A Journal of My Mid-Life Crisis

20 December 1998 - Islands of Anti-Achievement

Continuing to consider my role in life as comic relief, I will pass along the one good line I heard on the radio this week. Clinton has a new way to destroy Saddam Hussein. He's sending Linda Tripp to Baghdad.

What I really want to write about this week is something John wrote in email. (This is quoted with his permission and do send him mail if you like it as much as I did; he'll get a minor thrill out of random feedback.) John wrote:
"That's Reconciliation Day in South Africa, and usually is incorporated into the "Bonnievale Weekend" (a group of friends and I always make a pilgrimage out to Bonnievale for some very secluded camping, where the aim is to do as little as possible over a three to four day period. And in the unlikely event that anybody has the urge to actually do anything, then there's a culture of no social pressure for anyone else to feel obliged to join in if they don't want to. And the only thing that's socially cool to brag about is how little you've achieved. In today's wild rush of life I think it's quite a healthy little island of anti-achievement. Quite a good thing to do, mind you, because holidays in themselves can be quite stressful and exhausting."

My response was that I was gradually becoming convinced that he is the sanest person I know. It's a great contrast to the usual mode of life here where everyone is continually flipping through their organizers to try to find times when nothing else is scheduled so they can do just one more thing. Me - I am going to flip through the organizer and pencil in a fine weekend of anti-achievement. Unfortunately, I am fully booked until March.

In the name of booking up even more of my time, I signed up for ice skating lessons. I went skating a few times when I was maybe 8 or 9, but never really got beyond more or less walking on skates. Since I think the major reason to bother being a grown-up is to do the stuff you didn't get to do as a child, I figured it's worth a try. And, if I don't like it, it's just 10 weeks. Of course, just two days after signing up for the lessons, I slipped on a patch of ice in the hotel parking lot in Boulder and was reminded that falling on ice hurts!

I had a nice lengthy phone conversation with Marcia, who is in the throes of her own midlife crisis. She has the interesting dilemma of having achieved her major goal at a young age and having to wrestle with figuring out "what now"? That may be an argument for being less goal-oriented in general. I told Doug that I didn't want to set goals for myself as a storyteller because I am so driven in other areas of my life, but it is only now that I am starting to realize how good a decision that was.

In another major achievement, I made it through the round of holiday potlucks reasonably unscathed and just mildly exhausted. I am a reasonably competent cook, but nobody would ever know it from my contributions to these events. Actually, the quiche I brought to the SBIRS party went over well - but what a cliched thing to bring! At least I wasn't stuck with leftovers.

While I am on the subject of food, here is this week's Boulder restaurant report. There is a very disturbing trend I have noticed. I refer to the notion of food as architecture. At Full Moon Grill, I ordered a dish that was described as "Chilean sea bass with grilled polenta and seared greens and wild mushrooms" or something along those lines. What I hadn't realized is that a square of polenta would be carefully arranged as the foundation for a square of sea bass and the veggies would be shrubbery on this artistic landscape. This wasn't as extreme as some of the towering constructions I've been served at other places (I think it was Dandelion where the chef had decided that asparagus spears are the culinary equivalent of I-beams) but it was still a bit bizarre. Still, one cannot go wrong with wild mushrooms. If I'm very good in this life, do I get Brandon Heap (who runs both Full Moon Grill and the Chatauqua Dining Hall) to be my personal chef in heaven?

Other than that, I had some nice sesame seafood at Silver Palace (but the service was mediocre), a veggie and cheese skillet breakfast at Le Peep, and a chicken sandwich with Aioli at Blue Plate Kitchen, which is Dave Query's new place. (Query also runs Zolo Grill and Jax, both places I like, and used to have a place up in Gold Hill where I spent many happy hours sipping Boulder Porter on the patio while watching the sun set over the Flatirons.) If I'm really really good, can I have Dave Query cook for me in heaven, too?

One last food item - I bought ginger granola at Trader Joe's on a whim. Granola with bits of crystallized ginger in it may sound weird to other people, but I am fanatical about ginger. This is good stuff, though too high in fat for me to want to make it my usual breakfast cereal.

I should probably prove that I don't entirely ignore all news that doesn't involve baseball. (Actually, the news item of the year that I was most disappointed to miss while traveling was the death of Jerome Robbins. I'd have thought that one of my friends would have realized I'd have wanted to know that, but nobody mentioned it.) Anyway, I am feeling vaguely guilty for not being more interested in the scandal of the day club. I will say one thing, though. My usual fantasy jobs are science advisor to the president or researcher for Lonely Planet, but this week I think I'd like to be a political cartoonist.