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We tell ourselves stories….

With apologies to Joan Didion for borrowing at least a part of the title of her fabulous book of essays (unrelated to today's post).

I was reading Nassim Taleb's The Black Swan today while I was outside waiting for the grill to warm up and watching our lunch cook, and it struck me how much time and energy we humans spend, as a species, telling ourselves stories, simplifying data to make it intelligible, and interpreting what we see in the world in a way that makes some sort of sense that we can see ourselves through. I don't believe that this is unique to me. Perhaps not everyone has a running commentary going on in their head, but everyone interprets what they see and forms it into some kind of narrative by which they live their lives. And I increasingly believe most of us are not even conscious of doing so.

This is why it is so difficult to perform any kind of truly unbiased judgment or interpretation of facts.

An example of this can be seen in can be seen in Nick Paumgarten's new article in the New Yorker, "The Death of Kings". Paumgarten scatters many anecdotes throughout his tale of the crises in the financial market including a comment by a private-equity executive who said he knew the gig was up when his cleaning woman took out a sub-prime loan to buy a house in Virginia. And yet he kept his money in the market.

Paumgartner also talks about how someone was advised to take a job, even though they were offering him too much money, because either they were "stupid or have so much money it doesn't matter", and the rational thing to do would be take the money while the taking was good.

Even we see danger we tell ourselves stories that it is okay. That we are doing the right thing. If your pay is based on how much revenue you generate it makes sense to do whatever possible to make more money, regardless of the long term effects, regardless of any small interior voice that is telling you it is all folly. You see that people who shouldn't be getting loans are getting loans, and you know that the end is near, but you also see everyone you know making money so you rationalize your actions, thinking you can just make a little more and you have plenty of time to get out.

We all believe these stories in some form or another. The fact is the stories we tell ourselves are far to simple to accommodate an increasingly complicated world, a world of our own making. We tell ourselves if we work hard and save money everything will be alright and when things fall apart we tell ourselves we were too lazy or too greedy. Or we tell ourselves that good things happen to good people, and we search our souls to see where we went wrong when things go wrong.

We tell ourselves that everyone deserves to own a home and we forget that home-ownership opens one up to all kinds of unexpected expenses and risks. We tell ourselves that if we eat right and exercise we will live to a ripe, healthy old age. We tell ourselves that the markets will rebound because they always have in the past. We tell ourselves things will always get better. We tell ourselves that lightening won't strike twice in the same spot. We tell ourselves that if we live in gated communities and send our children to good schools nothing bad can ever happen.

I tell myself that if I can just have everything organized I can meet every challenge in life.

We tell ourselves stories in order to live.

May 19, 2009
Moments of Perfection

It was a rather hectic, hassled, and harried week.

There were, however, moments of perfection

1. A perfect lemon meringue pie. Not a crumb remained.

2. Irises

3. A kitten.

It seems we both have a weakness for foundlings. His name is Moisés. He is currently about 5 weeks old and has been home with us for a little over a week.

May 16, 2009
At last, vegetables.

The Farmer's Market opened Sunday. I was there.

I came home with baby bok choy, japanese turnips and a cheese from a new cheese company. This one is a cow's milk cheese although I think most of their cheeses are sheep's milk. They also have sheep's milk ricotta and ricotta that is half cow half sheep. I will be buying from them again.

Of course I got eggs from a local poultry farm that has completely free run chickens and a few other things less picturesque.

It is still early in the season for most produce here but anything fresh and green and flavorful is a treat.

Today I also went to another farm stand and market where I picked up beets grown by a farmer who extends his season using big plastic tunnels that are kind of like giant cold frames you can walk through.

Fiddleheads and Morels are also in season now.

We had the fiddleheads tonight along with chicken breasts cooked with the morels and fresh asparagus cut from my garden. At least something is still growing in the long abandoned vegetable garden.

Looking at the bounty I can see why our food budget is bigger than the average American family's. But to me it is so worth it to have good food. I didn't start out being so picky about what I ate, and I have had periods where I was a true junk-food-junkie, but those days are mostly gone. I would rather have excellent quality, healthy nutritious food that I can savor. I love vegetable but I am no vegetarian, and I adore a good cheese. But even with cheeses I have learned that having a bit of a really nice cheese is so much more satisfying than just another block of grocery store cheddar. Spring is always a period where I am desperate to get away from the grocery store, when the produce looks tired and tastes flavorless. It may serve the purpose of food, but it is only fuel, not nourishment in all senses. I am always happy for the local markets to open.

