Another Gay Day

Thanks to Dana at Mombian for being the central location for Blogging for LGBT Families Day.


Another week, another Friday: woke up, read in bed for a few minutes, snuggled with Curious Girl, went down for breakfast and wowed her with the new cinnamon sugar shaker I'd put together after my last pilgrimage to King Arthur Flour.  I wrote her a little love note and tucked it inside her homework folder (ordinarily, I put it in her lunchbox, but on Fridays, she gets school lunch). I helped her practice cello (inspired by an acquaintance from a local music program, she's been aiming to keep a cello practice streak going, and is currently at day 107), and then we walked to school.  I went to work, although I left a bit early to come home and shovel mulch around in the garden after Politica called to say that our 3 cubic feet of mulch had arrived.  Then off to pick up CG, and then to gymnastics, where Politica met us and where she and I cheered for each of the girls as they performed their routines on bar, floor, and beam.  Home for dinner, and then out to a marshmallow roast at the neighbors'.  The kids ran around in the cool evening, while the adults talked around the fire.  We talked about aging and failing parents, about school, about kids, about houses, about summer.  We talked about spelling. We walked home.

Such is the life of the homosexual elite. When the Westboro Baptist Church came to town last summer, they said we were headed to hell and destroying society.  Me, I'm more concerned with trying to help my kid figure out how to cope with school projects than I am trying to undermine our neighbors' straight marriages.   In fact, I rather enjoy most of my friends' marriages--straight or gay, legal or not--as I find that most of my friends-with-spouses/partners tend to choose people who are themselves interesting and wonderful. We can all support each other--no one's marriage is a threat to anyone else's.

This is pretty much the kind of post I wrote last year for this occasion: a post chronicling the ordinariness of a day in the Granola household.  We work, we read, we play music, we eat, we garden, we hang with friends.

Tenured Radical writes today that marriage isn't her top political priority, but that the ways in which the Obama administration has worked in stepwise and significant ways to reduce institutionalized homophobia can ultimately work to reduce the power of marriage or other gay rights referenda to serve as get-out-the-vote drives for the far right.  She hopes for a day when marriage will be a purely private matter, not the public moral one it is right now.  Marriage didn't use to be my top political priority--and truth be told, it's probably not my top priority right now either.  But goodness, am I tired of the political initiatives that let voters in various places step up and vote on whether or not to take rights away from me, or to put in place insulting laws or policies that further distance even the possibility of change.  I'm tired of the challenge of remaining hopeful in the face of bigotry, even as I do.  I'm tired of the hypocrisy of a world in which cheating politicians pontificate about the sanctity of marriage.

But here and now, I'm tired from a day of good work and hard parenting.  I'm tired from a week of trying to figure out what sorts of school problems are normal and age appropriate and what sorts of school problems might be more concerning. I'm tired from a week of special events that keep my child up late and run all of us happily ragged.  I'm tired from a week of worrying a bit about aging parents (who seem to be fine now, but still...it's hard to be old).  I'm so tired, I'm not really up to the task of ruining society.  I have enough to do just keeping my little corner of the world working OK.

The Marrying Kind

This post is one of hundreds written for Write to Marry Day, a blog carnival to support same-sex marriage and rally opposition to California's Proposition 8, organized by Mike Rogers of PageOneQ and Dana Rudolph of Mombian. I've written several posts on the subject.

The politics of marriage in this country have shifted enormously in the past decade. When I was in graduate school, I remember having debates about whether or not it was adviseable for lesbians to support marriage rights (why join an institution that so embodies patriarchy?). The debate was purely hypothetical, for none of us imagined that we'd see the day when American lesbians could get legally married. But marriage rights lawsuits proceeded, Vermont became the first state in the union to offer civil unions to gay and lesbian couples, and legal changes followed on the heels of social changes. It's a whole new world. If Proposition 8 is defeated next week, gay and lesbian citizens will retain the rights they--and every Californian--enjoy under the California state constitution. As the California court put it in their ruling last June:

[T]he differential treatment at issue impinges upon a same-sex couple’s fundamental interest in having their family relationship accorded the same respect and dignity enjoyed by an opposite-sex couple.

[T]he exclusion of same-sex couples from the designation of marriage clearly is not necessary in order to afford full protection to all of the rights and benefits that currently are enjoyed by married opposite-sex couples.

