Talkapedia

Cats are Good For Your Bones

2012-01-30T09:40:00.001-05:00

...at least that's the theory. Apparently there is some reason to believe that the cat purring helps keeps cats bones healthy even though they are often giant couch potatoes (and bed potatoes, and floor potatoes, and windowsill potatoes). The subtle body vibration may help increase bone density. And since astronauts experience bone density loss due to the difference (or lack) of gravity in space, they have been experimenting with ways (in addition to post-space rehab) to try to adjust for that. And, as this article suggests, maybe a cat purr is called for here.

h/t to the tweeple who pointed me to this link.

It's Not the Nice That's the Problem

2012-01-25T10:04:00.001-05:00

I confess it has been years since I watched "American Idol", but certainly I absorb enough pop culture that I was aware of the changes to the judging panel. I read this article about the loss of the mean judge and I see it's point, but I don't think it's the nice that's the problem. On "Project Runway" Tim Gunn is nice, but he also is able to ask critical questions. He makes a point to focus on things that are changeable, and certainly, he is not one of the judges, so there are times when the things he says are not things the judges take issue with, but nonetheless he offers useful critique.
If we restrict ourselves to the singing side of things, "The Sing-Off", the a capella reality show had three judges this year who all offered useful critique, talking about things like song interpretations, arrangements and use of dynamics, all things that the group could choose to change or work on or not. Now they also focused on things that each group did well, so sometimes it seemed like a whole batch of nice, but certainly there are going to be some performances where you go, aw, all I remember is yay. And that's fine too.
But, as has been pointed out, if all you get is nice all the time, it's kind of defeats the purpose of placing these things in competition, if everything is awesome, then why are we trying to pick the best, clearly everything is the best.
And certainly "Top Chef" recently had an episode where the judges told everyone it was a great meal overall, so they were going to have to nitpick to send someone home, and some days that's what happens. But when it happens everyday, it starts to feel like you've wandered into a bad parody of a car dealership, where everything is the best, safest, coolest and fastest car available.

h/t to the NPR MonkeySee blog for the link

Any Given Sunday

2012-01-24T10:26:00.001-05:00

...your heart can be broken. Or filled with joy. That's the beauty of sport, and well, so many other things, but I believe I have recovered enough to talk a moment about football.
So, I recognize that I am terribly unforgiving about receivers who, you know fail to receive (yes, I have been known to say that's your whole job dude, even though I know that there are many factors involved in catching, and that despite their job title it isn't entirely their whole job, just, you know, a really big portion of it and no, I am clearly not still over that year we had that supposedly lauded receiver who could not catch) and yet I often feel really bad about kickers. Partly it's just the nature of the thing, any game that is hanging on the outcome of one final field goal has already had a few ups and downs and some missed scoring chances by all those other folks wearing the same color, and yet, the kicker gets picked on. And look, I am not suggesting that kicking isn't, you know, a really big part of being a kicker, because it absolutely is, I just feel like we expect a ridiculously high amount of accuracy from kickers compared to other players on the field. (And death threats, people. Really? Even in jest, that's not funny.)
Interestingly enough, the folks at Grantland have an interesting note on how icing the kicker never works, but people do it because it's a low risk/possible high reward situation. And the folks at Deadspin have a nice analysis of how rushing a kicker might result in over-rotation like some folks watching this weekend might have seen.
Now, I want to point out, that while I certainly haven't read all the coverage of the games, it is my understanding that the folks who made the last errors in each game that sent their team home to rest up for next year were all apologetic, didn't try to pass the blame to anyone and said they were sorry they couldn't do better for their team. So, gracious.
Perhaps the training they may or may not have had (I personally think everyone should watch that scene in "Bull Durham", but that's just me) would have been well spent on some of the players from one of the winning teams. Of course, this is not to imply that I am for dishonesty, but I think if you don't see anything wrong with saying we just figured he was so concussed all it would take was another hit or two and he'd be done, well, hopefully someone will sit you down and explain that.
And don't get me wrong, if the player in question was in fact concussed, then he should not have been playing. But, as the folks at ALOTT5MA helpfully pointed out, that doesn't mean you want to be the guy who tries to sweep the leg. Given football's ongoing concerns with the long term results of brain injury, one would hope people wouldn't be attempting to concuss their fellow players. I have a cousin who suffered a mild concussion banging his head getting out of a car, and I am certainly not advocating that the car was at fault here. Sometimes things happen. Football is a contact sport. But, there is a critical difference between people being injured as a result of play and people being injured as a result of their fellow players attempting injury.
Now it's possible, that we're over-interpreting what the players meant. They might have meant, he got up slow, so we figured, he was hurting and another tackle or two and he'd be out. And certainly, I understand that any play in football where you have the ball, makes you a target. (And no, I haven't forgotten the linemen either.) But man, does it break my heart to hear players using past incidences of concussions to try and psych themselves into tackling another player. It's stuff like that that makes it hard to justify the entertainment value exceeds the risk of long term injury to the players. Football is already at risk of losing future generations as more and more parents dissuade their kids from participating in the sport until the concussion issue can be better addressed. Players hoping to bang the brain of a fellow player one more time, will do nothing to assist this.

h/t to ALOTT5MA for the links

I Feel Your Pain, Dude

2012-01-23T10:45:00.001-05:00

I have often lamented that while I have injured myself a time or three, my stories about such are usually dull, lacking a certain level of interest. For example, the first time my knee dislocated I was standing next to a water fountain. No, I wasn't even drinking from the water fountain, I was talking to the person using the fountain when bam, I was suddenly on the floor. My mother suggested I tell people I was also chewing gum. (This injury, by the way, resulted in six weeks wearing an ankle to hip cast, followed by several months of physical therapy.)
I was also standing the next two times my knee dislocated. So, my big injury stories are basically, I was standing then I fell.
Most of the doctors and nurses said, "Oh what sport were you playing?" So, I can only imagine that if I was, say, a hockey player and came in with a back injury, most people would assume some sort of aggressive check or fall would be the cause. In the case of a Kings player, the answer (this time, at least) is eating pancakes. Now, I would personally argue that eating pancakes is marginally better than I was standing, and I fell, but it's probably worse because people then want to know what kind of pancakes, and were you eating them funny, or perhaps eating them while standing at center ice. (Answers: vegetarian*, no and no.)
But to give Mr. Penner credit, he is now hosting a charity pancake breakfast, where folks can come and watch him eat pancakes.

*Yes, I am aware most pancakes are vegetarian, but that was his answer.

TBR Challenge 2012: Category Romance

2012-01-18T09:22:00.001-05:00

I have a weird relationship with category romance. I purchase a lot and then it lingers. They are such quick reads when they are good, and such terrible slogs when they are bad. (I realize this is true of most anything.) They use tropes like secret babies and marriages of convenience and sometimes they do it so well and sometimes I want to yell at the book.
So, I picked the late Sandra Hyatt's Lessons in Seduction which was excellent and really should have had a warning label since I started late on a Friday night and next thing I knew it was quite late/quite early and I needed to sleep but I wanted to keep reading. I polished it off for breakfast the next morning. Adam is prince and heir apparent in [fictional principality] and Danni is the daughter of one of the royal drivers so has known Adam since she was five.

Digression: I tend to love the boy/prince next door type stories when done right (which this one was, IMO) but have grown wary because there is a sub-set of these where there is some special night when the two characters are sixteen and talked (or, um, did not talk) under the stars and then ten years later they cross paths and because of this one night forgive each other ridiculous behavior. Like kidnapping.

So, Danni works for the Grand Prixe but sometimes subs for her dad as a driver in a pinch. A few years ago, Adam spilled his drink while she was driving and he fired her. But her dad was feeling under the weather so she takes over a shift one night while Adam is on a date and can't stop herself from making a comment about his technique (or lack thereof). Adam is amused because as prince people mostly don't talk to or about him like that so asks her to please give him some pointers since he has reached that point where it is time to do the royal duty and get himself a wife. Danni accepts, and, as you might suspect, in such proximity they find themselves fighting an attraction to one another (which they have decent reasons for fighting).

(The blurb, which I read later, implies that it is Danni's "commoner" status holding them back. The discussion about their reasons for not dating happens late enough in the book that I don't want to reveal it, but that is not the case.)

This book just came out last year, so it wasn't really lingering in the TBR pile too long, but it was a lovely trip nonetheless.

That Phrase, It Bugs

2012-01-16T10:28:00.001-05:00

So, here's the thing. The phrase "Always a bridesmaid, never a bride" annoys the crippety crap out of me. I understand what it is meant to entail, but if you really think about it, it's annoying. The intention behind the phrase is that as a bridesmaid you are standing by your friend who is getting married, rather than getting married yourself. Totally putting to the side the gender politics, in practice it is often used to reference folks who get second (or third or fourth) place. And that's what bugs me. Because being a bride - while lovely and wonderful - is not winning (not even like that guy means). It certainly demonstrates an important life event, don't get me wrong, but unless you were a contestant on a reality dating show one imagines you did not get to the [altar or courthouse or other place of reverence for you and your intended] by passing a number of tests or completing specific feats of skills. (Unless you and your beloved are into that.)
And, being a bridesmaid is not a consolation prize. It's not like being second runner up (unless, again, you were in the aforementioned dating show, in which case it might be). If the bride is unable to fulfill her duties you do not get to just swoop in. You might be already married or even related by blood to the groom. I realize I am way overthinking this phrase, but seriously, can't we come up with something better? Always a silver medalist, for example, is just as easy to say.

Perhaps if I Had a Garden, I Could Find Things

2012-01-12T09:33:00.001-05:00

We all misplace things from time to time, and honestly, the only thing more annoying that finding something right where you looked the first three times, is finding it somewhere it had no business being. (The finding part is great, it's the things disappearing part that I still find a bit rude.)
So, imagine how frustrating it would be to lose something as precious as a wedding ring. (Actually, my dad lost his wedding ring in my parents first year of marriage. Fortunately for him and their marriage, he lost it doing a little cliff diving at Waimea while my mom watched. Although I believe this did help her case that jumping off a cliff was not a great pastime.)
A woman in Sweden lost her wedding ring after removing it to do some baking with the family. They searched all over, even going so far as to take up floorboards to see if it had rolled under. Then they discovered it sixteen years later on a carrot. They think it must have fallen into the sink and been scooped up with the potato peels they then composted and sprinkled over the garden. Amusingly, they also feed the compost to the sheep, and then use the sheep dung as fertilizer, so it's possible it detoured that way too.
But the important thing, is now they've found it.

Got No Game

2012-01-11T11:16:00.000-05:00

A few people linked to this video on Twitter, entitled "How to Hit on an Asian Girl". (It should probably be called how not to, but anyway.) Now, I am not Asian looking enough to get most of this, but having lived in quite a few neighborhoods where street harassment is the norm, I work on the assumption that the street harassment portion is almost like burping, not in that it is natural (because really, cultural heritage aside, I think we should be working on evolving past this) but that people do it reflexively and don't truly expect that "Me love you long time" or "I've never been with a redhead" (which I get now, but trust me when I did not have red hair, I did not experience less harassment) is actually supposed to lead to a relationship or even a date. (Perhaps I am wrong. If you out there thought this produced dates, I suggest you re-evaluate. And spend some quality time over at Collective Action (formerly Holla Back DC) and read what the people you are harassing really think.)
But what's horrifying, in the oh-my-god-trainwreck sense, are the longer bits demonstrated in the second portion of the video. Now part of this is excellent acting, but a lot of this is that it's clear that the male (and all the harassers and flirtation outreachers featured in this video are male) thinks that this is him being culturally aware as he suggests that the lady in question might wish to make him food or discuss what country she emigrated from or the current political situation in Asia and instead is coming across as if he assumes that Asian people only eat or make Asian food (and, in one scenario, only of the kind that they are genetically connected to) and spend a lot of time pondering the politics of places they may be several generations removed from.

Dead Things Decompose

2012-01-09T12:11:00.001-05:00

From the water is wet files, a few news outlets and such have mentioned the ongoing case where a man states that he discovered a mouse in his soda can and is suing. Now, as you may know, there has been an urban legend for a while about such a thing.
The thing that has been drawing the attention is that contained within the list of reasons that the soda company gave for how this is simply not credible, they stated that a mouse left in a container of soda would have decomposed. This has led to people swearing off that kind of soda or all soda.
And here's the thing, I won't promise you that soda is good for you. But I do know that if I wanted to preserve a mouse carcass, or even, for that matter keep a mouse alive, I would not place the mouse in a container of liquid. (Well, okay, probably formaldehyde would work on a dead mouse. And yes, I do recommend drinking formaldehyde.)
There were also some emails that circulated once upon a time about teeth dissolving if you left them sitting in soda. Soda contains acid. Given time acids dissolve things. (Actually, that's kinda how your stomach works. Also, please follow this Snopes link for the hilarious story of testing leaving a fly in a cup of soda and a cup of drain cleaner. Lesson, flies should not drink drain cleaner.)
So, given enough time, leaving anything in a cup of acidic liquid will start to dissolve.
And also included in this filing by the soda company was that based on a can provided, this can was sealed at the factory in August. The can was purchased for drinking in November. This is not overnight, we are talking. This is three months. So yes, I absolutely recommend not soaking your teeth, your fingers, your stomach or your pets in soda for about three months.
The mouse the guy claims was in his soda was two to four weeks old. Which means this mouse was not even born at the time the soda was sealed. So, the far more interesting thing is to me, not that the mouse would be decomposed after being submerged in soda for three months, but that someone found, took or otherwise procured a dead mouse (since the mouse autopsy apparently indicates the mouse did not drown, so was dead when it went in the soda) and then tried to sue a soda company. But, YMMV.

Where Did Friday Go?

2012-01-05T09:10:00.001-05:00

This happened a few days ago (depending on how you count) but is too fascinating for me to let go by. So, apparently, in the 1800's, the some US traders convinced the Samoans that it would be really helpful if the Samoans were in the same timezone as American Samoa so the Samoans switched their timezone. But, of course, times change, and nowadays Samoa trades with New Zealand and Australia as much as American territories, plus, one imagines in this increasingly global world, we are a little more accustomed to accounting for such things, and it was kind of weird for Samoa to basically be operating in the incorrect timezone (I mean, yes, the timezones are essentially false constructs anyway, but you know what I mean) so, they decided in 2012 to embrace the local timezone.
However, the "local" timezone was on the other side of the dateline, so basically, Samoans this year went from Thursday the 29th straight into Saturday the 31st and rang in 2012 with their newly aligned timezone. Hopefully this will have a positive impact, because everyone who lost a workday is getting paid for it. (Also, that seems like that takes the sting out of losing a Friday.)
The ALOTT5MA comments have some interesting links about what this means for those who lost a sabbath, or will see it shift as a result.

h/t to ALOTT5MA for the link.

2011 Reading Tally

2012-01-04T09:13:00.001-05:00

2011 was good reading year. Still not quite up to 2007 standards, but I'm starting to view that as the year I just was so excellent and move on. (I follow someone on Twitter who posts triple my reading amounts, so I know these things are possible, but perhaps not for me. It's all good.) And, my current TBR pile, is still less than two years reading, no matter which year I use as reference, so there's that too. Still going to work on the TBR pile, because some of those things, especially a few I'm halfway through and just groan at the thought of finishing should just be finished or retired once and for all.
I did count novellas because my old rule was that anything that I could buy separately counts as a book (and therefore anthologies count as one book, although the number of those I read was pretty low this year) and while epublishing has made this less of a standard, I don't care, they all count.
So, grand total: 129
Number of those that were novellas - 16.
84 different authors* represented, which is strangely similar to previous years. December was my rocking month with 22 and February apparently ate my brain because I have 1 finish that month. Author I read the most was Jill Shalvis at 6. I also tried out 38 new to me authors. Series junkie status remains high with 71 of those books being part of a series. And most common type was romance again with 79, although YA is a strong second there with 30. And there were a banner (for me) 8 non-fictions in there this year, thanks to some really funny people writing memoirs or essay type things I wanted to read. And in sub-categories, contemporary reined supreme with 70, compared to 14 historical and 36 paranormal/futuristic/dystopian/steampunk. 71 of these books were published in 2011, so I am still a new release junkie also.

