Random Wednesday

I was going to post something profound and thoughtful, but having been sick in bed for two days I find that my creativity and ability to think are still considerably hindered.  And not wanting to let the urge to post pass me by once again, I’ll turn to randomness to keep me in (return me to?)  the swing of things.

1.  Having taken two sick days this week (I know — ASTONISHING.  I never take sick days.  I really was that sick.) I find that I’m having trouble getting myself back into work mode.  I’m staring longer than usual at the people who present themselves at my desk, and it takes longer than usual for me to comprehend what they’re asking me.  (Part of this is that I’m still too sick to care what they want.  Part is that my ears are hopelessly clogged.  Part is that having been sick I can get away with it.)

2.  My workaholism seems to be waning significantly.  I felt the slightest pang of guilt when I went home on Monday after having made it at work for only an hour and a half, and another fleeting pang when I emailed in sick on Tuesday, but really I harbored no continuing guilt at all.  Again, I was just sick enough to make this justifiable, but it really does concern me a bit because A) I usually can’t handle staying home from work for any reason, and B) if I’m not experiencing chronic guilt at any given moment something must be seriously, radically wrong with me.  Today the guilt is back in general, so no need to worry, but the reality is that somehow I no longer wish to work as hard or as many hours as I used to want to.  (The fact that this means that I am either burned out or permanently broken is something that needs cogitation and will perhaps be addressed at another time.)

3.  I am uncontrollably, helplessly addicted to my iPhone.  I have no idea how I ever lived without the thing, nor do I wish to try ever again.   

4.  I’ve started reading again.  After not having finished a book for months (again with the astonishing, I know…I’ve been a bit off kilter, I think…well, obviously) I’ve delved back into the literary (or rather, not-so-literary, as the truth would have it) world with a fervor almost close to what it used to be.  (Can that still be called fervor?) I now remember how I best get through my free time. (There are ever so many ways to justify and/or rationalize the situation if a fictional character turns out to be less than I wished for.)

5.  A friendship I’ve been experimenting with has turned out to be a complete disappointment.  Although, come to think of it, this was expected, so I guess disappointment is a bit of an overstatement.

6.  Another friendship I’ve been experimenting with may have some potential.  While my guess is probably not, I’m trying to extend myself into the realm of optmism for once (so very many astonishing things today) so I’m not yet pooh-poohing the thing entirely.

7.  Talking about experimental friendships makes me miss my friends.  The real ones, the tried and true. 

8.  Being sick (or maybe being home…resting…like a normal human) has taken away the crankies (for now) but has, as it is wont to do, brought on the blues.  Or maybe just induced a reality check.  Sometimes I’m unable to discern between those two things. 

9.  While the above randomness may tend toward exposing my anti-social side (ok I know…the use of the word ’side’ here is more than a smidge of an understatement…) and the pessimism that goes along with (at least for me) having such a side, I am not the ingrate I seem to be.  One of the things that has been pretty powerfully returning to me lately is a sense of gratitude.  Really profound gratitude.  For my friends and loved ones, for my job, for my warm and cozy place to live, for my cute car, for the fact that the holiday season is over and will not return for nearly another year.  For so many things. 

10.  And gratitude?  Gratitude has the potential to warm me as very few other things can.  While hobbies, friends, loved ones, things and people I wish could be with me for the long haul tend to ebb and flow, to enter and leave my life seemingly at random, I’m always ok if I have gratitude.  Because if I am thankful it means that I am remembering that I have Someone to whom to be thankful.  And as long as I’m remembering that Someone and the leadership and care that He has afforded me, somehow I’m different.  Different in a really good way.  I remember that that the truly valuable, truly good stuff of life (including my existence itself) is indeed not at all random but is part of my life for a reason.

7:00 and all is…well…

Where on earth does the time go?  When I enter my apartment do I have my own little time zone, one in which time mysteriously speeds up or is somehow different from earth’s normal time keeping rules?  Does my axial spin somehow get faster when I have things to do?  (Thank goodness I don’t have to plan my time on Jupiter…very, very short days there….)

A few posts ago I declared determination to set some structure to my time. What’s happened to that?  Right. Out. The. Window.

