Especially Messily

Winter break

2011-12-23T18:25:00.000-05:00

Now I'm in Missoula again until mid-January. Missoula is full of old friends and brothers and drinks and pets. It is quite nice. Except for how sore my legs are from when I went skiing yesterday. POOR POOR ME.

This metaphor only goes so far.

2011-12-06T14:11:00.002-05:00

I just spent an hour doing an Exciting Bureaucratic Adventure Game that involved finding hidden offices and decoding mysterious administrative titles and asking the correct questions in the correct sequence in order to obtain the correct piece of paper, and then bringing that paper to a different office and trading it for a valuable prize or a password or a piece of candy. There was lots of walking around in endless hallways where each doorway leads to another identical hallway and you can find the target by trial and error if you're lucky, but it's really better if you have some song lyrics from a dream sequence to guide you, because if you take too long with the wandering and the dead ends then Ghost Pirate LeChuck will probably appear and stick a pin in a voodoo doll he made of you and send you to a different random section of identical hallway and you'll have to start all over.

Prisencolinensinainciusol

2011-11-14T23:21:00.001-05:00

remember this?

Now with lyrics! (via my dad)

(koro)
in de col men seivuan
prisencolinensinainciusol ol rait
uis de seim cius men
op de seim ol uat men
in de colobos dai
trr...
ciak is e maind beghin de col
bebi stei ye push yo oh
uis de seim cius men
in de colobos dai
not is de seim laikiu
de promisdin iu nau
in trabol lovgiai ciu gen
in do camo not cius no bai
for lov so op op giast
cam lau ue cam lov ai
oping tu stei laik cius
go mo men
iu bicos tue men cold
dobrei gorls
oh sandei...

(koro)
ai ai smai sesler
eni els so co uil piso ai
in de col men seivuan

(koro)
prisencolinensinainciusol ol rait
uei ai sint no ai
giv de sint laik de cius
nobodi oh gud taim lev feis go
uis de seim et seim cius
go no ben let de cius
end kai for not de gai giast stei
ai ai smai senflecs
eni go for doing peso ai
in de col mein seivuan
prisencolinensinainciusol ol rait
lu nei si not sicidor
ah es la bebi la dai big iour

(koro)
ai ai smai senflecs
eni go for doin peso ai
in de col mein saivuan
prisencolinensinainciusol ol rait
lu nei si not sicodor
ah es la bebi la dai big iour

Phonolohotonthologos

2011-11-11T22:53:00.009-05:00

Why hello there. You look like you could use some esoteric reference jokes and terrible, terrible puns. Let me help you out with that!

My ridiculous cartoon is finally ready. The main ideas come from this and this and this, although you shouldn't worry if you don't think any of it makes much sense. Some additional references are available at the end of the post, for those who don't have something better to do.

Here you go (click any picture to go to flickr, where bigger versions are available):

(descriptions coming soonish: sooner if you email me to tell me you want them)

(Selected) Reference Jokes:
Auricle
Buccinator
Chrononhotonthologos
CON and EVAL
Deus ex machina
Electromyographia
Inferior Longitudinal
Levator Palatine
Liquids
Muscular Hydrostat
Orbicularis Oris
Postpositional Anaphornia
ʃibboleth
theta rolls

Gonna be a Dental Floss Tycoon

2011-09-22T10:22:00.001-05:00

With my tweezers gleamin' in the moon-lighty night.

lyrics

Soon = Monday. See you later, Constitution City!

That is one of his tricks.

2011-08-26T19:54:00.004-05:00

I am still working on the new fun of "Phonolohotonthologos". I have to finish coloring in some things. Meanwhile, here is some old fun, that Abe invented way back in Minnesota:
[description]

I should start doing this game again, it's a winner.

I don't have a thesis, I have a research question

2011-08-10T12:22:00.001-05:00

I am bored of my dissertation. So, so bored. I have been working on it every day since the Founding Fathers created the world and I will keep working on it every day until Ghost Abe Lincoln comes back to destroy us all. I get excited about it every once in a while when I try to describe it at a party or something (I'm so much fun at a party!) but then the next day I sit down in front of it all and am bored again.

It's not a feature, it's a bug.
There are several aspects of the productivity-type software suite* that I am using for said dissertation which make me angry. First, in Numbers, there's no text-to-columns feature. I really need to do text-to-columns, basically five times every day. I gave up completely and switched to a separate open-source spreadsheet editor instead because this makes me so furious.

Second, you can only alphabetize things in Pages if the things are in a table. I don't want it in a table, it's my bibliography! Let me sort the lines, you stupid program! I use some sort of nerdy add-on download thing instead, but what a rip-off. What kind of word processor can't sort alphabetically? A stupid one, that's what.

Third, the ways that you are allowed to specify where figures go, in relation to each other and to text, do not please nor satisfy me. Plus I think there is some sort of fault in either my computer or my edition of the software, so that half the time when I check a box, it checks or unchecks itself repeatedly in defiance of my wishes.

Far from becoming accustomed to these inconveniences, I find my anger grows each time I encounter any of them. I would switch to something else if they weren't all just as bad or worse. Woe, woe is me.

*not the big main evil one, the secondary next-most evil one with the irritating capitalization in its name. I was using LaTeX (which also has irritating capitalization but is otherwise much nicer) for a while, but the rules and regulations and personal preferences of my Dissertation Reviewing Institution are such that this was unworkable in the long run. I will switch back as soon as I see Ghost Abe Lincoln swimming up the burning Potomac and I know my dissertation is over, for sure.

It's not funny, it's dangerous
I moved everything into storage (or into the back of my truck). Step One: Accomplished. Also I injured myself innumerable times due to heat and fatigue and clumsiness and spite (the spite being on the part of various corners and edges, not me). Fletcher, while discussing the differences and similarities between our physical appearances, remarked that "we both got yellow hair and we both got lots of booboos". Indeed we do.

Then I hit the open road! Or if not exactly that, then at least I hit the slow-moving very full road to Arlington where I stayed last week, before getting back on the same not-so-open road to come crawling back to Constitution City.

Now I'm back to the District, which is such a relief because it made me very anxious to spend so much time in an actual State. What if someone expected me to vote about something? How would Ghost Abe Lincoln know where to find me if the end of the world were at hand?

This ain't no party, this ain't no disco
Which it probably is. All things considered, the signs have been pointing more and more firmly towards Apocalypse for at least the last several thousand years. The sooner the better, I say. I'm tired of writing this dissertation.

Mutatis Mutandis

2011-07-30T11:00:00.000-05:00

It's not the worst weekend to be moving, but it's less pleasant than if it were October. Or Montana.

Now up: Dissertation. On deck: The West.

Breizh

2011-07-10T06:39:00.001-05:00

The workshop was very good. The presentations and discussions were interesting and the interpreters were excellent and there was plenty of coffee and eating delicious food in French restaurants.

There were lots of interesting different languages being used at the workshop. There were many different native-spoken-languages (English, German, French, Turkish, Italian, Dutch, and maybe others?) and many different signed languages (LSF, BSL, NGT, LIS, DGS, TİD). TİD wins for having the most fascinating alphabet to try to learn (I can't find any good videos, but it has exciting ways to do diacritics). There have also been all kinds of interesting linguistic things to notice related to what signs and menus say around here: Brittany (French Bretagne, Breton Breizh) has lots of Breton (Breton Brezhoneg) going on.

Now it's over and everyone else left to go back to all their homes in various places. Everyone (including Kyle, who flitted off to California) except me: I'm sitting around Kyle's apartment in Vannes drinking coffee and slowly moving towards maybe doing some work. It is very nice, and I plan to keep doing it for two more days. Then, Tuesday/Wednesday: back to the terrible heat swamp of Constitution City, and the terrible tribulation of having to do productive things all the time.

Foux du fa fa

2011-07-03T09:08:00.000-05:00

I'm going to France to do linguistics and drink wine with Kyle. Je voudrais un croissant. Où est la piscine? Splish splash! La discothèque, c'est ici, bébé.

Au revoir.

Coming soon:

2011-06-23T11:17:00.004-05:00

A hilarious treat for certain people.

(click to embiggen)

cf

postparty depression

2011-06-13T14:44:00.004-05:00

I got back from a college-reunion-type trip to Portland Oregon yesterday. This reunion was hard work! And a lot of fun. There was mostly dancing and drinking and a carnival and old friends and new friends and relatives, and not very much sitting in front of a computer. I slept for 13 hours last night. Now I feel pretty much the way I did when I was 14 and had just returned home from bagpipe camp, all forlorn and nostalgic about the past week and disgruntled about having to start writing my dissertation again. Stupid dissertation.

I love wikipedia.

2011-05-19T14:00:00.002-05:00

Hoaxilus poaxilus
Ivan T. Sanderson
lived in New Jersey, a
Scottish expat

Eminent father of
cryptozoology
known for surviving a
Really Big Bat

more double dactyls:
Goldilocks
Tom Swifty
Dog

I still exist

2011-05-14T18:10:00.002-05:00

Here's a little something just for you. To tide you over until I finish my dissertation, or give up on it, or think of something funny to say:

Bittily brattily
Goldilocks, Goldilocks
What have you done with the
porridge and chairs?

Some stories make you a
defenestrationist;
others end sadly: you're
eaten by bears.

I'm a charmer is why

2011-03-04T12:51:00.005-05:00

If papers, handouts, etc have a blank side, I put them in a drawer to use for scratch paper later. Here's what was on the "blank" side of the piece of paper I just pulled out:

Based on the other side of the paper, this is from a class about language politics and planning in 2006. I have no idea what the other relevant details were that led to this being drawn.

It's much harder to draw lots of hilarious cartoons during a class now that I am usually teaching the class.

