So as I mentioned, we’re watching Mad Men. It’s been both good and bad to be working our way through a pile (3 seasons!) of TV. The good is that there’s always something to watch, which is particularly good since none of the other shows we watch are back on yet. Which is of course the bad, too, esp. when it’s 11:30pm on a school night and that tiny evil voice is saying “just one more…”
It’s definitely making me feel kind of weird. I mean, it’s a great show, but I feel conflicted about it. It’s kind of depressing (Jonathan: “it’s a drama!”) — I guess I hadn’t realized that so much of our other TV viewing is comedy. Except Fringe, which doesn’t count because it’s scifi. And House, which is much too funny to be a real drama.
I have a antagonistic mental relationship with the 1950s. Yes, I know the show’s set in the early ’60s, and that all of the in-your-face sexism and racism is pretty much the whole point. But watching it makes me annoyed that the whole myth of the perfect postwar 1950s even existed in the first place. And still does today: I read a great book on the subject a few years ago by family studies professor Stephanie Coontz called The Way We Never Were.
Even with eyes wide open, though, the myth of the 50s is powerful stuff. Because who doesn’t want things to be that way, at least on some level? The (theoretical) good parts: the dream of the middle class. A nice backyard and a Girl to come clean up the dishes. Jonathan made us a Delmonico steak for dinner the other night while drinking an Old Fashioned, and it was tasty.
It would be easier for me to ignore the myth if I weren’t so madly in love with the style. The mid-century modern furniture, the awesome skirts + blouses, even the mustard-yellow appliances: it all makes me swoon. Jonathan remarked that the set and costume designers must be having a ball. How can an era that invented brown plaid wallpaper be all bad?
…but so veryverybusy. The Fall semester (and the class I’m teaching) started last Thursday (13 students this semester, yay!). Gus’s school doesn’t start until next Wednesday, and even then it’s only 1 day back before they’re off for 2 days for Rosh Hashanah. I keep meaning to blag at night, but by the time chores + bedtime are finished it’s late–Gus is still on his summer schedule even if I’m not–and all I want to do is watch season 1 of Mad Men (which we finally started watching last weekend) and go to sleep.
We spent last week at the beach on vacation with my family (my mom, 2 sibs + their families). It’s always a fun, if somewhat chaotic, time (7 kids under age 9!). The weather was great: we only had one rainy day, and much of that day it was only drizzly so we ended up taking the kids to the beach to hunt for shells anyway. It was lovely to meet my new nephew, who turned 4 weeks old last Friday. In my annual seafood-eating event I nommed steamed clams picked up by my mom + brother on the way in, an amazing lobster roll + clam chowder from here, as well as yummy broiled crab cakes from here.
This year I got sick (and Jonathan, too), which unfortunately kind of harshed my vacation mellow and scrapped many of my more ambitious leisure plans. I only read twobooks (both before the sickness hit), didn’t catch up on personal emails, and didn’t learn how to knit either. It’s just a head cold, but even though I tried to slow down and take it easy I’m still on sick day #6 (I think?). The inherent instability of vacation time means that I can’t quite remember when I got sick, maybe Tuesday? It was a bummer, though the vacation was still fun overall.
Now we’re back and I’m simultaneously trying to manage re-entry and recovery. Today is stretched before me in all of its Sundayness, and I’m a bit at odds. It’s hot + rainy. The cats missed us and are meowy + needy. Gus wanted a playdate but his desired pal is busy. I should clean the floors and go buy my niece a birthday present. I think the former is a pipe dream (also, Anne Lamott told me to clean less), but maybe we can swing the latter this afternoon. But resting needs to be at the top of the list, I think: classes start Thursday, so things are about to ramp up sharply. Full speed ahead!
Yesterday was the last week of summer hours at my job, when we work extra on Mondays through Thursdays and get Fridays off. Other than vacations I’ve been using my Summer Fridays to work on my research project, but yesterday I took the day off. I did some chores and errands, then Jonathan and I took advantage of the Gus-at-camp time to go see a matinee of Inception (which totally lived up to the hype, imho).
This has been a grumpy summer for me, scholarly work-wise. Mostly the problem is that I can’t help comparing it to the past two summers. Two years ago I spent the summer analyzing a small data set and writing it up into an article with a colleague. Last summer I wrote an article all by my lonesome, which I’m happy to report was just published. And even last semester, which was totally busy, another colleague and I wrote an article that we submitted to a journal earlier this summer.
