chrysanthemum

on despair and endurance

mechaieh@gmail.com — Fri, 10 Oct 08 02:50:00 UT

(1) Via a sister FAKE fan: L.M. Montgomery's granddaughter breaks silence about her grandmother's suicide, in hopes of helping others:

I'll never know if my grandmother might have been inclined to seek help if she had lived in a less judgmental era or if she had had access to supportive therapy or the medications available today. I would like to think so.

I long to tell her how I wish her family could have known how to help her and how proud we all are of her accomplishments. I also wish that, while my father was still alive, my family could have helped one another more by talking more openly about our feelings around her death. We realize now that secrecy is not the way to deal with the reality of depression and other mental-health issues.

(2) One of my best friends in high school introduced me to Anne of Green Gables. I have been thinking of her, and also about an aunt who killed herself my second year of college.

(2a) I mentioned the aunt in a poem that was published in the Detroit Metro-Times ten or so years ago, and that my pal Socrates has taught to a couple classes' worth of students (and you can bet I am never going to stop feeling thrilled about that); I'll repost it here once I re-excavate that corner of my study.

(3) Via the 9 October issue of Fermilab Today: Friday 10 October is National Depression Screening Day (page links to free local and online screenings).

(4) "A little wisdom is a relentless thing; / everywhere I look, something shatters." - Jacqueline Osherow, "The Hoopoe's Crown" (anthologized in Poetry Daily Essentials 2007, which is a marvelous collection).

(5) I didn't watch the presidential debate earlier this week, but I could hear a near-constant stream of snark from the BYM directed at its participants. I suspect I got the better show.

(6) The University of Chicago Magazine's current cover story is about Barack Obama's U of C-ness. The article quotes Reinhold Niebuhr: "Manâs capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but manâs inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary." It also says this about Obama's ability to manage multiple POVs as demonstrated during his years at the Law School(emphases mine):

Obamaâs legal arguments were empirically, not ideologically, grounded, they say, and he listened well to opponents. His disagreements werenât vehement. Geoffrey Stone recalls his "intellectual empathy." Adam Bonin, JDâ97, a former student, says Obama made sure every point of view got aired in class. "If he wasnât hearing it from a student, heâd make the argument himself," Bonin says. Baird explains his ability to see complexities. "At the Law School, you donât expect to get up and say something like, âAffirmative action is an obvious good,â and get no argument. Constitutional law, voting rights, affirmative actionâthese are complicated topics, and he was good at thinking about them in a complex way, at hearing different points of view and defending his opinion."

(7) Early voting starts in Nashville next Wednesday.

(8) There are times I can barely stand how little I've gotten a handle on since high school, but little by little, I've learned ways to manage certain aspects of that strain of despair. One strategy that stood me in good stead earlier this week has been this: the best way to recover from dealing with someone impossible is to make a point of doing something nice for someone else. (I.e., someone being mean or unappreciative of something I've done = my cue to go find some other people's work and then thank them for sharing their gifts with me. Which is something I aim to do more of in general, but this week making a point of doing so helped calm me down when I found myself inordinately irritated and upset at various asinine goings-on (some of my own making, GAH).)

(9) Last Sunday's morning services were centered on the theme of loving in spite of loss. They opened with "A Promise Through the Ages Rings," a favorite hymn I seldom get to hear outside of Easter (though I've been known to sing it to myself in my car throughout the year). Its verses include:

A life is made of many things:
Bright stars, bleak years, and broken rings.
Can it be true that through all things,
There always, always something sings? ...

For something always, always sings --
This is the message Easter brings:
From deep despair and perished things
A green shoot always, always springs,
And something always, always sings.

And the closing hymn was "Just As Long as I Have Breath":

Just as long as I have breath,
I must answer 'Yes' to life;
though with pain I made my way,
still with hope I meet each day.
If they ask what I did well,
tell them I said 'Yes' to life

Just as long as vision lasts,
I must answer 'Yes' to truth;
in my dream and in my dark,
always that elusive spark.
If they ask what I did well,
tell them I said 'Yes' to truth.

