Calling all chicken thieves

Get ready, guys, here comes a serious academic post. (Can you believe I originally meant this to be an academic blog? I did, but then everybody started getting in trouble or fired for their blogs, and I chickened out.)

Ha! What a great segue! Speaking of chickens, that's my question. A student of mine (we'll call her Clever Shy Girl) is working on a great project related to gender and crime in the 18th century, and among other things she has a list of cases of people stealing animals (horses, sheep, pheasants, rabbits, you name it). Mostly just one animal is stolen, or a few easily herdable animals, like sheep. But in a few cases, a single person is accused of having stolen chickens - lots of chickens, in one case a few dozen chickens.

Initially CSG just plugged this information into the database with everything else and worked on figuring out the patterns of who was stealing what from whom... but then as we talked about people's reasons for stealing animals (to sell? to eat?) we started to do more imagining about how those thefts would actually have worked, and we began to wonder: how does one person steal a whole bunch of chickens? These were live chickens, and I can imagine one person carrying two chickens, or maybe four or five in a sack, but twenty or thirty chickens? How do you do that? You'd have to at least have crates, and then some sort of small cart, and even then it seems like a pretty messy and complicated endeavor.

CSG and I are both city girls, with little experience in the ways of chickens, so I called my sister. Art Sister doesn't have chickens, but she lives in a small town and works part-time for the county extension office, so I figured she must know somebody who knows about chickens. She confirmed that it's virtually impossible to carry more than one chicken at a time, but didn't know more than that. I asked her: "Surely you know someone who raises chickens?" and she said "Well, yes, I do, but I am NOT going to call them up and tell them that my sister wants to know how to steal chickens."

My sister does not have the proper adventurous spirit necessary for academic pursuits.

So I turn to you: some of you are historians, and some of you are rural, and all of you are good creative adventurous thinkers. Give me a brainstorm on this one: if you were suddenly taken with the desire to go out and steal say twenty or thirty chickens, given the ordinary tools and resources available to a relatively poor person in the 18th century, how would you go about it?

Cats on a bus*

I had a series of the weirdest dreams last night. All of them began with a setup perfect for the typical anxiety dream: explaining something to a roomful of students and having all the equipment backfire; needing to get to a meeting and not being able to find the room... but in each case, somehow the problem turned around into a situation that worked. They were like anti-anxiety dreams.

The weirdest by far was the dream in which LWI and I got on a New York City bus... with our two cats. What could be better for an anxiety dream than taking your high-strung cats on a city bus full of people? I remember all the possibilities flashing through my mind - people complaining about the cats, OneCat freaking out and biting someone, or bolting out the door at any given stop, or TwoCat wandering off to sleep inside someone's bag and getting unknowingly carted away. (Of course they weren't even in carriers; they were just walking along with us.) Not only that, but at some point the dream came to include a third cat (who fortunately bore a much closer resemblance to mellow TwoCat than hyper OneCat). This complicated things in that two people might have a chance at carrying around two cats, but not three; not only that, but for half the dream I couldn't quite remember ThreeCat's name, which introduced an odd element of guilt. (When I did remember, it was Laurel, which was just as odd.) At one point I had the clear idea that the bus went in a big loop and would come back home in about an hour, so all we had to do was try desperately to keep them under control for an hour and everything would be okay. (Famous last words, right? and besides, what the hell were we doing going on a one-hour circular joyride on a bus with cats?) Some part of my brain was conscious enough to foresee this becoming serious trouble.

But. All we had to do was to store TwoCat on the luggage rack over our heads, where he curled up in a comfortable ball and napped, and put OneCat in a window seat, where he happily watched the world go by. Magically, we found we'd remembered to bring food and water for them, so they snacked along the way. The bus took us to a cool little park outside the city, where we all got out and played for a while (both cats comporting themselves like well-behaved children, not wandering too far off), and then the dream ended when we decided to go back home before it got dark, knowing that the bus ride wouldn't be any problem.

Throughout the whole dream there was this little frisson of anxiety about all the things that could (and rightfully should have) gone wrong, but it all turned out beautifully well. WTF? Dreams don't usually work like that. What does it mean when instead of chaos, I dream that things are more under control than they could ever possibly be?

