What's in a name?

As we don't know what flavor of baby we're getting, we need to have at least 2 names in reserve. If it's a girl, we're going to name her after my mother. If it's a boy....we've got a problem. I have 2 names that I prefer but my partner loathes one. He is OK with the other but feels there must be some "dark horse candidate" out there that will sweep us both of our feet. To that end, I have been soliciting names. This morning I received an email from a friend in Sweden with a list of popular Swedish names. Perhaps we should go with one of these?

Oscar
Anton
Emil
Alexander
Lucas
Simon
Linus
Albin
Jonathan
Isak
Gustav
Adam
Marcus
Rasmus
Sabastian
Wilmar
Leon
Melvin
Ludvig
Vincent
Elliot
Alvin
Oliver
Viggo
Nils
Sixten

Interview

This morning I had the interview for that position I really want. I believe it went well so keep your fingers crossed. I won't hear for a couple of weeks.

Progress

I know you probably don't want to know but I want to tell you, OK?

My stats as of this morning
Weight gained: 19 lbs.
Inches gained: 36
Blood pressure: 100/60
Dilated: 1.5 cm
Effacement: 50%

This is all good news - especially considering that it was just as likely that I would not be dilated or effaced at all! You know what they say, don't put off until labor what you can do before it starts!

All of this good news allows me to hope that I will not be pushing through until September. It would be nice to go sooner than later.

neither here nor there

I don't really have a geographic center to my network of friends. I suppose the biggest collection of close friends is in Chicago - where I have 5 friends and 2 siblings and a whole bunch of other people that I might see every now and then at a party. Other than that, I've got folks scattered somewhat randomly across the globe. One of the difficult things about Wisconsin, be it Milwaukee or Madison, is that I have not managed to make any really close friends here or even establish a significant number of mutual friendships. I used to think that this had something to do with the fact that I haven't been around that much. Now I am beginning to think it's because I suck.
At any rate, today my friend of 16 years, Dawn, emailed to let me know that she was quitting Oxfam to return to Holland. Not too long ago a friend from the U of C, Katarina, wrote to tell me that she was coming back to Chicago from Stockholm for the fall semester. The result: no net gain in proximity to friends.

Book Review: The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

The Devil in the White City is a surprisingly interesting account of Chicago's Columbian Exposition (1892) and the activities of a serial killer who made the city home at the time of the fair. When I picked up the book, I suspected that the book's popularity might be due in large part to the fact that the book would have automatic appeal to Chicagoans, particularly Hyde Parkers. Having spent many years in Hyde, Park, the part of the city in which the Exposition occurred, I was particularly enthralled by discussion of many of my own favorite haunts (e.g. the wooded island where I walked my dogs every morning and the Midway).

What Larson does best in this book is drawing the sharp contrast between the "White City," the almost mythical city created for the fair, and "darkness," the chaos of turn of the century urban living exemplified by Larson's villain, serial killer Holmes, but also by the soot and pollution of the trains and factories, disease, economic depression, and the stench and gore of Chicago's slaughterhouses. Indeed, the White City, which, by Larson's account, had a profound impact on America for the next century, deeply affecting the American psyche, architectural styles, and even inspiring Walt Disney's Magic Kingdom and the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, is ever in danger of succumbing to the "darkness."

As for the story of Holmes, as I just indicated, I like it best as symbolic of grim reality. However, if you are into reading about serial killers, you might find it more interesting on its own account.

I highly recommend this book.

I have returned!

It wasn't that hot (well, it didn't FEEL that hot) at the game yesterday on account of the fact that it was quite windy and not as muggy as it might be. All the same, I drank over a gallon of water and didn't feel like putting anything that wasn't a simple carb (preferably served ice cold) into my body. I'll be ingesting a whole lot of protein today to make it all up to the pending child.

I'm ready for an August cool down. At home in Maine we have many August evenings that presage autumn - there's just a little bit of crispness in the air and, as soon as you start to pay attention to it, it's gone. I'd like that right about now.

Dorks and Nerds Only Need Apply!

Way back in the days when I used to date, I had one hard and fast rule, specified above.

