I wish I was in Zanzibar because...

Relocating the Old Blog

2010-09-03T08:44:00.000-07:00

As of today, I am migrating this blog to a new Word Press Account. Basically, I am just sick of Blogger, and would like to stop giving Google as much of my business as possible. I am not deleting this account or anything, I am just not updating this blog anymore. Instead, you can read all about my continuing adventures Here.

The new blog title: Exercises in Resigned Mediocrity.

Here is the address: http://www.zanzibarannie.wordpress.com

Freedom Update 2

2010-09-01T21:08:00.001-07:00

I stopped reading it. Another 50 pages in, I realized that it was only getting worse and that I couldn't stand any of these people. I felt like this was the same contemporary fiction book that I have tried to force myself to read before, only to stop with similar feelings of disgust and then return to reading nonfiction only for a while. I think Tolstoy had it wrong; when it comes to modern fiction, it seems that it is the unhappy families that are all alike. All of the family members in them are selfish jerks.

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Freedom - An Update

2010-09-01T13:40:00.000-07:00

Last night I read the first 117 pages of Freedom. The reviewers are right. It is addicting, well-written and I cannot put it down. However, as I am reading it, I get the distinct feeling that I really hate this book. I hate it for reasons that could surprise some people who think I am just a complete cynic. The fact is, I am also, very, very much an optimist when it comes to the nature of human beings. So, I don't like that as I am reading this book, I keep thinking to myself, yep, I know exactly what is coming next and it is not very good at all.

Look, don't get me wrong. There are days when I look around the world we live in and think that it is so terrible and that people treat each other so badly, that I wish that God would just end it all that afternoon. There are some terrible things in this world, and I, for one am not someone that believes in ignoring the awful things in the world for the sake of being naively positive. However, as awful as we treat one another in this world, at the same time, I truly believe that we are capable of great things and great kindnesses as human beings. That is why as much as today may suck, tomorrow may suck, and next week may suck, I refuse to give in to complete despair. But in this book, you just feel like, wow, these people all just despair more and more over time. It is just all of the things that I don't want to be. I know that my life hasn't exactly turned out according to what I would have idealized. There are things that make me sad, but that is no excuse for treating other people like crap or suddenly deciding to behave in unethical ways because I am sad about something. I realized this the second that I saw that movie American Beauty a very long time ago. People raved about it, and I just thought it was horrible; because, can you really care if horrible people come to horrible ends? How is that compelling?

Granted, I could be completely wrong, because I am only 118 pages in and this book is over 500 pages long, so I could read another 118 pages tonight (which I plan on doing) and find out that it has totally changed in tone. But I doubt it. And that makes me sad, too. Because even if a happy outcome isn't always possible (and in this mortal life, it most assuredly is not always possible, as rarely do people get everything that they hope for), I at least want to fathom that it may be possible. Or that, at the very least, people are redeemable in some way.

I try to reserve my absolute cynicism for politicians only, please.

Some North Carolina Suburbia Indicative of the State of Things

2010-09-01T12:52:00.000-07:00

First things first, let's talk about this wall mural inside a Firehouse Subs in Chapel Hill:

Look, I am as anti-Duke as the next North Carolina fan, but there are just so many things wrong with this mural. First off, why is that ram there? Yes, I know that the ram is the mascot of UNC, but I just am not so sure why a ram would show up for a trailer fire. It is true, that watching a trailer fire could be an exciting way to spend the afternoon. You don't know how many times I have been driving around near my parents in Mississippi and have seen the remnants of a trailer fire and thought to myself, I bet watching that trailer burn would have been an exciting way to spend an afternoon, but I just don't understand why an animal, much less a ram, which is widely known in the animal kingdom to have a very short attention span, would want to watch a trailer burn.

Other problems that I have with this, come on, let's be realistic, no Duke fan lives in a trailer. First off, there are very few actual Duke fan that become residents of North Carolina. Duke fans are from the Northeast, and soon after they graduate from Duke flee on mass to Wall Street. I know the economic crisis has been terrible, but last time I checked, there still aren't any trailers in Tribeca. Second of all, Duke fans regard people who live in trailers with such disdain, that no self respecting trailer resident would ever be a Duke fan. I should know. When I was born, my family lived in a trailer, and for that reason alone, I could never, ever be a Duke fan. Disdain of the common person is not within my DNA.

Finally, I totally understand the Chapel Hill firemen's sentiment about using a garden hose when discovering that the owner of the residence is a Duke fan, but if that poor trailer resident is a Duke fan, then this scene is just altogether too pitiful. I mean, the poor trailer owner occupant I am sure is disdained by other Duke fans by virtue of living in a trailer, and now they are the victim of anti-Duke bias by people who should be sympathetic to them. Talk about taking it from both sides. It just is very, very sad actually.

Moving on, now. David and I discovered that we have a gardenia bush growing just off our back deck, and I was thrilled. Gardenias are my favorite, of course. We already discovered a hydrangea bush in our yard, so with this additional discovery, I am so pleased that my two favorite flowers are already resident in our yard.

Speaking of yards, this is how David spends his free time - weeding and pruning. In this instance, he is weeding the rose garden in the front of our house.

Knightley and I, of course, instead lounge in the grass and just watch him work.

A trip to Hillsborough reveals a part of the story of the original Regulators from North Carolina:

Of course, the first thing that I thought of when I saw this sign is how much I miss my friend Charelle singing along to the Warren G and Nate Dogg song.

Other North Carolina things. Here are Sarah and Ripken, with Ripken's mom looking on, enjoying the UNC women's soccer game versus Stanford. It was so much fun, and this picture makes me realize how much I love my sister, because Sarah risked the wrath of the freshmen children we were sitting among to satisfy the desire of a three year old to sit on her shoulders.

Finally, if you need some quantifiable measure of just how suburban things have become, then look no further than this picture. This is David checking out for us at the Gap.

Look, I know what you are all thinking. What? Who shops at the Gap anymore? I am telling you this right now, if you don't go into the Gap, you are missing some good stuff these days. After years of not going into the Gap, I purchased two wonderful shirt dresses from the Gap earlier in the year. And let me tell you, I wear them all the time because they have been the perfect thing for the ridiculously hot and humid summer that the East Coast has experienced this year. Also, every time I wear one of them, I get a compliment from someone who then asks me where I got the dresses. I can see the look of shock on their face when I tell them, "The Gap." They don't believe me. That's fine; that's their prerogative. I just bought two new dresses from The Gap, and they both are both comfortably wearable and cute. So, if you don't believe me and don't go into The Gap, because you don't think they have had anything good since the mid 1990's, then that is fine with me. At least that way, I don't have to worry about running into anyone else wearing my cute dresses.

Freedom

2010-08-31T17:15:00.000-07:00

I am reading Freedom without having ever read The Corrections. There, I am admitting it now. I pretty much adore Franzen's essay collections, which I have read, so when I read all of the reviews about the new book out today, I couldn't say no. It just seems appropriate to read presently, the same way The Suburbs by The Arcade Fire seems appropriate to listen to.

Updates

2010-08-25T06:45:00.000-07:00

Apparently, the people of Arizona (or more accurately, 23% of the Republican Primary voters in Arizona) are even dumber than I thought. Even with that ridiculously poorly written, hysteria inducing commercial, somehow Ben Quayle pulled out the win in Arizona last night. Crazy people, who lack the ability to write a cogent 30 second campaign spot, rejoice!

Second, unrelated update: A while ago, I mentioned that the article Amanda and I wrote was accepted for publication. It finally has been published, and it was reviewed today on the Law Librarian Blog. Since the review wasn't humiliatingly terrible, but instead was rather positive, I thought I would mention this.

Danish, please

2010-08-25T05:38:00.000-07:00

I love the Danes. I have never been there, but right off of the bat, Denmark immediately invokes images of things that I love - Isak Dinesen stories and cheese Danishes. You can add another thing to that list - great clothes. One of the best parts about shopping in the EU is the availability of stores carrying Danish designers. Fortunately, the first day in Madrid we found a boutique called Yube that carried both Bruuns Bazaar and by Malene Birger. Unfortunately, I had to limit myself to just one item, because it was late in the trip and we had already spent too much money. I really wanted a dress, and as it turns out, the one that I thought was more appropriate for Spain wasn't by either of these designers. I am slightly regretting that decision. Both both brands are very hard to find in the States. And it really is a shame, because both designers have great stuff at fairly reasonable prices in Euros and British Pounds. Bruuns Bazaar even has a lower price point line called, BZR from which I just ordered this dress online -

I wish someone would sell these designers in boutiques here. In the meantime, I guess I need to start planning a return trip to the EU (or maybe even Denmark itself?) so that I can satisfy my Danish fashion desire.

"Because 2010 will be a bloodbath of biblical proportions..."

2010-08-24T11:13:00.000-07:00

When you are faced with economic news as grim as what we heard today, I think that the only sane reaction is to laugh. Who wants to cry at a funeral, after all, and every day it seems like every economic indicator points to the fact that the U.S. economy is on life support right now.

Maybe it just feels particularly grim to me, because we are one of the five people in America who actually bought a house in July. Now, I am all stressed out thinking that we did a horrible job with bargaining with the sellers, and I wish that I would have had this sort of information going into the bargaining process because I certainly would not have let those sellers get away with not wanting to bargain at all. Nope, we would have just walked away and bought another house and those obstinate sellers could have sat on their house like every other person in America trying to sell. Don't get me wrong, I love our house, but man, we should have held out for a better price and at the very least, pointed out that the tax credits expired so they should be offering us more incentives to buy. I am the worst negotiator ever.

Don't say that we haven't done anything to help the economy.

Cultivating a New Appreciation for Pork, Thanks to North Carolina

2010-08-20T11:17:00.000-07:00

Last night I went to my first cooking class at my new favorite store in Chapel Hill, A Southern Season. For $45 I watched the chefs from Carolina Crossroads, the restaurant at the Carolina Inn, make and serve a delicious three course meal. Everything about it was wonderful. I loved learning about how they pick ingredients and who their local suppliers are. All three courses were wonderful, but the one that I appreciated the most, was the main course which used pork loin for its protein.

I will be honest. Pork has frightened me in the past. Aside from varieties of bacon and maybe some Carolina-style pulled pork bbq, I have done precious little with pork. The old campaign for pork as "the other white meat" only made me more skeptical of pork, and with good reason. According to the chefs at Carolina Crossroads, "the other white meat" campaign almost ruined pork by insisting on removing all of the fat and leaving it bland and tough. Fortunately, today's pork not only is full-flavored, but when purchased from a free-range pork farm (which happen to be found in abundance in North Carolina) is best eaten like a steak, at medium rare. Heavenly. Many new experiments with pork in my kitchen are in my future.

Interestingly enough, I just checked over at the current menu at Carolina Crossroads, and don't see pork on their summer entree menu. What's up with that? After they got me sold on their delicious locally-raised pork last night, why is it missing from their menu? Am I missing something? Is pork not a summer food?

Luckily, tonight we are trying out Four Square in Durham, that does appear to have local pork on their July/August menu.

As a side note, I love how so many restaurants here in the Triangle have some statement on their websites about their local suppliers. I never knew how much I would love actually knowing about the origination of the ingredients for your meal.

Move to North Carolina!

2010-08-19T13:33:00.000-07:00

I am sorry that I am about to sound like an advertisement from the North Carolina Chamber of Commerce. I apologize in advance, but since I assume that the only people who read this blog, are people to whom this advice applies (meaning, you are a person I like and would like for you to move to North Carolina), then I am telling you right now, move to North Carolina.

Why? Well, let me give you just a few reasons why I think you should consider it.

1. Big City Cultural Attractions, Small Town Prices! Just look at the lineup of artists coming to perform at Carolina and Duke this year. For dance we have the Alvin Ailey and Merce Cunningham dance companies performing. In terms of classical recitals, there are so many options. I already have tickets to hear the St. Petersburg Philharmonic and Alisa Weilerstein perform my FAVORITE (ever) Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 1. In the fall, how about some Mahler with the Mariinsky Orchestra? Maybe you want some chamber music. Well, why not try an evening with the Kronos Quartet?

2. Going along with those great performances, North Carolina is the perfect locale for some non-annoying, real good country music and bluegrass, like Earl Scruggs and the Red Clay Ramblers. It is the perfect accompaniment for a place where you can really feel down home.

3. If you like bluegrass and feeling Southern in a Junior League sort of way, then, why not enjoy the Carolina Inn when they host Friday Nights on the Front Porch, all summer long (and even in the spring and fall)?

4. A Southern Season. This is quite possibly my new favorite store in the world. In addition to the wonderful culinary offerings ranging from a delicious in store bakery and deli to every possible cooking related gadget that you ever could need, they also offer cooking classes from great chefs near and far. I am going to a class tonight, for example (more on this in a different entry). What is on the menu? How about chili-lime shrimp, cucumber & jalapeno salsa, farmers' market yellow tomato gazpacho, hickory nut gap farms pork chop, mama's southern cornbread dressing, and many other things.

5. In case you aren't hungry yet, this area is renown for having great restaurants for its relative size. The New York Times recently profiled Durham for its delicious local foods movement.

6. Local Foods! I think North Carolina is ideally situated if you really want to be a part of that from farm to table movement. Carborro has one of the best farmer's markets in America. Just look at the number of local farmers that sell at its market! You can buy anything from fresh, grass-fed beef,to strawberries, to "heritage bred" pork, to dorper lambs from farmers who are given awards based on their efforts at soil conservation. I don't think it is possible to find better ingredients anywhere else.

6. The weather. One reason that we have such a great range of locally produced farm products is the ideal North Carolina climate. Sure, it is hot and humid here, but where is that not the case on the East Coast? I guarantee you, I speak from experience when I say heat and humidity is a lot more bearable here in North Carolina than it is in New York City or the District. We have beautiful trees, and blessed shade. Furthermore, my screened-in back porch is a great place to read and contemplate during the welcomed relief of the afternoon thunderstorm. Knightley and I love it.

7. I could go on and on about the lower cost of living, the good school districts, the civility of the people, the ability to see some great college athletic contests, the availability of tennis, swim, and even golf clubs, the proximity to the mountains and beautiful beaches, but do I really have to? Come on, just move here already.

I love North Carolina. It is great to be closer to family and there are some great people here, but the only thing missing from this place is you - the person reading this blog entry. It would be so much more fun with that addition!

Revisiting Rejection, Courtesy of Angela Chase

2010-08-17T05:44:00.001-07:00

Last night I watched a couple of episodes of My So-Called Life with Sarah and a few of her friends. We of course, watched the "Boiler Room" episode, the perfect moment, of which I have spoken of in the past. Watching it this time, though, gave me a different impression. I realized that the happy hand-holding scene at the end didn't relate at all to any formative moment of my adolescence. Rather, this scene, earlier in the episode did:

Rejection. The pain and anger that Angela displays on her face after Jordan callously tells her, "You are kinda crowding me," that is what I remember from my prolonged adolescence.

I say prolonged adolescence, because in high school, I didn't date or have boyfriends. I kissed an assortment of boys, but only one of them did I kiss on more than one occasion, and he was nothing approaching a boyfriend. So although, I experienced rejection in high school, it wasn't the heart-stopping, throat swelling, can't get out of bed the next morning kind until I went to college. I was a late bloomer, so it figures that "your kinda crowding me" moment came much later than Angela Chase's. But I did fall in love in an Angela loves Jordan kind of way in college and found myself behind the Morris Center, the same way Angela was in the boiler room, only, I didn't get my hand-holding, music swelling moment at the end of an episode. I just got dumped. Like Angela Chase, I was pretty sure, at the time that I could turn a makeout into a meaningful relationship (or that, even more hopefully, it was an indication that I already was in one). Angela was a victim of the high school repeat Non-Committal Make Out (NCMO), but she got her happy ending, one that made girls swoon even decades later. I got the make-outs and the Sunday night, that "made you want to kill yourself" inevitable emotional overreaction, when I ultimately realized that no such meaningful relationship was intended on the other party's end.

I think that is why all of us can derive such simple satisfaction from still seeing the happy ending. Because who in real life had that? Angela Chase conquered the beast that the rest of us failed to do - turning an obsession from a distance, into the non-committal make-out, into rejection, into hand-holding in the hallway. Sure, she got dumped in the next episode because she wouldn't have sex with Jordan and he later slept with her best friend, but she got the series finale happy ending. Or rather, she got the love-letter, written by her nerdy neighbor, Brian, who was tutoring her "rudimentary reader with low literacy skills" object of her affection, but signed by Jordan, which led to a hallway makeout, and the ambiguous drive-off at the end of the episode after she realized Brian wrote the letter in the first place. But she did get the Jordan loves Angela ending, that was pretty unambiguous. That is what made Angela Chase every girl's hero. She successfully took a situation where she was the one who thought non-stop about someone else, seemingly way out of her league, but turned it into a situation where he wanted to be with her more at the end of the day. I am sure, out there somewhere, there is still fan fiction devoted to the Angela/Jordan cause for that very reason.

However, what made her seem easy to relate wasn't her ultimate triumph, but rather, being rejected, again and again and again. Of course, that is also her greatest indictment; because Angela Chase made us all think that even after public humiliation and rejection, we still had another chance. We failed to move on, because we were quite sure that there was something more we could do, something more we could say to turn around the Jordan Catalanos of our lives. We thought that with dogged persistence, even when faced with continual rejection, we too could conquer. Some girls took it too far and stalkers were born. For the rest of us that didn't have underlying mental health issues, it nonetheless meant having to face down multiple rejections from the same person, without the realistic likelihood of Angela's eventual happy ending, long after we should have just moved on.

Thankfully, when I was done with law school, I finally graduated from my prolonged adolescent Angela Chase view of the world, and realized all previous rejections from presumed Jordan Catalanos were final, and instead I was finally able to take a more practical view of things.

One season of a well-written, perceptive show can just take awhile to forget.

The Same Story

2010-08-16T13:25:00.000-07:00

I hoped that after Mayor Bloomberg so beautifully defended our constitional principles regarding freedom of religion last week, that we would finally get some relief from the talking heads who spoke out against the Islamic community center and mosque that is to be built two blocks from Ground Zero in an old Burlington Coat Factory. I guess I was wrong. Today, to my dismay, Harry Reid came out against the mosque. I realize that he is facing a tough re-election battle with Sharron Angle, who quite possibly is one of the most loud-mouthed obnoxious people on the planet. Nonetheless, it makes me sad, because Harry Reid, of all people, should know better. I guess he feels like he has to pander, but I wish he would have some principle.

Instead of following Harry Reid's example, let's follow the example of this Christian ethicist, Dr. David P. Gushee, who explains clearly in this Huffington Post editorial why we should be opposing a religious group building a house of worship where they own property. I just am in shock that supposedly religious people could so easily ignore the rights of another religious group. As a member of a religious minority, I feel very strongly that I must stand for the religious rights of other religious minorities. I must defend their right to worship as valiantly as I would defend my own.

Furthermore, I am tired of hearing the justification of people who believe that it is okay to ask this religious group to move somewhere else, because other people, who purported to share the same faith committed an unthinkable crime against other human beings two blocks away. Why do the worst among them get to define the parameters of a faith? Most Muslims would like to distance themselves entirely against the terrorists who committed that atrocity. The members of this particular group have spoken out numerous times against those terrorists. I don't want to be identified with Mormons who have committed crimes in the supposed name of their religion. All religions have had violent acts perpetrated in their supposed name, and yet, all religions preach peace at their foundation. Perhaps, if we allowed people the freedom to worship and didn't turn everything into an "us against them" conflict, there would be fewer acts of terror committed in the name of religion. Standing in the way of people's rights to worship at places that they find meaningful does nothing to promote understanding and peace. Rather, it heightens others' fears that we don't view rights the same way for all people. That kind of distinction is from what I thought our Constitution was meant to protect.

