ever-fixed mark

The local hospital is constructing a new wing, but has hired non-union electricians to cut costs. The electricians’ union, accordingly, is picketing the hospital and associated medical office buildings with signs bearing web site addresses such as “drsmithexposed.com,” which detail malpractice settlements for doctors associated with the hospital.

So now whenever I need to, say, visit my endocrinologist to see if my cancer has recurred (it hasn’t! yay!), I have to run a gauntlet of protesters lending the hospital the delightful ambience of an abortion clinic. Their cause may be just, but this is stress I don’t need.

What irks me more than anything is how ineffectual the whole thing is. I mean, if I see union pickets in front of my supermarket, I drive on two-tenths of a mile to the next one and buy my provisions there. The store that’s gouging its employees suffers the short-term consequence of the loss of my weekly grocery money, giving it further incentive to settle the matter quickly. See? Effective.

Now here I am driving up to my doctor’s office, seeking an adjustment for my thyroid medication. I spy the protest signs. Do I call another endocrinologist in Boston who’s on the right side of the angels and electricians? Contact my primary care doctor to arrange for the necessary referral? Fax my current doctor to have all my records transferred? Wait four months until the new doctor can see me? Hell, no. I keep on trucking as large men with sensational signs sneer at me, and my doctor receives my copay and insurance money as usual. How does this inconvenience anyone but me?

The things that attracted us to Port City were the excellent schools, proximity to the ocean, and the tough but fair juvenile justice system.

Bill Cunningham New York, a documentary about the New York Times society and street-fashion photographer, was playing at our local art house this weekend, providing me with some unlikely insight into this mid-life crisis that recently led me to quit a perfectly good job without having another position lined up.

Cunningham, who is 83 (!), still bicycles around Manhattan to his various assignments, but that was not the inspiring part. Nor was I impressed by his award from the French Ministry of Culture, his friendship with Lady Astor, or the praise heaped on him by Anna Wintour. (Was I the only person in America who read The Devil Wears Prada and rooted against the beleaguered assistant? Honestly, if I were Anna Wintour, I would have kicked Lauren Weisberger’s ass to the curb the first time she pulled a mopey face about fetching coffee.)

No, it was Cunningham’s strong point of view that won me over. He did one thing, and he did it so well that he had the fashion world at his feet, without (seemingly) kowtowing, publicizing, self-marketing, or otherwise promoting himself. Not that I’m against self-promotion, but it was a good lesson that when you’re at the top of your game and immersed in your art, you don’t need to be so concerned with your rank.

And then…you’re free to be nice. Cunningham was so gosh-darned nice. It truly was the feel-good movie of the year.

(There was also some impressive fashionista footage. I don’t really, shall we say, participate in the world of fashion, but I do like to look at pretty dresses or, alternatively, at Go Fug Yourself. My favorite scene in the whole film was when a former diplomat, modeling a hideous suit printed with a GIANT acid-yellow glen plaid, deadpanned, “I’m not sure what clan it’s from.” Dude, all of Scotland is wondering the same thing.)

My problem is that I don’t have that point of view, that one discipline, that immersion. I manage a department of people who perform six different roles, and a lot of my time is spent marketing those roles to other groups in the organization, convincing people that they, essentially, should let us help. Management is a worthy discipline, and marketing is a worthy discipline, but I don’t feel either is what I was born to do.

Husband — who was beyond supportive through my decision process; it was actually his idea that I should just quit and take the summer off — was a bit alarmed to hear my insight. “You do realize,” he said, “that you’re a little…old…to start a career in the arts?” Well, I had been thinking about going back to project management, but now that you mention it, Julia Margaret Cameron didn’t even start taking photos until she was forty-eight!

There is a something front stalled over the Northeast, hemmed in by a whatever flow and depressed by a blah pressure system. Translation? RAIN. Rain for the past few weeks; rain in the forecast for the foreseeable future. The mood in the region is palpably suicidal.

Southerners always ask how we Yankees can stand the winters, but frankly, in New England it’s not the winter that gets you. IT’S THE SPRING.

This weekend I had the great privilege of moderating a panel discussion of book bloggers at the Newburyport Literary Festival, which as usual was a huge success thanks in no small part to my friend, the formidable and efficient co-chair Jennifer Entwistle. It was great fun chatting with dedicated book bloggers Marie Cloutier, Kevin Cooney, Dawn Rennert, and Sarah Rettger. From our conversation, I gleaned a long list of blogs, podcasts, vlogs, and Twitter feeds that I really must check out, which should strengthen my powers of procrastination considerably.

