In my Mitty-esque daydreams, I somehow make it out of the house looking chic in a camel cardigan with a tiny gold porcupine pinned to the pocket. I keep Hugh delighted and amused as we drive to the art museum with riveting tales of imagined raccoons (every thing is raccoons right now), and after I get him snapped in the stroller, he falls into an adorable and tranquil sleep during the short walk from parking to the museum. I walk through the door, whereupon someone hands me a glass of a chilled Grüner Veltliner and I have all the time I want to peruse prints (I find underpriced gems, of course), and chance into informative and charming small talk with a number of art dealers, one of whom offers me a job on the spot that will involve lots of reading and looking at art, and that will require me to be in a beautiful, light-filled office stacked with old auction catalogs three days a week that is conveniently near excellent coffees and pastries. I say I'll think it over, and then, behind a large potted palm, I find a glorious spread of cheese, cured meats, and fresh fruit, and after I eat Hugh wakes up, sweet and smiling, and when I ask him if he'd like to walk through the galleries he says, "Yes, mama."
None of this will happen (well, the raccoon stories are a sure thing) but I am planning on going anyway. After two years and two months of parenthood, I've realized that if I wait to feel ready, we end up staying home.
Some other odds and ends:
- on learning to read the internet
- 'Looking back on this tumultuous election year, it seems clear that our political culture is marked, at the micro level, by the fusion of a given person’s opinion and what they perceive to be their singular, permanent, and authentic self.'
- a love affair with seaweed
- F*SHO (tonight in Cleveland)
- Paul Bloom's case against empathy: article + book
- a book of moths
Happy weekend.
