Moved!

We are all settled in at the new address, if you've forgotten to change your RSS feed and you're wondering where everyone is:

http://www.swistle.com

If you are thinking of moving a blog, I can't even say if I recommend it or not. I mean, I guess I DO recommend it, since I'm not changing my mind and coming back. So many things are better---but several major things (the photos, mostly, which "move" sort of but still technically live at this blog, and so this blog can't be deleted without deleting them) are an enormous headache. And of course all the links on the whole internet go to THIS blog instead of the NEW blog.

Moving Day!

Hello! We're taking this blog to a new address:

http://www.swistle.com

I've been putting this off for literally YEARS, and I see I was right to do so: I've been working for two weeks on moving things and setting things up, and I have hated EVERY MINUTE. There has been weeping and despair and careful breathing through the nose.

And the comments are currently ABOVE each post, which I will fix when I figure out how to do so, because it's silly to come upon the option to comment even before you've read the post, and then not have the commenting option anywhere in sight when you want it.

And if someone comments on the old blog, that comment won't show up on the new blog, and I won't be able to move it, and it will be lost forever. So don't comment here anymore, or else it's GONE FOREVER. I mean, you can comment on this post if you want, because this post isn't transferring over there anyway. But NOWHERE ELSE! Or GONE FOREVER! (Some comments from this blog aren't over there yet; they're transferring as I type, and I hope they will all make it.)

And I can't figure out how to do the reference section.

And I don't really like how anything looks, but I have tried out no-kidding two dozen different themes and I hated them all, so.

And the profile thing keeps saying "error loading profile" instead of showing my name and my little skirt picture and my links. REASON UNKNOWN.

And the formatting on the transferred posts is messed up, with big gaps and no gaps and things not in the right place, and I am trying not to freak out about that. Big picture, big picture.

And probably we're going to run into a lot of problems with commenting. (Just for starters, I think the first comment from each commenter automatically goes to moderation.)

And don't even tell me if your workplace computer is saying the new blog is too racy to read at work, because I can't do anything about that except say, "But...it isn't!" and feel even MORE frustrated about EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD. And besides, that happened sometimes with this old address too.

So anyway. A huge, huge mess.

But the move needed to be done, so if we can just plow through this period of things being broken and changed and confusing and upsetting, I think everything will feel fine and normal before long.

Remember to change links and subscriptions and stuff, if you have them.

Like Soylent Green, the Internet is People

[This is all that was in my drafts folder. Just the title.]

If You Believe It, You Can Be It (as Long as What You Believe Is Reasonable for You and Your Circumstances)

[Here's another one from the drafts file. After I wrote it, I thought, "I'll bet someone else has already done this, and better." So I was going to look around and find out. Then I lost the energy for that. Then I thought, "If I had to check everything I wrote to see if someone else had already said it, I'd never hit publish on ANYTHING, because EVERYTHING has already been said." So here it is.]

********

I am thinking of writing a new series of more realistic children's books:

- If You Can Dream It, You Are Among Many Others Dreaming the Same Thing, and Only a Few of You Will Do It So It Would Be Sensible to Have a Backup Plan, Maybe Something Like Business or Computers

- The Little Engine Who Could, Because Luckily His Design and Physical Components Met Those Specifications

- The Little Engine Who Couldn't, Because Despite His Constant Repetitions of "I Think I Can," It Turned Out Those Words Were Not Some Sort Magical Spell Capable of Overriding His Design and Physical Components

- You Can Be Anything You Have Been Born and Trained and Motivated and Had the Opportunity to Be!

- SOMEONE Has to Do the Jobs That Are Less Fun, Rich, and Glamorous, and I Don't See Any Reason It Shouldn't Be You

- All That Talk About Everyone Being Special and Unique and Bound for Greatness Can Be Filed With the Whole Santa Claus Thing. Oh, Oops, Didn't I Tell You About Santa Claus Yet?

- In This Economy, I'd Keep in Mind That We Always Need People Who Work With Pain and Death

- You are Not the Only One Dreaming of Being a Singer, an Author, or an Astronaut

- Believing and Dreaming Don't Actually Do Anything, So Get Good Grades and Maybe Take Some Extracurriculars

- What, Do You Think People DREAM of Some of These Other Jobs?

Fertility Vent

[It turns out that if you're taking a blog from Blogger to Wordpress using the Wordpress import thing, all your drafts get published. So I'm going through 250 drafts to see if anything is worth saving before I delete. Short answer: no.

But I kind of liked this one that I wrote after a former male classmate on Facebook made me angry with some comments I didn't feel like I should respond to, right after a former female classmate activated my empathy center. At the time, I decided not to publish it because it makes such sweeping generalizations: clearly not all guys are casual about it, and clearly not all girls are being sensible about it: it was just these two individuals I was thinking of. But I feel pissy about it anyway.]

********


I am feeling a bit pissy this evening about how my former MALE classmates are in no danger of running out of chances for little heirs, while my FEMALE classmates are counting years and panicking.

It is making me feel further pissy that some of the males in question seem to have a "I stuck a piece of myself into someone and look what accidentally happened!" attitude about the whole thing, whereas the females are taking folic acid just in case and carefully looking for a quality, intelligent person of good genes and good character who will be a good co-parent and good co-provider. A crappy lack-o'-plan appears to be succeeding, genetically speaking, while a good and sensible plan seems to be tanking.

WHERE FAIRNESS HERE? It is an extremely pissy situation.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen; Social Obligation

I can't really think of a movie title that appeals to me less than Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (Amazon, Netflix), so I was surprised when it showed up in a Netflix envelope. I read the description ("a fabulously wealthy sheik longs to bring fly-fishing to the desert"), and still had no clue why I might have ordered it. I kept it around for several weeks, watching whatever was in my second Netflix envelope.

Then last night I set up what was in my other Netflix envelope---and it was an HBO series (HBO's motto: "We're allowed to use sex and swearing---and it shows!"), which was impossible to watch with the kids around. I was going to just read a book instead, but I figured, well, Salmon Fishing is PG-13, so I'll watch it for 15 minutes while I eat my dinner, and then I can send it back and be done with it.

NO IT WAS REALLY GOOD. There was barely any salmon-fishing in it at all! It was very much the kind of movie I like, so it must be that Netflix said to me, "You know how you seem to like Ewan McGregor feel-sad/good movies and anything with accents? We have a movie we think you'll enjoy" and I clicked "add to queue" without even looking at the title or description.

There are a lot of cute earnest confident guys in it, if that's your thing. And there were a lot of funny parts. And Kristin Scott Thomas is in it, swearing at her children and IM'ing with the prime minister. I really liked it.

********

I'm re-reading some of my Miss Manners books to see if she has some good ways to deal with the difficult person in a group. So far I haven't found much of use (she suggests saying "So kind of you to take an interest" in a chilly voice to someone who's being overly pushy, but I tried to imagine using that in a group of friends and couldn't picture it), but I've been having fun browsing a bunch of other stuff.

