Teenage Marriage, Part I

Like many couples, we have a wedding picture up on our wall. What do people think when they look at these photos? Maybe it is good things:

I had no idea how lucky I was.

That was the happiest day of my life.

Or maybe not:

He sure was thinner back then. Except his hair. That was thicker.

I hated that suit. Why'd she make me wear it. I should've realized how pushy she'd be then.

That was the happiest day of my life. They've all been downhill since.

If they had a teenage wedding like I did, they are probably thinking something like:

I married that boy?!? What was a I thinking? Weren't there any men left?

Specifically I wonder how I could have I married a guy that looks like those silly little freshman boys at the university. How did I not notice I was marrying a kid? And what does he think when he looks at me? I looked even younger than the perfectly legal 18 years I really was. Se we each married someone with no money, no maturity, and no idea what they were doing. I know that probably sounds like a recipe for divorce, or at the very least, somewhat irresponsible. But getting married while so young and stupid inexperienced has led us to many adventures we would have been too boring responsible to undertake otherwise. Those adventures will be the topic of the next few posts.

To Daddy

My Dad called me today to ask why it was that there are photos or trips Scott and I took this summer, but none of any trips we took this summer. I would like to point out that I am doing this blog in reverse chronological order when it comes to the summer. Which is why I haven't gotten to it. But my dad is more important than a well-ordered blog, so here is a photo from the Grand Tetons:



Now, since I was sweet enough to put up a photo, do I get something special this year for Christmas?

For Oklahomans

http://overheardlines.blogspot.com/2006/10/new-yorker-trying-to-grasp-geography.html

Monogamy

Other guys never cross our minds, we never wonder what it might be like. How could it be any better than it is with you?
- Terri Clark, Girls Lie Too

How many husbands have I had? You mean apart from my own?
- Zsa Zsa Gabor

So many men...so little time.
- Mae West

I read an article (by a man, of course) that asserted women are naturally inclined to monogamy. The author didn't defend this statement, he just threw it out there as though it were obvious and could be used without debate to prove a larger point. If by naturally inclined to monogamy he means women naturally want their men to be faithful and more particularly women want exclusive rights to a man's resources (money, time, affection) then he's probably right. I don't really want my husband spending money and affection on some other woman; there'd be less for me. But I think the author meant that women are naturally inclined towards being monogamous themselves. Perhaps the author has a woman and a hot poolboy at home and is trying to delude himself into a feeling of safety. But that's just a guess. Either way, I'm pretty sure he is wrong. Any women out there who never go looking can feel free to contradict me. But just because I am married and just because I love my husband doesn't mean that I don't want to grab that new Bond guy's "perfectly formed ass". Well, and the rest of him too (If you've seen Casino Royale, you know what I am talking about). And there are lots of other hot guys that I'd like to do. I don't do them. And that's because I choose not to do what feels perfectly natural, not because I am following some womanly instinct to 'stand by my man' and ignore sex appeal as it walks by in a tight pair of jeans.

I wouldn't bring the article up, but this isn't the first time I've read such a claim. Women are less likely to cheat than men and apparently some men take that as evidence that women are really so enamored them as individuals that we don't consider alternatives. I think it is evidence that a woman tends to think with her head and consider the likely consequences of jumping into bed with every hottie she can get her hands on while a man tends to think with his...well, you get the idea.

Anal Retentive Organization

Anyone out there who has every shared a room or office with me knows I am a slob. Which used to be fine. When I was a teenager I could walk into a cluttered room and be completely unconcerned about it. My idea of sorting laundry was three piles on the floor: clean, dirty, and somewhere in-between. My class notes were typically a mess, but I could find what I needed. No worries. But during the last six or seven years I have managed to maintain my slobability while becoming uptight and twitchy about it. I still operate like a slob: leaving things all over the place, dropping clothes on the floor only to roll out of bed the next morning and put them back on, letting the paper trash bin next to my desk overflow instead of taking out the trash. But now I walk into a messy room or sit down at a messy desk and I start stressing about it. I can't study and I can't relax.

My solution to this problem has been anal retentive levels of organizational minutiae. If absolutely everything has a designated place and if non-designated places are completely off-limits to any object whatsoever, then everything stays organized. It winds up being painfully obvious when something is not put away and I always know precisely what to do with any such item. It would probably be easier to learn to relax and accept my slobby ways. After all, I accept so many other faults in myself with barely a twinge of guilt. But instead I am determined to become a neat and organized person.

All of this organizing would probably work just fine if I didn't have a husband living with me. He uses things and moves things and buys things and generally hampers my organization efforts. I tried telling him what goes where, but who is going to remember that green and gray towels go on the dressing table shelf while other towels go in a different room and facial moisturizer goes on the second shelf while body lotion goes on the third. So I started labeling everything (drawers, bins, shelves) with the types of items that may be placed there so that he could follow the rules. Now each shelf in the bathroom has little plastic dividers with labels like "Outdoor Skin Care: bug repellent, sunscreen" or "Foot Care". The whole system works pretty well. I got home after three months and most stuff was where it belonged.

The glaring exception was the refrigerator. Our fridge broke a few months ago (Don't ever buy Amana) which was upsetting because we lost all our food. But since it was under warranty we called to get it fixed (Don't ever buy Amana) and weren't too worried. Like I said, that was a few months ago. The fridge still isn't fixed (Don't EVER buy Amana). Scott eventually bought a new fridge (not an Amana) and filled it bachelor style. Meaning ketchup, milk, some shredded cheese, eggs, and soy sauce were distributed pretty randomly throughout the fridge. When I got home I stared into the fridge for a bit before grabbing some yellow post-it notes and a pen. This is a big fridge. We already had an upright freezer so he bought an all-refrigerator. If I lost a container of yogurt in this fridge it could be years before I found it again. I needed to organize. So I wrote labels on yellow post-it notes and stuck them all over the fridge: "Salad Dressing", "Syrup and sweet sauces", "PB&J", "Drinks", "Ingredients: Don't Eat!", "Snacks", "Bread", etc. Two weeks later and the labels are still there. I've tried to find less tacky looking labels. Yellow post-its really aren't subtle. But nothing else sticks. And I'd prefer tacky-looking yellow post-its to a yogurt container getting misplaced among the pickle jars.

Hair Trauma

Lately I've been dealing with some hair trauma. A year ago I had a nice wash-n-go crop cut. I loved it. The tips were even purple. Don't I look cute?


(National Mall, Aug 2006)

But that was a year ago. It's grown a bit since then. Here is what it looks like now:


(Glacier National Park, Aug 2007)

This has created some trauma. I had to start using a brush and a hair dryer. Which meant I had to go buy a brush and a hair dryer. So last week I found myself standing in an aisle at Sally Beauty Supply staring at shelves of hairdryer boxes covered numbers and adjectives and descriptions that all had two things in common: they ostensibly described superior qualities and they were completely meaningless to me. Does anyone out there know what Tourmaline is or why it makes for a better dryer? Of course not. That's because it is a semi-precious gem/mineral with electrical properties. I looked it up. Anyway, none of the boxes bothered explaining how a mineral with weird electrical properties "renews and enhances the vitality of your hair as it emits gentle infrared heat that seals in hair's natural moisture." Or the importance of ceramic or infrared or higher wattages or longer cords...oh wait. I can figure that last one out myself. Since the dryers varied in price from about $10 to $50 (give or take), I needed some rational way of finding the best value. So I grabbed the dryer that would fit into my bathroom decor best and asked the saleslady if it was a good dryer. She said yes. Since asking her was proving so much quicker than shopping myself, I asked her what brush to buy. She picked one out for me and I checked out with my Tourmaline-infused, ionic generating, 1600-Watt dryer and my Tourmaline-infused roller brush.

Once I had the dryer and the hairbrush I practiced using them. The brush is a round one with bristles, the better to curl those back hairs off my neck. But in order to curl the hair I have to twirl the brush in one hand while pointing the hairdryer with the other and I have to do all this behind my back without looking because I don't have a third hand to hold a mirror up so I can see the back of my head.