And I hate doing top ten lists because I invariably feel like so many things were good - I really do enjoy a lot of books. None of the things I didn't finish are on the above list. So instead of a top some random number, I shall use the somewhat random books I remember talking to people about (outside of book club, since, well, you know):
-The Sweetest Thing by Jill Shalvis which I still maintain was secretly written for me even if that is a secret to the author herself.
-13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson managed to encapsulate so much of what backpacking through Europe was like I wondered if she had found my travel journal.
-Beauty Queens by Libba Bray is about a plane full of pageant contestants who crash onto a deserted island Lord of the Flies style. Honestly, that's all I had to know to click buy, so I have trouble properly explaining to to people because I just say that, and go, awesome, right? (And technically this was also a book club book, but trust me, I have talked about this to quite a few people.)
-Welcome to Last Chance by Hope Ramsay who is my lovely chapter mate, but, seriously her description of this had me checking her name tag so I could go get this on my wishlist.
-Wishes and Stitches by Rachael Herron - I've enjoyed this whole series but this one just grabbed me and made me write a fangirly email.
-When Beauty Tamed the Beast by Eloisa James is another one I have trouble describing because I go it's a retelling of "Beauty and the Beast" with Dr. House as the beast, and really, if Eloisa James hadn't already been on my auto-buy list, this would have been enough to have me snapping it up. (Actually, since she was, I didn't even know this since I don't read back cover copy, so I just gasped as I was reading.)
-In the Dark of Dreams by Marjorie M. Liu is about a woman who finally meets (or re-meets) the merman she keeps dreaming about. It just gripped me, as has much of the series.
-Dragon Bound by Thea Harrison was just such an enjoyable read.
-Forget You by Jennifer Echols is another one I have trouble describing because I picked it out of the pile to read with dinner and next thing I knew it was ten p.m. so I kind of just think people should trust me, but it is about a girl who was in a car accident on her way home from a party and doesn't quite remember what happened at the party, but doesn't want anyone to know she doesn't remember, even though, clearly, things have changed.
(Hey look, that's seven. I didn't even plan that!)

*I counted authors rather than pen names.

So, That Zookeeper

2012-01-03T09:06:00.001-05:00

As we ease into the new year (and for those of us who only get major holidays, the bleak months of no official holidays), it seems some amusement is in order. So, if one gave a touchscreen tablet (yes, I am avoiding the specific word, no need to alert the spambots) to some orangutans, what things might they do. Would they write Shakespeare, learn to play angry birds or discover kitten videos on the internet?
Well, one group wanted to find out (and they are apparently pretty good with some games) but next, they want to see how the orangutans react to being able to video chat with each other.

h/t to the Tweeple for the link

I'm a Joiner

2011-12-29T17:00:00.001-05:00

I'm joining in the fun of the Super Librarian's TBR challenge for 2012 in an attempt to encourage me to dive farther back into shelves (e and paper) and because it will also get me back into the habit of talking about books I liked a little more often (or, you know, didn't like). Anyhoo, looking forward to it. And next week or so should also start me with my 2011 round ups. (I like to wait until 2011 is, you know, actually done.)

Even Zoo Animals Have Neighbor Problems

2011-12-28T12:24:00.001-05:00

I want to stress that everyone is okay, which is why I'm going to poke a little fun. When I first saw the headline that a crocodile in Australia had snapped up a lawnmower, I was intrigued because, let's face it, lawnmowers do not sound that appetizing. As it happens, the crocodile - named Elvis - is in a reptile park and a keeper was mowing the lawn. Elvis lunged at the keeper, I feel certain that he was tired of the stupid lawnmower noise, and the keeper brandished the lawnmower at him so Elvis took the lawnmower and plunked into the lagoon. He then guarded the lawnmower, the keepers say like a new toy, but I again stand by my theory that he wanted to make sure they didn't take it back and start mowing again. They eventually distracted Elvis and got the mower back. (I assume so that it wouldn't leech toxins into the lagoon since I'm guessing even zoo-grade lawnmowers are not designed for full submersion. They say Elvis is quite pleased with himself, and why not, the mowing stopped, and he got kangaroo meat. Sounds like an excellent day for a crocodile.

Look, it's Free Stuff

2011-12-22T15:19:00.003-05:00

It is a wonderful thing knowing talented people. So, over here we have a tale of what happened after Little Red Riding Hood, by my lovely chapter-mate Alethea Kontis (Red may have gone a little stalkery over her woodcutter).
And, if music is your thing, and you'll be in DC for New Year's, Showlist DC has a chance to win tickets to the 9:30 Club's concert. (Showlist DC, if you are unaware, compiles all of the DC/Balto area concerts in one convenient listing. Seriously brilliant. And I would say that even if it wasn't run by a fellow yarny person.)

Look, it's Free Stuff

2011-12-22T15:19:00.001-05:00

Does This Count as Sculpture Graffiti?

2011-12-19T12:19:00.001-05:00

I was alerted to this story of mysterious paper sculptures that appeared around Edinburgh. The sculptures are gorgeous and I love a story about happy gifts being left for nice places. Apparently the artist did leave a note with the final sculpture indicating that she was a she, not a he, and that she enjoyed remaining anonymous (but apparently not being referred to as male). Hopefully these gifts got extra visitor traipsing through these places.

That Would Never Happen

2011-12-14T10:56:00.001-05:00

I had forgotten to mention that my fellow WRW chapter-mate has a blog - the Prime Time Crime Review, where she looks at "Law and Order: SVU" and compares it to her experience as a prosecutor. I confess, I'm not a big SVU fan, but I still find this type of analysis really interesting, and apparently I'm not the only one since the ABA has named the blog of of the best of 2011.
I also read and enjoyed Allison's book, Law of Attraction. It was so nice to read a DC book by someone who has an actual idea of the place. ( I may have cheered when I read the protagonist had a basement apartment.)

Those Kind of Books

2011-12-12T10:24:00.001-05:00

Because it's that kind of morning, let me share Maya Rodale's video on why people are trying to convince you not to read romance.
And should you instead (or also) wish for more Trekkie cookie humor, we have this.

h/t to my Face book friends, from whom I shamelessly stole these links.

Teaching Prisoners to Knit

2011-12-08T09:28:00.001-05:00

I thought I had mentioned this before, but apparently not. I first heard about this program when one of the local yarn stores was trying to help garner votes for a donation to support the program. The program at the time was teaching prisoners to knit and having them make trauma buddies (stuffed items trauma workers could offer to a kid at a trauma scene to try and help calm them down). This article states that the program has expanded beyond that and now even has a waiting list.
I'm so happy to hear that this program has had such success. And hopefully, some similar programs will get started elsewhere.

Memo to My Teen Self: Ha!

2011-12-05T13:20:00.001-05:00

This got passed to me after the youth group had a discussion about education. Now, the part of this that interests me is this school board member went and took the test that they give tenth graders to measure reading and math skills. Now, I think there's an interesting point here. I think this piece overlooks the things that I was sure I would never need again, and then, maybe did, but certainly there's food for thought. If these adults all agree that many of these things are not useful to their current lives and jobs, then is this the measure we want to use while evaluating schools and kids and who should think about college.
Now, I confess, I was (and still seem to be) a pretty good test taker, so I was not led astray by errant test results. But while I understand the value of having some sort of consistent measure of students from different schools, I think most people agree these things have flaws. I'm not sure there is a perfect solution, but maybe there is a better solution. And kids, maybe you should see if you can get your parents to take the test.

I Feel Better About My Job

2011-11-28T10:52:00.001-05:00

I think most of us know, for all the ups and downs, there are worse job than ours. (Heck there are TV shows about it.) But, in case you needed a reminder why you are not a firefighter (in addition to that whole firefighter risk - and PS. if you are a firefighter, go you!) the London fire brigade has compiled a year's worth of emergency calls include the time ten firefighters had to assist in the removal of a penis ring. Another man became stuck in a child's toy car (I really want to know if the kid was at home or if this was a chance to regress or what).
Now their point here was to ask the public to consider that there might be better things that firefighters could be doing with their time (like say, fighting fires) so if people could work on not needing such assistance they would appreciate it.
And, to end on a happy note, I shall link to firefighters rescuing a kitten trapped in a pipe.

Straight Turkey

2011-11-25T17:14:00.001-05:00

It is my fondest wish to get to the age where when you say certain things it is cute. (This, as far as I can tell, runs from about 3-6, and then pauses til about seventy). So, I adore Margaret and Helen, two real life grandmas whose grandkids find them hilarious, so started a blog for them. They are not shy, not about family or politics, so it's not for everyone, but I adore them. And in particular, the annual Thanksgiving letter which has been posted. Small sample:
"We lost your Grandpa this year and suddenly everyone wants to be together for the holidays. Well isn't that just the shit. I hope you all learned your lesson. Treasure your family while they are still here – not after they are gone. Life is a series of lessons. Pay attention.
Now about Thanksgiving… Your Aunt Trudy thinks that just because Thanksgiving dinner is at her house this year, I am not in charge. Well bless her heart."
The rest is here.

Just the Headline

2011-11-22T09:17:00.001-05:00

I spotted this DCist headline and paused. I wanted to know the rest of the story, but I also wanted to take time to ponder the possibilities.
The headline in question: "In Which Marion Barry Compares The Redskins To Christ". Now the possibilities that occurred to me look something like this:
-Both dead but many are hoping for a comeback.
-Revered by some, not so much others.
-You either get it or you don't.
-Unfairly treated by those they were supposed to be able to trust. (In the case of the team, I may possibly be referring to an owner.)
-People pay a lot of attention to them part of the year, and ignore them the rest.
-Hoping for long term rewards for support.
-Fandom can be expensive and heart-wrenching.
And then I clicked. Not sure if it's good or terribly scary, that I am able to channel Marion Barry like that. I'm going to call it years of study and move on.

Long Ago on Thanksgiving

2011-11-21T10:48:00.001-05:00

My high school chorus participated in America Sings for several years. The basic idea was for various choral groups to join together and raise money for charity. As part of this we had the opportunity to sing in some cool places. One of them was the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. (You know, back when there were Macy's.) So, that year the folks from my chorus who had gotten permission to spend turkey day away from their family headed up to New York. We rehearsed with the other groups in a hotel conference room. We discovered flesh tone sparkly lycra tights at a drug store which was a huge coup, because our outfits for this were strictly regulated.
The guys had to wear white pants, white turtleneck, red sweatshirt (with America Sings logo) and a Santa hat. Us girls got to wear white skirt, white turtleneck, red sweatshirt (with logo) and a Santa hat. Same, same, right? No. The guys were allowed to wear any white pair of pants. Corduroys, cargo, chinos. Plus, due to the nature of pants, they could put long underwear or all manner of layers underneath, as long as it didn't show. The girls were issued a shiny polyester circle skirt (it did twirl really well) that was just sheer enough to display anything not flesh toned that might be beneath it. So, sure, I had an extra layer for under the turtleneck, but my bottom half was still going to be less covered. So the lycra stocking were excellent, and I layered a pair of pantyhose over the top.
During rehearsals we were split into two groups. One group was going to dance on or about the float that ran the length of the parade. The rest of us would hang out (outside, did I mention it was a particularly chilly Thanksgiving) and join the group for the Herald Square dance number. For part of our Herald Square number we were being joined by Clifton Davis (who Wikipedia tells me I share a birthday with, man, we could have bonded over that) who was at the time starring in "Amen". So, we teens lined up in rows with a path down the center and Clifton sang and danced his way down the middle stopping in little clusters that magically appeared (or were carefully rehearsed). So, the nice girl next to me in line and I got selected to be the end points of one of these clusters, to lean forward and smile and keep singing along. Then in the second day of rehearsal they changed the location of the clusters. But halfway through the day, they hated that and moved it back to us. Yay, our fifteen seconds of fame.
I did not tell my family this little tidbit, they had planned their gathering for the year around the parade, so were going to be watching together. So, the day dawned and those of us who were non-floaters, waited on a side street with other folks. It was cold. We were up ridiculously early, I guess in case the previous 22 acts all didn't show up, and we needed to go on early. (Or because it was easier for us all to be there at the start. I suppose that's possible.)
Our turn came and we headed out on the square and the music began. And when the time came for my group for form our magic cluster, the girl on the other side of me shoved me out of the way so that she could stand next to Clifton Davis. (My aunt assures me that the shoving made it on TV.) So, my family did catch a few glimpses of me, including the time that girl shoved me out of the way. And all in all, it was a fun time. And I still remember that song. (It was a Thanksgiving-ified version of "On a Wonderful Day Like Today" with a little Christmas rap thrown in.) But I have new respect for the performers and how cold some of their outfits must be.

I Know He's Not Dead, But

2011-11-18T09:26:00.001-05:00

I worked at a job for several years in my twenties that was about fifteen minutes away, and I was expected at 9:30. So, I got up, watched morning TV, including the first fifteen minutes of "Regis and Kathie Lee" and then went to work. I quit that job and the next job I got started earlier, but on days off, I watched it. And when my job changed to telecommuting, I watched it every morning. (I experimented with watching TV all day, but strangely found I was less productive.) But the morning TV worked and provided some noise of other people that you miss when telecommuting. On balance, I've probably missed more episodes than I've seen, but it's been a staple that I was glad to know was there. Certainly record setting shows don't come along very often, and I know the show will continue on, as will Mr. Philbin (who keeps saying he's not retiring, he's moving on).
But thanks very much for helping me wake up each morning.

Where We Get Serious

2011-11-15T13:14:00.001-05:00

I don't want to spend too much time on the whole Penn State thing, because it's being covered extensively, because it's still unfolding, and because it's depressing. But as someone who works with teen children, and in that role has been through quite a few sessions on appropriate behavior there are a few things I feel compelled to say.
1. Much like serial killers don't often look insane, otherwise we could just keep a better eye on the crazy looking folks, pedophiles often don't exude a creepy vibe, they seem really cool and awesome (you know, until they don't.) There's a post over on ALOTT5MA about the "cool" teacher at another school.
2. Also, pedophiles don't usually abuse all kids. Experienced pedophiles will often develop a sense for kids who are more likely to tell and avoid them.
3. It is absolutely, positively never too late to tell on someone who has abused you. It may be too late for the police to collect evidence, but it is important information for the police, and that persons employers to have so they can do their best to make sure no further abuse occurs.
4. Reporting abuse to your boss is a great first step. However, if you actually witnessed abuse, you should also go to the police. If your boss tells you they will notify the police and the police don't come talk to you, call the police yourself.
5. Also, it would be nice if you intervened on said abuse when it is occurring in your presence, but I will allow that shock or disbelief might have thrown you a bit.
6. Saying hey there, could you just not bring the kids your abusing here is not an acceptable answer. (Just in case you weren't sure.)
7. There are tons of resources if you have been abused or exploited or think you may have witnessed inappropriate behavior. RAINN has a list by state, in addition to their own resources.

How Fast?

2011-11-10T17:45:00.001-05:00

I have heard tales of the inaccuracies of speed cameras, including the story of the tree that was clocked going 80. But imagine you were on your bicycle. Now certainly, bicycles making use of the street are bound by the traffic laws (all of them, people) but one generally imagines without the aid of serious downhill momentum, speed is not something your average cyclist has to worry to much about exceeding.
So, now imagine your town has installed speed cameras. People grumbled, as they do. People complained that they were sure they had not been going that fast, as they do. Now imagine the speed camera clocked a cyclist going 57. (Cheverly has stopped the program now. As the article helpfully points out, that speed is over the current land speed record for cycling on a flat surface.)

h/t to DCist for the link

7 Things: Writers Google

2011-11-07T09:47:00.001-05:00

Being a writer means googling weird things sometimes. Here's a small sample. (Not all for the same story.)
1. CPR. I knew they had changed it, but couldn't quite remember how. Hilariously, the Wikipedia entry includes the warning that while you can perform it on animals, you should probably only do it on unconscious animals lest they bite you. (It's a good tip.)
2. Effects of date rape drugs. (This one I was very careful in my phrasing. My character was a victim not a criminal.)
3. Honor council proceedings.
4. College chemistry syllabus.
5. Hiking tips for Hawaii.
6. Mythology.
7. Famous people born in DC.

