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2 days ago
Thursday, January 06, 2005
Only one person on this planet would keep me company when I asked for it, during a two-week midnight marathon of gymming
…and not make fun of my lesser endurance (which is quite lesser)
…and talk to me when I felt like talking (which was often)
…and let me watch the food channel when I felt like watching the food channel (sorry, it was so interesting!)
…and leave when I was ready to leave (you would have stayed)
…and return the next day, and the next, and the next (no matter how late).
Only one – you know who you are. I wont be able to continue this marathon. It would be too lonely now that you’re off and away. I’ll have to take up fencing or skateboarding or something.
But I’ve loved these days…
…and talk to me when I felt like talking (which was often)
…and let me watch the food channel when I felt like watching the food channel (sorry, it was so interesting!)
…and leave when I was ready to leave (you would have stayed)
…and return the next day, and the next, and the next (no matter how late).
Only one – you know who you are. I wont be able to continue this marathon. It would be too lonely now that you’re off and away. I’ll have to take up fencing or skateboarding or something.
But I’ve loved these days…
Get a load of that snow!
Years of conditioning had me out of bed before dawn to check on school closings. As so many times in the past, all schools reported closings except for Madison’s public schools. There are arguments to be made on both sides of the issue, but they no longer concern me. It was merely a point of curiosity. And I was anxious to play the role of the benevolent neighbor, the one without kids needing to rush to make it to school and without my own pressing time issues. I wanted to repay past favors and shovel sidewalks of proximate kind souls.
[Blogger ethics are nothing compared to intricate shoveling ethics: you absolutely are the rudest person if you stop at your property line and do not shovel up to the neighbor’s driveway – like my neighbors to the south who are considered utter pariahs for their selfish property-guided shoveling practices. And, if you have time, you shovel your neighbor’s walk. If you are feeling so generous that your heart is bursting at the seams, you may, every two winter seasons or so, do the walkway up to their door as well. But you are never ever obligated to touch their driveway, unless they are elderly or feeble or incapacitated. Otherwise, shoveling someone’s driveway is an embarrassment of riches – you’re overstepping the boundaries of camaraderie.]
I was too late. The sun had not yet risen, but the shovelers were out there already and so we shoveled en masse, with jocular shouts to each other, in the way guys talk when they are trying to be friendly. Yes, that’s right, guys. For shoveling has remained a task for men. Guys grill and guys shovel. That’s just the way it is in America. [Before I get barraged with emails telling me I am grossly exaggerating, let me just say that I am simply reporting what happens around me: absolutely no woman shovels on our long block if there is a guy in the house. This is true even though in three households we have stay-at-home (or work at home) dads and in most households both the man and woman work.]
[Blogger ethics are nothing compared to intricate shoveling ethics: you absolutely are the rudest person if you stop at your property line and do not shovel up to the neighbor’s driveway – like my neighbors to the south who are considered utter pariahs for their selfish property-guided shoveling practices. And, if you have time, you shovel your neighbor’s walk. If you are feeling so generous that your heart is bursting at the seams, you may, every two winter seasons or so, do the walkway up to their door as well. But you are never ever obligated to touch their driveway, unless they are elderly or feeble or incapacitated. Otherwise, shoveling someone’s driveway is an embarrassment of riches – you’re overstepping the boundaries of camaraderie.]
I was too late. The sun had not yet risen, but the shovelers were out there already and so we shoveled en masse, with jocular shouts to each other, in the way guys talk when they are trying to be friendly. Yes, that’s right, guys. For shoveling has remained a task for men. Guys grill and guys shovel. That’s just the way it is in America. [Before I get barraged with emails telling me I am grossly exaggerating, let me just say that I am simply reporting what happens around me: absolutely no woman shovels on our long block if there is a guy in the house. This is true even though in three households we have stay-at-home (or work at home) dads and in most households both the man and woman work.]
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
Into the void
It is nothing short of eerie to sled at night when snow and clouds swirl in the blackness around you. Luckily I had a couple of innocents with me who were willing to chance everything and be sucked into the void along with me. We all survived, but just barely.
And in the meantime, what are folks up to in Crystal, Minnesota?
In Crookston, Minnesota, they’re shivering (see post below). In Crystal, they’re creatively fighting boredom. Here’s the finished product, all made out of post-its (via boingboing and gprime.net):
Give generously, continuously, in many ways, to many places
A story appeared in Le Monde today announcing that Médecins Sans Frontières is putting a stop to any more donations for tsunami victims (the organization is overwhelmed by the magnitude of donations thus far). MSF is also reminding the public that sudden and profound disasters of this nature ought not take attention away from ongoing disasters elsewhere (“les victims des conflicts oubliés, ” victims of the forgotten conflicts). Europhobia suggests that if you feel moved to donate to tsunami relief, you may consider splitting your gift between victims of that catastrophe and those currently starving in Africa. Not a bad idea.
Shoes and socks we need not wear, Hey la dee ay dee ho!
Rumor has it that you went to the grocery store in mere gym shorts and a sweatshirt, even though we are in the middle of a winter storm. Is this true?
Yes.
And is it true that you just shoveled your driveway in similar attire?
Yes.
…and that you have been going in and out of public places dressed in such fashion?
Yes.
Do you know that it is currently 17 degrees F in Madison?
Yes.
How do you explain yourself?
Hearty Polish peasant stock.
Yes.
And is it true that you just shoveled your driveway in similar attire?
Yes.
…and that you have been going in and out of public places dressed in such fashion?
Yes.
Do you know that it is currently 17 degrees F in Madison?
Yes.
How do you explain yourself?
Hearty Polish peasant stock.
Winter gardens revisited
For all my complaints about winter gardens, am I not moved by the prettiness outside as the snow falls and promises to accumulate into beautiful pristine drifts of white fluff?
I do love snow. Here is me, in the snow, back in the fifties, in the Old Country:
But it is all so temporary. Checking wunderground.com I read for next Tuesday:
Mostly cloudy with a 30 percent chance of rain. Highs in the lower 40s.
Mud and puddles, coming your way, followed by a burst of the Wisconsin special: an Arctic chill over a barren, snowless landscape.
Like I said, forget the disguise, the white blanket that hides the truth. Winter gardens = ugly.
Mostly cloudy with a 30 percent chance of rain. Highs in the lower 40s.
Mud and puddles, coming your way, followed by a burst of the Wisconsin special: an Arctic chill over a barren, snowless landscape.
Like I said, forget the disguise, the white blanket that hides the truth. Winter gardens = ugly.
You again?
Having lived in this town now for 25 years (yikes!) and having moved two kids through the public school system from grades one through twelve, I feel like there are a fair number of people here that I know. Indeed, I have been told (shouted at, in fact): you know more people in Madison than you know in Warsaw, Poland, your *beloved homeland,* don’t you? DON’T YOU?? I’ll at least say that it’s a tie.
So two days ago I ran into a former neighborhood friend whom I haven’t seen for a long long time (she’d moved to another neighborhood). We stood between the grind-your-own- peanut butter and the pick-your-own-dried-herbs sections of Whole Foods and chatted for a long while.
But then, lo and behold, I was waiting at Brocach for my dinner companions to arrive and there she was again – sitting next to the only other free table in the room. Do I go up and awkwardly catch up on the last two days? Do I tell the maitre d’ to please seat me anywhere but close to her? What’s the right and proper thing to do? God, I hate these socially awkward situations!
So two days ago I ran into a former neighborhood friend whom I haven’t seen for a long long time (she’d moved to another neighborhood). We stood between the grind-your-own- peanut butter and the pick-your-own-dried-herbs sections of Whole Foods and chatted for a long while.
But then, lo and behold, I was waiting at Brocach for my dinner companions to arrive and there she was again – sitting next to the only other free table in the room. Do I go up and awkwardly catch up on the last two days? Do I tell the maitre d’ to please seat me anywhere but close to her? What’s the right and proper thing to do? God, I hate these socially awkward situations!
Tuesday, January 04, 2005
And what sex is YOUR brain?
God, it's awful grading all those exams. Today I got so bogged down with a bluebook that I began to question my innate ability to process some of the text that is presented to me for evauation. To reassure myself that I am still a thinking individual, I went to the BBC website, to see what updates they had on human intellignece.
Of course, I got distracted by little digressions and eventually I clicked on to this little gem:
Go ahead and take the test (courtesy of the Science Museum in London), but remember that it is a timed test so don't ponder your answers for too long. Then write and tell me if the gender of your brain matches that of your reproductive system.
