Darwin Fish

Why do I drive myself to a frenzy, reading articles that I know will make me crazy irritated?  Pieces full of lazy thinking, facile arguments, and just plain wrongness.  I guess it's like people who enjoy horror movies, some kind of emotional rush.

Anyway, a friend of mine writes for a Jewish newspaper, and so I pop over to see her on-line column, along with the associated links, which are religiously very liberal (meaning they are liberal on points of religion, not just that they are "religiously = always" liberal, which is also true).  Most of the people who regularly read the column, or at least the people who post comments, are in such agreement with the views expressed, that their instant reaction to any critique is to call it the opinion of a hateful ignoramus.

With the christmas season upon us, there has, of course, been lots and lots, and lots, and lots of posting about how Jews should [can't, do, won't and are abused for the way they] celebrate christmas. Apparently, at least a couple vocal people feel that other vocal people have been especially vocal in expressing the belief that Jews should not entertain the trappings of the christmas season.  The (first) vocal people have responded, in the main, "Shut up, it's a free country, don't tell me what I can or can't do, you hateful ignoramus."

Are you still with me?  If so, you are probably already of my same opinion, and thus, again, any arguments I make are a big waste of time, just to please myself.  But anyway, here's my thought:  I hate those darwin symbols on the back of cars.  You know the ones, they look like a jesus fish, but with feet.  I hate them because this kind of blurring of importance of different priciples brings so much trouble.  Now understand, I DO NOT want to see creationism taught in schools, I think it is foolishness to teach about supernatural occurrence in a class that should be about natural law.  Why would I interupt a class in car mechanics to teach about music composition?  Even more, since this is not science in any form, there is no excuse for the direct integration of church and state. But the "darwin fish" only spurs on this demand to teach creationism in schools by 1) equating a scientific theory which (true, untrue, I don't care) is just a SCIENTIFIC THEORY with a TOTAL LIFE AND SOUL BELIEF SYSTEM,  and 2) taunting a TOTAL LIFE AND SOUL BELIEF SYSTEM as if to say "ha, my theory system beat your belief".  Very, very few people hold a scientific theory as their life's highest belief.  So don't pretend this theory is analogous to their belief, if you don't want them to fight back by saying "teach my belief system as if it is analogous to your scientific theory."

My take on the people who want to be respected for celebrating both christmas and hanukkah is that they are just not taking the belief system of either religion very seriously.  If you need to light you menorah and eat your fruitcake and plum pudding too, well then you have made a decision about how much value you give to either system.  To you they are just symbols, like the jesus/darwin fish that have only as much importance as you, as a person, decide to imbue.  And you are right to say this is a free country, thank goodness, and I cannot dictate how you practice.  But when people insist that this is practice is representative of normative Judaism, this is an invitation for correction.  Meshing hannukah and christmas is the antithesis of hannukah.  Many people don't want hear that, may even believe it is incorrect (although I haven't heard any arguments better than "but everyone's doin' it, plus it makes everyone happy which is what is most important").  But to insist that your human devised plan for a nice holiday custom is on par with someone else's LIFE AND SOUL BELIEF SYSTEM is a foolish and flawed comparison.

That said, I truly do wish everyone a good, happy and productive holiday season and a great year ahead!

Russians, former Russians, Balkans

I have to ask :  I'm getting a lot of hits from these places, who are you?  Is anyone reading more than one post, or is my blog just popping up there randomly?  Or is this all people from work? I'm so curious.

I would be happier than you could imagine to find out who is reading - even if you are from someplace boring like the U.S. 
It never occurred to me that some people would dislike blog "stalkers."  For goodness sake - you have chosen to publish on a PUBLIC FORUM.  That is as much as asking people "please, please, please, please read this."

Beading

Here is one of the things I'm feeling good about - beading jewelry to sell at the Chanukkah Bazaars.

Most of these were photographed with my phone.  I still can't figure out how to upload from my camera.
Wish me luck at the bazaar.

By the way: someone said she hated seeing girls wearing these, unaware that they are "slave bracelets, " that it is an ugly message.  The response I didn't think of until too late:  it gives me the "willies" watching kids play on a see-saw, but I don't think it would be a good thing to do away with them just because they originated with a public homicide instrument; let it be used for something positive today.  I don't mean to degrade the original complaint about the bracelets, just that I think it is fine here to take something that has origins in the negative to use today for the positive.  There is nothing inherently offensive or immodest about the bracelet, and I don't think it is dishonoring women from the past or harming women today to claim this design for ourselves. 

Just an update on my state of mind

For those of you concerned on how I am holding up - I am doing so well that I'm sure many would say I am in denial.  I think I am just a naturally happy person who has been trapped inside and unhappy situation for 32 years.  Or maybe I am on the fringe of bi-polar and now on a long good spell.  Anyway, I wanted to share something I just wrote to a friend:

[I am]happy a surprising amount - I was thinking about this a lot, how my default voice in my head has changed from "I'm tired and sad, please help me" to "I'm happy, I'm so nervous, but happy". Really, I think that much of the time. I usually "talk to myself" like that when I am in the bathroom or just collapsing on the couch after work, or after I turn out the lights in bed. 

Good summary.

Oh, before computers took over...

...the Hallmark store used to be one of my favorite places to window shop as a teenager.  They were full of cute stickers and stationery and funky pens.  Now they seem to have nothing but dumb greeting cards, candles and plush toys.  I still occasionally write actual letters, mostly to my aunts, although I wish I wrote more.   My in-laws give great gifts, and they twice gave me boxes of personalized notecards.  But most of the second box has been used, and the remaining pieces are in a desk at the wasband's house, I don't feel like requesting that stuff right now (even though it also holds all my origami paper).  So I have been looking for some nice stationery.  There is a bit of expensive not-so-useful stuff at Barnes and Nobel.  The drug store has almost nothing.  None of the places I "happen to be" had anything I wanted, so I decided to make a special trip to the Hallmark store, I was so excited.  And I found...nothing.  Okay, that is a bit of an exaggeration, but I think they had about 20 choices of mostly odd sized, all ugly, overpriced boxes of stationery that I never would have bought if I wasn't getting desperate to thank my aunt for a recent gift.  When I was young, I bought stationery just to have it, we traded it at school, you could often even buy it by the sheet or the pound.  Now the girls trade and collect napkins???!!!!??

And we all know why: the evil computer.

