Living Alone

Yesterday, I had a conversation with a friend who has never lived with a significant other.  He said that he would find it hard to give up the privacy of living alone.  I commented that, to my mind, the biggest change is always having to take the other person's needs into account.  As in, it's no longer just about when you're hungry, bored, sleepy, busy, sad, etc. -- you have to factor in if/when the other person is hungry, bored, sleepy, busy, sad, etc. as well.  "That's it," said my friend.  "I'm never moving in with someone else."

By pure coincidence, I stumbled over this article today.  Apparently living alone is a big topic right now.  The article itself, though, was kind of silly -- as many of the commenters point out, the "quirks" mentioned are not particularly quirky.  I get the convenience points (it's true that living together probably makes for more regular mealtimes and sharing a bed with the other person), but it's a bit sad that the article implies that habits like, say, talking to your cat, or singing Journey songs in the shower, are unfit for another person's presence.  How much do these people think you have to censor yourself around your nearest and dearest?  In particular, I read the bit about standing naked in the kitchen and eating peanut butter out of the jar, and thought, "I'm sure I've done that before -- and S hasn't batted an eyelid."  And why should he??

Quilled paper

Today I learned a new word: quilling.

(Being more crafty than me, you may already be familiar with this.)

When I See You Smile

A friend sent me this link today.  This led to a question of whether dogs smile.  After some brief research, it appears that the short answer is: no, not like humans do.  Although this dog may disagree.

Standing on one foot

I read something about how it's really good for you physically to stand on one foot. So whenever I think of it, when I'm brushing my teeth, or reviewing a contract, or doing the dishes or whatever, I've been standing on one foot.

I like it. It makes me concentrate on whatever I'm doing, and I feel like I'm helping my balance.

If the End Is Right, It Justifies the Beans

What's a good thing to do with black beans and/or garbanzo beans?  We just got a ton of both in our farmshare box.  We hardly ever cook with legumes, so I'm at a loss.

Junk drawer

I hate this junk drawer photo. What really bothers me about it is the plastic bags or plastic wrap sitting on top. I'm not saying this to trash the photo as art, I just have a visceral negative reaction to it. I'm always trying to organize, and I would hate having a reminder on my wall about the junk we have stashed away. Maybe I've spent too much time looking at pictures of perfectly put away rooms and I can no longer tolerate reality.

Elevenses

This article says that the ideal of an eight-consecutive-hour chunk of sleep is relatively new, and suggests that people naturally tend towards a pattern of "first sleep" and "second sleep" separated by an hour or two.  Kind of like hobbits' first breakfast and second breakfast.

Joe Decie

Aren't these drawings beautiful? By Joe Decie.

Sticky stick

My Google search for "stick with lots of things sticking out of it" got the most random results. Pears! Parakeets! Piercings! Warts in sensitive areas!

Turns out what I was looking for is a fiber optic wand. K used to have one as a baby and he was fascinated by it. But they all say they're not for kids under 3 or 5. Which I guess makes sense, right? They do have all those little things sticking out of them that could fall off. X will have to be stuck with these for his birthday.

Chromolume #7

We took my parents to SF MoMA yesterday (thanks CM and JW!).  Surprisingly, my favorite parts were the photography exhibits by Rineke Dijkstra and Francesca Woodman (I'm usually not too excited by photography).  We were lucky to go when we did -- the Rineke Dijkstra exhibit had just opened and it was the last day of the Francesca Woodman one.

I was particularly drawn to the Francesca Woodman works because most of them were from her time as a student at RISD, from 1975-1978 (go Providence!).  Sadly, she committed suicide a couple years later, at 22. Her works are mostly black and white photographs of herself in the nude.  My mom found them "creepy."  Which is precisely why I liked them.

Hair

Still learning how to manage my new haircut.

 

My hair has grown out enough that it keeps falling in my face. I shut my door for an hour so I could put on a hat.

 

I guess I need hairspray? Blech.

Art class

Miss Young's Art Room.

Jeremy Lin

This article about Jeremy Lin is interesting. The author basically says he wishes there could be an Asian-American role model who didn't fit the Asian-American stereotype. A pro basketball player definitely has potential, but Jeremy Lin is not enough of a badass off the court as this author would like.