One section on a different topic that caught my eye is about social obligations: she says it's a mistake to keep inviting over people you don't like and accepting invitations back. She suggests that in many cases, the other people don't want to come over any more than you want to invite them, and are themselves acting out of social obligation. Then they have to invite YOU back over, and you go even though you don't want to, and the cycle continues---with NO ONE having a good time. If EITHER party would just DROP IT, everyone would be happier.

I think this is interesting to think about in an internet context---though again, I'm not sure it works well when I try to apply it. Like maybe sometimes we're following people only because they follow us, but actually they're following us only because we're following them, and we'd all be happier if we stopped---but it seems like more often one person wants to follow and the other one doesn't want to follow back, and THAT'S the issue.

Another Appetizer Report and Some Hand-Wringing About Socializing in Groups

I tried another of the appetizer recipes for a get-together and I am ready to make a report! This time I tried Emily's party bread, which a friend of hers posted about here. It's a loaf of Italian bread, cut into cubes that don't break through the bottom crust (so that it all still stays together), stuffed with a pound of cheese, drizzled with a stick of butter, seasoned with garlic, and decorated with poppy seeds (I also used parsley flakes for additional visual appeal). Then you bake it.

I was worried because the party was 15 minutes away; I could have done the second heat-up at her house, but I felt nervous about that and preferred not to, so I took the bread directly from the oven, put it into a bag, and ran from the house. It was just fine for the party: not piping hot, but still plenty warm. If I keep going to these get-togethers, I might buy some sort of insulated transportation bag.

Next time I'll bake it longer: the cheese in the middle hadn't melted. But the edges were great. People kept going back and picking at it more. There were about seven of us there, I think, and we ate about half the loaf---and that was with six other appetizers to choose from. It seems like it would be a nice flexible recipe that could handle a bunch of different kinds of seasonings. I've added the recipe to my recipe box.

********

Okay, so what I really want to talk about is that these get-togethers are getting me all agitated, and I don't know if it's good or bad. It's really hard to tell the difference between "Getting outside your comfort zone! good for emotional stretching and growth! relationship/community-building! change of pace! social needs! wheeeee!" and "This is not a good fit for me, and is resulting in distress and agitation instead of the good things that might be experienced by a different person."

And sometimes in a situation there might be the additional issue of telling the difference between "Not everyone is going to get along with everyone, and one of the benefits of a group is that it's good for us to have experience dealing with people we wouldn't have chosen and/or people who have different views on a subject" and "Yes, and that can be true of dealing with the rest of the people in the group because they also have upsides, but this particular person is a humorless, strident, pushy, aggressive, oblivious ASS, and contact with her should be severely limited, and she ruins the entire event so maybe these alleged group benefits should be experienced with a DIFFERENT GROUP."

...Okay, just typing that out was a big help. I think I will continue to get all RILED: it's not only a matter of there being one person I find challenging, it's even MORE an issue of general overstimulation (TONS OF PEOPLE! TONS OF TOPICS!), plus all the usual party issues of "Did I talk too much/little, was I boring, did I say something I shouldn't have, did I keep killing the conversation, was I too quiet/loud?" But overall, and for now, I want to keep going anyway.

Plus there's this issue: if she's so awful, why is she still in the group? Maybe I'm the only one who finds her insufferable. Maybe everyone else finds her sufferable.

And even with the insuffering, the good outweighs the bad. Just for starters, these are the moms of kids in Rob's grade. EXCELLENT INSIDER INFO AND NOTE-COMPARING. And also I do like THEM. And perhaps I will learn some tips on how to deal with the particular sort of person I mentioned, since there seems to be no world shortage.

I also noticed two other things that lead me to wonder if a Difficult Person can actually enhance a group:

1. You know that thing about friendships being based on shared dislikes? Another guest and I made a huge leap in friendship over one single "o.O" facial expression.

2. I noticed that the one strident person's strident views seemed to make everyone else more open to the concept of assorted views. Like, a conversation might be getting a little intense and divided---but then Stridentella lets loose with her views, and suddenly everyone else is saying things like "Well, different choices make sense for different families." It's like she shows us a caricature of how our own views were shaping up, and that makes us all want to back away from that.

Down

You know what's incredibly frustrating to launder? Anything filled with down. It floats like a duck. Water rolls off it like....water...off a duck's.... I think I see the problem. But how to get our down jackets clean, then? Mine is aqua and it might as well be white for how clean it stays, and Henry's is dark blue but he has nevertheless managed with effort and ingenuity to make the dirt really represent.

I looked around online for awhile, but got frustrated by all the non-answer answers all written in the same format (paragraph about the benefits of down! paragraph asking the question about washing! paragraph failing to resolve the issue! paragraph congratulating ourselves on resolving the issue!) and gave up. How would a person go about washing a DUCK, is perhaps the question we should be asking.

Right now I have the coats floating on top of the water in the washing machine ("soaking"), and periodically I go shove them under the water in frustration, and that is going to have to be good enough.

Sharing/Splitting a Tab

It was only very, very recently (this school year) that I figured out what to do if I was in a group of people standing around (like, at preschool pick-up), and I was talking with one person in the group, and another person came and stood nearby and seemed to want to join the conversation but seemed tentative about it, like they were afraid they'd be butting in. (Answer: Turn to the new person, say, "We were just talking about [how different the bus system was when we were in school / the big storm expected Friday / the stupid parking situation]," and then start looking back and forth between the two faces while talking.)

When I figured that out, I felt like it was something a lot of people would have already known in an "I just knew; I had no idea it was something anyone needed to be taught" level. But I also didn't learn until high school that if someone says, "How are you?" you're supposed to say, "Fine! How are you?" A date taught me, after his dad asked me how I was and I stood there grinning in a friendly but mute way. My date said laughingly, "...You can TELL him!" I was mortified for years, but now look at it as an illustration of how socially comfortable my date was: that he not only didn't stand there sharing in the awkwardness but also he took swift, friendly, laid-back action to fix it. And I'm sure the date's dad didn't care, any more than I would if it were one of my kids' friends, so I've stopped feeling that sink-into-the-floor feeling over it. (It's nice to know that feeling can fade after...a couple of decades.)

Where was I? Oh, yes. So, there are a lot of social things I encounter where I wonder if this is another of those things where most people know already how to deal with it and I need to find out what it is, or if it's something most other people struggle with too. Like, I know from reading blogs that MOST people struggle with how to "ask out" a new friend candidate, so I wouldn't feel strange about struggling with that too. Today's issue is one I've seen mentioned enough to know I'm not one of a tiny minority or anything---but I also think that getting a lot of different responses would be very helpful to show me the range of what society considers normal behavior.

So here it is: If I'm going for coffee for the first time with a new friend candidate, and it's at the kind of place where a waiter comes to the table, what do we do about the bill? Does one person say "separate checks, please," or no? Do people share a single check, then glance at the bill after, round up their own share to the nearest dollar, and leave the change on top of the tip? Do people just split it down the middle, even if they ordered different things (surely not, and yet I've heard it complained about)? What about leaving the tip: do people discuss how much it should be and each put down half, or does each person just put down their own little stack without consulting the other? If one person puts down a lot more tip than the second person was planning to, doesn't that make the second person feel pressured?

