Mallory's Camera

Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be, Abraham Lincoln—a famous depressive—is reported to have once remarked.

To me, this sounds exactly like the type of quotation some late 19th-century journalist in St. Louis or Cleveland might have invented to spice up a gushing piece on New Year's resolutions.

But I admire it anyway. 'Cause I think it's true!

Though it does make me feel like a self-indulgent slob: My part of the world is going into its third solid day of rain and grey, and since three days = "perpetual," I am miserable. There is simply no reason to be alive.

###

Belinda has told me the True Tale of her Harrowing Childhood four times now.

Each time she tells me, her lower lip trembles and her eyes fill with tears. It is very evident that she is embarking upon a spontaneous recitation of something deeply personal and intimate and fraught. This being the case, I always wonder: How is it possible that she doesn't remember she told all this to me before?

Now, I repeat stories, too!

It's something old people do. I don't remember repeating stories to people when I was young or having them repeat stories to me, but maybe that's because young people's lives are brimming over with new experiences. Young people are interesting on their own; they don't really need to pull out set theater pieces to command attention—because that's really what these stories are: theater pieces. I know exactly which words to emphasize for maximum effect, where to raise my eyebrows archly, where to pause for audience reaction (laugher, sympathy.)

Thing is I know when I've told the story before!

I simply forget the audience I've told the story to.

Belinda really seems to believe she's telling the story for the very first time.

And no, it's not the onset of dementia.

I honestly don't know what it is.

###

Other than lunch with Belinda and grocery shopping and being absolutely flummoxed by the price of seedling heat mats in the Upscale Supermarket's garden supply department—they are wayyyyy cheaper online, but perhaps I'm still seeing pre-China tariff prices?—I did very little of anything yesterday.

So, I will have to do a lot of something today.

Met up with the fabulous BB at Da Tang, the fabulous Chinese grocery store in Middletown.

Middletown is something of a Falun Gong hive, and judging from the number of Falun Gong brochures at the check-out counter, Da Tang is run by Gongers.

This is one of the reasons why I love grubby little cities in the middle of nowhere that are scrambling to keep up with the present tense: They're magnets for all kinds of weirdness!

###

Middletown is plopped down right in the middle of Farm Country. (This time of year, you can actually smell the manure they use to fertilize the fields before they sow the corn.) It developed as a distribution hub and processing center for farm products, and reached its mercantile heights between the late 19th century and the beginning of World War II when the Erie Railroad downtown yard bustled with freight cars. The big industries were tanneries and condensed milk. But there were myriad shops where the farm families bought their dry goods and shoes.

Then gasoline-fueled trucks became the distribution method of choice, and everything decentralized; the farmers bought automobiles and began shopping in more convenient stores on the edges of town, and those edges metastasized into strip malls that are now—ironically—harder to get to than the downtown.

In the late 1950s, practically every city in the U.S. caught Urban Renewal Fever and began tearing down the old historic structures, replacing them with ugly commercial buildings and parking lots, or not replacing them at all. Thus, downtown Middletown today is a veritable warren! The Da Tang grocery is just one of dozens of unexpected universes behind nondescript walls. BB goes shopping there several times a month.

###

Here are some of the things you can buy at the Da Tang grocery:

Quail eggs:




Delectably alien dried fruit:



Hello Kitty candy:



In fact, every one of the thousands of items in the store is deliciously strange and intriguingly provenanced.

###

Afterwards, we looked around for a place to drink caffeinated beverages and jaw. We didn't want to go back to the Falun Gong café!

We passed a sign in the window of a shabby once-industrial window: Tranquili-Tea: Calm Your Mind.

A calm mind is good, right?

We decided to go in.

And found ourselves in a strange little winding hall decorated with glittering lights and mucho eye-pleasing kitsch that led into this cavernous room:



A most delightful tea parlor! Where they bake their own extremely scrumptious scones and offer a dozen different kinds of tea, which they then let you brew to your own desired strength using these adorable miniature hourglasses:



What a find this place is! (As my beloved Marybeth used to say.) A secret garden.

Though I suspect it's not gonna stay in business very long because I can't imagine there's much demand for magical, down-the-rabbit-hole tea gardens in grubby little cities like post-industrial Middletown.



Bade farewell to BB and scurried off to the gym.

