RoBoTNiK

I think the Ukelele is adjusting to our move pretty well. I hope she is. We've thrown a lot at her this summer. First, of course, the arrival of her brother, ejecting her from the absolute center of our solar system into some kind of shared binary star formation (which, unless Star Trek has lied to me, are always at risk of collapsing or flying apart). Then the move to Utah, and with it a new house, new neighborhood, new preschool, new routines.

Her brother* is adjusting just fine. I know I haven't posted much at all about him yet. I will--love, after all, warrants yadda yadda--but as long as he remains a jovial bundle of smiles, chins, and drool, the imperious diva that is his sister is inevitably going to commandeer more than her share of our psychic resources. I'm sorry, little buddy: you seem to have inherited my big ears, my placid temperament, and my propensity to sit in a bouncy chair and be overlooked for hours.

( Damn the Norwegians! )

or, WAYS SHE IS LIKE HER DAD (First In a Series)



And you're so much like me
I'm sorry

It may be that all two year olds exhibit geek personality traits. Or that all geeks exhibit two year old personality traits. My sample size is too small to be sure. Of two year olds, that is. My sample size of geeks is pretty robust.

1. A List Is Not A Conversation,
but don't tell the Ukelele that. Here's a scene that gets replayed every couple of minutes at our house:

U: "Let's talk about Muppets!"
Me: [any response other than immediately listing Muppets]
U: "LET'S TALK ABOUT MUPPETS!"
Me: "Well, OK. Kermit the Frog is a Muppet."
U: "Kermit is green! And what else?" [means: "and who else?"]
Me: "And Fozzie Bear is a Muppet."
U: "Kermit and Fozzie sing 'Moving Right Along.' And what else?"
Me: "And Doctor Teeth is a Muppet."
U: "Doctor Teeth is so many colors! And what else?"
Me: [any response other than immediately naming another Muppet]
U: "AND WHAT ELSE?"
Me: "Well, which Muppet plays the drums?"
U: "Animal! And what else?"

And so on through pretty much every named Muppet, catching me if I repeat ("No, already DID talk about Fozzie!"), flipping out if I try to stop ("MORE MUPPETS!!!!"), and cataloging one or two facts about each one along the way ("Tatlo and Waldo [Statler and Waldorf] laugh like dis: HA HA HA!").

(some time later:)
U: "Oh! We didn't talk about New Alien!"
Me: "New Alien? I don't know that one."
U: "New Alien throws the fish!"
Me: "Oh, you mean Lew Zealand. No, I guess we didn't talk about him yet."
U: "AND WHAT ELSE?!!?"

She's also very interested in Muppet emotional states:

U: "Why Beaker is sad?"
Me: "Well, sometimes his friend Bunsen is not very careful when playing with him."
U: "And what else Muppet is sad?"
Me: "Uh, most of the Muppets are pretty happy, I think."
U: "WHAT ELSE MUPPET IS SAD?!!?"

papersource  makes me handle these conversations more often than not. She figures the obsessive memorization and recitation of pop culture data is my genetic imprint, not hers. For some reason.

One year ago today.

If any more profound ruminations come to me on parenthood and the meaning of it all, you'll be the first to know. In the meantime, a year in the life of the birthday girl:

Year One

(Her mother is pretty gorgeous too.)

So peaseblossom linked to the NYT article on the Princess Industrial Complex that looms so large these days in the lives of young girls and their hapless parents. "Sorry, ladies. Your puny second-wave feminism was no match for the power of the Dark Side..."



There's little need for me to repeat the arguments against Disney's sparkly pink Stalinism here. But there were two other things I found interesting about the article: first, the fact that before the 1930s or so, the gender meanings of pink and blue were apparently reversed--"Pink was considered the more masculine hue, a pastel version of red. Blue, with its intimations of the Virgin Mary, constancy and faithfulness, was thought to be dainty."--and second, the slightly creepy observation that, by edict from the Mouse itself, the eight Disney princesses never make eye contact with one another--"each stares off in a slightly different direction as if unaware of the others’ presence." No, it's not to forestall Poca-mulan-rella slash-fic, but to "ensure the sanctity of their individual mythologies." Seems to me like a JLA-style League of Extraordinary Princesses would be a no-brainer. They even have the ethnic makeup of the Superfriends: you've got your bunch of WASPs, your token American Indian ("'Apache Chief'? I'm not Apache, and I'm not a chief. How would you like it if I called you 'Minnesota President'?"), your Asian, and your fish. But in fact the princesses slide by one another, never quite deigning to notice each other's presence, like, say, debutantes at a ball rudely crashed by an American Indian, an Asian, and a fish. For those geeks who catalog pop culture crossovers and shared universe continuities, this is a stunning epistemological revelation: characters may appear to inhabit the same universe, but they don't, as long as they don't make eye contact! Think of the crises that could have been avoided if Earth-Prime Superboy and Earth-Two Superman had just tilted their eyes demurely to the floor. Maybe this resolves the Seinfeld-Mad About You-Friends paradox that has threatened the space-time continuum for so long.