This is for the FIRST TIME, at a waitered-table restaurant, with someone new, where you don't yet know how they'd prefer to handle it: how do YOU handle the situation?

Data, A Love Story; The Night Circus

I read two books. Now I will say things about them.

(photo from Amazon.com)

Data, A Love Story: How I Gamed Online Dating to Meet My Match, by Amy Webb. My sister-in-law's sister mentioned this book, and so when I saw it at our library I got it. It's about a woman who, as you can see from the title, was frustrated with online dating and figured out work-arounds to get what she wanted.

I thought it was a good story and that she had some good practical advice that would be likely to work. But I found her so off-putting I could hardly stand it. I wrote four paragraphs saying why, and then deleted them because if the book showed anything it's that we all have types we're drawn to and types we're repelled by. And also, I felt like a lot of what I didn't like wasn't really HER, it was her showing off for her book. Like, if I got to know her when she wasn't trying to impress us so hard, I might love her.

(photo from Amazon.com)

The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern. I read this because I kept hearing so many different reactions to it. I liked it, mostly. I liked fairy tales and magic a lot when I was a child, and it's fun to find something along that line for grown-ups. I thought the language kept slipping into "Look how beautifully I'm writing/describing! Look how I'm making the magic COME ALIVE for you!," and also I haaaaaate second-person singular ("You go through a door. You wonder what you're going to see," etc.) but I just skimmed those parts. (Most of it was NOT in second-person singular.)

...I feel like I'm not successfully communicating that I really liked it. I did like it.

Middle-Aged

The term "middle-aged" is a little awkward, because it's a tactful euphemism for an older group than it seems to describe. If the typical U.S. human life is, say, 78 years long, then age 39 should be solidly middle-aged---but that's not what we mean by the term. We actually mean something more like "well past the middle, but the term elderly isn't right yet."

I think of middle-aged people as being in their 50s or 60s or so---but it's a stage of life more than an exact age. It's a stage with no young kids in the house anymore (unless it's grandkids), but no need yet for walkers, or for those chairs that help a person stand up. When a middle-aged person gets sick, we don't think, "Uh oh, hope it doesn't go to the lungs." We don't worry much yet about broken hips, but there are plenty of lost bifocals. No one is talking about whether it's time to take away a driver's license or "think about a home," but there is talk about retirement. There are of course myriad exceptions (a guy in his twenties might have bifocals or have bad lungs or need to use a walker; a guy in his 60s could have little kids with his young wife), but middle-aged is a general term, so I'm speaking of the group it describes in a general way too.

I have a new proposal for terms. I was thinking about how middle-aged doesn't describe the middle stage of life: it's more like the third out of four (childhood, adult, middle-aged, elderly). Then I noticed another euphemism for age, which is the "senior" in "senior discount" and "senior citizen" and "seniors residence." And the combination of "four stages" plus "senior" made me think of how we mark high school and college grades: freshman, sophomore, junior, senior.

We're currently using senior discount to include people over 65 or even 60 or 55, so we'd have to change that. "Senior" would now be used the way we use "elderly": deep wrinkles, white hair, fear of broken hips, nursing homes, walkers. Then we could use "junior" to cover the category we now call "middle-aged": bifocals, falling necks, kids are grown, menopause, needlework about having the fun grandchildren first. Early/mid-twenties (depending on personal maturity rates) up to middle-aged would be called sophomores. And children up to their early/mid twenties would be freshmen.

If we're going to use euphemisms, it's nice to have them TIDY. And I also like the way this system automatically implies a gaining of knowledge and experience, rather than an increasing fumbling with new technology and change purses.

Pretend It's Someone Else Saying It

I have come upon a Useful Motivational Tool. It is not going to work for all personality types or for all motivational situations; in fact, for some personalities and situations it would be awful. It's similar to the "Think of how other people are worse off" perspective-resetting technique, which ONLY has a chance of working if self-applied, and is DREADFUL otherwise, and can backfire and/or be inappropriate even if self-applied---and it taps into the otherwise wasted/misspent resource of "feeling like other people's lives and emotions are eye-rollingly easy to direct/correct."

Here is what it is: Pretend it's someone else saying what you're saying. That is, when you have a reason you can't do something you want yourself to do, pretend you're listening to (or reading a blog post by) someone else saying that same reason. In some cases, you will nod your head and agree: "Yes, it sounds like that situation really is preventing you from doing that." But in many other cases, you will say: "What? Are you kidding me? That's easy to fix!"

This works particularly well for those of us who are Fixers AND Too Easily Discouraged. You know how some women will complain that they just wanted to vent but their male companions kept trying to FIX it instead of just LISTENING? I have "male" fixing inclinations of that sort, and often have to remind myself, "She just wants to vent. She is PERFECTLY CAPABLE of thinking of the same obvious thing you feel an urge to point out to her, but she feels like complaining right now." And the reason I know that's likely the case is that I myself sometimes just want to whine about something for awhile: I know I have to fix it, but I want to WHINE about it FIRST, oKAY? I slump my shoulders and think, "It's HOPELESS. To fix this window situation, I'd have to go to TWO STORES! Including one I DON'T ENJOY. AND I'd have to measure a shade before I go! AND choose a curtain color! JUST FORGET IT." And then eventually I answer myself: "Psh. Don't be ridiculous. You'd be completely done before the kids got home from school. I think you can handle an hour and a half of Not Your Favorite Tasks." The whining ends up being an important part of the solution-finding process: if there's no whining, no solution is generated.

Or I remember when I had a tiny baby and was inwardly despairing because I COULDN'T EVEN GO TO THE BATHROOM. I was getting myself all the way to TEARS of frustration and injustice and resentment and self-pity over the issue. It was IMPOSSIBLE! This situation was SO UNREASONABLE!! I was TOO BUSY to PEE!! And then I remembered how I felt when other people said the same, which caused me to say to myself, "Don't be ridiculous, of course you can pee. You just put down the baby in a safe place and go to the bathroom. Yes, he will scream while you are peeing. Are you seriously saying that's literally, actually, genuinely something you can't work with, or are you just locked into a self-defeating self-pity mode now?"

So I was already familiar with this concept---but now I've been applying it ON PURPOSE. For example, for a few weeks now I've been inwardly whining about wanting to exercise but also NOT wanting to exercise. When I imagined reading a blog post written by someone else mentioning all my same reasons, I nearly gagged on all my excellent ideas and sarcastic dismissals.

Not for ALL of the reasons, though, which is good to keep in mind: this technique can work as a SORTING tool as well as a fixing/dismissing tool. For SOME of the reasons/issues, I thought, "You're right, that's a legit problem." Sometimes I then thought "But that problem will be over soon" or "It's true, that's a problem that would take a bigger solution---so let's do the easier fixes first and see how that goes," and sometimes I thought, "Yeah, I'm not sure that's fixable." But a lot of other things I thought, "Yes? So that would take, what, 30 seconds to a minute? That seems...pretty reasonable" and "Well, that's what exercise comes with. There's no sense whining about reality as if whining will change it somehow" and "Well, could you try A or B or C to fix that aspect of things?" and "Well, then what you need to acquire is a D and an E. And you could consider acquiring an F and a G."

