Forgetting to Be Irish

I can never quite get off the ground with St. Patrick's Day. I know a lot of people love it, but for some reason I nearly always forget to wear green, and the holiday ends up as sort of a nonstarter for me. It happened again today: ahead of time I was thinking, "I'll bet I forget to wear green again." By the time I got dressed, I forgot I'd been thinking that, but I also forgot to wear anything green. Maybe it's just that I'm not overly fond of corned beef, cabbage, and green glitter, but for whatever reason, the day usually slips by me.

There have been a few St. Patrick's Days that were more memorable than others. For several years, I was in the habit of taking a vacation in March that often led me to NoCal so that I was in San Francisco for St. Paddy's. The first time it happened I actually went to a restaurant for an Irish meal; my friend Jot and I somehow ended up at this place in the Mission that was celebrating the day with traditional Irish food. I don't remember what I had, but considering my cooked cabbage phobia, I'm thinking it must have been something more like stew or potatoes. I do recall that we were regaled non-stop by a character seated near us who just could not stop talking. I've met some overly chatty strangers in my time, but this man was the very King of Chat, bar none.

You do meet some personalities in San Francisco, and sometimes you just have to roll with it, but I've never before or since met anyone so determined to insert himself into the conversation of complete strangers (and few people more immune to hints). As Jot and I were walking down the street afterward, I said to him, "I guess that's what you call the gift of the gab." And he said, "I think it's more like a curse."

I was in San Francisco for St. Patrick's Day the next year, too, though I had been in Sonoma most of the week and only drove into the City that day. I'd been intending to meet people, but they were called out of town, so I spent the afternoon and evening in North Beach. I had stopped by the Tosca Cafe, which didn't seem to have a lot going on, and then soaked up the street life on my way back to my hotel. My most vivid memory is of passing, on Columbus Avenue, a young, laughing man--definitely of Asian heritage--sporting the loudest Top-to-Toe All-Green leprechaun attire I have ever witnessed. I didn't even know they made outfits like that. He was well pleased with himself, and I don't blame him: the whole street was gaping at him. Well, there was no topping that in the Irish sweepstakes, and I finished the evening with pasta and panna cotta in the Italian restaurant next to my hotel. It was a very San Francisco St. Patrick's Day.

Then there was the time many years ago when I was passing through Chicago on the Saturday before St. Patrick's, and while walking by the river (in between trains), saw that it was dyed green. This is evidently a tradition in Chicago, as is their St. Patrick's Day parade, which had been held earlier in the day. I don't know if it was then that someone told me they'd been filming a movie or if I found out later, but it turns out that a scene in The Fugitive was filmed during Chicago's St. Patrick's Day parade (Harrison Ford, on the run, blending in with the marchers). I was never for sure if it was this film or another, but I always assumed The Fugitive because it came out the following year. So I count that as the time I just missed seeing a movie being made and Harrison Ford in a green hat but got to see what a river looks like with a bunch of green dye dropped in.

Today was nowhere near that exciting, but it was sunny, which makes a pleasant change in this place at this time of year. I didn't do anything in particular to celebrate St. Patrick, but I did have a hobbity sort of dinner that included potatoes and onions. Contrary to the pattern of the last several years, spring seems to be arriving early this year, with things already greening up outdoors and the trees beginning to blossom. That's celebration enough for me. And may the road rise to meet you.

Drinking the River Styx

With the Michigan primary being so much in the news this week, the Flint water crisis has also been front and center in public awareness. I watched news clips of Flint residents talking about their experiences and also saw part of the Democratic presidential debate held there. When I started reading about the background of the problem, I began thinking about addressing it in this week's post, though I hesitated after hearing the remarks of some of the people who live there.

I was struck by the comment of one resident who said she didn't want to participate in the debate because she was wary of allowing presidential candidates to politicize Flint's crisis; another woman said she thought the time to start assigning blame for what happened would be after the problem is fixed. I see the wisdom of both perspectives and initially wondered whether I should hold off on writing about Flint since, after all, I don't live there. But since both the debate and the primary are over with, and Flint is still suffering, I decided that throwing in my two cents' worth couldn't hurt. Everyone from Hollywood actors to sports figures to public officials has been vocal on this topic (and rightly so). However, I don't know if any mythologists have weighed in, so I'll take that as an opening.