Other in-class cartoons from my more-prototypically-studential days were about theta roles, morphology, and the extremely irritating and frustratingly common belief that gorillas can learn ASL*. I still haven't gotten around to the one about Phonology + Chrononhotonthologos = Phonolohotonthologos. Yet.

*Those last two, while they began in a classroom setting, involved substantial extracurricular efforts as well.

Oh, hello

2011-01-31T11:45:00.004-05:00

I gotta make this quick because I'm under strict instructions from my advisor not to get distracted from working on my dissertation. He had a whole list of things I wasn't supposed to get distracted by, and I think "the internet" was on it, but I wasn't really paying attention because there was something pretty outside the window.

Speaking of writing my dissertation, hey, remember that time I was in college and I was writing my senior thesis and I accidentally listened to so much Bruce Springsteen while I was in my thesis office that I accidentally trained myself to ONLY be able to write my thesis if there was Bruce Springsteen in the background?

Seriously. It started with a 1-week period where I was all "ooh this live album is great! I'll listen to it over and over on giant headphones for a while!" And then I think it was habit, or I didn't have any other CDs in my office, or something. Anyway I kept listening to it for a few more days while I worked.

And then I got bored of Bruce Springsteen so I started listening to something else, but my brain had been Pavlov's-dog-'d into not being able to write my thesis to any soundtrack other than the Boss. I tried, and every time I tried, I didn't get anything accomplished. When I switched back to Live 1975-1985 (Disc 1) I would churn out lots of pages of beautiful ideas about Hildegard von Bingen and her sources of authority.

Man, by the end of that spring, I HATED Bruce Springsteen and his stupid E Street Band. I did graduate though.*

The point of this story is that I might have accidentally trained my brain again to demand only old school Billy Joel. Specifically, mainly, "The Longest Time" and "You May Be Right". I'm trying to branch out but it's hard work, and I'm worried that fooling around with my background music might count as being distracted.

Another thing that might count as being distracted is all the daydreaming/internet browsing I am doing about Bluetooth hearing aids. They are so shiny! If only I had $4,000. You know how I could get $4,000? If I had a real job. You know how I could get a real job? If I finished my stupid dissertation. So, back to that. See you around!

*My thesis advisor also mentioned to me, at one point, that I should try not to "get distracted by shiny things". I don't know why everyone thinks I'm so flaky, I totally know how to finish

My state is prettier than your state

2010-12-30T16:35:00.002-05:00

While I was in Montana I drove to Billings. It was a very nice drive. Now I am back in the good old District of Constitution, daydreaming about mountains and open roads.

I been to wild Montana

2010-12-17T19:47:00.003-05:00

I'm in Missoula. It took me 25 hours to get here, counting from when I left my house yesterday. That wasn't very fun, and now I'm kind of sick, but I'm sitting on the couch amidst many parents, siblings, and hangers-on, and somebody is probably going to build me a fire and bring me a beer any minute now so overall I'd say things turned out okay.

Petty complaints dept.

2010-12-14T17:31:00.005-05:00

My downstairs, where I hang out with my friends, is very freezing. My upstairs, where I sleep, is very hot. This is the opposite of how I would prefer things to be.

My printer ran out of paper halfway through so I went to school, where one printer is busted and the other printer is very low on ink and neither printer prints color. My final printed product was unevenly inked and colored, which displeases me.

Then the post office was closed so I had to drive to a different post office and people in traffic did things of which I did not approve.

Now I feel like I'm done doing things. I have accomplished enough. Sadly, there are still things left that other people are expecting me to do.

I think I'm getting a sinus infection, and I have to get on bunch of planes on Thursday. Two thumbs down, Sinuses.

This list of complaints is way more "whiny and annoying" than "funny" or "provoking others to large amounts of sympathy and/or gifts", so I'm probably not even going to get anything out of it.

Whatever. I am almost done with the semester. Almost. See you soon, internet.

Q &/or A

2010-11-24T11:27:00.003-05:00

A linguistics professor won a bunch of money on a game show. CBC News wrote this sentence about it:

Kennedy, a linguistics professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara, won $17,700, capping his win by correctly answering "What is a Quarter Horse?" to the question "This American breed was named for its ability to race a distance of 1,320 feet" in the horse breeds category.

The question has become the answer, and the answer, the question. It's like that saying about chickens and eggs, sort of. Or like that other thing where you say "this sentence is false" and then everyone is so confused. Because what is a question, really? Or an answer? We may never know.

Alex Trebek, what have you done?

Toponyms

2010-11-13T11:46:00.004-05:00

I was reading the news (instead of writing my dissertation or grading tests or applying for jobs or cleaning my room or doing the dishes or any of the other things I'm supposed to be getting done) and noticed this sentence that President Obama apparently said:

"She is a hero of mine and a source of inspiration for all who work to advance basic human rights in Burma and around the world"

The title of the article calls the country in question "Myanmar", and the article is at Al Jazeera, who I usually assume are on the leftest side of naming conventions. I remembered having at least one conversation with someone who knew about the difference between calling this country Burma and calling it Myanmar, but I did not remember the content of the conversation so I looked it up on Wikipedia. It is very interesting!

The two names are different-register variants of the same Burmese word (according to Wikipedia). Phonetic register variation: interesting.

Obama used the opposition version (according to Wikipedia) while stodgy old Al Jazeera English used the oppressive regime name (according to Wikipedia). Political implications/subtext: interesting.

Teaching is fun.

2010-10-27T16:37:00.003-05:00

We had a really awesome (for me) and hilarious (to me) conversation in class yesterday wherein every one of the students was completely taken aback by my claim that nouns are NOT people, places, or things, but just words that have particular qualities. There was like a 20 minute tangential discussion/vocabulary review that wound up with everyone being sort of angry and confused by my claim that the chair I kept using for an example was not a noun, but the English word "chair" and the ASL sign for "chair" are nouns.

"BUT THAT IS A CHAIR."
"Yes."
"THAT'S WHAT IT'S CALLED."
"Yes."
"'CHAIR' IS A NOUN."
"Yes."
"SO THAT CHAIR IS A NOUN."

Eventually the discussion resulted in me writing lists on the board of "characteristics of the chair" and "characteristics of the ASL sign "chair"

chair: black, plastic, has wheels, has padding, can sit on it.

sign: made with 2 hands, both hands in "U" handshapes, one hand stays still, the other hand moves, noun.

Then for the next 5 minutes everyone kept zoning out and talking to themselves. When I would pause my lecture to ask what was going on, they would each (at different moments) be all "oh I was just thinking about if that cup was a noun, or if the sign "cup" was a noun" or "so the close-vision interpreter is not a noun, but if I sign "interpreter", that's a noun".

Mindblowing, for them, and incredibly entertaining, for me. Now I just need to get this shirt and wear it to class. Hilarious linguistics humor for everyone!

Linguistics Road Trip

2010-09-30T10:59:00.005-05:00

Lindsay and Kyle came to town with their foreign sign languages and their foreign friends. Then we all drove to Indiana for a conference. Lindsay and I had big plans for our Linguistics Party Van, involving duct tape and fireworks and a keg, but Kyle is such a ~~killjoy~~ good influence.

Later, Lindsay and I will make a video for you, in which she tries to explain things and I make fun of her for not knowing which words go to which language.

DC politics update

2010-09-15T09:12:00.002-05:00

Looks like DC's next mayor will be Vincent Gray. A solid standby of a spectrum election name- no frills, no nonsense, easy to pick out of a paint chip array, and in DC everyone is wearing a gray suit anyway about 80% of the time.

This was only the primary election, so most races with secondary-color-name candidates have yet to be decided. We'll have to wait for the final decision on the exciting Vincent Orange v Vincent "Kwame" Brown race for the council chair.

Dear internet,

2010-09-05T15:24:00.004-05:00

Oh, hello.

This semester may well be the death of me. I am doing way too much of some things, and not nearly enough of other things. The first category doesn't really include anything I think anyone wants to hear very much about. The second category includes everything that is nice and good.

So far, it has been this semester for one (1) week. Maybe after some other weeks pass by, I will get a better attitude and think of something funny to tell you about.

your friend,
Cecily

bunny rabbits say "hop, hop"

2010-08-24T14:31:00.000-05:00

Sunday afternoons are exciting times

2010-08-15T13:59:00.001-05:00

It's a tiny town, and everybody knows what you been doin'

2010-08-10T12:31:00.003-05:00

Random neighbor dude woke me up in the middle of the night by ringing the doorbell* repeatedly. At 2:30. My truck was parked on the next street over, and the lights were on. He was sorry to wake me, but wanted to let me know so I could turn the lights off and make sure the battery wouldn't be dead in the morning.

To clarify: when I say "random neighbor dude" I mean, I didn't recognize him. We haven't actually ever met, to my knowledge. And yet, he knows which house goes to my truck.

I haven't decided exactly how I feel about this. Famous? Important? Conspicuous? Flattered? Nervous? It's hard to say.

I didn't go turn the lights off because I was too asleep to function. Now the battery is presumably dead. Who wants to come help jump it?

*It makes the lights in my room flash on and off and the bed shakes. That's how.

Listen to those congressmen arguing!

2010-07-28T09:57:00.007-05:00

If this bill becomes a law*, maybe it will be easier to find a captioned version of its biopic.**

(click through to the youtube page and then click underneath the video for a transcript)

*It passed in the House. See 01:58-02:02 of the video for a visual aid about what happens now.
**It won't. Youtube videos aren't covered.

Happy birthday, limited civil rights

2010-07-26T11:20:00.005-05:00

The ADA is 20. Tom Harkin says pretty words, but since Glee has already been signed on for a third season, I don't think we're really winning.

creepy/fascinating*

2010-07-17T12:02:00.011-05:00

Abby came over the other night and reminded me of this video.

(warning: probably not safe for small children or those who are prone to nightmares about insects)

d
by Run Wrake. Via.

