Barely promoted

I still don't want to live in California, scene 1

At the park: brown grass, reddish dirt, small birds of prey.

Weird old men walking slowly through the brush—picking berries?

Middle-aged women in yoga clothes walking dogs. Middle-aged women in ratty old sweats walking dogs.

Attractive young dot-com refugees running an industrial dogwalking operation. Three people, forty or so dogs, about half on-leash, half off-.

Stay-at-home-dads, with babies in backpacks, walking dogs.

(Every single dogwalker scooped poop. And every single one had a ball-flinger, increasing range while decreasing saliva exposure.)

The new New Yorker

This issue has a couple of serious goodies.

First (and sadly, not on their website): a memoir, "The Button Man," by Nick Flynn, summarizing his father's life. Alcoholic, con man, homeless—and, sometimes, staying at the shelter where the son works. Damaged people claiming to be artists. Epic understatement. Oh wow. He's got a book coming out.

Second: a little Gothic fable of a short story by Judy Budnitz. It's a modern reworking of all those foundling legends, an allegory on postpartum depression... oh, I don't know what to call it. But it's about babies and, be warned: it's got a horrific twist at the end.

Questioning apparent role models

From last Thursday's NYT, some discussion of John and Elizabeth Edwards' youngest children, currently 4 and 6 (Elizabeth is 55):

On the campaign trail, she lends a kind of gravitas to her husband; Mr. Edwards's advisers say voters give him credit for choosing a partner who seems so down to earth and to have coped so well with the death of a child. And women who have had trouble conceiving are well aware that Mrs. Edwards, who began having children again in her late 40's, underwent fertility treatment.

I'm amazed and delighted to see what are, with such high probability, donor children so accepted, by their parents, by their parents' world, by the world at large. Of course, the tragedy preceding their birth stops all kinds of discussion: could you imagine what certain commentators would say if Teresa Heinz Kerry up and decided she needed a couple more kids?

But, I'm a bit freaked out by: by what, exactly? By how the Edwards' wealth let them take this road to renewal? By the wink-wink mention of treatment, but not the form it must have taken?^* By the campaign's conversion of these little blond children into symbols of the (youthful) spirit it so desperately needs? From another piece in Thursday's Times:

Jack and his 6-year-old sister, Emma Claire, instantly became the most photogenic additions to this campaign - and probably to any since John and Caroline Kennedy - as they trudged from event to event wearing backpacks.

John's not exactly Kennedy-age either, you know.

^*I haven't done any searching for more informative interviews—or checked IVF Connections for snarky rumors—so this may be an unfair charge.

Recent exposures

The last week has more or less been a rolling party, a reunion of sorts for Beaker's fraternity^* brothers, their partners, and their spawn.

On the flight out, I was paralyzed with fear because my cramps weren't as bad as they should have been on day two—hence, I am broken and will never get pregnant. (I'm not making this up. Fortunately a few hours tooks care of that, uh, problem.)

Events since have featured a ten-day-old, a four-week-old, a five-month-old, a fifteen-month-old, a twenty-two-month-old, two twenty-five-month olds, and a four-year-old.

I love all these children and their parents dearly. But, in the rare moments that Beaker and I find ourselves alone, I've been chanting: we have a plan. We have a plan. We have a plan. One more cycle (and, Karen, my hubby isn't at all psyched about that one more cycle either), then insemination after insemination after insemination until it works.

Lisa, I hear you, too. I've seen this group hone in after a skipped drink—of course denials were made, and of course the victim showed up waving ultrasounds three weeks later.

I've become pretty aware of what I do to telegraph that I'm still not pregnant. We told a lot of people during the first two cycles, and I know they care, but I don't want to be asked. I wear tighter clothing than I did a year ago: yes, my belly's still flat, my boobs still tiny. I'm more likely to have a drink (even though I know I shouldn't, if we're cycling again) around people who might ask. Only one person did, this time; I answered, "It's a long story," and left to get another tiny glass of gewurztraminer.

^*Yes, folks in Granolaton look at Beaker a little funny when they find out he was in a fraternity. It's hard to say right off that no, this one is different, really, they love their gay and bi and poly brothers, sometimes even in all the ways that they want to be loved.

