Our wives and mothers

My Google Reader is full of feminists.  Actual feminist blogs, style blogs written by feminists, parenting blogs written by feminists, a couple news sources where one is more or less guaranteed to see a feminist coverage of any large event among the six or seven articles they publish concerning it, etc.  And yet somehow I am entirely alone in seeing something a little questionable in the president's feminism as expressed in his inaugural address.  This is kind of a first for me, finding myself with more extreme thoughts than literally anyone else I've encountered, even among more or less professional feminists on the internet, people who generally spend a lot of time dissecting language and nuance and implication.  So maybe I am "just looking for things to be offended about," * or maybe I'm just that special.  At any rate, I wanted to explore my thoughts a little bit.

*  I'm not.  Though obviously I do look at basically everything with, first and foremost, a critical attitude, so if there's an aspect in which something is unfair or questionable, I'm going to notice it, and of course I'm going to point it out.  That's how I work, yo.

The section in question, which was Facebooked and blogged by several women I know and loads of random internet women, goes like this:

For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers, and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts. Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law—for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.

So, first of all:  yes, obviously, to the sentiment.  Women should earn fair wages on par with men and gay people's marriages matter as much as straight people's.  No quibble there.

However, I find this part to be, ironically, a sudden (linguistic, rhetorical) departure from his previous language of inclusivity.  It's a subtle shift, but I find it surprisingly alienating.  If Obama is suddenly talking about "our" wives and mothers and daughters and "our" gay brothers and sisters, the "we" he is speaking to doesn't seem to actually include those people who are the wives/mothers/daughters, brothers/sisters.  He suddenly seems to be speaking to those in charge, those with the power, those who are 'neutral,' who actually (functionally, historically, are perceived to) make up the "we" of the citizenry of America.  And that implication is where I suddenly have a problem.  For these sentences he shifts into the usual language of privilege and exclusivity that I generally see all around but that is the result of attitudes that he is explicitly trying to end.  Sure, let's give rights to those people.  "We" in our benevolence, can bestow that upon them.  It's perpetuating the attitude he's trying to solve.

I'm really surprised that nobody else has had this reaction, because it stuck out like a sore thumb to me.  Reading down the transcript, you get we, we, we, together, together, together, "we have always understood," "this generation of Americans," "for we, the people, understand...," "we understand...," "we, the people, still believe...," "any one of us," "the commitments we make to each other," "we, the people," "we, the people," "we."  All togetherness and unity and melded identity, and then, wait a second, "our wives, our mothers, and daughters."  Except he's talking about me.  In the third person.  And if I'm not part of the "we" here, I'm left to wonder if I've been part of the "we" all along or if this whole speech is addressed to people who aren't  me.

And it really is rather abrupt and rather unique.  He didn't say "our friends who are parents of a disabled child," he just said, "parents of a disabled child," which I at least take as the implied "those of us who," or "if you end up being."  He didn't say "when our old spent their twilight years in poverty," he said, "when twilight years were spent in poverty."  He does say "our brave men and women in battle," but I feel like that's different and rings more of "those of us who..." than "our sons and daughters" (which he could have, and often has, said).  It's all about smoothing over differences and kind of looking past individuality, about identifying as part of an amorphous blob of citizenry.  (Which I don't mean to sound negative; we could use more of that.)  We, we, we, together, my fellow Americans, you and I as citizens...  Why not continue with "Our journey is not complete until we all, regardless of gender, can earn a living equal to our efforts" (or even "until we all can earn...," though I assume he wants to specifically point out gender, and I dig that) or "until our income is not dependent on our gender" or "until those of us who are women can earn a living in accordance with our effort"?  Why not "until we view all marriage as equal" or "until we all can enjoy the legal and social sanction of our declared love" or "those of us who are gay enjoy equality under the law" or "all our marriages are equal, as our love is"?

I actually have less of a problem with the gay part, I guess because "our brothers and sisters" still more invokes "each other" than "our wives and mothers and daughters" does.  (At least I hope it's not just that I am a woman and not gay.  That would be disappointingly normal of me.)  So while I still don't like the alienating "our," it's more an "our" of "our friends" than "our children."  It's a mutual relationship being implied.  And "brothers and sisters" is obviously meant yet a step more metaphorically than "wives and mothers."  Plus I feel like the follow-up sentence furthers the thought and focuses on the identity and equality more:  "for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well."  Back to "we."  And not a "we are equal with them," but a "we [all of us] are equal [with each other]."

Secondarily, I have a problem with people being defined in relation to others.  Part of this is connected, but part of it is distinct.  I've never liked politicians talking about "our children and grandchildren" when what they mean is either young Americans or future generations of Americans, partially because (as above) it alienates any minors who happen to be listening and paying attention (or, well, not even minors—I'm going to be alive when the environment self-destructs, and I'm going to be around when Social Security runs out...), but partially because  it unnecessarily links people to us, gives us the primacy and the importance.  If doing something about the environment is important because of its effects on future people, it's important regardless of how those people may be connected to us.  You shouldn't have to have a personal connection to someone to care.  And I know it's metaphorical and is an accepted rhetorical device, and I know that most people really do care more about things when they have a personal relationship with someone it affects (and that's fine, though I would prefer it to be more in a drawing-one's-attention way and less in a hey-that's-my-grandson-you're-talking-about way), but I don't really think that sort of absurdity should be encouraged.

It's offensive to other people's full autonomy as individuals and human beings to couch their existence in relation to ours.  "Our children"?  Blech.  "Our wives and mothers"?  Even blech-er.  This is, obviously, generally much more often done with women ("our children" and "our sons (and daughters) off to war" being the only common exceptions).  Sorry, I am a person.  My rights and my earning power, much less this country's willingness to stand for my equality and full citizenship, should have absolutely nothing to do with my being anyone's wife or mother or daughter.  I'm neither a wife nor a mother, and while obviously all women are technically someone's daughter...really? That's not part of my identity.  That's not who I am, it's just a thing one can say about me.  Like ten or so things down the list.  And you know?  That kind of makes it more important that I make an appropriate amount of money.

(And yeah, I just did kind of the same thing rhetorically, switching to talking about "me" instead of "women."  Fair enough, what I deserve or want doesn't matter either; relating to myself instead of abstractly is exactly the problem.  But the difference is I'm not trying to smash the entire country into one happy huggy together-identifying mass though the power of my words.  Also, this is a personal blog and I am one person, and my job in the world is to be that one person and not a representative of anything else.  So yeah, lots of first-person singular here.  Also, of course, the fact that apparently nobody else out there has quite the same take on this as I do, so of course I'm only speaking of myself.)

Rebellion

A revelation I had at some point in 2012:  You can choose clothes based on something other than aesthetics.  Or rather, you can make choices about your appearance and presentation that aren't rooted in making you look as attractive and pleasing as possible.

I know, right?  Simultaneously mindnumbingly obvious and completely revolutionary.

I can deliberately choose to wear skinny jeans even though they make my legs look shorter and even though they draw attention to my disproportionately heavy thighs.*  I can even choose them because that.  Hello, world, I'm going to stick my thighs in your face and there's nothing you can do about it!

* It is possible this is just me being insecure.  That's kind of beside the point, though.  I can wear clothes that I don't think necessarily flatter my body!  And I can like them and be happy about them and just go out in the freaking world and live already instead of worrying about it like I'm really letting somebody down by not downplaying my "flaws" and highlighting my "assets."

I mean, I always knew that some people chose clothes or hairstyles for practical reasons:  they don't show dirt or they stretch with you or it's easy to wash and wear.  But I always thought of this as a sacrifice, as a tradeoff, that they were giving up on looking nice by prioritizing something else.

But you can wear horizontal stripes because, gasp, you like them, or because you like flouting rules.  You can wear tank tops even though you have broad shoulders, or cropped pants even if you have short legs or mustard even if you're pale or...I don't know, I'm running out, but there are loads of these rules, and you can ignore all of them!  Because society at large doesn't have the right to demand of you that you look as hourglassy and poreless as possible.  You're not required to try to adopt a body shape you don't have, or accentuate the one you do.  You can emphasize whatever you want.  You can be deliberately ugly.

