Where I've been

Posting has been slow lately, since I moved home, started working full time (though at two different jobs, only one of them paid), and began dedicating all of my spare time to genealogy. For anyone interested in genealogy, and either uninterested in paying for services like Ancestry.com (though it's worth it, I promise) or interested in supplementing your paid online resources, make sure you're familiar with FamilySearch and especially the FamilySearch Record Search Pilot. I discovered that they've digitized the NYS census records for 1865 and 1892! They're not indexed, though, so now all my limited free time is spent paging through state census records to find relatives. Doesn't get much better than this!

Happy Birthday to Me!

For my birthday this year, I've received:

Bookshelves (from my parents)
A new phone (from Rhett)
A nightgown (from my sisters)
A Klean Kanteen (from my parents)

And what my mother referred to as the pièce de résistance. . .

[drum roll please]

A Ped Egg!

I am *so* excited!

Teach Your Boys

From the January 2, 1879 of the Brooklyn Standard Union, via Bklyn-genealogy-info.com:

Teach them that a true lady may be found in calico quite as frequently as in velvet or white silk.

Teach them that a common school education with commonsense is better than a college education without it.

Teach them that one good, honest trade well mastered is worth a dozen beggarly "professions."

Teach them that "honesty is the best policy," that 'tis better to be poor than to be rich on the profits of "crooked whiskey," etc., and point your precepts by examples of those who are now suffering the torments of the doomed.

Teach them to respect their elders and themselves. Teach them that, as they expect to be a man someday, they cannot too soon learn to respect the weak and helpless.

Teach them that smoking in moderation, though the least of vices to which men are heirs, is the most disgusting to others and hateful to themselves.

Teach them that to wear patched clothes is no disgrace, but to wear a "black eye" is.

Teach them that God is no respecter of sex, and that when He gave the Seventh Commandment He meant it for them as well as for their sisters.

Teach them that by indulging their depraved appetites in the worst forms of dissipation they are not fitting themselves to become husbands of pure girls.

Teach them that it is better to be an honest man seven days in the week than to be a Christian one day and a villain six days.

Teach them that "God helps those who help themselves."

Do all this, and you will have brought them up "in a way they should go."

7 Quick Takes Friday Part XVIII

Check out more Quick Takes at Conversion Diary!

1. When the Duggars start a show with "Hey, come on, we're picking a baby name!" you know I'll be in TV Heaven. They're voting, and Jim Bob says, "Now there's twenty of us here, and just so you know, Mama's and my votes count for twenty each." I really like this show.

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2. The hiccups I mentioned here: they lasted for 24 freakin' hours (on and off, but violently every time they were "on"). They were miserable and painful. Why do hiccups happen, anyway?

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3. My most exciting project for this summer is finding and visiting the graves of ancestors at Holy Cross Cemetery in Brooklyn. I was going to go yesterday, but had to spend the day moving into my room. I was going to go today [I'm writing Tuesday], but felt awful all day, so I stayed home. I'm very much looking forward to this, but I don't know when I'll find the time. But who knows what I could learn? I'm so looking forward to this little trip!

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4. Did anyone see Law&Order:SVU this Wednesday? It was about a family who didn't believe that HIV cause AIDS, so the mother and sister both died of AIDS. The thirteen-year-old boy, after his mother's death, refuses to be tested or treated for AIDS. The court upholds his right to make that decision. It's wasn't the SVU new episode time slot, I don't think. Hmmm. . . I wonder if the decision to show that episode this week was at all influenced by current events?

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5. Okay, this CNN article about so-called "Important Kisses in History" is kind of banal. But I loved this part of it:

3. The kiss that proved no means no

Gentlemen, a word: When a lady rejects your advances, you'd do best to listen. Take, for example, the story of Thomas Saverland, an English gentleman who was at a party in 1837 and, as a joke, kissed Miss Caroline Newton by force. In response, she bit off a chunk of his nose.

Saverland took her to court, where the judge found his case more hilarious than harrowing. The judge ruled, "When a man kisses a woman against her will, she is fully entitled to bite off his nose, if she so pleases." A smart-mouthed barrister then added, "and eat it up, if she has a fancy that way."