Of course, I got distracted by little digressions and eventually I clicked on to this little gem:
Go ahead and take the test (courtesy of the Science Museum in London), but remember that it is a timed test so don't ponder your answers for too long. Then write and tell me if the gender of your brain matches that of your reproductive system.
Illusions, delusions and other such nonsense
When I work hard at them, my flower beds look stunning in the summer. All that color, texture, shape – splendid.
Gardening experts have said that after the flowers wilt, dry up and eventually shrivel into gray heaps of dead leaves and ghostly seed pods, you can let them alone and admire them in their skeletal form – they will delight you all winter long in their interesting “winter garden” presentation.
Oh, how good we are at talking ourselves into liking what is before us!
I suppose it’s like having your backyard look out on a cemetery. You can tell yourself that you really enjoy all that history, all the crosses and tombstones, right there, so inviting, so unique.
For me, a “winter garden” is more like a tableau of what life would be like after a nuclear explosion: brittle, burnt, lifeless. [Is this what would be referred to as naked art?]
My winter garden exists for two reasons only. First, I haven’t the time nor inclination to take a hatchet to it and clear it completely of debris before the frost comes. Secondly, once snow falls, the dead plants keep the ground temp steady, especially during early spring with all that Wisconsin weather merry-go-round as the days go from cold to warm, to cold again.
In other words, I save my illusions and delusions for other areas of my life, where I imagine that I am seeing continuity and beauty and never-ending potential. My garden, on the other hand, is not beautiful in the winter. I’m with the one honest farmer who tells it like it is: it is an ugly garden. It’s over and done with and will not look good again until next April when the first buds break ground again.
Gardening experts have said that after the flowers wilt, dry up and eventually shrivel into gray heaps of dead leaves and ghostly seed pods, you can let them alone and admire them in their skeletal form – they will delight you all winter long in their interesting “winter garden” presentation.
Oh, how good we are at talking ourselves into liking what is before us!
I suppose it’s like having your backyard look out on a cemetery. You can tell yourself that you really enjoy all that history, all the crosses and tombstones, right there, so inviting, so unique.
For me, a “winter garden” is more like a tableau of what life would be like after a nuclear explosion: brittle, burnt, lifeless. [Is this what would be referred to as naked art?]
My winter garden exists for two reasons only. First, I haven’t the time nor inclination to take a hatchet to it and clear it completely of debris before the frost comes. Secondly, once snow falls, the dead plants keep the ground temp steady, especially during early spring with all that Wisconsin weather merry-go-round as the days go from cold to warm, to cold again.
In other words, I save my illusions and delusions for other areas of my life, where I imagine that I am seeing continuity and beauty and never-ending potential. My garden, on the other hand, is not beautiful in the winter. I’m with the one honest farmer who tells it like it is: it is an ugly garden. It’s over and done with and will not look good again until next April when the first buds break ground again.
Monday, January 03, 2005
How old are you?
Fifty-one.
Carving figure eights with a car key seems like something my little sister would do. She’s five.
Yes, well she and I have this in common.
Whom are you skating with?
Alone. I like to skate alone. I don’t do it very often, but sometimes the urge strikes and so here I am, just me and the ducks and you. Pretty empty out here, isn’t it?Why not skate with someone?Because when you skate alone you can speed! Like, go really fast! And when you get tired, you can stop.
Don’t you fall when you go really fast?
No, I never fall.
What a smug attitude! Even Olympic champions fall.
I am not an Olympic champion. If I fell, it would hurt, so I don’t fall. The day I start falling, I’ll stop skating. It’s like driving on ice: you figure out how fast you can go to stay within the margins of safety so that you do not crash. I try not to crash in cars, nor fall on skates.
Speaking of figures, can you do fancy stuff on the ice?
I can do a mean imitation of an Olympic contestant coming out onto the ice to begin a performance. You know how they lift a foot in sort of a curtsey? Yeah, I can do that well. And I can do a half-leap in an inconsequential way that lands me back on ice but resembles nothing anyone has ever done in a professional skating capacity.
Oh. Was it cold today?
Well, I had these terrific Polish wool mittens, except they were joined together with a string and I could not rip it apart so for a while I skated as if I was praying, like this (imagine the other hand in the mitten -- the one that is out at the moment taking the photo and getting frostbite all for the sake of The Blog):
Fifty-one.
Carving figure eights with a car key seems like something my little sister would do. She’s five.
Yes, well she and I have this in common.
Whom are you skating with?
Alone. I like to skate alone. I don’t do it very often, but sometimes the urge strikes and so here I am, just me and the ducks and you. Pretty empty out here, isn’t it?Why not skate with someone?Because when you skate alone you can speed! Like, go really fast! And when you get tired, you can stop.
Don’t you fall when you go really fast?
No, I never fall.
What a smug attitude! Even Olympic champions fall.
I am not an Olympic champion. If I fell, it would hurt, so I don’t fall. The day I start falling, I’ll stop skating. It’s like driving on ice: you figure out how fast you can go to stay within the margins of safety so that you do not crash. I try not to crash in cars, nor fall on skates.
Speaking of figures, can you do fancy stuff on the ice?
I can do a mean imitation of an Olympic contestant coming out onto the ice to begin a performance. You know how they lift a foot in sort of a curtsey? Yeah, I can do that well. And I can do a half-leap in an inconsequential way that lands me back on ice but resembles nothing anyone has ever done in a professional skating capacity.
Oh. Was it cold today?
Well, I had these terrific Polish wool mittens, except they were joined together with a string and I could not rip it apart so for a while I skated as if I was praying, like this (imagine the other hand in the mitten -- the one that is out at the moment taking the photo and getting frostbite all for the sake of The Blog):
Otherwise, I was fine. Skating like a person possessed. Hans Brinker one minute, Irena Tatyanova Illyanovich (or some such Russian skater name) the next. You can let your mind wander out there on the ice.
Then what?
Then I went to Whole Foods and shopped for dinner. Skating was just an impulsive detour on the way to the store.
Then what?
Then I went to Whole Foods and shopped for dinner. Skating was just an impulsive detour on the way to the store.
Dear readers: Ocean does not bite the karmic weenie
Fortune magazine’s long article on Why There’s No Escaping the Blog (linked to via boingboing – thanks) describes the impact blogs have on business. It’s tough to lie when bloggers are there to quickly spread the story of your inconsistencies and untruths (emphases are mine):
True, we are reminded that “these are still the early days of blogging, and the form is still morphing.” But if these are the early days, where will we be two years from now? Technorati claims that 23,000 new blogs are born every day. Fortune predicts that blogs will replace email very quickly:
"If you fudge or lie on a blog, you are biting the karmic weenie," says Steve Hayden, vice chairman of advertising giant Ogilvy & Mather, which creates blogs for clients. "The negative reaction will be so great that, whatever your intention was, it will be overwhelmed and crushed like a bug."Okay, not always. But it is at least slightly amusing that blogs, fabricated at the whim and fancy of people who may or may not themselves speak truthfully have the power to discredit someone else’s phony statements.
True, we are reminded that “these are still the early days of blogging, and the form is still morphing.” But if these are the early days, where will we be two years from now? Technorati claims that 23,000 new blogs are born every day. Fortune predicts that blogs will replace email very quickly:
Says Bill Gates, who claims he'd like to start a blog but doesn't have the time: "As blogging software gets easier to use, the boundaries between, say, writing e-mail and writing a blog will start to blur. This will fundamentally change how we document our lives."It’s hard to believe that email is on its way out even as I sit here bemoaning the lost art of letter-writing. But then, has anyone apart from me noticed how hard it is to actually manually write things down these days? The hand is no longer positioned to hold a pen most of the time. I can see it now – a sort of revolution in our evolution as our hands become permanently curved into menacing shapes with calluses at our finger tips. All because of blogs.
Freeze is off, Freese is on
In case you haven’t noticed, the blog that continues to dazzle and chirp with wit and humor (and includes the nicest ever anniversary wishes for Ocean) has awakened from a month’s repose.
But the idea of hibernating in cyberspace has me thinking: should every blog be required to take a mandatory vacation, to invigorate, refresh and inspire anew its author? Is blogging year-round without a day’s break so commendable that I want to brag about it? Look at me! Weeeeee! I never stopped for a minute, EVEN WHEN I HAD NOTHING TO SAY! I continued, I wrote, I posted! And the band played on.