Fifty Years

2011-11-03T11:12:00.001-04:00

In third grade my school's handbook was adorned with the school's "It's Academic" team, who had been triumphant winners that year. School legend had it that someone had said that a team from a girls school could never win, so it was particularly sweet, even if my closest contact with those seniors and juniors was that picture.
On entering high school, we often gathered to head to the local NBC station (which, fortunately for me, was fairly close to my house) to attend tapings and cheer for the team. One year a member of our team was dating a member of a rival school's team, upping the drama quotient. Attending a taping was a strange thing, the set looks a little shabbier in person. It seems impossible that it hasn't been touched up over the years, and yet in person, it looks like maybe it hasn't. (I'm sure it has, at some point.)
The host, Mac McGarry looks exactly like he does on TV. It's a little eerie.
But it is a neat thing, that as this reflection on "It's Academic" points out, that there is this long running show where cheerleaders, dance teams and marching bands, along with other fellow students and teachers and parents come out to cheer for smart kids. (I know other areas have their versions of such a thing, I'm simply pleased that there is one here.)
The show has been running since 1961, and Mac McGarry has been the host all this time. However, he has now retired due to health reasons. So, thanks, Mr. McGarry for fifty years of hosting. You will be missed.

h/t to DCist for the link.

7 Things, the Linkety Link Edition

2011-11-02T12:56:00.001-04:00

In honor of day 2 of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), I present seven weird, strange or unusual stories. In case you are either casting about for ideas, or tired of reading about people casting about for ideas.
1. A man attempts to fake his own death to try and avoid his probation hearing. (He will now be serving time for falsifying a distress signal.)
2. A student runs a banned book library from her locker.
3. A woman loses a day after having sex. Not due to fatigue, but because she experiences amnesia, unable to remember the twenty four hours following orgasm.
4. Okay, this one is Wikipedia, not a story, but I am fascinated to discover that there is a term for those folks on the street trying to get you to give money for their charity - chuggers, a combo of charity and muggers. (I had been calling them clipboard people, but this is way more fun.)
5. A man spends two and a half hours on DC public transit (no, that's not the amazing part) and arrives at church where folks notice that he has been shot.
6. Five things people have used to try and smuggle drugs through the airport. Including legwarmers.
7. What do you wear to interview a student who ran onto the football field during a game in a banana suit? Apparently a grape outfit.

And That's the End of the Tourmobile

2011-10-31T19:30:00.002-04:00

My mother is a big believer in doing all the tourist things, even in your hometown. Perhaps especially so. So, it wasn't uncommon for us to head off and see museums, the National Cathedral, or various other spots around town. And one time, she decided we should all do the Tourmobile, saying you shouldn't have to wait for visitor for the excuse to look like a tourist for a day. So we went (armed with a careful plan my mother had put together) and hit places that Tourmobile got us to a little easier than one could by metro or on foot.
I used a similar strategy in Barcelona travelling the Bus Turistic since it got to places like the Olympic Park that were outside the metro (or a very long walk).
Sure, I had wondered why there weren't other buses doing what Tourmobile did. And I see less of them these days. So I was sad to hear a combo of monopolism and the economy mean that the Tourmobile is no more. Sure, there are still plenty of ways to see DC (and it's environs) but, I'm still a little sad to see this one go.

It's All About Perspective

2011-10-25T15:43:00.001-04:00

There's a poster out there somewhere that says, "How long 2 minutes is depends on what side of the bathroom door you're on."
The other day I was walking down the street. Park Street to be exact, which in this section (between 14th and 16th) is one way with parking on both sides. Traffic tends to back up there a little because there's a light at 16th and another light just a half block back, plus all it takes is one person trying to turn into all the traffic on 16th to jam everyone up a bit. So, it's two blocks that can take a few light cycles to get through, frustrating, but not the end of the world. (Although yes, this might be why we have the worst traffic.)
So, I missed the precipitating event here, but looked over to see that two guys had gotten out of their car and were helping a guy lying in the street to get up. (It took both of them to lift him.) Then one grabbed his bicycle. (I was on the sidewalk, these guys were on the other side of the car from me, so I could see, but only from an angle.) I was watching to see if maybe someone should dial 911. The cyclist seemed, once upright to be moving okay if slowly and possibly a little embarrassed. The guys from the car started to ask what had happened. I was not the only pedestrian who stopped to look. And a few folks from cars lined up behind also popped open their doors and leaned out. It was at this point that someone yelled, "Do you have to do this in the street?" The guys from the car waved their acknowledgment and after checking in with the cyclist moved back to their car. The guys who had popped their head out of their cars all shut their doors and one of them took this opportunity to lay on his horn. (I know I am my father's daughter because I considered banging on his window and asking why he was being a jerk. I know I am my mother's daughter because I did not.)
Several cars back people seemed quieter. Now, I admit that given my obscured angle, and the fact that all of this occurred in the small space between cars, not everyone could see much of anything other than the driver had gotten out of the car. I am guessing that the two guys did not hit the cyclist but given his proximity on the street to their car felt that a - it would be nice to make sure he was okay and b - if they drove further they might hit him (or someone behind them might not even see a cyclist lying in the street.
Given recent events here and abroad where folks have lain in the street for hours, it was great that these guys helped. And while certainly I understand that it takes just a little bit of driving these days before I see twelve really idiotic things, and depending on your vantage point of the situation, this may have seemed like the thirteenth, so your patience may have been worn down. But, I still think that it might be time to consider that people might have a really good reason (sometimes) for what they are doing. And laying on your horn has never made anyone smarter.

I'm a Stealthy Swiper

2011-10-24T09:41:00.001-04:00

DCist lists the various types and methods of passing your SmarTrip* over the reader.

*Hard, reloadable metro card.

Too Much Information

2011-10-19T11:00:00.001-04:00

Living in a multi-family dwelling (aka apartment building) can be an interesting thing. There is good (neighbors who share flan) and bad (party guests who decide to wrestle at one in the morning, right in front of your neighbor's window). It also means that, particularly if there are enough of you, all it takes is one person's smoke detector going unattended, and, well, everyone is tromping down the stairs at three in the morning. And even with all those neighbors, I don't always hear what happened. So, having a resource like the DCFIREEMS Twitter account is useful. It lets me know if all those fire trucks are racing towards my building and if everyone's okay. It lets me know if that traffic backup due to the injured pedestrian is close to being cleared. In fact, it kind of does what Twitter was really intended for. So, I am saddened to hear that the employee who had managed the account for a while has been moved to a new position and they are hoping that the new person will be, shall we say, less effective in the dissemination of information. This is a big city. Not every fire even makes the news. (Not to give the impression that DC is a hotbed of fires, but let's face it, only on a slow news day does a fire where no one was hurt tend to get even a passing mention.) And, even if they did, often by the time the news covers it, it's hours later. I don't think it's ridiculous to want to know now. And my alternative is to bug people who should be, you know, putting out the fire. I'm hoping this decision gets changed. (Again. This has already flip flopped once this year. Here's hoping for one more.)
In the interim, the firefighter's union has taken over some of this.

h/t to TBD for the link to the Atlantic.

The Maginot Line and Other Facts Gathered

2011-10-17T16:34:00.001-04:00

My high school history teacher asked a question one day and was met with silence. We were discussing the events leading up to World War II and how what in retrospect seemed like a clear escalating power grab, seemed at the time to enough people to be some guy doing stuff that the other countries didn't care about much. (She may have implied that included Poland, saying that people were always taking over Poland. Or I may be embellishing this in my memory.) And she mentioned that the French were not worried because they thought they had defenses in place after the Great War. Did anyone know what? This brought on the silence. And then I remembered reading something. Not in the history book (although one imagines it was there.) In Judith Krantz's Til We Meet Again there is a conversation between Delphine and Armand during where she (with a certainty not dissimilar to what my teacher was describing) says that France will be fine, they have the Maginot Line. My teacher was happy to have elicited an answer and the class went on. And let me tell you, I still remember the Maginot Line.
Now, I am not going to suggest that reading romance or other novels is a substitution for doing your homework. But, sometimes those little facts placed in the context of an intriguing story can help make them more memorable. (And it is possible, that being a fun bantery conversation I may have read it, you know, multiple times.)
I still know quite a bit about the Civil War as a result of my extensive reading of John Jakes' North and South trilogy. (I have stopped torturing the tour guides in Harper's Ferry who all bring up the story of how the one church on the river didn't get destroyed because they flew a British flag. (No, no one seems to know why that worked once the British allied with the South. It is apparently not in the tour guide manual.)
Til We Meet Again also inspired me to read a biography on Amy Johnson. And to read more World War II based novels. One of which (the name escapes me at the moment) introduced me to Jackie Cochran and the Women's Air Service Pilots.
Certainly a basic knowledge of HIPAA or law procedure can make a sane person want to cry while reading some contemporaries. (Or rant.) But, contemporary novels have offered me the chance to experience some different professions, locations and experiences.
So, a book titled Everything I Know I Learned From Romance Novels was in my wheelhouse, as it were, already. Make it by the lovely Sarah Wendell, aka Smart Bitch Sara and it was a done deal. The book covers things less from a will it help you in history class perspective (shocking, I know, maybe there will be a sequel) and more from the ways that romance novels can offer opportunities for readers to escape but also evaluate the situations for themselves. While it seems likely that I will not have to fight off a horde of zombies with the aid of my demon protectors (for example) books offer the opportunity to walk in those shoes and even the moments that make you want to say, "Oh, honey, no," are useful for just that.
I may keep a copy around for the next time someone says, "Oh I figure I'll just write a romance since they don't have plots." At the very least I can smack them upside the head with it.

Hi, I'm a Girl

2011-10-12T17:34:00.001-04:00

So, it's been an interesting fall already on the gender front. At least, you know as far as pop culture goes. The Monkey See blog has an excellent post about how many of this fall's new TV shows seem to be existing in some place where there are manly men and wimpy men only. (And yes, I have heard folks mention that the article focuses on a strict gender binary, which is fair, but even within that frame, I think we can all agree that some of the new stuff still, you know, sucks at portraying any attempt at a realistic spectrum.)
And sure, I read about trends and things so I had noticed this movement in the world of soda where attempts to lure men to diet soda have moved from the been there, done that we swear cool guys drink this too of the nineties (by the way, just went and looked that up, aw, good times) to sodas with supposedly manlier labels and removal of the word diet in place of words like max and zero. I do not have access to whatever research there is on male soda drinking habits, but let's imagine for a moment that there is some and that somewhere in there it provides reason to believe that there are tons of men who secretly wish that they could drink a low calorie soda, but are attached to the idea that low calorie sodas are for girls.
(And no, I'm not touching with a ten foot pole the ads for low calorie beers because I could write a treatise on the inequities and insanities found there.)
Now, in the interest of disclosure, I personally do not drink low calorie sodas (personal choice, totally not based on my gender) but I do occasionally drink soda. And when I do (I sound like I'm in an ad, weird, not my intention) I drink Dr. Pepper. So, I am so sorry to hear that the decision has apparently been made somewhere that just showing (supposedly) manly men sipping their manly drinks while doing manly things is not quite overt enough for their new low calorie soda. No, they have decided to come right out and say, "Not for women." (Not kidding - look here. SishFW, you can choose to click the video portion or not.)
As Gothamist rightly points out this is actually equally offensive to men and women. (So, um, great job there.) Soda is not gender based. (Unless the soda makers have something they need to tell us.) Now certainly Dr. Pepper has the right to market their soda based on gender. But I remain a bit amazed that they would choose to alienate so much of their potential population (and no, I do not just mean women.)

How to Hit All 50 States in a Few Days

2011-10-10T09:47:00.001-04:00

There is a bike ride each year that hits all the state streets in one day. But, one local teacher filed it using a bike cam over a few days and put together this video. So, go have a look.

I am Biased, but...

2011-10-07T11:04:00.001-04:00

When I heard that a group from Howard University was competing in this year's "The Sing Off", I was predisposed to wish them well, local group and all. (It helps that the heats kept them separate from the only group I had actual prior knowledge of.) This year's "The Sing Off" continues to prove that a capella comes in all shapes and sizes, and that judging can be critical and still extremely thoughtful and respectful.
TBD, has a nice little link to Afro-Blue's first performance, which was excellent.
And NPR's Monkey See blog has a link to their second, as well as the suggestion (with which I agree) that the large group numbers that they start every show with are amazing and worth flipping to (if you must move on to other TV that night, though, until "Chuck" comes back, what are you watching? I kid, I kid.)
Because of the heats, Afro-Blue will not be on next week's episode, but will return the following week when they collapse from two heats into one. Of course, I expect the six groups appearing Monday to provide excellent performances as well.

Would You Like Free Stuff?

2011-10-05T09:47:00.001-04:00

From the not getting paid for this files, the lovely ladies over at the Waterworld Mermaids have banded together and are posting an anthology of short stories that they are posting on their blog for much of October. A list of who and what along with a snazzy trailer is here.
In the interest of disclosure, these guys are all in my writing chapter, and I have read stuff from most of them, so am biased, but hey, free!

I'm Not a Hoarder But...

2011-10-03T10:23:00.001-04:00

...I am the daughter of two collectors. Less kind people might refer to us as clutterbugs. It's apparently a recessive gene because my sister rearranges and purges all her stuff every six months and my brother upgrades his TV regularly, but doesn't hang on to stuff too much. But, my sister did turn me onto "Storage Wars" which is one of those shows where you think - really, a show about storage units? But, it fits that thing where it's interesting to watch the personalities and the guesses they make about the units and when they're right and find something worth money and when they're wrong and end up with a half empty box of diapers and some used porn.
I also have to tell you it confirms my worst fears about storage units. There are legitimate reasons and uses for such things, but I think just as often people have exceeded their space, they shunt stuff off to storage and then don't ever do anything with the stuff in there. And then forget to pay the bill.
But, there is one guy, Barry - they list him as "the collector" because he gets excited about units that may have something weird or unusual in there, rather than looking for things like jewelery or furniture or what-have-you. Most of these folks run consignment shops or work with other re-sellers. Barry, goes through the motions, hunting down the experts when he makes a find and getting the estimate. And often enough, he keeps it. I don't know what he does (or did) for his livelihood (and I don't need to) but this would be me. And this is why I do not have a career as a storage unit scavenger in my future.

Banned Books and Things

2011-09-27T09:29:00.001-04:00

So, I started off banned book week by going to the National Book Festival. I saw quite a few authors, and if you to want to feel like you were there, keep an eye out here, they upload videos and podcasts. It's always fascinating to me to hear different authors talk about their process especially since they are always so different. Also, some of them are very funny in person, and some would rather read and turn it over to Q&A really quickly. (Although Dave Eggers wanted to crawl under the podium when he read a line about masturbation.)
But, to bring us back to banned books, there were several authors there who have books or stories that have been banned or challenged, including Sherman Alexie (who made the ALA's top ten last year), Eric Jerome Dickey, Katherine Paterson, Sarah Dessen and Laura Lippman.
And I see that Hunger Games made the list because it gave a child nightmares. As I say all the time, I'm not diminishing nightmares (they suck) or any parent's right to decide their child is not ready for a certain book. However, that does not mean that no child who uses that library should have access to that book.

Thank you, Mr. Henson

2011-09-23T09:03:00.001-04:00

Jim Henson would have been 75 this weekend. My sister and I had really strict bedtimes up through high school. But we were allowed to watch "The Muppet Show". We watched it, usually as a family, in the family room on a black and white TV. (No, I am not that old, we had a color TV, it just lived in my parents room. I thought Big Bird was grey when I was a kid. My mother thinks this is hilarious.) One of the first things we did when we got a VCR (okay, I am that old) was tape episodes of "The Muppet Show"). My sister and I watched them over and over.
We went to see "The Muppet Movie" and "The Dark Crystal" both of which I loved. (I did not run across "Labyrinth" until some kids I was babysitting discovered I had never seen it and made me watch. Thanks, guys!) When my sister and I began taping other shows of interest to us, many of "The Muppet Show" episodes got taped over. (We had permission, but my mother immediately regretted granting it. Yes, she has the DVD now.)
We also watched "Fraggle Rock" and "Muppet Babies".
I remember reading an article once, where he said that kids were like garbage disposals, they take whatever you give them. But he didn't mean that as an insult, more, I think he meant that kids take time to develop taste, and using "the kids seem to like it" as an excuse to give them mediocre shows is silly.
My mother was particularly heartbroken when he died, and watched the celebration of his life that was televised, but confessed if they had Big Bird read anything sad, she might not be able to take it. (I don't believe Big Bird did. Although Brian reading the letter was pretty affecting.)
Legacies come in all shapes and sizes, but I think by any measure we can agree that Mr. Henson gave us a good bit of entertainment.

