[Josh Blackman] Lightning Strikes Thrice
1 day ago
Sunday, March 28, 2010
That's So Gay
So, Ten, being as she is now in the fourth grade, is beginning to experience her peers using the term "gay" in a derogatory way.
We had casually warned her about this.
And, from what we have read, we expected that one of her (their -- she and Big's) biggest issues-being children of gay or lesbian parents-will be their concern for us and wanting to protect us.
I didn't hear about it from her, but from a friend whose daughter is in Ten's class and who was on the receiving end of the slander, for no reason whatsoever, presumably.
They seem to be testing the word in a rather general way, although, of course, the only kid in the class that you could even slightly forecast homosexuality in his future, has become a clear target.
My heart aches for the kid.
I guess I thought that things would be different in a post-Ellen pre-pubescent world.
Not so much.
In any case, Ten was telling us a bit about it. Again, it sounds like, for the most part, the kids really don't know what they're saying; not even using the term in a consistently derogatory way, one kid even said that he was, himself, 'gay' to Ten.
After school one day Ten was telling me how she has been reacting, by informing kids in what sounds like a too-informed, too-mature way that the term they are using is "offensive" and hurtful and that they shouldn't use it.
The little mice in their head take a couple of spins around until they say "Oh... Your PARENTS are gay. . . . " or something like that.
My heart aches again.
For a couple of reasons.
First, I don't wish on her early maturity.
I had that and it was over-rated.
Second, I certainly don't wish on her to be the poster-child of some pro-gay agenda at her little Catholic school. You know how you sort of hope that your kid can sort of slide through middle school before shining in high school? Sort of get through the awkward years and early puberty without too much scarring?
So we had a little talk, she and BioMom and I. Urging her to really let some of her peers' pathetic attempts at trying out their new language roll off her back. To choose the most important battles -- like the one where the kid who we think might be gay gets teased.
Why do you think he might be gay? Asks she.
I let her in on the secret of our little club. How we know each other from across the room. How, at a restaurant or a coffee shop, I might say 'hi' to someone who seems like a stranger, and really, who is someone that we do not know, but who I know has had some of the same stuff happen to her as has happened to me. How can I tell? I dunno, I said. And we certainly could be wrong, but more often than not, we are right and it is sometimes a look, sometimes a way of dress, sometimes, a way of movement, but more often than not just a simple, inexplicable feeling of recognition.
We had casually warned her about this.
And, from what we have read, we expected that one of her (their -- she and Big's) biggest issues-being children of gay or lesbian parents-will be their concern for us and wanting to protect us.
I didn't hear about it from her, but from a friend whose daughter is in Ten's class and who was on the receiving end of the slander, for no reason whatsoever, presumably.
They seem to be testing the word in a rather general way, although, of course, the only kid in the class that you could even slightly forecast homosexuality in his future, has become a clear target.
My heart aches for the kid.
I guess I thought that things would be different in a post-Ellen pre-pubescent world.
Not so much.
In any case, Ten was telling us a bit about it. Again, it sounds like, for the most part, the kids really don't know what they're saying; not even using the term in a consistently derogatory way, one kid even said that he was, himself, 'gay' to Ten.
After school one day Ten was telling me how she has been reacting, by informing kids in what sounds like a too-informed, too-mature way that the term they are using is "offensive" and hurtful and that they shouldn't use it.
The little mice in their head take a couple of spins around until they say "Oh... Your PARENTS are gay. . . . " or something like that.
My heart aches again.
For a couple of reasons.
First, I don't wish on her early maturity.
I had that and it was over-rated.
Second, I certainly don't wish on her to be the poster-child of some pro-gay agenda at her little Catholic school. You know how you sort of hope that your kid can sort of slide through middle school before shining in high school? Sort of get through the awkward years and early puberty without too much scarring?
So we had a little talk, she and BioMom and I. Urging her to really let some of her peers' pathetic attempts at trying out their new language roll off her back. To choose the most important battles -- like the one where the kid who we think might be gay gets teased.
Why do you think he might be gay? Asks she.
I let her in on the secret of our little club. How we know each other from across the room. How, at a restaurant or a coffee shop, I might say 'hi' to someone who seems like a stranger, and really, who is someone that we do not know, but who I know has had some of the same stuff happen to her as has happened to me. How can I tell? I dunno, I said. And we certainly could be wrong, but more often than not, we are right and it is sometimes a look, sometimes a way of dress, sometimes, a way of movement, but more often than not just a simple, inexplicable feeling of recognition.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Queering the Census
I don't know how many of you readers out there are dataheads like myself, but if you are, TUNE IN!
This will be the third U.S. Census in which we can (sort of) identify gay and lesbian individuals in the United States (1990, 2000, 2010).
I say "sort of" because well, it is not a COMPLETE measurement of gay and lesbian people. Far from it.
In the picture above, you can see that I am filling out our Census form (it is a $100 fine if you don't and an $500 fine if you lie btw).
If you combine the information about a person's sex and how they check the little box as to how the subsequent people in the household are related to the household head, you can get an idea of whether or not the COUPLE is a gay or lesbian couple.
For example, there will be some percentage of Americans who will check the box "husband or wife" and person 1 and person 2 will be of the same sex.
Similarly, there will be some percentage of Americans who will check the box "unmarried partner" and person 1 and person 2 will be of the same sex.
There are lots of problems with this (obviously).
The first of which is that we are only getting at COUPLED gay and lesbian Americans.
The second of many is that the Census, thanks to Fmr President Bush, follows the Federal Defense of Marriage Act (passed by Fmr President Clinton, liberal that he claimed to be) to the letter and will not recognize married gay and lesbian couples even if they are in states in which they are legally able to be married. So Census officials will (literally) RECODE these individuals in one of two ways:
1. they will change them to unmarried partners OR
2. they will change one individual's sex so that the couple will SEEM to be a heterosexual couple.