[T]he right to marry is not properly viewed simply as a benefit or privilege that a government may establish or abolish as it sees fit, but rather that the right constitutes a basic civil or human right of all people.

Politica and I got married in 1995. It wasn't a legal wedding--no government entity took notice of our relationship until our civil union in Vermont in 2000. One of the reasons--in fact, the main reason--we moved last summer was to move to a state that would recognize our relationship. We grew tired of the politics in Old State, where initiatives to amend the constitution to ensure that gay and lesbian couples couldn't marry were continually being pushed by conservative forces. And we grew tired, so very tired, of listening to news reports featuring "experts" who spouted nonsense about the effects of our family on American social culture. Let's get real: we love each other, we love our kid. I like to think we play a supportive role in our friendship community, and that we are generally a force for good in the world. But the fact of our relationship doesn't damage anyone else's. And if I do say so myself, our happy little home with our adorable kid probably manages to bring a smile to those who visit here.

I've been linking back to Lesbian Dad for the past week becuase her posts about California have been stunning. Yesterday, she wrote about a video taken of a pro-Prop 8 protest. The Prop 8 protesters attacked (verbally and physically) a woman who was observing their protest. We shouldn't have to walk through the world fearful about how hate will surface. We shouldn't have to turn on the news to hear about how some citizens are seeking to take away from us rights that exist in the constitution. The referendum process does a terrible job of protecting minority rights. That's the job of the constitution. Proposition 8 is rallying hateful rhetoric--and if you think that's an overstatement of what you might consider a rational disagreement about the extent of marriage laws, click through to that Lesbian Dad post and watch the video. Proposition 8 is rallying hate in order to take away rights from a minority group. That is just not fair.

It scares me to think about what will be the political fall out if Proposition 8 passes. It takes my words away.

Another reason to love Macs

From Apple's news page today:

No on Prop 8

Apple is publicly opposing Proposition 8 and making a donation of $100,000 to the No on 8 campaign. Apple was among the first California companies to offer equal rights and benefits to our employees’ same-sex partners, and we strongly believe that a person’s fundamental rights — including the right to marry — should not be affected by their sexual orientation. Apple views this as a civil rights issue, rather than just a political issue, and is therefore speaking out publicly against Proposition 8.

I learned about this news via Dr. B , who also writes about an example of the politicking in favor of Prop 8: efforts by pro-8 supporters to shake down businesses who have contributed to Equality California.

Marriage is a civil rights issue. Voting no on 8 (or voting against any effort to roll back or prevent same-sex couples from legally marrying) protects individuals' rights to marry the partner of their choice. Voting no on 8 protects our families (which exist whether or not the law recognizes them).

See Lesbian Dad for a series of awesome posts about what it's like to be a politically active California lesbian family. (Donations to No on 8 through Lesbian Dad's fundraising efforts have topped $10K! making a real contribution to getting No on 8 ads on the airwaves.) Think about this from the point of view of gay and lesbian families with kids old enough to follow the news, or from the point of view of straight parents with older gay kids. As Lesbian Dad put it, we "cannot protect our children from legally sanctioned homophobia." We cannot protect our children from the hateful lies that yes on 8 ads are spreading about our families, and our families effect on our communities.

But if we beat back proposition 8, it will be a profound moment for the LGBTQ civil rights movement. There will be three states in which same-sex marriage is possible, and three states in which courts have ruled that civil unions are not equal to marriage. There will be a major victory in preventing efforts to limit our equal rights.

You can contribute to Equality California to protect marriage equality (and see their latest ad, made possible with donations) or contribute to No on 8.

I'm a one-issue blogger this week, it seems. But it's hard to think about writing about much else when I think about California voters choosing whether to strip families like mine of legal protection. It's hard to think about writing about much else when I consider how it just feels safer to raise my own child in a world where marriage equality is spreading.

Write to Marry

If you liked that last post, please join in the efforts to fight Proposition 8 (and other efforts to take away the rights that same sex couples have to marry). If we lose the marriage rights in California, it will be a major setback in the LGBTQ civil rights movement. Please join me in blogging about marriage on October 29. It'll be Write to Marry Day. Thanks to Mombian for organizing it--but thanks in advance to those of you who will contribute for it.