In fact, I am not ready for a blog vacation. I wrote to a friend back in December – stay tuned, I may take a break from blogging after I reach my first anniversary on January 2nd. Here I am on January 3rd, posting about it. And worse, I have to admit that my very favorite blog posting is done when I am ON vacation. My number three* job choice would be to go places and be paid to blog about them.
So, no freeze for me, not for a while anyway. If I could blog through the obstacles placed squarely in Ocean’s lap in the year 2004 (two tense times come to mind: one in Nagano, Japan where I could only post through dial up via a faulty connection to Wisconsin at hundreds of yen per minute and the other in the farmhouse in Todi, Italy where there was not even a phone to hook into, forcing me to walk the streets with my laptop under my arm and beg strangers to let me use their phone lines), I surely would not pause now when I am wired and not even tired (yet) of the entire adventure.
Enough celebrating. Time to get down to the business of grading and visualizing (as a reminder I am acquiescing to the idea that I must see myself as a writer in order to actually come closer to achieving any writing goals). Here is today’s image, fresh from a … well, you can guess:
* Number one job choice: the job I have, of course (Dean, are you reading this?). Number two job choice: leave that one for another blog post in the distant future. It’s nothing racy or original, believe me.
Sunday, January 02, 2005
Looking for upbeat news from Poland in the New Year?
Here’s the headline today from the leading (liberal) Gazeta Wyborcza. The first paragraph (in bold) reads (in Polish, translation my own):
Warsaw – symbol of freedom and the promised land of free market in books and films of the new generation is changing into a hell of loneliness and unemployment. The city’s icon is no longer the Palace of Culture, but instead, the palace of capitalism.
Do I really want to identify with this? Call it my homeland? Maybe I should have been a product of…maybe Estonia? Let me read up on it:
TALLINN – Freedom House, a U.S.-based NGO that monitors freedom and democracy around the world, wrote in its latest annual survey that Estonia ranks among countries that provide maximum political rights and civil liberties to their citizens.
Jump ship now while the going’s good. Nina from Estonia. Sounds okay, doesn't it?Birthday brunch
Is it blog-indulgent to invite people over to celebrate your blogg-iversary? No no, not at all. It is, after all, only an excuse. Just like blogging is an excuse to step back from your daily life and put forth something more spontaneous and even at times oddball-ish about yourself for the world to read.
I was greatly indulged this morning-afternoon. Of the original A B C & F blogging crowd, only one slipped off the planet into a sickroom and could not make it. My family patiently tolerated the event and we ate and drank -- they all think it was to the birthday of Ocean. But really it was to all our blogs in the New Year. May they shine. May they make us and the world about which we write just a little happier, wiser, saner.
P.S. I burned batch no. 1 of the bacon. I always burn crostini bread for dinners and bacon for brunch. It has become a pattern and Althouse refers to this curiosity in her blog. Let me say this: it will be a sad day when I do not burn the crostini or the bacon. It will mean that the company or I have become so boring that I keep track of baking minutes instead of our conversation.
I was greatly indulged this morning-afternoon. Of the original A B C & F blogging crowd, only one slipped off the planet into a sickroom and could not make it. My family patiently tolerated the event and we ate and drank -- they all think it was to the birthday of Ocean. But really it was to all our blogs in the New Year. May they shine. May they make us and the world about which we write just a little happier, wiser, saner.
P.S. I burned batch no. 1 of the bacon. I always burn crostini bread for dinners and bacon for brunch. It has become a pattern and Althouse refers to this curiosity in her blog. Let me say this: it will be a sad day when I do not burn the crostini or the bacon. It will mean that the company or I have become so boring that I keep track of baking minutes instead of our conversation.
Could it be that we are on the second day of January and I’m still posting about resolutions?
…It’s just that I received an email from a reader – someone whom I respect significantly (ergo a writer, because as I said earlier in the blog, few people give me goosebumps in the way that writers do) – who wrote that one New Year’s resolution he’s considering is not googling himself so much (there was a reason, but it would identify the person and so I’ll not state it here – but it was a funny reason, leading me to believe he was being somewhat waggish).
Why do I mention this? Well of course, it lead me right away to google myself – something that I haven’t remembered to do for a while. Since the better part of my legal career has been in the world of clinical legal education, I need not ever worry that I’ll bring up endless legal references. My down-and-out clients – mostly parents who allegedly abused or neglected their children – would not be writing about me nor I about them.
What I did bring up were obscure references to Ocean as well as notes and comments I made on the blogs of others. Comment, people, google brings up the comments function (occasionally)!
So it’s back to placing the post-it in front of my nose with a slight modification: I must remember not to write impulsive emails and post disgruntled comments on people’s blogs. Both will come back to haunt me.
Why do I mention this? Well of course, it lead me right away to google myself – something that I haven’t remembered to do for a while. Since the better part of my legal career has been in the world of clinical legal education, I need not ever worry that I’ll bring up endless legal references. My down-and-out clients – mostly parents who allegedly abused or neglected their children – would not be writing about me nor I about them.
What I did bring up were obscure references to Ocean as well as notes and comments I made on the blogs of others. Comment, people, google brings up the comments function (occasionally)!
So it’s back to placing the post-it in front of my nose with a slight modification: I must remember not to write impulsive emails and post disgruntled comments on people’s blogs. Both will come back to haunt me.
Happy Birthday, dear Ocean…
A year ago today someone tapped me on the shoulder, as I sat reading my first small cache of blogs and said – you should write one… Someone else said sure, other side of the ocean sounds exactly you. Ocean was born.
Why is it that our blogs come to have their own personalities? Aren’t Ocean and NLC one and the same? (Hint: no, not entirely.)
Regardless, I want to say thank you, in a big way, for giving me the honor of your attention (sounds so stiff, but it is meant with such sincerity). And for writing to me. And for linking to me – in good ways and in colorful *other* ways.
I am deliriously happy to have had this chance to blog non-stop for an entire 365 days. It’s been a dream (sometimes a nightmare). Thank you, thank you for indulging me in this wild hobby. And a note toward the future: I’m hoping that with practice, things will grow and prosper (rather than shrink and deteriorate) here at Ocean. Not in the numbers it attracts, but in what it offers to those who do click on. Keep checking, and let me know when things rub you the right or wrong way.
Saturday, January 01, 2005
Post-resolution questions
If practically every source tells me that the vast majority of NYEve resolutions are about eating well, drinking less and exercising more (noble but boring, all of it), why was the gym so empty this afternoon?
If it’s because people were nursing hangovers on NYDay and therefore couldn’t be peeled off the living room couch enough to make it to the gym, doesn’t that suggest that they’d already broken with a resolution to maintain healthier habits?
If the gym was empty (oh so empty) because the roads were covered with ripples of ice (pretty, in a grim-reaper sort of way) because of daylong sleet squalls, shouldn’t Borders be equally deserted? [It was not.]
Where is day one of the visualization program I said I’d indulge for 30 days in order to “embrace the new me” (see yesterday’s post on Optimum Performance and my resolution to write more)?
Here, from just this minute. I am at my computer. I am seriously writing. Pages and pages.
If it’s because people were nursing hangovers on NYDay and therefore couldn’t be peeled off the living room couch enough to make it to the gym, doesn’t that suggest that they’d already broken with a resolution to maintain healthier habits?
If the gym was empty (oh so empty) because the roads were covered with ripples of ice (pretty, in a grim-reaper sort of way) because of daylong sleet squalls, shouldn’t Borders be equally deserted? [It was not.]
Where is day one of the visualization program I said I’d indulge for 30 days in order to “embrace the new me” (see yesterday’s post on Optimum Performance and my resolution to write more)?
Here, from just this minute. I am at my computer. I am seriously writing. Pages and pages.
A Happy Happy New Year to all Ocean readers!
My sister writes that Poles have taken to fireworks with great vim and vigor, so that Warsaw is one explosion of noise on December 31st.
And what happens in Madison? Fireworks! Only, they hit the skies two hours before midnight. A true commitment to celebrating along with those who are one time zone away from the shore of the Atlantic Ocean, or a deference to the sleepy eyes of children?
And what did I do to celebrate (in addition to standing in the middle of Pinckney, clicking away in a light little winter dress and a billowing but inadequately-warm scarf)? I ate well. Of course. So predictable.
And what happens in Madison? Fireworks! Only, they hit the skies two hours before midnight. A true commitment to celebrating along with those who are one time zone away from the shore of the Atlantic Ocean, or a deference to the sleepy eyes of children?