Just as long as my heart beats,
I must answer 'Yes' to love;
disappointment pierced me through,
still I kept on loving you.
If they ask what I did best,
tell them I said 'Yes' to love.

(I've told my church's music minister that I will somehow find some way to haunt him if "Spirit of Life" gets played at my funeral (it's the UU hymn everyone else loves that I personally cannot abide), but "Just As Long As I Have Breath" is one I do want on the program. Not that I'll be in a position to care by then, but I hope -- pray, even -- that I'll have lived the kind of life where, for those gathered to celebrate it, these verses will ring more true than not.)

Perhaps the roses really want to grow

mechaieh@gmail.com — Tue, 7 Oct 08 14:41:00 UT

The "to blog" folder is stuffed, and it's behind the "to answer" and "to ask" folders, which are looming behind the not-insubstantial "honor your existing commitments and connections, you ninny" folder.

So I'm mentally re-defining this space to fit the current level of mayhem: this is where I stash things I want to remember that y'all might happen to find sparkly or amusing or useful as well. If I happen to bear witness or wax lyrical now and then, great, but yeah, this me reminding myself that it's my blog, I can be as random and non-comprehensive as I want.

*waggles tongue at the Insane Self-Inflicted Expectations Fairy*

Ahem. So, on with the random and non-comprehensive - three things that have made me smile today:

(1) Scanning the list of donations so far to this year's auction at my church. Among the many yummy and nifty things, there is an offer of chemistry/biology tutoring from Stanley Cohen -- a gentleman who won a Nobel Prize in 1986.

I sometimes find myself envying the kids at my church for having each other and so many cool adults around 'em. This would be one of those times ... although I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have made the most of such an opportunity 25 years ago, so I'm talking out of my hat. (I did like chemistry - enough to do some extracurricular experimenting with crystals - but I was far, far more interested in boys and music. And while I've flirted with the idea of taking a chemistry class for fun in the sorta-near future, that's even further behind the aforementioned folders at the start of this post. (Plus, let's be honest: still far more interested in men and music. *grin*)

Then again, there was a morning about a month ago where I overheard a conversation between a kid and another adult that ranged from hockey culture in various cities to how the kid had made a point of researching McCain's voting history in order to decide for himself who (not) to support for president.

I sat in the empty conference room listening to them chat, and I remember the pleasure of thinking, I am so lucky that I get to witness beautiful things like this.

(2) There was lots to enjoy about Sunday's installation service for Jason (he's now First UU's Associate Minister for Music), which made me glad I made the effort to attend, unwellness notwithstanding (*). Its highlights included Gini Courter (UUA Moderator) giving a barn-burner of a sermon and Rabbi Rami Shapiro bellowing loud "Amens" and invoking Star Trek as well as Judaism while leading the installation prayer.

(*) As I told a friend this morning, I attended four services this past weekend; stamina-wise, it felt like 3.5 services too many, in spite of compelling personal reasons to be present and even with me sitting out all the rehearsals and singing. But I'm told I looked "elegant" in spite of feeling grotty, and it was fantastic getting to touch base with old colleagues and to get some good conversation time with some folks I want to get to know better, as well as being able to offer small kindnesses and general support to people who matter so very much to me. I've been feeling so damned tired and crunched through much of this year that I'd forgotten how much church can energize me when I manage to get myself to get there. (Yeah, I keep having to relearn this with exercise and with rehearsal too. Newton's First Law, that's me all right...)

(3) Melted butter + balsamic vinegar = good quickie sauce for fish and spinach.

ugly, ponderable, doable, good

mechaieh@gmail.com — Fri, 3 Oct 08 10:19:00 UT

The ugly:

Cubs in the postseason. I didn't actually have my hopes up (twenty years of watching them repeatedly snatch defeat from the jaws of victory will do that to a gal), but saints and sliders, guys...

National City. I was recently reminded (via notes from the time) that they were a pain in the tuchis to deal with when they took over my bank in Michigan fifteen years ago. They have been saints-on-a-stick tools to deal with since my mother died, and I'm damn near close to reporting them to the Better Business Bureau for incompetence, discourtesy, and obstructionism.