"The most sophisticated people I know - inside they are all children." - Jim Henson

They are a Feature

2011-09-20T17:02:00.000-04:00

Rather hilariously, about two weekends ago I ended up explaining to a group of people what a double D cup really means. (Double D is really an E, each letter further into the alphabet represents an additional inch in depth, or two inches in total circumference when compared to the band size. Unless your at a specialty shop that uses funky rules where they do things like add five inches to your measurements.)
This turned out to be a lesson that needed further spreading, or so it seems, when the so-called "real women" challenge came up last week on "Project Runway". This is an episode that can be hit or miss, since some the designers come from different backgrounds and some are clearly more used to working directly with the public and some, well, are not.
Now a lot of people have talked about this, so I certainly don't want to belabor the point too much, but as it turns out Olivier, to put it kindly falls into the not category. And while I accept that he has this very internal process, so doesn't much seem to like people asking him what he is doing especially when they are suggesting that maybe it isn't successful, I understand the need to vent. But, I bring to you my number one rule for participating in competitive reality: watch the previous seasons. That way when they send you to the party store, you accept that this is what happens. (Bert.) Or when they ask you where your client is going. (Josh M.) Or they make you work with kids. (Viktor.) And, Olivier, oh, Olivier, when they make you dress an actual person (which by they way has been happening for seasons, I think perhaps the first season did not do this, but they let the models be the client, so they talked back) who has breasts and hips and opinions, you don't have to love it. But it is, in fact, not just part of "Project Runway" but part of being a clothing designer to see that people who have such things want clothes. You may be planning a line for only skinny, straight folks, but let me tell you, they have opinions too. Your model is being nice. She doesn't have to buy your clothes, you are sewing it onto her for free.
I suspect, now that this has aired, it has been an intriguing experience for Olivier, and hopefully he will learn and grow, not just learn to not say such things in front of cameras. Because, as Linda Holmes pointed out, the "breasts are a feature, not a bug".

It's Like When Your Friend was Dating That Person

2011-09-19T11:17:00.001-04:00

My friend and I had a conversation once upon a time about the nature of relationships (just once, we never, ever did that again). She said that one of the challenges is that often the part you most need to discuss with your other friends is when something hurtful happens. But then, after you've vented and processed you go back to the person and talk or address it in some fashion and move through it. But your friends are still stuck on that thing, not because they are bitter, but because they love you and they didn't hear that conversation you all had or see that nice thing that happened, they missed the resolution.
Reality TV is kind of like that. I watch competitive reality and there seem to be a really high amount of team challenges this season. I get it, team challenges bring the drama, both in personality successes and clashes and in results which tend to have grander extremes. (Let's face it sometimes you can't tell who is in the bottom, not because the judges are weird, but because it's all really good.) And the nature of having a show, that is supposed to be entertaining, not just show results (because I could go to the local cook-off or fashion show or what have you if end results were all I wanted), they tend to focus on the drama. They show the times that someone said something snarky or made someone cry, or muttered under their breath about something. They show less of the apologies. And even, sometimes there is no direct apology. Sometimes, things that seem really, very important at eleven at night when you skipped dinner, seems very silly the next morning. So now you just joke and chat with that person that had you clenching your teeth last night. But the viewer at home is still saying, can you believe they did that? That was terrible!
And then you'll read an interview and someone will ask them, wasn't so-and-so horrible, and they'll often say, oh, no, I call them every day, they're great. (Or something.)

Milestones of Dubious Meaning

2011-09-15T09:21:00.001-04:00

I now have over 1000 books logged in LibraryThing. Now, I log books as I receive them, in an attempt to prevent re-buying something I already own. (It has helped. When I remember to look.) So, some of these books I have not yet read. I log books that I borrowed from friends or later gave away too. (Tags are a beautiful thing.) So, I did not buy all of these books. I have been a member for almost five years, and while I briefly thought about trying to go back in time to somehow capture every book I ever read, the volume of that project quickly had me stop. I can tell you that only 17 are tagged as my having completely given up on them. There are 22 that I have started and put aside. 19 duplicates (either due to my own folly, or due to being gifted a book I already had.) There are, ahem, 195 waiting to be read (this includes the 22 started). And the rest, I have read. (Some more than once.)

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words...

2011-09-13T10:24:00.000-04:00

...but it may not be the ones you want.
So, different people find different things funny. And certainly, some people choose to push the envelope and shock people into funny. Or shock them into remembering their name. It's a plan. And some people believe the adage about all publicity. But sometimes you can do something that people find overwhelming in it's poor taste. And you might still be hung up on your original vision. It still seems funny or edgy to you. And now let me rip off the Kubler-Ross stages of grief to demonstrate.
Setup: You have an ad series for your hair salon. The tag line is "Look good in all you do." In one, someone appears to be disposing of a body. One is serving tea. One is working in a rail yard. (With bra exposed which would seem to violate some employment and safety regulations, but that is not really the point here.)
And then there's the one that has everyone talking. There are two people who let's all agree have styled hair. One, a female is seated on a couch. One a male, is behind the couch offering jewelry. Oh, and the woman has a black eye.
1. Denial - What? It's funny. We're not actually advocating for domestic violence.
2. Anger - It's art! I don't know why people are so sensitive.
3. Bargaining - Come on - real people are being harmed every day, shouldn't these people channel their worry into real issues?
4. Depression - Nobody understands satire anymore. The media is full of hypocrites.
5. Acceptance - I guess people have the right to their opinions. (Yes, this is not the greatest example of acceptance. It's a process.)

h/t to the NPR Monkey See Blog for the link.

And the Award for Best Couponing Goes To...

2011-09-07T10:54:00.001-04:00

I confess I am terrible with coupons of all kinds. I am amazed that people manage to get carts full of groceries for little to no money and yet, while I am happy to stockpile yarn and books enough for the next five years, having enough deodorant for the rest of my life seems silly. (I realize that this is a different strokes sort of scenario here. Feel free to stockpile deodorant, just don't try to get me to join in.)
For me, putting aside the storage issue is the brand loyalty involved. After all, I tend to demonstrate brand loyalty but not forever. I think I could count on one hand the products I have stuck with for more than five years. (In fairness, some of these changes were due to said product no longer being available.) But certainly, I can see that some things you can figure you will be happy to use for some time. Of course, the deal also has to work out as far as the time for collection too.
So, what if, for example, you could get yourself some airline miles. Say, 1.2 million of them for example. Yeah, this guy found a batch of pudding cups, each with it's own UPC code and traded them in for airline miles during a promotion. You might be thinking that's a lot of pudding cups. It was, so he made a deal with the Salvation Army, they helped him get all the UPC codes removed and he donated all the pudding cups - thereby taking care of the storage issue and getting him a taxable donation too. Pretty good strategy. (I also suspect future deals might have some new fine print in them.)

The Cow Heroine

2011-09-06T16:29:00.001-04:00

It's always sort of fascinating the stories that capture the attention of people. Certainly, if I told you that there were stories and internet buzz about a cow, that tourists were visiting the hometown of a cow, well it sounds strange. But, as this article kindly points out, this is not just any cow story. Yvonne (it somehow seems very forward to just start calling her Yvonne, but, well, she is a cow) was on a farm in Bavaria. She was due to be sent to the slaughterhouse. Yvonne jumped the electric fence and made her way into the woods. And then...well, Yvonne became a bit like Elvis or the Abominable Snowman in that there were sightings, but nothing further. Hunters and dogs searched to no avail. Companion cows were sent out to lure her out. (Perhaps instead they mooed to stay away. Who knows? Also, how did they know the companion cows wouldn't also decide they like gallivanting through the woods?) Then they sent out a handsome ox. (My familiarity with cows is not such that I can explain why a handsome ox would lure a cow, but apparently that's the thought.) Animal psychics were called in.
In the wake of the international attention Yvonne's escape received a sanctuary paid the farm for Yvonne, promising to save her from slaughter. Rewards were offered. This went on for months. (Seriously, the cow escaped in May.)
Well, last week, life as a forest cow appeared to pale a bit for Yvonne, and she was found hovering near the edge of the pasture. She will now live out her days with her son and sister.

Girl Power

2011-09-01T11:19:00.001-04:00

I have been re-reading Madelaine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time. (Yes, it's a hard life. And proof that sometimes they assign awesome books in school.) And first, this is one of those books that holds up to the many re-readings and while I'm certain my adult eyes spot things I didn't before, it's still great. I am reminded that one of the things I love about Meg is that she's stubborn and protective. Meg has a bruise from when she tackled a boy in her class who made fun of her brother. Meg got sent to the principal for talking in class. Later in the book, when they are being granted gifts for their journey, they grant Meg her faults. (In many ways the most awesome and horrid thing anyone could grant someone.)
So, it was with interest, particularly given all the talk about how boys don't read because they aren't stories about boys (please excuse me while I guffaw), read this post by a father of two girls, talking about some pervasive assumptions he sees in a lot of children's literature.

Welcome, Freshmen!

2011-08-31T10:40:00.001-04:00

As has been pointed out a few times in the last few years, the Beloit Mindset List (aka the how old are you compared to college freshmen list) often has weird statements. One year it included the tidbit that Beethoven has always been a dog, which, first - Beethoven the composer has been dead a really long time. And my knowledge that there was a movie where a dog was called Beethoven has never impacted my ability to understand there is a composer with that name and suggesting that college freshman would have that issue, well, it doesn't say much for your admission standards.
But, nonetheless, let me offer my entirely unsolicited thoughts.
The good:
-'"Don't touch that dial!"….what dial?' - I would make fun of this, but, I recently heard someone explain where the phrase "in the can" comes from as if it was novel information, so, clearly there are things in the zeitgeist that people have no idea of their origins.
-"More Americans have always traveled to Latin America than to Europe." Okay, I actually didn't even know this, but very interesting.
-"Public schools have always made space available for advertising." This is an interesting change, although I'm guessing the average college faculty or staff member had a front seat to this.
The duh:
"Grown-ups have always been arguing about health care policy." - In fact, I'm going to guess this has been true much of my life too.
-"They won't go near a retailer that lacks a website." - I worry a little about such things myself.
The huh:
-"American tax forms have always been available in Spanish." Um, I made it to college without ever looking at a tax form. I'm sure there are plenty of kids far more involved in their family's finances, but I have no idea why this is interesting, or how this helps you relate to today's youth.
-"We have never asked, and they have never had to tell." This, I recognize is supposed to refer to the policy which has been in existence much of their lives. But it annoys me, because it doesn't really reflect reality or the likelihood of any student's experience, even if that student was in the military. Now this one, is useful: "Women have always been kissing women on television."
-"Unlike their older siblings, they spent bedtime on their backs until they learned to roll over." - I personally have no recollection of my sleeping habits in my babyhood, so, thanks?
-"New kids have always been known as NKOTB." - which assumes that a decent number of college freshmen know who that is at all.
-"Women have always been Venusians; men, Martians." - Do people still talk about that book? Really?
And the now I feel old:
"Ferris Bueller and Sloane Peterson could be their parents."

Advice For Fictional Twins

2011-08-30T14:15:00.001-04:00

So, in noticing that this fall our TV's will be offering both "The Lying Game" and "Ringer" in which twins are mistaken for, well, their twin, I thought I would offer some advice. I am not a twin, but as a fan of a cheesy movie or two about twins, in addition to considering myself somewhat well read on the subject of twins, I feel qualified to discuss this. (Yes, those are all fictional twins. Yes, I do know real life twins. But my expertise is in the subject of fictional twins.)
1. No matter how close you thought you and your twin were, she* has a deep dark secret she has failed to tell you.
2. Someone in your twin's life will immediately recognize you as an imposter. If this person is also tall, dark, handsome and single, this may be your love interest. (Congrats!)
3. Someone will hate you (or really, your twin) for no apparent reason.
4. You will invariably screw up - because your twin has gone vegetarian without telling you, or because you forgot your twin hated or loved something that you don't. It's okay, cover well. Most people do not assume you are not who you say you are. (In fact, it helps if you have failed to tell lots and lots of people that you even have a twin.)
5. It's a good idea to gather a band of allies with skills in things like hacking and protection.
6. Oh, right, that's because part of your twin's deep dark secret, will likely put your life in danger. (I know. She should have warned you.)
7. If you have a twin sense, do not rely on it too much. Those things always seem to go on the fritz when the bad guys show up.

*It always seems to be female twins who play these games. Come on, somebody, where's the story about the guy masquerading as his brother?

Oh, Irene

2011-08-29T12:31:00.001-04:00

Well, Irene smacked the East Coast this weekend, she was fairly nice to the DC area, but I imagine that all depends what side of the power grid (or downed tree) you are standing on. And, of course, other areas were not quite as well treated by the storm. I made a tactical error, in that I did not plan ahead well enough for the week of the hurriquakeapocolypse and had some essentials that needed to be purchased this weekend. (The fruit snacks and cheddar bunnies were a bonus.) I know better. So, this is how I found myself at Giant Friday evening, which on a normal Friday is pretty hopping. I tried to take a picture of the line, but it didn't really do it justice. I have a water filter and empty bottles, so did not need water - which was good because reports were trickling in that morning that it was out across town. I held myself to the express lane limit because I have just me (well, and my cat) to feed, so really just need a few things.
The lines were insane. Every register was open, additional express lanes had been opened. The lines were still stacked to the end of each aisle. I got in the self-checkout line because I figure four express registers was better odds (although sometimes lines lead to the self checkout newbies who don't know what button to press next.) I confess, I peeked at the college kids in front of me who seemed to have an overflowing basket. It turns out they had four whole rotisserie chickens, and some side dishes, so twelve things, just some of which were very big. In the insanity I probably wouldn't have made a big deal either way, but I might have festered.
The line was long, but moved fast. Everyone seemed to be operating a peak efficiency levels (and I was there about seven, so I can only imagine how long those employees had been operating at such levels). I got through that line in thirty minutes, which, yes, in any other circumstance would be a tragic time, but given the madness seemed quite reasonable to me.
I still went out and about Saturday, in part because I was planning ahead for a day of nothing on Sunday. (I also charged all the things.) I was sad that Columbia Heights Day/DC State Fair had to be postponed, although hopefully the new date will have better weather. (Also, this means all the competitions are back open, hint, hint.)

DC Crafty Peeps, And Other Locals

2011-08-25T09:57:00.001-04:00

Hey, it's not (quite) too late to enter the DC State Fair contests, craft and otherwise - a few first round deadlines have passed (next year guys) but most are open until midnight tonight, so if you live in DC have some bike accessories, a DC portrait, a vegetable sculpture, or stuff that fits into the vegetable, baked or prepared goods (jam!) contests, get your form in!
This is the second annual DC State Fair, and it's occurring in conjunction with Columbia Heights Day this Saturday. Even if you are not from DC, feel free to come by the music, the pageant, the animals and the food trucks!

Dear Folks: The Apology Edition

2011-08-24T09:22:00.001-04:00

Dear Folks,
One of the things about life is that some of the stuff they made you learn and do as a kid or teen seems so dumb, so ridiculous, it could only have been designed by bored teachers trying to come up with new ways to torture kids. And then some (not all, just some) of those things turn out to come up later in life, and well, one can only send an apology out to the universe that, okay, that turned out to be not as crazy as you might have said.
One was hyperbolas which I spent forever working on calculating the area of, sure that this was useless information, and in fairness to my teen self, I have never been asked to calculate the area of one, but I did end up participating in this, so we could call that not entirely useless.
And then, during my stint in Civil Air Patrol there were disaster scenarios. Now, I confess, I am sort of cheating since I wasn't at this one (I went to the downed plane one) but there was one where the scenario was an earthquake. And, so I hear, many of the participants moaned that that was stupid, because when would that ever happen here in the DC area. (Yes, I know there was a little one last year. This was before that.) And they pulled out this really timely example: 1811-1812. Yes, from 1811-1812 a series of earthquakes known as the New Madrid earthquakes, adjusted the course of rivers and caused churchbells to ring in New England.
Well, now we have a new one to add to the list. (Oh, and Earth, I think this makes an excellent list, by the way, good job. Feel free to stop now.)
Sincerely,
Former Jaded Teen

Call Your Parents

2011-08-23T12:48:00.001-04:00

My final year in college I went to Ireland for spring break. This was prior to the supposed cease fire, but I was planning to go to the Republic of Ireland rather than Northern Ireland, but no matter how many conversations I had with my mother about the difference, she was still convinced I was going to end up blown up. She suggested she could purchase for me a lot of American flag themed clothing so that I would hopefully be less blow-up-able. (I countered that would mark me tourist.) So, the compromise that we finally arrived at was that I would call every other day to report my non-exploded state. (Conversely, I think I called before and after my trips to places like France, Germany, England, etc.)
I also once drove up to Connecticut for a visit after my mother had decided to embrace cell phones (but before they decided it was terrible to talk on them while driving, although I did have a hands free device) where my mother called me four times for a report on my progress, before I finally suggested I call once I hit the state line (since the trip after that point, while it had another forty exits to go, tends to be more predictable).
A young adult I worked with, did a trip to South Africa and set up a blog, to update family and friends about the trip. And certainly various forms of social media have meant sending those still alive, still having a good time messages much easier.
Of course, all those things work great, until, say, you end up in some place where there's no service. Sometimes it's just you who can't get a signal, sometimes it's everyone. So, I think anyone who has experienced the nervous person (be they parent or otherwise) awaiting an update can sympathize with the challenges of getting to enjoy and experience the trip and keeping everyone apprised of your alive-ness. So, when a student went on a multi-day hike through a park in Malaysia, he apparently forgot to mention that that meant he wouldn't have access until he got through. So his parents kicked off a huge search on Facebook and Twitter and a day later, park rangers found him. So, the good news is he is fine. And he will probably remember to warn people (ie his parents) the next time he goes off grid while traveling.