I may blog, but I hate the computer.  Like the way I would guess most people hate fast food restaurants - I use the computer, it's fun and easy, and it is no good for almost anyone and it certainly made my life much worse and I wish most of them were never built.  An especially evil computer used to live with me and the wasband.  Several years ago wasband said he was planning to request, as an anniversary gift from his parents, a new scanner for the computer (remember, at that time, a scanner was more expensive than it is now).  I was furious, "We are not using our anniversary, to get a new mink coat for your mistress!"  (Aside: the wasband also thinks fast food tastes GREAT.)

I'm not sure what I think about my blogging.  I have several drafts unpublished because I don't think they are appropriate for general distribution, but I like them too much to get rid of them.  Yesterday I wrote a mild indictment of a local educational institution, and a harsher criticism of current educational philosophy in general, but I don't think this is the place to air that grievance, since this blog is not really anonymous and many people would know who I was talking about.  So I think often of creating a new blog, to be totally anonymous, and all just to vent all my hostile feelings about how stupid and selfish are all these idiots in my life.  You see how evil computers are?!


By the way, I believe Miss Manners says ladies' personal correspondence is supposed to be on double sheet white, ecru or light pastel paper (don't quote me about the colors).  I looked for some of that at the Hallmark store - zilch.

So here are some things people did with their free time before computers, but that I probably would not be aware of without the computer:

Why they decided to spend their time this way is beyond me, but apparently poodle bottle toppers are appealing to at least a handful of people.

This one does show a weird creativity that I would appreciate at someone else's home, not so much my own.  I don't think it was made with a computer though.

Another obvious analogy - more thoughts on the separation

I was talking with my friend yesterday, one of the very few to whom I share everything going on with the wasband.  I talked about particular things that still really send me into depression when dealing with him.  I told my friend that I am scared to move forward because of possible retaliation, since the wasband is still doing things that hurt me.  She reminded me that this is the same behavior he had before that separation, so why should I be more worried about it now?  Just keep moving forward.  She is correct, yet I am still scared.

I was talking with her yesterday particularly to let her know my surgery had gone well - I had varicose veins removed (actually burnt in place).  When the vascular surgeon first proposed this, I had no intention of going through with the surgery.  Most people thought I should obviously have the veins removed, but I thought, "I only have one body!  What if I close off these veins, and then can't reroute the blood flow, and  never have proper circulation in my legs?  I shouldn't mess around with this."  But eventually I came to the idea,"I have these useless veins that are NOT circulating the blood.  If they are now open and not helping with circulation, what is the difference if I have them CLOSED and not helping with circulation, except that I will hopefully have the benefit of less blood pooled in my leg and less chance of thrombosis?  So I kept the appointment, had the veins closed.

So, you see: if my wasband was harmful and not helpful IN my life in the last few years, harmful and not helpful in the last few months, why should I be so worried about putting him farther OUT of my life in my future? 

Muppet Movie (and Moneyball)

My movie buddy and I seem to be at an all time high, viewing an average of 1 movie per month.

Last month we went to Moneyball, which I knew next to nothing about going in.

 I really enjoyed watching this movie, as did my buddy.  The story was interesting and moved along nicely.  It was exceptionally clean for a mainstream movie, really only some language that gave it the PG rating, and even that did not seem at all gratuitous. Our only real complaint was the ridiculous length of film of Brad Pitt driving a car.  Catch it, especially if you liked Freakonomics (which now has a blog - just found this a second agohttp://www.freakonomics.com/blog/.

Okay, second movie was The Muppets.

I went into this movie with a lot more previews and expectation, and was sadly diappointed.  I mostly kept wondering "who was that cameo?"  After that I wondered "Does Amy Adams still enjoy these Disney roles? Did she ever enjoy them? I feel sorry for her being so typecast."  Movie buddy and I did have a couple nice deep laughs.  I guess I just had bigger hopes.

Oh, as an aside, I also recently saw Ushpizin for the first time.  Fantastic, really, I couldn't believe how deeply it touched me.  Not too surprisingly, it was the love story that hit me hardest at this moment in my life.  Go see it no matter who you are.  I looked around at reviews - I was not the only one to see the obvious similarities to Raising Arizona.  I was actually surprised how this was usually dismissed.  Maybe I will continue this later.

This weekend, I had a couple meals out with newish friends.  They all seemed to be really lovely people, I like sharing their company,  but this occasion was just not fun.  The meal turned in to a political party love-fest, and not for the party that I support.  It did not seem judicious to try to argue anything, as my debate skills are terrible, and no one would be convinced even if I was a brilliant speaker.

That sounds awfully pessimistic, doesn't it?  And I feel that pessimistic.  Today on Facebook, one friend posted how terrible is Walmart for abusing their workers, and another friend responded how wonderful is Walmart to supply so many jobs.  They could go back and forth all day, and neither one would budge one inch.  It is true, that if I was with the freinds with whom I agree, we could rant for hours, and I would enjoy getting to rant, but I acknowledge it would be to no purpose. One side is Polyannaish and lazy, the other side selfish and mean-spirited, or at least that is what the opponents would say.  And add stupid masses to both sides.

It's a bummer.  And I sometimes wish I didn't care so much. 

When I was a freshman in college, early in the year, I was speaking casually with one of the faculty.  He asked me what my plans were.  I said something like "I'm waiting for someone to grab hold of me and brainwash me."  I think we both knew I was only half joking.  Luckily or not, I don't think it happened - I never found anyone so convincing that I agreed with his whole platform.  Or at least, I can't think of anyone with whom I agree completely. hmmm?

 My overall impression from this weekend was that people who are so engrossed in politics believe that the rest of the world is as consumed as they are, and so of course they believe in these conspiracies.  If everyone's main focus is who is in power, then everyone would be working to get power over to his own side.  But I think the great majority of the world is mainly concerned with keeping body and soul together, and maybe sharing in a few comforts, with little thought to controlling the rest of the population.

Okay I'm a Pollyanna.  Was it really that hard to guess?

What a difference.

I was just thinking in the car today about speaking to the boys' teachers.  My little guy is working on his first diorama, and he is really excited, and doing a great job.  I told him I want to see all the dioramas from his class, he should tell the teacher to display them for the parents.  I thought of calling the teacher myself to ask her if she would make a specific time for parents to come view the class's work.  And I remembered the last time I came in to her classroom, I was so weepy, trying to explain that kids were going through a big change, my husband and I had just separated, etc.  The teachers looked at me so confused, "Why is she bawling, is something happening at this moment?"  I thought I was going to be like that forever, or at least for the whole school year.