And what did I do to celebrate (in addition to standing in the middle of Pinckney, clicking away in a light little winter dress and a billowing but inadequately-warm scarf)? I ate well. Of course. So predictable.
Friday, December 31, 2004
Should auld acquaintance be forgot…
Yes! I have an acquaintance that everyone would agree should be forgot. But why is this song so sad? It played at home minutes ago and one could only think: funeral time!
Looking forward with zip and enthusiasm to 2005, shouldn’t we pick something more up-tempo for a NYEve ballad? Hey Ya! – someone here just suggested it as a replacement. I’m in agreement. Bring out the strobe lights and the champagne! I wanna see y’all on y’all baddest behavior! [In other words, to translate for the older set: Hell with New Year’s Resolutions, they suck!]
Okay, just a thought.
Looking forward with zip and enthusiasm to 2005, shouldn’t we pick something more up-tempo for a NYEve ballad? Hey Ya! – someone here just suggested it as a replacement. I’m in agreement. Bring out the strobe lights and the champagne! I wanna see y’all on y’all baddest behavior! [In other words, to translate for the older set: Hell with New Year’s Resolutions, they suck!]
Okay, just a thought.
I guess the fat lady hasn’t sung yet…
…because the topic of resolutions appears to be not quite ready for the refuse pile.
First, I’m getting email “lack of progress” reports from certain writers over at Professor Barnhardt’s Journal. That’s what I call getting punched in the noggin: I struggle to articulate something reasonable, something possible, something worthwhile to set as a 2005 target, and I get a little reminder that my goals are likely to go the way of the toilet paper – flushed in the weeks immediately following January 1st. Resolutions are made to be broken.
And leave it to academics to point out yet another problem with this whole resolution mess. Over at U of Minnesota, a psych prof notes:
Others tell me that’s not enough. Forget writing things down. The reason we break our resolutions is that we do not recondition our brains to think in new ways! An optimum performance expert says this:
First, I’m getting email “lack of progress” reports from certain writers over at Professor Barnhardt’s Journal. That’s what I call getting punched in the noggin: I struggle to articulate something reasonable, something possible, something worthwhile to set as a 2005 target, and I get a little reminder that my goals are likely to go the way of the toilet paper – flushed in the weeks immediately following January 1st. Resolutions are made to be broken.
And leave it to academics to point out yet another problem with this whole resolution mess. Over at U of Minnesota, a psych prof notes:
But research shows that six weeks after people make their New Year's resolutions, 80 percent have either broken them or couldn't remember what they were.Oh my God, this is written directly to me, isn’t it? You deliberately forget every small and large task that lies before you: write it down already!
Write down your resolution at the top of a sheet of paper--in big, bold letters!
Others tell me that’s not enough. Forget writing things down. The reason we break our resolutions is that we do not recondition our brains to think in new ways! An optimum performance expert says this:
“People don’t understand how their brain functions and therefore renege on their resolutions 99% of the time within very short order. Using will power is absolutely the worst way to achieve your new goals because it is controlled by your conscious mind, which is only responsible for one sixth of your abilities.You mean I don’t need will power?? So what is it that I have to do (remember – I just want to write more; I don’t want to lose weight, drink less, make new friends, I just want to write!)?? Our performance guru has this advice:
It takes about 30 days of everyday mental training to re-train the brain if you want long lasting and permanent weight loss or if you want to earn more money. By doing a few simple visualization exercises seeing yourself at your perfect weight or career, you start to recondition your internal image and you begin to erase the old image. The more you do this the faster you’ll see results...
Another simple technique you can use is a written positive affirmation declaring,“I now weigh xxxx. My body fat is xxxxx. I feel and look great and I am at my ideal and perfect weight now."
I’m into trying new things. Let me give it a whirl. Beginning tomorrow, I will post pictures of me writing with declarative sentences to this effect “I am now writing excessively. I am at my ideal writing performance level now. At this very minute, I have more pages of text than I can possibly deal with. My works are flooding the shelves of every literate person on both sides of the ocean...”
But let me not get ahead of myself. That is tomorrow’s post.Today I am just a slovenly, still-in-my-pajamas law prof with a stack of unread exams, spending too much time at the computer, producing worthless dribble.
Thursday, December 30, 2004
P.S. on resolutions: not amusing enough for you?
If my resolution (see post below) left you disappointed, let me tell you, there are many more out there on the Net that you can peruse and reflect about. I’ll leave you with a few choice samples from lounge.bust.com, where a number of commenters have resolved the following:
From jilliec:
- Devote more time to playing my fucking guitar.
- Smoke more pot.
From spunkychick:
- replace the 'blech' items in wardrobe with new funky fun items
From rebookie:
- Have sex again
From dusty:
- stop slacking with housecleaning, work, paying bills, hair care answering emails and basically anything in my life that involves responsibility.
From mandolyn:
- cut down on the alcohol and drug-consumption.
From isotopia:
- stop picking at my skin
From tyger:
- stop pulling the hair out of my knees and knuckles as stress relief
From nanuk:
- Finish grad school applications
From pinkpoodle:
- Moisturize more
From Venetia:
- Publish three things in refereed journals.
- Go to Italy (or else Poland, but probably Italy)
[I was with her until the last one. Definitely she should go with Poland. Italy is everyone’s choice. Poland is for the lovers, the intellectuals, the truly forward-looking.]
From jilliec:
- Devote more time to playing my fucking guitar.
- Smoke more pot.
From spunkychick:
- replace the 'blech' items in wardrobe with new funky fun items
From rebookie:
- Have sex again
From dusty:
- stop slacking with housecleaning, work, paying bills, hair care answering emails and basically anything in my life that involves responsibility.
From mandolyn:
- cut down on the alcohol and drug-consumption.
From isotopia:
- stop picking at my skin
From tyger:
- stop pulling the hair out of my knees and knuckles as stress relief
From nanuk:
- Finish grad school applications
From pinkpoodle:
- Moisturize more
From Venetia:
- Publish three things in refereed journals.
- Go to Italy (or else Poland, but probably Italy)
[I was with her until the last one. Definitely she should go with Poland. Italy is everyone’s choice. Poland is for the lovers, the intellectuals, the truly forward-looking.]
Resolutions for the New Year: the final post on this topic
The house is quiet. Everyone is out doing things that for one reason or another I do not want to join in on. It is VERY quiet. Eerie almost. Very very quiet. In the still of this silence, I can write down the resolution that will have to do for this blog, for the coming year:
I resolve to write more, rather than less, in 2005.
That’s it. Nothing more.
I resolve to write more, rather than less, in 2005.
That’s it. Nothing more.
A post on my longstanding attachments to letter writing
Forget about blogs, emails and the entire technological revolution. I love letters. I want to go back to letters. I admire them and the people who write them well. Some of my favorite books are compilations of letters. I refuse to throw out the recent New Yorker because it has the letter exchange between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell. I love it. Completely totally.
On the strength of that, I went to Borders today and looked again at their (meager) collections of correspondence. People are private about their letters -- not much is made available for publication. But in my search through the anthologies I came across something almost as enticing: A Chance Meeting – Intertwined Lives of American Writers and Artists, 1854 – 1967. W.E.B. Du Bois and Charlie Chaplin. Norman Mailer and Robert Lowell. Gertrude Stein and William James. Etc. Private history (a term coined by Mark Twain). You can’t ever conclude anything on the basis of the scant information that we are presented with, but still, it can give you pause: a chance meeting and we have a changed person. That it then has an impact on her (his) art or writing goes without saying. The Mystery is absolute though, because the reader can never fully understand how different things may have been without that little pod of influence.
Just a fragment from “A Chance Meeting:”
On the strength of that, I went to Borders today and looked again at their (meager) collections of correspondence. People are private about their letters -- not much is made available for publication. But in my search through the anthologies I came across something almost as enticing: A Chance Meeting – Intertwined Lives of American Writers and Artists, 1854 – 1967. W.E.B. Du Bois and Charlie Chaplin. Norman Mailer and Robert Lowell. Gertrude Stein and William James. Etc. Private history (a term coined by Mark Twain). You can’t ever conclude anything on the basis of the scant information that we are presented with, but still, it can give you pause: a chance meeting and we have a changed person. That it then has an impact on her (his) art or writing goes without saying. The Mystery is absolute though, because the reader can never fully understand how different things may have been without that little pod of influence.