Chinese by Marriage

My parents are in town and today was a total Relatives in the Area day.  The funny thing is, everyone kept on forgetting that Mr. Trousers does not speak Chinese.  I think every single person addressed him in Chinese at some point during the day, including me.

Photo book

I am determined to use that Groupon for a custom photo book before it expires on the 23rd. So, I've been putting together a book of K's and X's first years, side by side with pictures from the same months on opposing pages. Me with newborn K in a sling, me with newborn X in a sling. K in his tiger costume, X in the same tiger costume. They're not all like that, but I think I've done a pretty good job so far. It's fun seeing them at exactly the same developmental stage and seeing how alike they looked as babies. It is taking a loooong time, though, and the 23rd deadline means I'll miss X's first birthday. I think I'll print one for Nonna with an empty space for the party picture, and give it to her as a thank-you gift for hosting the party. Then I can add the party picture and print more for us and the grandparents. If I'm really ambitious, I could even make it into a real baby book with excerpts from my blog... but I doubt I'll ever complete that project. I'm going for good enough here.

Bundling

So apparently back in the day, there was this courtship ritual called "bundling," which meant... tucking a girl and boy in a bed together and leaving them for the night.   But sex was a big no-no -- in fact, the girl's parents would often sew her into something like a sleep sack for the night to discourage lewd behavior.  According to one website, "Proponents of bundling in bed felt that visiting on a couch presented far more temptation, although some courting also was done in that manner." 

Book club: The Buddha in the Attic

Finally figured out my Kindle problem and am reading The Buddha in the Attic! This line made me giggle:

One of us was distracted by the handsome Hindu man cutting asparagus in the next furrow over while she worked an all she could think of was how much she wanted to unravel his white turban from his enormous brown head. I dream of Gupta-san nightly.

I'm about a quarter of the way through the book, and I'm wondering: can she really sustain this multiple-first-party narration for the whole book? How can you have a plot that is happening to a boatful of people at once, after they get off the boat?

I also wonder where she got these stories from. The book reads like the collected diaries of a few dozen women. Did she actually have these, or is it mostly imagined? I guess all will be revealed in the endnote, or at least by post-book Googling.

Right now I'm at the part where she describes how the tireless Japanese farm workers, who put up with abuse, barely ate or slept, and worked themselves sick for their paltry wages, were victims of violence because they were an "unstoppable economic machine" taking over American agriculture. Sounds like a familiar story.

Mo' Money Mo' Issues

Thinking about that advice-for-folks-in-their-30's list and the ubiquitous advice to save more money.  This is something I've been pondering for a while.  I often feel conflicting urges both to save more money and to spend more money.  The urge to save is pretty straightforward -- we need to save for a house!  And in case one or both of us make a career change!  And for unexpected circumstances!  And so forth.  But these days, I'm also trying to loosen my natural savings bent when it comes to certain things, especially experiences.  I tell myself that you can earn back the money, but you can't necessarily get back the opportunity.  To have the means and the freedom and the health to go do fun things... well, maybe taking advantage of that fleeting confluence of factors is more important than the money.  For now.  But... house!  Maybe the trick is to spend more on experiences and less on everything else.

I kind of miss the days back in grad school when I had no money and thus didn't have to worry about what to do with it.

What to do now

This Ask Metafilter thread about what 40-year olds wish they had done in their 30s is interesting. Recurring themes include staying physically fit and saving money.

Money

I am freaking out a little over the amount of money we've been spending.
We spend about 80% of my take-home salary each month (in the wintertime) on just daycare, mortgage, and oil heat. Scary.
We're going to skip Disney, by the way. We told K we'd wait until he was older and he was okay with it.

Speed

Last Friday morning, I managed to lock myself out of the house with no bike or car keys.  So I had to walk to work.  It only took 45 minutes, which surprised me because I usually budget 30 minutes to bike to work and I know I bike more than 1.5 times faster than I walk.  I'm slow, but not that slow.