I shit you not. Welcome to America, 2010.
Furthermore, I'm not sure they will do this in any systematic way, nor are we researchers assured that such cases will be "flagged".
Third of many issues is that people eff up when they fill out the Census. Believe it or not, there is a small (and possibly significant) number of individuals who accidentally mark down the wrong sex. So, say a heterosexual male is filling out the Census and he marks himself down as a female accidentally. Then that couple will be seen as a lesbian couple who said they were married.
This problem translates into a statistical nightmare for researchers -- a small statistical error magnifies itself among minority populations.
I am writing all of this to say that if you are interested in getting a more thorough "snapshot" of America, then Queer the Census!
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Are We Safe?
My brother who lives in Denver just told me about the case where the child of lesbian parents attending a Catholic school has gotten kicked out of school.
The Denver Archdiocese posted a statement Friday that the parents are "living in open discord with Catholic teaching."
Here's what the pastor at the school said on his blog.
STATEMENT:
The Archdiocese of Denver on Catholic School Admissions Policy
A principal reason parents place their children in Archdiocese of Denver Schools is to reinforce the Catholic beliefs and values that the family seeks to live at home. To preserve the mission of our schools, and to respect the faith of wider Catholic community, we expect all families who enroll students to live in accord with Catholic teaching. Our admission policy states clearly, “No person shall be admitted as a student in any Catholic school unless that person and his/her parent(s) subscribe to the school’s philosophy and agree to abide by the educational policies and regulations of the school and Archdiocese.”
Parents living in open discord with Catholic teaching in areas of faith and morals unfortunately choose by their actions to disqualify their children from enrollment. To allow children in these circumstances to continue in our school would be a cause of confusion for the student in that what they are being taught in school conflicts with what they experience in the home.
We communicated the policy to the couple at Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic School as soon as we realized the situation. We discussed the reasons with them and have sought to respond in a way that does not abruptly displace the student but at the same time respects the integrity of the Catholic school’s philosophy.
The Denver Archdiocese posted a statement Friday that the parents are "living in open discord with Catholic teaching."
Here's what the pastor at the school said on his blog.
STATEMENT:
The Archdiocese of Denver on Catholic School Admissions Policy
A principal reason parents place their children in Archdiocese of Denver Schools is to reinforce the Catholic beliefs and values that the family seeks to live at home. To preserve the mission of our schools, and to respect the faith of wider Catholic community, we expect all families who enroll students to live in accord with Catholic teaching. Our admission policy states clearly, “No person shall be admitted as a student in any Catholic school unless that person and his/her parent(s) subscribe to the school’s philosophy and agree to abide by the educational policies and regulations of the school and Archdiocese.”
Parents living in open discord with Catholic teaching in areas of faith and morals unfortunately choose by their actions to disqualify their children from enrollment. To allow children in these circumstances to continue in our school would be a cause of confusion for the student in that what they are being taught in school conflicts with what they experience in the home.
We communicated the policy to the couple at Sacred Heart of Jesus Catholic School as soon as we realized the situation. We discussed the reasons with them and have sought to respond in a way that does not abruptly displace the student but at the same time respects the integrity of the Catholic school’s philosophy.
Thoughts on Marriage
So I got a special little present from Cousin's Mom in the mail the other day.
As an adult, it is so fun to get little unexpected packages in the mail. Maybe that's why I order books so often.
Anyway, thanks Aunt Bev!
I called her to thank her and somehow we got into a conversation about marriage.
I've been getting into conversations about marriage a lot with people over the last year or so, what I call "The Marriage Project."
My nephew is getting married this spring, another friend of mine is thinking about getting married to her long-term boyfriend, and another friend of mine is having some doubts about her existing marriage--like, what it means to be married in general, what it means to be a heterosexual couple and not have kids, etc. (all that normal stuff), and finally, I've got marriage on my mind with the Perry v. Schwarzenneger Case that is currently going in in California (see this great New Yorker article for an overview).
I never really cared about marriage. Never wanted the ceremony for myself, never really thought about it as a civil right for gays and lesbians. I never cared one way or another. I didn't really care if my heterosexual friends got married or not, or even if my gay friends got married or not.
I did "get" the spiritual part of it, and the notion of standing up in front of all of your loved ones and announcing your intention to spend your life together. I got the idea that by doing so you were also asking for support from your friends and loved ones. I also "got" the institution of marriage and I think I get that marriage is generally good for a society in that it builds communities, makes us a bit more stable and that it probably helps kids in the long run too.
But I've always looked at it from an academic's distance, with a libertarian bent: we should all be able to chose what's best for us and for the most part, we'll all be better off if we do just that.
In that sense, gay marriage for me is not unlike polygamy (in its best sense -- not the whole marrying teenage brides shennanegans). Objectively, I'm not sure I've got anything against polygamy.
So now, in the midst of all these discussions with my friends, AND it coming upon tax season again where I usually get riled up when I realize (again) that the pesky government rules limit our choices because we are not strictly speaking *married*, I find myself thinking about the issue a lot.
So I was talking with Cousin's mom about marriage again the other day and one thing seems for certain: that marriage is really different now than it was for them. My mom (her sister) was married in 1944 when she was 19 years old. Her husband (my dad) worked three jobs at the time and she very quickly had two twin boys. They didn't have much choice, both scientifically and religiously-speaking, in terms of reproductive planning, she didn't have much choice in terms of work (there weren't many options for women in terms of education or occupation at the time, and many states had laws that forbade women from working once they were married, and finally once a woman had kids, there were few options regarding day care if she were to work, if any), and most people didn't have much money, so making ends meet was the main goal.
