Entry 209: Brief Entry From Down South

It's vacation time for Crocodile DG.  Kinda.  The G & G clan is in South Carolina visiting the in-laws for a week, but I still have to work Monday and Tuesday next week.  Being able to work remotely is a double-edged sword.  On one hand, you can cut down drastically on mind-numbing commutes (my hour and a half round-tripper would drive me insane if I had to do it every weekday, or if podcasts weren't yet invented).  On the other hand, it means even when you're out of town, you still might be expected to be on the clock.  Although in this case, if not for the ability to work remotely, I would have to physically be in the office, so there wouldn't even be an "out of town" in the first place, so being expected to be on the clock while out of town wouldn't even be applicable.  Hmm ... I take it back.  Working remotely is actually a one-edged sword, and it's the edge that doesn't cut you.

It's a new tradition to come down this way for Thanksgiving, but usually we come down Wednesday or Thursday.  This week we did it early because we have to be in attendance tomorrow for a puja -- a Hindu prayer ceremony -- to bless my in-laws' new house.  I have no idea what this entails, other than I have to up at 9:00 a.m, dressed in Indian garb, and I've been assured that I'll be able to watch football in the afternoon.  I brought the iPad and I have the Sunday Ticket app installed, so if all goes well, I won't miss any action.  If all doesn't go well ... At least the Seahawks are on bye this week.

The fact that I have no idea what to expect for the puja isn't so much due to the fact that I'm ignorant of Hindu tradition (although that's certainly part of it); it's more that I never know what to expect with S's family.  I just go with the flow.  Go where they go, eat when they feed me, sleep where they say, and be happy.  That's how I roll.  Actually, it's usually really great and relaxing.  There's usually a lot of down time -- and there are plenty of people around willing and able to watch the little guy -- so I use it catch up on "fun reading", which I almost never have a chance to do anymore.  My book this time is Squared Circle: Life, Death, and Professional Wrestling by David Shoemaker (aka Grantland's "Masked Man").  It's fantastic so far.  I just read the chapter on the Von Erichs.  That is one fucked up family.

Until next time...

Entry 208: Publish or Perish

Update on the little guy.  He's doing fine, and his laceration is healing fairly well.  He doesn't even seem to notice it, honestly.  A few times I've seen him pick at the half-disintegrated sutures, but other than that, it's baby life as usual.  He's been really whiny lately, but that has nothing to do with his wound.  I don't know what it has to do with.  He'll seemingly be fine, and then he'll just start fussing, out of the blue, and putting his hands up in the universal kid "hold me" gesture.  If we don't do it, he'll come over and start tugging on our pants.  It's not just with me and S either; the daycare reports say things like, "Lil' S played on the slide and ate all his lunch.  Then he whined for a while."  Like I said, I'm not sure what's up with him.  It could be he's just a baby.  That's a perfectly acceptable answer to me.

I'm a bit worried that we're indulging him too much, because we almost always give in to his cries.  We've talked about being a little bit firmer with him, but it will have to wait a few weeks.  We're going to S's parents' in a week, so any progress we make will be instantly undone.  He's going to be doted on and then spoiled and then doted on some more.  Their nickname for him is the Kannada word for gold, if that tells you anything.  What Lil' S could really use is a little sibling to put him in his place.  Hopefully that's in the cards in the not too distant future.

 [Gold]

Now for an update on me.  I'm doing well, although it was a tough morning.  S and I woke up in one of those married-couple moods, where neither of you is doing anything wrong, but you're just annoyed with each other for some reason (perhaps sleep deprivation).  The mutual annoyance reached its peak on our way to a birthday party for our friends' three-year old.  It was at a park, but if the weather was bad, then it was going to be at their house.  Of course, just to mess with us, today was one of those days where the weather was kinda bad, but not really bad, so it wasn't clear which way they would go.  S thought it would be at their house -- and they just live two blocks from us -- so she said we should just walk there.  I said she should call them to find out where it was.  So she said I could call them if I was so concerned about it.  But I feel weird calling because they're more her friends than my friends -- I don't even have their numbers, and the evite wasn't even sent to me -- so we just walked to their house.

