When Your Coworker is a Cat

1. They will never clean up after themselves

2. They will expect you to refill the water and the food. 

3. They will nap at will. 

4. They will demand pets at will.  

5. They will curl up in adorable and distracting poses. 

6. They will listen to all your complaints without interrupting. 

7. They may jump in front of the webcam when you are on a videoconference and just walk across like nothing's happening. 

Belated Three Interesting Things

1. A friend pointed me to this story of women who dressed as men to fight in the US Civil War. It also mentions that the same thing happened in the Revolutionary War.

2. I'm behind, but have been enjoying "The Bold Type", and found this discussion of one of the love interests intriguing.  (Spoilers if you hadn't seen the writing on the wall for this relationship.)

3. Exotic is a fancy way of saying foreign, and not really correct in the case of Asians or even Asian Americans, as this woman pointed out.

Diverse is Like Alternative

I remember when alternative music was the new kid on the block, or more appropriately, the new genre.  Of course, at the time most of the acts falling into alternative were new acts, who really were doing something distinctly different from the other stuff on the radio.  (Yes, this does mean probably lots of people had been doing that stuff not on the radio for quite some time, and the naming of the genre was just some bigwigs at the music companies figuring out how to monetize it.)  But then you get far along enough in the game that the new people coming in, grew up hearing that stuff on the radio, they don't enough know what it used to be like, you guys. And you start to wonder, why do we call this alternative anyway, alternative to what?

I think we're getting there with diverse, and getting there with things like own voices.  Partly it's just the nature of words, they evolve, or the group being labelled with that word evolves.  Code Switch did a story about the predominately white historically black college in West Virginia. So, when we call books that feature characters of color and/or LGBTQ characters and/or disabled characters diverse, we are trying to say that these are groups that generally in literature are not as well represented as straight, white, able-bodied, cisgender characters. But yes, referring to such characters themselves as diverse, implies that they are other.  So we can recognize that this is the term that people understand, while also realizing the term itself is problematic, and stating that a book contains diversity, is different than saying people - actual living people - are diverse for being non-white or non-straight or disabled or non-cisgender. 

Good stories are good stories.  But the lens and interpretation on that story does change it.  That's why there's so many versions of "A Christmas Carol".  That's why DC has two theaters that do several Shakespeare plays every year, changing the setting and time period. I saw a version of "Much Ado About Nothing" set during the DC Caribbean Festival that was amazing. It was the same and it was different.  And that's the point.  Getting more stories, more music, more voices, more things for us to consume might all make us better people (we can hope) but it also gives us more stuff.  And given both the music industry and the book industry are trying to sell us stuff, the more stuff we have, the wider our range of choices, well, that helps everyone.

RIP Mr. Vance

Growing up we watched ABC news usually.  We had a small connection to one of their reporters, so that's just what we did even after that connection broke.  But the elementary school that I and my siblings went to was right next door to NBC4.  My mother worked at that school even after we had all aged out. My brother and I both worked there for a bit.  The school shared the parking lot with NBC, and the security guards would let the teachers come over and make use of the cafeteria. It was also where "It's Academic" was filmed, so I spent a lot of time in the NBC building, at least compared to the other stations in town.

Jim Vance has been a steady presence in the DC news all this time.  Others have moved on to bigger shows, some left and came back, some hopped to new networks.  Jim Vance has been there.  Steady, calm, and just a delightful, reliable reminder of what a good news anchor is. 

I am so mad that cancer took him away from us, even though 45 years of providing news to us at the local news desk is honestly plenty.  I am heartbroken for his family, and colleagues, and know that even those who moved away from DC are sad to know he's no longer holding down that newsdesk. 

Here is my favorite video of him unable to maintain his composure.  Know that it is funnier for it's being the exception. 
 

Three Interesting Things

1. Nicole Chung wrote about the simple magic of being able to take your kid to see a Shakespeare play where the actors look like her. 

2. You may have heard the President golfs.  This discussion about usage of a river is fascinating to me because it expresses how the small choices that presidents make encroach on the ability the rest of us have to just, like kayak down a river or whatever.  We never got that stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue back for cars, it sat this year with security fencing pushing people even farther back for months.  

3. I try to resist the hype machine somewhat.  Movies that are not out until 2018 can take a seat.  But.  But.  This description of the "Wrinkle in Time" trailer.  Well.