*(sort of my odd subconscious equivalent of Snakes on a Plane, I suppose...)

Random bits of my day

I was chopping up mushrooms and peppers and garlic for a lasagne this afternoon, and one thing a dear friend of mine taught me is that the key to lasagne (or any other tomato-pasta combination, for that matter) is a little squish of anchovy paste. (Mmmmmmm... anchovies.) I'm sure we had an unopened tube of anchovy paste somewhere, because I kept running into it in the pantry when I was looking for other things. Let's see... not behind the black beans, not behind the miso soup... aha! There it is.

I wonder how long it's been there? We went through a phase of using the stuff all the time, but then we kind of forgot about it and it's been a while. Does anchovy paste expire? How would one know?

The box had no expiration date, and when I took out the tube inside, it didn't either. Hmm. Well, it can't have been there all that long; let's see how it smells. So I took off the cap and punctured the little foil seal across the mouth of the tube...

...and oh-so-very-expired foul brown anchovy paste sprayed several feet across the room. Fortunately none of it landed in the lasagne. So much for no expiration dates.

On the other hand. There's a conference coming up this spring that I'm excited about, and it's being held in a rather more posh hotel than this organization usually books, so I'd definitely like to share a room. Previously I've either stayed by myself or the LWI has come along, so I don't have a regular conference roommate among this particular group.

There's one person I was thinking of asking, because I know her husband hates these things and doesn't tag along, so she might be scouting for a roomie. But she's a Big Name Academic and probably has plenty of her own friends and would be merely amused by my pathetic offer, right?

Just a few minutes ago, she emailed me asking if I'd be interested in sharing a room. I am positively giddy in a Sally Field they-really-like-me! sort of way. I know, it's just a conference hotel, we're not going to be Best Friends Forever or exchange little woven bracelets or anything. But I'm still pleased to be hanging out with the cool kids. Beats cleaning anchovy paste off the cabinets.

Fat-cat freakout

So the oddest thing happened last night. The LWI and I were downstairs, relaxing on the couch after dinner, when we heard some sort of noise from upstairs - afterwards we couldn't remember just what it was, but we knew we'd both registered hearing something, like a faint thump or other indeterminate noise. That was immediately followed by two top-volume blood-curdling yowls from TwoCat. We were startled, but assumed that he was just getting the worst end of a fight with OneCat - they play-fight often, and once in a while one of them yells that the other is taking the fight a little too seriously. But a half-second later we realized that OneCat was with us in the living room, looking just as startled as we were.

So I headed upstairs to see what TwoCat had gotten himself into, and found him at the top of the stairs, all puffed up and bug-eyed and spooked. TwoCat is the mildest of creatures, and even all puffed up he doesn't look very intimidating, more like a black furry basketball, but he was more worked up than I'd ever seen him. I took another step up the stairs to see what was the matter, and he flinched like he was ready to bolt, so for the next few minutes I eased my way up the stairs to soothe him and figure out what he'd done to himself. At this point I was thinking perhaps he'd jumped down off a chair or desk and landed funny, twisting a leg or a paw; he's ordinarily a stoic little guy, and doesn't make much of a fuss about anything, but that full-throated howl was still echoing in my ears. But after a while he calmed down and bounded downstairs to see if there was any dinner in his bowl, and showed no signs of physical damage at all. WTF? I canvassed the upstairs, and found no evidence of anything out of the ordinary - nothing tipped over, no giant rats to fight with, no bloodstains, nothing that looked at all like it was worth screaming about.

We remain perplexed.

Life in a suitcase

1B*'s post today about the difficulties of packing lots of trips into her semester made me pause once more to consider the situation I've gotten myself in for this summer. Mind you, I'm very excited about this summer, because it holds lots of great opportunities: I'm teaching a study-abroad course in two European cities, doing some research, presenting at a conference, and going on at least one fun getaway.