And of course they weren't there.  They were at the at the park, which we figured out because S called them.  I (perhaps foolishly) pointed out that that was exactly what I suggested in the first place.  S of course didn't appreciate this and came back at me with "you never want to do anything", meaning she's the one who does all the planning and coordinating and all that.  Normally this is a fair point, but not in this case, in my opinion, because these are people she was friends with before we met, and she's the one who got the evite and has their numbers and all that.

[Tracey Gold]

To make matters worse -- annoyance begets annoyance -- on the way to the park it was as if all the drivers on the road had conspired to drive me insane.  The worst was when we got to park.  The only parking spots available were on the curb, which wasn't a big deal because there was a huge open space that could fit four cars.  One guy is in front of me, and he pulls into the space, and instead of pulling all the way forward (or all the way back) he parks right in the middle of it.  So now instead of just sliding in behind him into a long gap, I actually have to parallel park in one of the two little gaps he's now created.  And he made it so that only three cars can fit now.  This is one of those things that's so irritating, because it's just ... Why?  Why would he do that?  He's either colossally inconsiderate or colossally oblivious.  I prefer to assume it's the former, because it better justifies my indignation.

So I was in a bit of a stew this morning, but things got better.  The party was fun, some friends came over afterwards for some beers, I sneaked in a catnap, took a walk, and in a minute S and I are going to watch a movie (The Way Way Back) which we almost never do.  Plus I came across this article about the degradation of modern science, which strangely made me feel good about my current career.

The article talks a lot about how one of the biggest problems with science is the publish or perish gauntlet that so many researchers face.  Researchers feel compelled to equivocate with their findings to make them sound more significant than they are.  And not enough people have the time or willingness to put in the legwork to call them out on this.  As a result you get a bunch of results that can't be replicated.  Fudging things to come out the way you want is the antithesis of science.  And that's basically what's going on on a large scale right now.  And I complete understand it, because I lived in that world for a several years (and I still moonlight in it when I can).  The academic publishing process is completely outdated and broken.  I have many thoughts on how to make it better, but those will have to wait for another post (or not, we will see how it goes).

[Robbie Gould*]

The reason the article made me feel good, in a weird way, about my career is because it confirms that I made the right "choice" to go into the private sector instead of academia.  I have to use quotes because academia more denied me, than I did it.  Over the course of two years I applied for at least 50 tenure-track professorships and got exactly two interviews.  One got canceled, because the position was eliminated; the other I turned down, because logistically I couldn't make the interview, and it was at the bottom of my list anyway.  Now, I'm sure I could've found an adjunct position at Palookaville City College and tried to work my way up; maybe by the time I was 40 I could've had a real gig.  Or I could've done what I did, which is take a position with a private company in a major metropolitan area for double the salary and half the stress.  It was a choice in name only.

Alright, that's it for this entry.  It's movie night!  (Smash cut to an hour later: S is sleeping on the sofa, and I'm working on a crossword puzzle with my earbuds in while a movie plays in the background.)

Until next time...

*Robbie Gould once got me a mention in the "Missed Connections" section of the local paper.  I was at a bar watching football, and I was shooting the breeze with a girl sitting next to me, and I made the (lame) joke "good as Gould" after Robbie Gould kicked a field goal.  The next week the owner of the bar, whom I know fairly well, showed me that she submitted a missed connection about me that referenced this joke and suggested we go out sometime.  I didn't follow up on it.  I think I was dating S at the time.  Also, she was a bit too, um ... Rubenesque for my taste.

Entry 207: Calamity

Rough one, this week.  Nothing too terrible, but a few distressing events went down.  I'll relay them in reverse chronological order.