So I have a new hairstyle, but it still doesn't quite feel like me. I fretted about it to my officemate-in-Washington for weeks. Every few days was "Megan, do you think my hair looks okay?" Megan very patiently did not run screaming from the room the 15th time I did this. But I thought hair curled up at the back and sides on a woman in her mid-20s maybe looked a little too young. Although all this angst is coming from a woman in her mid-20s who had this hairstyle 15 months ago:


(Hike near University of Utah, June 2006)

So perhaps I shouldn't be taken too seriously. However, Megan was nice enough to explain to me that I was old enough to pull it off and not look like a teenager. That problem was solved. Only one issue left and that is that no one would believe my hair was this long. Not even my husband has seen it this long before. I know most women reading this won't think my hair is long, but for me this is epic. One woman at church stared at my head during the service trying to figure out if it was a wig (I have several, this isn't totally without a basis). And my officemate-in-Oklahoma, Naomi, was a little surprised to see me. But it seems that I am the only one with real issues believing I have hair measuring over two inches. Maybe I should get over it.

Kayaking

We went on a rafting trip near Glacier. The boys went on a raft and I took an inflatable kayak. Complete with a white helmet that looks like the kind of thing you'd put on a hospital patient that couldn't help knocking his head into things. Yeah, I looked chic. Anyway, there were three other people on inflatable kayaks: two teenage boys in a tandem and their dad on his own. If you've never been in an inflatable kayak, it isn't hard. I mean, on rapids maybe it is easy to flip, but on calm water it is nearly impossible. You just paddle sort of awkwardly in the direction you want to go (there is no keel, so nothing to keep you going nice and straight). And you can run into rocks. You just bounce off, so no harm done. Anyway, I ran into a rock. I didn't mind. And I hit a few shallow spots that took me about 10 seconds to get out of. I did all this by the end of the first rapid. While I was still figuring it out. The teenage boys thought that this was ample evidence of the old lady's (that'd be me) incompetence in the fine art of inflatable kayaking. They insisted that if they kept letting me go first, I'd get stuck or tip over and then they'd come along and hit me and flip over into the very cold water and it'd be all my fault (note, they weren't particularly worried about the damage the collision might do to me). So I let them go first. And then their dad who was insanely slow. And then me. That is, I let everyone else go first until the boys got marooned up on a rock during a rapid and had to be rescued. And their dad flipped his kayak and had to be rescued. After that, I started going first. As it happened, Scott and Chris were in the safety raft. So they rescued the cocky little boys and their dad. When it came to the dad, as their raft came floating by, Scott flipped the kayak, Chris picked the guy up by his life jacket and tossed him in, and a guy behind them in the raft tossed in the paddle after him. He was a little dazed to find himself back in his kayak so suddenly. I am sure by the time I am 50, this story will have become embellished with heroic efforts on Scott's and Chris's parts to save an unconscious man from drowning in Class V rapids. For the present, these rapids were still Class II, at best. And the guy was sputtering and annoyed, but nowhere close to drowning. Anyway, at this point I started taking rapids first so as to more easily avoid hitting idiotic male creatures in my way. I kept that up for awhile until I realized that the idiotic male creatures now considered me somebody-worth-talking-to. Or perhaps it was just that I was the only other one that could talk to. Either way, the boys told me how cold the water was (note: we were all in wet suits and they even had booties) and the dad complained about how tiring it was to paddle. Admittedly, there were a few times the wind was against us and it was kind of hard work. But more important than that, I had taken a pain killer that morning that had worn off halfway into the float trip and I spent the last hour or so of the trip with rather painful cramps. And this guy is complaining about his arms? Like I am going to sympathize. Finally I started hanging further and further back just to be alone. Eventually I was hanging out by the safety raft. Where Scott was discussing my life insurance policy with an entire raft of strangers. Hmmm...maybe next time I shouldn't let him adjust my very chic helmet.

Vacation

Still working chronologically backwards here. Which means sometime next month I'll get to talking about the first day of school. Before I made it home to Mom's cooking and my adored hats, I had vacation. We visited Denver for Titanic Day, Glacier National Park (including a kayak float down the river during which I did NOT flip over), Grand Coulee dam and surrounding area, and Lake Chelan. Lake Chelan is a 50 mi long lake with a town at one end nestled in the mountains and accessible only by boat or small plane. This means the town doesn't get a cell signal. Doesn't have land lines either. The town has a satellite phone for emergencies. I told Scott the town only had one phone. He thought this meant the town only had one type of phone. Meaning, the town only had landlines. It also had satellite internet, so Scott managed to survive a few days cellphone free. The town exists for tourists who want to come take in natural beauty. I have never been to a resort town before. I always found the idea of hanging out with a bunch of tourists to be a turn-off. Somehow it never occurred to me that a resort town would be full of people ready to take care of everything I need. I know I have to pay them, but still, it makes for a very carefree vacation. We kayaked, mountain biked, swam under a waterfall (see above, this was a waterfall fed by ice melt so it was a little chilly which didn't bother me but that look on Scott's face isn't exactly a smile), and ate really good food. I want to go to a resort town again. I really like having someone take care of absolutely everything for me.

My Mom Rocks

So about the time I got on the road to head home, my mom emailed me to ask would I like some meals to take home so that I wouldn't have to cook. Would I?!? Of course! So I got to Mom's house and she loaded me up with stuffed red snapper, beef stew, salad, fruit, etc. Isn't my mom the best?

Anyway, we haven't finished working our way through all the dishes, but the best so far is Cuban Black Beans and Rice. I highly recommend it. Even the yogurt dollop on top. Sounds a little weird, but the yogurt tang with spicy beans was delicious.

Hotel Adventures: Signs, Service, and Smell

I took a little roadtrip on the way back to Oklahoma. Really, I was the only one who needed to take the trip, but Scott and Chris came along for the ride. Apparently they felt their summer had lacked the spice and interest that a grumpy, tired, and sharp-tongued woman brings to life. Chris booked our hotels around Glacier National Park so I hadn't seen them. I just trusted that they were nice. As we drove out to the edges of town we passed one hotel that made me unspeakably grateful that we already had a place and weren't reduced to begging for bed there. I couldn't see actual hotel, but the sign said it all. You know the kind. Faded letters with some fancy name, like "Big Sky Motel". Stripped off lettering on another part of the sign. I felt smugly secure in my knowledge that better lodgings awaited me down the road. Wait! The car is turning around. That was our hotel. We rolled up to it all wondering whether there was any chance of finding a room at the Motel 6. After all, this couldn't be good. The lobby was being 'remodeled' and had exposed drywall and floor edges protruding here and there. Knowing there was no other place in town, we resigned ourselves to the hotel, comforting ourselves with the knowledge that we would spend most of the day in the park. As it turned out though, they had remodeled the rooms first. Our room was trendy, clean, and new. Even had those slate tiles and little tile shelves that are chic in bathrooms now. The whole stay looked different once we were in the room and couldn't see that sign anymore.

The second night in the hotel we came back expecting to walk into the same lovely room we had left. Which we did. Without a key. The door room was open. Not just unlocked. Propped open. Scott went to the front desk to politely inquire about why our room door was propped open for all the world to wander in at will. It turns out that the remodeling was still going on and maintenance people had come in that day to install a new drain. And they left the door propped open. I am sure Scott would have given the manager his opinion of the maintenance crews except that upon hearing his story, she gave her own opinion of the maintenance crews rendering his superfluous.

A few hotels later we are north of Denver in a rather nice looking hotel. And if I hadn't been able to smell that would have been the extent of my opinion. A guest at the hotel had burned a bag of popcorn into small cinders in the microwave in the common kitchen. The AC had done the job of distributing the burnt popcorn smell throughout the hallways. The rooms were, luckily, mostly unaffected. Because of the smell I decided to run to my room. Maybe it was that the running looked immature. Maybe it was just that I looked immature. Either way, an employee saw me running (like an hour or so after the popcorn was burned) and put zero and zero together to get a suspect in the great unsolved popcorn arson. I was already way down the hall and not inclined to stop for some annoyed hotel employee. So she rounded on Scott the gimp with "Did you burn some popcorn?" What does she expect? A full confession with an explanation of why we decided to hang around for an hour before fleeing the scene? Scott mumbles something about the popcorn being burned before we got there and comes up to the room. I called the front desk and got an apology the next morning at breakfast.

