As summer begins …

Sunning cat

Disappointments, heartaches, things cannot do; things done, things doing, things to look forward to

Dear friends and readers,

Summer unofficially began last weekend, Memorial Day, and it was not exactly a rousing start. We (Izzy and I) failed to get aboard a boat ride, which we were told was planned for our (my) Aspergers nowadays online group, meeting every other Thursday (an hour starting 7 pm) and once a month Saturday (7-9).

The ad lied and said you could buy tickets as boarded the boat, but in fact you were supposed to book on-line — in the sense of reserving a seat. (We did not book online partly because until 10 in the morning it was not clear it would not rain.) So all the people with pre-bought tickets got on and then the guy would not let those willing to buy there until on the dot of 3 pm lest any pre-bought tickets came along. His mean face and tone and words assured us they were “really” full up, as probably was the 6 pm boat.

Izzy said she was not playing this game. In other words, she refused to be humiliated. I’m with her. It does seem to me a great deal of US life nowadays demands versions of humiliation.

So, my friends, avoid Capitol Tours. The boats look awful.

We then found a cab to take us home, using lyft. We had a wait because traffic was so heavy. We had paid a red cab (booking it after 10) to get us there as the Washington Harbor area (like all Georgetown) has no Metro stop nearby: you want to know why Biden couldn’t pass his BBB bill: huge numbers of middle class whites don’t want public transportation in their area. Many areas in DC have no Metro stop. Should I repeat this?
As to Washington Harbor, it is hard to buy the simplest bottle of water or non-alcoholic drink; just about all the places require you to sit down and spend a lot for a meal too.

If this sounds ultra-disappointed, it’s not. I went in order to show all the people I’ve enjoyed zooms with for so long how I want to meet in person and for the 40 minutes or so waiting together I met all who came. They met Izzy who I’ve mentioned on and off for so long Myself I’m relieved to be home early, back to comfort (I have the air-conditioning on), my loving cats, my books and movies

We did walk along the water and Izzy took a photo of a sensible water bird family who do not carry guns and do not live in an unmitigated racist capitalist world.

Izzy and I did take a lovely walk in Old Town around 5 in the evening the next day. The whole park front on the Potomac was re-vamped to leave a good portion a people’s park; on one side and in one portion capitalism reigns supreme but even there the number of restaurants are kept more reasonable and people can still walk along the edge of the water without incessant noise. There are areas to sit, to play games, one dance area, much grass and trees. Again ducks along the edge of the shore …

It’s a good walk up and down, for we start not far from the King Street station and go down to the water and back. There’s a new nice used bookstore! we stopped in it and it’s good place with books organized by type. I used to do this walk almost daily with Jim in the afternoons or evenings when he was working and after he retired; when Vivian was alive (that friend I made who died of cancer) I’d walk sometimes with her. I don’t like to walk it alone because it brings memories of Jim and the kind of life I led with him. Izzy won’t come with me regularly but for special occasions and yesterday we did. No cab, no $50. There are two boats you can buy a ride on up and down the Potomac — they are not popular in the way of the DC rides. You don’t “see” as much — no tourist sites to look at, and be told bogus history about, but we have gone on them a couple of times. Jim would never go (he thought it silly) but when he was away in summer Laura, I, and Izzy did the ride a couple of times just the 3 of us.

That night I enjoyed my books very much (among them The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins), and at night was fully absorbed by Indian Summers Season 2 again. Today it’s supposed to be super-hot — 100F with heat index, so we’ll stay in Izzy watches the French open (tennis), and I’ll do my syllabus for the June mini at OLLI at AU.

To conclude the thwarted and ambiguous and heartaches: This past Saturday I met at the hairdresser’s a woman I’ve thinking of as an old friend. Lately her husband of man years died. From the conversation I realize she is actually fine (doing better than I did after Jim died). I had interpreted her non-response to an email as her being still too grief-stricken to be active this way But her words and then a polite email that she doesn’t want to continue the friendship. This is always so hard when I’m rejected especially when I can’t figure out why. It happens repeatedly in my life — I can see she has nothing against me personally. This is the sort of thing Aspergers people have to live with — many years ago my younger daughter, also Aspergers, asked me why do not others reciprocate (after she had gone to a girl scouts meeting several times, tried hard and no one would even be her partner in dancing), and I answered I don’t know, I wish I did.