Seriously, nothing is as awesome as people thumbing their nose at other people's demands.  I don't have to smile in public, I don't have to wear only flattering colors, I can slick my hair back away from my face in the least flattering way (as my mother kept encouraging me away from and even outright banning when I was in middle school) as a deliberate signal to society (/men) that I don't want their approval, that I have other stuff going on in my life.

Edited to add this, which I have no idea what it's from (other than the comment on a post I just read, but it purports to be from elsewhere), which, YES:
"Pretty is not the rent you pay for occupying a space marked 'female'."

Bra Rage

OK, so I know the internet is overflowing with women ranting about incorrect bra sizing recommendations and how they've all been properly measured and are really a 30F instead of the 34B they've been wearing their entire lives and lamenting the difficulties of finding bras in their proper sizes and actually being able to afford such things and it really doesn't need another.

But seriously, y'all, bra measurement today is ridiculous.  Everyone is just going around reprinting the same sizing instructions that they've always encountered everywhere else without even stopping to envision what that would mean.  They're certainly not manufacturing bras that fit their own measurement guidelines.

Oft-cited "oh, it's as easy as 1, 2, 3" bra measurement advice:  measure around your ribcage at or just below where your bra band sits.  Add five inches to that (and then also round up if you get an odd number) to get your band size.  Measure around your bust at the fullest point.  Subtract your band size from your bust measurement, and if it's a one-inch difference, you're an A; two, a B; three, a C; and so forth.  (No difference or a very small difference would be a AA.)

Except how does this work in real life?  Unless you have more than a five-inch difference between your ribcage measurement and your bust measurement, you should be wearing...a negative cup size?  And even then, if you have seven inches of difference, you're a mere B cup?

Huh, anyone think this could possibly have anything at all to do with the oft-touted "studies" (read:  likely entirely mythical, like the eight glasses of water a day thing) that inform us that 50/70/80/85% of women are wearing the wrong size bra?!  (How insulting can you get?  Women!  You can't even follow a simple three-step measuring process (that leaves you with nonsensical results and has nothing in common with the bras actually sold in the real world)!)  The only actual study I ran across was this, which I'm not going to pay $31.50 to read, but whose abstract claims that 100% of the women (admittedly a biased sample since it was women seeking breast-reduction surgery) were wearing the incorrect bra size "when compared with manufacturers' fitting guidelines."

Oh, manufacturers' fitting guidelines?  How funny you should mention...

My adventure started out on the Champion website (this whole thing was sparked by my merely needing a real sports bra that doesn't come from Old Navy).  "Fit matters," their sizing guide advises.  (Just not enough for us to put accurate information on our website...)  Sure enough, "Measure snugly and evenly around or just below your existing band.  Add 5 to that measurement and round up to the next even number.  This measurement is your band size.  To double-check your band size, measure around your torso below your armpits.  If this measurement is close to the band measurement, then your measurements are accurate.  Measure loosely around the fullest part of your bust, keeping the tape even.  Subtract the band size from the bust size.  The difference between the two measurements is your cup size.  (See chart.)  Test fit with your athletic motion.  Imitate the intended activity to check fit and support."  (The chart in fact shows the normal 1"=A, 2"=B progression -- the one thing the entire internet can agree on, apparently.)

OK, my rib cage measures 30.5".  My bust, 34.5".  Over my bust, 33".

So let's see, 30.5 + 5 = 35.5, and then round up to an even 36
34.5 - 36 = -1.5  (depending on how one is supposed to round the bust size, that's a -1 to -2)
So, a 36 negative A to negative B.  Awesome, because that's totally a real size.  (How nice of them to tell me to compare it to my over-bust measurement for accuracy.  Well, no, it's not close so is probably inaccurate.  Except, you know, that's my actual measurements, so what are you going to do?)

Well, let's try Victoria's Secret.  Their "how to measure" guide recommends measuring above your bust to get your band number and ignoring your rib cage entirely:  "Hold the tape measure around your back at band level.  Then bring it to the front, just above your bust.  The resulting number is your band size.
Hint:  If the number is odd, round down to the closest even number."  (Ooh, rounding down.  This shows promise.)  If your bust measurement is a half-inch, they advise rounding that up.

So for VS:
34.5 rounds up to 35
35 - 33 = B
34B

Gap, where I actually purchase my basic bras (in size 34C, though I actually do think it's quite likely that's the wrong size, but they at least fit on my body and contain my breasts), gives you the option of going up or down, which I appreciate:  "Because standard band sizes are even numbers only, if you have an odd-numbered band size, you may need to go up or down a size depending on how you like your bra to fit."  They stick with the +5 band size and also advise you can "double check your band size by measuring loosely around your back, even with your bra line, bringing the tape to the front just above your bra line" (but with, again, no recommendation on what to do if this is vastly different...which, you know, it is, except for people who happen to fall exactly in the range of having a volume of breast that bumps that measurement to exactly five inches more than the rib measurement).

So again, 36 negative A-B.  Or if I go with the over-bust measurement, 32B-C or 34AA-A, depending on which way I round each measurement.  (It occurs to me that regardless of how one has to round to get to a band size that's sold, one should probably compare the actual measurements of the one with the actual measurements of the other when determining cup size.  Not that anyone recommends that.  So, let's see, a 1" difference between overbust and bust, so a 32 or 34A?  Never mind.  Or using the ribcage measurements, that's a difference of four inches, which would be a D.  But certainly not a 36D, right?)

Old Navy has the same info as Gap but in a different format, while Athleta has the same except specifies to round down for the band and up for the bust.  So a 30D?

Maidenform has this to say:  "Most women measure their ribcage under their breasts to get their band measurement. [notice their complete lack of ownership of your results; "most women" also wear the wrong size bra...]  Double check this measurement by wrapping a tape measure snugly around your back, under your arms and across the top of your chest above your breasts. Because your ribcage expands and contracts as you breathe, taking both measurements will help you find your most comfortable fit." As this is under the heading "Band Measurement" and there is no follow-up, dare I assume we're not adding anything to anything?  This shows promise.  Except there's also no hints on rounding, and 30.5 either rounds down to 30 or up to 32, which isn't quite even...  So, let's see, a 30D-DD if I round the rib measurement down, a 32 B-C if I round up (or 32D if I determine my cup size before doing any rounding), or a 32B-C or 34A-B going from the above-bust measurement.  Well, that's basically every size possible, now, isn't it?  But then there's also a sizing conversion chart included that lists under-bust measurements of 30-31 inches corresponding to above-bust measurements of 36-41 inches, which correspond respectively to 36AA to 36DD.  I assume this is just pasted in from elsewhere and doesn't actually reflect their bra sizing philosophy (it seems to align more or less with the +5 measurement style).

Calvin Klein, another retailer from which I have personally worn multiple bras (though again, likely ill-fitting ones, as they simultaneously ride up in the back and bulge breast tissue over the cups in the armpit area, but if I sized down the band and up the cup like I've heard most of us should do (and would agree with), that would leave me wearing a 32 D or DD, the former of which still leaves breast tissue in my armpits and the latter of which doesn't exist, because heaven knows nobody is allowed to be a DD unless they have the large band size to match (40DD, say) or are a porn star (who apparently deserve not to have well-fitting bras either, the hussies; that'll teach them)) starts to sound vaguely like how I would recommend measuring for a bra, based on what size bras have historically fit me.  "Wrap a measuring tape closely around the rib cage, just below the breasts.  If this calculation results in an odd number, round up to the next even number. this number is the band size."  So a 32C-D.

Playtex has a video about fit, presumably as an attempt to attract younger women, but this younger woman is a text-and-chart kind of gal, so we're not off to a terribly good start.  (Also, the woman does a lot of shimmying and looking terribly proud about everything.  And says "the girls" in the most incredibly ridiculous wink-wink kind of way.  I'm sorry, I am not in possession of girls; I have breasts.  That you are supposed to be teaching me how to fit appropriately.)  They hedge a whole lot, with the text preceding the video warning, "Most women wear the wrong size. Are you one of them? It's always best to get a professional fitting, but here's a guide to measure yourself. We know how important the right fit is and that it’s specific to every woman, so remember that this video is just one way to measure yourself and get started."  Then Ms. Shimmy-Shimmy in the actual video recommends that you schedule an annual bra-fitting appointment just like you would a doctor's visit, but then says, "It's always tougher to measure yourself, but if you want to try at home, here are some tips to help you."  I'm pretty sure the measuring oneself is not what is the tough part of this whole process, as I imagine we've all come to see by now...