I try to keep a few basics that can be prepared without much cooking for those days when everything is just to chaotic. A good cheese, and artisanal salami, some fruit or a vegetable simply sauteed, a pickle, an egg, a selection of nuts. These are things that can be enjoyed no matter how stressful life gets. So much better than grabbing some carb and sugar laden fast-food item that just leaves my stomach aching while simultaneously crave more.

May 12, 2009
More from the Garden

I really haven't gotten out much this week (unless you count going to the grocery store as "going out", and I don't) so I have no alternative but to continue to make you suffer through garden photos.

That is the flower bed at the end of the driveway, called the "iris bed" because irises form the center of the bed. So far, it is my only flower bed as the rest of my front yard is in deep shade, where I can have lovely textures but very few flowers. The sunny lawn beyond the flower bed is also home to the tile-field for our septic system, so not suitable for more flowers. I try to have something blooming here all summer as it is my one bit of floral interest, at least until I get more beds dug; even then this will be the main flower bed at the front, welcoming, side of the house. All the sun is on the river-side which is not visible until after one walks through the house or over the hill.

Primulas in bloom. G chose these once on a trip to White Flower Farm in Connecticut (a little over an hour away). I had tried planting primulas before but they never "took" until we planted these. These two have since sent their offspring out to colonize the rest of the flower bed.

The ferns are also coming out in the little nook by the front door.

And these yellow tulips have appeared on the rise at the top of the hill. This area was shaded by a shrub that was cut down last year, a bushy thorny thing that latched into one's clothes everytime one walked by.

I know I never planted tulips here, or tossed them here after planting. The front flower bed and the vegetable garden, where tulips are often planted are both below this rise although on opposite sides. Last I heard tulips don't roll up hill, and I haven't planted yellow tulips in the past, although perhaps I should reconsider. At a party last weekend several neighbors were complaining that their tulip bulbs are all stolen by the squirrels and asked about my secret (soaking the bulbs in Ropel before planting). I wonder if this is the flowering of some squirrel's forgotten cache?

May 9, 2009
Pool Opening

This little boat has been anchored in the little cove just below my house for two days now and is still here this morning.

Sometimes when I am out on the deck and see him there I wonder and I sit there and make up little stories…ah, the places the mind wanders.

And I have been out on the deck. The pool is officially open and running, although I still need to add about an inch of water and there is a leak in one of the solar panels so we are not able to use the solar heater right now. I've called about the solar panels, but this is busy season and we are really on the outer fringes of his territory so I don't expect an immediate response.

In the meantime, I still have to scrub up the ring around the water
line of the pool — I'll do that before I add the last inch of water.
This is my living reminder of air pollution, the grime that accumulates
is an oily residue from the trains that run multiple times a day on the
tracks along the Hudson River. I get much less of a ring now that the
pool is covered most of the time.

Once I've scrubbed the pool there is still the deck, and power washing is not enough to do the trick, although it might work if I used a cleaning agent and a brush and just power rinsed. I think I have a scrub pad that can be fitted onto a broomstick to save the backbreaking labor. It certainly is worth a try. It isn't worth the money to hire someone to do the power washing, they only get the easy stuff and I still have to do the work to get the tough stuff off. I'd rather just do it right the first time myself.

That is always the tough question with pools and decks. Is the pleasure of having it worth the trouble (or expense) of maintaining it? I know tons of people who are eager for this or for that but never think about what is involved with maintaining it until after they've spent the money to get it installed. All they think of is the picture-perfect magazine view of the life they think they'd like to have. But there is a grimier side to everything in life.

I knew what the deck would entail, and the pool, and I like the control of my money and my time that comes with doing it myself. In my experience, in the long run, I come out ahead because no one cares as much about my pool and deck as I do, so I am more likely to pay attention and catch things early. And actually I've gotten my routine down to a simple series of steps. As for the deck, someone would have to clean it every spring. And I continue to have my issues with hiring people to do work I don't want to do just because I "can" hire them.

But then the pool came with the house, which came with the husband and I've long since made peace with its presence.

May 7, 2009
Edging My Way into Gray

The past two summers I wore a lot of black. In fact I probably wore mostly black.

I have nothing against black, I even like black. But hot sunny summer days call for something a little lighter and brighter. I do like color and I like to wear color.

I would say that I wore black because that is what I had, and it is true at least in part. I had black, black fit, and I didn't have time to shop. I also didn't want to have to think about what I was wearing.

