Words Fail Me

There's a scene from Petunia's showers that makes me wish I could draw or paint. Pumpkin has decided she wants to give herself showers now, and so Petunia has also switched to showers. Petunia, though, can't quite do it on her own. So, when it is time to rinse the shampoo out of her hair, I often step one foot into the shower to help her. She closes her eyes and smiles and leans her head back (sort of- she's not so good at that part). It is such a tender, intimate moment, and I'm sure I'll forget it once she is old enough not to need my help anymore.

I won't pretend parenting hasn't been hard for me lately. I think it is largely due to the fact that Pumpkin has hit a difficult phase (seven is kicking our asses) right at the same time as I seem to be entering perimenopause. At a time when I most need patience and understanding, my anger is unpredictable, to say the least. I wonder why I never see this included in those silly pro-and-cons lists for having kids early vs. later in life. I think there must be definite advantages to having your kids be old enough to understand WTF is going on when Mommy's moods start swinging out of control. Although having this phase in my life overlap the time when my daughters hit puberty would be truly frightening. We would probably need to buy new doors, since all the females in this house favor stomping off to our room and slamming the door when angry.

Regardless, I'm going to have to figure out how to muddle through. Scenes like the one during Petunia's shower help a lot. Also, the kids played nicely together for a solid hour in the backyard this evening, while I sat and sipped some wine and read my book. It was a minor parenting miracle, and I am grateful for it.

In fact, I am grateful tonight for much, much more. I parent from an extraordinarily privileged position that I am painfully aware should be granted to all parents in this country, but is not. If my kids act up in public and I don't manage to handle it perfectly, I am given the benefit of the doubt. If I worry about someone calling Child Protective Services on us when one or the other of the kids is screaming about whatever horrible thing we've asked them to do (like put away their toys), it comes from the aforementioned hormonal fluctuations, and not a place of true worry. When my husband goes to the store, there is next to no chance that he will be shot by the police, no matter what merchandise he is carrying. And when my kids are old enough to be out on their own, I won't worry at all about them being shot by police.

I saw the news of the latest shooting on Twitter, of course. It is where I see most things first. I was saddened and angered. And then I saw this tweet, and I was ashamed:

“You’re supposed to protect your kids. I feel like I failed because I let something happen to my son” His mother I’m sick
— Dr. Cornel Fresh (@WyzeChef) August 10, 2014

Mike Brown's mother did not fail her son. We failed her. We have watched so many Black teenagers be killed, and we have done nothing. We have not fixed our problems. I am not sure we have even tried.

How, for instance, is it possible that no one in the Ferguson police department could recognize the truth of this:

The presence of police dogs in #Ferguson is, at the very least, culturally and historically insensitive.
— Antonio French (@AntonioFrench) August 10, 2014

How is it possible that white people are all over Twitter asking what Mike Brown did to deserve being shot, when we all just shrugged and accepted the nonsense that went on at Cliven Bundy's compound? Whatever Mike Brown did or did not do, he did not deserve to be gunned down in the street. He posed no clear and immediate threat to anyone. How is it possible that white people are all over Twitter arguing that John Crawford should not have been carrying an air rifle that is sold in the store he was in when the Open Carry people in Texas managed to go safely in and out of store after store with actual assault rifles?

I am at a loss for words, or for suggestions for action. But I once again find I need to at least acknowledge the privilege I have, and to wish someone could show me the way to help make this better. This is not how I want my country to be. This is not something I can accept as "just how it is." Actually, this self-evidently is just how it is, but I refuse to accept that it should stay that way.

I have no answers. You should read the much more eloquent words of Stacia L. Brown and Roxane Gay and think of the fundamental things in your life you take for granted that so many people in our country cannot. I do not know how we fix this, but perhaps the first step is for more of us to see it.

Weekend Reading: The Rather Short Edition

I don't have that many links this week- I have been busy with the job search ebook, which now has a title: Navigating the Path to Industry. I incorporated my editor's suggestions and sent her a final draft for proofreading on Wednesday. She sent back the final version last night, so today I fixed the mistakes she found and started formatting. It turns out formatting ebooks is mostly a matter of marking them up in HTML and creating an appropriate stylesheet... so I had a lot of fun. I'm starting to believe I might actually get this thing published this month. I should have a cover to show you soon.

Anyway, here are the few links I gathered this week:

I really liked this profile of Rainbow Rowell, and I haven't even read any of her books.

Bad news for people trapped in windowless offices: they seem to mess with your sleep.

