Today, websites are being blacked out, and bloggers and internet companies are speaking out - all against two badly written laws currently making their way through Congress.
...But the real power in the bill is not in the powers it gives the courts. Rather, the bill creates a system of incentives whereby the mere accusation of copyright infringement is enough to block a site entirely. The law gives immunity to ISPs, financial transaction providers and search engines who voluntarily block web sites accused of infringement. And if they don’t block those sites? Then they, too, may be held legally culpable for the infringing activity. The laws also contain no penalties or disincentives for copyright holders to avoid falsely accusing others of infringement... [italics and bold are mine]
All based on an accusation?! No. Our country is based on innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
I'm not blacking out, though. I'm doing what I do - posting music (with apologies to Don McLean):
I recently read Art of Stress-Free Living as part of my ongoing project to keep my blood pressure down naturally. The introduction started out with various examples of the effects that stress produces on the body. The book was going along fine until, on page 18, the author said:
Mounting evidence suggests that any number of soothing emotional experiences can improve our physical health.
So far so good. That makes sense.
Then the author went on to say:
At Duke University, researchers have found that religious observance is associated with lower rates of illness and hospitalization.
What?!
Now, if it meant that religious observance gave you a healthier diet or maybe helped you be more disciplined in exercising, I could understand that.
However, the paragraph goes on to discuss optimism and the relaxation response. Why would religious observance be in a paragraph that starts out discussing "soothing emotional experiences?!"
The only soothing things I've ever found about churches are daily Mass/daily services and Compline. Neither are part of regular religious observances.
Why would religious observances be mentioned at all in a book about being "stress-free," or even about just reducing stress?
What's the first thing you do on a Sunday morning? - okay, besides yell at your kids to get out of bed because they'll MAKE YOU LATE!!!!!!
Figure out what you're going to wear. What are the right clothes? If you're the sort that dresses church-y all week, you're in luck. If you're the sort who feels like a drag queen when you put on a dress, you're not. Church also depends on healthy feet and legs. The sorts of shoes appropriate for church clothes rarely are good if you have feet/knee/hip problems. Given my knee surgery and my past history of sprained ankles, I wear running shoes most of the time. Those aren't appropriate for church. After my knee surgery, however, I totally gave up on dress shoes. I now go halfway - I wear jazz dance shoes to church. They have more support but don't look as sports-y. They still don't look church-y, though.
I've failed before I've even left the house.
At least my kids are older so, when they go, it's not stressful. When they were younger?! Older son had colic for 4 months. At least he could be distracted by toys and books from a fairly young age. Daughter wouldn't sit still at all after she learned how to crawl. By the time the first hymn had ended, I was already at the back of the church (after turning her away from the front a few times) trying to keep her from disassembling the Virgin Mary alcove. We were really bad Catholics and finally gave up on Mass for about 18 months. Church with small kids is definitely not stress reducing!
Along with missing Mass that year, there are so many parts of religious observances that I have failed.
Church politics?
Epic fail. I'm no good at politics.
Social?
I have to turn off half of my personality* to get by at any church. I find it somewhere between difficult and impossible to get beyond acquaintance-ship at churches. I already failed at being involved in community at church so there's no reason to waste time on that again - either trying it or writing about it.
Kids?
I have two Sunday School dropouts and one who never went to Sunday School. Also, one of them, the one who's never liked loud groups of strangers, dropped out of Vacation Bible School partway through. None of them had any interest in the tween/teen programs,** and I'm not the sort to push my kids into activities. Bad church mother.***
Volunteer expectations?
I'm no good at (or just plain not interested in) the traditional things women are supposed to do at church. I'm not patient enough to teach Sunday school (tried twice and hated it failed), and, quite frankly, I'm not interested in following somebody elses' curriculum. I'm not much for cooking either. Why don't we all just bring bag lunches?
Actually, I failed at that too. The last time I went to a church event where people brought bag lunches, most of them picked theirs up at Whole Foods or some other restaurant. I just brought a sandwich, fruit, and carrots from home.
Of course, I haven't even gotten to the teachings of churches. There's all sorts of stress and failure there. There has to be. They want you to change what you're doing, and the easiest way is to guilt you into it. Every denomination does it.
Well, except for Father C's homilies because he focused on God's unconditional love for us.
Bizarre. I've never heard another preacher like that.
Choir is the exception to my experience of failure at church. I've realized, particularly this summer in the musical, that I know where I'm supposed to be, I can sight-sing, and I can sing in tune and in harmony. That is valuable, even if I'm not a high soprano. I've also enjoyed church far more since I joined choir.
That doesn't totally help, though, because I've failed at everything else I've done at church besides choir. The building itself reminds me of my failure. Just driving by any church that I've been a member of, either makes my blood pressure go up, or it makes me realize that I'm more relaxed because it's not Sunday.
Stress city.
I finally concluded that the health benefit of religious observances must be for those who naturally fit in to churches. If you feel you're doing all your church requires, if you're raising your kids the same way as other church members, behave similarly in political ways, volunteer traditionally, and dress appropriately, I can see that the sense of in-ness and feeling like you have your place could be very soothing.
* The questioning, expressive part.