Perhaps I was not at a point where I was really ready to let color back into my life. But that is not really what I want to talk about today.

I don't want to wear black this summer. At least not mostly black. So I am slowly edging my way into color.

Edging, because the world is mostly gray, wet, and cold and I am adapting by wearing mostly navy and gray with touches of a few other colors.

Edging because I still have found limited shopping time and I only want to buy (or make) things that are perfectly what I want and make me happy. Most of the things I have ordered have been sent back as they were not right.

These things are old and beloved. They make me happy and if they are not quite redolent of spring, they are not quite suited to winter either. I love the color, the texture, the combination of prints: a simple silk tee, long sleeve, with ruching on the sleeves. A tunic I picked up at Urban Outfitters a few years ago, and exception to most of what I find at Urban Outfitters: Japanese cotton crepe in two patterns. The top is tunic length on me but I think it was sold as a dress. I find it perfect over jeans with a turtle or a tee. I am trying to wean myself from the turtlenecks, but it a slow process, that baring of the neck, much like weaning myself away from black.

May 6, 2009
Tulips for Spring

The tulips are a bonus this year. These were all planted two or three years ago and I am amazed at the large, lush, vigorous, and sweetly scented flowers of the white tulips. I will have to plan to include this variety in the landscape plans, not merely in the cutting garden. There are few tulips that can manage three seasons of large blooms.

There were enough tulips for a large vase for the neighbor in celebration of a 50'th birthday, and a smaller vase for me.

May 4, 2009
Thoughts on how we “read”.

As I was outside on the deck yesterday, brushing and pressing stain into the rough-hewn siding that is the lower part of the privacy fence on the more public side of our deck, I started thinking about reading and the various forms that the words "reading" and "book" are taking in modern life.

What am I talking about? I refer to the audiobook, the digital reader such as Amazon's Kindle, and the plain old fashioned book on paper.

I admit I am a lover of books. There are a couple of thousand books floating around my house and I love them and I struggle occasionally with the idea that I don't really need to keep so many books. But I do often go back and flip through them and read occasional pages. Many books are read and reread in their entirety. These books are like friends, offering new insights with each reading. But most of them are not rare and I could theoretically get them from the library. Many of them are products of their time and are not necessarily available on a whim. Perhaps I have them because I like being able to call on them when inspiration calls. But I also like their physical presence. I like curling up with a book. I like feeling the paper in my hands. When I want to go back to a particular passage, I tend to remember the section or chapter which contains the passage, but I also tend to remember its position on the page. But that kind of memory is unreliable. Position on a page is different for each edition of a book, each iteration of which may be shorter or longer, larger or smaller than the copy I read.

Perhaps because I am such a lover of reading for its own sake, I have never really adapted to audiobooks, although I have friends who love them and plow through them in great numbers. I know people who listen while they drive, clean house, work out, commute to work etc and etc. Personally I am too easily distracted to listen to a book and drive. Popular music is good for the car because I really only half listen, but for me at least, a book might be too distracting. I would either lose the content of the book or lose track of what I was doing, which is quite dangerous. But I do listen to audiobooks. I was listening to a book while I was painting. I have listened to books on the train to NYC while I knitted, and I listen when I am in the yard weeding or doing other simple mindless tasks. I listen if I am walking on a treadmill, but not if I am walking outdoors along the wooded path near my house. Walking in the woods requires its own contemplative silence. But I don't sit and listen to audiobooks. I can read many times faster than I can listen to anything, and given my choice I would rather read.

We as humans have a long history of listening to tales and stories. After all, before the printing press most people could not read, the transmission of history, poetry, religion,and story was all oral. People would listen to favorite tales and stories over and over and commit them to memory. In some sense, having a book on paper allows to absorb more and perhaps remember less. After all we can always find the poem or passage that struck us as so meaningful. Perhaps in some sense a book acts as an external memory device. If there were no books, we would have to commit everything worth knowing to memory and that would limit the amount we could know. So books have helped advance civilization and society. Perhaps audiobooks advance it yet another way in that they allow us to "multi-task" and "read" while we are doing something else, like painting the deck. In that sense I can see how they are a good thing. But I can't really relate them in my mind to books. It is not as easy to go back to a favorite passage. If I listen to a book that is of the moment I am happy. Otherwise, if I perceive the book as having more lasting value, I still need, or at least want, to own a copy that I can refer back to and look up passages and read and read again. And of course there are those books that require complete attention whether one is reading or listening. In those cases I prefer a book, again because it is easier to go back and read and reread important passages. So I guess I see audiobooks as a supplement to reading, a way to expand horizons and knowledge, but not really a replacement for books. They serve a purpose and are quite useful. After how much of what is read is really of permanent interest or value anyway?

