So, Angelfire has this new blog builder thing. Actually, it's not that new, but I figure by this point they've worked out any major kinks. So, I'm playing around with it right now. To be honest, I'd rather have something that allowed all my pages to look identical (including, for example, my crafty section). On the other hand, permalinks on every entry are something I've been thinking about for awhile, and are also one step beyond the energy I'm willing to put into this thing. Same goes for comments, although I'm not so sure I don't want total control over what people can read here--don't forget, my gramma comes here. And so do sassy undergraduate friends.
So, this is what I've got so far. I'm leaning toward not having this be my new setup, but let me know what you think.
It was great, being home. The trip to Rome was a lot of fun, but the time that J and I spent with my family this past week was truly a VACATION. The hardest physical work I did was holding up my end of a Christmas tree. The hardest mental work involved playing video games with my sisters, and allowing them to see just how bad I am at anything that requires a controller. I played two rounds of a Mario-Kart-like game with them, before they asked me to hand the controller over to Jeremy again.
I pose no challenge to a 9-year old girl.
After spending so much time in a foreign place, it was also interesting to notice just how densely packed the geography of my personal history is. Every 5-minute trip to the grocery store or vet was accompanied by a running commentary for Jeremy, who's been to my house but hadn't spent quite so much time there before. "Down that street is where I went to elementary school, and this Dairy Queen is where dad would take me for an ice cream cookie sandwich on Thursdays when he picked me up. Yes, I loved them then, too. The parents of a kid I went to that school I just pointed out own that bakery, and another classmate's parents ran that hair salon. He was a strange kid, but nothing compared to the parents, mom, do you remember the time that Mrs.--oh, wait, that's where we usually got our Christmas tree, when we got one--too bad, it looks like they're closed down for the season. We'll have to turn around and head down the street my Aunt Jane used to live on, and where I learned how to swim, instead."
All those things, in a less than 5 minute drive down one particular street. When I mentioned this to Jeremy, he asked me how far all the important places I could think of were from where my mom's house. Here was my partial list:
Place my parents lived when I was born: 20 minutes' drive, 25 on the rush hour.
First house I remember: 30 minutes, going the other way.
Elementary school: 10. The after-school program I went to: 12.
The two houses we lived in while I was in elementary school: less than 10, both of them.
The house of every main family member, circa 1990 or so: less than 35 minutes (my dad's and one uncle are that far, everyone else is less than 20, and one aunt moved to Cape Cod in the earlyish 90's).
High school, and the house we lived in then: 15 minutes, 20 to the high school.
And on and on I could go. It's incredible--almost my whole life, contained in the 40 by 20 mile rectangle that contains the Connecticut River Valley.
Want to go back a generation?
Distance from the neighborhood my mom grew up in to her current house: 20, 25 minutes.
Distance to the neighborhood my dad grew up in: 20 minutes.
How about 2 generations?
Town my mom's father was born in: 15 minutes.
Town my mom's mother was born in: less than 20.
Towns my dad's parents were born in: less than 30.
I suppose that this should make going home claustrophobic--I know most people would just as soon live in a place where they will only be themselves, never the child or cousin of someone else, a place where ghosts of their family can never reach them.
Now that I've spent some time in a place without the slightest drop of family history except that which I've created myself, I've found that I'd much prefer to live in a town full of friendly ghosts than one that only contains a resounding silence.
I miss it already.
Going home tomorrow. Can't wait to see everyone! Posting will, obviously, be light. But here's an extension of something I posted on John's site, that was A: long enough to merit my "bringing it home", if you will, and B: I was so proud of my example that I wanted to show it off.
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So, I've seen a few people mention this poll including Ari.
(Side note: Since this poll has gotten popular, the site hosting it has only been working inconsistently this morning--in other words, I'm replaying stuff from memory and not quoting directly. Apologies.)
So you go over there, and if you actually get to the poll, you can say "Hah, I'll show this homophobic institution how it's done!", and you vote.
I think a lot of people who like me support some form of gay union saw this and said "Cool, this information is being sent to Congress, says the poll. That'll show 'em."
I looked at the three options and, before I even knew the results, said "uh-oh".
Why? This seems like a straightforward enough poll. While I'm sure there's a way to tamper with the voting, none of that is obvious just looking at the screen. What's my damn problem?