More of the same story - how much I love Mayor Bloomberg as a politician.

Shrugging my Shoulders

2010-08-12T12:34:00.000-07:00

Article in the Salt Lake Tribune about the "resurgence" of Mormon feminism. The article was prompted, at least in part, by this column from the Guardian newspaper, written by Tresa Edmunds, one of the bloggers over at Feminist Mormon Housewives.

I have been reflective lately of why it is that my sisters and I turned out the way that we did. Last night, while at a friend's house, Sarah was recounting her elementary school days, when laughing at the absurdity of a test question written about a balloon resulted in a trip to the Principal's office for some old fashioned corporal punishment. After being paddled, a friend of hers saw Sarah crying and asked, "Why are you crying Sarah? It didn't hurt that bad."

Sarah replied, "I know. I am crying because this is going on my permanent record." For Sarah, who in her free time drew up plans with two friends for their future law office they planned to open after attending Harvard Law School, the worst possible stain on childhood was a negative mark on the "permanent record" that would follow her all through her life.

At precisely the same time in my life, I was writing plays about saving manatees or dreaming about becoming a seismologist, after yet another viewing of National Geographic's Born of Fire. Over the next few years, those career ambitions would take one bizarre turn after another - ballerina, astronaut, writer, meteorologist, economist and one day chair of the federal reserve (after sometime in middle school I learned from watching Peter Jennings that some considered Alan Greenspan the most powerful man in Washington) geneticist, virologist, diplomat, before ultimately becoming what Sarah had envisioned for herself when she was in the fourth grade, lawyer (although, without the Harvard law degree).

The only hint, in my childhood, that becoming whatever I wanted to be when I grew up might be seen negatively within my faith came when I was in Primary about the time I was in fourth grade. I was in my very specific goal phase in that at that time my career ambition was to one day be a principal dancer with the New York City Ballet. That was exactly my reply when I was asked one Sunday in Primary what I wanted to be when I grew up. "Don't you want to be a mother?" was my teacher's gentle reply.

"No," I answered emphatically. "Ballet dancers cannot have children during their career otherwise they will get fat." I will never forget the look of disappointment and failure that crossed my Primary teacher's face. (If my Primary teacher could see me now, I am sure she would have the last laugh because as it turns out, I didn't become a ballet dancer, still got fat, and did it without having any children.)

In my household, I never felt like my ambitions or my sister's ambitions were expected to be more modest because we happened to lack a Y chromosome. In middle school, sometimes the other kids who didn't like me (who were many, if not most, of my peers) would tease me and call me a "feminist" meaning something very naughty and undesirable, but it didn't affect me. It wasn't until I became a student at BYU that I felt like I had to claim the term for myself, while at the same time remaining somewhat ambivalent about it. I went to the VOICE meetings once or twice (I have no idea what that acronym stood for), but those meetings just mostly caused me to shrug my shoulders about how affected everyone was acting.

It was the same reaction that I had last week as I attended the Relief Society in my new ward here and the first question anyone asked me, when I was supposed to be introducing myself was, "How many children do you have?" I shrugged my shoulders. In my new Relief Society, full of the wives of graduate students who are busy reproducing, I probably will just be shrugging my shoulders a lot, because I just don't get it and I know that more likely than not, they won't get me. But, that isn't the point.

When I read these articles, and when I look at the Feminist Mormon Housewives blog, it starts to become more clear what I don't get. I don't understand, why everyone is so obsessed with this whole gender business as it relates to the church. In the political world at large, I am completely supportive of feminist causes. I believe in gender equality at work, paid maternity leave policies, and even am probably more pro choice in a political sense than most of my Mormon peers. But at church, I just don't get it. I don't understand why we have to put labels on something when it comes to women and religion. I just long for the simplicity of childhood perhaps, when Sarah could obsess about her permanent record and I could blissfully study earthquakes and feel like those choices didn't signify anything in a religious context. We could just do what made us happy without concern for what those choices would mean to others in our religious community. The more people put labels or make these grand statements about what the proper role of "women in the church" should be, the more I feel like this obsession with gender will ensure that we never really are equal one way or another.

Women within the church are guilty of judging the lives of others, things that are by choice, by accident, by necessity, or by misfortune. I shrug my shoulders, because frankly, I just don't want any part of that, and where these days it seems like everything is politicized, I just feel like a policy of non-participation is best.

What I mean is this, I long ago realized that I don't go to church to prove anything to anyone else. I go, because I feel like that is where I am supposed to be on Sunday. I go, because in my faith, I recognize that Sunday worship is a commandment. If, when I am at church, I learn anything new or meet anyone fascinating, then that is just a bonus. In other words, I have long ago reconciled myself in my faith to know that most matters of a spiritual nature are personal and internal to me, and what I get from other people is just a bonus. Therefore, I no longer get offended when someone says something overtly political at church with which I don't agree. I don't get offended when someone, out of ignorance of the larger world or the lives of others, says something offensive. I just shrug my shoulders. And, if I hear a fantastic talk or meet someone wonderful, like I did on many occasions in the Capitol Hill Ward in D.C., then all of that is just gravy on top of the fact that I am there because I need to be there.

So what does that have to do with the whole idea that Mormon feminism is coming back into vogue? Well, it has to do with this - I don't get why we as Latter-day Saint women have to seek out all of these affirmations of our self-worth. I feel like that in seeking it out, that is another way we are telling ourselves that something must be wrong with ourselves from the start. I know the times in my life when I felt like I had to hear reassurance from others, whether it be from the pulpit on Sunday or from a guy I was dating on a Friday night, it was because I felt lacking in myself. I don't view it as a coincidence, that in my life, when I was looking for those kinds of reassurances, both types of reassurances were what I needed at the same time.

I realize, some people aren't like me. Some people like have communities in the blogging world, like Feminist Mormon Housewives, where the feel like they can go for support and seek comfort in like-mindedness. I don't mind just working things out on my own, and then maybe having a face to face discussion with a few select people with whom I trust. Thankfully, I have never been popular, so I have never known the distinct misfortune of having to seek wider approval for what I think and who I am. I have always been fortunate enough to be able to be polite and pleasant to the larger world, while sharing my thoughts with relatively few people who mean a lot to me at a particular time and place. Even for those people who may not always be in my present life, but with whom I felt a kinship at a time and place, they always will be beloved by me for that reason. But all of that is just gravy, too. It doesn't change the fact that even in the absence of people with whom I may speak aloud my thoughts, it doesn't means that I am not validated as a person. I just shrug my shoulders. Those are phases of life.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think that all of this is just a shrug inducing waste of time. I think it is quite worthwhile for Mormon historians to tell us great stories of Mormon women. I think it is important that Mormon scriptural experts try to illuminate stories of women in the standard works, because those are painfully absent. It would be nice for little girls to have some scriptural role models so that those songs like Book of Mormon stories might not be so devoid of female characters. Unfortunately, we don't have a lot of material to work from with the Book of Mormon (I know, I tried to write my freshman honors Book of Mormon paper on Women in the Book of Mormon and really had to stretch for material). So, I am all for rendering visible women within our religious community. I am in favor of celebrating all kinds of diversity within our religious community, do not mistake me on that point.

However, in addition to those things, wouldn't it be nicer if we didn't constantly needed to be told that we are okay? Wouldn't it be nice if we could just really believe that all of us are capable of having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and working out our own salvation?

I am all for religious community as my favorite church memories all revolve around feeling a part of something larger than myself. But sometimes, I feel like that we mistake the larger point. Yes, it is great to be a part of a body of something larger than ourselves, but at the end of the day, these labels that we put on ourselves and each other do not matter one whit. At the end of the day, what matters is what are view of ourselves is and whether we can stand before God and be satisfied with our efforts. That is why it shouldn't matter at all if I am a virologist, seismologist, librarian, mother, or nothing at all. If my path makes me happy, then it is good. We can be whatever we want to be because at the end of the day, the only thing that matters is the personal relationships that we have with Jesus Christ, Heavenly Father, and the people around us. What matters at the end of the day is if we have been anxiously engaged in trying to serve others without regard to status, nationality, political view, or pretty much any of those other temporary, human-made distinctions.

I don't know. I shrug my shoulders. It isn't apathy, though. It is a shrug of the shoulders because I don't think that these things shouldn't matter in an eternal, religious perspective.

My Most Embarrassing Confession EVER

2010-08-11T11:59:00.001-07:00

A long time ago, in a land far, far away, I used to have a crush on this dude:

Yes, that is right. When I was in high school, I had a crush on Dan Quayle's son, Benjamin Quayle (after, now this is even MORE embarrassing, reading and studying the photographs in Dan Quayle's book Standing Firm: A Vice Presidential Memoir). It is probably the most humiliating thing I could ever reveal about myself, considering that guy is running for Congress in Arizona of all places, and as it turns out, is probably one of the biggest d-bags of all time. I didn't keep up with Dan Quayle's kids much after high school as my politics took a turn in a different direction, but had I known that this kid went to Duke as an undergrad, it probably would have put an abrupt end to the crush right then and there (he also went to the high school in DC that David and I always joked that we would send our adult sons). Ben went on to marry a "Tiffany" which, most assuredly, makes much more sense in a Quayle universe. From the sound of things, if elected, he might be one sex scandal away from having to resign in disgrace before even elected. So, he is probably perfectly poised for victory in the most logical of states, Arizona.

(After all, that nonsensical commercial with a script of one short sentence after another, each that bears no relationship to the prior sentence, must only make sense in a state that elects officials who pass similarly nonsensical immigration laws. "Drug cartels in Mexico, tax cartels in DC, what's happened to America?" I'll tell you what has happened, Ben. People are so stupid that they could be persuaded by a commercial that links drug cartels in a different country with taxes in our country and then uses those two things as evidence of concern over what has happened to America. Bad writing in campaign commercials, Ben, that is what has happened. However, I am interested to see what your definition of "knocking the hell out of" Washington is. Does it involve physical violence? Do you make a grand display of punching the Capitol Building or maybe knocking Nancy Pelosi down while she is walking into the House chamber one day? How does a young Quayle go about "knocking the hell" out of something? Also according to Ben's logic, I guess that I must have been raised wrong, because I don't love Arizona. I would like to "knock the hell out" of it; only I don't think I could manage to punch that sheriff of Maricopa County, without getting arrested.)

Please don't judge me for my past indiscretion too harshly. I was fifteen years old, and I am the one that will have to live with the permanency of the various messages people wrote in my yearbook mocking my crush. Thankfully, my other high school crush, Dante Calabria, the North Carolina basketball player with the famed luscious locks of hair envied by Dick Vitale, is somewhat less humiliating.

The Relief of the Adagio

2010-08-11T06:22:00.000-07:00

I read an interview from July 2009 with my old Congressional Representative from when I lived in New York, Carolyn Maloney, where she said this, "If I ever have stressful days, I'll close the door and I'll dance...The discipline of dance is very centered. The problem with a lot of these Republican leaders is that they have never done an adagio." It is no wonder that, for a long time now, Carolyn Maloney has been one of my favorite Washington politicians. That sentence said it all.** I try to avoid books written by politicians these days, but I agree with that sentence to such an extent that it might cause me to purchase her 2008 book, Rumors of Our Progress Have Been Greatly Exaggerated: Women's Lives Aren't Getting Any Easier -- And How We Can Make Real Progress for Ourselves and our Daughters. I might consider reading it even though I ordinarily object to ridiculously long titles, also.

Back to the dancing, I love Maloney's statement because it is the exact same reaction that I have to stressful situations. David keeps making fun of the fact that I keep telling him that we need to get window treatments for the first floor of the house because I would like to dance in relative privacy. Stress-relieving dancing is ONLY meant to be done in private. Dancing where others can see you immediately brings it back into the fold of stress-inducing activities.

**On an tangentially related point, Carolyn Maloney is one reason why my team is dominating my fantasy Congress league right now. With just a few weeks to go, the team Mr. Knightley's Neighbors is poised for a huge victory.

For the Love of a Lamp

2010-08-10T13:49:00.000-07:00

I have been so materialistic lately in these blog posts, that I am almost embarrassed to read these things. I promise, this will be the last post focusing on some object that I want to consume for some time (I am putting a gag order on myself from posting about consumer goods for at least a few weeks).

But this lamp, I want to possess! In order to get it, on Friday night, I am taking a trip to Mebane, NC to attend a gold old fashioned, small town auction. I am not an auction person. The last auction that I attended was a livestock auction in Mississippi with my Pa-Paw when I was nine years old. We convinced Pa-Paw to buy a couple of calves that we thought were pretty cute, and he bought us some boiled peanuts. It was great fun. I am not sure how a non-livestock auction actually works. Will there be boiled peanuts?

Auctions here are a really big deal. Apparently, the old timers don't like the young'uns, because they just ratchet up the price and then sell what they bought on E-Bay for an even higher price. In other words, those cute little lamps that you formerly could buy for a couple of bucks are now overpriced at auction because people buy them for a national, not a local audience. Damn Internet.

I want this lamp because it would look perfect in the girly guest room that I am designing inside of my head. I love its Art Nouveau swirls that brings me back to my Maxim's loving Gigi days. I want this lamp. I only hope that rural North Carolinians might not have the same affection that I do for all things resembling Parisian Metropolitan signs.

Where shall you find me?

2010-08-10T13:39:00.000-07:00

Of all of our furniture finds over the weekend, this little table is my most favorite. I didn't become a librarian for nothing. I am sure that somewhere in my library school application I wrote the so trite librarian sentence, "I love books." When someone asks for what my aesthetic is in designing my ideal room, the main word that comes to mind is books, which isn't particularly descriptive or interesting in a design sense. My ideal room is nothing more than a place where I can be very comfortable reading for hours on end. This side table will sit by the couch in our sitting room/library and provide the perfect place for me to store all of the books that I am currently reading. I love that it's v shaped top puts all of the books in easy reach and for once and for all, should stop that stack of books from forming on my nightstand (that Knightley would of course, inevitable knock over).

Vacation Plans?

2010-08-09T11:58:00.000-07:00

In case you missed the news, apparently David and I are trendsetters for vacation destinations for the First Lady. Except for the lunch with the King and Queen of Spain at their summer palace on Majorca (for some reason, that wasn't on our itinerary), it looks like much of their Southern Spain itinerary is nearly identical to ours. Ronda and Granada? I think that Michelle must be reading my blog...

Furniture Heaven

2010-08-09T08:41:00.000-07:00

In case you ever need any reason to visit North Carolina, let me give you just one today - the furniture shopping. We spent Saturday in Jamestown, NC at Furnitureland South, the largest furniture retailer in the world. The facility is over 1 million square feet of furniture showrooms. It is entirely overwhelming. But if you are like us, and need good furniture and like some good bargains (everything is 30-75% off the retail price, and they usually throw in free shipping), then it is exactly the place to go.

Our consultant worked with us the whole day, which made the immensity of the place more manageable. We were able to focus down on the the styles that we liked and also finding the best quality materials in our price range. Although this may also be the place where Saudi princes come when they need to furnish their palaces and Michael Jordan needs to stop in on a Saturday afternoon for a new bedroom set (our consultant told us both stories), one on one consultants are happy to spend the day with ordinary people like us who may not have one million dollar budgets.

We are thrilled with our selections, even though they probably won't be delivered for a couple of months. We found things for a guest bedroom, sitting room/library (my favorite room, of course), master bedroom and dining room (David's favorite finds). Since we won't have these things for at least a few months, I can offer a little preview here.

Our sitting room and dining room items are from Bernhardt, a family-owned manufacturer that is headquartered in North Carolina. I fell in love with the new sitting room/library furniture that we found. In particular this chair:

And this couch:
David is in love with the new dining room. It is his favorite purchases of the day, in particular the table and the buffet. The table is made with "ecologically friendly elements". According to David's fantasy, that translates to him saying that our new dining room table is made from a "reclaimed barn door."

I don't think it is a barn door, but I love the idea of what this room will be for future family meals.

More Triviality Brought to you by Hollywood

2010-08-06T12:10:00.000-07:00

I blame Gwyneth Paltrow, again.

This is the evidence of my consumer-driven obsession. Aside from those two perfume bottles tat you see there, the rest of those bottles and jars are skin care products for my face. Yes, I am a woman obsessed behaving the same way as those crazy French ladies that I read about in the New York Times, a few week ago. Most of my skin care products come from the Clarins skin care line, which is French. One thing I already miss is my monthly facial at the Clarins Skin Spa. Hiding out in my bathroom vanity drawers, I have even more products. These are just the ones that I use on a regular basis.

The quickest way to get me to spend too much money in a short period of time is to tell me about some great skin care product that I haven't tried. That is why last week's Goop newsletter drove me particularly crazy; because when Gwyneth Paltrow tells me that she swears by some anti-aging skincare product, then I think I have to have it. You know what? Gwyneth Paltrow does know better. Those Intelligent Nutrients Organic Anti-Aging Serum and Mist that she recommended are fantastic. They smell luxurious and make my skin feel soft. I don't really need them, because I still have two other kinds of serums that I am using, but that is the magic of Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop newsletter - She has the magical ability to make women with inferiority complexes spend unnecessary money under the illusion that they too can live like the wife of a rockstar.

No Kids Here

2010-08-05T10:55:00.000-07:00

Of all of the songs on The Arcade Fire's new album, this is the one that I cannot get out of my head. However, Half Light II (No Celebration) (you can listen to the album or selected songs at NPR ) is the one that I want to have stuck in my head. It isn't because that song is any more optimistic. Nope, it is just as sad. However, you can dance to it.

But let's just leave it at this, The Arcade Fire has now officially replaced Radiohead (which held this title since I was in the seventh grade, so it was overdue time to be dethroned), as the band who has the uncanny ability to release an album that absolutely sums up my life at that given moment in time. Take the song, "We Used to Wait," on the album, for example. It reminds me of the days when I used to write stacks of letters that I never had any intention of sending to people, just so I could get my thoughts out on paper. But now, I don't. It makes me think, like Win Butler articultates so perfectly, "Now our lives are changing fast/Hope that something pure can last." If only I could have expressed all of that in such a few, sparse words. Then, in Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) Regine so perfectly sings, "They heard me singing and they told me to stop/ Quit these pretentious things and just punch the clock/These days my life, I feel it has no purpose/ But late at night the feelings swim to the surface." Who doesn't feel that way about being an adult on occasion, being forced to grow up and deal with the boredom that can sometimes accompany adult responsibilities?

Bravo.

From Chaos to Order

2010-08-04T06:57:00.000-07:00

Although, our dining room currently looks like this:

We are slowly making progress with getting settled. It just takes a little while, and recycling in Durham is only picked up every other week, making it difficult to get all of that wrapping paper that the movers used out of the house.

Knightley is enjoying familiarizing himself with the new digs. Here he is making sure that his scent is adequately permeating the new rug that Melissa and Jordan gave us for a house warming present.

We do have one room in the house that is basically organized - the screened in porch on the back. It is all thanks to Mom and Dad and their lovely housewarming gift to us of comfortable outdoor furniture. We have already enjoyed a meal or two outside, and when it isn't 100 degrees and August, we plan to spend a significant amount of time in this room.

