Week Twenty: Cars I Have Known

Last weekend I got a new car. Okay, a new old car. Okay, a new old minivan. But it got me thinking about all the different cars I’ve owned. Of course, every one has a story. And I think that, somewhere, I have pictures of each of them — but I’ll never find them tonight. For illustrative purposes I’ll throw in some stock photography, then update this post as I locate and scan photos of my own cars.

1. 1981 Buick Skylark

Your first car should be special; I’m sure my Dad intended it to be. I was working at my first real full-time job and it was time for a dependable car of my own, not the 1981 Buick Skylark I was borrowing from my parents. I went to several dealerships with Dad and looked at several cars. I wasn’t impressed with any of them, but I did remember that he had me set the parking brake on one car, then he physically pushed it forward several feet. “Nope.” Finally we looked at a 1983 Buick Century. It was a four-door sedan and I hated it on sight. I didn’t like the color, the fit, the feel, or anything else about it. But Dad was in love, utterly smitten. “Maybe,” he finally said, “we could get this car for your mother and you could have the Skylark.”

“I’ll take the Skylark,” I said.

My Buick, parked at my Grove City apartment in a 1992 summer thunderstorm.

The transaction was sealed when Mom handed me the keys to the Skylark and said, “Pop the hood.” She then proceeded to show me how to properly apply Gum-Out.

I was happy with the Skylark for a while, but eventually I realized that it was starting to fall apart. I was spending as much each month on repair bills as I would have on a car payment. One day I was making the one-mile drive between work and home when green fluid started pouring into the cabin from somewhere on the other side of the dashboard. When I turned left towards the Shell service station instead of right for home, I had already decided that this car’s days were numbered.

2. 1990 Honda Civic EX

Not my car… but a twin!

The first car I actually bought was the car I should have been warned about, but I never blamed the car. I loved that little thing. But I’m jumping ahead. Let’s go back to when I was taking cars on test drives.

One finalist was the local mega-dealer. If you are now, or have ever been, from Columbus, Ohio, you know who I’m talking about already. I knew I wouldn’t actually buy a car from them, but I was curious about the process. It was even worse than I had expected. I wasn’t allowed to drive the car on their lot because of liability. I asked to see a manual-transmission car and was shown an automatic in shocking pink. The salesman, while driving, tried to sell the car to me based on the fact that the passenger visor had a mirror on it. When I was finally in the salesman’s cubicle and he asked, “What can I do to get you into this car today?” I could honestly say, “Nothing. I told you I was only looking, and you showed me nothing I wanted to see.” And I left.

Another finalist was the Saturn, which at that time was the new kid in town. There were only a couple of dealerships, so I drove north of Worthington to test one out. The people were very nice, and I liked the “no game playing” aspect of the Saturn experience, but the car itself didn’t impress me very much.

Honorable mention goes to a Subaru XT I drove. This is the car that doesn’t have a steering wheel — it has a yoke like you’d see in a fighter jet. A Google search is failing me now, but I think this is the car I drove. It was really unusual looking, and I remember thinking I’d never get used to that yoke instead of a wheel.

I ended up test driving the Honda Civic at a respectable Honda dealership on the north side, near Westerville. The staff members were very casual about the test drive process; they threw me the keys and said, “Bring it back whenever.” Nobody rode with me to do a hard sell. And I really liked the car. I traded in the Skylark, which probably showed up somewhere on the south side at a pay-to-own lot, and purchased my first car.

After I bought the car, its history gradually emerged. It was a dealer loaner, meaning that customers drove it when their cars were in the shop at the dealership. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but when the transmission started giving me problems and they recommended replacing it, the service history of my car really started to emerge. Turns out there wasn’t much of one; even though the car had spent most of its two years right there on the lot, they hadn’t actually bothered to hit its service marks with much accuracy. And this was the second time the transmission had been replaced. Let me repeat: a two-year-old car was now on its third transmission!

The EX model, too, was very “special.” Every time I took the car somewhere for a change or a part, I heard, “OH. You have the EX.” I once spent a whole work day driving across Columbus and back in a raging blizzard to find the proper set of tires for it, only to get stuck in the snow at the entrance to my condo community at the end of the day.

But I didn’t blame the car. It was surprisingly spacious inside — once I managed to fit four Windsor chairs and a king-size waterbed mattress in it. I bolted a roof rack on it and hauled a canoe all over central Ohio. This person had a similar experience with their (also blue) Civic EX.

Yes, the original photo was taken in black and white with a manually operated SLR. The location is actually Sunset Cemetery near Alton, Ohio.

When I got a job in Wisconsin, though, and it was time to move, I had the chance to accept a used Audi from my father-in-law, who was buying a brand new Jetta. I sold the Civic to my brother for a dollar, thinking he’d be able to fill it to the brim with band equipment. And as it went with many things I gave or loaned to my brother, I never inquired as to its final disposition.

3. 1988 Audi 80

Not my car, or my wheels. The rest is similar.

