sundries

[rm]

Tonight Patty and I are dining with friends of hers, then tomorrow it's my parents, and then Wednesday it's just us and Thursday night she gets on a plane. Deep breaths. What's great about Cardiff is this time I won't have to go those two - three weeks where it's impossible to hear from her. Those are always the worst.

Right now I have two pitches out that I'm waiting to hear on. My goal for the fall, if I can manage it, is to always have three things out awaiting answer. That way, nothing looms too large and neurotically in my head, and I produce more and get stuff done. Also, if someone says no, most of these things can be retooled for other potential markets/outlets/mediums/whatevers.

Meanwhile, 'tis the season in New York. We're just off Fashion Week, now moving into the New York Film Festival and shortly into the New York Musical Theater Festival. It's the most wonderful time of the year -- that is, if you care and have the time and the cash and the clout. Me? Any year I can't get into the opening night of the NYFF always feels slightly tragic to me. I saw Akira Kurasowa's Ran with my parents the year it opened the festival, sitting up in the balcony in a hand-painted sweatshirt dress and a big clunky antique anklet on that had been my grandmother's in the old country. Kurasowa spoke and everyone below us was in black tie, and you could feel in the air that it mattered. It's one of the only times I can think of where I wasn't where I wanted to be, but it was happily close enough.

Speaking of that time of year -- it's time for the Regency Assembly in New Haven CT -- October 16 & 17th. (yes, Dragon*Con Recency people, I still owe you a post, but you should come to this!). Baring extreme social excitement, this will probably be my last public outing before I leave for my 5 weeks in Europe at the end of that month, so if you want to say hi, come to Connecticut.

Girl on a Whaleship! In 1868 a six-year-old girl went with her family on a 3-year whaling voyage and kept a journal, now scanned in and available online.

The Deseret News has been sympathizing with illegal immigrants, angering much of its conservative and devout Mormon readership.

At the polls, it's anger vs. despair and that breaks down along gender lines: men are angry, women are despairing and may stay home from voting. I could make comments. I could make a lot of comments, but they'd reinforce a lot of gender dichotomous stuff I work hard not to believe in or pay attention to when it comes to my opinion other people, so I'm just going to let it sit there, because you're all smart enough to draw your own conclusions.

Paul Krugman, meanwhile, on the rage of the rich. Btw, it's worth noting that study after study show that something like 98% of Americans, when polled, define themselves as a higher economic class than they actually are. There's some interesting lines to be drawn through my first voter rage link to this one, in light of that.

Keeping kids safe from the wrong dangers: statistically, it's irresponsible to put your kid in your car and drive them to the orthodontist; they're a lot safer if they walk there. Alone.

The German foreign minister has entered into a civil partnership. Good on him. Article linked because it notes how civil partnership in Germany conveys most of the same rights as marraige, oh, except tax benefits and the right to jointly adopt children. I'm so sick of all these "I suppose that will do" footnotes. Also can you imagine having such a high-ranking openly gay official in the US? Yeah, thought not.

So, Boardwalk Empire: Scorsese is at his best when he's working with music, and the same is true for this show so far. Much of the rest of it feels flat, and it's perhaps my own biases (and the heavily rhythmic trailers) that left me feeling this was something of a disappointment. On the other hand, Scorsese is also often at his best when working with small New York stories, so there may be hope for this, even as Atlantic City is on the fringe of New York. Certainly, it's no surprise to me that what shines the most in this show so far is the surprisingly sweet and wry face of the young Al Capone, a figure who is so far, merely a winking footnote to the audience. "Think about what this man will become!" the show cries. But I want the show to tell me a damn story. I'll be fannish if I'm fannish, and I'm happy to do the intellectual work, but the show should do its own hopefully compelling narrative work.

I've also seen a bit of discussion about the presentation of race in the series (notably, an early sequence showing a white band in black-face). Yes, it's historically accurate. But, that doesn't make it unreasonable for people to talk about how it makes them uncomfortable or whether or not showing this moment is necessary to the construction of the show. It's not appropriate to dismiss that conversation, even if you ultimately disagree with the conclusions any particular person involved in it reaches.

Last night on Angel: We watched "Number 5" and the one about Wesley's robot dad. Both episodes are problematic, and both episodes are saved by their heart and their performances.