It's Not All Ticks and Burglaries

2010-08-04T06:35:00.001-07:00

In spite of the seeming negativity on the blog, I just want to emphasize that life in North Carolina isn't all crime and ticks (even though there was a deer tick crawling on my bathroom floor this morning...don't know how it got there). North Carolina is a beautiful place, and this is what I want to stress. If I don't stress that, then how will I convince people that they need to move here?

Look at how beautiful the roses are in our front yard, for example.

The best part is that these roses are ours, so we can clip them and bring all of their loveliness inside to display above the kitchen sink in the window.

A few little ticks are nothing at all when compared to such loveliness.

Know your Current Events

2010-08-04T05:25:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted much on current events lately, but I did want to say something about the proposed mosque near the World Trade Center site in Lower Manhattan. If you don't believe that the mosque should be built there, can I ask you to read two things? First, please read this column from the Atlantic Monthly about the Muslim group, The Cordoba Institute, that is building the community center and mosque in Lower Manhattan. Then read this Salon piece that reprints Mayor Bloomberg's beautiful speech about the fundamental right of religious freedom. If at the end of reading those two pieces, you still are against the mosque, then maybe you should do some reflecting about the glorious things that are the Constitution of the United States of America and the ability to live in a diverse, pluralistic society, where we all can hope to live our lives according to the dictates of our own conscience.

Ticks, Ticks, Boom

2010-08-02T10:45:00.000-07:00

I am overly concerned because we found an enormous tick on Knightley this weekend. It was awful. I cannot get that image out of my head. North Carolina is a beautiful place, but the downside to all of those hardwood forests is that there is an insane number of ticks roaming around this place. These are ticks of all different breeds, many of which carry awful diseases like Lyme Disease and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. After today, Knightley will be wearing a tick collar, because it is obvious that the flea and tick preventative that we are using just isn't strong enough. We will also be spraying the yard.

In other distressing, unrelated news, I read this article in the New York Times today about plagiarism and today's college students. I could go on and on about the many ways that the Internet has been both a blessing and the curse to research, but the easiness of cutting and pasting without attribution is certainly one curse. Of course, the question is whether it is the loosening of definitions of academic honesty that is the cause of this or whether the technology itself enables the disintegration of ethical standards. Either way, I once again have to shake my head and simply declare, "These kids today," in my most authoritative, elderly voice.

That's #22 in the Country, Yo

2010-07-30T05:32:00.001-07:00

Pensacola High School is still making me proud. It is up in the high school rankings this year to #22. That isn't bad at all for a school where 63% of the students are eligible for subsidized lunches. You can say that the ratings methodology of Newsweek is poor, but I like that they rate schools by percentage of students taking I.B. and A.P. courses. I think high school would have been a waste of time without the International Baccalaureate program, but I might be somewhat biased by my own experiences. I might have missed out on those rites of passage like attending a high school prom, but I had 43 credit hours already under my belt when I started college. It meant that I didn't have to take boring prerequisite courses and instead could begin by taking the much more interesting upper level courses. Mostly though, the I.B. program ensured that a healthy sense of intellectual curiosity became my lifelong friend.

All of that academic excellence and still the state champions in football last year. Who says you can't have it all?

Suburban Paranoia Redux: This is How Rumors Get Started

2010-07-29T10:03:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago I wrote about how a kind neighbor stopped by our house and warned me about the few uncharacteristic home invasions that our neighborhood had been experiencing. I opened up the paper yesterday and found this article discussing an email that has been circulated to neighborhood listservs that seems to have spun what has happened in my neighborhood (cited in the article and email) into something worthy of suburban paranoia. You have to read the full article for all of the details, but I have a couple of thoughts on this as follows:

1. Yes, the email confirms that living in the suburbs does make people more paranoid.

2. Yet, at the same time, the information that the Durham Police Department uses as evidence to counter the "misinformation" in the email isn't too comforting either. They cite that between July 5-10 there were four instances of home invasion in the Mary Dell neighborhood. Granted, that isn't the "two to three instances per day" that is stated in the email, but don't four attempted invasions over a five day period in one isolated neighborhood still seem like alot? Furthermore, the Durham Police Department is only using statistics for a five day period. That doesn't seem to compelling in light of the fact that it is now almost the month of August and they haven't offered up any evidence about crime statistics post July 10. I know for a fact that there have been home invasions since then, as recently as this past weekend in fact. How do I know this? Why, my neighborhood listserv, of course (to which I have been added thanks to the kind neighbor).

3. I also love that according to the email, my neighborhood may have been picked as a target because its residents "are not likely to call the police if African-Americans that do not live there look and act suspicious." In other words, according to the email my neighborhood is too "politically correct."

4. Last night when I was trying to fall asleep, I couldn't stop thinking about this news story. If the police were trying to make suburban homeowners less paranoid, to put it bluntly, this is one big police FAIL. I was less paranoid before I read this stupid story.

In Memorium

2010-07-28T05:30:00.000-07:00

I am very, very sad today. Our sweet family dog, Ralphe, was put to sleep. He had been suffering for a while, and we knew that they end was coming for him. Still, it is a pretty big loss for our family, particularly my Mom. That dog loved her most. He followed her around and didn't like being separated from her for any length of time. After all, if she were nearby, there was always a better chance that he would get taken on a Jeep ride.

Ralphe came into our family in the summer of 1999. I was in Washington D.C. for an internship when Mom called to tell me that Dad brought home a golden retriever puppy. She was seeking help with determining a name for her puppy. I told her we should name him Ralph, but only if it was pronounced in the British way. Mom liked the idea and named him Ralphe, adding the "e" to designate the difference in the pronunciations. When I returned home to Pensacola later that summer and met Ralphe for the first time, I knew it was love at first sight. That dog was special.

We had a few beloved family dogs before Ralphe. All had excellent temperaments and were delightful companions. However, Ralphe was the dog that taught me that a happy, well-adjusted dog had all of the essentials already figured out. He knew how to ensure that he maximized his treats and his time spent in air-conditioned places. But above all, he knew how to give love. That dog was my comfort in some of the hardest times in my life. When faced with heartbreak, failure, or something just not working out as I had planned, I knew that I could come home and that Ralphe would sit beside me as I cried and worked things out. All he asked for in return was for me to stroke his head softly. And I did. It was the best therapy anyone could have possibly asked for. In happier times, we would play games and learn tricks in the backyard. I taught him how to catch my rebounds when I would shoot hoops in the backyard. He taught me the simple joy of a good squeeky toy. In the backyard swimming pool, he loved to "water-ski" - in other words, be pulled around the shallow end by his front paws. Ralphe was a true Street in that dog loved to be wet. In the summertime, anytime that he was outside, he would be in the pool. Mom introduced him to the water when he was still a puppy and he loved it throughout his years. Even after my parents moved back to Mississippi, he would still come to the back door wet and muddy from swimming in the pond.

When I decided that I was ready to try a dog of my own, I knew that I wanted Ralphe to be around. We were lucky enough to get Knightley in Mississippi and for the first two weeks Knightley was with us, he was with Ralphe. Knightley was scared and uncertain in a new place, but being around Ralphe sure seemed to calm him down. Ralphe showed him the ropes of what it means to be a good family dog. Ralphe didn't mind when Knightley was a rambunctious little puppy that just wanted to play; he was patient and tolerant. Furthermore, he showed Knightley that the way to get the good stuff (the treats, the pats on the head, and the belly rubs) is to be a good friend. He also showed Knightley how to rip apart a stuffed animal when no one was looking. I think Knightley appreciates learning the sneakiness from Ralphe too. Every time we went back to Mississippi after that initiation from Ralphe, Knightley wagged his tail in excitement to see his best buddy.

Because of that role that Ralphe played in Knightley's development, whenever I look at Knightley, I will also see Ralphe. And I will always miss him, too.

Antidote to Paranoia

2010-07-27T13:33:00.001-07:00

I had a glorious weekend with my family which was a delightful way to spend my first weekend in the new house.

A cute baby is the perfect antidote to all fears:

Knightley also enjoyed meeting Harry for the first time. He couldn't get enough of him, and always wanted to check on him to make sure he was okay. Here he is supervising Harry's bath.

Of course, there were many pictures taken of doting family members. We love that little guy.

I think Sarah summarizes the Carolina love for Harry in this picture by her facial expression. She and Harry are twins in their Carolina gear.

Even in an empty house devoid of furniture, having family in town makes a house feel quite full and complete.

Knightley and I were both lonely when they left.

Suburban Paranoia

2010-07-27T06:42:00.000-07:00

Ever since I have graduated from law school, I have lived in cities. I lived in New York by myself and went to and from work in the South Bronx. In DC, we lived in the city, a hop, skip, and a jump away from where the police implemented neighborhood checkpoints because of gang warfare the summer before we moved there. I never considered myself as the type to easily scare in cities.

However, for some reason, the quiet of the country is an entirely different matter. Last night, one of our friendly new neighbors (something that I have been impressed with since we arrived), stopped by with some delicious zucchini pineapple bread, and told us what a wonderful neighborhood that we chose. She also told us that unfortunately, there have been a few uncharacteristic break-ins in the neighborhood recently. The most recent just happened this past weekend a few houses away from us. She told me not to worry, as the break-ins have occurred only when no one was at home. I told her that I wasn't worried, but then last night, I had a very hard time falling asleep as I became aware of every little sound. It turns out, the country is much quieter than the city and therefore living in it, every bump in the night sounds out of place. Fortunately, even though David is still in DC, I have Knightley to warn me if anything sounds amiss. However, today at work I have been thinking about what happens to Knightley if someone tried to break-in when I wasn't home. This is how obsessive compulsive behaviors get started.

Also there are the bugs. I forgot about bugs in the South. I have seen a few spiders, and so I have paranoia about brown recluse spiders biting my forehead and leaving me permanently scarred like that lady we knew in Mississippi in the early 1980s. Or, I think about my high school French teacher's brother who had a cockroach climb into his ear when he was sleeping at night so that he had to go to the emergency room to have it removed.

Then there is the other kind of paranoia that sounds like it will best be expressed in the new The Arcade Fire album, The Suburbs. Fear of those things are probably the worst of all.

My Efforts at Cyberbullying

2010-07-26T12:23:00.000-07:00

I try to avoid writing blog posts on anything that could potentially be work related. I do this for a number of reasons, few of which I will articulate here. However, the main reason is because I am generally content in my chosen profession. I like being a law librarian. I like what I do. However, the subjects that could be deemed work-related about which I would potentially blog would make it seem like I don't like my profession. Namely, it would be to point out the annoying undercurrents that sometimes can run through this profession. Generally, these annoying undercurrents come with names attached, because frankly, there are a few people in this profession that drive me crazy for a whole host of reasons. The chief general reason that these people drive me crazy is that they are not really good legal researchers, so they mask their lack of marketable skills with a fixation on social media, Web 2.0 technology, etc.

This weekend, my family and I were playing a board game called, "Loaded Questions." One of these questions that we had to answer was to name something that we had never done on the Internet. My response was "cyberbulling."

However, depending on your definition of cyberbulling, that is about to change (as well as me breaking my rule about not writing work-related blog posts). Because seriously, J.P. (as I coin thee), Director of the Harvard Law Library? Come on. You are supposed to be a director of probably the most important law library in the country. Yet, not only is this not mentioned in your New York Times interview, but you spend a whole interview talking about the online social lives of high school students coming from the vantage point of a Harvard Law School Professor (which I realize is what made your famous because of your similarly useless book, Born Digital). I know that you have been touted in academic circles as someone who really understands kids these days, and all of that, but I still don't get what this possibly has to do with running a law library.

Don't get me wrong, I am all for law library directors being legal scholars. I believe in that. I am just not so sure that your publishing makes you a legal scholar. Does research about youth and the Internet make one a legal scholar (even with your insert about the law Congress is considering about cyberbullying)? I realize, your scholarship is entitled to be separate from what you do in your work affiliated with the law library, but I can't help but think that you are using an awful lot of your conclusions about youth and the Internet in determinations about what the future of the law library should look like. Furthermore, I can't help help but wonder if your own research interests that have little to do with law serve as a conflict of interest when you are determining what materials will make up your "library of the future." Maybe you have so little interest in traditional legal resources because your own research makes little use of them?

I shouldn't therefore, at all be surprised that when you do deem it worth your while to actually publish on the subject of law libraries (when you aren't testifying about cyberbulling before Congress, that is), you don't bother to actually support your arguments with actual research and evidence. For example, your "Cornerstones of Law Librarianship for the Digital Plus Era" is about the most poorly researched piece of garbage I have ever read from any sitting law library director. I am not sure why you think you can make broad, general claims like, "Law firms of all sizes face competitive threats from information technology services, accounting firms, and other nonlawyers." You offer that statement up, like it is some sort of self-evident truth that therefore doesn't need to be footnoted. Can I call BS on that? First of all, the whole point of a professional monopoly is that you don't face professional threats from other kinds of industries, that aren't licensed to do what the professionally controlled monopoly is able to do. If that were the only statement in your paper that wasn't properly footnoted and supported, then I would let it pass. However, that is only one of many examples I could cite throughout your article. Also, do you really have to use the word "flux" so much?

I get it, libraries aren't your passion. Those crazy, technology addicted kids are. If that is what you love so much, then write all about them. Then, maybe your answer to a question about what makes an internet rumor stick ("The more salacious, the better. The more believable, and yet there is a little something edgy.") will bother me a little bit less. But let's be honest. This isn't integral to the determinations being made about the future of law libraries. This doesn't have much to do with ensuring that legal researchers of the future have access to well-ordered collections on jurisprudential thought. Sure, I might still be annoyed that you are trying to play the role of a trained behavioral scientist with the education of a law professor, but so many law professors think they know more than experts who are trained more thoroughly in other fields these days, that I just shrug my shoulders.

This isn't a professional blog. This is a blog for when my parents want to look at pictures of my dog or my vacation to Spain. It is a blog that my friends can read when they find themselves in need of a good old fashioned-Leslie rant. There is nothing scholarly here, worthy of study or truthfully even of anyone else's time. It is a waste of internet space, and therefore, is not worthy of anyone's academic study. Heck, this blog post isn't even a well-reasoned, well-researched, articulate critique. In that way, I am part of the problem with the Internet. I am writing a post solely based on a knee jerk reaction, rather than thinking through the issue and writing something thoughtful and insightful. I am sure that alot of people feel similarly regarding the crap that they put on the Internet. I hope they do, at least. I hope they don't expect to be taken seriously. I know teenagers expect to be taken seriously at all times, so perhaps they are the exception to that. But are really living in the age where the work of law libraries has to concern themselves so seriously with angst ridden, clique driven kids?

Summer Reading 2010

2010-07-26T07:47:00.000-07:00

When I was in Denver for the AALL Annual Meeting, I visited the Tattered Cover bookstore in downtown Denver. Although the selection was not what I had hoped to see in a major independent bookstore, I nonetheless managed to purchase five books. I have already read one, am in the middle of two, and am eager to start the last two as soon as I finish the other two.

The one that I already read and could not put down was The Teeth May Smile but the Heart Does Not Forget, the retelling of the pursuit by a son for justice for the murder of his father during Idi Amin’s regime in Uganda, written by Andrew Rice. I could not put it down. Not only was it a captivating story that weaved together the history of colonial and post-colonial Uganda, but it also is an excellent musing on the question of justice for victims of homicidal regimes. Even before law school, I was obsessed with the success of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa at the conclusion of the apartheid era. It seems as though since that time, no other country has been able to replicate its success. Perhaps it takes combination of especially charismatic, inspirational leaders, like the combination of a Mandela and Tutu that makes it nearly impossible to duplicate. I don’t know, but I know that Uganda has not succeeded in adequately balancing justice and forgiveness for its history of human rights violations. The story is also an interesting tale of when “the rule of law”, that which we prize so boldly in our own nation, isn’t enough to respond to deeply inflicted wounds of prior eras. As Duncan Laki, the son who lost his father says, “It’s sad for me to look at these three murders and they just walk away like that, but that’s the rule of law. We have to accept the rule of law. It hurts but…what can we do?”

Right now I am on page 164 of Laurel Thatcher Ulrich’s book Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History. That statement provides an ubiquitous bumper sticker in places like Chapel Hill, North Carolina, which leads me to question whether or not the women who sport those stickers would still do so if they knew that Thatcher Ulrich was a Mormon. I met her once through my friend Katie on a trip I took to Boston. I love the way she weaves together the stories of ordinary and not so ordinary women to create a historical tale through the stories of individual women. It also has reminded me that I still need to pick up a copy of Camille Fronk’s book on the women of the Old Testament, because of the way Thatcher Ulrich brings to new life the Old Testament stories of Judith and Susanna and how she sums them up, “For ordinary women, the lessons these stories taught were powerful, but contradictory. A woman should be both chaste and alluring, both innocent and bold.”

I am also currently reading, The Parisians, by Graham Robb. Although it is subtitled “An Adventure History of Paris”, it is also like Thatcher Ulrich’s work in that it really illuminates history through biographical vignettes of the ordinary and not so ordinary people of Paris. OF course, it also serves to make me want to go back and see Paris in an entirely new and different way.

I haven’t yet begun the last two books – The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by French author Muriel Barbery (I am reading it in translation, because I don’t think my French skills are presently good enough to read a book like this in the original French), and Strength in What Remains, by Tracy Kidder. I have moved through the other two books at such a rate though, that I am sure that I will begin both of these books before the month of July is through.

Good books are always the best cure for whatever ails me.

Stereotypes Confirmed

2010-07-26T06:20:00.000-07:00

Don't you love it when people act in a particular way to supply increasing evidence that the stereotypes that you hold are entirely justified?

Duke students seem to relish the opportunity to prove what jerks they are. I submit the following evidence into the record - Mike Posner (a Duke student) is apparently a budding rap/R&B artist. He has chosen to sing about his drug dealer girlfriend and film video for said "song" on the Duke University campus. This video confirms a couple of things about Duke students - first, they are all upper class crackheads (it is good to start those addictions early in preparation for their future lives on Wall Street). This also exposes that trait of dehuminizing and objectifying women of color that those Duke lacrosse players so proudly displayed a few years back.

Way to go Blue Devils! Keep it classy.

On Home

2010-07-22T08:08:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was our closing day, so the house pictured above is now officially ours (subject to us continuing to pay our mortgage, of course). Many more pictures of the house will be forthcoming, I am sure. Right now it seems impossibly large and empty. Knightley isn't sure what to do because of all the empty space, he just keeps running from room to room. There are three staircases inside of the house and he keeps running up and down them, particularly when he loses where David and I are and can't find us.

Before I started rambling on and on about the house, though, I wanted to write a public thank you to a person that I do not very often discuss in detail on this blog. I just wanted to stop for a minute and say thank you to David. I do this because I realize that it is very rare to find any husband, much less a husband within the cultural context of our particular LDS faith, who is absolutely willing to let his wife's career determine where the family lives. I know that it is my dream, not David's that brings us to North Carolina. Fortunately, his current employer is flexible enough to allow David to use North Carolina as a home base for him (particularly since the employer knows it doesn't really matter where David lives, since he has to travel for work so much, anyway). However, I also know that if it were up to David, and he wasn't married to me, he would happily be living somewhere located several time zones to the West. He would rather live somewhere that has better television coverage of the PAC-10 (soon to be PAC-12, I guess), whereas my dream for nonstop ACC basketball coverage is coming true. He will always be a child of the West and I will always be a child of the South, who functions bizarrely when unable to feel a sense of familiarity.

