This is My Forties

Noah asked me yesterday what this meant: "Thinking outside of the box" (love him!!!) We've all heard this phrase before, and we know what it means... think creatively, think differently, be unhindered by norms.  But, where did it come from?  Well, I looked it up and apparently it's reminiscent of an old logic puzzle developed in 1914, the nine dot puzzle.  This is a puzzle with which I am well acquainted.  In fact, Josh and I have already introduced our children to it... funny it has lasted for so long!  Other speculations of the origin of the phrase were by a paper in 1945 that alluded to 'blue sky thinking'.  I will forever associate outside the box thinking with Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery" which she wrote in 1948.  This link is great because it comes with questions to ponder after reading.  I highly recommend reading it if you haven't!  The box isn't a new image for us to use. I think of Schrodinger's cat  i...

Yes, that slavery.  I know... I can feel the collective chest tightening as you get a little scared for me, a white girl, trying to talk about this topic.  She's going to put her foot in her mouth!  What's going to happen!  What makes me qualified to talk about this?  I live in the USA and I have access to our history.  Mostly, though... I WANT to.  I'm tired of feeling like we're separate.  I am done being quiet.  We need some honesty and some introspection.  I am so so so tired of this racism and silence and I realize I'm part of the problem if I keep my views to myself.  "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter" - MLK Disclaimer :: I KNOW this won't apply to all people.  I'm talking about the general separation that we keep between us, black and white.  Where did it come from?  Why is it so regional?  I speak from my own personal experience.  If you don't have this expe...

I had to read a book for my Latin American Lit class that got me thinking about how shame and guilt shapes society.  My first reaction is to be completely against the guilt and shame forced on women.  It's ridiculous how we were treated as weaker and dumber for so long.  Then I realized something else.  Men taught us how to have self control by oppressing us. :: DISCLAIMER - don't bother with "not all men" or "not all women" statements because duh :: Men are awful at self control.  They're never told to deny themselves any impulse.  The culture tells them to drink in excess, have sex with whomever they can, eat whatever they want, dress how they want, watch porn and go to strip clubs, pleasure themselves at any moment or any place.  Men get to be celebrated for taking naps on the couch with their hands down their pants.  If a man stays at home with the kids it's some huge event!  They know nothing about the kids' schooling or doctor's app...

It wasn't until yesterday as I was speaking with a college rep that I realized my passion for geology and storytelling have endless parallels.  No wonder I love them both.  Let's see if I can put it into words. In Geology sediments stack up and are compressed to form sedimentary rocks.  The Law of Superposition states that older sediments will be beneath younger sediments.  Simple.  Common sense.  Now, using knowledge of various natural processes we can determine how the rocks formed, what they were before, what the weather and the atmosphere was like.  The general ages of the layers give a timeline to those processes.  The processes shape the rocks and they can tell a story about the past.  So can we.  So can everything else in nature.  If we understand what we are looking at and what rules made it happen.  What are our rules? Storytelling for me is no different.  The environment of a story is made up of the other cha...