Flint, Michigan: formerly thriving auto industry hub and the hometown of filmmaker Michael Moore (Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11). Don't you have the feeling that it's time Flint caught a break? First the loss of much of its industrial base (chronicled in Mr. Moore's film Roger & Me), and now this. Water, of course, is synonymous with life, and to be poisoned right in your own home by something you took for granted as not only safe but vital to health must be especially hard to deal with. Poisoning the well, as it were, is hitting people at a very basic level, not only physically but psychologically, especially when they're already living through tough times.

One of the signs in mythology that you're entering the underworld is the act of crossing a river--not that every river crossing is that dire, but it certainly fits in this case, since a switch from the Detroit water supply to the Flint River was the beginning of the problem. What I don't understand is how officials could have neglected to add the proper chemical (orthophosphate) to the river water--as required by the Federal government's Lead and Copper Rule--that would have kept the pipes from corroding in the first place. Other people have blamed the water crisis on government mismanagement, racism, and misguided efforts to save money. To me, the heart of the matter is the unlawful failure to treat the water. It almost sounds like building a house and neglecting to put a roof on. Why would you do that?

EPA analyst Miguel Del Toral, who outlined his findings of the high lead levels in Flint's water in a report to Michigan officials last June, said he was "stunned" to find no corrosion control in place. In a recent interview with Michigan Radio, Mr. Del Toral said that "it's just inconceivable that somebody would not require the (corrosion control) treatment in the first place. So that was kind of the biggest shock if you will. . . . it just, it was really surprising to see a government agency saying the things that they were saying I guess."

Yes, very surprising. While the city of Flint continues its efforts to replace its old pipes and to take care of the people affected by the debacle, I hope someone remembers to ask, "Why did this happen?" It seems the "how" is understood, but what about the "why"? Is everybody buying that it was just a bureaucratic oversight? Hopefully, it wasn't a case of someone playing political games with Flint's water supply, because that would take it out of the territory of mere government bungling into something far more serious than it already is. It may be no consolation to the people of Flint one way or the other whether their suffering is the result of incompetence or something more akin to political terrorism--but, still, I think they would want to know.

Stay Loose

Sometimes, it's the little things. The other day, I was sitting in my living room in the early afternoon, just sitting on the couch with the blinds open and the sunlight pouring in. I was looking at my rug, which I had vacuumed the day before, and at the floor, immaculate and gleaming in the light. I was thinking how good it felt to be sitting in a clean room, with no visible dust, thanks to my (sometimes imperfect) efforts to stay on a cleaning schedule. Unexpectedly, a feeling of contentment and serenity came over me, and it was all on account of not seeing any dust bunnies under the coffee table.

I've never really enjoyed housework (and am not crazy about it now), but I do like the way I feel once it's done. When I worked full-time, it seemed like a real chore to mop and dust, but now that I've been spending more time at home, I've come to appreciate more closely the Zen of a clean room. Adding to the pleasure was the fact that I had done the work myself. If someone else had done it, I'd probably still enjoy the idea that the room was clean but might be suffering some residual guilt over the fact that I'd had to pay someone to clean up after me. I'd be totally missing the happiness of giving myself the gift of a clean room.

It doesn't sound like much, but believe it or not, it was probably the highlight of my week. Peak experiences come in all strengths and flavors, I guess, from the barely there to the resoundingly dramatic. Watching the light shine on a wooden floor may seem to have little in common with something like, say, reaching the top of a mountain, or even just watching a mountain reveal itself to you from different angles as you drive past it, but they're just different points on a journey.

Actually, I had the mountain experience recently on the interstate out west, and part of the marvel of it to me, then and now, was the fact that I had the capacity to see and respond to the moment regardless of anything that took place on the way to it. The mountain itself seemed to be saying something like, "Be hard, be immovable, be adamantine when you need to be," but there was also a whisper of something else, something like, "And remember how blue the sky was when you saw me, and how free you suddenly felt. Remember how my slopes gleamed in the sunshine. Don't forget."

Well, as Wendy Doniger has said, a mythologist needs both a microscope and a telescope. Sometimes you're looking at a grain of sand and sometimes you're looking at a mountain, but the important thing is to stay open, to retain the capacity to marvel, even though you won't feel it all the time.

Stay loose, everybody.

