Last Wednesday:
"Hello"
"Hello, how are you?"
"I'm fine, and you?"
"Is your [report] done?"
"Yes, actually."
"Do you want the news now or later?"
"Well, now."
And then my life changed. My father has a diagnosis. It's not good. It's pretty far along, but we have no idea how it will progress from here. His sister was diagnosed with the same disease and was dead three years later.
I'm still in shock. My work is suffering. I want to go home. I want to quit my job. I want to start an oral history project about him while he can still share stories.
I'm feeling guilty about not being nearer. And about not being closer. I'm feeling guilty about burdening people with my family's health issues. I'm feeling guilty about my work and my family and about not knowing how much to share with people, because my parents don't seem to be telling people. I feel guilty about not knowing how to communicate with my family.
And I'm afraid that it's hereditary. That I'll get it. That my kids will get it.
Okay. Deep breath. Start over. My father has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Stage 5 of a possible 7. Mom claims he is responding well to medication. I don't know what else to say at this point. Help me, Lord.
Lunch today was a recipe we tried for the first time earlier this weekend: refrigerator homestyle biscuits rolled flat, then filled with ground turkey and fat-free cheese, with a dash of salt. Fold over, fork the edges closed, and bake. Basically a diet empanada. Yum. Also, unfilled biscuits (made for the toddlers) with butter and honey. Water, and the dregs of the Starbucks ground coffee we received in a Christmas gift.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Friday, February 15, 2008
Why omit Ovid?
Why didn't they tell me about this? All these years I've been reading my Edith Hamilton, reading my Bullfinch, reading my secondary sources. And then at a library book sale I pick up a well-worn copy of Ovid's Metamorphoses, in the Horace Gregory translation.
And the heavens open, and I am a mythologist again.
I mean, seriously, I used to think of myself as a somewhat educated fellow. I read the required Homer (including the boring Telemachus parts) and the extracurricular Homer (beautiful bloody battle bits, though repetitive). I read me some Aeneid and some Divine Comedy and some Milton. My best friend in college was a Classics major. But nothing has been as much breezy fun or as diversely educational as this strange, comprehensive poem that would serve so well as a beginning mythology text.
Everything you need is there. Why don't teachers use this version to teach Perseus? Why don't museum curators print selections beside ancient illustrations? This is so well written, so readable, such an education in pacing and transition control... Are people so afraid of primary texts that they would rather read badly written Cliff's Notes than actual good, terse, muscular writing? (Don't answer that.)
Or do Gregory's oddly VH1-ish introduction and oddly located chapter summaries scare people away?
If I ever teach a mythology class, this will be a significant chunk of the curriculum. I'll probably have to throw in some other cultures to be more politically correct. But Ovid is a pretty ideal Dead White Male.
This nerd says check it out.
Breakfast today was homemade monkey bread made by a very intense four-year-old. Torn-up raw refrigerator biscuits in a loaf pan with melted butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon poured over the top, then baked for much longer than I expected. Lunch was much less interesting.
And the heavens open, and I am a mythologist again.
I mean, seriously, I used to think of myself as a somewhat educated fellow. I read the required Homer (including the boring Telemachus parts) and the extracurricular Homer (beautiful bloody battle bits, though repetitive). I read me some Aeneid and some Divine Comedy and some Milton. My best friend in college was a Classics major. But nothing has been as much breezy fun or as diversely educational as this strange, comprehensive poem that would serve so well as a beginning mythology text.
Everything you need is there. Why don't teachers use this version to teach Perseus? Why don't museum curators print selections beside ancient illustrations? This is so well written, so readable, such an education in pacing and transition control... Are people so afraid of primary texts that they would rather read badly written Cliff's Notes than actual good, terse, muscular writing? (Don't answer that.)
Or do Gregory's oddly VH1-ish introduction and oddly located chapter summaries scare people away?
If I ever teach a mythology class, this will be a significant chunk of the curriculum. I'll probably have to throw in some other cultures to be more politically correct. But Ovid is a pretty ideal Dead White Male.
This nerd says check it out.
Breakfast today was homemade monkey bread made by a very intense four-year-old. Torn-up raw refrigerator biscuits in a loaf pan with melted butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon poured over the top, then baked for much longer than I expected. Lunch was much less interesting.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Crimes in Social Science
I'm enjoying slogging through Philip Zimbardo's The Lucifer Effect. It seeks to reveal how normal people do evil, with special attention to the author's own famous study: The Stanford Prison Experiment. Thirty some year later, the guy finally gets around to writing a book about it. Makes me feel more hopeful about my own procrastination.