A tweet that demonstrates why representation matters:

@BranJJohnsonMHS one of my god-daughters says I'm her real life Doc McStuffins..... I really cried that day, lol. #BLACKandSTEM
— Doc McStuffins (@AntiTwittaMeaux) August 7, 2014

The common concern that white children won't identify with and love characters of different races mystifies me. My children have, at various times, identified with and loved two pigs (Peppa and Olivia), a bunch of puppies (Paw Patrol), and whatever the hell the characters on Yo Gabba Gabba are. They currently identify with and love Doc McStuffins and the fact that she is black has not phased them in the slightest. Pumpkin even chose to buy a big Doc McStuffins play set when she had money from her birthday earlier this year. I suspect any problems these characters have in catching on with white families comes from the grown ups, not the kids.

Max Schireson's blog post about why he quit his job as the CEO of MongoDB has made quite a stir, so I suspect most of you have already seen it. If you somehow missed it, go read it now.

And here's some things from my other feed:

Google finds that predictability is one of the most important traits in a leader/manager.

Esther Derby argues against performance appraisals

If you missed the fact that I have another Twitter feed and blog, the details are here. I tweet out links and other things about management, productivity, and the like over there, and I'll write about those topics, too. In fact, doing some research for my next post over there was another thing I worked on today- I needed access to some journal articles, so I had to drive up to UCSD and spend some time in the library there. It was quite a trip down memory lane! Mr. Snarky used to work on campus, and I spent some time teaching an extension course there.

And for our ending giggle... You've probably seen this one, too: Dilbert did  a great job skewering the "make it so simple your mother could understand it" saying.

The Power of Constraints

My kids spent last week at my parent's house. It was hard to tell ahead of time who was the most excited about the upcoming visit: my kids, my parents, or Mr. Snarky and me. All three parties had a wonderful time.

Mr. Snarky and I had a lot of fun revisiting our pre-parenthood days. We went out to eat. We slept in. And we exercised. I know that last one is a bit "one of these things is not like the others," but San Diego has a beautiful climate and some wonderful opportunities to enjoy that climate while getting some exercise. Before we had kids, we did something active every weekend. We are starting to return to that pattern now, as our kids get old enough to make it feasible. But we have a way to go before we're back to our old habits, and the activities that work with our kids right now are not particularly strenuous.

So we were excited to get the chance to kayak and rollerblade. We had planned to also take a really long (i.e., several mile) walk on the beach, too, but that didn't pan out. Even with "just" kayaking and rollerblading, it felt a little odd to be packing so much into such a short period of time, since we both kept our regular exercise schedule, too. But we had one week, and so we used what we had.

Thinking about that made me realize why I've been having such good luck sticking to my twice-per-week running schedule. I greatly prefer to exercise in the afternoon or evening, so I go for a run on the days I am working from home and can easily accommodate a run in my work day schedule. I have agreed to be onsite at a client's office three days per week. Therefore, if I want to run, I must do it on the other two days. There is no wiggle room. I can't say "I'll do it tomorrow."

Apparently, for me, exercise is more likely to happen if I am constrained in the times at which it can happen. Interesting.

I'm thinking about how to take this insight into my psyche and use it to get myself to exercise more (I need to add a strength routine- I'm experimenting with kettle bells- and I want to add kickboxing back in, too) and do other virtuous things.

Also, since I know I have some other well-endowed women among my readership, I'll briefly mention another type of constraint: the sports bras that make it possible for me to run and do other high impact activities. This is the style I wear now.

Sadly, I went to buy more and discovered they no longer make them in my size (38F, but I can get by with a DD). So, I visited the excellent Title Nine bra section and have picked out some other styles to try, at great expense. Most bras that will provide the support someone my size needs cost at least $80.  This is why I loved my current style- it was "only" $45. I mostly don't mind this- it is just how my body is, after all. But just last week some dude was waxing poetic to me about how great it is that running is a free form of exercise, and that rang out in my mind while I was sending a couple hundred dollars off to Title Nine. Which led to this:

Just spent unbelievable amount of money ordering possible replacement bras. Will demand $80 from the next dude who says "running is free!"
— Wandering Scientist (@wandsci) August 3, 2014

Have you figured out anything about what keeps you on track for virtuous things such as exercise? Share in the comments!