Good workout, and on the way home, I had one of those... what would you call them? experiences? episodes?... where all-of-a-sudden, the world seems to shimmer with a golden light and the fallow fields and ancient barns I drive through seem infused with heartbreaking beauty, and the world seems like a good place—even though I know it isn't.

Spending time in the garden was lovely. Stayed three hours. Got maybe half the 12' X 12' plot weeded? Will return to complete the task later this week. I may not even need to beg Claude to rototill this year: The earth is quite pliable.

###

Spring is more advanced in Dutchess County than it is in Ulster. Maple trees all sporting that tender green blur that, upon close examination, is not leaves at all but tiny tree flowers, lethal to anyone prone to allergies. The magnolias & weeping cherries are all in bloom, and the daffodils & forsythia seem to have staying power this year, so the roadsides are a riot of yellow & pink & spring green.

###

I drove by L's house where I used to live. It's shabbier than ever though the daffodils I planted are blooming in great clumps.

I was pretty happy for most of the time I lived at L's house, and I wondered—not for the first time—if L would have lost her mind if she hadn't had that knee replacement.

I warned her!

Good little libertarian that I am, I have a pretty hard & fast rule about never offering personal opinions about courses of action when it's clear the other person is bound & determined to see them through—except when I feel an emotional bond with the other person and the course of action runs straight through a disaster zone.

Surgery under general anesthetic is risk enough on its own for anyone over 80, but added to that, I'd seen L's chest X-rays! I knew how badly her lungs were compromised.

So over lunch at one of the Culinary's extravagant restaurants, I told Linda my concerns.

It was one of the few occasions I can remember that I ever saw Linda get angry.

I can't remember exactly what she said—I wrote about it at the time, so it's here somewhere—but the gist was that I was not the boss of her, so why didn't I just STFU.

I felt so badly about the encounter that I ended up paying for the lunch—$100 plus.

But shortly after the knee replacement, Linda began manifesting signs of dementia. I think she may have stroked out on the table. Or thrown a mini-clot. Or something.

###

Linda was never someone with whom I was going to forge a deep connection, but I was fond of her and grateful to her.

I haven't seen her since I moved out, but Belinda, whose grim sense of duty compels her to take Linda out every couple of weeks, tells me she's not doing well. She doesn't appear to bathe, smells faintly of urine. She prattles thoughtlessly. She eats half a dozen rolls at a sitting.

Neither one of her children like her, so they're not looking out for her.

Mrs. Neighbor Ed drops by for tea and takes her out shopping once a week, but Mrs. Neighbor Ed, though a kind person, has definite boundaries.

The house keeps getting shabbier and shabbier.

Sad.

And maybe I'm in complete denial, maybe this is just what happens to people when they get old, but I can't help thinking, It didn't have to be this way...

Here is the dinky little video I made of the April 5th protests in Middletown, New York:



BB had the creeping crud plus it was raining, so we merely showed up for half an hour or so, long enough for our bodies to be counted (we hope!) before dashing off to a strange little café, apparently run by members of the Falun Gong sect that served passable chai lattes, brewed espresso drinks, and pastries like these adorable fish, filled with red bean paste:



The place was crammed! And the people at the various tables, dressed very differently as they were, all seemed to be signaling to each other with secret signs.

"I wonder what their stories are," I said to BB.

"I don't have a clue," BB said cheerfully. "And I'm not much interested. But that's what makes you a writer."

Every now & then, the protesters & their signs made the circuit of the shabby downtown street where the café was located. I studied the Falun Gong cult members' faces carefully to see if there was any sympathy. There wasn't. At the table kitty-corner to ours, a quartet of determined 30-ish women raised their eyebrows disparagingly, made remarks to one another that I couldn't quite hear.

Back in 2016, my beloved Summer explained to me why Trump is so overwhelmingly popular with Chinese expatriates in the U.S.: "They think he has luck. They think he is phenomenally lucky. And luck is the thing we revere and want above all else."

###

When we were done with our drinks & pastries, BB led me to a fabulous Chinese store where all sorts of fabulous groceries were for sale:







To think that all these wondrous things are a mere five-block walk from the Y where I work out two or three times a week and that I had never visited them before!