*where "fascinate" has its old-timey witchcraft meaning.

This is where the term "political spectrum" is originally from

2010-06-29T11:48:00.012-05:00

Constitution City is notorious for its high numbers of monuments, presidential ghosts, politicians in suits, and chicken bones on the sidewalks. A lesser-known phenomenon in Our Nation's Fine Capital is the interesting and unusual election process.

The rule is simple: if you want to run for City Council or Mayor, you have to change your name. You can keep your old name for private and tax purposes, but your new politician name must follow this format:
[Vincent] [optional middle initial/nickname] [color term of your choice].

During the campaign season, rallies are held at which supporters wear the candidate's color (usually garments, but face and body paint are becoming more and more popular). Occasionally an especially fervent supporter will paint her house to match a candidate's promotional material. Finally, on election day, each DC resident finds an item of the appropriate hue and brings it to the voting booth, where an instant photograph is taken of the object. Many residents take this opportunity to once again wear colorful clothing and face paint to show their support, but any object (napkin, pencil, earring, bottle of nail polish, power tool, etc) is acceptable, as long as at least 80% of the surface area is a candidate's color. When the photo booths close, the Spectrum Committee sets to work creating a portrait of each candidate from the votes. In each race, the candidate with the largest photomosaic wins.

Choice of last name is a complicated tactical matter; most candidates hire teams including psychologists and linguists to find colors that are perceptually salient but not too common, and color names that balance the distinctive with the familiar. Color terms can win or lose elections- analysts believe that the outcomes of several races have been influenced by candidates' choices of color words that were not well-known (Vincent Viridian lost to Vincent Rose in a landslide in 1992; exit polls indicated that only 12% of voters could identify viridian on a color wheel) or have unclear referents (the 1978 three-way race between Turquoise, Green and Grey took three extra months to decide. In the end, Grey was declared the council member for Ward 5, but controversy continued around reports of vicious arguments in the Spectrum Committee Chambers over whether some 6,000 votes were turquoise or green. Several committee members resigned amidst rumors and accusations that they had called the race for Grey purely in order to end the bickering about the turquoise/green votes).

Once elected, the DC Spectrum Committee provides each council member with a wardrobe and a vehicle in the correct color scheme. Pictured below is the current council.

d
(standing) Vincent Periwinkle, Vincent Plum, Vincent Pewter, Vincent Blue, Vincent Red, Vincent Marionberry, Vincent "Phil" Brown, Vincent Mustard.
(seated) Vincent Black, Vincent Kelly, Vincent Gray, Vincent Navy, Vincent "Kwame" Brown.

The current election season is especially exciting, because it involves the first-ever Vincent Orange! Orange is challenging Vincent "Kwame" Brown for Vincent Gray's Council Chair seat (Gray and Vincent "Michael" Green are challenging incumbent Vincent "Fenty" Red for the mayor's seat). Historically, council photographs have been dominated by Browns, Greens, and Grays, with an occasional marionberry suit in the back row or the Mayor's office. It would be nice to get some brighter colors in there, although Orange may have a tough time with the electorate, as orange is not a flattering color on many people.

Do I ever encourage a near party atmosphere because of my comfort with using humor?

2010-06-26T11:55:00.000-05:00

Probably! Well, I'd like to think so, at least. Could I start my next meeting, presentation, or conversation by telling a funny story? Why, yes, yes I could!

I feel confident, therefore, that I am an Expert at Humor, one of many Competencies in which I am all-too-rarely evaluated or praised. Although, I have to admit that the fact that I am not psychic has left me a little behind the field on Strategic Ability and Innovation Management ("Creates highly effective strategic vision and has an uncanny sense of how situations can unfold; prepares well in advance to take fullest advantage of the changing environment") and Managing Vision and Purpose ("Is a gifted visionary, anticipating future trends and artfully crafting a broad vision incorporating many groups and organizations"). Who knew Microsoft liked hilarious prophets so much?

A Competency I did not even know existed is Managerial Courage. Someone who is an expert in this area "Has a commanding but undaunting presence" and "Forcefully and definitively takes negative action to quench trouble", which sounds more like Being a Superhero to me, except, what does "negative action" mean? So maybe a Supervillain instead.

The best part of the Humor page is the recommended readings. Dilbert! Is this a complicated joke involving several levels of meta-humor? I can't tell! Which just makes it funnier. Good job, Humor Competency Writers!

Summary: if you want a cubicle job in today's economy, you should be a clairvoyant stand-up comedian with superpowers. It is your choice whether to use the superpowers for good or evil, but you should probably replace the words "good" and "evil" with "positive" and "negative" on your resume if you want to be called for an interview.

Football

2010-06-14T17:33:00.003-05:00

I spent the weekend watching the superbowl with some Australians. It got sort of depressing on Sunday afternoon, but then again, there was a keg, so. Every cloud, or whatever.

Elizabeth spent a lot of time writhing around on the floor screaming, to show us how Italians play soccer. Ben spent a lot of time screaming at the refs, because they hated justice and beauty. I spent a lot of time refilling my cup, because it kept getting empty. The children spent a lot of time taking their clothes off, because that is how they do.

Tomorrow I'm going on vacation in Minnesota, because Constitution City hasn't been humid or mosquito-y enough for me lately. It's barely even like a swamp at all. Twin Cities here I come!

Gog versus Magog, take 2

2010-06-01T19:39:00.003-05:00

Update!!! New extra evidence!!

The earth is disintegrating beneath our very houses.

Death Fight 5000: Gog versus Magog!

2010-05-30T11:38:00.005-05:00

So, it seems pretty clear that we're in the End Times and the apocalypse is impending and the Constitution Gods are about to come back and rule over the ruins of the memorials and whatnot. Evidence:

The oceans are turning into some non-water substance.

Facebook finally turned into the Mark of the Beast. Everyone knows your birthday and your favorite sitcom and how many friends you have, now. Just like the bible said.

There are frogs shutting down highways in Greece.

In an effort to keep the populace soothed and nonrioting, the New World Order has put together a crack team of genius PR dudes to spin the story. At least part of the story- no one seems to care very much about the RAINING FROGS IN GREECE.

Meanwhile, back in Constitution City, the weather continues charming and the pool across the street is open. So that's where I'll be until Ghost Abe Lincoln shows up to collect the faithful. See you on the other side of the rainbow!

The real pool opens on Saturday

2010-05-27T18:56:00.002-05:00

This is a better solution for the under-4-feet-tall crowd than for the rest of us. Or maybe I just need some bigger buckets.

Negative energy

2010-05-03T09:55:00.003-05:00

Alyssa and I started going to Spa World last winter. Warning! The website I just linked to, there, is extremely irritating! It has music and popups and many moving flashing things. It is not a website for the faint of heart, nor the prone to migraines/seizures.

It is, however, a website full of incredible and fantastic prose and information. And the real-life entity to which the website belongs is also chock full of fantastic and incredible, which is why we keep going back even though it is located very far away (30 minutes by car!) in a State.

Spa World is basically a hybrid between a Korean bathhouse and an episode of Star Trek. You go in and trade your shoes for a little orange outfit, and then head to the baths. The baths include

1) BASHER WALL: adding 3D to typical pool, it provides the place to relax within the pool, and inside of water curtain has different atmosphere

which is okay, but I don't really care about different atmospheres or 3D. I like

2) DREAM BATH: bath that analyzed the lying position, it massages the tension in muscle by using high pressured water stream from JET nozzle on sole, calf, femoral region, waist, shoulder. (5 minute at a time)

the very best, along with the steam sauna.

After a few hours of that, it's time to dry off and put on your orange outfit and head for the Poultice Rooms and the food. The restaurant serves gigantic portions of delicious Korean food, and the juice bar serves tea, terrible fruit-free all-synthetic smoothies, and ice cream sandwiches that are shaped like fish.

The Poultice Rooms and the food area are arranged around a large general area, which is full of mats and plastic pillows and people in shorts outfits stretching and sleeping and chatting and reading and typing. It is also full of large television monitors which are showing various news and sporting events. There is free wi-fi and a number of big leather chairs. This is the part that is like Star Trek. Everyone is wearing identical clothing, sprawled out on mats on the floor, and using technology. That's what Star Trek is like, right?

Anyway, the Poultice Rooms are big fancy saunas that emit things to heal you. For example,

When using oak wood charcoal poultice room, one feels better, refreshed, and quickly recovers from poor health. One view of sickness and malaise is a lack of electrons in the body. When the body is warmed via heated charcoal, it emits infrared rays and warms the body for a long time, which improves blood circulation and relaxes muscles fatigue. [my emphasis]

This is absolutely my favorite view of sickness and malaise. A lack of electrons! Do you see what this means? It means that all of my sicknesses and malaises are caused by having too much positive energy in my body. I need more NEGATIVE energy, and then I will be cured!

So: anyone who would like to join me on the back steps for bourbon and complaining, please inform. It's good for me, it's good for you, everybody wins.

Family update: China edition SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCE FINAL INSTALLMENT!

2010-05-02T10:20:00.007-05:00

Guest post by my mama. Featuring: police handlers, Attractive Sheep, Hello Kitty, primal screams. This is the final Mom Email from China; my mother & stepfather will be back in the Wild West sometime next week, where antics and adventures of a different sort are sure to ensue.

Shenyang is a small city that you never heard of- about the size of Los Angeles- about sixty miles north of North Korea. We spent the weekend there for Jim’s last police training, and except for the cigarette smoke, it was fun. There is a smaller version of the Forbidden City that is in more pristine shape, and a good museum. The police are always very considerate hosts, and I was “handled” by a young policewoman named Miss Ho who toured me around to see things and shop.