Hats and Wigs

Hey everyone! I am back! The first thing I did, before laundry or unloading the cooler, was arrange my wigs and new hats in my bedroom. That's obsession for you. And by popular demand, I have pictures of my collection. Let's start by taking a look at the four wigs and a few favorite hats:



The gray cloche with the cutouts is my newest hat. We were in Denver last Saturday having a Titanic Day: a visit to Molly Brown's house, the Titanic IMAX movie, and Titanic museum exhibit. Of course, I felt I needed a new hat for the occasion. After all, this is the Titanic. Scott, feeling secure in the knowledge that I had no idea where to find a vintage hat store in Denver, promised to buy me a hat if I found one. We walked into the Molly Brown house gift shop and right into a wall of elaborate period hats. I was in raptures. Scott was in tears. The gray cloche is the result.



Here is how the hats are arrayed along my bedroom wall:



This is a sign that Scott bought for me, along with 8 hats hanging on pegs:



And here is my new summer hat I bought at a Renaissance Fair last month, next to a basket I bought in Stehekin holding my headbands:



I have other hats, but these are my most fashionable and favorite ones.

Yearbook

So I've been trying to get my yearbook (a photobook I make online every year and then print in January) up-to-date. I wrote a page about Hanford and Richland since I've lived here this summer. And then I have a page of pictures of the B-Reactor tour. Since the pictures were low quality and the paint colors was decidedly non-chic, I decided to give them a sort of retro feel by sharpening them. Then I wrote a poem to go with the photos. What do you guys think? Is it too corny is it funny?


Three interns visit B-Reactor,
Can you spell disaster?


Here's Faith, Nina, and Megan,
The tour's begun!


Megan took to controlling
With little cajoling


Whilst Nina and Faith
Unloaded nuclear waste.


But when an intern slipped
A red lever was tripped


And we heard someone shout
"Take the Evacuation Route!"

Visiting the B-Reactor

For those of you who don't know, Richland (seriously, the whole town) was built during WWII as part of the Manhattan Project. Its sole purpose was to house people to work at the reactor making plutonium for nuclear weapons. Interns get to tour B-Reactor, which is where the plutonium for the Nagasaki bomb was made. We were told we couldn't have cameras until the bus got to the reactor and then we were told that of course we could have cameras! My officemate Megan whipped out her cellphone and started clicking. So the quality isn't great, but it sure beats nothing. And I have a picture of myself running along the evac route in a nuclear reactor. How cool is that?

It's Just a Message Board, Not a Political Statement

The interns of PNNL have a listserv. A listserv is a nice place to make announcements. It is an inconvenient place to coordinate schedules of a large group. Like the poor girl who asks the listserv what weekend is best to go wakeboarding and then deals with sorting through 30 responses. Then the only people who know what is going on are the 30 who responded and so no one gets to change their minds and decide to participate. This particular listserv has the extra invconveniences of being only available at work, so not good for weekend planning, and a changing membership, so as new interns come in they don't know what is going on unless someone sends out another email announcement. Being the brilliant organizer and all around good person that I am, I created a message board where people could organize events. And post to a calendar. And create polls for people to vote on dates. Doesn't that sound nice to you? Well, it didn't sound nice to everyone on the listserv apparently, as demonstrated by these postings to the listserv:

All future volleyball postings will be on the discussion board. Unfortunately, I think we will lose some players but if it's easier to log into a discussion board then to just delete an email in your inbox then so be it.

Same with all wakeboard/boating Postings. It's a shame it had to come to this to make a few people happy.

We live in an age and a country of political correctness… it's where the masses must bend over backwards to appease the desires of the few. It is unfortunate, but it is also the unchangeable state of affairs of our society.

I totally didn't make that last one up. Some of this actually hurt my feelings. I mean, I spent time evaluating message boards, setting one up, checking that no one at PNNL would object, and I expected to spend quite a bit of additional time administrating the board. All to be nice. Fortunately, I also had several admirers who got the point. For example:

I wouldn't say anything, but "the few" should speak up and show that we are the many. Please don't get me wrong. I like the announcements, but I think the correspondence afterwards should be kept on the boards.

Family Resemblance

Scott flies out to visit me on Wednesday morning. If you didn't already know this, you must not have talked to Scott lately. I've heard he has told everyone. But then, he hasn't seen me in nearly 6 weeks, so it isn't surprising he is excited. What is surprising is that he looks something like Murphy does when she feels pathetic and needy. I didn't have picture of Murphy looking pathetic and needy because when she looks that way you better either pet her or run away. The middle ground just won't do. But I think this picture gives an idea of how she expects to be worshiped. Now imagine this little princess is feeling ignored and hurt and you get the idea. And that is what I heard Scott looks like. Poor guy. Unfortunately, I happen to like a man who gets the puppy dog look when he misses me. So long as I don't actually have to put up with the puppy dog look, of course. So I am disinclined to try to make him feel too much better.

Gifts Translated, Again

A certain clueless man has objected to the interpretations I have provided for each gift. I would like to remind my readers that each meaning was intended to be worst-case, not typical case. Lest anyone get carried away and believe that 'worst-case' means 'unlikely', I will attempt to expand on my previous translations by providing a more comprehensive list of both what the man means when he says "This is for you" and what the woman means when she says "Thank you." All women should feel free to disagree.

Candles, Worst-case
Him: I forgot it was (your birthday/our anniversary/whatever) until I was checking out at the drug store, so I just grabbed something girlie-looking. See? It's purple with flower things on it.
Her: I wonder if a cheap scent masquerading as "Lavender Midnight Dream" can possibly mask the bathroom odor when he gets done?

Candles, Best-case in reality
Him: I forgot it was (your birthday/our anniversary/whatever) until I was on the way home so I just stopped at a nice store and grabbed something girlie-looking. See? It's purple with flower things on it.
Her: Mmm...smells good for lavender I guess, but doesn't that store have a rose-scented candle that would've matched the potpurri in the bathroom?

Candles, Best-case in some sort of romantic fantasy
Him: I remembered both your love for rosemary-cinnamon scents and (your birthday/our anniversary/whatever) well enough in advance to actually find a rosemary-cinnamon scented candle.
Her: Thank you.

Stuffed Animals
Here I made a mistake in my original list. I stated that the worst possible translation that could be given to a gift of a stuffed animal was I think of women as curvier but no less silly versions of thirteen-year-old girls. I forgot about I assume you receive so few dates that you must need a stuffed animal to share your bed. Honestly, the difficulty in choosing a worst-case interpretation for a stuffed animal is in choosing just one. I propose instead that any clueless men reading this post agree not to give women they don't know well a stuffed animal, and I concede that some women do like one on occasion.

Flowers, cut and wrapped
Him: I screwed up somehow and want to head it off before you realize it.
Her: Lovely. Now I have to root around for a vase, clean it, add fresh water, trim each and every thorny stem, and arrange the flowers before I can go get some dinner. I wonder if a second date is too early to pretend I care enough to dry and keep them? I have a piece of string handy.

Flowers, arranged in a vase
Him: I screwed up somehow and want to head it off before you realize it.
Her: Thank you.

By now you may have noticed a pattern regarding the price of items in this post. Specifically, more expensive items get better reviews. Really, the point is that quality items of a thoughtful nature get better reviews. Three dozen red roses wrapped up and handed to lady right before a date is actually worse than one dozen. Either a few exquisite wrapped roses or roses already in a vase are much preferred. This is also true for chocolate where three elegant truffles are much better than a 1 lb box of cheap ones. (If the box says something like 6 oz Free!, they are cheap chocolates.)

Chocolate, worst-case
Him: I don't bother thinking about what you might actually want.
Her: If I were going to ruin my diet, it certainly wouldn't be with strawberry cream filled Russell Stover's.

Chocolate, best-case
Him: It's a holiday, let's splurge.
Her: Well, it would be a shame to let Belgian dark-chocolate truffles go to waste...Thank you.

Jewelry & Perfume
I really hate to interpret jewelry and perfume for the same reason that I hate to do stuffed animals. Anything with that potential price range (~$5-$5,000) has too many pitfalls to choose a worst-case. I propose the same deal: you don't give jewelry or perfume to women you don't know well and I concede some women you know well might like it.