The article also mentions the new Disney Fairies line, which the Mouse is positioning to capture the hearts and minds (and wallets and body images) of 'tween girls as they graduate from Princess pink. (Disney Prince and Pirate lines are being developed for boys--which doesn't seem at all the same kind of slam dunk.) We visited friends of ours over the holidays with a daughter deep in the target demographic, and she'd gotten the Disney Fairies hardcover for Christmas. It reminded me of nothing so much as a White Wolf hardcover: gorgeous art, a surprisingly detailed world, and signature character portraits for each of the Fairie splats: Water-Fairies, Garden-Fairies, Goth-Fairies, and so on. mgrasso, your next campaign awaits you. I was also amused by the boy-band-esque male fairies, or "Sparrow-Men." Tinkerbell apparently has an admirer named Terence, a muscular young fairie lad who delivers the Pixie dust to all the fairies in Pixie Hollow, and is therefore "more sparkly than the average Sparrow-Man." Why do I think Tink's relationship with Terence is never going to get much farther than fashion tips, catty remarks about Wendy Darling's ankles, and the occasional night out clubbing with the Lost Boys? Not that there's anything wrong with that.

We're in Boston! We're at the Kendall Hotel. It's pretty swell.

You Know Who seems to be getting a new tooth.

That is all.

Good news, everyone! I survived a busy weekend in "South Toronto," that dreaded enclave of radical Islam and Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals.

I was there for a conference, but managed to sneak off the reservation and see sneech515, dilyshaner, tickermicker, gammafodder1, krustukles (briefly), and, rara avis, dreamsanon. (Most of whom don't really update their journals, but it is the LJ convention to list everyone you meet like that, and it's nice to know that nearly my entire social circle can be delineated with nonsensical nicknames and little faceless mannequin icons.)

Saturday night was the first full convergence of the original four Donut Runners^TM since my wedding, I believe, and that was great. We stayed up until all hours playing reprehensible video games, and it really could have been any Saturday night with us four friends from 1986 on, except that Chris' TV is much bigger these days, and the graphics of those reprehensible video games have markedly improved. There was a brief window of opportunity, as one of the Seans pointed out the next day, when we almost turned the Xbox off to spend some time catching up with one another and perhaps even sharing our thoughts and feelings, but the pull of scantily-clad wrestling polygons was too strong, and the moment passed. As we trundled home just before dawn, I felt a little sheepish about how thoroughly we'd wasted the evening, but in retrospect, a thoroughly wasted evening may have been just what the doctor ordered. Thanks, guys. Let's not wait five years to do it again.

The conference itself went well, considering I'd slapped my talk together between diaper changes and late-night soothing sessions. It was one of the first conferences I've been to where I wasn't on the job market, wasn't trying to hook a publisher, and basically didn't have anything to prove. That was a great feeling. I didn't even bother to put a PowerPoint presentation together—just offered to show pictures of You Know Who instead. It helps that I've been to this particular conference a couple of times now: I still remain mostly beneath the notice of the serious old guard, but there are lots of friendly folks at the middle of the profession who know me now, and a genuine cohort of recent PhDs and advanced grad students that I actually like to hang around with.

I also went to a dinner at the UofT business school for "business historians and business leaders," and even that was kind of fun. I didn't bone up on my Canadian Business Leaders Trading Cards before hand like I should have, but as the avuncular old guy I was chatting with was Jim F——, and the room we were in was the James D. F—— Atrium, I suspect he's done fairly well for himself. I have to say, I like hanging out with ridiculously successful businessmen. They tend to be smart, droll, and hilariously un-PC. They usually love history, in an A&E sort of way, and they spend most of their time talking about how to give away vast sums of money. Plus they often look like classic character actors.

It was weird to be away from You Know Who for so long, though—these were my first nights away from home since she arrived. I tried not to spend the whole damn weekend talking about her, with limited success. She seems to be punishing me now for going away by only letting Mommy soothe her. Which could mean more sleep for me, but at the cost of a broken heart.

Mea culpa: Between prepping for, and going to, the conference, I've barely looked at the For Want of a Nail lexicon in about a week. Final round due tomorrow? Alternate time flies! Sorry for my slackitude: I'll try to get something up at least, so I can pretend like I was in it from start to finish.

Please say hello to Yuki Josephine, born last night 2:43 am. She is perfect and healthy and beautiful and awesome and so is her mother. Yuki is shown here at about 30 minutes of age, weighing 8 pounds 0 ounces, and looking slightly dubious about the whole proposition.

Now I have to go back and stare at her some more.

"And down the stretch they come!" [/david letterman]
All extremities are crossed and ESPs of encouragement are beaming out to peaseblossom, jeregenest, and dreamsanon, all of whom are expecting babies! babies! babies! in the next few days. Well, just two babies between the three of them, but it's still a big deal.

Names Pregnant Friends of Mine Have Given Their Unborn Babies:

• The Lump
• The Belly
• The Wombat
• Feetla
• Mbobo
• Rob Schneider
• Seabiscuit
• Mysterio

Pregnant people are weird.

"The waiting game sucks. Let's play Hungry Hungry Hippos!"
I'm playing a waiting game of my own after umpteen job interviews, from whom I could be hearing yay or nay any day. In the past I often didn't answer the phone when I was working, but now I leap up and bound across the room like Pavlov's dog every time it rings—I've talked to more damn telemarketers this month than over the previous year. I also leap up when the mailman comes, but letters are usually bad news. I've been getting a rejection letter pretty much every day since December. The American ones have mostly dried up now, but the Canadian rejection letters are starting to trickle in. It's no big deal, you send out a lot of CVs, you get a lot of rejections. But they do wear you down after a while, just a little blow to the ego in the middle of each afternoon.