###

Back at the casa, I labored on Adrienne's website, aligning links & graphics and embellishing it with fulsome prose like, When Adrienne moved to Wallkill 16 years ago, she immediately looked for ways to support the hamlet she’d fallen in love with..
.
(Yes, I know, gag-worthy, but trust me: It will work for the voters of Wallkill.)

I should finish the damn thing today.

It is far from perfect, but the important thing is that it is.

If Brian the fresh-faced little campaign manager—who's actually getting paid—wants me to tweak stuff, I will simply tell him, Find someone else.

I never actually told Adrienne I would design her a website. I told her I would help her with social media. So, you know.

###

There's no accurate reporting yet on the number of protesters who turned out yesterday. 500,000 signed up in advance with the various Hands Off, Move On, etc. organizations, so I'm thinking probably twice as many showed up. Maybe more. The numbers will be underreported by the mainstream media who are all Trump suck-ups. Fuck the mainstream media.

###

Also, I am dead serious about launching an initiative whereby we help people obtain those documents (birth certificates, marriage licenses for women) that prove citizenship & thereby protect the right to vote.

Of course, this kind of stuff doesn't matter in New York State, which doesn't require proof of citizenship at the polls, but my old LJ friend cah1470 actually lives in the North Carolina district where 65,000 votes are about to be tossed because North Carolina! Home to Mayberry, gerrymandering, and the Ku Klux Klan!

I totally believe that the next federal election will be lost unless we make sure our votes can't be thrown out. People in red states will need to vote early and in person, bring identification, voter cards, make sure their signatures are exactly the same as they are on the voter cards, etc, etc, etc.

I don't have the foggiest notion at this point how to liaise with organizations in the states that do require proof of citizenship at the polls. Plus we'd need money—obtaining govt documents costs. So maybe I need to figure out how to set up a 501 (c) (3)??? I dunno. This is all in a very preliminary stage in my head right now.

Anyway, I've got Adrienne talking to the heads of the Democratic Party here in New York—a thoroughly useless endeavor, I'm sure. Democrats are hopeless.

And I am gonna lean on RTT when I see him in NYC this week to try and set up some sort of meeting for me with the Soros-financed People for the American Way to see if they might be willing to be sponsors.

It's actionable resistance!

That means I'm gonna have to draft some sort of policy proposal in the next two weeks.

Busy, busy, busy!

I was 20 minutes late to TaxBwana yesterday—got stuck behind a tow truck that was chugging along hilly 44/55 at 20 miles an hour—and so missed Moira, the totally delightful 86-year-old whose taxes I did at Highland a couple of weeks back. She came in at 9 with an enormous box of treats! (TaxBwanas can't take money, but we can take treats!)

"Patrizia, Patrizia, Patrizia," Steve the site coordinator grinned. "That's all she kept saying. You have a fan."

This was particularly touching to me because I know exactly how much disposable income Moira has, and it's not much. The treats outlay was a significant expenditure for her.

Then later in the day, one of the TaxBwanas approached me: "They're my friends, so I really don't feel comfortable doing their taxes. Too much information, you know! But I really want to make sure they get someone good. Will you do them?"

So, you know: Ego validation!

###

My mood turned to meh as the day wore on. The political news is really quite awful, and I find myself preoccupied by the question: Why exactly did you choose to be born in this time & this place?

Because I am quite convinced: Choose I did.

What am I supposed to do? Personally, I see the world in shades of grey, but the world defies me by shaping up into some kind of Manichean battle: Good Guys versus Bad Guys. Belinda, my Trump-voting pal, all but admitted to me when we went out for Himalayan food last week that she regrets her vote. (And, no, I didn't prod her. I deliberately steer away from political discussion when I am around Trump-voting pals.)

But how do I know that I'm not one of the Bad Guys?

Life! The ultimate role-playing game!

###

The only real talent I have is writing.

But I'm not under the illusion that anybody reads much of what I write.

###

Meanwhile, I am wayyyyy behind on my Remuneration goals & Adrienne's website is still not done.

Icky & his ill-mannered spawn have vamoosed for the next 10 days, leaving me in solitary possession of the casa. So, that's a good thing.

(Minor showdown with Icky last week. He complained the kitchen was dirty. I told him that I was perfectly willing to clean up after myself, but I'd be goddamned if I was gonna clean up after him & the Spawn. I did clean up after him & the Spawn a couple of times when I first moved in, in an effort to ingratiate myself, which doubtless gave him the wrong idea.