Pajamas
I know pajamas aren't racy lingerie, but they are rather intimate clothing. Men may give pajamas to the following three categories of women: wives, fiancees, and friends/relatives who absolutely never will be wives, fiancees, girlfriends, or dates. Giving pajamas to women you hope to take them off someday without receiving permission to do so beforehand is asking for trouble.

Sports Memorabilia
My previous interpretation of I wanted this, but couldn't afford it plus a gift for you so I decided to multi-task. I'll want it back when we break up. was perhaps a little sexist. After all, women like sports as well. I would like to instead address a more appropriately titled category of gifts: "Things He's Crazy About." This is the category that applies when my husband suggests that for my birthday he will upgrade my computer by replacing my two-year-old components with his one-year-old components, leaving him free to buy a brand new computer. Other men buy power tools, lawn tools, grills, sports stuff, or even cars under this category. There is only one possible thing a man is thinking, which is, as before, I wanted this, but couldn't afford it plus a gift for you so I decided to multi-task. I'll want it back when we break up. However, a woman has two possible responses. She either thinks Sweet! I always wanted that! or I wonder if this is worth anything on eBay? Either way, the gift is not returned on the event of a break-up.

Little Souvenirs from trips
I decline for personal reasons to continue mocking little souvenirs from trips. My husband loves it when I get them for him and I don't want to poison the success of such an easy gesture that says Thanks for working hard the last two weeks to pay for my lovely trip without you, darling. After all, I may never again find such a gesture or man to give it to.

Looking at the evidence

Today I did a little online research so that I could write a pithy and entertaining post about "Creation Museum." I wanted to write a post because the museum represents $26 million spent insisting in a pseudo-scientific setting that something is true despite all evidence to the contrary and I thought this was rather silly. Unfortunately, while researching the matter, my internet connection kept failing. At first I patiently restarted my computer and repeated my activities when it would fail again. As time went on, I became less patient. The problem was that every time I went to a particular website (which to my relief was a website I could show my husband without embarrassment) the connection failed. Since I wanted to view this website and absolutely could not believe that a website could possibly cause my internet connection to fail, I kept repeating the procedure to visit this site. And my connection kept failing. At some point it occurred to me that if I continued to insist that the website was not causing the connection to fail, I would not only be unable to write a pithy and entertaining post about "Creation Museum" due to the finicky connection, I would actually be hypocritical in continuing to think condescendingly about the matter at all. I promptly gave up, admitted the site was killing my connection, and stopped trying. Now here I am with a everything intact I need to write a pithy and entertaining post: an Internet connection and an ego.

You mean the line we passed a few miles back?

The latest craze on the Internet to convince people to give their hard earned money to total strangers is what is known as the hitman scam. Someone sends you an email, either generic or containing publicly available information about you, in which he claims to have been hired as a hitman to kill you and offers to let you outbid whichever of your friends or relatives hired him. As a victim who reported the email to the FBI complained "This is not acceptable. This is really stepping over the line." (I didn't make that quote up.)

Though I agree with him that sending threatening emails intimating that your friends want to kill you and demanding money are "over the line," it isn't clear where this line is. If we have to point out this is "over the line" I assume the line must be somewhere nearby. Would it help if the hitman left off the part about friends and just threated to kill the target if he didn't get the money? It is, after all, a technically honest way to make a living. Assuming follow-through. What about a more personal approach? For example, on which side of the line is a face-to-face encounter involving a knife but no threats of future violence which may disrupt your dinner parties? What about a paper note? If a paper note is "over the line," does a traditional approach, like cutting out letters from newspapers and gluing them in rows, make the note more acceptable? Where do threatening emails sent in the course of a divorce fall? After all, it is actually from someone who was once a friend.

Note: Having spent the day reading Miss Manners, I cannot resist pointing out how a polite hitman should have handled the situation. Assuming this is a hobby (and does a generic email threat sound like a professional to you?), he should have offered to kill the target without mentioning money at all and then acted politely surprised at a thoughtful monetary gift. He should also have thanked the target with a handwritten note.

But Miss Manners Said I Could!

On the subject of playing video games in the evening after staying home sick from work during the day:

"If you have been excused, on the grounds of having a cold, from something you didn't want to do in the first place, you must go home and shut your front door, behind which you may enjoy yourself as much as your health permits."

To Jill

Based on her comments, I fear Jill will begin to think I really believe what I write or worse, act on it. I would like to reassure her by letting her know that while I have the flu this week I am reading Miss Manner's Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior. Some favorite tidbits:

Dear Miss Manners: What do you consider a good conversation opener?
Gentle Reader: Almost anything except, "I've been on a wonderful journey of self-discovery lately, and I'd like to share it with you."

Dear Miss Manners: What is the proper way to eat potato chips?
Gentle Reader: With a knife and fork. A fruit knife and an oyster fork, to be specific. For pity's sake, what is this world coming to? Miss Manners doesn't mind explaining the finer points of gracious living, but feels that anyone you doesn't have the sense to pick up a potato chip and stuff it in his mouth probably should not be running around loose on the streets.

Dear Miss Manners: When is a Vase a Vahz?
Gentle Reader: When it is filled with Dah-zies.

Now that I have reassured her, I would like to thank Jill for introducing me to Google Reader which now has a place on my homepage.

Multiple Channels

We've all had those moments when someone said something so ridiculous we felt that a sidelong glance at someone else didn't do it justice and desperately wanted to shriek about it but couldn't because it might hurt the persons' feelings. I have found a solution. I can talk on a chat channel with everyone which allows for easy voice communication. But then I can talk on text channels with certain people but not others. I can even mute my shrieking laughter so that no one has to know I am laughing at them. Perfect solution. Perhaps all social interaction can move to a multi-digital-channel format.

Gifts Translated

Gifts say things. Unfortunately for men, they don't always say what is intended. So, as a service to all the clueless men I know, I have written this gift guide where each gift is given a worst-case translation. I don't really expect this to help any men pick better gifts so much as make them perpetually nervous that any gift they do choose may be misconstrued in some incredibly awful way.

Candles
I forgot it was (your birthday/our anniversary/whatever) until I was checking out at the drug store, so I just grabbed something girlie-looking. See? It's purple with flower things on it.

Stuffed Animals
I think of women as curvier but no less silly versions of thirteen-year-old girls.

Flowers
I screwed up somehow and want to head it off before you realize it. I bought cut flowers instead of an arrangement so that now you will have clip off the ends, find a vase, and arrange them yourself. Hopefully you will be too busy to notice what I did wrong.

Chocolate
I know you are on a diet, but couldn't bring myself to care enough about you to think of something more creative to get you.

Jewelry
Version 1: Check it out, I have money and like to show it off.
Version 2: Check it out, I have no money but like to pretend I do by buying gaudy-looking cheap jewelry.

Perfume
I assume I know more about how you ought to smell and what kinds of toiletries you should use than you do.

Pajamas
I want you in bed.

Sports Memorabilia
I wanted this, but couldn't afford it plus a gift for you so I decided to multi-task. I'll want it back when we break up.

Little Souvenirs from trips
I went on a trip without you and wanted to point it out with some tacky souvenir that you can't even use and doesn't coordinate with your decor but that you will have to keep visible somewhere until we break up.

Let's Be Inclusive

I am always making fun of nerdy things mathematicians do. After all, that's who I talk to everyday. So today I am branching out to an Electrical Engineer. A particular EE professor wrote a paper in which he referenced a book he was still in the process of writing. Isn't that cheating? To make it legit, he included a note indicating that he would share the book manuscript (at least everything he had written so far) upon request. So I requested. As it turns out, the book is online, protected by a username and password. After I agreed to keep the information privileged, he gave me the username but not the password. Instead he gave me a hint to the password which was based on his published work. I don't know if it was for fun, some sort of Turing test to prove I was actually interested in his work, or a way around the fact that I was using corporate email which could be inspected by my employer. Whatever the reason, I was amused. By the way, I got the password.

lovable, comfortable, very good, not bad husband

I got some terrible, horrible, no good, very bad news today and couldn't concentrate at work. I emailed Scott to complain about my lack of focus and got this response:

 

Breath in.....
Hold it......
Keep holding.....
Okay once you pass out you can start breathing again.