There are many things that David likes about North Carolina, but I know that above all, he agreed to this move because he knows how happy it makes me. He has to put up with a sometimes very difficult and intense person, and yet he is still willing to do this. He knows me well enough to know how important the right sense of place is to me. I will always be Southern in my sensibilities, and without feeling that firmly rooted sense of home, he knows that I feel lost. I know that this place, this house, this particular dog, has all been a part of my dream, but I am so grateful that he has been willing to make it our dream.

Farewell, farewell, quoth she

2010-07-19T13:27:00.000-07:00

If I could add one thing on to my birthday list from my last post it would be to also include the Spicy Chicken Sandwich that I had from the Chick-fil-A in Henderson, NC on my drive to DC for the weekend. Considering the run of the mill birthday that I had, that Spicy Chicken Sandwich was a revelation.

On Saturday, I was able to have a late birthday dinner at Monmartre on Capitol Hill in DC.

Not only was it a birthday dinner, but it also served as a sort of farewell to DC party for me. Our friends Matt and Erin came along.

Also there, but not pictured were our friends Brigham and Josh, both of whose wives were unfortunately out of town at more exciting destinations than a birthday/farewell party for me.

In all seriousness though, the hardest thing about leaving DC is leaving behind the great friends that I had there. Thankfully, it isn't too far away for weekend visits.

Birthday Greats

2010-07-16T11:45:00.000-07:00

So it is official, I am old now, and thus taking the low key approach to another birthday. However, these are a few of the things that I enjoyed on this day that made it a little more tolerable:

1. Breakfast biscuit at Sunrise Biscuit Kitchen on Franklin Street.

2. Better news from the Gulf of Mexico about BP potentially plugging the oil leak.

3. This video promotion of the Harold B. Lee Library at BYU that reminded me of my old days as a Periodicals Reference Assistant there, while also hilariously spoofing the Old Spice Commercials:

4. I am going to DC this weekend where I will actually see David for longer than two hours for more than 1 day.

Not a bad birthday by my estimation.

Instant Stress Relief

2010-07-15T13:01:00.000-07:00

With all of the travel, moving, and learning a new job that this month has entailed, I have needed some moments of trivial relief. Watching this Saturday Night Live Weekend Update segment provides that for me. Predator monster. He. He.

Since we are a week away from closing on the house, we are also thinking about home improvement. So, there is also this helpful commercial to offer up some ideas:

Or maybe some of these columns? Now that is classy.

National Football Night for Librarians

2010-07-14T13:53:00.000-07:00

I just returned from attending two law librarian-related conferences in Colorado. The first was in Boulder at the University of Colorado Law School which looks like this:

The second was the American Association of Law Librarians Annual Meeting held in Denver. Although I was mentally exhausted already from the first conference in Boulder, the second conference did give me the opportunity to spend some time with my former Washington classmates and Georgetown colleagues. The Georgetown party was just one opportunity for socializing:

Of course, the pictures that I took at AALL are strictly of the social events. After all, who wants to look at pictures of boring panels, round tables, and committee meetings? I know I don't. Posting pictures of that would be a considerable letdown after all of the discussion that this blog has hosted regarding attractive soccer stars.

There was, however, a lovely cake at the Lexis sponsored Opening Night Dessert party that was something attractive to look at. And the buttercream frosting was delicious. So, there is that.

After a year when Thomson Reuters managed to annoy every law librarian on the planet at one time or another, they treated us to the best "Westlaw" party (AKA "Thomson Reuters Customer Appreciation Party") yet - at Invesco Field.

I am no Denver Broncos fan (although, I might soon become one for reasons discussed later in the entry), but having field level and luxury suite level access to the stadium was pretty incredible. I also realize this choice of venue was a touch ironic considering law librarians, on average, are probably some of the most awkward and nonathletic people on the planet (I count myself in that number, as I did manage to fall down the stairs and pull something in my ankle enough to have it swell up by the third day of the conference). Few librarians know anything about sports (I don't count myself in that number). However, that just made the evening at the stadium all the more entertaining.

For one, I was able to pay tribute to some of the lesser known heroes of Invesco Field - the Dance Team for the Outlaws, Denver's professional lacrosse team.

Amanda and I were able to laugh tremendously while consuming the variety of stadium food offered at the venue.

I was able to emulate the throwing style on the field of Tim Tebow, who soon will be gracing that same field with his presence.

Wait, did I say "will soon" grace the field? It looks like Tebow is already there in his #15, although, he was much smaller in person than I thought that he would be.

Not pictured: The epically wonderful picture that Amanda and I had taken by the Thomson Reuters photographers with the stadium as the backdrop. I did the Heisman, Amanda was a cheerleader. This will grace the blog once I have my scanner in operation again.

Eurotrash Babies: Follow-Up to the Last World Cup Follow-Up

2010-07-08T05:21:00.000-07:00

So, as it turns out, Cristiano Ronaldo is even more of a Eurotrash slut than I possibly could have imagined. On Friday, he posted a message to his Twitter account that he recently became a father to a baby boy. His Russian supermodel girlfriend doesn't seem to mind. Ah yes, the worthwhile nature of Twitter that allows a European superstar to in 140 characters or less, cop to a love child and also plea for privacy. What an age in which we live! How I long for the day when it took the journalistice efforts of the National Enquirer or one of their European counterparts to reveal illegitimate love children. Ronaldo says that he is going to assume sole guardianship of the child. I can see little Baby Ronaldo now, with his fauxhawk Eurotrash haircut, on the beach at Ibiza wearing a baby Speedo and trying to pick up on all of the topless baby girls. Maybe Ibiza has a baby discotheque for a little baby Ronaldo nightlife.

Kaka has a Twitter account also. However, he uses it to post inspirational messages and encourage followers to lend their efforts to combatting child prostitution in Brazil (sometimes in English, sometimes in Portuguese).

These two great soccer players play for the same professional team - Real Madrid. While we were in Madrid, Jose Mourhino, former coach of David's favorite team, Inter Milan, and sexiest coach alive, was announced to be the new coach of Real Madrid. They held a press conference at the Real Madrid stadium and later that night, photographers clustered around the Palace Hotel, where we were staying, as fancy vehicles dropped off important lookin people at the front entrance of the hotel. I like to think that it had soething to do with Mourhino, but my Spanish wasn't good enough to have actually confirmed that. In any case, sometimes I like to think about how Mourhino will handle these two very different, but talented stars on the same team.

About the World Cup final - I think the Dutch have this one. Nonetheless, I am cheering for Spain, because it is a lovely country, and those people are dealing with an economy and government budget that are in the crapper so they deserve to have something to celebrate.

One final postscript to this post is this Washington Post article from today about the sad farewell that comes at the end of the World Cup. Exactly.

World Cup Follow-Up

2010-07-06T13:30:00.001-07:00

Yes, I realize that Kaka's Brazil is now out of the World Cup, but I had to follow up my last post about how much I love Kaka with a link to these pictures in Vanity Fair, that once again prove my point that Kaka is not a Eurotrash slut. He actually posed for this picture in his jeans, while the other soccer stars are in their skivvies.

By the way, I picked the Netherlands to win it all before the World Cup started, and I am still standing by that pick. Although now, part of me wants Spain to win.

Far From the Hills

2010-07-06T13:06:00.000-07:00

My Internet coverage is spotty until we are all moved into our house (hopefully, there will be no hiccups with that) at the end of the month. So the blog posting will be very brief until then.

I just wanted to say that I spent a lovely Fourth of July weekend with Knightley, Sarah, and Grammy. We drove down to Lake Norman so that Knightley could enjoy some time at the lake and I could spend some time with Grammy. We listened to takes on the civil war through contemporary song - Titus Andronicus's album The Monitor, and the much more melodious and lovely song "Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)" by The Decemberists.

To Have or To Be?

2010-06-28T19:14:00.000-07:00

While in Madrid, we spent time in the city's three most famous art museums - The Prado, the Reina Sofia, and the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza. Each were very different. The most famous among them, the Prado, is full of works by Dutch Masters, Renaissance painters, and finally Spanish works works from el Greco to Velasquez and Goya. Thus, it is heavy on the religious iconography with a mix of royal portraiture thrown in. The Reina Sofia is focused on the modern and post-modern. There are plenty of Picassos, Miros, and Dalis to go around. The Thyssen-Bornemisza consists of work from famous private collections, and thus spans the two.

All were lovely, and yet at the end of the day, left me feeling lacking. I have a hard time with bloody religious iconography, and there are only so many pictures of the martyrdom of St. Jerome that I can take. I find the Dutch Masters incredibly dull (there I said it). Even at the Prado's best (I'll admit, I do love Goya's Black Paintings), it left me feeling a little bit empty. The other museums left me feeling little more. With the exception of the Spanish Civil War room at the Reina Sofia and Picasso's truly emotional Guernica, I just didn't feel much aside from tired feet. I wondered to myself - is this really it? Can I really claim to be an appreciator of art when what I am told is great art leaves me feeling so little?

But here is what I realized, I spent three days in museums looking at things that are collect able instead of things that just are. Sure it is aesthetically pleasing, but it is a weak substitute when I spent the prior week seeing beauty in its purest form. This is the kind of beauty that you can't just look at on a wall and collect in your home, but rather, you must experience. After your five senses experience that, a painting or a sculpture is a pretty weak substitute.

Take for example the day we spent on back roads through the Andalusian countryside.

Driving through Spanish olive, almond, orange, and lemon groves, your entire five senses experience the beauty all around. Some of the oranges were in season and you could taste them too.

You see the pueblos blancos built into the hillsides.

You touch the gnarled old olive trees and see the early signs of this fall's harvest.

You can feel cool mountain streams and the wind as it whips over the tops of the mountains.

You smell the wild herbs growing along the roadside (in this case sage blossoms and French lavender).

You hear the bird calls (and see the colors) of migratory European Bee-eaters (that migrate from Africa) and Hoopoes.

(You may not see it, but in the center at the bottom of this picture is an Bee Eater.)

Even the smell of the back of the Land Rover is familiar and evocative - the smell of country dust on leather seats reminded me of truck rides with Pa-Paw in the Mississippi of my youth.

After all of that, how can any picture in a museum possibly compete?

I can't wait for this!

2010-06-28T17:38:00.000-07:00

I should have spent all weekend packing and organizing, but I didn't. It was too hot. Our air conditioner is broken. I couldn't get any sleep at night.

So instead, I re-read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Then today, the official trailer to the film was released. At least something from my weekend came together nicely.

Portugal/Brazil Thoughts

2010-06-25T07:33:00.000-07:00

Under normal circumstances, I think of Christian Ronaldo as just another Eurotrash slut. Under the passion of this game, though, wow, what a hottie.

I love Kaka. He is, under no circumstance, a Eurotrash slut. However, he is out with a red card after two yellow cards in the Ivory Coast game, so he isn't playing today.

And yet, I am cheering for Portugal. When I think of the Portuguese Team, it reminds me of being in the Azores during the Euro 2008 tournament. I loved the excitement of it. I haven't yet been to Brazil. So that is why I have to cheer for Portugal in this matchup of colonial master versus subject.

A Hero

2010-06-24T06:17:00.000-07:00

For those of you who haven't heard, Manute Bol passed away last weekend in Reston, VA. He tirelessly worked on behalf of the Sudanese people, and is the definition of someone who truly gave all that he had on behalf of his people. He used most of the money that he made to help reconstruct war torn Southern Sudan, and gave the ultimate sacrifice, his life, when he refused to let his health ailments stand in the way of his service. Nicholas Kristof wrote this beautiful column in today's New York Times honoring this great humanitarian.

We can all honor the tremendous legacy of Manute Bol by not forgetting about the people of Sudan. More specifically, we can ensure that his work continues by contributing to his organization's goal of building 41 schools across Southern Sudan. Please contribute through Sudan Sunrise. Next year, Southern Sudan holds an important referendum for their independence from a regime that has brutalized them and made war against them. Every day, I become a little more concerned that Khartoum's regime, led by an indicted war criminal, will not let these people go peaceably to build their own future. I plead with everyone, that we cannot allow this to happen again. Every Sudanese person with whom I have been privileged to associate has been remarkable. In spite of tremendous hardship, they number among the kindest, most hardworking people that I have ever met. We have to push the Obama Administration to be more resolved when it comes to Sudan. I haven't been too political on this blog in quite some time, but I cannot be silent about this.

Fortunately for me, our ward at church currently is privileged to have one of Manute Bol's nephews serving as a missionary in our ward. He absolutely possesses that characteristic good spirit that made his uncle such a great humanitarian. I get to help him, in some small way, by helping him file for US citizenship. It is the small way that I was able to help a few Sudanese people in Seattle, through the work of the Southern Sudanese Community of Washington. My limited involvement with that organization introduced me to some of the greatest people that I have ever encountered in my lifetime. Frequently they were taken advantage of by unscrupulous bosses, requiring them to labor in unsafe work conditions, or dishonest salesmen, who took advantage of their trusting nature. Nonetheless, they remained cheerful and kind. They worked hard and spent every spare moment in pursuing their educational goals (because uniformly, they all wanted to gain a university level education to become skilled experts and help rebuild their country). Whenever they had any money at all, they believed someone else in their community was more deserving than they, and would pass the money along to others in need. That is the Southern Sudanese way, and Manute Bol was the most wonderful example of it.

Manute Bol, you will be missed, but I pray that your legacy will serve to remind us of those in Southern Sudan and elsewhere who we can help through small and simple means.

Backlogged Again

2010-06-22T20:45:00.000-07:00

I have been negligent of the blog again, and there are still stories of Spain that I want to tell.

Of a thousand year old olive tree:

Of the deliciousness that comes from an assortment of amuse-bouche dishes like strawberry gazpacho and foie gras truffles (because who doesn't love chocolate covered duck fat?):

Of the affinity that I feel for San Roque, the Patron Saint of the village of Tolox:

Of the amount of Coca Cola Light I consumed in the span of 11 days:

But all of these stories will have to wait. This week has been a stressful one of packing and planning, and although I am hoping to see the light at the end of the tunnel eventually, I keep procrastinating necessary things for the sake of trying to enjoy my last days in DC with my wonderful friends here. So far, I have only broken down into tears once, which isn't bad at all for me.

Plus, there is the added distraction of the World Cup. Who isn't distracted by an epic French breakdown, the haunting background noise produced by the vuvuzela, and the opportunity to cheer along sport with a side dish of nationalism?

Sweetness Follows

2010-06-15T20:11:00.001-07:00

We are all pretty thrilled with the newest addition to the family, Harrison Street McInroe, or as we call him, Harry. We just spent a weekend in Katy, Texas celebrating his arrival.

The new Aunt Sarah kicked things off with a Lion King-style introduction, where Sarah played the part of Rafiki while all of the well-dressed animals of the McInroe household bowed in reverence before their new king.

Harry immediately indicated to the crowd that he would be a kind, but firm ruler. When the whale and octopus started to get out of line, Harry's strong arm knocked them back into place.

Of course the new first-time grandparents took an immediate liking to the new little king. Mom, sensing this new kid had a keen sense of rhythm dubbed his rap name - Mr. Tricky Sweet, or just Tricky Sweet for short.

Not to be outdone, the new doting grandfather reminded us all that Harry has a more pensive and serious side as well.

Already Harry shows how proud he is of his papa, Jordan, for his keen sense of style and his musical prowess.

The proud parents show off their new cub. Harry already wins high marks on the cuteness scale thanks to his successful inheritance of Melissa's baby button nose and facial features.

I will admit that I am terrified of newborns and was afraid that I would make a mistake when holding him and break poor Harry. The caregiving instincts may not be strong with this one (meaning me). Nonetheless, Harry's cuddle reassured me that I wouldn't break him and that he was stronger than he looks at first glance.

Of course, Harry's mom shows us how the real baby cuddling is done. I love being reminded of the bond between a new mother and her son by looking at this picture.

It was a great weekend all around. In fact, it was very tough to say goodbye. The moments before I left for the airport, I rocked an increasingly sleepy Harry to the strain of "We're Going to the Zoo" from the Peter, Paul, and Mommy album, while singing along with Mom and Melissa. It was the same Peter, Paul, and Mommy album to which we sung along when we were children. Sharing that generational moment with Mom, Melissa, and Harry allowed me to feel for a moment what heaven must feel like.

Moorish Fortresses, Palaces and Gardens

2010-06-10T05:18:00.000-07:00

One of the parts of Moorish Andalucia that I really appreciated was the juxtaposition of the hard, durable fortresses with spaces set aside for beautiful gardens. In Moorish gardens, water plays a central role and is featured as prominently as the plants to which water gives life. Certainly water served as a cooling feature to mitigate the hot hiltop summers, but I like the think that the water was a more meaningful choice beyond that.

I also love that in these defensive fortresses that made the Moors in Spain (particularly in Granada) so unconquerable for so long, time was taken to tend the living through the creation of beautiful gardens.

Here are some of the scenes that I loved.

From Granada/the Alhambra:

These gardens are from the Generalife - the Summertime palace of the Nasrid Emirs that is a part of the Alhambra complex. Slightly at higher altitude, the palace was also set in a much shadier place.

From the Alcazaba in Malaga:

Home is...

2010-06-09T17:11:00.000-07:00

I once again am interrupting the Spain coverage to announce that as of today, we are officially under contract to purchase this home in Durham, NC. We are thrilled. It is pretty much all that we could have possibly hoped for in or first home plus much, much more. I'll admit, I feel a little bit silly purchasing such a large home for just the two of us plus Knightley, but from the moment we saw this house sitting up on a hill we fell in love with it. It gives us plenty of room to grow into and we will appreciate it more in the years to come. We close on July 21, and we are crossing are fingers that everything goes smoothly from now on with the process.

Tomorrow, I am going down to Texas to visit Melissa, and I probably will not update more until I get back. I will try to return to the Spain coverage then.

Fourteen Strikeouts and a Home

2010-06-08T19:47:00.000-07:00

My favorite of the Nationals' "Presidents", good old George, was sending positive vibes before the big game. We were there to witness history, one of the most highly anticipated major league debuts of all time -
That is right. We were there to witness the young phenom, Steven Strasburg's debut with the Nationals. Here he is walking out with one of the coaches (we had pretty good seats thanks to our good friend, Matt):

And was the performance worthy of the hype?

Well, lets see - he struck out fourteen hitters in his debut in the seven innings he played, including retiring the last seven batters with strikeouts. In his debut, he set a franchise record for number of strikeouts. So yes, I, along with every other Nationals fan, am safe in saying that he is most definitely worthy of the hype.

Here are Matt, Erin and David enjoying the game (a game completely worthy of enjoyment):

Game Bonus: Ken Burns through out the first pitch. No one was more excited about this than me.

While at the game, I had two phone calls with our realtor in North Carolina, trying to work out the terms of a deal with the house that we put an offer on. By the end of the night, we had a W for the Nationals and an agreement on a purchase of a home that David and I fell in love with. Of course, nothing is final until the contract is signed, but it certainly felt like a historic night.

Rock the Kasbah

2010-06-07T17:08:00.000-07:00

The Plague. Battle of Algiers. There are not many people who are attracted to a destination based on a novel about a deadly infectious disease and a film about a war for liberation from the yoke of colonialism, but I have wanted to go to North Africa ever since my encounter with both works while in high school. Then, throw in an obsession with the desert scenes shot in Tunisia in the film, The English Patient, and you have a full on obsession. Granted, Morocco is certainly not Algeria. It isn't even Tunisia, and I didn't come close to touching the Sahara desert. Nonetheless, Tangier, a 45 minute ferry ride away from the historic Spanish port of Tangier, was an excellent, brief introduction to a region where I would like to spend considerably more time.

