martinimade

For really uninteresting reasons, I've been going through the newly digitized archive of my alma mater's newspaper. I couldn't care less, mind, about what happened after I graduated in 1993 -- but I have been fascinated by what was covered during the four years I was there. Like this tidbit, which is a 1992 clip that gave its best guess for what the college of the future would look like:

(click on the image to embiggen)

I'm most amused by how accurately they predicted how much could be done from a dorm room -- go to the library! pay tuition! -- but missed that it wouldn't be done with push button telephones. This "predicting the future" business is harder than you'd think. Which gives me hope that all of the pundits predicting Trump's presidency are equally inaccurate ....

Regardless, this ad from 1991 is still totally sketchy:

• The co-opting of self-care.
• Sam Bee is my new favorite.
• The pioneering Nurse Kellye.

I know I've been thin on this here blog lately. This week's Dry Martini column over at Another Mother Runner might help explain why.

Additionally, this might provide further proof that I, while I have given myself an opportunity to have a lot to write about, what I write might be more of a cautionary tale rather than an inspiring story....

• It's amazing how much the world has changed in 50 years. And how little.
• Shocked. I'm shocked.
• I want to go here.
•  All of these.
• This only confirms what I already knew about the OWL program. The Teen is currently in it; the Boy will be when he is of age. Zero regrets.
• Tell me to smile one. more. time.
• Real world effects. These drivers are heroes.
• Chanandler Bong.

You had a line I liked about falling in love with America, in all its beauty and awfulness, and how that was like falling in love with a girl while you’re holding back her hair as she’s vomiting. Do you still feel that way?
I still have the immigrant’s crush. America is fundamentally the best idea for a country. Not to get all Statue of Liberty about it, and this is hard as a British person to say, but the principles by which the British were kicked out of this country are the best principles. And however flawed that initial Constitution was — and the fact it needed to have amendments out the wazoo to make any kind of coherent sense — freedom of speech is still the best idea. I can call people chicken fuckers on television. I don’t take that for granted.

• from the Vulture interview with John Oliver, who I love.

Also: On this week's Another Mother Runner podcast, Sarah and I talk about Achilles International and penguin desserts.

• Every mother (and mile) counts.
• I just have something in my eye is all.
• Returning to Fukushima, five years on. (Disclaimer: Mike and I are friends. Even if we weren't, mind, the humanity of his work would still move me. But, given that we are friends, I did get to hear about how lost he got one night while on this shoot.)
• It's nice to have this confirmed by a pediatrician.
• Leslie Odom, Jr, from Hamilton, sums up everything that makes theater great. This is the kind of theater I miss desperately.

“When your young life offered its first disaster, naturally it loomed large. After you’d survived dozens, you basically just told the next one to take a number and get in line.”

— Lois McMaster Bujold, Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, which I have thoughts about.

This fortnight's Dry Martini column, in which I run and dither. 

This is Lucy's favorite way to lounge:

(front view)

(side view)

It feels like she's trying to tell us something -- but what?

• The Kingdom Mirror.
• Shocked. I'm shocked. (Note: not shocked.)
• My city gave you the cookie table and the french fry salad. You are welcome.
• I, um. OK.
• This feeds my obsession with Hildegard von B.