the top ten things i've learned this year.

My sister-in-law has lots of good ideas, and blogging is one of them. In honor of her recent foray into the world of internet freewrites, I am copying her idea to meditate on the top ten things I've learned this year, though after writing them out it seems like, for a most part, a list of stuff I'm still learning.


10. How to change a flat. I resisted bicycle maintenance for a long time.


9. I eat a million times better when I avoid grocery stores. After a summer of farmer's markets and a fall of shopping at Reading Terminal, I feel so much better. Quality produce makes such a huge difference.


8. Blush. Voila, cheekbones! Voila, I don't look so tired and pasty and hungover! It's a makeup miracle.


7. The neighborhood I live in has significant implications for the life I lead. I am glad that I live close to friends, lovely bars, and good public transportation. Although it means a slightly longer commute (which is good for staying fit and having a little longer to decompress), my quality of life has improved greatly. Put succinctly: god, what a good time I'm having in South Philly!


6. I need beautiful language. The book of e.e. cummings always on my desk at work and the prose of Updike always next to my bed have eased my mind.

5. Something about men and agency and what I want from my life and having a voice. I can't say exactly what I've learned about those things, but the tension between them is finally coming into view and has brought with it some needed clarity as I consider what I want and expect from relationships, who I want to be in those relationships, and who I want to be with in relationships.

4. I don't think America is really being governed in a way that is constitutional. My readings for graduate school have made me aware of this, but haven't presented any clear solutions- but I'm pretty sure a solution would involve an immense collective rethinking of federalism, a reduction of the powers of the court and policing systems at all levels, and an intensive expansion of the number of positions in legislative bodies... or something. 

3. There is a small way to reconcile my work with how far from home it takes me. It's called doing research on where I'm from. I can't wait for that brilliant idea to pay off next summer.


2. The present is all we have. We can value and learn from the past, and we can anticipate our futures, but now- now is it. 


1. Reciprocity. As my nieces get older, I'm finding that they love me as much as I love them. I don't know why this shocked me, to suddenly feel aware of who I am in their lives. Their generosity of spirit is disarming. It's not just that they fill my life with a big love- it's that they teach me to expect nothing less than a big love. 

are we here for a reason?

When my school friends here in Philly met me last year, they got the impression that I was something of a patriot. We were in a class discussing an article that critiqued the Korean War Memorial and I, new blonde person from Utah, seemingly out of the blue gave a forceful defense of the monument based on my grandfather's love of the monument as a veteran of that conflict. It was an awkward moment in a conversation amongst the ivory tower bourgeois. As they got to know me, they got to know me as a member of my family-- a military family. From birth, it seems, I have been reared to see the primacy of sacrifice for country. That trip to see the travelling Vietnam Veteran's Memorial come through Tulsa, the POW-MIA sticker on the Jeep, the flagpole dominating our front yard, home, and street-- it's in my cells.


So I got teary over this article about the lady Marines serving with combat units in Afghanistan. Their sacrifice requires them to take extra steps so that they avoid official combat designation. Their sacrifice requires them to do something that isn't acknowledged by their employer- something our country pretends not to practice is their daily reality.  Congress and DoD's continued denial of the sacrifices these women are making as combat troops is an effort to pretend that out-moded traditional gender norms surrounding war are still in place. Pretending that these women, now full protectors of our country, are doing something less is shameful.  Their sacrifice is real, and policy cannot diminish it.

I am proud of these women, and I am proud of the leaders that trust them and train them as Marines, not women, to be so close to the action. Of the official line, I think the sentence that concludes the article is especially poignant: 

"In the end, she said, “They’re going to remember what we did.” 

for the freedom of the human spirit.

One of the joys of being a historian is developing a sense of the big picture.  Martin Luther King Jr. Day evokes a little twitch from me.  Certainly, the influence of his vision for America has been felt across the generations, but I can't help but feel that something is lost in commemorating just one man's sacrifices and opinions and efforts when so many people gave something, or even gave all, to begin the still incomplete process of achieving equality for all Americans.  

lucky me, to have such an awesome mural on the side of my house

"Even if segregation is gone, we will still need to be free; we will still have to see that everyone has a job. Even if we can all vote, but if people are still hungry, we will not be free... Singing alone is not enough; we need schools and learning... Remember, we are not fighting for the freedom of the Negro alone, but for the freedom of the human spirit, a larger freedom that encompasses all of mankind."
-Ella Baker, founder of SNCC

why there are still people who don't watch 'mad men,' i just don't know.

NYMag's animated gif basically sums up the best 45 minutes television has to offer, week after week. Joan is my favorite.

the deco woman.

Today I discovered the artist Tamara de Lempicka. I am such a huge fan of art deco- it has so much character to it, and really, how could you not drool over the world depicted in Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day? I love too what the Deco woman represents- an ideal of liberated, athletic beauty, beauty that was so controversial that the flapperismas in Mexico were even physically attacked for transgressing traditional gender norms. I instantly fell in love with the dark, sultry, intriguing, clean-lined allure of Tamara de Lempicka's art. I think it's divine.

freedom is the only way, yah.

Wishing you a happy Independence Day from the land of "absolute despotism."
May we all honor our liberated heritage by "opposing with manly firmness... invasions on the rights of the people."

And of course, make sure you take a minute to thank a Vet. Freedom isn't free.

if mrs. obama wants to exercise, i want to exercise too.

Michelle Obama and Muppets? Yesssss!

heroic women, part two.

This image was a highlight of my day. I think because The Queen looks so teeny and cute next to the statuesque Obamas. It also makes me think of the coronation mugs I inherited from my great-great-aunt that have pretty dainty gold handles and a picture of the hopeful young Queen (I can't wait to be reunited with all of my stuff!), and the chapter on the coronation in my favorite book, Behind the Scenes at the Museum, and Helen Mirren in The Queen looking at the stag...what can I say? I like her constant symbolic power, the way she simultaneously embodies post-war progress and centuries and centuries of tradition.

You can see a slideshow of The Queen with all the presidents here. That it goes backwards kind of makes me want to throw up.

heroic women, part one.

Seeing this picture today inspired me to do a post about how awesome Michelle Obama is-- and then I realized that International Women's Day is on Sunday and really, that requires a commemorative series of blog posts because I don't think we can ever do enough to build each other up and honor each other for what we do. So the first woman I'm saluting in my "heroic women" series is Michelle Obama because she is First Lady.

WASHINGTON - MARCH 05: U.S. first lady Michelle Obama serves lunch at Miriam's Kitchen which provides meals, case management services and housing support to nearly 250 homeless men and women March 5, 2009 in Washington, D.C. The visit was a part of the first lady's effort to connect with the Washington, D.C. community and also highlight the city's best practices. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Michelle Obama is a woman who commands respect. Sure she is gracious and lovely and fit-- but I love that when I see her I am reminded that she is a successful, educated woman who, in front of the whole country, juggles being a wife and mother alongside her job as First Lady. If we couldn't get a female president this time around, I feel like Michelle Obama is everything one could ask for when it comes to promoting powerful womanhood in the Executive branch. I love how Oprah described her in Vogue, "Michelle Obama is a full-blown, grown-up woman. An authentically empowered real woman who looks and feels like a modern woman in the twenty-first century, allowing us to see the best of ourselves in her." Amen Oprah!