Apology accepted, but only because you stuttered.

My mom tried to explain bra sizing to me today, as I couldn't understand why I should be wearing a 30C instead of a 32B (I mean, the girls don't grow if I transition between sizes). I'm still a little shaky on the logic behind the whole thing (that is, I still think an "A" should hold the same volume regardless of whether it's on a band size 30 or 40), but she did draw a funny diagram that I'll share with you...



I guess it makes sense. Sort of.

Bean!

You know I'd wear this every day.

Adventuresick.

It's been so many summers now since I've been in the Rocky Mountains. How can I still wake up in the morning and smell that sharp mountain air?

Lazy day.

No babysitting today. One of the kids caught some nasty bug, and Mom wanted to stay home with her, so I wound up with oodles of free time on one of the most perfect summer days Wisconsin can produce. I visited the library to pick up an armload of books about, you know, genocide, war, human rights violations, man’s inhumanity to man; and dropped by the grocery for plums at 99 cents a pound. So far, I’ve spent the day bicycling, gardening (mostly watering our poor parched plants), harvesting raspberries (some were so dangerously overripe that they never would have survived the arduous journey back to the house…), gorging myself on raspberries (hello, Tummyache), sunbathing, listening to NPR and Franz Ferdinand, catching up on correspondence, and reading Niall Ferguson's The War of the World. I am not crazy about Ferguson. He writes about history engagingly enough, but his penchant for speculation. He's much too fond of asking, "What if this had not happened, and this had happened, and this had happened differently, and Chamberlain had grown a pair, and Hitler's Sudeten gambit had folded... then what?" for my tastes. I'll take Mazower over Ferguson any day, but I've already re-read everything of his twice, and Dark Continent and Hitler's Empire at least five times each. Mazower needs to publish a new book! I do admire/appreciate Ferguson's attention to the economic causes (especially the severely limited war-making resources of the Japanese Home Islands and Germany, within its 1919 borders) of World Wars I and II.

Elena Kagan.

Linked to on Salon's home page today.

So many problematic statements, so little time. I’ll just rattle off a few glaring errors…

Let’s start with these paragraphs…

We are told that Kagan is a manifestation of Obama’s concern that the common people are not being heard by the Supreme Court. So he appoints a person who attended an exclusive high school, then Princeton, then Oxford, and then Harvard. Just the sort of person who is most likely to be in touch with the struggles and aspirations, the stances and aims of We the People…

Socioeconomic class is only one disconnect between rhetoric and reality when it comes to the Kagan selection. If she is lesbian, as rumor has it, then she is definitely not average. If she is not lesbian, she is very unusual as a 50 year old woman who has never been married. She has no children, which is also unusual for a woman her age…

Each of these traits by itself means little. There are tens of thousands of graduates from prestigious, if overrated, universities. Not every woman is able to have children. Added together, however, they do not depict someone who can relate to “average people” or vice versa. Quite the opposite. When you look at the aggregate effect of 1%


- I don’t pretend to be a populist. I think the people we elect to serve in positions of great power and influence should be smarter and worldlier than “typical Americans.” I look at my neighbors, guests on the Jerry Springer Show, people on the evening news—and I look at myself!—and… no, bad idea. Education isn’t everything (a first-rate degree doesn’t guarantee a fair and discerning mind and a just and good heart) but it’s A Big (and I would venture “essential”) Something when one endeavors to be A Big, Consequential And Decisive Somebody.

- I bristle at the insinuation that a 50-year-old woman would ONLY be childless because she was either unable to bear children or unable to land a mate. “Not every woman is able to have children” ignores, by careless oversimplification, a woman’s agency in deciding whether or not she DESIRES to bear children.

- The whispers about lesbianism bug me also, but not nearly as much as these lines…

Like the construction? Although I understand homosexuality to be deficient on numerous grounds, I wouldn’t oppose Kagan for that reason, if she does privately fall into that category. Five-term Senator David Walsh (D-MA) was one of the best members of the upper legislative chamber during the first half of the 20th century. Apparently, he was also homosexual. Some of my favorite writers are self-identified homosexuals who are undeniably talented and insightful (e.g., Gore Vidal, Andrea Dworkin, Amy Ray, Emily Saliers, Justin Raimondo).

“These people were homosexuals BUT they had some redeeming qualities. See? Look at me. Listen to me! I’m no homophobe!”

I’m no fan of Elena Kagan. I oppose her nomination on the grounds that her scant, deliberately inoffensive record offends me with its lack of judicial conviction and courage.

happy fourth!

We watched the fireworks from a tiny park situated at the end of Few Street. At first, we had the park to ourselves. Then an Indian family arrived, all carrying ears of sweet corn, and that was all very well. And THEN 20 drunks arrived and started shooting off fireworks of their own, and when a neighbor complained, shouted, "AMERICANS DON'T APOLOGIZE!"



Watching the fireworks from across the lake reminded me irresistibly of that one scene in The Little Mermaid...

gk, concerts on the square.

We went to see Garrison Keillor at Ravinia in Highland Park on Saturday night, and spent Sunday washing and waxing cars, watching 30-year-old Wimbledon tournaments and celebrating Adam's upcoming 20th birthday.




One man leaned out to snap a photograph right in GK's face and GK grabbed his hand and continued singing, "OH, I need your love!"







And two random pictures from about a month ago...







Here are some pictures I shot at Concerts on the Square last Wednesday... the day was the most beautiful of the summer by far.




Bernd, the unwilling subject ;-)

The past few days - glorious high summer days, all of them - I've been in the grip of a sudden, confounding and pervasive melancholy. I've been alternately restless and pensive, pacing and retreating.

Last night, we lounged on Adrian's porch and I laughed so hard that my cheekbones still ached in the morning. Tonight, the air in the house is hot and still, and Bernd is snoring loudly down the hall.

I'm not melancholy for any one obvious reason. As far as I can reason, I am (and have been, and will remain) stuck in a holding pattern until we determine our next moves. Why should I invest time and energy seeking a new job now when I may be hunting for jobs across the country within the month? Even my ever-present desire to forge new friendships seems temporarily on hold. So that's something.

And I wonder about my expectations--not so much what I expect to receive from the outside world, from those around me, but what I expect of myself.

I wouldn't call myself an optimist, but I am an immensely hopeful person. Yet I think we live in an unjust and unkind place in an unjust and unkind time. And I'm a participant. I participate in this injustice and unkindness. I can't exempt myself.




It's the height of summer. Moments of pure exhilaration are not infrequent. Biking through the city, cat-napping in the park with George Kennan and Paul Nitze, striking up a conversation on the bus, dancing Wednesday nights until too late and walking tenderly Thursday mornings taking big gulps of coffee, the voices of faraway friends sweet in the whorl of my ear.