Commemoration of a failure

 When I was nine or so, my engineer dad gave me a book, entitled "Make Your Own Working Paper Clock", by an endearingly geeky dude called James Smith Rudolph. Just in case there is any doubt - the title of the book should be enough - I know Mr. Rudolph to have been endearingly geeky because in his Author's Note at the beginning, he describes having bought a "dusty old paperback" in a bookshop in Paris shortly after WWII and assembled a working paper clock using the templates and instructions containd therein; he was, he describes, so delighted that he ran back to the bookshop to buy the remaining three copies, and then hoarded them for decades because he couldn't think of a single person who deserved to own one, until it occurred to him to translate and update the instructions and templates for the modern reader. 

I had a valiant crack at it when I was nine, because I was then and am now a sucker for paper things that have you put tab A into slot B in order to build a pop-up replica of York Minster (for instance), but it became clear very quickly that it was way, way (way) over my head and I abandoned clock. It seems unlikely that I would have actually thrown it away, and it is probably still lurking somewhere in a box in the eaves of my parents' house. While I'm a chronic not-finisher-of-art-projects, I also maintain a high-functioning guilty-conscience-re-unfinished-art-projects, so when April 2020 happened, I ordered another copy (love/hate the internet), took the basic precaution of making a backup xerox of all the template pieces onto cardstock (as you do), and set to work. 

Centuries of clock making history should have warned me that the creation of a precision time piece requires, um, precision; I was careful cutting out the pieces, but any cuts that didn't go exactly down the middle of the cut line (as opposed to a hair one side of the line) resulted in cogwheels that wouldn't engage properly; glue warped the paper (very slightly, but that was enough for the wheels to be out of true; the wire axles were impossible to get completely straight. Thus, failure. 

My friend E. has a lovely clock in his kitchen with all the numbers represented by mathematical formulae: 1 o'clock, for instance, is e𝛑icos𝛑, 2 o'clock is log10(100), etc. I was so taken with the smartypants-ness of this that I decided to try once more with the paper clock so that I could outgeek even Mr. Rudolph. I recut every piece, cutting precisely down the middle of every template line; I did everything in the exact order the instructions told me to; I weighted each piece down while it dried so that the glue wouldn't warp anything; I used kebab sticks rather than wire for the axles in order to ensue they'd be straight, and... it still doesn't work. The cogs jam and won't engage, and the mechanism won't go around, and the nearly completed but nonfunctioning clock has now been sagging off my dining room wall for several months while I avoid eye contact with it. 

I have now tried three times to build this fucker, and I am today officially admitting defeat. I give myself a free pass for not having been able to do it when I was nine (it's hard), or the second time (it's hard), but I did really really try this last time and I'm frustrated that I couldn't get it to work. 

It's an uncomfortable moment to give up on something. It's much easier to put it back on the shelf and say, I'll finish it another day. But half an hour ago, I put my paper clock definitively into the bin. (So that I don't have to look at it every time I put something else in the bin for the next two days, I put it in the neighbours' outdoor recycling bin, not our kitchen bin, where everything else goes; I couldn't quite bear to squash it up before I put it in). I lose a half-finished paperclock; I gain some insight into the sunk cost fallacy and how pendulum clocks are made. As for future attempts, I won't totally rule it out (I have still a full set of cardstock templates, awaiting either my retirement or my next life); I also know it's doable (thanks, internet, for this video posted by a person I am jealous of), but for now this finished blog post is going to have to stand in for the finished item. For now. 

#overthinking #outofmydepth

It's Christmastime, which means that la p'tite, who lives a ludicrously pampered first-world-plus existence at baseline, is bang in the middle of an eight day stretch of truly mindblowing indulgence, as the trifecta of her birthday, Christmas, and a contentious co-parenting relationship convene to (transiently, one hopes) stamp out any vestiges of moral fibre, restraint, and humility that may have developed over the preceding 12 months. 

