alexkaufmann | Reading

Seasonal affective disorder has begun seeping in through whatever spots in my psyche the day's activities have worn thin.

Yesterday, I spent a big chunk of the afternoon wanting to weep hysterically.

It got so intense that I finally went out tromping in the middle of the afternoon—which is Not Good because I find it very difficult to recalibrate and get back to Useful Work after I exercise.

What did I want to weep about? Oh, you know. The usual. The meaninglessness of all human life. The inevitability of human pain. The delusion all 8.142 billion humans share—I am special, I am special. The reality that none of us are any more special than any other polyp in the vast coral reef and all our strange, mostly endocrine-modulated behaviors are useless flux, this side of random.

Most years, I'm able to keep the SAD at bay by just remaining stoned out of my gourd till February.

This year, I can't really do that because I need a clear head to complete everything I have to do.

Creativity helps. Because imagination does reinforce one's unique vision—even if all you can see are those limestone-like exoskeletons that make up the dizzyingly immense reef where all those other polyps have died or are dying.

It is the blight that man was born for...

Like they say. Chop water, carry wood. Keep calm and carry on.

mallorys_camera

Cooler weather is turning me contemplative. All I really want to do is lounge on my couch and read. And I want to read immersive books, books that you don't read so much as live.

Immersive books are not necessarily good books. I wouldn't call the Cormoran Strike series, for example, particularly well-written (though it is better written than its author's earlier Harry Potter series.) But its prose is serviceable enough to support the weight of all those details, the underwriting of an entire imagined universe so that I actually see the characters (and no, the Cormoran Strike I see doesn't look anything like Tom Burke in the television series). The narrative's events have their own folder in my brain's filing system: not with the memory of real events but also not with the scattered impressions of made-up things. It's very strange.

Every once in a while, you stumble across a book that is both good and immersive. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell is such a book. I am doing my annual reread and wondering, Why aren't there more books like this one?

And also musing on Susannah Clarke's own perplexingly strange fate: After she finished Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell, which is brilliant in every possible way, she became incapable of writing. It's as though the Gentleman With the Thistledown Hair, furious over her unflattering portrait, slapped her with a curse, perhaps a cease & desist suit in fairy court. (She did publish two slim volumes after Jonathan Strange, but they were trunk stories, written before the novel.)

I wonder what people who don't read do when they're feeling contemplative?

###

Money in the bank is making me complacent.

Really, I should not be lolling on the couch, book in hand, because I've got a shitload of stuff to do and will be hanging out with real-life Flavia in the City all weekend long, which shaves a couple of days off the time I have to do things.

I have been wondering whether I should tell real-life Flavia about the chick-lit novel.

In the first two chapters, she's characterized as this rich dilittante, and I rather think her feelings would be hurt if she found this out.

You're BRAVE, real-life Daria told me.

Yes, I answered. Writing semi-autobiographical fiction is fraught with danger, which is why I have spent the last who-know-how-many-years writing a novel about June Miller, wife of Henry Miller, BFF of Anaïs Nin. Anaïs Nin’s feelings are not gonna get hurt if I describe HER as a rich dilettante.

Flavia’s character does deepen & get richer as the novel progresses. The third part of the novel will be written entirely in Flavia’s first-person POV, & in the fourth part of the novel, Grazia, Daria, & Flavia go off on a wacky roadtrip together to spread Neal’s ashes, & they’re all BFF, basking in mutual admiration.

mallorys_camera

Dreamed of the Little Store. Rik owned it, and it didn't look like the Little Store, being three connected rooms on the shore of a vast lake, but I absolutely knew it was the Little Store. The big-ticket item was miniatures of people, exquisitely crafted, maybe measuring eight inches tall. And they were selling so fast!

I bought one set. It came in a sandlewood box that when opened all the way turned into a series of miniature rooms.

It made me so happy to see the Little Store! But I was concerned that items were not being restocked quicky enough, and Christmas was fast approaching, obviously the biggest retail opportunity of the year. I said to somebody, Please tell Rik he simply must order new inventory. But I didn't know whether Rik would.

