Reading: Jean Little, Kate; and John Fowles's The Magus and Booth Tarkington's Magnificent Ambersons

Moving: walked 2.7 miles

Listening: Dave Matthews

Watching: ER night! Hooray!

15 February 2001:

Late in the day yesterday a fellow from another department came to my cube and asked me for help with a copier in my area, because "[a person in Central Services {yes, that makes me think of "Brazil"}] said you could help." I swallowed. I didn't tell this tale at the nuptial supper table last night because it so exactly illustrates why being in a support position frustrates me and why I should therefore find different work. (The fact that I haven't looked and don't particularly want to--I love Dot Org so--is a source of some marital disagreement.) I don't mind supporting the members of my department, because that's my job. I don't mind helping out other support staff, because they'd return the favor if I needed it. Being the support staff--being the copier tech--for someone in a wholly separate department, and being pegged as such by a copier tech, nearly annoyed me. But not quite. Walking toward the copier, I told him "I don't mind helping you, because I like you" (this is true) "but last I checked, I'm not in Copy Services." The reason I like my job and my company is that I could tell him that, and he understood. So I showed him how to do what he needed to do on the machine, something he probably could have figured out himself by reading the control panel but whatever, and he said something that brought him back into my good graces.

Yesterday I wore trousers, which I don't do often, five-year-old (i.e. before Those ads) Gap khakis, and my beloved Icelandic wool sweater that my sister gave me for Christmas in 1987 and bluchers from L.L. Bean. Notice to L.L. Bean: you messed up my backpack and that's bad enough. Leave my bluchers alone. My bluchers are not laced as shown in the online catalog, oh no. Their laces are wound in a spiral and wrapped, never to be undone.

What the fellow said was "No one could doubt you're from New England with your shoes laced like that." Or something. Damn straight. I bounced happily, pleased that someone--he lived in Hartford, poor dear, for a number of years--recognized this. Lou once commented on the laces, but she didn't recognize them as a cultural marker.

What pleased me more is that he didn't notice, or at least didn't remark upon, what blew my preppy look. Wearing a tee instead of a turtleneck under the sweater was maybe okay, but I was wearing socks. Yes indeed, socks with bluchers and khakis. It was 10 degrees out and nowhere near 70 in, but still. Cold ankles are definitive.

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TDT and I went to the 'brary today. I had a mondo pile to return, including a book on the prairie xeriscape that belongs to the Botanic Gardens and the audio of Swann's Way. I put my name down for Richard Peck's 2000 Newbery Honor, to which this year's Medalist is a sequel. I considered getting On the Road narrated by Frank Muller, who got me through Moby-Dick (and Blue Highways, but it wasn't a "getting through" book), but I didn't. I selected Toni Morrison's Paradise. I've had Haitch's copy for a long, long time now and feel guilty for not reading everything by Toni Morrison and for keeping someone's book for probably over two years now. On very cold mornings when I pull my hat over my ears, I don't listen to books, and on snowy mornings I keep my ears open because I tend to walk in the tiremarks on the roads instead of on unshoveled sidewalks. But it should hold me until my next audio project, Ulysses, which I requested today. The description of the narration production excites me, as if it might really be well done.

I idly picked up a bookmark listing prominent African-American female authors. I glanced at the names and TDT took it from me as I looked at the next bookmark, which listed prominent African-American male authors. Among James Baldwin, Colin Powell, Langston Hughes, etc., were also the names Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, and Nelson Mandela.

Is even a library so hesitant to use the term "black" that it would call African men--by nationality South African and Nigerian--African-American when they are most definitely not U.S. citizens nor American residents, neither North nor South?

Paint me pedantic. I circled the names and pointed out the mistake to the librarian. Dunno if she recognized the Nigerians' names--she had asked me how to spell Ulysses and I wonder at her schooling--but the rock she lived under apparently did permit her to recognize a winner of the Nobel prize for peace and she understood that a person who has been president of South Africa is probably not American or Usan. She said she would tell the proper someone. Good.

The two Nigerians are from Nigeria, which is anglophone. As far as I know you also call people from Niger Nigerian. The latter is francophone, which lends the adjectives the only distinction I know of, their pronunciation: "Nigh-JEER-ee-an" and "Nee-zher-e-ahn," respectively. Or something. My French accent is atrocious and my phonetic representation similarly bad. I would like to know if there are other adjectives to use, spelled differently. And I'm still waiting for "Usan" to catch on or "Yank" to lose its pejorative tones.

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Christmas Day, 1987.

I like this photograph for many reasons. Primarily because I look so very much like my grandmother in it--both physically and by expression. That is exactly her smile. Secondarily because I'm putting on the sweater for the first time. I scanned it because of the sweater and thinking of Granny, but just to illustrate the sweater there's the picture of me with Captain Kangaroo already scanned, and in that one there's no flaw in the film putting a streak in my hair.

Then there are the gossipy reasons. I've mentioned the upholstery before, but its sheer hideousness bears repeating. The grandmother clock--I called it a grandmother clock because it was smaller than a grandfather and had no pendulum; the grandfather clock at Phoebe was my point of reference--points to 12:40 but it looks dark outside, no? The indoor flash makes the contrast worse, but full picture shows leaden skies. Then there's my grandfather's grin, which, I see, is also my mother's. I don't know where Shadow was. Probably nearer the fireplace, where my father's chair was. Instead of a pendulum the clock has staggered shelves for knickknacks, like my mother's collection of milk glass. Actually instead of a pendulum it has an electric cord (Phoebe's clock must be wound).

I wrote to my sister yesterday when I wore it, thanking her again. It is so warm and snuggly and apparently can't be killed with a rock, because I've worn it sledding and hiking and climbing trees and been merciless. She is surprised I still have it; she was surprised by this a few years ago too when she went through my closet showing a friend how much of my wardrobe is her hand-me-downs. It's wool; it's indestructible; and far be it from me to know if it's out of style; and my sister gave it to me. What reason is there to ditch it?