Category Archives: Uncategorized

I Am Lost

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 I am taking a new writing class, one that focuses on constructing scenes.  I like the one below because it works on a lot of levels and has the advantage of being absolutely true.

 

I am lost.  At twenty-five, the age when most lawyers begin their first jobs, I have left my job as a paralegal.  I am making my living as a free-lance title examiner, spending my days tracing other people’s stories through big dusty books.  For some reason, one of my lawyer clients has decided to use my services to deliver subpoenas.  The assignments he chooses for me are not difficult or dangerous.  As mortgage interest rates rise to 18% and my title business slows, I see no reason to say no.

Except that I am terrible at the job.  In an age before Google Maps, I have no sense of direction and hate talking to strangers, particularly in situations that betray my ignorance.  I will drive forty miles out of my way rather than ask for directions.

This morning, I have used town maps to find my way to a suburb south of Boston, an area where I have never been.  As always in Massachusetts, the streets are a maze and street signs are minimal.  Am I on Acorn Street, Acorn Terrace or Acorn Circle?  The numbers on the houses are hard to spot as I cruise by.

Eventually, I decide I must be close.  I abandon my car to search on foot.  It is late spring, mid-day.  The high sun focuses everything with bright intensity.  The lines of the houses are too sharp, the treeless suburban lawns glow an iridescent green.  The streets are deserted.  Not a car goes by.

A postman comes around the corner.  He is tall, in his summer uniform, graying red hair receding under his cap.  His mail bag looks heavy, but he moves with big, confident strides.  I long to ask directions, but can’t.

“Hi,” he says, saving me the trouble.  “What are you doing here?”

I explain about the subpoena, how I can’t find the address.

“So is that what you want to be, a lawyer?” he asks, squinting the manila envelope I hold out in my hand.

“I don’t know,” I stammer.  “It’s hard.  Unless you go to a top school, there aren’t that many jobs.”

“Nonsense!” he admonishes.  “You can’t think that way.  The cream will always rise.”

He pushes his cap back on his head and uses a handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his brow.  Then he points me in the right direction and sends me on my way.

Ed Yeung

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My thoughts were in Vancouver yesterday with the family and friends of Ed Yeung who were attending his memorial service.

Ed was so much a part of WebCT.  His job might have driven other people crazy. He often had developers, support and even sometimes marketing going around and around on an issue while customers clamored for answers.  Ed patiently and cheerfully wrote draft after draft, always coming out with something that was both clear and accurate.

It was a tribute to Ed that he was not just well thought of in Vancouver.  He was also liked and admired by his colleagues in Boston.  It was amazing how Ed worked so collaboratively and productively with people he never met face to face.

Like many of Ed’s work colleagues, the last news I received from him was an update from the website LinkedIn saying Ed had taken a job as a Learning Specialist.  I remember pausing during a busy day and thinking, “That will be perfect for Ed.  He will be good at that.”

When I left WebCT, Ed wrote me a note saying the thing he most remembered was me quoting Dorothy Parker, “What fresh hell is this?”  Indeed.  A world without Ed is hard to imagine and a much diminished place.   He closed his note by saying, “I will miss you.  In fact, I miss you already.”  Now I am the one left missing him.

Household Deities

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Lots of religions have the notion of household gods–deities who aren’t in charge of the vast universe, but who tend to small things like broken dryers and clogged sinks.  Even the Catholic saints take on additional duties, like finding your car keys or selling your house.  Perhaps the impulse to wish for extra support, not just with the big things, but with the small, is universal.

 

In the past few weeks, my household gods have failed me completely.  Perhaps they’ve withered from lack of attention like all my plants eventually do.

 

In any case, I’ve endured visits from both Roto-rooter ($337.00) and the heating guy ($287.00).  For three weeks a smoke alarm with a dying battery beeped somewhere deep in the recesses of the house while Bill and I took turns searching for it.  And Bill spent all of last Saturday going from hardware store to hardware store looking for salt and a tool to get the ice off the front steps.  They face due north, get no sun at all, resemble a frozen waterfall and are just as easy to climb.