But let's consider this in terms of clothes. All of these adventures are connected to the same two-month trans-Atlantic trip, so I have to prepare for them all in the same set of suitcases (ideally no more than two). Here's the deal: I will be teaching and being touristy in two different cities, one of which has an average summer high of 76 degrees and the other of which has an average summer high of 89. I will be attending a professional conference, and going on a four-day hike, in a third region that has an average summer high of 65 degrees. Last but not least: under normal circumstances, I really prefer to travel light and pack as little as possible.

How the fireplace am I supposed to make this work? I think I need to start packing now.

(ETA: now I have the old Police song "Man in a Suitcase" stuck in my head. This is not helping.)

(ETA2: it is important to remember that at least half of the overall trip will be spent in a very tiny apartment shared with four other people. Thus an additional limit on the stuff I can bring, because there's just not anywhere to put it.)

New Year's Eve

I don't think I made any specific New Year's resolutions last year. I used to love having an end-of-year period of deep introspection and figuring out what lessons I needed to learn and what paths I needed to explore, but for the past two or three years I've had the sense that I'm going generally in the right direction and just need to keep chugging along. That's very satisfying in some ways, at least the feeling that there's nothing in my life right now that needs to be fixed, but I'm beginning to feel the need for some kind of spiritual challenge.

While I figure that out, though, it's a good time to look back for a moment. I have a surprisingly crappy memory, so I'm sure I'm forgetting some of the big things that have happened, but the highlights of this year include the following:

• this was my first year of tenure, which was generally uneventful, but has given me an overall sense of accomplishment, satisfaction, and relief
• my book came out! That's a biggie. :)
• I've made pretty good progress on the second book project. At the beginning of last year it was a very nebulous idea, and I was terrified of mentioning it to anyone. Over the course of the year I tracked down some good evidence in the archives, and had some wonderful and encouraging conversations with colleagues, and now I'm very excited about the whole thing.
• I agreed (God help me) to host the yearly meeting of my principal academic organization in 2008. This isn't really an accomplishment yet, but several people talked to me about doing this, which means they must think I'm reasonably competent (or at least sufficiently gullible), and I'm kind of excited about that.
• Several people in my department have made noises about how I'd be a good candidate for department chair.
• I worked on my first Habitat for Humanity build! (and will do another this spring.)
• Started taking yoga classes just about a year ago; that's been a great and satisfying success.
• We made some nice improvements to the house this year, at least inside (outside is going to hell in a weedy overgrown handbasket) - new carpet and tile in the master bedroom & bath, a couple of new pieces of furniture, and lots of plans for next year...

Those are the big things; I guess the main theme is that this has been a really good year for my professional life. I haven't accomplished anything big (good or bad) personally or socially or spiritually; that's what I'd like to work on more for the coming year, though I'm not sure quite how to proceed. Mostly my goal is to make new friends: I like the people I work with, but I've felt a little starved for interesting conversation recently, and I realize that I've fallen into a lot of social ruts. (I even made the bar a far more interesting place in 2005 than I did in 2006; maybe I can liven that up a little too.) Time to stretch myself a little and shake things up.

What about you?

Have a lovely New Year's Eve, everyone; be safe, and I wish you all the best in friends, family, and good fortune for the new year!

Liberation

Yesterday on “Charlie Rose” we saw the greatest interview with Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro González Iñárritu, and Alfonso Cuarón, three innovative Mexican filmmakers who are also clearly good friends. Charlie was almost irrelevant to the discussion, as the three enthusiastically talked about themes and styles and stories in their work. What was interesting to note, in spite of the well-deserved fame each has achieved, was that they talked very little about their own work; each seemed more interested in describing and discussing the work of his friends. This made for an even richer discussion, I think, and of course it depended on the intimate knowledge each man had of his friends and their ideas, as well as a refreshing lack of ego.

At one point, towards the end, Charlie asked if they ever felt competitive, given their prominence and the fact that their films tend to be nominated for similar awards. This struck me as a rather unnecessary question, since the nature of the previous hour’s discussion had made it perfectly clear that the three were far more mutually supportive than anything, but then I decided that that itself was probably what Charlie was trying to highlight. They seemed a bit surprised by the question, but then responded that of course they weren’t competitive, and in fact they each at some point had withdrawn from various competitions in the interest of highlighting another’s work. What impressed me the most was Cuarón’s simple, honest comment: “When you can transform envy into admiration, that’s incredibly liberating.”