Banana Peels for the Win (Maybe)

2011-08-22T09:18:00.001-04:00

The banana peel. The things that makes the banana so portable and then, yest leaves you with this limp thing to discard. I confess I have never tried slipping on a banana peel, but since I, you know, exist, I am aware of the comedy trope. Well, now it turns out that banana peels may be useful in dealing with water pollution. No, really.

In Defense of the Push Up Bra

2011-08-18T11:05:00.001-04:00

Recently the morning TV news ran a story along the lines of people are trying to make your teens to sexy with push up bras. (So not kidding.) Now, I take these scare stories with a grain of salt. I remember reading articles about things I was supposedly doing as a teen that were putting my virtue, my innocence, and my safety in question, and they were right sometimes, wrong sometimes, mostly exaggerated most of the time.
However, I also know that some parents or other adults don't have time to parse out the real from the exaggerated. (Witness one relative telling my cousin that she was risking being murdered by being on MySpace. Again, not kidding.) Sure, in a perfect world, adult caregivers of teens would have responsible and meaningful discussions about these things with their teens, but it doesn't always happen that way. (And sometimes that's the teen's fault too, not trying to place the blame solely on adults here.)
So, that leads me to the push up bra. Now savvy shoppers will note that the push up bra has been around for a while. And the argument that before it was only marketed to adults, is flimsy at best, since teens who wear bras are going to consider themselves the target of any bra advertising. I can't ever remember pausing to consider the age of the bra model in making my shopping choices. Now certainly there are some styles that are, ahem, less about support, but let me assure you in this case we are talking about a full coverage push up bra.
Now some folks seem concerned that it adds cup sizes and that perhaps teens are not ready for that. These folks are apparently unaware that teens have never needed a push-up bra to increase their cup size, it's just more convenient for that padding to come pre-packaged, rather than a personal aftermarket addition.
I am assuming that everyone can understand that some people (be they teen or otherwise) may need to wish to appear a little more padded. And sure, we can argue that we're giving in to the notion of what you're supposed to look like, rather than appreciating what you truly look like, but as a late developer, I can also see the appeal of just knowing what you might look like with a little more. (And I think, generally, most people discover that two cup sizes doesn't make quite as much difference as you might have imagined. Or in some cases, just looks ridiculous. )
But, the advantage of a well constructed bra with a little (yes, two cup sizes is two inches, so it is more than a little) padding turns out to be, in addition to support, that one garners an extra layer of protection from environmental and physical incursions. We all know that certain external conditions can lead to physical responses in the breasts, and while again this is totally natural, I think it is entirely understandable to not wish to share that reaction with the entire school. (Or office.)
Also, should someone commit the accidental (we are going to assume accidental here) boob brush, it's a little easier when there's some padding between you and the brush. Breasts stick out, these things happen, but it's still weird, especially when they are a newer body part. So, things that help with this discomfort, are all good to me.
And, in the end, my bra has never been responsible for my life choices.

Acting it Out

2011-08-16T15:49:00.001-04:00

My sister participated in the youth jobs program one year. She helped with a day camp for a few weeks at a park in our neighborhood. She liked it well enough, got paid a real wage, but pretty much just did it that one summer. (Although it certainly wasn't the last day camp she worked at.) But this program, at the National Portrait Gallery, where the teens take on personas of the portraits sounds really cool. Next year, I'll have to make sure to stop in and check them out.

Curse You!

2011-08-10T09:56:00.001-04:00

So, in knitter circles there are tales of the sweater curse. (Perhaps in crochet circles too.) The story goes that if you knit a sweater for someone you are dating, the relationship will end around the time you finish. So the knitter is (assumedly) broken-hearted and either in possession of this sweater that is now one more physical reminder of this relationship, or left to ponder that all that knitting is now off with someone who doesn't deserve it, or to possibly wonder if they hated the sweater that much. Supposedly marriage inoculates one from the curse. (My favorite part of the Wikipedia entry about this is this quote: "No controlled studies have investigated this phenomenon, and the available evidence is largely anecdotal, which is generally of low reliability due to cognitive bias. Particularly important in this effect may be confirmation bias, as knitters may remember breakups more clearly after giving a hand-knit sweater, which represents a significant investment of money (typically over $100), effort (~100,000 stitches), time (as much as a year) and romantic imagination."
However, there is a solution (other than first securing marriage or choosing not to believe in curses, which sure, you could also do). One woman has a sweater imbued with chili which will then cause the recipient to itch and burn. That will show them.

Don't Speak

2011-08-02T09:44:00.001-04:00

After seeing someone complain about people telling the they look tired on Twitter, I had a little epiphany, saying, "You look tired," is like saying, "You look pregnant."

It is generally established that telling someone they look pregnant is not a great idea unless you actually know they are pregnant* because either: they are but you have now stepped on their announcement, they are but they didn't want to tell you yet, or they aren't and now you have made them terribly self conscious about their waistline.

You look tired (or it's friend - you look sick) is really the same thing. Now, possibly you happen to know that this person was up all night with a teething or ill child, went to a midnight showing of a movie, and/or was partying til the break of dawn. Or maybe you don't and now you have made that person terribly self conscious that they look old, or tired, when up until then, they thought they were having a pretty good day. And if they are in fact tired, you have burst their bubble about how well they were faking it.

I recognize that generally, you look tired is meant in a sympathetic manner. And I'm not trying to tell people to stop being nice. I am suggesting that this is not the way to go.

*Except, of course, for that one woman from "I Didn't Know I was Pregnant" who says she wishes her co-workers had told her she was looking bulky about the middle.

What was That Sign?

2011-07-27T16:09:00.001-04:00

I once went on a strange and fun trip to Paris where my two travel companions (who both had lived in Paris) decided randomly that the walk signs (which looked like this, so did not seem that strange to me) meant that they should cross the street with one leg kicked out and front and held stiff. (Yes, this meant they hopped across the street. This was actually not the most attention drawing thing they did on this trip.)
So, I can only imagine what would happen had we been in Amarillo, TX while this was going on. (Video is SFW, assuming your work doesn't mind you playing newscasts at work. The hand gesture has been blurred out so you will have to imagine it.)

h/t to TBD for the link.

7 Things: Thank You, Borders

2011-07-25T10:29:00.001-04:00

There's a similar hashtag on Twitter, but I have far more words about this.
1. I grew up within walking distance of another now-defunct bookstore chain. Other than the library (which was a walk that was five times longer) and raiding my parents bookshelves, this was my primary source for things bookish. They had a tiny young adult section that leaned heavily on the series (Sweet Valley and the like). They did not have a romance section, romance was spread out into the fiction section, although they did have a small mystery section. So when this new bookstore - a store my mom willingly drove me to - opened up with a huge romance section, you can imagine my happiness.
2. As one of those people who used to regularly appear at the bookstore on Tuesdays, I sometimes arrived before the new book got distributed to all the normal places. Sometimes I could find it myself by checking the new release shelves and tables or the endcaps, and sometimes I needed assistance. I have been in bookstores where the staffers (the ones at the info desk even) were not particularly happy to help me look. I never (seriously, never) had that problem at Borders. They didn't always find it, but they were unfailingly polite about the search and in one case, where I told they guy who had checked several sections that I could come back tomorrow, he said, no, other people will want this book to, if you don't mind waiting, I'll do some more checking so we can find it. (I did wait, and he did find it for me.)
3. I like shopping in bookstores where the cashiers were excited about the things I bought, and wanted to tell me that they had enjoyed that CD or that series.
4. Borders ebook section had great search functionality and they always listed clearly the books that were agency priced and couldn't be discounted. (Hint, hint, other ebook sellers.)
5. Borders had an excellent magazine section, regularly carrying titles I had trouble finding in other places. Even other big box or chain stores.
6. Borders had a great craft section offering more than say five books about crafts including knitting, wire jewelry making and beading.
7. I live in an area with a decent number of bookstores, but sadly, without Borders I will lose all but two of the nearest places I can buy romance. At least new. Or in person.

A Secret Bookstore

2011-07-20T11:53:00.001-04:00

In the wake of the sad news about Borders, here's an interesting (short) video about a guy who sorta, kinda runs a bookstore in an apartment. In other words, a secret bookstore.

h/t to frecklesmudge for the link

7 Things: The "Friday Night Lights" Edition

2011-07-18T09:56:00.001-04:00

The series finale of "Friday Night Lights" aired on NBC last week, which is months after the DVD came out and months more after it aired on DirectTV, but with my busy TV schedule, that was when I watched it, so I present...
1. "Friday Night Lights" (FNL) is in theory about football. I mean, it is, and I like football, but it's also about football the way "Battlestar Galactica"* is about space. There is football, and football practice, and football players, and coaches, and fields, but there are also great stories about fascinating characters, football is the reason they (most of them) tend to keep hanging out together.
2. FNL is not perfect (there is that second season storyline of which we do not speak), but there are some amazing episodes. Many even.
3. FNL shows over and over again that a happy, committed, adult couple can make for riveting television.
4. FNL also often makes me wonder if this show (fictional, scripted, yes, I know) shouldn't be shown in parenting and maybe even teaching classes.
5. This is certainly not to say that everyone in FNL is perfect (how boring would that be), but, to paraphrase Coach, it's about people (most of them, anyway) trying to be good** people and the struggles that entails.
6. There are some bad people too. But why focus on them? And of course, some of the ones who seemed bad at the beginning, well...
7. It's been an excellent five seasons, watching players from two different schools grow and change and become adult people. (Yes, I know they are fictional. Still awesome though.) It's also the kinda show that makes you think, well thank god that poor girl has those strippers to talk to.

*The new one, not the original.
**Okay, I might be straining the definition of good, when one ponders the characters who have committed illegal acts, of which there are quite a few. But it is a testament to the character building that I still like these characters.

Acronyms are Fun

2011-07-12T15:16:00.001-04:00

From the stories I tell people all the time files*:
My friend, we'll call her N, is a knitter. She says that knitting while taking public transportation is helpful since you have tools on your person should you need to strangle or stab anyone. Now, lest you get the wrong idea, N is a lovely person and generally does not need to strangle or stab people, on metro or anywhere, but certainly we can all appreciate that tools with multiple purposes are good.
Now one day N was knitting, and her seatmate was male and he felt the need to sit with his legs spread particularly wide. As a result, he was encroaching on N's seat and and person, so she pulled out her handy tape measure and offered to measure for him to see if he really required so much space when sitting.
So, imagine my joy, to discover over at the Crazy Aunt Purl blog that this issue has been named - imaginary package syndrome or IPS: "the guys who have an imaginary package so large they have to spread their legs really wide and encroach into your personal space to accommodate that enormously huge imaginary schlong".
Oh, and the guy sitting next to N, he closed his legs.

*So, sorry, for those of you have heard this many, many times.

A Week in NYC - Days 6-7

2011-07-08T09:24:00.001-04:00

Oh, Friday. Friday had another breakfast gathering, this one of cherries, so it was more fun breakfast than work breakfast. Then workshops, signings, and meetings. (I swear, there were awesome workshops, several about writing YA, theme with Suzanne Brockmann and Sarah Frantz, and Roxane St. Claire's mending broken scenes to name a few. I look forward to reliving them via recording.) Friday was also the day I started to go a little nuts. I may, for example, have tried to steal Thea Harrison's ARC of Storm's Heart. I may have begun narrating my actions aloud - sample, "Water. Water is good, I should probably get some of that." (Scintillating, isn't it?) I may have stuttered when talking to Jennifer Crusie. I may have told Caridad Ferrer that When the Stars Go Blue made me cry. (Okay, that was actually normal behavior for me. I also, earlier in the week told Jennifer Echols that I sat down to read Forget You with dinner and next thing I knew it was 10:30pm.)
It was a wild weird morning and then my sister and I met up for lunch only for us to discover that she lives in the same building as the friend I had met earlier in the week. (Too funny. And no, my sister had not previously met this friend, although I've known her forever.) Both of them are dog owners, so I got to spend some quality pet time while away from my pet.
After lunch, I returned to the madness before finally sneaking away to recharge both myself and the various electronics. Then dinner and back to primp for the Golden Heart and Rita awards. I had overheard folks in the elevator talking about a schedule change so got there earlier than planned and was trying to find friends and such.
I ran into a couple in the lobby who wanted to know why we were all dressed up - there was also a medical banquet, but since they asked me I explained that it was the romance writer awards. They nodded and said, "Oh, like Harlequin?" And I agreed that yes, Harlequin publishes romance novels. It turns out they have a friend who loves Harlequin (I assume as a reader although possibly as a writer too) and when they saw the screen listing all the workshops, they decided they needed to call and tell her.
My feet, I confess, were tired (not me, of course, I was fine) so the waiting was wearing and I confessed to another person waiting for her peeps that I was close to making new friends (not an idle threat, people, although not really a threat either). Anyway,found some chapter-mates to sit and cheer with. Meg Cabot was a lovely host. And the speeches were great. The woman who mentioned her son was in prison so writing was keeping her sane was certainly memorable. The lovely Jill Shalvis won a RITA as did long time finalist Virginia Kantra. And Lifetime Achievement award winner Sharon Sala's story of her granddaughter coming to a signing and saying, "You must be famous like Britney Spears!" was lovely.
After I ran into another friend who recognized me because of my knitwear. I also had a few chats with folks who shall remain nameless about foundation garments. (My dress, while lovely, had a lining that crept up to my navel and rendered itself useless.)
Saturday dawned and people in the elevators and such looked familiar, but they no longer had name tags. It was very confusing.
I found a knitter in the lobby and introduced myself. After chatting a bit it turns out she's critique partners with one of my chapter mates. She also introduced me to another knitter/writer. And I ran into someone else I had met earlier in the conference so we could exchange contact info.
I ran out to do some last minute errands before heading back to check out and then head to the bus pick up. My companion for this journey was a wonderfully behaved sevenish year old who's parents were across the aisle. He played a quiet game on his dad's phone, then laid his head on his knees and slept, then hummed quietly to himself for a bit. He finally asked his parent's how close we were as we pulled into Union Station.
And I made it safely home with my bags stuffed with books. (Although a certain someone brought home a number in the triple digits.)

