Distracted by Grace

This morning, I got to church on time (yay me!) and sat in the front row, strategically near and almost behind a pillar (for a full view + the illusion of non-conspicuousness).  Soon after I sat down, I heard a woman in the aisle suggest to someone to "put our bags in there," and a man squeezed by me, deposited two shopping bags, and left.  I was wondering for a while if I ought to be nervous about unattended bags, but just as the service was about to begin, the man and woman came back in and joined them.

The woman promptly began clacking away on her hand-held mobile device.  Indeed, throughout the service, the two were almost constantly in motion, frequently texting, whispering, fidgeting, touching each other, adjusting their garments, looking at a watch, trying to melt frayed edges of their apparel with a lighter, etc., etc.  

As for yours truly, well, I am easily distracted.  I was alternating between paying fascinated attention to their conduct, and trying to ignore them and focus on the service (all the while suppressing a smile).  

It was hard to know what to make of these two fellow worshipers, and it would be very tempting to pass judgment on them.  For all I know, they may be pillars of the church - regular attendees, members, significant financial supporters, or even elected lay leaders, deacons, etc.  I had to deliberately hold these possibilities in mind, because I recognize that certain aspects of their mere appearance (tattoos, piercings, casual attire) triggers unfounded assumptions and indeed a degree of prejudice in a traditional church setting.  

But even if they are not regular church attenders, it is worth emphasizing that they -- unlike so many others -- made the decision to be there this morning.  They stayed from beginning to end, even if they perhaps (like so many others) wished the proceedings were shorter or more engaging.  And they fully participated in all parts of the service that called for participation.  

And there was one more thing for which I must praise them, a weakness that turns out, on closer examination, to be a real strength.  Because they were so tuned in on the human level, they were thinking of others a lot more than many church-goers.  After she sat down, the woman asked me if I could see okay from my partial hiding place behind the pillar.  When someone sneezed, the man said "Bless you".  And they thanked me each time I stepped outside the pew to facilitate their entrance or exit.

The restraint that is culturally expected in church certainly makes it easier for others to extract whatever meaning they can from the worship service, and is - to that extent - more considerate of others, and yet this same restraint can easily bleed into self-righteousness and hypocrisy, and it can just easily mask a lack of concern or even deliberate indifference to others around us.  

And thus these two were themselves a beacon of grace for those with eyes and hearts to perceive it.

Oo, Those Awful Explicatives!

An attorney in another jurisdiction was recently disciplined for misconduct which apparently included (among many other things) the use of "explicatives" while he was cursing.

I am trying to imagine* the complained-of dialogue:

So after you've served the effing pleading on our effing opponent, you should take the remaining copy and bring it to the effing clerk of the effing court.  Now, don't get effing confused; this is the courthouse on effing Main Street, the one where the effing clerk's office is on the left-hand side as you enter...

(Although this merely illustrates the use of curse-words while explaining something, so it's not quite right.)

My favorite line from the actual opinion is: "When making business calls, it is not necessary to give grammar lessons, but that is not a sanctionable action."  

---

FN* In its opinion, the court of course explained in detail the attorney's misconduct, including examples of the profanities uttered and their context. The court concluded that the attorney exhibited a pattern of conduct that showed indifference to his legal and ethical obligations, as well as a "debonair nihilism" with respect to moral principles and the feelings of others.  

Done, and Done.

(Following my earlier post, I organized my electronic files for ease of reference next semester, put away my clothes, washed the dishes, dropped off 1.5 suits with the dry cleaners, met up with a friend for baked goods, went rollerblading while listening to one of the books I need to read for next week, dined at Le Pain Quotdien, and cashed in my free movie ticket to watch The Avengers again.  I was pretty tired when I watched The Avengers, and had some trouble remembering why I thought I should give it a second viewing ... until I saw the closing credits.  Joss Whedon.  That's why.)