I think this technique is already part of the automatic whining-leads-to-solution process, but I tend to have a....LONG process. Deliberate application is helping me speed things up a little.

Update on House Number Situation; Microwave-Related Derping

Do you remember when my mom and dad were on a road trip and wanted to find my mom's old childhood house, and we all squinted at an old picture trying to figure out what the house number was? Well, there's an update on that post, because my mom found some old postcards that had the address on it. We still don't know what the OTHER number on the house is, or why there ARE two numbers---but I see two mailboxes, so maybe it was a multi-family unit, or maybe it was a rental and one box was for the landlord, or maybe one mailbox was for the newspaper and the other number was a word and not a number, or maybe there was a re-numbering of houses and the old number hadn't been taken down yet, or maybe there was some other system in place that isn't familiar to us 60 years later, or ANYWAY AT LEAST WE HAVE ONE NUMBER. And seven people in the comments section were right about it!

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Our microwave broke, which completely surprised us because that has never happened before. And just like when the power goes out and I keep thinking the downtime would be a great time to get caught up on email, I keep finding myself bumping up against the no-microwave issue in a way that makes me feel repeatedly derpy.

I'm accustomed to making a pot of coffee, taking a cup, turning the coffee pot off, and then microwaving cups of cold coffee throughout the day or even the next morning. This morning I got out a mug, put milk and cold coffee into it, walked toward the microwave---and then stood there trying to figure out why this idea no working.

Also, I've been cooking more new stuff, and with new stuff comes more leftovers, and this week we have an unprecedented number of them. Paul and I had no fewer than FOUR conversations yesterday evening about how he was going to heat up some leftover lasagna to eat when (1) there was no microwave and (2) I was using both oven shelves for the children's fish-sticks-and-star-tots dinner. We just could NOT figure it out. He was going to have to...WAIT? and then WAIT MORE? instead of just putting it in the microwave for two minutes?

Do It Yourself: Fix a Drawer Making a Scraping Sound

Sometimes when I encounter an issue of household-related brokenness, I ask Paul to look into it and fix it. Other times, either because I've asked him and he hasn't, or else because for some reason I don't want to ask him, I like to try to take care of it myself. In those situations I find it bolstering to first pretend to myself that I am living in this house as the only adult. In that case, would I call someone to fix it, or would I be able to manage it myself? If the latter, I give it a try. In this way I have recently replaced a toilet seat and....some other thing, I forget what.

Recently one of my bureau drawers was making a scraping sound/sensation every time I opened it or closed it, and also it was feeling increasingly scrapey to open/close. I wasn't sure what that could be, but I applied the "What if I were on my own?" concept, and I thought I'd be too embarrassed to call someone in without even LOOKING for an issue, so I looked for an issue.

The bureau in question. The middle drawer is the one that's making a scraping sound.

I took out the scrapey-sounds drawer.

What's this? I see a screw sticking out in a way it doesn't seem like it should be.

Oh, you can't see it? Here's a closer view. Definitely sticking out.

I can use a screwdriver, no prob.

That's more like how it seems like it ought to look.

No more scraping sound! I AM VICTORIOUS!

Update!

This is fun: there's an update on an old post! Jessica wrote to us in April 2011 asking how a second child would change things, and recently (okay, almost 2 weeks ago, I SOMETIMES GET A LITTLE PROCRASTINATEY) emailed to say how things turned out! I put the update on the post itself: Reader Question: How Does a Second Child Change Things?

New Updo, Second Attempt!

Yesterday I tried twisting both sides and ending in a French fountain. Today I tried one twisted side, with the twist higher, and ending in a messy side-bun---but with the bun high enough that it wouldn't rest on my neck, because I don't like that feeling.

Here's the twisted side, with the twist higher this time

 

And the messy bun side, bun held from side-above with this dangerous-looking clip

Here's a back view

I really like half-grown-out haircolor and sun damage for updos: it makes it so much easier to see the details!

I like this style, too. I feel like it's a liiiiiitle bit college student, but I also think I need to get over that: first, because what I think of as "college-student style" is now likely to be thought of by actual college students as "mom style" (see also: plaid flannel shirt still serving duty), which is completely appropriate; and second, because this IS the kind of style I like to wear (again, see plaid flannel shirt), so even if it IS also the kind girls are currently wearing in college, then SO BE IT. They will just have to share, as will I.

New Updo, First Attempt!

Thank you for all the suggestions on the casual updo topic! I clicked every link, leaning forward in my chair as eagerly as if I were searching a dating site. Also, I am planning a trip to the stylist to get long sideswept bangs, and a trip to Target to get packets of spin pins. I have a bun spiral pin, but I can't get it to work at all: it just tangles into the bun, without being twistable all the way to the scalp as required to hold the dang thing together.

I noticed in some of the tutorials that the updoer had first blow-dried and/or curled her hair, then styled it and teased it and sprayed it and so forth, THEN put it in the "quick-'n'-easy" updo. Those seemed perfect for second-day hair for someone who typically spends a lot of time on a style in the morning and doesn't want to waste all the effort---but what I like about the French twist fountain is that it takes seriously less than a minute from towel-wrapped wet hair to done. I AM willing to add a little time now that the kids are older, but if I spend drying/curling-level amounts of time, I don't want to end up with a PONYTAIL. Hillary's "office boho" style (recommended by Alice) looked like the type of thing I was looking for, so I tried that first.

(Aside: I read with GREAT INTEREST a comment on that post from someone who was recommending my SAME French twist fountain, and for the SAME reasons! And lo: it WAS me!)

I first tried the side bun, but realized I didn't know how to bun it in that position (I think I need the spin pins!). Plus, I generally think I look better with hair HIGHER rather than lower: a medium-high ponytail is better on me than a low one, for example. So I tried a hybrid: I twisted the hair like Hillary did, but I did it on both sides and then tried to bring it into my previous French twist fountain at the end. Here's my first attempt (no, YOU'RE wearing plaid flannel):

Right side

Left side, kind of, and taking no advantage at all of the available natural light

THERE'S the natural light, finally, just in time to shoot the messy back and the hanging mismatched towels

I'd say it worked pretty well, and that more practice is indicated. I'd like to try twisting so that the endpoint is HIGHER; I accidentally made the whole twist pretty low, and I think higher would work better with the fountain. I'd also like to try it with a high bun.

With the lower endpoint, I'd like to try using a large barrette instead of a claw clip, and then tucking in the ends or making it less effusive in some other way---but I think that might look TOO tucked/dressy for what I like. I'd also like to see if I can bun it, or if an off-center bun nudging my neck would drive me crazy.

And I'd like to try all those things with just one side twisted.

