The Passive Voice

A Battle of Shades: DB's Black and White vs. My Gray

It was just me and Doodle Boy, driving in the car, which I've come to learn is where we have our best conversations. Passing several Obama lawn signs (our is most definitely a liberal neighbourhood), I mentioned the presidential race and told him the name of the two men who are running. 

"Who's stronger?" he asked.  I had to pause.  I knew I could say who was stronger as a candidate in economics or social programs, etc, but I was pretty sure that was NOT what he meant.  And I wasn't sure how to bridge the two meanings.  While i was working out some kind of answer, he grew impatient and decided to clarify his question "Who can battle?"  he asked.  Right.

Well, presidents don't really battle.
Why not?
Well, because they send their armies to battle for them.

The mention of an army piqued his interest. DB is playing a computer games these days (as is his dad) which involves building a medieval army to fight a variety of goblins and ghouls and what-have-yous. I explained that armies still exist but they look different now.  No more archers, for instance.  To which he asked, " But what about peasants?"  Most of his medieval army consists of peasants.

And again, I had to pause.  Another breakdown between his meaning and mine.  Because no, literally, there aren't any more peasants.  But more loosely? Couldn't we say the many of the people who do join the army today are the modern day equivalent of peasants?  But how could I explain that to him?  Or why?  So I made it simple: "No, no more peasants either." 

By that time we were home and DB went off to play his game where terms like strength and peasants are pretty black and white.    And I was left, as usual, in the gray.

Laughing

Sharing a laugh is always a treat, but can you beat sharing one with a stranger?  I was on campus today, taking care of some overdue business.  A computer technician, Byron, was helping me get an electronic page for my class set up.  He was nice and helpful and not condescending, as some computer "help" people can be.  As he was wrapping up something on the key board, I scanned the front page of  The Washington Postthat was lying on the table in front of me. I noticed this picture of Bristol Palin's babydaddy arriving at the airport to meet up with John McCain.  And almost to myself I said, "That poor guy didn't know what he was getting himself into."

At that, Bryon turned away from the monitor to face me. Had Iwatched Palin's speech last night?  I hadn't.  "Well, you know what," he said, "that kid looked like a deer in the headlights, he looked like he's been thrown under a bus.  After a while, I didn't care about the speech, I just wanted the camera to focus back on him." 

He was kind of chuckling as he told me this.  And I then I started giggling.  And that made him laugh some more as he described the awkward body language.  Which made me giggle harder. This kid was miserable and we were laughing our butts off. 

In spite the evidence, we both feel sorry for Levi Johnston.  It would seem expecting a baby would be more than enough for most 17 year-old guys who like "chillin."  But this guy, he has to marry the girl. In front of the entire nation.  Because of family values? Or to prove everyone's happy about the situation? Or that there's no need for sex education? Honestly, I don't know.  I don't understand who would encourage two 17 year olds to marry.  And neither does Byron.  So we laughed.  A lot.

My point really isn't a political one. Instead it's that I had a great laugh today. I giggled all the way back ot my car.  It feels good to laugh.  Even about depressing political situations.

Gotta love scientific findings like this

Sarcasm may be the lowest form of wit, (how many times did you tell me that Mom?!), but now it's also considered an evolutionary survival skill.  I'm proud to say, since the age of 13, I've been doing my part to help the human species evolve. 

Doodle Boy's Doodling

Last week Gadget Guy took Doodle Boy to Target to buy him a new doodle board. Officially it's called a Magna-doodle, but somewhere along the way we started calling it the doodle board and that name stuck and became, as you can tell, the root of DB's nickname on here.  Since the age of two, he's been doodling on almost a daily basis. In fact, DB could draw before he could talk. 

Instead of a blanket or stuffed animal, the doodle board is DB's security item and it's gone everywhere with us.  Whatever is his current interest gets sketched out and depicted on doodle board; obsessions which have included the alphabet, shapes, animals, Spongebob, Mario brothers, and now, Pokemon. 

Because of the impermanence of the medium, we started taking pictures of his work.  So often he would draw something rather impressive and the SWOOP, he'd erase it and draw something else.  

Here he is at 2.        

We were pretty surprised when he drew this picture (which he deemed a self-portrait) just before this 3rd birthday.  I've always thought the buttons and the collar were particularly nice touches.

And here he is around 4.  He was big into drawing animals. He draws on paper now too, but he still prefers his Doodle Board.  I suppose he'll eventually stop using it, and that will be a sad day, but I hope that won't be the end of his doodling.   