 

After each little hiccup, I am afraid to think that this run of –what?  It’s way too much to call it bad luck—maybe bad inconvenience—is over.  I am eyeing our cars and the rest of our major appliances with suspicion.

 

Perhaps I will begin a program to attract new household gods, but where do they come from?  Can they be purchased like warrantees or do they have to be lured?  Maybe an ad in the personals–

 

Wanted:  Minor god to sweat the small stuff for us.  Comfortable home, at least when the heat and toilets are working.  Inhabitants are friendly and mellow—except when they are not.  Only independent, self-sufficient deities need apply.

It’s Too Soon To Tell

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One of  the things I have been doing with my time off is taking writing classes and seminars.  Some have been skills based–workshops in doing revisions for example, but others have been more focused on being creative and generating new material.  Often the exercises in these classes involve writing to prompts.  For example, the class may be given a word or phrase, a physical object or photo or even a piece of music and then a very limited amount of time–say 10 or 15 minutes to write. It’s interesting to me that my production in these situations has been equal parts memoir, essay and fiction.  I have completed a couple of pieces I started to prompts, but mostly for me it’s a limbering up exercise and an opportunity for collegiality I find I need now that I’m not working.

Here is a piece that I wrote in response to the prompt, “Finish the phrase, ‘It’s too soon to tell.

It’s Too Soon To Tell

It’s too soon to tell
Will he have his mother’s fine skin,
His father’s auburn hair,
His Uncle Charlie’s protuberant ears?

It’s too soon to tell

Will he have his grandmother’s gift for music

His grandfather’s way with words,

Cousin Violet’s wonderful laugh?

 

Will he run races like his Uncle Pearce?

Build great cities like his Cousin Neville?

Or write software like Rita’s daughter Lil?

 

It’s too soon to tell

Will he have Aunt Clea’s love of the bottle,

Uncle Henry’s black depressions,

Cousin Mortimer’s passion for unsuitable women

Or Cousin Jasper’s for unsuitable men?

 

Will he know great love?

Will he go to war?

Will he know want, or will his pockets always be full?

 

This much we do know

He smells like heaven

His smile lights up the sky

His cry breaks your heart

And he holds each of us in the palm of his hand

 

Because we can’t wait to discover

The oh, so many things

It’s just too soon to tell

The Christmas Letter

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Ah, the annual Christmas letter, subject of so much derision.  I actually started sending one 12 years ago, ignoring the negative press.   I reasoned that  if I loved getting them from people, it was okay to send one, too. Since then, I’ve received a lot of positive comments, and people who get them one year and not the next (I usually don’t send them to folks we’ve seen through the year and who generally know what is up with us) often ask where theirs is.  So I persist. (But then, I also sometimes make Christmas fruitcake, so I may be the ultimate Christmas contrarian.  Or Cliche.  Or contrarian cliche.  Anywho…)

 

The rap on the Christmas letter is generally two-fold.  One is its impersonal nature, which I have to admit does give me pause–though in the age of the word-processing, it seems just a little crazy to write the same thing over and over. The other is its relentlessly positive spin. (Though we do have one friend who writes a consistently noirish Christmas letter, which is hilarious and just a tiny bit creepy.) Anyway, some really sad things did happen this year, including the passing of our family friend, Michelle Wilson, which was hard for all of us, and particularly so for Kate.  Bill and I both endured predictable business challenges.  Kate and I wrestled with transitions.  But hey.  That’s life.  And if our stories define us, then there are worse things to do than look back at the end of year at all the good things that have happened.

 

And so, without further pre-amble, here is this year’s entry.

 

December 5, 2006

Dear Family and Friends,

Happy Holidays.  Here in the Northeast, it’s been a little difficult getting into the spirit, since we haven’t even had to wear our winter coats yet.  (And yes, we do realize how annoying that statement must be to family and friends in the Midwest and Pacific Northwest.) None-the-less, we are baking cookies, putting up decorations and generally carrying on, because we know the days are flying by and the holidays will be upon us, even if the temperature outside indicates otherwise.