Trip Story: Glenwood Springs

First of all: I wrote a Tungsten Hippo post! I know, you'd probably assumed I'd never do that again. I had some technical issues with the comments, and I wanted those fixed before I wrote my next post. I fixed them last week, and then I wrote about the book Boom and how it disappeared and then reappeared on Amazon, and what that might tell us about the market for writing and ideas right now. So, if that sounds at all interesting, go read it. And comment! Now you can comment and it will work and it should appear instantly, instead of getting stuck in some weird curation queue I didn't even know I had. I apologize to those people who commented on earlier posts only to have their comments disappear into that black hole. They're out now, and I even answered all of them. I'll do better on this in the future.

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Now, back to my stories about our recent Colorado vacation. Glenwood Springs was our second real stop, and we loved it.

That's the tl;dr version of our stay in Glenwood Springs. But you know I can never stick to a tl;dr version of anything. Here's the full story:

We arrived at our hotel in Glenwood Springs in not quite the best mood. I was sad that the trouble with the rental car had nixed my original plan to see Breckenridge. Mr. Snarky was sad that he'd lost his glasses. The kids were sad that we'd made them leave the pirate ship playground in Vail.

Luckily, our hotel was awesome. We stayed at the Hotel Colorado. We were reasonably impressed when we first drove up. We were thrilled when we went into our room.

The balcony with the bunting turned out to be ours. ALL of it.

There were two full bedrooms connected by a little kitchen area with a table. The kids were delighted to find a little table in their room, too. Then we opened the door to the balcony and saw this:

A nice view

We decided to have dinner at the pretty little courtyard in our hotel. That turned out to be more expensive and time-consuming than we initially expected, but it was worth it. The food was good, and the setting was delightful. There were little lights in the trees, and a cool breeze made dining outside more than pleasant. And it was nice not to have to go anywhere.

The main attraction in Glenwood Springs- at least for us, on this trip- was the hot springs. We visited the springs the day after we arrived.

The hot pools in the evening

We spent a couple of hours at the pools in the morning. There is a warm pool, a hot pool, a kiddie pool, and a couple of big water slides. I would have loved more time to soak in the hot pool, but instead I spent most of my time hanging with one of the kids in the warm pool, while Mr. Snarky hung with the other one. Pumpkin is a strong swimmer now, and just needs oversight, but likes company. Petunia is still learning, and needed a parent to be right next to her or holding her at all times. Mr. Snarky and Petunia almost went on the water slide, but were spooked by the fact that it used city water, and the heater on that was broken.

After our swim, we got cleaned up and headed over to the downtown portion of Glenwood Springs, which is across the river (and the freeway) from the pools and our hotel. There is a nice pedestrian overpass, though, so it was no problem to stroll over. We had lunch at The Pullman, which was wonderful. Seriously, if you ever visit Glenwood Springs, make sure you have a meal there. The food and drinks for the grown ups are great, and although you can't find it on their website, there is a kids' menu, and they were extremely welcoming of our kids. (Granted, our kids are now past the age where they make scenes in restaurants, and know how to behave in a restaurant... but I'm sure yours do, too, and it wouldn't be a bad place to take a younger kid, since it would be easy to escape outside if the kid started to act up.)

There was a mini golf course between our hotel and the hot springs, and the kids really wanted to play. So we did. Our family rules are that we have to take turns on the initial hit, but once everyone's ball is down near the hole, we can all hit at once. This makes the game a length that the adults can stand, even when played with two kids who don't have particularly strong golf skills. Actually, I don't have particularly strong golf skills, either.

Petunia kept getting her club backwards, but she had lots of fun

As you can see, the golf course had a lot of nice shade, but it was still pretty warm out, and we  needed a bit of a rest in our room before dinner. Then, we walked back over to the downtown side of the river and strolled around downtown a bit. They have the brilliant idea of putting Adirondack chairs in various places around town. These chairs are far more comfortable than a bench, and we saw them getting quite a bit of use. We tried them out, too.

All towns should have these

We had dinner at the Glenwood Canyon Brewing Company. The beer was pretty good, and I had a delicious cheese soup. After dinner, we went back to the pools and had a wonderful swim as the sun set. Pumpkin even worked up the nerve to do some dives from the diving board, and loved that.

The next morning, we had to leave Glenwood Springs. I wish I had given us one more day there. We probably could have convinced the kids to take a short hike in Glenwood Canyon if we promised a swim after the hike, and I would have enjoyed having another day to appreciate the laid back vibe of the town. We'll have to go back sometime.

