Me & my Macbook Pro, pussycats with quiet still widow

I must, then, repeat continually that we are forever sundered – and yet, while I breathe and think, I must love him — Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

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How sweet their affectionate behavior seems to me

Dear friends and readers,

I took my Macbook Pro to the doctor yesterday. The doctor turned out to be a young man (mid-20s I’d say) named Brian who was not a magician. I have grown very fond of my Macbook pro laptop: after my Dell Windows computer crashed, I seemed to be able to stumble into learning how to use it. Caroline was able to transfer all my data from the old crashed computer onto the Macbook and as far as staying in contact with “the world,” doing a syllabus towards a teaching job, making blogs, keeping some notes towards reviews, watching movies on vln viewer, podcasts, using bookmarks, indeed much that people use computers for, I was more than just fine.

It’s a remarkably powerful machine: bought on an impulse on what turns out to have been Jim and my last visit to New York together, it has proven its worth. The other day I failed to figure out how to play CDs on my mother’s radio, could not find where to play CDs on a more modern stereo in the front room, and was beginning to despair of ever listening to my CDs (books read aloud or music) and lo and behold I discovered you could put a CD into the DVD plate and push it in, and when Yvette came home, we did so (put a CD into the DVD plate) and a program came up from Itunes which plays CDs! I can again listen to novels and music.

Hence my reluctance to take it. Doctors are a breed to be wary of (look what their combined efforts did to the Admiral), and once during this long hiatus of no car and no computer to reach the website Jim built with, I was locked out because of the problem I took the Macbook Pro to the doctor to: the iphone and ipad have a different Apple ID than the Macbook Pro and by mistake I thought I was resetting my password for the iphone alone when I was resetting an Apple ID for the entire system, one out of sync with my Macbook Pro’s billing Apple ID. Won’t do. Well, I got an Apple person on the phone who apparently didn’t know what he was doing, and didn’t admit it, and made the situation worse, who harrowed me further and kept me locked out by hanging up, promising to call back in 15 minutes when he found something out. Two hours later I was still waiting for him to call, really hysterical and re-called and this time someone named Benjamin in ten minutes got me into the Macbook Pro again, but said the problem needed to be taken to an Apple store “to the genius bar.”

Well genius or not (he had a sign which said he was), Brian was unable to perform miracles. When Jim died, he left no information on the billing password of the ipad, nor the Apple ID he had. It seems to me it would be common for these machines to be passed between people and more that people forget their passwords, IDs and billing addresses. But some of these people who make new programs don’t think of real people using computers; they want to do things that flatter them and make them think they are doing super-fancy gimmicks that go very fast and do more. Do more what? don’t ask. These things are always flashy and “in” type thing that take computer comfort and know-how.

Well, some arrogant person or persons who don’t live in the real world of poor memories, contingenies like death, think that all apple products ought to be able to transmit data between machines automatically; this depends on knowing and keeping consistent apple IDs, passwords across the system, and passwords within specific applications. Brian said he could perhaps phone itunes and some subgroup within Apple to find out the missing Apple IDS and passwords on Jim’s ipad that no one today alive knows, but it would take at least an hour and then we might not find it. Plus for mysterious reasons he said sometimes happen my computer was having trouble connecting to the Net in the Mall store. So, Brian offered to do something else which would take my going home and re-booting in some sophisticated way he thought few people could do. We agreed, “No, that would not do.” If I wanted the three machines to stop nagging me every time I open them to fill in a password at icloud (the program that transmits all this wonderful data) and the iphone and ipad to stop refusing me access in the first place because of these contradictions in passwords and IDs, he could (after much effort) shut down icloud. It took him about an hour, but he did that. He did have to shut the Macbook Pro down and then bring it up again; he said icloud was the bane of his existence. Lots of people come in with icloud miseries like mine.