I got home from work today just after 5:00, hoping to “get some stuff done.”  Since I had been really quite productive at work today, I decided to reward myself with a little reading time.  Two hours later (way too little and way too much reading time), I still have the following to do:

Get dinner off the stove

Eat dinner (don’t think I’ll make it with two asparagus spears and a bite of cottage cheese)

Finish my glass of diet coke before all the fizz goes away (I hate that)

Take the dog for a walk

Take myself for a walk

Do laundry

Find something in the attic that I should have filed properly in the first place

Do dishes

Organize my desk

Work on the sock I’m knitting (or maybe put this off because I’m afraid to start the heel)

Other various stuff that I’m sure needs doing right now that should have been done while I spent yesterday knitting and watching Stargate-SG1 (season 4 is really good).

You see?  As usual no structure.  So, maybe I just need to prioritize instead.  I have had some relax/reading time, and I’ve managed to at least heat up dinner, and I remembered to send a friend a happy birthday text message.  Three things down. (Well four, I guess…surely blog updates count.) Not truly terrible for two (ok, make that two and a half now) hours.  

Guess I’ll go get some more done before I succumb to complete and utter laziness (“forget it, its too late to do anything now anyway” comes to mind).

Sending Transmission

Feefee the Jeepy-Jeep (my beloved car) is having some issues.  This past week Feefee and I had some very stressful times, and while I think that at least for the immediate future we’ll be ok (thanks to $600 worth of repairs last Friday), I still don’t think she’s feeling at all well.

You see, it seems that Feefee has transmission problems.  (I guess this has been a very common problem with Jeeps between the model years 2000 to 2004, and I’m just lucky that mine has made it to its not especially elderly 87k.) Thanks to my good friend and newest (and possibly forever, at least in the car department…you’re stuck with me now, Pal) go-to guy Michael Polan, I found a trusty and friendly transmission repair place that is (mostly) within walking distance of my house and work.  I sent Feefee in for some not-terribly-costly repairs (which I was told fixed problems like hers about 85% of the time…), but she’s still suffering a bit.  I guess it could best be described as, well, being a bit like me — no low gear, only high gear. (She actually has low gears, of course, but they don’t always engage properly…my car and I are ever so much alike.)  I think she’ll last a bit longer, as most of our take-offs (I’d say about 99% of them at this point) are still perfectly fine.  But I am now faced with a really difficult decision:  Do I have her transmission rebuilt and hope that extends her life a great deal longer, or do I…I can hardly even think it…trade her in for a newer model (or maybe a different model altogether…one that works will do)?

I have two major problems with this last option.  Firstly, I am totally attached to this car.  We’ve been through some major stuff together.  She’s the first car I’ve ever purchased and completely finished paying for all by myself.  We’ve had camping trips, trips up and down the East coast, and a trip across the country and back together, not to mention many trips around town to teach students, and to the vet and the grocery store.  (Wisely, Sylvia talked me out of driving myself to have my wisdom teeth removed.  Sad, in a way…that would have truly been a bonding experience between Feefee and me…but I fear we would not have made it home.  Well, we absolutely would not have.  Thanks, Slyv.  You’re a good friend.)  Lots of history.  Feefee has been very faithful to me, and I feel like I’m letting her down by even thinking about another car.  

Secondly, I really DO NOT want a car payment right now.  Well, ever.  I hate making payments on things, and the fewer bills I have to remember to pay every month the better.  (I am really terrible at paying the bills.  It gets done, but I hate it.  Worse than dishes, worse than grocery shopping, worse than grooming the dog, worse than fixing the toilets at work.  Hate.  Loathe.  Despise.)

These are my choices, neither of them particularly palatable.  Luckily I have some time to think about it.  I think I’ll avoid discussing it with Feefee until the decision is made, however.  I need to be able to take a firm hand and just tell her what is happening rather than asking her permission.  And here’s something I need to keep in mind:  my car is an inanimate object that does not care whether I trade it in or whether it works or whether I get to work on time (this last one is sketchy most of the time anyway and cannot be blamed on my vehicle).  Note to self:  remember this.