This car always had the biggest snob appeal for me. It was tiny and it was eleven years old, but it was cute. And it was an AUDI dammit. We took delivery of it somehow, and I packed it to the moon with everything I could get in it when we moved to Wisconsin — my newborn in the center. I’ll never forget driving on the Chicago Tollway at 65mph with one hand, using the other to position a baby bottle for a freeway feeding as we passed the O’Hare exit. Fast times!

It was a wonderful little car. Like the Civic, the Audi was also pressed into service as a canoe hauler… but only once or twice. Its only liability was that this shade of grey blended perfectly with things like, oh, asphalt. When it was on the road, it was almost invisible. People pulled out in front of me, or nearly did, countless times. For a while I contemplated having the car repainted Tornado Red just so someone might see it. But it wouldn’t have been right. It was a modest, unassuming car.

I had the car for three years, putting on miles via longer and longer trips, and one day on the expressway I heard a blood-chilling THUNK from somewhere below me. Transmission. Almost gone. I saved the car for only necessary trips and started taking the bus to work instead. When I moved to Indiana, we towed the car behind us. After I parked it in my new town, it never started again. When we moved back to Wisconsin three months later, my only option was to sell it for salvage.

I still have the key.

4. 1986 Ford Crown Victoria Wagon

I have a panoramic photo that does justice to my Crown Vic. Until I scan it in, this car from “Tremors” will have to do.

We were the third owners of this car, which we bought in about 2003 from an engineer in Wausau. He had installed air shocks in the back, which were worked by a rocker switch under the dash. It was in wonderful shape for its age, and when the air shocks were pumped up it had a terrific “stance” to it. It also featured a third seat that opened like a cellar door — the riders faced each other.

The Crown Vic was impressive enough, but one day we were getting some sort of service done, and when they ran the VIN the car was identified as a Mustang! What an engine that car had. Amazingly, nobody got a speeding ticket with it.

I don’t remember what started going south on this car, but when it did come to the end of its service life it was sold for salvage, all 46 tons of it.

5. 2000 Chevy Venture

You’ve seen this van everywhere before.

This minivan puts the “us” in “ubiquitous.” When my oldest son was in second grade, and I drove him to an elementary school that housed only about three grades, this minivan was one of about SIX matching minivans. And I don’t mean that there were six Chevy Ventures. I mean that there were six Chevy Ventures in this exact same shade of red. Just at that small Catholic elementary school in a relatively small town in Wisconsin. The way we spotted ours was to note the broken left taillight casing. This vehicle was so common that the kids and I played a spy game with it, calling out “imposter!” when we spotted yet another twin. It had dual power doors, which eventually failed; other than that its two best features were the electronic compass and the “info” feature on the radio.

I have to admit that it was great for long road trips, and it could haul a lot. But it didn’t really have a distinct personality, being the member of the Clone Army that it surely was.

6. 1994 Buick Roadmaster Estate Wagon

Not my car, but it could be, down to the trim FAIL on the driver’s side.

Now we’re talking CAR! This car puts a smile on the face of everyone who sees it. I’ve lost count of how many times middle-aged men have approached me at the gas pumps to tell me about their memories of family vacations as seen from the third seat (a location we refer to as the “Wayback”). Sunroof. Cruise Control. Hydraglide. A tailgate that opens down… or to the side. And a Corvette engine.

The Really Wide Buick. Really!

7. 1997 VW Passat (“Helga”)

Wait a minute… Triforce Motors???

This is the car my husband Peter bought with the insurance settlement money after his beloved VW GTI was destroyed, along with his legs, in a car accident in which we were hit by a pickup truck. His quick reflexes saved both our lives, but broke both his legs. I sustained minor injuries, but he earned himself a free (?) helicopter ride to Grant Hospital and was in a wheelchair for weeks. After that trauma, he couldn’t bring himself to buy a little car again. When he was ready to get behind the wheel again, he chose a manual-transmission Passat sedan with a VR6 engine. He named this one “Helga the Barge.” (The GTI had been “Gertrudis.”) He gave me driving lessons in it in 1999, but I was still under the impression you couldn’t hold down the clutch and the accelerator at the same time, so I was striving for an almost impossible timing, and I never drove it after my lessons were over.

After he suddenly passed away in 2011, I asked to have it. It has some bodywork issues, but I’m gradually restoring it to its glory as a touring sedan and hope to make it my primary car within the next five years.

8. 1999 VW Jetta (“Trixie”)

As tested by Motor Trend magazine!

Peter’s father Clayton bought this Jetta in 1999 and passed along his Audi 80 to me. He passed away in 2009, and Peter made sure to drive it at least once a month and keep it in good condition. After Peter himself died, I asked for this car, too. It’s jointly titled to me and to my son James Clayton, Clayton’s only grandchild. When he’s old enough to own his own car, it’s his. Right now it makes a marvelous commuter car (and takes 87 octane!), but it’s a little small for my family of five unless it’s a short trip.

9. 2002 Dodge Caravan

Not my TARDIS… but almost.

The Roadmaster is now falling apart one piece at a time, and when I realized I shouldn’t try to take it on one more round trip to Ohio (and I have at least two such trips planned for this summer), I started searching online for my next car. I was looking more at Subarus (i.e. a vehicle that would hold all of us, but be short enough that I could get a canoe on the roof rack), but the kids begged, “Please, Mom. Get a minivan, and one made in this century.” I thought that was fine, but really hoped I could find a dark blue van that looked like a TARDIS.