As you can imagine, my dating pool became much larger when I made the transition from high school to the University of Chicago, both because there were so many more nerds to be had and because my search for love was no longer stymied by my failed attempts at make-up and the right clothes and my ignorance of what was going on in the world of television and radio and all that - for all but a few "normals" lurking around campus such things were not important. Many people feel strongly about their undergraduate institutions, myself included. I could start talking about how important my Chicago years were but I doubt you would find it very interesting so let's skip it.

At any rate, my partner and I are still tremendous U of C freaks. That's why we're going to Hyde Park this weekend to buy a University of Chicago outfit for the pending child, to learn about sabermetrics, and to watch the White Sox- Red Sox game. Apart from the heat, I expect it will be a wonderful weekend.

Incidentally, in writing this post, I decided to test my own nerdiness. I am, alas, mediocre.

Today

So far nothing is going right. We'll see what happens because it is still early after all but I definitely feel that today could be the day for a little felix felicis. If you happen to have some that you are willing to give, let me know!

Married to Mary: July version

Remember how I was all angsty about my dad's fairly sudden wedding and his plans to move to Connecticut? Further, do you remember how I returned from my last trip out to Maine with relatively little to say about my dad's new wife but with comments on my dad's sneakiness? If so, perhaps you will appreciate this:
I was speaking with my father. I mentioned that the weather in Portland has been wonderful (mostly the high 70s compared to the muggy 80s and 90s inland and in southern New England) and said that his grumbling about the long, cold, wet spring must finally be a thing of the past. He abruptly commenced a long monologue in which he spoke endlessly about how unbearable Maine winters are and how Connecticut runs about 10 degrees warmer than Portland on average. He emphatically stated that he really wasn't keen on spending another winter on the island.
"Dad, what are you talking about?" I replied.
"Well, Mary has decided that instead of me selling the house and moving to Connecticut, she is going to sell her condo and move up here. We'll put the money into the house and the cottage. Due to the property tax reassessment, the island real estate market is flooded. Mary thinks it would be crazy for us to sell right now. Besides, she really likes it out here."
"Ohhhh," I stifle my laughter, "Sounds like a great idea to me!"
My dad grumbles under his breath - something about how he didn't move down to Connecticut fast enough.

So, my dad's wife kicks ass, folks! Not only is she going to see to it that my island home is preserved, she might just be financially savvy enough to keep my dad out of the poorhouse and (NO JOKE) that takes a load off my mind!

Huh?

Lately I've had the opportunity to become acquainted with folks who know something about sociology/social theory and who may even ask me about my dissertation. Maybe I don't know anything about sociology or maybe I've been holed up in my office too long, but somehow the questions always throw me off balance. I come off sounding like I have never set foot inside my own department and feel the need to give the person my card at the end of the conversation just to prove that I am not a fraud (even if, for all practical purposes, I really am).

For example:
Q: So, are you a functionalist or a structuralist?
Me: Ummm (stammer and glance around nervously as if searching for an escape route), I guess I'm neither. I'm interested in the interface between lived micro-interactions and macro-cultural ideas that enable and constrain our after-the-fact interpretations of those interactions.
Q: What theorists are you using for your dissertation?
Me: Well... (long pause as I glance around nervously as if searching for an escape route) I'm using Wuthnow for one section and maybe Bakhtin... and Bourdieu.
Q: If Durkheim is a functionalist and Marx is a conflict theorist, then what is Weber?
Me: Huh? Hell if I know but his ideas about rationalization and bureaucracy and the various relationships between rationality and action are interesting.

Harry Potter - my spoiler questions

1. Don't you think that J.K. Rowling could have used the additional 200 pages (making the book as long as Order of the Phoenix) to fill in the plot a little more and explain about Dumbledore's hand?
2. Doesn't it seem odd that the half-blood Prince was really not that important to the overall plot and, thus, is an odd person to have in the title? This isn't to say that more couldn't have been done with the Prince.
3. Did Dumbledore know what was going to happen on the rooftop? Is it really possible that he was wrong about Snape (while everyone else was correct) all that time? Seems kind of lame doesn't it? I mean, unless Dumbledore needs to be fallible and his hubris gets him.
4. Wasn't there just a little too much snogging and attention to teen love in particular?
5. What was the point of the whole Ginny thing if Harry needs to head out on his own after only a few weeks? How come Ron and Hermione get to come along and Ginny can't?
6. Is he really not going back to school next year? If not, it won't really be year 7 will it?

but I'm a cheerleader...