Amazing how things change.

Detective Nate the Great

Back to my nightmare

I posted this link to Facebook a couple days ago.

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2011/10/adventures-in-depression.html

I made an instant connection with the tale of depression and the attempt and failure to just force it away.  But I saw another connection while recalling a dream from this weekend.

Awhile back, I told you that I had wanted to share my recurring nightmare, but I got side-tracked into complaining about the removal of several comic-strip archives from the web.  Well, I had the dream again this weekend, but did not find the time to look for the paper copy of the Sylvia cartoon I wanted to share.  Here is my totally unsatisfying recreation of the strip, with apologies to Nicole Hollander.

I must have a dream at least once per month that I need to change clothes or use the toilet, and I cannot find privacy.  The location, cast and scenario change, but the theme is unmistakably the same, I cannot get any privacy.  I was thinking of this the last time, after my husband's parents took us on a trip to a resort in the Catskills this summer.  This was supposed to be a relaxing vacation, but it was so tense that of course I had my nightmare: we are at the resort, and I am trying to change out of a bathing suit, but the scene turns into a train station, and I am in a public bathroom, and the little girls from my son's class are running around, and I let them use the bathroom, but then I need the toilet, and there are no doors on the stalls, and now there is everyone in the world coming into this bathroom...yeah, the nightmare full force.
So, I don't remember having this nightmare in the couple months since I moved, until this past weekend, when I was staying with a family from the old neighborhood (I had the whole basement to myself, own bathroom and everything, but that is not the only criteria, obviously).  But it had a very interesting twist at the end. I am back in elementary school, I need to use the bathroom, but they are all filthy. I keep looking for a serviceable toilet, and I'm getting desperate.  Finally, I find a somewhat decent stall, but I then realize that all the kids from my class are tromping in and out of the bathroom, and they are adult sized, whereas the walls of the stalls are very low.  Then the stall is somehow out in the play field, and everyone is coming right up to the stall to have a joke at my expense.  And I think to myself, "Too bad for them.  I'm not going to let them keep this up!" So I stand over the wall and yell, "Stay there if you are going to, but I am going to pee!"  And when they realize the joke is over, they mostly just turn away and let me be.
Yeah, that's right baby.  I've become a bad-ass!

Ms. Team

My friend just coined that moniker.  I was telling her that I am clear on what would be my top criteria in a potential spouse.  I am NOT currently shopping for a future spouse; this is just about an observation I had over this weekend.

I recently confided  in people that really were not going to be my advocates.  I should have known this going into the conversation, but I am so needy to have some support that I went against better judgment, and told them some of my plans and fears.  When it became clear that they would not be using this information to look out for my welfare, I felt more alone and frightened then in several weeks.

This Saturday I was reading a book another friend had lying around: Shidduch Secrets. The book is specifically about dating in the Orthodox Jewish world, but the ideas more generally are about becoming clear for yourself what you need most from a spouse, in order to have a happy fulfilling marriage, not just assuming everyone needs the same things.  I'm not trying to suggest the book is good (or bad), but it put this subject in my head.

My highest requirements would not be physical attractiveness or wealth, not even sense of humor or intelligence. What I need most is the confidence that my spouse will always cover my back, because we are a team. 
When I told this to my friend, she said "Yes, someone who cares about you." But no, that is not necessarily the same thing.  As Marian the Librarian says, I want someone "more interested in Us than in Me". 

I need someone who wants to be part of a team, who wants to depend on me, and wants for me to depend on him.  When I was young and stupid, I assumed this is what everyone wanted.  Instead, there are lots of people who want to be independent, feel that complete self-reliance is their ideal - which is fine, I guess, but it is not who I am, and not who I am looking for. I need someone who not only will be dependent on me, but wants to be dependent. and wants me to depend on him.  A man who wants to act, plan, celebrate, mourn and dream as a team.

As a funny aside, the idea of a spouse as someone to literally "cover your back", is explained by Mel Brooks, the 2000 Year Old Man. To paraphase: "Marriage also stems from fear, everything stems from fear. You can't see in back of you.  So you take some lady, you say 'Hey lady will you look behind me?' 'How long?' 'Forever!' and that's it, you walk around attached,  you're married."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIezIhi9JNc&feature=related
(Sorry I can't just attached the video, something is not working.  This link should go to the 2000 Year Old Man animated cartoon).

And the Money is Gone - a confused ramble

I started writing this post soon after the other "where the money goes..." posts, back in April 2001, when things got really, really bad and I expected to move out soon:

Well that's the end to my comfortable margin of income/outflow.  I will now have an extra $1000 - $1200 expenditures in my monthly budget, and starting next year I will most likely have a child going to school out of state, with all those associated bills.  Well, it was a fun ride for those couple months.  I don't even think I will get to use those wine glasses this year.  It has been a very hard couple of days.
I have had a chance to glance over other people's book the last few evenings.  Two that I stopped over were An Offer You Can't Refuse by Rabbi Yisochar Frand, and The Garden of Emunah by Rabbi Shalom Arush.  I lately have a hard time getting into these kind of book, but they were both wonderful, or I was just led to a wonderful part, and I really took a lot from the little bits I read.  The ideas I caught were, respectively, to be mindful of your mitzvos, that they are not done in a blase, unthinking manner; and to know that everything in your life has a reason.  Together they are a message to be aware of

...of something. The potential for making everything count?  The connection we want to create with G-d at all times?  The possibility of having innumerable meaningful moments throughout the day?  I can't remember what I wanted to write, or if I even had anything important to say. I should probably try to proceed with these positive thoughts, but can't find the inspiration. Such is life - fleeting.  That is what is says in Kohelet and Psalms anyway.

So, here I am on the other side of the separation,  and the wine glasses are sitting in a box on the storage shelf, and much of rest of the money was spent without any return. 
On the one hand it feels like being in a sit-com; no matter how good or bad your fortune in one episode, no matter how genius or moronic the plan, the characters always go back to Start for the next episode. 
On the other hand, there is actually tremendous change (like when a sit-com is lagging, so everyone in simultaneously decides to pull up strings and move to California).  The future of the money is very unclear, as I need to meet with my wasband and a mediator to graph out how any assets are to be allocated.  More irony -  this is one of the major things I demanded in order to stay with the wasband, to discuss the money with a mediator.  Maybe it is not ironic, maybe I am seeing the beginning of a life change for the family, as I had insisted was necessary.  Maybe I am stepping out of that crazy, nonsensical Kafka-like world, where everyone said "go, work, you're right, you're right", then proceeded to make sure all my attempts were speared.  Maybe. I'll try to let you know.

