Three down, 38 more to go (Day 15)

I had to deal with a bureaucracy today. January featured a lot of that, and as anyone who has ever had to do that for extended periods of time can tell you, it takes a lot out of you. (By design, I would say, but that's a post for another day.) I got done what I needed to, but one does not use the word "accomplished" when talking about this particular organization. I don't feel "job well done" as much as I do frazzled.

So I'm going to focus instead on something I did manage to get done, specifically finally reading and finishing A Hero Born by Jin Yong. I have been meaning to read that for a few years, and finally got it done. It's not the usual kind of story I read, but I see the appeal. If the dialogue were updated, I could see myself reading a lot of wuxia. The skeptic in me will always struggle just a little with fantasy, even as I write it, but this category requires only a little bit of suspension of disbelief.

And great! Knocked that off my list, so now I only have 38 more books to read for 2024. This is less than I've taken on for other years, but I want to get a couple of other things done this year. Also, I don't need the constant anxiety about not getting something done that is supposed to be, you know, enjoyable. 

As I've written or at least implied recently, I think "productivity" and "accomplishments" are at best coping mechanisms, at worst scams. Those should not be goals in and of themselves. But if I have to choose between that and talking about my attempts to deal with government bureaucracies? You'd better believe I will be coming here to brag about every title I check off.

Deb in the City

Frosting (No, really) (Day 14)

I promise I won't do this very often, but on occasion I can do something clever in the kitchen and maybe, just maybe, someone will find it useful.

Short version, because I found myself writing a longish post about a recipe and oh god, please no: measure out equal amounts of chocolate chips and water, boil said water and pour on chocolate chips. Stir and cool--use an ice bath and/or put it in the fridge or freezer for a few minutes until cold but not frozen. Then--and this is the crazy part--add a little bit of peanut butter and boom! You go from a think glaze to something that you can legitimately spread onto a cake or whatever else you put frosting on.

I was originally going to use just the chocolate and water, which I have done a few times and gotten to mousse consistency, but I had better things to do on Friday then stir chocolate for that long. I remembered something I'd read in one of Erin McKenna's cookbooks about coconut oil rescuing frosting that had started to melt (her frosting recipe is based on coconut oil). Guessing that the secret to that approach was really the saturated fat, I suspected the peanut butter would work--and it did.

Needless to say, you could use another nut butter or tahini, which I imagine would be delicious. You could also use something like cashew cream, but then I'd start out with less water during the melting phase.  

Saturated fat is not healthy, but if you're going to eat it, have it with fiber, i.e., a whole food like nuts or avocados, not coconut oil, palm oil, or vegan butter. (There's a surprising amount of saturated fat in those chocolate chips as it is.) I have a sweet tooth like so many other people, but since the Korean side of my family runs to high cholesterol regardless of what we eat, I'd like to indulge my taste for sweets without feeling like I'm shortening my life. Crazy, I know.

Deb in the City

A Gaping Hole (Day 13)

Well wow, can I call the obvious or what? As I was complaining yesterday about the unbuilt space for the Harvard Bookstore at the Prudential Center, the bookstore was putting out a statement that, in fact, they were abandoning the project. Apparently, an entity that's been in business for decades and was possibly partnered with the owners of the Red Sox and the Boston Globe couldn't make the financing for the project they had agreed to build work. They will instead be investing whatever money was going to go into the second location into spiffing up their existing store in Cambridge.

They can keep it. And they should be ashamed of themselves.

There are two bookstores on nearby Newbury Street: Trident Booksellers (and Cafe) and Posman Books. There is also the very charming Beacon Hill Books and Cafe. There is also an independent bookstore in my area that packs a lot of selection into a small space. Between them, I can probably find the majority of what I'm looking for when I want to spend money on books, games, and puzzles. And if worse comes to worst, I can go to Bookshop.org. I'm not hurting for bookstores, so this isn't a tragedy for me.

What bothers me is that there is another big hole at the other end of the Prudential Center ever since Lord & Taylor closed in 2021. The Pru is a big space and there is a bunch of activity in between, but Barnes & Noble (the predecessor of the aborted Harvard Bookstore) and Lord & Taylor were anchors. There is also something eerie about an empty space that big.