Procrastination and the INTP

"Omnipotence is most omnipotent when one does nothing!"
     --Stanislaw Lem, The Cyberiad

There are several things I have in mind for this morning, several options to spend my time in ways that are fun and/or productive.  Each of them has a claim on me as the "best" way to spend the morning.  I could finish the reading for class next week; I could finish researching and revising the paper I'll present at Mythcon in August; I could do the dishes, put away my clothes, do a spot of vacuuming; I could go rollerblading; I could shave my legs; I could drop off my suit for dry cleaning; I could write a thank-you note; I could go to the gym.  Many of these I could do outside.  And then in the background, there are other things, bigger things, related to making decisions about whether to rent, and where; whether to sell, and when; and how to make something of my life.

As always, making any one choice of what to do, no matter how trivial, forecloses other choices for how to spend that time.  And yet the hourglass runs even when I don't make any particular choice.

So I've spent the last 3.5 hours in a desultory fashion, having some breakfast (oatmeal, fresh strawberries and blueberries, a coffee smoothie), reading a bit of The History of the Kings of Britain and the (ugh) graphic novel version of The Last Unicorn (iTunes, you betrayed me!).

To remove paralysis, probably better not to ask "What is the best way to spend the day to take full advantage of my free time and the glorious weather?" but instead "What do I want to accomplish today?"  Ick, that sounds so modern and self-helpy.

"... thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action."
-- Billy the Bard, Omlette (or something like that - one of his more popular works anyway)

The Days Are Just Packed: Pawtuckaway, Wizard of Oz, and Aunt's Day

 I got to spend time with my family over Mother's Day weekend, which was just wonderful.

Saturday was gloriously sunny, and my parents and I decided to return to Pawtuckaway State Park for a bit of a mosey on the way to see my elder niece appear in the Wizard of Oz.

Unfortunately, what with the late start and some minor navigational snafus, we didn't quite reach the Boulder Field this time before we had to head back.

We spotted one wild animal this time:

A beautiful striped and checkered snake

A sylvan scene 

This is the pond we mistook for Dead Pond last time.  I don't think it's Round Pond either.  

The boulder crack'd

We got to the performance hall just as the show was about to begin; luckily we knew one of the performers, and her sponsors very kindly reserved seats for us right up front.

Auntie Em, despite her youthful appearance, was an excellent actress who channeled just the right note in her interactions with Dorothy.  (She has clearly been paying attention to the way grown-ups talk... Maybe we should be more careful!)

Auntie Em and Uncle Henry

The tornado hits

Toto was the narrator and very nearly star of the show

The lollipop guild in striped shirts and yellow baseball hats; they were very convincing munchkins!

The Mayor in red tux and her blue-tux'ed escorts (perhaps the City Council?)

A grove of apple trees, who will soon be tricked by the scarecrow into giving up their apples

A non-lion, non-tiger, and non-bear.  Oh my!

The production was very fun overall, with lots of excellent performances.  We didn't see a lot of the Wicked Witch of the West, but she was really having a blast with that role, and she gave us the best live  performance of melting away that I've ever seen.  (Accomplished with creative use of the performance space, rather than any high-tech wizardry or special effects.)  

The older kids presented flowers to the director and other grown-ups involved with the production afterward.  

All's well that ends well!

Afterward, a few of us went to Otter Pond (which is bursting with bullfrog tadpoles just now, as well as crayfish and the occasional salamander) and then for a short stroll through the woods to build up an appetite for the  cookout (featuring exquisitely grilled chicken, a really tasty salad, and cheesecake - yum!).

My nieces also presented hand-made cards to all the female relatives who were in town for Mother's Day.  The visiting mothers included two grandmothers and an aunt, as well as their own mom.  So this was already a lot of work!  But they also (perhaps at Ruth's suggestion) decided to include me, which was very, very sweet of them.  So to my tremendous surprise and delight, I received one card wishing me a Happy Aunt's Day, and another wishing me a Happy LLS Day.  Swoon!  ♥♥♥

It was lovely to spend some time with my parents as well.  They are so good to me!  My mom made waffles and biscuits for breakfast, which I never have in NYC.  I gave my mom some fancy-schmancy olive oil I'd heard about on Splendid Table, which (fortunately) seems to be every bit as good as it was cracked up to be.