I will be spending the next few weeks doing some research and trying to decide what might be the best decision regarding Feefee the Jeepy-Jeep my car situation.  (See, I’m already doing better.)  If you see me speeding around town sometime in the not-too-distant future in something small and silver instead of the usual red blur, don’t be surprised.  Whatever decision I make will I’m sure be the correct one, and I will live with it and be happy because that’s the way I’m trying to be in as many areas of my life as possible.  (No, really.  I am.)

In which I…gasp…

I can’t even bear to say it yet, so I’ll start with a story.

In early March of 2008 I wandered into a little novelty shop and for whatever reason the learn-to-knit kits caught my eye.  I left the shop with one, having been encouraged by a friend to look into finding a hobby other than working and reading and spending too much money on degrees I’m not using. 

When I opened the kit, read the instructions (hey, this couldn’t be too difficult, right?  Grandma, after all, tried to teach me as a kid, so I can’t really be considered a complete novice, right?), and produced a pretty little purple swatch of garter stitch from the needles and hank of purple yarn (which I promptly managed to render a hideously tangled mess, not having read the instructions thoroughly (or at all, really)  and thus having no idea that I was supposed to turn the hank into a ball before use), I soon declared to my friends and family that I had taken up knitting. 

The response?  Laughter.  Without exception.  For many years, in fact a good deal of my life, I would not tread within a hundred yards of a craft store.  Crafts were for people too dimwitted to read a proper book or work a few extra hours at the office.  Crafts were a waste of time and heinously boring.  Crafts were for people who had no real hobbies (such as reading or working).   These are things I staunchly and unapologetically declared everytime I saw a craft store.  In short, I totally asked for it.  The laughter at the other end of the phone (did I mention this was without exception?) was warranted and deserved.  I got the question from my stepmom:  “Does this mean we get little knitted stuff for Christmas?”, or something snide to that effect.  Also deserved, although a bit feeling-damaging, as at the time I had actually considered it.  But my friends and family came to accept the fact that, yes, Jessica had taken up a craft and, yes, looks like she’s not joking, and as time went by, yes, looks like she’s actually really into it.  She still talks about it, at least.  (I’m sure there were some relieved people in my family when Christmas came and went this last year with no knitted gifts.  The fact that they received from me no gifts at all does not, I’m sure, lessen that relief in the slightest.)  (Lest you think me a complete jerk, we did not exchange gifts among the adults (oh, how loosely I use this term) in our family this past year.  And lest anyone think they will be recieving any knitted thing at all, for any occasion in the future, well, you can go ask the stepmom why not.)  (I am sure this last statement has only intensified the relief…but most certainly I digress….)

I have to admit that the knitting had a brief hiatus when things got really busy at work last fall.  There was also a brief bout of crochet, but I still don’t know what that was all about.  (I guess its a good thing to know how to do, though, as it is called for in a knitting pattern or two and is handy for edging things.)   But after I returned home from my Christmas holidays I flung myself back into knitting with a vengeance.  I tried new stitches (I swatch like a mad woman), cast on new projects, and have even finished a nice (well, at least I think it is nice) scarf for Sylvia.  (If she doesn’t really like it then she has very recently become a much better liar than she used to be.)  A month or so ago I boldly strode into a sweater pattern (albeit an easy one), and was oh so proud of myself when the back was completed.  “I am becoming a real knitter!”, I excitedly thought to myself.  I even referred to myself not too long ago (I can’t at the moment exactly recall where…facebook?…I’d really rather forget about it anyway) as an “avid” knitter.

Oh, how pride doth go before a really bad (really, really bad) fall. 

Earlier this week I cast on what was to be the front piece of my sweater.  I was nearly halfway finished with it when I became a bit frustrated.  I had always thought that my stitches were a bit wonky, but it hadn’t really mattered before too much because a) I was essentially a beginner, so my stitches couldn’t possibly yet be expected to be as beautiful as those of Kristine or Marcie or others who had been knitting much longer than I, and b) my wonky stitches hadn’t shown up so much in the stitch patterns I had been doing.  But my stockinette stitch was killing me (its not all that interesting to knit miles and miles of this, so its no wonder I started looking more closely at my stitching).  It was not even remotely pretty or even.  I kept telling myself that a non-knitter wouldn’t really notice that much, but it was really bothering me, so I had to figure out what was wrong.  I tried everything.  Different tension, not pulling funny on my knit rows, different needles, different yarn.  Nothing worked.  So, I went back to the very basics.  I looked at how I was doing the very basic stitches.  (Have I yet used the words “very basic”?)