###

Had a mildly productive yesterday. Studied more tax law. Taught myself the calendar function on Squarespace. Reveled in that feeling of being a Real Human Girl that only paying off bills can give you. Tromped! Reread The King Must Die.

The big political story of the day was that apparently, Young Republicans love Hitler, think people from Arkansas are inbred cow fuckers, & would go to the zoo if they wanted to see monkeys playing ball.

Unsurprising.

Trump's basic appeal is white nationalism, and, of course, we are looking at a future where there won't be an ethnic majority, white or otherwise; there will be a bunch of semi-blended minorities. The Trumpers think by coiling, hissing, and shaking their rattles (see link to Politico story above), they can stave this off. Though, of course, they can't.

In a more progressive cultural moment, they wouldn't feel that they could express these thoughts in a semi-public space.

I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing that they can.

It's always best to see your enemies' true faces.

mallorys_camera

A classic symptom of PTSD is a feeling of looming catastrophe.

It's clear I have PTSD about the invoicing process—which I can only surmise comes from living with Ben, who was always lying about money, in particular after he'd been laid off by Sports Illustrated and kept assuring me for eight long months: Well, they promised the check was in the mail! They promised the check would arrive here by Fed Ex at precisely 3:15 this afternoon! Etc, etc.

Specifics in lying are always a sign that the liar is getting too full of themself. Really talented liars keep it very general and try to overlap with the truth as much as possible. Ben, in other words, was not a very talented liar. I believed him because I wanted to believe him—(a) because the little household I was running was a house of cards where every penny had its use, and (b) because I loved him.

###

I don't know what one does about PTSD. My client, in fact, processed the invoice in four quick days, which I absolutely knew they would. It will be hitting my bank account this afternoon.

It would help if my savings were a bigger buffer, I suppose, so that's what I'm going to concentrate on over the next few months.

###

Anyway...

The anxiety was intense.

And because I need to keep my head clear for tax law, I eshewed gummies. And I am also eschewing alcohol because I'm on the All lentils, oatmeal, & salmon, all of the time! diet.

All I could do was try to distract myself.

It was raining very hard, so no tromping about outside.

So instead, I watched the entire Godfather saga. Godfather 3 is so fuckin' awful, it's hard to believe all three were created by the same director, since the first two films are absolute masterpieces.

And I Photoshopped a bunch of photos to make them look like Thomas Kinkade paintings (see above). I will confess to having a certain sneaking affection for Thomas Kinkade paintings. Yes, they are the most awful kitsch imaginable. But I like kitsch.

Then I wrote another 1,000 or so words on the Work in Progress, describing how Grazia becomes an ER nurse and the appearance of Patient Zero in the ER where she works at the start of the COVID pandemic.

I am not very confident about the status details. I haven't actually worked in an ER for more than 30 years. So, assuming I am actually able to finish the damn thing, I will have to run those status details past someone with more recent ER experience.

It is still very gloomy & dark, but since it's not raining, I will try to tromp today. And also do tax law & work on the Shawangunk Dem and RTT birthday websites.

mallorys_camera

Diane Keaton's death hit me harder than I would have imagined.

She was a real style icon for me when I was in my 20s. I must have seen Annie Hall 10 times when it first came out. Those vests! Those boyfriend shirts! Those baggy oversized men's trousers! Those hats!!!!!

Boyfriend shirts are still a staple of my wardrobe.

###

I also admired her loyalty to Woody Allen whom I do not believe for a single second ever molested anyone.

Woody Allen was indirectly responsible for my modeling career.

My mother was the production secretary for Woody Allen's first movie, Take the Money and Run, and I used to babysit for the soon-to-be stepdaughters of Charles Joffe, Allen's producer (one of whom was the one-day-to-be-film director Nicole Holofcener.)

Mr. Joffe set me up with a photographer when I was 16 (and just about to graduate from high school; I'd skipped two grades), and the rest is personal history.

