Thessaly's Tooth

I seem to break stuff more than most people do. I don’t remember my parents, for example, ever breaking any kitchenware in the 31 years I’ve known them. But I seem to break things on a fairly regular basis. Just a few weeks ago I fumbled a glass vase and it shattered all over the counter; and the other day I made a majestic sweeping motion with my arm as I went into the kitchen, and there went the coffee carafe all over the floor.
Once you’ve broken a glass item in your apartment, you might as well declare it a superfund site and just move. Glass is so difficult to clean up. You can’t just vacuum it, you have to vacuum and then go over the floor with a damp paper towl or something, and still there will be glass. After I’d gotten the carafe all taken care of, I looked on the internet for tips on cleaning up glass, and learned that I should never, ever pick up broken glass with my bare hands or tiny microscopic pieces would adhere to me. So I’ve probably been endangering other humans and domestic animals with my glassy hands ever since.
Also, it’s ridiculously difficult to find replacement carafes for coffee makers. Andy tried it and brought home one that looked right but wasn’t. I looked it up on the good ol internet (I could easily be replaced by the internet and I think you’d all see a vast improvement), and wrote down a bunch of meaningless numbers that might help me identify the right one.
With the result that this is the second day in a row in which I have had no coffee. Such a thing has never happened before, or at least not for a long time.

Lileks discussed this article yesterday (you have to skip past all that stuff about his daughter). I feel that I am equally qualified to comment on the article as him–although I am not a parent, and he is; I am female, and even have been known to lie awake replaying the odd conversation in my head, though I’m trying to cut back on that sort of thing.
In any case, I feel there is a fundamental problem with the author’s argument. This is that the problem which is described is a different one from the problem for which a solution is offered. Both of these are real problems, but because of this disjunction, one of them goes undescribed and the other goes unsolved.
p.s. You will find a more well-thought-out commentary by a better-qualified author here. If you’ve grown accustomed to the sort of uninformed rambling that goes on around my blog, though, read on.

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Cold Mountain is not, in my opinion, a particularly good choice for Valentine’s Day viewing with your spouse or significant other. Never mind why, just trust me. As to whether i’d recommend watching it at another time or in other company, it depends on whether or not you have 2.5 hours to kill, and aren’t interested in feeling too happy.

We got a flyer advertising a new “health club” in the mail today. I hate gym, and I always have, from the time I was the slowest kid in class, the last to be chosen for any kind of team. In grade school, gym was the only class in which I ever received an “unsatisfactory” grade. I couldn’t climb a rope, couldn’t do a chin-up, couldn’t run around the playground three times without stopping (as I was annually requested to do for the Presidential Fitness test (I don’t know what I ever did to the President that led him to torment me so).
In Junior High, the torment was increased to a new level with our introduction to the institution of the Weight Room. The Weight Room was a sort of airless, windowless closet in which a lot of crummy weight equipment, encrusted with decades of teenage sweat and dirt, was stashed. Weight Room, like all the gym classes, was co-ed. I still cannot fathom what advantage a thirteen-year-old tubby, geeky girl with glasses and a boy haircut was supposed to have derived from being made to assume a variety of embarassing positions on weight equipment, to the accompaniment of crappy 80s pop music and a thorough critique of her physique and personal worth, the latter provided by the 13-year-old boys. LPS has a lot to answer for.
All the gyms I have encountered since then–and believe me, these have been as few as possible–have been characterized by these same basic elements: a disgusting smell, a disgusting film over all the equipment, disgusting loud music, and having to arrange myself in disgusting positions while disgusting males look on.
The state no longer has the power to make me go to the gym. Why on earth would I pay $1225 to voluntarily go to one?

So, I haven’t had much to say here lately. There isn’t much to say, really. Just been working at the job and dissertation. I haven’t had any Brilliant Thoughts to share with you lately, but don’t worry, I’ll rush right to my keyboard just as soon as one comes along.
I’ve been reading Seinfeld and Philosophy. It is pretty amusing, and makes me feel happy because I am familiar with the pop culture in question. Since about the turn of the millennium, I’ve become old, and no longer have any idea what’s going on. American Idol? I have no clue, other than vague memories of who Paula Abdul is.

I’ve started a new job this week and am scrambling to finish a dissertation proposal draft. Also have a few annoying bureaucratic paperwork things to take care of. Busy, busy.
Here’s a somewhat funny article which mentions the U of C. I think she’s overstating the rudeness of Hyde Park, but on the other hand I have no idea why I’m defending Hyde Park. Most academic types (judging by myself), at least, aren’t ignoring you; they simply have no idea where they are or what’s going on around them. Occupational hazard.