There are ways to repurpose those spaces, and Meet Me By The Fountain lays out a lot of them. I would love to see, oh, maybe a place for all of those people in need of shelter right now. That really is the most pressing need, but I won't hold my breath since I don't feel like passing out. If not, the emptiness could be used as a space for a community college, or maybe a community center. It could be a play space for families that can't afford to pay for the privilege. It could be a teenage recreation center. It could be a lot of things, but the Prudential Center is going to wait until the find the perfect tenant that can pay them the rent they feel The Market has entitled them to, and thus it's going to be a long time before either of those spaces get filled.

This is not good. We need spaces where we can meet up. Yes, the library, but just because one space exists doesn't mean we shouldn't have any more of them. We need places where we can interact with each other, not merely pass them by. And we need to not feel like we are living in a shell, because there's enough of that as it is.

Deb in the City

Degradation (Day 12)

My recently departed son forgot a couple of items when he left. Like the helicopter parents we are, my husband and I mailed him a package immediately. We asked if he wanted a sweater, especially after telling us he was cold the first night, and he said no.

Two days after receiving that package, he told me that no, actually, he does want the sweater. Because I don't want to do this again, I also bundled up a few other items. 

Off to the post office, but the one in my part of town is an unfunny joke. It is understaffed, which isn't the fault of the employees, but half of them are disdainful on a good day, and given how long the lines can get, good days are few and far between. Given that, it made more sense to take the train to the Prudential Center, which has a famously speedy post office.

But somehow I had forgotten the train part.

After 8:30 and before 10 in the morning, the train isn't crowded. Okay, good. But the trade off is that the service is slow. The train that was supposed to leave two minutes after I arrived lingered for at least five, and then it "stood by" for their regular "schedule adjustments" at a station halfway between my origin and destination. 

This is to say nothing of the poor man sleeping with his face leaning against his bicycle's handlebars, or the person who got off of the same train, loudly talking to no one in particular about a choice he made that kept him out of prison for 25 to life. How comforting to see a member of the transit police on the platform. I'm so glad the state is spending its resources wisely to deal with the problem. 

Oh, look, another empty storefront I passed on my way to the Prudential Center

And of course, the unbuilt storefront within the mall

But hey, the post office at the Pru worked just as well as I hoped, and this time the employee there didn't start in on a mini-rant about how some people deserve services and some don't. (I'd forgotten our last encounter, but it probably wouldn't have changed my mind.) I would have nothing to complain about at the Pru if the water fountain had been functional. But hey, since I could buy a $6 latte as well as gourmet chocolate, it's all a wash.

On the train back now, and it's already "paused" twice. My husband could have picked me up, but since the only thing worse than the MBTA is Boston traffic, he'll just meet me at a train station. 

I have the time to spend, I suppose, even though there are other things I could have done with it. But I do not like to think about people who don't. It shouldn't be too much to ask for a safe and functional postal service and public transit system in this day and age, but here we are.

Deb in the City

What if I don't want to Do It Right? (Day 11)

This week, I've had the time to delve into my math studies in earnest. It was a little rough getting back into it as there had been an almost year-long hiatus, but once I reacquainted myself with it, I remembered why I wanted to do it in the first place: it's fun.

Part of what made this week's math (nth-Order Linear Homogeneous Differential Equations with Constant Coefficients, in case you were wondering) enjoyable was...factoring. You know how everyone complains about the quadratic formula, i.e.

x= (-b +/- (b^2 - 4ac)^1/2)/2a ?

After playing with 6th order equations and trying to factor them, the quadratic formula looks like a relative luxury (which of course is only available for 2nd order equations). It will not help you (at first) with something like:

x^6-5x^4+16x^3+36x^2-16x-32=0

So you've got to go in and play with groupings, guess at what value of x might make the equation zero out, and you're going to go down a couple of rabbit holes for a little bit until you do, finally, factor down to a quadratic equation, which is going to be a necessity when you find yourself dealing with complex (a combination of real and imaginary) numbers. And it's tedious, but then you remember that it is the tedium that makes it fun. At no point did I wish that there was an equation similar to the quadratic for, say, 4th-level equations. 