Just a fragment from “A Chance Meeting:”
In years later, Gertrude Stein used to tell the story that one beautiful spring day, after she had been to the opera every night for a week and was tired, she had to take an exam in Professor James’s class, and she found that she “just could not.” Writing in the third person, she described herself sitting there: “Dear Professor James, she wrote at the top of her paper. I am so sorry but really I do not feel a bit like an examination paper in philosophy today, and left.” He wrote her a card saying that he perfectly well understood and, according to her, gave her the highest mark in the class. That she actually passed with a B seems to have been solidly obscured in her mind by her preference for her own version of the events – one that illustrated the deep sympathy between Gertrude Stein and William James.
Ann says yes to cell phones on planes, I say take them to the bathroom and stay there
On second thought, why should you have the privilege of the limited washroom facilities? Ann claims that the plane is a noisy public place and that if you are in need of quiet, buy and iPod!
No no no, do not force me to dangle white strings from my ears, I do not want an iPod. But I also do not want to listen to Gidget discuss her shopping trip with Aurelia for two hours right as we are flying over Buffalo.
People who use cells in public do so loudly and without attention to the other. It has become such a nuisance that trains on the East Coast, in Europe and in Japan (and the world over for all I know) have created quiet cars. Seats there fill faster than in the “regular” cars. I wonder why.
We are generally a noisy people. It is said that Americans stand out abroad and I can see that: we boom and bang our way through most chatter. But if the rest of the world is to be trapped with us in tight spaces, can’t it at least request of us that we shut the little hell-toy up for a few hours? Let’s get email on the planes up and running. Yes, yes, I’m all for that. But please, keep that little cell jingle on silence mode while in the air.
No no no, do not force me to dangle white strings from my ears, I do not want an iPod. But I also do not want to listen to Gidget discuss her shopping trip with Aurelia for two hours right as we are flying over Buffalo.
People who use cells in public do so loudly and without attention to the other. It has become such a nuisance that trains on the East Coast, in Europe and in Japan (and the world over for all I know) have created quiet cars. Seats there fill faster than in the “regular” cars. I wonder why.
We are generally a noisy people. It is said that Americans stand out abroad and I can see that: we boom and bang our way through most chatter. But if the rest of the world is to be trapped with us in tight spaces, can’t it at least request of us that we shut the little hell-toy up for a few hours? Let’s get email on the planes up and running. Yes, yes, I’m all for that. But please, keep that little cell jingle on silence mode while in the air.
Resolutions for the New Year: surfing for ideas, continued
Still not satisfied with yesterday’s web-based suggestions, I am digging deeper into other people’s failed lives and unaccomplished goals from years past. Maybe in these heaps of botched effort I’ll find inspiration – or at least nuggets of wisdom on what to avoid for 2005.
When I need to find the weird, the obscure, the original weblog, I go to the cool, the wonderful, the prolific boingboing.net. After all, they were the source of the link to Shizzy’s Page, where a guy recounts how he developed an email correspondence with a lowly employee of Starbucks while pretending that he, the blogger, was the CEO. [A handful of Ocean readers thought the prank was mean beyond mean and they threatened to boycott Ocean if I posted a link to it, so I restrained myself. I agree that it’s mean beyond mean, juvenile, impish, vile even. To agree along with us, check it out for yourself, here.]
Boingboing did not disappoint. They offer a link to 43folders.com where a geek (Merlin Mann) recounts his implementation of principles articulated in the popular “Getting Things Done.” Yeah!
Reading just the last few entries floods me with the realization that things are slated for failure unless you keep your projects small and you get rid of ambitious and complicated to do lists. I am staring at my ambitious and complicated “to do” list as I type this. Dare I tear it up for the New Year? Wee hoo! Merlin writes [emphases are my own]:
When I need to find the weird, the obscure, the original weblog, I go to the cool, the wonderful, the prolific boingboing.net. After all, they were the source of the link to Shizzy’s Page, where a guy recounts how he developed an email correspondence with a lowly employee of Starbucks while pretending that he, the blogger, was the CEO. [A handful of Ocean readers thought the prank was mean beyond mean and they threatened to boycott Ocean if I posted a link to it, so I restrained myself. I agree that it’s mean beyond mean, juvenile, impish, vile even. To agree along with us, check it out for yourself, here.]
Boingboing did not disappoint. They offer a link to 43folders.com where a geek (Merlin Mann) recounts his implementation of principles articulated in the popular “Getting Things Done.” Yeah!
Reading just the last few entries floods me with the realization that things are slated for failure unless you keep your projects small and you get rid of ambitious and complicated to do lists. I am staring at my ambitious and complicated “to do” list as I type this. Dare I tear it up for the New Year? Wee hoo! Merlin writes [emphases are my own]:
I try to ensure that any action I identify as a next action can be finished, front to back, in less than 20 minutes time—preferably in fewer than 10 minutes. So, forexample, while “Write an article on GTD” is practically useless (that’s a project!).
[Furthermore:]
Okay, resolve to resolve small things, and get rid of grand plans and unwarranted optimism. I'm getting warmer now to the day when I can actually resolve something! Stay tuned.In a previous life as a producer and project manager for some good-sized web projects, I once approached my work with a completely baseless optimism and sense of possibility that I had absolutely no business feeling—let alone foisting off on others as way to guide big projects... Yikes. Simpler times.
The reality is that projects change, and projects break; that’s what they do. It’s their job. The smaller your project is, and the shorter the distance there is between “here” and “there,” the less likely you are to have to chuck it and start over for reasons you couldn’t possibly have foreseen when you were knitting up them fancy GANTT charts for Q3/2007.
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Resolutions for the New Year, continued
Sometime at the beginning of April, I wrote this teeny little post-it to myself: “I will think kind thoughts and not write slanderous emails” (or something to that effect). I dated it, signed it, and put it up in the corner of my computer screen in my office. It was an impulsive gesture, probably a step toward some desire for self-improvement, or, more likely, written after I had sent some impulsive email (SO me) that I knew would cost me my life, except that this penetrating piece of wisdom did not strike me until after I had already clicked “send.” It happens. Of course, the little post-it became part of the fabric of the place: I came to take it for granted. In fact, I sort of forgot all about it. It was like a fly on the wall that had left a permanent, yet quickly forgotten splotch. Others may have noticed it – I ceased to pay any attention to it.
This December, in my absence, the computer in the office was upgraded (I posted about this earlier). The techies actually took the little post-it and transferred it to the new computer. HOW AWFUL!! Now they know I am capable of thinking evil thoughts and writing horrid emails.
So, if resolutions in the middle of the year just lead you to make a fool of yourself, what good are resolutions set for January 1st?
This December, in my absence, the computer in the office was upgraded (I posted about this earlier). The techies actually took the little post-it and transferred it to the new computer. HOW AWFUL!! Now they know I am capable of thinking evil thoughts and writing horrid emails.
So, if resolutions in the middle of the year just lead you to make a fool of yourself, what good are resolutions set for January 1st?
Readers state their preferences
Thanks for the emails about *things that you like* in the blog. That polenta photo generated a number of kind comments. But the thing is, I cannot keep posting photos of What I Am Up To. They would be like this – me taking a self-portrait, sitting at the computer looking off-the-wall bizarre. Want proof? Here's one, taken in a self-indulgent moment ten seconds ago:
Volunteerism, carried to new *heights*
Do you mean I could make a difference in helping people get from one place to another during this busy holiday travel period? Should I volunteer my services? Would I do a better job than experienced employees? The NYT reports that US Airways has faith in us, the off-the-street ready-to-jump-in volunteers! I’m ready. I’ll do my bit.
This post is in response to the NYT online news brief. Here it is, in full bloom:
This post is in response to the NYT online news brief. Here it is, in full bloom:
US Airways Is Predicting a Smoother Weekend: US Airways said that with the help of volunteer employees, it expected a smooth weekend at its Philadelphia hub after a Christmas weekend of mishandled bags.
Resolutions for the New Year: Introduction
In the last three days of the year, there is nothing left to groan about except the unopened property tax bill, the healthy living program that was to go into effect on December 26th and faltered on the 27th, and the forthcoming January 1st deadline for getting my resolutions in order.
This year, I decided to do what in previous years I could not have done (due to blog-ignorance, laziness and sloth): check out eminent bloggers and read what they had to say on the subject of resolutions.