I was introduced to Woody Allen several times in the production office. He was withdrawn, an intense presence who sat scowling in the corner. Not what you'd imagine a comedian to be like at all. Interesting thing, though—without the clownish hair and the bufoonish spectacles, he would have been handsome.

Many years later, I had to interact with Mia Farrow in some People Magazine-related context, and she was just awful, narcissistic, rude, entitled. Supernaturally beautiful, of course, with those cheekbones, those enormous Bambi eyes, that soft, little girl voice. But damaged in a way her selective charm did little to conceal. And also someone, one imagined, who would shake the house rafters down upon anyone who crossed her in any way.

When her ostensible lover deceived her with a porrige-faced adoptive daughter, I could easily see her seeking a Medea-style revenge. It fit my impression of her.

I could not see him performing the act—with no history of pedophilia before or since the allegation.

###

Is it adviseable to boff the adopted daughter of your Official Girlfriend?

Decidedly, no.

But this was basically an etiquette breach. In his autobiography, Allen maintains they hadn't really been a couple for a year or more before he fell in love with Soon Yi, that he had merely become someone Mia Farrow went to awards ceremonies and industry parties with. That they hadn't had sex since the birth of their biological son, the Mordred-like (cf Once & Future King) Ronan Farrow.

Farrow was publicly humiliated. She executed a revenge that inflicted even greater public humiliation.

###

Anyway, I don't have much use for those dozens of Millennial actors who upped their virtue-signalling score by disowning their work with Allen.

And I admired Keaton for staying true to her friend.

###

What else?

I'm anxious over the invoice, though not yet at the point where I'm cruising interior design magazines for hints on the best ways to decorate your refrigerator box beneath the bridge.

I scored 86% on my tax law midterms.

I went to the monthly Shawangunk Dems meeting at which Adrienne had enlisted the Democratic candidate for the Wawarsing (Ellenville) district to speak.

Why? I kept wondering. Ellenville's problems are nothing like Shawangunk's problems, Shawangunk being a rural district & Ellenville being a dying Catskills Mountains city.

Plus the guy didn't seem to know much about us; when he was bowing out after droning on for half an hour ("Wish I could stay for the rest of your meeting! But I can't"), he officiously thanked Adrienne & then thanked Joey—"who's running for, uh, something really important"—& I erupted into giggles: "Something important that you can't remember!" I said.

That did not go over well.

I really do not like the Democrats.

Although I do not like the Republicans even more.

It's supposed to rain all day today. I have successfully cleared all agendas to labor on the Work in Progress. We'll see if I do.

mallorys_camera

This tax law stuff is hard.

Total immersion would be my style. Like throw yourself into it and do absolutely nothing else for 48 hours.

Except I think that's psychologically and physically unhealthy, so at a certain point in the afternoon—earlier & earlier now that the dark is creeping in earlier & earlier—I break to exercise.

And after I come back from exercising, it's extremely difficult to get my mind back into work mode.

Hence, I am behind schedule on the tax law stuff.

Not hopelessly behind. But enough behind so that it seems like my time is never my own.

###

Apart from that.

Adrienne got snippy with me yesterday because apparently I am not updating the Shawangunk Dems website quickly enough. If you can't do it, I'll find someone else...

Good luck with that, girlfriend!

I only volunteered to do it because no one else would. The website is hosted on Squarespace, a GUI template site, which I didn't know at all and so had to teach myself. And the person who had been doing the site disappeared more than a year ago, so there was nobody to onboard me plus it hadn't been updated in over a year.

I did briefly contemplate telling Adrienne, Go fuck yourself, beyatch, but didn't. She's under stress. I think some part of her knows she's not gonna win this campaign she's invested so much time & energy into. I mean, maybe she will! I've been wrong before. But my gut is saying, No.

Plus basically, I like Adrienne.

So, I did a little shit & Shinola dance, remarking mildly, Well, Adrienne, it's a lot of work, and you can't see the backend where most of the work is going on.

I must be as kind to and tolerant of others as I would have them be kind to and tolerant of me-ee-eee!

mallorys_camera

First frost! The grass around the house was silvery & crunchy as the morning broke. I am thinking this is it: Autumn Intractable. Resolute! Immutable! No more hot weather holidays. (It was close to 90° F just five days ago.)

