A Weblog

This weekend Ian and I drove to LL Bean in Freeport, ME. After investigating home goods on the second floor, we came across a canoe—Bean’s is peppered with them—filled with clearance and seasonal items. In this Old Towne red a pile of iridescent spring time frogs. Each had its mouth zipped shut. Not heeding the lesson learned by the cat, curiosity got the better of us and we unceremoniously unzipped one of the frogs thereby revealing a string of insects, which, we are to believe, the frog had caught sometime before being zipped. Their colors were fantastic and shiny. The cheerfulness in design presented a bold contrast to the morbidity that necessarily accompanies partially digested prey. It creeped me out a little bit, and I’d venture it creeped Ian out a little, too.

We stuffed the bugs back into the frog’s mouth, secured them with the zipper, and put the frog back in the canoe for someone else to discover. As we walked down the stairs over the trout pond, Ian mentioned that he had never seen such a disturbing toy. It was horrible, but not nearly as bad as what they had cooked up in the early nineties. “Oh, come on. Don’t you remember that stuffed animal dog with the litter inside, and you grabbed in the womb and pulled out the puppies?” I asked.

“No, I don’t think I do,” he responded. He face agreed, though, what a terrible toy indeed.

I continued in a slow, dry tone, “Surprise, surprise! Puppy Surprise: how many puppies are there inside? There could be three. Or four. Or five.”

At this he remembered. The consequence of the toy was startling. It wasn’t clear if the five-dog mothers were the most desired. Many dogs from the larger litters died. And so to receive a mother with five dogs in her litter was often the same as one with only three or four in practice. These dogs then required a burial for one or more puppies. While it teaches the child a perhaps valuable lesson in mortality without the grave circumstances surrounding, say, the death of an aunt or a playmate from down the street, it is nonetheless a delicate and difficult cross to bear. Most of the kids did not know just how real the toy makers had made Puppy Surprise. My sister was lucky enough to get a four-puppy dog. They were all very small. Smaller than the puppies in the three-dog versions which had more room to grow and didn’t have to compete so strongly for nutrients. One of hers was born with a broken leg. It’s not clear if it were broken during the violent birth process, and if my sister were just a little to excited to reach in and tear the babies out, or if the leg broke during transport from the factory to the store. A clumsy attendant could have easily dropped the box, causing long-lasting reprocussions. It wasn’t his Puppy Surprise, so I guess he didn’t have to take that much care.

Another less awful though still disturbing toy from about the same time were the Pillow People. The new-age security blanket, these Pillow People were rectangular creatures with exaggerated faces. My sister had a Little Miss Muffet-type. It didn’t bother me because it wasn’t in my room. Mine, however, was terrifying. He was a blue, sleepy Sand Man. He wore a red and white striped night cap and carried a small pouch of sleepy sand. I wanted to do anything but sleep with him around. He was in constant yawn. His eyes were large ovals which were permanently drowsy. Yet his stare was penetrating, aware, and deep. His gaze followed me both in day and in night regardless of my position in the room. I remember turning him toward the wall before I turning the covers over my head for protection as I slept. It’s hard to know if my slight paranoia was caused by or merely identified because of my dozing Pillow Person. My Lincoln logs never caused me this much trouble.

Last night I went with the Sophomores back to H-block to take in my high school’s annual cabaret. Things have changed drastically since I was in school. From what I remember, kids sang showtunes and performed magic acts. But now all that has been replaced.

The types of acts can be broken down, first, by gender. The boys were assembled almost exclusively in heavy rock and punk bands, lasting more time and generating more noise than I could physically handle. Some of the musicians were quite talented. But almost everything that was played was too loud and too long. There was a duet which sang a selection from Phantom of the Opera; the boy was, however, in several of the bands, as well. In fact, there were only about eight boys in the entire show. They mixed and matched and reconfigured to form ten different bands, though. By the end of the night, my ears were humming. It may been my severe cold, but my ears are still rining.

The girls could be divided into two groups: trashy dance troupes and vocalists. Those who sang were good. No one in the audience paid them much respect — because they didn’t strip is my guess. The dancers, I use the term euphemistically, disgusted me. I cannot begin to explain my outrage when six fifteen year old girls took off their shirts [to expose tang-top underneath] while gyrating and riding each other [quite literally] to suggestive R&B in front of their parents, colleagues, and friends. In spite of my sore throat, I could not help but scream, “Stop!” in the middle of their routine. It came from deep within my aching soul.

One of the girls father was sitting in front of me, bobbing and dancing along, ostensibly proud of his daughter. I turned to Mark, who was sitting next to me, and loudly exclaimed in the name of all that is decent on this earth, that the parents of each of those girls ought to be ashamed of themselves, that concerning the hyper-sexualization of children there can be no other opinion, that this was one of the most distasteful and dispicable things I have ever seen. And the crowd loved them.