The LWI, who is Spanish, immediately remarked that that sort of attitude was far more common among Hispanics than among Anglo-Saxons. I suspect he’s right, and isn’t that sad? Certainly we collectively celebrate hard work and individual accomplishment, and that’s important, but it also lends itself to a zero-sum attitude, where my win is your loss – and that in turn cultivates one-upmanship and envy. I’ve noticed this working in other ways, in that Americans generally center conversations around their jobs and their accomplishments, while Spaniards will almost never discuss their work, because it doesn’t have that much to do with their identity. I’m making huge generalizations here, and I know there are any number of exceptions. But I was so taken with the way these three men talked to each other, and more importantly how genuinely they listened to each other, and I wish we could liberate ourselves to celebrate each other that way a little more often.

are we there yet?

You know it's almost the end of the semester when...

...your Western Civ class is having an animated discussion of the Great Schism (when for a few decades in the late fourteenth century there were two popes claiming the papacy), and when you ask for possible solutions for this crisis, one student gleefully pipes up "They could joust for it!"

... and instead of chuckling politely and getting the discussion back on course to a discussion of the role of church councils, you give in to evil temptation and respond that a good game spinoff of that would be "Rock'em Sock'em Pontiffs..."

... and the whole class falls into helpless ridiculousness for the rest of the hour.

The love shirt

Bardiac had a nice description today of a shirt that eases her way through a bad day, partly because it's thick and soft and partly because it fits better than it used to. This is not a small thing in my opinion, and it reminded me of a similar shirt I used to own - or more precisely, of which I was in temporary custody.

Many years ago, my old friend RocketBoy gave me several of his old shirts. There's nothing better than big old shirts from guys you love - worn soft, full of good memories, and big enough to wrap yourself in on cold or scary days. One of them, he told me, was special. Not because of its shape or design - it was just a nicely cut, white cotton long-sleeved shirt - but because it had a long history. I don't even remember the origins of the story, but the shirt came to be in the possession of his girlfriend's father, who gave it to his daughter when she went off to college because she had always loved to steal it from his closet. She wore it to comfort her during the difficult days of adjusting to the new world of college, but when she felt strong and confident, she passed it on to RocketBoy. RocketBoy wore it during some difficult times of his own, but when he figured out a new direction for his life, he gave the shirt to me. And with it he gave me these instructions: Wear it for a while, and then give it to someone you love.

By this time it was a bit frayed at the cuffs, but still soft and strong and a lovely reminder of my friend's support. I confess that I kept hold of it for several years, wearing it as I ended an ugly relationship and worked my way through the complicated years of grad school. After I married and landed my first job, I decided it was time, and I gave the shirt to Musical Friend in Louisiana. I haven't been in touch with him for a while, so I'm not sure how his life is going. But the nice thing about the shirt is that you win either way. If life is rough, you have the comfort of its warmth around your shoulders and the love of all the people that have passed it on to you... or if you're back on top of things, you can give that strength and love to someone else in turn, and smile when you think of them wearing it.

...But where does it go?

Okay, I need help with some meditation-visualizations here. I've been taking an awesome yoga class for the past several months, and when we end in the final corpse pose, the instructor always talks about letting go of whatever stress we've pulled loose, letting it fall away, letting it sink down into the floor.

I love that idea, but I can't help imagining the space about six feet below the floor as a dark seething cesspool of accumulated stress dumped by class after class, week after week, of yoga practitioners. It's a little unsettling. So lately I've been trying to visualize the space beneath the floor as a river, carrying all that stress away and washing us clean. But then I can't help wondering where the river goes, and picturing a big karmic dead zone like where the Mississippi dumps all its nasty fertilizer and chemical load into the Gulf of Mexico, killing everything off.

I'm so attuned to environmental issues that I keep thinking of stress like toxic psychological waste: sure, I can get rid of it and that's nice for me, but where does it end up??