This is all to say that drastic changes in all of these areas have allowed us (middle and upper class Americans) to make deliberate choices in our lives and that the bottom line has changed. Now we make choices that will, hopefully, make us happier. Mom made choices in the same way, presumably, but I doubt that her goal in marrying dad, having kids, staying home with kids, earning, spending and saving money was in the context of costs and benefits around life satisfaction in the way that those decisions are in our current lives.
Let me be clear: I think that this change is unequivocally good. I'd rather not revert back to hunter-gatherer days in which my existence dependent on whether or not my tribe was successful in its hunt, and I'd rather not change lives with the 19th century pioneers who had very little leisure and spent most of their days producing the necessary goods necessary for life.
No, additional time and leisure is good. And changes in culture, society, technology and productivity that have expanded our choice set are unequivocally good.
But I'm not sure that it is easier in some senses of the word. We have become more existential in some ways. How does one even make major decisions like getting married and kids without the social dictum? How and why do we stay married without a social dictum? And what if the new dictum is: do what pleases you? What happens when marriage doesn't please? What do the role of institutions play in this world of pleasure and choice?
As an adult, it is so fun to get little unexpected packages in the mail. Maybe that's why I order books so often.
Anyway, thanks Aunt Bev!
I called her to thank her and somehow we got into a conversation about marriage.
I've been getting into conversations about marriage a lot with people over the last year or so, what I call "The Marriage Project."
My nephew is getting married this spring, another friend of mine is thinking about getting married to her long-term boyfriend, and another friend of mine is having some doubts about her existing marriage--like, what it means to be married in general, what it means to be a heterosexual couple and not have kids, etc. (all that normal stuff), and finally, I've got marriage on my mind with the Perry v. Schwarzenneger Case that is currently going in in California (see this great New Yorker article for an overview).
I never really cared about marriage. Never wanted the ceremony for myself, never really thought about it as a civil right for gays and lesbians. I never cared one way or another. I didn't really care if my heterosexual friends got married or not, or even if my gay friends got married or not.
I did "get" the spiritual part of it, and the notion of standing up in front of all of your loved ones and announcing your intention to spend your life together. I got the idea that by doing so you were also asking for support from your friends and loved ones. I also "got" the institution of marriage and I think I get that marriage is generally good for a society in that it builds communities, makes us a bit more stable and that it probably helps kids in the long run too.
But I've always looked at it from an academic's distance, with a libertarian bent: we should all be able to chose what's best for us and for the most part, we'll all be better off if we do just that.
In that sense, gay marriage for me is not unlike polygamy (in its best sense -- not the whole marrying teenage brides shennanegans). Objectively, I'm not sure I've got anything against polygamy.
So now, in the midst of all these discussions with my friends, AND it coming upon tax season again where I usually get riled up when I realize (again) that the pesky government rules limit our choices because we are not strictly speaking *married*, I find myself thinking about the issue a lot.
So I was talking with Cousin's mom about marriage again the other day and one thing seems for certain: that marriage is really different now than it was for them. My mom (her sister) was married in 1944 when she was 19 years old. Her husband (my dad) worked three jobs at the time and she very quickly had two twin boys. They didn't have much choice, both scientifically and religiously-speaking, in terms of reproductive planning, she didn't have much choice in terms of work (there weren't many options for women in terms of education or occupation at the time, and many states had laws that forbade women from working once they were married, and finally once a woman had kids, there were few options regarding day care if she were to work, if any), and most people didn't have much money, so making ends meet was the main goal.
This is all to say that drastic changes in all of these areas have allowed us (middle and upper class Americans) to make deliberate choices in our lives and that the bottom line has changed. Now we make choices that will, hopefully, make us happier. Mom made choices in the same way, presumably, but I doubt that her goal in marrying dad, having kids, staying home with kids, earning, spending and saving money was in the context of costs and benefits around life satisfaction in the way that those decisions are in our current lives.
Let me be clear: I think that this change is unequivocally good. I'd rather not revert back to hunter-gatherer days in which my existence dependent on whether or not my tribe was successful in its hunt, and I'd rather not change lives with the 19th century pioneers who had very little leisure and spent most of their days producing the necessary goods necessary for life.
No, additional time and leisure is good. And changes in culture, society, technology and productivity that have expanded our choice set are unequivocally good.
But I'm not sure that it is easier in some senses of the word. We have become more existential in some ways. How does one even make major decisions like getting married and kids without the social dictum? How and why do we stay married without a social dictum? And what if the new dictum is: do what pleases you? What happens when marriage doesn't please? What do the role of institutions play in this world of pleasure and choice?
Monday, March 08, 2010
Ten!
Happy Birthday, Ten!
I started writing this blog when you were four. FOUR. That's Big's age now.
How does an entire decade pass?
Here are some pictures from birthdays past with this year's photo to come.
ZERO
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
I started writing this blog when you were four. FOUR. That's Big's age now.
How does an entire decade pass?
Here are some pictures from birthdays past with this year's photo to come.
ZERO
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Fat
So, for Valentine's day I don't really think about the kids. BioMOm's my valentine, and that's that in my opinion.
BioMom, however, does.
She got them both little gifties to celebrate the day.
Unfortunately for her, she doesn't get the credit.
Nine opened up her little heart necklace and said: "Thanks Baba!"
And when Big found a small version of Chutes and Ladders, he gave me a huge hug.
I just beamed, choosing not to correct their mistakes.
We tore open the game and some chocolate hearts and played a round, Nine tromping us all having landed on the longest ladder and avoiding all chutes.
Big: "Let's play again! [Nine], can I be your girl this time?"
Nine: "No."
BioMom, Big and I: "Why not?"
Nine: "She's fat."
Sometimes I think that being a girl makes raising a girl more difficult.
BioMom and I went into tag-team formation.
"What?"
"What did you say?"
We bulldozed her with our overwhelming reaction to the comment. And I mean that in a self-reprehensive way. We definitely did not handle it well. Is that what you think about her? What would someone think who heard you say that? What did you mean by that? Ugh. It was bad. She initially denied saying it, we went into blah blah blah lectures about media images and women and how women then feel about themselves etc.