One peek at Craigslist Madison, and there it was, in my price range. Hello sweetie! I’m not done geeking it up yet, but all the kids already refer to it as the TARDIS. (JC is still holding out to name it Eccleston, since it’s a TARDIS and my 9th car. Get it??? Well, if it had black leather seats I think it would be an easier sell. But it doesn’t.)

Allons-y!

And it really does feel bigger on the inside.

Week Nineteen: Something Was Missing

This week I had intended to write about cars — all the cars I have ever owned. Last night I discovered I had more to say about this topic than time would allow. So I’m still working on it for next week’s blog post. That might give me time to find pictures of most, if not all, of my cars.

In the meantime, here are some interesting chocolate bars I recently discovered. Yes — chocolate. No — I hadn’t given it up.

Indulgence Chocolates Citrus Ginger

I picked up this chocolate bar at a classy grocery store in Delafield. It was part of a display that was NOT with the candy; it was next to the floral shop. I guess they figure that if you’re the kind of person who stops to buy an orchid, you might also be the kind of person who throws some fancy chocolates in your cart too. I suppose that I am, because I also bought an orchid. (Fancy that, I’m in someone’s demographic!) It was a nice bar to nibble on over a week’s time, though the ginger flavor was more subtle than I’d expected.

Lindt Sweet Dark Chocolate

Just yesterday I was at the Johnson Creek Outlet Mall and discovered there was such a thing as a Lindt Outlet store. Uh-oh.

You know how the candy store at the mall (if you still have a mall) has a wall rack with every possible flavor and color of jelly bean? Lindt does this with chocolate bars. All those impossible-to-find flavors, like Chili, Black Currant, and whatever-suits-your-fancy, are right there in your face. I was tempted to whip out my smartphone and take a picture of the display, but I had announced, “I found lunch!” to the staff, and one of them came over and pressed a free-sample truffle into my hand. I was distracted.

Anyway, I decided to pick out two flavors that not only had I never tried before, I had never even known to exist.

Sweet Dark is basically dark chocolate without the bitterness. If a 65% cacao feels strong to you, try this. It’s very smooth. nomnomnom smooth.

Lindt Wasabi

The staff at the outlet store advise, “If you don’t like wasabi, you won’t like this bar.” It’s not really about heat (although it could ambush you if you thought you were picking up a square of Hershey’s Special Dark), but about that unique flavor that is wasabi. This bar definitely has it. I was told that the flavors would fight each other, taking turns in your mouth, but I thought they blended very well. Then again, I’ve gotten myself used to snacking on Blue Diamond’s wasabi and soy sauce roasted almonds. It’s delicious, but I’m trying to limit my portion size in case some of the heat turns out to be cumulative.

Have an interesting chocolate today! I’m off to look for old car photos for next week’s post.

Week Eighteen: Testing, Testing

This week was the third exam for my calculus class (I started sitting in on this section just after everyone else had taken their second exam). Lately I’ve discovered that although I’m learning the new concepts, my foundations are still shaky — particularly when I’m dealing with trigonometry. My professor has realized this, and graciously extended the time she’ll allow me to make up last semester’s Incomplete. I’ve proposed to her that that I do acres of homework to catch up to where I should be, and finish when I can. It’s work I need to do for this kind of math-work to become second nature, so I’m fine with that. I just have to take little breaks when I realize I’m wasting good time after bad. So yesterday, while everyone else was taking an exam for which I was woefully under-prepared, I was holed up in my “office” working on concepts about two chapters previous. But it’s starting to click. Mostly.

Paige’s problems ARE the material I’m covering in class!

The school year is also, of course, coming to a close for the kidlets. My daughter informed me recently that there were only 20-something days of school left, and that she knew this because “the fifth graders are keeping a countdown.” Personally, I’m not so sure it isn’t the teachers who are counting down the days. Both my parents are retired public school teachers, so I know they’re capable of it. Hey kids! Don’t forget you’re signed up for Session 1 of summer school!

Other “doings” include knitting. I went nearly a week without knitting a stitch, and I just felt so frustrated that there seemed to be no time right now for something that relaxes me so much. Over the weekend I holed up in my library-bedroom and knit furiously on a baby blanket for someone who refers to herself as “the nice lady from the library.” And she is! She has three young boys and doesn’t know if this baby is a boy or a girl, but either way, this child deserves something new. I know from experience that boys don’t really “hand down” things of much value, unless you like your jeans with holes already in the knees. And then, one day, I looked at the blanket with honest eyes, and realized that the edge intended to be the short one was about four feet wide. Ten more pounds of yarn, and this would be an awesome blanket for me. So I (brace yourselves) slipped it off the needles, pulled out every stitch, wound up all the yarn, and started again the next day.

On Monday night I reached a milestone in my double-top-secret ginormous long-term project. It took me a couple of hours, but I laid out all the sections of it on the floor, and switched parts around to match dye lots in certain places. I figured out how to seam it all up, then carefully packed up each section so that I would be able to start assembling it, column by column.

No, not THOSE kinds of columns.