Stormy

We have been sitting under clouds here for the last several days, although it's nothing to complain about compared to the recent weather south and east of us. Within the last week or two, we've gone from whirling snow to sunny warmth to thunderstorms--and back again. Yesterday, I had to decide whether to go out for a walk in the face of a forecast calling for rain and wind, including gusts of 30 to 40 miles an hour. It was the wind that really concerned me, because I wasn't charmed by the thought of flying debris. In the end, I bundled up, grabbed an umbrella, and went, motivated by the principle that if I couldn't actually see flying houses or garbage cans from the window, it was probably best to get some exercise.

I know some people lost their lives in storms this week, so I'm not making light of the subject. I felt the same way I felt on that hot night at the end of July, when I had to judge whether it was better to stay in or to go out on a muggy evening with heat lightning causing a major ruckus in the distance. (I elected to go out on that occasion, too, and have a clear memory of nervously circling the Arboretum while a spectacular light show illuminated the horizon north and east.) Yesterday (as on that other occasion) I was somewhat reassured to see a number of other people out and about, although it's true that you can't always go by the safety in numbers thing. We could all have been swept up by a wind shear and deposited somewhere unlikely like Oz--but it turned out that the wind, though cold, wasn't that fierce. It was unrelenting but no more than you might expect from a typical day in March. We were fortunate.

It certainly looked more like March than February, with some new grass and even a few crocuses poking up here and there. The sky was very stormy, though only a few drops of rain fell while I was out. The most startling thing I saw was someone walking down the street wearing shorts, which I did think was pushing it a bit for such a blustery day. I was wearing down, ear warmers, a scarf, and gloves and felt comfortable except that the wind kept pushing my hair into my eyes. My fears of getting caught in a downpour were never realized, and I got home without having had to open my umbrella.

There is something invigorating about being outside when Nature is asserting itself as it was yesterday. An ordinary neighborhood walk takes on a heightened air of conflict, since you're no longer strolling easily along under calm skies but are actually pushing your way forward. The landscape that had seemed so tame the day before is suddenly, unmistakably alive all around you, rushing into your eyes and ears and forcing you, in turn, to assert yourself against it. Crossing a bridge over a ditch swollen with rainwater suddenly brings to mind a mountain stream, and while it's not nearly as dramatic as climbing a mountain, it'll do for the suburbs.

So I was glad I went, not only for the exercise but for the sight of that turbulent sky, full of dark clouds when I set out, and transformed into a tent-like covering by the time I got home. It hung over everything like a gray canvas tossed by the wind, only revealing regions of pale blue at the margins. It was an arresting color of blue, and I had to think of what it reminded me of. I finally decided it was like the blue soap of a steel wool pad, clean and metallic but very, very cool, as if the weather were washing the sky clean. It's just too bad it's not that easy to take care of things here on the ground.

Sweets to the Sweet

Just before Valentine's Day, there was a news article online summarizing the advantages and disadvantages of married vs. single life in several categories, including health, finances, and emotional well-being. It was--if I may say so--notably even-handed in pointing out that there are ways in which being single can be superior to being married, something that's worth remembering. You'll get no arguments from me against the idea of wedded bliss, except that achieving it seems so darn tangled up in issues of human frailty and other variables. Of course, if you're married, you don't need to be reminded of that.

Would you agree that it's better to be alone than to be with the wrong person? I think of it along the same lines as the home owner's vs. renter's argument, which I have also had presented to me as a fait accompli on the side of buying, as if renting were merely the same preliminary and temporary step on the way to home ownership as singlehood is to marriage (though some financial advisors, in fact, say that home buying is a lifestyle choice more than anything). I'm never quite sure why people are so dead set on getting others to embark on a course which has little more than a 50-50 chance (according to some estimates) of succeeding. I sometimes think that if more people managed to get out of their 20s, as I did, without tying the knot, they might have a different outlook on the whole question. I was miserable during most of my 20s while everyone around me was getting married, but for some reason, once I passed the 3-0 threshold and took a deep breath, it was kind of fun (though scary) to be a holdout.

Yesterday I was reading a biography of William Shakespeare in which the author, Stephen Greenblatt, recounted the evidence regarding the playwright's married life, particularly the issue of whether he was happy or not. The biographer admitted that assessing this is very hard to do, but he pointed out that there are few signs evincing a happily married state in Shakespeare's portrayals of married couples. Greenblatt didn't address the love sonnets in that section, but he did say there was plenty of poetic precedent for keeping marital expectations low and directing your longing toward someone else (as in the case of Dante, who was never married to Beatrice). The idea of looking to your marriage for true companionship really took hold later, Greenblatt says, as part of the new sober-mindedness swept in with the Protestant Reformation.