Talk about emotionally exhausting. I had to take all three machines to the Pentagon City mall; secure an appt — on a phone call from home I was told I had to make an appt online using my passwords and apple IDs — but you see they were the issue. I had a 2 hour wait at the mall. For me every day is an effort at just keeping on an even keel (I am depressive with anxiety attacks lurking). Then once I came back and while there – at the genius bar — I saw intense people come and go, each had a real problem with something not working and the “genius” assigned was to get whatever it was working. No one was a magician and in a couple of cases, the person could not be helped — a faulty machine, some complicated reality preventing the machine from working at the store. Tension was high. I asked Brian how he managed to spend hours there. He told me he drinks when he gets home. He meant that half-comically. All the geniuses but one were young men (meaning one of out about 10 people I saw was a young woman).

So how am I doing? Talk about cut off. The perspective on my life that is most accurate is I married him and that defined my existence, its meaning, its extensions. I am lonely. I do have good friends on the Net and write and receive lots of letters in all sorts of forms. I participate in book talk on three listservs. I have friends writing blogs and myself write blogs back. I have now begun my projects once again. (See just below). I seem to spend too many hours doing practical things: shop, keep account of money, household tidyness, I had a a contractor here who estimated how much it would cost to replace the rotting facia boards holding the gutters along the house walls where they reach the roof (maybe I’ll do it in May). Then they would take down a rotting porch off the back door in the back yard too. I am exhausted continually — because of the problem I stated above: fighting depression, remaining calm is a continual form of work. I am eating — regularly — and some of the weight I lose I gained back. Clothes no longer falling off. I sleep each night 6 hours — with the help of a mild prescription alternating with melantonin.

Maybe my life is as full as anyone else’s. I don’t know. I am going to start the volunteer teaching at AU (Jane Austen’s first three published novels to retired people) in March; in February there are 4 planning meetings. I found I could not sleep (pills or no pills) when I told myself the 18th century meeting in Williamsburg end of March would be too much for me. So I registered, reserved myself a hotel room across the street, got two train tickets, will go to 2 luncheons beyond the group-wide one, and soon will rent a masquerade costume. Now I am sleeping again. My fine and good proposal to compare carefully Austen’s MP with 4 film adaptations, was rejected (once again — I know no one who counts at JASNA) as a speaker for the coming JASNA at Montreal, but decided not to get rid of my reservation at a the JASNA hotel in Montreal — thinking maybe my Burney proposal might be accepted, thinking I might end up not being able to sleep if I didn’t go. I could also submit it to another conference or send it to Literature/Film Quarterly. It’s their loss. Yvette agreed, and said she’s not sure she wants to go now but to leave the registration there for now. We did get ourselves passports so we could go.

I did weather the second and third great crises of November. You will remember that I bought a car. So that was crisis one. One cannot shop for food (bring it home) in Northern Virginia without a car.

Crisis two: Did I tell you I managed to beat back the bureaucracy at the DMV? The day I came home from Boston, Yvette found in my mail (I had begun to put off looking) a letter now saying my license would not be suspended but revooked because my sheafs of documents (carefully gotten) were unacceptable. The DMV was demanding 1) Dr Wiltz put the date down, say if I had no medical condition. I got an appt the next day (after I rented a car — exhausting I assure you) — out of his generosity on the website. When I got there, Dr Wiltz pointed out to me he did put the date down and did say that. But he typed out a letter and signed it saying what lines his replies were and he repeated the date and there was no medical condition. So they were trying to suspend my license. A second demand was more ominous. They were able to get into my prescription record and discovered a strong anti-anxiety pill prescribed in August; they demanded to know why and when it was discontinued or the license was suspended. So much for privacy. Well Wiltz wrote I took it once, during Jim’s dying, and Hernandez who I contaced by email discontinued the medicine. All this had to be in by tomorrow as Friday the office is closed.WIltz faxed it yesterday.

The DMV letter implied all was in compliance but these things, thought they should now leave me alone, but such petty people prefer to harass someone than risk the least criticism they are not doing their job (power love here). Wiltz wrote a letter and did not put his remarks on the form. He said to me there was no place and he had written the stuff. Since he himself (HIMSELF) faxed the stuff and signed it twice I couldn’t argue. I saw the Kaiser psychiatrist too (I got all these appts through the website) and he cancelled every medication but this sleeping stuff which I do need. Gentle reader, all the records of your prescriptions whatever they are are available to US agencies of all types – and they can requisition any psychiatric records. Never mind the NSA, Mr Snowden – no privacy does not exist.