One of my favorite lists of resolves comes from Professor Barnhardt’s Journal (it’s a webzine, with a handful of writers posting each Tuesday on topics selected by the editor, Bob Sassone, who himself is also a contributor at McSweeney’s, Salon, Esquire, etc). And so, to warm up to the topic, I decided to share some interesting possibilities, ripped from their January 2004 posting. Later, I will craft my own, but for now, if you’re thinking to resolve things, mull over these options:
(From Tod Goldberg): …Don’t resolve to fundamentally change a part of my personality. I’m an asshole, I recognize that, and thus it would be silly for me to decide come January 1st to become the Mother Teresa of Gen-X novelists... [And on a more practical note:] Learn to wipe sitting down. Now this is a weird thing. All my life, I’ve stood to wipe. My wife learned of this a few years ago and informed me that I was “weird” and that what I was doing was “wrong” and that I should learn the “right way”… 2004 is the Year of Sitting Down, folks.
(From Joe Lavin): … If this year I come up with a resolution in December, I will act on it immediately, instead of waiting until next January just so that I can make it an official New Year's resolution…. [Also] I resolve to be more mysterious, even if people just think I'm being an idiot. … [And on a more practical note:] I think I'll have some cheesecake.
(From Brian Lewandowski *): … [Remember, this was written in 01-04. Sigh…] I resolve never again to vote for any Presidential candidates with 6 or less letters in their last names. They have been nothing but problems… think about it. All the good ones have more letters than that in their monikers. So I am sorry Mr. Dean and Mr. Clark, it looks like I am gonna be riding the Kucinich - Sharpton ticket all the way to DC! [And in a less practical vein:] I resolve to also never ponder if it’s a NASCAR or a NASCAR car.
(From Bob Sassone): More drinking, more smoking, more sex.
* Because he shares my last name (in its "maiden"--oh, what a curious word that is! -- version), and because his recent blog post speaks to my own holiday gluttony, I thought I'd cite here a few sentences from his exclamation-point.com entry yesterday:
Breaching the 200 lb mark for the first time in my life, I am feeling a little plump. Traditionally, like any good Lewandowski, I am carrying that weight in my belly. No where else, just the big belly on my little chicken legs. I look like a freaking Weeble balanced on toothpicks.
So in order to lose the weight I put on sweats today. That's the ticket, right? I see tons of really fat people wearing sweats at the mall and I see athletes wearing sweats. The sweats must make all those mall fats turn into athletes...
This year, I decided to do what in previous years I could not have done (due to blog-ignorance, laziness and sloth): check out eminent bloggers and read what they had to say on the subject of resolutions.
One of my favorite lists of resolves comes from Professor Barnhardt’s Journal (it’s a webzine, with a handful of writers posting each Tuesday on topics selected by the editor, Bob Sassone, who himself is also a contributor at McSweeney’s, Salon, Esquire, etc). And so, to warm up to the topic, I decided to share some interesting possibilities, ripped from their January 2004 posting. Later, I will craft my own, but for now, if you’re thinking to resolve things, mull over these options:
(From Tod Goldberg): …Don’t resolve to fundamentally change a part of my personality. I’m an asshole, I recognize that, and thus it would be silly for me to decide come January 1st to become the Mother Teresa of Gen-X novelists... [And on a more practical note:] Learn to wipe sitting down. Now this is a weird thing. All my life, I’ve stood to wipe. My wife learned of this a few years ago and informed me that I was “weird” and that what I was doing was “wrong” and that I should learn the “right way”… 2004 is the Year of Sitting Down, folks.
(From Joe Lavin): … If this year I come up with a resolution in December, I will act on it immediately, instead of waiting until next January just so that I can make it an official New Year's resolution…. [Also] I resolve to be more mysterious, even if people just think I'm being an idiot. … [And on a more practical note:] I think I'll have some cheesecake.
(From Brian Lewandowski *): … [Remember, this was written in 01-04. Sigh…] I resolve never again to vote for any Presidential candidates with 6 or less letters in their last names. They have been nothing but problems… think about it. All the good ones have more letters than that in their monikers. So I am sorry Mr. Dean and Mr. Clark, it looks like I am gonna be riding the Kucinich - Sharpton ticket all the way to DC! [And in a less practical vein:] I resolve to also never ponder if it’s a NASCAR or a NASCAR car.
(From Bob Sassone): More drinking, more smoking, more sex.
* Because he shares my last name (in its "maiden"--oh, what a curious word that is! -- version), and because his recent blog post speaks to my own holiday gluttony, I thought I'd cite here a few sentences from his exclamation-point.com entry yesterday:
Breaching the 200 lb mark for the first time in my life, I am feeling a little plump. Traditionally, like any good Lewandowski, I am carrying that weight in my belly. No where else, just the big belly on my little chicken legs. I look like a freaking Weeble balanced on toothpicks.
So in order to lose the weight I put on sweats today. That's the ticket, right? I see tons of really fat people wearing sweats at the mall and I see athletes wearing sweats. The sweats must make all those mall fats turn into athletes...
Tuesday, December 28, 2004
Update: email nightmare resolved and it was not my fault! Surprised?
In installing a new computer in my office (I think it was to be a surprise), the tech dude (inadvertently?) set it so that the new email program (another surprise) would download email from the server every ten minutes. If I retrieved something at home (or elsewhere) before it got downloaded – mine! If I did not, it was wiped off the server. Some three fourths of email got slashed in this way, though I ultimately retrieved it in my office today.
I can only respond to it from the Law School because it is there and not here, and unfortunately I am here and not there. I will get to it all, I will. In the meantime, here’s a small chunk of attenuated responses:
Thanks, sorry you feel that way, no I cannot do that, of course you should study that for the exam, yes please do send it to me, gym would be fantastic, I liked your Christmas pictures as well, thanks for that story, no I am not insulted, of course I read your blog, I would love to eat dinner and I’m glad you’re not holding grudges over that unfortunate incident back in November.
I can only respond to it from the Law School because it is there and not here, and unfortunately I am here and not there. I will get to it all, I will. In the meantime, here’s a small chunk of attenuated responses:
Thanks, sorry you feel that way, no I cannot do that, of course you should study that for the exam, yes please do send it to me, gym would be fantastic, I liked your Christmas pictures as well, thanks for that story, no I am not insulted, of course I read your blog, I would love to eat dinner and I’m glad you’re not holding grudges over that unfortunate incident back in November.
Why is there a bright orange shirt set up as if it had a person in it?
No, it's not a shirt ripped off the back of a Ukrainian.
I think Poles are predisposed toward artistry. I mean, it’s obvious, isn’t it? Even at a time when art was blandly subservient to a political agenda, Polish artists developed a reputation for spectacular poster art (remember “Cyrk” posters from the sixties and seventies?). Poles had a knack for the stuff.
But fashion – it suffered in postwar Poland. The styles were conservative, the colors were uniformly washed-out. Burgundy looked like last year’s plum preserves. They said it had something to do with the quality of the dyes. Maybe. I think it had to do with a national disinterest in developing a great fashion industry. In fashion taste, Poles were being compared with their neighbors – to the west (Germany) and to the south (Austria), except it was said (I’m just reporting here, not commenting on the veracity of the claims) that the Germans and Austrians at least made shoes to last, even if you didn’t especially want to wear them.
So don’t you think that it is reasonable to compensate for the years of dyspeptic colors in this new Polish market economy by flooding the stores with strong statements about color?
I bought the orange shirt in Poland at “Reserved,” which like “Tatum,” is a leading Polish clothes retailer, sort of our meager analogue to J.Crew. Reaction here to my proudly displayed shirt:
-> it looks like it should be worn by a traffic person
-> nice and bright, isn’t it?
-> next time bring me one…around the end of October
-> really bright…
See, I knew it: suddenly it’s on everyone’s wish list. How nice to see that Polish clothes are making a statement again!
But fashion – it suffered in postwar Poland. The styles were conservative, the colors were uniformly washed-out. Burgundy looked like last year’s plum preserves. They said it had something to do with the quality of the dyes. Maybe. I think it had to do with a national disinterest in developing a great fashion industry. In fashion taste, Poles were being compared with their neighbors – to the west (Germany) and to the south (Austria), except it was said (I’m just reporting here, not commenting on the veracity of the claims) that the Germans and Austrians at least made shoes to last, even if you didn’t especially want to wear them.
So don’t you think that it is reasonable to compensate for the years of dyspeptic colors in this new Polish market economy by flooding the stores with strong statements about color?