Anyway, a passage on conformity experiments brought back my own brief days as a social scientist. For the eighth grade science fair, my scientifically superior friend WBL suggested that we replicate a famous (but not yet to me) experiment by Solomon Asch, where subjects are asked to compare the length of lines with each other, and answer which lines were the same length. The trick was that confederates of the experimenter would be taking aloud the same test at the same time, and they would conspire to answer certain predetermined questions incorrectly. The experiment would be to see how often subjects would bow to peer pressure and give the wrong answer.
Quite often, as it turned out, both for Asch and for ourselves. But I have always felt queasy about the way we did the experiment. To begin with, our "confederates" were our friends--people known to be honors students near the top of the class. And nothing was anonymous. And for some reason we didn't always use lines, but sometimes used questions that people genuinely might not know the correct answer to. And perhaps most egregiously, we failed to debrief our test subjects so that they would know what was going on. How do you suppose these friends and acquaintances of ours felt after they suspected that they had been had?
It was fun to participate in a social science experiment, and we did establish that peer pressure is indeed strong. But I fear that the exercise largely functioned as a chance for us honors student nerds to feel superior to the people we invited into our experiment. And to exert power over others with the one form of superiority that we had: test-taking skills. These people would be justified in never trusting me again.
I felt queasy at the time about this (though perhaps not as queasy as when I was buying and selling people's souls in high school). But I never spoke up or stopped the experiment. I just did a poor job at presenting it at the science fair, because I felt guilty. And reading Zimbardo's book, I feel like I was living inside Milgram's famous electric shock experiment--I was willing to cause possible harm to my peers for the sake of a silly experiment. And I did nothing to get out or stop it.
I am very suspicious of using power over people. But sometimes I do it. And it makes me sick. This is why I am not a social scientist--a weak stomach.
Lunch today was forgettable, but supper was interesting: instant rice, frozen broccoli from a nuke-in bag, chow mein noodles, and leftover generic spaghettios. I am trying to be supportive of a loved one's restricted diet. Eating without fat is remarkably difficult, though.
Anyway, a passage on conformity experiments brought back my own brief days as a social scientist. For the eighth grade science fair, my scientifically superior friend WBL suggested that we replicate a famous (but not yet to me) experiment by Solomon Asch, where subjects are asked to compare the length of lines with each other, and answer which lines were the same length. The trick was that confederates of the experimenter would be taking aloud the same test at the same time, and they would conspire to answer certain predetermined questions incorrectly. The experiment would be to see how often subjects would bow to peer pressure and give the wrong answer.
Quite often, as it turned out, both for Asch and for ourselves. But I have always felt queasy about the way we did the experiment. To begin with, our "confederates" were our friends--people known to be honors students near the top of the class. And nothing was anonymous. And for some reason we didn't always use lines, but sometimes used questions that people genuinely might not know the correct answer to. And perhaps most egregiously, we failed to debrief our test subjects so that they would know what was going on. How do you suppose these friends and acquaintances of ours felt after they suspected that they had been had?
It was fun to participate in a social science experiment, and we did establish that peer pressure is indeed strong. But I fear that the exercise largely functioned as a chance for us honors student nerds to feel superior to the people we invited into our experiment. And to exert power over others with the one form of superiority that we had: test-taking skills. These people would be justified in never trusting me again.
I felt queasy at the time about this (though perhaps not as queasy as when I was buying and selling people's souls in high school). But I never spoke up or stopped the experiment. I just did a poor job at presenting it at the science fair, because I felt guilty. And reading Zimbardo's book, I feel like I was living inside Milgram's famous electric shock experiment--I was willing to cause possible harm to my peers for the sake of a silly experiment. And I did nothing to get out or stop it.
I am very suspicious of using power over people. But sometimes I do it. And it makes me sick. This is why I am not a social scientist--a weak stomach.
Lunch today was forgettable, but supper was interesting: instant rice, frozen broccoli from a nuke-in bag, chow mein noodles, and leftover generic spaghettios. I am trying to be supportive of a loved one's restricted diet. Eating without fat is remarkably difficult, though.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
clique track
On "Grey's Anatomy," there has been until recently a shameful neglect of Dr. Miranda Bailey. Finally she is getting a chance to lead again. Her leadership provides me some assertiveness training reinforcement from time to time.