** ... except for daughter asking (repeatedly because I wasn't giving good enough answers) what the preteen/teen groups are for for: "We already saw everyone at church on Sunday morning, and we'll be back on Wednesday for children's choir. Why would I go again on Sunday afternoon? How will I see my school-going neighbors that way?"
*** Well, I'm a bad church mother compared to what one is supposed to do with kids at church. Interestingly, the results as adults have not been what one might expect, given my badness. Older son has a few unusual attitudes towards church, but he's a dedicated choir member - and occasionally the solo bass. Daughter started going to Mass again the first month of her freshman year at UNC-A and was confirmed last Easter. Younger son and I are enjoying daily services again now that things have calmed down after our busy summer.
There is so much said about Christianity, but nobody seems to address the questions I have, most of which start with, "Can you be a Christian if..."
...you're an introvert.
...you have a tendency to depression.
...you're not good at politics.
...you're a regular middle-class mother who is passionate about the arts.
This latest one has been the one I've been dealing with lately. I don't do mission trips (do you know how expensive those are?! I haven't paid for a plane ticket since... Never mind. My parents paid for plane tickets when I was in college. Flying is expensive. I haven't flown in over two decades.). I don't volunteer at soup kitchens - you have to be over 14 to do that, and I've had at least one child under the age of 14 for the last 23 years. A major part of being a Christian is helping the poor, widows (who aren't related to you),* and orphans. I don't do any of those. Not that I don't care, but there isn't any way that has ever come up beyond writing a check.
I am currently increasing my volunteer time, but with what? Community theater. There's nothing about that in the Bible! I love it, though, and younger son is enthusiastic about it too. That's not something to take for granted in a 12 yo boy.
There's a blog I read called Tiny Buddha. It has lots of wonderful advice about slowing down, being present in the moment, forgiving, the value of listening, etc. There have been a few posts lately about doing what you're passionate about. They really resonated with me, particularly one titled Knowing What You Stand For, which mentions, "we’re more apt to make a consistent positive difference, whether through charity or work, if we discover what moves us and then let that lead the way. Then it’s not just about supporting a cause–it’s about having a cause to do it." When the author went on to ask, "What do you stand for–and why?" my immediate response was "Beauty and the arts." However, what I'm passionate about, except for choir, isn't particularly Christian.
I'm really wondering if I should just stop calling myself a Christian. I wouldn't change what I believe, just what I label myself.*
...
Okay, I'm back. I took a break to take cookies out of the oven (We don't do store bought cookies for the most part, except Girl Scout cookies. Preservatives, etc., and they just don't taste as good) and to sing and dance around the kitchen along with Ben Vereen (on the Pippin CD I have in the mix tonight):
...Because, let's face it, I could easily while away the hours napping and nursing, checking my Facebook page hundreds of times each day, and researching all known facts about newborns. But is that what I should be doing?
It's obvious I won't be scrambling to find the nearest mommy-and-me playgroup...
...Okay, brief diversion here. Her experience is so unfamiliar to me! I felt barely sane and sentient when each of my kids was eight weeks. They all had colic, and older son, the first one, had it the worst. He screamed for about 12 to 14 hours for the first four months - except when I was walking him in the stroller, which I did for the entire morning. Every morning. Daughter didn't have colic as badly, but, at that point, I also had a 4 yo who was used to having all my undivided attention and was not pleased with me (he did think his sister was cute). By the time younger son came along, I was homeschooling the older two. "Whiling away the hours" doesn't go along with "new baby" for me.
And the playgroup I was in was a sanity saver. I wasn't domestically inclined like most of the mothers I knew at church. Our playgroup, however, was a green-before-it-was-popular group of Sierra Club type mothers. We hiked (among other things). Being an outdoorsy, active type who reads too much was just fine there.
And when my father passed away, the playgroup mothers were much more supportive and understanding than anyone I knew at that church. People at church just avoided me until they could see that I could pretend to be normal again and not start crying. Because of that experience, when my father-in-law passed away last Christmas, I only told two people at my current church, and I only told them because his cancer had come up in previous conversations. I would have skipped church for a month or two, but daughter was back from college and singing with me in the choir. I just tried to cry quietly during the time I couldn't get through a service dry-eyed.
I'm still in touch with the playgroup mothers occasionally. I don't have any reason to be in touch with anyone from the church I went to back then anymore...
End of not-so-brief diversion.
The author of this post goes on to talk about starting ministry with her new daughter, which I can understand, but then one of the comments says:
...I have my comfortable first-world life in the suburbs, but what good is it? My children, yes, are my first ministry, but what about serving the poor, helping the orphans and widows, mercy, justice, all the rest? How do I live that out in a practical sense from where I am?...
And so I'm back to where I started, particularly since I went on to read Elizabeth Esther's blog, where she writes about her life-changing experiences on a mission trip in Ecuador.
The things that resonate the most with me - things like bloom where you are planted (i.e. do what needs to be done where you are, or that presents itself to you) or getting involved with things you're passionate about - don't go along with, what seems to me, a more rational, church-based evaluation of what one should do.
* I don't think that teaching an aerobics class that had a devoted contingent of widows counts either. The club closed a few years ago, but I still miss the women (of all ages) in my class. Oh, and the one man who came occasionally.
