money, meet mouth

maura @ 10:52 pm

So I quit Facebook the other day. Jaron Lanier’s keynote at ACRL (which I didn’t agree with 100% but was interesting and thought-provoking) was kind of the trigger, though I’d been thinking about it and thinking about it for a year, maybe more. Also, unlike JL, my cats are not and will not be on Facebook.

I’d resisted for so long because of all of the accumulated social capital there, of course. Family members who live far away, old friends I’d lost touch with before the rise of FB, photos of my nieces and nephews, even library folks right here in my actual city that I don’t see as often as I’d like. But I’d always felt a little weird there, as I’ve blogged before. And I could never figure out a way to keep up with it, despite my best efforts (ditto Friend Feed, which I joined but can’t find the time for — honestly, even Twitter can be a struggle during the busy parts of the semester).

Why’d I quit? The usual reasons. Most corporations don’t care about privacy, but Facebook seems particularly sleazy about it. Also I hate that they’re making money with all of my stuff: my thoughts, ideas, photos, relationships, etc. Not that Google* and lots of others don’t do that, too, but the walled garden of FB makes it seem even worse.

* I have similar thoughts about Google and don’t use gmail for that very reason, but I am a slave to gdocs and my whole library uses gcalendar so there you go, clearly I’m a giant hypocrite.

I don’t miss it at all, but I do hate the way everyone seems to have moved their events + conversations over to FB without my even noticing. Because now when I click those fb.me links I can’t see anything, which is a drag. It’s insidious, really — I hadn’t even realized that had happened until I was chatting with a pal who’s a fellow FB quitter recently.

Anyway, despite my grumpiness I’m glad to have quit — I actually feel lighter and cleaner, if that makes any sense. And now I get to have this spiffy badge on my site, too!

future past

maura @ 6:47 pm

Lately the hot media pick in this house has been all manner of National Geographic/Discovery Channel shows available on Netflix watch instantly.* The flavor du jour is paleontological: the life + times of ancient land, sea, and air animals. These shows are almost all the same, only the species differs. Each show focuses on one or several prehistoric animals. Actual paleontologists show us fossils and bones as they discuss the animal. But the real appeal of the show (I think) for Gus is that these fossily bits are interspersed with computer-generated footage of the animals running around and (usually) hunting for prey.

* BTW have I told you yet how weird I still find it that we are watching teevee shows streamed over the internet and brought to us via our videogame system (the Wii) hooked up to the actual telemavision? Mmm, futurey!

The whole package is really sensationalistic. The narrator and music are tense and dramatic, Many of the scientists (almost always male, sigh, and often Australian, which is kind of funny) are stoked to tell us how badass all of these creatures were. It’s all about the biggest, fastest, meanest, etc. In one show the scientists even crafted a dinosaur head out of metal to test the jaw-crushing powers of the megabeast. (Okay, it was kind of cool when they put a huge thick block of jello-like stuff in the mouth to simulate flesh.)

I’m not sure how to feel about all of these shows. Better than Pokemon cartoons, hells yeah. But I kind of hate that “we need to make science into a crazy dramatic movie in order to get people interested!” tendency. I’m sure it’s partly due to technology — when I was little they just couldn’t do those kinds of computer graphics on nature shows, so it was all about fossils and still art, which can’t be nearly as sensationalistic as “recreating the entire life and death struggle from beginning to end” — an actual quote from an actual show we are watching right now.

Plus I just find it jarring and discordant to have the computer-generated dinosaurs (or whatever) layered onto a real landscape background. You got your future in my past! The whole thing makes me wrinkle my nose like an old lady.

language is a virus

maura @ 4:50 pm

We are having a bit of an issue with swearing here lately. It’s not surprising, really: Gus rides the schoolbus along with lots of other kids ages 5-11 from his school (and, this year, other schools! thank you, budget cuts, for doubling the length of my kid’s morning bus ride). The older kids mess around with curse words, as kids hanging out (mostly) by themselves are wont to do. The younger kids hear them. Gus has known *all* the words (yes, we tested him) for many years now.

Up until this year whatever swearing happened seemed to happen only on the bus or at recess, basically places where adults couldn’t/didn’t hear it. But lately the blue language has been creeping into everyday life.

At first we decided to decriminalize “crap.” We figured that it’s only just barely a swear word, anyway, and it sounds so funny when you say it with a Scottish accent (which I can’t do — can’t roll my Rs to save my life — but G + J can). And we thought that the family legality of one acceptable swear would keep the unacceptable alternatives at bay. That worked fine for a while, but then we realized that crap is sort of a gateway drug, as lots of other sweary language started happening.