Problem #1: The AFA, the group sponsoring the poll, is not a pro-gay group. Again, I can't actually get all the way into the site to fully appreciate their execrable ideals, but using Google Cache, I was able to get this off of their front page: "A coalition of evangelical Christians has successfully fended off a campaign by homosexual activists in one North Carolina school district". The language isn't what I'd use, to say the least.
Considering this group is sponsoring the poll, I'm sure that this data is only going to Congress if it supports their claim. Now, they've gone to the trouble of making the poll, so they'd like to use this info, even if it involves "massaging the data".
Problem 2: The basic setup of the poll. Option A is a straightforward "No, I don't like this in any form". Option B is an equally straightforward "I du support this". Option C says "I support this, if linguistic gymnastics are employed."
When I was able to get to the results this morning, it was something like 47% opposed to gay unions in any form, 46% for gay marriage, and 7% for a "civil union" just like marriage but with a different name. Cool, less than half the voters oppose gay marriage, right?
Not so fast. The group has built in a mechanism to do this data massaging, and I'll say what they're going to say right now, exactly as they'll say it to Congress if they get the chance:
"93% of Americans do not support homosexual civil unions".
Go ahead and read it twice--if you're one of those kooks that watches CSPAN, listen for it and let me know if you do hear it.
So, your response: "Say what?" It's understandable. Only 47% of the people that voted oppose the right of gay and lesbian couples to unite the same way as straight couples, with all the accompaning advantages.
I'm going to explain by way of an entirely made up and hilarious example. This fake poll is sponsored by the Puppies are Delicious Club:
A: I support a law that would allow my hamburgers to be made of small dogs.
B: I don't support a law that would allow hamburgers to be made out of small dogs.
C: I would not support this law, but I think the word "puppies" should replace "small dogs".
PETA catches this and sends it out to animal-rights folks, who vote against, obviously. Most won't care if you're talking about Chihuahuas or baby dogs, so long as Rex isn't being served at McDonalds, so they pick "B". A and C are then both small numbers--let's be generous and say 2% apiece.
The next day, you see an ad in the paper by this club, saying "Only 2 % of the population thinks that puppies shouldn't be put in hamburgers! Try our delicious puppies!" Of course, that's not what the full results of the poll were, but the poll itself was set up in a way that allowed them to play that game, because of the wording. They're right: 2% of the people said "no puppies". Everyone else said "no small dogs", because it's the same thing, in their mind.
The AFA can(and will) play the same numbers game that the theoretical Tasty Puppy Club did. My guess is that most people who voted don't have a strong feeling about the name of equality, so long as it IS equality. I know I do. Marriage, union--either way, an ill man's longtime partner can walk into a hospital and say "I'd like to see my husband," and see them.
Even if there's a sudden upswing in the voting for the third, word change option, there can still be data manipulation.
Let's say one person votes against gay unions of any kind--just one. 100,000 people vote for the second option, 100,000 people vote for the third option.
The AFA still has the chance to walk up, confident as all getout, and say "Less than half of Americans support homsexual civil unions." or, "Less than half of Americans support gay marriage." They could even alternate between the two in their speech.
Sneaky, huh?
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Incidentally, I've been thinking a lot about the subject of data fudging lately, since I have some somewhat sloppy data I needed to present last week, and had a long conversation with one of the postdocs about how scientists portray data in the best possible light. The info isn't completely unsalvageable, it just isn't journal-quality (yet). And I think I ended up doing a pretty nice job with it, if I do say so. But I did play around with it, including changing colors so that certain points would "stick out" more than others.
Now that I've gotten started thinking about the vagueness of statistics, though, I've been seeing this kind of thing everywhere.
Which is why I looked at this poll, and, without any results in front of me, thought "Well, they managed to make that poll unwinnable for the side they disagree with, didn't they?"
Happy birthday to me!
Now, make me a cupcake.
With frosting.
The good kind.
Here's a picture I forgot existed--it's about 6 months old. I think it was taken on Erin's or my dad's camera, but I promptly forgot about it. Amazing what you find when you're clearing out pictures because your allotted hard drive space is dwindling:
That's me and J's family. We all just happen to be incredibly adorable in this picture.