* *What am I going to label myself? A person-who-tries-to-follow-God-and-believes-Jesus-is-Divine-but-scary-at-times-and-who-thanks-God-constantly-for-the-beauty-of-nature-and-the-arts-and-for-her-family-and-for-the-wonderful-people-around-her. It doesn't fit on a bumper sticker, though.
[Photo: Totally irrelevant photo of a Brugmansia at Duke Gardens.]
We dropped daughter off at UNC-Asheville this weekend. More about that when I'm in a better mood. I'm glad that younger son is out playing with friends today. They go back to school later this week so I want him to make the most of the time. Older son is at NCSU. Dear husband is out of town.
I'm cleaning house - all those things that I haven't gotten to all summer. Okay, I'm making a small start at cleaning all those things.
I just spent fifteen minutes doing research on the internet trying to find out how to get the shower clean. It just gets browner and browner, and nothing I try helps. The internet is no use: "Use your favorite household cleanser..."
I don't have a favorite household cleanser because none of them is any BLEEPING good! Vinegar and baking soda? Doesn't clean the shower. Comet? No. Clorox? No. Tilex? Just streaks. Oh, and of course my asthma LOVES all these things (Of course I open the window. I still get asthma from them). Stupid internet. Stupid people who give useless, NAUSEATINGLY PERKY, cleaning advice on the internet. "Just do this and your shower will be sparkling clean." No, it won't you stupid idiot. I've tried that. More than once. As "green" as I normally am, after years of scrubbing fruitlessly at this shower, I'm ready for the most toxic air-out-the-bathroom-for-a-week cleanser I can get just to get this over with!
On the way back from Asheville yesterday, I was thinking of all the things I needed to clean and straighten. A large part of the problem, for me, is that I get no sense of satisfaction from them. Other women can be really pleased at how clean they get their closets. I clean, say, "Good, that's over with!" and go on to something that I do get a sense of satisfaction from.
I told dear husband and that I'd be better at keeping things like closets clean and organized if I actually found that Ifelt a sense of achievement from doing so. For me, it's all discipline.
Younger son piped up from the back seat, "Mommy, if you were that way, my life would be so boooring!"
I replied, "Then I wouldn't have dragged you to rehearsals all summer." [I don't feel comfortable leaving him home after dark alone yet so he came along when dear husband was out of town - which was most rehearsals.]
He said, "That's great because theater is aaawwwwwesoooome!" [He didn't feel that way at the beginning of the summer. I don't have the change quite thoroughly in my head yet.]
Okay, my shower is discolored, but I'm doing something right!
I've known all summer that today was going to be bad. After having my family around lots all summer, and after being around lots of theater people for weeks, I've known that today, when everything is back to "normal," was going to be like a bucket of cold water in the face. I could either get really depressed about the next few rather lonely days, or I could sing loudly with John Jasper (played by Howard McGillin) in A Man Could Go Quite Mad* from one of my favorite musicals, The Mystery of Edwin Drood:**
I'm going to go sing and finish the stupid bathroom. :P
* I love the way Rupert Holmes puts the words together in this song - lines like:
Unblessed are the dull. One ceaseless, peaceless lull. One wondrous night, Storm-struck thund'rous light Will cast me right
or
A sculptor lacking arms, a sorc'ror lacking charms, A fiend who frightens no one for there's no one that he harms. Whose clutches clutch at only desp'rate respite From this dim tableau!
Sing along with the part in italics - it trips wonderfully off the tongue!***
** The tape of which (you can't get it on CD), I found in daughter's closet when I went in her room to get library books to return.
*** From shower cleaning to how it feels to sing the lines of an obscure song in one post**** - I just can't be normal.
"You can't be your child's friend!" chirped the guest on the morning show - which I was not voluntarily watching. Unfortunately, the tv showing it was right next to the weight machine I was using for my physical therapy.
I looked up at the tv, and, sure enough, they were talking about the article which has been following me around for the last week - on blogs, Facebook, and now even at the gym.
Lori Gottlieb's Atlantic article does have a dramatic title: "How to Land Your Kid in Therapy: Why the obsession with our kids’ happiness may be dooming them to unhappy adulthoods. A therapist and mother reports." I can see why it's gotten peoples' attention, whether deserved or not.*
She writes about how the young adults today that she sees in her therapy practice:
...suffered from depression and anxiety, had difficulty choosing or committing to a satisfying career path, struggled with relationships, and just generally felt a sense of emptiness or lack of purpose.
Rather than the usual bad parenting she has come to expect as a cause, she reports that:
They truly did seem to have caring and loving parents, parents who gave them the freedom to “find themselves” and the encouragement to do anything they wanted in life. Parents who had driven carpools, and helped with homework each night, and intervened when there was a bully at school or a birthday invitation not received, and had gotten them tutors when they struggled in math, and music lessons when they expressed an interest in guitar (but let them quit when they lost that interest), and talked through their feelings when they broke the rules, instead of punishing them (“logical consequences” always stood in for punishment). In short, these were parents who had always been “attuned,” as we therapists like to say, and had made sure to guide my patients through any and all trials and tribulations of childhood.
She writes about the conclusions of a fellow psychiatrist, Paul Bohn:
[He} believes many parents will do anything to avoid having their kids experience even mild discomfort, anxiety, or disappointment—“anything less than pleasant,” as he puts it—with the result that when, as adults, they experience the normal frustrations of life, they think something must be terribly wrong.