For her birthday/Christmas this year, the present she has most consistently requested whenever the subject has come up is, I am not making this up, 'shackles.'  Rather than go deeper into what she would plan to do with shackles, should Father Christmas decide he's down with this (because I really, really don't want to know), I have been trying the Good Mummy diversion tactic of "what presents are you excited to make/give other people?" which turns out doesn't really work if you have the kind of kid who wants shackles to begin with. 

When I was little, I wanted a Barbie for Christmas; my mother, like any self-respecting hippie feminist child of the 60's, was horrified, but she squared it with her soul, and stayed up late the night before Christmas sewing Barbie outfits. Thus I awoke on Christmas morning not just to a new Barbie (with a plastic panel in its back which you pushed to get a kissing noise eeeeeuw) but also to a whole wardrobe of tiny Liberty-print floral hippie smocks, all ready for Barbie to start boiling her own soap, dipping her own beeswax candles, and putting on her wellies to go out to the pea-patch to harvest her curly kale to make a bulgur salad. I do remember a slight pang of disappointment at the time that my Barbie did not have more flashy outfits as-seen-on-TV, but I now think of my Barbie's flower child/Mennonite wardrobe as an act of tremendous beauty and sweetness by my mother. (By the time I was la p'tite's age, my mother had taught me to sew myself, and there was no looking back: all my teddy bears had reproduction Elizabethan ball gowns for regal functions, executive suits for work, and chintz floral prints for casual daywear while on tropical vacations: truly the gift that has kept on giving through the decades.) Neither my Barbie (unless you count her lurid pink plastic high heels) or my teddybear, however, went in for BDSM, so I don't have much in the way of parenting precedent to lean on, here.

La p'tite's interest in sewing is cursory, but her interest in dominatrix gear has been pretty consistent since the age of about six, long enough to not really be a phase, I think. (Favourite superheroines are without fail the baddies, the ones who dress in skintight black leather, carry whips, and have fangs). There are plenty of things I make her do that she's not into (piano lessons, chewing with her mouth shut, math) so I should honour her other interests when I can, right? So: shackles. I stopped by JoAnn Fabrics this afternoon and picked up a yard of chunky plastic silver chain and a strip of black leather with silver studs, and I made the girl her shackles. (All her other presents, scouts' honour, are entirely virtuous, innocent, and focused on self-improvement: art supplies, musical instruments, books, etc.... with the possible exception of a pair of socks which say "Fuck off, I'm reading" which I couldn't resist.) 

I am going to wrestle in private with the murky question of whether I should have indulged this particular whim at all BUT here's the question for the wide reading public: is it creepier to receive your gift shackles from an weird old semi-magical dude you've never met who sneaks into your room at night to leave stuff at the end of your bed (Santa)... or from your mother? 

Kafka in times of COVID

So yes, big long gap there for a minute, but I have not had anything more notable happening in my life than anyone else on the planet has (masks, long lines to buy food, child at home, obsessive checking of IHME stats), but there's a wee gap in patient care duties and a situation which is just so, so indicative of how completely stupid the medical system is that I can't resist; it is truly a self-sustaining industrial monster at this point, absolutely definitely not set up to serve any actual human beings other than possibly the corporate  overlords. To wit: 

1. I work several different jobs. 

2. Each job requires that I get fitted for the particular type of N95 mask that they stock.

3. I have been successfully fit-tested for multiple types of N95 mask without difficulty. 

4. The one exception was for my one un-busy job, which already has presented me over the last year with a number of bizarre and surreal situations, not the least of which is insisting that I physically come in to clinic at the height of the pandemic to see exactly zero patients. At the fit-testing for this job, (outsourced to an outside company), the technician seemed unsure of herself, saying it was her first time fit-testing someone. She had trouble decanting the saccharin into the test sprayer gizmo, and when she sprayed it, I couldn't smell anything. I suspected that she had just done it wrong, but I also have had a stuffy nose since March because of wearing an N95 all day every day, so who knows. I therefore failed that particular fit test; I wasn't terribly worried because there was another provider at that job who was willing and able to see any/all potential COVID patients and the total number of patients seen is very low, and I have other N95's from other jobs that I can wear to help keep myself safe. 

