math as poetry

Over the weekend I saw Proof, the movie version of David Auburn’s play. Watching the movie (which was good enough—and who really cares, anyway, because Jake Gyllenhaal is pretty) I started wondering why there are so many narratives with math as a backdrop, when most of the people I know find math to be painfully distressing. Is it because we are more willing to accept a character’s purported brilliance if it’s numerical brilliance? Is it just that the precision of mathematics provides an interesting counter-metaphor to the chaos of human relationships? Or is there something inherently poetic about math? Do we hope that there is in fact a theory of everything and that somehow math will save us?

I was never particularly good at math. I could get it done and get the answers right, but it always took me a long time. Part of the frustration was that no one could tell me why I was doing the proofs I was doing: “Don’t ask questions! Just do the steps!” I can’t blame my teachers, though. Most of them were football coaches, not mathematicians. Midway through my junior year of high school, I dropped out of trig and pre-calculus and finished my education blissfully math free. But with the decision to quit math, I also abandoned my latent desire to become an astronomer or a botanist.

In college, I opted for an English degree instead of Journalism because I didn’t want to take statistics. But at the very end of my four years, I took two semesters of symbolic logic—what I considered the easiest way complete my math credits (somehow proofs seem a categorically different thing if they are housed in the philosophy department). I loved every moment of my proof writing. I spent hours working out proofs, fitting them into every spare moment, watching the steps unfold one after another. Maybe what I liked so much is that we actually learned what the proofs were about, why it mattered. When I read about Goedel’s proof, I was amazed at how much it explained, even though I wasn’t entirely sure what it meant. Once, I completed a proof in fewer steps than my teacher had. At first he thought I was wrong, but I argued my steps, showed him the move from one premise to another. And it was dazzling and elegant and surprising—even to my instructor. It was the proudest moment of my educational career. I don’t know what the proof was about or how it related to anything in my world, but as I guided the elegant progression of each line, I was certain of its poetry.

my hour with the salt lake literati

Last night, I went to hear a 50th anniversary reading of Howl. I don't particularly like Howl or Ginsberg or the Beats. Earlier in the week, I told a friend (who is a big Beat fan) that while I recognized the cultural significance of the Beats, I thought their writing was lame (or something to that effect). But, yesterday I heard Gary Snyder talking on NPR about the first reading of Howl, and he made it sound exciting (or at least worth considering). Partly in an effort to be more open-minded about my tastes and partly because I had nothing else to do, I went to the reading.

The evening began with quite a bit of obnoxiously self-indulgent poetry by various local poets, a film interview that Trent Harris did with Ginsberg, and some decent jazz music. Then, Alex Caldiero, self-proclaimed "sonosopher" chanted a dirge for Ginsberg and then (as the advertising for the event claimed) "channeled" Ginsberg for the reading of Howl. His reading was pretty impressive. I was downstairs from the library's auditorium in the overflow section and there were moments when you could hear Caldiero's voice reverberating down the stairs. I still don't like Howl much, but I can certainly appreciate its energy.

Not surprisingly, I ran into my friend who loves the Beats at the reading. We (the friend, his wife, and a couple of their friends) were going to go out for coffee afterwards, but D. somehow got himself invited to the after-party at Ken Sanders' (the used/ rare bookstore for you non-Salt Lakers). We walked over and there's a list (which of course we weren't on, but because D. is friendly and often loiters at the store they let us in). I've never been to any party with a list, so I felt all at once slightly cool and totally lame. I would be tempted to do some name dropping here, but I'm not even hip enough to know who's who. I will say that when we arrived, Scott Carrier was tending the bar, which I found awfully charming.

