Half Changed World

A little while ago, I got a very sweet email from Melanie Lynne Hauser saying nice things about this blog and asking if I minded if she linked to me.  Of course, I don’t mind.  Her book, Confessions of Super Mom is coming out next month, and it sounds like fun.  Super Mom’s powers (the result of "a horrible swiffer accident") appear to be to clean up any mess with a zap of her fingers, to read children’s minds, and to understand the beeps of the scanner at the supermarket.  Not exactly the superpowers that I’d pick if I had the choice, I’m afraid.

Part of what made The Incredibles really work is that they did such a terrific job with Elastigirl.  They figured out a set of powers that really would be helpful for a stay-at-home parent —  trust me, a solo road trip would be a LOT easier if I could reach what the boys drop without taking my eyes off the road — but that also make her a kick-ass superhero.

My all-time favorite superhero story, however, is Scott McCloud’s Zot! comics.  Unfortunately, my favorites are the "Earth Stories," which are the only ones that were never published as books.  In them, Zot is accidentally trapped on our Earth, and hangs out with his girlfriend Jenny and her geeky friends as they try to cope with such real-life problems as divorce, homophobia, and surviving high school.  And he tries to cope with the fact that he can’t single-handedly solve all of the world’s problems.  They’re just wonderful.  If you ever get a chance to read them, do it. (We have a full set of them, but we don’t lend them out; you can read them here if you wash your hands first.)

My husband has written a role-playing game in which you get to play a superhero (or supervillian, if you insist).  It’s called Capes and it’s just been nominated under Best Rules and Best Game in the ENnies.  I’m very proud of him.

If you did get to pick a superpower, what would it be?  I think I’d pick flying.  Other things might be more useful, but I can’t imagine anything being more fun.

This afternoon, I’m heading out to take the boys to visit my family.  (T is going to a role playing game convention.)  Even without the boys, I’d be stressed about the drive (6-7 hours each way); with them, I’m totally dreading it. 

They’re actually pretty good travellers — particularly with the help of our portable DVD player.  But I’m totally intimidated by the logistics — things like having to take both boys into the stall with me when I need to pee.

Wish me luck.

My parents only have dial-up access, so I doubt I’ll be blogging while I’m there.   Bloggers seem to deal with planned absences by either arranging for guest bloggers or asking open-ended questions of their readers.  I’d have to pay for the higher level of Typepad service to have a guest blogger, so I guess you’re stuck with a question.

Mark in Mexico left a trackback to Lauren at Feministe’s post about Rove, whining that this was a distraction from the real business of the country.   On one level he’s right, the same way that MoveOn was originally founded to urge Congress to "Censure President Clinton and move on to pressing issues facing the nation." 

Mark’s list of the top 10 issues is "in this world today and, more specifically, in the United States, the issues that most concern people are (not in any particular order except for 1 and 2):

1. Terrorism/GWoT
2. Our troops in Iraq
3. Replacing 1, possibly 2, possibly 3 Supreme Court justices
4. G8 / African hunger/debt
5. HIV/AIDS
6. Social Security
7. Oil prices
8. Nuclear proliferation in Iran and Korea
9. A bloated, corrupt, inefficient United Nations
10. Hurricane aftermath in Florida and Alabama"

So, my questions for while I’m away are:

What would you list as the top issues of public concern?  In the US?  Where you live?  In the world?  How do they differ from your issues of concern?

I’ve posted my answers as a comment.

Note: even though TypePad is now encouraging you to log in with a TypeKey identity when you post a comment, it’s not required — just provide the usual info of name, email and (optional) URL.

Anne at EconoMom wrote this week about the best decisions she’s ever made (as judged by maximized utility, or happiness).  She suggests making a list and sharing it with your spouse.  She then writes:

"Of course, you know you have to put ‘marrying my spouse’ at number one on the list, which is where it would be anyway, Rick, in case you’re wondering."