We have had an eventful year, indeed.  Kate returned from Australia last December as a very happy Christmas surprise for her Mom.  She graduated from the University of New Hampshire with a degree in English in May.  Now she is living in Soho and working five minutes away from her apartment at a small marketing firm called Creativ & Company.  In typical Kate fashion, she went to New York on a Tuesday, interviewed for the job she would get on Wednesday, found a friend of a friend to room with on Friday and an apartment on Saturday.  Of course, her apartment is the size of a dinner plate (you literally have to back into the WC, because there is no room, um, to turn around in there), but she is loving every minute of her New York adventure.

Rob is also still in New York, living in a really great brownstone in the Sunset Park area in Brooklyn and working as the production manager at Leaders magazine, a publication so exclusive you don’t subscribe, you have to apply.  This job represents a huge step up in responsibility for him and he is daily wrestling with software and design challenges, but is enjoying himself along the way. The most hilarious part for his family is that he has to wear a suit and tie to work everyday.  Quite a change from the look he was sporting when he came off the Appalachian Trail last year!  He and long-time girlfriend Sunny Basham are really taking advantage of being in the city, visiting landmarks and museums, trying different restaurants, and even volunteering at the Park Slope co-op.

Bill is, as you might imagine, very happy with the mid-term election results, particularly because software from his company, Sage Systems, powered successful grassroots campaigns in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Massachusetts and several other states.  He was working 24/7 right up through Election Day, and I can’t say much has changed since. But I do know how things are with a start-up at this stage (and yes, it does feel like some sort of cosmic payback).

As for me, we completed the sale of WebCT to Blackboard, Inc. in February and I stayed on for six months of “transition” until the end of August.  Since then, I have been mostly goofing around, writing, cleaning out closets and generally whittling away at the list of things I was going to do when “I had the time.”  In November, my short story, “Winter Rental,” was published in Seasmoke, an anthology of short stories by New England writers. It is amazing to me that I started this Christmas letter when I was on a break between Information Mapping and WebCT twelve years ago.  Now here I am again, and still no idea what I want to be when I grow up.

The extended family is well. Rip and Ann’s son Hume graduated from George Washington University in May (same weekend as Kate) with a degree in civil engineering.  He is living in northern Virginia and working in a prestigious management training program.  Like me, Ann is on a work hiatus, which led Bill to point out that though the young graduates are getting jobs, the older generation seems to be giving them up, proportionately—a bit of a zero sum game.

Our house in Somerville is finally done—or as “done” as anyone else’s house.  This year we completed the landscaping, so we are quite settled in, tucked up for the winter and wondering what the future will bring.

We hope this letter finds you all well and you have a wonderful holiday season. We close once again with hopes for peace.

Bill & Barb

IT Support

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The biggest challenge of working at home (or even not working, at home) is the IT support is just terrible.  Oh how I miss the days when, at the slightest mention of an issue or frustration, IT guys would come running down the hall as if their hair were on fire.

The IT team at WebCT was incredibly patient and supportive.  We had a system. They pretended to believe what I was saying, nodded sagely, disappeared with my laptop, then reappeared shortly, and all was right with the world.  I often suspected that they just took the machine down to their offices and let it rest for awhile, but it didn’t matter.  It worked.

My current IT support doesn’t even come close.   Here are the five most common responses from my current IT person:

  1. “It never does that when I’m using it.”
  2. “Read the manual.”
  3. “Why are you wasting time reading the manual?”
  4. “Elvis in Bangalore said…”
  5. And the incredibly irritating, “What did you do to it?”

And I have to sleep with this guy just to get this cruddy level of service.

Compare that to the support I got at WebCT.  Once a full cup of tea I had carefully placed on the total opposite side of my desk miraculously leapt up of its own volition and poured its entire contents through the keyboard and into the bowels of my computer.  Just like a code blue in a hospital, guys came running from everywhere.  “You may not want to see this, ma’am,” they said, politely closing my office door.