She concludes that the parents are too helpful, and this helpfulness has created the current "burgeoning generational narcissism."
Sigh.
There's a quote from an ancient writer - attributed to Socrates/Plato/Aristotle/Cicero/etc., depending on what source you use - which goes:
The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.
Do most people forget what it was like to be a young adult? Certainly theBaby Boomers, the generation of "Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll," can't condemn the current young adults as "narcissistic."** I know my post-boomer generation can't - I remember that we were all very concerned with ourselves and where we were going. For those who have the financial resources, young adulthood is often a time where people "find themselves" and their path in life. Some people, like the ones the author sees in her therapy practice, are using therapy, others still use the time-worn methods of sex and drink, and others find their way academically or religiously. Fewer find their way in these years through family and parenthood than in previous generations, and there are certainly more paths to explore than most eras have allowed. That is nothing new.
I've noticed that most people, along with Socrates, etc. above, think their generation wasn't self-absorbed and that the following generations are.
[This attitude is demonstrated in the musical clip that ends this post]
Another reason that I'm so cynical about her article is that it doesn't sound familiar. The parents who run to school to bring every forgotten item, who call the school when their child doesn't get a part in the play - where are they? More importantly, where do they find the time?! I know enough teachers to have heard that about these types of parents, but are they really all that pervasive? If so, how have I avoided them?
After a while, it feels like people are focusing on the the squeaky wheels - not only by giving them the grease, but by assuming that all wheels are squeaky!
This is an assumption that really irritates me. For obvious reasons,*** I regularly read the blog at The Center for College Affordability and Productivity. The authors keep mentioning, in post after post, how little college students work these days. Having two college students who are working their butts off, it really irritates me that people will tar a whole generation for the failings of a few.
The Atlantic article also goes through a section in the middle about how competition is wrongly discouraged by modern parents. I'm of two minds about that. On the one hand, I can be rather competitive. On the other hand, I think there's far more value in trying hard to do your best all the time - not just when you have someone to compete with. I also think it's also extremely important to step outside your comfort zone and try things that are challenging and where you may fail. I think that too much of an emphasis on winning can keep you from the joy of doing things where you may never excel. I doubt I'll ever have a minor, much less a major, role in theater, but I love being in the chorus, and I work hard to do my best.
She also mentions stories of parents who intervene unnecessarily in their kids social lives. This isn't anything new either. When I was growing up there were always kids whose parents did that.
I wrote this post last week, but it got put on the back burner when rehearsals got busier. Reading a Blogher post, The Ongoing War Against Mothers, made me get it out again. In this post, Lisa Stromberg writes that this Atlantic article should have been named "“Yet Another Way to Blame Mothers for Their Children’s Failures.” She points out that, although the article carefully uses "parents" and "parenting" rather than "mothers" and "mothering," most of the examples used to demonstrate bad parenting have to do with mothers. After mentioning how mothers have been criticized in various ways over the last 17 years since she had her first child, she concludes:
Couldn’t the real problem be rooted in the fact that women in our society just never get a break? That no matter what we do we are criticized? That in our well-intentioned efforts to raise well-adjusted children, we are, yet again, falling short of some elusive ideal?
At one point, the author of the Atlantic article writes that maybe she was over-reacting when her child fell down and she ran to him across the sand.
It's no surprise that she's still over-reacting to young adults trying to find their way in life.
----------------------------
I could end there, but, as always, there's music so I'll leave the last word to Paul Lynde, the father in the 1963 movie, Bye, Bye, Birdie (starting at 1:15)
Kids! I don't know what's wrong with these kids today! Kids, who can understand anything they say? Kids, they are disobedient, disrespectful oafs, Noisy, crazy, sloppy, lazy loafers... Why can't they be like we were, perfect in every way?!*** What's the matter with kids today?!
* Why am I blogging about it? It's a good thing to vent my PMS on. You have a problem with that?!
** Yes, some baby boomers participated in the Civil Rights Movement. It doesn't mean that there wasn't still a lot of self-absorption going on.
*** Two kids in college and a third who is six years away.
*** Younger son just came up behind me and said, "Like he was any better?"
I've cared less and less about writing as the winter and the spring have gone on, and I finally realized why. Was it the fact that we had at least one of us sick constantly from the end of January through Easter? Partly. Was it that, between missing daughter at college, being sad about my father-in-law, and being extremely lonely,* I turned most of my emotions off somewhere in the late winter? Partly. I didn't do it on purpose, and I didn't even realize that I had done it until after daughter got home from college, the emotions came back on, and I ended up crying at random times for an entire week. I think all the emotion from months was pouring out.
Last Friday, I realized another major part of why I haven't cared about writing.
I've always loved our family conversations - ranging over books, movies, politics, and lots and lots of ideas. We had another one of those conversations on Friday evening, but, instead of feeling happy and energized, I ended up feel tired and exhausted after it - even rather cranky. Why?!
I realized that, what with my recently greatly diminished conversational life, I've grown unused to having to put my thoughts about ideas into words.