Dream; Tumblr; Hair

I dreamed last night I was at a big blogging conference, and someone next to me said, indicating a popular blogger, "She's popular---but no one actually likes her, and I think she thinks she's proud of that." I was like, "Come. sit. next. to. me."---but then I had to rush back to my own seat because I was taking care of two babies for someone else. And, once back to my seat, I fretted that the blogger who'd made the clever and insightful remark would think I meant that I wanted to hear endless snark and mean mocking, when actually all I want is the occasional Highly Insightful well-placed remark TINGED with snark/mocking, and I spent the rest of the dream mentally composing ways to indicate that. So...basically exactly how I think a blogging conference would go for me.

********

Yesterday I gave a ride home to a 16-year-old girl. She very kindly explained blogs and feed readers to me, using the kind of language I would use if talking to someone quite elderly who didn't even have a computer. I kept trying to interject little comments that indicated that I was up to speed on that, but it was not working. So instead I asked her to explain Tumblr to me, because that's an area where I really could use a little education. It sounds like it's like blogs, except instead of writing posts, you mostly post what other people have written. She says it started as a way to share other people's writing while still making that writing traceable all the way back to the person who wrote it, and also it's a way to read a selection of posts by various writers but on the same topic. So Tumblr is basically Pinterest for blogging. I get it now.

********

I would like to grow my hair long, but I would like to wear it up not down. In another time period, this would not have been weird, and I would have had about 50 new style choices every season, plus perhaps a young girl from a local farm to put it up for me before she got on with the household chores. In this time period, most of the updos are:

1) fancy-event fancy

2) better suited to someone in college ("Just twist here and braid there and put a feather here and some insouciance there for that 'I'm effortlessly and carelessly beautiful' look!")

3) so old-fashioned looking, I'd increase the "she probably belongs to a peculiar religious sect" look I've already got going on with the long hair and the glasses and all those children

4) too difficult and frustrating, so that I can't even figure out how to PRACTICE doing it

5) too Pinteresty (see #2 and #4, and also see "I am not going to blow-dry, tease, and style my hair BEFORE putting into 'an easy updo'")
 

My favorite way to wear it is to put it in a fountainy French twist: twist it from the bottom up, then put a clip right at the top and let the ends splay out cheerfully. I think it looks casual but still pretty. But my hair is now too long for that: there is no fountain, there is more like a long flop of hair. Normally at this point I would switch to a bun---but the last time I was in that hair stage, I caught sight of myself unexpectedly in a store mirror and realized it was looking more matronly than ballerina on me.

This morning what I did was loosely French braid it starting on one side, down and around like I was going to make a ring around my head; and when I would have had to switch hands to keep going, I instead ended it in the usual French twist. The braid used up some of the extra hair, so that was good---but the resulting style is college on one side and sect on the other.

I think it might help to add some hair in front. In those period movies, the women always have all these bunches of curls right in the bangs area; the modern equivalent would probably be one long-bangs piece that keeps getting into my eyes and is allllmost long enough to tuck behind one ear.

Party and Appetizer Report

I went to that appetizer get-together, and it was great. I get very scared about having coffee with one person, because it's like playing a one-on-one sport: it is ALL UP TO ME. But a group thing is like a team thing: if I need to sit on the bench for a minute, the game goes on. (Look, a sports analogy from someone who doesn't play sports!)

I found that for the first hour I was having a wonderful time and had lots of things to say. Then it got so loud I felt like I couldn't get a word in anymore, but I discovered the secret to what to do in these situations: I put on an alert, interested expression, and I laughed and made reaction noises in response to other people's stories. That is a crucial role at a party TOO. And leads to far less lying in bed afterward cataloging all the stupid things I've said.

Also, I noticed from someone else's negative example that there is an ENORMOUS difference between doing that and standing there looking at the floor thinking "I guess no one wants to talk to me"/"I guess I'm just no good at parties"/"I guess I don't belong here." In the former, the person is (1) bringing the party down and (2) being an enormous self-centered self-pitying non-contributing baby; in the latter, the person is (1) still completely engaged in the party, just doing a listening role rather than a talking role at that moment. I just read a Maeve Binchy quote where she said there's an old rule that for a successful party you should invite four talkers and four listeners; this party had some bonus talkers, so listeners were much in demand. Plus, it's pretty easy to fake Sparkly Listening even if you're feeling scared or awkward or introverted; it's much harder to fake Sparkly Talking. (Look, party advice from someone who doesn't go to parties!)

I brought RA's husband's Aunt Judy's Chocolate-Chip Cheese Ball, and it was the perfect choice: everyone else brought savory, and at first no one wanted sweet. But when we were done eating chicken-cheese dip and red-pepper-cheese dip and 7-layer-taco dip, everyone was in the mood for sweet. And it wasn't TOO sweet, either, so we didn't feel gross eating too much of it.

Here is the after photo, because I forgot to take a before:

It's, like, 5/6ths eaten.

I made one change: instead of just coating the ball in chocolate chips, I also shook out a large quantity into a pool around the cheese ball. The worst thing about foods from the Coated Ball category (this is starting to sound gross) is that the delicious coating gets chipped away and then it's just the plain innards. With chocolate chips also surrounding it, we could take a dip from the plain center and then touch it to the pool of chocolate chips.

Also, do you love the paper plate? I bought a pack of those at Home Goods about a year ago, 8 for $1.99, and at the time I was thinking they'd be exactly right for something, and they WERE. But I could have used a real plate, because most people took their leftovers home with them.

Also, I want to HIGHLY RECOMMEND wiggling your way into a social circle that includes parents of children in your child's grade. Not only did I meet the mother of the girl I think Rob has a crush on (me to her: "Oh my god, I've seen your daughter's name on a whiteboard in our house!!"), I also found out from another mother which girl HER daughter says Rob has a crush on. I felt like I suddenly had SECRET ACCESS.

Also-also-also, I hope people will keep putting appetizers on the appetizer-recipe-collecting post, because the plan is to keep doing these appetizer parties, so I will need to keep going back to that comments section again and again.

Busy Day and Sixth Grade

Coincidentally this week we ended up with one million things happening. Today is one of the worst days of the week: we have, like, seven different things, several conflicting with other different things, several of them with uncertain end-times, most of them requiring Advanced Advance Planning such as sending Elizabeth's dinner to school with her this morning. I KNOW it will all end up fine, with me saying, "Huh! That turned out Just Fine!" at the end, and that helps a little, but I still had stress dreams last night involving not being able to remember what appointments I had, trying to figure out what time it was, children missing the bus, etc.

Also, William's grades have plummeted and we're trying to fix some of that this week. Our middle school has a neat thing where you can go online and see that, for example, your child (by which I mean "my child") has failed to hand in two projects and two dozen homework and classwork assignments. The problem at that point is that if you ("I") ask your ("my") child what the heck, that child may say "Uhhhhhh" and look squintingly at the ceiling, apparently unable to give any further information or even remember what classes we're talking about. So then you might have a stress dream where you're trying to make him get on the bus but you can't figure out how to make him do what you want him to do, and even after you get him on the bus he shows up back at the house an hour later because you don't seem to be able to control him while he's at school.

