Tonight I am wondering...

... how natural selection (or even, if you prefer, intelligent design) could manage to produce a creature that would rather burn mixed CDs than, say, go to bed and get a decent night's sleep. Can I blame it on the caffeine?

The fact that I'm doing this, instead of getting my beauty rest, is even sillier than it may at first appear. I have many hours of audiobooks out from the library -- and I have an iPod! Why am I burning CDs at all?

At least after today I have some excuse for not hauling the iPod around. My car apparently got so hot sitting in the summer sun today that the entire top blew off an unopened can of soda I left in my cupholder. It's rather unnerving to come back to your car and find a partly shredded pop-can top on the passenger seat, and nothing else obviously out of place...

A clarification from Boyfriend

Boyfriend thinks the last post is misleading and might tarnish his image. Since he is quite right that his image should not be tarnished, here is his rebuttal:

I just think you should mention that I would never forbid you from listening to any kind of music; it just happens that your Welsh folk songs CD is not my favorite of yours, and I might very well tease you if you continue to play it in my presence. :-)

He's right. :)

Conflicts of interest

I keep wanting to sit down and catch up with, say, PuppDaddy and Alaska, but they're such gol-durn good examples that I can hardly stand to be sitting still in front of (under?) the laptop, and not up & about making my life a more pleasant place to be (today this mostly means making my apartment a more pleasant place to be...) Between them and Boyfriend, I'm totally doomed. I'm gonna go clean some more.

While I do, I'm listening to Traditional Songs of Wales. Which I suppose is a small advantage to not having Boyfriend around. I've had this CD since I was eleven, and tried to teach myself Welsh from the lyrics booklet at one point; it was one of the first CDs I ever asked for. Having grown up on it, I find that nearly all the Welsh-music albums on iTunes sound very odd to me. They tend to be immense, all-male choirs singing very solemn music, whereas my (clearly twisted) conception of Welsh music has one or two women singing against just a few instruments -- a harp or flute or bagpipes or fiddle, or in one case a clogger's rhythm.

I was thinking of baking cookies today, but it's awfully hot, and I'm not sure I can justify using the oven while the air conditioner is on. Instead, I'll just heat up the apartment with that vigorous cleaning I claimed I was going to go do...

A (Rare) Apolitical Post By Mycroft, Etc.

Of course, since I've called it that, he will likely point out some reason that it's not apolitical after all. Anyway, here's a thought by Mycroft that caught my fancy.

Optimists, Pessimists, and Delusion

Update: And, from a post that Mycroft linked to, advice on selectively deluding oneself. (Naturally, this advice has a double function: on the one hand, it's a how-to for constructive delusions; on the other hand, it's insightful commentary on how we sometimes destructively delude ourselves).

Re-Update: And as long as I'm catching up on all things Mycroft, he wrote a post recently about and FBI fingerprint database which contains a nice explanation of error rates and data mining* for the intelligent but perhaps uninitiated. *(i.e. some of the mathematics behind finding Bad Guys (or Girls) in the aforementioned database)

Hooray for explaining, rather than dumbing down, mathematical concepts!

Little Women, Bad Audiobooks, and Feeeeeelings

Lately I've been listening to Little Women on CD when I'm in the car. I listened to a different recording of the book last fall, and liked it very much (I've re-read the book dozens of times since elementary school). This time it's frustrating me more, and also making me think more, for any number of reasons:

• First of all, the recording I'm listening to (Listening Library's "Library Edition," read by (if i recall correctly) Laura Reed Kate Reading -- I can't find it on Amazon) has one very good point and one very bad point.
  • Good point: The author's voice is very expressive, and she brings more lively and convincing intonation to the dialogue than I ever did in my own head.
  • Bad point: Due to (I assume) some sort of audiobook-copyrighting issues, many words are changed in this recording. It's only ever single words, so the recording is perfectly useful, though frustrating, to someone who's already familiar with the book, but it makes Louisa May Alcott and her characters sound hopelessly ignorant if you don't know it's an alteration. The most glaring examples are the words "doesn't" and "isn't," which are, without exception, changed to "don't" and "ain't" (does the real text of Little Women have a single "ain't" in it?)