And I get the feeling you want me to move out, & I am looking for another place to live, I added.

I don't want you to move out, said Icky. And cleaned the kitchen.)

Black Chicken seems a bit more chipper. And tonight, I will be hanging with the Girl Squad at the Parkview, which should be fun.

A most fabulous visit to D.C.!

Alex is an epic hostess, so the two and two-half days felt like a mini-version of one of those fabulous house parties you read about in British novels: the adorable house that is just like a museum to Alex's quirky, interesting tastes, an enormous range of actual museums—we did the National Museum of African American History & Culture and Hillwood, the Marjorie Merriweather Post mansion where the Fabergé Eggs live—splendid weather; adorable felines; and non-stop conversation, perfectly timed so that the moment it began to pall was the morning I left to come back.

Alex also made it into The New York Times!



She had been to the Science Protest March just before I arrived.

Alex may be the only person in the world who's perfectly recognizable from the back of her head.

###

She & her husband live in the same house her husband was born & brought up in, & every inch is filled with the most delightful kitsch. Kitsch is very much my own design aesthetic, so I scampered 'round the domicile, taking Art Photos™ at every opportunity:





Alex adopts people—by which I mean if she sees an opportunity to help them thrive, she helps them thrive! I see this in the way she opens her house to young people—presently, she has a very adorable young Russian woman, Arina, living with her—and to some extent, I see it in her friendship with me. It is a really lovely quality—and a rare quality.



So, the African American Museum...

It is a great museum, but I had some issues with the way the permanent exhibition is designed.

The permanent exhibition recreates the history of slavery—which is not necessarily the history you think you know. The exhibits are arranged chronologically, starting with the journey from Africa and the Middle Passage in dark, narrow halls in the lowest concourse of the building and culminating with the contemporary experience of African Americans in the somewhat brighter higher concourse—although given that, ironically enough, D.C.'s Black Lives Matter Plaza was being dismantled the very weekend I was in town, the contemporary experience may not be that much brighter.

There is no escape from the permanent exhibition, no easy way to drop in and out of the pieces you might specifically want to see. The design immerses you in the entire experience—and while I understand the intentionality of that design, it does make it difficult for people like me whose attention span gives out after about an hour and a half, no matter how worthy I may deem the overall experience.

It's an exhibition crafted for first-time visitors, in other words.

Repeat visitors are going to have a difficult time with it.

And even this first-time visitor developed a mild headache—it was so dark, so claustrophobic! And, of course, I understood that this headache was a measure of the exhibit's success—the suffering of the enslaved translating physically into my own discomfort.

Except—I was in a position to terminate my discomfort.

And wandered out somewhere around the beginning of Reconstruction.





Hillwood, in contrast, was all opulence & comfort as befits the spring-&-fall mansion of one of the obscenely rich.

We had a delightfully enthusiastic & mildly wacky tour guide:



Marjorie Merriweather Post became a connoisseur of 20th-century Tsarist art, something by accident—her third husband was FDR's ambassador to Russia. And the pieces were absolutely magnificent:





But I couldn't help thinking that in essence, they were not all that dissimilar to the lovely whimsies scattered around Alex's house.

###


Alex said one other thing I want to remember.

Alex is a good cook. A comfortable cook. And we were talking about cooking, how challenging menu planning can be, & she said, "Well, of course, if you know your way around a kitchen, you don't see a loaf of bread, you see four sets of sandwiches, and one serving of French toast, and possibly bread pudding."

In other words, cooking isn't about recipes; it's about ingredients.

Words to live by.

Woke up in the middle of the night and could not go back to sleep for anything. At first, I was anxious about all the things that I've invited to go wrong in my life—Come on in! Fuck right up!—and then I was anxious about being anxious.

But finally I zeroed in on the proximal cause of my anxiety:

One of Annie's novels that I'd ordered for Max's birthday had been delivered to Linda's house, and I had asked Belinda to pick it up from Linda and deliver it to me when she met me over lunch to drop off her tax documents. (Belinda is one of about 15 friends & family members for whom I do taxes regularly.)

We met at the fabulous Hudson Taco.

