Wheee! I'm a geek.
Yesterday we had a brown bag lunch to discuss state elections and ballot measures. Encee, who led the discussion, started with a trivia quiz. I didn't know the obviously Dot Org minutiae like in which state is someone retiring after 64 years in legislative service (Georgia), or in which state a leader was indicted (Wisconsin). When he asked which state's state flower was the peony and state tree the tulip (poplar), no one knew; and when he offered that it's a midwestern state that begins with I and the room answered with one voice, "Iowa," we were all wrong (it's Indiana). But when he asked which state's state pie is the apple and state horse the Morgan, I immediately and singly called out "Vermont!" And I was right.
Afterward Encee and I happened to meet in the stairwell and he asked how I had known that. "Children's books," I answered promptly. "Marguerite Henry wrote lots of books about horses, Misty of Chincoteague, about that colony of wild horses off the coast of Virginia," and at this point I heard someone begin to descend the staircase above us, "and she won the Newbery for King of the Wind, about one of the first Arabians, who came to England under George II." Now the person descending was abreast of me and was UrBoss. I grinned that he heard me geeking out but was the more prompted to wrap up. "And she wrote Justin Morgan Had a Horse, about the man who developed the Morgan in the early 19th century? late 18th? in Vermont."
Encee asked what sort of horse this was, particularly. UrBoss said that hearing Vermont had surprised him because it's a horse he associates with the South, and I said that as far as I know it's on the smaller side, in a compact, sturdy, strong way, a good work horse, not as much a riding horse as the Tennessee Walker or American Saddle horse, which I associate with the (antebellum) South. And that Morgans were often used for police horses.* Encee laughed and said "Children's books, eh?" and UrBoss smiled, appreciatively and amusedly, in my direction. This inspired me to add that Almanzo Wilder, who would grow up to marry Laura Ingalls (a name Encee recognized, unlike Chincoteague or Newbery), had Morgans on his boyhood farm in upstate New York.
* I don't know if that's true in general, but in Henry's Album of Horses, or in the last chapter of Justin Morgan, was a story of a Morgan who helped a police officer guide people away from a fire. In Denver the police horses are donated and are Morgan, thoroughbred, or even quarterhorse.
This is the kind of encounter that has to be okay. I long for it to be okay. I know to watch that I don't go into to much detail, because the map of South America that Phantom had on her flank isn't pertinent to Justin Morgan, but mentioning Henry's two best-known titles and naming the Newbery to give her legitimacy before a one sentence description of the book that answered Encee's question, please let that be okay. And he asked about the kind of horse, and UrBoss joined us, so it was a conversation instead of a monologue, right? Please?
Because two weeks ago? When I was all giddy? and in the midst of gidst I had what I thought was a loquacious, not particularly guided, but wheee! giddy and geeky session with my shrink demonstrating the loft of my mood? She thought I was upset with her.
Such that last Friday, when I for the first time forgot my appointment, she thought maybe I was subconsciously avoiding her/therapy. What do I do with that? I haven't been getting up on time and forgetting was a stupid effect from that stupid lack of discipline, no more. When she called me at 8:20 as I sat placidly at the dining table drinking coffee waiting for Kal to pick me up, did my "Omigod it's Friday I am so sorry" sound fake?
Shrink today offered me a couple of things I said or did two weeks ago to make her ask: on our way into the office, she stopped in the hallway to talk to a colleague. I interjected that if I didn't stop as well it was because I don't expect her to treat me like a social peer, introducing me to her cohort, and if I walked along, it was because I didn't belong in their conversation. She finished, saying I said something like "I'll see you in there" or "I'll leave you here" or something that (even now, three hours after she mentioned it today) I don't remember. And I see that as fitting with not expecting to tag along, and also not expecting her not to make an important communication with her colleague just because it's my hour. She had seen it as exactly that last, though, as a "well when you deign to give me your time I'll be waiting." Then during the session when I mentioned my haircut, apparently I said something about how she wouldn't understand, which I meant in an I-always-come-to-the-clinic-on-my-bike-wearing-a-ponytail kind of way but which she took as a you-don't-understand-good-hair or worse kind of way.
So what the hell. When I'm at the top of my game is when I make everyone else feel worst, and only by suppressing myself, on purpose or, after months of purpose, by fucking depression, can I refrain from random insults. Except not even then.
She did admit that it was her mistake not to address what she saw as a problem two weeks ago instead of waiting for our next session, which (by my forgetfulness) was two instead of one week later and meant that I can't remember these incidents--meeting the colleague in the hall, my exact wording about my hair.
And I had so enjoyed the gidst.
And my geeking out with too much information about children's books has to be better than the previous occasions in which I've answered merely, "I read."
This, actually, was pretty funny. In Renaissance history we were talking about the wool trade and the professor was eliciting from us wool's advantages as a fiber in damp climates for poor people. He had practically already told us when I remembered, "Oh! Wool keeps you warm even when it's wet!" He asked, in a how-did-you-know-that way, "Do you knit?" and I said, "No, I read." And everyone laughed. I don't remember where I picked that up, but it was neither in the class's texts nor in an academic book.
Another time, in a class on comedy--reading the Rumpole story about the brothel--I answered a posed question what the old boys' network was and how it was named. The professor, having his answer, continued, but there was murmuring behind me about how I, the prep, would know that. Or something; the only reason I remember this is that it happened only two years after the incident above and I wanted to retort, "No, because I read," but knew better. By 1990, I wasn't compelled to respond to classmates' jeers or misunderstandings.
I am still compelled, though I hope I am better about judging when to yield to respond to jeers and misunderstandings.
Gidst: the midst of giddiness. Possibly the main point, or gist, of giddiness, except not, because I have a hard enough time remembering that "gist" has a soft g.
I should redo all my pages in Movable Type so they're easier to update. I haven't even added "blee" to my coinages page.
Blee: bliss + glee
Two 3.6-mile city rides, the homeward one quite chilly and windy. A wonderful fall day.
Today's brown-bag was sixth season premiere of "The West Wing." I was stupid enough not to program the season pass into TiVo and was bereft when I realized, Wednesday evening at 9, that the show airs at 8 and I had just missed it. Besides having trivia contests about the state tree of Indiana, policy wonks are also likely to be "West Wing" aficionados. So today a bunch of us watched a merciful co-worker's tape.
I am not liking the looks of this season.
I began this last fall in audio, but the Audible file suddenly changed to an Arthurian myth narrated by Derek Jacobi. Which isn't a bad thing at all, but it's not Thornton Wilder.
I love how the enterwined characters make the four novellas one novel. I thought the Pulitzer prize was to be given for portrayal of U.S. life, but if it went (inexplicably) to The Stone Diaries and The Shipping News, I guess it's for American stories.