This process helps to reboot the brain and root out the inferior brain cells.
Good luck! I hope that you are able to focus soon.

 

I laughed. I love my husband!

 

p.s. Anyone who didn't get the reference was reading-deprived as a child.

Talking to a Black Hole

The great thing about communication is its bidirectional nature. I communicate something to you, you communicate something back, and so on. If information only flowed one way, what would be the point? For example, when you go to the store and ask an employee a question about a product and all you get is "I don't know," you begin to wonder "What's the point?"

Today I went to Fred Meyer's to buy a particular item. There were two slightly different versions of the same item (different brand, so different appearance/details) for the same price of $25. But one was on sale for $10. There was, of course, a problem. There was only one box of the $10 version left and it was mutilated and missing a part. And had some random VHS in. No idea why. So I went to a cashier (This is the black hole part):

Me: This is missing a part.
Cashier:
Me: So it shouldn't be on the shelf.
Cashier: Oh.
Me: Are there any others?
Cashier: Probably not.
Me: Will any more be ordered?
Cashier: I don't know.

Well I went and found a manager and learned that, not only were there other boxes, but there were 7 other boxes. It was just that nobody could find them. So there were 7 boxes of a $10 item at the store that nobody could find which left me having to buy an equivalent $25 item. This didn't make me happy. I asked if I could have the $25 item for $10 since it was the same price, just not on sale. The manager said no and walked away. A few minutes later he returned and I got the $25 box for $15. Which wasn't quite what I wanted and came after I waited 10 minutes while he looked for the box I actually wanted. But I bought it anyway. I feel suckered.

Inane ideas at sexual harassment training

I recognize this is an easy target. Who has ever been to a deeply insightful sexual harassment training? I don't think it is possible to stick a bunch of strangers in a room to discuss an uncomfortable issue for an hour and get anything interesting out of it. Except perhaps a bunch of people that are a little less uncomfortable discussing the topic than they were previously. And while that may be the point, it doesn't really excuse anyone for making me sit through it.

 

My personal highlight is came when discussing a particular scenario that involved a man asking a woman to go to a bar for a drink where he put his arm around her. I referred to it as a "date" and some guy pipes up with "Well, the paper doesn't actually call it a date. I don't know if we can really call this a date." I may not have always agreed with what the other women in the class were saying, but at that moment we all had the same thought as we looked at the moron who had piped up with this one. Aside from the word choice not being particularly relevant, who did he think he was kidding? In this same scenario, the woman was actually ordered to go on the date by her supervisor who was hoping for a discount from the company. And some (other) guy argued that the supervisor wasn't guilty of sexual harrassment for five full minutes before realizing he hadn't read the scenario completely and so had missed that part.

 

Mostly though, there were no highlights, just a lot of answers of the following variety:

 

"Well, it all depends..."

"I guess it's all about how you feel..."

"We just don't know all the facts..."

"I think it varies..."

"I don't know if we can really say who is more at fault..."

 

In an entire hour almost nobody managed to say anything at all.

Being treated like a very stupid 7 year old

I bought a really nice cooler at the Wal-Mart in Stillwater, OK for my trip to Richland, WA. This cooler had it all: a telescoping handle, wheels, cool looking cover, power cooling. It just didn't keep drinks very cold. So when I got to Richland, I went to return it. Of course the Wal-Mart in Richland had a different price for the cooler and a different sales tax. So this harried girl (it was Saturday afternoon at Wal-Mart) is trying to figure out how to ring it up correctly while dealing with a ringing phone and the loudspeaker demanding attention. So I just waited quietly. The woman behind me was not inclined to wait so quietly. To be fair, I think she was trying to help and she may have even been right. It wasn't so much what she was saying as how she said it. She told me and the cashier, but mostly me, that we should divide the total receipt by 1.083 (local sales tax) to get the original price of the item. I didn't really get the relevance of this since a) I didn't pay Richland sales tax on the item and b) the original price of the item was listed on the receipt. It later occurred to me that the lady was trying to tell the cashier how to trick the cash register, but it wasn't clear at the time, so I replied with something along the lines of "What's the point?" She explained the division part again using exactly the same words. Since I wasn't having a hearing problem, I still didn't get the point. She explained it again using the same words, only with body language and tone suggesting that I was stupid and adding "I'm an accountant, I know what I'm talking about." I assumed I must have been giving her a condescending look to merit this last remark, so I bit back a retort along the lines of "I am a PhD student in math, I know how to divide" and just gave her a look and then ignored her. To her credit she calmed down and and was extra cheerful the rest of the time in the line so I think the condescending look theory is probably right.

Email message from computer science undergrad:

Wow, a real math geek :-) I think I need to go play video games or something to gain back my geek ego…

Meeting my mentor

I met with my mentor for an hour today to discuss my goals for the summer and I meet with her again tomorrow to discuss problems I can work on. She claims to love advising students and it shows. Figuring out what makes people happy and how she can help them reach their goals within the context of Batelle and the DOE clearly gets her excited. So I really enjoyed talking to her and I think the summer is going to go very well.

Comment made about a suggested exercise in a mathematical paper:

This is considerably more difficult than the preceding calculations, but it's worth doing it at least once in your life. Depending on your life expectancy, you may want to postpone it for now.

 

Note: The phrase "it's worth doing at least once in your life" is commonly used by mathematics professors when describing annoying and tedious calculations that they had to perform in grad school and now believe all grad students should suffer through just as they did.

They love me, my dogs really love me!

Or, they miss having me around to scratch their bellies at any rate. Chris went to our house to play Wii with Scott and Murphy and Jessie proceeded to crawl on him and stick their noses under his hands and otherwise insist that they were woebegone sufferers of parental neglect in dire need of attention.

My Kind of Men

I have many different kinds of friends. Old or young, from school or church. But the vast majority of them are women. So I noted with interest I get several phone calls a day from the most important men in my life and almost none from the women. It doesn't occur to me to call my female friends since I don't have anything in particular to say and I assume vice versa. Of course, the men don't have anything in particular to say, but it doesn't stop them. They are just calling to check on me. And I love the attention and the news from home and the familiar voices so I am happy to be checked up on. But I started to wonder, is this a 'man' thing or a 'my kind of man' thing? In other words, do men generally want to check up on the women they care about or am I attracted/attractive to the kind of men who want to check up on the women they care about? Any opinions?

Note: Technically speaking, I didn't pick my Dad, but he did pick me and my Mom, so I am counting him anyway.

Memorial Day

Mom and Dad went to visit the boys' graves today. For those of you who don't know, people put little flags up at the grave markers of people who served in the military every Memorial Day. Since one of my brothers was in the Navy he gets a flag, while my other brother who wasn't in the Navy does not get a flag. However, either someone didn't realize Robbie wasn't in the military (he has a military style headstone to match Zac's) or they figured a flag for everyone would forestall any heavenly style sibling rivalry, because Zac and Robbie each got a Memorial Day flag this year. I did not get to go to visit my brothers today since I am still five states away, so I joined the Memorial Day tradition here, and took a few pictures to share. All of these flags were donated by families of deceased veterans and each flagpole bears the veteran's name. The cemetery is absolutely beautiful with roses and relief sculptures and statues. A small rose garden had four statues at the NW, NE, SW, SE compass points. Flags were arranged lining little avenues heading out from the rose garden at the N, E, S, W compass points. The symmetry warmed my little mathematician's heart but I couldn't get a picture of it so I settled on a little video to show it.

Call him...Call him not...Call him...Call him not....

Scott, being a wonderful husband, calls me once or twice a day since I left town. I, being a sweet, adoring wife, love to talk to my husband. Or, at least, that is how I think it ought to work and wish it would work. Sometimes it even does work that way. But just as often it seems I prefer talking to Chris or Mom or just about anyone besides Scott. If Chris is funny, I can just laugh. If Mom tells me what is going on at work, I can just listen. Either way I get to hang up the phone completely satisfied at having had a nice conversation. With Scott I have to spend a certain amount of each conversation wishing I were there or he were here and hang up unsatisfied with having only had a nice conversation. So the one person I most want to share things with is the one I least want to talk to.