I'll back up. Daughter said, quite a while ago, that she doesn't read my blog because I've already mentioned the ideas at the dinner table. In fact, I've always considered that any given day to be a failure - not if the house isn't cleaned or dinner is late - but if I don't have any new ideas, insights, or observations to bring up at dinner. Because of the way this winter and spring went, I totally got out of the habit of doing that. When he's out of town, my phone conversations with dear husband are usually late at night. We're both tired so they tend to be more a rundown of what went on during the day than like idea-filled dinner conversations.** If older son is tired, as he was for most of the semester, I don't ramble on at him at dinner. Younger son shouldn't be the only conversational outlet for me so I don't ramble on at him either.
Over the last few months, I've gotten more and more used to keeping my ideas to myself and not expressing them. Last Friday evening, I found that I was having a difficult time putting my ideas into words. I was totally out of the habit. I had gotten used to living inside my head.
So much for blogging.
It's not that I was totally isolated the first part of this year. We got out and had chats with people. Small talk, however, doesn't do the same thing for me as idea talk, and it doesn't come from the same place. I know that there are lots of people who don't want to get into ideas and prefer small talk so I'm careful not to impose my conversational style on them.
[Mini rant warning here]
I've read a number of places lately where introverts are criticized for not engaging in small talk, or for not liking it. This really ticks me off. I can do small talk and enjoy it, and I know when it's appropriate or expected. Sometimes it leads to deeper conversations, but most of the time it doesn't.
However, a constant diet of small talk without ever getting to other kinds of conversations eventually seems like constant foreplay without ever... coming to fruition. Don't get me wrong, foreplay is wonderful. Particularly in the right hands.*** Really, I find it much more... engaging than small talk so it's not the best comparison. I know that some people are most comfortable with small talk, and that's fine - as long as they're not self-righteous about it being the best kind of conversation. Because, for some of us, a constant diet of nothing but small talk is the equivalent of conversational blue balls.
[End of mini rant]
[Note: If you know me in person - THE PREVIOUS RANT DOES NOT MEAN THAT EVERY CONVERSATION I HAVE HAS TO BE DEEPLY PROFOUND. I'm talking about the impact that overall trends have had on me - not each individual conversation. If I usually have more casual conversations with you, that's fine!! It's not the small talk that irritates me - it's the people who are self righteous about small talk.][You know, I don't know many other bloggers who put caveats like this in so TAKE THEM SERIOUSLY!}
People who don't like small talk are often accused of "not caring about other people." Really? Because I'd rather discuss something we're both passionately interested about rather than discussing the weather?!
Actually, that's a bad analogy too. As a gardener, hiker, photographer, sunlight-lover, and general person-who-hungers-to-be-outdoors-but-gets-woozy-when-it's-too-hot-but-overdoes-it-anyway,*** the weather is a fairly significant thing for me. It often determines my mood.
I didn't totally get away from writing this winter/spring. I have a number of really angry posts that I never put on my blog. It seemed to be about the only thing I had the energy to write for a while.
In March, I wrote about not wanting to spend much time on the computer because it's in a morning-shady room. A few of the comments got me to thinking and... I now have a cute little blue Toshiba netbook. I decided to buy it this spring because I really didn't want to spend any more time inside than possible. The rare times I felt like writing conflicted with sunshine, and the sunshine won.
The first half of this post was written on the front porch on the netbook while enjoying the breeze and listening to the birds. I can't write for too long on it. It's got one of the largest netbook keyboards (part of why I got this one), but, even so, I can't write for more than about 20 minutes. Maybe I'll get more used to it as time goes on.
I don't like navigating on the netbook (touch pad instead of the mouse and differently placed keys) so I actually do more writing when I'm writing on it that on the desktop computer because I don't get tempted to check Facebook or the news. I don't even edit while I write - I leave that for later on the big computer.
I'm hoping it will help me write more.
*The loneliness was due to a variety of things. Dear husband traveled a lot. Because younger son and I were sick a good bit of the time, we were stuck at home. Older son had his busiest semester so far so, even though he lives at home, we just saw him for about half an hour at dinner. The theater dance class at my longtime dance studio was cancelled so, although I did start a class at another studio, I didn't know anybody there. I also missed the people at the former studio - not only fellow classmates but the other parents that I got to know over the years that daughter took classes there. I could hang around and chat for a while with them after my class was over. Also, between being sick and general busy-ness of life, both for me and for friends, I didn't see much of them either.
What with daughter being home, older son having more time, summer musical rehearsals, and friends being more available and outside more, the last month has been dramatically different than the rest of the year. The only drawback is still dear husband's travel.
** You know those articles about how seldom families eat dinner together - that only happens with us because we're in different cities. If we have rehearsals or classes until 9:30 pm, dinner can occasionally be really late, but we make it a point to eat dinner together as often as we can - lunch too, if that's possible.
*** That sentence was dear husband's when I talked to him about this.
**** My current motto, given the unusually hot weather the last few weeks (mid to upper 90's - too hot for June!) is "Garden 'till you pass out." I finally got the last of the annuals planted yesterday. Now I just have to keep them alive.
[Totally irrelevant photo from the Wilmington, NC waterfront - from a post which I never got around to putting together.]
We've been to a number of aquariums including the ones in Boston, Baltimore, Camden, and Charleston, and we've enjoyed them all. I'm a sucker for sea turtles, puffer fish, sharks, and lobsters. We've been to two out of the three NC Aquariums, and I'm still trying to find time to go to the one at Roanoke Island - particularly since that's the one with the river otters.