So today I timed my bike ride from the moment I started pedaling to the moment I entered the door of the bike cage at work.  The total came to 18 minutes, a few of which were spent at stoplights, so I'm going to say 15 minutes.  Biking speed of 3x walking speed is more believable, and much better for my biking ego.  This also tells me that I have to find a way to cut down my pre- and post-biking routines of getting my helmet, pant straps, gloves, one-eared iPod setup, and sunglasses just so before heading out, and putting everything away when I get to the destination -- these things should not take ten minutes.

Die Antwoord

I confess, I'm a bit obsessed with Die Antwoord.

Here they are performing live on Letterman.

Breadwinning

This Time article says that men are more likely to cheat on women who outearn them.  One sentence that caught my attention was this one: "[The study] found that men who were completely dependent on their wives' incomes were five times likelier to cheat than those who contributed the same amount to the household finances."

It seems to me that many men who fall into the "completely dependent on their wives' incomes" category could have reasons for cheating that have nothing to do with the psychological effects of income disparity.  If a man isn't contributing anything to the household finances (and isn't in school, or a stay-at-home dad, or working an unpaid job, or looking for a new job), maybe he's bored.  Maybe a bored man with a lot of time on his hands is more likely to cheat than a man who is busy at work all day.

Also, isn't it possible that some of these men are with these women because of their incomes?  Maybe a guy has an older sugar mama and also gets some action on the side.  Again, the cheating may not be a direct result of the income disparity.

But putting all of that aside, based on this and other articles I've seen, it seems that people do expect problems to arise in relationships where the woman makes more than the man.  I wonder if the problems stem more from the women's expectations or the men's expectations.

P.S. The article also says that men who make a lot more money than their wives are also more inclined to cheat.  Maybe the article should just be called "Some Men Cheat!"

Map

I'm tempted to get this map for K's room.

Disney

After telling us we should come visit them in Florida anytime, and that it didn't matter if we overlapped with other visitors, now my mom is asking us to change our already-purchased plane tickets because there will be too many people in the house at once. ARGH.

So I thought instead of shelling out to change the tickets, we could use that money to take a family trip to Disney and arrive a few days later at my parent's place.

Do you know how much it will cost for the four of us to visit Disney World for two days, not including food, hotels, or parking? $620!!!

Now I understand why I only went there once as a kid. I think it would be a great experience for K, but once we add a hotel room and car rental it will be well over $1000!

It seems like a waste to go to FL and not visit Disney, but I did not expect that it would be such a huge added expense. (Also, we're flying into Tampa, so it'll be an additional 2-hour drive to Disney.)

Article

Interesting article about Maggie Gallagher in Salon.com today.

Maybe it would be different if I read more and kept up with the news more, but I find it hard to wrap my head around people's reasons for objecting to gay marriage (especially if those reasons are non-religious).  Articles like this one provide interesting insights.

Goodreads

Too often, I pick up a book and get as far as 75% of the way through it before realizing that I have read it before.  So I decided to start keeping track of the books I've read.  Some people have suggested Goodreads as a nice way to keep track of leisure reading -- you can queue books you're planning to read (right now my Amazon cart fulfills this function for me), list books you have read, and read and write reviews on books.  I already have an account -- maybe it's time to start using it.

Black tie for women roundup

Forbes says a little black dress, rhinestone chandelier earrings, and false eyelashes. Strangely specific, no?
Shes Daily says a black strapless dress.
This City Data forum says a cocktail-length black dress and subtle jewelry.
Ask Metafilter says a floor-length or cocktail-length dress.
Black Tie Guide offers some helpful hints:

• Debrett's  (UK) says "any level of dress, ranging from a little lycra number to just sub-white-tie levels of splendour."
• Emily Post's Etiquette says a "formal evening dress or short, dressy cocktail dress" but not separates
• Letitia Baldrige says "floor-length, short, or three-quarter-length evening gown; evening sandals or pumps; and an evening bag of silk, satin, peau de soie, velvet, or brocade material; jewelry – same as for cocktail party [sparkly earrings and bracelet or simple button earrings and a very simple gold or silver necklace], only slightly more of it; and a fur, if you have one."

The consensus seems to be that you should look dressed-up and elegant but there is a wide range of acceptable formal wear that can be considered "black tie" for women.