I still can barely say it.  It is nearly impossible to face.  I have been knitting for nearly a year and a half and all of this time I have been purling incorrectly.  Incorrectly.  Purling.  From what I know (which, apparently, is absolutely nothing, zero) this is the second most basic stitch.

Out came the front of the sweater.  The frogging of it was so intensely sad I had to call someone afterward.  But, in the hopes of marching boldly onward, I swatched a bit to practice the movement of how actual purling is done (as opposed the fake-ass purl nonsense that I had come up with…I still haven’t figured out how I learned to do that so very wrongly…I really don’t want to know).  Then I recast the front of my sweater and tried again.  The new (real) purl stitch makes my knitting look so much better (oh great surprise), but now I’m dropping stitches all over the place.  Frogged the front again (and chucked it, along with all pretense of optimism, to the other side of the couch)  and haven’t had the heart to cast it on for a third time. 

I think I’ll finish one of the other projects I have on my needles and I’ll finish it gloriously incorrectly and save learning how to knit for real for another day.  Laugh away, friends and family.  I will in time come to laugh at the moment as well.  Or not.  No, probably not.

Clearly Negligent

As the more astute of you may have noticed, it has now been just over six months since my last post.  Clearly, my blog is one of those many things in my life that I have been neglecting.  The list goes on and on.  My reading time has suffered terribly of late — I’ve only finished four (nearly five) books in the past three months.  Unheardof for me, the strive-for-a-book-a-week kind of girl.  My yarn stash sits not-so-patiently in its cabinet, begging to become all of the glorious projects (most as yet undefined) that the beautiful yarns (well, mostly beautiful) it contains are supposed to become.  My living room re-arranging project will probably never be done (or even started), and there are friends (one of whom is moving away again very soon, much to my distress) that I have not had dinner with in ages.  

So, one should ask, what the heck have I been doing?  The answer is, regrettably, nothing.  Well, seemingly nothing.  Not much of anything significant, anyway.  My time management practice has gone completely to you-know-what, and I’m feeling like a veritable slacker.  I go to work (luckily I have been rather productive there, or at least I had been until small-college-campus-summer-syndrome set in) and I come home and walk the dog and attempt an at least somewhat-healthy dinner, and then I…well I don’t really know what.  Too much of everything and not nearly enough of anything, and suddenly the little free time I have in any given day is gone, see-ya-later, never to return.

My goal for the immediate future?  STRUCTURE.  I work SO much better with some structure to my free time.  I feel as though it isn’t wasted.  (I know, it can be argued that free time is for wasting, but I have way too much fun stuff to cram into way too little free time, so wasting my time is, well, wasteful.)  I am going to make sure the ice cube trays in the freezer  have ice cubes in them, cook the chicken I bought and actually eat it rather than waiting two weeks and throwing it away, keep up with the dishes, write, read, organize my books, keep up with my blog…you see, things are getting out of control already and I haven’t even started yet.  But a commitment to getting things done (leisure or otherwise) is at least a step in the right direction, and will hopefully keep me from further frustration and huluification (yes, I admit it, I’ve become addicted to hulu.com), and will hopefully help avoid that cobwebby feeling my brain gets when nothing is getting really truly accomplished.  The way, after all, to feel accomplished is to actually accomplish something.  My optimism and hard-headed drive are hereby reengaged.  Good luck, Me.