Why Vote No on Proposition 8

Updated to add: When I wrote this earlier today, I didn't know about 8 Against 8, an effort by 8 very cool bloggers to raise money ($8000) and awareness about Proposition 8. Hat tip to Robin for her post, and good going to Hahn at Home, Grace the Spot, Sugarbutch Chronicles, Pam’s House Blend, The Lesbian Lifestyle,Dorothy Surrenders, A Girl Called Automatic Win, and Lesbiatopia for getting this project going. 8 Against 8 donations support Equality California ; Lesbian Dad's donation site supports No on 8. Both are fine organizations doing very good work with the funds they are getting, which are being used to fund advertisements.

Proposition 8 is a California initiative that would eliminate the rights of California's same-sex couples to marry. As the most excellent No on 8 site explains, Proposition 8 is unnecessary,unfair, and just plain wrong. Lesbians and gays want to get married for the same sorts of reasons that straight people want to get married: we want to make a commitment to our partners; we want to assert our family status; we want our families to be protected in the event of tragedy. (Politica would also say that we want the courts to help us navigate divorce, but that's a pretty socially untenable argument, so we don't make that it public. But it is true, that a major benefit of marriage is access to divorce courts if you need them. Politica's scholarship is full of stories of gays and lesbians behaving badly in cases where divorcing straight people would have had much better access to courts that recognized our family structures. It's not happy reading. And then there are cases like Sharon Kowalski's and Lisa Pond's, where families or hospitals refuse to recognize existing family relationships in a time of medical crisis. Marriage matters.)


Here's a touching no-on-8 ad with lots of lovely photos of lgb families. The photos tell it all: lgb families just aren't that different from single parent families or straight families or blended families (and in fact, lgb families are all those things, sometimes, too). We love, we fight, we cook, we clean, we travel, we work, we snooze. We have big families, small families, and families in between. We eat meat, we're vegetarians, we participate in religious communities, or not. We live in the country and in the city. In the United States, we enjoy far more legal protections than at any other point in our history, but Proposition 8 could be a major setback to the marriage movement. If you're in California, today is the last day to register to vote. I've referred readers to Lesbian Dad's most excellent posts on Prop 8 before: her readers have done a great job pitching in, and she thanked them. I know at least one person got there via here, and I thank you, too. If you want to join the efforts to fight Proposition 8, you can donate via Lesbian Dad's site. If you're in California, you can volunteer in other ways, too.

One other thing lesbian families do: get ready for Halloween and write to distant friends--this goes to the son of Historian Friend (whose pseudonym doesn't feel quite right, but Messy Friend will do for now, as CG told him in a recent note, "I like when we play and get messy."):

Dear Messy Friend,
I hope you hav a fun halaw
en. I wnt to
no wat you
are be for hlowe
ne. I love
you Curious Girl
I will be tigr for hlowen

I hope all of you reading this have a fun halawen too: may it be a season of fun, but also a season of political power. This is an important era for gay civil rights. Use the power you have to protect what we have now, and increase it for the sake of all our children.

Pizza (with a side of house)

Woman of Many Talents was here last week, and we saw her briefly. She was on a business trip, attending lots of meetings involving people from various community, state, local, and federal agencies or organizations. You'll be shocked, I know, at her reports that so many agencies trying to cooperate to solve some complex problems were having a hard time. The agency she works for is a pretty high-up-the-bureacracy federal office, and she and her colleagues realized that it wouldn't do for them to be caught criticizing the ineptitude of some other federal agencies. So rather than discussing the poor decisions they witnessed, they would talk about pizza. It's a great code word for something you want to criticize without other people knowing what you mean.

We all went to the Post Office yesterday to get Curious Girl and my passports renewed (both parents need to sign a child's passport application form). The clerk reviewed our paperwork, and said, "I'll need her birth certificate." I pulled it from my wallet, noting that it was actually a delayed record of birth (which is the only thing our state issues for children born outside the US). This record has Politica's name in the father line and mine in the mother line. Politica's real name is pretty darn gendered. The clerk just looked at the document for the longest time, as though she needed to memorize every single piece of information on it. The document has all the same info as appears on a birth certificate, but it's a different size and color, and of course, some of CG's information may appear a little exotic, what with the female name on the father line and the far away in a city many have never heard of birthplace. The clerk never asked us anything, but she just stood here, turning the document over, feeling the raised stamp, reading and re-reading.

