Saturday

I just love Bob Herbert. He's like LOLcats for my political needs - easy to think about and makes me feel happy. Okay, not HAPPY, because he's usually mad about something, but satisfied because I agree with him! I don't have to think at all! This must be how Republicans feel when they watch Bill O'Reilly. The difference, of course, is that Bob and I are right and Bill O'Reilly is, as Bob would say, a nitwit.

Postscript

So I did some intensive internet research to back up my crotchety theory, and I'm totally wrong that college students are smoking more. Though, sheesh, one in five is still an awful lot of smoking.

Free! I'm free!

Okay. So I'm sorry (kind of) to keep gloating, but I am soooooo totally stoked about my free time, dude! OMG!!! I have now quit that graduate research assistantship,* dropped my 1-credit class and picked up a 3-credit class. I am a Full Time Student, people!!! I'm interning only 18 hours a week and taking three classes, which leaves me with acres and acres of free time. Time to swim** three times a week, do all kinds of homework during the week, eat leisurely lunches while reading a book for pleasure, blog ad nauseam,*** run errands, stare into space, go to seminars, pick up Dutch early, etc. Over the summer, because I was responsible for dropping off and picking up Dutch (Cook has a super-long commute in the other direction, and my internship is a mere 15-minute walk from Dutch's daycare), any extra time I added to my workday for all those activities listed above meant that she spent even more time at daycare. And I just don't feel really great about leaving my kid at daycare 9-10 hours a day every weekday. But NOW!!! Now I can do it all!

Actually, it feels pretty irresponsible. Sort of .... student-y! Lazing around with my ipod, wearing jeans and t-shirts. However, I refuse to take up smoking - what's up with kids these days, anyway? I swear more of them are smoking than ever. The old, crotchety, burdened-with-responsibilities, no-free-time me would have scowled at them and shaken her cane, but the new, relaxed, full time student me just holds her breath and scoots on by, humming along with the soundtrack of Black Hawk Down, which is inexplicable installed on that ipod.



*Which is a bummer, because I liked it, and I think I would have learned some stuff, but hey! Free time is even better!
** And OMG again! I love the swimming! I've only been doing it two weeks and I feel GREAT!!! Hence all the exclamation points!
*** Your nauseam, not mine. I would happily blog all day!

Elizabeth Stone, whoever the hell she is, is pretty smart.

One of my very favorite mommy-bloggers is, as I write this, waiting for her daughter to come out of liver transplant surgery, while regretting that she is unable to be home for her other daughter's birthday tomorrow.

I think almost every day about the catastrophes that could befall Dutch. It makes me want to lock her up with me in a closet. Probably the only thing that keeps me from doing this* is the fact that we would make each other furiously insane within 20 minutes in the closet.**

Anyway, I'm so sorry that this stranger (who writes about her family with such a funny, deft touch) is suffering through something unimaginably scary to me. I sifted through my feelings about it a little - there's definitely a little bit of "phew, I'm glad that isn't me!" which is unpleasantly gloaty, and I'd like to get rid of that. There's also a resonating empathy for how difficult and terrifying it is to be a parent, to spend your life watching your child risk and experience fear and pain and sorrow. I am grateful that Dutch has come home safe and (almost) intact every day of her life so far, with only minor emotional and physical scarring, and I wish that every parent could have the same. So tonight I am thinking of Annika, and her parents, and of the family of the child who gave the liver in question.


* I mean OTHER than the fact that it would OBVIOUSLY be a ridiculous thing to do. Obviously.
** And she's not even a teenager yet! She's precocious. Or I am.

Woohoo! Things are going great!

So the economy is going to hell in a handbasket. Nobody I know can find a job. Sarah Palin is starting to terrify me. Everyone in my house is sick. No big deal. Who cares! This week, I got two scholarships! Yes, I did! TWO!!!! I even had to interview for one, with a panel of twelve people. TWO! We're rich!

Okay, true, they didn't give me very much money. Times are tough for scholarship funds, too. Also, based on the fact that the department begged people to apply for scholarships, and that I, a non-stellar but oh-so-deserving student, have now collected multiple (little) scholarships, I think we can conclude that... perhaps the competition wasn't exactly strenuous. But who cares! I took the time to write lots of essays and beg people for letters of recommendation, and fill out lots of forms multiple times and take them to multiple places - I deserve a reward for groping my way through inept bureaucracy.

My bubble and me

I just got a hand-me-down ipod. I love it. This is making me feel a little conflicted.

I have strong feelings about the way that social interaction has changed due to the flood of ipods and cellphones and other self-centered-type gadgets. It depresses me to see so many people walking around in a little environment of their own, talking to whomever they please, listening to whatever they please, ignoring the world around them (and often annoying and/or endangering the people around them). I don't think it's a good idea to do that much self-censorship; I think it's not only better for our brains and our emotional health to experience unfiltered life, but it's also our civic duty to pay attention to our environment. How can we keep eachother safe and supported if we never look at or listen to anybody other than our little inner circle?

I have a cellphone now. I don't use it much (those of you who have been foolish enough to try to communicate with me on it know that I haven't mastered it yet), but I do use it, more than I have to. The times when it really tempts me are when I'm waiting for the bus with nothing to do. Now that I also have an ipod,* the bus-waits are tempting for using that too. Last night, waiting for the bus at 9:30 in the pouring rain, I couldn't resist. Today, working in a crowded computer lab, I can't resist again. I think I just have to be firm about identifying times when it's okay to be in the bubble. These seem like okay situations,**as long as I keep my use moderate, but I draw the line at walking (or moving any faster than that) while listening.