I do wonder sometimes whether people today put too many expectations on marriage, but as someone who's never (yet) done it, it's nothing I can speak about from personal experience. In a spirit of bipartisanship, let me just say that I believe very much in personal choice on the married/single question, though choice should be leavened with wisdom whenever possible.

What I can speak about with authority is the best Valentine's Day cookie recipe I've ever come across, guaranteed to bring you, married or single, a few stolen moments of bliss, for as long as it takes to eat one. I offer the thought as a gift to my readers, a little late, though if you're one of those who think of every day as Valentine's Day, that doesn't signify. Now, pay attention, because it's not often that I give out recipes and practical hints, and this one is a keeper. I got the recipe from Delish online (they credit Martha Stewart), so if it's precision you're after, go there and look up Chocolate Sweet Hearts.

Even making these cookies is fun, because it involves melting chocolate, brown sugar, and butter over a saucepan of simmering water until you have, basically, a bowl of molten chocolate. How many things under the sun are as delectable as that? You stir an egg into this and then combine it with a flour-cocoa-baking soda mixture. Where I part company with the recipe is in using my special Valentine hearts pan, which has six large heart-shaped cavities into which you press the prepared dough. After you bake them for 12 minutes or so, they come out of the pan in lovely heart shapes, no two alike, some with scalloped edges, some with little x's and o's, and some with hearts within hearts.

Here's the only caveat: you have to watch the timing. Last year, I left them in a little too long, and they were too crisp around the edges. This year, I took them out a little too soon, and they were a bit soft, though still delicious when they cooled. When you make them into big cookies like I do, they have the texture and taste of brownies. I eat one with a glass of milk after dinner, and it's perfectly wonderful. In fact, I still have some chocolate to use up, so I may have to make another batch once this one is gone.

Just one woman's idea of a great way to celebrate Valentine's Day, sans recriminations, sans jealousy, and sans hard feelings to ruin the holiday. Of course, one advantage to being single in this case is that there's more for you and you don't have to share. You may, quite rightly, point out to me that sharing often makes things more fun--and I agree completely. So if you're married, I simply advise you to double the recipe. That way, you and your partner can enjoy six full days of chocolate bliss, just as I do. I've still got one cookie left, and it's going to taste just as good as the first one did.

Sweets to the sweet (and that is Shakespeare).

Ghost in the Machine

Do you ever have times when you feel you just can't get anything done? On such occasions, do you blame Mercury in retrograde, the weather, raging sunspots, or something else altogether? Whatever it is, the communication slow-down I've seen lately manifests itself in peculiar ways.

The two areas giving me the most trouble are emails and customer service. For example, I've been trying to make a change in my student loan terms since early November, and I'm beginning to think the people there are on the other side of the looking glass. First, I failed to get an important notification about my loan status, forcing me to seek the information out for myself. Then I got a customer service rep who gave me false information over the phone, just plain wrong. When I corrected her, our connection was suddenly cut off (I'm not going to say she hung up on me--all I know is that the line went dead). Since then, I've been waiting for a paper copy of a form that I requested and still haven't seen. Did the last rep I talked to really not understand that I wanted a paper form when I said, "Please mail one to me"?

I also had trouble getting my health insurance premium to post as "paid" when I used the company's online system, although that corrected itself shortly after I sent a message of complaint. Whether it would have corrected itself if I hadn't complained is more than I can say. Then there's the trouble I've had in finding out how a library in Australia got a copy of my dissertation, which is listed in their online catalog. This is a story that began months ago when I contacted ProQuest to ask whether I was due any royalties for sales. I knew the amount would be minimal, but I didn't fully understand how the system works, so I thought I'd better ask.

If Mercury really is in retrograde, he must be getting tired of back-peddling; I first contacted ProQuest with this question at the end of August. The person there told me my question about the number of copies sold would have to be researched and that the person who could do it was out. I was moderately surprised since I pictured ProQuest as somewhat bigger than a mom-and-pop operation, although I don't really know since I've never been there. Maybe it really is a small organization with a few people doing a lot of things; I've worked in places like that. However it is, I never got an answer to what I'm sure must be a very common question.