TV Watch 18 years later

Due to of all talk about the new CW version of 90210 as well as my (perhaps belated?) discovery of hulu.com, I started watching the first season of the original Beverly Hills 90210 that premiered back in 1990 when I was in grade 11.  I don't remember watching 90210 at first.  I don't think it was even available in my area.  Back then you could only get CBS in the happiest city in Canada if you had a cable box, and they were pretty rare.  Instead most of my exposure to the show came from reading Sassy.  I think by the second season it was picked up by a Canadian affiliate and I got hooked. But this was my first time watching that important first season, which I did with a mixture of enjoyment (I do love me some teen drama), nostalgia, and, inevitably, some cultural criticism. It's hard not to think about how teenage life or representations of teenagers have changed in the last 18 years. 

The story lines are delightfully soapy and silly, what the fug girls have described so aptly as "Spelling's cheesy, preachy pastiche of love triangles and after-school special issues."  Will Brandon cheat on his history midterm?  Will Brenda shoplift?  Does taking off a pair of glasses immediately turn a girl from plain to beautiful?  (We already know the answers, but it's still fun to see it unfold.)

My respect for Jason Priestley increased immensely.  Brandon Walsh is very much the moral center of the show -- not an enviable task  And yet he does it without being a complete drag.   Watching the show now, I do find it hard to disentangle Shannen Dougherty's "difficult" reputation from her character Brenda, although there's no real connection.  Nevertheless, I keep waiting for signs of Shannen's notorious bitchiness to appear.  And the casting of Gabrielle Carteris to play a teenager remains perplexing after all these years. I always found the Andrea character so annoying and could never understand why they would choose a 30 year old woman to play her.  I still don't get it.

The fashion is impossible to ignore. I laughed out loud when Dylan, the James Dean wannabe, appeared wearing overalls with one strap undone. The jeans, high-waisted and belted, look so ugly and dated. But I was struck by how the girls' clothes are not all that revealing.  No cleavage and not tight at all. Instead big blousey shirts, baby doll dresses.  Unless they're in swimwear, there's just not a lot of skin on display.  The girls' bodies have changed, too -- or what qualifies as "the perfect body" has changed. No one on that show is fat -- not by any stretch.  But they aren't skinny skinny either, like we've gotten used to. They have flesh.  In one scene, I was surprised by how much thigh a girl in a bikini had.  But it's normal. I've just adjusted to anorexic.

And the mother.  Poor Carol Walsh, she's a 1950s housewife and such mothers don't exist on tv anymore. Or at least not on teen dramas. Even if a mother on TV is a SAHM, she still has to be hot. And while I realize part of the story revolves around the clash between Midwestern values and Beverly Hills glitz,there's no way a mother on tv today would wear elastic band pants. 

I'm sure there are lots of people who have written about the show and why it has endured so well in the popular imagination.  This is not my attempt to do so.  These are just observations. I might write more about it.  I'm only on episode 7, and while there's been some Dylan/Brenda flirting going on, their relationship hasn't blossomed yet. I'm interested to see how Brenda's controversial loss of virginity will play now that teenage sex is pretty standard.

The Middle of Somewhere

So it would seem Kansas City (and its suburban sprawl) are enjoying 15 minutes of pop culture fame right now.  The new American Idol hales from the area. The reality show High School Confidential on WE was filmed at a suburban high school.  And in the upcoming fall remake of Beverly Hills 90210, instead of moving from Minnesota (as the Walshes did), the new girl at West Beverly High is from... you guessed it... Kansas City. 

Some of this is purely happenstance, since the new idol could have just as easily been from Utah, but coincidentally or not, I do think it reflects Kansas City's place as Middle America.  Geographically, it's pretty close to the centre of the US.  And imaginatively as well.  Cool is not what comes to mind when people think about KC, if they think of it at all.  Although, it is intriguing that during the jazz age, it was known as the "Paris of the Plains."  Or someone called it that once at least.

Messages from the Blogoverse

The first blogs I read were mostly written by academics.  Back then I was still doing coursework, and I guess they seemed the most relevant to my world.  But over the past few years, I've drifted away from academia and in the process left academic blogs behind. But Sunday I decided to revisit a couple I had once read fairly regularly.  Here's what a I found:  One is heading to lawschool.  The other seems to be working as a writer/photographer.  And, to boot, the one new academic blog I linked to is also in the process of making a career change.

And so what is one to make of this?  Are blogging and scholarship at odds?  Does the desire to blog suggest a desire for something other than an academic career?  Of course this is just a random sampling (I'm sure there some bloggers are still (happily-ish) working away as professors/scholars), so do I chalk it up as pure coincidence or read it as some sort of SIGN from the universe? Although if it is a sign, what is it supposed to mean?