I realized that there are people who belong at parties like this and those who do not. I am among the latter. I don't know how to schmooze or network or converse with strangers or whatever one does at such parties (and more so, I don't particularly care to). While we did wander through the crowd a few times to get food and drink, we spent the hour we were there hidden among the stacks. And when you consider that we were chatting amongst all the P's and S's of the literary world, it was a pretty good way to enjoy a party.

confessions of the perpetually late

Today, I tried to check out a book from the public library and apparently I owe them so much money ($33.60 to be exact) in overdue fines that I no longer have borrowing privileges. It takes a special sort of person, I think, to be cut off from the public library.

The most pathetic thing is that I probably only finished one of the books that garnered me the thirty dollars in fines. I blame this sorry book-borrowing behavior on two factors: a) my friend Heidi and b) Blockbuster.


When I was in college, I constantly returned library books late (quite late, far beyond the advertised grace period) but I never got any fines. Then my friend Heidi, who worked at the library, told me that the advertised grace period was not the actual grace period. All that really meant is that I kept my books a week or two longer, to the point where I did extend beyond the actual grace period, and I got fines. But because I had a friend working at the library, all of those fines were magically forgiven.

I used to pay a lot of late fees at Blockbuster--not $30 worth, but enough to keep my slackerly habits in check. Now, with the end of late fees, I continue to live with the illusion that no one cares when I return borrowed materials.

watching the pot

Today, as I updated a friend about the banalities that are my current life, she made a throwaway comment about watching the pot.

And it was like this moment of revelation. Yes, I have been watching the pot. Not just watching the pot, but hovering over it, demanding the water to simmer. For months, for more than months. Me--watching over my life, trying to coax the rolling boil. And that clarity has me suddenly evaluating my behavior, planning alterations. How does that happen--a cliche suddenly transformed into the most meaningful idea you've considered in months?

readerly disappointment, or how a book about afghanistan became a book about a dog

This week I finally finished reading a book that I picked up several weeks ago in the Gatwick airport, Rory Stewart's The Places In Between. I had extra pounds that I didn't want to bother changing back into dollars, so a book seemed a reasonable purchase (and provided a good balance for the cookies and chocolate I bought with the rest of my funds). The specific book seemed a good choice because it was about a Scottish journalist walking across Afghanistan in 2002, just after the U.S. invasion. I had just been walking, so reading about walking seemed appropriate. And I want to learn about Afghanistan--it seems essential.

The book made me think about many things--about the value of walking, of seeing "the places in between"; about how unfortunate (and maddening) it is that a man could take this journey, but a woman certainly couldn't; about Afghanistan's ancient history and its present. I liked that Stewart told his story objectively, that he resisted commentary about the people and places he encountered.

At some point in the journey, Stewart acquired a dog--Babur, who he named after a Mogul emperor whose steps he was following. The dog was a nice addition to the story (after all, everyone needs a traveling companion), but at some point the book became about the dog. And this made me grumpy. I like dogs well enough, but I bought a book about Afghanistan, not about Babur the dog. This man walked miles and months across a war-ravaged country, seeing things that very few Westerners will ever see (much less read about) and he ends the book with an elegy for his dog: "I don't imagine Babur would have been very impressed to see my crying now, trying to bring back five weeks walking alone together, with my hand on a grizzled golden head, which is Babur, beside me and alive."

It's not that I think a writer should have to tell me the story I want to hear, or that he has no right to tell his story. Maybe for him the story was about Babur the dog (before walking through Afghanistan, he had walked through Iran, Pakistan, India, and Nepal--so maybe walking had lost some of its fascination). At the very least, though, somewhere in the blurb and the various exclamations of praise on the book's cover someone should have said, "This is a book about a dog."

honk for peace

This morning, on the way to the farmer's market, there was a woman standing on the corner with a handwritten sign that stated "Honk for Peace." There were many peace-loving drivers who obliged, and each time someone honked, the woman yelled with enthusiasm. It was as if with each honk of the horn, she believed peace was actually being achieved.