This summer my main work has been writing up a preliminary report on the research project I’m working on with a colleague. I finished a first draft of the data from my site this week, and at 20 pages (single-spaced!) it’s definitely something real and tangible, the product of my summer. Absolutely I’m proud of it, and the project, too, which I love and believe has real value. But at the same time I can’t help feeling like it’s somehow less than my work in previous summers.
I’m heading into my 3rd year in my job so there’s still another 4 long years until I come up for tenure. I try not to freak out about it too much; it’s still a while out, and I think I’m in pretty good shape. But it’s sometimes it’s hard not to worry. The research and publication bar is inching ever higher, and it’s not always clear what’s sufficient. What is clear, of course, is the gold standard: the peer-reviewed journal article, the monograph published by a scholarly press. A preliminary report on research, even a 20-page one, isn’t one of those.
I don’t regret the summer’s work. It needed to happen. Our project continues and expands this coming academic year, and it’s important to get a sense what went well and what didn’t before we dive into data collection again. We’ve identified lots of themes that we’re interested in exploring further in our interviews with faculty and students at our four additional research sites. And this report will serve as a starting point for articles, presentations, etc. we write in the future (and, eventually, a book).
So why am I still so grumpy? A wise friend suggested that it’s a combination of settling into my job (both the librarian and researcher parts of it) and tackling such a big research project. She’s probably gotten it spot on. I love this project, but it is enormous and I am constantly fighting guilt that I’m not paying as much attention to it as I should be. There’s big things, like coding transcripts from all 82 interviews we did this past year and entering the data into our qualitative analysis software. There’s little things, like writing the reports for the IRB that approved and grant that funded last year’s work. At any given moment there is something I could be working on related to this project.
Which I guess is my task for this year: making progress on the project in a sustainable way. With an article in our sights, even if it’s not right now.
Gus has been reading the New Yorker lately, on occasion. It’s kind of hilarious even on the face of it: what could an 8 1/2 year old possibly get out of the New Yorker?
Like the adult-in-training that he is, Gus likes to read while sitting on the toilet. Usually it’s whatever book he’s in the middle of, but there’s also a pile of kid magazines in the bathroom: Ranger Rick and Discover Kids. Plus Jonathan gets MAKE magazine and that’s fun for the whole family.
We keep the magazines for grown-ups (the New Yorker, Entertainment Weekly and our college alumni magazine) in the bathroom next to our bedroom. But over the past week we’ve been doing a little home improvement* so that bathroom’s been out of commission. In the interim a couple of New Yorkers have migrated to the other bathroom.
* I may have mentioned before that we both hate and, in many cases (e.g. me + grout), are just not all that good at home improvement. But it seems like once every decade or so we have to test that theory again, poke it and prod it and make sure it still holds true. This time it was the ever-worsening bathroom sink drip that pushed us over the edge. It’s such a slippery slope: let’s replace the faucet. Heck, let’s replace the entire vanity — it’s 24 years old, definitely overdue. And while we’re at it, let’s take out the mirror and paint too! We’re almost done, and Jonathan did the lion’s share of the work, for which I am absurdly grateful. But I hope this is the last time I ever succumb to the fantasy that I should take on any home improvement tasks.
So last week Gus was in the bathroom, apparently reading the latest issue of the New Yorker. The cover is certainly attractive (and sad): a woman dropping her iphone into the pool, all orange and yellow and turquoise. After a few minutes I heard Gus flipping the pages, lingering briefly on each one, intoning: “boring. boring. boring…”
Then he asked us to bring him a marker. He found a cartoon without a caption, and he thought it was one of those cartoons on the last page, the caption contest (he asked a couple of times about what the prize is for the contest — I think he was hoping to win ca$h). Jonathan brought him a green marker and he went right to work. For those of you following along at home, the cartoon is on page 72, and Gus’s caption reads:
“I never knew this was a paper aircraft carrier”
THEN he flipped back to the cover and, um, augmented the cover image with a small turd near the lady’s behind. At which point it was clearly time for us to take the New Yorker away, trying hard to hide our giggles. We’ve saved out the cartoon, of course.
Last week we took a vacation in Vermont and I put myself on an internets diet. In some ways it was fairly easy to do — cellphone and internets can be wonky up there, and I didn’t always have access in the places we were visiting. But with all of the bajillions of articles recently about information overload and hyperabundance and how our brains/behavior do or don’t change with all of the internet info we consume, I thought it might be an interesting experiment.
My rules were:
– Check work email once/day (I get kind of anxious when the work email piles up so I rarely ignore it entirely, even when we’re on vacation. But I only answered the few that seemed like they couldn’t wait.)
– Check home email once/day (Since we had catsitters I felt like I couldn’t completely ignore home email. And I get much less email at my home account anyway.)
