Archive: March 2007

Friend: You have your New Englanders, your Bostonians, your New Yorkers… What do you call someone from Connecticut?
Me: A Connecticutian!
Friend: Uh, that sounds like “execution.”
Me: Well, I’m not a big fan of Connecticutter.

Ah, the Constitution State! The Nutmeg State! The home of the river actually pronounced “Thames” and not “Temms”! A recent e-mail conversation with Jen awakened my deep-rooted love for the little state people drive through to get to Boston or the Cape. I love New England in its entirety, but the second-smallest state (take that, Rhode Island!) will always be special to me.

When I first came down to this mid-Atlantic area to go to college, I amused people by telling them that I was from “the eastern part of Connecticut.” They ogled me for a second before asking incredulously, “Connecticut has parts?” Um, yeah. Like how Delaware has northern and southern parts, Connecticut has eastern and western halves. At least we have eight counties to your three! What now?

I’m not normally so defensive about this. Well, now that I think about it, I am. I just think that Connecticut is a neglected gem of New England and it doesn’t deserve all of the little-state ridicule heaped upon it. I’ve always found myself in a position of explanation of my home state because people always assumed that my family was rich. No, not all of us live in Greenwich. But we have Mystic Pizza, you know. And Yale University. And the UConn Huskies, even if they didn’t make the tournament this year. And Rachael Ray visited us one time to spend $40.

I feel like my corner of Pennsylvania is noticeably different from Connecticut, but it’s hard for me to put my finger on it. At first, I thought it was the Revolutionary history I grew up with: the Charter Oak and Fort Griswold and all that. When someone reminded me about a little thing called the Liberty Bell and some guy named Ben Franklin, I realized that the Philadelphia near me wasn’t just in my history books. Then, I thought it was due to a more generally flat landscape, but I ended up working in the Poconos for a couple of summers, so that theory went out the door. I’m still not sure what it is, but I can feel a change when I get to Connecticut.

Maybe it’s the crisp air, rocky coastlines, and lighthouses. Maybe it’s the worn-down, green faces of those soothing Appalachians. Maybe it’s town greens, white churches with sharp steeples, and the smell of the Long Island Sound. Maybe it’s wearing fall clothes as soon as school starts, scraping snow off of cars in November, and welcoming spring after Easter. I don’t know what it is, but I find it all so comforting.

Of course, I could be a little bitter because I can hardly find a good cup of clam chowder around here. I’m just saying.

#1

I keep finding that no matter how well I think I know JG, he keeps topping himself. It’s not just that his itch to plant grass seed has sprung up earlier than last year. I can overlook the constant monitoring of no less than three unique March Madness brackets, complete with talking smack on the corresponding message boards. Tonight, however, JG hit a new high.

Thanks to one of his oft-read math blogs, JG discovered a source of great pleasure in The Klein Four, an a capella musical group made up of Northwestern University math graduate students. The blog featured a YouTube video of The Klein Four singing their original hit, “Finite Simple Group (of Order Two)”, from their album, Musical Fruitcake. From what I gathered from JG’s exclamations and bursts of laughter, the song lyrics contained a huge number of mathematical references within the context of a romantic relationship. “This is awesome,” he breathed.

JG hopped on the group’s website and became a fan before my very eyes. “Look at these lyrics! So cool! And they have other stuff!” My husband is not an impulse buyer by any means, but within fifteen minutes, he ordered Musical Fruitcake and a geeky-but-ominous t-shirt. JG mused gleefully, “I am totally playing this CD for my kids. They are going to hate it!” He exhibited a surprising level of restraint when he resisted the urge to buy the perfect classroom accessory: the modular wall clock. I’m so proud.

Don’t get me wrong - I could count the number of jokes I understood from the YouTube video on one hand, but I still thought it was clever and funny. Those grad students can actually sing! I mock, but I love that JG loves math so much. I really think it makes him a better teacher for his students and it’s sweet to see him so enthusiastic. Besides, he puts up with me when I wax poetic about how water’s specific heat and polarity make the world go ’round, but that’s another story.

I started typing while JG was finishing up his order of geek merchandise. He turned to me and said, “RA, I’m glad we’re a finite simple group of order two.”

“Um. You know just what to say to make a girl feel good.”

“I do think a simple connected graph with two nodes would be more accurate, but whatever. Let’s always be a finite simple group of order two.”

“Okay.”

“Are you writing about me?”

“… Nope.”

“Are you lying?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t care! I’m a nerd and I’m okay with it!”

Mm hmm. They say acceptance is the first step.