Nine years ago today, T and I got married.  And yes, it was the best decision I’ve ever made.  He’s my friend, my lover, my partner, my co-parent.  He makes me laugh, gives me backrubs, and believes in me more than I believe in myself.  Whatever life throws at us, I’m very glad to have him at my side.  Happy anniversary, sweetie. 

The part that blows my mind is that T and I started dating when we were 18.   I feel like I barely know the adolescent I was then.  T’s grown up a lot too.  And yet, we somehow had the luck or judgment to find each other and to stay together.  It’s not the life pattern I would every have predicted for myself, but it’s worked out very well for us.

For the record, my other nine top utility maximizing decisions, in chronological order, are:

1. Taking David Montgomery’s American Labor History classes.  They changed my life.
2. Not going to law school.
3. Taking my current job.
4. Taking up running and joining the Penguin Brigade. 
5. Buying our house when we did.
6. Having D.
7. Going to Africa with my family, even though it meant taking 14+ hour plane rides with a 20 month old.
8. Having N.
9. Starting this blog. 

***

Light blogging ahead this weekend; we’ve got a guest staying with us.  She’s a good friend from college who I don’t see very often, and I probably won’t take the time to write while she’s here.

Laura at 11D tagged me for a book meme (started by John Cole) about books read as a young adult that are worth re-reading:

"So, what fiction did you read as a teen/young adult that you have re-read as an adult (or would like to)? What pieces of fiction meant something to you? Put up your list, and pass it on to 2-3 people."

I found this a surprisingly hard assignment, in spite of the fact (possibly because of the fact) that like Laura I read pretty much non-stop as a teenager.  Of all the things that I like to do now in my free time — read, cook, run, blog, take photos — reading was the only one that I did as a teen.   And I had a lot more free time then. (On the other hand, I spent a lot of time in high school playing bridge, which I haven’t done in years.)

Part of the problem is that I almost never re-read books anymore.  There are so many books I haven’t gotten to on my "to-read" list that I find it hard to justify re-reading books.  So, I’m thinking of this more along the lines of "books that I read as a teenager/young adult that I’d be thrilled to find on a bookshelf in a rental house when it rained all vacation assuming my kids were suddenly old enough to entertain themselves for a couple of hours."

Looking at Cole’s list, I see both the Narnia books* and A Wrinkle in Time.  I loved these books, and eagerly look forward to reading them with my children, but I’m pretty sure I was still in elementary school or junior high when I read them. 

So, without further ado, here are my 5 books in no particular order:

• The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula LeGuin.  Works as both a story and as a thought experiment.
• Nightfall and Other Stories, by Isaac Asimov.  The title story is, in my opinion, the best thing Asimov ever wrote. (No, I haven’t read all 300+ books that he published. But I think I’ve read all the sci-fi.) And it was his first published story, at age 17.
• And Then There Were None, by Agatha Christie.  I’m pretty sure I have read all of Christie’s mysteries.  This one is especially clever, but I’d be happy to find any of them in a rainy cabin. It might even be better to find an obscure one, because I might have forgotten who done it.
• Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.  Yes, I really did read it as a teenager.  But I have a feeling that a lot of it went over my head.  I want to give it another chance.
• My Antonia, by Willa Cather.  I don’t actually remember much of the plot of this, but I remember the feeling of intense, almost erotic, pleasure that I got reading it. 

I’ll also list a few books that aren’t nearly as profound as I thought they were as a teenager:

• Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein.  (But if you must read it, read the original version not the unedited "author’s cut".)
• Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse
• The Bridge Across Forever, by Richard Bach.
• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams.  Funny as heck, yes.  Worth reading, yes.  But profound?  No.

If you think it would be fun to answer this meme, consider yourself tagged and leave me a trackback.

*Speaking of Narnia, any thoughts about the forthcoming movie of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe?  The preview I saw at Revenge of the Sith looked visually impressive, but I’m not sure I want D’s first interaction with the story to be a movie rather than the books.  I’m also a little nervous about how heavy-handed they’re going to be about the Christian allegory, which went right over my head until I was older.