Getting through my first week at PNNL

During my first hour of work, I was told that PNNL (my lab) doesn't make good first impressions and that it just isn't very efficient at incorporating new employees. It didn't take long to understand this first hand.

First off, I had no idea where to go my first day. The form email I was sent simply told me to "go to (Insert Place) at 8:30." Since I didn't know where to go and the letter mentioned a badging office eventually, I started there. I got a badge and somebody found me a short while later. We had a short orientation followed by sitting and waiting for our mentors to come and pick us up. Then phone calls to our mentors asking them to pick us up. Then phone calls to anyone at all to come and pick us up. Finally Kristy, who also works in cybersecurity, came to fetch me. She showed me around to my building where I met Juana and Glenn. And these three people spent a considerable amount of time for the next two days getting me key card access to buildings, a phone, an email, and a computer. All of these things are separate systems. There is no "Do New Hire" button. But, aside from the computer, all of these things were relatively painless, if very slow to move. And a little annoying when you are standing outside a building asking people to let you in. But the computer was in a special class of its own.

My first computer was old. You could hear how old it was when you powered it up and the drives woke and stretched, creaking their bones and breathing heavily. The monitor was just as old and the picture shook a bit as though disoriented. I spent the first day sanitizing it, an eight hour process. The second day it only took 2 hours to learn that there was no image for the machine to ghost to because it was too old. That 2 hours involved several calls to IT for such answers as "Well, it shouldn't be doing that." But eventually we determined that I needed a new computer. We found one, but it had a DVI port for the monitor and the monitor was a VGA. So we hunted for a new monitor. Juana went hunting in one direction while Glenn and I hunted in another. We found a small LCD, which was an improvement over the old monitor, but still had a VGA plug. We took it anyway and went hunting for an adapter. The adapter we found took two VGA monitors. Which was handy when Juana showed up with a much larger LCD monitor that I could also have. So I spent the second day sanitizing another, but faster, machine. The third day, today, I got to set up my computer. Now I have a big desk, a nice chair, and dual LCD monitors (Low-res, but what more can an intern hope for? Don't answer that Scott. This isn't Microsoft.) all set up next to a big window. Not bad.

Enlarging my view of the world

Every time I move, I get a bigger view of the world. When I lived in Redmond, WA I learned that anarchists organize bus trips and vegans aren't just some subset of Hollywood celebrities and PETA people. Oh, and I am really not liberal. I just look liberal in Oklahoma. In Maryland I learned about spies and handicapped people. Yes a little random, but I worked with a lot of blind or deaf people and learned more about systems they use to work. Now I am learning about naive Mormon girls.

A friend once tried explaining to me why BYU is sometimes called Breed 'Em Young University. He met many girls with only one goal for their college career: marriage by the time they were 21. I didn't actually believe him. It sounds so 50's. And I never met any such girls so they must not really exist. At least this is how I felt. Now I have a housemate who is heading off to BYU-Idaho with one overarching goal: marriage by the time she is 21. It was 19, but she had to adjust it when that birthday came and went. That leaves me, being married nearly 7 years, and the landlady, being divorced about as long, to stare in amazement whenever this girl talks about marriage. This is a whole new experience for me.

Oh, and another new experience for me today: bicycle polo. It is apparently so big at Battelle that some players bring extra bikes for newcomers like me to play.

The reason for the move

Why did I move all the way out here to Richland, WA? Well, I have a really sweet deal where someone pays my bills and I go to school. But my husband only makes so much and school is expensive, so I got a government fellowship. Now the government pays my bills and my husband gets to buy me cool gadgets and cute clothes instead of paying tuition. The difference between mooching off the government and mooching off my husband is the government only asks for a three month internship. My husband wants eternity.

The other difference is that the government is actually interested in what I do. And this summer that something is computer security. For anyone who cares, a computer network can be modeled as a graph. Here is an example:

Mine and Scott's computer are connected to our home router. This router talks to Jill's router, which her computer is connected to. So we have 5 vertices (3 computers, 2 routers) with 4 edges. Some of these connections cost more to communicate on. Like snail mail is a connection but costs more (time, money) than email. We assign those edges that cost more longer lengths. So this might be our graph:

(Nina) \
aaaaaa(Our Router)-----------(Jill's Router)--(Jill's Computer)
(Scott)/

We don't really need the labels, so we just consider this graph:

O \
aaaO--------O--O
O /

Now we "isometrically embed" this into a surface. All this means is we put the graph into a continuous surface while preserving the lengths of the edges. This particular graph can be embedded in a plane. You can see this because I drew it in a plane. So there it is. Nothing fancy. But not every graph can be put in a plane. Some go into very strange spaces. And the properties of those spaces relate to a network's vulnerability to certain kinds of attacks, such as worms and denial of service. And this summer I am investigating how this works.

My New Digs

I'm all moved in to my new digs, everything set up the way I want it. That is, apart from a few more angel pictures and china dolls and gauzy curtains than I would probably choose. But everything else in my room and in my car is set up my way, and only my way. Just like you'd think my last evening with my husband would be romantic and not frantic, you'd think moving back in together at the end of the summer would be amorous and not rancorous (yes, I had to check a thesaurus to come up with that rhyme). But it never is. Precisely because all summer long I get everything my way. None of my stuff moves of its own volition. Nobody except me drinks the last Dr. Pepper. Nobody runs the gas tank down and then parks the car in the driveway without telling me. As an added bonus, I just have to worry about my room. All household responsibilities belong to the people who actually live here and not the boarder in the basement. So, to sum things up, I get everything my way without having any actual responsibilities. So, it's really no surprise that going home to dogs that want to be played with, a husband that wants to be loved on, a household that wants to be cleaned up, and a bunch of people wanting an input on what I do, eat, watch, or listen to, doesn't go quite as smoothly as date movies might suggest it should.

Disclaimer: Scott is no worse, and probably better, than the average husband when it comes to all this stuff. And I am no better, and probably worse, than the average wife (e.g. "Didn't I tell you I invited four people to dinner tonight?"). I am not complaining about the situation when I am at home, so much as adjusting to that situation. So you don't need to post a comment defending yourself, honey.

Being Sandra Dee

So I said I don't miss my husband yet. But if, hypothetically speaking, I did miss him, I wouldn't tell anyone. After all, it has only been four days. If I started missing him already, it would look sappy. A week is really the minimum respectable amount of time before I can miss him. I am pretty sure this won't make sense to anyone reading this blog. Jill likes to be sweet to her husband. Barbara likes to be sweet to her fiancee. Scott likes to be sweet to me. Well, there's Mom. Maybe it will make sense to her. But I want a sort of mean, tough image even though I am really neither. As a friend said, I am like Sandra Dee on Grease. I want the leather and the image. And missing my husband after only four days wouldn't fit.

Missing Scott

Well I didn't miss Scott the first night I was gone. I didn't miss him the second night I was gone. I didn't even miss him the third night, until I watched a silly date movie (50 First Dates). Then I missed him. What does it say about our relationshop that an Adam Sandler movie made the difference? Don't worry. I got over it by morning.

Elk: on the hoof, on the wall, and on my plate

Medium-rare and juicy. Yummy!

panorama

Today we drove from Moab, UT to Jackson, WY. We saw, from South to North, red desert rock with lizards and jackrabbits, pine and snow covered mountains with dead deer at the side of the road, and scrub and grass covered rangelands with cattle and donkeys. Tomorrow we hit the supervolcano that is Yellowstone. I love America.

Updates and errata

I woke up this morning with only one sore spot that Daddy thinks was caused by the one time I tripped and fell yesterday. Which means I am either in better shape than I thought or an incredibly whiney whimp. Maybe both.