We were nothing but attack and she was nothing but defense.
I got back to her later when we were both a bit removed.
It is really a complicated message we send to young girls. On the one hand we harp about eating healthy and not too much. To eat less sugar and pop. With Nine we pay attention to carbs, knowing that like us, she tends toward overeating when it's really bad for you and yummy. And knowing that she just does better in school when she's got some protein under her belt in the morning.
We never talk about being fat although she'd have to be deaf to not hear BioMom and I's own personal concerns when we know we've had a bad few months and gained a few unwanted pounds.
So now we're harping that fat is basically the equivalent of a swear word and our arguments were steeped in complicated feminist rhetoric.
ugh.
How do all of you react to your girls' reactions to society? What do you do when they pick up the negatives you wish you could shield them from?
Lezzie Award
So Kelly, over at The Lesbian Lifestyle notified me today that this blog has been nominated for an award for lesbian parenting blogs.
I've never much thought about blogger awards other than to use them to navigate toward good writing and different perspectives that I would not find on my own, so I am humbled and excited about this. I've thought of this blog mostly as an 'in the parenting trenches' sort of blog as opposed to one that people perhaps turn to when they need real information or help. But I guess that just hearing from others of us that are in the trenches helps.
I hope so at least.
If you're inclined, nominate and vote. If you're too in the trenches, or just busy watching the Olympics (Lindsey's on right now, who, after the Sports Illustrated cover, has become more interesting to me), no biggie.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Mean
Apologies for the lack of posts. I'll tell you what I've been doing, but be prepared, the description is soporific.
I've been working on a project on Tajikistan. My advisor and I have a revise and resubmit to Feminist Economics which is highly ironic. The journal is seen as fairly low ranking among most economists (I think). What does this mean? Well, it means that when you are putting a journal article that was published there on your "brag sheet" that the people in your department think to themselves "I'll count this but I KNOW it was an easy pub so in my heart, I'll really discount it. . . ."
And why does THAT matter? Well, discounts over time add up to possibly not getting promoted or getting less of an increase in your pay check.
Whatever.
The problem is that the topic we're looking into -- maternal health (which is, by the way an important component of the Millenium Development Goals) -- is perfectly suited for that particular journal.
So the irony? It ends up being a REALLY difficult journal to get into.
Once we were working on a project on the Czech Republic. We sent it off to the best journal on the topic of transition economics. Got a revise and resubmit. Revised and resubmitted and then got a rejection. Then we went on to Feminist Economics. Same story.
And yes, that was many months of work for an outright ultimate rejection.
So here we are again.
I've been working on preparing the latest data released from Tajikistan (seriously). Which has entailed writing some code on household expenditures that is normally already provided by the World Bank but in this case is not yet ready.
So this is an example of what ended up being a 19 page document that took me a bunch of time (hence no blogging):
gen xpot= m10q6b if code_pro == 862
egen hhxpot = mean(xpot), by(hhid)
gen xpot_mo = (hhxpot*52)/12
lab var xpot_mo "monthly exp on potatoes"
gen xtom= m10q6b if code_pro == 863
egen hhxtom = mean(xtom), by(hhid)
gen xtom_mo = (hhxtom*52)/12
lab var xtom_mo "monthly exp on tomatoes"
gen xcar= m10q6b if code_pro == 864
egen hhxcar = mean(xcar),by(hhid)
gen xcar_mo = (hhxcar*52)/12
lab var xcar_mo "monthly exp on carrots"
gen xcab= m10q6b if code_pro == 865
egen hhxcab = mean(xcab), by(hhid)
gen xcab_mo = (hhxcab*52)/12
lab var xcab_mo "monthly exp on cabbage"
gen xcau= m10q6b if code_pro == 866
egen hhxcau = mean(xcau), by(hhid)
gen xcau_mo = (hhxcau*52)/12
lab var xcau_mo "monthly exp on cauliflower"
It goes on and on.
Anyway. So the topic of this post.
Warning: more math.
The other day Nine (nearly Ten!) explained to me that they were learning about the Mean (i.e. the average) in math that day.
I couldn't resist.
I'm a total math nerd. I love it. I'm in the middle of a book called The Big Questions in which the author essentially thinks that math is religion and can explain everything. That everything can be boiled down to math. I'm also teaching a math class at Macalester College at the moment, so I'm obsessed.
Anyway, I couldn't resist talking to her about the Normal Distribution because, well, it IS related to the mean and because I happen to be in love with two interesting and related topics:
1. The Law of Large Numbers
and
2. The Central Limit Theorem.
When her eyes glazed over I wrapped it up by talking to her about the two symbols that I know of that mean "mean": x-bar and mu.
Her response was that she knew another symbol for "mean".
I asked what it was, genuinely curious.
She drew a little face with slanty eyebrows.
It was indeed, mean.
I've been working on a project on Tajikistan. My advisor and I have a revise and resubmit to Feminist Economics which is highly ironic. The journal is seen as fairly low ranking among most economists (I think). What does this mean? Well, it means that when you are putting a journal article that was published there on your "brag sheet" that the people in your department think to themselves "I'll count this but I KNOW it was an easy pub so in my heart, I'll really discount it. . . ."
And why does THAT matter? Well, discounts over time add up to possibly not getting promoted or getting less of an increase in your pay check.
Whatever.
The problem is that the topic we're looking into -- maternal health (which is, by the way an important component of the Millenium Development Goals) -- is perfectly suited for that particular journal.
So the irony? It ends up being a REALLY difficult journal to get into.
Once we were working on a project on the Czech Republic. We sent it off to the best journal on the topic of transition economics. Got a revise and resubmit. Revised and resubmitted and then got a rejection. Then we went on to Feminist Economics. Same story.
