ever-fixed mark

Good morning, ma’am. This is the front desk with your six a.m wake-up call. It is currently 10 degrees outside. Have a wonderful day.

Dear Hyatt management,

You may want to reconsider the wake-up greeting for your Chicago area guests, at least until the weather turns.

Sincerely,

A cold guest

After landing in Chicago on Sunday night I struck up a conversation with my cab driver, hoping to practice my Arabic. He was Palestinian and told me that he wouldn’t be able to understand the Tunisian dialect, but his English was excellent and he held forth on a number of topics in that tongue.

“I don’t blame the Israelis for our problems,” he said. “Israelis, Palestinians — we’re all just trying to live our lives. We’re all being manipulated by our governments.”

Okay, I can buy that.

“Our governments lie to us. Like, there’s no such thing as 9/11, the Holocaust — these are stories the governments tell us to get us to act in a certain way.”

Wow…we’re not even on the tollway and already we have conspiracy theories on not one but two major historical events. If he denies the moon landing I may be able to complete my Taxi Driver Bingo Card.

I did not attempt to set him straight. In the first place, people who subscribe to totally irrational conspiracy theories do not listen to reason; but also, a guiding principle that has served me well is Don’t Piss Off a Strange Man with Whom You are Alone in a Car at Night.

Anyway, I find I have more tolerance for these kinds of arguments since living in Tunisia and suffering La Presse as the sole source of my daily news. The governments in Arab countries control news in a way that we Americans can’t even imagine. For example, on 9/12 I accessed the on-line version of La Presse to see how they were reporting the tragedy. The fall of the twin towers was front-page news, but there was no mention of the hijackers or Al Qaeda. It was reported like a particularly unfortunate air traffic control accident. It’s no wonder that the Tunisians or Palestinians don’t trust what the media dishes out.

Of course, we recognize that the American media are biased and, in many cases, influenced by the government, but at least the different media outlets present us with an array of different biases. If you triangulate between Fox News, CNN, and Jon Stewart you might arrive at some approximation of the truth. And we’re free to move around the country, ask questions, do research, post crazy conspiracy theories on the web, etc. without the government opening up a file on us.

Uh, right?

Anyway, we’re reading Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop for my book club, and I had to laugh at this description of How the News is Made, Western style, where government control is less of a danger than the journalist’s desire to create a story:

Why, once Jakes went out to cover a revolution in one of the Balkan capitals. He oveslept his carriage, woke up at the wrong station, didn’t know any different, got out, went straight to a hotel, and cabled off a thousand-word story about barricades in the streets, flaming chuches, machine guns answering the rattle of his typewriter as he wrote, a dead child, like a broken doll, spreadeagled in the roadway below his window — you know.

Well they were pretty surprised at his office, getting a story like that from the wrong country, but they trusted Jakes and splashed it in six national newspapers. That day every special in Europe got orders to rush to the new revolution. They arrived in shoals. Everything seemed quiet enough, but it was as much as their jobs were worth to say so, with Jakes filing a thousand words of blood and thunder a day. So they chimed in too. Government stocks dropped, financial panic, state of emergency declared, army mobilized, famine, mutiny — and in less than a week there was an honest to God revolution under way, just as Jakes had said. There’s the power of the press for you.

I spent some time in Portsmouth, New Hampshire this weekend. Portsmouth is a quaint little town with some great shops. I was very tempted to buy one of these beauties.

I thought it would look swell in my darkroom. Then I could type my blog posts on it! Hey, does anyone know where I can buy a mimeograph machine?

I expected Portsmouth to be inundated with candidates, but there was only one Edwards rally in the morning, which I missed. They did leave behind their detritus.

The coffee shop across the street from these signs was so crowded on Saturday evening that I was forced to share a table. As soon as I sat down, my seatmate asked, “So, are you a Hillary fan?”

“Hmm, why didn’t you ask if I were a Mitt fan? Or a Mike fan?”

He looked alarmed for a minute, and then I saw him take inventory: female, unveiled, alone in a public place without benefit of male escort: probably a Democrat, Independent, or call girl. (And with that coat, definitely not a call girl.) “Well, what do I know?” he said. “I’m from Massachusetts.”