A couple of months ago, I realized that I don’t buy clothes for myself unless the need is utterly dire (i.e. shrinking my go-to black pants – argh) or I have money from a gift lying around. So, for my birthday, I asked for gift cards to clothing stores so that I could treat myself to some new stuff. I don’t know if there was a conspiracy behind all of this, but in the end, I had a fistful of gift cards that were all for Ann Taylor. Maybe my family is trying to class me up or something.

Armed with my birthday money and some leftover Christmas funds that were never spent, I headed out to the mall this afternoon. (I had a slight delay while JG and I unearthed my car from a layer of snowcone shavings from yesterday’s ice storm. My car was covered in 4 inches of tiny ice marbles with not even one flake of snow. I had never seen anything like it.) I had plugged a list of things I was looking for into my Palm so that I would stay focused. Shopping is serious business for me.

Ann Taylor was my first stop because my spending there was completely guilt-free. I am very cost-conscious and I pride myself on being a savvy bargain shopper, so the experience of walking straight to the Petites section, choosing items based on size and style, and taking a pile of clothes to a dressing room was totally foreign to me. Usually, I go directly to the sale portion, survey my size section quickly, try on something if it’s marked down at least 50% and I could really use it, decide that it’s not worth the money, and cruise right out of the store. For once, the fit of the clothing was more important to me than the cost, which was strangely liberating. Is this what it’s like to be on What Not to Wear? For the first time ever, I put on a pair of jeans that fit me correctly and immediately made me feel great. Even better, I was able to pick up another pair on the way to the register! At the conclusion of my euphoric experience, I had a bag stuffed with two pairs of jeans, a pair of denim-like pants, a black-and-white dress, and two pieces of jewelry. Get this - I didn’t even spend all my gift card money and the only thing on sale was the pair of pants. It kind of freaks me out.

I emerged from Ann Taylor feeling optimistic about the rest of my day. The first item on my list was a pinstriped suit and I had a few guesses for where I might find it. In store after store, I avoided salespeople and crept around racks of jackets and pants, hoping to find the elusive combination of perfect pinstripe and separates in the right size. I could tell that there were a few of us looking for the same thing. We circled around each other, vying for the “good racks” but trying not to be pushy. We eyed the garments draped over the others’ arms, hoping to spy a pattern that looked desirable. I used my best skills in flicking through the racks to eliminate styles that didn’t come in my size and kept my ears open for cries of discovery. Alas, all of my efforts were to no avail. I could not find a suitable (ha) combination of pants and jacket in a pinstripe that I liked that happened to be for a short person. It’s so depressing to find a pair of pants that have potential and hold them up at the waist, only to find that there are eight inches of fabric pooling by your feet. Sigh.

I checked off a few items on my list (black ballet flats, camisoles), but not finding the one at the top irked me. I drove home with aching feet and an empty stomach, feeling somewhat blah. Excited to hear about my excursion, my sister called me as I parked in the driveway. I recounted my afternoon and found that I was gaining excitement over what I had found and not just what had eluded me. My sister commended me for not bargain shopping for once and said that she was looking forward to seeing all my stuff whenever we get together again. Talking to my sister was a nice way to end my session of retail therapy. It’s almost as good as actually going shopping with her.

March is a tough month for JG because he has to teach on all five weekdays for five weeks in a row. I am not very sympathetic. That’s what the rest of us call the majority of the year. At the same time, I’m not about to volunteer to supervise classrooms of kids who are straining toward spring break, so I suppose I see his point. This year, I suggested that we take a day off in March together so that we can spend a free day together, and so we did – today!

I suppose it’s somewhat inaccurate to call it “playing hooky,” but that’s what it feels like. We stayed up late last night and slept in this morning. The plan for the day consists of getting subs for lunch and renting a couple of movies. JG has heard a lot of great things about The Departed and I want to see The Notebook because I never have (gasps all around!). I figure we’ll each bear the other’s movie and it’ll be even overall. Most importantly, though, I’m looking forward to hanging out with JG for an entire day without jobs or errands in the way. I feel like the daily grind makes it difficult for me to be really present after work because I’m so dog-tired, and then I feel guilty. My irritation rises faster than makes sense because – don’t I want to be home? It’s not fair to JG and we both needed a break. This week, twenty percent less time at work plus a whole day with each other is just the cure for job-related doldrums.

This long weekend is a nice midpoint on the way to spring break, when I’ll use some vacation time to spend JG’s week off with him. Until then, I plan to savor my lazing around in comfy clothes, eating a yummy sub, and being a couch potato on a rare day of leisure.