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6. I've been worrying a lot about money lately. My sister is way cheaper (we'll say "frugal") than I am, but she likes to save for things like fancy vacations, and nice apartments, whereas I feel like I have to be saving to repay student loans (okay, she doesn't have any loans), have a nice wedding, put a down payment on a house, buy a car, put kids through college, and retire comfortably. How do people ever do these things? Do you know how much a house costs?
Updated for accuracy: I've actually never seen my sister's apartment, and I don't know what she pays. I was extrapolating from the conversation we had about taking a nice vacation, where she said, "Well, we can save up for it," and I said, "But shouldn't we be saving up to be able to pay off our mortgages faster, instead?" and everyone looked at me like *I* was the crazy one. (Neither of us owns a home, and probably neither of us will for several years.)

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7. How you know you're not a very good Catholic: with a tendency to search for a saint to ask the intercession of whenever you feel stressed, you find yourself rushing through the streets of Washington, DC wracking your brains to figure out who might, in a pinch, serve as a good patron of illegal parking. Wait, something's wrong here. . .

Check out more Quick Takes at Conversion Diary!

Really freakin' hard

A few weeks ago, I ordered Christopher West's Theology of the Body for Beginners. I haven't yet read it through. I'm afraid of what I'll read, afraid both that I'll believe it and that I won't. Both are scary propositions. It brings to mind this quote by Chesterton, highlighted by The Ironic Catholic this week:

"The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried."

Yup, that's me.

(Not that the Christian ideal is all about sexuality, of course. But it's illustrative.)

MyLifeIsAverage.com

My sister Carreen showed me MyLifeIsAverage.com today. I can't remember the last time I've laughed so hard. It is much funnier than fmylife.com. (And also generally more family-friendly)

I laughed hysterically at items like:

Today, I held the door open for someone but they were a bit too far away. MLIA.

Today I was going to catch the bus. I thought I should run but I decided not to. I caught the bus. MLIA

Today I pushed on a door that said pull.
MLIA

Today I heard a song I liked, so I decided to sing along. When it got to a part where I wasn't sure of the exact words, I made up words that sound like the ones they sing. MLIA.

Today, I forgot to lock the keys on my phone. It accidentally called my friend. I heard my friend in my pocket, and picked up and explained the situation. He understood. MLIA.

Today I used the carpool lane to pass a slow car on the left. There were no police around but it was a little exciting. MLIA.

Especially if you're familiar with FML, make sure you check this out!

People say I live in a bad neighborhood. . .

Walking home from the nearest Metro, NY Ave:

I have the hiccups. The kind that make you think of that cartoon character who used to hiccup and see pink elephants in the living room. I only had two glasses of wine! And white wine, at that.
I walked home tonight, about a fifteen minute walk.

Every time I passed a person, I tried to control my hiccups. It never worked. There are a lot of bad influences in my neighborhood. Today it was me.

I took a bunch of side roads, when I could. I'm trying to get to know the neighborhood as well as I can before I move tomorrow morning.

Trucks with rolled down windows playing loud music got songs stuck in my head.

A little girl, 3 or 4, was sitting on a tricycle in her front yard. She looks at me and says, "Hi!" I say, "Hi!" She informs me, "I'm just going to ride my bike." I tell her, "That sounds fun!" Her mom laughs at us.

I pass an adult-sized bike parked in the middle of the sidewalk. Am I prejudiced if I assume that belongs to an African-American? The bike with the fluorescent safety stickers on it that is U-locked to a fence inside a yard? That, I assume, belongs to a white person. The neighbor is in the process of gentrifying.

I pass two people, a man and a woman, speaking in sign language. (I was about to say ASL, but I really have no way of determining what sign language someone is using. I still assume it's ASL.)

I pass Gallaudet's campus, which I've never visited.

I walk on Florida Ave., M St., L St., and K St., plus all the numbered streets in between.

A guy about my age is standing on the sidewalk outside a rowhouse. They're all rowhouses around here. A girl walks out the gate and puts her bag on the ground near him. Several other people exit the house, walk down the steps. They aren't speaking, not while I'm near them. I'm acutely aware of the sound of my heels clacking on the sidewalk, like those of a junior high school teacher in an empty hallway. I wonder any of them can hear my shoes.

I see a rose bush the size of a front yard. As I pass it, I realize it's only a quarter of the yard, but it's taller than I am. I want that rose bush.

A girl, 6 or 7, is riding a pink bike much too big for her. She's competent on it, though. She stops, dismounts, puts her foot up on it. Her brothers - brothers? - continue running down the sidewalk. An older boy, too young to be her father (I hope), an uncle maybe, a brother, a neighbor, ties her shoe before she gets back on.

I text my friend about going out tonight. One last night in the city, right?