Was such a great movie! I haven't given it a thought in years, not until I read this article in the times today about a teenager sent off to be cured of his homosexuality through fundamentalist christian re-education.

What the f**k? I really don't understand it. I mean, I guess I can come up with some quasi-rational thought process which would lead parents to think that the best thing they can do for their gay child is to send him to "Camp What-some-folks-think-the-bible-wants-gender-relations-to-be," but this rational thought process hinges upon a set of fundamental assumptions like:

1. some folks' interpretation of the bible is correct
2. the bible should inform current gender relations and sexual practices
3. homosexuality is a psychological issue
4. homosexuality is abnormal and unnatural (read this for evidence that homosexuality occurs fairly routinely in the natural world)
5. homosexuality can be cured with a hearty dose of "Jesus" and "routine" inter and intra-gender interactions (note the quotes)

It is these fundamental assumptions that give me trouble and lead me to wonder if this kid's parents actually inhabit the same universe I do. It leads to one of those moments when you recognize the chasm separating yourself from others - when it becomes clear to you that what you take as at least provisionally true has been dismissed outright or remains unconsidered by others and vice versa.

Last year I was in Maine, in spinning class. The instructor was my favorite. I took spinning and pilates with her and I thought that she was just the cat's pajamas. Then, during class that one day, she was talking about some new fangled fitness/massage program coming out that recognized the intricacies of the body as a unified system. As we spun, she spoke at length about how amazing the body is. I couldn't have agreed with her more. Then she concluded, "And that's why the theory of evolution is all wrong. Nothing so beautiful and complex could be the result of chance. It was planned and built." Fortunately, my feet were in the toe-clips so I didn't fall over from the shock of learning that someone who knew so much would draw a conclusion that was the fundamental opposite of the one I might draw.

It is the same thing with pregnancy. The whole thing is really awe-inspiring - what bodies can do and how just a little dna and the right growing conditions result in a being. I suspect the birth itself will be equally astounding. However, when I think about it all, I feel more connected to the natural world - I mean there isn't anything particularly otherworldly about reproduction. It is animal through and through. That's not to say that I don't find it meaningful and even, perhaps, spiritual. I think about the continuity of life - that I am one in a long-line of creatures who will live on this planet and contribute to the continuity of life on it just like the penguins and the grasshoppers and the giraffes and the trees and the blue herons. That's why I am frequently thrown for a loop when an old woman stops me on the bus and says, with a big smile, "We got new life coming. Praise Jesus. Thank you Jesus." Or when friends, instead of wishing us well or whatever, say, "May your family be blessed" or refer to my big belly as the "little miracle."

Half-Blood Prince

I picked up my copy of Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince last night at midnight and read for a couple of hours before bed. This morning I ran errands and then read all afternoon. I finished the book at about 6. I am not sure what I think - my opinion at this point is colored by my annoyance (common when finishing one of the later books in the series), that the book seems to create more loose ends than it ties up, that Rowling has left a whole lot to cover in the next, supposedly last, book, and that, at this point I have no one with whom I can discuss the whole thing.

Ice Cream Update

This evening I enjoyed an ice cream from the Chocolate Factory - a scoop of cookies'n'cream and a scoop of chocolate peanut butter pretzel in a waffle cone. Ah... sweet nectar.

Bad taste in your mouth

S.E.P. turned me on to this little quiz and I thought I'd take it since I've been craving ice cream for days now. My favorite ice cream is Chocolate Shoppe in Madison - Fat Elvis and Snap-o-lantern (in season) are their best flavors. My general philosophy on ice cream is that it must include chocolate (except for rare exceptions like snap-o-lantern) and the more chunks the better.

I was dismayed to learn that I am Strawberry Ice Cream - probably the worst flavor next to Maple Walnut. All the indifference and even occasional aversion that folks feel - it's starting to make sense to me now.

You Are Strawberry Ice Cream

A bit shy and sensitive, you are sweet to the core. You often find yourself on the outside looking in. Insightful and pensive, you really understand how the world works. You are most compatible with chocolate chip ice cream.

What Flavor Ice Cream Are You?