It’s the fake swearing that drives me the most batty. Sometimes he’ll say “bleep” as in “that Pokemon bleeping killed me!” Other times he just uses the first letter — “oh D!” — as if we don’t know what that means! Argh, it makes me crazy.

So now we are trying to cut the crap, as it were, in hopes of squashing the swearing altogether. Of course us grownups swear too, though we’ve tried to keep it squeaky clean around the sprog since toddlerhood, when he got old enough to start repeating them back to us. But we do curse when he’s not around, at varying levels of curseyness.

I sometimes try to convince Gus to make up his own swear words, a la Little Pete (e.g. “gutbuckets!”), because it’s so uncreative to rely on the standard curses. I’ve also been known to tell him that it’s embarrassing for parents when their kids swear, which has had mixed results, predictably.

It’s got me thinking about swearing in general. Why is it bad for kids to swear, exactly? (Most) adults know when to swear and when not, but if it’s bad for kids maybe it’s bad for us, too. Is it lazy? Probably, but sometimes that swear word just fits the situation so, so well.

(I want to end this with “damned if you do, damned if you don’t,” but that’s too easy, right?)

how many words for snow

maura @ 9:26 pm

I had snow dreams last night. There was a big snowstorm but not here, someplace out in the nature. It was that dry, powdery kind of snow, tiny flakes, the kind that even when you’re walking through it and it’s all over your face it doesn’t feel bad. It was a vivid sense memory for hours afterward, the vision of a snowy hilly place.

Later in the dream there was snow here in the city, but it was heavier and wetter. I was doing something during the day, probably working (though work wasn’t really in the dream), and remember feeling concerned that by the time I got to the park all of the snow would be gone. But it wasn’t gone — while the sledding hill was scraped bare, the middle part of the long meadow was still covered when I clomped in to the park with my skis.

In the real world there’s still piles of snow in the plaza at Metrotech, some as tall as 3 feet. It’s dirty but not as gross as you’d think — since the area’s surrounded by trees and has been so snow covered for so long there’s not really any trash or dog poop in the snowpiles. Every time I walk by I want to take a chainsaw and slice into them to see their snowtigraphy.

I think I need to move my skis out of my clothes closet to someplace where I won’t see them every day.

fills my ears

maura @ 10:06 pm

I’ve been listening to a lot of Lush recently, blissing out all early 90s style. I miss Lush: their best songs are layers of guitars that made your clothes move during live shows, with dreamy effects that makes it seem like you’re being wrapped up in a warm snuggly blanket. I think I need an effects pedal for my days sometimes, to kick in a shoegazy headbangy outro (like at the end of “Superblast”) as I’m walking out the door to go home, for example.

It all came from the car. A couple of weekends ago I had to drive a couple of hours to visit family for the day. Jonathan and Gus had to stay here so I drove down alone. The car only has a tape deck (I know!) and since we don’t even have a tape creating thingamabob anymore most of the cassettes are really old (except for the few kids’ music tapes we made when Gus was a baby). I hate the car and driving but I do like listening to music in the car (and singing).

Weirdly for people who have as many records/CDs/tapes as we do, we don’t really listen to music around the house anymore. When Gus was a baby we seemed to have Raffi/Dan Zanes/They Might Be Giants on an endless loop (which is not as awful as it sounds!). But as he’s gotten older that’s faded away. I’m not really sure why — partly it’s probably videogames, which have their own music. He also sometimes complains when we put our own music on.

I feel guilty that we’re not giving him a chunk of music to remember from his childhood. It’s true that I kind of hate many of the bands my parents listened to when I was little — James Taylor, Carly Simon and Carole King, for example — there are other 70s icons for which I retain a certain embarrassing fondness — Fleetwood Mac, Abba, Steely Dan.

Gus doesn’t have much music of his own these days either. After Michael Jackson died Gus decided he wanted some MJ music so we got a couple of CDs, and we all love the Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack (duh!). I’m trying to ease back into some music some times, we’ll see how it goes. I left the Lush tape on in the car last week and there wasn’t any complaining, so that’s a first step.

that point me to another day

maura @ 10:19 pm

What is it about getting out of the city that always leaves me so conflicted when I return? Gus was out of school all last week so we headed north for a few days for our annual grandparents-n-snow pilgrimage. All of the usual “s” activities were accounted for: sledding, snowshoeing, skating, and skiing. Gus, Jonathan, and my brother built an epic snowfort, too, about 5 feet wide by 15 long with three rooms and walls (w/crenellations) over 5 feet tall and fierce icicles all around the door to ward off marauders. The whole trip was lovely.