I turned to Politica and mouthed, "Pizza."

Politica thinks that she may never have seen evidence of a lesbian family before, and she just needed time to process the information before she could fulfill her legally-appointed duties with the passport application. She pointed to Politica's name on the certificate, and said, "Would this be you?" (even though she was holding Politica's driver's license at the time; easy to see that the names matched). She asked me for my license, and I said, "Here's my passport." It was already out on the counter. "I prefer the driver's license," she replied. I'm fixating on this as the most irritating part of the encounter. Parents need to prove their identity on the child's passport application, but the form lists several appropriate IDs, passports being one. But I passed her my license, since it never pays to upset a bureaucrat. Still, pizza.

Norway legalized same-sex marriage earlier this month. Eventually, the United States will, too. And eventually, legal institutions will be adept enough at recognizing the range of families that exist without leading to awkward moments that leave me muttering about pizza. We got CG's passport application mailed in, even with the clerk's odd reaction. She'll get her new passport, and we'll have plenty of happy travels, during which thoughts of this particular pizza probably won't cross our minds. But still: pizza, today.

****************

And the side of house: we reached an agreement with the seller yesterday on the inspection issues (she'll fix the small things like the slow drain and broken garbage disposal and give us cash back at closing for everything else we asked for). So we're just waiting on the appraisal now. So far, so good.

Update: so far, even better! The appraisal came through at higher than our sale price. Onward to the closing!

And my father continues to improve--thanks so much for all the good wishes, everyone.

Little Updates

• Dad's surgery was postponed today. Three emergencies kept his surgeons busy, and now it's probably going to be tomorrow morning (Saturday). I really appreciate all the kind words from readers and friends: thanks.

• It's hard to be a far-away working daughter at a time like this. It's not easy for me to figure out what pressure I'm putting on myself, what stress is working out in weird ways in the family. I think I'll go back to my parents when my dad's out of the hospital, but I'm feeling a little guilty about not going sooner, for the surgery itself (which might be Monday, but then, my sister has a friend whose bypass got bumped off the schedule 4 times). My sister is right there with them, and I think it makes sense for me to go when I can help my mom when dad is home. But I feel a little guilty about waiting. And a little guilty about thinking about my own work and how to get it done in this period. This is an interesting variation on the parenting/work stuff I am much more familiar with balancing. Not sure I have much to say about it yet, but I'm pondering it.
  
• For more wedding happy, head over to Lesbian Dad and read another account of the marriage scene in California that will just make you smile. And after a couple of days of worrying about my dad, I'm happy to relax with a post that makes me smile.
  

Two Thousand Words, and then some

Two photostreams that have moved me to tears, for very different reasons:

• Bilerico's California marriage slideshow. I'm just speechless, and while I"m not much of a cry-er, I'm getting a little teary again just writing this sentence and thinking about the photos. See for yourselves. (and for a wtf? moment, check out a Bilerico correspondent's report about what happened after a guitar playing member of the crowd collapsed. Those exchanges got left out of the mainstream media report. I hope the man is OK.)
  
• The University of Iowa's News Service flickr photostream. I was impressed by the photos of volunteers working on the Iowa campus to move library books. I wonder how many academic projects are under water right now. I should note that at least one person who reads here is in Iowa. Boomerific got flooded out of her house in Cedar Rapids--she, Attic Man, and the Snapper are all well, and they will get by. She's not been posting much (what with the flood and all), but her last three posts are powerful.
  

30 minutes of legal gay marriages in CA, and the sky hasn't fallen yet

For about half an hour now, gay couples have been marrying in California. Tenured Radical's post on the subject notes that the first gay couple married in San Fransisco will be Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon. After 50 years together, they'll be honest women. I'm impatiently clicking on west coast newspaper sites looking for photographs. Several organizations are going to be photographing weddings--look for lots of good shots to be appearing at Bilerico as the week unfolds. Bil's post at Bilerico points to streaming video from San Francisco.

Politica is reading aloud from a newspaper article quoting the website of the W.e.s.t.boro B.a.p.t.i.s.t Church. The church members are planning to travel to California to protest, using bullhorns, to shout anti-gay slurs during wedding ceremonies.