I’ve exchanged emails with this woman the next day again and have a better idea why she wants to — or has — broken the beginning friendship off, for it was just beginning again. After all she did this 20+ years ago. It’s too particular for me to tell but I do think this has to do with her husband’s death. Partly she is in a fragile state and doesn’t want to be disturbed by any ideas outside her usual ones – not that I would disturb her. But she knows I’m an atheist; indeed why should I hide it. She does not hide her intense religious (Catholic) faith. She said she was doing fine because she “firmly believes” she “will see Roger again.” Maybe just my presence would get in the way.

These things hurt Aspergers people like us because it’s so hard to start a relationship or begin to sustain one and when we lose it, we don’t have a substitute. We don’t just move on to another relationship. It’s like a child with one train as opposed to a child with many.

I learned a new word — or understood a word for the first time. In a previous zoom I said I didn’t understand the new and various ways the verb to gaslight someone is nowadays used. I know the original film and original use but all the recent extrapolations were confusing. So I’d heard the gerund “ghosting” — or, as a verb, someone ghosts you. I thought it was the equivalent of snub, they make you vanish, ignore you, but no, it means the person makes him or herself vanish. It comes from internet experience where the person does not answer an email as if they are not there. I had had people do that to me, yes.

Not traveling anywhere this summer. Cannot drive at night so no Wolf Trap. You must test negative for Covid going and coming on airplanes internationally. Told airports are again these scenes of wretched crowding, cancelled trips. Nothing nothing is worth such experiences. So Ireland put off for another year. Still sorry not to escape this heat but for three days visiting Thao — see below. The beach is too far for day trip. That is the worst of this area in summer. No nearby beaches.

Where I might go if I could: Monet’s Beach at Trouville

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So now positive developments. Events and experiences to look forward to this summer.

My young friend, Daughter No 3, Thao, had her baby! He and mother doing very well. Auntie Izzy and Grandma Ellen had face-time with Thao and Jeff and this tiny baby last night.  Auntie Izzy there too. They said it is now just about procedure to induce a young woman after 39 weeks. The medical establishment has decided why wait? She has endured massive intervention during most of this pregnancy and it was a good deal of it overdone, unnecessary and made her anxious again and again. So this refusal to let her carry the baby to term is part of that — the people were at her since this past Thursday to come in — like she had a ticket for a seat (in this case bed) and was not showing up.

A boy, weighing a about over 5 pounds. It’s clear he can’t see. He was quiet while we talked. They were exhausted and very happy I could see. Izzy and I shall try to come for a 4 day visit in August. They had planned to name him William and call him Will but they seem not to be sure now and have not yet signed the papers. I wish I had a photo. I don’t. The first one I do receive from Thao I’ll put here (until then all I’ve got is this one of Sam loving baby Catherine).

Honeysuckle Weekes as Sam cherishing, joyous over baby Catherine for her father Gabe Kelly (Killing Time, Foyle’s War)

Would you believe Barsetshire in Pictures? I gave this talk, which turned out to be difficult work, and I was stressed about but managed to pull off. The first time since 22 years ago I used (went over) that original research reading and staring in the Library of Congress at the original illustrations for Trollope’s novels over much of his career. I believe at the time I viewed and described some 450 images.

I’ve had the idea for my timeline I’d put my reading aloud copy of Barsetshire in Pictures on academia.edu. The talk went over very well (I trust – people seemed to be laughing in the right places), and I do this in the interim before the talk itself with the pictures comes online on the Trollope Society (London) page — if anyone wants simply to read it. When the video appears, I’ll make a blog and then distribute this in different places.