A misleading headline

Last week Slate featured a piece, Science as Metaphor: Where does Brian Greene stand in the pantheon of physicists?

I was all psyched: sure, he's popular, but do we get we find out what other physicists really think of him? Good academic gossip, the kind where the content of the work matters, just hasn't been, well, available since Lingua Franca went under.

Sadly, that's not what the article is—and maybe it's just because I'm such a blinkered academic that I assumed that any "pantheon" would be determined by physicists themselves, and on the basis of individual technical accomplishments. Greene is identified throughout with "string theory," and with his own wildly successful popularizations of it. Cranky old men are trotted out (none freshly interviewed) attacking string theory, and thus, implicitly, Greene. However, there's no discussion of what Greene's own technical contributions have been—and there must be some; TV appearances, even on PBS, don't get Ivies bidding for you. Worse, there's an explicit assumption that the kind of metaphor he uses in his popular writings carries over to his work, or perhaps all work ('cause isn't all his anyway?), in string theory:

Yet the strain of romanticism that emerges—and ultimately becomes inextricable from the discussion of string theory—necessarily raises questions. Greene plays fast and loose with terms like beauty and elegance, using them in a semiclassical, semiromantic sense, with little distinction between equations and the "reality" they may represent.

In Greene's view, an equation that funnels vast complexity into a simple, logical formulation is elegant; a universe that conforms to such an equation is elegant and therefore beautiful as well. In essence, he follows in the tradition of Einstein, who famously said, "Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler." Greene himself is even more explicit: "The tantalizing discomfort of perplexity is what inspires otherwise ordinary men and women to extraordinary feats of ingenuity and creativity; nothing quite focuses the mind like dissonant details awaiting harmonious resolution." Greene treats scientific work as a kind of poetic quest, and beauty as crucial evidence of truth. As he makes the case for string theory, we can almost hear Keats in the background whispering "beauty is truth, truth beauty."

This approach is not risk-free. Although many features of the physical world do conform to simple equations, there is no guarantee that the unknown will be "elegant" as well.

Now, I learned all the physics I know from the Schrodinger's Cat trilogy. But a better analysis than this rewarming and conflating has got to be possible. With some oomph, with some good intellectual dirt.

The Ethicist is not a specialist

The blogosphere often eviscerates the New York Times's Ethicist column. I'm generally inexpert enough to just be amused. However, in this week's column, the second question is from a couple planning to use an egg donor, but mom doesn't want to tell the kid.

I feel like his answer is flip, almost, and criminally naive about children's intellectual growth. (Then again, you'd have to be criminally naive to write in, then use his answer as your sole guide.)

Real-life stopping points

A's husband had once mentioned that they'd done "two IVF cycles, but A's just turned 40." (The latter clause was the shocking part: despite her love of extreme sports, she looks about 25.) Over dinner a few weeks ago, more came out: one fresh cycle, negative, one frozen, chemical pregnancy. The same months as our two cycles, actually. A had been through many years of trying, testing, surgery, etc., beforehand, though, and had awful emotional side effects from the drugs. They have insurance, they still have embryos in the freezer, but she's calling an end to it. She wonders, though, if her husband is ready for that end.

What I said: "Yes, actually cycling was so much more intense than I expected it to be." Plus sympthetic noises, lots of them, for the betas that didn't double during a family reunion full of new babies.

What I couldn't help thinking: "You have insurance?! You had lots of embryos to freeze?! And you're stopping?!"

B. is a neighbor. She's a few years younger than I am and has a five-year-old son. Maybe three years ago she mentioned that she was trying to schedule some sort of surgery that would help her get pregnant before her husband got laid off and they lost their insurance. Back then, I didn't have any idea what that meant; B is a bit of a hypochondriac, and I figured she was exaggerating.

Since then her husband's found a new and better job. They've hosted older Russian kids brought by some agency trying to get them adopted. Gotten three dogs and fostered abandoned puppies. This year she's lost a lot of weight an old-fashioned way—smaller portions and long walks with the dogs. Oh, and she's home-schooling the son.

Recently B stoppped by to return a borrowed tool and mentioned their upcoming yard sale. "We'll have the car seat and the stroller sitting right up front to draw people in."

What I said: something useless about early birds.

What I couldn't help thinking, but only about four hours later: "Oh. Oh dear."