And yes, that was many months of work for an outright ultimate rejection.
So here we are again.
I've been working on preparing the latest data released from Tajikistan (seriously). Which has entailed writing some code on household expenditures that is normally already provided by the World Bank but in this case is not yet ready.
So this is an example of what ended up being a 19 page document that took me a bunch of time (hence no blogging):
gen xpot= m10q6b if code_pro == 862
egen hhxpot = mean(xpot), by(hhid)
gen xpot_mo = (hhxpot*52)/12
lab var xpot_mo "monthly exp on potatoes"
gen xtom= m10q6b if code_pro == 863
egen hhxtom = mean(xtom), by(hhid)
gen xtom_mo = (hhxtom*52)/12
lab var xtom_mo "monthly exp on tomatoes"
gen xcar= m10q6b if code_pro == 864
egen hhxcar = mean(xcar),by(hhid)
gen xcar_mo = (hhxcar*52)/12
lab var xcar_mo "monthly exp on carrots"
gen xcab= m10q6b if code_pro == 865
egen hhxcab = mean(xcab), by(hhid)
gen xcab_mo = (hhxcab*52)/12
lab var xcab_mo "monthly exp on cabbage"
gen xcau= m10q6b if code_pro == 866
egen hhxcau = mean(xcau), by(hhid)
gen xcau_mo = (hhxcau*52)/12
lab var xcau_mo "monthly exp on cauliflower"
It goes on and on.
Anyway. So the topic of this post.
Warning: more math.
The other day Nine (nearly Ten!) explained to me that they were learning about the Mean (i.e. the average) in math that day.
I couldn't resist.
I'm a total math nerd. I love it. I'm in the middle of a book called The Big Questions in which the author essentially thinks that math is religion and can explain everything. That everything can be boiled down to math. I'm also teaching a math class at Macalester College at the moment, so I'm obsessed.
Anyway, I couldn't resist talking to her about the Normal Distribution because, well, it IS related to the mean and because I happen to be in love with two interesting and related topics:
1. The Law of Large Numbers
and
2. The Central Limit Theorem.
When her eyes glazed over I wrapped it up by talking to her about the two symbols that I know of that mean "mean": x-bar and mu.
Her response was that she knew another symbol for "mean".
I asked what it was, genuinely curious.
She drew a little face with slanty eyebrows.
It was indeed, mean.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
100 Things
Cousin sent me this list and blog the other day.
According to Taggert over at A Random Walk, the source of my own personal autism is that I have no skill whatsoever in #61.
Do you have any additions to the list?
Some are absurd. Should everyone really be able to give a eulogy? God, I hope not.
I think we should all be able to make rice, consider someone else, recognize how small we are in this world, and perhaps (and this is my own bias here) spend a period of time in which we live alone (with or without a pet).
According to Taggert over at A Random Walk, the source of my own personal autism is that I have no skill whatsoever in #61.
Do you have any additions to the list?
Some are absurd. Should everyone really be able to give a eulogy? God, I hope not.
I think we should all be able to make rice, consider someone else, recognize how small we are in this world, and perhaps (and this is my own bias here) spend a period of time in which we live alone (with or without a pet).
Sunday, January 03, 2010
Pictionary Junior
So Big turns out to be a shark in Pictionary Junior.
We didn't know how it would go, drawing pictures, guessing what they were, teams, etc. etc. But he started recognizing a few drawn pictures and we even let him draw a few and he was doing quite well (and let me just say, we're no artists around here!):
A Paintbrush!
Toothpaste!
Until I drew this picture (he added the errant line afterward):
His immediate (loud) response:
TESTICLE!!!!!!
We didn't know how it would go, drawing pictures, guessing what they were, teams, etc. etc. But he started recognizing a few drawn pictures and we even let him draw a few and he was doing quite well (and let me just say, we're no artists around here!):
A Paintbrush!
Toothpaste!
Until I drew this picture (he added the errant line afterward):
His immediate (loud) response:
TESTICLE!!!!!!
Friday, January 01, 2010
New Year's Presence
I just read the New Year's Post over at Stories She Tells and was motivated too, to reconsider New Years' Pasts as a method to motivate presence in the new year.
I too, will go back to New Years 1999 with all of its Y2K fears.
My life was on a true precipice at that moment.
I was living in DC and had literally just broken up with a woman who was never really good for me. I was finishing up my dissertation and had a few interviews in my pocket at schools all over the country for the upcoming national meetings the following weekend. I had no idea where I'd end up but I knew I'd be moving by August. It was all potential.
The gal in question was a rebound relationship. An artist whom I had met through a dating add in which I answered her call for 'interested in friendship and maybe more.' She had come to Cousin's wedding with me (I know, I know, why did I take her) in December of that year and it was there that I realized how not good we were for each other. I returned from the wedding a couple of days after Christmas and called her on the phone to breakup.
Had I had a postit note, I would have followed the Berger method.
She was furious. You can imagine, only a few days before New Year's Eve at the end of the long '90s.
I arrived at a New Year's party of a distant friend way too early but was glad I showed up because it was in Adam's Morgan and we walked only a short distance to see the gorgeous fireworks over the Mall.
I made no predictions at that point about the decade to come.
The interviews in January went well. I had a couple of interesting ones at Middlebury College in VT and one at some strange midwest city called La Crosse. There was a guy in the interview that seemed interesting but I couldn't imagine living in the small town and pointedly asked the African faculty member they had on the interview team what he thought life was like there. The others seemed so provincial: "So... Did you actually work at the World Bank?"
I didn't have the heart to tell them how UNglamorous it was.
At an interview with the University of Vermont one guy actually sat and read the newspaper the entire time. And upon arriving at an interview at some small college in Pennsylvania, the chair of the department literally beat me to the closest parking spot making me walk six blocks in the snow to the building.
