THE PUSH-OVER REAL-ESTATE WOULD-BE LOVER-BOY

Nerdy real-estate man:
You know what we should get is a bulletin board. See that arch there? It could go, like, up under that arch.

Blonde female real-estate intern:
I hate bulletin boards.

Nerdy real-estate man:
Yeah, they can be a pain. All those pushpins all over.

Blonde female real-estate intern:
Yeah, I hate them.

LET’S HOPE SHE WASN’T AN ENGLISH MAJOR.

Club girl: I’m running late. That’s kind of ironic.
Club guy: Ironic?
Club girl: I’m supposed to be on time.

“The Crisis of Foster Care” by former Time reporter Timothy Roche is my all-time favorite investigative reporting work. The introduction is brilliant: horrible, heart-wrenching, and then straight to the point. The reporting is thorough and the composition beautiful. It draws you into the issue with case studies but doesn’t hold back data. From the article

“The autopsy photo shows a little boy who looks relieved to be dead. His eyes are closed. A hospital tube protrudes from his broken nose. He has deep cuts above his right ear and dark linear scars on his forehead. The bruises on his back are a succession of yellows, greens and blues. On the bottom of his tiny feet are unhealed third-degree burns. He had been battered and tortured. He had been tied with panty hose and belts to a banister by the woman who had become his foster grandmother. The state of Georgia had taken him away from his mother, then abandoned him in the woman’s care. Little Terrell Peterson had so many injuries that the medical examiner gave up counting them. The child was six years old. He weighed only 29 lbs. The foster-care system is not working in Atlanta.“

The article was noticed, and I remember seeing a string of similar stories in broadcast form following this article. But seven years later, the foster-care systems in most states are still very much in crisis. Unfortunately, disadvantaged children don’t vote. Which is one of the reasons I admired Time and Roche so much for doing this story.

Why hasn’t Time had anything on par with this article lately? General media consolidation? Priority shift caused by…? General print media problems caused by lower readership and subsequent lower ad revenue? I couldn’t tell you, but I am curious. Probably not one thing.

Coffee, tea, water okay. No alcohol, no food, no beverages that aren’t mostly water.

My camera was dead by Halloween, but TiFlo took this snappy picture of us with his cellphone. (Thank you, TiFlo!) Laurel’s Barbie. I’m a little white lie. Or maybe a collection of little white lies. It doesn’t exactly make sense, yeah? It does if you don’t think too hard. Like high-concept art.

So it’s been two weeks and a day with no caffeine (okay, okay, I messed up and had some diet Coke, forgetting it had caffeine in it momentarily), and here’s what’s different:

• My memory is notably better.
• My attention span is longer.
• I retain more of what I read and hear.
• I talk a little less.
• I smile less.
• My eyes don’t sting all the time.
• I get tired sometimes.
• I feel hungry sometimes.

So, with regards to the sleep, I’m sleeping a little more, but actually, I’m still waking up after four or five hours—which is good. I had remembered that not being related to caffeine, but it’s been a while, and I wasn’t sure. Feeling tired definitely happens though. In my caffeinated state, I never really felt tired. I’d just pass out if I stayed still for too long. I always felt wide awake, even when my body clearly needed a rest.

With regards to the increased attention span and memory, while I tend to think about one thing for longer, I also haven’t had as many new ideas. That is, while caffeinated, my brain cycled through all of these things all of the time—things to try, things to write, future projects, project tweaks—which, I think, is the reason I had a hard time listening and a hard time remembering anything for longer than a minute. On the upside, I had more ideas than I could write down. And that’s gone now. On the downside, I couldn’t listen well or remember things for long, and that was terribly problematic. I compensated by writing everything down, which made it easier to process and retain. I don’t seem to need to do that now. So perhaps there’s a way to balance.

