Gymno

2008-10-06T11:02:00.000-04:00

Where's a Harvard-educated economist when you need him?

The Obama campaign has put out this website, highlighting the role McCain played in the savings and loan scandal of the 80s and 90s. It seems pretty damning to me:

John McCain was accused of improperly aiding his political patron, Charles
Keating, chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. The bipartisan
Senate Ethics Committee launched investigations and formally reprimanded Senator
McCain for his role in the scandal
...
McCain intervened on behalf of Charles Keating with federal regulators tasked with preventing banking fraud, and championed legislation to delay regulation of the savings and loan industry

But I also realize that it's paid for by the Obama for president campaign (they're making the argument that McCain made bad economic decisions back then, and can't be trusted to make any better ones now), so it ain't exactly an objective take on things. Anyone want to provide an alternative source or interpretation of events?

2008-10-05T01:32:00.000-04:00

Book update
(sorry, finally submitted a fellowship app, so playing catch-up on ye olde blog now that I got part of my brain back)

I finally finished Watchmen (it took me shamefully long to plow through a couple hundred pages of excellent, haunting, troubling, challenging story). Despite high expectations, it managed to live up to hype. If you're the type to be scared off by graphic novels, get over it, and read Watchmen. Hurry, before the movie comes out and ruins it!

I have managed to start In the Name of the Rose, but clearly won't be able to finish it in time. Nevertheless, I'm headed to the Eco lecture tomorrow and Tuesday.

And in response to one of the books a little further down on my To Read list, Reyn sent me this, which is a nice summary of the kind of argument I am (hopefully) no longer susceptible to.

2008-10-05T01:05:00.000-04:00

Time for the weekly crazy cat lady update!

We're now two weeks out from the shaving. If I could, I'd keep her this length permanently. She hardly sheds, and the fur on her body is long enough to be soft, but still short enough to make her look hilarious (hey, she's here for my amusement, right?). My favorite part is that the combo of short body hair and long front paw hair makes her look like a bull dog - whenever she climbs stairs she looks like she has these over-sized, out-turned front legs.

Here she is looking all tiny (and still a bit bat-like) sitting in my window:
And here's a closer look at how long her fur has grown in just two weeks!

2008-10-05T00:57:00.000-04:00

A commenter over at Zuska offers up a much more coherent version of what I was trying to say back here.

You need to be willing to do the unspoken emotional work and social barometer-reading that our culture expects women to do. If you are paying attention to the object of your affections as a person, and reading and responding to her with unfeigned respect for her feelings, you're already most of the way to avoiding the jerk trap.

I also hadn't thought this deeply about compliments that really make me feel good, but I love this rule of thumb:

Learn the different levels of compliments:

Things that are not intrinsic to her person, and that she has control over are safest: "That's a great haircut."

Things that are intrinsic to her and she has no control over need to wait until you've established that your attentions are welcome: "You have incredible eyes."

I don't know that I necessarily need them as different levels of familiarity, but, at least in my case, compliments regarding something I make a conscious decision about are way, way more flattering.

2008-09-26T16:31:00.000-04:00

Bald kitty update - one week later

From some angles you can hardly tell

Though still funny-looking, at least she looks less like an alien

2008-09-24T13:10:00.001-04:00

I miss the West Wing

I know it's ridiculous and preaching to the choir and idealistic and exaggerated, but damnit, with a socio-political climate like this one, some days I just need to wrap myself up in Aaron Sorkin's world. The other side has Fox News, I have WW (even if the first link is via Dowd).

One in five children live in the most abject, dangerous, hopeless, backbreaking, gut wrenching, poverty, one in five, and they're children. If fidelity to freedom and democracy is the code of our civic religion then surely, the code of our humanity is faithful service to that unwritten commandment that says 'We shall give our children better than we ourselves had.' I voted against the bill 'cause I didn't want it to be hard for people to buy milk. I stopped some money from flowing into your pocket. If that angers you, if you resent me, I completely respect that. But if you expect anything different from the President of the United States, I suggest you vote for somebody else.

2008-09-24T12:21:00.000-04:00

This point can't be made strongly enough. People are constantly questioning just how much influence a president really has on an individual's daily life. Certainly, the answer to that question depends very much on the person, but in general, a president has numerous opportunities to make decisions that may greatly affect you.