Opposing veiwpoints

Nothing earth-shattering, just thinking about these quite incongruent messages:

 

Finnian's Rainbow

Schoolhouse Rock

How long 'til we get there?

***Photo by Jordan Sopinsky, off the hook productions

I was so sick last night!  I rarely do well with day fasts (yesterday was the Jewish Fast of Gedalia), I suppose because I don't alter my normal routine,  and don't prepare well in advance.  My friends were having a gathering yesterday evening, and I though I would just break the fast there.  My stomach did not like that, and my head, which was already in pain, pushed it into the "let's just go back to a blank slate" mode.  I don't know if any of the advil I had taken 10 minute prior stayed with me, but I wasn't about to take more.  I waited until I felt moderately better, luckily only had about 6 blocks to drive home, and just crawled into bed.

And I woke up...better than well.  I felt that "really really well" of those formerly in acute pain.  My bed felt so comfortable, and it was wonderful to just lie there pain-free.

I'm no stranger to nausea.  I was terribly nauseated throughout all my pregnancies.  And headaches are a regular occurrence unless I am very lucky and careful.  I would think I wouldn't hate it so much, seeing as how I love the euphoric rush of "health" that usually follows.  But the problem, I believe, is the uncertainty. I think I could bare the sickness much better if I knew the duration.  Not knowing when or even if the pain will end is very scary and disabling.

I remember when I was still new to the city where I met my wasband.  We spent a lot of time on Saturdays walking, in the Southern heat and me in high heels, to places I had never been.  "How far do we have to go?"  "I don't know."  This always brought down my spirit.  "You know," I would tell him, " Rashi asks 'Why did G-d say to Abraham "Go to the land I will show you."?'  Why not tell him where he was to travel?  Because it is a bigger test if you don't tell the destination, he had no idea how far he would have to travel."  But he just didn't have the map-type sense to judge how far a trip would be, so I was always just waiting, waiting to get there.

So - obvious parallel:  How long 'til I am comfortable with life again?  I'm willing to accept this is a necessary period of discomfort, even to try to be grateful that G-d has taking my fate so strongly in his care.  But I wish I knew that it was a finite distance.  Or even to know that it was to get to a final proper destination.  Or even to know that I was on the right path.  But I've had a taste of the euphoria in (yet another) dream - if I'm on the right direction, it's worth it.

*** Photo by Jordan Sopinsky http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/off-the-hook-productions/121549817856455 .  If you love it, please ask for the photographer's permission before re-posting or for a link to more photos.

So I'm a Jerk?...ehh. More reflections on "Home"

I was talking with a friend yesterday about my "wasband".  She gave me the suggestion for that name, which I find preferable to "that man". "That man" reminds me of this expression used to label a character in an Amy Tan novel, which I will not reference directly because the character is such a terrible person, I don't want to imply a connection between him and any real person.
So she was discussing her surprise at his reacton to our break-up, that he doesn't want to talk at all, much less beg for remediation.  Her husband suggested that it is not too surprising if my wasband's feeling is that I am a total jerk for splitting.  I thought about this, and it actually brought a tiny sliver of relief.  I can't explain why, it doesn't make sense, but my thinking went something like this:  I am terribly distraught by the thought of someone truly hating me, actively despising me.  But I'm not so upset that someone thinks I'm a jerk, especially not my wasband, whose opinions of character I often found flawed.  So if he just doesn't want anything to do with me because I'm just worthless, that is easier than thinking he is looking to hurt me because he hates me.  Clear?  No not to me either, but you grab what you can.
Because I am really feeling down today.  Feeling like I have nothing to grab, feeling like I have nothing for the four decades of trying and trying.

I wonder if I would be feeling much better if I wasn't regretting this tiny apartment so much.  I keep thinking about the Frasier Episode "How to Bury a Millionaire" (I wanted to link to it, but CBS or Paramount or whoever has also been on the freebie erasure roll).  Niles is driven to distraction by the thought of leaving his luxury apartment at "the Montana" to take a horrible tiny place at the "Shangri La". "I just want to go home," Niles yells, to which Fraisier replies, "Niles, you are home."  I always found that scene very unhappy, but now I'm actually crying.
I just paid my credit card bill, and will be carrying a balance until at least next month, so I really don't want to buy anything, but this is never going to feel like a real home until I have a proper fridge and I figure out some nice way to store clothes.  It is just so damn tiny.  I will really need to fix it up a lot before I enjoy being there.  Unless somehow the boys mysteriously take a tremendous shine to it and want to be there all the time.  All my life, it seems, I keep moving to crappier and crappier apartments (well, you have to take the college years out of there, but at least I really really liked living behind the record store).  Where is this going to end?  I'm really too quick at getting worked up over this.
Oh look what I found:

Hats and gloves

I was trying to decide whether to post the kinda upbeat post first, or another downer; people seem to go for the downers, but maybe because I advertise them more.  I'm going to start with the former idea, because I still think upbeat is more appealing. 
This weekend was a big occasion for a very good friend and her family, with several "dress-up" events.  I only have about 1/4 of my clothes at the new place, and mostly work clothes, not dressy.  So I had to do my best to pull together at least 2 1/2 outfits for this weekend.  I did go over to "that man" and ask to get one of my wigs (I cover my hair for modesty reasons).  But it was last minute, so it had to be the 18-years old, "synthetic" (= not human hair) wig that retains its shape reasonably well without a lot of preparation. And I decided to wear heels, which I haven't done in in the past 3 years except for 2 or 3 weddings.  And these were high for me, about 2 1/2" platform heels.  So I go into event #1 with my sensible, early spring suit (spring colors, but faux suede), and event #2 with nice, ironed work outfit jazzed up with a patterned velvet shawl.  I put on the only make-up I have with me - eyeliner, sparkly gold eyeshadow, and chapstick.  And I looked good.  I know that is vain, but I did.  I got got lots of complements, especially about the wig, which I last wore so long ago, no one recognized it.   And I myself thought I looked good - although mainly I thought that as I was brushing my hair to put up and hide.  I am terribly vain about my hair...such a waste, at the moment anyway.  I think I am feeling so much more sociable, and excited about the little touches, that it shows outwardly.  Or I'm just imagining it all. Or because everyone is trying to be nice to me.  No, I looked good.