Next day I went to the hair dresser and Sheila cut and colored my hair and sat and talked with me. Very kind. I’ve never seen her before just sit and talk with me. Not leaving me alone. Kindness is as important — the gift of caring overtly — than a thousand practical deeds, or the deeds hurt without the kindness.

Well I am relieved to report the DMV seems to have forgotten I exist. I am no longer made intensely anxious by the sight of the day’s snail mail.

The third crisis: I replaced — or Jonathan working for an IT man who sells good computers and service with them — replaced the crash now dead Dell Windows computer I had. I am now typing on a beautiful new Dell Windows 7 computer and it really seems that I really will have an IT person I can contact who will help me with problems; who will from his station control mine by remote and so the solution has been accomplished: a genuinely knowledgeable person available when I need him. His name is Jonathan, age 24 and very sweet; I found I couldn’t talk on the phone to the people running the website from Chicago (I just cried) because an important part of this was connecting to the website Jim built. That can only be done with ease from a windows machine. Again I didn’t know the passwords, IDs, and other things. He spoke for me and I was allowed to offer other information; Jim’s mother’s maiden name, his American Express card security number.

So I have weathered all the crises for now and follow regime which should ensure I don’t konk out and have someone kind to rely on for computer help (who is paid for it).

Reader, I married him — Jane Eyre [and cancer was allowed to destroy him — he was not important enough, had no means to reach real help]

Ruth Wilson as Sandy Welch’s Jane Eyre

And again as Paula Milne’s Queenie (from Small Island by Andrea Levy)

Onto present daily life: It’s the long silent day that is hard. A lack of affectionate gestures. I take books to bed. I think to myself what happened in my life was I married Jim and that defined my life. yes I had two children, but that did not structure my existence, it only filled it with things I had or wanted to do — beyond the reading, writing, teaching, scholarship. He was my frame. The smallest utterance and whatever was bothering me would be dissolved away as not to be thought of — the world’s stupidity. He was father, mother, brother, friend. He enabled me to cope with depression by his having such respect for me and giving me space and room for my work, coming with me to conferences. He staved off anxiety attacks by calm reasoning and humor. And I helped him: so he found this house, had the nerve to say, let’s rent it, and I through letters with the landlady ended up buying it from her. Typical of us.

I’m a physical creature and long for physical contact — face-to-face too. Ian turns out to love to hug me by climbing onto my lap and putting his paws around my neck. Clarycat likes to lick and cuddle close. Still my pussycats don’t always want to stay in my study with me. I guess I am no fun. She retreats to her green pillow near an Italian radiator in the back bedroom; he has a grey pod in the front room (on Jim’s chair) where it is warm too. I spend a lot of time reading, writing notes, sitting there quietly in my room in mysterious ways. I can’t ever be playing with them with strings. They do sleep by and near me and they do spend some time with me in said study. Just now Clarycat is on my lap, and Ian was following me around for a couple of hours earlier today — trying to get me to play endlessly with these string toys he loves.

I sometimes listen to Pandora radio — Don McLean channel, Nancie Griffith, Pete Seeger, the Beatles. Also NPR — though just now they are nagging for money. I have to work in listening to novels at home: David Case reading War and Peace aloud, and then watch the 13 part mini-series the Admiral downloaded for me. I don’t call him the admiral much any more.

Those who are left are different people trying to lead the same lives … Winston Graham, Warleggan, Book 4 of Poldark series, ch 4, p 55)

At the Kennedy Center in March a huge festival of some 40+ plays, concerts, events from all over the world, literally is coming. It includes an exhibit from the Victoria and Albert Museum. Once upon a time Jim would have spend days picking out what we should go to and we would have gone to about half maybe. I’ve bought 2 tickets to see two fine plays — one from Iceland and the other from South Africa — I’ll go two Sunday afternoons and I’ve reserved for free to see and hear a staged reading of a play about the monstrous things the US did in Fallujah, and a panel discussion from French and Arab groups at the close. Without him, but going to what once would have been a good deal of fun, interest, good conversation afterward.