How to Not Finish a Dissertation (or a quilt for that matter)

Recent job disappointment (i.e. I didn't get a job I was hoping I would) has forced me to think about my dissertation again.  I have never said, "I'm not going to do it," but I've had some serious doubts.  Part of the problem is that my dissertation feels more like a hobby.  It's that craft project that just never gets finished.  Every once in a while you find it on the shelf, take it down, spend an hour trying to figure out where you last left off, and then you add a few more rows or stitches.  You have good intentions to keep at it, but inevitably things get in the way and then it gets put back on the shelf.   

Obviously a dissertation should not resemble an unfinished quilt stuffed that's been stuffed in the closet. Rather than a hobby, it should be central to my life, my work.  But it's so easy to get away from, so easy to shelve.  When I'm in the midst of it, making some tiny progress, I enjoy it.  Or find it satisfying, at least. But then more seemingly pressing demands arise (kids, teaching, housework, TV shows, etc.) and then the energy to get my head back into "the zone" is pretty difficult.  It doesn't help that I'm not exactly what you'd call methodical or organized.

There is a book about writing your dissertation that suggests you can finish by working on it for fifteen minutes a day.  I've heard some negative feedback on it, but i suspect there is some value to the premise.  Fifteen minutes isn't much but it's enough to keep you from getting away from it, from putting it back on the shelf.   It's enough to make it a habit instead of a hobby.

Purging the Cute Kid Story File

So I've been a bit absent.  It's my usual deal.  3 weeks on and 3 months off.  In that time I've stored up some "aren't my kids cute?" stories, the kind that would seem perfect for a weblog mostly read by interested aunts and grandparents.  So here goes:

I. Speaking Scottish

Some new friends invited us to brunch.  The woman is Scottish.  When we got there, Doodle Boy commented that something smelled good, so our hostess asked him, "Do you like waffles? To which DB replied, "Ive never had those before!"  This was a surprise since frozen waffles are a staple at our house.  So I said, "What are you talking about?  You eat waffles all the time." "Yes, he said, "but I've never had Warrfules."  Our hostess was very good about it and explained that she had a funny accent because she was Scottish.  After she left the room DB asked me, "Can I still call them Warrfules even if I don't speak Scottish?"

II. The World (and I mean ALL of it) is HER Oyster

We were driving in the car.  I don't even know what conversation was going on or who Gadget Guy was speaking too, but he asked someone "How come?"  To which, Silly Sally emphatically screamed from the back seat, "No Daddy!  MY come!" 

III.   Gender Politics at 6

Doodle Boy and I were driving in the car, which apparently is the scene of our most interesting family discussions.  I had picked him up from school and we were heading to collect SS.  From the backseat he said, "I don't like girls."   
"Oh," I said, "Is that because you don't like what girls do or is it because you're a boy?"
To which he replied, "You choose."

Right now I'm really enjoy trying to follow the paths of Doodle Boy's reasoning.  Six is such an interesting combination of being both childlike (in all the best ways we use that word) AND a bit knowing.  Which is how i understand his "You choose" response. It reveals both a naive parroting of the things he hears at school at the same time it shows he is learning to deflect his mother's annoying habit of turning his questions back around on him.   (At least a year ago he started saying, "I asked the question first.")

Meanwhile Silly Sally is sooo two.  And her sense of ownership (which is large) and space (which is wide) means her clashes with the outside world and those who don't respect her position are many.  I admire her strong will and senes of entitlement, but oh, it does get tiresome?!

I think there's at least one more story about God and the devil and who would win a final battle that i could share, but three is probably enough.  I saw Steve Carrell on Conan O'Brien the other night and he made fun of parents and their "My kid" stories. He compared it to listening to someone talk about his/her golf game. And I do have a bit of similar disdain.  At the same time, your kids do surprise and amaze you and it's hard not to share that sometimes.

Code Switching at Six

Lately I've been finding myself trying to teach Doodle Boy the difference between well and good.  It's a family legacy.  My own mother, a middle school English teacher, corrected my sister and me for years.   "You didn't do good," she'd say, "You did well." 

And so the other day when DB said, "I played good," I was there to say, "No, you're a good player, but you play well."  Gadget Guy was there to back me up. Doodle Boy wanted to know why it mattered.  GG launched (rather bravely I thought) into an explanation about the difference between an adjective and an adverb. As I was leaving the room, I heard Doodle Boy say, " Okay.  I guess it matters.  Or at least when Mom's around."

Smart kid.