Reading: The Code Book

Moving: 150 situps

Listening: Phil Collins' "Against All Odds." Spare me.

Watching: dancing

8 December 2000: Cow in a Blue Dress

At some untoward hour like 6:30 a.m. I left the house. Blake was shocked, because if he can't tell the difference between 5:30, when I got up this day, and 6:00, when I usually get up, he can tell how much light there ought to be when I leave. Sunrise isn't so delayed now, as close to solstice as it is, that it's not light by 7:00 when I leave to walk to work. These past two weeks with RDC gone, though, he's become much more suspicious of me. He used not to mind me in work clothes, but now he does; he used not to get too bent out of shape when I put on a coat, but now he does.

I locked his betrayed little self in the house and zoomed up Colorado Boulevard to I-70. Only on the entrance ramp, too late to turn back, did I see the traffic jam, and I started quaking. That accident was being cleared only a mile on, and--as I learned while scanning radio stations for traffic information--one further along had just been cleared. Despite being delayed a perfectly reasonable non-worrisome amount of time, my hands were still shaking as I handed in my ticket at the gate. You don't want your hands to shake when addressing airline personnel. Or to sweat. But there I was, well in time.

A woman waiting nearby was reading (a pulp paperback of) The Subtle Knife and I pounced on her. She said that, Harry Potter-like, these books are on enough different levels that adults can enjoy them too. Harry Potter, whom I thoroughly enjoy, is a) surprisingly well-written for such popular books and b) fun and c) great for combining a + b, but profound, right literature he is not. Philip Pullman is. A woman a bit away leaned e'er so subtly (I could have given her lessons) trying to see the book cover that had sparked this discussion, but my conversant never tilted her book the right way. Having confessed my desire for a dæmon (mainly so I could have Blake, preferably a nonshitting version thereof, on my shoulder all the time) and been reassured that yes, she liked the books enough to deserve to read them such that I didn't have to seize the volume from her heretic hand, I scampered off to pee. I might have taken mercy on the eavesdropper before, but I had my priorities.

"I noticed you eavesdropping," I said to the eavesdropper and she heard with a grin, "and I wanted to tell you the author." I told her that and the series name and the title of the first and how tremendous they are and she was, if not thoroughly well-versed in children's lit, at least interested. She also chastised me for leaving my luggage. I asked if security had wanted to take it away to blow it up, and she said no, but she had thought of moving my knapsack to teach me a lesson. Then her husband rejoined her, saying "I can't leave you alone for a minute but you've started talking to strangers." I liked them.

On the plane a wonderful thing happened. The very tall man in the aisle moved to the exit row, leaving me three seats, a whole row, all to myself. Turbulence didn't ameliorate my handwriting into anything more legible so I stopped that, read The Code Book, and napped. RDC picked this up on the same Tattered Cover trip I bought The Golden Compass, I think. Cryptography and -analysis through the ages and it opens with Mary Queen of Scots's trial following the Babington Plot, which episode is nearly guaranteed to rivet my attention. I read up to the Enigma machine and slept.

After a shuttle to Peabody, finally I was there. RDC was still in meetings, so I read and did sit-ups (yes indeedy!) and instilled eye drops and watched CNN. I am a Vain and Bad Person (<--newsflash). With that established, my flying to Boston to attend the company holiday party, even in my beautiful new dress, was fucking moot.

We were all shuttled from the hotel to the site of the party. This means at the age of 32, I took my first bus to a formal. My mother drove me to my one high school prom, but that whole event was so fraught with trauma that being ushered in an Omni at nearly 17 didn't even register a blip. In college there were "semis" but as I never had semi-formal clothes or indeed any desire to go to what seemed the equivalent of a high school dance that not to take the required school bus to any of the dorm formals was hardly a sacrifice.

The shuttle ride amused me. I met some of RDC's coworkers and had lots of time to, since the driver got lost. Peabody, Ipswich, Rowley, Portsmouth, Freeport--no, I exaggerate the last two-and finally the party.

I met a fellow RDC has got to be friends with, who lives in Berkeley and has a seven-year-old daughter. Not only does he live geographically close to PLT, his outward resemblance is strong as well. They have similar facial expressions. Also the same upper lip, which struck me later. When I suggested the resemblance to RDC, he could see what I meant, so it's not all in my head. They're both Irish as the day is long, so physical resemblance isn't so startling.

I remembered to thank this man for the plate he and his family bought for us in Tuscany or Brittany or somewhere. It was his daughter's choice and she had quite specific ideas of what RDC would like. As it happens, her intuition suited both of us very well. She has quite a crush on RDC. She told him, when he confessed to not having read Harry Potter, "Oh, you don't know what you're missing."

He also repeated to me something he's told RDC, that I should keep an open mind about having children. Considering what a good job he and his wife are doing and how fascinating the girl reportedly is, his evangelism doesn't surprise me. So I told him something I have found necessary to tell many, that I have no confidence in my ability to do an equivalently good job and if my child weren't as sweet as ZBD or as precocious as this man's child or as scamperingly fun as NKW then I have every confidence I wouldn't like the poor thing. Which would be bad.

Everyone seemed friendly and open and glad to be with each other. I was glad to see Terri, whom I had met in June, and to meet D, with whom RDC often works. Terri lives in Pueblo and D might visit her over New Year's and both come to Denver. That would be a good time.

The route to and fro passed a house garishly lit with Christmas lights, some of which illuminated a tank in the front yard. The party had given door prizes all evening, but apparently no one had gained the 1000 points necessary to win the tank.