observations at home

1. I am old. How do I know this? The "grown-ups" of my youth are now old and grey and the islanders born after my departure are now the youth of the community.

2. I named E after my mother and it is so nice to introduce E to people who knew her namesake. So many people have gotten teary-eyed when they learn her name. It feels right.

3. This is the dog's last trip tp my island home. Although Mary was very kind to allow them into her home this trip, her home is not really fit for dogs. On the up side, the house looks great and my dad is as happy as a lark. It is so nice that he found someone to share this part of his life (kids out of house, retirement, etc) with. When I think about how much he and my mother sacrificed to raise all of us, it does make me sad to think that they didn't get the chance to enjoy this stage of life and marriage together. But at least dad is getting a chance.

moment of truth

The day of reckoning has arrived. Back when we were looking to get a family-friendly car my partner continuously trumped my but-a-station-wagon-will-be big-enough arguments with his claim that our drives out to Maine will require a mini-van. Of course, he learned long ago that the way to get what you want out of me is to somehow tie it to an increase in the frequency, duration and/or enjoyment of visits to Maine.

We have been packing for the last 24 hours and now loading has begun. I will try to snap a photo of the finished product but I highly doubt my partner, being the driven and task-oriented bloke he is, will allow me to run back into the house to post it for you all. He will likely claim that we'll get to Maine sooner if I don't take the time to blog and instead, say, make sure that we haven't forgotten anything.

meet the parents

sometimes my life imitates art except in my case it isn't art it's the movies, specifically, meet the parents, and life doesn't imitate art but instead recasts in an entirely different genre, say, horror.

(belated) E's photo of the month: 8 months old

ticking away...

although i don't generally go in for the hallmark holidays, i made of point of letting my partner know that i expected recognition today. apparently E decided to get in on the act by FINALLY starting to get that sleeping-through-the-night-and-taking-2-hour-naps thing figured out. if it sticks, i predict that life will improve immensely. let's face it, 8.5 months of 2-3 hour sleep blocks punctuated by the very occasional 4-6 hours of blissful shut-eye does take its toll.

anyhow, we slept in until 7:30 without any middle of the night feedings! we made breakfast and putzed around. after E's a.m. nap we went to the mke public market for lunch. we came home and the sun came out so i took the dogs for a walk on the river while E had her afternoon snooze. then it was off to the symphony for the family concert and home for baby bath and bed and the series finale of west wing. i've just finished grading so tomorrow i prepare for the great trek home to the island.

free at last and homeward bound!

master identity and total institution or "i'd like to thank the academy..."

I attended the departmental graduation ceremony yesterday. I make a special point of being present at the graduation celebration because I usually find it so heart-warming and encouraging. The event reinforces my hope that one day I, too, will finish my dissertation and that my advisors will have some nice things to say about my work and/or myself. Then I will get my moment to thank everyone. I can't tell you how many times I've daydreamed about that moment, standing up there and being done or at least done enough that in the fall my tenure-track appointment will begin.

Of course, yesterday I had additional motives. I like to attend departmental events to see folks. Since I am rarely on campus and have now been absent from the department at least as many years as I was in residence, I don't get much opportunity to keep in touch. Lastly, I wanted to bring E to the graduation. I guess I do have a little interest in showing her off but, ultimately, I want her to know that I am someone besides her mother, that I am a person in the world too. I know that she is too young to understand any of that now, but I guess I'd like her to grow up thinking of her mother as a sociologist-mom instead of having it be something that she must be taught explicitly when she is old enough for such lessons.

I am not sure how different the day was or if it was just me, but I ended up leaving Madison feeling defeated, insignificant and spent.

Many of the people I think of when I think of the department were not there for various reasons. This drove home the fact that the current department is not the department I knew. That the people I did know often did not recognize me (when I say they did not recognize me I mean that they passed over my face as they scanned the room for familiar faces not they didn't remember me when I said hello. I have discussed this elsewhere) confirmed that I am not a part of the life of that place now. If my day arrives and I attend the departmental celebration, I will stand before a room of strangers and my advisors, unable to share funny anecdotes or lament my departure as the loss of a regular companion, will say something about how I am an independent sort.

Then there was the whole motherhood thing. I thought that the event would be a perfect way to allow my mother and scholar roles/identities to interact. After all, the departmental graduation ceremony is a family affair, right? I was imagining that many other students would have their partners and children with them. I was wrong. Even students completing the program, with family in attendance, left the children at home. To top it all off, I brought my partner to help with E in case of trouble. He was uncomfortable since he knew very few people and he made me feel more awkward and out of place by trying to push me to socialize. Then E began fussing and he was forced to pace the hallway with her as there was no comfortable place for a dad and a baby to sit and wait. Naturally, he was grumpy and I began to suspect that I am a selfish and insensitive person for dragging my family all the way to Madison so I could feel connected, so I could persist with the illusion that the relationships between my disparate parts are smooth and seamless.