My other knitting has been touch and go. I’m designing a scarf that is a giftknit for a friend, but I’m kind of stalled on it right now. And a “brainless” knit I was working on, then set down, proved to need extra brain power to sort out when I had the time to pick it up again. It’s been a week since I got input from a professional designer, and I just haven’t picked up the needles on this one. The baby blanket and the ginormous project really must get done sooner, as they both have organic deadlines.

I’m reading… I’m thinking about my life… I’m exercising… I’m taking care of errands that have waited for months… I’m cooking… I’m straightening up the house… I’m writing… I’m playing outside with the kids… I’m busy.

It’s nice.

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

Registration is now open for the 6th annual Unwind social event, held in conjunction with the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival in Jefferson, Wisconsin!

How do I sign up, you ask?

Well, just click the small image below, and it should open, full size, in a new window. Then just right-click (Mac users, control-click) the image below and you can download and print a PDF of this year’s registration form. Ta daah! Oh, and you can make plenty of copies for your friends — one person per form, please.

This year we will be selling T-shirts with a new design. They are $12 each, available in sizes S through XXL, and must be ordered when you register.

Details will be posted on Ravelry on my profile page, and in the WI Sheep and Wool group page.

Any questions? Ask them on Ravelry, so we can all share the answers.

Hope to see you there!

Son of Spam 2

A lot of think about the Chinese military to become so fierce.

They see the big numbers, the developing naval force,
the enormous develop up of all items military.

China does have an unbelievably massive military.
Only trouble is, it’s largely a mob type mentallity. When confronting a force such as the American Military, there’s NO WAY the Chinese forces can stand.

This comes from a spammer called “colognes that attract women.” Make of that whatever you will.

Week Seventeen: Needs More Macintosh

I’m not a person who tends to throw things out. (Michael, I can hear you laughing from all the way over here. Please pick yourself off the floor. You’re excused.) But lately I have had the need and the opportunity to go through my possessions and decide what truly needs to stay and what can go on its merry way to the trash bin (broken toys), the recycling pile (six-year-old shredded utility bills), or a new happy home (so long, dear Olympia manual typewriter!).

Now my surroundings are becoming more of a reflection of all my interests, and I’ve decided to enhance one of those interests with a conscious effort towards a minor-league collection of Macintoshes.

In 1988 I bought (with the assistance of my then-future-mother-in-law’s signature on the Apple Credit application) a Macintosh SE. It was a thing of glory that came with System 6.0.7, and I souped it up as much as I could. It had a whole 1 megabyte of RAM. Instead of a standard Apple 20 megabyte hard drive, it had a 45 megabyte hard drive shoehorned in there. Instead of the standard keyboard, I bought a DataDesk extended keyboard that had the same layout as the IBM PC with which everyone was familiar. (My roommate, a paper science and engineering major, especially liked this whenever she needed to borrow it to write up a report.) I had planned to buy an optical mouse (it worked via a special reflective mouse pad), but the store was out of those when I went shopping, so I had the standard mouse. And I bought the first of many Hewlett-Packard printers to go with it, a DeskJet whose model number I don’t remember. Somewhere along the line I picked up a 1200 baud modem, and I was good to go. No, there was no Internet yet, not that I knew how to get to — but there were university bulletin boards where we hacked into each others’ secret forums, moderated discussion groups of all flavors, and generally had fun outgeeking each other.

Somebody else’s Datadesk keyboard.

Several Macs later, one stupid day I sold that SE back to a computer store. I don’t know what brought me to that day, why I thought it was a good idea for even a second, or even how much money I made on the deal. It couldn’t have been much at all. But I must have been convinced that since I couldn’t upgrade it and keep it current, it wasn’t worth keeping around. WHAT was I thinking? I should have kept it. It was a fine computer and I had many good memories associated with it.

Since then I’ve hung on to each old Macintosh (my mother once chided me, saying there was no such thing as an “old” computer), each tired printer, each set of power cords and A/V cables, every mouse. Michael once teased me (don’t think I can’t HEAR you back there. I said you were EXCUSED) that I had a “Macseum” in the making. And now that I have cleared a little bit of space, I’m starting to develop that Mac Museum concept a bit. Thoughtfully this time.

Last weekend I was killing time by trolling eBay in the “vintage computers” category. The existence of this category on eBay is what makes it an extremely good thing that I can never remember my eBay account name and password, or I would have already purchased a somewhat random nameplate from a UNIVAC. (Just $7.50! It’s a piece of history!)

The UNIVAC operator console, with operator Joneal Williams-Daw .

Thinking locally, in large measure because of the shipping charges needed to make sure a $75 computer could make it to me all the way from Texas, or Florida, or [gulp] California, I turned to Craigslist and found such a deal. Within an hour’s drive was a Macintosh Plus that needed a new home. It worked, and it came with all the parts, plus software (on 3.5-inch diskette) and manuals. And… the seller would throw in a Macintosh Performa 6300 as a bonus. It worked too, and also came with software (on CD-ROM) and manuals.