Motherhood: advice solicited

I've got an interview coming up for a position that I'd really love to have. Although I don't know who the other candidates are, I suspect that I am a contender. However, what is going to happen when I waddle in to my interview more than 8 months pregnant?

The evidence I've encountered in my very circumscribed review* points to pregnancy (and motherhood status generally) as a bit of a double-whammy when it comes to employment, leading to downward biases of both task competence (except maybe in "nurturing" professions like nursing) and work commitment. Given that the position I hope to receive has flexible hours and is not a managerial position, I am not as bad off as I might be. However, it's pretty awful to realize that I will likely be working against an automatic bias. It is even more disconcerting to know that my partner has been able to use the same familial status, married with child on the way, as an asset in his professional life.

How should I deal with this issue in my interview? Although they cannot legally ask me about my familial status, it will be obvious. Should I raise the issue myself instead of waiting to see if they bring it up? What should I say? Should I state explicitly that I recognize that my pending motherhood status might affect their assessment of me? Then what?

*See Ridgeway and Correll for starters.

Malaise, possible causes, part I

I am without income for the first time since age 5 (nearly 6) when I began (somewhat illicitly) my very first paper route. At age 7 I added summer employment picking and arranging wildflowers for the tables at a seasonal island restaurant. At age 9 I began babysitting. Age 11, under-the-table dishwasher at year-round island restaurant. Age 13, part-time waitressing during the school year (Saturday 5:30 a.m. - 2:30 p.m.) and full-time over summer. Etc. Etc.

I know that it would be impractical for me to expect to make it to campus for a lectureship this fall (I'm due the first week of classes) and, furthermore, I have had it up to here with RAships that stress me out and take up all of my time while yielding, at best, a minor authorship of some random chapter in some edited volume that is completely unrelated to any of my own research interests. All the same, it doesn't feel right not to be bringing any money into the household for the first time since age 5.

On top of it, fiscally speaking, things are a little tight around here right now with summer incomes being what they are and the fact that in the last year we acquired and partially furnished a house and a nice pre-owned van-ola (the van-ola was already furnished), took a couple of nice trips, and are trying to collect all the necessary accoutrements for child-rearing. So, compound my general discomfort about not making money with the fact that we could use a little more and you've got my stressed out state. Let's not even talk about the fact that a tuition bill with my name on it is going to be arriving in the mail sometime in the next month or so...

Please, before you write some nasty comment about how I shouldn't complain because I am so much better off than most people, know that I am aware of that. I'm stressed out all the same.

Double Blah

Update: Still in a funk.

Blah.

It's not that there is nothing to post. It's just that I seem to be experiencing a bit of mid-summer malaise. Hopefully, hopefully, I will be able to get out from under it soon because there is an awful lot to accomplish in the next 7 weeks or so. Today, however, I think I am going to embrace the grayness outdoors and mimic it indoors by sitting around and feeling low.
Perhaps tomorrow........

Summerfest

We spent a few hours at Summerfest this afternoon. It is a great deal of fun, especially if it is not infernally hot. The first time I ever attended Summerfest it was about 90 degrees in the shade and everyone told me that I would be a Summerfest poser if I didn't drink copious amounts of beer and eat Saz's sampler of fried goodness including sour cream 'n' chive fries, cheese curds, and mozzarella sticks - absolutely the last thing I wanted to put in my body on a really hot day.

Anyway, the weather was perfect today and I determined that the only thing Summerfest is missing is a KARAOKE STAGE!

Victory!

The folks at JFW commented recently on family communication. I was a little puzzled when JFW drew the conclusion that appendages would be left behind if that was what it might take to get out of the 52-year marriage which produced the communication depicted. Was it the underlying relationship suggested by the "coffee ready to go" and "no supper" signs or was it the signs themselves that are the problem? I am wondering because the staff at JFW is clearly not familiar with our family "Victory Board" although the name of our center of operations was developed by a member of the JFW team.