“Me, too,” I said, and then drank to the freedom to cross state lines without written permission from my husband, at least until President Huckabee or President Romney takes office. What, you think it can’t happen here? Let me introduce you to a woman who was wearing a mini-skirt and smoking a cigarette on the streets of Tunis in 1974:

(No, I don’t know what the underwear’s all about, but I can tell you she’s not shopping at Victoria’s Secret.)

I caught a significant chunk of the Republican debates on ABC later that evening. I see that Romney has affected Dear Leader’s smirk, and I thought he could not have looked more condescending if he tried. Even his wife seemed to be slumped in her chair as though thinking, “Honey, wipe that look off your face!” The only one who came off worse than Romney was his attacker-in-chief, McCain. What was with that maniacal laugh every time he cracked a joke at Romney’s expense? I thought McCain definitely appeared deranged. His cackle is going to be the Dean-like “rebel yell” of 2008.

I flew JetBlue to and from Florida. JetBlue has in-flight TV at each seat, and although I had David Copperfield to keep me company (the book, not the magician) I could not resist the siren song of Mindless Entertainment. So I availed myself of cable channels that we do not have at home. This is how I got hooked on “Project Runway.” Bravo was showing back-to-back episodes during both flights.

I’m not all that interested in fashion, but I was on the edge of Seats 2C and 5D waiting to see what the designers would come up with at the end of each episode, and whether my judgment would jibe with that of the judges. As someone who would have failed junior-high Home Ec had my mother not sewn my very hip Diane Keaton-inspired checked vest for me, I am fascinated that someone could choose fabrics, cut, and sew a garment in 24 hours, let alone design one.

And Tim Gunn is totally my new gay celebrity boyfriend. (Sorry, Anderson.) I loved how he gave honest and constructive feedback, yet still managed to be kind. And I adored his matter-of-fact yet encouraging “Make it work!” as he left the designers. I think I learned more about management from six hours of “Project Runway” than from two days of the conference I attended.

Spring break! Whoooo-hooooooo!

What’s that?

It’s not Spring Break?

Then what the HELL am I doing in Fort Lauderdale?

It’s coming back to me now. I may be expected to give a speech or something. I sure hope I wrote one.

At any rate, it will be two nights of uninterrupted sleep, which will be welcome. The resort is nice…ish. The guest rooms are arranged in a bunch of outbuildings that look like cheap condos in a housing development, but the interior is pretty nice. It’s big, with a large marble bathroom that’s divided into three sub-rooms: Toilet, shower, and sink. The shower room features a voyeuristic glass wall between it and the toilet room, a Schrager-ish touch I’ve never quite understood. Believe me, when you’re the mother of small children the last thing you want is (more) people watching you shower. And, there is a bidet!

I would bet a hundred dollars right now that 70% of Americans don’t know what a bidet is for. Let’s say 75%. Go ahead, bet me. Stop what you’re doing right this minute and go out and ask four people the purpose of a bidet. If two or more people know the right answer, I’ll send you one hundred Georges.*

There is also a fancy electronic scale. So I was able to do something I’ve been contemplating for a long time.

I weighed myself.

I have been trying to lose weight for a long time, but frankly I haven’t been trying that hard. I really want to lose weight, but I really haven’t wanted to stop eating.

The issue isn’t fat, per se. Decades after puberty, I’m finally over the fact that I don’t conform to the emaciated patriarchal norm for weight and shape. And I ran ten miles at this weight; I’m not that out-of-shape. But I am concerned about how I feel. Lately, I have felt like utter crap: nauseated, over-full, lethargic, headachey. I am pretty sure that it is due to the vast amounts of bread, pasta, and ice cream I have been consuming.

I have blogged this once before, without results. I thought maybe by putting my number out there it would motivate me to do better this time.

We’ll see.

*Not really.

From an e-mail exchange with my friend E in Australia:

ME: Last week I visited the church of saints Ambrogio and Carlo. Allegedly, there was a relic from the heart of St. Charles there.

E: Whose job was it to chop up the saints?

Yesterday, we visited the Keats-Shelley museum at the foot of the Spanish Steps. The museum is housed in the apartment Keats was staying when he died, a room with a really terrific view in which to breathe one’s last tubercular breaths. Shelley really had no connection to the place at all, but like most of the Romantics he spent a lot of time in Italy, and like Keats, he also died there, far too young.