I went with my teenage son to pick it up, and we were both thrilled. I can’t quite put words to why he was so excited to ride along with his mother to go pick up a couple of old computers, but for me it was a rediscovery of my original love for the Macintosh. Macs were not the first computers I had ever used or owned, but they were the first ones that worked intuitively for me, and the first ones that seemed to have personalities. I wrote on them, tried to teach composition on them, and eventually learned to fix them.

I set up the new computers and took a look around. In one room I had three Macs. In other I had seven. And upstairs…. four iMacs, donated by a friend? I had lost count. They were buried in the closet of a room shared by two very untidy boys, and I’d have to step on quite a few Legos to verify that number. Better keep it vague.

Mind you, other folks have significantly more money, time, and space invested in their Macintosh collections than I ever will. I have seen pictures of racks and racks full of computers that would give you chills. Full garages. Full basements. I’m personally hoping to have working Macs that serve as 90 percent décor, 10 percent “It’s time to play Duck Hunt!” And some of the models on my to-find list are rare enough that I wouldn’t insist they be anything better than a clean doorstop. That includes the original 128K Mac, as well as items like the Mac XL, the Lisa, and the Macintosh Portable, a 16-pound shoulder-stretcher from 1987. They would just be cool to have.

The Mac XL, or “Hackintosh” — Lisa’s body and the Mac’s brains.

And look at this SE — a one-of-eight prototype in a clear plastic case, designed for airflow studies!

While I was researching the technical specifications on the new Macs I’d brought home, I noticed a value called the “Gestalt ID.” This is a whole-number ID given to each distinct release of Macintosh. The original 128K Macintosh has a Gestalt ID = 1. My new old Mac Plus has a Gestalt ID = 4. The Performa 6300 has a Gestalt ID = 42. In real life, it was used to call certain sets of programming functions. For my purposes, it’s like a checklist that writes itself. And no, I don’t feel a need to collect them all. But a showcase of good examples of each of the early Compact Macs would be something to see. I might even sell off some of the mid-range Macs to fund the quest for the early survivors.

So Friday afternoon, I have a date. A date to drive to Monona and purchase a Macintosh SE FDHD. Three down, ten to go.

The first Mac to offer the 1.44 megabyte “SuperDrive.”

Week Sixteen: Decisions and Revisions

The calculus train is barrelling along past Reimann Sum station now, and I’m staying in my seat and taking all the notes I can. I’m keeping up with my homework on antiderivatives, summation notation, indefinite integrals, and definite integrals. There will be an exam in two weeks covering this material, and I’m not scared of it. The biggest problems this week have been (a) slipping on the frosty ramp outside the house and bruising my hip, shoulder, hand, and ego; (b) getting almost to school and realizing I was driving the car that didn’t have the commuter window-sticker; and (c) getting so wrapped up in my homework that I lost track of time and was a minute or two late to class. They didn’t all happen on the same day (but two of them did).

The smaller the interval you measure, the closer you get to an accurate estimate of the area under the curve.

Of course, I know me by now, and when things are going well I tend to extrapolate the success to the nth degree. If I solve one computer hardware issue I think I should work as a Genius at the Apple Store. If I write a haiku I wonder how I’ll ever have time to finish my epic metered saga. One good pot of soup, and I’m thinking up graphic treatments for a cookbook series. If I think of an improved mousetrap design, I fret over my inability to purchase enough warehouse space to store all the inventory. That sort of thing. It’s more amusing now that I can catch myself in the act of making ridiculous or disproportionate future plans, and ground myself gently back in reality.

Thoughts like these have started me wondering about my academic future. Enough people have asked me if I were going back to school this fall that I started wondering, too. I went from “no” to “probably not” to “maybe” to “I think I’ll change my major to Pure Mathematics and get a full time job too and edit at night and invent cold fusion” in the space of an afternoon. Well, except for the cold fusion. I’m sure someone else has that all worked out by now.

I caught the thought, then I held it and took a more critical look at it. The physics professors seem distressed at the thought of my being a math major. What are you going to do with a math degree? Well, the same thing I was going to do with a physics degree at age forty-coughcoughcough — learn everything I can about what I’m interested in, while I still can. I’m interested in education but not in teaching, but who knows? With four technically oriented kids, being able to teach math might come in extremely handy. I’m interested in the history of math, the history of science, and the history of language. I don’t have five lifetimes in which to read everything, so I need to choose my reading matter carefully. For that, a structured course seems like a good idea. What’s it all good for? Well, it’s going to help me become more like me. That should be the purpose of education — to help you develop your strengths and shore up your weaknesses. It’s your choice as to whether you apply that towards finding a job or not. Personally, I think that this experience and education will eventually land me in a place where I’m making a living, but I just can’t see all the details from here. Not yet.

The math-and-numbers side of me is now being balanced by my words-and-letters side. I’m not just playing Words With Friends and Scramble any more; I’ve gotten a client who would like me to edit his book manuscript and help him get published. While I’m waiting for him to sign and return his contract, I’ll go ahead and hard-copy edit his first two chapters and keep track of my time so I can figure out my rates for future jobs. I’m also editing a friend’s dissertation for chapter-by-chapter publication in an academic journal. I’m reading fiction and nonfiction. I’m writing every day and blogging every week. And I’m still playing Words With Friends and Scramble. Finding point-scoring combinations among the letter tiles isn’t interfering with my “mathing” any more, so I’m just trying to stay balanced.