Nothing Says Merry Christmas…

Sitting next to very large people on planes.  Food poisoning.  More than two feet of snow.  Cabin fever.  These are just some of the joys of my Christmas holidays so far.  And I’m sure there are oh so many more to come.  So far my Christmas vacation has come down to having flown thousands of miles (all the while surrendering approximately a quarter of my own, expensive seat to the large person next to me who really should have purchased a seat and a half, or at least a seat and a quarter, because he certainly didn’t fit in the single seat he paid for) to see my loving and equally holiday-hating family (this hatred being equal to my own) only to spend the first few days of my visit in bed (and unwillingly and repeatedly donating the contents of my stomach to the interior of the toilet in the bathroom that, fortunately for me, adjoins my bedroom) and the rest of them trapped in a house with family members suffering from various stages of cabin fever due to seriously inclement weather.  Lest you think that one of my other personalities has completely taken over (I refer to Scrooge, of course — one of my favorites of my many personalities), I must admit that there have been some very nice moments as well.  Like taking twenty minutes to bundle up the baby (Mandy, my niece who is 14 months old) so that she could be pulled behind on a sled (well, “sled” might be too strong a word…in actuality it was an old satellite dish with a rope attached…we do quality in this family) when her dad and her big sister walked up and down the street to deliver Christmas cards to the neighbors, only to have her decide she would have none of it, voicing this opinion with loud (perhaps glass-shattering might be more appropriate) wails.  Or giving Diana (my other niece who is 11) the keys to the pump house, only to have her set them down in the snow (!!!) (have I mentioned there is more than two feet of this devilish, cold substance?) while she finished her snowman.  (Needless to say, if the heater goes out in the pump house, the pipes freeze, or we experience any other water-related disaster, we are effectively in something very deep, and I’m not referring to snow.  We will have to take an axe to the pump house door, which, being in a state of cabin fever that would rival that of the characters in The Shining, might actually bring us some much needed relief.)

     In all seriousness, however, it is incredible to be home.  While I spend more time at home than most people might who work full time on the other side of the continent, I miss my family (crazy though they may be…hey, at least I fit in somewhere) terribly and would rather be snowed in with no other people on the planet.  My sister and her family are all gorgeous people, inside and out.  She could not have chosen a finer guy to be the man of the house and a father to her children.  Diana and Mandy, her daughters, are smart and gorgeous and I positively savor every moment I spend with them.  Diana is intelligent and artistic and funny.  Mandy, just walking, is so fun to watch and interact with.  Both are positively splendid.

     I try, especially during the not-nearly-as-enjoyable moments, to remember why I’m really here, why I spend every moment of my vacation time with these fantastic people.  Tomorrow is Christmas day.  (Well, actually today according to the clock on my computer…this time zone thing messes with more than just my feeding schedule.)  I’m sure the adventure is just beginning, as tomorrow brings dinner at Dad’s with extended family, lots of children, and light beige carpets.  Even the adventures are priceless to me, however, and every moment, adventuresome or not, creates memories that are cherished and often thought of during the times I can’t be here. 

     I wish you all a Christmas that brings rest and provides you with moments to remember and hopefully to cherish as I cherish mine.  And remember, nothing says Merry Christmas like delivering Christmas cards to the neighbors in blizzard-like conditions while pulling a screaming one-year-old behind on what used to be Grandma’s satellite dish. 