5. Fast forward six months, we got a fit-testing kit to actually have at the clinic so it seemed reasonable to have another go. I filled out the preliminary questionnaire, marking 'no' to every question about symptoms other than 'Have you ever had difficulty getting fit-tested because of inability to smell?" The medical assistant sprayed saccharin at me, confirmed I could smell/taste it, and successfully fit-tested me. 

6. I got an email from the clinic manager saying that before I could _wear_ the N95 mask I had just been fit-tested for to see actual patients with actual COVID symptoms I would need to get signed off by the medical director, because bureaucracy.

7. This is the waking-up-as-a-cockroach part: the medical director, who is a doctor, declined to sign off on my using the N95 mask I had been fit-tested for because I had marked 'yes' in answer to the question re: smell above, and told me I needed to get signoff to use the mask from... a doctor. (At my own expense, they made a point of telling me).  Full disclosure: I am a doctor. I have no idea how I would evaluate someone's fitness to wear an N95 mask other than asking them if they'd passed their N95 fit test. I asked the medical director (a doctor whose job it is to provide other doctors with medical advice) this, and he has thus far declined to answer. 

9. I now have a telephone appointment with my own lovely doctor, to ask her to write a letter either clearing me (or not) to wear the N95 mask I have been fit-tested for. She is way smarter than I am, so if there is some other way of determining fitness to wear an N95 mask other than doing an N95 fit test, she may know about it, but am I cynical to think this is more about keeping lawyers happy than about keeping me or patients safe? Hmm. 

10. What I will likely ask my own lovely doctor to write (and what she will likely write): "Clearance given to wear N95 mask." What I want to ask her to write: "ARRRGHGHGHGHHGHGHGHGH what the FUCK this is a ridiculous farce if your own N95 fit testing procedure is not enough to guarantee someone's ability to wear an N95 mask, you shouldn't bother doing it; what the hell additional objective criteria is someone supposed to apply - over the phone, mind you - to determine this? I hereby grant permission for the patient to hide under a rock until the pandemic is over, at time-and-a-half pay." 

Note that this is the same institution that, back in April (remember April? widespread asymptomatic transmission, no tests, completely overwhelmed Public Health... eerily similar to December except for the test part...), was instructing providers to "rule out COVID-19 over the phone" and to refer anyone for whom we could not magically, telephonically and definitively rule out COVID to, yup, Public Health, that same Public Health not answering the phones or website inquiries because they were at max capacity just trying to figure out how to test people with both symptoms AND recent travel history to Wuhan. 

Can someone just make Atul Gawande God already? 

Day 29 of shelter-in-place: ten anticipated adaptations for return to real life in a Zoom-habituated world.

1. As well as a well-fitting N95, it will be considered gauche to go out in public without a small rectangular mirror glued to your forehead, so that anyone you interact with can surreptitiously adjust their posture and facial expression to be maximally flattering.

2. Pass codes will be required in order to prevent racist amateur pornography trolls from crashing family dinners.

3. An enterprising tech-savvy school teacher will make a fortune with an app that allows teachers to instantly "mute all participants" in a real life classroom; meanwhile students will have to paint their palms blue in order for the teacher to notice them when they raise their hands.

4. 'Business casual' will be redefined as wearing pyjamas rather than nothing at all.

5. When get-togethers become boring, it will be acceptable to entertain yourself by picking people up and arranging them all just the way you like them on your wall. Also, if you're the host, you can swap out their real names and assign your guests more amusing names at your discretion. 'Peanutbutter Dragon' is good.

6. If you need to go to the loo during a work meeting, it'll be totally normal to just squat down in the middle of the conference room and go, as long as you turn the lights out first and don't make any noise while you do it.