Not included here, but one of my key points in an election cycle, is that a president also gets to nominate supreme court justices. Supreme court decisions have the potential to shape your life for decades. It does matter who the president is. It should matter to you.

2008-09-21T23:36:00.000-04:00

Hey, I know that guy!

So I went to high school with a guy named Conor Knighton (he graduated the year after me). He was a talented kid in high school, and I knew he made a blink-and-you'll-miss-him appearance in this episode of Gilmore Girls, and hosted 'Google Current,' but I didn't get whatever cable channel that was on, so that was the extent of my knowledge. But he was invited back this spring to give the commencement address at our high school (GW always asks an alum to do the honors, which is why Jennifer Gardner gave the speech at my graduation) and Mom just recently passed the news story on to me, so I was nosing around on teh internets and am now sort of in love with InfoMania. It's kind of a The Soup or The Best Week Ever for a mishmash of pop culture and politics and technology news and I guess whatever else is entertaining the writers that week. Conor is clearly channeling Joel McHale, and while he isn't quite as awesome, it's a good goal to set. If you're a feministing reader you've probably already seen Sarah Haskins do her "Target Women" bit, which is pretty much always the highlight of InfoMania. Anyway, apparently hosting InfoMania gets you gigs on the Chelsea Lately Show and Showbiz Tonight. Way to go Conor!

2008-09-20T13:35:00.000-04:00

Book Agenda

So much reading to do and so little time! I only have a few chapters left in The Watchmen. It's an amazingly written and drawn story, and I'm really enjoying it, but it's also incredibly upsetting and dark, so it's been somewhat slow going. But at least I'll easily wrap that up before the movie, if it ever comes out. Then I need to hurry up and plow through The Name of the Rose, in like, 3 weeks (a daunting task) before Umberto Eco gives a three day lecture series on campus (I love my university!). I'm guessing after that I'll need a palate cleanser in the form of some Kathy Reichs or maybe the next Wrinkle In Time book. Then I promised some friends I would finally tackle Atlas Shrugged. I put it off for a long time because I'm a sucker for a strong rhetorical argument, and I worried that if I read it before feeling like my own thoughts about the world were fully formed, I would be an easy target for manipulation. Not to say I expect my thoughts about the world to remain unchanged forever, just that now I would feel more comfortable that changing my mind in response to a strong argument was a legitimate weighing of the pros and cons of a debate rather than my early 20s brain still being formed and me being easily manipulated.

And that's not even touching on the stack of magazines I have backlogged by my bed. I only subscribe to two (Mother Jones and Ms.) but neither is the kind of magainze you can lazily flip through on a Sunday afternoon.

2008-09-20T12:14:00.000-04:00

Bald Kitty

So I'm a bad pet momma and ended up having to get my cat shaved. Actually, it's not totally my fault. I mean, it is, but it's also somewhat inevitable. Cleo is a mix of who knows how many types of cats, but there's got to be some persian in there, because she has this beautiful, bushy coat. Well, most of the time it's beautiful. Every summer it's a battle against tangles, and with me out of town for about three weeks this summer she turned into a totally dreadlocked kitty. So I finally had the vet shave her down yesterday. Now she looks like a weird cross between a bobble-head and a bat.

2008-09-19T20:35:00.000-04:00

Ouch.

Facebook just suggested Duncan as a friend I may know. Thanks for kicking me in the gut facebook.

2008-09-17T18:15:00.001-04:00

Dude. I totally wish I were named Buster Taint Palin. Find your Palin name here!

