So. Big old fussy face start to Saturday.
Last week the laptop battery bloated like too-much-soy-in-the-diet bloat, too-much-dairy bloat. Exploded base panel. Could not be saved.
So. Took thing into who-used-to-be the best computer fixers…once brought back alive my university syllabi, conference papers, academic publications, policy reports, freelance, from, yes, as far back as the 1990s and then beyond. Very cool.
But last week they messed up the new laptop. Still working on that fix. Can’t access decades of professional and personal folders and files. Uncool really understates it. Effed-up more like it.
My brother, who has so much helped me to settle here, took time from his own very full day to get that laptop back to me late on a Friday night and then, after all, laptop no work-y. Uncool computer people, yes, understates it.
And the computer people still have not yet given any acceptable answer to their mess-up.
Needless to write I’ve now placed a hold on my kind-of-large payment until computer store makes good services promised and paid for but not delivered. I taught business ethics at two very respectable universities and no punk computer store in a smallish-ish place will pull stunts without a fight back. Just do your your job and be accountable, people.
(Update October 16, 2022.) To be fair, since my initial quite frustrated post, the computer people are trying to help get back the folder and file structure I so consciously, intentionally, set up only to have one of the technicians there just dump everything into, of all things, One Drive. What the what, but credit to the computer people for trying to fix and to me for patience and perspective.
So. Grumpy me needing to keep calm on a perfectly lovely sunny autumn Saturday. As my then-husband said, “it’s nothing but a thing.” But, realistically, a thing I need to do my work. And I paid a gob of money so I can, like, use this tool to do my work. And time I would need to manually fix something not-my-mistake is valuable too. So not really nothing.
I’ve been in moving process for it seems like (actually has been) months and more months. Some days perspective on the actual meaningful work that I am born and trained to do, is hard to come by. But my incredible family has caught me, even when I’ve slipped, every step of transition. Amazing dedicated doctors and nurses and advisors here have helped on my path back to my full health and how fortunate for that I know I am.
(Once idiot tech issues fixed) I can return to my work. And with, not all but most, of the moving crap now wind in my sails, the spirit for work finally is back. Waking up with the words formed in my brain, can’t wait to hit keyboard, get it all down, fast, fresh, now.
My neglected-for-a-while journal, truly going back to seventh-grade, filling up again.
I was not sure I could retrieve that motivation in the place I now live. But yeah, it’s back and just about the best. I am so happy letting go the cooking, the dishes, the laundry, the floors, the litter pan, and whatever else. (The accounts that must be addressed, gosh I’ve had to move way too much in the last few years, mostly not by my choice, and with every new place, new dumb accounts). (The 2022 medical bills, oh my, but working out.) All that will get done. The writing comes first and this might be the best winter of work.
Antidote to fussy face.
I’ve posted a little about place, my homes, mostly. How I have loved my life in the many diverse places where I’ve savored my planted roots, awed by encounters mostly with people who’ve enriched me, and produced work that I can be proud of.
I’ve written of my good luck to have lived in the Eden Garden that my parents envisioned and made for us kids, the silly friendships, some still going, of sorority house crazy fun, my little studio in Santa Monica, twenties-era places in Chicago and New York, my owned houses in Hyde Park, Austin, and most recently my deliciously functional big-window serene nest also in Austin. Pool at night downstairs there just about the best. Miss terribly, will be back.
Now I have a new nest and it’s creeping on cozy. That would be the chaise lounge and Turkish rug, thank you Dad (and gracias much to my brother who helps me assemble, wall-hang what on my own cannot). I hope you see, Dad, how it all “ties up the room.” And there you go, The Big Lebowski. So thank you too, you funny ole’ Jeff Bridges.
Can’t fail to bow to my way-beyond-generous sister-in-law who, let me count the ways (and they are a lot), in her for-the-ages capable way, smoothed many of the most core got-to-do preparations for an interstate move and the settling in.
(Update October 16, 2022.) More bows for busiest-person-I-know sister-in-law, who helped start the move of my things from storage yesterday. Made me so happy to be reunited with framed artwork (and sure, the diplomas), winter running clothing, my printer, yay yay yay printer. My silly 1980’s rehearsal dress and wedding suit were there too. Oh my, fashion has changed. My favorite brown corduroy barn coat, there in plastic, now here in the closet (fired up and ready to go), how I love corduroy and barn coats both. And those two fashions will never change.
Found also the raincoats and unbrellas taken to France where, wearing them, I was asked directions by random people in Paris who just assumed that I looked French. (On Father’s side, Belgian actually.) Knee boots in those storage units somewhere. Yay and yay.
Lots to donate still, and that will be next step.
My other brother who hired the movers, and the van, himself drove it on a long and no-fun…really no-fun road trip. I think he tolerated about as much of my chatter as anyone could, and he got me, with my Texas stuff, here safe and sound.
My mother who helped tremendously with finances and now that I’m here, helps me get around. No small things, those.
Somehow almost accidentally I now wander around my very calming palette of indigo, grey, and white throughout. A little more lighting (still in storage but we saw it trying to hide in those steel units and we will get it, nowhere there to hide) then just right.