I really, really did not know what to do with "Number 5". Is this Angel does Tarrantino? How much of this is as things happen in a supernatural reality and how much of this is as heightened (un)reality narrative bias? Is this racist? Should Whedon ever be allowed near anything that pretends to be about South American or Latin American or Hispanic cultures? Ever? Because I remember "Inca Mummy Girl" and so do you. On the other hand, it had such a small, gentle, touching ending, and I do like the idea that everyone, even the dude you think it just a punchline has an important, meaningful story and deserves your respect.

The Wesley's robot dad episode has its own set of problems. Namely, robot ninjas raining from the sky. Ninjas are a crappy shortcut in terms of narrative and racial presentation (faceless Asian horde, seriously?). On the other hand, the performances knock this out of the park -- we see the awkward Wesley we remember from Buffy, we see a man who is both too ruthless (Wes, just because you have nothing left to live for and would happily give up your life for the greater good, doesn't mean everyone else is on that page) and too generous (for fuck's sake, TELL FRED) to be happy, and, ultimately, we see a man who doesn't know quite what to think about his own childhood. Was his father merely cruel (not that words don't do a lot of damage) or as was referenced in an episode way back (Patty had to remind me) actually physically abusive? What makes Wesley the worse man? the desire to connect with his father or the desire to kill him? None of this works without Alexis Denisof being able to run rings around a simple script (again, ninjas? must we?).

This is also an episode that speaks, again, to so much of early Torchwood -- Wesley and Angel touching base after a night of professional disasters. Wesley, worrying about how their fearless, remote, miserable leader is doing, more than being worried about his own pain related to robot girlfrienddad. I can see watching this and shouting at the TV "what is this? Why is it here? What is the deal with these two? It makes no sense!" and I see how you get from here to Jack/Ianto "Cyberwoman" - "They Keep Killing Suzie" -- because none of that makes any sense either, it just seems to thanks to sex.

It's worth noting that if I write about pop-culture and race on here, I invariably get a lot of Hetalia ads.

Comments

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

Things have changed. People are more aware of certain dangers and there is more pressure to try and "do something" about those dangers.

My best friend has kids in the Spotsylvania Co. Va. school system and for the elementary students (5th grade and younger) someone has to be waiting at the end of the driveway for them when they are dropped off/picked up. If no one is at the end of the driveway, the bus drivers are instructed to not let the kids off the bus and return them to school where a parent/alternate responsible adult is then called to come get the kids.

This is because a trio of girls (12-16) were kidnapped and killed (Kristin and Kati Lisk and Sofia Silva) there in 1997 after getting off the school bus. Mind you, these girls would've all been too old to be included in this rule and all of them old enough to pick up younger kids.

In general, things are better for kids. Wearing seat belts and bike helmets, being in car seats, and in the back seat saves lives.

In suburbia though, people are way too afraid, when they really have no reason to be.

I am in total agreement with wondering about the currents kids learning to be independent. It's so hard to get them to want to be that independent sometimes.

I regularly have conversations with my daughter on how old she thinks she should be for thing X to happen (date, ride the bus by herself, walk to the local grocery store, go to the farther away playgrounds, etc.) She regularly says an older age than I do. Our kids are picking up that we think the world is a terrifying place, even when it isn't.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I regularly have conversations with my daughter on how old she thinks she should be for thing X to happen (date, ride the bus by herself, walk to the local grocery store, go to the farther away playgrounds, etc.) She regularly says an older age than I do. Our kids are picking up that we think the world is a terrifying place, even when it isn't.

This. My parents were extremely over-protective of me, but all I wanted was to take the short public bus ride from across the street from our house and walk a few blocks to my school. In, btw, one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in New York City.

I can't imagine being ten and not chaffing for more freedom.

Do parents let their 16-year-olds go on spring break trips on their own anymore? I wasn't allowed to go to Cancun like some of my friends, but a group of my friends and I went to DC for the weekend.

[bare-bear.livejournal.com]

Do parents let their 16-year-olds go on spring break trips on their own anymore? I wasn't allowed to go to Cancun like some of my friends, but a group of my friends and I went to DC for the weekend.

Oh my. That was so not an issue when I was a teenager. Spring break trips period? Nope, couldn't afford it. I'd be allowed to take the bus into the city (I lived in rural Manitoba) to visit my best friend or boyfriend, though, so maybe that counts?