At any rate, rib plus 5 (and then round up if necessary to get an even number) unless 38 or more, in which case add 3.  Double-check by measuring above (round up to even, but no adding).  This puts me again at the tiresome 36 negative something-or-other cup size.  It's also amusing that there's a sharp line at 38, which leaves a 35.5" ribcage and a 38" ribcage wearing the same 42 band size.

A variety of oh-so-helpful online bra calculators churn out the following sizes (respectively):  36A, 34D, 34B, or 34D ("Note: many bra manufacturers, especially in the US, will add four, five, or even six inches to the band size."  No they won't, they'll just tell you they are and then look at you like you're insane when you could shove an extra person into your bra band with you.).

Then there are the bra calculators from people who appear to be aware of all these crazy problems (by which I mean linked to by or embedded in blog posts by the aforementioned enraged internet denizens)  and do something akin to measuring your ribcage, measuring your bust, calculating your cup size from the difference, and then finding a band that seems appropriate (this is actually much easier and much more in line with actual bras; why do women's magazines and manufacturers cling to their varied and silly ways?), which would put me at (respectively) 30DD, 30DD-E (if I want a "very snugly"-fitting band) or 32D ("moderately snugly"), 30C ("Please note that we do not use the plus 4 method, so this calculator may not be suitable for women up to a C cup."  Funny, I thought this adding-extra-inches-everywhere method (though five everywhere I actually saw, it's frequently referred to as "plus-four") was least likely to work for people up to a C cup...), or anywhere from 32C to 32B to 34AA to 34A depending on how I round each half-inch.

Oh, that cleared up everything.  I can wear a 30C-E, 32B-D, 34AA-D, or 36 from negative cup sizes through an A.  (It's especially worth pointing out that nowhere (at least not these manufacturers!) actually carries 30" bands in cup sizes over B, 32 in over a C, 34 in less than an A, or 36 in less than a B.)

It's especially interesting that most of these manufacturers or sites explain how to determine poor fit -- the band shouldn't ride up (too big), breast tissue shouldn't spill over (cup too small) or gape (cup too big), straps shouldn't fall down (cup too large) or cut into your shoulders (cup too small, I assume).  Combining any manufacturer's sizing guidelines with their fitting guidelines leaves one entirely throwing one or the other out the window.  As I said before, CK and Gap bras more or less fit at 34 C but their bands ride up (especially when they stretch) and there's tissue spillage.  So I should go down to a 32" band and up to a D to find the proper "sister size" (a 34C and 32D and 36B theoretically all permit the same volume of breast tissue; since cup size is dependent on band size it's not an absolute measure of anything on its own).  Then, assuming the 32D does actually fit my breasts themselves the same as the 34C, I should go up another size to eliminate the spillage issue.  This puts me at a 32DD, which neither manufacturer carries.  A 32D doesn't fit in either (pushes half my breast out my armpit), nor does a 34D (simultaneously leaves me with armpit boob and front cup gapping).

The internet community of women who care about these things loudly encourages everyone to get a professional bra fitting (not at a department store, where it will be more of this +5 nonsense and/or advising you they don't carry your size) and then special order bras (by the truckload--preferably from England--since every manufacturer differs).  Which is absolutely insane, given that I'm actually perfectly normal and average body and chest size.  I should not need to special order undergarments unless they are actually building them bespoke.  Bra companies are simultaneously completely failing to provide bras for large women (which we all knew, I think, given that I have never in my life seen a bra in a store with a cup size larger than DD, and I'm not sure I've seen any band sizes over 42), small women, medium women, and anyone else.  What with sister sizing, there is a terribly narrow range of actual breast proportions that are acceptable.  (If 32D = 34C = 36B = 38A, you can really only have about one cup size's worth of variation before you run out of appropriate band sizes on either end even if you're a smallish to mediumish band size to start.)

So yeah.  I feel like I should spend today trying on every single bra the Victoria's Secret in my mall has and then yell at them about how their sizing chart doesn't reflect reality (even though that gets closer to a bra size I would actually wear, I know from experience the bra sizes they recommend for me aren't the size of their brand of bras that actually fits me) and then dissolving into tears while throwing bras across the store.  Or taking fitting-room pictures of me wearing the size bras manufacturers recommend and sending them to them with "???!!!!" captions.  Or going up to hapless sales clerks and asking them whether they think I'm a 36 negative-A or 36 negative-B, because I'm between sizes, you see, and don't know which way to go.

Instead I'm likely going to just keep wearing my crappy Old Navy sports bras (size:  medium) and stretched-to-hell ill-fitting underwires.  So keep the sanctimonious moralizing to yourself, cheery women's magazines citing astonishing "studies" of huge percentages of women who don't know how to even fit themselves for a bra. Those who do know how to fit themselves can't find bras to wear, and those who don't have a good freaking reason.  (Isn't capitalism supposed to solve these problems?!)

Or, you know, I'll actually turn into a bra burning feminist.

Little House part 3: Almanzo

I don't remember especially noticing this or thinking about how it might have affected their married life previously, but what struck me the most in Farmer Boy was how much more money, and especially food, Almanzo's family had than Laura's. A lot of the Little House books include the Ingallses stretching food, worrying about the lack of animals to be hunted, having bad crops, etc. After the grasshoppers, Pa has to walk East for days on boots that hardly still had any structural integrity at all. There's near-constant sacrifice and saving and frequent disaster. But Almanzo doesn't have these worries. His father is repeatedly referred to as one of the most important men in town, someone whom everyone respects and a leader in the community. The list of their livestock is quite lengthy. And the food Almanzo eats! One unremarkable dinner:

Almanzo ate the sweet, mellow baked beans. He ate the bit of salt pork that melted like cream in his mouth. He ate mealy boiled potatoes, with brown ham-gravy. He ate the ham. he bit deep into velvety bread spread with sleek butter, and he ate the crisp golden crust. He demolished a tall heap of pale mashed turnips, and a hill of stewed yellow pumpkin. Then he sighed, and tucked his napkin deeper into the neckband of his red waist. And he ate plum preserves, and strawberry jam, and grape jelly, and spiced watermelon-rind pickles. He felt very comfortable inside. Slowly he hate a large piece of pumpkin pie.

And then after dinner the family makes popcorn and he eats that with apple cider! Then at breakfast the next morning:

There was oatmeal with plenty of thick cream and maple sugar. There were fried potatoes, and the golden buckwheat cakes, as many as Almanzo wanted to eat, with sausages and gravy or with butter and maple syrup. There were preserves and jams and jellies and doughnuts. But best of all Almanzo liked the spicy apple pie, with its thick, rich juice, and its crumbly crust. He ate two big wedges of the pie.

One afternoon when he's out sledding he comes in "several times" for apples, doughnuts, and cookies. There is just so much food and so much eating, and nobody seems to mind if he eats constantly, without asking, or whether it's mealtime or not. (Incidentally, I like this paragraph about the doughnuts his mother made: "They rolled over, Mother said, because they were twisted. Some women made a new-fangled shape, round, with a hole in the middle. But round doughnuts wouldn't turn themselves over. Mother didn't have time to waste turning doughnuts; it was quicker to twist them." When I was eight, this blew my mind!)

Aside from the abundance of food, there's the two-story house with the fancy parlor (white and gold wallpaper, marble table, haircloth sofa, fine china, fancy knick-knacks), and a much bigger percentage of what the Wilders have and wear is store-bought. They get $200 (apparently fairly regularly) for selling a team of horses, and at the end Father even gives nine-year-old Almanzo his prize colt to train and then sell and keep the money! (Of course, this is basically a bribe to keep him interested in being a farmer instead of a merchant like his brother plans to. But still, hundreds of dollars to a nine-year-old in the nineteenth century?!)

The next time Almanzo appears is once Laura and her family are living in De Smet. He and his brother have claims and a store in town. Laura only seems to know who he is because of his beautiful horses, and they probably never would have gotten married without her desire to ride behind them as the catalyst. What I really don't understand is why Laura Ingalls Wilder felt the need to make him younger in the books. In reality, they were ten years apart, and the way she relates to him up until well into their courting seems to fit with this; she always sees him as a friend of Pa's, as a grown man, as "Mr. Wilder," while Cap, who is "actually" the same age as Almanzo, is a school friend in her own class (though apparently still four or five years older; as I mentioned before, education was a little off). Especially since closing the gap involves requiring Almanzo to lie about his age ("You can put me down as 21"), to explain how he had a claim of his own when he was "really" only 18.