Perhaps I am giving the audiobook short shrift. It is perfect for certain situation. I would rather borrow or buy an audiobook than buy a paperbound book that is destined to be tossed when I am done; and I am not so naive as to believe that all the books bought and sold in this country are recycled and reused. Have I missed something important? Please, if you see it differently let me know.

And then there is the digital book. I adore my Kindle. It was pretty much love at first sight and I continue to find reading it compelling. There is that instant gratification aspect of the kindle, the way I can read a review of a book and with luck it is in my hand a few seconds later. A kindle is also small and portable and about the size of a paperback book. It is not too heavy to read in bed, or on the exercise bicycle like some hard cover books. If one is interrupted by the telephone or the voice of a loved one, one don't fumble to save the page. The Kindle always remembers. The kindle will hold many books and storing digital books is far less space intensive that physical cloth and paper books. I can mark passages of note and automatically upload them into a word document without having to write them out by hand in a journal or type them into my computer, saving time. With its variable fonts I can set the type size on my kindle so it is perfect for me. I am never moving the book further or closer, or trying to peer below my bifocals or get the print perfectly in focus. I even prefer reading the newspaper on the Kindle. Best of all, I can curl up with a Kindle anywhere.

For all that I adore books, I am increasingly thinking that digital books are a fabulous resource. This technology seems somewhat primitive though in some ways. Amazon has a kind of digital location to mark the position of text in a Kindle book. But this does not relate in any way that I can ascertain to other books. Google is digitizing books. There are online sources for digital versions of profosseional, academic, and scientific journals. Perhaps I am being incredibly naive and hopeful but having access to the world of books in digital form seems very promising and empowering. What if there were some universal library that everyone could access? What if there were some standard reference point for locating positions of text in various media? I can imagine reading a book in my Kindle and immediately being able to access he authors reference materials and expand my reading if I wished to do so. This will perhaps be a long time in coming. But it seems like the promise could and should be there.

In the meantime, there are lots of books that don't need to be savored and reread. These are perfect for the Kindle. Reading a new novel, a book about current events, even a newspaper is immediate and compelling. Perhaps devices like the Kindle might revolutionize reading. After all, it has been done before. Gutenberg revolutionized how books and knowledge were created, read, and accessed. Perhaps we are due for a new revolution.

Talking to G the other day I realized that there could be a perfect confluence of visual and audio use of books. Audiobooks can bring books to the blind for example and also to the elderly. G often complains that he cannot read as long as he used to. He hasn't really adapted to the Kindle yet, and he doesn't find the mechanical voice of the Kindle's audio facility easy to understand. But I think there is hope here. I can currently read a book on my kindle or on my Itouch. I can read it or listen to it. I wonder if there is a hope of a perfect world where one can read a book or listen to it, picking it up at will, switching between mediums as needed, and always being able to coordinate one's location and communicate this to others. That may be too much of a dream.

And by the way, I don't think books will disappear for a long long time. There will be those who love books for their own sakes, those who collect books. But most readers don't save or collect the books they read. Most books are not printed on quality paper, most books are not made to last, and most don't have any lasting value.

If a device like the kindle encourages reading and makes it more compelling and immediate for more people, we have made an advancement. The important thing is not the paper itself, but the content, information, and wisdom that has been transferred and saved. If the goal is a literate society, all of these improvements should only help everyone achieve that goal.

May 1, 2009
Early spring nest building

It seems that the birds are not the only local residents who have been building or renovating their nests this early spring. My neighbors have also been busy.

I live in a small neighborhood of homes built in the late 1960's and early 1970's. They were all built by the same builder and although there are variations on the ranch and raised-ranch style homes, few of the homes appear similar and there are even a few relatively daring departures in style. This was the first neighborhood built by this developer, their first homes in fact, and they were obviously still "finding" their style. Of the things I like about the neighborhood is that it does not entirely, at least from the position of my home, look like a cookie-cutter suburban neighborhood.

But a few things are changing. The house above me was definitely in need of some repair and this winter the house was resided and the deck rebuilt with new railings. This is a good thing and it looks all new and shiny and nice.