"That man" gave me another batch of stuff last week, but I still haven't unloaded it from the trunk of the car.  A whole lot of it is clothes, and I just don't have the space or desire to go through it.  I really need and want to simplify at this moment.  I want to identify a handful of work outfits that I really like, and another handful I dressy clothes, and be done with it.  When I first met one of my friends, she had just moved to the US from China, lived in a tiny studio apartment downtown, and had only a few outfits, but I thought they were all beautiful, and that she always looked beautiful.  They were nice, but sensible dresses.  At the time, I mostly wore bum-around sportswear to work, with a few fancier things once-in-a-while.  I shouldn't let myself trend toward the "whatever" clothes.  They don't work on me, especially not anymore.  I want to build that "nice, sensible" wardrobe for myself.    It made me think of the scene in the movie "Ask Any Girl", when Shirley MacLaine is trying to describe her wardrobe to David Niven: Small, but covers the basics, and able to accommodate any event through accessorizing; after all, a working girl (in the modest sense) has to economize and make do.  All the women in movies of the '50s looked so put together and polished though, even photos of school girls.  I guess when you have a different expectation, you rise to it.  And if you were a socialite -whoa!

Just look at Grace Kelly in "Rear Window" - just out for a day at work (admittedly as a buyer for some haute couture salon) or out shopping.  Look at that hat, gloves, make-up, eyebrows.  But I want one outfit that makes me look put-together like that.  Or at least feel like that?  You can still get away with this classic look
(and I even have the hat, although I would have to wear it over a snood or something).
Maybe I should start with the eyebrows.

People keep telling me I'm brave.  Don't get me wrong, I love the compliment (I could be the poster child for hysteric-dysphoria), but I feel that it is a bit of an overstatement.  To paraphase Albert Brook's film "Defending Your Life", it is not bravery to simply display a survival instinct.

Anyway, the a different character question keep cropping up - am I being cruel, and even more so, do I enjoy being cruel?  Today I am taking the boys for several days, and then for one shabbos meal.  When I told the boys' father (not sure what to call "my man" in this blog anymore"), his voice caught for the slightest second before he went back to his normal, 'whatever you want, I don't argue "okay"'.  Those of you who know him, know that is a HUGE thing.  He was devastated.  What could I say?  What did I want to say?  I didn't mean to hurt him, I just want the boys to know that they are still getting time and love from me, and to give "the man" a break to go shopping, prep for work, go to prayers, etc.  Really.  But it is hard to deny, that "almost outburst" brought more than one emotion to my heart.

My Little Home...

I am trying to adjust to a new home.  Alone.  What might be an exciting prospect under different circumstances, is now full of anxiety and loneliness. 
But the truth is that the anxieties were not so very different before the move.

Although I have said previously that I am not a Laura Ingalls Wilder groupie, still I have taken some of her writing to heart.  In particular, she has a way of writing about home and the loneliness of being away from home that struck me. In "Little Town on the Prairie", the author writes "There is no comfort anywhere for anyone who dreads to go home."  And in "These Happy Golden Years"  Laura is shocked by her anxiety, walking to the school she will teach, from the unhappy shanty where she is boarding, and thinks (paraphrasing) "I do not wish to go on, and yet I would not go back."
I find it ironic that I do find  so much meaning in it, since her pain is so intense because she is used to the love and comfort of home, while my own pain is from not feeling a love or comfort of home at least since I was very young, maybe never, certainly never consciously.  It would seem that the need for home is so ingrained, that one can deeply miss it, even without experience of it, or with only a very warped interpretation. 
So I need to try to create a new space to call home.  It is a small space, and you might think that would make it easier to fill up with "home-ness", but emotional space holds a deceptive connection to physical space.  I have the beginnings of a two-pronged plan:
1) Fill the physical space with things I enjoy; enjoy seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting.  Do not create an attachment to anything I don't enjoy.  This means not spending money on anything I don't really love, which further means, I will physically fill the new home very slowly as resources permit.  I have accepted some freebies, but they are clearly temporary, and I have little attachment to them. (Although I thank every single person who has given or lent me these essential, truly I cannot thank you enough).
2) Fill the emotional space with new happy memories.  Until now, when I got together with friends, it was usually to "go out".  I hope to start soon to have friends "come in".  I need to bring friendship, love, laughter into my home.  And I hope to start right away.
Come visit my little home.  I'm ready.

Something weird happened with my last post - supposedly pre-raphaelite faeries, but the image has been changing, since I think I just linked to another website, which regularly changes.  But I was so intrigued by the new images, that I went through the gallery a bit.  I wish I had more time!
Isn't this gorgeous?  Go check out more at
http://artsycraftsy.com/ 
gallery "Virginia Frances Sterrett: Arabian Nights".
I really love Art Deco, esp loved looking through old fashion mags of the early 20th century.  And I really love Arabian art, with all the intricate fractal design and almost cartoon simplicity of the human figures.  These images merge the two, along with the unearthly fantasy edge.  Oh, I 'm entranced.

Pre raphaelite fairies over depression

I was gonna make another boring "pity-me" post, but forget that -BORING!
Lets talk about something cool!...Yeah!...Um....um...what would be cool?

I have just been surfing the web, which I do so infrequently, that I don't know any more modern expressions than "surfing the web", and looked at

 

 Cake,

Steampunk

(much of which featured babe midrifs and such, but totally engrossing),

and Brent Spinner imitating Patrick Stewart.

Okay, let's go back to the steampunk thing.  I don't think of myself as being really into steampunk, and yet I LOVE IT.  I WANT TO TOTALLY GET INTO IT.  I guess mostly because the fashions since 1919 have been so appalling and dull.  But I'm so fat and old and dumpy looking.  But maybe with lots of frills and bustles and more frills, I would still be alluring????  and it's really just beautiful and fun and nerdy.  And the steampunk-happenings look so cool and interesting.  The costumes are so beyond me.  Well, maybe not if I was willing to really throw myself into it.  Now is there a subset of steam punk into Victorian faerie obsession? - if so, I'll join you as soon as I can fashion a corset and some glamour!

Another choice, or two.

Today is the horrible beginning to a difficult rest of my life.  But I can't say I wasn't warned.  When I was pregnant with my first child, I was given a message in a dream .  I could decide to end my life there, but if I decided to continue, life would be very hard.  As must be clear, I decided to stay; "how can I go?  I have a baby coming, I need to live, " I told the messenger. 

So now I am here at another huge fork in the road of this life, with another decision, that may be almost as momentous as that first.  And with consequences and similar question for the same parties as before.  Well, it seems I have my answer - I decided to continue with life before and protect the person waiting to be , I need to continue to fight and work and live for that person I brought into this world. 