Last month, it occurred to me that I'd never heard back from them, so I tried again, and this time I got a quick response, but the person who emailed me said ProQuest had no record of any sales of my dissertation and that she didn't know who would have told me they could "research" the situation. She seemed to think that WorldCat (which merely lists libraries holding a particular work) was somehow to blame, and that I should be talking to them. I told her that WorldCat was just a giant catalog. I was a little surprised that ProQuest people wouldn't know about WorldCat . . . but the exchange was turning into sort of a "Who's on First?" conversation, so I thanked her and said I would contact the library in question at the University of Melbourne.

I contacted the library and asked them by what channel they had acquired my work, since ProQuest said they didn't make the sale; I asked if, by chance, what they actually have is the book version, published independently, even though their catalog lists ProQuest information. I didn't say they shouldn't have it (of course I want people to read my work), but naturally I'm curious as to how they obtained it--just trying to look out for my intellectual property. There's been no answer at all from them, though the email went out two weeks ago. Perhaps they haven't had time to look into it, but for me, it's a question I've been trying to get answered since July 22, when I first contacted my school about it. Is it such a difficult question that it can't be answered in a seven-month time frame?

Then there's the job application at UCLA. I went through the same automated process a couple of years ago with no technical issues that I know of. Having decided recently to reapply, I updated my materials and got everything in order except for one remaining letter of recommendation. This person readily agreed to write on my behalf and then suddenly dropped off the map, totally incommunicado; someone else offered to do it, and thence began a series of emails that have apparently disappeared either into the ether or a giant black hole.

I have applied, over the last couple of years, for jobs in 15 different states, all over the country, and this is one of the few times I've had direct contact with my references at the start of the process. If any of my potential employers had as much difficulty as I've had in communicating with references, it's no wonder I didn't get more interviews. (I'm not saying they did have trouble--I likely wouldn't have gotten calls on some of those jobs anyway--but if the part of the communication process that's visible to me is this fraught with difficulty, I have to wonder about the part that's not visible.) I'm sure I'll find a way to make this work, though it's been much more time-consuming than it ought to be.

There was a letter that I did get an answer to (so success, of sorts), from a government official, on a separate matter, which just arrived today--so that at least I know some channels of communication are open. It wasn't really a satisfactory response, but it wasn't the only avenue of inquiry I took, so it's not the last word. The only good upshot in this instance is at least getting a response, a commodity that seems to be hard to come by.

Mercury is the god of communications, so might as well blame him as anybody. He's definitely got the lead foot lately, but you know how busy he is. He's sly, too, so that you can never really tell what he's going to do. They even say he can walk through walls, though that's more than I know. I was reading about Einstein's theory of gravitational waves and the bending of space-time only today, so perhaps it has something to do with that. Maybe Mercury is, after all, a giant wave--though personifying him at least gives you someone more concrete to shake a fist at than a mere ghost in the machine. I'd take Mercury any day over a faceless bureaucrat, though who knows: maybe that's all he is.

Start Making Sense

In the course of organizing my papers and so forth (which I blogged about recently), I came across a piece of journal writing I did the weekend I started my dissertation research. It really got me thinking. I've written about that weekend before, about the way a highly intellectual process got an unexpected jolt that turned my labyrinth walk in St. Louis into a more emotional experience than I had counted on. Looking back, I'm still amazed at how bizarre it all was.

Besides doing research, I was also in town for a concert. I know the band leader slightly and had actually seen him and his band a few weeks prior, a little closer to home. I enjoyed that show, in West Virginia, so much that I was eager to have another chance to see them before the tour moved out of the region. Since St. Louis boasts several labyrinths, a maze, and a major labyrinth-building enterprise (and New Harmony, Indiana--home to a famous historic maze--was on the way) it seemed like a decent plan. I believe I asked my sister to go with me, but I ended up going alone.

The hotel was new, in a section of St. Louis called the Delmar Loop (on Barack Obama Way, no less). It had a moon theme, from the decorations in the room to the names of the cocktails and the items on the restaurant menu. It was kind of quirky and fun, and it was the closest hotel to both the concert venue and the first labyrinth I wanted to visit: all were on the same street, an odd bit of synchronicity.

As I recall it, I was leaving my room, probably for dinner. My room was almost at the end of the hall, which was quiet; there didn't seem to be a lot of guests. As I was coming out, the person in the end room also came out, and though I didn't get a clear view over my left shoulder, I noticed that he stopped suddenly, apparently startled. I had the fleeting impression that it might have been Dave, the leader of the band I'd come to see, and I suddenly felt embarrassed. It's one thing to go see someone at a show and another thing to find yourself in a hotel room next to them at the end of a hall. I had always thought traveling performers were segregated from other guests for the sake of privacy, but in this case--maybe the hotel put all its guests on one floor for convenience? I had the impression that the staff was still working out the details of running things, so it seemed like the kind of thing that could happen.