"I want you to see this," said Belinda about five seconds after we were seated.

"This" was a long text she'd sent to Mrs. Neighbor Ed about Linda.

Bla bla bla... and when I went to pick up Patrizia's book, Linda started raving about how wonderful Patrizia was. But then when she answered the earlier phone message I'd left, she didn't remember I'd been over, & when I mentioned Patrizia's book, she began saying what an awful person Patrizia is and how she didn't trust her... Bla bla bla.

"Of course, that's her disease talking," Belinda added eagerly.

I sighed. "Belinda, why are you showing me this? I know Linda doesn't like me—"

"It's the disease—"

"I know that. But it's hurtful just the same because I was never anything but nice to Linda. I bought her little gifts, I stocked the refrigerator with food when I knew she couldn't go out shopping, I arranged parties for her. I nursed her for 10 days when she had that knee replacement—"

"She's never been the same since that knee replacement—"

"Please do not tell me the mean things Linda says about me. It just makes me sad. And why were you texting that to Pat of all people?"

"I thought I should document Linda's behavior."

Huh?


###

I don't think Belinda was intending to be mean. I think this was just some kind of vestigial behavior left over from her adolescence. Belinda is only a couple of years older than me, but she is of another generation, having grown up in the middle of nowhere where that kind of reflexive, petty, ingrained female spite took a long time to evaporate. Is dew on the morning grass still, in fact.

Linda's dislike is not something I would pay any attention to at all in the daytime.

It's only something that could make me anxious in the middle of the night.

And it does that because it whispers the things I was told throughout my childhood: You're dishonest, you're untrustworthy, you're worthless. Nobody could love you.

My mother's whisper.

###

My mother took about three days to die, and for most of those three days, I sat by her bedside.

Once, she sat straight up. Stared straight ahead with wild, indignant eyes. "I am not a bad girl!" my mother cried.

I wonder who she was talking to.

I wonder if I will do the same thing on my deathbed.

If I do, I will be talking to her.

Valentine’s Day is actually an ancient Roman fertility festival called Lupercal that the greeting card industry jacked up on steroids & mass-marketed.

I bought my vibrator a card, chocolates, & flowers.

I also slept the whole night through, which is practically unheard of. And whaddiya know—the sun is out today! That sepulchral Snowglobe of Doom hunkering down on us lo this week past is lifted! So I am feeling pretty chipper today. Though shortly I must go out & sprinkle salt on the vast sea of ice engulfing the driveway.

###

Ellen had to put her dog down yesterday.

I offered to go with her to the vet, but Ellen is even more of a No Whinging Allowed! type than I am, so of course, she wouldn’t hear of it.

So instead, I told Ellen all about Milo, the most wonderful dog ever…



Milo was originally RTT’s dog. But, of course, RTT was the most horrible teenage boy ever & completely neglected him, so I ended up as Milo's caretaker.

In Monterey, we lived five blocks away from one of the most beautiful beaches in the world, and I took Milo down there two or three times a day where he ran & frolicked & had a particular obsession with large pieces of driftwood—bigger than he was!—which he would mouth merrily & try to drag home.

Milo journeyed with us all around the country when we traveled with the circus. And when we ended up in Ithaca & Ben walked out on me, Milo was the most faithful of companions.

Ben abandoned me with all the animals—two dogs, two cats, and a disabled box turtle. I was so destitute, having lost my business, my house, all my possessions, & all my savings, I could barely feed myself & RTT during the half-the-time I played custodial parent, let alone the pets. There was simply nothing I could do for money in Ithaca.

I knew the moment I left Ithaca, I would be able to find work again—except I couldn’t leave Ithaca because I didn’t trust Ben not to let RTT drop out of school. I had to get RTT through high school.

I’d found a house in a village called Freeville, 10 miles outside of Ithaca. The Cement Bungalo! Freeville was the Meth Capital of Tompkins County, but it was situated in a landscape of almost unearthly beauty, and so, my chief recreation—since I couldn’t afford anything else—became hiking miles & miles & miles every day.

I liked following the creeks to spy on the beavers. I became utterly obsessed with beaver civilization. Beaver lodges! Beaver dams!

Milo accompanied me, ever faithfully at my side. And the Meezer, my all but feral cat, would stalk us, trailing unfaithfully at a distance of 10 yards or so.