And yet I quibble. The house itself is not distinctive: a variation on a raised ranch or split level (I haven't been in it in about 20 years), it could disappear in any neighborhood. What I liked about it was that it had the same T1-11 siding as my own house and several others in the neighborhood, and a cantelevered deck, also much like my own house. I liked the clean look of the siding with its vertical lines, and the deck with its minimalist apearance. Since I see this house everyday from my sewing room/office window I want it to be something I enjoy looking at.

Now I appreciate that the cantelevered decks are a problem. Many such decks built by these same builders have proven to be unstable in recent years and it did need to be repaired and replaced with some kind of supporting structure. And I fully understand that vinyl siding is so much easier for the homeowner than wood siding, and if one is going to really take the siding issue seriously, one needs to order the heavier grade of T1-11, (which took months for my own house).

Nonetheless, although the newly sided house looks lovely, I wanted something more contemporary to look at. The horizontal seams of the vinyl siding, the white colonial-plastic railings, and even the windows all look so mundane and "every house".

And why should I care? Isn't it pretentious of me? Well I suppose it is. The new double hung windows make sense (all the windows were replaced) although they completely change the style of the house. Even as I understand that these new windows are easier and probably more practical (and cheaper than large single panes of double-glazed sealed windows that open out in their entirety and were heavy and cumbersome to use) I miss the old house. Stylistically it was nothing new but even so, it flirted with modernism. It had a bit of style, whereas this house is just another house.

Perhaps I would be more pleased if they would build a deck around the pool so I didn't look up at its underside everyday, or perhaps cleaned up the downed trees that litter the hillside below their house, but which I did try to eliminate in this photo.

I wish the view from my window was of the house of my neighbor below. I have heard the work going on down there as well but it wasn't until I was down the hill cleaning brush and directing some tree removal that I really got a chance to see what they were doing. The downhill neighbor did a lovely job, and in fact I wish I had been that creative with the siding of my own house even as I acknowledge that the same treatment would not be suitable.

They have the same T1-11 siding as I although you can't really see the vertical lines of the siding on the photos, even if you click and blow it up, which I can see clearly IRL. I am impressed by the way they have taken the necessity of having a horizontal piece of lumber masking the seam at the top of the house to mask the seam between the pieces of plywood where they are not quite long enough for the entire length needed, by painting it white to contrast, and repeating it in a fixed pattern around the house. I also like the alternate white and gray stripes on one wall and which provides an accent and also echos the same pattern on the chimney which was redone a couple of years ago. Really, this is a thoughtful, clever design which enhances the style of the house. The other detail that I love, although it is really quite a small thing, is the blue beam, which echoes the blue of the deck chair below it. The house has post-and-beam ceilings, as all three of our houses do. I am intrigued by what the new residents have done with the inside of the house, although it is also quite possibly true that they may have spent all their money so far on the outside of the house, as we have done (and apparently are still doing).

The deck and the path around the house are also new and these have really stuck in my imagination. Partly because they fit so well with the house, and partly because I want a walk like that.

Well that is not entirely true.

I need a new front walk. I love that walkway and my first thought was indeed "I want that" but I realize it would be impractical for a front walk. The gravel will not stay in place over time and will get in the garden and the yard and the driveway and will be impossible to shovel during the winter. This is fine for a side path to a deck, but not for a walk to the front door.

But as we have been discussing and planning our need for a new front walk, it got me thinking.

Our front walk has long been a source of problems and contention. It is slate. The slates are placed randomly in the soil. They were placed directly in the clay soil with no gravel, sand, or whatever to help protect from frost heaves and the like. After all these years, many of the slates have broken. Each year some slates rise up,others sink down into the mud, and much reshoveling and cursing takes place only to have the same thing happen again the next time winter rolls around as it inevitably does.

But what kind of walk? G refuses to have brick. And really there is no brick around our house except for the two chimneys. Brick really wouldn't work with the house anyway. Most of the people in the area who do walks prefer to use pavers, but neither one of has really seen pavers that we like that much either. Last year, when we put bluestone around the corners of the pool, G commented that he would love a bluestone walk, even though for years he has said he only wants slate, despite the fact that slate is slippery and cracks easily. And so it was decided. Bluestone it would be.

But some part of me had a love/hate thing with bluestone. It is nice. It is elegant. It is such a standard upscale/nice thing to have. I must have some contrarian part of my soul that struggles with the idea that a bluestone front walk is the "expected thing".

Is there some way a walk inspired by the downhill neighbors path would work with our house, and still be easy to maintain? Would it work with our house?