We spent Friday night in the emergency room at the children's hospital.  Lil' S busted open the bridge of his nose and had to get it sutured.  I'm not exactly sure how it happen.  We were in the basement, and he was playing around in some empty cabinets.  I turned my back for a minute, heard a small thud, turned back around, and he was on his hands and knees in the cabinet with blood pouring out from between his eyes.  I grabbed a baby wipe and pressed it against the wound.  He hated this of course, so he started throwing a fit, trashing this way and that, causing blood to get everywhere and making it difficult to stop the bleeding.  I brought him upstairs; S saw what happened, and we basically pinned him down while S pressed her finger on the cut.  I ran and got the first aid kit, but there wasn't really anything in the first aid kit we could use.  The bleeding had stopped by the time I got back, and there was no band-aid that would fit properly.  Plus, he was just going to pull off anything we put on.  So we just gathered up our things, tossed him in his car seat, and headed to the ER. 

(In retrospect, it's pretty funny that when we got to car, we realized that neither of us actually knew the way to the hospital.  So we had one of those frantically-trying-to-pull-up-directions moments where both people are on their phone. "Should I search for children's hospital?  Is it actually called 'children's hospital' or it just a hospital for children?", "Oh ... Michigan Street? I thought it was Minnesota.", "Is that Michigan SW or SE?", "I don't know why ... it's just not loading on my map app ... oh, wait, OK, yeah, I think we're good."  I guess that's why it's good to have these things mapped out ahead of time.  Even if you have smartphones.)

Apparently Lil' S punched himself out from all the trashing, because he actually fell asleep in the car.  It made things much easier, as it meant S and I could exhale a bit.  It was pretty intense for a few minutes.  I knew the cut wasn't anything too severe, but that part of the body bleeds like crazy, and when you see blood flowing out of your kid's head like a spigot, it can get the adrenaline pumping.

[Pretty much what S and I went through.  Small cut between the eyes, heroin overdose, no big diff.  Actually this clip ends before my favorite part of the scene.  The stoner chick in the background taking a big rip off her bong.  I love that for some reason.  It's like she takes a break to watch the whole madness go down, and then when it ends -- right back to smoking weed.]

As you can probably imagine, the ER was a zoo.  If you know people who think Obamacare should be repealed, take them to the ER of D.C.'s Children's Hospital on a Friday night, and ask them if our current system should just carry on as is.  I would guess by looking at the kids and overhearing conversations that the majority of the people in there didn't have a problem that was appropriate for the ER.  But it's the only access to a doctor they have.  (And, by the way, for all the people claiming Obamacare is "redistributionist", who do they think is paying for these ER visits, now?)  I think Lil' S's wound put us as a middle priority case, but I'm not sure.  What I do know is that we waited for four hours before the doctor saw us.  It's funny how once you reach about hour two, you just start looking for people to blame, and you start thinking you're some sort of triage scheduler -- "We got here a half hour before those people!  A laceration should take precedent over a earache!  And why isn't that nursing dressing that kid's wound now, so when the other nurse is free he can see us.  And are these doctors doing their own paperwork?!  Don't they have orderlies for that?!"

Lil' S woke up about 20 minutes into our visit, so we had to entertain him for a long time.  It was like a bad airport experience, but worse because we rushed out the house and didn't have anything toys or anything for him -- we weren't prepared.  And we didn't even get cell service in the hospital (that's what we get for switching to the cheaper carrier, I guess), so we couldn't show him YouTube videos.  Also, he had a big nasty gash on his head.  It was rough.

Once they actually came in to fix him up, things went pretty smoothly.  They wrapped him up in a papoose, which is a board with thick straps connected to it.  It's like a cross between a straightjacket and a swaddle blanket.  Lil' S apparently thought it to be more like the latter, because he didn't really mind it.  He did however mind very much the anesthetic-filled needle being poked into his cut.  (S had to leave the room, at this point.)  He also didn't like having his wound cleansed with pressurized water.  The student* who was doing it "assured" me that he wasn't in any pain; it was just that, because water was getting in his eyes, he was experiencing the sensation of being drowned, like water boarding.  That's the actual comparison he used -- "water boarding".  Well, okay then.  It's nice to know my son is merely being tortured, not actually hurt.  But once all that prep work was done, he fell asleep again (it was about midnight, after all), and he snoozed the entire time while they put in his sutures.  He didn't really wake up until the next morning.