Rob's grades also plummeted in 6th grade, and when I mentioned this at the time to a friend she said, "Yeah, 6th grade is a sink-or-swim time." The work gets harder, and they're suddenly supposed to handle it with less hand-holding. They have multiple teachers instead of just one, and the teachers are MIDDLE SCHOOL teachers, not elementary school teachers; it's a different sort of person who wants to teach those different levels.

Rob did straighten out, so I have hopes for William. But on the other hand, their temperaments are so different. Rob is competitive, argumentative, a firstborn who likes to think of himself as superior. William is "la la la, cute cat gifs and constant jokes!" combined with "if I don't deal with the problem, maybe it will go away." So, like, if William gets stressed about a project, he's likely to just...not do it. Or mention it to anyone. He's sunshiney to have around the house, but it's hard to know how to get him to do stuff: he either makes it into a joke or he avoids it completely.

I HOPE my agitated-masked-as-cool lectures are starting to work. The most successful part was when I said that the situation was like Tetris: if you get behind on Tetris and leave a bunch of holes in the layers, you CAN just keep building from there, leaving the holes. But it's a LOT easier if you can work on filling in a bunch of those holes first. (This was to explain to him why he should try to catch up on missed assignments rather than just doing better from here on in.)

But even after that awesome, hip, youth-appropriate game analogy, he came home from school yesterday and I said, "Did you talk to your teachers about making up work?" and he looked squintingly at the ceiling and said "Uhhhhh."

Easy Appetizer Recipes

I am going to a thing, and for this thing I will need to bring an appetizer. I am about to ask for appetizer recipe suggestions. First I will mention the things that seem pertinent to me:

1. It will be all women there
2. The theme seems to be decadence rather than restraint
3. I think it will be something like 8-10 people
4. Everyone is supposed to bring an appetizer
5. The beverage will be wine

Also, I realized as I turned to consult my recipe file that I have never made an appetizer before. Never. And I am not much of a cook to begin with. So think of me as a high school student who has come to you needing an appetizer: we would not say to that high school student, "Oh, you know a recipe I find satisfyingly challenging-but-worth-it after a decade or two of rigorous cooking experience? You start by just putting a duck carcass and some lovely Ajowan caraway in your pressure cooker..." No. We would ask her if she'd heard of any of the lovely Velveeta dips. That is the sort of guidance I am looking for.

********

Update! I'll add to here as I try any of the recipes! Here are links to posts containing reports on what I've tried so far:

Aunt Judy's Chocolate Chip Cheese Ball
Emily's Party Bread

The New Goodwill Is Here! The New Goodwill Is Here! Things Are Going to Start Happening to Me Now!

We got a Goodwill! We got a Goodwill! I'm so happy! We got a Goodwill!

Back when Rob was a non-cuddly little infant in a stroller and I was a stunned and isolated new mother, we had a Goodwill within easy walking distance of our apartment. I used to have a goal of getting the two of us out of the house every single day, and that was one of my favorite destinations. Pretty plate for 50 cents! Revereware saucepan for $1.99! End table for $10.00! Suitcase for $5.00!

Plus, that was where we donated our decluttering: I didn't feel as dumb getting rid of all the brand-new tags-still-on-them placemats it turned out we never used if I knew they were going to a good cause (and to another shopper who would get the same thrill I got when I saw the plates for 50 cents).

Then we moved, and there was a Goodwill but it was pretty far away, and then that Goodwill closed. Years of twilight passed.

Then, on a day we didn't realize we should note as The Day Our Lives Changed, construction started on a new building. We felt mild curiosity: What will it be? A new Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts, probably, since there are only two so far in that mile-long strip.

But no! No! It was a GOODWILL. We discussed it. Could it be a rumor? Maybe it is just a Dunkin Donuts BUILT BY Goodwill, and not an actual Goodwill STORE. But it continued to look like it was actually going to be a Goodwill.

This past Wednesday, my mom and I were driving up that road and we saw the full parking lot. Could it be OPEN? Is it OPEN?? IT'S OPEN. My mom made a hard right into the parking lot. And oh! The riches! A Gap sweater and a J. Crew sweater for William, $4.99 each---but one of them was yellow-tagged, so it was only $2.50.

William does not want to model his $2.50 Gap sweater

Four non-cropped sweaters for Elizabeth, who had NO sweaters this year because they're ALL cropped, $1.99 each---oh, but one is yellow-tagged, so only $1.00!

Elizabeth in her $1.00 non-cropped sweater

A Rugged Bear pinwale corduroy dress for Elizabeth, $1.99---whoops, yellow tag, $1.00! A cute short-sleeved t-shirt cardigan for me, $36.00 store tag still on it, $7.99! A Lands' End tie-dye shirt for Edward---THE VERY ONE I HAVE CONSIDERED BUYING FROM LANDS' END.

IT'S THE VERY ONE

Carter's spring/fall jacket for Henry, $1.99! A Gymboree sweater for Henry, looks like it's never even been laundered let alone worn, $1.99!

Henry wearing $1.99

Whoooo. I felt faint. I think one reason I got so many good deals is that four of the five kids wear sweaters, but sweaters are the kind of thing a lot of people WON'T wear. So people end up donating huge piles of them: I think in the men's section there were a lot of Unwanted Sweaters Received For Christmas (which William will wear EVERY SINGLE DAY until spring).

Speaking of sweaters, I wished SO HARD I was involved in a group that did an Ugly Christmas Sweater event, because there was a PERFECT sweater for it. Perfect in that it was not actually entirely ugly, but was nevertheless comical. Cardinals and holly EVERYWHERE. Also: it was a VEST CARDIGAN.

Then, that same night Paul and I went out on a date (we went to Chipotle because neither of us had ever been; we both liked it a lot) (I wore my new short-sleeved cardigan), and after we went to dinner we went back to Goodwill! I bought another few things for the kids, and tried on a jacket that wasn't quite right the first time and wasn't quite right the second time either. I looked more thoroughly in the plates and stationery, where I found a Griffin & Sabine stationery set I would have wanted very very badly twenty years ago, and maybe I need to go back and buy it. [Edit: I went back and bought it!] Paul bought an electronic item BECAUSE HE DIDN'T KNOW WHAT IT WAS. It was $4.99, that's what it was. I could get TWO GAP SWEATERS for that. He also bought a set of three new glass storage containers, for a full-price price. I don't think Paul understands Goodwill.

VALENTINE'S DAY BIRD TOWEL SURPRISE

It all started with a link to these towels, decorated with two little aqua birdies and "Love! It is all u need!"

The next thing that happened was a big heavy box arriving yesterday from Rachel of Doing My Best (of Crappy Day Present fame):

Do you see the small pink writing on the top photo? "This is a surprise full of surprises." And then note the blue writing in the bottom photo: "There can never be too many!" Which was soon to feel MUCH MORE SIGNIFICANT.

I opened the box, and:

Re-enactment

Ha ha, she got me the bird towels! SEVERAL, it looks like! Ha ha! That Rachel!

