Miffed Q: Ms. Stiles says I have cotton in my ears.

Mommy with the awareness that her daughter currently has moderate hearing loss and has informed said teacher of this: What?!?!

Q: Because I didn’t listen when she told me not to play with the boys.

Concerned feminist mommy: Why doesn’t she want you to play with the boys?

Q: Because they don’t like me.

Eloquent mommy: (very long pause) STOO-pid boys.

Scowling Q: Mommy, you’re not supposed to say stupid. It’s not nice.

Once-again-40-year-old mommy: You’re right. I shouldn’t say that. (pause) SILLY boys. They don’t know what they’re missing.

Befuddled Q: What are they missing?

Cluelessly triumphant mommy: You!

My daughter, Q, likes to play with boys. When we go to the park, the activities she is most often drawn to are the ones the older boys are doing: football, basketball, soccer, skateboarding, scootering. She insists she wants a motorcycle some day, a dirt bike now, because yes-they-are-safe. She is active, not overly so, but active, and I think she is just drawn to the action and the (perceived) excitement. She plays with girls just as happily, but girls can be stoopid[1] in an altogether other way, and are not the topic of this post. J

I grew up with boys… The kids I played with in the neighborhood were typically boys, and my male cousins lived up the alley from me. I learned that boys didn’t like girls, shouldn’t play with girls, that girls weren’t as good as boys at X, Y, and Z. I didn’t understand it then and I still don’t understand it. Yes, I understand in an academic and intellectual way, but at the inner kid level, it still seems really – yes, I’m going to say it again – stoopid to me. I remember my mother telling me things about not letting it bother me, pep talks about how girls can do anything; but those caveats, however true, were inadequate in keeping me from internalizing some of what I was hearing, in restoring some of the innocence and trust that those attitudes robbed from me.

On the other hand, Q playing with the boys at school (against their will) has brought up other dilemmas for me, including a newly discovered game of playing “shooting” and pointing her finger like a gun and saying, “Kill! Kill! Kill!” Recently she told me that, at naptime, she slept with “a cutting guy,” which turned out to be one of the boys’ sword-wielding action figures. Her interest in weaponry and fighting and killing, however fleeting, rubs my (at-least-theoretically) peace-embracing self the wrong way. Consequently, feminist or no, I’m a little grateful that she won’t be completely immersed in that world that is so foreign to me, and oversimplifies so many interwoven principles that I am too damn lazy to type in order to make this a good blog entry.

My point in sharing this (abridged) conversation is to illustrate a sense of my inadequacy at some important aspects of parenting. I frequently have conversations with her like this, when I don’t know what to say. Or if I know what to say, it’s without a clue as to how to explain it to a four-year-old, or with the knowledge that there is no way – developmentally – she can wrap her mind around it.

I want her to know that it’s not HER specifically, or girls generally, but it’s the boys’ problem. I want to leave out the intellectualizing and over-explaining (to which I am so prone) and the lecture (which kids love soooo very much). Perhaps “stoopid boys” is actually the most developmentally appropriate response.

Here, after telling the eldest Samana that he is leaving, Siddhartha is getting some flack from him.

Govinda was taken aback, but Siddhartha put his lips to Govinda’s ear and whispered: “Now I will show the old man that I have learned something from him.”

He stood near the Samana, his mind intent; he looked into the old man’s eyes and held him with his look, hypnotized him, made him mute^[2], conquered his will, commanded him silently to do as he wished. The old man became silent, his eyes glazed, his will crippled^[3]; his arms hung down, he was powerless under Siddhartha’s spell. Siddhartha’s thoughts conquered those of the Samana; he had to perform what they commanded. And so the old man bowed^[4] several times, gave his blessings and stammered his wishes for a good journey. The young men thanked him for his good wishes, returned his bow, and departed.

Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

And to think that all this was done so easily that the telling of it subordinates each of these acts into clauses instead of individual exclamatory sentences followed by multiple exclamation points.^[5] What’s even more amazing is that Siddhartha wasn’t satisfied with mere magical^[6] powers or even the lure of walking on water. OK, so walking on water – not so important to me either. But still and anyway.