A Week in NYC - Days 5-6

2011-07-07T09:06:00.001-04:00

Wednesday was that day - every RWA has a day where people want to see me at breakfast at some ungodly time, and they also want me to be somewhere at night. (Actually, this RWA had two of those.) Breakfast was an interesting gathering, then lunch where Madeline Hunter gave a great speech. Then there were workshops and signings. The YA chapter, since we "meet" online, had our general meeting, plus a gathering of YA focused people. So, my writer day ended about 8, and then I went to dinner with a friend. Somewhere, you know, not Times Square.
Thursday there more more workshops and signings (again, all wonderful, I just could talk all day about them, so I will resist). Ran into more people on Thursday too. It's one of those strange things that I pretty much run into everyone I know at some point, however briefly. However, invariably you get back home and realize you meant to re-find someone and chat with them more. This seems to increase every year. And there are some people I ran into so many times they probably think I was stalking them.
Lunch on Thursday was a madhouse so I plunked myself down at a mostly empty table confiding to the person next to me that I was over trying to find people only to have the next five people that sat down all be people I know. (Seriously, in a book, no one would ever let me write that, too coincidental.) Sherrilyn Kenyon gave a great speech about powering through adversity that she has posted on Facebook. I had heard her speak at my chapter's conference, so I was prepared, but it's good stuff.
Then workshops, meetings, signings. I was very restrained at signings. Well, Thursday at least. Thursday was a free(ish) night and I went to dinner with a fellow attendee and then headed back to the bar. Now, the staff at Marriott were all lovely, but I have no idea why with a convention of writers, you would staff the bar in the lobby with two people. Haven't they heard the rumors? I'm not saying all writers are drunkards, I'm saying the faster you serve the people in the bar, the longer it takes them to realize the martinis are $15. (I'm also not saying that $15 is bad, I'm saying some of these writers are unused to NYC prices.)
Anyway, I hung out with some lovely NJ chapter folks for the remainder of the evening.

A Week in NYC - Day 4

2011-07-06T11:17:00.001-04:00

Tuesday was nuts. I got myself down to NYU to register myself for the IASPR conference, which was amazing. I really enjoyed the worldbuilding workshop and had to sneak out partway through the money workshop so I could switch hotels. Thankfully, the Marriott let me check in a smidge early, so I could then register myself present for RWA and head back to the village for the last bit of IASPR workshops including the chat with Bertrice Small. I also met two other knitters and a crocheter there. I feel like I'm giving short shrift to the workshops, but they were so amazing that I worry I will be talking (writing) forever if I try to talk about the use of New York as a setting for a Bollywood movie, or the use of gender roles in the "Wall Street" films or the discussion of the history of f/f detective novels. So, short version, amazing. (If you want a longer version, I'm going to direct you here and here.) Now pondering when I can get to the next one.
A few of us then hopped on the subway back the Marriott for the RWA Literacy signing. Now, I confess, I've been to a few of these, and they were all a bit different. This one was nuts. I don't know if it was New York, or the large number of authors, or the fire code for the room or what. The signing started at 5:30. We got there at five and the line which started in the lobby and wrapped around the staging/cab/pickup area where they had ropes setting up three lanes, and was already bursting out of that around the corner and down the street, slowly taking over the space in front of a nearby theater. I looked over at my companion and said, "You know, my room has air conditioning." (She was determined.)
The good news about waiting in that line was there was lots of time to chat. Even once the doors to the signing opened (which was on the sixth floor by the way, apparently, I could have flashed my name badge and gotten into a shorter line, but live an learn) we chatted. We chatted with the folks around us. We chatted with some fellow cherries who showed up. We chatted as we made out way inside and up the escalators, and to the sixth floor where they wrapped and waited some more. And finally made it in, where it was mad. The sound, the light the people, it was instant overload.
I found my way to several authors where I fawned, stalked and paid respects. I told Jill Shalvis she had written "The Sweetest Thing" for me, since it was about an older sister named Tara even though she had never met me. (Details. She was kind enough to agree.) I told Thea Harrison I was halfway through "Dragon Bound". I told Sarah MacLean that "Eleven Scandals to Start to Win a Duke's Heart" made me cry. I waved at the lovely Christine Merrill and Robin Kaye. And I made my way to Rachael Herron who was knitting away, and told her I loved her, but I was going back to my room.
After decompression I headed out for dinner which was lovely.

NYC - A Week in Review - Days 1-3

2011-07-05T09:16:00.001-04:00

So, you will likely be grateful to hear that I am doing some truncating of this trip. I awoke (I swear, I will be truncating, I know starting with waking up does not seem like it) and discovered that having a leisurely departure time made me paranoid - that I had the wrong bus time, that buses were perhaps not running that day, that I had forgotten to book a hotel, and so on. It turns out that most of the things it occurred to me to triple and quadruple check were fine.

I did discover that the single tracking going on made my arrival, still early, but not as early as I had hoped. However, since it turned out there'd been an issue with an earlier bus needing to go visit the mechanic, they were only just loading the bus from the previous hour when I arrived.

I sat next to someone who was attempting through Maryland to sleep, although apparently sleeping sitting up didn't work for her so she would sleep, slump, wake herself up with the slump, and repeat. Later she broke out her ereader.

We made it to New York, where I checked into the hotel for my first part of the trip and then headed out to forage for dinner. Found a lovely Thai restaurant.

The next day, my plan was to explore the village. I had been unaware that I had accidentally managed to be in NYC for the pride march (one guy was very insistent it was a march, not a parade, despite the alliteration of pride parade) that was occurring days after the equal marriage vote. I had watched the news the night before and discovered this, I just had not fully processed what a march in Manhattan looks like. So, I arrived at the village and wandered around and discovered that the places I was trying to get to were all on the other side of the police barricade from me. Being stubborn I kept trying to go up, over, and get through, but finally conceded that this was not the day for that. (And yes, I realized I could have taken the subway, back one stop, but like I said, stubborn). So, I grabbed a late lunch and then headed back to midtown.

I was meeting a friend who had tickets to a community center event to raise funds for Japan earthquake/tsunami relief. It was an interesting event starting with child performers (although there was one girl who danced modern and hip hop and zumba in such a way that we see her possibly taking over the world). Then it progressed to the audience judging portion where the performers were, shall we say, older. And the final section was professionals, which included hip hop and ballet. It was a really interesting evening.

Monday, I went back and wandered around the village. After lunch I may have made my way to a yarn store - Knitty City. Cute store, lots of Malabrigo, Madeline Tosh, as well as some Sweet Georgia and Wool Candy that I may have taken home.

And then I headed back to the village (seriously, if I'd had a GPS attached, it would have looked weird, but I had a plan) and after dinner went to Lady Jane's Salon. If you are in or near New York, I highly recommend this event. Due to the impending RWA conference, they had more readers than normal, but the readings were great. I loved chatting with the fellow listeners also. And the Madame X bar, is something to behold too.

License Plates

2011-06-24T10:28:00.001-04:00

In one of Lisa Gardner's books, a character notes that in Rhode Island, locals go and request plates with letters that are meaningful to them and low numbers. As someone who has family up near the Rhode Island border, I would not have been able to tell you that prior to reading it, but it made perfect sense once I did, and helped with the setting (hopefully for Rhode Islanders too).
I actually didn't believe the first person that told me the black Delaware plates were inherited. (It turns out that now you can get authorized reproductions.)
But, I absolutely had noticed that Virginians, in addition to having a plethora of plates to choose from (much like Florida), are big, big fans of vanity plates. One co-worker, when I discovered she lived in Virginia, I said, "Oh, so you must have a vanity plate." (She did. Seriously, play this game next time you meet a Virginian. Then ask them which plate they got.) So, I am unsurprised to hear that Virginia leads the nation in vanity plates.

What Size Needle was That?

2011-06-22T15:01:00.001-04:00

For those of you who think I knit on big needles, I present Phat Knitting.

h/t to Craft-Zine for the link.

Embarrassment, Tools of the Parental Trade

2011-06-20T08:50:00.001-04:00

My mother was (and likely still is) of the belief that the ability to embarrass her children was one of the few joys provided to parents of teens. Due to the sibling spacing we had, my sister presented my mother with a button that said, "Be Kind, I Have a Teenager" and then told my mom that she had done the math and my mother would get to wear this for sixteen and a half years. (My mother was thrilled. She did wear the button though.)
Now, my mother is a fairly creative person, so we were pretty lucky that a lot of her embarrassing was limited to things like waving at us. My brother and I figured out pretty quickly if you waved back right away, she stopped, my sister was slower to this realization which led to very exaggerated waving on my mother's part followed by loud, "Hi, Sweetie Pie!".
So, it is just as well, that my mother never quite had this idea. Fortunately for the kid involved, he has found the humor in it now (although he apparently still find his dad in the Little Mermaid costume embarrassing.)

Attention Cyclists

2011-06-16T08:52:00.001-04:00

DCist linked to Girl And Her Bike's story about the idiot who decided it was super funny to bump her bike (with her on it) with his car, several times. The story is intriguing (and totally worth the click) because idiot does get caught, and idiot turns out to probably have had good reason to keep a low profile. But, she is also trying to load the courtroom for his sentencing to send the message that no, nudging a person with your car is not cute or funny, it is assault and it should be treated seriously.

How to Buy Things

2011-06-15T08:50:00.001-04:00

Let's imagine there's a girl named Lindsay. Lindsay wants to get a new pair of shoes. She goes to Big Giant Shoe Store and finds lots of shoes in her size. After much debate she narrows it down to a green pair and a blue pair. She tries them both on in front of the mirror and finally picks the green pair because they match her eyes, and they are from a shoe designer she really likes.

Lindsay loves the green shoes. She wears the green shoes places. She gets great compliments on her green shoes. One day, at a shoe lover event Lindsay meets Wanda Shoemaker, the designer of her green shoes. Lindsay is thrilled. As Wanda is signing a picture of Lindsay's green shoes, she asks Lindsay where she bought the shoes. Lindsay tells her.

Wanda's eyes narrow. She tells Lindsay that Big Giant Shoe Store is not where true fans buy her shoes. True fans order them directly from Wanda's website, the Exclusive Shoemaker. Or, they buy them at Fancy Department Store. And that if they must buy a pair at Big Giant Shoe Store, they should buy a second pair later from somewhere else to demonstrate their commitment.

You know what Lindsay thinks? Lindsay thinks she should have gotten the blue pair.

This tale inspired by the latest round of folks telling reader how to buy things.

You Don't Have to Like the Giant

2011-06-14T09:14:00.001-04:00

To change out the soapbox, I saw on Twitter a picture that made me a little nuts. The picture was of a Kindle like thing, with a note, saying that if you have a Kindle, Amazon owns you so indie booksellers can't sell you ebooks. Now, I don't have a Kindle (although I do have a rarely used Kindle app), but misinformation makes me nuts. Let's start with the good stuff.
1. Yes, independent booksellers can sell ebooks. There are a couple of different programs, but the idea is that you still get the cool, groovy experience of going to your local bookstore, talking with a helpful salesperson, and still coming away with a book in the format you wish, be it e or p.
2. Yes, as far as I am aware, Amazon does not themselves participate in any of these programs.
3. However, Kindle (app or machine or both) owners can get ebooks from places that are not Amazon. Yes, Amazon has a wide selection and makes purchasing through them really easy (if, un-facilitated by a helpful salesperson), but Kindle owners have choices like everyone else. (They might have less places than some, but still choices.)
4. Yes, Kindles use a proprietary format. But, um, so do Nooks. PDF's are a proprietary format. Yes, formats like epub (currently, because it is all a changing) work on most non-kindle devices, but again - most. Not all.
5. I recognize that as a giant internet based site, Amazon presents a challenge to brick and mortar stores. I get it that running a brick and mortar store is a big, scary thing these days. But, if snarking at the competition is your best option, well, then I think you're not helping anyone.
6. I like brick and mortar bookstores. I want them to survive. Selling ebooks of any kind is a great thing.
7. But you can do that without thumbing your nose at some of your customers, who, one assumes, have made the trek to your store, only to discover, you apparently like to mock their kind. Don't worry, they probably won't come back.

Darkness Is

2011-06-13T12:40:00.001-04:00

This weekend I read two YA books, one I loved and one that made me, even in my thirties, feel talked down to. The thing about YA, is that good books are good books, just like childrens, or middle grade or adult with all its many genre's.
Thanks to the many tweeple who passed on the link to Sherman Alexie's moving piece about how YA books are written in blood, speaking of meeting a teen with his own dilemna, "I could offer that young man nothing but my empathy and the promise of more books about teenagers rescuing themselves from the adults who seek to control and diminish him."
And also, Judy Blume's excerpted from her introduction to Places I Never Meant to Be, speaking of facing an editor who wanted to tame down a segment of a book, so that it wouldn't get challenged.

Dark, You Call That Dark?

2011-06-07T10:24:00.001-04:00

So, apparently, the latest round of madness is the supposition that if one enters one of the last remaining large chain bookstores and ponders the offerings that everything for teens is all dark. (No, I am not linking to this idiocy.) There are so many things wrong with this supposition, that it's hard to know where to start.
1. Yes the covers (and the story starts with all the dark looking covers) are dark. Often, at least. Not always. There are pastel and light and bright colored covers too. But, since even in the teen section (heck, even in the children's section) cover designers have developed a code that we as consumers are supposed to know, covers, particularly for paranormals are often dark. Unless of course they are not. But, yes, one can easily find a shelf full of dark colored covers in the teen section. Also the religious, cooking, and history sections. I would probably only require stepping a smidge to the left (or right) to find a shelf full of bright covers.
2. Teen books are not darker than they were before. They may be darker than what you read as a teen, but I can absolutely, unequivocally promise you, that pretty since the rise of the novel, there have been dark novels. And even if you try to tell me, well, yes, but the stuff for teens was all rainbows and glitter* (not, mind you, that there is anything wrong with rainbows and glitter) I will tell you that you are wrong. Whether we are talking Huckleberry Finn** or To Kill a Mockingbird or Catcher in the Rye or Wrinkle in Time, there is a long, long tradition of dark young adult books.
3. Reading about bad things does not make you bad. Adults read serial killer novels and do not become serial killers. I read all sorts of things, including serial killer novels, and, if anything, I think reading about people making difficult choices makes me consider myself more carefully, and hopefully become a better person, but I couldn't swear to that. I will swear that I am not a serial killer.
4. Now the article purports that it's not that it makes you bad, but that by reading about a fictional person engaging in bad behavior then it makes your bad behavior okay. (Follow that?) Now, I think this is so short sighted. If a person has an issue that requires attention (abuse, addiction, bullying) reading about another person experiencing that doesn't make you think it's okay so that you don't have to do anything. It makes it seem like something that an otherwise normal, okay person has experienced and that it's fixable or treatable or addressable. For all my issues with "Glee"s handling of the bullying (please, never go into a room alone to try and talk it out with your bullier) they did a wonderful job of showing that it is an issue that require involving adults and your other peers, and that there are solutions. One of the hardest things when trying to screw up the courage to face an issue, is that niggling thought that somehow you are the problem, you are so broken, you cannot be fixed. If a book can help you see that isn't the case, awesome.
5. To return to all the bright novels out there. They do exist. Whether we are talking about Judy Blume or Meg Cabot or Ally Carter or Sarah Dessen or so many others, they totally do. Now some of you are saying, but wait, aren't some of those books about sex and ghosts and spies and thieves. Oh, well, yes, they are. And that, I think is the next point.
6. Books about rainbows and glitter or princesses and beauty queens and other regular type folks may seem bright. (And hey, I'm not knocking bright at all.) But, often the stories that seem to just be about a girl planning for a prom, or a guy discovering that there's another guy with the same name as him, those stories are filled with all sorts of things like acceptance and treating people fairly and making good choices. Hey wait, those sound a bit like the dark books.
7. Aren't we supposed to be happy that teens are reading at all?

A hashtag got started on twitter - #YASaves - there are some compiled here. Also, NPR, has a great piece about here - in fact, let me lift this quote straight from there: "(I also took an entire class in high school were we read books about killing your family, double suicide, drowning, being murdered in your bed ... it was called "Shakespeare," I believe.)"
Many of these folks said it so much better than I ever could.

*Okay, I'm not sure how old glitter is. Let's pretend. No, wait, I checked, glitter is old.
**I know Huckleberry Finn is not as old as books, but it's old and most people have heard of it. Also, the article is of the opinion that young adult literature is only forty years old.

7 Things: The Walk for the Cure Edition

2011-06-06T11:01:00.001-04:00

1. This past weekend was the DC (area) Race/Walk for the Cure put on by the Komen foundation.
2. I was asked how many times I had done this walk, and confess I was trying to count by t-shirts or scarves, and finally came to places I lived and left for the race from to come up with at least seven, possibly eight or nine.
3. For whatever reason (well, okay, there is some methodology) we always seem to plan to meet the other walkers by a fountain.
4. The first year I did it, one friend asked later if we actually knew anyone who'd had breast cancer. My other friend and I both had a co-worker and a family friend (same co-worker, different family friends). This year, I added a new person to the list on the back of my shirt, but the good news is more of them are survivors (than, you know, no longer survivors).
5. I can only hope that the people carrying their company's signs were getting paid.
6. The number of people wearing pictures of their loved ones seems to get bigger every year.
7. Some good news was announced this weekend concerning cancer, here's hoping things continue that way.