With regards to the smiling, I’m smiling a lot less. People keep asking me if I’m okay when I am just fine. But I’m not less happy. I’m not sure what to make of this one right now. With regards to the feeling hungry, caffeine is an appetite suppressant. I was aware of this.

Finally, some quick closing thoughts. Caffeine is good for mood elevation, generating new ideas, and, when used infrequently, focus. I plan on resuming its use for these functions. But I’m definitely going to be cutting back from 200 mg every four hours, the dose I’ve been at steadily for the past couple years. That was a lot, and I don’t need that much at this point.

I just spent a lovely evening with Austin’s family, during which I made plans with Austin’s mother to exchange family recipes. Mine came to me from my grandmother by way of my mother.

Spinach Madeline is a traditional Louisiana dish involving (yeah obvious) spinach and Velveeta. My mother’s version actually uses rolls of garlic Kraft cheese that I have yet to see outside Louisiana. I’m providing my modified out-of-state version, which tastes the same as far as I can tell.

The dish complements turkey nicely. And it can be prepared a day in advance, refrigerated, and then reheated in the oven before serving. Oh-so-convenient.

30 oz. pkg. chopped spinach
1 1/4 c. milk
6 tbsp. butter
one small onion, chopped
3 tbsp. flour
garlic, pressed (to taste, about 1/2 bulb)
2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
9 oz. Velveeta cheese
Lemon juice
Bread crumbs
1/2 tsp. pepper
cayenne pepper, optional (to taste)

Defrost spinach, squeeze dry and save liquid. Melt butter and add flour in a separate pan. Add chopped onions and cook until tender but not brown. Add milk and spinach liquid. Add spinach and the juice of one squeezed lemon. Add remaining ingredients. Pour spinach mixture into a pan. Fry bread crumbs in butter and scatter atop spinach mixture. Bake in oven at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

For my lovely food snot friends, I wish to point out that I realize that this recipe uses Velveeta, and, I know I know, not intuitive when you think traditional Louisiana cuisine. But trust me. Authentic versions use Velveeta. You can substitute whatever kind of cheese you like, but it doesn’t melt as well and the consistency is compromised. I’ve tried various versions, and Velveeta is the way to go.

Starting now. It’s an experiment. If I feel like it’s negatively impacting anything, I’ll stop. I pride myself on being open-minded but I haven’t been without caffeine for long in a few years now. I should probably take some time out to remind myself what it does. While so much else in my life is in flux anyway.

I went to visit my cousins in Bethesda, Maryland one year when I was little. We arrived at night and when we did the two cousins closest to my age, Anita and Marie, were there to greet me with a jar.

“We’re going to catch fire flies!”

What’s a firefly?, I asked.

“They’re little flies and their butts light up and if you get a bunch in a jar it can be a nightlight.”

How wonderful, I thought, and we ran away together to go catch fireflies in my grandmother’s front yard.

That night, my Aunt Celia picked us up and drove us to their house. We were gripping our jars the whole way. When we got home, she encouraged us to release our prisoners.

“We want to use them as a night light,” Marie explained.
“Girls, if you do that, the firefly will die. And that would be very sad.”

She convinced Anita immediately.

“Marie, let them out.”

Marie was convinced.

Maybe it was because I was a year younger or maybe because they were just too wonderful or maybe because I’ve always been really stubborn, but I didn’t let them out. I woke up in the middle of the night and the jar was extinguished. I picked up the jar, shook it, nothing. Walked to the door in my nightgown, opened the jar, flicked them out onto the cement and looked at the little black dots.

I didn’t feel bad. I felt nothing. And I haven’t thought about it since it happened until now. I was probably about 4.

I am more tired than I have been in a very long time. I know I’ve gotten less sleep. I think it’s a combination of emotional exhaustment (exhaustment?) brain sleepiness anxiety about the future guilty from not having talked to my family nerves about… the future, I don’t feel like being around people since I got back from Boston, I’m so tired.

Dead fireflies. Nothing makes sense.