(Someone a bit cluttered, but with whom I stayed for a while, with a sometimes-sometimes-not aesthetic sense…think stuffed turquose kitchen cabinets with red…some non-working but somehow still taking up space red…appliances, white metal rolling thingie holding rotting produce in plastic supermarket bags mid-room, orange and yellow bookcases (and some dirty metal freebies dragged in off the sidewalk), those cheap clear plastic seventies-some little side tables and way way gross, the horror of slipcovers.)
This person, probably not thinking it through before speaking, cracked about the “American” like of (his quote, huh) “palettes.” For a supposedly trained, supposedly objective, social scientist, who by the way claimed dual American citizenship when it was convenient, (and calls self a “better American,” whatever to unpack there) that seems a dumb-on-the-surface cultural assumption.
Not sure about all Americans, but I, this particular American, do like visual as well as other types of harmony, and I’m good with that. My indigo chaise, and the gorgeous rug, which remind me daily of my Dad, are about as pleasing to a peaceful home as can be. They’re cat approved also.
That person, much as I liked him, also told me to “live with” cockroaches crawling on me at night because “it’s Texas.” Yeah, no, and I’m good with that eff-no too. Thrice daily bug spray and oatmeal baths (in repair-needed bathroom) because unkempt yard. Yeah, no, done with that.
That person, who makes a good living, also way, way, way underpaid the woman (of course an underpaid woman) who cleaned the house.
(Update October 16, 2022. Now I have back out of storage my “palette,” of art with its indigo and grey and white (and a little burgundy, a little light olive), which I just simply love and which belongs to times in the path of my life. Billy Morrow Jackson and Renoir. A little splashy Hockey and inventive, so inventive, Rauschenberg, Harlem Renaissance Aaron Douglas (when we lived in New York), a just gorgeous painting by an unhoused Austin man which I bought while volunteering at a benefit. It’s just stuff, to some maybe, but to me vision and history and beauty and meaning.)
I can’t forget the outdoor spaces that do make me so happy to live this Earth. Bracing cold Deep Eddy pool on early summer mornings in Austin, Stacy pool, also Austin, warm spring-fed water then after laps, sweats-bundled on starry winter evenings.
Lady Bird Lake trails, Austin, natch. I ran there so, so much, including just hours before birthing my son, working on the shin splints, later strolling him in that perfect place, first baby jogger then little kid bike, and over one Christmas holiday with my Dad, his Grandfather.
Splendid Pedernales Falls in the Texas Hill Country. The Winedale, Texas, Shakespeare Barn.
Lake Michigan shoreline, right for walking and contemplation anytime, but on Labor Day weekend, all about Oak Street Beach. Chicago Millenium Park’s Pritzker Pavilion, summer evening picnic concerts amidst sculpture and skyline, and Lurie Garden, its brook bottom of tossed-in pennies and its native plantings, all seasons, there accessible for any and every one.
Macatawa, most calming ever sleep, Lake Michigan waves bumping. Sanibel Island, fun drive to in my gorgeous little beige Fiat convertible, top down, shelling an extended-family boatload of shrimp and reading at the helm of my parents’ sailboat.
Malibu, to where I rode my (now vintage) Miyata bike with grad school books on my back.
Allerton Park, just a few miles away from where I now live, gardens, pathways, forests, ponds and streams, architecture, art, that reliably made my sweet adopted shepherd-collie Gunther race in happy-dog circles when he recognized where we were headed down that “go to park, yes, please” country road.
I understand, underscore understand, that I am writing this as a person of some privilege able to choose where and how I live. And that’s not nothing. Rural people here in the United States, those in tent cities legally (if not ethically) assaulted by people too fancy for compassion, refugees from so far too much of this world just desiring safety…probably would be just fine with my situation.
Such a fundamental is home.
So. Now October, my just-the-best neighbors whose Halloween yard and porch are squeal-delightful and get revised daily. Got to do better, their permission given, with my photos there. The other neighbor who just launched his quite large, hilarious, red-eyed, moving parts, big-eared, Halloween inflatables.
Neighborly seasonal decoration competition is on.
My own little gauzy CVS Halloween skeletor, bought clearance while I was staying in hotel during a tough break-up, won’t win any yard or porch prizes, yet propped on my desk and now giving a grin. (Cat Oliver, ordinarily curious about anything and everything, not touching that one, though.)
Did buy some itty-bitty pumpkins for the windowsill but as I have zero talent for drawing or carving, they will watch autumn in their born-natural state.
And most likely, next couple of October days, I will get out for some photos of the blazing gorgeous red trees. This year the color has been breath-taking. Catch it before it’s gone.
Here, like in Austin, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, London, Sussex, Dublin, Paris, Loire, Dordogne, Istanbul, Oslo, really everywhere, personable folk and their adorable dogs.
And now suddenly here the blazing autumn trees and fallen leaves on sidewalks. Yesterday after big storm, rainbow emerging through clouds. Catch before gone.
Place future split Chicago, Austin, maybe some Hudson River Valley, maybe some European house sitting. Worth working for. Si se puede. Or, as some NPR voice said last week, maybe week before that, “cry your eyes out and then get back to work.”
Dayna Finet 