dual personalities

After 20+ years in a second floor office, I am moving down to the first floor. I’ll spare you the details about why I’m doing this; suffice it to say that I volunteered because no one else would. I went to work yesterday to prepare for the move only to discover that I — old lady that I am — have to move everything except the furniture by myself. Reader, that includes a career’s accumulated books! I don’t have any current photos of my office, but let’s look at this one from 2013. Notice the large bookcase to the right of the desk

A couple of years later, I added a matching one to the left of the desk to replace to the little one. Those two bookcases are in addition to the five, similarly sized sections of floor to ceiling shelves built in to the wall opposite the desk.

In total I’m moving the contents of seven, floor-to-ceiling bookcases plus sundry belongings. Lest you think I’m a hoarder, know that I am discarding as many books as possible along the way. I am well aware that one day, like my DP, I will retire, and when I do, I will have to find room somewhere at home for all the stuff in my office.

On the whole, I’m facing the task cheerfully and with determination. Yesterday, armed with a small video cart, I schlepped all the books from the built-in shelves and loaded them onto the shelves in the new office. Admittedly, by the end of the day I could barely move, and I feel stiff this morning, but today, I will tackle the two free-standing cases and the contents of the filing cabinets. (The maintenance people claim they can only move empty filing cabinets, which is hogwash but what can a girl do?)

Anyway, here are a couple of lessons to learn from my experience: (1) do not volunteer to do something unless you know in advance how it will be carried out; (2) it may feel as if good deeds get punished, but we don’t do them for reward, so don’t complain; (3) undertake every task cheerfully and remember that “in hard work there is always something gained” (Proverbs 14:23).

Well, I have to say that my mother’s review of the weekend was excellent–but it did put one thing a tad lightly. Yes, it was a super fun weekend, full of super fun things. But she said the arrival of the twins cranked up the pace of our adventures 100%. I would go further and say 1000%. I never cease to be amazed by their energy.

At one point after dinner, we were attempting to listen to music and Lottie was feeling disappointed in me because I wouldn’t play with her (I was hosting) and so she and Wheeler Boy started taking books and DVDs off the bookshelves in the sunroom. I didn’t mind–it entertained them and I don’t have a giant bag of Beanie Babies like Mamu.

When they started going for the yearbooks, though, I had to step in and say no, those needed to stay on the shelf. This prompted Lottie to ask me to read to her, offering me this book.

The twins are clearly very sophisticated. I had to say no, not today. Perhaps in 15 years. I’ve written about Joan before (and of course, so has my mother) and my post had many funny lines (okay two) about people who like Joan. But today, when I was paging through, I couldn’t help thinking that she’d be cancelled so hard these days. Clearly, all of her fans haven’t actually read much, if any, of her work.

“Self-respect is something that our grandparents, whether or not they had it, knew all about. They had instilled in them, young, a certain discipline, the sense that one lives by doing things one does not particularly want to do, by putting fears and doubts to one side, by weighing immediate comforts against the possibility of larger, even intangible comforts.”

On Self-Respect, 1961

The essay goes on to reference Indians being “hostile” and the idea that there will always be hostile Indians. Four years later she wrote:

“Because when we start deceiving ourselves into thinking not that we want something or need something, not that it is a pragmatic necessity for us to have it, but that it is a moral imperative that we have it, then is when we join the fashionable madmen, and then is when the thin whine of hysteria is heard in the land, and then is when we are in bad trouble. And I suspect we are already there.”

On Morality, 1965

I mean, hello. She wore cool sunglasses, though, so I guess it’s okay.

PS the title comes from “On Self-Respect.”

One of the things that attracted me to the digital history workshop I’ve been attending was the prospect that I’d learn how to produce a map, and wonder of wonders, I have. My first effort doesn’t look like much — Assur is in slightly the wrong place for starters — but I’m proud of it anyway. I had to find and insert the base map, add a layer of rivers, and input all the location data. I’m still working on how to label geographical features like rivers, lakes and mountains.

Besides the mechanics of digital map-making, I have learned quite a bit about cartography in general. When I was a kid, I liked to pour over the atlas to find funky place names like Moosejaw or Punkeydoodle’s Corners (both in Canada), but I had never thought much about what happens when you try to represent a 3-dimensional sphere in 2-dimensions. The Mercator Projection that we all take for granted really messes things up.

Greenland is not really the same size as Africa. Go play around at The True Size of to see just how this projection distorts reality. I had never thought about the fact that even our maps lie to us, but now I have a book that shows me how they do it.

The next time you see a map that purports to show something like the number of people who own guns in Manhattan, take a minute to think about scale. What would happen to all those dots if you zoomed in? What is it that the map-maker wants you to think/feel? It turns out that maps get manipulated just as often as statistics. Is nothing sacred?

Despite a few naughty cartographers, most try hard to present information clearly and honestly. Spend some time at the Stanford Libraries’ exhibition on data visualization, and then go play around with the interactive map of the Roman world at Stanford’s Orbis. Both are wonderfully interesting and very eye-catching. I know that last week I complained about computers and I admit to having a love/hate relationship with them, but I’ll be the first to admit that in the right hands they accomplish amazing things.

This post wouldn’t be complete without a familiar song about two famous cartographers.

Finally, a shout-out to our beloved brother who will enjoy a milestone birthday this Sunday! We will celebrate properly when next we meet. In the meantime, let us all be Yankee-doodle-dandies, play music, sing and dance, shoot off rockets and make joyful noise to celebrate the birthday of two greats — our brother and our country!

*Terry Pratchett

Well, I had an annoying weekend where nothing I touched seemed to go right. But I did get this tablecloth at an estate along with a few books so I guess shrug emoji?

Whether or not it ends up in the hypothetical antique mall booth my mother and I want to start now that she’s retired remains to be seen. Speaking of her retirement, today is the day! After 19 or 20 years (depending on which celebratory vase you look at), she’s finally walking out the doors (metaphorically, these days) and won’t have to return.

I remember when my mother got her job–I was a senior in high school–which I guess makes me REAL OLD NOW. I used to come home and eat lunch with her but then she got the job and I don’t remember what I did for lunch after that. Probably worked on the yearbook or something equally reflective of my popularity. Anyway, over the years, I’ve enjoyed getting to know the students at OLLI via the stories I’d hear about them. One could write a tv show…but sadly Jerry Stiller died, so I don’t know who would star in it.

I am sure that the university will miss my mother’s steady hand at the helm of her program more than they realize now. Probably because she was so good at her job that they were barely aware of the program at all. That will change, no doubt. Likewise, we know the students will miss her because of those intangible skills that you can’t list on a resume: personality, understanding, ability to relate etc, etc, etc.

Anyway, a toast to my mother and this new chapter and a sayonara to her flyover university.

*Also, sorry I’ve had that Bob Dylan song in my head since yesterday’s post!