And this brings me back to my original plan for this walk, back when G said he didn't want brick and he didn't want pavers, and he didn't want stone……..

My original idea was for a concrete walk. Yes I know boring, boring, boring. And yet not. I wanted concrete, in discrete sections, with cedar between the pieces perhaps, or something else I haven't gotten that far. I wanted a stone aggregate for the top layer, with the concrete brushed away and perhaps glazed or polished; just rough enough that it wasn't smooth and yet still smooth enough I could shovel it and the remaining bits of snow would melt. Into each rectangular piece of walk I wanted to place one square piece of the same Indian Slate that covers our front stoop. This would give G his slate, and would provide some consistency as we eventually intend to have the same stone inside the house as well. I didn't want the slate to be symmetrically placed in the center of each square, but more randomly, in a different place in each piece, flush with the polished gravel or stone, and a highly polished black or dark gray stone could work well here.

I've included various photos and angles of the house from the south and east sides because I need to think of how the walk would fit and the more I think about it, I think this aggregate and slate idea fits in well with the varied angles and pieces of the house. Bluestone is almost too staid and grounded. And perhaps, the more I think about it, centering the slate in the pieces of the walk is almost too symmetrical in an asymmetrical house. A random placement adds a bit of a touch of jazz, a touch that is much more suited to the surroundings.

But no decision has been made yet, and it isn't going to happen this year anyway. As you can see, there is far too much to be done: painting, patching the foundations, more painting, cleaning up junk and various detritus, landscaping, planting, and so much more.

I am way behind and even though I have been very busy these last couple of weeks, I know that just catching up will take more than one season despite the fact I am mortified at how much is to be done. I am still fighting my inner tendency to want to hide all that is not perfection, and I suppose I am making headway as there is no perfection in any of these photos.

We've come a long ways though. We put the peaked roofs on what was originally a flat roofed house, we jacked up the cantilevered living room and decks and put supports underneath. Even though they will never be truly level they are much improved. We have cut down and ripped out the huge spruce trees that flanked the front walk when I first moved in, trees so large that walking to the door was like spelunking in a dank dark cave. And even though some of my early attempts at ground covers for the front yard were misconceived and need to be replaced, it is still better than the fields of moss that lived here when I arrived.

The crooked slate walk and random steps will have to go, but I think I finally have the inspiration I need to create an inviting front yard and walkway.

Stay tuned.

April 29, 2009
Yesterday

Yesterday was the first truly warm, sandal-worthy, day of spring. We took full advantage of it having a leisurely of frippery, frivolity, and function.

Yesterday was also the day the maples leafed out and as we drove around town the full glory of spring was unfurled around us. The light yellow green near transparence of new leaves almost thickening before our eyes and dancing in the sunlight was almost magical. The magnolias were thick with blossoms. The daffodils are everywhere, yellow and white and cheery, dancing in the sun. A few early tulips are up but not chez dooney. I don't seem to have any of the early tulips this year, an oversight I am sure, although I do tend to prefer the more exotic later varieties.

A minor note of interest. I have lived here for almost 30 years. For most of that time the maples fully leafed out consistently on May 2 or 3. You could count on that like you could count on the day that ice would first cover the Hudson. Neither of those "old" dates hold true anymore. Leaf day has been creeping forward, first toward May 1st, then gradually a few days earlier. The last two years it was nearly a week early, but this year the leaves suddenly opened on April 24, a full 9 days early.

Yesterday I finished reading Gwen Ifill's book "The Breakthrough". I enjoyed reading it, and I learned a few things about politicians I knew nothing about. Her portraits were insightful and she was able to capture the quality of each politician she discussed in a way that made them memorable. Ms. Ifill's prose is just like her voice on "The Newshour": fair, direct, and to the point. As I read I could imagine her speaking. The book reads like a series of interviews with a varied and interesting group of black politicians who show much of the change, variation, and conflict taking place in politics today. I think I personally would have liked a little more analysis, but then again, analysis is dry and it is really to early to determine what any of this "means". Ms. Ifill is a journalist not an analyst. There is a lot to think about in these profiles of the changing face of politics. It was a good, timely book, but not something I will come back to or read again.

Yesterday I went back on antihistamines after a week's reprieve. And I fell asleep to quickly to read any poems of Christopher Middleton. This volume of poetry has provided us with a lovely bedtime ritual, a poem or two or three before bed; read aloud, discussed, savored, shared. Tonight we shall have a poem before we "slumber in our sleep" to quote my Grandpa.

April 25, 2009