Where Eli is King

I’m still getting used to my new neighborhood.  Having lived in my previous apartment for seven years, I should have realized that I would experience culture shock in a new place, even though it is only blocks from where I was before.  I think I simply grew tired of my former abode, so when a chance offer came my way I jumped on it.  (It has been a classic case of learning the lesson to look before you leap, but I’ll save most of that for some other time.)  I have a dog, and thus am outside more frequently than non-dog people, so there are certain things I notice that other residents might not.  In my old neighborhood, there were three women (none of whom lived in my building) who vied for possession of the cul-de-sac.  One a rather crazy, middle aged, hippieish woman who was always in people’s faces for rather silly and mundane things which just happened to be her pet peeves (there were many of them); one an older woman of African descent who lived in the same building as the crazy lady, who was nosy as anything, always peeping out her windows to see what people were doing in her yard (she was for some reason very possessive of “her” yard and, not surprisingly, she and the crazy lady were always at odds about stupid things); and an older white woman who wanted to shove Jesus down everyone’s throats (I always wanted to tell her that Jesus lives in your heart, not in your trachea, but I doubt she would have listened).  The fight for the kingdom was constant, there were frequently heated words (I didn’t think that could happen if Jesus lives in your voice box), and for those of us who really just wanted to be left alone it was wearisome indeed.  In my new neighborhood, however, things are very different.  I have come across only one person, a cantankerous old man (again, someone who does not live in my building), who has felt the need to let me know how things are, but his son later apologized to me (not that he needed to) and all seems to be well.  The people on my little patch of turf mostly keep to themselves, and the people in my building seem friendly, helpful, and mostly willing to let each other be.  It has been very different living here, but for the most part it has been different in a positive way, at lest so far.  The best part is that there is no vying for rulership.  Everyone already knows who rules our block, that being Eli, my neighbor’s sleek black cat.  There are very few on our block who don’t know Eli, humans and cats alike.  Eli is continuously on patrol making sure everyone is in his or her respective place (humans and cats alike), and he has bravely shown my dog a time or three who is in charge.  (Luckily Sidney, my schnauzer, already knows his place, as he lives with a cat who routinely lets him know that inside our apartment she is queen, no questions asked.)  Eli’s moods seem to shift as mine do, one minute sweet and loving, the next swatting the heck out of someone for just being there.  Stray cats and stray humans will be promptly told what for, and are expected to listen.  (There aren’t stray dogs in my neighborhood, and I sense that this, too, is Eli’s doing.)  Somehow, though, its a wonderful and refreshing change to have a cat in charge.  Catty old women may be difficult to ignore, but one does not really want to ignore a cat (unless it is howling in one’s ear in the middle of the night demanding to be petted, but again, that is something for some other time).  A cat provides leadership that a person can respect, and right from the start humans (and most other cats) realize the futility of arguing with a cat so the leadership is seamless.  Eli is also not particularly nosy or religiously oriented, so seeing him on a regular basis is not uncomfortable.  I do not want to run when I see Eli.  There is no bickering or questioning.  You simply know who is in charge.  All in all, at least this aspect of my move has been a few steps up from where I was before.  Long live King Eli.

My View from Under the Bus

There are interesting things under a bus, things that for many years I didn’t know existed.  You may ask how I came to be under the bus.  My answer:  I was thrown here.  I’ve been here for a very long time.  For a while I thought I might be allowed to peek out from time to time, to see what the rest of the world is doing as my bus flies through town.  But, after peeking out a few times (I was even able to lift my head off the ground once or twice, once even to stand as the bus momentarily came to a halt, both to no avail) I realized, after being questioned as to why I was trying to come out without permission, that a) I am exactly where certain people would like me to be and b) in many respects it is just plain safer here.  (Given the figurative meaning of this phrase, in which one assumes that indeed the bus is moving, one might think that being thrown under the bus hurts.  Well, in all honesty, it does hurt quite badly at first.  But the wounds heal, and when one is destined not to come out, it really isn’t so bad in the long run, as long as you remember to grab onto something and hang on for dear life.)  This is where it seems that I personally am to remain, at least for the foreseeable future.  Sometimes I get weak, lose my grip and am scraped along the ground for a mile or so.  At least I’m not out in the open where the rest of the world can watch, and the callouses I am developing are becoming thicker with time and this is very helpful.  I don’t know that the driver even knows that I’m here, but it makes no difference.  He’s doing his job, and I’m doing mine.  In contemplating my situation, it seems that my present circumstance will lead to one of two things:  it will make my skin so tough that nothing will be able to penetrate it, or it will kill me.  I’m not sure which is preferable, but this attitude too changes from day to day.  What seems to be important is that I’m losing my will to even attempt an escape.  I’ve internalized the fact that, really, the view from down here is not so bad.  Maybe I have become a defeatist, or maybe I’m just defeated.  Makes no difference.  For now I’m hanging on.  I’ve faced the reality that I may not be able to continue to do so.  The level of my ability to concentrate will make or break me.  How does this pertain to the person who threw me under the bus?  Well, it does and it doesn’t.  In some sick way I in a sense allowed myself to be thrown, and thus I am responsible.  I seem unable to shift that responsibility from myself, and so here I cling.  Here I hang.  Here I scrape.  Though the view from here is clouded and painful, it will not change until I choose to take a stand and choose not to be afraid of being beaten back down.  I’ve learned that in life one often learns too late that one is in a difficult position, and by the time the realization hits all energies are already being directed toward simply hanging on and there really isn’t enough left to begin an effort toward change.  What I need to do is just let go and hope the back wheels don’t run me over.  Wish me luck.