So now I’m thinking about the country again, nature + woods + mountains (and the silo house). It’s not that I want to leave the city. Why does nature always have to = no diversity + tons of driving? Especially the driving — on this trip we realized that Connecticut is the Staten Island of New England, because there is always traffic somewhere no matter what day or time you’re on the road.

Also, I really miss the snow. You’d think after our unusually snowy January I’d be okay with what’s obviously winter ending (at the botanic gardens today I noticed that the bluebells are starting to poke through). But the skis in my closet make me greedy for more. Maybe we just need to be in a more northern city.

What I really want is a War Drobe so I can move from city to nature easily without all that pesky driving. And a rainbow unicorn.

flood my eyes with light

maura @ 9:38 pm

I’m not really sure where the time’s going these days. It’s been sort of work work work sleep work work work lately, not in a bad way, really, but there do seem to be a few more plates spinning than I’m entirely comfortable with. Friday is the Lincoln’s Birthday holiday which is The One True Day Off (CUNY is closed, public schools are open, boo yah!) so I’m hoping to put 1 or 2 plates down then.

One of the things I haven’t been able to get to lately is making a new phone cozy. As always happens with my sewn things (with anything cloth, I guess), it needs to be replaced about every 6 months. To its credit, I do take the phone in and out of it and take the whole shebang in and out of pockets and bags and backpacks seemingly a million times a day, so it’s not surprising to have to replace it that often.

Tonight I thought I could be clever and just snip away at the fraying outer layer, exposing the not-fraying-yet corduroy within, but I’d forgotten that I had a slight alignment issue when I sewed it all up and the corduroy wasn’t actually attached to one side. Oops. Into the cloth recycling bin with that!

Except now I needed a phone cozy, stat. Enter my old orange cashmere socks, most beloved of all socks. I wore them until the heel holes could be darned no more, and then cut off the tops for some other use before recycling the foot part. Lucky I did, because it’s the perfect size for an interim phone cozy:

Crappy picture, but you get the idea. I turned it inside-out, sewed up the bottom, turned it rightside-out, wove a short length of purple ribbon through the top, and there you have it. It’s not a permanent solution by any means, because glass on phone + fuzzy cashmere = slippery and I am too clumsy for that. But it’ll do until a few plates have slowed their rotation.

snow day in the life

maura @ 6:07 pm

This past week I decided to do Library Day in the Life over on my other blog, so just for a hoot I thought I’d do a post on what our snow day was like this past Thursday. I hadn’t really believed the forecasts, but it snowed all Wednesday night and we ended up with 15″ (or so) of heavy, wet snow by morning. It was the best kind of snow day, too, because it was sunny and warmish and not windy at all, bad for commuting but perfect for snowy park fun.

We were up at the usual time (thank you, body clocks), and Jonathan checked the internets for school closing news while I checked the college’s website to see if we were closed. And the answer was yes! CUNY doesn’t close for snow all that often so I really hadn’t expected it.

We tried to sleep in a little but the kittehs were meowy and loudly demanding breakfast so we all got up. My boss called to let me know about the snow day, then I called the 3 people on our phone tree that I needed to call. Then it was coffee (aahhh) and breakfast: crepes for Gus, and scrambled eggs with kimchi + (leftover) steak for us. Yum!

We looked out the window and apparently the snow took down a tree in our courtyard, which is a bummer. The snow was so heavy that it just snapped at the base of the trunk. The board decided to close the courtyard until the tree can be removed, which I understand but which is maybe just a tiny smidge disappointing, since the snow in there is so pristine it practically begs to be romped in.

Gus and I spent some time after breakfast hanging out in our PJs on the sofa DSing (Advance Wars Dual Strike) and catching up on some work email. Jonathan’s teaching a class this semester in the Advertising Design dept at the college where I work, so he took advantage of the downtime to finish his prep for the class (which started yesterday). I did a little laundry, too.

Around 10:30 Gus and I headed out to the park to sled with a couple of his school/neighborhood pals. They hit the sledding slopes at first, but ended up spending most of the time engaged in an epic boy vs. girl snow fight with our neighbors and their friends. It was a mob scene in the park and kind of like a little village — seemed like everyone we know was there. Gus got this crazy snowball maker from his grandparents for xmas (he reeeeeeeally wanted it) and while I was skeptical at first it actually makes incredible, perfect snowballs. It helped that the snow was perfect for packing — the snowpeople, sculptures, and forts going on were amazing.

We ran into another friend + his mom just as my feet were getting really cold and she graciously offered to drop Gus off at our place once the kids were finished playing, so I hightailed it home, leaving Gus and his friends to their ambitious snowfort plans. Once home I had lunch, then coffee, then a 20 minute nap (because sometimes coffee + nap = perfect). Gus finally made it home around 2 and was starving, so he ate a giant lunch while I puttered around doing a few things here and there.