Here I am on the ferry, contemplating the brief trip:

We proceeded to do what the Clash would want us to do, rock the Kasbah (which actually just means that we spent a few moments exploring the old fortress, originally built by the Portuguese).From just outside of the walls of the Kasbah, there was a beautiful view of Spain across the Atlantic (we were on the Atlantic side of the Strait of Gibraltar).

What makes me instantly fall in love with these kinds of towns? Well, the old quarter of Tangier, centered around the Medina, instantly reminds me of those other Islamic-influenced towns that I love so much - Stonetown in Zanzibar and Istanbul. I love the narrow streets, and the aging infrastructure.I love the bustling street scene in the old Medina.

I love the balconies and the internal courtyards inside of the Arabic mansions.

I love the anticipation of a good Moroccan meal capped off with a tangine dish.

Heck, I even don't mind the snake charmer, although I am not sure how native to Morocco that actually is. I even don't mind it when it reminds me of that terrible ballet production of Tales of the Arabian Nights in which I performed the role of a snake being charmed (in that awful, awful green unitard which really upset me because there is no fluorescent green snake that is going to be charmed; what was I supposed to be - a green mamba?).

David wasn't as big of a fan of Morocco, because wherever we went, he felt like people just wanted our money. It is true; they did, but I am expect no less when I come to a place like Morocco. I don't resent the snake charmer, the guy selling pictures on top of his camel for a Euro a pop, the hordes of street vendors, the rug vendors, the spice vendors, or any of them. They are just trying to eek out a living the best way they can, and of course they are going to target seemingly wealthy European tourists. They have to provide for their families (and by all accounts, Moroccan families are pretty large). If anything, the situation just gives me privileged First World guilt, because I wish I was able to do more. By all accounts, I am just so lucky to be where I am in my life so that David and I can spend many, many euros on a lovely homemade Moroccan rug.

Here is David on the ferry as we are pulling away from Tangier. It may sound strange to say, but I love visiting places where the trip ends in tears for me - because the crying means that place has once again awakened my awareness of how much need the world has for change and how much I need to change to make the world a better place.

(Addendum: On the way to Taifa, we saw the famed Rock of Gibraltar from the road. Since we already were staying at what felt like Wee Britian, we decided to hold off on a trip to the actual Wee Britian for this trip, even though I really wanted to see those apes.)

Back to the playa

2010-06-07T17:00:00.000-07:00

Right now, I am thinking to myself that I wish that I was back laying on the beach by the Mediterranean. I knew that June was going to be a very stressful month, but still, I didn't have enough time at the beach to fully prepare myself for all that awaited me back home.

Oh naive Leslie, here you are thinking only of the book that you brought with you to read, not even imagining the stress and anxiety that would come with the prospect of spending enormous sums of money on a house.

I should have taken pictures of the water at better times of the day so you could have seen the lovely shades of blue and green in the water. But I didn't. So instead, I am sitting here, stressing out over big decisions to make trying to remember the colors of the beach.

Interruption

2010-06-07T09:00:00.000-07:00

I had hoped to post more about the Spain trip by this point in time, but this weekend, I was unable to post anything. We were in North Carolina on a househunting trip which was thoroughly exhausting. We are in the wait and see mode regarding a house right now, so I am not going to post to much for fear out of jinxing anything.

Househunting is a little exhausting, because in terms of neighborhood setting, I am no longer sure where we belong. We seem too old and we have too much stuff for the hip tobacco warehouse loft conversions in downtown Durham, and yet, we don't have the kids and lifestyles that seem requisite with the suburban neighborhoods that require homeowners associations. It is perplexing.

More Spain updates will be as forthcoming as possible. I will be leaving on Thursday for Texas to visit the new little one, so I will try to do what I can before then.

Up and Down

2010-06-04T16:23:00.001-07:00

Those Moorish settlers in Andalusia sure loved to build their fortresses and towns on the tops of mountains. It makes for beautiful, picturesque settings with 360 degree views from the top, but it makes getting up to those places an exhausting enterprise when it is ninety degrees Fahrenheit. Basically, we had to become quite comfortable trekking both uphill and back down again. My muscles still feel it.

Exhibit A: The Alcazaba in Malaga. This hill wasn't too bad, but 500 feet above the fortress was the castle, which you climbed to very steeply, very quickly. It offered lovely views from the top, but getting there was pretty much the worst kind of hell as there was no shade at the time of day we visited. (I will have to post the payoff of the steep trek later. We had beautiful 360 degree views of the Mediterranean and the city when we arrived at the top, which I captured with my Flip camera).

Ronda also was another engineering feat, built by the Moors at the top of a gorge. In order to get water for the town, they built a water mine through the rock that enabled slaves to go down and up to bring water to the city.

Here is the entrance to the water mine:

The stairs were steep and exhausting. It seemed like a long way down to the river and a long way back up again. Ronda was a Moorish holdout for quite sometime (one of the last, with the exception of Granada). Because of its high situation, Castillian forces didn't know how to attack it. Finally, they came from the river and were ultimately able to secure those same water mines that were the lifeline to the city.

Our visit to Granada could have been subtitled "Down, Up, Down, and Up Again: A Tourist's Tale." We parked the rental car in the lot by the Alhambra. We then walked down to the city below the Alhambra. The view from below the hillside where the Alhambra was built looked like this:

(That is it, way at the top.)

Then, we walked up the city streets in the old Moorish quarter so we could get the lovely view of the Alhambra that looked like this:

Finally, we walked back down to the bottom of the town, across the river, and back up again when it was time for us to actually visit the Alhambra.

The view of Moorish Granada then looked something like this:

If you are going to visit any of the pueblos blancos in Andalusia, you better be prepared to walk uphill. This village is called Tolox, and it has the highest proportionate population of people over 100 in the world. It is presumably because of the crystal clear water that comes from the mountain spring that feeds the city and also because the residents stay in wonderful shape from walking uphill all day long.

Papa's Spain

2010-06-03T17:03:00.000-07:00

Through the years, I am amazed that I have retained such an affinity for Ernest Hemingway. The truth is, most of the subjects on which he writes are not topics to which I can relate - big game hunting, fishing, bullfighting, war - all of those hyper-masculine activities that make me shrug my shoulders instead of trying to relate. Plus, he is such a misogynist. The character of Maria in For Whom the Bell Tolls (which I finished in Spain, fittingly) has to be one of the characters in all of literature who annoyed me the most. The part where she is talking about how she intends to keep her figure for him to Richard Jordan made me want to vomit and commence binge eating all in the same moment.

Yet, in spite of all of those things, I love Hemingway. I love his terse prose and his distrust of adjectives, to concepts that I never seemed to master. I love the directness with the way he tells a story. As a result of those stylistic choices, he actually makes me interested in subjects like big game hunting and bullfighting.

I love the prose of Hemingway's Africa. When I traveled to Africa in college, the only fiction work I brought with me was a dog-eared copy of the complete short stories of Hemingway. I loved the Paris described in Hemingway's A Moveable Feast. Before I went to Paris for the first time, I reread that book and The Sun Also Rises and imagined the Paris of the Lost Generation. So fittingly, Hemingway had to go with me to Spain as well. I finished For Whom the Bell Tolls on the beach on the Costa del Sol and spent much of the remainder of my days contemplating the Spanish Civil War and even bullfighting.

A visit to Ronda's famed, historic bullfighting arena certainly did the trick as well. Modern bullfighting was invented in Rhonda and today, the most highly esteemed contests are still held annually in Rhonda.

Here I am, looking more middle school cheerleader than famed matador in my suit of lights:

Ronda thinks highly of Hemingway. That named street placard at the top of this entry I found in Ronda.

Rhonda also has a few famous bridges spanning its tremendous gorge. The first thing that came to mind when I saw it was Robert Jordan, the American explosions specialist in For Whom the Bell Tolls. The entirety of that book takes place in the few days prior and the day of Robert Jordan's assignment to blow up a particular bridge in hopes of stopping the fascist advance on Madrid. Clearly, the bridge in Ronda was not what Hemingway had in mind (the closest city to the action in the book is Segovia, on the north side of Madrid), but I still couldn't stop thinking about it.

Once you start thinking about the Spanish Civil War, it is really hard to stop thinking about it. Hemingway served as a war correspondent during it, and saw the horrors of it up close. I couldn't stop thinking about it, because it was a complicated mess where people like me wouldn't have fit in on either side.

The Reina Sofia Museum had an excellent portion of its museum devoted to the Spanish Civil War. It includes the most famous Picasso painting (and my single favorite Picasso work) Guernica, Picasso's protest piece regarding the atrocities committed by Franco's army on the civilian population living in that small town in northern Spain. French-made films of the Republican army attempting to defend Madrid against constant bombardment played in the background. Propaganda posters filled another gallery in the museum.

It is a war that I probably would have thought little about (except the bare minimum I needed to know for my AP European History Class in high school) unless it was for Hemingway. Now, I can't stop thinking about it.

Heck, maybe I will even read Death in the Afternoon, about bullfighting now.

How This Story Will Not Be Told

2010-06-03T16:49:00.000-07:00

I don't intend to go through a day by day, blow by blow rehash of Spain. I don't know, but I just think that would be a boring way to write about the Spain trip. So if you want to know briefly, where we were and what we did each day, then let me just give you the brief synopsis:

Saturday, May 22: arrival in Madrid; train to Malaga; exploring Benalmadena Costa
Sunday, May 23: beach and pool day
Monday, May 24: day road trip to Ronda
Tuesday, May 25: day trip to Tangier, Morocco
Wednesday, May 26: day road trip to Granada; Alhambra
Thursday, May 27: countryside safari through Andalusia
Friday, May 28: exploring Malaga and afternoon beach downtime
Saturday, May 29: train back to Madrid; Museum Thyssen-Bornemisza; walking tour of Bourbon Madrid
Sunday, May 29: Opera brunch; Prado Museum
Monday, May 30: Palacio Real; National Museum Reina Sofia; shopping
Tuesday, June 1: Return flight to U.S.

Where We Stayed

2010-06-02T18:42:00.000-07:00

Ah yes, the Costa del Sol, or as we learned to call it "Wee Britain", was the location for our lodging the first week we stayed in Spain. Our resort was in the coastal city, Benalmadena Costa. We stayed at La Puebla Quinta amongst the different types of British tourists who also called La Puebla Quinta home for a week - retired couples, families with children, and maybe one or two other people actually in our age group.

There is alot of architecture not to like about the Costa del Sol with its towering hotels and all-inclusive resorts. Fortunately, we stayed in a place that tried to look somewhat authentically like the pueblos blancos that are so famous in Andalusia.

We had a one bedroom apartment for the week - nothing too fancy, but it was sufficiently large enough to be very comfortable.

I particularly liked having our own British-style kitchen, complete with the washing machine built in. That washing machine came in pretty handy. The refrigerator was also nice to keep my Coca Cola Light cool enough for those hot Andalusian days.

One of the interesting cultural (non-Spanish) phenomenons was the "clubhouse." We only went one night, the second night we were there, for the welcome Spanish buffet. What they didn't tell us was that we would also be privy to hearing a rejected British lounge act singing ridiculously awful show tunes and lounge songs that would have been soundly rejected by the Rat Pack. Watching the stereotypically thin-lipped, "it hurts to smile" old British ladies "enjoy" the entertainment was entertainment in and of itself. The emcee who arranges all of the entertainment for the venue was pretty hilarious in a British sort of way. Most of the time, I had no idea why a joke was funny, but it was so bizarre that I couldn't stop laughing.

Also, at the "welcome meeting" for the first day we arrived at the resort, they had a raffle and I won a bottle of wine. David actually called it beforehand, because we thought it would be so hilarious that in a room full of British alcoholics (which I self-diagnosed because of the shocking prevelance of beer guts among nearly all the British tourists and also because of the shocking number of people drinking alcohol already at 11:00 am), we would be the ones to win the free booze. I brought it back to the states, because I could always use another bottle of cooking wine.

Our lodging accomodations in Madrid were quite different. We stayed in the historic Westin Palace Hotel.

The lobby was beautiful, and I could see why this hotel is so famous.

This glass atrium is one of the big tourist draws in all of Madrid.

Our room was lovely and comfortable. Thanks to David's Starwood status, we received an upgrade on the room (nice to know that all of David's crazy travel schedule is good for something). The main part of the room wasn't that large, but the details really were lovely.

And the bathroom was enormous which was very welcomed in the land of tiny European bathrooms. I particularly loved the small details of the bathroom like the crown molding.

So, in spite of the terrible neck pain that I couldn't shake the entire time I was in Spain for some bizarre reason (and that came with me back to the States), I can happily say that we slept in considerable comfort each night.

Supper Reservations at 10:15 pm

2010-06-02T18:16:00.001-07:00

Suppertime comes late in Spain. In places that do not totally cater to tourists, it is tough to find a restaurant open before 9pm. At that hour, only the tourists are eating. If you want to eat with the Spanish, it is best to delay your dinner reservation until at least 10pm. It is my worst nightmare. I hate eating that late. Lets face it, I am usually in bed by that time.

Nonetheless, I accommodated. The late suppertimes were well worth it when the food was worth waiting for. One such night that was worth the wait was the night we at at La Barraca in Madrid. Reservation time: 10:15 pm.

We were told by our friends Matt and Erin who had recently travelled to Madrid and stayed at the Westin Palace that the asked for the name of the best paella place in Madrid from the concierge at the hotel and were referred an amazing place that they couldn't recall the name. We did the exact same thing. The concierge smiled, because he knew exactly the place to which we were referring. He made us a reservation. The earliest time available: 10:15 pm.

The restaurant in the heart of Bourbon Madrid was decorated in the provincial Spanish style - hand painted tile and tableware.

We sat in eager anticipation of our meal. When you put off eating for that long, any food is eagerly anticipated.

For our first course we ordered the gazpacho. No one told us to have the gazpacho or recommended it as a particularly favorite dish. Oh my goodness, it was the best gazpacho of my entire life, and I have maintained a past obsession with gazpacho. The server actually assembled the dish in front of us. The delicious chilled tomato soup base was ladled into our bowls, and then freshly diced onion, cucumber, more tomato, green pepper, and a few croutons were added in. It gave me an idea for a gazpacho buffet which I will be hosting at some point in the future (open house when we move to North Carolina, perhaps?).

But then it was on to the main event, what made this particular restaurant famous:

When seeing that picture above, only one sentence comes to mind, "What am I going to do with all this paella?"

I'll tell you what to do Mrs. Costanza - You eat it after it is carefully served up in front of you:

And you are happy. By the time the meal concludes, shortly before midnight, you go home full and happy (and okay with the fact that now you are going to gain five pounds from simply eating so close to your bedtime, because the food was that good).

I Have Returned

2010-06-01T19:34:00.000-07:00

We are back from Spain. The countryside was beautiful, the cities were enlightening, and in general, there is so much to say.

I will try to say some of these things over the next few days as I painstakingly sift through over five hundred photographs and the notebook of short words, phrases, and thoughts that I jotted down hoping to capture a moment.

So be prepared to laugh, or perhaps cry (as I did when no matter how hard I tried, my poor attempts at Spanish were misunderstood), or perhaps just count up the total of pictures that I took in which David is giving me at least a semi-annoyed expression.

There is more to come.

Hello, Goodbye

2010-05-21T04:00:00.000-07:00

Harrison Street McInroe finally entered the world this morning at 5:19 CST, 7 lbs 6 oz. Melissa is amazing. 36 hours after being induced (Tuesday morning), her water finally broke last night. And early this morning, Harry arrived. I am so excited for Melissa and Jordan. They are going to be wonderful parents.

Today, we are leaving for Spain, so I probably will not update the blog for the next week and a half. Twelve days away will be great (except for twelve days away from Knightley, which is just hard). I will be off exploring Moorish fortresses, relaxing on a beach, and driving through the Sierras.

Look into this Horse's Eyes and Tell Me You Don't Want to Vote for this Guy

2010-05-19T19:28:00.001-07:00

When this guy talks about naming names and taking no prisoners, you better believe it. Because after all, that is when in his commercial he is modeling his rifle.

Look, I haven't been very political lately. The fact is, since I have lived in DC, I figure that the whole lot of those politicians are the worst kind of human beings. However, I can't help but get the feeling that we are dialing up the notch on crazy these days. I think that the recent primary elections have shown that the person that can shout the loudest and be the most alarmist is the person who is going to be elected. It doesn't bode well for the future.

If alarmist and angry are the criteria for political office these days, then Dale Peterson is a sho-in. Certifiably. And since I can't hope for thoughtful, responsible government, I might as well go for entertainment. Anyone who can make a political commercial this spectacularly entertaining should at least be interesting to watch from a detatched, unaffected point of view. I will just pretend that the $5 billion dollars this guy may be spending has nothing to do with me.

After all, in regard to politics these days, I firmly believe that it is better to laugh than to weep.

Plans

2010-05-18T20:08:00.001-07:00

(Soundtrack for this entry - "This Time Tomorrow", The Kinks)

By this time tomorrow, hopefully, I will be an aunt to a healthy baby boy delivered by my sister.

By this time on Saturday, hopefully, I will be in Spain.

By this time on June 13, hopefully, I will have met little Harry in Texas.

By this time on June 20th, hopefully, David and I will have found a house in North Carolina that we want to buy (assuming, of course, that he isn't completely sick of having to spend 12 days straight with me in Spain, and that we have found a house on the two planned trips we have to North Carolina).

By this time on July 1, hopefully, I will be happily spending the first evening after beginning my new job at Carolina.

By this time on July 16, 2012, hopefully, I will not just be an aunt, but also a mother.

I can plan for all of these, save one.

Birds' Songs

2010-05-16T19:07:00.000-07:00

I don't typically enjoy waking up before the sun has fully risen when I am on a trip. However, that little Knightley sometimes will not let me sleep in, in spite of my own personal preferences. This morning at Grammy's house, Knightley insisted on going outside at 6:00 am. I am glad that he was so insistent. Outside, it was a symphony of songbirds. I had forgotten how many songbirds call the hardwood trees of North Carolina home. If you catch them on the edge of dawn, the sound is as full as any symphonic crechendo. If only I were better with recognizing bird calls, or Melissa were there to offer some insistence supplying information about the birds whose melodies Knightley and I were enjoying.

Other favorite bird moment from North Carolina: A heron sat on the back lawn by the lake. When Knightley noticed him, he trotted over to get a closer look. Seeing the approaching dog, the heron opened up its wings and flew away, frightening Knightley who had no idea that bird was so large. The heron landed again on Grammy's dock. Knightley watched him for the next few minutes fascinated, at a safer distance.

Other favorite Knightley moment from my quick weekend trip: Knightley sitting in the car, watching me sing at the top of my lungs along to alt-country Southern road trip CDs. I don't think it is possible for any other creature on this planet who could tolerate hours sitting in a car, just looking at me.

Other favorite roadtrip music of the weekend: The new album by The National, "High Violet", is so perfect, it makes me cry ("Sorrow", in particular; it's so sad, but so perfectly sad).

(From the Pitchfork review that I linked above, there are two lines that I particularly love: "The National aren't 'dad-rock' so much as 'men's magazine rock': music chiefly interested in the complications of being a stable person expected to own certain things and dress certain ways." and "But these aren't mawkish, empty gestures; they're anxious, personal songs projected onto wide screens. Even if you don't consider yourself an upwardly mobile stiff with minor social anxiety, the National make it sound grand, confusing, and relatable.")

Other road trip moment that made me cry in my car: Sitting in I-95 Northbound traffic on the way back into DC on a Sunday afternoon is awful, awful, awful. It is probably what I will miss least when we move to North Carolina.