I asked to go to look at some handmade folk art or some crafts, and she said, “I know just what you want!” Then she took me to a mall where you could pay to paint a plaster copy of Disney characters or Attractive Sheep, the big cartoon character in China. Oh well, anyway, it’s a nice city.

Each night there was a banquet, as always, and one night they took us to a North Korean restaurant- the food was good, with dancing girls to entertain. The Boss Dancing Girl came into the room and said grudgingly, (in Chinese) “Well most Americans are really bad people, especially the soldiers, but you guys seem to be okay.” After the dances, they served a dish of cold noodles, and some stewed dog. Jim ate this but I could not. Also I felt guilty that we had all the food for the whole PRK on our table.

Our hotel was a beautiful old one on a main square with a famous statue of Mao. We were on the third floor facing him, right at his eye level, and it looked like he was waving hello as he peeked into our room. Lots of people were gathered in this square all the time, doing tai chi, or dancing or roller-skating. Some people had the semi-interesting Chinese habit of standing outside at dawn and doing a primal scream. Since Shenyang is about halfway to Vladivistok, it is about 600 miles east of Beijing in the single time zone of China, that means dawn is somewhere around 4 a.m. right now, and I was bored of the screaming after the first day.

At the end of the training the police gave Jim a complimentary police badge. It is brass and weighs two pounds; it’s at least eight inches across. They put it into a Hello Kitty! bag to present it to him.

After the training we went to the end of the Great Wall where it goes into the ocean, and to the first fort, all of which has been restored a lot, but it is still very pretty and interesting. Then we took a train to the resort where all the leaders of China like to go for vacations, called Bei Da He- on the ocean. Our friend Kaho brought spirit lanterns, little hot air Chinese lanterns that we set off on the beach after dark, and watched them fly up over the water.

We stayed at a hotel that is owned by the Department of Building Oversight. It was actually called a “sanatarium”, not a hotel, and it was staffed by a group of bewildered, fluttery girls who never seemed to know quite what to do about anything. We were the only people in it, possibly because none of the plumbing worked. It seemed as if this was run-of- the- mill - Leslie went down to tell them that her floor was flooded, and the girls came and looked at it and then went away.This is the best way to do oversight. She had to go back twice and complain before they switched her room, but the same thing happened in everyone’s room- water just poured out all over the floor during each use of the faucets. But the beach was lovely, and the air was fresh, so it all seemed good. We got back last night, and are in Beijing for the last week before the movers come.

Also, governments need to stop calling people "hooligans". It just makes them sound silly.

2010-05-01T09:00:00.001-05:00

This NYT article is a brief, dispiriting, but unsurprising look at Rwanda. In excellent journalistic style, the NYT makes sure to examine all the pluses and minuses of having a police state. Is Rwanda a police state? Yes, it is. Now, granted, there's no free press. But the streets are so clean!

"[S]omething of a central African utopia", though, seems like a bit of a stretch. I've certainly never met anyone who thought of Rwanda as any kind of utopia. Actually, many people I've met seem to assume that there is still an active genocidal war going on there, and that they just haven't heard about it recently because the media got bored. Which is also fairly dispiriting, on several levels.

My truck is prettier than your truck

2010-04-20T15:33:00.002-05:00

photos (and much painting) by Katie.

I hope you guys are ready for this.

2010-04-15T20:30:00.000-05:00

SCIENCE.

Well, this is the most horrifying thing I've seen for quite some time.

2010-04-06T15:53:00.003-05:00

WikiLeaks has decrypted and released a video in which a number of civilians, including Reuters journalists, are killed by the US military in an unprovoked attack. The video embedded here is 17 minutes long, has captions, and is extremely difficult to watch.

More.

Update: Still more @ the WaPo, and even more (via Spencer)

it's that time of the year

2010-04-06T10:30:00.001-05:00

This is totally related to linguistics. And awesomeness.

2010-03-28T12:32:00.003-05:00

I am super obsessed with this video lately:

It is an Italian music video from the olden days of the 1970s, in which the Italian pop star singer makes up words that he thinks sound like American English. And does extremely, insanely great dance moves to them.

Here's why it's related to linguistics: Those words are gibberish! But, people have brains that like to see faces in clouds and hear words in noises. So there are a bunch of versions of the video with "English" "subtitles". And, depending on how much you can hear, when you listen to the [same] song and you see [different] words on the screen, your brain totally thinks you can hear whichever words are up there. It's like magic!

One day soon I am gonna spend an entire weekend practicing all these dance moves. Watch out.

the whole wide world is a tiny town full of tiny ideas

2010-03-16T13:02:00.003-05:00

Last week, I graded exams and wrote feedback for projects and defended my proposal and calculated midterms and DIDN'T EVEN HAVE TIME TO READ THE INTERNET.

This week, I am working on this project:

It has two stories! the second story is made of wood so that it can support small people sitting on it. My plan for it involves pink duct tape, turquoise duct tape, a few minor structural additions, and nailing the rear wall to the railing on the back porch.

Next up: sewing dress shirts. OR making a toy turtle out of felt and fabric. OR entering all my sources in BibDesk so I don't have to do it later. OR something else. The future is full of possibilities!

Fletcher explains a limited number of things

2010-03-15T19:03:00.002-05:00

mostly having to do with letters of the alphabet:

Healthful Advice: dispatch from China

2010-02-18T13:54:00.007-05:00

My mother says:

In the two months we were gone, the only piece of mail we got was a first aid/health care guide booklet from the government. (Our mailbox doesn’t have a lock that works, which is okay because we don’t get mail. I check from time to time to see if anything has come, but that almost never happens. The person who sometimes watches our lobby keeps things in our box because of the no‐ lock thing; sometimes candy and snacks, sometimes other odd bits they need to hide quickly if their supervisor comes by. At the time of writing the box has in it: someone’s gloves and some candy, cracker wrappings, some folded papers and two pens.)

Anyway, the booklet we got covers every facet of a healthy life, and tells you everything you always wanted to know, and many things that you didn’t. We got one last year aimed at newcomers to the community telling how to exercise and what to eat, but I didn’t keep it, which I later regretted; the difference is that I didn’t have a scanner then, and now I do, so I can share! It’s a good thing that I am easily entertained…

The book is a miniature masterpiece of exciting dramas, with fantastic graphic drawings to illustrate the action. It’s all in Chinese, of course, but not being able to read just makes the pictures more interesting. The heroes are a typical family who are dealing admirably with all these tragic and terrible things. The children feature as the most heroic, and the little girl seems to have the most sangfroid of them all.

It starts fairly calmly, with the grandpa having a heart attack. (I interpret this as a heart attack; although I can’t understand why the little girl is so angry at him- maybe he is drunk instead?) Obviously the father is thrown for a loop, and the mother is just upset.

Next, no problems in understanding this, some people being sick: what is causing the projectile vomiting not clear… maybe drugs for the grandma, and possibly bai jiu for the dad. (Because of the dizzy symbol above his head)

(A picture is worth a thousand words!) In the section on first aid, along with great drawings about how to bandage things up, how to splint your legs, etc; comes: How To Wrap Up A Severed Finger! What To DO With It! All in four small drawings!

Then there is a section about cleanliness that has my favorite picture. The action here is utterly mystifying to me. What on earth is she doing? Why is the toilet shaking? Probably it is about earthquake safety, but why put that with the other directions on the page, which have to do with hand‐washing and AIDS? Why is the pillow so nervous?

Also on this page is a condom being smug. This picture is ambiguous. He also seems angry.

The authors of the booklet may not realize the subtext about Chinese life that is revealed by the next chapter; I have included a little selection of the drawings about being wary of criminals‐ disturbingly, in every case the evil person is obviously a weiguoren with blond hair and a chiseled face.

Except for the lascivious Big Boy trying to get the Good Girl drunk (the booklet covers almost all aspects of a healthy life):

On almost the last page, there is this great drawing to tell how to duck stray bullets: hide behind the soda machine! (FYI: don’t worry! This doesn’t happen here very often as far as I can see) Only after I had cut it out did I see that on the other side were directions about how you can foil a bank robbery ‐by bravely sending a text message on your phone! I couldn’t salvage enough of the picture to use, though.

For everyone I love who is far away from me.

2010-02-14T17:01:00.017-05:00

(another guest post by Jocelyn)

Loretta spent the weekend with me in Ithaca.

Today, we cut up some hearts to see if we could find the love, and then we cooked and ate them. It was a combination Valentiney activity and maybe some anatomy review for me.

There was a little bit of a technical difficulty about the photographs, and so some pictures are with my computer camera and are therefore not great, while others are with Loretta's camera and will be added later.

The hearts in question were a lamb's heart and a turkey's heart, both provided to me when I bought the entire animal for cooking and eating. It turns out that in the butchering process, pretty much all of the vessels are removed, along with the right atrium, most of the left atrium, and (in the case of the turkey heart) the entire right ventricle too. So there wasn't as much anatomy to look at as I would have liked, but still some.

So before making any cuts at all, we could look inside what was left of the right atrium. We found the great cardiac vein, draining blood from the muscle of the heart itself and emptying directly into the right atrium.

This is the great cardiac vein as it empties into the right atrium.

Here I have made the course of the great cardiac vein in a dotted green line, and the toothpick stuck inside it in yellow. We could see the toothpick through the wall of the vessel, definitely.

We could also look inside the right ventricle and see what was left of the right atrioventricular valve, including the papillary muscles, the chordae tendineae, and a little bit of the valve itself.

Except that in this picture, you can only kind of see the chordae tendineae; the light appears not to have been right to see the rest.

The pulmonary arteries and whatnot were all gone, so then we moved over to the left atrium, where we could see part of the left auricle with its pectinate muscles. At this time we also found the aorta (or at least the base of it) with the coronary artery.

Then I cut open the left ventricle, which is the most exciting part of heart dissection.