I want to be cynical about this woman's efforts, that she's not doing much but generating a lot of noise pollution (increased--to good effect, I thought--by the man who sits by the traffic light and asks for spare change respoding with loud singing, including a moving hare krishna chant). But then, I wonder whether my cynicism is right. I've been talking to my students all semester about how language does do something, that it does effect change. Thursday, we talked about the Rwandan genocide and the newspaper publishers who were tried as war criminals for promoting hate propaganda, that their constant references to the Tsutsi as "cockroaches" led, in part, to the genocide. So there is language altering material reality.

Also, my friend G. is a potter and spends weeks by himself firing work at his place near Hanksville. He told me about how someone asked him whether he'd ever felt an earthquake there. He wanted to say yes, but he stopped, thought for a moment, and replied, "I'm not really sure. I think I have, but I've never told anyone about it." So, the experience was uncertain because he'd never put it into language.

And, of course, there is theory about this. Take Saussure: "Without language thought is a vague uncharted nebula. There are no pre-existing ideas, and nothing is distinct before the appearance of language."

So, is the woman with her incitement to honking doing anything? Clearly change can begin with protest, with discourse, but how does that change happen? Is it just about the aggregate--that if enough people honk, someone will listen? Or does the act of discourse (the honking, in this case) change something in the world?

A while back, I heard some commentary about the media attention directed towards Cindy Sheehan's Crawford, TX protest, questioning the relevance of the attention. Why? the commentator asked, are we focusing so much time on something so anecdotal. Someone responded that 40 years ago Rosa Parks was just an anecdote.

So, readers, if you have thoughts about how anecdotes and honking become material change (or whether they actually can), let's hear them.

the weekly(ish) miscellany

a note on similes: At last week's reading, Billy Collins poked fun (a la Shakespeare) at the Petrarchan conceit. He noted that what such poems (old and new) assume that what women really want is a good simile. His comment started me thinking about the few men in my past who wrote me poetry. These men were not poets (not even in the unobtrusively poetic Writer's Digest sense), so I never could understand why they chose to wrote me poetry ("I am like a moth to your flame," "I am left in the desert without food or water") instead of making me dinner or some other more pragmatic gesture of love. They must have held to this notion that women are in want of similes.

a note on metaphor: Listening this week to the John Roberts' hearings, I realized how quickly metaphor can go awry. Early in the week, one senator (can't remember who) and Roberts himself talked about how judges were umpires. For the next few days, the umpire metaphor came up again and again (umpires are just calling the game, but everyone knows they have different strike zones; a different umpire=a different game; an umpire is only an intepreter, not a participant). I was half-expecting (and hoping) to see Roberts show up in a striped suit.

a metaphor of my own: Recently, on my semi-daily run I have noticed that the pathwaysd above Memory Grove are being transformed into some soft of Oly-promenade. There are new black lightposts with the SLC 2002 logo emblazoned on them. The new concrete sidewalk has a full-cover logo embedded in the cement. This perpetual focus on the olympics troubles me. SL is becoming one of those old Hollywood startlets who tries to hold onto fading beauty with too-bright hair dye and carefully pencilled eyebrows.

further evidence that I am aging: Yesterday, someone at the literacy action center made a comment that was delightfully funny and insightful and I was going to post it on the blog, but 10 minutes after I heard the comment, I forgot it. Not just the details--but the entire context within which it was offered. Had I remembered it, I am sure you would have enjoyed it. Sorry!

and a bit of blog cross-promotion: This week, I canned fruit!--which you can read all about at Three Tarts. I only bring this up because I am so proud of my domestic efforts.

is that kenny g knocking on my door?