Working title: "The Catholic God Must Be Crazy"
The front of the duomo in Florence. Go ahead and walk all the way around the dang thing, there's not an inch of it unadorned.
I'm kinda dissapointed that the colors didn't come out quite as brightly as they were. Imagine that greyish pink to be VERY pink,the greyish green to be VERY green, the blue to be INCREDIBLY blue.
You get the idea.
Imagine a building-sized birthday cake of the style preferred by 4-year-old girls, and imagine it being dropped onto a cathedral. What you see in your mind is pretty close.
I saw so many of these incredibly work-intensive types of decorations in Italy. Pompeiian mosaics, really more like a painting using tiny flat stones. This duomo you see, with precious stone inlaid into every surface that held still. And it's not all in the past, either. We saw guys fixing the cobblestone in Rome--millions and millions of squares about the size of my palm, on every drivable and walkable surface, and it's someone's job to make sure they're all lined up. To be honest, this is the essence of every inch of Rome. I wondered over and over again how they managed to keep everything I saw running. You trip over precious ancient ruins on the way to work. You work in a building designed by Michelangelo. Your grandma goes to a church that has been at the same site since the 4th century.
I go back and forth about this. On one hand, how wonderful to live in a place with something ancient and well-preserved around every turn.
On the other hand, there's something to be said about living in a place where buildings are just buildings, places to live or work, and not Locations Full Of Meaning.
It must be hard to live in a metaphor.
This morning I wore my Ugli Earflap Hat (as seen in the Crafty section of the website) and winter coat, crunched my way over the snow to my bus stop, felt my eyes water and drip from the wind coming across the lake, and winced and blinked as the tears froze on my eyelashes.
Which means that all of my personal benchmarks for Winter have been achieved.
Finally, it feels like the Christmas and birthday season.
Another sign of winter? Getting The Yearly Letter From The Landlord.
Madison's a wierd city. They made a rule that a landlord can't sign a lease for the next year until December 15th, which pretty much guarantees that on the 16th, there are packs of students wandering the streets looking for a good apartment to move into at the end of the summer. It's all very silly, trying to think about where you'll be living in 9 month's time.
The Yearly Letter From The Landlord says "If you want to live here next year, tell me right this second, if not, I'll be waking you at 7 every morning for the next 4 months so undergrads can look in your underwear drawer."
We're considering moving, actually. We've been in this place for two years, and I do still like it, save two things:
1: No pets.
2: It's not on Willy Street.
I mean, I know it's pretty much impossible to escape from the students around here, but it'd be nice to actually live in a neighborhood where a variety of people live: students, working folks, families. Our current place it toward the edge of, but still solidly surrounded by, Student Country.
It would also be nice to have a fuzzy animal to play with that isn't a husband.
It would also be nice to leave our windows open during the summer and not hear the inevitable "Whooo!" of a drunken party every night.
We'll probably start looking after the holidays, but if you happen to be the landlord of a cute 3-family on Jenifer St. and wouldn't mind having a pleasant nerdy couple and maybe a cat in that 2nd floor 1-bedroom that'll be opening up in August, lemme know. We're quiet, low-maintenance(I can and do fix lots of little things) and we pay the rent on time.
A few more pictures--plus, that's one on the new picture above. Me walking around in the Palatine Hill in Rome. Those trees are... not olive, but a tree that bears some kind of fruit that looks very similar to olives. You'll be glad to hear I didn't eat one to check.
These are all in Pompeii, by the way.
One of the smaller side streets. It's just as quiet and damp as it looks.
Some artwork that no one saw for over 1900 years. I didn't recognize this pic at first, since J was the one with the digital camera, and we frequently wandered away from each other. The giveaway lies in that small red book sitting on the railing--it's the Pompeii guidebook.
One of the Pompeii dogs. She happens to look just like my mom's dog, which is why she got her picture taken.
You can tell how much she cares. We tried speaking in her language:
"Il woofa," I said.
"una barki," tried J.
No dice.
Oh, somehow mixed in with all the traveling, I just realized that my birthday is in a week, so for those folks who want to buy me something, here's a short list:
*I have an Amazon.com wish list--if you search for my name, you'll find it. That's good for books and music type things.