We looked at the valve parts here too. You can see the muscles and whatnot a lot better on this ventricle, as well as a little bit of the pectinate muscles in the atrium.

You are probably wondering where the aortic outflow tract went; here it is! (With the toothpick stuck through it.)

Since all that was left of the turkey heart was the left ventricle, I went ahead and cut this open too. Again, the toothpick is where the blood goes out through the aorta.

Then we were done dissecting! So I cut the hearts all up.

I actually had a turkey gizzard that I cut up and put in too, because why not. They went in a skillet with butter and garlic and onion and mushrooms and red wine, and cooked for a long time on low heat.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Snow Day #5,287

2010-02-11T18:26:00.004-05:00

snow from especiallymessily on Vimeo.

Dear Constitution Gods,

2010-02-10T15:20:00.004-05:00

This is getting stupid.

your friend,
Cecily

Not that I would leave my house anyway

2010-02-06T15:35:00.003-05:00

but it's refreshing to have such a good excuse.

Violent cuddlers welcome

2010-01-10T14:35:00.004-05:00

If I were looking for a place to live in Montreal, I would answer this ad:

I need fucking beasts of people, if you are timid you'd better be a real sweetie or have some goddamned amazing superpowers. This is a house of people who have each others backs and I'd like for it to stay this way, familial and feral. I will take care of you. Sometimes we fight each other for fun, sometimes we all sleep in the same bed. Someone tried to mug me last night and I broke his nose-- I'd do the same to someone trying to mug you.

[...]If you like some of these things you might be perfect for this house: plants, boats, junk, bikes, board games, stirling engines, cult films, math & science, puppets, drawing, cooking, sewing, knives, comics, history, bones, dumpstering, reading, being outside, making fireworks and booze and fermented foods.

from Best of Craigslist (link removed to reduce comment spam)

EXTRA WORDPLAY! TOM SWIFTY DOUBLE DACTYL!

2010-01-04T12:40:00.002-05:00

Spinnery, spunnery,
Cosmical Irony:
Puns are beloved from
Maine to Brazil.

"It is a punishment"
Tom said, while gagging, "that
paronomasia
makes me quite ill."

(Rfts helped with the scansion and rhyme.)

bounce, bounce, woof

2009-12-29T15:05:00.004-05:00

The dog would really like to play with a cat or kitten, but hasn't had any takers so far.

hey double dactyl-y

2009-12-27T16:37:00.002-05:00

my sister's here, with her dog, so I made a poem about them:

Diggerel doggerel
Sad Scruffleupagus
worries and whines as he
waits by the door

ever since Jocelyn
put on her jacket and
unsympathetically
went to the store.

When Jocelyn's here, he just stares directly at her. Or sleeps. WHO'S A GOOD DOG? WHO'S A GOOD DOG?

The government stole my weather

2009-12-20T21:08:00.002-05:00

I'm in Montana, where it has been freezing raining for DAYS and the skies are cloudy and gray and the weather guy on the teevee is very full of discouraging words. NOT LIKE THE SONG SAYS AT ALL.

Meanwhile, everyone in stupid DC gets snowball fights and hot cocoa and camaraderie. And they don't even have any mountains to ski on! I hope the Constitution Gods get their act together real quick like and put the snow back where it belongs, or about 50% of my packing will have been a total waste.

But who would bring a SADDLE on an airplane? Come on, Delta. Don't be silly.

2009-12-15T15:42:00.006-05:00

I'm getting ready to leave for Missoula, and since Our Dear Overlords keep changing up the rules for air travel, I went online to see what I could see.

It turns out that if you want to check any "Fragile/bulky items" on a Delta flight, you have to tell an official ahead of time.

Well, this seems reasonable! (I may or may not have said to myself,) But I wonder what type of item would fit into this somewhat vague category? Never fear; Delta has a handy list of examples of fragile and/or bulky items:

- saddle
- antlers
- Hawaiian pineapples
- military duffle bags

as well as a more comprehensive list including

- Ornamental Bric-a-Brac

and

- Meters

both of which are a little confusing to me: the first seems extremely unhelpful as the name of an "item", and the second, I have no idea what the referent might be. Parking meters? Yardsticks?

Anyway, I'm hoping if I stick the Hawaiian pineapples on the antler points, and then stick the whole thing into the military duffle bag, I can get away with a single charge.

three's the charm, right?

2009-12-14T10:32:00.003-05:00

Elizabeth got some kittens:

which is sparking all kinds of ill-advised wishes and plans in me. We already have two cats, and they hate each other. They really hate each other. They've lived together for 4 years, with no signs that the hatred is abating.

So my theory is, we should get a helpless baby kitten to melt their somewhat-disordered adult cat thinking, and then we will all be a cuddly happy family. Except first I'll probably borrow one of Elizabeth's kittens to make sure that Small can tell the difference between a baby kitten and a baby rabbit, because she will totally kill a baby rabbit and leave it on the floor of my room for a present. And that would ruin the cuddly happy family vibe that I'm going for, I'm pretty sure.

Anyway I've been spending all my time sitting around at Elizabeth's constructing cat toys out of paper and ignoring my responsibilities. Next stop: the Frozen North. Hasta.

happy thanksgiving!

2009-11-25T10:18:00.000-05:00

"I have a Bible, a Koran, and a Book of Mormon in my bag"

2009-11-13T10:44:00.001-05:00

...Tom said sacrilegiously.

Oh, snap! You thought I forgot about this kind of hilarious joke, didn't you? That was your first mistake, thinking I would ever be capable of forgetting about something so ridiculous.

I've been working on one about poetry, and not being able to write it, and being despondent, but it hasn't really come together for me yet.

Everything else is the same as it ever was. Except that my mom is coming to visit soon and there is only a month left of school which is alarming.

I guess now I'll go figure out all the things I have to do this weekend.

She said listlessly.

This ain't no party

2009-11-04T19:23:00.004-05:00

Daddy-O is leaving for Afghanistan today. His training has included Growing a Beard, Learning How to Get Along With the Military, and Practicing Getting In and Out of Helicopters.

Sadly, he won't be in an area where the Italians are the lead military. Sadly because, apparently they have lots of wine on their bases. Happily, he won't be in an area that has lots of violent danger. Happily because he's my daddy.

Afghanistan is farther away than I thought it was. Mainly because I've been basing "far away" on how my mom's in China and Lindsay's in Sydney, as one extreme, and whether or not I have to leave a 3 block radius, as the other. Turns out, Aghanistan is still pretty far!

Happy Halloween.

2009-10-31T10:36:00.001-05:00

via Catherine

almost

2009-10-28T14:30:00.000-05:00

I've been barely recovering from one germy disease just in time to be stricken by another one, for a couple of months now. Other than that I have nothing of interest to report so you should probably go spend a few hours looking at this guy's far more entertaining and far more frequently updated website.

d

Argent two bars Gules in chief three mullets in fess of the second

2009-10-07T20:45:00.000-05:00

Last summer Ben asked me why all the DC city type things (vehicles, buildings, license plates) had three red stars and two red strips on them. Like so:

I didn't know, and my powers of internet searching were weak.

Then this fall, instead of writing my dissertation, I found out! It is the Flag of the District of Columbia, and it is based on George Washington's family coat of arms.

And the name of the coat of arms is Argent Two Bars Gules in Chief Three Mullets in Fess of the Second.

So, I think we all learned something today. You're welcome.

Small v Superball

2009-10-06T09:53:00.007-05:00

d

Unclear what happened to the ball, at the end, there. Cat seems satisfied with the outcome, whatever it was.

The Best Health Care in the World: multiple choice quiz

2009-10-05T13:40:00.006-05:00

1. Today I went to the doctor for symptoms including intermittent fever. Without being reminded, the highly-trained medical staff remembered to do which 2 of the following 3 things?

a. take my blood pressure
b. weigh me
c. take my temperature

2. I have been exhibiting flu-like symptoms. There is a flu pandemic, and it is Normal Non-pandemic Flu Season. I do not have white spots on my throat, and I do have a cough. Which of the following tests was I given? (pick one)

a. Strep
b. seasonal flu
c. H1N1

3. After it had been determined that I do not have strep throat, which astute follow-up question was I asked?

a. Can you hear?
b. Can you read lips?
c. Have you seen a doctor about hearing loss?
d. all of the above

There is no answer sheet. The answer is screaming.

A Celebration of Special-Ness

2009-09-26T20:53:00.003-05:00

As I was leaving campus last week after teaching at College-That-Is-Past-Damascus, I was stuck on Main Street for half an hour because there was a parade.

I don't know what the parade was for. It wasn't a holiday. I was pretty close to it all, so I could see what the parade consisted of, and what it consisted of wasn't informative. What it consisted of was marching bands, walking people with glowy necklaces, pickups with people in the beds, and various emergency vehicles with their fancy lights all flashing.

I sat there smiling at them all and feeling alternately gleeful and guilt-ridden. Because all I could think about was True Stories and how much I love David Byrne.

d

I have something to say about this. But I've forgotten what it is. I have it written down at home though.

Big Brother is taking good care of me

2009-09-22T20:52:00.005-05:00

Cab drivers in DC used to just drive around until they got somewhere and then turn to you, palm up, for money. An amount of money that as far as anyone could tell they had invented, or dreamt, or received from the gods. And the place wasn't always the place you had in mind, either.

Now, cab drivers in DC have meters and GPS. And my world is much better.

It is particularly difficult to correct-en-route a cab driver when you are deaf. Even if your voice is pretty understandable and the cab driver can hear you, he* probably won't internalize the fact that you can't hear him*. So when you try to say "turn here" or "take a right on Rhode Island" he* will probably respond to you with something you can't hear, and then later chastise you for it.