What I know: we don't get to choose how hard the road will be. But we do get to decide how long we'll stay on the road.

An exit, an entrance, and a mostly elided rant

I'm sorry to see that Dawn is pulling back from blogging, and wish her tremendously well in her future pursuits. I've read through a lot of her archives in the last few days: I've learned a lot (the world would be a better place if everyone making difficult decisions had her honesty and clarity), and I've gotten referred to potentially life-saving information, too.

Meanwhile, in a completely different corner of the blogosphere, Bitch Ph.D. debuts with a snarl worthy of Bitchy Bitch (if she were an academic mom, of course):

I wonder if anyone else is as disorganized as I am. There are always a zillion things to do: work shit, home shit ("make dentist appointment. Get new glasses"), personal shit ("gee, I haven't taken a shower in a couple days. What I wouldn't give for a pedicure"). Individual tasks, like planning my graduate course, will sink under the horizon while I am fretting about something else, like straightening up my office and thinking about my undergrad course, and then they will surface again at 3 am while I am lying awake in bed. Others will simply be postponed indefinitely: for instance, said office-straightening (i.e., putting books on shelves in some kind of coherent order so that I can actually figure out what I want to teach by scanning the shelves rather than relying on my crappy memory) has been waiting to happen for a year.

(I wonder just how universal that apparently specific rant is? My only post-tenure amendment is that this year, I managed to make eye and dentist appointments before classes ended. But oh, do I need a pedicure, and I bet my office desk isn't going to have a single pile cleared off it until a week before I have to teach again.)

Finally, this report on who in the U.S. doesn't get their kids vaccinated at all makes me mad:

More than 2 million children or 36.9 percent of toddlers were not fully vaccinated in 2001, and 17,000 children or 0.3 percent were not vaccinated at all, Smith's team wrote in Tuesday's issue of the journal Pediatrics.

[...]

"Undervaccinated children tended to be black, to have a younger mother who was not married and did not have a college degree, to live in a household near the poverty level, and to live in a central city," the researchers said.

"Unvaccinated children tended to be white, to have a mother who was married and had a college degree, to live in a ... city."

Several studies have shown two barriers to full vaccination -- a lack of adequate medical care and affluent, educated people who question the need to vaccinate their children.

"Among parents of unvaccinated children, 47.5 percent expressed concerns regarding safety, compared with 5.1 percent of parents with undervaccinated children," the researchers wrote.

And those who refuse vaccines often do not trust doctors.

"Among parents of unvaccinated children, 70.9 percent said that a doctor was not influential in shaping their vaccination decisions for their children, compared with 22.9 percent among undervaccinated children," the researchers said.

Do those parents of unvaccinated children question the value of handwashing, too? What about modern sewer systems? Thank goodness that so far only a tiny slice of bobos are being this dumb and self-concerned. Of course, it's their own children that are being put at greatest risk.

Undated poem from Annajane's papers

We ghosts convene along this road street forever
We waltz Embrace each night, but no one ever sees
Except the man who holds the mirroir above us,
The owner whom we never fail to please.

Conceive me not, for you deceive me never
And fill my glass, I'll gladly suck swill it down;
Remember not to pause, silence is scary--
And keep your jukebox soft in my damn town.

[Excerpt from "Rubaiyiat for Stanley."]

Undated letter from Annajane's papers

I'm sorry I blew my cool. I had just paid the groc. bill. I wanted to keep it as low as possible. I was never permitted to order what I wanted—as it is my house when alone. We do not eat cake in this house ordinarily until you came. We rarely have cream and you get it constantly. It is bad behavior for a guest—and two of them, at that—to treat the place as a way station. I've had loads of kids in my house, playing with [illegible] boxes full of [illegible]. They didn't disappear! It is a bad [illegible]. Manic people are [illegible] for [illegible] everything—I think as you do have this (inclination) you should caution Moo about other people's things especially about money. She may [illegible] seen [illegible] take change from my pants—all of it; caught at it—and no remorse. You must help her not to develop yr. symptoms. It may make her have an unhappy life.

I am not mad at you. I like you. I did not want a maid. I wanted a companion.

[Excerpt from undated, nearly illegible letter. "Moo" was my nickname until I was 4.]