Let’s just say that I’m much closer to jo(e)’s perspective on shoes than I am to Lawmom’s.  I like to be able to walk, and I don’t like my feet to hurt.

Don’t laugh but these are the shoes I’ve been wearing at work for much of the last, oh, 5 years.  They’re totally beat up, but they’re comfortable.  I actually bought new shoes to replace them a while ago, but the new ones hurt, so I only wear them for conferences or meetings with people outside my office.  (And I wore flats or sandals when I was pregnant.)

Last month, when I went to the doctor, I mentioned that I was starting to get a bunion on one foot.  She suggested I try wearing shoes in a size wide.  So, this week, I finally ordered two new pairs of shoes from Zappos.

They seemed ok when I tried them on, but we’ll see what happens when I actually wear them all day.

I’ve been emailing back and forth with Little Pink Flower’s mom trying to find a time that we can get together before they move out of the area.  We finally settled on a time, and then we needed to come up with a place.  She suggested a pancake restaurant, but I hate taking my older son to restaurants, since he doesn’t care enough about food for it to be a distraction, so he wants to wander around and meet everyone in the place.  I suggested a free outdoor concert, but it’s supposed to be hot and sunny, and she’s worried that the baby will burn.

Finally, I wrote: "I know you’re not supposed to do this with ‘people you’ve met over the internet,’ but it sounds like it might be simplest for you to come over here.  Would you be comfortable with that?"

I’m a long time member of several email lists and online communities, and can’t tell you the number of times I’ve gotten together with people I’ve met online.  I like to tell the story of the time I was riding down to Myrtle Beach for the marathon with some people from my running list.  I was squashed in a back seat that wasn’t really meant for people to sit in, so when we met up at a Wafle House with Lady G, another member of the list, and she offered me a ride in her truck, I was happy to switch vehicles.  It wasn’t for another hour that it occurred to me that I didn’t know Lady G’s last name, and that the people giving the original ride were the only ones in the world who knew who I was with.  It turned out fine, of course.

My sons are way too young to be meeting people over the computer, but I’m sure that in 10 years or so, I’ll be struggling with what boundaries to set on their encounters with people they’ve met over the internet.  I’d certainly be horrified if they were hopping rides with internet friends without my knowing who they were with.  I know there are some scary people out there, but I wouldn’t want to ban all face-to-face encounters, which have been a rich source of pleasure in my life.  I’ve got time to figure out the rules, but I suspect they’ll involve adult supervision and public meeting places.

****

On a related note, if you’re a blogger, and haven’t yet taken the MIT Weblog Survey, I’d encourage you to check it out.  Their goal is "to help understand the way that weblogs are affecting the way we communicate with each other."  In addition to the usual demographic stuff, they ask some interesting questions about the people you link to and whether you know them in real life, how often you read and comment on other blogs, what topics you discuss on your blog, and whether you know people in various occupational categories.

Once you answer the survey, you can browse the results so far.  Given the mass media focus on political bloggers, I was particularly struck by the answers to the question: What percentage of your weblog posts would you estimate are about the news, current events, or things you think are newsworthy?  I was also happy to see that, even among bloggers, I’m not the only one who never uses IM or SMS.

Politics:  Hey! Both the candidates I was supporting won: David Englin for the Democratic nomination for the 45th district seat in the House of Delegates and Leslie Byrne for the Democratic nomination for Lt. Governor.  The 45th is a solidly Democratic district, so Englin should be a shoe-in for Delegate.  Byrne will have a harder time. 

Byrne’s pretty liberal for Virginia, and some naysayers over at Virginia2005 have been whining that she’ll drag Kaine down.  I think that’s wrong — Virginians are quite comfortable ticket-splitting.  She’ll definitely help mobilize the liberal base (like me!) who otherwise would have said "eh" about the ticket.  And while we’re in the voting booth, we’ll choke down our misgivings about Kaine’s position on choice, and vote for him because he’s a lot better than Kilgore.