7. Six-foot distancing will be automatically maintained by the portable green screens which everyone will walk around with strapped to their backs. The curated background images being continually projected onto these screens will give the subtle impression that everyone else is way cooler than you, and probably spent their SIP time training for marathons and writing devastatingly well-researched & intensely clever nonfiction, and definitely did not bother with inane blogs or YouTube videos of Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee (start at 2:45 if you're going to watch the Obama episode, which will make you nostalgic for the days when we had a sane person with a sense of humour and humility in the Oval Office).

8. If you go out to a restaurant with a group of three or more, you will be kicked out after 40 minutes and will have to come back in again to finish your food, unless it's a fancy restaurant that charges more than $15 per entree.

9. Children will be flabbergasted at the ease with which their parents are able to maintain ongoing conversations without tech support.

10.  Your sex life will -------- and the---- n----- rhinocer-------  --sn't ------- ---- --- - Anderson Cooper's vacation home------- ---- ----- several million yen ---- ------ back of the sofa --- and that of course will be the definitive solution to climate chan-- ---- -------- -----  ---- sorry, I appear to be cut--------- ----- --- think I'm ---- connection problems ----

Day 19: dragon table completed (except for varnish)

Artistic collaborations with la p'tite always seem to involve way more work for me than for her. Clearly I am doing this all wrong. Chairs next (if I can face them); she's already done her bit by drawing individual chair dragons in Sharpie on the backs. one corresponding to each family member.

We invented a whole series of new words to be extra posh yesterday which consist of adding the ending 'aviar' (as in caviar) to the end of whatever you are talking about, which at the time happened to be dingoes and the song "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious;" I am more than a little worried that after 12 days straight with no one but each other for company that our language will drift so far from standard English that we will actually lose contact with the mainland and our loved ones will have to send in a team of crack forensic linguists to help decipher the squeaks, grunts, giggles, and references to dingoviars if they want to be able to communicate. Linear B's got nothing on us.

Day 17-18: oy.

The shelter in place order just got extended until May 3rd in Alameda County, with tighter restrictions than the previous one; I have been advised to keep my work badge with me so that I can prove I am 'essential' if I get stopped by the police while on my way to work... so it is getting serious down here. Luckily, the Daiso store in El Cerrito Plaza is still open, presumably so that the brave and overworked ICU staff who need to keep their hair off their faces as they perform bronchoscopies on COVID patients will have access to crucial life-saving plastic sushi- and cat-shaped barrettes; JoAnn Fabrics likewise has a sign on the door saying that they decided to stay open "in order to help with the grassroots effort to donate home-made face masks to hospitals." (If you don't know anyone who sews this might sound convincing, but please trust me that anyone capable of sewing a facemask also has a gigantic fabric stash which they should have gotten rid of a long time ago, and needs JoAnn's like an addict needs their dealer, i.e. like a hole in the head.)

Meanwhile, I worked a positively sepulchral Urgent Care shift on Monday; I was scheduled to work a second shift on Tuesday, but it got cancelled because they can't justify paying two doctors to be there, so instead I spent the day in a mighty orgy of semi-productive procrastination. I am scheduled to teach an art class for three weeks in July to fifteen 10-11 year olds, a job which I got on the strength of a conversation with the director of the UW Early Entrance Program at a Bay Area fundraising mixer (which truthfully I only went to because it was at a really nice tapas restaurant in SF), and I have been putting off finishing the syllabus for the class (due April 1st) for weeks 'n' weeks 'n' weeks, initially because I thought, whatevs, I have weeks to do it! and then more recently because the world has been getting cancelled and it seemed unlikely that art classes would be any exception. I talked to Trophy BF in the morning and we both agreed we were going to get right down to our various plans for the day, and then we both engaged in what can most kindly be described as meta-faffing. I successfully nailed everything in the bottom two squares of my Eisenhower box (walking to a closed hardware store to attempt to buy varnish for the dining room table, e.g., which is how I know that Daiso & JoAnn's are still open), but did not actually get down to syllabus-writing until (squirm) nine o'clock at night; meanwhile Trophy BF put together a binder of his planned schedule for the next few weeks of staying at home in which he actually scheduled his daily shits. 