A few weeks ago, I heard a song that I loved by this Canadian singer Feist, so I went to my B&N and bought the CD (a bargain at $10). I was happily listening to the CD over and over when my sister declared to me that it as "a little smooth jazzy." What?! I responded that the beauty of the album was that it was eclectic. A remake of a Bee Gee's tune ("Inside and Out"), a heartwrenching balad, a sweet French tune, a quirky pop song, and on and on. And this woman has an amazing voice. The more I listened to the cd, though, I had to admit that there is a recurrent smooth jazz vibe. Ugh--I hate smooth jazz. I really hate it. But I love this cd. And this has me worried that perhaps my music tastes are deflating, that it's just a matter of time before I have the Breeze programmed on my car radio. But I have justified myself with an internal dialogue about how Feist is beyond genre and that because she has collaborated on a variety of eclectic projects (from folk to rap) that there is a certain amount of irony in her remake of the Bee Gees and her disco-dripping "Leisure Suite." And if there's irony, it's all ok.

For some reason lately, I'm hyper-aware of the fact that I'm aging. I know I'm not old--just aging. My sister (again) was telling me that she was taking some girls from her church to a local rest home to play bingo and sing the residents songs. Even though I know the possibility is decades away, I had this sudden, frightening image of me as an octogenarian having to play bingo and listen to well-meaning teenage girls sing. And even worse--the idea that, in spite of myself, I might enjoy it.

ucky-ovo

I was just commenting on Dr. Write's site and the letters for confirming my post were uckyovo. I think this should be a word, so I propose you all start using it (I added the hyphen, as it seemed necessary). I was talking with my Lang. in Society students about neologists, and how they could (and probably do) generate new words. I can imagine lots of possible meanings and contexts for my new word. It would make a great exclamation of dismay upon cleaning out one's fridge--"Ugh, ucky-ovo." If I change up a few letters and make it "ucky-evoo," I can actually hear Rachael Ray, that perky foodtv gal, using the word when her precious EVOO (which she always reminds the viewer is her acronym for Extra Virgin Olive Oil--does she not understand the purpose of an acronym?) goes rancid.

being alone

Tonight, I intended to go to the Greek Festival with my sister. But she spent the last two days getting into and out of a flash flood in the San Raphael, so (needless to say) she was extremely tired. Remembering that Billy Collins was reading tonight and deciding that poetry was a better solitary activity than eating baklava in a crowd, I headed over to the library.

Until tonight I had never, at least not in memory, read one of Billy Collins' poems. And if it didn't sound so meaningless, I would want to tell you that upon hearing his poems I laughed and cried. Some of his poems were so sardonic about poetry and poets that he reminded me of myself in grad school when we'd go to open mike night at Avogadro's Number and laugh at all of the hopeful poets who were dreaming about unicorns and butterflies. The evening ended with a hilarious recounting of all of the people he's fooled with his invented form, the paradelle (his storytelling was prompted by an audience member who had received some critique when he taught the form in a writing workshop and wanted to know whether or not it was a real form). And he wasn't only funny about poetry--most of what he said and read was playful and witty.

And there were moments and words that were so sad and lovely. I loved most his poem about listening to Johnny Hartman, where he speculates about beauty and foolishness and all the songs written about both. The last bit: We are all so foolish,/ my long bebop solo begins by saying,/ so damn foolish/ we have become beautiful without even knowing it.

I was delighted by the evening. Part of me was wishing that someone had come with me, perhaps so I could talk about what I liked most without having to explain the context, or so that I could have company while waiting to get a book signed, or just for sharing the pleasure of something unexpectedly lovely. But then I realized I didn't particularly care that I was alone. I didn't have to reduce the joy of it by talking lamely afterwards, "that was great" "yeah, he's really funny" or try to avoid the joy reduction by constructing the details of what I really wanted to say.

On the long trip back from London, I idly opened my window shade. I expected sky, clouds, some water. But I saw the Greenland ice cap--the mass of land, the icebergs floating up channels, the unavoidable reality that the ice is melting. I thought for a moment that I should nudge my friend awake, but I decided not to. I decided that I wanted this part of the trip to be just mine. I considered telling her about it later, but even the idea of it I wanted to keep for myself. I stared out the window until the sea opened up and the icebergs began to look like fishing boats.