A ponderable:

Lori-Lyn's post on stretching time. I'm pondering it in tandem with an article in yesterday's New York Times on how being relaxed is key to performing well:

...while many of us focused on Mr. Phelps's world records, Dr. Joyner, a competitive Masters swimmer and an exercise researcher at the Mayo Clinic, noticed something else.

"I have never seen anyone so relaxed in the water," he said.

Relaxation. It is a trait that is often underappreciated, coaches and athletic trainers say. Yet it can make the difference between doing your best and not doing well, between feeling dragged down or soaring. Coaches search for better ways to teach it. And many athletes, including some of the world's best, work on it constantly. An ability to relax while pushing hard, exercise researchers say, is one reason why winners win.

"It's the paradox of athletics," said Rick DeMont, associate head coach for men's swimming at the University of Arizona and a former Olympian. "Tension is slow, tension is inefficient. You need to be relaxed." And relaxation can be taught.

A do-able:

Via Elizabeth Bear: Help a tenth-grade teacher in LA purchase Octavia Butler books for his class.

Some good things chez moi:

Current earworm: The Kix.S's "Everybody Shake It Buddy." (You can view the first part of it with English subtitles at YouTube; it's at the start of a yaoi cartoon, so while there's nothing graphic in the clip itself, the page it appears on may not be worksafe for some of you.) It's a pretty basic theme song, but there's something about it that makes me so happy when I play it.

Getting my mitts on the first three volumes of FAKE in French. It's great getting a different look at what's being said, especially in the spots where the English translation didn't make sense to me. Unfortunately, the last four volumes don't appear to be available anywhere, but I'm keen enough that I might resort to going after the German edition. (Of course, the real solution to all this is to sit myself down and learn Japanese. Eventually...)

An amazing care package from JAMM.

Chicken salad.

Greek Gods honey yogurt.

Hearing from beloveds I hadn't heard from in a good long while. (Huzzah for Rosh Hashanah!)

Saz and Sue and other stuff

mechaieh@gmail.com — Mon, 29 Sep 08 02:10:00 UT

Happy birthday to Saz, one of my favoritest people in the world. You're who I want to grow up to become in terms of taking care of other people with humor and patience and expertise and grace. Love you heaps.

On a sadder note, my friend Sue Alley died in a car wreck this past weekend. I met Sue at First UU, where she had been a member for over two decades. She sang first soprano in both the choir and in the church rock band, and she was a dedicated volunteer - secretary of the board, drinksmistress at the annual auction, and whatever else she saw needing to be done. Sue was feisty and wholeheartedly committed to looking out for other people in ways large and small - my memories include Sue bringing water to the auction recorders' table, Sue speaking up when she felt someone was being wronged, and Sue making a point of finding me my first Sunday back at church this spring (after my mother died). Sue taught English and drama in Nashville's inner-city public schools (speaking of fighting fights that need to be fought). Sue loved good food and company, and we frequently ended up at the same gatherings, including a couple of poker nights.

That said, I will confess that there were multiple occasions where I wanted Sue to please shut up for a bit, in part because everything was indeed a drama (and I'm the sort who doesn't deal with that well), and also because she was in choir primarily for social reasons (making her one of those singers who sees nothing wrong with chitchatting all through rehearsal, which drives me up a tree. That was one of our more interesting conversations...). (And I'd be surprised, in turn, if there weren't times when she wondered what the hell was my problem.) But there's absolutely no question that Sue's heart was huge, and that she gave as much as she could to other people and then some -- and to animals, too: I find myself hoping to God that she is now truly resting in peace. (And trusting to God -- at least a little bit -- that new people will show up to fight the fights and feed the hungry and fill in the chords.)

(I was telling another friend a couple months ago that things like this are the downside of belonging to a large, caring congregation: more people to love does eventually translate into more people to lose, and more grief to help bear. I've lost track of how many sympathy cards & memoria I've sent this year, and, oh hell, I can barely remember how many funerals I've attended, for that matter, even though that number at least is still in single digits. (And there are still two boxes of ashes in my closet to deal with sometime later this year or early next.) (And some of the seniors are looking so frail, and I'm braced for what must someday come, but not really.) But there's a joy in such interconnectedness, of course, and so what I'm going to remember in the days ahead is standing at a microphone with Sue and our friend Mary, singing backup together on Aretha Franklin songs.