I am constantly amazed how different everyone's lives are, even those growing up on the same continent. I mean, I grew up in both a small prairie city and then a much smaller rural town. It felt like everyone had very similar life experiences. I can't help but be in awe over the glamour (in my eyes) you seem accustomed to. Although I do understand that it's not all theatre and vacations and famous people. :) While the internet can be a scary place at times, it's fabulous for seeing perspectives outside of your own little bubble.

[rm.livejournal.com]

The Cancun trips were things people would save for for years and gets jobs and stuff to fund. So I realize that even working for pocket money vs. necessity is a privilege for many teens, I do need to note this was at public school and was not about wealthy parents throwing money around.

[bare-bear.livejournal.com]

Ah, that makes sense. My family never really traveled much beyond making the 1.5 hour drive up to the beach to visit my grandma and do family reunion-y things. But then, my entire family is like that. I was considered the "world traveler" in my family long before I traveled outside of North America. We did make the drive up to Saskatchewan when I was little for a wedding, and that is probably the most memorable trip of my childhood because 'We left our province wooo!!!'. :D

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

The kidlet is both more cautious than I would've been (I would've been taking public transit all the time if it had been an option for me.) and more cautious than I would be for her.

I understand how safe things like the buses and the Metro are both because of personal experience and the ability to read and understand statistics. She's still young enough for many things to be brand new. She's yet to travel truly on her own, so even though she's ridden the public bus and Metro a lot, she's never done it By Herself, and so it's weird and scary. And she's gotten the message from everywhere that the world is a Weird and Scary Place, even though we regularly show her that it isn't really.

Kids don't generally travel on their own any more, any where outside of the local area without at least one adult present. Sometimes, that adult is an older sibling/other relative and only barely older (and not necessarily the most mature person in the group) but 16 year olds, going camping for a weekend, not happening. Leaving the country on their own? Totally not happening. The parents would be considered neglectful and wrecklessly endangering their kids.

Kids 16 and up are still allowed to stay over night at home without parents. Though, I think that could also vary according to jurisdiction. Some places may be stricter.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Wow. My parents left me alone for a night probably by age 12. And again, they were really over-protective. This boggles my mind, especially when I spend so much of my life lamenting that my parents didn't let me do more hard, scary things. I'm not the person I could be. And I will never be able to be that person now, because of all the times my parents said I would crack my head open and die if I played on the jungle-gym.

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

Being out in the middle of no place, rural Virginia, I never spent a night alone until sometime after I hit college. The closest I came may have been a half night when I was 15 (dad was working shift work and my grandmother and sister were visiting relatives), though they could've arranged things so that was the daylights and 4pm-midnight shift section, so that dad was home by 12:30 am.

I don't tell her about cracking her head open or putting her eye out. She does thought have to sit in the backseat and there will be negotiations when she gets to be old enough to drive. (I do not think 16 year olds have enough life experience to drive in the metro DC area.)

My mother was killed in a carwreck and my sister gravely injured. I know how dangerous cars are and when the kidlet asks to sit in the front seat I say point blank, "No. It's too dangerous. I'm not risking what happened to your auntie happening to you."

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Are you open to a discussion about how to make your daughter a safer driver, eventually? I don't know you except through rm's journal, so I don't want to intrude.

(I'm sorry for your family's loss.)

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

Anything that will help in a beltway full of road ragers I'd appreciate. (I'd actually prefer it if she moved to a big city with a good transit system that made having a car pretty unnecessary but that's a mom's wishful thinking. ;-p) And it's not so much her driving that I'm worried about, it's all the others out there.

And thanks. It was a long time ago, nearly 28 years ago but it left its mark.

Learning to drive *smart*

[trinker.livejournal.com]

first of all...oh yeah, I get the whole beltway road rager thing. Boston and DC are absolutely at the top of "cities I have driven in that I *HATED*" list. (Weirdly, Dallas is the politest driving town I've encountered personally.)

When you're ready to start thinking about her driving...*if* it's not too distracting for you, I'd recommend you start talking about your decision process while you're driving. Just an ongoing commentary, so she learns what you're taking in. Some front-seat time before she starts trying to drive would be good, too. You don't get the same sense of the road from the back seat.

I learned to merge onto freeways by practicing on a surface street that had a similar "on ramp" type turn - no stop, just drive and learn to yield. I found it nervewracking, but until I could do that, I was trapped in suburban L.A.

Something I wish my parents had done for me is more training in learning how to adjust my mirrors, and to teach me what I could reasonably expect to see in my mirrors. I knew the mechanics, but not the conceptual tools. (The summer I got my license was full of parental marriage explosion drama, capped by suicide of a parent. It was not a good time, to put it mildly.)