If you don't talk, and you just hand him* a piece of paper with the address/directions written on it, then you have no way of knowing what kind of mental processes are occurring as you drive. Particularly if you are a little bit or a lot drunk, this is true. Which is problematic because everyone [read: me] takes cabs a lot more often when they are a little bit or a lot drunk.

But, now, with the new fancy Fare Meter GPS rule, it is much better! You can sit in the back seat, drunkenly musing on whatever you would care to muse on, and keep an eye on the little screens in the front. One little screen will tell you where you are, and what the cab driver thinks he* is doing. There is a big bright line telling you where he* thinks he* is going! It is easy to object and correct when necessary.

Tonight, for example, I gave the nice cab driver man* a piece of paper with my address and several other ways to consider my address written on it. First, the actual mailing address. Second, the cross streets with letter and number streets. Third, the actual closest intersection to my house. In the past, this same information has yielded widely varying results, including cab drivers who thought I meant I (Eye) Street when I wrote 1st (First), and also multiple confusions between quadrants even though I was very careful to specify.

But tonight, Cab Driver Man* just typed what I wrote into his little GPS meter dealy, and I could tell right away that we were on the right track. The GPS even knew the appropriate shortcuts to take. Cab Driver Man* did not get stressed out, and I got home with zero problems and for an acceptable number of dollars.

Moral: I love GPS.

*I've not yet had a female cab driver in DC. I have no idea if this is a statistically useful sample.

holy ridiculous, Small.

2009-09-21T20:46:00.001-05:00

naptime.

Also, she purr-snores.

I mean, I'm proud of Elizabeth, too...

2009-09-12T18:08:00.002-05:00

This kid kind of blows my mind. As usual.

School's going good. I might actually get a degree at some time in the not terribly distant future. A student told me my class was "one of the hardest I've ever taken" which my roommate thinks I should take as a compliment but I'm not quite as sure about. DC got taken over by rabid wingnuts this weekend, but since I never leave my house it didn't really affect me. Maryrose is back in town for a visit, and the air is cool enough at night that I am contemplating the addition of another down comforter. So all in all things are pretty okay.

Family Update: Bullet Point Edition

2009-09-08T10:41:00.002-05:00

- my mother has a pet cricket.
- my father is moving to a war zone.
- all of my siblings are enrolled in institutes of higher learning.
- Happy birthday, Tom!

So far I have been neither lost nor converted

2009-09-01T11:25:00.003-05:00

The semester started! Summer is over. The pool is about to close. Yesterday evening you needed a SWEATER. If you left the house I mean. Not that I did that.

I'm teaching two classes this fall. So far I've taught one of each. So far so good.

One class is at a small college way far north of me, in a state*. To get to it, I have to follow the road to Damascus. I find this endlessly entertaining, and I tell myself various phrases that involve "on the way to Damascus" over and over as I drive.

*I have to leave my neighborhood, and my quadrant, and the whole DISTRICT. It is very exciting.

U-huh, uh-uh.

2009-08-26T20:27:00.004-05:00

I think my favorite discourse phenomenon in Standard American English these days is the use of the introductory phrase "Yeah, no."

I use it ALL THE TIME. It is the most awesome way to disagree with someone, ever.

There's no real great way to do it in actual manual ASL, but a smooth gradual transition between nodding your head "yes" and shaking your head "no", combined with appropriate transformation of facial expression, does the trick discourse-wise.

Julie always gets mad at me for starting every sentence with "right, but" (in both English and ASL). This is a similar but nonidentical expression. "Right, but" expresses that while what your interlocutor has just said is true, it has failed to account for some major point that you are about to bring up. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with "right, but"; I'm just saying it's a different kind of statement than "yeah, no".

"Yeah, no", as opposed to "right, but", does not imply that the content of the interlocutor was correct, but merely that you have understood what they meant and are now contradicting it. Surprisingly, this is not necessarily a hostile position to be taking- often, in my experience, "yeah, no" is employed to acknowledge that the interlocutor's position makes sense and would be a reasonable assumption, but in fact does not obtain.

For example,

A: I'd heard of the Barefoot Benefits and all that stuff - here, no less, with that fingery-shoe conversation - but I didn't realize that by "barefoot" they meant "nothing to do with bare feet whatsoever, but rather walking on barrels like an idiot".

B: Yeah, no, these are a different phenomenon from the barely-there shoes that hippie lifeguards like.

One of my favorite undergrad professors did a really fantastic super-subtle version of this: in class, when anyone was talking, he would thoughtfully listen and nod as you went. You would gain confidence (the professor is nodding thoughtfully!) and so expand on your thesis, often to somewhat absurd little thin branches (the professor was a Professor of Art History). Finally, having concluded your analysis, you would sit, quietly, while the whole class waited and the professor continued to nod thoughtfully for a few moments.

Then he would sit up straight and say "No, I don't think that's right." Then he would tell you about how wrong it was for a while.

I loved this professor greatly, and I think everyone else did too. And I really appreciated the fact that he thought carefully about even the dumbest, longest, most hare-brained expositions about art. He thought about them carefully, nodding all the while, and then, very politely, shut you down good.

Yeah, no.

rockin it contagious

2009-08-21T18:16:00.004-05:00

I want this guy to be my new best friend:

d

it means "related to awesome"

2009-08-17T13:26:00.004-05:00

Language Log has a series of posts up wherein Geoffrey Pullum tries to figure out the meaning of a mysterious word that he doesn't know and has never seen written.

The great naturalist Sir David Attenborough, on Radio 4, mentioned a curious-sounding class of animals that he appeared to be calling Sicilians... I listened carefully; it definitely sounded like "Sicilians". But what was this word? These creatures (he made it clear) did not live in Sicily.

Professor Pullum uses the Power of Phonetics to decide that the word must go like this at the beginning:

[PS or C or S] then [E or I or Y]* then [C or S or SS]

but he can't figure it out!

He should have asked someone with a name like mine, because I totally knew what the word was, because all my hopelessly recondite lovers-of-abstrusity friends and relations are always making hilarious jokes in which I am compared to a blind underground snake-worm. Other times the jokes are about sewage systems. My friends and relations are so educational.

*I kind of think he is wrong about this. The second part is only limited to E/I/Y if the first part is a C or PS. Otherwise the vowel could be anything (ANYTHING!) and it'd come out schwa. That's what I think. Now you know.

Halfabet

2009-08-09T19:35:00.006-05:00

update: now with captions! Thanks secret internet listener!

jiggety jug, jag, jeg

2009-08-02T15:30:00.001-05:00

I'm back in DC. The vines grew a lot while I was gone. The cat's happy to see me.

Montannesotigan, here I come

2009-07-26T10:56:00.002-05:00

Big Northern M State destination of the day is Minnesota. That is the one in the middle, of the three, for those of you who have trouble keeping track. It is also the one with Chris and Kate and Trisha and Emily and this guy. Hooray! Friends!

I'll be there all week. The weather is supposed to be much less gross than DC, which is a surprising but pleasing turn of events.

how everything in DC functions*

2009-07-23T10:15:00.005-05:00

Remember when I went to France for that workshop? Well before I went, I got a travel advance because my fellowship was paying for stuff. But then I didn't spend the whole travel advance because I am so thrifty and responsible. When I got back, I owed the school $208.43. So I wrote them a check.

They deposited the check. The funds were withdrawn from my account.

Then last week I got an email saying this:

Your request for reimbursement has been approved. You will receive a reimbursement in the amount of $208.43. This paperwork will be walked to Accounting on 7/21/2009.

When I emailed our secretary to find out what happened, I got an out-of-office reply and haven't heard anything since.

And today I got an email from the Cashier's Office saying my check is ready to be picked up.

I'm not sure what the best course of action is, here. Should I pick up the check, and deposit it, and wait for someone in accounting to notice that they added instead of subtracting? Should I ignore the check and hope someone else deals with the paperwork?

What I do not want to happen is this: I don't get the check (or get it but don't deposit it) and then someone charges me $208.43 anyway.

Chris showed up yesterday when I was in the middle of complaining about this story to Alyssa. He said "It sounds like you are having a codependent relationship with someone." He is right. Stop letting me enable you, Gallaudet!

*For certain values of "function".

The actual value is probably closer to 3/5

2009-07-19T11:47:00.003-05:00

The dumbest idea in Peter Singer's piece today in the NYT magazine is the idea that the value of human life and health can be ascertained via polling.

If most would prefer, say, 10 years as a quadriplegic to 4 years of nondisabled life, but would choose 6 years of nondisabled life over 10 with quadriplegia, but have difficulty deciding between 5 years of nondisabled life or 10 years with quadriplegia, then they are, in effect, assessing life with quadriplegia as half as good as nondisabled life... If that judgment represents a rough average across the population, we might conclude that restoring to nondisabled life two people who would otherwise be quadriplegics is equivalent in value to saving the life of one person, provided the life expectancies of all involved are similar. [my emphasis]

Really? What about if we asked people if they'd rather be a man for 50 years or a woman for 100? If people have trouble deciding, does that mean men are worth twice as much?

I got a present

2009-07-16T13:33:00.002-05:00

jiggety jog

2009-07-05T18:53:00.003-05:00

We're all in DC again, me and Jocelyn and Ben. Man, I am bored of jet lag. I have spent way too much of the past two months having no idea what time of what day it might be, or where I am, or why I am still awake.

Good night!

Some Families Play Cribbage

2009-07-04T07:39:00.007-05:00

This family plays Bridge.

Sometimes when we play Bridge, there are cards and bidding and tricks.

Sometimes, there is just Bridge. Or, you know - a lack of bridge, and some earthworks to fix the situation.

The brave vehicles waiting for their "road".

(note from Jocelyn: the events pictured took place on the way to the beach, after the trip with the rowboats but before the trip to Kruger. I am a lazy blogger, hence the delay. Also this post is written from the Johannesburg airport and there are problems uploading pictures; so the pictures showing the triumphant success of the vehicles crossing the earthworked bridge will have to come later.)

