Living Small

Where It All Began

After Netflixing the recent rich-teen dramas The OC and Gossip Girl, I convinced David that we had to go back to the original -- the first season of (the old) 90210.  This was the most formative television show of my youth.  I began watching with the very first episode in 1990 and probably saw every episode in the first seven seasons (I had to give it up when I went to college).  90210 completely informed my perceptions of high school, probably not for the better, but I still think it was a great show.  It probably didn't hurt that I grew up not far from its Beverly HIlls setting. 

We watched most of the pilot last night and, although I will admit that I wasn't quite as impressed as I had hoped to be, I look forward to watching more because 90210 charts the evolution of prime-time television.  It began in the old 1980s model, where each episode could stand alone, and each dealt with some kind of "issue" -- there was the diet pill episode, the breast cancer episode, the pregnancy scare, etc.  But as time wore on, there was less of an emphasis on such issues, and plot lines began to span numerous episodes, as they do now in television shows where every episode begins with a recap of what happened previously.  Story arcs began to extend through the whole season, rather than resolving with each epsiode.

I'm sure I'll have more to say once we have watched more episodes -- the trick will be to convince David that we should watch more episodes.  He never watched 90210 when it was on television, and isn't quite as geeked about it as I am -- to say the least!

A Sweet New Year

This week, our CSA share included two squeezy-bears of honey in addition to the usual vegetables and eggs.  Honey is one of those things that I just never use and rarely even think about, but that night David topped his ice cream with it and the next morning I drizzled some on my cereal.  Good stuff.  I'm pretty certain that Farmer John is not Jewish, but the timing with the honey was absolutely perfect -- the weekend before Rosh Hashanah.  Did he plan it that way?  I should have asked.  In any case, tonight we will certainly be dipping apples and challah in it.

The holidays kind of snuck up on me this year.  I was so preoccupied with running, then not running, starting demography class, and trying to finish up my conference paper for next month that I barely noticed the leaves starting to change.  Nonetheless, I'm ready for a new year.  Normally, David and I go to services with my aunt and uncle, but they are away on sabatical this year, so we will be heading over to Hillel instead.  I'm curious to see what services are like over there.  It will also be nice to be able to walk rather than driving to Ypsi. 

L'shana tova to all!

One Disaster After Another

Two weeks ago, I met my aunt for coffee and told her all about my training for the Detroit Marathon.  She commented that I must be in excellent shape, and I replied that, yes, I was in the best shape of my life.  The next day, while rolling my upper body on a foam roller, I felt a crunch in my ribs.  I should have stuck with the lower body!  I spent the next two days trying to convince myself that I wasn't injured.  David told me I couldn't possibly have broken my ribs on a piece of styrofoam, and that it was probably just a pulled muscle.  But by Thursday afternoon, when all I wanted to do was get into bed, but I also didn't want to get into bed because lying down hurt too much, I knew I had to see a doctor, and I went to urgent care.  She felt around and confirmed that it was indeed my floating ribs, and that they were either bruised or broken.  She couldn't give a positive diagnosis without about five x-rays, and since there is no treatment for broken ribs anyway, that didn't seem worthwhile, so she did two chest x-rays to make sure my lungs weren't punctured and sent me home with Vicodin. 

I kept trying to run and, when I gave up on that, go to spinning class, but I eventually had to take two full days of no exercise.  I got back to running after that, but had missed my Saturday long run.  This may have been a blessing in disguise, since it was pouring down rain on Saturday and my training group ended up getting attacked by a nest of wasps, but it still made me worry about the prospects for Detroit.  With four weeks to go this weekend, I figured that if I could do 18 this Saturday and 20 the next, I would be on target.  Well, I did my 18 on Saturday, and it actually went pretty well, but by the time I got home, I had a searing pain in my upper right inner thigh.  I spent the next two days icing, stretching, and taking anti-inflammatories, but this morning I still couldn't run.  By the end of yesterday, given the toll the training has been taking on me, I had pretty much resigned myself to "only running the half".  But now I fear that I may be a spectator on October 19. 

I really hope my next post is about something other than running!

Coauthoring

As many of you already know (because I have been talking about it for almost a year now), I am currently working on a paper to present at a conference in October.  I presented at conferences when I was in grad school, but what is different about this paper is that it is coauthored, something I have never done before.  In my previous life as a cultural historian, it seemed like most people wrote their own papers and books, but social science historians and historical demographers seem to do a lot more coauthoring.  When I went to this particular conference last year, most papers, particularly the quantitative ones, had about three authors.  Mine was originally to have three authors as well, but one had to back out because of overcommitment (a person can only appear on the program twice), so there are now two of us.

At first, I had no idea how the process would work, especially since my coauthor and I are not only at different universities, but are in different timezones, which pretty much precludes sitting down at the computer together.  Would we just send each other a bunch of emails and have a paper magically come out of it?  It turns out that the process has been a bit more structured, but actually quite pleasant, after the disastrous first draft.  Since I am the first author, I produced the first draft, which my coathor pretty much hated and couldn't get on board with at all.  After much agonizing, I produced a second first draft, which was much more agreeable to him.  He revised and added a bit and sent it back to me.  I revised, added a bit, and sent it back, and the process continued.  After doing this back-and-forth about three times now, it is really starting to seem like a joint effort, and I actually quite like the fact that we can check and balance each other's excesses so that every part of the paper gets at least some critical review every step of the way before we present it for the real criticism!