I would park the car in a parking lot, set out some cones (or other appropriate height markers in all the spots where you should be able to see, and have your teen practice adjusting until they're visible. Set a few cones in the blind spots, or have people stand there, to give a real understanding of how that works.

I don't have a "learning to change lanes" exercise, but I note that it's one of my biggest points of nervousness in driving, even now.

(I'd do all my initial "learn how to steer a car" stuff in a deserted weekend morning parking lot, actually.)


Now, as far as learning defensive driving techniques...this may sound crazy, but I'd have her take the Motorcycle Safety Foundation's basic motorcycle skills class. Learning to think like a motorcyclist has done more for my car driving skills than anything else. Constantly scanning the road for my escape route made a huge difference.

That's my plan for how my kids will be learning. I haven't tested this out, and I'm sure I'm missing some major things. I'm guessing that you're planning on a professional teaching some basic driving skills, anyway. I've tried to just cover the fine-tuning bits. I hope someone else reading this has more ideas.

Re: Learning to drive *smart*

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

And yeah, there will be private lessons on top of the crap they get through school. I may even see if it would be possible to get her to skip the school based lessons (more the actual driving part than the booked based part) because I was stuck in a car with an absolute idiot that terrified me and my gym teacher was hopelessly clueless.

You've got some really good ideas that make a lot of sense and sound really helpful.

And as we get closer to 16 (she's 11 1/2 now) I'll definitely talk more about the mechanics of driving.

Front seat time will have to wait a bit because I think Maryland's got a rule of who sits up front. Kids under 12 or 100 lbs. need to be in the back. (which is funny because there are lots of adult women who don't weigh enough to sit in the front seat ;-p) It's a seat belt/air bag safety thing.

[ladyofthelog.livejournal.com]

My dad left me for the night alone when I was 12, regularly, on weekends. Then my mom found out about it and got REALLY mad. It is not the norm.

[rm.livejournal.com]

You and I are also of different generations though. I'm not sure it wasn't the norm in mine.

[ladyofthelog.livejournal.com]

Very true, and I did mean to cite that for contrast.

My mother was left alone to watch her younger brothers for a week when she was 15. But my mom had older (married) siblings around in case she needed help, although I think my grandparents were out of the country (?!).

[ladyofthelog.livejournal.com]

Cancun now seems to be the thing for senior year spring break trips (mostly 18 year olds).

My parents let me travel by myself from the time I was 16, but I don't think they would have let me go en masse with friends to another country.

[rm.livejournal.com]

This is the other thing, I graduated high school at 17 (and essentially had finished the year earlier). If we don't let kids do anything, what happens to people who finish school on the early side because of when their birthday falls?

[ladyofthelog.livejournal.com]

And I was out of the house at 17!

I don't feel like my personal experience is the best answer to that, though.

[bare-bear.livejournal.com]

See, I knew I was missing a lot of information there. Like I said, I'm not a parent, and sometimes a lot of these rules and expectations seem ridiculous to those outside of parenthood. How does it work for kids who walk home from school. My brother and I walked home on our own, oh gosh, probably since I was in grade 2 or 3, and I was the eldest. Granted, there were a few of use who would walk home together, but would that fly now-a-days?

That's amazing that your daughter is figuring she's too young to do all these things. My brother and I always wanted to do stuff long before my parents would let us, and my parents really encouraged independence.

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

Walking home from school is variable. A lot depends on how far away you are from school and whether your kids have to cross a major road.

I wanted my daughter to start walking home on her own in first grade but she didn't feel comfortable with that until 3rd grade. So I'd walk up to school and fetch her on the days I didn't work. At third grade I said, "You're old enough. Do it. You'll be fine." And she was and all was well though she was really concerned at first.

Kids younger than first grade need to walk with someone older. Our local elementary school allowed older siblings to walk their younger siblings home. Packs of kids were allowed to walk home from our local school together starting at about 2nd grade, especially if there were older kids (4th or 5th graders) in the group.

For her middle school, the kids could take the public buses home and the youngest kids are 11 (6th grade). Up until this year, the students even got free rides on the public buses. Unfortunately due to budgets cuts, that service is gone.

The kidlet's dad doesn't think she's old enough to ride the buses on her own yet but I think she could. We're still negotiating that.