So, LaCrosse it ultimately was.
I found myself there in August after a cross-country trek with a high school friend among a pile of boxes both in my office and in an apartment wondering what I was doing there.
As I now look back on the decade "of the aughts" I see my life literally unfold into what it is and will be for some time: meeting BioMom and, then, 18 month old, getting published, home refurbs, Big, this blog, biking, rollerblading, Cousin's move here. I agree with Jen -- " must admit that with so many of those monumental life experiences are out of the way, so much of it feels decided." But I think that's the point of this next stage. If we can be present here, in this space of non-anticipatoryness, in this space of already-decided, then we can relax into it and enjoy it and make the most of it.
I want to not hope for the next stage or the next thing and be in the present.
I too, will go back to New Years 1999 with all of its Y2K fears.
My life was on a true precipice at that moment.
I was living in DC and had literally just broken up with a woman who was never really good for me. I was finishing up my dissertation and had a few interviews in my pocket at schools all over the country for the upcoming national meetings the following weekend. I had no idea where I'd end up but I knew I'd be moving by August. It was all potential.
The gal in question was a rebound relationship. An artist whom I had met through a dating add in which I answered her call for 'interested in friendship and maybe more.' She had come to Cousin's wedding with me (I know, I know, why did I take her) in December of that year and it was there that I realized how not good we were for each other. I returned from the wedding a couple of days after Christmas and called her on the phone to breakup.
Had I had a postit note, I would have followed the Berger method.
She was furious. You can imagine, only a few days before New Year's Eve at the end of the long '90s.
I arrived at a New Year's party of a distant friend way too early but was glad I showed up because it was in Adam's Morgan and we walked only a short distance to see the gorgeous fireworks over the Mall.
I made no predictions at that point about the decade to come.
The interviews in January went well. I had a couple of interesting ones at Middlebury College in VT and one at some strange midwest city called La Crosse. There was a guy in the interview that seemed interesting but I couldn't imagine living in the small town and pointedly asked the African faculty member they had on the interview team what he thought life was like there. The others seemed so provincial: "So... Did you actually work at the World Bank?"
I didn't have the heart to tell them how UNglamorous it was.
At an interview with the University of Vermont one guy actually sat and read the newspaper the entire time. And upon arriving at an interview at some small college in Pennsylvania, the chair of the department literally beat me to the closest parking spot making me walk six blocks in the snow to the building.
So, LaCrosse it ultimately was.
I found myself there in August after a cross-country trek with a high school friend among a pile of boxes both in my office and in an apartment wondering what I was doing there.
As I now look back on the decade "of the aughts" I see my life literally unfold into what it is and will be for some time: meeting BioMom and, then, 18 month old, getting published, home refurbs, Big, this blog, biking, rollerblading, Cousin's move here. I agree with Jen -- " must admit that with so many of those monumental life experiences are out of the way, so much of it feels decided." But I think that's the point of this next stage. If we can be present here, in this space of non-anticipatoryness, in this space of already-decided, then we can relax into it and enjoy it and make the most of it.
I want to not hope for the next stage or the next thing and be in the present.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
HSAs and Gay Marriage/wolf in lamb's clothing Revisited
So BioMom's firm is making a few changes about their health care and giving its workers some choices. We were considering an HSA which would allow us to put pre-tax money that we don't use in any given year toward a health savings account that we can use when we get old.
We knew that that plan had some discriminatory effects against GLBT couples (despite the fact that it allows glbt workers to put their domestic partners on the plan) such as, for example, allowing the savings part of the HSA to go only to the employed worker, not the unmarried partner.
One catch of the plan is that it had a $4000 deductible.
We had decided to go with the HSA this year until today when BioMom found out that any health expense of mine does NOT go toward the $4000 deductible. So, for example, were I to get into a car accident on January 2nd and we had not reached the $4000, we would essentially go bankrupt paying my health expenses out-of pocket.
This stuff infuriates me.
Now back to the gal (friend?) of mine who was against gay marriage.
And, frankly all of you out there who are against gay marriage.
I remain open to the fact that you and I may have different religious beliefs and I will give you the freedom to believe that marriage between two men or two women is against your beliefs (although I hate the argument that then that implies people will marry their pets, etc.).
But I can't stand the fact that you want to limit my rights as a hard-working, tax-paying, child-rearing citizen.
Now for the punchline: that "friend" of mine admitted to me a few weeks ago that she has had no less than two affairs.
Priceless.
We knew that that plan had some discriminatory effects against GLBT couples (despite the fact that it allows glbt workers to put their domestic partners on the plan) such as, for example, allowing the savings part of the HSA to go only to the employed worker, not the unmarried partner.
One catch of the plan is that it had a $4000 deductible.
We had decided to go with the HSA this year until today when BioMom found out that any health expense of mine does NOT go toward the $4000 deductible. So, for example, were I to get into a car accident on January 2nd and we had not reached the $4000, we would essentially go bankrupt paying my health expenses out-of pocket.
This stuff infuriates me.
Now back to the gal (friend?) of mine who was against gay marriage.
And, frankly all of you out there who are against gay marriage.
I remain open to the fact that you and I may have different religious beliefs and I will give you the freedom to believe that marriage between two men or two women is against your beliefs (although I hate the argument that then that implies people will marry their pets, etc.).
But I can't stand the fact that you want to limit my rights as a hard-working, tax-paying, child-rearing citizen.
Now for the punchline: that "friend" of mine admitted to me a few weeks ago that she has had no less than two affairs.
Priceless.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Birthday Sledding on the Dangerous Big Hill
Cousin's girl turned six the other day and we decided to go sledding on the Big Hill in celebration.
Little did we expect that the rainy-sleet the night before would leave the hill a dangerous icy bumpy mess. That combined with many sledding compatriots adds up to a bunch of rockets on the same trajectory (the bottom).