2008-09-14T02:48:00.001-04:00

A post that I will surely regret in the morning

Went out with a couple of female friends tonight. Received (of course) both wanted and unwanted attention from the opposite sex. One guy in particular was quite...dedicated. Not especially creepy or threatening, but definitely beyond the bounds of friendly or desired and certainly missing some pretty universal social signals. On the walk from the bar to the car one of the bar tenders happened to be leaving as well, and commented on how patient the three of us ladies were, in reference to this particular man. We thanked him, said good night, and continued on our way. In the process, we commented on how 'being patient' was really just part of the job description of being female and out at a bar on a Saturday night. Accepting unwanted attention seems to be par for the course for every female I know, and accepting it, and passing it off, with grace and compassion seems to be a skill worth acquiring. It really bothers me that it wasn't even a blip on the radar for any of us that we had to deflect this socially awkward and inappropriate attention. It bothers me more to know that I am partly to blame for it - I am quick to assume that someone is awkward rather than mal-intentioned. But regardless of the motivation behind the action, people who behave in socially unacceptable ways should be told so. Perhaps in forgiving and compassionate ways, but nevertheless, it should be suggested that they modify their behavior. Why should we (women) always be the accommodating ones? Why should it be my job, why should I acquire the skill, of gracefully deflecting and dodging some over-attentive guy at the bar when really I just went out to spend some time with my friends? Why is it assumed that I'm flattered that you sat down and want to know my name? And you know what? Now matter how clever and funny you think you are, and I pretend you are, suggesting that flashing my breasts will 'earn' me french fries is offensive. So fuck you. I should have said so to your face tonight.

2008-09-13T17:30:00.000-04:00

What a difference a few hours makes!

Woo-hoo! Not only did I manage to think Big Thoughts about my dissertation, but I actually got that excited feeling about it again! You see, here's the thing. One of my questions involves comparing a traditional method to a new-ish method, to see how they each perform under a range of reasonable conditions. The new-ish method is becoming kind of trendy, and more and more people are using it, without necessarily fully understanding what it's doing and/or what its limitations are. So my comparison is actually really interesting, and, potentially, quite the contribution to the field (if I do say so myself). But I've spent that past month bogged down in getting my simulations to run, and then going blind transcribing the results of the simulations into tables, and then blinder trying to figure out how to organize the tables to look for any kind of pattern that might tell a story about the performance of the two methods. And none of that is really all that fun or interesting. And I had been putting off stepping back and looking at the whole thing for fear that it would just implode and I would discover that either a) my simulations were giving me nonsensical results, and I had made some fatal coding error somewhere (hello imposter syndrome!) or b) that there simply wasn't a nice coherent story to tell (there still may not be). But lo and behold, I finally did suck it up this afternoon and take that step back, and I do see something, and it's not only interesting but exciting! I could jump up and down and do the happy dance!

Just as I was telling AWB the other night - grad school is really just veering between feeling totally on top of things and sheer panic.

2008-09-13T14:21:00.000-04:00

I'm supposed to be doing something!

but motivation is at an all-time low. Last week I blamed it on being all pms-y and hormonal, this week it was a particularly grueling therapy session that left me weepy for a day. But eventually I have to suck it up and just get shit done. Today is supposed to be that day. The morning started out promising, churning out a good two hours or so of prep for my class next week. But now it's time to change gears to dissertation mode and I'm seriously incapable of focusing. I'm slowly coming to the realization that I'm burning out on my topic, which is nearly good timing, as burn out is a pretty good motivator to finish the fuck up, but I need to eek out a bit more work to cross that finish line. And thinking Big Thoughts lately has been a painfully slow process. And my usual methods just aren't cutting it - stepping back for a day or two to come back with a fresh look at the problem, hitting the gym regularly - none seem to be sweeping the detritus from my brain. And when I think about actually getting all this done by xmas I get a sick fluttery feeling in my chest.

2008-09-03T21:04:00.001-04:00

Wedding update!

Thanks to the peanut gallery for all the kind words and encouragement. I did decide to splurge and buy my ridiculous dress, and I love it! It makes me very happy. Also, it turns out that in a remarkable moment of insight and consideration for his guests, my brother decided to go with a different DC hotel, one on the metro line, instead of the Four Seasons. Awesome. Things are looking up.

Books!

Finished: I wrapped up Shut Up, I'm Talking, and it's awesome. It's also frustrating and a bit disheartening, but mostly just amusing. My plan is to loan it out to all my Jewish friends, in particular my new friend who works at the Israeli consulate here to find out if this Gregory Levey is full of shit or not.

Purchased: A dear friend gave me a bookstore gift certificate, so I picked up A Wrinkle in Time and Without You (and indulged in the latest Jason Mraz, because I'm a sucker for that new single). So over the long weekend I apparently turned into an 11 year old child who stayed up too late reading (not quite under my covers with a flashlight, but close).

Started: The Watchmen. Too early to tell, but it's so highly recommended by people I trust, I can't imagine I won't love it.