We were in the middle of the "homework and clean-up and dinner prep melee" time of day, so I thought I'd better wait and unpack the rest later. But I sent a quick direct message to Rachel, saying the box had arrived safely and ha ha bird towels thanx!

I went back to the kitchen...and something caught my eye:

Wait

And then:
 

What's this?

And another, and another---a sticker on every bird towel. And SO MANY bird towels! A WHOLE DOZEN in all, coming from a WHOLE DOZEN different people! [It took me awhile to come up with a pleasing way to do the links there. Finally I picked towels blindly one by one out of the box and did them in that order, except for Anne and Joanne who are at the end because their towels were in the photos. There.]

So when I said above that "The next thing that happened was a big heavy box arriving"---NO, that was NOT the next thing. The ACTUAL next thing was Rachel organizing a SECRET SURPRISE.

OMG

INTERNET BIRD TOWEL VALENTINES.

And there was MORE:

ZOMG

A wrapped box from another internet friend, and a note that another internet friend had contributed toward shipping costs, and a note that others had wanted to participate but the number of towels was getting daunting; plus a pile of Crappy Day Presents from Rachel, plus Hershey bars with almonds. Does the size of the photo make those Hershey bars look like regular-sized bars? DO NOT BE FOOLED. They are the BIGGIES.

THANK YOU, everybody. This was a REALLY fun surprise---and I was COMPLETELY surprised! Happy Valentine's Day to YOU, too!


[Edit: Also see Rachel's post on how it came together on her end!]

Idea for Helping Children Memorize Their Name, Address, or Phone Number

My friend mentioned how she taught her kindergartner his phone number, and I thought it was a great idea: She made their phone number the password on her cell phone. To play one of the games he likes, he has to type in their phone number. (Her phone's password isn't to keep people out, it's just to keep her from pocket-dialing.)

I was thinking this could be used for other things, too, like teaching kids their home address, or how to spell their names. Our home computer has a password for each kid to keep them from accidentally or on purpose messing up each other's stuff. It's easy to re-set the passwords, so we could change them to be whatever we wanted the particular child to be memorizing: a phone number, a name, an address. (We could make Rob's "Mom and Dad know best"!)

Beach Dream

In my dream last night, going to the beach with friends:

Me: What a perfect day for it.
Friend: Yeah. Was it two years ago we came here last?
Me: I think so. Yeah, two years ago makes sense. I remember I was all freaked out that you were coming with us.
Friend: Huh?
Me: Yeah, I was all [*self-mocking tone*]: "Aiieeeee, we're going to the beach with BEYONCÉ [*parody of anxious jazz hands*]."
Beyoncé: Ha ha! [*rolls eyes, whacks me with towel*]

Skirts and Tights and Leggings

I have a question about dressing girls.

Elizabeth wears a skirt almost every single day (her choice). In warm weather, she wears shorts or bicycle pants or cropped leggings under the skirt, so that she can still play normally without having to be careful of her skirt.

In winter, she wears tights or full-length leggings with her skirt. To me, it feels as if leggings are sufficiently covering, but tights might not be. Leggings are opaque enough to completely cover underwear, and tights sometimes aren't quite as opaque, so that's an issue if the goal is for the underwear to be hidden. But even when the tights are completely opaque, they seem....more underwear-y, somehow. And that does seem to be the societal perception, if I think about how we'd perceive it in the same situation with a grown woman. Individuals may differ on whether they think leggings are pants or not, but we're not even having that discussion about tights.

So some days Elizabeth wears shorts or bicycle pants over her tights, but then that is a lot of layers, and it can be a little challenging in the bathroom. Other days I don't worry about it (especially since she's only 7) and she just wears the tights. But she is a bit of a "flip upside down" kind of girl, and when I see the tights I think, "Uh oh, her skirt," but when I see leggings I don't as much.

So what I'm curious to find out is what other people are doing for their daughter's clothes. Are tights enough for decency, or do you add bicycle shorts as well?

Reader Question: Car Seats and Potty Seats

Mattea writes:

Okay, so five kids into it, and having older, larger kids now....what car seats do you have/have had/hated/loved and in WHAT configuration in the car/minivan? We're about to have number three in April and I'm LOSING MY MIND trying to get them all to fit in out Honda Pilot without having to lay down a grand on new car seats or buy a new car. Because we JUST bought this car last June when I was sure that I wanted another baby and that this car would SURELY fit all of them. Ahem. So.
ALSO! It seems to be too much to ask that these be the safest car seats, and the ones that my children will consent to ride in b/c they are actually comfortable.
Any help! Any help at all would be lovely. Reader input would be great!
Currently I have a very tall (very long torso) 4.5 year old and a not very shrimpy either 2.5 year old and they just seem to want to outgrow things at a ferocious rate. So, when I see people still fitting their 8 (!) or even NINE year olds into the harnassed booster kind of seats on the internet and raving about how LONG your kids will fit in this and how MUCH USE you'll be sure to get out of this fabulous $300 car seat, but when I look up reviews people with long torsoed children should expect to get to about 4, maybe 5 if you're lucky---or just like living dangerously. That's when the ragey-rage and forehead abuse starts.
And, if, in your wanderings you have come across a potty seat that DOESN'T wick wee onto the rim, under the rim, onto the floor I'd be obliged :)

Hm. I HAVE liked our car seats...I think. Right now the three youngest are in those Graco booster seats that have backs on them (like this), and then you remove the backs when the child is tall/large enough. All three kids are tall enough that they're using the seats without the backs now. Once you get to plain backless booster seats, I don't think there's significant safety differences anymore from one to the next; they're just to get the child to the right height to use the car's seat belt.

When the kids were littler and needed infant seats and convertible carseats, I remember I used Consumer Reports to choose which ones to buy. Usually the top-rated one or two were triple the price and only a tiny bit safer than the next one down, so I'd get the next one down. The problem is that Consumer Reports didn't test NON-CRASH usage. That is, they didn't mention that the covers weren't removable, or that the strap was intolerably difficult to adjust. They just tested the seat in a crash---which of course is very important, but most of the seats will be through a crash 0 times and will need the covers removed 10 times and the straps adjusted 1000 times, so those issues are important to me TOO.

For all the babies, I think I got Graco infant seats. I liked the ones where you could adjust the looseness of the strap with a bit of belt that came out right under where the buckle was. SO EASY: I could loosen it wayyyy up to put the baby in without annoying him/her, then buckle it, then snug the belt up again.

When they outgrew those, the three youngest used the Evenflo convertible car seats. (I can't remember anymore what the first two kids used.) They were ENORMOUS but comfy. One of my most enduringly popular posts has been the one where I posted the instructions for removing the goddamn cover (I never did get the cover off, myself). So if I were buying such a seat today, that would probably be my primary concern: that the cover come off (FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY).

And then I think they went from those into the Graco boosters (with backs).

Our 7-seat minivan (a Toyota Sienna) has two individual seats in the middle row, and then a bench-style seat as the back row (which theoretically seats three). When we had four kids, it was easy: the two older boys sat in the back row, and the twins were in the middle row where I could more easily manage their seat belts and straps and so forth.

