Julian is very excited he has finally turned five. It means he can go to the library during class. He also hopes it means he will be able to stop taking naps at school (it doesn't). We celebrated this morning with cream cheese frosted pumpkin muffins and shared pictures with his classmates. Unfortunately, we probably won't be doing anything more exciting today as we are all sick.
As I do every year, I lobbied hard for the family costume of WordGirl (me), Captain Huggyface (Julian), and Toby (Fred), but Julian refused, in part because he wants to be the star of our costume drama, and in part because there are so many other exciting costumes out there.
A partial list of things Julian wanted to dress as for Halloween:
Telephone
Dinosaur
Pink Panther
Computer
Tornado
Batman
Spider
House
As you can see, the list of possibilities is long and, in many cases, the execution of the costumes may be tricky. When Fred asked Julian how he would go as a tornado he said, "I dunno" and then when Fred said, "It is up to us to figure out?" Julian concurred. So a few weeks ago, I told him he was going as a pterodactyl because this was a costume I could make.
For the head, I created a frame with cardboard and a baseball hat. After a week of layering glue and newspaper strips, I painted the head with acrylic paints. My mom sewed his polar fleece pants, jacket, and wings, with bamboo sticks inserted at the ends to create a bit of shape.
Unfortunately, we probably approached the costumes from a visual standpoint and forgot about the actual wearability factor because Julian ended up doing most of his trick or treating without a head. It is a shame because I think he made a really excellent flying dinosaur.
A new Oklahoma law requires physicians to disclose detailed information on women's abortions to the State's Department Of Health, which will then post the collected data on a public website. The controversial measure comes into effect on November 1 and will cost $281,285 to implement, $256,285 each subsequent year to maintain.
Oklahoma women undergoing abortion procedures will be legally forced to reveal: 1) Date of abortion 2) County in which abortion is performed 3) Age of mother 4) Marital status of mother 5) Race of mother 6) Years of education of mother 7) State or foreign country of residence of mother 8) Total number of previous pregnancies of the mother
Proponents of the legislation claim that women should not be concerned over their privacy since no names or "personal information" will be reported.
You know, anti-choice advocates love to say that they care about women, that they aren't pursuing their cause to punish women, and I wonder how they can say that with a straight face. Also, given the cost to implement and maintain this database, I have to wonder what will go unfunded in the state of Oklahoma and if the most Oklahoma tax payers feel this is a good use of their tax dollars.
I read the list of what a woman will be required to reveal and it highlights what the anti-choice activists believe about women who get abortions. I wonder why they didn't demand that women also reveal their religious affiliation and, possibly, their church. Could it be because they are afraid of finding out how many of their fellow parishioners, people who claim to believe what they believe, are also seeking this procedure? Just as they argue that the Bible says "Thou shalt not kill," but they seem to think assassinating George Tiller in a house of worship doesn't count, a lot of people's definition of "necessary" changes when it stops being about nameless, faceless people and becomes about one's self or one's loved ones.
I know the goal is to bring shame upon women who exercise their legally protected right to choose what happens to their bodies, but what if that plan backfires? What if people realize that these aren't random women who you can easily pigeon hole in your mind, these are their daughters, sisters, mothers, and friends? What if instead of shaming women, women embrace it and say, "yes, this is what I had to do and I would do it again." The power the scarlet letter holds is people's fear and people's shame.
Years ago, I had the honor of watching Lisa Barcy perform a piece which she later turned into the film, Mermaid. It was an incredibly wonderful, envy-making performance piece and Mermaid is a beautiful film and if you ever have the opportunity to see it, jump at the chance (you will be moved. Also, you will also find yourself wishing you could be Lisa and have all of her talent). Andrew Bird liked it so much, he has adapted it as a video (above, watch it, you won't be disappointed) and asked Lisa to direct a video which has just debuted on Rolling Stone. I would embed it here if I could, but I cannot, so I encourage you to watch it over there.