another example of intrafamilial communication and organization

Baby school

We started our baby classes this evening. I suspect that we have done a little too much reading and have desires for natural childbirth that put us a little too far outside the mainstream for this class. It was really amazing to learn from reading that doctors, who take the Hippocratic oath, engage in all kinds of practices that, based on the evidence, are not helpful and are sometimes harmful. It is just as amazing to hear a childbirth educator feeding all kinds of incongruous information to people like it is so much tripe. I really felt at a couple of different points that I wanted to jump up and protest. For example:
1. The educator said, "Your doctor might cut your perineum. This is called an episiotomy. Some doctors do them all the time and some do them if they feel you might tear." If the episiotomy were really necessary, why is it that whether or not you have one is completely dependent upon your doctor's preferences for giving them? Everything I read suggests that they are not helpful (except possibly in the case of forceps extraction), and can even increase the chances of deep tissue tears. Granted, I've been reading some "earthy" books on childbirth. However, even mainstream information about childbirth acknowledges that there are no proven benefits and definite short and long-term risks to the procedure.
2. The number one fear that the expectant mothers in the class reported was the fear of pain. The number two fear was that the mother would be too small/baby be too big for vaginal delivery. After acknowledging this fear, the educator took out a model of the pelvic muscles to show folks the area through which the baby would pass. The problem was that the model was not even close to life-sized. When the educator pulled it out and showed the 2 or 3-inch space through which the head and shoulders had to pass, some people gasped, having their fears of being too small confirmed by the model. Several minutes later, the educator pulled out a tiny model of a fetus to show the different positions (breech, etc.) I asked, "That fetus is to scale with the pelvis right? Our babies will be bigger but our pelvises are bigger too, right?"
3. Despite the fact that at least one member of the group has gestational diabetes and several others had high risk pregnancies, good questions were rewarded with candy and the refreshment offered was chocolate chip cookies.
On the walk home, we talked about whether or not we should go back next week. I think we should for 2 reasons.
First, I think that this class will help prepare us for the difficulties we will encounter having our wishes respected at the hospital. It really is too bad that we feel like we will have to exercise constant vigilance - like we need security at the door to insure that no episiotomy scissors or amnio-hooks (used to artificially break water) enter the room. The inability to relax completely will likely increase my discomfort during labor, but at least we shouldn't be taken by surprise with some undesired and unnecessary medical intervention.
Second, I almost feel like someone should dissent. That way maybe one or two people in the room will get the sense that they are not getting the whole story and do a little research on their own. If anyone asks, I will recommend that anyone who wants to avoid unnecessary medical intervention start by reading "The Thinking Woman's Guide" - making sure to get the latest edition.

The first of the niephews*

My first nephew has arrived.
It really is amazing and exciting to think about the next generation of the family coming into existence. That is one thing I really love about families. If you treat them right they just grow larger and larger.


*Niephews is the term we have coined for nieces and nephews.

Book: Yellow Dog by Martin Amis

I didn't care for this novel in the least. I was unacquainted with Amis' rather voluminous work before sitting down with Yellow Dog. Apparently Amis is both a well-known and much-admired novelist. My only response to that is, "Yikes!"

Yellow Dog is about a man who suffers head trauma, a repressed homosexual kingpin, the King of England and his teenage daughter, a writer for one of England's biggest porno-mags, and a host of other minor characters, each less worthwhile than the last (with a few exceptions). There is not one compelling or empathetic character in the lot. The world Amis creates is raunchy, which is fine, but also meaningless and barbaric. So, I suppose we are intended to laugh at the absurd connections and misfortunes he concocts, but if he is trying to pull a "Kurt Vonnegut," that is, make you laugh because otherwise you would have to cry, he misses the mark by at least a mile. In other words, the plot is awful. He even has to resort to a random vehicular manslaughter to bring the novel to a close and you KNOW that is my number one pet peeve.

Now a word about style. Amis seems to believe he is the Quentin Tarantino of the genre. The novel is primarily dialogue with very spartan descriptions (and those primarily of women as sex objects). Perhaps Amis believes he is exploring the potential of the written word by creating minor characters whose first names are pronouns (the drug dealer And and the mistress He), by having a character, K8 (Kate), who speaks chatroom both online and in real life, and by incorporating background noises (a tape recorder being clicked on and off while memoirs are being recorded so we can know what is on and off the record) into monologues. In reality, he is just stroking his own ego and, possibly, impressing a few sycophants who go in for vapid parlor tricks.

Don't read it!

Batman Begins...

was FABULOUS! Christopher Nolan is a god!
Go see it!

I don't regret not seeing "Crash." I'll see it eventually, and Batman truly deserves the big screen and surround sound.