Thanks for listening, it was helpful.

The cake for Us

Cake

Not a cake

This was a cake for a good-bye party for a volunteer leaving the lab.  It was very popular.  If you are a in a bio lab doing protein work, it might very well make you giddy:  "Oh look at that Western Blotter!  Ooh look at the blot...It even has Novex marker run on it!  I just want to turn those knobs!"  If you are not nerdy enough, you might just say "are those knobs? They look like noses."  but as I said, it was the right crowd, and they all really liked it.
Amazing how hard it is to make even a simple cake, especially when you are out of practice.  Just getting together all the supplies, getting back into the groove of icing smoothly and not picking up crumbs.  Actually white frosting (or very light) is the worst - shows crumbs, need a fairly thick coating.  This took me about 4.5 hours start to finish (not totally occupied in the cake the whole time, but maybe 75%).  Also, the decorator's dilema: butter-cream does not like humidity.
I do love making them, though.

Where have all the comics gone?

I intended to share my recurring nightmare, but I wanted to show, or at least link to, a great Sylvia cartoon.  But I can't find any Sylvia archives before 2001.  Then I thought about a Cathy I wanted to link to for another post idea - same deal, no archives before 2001, and even those are hard to get to.  And neither has any kind of subject search capabilities like the Dilbert site.  And remember the post a little while back where I had to tell you to link to amazon to get a Life in Hell strip?Has every cartoon publisher become Web copyright wacko, and taken all free copies off any archive sites?  I'm very upset about this.  In conversations with my kids,  I'm always referring to some strip.  And the best part is that, since the kids have read all my cartoon collections until the books are falling apart, they know which strip I'm thinking of before I even quote it.  That is supercool.

So what should I do now?  Scan the cartoon strip?  That would be copyright infringement, except that I'm not writing this for profit.

http://sluggy.com/images/comics/970825a.gif

In the mean time, anyone who hasn't heard of Sluggy Freelance, check it out.  I actually haven't read it steadily in years.  But I read it daily from about '98 - '01.  Make your way past the first couple boring weeks and it moves quickly to hysterical.

Not a smiley day

I am usually a smiley person.  Not bubbly, but smiley.  I would say the majority of employees, at the fairly large institution where I work, know me and will give me some friendly recognition when I pass.  Part of this, I'm sure is because of my somewhat unconventional garb, and because I've been here over a decade now, but I think a lot of it is because I usually give everyone a smile, and often a greeting.  I don't do it for any ulterior reason, it's just who I am.  But it's a quality I am pleased with. The 1st century scholar Shammai taught the virtue to "greet everyone with a pleasant face."  Conversely, we learn elsewhere that we should not be overly friendly or chatty to the point of immodesty.  So...

I just heard an article on the radio with Jane Hyun, author of "Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling.
http://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Bamboo-Ceiling-Career-Strategies/dp/0060731192
One of the things she spoke about was the norm in many Asian cultures to  keep a blank face.  To walk around in public with a smile on your face is unusual; it is not percieved as friendly, but rather crazy.  I have heard this about Northern European cultures as well.  I don't know about any place else.  There used to be an upper level manager here that would go into "super smiley" mode when he passed someone.  "HelLO There! How are YOU?!"   I'm sure he learned to do this at some management seminar.  He seemed like a nice guy, but the sudden change of face, like a mask coming over him, was creepy, very ingenuous.

Years ago, a total  stranger passing me said "Hey, why don't you smile?"  I'm not sure what I replied at the time, but I thought he was a complete jerk.  I thought later that I should have lectured him that if he wanted to ask for a smile *from* me, the way to do that is to give a smile *to* me, and then I may respond to this request or ignore it.  Like if you drop in on a friend's house, and you want to taste some food you see, you don't say "Hey, gimme some of that."  You may say "Oh, that looks (smells) delicious."  This gives the friend the polite options of fulfilling the request  with "Oh, please sit down and have a taste," or instead rejecting it with "thank you," and then moving on to other topics.  Plus you just shouldn't accost strangers! Okay that was a tangent on manners.

 On the other hand, a really nice memory was the time I was walking towards a guy on the corner, in a crazy advertizing get up, who had such a pleasent friendly expression on his face, that I couldn't help smiling extra wide.  "You have a beautiful smile this morning" he said.  "I was about to say the exact same thing to you," I answered truthfully.

Being regularly smiley has several possible downsides.  One is people assume you are happy.  Maybe that doesn't seem like a downside.  Well it is.  Another thing, is I feel extra rude if I do not smile some days.  Yesterday was a bad day, there was a terrible tragedy in my extended community, and I could not shake it out of my mind.  I felt scared and angry and horrible.  And I couldn't smile at the other people in the lab, the custodian who is always so friendly, the delivery man, the cashier in the supermarket.  I felt that they thought I was being downright nasty.
So...
I going to Harry Potter tonight, I hope.  Then maybe I will come into work smiley again.

My Discovery of the Summer...

...is that I do not like being a supervisor.  I think that is the major thing I am learning in the lab this summer.  I can't get anything done because people are forever coming over to me - which is what they are supposed to do, but it is still hard on me.  Several of these people have never worked in a lab before, and unless I give them a specific job to do, they just have to sit around.  Another person is a grad student, who, I'm sure, resents that I have been asked to watch over her.  Plus I'm one of the only two people in the lab who has the authority to order supplies through the new (I hate it!) web-based ordering system, so I have to stop what I'm doing every few minutes to order something.  So I'm getting almost nothing done on my own.  These underlings better have some results for me by the end of the summer!  Wouldn't you love to have me as a supervisor?
P.S. I tried to find a link to the "Life in Hell" strip about the 9 types of bosses, but couldn't find it - go do it on your own, that is a strong suggestion from this supervisor.
http://www.amazon.com/Work-Hell-Matt-Groening/dp/0394748646
Click to open the book, then search for:  bosses.

True wealth? The depressing post.