Good book?

I'm looking for a good ethnography concerned with the African-American middle class. One which focuses on intra-group class conflict in addition to particularly middle-class experiences with prejudice would be ideal. Suggestions?

No Play List

So, one of my best friends from middle school is getting married in a couple of weeks. Naturally, I am going home for the big event (and to get some sleep and to get grounded and to introduce E to the island and family and to eat some good food).

Well, the other day my pal K2(should be superscript) emailed me regarding her upcoming meeting with the DJ:

We have a meeting with our DJ on Friday, and we need to finalize the all important DO NOT PLAY list. SO much more inportant than what they CAN play...anyway, I've got a few, but I wanted to pick your brains to see if you could come up with any I missed. Here goes:

Wind Beneath my Wings
Old Time Rock'n'Roll
Any Celine Dion
Celebrate
We are Family
Electric Slide, Macarena, Chicken Dance, YMCA, etc
Any Vanilla Ice
Friends in Low Places
Love Shack (sorry kids, I know it was fun at Zootz circa 1990 but...)
Unchained Melody
I will Survuve
Shout
Pretty Woman
A Moment Like This
Paradise by the Dashboard Light (or really anything by Meatloaf)
Lady Marmalade
Any Michael Jackson

OK, well, see, I must be growing soft in my old age or, perhaps, I've spent too many nights at the karaoke kid because many of those songs would be on my DO play list (of course some, mostly the ballads, are right on). Sheesh... it's a wedding! I mean, Billie Jean, Shout, Love Shack... you might as well skip the cake too!

I've fallen out of touch with K2 over the years. If her eighth-grade self was picking the songs, I'd say we were going to spend the evening listening to Echo and the Bunnymen, Morrissey, the Pixies, the Replacements, Dead Milkmen, Bauhaus, Jane's Addiction, and Siouxsie and the Banshees. Fun, true, but odd to think about.

codswallop

There is nothing to make you feel like a failure as an educator so much as to reach the end of the semester, give your students a journal question that gets at the myths you've been seeking to dispel all semester, and to receive entries like (these are not actual entries):
"I don't know what we can do. Things are different now. Discrimination and slavery ended over 100 years ago."
or
"I think the counter-protestors are right. I'm tired of immigrants coming in and taking our jobs. No one wants them here."

News

Sadly, I get most of my news these days from the newspaper in the town where I did (am doing?) my field research. When life gets crazy, I fall behind on my newspaper reading. Eventually the stack of newspapers is just so awful to look at that I do nothing else (when it comes to academic work, that is) but read month and two-month-old papers. This can be torturous.

This evening, however, I was entertained by a parade of amusing, heart-warming and/or particularly Maine-ish stories. There was the letter to the editor requesting that the person who stole the writer's garbage can return it or, at the very least, come by for the lid so that the thief might get full use out of it. There was the account of the string of bank heists involving a suspect, still at-large, described as a man "“wearing a blue sweatshirt, jeans and sunglasses."” Let's not forget stray kitten that fell part way through a storm drain where it hung, head in the middle of a busy downtown street, until, less desperate measures failing, the fire department was able to free it using a chain saw and the jaws of life.

And then, there was this story, which gave me such a chuckle and made me homesick for what I believe is a particular Maine real-ness.

We used to collect dandelion greens and clams and fish for mackerel for dinner.

left behind

I recently submitted some conference expenses for reimbursement. I transmitted the information electronically as the conference program, the airline ticket receipt, and the lodging invoice were all electronic.

I received a phone call that afternoon:
I'm sorry, but we need the original documents.
These are the original documents.
I can't take copies of conference programs and accounting will not accept these for your lodging and travel. I need the originals.
What do you mean?
They have to be original.
Can you define that? I'm not trying to be difficult but I really don't know what you need because these are the originals. I don't have original credit card receipts or anything like that.
Well, you'll have to call the airline and get them to send you something. And this receipt for the lodging, it needs to be in color or have a signature or something.
OK... I'll see what I can do

Later, me on the phone with northwest airlines:
Yes, my institution needs an original receipt for my travel.
Don't you have the e-ticket and receipt we sent you?
Yes, but that's not original enough for them. Can you send me out something on paper?
We can but it will be exactly the same document and you will be assessed a fee.
Oh screw it. Thanks, though. I think I'll just print what I have and fold it like it was in an envelope.