Just call me Jane

I’ve been on one of my Prime Suspect kicks lately, something that seems to be becoming a yearly occurrence for me.  I am a huge fan of Helen Mirren in general, but it is as Jane Tennison that I think she is most brilliant.  (I’m sure she’d hate to hear yet another person say that.)  I think that, whether we like to admit it or not, we all have some sort of non-heroic hero figure in our lives, and, though a fictional character, Jane Tennison is mine.  Though a dedicated and crack detective, Jane is not necessarily the role model type.  Perhaps this is at the heart of the many reasons I can relate to her character.  As her character develops throughout the Prime Suspect series, we see Jane lead her teams through some very difficult and socially volatile cases that are fascinating and entertaining, but it is the character of Jane Tennison the person that is for me what this series is all about.  Her life as a consummate workaholic leaves her lonely, jaded, exhausted, and suffering from alcoholism.  Not a wasted life, but not exactly an exemplary one either, and a cautionary (or perhaps just plain realistic) tale nonetheless.  Each time I watch this series through (and I usually do watch it through, starting with the first and watching continuously until I’m finished with them all), the more I notice about the depth and the darkness of Jane Tennison (thanks in part to fantastic writing and Helen Mirren’s exquisite talent), and, sadly, the more I can relate to her.  As time sweeps me farther and more quickly into my adulthood, I too have found myself stripped of my innocence, becoming…well, a workaholic, lonely, jaded, exhausted…you get the picture.  I become more like this, more like Jane, the older I get.  I think one cannot experience this life without becoming hardened and to some extent letting one’s vices have more and more voice.  And yet existing somewhere in my somewhat questionable psyche are some of the same aspects that keep Jane going — self awareness, intelligence, a sense of savvy, the ability to be self deprecating and be alright with that, an understanding of other human beings — qualities that at least to some extent offset the darkness.  I have much to learn from Jane Tennison (in fact I feel that I owe her something, though I’m hesitant to try too hard to discover what…she is, after all, imaginary), and if one could somehow meet and have a conversation with a fictional character she would be my very first visit.  And let’s be realistic here — this character would not be the Jane Tennison we know and love (and, strangely, sometimes don’t like very much at all) if it were not for Helen Mirren’s brilliance in bringing her to us.  Thank you, Helen, for Jane; for this beautifully executed and very real depiction of what life can do to even the toughest of human beings.  I have only one request:  PLEASE give us more.  Please.

Horrors of Humanity

Recently I finished the book Jackdaws by Ken Follett.  Set in the last days of WWII in Europe, the subject matter cannot help but include the horrible things humans put other humans through during that time.  Sick is perhaps the only way to describe those things, people torturing other people and treating them like so much rubbish.  Follett does not often go explicitly into the gory details, but one cannot read or write about this particular war and skirt completely around the subject.  Follett, however, also addresses the issue, through the main characters, of the horrible things we do even to those we profess to love.  In doing so, he does not make light of the larger circumstances, but certainly makes his point that acts of human coldness are not limited to fighting the “enemy”.  There are many lessons to be learned from this novel, but, strangely, one that sticks with me the most is that even love between two people cannot stop us from hurting each other.  Humans seem by nature to torment each other, especially when hatred or love are involved, but it seems that the latter can many times be more painful than the former.  In Jackdaws, while Flick’s husband takes action in the end to redeem himself, and while Flick never learns (at least formally) that she’s been sold out by her husband, in some sense his action against her is as seriously heinous and unforgivable as his actions against those deemed the enemy.  In this single moment very near the end of the novel, Follett effectively and almost beautifully makes what is perhaps the most important point in his novel — that the crimes people are capable of committing against each other are not limited to crimes of war, that human beings are in this way so terribly flawed.  This moment has really stayed close to me in the few days since I’ve finished this novel.  In fact, I’ve thought about it often.  It is such an important lesson to learn that faithfulness to and protection of our relationships with those we love is imperative in order to keep us from becoming the basest of beings.   In short, while Jackdaws is a story of bravery, of human courage, it is also a story of pain and the results of giving in to the temptation of pride.  And we all know what pride goeth before.