Or the time I had to tell them I’d backed my car over my laptop.  (Okay, first I said my computer had crashed.  Then I admitted I had crashed into my computer.)  They didn’t ask why, or even how.  They just fixed it. And then they went out of their way to explain that it wasn’t the stupidest thing anyone at the company had ever done with a laptop. (My favorites were the guy who sent his laptop from China in a manila envelope.  Not even a padded envelope.  Just a note that said, “It’s broken.”  Well, it is now.  Or the contractor who checked his laptop with his luggage, because the company didn’t have a specific policy against it.  “We don’t have a policy against sending your computer to the dry-cleaner, either,” Bob Bean responded in his typical manner, “but you wouldn’t do that, would you? Or maybe you would…”)

So Bob, Jeff, Chuck, Diraj, Matt and Shahab, you are gone, but not forgotten.  Or I am gone, but you are not forgotten.  Or something.  And of course, Sarah, Kurt (x2) Max, (x2 or was it 3?)  Thank you for everything you did for me and for the company. 

By the way, could one of you come over and talk to my current guy?  He could really use a little help with his attitude.

And Now for a Brief Commercial Message…

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My short story “Winter Rental” has just been published in Seasmoke, an anthology of mystery, crime and suspense stories by New England authors.

seasmoke-cover.JPG 

The introduction to Seasmoke says, “Some stories hold us even though we’re not sure where the crime is or when it will show up.  But we are captured in the first paragraph and held until the end.  Barbara Ross’s story, ‘Winter Rental,’ is one of these.” 

“Winter Rental,” won an honorable mention for the Al Blanchard Award www.mwane.org/crimebake/Al.htm.  The award was presented at the conference dinner at Crimebake, an annual mystery writers conference sponsored by the New England Chapters of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters In Crime www.mwane.org/crimebake/Default.htm.  The whole experience including the conference, dinner, award and book signing was tremendous fun.

Ordering info for Seasmoke appears on this page http://www.levelbestbooks.com/Seasmoke.htm.

Thanks for watching this commercial message.  Have a great Thanksgiving.  Now back to regularly scheduled programming.

The Autumn of Barb

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It seems like everyone I talk to asks (with a degree of expectation I always find a little daunting), “So What Are You Doing Now?”

When my colleague Lisa Philpott branded her time off in August, “The Summer of Lisa,” I knew immediately that this would be “The Autumn of Barb.”  Lisa helpfully pointed out “The Autumn of Barb,” is much better than “The Fall of Barb,” which gives the wrong impression entirely.

So what have I been doing?

1) Cleaning closets.  My closets are very clean.  In fact, I invite you to come over to my house and open any one of your choosing.  Those of you who know us well will recognize this as quite a turnabout from the days when we had young children and two jobs and whole rooms that were not suitable for visitor viewing.

As I have talked to former colleagues, closet cleaning has emerged as quite a theme.  Our attics, basements and garages are spotless, our spices are alphabetized, our gardens are battened down for the winter and our cars are detailed.  I have to say, we are probably the cleanest group of people around.

(In a related note, I had Bill’s car detailed and now it has the most peculiar, well actually, the most awful smell.  I can only conclude that the wall-to-wall wrappers, receipts and empty Dunkin Donuts cups were somehow holding down the smell and now that they are gone it has been released.  Needless to say, this wasn’t the objective of the whole detailing project and I guess the moral of the story is that some things are left well enough alone.)

But nonetheless, I have been

1) Cleaning closets.

2) I have also been cruising the internet.  Well, not so much cruising, as checking.  It seems that about the time I left work, an edict came down dictating that weather cannot change, the stock market cannot go up or down and no major event can occur (either news or celebrity-related) unless I have personally reviewed it.  This keeps me very, very busy indeed.

So I have been

1) Cleaning closets

2) Checking the internet.

3) I have also been grocery shopping.  This is frankly an amazing turn of events, since I have always said one of the major achievements of my adult life was convincing Bill that I should not be allowed to grocery shop.