Sometimes laughter and perfect views are better without anyone to share them.

pop a top

My dad (who spent much of his career as a substance abuse counselor) told me once that it was a good thing I didn't drink because I'd probably be an alcoholic. He doesn't remember telling me this and he feels guilty about it, but I always wonder what he was trying to get at. He wasn't saying this to scare me straight. I was well into adulthood and I'd already established a clear pattern of non-drinking behavior. I mean, I had a party in February and there's still a six-pack in my fridge. And I can't think of any other particularly addictive habits I have. There's the coffee, but even that's pretty restrained.

So I'm not a drinker, but I love drinking songs. It doesn't really matter who the artist is--if the song's about drinking, chances are I'll love it. I've never been able to figure out why I like drinking songs so much. Maybe it's because my dad is right and I have some inner alcoholic, who's hollering amen and waiting for the next round.

You can check out CMT's list of the top 40 drinking songs here I'm not sure "Friends in Low Places" should be #1, although it is the song I most want to sing karaoke.

hip theory

On my recent seemingly endless flights to and from London, I finally read Leland's Hip: The History. It was actually pretty good--an interesting look at America's racial and cultural history. For Leland, American culture is all about the evolution and pursuit of hip. There are moments where Leland's prose becomes a bit ridiculous, a little too hip--mostly when he is presenting a summary of of one of his points. For instance, "The hipster, viewed coolly, is the outlaw as metaphor" or "If a tree fall in the forest and no one notices its fundamental dopeness, it is not hip." Luckily, sentences like these only come at the end of sections or chapters, and the rest of the book is quite lucid and full of illustrative examples. It's a smart book full of entertaining pop culture references. (and it is quite lame that he titles his acknowledgement page "shout outs")

After reading this book, I'm thinking that we need to add hip theory to the lit-crit cannon. It seems just as justifiable as feminist theory or queer theory--especially if we're talking about American lit. Leland gets it started with his list of hip authors: Emerson, Twain, Whitman, Raymond Chandler and the like, and of course all of the Beats. He talks more about the writers and their cultural moment than he does aobut the texts themselves, but I think a lot of American lit could be explained by considering it through the lens of the hip. Take The Great Gatsby. Sure it's about class, but I think part of the downfall might be explained by a misguided pursuit of the hip. So, you lit teachers, I think you should start up this movement.

if snoop dogg were to teach my class

So I found this website today--Gizoogle--which translates text into Snoop Dogg-esque slang. I put the course description for my Language and Society class (seemed fitting) through it and this is what came out:

Language impacts bustin' we do . Im crazy, you can't phase me: how we think, how we learn, how we vizzy ourselves n interact wit otha and cant no hood fuck with death rizzow. We wiznill look carefully at tha patterns n functions of language ta gain a gangsta sense of how language establishes our cultural identities n social allegiances, how language creates n disseminizzles knowledge, how it develops n maintains shot calla. We will interrogate tha functions of language n hustla how simple alterations in language use miznight lead ta distinctly different outcomes, bizzoth in terms of blingin' n cultural impact so you betta run and grab yo glock.

That last sentence cracks me up.

post-trip blues

Perhaps it's a bad idea to travel so close to the beginning of the new academic year. Not only do I have to deal with post-trip blues but also with pre-semester anxiety. Last night I had a nightmare (I'm sure partly induced by the fact that I was trying unsuccessfully to convince my body that it was the middle of the night and not eight a.m.) that a woman who lived across the street from me while growing up decided I was an incompetent teacher and staged a coup on my classes. lisa b. appeared in the dream; when I told her how I had handled the situation (basically yelling "give me my fucking class back" to the woman who'd staged the coup) she told me--with a chuckle--that I had responded "exactly wrong." oh well, hopefully tomorrow will be coup-free.