Then there’s knitting, that combination of wool, coding, artistic expression, and applied topology. I’m doing finishing (weaving in loose ends) on a huge project, turning a heel on a sock, designing a mathematically and artistically geeky scarf, and knitting a lace-edged narrow shawl that’s a therapeutic exercise.  My friend Bonnie has taught me how to do a Long-Tail cast-on — in fact, this patient woman has taught it to me twice so far — so I have a new tool in that particular toolbox.

As usual, all I need is time. T.S. Eliot assures me that won’t be an issue:

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
— “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

Son of Spam of the week!

What a information of un-ambiguity and preserveness of valuable familiarity regarding unexpected feelings.

Week Fifteen: Time to Catch a Train

As a friend recently pointed out to me, it was high time I reached out my arm and caught the next train that was passing by. Fortunately for me, it was the calculus train and it was just a few stops ahead of the station at which I disembarked last fall. Allllll aboard for Objective Functions, Antiderivatives, and Integration!

Last week I was able to make a short visit to campus, and I happened to check the office hours of my calculus professor from last semester. I was pleased to find that she was once again teaching Calculus I, but in the mornings this time, and holding a review session on Friday mornings. I showed up last Friday and surprised myself with some of the things I was able to remember how to do. Monday, with her permission, I started sitting in on the class itself, and she used my work on an objective function problem as the example she put under the opaque projector! (I am told by educational personnel more in touch with audio-visual equipment that this is called something else. I am of the age to call it an opaque projector because the device is projecting an image, and the original does not need to be on a transparency.) She just took my whole notebook and stuck it there under the camera. Gosh, I’m glad I wrote neatly. (The radius was 3.04 cm and the height was 12.2 cm. So there.)

All she wants me to do is take the tests with the rest of the class. They just had a test handed back, so it looks as if my ticket has been punched for the rest of the trip. One more regular test and the final exam, and I will be finished with the course. With the opportunity to go to campus every morning and study, go to class, and study some more, I can do my best and have no excuses. And frankly, the material is a bit easier for me now that I’m hearing everything a second time, with some space in between. I will have my afternoons for errands and editing work.

When I’m not editing, I’m reorganizing the house. My middle son turns 9 this weekend, and he wants to have his birthday party at our house. I’m never thrilled about cleaning for cleaning’s sake anyway, but the house is much more disorganized than what cleaning will fix. A huge social deadline may be just what I need to make me finally get our stuff in the right places, and get rid of the stuff we don’t need. Several rooms are already done and they give off a happy vibe now. But there are many more left to go… plus a party to plan, and probably at least one thing to bake. I really should make a list or something.

And starting this weekend, or maybe not, I am a soccer mom. My youngest child is signed up for city rec sports outdoor soccer (yes, indoor soccer is a thing) and they cancelled the first game because the fields still had snow and/or mud on them. The second game is supposed to be this Saturday morning. At 9am. With no coach. It’s been raining all week and the field is underwater, so I’m praying hoping that this one is cancelled too. In the meantime we have already bought him soccer shorts, soccer shoes, soccer socks, soccer shin guards, and a portable soccer goal. UPDATE: Yes, this weekend’s game has also been cancelled. So now it starts the following Saturday morning, with make-up games on a couple of Wednesday nights. Oh, how interesting this will be.

Just to carry along the train theme, here is the video for “Driver 8″ by R.E.M.

Week Fourteen: Art Imitates Art

I am turning to writing more and more often in order to express myself. Given that I have a degree in writing, this should come as no surprise to anyone, especially myself.

However.

I am now journaling every day when I wake up, and just before I fall asleep.

I am now composing my blog posts over the course of several days, and editing them.

I have recently written A Poem. (Be afraid. Be very afraid.)

These are things I have not done for some time. For over a decade I have been occupying my time with (and defining myself by) my children. As important as child-raising and human-socializing and person-educating can be, it doesn’t take away from the importance of my Prime Directive, which is to treat yourself kindly and use the resulting energy to treat others kindly. This life is a bumpy ride, for which I believe we are each issued only one ticket, and we need to be each other’s shock absorbers. (And I’m finding out as I proceed through life that there is a lot of shock to absorb. There is a lot of pain out there, both having been suffered and awaiting the suffering of.)

I have found it interesting over the last few years that when I meet virtually with old friends, they don’t ask if I’m married. They don’t ask if I have kids. They don’t ask if I’m working or studying. Without memorable exception, they have all asked the same question of me: “Are you still writing?”

It gave me pause.

Was I?

Did journaling count? I have kept journals off and on over the years — but mostly off in recent years. (So I was kind of hoping that journaling didn’t count.)

Did scrapbooking count? For a while there I was designing pages and describing events so our memories would be easier to summon in the future.

Did blogging count? I started Chocolate Sheep in 2006? 2007? after writing a monthly e-mail newsletter called Wisconsin Crafter.