I went to a city "Transportation Safety Summit" yesterday, which was totally fun, and one guy got up to demand that the city pressure the state to ban use of cellphones while driving. All the safety dorks cheered. (Safety dorks hate people who turn into a crosswalk while talking on their phones, not looking at the pedestrians legally crossing the street. WE HATE THEM!!!!)

Anyway. Yay for convenience and private enjoyment of music. Boo for not paying attention.


*This is extra-weird because it's loaded with somebody else's music, as we haven't gotten around to clearing off the stuff we don't like and adding stuff we do. So I'm in a bubble, but it's not really my bubble.
** I did get a little freaked out at the bus stop, and kept looking around to make sure I wasn't missing any weird urban disruptions that I should be monitoring, like crazy people, drunk people, scary people, skateboarders careening down the sidewalk, etc. - missing auditory cues seems potentially dangerous even when you're not in motion!

A New New Deal

Have I mentioned how well other people say things I want to say? One excellent reason to vote for Obama is that he is at least a lot more likely than that other guy to work on creative overhaul and improvement of our infrastructure. This would mean that our towns and cities and public transportation (and yes, damnit, roads) would all be much better off. This would also mean jobs for planners.*

Anyway, I think my good friend Bob is totally right on all counts here. Things have gone seriously astray, and I'd like somebody put some time into fixing them. If Americans have any sense, we can get started in January!


* Like me. What, do you know other unemployed planners?

grab bag

1) I'm in love with John Stuart Mill.* Now I guess I have to actually learn something about him. I've ordered On Liberty from the library.

2) Cook is reading a book (one of my all-time favorites) by an earlier crush of mine, about Scott's trip to the South Pole, and it's driving him crazy. "PONIES!!!" he groans, "why would you take PONIES on a trip to the South Pole?!" and then we discuss turn-of-the-century British attitudes.**

3) The rain has begun! It's officially fall! Soup! Tea! Blankets! Sweaters! At the moment, I'm feeling pretty good about this, planning all sorts of baking and reading and indoorsy-whatnot. In two months, maybe not so much. We'll see.

4) I'm reading a book for one of my classes that I think will help me with my negotiations with Dutch. All my books for that class could easily be found a self-help section of the bookstore. So after I Get to Yes with Dutch, I will Make Meetings Work.

5) I've been listening to something beautiful.

6) On my birthday, I got onto a streetcar crowded with a class of 7th graders and their chaperones. There was nowhere to sit, as is usually the case on the streetcar, and as I put my bag down and got out my magazine, one of the chaperones, a woman at least 10 years older than me, OFFERED ME HER SEAT. Apparently, reaching the advanced age of 32 has pushed me over a threshold, and now I look like a person who really needs to sit down. The grave is gaping before me!

7) Please take a moment to make sure you're registered to vote at your current address.


* Read the article! What an awesome guy!

**In case you haven't experienced a brief obsessive interest in turn-of-the-century Antarctic exploration, here's a synopisis. Amundsen got to the Pole and back before Scott got there and then didn't get back. Scott was all about courage and pluck and honor and whatnot, and based his expedition on horses and "motor-sledges" - the sledges broke, the horses died, the canvas clothes didn't exactly keep anybody warm, and people died. Amundsen was all about thoughtful planning and Scandinavian understatement, and based his expedition on dogs and skis. Nobody died, nobody even got frostbite (they wore fur), the trip was a relative breeze. People have been arguing fruitlessly for the last hundred years about whether Scott was a hero or a total ninny. I lean strongly toward the total ninny argument, myself. But, as Cook pointed out, Scott et al would have died in World War I anyway, if they'd survived the trip. So no harm, no foul, right?

Nyet! Or, all I know about Russia is what I have invented.

I've started swimming again, since my time is now much less structured than it has been in a long time, and I have actual free time! I learned to swim in a functional beach-going kind of way when I was a kid, but I never learned how to swim properly. I hadn't swum in probably 15 years when I decided about 6 years ago that I was going to start swimming laps for exercise. Because I am that kind of person, I went to the library and checked out a how-to book to go with my YMCA membership, and I taught myself how to swim. I am proud of this accomplishment, since it required a kind of persistence that I don't normally demonstrate. I am still a very bad swimmer, but I can swim laps (crawl and breaststroke and an occasional backstroke) comfortably, and I really like it, except for the chlorine. I like that it doesn't hurt, I like the feeling of pushing through the water, and I like the repetition of it.

I like the pool at school, too. It's ancient, and the locker room is fairly unpleasant, but there's something about the pool area that pleases me. The whole space is concrete, and vast and dark and echo-y, and somehow makes me think of a 1960s-era Soviet Olympic training facility.* The pool has a "shallow" end that drops off abruptly halfway across the pool, presumably for diving purposes, and I feel every time I cross the line that I am heading out into the deep ocean.** The YMCA pool where I used to swim never got deeper than 5 feet, so people could do things like water aerobics and water walking, and this deep water thing kind of freaks me out.

They're building a very fancy new recreation center on campus. It'll be open next fall, and I'm sure the pool will be terrific. I look forward to using the new fancy locker room. I will miss my Soviet pool.

* Because I've been to so many of those.
**If the ocean had a concrete bottom, no fish, and toxic levels of chlorine, that is.

The danger of vagueness

I'm not voting for Ron Paul, in case you're wondering.

What do I want for my birthday, you ask?

I want to have a president who isn't a Republican. That's all I want. Oh, except that I'd really love to live in this house.