Before we left town, we decided to visit the Glenwood Caverns. The caves are part of an "adventure park" with several rides and other attractions, like this is giant swing that I would never, ever go on:

It swings out over the side of the mountain, and it makes me queasy to even think about it.

The cave tour was nice. Our kids didn't get freaked out- Pumpkin even got to be a special helper and hold a flashlight at one point (this really annoyed Petunia, who wanted a turn being a special helper, but was too small). There were the usual cave sights. This "bearded" rock was one of my favorites. The "beard" is made up of tree roots poking through the rock.

Old man rock

After the tour, we had a quick lunch at the adventure park, and then hit the road, headed for Aspen. I'll pick up the story there in a later post.

Weekend Reading: The Mishmash Edition

I have even less time to write the text around my links than usual, because in just a couple hours, I'll be heading off to Yuma to meet my parents and collect my kids, who have been enjoying a week of being spoiled by their grandparents while Mr. Snarky and I have been enjoying a week of doing things in the evenings. Kayaking! Rollerblading! Beer-tasting! It has been fun, but weird. I'll probably write a full post on it at some point. The original plan was for my parents to bring them all the way back to San Diego, but that plan had to be changed for very good reasons... so Mr. Snarky and I are leaving soon to make the three hour drive to Yuma.

But I couldn't deprive you of your weekend reading! So here are a bunch of links, with no real attempt to tie them together.

If you some how managed to miss Michel Martin's wonderful piece about balancing work and motherhood while black, go fix that now.

Do you remember reading Susan Faludi's Backlash when it came out? I do. I somehow missed that Matter is doing a book club on it, but found out when Roxane Gay was one of the people discussing chapter 2. She is such a smart commentator on life, the universe, and everything... and particularly on gender politics. So I read it, and now I'm halfway thinking I'll reread the book. Or maybe I'll just read more of the book club entries. I don't know. I've got a lot of gender related angst right now, and I haven't decided if I should engage it and try to slay that dragon and come out a wise old woman or if I should ignore it for another 10 years or so. (But: I am anxiously awaiting the day that my pre-ordered copy of Gay's upcoming book, Bad Feminist, hits my Kindle. Maybe that will be the book that makes me wise? Or at least sets me on the right path? Regardless, it is certain to be a great read, because she writes so incredibly well.)

But I have at least stopped avoiding all the stories about sexism in tech. Wired had a good one this week about raising venture capital while female. I'm more comfortable than ever with my bootstrapping strategy.

And then, of course, there is the Twitter harassment problem. Or really, the online harassment problem. Have you ever seen the People of Color in European Art History tumblr? It is awesome. But some people on Reddit don't think so, and they're being assholes about it. One one hand, I am blown away that a tumblr merely showing the historical record about the existence of people of color in Europe in historical times would get people so upset. On the other hand, of course it does.

Reddit is an internet subculture that really, really prioritizes "free speech." And hey, I'm all for free speech. But threats and harassment aren't "free speech." And people who defend them as such are telling women and people of color and LGBTQ people that they prioritize some asshole's right to say whatever he wants, however he wants over our right to express ideas and opinions, because if I have a reasonable fear that saying something is likely to bring down a torrent of rape threats or threats against my kids, none of which will be taken seriously unless god forbid someone actually acts on one of them... I am not really free to express my ideas and opinions. I know this is a complicated subject and it is hard to figure out where to draw the line, and I don't have time for a full-fledged rant and/or discussion of it right now. But here are a couple of points I made on Twitter:

BTW, here's how I know threats are not protected as free speech: if you make a threat against the president, you'll be arrested.
— Wandering Scientist (@wandsci) July 31, 2014

New min std: could you say that to/about the president without getting a visit from the Secret Service? No? Don't say it to/about anyone
— Wandering Scientist (@wandsci) July 31, 2014

I mean, if we don't expect someone with literal 24/7 armed protection to just shrug off threats on the internet, why are the rest of us expected to do that?

People who have served on hiring committees probably know deep down that the hiring bias part of this article about the impact of names is true, even if they would rather believe it isn't.

Arthur Chu wrote a great piece about being asked to speak in a Chinese accent.

This beautiful piece about losing two partners to cancer made me cry. But it is worth it, so read it anyway.

I found a great new podcast! If you are a podcast aficionado, check out Snap Judgment. It has the most amazing stories.

Also Lego's women scientist set is out.

Finally- I know this house!

Oh, and a postscript: if you missed my previous post about my second online home, check it out now. The clock is ticking on when I'll remove the link.