He's totally fine now.  If the cut wasn't in a visible area, you'd never even know it.  He hasn't given any indication he's in pain, and he hasn't been rubbing the area or anything like that.  There might be a small scar, but at his age, I'm guessing it will all but vanish as he gets older.  Plus, at the rate he's going, this isn't going to be the last one.  He's at that bad age where he's agile enough to get into trouble, but not agile (or sensible) enough to get out of it.  And we can't babyproof life.  The cabinets are locked now, but unless we raise him in a padded room like he's in a mental hospital, he's just going to find the next "cabinet".  I guess we just hope he doesn't do any permanent damage and chalk it up to boys will be boys ... Although that's probably not PC, now.  How about "kids will be kids"?  That sounds better.  Don't want to exclude all the little daredevil girls out there.

[A traditional Native American papoose.  Not quite what Lil' S was in, but you get the idea.]

Well, like usual with this blog, I set out to write about six things and got through one of them.  Here are the other calamitous events that went down this week, rapid fire.

• S and I each came down with some sort of weird stomach bug.  It was short lived, but nasty.  I spent Thursday night wrapped up in three layers of clothing and a blanket, with the heater on, and still had the chills.  The next day I couldn't eat and was pooping up chocolate soft serve all morning.  I had that unfortunate moment when you go to pass gas and realize it's not gas that just came out.  Thankfully I was working from home.
• The cleaning ladies put my soda stream bottles in the dishwasher, and now they're all warped and don't fit on the nozzle properly.  Very annoying.
• The cleaning ladies also set off the house alarm and the police came.  This one is completely on me, though.  I forgot they were coming and set the alarm.  I got a call from the security company mid-commute to work and had to turn around to straighten things out.  At least the officer was pretty cool.  He didn't seem mad or anything.  My problem was that I didn't set the "don't set the house alarm" alarm on my phone.  Yes, I need an alarm to tell me not to set an alarm.  Somehow I can remember how many RBI Alvin Davis had for the Mariners as a rookie, in 1984 (116), and I can remember the determinant of a 2 x 2 matrix (ad - bc), but I can't remember the cleaning ladies are coming on Tuesday.  This type of memory is very good in school, but -- when S is getting a call at work telling her our house alarm is going off -- not so good in marriage. 
• Lastly, lest you think everything is bad, a few good things did happen this week, as well.  For one, we hosted a nice birthday party today for S's good friend E.  It was supposed to be a surprise, but E put two and two together.  Still fun tho.  And I received word yesterday that I'm getting another crossword puzzle published in the New York Times.  This one is a themeless (my first themeless), so it will run either Friday or Saturday.  Not sure exactly when, yet.  Pretty stoked about it.

Alright.  That's it for now.  Until next time ...

*The student was named Michael Mullen, like the Navy admiral, and the presiding doctor's name was -- and I'm not making this up -- Doctor Doctor.  That's even more on the nose than my friend from Australia who's an applied mathematician named Dr. Engineer.  Before I met him, I corresponded with him, and he signed his emails Dr. F. Engineer -- F. being his first name.  I read it as Dr. F., Engineer, as if F. was his last name and Engineer his title.  So I kept referring to him as Dr. F., like he's a celebrity (Dr. Phil, Dr. Drew) or I'm a little kid at the dentist.