I ended up having to sit out the Japanese festival - too much coughing, too much work. My sightseeing and church-visiting plans had to be jettisoned for the same reason. I'm somewhat grumpy about that, but I did treat myself to some decent barbeque Saturday night, so there was at least a little bit of Memphis in with all the comma-wrangling. Some other time...

Things Japanese in TN (especially Memphis)

mechaieh@gmail.com — Thu, 25 Sep 08 21:04:00 UT

Memphis-area folk: there's a Japanese festival at the Botanic Garden this Saturday from noon to 6 p.m. I went to the preview party tonight as a guest of one of the exhibitors, and so far the set-up looks terrific - lots of nifty ikebana arrangments on display (the ones with sunflowers and gnarled wood caught my eye especially) in addition to the garden itself, which is beautiful (the geese were literally making quite a splash earlier tonight). There's also some playful signage, a fish kite peeking out of a tree, and quite a few booths and demonstrations on deck, including kamishibai storytelling and a kimono fashion show by Shibui.

Tonight's opening party featured an extended, high-energy performance by a troupe of taiko drummers -- and the volunteers/staff were impressively dedicated and on top of things. (It was also fun eavesdropping on a few conversations among some corporate/civic/professional-volunteer types on the walk back to my car. I get a kick out of listening to older Southern women tell things true and/or being enthusiastic -- there's a flavor to it that has both strength and warmth. I don't do warmth but I aspire to the strength.) (Not being self-deprecating here -- warmth just isn't what I'm known for. I do receive a fair number of unsolicited compliments for being cool and restful to be around, so it balances out.)

At the entrance to the garden, "The Candyman" was creating critters out of small lumps of toffee, using scissors, straws, and the warmth of his fingers. My cell phone snapshot doesn't do his handiwork justice -- there are such delicate whiskers and fins on this thing:

From things that make me happy

He also created balloon-style fishes out of the toffee for some other visitors, and I glimpsed something bird-like with a paper cocktail umbrella attached to it sometime later in the evening. The combination of playfulness and dexterity reminded me of a strolling-performer-style performance I saw inside a Tokyo museum three years -- it was an after-hours corporate party, and the BYM and I were looking at an exhibit in a less-crowded area with a couple of other people, and somehow the performer meandered into our area and started to work his magic on the bundle of sticks he carried, turning them into a hat, a bridge, a house, and a dozen other things as he recited. I have no idea what that style of storytelling is called (although I gather it's fairly traditional -- I saw another performer demonstrating the same moves a couple days later on TV), but to this day I can remember the cadence and beat of his chant -- and what I treasure most about that memory is the reaction of a senior Japanese businessman who happened to be in the same room: when the performer raised the sticks and started his rhyme, the businessman clearly recognized what was about to happen and his face broke out into this HUGE smile, and he delightedly clapped and nodded along in time to the chant.

I'm still raggedy from the freakin' bronchitis: lungs + brain resembling wads of masking tape = not conducive to staying on top of work, never mind correspondence (and let's not even start on having to bail out of a reunion and postpone my wedding anniversary dinner and did I mention we've had houseguests? (I'm glad they stayed with us; I'm unhappy I didn't feel well enough to be more hostessy)) and commenting and the like. But I do love the cards and notes and updates from those of you who enjoy the sending and posting of 'em, and I'm looking forward to responding and reciprocating once I feel better.

Anyhow, respiratory woe notwithstanding, there have still been commitments to honor and projects to shepherd, including the reason I'm in Memphis at the moment: the update to "Things Japanese in Tennessee" is now live. This is a beta release -- there are various miscellaneous tweaks and tests and touchings-up to sort out between now and the official premiere next month (Marion, I'll be in touch) -- but it's pretty darn close to the final version, and I think the new sections turned out well (especially considering the limited budget for new material). The "Poetry" in the "Literature and Libraries" unit ought to interest a good many of you. The course is intended for ages ten and up, the audio is in both English and Japanese, and it's available free of charge.

