footing the bill

It's interesting how the check gets split between a man and a woman. If you're with a friend, you either split the check or take turns footing the bill, if you see them on a regular enough basis that noone forgets who was last. If you're with a man, however, things get more complicated. If you want to stay friends and no more, you have to pay your half of the bill, always, like clockwork, so you don't owe him anything. If you like him as more than a friend, you still have to pay your half of the bill if you're going out as friends. If you tried to get him to pay and he wasn't going to, you've just embarrassed yourself by telling him implicitly you thought the meal was a date, when he very well could have thought it was just an outing with friends. So you don't dare not paying then. In fact, there are only two situations where he will pay. First, if he insists on paying, you don't have to pay unless (see situation one) you don't want anything more. Second, if you actually are going out, he should be paying for you at least part of the time. See how complicated this becomes? You have to worry about what he's thinking and guess his thoughts in almost all situations, which can be tricky. And these are just relationship rules for eating out... Life is so difficult!

school, illness and baby, but baby isn't sick

aaaaah! I'm behind one day in the month of writing, so today I'll have to put up two articles (hopefully on different subjects?). Since it was school and illness that kept me from writing yesterday, maybe I'll make them the subjects. School, when I can make it there, is going well. I love my classes this semester, and just when I think I can't load more studying on, I get a reprieve. For instance, one of my classes this week had no homework, as one class was cancelled and we're watching and discussing a movie in the other. This happened just as the rest of my classes were almost catching up with me and me not being able to do them all. Now I am happily catching up.

Illness is never interesting until you get to be 80 and then it becomes a game every week: Who's The Elderly Person with the MOST Aches and Pains??? I would certainly lose, because although I have felt under the weather sporadically recently, I have developed no cold, no flu and definitely no pigs-can-fly illness either. And now that I write this down (where is wood when I need to knock on it??), I shall develop all three. Such is life.

In other news, I have been holding a baby without breaking it successfully! I keep thinking that if I hold it too long it will squirm, and if it squirms I will drop it... but considering that it's only 6 pounds, it's pretty simple to engulf it in my arms and not let it go anywhere. We'll see what happens when it gets bigger.

Back to school again: I have figured out my schedule for studying for my three exams, but I have yet to figure out a good way to stick writing my paper in there. And preparing for trial (fake trial for class, not a real one yet). (Although I do love to tell people, "I am getting ready for my closing arguments today"....) Anybody have some good time-management tips for me?

Blog 1 of 2 ended. Blog 2 to come.

gender bias in the bands

Is it just me or are bands always made up of men? Rock bands, I mean (although marching bands have similar stats, it seems). Woman singing, men back her up. Man sings, men back HIM up. Seriously, when is the last time you saw a professional group with a girl drummer? What is up with that? At least girls have gotten over the guitar glass ceiling, and they often play piano as well. But usually, they do that if they're the ones singing. They're not so likely to do it as backup. What do we need to do to change this? Enroll your daughter in music lessons today... drums, guitar, bass, piano, doesn't matter. We need musically literate women to do something other than sing.

NaBloPoMo

It's National Blog Posting Month and just because the first letters of NBPM are my initials, I've decided to participate. So plan on hearing from me a lot this month... hopefully every day, something small but thoughtful is my goal. Thought for the day: costume pics after Halloween make up what percent of Facebook posts? That's right, 98.99999999 percent...

Remembering the Saints

Jack: you helped raise me, just like everyone in DLC's choir did. You were a role model, singing every Sunday and supporting Mary in her work and everything she did. You were someone to look up to, a good person to model my own life after. We miss you very much.

Don: you were taken from this world far too young. We will never forget your crazy skillz on the guitar, the bass, the harmonica... Whenever I sing "God of Wonders" or "Better is One Day" or "Shifting Sand" I remember you. You were kind and funny and helpful, and we miss you very much.

Readers: Don and Jack both died this year, joining the hosts of saints that have gone before us. Who do you remember this All Saints' Day?

The Ghost of Halloweens Past?

When I think about Halloween, I think about costumes and people. I think about what I've been and who I've shared it with.

I think about homemade costumes that were perfect (the big fat mouse, thx Mom, and the angel) and some that were not (Polychrome, daughter of the Rainbow who turned out to look more like a bag lady than anything else) (sorry, Mom). Then there was the year I was Pippi Longstocking with help from friends and a wire hanger that yes, I strung through my hair. And how many times I've been a black cat (3 or 4, I can't remember now).

But more than the costumes, I remember the people I spent those Halloweens with. How we toured each of each others' neighborhoods, how we traded candies at the end of the night so we each got what we really wanted, how I tried to leapfrog over a bike divider pole and ate asphalt near my friends's house. How I am so close to those memories-- physically, only two blocks away-- and yet so far, in time and in location both (that friend is moving back to the Bay very soon). Of course, I'm making new memories every year, and I'm enjoying new friends and their costumes and friendship just as I have celebrated every year with older ones. I just hope this Halloween will be one I can look back on and be happy with, another memory on the totem pole of life. That's all.

Murphy I curse you!

One pair of white pants.
Two coffee stains.
One spring roll tofu stain.
Three small stains on the pants, one great step for Murphy's Law.