I make a little humming noise

and move like lightning. I zoomed down to NYC Friday morning, to go to Redbird's family seder Friday afternoon. (It is their family custom that "the first night of Passover" lasts until the second night begins, allowing a 24 hour interval in which to schedule each seder. As one of the aunts lives in a distant suburb and does not drive at night, the family seders are early by the clock and late by the calender, relative to other NY seders. But they're a lot of fun.) As I discovered at last year's seder, I really like Vicki's aunts. And her quiet uncle. And her loud cousin. I met more cousins this year, and liked them, too.

I wasn't surprised that Redbird's family welcomed me. Let all who are hungry come and eat, and all that. Beyond that, they love Redbird and know I'm important to her (even though they might not be entirely clear on the details.) They are sufficiently kind and welcoming as to welcome her loud cousin's implausible partner, a man so rude and obnoxious as to make Vicki and I wonder why she puts up with him. But I was surprised that her family was impressed with my singing. I used to be enthusiastic about singing, and think of my voice as sort of medium-good, but not anything special. But in the mid-1990s, I gradually came to realize that my singing was not nearly as good as I thought, and social groups where people sang were welcoming me despite my voice. (And my ear is good enough that I'm very aware that voice is not nearly as good now as it was in the mid-1990s.) So it feels oddly pleasant to have a welcoming group become even more welcoming when they hear me sing.

After a pleasant day with redbird, cattitude, alanro visiting from afar, and roadnotes, whom we visited from anear, I zoomed home this morning. My clever plan was to arrive in Boston at 3:30, at my apartment at 4:30, and head out to do census work at 5 (after putting some electricity into my phone and some warmer clothes on me.) I finished one assignment before leaving, and my boss was going to "send a new one to your handheld computer on Saturday, so you can start it when you get back" (ie, without bothering him on Easter Sunday.) Knowing only that the assigned area would be in Arlington, it seemed reasonable that I could get there without driving in half an hour and work a couple of hours before dark. Hah. That presumes a functional handheld computer. I fussed with the stupid thing until 5, then called the help desk. At 5:45, I was able to discover that my boss had not sent a new assignment. Not that I would want to ask him for it now,* as it would be awfully close to sunset by the time I could get out there. The job involves vast quantities of walking around, climbing stairs, and being polite to strangers. I'm good at all that. It's still turning out to be a tremendous physical strain for my hands and arms to cope with the little computer (which I resent more than its inherent flaws may deserve.) I resent my body for not being capable of the long intervals of work that fit conveniently in my schedule. So of course I resent anything that interferes with working in the moderately short intervals that seem like a reasonable compromise between spending all my time on travel and wearing myself out with pain.

*ETA: I started this post at 4:47, as the timestamp indicates, planning to just write about travel and the seder. But "now" refers to when I finished writing it, after 6.

when the objective is obscured

I saw a big sign at Port Authority this morning. Most of it was a green chalkboard, with white letters:

YOU'D NEVER SAY,
IT'S JUST CANCER,
GET OVER IT."

So why do some say that about [           ]?

Under the chalkboard, in different lettering, the sign offered:
Learn more at [           ]IsReal.org

The blank spaces were made with thick tape, like white electrical tape, put over the text. Was it put there in an attempt to dispute the original public service announcement, to say, "No, this disease you're talking about is not real," or "How dare you compare cancer to this stigmatized, marginalized disease?" Or were they trying to make the poster's point more general, to ask, simultaneously:
So why do some say it about fibromyalgia?
So why do some say it about depression?
So why do some say it about allergies?
So why do some say it about PTSD?
So why do some say it about lupus?
Etc, etc, for all the potentially disabling or life-threatening diseases that are so often regarded as trivial or imaginary. Is there value in focusing on "why do some say it," rather than just defending the legitimacy of a particular disease? I think it would be valuable, and the altered poster pointed me that way. However clumsily, or unintentionally.