Until now, I really did try to post upbeat essays, because depressing ones are generally not interesting - just whiny.  But I really want to put this down.  And what I say is NOT meant as a stab at anyone.  I know a lot of people genuinely want to help, and a few people have really put out effort.  I appreciate your kindness, and it helps, but the situation doesn't change.  And if you are trying to hold on to a recent high (you know who you are), this is not the time to read this post.  I am going through a bad time.  There's a lot, A LOT of outside stimuli aggravating a existing depression.  And it is really affecting ability to act amiable.  More to the point - I'm acting like a jerk.  Well, maybe I'm being a bit hard on myself; outside of my family, I haven't actually been mean or even particularly rude - but self-absorbed all the time. 
In the past couple week I've gone to a wedding and a birthday bash.  I just couldn't get happy.  I pretended, but not with a whole lot of enthusiasm, and I actually started crying for myself at each.  Pathetic.  I cry at everything now, always obsessed with my continual pity-parties. 
In the past couple months I had an epiphany.  I was always thinking, "I'm smart.  If I believed what other people say, I'm damn smart.  So why don't I have the good life?  I deserve it!"  then I realized - I don't deserve anything for being smart.  If I am smart, that was a gift I was given.  I may have an obligation from the Giver to use this tool for all the best that I can. But receipt of one gift does not equal entitlement to another gift. (I did think about that episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, about the shirt that is "a problem, not a gift" http://www.watch-crub-your-enthusiasm-online.com/Watch_Curb_Your_Enthusiasm_Online_Season_3_Episode_1_Chets_Shirt.html but I don't want to go there right now).  I don't know if that helped me cope at all, but at least it's one less angle to complain about.
I was trying to think of a good story to go with this - but I can't.  Or rather, all the stories I think of show why I am so pathetic.  Think of the hundreds of books, movies, folk tales, bumper stickers, etc, that explain that life's worth is measured in love, family, good friends, health.  I'm almost bankrupt.  If my funeral were tomorrow, I don't think more than 20 people would show up.  If I were never born, I guess a lot of people might have been somehow worse off, but I'm fairly certain there would be no large, or even moderate, or even small scale change in any of the cities where I lived (as if I were George Bailey).  And on the balance, it's seem quite possible that the world would have been better off without me, because when I am bad, I am horrid.
That's all.  Sorry for being whiny.

The Crunchy Life

Yesterday the family went out to pick blueberries.  The kids all got tired of this way way before I did.  They are so jaded.  Or maybe I expect too much.  But only the oldest even finished picking a pint.  I picked about 2 1/2 pints before I felt guilty for making the family wait around for me (plus, the cost was $4.00/pint, outrageous!), so I stopped there.  I have joked that I should hire myself out as a farm laborer, although I'm sure I couldn't really hack it.
I just read Wendy McClure's "Wilder Life", an autobiographical search for the essence of "Little House on the Prairie".  It was a gift from someone who thinks I'm "really really into" Little House as is Ms. McClure.  But whereas the "Wilder Life" is about the author's obsession with all things "Laura Ingalls Wilder", I found as I read the book that I am not interested in learning every nuance of LOHP or Laura Wilder.  (I found the section about the "end of days" crowd interesting, but I don't fit in that camp either.)  I am just crunchy at heart, no way around it. I truly get a  lot of pleasure from hanging the laundry out to dry instead of throwing it in the dryer.  I like making my own bread, my own yoghurt, granola, pickles, etc.  I like to knit and crochet (with yarns from cottage industry suppliers, when I can get it) and sew, I like making our own eco-sacs.  I envy my friend who lives in an "earth house".   I love shopping the farmers markets for local produce.  I wish I had more than 4'x4' to garden in the back yard. Etc.  I get tremendous satisfaction from making my life "greener".
My man does not seem to feel the same, even though when we first met he had to push me (gently) to drive out to the recycling center.  He was all excited about trying worm composting, but it seems that he really liked it mostly as a science experiment for the kids - when the worms died, he just gave up; but I really want to compost again.  He thinks the laundry hanging on the line is tacky.  He thinks I just want to use fans instead of air-conditioner, use less water when we wash the dishes because I'm cheap.  I am cheap, but there is so much more to this desire to return to natural and and stop mucking up the world.  Obviously, you either "get it" or you don't.   For me, unlike my man, it feels a big pain to not buy products from slave labor, or tested on animals, to go vegetarian.  He does not appear to view it as a hardship.  I don't "get it".
Well, this evening we have blueberry crumble, which took half of my blueberry stash.  I'll just have to watch for the local berries to make it into the markets, buy up a bunch to freeze.  I do love summer.  To those of you are fellow crunchy types, enjoy the summer!  And to those who are not, enjoy the summer!

Surprise movie joys

http://www.super8-movie.com/

Last night I really wanted to go out for the evening.  My movie buddy and I didn't know of anything we wanted to see, so we showed up at the cinemaplex and bought tickets to see X-men.  Luckily, a guiding angel pushed me to look at what was playing in the theater across the hall - "Super 8".  Never heard of it.  "Hey, this is by Speilberg, let's look in, I think it only started 10min ago."  Thank you, guiding angel.
It seems some of the best movie experiences I have had, have come across in an accidental way.  Years ago, my husband and I were out of state for a wedding, our rental car battery died, and we missed our flight.  After that yucko morning, everything else went right - a friend begged us to stay at her house because her babysitter for the evening canceled, and we spent the afternoon at a great restaurant and then showed up at a theater and saw "Forest Gump" - not my favorite film every, but quite enjoyable, and fit the day perfectly.  Another time we went to some movie we hated, went down the hall, and found "Men in Black II" just starting - a great date movie, I think. so I now think it normal and wise to wander from theater to theater in cinemaplexes to find the right movie. If you have to put up with a plex anyway (I only know of one "single-cinema" within a 30min drive of our home), this seems like the right way to get the most bang for your movie bucks.  The drawback is that there are lots of movie that I thought had huge logic gaps until someone explained that I missed some critical info by coming in 10min late.
I'm sure this is true of "Super 8" - there must be some more explanation given for why the whole plot didn't resolve years before the events of the movie, and what the characters have been doing for the past 20 years, etc.  But it really just didn't matter too much.  This movie was outrageously fun - for goodness sake, you got 80's retro, reasonably appealing  kid actors, military conspiracy, aliens and zombies! all in one film. Both me and movie buddy had a great time, and were singing along with "My Sharona" at the end (well, we went back and forth between "My Sharona" and "My Bologna", but the point is we were having great fun.
Final Review: pick a friend with whom you can enjoy a stupid movie, don't look nuance, and let yourself be tickled pink.