This kind of work hit a sweet spot for me: it required me to pull on skills I already have but use them in a different way, but wasn't so unfamiliar that I could only touch the perimeter of the problem. It was solvable, but it was a challenge, and it's exactly the kind of thing I'm happy to lose myself in for a couple of hours. (But as I told my husband several times, really, don't worry, I can stop any time I want.)

This is work that I find enjoyable, in no small part because I don't have a deadline attached to it, except what I assign to myself. I'm not getting paid to do it by someone who wants me to solve thousands of these equations in a day. I don't have to be productive, I don't have to be efficient; I am doing it for its own sake. I am doing it because it's fun, and making the work go faster would not make it more fun, but less.

This freedom followed me into Korean language study as well. (Yes, I'm using Duolingo right now, just like everyone else.) I kick myself for what I don't know and always get upset when I don't have something memorized, or I have it memorized for the wrong reason. It's so hard for me to Do It Right, and this is probably the primary reason why I have shied away from formal language study my entire life. 

But yesterday as I was playing with conjugations and reminding myself of vocabulary, completely not the way you're supposed to, I had a little epiphany: I was also having fun playing with the language, and even if that owl and its little mob of animated characters didn't approve, I was also, bit by bit, learning something. I might not ever be fluent, and I might always need subtitles on K-dramas and K-movies, but oh well. I can play with words for their own sake--just as I can play with numbers for their own sake--and it's okay if I don't "master" it. I can learn for its own sake--and seriously, what parlor tricks would anyone want to see me perform with math or Korean at this point anyway?

For many things, there is no correct way; in many cases, there are multiple means by which we can achieve a goal--but maybe a limited number of them will we enjoy. It bothers me now to think of all the years I didn't play with certain subjects because I wasn't going to do it Just So, causing my very brain to miss out on activity that can keep it healthy, and my soul (if I have one) to miss out on things that could make it soar. Well...ugh.

I'll let people with more time on their hands engage in pedagogical debates; I've got some math, Korean, and chemistry to get to.

Deb in the City

There's something rotten in Boston (Day 10)

I've mentioned here many times that Newbury Street, famous in the region for it's shopping, has been missing storefronts for over fifteen years, enough that I stopped counting with my kids after a few blocks because we hit over twenty. But the truth is that Downtown Crossing, previously famous for its shopping as well as easy access to the financial and political centers, has suffered longer. Before Barnes & Noble went on a closing spree, they closed their location downtown. Well, things change, but nothing replaced that location for over a decade. 

The problem may have started in earnest when Filene's and its even more famous Filene's Basement went out of business and it took years to replace them (with a store my British friend tells me is known for using sweatshops, but who among us isn't?). As of 2010, the city of Boston seems to have ceded control of the area to the Downtown Boston Business Improvement District. Color me unimpressed with their efforts to improve foot traffic.

Yes, there are a lot of street people there now. There always have been, but it's taken on a more chilling aspect since the rise of the opioid epidemic, which became a public health crisis very quickly. Honestly, what the hell? We have all of these unhoused people--now including people desperately trying to get in through Mexico, regardless of where they've come from--and we've got people sleeping at Logan Airport. Why don't we repurpose the empty buildings downtown to house some of them? And while we're at it, how about some of those empty buildings on Newbury Street? The state of Massachusetts and city of Boston do not historically have a problem using eminent domain for other projects.

But yesterday I realized that the problem isn't confined. It has now spread to the North End--THE NORTH END--and I'm starting to think of this as something that is spreading, if not like a tumor, then like rot.

The corner of Cross and Hanover

Cross Street

I want to be clear that I'm not suggesting that the North End should remain Boston's version of Little Italy if there is an organic movement afoot for transformation. On Tuesdays I park myself at a cafe that is decidedly neither Italian nor Italian-American. It is also (*gasp*) part of a local chain. I don't think it's a terrible development that such a space exists. And while I mourn the loss of the best pastry shop in that part of town--Maria's on Cross Street did not have the bells and whistles of Mike's or Modern, but what it did do, it did perfectly--there is something now in that space, so I don't include it in my list of losses. The problem is when there is nothing.