On the way home, I started my final exam.  I had a choice of answering either of the two randomly assigned questions (out of an original set of seven questions we were given in advance).  As it turns out, they gave me a choice between my favorite hoped-for question and my least favorite and slightly dreaded question.  So the choice was easy!  I had 24 hours to complete the exam, but turned in my 1,500-word essay just 14 hours later.  The hardest part was paring it down to 1500 words... I had to cut out a lot, and move a bunch of cool stuff into the endnotes.  Oh well.  I suppose that's a good problem to have!

BAM: The Caretaker

This Pinter play is the very best production I've seen at BAM in years.  One of the audience members was commenting that the dry script would have been well-nigh unreadable... but boy did it come alive in performance!  There was so much in the body language, the facial expressions, and tone of voice; the actors brought out depths of humor, poignancy, and suspense.

I'd somehow gotten a seat in the very front row, and one of the actors (Alex Hassell) had such a mischievous expression at times that he really reminded me of S and I couldn't help smiling when our eyes met.  (I tried very hard not to stare!)

RIP Maurice Sendak

Sad news from the NY Times. I particularly loved "Where the Wild Things Are" and "What Do You Say, Dear?" (a very funny book on manners for children, which he illustrated). During my freshman year of college, my next door neighbor and I used to leave messages on each other's doors inspired by his "Chicken Soup with Rice." I saw him twice in person, and my admiration for him only increased; he came across as a real mensch, down-to-earth and very funny.  More recently, I saw an exhibit celebrating (among other things) his broad-ranging artistic interests at the Jewish Museum in New York City -- he'd branched out into ballet and opera as well as story-telling and illustration. I will always remember reading and re-reading a mini-collection of four of his works to my little nieces.  They knew the works nearly by heart, and were delighted whenever I would try to sneak in a word change here or there for comic effect.  R.I.P. Mr. Sendak, you will be missed.  Thank you for bringing such joy into so many lives. I will make a pilgrimage to your leaf at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden this evening in your honor.

Learned Helplessness

Earlier this year, I'd gotten into a good habit, even a rhythm.  Get up early, hit the gym at 6 am, leisurely breakfast, get into work early.  Then I started taking a grad level literature course, which threw off my bedtime.  By a lot.  Two nights a week, class ends at 11 p.m. and I'm often fired up afterward.  So it's been harder to get up early.  I've been more tired, and listening to the tiredness gave me an excuse to skip the workouts.  So now that I've not been going to the gym three days a week -- now that the habit has been broken -- it's been harder to go to the gym at all.  In fact, it feels unimaginably difficult.  As if I won't have the energy to get through the day if I work out in the morning (even though I know otherwise from experience).

But I did go this morning.  During this morning's workout, I watched "Anne" from Season 3 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  It's a wonderful episode that works on so many levels.  There's a character who calls herself Lily, pretty much a lost soul, who seems to be terrified of any form of self-sufficiency.  When Lily's boyfriend disappears, Lily turns to Buffy for help.  Buffy suggests they look for him:

Buffy: This'll probably go faster if we split up.
Lily: Can I come with you?

Time and time again, Lily is easily cowed and disheartened; she is easily led, but terrified to take any action on her own (even when Buffy instructs her to simply lead other folks to the exit while Buffy fights off the demons).

Lily's helplessness seems to be born of despair; when she is tricked into entering a demon-run labor camp, which she understandably takes for hell, she says she always thought she would end up here.

Helplessness can be learned fairly quickly.  When I was in law school, I lived in a dorm where breakfast and dinner were provided.  My life quickly organized itself around mealtimes.  Breakfast was easy enough (since I was in the building anyway), but I had to be home at 6 pm for dinner.  What I realized toward the end of my third year was that preparing my own food had come to seem very nearly impossible.  When I finally went out and bought some groceries, brought them to a kitchen, and followed a recipe to make dinner for my friends, it was a revelation.  I felt incredibly empowered.  And yet before law school, I'd been cooking for years.

It seems to me that, for the most part, each of us is born with the capacity to take care of ourselves and the capacity for connection with others.  And yet these skills require honing; they can atrophy rapidly with disuse.  And yet it seems clear that the capacity remains even when it has been long neglected.