(For those of you who might want to achieve this, it is really pretty simple.  On a joint shopping trip—or as many as it takes—enter a catatonic state immediately after entering the store and start dumping things in the cart without looking at ingredients or universal price codes and just wait until your exasperated spouse orders you out.  It is important at this moment not to let your ego get in the way—after all, what kind of a moron doesn’t know how to grocery shop? Humbly accept your fate and exit quickly, in the best of circumstances, never to return.)

So given my pride about convincing Bill for years that I could not shop, it has been quite a turn to find myself back in a grocery store.  But given that he has been working full tilt and I have been, well, not, there is really no way around it.  I have been confining myself to Whole Foods because they tend to have a small footprint and the label-reading is likely to yield something that has actual food in it relatively quickly.  I had to go into a Super Duper Quadruper Stop & Shop for garbage bags the other day.  It was the size of a nuclear power plant and had everything in it but a car dealership and I think I actually did become catatonic.

So, busy, busy, busy

1) Cleaning closets

2) Checking the internet

 

3) Grocery shopping.

4) The final thing I have been doing is keeping my mother-in-law’s plants alive.  This is another major accomplishment for me.  When I had children at home and employees to nurture, plants seemed superfluous and frankly just plain needy.

But since that all seems to be behind me for the moment, I have been voluntarily taking care of my mother-in-law’s plants in her apartment downstairs and I am happy to report that every one of them is still alive with only a month to go until she returns. Of course, I did take one of them up to stay with her in Maine, but that one had distinctly diva-like tendencies I couldn’t abide.

I haven’t moved any of the plants upstairs, where it would certainly be easier to care for them, because I don’t want them staring at me reproachfully when I am doing important things– like checking the internet.  All and all, though, I am pretty proud of this plant achievement.

So, to review, I have been

1) Cleaning closets

2) Checking the internet

3) Grocery shopping

 

4) Keeping plants alive.

The main question I have is—how did I ever find time for a job?

It hasn’t all been work, work, work.  I had ten days in Boothbay and a three-day writing retreat on Star Island in the Isles of Shoals, and a weekend in NYC to check out Kate’s new apartment and Rob’s new apartment and see old friends.  And, I have some really cool stuff coming up.

All and all, “The Autumn of Barb,” has been quite lovely and something I would recommend to anyone who can find the right time in life for it.

My Commencement Address

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When you reach a certain age, you face certain realities.  For instance, you will probably never win an academy award and get to go on national television and thank all the people who should properly be thanked for all the good things that have happened in your life until the orchestra plays you off.  And you will probably never be asked to give a commencement address, because let’s face it, you are never going to win a Nobel prize or donate a building or be shot into space.

So nobody has asked.  But here is the commencement address I would give if I were.

Young men and women. 

Some of you support the war in Iraq and some of you loath it.  Some of you have friends and family over there, though it is likely in an age without conscription most of you do not.

There is something you must not do.  You must never confuse your feelings about this war with your feelings about your fellow countrymen and women who are fighting it.  If you are against this war, you must channel your rage at your elders who made it happen and not at your contemporaries who are there.  If you have gone to Iraq, you must never confuse expressions of dislike, despair or disparagement of the war for expressions of the same about yourselves, even if older voices goad you to do so.

So far, you have done well at this.  My generation failed utterly and created within itself such hard divisions that they echo down the decades still.  We created such intense walls of hatred, suspicion and guilt that you saw the same old arguments and animosities played out in the last presidential election—more than 30 years after the war ended.

We will never get over this.  We have inflicted wounds that will never heal.  So you must never start.  Blame the older generation on all sides that took you there—but never, ever blame each other.

Update

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I had brunch with my children in New York City on Sunday and they are demanding an update to the blog since they think the entry containing the advice for Sheila (see June) casts some aspersions that are no longer accurate. 

So, Rob is living in Brooklyn and working as the production manager for Leaders Magazine http://www.leadersmag.com/index.html .  Kate is living and working in Soho at Creativ & Company http://www.creativandco.com .  No one is spending much time on the couch or working nights at Kinkos (not that there is anything wrong with that).