Two Kinds of Friday Night Lights

2010-05-14T19:09:00.000-07:00

Tonight, David watched Friday Night Lights on television (I really love that Tami Taylor). I parked my chair in front of the window and watched the Friday night lights over the Washington Monument. It was that first big thunderstorm of the summer here in DC tonight, and I sighed with contentment thinking of the many muggy days and thunderstorms ahead. It is my favorite kind of late afternoon reading weather, and to celebrate I finished off The Double Comfort Safari Club, the latest No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency book.

Tomorrow, Knightley and I are heading down to Charlotte to see Grammy.

A Ham Boil Later

2010-05-12T19:29:00.000-07:00

Love in Place

I really don't remember falling in love all that much

I remember wanting to bake corn bread and boil a ham and I

certainly remember making lemon pie and when I used to smoke I

stopped in the middle of my day to contemplate

I know I must have fallen in love once because I quit biting

my cuticles and my hair is gray and that must indicate

something and I all of a sudden had a deeper appreciation

for Billie Holiday and Billy Strayhorn so if it wasn't love I don't

know what it was

I see the old photographs and I am smiling and I'm sure quite

happy but what I mostly see is me

through your eyes

and I am still young and slim and very much committed to the

love we still have

--Nikki Giovanni

When I was a freshman in college, Suz copied the above poem from the New Yorker magazine and gave it to me around Valentines Day. I thought about it last night when I wrote about my mix tapes that included somber Billie Holiday tunes (followed up by the Beastie Boys "Brass Monkey" or the immortal "Don't Go There" because that is what a mix tape is supposed to be). I rummaged around to find where I had saved it and thought to myself, what could possibly have possessed two eighteen year old girls to save this poem? Whatever it was, I think Suz was already wiser then and could sense that this poem would be more understood a dozen or more years later, in retrospect. And now, perhaps that is the case, if for no other reason than that I have now baked corn bread and several lemon pies, although never have boiled a ham.

The Island: Imaginary Vacation

2010-05-11T11:40:00.000-07:00

I don't write much about my old Africa trip on this blog because I feel like I exhausted the topic in the 400 paged, two volume compilation of my field journal, personal journal, and pictures that I put together a couple of summers after I returned from my trip. This entry will be different. Maybe it is because with the impending finale of the television series "Lost", I can't help but think about my favorite island. Maybe it is because I keep having dreams about the destruction of white sand beaches. Maybe it is because with the rapid approach of another long awaited vacation, I can't help but rehash another vacation that I have been mentally planning since I left the place in 1998. For whatever reason, I am totally stuck on Zanzibar and all of the places where I want to stay when I do eventually get back there again.

In Stone Town, there is the Tembo House Hotel. Granted, it may not be as luxurious as the Zanzibar Serena Lodge where we took a 2:00 am swam with those celebratory Harvard MBA students that fell in love with Suzanne and I after one evening spent dancing at the Garage Club. However, the Tembo House Hotel was where my romantic notions of Zanzibar first took shape, as I was openly teased for discussing the possibility of romantic trysts on the balconies overlooking the Indian Ocean. These sentimental notions led me to skipping around Stonetown after two British university students, Johnny and Harry, flirting more than I ever did in my real non-Zanzibar life. That is what the Tembo did to me. As poor students, even the modestly priced Tembo was out of our price range, but some of our more gainfully employed travel companions were able to afford it enough to let us hang around every now and again. On the night that the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed, Suz and I temporarily forgot our worries with a lovely dinner at the Tembo House Restaurant. And for all of those reasons, when I return to Zanzibar Stone Town I will stay in the Tembo House Hotel which will hopefully still look something like this:

Considering a beach retreat takes somewhat more deliberation. I know that now there is even a Fairmont resort that sits along the Zanzibar coastline with all of the new development that has taken shape since I visited. However, when I think about a place to sit on the beach, this is the picture that comes into my mind:

If I want that beach, only one place will do and that is Matemwe, where these pictures were taken. I don't know if these days, it is as deserted as it was back then when I danced up its shores and wrote bold declarations in its sands. I do know that the Matemwe Bungalows existed back then, although now I think they are part of a larger development called the Matemwe Lodge Retreat. On the day that we visited Matemwe (we didn't stay there), I remarked in my personal journal, "Off shore I could see Mnemba Island, home to the resort where I sure would want to spend some time with someone special." Sure, that was an incredibly cheesy sentiment, but it still holds true that if I could plan a trip to Zanzibar right now, it would still include a few nights at the Mnemba Island Lodge (Where rates start at the oh so reasonable $1,100 per night. Clearly you can see why this did not fit into my poor student itinerary, but rather my romantic, dream vacation itinerary).

Here I am - full of my romantic intentions wading in the waters at Matemwe:

The reality of our beach getaway is that we spent a few days up at Nungwi on the North Shore of Zanzibar. Our guesthouse was clean, new, and cost all of $30 a night for three of us to split. The best part is that it was directly on the beach and faced the ocean. It looked something like this:

I spent most of the time alone in Nungwi, where I wrote in my journal, "I am just not so great being alone all of the time, because in order to ignore all of the people who stare at you, you have to be completely comfortable with yourself and convinced that nothing is wrong with you. And that is not an assumption that I can comfortably make." Ah, sigh - introspective, self-pity was something that I did very well as a nineteen year old. I spent too much time listening to my mix tapes full of Billie Holiday's haunting voice while there. Nungwi was beautiful, but perhaps this kind of self-indulgent, over-analytical babble is the reason why Nungwi does not make my imaginary return trip itinerary.

One place that I would like to go back, though, is the place where we spent most of our time when we were on the island of Zanzibar, and that is the village of Kizimkazi Dimbani where Suz and I worked for a time. From the pictures that I have seen online, it appears that it has changed dramatically. When we were there, it entirely lacked in tourist amenities save one beachside restaurant that catered to the tourists who came for day trips to see the dolphins that swim off shore (Kizimkazi is located on the southern tip of the island). Now it has several lodges that look like this one - the Karamba Resort. I would love to stay there and see the village again. It looks considerably more upscale than the place where Suz and I lived when we were in the village:

When we were staying in that house, we thought it was pretty fancy. Not only did it have a tin roof and western style toilet bathroom, but we had a TV that had grainy reception of CNN International. It made the house the village hotspot for the young children who wanted to watch TV, and it also served us well in informing us about the US embassy bombings that took place while we were there. Without it, we would have been completely clueless.

After some pretty rough conditions in other spots where we stayed, our lodgings in Zanzibar (the Haven Guesthouse in Stonetown with its delicious breakfasts, the Nungwi bungalow, and our house in Kizimkazi Dimbani) felt like downright luxurious. Here I am contemplating the quiet of having my own room under the mosquito net in the Dimbani house:

And yes, my childhood Curious George (as well as a pen and notebook) went everywhere I did when I was in Zanzibar. And chances are, those three items will make the return trip as well when my imaginary vacation finally becomes a reality.

Debbie Downer (and me)

2010-05-10T19:08:00.000-07:00

I have been accused of playing the part of Debbie Downer more than once. Sure, I might have gone off on blood diamonds more than a few times back in the day as Debbie may have done. It appears that as times change, even though I think of myself as significantly less serious, as it turns out, Debbie Downer and I still talk about the same things - a worrisome lack of symmetry, waking up 300 times at night, and the significance of the Gulf Oil Spill.

Debbie, I get it. I really do.

Weekday Diversions

2010-05-07T18:23:00.000-07:00

This week was one in which my mental state required ample weekday diversions from thinking about everything that I need to accomplish in the next little while. What fit the bill? How about brunch on Tuesday with my good friend, Suz (who has recently departed DC, also). Also, later in that same day I was able to have dinner with my good friend Erin at Co Co. Sala. Co Co. Sala is a divine place where dinner is just a prelude to the main event, dessert. The way to do it right is to eat one of their small plates (delicious dishes like lamb sliders, tuna tatare) and follow it up with a three course dessert (with the main dessert portion being delicious concoctions they name things like Chocolate Onyx, seen below). If you are feeling particularly adventurous, you can go for the five course dessert.

Sometimes on a Tuesday night that is exactly what one needs.

On Thursday, still feeling a bit stressed, an hour long facial at the Nordstrom Clarins Skin Spa did me right. I know that I have spoken of my intense shallowness when it comes to skin care in the past, but I'll go even farther in my explanation. When I have a crappy day, the one thing that I can count on is an esthetician to tell me that I have nice skin, and that instantly makes me feel better. Particularly if said esthetician has a lovely French accent. It makes me feel younger and pretty in ways that few things do these days.

Knightley has his own mid-week diversions. For one, sometimes he hangs out in the sink in his bathroom. (Yes, I refer to it now as Knightley's bathroom and not the guest bathroom. I figure that Knightley gets far more use out of it than guests do. Plus, he loves that room since all of his treats are stored under the sink in there.)

Or he always enjoys a good weekday roll-around. That dog loves to just roll around.

That dog makes me smile in ways that are the best possible remedies for a stressful week.

Gone to Carolina

2010-05-02T19:03:00.000-07:00

It is time to start channeling James Taylor. I received my offer letter from the University of North Carolina, and pending a criminal background check, I will be beginning my employment in Chapel Hill on July 1. I am thrilled.

I am a person who has had many lifelong dreams, some more realistic than others. I was never going to be a member of the New York City Ballet, but living in North Carolina, one way or another seemed much more realistic. When I was a child, I had my house picked out. It was situated on the corner of Sharon Road and Sharon Lane in Charlotte, NC. Grammy would give me semi-annual updates concerning the state of my house. I learned about when the lawn was brown or when it was the showcase Symphony Guild home. The specific reality of owning that home is not the reality, nor is it likely to become one. After all, I am not moving to Charlotte, but Chapel Hill.

I never applied to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I grew up feeling like I bled Tarheel blue, and yet never applied to attend. My mom went there long before I came along, and for graduate school, Sarah followed in her footsteps. Sarah moved to Boston to do her post doc, and missed Carolina so much she had to go back. I always felt like, at some point in time, my chance to live in Chapel Hill would come along too.

It happened really fast. I am quite content with my job at Georgetown, so I never thought that I would leave it this quickly. Then one day, sometime in March, I saw a job posting for the exact job that I thought that I would want next, and it just so happened that it was posted as a position at UNC. I thought that I would be mad at myself if I didn't apply, because I would always wonder what would have happened. So I applied. I didn't expect to get an interview, because I figured that people with much more experience than me would also apply, because who wouldn't want to live in Chapel Hill? Approximately one month later, I head they were checking my references. I was shocked and couldn't believe that they were considering me. A few days later, I received a phone call. They wanted to schedule an interview. I jumped and committed to the first day they mentioned as a possible interview date. I drove down to Chapel Hill. I really liked the people and the library. I started thinking to myself how great it would be to move there. We could buy a house with a yard for Knightley. We could live in a fantastic school district for if we ever have children. We could say goodbye to DC twenty four hour traffic. Two days after my interview, I was offered the job.

This is a hard move to contemplate. When I left New York, I just wanted to be close to David, so I was very motivated to leave. When I left Seattle, I just wanted to be out of that place. Here is the thing - I like DC. We have good friends here and more who are moving here. And yet, I feel so strongly that Chapel Hill is the right place to be. Yes, I will be able to live in the same town as Sarah, be near to Grammy, and even four hours closer to my parents. All of those things feel great, but what really convinced me is that I want to live in a place that feels like a home. I want to live somewhere that feels like it could be a hometown for my children. I want to live somewhere where I feel grown-up and away from the status-conscious world of ambition and egocentricity. I feel like Chapel Hill is that place. The people there are smart, well-educated, and yet lack the pomp and circumstance of their well-educated neighbors to the north. Most people there can attend a pig-pickin' or a play, and all without the affectation of self-importance. I feel like Goldilocks searching out for a place to put down roots, and every place so far has been too cold. I feel very strongly that Chapel Hill could be just right.

"We're lost. I don't think Gandalf meant for us to come this way."

2010-04-30T18:54:00.000-07:00

I don't know why, but the words of The Lord of the Rings keep coming into my head as I try to wrap my head around just how awful the Gulf oil spill is. I think about what happened in the Mines of Moria because the dwarves became too greedy and dug too deep.

So I am devastated in anticipation of the oil slick reaching the coast of Florida on Monday. This isn't to say that I am any less devastated about the oil slick destroying miles and miles of protected wildlife refuges in Louisiana and Mississippi already.

But the place that I know most intimately is Pensacola Beach and the Gulf Islands National Seashore. The National Seashore extends from Florida to the barrier islands off Mississippi's coast, where we collected shells that turned out to be hermit crabs with Grammy when I was a young child after taking the ferry out to Ship Island for the day.

Here is the picture of the first time my sisters and I were ever on Pensacola Beach. Our family had just moved there from rural Mississippi, and it seemed like such an amazing place:

I have been in love with it ever since.

I don't think there is a better place on the planet to take a nap in the sun:

The World Below the Brine

The world below the brine,

Forests at the bottom of the sea, the branches and leaves,

Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds, the thick tangle, openings and pink turf.

Different colors, pale gray and green, purple, white and gold, they play of light through the water,

Dumb swimmers are among the rocks, coral, gluten, grass, rushes, and the ailment of the swimmers,

Sluggish existence grazing there suspended, or slowly crawling close to the bottom,

The sperm whale at the surface blowing air and spray, we disporting with his flukes,

The leaden-eye shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy sea leopard, and the sting ray,

Passions there, wars, pursuits, tribes, sights in those ocean depths, breathing that thick-breathing air, as so many do,

The change thence to the sight here, and to the subtle air breathed by beings like us who walk this sphere,

The changes onward from ours to that of beings who walk other spheres.

-- Walt Whitman

The Tide Rises the Tide Falls

The tide rises, the tide falls,

The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;

Along the sea-sands damp and brown

The traveller hastens toward the town,

And the tide rises, the tide falls.

Darkness settles on roofs and walls,

But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls;

The little waves, with their soft, white hands,

Efface the footprints in the sands.

And the tide rises, the tide falls.

The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls

Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;

The day returns, but nevermore

Returns the traveller to the shore

And the tide rises, the tide falls.

-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I have loved this beach for as long as my memory recalls. It has been men go to place to think, read, or cry. Its clear waters have brought me clarity. I have watched dolphins ride waves parallel to the shore. I have carefully tread past sea turtle nests. I have been thankful for peace and thankful for beauty there.

Please pray for this place to make it.

Moderating Influences

2010-04-30T09:28:00.000-07:00

Believe it or not, I am less-likely to get riled up about things these days I might have in former years. However, that doesn't mean that there are not things that make me frustrated and extremely angry, because I feel very strongly that I am right and that if you disagree with me, you are either devoid of a greater sense of humanity or the public good. Now the list of things that I feel this way about is increasingly more limited as the years go by, but that just means that the passion is intensified for the remaining topics. It just so happens that in the past few days, a few of these big issues have been in the news. So, my usual desire to avoid confrontation and steer conversations away from controversial topics has been subverted. I need to be someone that just lets it go, but whenever I do that, the words of William Butler Yeats come dancing back into my head:

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

That is my fear about always trying to be the polite person that avoids controversy. I am afraid that bad information will be disseminated, ill-informed people will believe that they are unconditionally right, and that I will be one of those people that didn't do or say anything.

So that is why when I still hear people today saying "Drill, baby, drill", and that their greatest fears about the Gulf oil spill is that this will stop future offshore drilling, I get really upset.

The second issue of recent attention is my sincere belief, and the significant support that comes from the scientific literature, about the need to vaccinate our children. I think everyone should watch the Frontline PBS documentary from this week. There are a number of troubling parts to the vaccine debate that I see - a lack of concern for what is a "public good" anymore, the idea of consumer-driven medicine instead of expert and scientific driven medicine, and the fact that the war against vaccines is another form of the war on science. The Internet has been good for many things, but the fact that average citizens feel empowered to question the expertise of doctors and scientists based on bad information that is proliferated on the web is one thing that makes me very very sad. For the life of me, I don't know why the CDC would intentionally harm children, but yet there are plenty of nutcases out there who think that is exactly the case. Many of these nutcases are upper middle class white people who think that they know more than experts, but probably have never attempted to read a serious scientific journal article. I believe that their presumed "knowledge" is really just based on an underlying selfishness, because they have this primal fear of their kid being the autistic one. Thus, they justify a lack of compassion and concern for others in their community, vulnerable populations like newborn children or others with auto-immune diseases who cannot be vaccinated and who rely on herd immunity for protection, with good old fashioned selfishness, cleverly masqueraded as "parental choice."

And that is all I am going to say about that, for the time being.

How do I feel today?

2010-04-30T06:06:00.001-07:00

If you guessed very, very sad then you would be right. I am so sad, because right now, some of the places I love the most are facing threat of destruction because of our own greed and desire to extract every possible drop of the liquid gold of the earth in the Gulf of Mexico. I am sad because critical ecosystems most likely will be destroyed and countless numbers of endangered species will be lost in Louisiana alone, at the very least. I am sad because the beach that I love above and beyond any other beach in the world is under threat.

We can survive hurricanes. So can sea turtles, shore birds, and pods of whales. However, those species cannot survive oil slicks. They lack the natural instincts to do that. I cannot imagine the white sands of the Gulf Islands National Seashore sullied with oil grit and debris.

It makes me sad, but it also makes me angry. It makes me angry on behalf of all of the sea turtles, birds and even jellyfish that cannot be angry because they will have to fight for survival. The sad thing is, that I am currently a DC resident, those creatures of nature have the same level of voting representation in Congress that I currently have. But that will be changing soon. And you better believe, that one of my future litmus test policy positions will be whether or not a particular politician believes in more offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

One mistake can destroy an ecosystem, Sarah Palin. JUST ONE. One mistake can destroy the livelihood of thousands of people who depend on the coast - fishermen, shrimpers, oyster harvesters, tourism dependants. I would like to ask Sarah Palin and these other politicians just what kind of "Security" offshore drilling brings America when there are millions of people who live along the Gulf Coast today in fear of what is going to happen next. I certainly don't feel more secure. I just feel sad - more sad, in fact, than I ever felt for a hurricane that threatened destruction, because this is no one's fault but our own. Entire ecosystems will pay the consequences for our insatiable greed.

Knightley's Revenge

2010-04-28T19:51:00.000-07:00

Today, I was walking Knightley past the Supreme Court, when one of the Capitol Hill Police stopped us so a car could exit from the Supreme Court garage. It was a larger BMW, with the windows tinted completely black, and by the police officer's reaction, I knew it was one of the Supreme Court justices. Knightley knew it too. I am not joking or making this up. He started dry heaving and then THREW UP right there by the Supreme Court driveway. This was entirely bizarre as both before and after the incident, Knightley acted completely well and not like he has been suffering from any sort of illness. It wasn't a particularly warm day, and Knightley has never thrown up on a walk that we have taken before. I tried to diagnose what was wrong with him and then I remembered...

United States v. Stevens: The Supreme Court recently struck down a federal law that forbade the sale or possession of depictions of animal cruelty, ruling it was overbroad and vague. Yes, it was classic First Amendment jurisprudence (I don't care, I don't see how or why any depiction of animal cruelty for the sake of entertainment should be protected), but that doesn't mean that Knightley appreciates that decision. He was thinking about those poor doggies, subjected to dog-fighting as depicted in the terrible film that the defendant was charged with selling. Knightley was thinking about being a Supreme Court justice for Halloween, seeing as how he looks so distinguished, but now refuses to stoop to that level. Well, unless he went as Justice Alito, that is. It turns out, that is the only justice that Knightley isn't mad at right now (seeing as how he dissented in the case). That is also why I am sure that it wasn't Justice Alito in the car that Knightley threw up at the sight of.