I'm sitting here feeling giddy with anticipation of the news coverage of the weddings, though. For all that Politica and I viewed our original Quaker wedding as the one with the significance, and our Vermont civil union as a political gesture, I am so moved at the thought of government recognition of relationships like mine. So moved I can't even figure out a good way to wrap up this post, which I must end now to watch the video Politica just brought up on her computer.

The Last Books for Wednesdays

Just to prove I can write about things other than houses.. here's the last of the lists of books I've read on Wednesdays this year in Curious Girl's class. (If you click on the "books fall open" tag, you can see the series of posts about books).

• Catalina Magdalena Hoopensteiner Wallandiner Hogan Bogan Logan Was Her Name, by Tedd Arnold. You can read this very silly book, or you can sing it (if you don’t remember the song from summer camp, music and some alternate lyrics appear at the back).
• Fancy Nancy Bonjour Butterfly by Jane O'Connor. This is the 3rd (4th?) Fancy Nancy book, and this series is holding up well. Opulent (as Nancy would say!) illustrations lavish detail on each page, and the story of Nancy learning to overcome disappointment is a nice mix of happies and sads (as the girls decided after we read it).
• The Seventeen Girls and the Two Teachers, by the lovely literate preschool ladies. A post about this will be forthcoming. I had a ball working on this group-authored/illustrated project.
  
• The Day The Babies Crawled Away, by Peggy Rathmann. A lovely story about a big kid who saves the day when the babies get into trouble when the parents aren’t looking. The art is all done in silhouette, a very different style from her excellent other works (10 Minutes Till Bedtime or Goodnight Gorilla, for example). It is an awesome read-aloud.
  
• Felicia's Favorite Story, by Leslea Newman. A beautifully illustrated story of a family with two moms and one daughter (born and adopted in Guatemala). When I was reading this one, and we got to the third page, where the picture of the second mom in the family appears, one girl said, "who's that?" and another said, "That girl has two moms just like Curious Girl!" Meanwhile, Curious Girl was at the back of the assembled group saying, "See, you can have two moms! People tell me you can't but it's in the book," which just kind of broke my heart while making me feel really proud, too, that she was asserting herself. We also had a small digression into why CG has two moms (short answer: because that's what our family has. Politica and I loved each other so much we wanted to be a family, so we got married, and then we wanted a child and Curious Girl came. That explanation works quite nicely for the preschool set.) (There's a whole other conversation here, about the fact that CG really has three moms and a dad, but I don't bring up the adoption angle with children who are curious about why our family has two mothers; I'm very conscious about keeping CG's first mother in a respectful place in my stories about our family, but I'm also conscious of the need to answer the question that kids are asking.)
  

Looking for some summer reading fun? Deesha's rocking post on princesses turned me onto a set of editions of fairytales that are on our summer list. And you must run, not walk, to your local library to check out Skippyjon Jones. It is one of the best read-aloud books ever! In fact, it won the EB White Read Aloud Award in 2004. I'd never heard of that award before but I'll be checking out some of its other winners and nominees.

We Could Be Getting Married in the Morning

A month from now, that is, in California. A few key excerpts from the majority opinion:

"The California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples."

Allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry "will not deprive opposite-sex couples of any rights and will not alter the legal framework of the institution of marriage."

Bilerico has some good posts on the subject (including one warning about the socio-political-legal backlash that will likely follow. So once you're done doing the happy dance, get your activist shoes out and get ready to politic, ok?).

It's not April, right?

If it were April 1, I'd be wondering whether this is an April Fool's story. But I checked: it's November, and according to Inside Higher Education, a Florida community college is now providing pet insurance, after declining to add benefits for domestic partners for faculty and staff. Really, you couldn't make this stuff up.

Because We Really Are That Powerful

and because I love a Broadway-ish tune

151 to 45

See Mass Equality's site for the latest news, but let's all celebrate the Massachusetts legislature for voting down the proposed referendum on same-sex marriage. Marriage equality lives on in Massachusetts--and that's been an inspiration for growing rights in other parts of the country. Neighboring states give some recognition to same-sex married Massachusetts couples, and a growing number of states have moved to civil unions. May all our families prosper!