As to the “How I’m So Not Siddhartha” part of my title: While I may be merely pointing out the obvious to most, I suspect the fact that I latched onto this section with as much glee as I did is not so very Siddhartha-ish. Even then, I’m still so lazy that I want someone to bequeath the powers TO me. I don’t want to have to learn them or go around all starving for weeks or months, though I would really enjoy the attendant weight loss.

See? So not Siddhartha.

^[2] In all seriousness, I really need this power.

^[3] CRIPPLED, I say. His will was CRIPPLED. Bwahahahaha!

^[4] I wouldn’t mind being the recipient of occasional bowing, either. I don’t need much. Occasional would be great, and quite a bit more than I’m getting now.

^[5] Yes, I realize that multiple exclamation points are abhorrent to most; yet those people are usually the ones who could converse with their hands tied behind their back(s?), as it were, whereas I am not. There is a reason Hermann Hesse is, well, Hermann Hesse, winner of a Nobel Prize for Literature, and I am merely me:  überskware, the unblogger. [If I knew how to, or if I even knew if it were an actual style possibility, I would endnote my endnote with this: Oooo! Maybe that's what I'll call my non-blog. But no, it sounds too much like the unreliable narrator. <sigh> Tracking... Target found back in post.]

^[6] having seemingly supernatural qualities or powers. So, actually, yes. Magical powers.

In the meantime, this should suffice. In fact, it may have largely influenced the creation of said bleeding heart (because, of course, I am an uber-dork.)

Is there a better commercial ever made? Funnier, yes. But for the pure marketing genius of it, how memorable it is, and (maybe just to me) its warm, fuzzy factor, I think it’s unbeatable. And the guy’s voice at 0:40? It makes my heart leap and shiver.

Please, though, do tell me what you consider as contenders.

****************************************************************************

Research on mice links fast food to Alzheimer’s

LONDON (Reuters) – Mice fed junk food for nine months showed signs of developing the abnormal brain tangles strongly associated with Alzheimer’s disease, a Swedish researcher said on Friday.

 The findings, which come from a series of published papers by a researcher at Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet, show how a diet rich in fat, sugar and cholesterol could increase the risk of the most common type of dementia.

 ”On examining the brains of these mice, we found a chemical change not unlike that found in the Alzheimer brain,” Susanne Akterin, a researcher at the Karolinska Institutet’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, who led the study, said in a statement.

 ”We now suspect that a high intake of fat and cholesterol in combination with genetic factors … can adversely affect several brain substances, which can be a contributory factor in the development of Alzheimer’s.”

 Alzheimer’s disease is incurable and is the most common form of dementia among older people. It affects the regions of the brain involving thought, memory and language.

 While the most advanced drugs have focused on removing clumps of beta amyloid protein that forms plaques in the brain, researchers are also now looking at therapies to address the toxic tangles caused by an abnormal build-up of the protein tau.

 In her research, Akterin focused on a gene variant called apoE4, found in 15 to 20 percent of people and which is a known risk factor for Alzheimer’s. The gene is involved in the transport of cholesterol.

 She studied mice genetically engineered to mimic the effect of the variant gene in humans, and which were fed a diet rich in fat, sugar and cholesterol for nine months — meals representing the nutritional content of fast food.

 These mice showed chemical changes in their brains, indicating an abnormal build-up of the protein tau as well as signs that cholesterol in food reduced levels of another protein called Arc involved in memory storage, Akterin said.

 ”All in all, the results give some indication of how Alzheimer’s can be prevented, but more research in this field needs to be done before proper advice can be passed on to the general public,” she said.

 (Reporting by Michael Kahn; Editing by Catherine Bosley)

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE4AR48G20081128

I really like the updated Motown vibe of this song. Lyrics follow. Don’t play this around your kids (or coworkers or old people or whatever) if you don’t want them to hear “Girl, you ain’t got shit on me” or “you must be f**king kidding,” though I’m not really sure how one would pronounce **. 