One friend recently mentioned on Facebook that she's been told that the NC Aquariums aren't that great. I don't argue on friends' Facebook walls, but I couldn't totally let that pass. Over the years, we've had lots of fun at the NC Aquariums - starting back in the early 80's when the one near Atlantic Beach was just a large room with small tanks around the walls and a touch pool in the center. It's lots larger now.
I'll admit, the NC Aquariums aren't as big as some of the large northern aquariums, and they focus on North Carolina aquatic life rather than more exotic species (although they do have some of the exotic aquatic species). That actually makes them seem more personal to me.
We spent last weekend in the Carolina Beach/Wilmington, NC area. The Aquarium at Fort Fisher is relatively uncrowded on a Sunday morning:
You're greeted at the entrance. This is how I feel when people criticize our aquariums. ;)
I love the way this exhibit is put together.
The salamanders are so cute.
Luna, their albino alligator, is sitting under a heat lamp. In the wild, albino alligators don't survive long because they have no protection from the sun and they don't have camouflage (more about albino alligators here).
The bobwhite quail run around freely outside Luna's enclosure.
The Eastern box turtle wanders around his area - behind a low wall. The creatures don't feel as distant as they can in the larger aquariums.
I haven't mastered taking pictures through glass yet. This alligator was right up next to the glass. In this section of the aquarium, just about all of the exhibits go down almost to the ground. Overall, I'd say at least 2/3 of the exhibits can be viewed by a mobile toddler or preschooler. Both of the times we went to the Baltimore aquarium (a must-see if you like aquariums) we had a preschooler. A large number of the exhibits are at older kid/adult height, which meant that my arms were about to fall off by the time we were done. If you have a child who likes to talk about each fish, name them, and discuss their families, an aquarium where the child can do this on their own two feet is a wonderful experience.
Now, of course, all three kids are taller than I am so this hasn't been an issue for years. I did have some difficulty this time because, to get some of the photos I wanted, like this one, I had to do a lot of squatting. On its own, that wouldn't have been a problem. However, after also playing for a long time in the ocean the day before and going to Broadway dance yesterday evening, my good knee wasn't happy today!
Sea turtle
Puffer fish
One sea turtle came out (older son took this one).
Before I clicked over to read it, I expected it to tell me that I could finally get rid of my Walkman. (Though someone please explain to me what I'm supposed to do with all of my audio cassettes of mixes I made by taping stuff off the radio. I can't get 1986's "Eat Me I'm a Danish" on iTunes.) But instead of hearing I should toss my '80s technology, I was encouraged to get rid of my desktop computer, point-and-shoot camera, and that USB thumb drive that is currently in my pocket. And my first thought was, you'll have to pry them out of my cold, dead, luddite hands...
I like her.
I don't use my Walkman any more, although it is still in a desk somewhere. I use the tapes all the time, though. I'm not dumping around 200 tapes worth of music! 200 tapes times about 20 songs per tape equals 4000 songs arranged in the order I want them in. I'm not doing all that work over again!
Here's my response to the NYT article (quotes in italics):
DESKTOP COMPUTER Lose it. You may have one now, but are you really going to replace that deskbound PC when it becomes out of date?...
Yes.
...Assuming you are not a hardcore gamer or a video editor, laptops have all the necessary computing power the average user needs. If you want to replicate that desktop experience, you can always connect your laptop to a larger display and keyboard.
...and a mouse, in which case, why not just keep the desktop?*
CABLE TV Depends...
Except when younger son is sick, we watch very little cable besides Glee and the weather. I hate watching things on the computer, though, so that's not a viable alternative. The comfy chairs are in the living room.
POINT-AND-SHOOT CAMERA Lose it. Yes, a dedicated camera will probably take a better picture than the small lens and image sensor of a smartphone, but it will not be that much better...
My cellphone takes cruddy photos. Even though my Canon point-and-shoot isn't as powerful as my Canon DSLR, I can still make all sorts of adjustments on it. I never use the automatic setting.
...It is hard to share photos until you have transferred them to your computer...
...which is a good idea because at least then you'll (hopefully) notice that your photo NEEDS TO BE ROTATED 90 DEGREES!
I've stopped turning my head sideways to look at people's unrotated Facebook photos. I also "share" less than 1% of my photos on Facebook (I throw out lots of photos, and I'm not inundating my Facebook friends with photos)(that's what blogs are for :)
[Irrelevant Duke Gardens photo at the top]
Perhaps most important, a camera may or may not be close by when a photo-worthy moment arises, but it's very likely that your phone will.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. The camera goes almost everywhere. The phone only goes with me when I'm driving or when I'm expecting a call from older son, daughter or dear husband. It gets left in the car at gardens, museums, hikes, etc. It is a depressing and lonely thing to be my cell phone.
CAMCORDER Lose it.
Never had one. My kids will forever be deprived of video recordings of their lives.
USB THUMB DRIVE Lose it.
Have one. Rarely use it except to move photos between computers.
DIGITAL MUSIC PLAYER Lose it (probably). Do you have a smartphone? Then you have a music player...