Toward the end of "Anne," as Buffy seems to be making headway with the demons, the lead demon appears on the balcony, holding a knife to Lily's throat.  He knows of course, that this will put Buffy off her game -- and that Lily is the ideal victim (she won't resist).  When he releases Lily, she stands there docilely, a non-entity that everyone (including Lily herself) leaves out of their calculations.  And then, in a key moment as things are looking rather grim for our heroine, Lily suddenly pushes the demon off the balcony!  The reaction shots are priceless - Lily has astonished everyone. 

Buffy of course has gone through her own story arc during the episode and now understands that she can't just chuck it all and escape.  She is ready to return to her family and friends, and she sets Lily up with the basic building blocks of job and home.  For the first time in her life, Lily will be trying to live as a full-fledged human being. 

Lily (hesitantly): I'm not ... great at taking care of myself.

Buffy:  Gets easier.  Takes practice.

Sarah Michelle Gellar delivers that line brilliantly.  She speaks out of compassion, and yet without in any way sugar-coating it for Lily.  It will be hard to overcome the habits of helplessness, despair and dependence.  It's scary as anything.  But she knows that Lily -- like the rest of us -- is capable of it.  I just love this.

Aliens Eat Free

We dined out a fair amount - Indian, Mexican, Chinese, and Japanese.  But I almost wish we'd eaten here:

Aliens Eat Free in Brooklyn Heights

We were kidding around about whether this was a marketing ploy ... or a DOJ sting operation!  But according to NY Magazine:

That "aliens eat free" sign? They do hold to their word if you come dressed up like a green visitor from outer space. But having resident or naturalized alien citizenship status won't cut it—Gabriel Byrne already tried that.

We explored Brooklyn Bridge Park for a while, but could only find a toddler-scaled playground ... and saw no sign of the purported carousel (well, except literally - we saw a sign pointing upriver that said "Jane's Carousel").  

We walked over toward the Promenade to track down a more age-appropriate playground, and L quickly made friends with another girl there.  When they said goodbye, L said with cheerful confidence: "Bye!  See you soon - I hope!"  Of course, we'd stumbled on to this playground almost by chance while L and her family were visiting from out of town, the parents hadn't introduced or even identified themselves, and the girls had not attempted to exchange any sort of contact information.  I could tell that L realize this about halfway through her goodbye, but nonetheless plowed ahead with it, entirely upbeat.  

Early Practice in Catching a Cab

Girl on Board!

After the playground, we walked over the Brooklyn Bridge.  And of course, we saw the missing carousel from the bridge!!  Both girls did a great job - it was a lot of walking for them.  (L even made it all the way under her own steam; luckily some of us went slowly enough with all the foot and cycle traffic that L had time to rest up a bit while waiting for us!) 

We then walked up to Chinatown (I'd forgotten which bridge ends at Canal Street - oops!) and enjoyed a good meal.  It may have been a little heavy on the MSG.  We went back to a store we'd gone to before, and L picked out some more erasers, while her parents bought a few more dishes that have proved to be the perfect size for their needs.  

A highlight of the visit was watching Wicked on Broadway - it definitely lived up to the hype.  B and R graciously treated me to the show, which was very kind of them. (Thanks again!!)

Just one more thing!

It was a lovely weekend, and we got to celebrate two birthdays with Crumbs cupcakes.  What can be better than that?!  

Ozymandius at BigLaw

I wrote this a number of years ago as part of a secret santa gig at my old firm.  I've revised it for publication here.

I met a lawyer at the library door,
Who said -- "Two hundred vast and useless tomes
Stand on the bookshelf.  Near them, on the floor,
Half sunk, a sleeping first-year lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and loud, uncaring snore,
Tell that its author long those tax codes read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless texts;
The eyes glazed over, the brain cells shed.
And on the Schedule A, these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandius, as the form reflects.
Audit my deductions if you dare!'
The driver waits below.  Near the doorway
Of that colossal Firm, darkened and drear,
The sad and sickly streetlights mourn the day."