• I am more frustrated by some of the book's values than I used to be. I still approve heartily of the praise the narrator and characters give to family love, homely virtues, and simple grace; on the other hand, hearing the book read aloud somehow makes it more obvious that, as the girls grow into women, they are more and more often praised for being "docile" and "submissive." When Meg grows frustrated and lonely from burying herself too much in her babies (a natural mistake, as her mother points out), she is encouraged to involve her husband more in the life of her home (which makes sense), make home a sweeter and more welcoming place for him, since he feels driven away by her preoccupation (also sensible), and to occupy and exercise her mind by absorbing herself in his interests (what?). Perhaps this advice is the most sensible thing, in context, since Meg's own interests seem to extend no further than the trimming of her bonnet -- but what happened to the talent and skill she must have been putting to use five or ten years before, when she was governess and teacher to the King children?


• Like many of Alcott's bookish readers, I still identify strongly with Jo, but her life seems unnecessarily, cruelly difficult, and she, too, is asked to give up her own dreams and become exclusively a caretaker of others (the problem, in my mind, is with this exclusivity, not the caretaking). Being strong and stubborn, Jo finds new ways to go after her lifelong passion, writing, and her long-established "love of lads" blossoms when she starts her school for boys (see Little Men for more examples of Jo's strength, and cultivation of other strong women, blossoming through her school).


• Beth is the only sister who is not asked to give up her dreams, but that is largely because she never really had any. The narrator (or the author herself?) seems as surprised as Jo to discover that "Beth's eighteen," and she seems to always remain the sweet child who was introduced in the first chapter.


• Particularly in the second half of the book, I find myself identifying more and more with Amy. She has a happier nature than I do, so at heart I still seem to be stormy Jo (who is largely Alcott herself, who in turn devoted herself to the happiness of May, her Amy-like sister, with a Jo-like sacrifice of her own wishes and dreams...). Still, Amy's work to cultivate grace and elegance and goodness all together seems better to me than Jo's determination to be miserable for others (which, thankfully, she seems to grow out of when the hardest times are past -- this suggests there may be hope for me as well). Perhaps my favorite of Alcott's characters is Rose, of Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom, and Amy seems like her in many ways.
  
  Today, in particular, I am jealous of Amy for the gushingly happy letters she and Laurie send home to the family when they are engaged in Switzerland. If I sent such letters home, I think my own beloved mother would be happy for me, but she'd also worry about my sanity. I don't know that I could, or would want to, match Amy's gushing style in that letter, but it would be nice to be able to speak more about my happiness, and particularly about my loves past and present. My family, and my own nature, are very down-to-earth and practical; being Irish and Scottish, we have very strong emotions, but we seldom speak of them directly; they're usually obvious enough, anyway, when we state our more "factual" opinions. Feelings and religion are family heirlooms, but also very private possessions.
  
  I am very happy indeed with Boyfriend; he is good to me and good for me. I tend to temporarily forget all this when I'm frustrated with him (which does happen often, since he is human and I have a short fuse), and I wonder if this would happen less if there were anyone but him to whom I could speak frankly about liking him.

This last point in particular seems to be my Question to Ponder for today. Those of you who are in serious relationships -- do you talk to other people about your spouse or significant other? If so, what sort of things do you say? Do you praise him or her? Do you complain about frustrations?

Which Biological Molecule Are You?

I got bored and began poking around in the archives at Poppins Classical Academy, and here's something I found:


You are water. You're not really organic; you're
neither acidic nor basic, yet you're an acid
and a base at the same time. You're strong
willed and opinionated, but relaxed and ready
to flow. So while you often seem worthless,
without you, everything would just not work.
People should definitely drink more of you
every day.


Which Biological Molecule Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

And this too:


Which Historical Lunatic Are You?
From the fecund loins of Rum and Monkey.