So back to A Wrinkle in Time. It's kind of like Neal Stephenson or The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - A Wrinkle in Time has nerd cred. But I can remember picking it up as a child and really not liking it at all. Which sort of breaks my heart now that I've read it, because although I thoroughly enjoyed it this time around, it's just the sort of book I needed in my adolescence. And the fact that I didn't like it sort of makes me wonder if current me would even like teenage me very much. And then I started thinking about books that I do have an emotional attachment to from my youth, and most of those are from before adolescence (the Anne and Emily books, No Flying In the House). My teenage years were a literary wasteland, until I started fixating on end of the world books sometime in high school (Alas, Babylon, The White Plague, Malevil, Lucifer's Hammer) all of which I enjoyed, but none of which strummed anything important or meaningful inside me. I didn't even read Lord of the Rings until college. I feel like I missed out on that heady adolescent time when you're all emotional and latch on to stories and make them a part of you. Who was I from around 12 to 16 or so?

2008-09-02T10:27:00.000-04:00

Lots of people are calling out the McCain campaign on their use of choice language regarding Palin's grandkid. Frankly, what offends me more is the language of privacy:

"We ask the media, respect our daughter and Levi's privacy..." (from the NYTimes)

"The final decision would be made by Meghan with our advice and counsel," McCain said, referring to himself and his wife, Cindy. When reporters suggested that this view made him, in fact, pro-choice, McCain became irritated. "I don't think it is the pro-choice position to say that my daughter and my wife and I will discuss something that is a family matter that we have to decide." (a quote from the 2000 primary, via feministing)

So, wait, for you and people related to you it's a private, family decision but the rest of those stupid women throughout the country need your legislative help because they can't possibly decide what's best for them and their family? And forget privacy, we need to crack open those medical records to make sure they aren't making the wrong decision?!

I seriously wish some journalist would do his/her job and ask about this. Here, I'll even help you out:

Senator McCain - Why do you believe that your vice presidential candidate and, hypothetically, your own daughter, are entitled to privacy and personal decision making when it comes to bringing people into this world, yet you seek to deny this same right to millions of Americans?

It's Tuesday morning and I'm cranky.

2008-08-30T23:45:00.000-04:00

All Day in Decatur!

This weekend is the Decatur Book Festival and I spent 12+ hours indulging in geeking out. First, this morning, I saw Kathy Reichs (and daughter Kerry). Kathy is the forensic anthropologist inspiration for the tv show Bones (based on Reichs's novels). (I was going to link to her website, but it's unbearable. please, someone, redesign with fewer crazy animations!) The two were cute together, and I am further motivated to hunt down Reichs's books in the library.

I spent the rest of the morning/early afternoon hunkered down in a coffee shop getting work done (and trying on dresses. see previous post). Around 2 it was time for "Angels, Fireflies... and Buffy. Writing (About) Good TV" featuring Rhonda Wilcox, one of the editors of Slayage, an online, peer reviewed journal of 'Buffy studies.' Seriously. Although I have to admit that even as a fan, it's hard to take the show that seriously, Wilcox did present a fairly impressive treatment of the episodes where Buffy initially has sex with Angel as a commentary on the kind of 'punishment' certain segments of society want to see meted out to sexually active, unmarried teenagers (and Whedon's lovely feminist-y response to all of that). And the whole Angel turning into Angelus thing as the ultimate representation of the guy who never calls the next morning. Wilcox also makes a valid point that sci-fi/fantasy novels, movies, and tv shows are as much 'about something' as any other genre, but that as soon as vampires or elves or whatever get involved it suddenly stops being legitimate to interpret any other themes that might be present.

Next was Raul Benoit, a journalist who reported on drug cartels and their attempts to infiltrate 'legitimate' government in Columbia and the civil war there, including the role the U.S. has played, which includes trained assassins, some of whom he identifies by name in his book. After surviving two attempts on his life, Benoit eventually had to leave Columbia. His presentation was powerful and moving.

I spent another afternoon interlude making good on my promise to pick up a copy of The Watchmen and meeting up with a couple of friends. The female half of the couple headed off to hear John Dean outline all the ways our government is broken while the male half and I sat through the socially awkward, nerdy duo of Sidney Perkowitz and J.P. Telotte. Neither are the most dynamic of speakers, but their topics of science in science fiction and the current plethora of sci-fi tv shows was attention-holding enough.