Speaking of poetry, I'm now part of a group of iamb-handlers who'll be posting periodically at Vary the Line, a new collective blog. It's very pretty (major props to marymary for starting the group and setting it up), and the participants are all over the map both geographically and stylistically -- it's going to be fun seeing if/where we intersect in terms of themes, choice of topics, tone, and other such influence-able elements.

(And now that I think about it, I'm all over the map regardless - or at least more of it than your average mouthy pentameter-slinging slant-eyed chick - but that is definitely another digression for another day. There is a hot bath calling my name, as well as another swig of Robitussin (sigh), and then it's back to the stylesheet-stone. Onwards!

blots and blessings

mechaieh@gmail.com — Wed, 17 Sep 08 00:43:00 UT

Still cohabiting with the Bronchitis of Doom, alongside a really inconvenient bout of burnout. I'll get over both, but I'm no fun right now. Updates will be scarce for at least another week.

In the meantime:
* Shapely Prose has things to say about McCain's health care plan, including this:

McCainâs plan will defang the regulations that prevent employers from discriminating against fat people (or people with disabilities, or people with such hideous conditions as âirregular periodsâ) when they provide coverage, leaving millions of fat Americans at the mercy of an industry that would like nothing more than to deny them basic medical care while bullying them into unnecessary surgery. If you are a US voter and you are or have ever been fat â hell, if youâve ever even been sick â and arenât a gazillionaire with your own private doctor, this will affect you.

* Joanne has things to say about McCain's attitude toward planetariums.

Good things:
* Three poems by Greta Cabrel up at Clean Sheets: "Storm After Drought," "Letter," and "Coriander Vodka." (Note: Not work-safe.)
* Cooking a cute little eggplant a colleague handed to me out of the blue two days ago
* Prayer for Perspective will be included in an anthology of serenity prayers due out next spring
* Understanding friends, hot coffee, and international keyboards

today's unexpected laugh

mechaieh@gmail.com — Tue, 2 Sep 08 14:22:00 UT

Choralnet.org's "Choral Resources" page has a category titled "Non-dopey Chanukah music."

notes from the Ninja house

mechaieh@gmail.com — Sun, 31 Aug 08 17:09:00 UT

Seriously: a guy knocked on our door yesterday and asked, "Is this the Ninja house?" and I got to answer "Yes!"

Granted, he was talking about Ninja250s, which is a type of motorcycle. Some of my husband's fellow riders came over yesterday for an afternoon of working on bikes and grilling burgers.

Me, I've been enjoying the Not Having to Go Anywhere aspect of the weekend. The Bronchitis of Doom is still a factor - I overdid things Saturday morning, and ended up spending the rest of the day in bed - but today I've managed to sling out some nice phrases amidst the slogging-on, so that feels good.

There's a Peter Steinfels Q&A of Douglas W. Kmiec in yesterday's New York Times that caught my attention, in part because interfaith relations is a major component of the work of several people dear to me (and it's the topic of William Sinkford's editorial in the latest issue of UU World). Kmiec is a devout Catholic, an opponent of abortion, and a supporter of Barack Obama, and the Q&A itself isn't specifically about interfaith issues, but as someone who's adamantly pro-choice, I found myself unexpectedly heartened by Kmiec's discussion of his priorities:

Senator Obamaâs articulated concerns with the payment of a living wage, access to health care, stabilizing the market for shelter, special attention to the needs of the disadvantaged and the importance of community are all part of the churchâs social justice mission.

Applying this to the issue of abortion, the senator has repeatedly indicated that he is not pro-abortion, that he understands the serious moral question it presents, and, most significantly, that he wants to move us beyond the 35 years of acrimony that have done next to nothing to reduce the unwanted pregnancies that give rise to abortions.

Q. But all the same, isnât your support at odds with Catholic teaching?

A. Quite the contrary. Senator Obama is articulating policies that permit faithful Catholics to follow the churchâs admonition that we continue to explore ways to give greater protection to human life.