One thing about the companion animals in my life: They tend to die at moments just before my life is about to make an enormous change.

Thus, Edward Hopper and Dennis Hopper, my two angora bunnies, leapt so high they broke their spines in 1993, just a few days before I was to drive up to Clarion in Seattle.

Clarion in Seattle is where I met Ben.

Being me, I had some notion that I would cancel Clarion, hire a carpenter to make little bunny wheelchairs, & devote the rest of my life to caring for my little lagamorphian paraplegics.

But I got talked out of it.

###

I left Ithaca in 2012, less than a week after RTT finally graduated from high school.

All sorts of other things were happening, too.

Like Ben collapsed into an encephalitic coma, which turned out to be related to a virulent case of heretofore undiagnosed Hep C.

For a couple of days, it looked like Ben was going to die right then & there, and I wasn’t sure what I was going to do because RTT was not starting at Syracuse University until the fall. Was I gonna have to drag RTT down to the NYC metro for three months? What a nightmare that would be! Because one thing I was absolutely determined was happening: I was gonna get the hell out of Dodge.

But Ben recovered (after a fashion), so phew! Crisis averted.

###

RTT found a home for Nimoy, the disabled box turtle.

I was going to take the two cats—Rutger & the Meezer—with me. But I knew I would never find a place to live with two cats and a dog.

So, I’d tried to get Ben to take Milo. And first, Ben said he would, but then in typical Ben fashion, he weaseled out of it. And I didn’t know what I was gonna do. I couldn’t abandon Milo! But neither could I stay in Ithaca.

But then, Milo was diagnosed with cancer.

I had no money to buy him chemotherapy, and anyway, it was unlikely the chemotherapy would have worked. The cancer was very aggressive.

So, the very last thing I did in Ithaca the morning I left was to have Milo put to sleep.
I had to do it alone. RTT & I, at that point, were barely speaking: I guess he blamed me for his father abandoning me. Ben was the parent who never said, No; I was the parent who attempted—unsuccessfully—to impose some kind of order & discipline on his life. Naturally, RTT always preferred Ben.

Milo lay in my arms as the vet injected the euthanasia, and I stroked him & told him all about Doggie Heaven, which is an enormous beach filled with big sticks to drag, and other dogs to scamper & play with, and the beautiful crystal-clear ocean to swim in.

Milo’s eyes were closed.

But just before he died, he opened his eyes, looked deep into my soul, so lovingly & compassionately that I could feel him blessing me.

###

The NDE description of heaven is a long white tunnel, filled with light, that you kinda wiggle through like a kid in one of those McDonald’s play areas.

When you make it through to the other side, all your dead family are supposed to be waiting with a big picnic lunch.

My family hated me. None of them are gonna be there on the other side of the white light with a basket lined in red and white checked cloth filled with celestial deviled eggs!

But Milo will be there. And the irascible Meezer. And pawky Rutger. And Dennis Hopper & Edward Hopper.

And together, we will all go to visit the beavers—-who in Heaven live in golden dams and speak English in the most mellifluous voices that resonate like the finest W.H. Auden poetry.

Projected monster snowstorm was a bust, thank the Lord! Hideous White Stuff did fall from the Sky, but only about two inches of it.

It’s still gonna be a mess because what the Hideous White Stuff fell on was a solid plate of ice. Footing will be treacherous.

But at least the driveway won’t have to be plowed.



Meanwhile, Loraine & I met up for lunch in New Paltz at a newly opened Brazilian restaurant.

The newly opened Brazilian restaurant’s food was Not Great, but I was predisposed to ❤️LUV❤️ them anyway because plucky owner! Plucky owner’s wife! Doing all their own front & back of house!



I don’t know how long they’ll last, though, if they don’t figure out a way to keep the French fry oil from going stale.

It was fun to catch up on news from the old nabe, and afterwards, we went across the street to the World’s Best Chocolatier (which maintains a branch in New Paltz.) I stocked up on hazelnut truffles.



I should have done useful work when I got back to the casa, but I didn’t because it is increasingly difficult for me to concentrate on anything.

I lack discipline.

###

Today is the Superbowl, a Great American Orgiastic Celebration about which I do not give a fuck, except to pray that RTT doesn’t do any serious sports betting.