We wrapped up the day with dinner at Raging Burrito, where we met another new faculty member. Dinner turned into lovely lingering conversation over drinks, rambling across topics in engineering, education, public health, history, travel, languages, politics, pets, food, and everything in between. The long dinner means I'll have to settle for the work I got done this afternoon and postpone editing my midterm until tomorrow, but that seems like a fair trade for good food and good company.

2008-08-30T23:17:00.001-04:00

The Dress

So I figure I should (responsibly) go one of three ways with this whole I-need-a-dress-for-my-stupid-brother's-stupid-wedding thing. 1) borrow something from a friend (I've had one or two generous offers) 2) buy something cheap but passable at loehman's or similar 3) shell out the bucks for something genuinely nice that will be a useful addition to my 'grown-up' wardrobe. Not that I'm planning to need a ballgown again or anything, but a classic, elegant dress could come in handy once or twice a year, and if I'm clever about the 'classic' part I can wear it for years. Except.

Except today I spent all day (literally) in Decatur (more on that in another post) and decided to pop in to one of my favorite boutiques to try to start getting excited about this whole buying a dress thing. I generally can't afford things at this store, but occasionally find something on sale or something really worth splurging on. The ladies were tremendously helpful in pointing out which dresses fit the 'black tie' requirement (I'm still a little unclear). And I found The Dress. It fits perfectly. It's gorgeous. It is seriously the best I have ever felt or looked in any outfit. Ever. I will turn heads in this dress. It's $180. And it's not 'classic.' I would probably only ever wear it to my SBSW. Granted, for a really nice dress $180 is not unreasonable. And although it's technically not within my 'responsible' budget, I can make it work. The prospect of getting to wear this dress actually makes me kind of excited about my SBSW. But that's a dumb reason to blow a wad of cash on a dress I'll wear once, right? A dress that's sort of intentionally attention-grabby just because I'm being childish and whiny about this whole wedding thing. So I shouldn't get it, right? Right?

(you can see the dress here. Click the fourth 'swirl' down in the left hand column. it's a weird website.)

2008-08-26T23:25:00.001-04:00

"My mother was born before women had the right to vote. My daughter got to vote for her mother for president! That's America!"
-Senator Hillary Rodham-Clinton

Happy Women's Equality Day!

I've been waiting all day to write this post, hoping to think of something witty to say. But it's been a loooong day. A long day that began when the alarm clock dragged me out of bed in the townhouse where I pay my half of the rent from a paycheck that I earn. A townhouse that I share with another woman, an MIT graduate who is about to begin a PhD program in neuroscience. My long day continued as I drove to school/work in the car that I own, in my own name. At work I ran some computer simulations for my dissertation research in a biostatistics program where women are actually in the majority. I discussed politics with my colleagues. Later I reminisced about learning to read before starting kindergarten and always knowing I could do math, even when I got a 'C' on my report card. In the afternoon I did some statistical consulting, for which I will also earn a paycheck. Nearing the end of my long day I met some friends for dinner - men and women, married and unmarried, living together and single. During dinner I told a story about my aunt, an out lesbian raising an adopted son, her deceased partner's grandson. When the check arrived I payed my portion, and no one raised an eyebrow. On my way home I stopped by school again to check on my program and then squeezed in some quick grocery shopping; both stops well after dark, and unescorted. I finally ended my long day driving home, cheering and clapping to Senator Clinton's speech at the Democratic National Convention. I owe every piece of my long day to feminists and feminism. From the women (and men) whose names we'll never know who bravely worked so that the women whose names we do know (Julia Ward Howard, Lucy Stone, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony, Alice Paul) could further women's suffrage to the first women's rights convention in Seneca Falls to the 19th amendment and to my mother, who marched in the March for Women's Lives four years ago. Happy Women's Equality Day! Be joyful and celebrate!

2008-08-22T12:43:00.000-04:00

Feeling a little professional love

I just wanted to gloat a bit about how happy it makes me that I'm in the sort of field where knowledge of Neal Stephenson actually gets me a useful professional connection, an e-mail requesting a letter of rec is replied to with a ps-recommendation to read Alan Moore's The Watchmen because it's 'one of the great graphic novels of our time,' and I can send a link to one of my profs about the McCain camp's insult to geeks and he replies 'Ouch! No invisibility cloak there!' I can only hope that my professional life continues to be as peppered with friendly geeks as my student life.