Consider the choices: A Catholic can either continue on the failed and uncertain path of seeking to overturn Roe, which would result in the individual states doing their own thing, not necessarily, or in most states even likely, protective of the unborn. Or Senator Obamaâs approach could be followed, whereby prenatal and income support, paid maternity leave and greater access to adoption would be relied upon to reduce the incidence of abortion.

It is, of course, not enough for a Catholic legislator to declare himself or herself pro-choice and just leave it at that, but neither Senator Obama, who is not Catholic except by sensibility, nor Joe Biden, who is a lifelong Catholic, leaves matters in that unreflective way.

In my view, Obama and Biden seek to fulfill the call by Pope John Paul II, in the encyclical âEvangelium Vitae,â to âensure proper support for families and motherhood.â It cannot possibly contravene Catholic doctrine to improve the respect for life by paying better attention to the social and economic conditions of women which correlate strongly with the number of abortions.

On a totally frivolous note, the BYM served me iced tea this afternoon. Why? Because he needed the empty bottle to synchronize a pair of carburetors. I tell you, between him and the dog (and me being very easily amused), it's never dull around here. ;-)

rite of passage

mechaieh@gmail.com — Thu, 28 Aug 08 10:59:00 UT

An hour ago, I walked out of the house in which I was raised, for the last time.

"Unsettled" is a pretty accurate word for how I feel, methinks.

dodging the tongue of a frog

mechaieh@gmail.com — Tue, 26 Aug 08 17:13:00 UT

Oof. Today has served up way too much mayhem for my taste - a three-badger headache, a plumbing crisis, other people losing their tempers, me straining to hold onto mine, and so on. But it has also included a bit of crocheting, some hysterically deranged scheming, measurable progress on many little fronts, and the latest issue of UU World, which includes an essay by Richard Leonard on How it feels to be 80. This passage leaped out at me:

I feel at this point, that life owes me absolutely nothing. After all, I could have been born a dragonfly and been snapped up in the first day of my life by the tongue of a frog.

call for action: the conscience rule

mechaieh@gmail.com — Sun, 24 Aug 08 12:00:00 UT

Maho Kiwi summarizes the current WTF

"But we looked into a fire, we leaned across a table..."

mechaieh@gmail.com — Sat, 23 Aug 08 01:52:00 UT

Via poems.com: an August 16 Washington Post article by Adrian Higgins about Edna St. Vincent Millay's home:

A man telephoned to ask if he could bring his girlfriend to Steepletop. "She felt she couldn't die without first seeing where Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote," he said. On the appointed date, "there were these kids, he was 24, she was 23, and they were soldiers who had just been assigned to Afghanistan. This is what they wanted to see."

Dead Mule! (two poems and two additional links))

mechaieh@gmail.com — Thu, 21 Aug 08 00:52:00 UT

Two of my poems (and my Southern Legitimacy Statement) are now up at The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature.

Also: I read this Rodney Jones poem ("Cathedral") in The Atlantic this morning. Oh, wow. (It begins: "Over time it occurs to me / I am building a shed that will burn." Damn, that's a great opening.)

And third: I wasn't expecting to be moved by Andrew Sullivan's essay on his Big Fat Straight Wedding. But, and, I was. It was this section that did it:

No other institution has an equivalent power to include people in their own familial narrative or civic history as deeply or as powerfully as civil marriage does. And the next generation see themselves as people first and gay second.

Born in a different era, I reached that conclusion through more pain and fear and self-loathing than my 20-something fellow homosexuals do today. But it was always clear to me nonetheless. It just never fully came home to me until I too got married.

It happened first when we told our families and friends of our intentions. Suddenly, they had a vocabulary to describe and understand our relationship. I was no longer my partnerâs âfriendâ or âboyfriendâ; I was his fiancÃ©. Suddenly, everyone involved themselves in our love. They asked how I had proposed; they inquired when the wedding would be; my straight friends made jokes about marriage that simply included me as one of them. At that first post-engagement Christmas with my in-laws, I felt something shift. They had always been welcoming and supportive. But now I was family. I felt an endâa sudden, fateful endâto an emotional displacement I had experienced since childhood.