I have a really stupid (and cheap, which is the major point) phone. No player.
I'm of two minds with the mp3 player. I put lots of music on it, about 1/3 of our cd collection, when I first got it because I had just had knee surgery and was told to rest a lot. I never got back to adding the other 2/3 of our cd collection, however. I keep intending to, but there are just too many more interesting things to do.
When I was doing lots of physical therapy, I found the mp3 player helped a lot. I also like to use it on walks on rainy days. Now that I'm doing zumba and Jazzercise, however, I don't need to bring my own workout music. It is great for recording voice lessons.
...Apple popularized the music player with its iPod, but when was the last time you saw that iconic white box with the dial on the front?...
This morning at Jazzercise. Instructors use them for the music playlists for their classes.
...Music is data, and many multifunction devices can handle it along with many other kinds of data (like video, e-mail and apps)...
I chose my mp3 player because the sound and fidelity were rated the highest of all (affordable) mp3 players. Even at that, I can tell the difference between the mp3 player sound and the sound from the original cds. I don't listen to the mp3 player in the car any more because of that, and I would never get a docking port to listen at home where I have a real stereo.
ALARM CLOCK Keep it.
Of course. I've had the same one for years. It has a dial for choosing radio stations.
But a recent daylight time glitch in iPhones that fouled up the clock could give some early risers pause.
That's what happens when you depend on others to set your clock.
GPS UNIT Lose it.
Don't have one. Won't have one. I can read maps just fine.
BOOKS Keep them (with one exception). Yes, e-readers are amazing, and yes, they will probably become a more dominant reading platform over time, but consider this about a book: It has a terrific, high-resolution display. It is pretty durable; you could get it a little wet and all would not be lost. It has tremendous battery life. It is often inexpensive enough that, if you misplaced it, you would not be too upset. You can even borrow them free at sites called libraries.
I quoted the whole thing because it made me happy. I may get an e-reader someday when my eyes are really bad and I can't read regular books anymore.
If you think our cd and tape collection are large, you should see our book collection! I make up for that with my limited clothes and makeup collection.
* The portability of a laptop is irrelevant. Like many long-time aerobics instructors, I occasionally have shoulder problems. I try to keep my purse as light as possible, and I would not carry around a laptop.
The only reason I'd want one is so that I could sit in a sunny room in the mornings when I'm on the computer (the desktop is next to a west facing window and doesn't get sun until the afternoon). Occasionally, I consider getting a used, cheap laptop for morning e-mails, Facebook, news, and library renewals, but, really, it would be a self-indulgent use of money. Besides, wanting to go into a sunny room gets me off the computer in the mornings!
Before I injured my knee, two and a half years ago, I used to do aerobics on Saturday mornings, and I came home all full of energy. That happened any time I taught, or took, and aerobics class. Even during the dreariest, rainy weeks, aerobics would make me feel upbeat and energetic.
Musical theater does the same, but that's only in the summer so I haven't had a wintertime energy boost for the last three winters.
I've been able to get back to really exercising again in the last two months (after pulling a tendon in my knee last summer), but I hadn't found anything that really worked. Zumba music is too fast, which makes the steps too small, and I end up spending the whole time holding back so that I don't hurt my knee. I also don't like Spanish music enough to listen to it for an hour. The aerobics classes which made me decide to join the particular health club I'm at were cancelled last fall. I get bored out of my skull doing the elliptical or the bike for 45 minutes - and that's not enough variety.
I decided to try jazzercise this week. I used to do it at the health club I went to when younger son (12 years old last Monday), was a baby and toddler.
I'm enjoying it (although I still miss the large moves and the choreographic variety in hi-low classes). I get my heart rate up, the moves are larger than Zumba, and the music is great.
[An aside: Music matters a lot to me, and I've reached the point in my life where I'm not apologetic about that anymore. I was in the Catholic Church for 20 years, with boring pop-folk hymns, and musicians counseled each other to "offer it up" in prayer ("it" being the boredom of having to listen to that kind of music over and over). 20 years of the music being a penance to listen to. I'd find it very difficult to return for that reason. As much as I love other things about the Catholic Church, and as un-Episcopalian as I am in many ways, I'm enjoying the choir and the music so much at our church! I'm not going anywhere.]
The instructor at jazzercise today invited us to sing along with the music during Bulletproof, by LaRoux, which daughter recently introduced us to (official video here):
The instructor kept encouraging us to sing along with the music, and I was so happy to sing with In These Shoes, by Kirsty MacColl, which my sister introduced me to years ago (Previous Kirsty MacColl post here):
I didn't know all the songs, though some were by Christina Aguilera and Maroon 5. It's also been a long time since an exercise has introduced me to a new song & singer that I really enjoy. I loved this new (for me) song by Michael Franti and Spearhead (it somehow taps into my folk side), The Sound of Sunshine:
But, the problem I had when I got home was What to do?
I'm not used to feeling this good and energetic anymore!
Except - two weeks ago, daughter and I went to take a Zumba class. Due to a mixup, the instructor didn't show up. Some of the regulars at the class (which I've only taken twice), were trying to lead the class with moves they remembered, but no music. When they started running out of ideas, I mentioned that I used to teach hi-low aerobics until I injured my knee. Would they like me to teach a short class with whatever music I happened to have in the van?
