pictures of our Italy trip

Here are twoslide shows of our trip to Italy. Have a nice trip to photobucket:

Meet Rovereto

Slice of Life in Rovereto

buon giorno!

buon giorno!

I'm in Italia soaking up the good phenomenological rays. The International Human Science Research conference is here for four days. I have to admit, this is the best conference I've been to yet this year. For one, this is the place where my research is most at home, and where what I believe about research is most accepted. So, you could call it a choir conference. And, while on the one hand that may seem too easy and letting on off of the hook, it is a refreshing and uplifting confidence builder.

We have our stars in phenomenology, and I got to sit next to one of them at breakfast. So many of the people that I've read are here and that makes it all the more exciting. Tomorrow I will make my presentation on the idea of object knowledge, along with Kiersten and Mark--my partners in object knowledge knowledge.

Slowly but surely we are learning the ways of Italy. Of course by the time we have it down, we'll have to be on our way home. But, it will be a good experience nonetheless.

Ciao for now.

They Say It's My Birthday

Many happy returns of the day to my fellow June tenthians: Maurice Sendak, Judy Garland, Saul Bellow, Prince Phillip, Frederick Lowe (of Lerner and), and John Edwards. (There are others but these seem the most auspicious). And, a moment of silence for those whose lives were lost on this day: Alexander the Great, Marcus Garvey, Spencer Tracy, Louis L'Amour, and Ray Charles.

Some fascinating facts from the mind that likes to imagine vast quantities of bizarre items:

First, the basic calculations: 36 years = 432 months = 13,140 days = 315,360 hours = 18,921,600 minutes. (No I am not quoting Rent. Just doing math). I have known Erik for more than half my life at this point! I have been called Elee for 22 years. Been driving for 19 years and wearing glasses for 30.

Using Forks: Let us presume that I use an average of 1.8 forks per day, and adjusting for the earlier years of my life, let's presume that I have used this average of forkage since age 5. That would mean in my current life time, I have used 20, 367 forks.

Handling pieces of paper: A very challenging figure. Let's estimate that on average in an office-oriented position, such that I have had in my last twelve years of such work, I handle roughly 150 pieces of paper a day (including mail, articles, documents, etc.). When I was more of the student type this might have been roughly 50 pages more. As a younger person this was probably just about 50 pages, give or take.

I then calculate: Ages 5-18= 13 years at 50 pages per day = 237,250 pages
Ages 18-24= 7 years at 200 pages per day = 511,000
Ages 24-36 = 12 years at 150 pages per day=657,000

that would give a grand total of 1, 405,250 pieces of paper handled in my lifetime. It represents approximately 2,810.5 reams. Since one ream uses about 6% of total tree, it takes roughly 17 reams for one tree. That means that I've killed about 165 trees, roughly 4.5 trees per year of life. And in reality, I probably should add on about 5 more reams for the dissertation. Another half tree. That's a sobering concept. But, I am doing my part to use less paper and recycle it as much as I can.

So as not to end on a low note, here are some interesting random events in history for June 10:

June 10, 1971 44th National Spelling Bee: Jonathan Knisely wins spelling shalloon
June 10, 1902 Patent for window envelope granted to H F Callahan
June 10, 1752 Ben Franklin's kite is struck by lightning-what a shock!

Realizing where you are

It dawned on me the other day, that I'm living in Indianapolis. Perhaps you are thinking, "yes, that's where you live, do you know your name and phone number?" But I don't mean I haven't recognized this fact in two years. What I mean is that I am quite surprisingly making my life happen here. Why surprising? While I did technically choose to live here, it wasn't because I wanted to be in Indianapolis. It was for the job. I love the job. I like the people I work with. I'm just surprised that I can put up with the way of life here. Okay, now, before you native types get all up in arms, let me have my say.

I was listening to the radio and heard a story about a senate bill advancing the idea of the carbon footprint taxing. One of the proponents of the bill is Amy Klobuchar, the senator from Minnesota. While I didn't get to vote her into office, I surely would have. The problem was when I both smiled at the thought of how progressive Minnesota is, I also snickered to myself, "only the Minnesotans" (well the other author is from Oregon, so there you go). But then I thought "NO! Did I just disparage the progressive, Scandanavian influenced way of life I so desperately wish to reclaim?" What has happend to me!

I want what I cannot have at the moment. I miss the diversity of cultures and excitement of knowing the difference between a Thai restaurant run by Hmong and a Thai restaurant run by Thais. (And on top of that, missing the options for Thai food). I miss the vast amounts of green sensibilities--the CSAs the community farms, the hippies, people who recycle. I miss the vibrancy of arts like Heart of the Beast, the Cedar Cultural Center, and big rivers and tiny lakes. I miss the accents. Sure Indianapolis has all this, to an extent. But I don't think that it is as evident to me, as I haven't found my way into it yet.