– No Twitter
– No RSS feeds
– No other internets reading/browsing, e.g., New York Times (If you can’t ignore the news for a week is it really even a vacation?)
I also promised myself that I wouldn’t feel bad about skipping all of that info, or try to catch up on it later. Which for the most part was successful: though I did end up reading a couple of things published last week in the early part of this week, I also went into my Google Reader when we got home Sunday night and pushed the magical Mark All As Read button to clear out the feeds. (Oh, the power!)
The results were hardly earth-shattering, but they were sort of interesting. In practice what happened is that I didn’t use my computer phone to fill in the gaps between activities. Usually I’ll check Twitter or read feeds or check email in the myriad little bits of time I encounter throughout the day: waiting in line or for the people I’m with to be ready to go do something, watching Gus (in this case while swimming in the pool or pond), sometimes while riding in the car (though this is dicey because it tends to tweak my carsickness).
Without the internets I spent those bits of time last week thinking, spacing out, watching the world go by, etc. It was relaxing in a way, kind of soothing and boring at the same time. I was happy to learn that it didn’t make me all twitchy, which I’d feared since I am definitely susceptible to the mini-endorphin rush of a new email alert or a pile of new tweets.
For the longer stretches of time I did lots of book readin’, just like in the olden days. I read one from start to finish, finished up another I’d started a while ago, and read parts of twoothers. It’s definitely easier to read while on vacation, and I appreciated having the stretches of time while Gus was happily splashing around to get some reading in.
Now that the experiment is over I’m back to the usual stuff at work and at home. Though I do think I’m interacting more thoughtfully with the internets than before. Of course, it’s still the slowish summer — I’m sure my internets serenity will go right out the window once the semester (and the course I’m teaching) begins in (eep!) 22 days.
I just finished reading The Magician’s Book: A Skeptic’s Guide to Narnia, by Salon.com’s Laura Miller. Yeah, I know, late to the party again — the book’s been out (and on my list) for a couple of years now. But Jonathan read it earlier this year and raved about it so much that we decided it passed the library test, and I put it on my list for my birthday last month.
The book is sort of a mashup of literary criticism of the Chronicles of Narnia and a biographical exploration of C.S. Lewis’s life and influences, with a hefty dose of Miller’s own history as a fan of the books, from her love of them as a child through her teenage disillusionment when she realizes that the books are full of Christian themes and on to adulthood. The whole book is a great read, but if you’re at all a Friend of Narnia it’s especially wonderful for her discussions of her own (and others’) childhood fascination with the books. In many ways the books are much more complex than they seem, and Miller is adept at exploring what makes them so compelling to so many children that those children continue to love Narnia as grown-ups. Our girl name was Lucy and our runner-up boy name was Eamonn (which is Irish for Edmund), so as you can imagine both Jonathan and I fit into that category.
It was also really interesting to read about her disillusionment with the books when she discovered their pervasive Christianity, which she realized after reading a piece of criticism of the Chronicles. In many ways Miller and I have similar backgrounds: I was also raised Catholic (though we weren’t the most devout by any means), went through all of the sacraments, and as an adult I am not Catholic. As far as I know there wasn’t a specific incident that drove me away from the church — I think that as a kid I just found Mass to be dull (though I did like the singing) and then as a teen I decided that all religions were hypocritical (as teens are wont to do). But as an adult I’m most comfortable as an agnostic, so that’s where I am now.
Unlike Miller, I don’t remember feeling betrayed when I reread the Chronicles as a teen. I think I was a bit older — late high school? — by which time it was readily apparent that Christianity ran through the whole series. But I don’t think the knowledge made me think negatively of the books.
It’s curious to think of it now. I’ve read them so often that I can’t actually remember when I read them for the first time, maybe age 10 or 11? A little late, if then. It’s been a while since I’ve read them as an adult, and reading this book makes me think it’s high time I started them again. We’ve tried to get Gus to read them but sometimes he’s really resistant to our book suggestions. Perhaps the best strategy is for me to read them to him?
It’s been a whiny summer here at mauraweb!, and I’m sorry about that. Really, I am. Seriously! Stop laughing. I can still see you snickering behind your hand.
I realized the other day that I’m having a summer of female vocalists. First it was the new Tracey Thorn record in May. Then in June I got the second Lady Gaga record for my birthday, and almost immediately had to buy the first. In each of these cases I pulled a total deep-ender and found myself listening to little else (except for the occasional Orbital, which is my anti-writer’s-block go-to music).