There are other examples in the area, but this is the most glaring (those two famous pastry shops are on Hanover Street, and when you come on foot to the North End from the major streets of Tremont or Washington, Cross Street is what you see). Of course, the activity outweighs the emptiness, but when seen while holding the visuals of what the rest of Boston is starting to look like, it's disturbing.

I do not know why this is the case, but my first guess is high rents, necessitated by the high mortgages. Honestly, this has never made sense to me; I can't believe it is more profitable to let a property in a "good" neighborhood lie fallow than it is to take a temporary break on the rents. It makes me think that greed and/or very bad math is also part of the explanation.

The North End does not yet suffer from the Potemkin Buildings--residential and otherwise--that plague many neighborhoods in Boston, and I hope it does not. (It would make me laugh that so many developers are building housing and office space for rich millenials who don't seem to favor Boston if it weren't for 1) the need for housing for other people who aren't in that target demographic and 2) that you can practically smell the foreclosures and abandonment coming our way. Maybe we contrive tales of unicorns to distract from true stories of wolves.) 

I hope the North End is bursting once again at the seams with businesses, a mix of old neighborhood favorites and newer places that everyone wants to visit. And I hope Boston itself stops feeling like something that might be dying.

Deb in the City

An Alternative to Performance Anxiety (Day 9)

I've talked about Performance before, and hope I made clear it wasn't my original thinking but something I think about a lot. I've lately seen people talk more about Impostor Syndrome. I have suffered from it myself, but I am now starting to think of it more as a flavor of Performance Anxiety. Really, the wonder is that there are people who don't suffer from it.

When European civilizations were dominated by a religious paradigm, the ideal performance was Goodness, because that was how we got into heaven. (The Calvinists and Puritans of New England had thoughts on the matter as well.) Protestants also laid special emphasis on Productivity, which is something that never really went away. As of The Enlightenment, the preferred performance was Happiness, which was seen as a guarantor of Success. And since the 20th century, there has been a growing clamor for the performance of Intelligence, in no small part because it is linked to personal and national Productivity. 

That's a lot right there, but of course that's never been all of it. Many of us also need to perform Beauty and/or Being Sexy, and not just women. All of us up until very recently were also firmly limited in how we performed Gender: you'd better pick a lane, and you'd better stay in it. This is to say nothing of requirements based on (perceived) heritage, and it seems deviating from those brings with it the most damnation [see: White Trash and the Uppity Black Person (I don't want to write or say the alternative words)].

Imagine having to do all those things at the same time--oh, throw in your career, region, family, and religion--without even the alleged respite of code-switching. Impostor Syndrome/Performance Anxiety seems like the outcome to hope for, because otherwise it sounds like something that can lead to madness. (I mean, you try being Happy while doing all of that required reading for Intelligence and stumbling upon horrific facts and phenomenon.)

I never feel like I fit in anywhere--even among fellow outcasts (they can be really snobby sometimes). How could I? How could anyone?

But I can feel moments without the anxiety of having to look over my shoulder that someone is judging me for Doing It Right, and it's not just with my family. It is when I am able to embrace my true, full identity.

I. Am. A. Dork. Once I realized that, once I remind myself of it, the world is a much fuller place.

What is my version of a Dork? Really, you have to think of the venerable Chrissy Snow from Three's Company. I felt like I was looking in a mirror when I watched her: she always missed the mark (after the first season, at least), was the butt of half the jokes, but was perfectly content in her own little world. Same.

Yep, the blonde

I am uncoordinated and was the last one picked for dodge ball, but I am a great dancer because I know how to move my shoulders and hips without bringing everything else with me. I am so awkward in social situations--sometimes even one-on-one--but I try really hard not to torture the other person with uncomfortable silences. My musical tastes change all the time. I'm a dreamy idealist unless I'm a bitter cynic. I'm skeptical of what people say unless it's one of those times where I can trust their intent. I'm impatient, except when I can sit with something or someone for hours at a time. I try my best to do the right thing but screw up enough times that I never can forget my mistakes. 

This is a Dork. It may also be the definition of a Human Being who's not on stage, but if there's no difference, I'll stick with Dork.

Deb in the City