I wanted whatever justice that was in that car to wind down the window and inquire about the poor dog throwing up on the sidewalk. I would have said to the Sir or Madam, "Look what you're doing," in the same voice as when I was eight years old and telling Melissa that she was holding my cat Coco the wrong way.

You may say that I am absolutely crazy for thinking that my dog is aware of all of these things, and you probably are right that Knightley probably isn't consciously aware of any of this. But dogs just know; they just know.

That Dog Loves Tennis Too

2010-04-26T19:15:00.001-07:00

I have already mentioned that tennis is one of our family's greatest pastimes. Well, it appears Knightley has picked up on the family hobby too. Two of his new favorite games involve tennis balls. Firstly, he loves to go get cans of unopened tennis balls out of my tennis bag. He gets them out, gets the plastic cap off and then knows how to pull the metal tab to unseal the can. After he unseals one can, he goes back to the bag and grabs another can of tennis balls. Secondly, after he has assembled a large stack of tennis balls, he chooses one with which to play. David will put a tiny ballpoint pen mark on the ball and then will throw about 12 balls down the hall as Knightley chases them down. He sniffs around until he finds the tennis ball that has the mark on it (which is the one he was playing with before) and then brings that one ball back to David.

My dog is a genius. Or rather, he just knows how to find his ball. I am just convinced he is a genius dog.

What happens in Colonial Williamsburg...

2010-04-25T19:18:00.000-07:00

I just returned from a few days in Colonial Williamsburg for the Southeastern Association of Law Libraries Annual Meeting. I learned while I was in Colonial Williamsburg, that it is now a felony to refer to Colonial Williamsburg as just Williamsburg. It's true. They put you in the stocks in the village common if they overhear you forgetting the word Colonial in front of Williamsburg.

I immediately appreciated the tall hardwood trees and rolling hills that are my favorite feature of the Mid Atlantic states. Colonial Williamsburg is still colonially beautiful.

This is the only picture that I took of the historic area. It is the Ye Olde Governor's Mansion from back in the pre-Revolutionary War days when Colonial Williamsburg was the capital of Virginia. I think that in Ye Olde Colonial times, they just referred to it as Williamsburg, but I could be wrong in that assumption.

Instead of touring all of those historic buildings as I did when I was a mere intern in 1999, I rather opted to drink copious amounts of Ye Olde Homemade Root Beer.

The conference was a success, in my humble opinion. After all, the success of any professional meeting can be judged by whether or not the cops are called at some point in time.

Sadly, the cops (or rather, the conference center security task force) where not called to the scene because of the librarians blatantly violating the "SHHHH" rule, but rather because of a fire alarm scare. The librarians milled around outside for a while until we were able to return to the conference party, where the director of the William and Mary Law Library played the hits of the seventies with his old law school garage band.

A politely excellent time was enjoyed by all, in spite of the roving hordes of high school kids running wild through the hotel on their end of year field trips.

On a sidenote, I picked up a copy of A Land as God Made It: Jamestown and the Birth of America by James Horn (director of the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation) and I haven't put it down since I have gotten home. It is a great book discussing an era of history that most people assume knowledge of based on the film Pocahontas (or Avatar: Part I, as I call it). Fortunately, this book is slightly better researched. Also, I have been meaning to learn more about the historical development of the Tidewater Virginia colonies because a significant portion of family tree came to the United States via the Virginia Tidewater colonies in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. When I purchased this book, the cashier at the book store told me that James Horn has a new book on the lost colony at Roanoke, that historians now say is the preeminent work on what happened to those people. It is called A Kingdom Strange: The Brief and Tragic History of the Lost Colony of Roanoke and it is an understatement to say that I am overly excited to read it next. To understand how excited I am to read it, you have to understand how fascinated I have been with the lost colony of Roanoke ever since I was in elementary school. It absolutely is one of my favorite historical mysteries, and you have to understand - there is nothing I live more than a good historical mystery. I forsee many conversations about lost colonies in North Carolina in my future...

The Times, They Are Changing

2010-04-22T08:36:00.001-07:00

Today, I am heading down to Williamsburg, VA for the Southeastern Association of Law Libraries conference, where I am presenting with a couple of my colleagues from Georgetown. I will not return until Saturday evening.

But there are big, big things on my mind. Big changes are brewing and by early next week, I may be able to speak more specifically.

If you recognize the building that I posted in my last blog entry, then chances are, you probably already know what I may be talking about.

A Happy Place

2010-04-18T19:09:00.001-07:00

I am here today and tomorrow (although the above picture was actully taken in 2003).

Anyone who tries to convince me that there is a better place in America in the month of April than somewhere in the Southeast is on a fool's errand. There is nowhere better than the Southland in the Springtime. (And I don't just say that because it reminds me of the old Indigo Girls song. I say it because it is true.)

In Answer to Your Question

2010-04-15T10:50:00.000-07:00

Yes, in that last video I posted the pants that I am wearing make my legs look really fat. It is especially annoying considering that my legs are the one part of my body that have never been fat. It also explains why on nine days out of ten I choose to wear skirts or dresses instead of pants.

And yes, so far I have lost 10+ pounds on my Freshology diet. The problem is that I gave into buttercream at an office baby shower yesterday. Even with my new, refined eating patterns I still cannot say no to the smell of buttercream icing.

And finally, yes, if you don't think that the sight of Knightley with all of his fur rolling over is adorable, then there is something wrong with you.

A Happy, Well-Trained Dog

2010-04-13T17:47:00.000-07:00

School Choice and Segregation - Walthall County, Mississippi versus Washington D.C.

2010-04-13T17:05:00.000-07:00

I said I was going to write a little more about this ruling that came out today regarding the schools in Walthall County, where my parents reside. The brief summary of the ruling is that the court ruled that the school district had to stop letting white children transfer into the one majority white school in the county, which happens to be the Salem School, the school closest to where my parents live. The other schools in the county are located within Tylertown and are majority black. As a result of the in-district transfers, Salem had a majority white population (over 60% white), while the Tylertown schools only had 20% white children. The even more disturbing part of what the Walthall County Schools were doing was that school officials were assigning kids in elementary school to classes at the Tylertown schools based on race, so that classrooms were all white or all black. There is no defense to that.

Clearly, there was not a race-neutral reason for allowing these transfers. And clearly, enforcing the 1970 desegregation order was necessary.

However, I wish to point out that I live in a metropolitan area where the schools are far more racially and economically segregated than the district in which I grew up in within the South (and by the numbers, appear more segregated than the Walthall County school district). In the District of Columbia, White people whose children do not live in the right neighborhoods, or whose children do not gain acceptance to the one or two top high schools in the city choose to send their children to private school or move out of the city to the white bread upper-middle class suburbs of Northern Virginia or Montgomery County. Parents willingly segregate the schools here by their own choices. The only difference between here and Mississippi (and I would venture, most school districts in America, particularly the urban ones or ones with large minority populations) is that you cannot put a court order on a parent's choice of where their children attend school whereas you can put a court order on a district that allows intra-district transfers to racially realign the schools because of parent and student choice. However, as the comments on articles like the one in the Washington Post illustrate, most people blame Mississippi and target the people there as backward rednecks instead of looking at the WILLFUL segregation that exists in their own communities.

My dad graduated from Salem High in 1969, one year before the federal court's original integration order. My mother attended East Mecklenburg High School in Charlotte, NC and graduated a couple of years before the landmark busing in the Charlotte schools began. My parents are clearly the product of segregated primary and secondary schools. However, my parents made the choice to send their daughters to a high school in which we were the racial minority. Yes, in the South, that happens. I would venture to say that few students get the experience that my sisters and I had, to receive a quality education in a racially diverse school, in ANY location in America. Furthermore, when my parents returned to Mississippi, my mom chose NOT to teach in the Walthall County schools based on how they were run, and instead chose to work in a school district that reflected the racial makeup of the community. My mother also refused to work in the historically white private academies that sprung up across Mississippi in the 1970s as a refusal of some in the white community to refuse to submit to integration. Even those academies are now becoming more integrated, my mother still refuses to teach at them based on principle. The fact is, my mom is an example of the many people who live in Mississippi who are there trying to make things better and give all kids an opportunity, regardless of background. Many of the people criticizing Mississippi today that are making blanket statements about the state are ignorant of the people of the state.

There are many people in Mississippi who will welcome this ruling and are not, in fact, clinging to the racist policies of the past. In fact, the MAJORITY of white kids that were attending the Tylertown schools attended the majority black schools, as stopping the intra-district transfers only changes increases the racial makeup of the Tylertown school and decreases the makeup of the Salem school by about 7%, according to the article.

I am glad of the ruling, but I dislike the broad inferences people make about Mississippi based upon it. People will always love to use Mississippi as a scapegoat for injustice in this country. It is easy to blame a small, rural state that is considered the "other" than looking at what choices they themselves make every day.

In Which I Praise my Mama

2010-04-13T16:19:00.000-07:00

I spent my last blog entry discussing how fantastic my sister, Melissa, is. This blog entry, I turn to my mother. It isn't her birthday, and Mothers Day is still a few weeks off, but circumstances in my life warrant me stopping for a moment and praising my beautiful Mother. Without becoming too personal, I just want to say that in the past few days, I have once again been reminded of how wonderful it is to have a mother who knows her daughters well enough to still be in tune with our needs, despite the physical distance that may exist between where we live and where she lives. She has never been a conventional Mormon housewife, and yet, her spirituality is unquestionable; her relationship with the Savior, a model for her daughters.

A big federal court ruling came down in Mississippi impacting the school district for the county, in which my parents reside. I am going to talk about this ruling more in a separate blog post, but the reason why I am posting it here is because my mother, when moving back to Mississippi, refused to teach in the Walthall County schools, and for good reason. She also refused to teach in the private "academies" that dot counties across Mississippi that were created initially because of people who refused to send their children to newly integrated schools in Mississippi 30-40 years ago (although now, said academies are finally starting to integrate). The fact is, the reason my sisters and I are who we are and believe what we believe is in no small part because of my mother and the fact that from a young age, she taught us to stand up for what we believe in. The world is a better place because Mom has been a teacher for so many years and has made a choice to teach all kids, not just those that come from privileged families.

I could go on and on on the many ways my Mother has been my role model from the start, but the reason I love my Mom so much is because I have seen her in good times and bad, and have watched her grow as a person, the same way that she watched her daughters grow. It is evidence of divine inspiration that in my life, my parents and my sisters were put in this place to grow and learn together. We have come so far.

My Mom as a single gal, living her life in Charleston, when she was just Poole and not Street.

Mom with a young, Sarah wearing Dad's Navy sailor hat and sunglasses. She is also with Rusty. Anyone who questions why Knightley is my constant companion these days need only look at pictures of my mom with her canine companions to understand from where that came:

Sarah fixin' the truck with Mom's "assistance." This was back in the days when our pickup truck was the only mode of transportation we had. Somehow my mother, more accustomed to sailing clubs than trailer parks made it through the early days of our family in Mississippi:

Mom with Sancho, another loyal friend:

Together at Melissa's wedding:

Returning back to live in Mississippi, Mom showing off her newly found love of vegetable gardening:

My mother is the best.

Schmelissa is the big 30.

2010-04-11T17:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, my sister, Schmelissa, as I affectionately refer to her, turned 30 years old. To celebrate that momentous occasion, here are a few of my favorite Schmelissa pictures:

Enjoying Cafe du Monde Beignets:

Beside a giant Snoopy, her childhood constant companion:

Enjoying a fall day in Central Park:

Celebrating with me on my wedding day:

With said childhood companion, Snoopy and her superhero birthday cake (she was the cutest of us all):

How beautiful she looked on her wedding day:

Nips make you strong, Melissa. They sure do:

Chillin' out on a haystack in Mississippi, talking about the big issues of life:

I can't think of anyone else in the world with whom I would rather spend some time jumping haystacks and then discussing the meaning of life. Melissa has seen me at my worst and loved me anyway. She is the person from whom I have learned kindness and forgiveness.

Happy birthday, cutie!

Second Chance Books

2010-04-09T19:28:00.000-07:00

Tonight's Bill Moyers Journal featured an interview with Louise Erdrich. It has been awhile since I have posted anything Bill Moyers related, leading me to believe that my Bill Moyers obsession was of days past. I have to be honest; I didn't think an interview with Louise Erdrich would be what would be what reminded me of how much I loved Bill's show. My senior year of high school we read her novel Tracks in Dr. Cunningham's class and I really hated it. I was upset, because the year before us in the place of Tracks the class had read Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, which I thought would be far more interesting to read and discuss. In my view, Tracks was snore-inducing, and I swore off ever reading Erdrich again. And it still might be so were it not that I caught the second half of the Moyers interview tonight. Erdrich read a poem from her newest collection of poems that literally made me cry (Knightley just stared at me). The poem is called "Advice to Myself" and can be found in Erdrich's compilation of some of her favorite poems Original Fire.

Lest I commit copyright infringement, I will not cut and paste the entire poem here (you can go to the link and read it all). However, I will point out a couple of lines that I found particularly compelling:

Pursue the authentic-decide first
what is authentic,
then go after it with all your heart.
Your heart, that place
you don't even think of cleaning out.
That closet stuffed with savage mementos...

Recycle the mail, don't read it, don't read anything
except what destroys
the insulation between yourself and your experience
or what pulls down or what strikes at or what shatters
this ruse you call necessity.

Sigh. I wish I were a real writer. Within the lines of that poem contain so much sentiment that I never thought would be my own, and yet it is; it is there, so carefully stated and elegantly structured.

You can watch the full interview and sigh over well-stated things on the Bill Moyers Journal website.

Solidarity

2010-04-08T20:07:00.000-07:00

Some days, like today, the best way I can describe how I feel is that I feel like Walt Whitman in Allen Ginsburg' poem A Supermarket in California. I am not a closeted gay poet from the nineteenth century, and Abraham Lincoln doesn't inspire the same kind of feelings in me as he did for Walt Whitman. However, when Ginsburg describes Whitman as a "childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator" after spying a produce section full of "Whole families shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avocados, babies in the tomatoes!", I just can understand that today.

Knightley hid my cell phone this morning while I was taking a shower. It was on my nightstand when I went in and when I came out, it was gone and Knightley was being pretty mischevious. It turns out, it is easier to feel cut-off in our modern technological society than I thought previously.

Knightley's behavior in turn reminds me of another few lines from another famous eccentric, Ezra Pound -

When I carefully consider the curious habits of dogs

I am compelled to conclude

That man is the superior animal.

When I consider the curious habits of man

I confess, my friend, I am puzzled.

The Hilton Head Sporting Life

2010-04-07T18:10:00.000-07:00

I have delayed these pictures of our other, more athletic, Hilton Head activities for awhile. Each morning began with a couple of hours of tennis (For Sarah, her morning begun two hours before that, as she, even on vacation, ran at least ten miles every day). Fortunately, at this tennis outing, all of us escaped without anyone incurring a significant injury, unlike family tennis matches of past. David and I were just sore and rusty from a long, snowy DC winter with no tennis.

Sarah and Brian, however, were still on top of their games.

Hence, after all was said and done, they were the victors. Even my new tennis dress was not enough to overcome my inconsistent backhand.

Aside from tennis, the other sport that draws vacationers to Hilton Head is golf. Melissa and I did take golf lessons back in our younger days, but since that time, I haven't played a lick. Sometime in my early law school years I swore off golf as indicative of the white male power hegemony. Since then, my attitudes towards golf have moderated considerably (particularly over hours spent watching golf tournaments with my grandmother, who in her younger days, enjoyed a few rounds of golf at the club with Grampy), but my fear of how terrible my driving shot may now be has not subsided. Thus, the only golf for us on this trip was of the miniature variety.

Not that it mattered much as Brian wiped the floor with the rest of us at mini-golf too. I guess I need to work on my short game as well...

Finally, the weather was just warm enough to enjoy a swim in the heated pools at the resort. Although we did swim some laps, all of us enjoyed a good turn down the waterslide, as Jordan exhibits below:

We had so much fun, I didn't even mind to lose at all.

A Ramble into Middle Earth

2010-04-07T06:29:00.000-07:00

About once a year, I get the urge to watch The Lord of the Rings extended version trilogy the entire way through. This year, it just happened to coincide with the release of The Lord of the Rings in HD on Blu-ray, which I have been trying to convince David that we need to get right away. Unfortunately, he isn't in agreement (although, seeing what a good price at which it is available on Amazon, I might just go ahead and buy it myself). Anyway, whenever I get the urge to watch The Lord of the Rings once again, it isn't just the movie. I have this bizarre manic, obsessive tendency with many things that I feel like it isn't good enough just to do one thing, I have to do everything. And so, when I start to watch it, I inevitably get the urge to begin to read The Silmarillion again because I feel like it is very important to remember the entire history of middle earth (because from there, then I have to read all of the other books again). If I get to the part in the movie when Gandalf is battling with the Balrog in the mines of Moria and I haven't read in the Silmarillion about where Balrogs originated, then I think, that's it, I have to go back to the beginning. So, this is how I found myself on Monday, sitting in jury duty, pouring over the Silmarillion and going back and forth between the text and the genealogical charts of prominent elf families in the back.

This is somewhat embarrassing for me, as I don't consider myself one who loves "fantasy" literature more generally. I have only played Dungeons and Dragons once (in law school) and I did not really enjoy it. The fact that I love The Lord of the Rings so much is a credit to the world that Tolkien created that I can get that obsessed about it. I figure that in order to really understand it, I need to get all of the details right.

When I was in law school, I was dragged to see The Two Towers a total of seven times in the theater by the person I was dating at the time. That is a lot of time spent in the theater watching the Battle of Helms Deep. I was so passionate about what my expectations were for The Return of the King, based on pouring over the book and its details in anticipation for entire year, that I couldn't help but be disappointed. What disappointed me the most? In my view, Peter Jackson didn't devote enough attention to Faramir and Eowyn as he should have (they are my two favorite characters). Yes, I love Aragorn too, but seriously, I am not a particular fan of Arwen the Elf, and in general, I wish that whole love story between the two of them would have been left to the appendixes instead of taking up so much screen time. I would have been fine if she would have just showed up in the coronation and that was all the screen time that Liv Tyler got. They could have spent the extra time from taking all of that out and have been more generous to Eowyn and Faramir's story. I love, love, love Faramir (who actually, as written, most closely resembles Tolkien himself. Furthermore, Jackson screwed up Faramir's character in The Two Towers pretty well too, in a way to make me annoyed.) and think he is one of the most interesting characters in the whole story. I think Eowyn is pretty dynamic too, and she is definitely the most interesting and complicated of all of the female characters in the books.

Anyway, I don't know what the point of this post is other than to decide that yes, I want to get the blu-ray because watching the trilogy will probably continue to be an annual event for me.

Never mind...I just read the Amazon reviews and found out that it is just the theatrical versions that have currently been released on Blu-Ray. I am not wasting my money on that. Only when they release the extended version on Blu-Ray will I upgrade. What a waste of time to just release the theatrical versions. It turns out that David's reluctance just saved me considerable frustration, because if I would have raced out and purchased it, only to discover it wasn't the extended version, then I would have really been mad. It turns out that Treebeard's advice to Merry, "Don't be hasty", also applies to me.