I was reminded of the fascination that Italy held for the English, and I found myself wishing I had brought one of the many English or American novels set in this country, instead of David Copperfield, which doesn’t really set the same mood. The last time I was here, I brought The Marble Faun and really enjoyed it. Wasn’t The Buccaneers set in Rome? Or what about Daisy Miller — doesn’t she catch her death in the Colosseum? I’m positive that half of James’s oeuvre takes place in Italy, because his heroines, like Keats, were forever visiting for their health. There’s always A Room with a View, but I think I need to save that until I get to Florence.

After a brief visit, we had high tea at the Babington English Tea Rooms, which flank the Spanish Steps on the other side. Babington’s has been around since 1893, because as much as the English love Italy, they also love the comforts of home. It was easy to imagine homesick twentieth-century Brits flocking to the place like modern American college students to MacDonald’s.

I’m heading off to Rome tomorrow: part business, part vacation. My mother, who is Italian but has never been to Italy, is coming with me. I am really looking forward to visiting the Old Country and soaking up some of that Eternal City atmosphere.

Weather-wise, it’s the perfect time to visit Rome. Skies will be sunny but there will still be a little fall nip in the air — at least, it will be cooler than here in tropical Boston. But money-wise, it’s the worst time to visit Europe in recent memory. The euro is worth nearly a buck and a half!

I happened to be in Paris on the day that the euro was first introduced as physical currency, way back in ‘ought-two. One day I was calculating HOW MANY francs to the dollar, and the next I was enjoying the ease of a nearly one-to-one ratio of currencies. The euro was worth about 90 cents then, so there was the satisfaction of knowing that everything cost a little less than my rough estimate.

But now the euro is a big, strong currency and he’s thumbing its nose at the little people he climbed over on his meteoric rise to the top. Sure, you’re the big cheese now, €, but currency markets are volatile, and I’ll never forget that I Knew You When.

Back in July, Husband and I took a little trip to Castine, Maine while my parents watched the boys.

Coastal Castine, the picture-perfect site of the Maine Maritime Academy, manages to be both moneyed and authentic. There are few McMansions here; instead, imagine modest but expensively-landscaped and painstakingly maintained Victorian cottages.

If you live in a Victorian, you realize how much money it costs just to keep a house like this attractive. Those windows have been replaced; the wood siding has to be scraped and painted every few years; the roof has been reshingled recently; the stone wall and border take more upkeep than a huge front lawn.

There were lots of opportunities in Castine for Hopper-esque house portraits, but I quickly grew tired of perfect cottages and went looking for some imperfect ones.

I liked to think that this place is owned by a former mobster who long ago pissed off his capo and has come to hide out among the WASPs in Castine, but consequently is afraid to hire a landscaper for fear he will rat out his location. A good thing, too, because can you imagine mowing that vertical lawn?

This guy can. I was afraid that the lawnmower would tumble down on him while I was shooting this picture.

Castine is about as sleepy as these pictures make it look. It’s not really a tourist destination as much as a seasonal place. The locals don’t trouble themselves about anyone they don’t recognize as year-rounders or summer people. The women at the Castine Variety, for example, ostentatiously ignored us until they finished conversing with the known patrons. Then they would turn and not quite make eye contact, as if to say, “Here’s your window of opportunity. If you want to order, you may address me now.” The lobster rolls were pretty good, though.

We awoke to fog on our second day, the day we had planned a six-hour paddling trip. We started off optimistically, convinced it would get better. It didn’t; by early afternoon, it was like kayaking through a dream sequence. We hid out by a little island on one side of the channel while our guide monitored the radio for boat traffic. Enough boats went by without radioing their position to make her nervous about attempting the crossing. We had to paddle up to a narrower crossing, one with a sandbar that usually deterred motorized traffic, and visibility was so low she had to use her compass to set a course. But we made it back in one piece, and even with the pea-soup fog we were able to see porpoises, a seal, ospreys, a blue heron, sea urchins, and starfish.

How foggy was it? Well, this is actually a color photograph.

Oh, the immediacy of film! I snap a photo and then two weeks and two continents later, here they are: Gidget und Mondhündchen.

Incidentally, I am taking my first surfing lesson ever this Sunday (on an ocean, not on a creek). I expect to spend the afternoon plastered prone to the board, too terrified to move. I’ll keep you posted.