Did social media count? I have posted approximately 12,300 posts on Ravelry since I joined the site on September 27, 2007. On that site, which now has over 3 million members, I have started groups, adminned groups, modded groups, participated in groups, and lurked in groups. I have been on Facebook since (apparently, according to Facebook) sometime in 2009. I can’t even count how many notes, status updates, private messages, and comments I’ve written there.

Did they mean, Had I written a novel? or Had I published my short stories? or Had a written something else, something “official”?

I think what they really meant to ask was whether or not I was still myself — whether I had kept on doing the thing that defined me as “me” to them. They were checking in to find out if I were the same person they had known years ago, and whether or not time had changed me. I’m pretty sure they didn’t want to see my unfinished novel (and I’m certain I didn’t want to show it to them). They didn’t want to read my scrapbooks or see the hand-stamped cards I’d made. They were touching base about one thing they were certain was still true.

I didn’t want to disappoint them, so I said “yes.” It seemed very important that I say “yes.”

Exactly why was it important that I live up to [what I thought were] their expectations?

I wanted to be the same person. I wanted to be someone who hadn’t given up her dreams in the face of life and its challenges. I wanted to be that writer who kept on writing, no matter what life had thrown at her. And since nobody was demanding to see any evidence — such as links to articles I’d written for The New Yorker, perhaps — nobody was the wiser.

But really…. I really wanted to be that person. So over time, I have started writing again. I started different blogs in order to focus on different topics. (And I also discovered that I really enjoy the creative process of setting up a new blog. I have set up ten of them. Really, I can stop anytime I want to. It’s totally under control.)

So here I am, writing about writing. And while you can call yourself anything that you want, I personally find it easier to accept the label “writer” after I’ve clicked on the “publish” button.

Myself, many moons ago (1987), editing my own writing with a red pen.

I’ve also started reading again — new books, classic books, fiction, nonfiction, intriguing books on display at the library, my kids’ books. I’m getting new stories, words, and writers into my head. Instead of comforting myself by reading my favorite stories over and over, I’m gently reading my way out of my box. I’m also reading books about new ways to think about life, the universe, and everything — including thinking itself. I have purchased three new bookcases for my personal space alone (and applied Eminent Domain to acquire one from my eldest son’s room), and they are spilling over before I’ve even had the chance to bring up the many boxes of books that have been stored in the basement for the last several years. Probably for several years too long. Anyway, they can’t come up into the light until I have somewhere safe to put them, and we’re still pretty crowded here, topside.

So much to read, so little time.

And yes, I’m still knitting…. looky here! This week it became increasingly obvious that I wasn’t going to have nearly enough yarn to complete Wingspan with even the two skeins I had, so on Tuesday one of my errands was to find a complementary color in the same weight to do the neckline edging. I didn’t get any college scholarship money on my color-matching talents, so I was a little nervous about the skein I’d picked. I took the project and the extra yarn to knit night to set some groupthink on it, and lo! and behold! they said that it was good! I proceeded to join the new yarn and knit six rows as quickly as I could, but with each row taking about 30 minutes, I knew I wouldn’t have time to cast off right then. I took care of that task on Wednesday afternoon, then ever so promptly wove in all the ends. I threw it around my neck and fell in love with it immediately.

And ah, there is so much more to knit… and to write. But tomorrow I’m going back to campus to study my calculus before it’s too late.

Only Yes Means Yes

This week’s post is not going to be about knitting and how much of it I’ve gotten done, about physics and how they found the Higgs Boson, about calculus and how I need to be studying it, about Doctor Who and how the new episode is on tomorrow night, or about baseball and how it starts April 1  after we’ve endured the Winter To End All Freaking Winters.

This post is about Steubenville, Ohio. It is about rape. It is about rape culture, a term I started hearing only in the last couple of weeks, which causes me to look at the world in a different way than I have before.

I am not going to tell Steubenville’s story, or even provide a link to any web sites that discuss what has happened there. You are adults, and if you do not already know what happened there (and what happened afterwards) you have the tools to educate yourself on the basics in a matter of seconds. (And you really should. Go ahead if you need to. I’ll wait.)

I am going to tell my story — the story I have as a victim of rape culture.

Between the years of 1985 and 1989, when I was an undergraduate at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, I had exactly two personal encounters with Campus Security.

The first encounter was a bizarre incident in my freshman year in which I was given a verbal warning for somehow simultaneously speeding and impeding traffic during an evening bike ride. The Campus Security officer also suggested that I put a light on my bike if I planned to be out riding after dark. I was incensed that night at the illogical nature of it all, but I had a generator and front and rear lights installed on my bike the next day and never got into trouble with “the law” again.

The second encounter took place a couple of years later, when I was a happy resident of Bishop Hall, the co-ed honors dorm.

In those days (and maybe in these days too) each dorm room had a wall-mounted phone that the roommates shared. There was no Caller ID on this phone, no special ring to tell who the call was for. Oh, and there was no answering machine attached or voicemail function included. It could ring and ring all day if nobody was home; it could ring once and you’d miss it. Every student had a printed campus directory so they could look up your number.

One night we got a call, and I answered.

“Hello?”

“I am going to stab you,” said an unfamiliar male voice, “and then I’m going to kill you.”

I froze up.