Running: My track group did our time trial tonight.  I ran a 3:33 for 800 meters, which I think is quite respectable — especially since it was about 90 degrees.

Baseball:  The Nationals got creamed last night, 11-1, bringing to end their 10 game winning streak.  Listened to a few innings of the game on the radio, but it was only 2-0 when I went to bed.  Oh well, an important rule of baseball is that you’re never as good as you look when you’re winning or as bad as you look when you’re losing.  Hmmm, not a bad lesson for politics either.

There’s a Yiddish folktale about a family that was crowded into a small house.  When they went to the rabbi for advice, he told them to bring all their animals — from the chickens to the horse — into the house.  Later, when they moved the animals back out, it felt like they had lots of room.  (A Russian version of this story was recently featured on Between the Lions.)

This story seems very applicable to my schedule right now.  Today was the last session of my sons’ classes at the local rec center (t-ball and "blast off for babies").  Last Tuesday the PTA had the end of year carnival, and I only have a few loose ends to finish off before I can hand over my responsibilities as PTA secretary.  And I just emailed to the editor a draft of the article that I’ve been getting up at 6 am every day to work on.  It feels like I’ve got lots of free time all of a sudden.

Came home from work, changed into shorts and a t-shirt, loaded the boys up in the stroller, and we all went for a walk.  Stopped at Trader Joe’s, picked up takeout for dinner, and headed down to the waterfront to eat it.

Afterwards they visited with some of the dogs, played in the sand of the volleyball pit, and climbed on the rocks near the river.  D was even a good sport when we asked him to get off the rocks because N wants to do everything he does.

On the way home, we saw the first firefly of the season.

Almost two years ago, the shul (synagogue) I had been attending moved across town.

The move made sense for the congregation as a whole, but it meant that attending shabbat services there would be an hour drive each way for me.  Not something that made it feel like a day of rest, especially since I never knew how long the boys would let me stay before melting down.  So I’ve been looking for a new shul ever since.

D attends preschool at the local Reform synagogue, and loves it.  I grew up belonging to a Reform synagogue (and identified myself as a Reform Jew, rather than a Jew), so it would be the natural choice.  Except that after 6+ years of a participatory havurah, Reform services feel too much like sitting in the audience, rather than being part of a congregation.  Plus, they don’t offer any babysitting during services, except for the High Holidays, so I couldn’t really go to services anyway.  They offer a tot shabbat twice a month, but that’s Jewish gymboree, not a spiritual experience for an adult.

There’s another shul that I’ve heard good things about, and looks like they might have child care during services.  I keep meaning to check it out, but haven’t done so yet.  One of the things that’s stopped me is the religious school pages on their website where they warn parents that children who don’t attend class at least 75% of the time (Sunday mornings, 9:30-12:30) may not be promoted to the next grade level. 

So Jody’s post a couple of weeks ago about the low priority that people place on church hit home.  She compared parents complaints about the expectations at church v. sports, and wrote:

"It’s not that parents won’t tolerate strict demands on their kids’ time, it’s just that they don’t think church is important enough to make those demands."

I do think shul is important.  But I know too many kids who never set foot in shul except on the high holidays between when they had their Bar or Bat Mitzvahs and when their own kids started religious school.  I don’t want my sons to resent religion for making it impossible for them to participate in sports, or to ever sleep late.  But I want them to know enough to make educated choices.  I attended religious school regularly as a child, but it was on weekday afternoons, which seems much less burdensome to families.  That doesn’t seem to be an option around here.

I’ve been going intermittently to another havurah, closer to my home.  They offer a low-key tot shabbat service once a month, and babysitting the rest of that morning.  And they don’t mind the boys wandering around the back of the room.  Their religious school is a "one-room schoolhouse" with mixed grades, meeting late Sunday afternoons.  It seems like it might be a good fit for us.