Cheryl, the grief support person at the Haven, is very good for me. The two hours every two weeks of understanding helpful talk. I come away seeing my problems more clearly. And of course it’s a form of friendship. I took her hand to say goodbye this time. We’ve spent 2+ hours together more than 5 times now.

I am not sure about this Georgetown job teaching the Enlightenment in a real BA program (continuing education for the disadvantaged, those returning to school, older people) I worked hard on a syllabus and produced a good one but far from any praise, he’s getting increasingly rude. Suddenly he reminds me that there is to be a teaching demonstration which I must pass “even before we can consider hiring you.” So reminding me I am far from being hired and have done all this work without a promise of anything. I admit I don’t like this close supervision of this man and also that he is trying I see to drive me to make the students write away each week just spontaneously — it’s make work for all. I’ve never done that: in 23 years only once did I try this diary business. Never again. He also has asked for a revision not easy to do. He did remind me of the actor (perhaps unfairly) playing Stanier Clarke to Olivia William’s Jane Austen in Miss Austen Regrets. The actor played the man as cold and performative, phony while ever so apparently warm (frosty-warm) and cosy and flattering. Perhaps he does not like my politics — though nothing much in evidence — or its content (I have no religion unit). If I don’t get the job, — I don’t need the money and would be happy with these volunteer jobs — sobeit. I refuse to take any more punishment from any one that I don’t have to.

How lucky I am as to money — but worried, having to trust to financial advisors. Either I leave the money as liquid cash and live on my monthly income or try to make it grow slowly and provide a small extra income. I see the market is going down and didn’t like the way the consultant was talking all that much on Friday on the phone. He is too eager to invest so next time I shall say let’s take a break on this. I did keep back the money I got from the insurance and opened another savings account so I have back-up beyond the IRAs and what we agreed not to invest.

One day during this arctic vortex I hired a poor woman, in her 40s or 50s, dressed very mannishly to dig out my sidewalk in front of my house and my path. She came to my door with a pathetic looking shovel. Freezing cold out there — 8 degrees fahrenheit with a wind chill factor making it colder (though the wind is still just now). I don’t have to do this sort of thing. That day I sent along a URL to the three Yahoo listserv leading to an article on how in the UK in the last 35 years a policy has been in place to shrink the housing stock and after much harassment and misery people are ending up in slums again.

I talked with the guy I bought my car from today. Next week the tags will come through and he assured me the low battery on one of my case keys can be replaced by a Toyota dealer or at Radio Shack. Fingers crossed I have little trouble with it or can pay to keep it going as it won’t cost too much, and the DMV continues to forget I exist. May they never remember me for all time to come. Since I refused to go to the hospital (under considerable pressure more than once) I am also free of other stuff that is fallout from an accident — medical claims, incessant bother over not-such-small sums. I sleep and eat enough that I don’t konk out again ever.

I don’t convey the bleakness I feel, how pointless. A fortunate (?) widow’s life. He should have lived another 20 years. He was cut off, like so many. Do you know that formaldehyde has now been found in the polluted water supply of West Virginia — a powerful cancer-causing agent in the respiratory system. I now have twenty or so more years to get through. Day by day. Sondheim has a song about this (the Admiral loved Sondheim): Not a day goes by.

Not a day goes by, not a single day
But you’re somewhere a part of my life
And it looks like you’ll stay
As the days go by

I keep thinking when will it end?
Where’s the day I’ll have started forgetting?
But I just go on thinking and sweating

And cursing and crying
And turning and reaching
And waking and dying

And no, not a day goes by
Not a blessed day
But you’re still somehow part of my life

And you won’t go away
So there’s hell to pay
And until I die

I’ll die, day after, day after
Day after, day after, day after
Day after, day

So there’s hell to pay
And until I die

I’ll die, day after, day after
Day after, day after, day after
Day after, day

‘Til the days go by
‘Til the days go by
‘Til the days go by

‘Til the days go by

Sylvia