The Summer of Blessed Events with My Favorite Micromanager

• Is it cheap to use lists to get back in the game after a blogging silence?
• Maybe so, but what better way to offer teasers for half-written posts that I'd like to think you'd be interested in.
• Before this list gets too long, let me urge anyone with Massachusetts connections to make contact with their state legislators to protect marriage equality in that state. If you live in Massachusetts, urge your legislator to vote against the proposed referendum on marriage; if you know people in Massachusetts, urge them to call. It's not a good idea to put civil liberties up for popular vote. Mass Equality has an easy-to-use site to see whom to contact. Families like ours--children like Curious Girl--deserve the protection of family law. Please call.
  
• I just got back from an academic conference of department chairs. Members of my subfield were pretty regularly characterized in anecdotes as being less scholarly, less flexible, and less understanding that members of subfields more clearly central to the history of the discipline. I'm not sure this is a good way to create a path for the future of our discipline. I wrote a lot about that on the evaluation form.
• But now I better understand what one of my predecessor-chairs told me once (a predecessor from another subfield that is similarly not-so-central to the history of our discipline, at least as how that history is chronicled by those who fancy themselves central to it): a subdisciplinary listserv was awash in congratulations after news of my predecessor's chairship was announced, with other members saying what a wonderful advance it was for the subfield. At the time, I thought "well, aren't things changing? Here in our department we are pretty well integrated." But in the field at large, apparnetly not.
• This is, perhaps, an example of the inflexibility some of the other conferees were noting.
• Curious Girl is, however, nothing if not flexible, in a "let's do that again and again and again" kind of way. She has invented a number of great new car games
1. H@nn@h Matanna. Inspired by the girl-idol of that name (although some googling tonight suggests that CG is confusing HM with H!llary Duff), this game starts off "Who wants to be Hannah?....OK, I"ll be Hannah, you be Matanna." It requires a microscope, er, microphone, for Hannah, which can be easily made from a magazine or other travel literature picked up at a rest stop. Hannah starts, and the call-and-response singing begins. Some times it's real pop singing (Hey everyone, get up and dance...), sometimes it's narrative (We're in the car and I see a cow...) and sometimes it gets all meta (Why are you singing a short song?). Continue until Hannah says the show is over.
   
2. Kid. Who wants to be CG's favorite teacher? Who wants to be her elder daughter? Who wants to be her dog? Let the roleplays begin! This game can take a family of three for miles and miles.
   
3. Teacher. A variant on Kid, and a variant on games of school everywhere, this one has actual characters from CG's class. Guess who gets to be CG's favorite teacher every time?
   


• Curious Girl has been in a pool three times in the past two days, and in none of those pool times did she need to use the bathroom and in none of those times did she cause the pool to be closed for chemical treatment. This is the Blessed Event of the summer, an event I was never sure would come.
  
• CG has been sleeping with the aquarium that used to hang in her crib (something like this) as part of reconnecting with her babyhood since turning five. Last night, she said it was her computer and that she would use it to distract her while I gave her eardrops. "I have to order a book," she said, and typed Stellaluna into the computer. Then she told me I could be the bookstore, and I had to wrap the book with paper, dab it with glue, and wrap it up and send it to her (while she used her computer to transmit more info to me like her name and address). When the book arrived, she said, "Honey! I got you a book," and she read me Stellaluna. "The end," she finally prounounced. "Now you read it for real." And I did. After my "the end," she said, "I want to talk to Stellaluna," and had an adorable conversation about how she read Stellaluna at her new school, and whehter Stellaluna wanted lots of fruit to eat.
• Tonight she watched Star Wars on her computer. She created characters using the various buttons on the aquarium and asked for my help in naming them all. "Who's going to be the green guy? with the ears?" Really, she could be a very happy girl doing nothing but pretending all day long. Why is there nothing about pretending in discussions of kindergarten readiness?
• CG is very in charge of her pretending. Today, she walked me through a long script in which I was the mom, she was a dog, and my imaginary kid wanted a dog at the pet shop. So I put the kitty litter back, and got the white dog. I'll let you all guess what I really bought at the pet shop. I'll also let you all note who has clearly been paying attention to the fact that one of the ways I help CG work through problems is by setting up narrative play space. I guess she figures you can use the same technique on her mama.
• Kindergarten readiness has been well-discussed around the blogosphere lately. I wish it settled my own choices about CG.
• I love the comments on my last post: thanks for sharing our enthusiasm for Panda World. Everytime we got stuck in a traffic jam or slowdown, CG would say, "Oh no! We're stuck in Panda World!" I am very grateful for readers who put up with my erratic rhythms.
  