What's That Smell?

2011-05-31T11:31:00.001-04:00

I confess, be it allergies, genetics or lack of practice, I am terrible at identifying smells. (My brother is amazing at this.) I went to a wine tasting with someone who was big into perfume and she was able to identify all sorts of things by smelling the wine. I got as far as one of them smelling like scotch (the others smelled like wine). She was able to explain to me that since scotch is often aged in oak and so is some wine, that's where the similarity came into play.
So, all of this is to say, when people bemoan the fact that ebooks don't smell like books, I don't quite get it. I mean I get that books smell like paper and ebooks smell like whatever electronic device you are reading them on, but I don't associate the smell of books with the experience so I don't miss it. (Unless the book smells like smoke in which case I have to air it out. Yes, despite my smell sense deficiency - obnoxious and poignant smells I may not be able to identify, but I can totally be annoyed by).
But for those of you more attached to the way your reading material smells, well, now there's a perfume for you.

<em>h/t to the Politics and Prose tweeters who passed this link on.</em>

The Oprah Effect

2011-05-26T09:34:00.001-04:00

Oprah's show went national while I was in school. I watched a lot of TV, but not a lot of talk shows. But I checked out this Oprah chick and watched quite a few. (It didn't hurt that it came on right about when I arrived home from school, after the tail end of "General Hospital".)

My life changed, I went off to college and then to jobs and things and I watched only intermittently, but certainly the TV landscape is different and so - here are 7 episodes I still remember.

1. Secret pregnancies - as in secret to the pregnant person. In what seemed like the plot of a soap opera, four women shared their stories. The amusing thing, in retrospect - given the series "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant" - was that they brought out an expert on pregnancy and asked how common this is, and the expert said she thought these guests must represent most of the sample, it wasn't very common at all.
2. I can't swear it was the first favorite things episode, but on an early one, there were ereaders. (It was the Franklin, so, a decade ago.) I had heard of ebooks, knew that some people were digitizing their backlist, I just, as the proud owner of a desktop computer, couldn't imagine all my reading time occurring in front of my bulky monitor. But being able to take all those books on vacation? That I could see.
3. This episode probably had a different theme than I remember, but it was basically audience stories. They were asking questions, and audience members were finding there way to mikes to share, and one question was lies my parents told me. One woman said she had asked her parents why some people had different skin color and her parents told her when babies were made they got baked in an oven, and some people baked longer. (I find this memorable in part because it is such a convoluted answer for something that could have been answered so simply.)
4. There was an episode dedicated to soap operas. There was a huge segment of guests from all different shows and they talked about crazy plotlines, what to do when a new actor plays the same role, and so on. And I remember Kim Zimmer talking about techniques for crying and after a detailed explanation about process she said - if that doesn't work, yank out a nose hair.
5. There were shows about weight loss and weight gain. And Oprah was very honest about her own struggles, which seems obvious to people who have watched the show, but there were (and are) so many talk shows where the host was maintaining an air of impartiality, and often even superiority.
6. And speaking of inserting herself into the story, there was her interview with Steven Spielberg where she pulled out her diary from shooting "The Color Purple" and read bits, including bits where she was sure he hated her and wished he could fire her. (He didn't.)

7. This interesting thing about the Jane Elliot appearance to me, other than it's whole audience experience and really fascinating demonstration of how embedded racial stereotypes are in the culture, is that when they re-ran it years later, they put so many bumpers warning the viewing audience about the exercise. To me, part of the fascination had been watching the episode when it originally aired, not knowing what was going on, wondering why half the audience was wearing collars and being taunted. Being warned that it was an exercise, didn't allow for your won organic reaction to what was going on, and made it a far less interesting thing. (Wikipedia has a link about her work and the brown eyed/blue eyed exercise.)

So Strange

2011-05-23T16:33:00.001-04:00

In the wake of the sad news coming from Missouri, I thought I'd pass on this tidbit from the American Philatelic Society. Included on their page of fun facts - apparently the Belgians decided to try a animal delivery system involving cats. You will be shocked (shocked, I tell you) to hear that the experiment didn't last long since the cats were "undisciplined". (I'm guessing undisciplined is code for: did not see any good reason to fetch and carry things.) This has apparently inspired a children's book.

h/t to Marjorie M. Liu for posting this link on Twitter.

Buy DC Kids Books

2011-05-19T15:56:00.001-04:00

This popped up in my Twitter feed, Ballou Senior High in DC (which I've mentioned before) needs books. (There's a video, they have very few.) So, this blog over here has teamed up with Powell's to get books on those shelves. As you know, this hits so many of my sweet spots, so I'm going to suggest if you felt like picking up a book for someone else, this might be the way to go. The response has been great so far.

Stitching and Pitching Again

2011-05-16T12:23:00.001-04:00

I took my non-fibre-manipulating friend along to Stitch and Pitch again. We had worried that the weather might be unfavorable, but, other than being a little chillier than one might expect, it wasn't bad. And this year's closer-to-the-action section, placed us underneath an overhang, so had it done more than spit occasionally, we were well protected. (It also put us farther away from the lights, which as darkness falls attract the expected light seeking bugs, who crispy critter themselves and plunge down on those in the seats beneath.)
The vendor area was also closer, which was great, if terribly dangerous those first few innings where I may have filled up my Washington Nationals bag with goodies. Cashmere, silk, faux cashmere, I'm not clear how I was supposed to resist. I worked on a sweater, while watching the game which, as it grew a little chillier, turned out to be a pretty good choice to have draped over one's lap.
This year we did not seem to be near any last minute ticket purchasers who were confused why people all had yarn. There seemed to be an interesting music choice during the salute to the troops moment. I have been informed that Cee-lo has a version of said song entitled "Thank you" so I shall assume that someone accidentally queued up the wrong Cee-lo song.
The game was competitive right to the end. And no new extra inning records (which while nice to be a part of, it was a little chilly for me to wish to repeat, especially given the tales my red line compatriots had about getting home after).
So, another great event.

Good Jobs

2011-05-11T10:01:00.001-04:00

I have a friend who firmly believes that her job working at McDonald's taught her many life skills and once told me she plans to make all her kids work there for at least a year. (In about ten years, I will remind her she said this, but I suspect she really meant it.) I never worked at McDonald's, but I did work at two different restaurants - one that I think is what we call these days fast casual as a cashier and one sit down where I bussed tables for breakfast shift and handled drinks, soups and desserts at lunch shift. Both of them, while I wouldn't say life changing, were really interesting experiences both in learning how frequently wait staff got paid less than minimum wage, since the tips were supposed to get them the rest of the way, and then things that lots of jobs teach you about working with different people and serving customers who may or may not treat you like you must not possess basic life skills to be working there.
So, I found this article listing four jobs everyone should have interesting. I have hit three out of the four, with manual labor being the one I am missing (unless we are willing to count child care as manual labor, because sometimes it sure feels like it).
I worked retail as a volunteer in a charity shop, and that was levels upon levels of interesting, especially with people who thought that since it was a charity shop, that they should be able to bargain the prices. I once walked into the back room to tell the supervisor that the customer wanted me to ask if she could pay half of the tagged price, she started to explain that she hadn't set the prices for those items and I told her I knew, I just needed to tell the customer that I had asked so she could go away and mutter that we were charging high prices for charity.
And those turned out to be great practice for customer service, where it was a toss up if people actually thought that maybe you had information to impart, and listened and let you explain the processes and procedures and information or assumed you were stupid or were low-balling them and maybe if they threatened you with a lawyer you'd cave. (Let me tell you, no one's lawyer ever really called us. Not saying it's never happened ever. Although I would love to talk with the receptionist at a lawyer's office to see how many calls they field about people who can't get the customer service agents to violate policy, or in our case, actual federal law for them.)
So, as we head towards a fresh crop of graduates, this seems like a good list. (Although certainly I took care of these in summer jobs too.)

No Small Roles - Even Dead Ones

2011-05-10T11:06:00.001-04:00

We've all heard that saying about how there are no small roles, but let's face it, I'm guessing you, like me, appreciated the sentiment but not necessarily in a literal sense. Because, for example, the fan in the stadium's twelfth row is not a terribly big role. So, it was with interest that I read this interview with four actors who are playing a corpse for an entire play. No, they don't just die and get discovered and dragged off, they are lying dead for pretty much the whole play. (Seriously, these people practiced, discussed rug burn issues, etc.)
So, I say kudos to these guys who are taking this role very seriously, and hopefully we can all remember to joy in what we're doing. Or, you know, be grateful that today I don't have to play dead.

Mt. Pleasant Then and Now

2011-05-06T10:10:00.001-04:00

Twenty years ago, I hadn't heard of the Mt. Pleasant neighborhood. Sure, I grew up in DC, but I lived in an area that lacked a name (and now gets called AU park, which is sort of hilarious considering the neighborhood's tense relations with the students who keep parking in front of people's driveways). I knew about Spring Valley, Dupont, Georgetown, Friendship Heights, Capitol Hill and some others but the first time I remember hearing about Mount Pleasant was twenty years ago when I turned on the evening news.
Attending school in Bethesda, with a lot of students from the Montgomery County suburbs and during the height of DC's status as a murder capital I spent a lot of time explaining that one could live a happy safe life in the city. That crossing over the border would not result in immediate death. That while common sense was always a good idea, heading home or out to dinner or any of the things I did didn't put me in mortal danger.
So, partly my reaction was a little bit of kneejerk, oh come on, no one will believe me now. It was also surreal to see that while everything still looked totally normal outside of our front door, somewhere in our city, people were rioting and setting police cars on fire. Watching it on TV, it seemed almost like a clip from a movie.
Of course, now, I understand more about the shifting demographics of the area and the tenuous relationship the Hispanic community (and the community at large) had with the police at the time. And while I still think rioting and burning police cars is not the best method to take a stand (particularly in this case where it turned out the anger was escalated by false information). So, I listened with interest to the Metro Connection story about the riots. Wikipedia also has an entry on it.
Now, of course, I live in Mount Pleasant. And I find a lot of people, people in the area even, still aren't quite sure where it is. (Sometimes adding that we're north of Adams Morgan or west of Columbia Heights helps. Sometimes not.) And, I appreciate the charms and, in keeping with the theory of relative risk, I can't imagine anything like that happening now. And we still have the coolest song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yUFFlaacAs

We are Alabama

2011-05-05T09:33:00.001-04:00

As you may have heard we are at the start of a particularly virulent tornado season. (Around here I can count on one hand the number of tornado warnings and watches we usually get and we've had two already.) This latest batch that hit Alabama was looking to be a record breaker (and may succeed once the final counts are done.)
Smart Bitch Sarah has a lovely list of resources here.
You may well already have your favorite cheat sheet of charities, but, in addition to the suggestions on the link above, I'll add three more.
Shelterbox* provides emergency shelters in, well, a box. They are a UK based company but they provide shelters all over the world.
Feeding America, well, feeds America. (I swear I don't have a bias towards charities with their mission in their name, it just helps.) They work across the country networking food banks.
And then, Habitat for Humanity is there when it's time for people to rebuild.

*h/t to Maureen Johnson for the link.

My Local Store

2011-05-04T11:16:00.001-04:00

Growing up I lived in the city, but still had a yard and yet could walk to the grocery store (and a drug store, a book store - now closed, and quite a few banks). My mother went to the grocery store almost daily. She would do big shopping trips - although sometimes we went to the bigger stores that were a little farther away for that - but on average, let's say six days out of seven, my mother stopped in at the store. We kids also went, particularly once we were old enough to be sent off with a few dollars to pick up a forgotten item. Originally it was an A&P and then later it turned into a Super Fresh. For a brief period, my dad had a job in the adjacent building, furthering the sense that much of our lives centered around that side of the block. Neighbor kids and I rode bikes there (and other places, we weren't that lazy). When I was old enough to have things like checks and debit cards that I would use there, cashiers would ask me about my mom as soon as they saw my name. And, while there was a more extensive liquor store literally around the corner, they had beer and wine. (Later I would discover that not every grocery store in the US does this, Maryland is weird.)
The store was, not surprisingly, a favorite of AU students (due to proximity) and led to my once watching a student attempt to convince the cashier to accept her out of state ID despite it's bearing no resemblance to the official ID's listed in the booklet the cashier had. (The story ends with the student's friend, who had a different ID purchasing the alcohol.)
So, I am a little sad to hear it's up for sale and hope the neighborhood - even though I no longer live there - gets a good store in there.

WRW Retreat - In the Company of Writers

2011-05-03T09:39:00.001-04:00

Parts of the WRW retreat have been tweeted (by me and others) and parts are supposed to stay there. But I will say, that for someone that makes it to a small number of my chapter's events, the retreat reminds me why I love this chapter. (Not that this was terribly in doubt.)
Kristan Higgins spoke wonderfully about how being a writer is like being Sean Connery in "The Untouchables". There was food, appointments (one of which I had on the move since the person had left their phone in their hotel room and could hear the phantom beeps calling too them), gatherings in the bar and wonderful workshops. Sherrilyn Kenyon made us all a little misty (and the super efficient waiters paused in their cleanup she was so moving) talking about how writing careers (possibly especially paranormal ones) are never dead unless you give up.
There was romance jeopardy about which I believe I am supposed to be vague - except to explain that the game is not fair, and we did not quite win although I did get a green lantern-esque rubber duckie, so I am happy. And Cathy Maxwell spoke wonderfully at the end about how going to these things where people think writing is a normal thing to do with your time is great and to hold on to that feeling.

The Roller Coaster Ride

2011-05-02T09:00:00.001-04:00

This was a weird weekend. The day job had a big deadline and yet I also knew I needed (wanted) to be in Leesburg for the start of my chapter's writer's retreat so I lugged my laptop with me and headed out to Leesburg at lunch time (before the traffic got, you know, normal for Friday rush hour traffic) and worked in Leesburg for the afternoon. Then, I swapped on the writer hat and went into retreat mode (more on the parts I am allowed to share about that later) and did that (while checking in with the day job periodically) for much of the weekend.
We finished up with that about lunch time, and since the weather had gotten a little cooler and a little damper than I had been promised when I packed, I headed to the nearby outlets so I could get some leggings and lunch before heading to a watch a friend - the person who had in fact recruited me to working with the youth one fateful night about eight years ago - become an ordained minister. It was a surprisingly moving experience, including the laying of hands, which I would describe as a very orderly group hug. And then, I got to go home and sit and catch up on my TV and such only to discover on Twitter (what, I was watching HGTV) that there was a big announcement coming.
So, quite a gamut of emotions going.

So What?

2011-04-28T16:23:00.001-04:00

As someone who works with teens I have spent a lot of time discussing appropriate relationships and signing forms where I promise to behave correctly and that I understand behavior appropriate with other adults or between the teens is not (always) the same as behavior that's acceptable between adults and teens. Now I recognize that I'm doing this in the context of a religious organization and that the rules for teachers are often stricter. However, there are things where I bang my head and wonder why that adult thought that was okay and there are also things where I think, "So what?".
So, it turns out that a high school English teacher also writes erotic romance novels. Now, I accept that she doesn't work in my school district or teach my kids, so my stake in this is non-existent, but I say, so what? Here's why.
1. The teacher, from all reports, is a great English teacher.
2. She has not suggested that her students read erotic romance - in or out of school.*
3. She wrote the books under a pen name. Now people who are good with the google fu can (and, in the case of one parent, did) figure it out. But she had taken steps to keep the identities separate so that a student cruising Amazon or their library or bookstore wouldn't happen on to it and think, weird, that's my teacher's name.
4. -She has not done anything illegal. I would also posit that nothing immoral, unethical, or salacious has occurred. I recognize that your mileage may vary on that, but writing a novel that may contain material that is inappropriate for some ages is not causing harm to anyone.
5. The suggestion that because she writes about sex, she will be unable to engage in appropriate relations with her students is ridiculous. A - because in a multi-decade career it appears that she has managed to demonstrate such and B - because writing about consensual adult relations is no way correlates to engaging in inappropriate sexual behavior and C - because if writing made it so, then Bart Simpson would have learned his lesson a long time ago.**
6. The suggestion that her students will now be unable to not think about sex is funny of so many levels. A - because yes, it is the rare high schooler who thinks about sex. (Not.) B - Because um, when several of my teachers got married or got pregnant (or got their spouse pregnant) I was, due to the knowledge of where babies come from imparted by my very school, able to deduce that they were having sex. Yes, it was kinda weird. It's part of growing up - figuring out that these people, be they parents or teachers or the cashier at the coffee shop all have lives that have nothing to do with you.
7. The teacher, from all reports, is a great English teacher.
As, SB Sarah pointed out, the comments on the news site are heartwarming (unlike, you know, a lot of new site comments.)
So, I find it sad that this news outlet considered this news and ran this story without any of the lovely comments from parents and students who think she is a wonderful teacher and could care less what she does in her spare time.