Who knew that when they asked me if I wanted to go to a cabaret, they meant it?

Cathy and Larry had separated. It had been nearly two years already. Even after this extended amount of time, Cathy ordered a restraining order against Larry. He called her to ask why. Then he was arrested. A friend of Larry’s posted the bail that night and he went home. But the issue was never really resolved.

Most of the world is coverd in water. In fact, roughly seventy percent of the earth’s surface is covered in water. When the first images of the planet came back from space during the Apollo missions, people were so struck by the vastness of the oceans that earth was affectionately dubbed the “blue planet.” Even still, humans don’t inhabit the seas. We live on land, and we’ve adapted to a curious style of locomotion optimized for navigating dry, flat terrain. Walking simply doesn’t work in the water. First off, it’s often impossible to stand. Our natural buoyancy keeps us up and off the sea floor. If you want to get any where in the water, and you’ve carelessly left your boat at home, you’ve got to swim.

Just by the numbers, most things swim. Okay, I’m taking some liberty with the numbers. Somewhere in my education, I got the idea that insects out-numbered everyone else about forty-seven million to one. But many of them spend the early part of their lives, either as larvae or nymphs, in water, and I can, without guilt, say they swim. [Perhaps none of what I've said happens to be in the strictest sense true. I don't know anything about the life cycle of insects, nor do I want to learn. Consider the above simply an exercise in rhetoric and deception.]

Now, after nearly two months and twenty-three pounds, I’ve thrown myself back into the water. As the specific heat of water is high, the ocean, with its unpredictable riptides and undercurrents, is especially dangerous and cold this time of year. Luckily, the MAC pool is indoors, heated, and staffed by several certified lifeguards. After about thirty minutes of continuous swimming, my triceps clenched hard. I had to get out of the pool and eat. My hunger took me to Boca Grande for two beef birria enchiladas, rice, and refried beans; Legal Seafood for some scotch and Washington-grown Kumamoto oysters; ending at Border Cafe for two margaritas and some nachos.

DJ told me that I ought to cut carbs from my diet if I want my swimming to show. This morning I had a block on Muenster cheese and some sliced turkey for breakfast. It’s going to be hard finding all the calories I need in protein-rich foods. I guess this means I’ll have to order my double cheeseburgers without the bun. [Don't worry, I'd never do it.]

On the way to our cross-country meet at Bristol Agricultural Regional High School — Bristol Aggie to those in the know — I remember reading a Spanish dictionary. This was a practice I never fully mastered and it certainly never benefited me in any meaningful way. That is not to say I haven’t quit it; throughout the years I’ve turned back to various dictionaries in various languages several times since, each time reaching the same conclusion. Tom, who doubled as a varisity footballer and runner, and who used to throw me before each match for his good luck, pulled the book away and, after some introductory conversion, concluded that I should go out and sleep with as many people as would have me. I was, after all, only young once.

Wanting to avoid the topic, Tom, and now Ryan, our captain who had by this point entered the debate on Tom’s side, I turned out-numbered and over-powered to Rachel. She explained that the only word she knew in Spanish was cebolla, onion. Years later, Rachel would earn her degree in Russian literature. Tom followed his own advice, eventually resulting in a pregnancy, a wedding, and a divorce.

Finally, the bus drove over the iron bridge marking the boundary of the school’s grounds. Our coach Mr. Langanthal readied us for the meet. He was an odd man. During practice he once asked me how old I thought he was. I believe he was about thirty-two. Despite his being the school health teacher, rumor had it he smoked. I never had any evidence of this. He did have two children, one boy and one girl. Whiel I can’t prove it, I believe each time I met them they were different children. Everytime the team had an off practice, he forced us into a game of ultimate frisbee. We were never on the same team. Take this as a metaphor for our entire relationship. In fact, I don’t remember anyone who really liked him. Everyone blamed him for Rachel’s knee injury. He had pushed her to run on a bad knee. Then it got worse. Donald [not DJ] was so angry that he spray painted a swatstica on the side of Mr. Langanthal’s car. Langanthal is a Jewish name.

Before the league meet at the end of the season I told him when asked that I had “no expectations” for the race. He was mad. He accused me of always having an excuse, that way, he explained, I wouldn’t be disappointed if I did poorly. I told him that I choose my motto so that I would be even more excited when I won. And I did win, but never at the league meet. I won at Bristol Aggie. But not that year. Later, after Tom and Rachel and Ryan had graduated.

Bristol Aggie has a very distinctive course. First of all, it is full of gopher holes, especially near the river by that rusty iron bridge. Secondly, the smell from the stables wafts through the air, alerting the everyone of the horses well before any could ever see them and causing some runners to gag.