40

Forty things I love about Politica, in no particular order:

1. She doesn't give up.
2. She speaks Norwegian.
3. She loves me.
4. She supplies me with Broadway music even though she's not a big fan of the genre.
5. She reads me mythology while I'm falling asleep.
6. And then she'll tell me what I missed the next day.
7. She is teh fun mommy to Curious Girl.
8. She didn't complain when I dragged her on a veeerry long hike in Norway, not even when she lost a few toenails in subsequent weeks (although she was very happy when I later got her proper hiking boots).
9. She learned how to garden even though she thought she couldn't.
10. She happily comes with me to quirky museums (the sardine museum in Norway, the ironworking museum in Budapest, many a barbed wire exhibit in Texas) that she'd never glance at on her own.
11. She believes in me.
12. She taught me that boundaries are beautiful.
13. She taught me that travelling more slowly is fun.
14. She plays the guitar.
15. She sings.
16. She is silly, sometimes.
17. She is smart.
18. She is strategic.
19. She has beautiful, beautiful blue eyes.
20. She is funny.
21. When she has a good meal, she says, "food is good."
22. She gets involved.
23. She knows her limits.
24. She plants zucchini every year, even though every year, something eats it. (Marge Piercy would not have written this if she lived with us.) Such optimism!
    
25. She is amazing at playing with kids.
26. She is political.
27. She has a generous, loving heart.
28. She is reflective.
29. She takes the high road.
30. She is strong inside.
31. She is adaptable, in the long run.
32. She is a great teacher.
33. She is musical.
34. She is a nerd (we met discussing our mutual interest in a certain Congressional testimonry and how to access the government docs in the M Go Blue library). I love feminist nerds.
    
35. She makes great pestos.
36. She is beautiful.
37. She laughs at me just the right amount.
38. She smiles at me.
39. She is ethical.
40. She is fun, and she learns new things, and she loves art and photography, and walking through art fairs, and she is a wonderful driver and the best person I can think of to take a long car trip with, and there is always something new to do together to learn just a little more about her....
    

Happy birthday, sweetheart. I love you.

Random Bullets of Emotion

• sad
• mad
  (via lesbianfamily.org)


• amused (via Collin)
  

Sunday Randomness

• Via Femiknit Mafia, a very smart and funny op-ed piece from today's Boston Globe about the gay agenda. Read it on her post and be prepared to laugh outloud while you discover just how it is that me and my people are taking over the country.
• I love language and language development. Curious Girl has started using duper as an intensifier because I sometimes use the phrase super duper. Today she told me that swimming was "very duper fun" and in the midst of that long crying jag she was wailing about her "duper favorite blankie" (which has since been found by Politica. Phew.) I think her language development is duper cool.
• Ianqui's relief about having somewhere to go for Thanksgiving makes me wonder what, besides turkey, people are planning to make for Thanksgiving. Our evolving tradition is to make mushroom-tofu stuffed phyllo triangles, a recipe I'm happy to share. Anyone up for a non-traditional holiday recipe swap? I started menu planning this weekend and am in search of a few side dishes. And sure, I could look in more cookbooks, but what I really love about recipes are the stories that go with them.
  
• Laura's post today on the centrality of teachers modeling learning got me browsing over at Alex Reid's blog, and I quite liked his post about lecturing, which reminded me a bit of the comments at Deb's recent post about audiocommenting. I have a lot of posts brewing about teaching, writing, and department chairing, so I'll push myself a bit in that direction with this little bullet point on the importance of considering what do students do when they are learning? It's easy to think about the content to be covered in any given course, but it's probably more important to think about what will students be doing in class. Practially, materially. So it's not enough to say "we'll be thinking critically about X." What are the activities, the steps, the moments of engagement that will produce, say, critical thinking, or flexibility, or whatever the more general goal is?
• The number of labels I just attached to this post seems ridiculously large. Oh well.