So what is important in this realization is not unlike Erik's favorite motto--no matter where you go, there you are. So here I am. This is not the Minneapolis, but the Indianapolis. It has what I need--Erik, a great job, a job for Erik, a nice house, and good friends. More people stop and visit now because we are much more on the way than out of the way. So why am I complaining? Perhaps I'm just having 2nd year culture shock. In July we'll have been here 2 years. It seems hardly possible. And yet in that time we've settled in. So there must be something that is worth celebrating and owning. And maybe that is what is important. It is less tentative now, our being here. I've got a good sense of that and place can be made into something worthwhile. It just takes a person to make it so.

The 10,000 lives of my namesake

I'm sure that any of you have 'googled' yourself at some point in time. Given my current (and previous) role in the world, it is inevitable that I will show up on a google list. So instead of the narcissistic method of auto-googling, I thought I would google my alternate realities. Thus, I went to google my full name and sought the 'images' that it produced. Happily, I discovered that not only do I exist in multiple academic environments, but I also function in the role as a pageant queen, and movie star. On straight up names, I come up on page 5 of on a basic google (e.g. somewhere around #25-30). But this is why I don't use the full name.

I am inclined to only briefly mention this idea of 10,000 lives, hatched in a former life, where in you recognize that at each step in your life path, a thousand choices are made and your life continues on the new path--leaving behind 10,000 other options. Such alternative lives are easily recovered via google. Herein lies the tale of my other lives, numbers 1-10

1. The MIT professor: received her undergraduate degree from Harvard College in Russian History and Literature in 1980, and her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in Russian and Soviet History in 1991.

Clearly this was influenced by my first viewing of Dr. Zhivago and the fall of the Berlin Wall and subsequent dissolution of the USSR. *oddly enough this happened after my ph.d of 1991*

2. The starlet: most recent appearance, Numb3rs , "Bettor or Worse". And, apparently, also had a spot on the "Sopranos" and "CSI" as a coroner's assistant. Should you want to see revealing photos, these also appear on line. I look a bit more Italian here.

3. Is really someone with my name after "Mary" so that really doesn't count. The good news here is that the first three are then repeated in the top 8 google hits, thereby making my officical current self effectively number

4. Lecturer at Exeter. This one is the most frighteningly similar to my own self: Role: Reader in Early Childhood Education. Research interests: Progression and continuity in play (focusing on children's learning, curriculum, pedagogy).Play and pedagogy in early childhood settings.
WHOA!

5. Sadly, self #5 is dead.

• BIRTH: ABT 1645, Dorchester, Suffolk, MA
• DEATH: 26 Jun 1682, Medfield, Norfolk, MA
  

Interestingly enough, this is not entirely unlikely a relative! Given the names and relative location, timing and relations, this is potentially a cousin. Cool, eh?

6. Academic self #3 biologist:
Doctor of Philosophy, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology
Bachelor of Science in Business Administration

The good news on this one is that I appear to be still on the interdisciplinary route. And, it would seem based on the images that more of me than not has long hair.

7. I am the namesake of a science writing award.

8. A tennis player.

9. Author of Mormon stories.

10. Author of a blog based somewhere out west, with a clear advocacy streak (and long hair). Perhaps I will add her to my blog watch.

My formal self does not show up in my proper name until page 5. I guarantee that if you google my better known self you will have a full 8 pages of data.

Anyway. This has been particularly interesting to me. I'm thinking that I might just try to track myself down.

You Can't Take that Away from Me

This weekend we had the pleasure of hosting a dear old friend from college. He was on his way back east to meet up with his family. He mad a comment that really stuck with me and triggered a thought to write about. It also reminded me of an essay I wrote about our days in college and a funny little group of musicians.

As we caught up on the last year since we'd see him, he recollected more of the challenges he and his wife have had over the last few years. They have suffered mightily from a mysterious development of Lyme's disease which has rendered them allergic to everything under the sun (including, I think the sun), as well as heavy metal poisoning. I'm not talking about too much AC/DC, I'm talking mercury. YIKES. It means they've had to give up their life dreams of owning a farm, of working the land, and living sustainably.

"The one thing I've realized in all of this." Said The Once A Farmer Friend. "You know, this disease can't take our music away from us." He talked about the jublilation of the day when they could buy new instruments. It pulled at my gut. Such a simple pleasure that suddenly means more to a person than anything in the world. It is incredibly painful to realize what it means for two people in their mid-30s with two young children to be completely without anything in the world but friends, a lot of hope, and music. But he was right. As much as identity is caught up in material possessions, it is also connected to the abstract concepts like music.