Some highlights:

• Bethany Groff, a local historian whose Brief History of Newbury I’ve devoured, took us through a tour of Puritan court records. Titled “Dirty Sexy Newbury: Love, Death, and Barnyard Brawls in Early Newbury History,” her talk was more like Court TV than the Harvard Law Review. What a fabulous presenter.
• Paul Harding, author of Tinkers, gave a very good reading from the beginning of his novel and was extremely entertaining during his Q&A. (Someone asked him why he shunned adverbs, and he said that when you choose the right verb, you don’t always need an adverb. I’ll have to remember that - unfailingly - in the future.)
• Meg Mitchell Moore published her first book, The Arrivals, while working part-time and keeping three small children alive. I think that alone qualifies her for the Man Booker prize. I’m looking forward to reading it when it comes out in a few weeks. It must be good; the publisher offered her a two-book deal.
• Andre Dubus III read from his memoir, the recently-published Townie, set largely in Haverhill in the ’70s. He’s read from this as a work-in-progress the last two years (covered here and here), but I couldn’t resist going back to the well. He’s an enormously engaging speaker. (Damn, that adverb crept by me. Stealthily.)

The highlight of the weekend was the after-party, where I heard Andre Dubus shout deafeningly (damn!) to Paul Harding, “I loved your fucking novel, man! I loved your fucking novel!” So I took the opportunity to introduce myself to Paul Harding and tell him that I also loved his fucking novel. Because, really, how often do you get to drop the f-bomb in front of a Pulitzer Prize winner?

Good Lord, that was an exhausting vacation. What with the dinners and the parties and CHRISTMAS! and New York during the Blizzard of the Century and ice skating and skiing and snowboarding I can’t wait to go back to work for some peace and quiet.

On a day when both children were unexpectedly at home (you’re open during the blizzard, Day Care, but not on New Year’s Eve?), I decided to take them on a little photo safari. I gave each of them a loaded Holga (wonderful thing about a plastic camera; your child can drop it in a snowbank with impunity), and we went out to the mall to see what we could shoot. I showed the boys how to advance the film, set the depth of field, and trip the shutter. (There are only two aperture settings on a Holga - “sunny day” and “cloudy day” - so they’re hardly worth changing.) I tried to give some pointers on composition, but they were having so much fun I didn’t want to restrict them too much. The kids were very excited, and it was all I could do to stop them from shooting a whole roll in the first five minutes.

When we got home, I showed them how to load the rolls into the developing tank, an admittedly unexciting demonstration given that it all takes place inside the changing bag. Then I asked them to suit up to help me develop them. Here’s Minor all suited up in his paint smock and rubber gloves:

After I had developed three rolls - two from Aitch, one from Minor - I realized that Minor hadn’t really gotten the hang of advancing the film. His style tended heavily toward the impressionistic, the result of multiple exposures:

Aitch’s style was more documentary. Here’s the coffee shop. It has a nice industrial feel:

Here’s a street scene. Aitch’s height gives him a good perspective here:

I encouraged him to try to fill the frame with an image, and he produced this shot of the courthouse:

And we got the ghost bus! Ghostly, no?

Finally, here’s a portrait of me trying to discern the number of exposures left in the film in my camera. This is one of my favorite pictures of myself, and it’s not just because my face is obscured. I think he really got something of me here.

Husband and I and a few hundred or so of our fellow Newburyportions attended an Aimee Mann concert at the middle school auditorium last night. That woman has the physique of a teenage supermodel. I knew she’d been around since the dawn of MTV, so I Googled her. She’s fifty freaking years old! Is this what I can look forward to when I reach un certain âge?

Mann was wonderful, but she appeared to be nonplussed at the prospect of performing at the middle school, saying she hadn’t been thus situated since her eighth-grade talent show, and asking us whether we’d seen My Fair Lady there recently. The banter was charming, but I felt like jumping up to inform her that no less than Richard Thompson had graced that stage, so: respect.

I mean, I’ll always thrill to the sound of Ms. Mann throwing off the emotional shackles of her repressive stockerbroker boyfriend in “Voices Carry,” but no one is calling HER one of the best guitarists in the world, is ALL I’m saying.

Can you guess which of the incidents, below, is a real-life local news story, and which is the plot of a scary blockbuster movie?

A. A large, smelly, gelatinous, alien-looking life form terrorizes a small town, sending people screaming into the streets.

B. On the eve of a major holiday week, a fisherman in a tourist town claims to have spotted a great white shark, but no one believes him and the beaches remain open.

Yes! You guessed it! Both are local news stories AND movie plots! To wit:

The Blob

Jaws

Just your average summer in New England.

Husband and I talked it over and decided that, of everyone in our social circle, the people most likely to be covert Russian spies are….us. No family in the area, jobs that no one can explain, bizarre social habits…I wonder how long it will take for someone to turn us in?

For the last week, a sandwich board has been sitting out on the green of the next town over, advertising the upcoming Memorial Day festivities. I finally got close enough to read the fine print. It was a series of war re-enactments, distributed over the weekend thusly:

Saturday, May 29th: The Revolutionary War Era
Sunday, May 30th: The Civil War Era
Monday, May 31st: WWI through Afghanistan

Husband: Monday is going to be a busy day.
Me: Should we be re-enacting wars that are STILL GOING ON?

I drove by the green today with some trepidation, but there did not seem to be any IEDs buried on the High Road. I did get a glimpse of the other side of the sandwich board, though: “Live Nativity Tonight 7:15.”

I guess the Civil War buffs need something to enact in the off-season.