###

I finished a Remuneration project. Shipped it off to the client. Billed it—which means I will spend the next five days in a state of hysteria: But what if they don't pay me? what if the kiskas & I are forced to move into the refrigerator box beneath the bridge???? Such paranoia is the bane of the freelancer's life.

###

Then I went to the upscale supermarket.

There was a particular treat I loved as a little girl: stewed dried fruit. I hadn't thought of it in years, but for some reason, I thought of it yesterday, and went hunting around for dried apricots, dried peaches, dried pears. They don't sell those things in one convenient package anymore—& I was hit by my foolish naivete: I mean, of course, there will be trends in food! There are trends in everything else! And as an old person, I am now on the wrong side of all of them.

###

In the evening, I played around with the Shawangunk Dems' website. It's on Squarespace, a popular website building/hosting company that I'm not crazy about.

Back in the days of HTML & CSS, I was fairly proficient at building websites—not great, but better than okay. The switch to using a template-based interface like Squarespace is a bit like driving an automatic transmission when you're used to manual. In some ways, it's easier, but in some ways, it's not, plus you have much less control.

I didn't bother to read any manuals. I just rolled up my sleeves and plunged straight into the backend. One real problem with Squarespace is that it doesn't have a preview mode. All the mistakes you're making, you're making in real time where the whole world can see! That means you have to figure out how to correct those mistakes right away! I was up past midnight.

It was fun the same way working out a complicated organic chemistry problem is fun. (You have ethanol and every catalyst known to man. Synthesize isobutyronitrile...) Or preparing a complicated tax return is fun. (Noah, a U.S. citizen, is also a digital nomad and a business owner. He is in the midst of a divorce from Imane, a Saudi Arabian national. His children, Homer and Lisa, are joint nationals...) Or interpreting the Torah or Upanishads is fun.

And, yes, those things are fun for me.

mallorys_camera

There was a crane standing in back of the house yesterday. (Avian, not construction).

A crane!!!!

I'd never seen one before, and of course, I did not have my phone on me to snap a pic.

Sandhill crane, I think, though it could fly—and did when Icky scared it off. He was afraid it was stalking the young chickens.

Are crane sightings good luck or bad luck?

I can't remember.

###

Another thing I couldn't remember...

After I cranked out 2,000 words of Remuneration, I went tromping on the railroad trail. On the railroad trail, I was accosted by a beautiful woman who smiled at me radiantly: "So nice to see you again! And your hair is still so beautiful!"

I smiled back, but I was thinking, Who the fuck are you?

The present tense is narrowing its beam...

###

Despite being innundated with scut work, I remained in an effortlessly happy mood all day. So maybe the crane was good luck.

mallorys_camera

Dreamed that RTT was a teenager, and we were living on some sort of campus. RTT was humiliating me in front of a dormitory of teenage boys, My mother is ____ & lobbing all sorts of other humorous insults—the other teenage boys were laughing—& I went berserk & screamed three insults at him, intending to wound him to the quick. The first insult was, And you're not very smart really. You have a derivative, follower intelligence. Can't remember the other two.

Part of me was telling the rest of me: Don't do this. Don't do this. You can't possibly outshout him & those boys. You'll only humiliate yourself further. Leave.

So, I did.

I had a vague sense of the campus building being very familiar, with long corridors & a really confusing system of elevators. It was very difficult to get out.

Outside the building, I ran into M_____ except M______ was a boy. What college are you going to? I asked M_____, and she answered, Pomona—but only because they accepted me early & offered me a full ride.

RTT, I remembered, had been accepted into something called Ambrose College. Ambrose College was decidedly second-rate. I wondered if RTT would even notice I was never going to speak to him again.

Then I was at the intersection of Lefforts & Washington Avenues in Brooklyn—the way it looked when I was a little girl. I was on my way to a babysitting appointment.

Did I stumble? Did I fall? Somehow I'd managed to drag my purse across the pavement so that it was now covered with drag marks. It had been a very expensive purse once, but nobody would ever mistake it for a luxury item again.