How the Money Used to Go

In case I made anyone nauseated with that last post of how to spend my disposable income, let me tell you another story, a true one from my own life.  Not as nice a story, but a funny one (in hindsite, from a large distance).
About nine years ago, when our second child was a newborn, we were in a terrible, ridiculous situation.  I had been unemployed for about 8 months, and my husband was just starting his second career, as a teacher for the public school district, under the recent "Teacher Emergency Certification Program".  This meant they could pay him next-to-nothing as a Teacher-in-training or some stupid title while he took classes at night to get a teaching certificate.  We payed for his tuition on credit card.  Despite living on a grocery budget of $60/wk (incl.diapers!) plus WIC checks, we were spending way beyond our means, could barely keep up with the minimal credit card bills, and for a couple months we would occasionally be stuck with no cash for hubby to take the bus to work / college / home. So we would take a baby present back to the store to exchange - generally if you return a gift, you can't get cash, only a store credit voucher; but if you exchange for something within $5 of the original item, they'll give you the leftover in cash (except the lousy Disney store, that gave me a Disney card with 90cents, lousy Disney store).  So that's what we would do, go out to the mall, to get $4.80 in cash.  Oh Gd, that was so awful. 

How the Money Goes

There is a Jewish "folk tale", that I think of as  well known, but perhaps not.  It is "The Choice (Bechira)".  Don't worry, it's not a horrid story, it's a nice story:
A good, poor man is on his way to work as he is every morning, when he is approached by a stranger.  "You have been allotted a great sum of money by the Lord.  Would you like to have it now, to do with as you please, with the assurance that the money will be gone in 25 years?  Or would you like to wait and have in held as a security for your old age?"
" This is too large a question for me to answer alone.  I must consult with my wife,"  says the man.
"Good," replies the stranger.  "Meet me here this same time tomorrow, and give me your decision."
The man goes home and explains the offer to his wife, who is not only wise, and good, but has great faith in heaven.  "We can have the money now to use as we see fit, or wait so that we will not need to worry about sustenance in our old age.  But who knows what the future will hold in any event? We may be wealthy without the extra gift, we may die in the next year, we may lose a hundred good opportunities in the intervening years.  Now is what we know; we have needs today, we have children to nourish and raise in a proper manner, and there are many in need in our community.  Ask for the money now."
The man returns to find the stranger the next day.  "We will take the money now," says the man.
"Go home," orders the stranger, "and you will find the fortune already arrived."
And so it is that when the man gets home, and large purse of gold has already been delivered to his wife.  They spend the money judiciously over the subsequent years, and continue to prosper.  They raise a large family of upright, scholarly children. Meanwhile their house and purse were always welcome to those in need, and they were generous to any worthy cause.  But at the end of twenty-five years, the fortune is spent and gone.
The couple realizes their great financial prosperity has ended, and they are reconciled to live life as it was previous to the gift.  The man goes out to work as he used to, and he again finds the same stranger before him.  "The Holy One has watch how you used His gift, and saw that  it was given to bring Torah and Mitzvos (commandments) into the world.  Because you made His will your will, there is no reason to withhold fortune from you."  And they once again are blessed with great providence, which continues until the end of their days.

Okay, when I first learned this story, I guessed wrong.  I though the moral was going to be "a penny saved...".  This story really stuck with me.  And although I still have a hard time truly TRULY always believing that all providence is from Heaven, still, when I do have, I really want to use it well.  Until now this has been more philosophical than practical.  But to be honest, I now find we have a substantial amount of extra funds.  And I have started to spend.  But am I spending in the right way?

We have had seders in our house for the last fifteen years, but besides the actual dishes, which were mostly wedding gifts, the table looked (correctly) like everything was from the dollar store, with a couple Target glasses and pitchers thrown in.   I wanted Pesach to be fancy , beautiful, to really look like we are royalty, as we should feel like royalty.  So yesterday I bought gorgeous Naharia hand blown wine glasses (that I have loved since I was sixteen) and Menachem picked out a silver becher (wine cup) set with the stand that that pours out into the tiny silver cups.  It really is beautiful, and I really want it to enhance our Pesach.  But am I really using the money for God's will?  Or am I just justifying my own desires?

Too excited to blog

I guess almost everyone in the world but me already knew this, but youtube is just full of hysterical videos about EVERYTHING. So many talented people in the world.  If you read my very first post, you know that I'm already in a race to catch up.  So I'm spending this time watching youtube science music parodies, although, at the moment I'm taking a break to watch a science lego parody.  But here's my undenialble fave so far  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fl4L4M8m4d0
watch it, watch it!!!!

Bleahh I

Okay, I didn't put this up on facebook, but I was so steamed this morning (obviously I started this a week ago, specifically last Monday after the big snow).  After getting the kids all ready for school, packing lunches, and taking them out to the bus stop, and before leaving for work, I shoveled from the walk the snow that had been ignored and packed hard by pedestrians since it fell a day and a half ago.  Those watching me probably would guess that it is the OTHER people in my house who have back problems, foot problems, blood clots, asthma, and a job to go to today.  Of course they would be wrong.
Several years ago, my man took me to a show called "Defending the Caveman".

http://www.cavemania.com/
It's a great show, which I highly recommend as a good date for committed couples (not a great first date event).  The show is a comic monologue about the different perspectives of the sexes, and how this leads to trouble between them.  One point stuck with me, and sticks in me. To paraphase:  If a group of women get together, and the chip bowl runs low, one member will just refill it thinking "I did a favor, and later someone will do a favor for everyone, etc,"  and all the others will think "Oh, she did a favor, and later I will return the favor," and all are satisfied, because they understand the rules.  If a group of men are together, the conversation is more like, "Hey, the chip bowl is empty.  Someone should fill that."  "Hey, you gonna get some more chips?" "Well are you goin' to the kitchen soon?" "I dunno, you?" " Well, maybe I'll also get a beer, then I'll get the chips.....in awhile...maybe you should get the chips..." etc.  There is haggling, because this is a competition, and eventually the bowl is filled, and all are satisfied, because they all understand the rules.  When a man and a woman are together, and the chips run low - the woman fills the bowl and thinks, "I did a favor for him," etc.  The man thinks, "YES! I won!"
At the time, I laughed, but it has stuck around my brain since, and just gnaws at me. Now, I know I am much to concerned about "being fair", but the idea of me schlepping, and him think "I won!" just throws me over the edge.  
My good friend once said that she thought a good married couple is like the muppet song "But I like you.

"http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ0FgvRkbdw  And I can agree with that to a large extent.  It's okay if you like music boxes, while your partner likes a marching band.  But it's not okay if your partner laughes at you every time you stop to listen to a music box.  And if your partner's idea of a good time is to throw your music box under a marching band...