My mother is a biology teacher and she never mentioned this to me. Sure, she is retired now, but she was still teaching back when I was a teenager, you would think that somewhere in all our back and forths on the topic of whether or not I could go to what I then had reason to believe was one of the coolest places on earth, she might have said something. Anything. "No, young lady, I am not letting you go turn yourself into a jellyfish!" Of course, I would have assumed she was making some oblique reference to drug usage and would have insisted that I only wanted to go there to dance.
And even though my mother did not make the obvious connection, how about the rest of the world? Medusa's was prominent enough that someone really should have made this connection. I mean, if the history of Dave Medusa is to be believed, Medusa's on Sheffield was the Chicago answer to Studio 54 and I am 100% sure someone would have pointed out if a group of sea invertebrates were known as Discostudiofiftyfourans.
All I am saying is I should not have had to learn about this from Prolific on Facebook.
I have always loved Star Warsand I have always hated terrorists.
When I was in high school, there were kids who were very supportive of the IRA because they were "freedom fighters." I was pretty vocal that those kids were idiots (this made me very popular at my Irish Catholic high school). However, I am glad to have encountered such people because they made it clear that one's reaction to terrorism is influenced by one's sympathy for the terrorists' cause.
I recently read a book which was interesting in that it presented an alternate view of reality regarding our current struggles with terrorism.In The Name Of God is Young Adult novel written by Paula Jolin who wanted to write a book whose characters resembled people she met in the Middle East. Nadia, the main character, is a teenager in Damascus who grows increasingly more frustrated with the lack of jobs for her male relatives, the secularism of her female relatives, and her government's oppression of its own citizens (something she is unable to accept on its face, insisting it is the fault of the United States and Israel). While I was happy to read the book, I found Nadia to be a fairly obnoxious main character. Her smug self-righteousness and her complete ignorance of the world outside her own experience of it made her an easy to manipulate recruit for a terrorist cell. Every time she had a condescending thought about how much happier her cousins would be if only they wore the hijab or refused to listen when people told her that Muslims are not automatically put in prison in the US or that The Bold and The Beautiful is not an accurate depiction of American life and morality, I found I wanted to reach through the pages and give her a good shake and shout, "Don't be such a tool, think for yourself you silly girl!" In terms of Nadia being an accurate representation of Syrians, she may be. However, it should be noted, that not all the characters in the book are like her. Most of her peers are embarrassed by her extremism and the views she espouses, and I must assume that they, too, are like young people the author has met in the Middle East. And the only difference, I feel, between Nadia and some people in this country (like Sarah Palin or Glenn Beck) is the religion they claim to follow and the people they vilify due to their own ignorance.
I find that despite my frustrations with the main character, the insight this book gave me into an alternate view of the world was invaluable. It is easy to accept that the terrorists hate us "for our freedom" because that means we are above reproach and don't have to bother seeing the world through their eyes. It is far harder to accept that for some people in the world, we are like the Empire and the people who commit acts of terror are like the Jedi. So maybe instead of just hating terrorists and the people who support them, we need to teach them who we really are, we need to redress our wrongs and give them accurate information to correct their ignorance. Otherwise, there will always be cowardly evil purveyors of hatred who can manipulate impressionable young people to carry out their acts for them.
And, finally, funny though this video may be, it doesn't change my views about Star Wars or terrorists. Though I suspect that wasn't ever the point.
And the rest of the Republican Party for showing your true colors last night. Guess respect for the Office of the President only applies when it is someone from your own party. As someone who heard the "the president deserves respect even if he isn't someone you voted for" admonition from the Republicans in my life more than once, loved ones who tried to explain away all the Clinton bashing of the nineties as resulting from the Lewinsky scandal, I am holding your feet to the fire on this one. Because whether you voted for him or not, Barack Obama is the elected president of the United States. You claim the President needs to be more conciliatory, but when was President Bush conciliatory? When he was telling us we needed to go to war in Iraq because of the threat their weapons of mass destruction posed to us? Yeah, no member of congress held up signs or broke decorum and called him a liar while he was giving a speech, even though history has demonstrated that he was less than truthful with us. As I said, I guess respect and decorum only are required for people who have an R after their names.