Even now, in the autumn when the air is cold but still heavy from summer and the grass is yellow and scorched, and the crests on the river are solid white like ice rather than foam, my stomach drops and I get those pre-race jitters. I should’ve stuck with soccer instead.

The snow didn’t keep me out of Cambridge yesterday [primary because it hadn't yet snowed]. And that means that Henry and I started our weekly study of Old English. He wants to recite some passage in Beowulf; I want to use the language as a super-secret method of communicating — perhaps exclusively with Henry — no matter where I am, regardless of the company. Also, Old English looks and sounds really funny, and that’s reason enough to learn it, too.

But the snow is keeping me inside today. So, rather than go on a winter adventure, I’m prepping the documentation and presentation of future adventures. There’s a giant road atlas of the whole of the United Kingdom on one of my bookshelves. Rather than throw it out once I returned from Scotland two years ago, I had planned to make a website with scanned pictures, anecdotes, and all the rest, and to organize everything through the maps in the road atlas. Alas, things came up, and the website was never realized. But now! now I’ve signed up for an API key to use Google Maps. I was even able to understand and reproduce their example map [which I can't display on this server].

Soon I’ll start a blog-type site over at the GSD [where I have more file control, access to web services, and other computerish things; you can find all my map stuff there for now]. With some determination, I’ll be about to start up a GIS-powered Wiki, so that you, too, my faithful and ambitious readers, can add geographically anchored markers with linked online media.

I need to think hard about how to make good use of this technology. Check out a good example which maps out recent BBC News articles here. History classes could make large, interactive maps detailing famous exploration, battle maps, or immigration with seemlessly coupled pictures, documents, videos, and sounds. Another day I’ll rant about why this is a fantastically empowering idea in classroom education. Maybe I’ll stroll down the street back to the LifeLong Kindergarten group at the Media Lab.

The trick to good bacon is not so much the chef’s doing whatsoever. The preparation is pretty standard: cook the strips at 340 degrees for about three minutes per side — more or less depending how crispy you’d like it. Instead, really good, cooked bacon comes from really good uncooked bacon. This morning I decided to try out whatever it was my dad brough home earlier this week. At first I was a little suspicious; it looked perhaps a bit too fatty. And the fatty bits tend to curl and drip. But as I laid the strips down, three at time, as close to the diameter to accomodate their healthy length — these were very tall bacons on the farm — I watched as lines of pink appeared as if by magic running from one end to the other. The pink gave way to darker pink, the color of standard ham. So masterfully prepared was the bacon, that I ended up eating eight strips cooked, one uncooked. Now my stomach is weighty and I already feel bad for knowing that I’m not going to swim today. Maybe I’ll bring my gear with me, just in case. [Logistically, this will be hard: the pool closes from 2:15-5pm; Michelle and I are meeting for dinner. We'll have to work things out.]

But today is History Table day. With any luck, I’ll have a large bowl of shepard’s pie for lunch.

My wake-up ritual includes browsing the headlines of the various blogs linked to the right. Cosmic Variance never disappoints. Sean, in a recent post, pointed us to a discussion forum at the Chronical for Higher Education. There’s a veritable frenzy over whether coffee with an colleague is just coffee with a colleague or the makings of a salacious, extra-marital scandal.

Academics, like third graders, are cute, funny, and give me hope.

The trick about having a degree in math is that I only really want to use it to do more math. Monstertrak.com is teaming with hedge fund and investment banking jobs, but I don’t want to do finance math. I want to teach. Divia and I have agreed to go to education grad school after we get our primary PhDs. Berkely has that program combing math, cognition and general relatvity that I occassionally harp about. And I’m a fan of Piaget and Vygotsky. Sounds like fun. But more than the math, I don’t want to wear a suit. At least not daily.

A few weeks ago I dreamt — How often to do you see a t following an m that isn’t an abbreviation for mount, Matthew, or meitnerium? — that I was back in high school, specifically in Latin class. And I had to give a synopsis of the verb sum, esse; to be. Everything was fine until I got to the future tense. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember the first person future. The hour of class passed, and it still escaped me. By now I was physically upset. Sweat ran down the front and sides my head. Then, just as the bell was about to ring, I remembered, incorrectly though I was sure at the time it was quite right, erabo, I will be. Later I checked my mistake. For all of those of you out there, including the numerous phychiatrists and psychologist who frequent my blog, rather than erabo Romans would probably have said ero. Use it wisely.

Michelle recently asked whether she ought to enter into a platonic relationship with someone whom she had had a rather “complicated” previous non-relationship. I answered, “Platonicity is about as real as my hispanicity.”

To which she said, “A quarter, genetically.”