Again with the Milk Liqueur

So, brown sugar milk liqueur >> white sugar milk liqueur.  White sugar milk liqueur is pleasantly smooth and creamy, but not very flavorful.  Brown sugar milk liqueur, on the other hand, tastes like caramel.

Tonight I set up a ginger/vanilla bean/nutmeg/brown sugar variant -- we'll see how that goes.  I'm a bit worried that the flavorings will be too strong after ten days.

Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights is terrible. The characters are completely unlikable. They're just a bunch of jerks being jerks to each other. Plus there are about three different narrators, but they have identical narrative voices.

Anyway, now I can start "The Buddha in the Attic."

Horrific

The terrible story of the Powells is on my mind today...

Most useless Internet comments ever

They all start with, "I'm not a lawyer, but I think..."

Macabre

I learned today that it is a tradition in Taiwan to dig up the bodies of loved ones ten years after they've been buried, and sort the bones into an urn, which is then reburied.  This is also considered a convenient time to regain the jewelry that has been buried with the dead so that it can go back into use among the living.  Some stones, such as jade, are thought to become more beautiful the more times they go through this cycle.

Unexpected Knowledge, and Slime Eels Revisited

In my crossword this morning, one of the clues was "Glacial deposit."  I skipped over this one for a while, but once I got the first letter (M) and the last two letters (N, E), I said to myself, "Ah, moraine!" and filled it in.  And then got to wondering how I knew that word.  I know nothing about glaciers and am not very well read at all when it comes to anything other than fiction.  But I feel like knowing things you didn't know you knew is something that increases with age.  We're exposed to so much information, everywhere, all the time.  I guess what we're actively thinking about represents giant chunks of what goes into our minds, but how much of the ambient noise drifts into the spaces between the giant chunks?  Do we know much more than we think we do?  How much is "intuition" simply putting together all the things we don't realize we know?

It also makes you wonder, nostalgically, what it must feel like to be a child young enough not to have odd bits of information crammed into the nooks and crannies of your brain, and to know what you know.  Like the difference between living in your first out-of-college apartment with all of your worldly goods in plain sight, versus having a house you'd lived in for, say, 35 years, and finding a soup ladle you can't even remember buying in a box in the basement.

Also, did you know that some people eat slime eel slime?  Wikipedia says that in some cultures, people keep slime eels in containers which they then beat with a stick so that the eels continuously produce slime.  The slime is used in a manner similar to egg whites.

X is allergic to egg whites!

Good thing we had Benadryl on hand.

Somebody who scoffed at baby food restrictions is now feeling sorry.

Work Productivity

Something I've realized recently is that when I catch myself unable to work, and desperately grabbing at distractions (e.g., online shopping, crosswords, blog reading) to avoid turning back to work, 75% of the time it's because I'm physically uncomfortable in some way.  (The other 25% of the time I chalk up to pure mental laziness.)  Sometimes all I need is to take a minute and stretch, put on/take off a warm sweater, drink some water, eat a handful of snack, go to the bathroom, and/or take a short nap under my desk.  Then it seems much easier to turn to the task at hand.  I try to remind myself of this often.

Today, though, falls under that 25%.

Book club

I need to go back to drafting contracts instead of reading this. (However, I will be faithfully reading until his project is complete.)

Sisterly Threes

I've been watching that PBS show Downton Abbey, which features three aristocratic sisters.  I'm also reading a book called The Weird Sisters, which is about three (not so weird) sisters.  This seemed like a vaguely odd coincidence until I started thinking about how often sisters appear in sets of three -- King Lear, Cinderella, Inventing the Abbots, Charmed, Gone with the Wind, etc, etc.  Also, whenever sisters appear as a threesome, they take on predictable roles: the oldest sister is controlling, the middle sister either hates the oldest sister or sides with her against the youngest, and the youngest sister is lovable but often feckless.  I wonder how often these roles apply to three sisters in real life.  Is this just general birth order psychology?  Being one of three siblings myself, I guess it would be fair to say that I am the most controlling, little Sister Trousers and I do tend to gang up on baby Brother Trousers, and Brother Trousers is the most affable and feckless of the bunch.

Intern

Yesterday I met one of the new college interns. He asked me if I was an intern too.

I think I'm old enough now to consider that a compliment.