Then Jonathan finished his work, so I headed back to the park again for a quick x-c ski. And let me tell you, if there was ever a year to get x-c skis for xmas this is it! So. Much. Snow. It’s been awesome, and I’ve gotten to the park most weekend days and even taken a short ski break during some of my research leave days. This snow is very thick and actually not that super for skiing, but it was still fun to be out there sliding around.

On my way home I stopped by our car and tried to dig it out a bit. Which was utterly useless — we’re completely hemmed in on both sides by snowblowers and plows. It’s like someone blew that insulating foam stuff all around the car, seriously. As long as street cleaning is suspended we won’t really need to move it, though it’s nice to have it to take Gus to fencing on the weekends. And we should probably buy a shovel this year.

After I got home I made myself some tea + did a little work while Gus finished up his screentime for the day then took a pre-dinner bath. And…hmmm…now I’m having trouble remembering what else we did that day. Dinner (obvs), and I did a little work in the evening finishing up a handout for a faculty workshop I was planning to co-teach on Friday morning, plus helped Jonathan test out his course website.

And I think that’s it for our snow day! Hope your day was snowtastic, too.

end of line

maura @ 8:53 am

We finally (finally!) saw Tron Legacy last weekend. Xmas prep, Disneyworld, and illness had delayed it for so long I was worried that it wouldn’t be in the theater anymore by the time we had time. But it was, yay! Plus, coffee truck outside of the theater = coffee during the movie, which is totally the way to do a matinee, word.

The movie’s gotten such bad reviews (including this hilarious one from game scholar Ian Bogost’s 8 yr old daughter) that I went in with pretty low expectations. So I’m a bit surprised to report that I sincerely and megadorkily enjoyed the whole dang thing.

First the easy stuff: yes, it was beautiful. And the soundtrack by Daft Punk is fantastic — it took about 48 hrs from the time we exited the movie theater for us to buy it. Good thing, too, as I was in dire need of some new electronica for background noise while I write.

And the easy stuff on the other side: it was definitely too long. The plot was so thin at points as to be transparent, and sometimes the dialogue was beyond cheesy. The nod to open source software at the beginning was HI-larious given Disney’s particular stance on copyright. Gus went through a phase of loving the first Tron* when he was maybe 5 or 6, but he was frankly bored by much of the new movie. Which was kind of a drag.

* Which we actually own, on VHS, because one of the other perks when working for the Mouse was the opportunity to buy Disney stuff at a discount. I immediately bought Tron and the original Freaky Friday, with Jodie Foster, which ROCKS. Though I do love the remake too.

But I still really, really liked it. I’ve been trying to pull it apart in my head ever since. J said “there were the bones of a good story in there,” and I agree. Though if I’m honest it’s probably less the story than the whole package — I am squarely in the demographic of people programmed (ha!) to like the movie. I had just turned 13 when the first Tron movie was released along with its companion videogame. The movie was visually stunning (for the time), and the game, while kind of lame, was fun enough that I fed it many quarters. I don’t remember much from junior high other than being the typical miserable early teen, but I have vivid memories of the videogame arcade: the layout of the machines, the noise, even the smell. To this day I can tell you that the Tron game (not Deadly Discs, the other one) was in the second room against the wall on the right.

So yes, I fell into the giant nostalgia trap set by Tron Legacy. Really once Sam walked into his dad’s old arcade and turned on all of the machines (ack! Journey!) there was no hope for me. Save yourselves!

P.S. Also the stick that turns into a light cycle or jet was awesome.

if this is the future

maura @ 10:59 pm

Disneyworld! I think Jonathan and I were more excited than Gus in the days leading up to the trip. We haven’t really done the amusement park thing with him so don’t think he knew what to expect — more than anything I think he was looking forward to seeing his grandparents. And the waterslide in the pool at the resort we stayed at.

Of course that changed on the first day. Not that he wasn’t still happy to be with Grandma + Grandpa, but he bought into the Disney thing whole hog. We rode the Buzz Lightyear ride twice — his favorite ride, and with good reason: you go through the ride sitting in spaceships blasting at targets (that register an actual score!) on Zurg and his cronies. It was pretty cool. We also rode Peter Pan, the Lilo + Stitch thing, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse (not all in the same day). Jonathan and I were thrilled to get him on Space Mountain and Haunted Mansion, both of which Gus was a bit wary of initially but ended up loving. And Big Thunder Mountain was also *awesome* — so fast and fun, with such great details alongside the tracks.