Cousin got pounded in the back on her first ride down, leaving her in the ER waiting room the next day for hours.
(She's okay, just suffering a deep bruise).
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Pre-Storm Outdoor Fun
We are expecting the storm of the century up here this weekend! Wishing you all a great holiday filled with warmth, family, fun, and light.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Skating
Check out Cousin's kids and Big on the first day of winter vacation and a second video here.
Here is a THIRD video with even MORE kids including a special appearance by Nine and her friend, Sidekick (Okay, I'm just going nuts now...).
Here is a THIRD video with even MORE kids including a special appearance by Nine and her friend, Sidekick (Okay, I'm just going nuts now...).
The Dog Who Was a Cat Inside
This past Saturday we went to one of the monthly programs of children's cinema at the big library downtown called "Childish Films".
Big and I had been before, but Cousin reminded me about how great these get-together's are. You head to the big downtown library. There's a craft or some other entertainment there prior to the films (this time it was decorating really yummy cookies). Whole Foods provides the snack (although, in true Minneapolis fashion, I literally heard a parent tell their child that that was, really, "just advertising") and then you get to see three or four really awesome films (let's just say they are not produced by Disney and/or have not yet been viewed on Nickelodeon Jr.).
The Dog Who Was a Cat Inside is coming up this spring. Check out this incredible film and let me know what you think.
I'll hold my comments until after yours so as not to spoil your fun.
Big and I had been before, but Cousin reminded me about how great these get-together's are. You head to the big downtown library. There's a craft or some other entertainment there prior to the films (this time it was decorating really yummy cookies). Whole Foods provides the snack (although, in true Minneapolis fashion, I literally heard a parent tell their child that that was, really, "just advertising") and then you get to see three or four really awesome films (let's just say they are not produced by Disney and/or have not yet been viewed on Nickelodeon Jr.).
The Dog Who Was a Cat Inside is coming up this spring. Check out this incredible film and let me know what you think.
I'll hold my comments until after yours so as not to spoil your fun.
What a Difference a Year (and $5) Makes!
We went to Holidazzle last night.
We felt some trepidation after last year's fiasco but he is a year older and, well, we caved.
This year, we decided, in times of recession and economic glut, to give in to consumerism. To help the economy grow. To not take this moment to teach a lesson.
We let them have a little lighted glowey-goodness.
You'll see in these pictures evidence of their contentment. He actually SAT (I didn't have to chase him and worry that he'd be run over by a float), he didn't attempt to steal one of the lights from another kid, and they seemed to actually enjoy themselves (other than the time that the blackened, sooty slush splashed up into their faces).
We felt some trepidation after last year's fiasco but he is a year older and, well, we caved.
This year, we decided, in times of recession and economic glut, to give in to consumerism. To help the economy grow. To not take this moment to teach a lesson.
We let them have a little lighted glowey-goodness.
You'll see in these pictures evidence of their contentment. He actually SAT (I didn't have to chase him and worry that he'd be run over by a float), he didn't attempt to steal one of the lights from another kid, and they seemed to actually enjoy themselves (other than the time that the blackened, sooty slush splashed up into their faces).
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Friday, December 18, 2009
Last Final, Lots of Papers, Long Break
So I am giving my last final as I write this. We are about 1/5 hours into it and only the hard-core students are left.
All four of them.
I've been in denial about grading for a few days now, putting off the grading I could be doing by rationalizing it in a few ways:
1. I don't have ALL of my finals completed yet. It would be unfair to grade students in that way.
2. I don't have any kids to care for so why not go cross-country skiing instead of grading because I can't really do that when I'm with them (the kids).
The problem with #1 is that I had some pre-final papers etc. to grade that would be nice to have done BEFORE the pile of finals sits on top of them, firm deadline pending.
The problem with #2 is that I can't GRADE with kids around either. And after I get home tonight it is non-stop kidville up until said grading deadline has long passed.
It always gets done but I've somehow forgotten the pain of the end-of-semester grading.
Why didn't I give more multiple choice questions???
All four of them.
I've been in denial about grading for a few days now, putting off the grading I could be doing by rationalizing it in a few ways:
1. I don't have ALL of my finals completed yet. It would be unfair to grade students in that way.
2. I don't have any kids to care for so why not go cross-country skiing instead of grading because I can't really do that when I'm with them (the kids).
The problem with #1 is that I had some pre-final papers etc. to grade that would be nice to have done BEFORE the pile of finals sits on top of them, firm deadline pending.
The problem with #2 is that I can't GRADE with kids around either. And after I get home tonight it is non-stop kidville up until said grading deadline has long passed.
It always gets done but I've somehow forgotten the pain of the end-of-semester grading.
Why didn't I give more multiple choice questions???
Thursday, December 17, 2009
This Can't Be Good...
In response to an email that I sent Big's preschool teacher (who, by the way, remains the single most impressive educator that I have ever met in my life) asking if it mattered much if he skipped school next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, she responded with the following (unedited) email after saying that those are "quiet days":
"I do think he needs some down time. Don't get me wrong-he's learning self control-he just has had a few lapses this week (!)-he's also blending phonic words (yea!). I think [Big]'s name has come up the most in the conferences - no worries, all good. He's a big little guy in our little school!"
"I do think he needs some down time. Don't get me wrong-he's learning self control-he just has had a few lapses this week (!)-he's also blending phonic words (yea!). I think [Big]'s name has come up the most in the conferences - no worries, all good. He's a big little guy in our little school!"
Experiment with Blogger.com
Okay, so, if you have a little time and you are perusing this blog, hit "next blog" at the top of the page.
Hit it again and again.
In my, albeit limited, attempts at this, I keep getting uber religious cites.
Are the blogger people assholes? Are they picking up on the word "homo" and instead of choosing "like" topics, they are choosing their opinion of "morally superior" topics?
Hit it again and again.