Well, Shonda Rhimes (sister of LeAnn and Busta) is already doing her predictable deflation-of-any-character-who-shows-any-strength-whatsoever thing on Dr. Bailey, and tonight's episode provided me with some food for thought.
First, an old high-school friend showed up to provide a heaping helping of what some call cake. (By the way, Lesley, write your book already. Yes, boys can understand the concept, though probably not immediately and probably never perfectly. In my seven years as a recovering cakeboy, I would claim I have been less cruel to women than before I learned the vocabulary. Sometimes still cruel, of course, but less cruel than before.) And Bailey demonstrated just how powerful an old but life-defining adolescent relationship can remain long after you were supposed to be an adult.
So far, all good, messy, life-situation defining fun.
But then Bailey starts to complain to the local recovering cakeboy (McDreamy), which I approve, and she talks as if the most defeating characteristic of her high school life was wearing a band uniform, and I cannot approve of this one bit.
Why does suddenly membership in the band connote lasting shame into adulthood in our culture? Is this the influence of the "American Pie" movies? Is it really so damaging to think of oneself as a former band geek? I've seen this many places, and it is getting to be an awfully unfair cliche.
My wife claims that this shame varies from school to school, or from region to region. But I would claim that band members should have fewer lasting effects from high school geekitude than other kinds of high school geeks.
Yes, at the time I was occasionally ashamed of my membership in the band rather than in other, more prestigious, high school cliques. In high school, I felt like a geek for enjoying the band so much. But in retrospect, the band was a relatively healthy community that instilled self-respect and leadership ability and plenty of friends and support for its members. And the ability to play an instrument is something to enjoy later in life, not be ashamed of.
(Maybe doing a pronounced "glide stride" during the parade at my son's music class was something to be embarrassed about. I don't know. Other people seemed to be laughing at me.)
And at least I wasn't in the orchestra.
Lunch today was red beans and rice from a cheap mix. With lots of saltines, extra spices, and water. And then I cooked a whole 'nother meal for supper to cover up the smell, due to lingering trauma from an unfortunate olfactory incident during my wife's pregnancy.
Well, Shonda Rhimes (sister of LeAnn and Busta) is already doing her predictable deflation-of-any-character-who-shows-any-strength-whatsoever thing on Dr. Bailey, and tonight's episode provided me with some food for thought.
First, an old high-school friend showed up to provide a heaping helping of what some call cake. (By the way, Lesley, write your book already. Yes, boys can understand the concept, though probably not immediately and probably never perfectly. In my seven years as a recovering cakeboy, I would claim I have been less cruel to women than before I learned the vocabulary. Sometimes still cruel, of course, but less cruel than before.) And Bailey demonstrated just how powerful an old but life-defining adolescent relationship can remain long after you were supposed to be an adult.
So far, all good, messy, life-situation defining fun.
But then Bailey starts to complain to the local recovering cakeboy (McDreamy), which I approve, and she talks as if the most defeating characteristic of her high school life was wearing a band uniform, and I cannot approve of this one bit.
Why does suddenly membership in the band connote lasting shame into adulthood in our culture? Is this the influence of the "American Pie" movies? Is it really so damaging to think of oneself as a former band geek? I've seen this many places, and it is getting to be an awfully unfair cliche.
My wife claims that this shame varies from school to school, or from region to region. But I would claim that band members should have fewer lasting effects from high school geekitude than other kinds of high school geeks.
Yes, at the time I was occasionally ashamed of my membership in the band rather than in other, more prestigious, high school cliques. In high school, I felt like a geek for enjoying the band so much. But in retrospect, the band was a relatively healthy community that instilled self-respect and leadership ability and plenty of friends and support for its members. And the ability to play an instrument is something to enjoy later in life, not be ashamed of.
(Maybe doing a pronounced "glide stride" during the parade at my son's music class was something to be embarrassed about. I don't know. Other people seemed to be laughing at me.)
And at least I wasn't in the orchestra.
Lunch today was red beans and rice from a cheap mix. With lots of saltines, extra spices, and water. And then I cooked a whole 'nother meal for supper to cover up the smell, due to lingering trauma from an unfortunate olfactory incident during my wife's pregnancy.
Friday, November 9, 2007
autumn
Today the leaves have faded a bit. The other day they were yellow like banana peels. Today they are more like Post Toasties.
I made a point of walking a bit extra on my way to work. I parked in my usual place, but chose to walk all the way around the block instead of going directly in the door. And I enjoyed the weather.