I know, I know, the "Liberals are Liars" meme is a strong one in right wing circles, so maybe Wilson just forgot he wasn't on Fox News last night. Unfortunately for him, he chose to have his outburst before people who fact check statements (and found that his was false).
So, yeah, thanks Joe Wilson for showing us all the content of your character. Now that we know, we can choose to petition Congress to censure you for your behavior and we can decide to give money to your opponent (that's what we crazy liars do, we give money and volunteer for candidates we like).
Oh, and thank you because someone decided to dust off this old web chestnut, just for you.
How we spent our last day of summer and the first day of school:
We began the morning with breakfast and then some building. Julian wanted me to help him make a semi-truck with his bristle blocks, but that quickly morphed into a demand to create a bus.
He declared this to be the best thing I ever made for him.
Our plan for the afternoon was to go to the Children's Museum at Navy Pier and I capitulated to Julian's request that we have McDonald's for lunch. That conversation went like this
Julian
And we can go to McDonald's.
Alison
Really? Because I get the feeling you don't really like McDonald's food, that you just like the toy.
Julian
No, I like the food. I like the apple juice and the chicken nuggets and the french fries.
Alison
So you would be happy if you didn't get a toy.
Julian
You always get a toy. Even if you ask them not to give you a toy, you will get a toy.
Alison
(chuckling)Honey, I don't have to buy a Happy Meal. I am pretty sure I can get the food without a toy.
(silence while Julian thinks this over and plays with his bristle blocks)
Julian
Mama, if you ask them not to give me a toy and they give me one anyway, it's okay.
I saw that this was an argument I was unlikely to win. However, I insisted that we bike down to Navy Pier. Julian was opposed to this idea ("we can take a bus"), but couldn't argue with my logic ("I have no money for the bus") and we eventually began our journey.
As we biked past Oz Park, Julian announced he didn't want to go to the Children's Museum, he wanted to play at Oz Park instead. I asked if he was sure, he insisted he was. I suggested we could go to the zoo later and he agreed.
After an hour or so, Julian announced that he was starving and wanted to go to Starbucks. I pointed out that Starbucks doesn't really have food. We negotiated a stop at Starbucks (it involved agreeing not to buy a prepackaged sandwich and making sure they didn't put whipped cream on his drink because he swears it makes the drinks taste yucky).
Afterwards, we went to my mom's house. Julian took a much needed bath.
We stayed for dinner and then came home. I worried that since Julian stayed up a bit later last night, he would not wake up, so I set the alarm. This was not necessary. Julian was up early, packing his lunch box and talking about the things he would need for his full day at school (i.e. a sleepy toy and blanket for his nap, his classroom slippers, and lunch). I had a hard time convincing him that even though he was taking lunch to school, he still needed to eat breakfast. He was very anxious to get going.
After maneuvering the crazy traffic and parking, we arrived at school. Julian was excited to be back and to see his new locker.
I had to remind him to hug me good-bye before he dashed into the classroom.
The Periodic Table is cool. They Might Be Giants are cool. It was only a matter of time before the two were brought together to form a combination that made peanut butter and chocolate weep from jealousy because they could never be so wonderful.
I used to joke that I was going to run for Alderman because I thought it would be a hilarious thing to include on an acting resume.
Special Skills: Juggling, soprano with strong belt, expert knitter, good with children, Alderman of the First Ward...
As this video shows, not only is he the junior senator from Minnesota, Al Franken has talents which make my juggling and knitting abilities look downright puny.
When I was in eighth grade, our homework for social studies was to draw the map of the United States freehand (I guess this was what the Chicago Public School system considered arts education). I don't think my mom saved the map I drew, nor was the map worth saving, however, it was a respectable attempt (as I recall, it looked like a map of the US if it were reflected in a funhouse mirror--New England was stretched out and the Plains states were scrunched). As I watch this video, I realize I should have drawn it out state by state instead of doing the outline first and filling in the states afterwards. Alas, I should have practiced so that I, too, would have this cool party trick to whip out to wow an audience (though, to be honest, I am not sure I would ever have an opportunity to demonstrate this skill in an audition and/or conventional theatrical setting, but then, I'm never asked to juggle either).
