Question

Why is it that they can make perfectly acceptable artificial cherry, grape, orange, lemon, strawberry, lime, etc. beverages, but artificial apple beverages universally taste like ASS?

Enquiring minds want to know.

Link Dump + Question

Link Dump:
Foodscapes - amazing landscapes made entirely from food. Seriously, you have to see these.

It's like Matt Groening knew back in 1987 exactly how I'd be feeling 21 years later.

On the other hand, it's not like anyone's hiring right now, anyway.

A very interesting article about the British healthcare system.

A very depressing article about Brian Williams and NBC.

Extreme Beer. What more do you need to know?
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Question: We have some kind of critter in the wall beside our built-in buffet. Based on the noise it/they are making, we think it's either a mouse, a bird, or a bat. Anyone know if bats hibernate? I mean, can we rule that one out? Mr. Squab would be very happy to know.

Question

Is it wrong that, at two-and-a-half years old, the Hatchling can unplug Mr. Squab's iPhone from the charger, turn it on, unlock it, open her favorite application and start to play?

Yeah. That's what I thought.

Question

Is it possible for nausea to get *worse* in the second trimester?

Is voicemail really dead?

Some people are saying that voicemail is dead, and we should all be emailing or texting instead. Not sure how I feel about this. I have family members who are ONLY accessible via text, and sometimes this is a pain in the ass, frankly. I have an ollllllllld cell phone (counting down to my new iPhone!!) and I HATE texting. I'm an old-school grammarian, y'all, and I just cannot make myself send messages to people without proper spelling and punctuation. On the other hand, texting is sometimes the most convenient option, and it certainly can be a pain in the ass to retrieve and listen to voicemail. And I know I'm much faster in responding to emails, myself.

On the third hand, sometimes tone and expression are important. Text and emails are notoriously difficult to contextualize - we've all had the experience where someone tries to crack a joke and it just comes across as hostile, for example. So I feel like voicemail should at least be an option, no? Am I hopelessly out of touch?

What do you think?

Saturday musings

It is a GORGEOUS day today here in Minneapolis. Sunny, not too hot, a nice breeze - really just a perfect day to be outside. Not that I really know, mind you, since I'm at my regular coffee shop all day, doing the writing thing, hoping that there will be more perfect days once I'm done with the damn diss. Which I now have even more incentive to finish in a timely manner, because that job I interviewed for? I got it. One course in the fall, one in the spring - a perfect load for getting back in the swing of teaching, and hopefully it won't be too hard to work out the childcare/scheduling thing. I gotta say, I'm excited to get back in the classroom. Teaching is really one of my passions, but unfortunately, it's not one of those things that you can just get up and do for the asking. It will be good to mix with students again and get back to figuring out how to help them learn how to learn.

I was thinking last night about what I'll call avocations, for lack of a better word. You know, "callings" - the things that you're drawn to do no matter what. My senior year in high school when they asked us for quotes for the yearbook (seniors got special pictures and quotes) I eschewed the ever-popular Bowie/Changes quote and chose this one from Robert Frost instead:

But yield who will to their separation
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one
And the work is play for mortal stakes
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future's sakes.

Almost twenty years ago, and I still have that memorized. And though it's a bit highfalutin' for a high school senior, in a lot of ways it still defines how I think about work and career. I am, I have discovered, not one of those people who can be satisfied with a "day job" - you know, the place you work to cover the bills, so you can live your "real" life outside work hours. I just can't do it. Part of it is probably from growing up in an academic family, part of it is being overeducated with an overactive imagination, and part of it is just my nature. But whatever the cause, Frost's idea of uniting avocation and vocation is pretty much what I'm always after. And I'm lucky, really, because I do have something that I feel "called" to do: theatre's been my calling since approximately junior high, and teaching got added into that calling somewhere towards the end of college.

Having a calling is a gift, I know - I've pretty much always known what I wanted to do and be when I grew up - but of course it can also be a curse, because when you know for certain what you want to do, it's pretty difficult to accept anything else as a substitute. Tenure track theatre positions aren't exactly falling into my lap, you know? But I value it, nonetheless, because it's a very centering thing to have in my life. Even if I can't get that tenure track job I'd dreamed of - yet - I can get courses here and there, maybe start up a new theatre company, coach auditions, try to publish some articles in dramatic criticism. I mean, I might not know exactly what I'll be doing ten years from now, but I know the general area I'll be working in, because I have this avocation - theatre - and I'm the kind of person who has to make that my vocation, my "day job" as well.