England was excellent. I think we picked the right balance of camping and B&Bing. Just when we were tired and smelly, we had a B&B waiting for us. And while I occasionally was annoyed by my heavy back (especially when we passed the hikers with their small daypacks), my favorite part of the trip was the night we spent camping on the hillside of a small farm. We had an amazing view of another hillside and a river valley. Here's something of what our view looked like, although this certainly doesn't do it justice.



Hiking in the Cotswolds made me think about why I hike. At home, most of the places I go to can't be reached by car, so the walking makes practical sense. But in England, we walked in a variety of environments (woods, hilltops, fields, city streets, golf courses) and roads were never very far away. As the B&B owner in our second to last city reminded us before our final 15 mile walk to Cheltenham, there was also a bus that went directly there. On the way home, I started reading a book about a man who walked through Afghanistan just after the war. People kept laughing at him, telling him to just take a car. Walking from town to town made me realize how big the world really is. We shrink it in so many ways with fast transportation and global markets/ culture, but it's really quite stunning in its immensity. When you take a day to make a journey that you might have made in a matter of minutes, everything feels slower, farther away, more significant. In the walking, you find details. And walking, we were able to meet people that we wouldn't have if we'd been going by car or bus. The woman in Hawkesbury Upton who called at us from across the street just to hear about our journey and to make sure we had enough water. The pub owner who offered us tips on shortcuts. The various people who went out of their way to guide us through the trail's confusing city paths. It was certainly a trip worth taking.

Anyway, here's one more picture--just me on the trail.


And Terra, my fab travelling companion (and long-time friend):

backpacking aesthetics

I'm sitting here with my backpack strapped on, trying to adjust to the feel of it in preparation for the upcoming Cotswolds trip, wishing it weren't so heavy. It has my tent in it and a sleeping bag--things that I don't necessarily have to take on the journey. We are on the trail for five days and we're only camping two nights. I could easily contact B&Bs in those towns and make reservations like I have for the other three nights. Then I could take out the tent and just carry clothes, food, etc. But I won't.

As it is, I feel slighty guilty that I'm sleeping at so many B&Bs. I have this backpacking aesthetic that I can't seem to shake--that you should carry your own stuff, that you should be independent and able to care for yourself on the trail. I'll probably be cursing myself by our last day, but there it is. Perhaps I feel I need to pay penance for my trip to Peru, where porters carried all of my gear and cooked every meal. I didn't think much about the circumstances of that trip. I was going with my dad and some of his friends. Someone else planned it. I just went along. And I felt guilty the entire time that I was carrying a day pack and the porters were carrying everything else (practically running up the mountain to beat us to our destination)--and making very little money. Maybe I'll think about that as I walk down the trail.

We'll see how it all goes. A travelogue of sorts will be forthcoming, I'm sure.

lis' weekly miscellany

I decided to post weekly on all the minor matters that may not deserve an entire post, but are still worth mentioning. So, here you go.

1. My 5-year-old niece to the neighborhood boy who had been harrassing her all day: (with fists up) "Hey buddy, do you wanna piece of me?"

2. Watching PBS's Do You Speak American? Robert MacNeil (talking about Texas metaphors) said he heard LBJ say during the Vietnam War: "If we get 'em by the short and curlies, their hearts and minds will follow." We should never elect presidents from Texas.

3. After ranting to a friend about how annoyed I am by the egos of young twenty-somethings, I realized I am becoming my mother--who we lovingly call "the dream squasher." I am now embarking on a path of recovery. My name is Melissa and I am becoming my mother.

Farewell to Ibrahim Ferrer

I mentioned before on the blog how I love Ibrahim Ferrer, so I was sad to learn this morning that he died over the weekend.

When I saw Buena Vista Social Club, I developed a bit of a crush on Ibrahim Ferrer. He seemed so charming and humble. And then that voice--so rich and expressive. I was so happy when he started releasing solo albums. And I love that he was playful with his music--e.g. collaborating with Damon Albarn on Gorrilaz' "Latin Simone."