Here are some photographs of fauna and megafauna that we have recently seen

2009-07-03T11:10:00.007-05:00

That's right, I said MEGAfauna. 'Cause they're BIG.

all photos: Mark LoParco

more are at flickr now, and more to come.

Oh internet, I missed you so

2009-07-02T08:36:00.003-05:00

We spent the past five days at Kruger National Park, just over the border in South Africa. The same Kruger as in this famous piece of internet:

We didn't see anything quite as exciting as this. We did see lions and water buffalo and crocodiles, but not all at once and not doing their behaviors in such a dramatic way. Also there were a lot of warthogs and hippopotomi and elephants and monkeys and baboons and guinea fowl and kudu and impala. And so many birds.

My favorites were the little baby warthog piglets. My least favorites were the Go-away birds, who sat in the tree over the deck and screamed at me and threw things at my head. Until eventually I went away to drink my beer and glare at them scornfully from a safer vantage point.

Now we're back in Maputo; pictures eventually.

see you later alligators

2009-06-25T03:35:00.002-05:00

We're going to the beach for a few days. Maputo, where we are currently, is on the beach but you can't swim in the ocean here because of pollution. And we all know that the only thing I care about is swimming in the ocean. People have been telling me stories about alligators, but I'm not scared because I know the trick of punching the alligator in the nose and then running in a zig zag pattern. Because alligators won't chase you out of the water, and running in a zig zag pattern is more hilarious for the onlookers.

We'll be back on Saturday so that the more energetic members of the group can run the hash. This is the same thing that Lindsay did in Rwanda, here and here and here. If we get back in time, this will be the fourth country in which I have attended, but not participated in, a Hash event. I'm excited for that.

Name a Form of Transportation

2009-06-23T13:29:00.008-05:00

(Note from Cecily: Jocelyn wrote this all up last night but encountered technical difficulties, and I was already in bed. That is why you had to wait so long for another blog post. This will help you learn to be patient, which is a valuable skill, so we aren't going to apologize at all.) (also there will be pictures eventually. BUT ONLY IF YOU ARE VERY PATIENT.)

(Note from Jocelyn: see! the reward of virtue! Pictures!)

~~Today~~Yesterday we had a relaxing trip up the Incomati River to a lodge, where we had lunch. Then we took a brief swim and a nature walk and took a boat back down to Marracuene where we retrieved our vehicles and drove home. Or at least that is what was supposed to happen.

Boats are wooden

We left Maputo on schedule, having joined the rest of our party at a pleasant coffee shop. We drove for a while, through some nice fields and woods. There was only one unplanned stop when someone's tire deflated and we needed to inflate by the side of the road, but that was mostly pleasant. We got to a restaurant at Marracuene, parked the cars, used the bathroom, bought water, and met the boat. At this time, all was still on schedule. I don't have pictures of it because I didn't think of it.

This boat was made of inflated rubber with nice teak benches. It went real fast, and we all got kind of wet from the spray. Fun!

In this picture, Ben is attempting to keep his face dry. Or something.

Pleasant conversation amongst the ladies ensued. Or, amongst the ladies and Ben - because it was us and then a bunch of wives of diplomats, ten travelers in total. Everyone was nice, all day.

Looks like somebody didn't read the fine print

Then our first mishap occurred. We are still not certain whether the tank had contained insufficient fuel to begin with, or whether there was some kind of leak in the fuel line. By the time we were interested in this question, the actual boat and actual engine were completely unavailable for inspection for reason to be discussed, so all of it is speculation. There had been an unfortunate near-collision between the boat and a fishing net which may, or may not, have been involved in the engine failure.

Regardless, the boat was no longer going. It was pretty windy - fighting a headwind the whole way may have had something to do with the lack of petrol in the boat. Or it might not. But once the engine quit, we fairly quickly got blown onto the reeds on the lee bank. Phone calls between the boat driver and the lodge to which we were headed were made, and we were reassured that someone was coming in a different boat with additional petrol.

We sat in the sun and chatted.

No different boat came, and no additional petrol.

More phone calls were made.

You could make a car out of wood...

Ben got bored, and some excitement happened.

This mud was not nearly as stinky as it could have been, and nobody lost any shoes.

Eventually, a different boat did come. Actually three.

We were confused - why are there two canoes and a rowboat, and why do none of them contain additional petrol?

I was under the impression that you could win prizes, or money

As it turns out, the lodge had only a small amount of petrol, and all of it was in the tank of the truck. This amount was sufficient to get the truck to a place where more petrol was to be had; the problem would be thus solved, except that the truck's battery was in the boat, attached to the engine.

So the ten of us, plus Bennie our original boat driver, needed to get into the two canoes and the flat-bottomed fishing rowboat. No problem. Three passengers per canoe (two paddles in one canoe, one in the other) with the battery in the first, four ladies plus Bennie plus two fisherman in the rowboat. Off we go, paddling into a headwind.

The Rolling ... Bears?

This took a really, really long time. Fortunately it was nice out. We looked at birds and occasionally got stuck on a sandbank. Cecily and I were in the rowboat, which took the longest time and got stuck on sandbanks the most often. I enjoyed it a lot. We saw two hippos and some other things. The hippos were on the east bank; we were told later by informants from other canoes (Ben and Nancy) that they were not told about the hippos because the guides and/or fishermen did not want to frighten anyone.

I don't have any pictures of this journey because the boats were precarious and wet, and Nancy's camera stayed in my bag.

An hour and a half later, we arrived at the lodge. The north wind had blown invasive Water Hyacinth all into the beach there, so it was hard to get the boats in.

It was extra hard to get the rowboat in, because we needed to turn right and all the ladies in the back of the boat were acting as a sail, turning the boat into the wind, which happened to be a turn to the left. Eventually in order to make this turn, the fishergentlemen had to put the boat on a sandbank, get out, and push us around until the wind was on our stern.

But it happened in the end, and we had beer and lunch at two o'clock on the veranda. It was really nice.

Blue is not a form of transportation

As soon as the first canoe arrived, the battery went in the truck and the owner went off to get more petrol. As soon as he got back, the petrol and two men went in a canoe back to the big boat, with the idea that they would start up the boat, bring it back, pick us up, and have us back to our cars by maybe 4:30 pm.

After lunch, some of us went for a walk through the sandy woods. The dog went with us, which turned out to be a good thing. We saw some birds, and some lovely cattle.

The cattle were blocking the road we wanted to walk on, so we turned around to go back the way we had come, and promptly got lost.

Some combination of wandering around, asking villagers for directions, and repeatedly telling Kai the Dog to "go home! good boy!" eventually got us back to the lodge.

We were surprised not to see the big boat back. Further consideration led us all to notice that the battery was still in the truck, and so, petrol or no petrol, motorboat was not going anywhere.

A car could be blue!

Backup plan: the lodge owner and a farmer friend of his would put us all in their trucks and drive us down the peninsula to the ferry. We would cross on foot and, since the ferry dock was where the vehicles had been left, rejoin the cars with relative ease.

It took a while, but eventually this did occur. The waiting included sunshine, veranda, and beer, so we enjoyed it.

Two trucks, nine ladies and Ben plus one other guy along for the ride. Some fuss about pillows and towels for those of us in the bed of the bigger truck, but we got underway.

Anyone who is interested in making snarky and judgmental comments about the quality of this photo and the one following is welcomed to zip it. YOU try taking pictures from the back of a truck on a dirt "road".

Round Two, where the orphan points double

We had not gotten very far underway, however, when the second truck got a flat. A bad one.

However, the time was drawing near when the ferry would quit running, so we could not stop to fix it. The passengers from the second, little truck squished into the first truck, with careful attention paid to who was most likely to throw up and thus needed the front seat, and we left the lodge owner on the road with an electric pump for his tire and our best hopes for his success.

The section of road that followed was unbelievable, like the moon or something. I wish I had pictures, but it was too dark. We got to the ferry dock and watched the stars come out and hoped that the ferry (visible on the far bank) would come back that night.

Boats ARE Wooden!

It did. We watched it leave the far bank and, as a car ZOOMed down the hill and was four minutes too late, watched the ferry turn back and dock to pick up that truck. I wish that would happen to me more often.

When the ferry got to us, some trucks unloaded and some other trucks loaded. The ferrymen were not great at organizing this; at one time, the boat was loaded in a way that made the gangway a foot off the dock at one end, and then the last truck couldn't load. Some moving of trucks on the boat and some powerful shoving solved this problem, however, and we were away. Back to the west bank, back down the street to the cars, back down the dark dusty road to the city, and thence home. Maybe only four or five hours late.

Some members of the studio audience will also receive: orphans!

All in all, it was a pretty great trip. The weather was nice, the hippos didn't try to kill us, we saw some birds and ate some good food.

Nobody threw up.

No boats sank.

Tomorrow, maybe we will find caipirinhas. They make them here. Delicious.

brief, whiny, deprived of sleep

2009-06-21T06:11:00.002-05:00

We made it to Maputo. I am so tired. My eyes and my head and my feet and my back hurt. Also I left my Proof of Yellow Fever Vaccination in my desk drawer in DC so that is messing up some plans, but we managed to get past customs anyway. Email me, I miss you!

Yes, yes, I am still alive

2009-06-16T19:06:00.004-05:00

I totally lied about bloggin all the time, huh? I've been ill again, and I'm going to Mozambique on Friday. These are my excuses. Let's not discuss it again.

Katie and Ryan came over last week so we drank beers and laughed at the cat for a while. Then, to Ryan's limitless delight, Katie and I lectured him and drew him diagrams about linguistics things. Many excellent paper titles came out of the conversation that evening. The winner, by Katie:

"The Little Children Apply Their Brain-Grammars"

Then we watched Planet Earth and learned about some crazy, crazy animals that are out there eating each other.