*Gift certificate for REI, and/or climbing gear--but don't buy me shoes, I need to try them on first, plus they're pricey, which is why a gift certificate would be handy. The only thing I have right now is a chalk bag, so anything climbing-related beyond that--clothes, harness, extra chalk ball, books--would be appreciated. If you ask someone at a store that has these kinds of things, they'll be helpful.
*Gift certificate to Elann.com, which has tons of yarny goodness.
*Crossword books will always amuse me.
*So will knitting books, in particular, ones that don't have the words "simple" or "weekend" in them, or ones that do include the word "Design".
*Framed print--the kind of thing that will help make apartment walls less bare.
*Really, I'm easily amused. Just go to a store and buy something that looks nice, smells good, or is funny.
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Busybusybusy. Here are a few pictures though.
The somewhat dissapointing interior of the Coliseum--I was kind of expecting to see things in better shape. The central area, where all the Christian-eating action happened, was the roof of a subterranean level that collapsed at some point, leaving some columns way down in there somewhere. Stayed here for all of 5 minutes. The ticket we bought was also good for the ruins at the nearby Palatine Hill, which I preferred. At least the Palatine Hill was green, and quiet.
Come to Rome, get your picture taken with a gladiator! It's a good deal in the off season, apparently--I heard this guy ask for 5 euros, and recently read this story, where people were charging up to 20 euros per pic.
I took a picture of him for free, by the way, since I wasn't standing next to him. I don't want some guy who puts food on his table by dressing up with a plastic sword putting his arm around ME.
I liked most of the ruins, however. These are the Trajan Markets, where ancient Romans got their vegetables and olive oil. Something I never expected was the animal presence at these sites. The Roman Ruins were run by the cats, while Pompeii was full of napping dogs. It's hard to see, but I've pointed out a cat walking along a railing here. They were quite friendly, although their response to Jeremy's meowing was minimal. American cats love it when he meows.
The view from the top of the Duomo in Florence, just about the tallest building in town. To get here, you climb roughly 400 gadzillion stone steps, which get steeper and narrower as you climb. About halfway up you have to walk around the interior edge of the dome, way up in the air, on a 3-foot wide stone thing.
I'm not a fan of heights, didn't know this was coming, and almost screamed when I saw what I had to do.
When I got to the real top, I was just so glad to be alive that the beams coming from between the clouds seemed perfectly appropriate.
Another shot Erin just sent me of the three of us on the top of the dome. Note that every roof in the background is terracotta tile--I assume there's a law, or something: "All Tuscans must live an adorable and picturesque life."
Can you see the fear in my eyes? 2 feet from the edge? Ya.
My favorite part of the trip was going to Naples and Pompeii. This was towards the end of the trip, when I'd seen about all the ruins there were to see, and wasn't expecting to see anything in Pompeii that I hadn't already seen. More columns? An arch or two? Some cats? Been there, done that.
Thing is, Pompeii is in much better shape than anything else we saw. Things are unbelievably well preserved--many of the walls still have frescoes on them, and, while all the ceilings had caved in with the weight of the ash from the eruption, the walls were still pretty high.
Looking at this particular view, I could absolutely picture being a regular person in this town, selling felt or baking bread--we saw both the ovens and the dyepots--and you look down the street one day, and you see that big brown hill over that way explode.
What do you do? Who do you warn? What do you take?
For one thing, you let the bread burn. Archaeologists found loaves still in the oven.
You don't bother trying to steal that bronze statue in the nearby temple--those were still there, too.
It was the details like this that really moved me. The citizens of Pompeii had no idea what that big brown hill really was. You look at the exposed walls, and they're all pumice and igneous rock glommed together with mortar, and you think: the roof over their heads was held up because of the volcano, and they had no idea. There was a major earthquake in the area a few years before the eruption, and so they built a few more temples to appease the gods they must have angered in some way. And they had no idea.
In a flash, everything they'd worked for was in danger, and they needed to leave everything behind in less than an hour.
What would you do?
A nearly 2000 year old town dug up from the ancient ashes covering it, a quarter of a world away from where I live managed to feel far too close to home.
And I can't stop thinking: What would you do?
Back.
Stories and pictures soon.
*yawn* zzzzzzzzzzz