so glad to see you! I love you!

He said, I'm glad  Read More 
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A drag

December 7, 2016
I am having such a hard time being light-hearted here. It'll come back, I know, & I've been able to make myself do things like go to karate & make a dentist appointment, so I can feel my resolve/energy/enthusiasm coming back. But I don't want to be the person who fiddles while Rome burns.
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30 years

December 6, 2016
It was 30 years ago today that my dear dad, Hans Nauen, died.

I've thought a lot lately about his experiences as a Jew in Nazi Germany. He was sure nothing like Hitler could happen here—we're too heterogeneous, too big, & we have the example of Germany. I wonder....
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Which is worse?

December 5, 2016
That Agent Orange really won the election?

or

That the election was hacked/rigged/fraudulent/?
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Reve

December 2, 2016
So good to have a kitten in the house. Reve, short for Reverdy, is Maggie's 10-week-old new arrival. She's gone from hiding under the tub, to exploring everything to zoning out on my lap. Lucky for me, Maggie goes away a lot & I get Reve all to myself.
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If we can make it

December 1, 2016
If we can just make it through December, the rest of the year won't be so bad...

OK, I am thinking about fragile democracies & having just finished (hooray!) a big job, about conflict of interest & dinner with my posse, threats to freedom & Steve's late roses. "[C]aught in the maelstrom of historic upheavals, we  Read More 
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SoDak in the news

November 30, 2016
Tags: South Dakota, Chabad
I have been obscurely proud of being from the state that not only has the smallest Jewish population but the only state without a Chabad (& they are counting the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, & possibly Guam).

No more! The Orthodox are coming!

Gauging by the elastic Judaism in my day, it will be quite strange for everyone. Guam might be more familiar to everyone, come to think of it.  Read More 
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From the vault IX

November 29, 2016
Two random lines I just found going through old papers:

A coquette, pretending to be very angry, bites off her lover's hand up to the wrist.

Life's memories include those recalled from books.
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From the vault VIII

November 28, 2016
october 15 1977

elinor quits her job & swears never to work for anyone else again.

she further realizes she is unskilled.

who would pay her enough to live on & not hassle?

[then I said I wished I typed better & thought I could maybe make money writing a pornographic sci-fi novel]

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Butts

November 27, 2016
Johnny & I are watching college basketball at the SideWalk.

Hey Ronnie, he says to a guy, & introduces me.

Ronnie says, Who're you rooting for?

Before Johnny can explain that he roots for the school that graduates the highest percentage of athletes, I say, Florida.

Are you from Florida? Ronnie says.

Nope, they have the  Read More 
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Anti-semitism

November 25, 2016
This gorgeous Basil King painting will take you to "Hitler's Babies:Anti-Semitism, America, and the Jews" in Tablet magazine.
I'm trying to find coherent & consistent stats, but the fact is, that despite the rhetoric, Jews are attacked more than Muslims. My rabbi meets with the imam of the nearby mosque: We have your back. Do they have ours? Do they even know they should?

Both the left & the right seem to be antisemitic in noticeable ways.  Read More 
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Happy turkey day!

November 24, 2016
Happy to repost this, I think my only holiday poem ever. A found poem at that, from a long-ago email that I fixed a little bit, mostly by adding line breaks. The original writer had no idea what he'd given me.

Thanksgiving Found Poem  Read More 
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Work

November 23, 2016
What I do in my own office as a freelance editor/writer doesn't feel like a job. It's work but my time is largely my own. However, this week I spent two full days somewhere else, getting paid for my time and attention. It was fun—the work itself was absorbing & I liked the folks—but it kept me away from my computer & this blog.  Read More 
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What now

November 18, 2016
Steve's antique stove. His whole house is made of reclaimed brick. ... Thought I'd throw in one last SC photo & have something to hang this link on.
I guess it is better to prepare for the worst than hope for the best.

Following this writer's advice I'm going to do exactly this (& if you do also, will you send me what you write?):

Write down what you value; what standards you hold for yourself and for others. Write about your dreams for the future and your hopes for your children. Write about the struggle of your ancestors and how the hardship  Read More 
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Activism & thinking

November 17, 2016
So much smart stuff has been said over the last week—encouraging, staunch, consoling. Here are some of the articles & thought pieces I've read & will read again.

* NYC activists & doers talk strategy.

* Step-by-step help in standing up for what's right.

* I too am a coastal elite from a rural state, & I agree that  Read More 
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