I got to have a long chat with my delicious one and a half year old godson, who doesn't so much chat as provide performance art pieces (live motion-sickness-inducing tours of the lowest two feet of the cabin in the woods where his family is holed up, with particular detail to the cabinetry in the kitchen and occasional random glimpses of the ceiling; the soundtrack is not-hugely-comprehensible-but-impressively-polyglot squeals), and had virtual dinner with a friend who is considering 'going on retreat' during this time, which means upping her usual meditation practice of 1.5 hours a day to six hours a day. I have tried meditating for fifteen minutes at a time for the last couple of days and both times was ready to crawl out of my brain by about minute six; I think probably safest for the world if I stick to painting dragons and playing Lego with p'tite. We have one more day of 'distance learning, and then twelve days of 'extended spring break', just her 'n' me; watch this space to see if I'm still standing by the end of it.

Day 16: Substantial silver linings

P'tite decided she wanted to sleep in my closet last night, in a nest she had made herself out of cushions from the sofa, a bean bag, and blankets, happily surrounded by stacks of her books and wearing a set of headphones unconnected to any jack in the existing mundane universe, but apparently streaming wonderful sounds from the mothership in the parallel universe she actually comes from. I woke up early and decided to go to the Monterey Market while she was still dozy and (I hoped) the lines were less awful, as we were overdue for a megashop. (I love that it is now the responsible thing to do to leave your child unattended at home while you go to the grocery store...)
The line was both awful (I arrived at opening time and there were already fifteen people ahead of me, dutifully spaced six feet apart - Berkeleyites are SO conscientious - plus I'd failed to take into account the first half hour of opening times being reserved for the 60+ crowd) AND totally worth it: once I actually got in, I whizzed around a gloriously empty Monterey Market and was back less than an hour after I'd left home with $350 worth of groceries, which I would never have believed possible given the preCOVID Piccadilly-Circus style gridlock which chronically constipates the aisles of the MM. (They had everything on our list except for AP flour, which suggests that more than one family is dealing with quarantine boredom by baking; we're going to survive coronavirus only to die of diabetic complications.) I hope they continue the policy of limiting number of people inside the shop at any one time postCOVID because overall it is totally faster, but sadly, I suspect they will not. Lines look great outside posh nightclubs, but uncomfortably Soviet outside grocery stores.
I recently got sent an article by the astronaut Mark Kelly - who should know - suggesting that routines are very important when you're stuck for long periods of time in confined quarters, but here's a word in favour of not planning: we made a list of the stuff that absolutely had to get done (seedlings, piano practice, exercise), p'tite put arbitrary times next to them, and then she went into Lego ecstatic flow state on the living room floor for the next four hours while I went into gold chalk paint ecstatic flow state on the dining room table (needs varnishing, and the chairs & middle table leaves still need ('need' is used loosely) painting, but first phase of Mission: Dragon Dining Experience is now complete):

An hour of ABBA Just Dance videos (she is always Benny, I pick Agnetha or Bjorn) qualified as our exercise for the day, followed up by a couple of hours in the garden (late-afternoon sun, seeds & weeds & overenthusiastic akebia vines), a ginger cake in honour of Grandpa's birthday (celebrated remotely via Zoom), a hot bath, the Oxford Children's History (plus fart jokes) read aloud while snuggled on the sofa under a blanket, then blissful bed at 8:30 for both of us. A similarly peaceful and unstructured day would have been unthinkable pre-social distancing, but like the line outside the Monterey Market, sometimes you need a crisis to show you there's a better way of doing things.
Oh! and my COVID19 test from last week came back negative...