During the Long Winter (seven months of blizzards during which most of the town nearly starved and/or froze to death), Almanzo and Cap were the ones who ventured out south of town to chase down the rumored farmer and his stockpiled seed wheat to live off until the trains can come through in the spring. This was widely seen as heroic, but it rubs me a little wrong. Early on in the winter, Almanzo, who has seed wheat of his own, builds a false wall in the living area behind the his brother's store and pours his wheat in so nobody will know he has it and try to buy it. (Since the trains aren't coming through, he won't be able to buy seed wheat before after he'll need to have planted it and will miss a whole year getting his claim established.) At some point he calculates that even if he were to be generous and sell it all off as food, everyone would likely still starve before spring, which is I guess supposed to make you feel like he's not being a totally selfish jerk (he and Royal still have plenty of food, apparently; they're constantly eating bacon and pancakes even once everyone else is down to nearly nothing), but I'm not sure I buy it. During the negotiations with the farmer south of town when they find him (who is reluctant to sell his wheat for the exact same reasons as Almanzo), he strongarms him with the same arguments Royal and Mr. Ingalls have been using on him: "A man can always buy seed. Most folks out here are going to. You're throwing away a clear profit of eighteen cents a bushel above market price, Mr. Anderson." I think I'd feel better if Almanzo had been more willing to sell a portion of his wheat and thus not push the entire burden onto Mr. Anderson.

Laura and Almanzo's courtship is kind of strange. He starts out giving her rides back home from the country school she's teaching at, but when a friend teases her that he's "beauing" her, Laura says (and apparently actually thinks) "Oh, no! He isn't![...] He came for me as a favor to Pa." She even tells him at some point that he mustn't think he's getting anything out of it because she's only riding with him to get home (but then after she's home for good and everyone else is having such a grand time sleigh riding and he stops by to see if she wants to go, she forgets and says yes). But it really does seem almost throughout their whole courtship that the horses are the driving force. Almanzo basically isn't a character at all; he's just a man. Even once they're going on regular buggy rides every Sunday and then to singing school, their time together is focused on breaking his colts. Once they're engaged Ma says as much: "Sometimes I think it's the horses you care for, more than their master." (But "Laura knew they understood what she was too shy to say." Which is nice and all, but the reader doesn't really see that.) Later Mary asks if she really has to get married and leave "to marry that Wilder boy," and Laura's a little more open: "He isn't that Wilder boy anymore, Mary. he is Almanzo[....]I guess it's just because we seem to belong together." (But why? She doesn't want to live the hard life of a farmer and his wife and they have to drive a bargain that she'll give him three years (later another's tacked on) to make a decent life or he has to move on and do something else.)

The First Four Years really confuses me. It doesn't seem to fit in with the rest of the series in the slightest; in fact, it wasn't written until a decade or so after the other books were published, and it wasn't published until 1971, after her death, when it was found among her papers. But it seems incomplete. It's very short, and while the structure is all there (though rather awkwardly: "It was the twenty-fifth of August. And the winter and the summer were the first year."), there are very few anecdotes filling in. The house Manly (as he's now called) built is described in detail, and their getting settled, and a bit is mentioned about her pregnancies and the birth of Rose (and the son who died almost immediately) and some about their dog, the rides they go on, and her helping Manly in the fields sometimes, but it's very skimpy. (Speaking of the pregnancy, this struck me as rather odd this time through: she had very bad nausea throughout her pregnancy, so "As she went so miserably about her work she would smile wryly now and then as she remembered a saying of her mother's: 'They that dance must pay the fiddler.' Well, she was paying." Oblique, yes, but I still find that a rather risque thing to say, especially since she was so incredibly circumspect about their entire relationship through the courtship.

But most of all, this book is just depressing. Manly is in debt on the house, he goes into debt to buy a pair of horses and a new stove and various new-fangled farm implements, continually asserting that "just one crop" will make everything right and they'll pay for themselves. But crop after crop fails (a dry year, then a horrible hailstorm right before harvest time), and then the house burns down. And that's basically where the book ends! From what I've read of her life, the rest of their time together wasn't so bad, but this book is just so tiring. Basically half of it is Laura doing the calculations in her head of the payments and the interest and how much they owe and what price they'll need to get to be in a good place going into the next year. And then it doesn't even work out.

But going back to the beginning, I wonder if the difference in their stations growing up had anything to do with this. Throughout the whole series it seems everyone is entirely averse to debt (well, except that one time Pa does basically the same thing with building the house before the crop comes in and then the grasshoppers destroy it so it never does) and that the whole ethic is working hard and being self-sufficient and beholden to no one. But maybe because Manly had never lived through rough times (at least, not that we're privy to; even during the Long Winter he and Royal are flush) and his family always had quite the cushion, he was a little cocky and never considered that things could not work out well for him even if he worked hard and did everything right.

Little House part 2

It's weird how my conception of this series is always just the first couple of books, and then I apparently forget that the last five books are all set in the same place, no pioneering really involved, settled down with/in a town, and suddenly shifting largely to buying things and less to making them.

After the break in Laura's childhood to tell a brief segment of her future husband's story in Farmer Boy, On the Banks of Plum Creek picks up rather seamlessly, which is why the abruptness at the beginning of On the Shores of Silver Lake is so disorienting. For no real reason the story skips several years (Laura goes from eight to "nearly thirteen"), picking up with the last few days on Plum Creek and spending a mere seven pages briefly mentioning everything major that had happened (surprise, everything's awful now, there's no food, everyone had scarlet fever, Mary's blind now, Laura's brother was stillborn, though that's not mentioned, and oh, here's another sister) as the sudden decision to take off for the Dakota Territories is made. (Even Jack the brindle bulldog's death gets nearly the next full chapter!)

It's a little strange to me how suddenly the Laura-and-Mary duo gives way to the Laura-and-Carrie one. Carrie's suddenly old enough to be a "real sister," as Laura puts it, and Mary's blindness means she won't be out and about, going to school and such with Laura.

The treatment of Mary's blindness has always made me feel uncomfortable. It may be exactly like it happened in real life (obviously being blind on the nineteenth-century prairie and in twenty-first century cities is very different), but it's still just weird. Mary is of course "patient and brave" and then repeatedly "gentle" and nearly quits being a character for a while. The incessant repetition that Laura "must be eyes for Mary" gets old, and it seems like literary cheating to suddenly replace normal narrator's description with Laura's "see[ing] out loud" of the scenery and the people. (It's particularly strange since both narrators are the same person, so the shift in voice seems rather affected and not significantly different except for added interjections: "and, oh, Mary! the brightest red velvet hat...") It's also a little smug-seeming foreshadowing that Laura chafes at Mary's insistence that her poetic descriptions aren't literally accurate. See, adult Laura seems to say, I was always meant to be an author! (Although she pooh-poohed the idea later on when Mary suggests Laura might fulfill that dream of Mary's as well.) Then there are several occasions where Mary is terribly satisfied with herself that she can sew just as well as Laura despite not being able to see and that she doesn't need the lamp to see to sew by at night like Laura does.

I really wonder if there were truly so many serendipitous re-meetings with old friends and family (and enemies) in Laura's life or if some of those were forced by her rejiggering her life story at the beginning to reduce the number of moves. It seems incredible that Mr. Edwards would reappear so many times (especially that once to fight off a man who wanted the same claim Pa was filing for), Cousin Alice would pop in, Reverend Alden pops by, the Boasts would conveniently appear out of nowhere for Christmas, Aunt Docia arrives to encourage them to make the move to the Dakotas with her, Uncle Tom appears, and Nellie Oleson would show up at school in DeSmet after being left behind at Plum Creek. I'm sure I'm missing a few. I suppose many of those, at least the family ones, could have been precipitated through a series of letters, so at least it was known where they were (though the parents still seem as surprised as Laura), but it seems almost ridiculous, like in Forrest Gump (the book) where every time he turns around he's running into one of the same like three characters from his earlier days.