I bought the orange shirt in Poland at “Reserved,” which like “Tatum,” is a leading Polish clothes retailer, sort of our meager analogue to J.Crew. Reaction here to my proudly displayed shirt:
-> it looks like it should be worn by a traffic person
-> nice and bright, isn’t it?
-> next time bring me one…around the end of October
-> really bright…
See, I knew it: suddenly it’s on everyone’s wish list. How nice to see that Polish clothes are making a statement again!
What to do when your connectedness waffles and wanes
Lately, things have been slow on the email front. Vacations! Holidays! – I told myself. But today, a colleague sent me an email basically asking why I haven’t responded to her emails no. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. Why? Because I never got no. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. But I got no.6. Oh oh. Further investigation reveals that other emails also have not reached me. Yet some have. Moreover, this has been happening for several weeks now.
Panic. I am certain that I have missed the crucial, all-important deadline. And, I have appeared rude to students, colleagues and friends. (And truthfully, some have appeared rude to me.)
Clicking onto the web-based Wiscmail reveals a completely empty Inbox. What???? I have been erased from the web planet! I am no more. Except sometimes, I am as before.
I will unravel this, I will get to the bottom of this hellish email ride. In the meantime, if you have written and received no answer, it is not my fault! The cyber gods and I appear to be having issues over who is really in control and at this point, they are ahead in the battle. Hang in there, nlcamic at wisc dot edu has got the wise and wonderful tech support staff on her side. They’re scratching their heads as we speak.
Panic. I am certain that I have missed the crucial, all-important deadline. And, I have appeared rude to students, colleagues and friends. (And truthfully, some have appeared rude to me.)
Clicking onto the web-based Wiscmail reveals a completely empty Inbox. What???? I have been erased from the web planet! I am no more. Except sometimes, I am as before.
I will unravel this, I will get to the bottom of this hellish email ride. In the meantime, if you have written and received no answer, it is not my fault! The cyber gods and I appear to be having issues over who is really in control and at this point, they are ahead in the battle. Hang in there, nlcamic at wisc dot edu has got the wise and wonderful tech support staff on her side. They’re scratching their heads as we speak.
Monday, December 27, 2004
Sorry for being distracted – I am reading Admissions files
Would you like me to be blogging away, chipper and carefree, without great concentration or commitment to the stack of folders in front of me? No you would not. You would appreciate the fact that applicants spent a good deal of effort in putting together law school applications. They should get a careful reading. Goodnight Ocean, hello personal essays and explanations of youthful arrest records.
Survival of the less fit
The threatening email accusing me of hording the 365 Organic Angel Fluffies (see my post here) has got to stop. You pick your own addictive chips! May I suggest Organic cheddar popcorn? Yummy! But the Fluffies – they are mine mine mine. The holidays are over, my generosity of spirit is packed away until December 2005.
I’m off to stock up. I don’t trust my readership at all.
I’m off to stock up. I don’t trust my readership at all.
The new face of Poland?
I am so glad market capitalism has flooded shelves in Poland’s stores with delicious foods and beautiful artifacts. I am glad that people aspire to better work, that countries in the EU are accepting Polish workers, that elections aren’t riddled with corruption and fraud.
I am less happy to read about certain social transformations that have accompanied the Great Change (here, though in Polish). Recent studies reveal that Poles now think of themselves as alienated, indifferent toward their neighbor, angry and downright mean-spirited. Those in the rural areas still regard the village community as supportive and kindly disposed toward one another. Elsewhere? Forget it. I'm dismayed to read the words that now describe daily life: “wyscig szczurow” (race of the rats), “wzajemna agresja” (mutual aggression). In some regions, only 7% of the population think that that people these days are well-meaning or kind. Lovely: a generous nation turned brutish and sour. Best visit now before you’re greeted with daggers and swords at the airport.
I am less happy to read about certain social transformations that have accompanied the Great Change (here, though in Polish). Recent studies reveal that Poles now think of themselves as alienated, indifferent toward their neighbor, angry and downright mean-spirited. Those in the rural areas still regard the village community as supportive and kindly disposed toward one another. Elsewhere? Forget it. I'm dismayed to read the words that now describe daily life: “wyscig szczurow” (race of the rats), “wzajemna agresja” (mutual aggression). In some regions, only 7% of the population think that that people these days are well-meaning or kind. Lovely: a generous nation turned brutish and sour. Best visit now before you’re greeted with daggers and swords at the airport.
Confessions of a law prof
I knew it halfway through the Fall semester: I’d grown weary of the text I’d been using in Family Law.
I’ll admit that I find it hard to stay with a text more than two years and not be somewhat revulsed by its shortcomings (I teach Family Law I both Fall and Spring semesters). When I have to make an effort to enjoy delivering a lecture based on assigned readings, I know it’s time to think about a change.
And so last night I stood up and formally announced (to myself and anyone who was listening): I will make the switch now. Effective immediately. No looking back.
It’s not that the students would have noticed had I stayed rooted to the old dog – they appear to enjoy whatever compellation of readings I pass on. And not an insignificant handful like using the notes of Family Law alums. Sorry guys, the notes are worthless. I’m starting afresh. I’m bored with the old stuff. I dislike the ordering of topics, I find the chapter notes silly and the problems ho hum.
And so comes the paradox of paradoxes – in order to make my semester more enjoyable, I have to pile vast amounts of additional work onto my days. Changing a text is almost like teaching a brand new course. New lectures have to be written. New questions need to be addressed. Halfway through the semester I’ll kick myself I’m sure, but for now I’ll be oh so happy to kick the offensive fat book further under the table, along with the other well-used and now abused texts from years gone by. Welcome, newly anointed chosen one (it’s amazing how many there are to pick from)! I hope you and I enjoy each other’s company. For at least a year or two.
I’ll admit that I find it hard to stay with a text more than two years and not be somewhat revulsed by its shortcomings (I teach Family Law I both Fall and Spring semesters). When I have to make an effort to enjoy delivering a lecture based on assigned readings, I know it’s time to think about a change.
And so last night I stood up and formally announced (to myself and anyone who was listening): I will make the switch now. Effective immediately. No looking back.
It’s not that the students would have noticed had I stayed rooted to the old dog – they appear to enjoy whatever compellation of readings I pass on. And not an insignificant handful like using the notes of Family Law alums. Sorry guys, the notes are worthless. I’m starting afresh. I’m bored with the old stuff. I dislike the ordering of topics, I find the chapter notes silly and the problems ho hum.
And so comes the paradox of paradoxes – in order to make my semester more enjoyable, I have to pile vast amounts of additional work onto my days. Changing a text is almost like teaching a brand new course. New lectures have to be written. New questions need to be addressed. Halfway through the semester I’ll kick myself I’m sure, but for now I’ll be oh so happy to kick the offensive fat book further under the table, along with the other well-used and now abused texts from years gone by. Welcome, newly anointed chosen one (it’s amazing how many there are to pick from)! I hope you and I enjoy each other’s company. For at least a year or two.
Sunday, December 26, 2004
Quiz on social correctness:
Is this right, is this wrong?
1. Cellphone rings in restaurant. You answer it.
2. You’re talking to your pal and the cellphone rings. You pause in your talk and check to see who is calling.
3. You’re at home, the phone rings, you wait to see who it is and if you feel like talking to him/her.
If you read the NYTMagazine article on the evolution of connectedness, maybe you’ll have given a fleeting thought to your own standards of what is passable behavior. The author considers the following trends in the ways we attempt to connect to others:
It says something about me that I am constantly being preempted by a cell call. It could be that I am boring. It could be that people even get coconspirators to dial their number, just so they could have a respite from our exchange. At less paranoid times, I have concluded that I appear so completely benign and informal that the world out there has determined that I cannot easily be offended by such behaviors. Or at least that I wont kill the perpetrator.
Okay, I’ll confess: I wont kill, but I do hate the whole imposition of pseudo-connectedness on human interaction. You’re hanging at home – pick up the darn phone. You’re out and about, hanging with someone, trash or silence your cell, or at the very least, ignore the precious Ode to Joy when it sounds in your pocket. Bach would have wanted it that way.