I had two babysitting appointments: one at 5:15, one at 7:30. It was going to be a tight squeeze, I realized. I had to optimize my movements, turn them into a kind of algorithm.

I was climbing the apartment stairs to the first appointment, wondering, Is this really the most efficient way?

It's not, I decided.

So, I ran back down the stairs.

But at the bottom of the stairs, I thought, It is. And I'd started going back up the stairs when I awoke.

###

In real life, RTT really was the most horrible of teenagers, and our battles were epic, though they never took place in front of third parties.

We're on good terms now, though, so I'm not really sure what pond this dream was dredging.

Also, it's hard to blame RTT for being a horrible teenager. As parents, Ben & I were pretty horrible ourselves. Deeply irresponsible.

###

Anyway...

Yesterday, I started Chapter 3.

I'd planned just to scribble a few plot notes, but ended up writing the first 1,000 words, even giving Icky a cameo as a fifth-string guitar-playing loser with erectile dysfunction. (That was fun!)

Chapter 3 is gonna be hard to write because I'm flying blind. It is not autobiography.

I am thinking it takes place at the hospital during the early days of COVID when Grazia is floated to one of the wards where she watches several people die in the course of one night—including one who could be her doppelganger—and experiences Existential Crisis, and runs off to a Catholic Church where she has a mental breakdown that could be God talking to her but also could be a psychotic episode.

And she calls Neal, and he takes her up to his Catskills cottage & takes care of her for a couple of days.

And she is left with faith. But not belief.

This will be a bit tricky to pull off without sounding like a Hallmark greeting card.

It would be good, too, to somehow segue into the events of the opening chapter: the sister wives on the porch after Neal's memorial.

###

The Work in Progress is my personal priority, but unfortunately, it can't be my top priority.

Money must be my top priority.

So, it's Remuneration & tax law for me today! Fortunately, it's raining, so I'm not tempted to go outside.

mallorys_camera

Dreamed I was on an airplane, but instead of the standard safety spiel—Please secure your oxygen mask before assisting others—the attendant advised us on what self-help books we should be reading in flight.

These books are absolutely life-changing, she assured us.

The first was a book called So What? dedicated to the proposition that when someone close to you does something reprehensible, you should just shrug and wash your hands of that person forever. Surgically remove yourself from their life.

The second was a book called Fuck You Forever, which was a list of all the horrible things that had ever happened or were going to happen to anyone who'd ever crossed you in any way. Each copy is personally customized! the flight attendant told us in a cheerful voice.

###

Yesterday, I pored over tax law. It's complicated! And the IRS actually fines tax preparers who let taxpayers use the Head of Household status when they're not eligible.

In the midafternoon, I began organizing stuff for the Big Halloween Fun I will be having when I visit my pal A___ in Deecie that weekend.

A___ invited me back in August. For weeks, Get Amtrak ticket had been at the top of my To Do list, and yet I was seized with a curious lassitude whenever I contemplated actually purchasing one.

Finally, day before yesterday, I got more explicit directions from my hostess: Arrive at such-&-such an hour!

Okay! So, that's why I had been putting buying the ticket off!

So yesterday, I booked the ticket and began searching around for my fabulous skeleton costume:

Alas! it seems to have disappeared in the move.

Which meant I was gonna have to make a trip to Spirit Halloween.

I have always been absolutely fascinated by the business model behind Spirit Halloween. Traditionally, it's been a seasonal popup retailer, opening in August, shuttering promptly on November 2.

In April, they begin booking 1,500 storefronts in distressed malls all across the nation. Malls love 'em—Spirit Halloween pays a 20% to 30% premium to use commercial space in a short-term contract.

In July, they hire 50,000 seasonal retail associates. Their inventory is bulk shit from China that gives the impression of scarcity (if Reddit is to be believed) because instead of passing along unsold merchandise to liquidators, they trash it all, actually breaking animatronics so potential customers can't dumpster dive.