So I had a gourmet pizza across the street, went back to the room with leftovers, and later went to the show. To my dismay, when I got there, I sensed a rather peculiar energy on stage. Dave seemed uncomfortable, I seemed to be getting some strange looks from the female band members, and I pretty much felt that I was persona non grata for the evening. Now, I'm here to tell you that I would likely have chosen a different hotel if I had known the band was staying there . . . and I started to feel really stupid for having come. 

The energy had been quite different at the West Virginia show, although I did sit next to some mildly strange locals who encouraged me to check out a nearby bar afterwards, where, they said, the performers were likely to show up. (I didn't go, but I did run into the same people in the parking lot outside the performance hall, where they seemed highly startled to see me going back inside. I actually had to explain that I was heading for the rest room, but whatever.)

So, there I was, in St. Louis, feeling mortified, without being completely sure why I felt mortified. I knew that a lot of Dave's fans attended shows whenever they could, traveling great distances at times, and I sort of felt that he welcomed that. I had a great regard for Dave and was quite crushed, so even though it was, I have to say, an excellent show, I walked back to the hotel in a very sad frame of mind. A while later, I heard people in the hall and thought I recognized Dave's voice saying goodnight. I didn't see or hear anyone after that but had one of the worst night's sleep I've ever had. 

This is what I wrote in my journal the next day: "I had a really bad dream last night. Dave was in the middle of it. Bad things just kept happening, medical emergencies, accidents. It was one thing after another, like a Shakespeare play or a Greek tragedy. "Judith" (a nurse I know) pulled up in a car, and I thought, thank God for some medical help. I can't even remember exactly what was going on, or to whom, or why. It was like a domino effect."

I left the hotel the next morning for my labyrinth walk feeling gloomy, though it was a bright and fresh Sunday morning. I persisted in feeling like a groupie all through breakfast, while checking out of the hotel (as expeditiously as possible), and while walking around the Missouri Botanical Gardens. I started to feel better after a couple of hours of walking around, regaining the proper "The hell with these people" spirit and reminding myself that I had a lot of research ahead of me. By the time I got home at the end of a long day, I was pretty well recovered.

I didn't know any of Dave's band members and was surprised about six weeks later to hear of the suicide of his fiddle player. While it surprised me, it really didn't seem to be any of my business. In videos I later saw of the band's performances that fall, everyone looked devastated. But it wasn't long after that that I started having peculiar experiences of my own: feelings of being followed, strange encounters on the streets to and from work, sudden appearances of cars with tinted windows, a greasy-looking man pulling into the gas station next to me at night, and other things too numerous to mention.

Well, I had no idea what this was about, but I called my brother and a friend and let them know what was going on, complete with a history of some previous things that had happened at work, to which I assumed all of this strangeness was related. I wasn't sure if either my brother or my friend really knew how scary all of this was, and how disorienting. My brother asked a lot of questions and seemed to think that if I had an enemy at work (which was my conclusion) it would have to be a "rogue" employee. Beyond that, he didn't offer any conclusions. I had my own idea of what was going on, though I wasn't sure what the latest spate of events had to do with what had happened before.

I also felt that I needed to let someone else know what was happening, someone who wouldn't want anything bad to happen to me, since everyone else I talked to seemed to be at a loss or in denial. The only person I could think of was Dave, whom I had formerly thought had some regard for me. I sent him a note on Facebook without much detail in it, just indicating that something bad was happening. 

I sure got some strange looks in the office the next day after sending that note, and most of the weird encounters on the street instantly stopped. In fact, everything seemed to go back to normal for quite a while. I started my blog and my dissertation clock at the same time, things settled down at work, and I assumed (rightly or wrongly) that it was Dave who had stepped in on my behalf. I saw a few of his shows that spring and summer, and while he never said anything, I assumed it was because he wanted to remain in the background. He always seemed glad to see me.