1. Cellphone rings in restaurant. You answer it.
2. You’re talking to your pal and the cellphone rings. You pause in your talk and check to see who is calling.
3. You’re at home, the phone rings, you wait to see who it is and if you feel like talking to him/her.
If you read the NYTMagazine article on the evolution of connectedness, maybe you’ll have given a fleeting thought to your own standards of what is passable behavior. The author considers the following trends in the ways we attempt to connect to others:
In fact, it’s now considered rude not to have some sort of machine to take messages for you. And not only have we become used to machines that take messages, we also sometimes prefer them to live communications…The article suggests that in making decisions about answering, checking the caller’s ID, etc, you are making a series of instant status judgments. You flip open your cellphone for some, not for others.
Between cellphones, email and instant messaging, it’s now considered exotic to be truly unreachable at all.
It says something about me that I am constantly being preempted by a cell call. It could be that I am boring. It could be that people even get coconspirators to dial their number, just so they could have a respite from our exchange. At less paranoid times, I have concluded that I appear so completely benign and informal that the world out there has determined that I cannot easily be offended by such behaviors. Or at least that I wont kill the perpetrator.
Okay, I’ll confess: I wont kill, but I do hate the whole imposition of pseudo-connectedness on human interaction. You’re hanging at home – pick up the darn phone. You’re out and about, hanging with someone, trash or silence your cell, or at the very least, ignore the precious Ode to Joy when it sounds in your pocket. Bach would have wanted it that way.
Classic post-holiday behavior
And how did you commemorate the day after? My day thus far had the following scintillating components:
A visit to a store to exchange a game. We’re into games around here but, predictably, everyone has strong preferences as to what talent is to be tapped. I, for instance, hate trivia games, but love “make up creative lies” type games. Others feel differently about this. I have been accused of being extremely competitive, to the point that I will use every devious strategy to sink a competitor and come out victorious. Of course, this is the opposite of how I really am. Honestly!! Anyway, I exchanged my first choice for someone else’s first choice. It’s Christmas, I can be magnanimous.
A visit to the gym. This goes without saying. Anyone who stands and cooks all day long and then devours all that comes off the stove, sometimes even before it is fully off the stove, needs to go to the gym after the holidays. I was not the only one there.
Reading the newspaper. I have not done this for a while. I’d been gone, I’d been busy, I’ve had every excuse to avoid picking up hard, dirty print. Today I am back at it. Things that caught my fancy: Maureeen Dowd’s tribute to Mary McGrory. Part of me would very much like to be like Mary McGrory: brilliant with words, always on the job, inquisitive, plucky, biting sharp, pushy. I think I can appropriate two from that list: plucky and inquisitive. The rest – merely aspirational. At the end of the article, Dowd cites McGrory’s advice to her nephew, given to him at a stuffy D.C. party: “Always approach the shrimp bowl like you own it.” Absolutely right. There’s no need to pander to stuffiness in this world.
A visit to a store to exchange a game. We’re into games around here but, predictably, everyone has strong preferences as to what talent is to be tapped. I, for instance, hate trivia games, but love “make up creative lies” type games. Others feel differently about this. I have been accused of being extremely competitive, to the point that I will use every devious strategy to sink a competitor and come out victorious. Of course, this is the opposite of how I really am. Honestly!! Anyway, I exchanged my first choice for someone else’s first choice. It’s Christmas, I can be magnanimous.
A visit to the gym. This goes without saying. Anyone who stands and cooks all day long and then devours all that comes off the stove, sometimes even before it is fully off the stove, needs to go to the gym after the holidays. I was not the only one there.
Reading the newspaper. I have not done this for a while. I’d been gone, I’d been busy, I’ve had every excuse to avoid picking up hard, dirty print. Today I am back at it. Things that caught my fancy: Maureeen Dowd’s tribute to Mary McGrory. Part of me would very much like to be like Mary McGrory: brilliant with words, always on the job, inquisitive, plucky, biting sharp, pushy. I think I can appropriate two from that list: plucky and inquisitive. The rest – merely aspirational. At the end of the article, Dowd cites McGrory’s advice to her nephew, given to him at a stuffy D.C. party: “Always approach the shrimp bowl like you own it.” Absolutely right. There’s no need to pander to stuffiness in this world.
Saturday, December 25, 2004
Christmas Day, part 3
The transmogrification of food traditions
The palate changes over time. Over the years, we adjust for it. The buche de Noel shrinks (who can eat that much…), the chocolate ‘bark’ grows darker, more bittersweet, because that’s how preferences fall these days. The Cornish hens get zestier, spicier, the warm mushrooms in the salad get funkier, more exotic.
But the basic ingredients stay the same. Unless you forget to buy some of them. Then you adjust. Happy are those who can adjust, because let me tell you – all grocery stores are closed on this day, and the local PDQs do not carry such fancy items as heavy cream (for example). Adherence to rituals and traditions is satisfying. But shifting things around a bit is what makes the day especially interesting.
The palate changes over time. Over the years, we adjust for it. The buche de Noel shrinks (who can eat that much…), the chocolate ‘bark’ grows darker, more bittersweet, because that’s how preferences fall these days. The Cornish hens get zestier, spicier, the warm mushrooms in the salad get funkier, more exotic.
But the basic ingredients stay the same. Unless you forget to buy some of them. Then you adjust. Happy are those who can adjust, because let me tell you – all grocery stores are closed on this day, and the local PDQs do not carry such fancy items as heavy cream (for example). Adherence to rituals and traditions is satisfying. But shifting things around a bit is what makes the day especially interesting.
Christmas Day, part 2
Further proof that my proper place is in the kitchen:
The puff pastries come out of the oven in time for Christmas breakfast. The spice cake was made last night.
The puff pastries come out of the oven in time for Christmas breakfast. The spice cake was made last night.
Gifts: am I for them or against them? Oh, for them. Especially when the gift giver really wants to make you happy with that little wrapped package. Someone thoughtfully purchased for me Baltic Voices 2 (Estonian choir, singing “choral riches of the Baltic Sea countries”). Being sort of an out-of-it type, I’d never heard of them before. Wonderful music, written by contemporary musicians. Makes me ashamed that I ever doubted Estonia’s greatness and influential position in the world. Yay Estonia! Glad you’re in the EU after all.
And, fan that I am of the Daily Show (I pay for cable just to occasionally catch Stewart – you might say that I am that deprived of opportunities to laugh), I somehow completely neglected “A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction.” Today it appeared under the tree. It’s a good book to flip through. I just picked up this piece of legal trivia that I am certain will help me sound impressive in social gatherings: Until 1943, Supreme Court nominees were wrapped in litmus paper and dipped in acid to determine their worthiness for the Court. later Courts were less literal-minded.
Gifts are good. They put a shirt on my back and a pear in my stocking.
And, fan that I am of the Daily Show (I pay for cable just to occasionally catch Stewart – you might say that I am that deprived of opportunities to laugh), I somehow completely neglected “A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction.” Today it appeared under the tree. It’s a good book to flip through. I just picked up this piece of legal trivia that I am certain will help me sound impressive in social gatherings: Until 1943, Supreme Court nominees were wrapped in litmus paper and dipped in acid to determine their worthiness for the Court. later Courts were less literal-minded.
Gifts are good. They put a shirt on my back and a pear in my stocking.
Christmas Day, part 1
Merry Christmas to all who wish to be merry, and to all a good morning!
Does anyone else wake up at 5:30 and cannot return to sleep because of a nagging thought that they forgot something?
By 6 a.m. I finally recall that I did not wrap a pair of mittens from the Polish highlands. Nice sheep’s wool, warm and still smelling of fur and firs – I am certain that I did not wrap them. By 6:30 I give up on the idea of sleep and start searching for them. In the suitcase pocket: eureka!
Does anyone else wake up at 5:30 and cannot return to sleep because of a nagging thought that they forgot something?
By 6 a.m. I finally recall that I did not wrap a pair of mittens from the Polish highlands. Nice sheep’s wool, warm and still smelling of fur and firs – I am certain that I did not wrap them. By 6:30 I give up on the idea of sleep and start searching for them. In the suitcase pocket: eureka!
Being older means you still toss and turn on Christmas morning and think about the day ahead, it's just that your issues change somewhat.
For instance, here’s issue number two: I wonder if anyone will notice that I forgot to buy apple cider to steep the dried apples in for the morning apple puff pastries… And btw, I'm still fretting about the misplaced camera case.
An update on this promising-to-be-interesting day will follow.
For instance, here’s issue number two: I wonder if anyone will notice that I forgot to buy apple cider to steep the dried apples in for the morning apple puff pastries… And btw, I'm still fretting about the misplaced camera case.
An update on this promising-to-be-interesting day will follow.
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