It's a wellness thing.
For breakfast today my toddler Grant and I made muffins and cornbread. They tasted so good because they were made with pedagogy.
I made a point of walking a bit extra on my way to work. I parked in my usual place, but chose to walk all the way around the block instead of going directly in the door. And I enjoyed the weather.
It's a wellness thing.
For breakfast today my toddler Grant and I made muffins and cornbread. They tasted so good because they were made with pedagogy.
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
right now stuff
1. Because of a new health plan, I went in for my first ever annual physical yesterday. During the physical, the doctor started chatting me up. Mind you, this is a doctor I have seen dozens of times with my wife or my kids. This may be the first time I ever met with him by myself. He opened up about himself and his family much more than he ever has before when I've been there with my wife. Which made the rubber glove component all the more awkward.
2. This morning the sidewalk outside my office was covered with bright yellow leaves. The tree there has nearly emptied itself, and I got to shuffle through, feeling like a toddler again.
3. I don't know whether I should mow my lawn one more time or not. It's beginning to freeze at night, which I understand is dangerous for the grass. But the grass is just barely tall enough that I would have mowed it last weekend if I had had time.
4. I failed to remember the Fifth of November until Len on "Dancing with the Stars" mentioned fireworks day. I am intrigued by Guy Fawkes Day: Why do we want to remember this? (Unless we happen to be anarchists.)
5. I am wearing really warm socks. But I still feel cold. Maybe I should put on a second pair.
6. I feel guilty telling stories like the above to my blog before I tell my wife, but we keep falling asleep really early on the couch.
7. For lunch yesterday, I had a Burger King spicy chicken sandwich, cheesy tots, and then half an hour later a full butterburger basket from Culver's with green beans and Diet Coke mixed with red Hi-C. I had been fasting.
2. This morning the sidewalk outside my office was covered with bright yellow leaves. The tree there has nearly emptied itself, and I got to shuffle through, feeling like a toddler again.
3. I don't know whether I should mow my lawn one more time or not. It's beginning to freeze at night, which I understand is dangerous for the grass. But the grass is just barely tall enough that I would have mowed it last weekend if I had had time.
4. I failed to remember the Fifth of November until Len on "Dancing with the Stars" mentioned fireworks day. I am intrigued by Guy Fawkes Day: Why do we want to remember this? (Unless we happen to be anarchists.)
5. I am wearing really warm socks. But I still feel cold. Maybe I should put on a second pair.
6. I feel guilty telling stories like the above to my blog before I tell my wife, but we keep falling asleep really early on the couch.
7. For lunch yesterday, I had a Burger King spicy chicken sandwich, cheesy tots, and then half an hour later a full butterburger basket from Culver's with green beans and Diet Coke mixed with red Hi-C. I had been fasting.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
feliz dia de la muerta
One of my favorite computer games ever is "Grim Fandango"--a graphic adventure where you play a grim reaper trying to function as a travel agent for the recently deceased. You attempt to sell people deluxe packages for their travel through the next stage of the afterlife, and their currency is based on their good deeds on earth. It's all the sort of thing that Martin Luther would have written some theses about, but it's presented very amusingly.
The graphic style is based on Central American native cultures and on recent Mexican Day of the Dead popular art. And I am hooked. I am endlessly fascinated with the Aztec culture of death, the pan de los muertos, the toys and folk art of "skinny ones" (i.e., skeletons) doing everyday silly things. It seems much more healthy to me than our norteamericano avoidance of the whole subject.
And I remember a poem from a book I gave away about a boy whose mother took him to cemeteries a lot. The last line was something like, "The more time you spend with the dead, the less you have to say."
I need to spend some time in a cemetery this week.
Lunch today was leftover pizza from a Halloween party. Cheese pizza from Godfather's.
The graphic style is based on Central American native cultures and on recent Mexican Day of the Dead popular art. And I am hooked. I am endlessly fascinated with the Aztec culture of death, the pan de los muertos, the toys and folk art of "skinny ones" (i.e., skeletons) doing everyday silly things. It seems much more healthy to me than our norteamericano avoidance of the whole subject.
And I remember a poem from a book I gave away about a boy whose mother took him to cemeteries a lot. The last line was something like, "The more time you spend with the dead, the less you have to say."
I need to spend some time in a cemetery this week.
Lunch today was leftover pizza from a Halloween party. Cheese pizza from Godfather's.
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