*I am not saying that I don't think high schoolers are old enough to choose their reading material. I do.
**Yes, I know Bart is fictional.

Books are not Vegetables

2011-04-27T13:11:00.001-04:00

I read two interesting and seemingly unrelated articles. One was a link to discussion about how we have developed a great system for identifying and nurturing athletes, and yet do not have corresponding type things for writers (or artists, mathematicians and so on). The other was about how after high school/college, a huge number of people never buy another book. (Yes, it's less than half, I still think that's huge.) Now, admittedly, the link states that book can be fiction or non-fiction, short stories, poetry or prose, but still that's a lot of people who are using something other than books to fill their leisure time (assuming they have some). Now, as far as I can tell, that book reading doesn't count reading newspapers, journals and magazines or even reading up on the internet (seriously, can't you just get lost in a rabbit hole of Wikipedia? Just me?). And while I appreciate that these things are not books, the point I'm making, is that these people may not have given up on reading (beyond shampoo bottles and cereal boxes) they may just have given up on books. And a lot of people seem to feel that books, much like dissecting worms*, are things that most of us don't have to do anymore once we finish school.
One of the things that always annoyed me was that summer reading always had a boring list. (I tell the high schoolers today they are so lucky, I don't think my list ever had anything written after 1950. Some of them are reading Scott Westerfeld.) I read more than the required number of books each summer, they just weren't all on that list. And if the point is to keep kids engaged with reading as something potentially wonderful, wouldn't letting them choose five books be fine? Or let them choose three of them all by themselves. Or something.
I once saw a nutritionist talk about how telling kids to eat their vegetables to get their dessert teaches them that dessert is good and vegetables are good for you (aka boring). And I think we do that with books. We turn them into boring, laborious, things and if you think those assigned books are a representative sample, well, who could be blamed if you turn to TV or the internet or video games? Imagine if you didn't know about TV and then you got one but the only channel it got was CSPAN. You'd think TV, while occasionally interesting, was ultimately a really dull format. (Maybe not dull, but not, you know, exciting much,)
And then we get to the second part of the issue. Most people agree that there are books that are not vegetable like, but those are all bubble gum. Yes, genre fiction, it's out there and some people read it, but unlike those very serious, often depressing book club type** books, or those very enlightening, remind you of a text book they are so heavy, non-fiction books*** that are the vegetables and possibly fiber for your brain, these are terrible and will rot your brain. No, don't read romance, or if you do, don't read sci-fi, or, eek, if you are out of college for sure don't be reading kids books (unless reading them to a kid). And well, mysteries, some of those are probably okay, but only the ones with dark covers, the rest are bubble gum too.
And you know what, that's why people don't read. The books they enjoy they are told are bad for them and the ones they don't like, or slog through, those are supposed to be the good ones. Now, this is not to say, that you shouldn't try all kinds of books. I am in favor of that. And this is also not to say that I hated every book I had to read for school, I didn't. But every time I hit one that made me think - wow, this is considered the good stuff - I had a broad base of other things that I knew were out there that were good.
Much like people that lament that all TV is bad for you, or that there's never anything good on TV, there are tons of books out there. (And okay, that may be the third issue - there are tons of books out there.) Try one. I swear it won't kill you.

*Unless your current life includes dissecting worms.
*Your book club may be cooler. Yay for you.
**Yes, I know, there are awesomely written non-fiction books to. Not talking about those.

Training Season

2011-04-25T09:07:00.001-04:00

Tis the season in my job where we train lots about how to do and talk and communicate better. But you know, sometimes - while you kind of know what the right thing should probably be, it's hard to imagine it. We all know what it looks like when someone tries to pass the buck or sort of gloss over an issue, but what does it look like when you admit an error, accept responsibility apologize and provide a plan for addressing it? Well, I imagine it might look like this.

What She Said

2011-04-22T11:46:00.001-04:00

I am going to direct you to this lovely post over at the Monkey See blog - "The Sad, Beautiful Fact That We're All Going to Miss Almost Everything" - not simply because I was percolating on something similar, but because it is great and true. And frankly, a relief to me. See, once you accept that you cannot do it - you cannot watch all the great TV, see every wonderful play, read every amazing book, listen to every beautiful song, attend every fabulous party, meet every awesome person and see every cool place - not without access to a time machine, well, I find it a relief. And of course, as is pointed out in the piece, there are infinite metrics available for attempting to figure out in advance which were the great TV shows and which are the awesome people and which is the transcendent art, but you know what? None of them are perfect. It's all subjective, so invariably you will spend some of your time on the books you find dull, people you find boring and places you find derivative. And that's okay too. Seriously, this seem terribly dark and depressing but instead I find it really freeing. Because once you realize you just can't, you say, okay hopefully I'll get to that book/person/art/TV/music. But am I doing something I like right now? If so, yay! If not, please proceed to the next thing in the hopes that it will be better. Have fun out there!

20 Things: The Reunion Edition

2011-04-15T15:59:00.001-04:00

Someone recently forwarded a meme where you come up with things you would have told your fourteen year old self. Now, I do occasionally get to pass on bits of wisdom to high schoolers but there are somethings they don't need to know (or that I haven't found a way to sneak in) and some things that are just such givens about their lives today. Things other than they changed that whole SAT eons ago, so the thing I took is obsolete. (Thank goodness I don't need that anymore.) And in honor of my impending reunion, here's 20 things I would love to pass on to my high school self.

1. The internet is awesome. You don't even know.*
2. Someone will create things like Facebook (friendster, etc) where you can re-connect with folks from camp, high school and college who moved away before they got your last snail mail.
3. Someday, your high school English teacher will leave the most amazing status update on Facebook, proving that she is still awesome.
4. Remember how you wrote a book for your senior project, that will become important again later.
5. You are very beautiful.
6. Almost all the plans you have right now, will work out differently than you expect.
7. It's okay, it works out pretty awesomely.
8. Later you will end up getting a job right near high school.
9. You will start going to church regularly.
10. You will end up at a church right near high school.
11. So, yes, for whatever reason that road, seems important.
12. Oh, and you do get your driver's license. Soon even.
13. College turns out to be hard, but not really that much harder than high school. (Apparently they are keeping that a secret.)
14. You will probably never again have as much free time as you do in college.
15. Take advantage of all those opportunities to have great, in depth discussions with people about things.
16. Do your best to listen and try to understand why they may disagree with you.
17. The sooner you learn that some people cannot be swayed by even the best logic, the better.
18. Get to know lots of people who know things you don't. You never know when having friends who know about nuclear reactors will come in handy.
19. Someday, most of the shows you loved in high school will be made available in little packages for sale. It's awesome.
20. Try things you don't think you can do. You'd be surprised how many people are faking it out there.

*Yes, I know the internet existed when I was in high school. But I didn't have access to it at the time, it used to be hard and require fancy equipment.

Another Piece of my Childhood

2011-04-14T17:05:00.001-04:00

I understand all the economic reasons behind the cancelling of iconic soaps "All My Children" and "One Life to Live", even if, much like Conan O'Brien's brief reign at the "Tonight Show" one has to feel for the cast and crew that upended their lives not that long ago to LA only to see this happen.
However, these two cancellations make me very sad, even if I haven't really tuned in for a while (and therefore am part of the problem), I liked knowing they were there.
My mother was a big believer in nap time. When my sister and I were in morning pre-school, we would come home, eat lunch and then take a nap. My mother somehow wrangled a deal for both me and one of the kids in my carpool so that we came home with the pre-schoolers on Wednesdays our first year in all day school. And on weekends, my mom often enforced nap time, as well as on school vacations. When we got old enough to start resisting this, we graduated to quiet time, which meant that for the hour we had to be in our rooms and could do anything we could come up with as long as it was quiet. (We did not have TV's or any other media in our rooms at this point, so quiet was mostly reading or making the dolls and legos whisper.)
But, my sister and I figured out that sometimes mom wasn't napping, she was in our parent's room (which did have a TV) or sometimes on the couch in the living room watching "All My Children" or "One Life to Live". Sometimes she was watching with her eyes closed. So,every once in a while, we were allowed to - quietly, of course - watch with her. So, my sister and I knew about Erica Cane and Palmer and Opal, and we knew about Clint and Vickie. And one summer (well after I had graduated from nap/quiet time) I dove into them full on. And gave "General Hospital" a try. So I know about the rock on the ranch that sent Clint and Vickie back in time. I know that Jesse and Angie's parents didn't approve. I know that Nina didn't really die in that helicopter crash. And for a while I was making use of the newspaper recaps, and the phone in recaps to keep up while I was in school. (That's right kids, back before every site on the interwebs did recaps, it was hard. And you had to walk five miles.)
So, from a nostalgia point I am sad. And as the number of daytime soaps dwindle, I think we lose - not only a great place for actors, but also a great jumping off point for storylines. Daytime soaps, perhaps because of the sheer number of episodes, were faster to diversify their casts, they were fast to introduce storylines where characters revealed to their parents that they were gay or bisexual, they addressed drug abuse, and rape, and all manner of mental health issues (and okay, most people with multiple personalities do not have one that is a prostitute, but it was there, and people talked about it). They had characters dealing with AIDS and lupus (something I actually don't think I've seen on prime time at all) and partial paralysis and yes, sure, these things were blended in with time travelling rocks and people kidnapping their family members or having secret twins, but still, they addressed a huge number of issues.
And, as night time soaps dwindled, other drama's out there started developing the arcing storyline, pieces of the plot that - soap-like - didn't get resolved for several issues.
And, let me tell you, for all the terrible things that happen to soap characters, there's an amazing message of hope in there, because let's face it, most of these characters forgive each other for the most egregious offenses (yes, in part because some of them would have no one left to talk to otherwise). (And sure, on a different soap on another channel, my friend and I once had a long discussion about how come attempting to sell your baby sister on the black market did not appear to even result in being grounded.) But also - if your spouse dies or leaves you, you rarely have to wait long to either find someone new or to have your old spouse return from a long trip where they have now seen the error of their ways. People survive just about everything thrown at them, and often, even if it is in a terribly unexpected way, their dreams come true. The most awful of schemers can be redeemed - often by love - whether romantic or for a child. And on the holidays, most of the drama pauses briefly so you can enjoy the people in your life this year.

[And yes, I realize all the soaps aren't quite gone.]

The Thing About Libraries

2011-04-11T08:56:00.001-04:00

Inspired by Courtney Milan's wonderful post about libraries, and in celebration of the government continuing to function (keeping the libraries in DC open) I thought I'd chip in with my own. Growing up, my mother was a big fan of free and cheap things that could be done to entertain small children. So, we went to most of the museums in the Smithsonian, stared at stained glass and gargoyles in the National Cathedral, played at local parks and, of course, went to the library. Since we were near the DC/MD border we frequented both the Tenleytown branch of the DC system (which has now been redone into an architectural wonder) and the Little Falls and Bethesda branches of the Montgomery County libraries. We also bought books, particularly at the now long gone Cheshire Cat bookstore (which also hosted a bunch of free events with authors).
So, at a point in my life where I didn't even get an allowance to spend, I was introduced to reading with great assistance from the libraries. I got to pick out my own things - although my mother certainly looked at them, I don't recall her ever telling me no, other than limiting the number I could take home. The biggest issue we ran into was that, particularly when I was reading shorter kids books, I finished them all really quickly thus bugging my mother for a return trip sooner than she had planned.
As I started getting an allowance larger than a dollar, and saving up for things I wanted, the library was still there. Sure I bought books, but I also wanted to buy candy and lip gloss and so the library helped me spread out that allowance. Later I had summer jobs (where I kept half my pay and saved the other half for college and such) but since they were summer jobs making minimum wage (or sometimes less) the library was a tremendous resource in filling my reading habit, especially when we would take those family vacations to somewhere with no TV so we could get away from it all. (Yeah, these were a huge hit to a teen, oh, let's go look at swampland.*) Books were portable and while they took up some space in my bag, it allowed me to have something to do in those down times.
In college, I had tons of assigned reading, but would set aside times to read fun stuff that hadn't been assigned. I had the local library there and the local bookstore that had a decent sales wall, but again, my budget was limited, so I borrowed from the library at least as many as I bought. One book I read entirely at lunch each day for about a month. (One of my college roommates enjoyed torturing me by discovering my book and telling me she had read the last chapter. Yes, I actually consider that torture.)
Out of college I had a job. I had several jobs. The first few, I was paid irregularly (the joy of small businesses and such.) So, the buying and borrowing continued. Eventually I got a job that paid me on a regular schedule. (It had benefits too.) And slowly reached a point where I could buy books almost exclusively. Some of them I bought used, but the library card was getting less use.
But the point, as Ms. Milan, so graciously made in her post, is that the library got me through those times, so that as a decently paid adult, I became a book buyer. A really big book buyer.
I have been told that Disney's goal is to get you to visit at least four times - they figure the first two are when other adults take you, the third with kids, and the fourth, well that's the one where you spend the big bucks. So, the idea is that they have to make every one of those first three visits so amazing that you make that fourth visit (and you know hopefully that one to and so on). And libraries help serve that purpose for readers. Libraries allow people to become and maintain this reader thingy. Otherwise, particularly in this day and age, you could go play minesweeper or Angry Birds for a similarly cheap investment. You could watch more TV. There are all sorts of low budget activities you could fill your time with instead of reading books.
So, the point (and I do have one) is that libraries are not stealing book sales. Libraries are establishing readers. And libraries offering ebooks isn't killing sales, it is, again, establishing and maintaining readers. Readers aren't saying, "Gee, I could buy this book or just borrow it free on my couch." They are saying, "I could buy ten books, or I can fill up the gas tank. Hmmm, maybe I won't buy books this week." Sure, that's not everyone's experience, but the assumption that library borrowers are just borrowing when they could buy, is well, naive.

*Yes, we went on "good" vacations too.

I'm Not Sure What it Means

2011-04-04T17:31:00.001-04:00

It probably says something about me that I find this, hilarious, but if you have ever ridden a bus (or other form of public transport) and/or had someone question your hobbies, I suggest you go here.

7 Things: Addiction

2011-04-04T09:52:00.001-04:00

A roommate got me hooked* on "Intervention". It sounded like train wreck television, but I think it does really attempt to show a balanced look at what addiction does both to the addicts and families, and then, of course, offer assistance to both the addict and the families. Intriguingly, the addicts agree to get help far more often than the families, although certainly the addicts sometimes bail on treatment after a few days, or experience relapse. "Intervention" continues to follow the families, providing new updates (and sneakily getting me to watch reruns over and over), and following the successes and failures as they occur. "Intervention" - according to this article about it has a higher success rate than a lot of programs (and we're not just talking about TV programs here).
If it were up to me (which, you know, it isn't) I also think "Intervention" should be shown to kids as part of drug and alcohol awareness.
So, here's my seven things I have learned from "Intervention".
1. Addicts do not look as cool drunk or high as they think they do drunk or high.
2. Addiction is an equal opportunity offender - rich, poor, city, country, religious and not, famous or not, all races, and both good and bad parents have ended up with addicts in the family.
3. Siblings are often the most pissed off, both at losing a sibling and at their parents letting the sibling behave that way. Older kids of addicts will also be supremely pissed off.
4. Family members will often buy into the most ridiculous stories to avoid realizing that their relative has an issue.
5. Everyone's bottom is really different. I have seen tales of addicts who at the start of the show were homeless.
6. I am about as good at predicting who will be most successful at staying sober as I am at predicting sports.
7. There is a certain sameness to it, that after a while you begin to see what meth addicts or opiate addicts or coke addicts or drunks look like. It's not unique. No matter how awesome they think they look or seem high.

*Sorry, couldn't resist.