Gus did *not* like the Carousel of Progress or It’s a Small World, but his old parents forced (tricked, really) him to ride them because OMG how can you not?! Too much. We stopped short of the Hall of Presidents because we figured we’d tortured Gus enough, but were sure to drop Bill + Ted references whenever we walked through Liberty Square. The lessons of Disneyworld? You can do a surprising amount with cars on a track, black light, and animatronics.

It was interesting to see Gus’s reaction to the many many many consumer opportunities throughout the parks, too. Since he doesn’t watch TV we don’t get a lot of “buy me this!” from him, but after a few days of being dumped out of the rides right into the character/theme shop that wore off some. We *all* went a little crazy at the store in Liberty Square that’s wall to wall Nightmare Before Christmas stuff, but overall I think we came out okay. (Where okay = Jack Skellington hoodie for J, Jack socks + a mug for me, and a stuffed bat for G. Thanks Grandma + Grandpa!)

We stayed in this campground resort called Fort Wilderness that has RV/tent camping as well as 1 bedroom cabins. The cabins were cute — all of the furniture was made of (pretend?) logs, even the bunk beds. J+I got the Murphy Bed in the living room, a tiny house dream come true! I’ve always wanted to sleep on a Murphy Bed. It’s everything I expected — so fantastic to just shut the bed up into the wall every morning. (Yes, I am simple.) The RV campers were intense — many of them brought their own Christmas lights and decorations, and some seriously had as many decorations as you’d put on a house! To get from the resort to the Magic Kingdom was a short boat ride and on the last day we saw pelicans on the way over, so cool.

Epcot was really, really neato. I wish we’d had more time there — Gus wasn’t that into the World Showcase but J and I could easily have spent an afternoon wandering around. We did go on some good stuff: Spaceship Earth and a fun space simulator called Mission Space. And we rode the Tronorail! (One of the monorails was all kitted out as a Tron ad.) Jonathan and Gus went on Soarin’ which everyone says is amazing, but I had to bail because the line was three (3!!!) hours long. Even reading Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (now how’s that for yr cognitive dissonance) on my phone wasn’t enough to save me in that line.

We also did one day at Animal Kingdom which I guess is new-ish. There was actually a lot more stuff for kids to just *do* there, including a huge climbing space w/tube slides and a giant dinosaur excavating pit that Gus loved. And it was all naturey walking around, very pretty. We tried to go on the roller coaster there but the line was just too dang long. But we did go on this crazy ride called Dinosaur which was of the jarring loud variety and enjoyed more by the littlest member of our party than the adults.

Of course there were a few annoyances. It was incredibly, amazingly crowded, just people everywhere you looked pretty much all the time. I’m usually not too bothered by crowds but I have to admit that they started to get to me by the end of the trip. It was nice to come back to our cabin — while I’m sure that the resort was just as full as others in Disneyworld, because things were all spread out it didn’t seem too crowded.

In fact, it was so crowded on our first day (which was actually xmas) that the “castmembers” let us cut out of the public area of the park to bypass a parade and go right to Tomorrowland. It was freaky to see behind the scenes — castmembers smiled and waved us on, but I caught a glimpse of a banner with an inspirational message for castmembers along the way.

I have to admit that Tomorrowland kind of bugged me, though I loved the rides. There’s a big stage in the middle of everything with a DJ and characters and dancing which kind of ruined the atmosphere for me. And Jonathan was bummed that you can’t walk through Cinderella’s castle anymore — there’s some character meal place in there now. All in all I was surprised that the Magic Kingdom seemed a bit less enveloping than Disneyland felt to me. I guess mostly it was Tomorrowland — when we got over to the other side to Frontierland and Adventureland things were much more immersive.

It was also pretty cold for most of the time we were there. Christmas day it was in the mid-70s, but that was the warmest it got (and hence the only swimming day). On Boxing Day it was about 45 degrees and windy, seriously cold. OTOH, short lines! And no line for Splash Mountain, but we weren’t brave enough.

Most surprising was that there was pretty much no free wifi anywhere. I think the only place I jumped right on was when we were eating dinner at the Contemporary (the hotel that the monorail runs right through). We could buy internet for our cabin but didn’t because we just weren’t there long enough most days to make it worthwhile. I’m sure it would cost a fortune to wifi up the entirety of Disneyworld, including all of the parks and resorts, but it did seem odd given Disney’s attention to detail + service. On the plus side, I felt like it was kind of nice to have an internets break for much of the trip.

Phew, I think that’s most of it! I could write even more, but I think 1000 words is probably enough, don’t you? Gus is already asking when we will go back…again, a few weeks ago I’d have said never, but now I think maybe.