I love this neighborhood.

Why I blog the way I do

I have a sneaking suspicion that someone I know, or someone who knows someone I know, may have stumbled upon this blog. I quite wish that weren't the case - I would like for this to be a place where I don't have to worry about people I know "in real life" think of me - but what's done is done. I never tried particularly hard to conceal my identity, and so I know it could happen.

That said, I'm thinking it might be time to explain what this blog means to me, what I use it for. Things I can talk to my friends about in real life, I talk to them about. My blog is, generally though not exclusively, for the things I can't or don't want to talk to them about. I never expected such a high proportion of my posts to be about abortion, but, for better or for worse, they are. Why? Well, there are plenty of other things I feel strongly about, but I can express most of those strong feelings in the real world.

If I were to happen across a story about a mother killing her disabled daughter because she didn't want to take care of her or wanted to spare her the pain of her continued life, I would be horrified. I could express that horror. I could send the link to others, discuss it: "Did you hear this horrible story?" But when I come across an article, equally if not more horrifying, about the 90% abortion rate of children with Down Syndrome, I can't. Not without it turning into a debate about abortion, or the other person maintaining that a woman has a right to an abortion for any reason she can come up with, Down Syndrome included, or the opinion being floated that since they're not people anyway, it doesn't matter whether they're killed.

It's nice to be able to express opinions on those matters without having to defend myself for holding, without letting my grief for unborn children - which was what I'd wanted to express in the first place - be lost to the logistics of having the argument. That's not to say that I never make pro-life arguments here. Indeed I do. And I like having this blog as a place where I can make those arguments without being judged. That's why those are the arguments I make here more than any others; because this is the only place I can make them without being judged.

In addition, because I have tried, to some extent, to mask my identity, I don't post all that much about my life. I do some, but when I try to cut back on the personally identifiable information, it all gets kind of boring. The stuff I have been blogging about - which is often pro-life, for reasons identified above - is more interesting, which is another reason it figures so heavily.

What I wrote tonight on WhiteHouse.gov

President Obama,

I've just read the transcript of your speech at Notre Dame this afternoon. I know you're aware of the controversy surrounding your appearance there, given your your support for legal abortion in this country. There are several things you said this afternoon that give me pause, that make me wonder whether you truly support the legality of abortion or at least, whether you've given it much thought at all.

You said,

"For the major threats we face in the 21st century - whether it's global recession or violent extremism; the spread of nuclear weapons or pandemic disease - do not discriminate. They do not recognize borders. They do not see color. They do not target specific ethnic groups."

I wonder: do you see abortion as one of the major threat of the 21st century? It may not be extremism, not in our current political environment, but it is violent. It does not discriminate - except that it kills children of color at a rate much higher than white children. It does not see national boundaries - except that the United States funds this slaughter now, outside of our boundaries more so than it does within our national boundaries.

You said,

"The strong too often dominate the weak, and too many of those with wealth and with power find all manner of justification for their own privilege in the face of poverty and injustice."

When a woman seeks an abortion, who is being served? Who is dominating? The strong woman, with all manner of social and material support, provided both privately and through the government, or the weak child, with no one to speak on his behalf? With no laws, no societal convention, no empathy on his behalf? Those in our country most likely to empathize with the weak are those most likely to declare that the unborn needs no support, no one speaking for him. Who stands up to ensure that the strong woman with legal abortion on her side does no dominate the weak embryo with nothing but a hope and a prayer protecting him? Is killing a young - the very youngest - child really preventing poverty and injustice? It seems to me that destroying the most weak and the most innocent is the most unjust action.

Please, President Obama, help us to stand up for your campaign promises. Help us to support your vision of the country. Help us to ensure that in America, the weak are not subject to the whims of the strong, the desire of the powerful. Speak on behalf of the helpless, the poor, those without a voice - the unborn. Help us to ensure that injustice does not strike at the most innocent of the innocent, the blameless unborn.





**For the record, looking over this, there are sentences I could have phrased better. I sent it without revision, and so revision now would be dishonest. This is how it was submitted to Whitehouse.gov following Obama's speech.

7 Quick Takes Friday Part XVII

1. At Suellen's graduation, I wore "nice" shoes for three days in a row. I may never walk again.

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2. I haven't dried my hair in a week (I've been putting it in a French braid) because I couldn't find my hair dryer. I couldn't find it when I was packing to be away most of the past week, so I didn't bring it with me, and I couldn't find it when I got back to my apartment yesterday. I happened to need something unrelated from the drawer where my hair dryer belongs, and when I opened it, I was shocked - shocked - to see my hair dryer in its drawer. Why would I have ever put it away? It may belong in that drawer, but it lives on the floor next to that drawer, plugged in to the wall. It never even occurred to me to look there.