And his story, of course, is compelling. How he'd always been a singer, but because of changing tastes and politics he ended up shining shoes for a living. When BVSC came around, he said of the experience, "An angel came and picked me up and said, 'Chico, come and do this record.' I didn't want to do it because I had given up on music. But now I have my own record, my first one ever, so I'm very happy. I don't have to shine shoes anymore." What a lovely thing that a man who's clearly meant to make music gets a chance at age 70 to do it again.

the new food blog

As if one blog weren't enough, a couple of friends and I decided to start a food blog. It's called Three Tarts, so if you like reading about and looking at food, I hope you'll check it out. Friend #3 (Sarah) has yet to arrive at the blog, but she got married last week, so we'll forgive her.

my flashy new shirt

It's the rare shirt that deserves its very own blog post, but you have to see this beauty!

I think I may have a future career as a mannequin

To really appreciate this shirt, you have to see the detail:



Every flower has more than 80 sequins (I counted while impatiently waiting for the picture to load).

I don't know where I'm going to wear this thing, but I'll be happy it's in my closet (along with my red velvet pants)--just in case.

The best part of the shirt is how I got it. I saw it in the window of an antiques shop in Forest Grove, OR. But the store was closed. We went back the next day during posted business hours--still closed. I had to fly home the next morning, so no flashy shirt for me.

Well, this week lovely friend and colleague Jonathan (we were in Forest Grove for a conference) stops by my classroom with a Smith's grocery bag. I was in the middle of student presentations, so I looked at him quizically: "What's this?" "Later," he said. So, when all the students shuffled out, I dug into the bag. The shirt! J. had stayed in Forest Grove a day longer than me and went back to the antique shop. It was a delightful suprise--the highlight of the week, really. And it fits perfectly. Can you be fated to have a piece of clothing?

in praise of schlubbiness

I read an article ("The XY Files," Lori Gottleib)in the newest Atlantic that is really bugging me, and I'm not even sure why. It's a personal narrative about a woman's decision to have a child with anonymous, sperm bank sperm. She talks a lot about Single Mothers by Choice, "a national group for women who want to have children but won't shack up with the wrong guy to do so." I'm not the sort of person who thinks a child necessarily needs two parents to grow up happy and whatever, and I think if a woman wants to have a child, well why not? But the article just made me depressed.

Maybe I just don't like the idea of selecting the perfect genetic material. Diane Rehm recently aired a show about the so-called genius factory, the Nobel Prize sperm bank that ended up having very few Nobel-prize winning donors. One story was about a mother who freaked out when her genius-sperm son declared that he wanted to be a pro-wrestler. Ha! Served her right for trying to concoct a certain sort of child. Poor kid, though. Gottleib's article gets into this territory a bit, as she purposefully avoids "genetic schmutz" like schizophrenia, breast cancer, etc. in the donor's family history.

But more than that, I was bothered by Gottleib's sense of relief at avoiding the messiness of a relationship and getting right to the baby-making. Consider this comment: "Instead of marrying a schlubby but lovable man and thinking, I hope our kid doesn't get his crooked nose or bad eyesight or thin hair, I could pick from cold, hard DNA." Obviously, the carefully selected DNA will surprise her, and she seems to know this (she's clearly not trying to create some sort of uber-child) but what distresses me about the comment is the dismissal of the "schlubby but lovable man." I know she's being playful, but still--it's as if dating and mating have become like shopping, where there's no space for imperfections.

My parents' relationship has always struck me as a bit boring (they don't share similar interests or the "core connection" Gottleib describes), but they have created an amazing life together rich with struggle--and joy. I'm the daughter of a "schlubby but lovable" man, and I unfortunately share many of his schlubby characteristics. Even though I hate the fact that I carry around wadded up tissues in my pockets just like he does, I am always delighted by the recognition that I am very much my father's daughter. Our imperfections make us interesting, give us stories to tell.