Yep, I'm still kicking.

I was impressed - horrified? - to see that I hadn't moderated comments on this thing since February 16. I appreciate those who've written to check in.

These days, I'm making updates on Facebook and my own website more often than I am here. If you'd like an address for those, drop me an email address in the comments section. (I'll put all of the comments on moderation and delete/refrain from publishing those with people's email addresses.)

One thing I've discovered in recent months is that I'm really bad at simultaneously managing a family, creating artwork, updating blogs, and maintaining relationships. It's as though it's all piled on the edges of a giant plate resting on the end of a pole, and when I dig into one thing, the rest gets unbalanced and teeters.

Aside from the eternal death march of cranking out artwork in time to meet various deadlines, I volunteer at my son's kindergarten, thus witnessing the steady evisceration of California's schools. Last week the school librarian confided that she has been pink slipped, and there's some chatter about laying off the custodian. Evidently these are non-essential functions, at least when the state is deeply in debt.

The children at school are alternately wonderful and horrible, and I'm ill-equipped to offer any genuinely useful guidance. I often wonder how the other volunteers deal with them. Probably more effectively than I do. My model of dealing with them is based on the way I used to deal with employees, by standing in the middle of a room in front of them and thinking out loud about what I wanted. People would then scramble to do what I wanted, perhaps in part because I was loud and thoroughly unpleasant when annoyed. At any rate, that technique doesn't work so well with children. (In retrospect, it's also probably not too pleasant for adults.)

For example, last week some name calling and nitpicking were going on. I told the kids "two wrongs don't make a right." Fortunately, that made them shut up, because I'm not quite sure what does make a right. I just know that retaliating in kind often doesn't make things better. I've been waiting for a chance to tell them that they can pick their friends and they can pick their noses, but they can't pick their friends' noses. So far the opportunity hasn't come up.

Kindergartners can be amazingly bloodthirsty, a fact which elevates my pulse far more efficiently than aerobic exercise. For example, a couple of weeks ago, one of the kids grabbed a freshly sharpened pencil away from another kid, then proceeded to grab the kid's neck and try to jam the pencil in. I levitated over to Mr. Pencil Jammer whilst having visions of carotid arteries getting pierced, blood spurting out, etc. The kids are also quite adept at brandishing scissors at one another's eyes. I'm not sure how the teacher keeps her sanity.

On the personal front, my dysfunctional family is still rabidly dysfunctional. I avoid thinking about them most of the time by listening to TED podcasts, but now and then I do obsess over how things went so horribly wrong with those relationships. Trying to ferret out patterns, I suppose. I really don't want to mirror those relationships or play them out again with my son.

In a bitter burst of irony my stepmother, who is so incredibly cruel-tongued and toxic, seems to be losing her ability to speak. The current theory is that it's the side effect of a degenerative disease. Personally, I thought she ought to be evaluated for a psychiatric or neurological disorder quite some time ago, but they're more inclined to bandy about terms like "intervention of demons" and hold impromptu home exorcisms than consult the DSM-IV.

Anyhow, despite the fact that I'm not fond of her, there's no joy in her problems. Wouldn't it be nice if one could instead catch a disease whose side effect is a pleasant personality? And why not, given that so many things affect brain function? Why not a virus, bacterium, or prion which makes one congenial and interested in one's fellow man rather than a malevolent loon?

Things of delight and horror.

First, a few things of delight. I recently learned about the work of Theo Jansen, who builds the most amazing kinetic sculptures. They're really giant wind-powered beasts of plastic pipe and heaven knows what, which he turns loose on the beach. He calls them strandbeests, I think.

Here's a video.


I'm guessing this has inspired others to create their own miniature strandbeests. Here's a hamster-powered walker which is rather amusing, courtesy of the Crabfu ArtWorks blog.




Another odd delight: it turns out there's a place in Venezuela where there's an "everlasting lightening storm" which takes place 260 nights a year. Who knew? Slate has an article on it.


The thing of horror? Slate's review of Bloodlands, a history of Hitler's and Stalin's genocides. One of the excerpts concerns cannibalism taking place in the Ukraine during the famine of the 1930s. The excerpt is graphic, heartbreaking, sickening, and enlightening. Starvation turning run-of-the-mill people evil, or at least lowering the bar for committing acts of evil.

How widespread was the behavior? "… at least 2,505 people were sentenced for cannibalism in the years 1932 and 1933 in Ukraine, although the actual number of cases was most certainly greater."

You may not wish to read the review. I sort of wish I hadn't read it, although it did expand my world/historical view. I guess it's one of those things one feels obliged to be aware of and bear witness to, much like certain disturbing events of the modern day.

Practice Babies

Here's another item from the extremely long list of things I knew nothing about: practice babies.

It seems that between 1919 and 1969, some college home economics programs made a practice of running "practice apartments." They would "borrow" babies from orphanages for a team of students to care for, then return the babies to the orphanages for adoption after a year or so. That's right - "borrow" little human beings as a teaching aid the same way one would borrow an overhead projector.

Yet another bizarre chapter from American history. One wonders how many of these children developed attachment disorders.