Less frivolous

Today at Spero News, two articles (among others) caught my eye. One describes the sickening, but horrifically un-extraordinary, violence inflicted on a young girl, a rape victim in Guatemala. "Rape victim" doesn't even begin to cover it. So lovely to be reminded that there are women even worse off than Mukhtaran Bibi (although her case is frightening enough, and getting more so).

The other article is about China's plans for dealing with the seemingly inevitable electric-power shortages it will encounter during the hot summer. A Singaporean executive made the following comment, which ordinarily would seem fairly reasonable to me, but now it strikes a horrible chord:

"There's always a concern that if the government introduces some sort of dramatic economic change, such as raising power prices across the board, that that will raise questions about the stability of the government," Feer said.

"How much will people accept and how much can people afford to pay before they will have been pushed too far?"

How much, indeed? And how much can women be made to pay for being women, for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or related to the wrong people? And, of course, this sort of violence isn't restricted to the fairer sex. How long can men be made to pay for being of the wrong family, or any of the rest of it?

Thank goodness there are people responding with much better solutions than my current slackjawed horror. Take, for example, one of nature's more awful injuries, the obstetric fistula. A group of beautiful, talented women, led by a particularly beautiful and talented surgeon Mamitu Gashe, are helping dozens of others recover from these injuries and regain their lives. Ms. Mamitu herself has only just begun to learn to read, but she has been supplying practical training for other surgeons for years.

Update: By the way, thanks to the sidebar headlines at Feminist Mormon Housewives and to Julie D. at Happy Catholic for pointing me in the direction of all these stories.

The world, she is a strange little place.

• Last night was my first riding lesson ever in hot weather. Actually, I think it was my first riding lesson ever without a warm coat and cold toes. And when I came home, after a 40-minute drive from the stables, I was still soaked to the skin with horse sweat.
• My office has a gated entry, and the people who let me in have lately been calling me "Mrs. Lastnamehere." I'm not angry about this or anything, but I'm bemused. And tempted to get married, just to see if they switch to "Miss" then.
• I seem to be coming across (or reading the blogs of the parents of) more and more children with diet-paralyzing allergy combinations like "milk, wheat, rice, and soy." Are smorgasbord allergies like these getting more common, or am I just noticing more? How could parents possibly have dealt with this sort of thing in the 13th century (if it happened then), or even in the 1950s? Are allergies like this a consequence, in some way, of our modern lifestyle? And if so, is it that today's environment somehow causes the allergies themselves, or is it just that we know how to take care of babies and children who have them?

I need to get more sleep.

My mind is salivating

Hey, um, Writing and Living, maybe we could figure out a way to go halves on this...

Um, er, sorry about that...

I haven't blogged in days and days and days.

Tonight, a bookish entry. Here are some of the things I've been reading and thinking about lately:

I'm reading The Now Habit* by Neil Fiore. It's an interesting take on procrastination and feeling overburdened, and how to move from these feelings (and the useless stupor they often encourage) to productive work and really enjoyable leisure time.

I'm also re-reading Tamora Pierce's Tortall books. Pierce's writing, particularly in her earlier books, makes me cringe from time to time, not because it's bad (it's not), but because it occasionally has a slightly awkward "I'm writing fantasy" tone that reminds me very much of the writing I did so much of when I was eleven or twelve. I've lost a lot of my writing imagination since then, to my chagrin, but I do love reading books like Pierce's that are the sort of thing I wish I'd been clever enough to try to write. It's not historical fiction in any way. Her protagonists are fairly modern girls, and if fantasy's not your thing then it may grate on you to watch them romping through semi-medieval castles; but then, if fantasy's not your thing, I imagine the magic in the books would be much more bothersome! My favorites are the newer Tortall books, the Protector of the Small* quartet and Trickster's Choice* (I can't wait for the sequel, Trickster's Queen*, to be out in paperback), but I also enjoyed re-reading the Song of the Lioness* quartet and the Immortals quartet.*

I'm also looking forward to Young Warriors,* a collection (edited by Pierce and Josepha Sherman) of "Stories of Strength". Pierce's own young heroes (not all of them warriors) span a wide spectrum of strong personalities; the events of their lives blur together a bit from series to series, but their thoughts and reactions are the fruit of Pierce's long and always-developing meditations on strong women and men. It will be interesting and thought-provoking to see what kinds of stories appear in this collection -- and maybe I can collect some new favorite authors!