For July it’s most definitely been Janelle Monae. I was a little late to this party–my pal Luke and millions of others have been blogging her praises since the record came out in May. But now I’m fully hooked. Everything everyone says is true: it’s an incredibly rich, diverse, funky album. I love the references to folks like Bowie and Prince, but I also adore the orchestral sections, esp. the strings. She’s arranged the record into two suites and it feels like a soundtrack, which reminds me of my obsession with the Diva soundtrack when I was in high school. And I double-dog dare you *not* to tap your feet along with the single. Go ahead, try it–I’ll wait:
See?
I suspect that my August will continue to be filled w/female voices: Kristin Hersh’s new record was just released. Actually it’s a book and a record. A recbook. A bookord. Whatever it is, I’m ordering it right up.
It’s lame to complain about the weather. I know this, but I cannot help myself. It’s 87 degrees outside right now (down from today’s high of 934 or so) and feels like it’s been this way for weeks and weeks. Even with liberal A/C use (and the electric bills to prove it), I still seem to get all hot and sweaty several times a day. I’m tired of having to shower twice a day and all of the extra laundry. I’m sick of feeling lethargic and crabby and not getting enough exercise. Begone, global warming!
I spent what seemed like a huge amount of time this weekend ferrying Gus around to his various social engagements via car and subway, and I found myself daydreaming about a summer house someplace colder. But where’s cold enough? It’s been in the 80s in Vermont and Maine, and there’s not a lot of a/c up there. Upper 70s in Montreal and lower 70s in Quebec, that’s a little better. A surprising 84 today in Halifax, which takes it out of the running, I’m afraid.
Or we could go for the ultimate: it’s in the mid-60s these days in Reykjavik. And for an added bonus, the sun rises at 3:56am and sets at 11:13pm!
It was an interesting mental puzzle to keep my brain busy. In this scenario we would sublet the apartment and would pack up the cats + take them to our summer getaway. I could take my vacation and maybe some research time and smush it all together to make a biggish chunk. A month, say? We’ve never been away for that long before. We’d need to end up someplace that’s either so exciting + interesting (forest and water? ocean? pool?) for Gus that he’d have loads to do (because we would likely need to spend at least some of the time working) or put him in some kind of camp.
The reality is probably considerably less rosy (or feasible). We’d need to arrange for *some* time with other kids, because a month with just the three of us would probably drive us all batty. And I’m sure that once we got someplace cooler I’d be grumpy that there’s not enough to do. Because one of the other things that makes me sad about this heat is that we haven’t had the chance to do all of the fun summer things there are to do here, like go to Governor’s Island or check out the new part of Brooklyn Bridge Park or visit the lion cubs up at the Bronx Zoo. NYC FTW!
(or maybe I’m just trying to psyche myself up for a hot hot bike ride to work tomorrow morning)
Gus is back in swimming lessons. He loves the water and can swim well enough to hang out in the deep end, but he’s still kind of spazzy and doesn’t know the actual strokes. Since we live on an island and he’s getting on in years, we decided it was time for him to really learn how to swim.
I was in 3rd grade when I first took swimming lessons, the second half of 3rd grade during which I went to a Montessori school and we swam once/week with school. (The first half I’d gone to the local Catholic school, which is part of another story.)
I can’t remember much about swimming before then. I don’t think I was afraid of the water. I had a great-aunt who lived at the shore (Ventnor, NJ) so I swam in the ocean every summer. We must have gone swimming in other pools too, at least occasionally, but I don’t really remember.
So I wasn’t exactly a swimming newbie in 3rd grade, but I don’t think I’d ever had lessons and I didn’t know any of the strokes. Even after I could swim enough to head out of the shallow end I must not have had much experience with the deep end or diving boards, because I vividly remember standing on the diving board adamantly NOT wanting to jump in, while the swim instructors encouraged me to.
Did they give me a gentle nudge to push me in? That I can’t say for sure. I thought that’s the way I remembered it, but now that I’m an adult and a parent I’m somewhat skeptical that it really happened that way. I mean, what sane adult would push a scared little kid into the pool?
Another piece of evidence against the pushing is that I don’t remember being particularly afraid of the water afterward, either.
A couple of years later I took swimming lessons again at a local pool in the summer. That must be when I really learned how to swim. I even ended up taking diving lessons in junior high. Yet another blow to the potential reality of the pushing memory?
Now I’m an okay swimmer. I know the strokes and can use them, but I’m not very good. A couple of years when we belonged to a gym with a pool I tried to swim. It’s certainly good exercise — it wore me out much faster than the elliptical or other machines. But chlorine really bothers me so I stopped, then we ended up quitting that gym. I still love swimming in the ocean each summer, though.