Here's something hilarious: Spirit Halloween runs its own dodgy charity called "Spirit of the Children." Customers become hostages at checkout: Don't you want to contribute to the poor unfortunate children??? They could donate their unsold merchandise to their own charity, right? But they don't. And, of course, the charity is a tax write-off.

This is capitalism at its end-stagiest.

And it's an environmental issue as well because when that plastic unsold merchandise is trashed, it ends up in landfills.

In 2023, Halloween was a $12.2 billion industry. And Spirit Halloween has played a significant role in turning Halloween into a mega-retail event because there is a ripple effect: Even if you don't buy from them, you see those inflatable Frankenstein monsters on your neighbors' lawns, and you start thinking, Well, I gotta buy something...

And it's an industry that's comparatively immune to online competition because you don't know how you want to decorate your lawn until you see the perfect thing, right? You want inspiration, so you've got to look around.

Sales at Spirit Halloween didn't even dip during the COVID pandemic.

One other interesting (to me at least) thing of note:

Bad TV is my comfort food. Not on a television—I don't own one—but on my computer.

In particular, I'm a big, big fan of the various Law & Order franchises.

The new seasons have started!!!

And you know, I have Issues with Law & Order SVU, particularly with Olivia's creepy kid Noah and the way they keep trying to push a starcrossed romance with Stabler (Christopher Meloni was so much more attractive before he started taking steroids when he still had hair.)

But I was very pleased to see that Dick Wolfe made ICE the Big Bad in the opening episode of the new season.

Because this is actually how attitudes change. Not through protests! Not through Facebook posts! Certainly not through letter or telephone campaigns to your useless Congressional representatives.

But when your favorite TV character stares directly into the camera and says, ICE. BAD.

Kudos, Dick Wolfe!

mallorys_camera

Joey's BBQ was a modest success. Maybe 60 people at any one time—which probably means the total headcount was a hundred or so because cars were always coming & going.

Summer in October. Such a gorgeous day! (Thank you unseasonably high pressure front.) And Joey really went all out on the food! He roasted a pig!

And there was locally grown corn-on-the-cob, and locally grown squash, and locally grown potatoes, and locally grown apples. I provided dessert—zucchini bread (locally grown zucchini, natch), and several people sought me out in the crowd to tell me it was the best zucchini bread they'd ever tasted, which was flattery because while I'm a reasonably good cook, I suck at baking.

Someone donated a bounce house for the kiddies.

And there were horseshoes and a soccer game and several of Joey's impossibly beautiful friends made the trek up from Williamsburgh to play music:

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1088122093401875

For several weeks, the Shawangunk Dem email list had been abuzz with How political should this event be?

Like the Shawangunk Dems had any say in the matter!

It was Joey's event, and he has quite rightly assessed he will not win if he stresses any connection to the Democratic Party. "Democrat" is a dirty word in these parts, right next to "Libtard asswipe" in the Town of Shawanagunk semi-official lexicon.

Among the Shawangunk Dems, I have something of a reputation as a MAGA-whisperer—I guess because I'm not as polarized as 90% of the U.S. right now. So I made it a point to wander through the crowd and zero in on prospective MAGAs with sprightly conversation in the hope of helping secure their votes.

Once you're elected, you can do what you want.

But you have to be elected.

And, of course, that means people have to vote.

Will they? Hard to say. Most people, even those living in rural areas like this one, think local elections are relatively unimportant. The biggest determinant in local elections is most often the weather on Election Day.

###

Else? I have a staggering amount of work to do. Just staggering.

So, I guess I better get to it

Really, all I want to do is lie out in the sun & read Cormoran Strike novels. The weather is supposed to hold at this summer-like temp for one more day before it plummets.

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Alexander Kaufmann

November 2015

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Nobody asked me but...

Reading

Chop Water, Carry Wood

When Characters Come Off the Page

Dream of the Little Store

PTSD

Hints for Decorating That Refrigerator Box Under the Bridge

Kindness & Tolerance

Fun

The Crane

Priorities

Capitalism At Its End-Stagiest

The MAGA Whisperer

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November 2015

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