In my, albeit limited, attempts at this, I keep getting uber religious cites.
Are the blogger people assholes? Are they picking up on the word "homo" and instead of choosing "like" topics, they are choosing their opinion of "morally superior" topics?
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Sun Dogs
So, nearly ten years later living here in the Northland, I am still astounded by it.
This morning it was negative six degrees as I was driving down to my job and I witnessed the sunrise.
You might be thinking to yourself in response to that "Wow! She must have gotten up early!"
But here's the thing. The sun rose this morning at SEVEN freaking FOURTY-FIVE!
And it is planning on going down at freaking FOUR THIRTY!?!
For those of you who are math-impaired, that adds up to just over eight hours of daylight.
Whoa.
Anyway, on my way to school, I saw a rainbow.
Seriously. A rainbow.
So, I called Cousin, who has the largest breadth of knowledge of anyone I know and she replied immediately that I had seen a Sun Dog.
Cool.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Birthday Bash
So I decided that I had no idea what to do with four or five little boys running around our house for a birthday party.
For Nine's fourth birthday (this was pre-blog, so I have no reference here for you), we had a bunch of girls come over dressed as princesses and they had a tea party. It was crazy but manageable.
Plus, he's only been at school for a few months so we don't really know anyone very well.
So we decided to have a little party at a local bowling alley (which, btw, was in the film Beautiful Girls) with some of our closest friends which, coincidentally, happen to be his closest friends too.
Also, with my friend E in mind--she once told me this was her favorite--I made a checkerboard cake! Of course, I am not a professional baker, and did not expect that a) the different mixes would not exactly MIX once I took out the staging device and b) I did not cut the layers to make them stack perfectly. The end-result looked a little like the sad little stump at the end of The Giving Tree once the boy had cut him down. Let's just say that the person that got that piece got more than they bargained for: a spear-like device attempting to hold it all together and A LOT of glue (i.e. frosting).
Check out these pictures of the festivities!
For Nine's fourth birthday (this was pre-blog, so I have no reference here for you), we had a bunch of girls come over dressed as princesses and they had a tea party. It was crazy but manageable.
Plus, he's only been at school for a few months so we don't really know anyone very well.
So we decided to have a little party at a local bowling alley (which, btw, was in the film Beautiful Girls) with some of our closest friends which, coincidentally, happen to be his closest friends too.
Also, with my friend E in mind--she once told me this was her favorite--I made a checkerboard cake! Of course, I am not a professional baker, and did not expect that a) the different mixes would not exactly MIX once I took out the staging device and b) I did not cut the layers to make them stack perfectly. The end-result looked a little like the sad little stump at the end of The Giving Tree once the boy had cut him down. Let's just say that the person that got that piece got more than they bargained for: a spear-like device attempting to hold it all together and A LOT of glue (i.e. frosting).
Check out these pictures of the festivities!
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Caster Semenya
I might be completely behind the times, but a New Yorker from a couple of weeks ago was the first to inform me of Caster Semenya.
She won the gold medal in the 800 meters at the 2009 World Championships in Athletics with a time of 1:55.45 in the final, again the fastest time of the year.* Following her victory, questions were raised about her gender.
The New Yorker article, "Either/Or" about her and her case is great. The author, Ariel Levy is sympathetic to her case, calling her "breathtakingly butch."
But the article is also about South Africa and the importance of sports to the country.
And it is also about sex, gender, and a history of the way that athletic association including the International Olympic Committee have (unsuccessfully) defined (and verified) the sex of competitive athletes.
"Unfortunately for I.A.A.F. (the International Association of Athletics Federations) officials, they are faced with a question that no one has ever been able to answer: what is the ultimate difference between a man and a woman? “This is not a solvable problem,' Alice Dreger said. 'People always press me: 'Isn't there one marker we can use?' No. We couldn't then and we can't now, and science is making it more difficult and not less, because it ends up showing us how much blending there is and how many nuances, and it becomes impossible to point to one thing, or even a set of things, and say that’s what it means to be male."
*I have a soft spot in my heart for this race and the 4x800 meter relay. In high school I was lucky enough to be the slowest leg on the relay stacked with some pretty fast girls for a Class B (second largest class of schools in the state). We took state in the race twice, once beating even all of the class A teams. My leg was a whopping 27 seconds slower than Semenya's.
She won the gold medal in the 800 meters at the 2009 World Championships in Athletics with a time of 1:55.45 in the final, again the fastest time of the year.* Following her victory, questions were raised about her gender.
The New Yorker article, "Either/Or" about her and her case is great. The author, Ariel Levy is sympathetic to her case, calling her "breathtakingly butch."
But the article is also about South Africa and the importance of sports to the country.
And it is also about sex, gender, and a history of the way that athletic association including the International Olympic Committee have (unsuccessfully) defined (and verified) the sex of competitive athletes.
"Unfortunately for I.A.A.F. (the International Association of Athletics Federations) officials, they are faced with a question that no one has ever been able to answer: what is the ultimate difference between a man and a woman? “This is not a solvable problem,' Alice Dreger said. 'People always press me: 'Isn't there one marker we can use?' No. We couldn't then and we can't now, and science is making it more difficult and not less, because it ends up showing us how much blending there is and how many nuances, and it becomes impossible to point to one thing, or even a set of things, and say that’s what it means to be male."
*I have a soft spot in my heart for this race and the 4x800 meter relay. In high school I was lucky enough to be the slowest leg on the relay stacked with some pretty fast girls for a Class B (second largest class of schools in the state). We took state in the race twice, once beating even all of the class A teams. My leg was a whopping 27 seconds slower than Semenya's.
Friday, December 11, 2009
The Ice Rink: Nearly Ready for Action
Nothing like a few negative nights to boost the freezing process... But guess what I forgot? You have to freakin' SHOVEL it!
Thursday, December 10, 2009
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