Month: November 2016

I borrowed a book from someone in the late 1970’s and I never returned it. She specifically told me she wanted it back and it has haunted me for years. I still have it, but she died in 1991 so I can’t return it now. I recently discovered a thank you card inside which references the war. A little bit of googling, and I’ve confirmed the writer is referring to WWII. The card was marked “benefit of the War Orphans for the Chinese Women’s Relief Association Inc., 5 East 57th Street New York City,” and that organization sold these cards in the 1940’s. The card reads:

Dear Mrs. Farr,

We are all so grateful for your kindness to Aunt Tillie and your wonderful helpfulness generally. I hope I shall have the pleasure of seeing more of you after this war is over.

With every good wish,
Eleanor S. Kleinschmidt

I love the Aunt Tillie part. Who is ever named Tillie anymore, and what is that short for? Oh, Mathilda probably. Here is Bleecker, inspecting the evidence of my shame.

This is what I’ve decided to focus on. Who will replace Trump in four years? For me it’s Elizabeth Warren, but it might need to be someone younger for the young people. Yes, I know they loved Bernie, and maybe they could love her too, but I just have this sense that they will need someone more fresh out of the box, a firebrand.

I took a little comfort last night listening to subway musicians playing Eine kleine Nachtmusik. Thank you, Mozart. And musicians.

Also took comfort from: Hillary won the popular vote.

Trump is an utter disgrace to the office of the presidency. I feel so bad I can’t bear it. That’s why I’m focusing on positive things I can do to neutralize the Fuckface von Clownstick we’ve just unleashed on the rest of the world. Someone on my Facebook timeline just reminded me that Trump won by a slim majority. Half the country wanted something better for us. Focus on that, focus on that, you are not alone.

Oh God. I’m sorry people of Earth. Trump does not speak for me. I just rescued a spider who was stuck in my bathtub. It made me feel a tiny bit better for a second. That really is key. I have to find a project to make the world better.

But America will no longer be a positive influence in the world. We are diminished. Maybe the fall of the American empire is for the best. Jesus, Mary and Joseph we fucking elected the guy endorsed by the KKK. I’m so ashamed of us. Decency lost. Ugliness won and other countries will continue to rise in power and influence to replace us. I’d be cool if it was Canada.

Shit. I just realized, among all the horrors that are occurring to me and everyone else, forget any movement on climate change. Goodbye earth!

Update: Okay, now I’m reading a bunch of people posting the hope that most of his campaign was all theatre and bluster, and maybe he’ll turn out to be a moderate republican. He was once a democrat.

I passed this sign by on my way back to working at the Tweed Courthouse pollsite. I feel a little bad because I told the guy I wasn’t taking a picture of him, but the sign. Except he’s such an attractive and stylish young man I didn’t edit him out.

We have mice. Mice who like to flirt with danger, it would appear. Yes, there’s food right there, anytime they want, but they are also surrounded by killing machines. One of the killers is currently hampered, I realize, but I’ve already had to rescue a mouse from the other one.

Stay away, mice!! (That duct tape is me trying to limit their points of entry.)

They are digitizing their directories! Full story here. The collection spans from 1786 through 1923. 1849 through 1923 are done, and they are currently working on the earlier directories. “The goal is to make the directories text searchable in powerful new ways, in order to build datasets that will inform research in New York City history, genealogy, and beyond.”

I was hoping that included telephone directories, but it doesn’t look like it does. Someday! I once spent an afternoon researching old phone directories when I was trying to find out everyone who had ever lived in my building. That would only tell me people who were well off enough to afford a phone, and this was a very working class neighborhood once, and not everyone had telephones, but still. I got a lot of names. (These were reverse directories that went by address.)

Still, this is big news, especially if you are like me and hate microfilm, which I think is EVERYBODY who has ever had to use microfilm more than once or twice. You should read the article for the examples of fun things you can find out in these directories. They used the Harper brothers (founders of Harper’s) Herman Melville, Boss Tweed, and others as examples. If you are an historian these directories are essential.

Happy spiders from Halloween.