It's weird because I'm the country kid. I grew up in rural southeastern Virginia without public transit anywhere and I want the kidlet to learn to navigate public transit to get herself places on her own.

I didn't walk much as a kid because nothing was within walking distance. And the one time I walked home from my high school (I was 16 or 17), which was about a mile and a half from my house, I got called in to talk to the principal because it was too dangerous for me to walk home. (Admittedly, there were no sidewalks and people drove like maniacs on my road but my parents let me collect aluminum cans all the time, on my road, by myself.)

My husband, who's the suburban guy, is way more conservative than I on letting our daughter ride alone. We take her on all forms of transit, all over the place (she's ridden subways and buses in San Juan, NYC, San Francisco, San Diego, Atlanta, and DC), so it's not an aversion to transit. It's the letting her out in a wide world that isn't particularly kind to women. I'm of the learn to deal with it now, when you have someone to help explain it and he's of the shelter her a bit longer mind set.

[bugeyedmonster.livejournal.com]

Walking home from school can be problematic in Dallas. If you live anywhere near a major road, even the smaller streets can get dangerous.

I live on a neighborhood street behind Buckner Blvd (major 6 lane road) and drivers sometimes use the neighborhood street as a quick cut to get away from the traffic on Buckner.

It wouldn't be so bad if they didn't continue to drive as if they were still on Buckner. We've had drivers stopped by cops that were doing 70 on this two lane road. Or cars have hit that spot where the sand from that high yard has crept on the street, so they loose control and go into someone's yard or car. (That's happened way too often.) And yes, they've hit pedestrians that were on the sidewalk or at the bus stop too.

Some areas of Dallas are pretty old, so there are no sidewalks, just grass and that open rain guttering system. Not so bad during the dry season, but when it rains, you're pretty much stuck having to walk on the road.

Oh, sometime back there were some parents who raised a fuss over the fact that they couldn't get the bus to pick up their kids. They lived within that 3 mile limit. (You must live outside the 3 mile limit for your kids to ride the bus.) Trouble was, this group lived on one side of the North Dallas Tollway, while their kids' school was on the other side. Ya' gotta love bureaucracy. And the paper or the news never did give a follow up on that one.

[mercurybard.livejournal.com]

I'm currently in Luxembourg, and one of my coworkers (who lives in France) was talking about how in the week before school started, he took his kids (6 and 8, I think) and practiced riding the bus to school because this year they were both going to have to take the public bus by themselves every morning.

Cue me blinking for a moment while I tried to process that. (I'm from Houston which fails at public transportation and grew up in rural Michigan where it was nonexistent)

[graene.livejournal.com]

more or less in response to this whole thread: we definitely are more protective/worried about the kids these days. Mine are both under five and the nearest park is across a major road. The rule is that they have to have an adult with them outside now and probably for a few more years, in large part because that's the way all the other moms on this quiet cul-de-sac articulated it when I moved in and only one has a child younger than my eldest. It's also that we found a baby copperhead in our driveway the first spring in this house. However, I will run in and out of the house, unloading groceries or visiting the bathroom with the 4 1/2 year old outside alone or with the toddler.

I can remember my mom being furious she had to pay for the schoolbus until I was in third grade and then railroading the principal on my younger siblings being allowed to walk home with me as soon as I was. I'm not sure I felt ready to walk home when I was younger than that, but then all the older neighbors took the bus at that point too. My siblings, otoh, never waited for me to 'pick them up' from their teacher, so I was always getting in trouble about that, but they felt just fine walking home on their own (~1.5miles).

I watch other kids at the playground and try to guess ages for when it'll be ok to let mine go alone. As far as the grocery store thing, it's nice around here in that if I notice or am noticed leaving kids in car while returning cart, the observer just tends to stand at their car and watch until mom is back, nod with a smile and continue on.

As far as being alone, I'm pretty sure that was legally defined where I grew up (chicago 'burbs), but that many people also ignored that. I know there were scandals about liquor cabinets being broken into during jr high, as the HS 'babysitters' were only to happy to join the party.

public transit was a default way of getting to and from school and in HS of visiting friends in the city proper.

As it is, I'm thought weird because my kids are ready for and asking their friends about sleepovers. Though the whole spending one night a week at the grandparents for years now when I taught in the evenings is undeniably a factor there.

Neighborhood girl I mentioned in other comment will probably try to transfer to same school we're trying to get ours into so we can share meet the bus duties/carpooling/etc until theirs is old enough to walk the neighborhood crew home.