2008-08-19T17:01:00.000-04:00

Sleeeeeep Deprived

I don't know what genius (read: me) thought it would be reasonable to have dinner with JP last Tuesday (two bottles of wine), dinner with a classmate on Wednesday followed up by cheap birthday beer with the roommate, kickball happy hour on Thursday, Wordsmiths fundraiser followed by bar hopping on Friday, then another wine-drenched dinner with JP last night. All while staying up until 2 or 3 am every night because I'm a sucker for 'Olympic glory.' I'm not complaining - the socializing has been more than lovely. But I think sometime around yesterday or today my brain stopped functioning properly. Which is a real problem considering that I have 9am meetings every day this week.

2008-08-18T23:20:00.000-04:00

Continuing the wedding debate...

So I have to confess, JP sort of has a point in comments - I've been thinking today, and taking my family baggage out of it, I've always been a supporter of people who do what they want for their weddings, insisting that it's their special day and no one else's. And skipping the service and having a hoity-toity black tie affair at the four seasons is very my brother. So while it is genuinely annoying for me, on balance, I have to say it makes sense for him.

So. Minus the family baggage, or perhaps just sort of minimizing down to one suitcase, here are the pros and cons:

Pros

It would be fun - despite my grumbling, I love a wedding, and this one would be all fancy-schmancy and feature an open bar and tasty nibblins and would inevitably be a good time
Again, despite my grumblings, it would be an excuse to buy a pretty dress. One I might not be able to afford, but still, pretty dress = rare shopping extravaganzaa
I'd get to see my parents

Cons

Stressful travel - the wedding is Saturday night, in DC, and at 8:30am Monday, west coast time, I have to give a conference presentation in California. That translates to a long day of travel on Sunday and not a lot of prep time for the conference
Family baggage - I'm still working on my relationship with my brother, and while one of the bonuses of it being his wedding is that he'll probably be too preoccupied to spend much time with me, I will, inevitably, end up acting as if everything is ok, which is what drove me to several tearful phone calls to friends over xmas since I don't deal particularly well with my emotions.

Sigh. So there's that. What it will inevitably boil down to is will the combo of fun - (family + travel)*stress > family guilt? In other words, will it hurt more to go, or more to skip out?

2008-08-17T16:39:00.000-04:00

Annoying

So it turns out that my brother's stupid wedding is a black tie affair at the fucking four seasons. So now not only do I have to fly to DC two days before I'm supposed to speak at a conference, but I'm supposed to plunk down money for a fucking ball gown just because my brother is a snob! Bah! Kate - I may find myself calling on you out in the burbs, just to put some distance between me and my family. Also, I'm definitely going to have to find a flask/garter belt combo. Or a larger purse...

2008-08-16T19:14:00.001-04:00

Book update!

Completed

I finished The Tipping Point - as suspected, I'm not the right audience. It's ok, and has interesting moments, but I don't think it's the new key to understanding chaos theory or anything. Most troubling - I spotted some mathematical errors in one or two of his examples (nothing huge, but certain details that he fudged to make his analogies work a little more cleanly) that made me sort of suspect the research quality of the rest of the book.

Before departing for Ireland I hit up a used bookstore for some cheap paperbacks I could shed along my travels, thus freeing up space in my suitcase. Alas, I didn't read nearly as much as I planned, but between Dublin and Denver I did manage to polish off an old collection of Nonrequired Reading (a mixed bag, as I find most of those series to be, but still worth the investment), Contact (very enjoyable, and added bonus, the previous owner left a NOW convention nametag in the book. yay feminism!) and Acceptable Risk, which is both terrible and awesome (new drug synthesized in days! may cure depression and anxiety! oh, but it builds up in key parts of the brain and makes you revert back to your most animal instincts! Plus, witches!)

Purchased/Started

On impulse at Wordsmiths fundraiser last night I picked up Shut Up I'm Talking: And Other Diplomacy Lessons I Learned In the Israeli Government by Gregory Levey. I'm only a chapter in, but already it's threatening to provide ample distraction from completing my course notes. Speaking of which...(four more lectures and I've outlined the entire semester!)