SCIENCE

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!

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

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 KansasSeattle.



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?

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.

when I cry, it's totally because of the wind.

Phoebe took me to see The Silent World at the Library of Congress last week. This movie is so, so great.

Summary of the plot: Mostly-naked French guys are on a boat. They have aqualungs. They smoke cigarettes and drink wine. They encounter wildlife. They have emotional responses to wildlife. They kill wildlife. They smoke more cigarettes and drink more wine. The end.

Throughout these events, Jacques Cousteau narrates and commentates and ruminates and explicates. He does things with scientific implements. He stages casual conversations with crew members during which everyone points at a chart and looks serious.

Then they find land! It is a desert island! The men ride giant tortoises while smoking cigarettes.

Then they discover footprints, and the footprints lead them to Black Native Islander Man, who is digging for turtle eggs. Luckily, he speaks English.



There are many bizarre aspects of this movie but I think Black Native Islander Man is the winner. No one ever explains why he is on the island, how he got there, or why he cares about the turtle eggs. He has a fake Jamaican-style accent (on top of the French) and he tells us about the giant turtles and their life cycle. When the mother turtles return to the ocean after laying their eggs, they are crying. Some say it is because of the wind, but Black Native Islander Man knows better: it is because of Sorrow.

my neighbor sings the blues

Via text message. By accident.

My arms hurt so bad
I laid down
And can't get up
Literally
Bob said
What ails you?
I said Chronic Loneliness.
And everyone felt reaaal awkward

My neighbor is a text-message-by-accident Blues GENIUS.

Q: If that same pirate were then to recite a 20th-century poem about the nature of poetry, what would it be?

Language Hat:

Archibald MacLeish famously ended his 1926 "Ars Poetica" with "A poem should not mean/ But be." I learn from Peter Howarth in the LRB that Robert Frost put a nasty spin on this in a notebook entry: "A poem shouldn't mean, it should be mean." So much for the grandfatherly figure maundering about roads not taken, so beloved of careless skimmers of anthologies.

Mean poems!

alphabet. ballet dancing. sort of.

She's 2 now. Watch out.

via

Thundersnow!

Weather is exciting around here these days. My life, not so much. I've spent 427 of the last 36 hours writing a paper. The end.

tickle tickle

You probably haven't been doing enough of this lately.

orthoexaggeration

Lukas and I had a fight* the other day about whether or not people should ever use the word "overexaggerate". Lukas said no, and that anyone who did so was being extremely irritating. I said well they probably were being extremely irritating but you theoretically could use the word in an acceptable way regardless and that the irritatingness was a red herring.

For example: Some people have a tendency towards underexaggeration when they are telling a story.** And they will tell you all about EXACTLY what day and time and what dress they were wearing and what they had for lunch and if they did something on the way to the bank or the way home. This is also extremely irritating.

Other people*** exaggerate precisely the right amount, being neither too boringly pedantically precise nor ridiculously hyperbolic. Neither under- nor over-exaggerating. The Platonic Ideal of exaggeration. The exact combination of facts and artistic license that everyone agrees is the Best Way. We**** should all try to be more like these people.







*There is some chance that this word choice might be considered an example of overexaggeration. Since in fact what we had was a three-turn conversation via text message in which no one disagreed with anyone else.

**Midwestern women particularly. According to Discourse Linguists.

***Like me, mainly.

****you

Valentimes is Serious Times

(www.homestarrunner.com)

oh, hi there internet

I'm in Seattle for this conference. Seattle is damp, the conference was great, now it is over. I have a fever. Tomorrow my goal is to go look at lots of fishes in giant tanks. Wooo! Aquarium!

I'll be back soon don't worry.

Who I is

Google tells us:

Cecily is the director of the Forest.
Cecily is slated to arrive at 7pm.
Cecily is a doll!
Cecily is no exception.
Cecily is such a tease.
Cecily is a dainty fascinator.
Cecily is not a quirky, ditzy free-spirit.
Cecily is no Donalda Trump.
Cecily is not a member of any Causes.

These things have been happening to me: (1) freezing rain (2) stomach flu (3) conference prep.

Now, of course, it is like 60 degrees and sunny around here. Will there be another 30-degree jump in temperature by tomorrow? Will I need rainboots or snowshoes or sunscreen? Will I want the windows open or closed? Will I ever grow tired of complaining about the totally whacked out weather in DC? Only time will tell, my friends. Only time will tell.

I am really excited to see what this post does for my referral stats

So I was thinking about the title I put on that post about the Chinese hotel bathtub rule and wishing I had titled it something else. I know, I know, life's too short for regrets, don't cry over spilled milk, what's done is done, it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye, you can't squeeze blood from a turnip. But listen! if you don't consider your mistakes and shortcomings how will you learn and grow? And by "you", I mean "me".*

Anyway I titled it thusly:

Attontion! Crazy Germans!

but it occurred to me today that a much better title would have been

Attontion! Naked German Tourists!

This would have been incrementally more pithy and entertaining and also a more accurate reflection of the post's content (which included mention of people who were German, who were naked, and who were tourists in China, but did not make any explicit reference to these people's state or states of mental well-being and/or lack thereof).

Oh, well. Life goes on. You win some, you lose some. The beat goes on. Don't change horses in the middle of the stream. Never trust a man in a blue trench coat, never drive a car when you're dead. The point is, you know what would not have been a good title? This:

Attontion! Naked Tourist Germans!

This is interesting** because "German" is a perfectly good noun in English, as well as being an adjective. And "tourist" can be an adjective too (examples, more examples). So I do not know why "German tourist" is so much better than "tourist German". It is a mystery! A mystery for the syntacticians to solve and then write incomprehensible papers about. Potentially a mystery that has already been solved and written about incomprehensibly by the syntacticians. Since I don't read syntax papers I will probably never know, and by extension, neither will you. Too bad for both of us.

In conclusion, what I really should have used for the title is

Attontion! Tourist German Nakeds!

Sorry guys. I'll try to do better next time.




*Actually I probably mean "I". Possibly "you", though. Maybe all three. In reality, it's usually kind of hard to tell what I mean. I don't worry about it too much.

**Interesting to ME. Why? Who did you think I meant?