I tend to read while I'm out on walks by myself (in safe areas, of course), but I may have to quit doing this on my lunch walks at work. It turns out our walking path is at least sparsely populated by copperhead snakes, and they're venomous, although like all snakes they are shy. Pity, that; it's great fun to read about knights in training and knights on missions when I'm out for my constitutional walk through the almost-woods and missing my riding lessons.

Speaking of riding, my riding lessons start again on Monday! Hooray! The equine herpes virus (normally like a cold for a horse, but in this case a common mutation with much nastier symptoms) is officially gone from the riding center's stables, and my teachers and friends there can breathe again. I'm extremely glad their ordeal is over -- as I've mentioned before, I know it was emotionally devastating for them, and I can't but imagine that it was financially devastating as well.

In a somewhat similar vein, I'm waiting for Mornings on Horseback* by David McCullough to show up at the (beautiful) library within walking distance of Boyfriend's house. I no longer have any idea how I happened upon this book, but it's a "character study" of Theodore Roosevelt, particularly (I think) his early life. This sounds like the kind of biography that is exactly up my alley. While I wait, I'm reading The Three Roosevelts* by James MacGregor Burns and Susan Dunn. I'm enjoying it, certainly, but I'm getting a bit bogged down in the politics and losing sight of the human being behind them. I was disappointed to find that this library system doesn't have a copy of McCullough's Brave Companions,* a collection of 15 or 20 short biographies of various thoughtful and interesting people who lived in the not-too-distant past.

So many books. So little time.

*full disclosure: These are Amazon.com referrer links. If you like a book and buy it from the linked page, I get a small premium from Amazon.com. If you object to this, you can get a "clean" page by searching for the book's title and/or author on the website (or in the brick-and-mortar bookstore!) of your choice. (Sorry there are so many of them in this post; I've been reading a lot.)

Oh, and this sort of thing is why I so enjoy walking around my apartment complex:

Not so much a family-friendly post...

*DISCLAIMER*: There will be bad words and mentions of reproductive activity in the passages quoted in this post. I really like the ideas, but if you're easily offended, you might want to wait for these things to be paraphrased by someone else.

Both of these are borrowed from Redneck Feminist.

Amanda rebuts the notion that feminists are a bunch of man-haters:

....I submit to the jury that perhaps men don't know how many un-feminist women regard men. As helpless, stupid, hopeless, ruled by their dicks, too stupid to change a diaper, too lazy to wash a dish and generally useless but for the larger paycheck. Sometimes I feel a little left out when in a group of women engaged in man-bashing, a bit sheepish to look at my feet and say, "Well, actually, my boyfriend does his housework and I think he's pretty smart. Um, he doesn't know how to set the alarm clock?"

And a commenter comments on a college's rather strict rules combatting sexual assault:

Oh, the horror of Antioch's rule that you have to ask for permission to have sex!

Oh, get real.

If you can't figure out a way to sound sexy when asking your partner if they want to have sex, then you just have no imagination at all.

I want this job too.

What Sarahlynn said.

Vote for me in ... um, when I turn 35, I guess. That'll even be an election year!

(Maybe this post will reassure Certain People a little about the fits I go into when people criticize the president/administration/country for stupid ill-considered reasons.)

Here's your sign

A little (delayed) post-poaching from Mental Multivitamin. Lots of good stories there (as usual), but the one that catches my fancy today is "Here's Your Sign." It's good to have another bit of armor for when, as Mrs. M-mv says, "someone else's act of sheer stupidity would otherwise reduce us to tears of woe for the fate of mankind."

Enjoy -- and happy June!