Lily and Grace sewing together by candlelight — George Housman Thomas’s 32 full page and 32 vignette/letter illustrations for the Last Chronicle of Barset

Today, this afternoon I returned to teaching in person for the first time in 2 years and 5 months. A tiny class as so many at the OLLIs are so wary (rightly), but it went so well. So much better than these zooms after all. People really talking to one another in the class. Everyone seen. No one a black box with white letters. It’s the rejuvenation I felt this afternoon to which you owe this diary entry, gentle reader.

And my schedule for the summer and fall all worked out.

I will be teaching this “Alternative POVs on Traditional History and Myth”; also in person for 6 weeks, once a week “Sensation and Gothic Novels, then and now:” Wilkie Collins, Woman in White and Valerie Martin, Mary Reilly, books and movies.

Online at OLLI at AU: a wonderful class, genuinely learned professor from University of Pennsylvania on SouthAsia, once a week — I learned a lot this past week about the Indian subcontinent, geographically, historically, ethnically, religiously; a course, Beyond Musical Standards, on the music of people like Harold Arlen, also once a week for 4 weeks online, but in person (!), 5 days in a row one week, on “Women’s Suffrage.” OLLI at Mason: again 4 weeks of a movie a week, well chosen, with Russell (from Pennsylvania now) and Stephanie; 6 sessions on a history of basic civil rights in the US, online, and then 2 sessions on W.E.B. Dubois’ Black Reconstruction (that’s a Library of American book).

Online at Politics and Prose: end of July, early August, online with Elaine Showalter, “Difficult Women Take Two,” Elizabeth Hardwick, Sleepless Nights (how I loved this decades ago when I read it riveted), Jean Rhys, Leaving Mr Mackenzie, Angela Carter, Bloody Chamber, Nora Ephron, Heartburn; August, online with Helen Hooper, “The Other Elizabeth Taylor,” Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont (very good novel), Angel (one of those by her I’ve not read), and New Yorker short stories; September online with Michelle Stimms-Burton, James Baldwin, his later years, from 2 Library of America books)

I vow in August to write that review of the Anne Finch Cambridge volumes, and the short paper on the manuscripts of Finch and Jane Austen for EC/ASECs in October. I will study Italian and return to Anglo-Indian novels and memoirs.

August you see empty. Lots of horror stories about plane delays, weeks spent not being able to get out of a country because of testing positive for COVID, planes cancelled. Oonce again the airplane industry shows itself not concerned in the least about passengers. They follow the “just in time” theory. No preparation whatsoever for sudden surge of people. No re-hiring. What do they care? As long as their CEOs rake in millions in bonuses they give themselves.

So I will sustain my soul by my Anglo-Indian studies, Italian studies — for a future course at the two OLLIs. As when I started my studies of film, I feel like a child with a whole new candy store waiting for me.

Then carrying on for the rest of the year: London Trollope Society online: The Eustace Diamonds and Can You Forgive Her?. I’ll “do” in person in the fall at both OLLIs, “The Two Trollopes:” Last Chronicle of Barset, and Joanna’s Rector’s Wife and The Choir (books & films), once a week, September through November.

So there we are. Too busy to think about how lonely I am, and how hot it is outside. As for movies just now: Indian Summers, Foyle’s War, three Woman in White movies, two Moonstone. I’m finding the biography of Mazzini by Denis Mack Smith very good, so too near the end of Catherine Peter’s biography of Wilkie Collins (probably cannot be bettered), Maria Tatar’s Heroine with 1001 Faces — to say nothing of listening to Davina Porter read aloud Outlander once again in my car (sexually very stimulating for me).

Managing to keep Internet friendships on FB, TWWRN, my one alive listserv, Trollope & Peers, my online Zoom Aspergers group (every other Thursday and Saturday evening once a month). Here is my beautiful boy who does love me and Izzy

Have I accounted for myself enough? The ninth summer without Jim — carrying on our way of life insofar as I can without him, here, by myself.

Ellen

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