There was a small commotion on the other end of the line, then a different voice, muted as if someone had covered the phone receiver with their hand, said, “Wait to see if there’s a reaction.”

I hung up the phone. The sense of shock and fear was so strong that I can recall it in this moment, 26 years later, but I cannot recall who was in the room with me (roommate? boyfriend? anybody else?) or exactly what happened next. My blood was like ice. I couldn’t think except for random panicked thoughts like, “Who was that?” “Do they know where I live?” “Are they watching me?” “Is someone going to hurt me?” “Am I in danger?” and “Why do they want to hurt me?”

The only thing I knew was that I had to report the incident to Campus Security. My freshman-year bicycling encounter had given me a bad impression of them, but now they were to be my confessors, my protectors. I called them, gave a quick description of the incident, and within an hour two officers had walked the one block from Campus Security headquarters to my dorm, and I had to give my statement. I felt afraid for myself, as if the perpetrators were on their way to attack me in person. I felt embarrassed at having to describe how scared I was.

I was already introverted, shy, self-conscious, and nervous. Now I panicked every time the phone rang. My boyfriend’s reaction scared me at least as much; I told him while he was at the indoor archery range, and he shot one bullseye after the next, imagining he was killing the man who had scared me. A person I had only known as a peaceful person, a joker, was ready to commit murder. I didn’t know he was capable of it, and suddenly I felt surrounded by violent men. Meanwhile, I sat on the floor, hugging myself into a ball, not wanting to talk to anyone.

Next week, the incident was summarized in the police logs in the campus newspaper, and I got to read those chilling words all over again.

Why did this happen? Was it a random prank call? Was it really a call from someone I knew who really wanted to murder me? Was it retaliation for a letter I had published in the campus newspaper, calling for men and women to treat each other with respect, signed with my full name and campus address?

I will never know, because that is where my story ends. Campus Security never followed up to see if I’d received any other threatening calls. Nobody suggested that I visit the Health Center or local counseling services to handle my fear and anxiety after receiving such a violent threat. That was it. Life proceeded, other things happened, and gradually the memory of the incident faded. Beyond telling my roommate and my boyfriend, I’m not sure anyone else even knew about it, including my parents.

Twenty-five years later I can apply my deductive skills and guess at the truth: It was someone’s idea of a joke, a prank, a fun way to pass the time. Let’s dial a bunch of numbers and tell people we’re going to kill them, and listen to what they say. I do understand that for a lot of people college is about running around with your friends and doing silly things. Breaking free from your high school social patterns and having fun before you need to apply yourself, graduate, and enter the corporate world. But having fun by calling random strangers and threatening to stab and kill them? That’s practicing to be a terrorist, a bully, a public menace. And for the people who did this to me (and possibly to others) there was no consequence.

Why am I calling this a “rape culture” incident if I was not raped?

I’m calling it a rape culture incident because rape culture is what allows people to see making death threats as a fun way to pass the time when studying is boring. Rape culture says “boys will be boys” and “you know how men are” when these boys and mean have committed criminal acts. Rape culture pressures and intimidates rape victims and calls them liars when they report criminal acts. Rape culture suggests that women change what they wear and how they behave and what they say in order to avoid being assaulted — rather than educate and counsel men to behave ethically and lawfully. Rape culture says hypothetically that a woman should accept sexual assault rather than be killed. When a real sexual assault takes place, rape culture asks why she didn’t fight back. Rape culture is what turns a blind eye when sex is used as a weapon, and always punishes the victim.

Yes, I personally was fortunate in this instance that a threatening phone call, most likely a joke, was all that happened to me. An unbelievably large number of women have not been so lucky.

After decades of teaching us that “no means no,” the criminals in Steubenville have exploited the terrifying loophole that if you drug your victim until they can’t say “no,” you didn’t hear them say “no.” They can’t claim in court that they told you to stop.

Rather than having a double negative as the legal standard, how about enforcing the concept of affirmative consent? Simply, let “yes” mean “yes,” and let only “yes” mean “yes.” This isn’t my idea — this is already a concept that needs more support.

Meanwhile, let’s educate ourselves and our children to understand and truly believe that physical assault is wrong. Let’s teach that coercion, stalking, harassment, threatening, and hurting are wrong — regardless of the gender of the perpetrator. Regardless of the gender of the victim.

Stand against a dangerous culture to stand up for safety. Be brave enough to say, “No, don’t do it. That’s wrong.” “John, that’s not cool.” “Jane, leave them alone.” And when it’s appropriate, please say, “Dude, that’s scary weird. Let’s talk through this and get you some help. Because what you’re wanting to do is not right.”

You can stand up for it in person. You can stand up for it organizationally by supporting groups that educate and counsel. You can stand up for it politically by supporting Senators and Representatives who work towards the safety of all their constituents. And you can make sure that social media organizations understand how you feel about their policies. But we all need to start standing up for safety. For all of us.

 

POSTSCRIPT: On 4/6/2013 I saw a news item about Miami University graduate Laura L. Smith, who has just written a young adult novel dealing with date rape. It is a Christian-themed book available electronically for the Kindle.  Here is the link to the story in the Oxford Press, and here is a link to its listing on Amazon.com.