They did. :)
After 2 1/2 years of not teaching, I taught a half hour class, and had a ball! I slipped back into it in a moment. Afterward, I just kept smiling and bouncing around for half the day. Daughter said that she hadn't seen me that happy in a long time.
For 2 1/2 years, I've been thinking that that was it. Maybe it was time to be done. I wasn't teaching anymore.
Now, I have to get back into cardio shape and find a place to teach!
I got home this morning after the class, and, after I took a shower, I couldn't figure out what to do. I didn't want to waste this kind of energy on dishes or straightening the closet. I thought I'd try blogging - which I've gotten very far away from in the last month. I was starting to think that maybe I was done blogging.
...besides the name, the price, and the fact that I don't want something else to carry around.
Time Magazine recently had two laudatory articles about the the iPad. In The iPad Launch: Can Steve Jobs Do It Again? Stephen Fry writes about his meetings with various Apple bigwigs including Steve Jobs. Finally, a few paragraphs from the end of the article, he gets to try an iPad:
...After he leaves, I am finally left alone with an iPad. Finally I get
some finger time. I peep under the slip holder, and there it is. When I
switch it on, a little sigh escapes me as the screen lights up. Ten
minutes later I am rolling on the floor, snarling and biting, trying to
wrestle it from the hands of an Apple press representative.
That is not strictly true, but giving up the iPad felt a little like
that. I had been prepared for a smooth feel, for a bright screen and the
"immersive" experience everyone had promised. I was not prepared,
though, for how instant the relationship I formed with the device would
be. I left Cupertino without an iPad, but I have since gotten my own,
and it goes with me everywhere...
Earlier in the article, he explains:
...The iPad does perform tasks — it runs apps and has the calendar,
e-mail, Web browsing, office productivity, audio, video and gaming
capabilities you would expect of any such device — yet when I eventually
got my hands on one, I discovered that one doesn't relate to it as a
"tool"; the experience is closer to one's relationship with a person or
an animal.
I know how weird that sounds. But consider for a moment. We are human
beings; our first responses to anything are dominated not by
calculations but by feelings. What Ive and his team understand is that
if you have an object in your pocket or hand for hours every day, then
your relationship with it is profound, human and emotional. Apple's
success has been founded on consumer products that address this side of
us: their products make users smile as they reach forward to manipulate,
touch, fondle, slide, tweak, pinch, prod and stroke..
Stephen Fry is a writer, actor (recently the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland), and broadcaster, and his article is very entertaining - I recommend reading all of it. I kept irritating everyone by reading parts of it out loud.
What can I compare this to? I don't really have relationships with objects in my pocket or purse. I tolerate my cell phone, but it still takes me so long to realize that it's ringing that, by the time I get it out of my purse, it's stopped. I enjoy listening to my mp3 player while I do weights, etc. at my physical therapy, or when taking walks on gloomy days, but I pretty quickly restricted my uses to those times. I don't want it to get in the way of listening to birds on a beautiful spring morning.
That's my problem with being constantly "connected." To what? I enjoy the internet, and I use it at certain specific times of day. The rest of the time, I don't want to be distracted from what I'm really connected to - whether that's a friendly cat,* an actual physical book where I can flip back a few pages if I need to, the people around me (whether I know them or not. People watching is quite interesting), nature, or whatever else is going on around me. Even while doing physical therapy (at the sports medicine clinic) while listening to music, I'm always watching what the other people are doing - What have they injured? What exercises are helping? What activity are they trying to get back to?
One other use that I've found for my mp3 player is recording - rehearsals or voice lessons. That's actually something that makes me feel a little more connected to my mp3 player because I'm, very vaguely, making something to use later.
That brings me to what may be the biggest reason for me not to ever get an iPad.** In another, generally laudatory, Time article, Do We Need the iPad? A TIME Review, Lev Grossman concludes:
...If I have a beef with the iPad, it's that while it's a lovely device for
consuming content, it doesn't do much to facilitate its creation. The
computer is the greatest all-purpose creativity tool since the pen. It
put a music studio, a movie studio, a darkroom and a publishing house on
everybody's desk. The iPad shifts the emphasis from creating content to
merely absorbing and manipulating it. It mutes you, turns you back into
a passive consumer of other people's masterpieces. In that sense, it's a
step backward. Not much of a fairy-tale ending. Except for the people
who are selling content.
If my computer crashed, although there are many practical things I'd lose, the things I'd miss the most are things I'd written, the photos I'd taken, the pictures my kids have made, and the saved letters and interactions with relatives and friends. For me, creativity and the interactions are the most important things that the computer "provides." An iPad isn't going to help with that. Besides, do you know how many CDs you could buy for the price of an iPad?
* An adorable, and extremely friendly, calico cat was visiting us this evening. We'd never seen her before.
** Small i, large P. I've had to go back and retype that every time.
[Note: The photo is of camellia flowers on a front walk in Charleston, SC. That was a useful place for my cell phone because it's the first time, on vacation in a city (rather than a town), where daughter wandered off on her own. We could use the cell phone to arrange where to meet, which meant that I actually put the phone in my pocket rather than at the bottom of my purse.]
[Note: By the way, don't click on "the name" at the beginning of the post. It's in questionable taste.]