I've never really enjoyed how much of especially the later books is filled with the songs Pa plays on his fiddle or that they sing in church or elsewhere. I've always found that when only the text of the songs is included and the reader doesn't know the tune, it's just boring filler. I'm sure some of Laura's happiest memories are Pa's playing the fiddle at night, but I think I would be better able to feel that if she didn't feel the need to write in the specific songs. It seems she tries particularly to put in songs where their lyrics further the story (though maybe that's a reflection of Pa; Almanzo later tells Laura, "Your songs are like your father's! They always fit!"), but for me at least, that only works when I too know the song.

Similarly, the later books have rather a few more moments where Laura's political or religious beliefs impinge. (Incidentally, did you know her daughter Rose was instrumental in the formation of the libertarian party?) I've always preferred to skim over the annoying preachy bits of, say, The Chronicles of Narnia and felt especially impatient with them in those terrible Janette Oke books I used to read, finding that they disrupted the actual story. (Sure, the author probably feels that they are the actual story, but they need to do a better job with the integration of it and not just hit pause and preach for a few paragraphs.) One Fourth of July, Laura has the realization, "God is America's king." (Blech.) "The laws of Nature and of Nature's God endow you with a right to life and liberty. Then you have to keep the laws of God, for God's law is the only thing that gives you a right to be free." If you say so. Laura and Mary also have a little chat on one of their walks before Mary goes off to college, which in one way I love because Mary admits that when they were younger and Laura hated how good she was, that she wasn't really being good: "I wasn't really wanting to be good. I was showing off to myself, what a good little girl I was, and being vain and proud, and I deserved to be slapped for it." ("Laura was shocked. Then suddenly she felt that she had known that, all the time"!). But then somehow Mary is "sure [that God is good] in some special way" (because of her blindness, of course). Oh, Barbara Ehrenreich would have something to say about that! (Read Brightsided.)

The politics of everyone are rather more visible in these books since they're largely centered on everyone's claims. I need to do some more thorough research about the Homestead Act, I suppose, since pretty much everything I know comes from these books, and that's unacceptable. And then in The First Four Years, Laura and Manly buy half a flock of sheep from a neighbor who, as a staunch Republican, "was sure the country would be ruined" if the Democrats won as expected, meaning, apparently, homegrown wool would lose its advantage if the tariff were removed; this apparently didn't happen, though, as the Wilders turned a profit later. (This is confusing me, since it would have to be the 1988 election (three years after their marriage), but a Democrat (Cleveland) was already in office!) I'm generally uncomfortable with everyone's attitudes towards their claims (Pa's view of it as a bet against Uncle Sam seems most spot-on). But earlier, Pa had made a case for taking a claim to make up for the one the government kicked them off in Oklahoma. Um, not so much. Similarly, Uncle Tom told a story of being laid siege to by a bunch of Indians while off prospecting for gold, and escaping into the arms of what they thought would be rescuing soldiers but in fact turned out to be arresting soldiers. Because, you see, that was still Indian territory ("strictly speaking"). But they all seemed put out that the government would dare prevent intrepid fortune-seeking young men from seeking their fortune on land that wasn't even theirs. (Pa: "I'll be durned if I could have taken it. Not without some kind of scrap.")

One thing I think as an adult that I never thought about as a child was that I really don't think Laura liked her mother much at all. Ma is barely a character through the first half of the series at least (potentially the whole way through), and it's evident Laura prefers Pa. Part of this is just that she would rather be outside than in, rather helping with the haying than with the housework, and that, I assume, she sees Ma as a civilizing force to be resisted, always making her modulate her voice ("'Her voice was ever soft, gentle, and low, an excellent thing in woman.'") or behave in more ladylike fashion (Constant reprimanding her to put on her sunbonnet, which inhibited her view, or she'd be "brown as an Indian.") and sew neverending small, smooth stitches (luckily Mary regained her sewing ability after a time). Ma hates Indians, resists moving west, wants to remain in settled lands, while Laura, like Pa, wants to wander further and see more. I think Laura probably started feeling better about Ma about the time Mary left for college: "Laura had never before known that Ma hated sewing. Her gentle face did not show it now, and her voice was never exasperated. But her patience was so tight around her mouth that Laura knew she hated sewing as much as Laura did." And Ma starts actually saying things and being a character, though still a rather dull one. (She did put her foot down once, though, and tell Pa he absolutely was not permitted to be the one to go out in search of the rumored wheat south of town and risk getting caught in a blizzard, surprising everyone with her fieriness.) Laura seems to actually care what Ma thinks by this point, sometimes citing Ma's sayings to herself as rationalization for something. ("Least said, soonest mended," "There's no great loss without some small gain.") And after coming home from her first teaching job, which left her boarding in a terrible situation with a sullen, unhappy family (the woman of which seemed certifiably crazy), Laura is so happy to be at home with her own family that I think she finally appreciates Ma, having until then taken her largely for granted as a permanent, featureless background presence.

Education in these times/places is terribly confusing to me. Laura and Mary didn't start attending school until I think they were seven and eight (I keep getting confused because I think there's only one instance before Laura reaches age 15 that anyone's age is stated straight out; generally they're nearly thirteen or almost nine or something), and Ma and Pa apparently made a bargain that they would stay in civilized lands where they could continue their schooling, despite the fact Ma had been a schoolteacher and could well have taught them at home before this. She teaches them that winter when there's too much snow to go to school, and later on Laura and Carrie do lessons at home in DeSmet, both before there is a school and during bad blizzardy weather during the winters. Yet somehow, despite spotty school attendance and not a lot of years at that, Laura becomes a schoolteacher at age 15! (This description is from Wisconsin schools but seems to roughly fit with Laura's experience and explains a little bit of the difference between first-, second-, and third-grade certificates that were introduced without any context in the books.) Though legally one had to be 16 to teach, Laura was offered a position at a small nearby school ("'Now Laura,' Mr. Boast said to her earnestly, 'there is no need to tell your age unless someone asks you.'") teaching five pupils, three of whom were older than herself, for one term before returning to her own schooling back in town the next term! Then that summer she teaches three small children at another small country school and returns again to the town school again herself. She sits for the teacher examination (a real one this time rather than just the superintendent asking her questions in her sitting room) and gets a second-grade certificate to replace her third-grade one from before and goes off to teach once more before getting married. On the last day of her classes, when her teacher discovers she won't be returning, he says, "I'm sorry[...]Not sorry you are going to be married, but sorry I didn't graduate you this spring. I held you back because I...because I had a foolish pride; I wanted to graduate the whole class together, and some weren't ready. it was not fair to you. I'm sorry." (Laura doesn't care: "It doesn't matter[...]I am glad to know I could have graduated.") It's just weird how totally obsessed they are with schooling at some points and then how little they care at others. When the man is coming to test Laura for the first certificate, Carrie and Ma have the following exchange (which only seems relevant as related to Laura's certificate; at no other point does Ma correct anyone's grammar or does anyone but Pa or whoever the baby is currently speak less than properly):

It was only a moment before Carrie exclaimed, "That's him now—"

"'This is he,'" Ma said almost sharply.

"That's he coming— It don't sound right, Ma—"

"'Doesn't sound right,'" said Ma.

"Right straight across from Fuller's Hardware!" cried Carrie.

Even though the requirements to teach school seem rather lax, the school exhibition (which actually prompted Laura's being offered the first teaching job by virtue of the amazing job she did in it) is entirely impressive. Pupils of every age recited poems and speeches, and Laura and her friend Ida gave a recitation of all of American history from Columbus to present (Rutherford B. Hayes) that, from the part reproduced, seemed rather detailed. In addition, they had to do long division (well, she calls it "short division," but I'm not sure what she considers long, then) in their heads (but aloud, which to me would be the hard part): "Divide 347,264 by 16. Sixteen into 34 goes twice, put down 2 and carry 2; sixteen into 27 goes seven times, put down 7 and carry naught; sixteen into 6 does not go, put down naught; sixteen into 64 goes 4 times, put down 4. Three hundred and forty-seven thousand, two hundred and sixty-four divided by sixteen equals—twenty-one thousand, seven hundred and four." They also had to "parse" sentences, which from her later examination seems rather insane (stupid to require someone to do but reflecting a deeper understanding of language and grammar than we certainly require, at least):

Scaling yonder peak, I saw an eagle

Wheeling near its brow.