Yesterday I stopped for a bathroom break at a little roadside attraction, the kind with kitschy souvenirs and some minor claim to fame trumpeted in five foot high letters. There was a woman standing in the doorway. I gave her a look and she said she was holding the door open to let in light for her daughter because the light wasn't working. Okkey dokey. So I go into a stall. While I am in there, the daughter finshes and the lady leaves. Maybe I am a little picky, but I thought that was rude. I mean, I hadn't been long. Another few seconds and I would've been out of the stall. So I was stuck feeling my way to the sink. It occurred to me that this woman may have been rude and stupid. So I felt my way to the lightswitch instead and turned on the lights. Yes, also stupid. The lightswitch was wired backwards to down was on. Apparently she had looked at the up-flipped switch and figured it didn't work without bothering to try it.

Biological schedule

Sometimes we just can't keep to the schedule our bodies want for us. We drove to Moab today. On the way we passed through a town about 50 miles from Moab. I decided not to stop for a bathroom break and lunch because we were so close. Two hours and lots of construction delays later, I was simultaneously dealing with a bursting bladder and a ravenous tummy. After getting to Moab and dealing with those minor issues, we went to Arches. Wow. We went on a little three mile hike to Delicate Arch. If only it hadn't been vertical. So I exaggerate. Still, a lot of climbing, but absolutely beautiful. Now exhausted, I expect to sleep very soundly until I awake screaming with a leg cramp.

John wayne

We are staying in the same room tonight that John Wayne stayed in. At least according to the lady at the front desk.

Getting on the road

I headed off to Washington this morning, leaving my wonderful husband for the summer. We've done this before and it's always the same. We have a very romantic evening the night before followed by a loving farewell. Actually, I made that up. We never have a romantc evening right before a move. It is always a frantic nightmare. Followed by a bleary eyed and somewhat desperate goodbye hug. Romantic isn't the word I'd use for it.

My Favorite Compliment

You know those jokes in grade school that revolve around a demonstration of a superior vocabulary? Like "Your epidermis is showing!" I never had trouble because I have always had a fairly good vocabulary. Which is why I was caught completely off-guard when someone called my husband and I a "diphthong". I froze while my mind considered whether to be affronted to pleased. I finally settled keeping my expression frozen while I asked what a "diphthong" is. Any foreign speaker probably already knows this, but a diphthong is where two vowel sounds come together to create a new sound. Like in house or tow or join. Basically, we had just gotten the best compliment a marriage could get. And I suspect someone enjoyed delivering a wonderful compliment and one-upping our vocabulary simultaneously.

Huh? What? Did I miss something?

That's what I kept repeating last night. If I were even minimally observant I would know what was going on instead of constantly having to ask. One night, after about 18 months of marriage, I noticed my husband setting the alarm clock.

Me: Why are you setting an alarm?
Him: I set an alarm every night.
Me: Really?
Him: Yes.
Me: An alarm goes off every morning?
Him: Yes.
Me: Have you always set an alarm?
Him: Yes.
Me: How have I not noticed?
Him: No idea.

He tells me he still sets an alarm every night and it goes off every morning. I just don't think I believe him anymore. Seriously, if an alarm went off next to my bed every morning, I would notice. I think.

How cheap do you think I am?

I mean seriously! A two liter! As a college student, I expect at least an OSU t-shirt. Maybe a thumb drive, but it has to at least 512M. And this is at a computer store. Develop some standards people.

Rationalizing

Meriam Webster: To provide plausible but untrue reasons for conduct.

I have always considered rationalization to be dishonest. You have real reasons for things, but you hide them and present alternate reasons as though they were real. So when that same friend who psychoanalyzed me over dinner gave me a personality test last night and told me I rationalize, I was very unhappy about it. I called my Mom for a second opinion:

Me: Mom, do I rationalize?
Mom: Yes.
Me: Really?
Mom: Yes.
Me: Have I always done that?
Mom: Yes.
Me: Are you sure?
Mom: Yes.

I would have sought more opinions, but with my husband AND my mother AND my friend all in agreement, I couldn't exactly drag up some second cousin who was on my side and call it even. So I was stuck trying to reconcile my opinion of myself as an honest person to the opinion everyone else had of me. I decided the easiest way was to change my definition of rationalization. That way I could agree with everyone else without actually changing my opinion of myself.

Wikipedia: The process of constructing a logical justification for a decision, action or lack thereof that was originally arrived at through a different mental process.

Ah, now this is much better. I can claim my reasons were really the same, just my mental process was different. Plus, this has the advantage of being consistent with how I do Topology. I have some feeling about what an answer ought to be and then I work out a logical justification for an answer I already chose. Of course, I am sometimes wrong. Which is why mathematicians have to come up with logical justifications instead of using the ever-popular "proof-by-intuition". So rationalization is really a skill I need to build in order to succeed in my career and not a sneaky way for me to be dishonest. Really. It is.

Plump, juicy, and really really stupid

As I stared at my computer screen contemplating what to write about today, a racket began in the backyard. The chickens were all standing in their pen clucking in fear. I scanned the pen. Nothing in there. I scanned the yard. Nothing in there. A little movement, then I saw it crouched in the tall grass outside the fence: a kitty cat. The clucking and agitated little chickens are perfectly safe in their pen and even if they weren't, they are a mere two steps and hop from being inside their coop where the kitty won't even be able to look at their plump, juicy bods. Instead they stand in the only part of the pen where the kitty can watch them strut back and forth, clucking the whole time as though the world were ending. I can't decide if the chickens were really scared or just teasing the cat. Like this.

A fresh look

I have been working for a few days to understand the following passage in a mathematical paper: "A nontrivial Alexandroff angle can be defined. Armed with the concept of Alexandroff angle..." Great! The Alexandroff angle can be defined! So about that definition? What do you mean you didn't bother to include it?!? Ack! So I've been alternately staring at this paper and drawing 2-cell embeddings, all the while trying to understand this stupid angle. In the middle of this, a friend called and I chatted for awhile. After hanging up I stared down at the paper and suddenly understood what the Alexandroff angle had to be. Why does it work this way?

Post-Semester, Pre-Move Funk

I awoke this morning to the sound of yet more rain drenching my already soggy yard. The weather proved prophetic. I spent the entire day in a sort of antsy yet dreary funk. I think it was induced by post-semester ennui mixed with growing dread of moving away from my husband and friends for three months. I walked back and forth in the house before deciding to go to school. Where I alternately sat at the computer and moved to my desk in a vain attempt to focus on 2-cell embeddings of graphs, whatever those are. I went back home where I proceeded to pace again until Scott came home, whereupon I gave him a hug and a kiss and started up again. After dinner, Scott and Chris played Wii while I sat on a floor pillow contemplating my funk. Chris gallantly offered to play all of my favorite games, which didn't really make a dent in my self-absorbed funkish musings. Then he and Scott tried talking to me. But the subject kept coming back to death and carnage. Not really the way to end a funk. Then, being the brilliant and wonderful friend that he is, Chris suggested we look at computer games that we can all play online while I am gone so I won't feel abandoned (although, everyone else has better grounds for feeling abandoned since I am technically the one leaving, but that wasn't really entering into my funk contemplation right then). So we went to Wal-Mart where we looked at games and played with toys and browsed through completely useless stuff in the clearance aisle. And I contemplated what great friends I have instead of my funk. So a very nice evening. Eventually.

p.s. I proofread my post before remembering that I tend to get wordy during a funk. Sorry bout that.

Set, the fall-back game

Scott and Chris and I have been playing Sonic (the Wii game) at least once a week for several months. Then along come Brad, who in his first two nights of playing set two records. This is somehow very humiliating. I pulled out Set, a favorite game among math grad students, so I could stomp on someone and feel better. And I did proceed to stomp on everyone. The second game didn't go so well, but I felt better anyway. In fact, Set has become the game I use to remind myself that I am not a total waste of carbon-based molecules. During a fall break trip with some other mathies, we learned that Juhyung, who is very good at math, is really terrible at playing Set. He now refuses to play at all. But anytime we are working on a homework assignment that we just can't get and Juhyung is getting it and saying it isn't too bad, we can just suggest a game of Set to retaliate.

And the almost-perfect wireless headphone awards go to....