The Return of Spring

2010-04-04T12:32:00.000-07:00

This is what perfect weather in Washington, DC looks like:

It has been that way all weekend, and on walks to the Capitol, Knightley and I have noticed the high school field trips out in force. Those high school students have also noticed Knightley, and one asked me, "Is that the first dog?" I will forgive the fact that the kid doesn't know a Cocker Spaniel from a Portuguese Water Dog when Knightley does look so important and noteworthy as exhibited below:

Doesn't he look so well-read and intelligent here sitting in front of the Library of Congress? (After all, he has successfully learned how to roll over on command in the past week)

At the end of a long walk, what Knightley really wants, though, isn't the prestige that comes from being recognized as pretty important and elegant in appearance by high schools students from Muncie, Indiana; rather, he just wants some shade and cool water, wherever it may be:

Happy Springtime from D.C.!

General Conference Weekend Trifecta

2010-04-04T11:43:00.000-07:00

I do not own any church music CDs other than ones featuring the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. I admit it, I love the Choir and they are one of my favorite parts of General Conference. Here's my secret, in my head I have a Mo-Tab Conference Weekend Playlist that I would like to hear them perform throughout the course of the sessions. If they hit all three, then I call it the General Conference Weekend trifecta. I actually don't think that it has ever happened. The hymns are my favorite three in the current in-use LDS hymn book. Here they are and the reasons why:

1. How Firm a Foundation: They already hit this one this weekend at one of the Saturday sessions. When I was a nervous nineteen year old, I spent my first Sunday in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania as a part of the Chang'ombe Branch congregation. I was still tired and jet lagged from the long flights there and I felt an extreme sense of disorientation in encountering a completely new culture. However, as the keyboardist fired up her instrument, and the familiar hymn began, I felt an overwhelming sense of calm that increased as the congregation sang all seven verses of this song. From that moment on, I felt a kinship with that congregation, because they sang all seven verses when I profoundly needed it to stop the creeping sense of loneliness that had already infiltrated my first international experience, so far from home. "The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose..." It is still one of the best lines ever written, as far as I am concerned.

2. If You Could Hide to Kolob: Look, I know this is a trendy pick among Saints who like to consider themselves a little more cerebral and who like to contemplate incomprehensible doctrine. I admit, I am one of those people. Yet, my love for this song has an entirely different, less academic origin, and derives not from a General Conference session, but a Stake Conference in Pensacola, Florida. My mother had a systematic approach to Stake Conference. Her approach meant that we arrived at the Stake Center at least one hour early in order to park strategically in the most shady spot that was closest to the entry and exit to the parking lot (If you don't know the importance of a shady spot, then you have never lived in the South). We then sought out, and obtained, the padded row of chairs closest to the chapel exit that was closest to where our car was parked. It was because to my mother, there was nothing worse than being stuck in the traffic of the parking lot after stake conference adjourned. She would rather us arrive three hours early and sit and wait for the conference to start than spend one unnecessary moment in that parking lot after the fact. This was drilled into my head so completely I will admit that now, I am nothing if not a strategic parker and I expect to be the first one out the door at pretty much whatever gathering I attend. Anyway, at one particular stake conference when I was about ten or eleven years old, President Holbert had, as usual rambled on for far too long and we were already running a good ten minutes over time. My sisters and I were starved. We knew that we could guilt my parents with this hunger (after all, we had probably been parked in those seats for five hours by now) and convince them to make a pit stop at Wendys on the way home (not eating out on Sunday was not one of our family's strong suits, since we had to drive 20 minutes or more to and from church). I could almost taste those chicken nuggets in my mouth as President Holbert wrapped up his remarks and the choir stood up to do one final hymn. The hymn was If You Could Hide to Kolob. The choir began, what had to be the slowest and longest rendition of the song ever uttered. Somewhere in the middle of the "There is no end" verses, I turned to Melissa and singing along with the choir began to sing, "There is no end to this song, There is no end to this song..." and continued on and on and on into finally there was the last "There is no death above." Ten minutes later, we were at Wendys enjoying those well-earned chicken nuggets. By that time, I didn't remember what the words to the song actually were, but I remember humming that Ralph Vaughn Williams tune for the rest of the day, and then week, and since then, I cannot get it out of my head.

3. Oh My Father: Yes, I know this is another trendy Mormon, cerebral pick, and I remember getting very excited for a song that referenced Heavenly Mother when I was in high school. But what I love, and still love about this song even more are the lines "Yet oft times a secret something whispered, "You're a stranger here." And I felt that I had wandered from a more exalted sphere." I loved it in high school when I felt differently from everyone else, I loved it at BYU when I felt like I didn't fit in, and I still love it now.

One Million Bonus Points: Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing: This song no longer is in the current LDS hymn book, but it is still my all time favorite, thanks to, once again, my mother (who as choir director for our local ward, always kept this in the repertoire). Every year as soon as Thanksgiving is over I get excited to pull out the Sufjan Stevens Christmas collection, if for no other reason than I get to listen to his rendition of this song over and over and over again. I am a sap, so every time it makes me cry, particularly as I sing out the lines, "Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love" (which describes how I feel about the mortal journey that I, and everyone else is on) and then arrive at the resolution, "here's my heart, O take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above."

If all four of those songs were ever to be peformed in one conference session, I could die a very contented woman.

First Impressions

2010-04-01T10:31:00.000-07:00

I am not turning this into some diet blog, because I would annoy myself even with that, but since today is my first day on Freshology, I thought that I would point out a few things.

Firstly, I would like to point out that whoever brought cupcakes to the library today and has them sitting outside of my office probably is the devil (no one else has claimed making them). I can't taste them, but I have to sit and smell them all day.

The Freshology food for my first few days came nicely packaged yesterday in its small individual servings. I've said it before and I will say it again, portion control is not my strong suit, so it is convenient that it is done this way, but unpacking all of the food that I will consume for the next three days and looking it over, I felt my stomach become personified inside of me and enter a period of mourning.

This morning's breakfast was actually delicious - whole wheat pancakes with raspberries and melon together with a side of chicken sausage. It was fairly filling. But at 500 calories, it by far was the largest meal that I am going to consume today. The beef mandarin oriental salad was about half of the calories. It was very tasty too, just small. It has to hold me over until 3:00 when I can eat my snack - two boiled eggs, whites only.

Bottom line, the food is delicious so far but feeling fully satisfied and satiated is going to be difficult. My past dieting failures have taught me that I have to entirely cede my food control over to someone else to have any success, so that is why I am hoping that this plan will work for me. I also am trying to learn moderation in all things, and where better to start than in my food consumption. To top it all off, I have to give up my Diet Coke, too.

And that is all I am going to say because I don't want this to be a food blow by blow or more of an advertisement of any sort that it already is.

The Feast Before the Fast

2010-03-29T17:29:00.001-07:00

This year, to celebrate our anniversary, which was yesterday, David and I went to eat at City Zen at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel here in DC. I made reservations two months ago to ensure that we had a table on a Saturday night, and it was well worth the wait.

I like to document how we look each year on our anniversary. Here we are before we left for dinner:

At the restaurant, by the looks of things in this picture, you would assume it was a rather bland affair.
That is, until you see things from this angle. Aside from David, you get a fantastic view of the dessert course. I had Banana Fritters served with Creme Brulee Ice Cream. David had City Zen's own "Root Beer Float" which consisted of a sassafras souffle with some amazing vanilla ice cream.

As delicious as the desserts were, the other course were divine as well. I think what I appreciated most was the range of textures for the meal. From a savory panna cotta, to a deliciously light and airy clam chowder souffle cooked in a crepe, to a perfectly tender beef filet, the whole meal was fantastic.

It is a good thing to have enjoyed such a meal. Tomorrow, I am expecting my first Freshology shipment. Yes, for our anniversary, David got me the Freshology Get Slim plan which means that I will be eating delivered meals only for the next few weeks. That may sound awful, but I am actually really excited (except for the fact that eating only 1200 calories a day is going to be a big change for me to deal with at first). The menus look delicious and more than anything, I really need to learn portion control, which is what I am thinking that this meal delivery service will help me learn. If nothing else, then it will enable me to speak more authoritatively about the diet plans of celebrities.

If the food is as delicious as it is supposed to be, then I will finally understand why everyone in Hollywood is supposed to be thin. Basically, it boils down to the fact they they have no excuse if they can afford to eat like this all of the time. (And yes, I realize the fact that I am doing something endorsed by "celebrities" makes me a little bit silly.)

Finally, for good measure, here is a picture of Knightley looking a little scruffy. Why? Well, just because I haven't shared a picture of him in a while.

Unfulfilled Resolutions

2010-03-29T07:00:00.000-07:00

Remember how I said that I was going to proofread my posts before actually posting them online? Clearly, I have not been better about that. I just re-read my Hilton Head nature post and found no fewer than seven grammatical or typological errors (and I am sure there are still some there now even after I corrected those). How embarrassing! Anyone who reads my blog on the same day that I post something, before I later review the post, must think that I am only barely literate. I don't blame them.

Natural Hilton Head

2010-03-28T13:31:00.000-07:00

When I was in third grade, I wrote an award-winning poem entitled, Loving Animals (It won the school and went on to win the county-wide poetry contest. However, one of my third grade classmates was not convinced and told me that her poem deserved to win because she wrote "about love." Even as a third grader I enjoyed the sarcasm quite a bit and told her, "Well I guess you didn't read the title of my poem."). The smash success of the poem was followed up by a play that I wrote on saving manatees that was performed to the elementary school by my class of gifted students. I played the kindly Fish and Wildlife officer who lectured the out of control speedboat drivers about the need to slow down while in the manatees natural habitat (even then, I also loved a good lecture). When I was the same age, I can be seen in Street family home videos lamenting to my mom that the Everglades Kite (a kind of bird) was "becoming extinct." I cared very much.

However, as with most things in my life, I didn't show much of follow-through and although I always cared about endangered species, I didn't grow up and become a Fish and Wildlife Officer or show consistent passion for the cause. My sister, Melissa, however did. She is the conversation biology major who grew up to work on two different wildlife refuges and now teaches the new generation about loving all things natural. Since she couldn't engage in many of the sporting activities of the trip, she led the way in participating in the nature activities.

First, there was the beach. It had sand, not as white as Pensacola Beach, but that did sparkle in the sunlight.

The thing about Hilton Head is that, although it is a big time resort destination, considerable pride has been maintained in preserving natural Hilton Head. This of course, is in contrast to the tackier developments of Myrtle Beach up the coast. As proper Southern girls, we learned from the movie Shag that respectable young ladies do not go to Myrtle Beach without their parents' permissions. Probably the reason for this has to do with what happens to the human psyche when we wantonly destroy nature. However, it is perfectly respectable for young ladies to enjoy the wonders of Hilton Head with its natural surroundings like Pinckney Island National Wildlife Refuge:
There, the wading and swamp birds live in abundance, like these two Anhingas, identified by Melissa as "pretty common swamp birds":

The Pinckney Island refuge also provided a few grassy areas ideal for taking a nap and enjoying a perfect spring day:

Just be careful where you rest, or course, as there are American Alligators (a threatened species), lurking in the brush:

Aside from my leaf project in seventh grade, when I had to identify 60 different trees through their leaves, I am not so good at identifying the flora as the fauna. However, I do want to point out how lovely the mix of live oaks and palmettos are, and how the combination of trees provides the most glorious shade around.

I just love this picture of Sarah checking out the reedy tidal marshes:

And also this one with her leaning on a palm tree:

Melissa is at it again, this time with Mom and Jordan, trying to identify another critter:

We move on now to our dolphin spotting excursion. Again, let me comment that the weather couldn't have been better for a few hours on the water in Broad Creek and the Calibogue Sound. Here is Jordan enjoying the sunshine:

And here is Melissa and a very unsightly picture of myself.

Here is a picture (from the water) of the Disney Hilton Head Resort where we stayed. I love how from the water, you cannot see what an immense complex that it is and that they kept so many of the trees and shade when they built the resort.

In the water, we observed ospreys carefully attending to their young in their lofty perches.

Jordan demonstrated his talents as wildlife spotter extraordinaire, by pointing out the dolphins for us.

They were a beautiful site to behold, even with my poor wildlife photography skills:

The incredible thing about Hilton Head's ecosystem is that you can see it working right before your eyes. Broad Creek's oyster beds are at the foundation of that ecosystem's infrastructure.

As the shells break down, they get carried into the Sound and deposited on these shores, where the sound of the waves beating against them is absolutely wonderful. You can't see it here, but amongst these shells were two American Oystercatchers, which was a new species of birds that Melissa saw that she was able to check off in her Sibley's bird guide.

With Melissa having successfully identified a new species that she had not seen before, we knew the Hilton Head nature experience was complete.

Baby Showers and Bad Decorations

2010-03-25T19:20:00.000-07:00

I am going to divide the remainder of my Hilton Head pictures into two blog posts that describe to large categories of most of what we did in Hilton Head: sporting events and nature. However, one activity (well, besides eating which I also have pictures of) doesn't really fit either of those categories. While we were there, we decided to have a baby shower for Melissa and Jordan. The above photo shows Melissa enjoying a book I got for the baby at FAO Schwartz in New York, ironically for a book about a tractor. I got the book specifically because I thought my dad would enjoy reading about driving his tractor to his grandson.

We had lots of fun, and Melissa and Jordan enjoyed opening their presents.

That picture above is Melissa receiving an African Lullabies album which actually came courtesy of my good friend Suz who had an extra copy.

What I do not do well is decorate for things. I am a notoriously bad decorator. I can't even tell you how much energy it took out of me to blow up these balloons.

I realized, that I didn't have any signage offering congratulations to the parents to be. Therefore capitalizing on this recognition and remembering one of my favorite Dwight moments from an old Office episode, I wrote this:

Only the facts, here folks. That is all I know how to do.

Water Water Everywhere (Just Maybe Not Enough of the Clean Kind)

2010-03-25T19:11:00.000-07:00

In case you don't have a subscription to National Geographic, let me tell you, the April issue devoted to global water issues is a must read. Every article is interesting and takes me back to Ms. Wagg's IB Geography class, my Water Law class, or my International Environmental Law class. Excuse me for thinking that water is the most important issue in the world. In my view, there will never be peace in the Middle East and that has more to do with water scarcity than anything else.

The issue features a fantastic issue on the cancer that is Southern California in their overuse of water and the audacity of self-importance that led too many people to live in a place where human beings probably shouldn't live (or plant tropical plants in their yards, at the very least). Every time I think I might be starting to go soft on Southern California, I read something like this and I am reminded again of all of the arrogance that went into creating that place by stealing other people's water. I don't like Roman Polanski, but Chinatown always will hold a special place in my heart for its fictionalized (but based on reality) account of the water stealing history of Los Angeles. I realize this is probably not an issue that I can discuss rationally with other people, but man, it really burns me up and I seethe internally, although these days, rarely voice it externally (I am trying to be nicer to people regardless of whether or not they understand the ramifications of water policy).

Publication Interruption

2010-03-24T17:19:00.000-07:00

I am interrupting my Hilton Head coverage, because while I was in Hilton Head, I found out that the article that Amanda and I wrote was accepted for publication into Law Library Journal's summer issue. So now, the second guessing myself begins. It isn't like the bar is particularly high to be accepted for publication in the law librarian world. Generally, I am underwhelmed at the quality of what is out there in the law library world. However, I expect that something that I write that is presented in a scholarly format will be of high quality. After re-reading my contributions to our article, I get this nagging feeling like what I wrote is complete crap and at the end of the day, other people will think I am a complete idiot. Of course, it could be that in the law librarian world, the person that I would most like to emulate is Morris Cohen, and the likelihood that I will ever contribute that level of scholarship is pretty low. I just have to do something more worthwhile than the average young law librarian who is more interested in promoting their useless Twitter feed than actually making a contribution to legal research and scholarship.

Charleston - A Very Good place.

2010-03-22T16:33:00.001-07:00

If I am a wealthy woman when I retire, then I would love to live in Hilton Head. The beaches are moderately appealing (I am a tough beach critic), I could play tennis nearly every day and enjoy nature. Not bad. However, if I retire a very wealthy woman, then I would love nothing more than to live in Charleston, South Carolina in one of the lovely, well-kept homes that line the waterfront battery. In fact, I cannot presently think of a more ideal location. Charleston combines my love of so many things. First off, the city has a fascinating history that has been painstakingly preserved.

I have maintained a lifelong dream of owning a historic home that comes with a label like this:

Living in a home built by a "prosperous Huguenot merchant" would make me feel like I am living in a song written by The Decemberists, and appeal to the same historic sentiments that cause me to do things like join the Daughters of the American Revolution.

How about the history of this home?

Could you imagine living in a home where actual Civil War history has taken place? Wow, it would be worth altering your life to accomodate all of the preservational rules and regulations that accompany living in a historic home.

Not only that, but my romantic sensibilities would be delighted to spend the evening imagining the ghosts of Civil War widows wandering these balconies and porticos:

Though I then may be old with "wandering", I could sit out on the porch, feeling the wind from the harbor, and in such a place be done with my practical compromises and allow myself to feel things deeply once again.

I could walk on streets and admire the careful deliberations of neighbors, determined to find just the right floral accompaniments for their window boxes.

From behind wrought iron gates, I could plan the perfect garden.

And in the light of springtime sunsets, I could reminisce about perfect days past.

Not only is there the larger, romantic history of one of the most beautiful cities in the United States, but the city holds an important point of personal family history as well. My parents met in Charleston. My mother was a new schoolteacher, straight out of graduate school at the University of Virginia. She came to this Southern city with her Irish Setter, Kelly, and her sailboat, thinking it would be the perfect place to make a life. She met my dad, a young Naval engineer stationed in Charleston, working on nuclear submarines. Charleston must have been a very romantic place for both of them; before they were engaged to each other, they each were engaged to two other now nameless, faceless individuals. But fortunately for my sisters and I, they eventually found their way to each other, otherwise our unique DNA might have never been formed.

Before they left the South Carolina coast, my mom had given birth to Sarah (seen here with her friend, Brian) in the Naval Hospital. Although they moved away when Sarah was only a month old, in the Southern world, you are from where you are born, so coming back to Charleston had to feel like some kind of a homecoming for Sarah.

And of course, later on, Melissa and I came along. Now, as we await the birth of Melissa's son, it felt right to come full circle to the place where our little family started.

It is our own kind of history.

When I am old and very gray, I could be very content in a place like that.

Hilton Head, an Introduction

2010-03-21T17:23:00.000-07:00

I took many, many pictures in Hilton Head; far too many for one blog post, in my humble opinion. We had so much to do there. I will have to upload a few at at time. After all, that will give me something to blog about over the ho-hum of the next few weeks when I don't have another event that I am eagerly anticipating (except for dinner on Saturday night at City Zen at the Mandarin Oriental here in D.C.). Also, in the midst of a really great time with my family in Hilton Head, we received some really unexpected bad news as well. I don't know how to process the uncertainty of the bad news and what it means for the future, but I tried my best to buck up and enjoy the time with my family. As the repercussions from the bad news unfold over the next several weeks, blogging about Hilton Head will give me something good to think about as a distraction.

We enjoy, in turn, the rocking chairs at Harbourtown. First, here are Mom and Dad:

Here are David and I, enjoying the same chairs on a pleasant evening:

Melissa (oh so-cute and oh so-pregnant) and Jordan show us all how to relax:

Finally, Sarah and her friend, Brian, from Boston, get in on the rocking chair action:

I know, you must be thinking to yourself, well, with excitement like rocking chairs, what possibly can I expect to see as a follow-up to this post about Hilton Head? Just you wait. If you think rocking chairs are exciting, you have to see all of the other excitement that Hilton Head brought.