"'I' is the personal pronoun, first person singular, here used as the subject of the verb 'saw,' past tense of the transitive verb 'to see.' 'Saw' takes as its object the common generic noun, 'eagle,' modified by the single article, 'an.' 'Scaling yonder peak' is a participial phrase, adjunct of the pronoun, 'I,' hence adjectival. 'Wheeling' is the present participle of the intransitive verb, 'to wheel,' here used as adjunct to the noun, 'eagle,' hence adjectival. 'Near its brown' is a prepositional phrase, adjunct of the present participle of the verb 'to wheel,' hence adverbial."

So Laura can do this at the same time Carrie is being corrected for saying "That don't sound right"? (Carrie is I think five years younger, but I still find this unbelievable.)

This is getting rather long, so I guess I'll save Almanzo for another time.

Little House part 1

I'm reading the Little House books (for like the twelfth time, but the first in probably a decade) for a rereading project I'm doing this year. It's vaguely unsettling.

First I had the sudden realization that Ma and Pa, who know the answers to everything and how to do everything and make everything, were probably the age in the first couple books that I am now. But I just now looked that up, and in fact they were 27 and 31 when Laura was born, so they were well into respectable-parent age by the time these books are set. Whew. (Good, nobody will expect me to be able to just up and dig a well or make a straw tick or butcher a hog for the next decade or so at least! Or tell poor little girls that "Children should be seen and not heard" or to put on their sunbonnets because they're turning as brown as little Indians and all that whooping and hollering isn't ladylike or to mind, mind, mind, obey, obey, obey.)

It's weird reading now what was probably my first exposure to conflict between pioneers and Indians as the United States grew. I'm not particularly thrilled. Though Pa doesn't agree with this sentiment, it's repeated multiple times by multiple characters that "the only good Indian is a dead Indian," and Ma is permanently scared of them no matter what they're doing. Even Pa, who is largely respectful and friendly to the Indians he encounters and who tries to keep away and give them their space (and later makes a big point of leaving, abandoning the house and barn he'd made and garden and fields he'd planted when it's decided that in fact Washington was not going to open up the area of Kansas where they had already settled, rather than wait to be dragged out by the Army), has some eyebrow-raising views from today's perspective:

"I'm going to sleep," Laura said. "But please tell me where the voice of Alfarata [from a song Pa had just played] went?"

"Oh, I suppose she went west," Ma answered. "That's what the Indians do."

"Why do they do that, Ma?" Laura asked. "Why do they go west?"

"They have to," Ma said.

"Why do they have to?"

"The government makes them, Laura," said Pa. "Now, go to sleep."

...

"Will the government make these Indians go west?"

"Yes," Pa said. "When white settlers come into a country, the Indians have to move on. The government is going to move those Indians farther west, any time now. That's why we're here, Laura. White people are going to settle all this country, and we get the best land because we get here first and take our pick. Now do you understand?"

"Yes, Pa," Laura said. "But Pa, I thought this was Indian Territory. Won't it make the Indians mad to have to—"

"No more questions, Laura," Pa said, firmly. "Go to sleep."

I mean, as it turns out, he was wrong (in the short term, at least, though I guess right in the long term). But yikes. I guess you're supposed to kind of feel like Laura does, though, although it does feel awfully like they're just sitting around clucking their tongues over it while taking full advantage of it. After all, it's not like they're personally kicking Indians out of their homes, they're just operating under the assumption that some nice soldiers are going to and jumping in to beat the rush. Mm-hmm.

It's weird to read about all the stuff that they did and just knew how to do even though it's unlikely they'd ever encountered it before. Like Pa knowing to start a small fire to meet the big sweeping prairie fire so the house would be ringed with already-burned earth, despite never having lived on the prairie before. Or knowing that the Indians regularly burned off the prairie grasses and weren't actually (probably) trying to kill them all, like the neighbors thought. Or (if Laura is a trustworthy reporter, which obviously she's not) being able to build an entire log cabin and fit a door to it and (presumably) cut the windows exactly the right size for the glass panes he didn't buy until months later (at least she didn't mention any problems with the fitting) doing no more measuring than some pacing out the outer dimensions of the house. He just held up the door and it fit perfectly and snugly? He just chopped out the wall against the fireplace he'd just build perfectly, without making it too far one way or the other? A couple days after getting out of bed with "fever'n'ague" (malaria), he was weak and "wasn't able to work, so he could make a rocking-chair for Ma"? (Show-off.) I guess he did at least do a poor job of the chimney, seeing as it caught on fire later...

One really interesting thing that I of course didn't notice as a kid (apparently being an adult makes me think more about other kids reading this and how it's beneficial or harmful for them) is how many really detailed explanations there are for how things worked and fit together and everything. If there were no illustrations* it would take rather a lot of effort to puzzle out exactly what they're talking about. Today, reading about the latch Pa was making for the new door, I still couldn't really make out what was going on, even though I know how such things work.

I'm also not especially pleased with how basically the only thing Ma does is say "Oh, Charles!" with "shining eyes."

Of course, they are still largely exciting, and the little anecdotes (Ma slapping the bear, the sugar snow, Charley crying wolf) are quite vivid and amusing (I love where Laura and Mary each only eat half of their cookie and save the other half for Baby Carrie, realize each time that that's not fair because now she gets a whole cookie, but still can't quite figure out how to make it quite fair) and combine pretty well to give the idea of what it feels like to be a little girl living this adventurous life where you never know what's coming next pretty well. But obviously, decades of children (well, I'm guessing mostly girls) have loved these books, myself included, so what sticks out to me are the ways they're not quite living up... (That being said, I think I'm probably going to pack them off to my little cousin in a year or two when she's of the appropriate age.)

So far I've read two of the Little House books in two days. Not too shabby (at least considering I've been experiencing full days of work and cooking and such as well; I'm sure that's pretty much always been my pace with these books). Though I do feel pretty self-conscious reading them on the train when there are pictures on almost every page.

* It seems the illustrator is the same person who illustrated Stuart Little and The Trumpet of the Swan. Which are coming up soon in my rereading!

A Penny 'Saved'

I'm getting increasingly uncomfortable with people's rhetoric about "saving." A friend posted a link about someone who paid down $10,000 of credit card debt in a year by making his morning coffee at home instead of buying from a coffee shop, going from a two-car to a one-car family, "making do" with a pre-paid and more basic phone and plan, etc. Yesterday I was reading a post where a woman was asking about money-earning possibilities from home after where comment after comment recommended (rather unsolicitedly and completely ignoring the fact that she'd already stated how frugally they were living and only wanted to hear about income opportunities) she cut her cable subscription, go from two cars to one, get rid of a land line and/or go down to the basic cell plan, stop eating out, etc. What I want to know is why we consider having a $90 cable package, $80 cell phone plan, (multi-?)weekly restaurant visits, two cars, daily lattes, and the like the norm.

It's not really "saving" money to replace a daily $4 caffeinated beverage of choice with a 12-cent cup brewed at home; it's just not wasting it as egregiously. It's not being super-frugal to cut your cable package from all-inclusive super-deluxe premium package to basic cable + internet. It's really kind of offensive to read money-saving tips from people who assume that everyone is just handing huge sums of money out on a monthly basis to whomever asks for it in exchange for the merest convenience or entertainment. You don't need cable TV (I use a $10-a-month Netflix subscription for movies and free Hulu for the TV I watch; even that's unnecessary and could be cut were my straits direr or if I just decided to stop wasting so much time or kill so many brain cells); you don't need to buy coffee every morning (or, for that matter, drink coffee at all, heresy though that may appear); some people get by perfectly well without owning cars and aren't necessarily pursuing that out of desperation but as part of their regular life (though I do acknowledge that not everyone's current living/working situation makes that possible).

I find it highly ridiculous that either people think they're being frugal by paying slightly less for really pretty cushy and objectively superfluous, unnecessary, or even harmful things or that the average person isn't actually anywhere near that prodigal but thinks everyone else in the entire country is engaging in the utmost of hedonistic consumption. It's not like you get points simply for being below average consumption or that everyone deserves or is guaranteed a certain standard of living (well, yes, philosophically I think they do, but considerably lower than the one under discussion) and anything under that is virtuous abnegation and "doing without."