I finally found a pair of wireless headphones to pair with my very sweet phone and 2 gigs of space for music. As I bob my head to some Terri Clark blasting out my eardrums, I feel I should reflect on all the little headphones that got me here. There were the ones with two hour battery life (Radioshack's Spyder), the ones with the kind of static you expect on a country radio station you picked up in northern Montana (Southwing), the ones that poked into my ears with little plastic buds and kept making me feel like someone was trying to give me a wet willy (MotoRokr S9), and, finally, the ones that pressed my ears against my skull like a vise (StereoMoto). After trying each of them out and enduring many trips to the store to return and buy and...oh wait, Scott actually did all that work for me. Okay, so after trying each of them out, I settled on the wiREVO which is not-quite-but-very-close-to perfect.

Feeling Sexy & Narcissistic

A single friend bemoaned the fact that he can't find anyone interesting and, misunderstanding him, I immediately thought of lots of interesting people. Lots of married, old, or otherwise unsuitable interesting people. Also, being the self-centered narcissist that I am, I responded with "I'm interesting!" He gave me an exasperated, this-is-so-obvious look: "I don't look at other men's wives!" And it occurred to me, why should that be obvious? I mean as a general matter, men do look at other men's wives. Frequently and closely, in fact. I suppose as a more specific matter I was supposed to know that, being the great guy that he is, he wouldn't do such a thing. I did assume that he wouldn't seriously consider dating a married woman. But he said "look" and that is a different thing.

A related story arc just finished on Desperate Housewives. Lynette, a former career woman who now has five young children and a husband, is forced to take care of her husband's restaurant all by herself after he hurts his back. Enter a young and sexy chef that she hires to help her out. They flirt shamelessly and Lynette feels attractive and sexy. But when the chef suggests they have an actual relationship, she fires him. Yes, I know I should find better sources that Desperate Housewives to prove I'm not the only woman who likes to look and be looked at, but still. I think lots of women feel like Lynette sometimes. I once spent two weeks in Utah for a math conference. In two weeks, one man asked if I wanted to go dancing. One very gay man. The kind of gay man who wears fruity scented, sparkly lipgloss. I was so upset. It wasn't that I wanted a date. I just wanted someone else to think I was worth dating.

All of which begs the question, why? First off, I am perfectly aware that I am not a totally great catch. And I still found a man who knows all my faults and still wanted to marry me. Why do I want a second opinion? Wait, I have gotten a second opinion. Why do I want a second positive opinion? Perhaps it is because the very fact that he married me brings his judgment into question. Perhaps it is because he always think I am beautiful (Seriously, at 2am? I don't think so.) that I need to ask someone else's opinion. Perhaps it is because I am really that narcissistic.

Getting analyzed over dinner

Last Thursday morning at 7am, I turned in the last of my work for the semester. Thursday night, my office-mate, Naomi, finished the last of her grading for the semester. So on Friday we had fun. We decided to go to Woolaroc and I invited a couple of men to go with us so we wouldn't have to drive. One of those men was my husband and the other, Chris, happened to have a degree in marriage counseling. So it was that I found my personality and marriage being lightly analyzed over Lo Mein and fortune cookies. Not that Chris said anything I didn't already know, though I didn't know all the fancy-schmancy vocabulary. For example, he said Scott took a caretaker role in our marriage, meaning he did lots of stuff for me (Chris said it sooo much better though). Several months ago, Barbara, who is much more romantic and sweet to her fiancee than I ever was to mine, mentioned the fact that Scott does so much stuff for me. As I told her: "He likes to do things for me and I like to let him." So I learned a new word "caretaker" to assign to Scott, but I didn't really learn anything new about the way we relate.

Just when I thought the analysis was over, Chris said Scott and I were "well-matched." Which I totally knew, but it was so nice to hear! Especially since there have definitely been moments in the past seven years when I wondered why in the world I wanted to be married to anyone ever. In fact it was like the time I got a psych-exam for my security clearance, about the same time I was considering grad school in mathematics. The psychiatrist said "Congratulations, you're sane. But you probably already knew that." Of course I knew that. But I still liked to hear it from someone else. Especially since I was feeling a absolutely intimated trying to figure out what to do with myself after college. What does it mean that I actually chose to go back to college? Well, whatever happens now, at least I still have that piece of paper that says I am not off my rocker. No matter what I sounded like at 7am Thursday morning after 11 continuous hours of Algebraic Geometry.

Lawn Jungle

Our lawnmower broke about a month ago. It rained. Scott ordered some replacement parts and fixed it before learning that another part was broken. It rained. Scott went to three different stores looking for replacement parts. It rained. He ordered the $6 parts by mail for $7 in shipping. It rained. They came during finals week. It rained then too. We have a small jungle in our front yard.

Karmic grades

I was very angry earlier this week when I learned I had a B in a class when I think I earned an A. Then today I found I got an A in another class when I know I earned a B. I've chalked it up to karma. But that doesn't mean I'm not still mad about my B.

Asian girl with a camera

Here she is taking pictures out the window as we drive by. Please ignore the irony that I am making fun of her while I am taking pictures of a girl taking pictures.

Seeing sunrise

I saw a beautiful misty sunrise before I went to bed this morning and wanted to share.

6am ridiculousness

It is 6:14 on Thursday morning and we are all still here in the office, working on Algebraic Geometry homework. We are all hungry, tired, and crabby. And still not done. Toshi decided to stop working on homework around 5:30 and start grading his students' final exams. He had a 1 pt problem at the end that said: "Draw a cat." No idea why, but the cats are fun to look at. A few are even really good. He held one up and started sort of bouncing it up and down a bit and saying "meow!" at us. Again, no idea why. That is becoming my 6am mantra actually. I think I should go get some breakfast. Maybe I will feel better after breakfast.

Complex Analysis Final

We took our Complex Analysis final exam this morning. It was a lot like the mid-term. To whit, three perfectly reasonable questions taking a toal of about 15 minutes, leaving us with over an hour to beat our heads against the brick wall that was the remaining two problems. During the mid-term, we alternately stared at the two awful problems and wrote down random equations and theorems that we had no idea how to use. Somehow this got us 50% credit on those problems. During the final, we alternately scribbled frantically at the last two problems, which had a total of 11 parts, and stared in utter defeat. In the middle of this frantic scribbling / emotional collapse, the professor decided to explain the definition of the word cusp. Not the mathematical term, mind you, that was written on the test. No, he was explaining the meaning of the word in everyday usage. And he was explaining it badly! Something about a bird beak, which I guess is a perfectly okay since a cusp is a point of change, like say in direction. But why interrupt our frantic scribbles for ramblings about a bird beak?

Just when I had decided to give up the news...

Well, I know I was determined to give up reading the news a few days ago. But then a DC madame let slip that the US coordinator for AIDS Policy, who supports abstinence and fidelity as the way to prevent the spread of diseases, uses prostitutes. Psychoanalysis of school shooters, news of mall shootings, car bombings, and other news are getting a little tired. Like I could TIVO a few choice hours of news each week and then keep replaying it with new names and places just dubbed in. I never hear anything new. And then people have the same completely inane debates about gun control, Iraq war policy, and...snore...oh, sorry, where was I? Oh yeah, the abstinence-only poster boy hiring prostitutes. Now that is entertainment. So I am back to reading the news.

Time for Pre-Test Stressing!

I finished working over the mid-term and homework problems this morning and I just now finished the rest of my lecture notes. This leaves me with a few suggested problems I should still work, but I think it is not too early to get a head start on the stressing segment of my study schedule. After all, the test is only 11 hours away and I can't remember half of the stuff I have studied! This is the part of grad school where I freak out and convince myself I am going to fail and lose funding and get kicked out of school. Don't worry, it'll pass.

Final Exam Study Time

Well, it is 9:26 on Saturday night and I am sitting at the computer in my office, occasionally looking fearfully over at my Topology book on my desk before suddenly remembering one more thing I wanted to look up or check and turning right back to the computer. Obviously, this time "one more thing" was my blog. I got through one month's worth of topology notes earlier today, but there is still another month left. And then working problems. And then memorizing theorems. And then pre-final stressing. That really is the order I do them in. It is good to have a systematic way to study for exams. It keeps you from stressing out the whole time. You just have an appointed time for it.

I noticed the Blog of the Day a few weeks ago and thought it was incredibly funny. So I kept reading it. And it is still funny. So if you like baby-related humor, check it out.