Crying_For_The_Queen.mp3

Girl you ain’t got shit on me
Ain’t got shit on NYC
Got nothing on this city
Save all that crying for the queen
Go back to the motherland
Have your mama hold you hand
If you eat your eggs with runner beans
Save all that crying for the queen
Judging your behavior and your junkie routine
It’s time for you to get clean and stop creating a scene
Girl you ain’t got shit on me
Ain’t got shit on NYC
Got nothing on this city
Save all that crying for the queen

There’s a recall on all imports
You behaving all out of sorts
You can’t hold the liquor
Quicker ya’ll get off my turf
I’ll show you who got the curve
Think I’m being territorial?
I’m’a get patriotic on ya ass
Stars and stripes
Acting all sassy and crass
Class is in session, please stand for the pledge
All you pretty party girl step away from the ledge
Have a seat
So I can begin to teach
Today we’re gonna learn about the word: moderation
Liberty and justice and something like one nation

Girl you ain’t got shit on me
Ain’t got shit on NYC
Got nothing on this city
Save all that crying for the queen
Go back to the motherland
Have your mama hold you hand
If you eat your eggs with runner beans
Save all that crying for the queen
Judging your behavior and your junkie routine
It’s time for you to get clean and stop creating a scene
Girl you ain’t got shit on me
Ain’t got shit on NYC
Got nothing on this city
Save all that crying for the queen

Those who know me know I ain’t no straight-lace sober freak
But when it comes time to get the job done I make sure I’m at least
Able to speak
Try to give a damn about presentation
Try to make it look like its not a vacation
People paid to see a show
They didn’t just make a kind donation
When you’re singing that song for the one millionth time
And you’re too gone to see that you no longer shine
You start wishing for another way to make your dime
You wanna make a buck in America?
Grab an application and get in line

Girl you ain’t got shit on me
Ain’t got shit on NYC
Got nothing on this city
Save all that crying for the queen
Go back to the motherland
Have your mama hold you hand
If you eat your eggs with runner beans
Save all that crying for the queen
Judging your behavior and your junkie routine
It’s time for you to get clean and stop creating a scene
Girl you ain’t got shit on me
Ain’t got shit on NYC
Got nothing on this city
Save all that crying

Cause you know you’ll be missing that same ol tone
Two weeks what you look like every afternoon
Then it comes you be like, “Cha-ching, cha-ching!”
But minimum wage after taxes is like, “you must be f**king kidding…”

Girl you ain’t got shit on me
Ain’t got shit on NYC
Got nothing on this city
Save all that crying for the queen
Go back to the motherland
Have your mama hold you hand
If you eat your eggs with runner beans
Save all that crying for the queen
Judging your behavior and your junkie routine
It’s time for you to get clean and stop creating a scene
Girl you ain’t got shit on me
Ain’t got shit on NYC
Got nothing on this city
Save all that crying for the queen

For an idea of just how big I really wrote, this was written on that big manila (or “vanilla,” as I thought it was) paper apparently used only in elementary school.

 
Translation:

All people and animals need water. And food. To make them healthy. Sometimes people do not eat food and water. When people do not eat food and drink water, they die. And people bury them. Some people stay alive until they are 100. Many people do not stay alive until they are 100. Animals do the same thing. Some people and animals get sick. Sometimes the sickness makes them die. That is not funny. That is sad. It is not madness. It is sad.

A dream recorder does exactly as its name suggests. The reason it appeals to me so much is that, at least for me, there is no way to adequately describe it satisfactorily. While I might be able to include every last detail of the dream, I am unable to place someone else in the very experience of the dream. Somehow, the DR would have to be able to capture the emotional experience as well as the visual elements, else its value is drastically reduced.

I don’t draw or paint very well, so I can’t recreate the imagery, much less the motion and mood, of a dream. Even if I could perfectly remember and recreate the vaporous images, I can’t produce in someone else the feelings and thoughts I had about the dream.