Anyway, I was thinking about this because of a conversation I was having with some former students of mine, some of my favorite students, in fact, with whom I was talking about career goals, avocations, vocations. Over the years, I've taught a fair number of students, some of whom were interested in theatre, some of whom were not. All in all, out of the hundreds of students I've taught, there have been maybe a dozen that I really believed could and would and should make careers in theatre. It's a demanding discipline, and you have a weird combination of talent, stubbornness, drive and insanity to do it for a career, but there were these few kids that I really thought would go there. And none of them - none! - have ended up doing it. Oh, they're all doing various worthy activities. Lots of them are in public service jobs, working with underpriveleged kids or teaching in other disciplines or doing related humanities or nonprofit work. But none of them have made that lifetime commitment that I thought they would. In my more cynical moods, this feels like failure on my part. Why couldn't I inspire them to follow that dream? I've found such a wonderful home in theatre - why don't more of my students want to stick around and play? I know, of course, that this is a silly response. Like a parent, a teacher's job is to prepare her students to find their OWN way, and as long as they're happy and productive that's what counts, right? But still, I wonder: how many of my students are even looking for a combination of avocation and vocation? How many of them will be brave enough, or crazy enough, to hold out for it? Will any of them find it where I have, in theatre? And is it my job to help them find theatrical avocations, or to use theatre to help them find whatever avocations or vocations will be their own? Heady thoughts for a Saturday, dear readers. How about you? Are you of Frost's mindset? Or are you more contented with a separation between your work and your play?

Right. I have HAD IT.

You know what we had today? SNOW FLURRIES.

You know what the forecast for this coming week is? SHITTY.

You know how much I want to flee this godforsaken state right now? NO. NO, YOU CANNOT EVEN IMAGINE.

Can I PLEEEEEZ win the lottery so I can get the fuck OUTTA here already? It. Is. Almost. May.

WARM. THE FUCK. UP.

(Okay, my caps lock is off.)

Dilemmas

I'm making a cinnamon-chocolate bundt cake for a potluck we're going to tomorrow, but I can't decide how to frost it. Should I go with a chocolate glaze? Cream cheese frosting? Chocolate buttercream? Caramel icing? I just can't decide ... what would you make you salivate the most?

Question

What is it about even the most innocuous emails from one's dissertation director that causes one's blood pressure and stress levels immediately to rise to unhealthy levels?

Hypothetically, I mean.

Paging Betty Friedan

This morning, I got up bright and early with the Hatchling, got us both dressed, brought us downstairs for breakfast, and then started getting ready for a morning playdate with J and M. This involved tidying up the house with the brand new vacuum I got for Christmas, after which I whipped up a quick coffee cake using my Grandmom's recipe, and put on a pot of coffee. During the playdate, the moms socialized and caught up with one another while the two girls played with a toy kitchen and baby dolls.

Jesus. At what point, exactly, did I become a 50s housewife? Maybe I should put a roast in the oven and greet Mr. Squab at the door with his favorite cocktail when he comes home from a hard day at work. Except - GAH - he's going to be late tonight, because he's joining the BOWLING LEAGUE AT WORK. (That part is not even a joke.) Holy Christ. Before you know it I'll be going slowly mad, popping tranquilizers and having a feminist conversion. Which I thought I had already DONE.

It's not that I didn't completely enjoy this morning. I did. And I looooooooooove my new vacuum. And it's wonderful to be able to cook again on a regular basis. It's just that sometimes I look around at my life and think, um, what happened? And are they going to revoke my membership in the pinko-feminist-leftie-academic club? BECAUSE I LIKE THAT CLUB. It has comfy chairs, a great library, and they mix the drinks nice and strong the way I like 'em. Please don't kick me out. I'll bake you some coffee cake!

Explain, please

Is there something in the male genetic code that impairs or erodes the ability to replace the toilet paper on the roll when it runs out? I mean, it's not rocket science! Enquiring minds want to know.

Things that keep me up at night

Why do we abbreviate "combination" as "combo?" Why not "combi?"

What I'd like to know

Do babies and kids count for the carpool lane? Or is it just people of driving age?