The respite from weirdness only lasted until the fall. I remember a gradual sense that things were getting strange again: that creepy guy at the World Equestrian Games who seemed to be taking my picture; the sudden appearance of cars with skull decals, often directly in front of me as I drove to work, morning after morning; the suicide of someone I didn't even know, a graduate student in history, that seemed to unaccountably unsettle our library assistant (who did know him); the sudden onset of noise, complete with loud sex and some rather evil-sounding music, from the neighbors upstairs; that Facebook connection, supposedly a Pacifica grad, who began posting increasingly peculiar and suggestive messages; a comment by a coworker about how surreal the atmosphere in the office had become; a rather uncomfortable visit to San Francisco before Christmas; people on Facebook who seemed to be speaking in code; a friend who was surprisingly calm when I started telling him about the strange state of affairs in the office (I would have run for the hills if someone had started telling me things like that); a pedicure from hell in which I had the sense that the stylist was trying to cut me (fortunately, no hepatitis, though); and a raft of other things, too numerous to mention.

To what end? Well may you ask! That's what I wanted to know, but if anyone knew, they weren't saying. I actually have a pretty high tolerance for stress, but this was something I had never seen before. I was so stressed that I began to have occasional feelings of disassociation, that my actions were not my own. I didn't even know why that was happening, but I knew it wasn't good.

But proving, I guess, that the show must go on, I somehow managed to get my dissertation proposal finished and turned in. Unfortunately, writing about labyrinths isn't the most comforting thing in the world when you feel you're in one, so I can't say the writing was therapeutic in any sense, just that I got through it. By January, the atmosphere was so strained at work that it was like walking into a battle zone every day. It felt completely unsound, physically and emotionally. Concentrating on anything became nearly impossible, and one day, I just decided I couldn't do it any more. If I stayed there, I was going to lose my mind--if something else didn't happen first. My brother seemed supportive when I talked to him, but I couldn't tell how much he really knew. He never alluded, at least directly, to the things I'd told him the previous year. But no one was being very direct about anything.

After a short stay in the hospital, I went home. The doctor told me what I had experienced was a normal reaction to a very abnormal situation--but then no one ever talked about the "situation" after that. What situation was it? Hilariously enough, I actually considered going back to work, but how could I do that when it was the toxic environment that made me sick in the first place? I used up all of my many accumulated sick days, used my disability insurance, and traveled, hoping to clear my head of the evil memories that lingered from the fall and winter. I spent a lot of money and did a lot of things differently than I normally do; I found that I still had trouble concentrating, a problem that persisted until late in the summer, when the enthusiasm for my dissertation returned. Once I started writing again, it took on a rhythm of its own, and I began to enjoy it.

Throughout that summer and fall, I took in a lot of Dave's shows, in the course of my travels. I still assumed it was he who had intervened on my behalf two years previously. He always seemed glad to see me. There was this, though: I was at a show in Somerville, Massachusetts, that summer, and a man I had never seen before, someone in the audience, came up to me after the show and said, "Mary, we've got you covered." Huh? (I'm not making this up; I know I didn't know him, and I know that's what he said.) If that happened to me now, I'd ask him who in the world he thought he was and what he was talking about. It still happens to me that people I've never seen before will sometimes behave overly familiar toward me, but that was a particularly egregious example. He actually knew my name.

I always maintained that if someone had told me what was going on, my stress would have disappeared, but no one ever did that, and I gradually had to try to put it all together myself. It's a peculiar story, to be sure, but all true, nonetheless. Someone said to me that writing about the labyrinth seemed to have constellated it in my life. I'm not actually sure I know what "constellated" means (it's Jungian jargon), but in any case, I don't think that's what happened. It was a coincidence that my topic was labyrinths; I could have been writing about flower gardens, and the same things would have happened.

I see that Dave has a show in our area next month, but I haven't decided if I'll be there or not. I noticed he's got a fan group on Facebook that, to me, has kind of an inappropriate tone, but no one else commented on it when I said so. If those are the kind of people who show up for concerts these days, I'd rather stay home. My pecuniary circumstances don't allow for spending money to sit around with a bunch of louts and neither does my patience.

I get tired of people who act as if they know more about what's going on with me than I do. If there's one thing that makes me cranky, it's a know-it-all, and I've seen a lot of them. You may be thinking: "remind me never to write a dissertation." Oh, well, I wouldn't go that far. I think the real moral of this story is that you have to resist the attempts of other people to tell you what your story is. I've found that telling that story, whether face-to-face or in writing, is the best way to stitch together a seemingly incomprehensible series of events. The art of narrative, for me, really is the art of meaning.