Of course, when it's money under discussion, income is quite relevant. If you make enough money to be able to afford all the above-listed things, I'm not saying they're inherently bad things to spend money on (though I personally hope to avoid them despite my income), but if you have tens of thousands of dollars of credit card debt that you can pay off by cutting out coffee shop drinks and cable, I'd imagine the way you got it is exactly by making those expenditures to begin with. It is definitely, unequivocally not saving money to give up these things, then; it's simply not going (further) into debt, not living beyond your means.

This type of thinking is even worse when it comes to talk of "saving" energy. This NYT article reminded me of my increasing discomfort (though really its take is overall pretty good). It seems like people feel entitled to a certain amount of energy consumption and that the slightest bit of consumption under that activates feelings of deprivation or of virtuous forbearance. It's kind of silly to talk of "saving" water by turning off the tap while you're brushing your teeth (well, for one thing, does anyone actually not do this?) or by turning down/up the thermostat when you're not at home or by having your DVR player have the option to go into deep sleep when its not needed; in fact, you're using water, gas, or electricity to do any of these things and you're just not using/consuming/wasting as much when you turn things off or down.

The default is nothing. The earth didn't contract with us to permit us each X number of tons of carbon emission per year, Y gallons of water per day, or Z gallons of gas per week, and then it will start exacting penalties once those levels are reached. Each of these things we consume harms our environment or climate; the goal is to use as little as possible, not simply less than what's "reasonable" for a person living in a developed nation in modern times. (Money, as I said, is a little different since you do in fact have a certain amount you can spend up to and no further.)

I don't watch TV; I turn my computer off when I'm not using it; I unplug my cell charger when it's not actually charging my phone; I don't let water run when I'm not actively using it; I walk and take public transportation rather than driving; I don't eat resource-intensive beef or overly processed foods; I don't have air conditioning and keep the heater on a timer and still pretty low even when I'm home; I don't replace things like my MP3 player until they break even if they're crappy and better ones exist. I could (and, yeah, pretty much still do) feel holier-than-thou for everything I'm saving and all the good I'm doing; instead (/in addition) I'm horrified by the amount of water required per time I flush the toilet (1.6 gallons in a low-flow toilets; I think it's 3.5 for older ones) and feel bad (when I think about it, yes) for using my computer at all, for not keeping the thermostat still lower, for living in a space that's larger than what I would technically need, for buying things that aren't absolutely necessary for survival (um, it's quite possible to live without owning an MP3 player), for buying food I know has been shipped in from California or Mexico or Kansas or Florida... I mean, I don't obsess over it, and I don't suppose I think people should (mental health is important too), but I do consider it, I am made uncomfortable by it, and I do try to reduce it further where I can. I think rather than activating all our cognitive tricks to assuage whatever guilt we feel for living and consuming the way we do and then congratulating ourselves for not living worse, we should be willing to live with the discomfort, acknowledging that our choices aren't actually the best.

Otherwise we fall prey to the pat-yourself-on-the-back kind of environmentalism that ends up not actually making any improvements but merely keeps things from getting worse. (This is one reason cap and trade has never completely won my support, since rather than requiring cutting as much as possible it picks a level of "acceptable" pollution and lets everyone pollute up to that point. I mean, I still support it, it's obviously better than nothing, and it's likely the only thing that would work without strangling our economic system which people seem to be rather attached to...) I don't know why humanity has to feel like it's doing good all the time. You can feel it's necessary and justifiable to do certain things and still feel it's regrettable that you have to, that that's not the best possible course of action in an ideal world, and want to minimize them as much as possible (see: death penalty, eating meat, cutting social programs in a recession). I do think we have a right to be on this earth and to live flourishing lives, but we have a responsibility to live as lightly as we can and not to excessively harm other things in so doing.

Reason 5,198

Reason 5,198 I enjoy living in Boston:

Nowhere else I have lived (with the exception of a term studying abroad in Oxford) ever pops up in books I'm reading. I love that little shock of recognition when I realize that I know where that character is walking or what shop they're talking about, especially when I didn't realize before that moment where the events were set. I like thinking that authors enjoyed their time here sufficiently to set their works here even when they've since moved on.

I just finished a book (guess what it is) that referenced the YMCA on Mass Ave, the Christian Science Mapparium further down Mass Ave, what I assume is Redbones in Davis Square (where else in Davis would you eat pulled pork?), what I assume is Dali near Inman Square (I don't know, are there more Spanish restaurants with a boar's head grinning down at you from over the bar?), Filene's Basement and the no-dividers dressing room thereof, walking over the Charles via various bridges, someone meeting her husband at Alewife Station after work, Cardullo's in Harvard Square (though I kind of doubt there was no other place to buy bay leaves and cloves, even if those were more exotic in the seventies or whenever this was set), going to Central Square for Indian food, walking around from Downtown Crossing to Park Street, some lawyer guy working down near State Street, etc. Of course, Filene's is now a giant crater, but I did experience that dressing room before it went.

It's just so weird, because if you read the story without being familiar with the setting, you wouldn't feel like you were missing anything, and you wouldn't be. Being familiar with the location isn't at all necessary for reading the story, but somehow it's nice to have that anchor and to envision the characters intersecting with your daily life.

(Sometimes.)

Actually I'm kind of split on this. The last book I read that was set here (36 Arguments for the Existence of God) kind of annoyed me because it seemed very in-grouppy, chummy, like if you got the references you were in the right crowd (and most of them seemed very specifically pointed at Harvard and the professorial circle, so I did not). Plus it was so unnecessarily detailed, describing the exact path characters drove, that it almost interfered with the story because I couldn't help but visualize it and try to figure out exactly where the person's house was that they were going to. That one very definitely referenced Dali, though, which made me feel all in-grouppy for a bit.

Then there was The Handmaid's Tale, which I had read long before I moved here and never really noticed the setting, but then when I reread it shortly after moving here I realized (with a much more unpleasant shock) that the building where one of their ceremonies took place, by the river, where a "banner covers the building's former name, some dead president they shot" was probably the JFK School of Government, so then I paid more attention to where they were were walking and going. Everything else was similarly obscured, but it's still very clearly the Harvard Square area. It ended up kind of freaking me out since it brought the creepiness of the story home to my lovely liberal and decidedly not theocratic Cambridge. I went to a reading of hers last year and she said she enjoys setting her terrible stories in Cambridge (apparently Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood are as well, though I didn't notice as much when reading them).

OK, my first sentence wasn't entirely true. Murder in Coweta County does in fact take place in the county I spent half of my childhood (though, if I remember correctly, only barely mentions my town), and The Whisper of the River by Ferrol Sams does indeed take place not only in the town but at the very college where I went. But that was the whole point in reading both of them, not something to stumble over and be delighted about. Plus, The Whisper of the River is based on his life, I think, and reading about him having sex on top of the administration building was just kind of gross.

(The book I just finished was Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri.)

Recipe Roundup (Jan-Mar 2011)

Things I've made/eaten lately:

I was ill-prepared for International Pancake Day, but the plethora of pancake options that flooded my consciousness resulted in my treating myself to these lovely Lemon-Ricotta Pancakes for my birthday breakfast a few days later. Nice and fluffy and a step up from your normal, boring pancake. The blueberry sauce stained my bottom lip, though, so I spent the first few hours of my day worrying people would think I'd already been drinking red wine.

Pesto mac and goat cheese! Delicious, obviously. I always forget how awesome panko is. What's great about this recipe is it's mostly stove-top (so it's quick!) but still ends up with a nice crust liked baked mac and cheeses. If only I could ever use the broiler without charring the top of whatever I'm cooking... I really ought to lie flat on my stomach staring into the broiler and watch it the entire time. I halved the recipe since it's just me and I didn't want to die of fatty dairy overload or anything by trying to eat the whole thing within a week.

I've been trying to find ways to use tuna fish that don't make me gag (so, not tuna salad or sandwiches) so I can finally use up the canned tuna that's been in my pantry since I rescued it from a former roommate who was going to throw it out. I'd made a pasta dish or two that were OK but nothing special. Then for some reason I decided I thought tuna would go well with black beans. (Which I actually had never willingly eaten before, so I'm not sure how I came to that decision...though it may have had something to do with the facts that they're neighbors in my pantry and I'm trying to use stuff up.) So I Googled a bit and decided this Southwest Tuna and Black Beans fit the bill. I used it as filling for soft tacos, and I was surprised to discover I liked it even though I don't really like any of the things in it (except lime). I was somewhat bewildered at the store since the various fresh peppers were clearly mislabeled and I'm not terribly familiar with them. I'm pretty sure I didn't actually end up with an Anaheim, but whatever I got instead seemed to work fine.