The full impact of this comment ties to a the lives we led in college. It starts with the house at 1674 Dayton Avenue in St. Paul. It also used to be the center of a community of people variously connected by music and Macalester college. Known simply as “the Yellow House,” it served as a center of activity for a relatively large group of people, all centered around old-time music.

This place was nothing compared to the heyday of Bloomington, Indiana in the '60s and '70s. But it was our own little slice of it. Truth be told, I’m not exactly sure just how long the Yellow House was in the Macalester family. Invariably houses like that would pass on from one generation to the next, one group to the other, bridged in some way by a commonality of at least two people. I initially heard of the Yellow House when I was in my first year at Mac. At that time it was loosely connected to the theatre department, by way of the students of course. It changed hands in my second year, passed to members of the music department. It was in that year that I came to know it. The new members of the Yellow House ran it like a collective, and these Granola-crunching-tree-hugger-folk musicians made it a landmark.

The Yellow House drew people not only with parties and outings, but also a way of life. The residents of the house at that time were five men and one woman. The Yellow House community was connected through the members of the house; five of the six were musicians in a group called the Flying Fingers.

The Flying Fingers were (and still are) a folk-music ensemble run by students. The members of the group learned songs together, taught each other how to play various instruments, and performed both at school and around town. In many ways this group was more likely the basis for the community, but the Yellow House served as the nerve center for the group, and thereby allowed more than musicians into the fold. Both the Flying Fingers and the Yellow House certainly could have existed independently of each other.

In many ways this connection could have easily been rooted in the desire of both members of the house and the music ensemble to embrace more of a collective living standard and, if you will, a more folky way of life. My first introduction to the Yellow House was where the Flying Fingers parties would take place. These were grand events where everyone connected to the members of the band or the house were welcome, food was abundant and music flowed like water. A rack of musical instruments lined one whole wall of the living room. Hanging from them were all manner of stringed things- guitars, banjos, dulcimers, mandolins and the occasional rhythm instruments – jug, washboard and bones. As folks came to the house, the instruments came down and the jamming sessions would begin. The singing and playing of music would go late into the night. Birthday parties, holiday parties, any kind of parties always had the same format, music, friendship and spirit.

Other outings that originated from the house included things like midnight sledding escapades at the Town and Country Club. The Once Farmer was one of these house members. Often in the winter he would drive around the campus and pick up people in his old ambulance. Stocked with sleds and comrades, we would take off down Marshall avenue though the sparkling winter snows to find fun and frivolity on the gentle slopes of the country club. (We climbed the fence to get in). Other times the assorted members would travel to the west side of the Mississippi, in Minneapolis to have a bonfire and sing songs. Some of the more memorable moments were sitting around a big bonfire singing songs like “Rooty Toot Toot for the Moon.”

Music can't be taken away from you. No matter if you have give up your instruments, you have voice, feet, and hands. You can pick up a borrowed instrument and play what your hands will recall. You can always have music. It can heal, it can bind, and it can take away the worries of the world. At the same time, the music creates the connections to the people that make you who you are. As much as the Once Farmer's experience revolves around losing his dream, it draws in his friends and family. It draws in the Yellow House community. It makes me think that we have to stay connected--whether through the music, through conversation, or just keeping in touch.

The Back Story

For lack of having to catch me or anyone else up with the latest details, here's the essential backstory to get you started.

The Rubber Chicken Mythology: Some Background (originally posted May 21, 2005, some updates made to keep us in the current world order)

I don't exactly know how it started but somehow, somewhere along the line I started using rubber chickens in plays I was directing. They are classics afterall. This mythology is really Eli's fault: He's been keeping track of the rubber chicken sightings and now it has become a thing of its own, a mythology. Nevertheless and all the more, I have to keep it up.

These rubbery oddities have appeared in my life in many ways over the years and certain traditions die hard. I've decided that I'm going to have to do some investigation on the history of the rubber chicken. More on this later. My friends Earl and Elvis (the current resident rubber chickens) will make appearances here from time to time, so please keep your eyes open.

For now, you benefit to some degree with the news and information from Elee's world. This is the current record of my life and times. This blog is dedicated to all the good friends I've found throughout the world who don't want to lose out on the good news and the inevitable mishaps, scrapes, celebrations, and successes as time slips through the hourglass.

Feel free to comment. Heckling is only allowed on alternate Wednesdays.

I'm Your Only Friend, I'm Not Your Only Friend

Blue Canary in the Lighthouse, who watches over you.

I'm reviving my blog. Thanks to Cathy for the nudge.

It's too late to do it now, but I'll try to get some of the old posts here for nostalgia's sake.