Take, for example, one of the coolest dreams I’ve had. I was a member of some sort of ancient tribe, climbing a ladder that I can still picture, thought the dream occurred 15 years ago. The ladder was leaned against some sort of Southwestern- or Anasazi-like cliff dwellings, many, many modern stories high. As I reached the top, the other tribe members began shaking the ladder. It wiggled and pitched until the ladder began to fall away from the cliff. As it teetered, I began to sing/chant in a language real-me doesn’t know, yet in the dream, after a moment of confusion, I realized I knew what I was saying. I couldn’t tell you now what it was, but the nature of it was ritualistic and sacred, commanding some sort of spiritual power for something I don’t know.

As I try to remember each detail, again, I know I can’t implant in your mind exactly what was there. More importantly, I can’t truly express to you the significance of it, which I only understand in a visceral and non-verbal way. I can’t convey the other-worldliness of the dream, or the sense of it being almost more of a memory than a dream. I know what was happening in my life – or rather, in me – at the time, but I can’t express to you the intensely deep nature of it. Somehow there was a reclaiming of a power that was mine all along, and it wasn’t merely an intellectual exercise, but rather a rearrangement of my psyche almost.

To explain it thus trivializes it somehow for me, and I can even hear me trying to explain it out loud to someone: “Yeah, I was this Aztec or something? And I was climbing this ladder and they started shaking it? And I started singing in Spanish and it was sooooo cool. But, um, you probably had to be there.” I think I’ve even told it to someone not much better than this.

I suppose the player part of the invention should be a DRE (dream re-experiencer…um…or something) as it’s more accurate. Regardless, it would enable me to not only share my dream with someone who is interested or who I want to understand, but also to re-live it myself. Not only was it a fantastically cool dream worth repeating in and of itself, but perhaps a rerun could serve to reinforce the “lesson” of the dream, too. Though it happened many years ago and I am a different person now than then, I frequently need to be reminded of what I’ve learned (though, once again, “learned” seems inadequate).

I’ve always thought it was fun to think about because it’s nothing that would ever happen, more like magic. But I feel sure the Internet and television and radio seemed pure magic to someone in the 15^th century, too.

[But wait, there’s more… ]

(M, I’m really leaving now!)

creepy = creaky

Fee fie fo fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman = Fee fie fo fum, I smell an English muffin.

Oh, and she said “fixin’ to” for the first time in my memory.

I think I’ll change my blog to “mixed up fruit.” Seems appropriate. Sorry, Jenny.

Recently we’ve had some discussions about God, and mostly I try to get across to her that God is another word for Love, and it’s all that is good and creative and holds us all together (when, of course, any of us actually *are* together). Inadequate as it may be, that’s the simplest and closest I can come to explaining my version to my preschooler. Oh, and that God lives in our hearts, which is my version of, “God is not an old man in the sky…”

I asked her why she picked that one, just because I was curious what her response would be. She said, “Because I LOVE God!”

I responded, “What do you love about God?”

Q: Because He made the night and the day and all the food and the people we love, and, and, and….”

We went on to read very sanitized (to my relief) versions of Moses, Noah, David & Goliath, and Jesus stories. She went back to the David & Goliath page, where an illustration of Goliath (who “liked to fight” and was “taken down” by David in this version) showed him lying down, his face inexplicably hidden behind David and some other shepherd-like guys.

Q: Why did Goliath like to fight, Mommy?

Me: I don’t really know, honey. I guess he was angry and scared and didn’t know a better way to handle it.

Q: God doesn’t like fighting.

Me: No, I don’t guess He probably likes it very much.

Q: Why did Goliath like to fight?

Me: I think he maybe just didn’t know another way to handle how he felt.

Q: Like me.

Me: Well, maybe, but like all of us, I think. I think we are all learning and trying, and I think that’s something God likes the best.

Q: You know what else God does?

Me: What?

Q: God makes you toot.

Me: What?

Q: God makes you toot. I just tooted, Mommy.

Me: Oh. OK.