Here's some additional information:

NPR: "Practice Babies: An Outdated Practice, Rediscovered"
Cornell University: "What Were Practice Apartments?"
Huffington Post: "Practice Babies?"

Keep only the good stuff

While I was packing up Christmas ornaments, my son picked one up and began to study it.

"My step-grandmother gave me that," I told him, "the lady who died recently. I keep it on the tree to remember her."

"Why?" he asked.

"Why what? What do you mean, why?"

"Why do you want to remember her?" he asked.

As is so often the case in dealing with him, I felt as though I'd fallen down a rabbit hole.

"Because she's gone," I replied, "she died. She's gone forever."

"But she was mean. Your step-grandmother was mean. Why would you want to remember her? You should get rid of the ornament."

"No," I responded, "that's my stepmother. Her mother was a good person, kind and generous and loving."

"But your stepmother and stepfather are mean," he emphasized.

In the midst of trying to sort all of this out, it struck me how straightforward his attitude is: if someone is crappy and mean to you, you just excise them and all reminders of them. Ditch the Christmas ornaments and anything else they might have given you. Keep only the good stuff.

It's not a bad thought. Maybe I'll try it. There's a hat hanging in my laundry room, a wide-brimmed hat festooned with dust, polyester lace, fake flowers, and fake pearls in a shade which would make an oyster nauseous. Every time I look at it I think of my stepmother, and not in a good way. I hate the damned thing, but I've hung on to it for years because I reasoned that it took my stepmother fifteen minutes or so to glue it all together, and it was something she was proud of having made.

I'll bet I have a garbage bag which is just the right size.

A cool post on carrots

Sometimes it's a treat to find out how little I know about a particular subject:

"In the fall, as night time temperatures drop, a carrot root naturally sweetens because the plant converts starches to sugars as a defense mechanism against freezing to death. Cells filled with sugary water have a lower freezing point. This organic process is why most root crops taste their best during winter."

For this and other carroty facts, see the current Ladybug Letter.

Chugging down that same track ...

Please stand by while I vent frustration in my cowardly, anonymous fashion …

I have a dear friend. A quirky friend. A lovely, admirable friend in many ways. A friend who aspires to create art, write, run a business, and whatever else catches her eye. I would like to see her achieve her dreams.

For years now, she's been caught in a pseudo-business cycle. Here's how it goes:

1. Get bizarre niche product idea such as greeting cards which, when wiggled, illustrate how dogs fornicate.

2. Excitedly talk to friends and acquaintances about idea. Get offended and end friendship when they tell her it's terrible and won't sell.

3. Get extremely specific domain name for business, such as FornicatingDogCards.com. The business and domain name won't be very much different the past five she's started, which include FornicatingCatCards.com and FornicatingDogCollars.com, and I'm darned if I understand why she can't sell all of these philosophically similar products under one heading. But I'm supposed to be a friend and I'm supposed to be supportive, so beyond tentatively bringing the subject up, I keep my mouth shut.

4. Avoid analyzing idea to see whether it has any market appeal and how much it will cost to manufacture and market. Avoid thinking about target markets, how much they'd pay for such a product, and how to reach them.

5. Laboriously create unattractive prototypes which would cost about $15 each to manufacture and would sell for maybe $2.

6. Fantasize about the really cool equipment she might be able to use on this project - how about a laser cutter, high end color printer, video equipment?

7. Drop several thousand dollars on the equipment, without considering whether it's necessary and how much product would have to be sold to break even on it.

8. Spend six months designing a crappy website, including skirmishes with implementing the eCommerce portion in Romania, having the site hijacked by a contractor, and starting over herself.

9. Meet with me for coffee, during which I tentatively suggest taking business classes and I get smacked down.

10. Turn in notice at her current subsistence living gig, often after interpersonal issues which are entirely the other parties' faults.

11. Post product on website - or not.

12. Fail to do any sort of marketing whatsoever.

13. Meet with me for coffee, during which I suggest cheap guerilla marketing techniques which just might help sell some project. I get smacked down.

14. Wonder - or don't wonder - why the product is not selling.

15. Get distracted by a new subsistence living possibility or a new, terrible business idea.

Repeat.

She's almost up to step twelve again. I desperately want to say "Sweetie? Are you serious about actually running a business and turning a profit versus doing serial, expensive projects? If so, please, please, please team up with someone who does marketing. Please just turn your product over to the person, promise 50% of profits or whatever you have to do, and stand back." Any marketing would probably be better than no marketing.

Instead, I bite my tongue.

Not long ago, she told me "We're both going to die destitute."

No, I don't think so. I have no plans for dying destitute, at least not from repeatedly running "businesses" into the ground.

I wish she wouldn't do this. I care about her and I've already had one friend die this way.

Epic cat/bird/cat battle

Video stolen from here. I even stole most of his title.

I am NOT a big fan of watching animals fight. I generally find it frightening and sickening. However, the behavior of the crows in this video is fascinating. As my husband pointed out, during the cat fight they're hovering around, acting as though they'd like to join in. As the quote, goes, "Is this a private fight, or can anyone join in?"



On quite a different and perhaps more edifying note, Slate has run a series of pieces on the lives of the people who work on container ships. I knew naught.