Gotham Diary:
Muddling Away From Muddles
17 July 2015

Writer’s block is not something that I’m familiar with, but I seem to be having a taste of it this morning. It’s very quiet, and it promises to be a quiet day — although I may have lunch with Fossil Darling, Ray Soleil, and Ms NOLA. That wasn’t on the schedule until just now. Loose talk about hanging out at the Museum and seeing the Sargent show coalesced into a plan to gather at lunch, followed by a tour of the exhibition. Fossil and Ray have a concert at seven, so what “hanging out at the Museum” on a Friday afternoon usually means (cocktails on the roof or elsewhere, with a bit of art thrown in if absolutely necessary) is not on offer. Kathleen had thought of joining us — her contribution to the loose talk — but this morning she wondered if she could get away from work before a late dinner. I haven’t made up my mind about anything, but I’m inclined to pass on lunch, because, as I say, it’s quiet, and I’m enjoying the quiet.

But I tremble at the thought of writing about it. Surely there could be no more immediate invitation to bring on more chaos and upheaval.

Signs that I may no longer be capable of managing our personal finances have followed last week’s false alarm about massively overdue rent. Yes, that was a false alarm; the building’s accountants had deposited our rent in an account tied to our old apartment. It was all quickly corrected. But I had menacing robocalls from the mobile phone providers (AT&T for regular phones; Verizon for MiFi) and the cable company, all regarding overdue bills. For the life of me, I couldn’t see that the AT&T bill was overdue, but I paid it by credit over the phone, which means that next months bills will be the higher for it. I had to do the same with the other two accounts, which really were overdue. As sometimes happens, I never received a June bill for the cable, and had not yet got round to paying this month’s bill. (Yes, it’s a bit late in the month to be doing that, but I’ve got excuses as long as my legs.) I haven’t yet figured out what was wrong with the MiFi bill, but I must have missed one a while back, and not noticed it. Sure enough, when I opened the envelope, I discovered that I owed somewhat more that I thought — although not the amount on the statement. It was all a harrying muddle, and I must take full responsibility — mitigated, privately, by that long list of excuses.

Part of the muddle is just me — I was not put on earth to be an accountant. But a greater part, I think, is my search for computer assistance, which, so far as paying bills goes, has tied me to Quicken for over twenty years. In the early days, I liked Quicken a lot; it did just what I wanted it to do, and very little else. Over time, the part of Quicken that is useful to me — printing checks — seemed more and more marginal to the software. Then, last November, there was a horrible snafu, in which six weeks’ worth of data was erased. This was not Quicken’s fault. Rather it was one of those disasters that have become not uncommon in our automated world, in which sooner or later a hitherto unsuspected weak spot in one’s backup procedures is pressed at the wrong time, and gives way. Ordinarily, you learn from the mistake and move on, improving security. But by last November, I was sick to death of Quicken. I also suspected that it lulled me into thinking that it was taking care of things, when of course it knew nothing but what I fed it.

(I ought to point out here that Kathleen has retained serious accountants to prepare our tax returns for years. I don’t have anything to do with the complicated stuff.)

So I began keeping records in Evernote, even though Evernote won’t, so far as I know, add up a column of figures and tell me how much I’ve spent on books or groceries this month. The figures are there, but you have to add them yourself. Well, I thought, that might not be a bad idea. It would engage me more fully in keeping track of our expenses. Of course, I had no habits for being engaged, on a weekdaily basis, with grubby money matters, and I still don’t have very effective ones, but I think I’m on the way. Meanwhile, however, muddle.

The other day, I discovered that you can make checklists with Evernote: a lightbulb moment. Yesterday afternoon, I designed a template for the monthly bills — one with two checkboxes for every account. I check the first box when the bill is received, and I make a note of the amount. I check the second box when the check is written. Since I do this on Evernote, I can manage the list at my household office in the dining ell, and then write checks pursuant to the checklist in the bookroom, where the printer is, without dragging any of the bills or other paperwork from one place to another.

I’m still using Quicken to print checks. I’m looking into Moneydance, but reserving any decision on that until the new way of doing things has established itself, and unexpected phone calls are a thing of the past.

This might seem incredibly trivial, I know, but to me it expresses an important — really rather vitally important, when you get down to it — cognitive problem. I believe that how you work and where you work determines the quality of what you do. There are many people who might disagree. Kathleen, who can work anywhere and under any conditions, is at the same time a crisis worker, almost incapable of dealing with a project unless there is a deadline, and, in the case of personal matters, a past-due deadline. Hating crisis as I do, I’ve always tried to integrate the boring parts into the fun parts, and also to make the boring parts less boring and possibly even fun. There isn’t a lot of practical wisdom out there on this problem, and perhaps there can’t be, because everyone’s integration is going to be unique. I have learned a few things, though.

The reason for my taking personal finance out of the bookroom and into the dining ell, where I sit right next to the kitchen — an arrangement not possible in the old apartment, where there was no dining area, and hence no table near the kitchen — is that personal finance is more like cooking than writing. I don’t mean to suggest that writing is a crisis sort of thing when I way that it does require freedom from distraction. Everybody knows this. It’s not so much the writing that requires it as the thinking behind the writing. Another thing that seems to be well understood is that libraries provide good environments for writing, especially if they’re private and you’re alone in them. Writing in a library encourages a range of broadening and enriching extensions, from the consultation of authorities to the indulgence of literary whims. My conclusion is there ought not to be anything in a writing room that is not conducive to writing.

Personal finance is like keeping the refrigerator in order: it’s much less off-putting if you manage to do a little of it at a time. Avoiding crisis is the secret. Never having too much of it to do at any one time is a blessing. What successful housekeeping comes down to is the clever stage-managing of distractions, where all the distractions are elements of housework. Having just emptied the dishwasher, why not sit down at the table with a cup of tea and open the one or two bills that arrived in the day’s mail, marking them down on a checklist and tucking them in a drawer (always the same drawer, a drawer used for nothing else). Then, sit back and ruminate on menus. Remember to order a 25-pound bag of flour.

Last night, after a long afternoon of paperwork, I made fried chicken, even though I thought I was too tired. I wanted to make it last night because the woman who cleans our bathrooms and the kitchen every other week was due this morning. So, even though fried chicken isn’t the messy production that it used to be, there are spatters, and the routine of wiping down the counters removes the afterodors of frying. (In the event, Sonja was unable to come.) I had bought six pieces of chicken at Agata & Valentina after lunch, and soaked them in buttermilk during the afternoon. Shortly before Kathleen left the office, I dredged the chicken in corn meal, cornstarch, flour, salt, and cayenne pepper (which I’d added to the buttermilk as well). The chicken went into the fridge for about forty minutes, during the latter part of which I heated up a bottle of peanut oil. Peanut oil is the secret of frying. Its fragrance is the lightest, and it does not break down (as canola oil does) at high temperatures.

I fried the chicken for two minutes on a side over high heat. Then for four minutes on one side over moderate heat, and two-and-a-half minutes on the other side. Finally, I left the chicken to cook over low heat for three minutes.

It was delicious. Sometimes, it’s more delicious, but it’s always delicious. Applesauce, cucumber salad, and cobs of corn completed the plates. For dessert, we tucked into a raspberry-lemon tart, also from Agata. We each ate two pieces of chicken, and could not have touched a third, not with the prospect of the tart.

After all that paperwork, cooking was fun.

Bon weekend à tous!