When Henry was born, we moved one twin car seat to the center of the back row between the two booster seats---or maybe our eldest was by then old enough not to be in a booster anymore. Let's see, he would have been eight, so yes, he probably wasn't using a booster anymore. (It's one of the upsides of having nice tall kids.)

Now that everyone's so much bigger, it's a tight fit when we go anywhere all together. Henry's car seat is in one of the two middle-row seats, and the twins are on either end of the back seat. William is smaller than Rob, so he has to cram himself in the center of the back seat; the seat belt isn't a shoulder kind, which makes me fretful. And Rob sits in the other of the two middle-row seats.

Rob is old/large enough to sit in the front seat, too, so if it's just me and the five kids, Rob sits in the front seat, William and Henry sit in the middle row, and Edward and Elizabeth sit in the back row.

But all the car seat stuff has changed since I was choosing. So it's good we have a comments section, so that other people can weigh in with more current information.


About the toilet seat, this is the one we have:

(photo from Amazon.com)

The child seat nests into the upper lid of the toilet, so you don't have to take anything on and off each time. My brother/sister-in-law, my parents, and I all have the same potty seat system, but I think there's a different brand name on each one; it seems like it's the same seat issued under different brands, rather than competing products. All, I think, have "Next Step" on the upper inner top lid, and then a different name on the lower inner top lid. It's a great seat for many, many reasons---but sadly there is still periodic wicking of wee.



[P.S. In Google Reader it LOOKS as if there was also another post today, called Lucky. But actually I posted that years ago. I went into it looking for something, and when I went out of it again it had somehow turned into an unpublished draft. So I hit publish---and it showed it published today, with all comments lost. I'm so frustrated, and am just leaving the post down. It wasn't all that awesome anyway.]

Four Books and a Movie

I had a stomach bug over the weekend that left me feeling VERY GRATEFUL for everyday non-queasy life AND got me caught up on some reading! Also, before I got sick I watched a movie:

(photo from Amazon.com)

Beginners (Netflix link) is slow-moving/indie. I especially loved Mélanie Laurent, and also now I want a Jack Russell terrier. (Like the sweet one in the movie. Not because of Mélanie Laurent.) I really liked the whole movie, and it was fun to see Christopher Plummer again. Now I feel like I'm leaving Ewan McGregor out if I don't mention him, especially if I'm even making a fuss over the DOG! I liked him too.

(photo from Amazon.com)

I finally read Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn. I resisted for awhile because it sounded like I would hate it, but then I felt like I really wanted to know what everyone was talking about, so I read it. At first I thought I wouldn't be able to get through it, because I hated Amy so much at the beginning: if her first diary entry were a blog post, I would have clicked away after a few sentences. But by the end, I didn't hate anyone. It's a little hard to give a full review, for two reasons: (1) I don't want to give anything away, and (2) I accidentally found out a key plot point BEFORE reading, so I'm not sure what I would have thought about the book if I hadn't known that part ahead of time.

Here's what I liked best about the book: I found it riveting and couldn't wait to get back to reading it. It can be hard to find books like that.

I was distracted by the way SO MANY characters in the book had double letters in their names just like the author. Based on the novel's theme of in-jokes AND all the in-jokes in the acknowledgements, I'm guessing that was on purpose---which is a little irritating for those of us who think in-jokes should only be used with those who are in on them, because otherwise they're off-putting, unfriendly, and deliberately excluding.

(photo from Amazon.com)

My Mother Was Nuts, by Penny Marshall. If you like autobiographies, this was a good one: a nice mix of insider stuff, name-dropping, getting in her side of the story, etc. I liked and admired Penny Marshall more after reading it, and now feel like re-watching her stuff. I'll bet she and Carrie Fisher have the same plastic surgeon: when I looked at her author photo on the back, I thought, "Goodness, she looks a lot like Carrie Fisher!"

(photo from Amazon.com)

The One I Left Behind, by Jennifer McMahon. This one made me mad. It's about a serial killer. The chapters alternated between "back then" and "now" in a way that was supposed to increase the tension but instead just made me cranky and inclined to skim. Many sections ended in faux cliffhangers: "There was A KNOCK AT THE DOOR!!!"---oh, it was just a package being delivered. "Behind her was A MAN!!!!"---oh, it was just the neighbor getting his mail.

There's also a whole series of cutting incidents that seem to be intended to be erotic, but I couldn't identify at all so they just seemed odd. And it seemed like people who COULD identify would probably be trying to avoid such material, and those who had the POTENTIAL to identify ought not to be exposed to it in that way, so it was hard to see the value of it.

By about a third of the way through, I felt like I really had to know what happened, but I didn't want to have to read the book to find out. I tried skipping ahead, but it wasn't that kind of book. So I just read fast and resentfully and got it over with. And then the ending was unsatisfying: I was left thinking, "Wait, but what about...?" and "But that doesn't work with...." and "But in that case, wouldn't they have....?" and so forth. And the serial killer's motivations/reasons are so pat, it's irritating---the serial killer version of "the butler did it."

(photo from Amazon.com)

Marbles, by Ellen Forney. I liked this one a lot. I saw it mentioned in a magazine shortly before Christmas, and it looked likely to be my kind of graphic novel, so I added it to my wish list and Paul bought it for me. It was indeed my kind of graphic novel. It reminded me of Alison Bechdel (Fun Home, Are You My Mother?, Dykes to Watch Out For). The author has bipolar disorder, and this is the story of her diagnosis, symptoms, and treatment. Gosh, that sounds depressing! But it's also funny and interesting and informative. Right after reading it, I ordered a used copy of another of her books, Monkey Food.

Poll: What Month Were You Born?

Elizabeth told me a rather long story yesterday about which children of her acquaintance had birthdays in what month, and then Angela mentioned on Twitter that birthdays in her office were heavily weighted toward certain months, and that got me curious about whether certain birth months are more heavily weighted over the entire population. I could look it up, but then I realized I'm mostly interested in OUR population. And it was fun doing that "Guess what number I'm thinking of" poll awhile back.

So let's have a poll for "What month were you born?," to see if we're evenly distributed around here or not. The poll will be in the righthand margin. As I understand it, those of you reading on mobile devices can't see it, is that right? Is that why some people put their poll votes in the comments section instead of in the poll? I poked around but don't see any way to fix that issue, other than "Go home and take the poll on your computer." (If anyone else has solved it, let me know and I'll see if I can solve it the same way.) [Poll closed; see results below.]

[Edit: Ah ha! Jessica's comment sounds like exactly what I need! Let's try THAT: now the poll MAY OR MAY NOT be in the post itself!] [Edit again: No. I see it in html, but not in the post. Continuing to work on it.] [Nope, still not working. I've read half a dozen posts describing how to do it, but all of them describe an iframe situation I don't see in my own html. In the meantime, several commenters have mentioned that if they scroll down, they can click on "view web version" and see the poll that way.]


Poll results for "What month were you born?" (1110 votes total):