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3. Speaking of hair dryers, here's a funny story that reveals quite a lot about me:
I was home over some break at some point during college, and hadn't brought a hair dryer, so I used my mother's. I didn't ask her, just used it and put it back where it came from. Some time later in the day, she made mention of the fact that I'd used it. "How did you know it was me?" I asked. (After all, there are two other girls in the house.) "Because when you put it away, the cord was wrapped around it just so with no twists or kinks."

It continues to boggle my mind that people can stand to put away their small appliances with the cords all loose and twisty and messy. I can't do it. (This once got me a job, when I used the hair dryer anecdote in an interview to illustrate that I'm neat and attentive to detail.)

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4. I'm about to put my last sheet of pumpkin leather in the oven. I started my concerted effort to use pumpkin a little over two months ago, with the goal of finishing all the pumpkin in my freezer before I moved out of this apartment, and, on the day before I move out, I've finally succeeded. I'm a little sad to have closed the "pumpkin" chapter of my life, since I don't see myself saving mass quantities of pumpkin at any point in the near future. I've come across a few good recipes, though.

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5. Remember when I mentioned the paper I had to do? That I couldn't get an extension on? I pulled an all-nighter the night before it was due (at 5 pm). I still had a few pages left to write, which I finished in the car. We stopped at a friend's house to pick up some things before heading to the memorial service, and I plugged my computer into his internet to e-mail my paper. When I signed into my e-mail account, there was an e-mail from the professor, from only a couple hours earlier (about 6 hours before the paper was due) offering an extension to the whole class. I was furious. You can't give me an extension to go to a memorial service, but you can give the whole class one on a whim? And not tell us until right before it's due? Like it's any good to me; clearly I'd had to finish my paper by then. On top of everything else, one of the reasons he gave me for not allowing me an extension was that grades had to be submitted by Wednesday. If he was so conscientious about submitting grades by Wednesday, why haven't I gotten my grade yet?

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6. I don't get a lot of hits from Google searches, but I've noticed that this week, a number of people have been directed to Frankly, My Dear after searching for some variation on "NYU graduation speaker." Funny what happens when you actually blog about relevant things as they're happening. Maybe I should have paid more attention so I could have actually written something substantive.

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7. Investigating that last phenomenon, I came across this NYU student (Tisch, I think) who live-Twittered graduation. Probably funnier if you were there, but I find it very amusing and true-to-life.

Find more Quick Takes at Conversion Diary!

The Monday Project

A fundraising idea from the Women's Health Center of Jacksonville, FL, to make the occasion of Obama's Commencement Speech at Notre Dame the biggest pro-life fundraiser ever. Will this be a positive or a negative moment in pro-life activism? The Monday Project asks, "Obama speaks at the University of Notre Dame on Sunday. What happens on Monday?"

If you donate through their website, they'll send a postcard to Notre Dame for you. If you take the opportunity to otherwise donate to pro-life causes to mark the occasion, I wouldn't hesitate to send your own announcement to Notre Dame. If you're an alum withholding donations from the university, consider donating your money to pro-life causes instead, and let the university - and how about the Obama administration? - know about it. Even if you're not all that worked up about Obama speaking at Notre Dame, consider it a reminder to donate to pro-life causes and help save lives.

Every little bit helps. I just donated. How about you?

H/T Amy Welborn

Oh, the painful irony

Suellen's graduation today was beautiful, though my personal preference is for Georgetown's more intimate, more formal, more personal ceremony. Some of the speakers were great (Whoopi Goldberg at the Tisch graduation event yesterday was great, though I'm pretty sure there was a point where she implied that anyone who didn't get the interpretive dance number couldn't be human. Where does that leave me?)

Clinton was decent, although my sister remarked that she forgot she was at a graduation; she was right, it seemed a little like a press conference in both tone and content sometimes.

In the address, she actually said, "In the times that we face, we know we don't have a person to waste. . ."

Is it possible that someone as intelligent and well-educated and logical as she appears to be actually doesn't understand how many people, potentials, lives, and ideas abortion wastes, in this and any other time? Is it possible?

(As for yesterday's post, apparently I can't help thinking about the victims of abortion, graduation day or no graduation day.)