I aten't dead...

mechaieh@gmail.com — Wed, 20 Aug 08 01:49:00 UT

...but I have been clobbered with work, bureaucracy, technical mayhem, and con crud/bronchitis. The last two items complicate dealing with the first two on multiple levels, and this has been making me very cross.

That said, there have also been many moments of simple satisfaction and outright elation -- my creative groove is back in the house, and raring to move some things closer to done. (Which it can't until I slay a couple more deadline dragons, but it's a lovely feeling, that "I can't NOT write this" rush -- and what's even better, I'm feeling it toward multiple projects, and as lagniappe, I've gotten very vocal, unsolicited encouragement for one of the biggest (and scariest) of 'em.)

(And if the feeling evaporates, well, there's plenty of house to clean and lettering to lavish attention upon.)

The rest of my Chicago trip was fantastic (and now feels like ages ago). In addition to the conference, which was a very good time indeed, I also attended morning worship at Second Unitarian, danced for hours in a red dress I picked up at Hollywood Mirror, lingered over tapas at Mercat, and wandered from Greektown to Buckingham Fountain and other Windy City treasures, much of this in the company of friends old and new, and some of it in much-needed solitude. While I wouldn't recommend staying in a non-conference hotel in most instances, it turned out to be the right decision for me this trip - lodging away from the mayhem helped me concentrate on non-conference matters and recharge the functional-in-society batteries as needed.

And speaking of Chicago and travel, Connie Voisine's This is for the silver of highway blew me away when I read it earlier this week. passion and its unreasonable vaults of soul, indeed.

"shoveling, wrecking, planning..."

mechaieh@gmail.com — Wed, 6 Aug 08 14:26:00 UT

So, 24 hours ago I was on a plane stuck on a runway in Nashville, feeling like I'd lost my napping mojo. Five hours and one mutilated duffel later, I was ready to swear off all non-corporate/non-funeral-related air travel for the foreseeable future.

However, it never takes me long to fall back in love with the city of Chicago. On the Blue Line train, there was an older couple chatting in Italian; a large family from Kansas City with giggly, goofy kids; and a posse of skateboarders (one with giant fluffy-looking silver rings covering most of his hand), as well as the usual mix of locals; I fell into conversation with a black, be-braided woman behind me after helping her extract a Japanese beetle from the Italian woman's fluffy hair.

My hotel's near Merchandise Mart, which has already been useful from a food, business, and entertainment standpoint: I picked up some sushi and shumai from Tokyo Lunch Boxes for a late breakfast and a chickpea-with-hazelnut-vinaigrette-salad from Au Bon Pain for lunch, made two trips to Fed Ex, and admired the window- and case-displays for various shops. I can't do it justice with my phone-cam, but this display of miniature cups and wine-colors was one of my favorites...

... and I also enjoyed peering into the radio station studios. They're fully operational rooms, so I didn't feel okay about taking snapshots as people reviewed ads/broadcast/etc., but here's the entrance:

At the Sun-Times shop, you can adopt rubber duckies... and also treat yourself to a great cup of coffee (on their spiffy Italian machine), which is complimentary with a purchase. At .50 for a daily paper, that may be the best coffee-and-paper deal in town.

And speaking of newspapers, when did the Reader go color/tabloid-size/single-section? (I know, I know, business realities. But another part of my youth died when I saw that.)

And speaking of college days, it turns out to be a bit challenging, trying to photograph a tattoo on the back of one's leg:

My college's alumni magazine distributed the stick-on phoenixes a while back; I've been saving mine for an appropriate occasion, and since I'll be playing Quidditch this weekend... (And yes, the shorts are sad, but they're from my U-M days - some of my teammates weren't even born then, so some saditude is to be expected.) (And, because some of you have asked: no, I won't be on a broom. Think of a football/field-hockey hybrid with a human Snitch.)

What else? I love staying in high-rise hotels and riding trains, and the garlic crispy tofu at Ben Pao is a religious experience (and the service is good, too; wasn't as sold on the eggplant or mu shu Peking duck, but I'll probably go back for more tofu and a froufy martini). The hand-dryers at Ben Pao are pretty nifty, too:

And there's more, but it's time to finish lunch and head north...

[Subject line from Sandburg's "Chicago"]