#47 - Cool it, Bucko

Bills, Bills, Bills; A Touchy Subject; Environmental Protection Agency

Hello, my friends,

2024 has officially begun and it feels like it! People are shaking off their holiday spangles and becoming normal again. Work is still reasonably quiet, which is pleasant; I’m content not to have multiple urgent tasks to be handling all the time especially because my creativity reawakens when I have time to breath. Ideas, which are always coming anyway, now have a sense of possibility. Since I finished another grant period at the end of the year (I was managing three grants (one wholly mine and two that I was handling portions of) in 2023), maybe the calm will remain for another month or two. Soon enough, I’ll either generate something on my own or be handed another project and be up again, spinning whirligigs in workspace. In the meantime, I’m finishing less urgent (but still useful) tasks and feeling my lungs expand and contract slowly, peacefully. Preparing the road for in a way future-me will appreciate.

“Desk Calendar” (1962) by Roy Lichtenstein

Bills, Bills, Bills

Maybe two months ago I was retrieving the mail at the same time as one of my neighbors and by way of small talk he motioned to the mailboxes and said, “All bills, huh” and chuckled. “Yeah,” I said, laughing along. But actually, I thought later, that is now an old-fashioned bit, at least to me: The sitcom dad going through the mail all grumpy, “Bills, bills, and more bills!” slapping each envelope down onto the stack. Email and the world wide web is on the way to making this scene obsolete; these days, many companies have gone paperless so relatively few bills come through snail mail.

Maybe seven or ten years ago I held on to the paper bills. I would lay them all out on my desk and write checks to mail. Even then I wasn’t surprised or salty like those cartoon breadwinners. Why get angry at the inevitable? I expected the bills. I’d been paying for some of those services every month since I was teenager. Moreover, I was receiving something in exchange not randomly sending money into the ether. And I always had the option to stop, and sometimes I did (I’m looking at you, Spectrum Cable).

This isn’t necessarily about me, though, it’s about how technological progress changes common household scenes. Do teenage girls hang around the kitchen phone twisting that windy cable around their finger while gossiping with their friends anymore? Of course not! Much fewer people hold cigarettes after sex and rarely do people ask librarians about basic facts. I’m re-watching the X-Men movies these days (something that by itself would have required multiple trips to the video rental shop twenty years ago) and going to down rabbit hole of character storylines on Wikipedia. A mere few decades ago, finding that information would have involved either tracking down and purchasing whole comic book cycles, looking at reference books about superheroes, or going to a comic books store and talking to other fans. Now, I can tap on my phone a few times and find Nightcrawler’s entire backstory.

Nightcrawler was my favorite character on the X-Men arcade game and come to think of it, before consoles really took off with the Nintendo NES (the only console I ever owned), most people could only play video games at arcades. I mentioned libraries before, and library work was a lot different, too. The speed at which information moves now (and hence practically everything about our work processes) was brought home to me perusing old staff newsletters. The basic scenes of life have changed dramatically in the past fifty years. I wonder, how has that changed us as people?

“Synthesis of Telegraphic and Telephonic Communications” (1933-34) by Benedetta Cappa

A Touchy Subject

My grandfather, Iosif Kapnik, was a pediatrician in the Soviet Union. At the time he practiced, doctors worked on ambulances and made house calls. So well-regarded was he for his kindness that when he died here in the United States, an obituary published in the local Russian newspaper elicited letters from people recalling how he had visited them as children. Something particularly memorable to me about my grandfather were his hands. Large, warm, and soft, they seemed to possess in them some kind of healing power that was aided by his intuitive (and practiced, to be sure) sense of touch. His ability to give relaxing and rejuvenating massages was passed on to my mother and, in a small way, to me.

I’ve only just recently started consciously thinking about it and exploring the theory of various bodywork techniques in order to develop my own intuition in that direction. I’m not starting from nothing, though, since I’m a fairly touch-oriented person already. It’s more than that, though. When Ashley has an ache, I can work around the area and get a sense of where exactly the pain is and sometimes make it better. Trying to explain how is fuzzy but it involves being attuned to the body, how the muscles and bones are laid out, and the points where my hands are drawn to almost like there are magnets there. It seems obvious — of course, you press here and here.

There’s also the communication with the person that’s important. An occasional exchange about what is happening. Does it hurt here? What’s going on in this area? Have you been clenching your teeth? This is what I miss when I get massages at places around town (maybe twice or three times a year). It’s taken for granted that people want to veg out listening to soothing muzak while the masseuse does their job, but I don’t. I want a conversation about my body where I get the benefit of this person’s expertise. I’m curious about what they’re doing and feeling. I want to relax and learn.

A few weeks ago (#42), I wrote about how if money wasn’t a thing I’d open up a little coffee stand at the farmer’s market. Adding on to that, if money wasn’t a thing, I’d rent a little room, throw some sumptious rugs, pillows, and blankets down and spend a few hours a day helping people relax and feel better. Short of that, if you’ve have an ache and 20 minutes. Let me know and I’ll work it out for you. I could use the practice for when I don’t have bills, bills, bills to pay.

“Hand with Fir Cone” (1921) by M.C. Escher

Environmental Protection Agency

It’s undoubtedly true that our environment affects whether we thrive or merely survive. I wrote way back in #20 about how an internet post persuaded me to make the bed every morning in order to “keep things nice and clean for the tiger” (I am the tiger), and I still do that. I also take a portion of my morning break, usually, when the coffee or water is brewing/heating to walk through and bring a little order to KidLand. Every morning is raucous here because Sophie and Michael play before being delivered to school and they have no concern about leaving everything everywhere. Despite mainly working in my closet (literally, my home office is a closet) with the rest of the house out of sight, I do occasionally get up and walk around. Seeing the bed made and the fundamentals of order everywhere else calms me as I stare out the window at the mountains.

The idea here is bigger. I suspect that many elements of our immediate environment assist in bolstering our home and work lives. Maybe some people don’t get much reading done because they don’t have an easy chair in their house that has good lighting and faces the correct direction. Does the stuff on your bedstand annoy you? It’s what you wake up to every morning! What little things in your environment help you succeed (however you define success in this situation)?

I often forget to take my environment into account when setting goals. I’m writing this section as a reminder to myself (and you) to take time to make things right. Make, buy, adjust whatever you need. Do it mindfully. The tiger thanks you.

“Haskell’s House (1924) by Edward Hopper