Entry 206: What to Make of the Slutification of Halloween

Something I started to notice about a decade ago -- the slutification of Halloween -- is now a full-on, well-known culture phenomenon.  Back when I was first attending Halloween parties as an adult, females mostly wore "normal" costumes -- something spooky or funny or clever.  Then gradually the "sexy" versions of all these costumes started popping up.  You started seeing less ugly, warty-nosed witches, and more Elvira, "Mistress of the Dark" type witches (only less '80s).  I, being a straight male of hoping-to-hook-up age, rather liked this new slutty Halloween, but I must admit, it might have gotten a bit out of hand, when at the last non-kid Halloween party I went to a girl showed up in just lingerie.  That was her entire costume.*

Having a one-year old, I imagine the days of celebrating Halloween in the presence of scantly-clad young women are mostly behind me.  In their lieu, I see a succession of things like Boo at the Zoo, trick-or-treating, and sitting on my couch watching sports, waiting for trick-or-treaters who never come, eating handfuls of candy, thinking to myself, "this isn't even very good", and then eating handfuls more (which is what I did last night).  But still, it's an interesting topic.  I've seen two broad camps emerge on this issue.  One is that the slutification of Halloween is an empowering thing, a let-your-freak-flag-fly type of deal that allows women the opportunity to let out their inner trollop** for a night without being judged -- the straight pride parade, as Dan Savage calls it.  The other is that it reinforces an unfair and damaging double-standard that women are expected to sex it up and wear skimpy clothing to attract men, while men aren't expected to do the same thing -- a "gender binary" illustrated pictorially in this article.
 
Personally, I'm more in the former camp.  And it's not only because I'm a straight male.  It's also because for things that don't directly and tangibly harm other people in a non-trivial way, I generally have a "who gives a shit" philosophy.  You have to go down pretty far on my triage schedule of societal problems before you get to grown women feeling compelled by social norms to dress in slutty Halloween costumes when men don't have this same compulsion.  Plus, you will see a lot of shirtless Tarzans and Hulk Hogans and whatnot out and about on Halloween.  I'm not claiming it's the same ratio, but they're out there.  Also, everybody makes a conscious decision to put on his or her own Halloween outfit.  If 95% of women want to go as the "sexy" whatever and show a bunch of skin, but only 20% of guys do, then that's just how things shake out.  You can blame it on societal norms (and I'm not denying they're a factor), but at some point, don't we have to assume adults in the U.S. in the 21st century can make up their own free minds when it comes to dressing themselves?

Anyway...

I really want to see this Gravity movie I've been hearing so much about.  Unfortunately going to the movies is a tall order these days.  And when I do get to go, it seems like nothing good is playing.  I've heard Gravity is really only worth it, if you watch it on the big screen in 3-D, so my window is limited.  S and I talked to a couple we're friends with who have a two-year old about swapping baby sitting duties.  Maybe it's time to put that into action.

I'm also slightly intrigued by Ender's Game.  It's a terrific book, and this is coming from somebody who doesn't really like sci-fi/fantasy all that much.  Here's a tell that it's not my genre; despite really enjoying Ender's Game, I have absolutely zero desire to continue the series or read anything else by its author Orson Scott Card, who, by the way, sounds like a bit of a nutjob.  I knew he wasn't really down with the whole gay thing, but there's much more to it than that, which I didn't know anything about, until I read this article by Rany Jazayerli. (He normally writes about baseball, which is how I found the article in the first place.)  In the article, Rany links to this correspondence between Card and himself about Islam and terrorism (Rany's Muslim; Card, Mormon) written in the aftermath of 9/11.  I found it pretty interesting.  And it's funny -- not in a ha-ha way, but in a really sad way -- that their correspondence was written over a decade ago, and yet Bill Maher was talking about this exact same problem on his podcast last week.  Ten years from now, I image we will all still be talking about it.  Because that's how it goes with religion.  When it comes to Islam or Christianity or Judaism or any other faith ... well, Jello Biafra put it best.   



Until next time ...

*To be "fair", she had angel wings, but they kept knocking things over, so she took them off.
**By the way, have you ever noticed how many synonyms there are for slut?  Ho, whore, strumpet, harlot, trollop, tramp, quean (Scrabble word), woman-of-ill-repute.  And that's just off the top of my head.  I'd like to have a "synonym off"someday between slut and pot.  I think pot wins, but slut could put up a good fight.