Lentils are a thing I'm trying to eat more of. Super-healthy, super-cheap, long shelf life, probably a better idea for protein than stuffing my face with cheese all the time... I also recently remembered I had not yet used the crock pot another previous roommate gave me when he bought a bigger one. I needed to do something to break it in, so I gave this Sweet and Spicy Lentil Chili from Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker a try (see page 118; it won't stay there for some reason). I was not such a fan of this. I've just not had terribly good luck with lentils. The last thing I used them in was a soup that wasn't terribly exciting either. The spices in this are good, but I guess fundamentally I just don't like that much tomato (right, so chili probably isn't that great an idea...). I ended up freezing most of it once I realized there was no way I would eat it all (it claims to serve four to six, but at least I would definitely not want to eat more than like 1/12 of this at once). So it's lurking, waiting for me to suck it up and give it another go-round.

This Slow-Baked Beans with Kale casserole was another disappointment, but I'm not entirely sure it was the recipe's fault. My beans never got anywhere close to "creamy." Maybe I'll give it another try but using canned beans instead. I'd been thinking I was going to use dry over canned since they're cheaper and the extra effort really isn't that much, but I don't know, for the relatively small price differential the ease of cans probably make it worth it. (In other news, kale is only 96 cents for a big bunch. I guess I had never noticed its price before, but that's kind of amazing, especially given the whole "healthy food costs more" argument.)

Soups:

Growing up I thought I hated soup (and probably did), but this winter that's one of the things I've been working on. It helps that I'm always cold in winter in Boston so warm liquidy food sounds much more appealing these days. Right now this is my soup obsession, except I make it with kale instead of escarole. I'm actually not sure I've ever consumed escarole, so maybe I should give it a try as written sometime. I keep forgetting to actually put the Parmesan on, which obviously means I'm not missing it. Then Martha Rose Shulman at the NYT had several "soups with grains" recipes that I gave a try. I made the Garlic Soup with Quinoa and Snap Peas (scroll down) and Wild Rice and Mushroom Soup. I had really high hopes for the mushroom soup, and it was good but not as good as I wanted it to be, especially reheated. (This was my first experience with dried porcini, though, so it was a learning experience.) I liked the one with snap peas a lot, though. It's basically an egg drop soup, and it's oddly satisfying (not in the sense of filling, though the quinoa helps with that, just that I felt a sense of satisfaction eating it—something about dredging the quinoa up or something...plus I love garlic, although it's not as dominant as the way the title is phrased would make you think).

Then there's the fancy grits that I'm pretty much obsessed with. The jalapeño keeps it from being boring, the goat cheese makes it rich and creamy, and the mushrooms are all earthy and satisfyingly umami-y. The perfect meal for a cold, wet, cranky day. I halve it, but the first time I made it I ended up eating all of it that night (which is well enough because I can't imagine it reheats terribly well).

And my latest obsession... Last week I ate at Not Your Average Joe's for the first time in a while and they had this new crusted portobello thing (with or without chicken—I'm not sure why anyone would really need the chicken, though). It was pretty much amazing, so two nights later I set out to replicate it. (Yes, I was that impatient.) I'm not sure what they used to encrust their mushrooms, but I used a mixture of ground pecans and Parmesan cheese, and it was even better (plus then I got to feel all virtuous for finally using part of the pecan meal or whatever my aunt gave me some time ago). So: Israeli couscous with some herbs or pesto or something topped with the mushrooms (NYAJ didn't slice them, but I did and recommend that, then dip in egg, then coat in the nut/cheese mixture or breadcrumbs or whatever, then fry), topped with a handful of arugula and some goat cheese. They also had a tomato sauce kind of around the side and on the couscous that I didn't bother adding; it's good with or without. I then made this the next night as well. And ate more pecan-fried mushrooms for brunch this morning. So yes, that's three and a half times in one week. There are two more portobello caps in my fridge, so it may just happen again...

Pardon the not-terribly-exciting picture and my entire lack of artistry with the cheese. (Oh, and I used orzo since it's also something I'm trying to use up, but Israeli couscous was much better.)

An Embarrassment of Riches

I occasionally wonder what the Bangladeshi or Pakistani or Taiwanese people working in factories to make our crap think about it. Just think of all the ridiculous little plastic tchotchkes you've ever encountered in your life (especially stupid free stuff branded with a company name or the sort of novelty gifts that made solely to get a laugh out of them when they open it and are never touched again) or the super-cheap ridiculously-trendy articles of clothing. It's someone's job to make that. Every day.

Taking the whole income differential out, I'm pretty sure anyone who spent their entire life devoted to making useless junk would feel pretty unfulfilled (hell, even if I spent my whole life making toothbrushes I would feel pretty unfulfilled, and those are actually important), but assuming that factory workers in these countries have a standard of living a fraction of that in the United States, what must they think? Do they sit there on the production line trying to envision what kind of person buys these things, what they do with them, why they want them? Do they try to picture what kind of life includes such things? Do they even know what all of them are? Are they just thankful to get a paycheck, or do they resent fulfilling what is clearly a rather useless role in the grand scheme of things? Do they dream about a life that includes these things? Or do they feel like they're pulling one over on stupid Americans who are too dumb to realize they're giving these people money for nothing? Do they think about it at all?

The other day I ran across this article about how World Vision collects T-shirts and hats and whatever from retailers who made up a batch of "Hooray, we won" Super Bowl paraphernalia for either contingency. Everyone's patting themselves on the back for finding a good solution to unite U.S. waste with charitable giving, but I just found the whole thing disturbing. To an extent, they're right: of course it's better for a bunch of poor kids in Zambia to have clothes than not to. But what such a program says about American attitudes in general isn't terribly flattering. We care so much about improving their lives by giving them their very own pieces of brand-new clothing, but not enough to actually give them brand-new clothing unless it's worthless to Americans.

I find it appalling that companies do the double-production thing at all. Americans really have such a need for instant gratification that they can't wait for these things to be produced after the Super Bowl so only one set, an accurate one, has to be manufactured? (Well of course—if they waited, they'd realize there's really no reason to buy such a thing.) And we're willing to produce twice as much as we "need," knowing that half of it will be entirely useless? We're willing to spend $2 million making stuff solely to hedge our bets? And consumers are willing to pay a much higher price than would normally be charged for such things in order to comp that? What is wrong with us?! (And to go back to the beginning, isn't it embarrassing to have impoverished factory workers producing our ephemeral (at best, if it's the half that's accurate) commemorative gear? The most trivial pieces of our lives are responsible for their livelihoods.)

Too, the attitude that comes across in this article just really bothers me. I mean, I doubt many of the people accepting these donations do care what their T-shirts say. Presumably they don't read English anyway. But it still seems rather disrespectful of human dignity to unload your unwanted possessions—your trash, really—on others just because they don't know better or you think they're not in a position to be choosy. It's like the rich flicking scraps of food from their table for the poor to eat and calling it charity. It's not. From a utilitarian standpoint it does help them, but it's not charity. It doesn't come from an attitude of wanting to help. It doesn't make you a nice person. It doesn't mean you get to go feel all warm and fuzzy because you spent a week of your life traveling to third-world countries handing out "inaccurate" sports gear to kids who smile at you. If you pay some poor villager somewhere $10 to let you beat them up, that would in a sense be worse than if you just beat him up without paying him, right? It's taking advantage of poverty.

I find it really offensive that we as a country have apparently decided we can make and do whatever we want and waste as much as we want because, whatever, there are always people worse off who will use whatever we don't want; things that are less-than-worthless castoffs to us are life-changing extravagances for them. If true, isn't this a problem? Doesn't this bother anyone? Isn't it extraordinarily immoral to live that way? It's almost like such profligacy makes these people feel better about themselves because they're doing good by being wasteful. No! Prodigality is not a virtue, even if it indirectly does improve others' lives.

I guess I'm not actually arguing that it's so immoral to do such things that all other things (i.e., not donating normal clothing) being equal, we shouldn't do them, but it would definitely be much better all around if people actually deliberately did things to help people rather than assuming trickle-down effects will take care of everything and they don't actually have an obligation to think about their actions at all.