That's all I got for you right now. Stay tuned for sibling guest posts and pictures of me swimming in the ocean.

jiggety jig

2009-05-30T10:30:00.004-05:00

Here's what I did yesterday:

automobile: hotel to train
train: Orsay to Paris Charles de Gaulle International Airport
plane: CDG to JFK
*interlude*
automobile: JFK to LGA
*interlude*
plane: LGA to DCA
automobile: Washington Reagan International Airport to home

Because of thunderstorms in DC, all my planes out of New York kept getting delayed and cancelled. I was in transit for 24 hours! Now I am sitting on my couch and am never getting up ever again. Somebody bring me some more coffee please.

Bonjour mon petit bureau de change

2009-05-24T09:08:00.003-05:00

I'm in France. This is my theme song:

d

Today, Paris. Tomorrow, Orsay. Au revoir!

Different parts of this are embarrassing for different people

2009-05-22T19:55:00.002-05:00

I am in the airport waiting to go to Paris. I bought a book. The book is Pride and Prejudice and Zombies "by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith".

It was in the "classics" section of the airport bookstore.

Also I bought a book that tells me French pickup lines: Est-ce que tu as [un petit ami] [une petite amie] [un fétiche] [du feu]?*

Watch out, France.

*Do you have a [boyfriend] [girlfriend] [fetish] [light]?

interim

2009-05-20T20:59:00.003-05:00

I was in the other Washington for the past week- Seattle and Bellingham are as delightful as ever. I saw Jocelyn and Brayde and Lindsay and Adam and Liz, and they all are looking spectacularly healthy and attractive. But Lindsay and Brayde are married now, so hands off.

Now I'm back in this Washington, the Sweaty Armpit Capital City of America. The first, but never let it be said only, Washington.

And on Friday I'm going to Paris (well, really, Orsay) for a workshop. A workshop about phonetics and signed languages. I will be presenting an hour long talk about Natural Classes and Phonetics and Acquisition. Are you frantic to learn more? Please email me directly, as I fear the general public eschews lengthy discussions of phonetics presentations.

Anyway, I am busy doing a billion things at the same time right now. Renewing my truck registration, purchasing travel-sized shampoos, doing my laundry, etc. But as soon as this trip is over, it's Summer with a capital S and that rhymes with Sleeping In And Then Spending All Day By The Pool Except When I'm Blogging. So you'll be hearing a lot from me shortly.

Procrastiwhat?

2009-05-08T16:07:00.004-05:00

I am way behind on all kinds of dissertation-type activities, so I spent the last two days building a giant castle out of cardboard for Gryphon's birthday.

This picture is from last night, before I painted it all green and purple and iridescent. And put tops and crenellations on the towers. Now it looks like this:

Some things need more iridescent paint, obviously. And maybe some flags and banners and more glitter. Clearly I need to spend many more hours working on this project before I have time for anything else.

Dear Internet,

2009-05-01T22:45:00.002-05:00

I have been in a terrible mood for the past two weeks. My birthday was over, and it was the end of the semester, and I was very ill. But then I got better and I spent the evening tonight with two friends, drinking whiskey out of teacups and eating artichokes and watching silly television shows and internet versions of The State. It is still the end of the semester, but now I feel much better about the world. So I hope you all are well, and I will tell you something entertaining soon.

love,
Cecily

SCIENCE

2009-04-25T11:10:00.004-05:00

Last weekend was my (and Rachel's) 30th birthday party, and it was the most scientific of all.

Oz took these pictures. Nice work Oz!

We had:
- posters about disease progression in cells
- molecules made out of balloons
- miracle fruits!
- beakers
- lab coats
- foam stickers in scientific shapes
- a whole lotta C₂H₅OH.

I spent the night drinking whiskey and coke out of an Erlenmeyer flask with a fancy purple twisty straw.

And all week, I kept running into my neighbors who would tell me about how drunk they were on Saturday and how their hangovers lasted for two days and where and when they threw up. Science is dangerous kids; wear your safety goggles!

Now I am frantically trying to make up for all the time I spent ordering science on the internet and setting up scientific experiments and daydreaming about lab coats and magnification, instead of writing my dissertation proposal and doing my homework. It's the end of the semester now; no more fooling around.

Upcoming: I am going to Seattle (well, Bellingham) in mid-May for Brayde's wedding, and Paris at the end of May for a sign language phonetics workshop, and Mozambique late June to look at giant turtles and lie around in some African beach sunshine. Also upcoming: Summer. Guess who has a back yard and a barbeque now?

another note from China: Altitude Parabolic!

2009-04-13T08:03:00.004-05:00

Mama says:
The corner street market is open almost all the time now, and I got back from a quick shopping trip this morning to find this notice in the downstairs hallway:

Please! Do not high altitude parabolic!
Please refuse into the bin of life!
Thank for you cooperate!

For several reasons I feel that this might be aimed at us. (Not, of course, that we would EVER high altitude parabolic! Heaven forbid!) We are the highest-up people in the building, and would have the best chance to make things go parabolic if we wanted to, since we also have the only balcony to throw things off. We are also the only English speaking people in the building, and most notices are put up only in Chinese. So why else would they bother to translate it if they don't think that we are doing something in this nefarious vein? I feel slightly paranoid about them thinking this, but also a little miffed. I have been so scrupulous about recycling and I never have put the trash any where except the bin of life!

Cecily says:
I know I never tell you anything about MY life anymore. But it is the end of the semester, and the end of the year, and also it is almost my birthday, and also I am extremely lazy and disorganized. Here's what's on the horizon though: Science Birthday 30!

See you soon.

Family Update: Wizard of Oz edition

2009-04-02T18:37:00.007-05:00

Here is an email, in its entirety, that I recently received from my mama, ensubjected "Theorem and Proof":

I postulate:

A. That in the last six months I have had to spend a lot of hours being Very Bored Indeed sitting in the back of taxis (also afraid for my life from the sketchy driving most of the time, but that’s another story).

B. So I started noticing an aspect of the city that maybe not everyone here has perceived, and I began taking the camera everywhere, and getting pictures to document my case. Jim has become extremely disgusted with this particular obsession of mine, and will no longer speak to me about it. I have embarrassed him enough! It’s time to tell the world the truth about where we live!

Here is the proof:

This was followed by a link to a photo album called "Not = Kansas", from which I have extracted representative samples.

Toto (left at home in ~~Kansas~~Seattle.

the Emerald City:

the Wicked Witch of the West:

The Cowardly Lion:

Omby Amby(s):

Tik-Tok's house:

The Gump:

The Wise Donkey:

and then later, a followup captioned "Also? Yesterday we found the rainbow! Only I think waaay too many people have been over it."

The rest of the pictures are here.

So. There you go. That's all I have to say about that. Except, oh, I am going to Mozambique in June with some siblings. So that will be fun. If you're in Mozambique, we should totally meet up.

What?

2009-03-22T21:30:00.000-05:00

So, here's a story for you:

When my brother Will was 2, he liked to pretend he was a puppy. He'd crawl around and bark, and my mom made him a headband with dog ears and fed him cereal out of a bowl on the kitchen floor. One day, my mom asked my brother (in dog character) what his name was:

Mom: what's your name, little dog?
Will: Today's Potato Soup Blaster

No one knows where this idea came from, but it stuck around. From that day forth, whenever Will was being a puppy, his name was Today's Potato Soup Blaster.

Then, three years later, we got a puppy.

We all talked about what to name the puppy. No one really cared, except Will, who was now five. Will insisted that "Today's Potato Soup Blaster" was the only name right-thinking people would name a puppy. The rest of us grumbled, but acquiesced.

Except, my other brother, Matt, who was four, had some trouble remembering this name. So when Will was off at kindergarden every day, Matt would spend his mornings playing with the puppy and asking my mother what the puppy's name was. Over and over again.

My mother grew weary of this game with predictable speed, and to amuse herself, turned to sarcasm.

Matt (for the 10th time in an hour): What's the puppy's name?
Mom: (fondly, exasperatedly, and totally expecting to be ignored): Oh, just call him WHAT!

To those who have met any of the people involved, what ensued is not surprising.

Matt, who at the time had the attention span of something-with-a-very-short-attention-span, somehow glommed on to the new name, and proceeded to go into the front yard to play with the puppy.

Informational Aside: My mom hated our next door neighbors at the time. They had lots of vicious Rottweilers and were rude and annoying. But they did like dogs, and we all maintained a veneer of polite acquaintanceship.

The neighbor lady was in her front yard. Matt and the puppy were in our front yard. My mom was in the kitchen, ~~spying~~ observing.

Neighbor: Hi sweetie! What's the puppy's name?
Matt: What!
Neighbor (louder): What's the puppy's name, honey?
Matt: His name is What!
Neighbor: No, what's his name?
Matt: Yeah! What's his name!
Mom: (silent hysterical laughter)

This conversation went on for a long, long time. Matt didn't get bored, and just got very slightly frustrated and annoyed. He was such a charming, well-meaning child. The neighbor lady was annoyed and frustrated, but since she was talking to a four-year-old, she didn't think anything of it. My mom laughed harder than she had any right to, and didn't ever intervene.

Neighbor: is that your new puppy?
Matt: yeah!
Neighbor: does he have a name?
Matt: yeah!
Neighbor: what is his name?
Matt: yeah! his name is What!

So. At the end of this momentous day, everyone came home from work and school and my mama told us the story (she cried a little bit, from laughing, while retelling it) (I cry a little bit from laughing when I retell it too).

And from that day forth, the dog was called What.

postscript: when people yelled to each other ("MOOOOOM!" "WHAT!?!?") the dog always came running. "No, not YOU."

And it was pretty fun to stand at the back door yelling What! WHAAAT! What! at night.