Public service announcement, super-parochial edition

Neat, isn't it, that Einstein used to live in that house? I know I thought so when I first moved here. I get it. But please, visitors and the otherwise curious: Don't walk backwards into the busy road the house is on, without looking, to get a better photo. Yes, I know to look out for this, because it's down the street and happens all the time. (I only screamed, 'Oh no, why is someone suddenly walking backwards into the road there???' the first few dozen times driving to town.) But what if someone's driving down the road - and it's just at the point where it's gone from 45mph to 25mph, so if they're not from the area, they may not have noticed and slowed down - and they don't know the significance of that nearly unmarked and otherwise ordinary-looking house? Hmm?

The I-95 Flag Great Adventure

Today I conquered my last remaining learning-to-drive task. Unless we're counting parallel parking in a tiny city spot in busy traffic, which we're not, because that's a) avoidable, and b) something lots of the driving-since-16 sorts can't do, either. What I'm saying is, I drove on the highway! Alone! And am typing from my apartment, which means I made it back!

I could give excuses-excuses reasons for why it took so long - that nowhere around here requires a highway, and longer trips are more fun not to take alone anyway - but who am I kidding, I was terrified. But then this morning, I first drove my husband to the train station, then my dog to the dog run, and on the second of those trips, I started noticing that the big road to the run is basically like a highway - there's merging and a speed limit of 50, which in NJ-driver terms means highway speeds. (Of course, highway speed limits are similarly deceptive.) I thought, if I can do this like it's second nature, the highway can't possibly be so dire. That, and I was having one of those home-alone-on-the-weekend moments when I suddenly realized that I was browsing the Wikipedia pages of the cast members of "Frasier." An activity begun with some kind of Further Thoughts on "Frasier" in mind, but at a certain point, my eyes were glazing over, over the fact that Daphne was not only Marla the Virgin on "Seinfeld," but also a dancer in Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life." I had to get out of the house.

So, highway driving. It's still not second-nature to me how to merge or change lanes above 60mph, or how to anticipate when someone else is about to do so, given that people don't always signal. But it's doable. Far more difficult is parking once you get to the place. Lambertville was better than, say, Philadelphia might have been, but still somewhat challenging. Also difficult: finding where to get onto the highway on the way back. It's supposed to be the first left, but is really the second - the first puts you back on the same road. That I've been on the same trip probably a dozen times, as a passenger and driver, ought to have made this not so confusing, but no. Still, all told, a success.

Into The What?

When guilty pleasures collide. Emily Schuman (of "Cupcakes and Cashmere" fame) has come across better than possibly anyone else profiled on "Into The Gloss." Which is to say, there isn't the requisite posturing about being so very low-maintenance... followed by a list of dozens of serums and moisturizers used daily. It also isn't a great big list of Estee Lauder, her sponsor... unless all the brands she mentioned are owned by one conglomerate. (Where's my corporate sponsor? Ideally this would be Uniqlo, but I'd settle for Nars. Or Zabar's, Murray's Cheese, Strand...) She just frankly discusses what it is she has to work with ("a pretty athletic build"; "I lack any real facial definition"; "mousy-brown" hair that she bleaches), and the end result is relatable rather than self-deprecating. Relatable not because these happen to be my own personal concerns (which I have, fear not, just not those), but because the whole thing reads more as 'within-normal-limits woman making the best of what she's got' than the trials and travails of being naturally stunning in a world with too many parabens and not enough pulverized kale.

***

Unrelated question relating to a different post on the same site: What does the following mean? "Last year, a friend gifted me with [fancy soap]." Why not the far more direct "a friend gave me"? While I know that "gift" can now be used as a verb (and that some contingent cringes every time it is), I'd thought it was more in the context of, say, a fashion blogger is comped whichever handbag from a designer, and then it can be that Coach or whatever "gifted" the bag. But do friends now "gift"? Is this used to indicate that something was given as a gift, as versus I don't even know, handed to someone? Like where "give" is just a synonym for "hand," like hand/give it to me? Or does it just add an air of luxe to whatever's being discussed? So your friend might gift you luxury soaps, but give you an extra roll of toilet paper.

***

Unrelated comment relating to yet a third. The so-very-now look for men's hair is apparently the one that's been so-very-now since forever among male physicists. (For obvious reasons.)

Bringing glamor to the woods

Below, three recent or recent-ish things I bought but did not need:

-Galaxy-print leggings. At long last! And $20! Which might seem like a lot for what are effectively multicolored tights, but I promise, it's a great deal for this sort of thing, if it's what you're set on. Which, as you all know, I have been since forever. But not quite enough to send off for the pricey version from Australia.

-Neon-pink lipstick. A more recent and somewhat less challenging to track down wanty. (Didn't exist at Sephora, which was ultimately for the best, as MAC is ever so slightly cheaper than those brands.) I was mostly inspired by this Sartorialist photo - a bright-pink lip, a bit of blush, and (contrary to my usual approach) mascara (or nothing) rather than eyeliner. It just seemed like, yes, this is the look. The bare-face-bright-lip combo is one that usually seems better in theory (or looks better on someone else), but this seemed like a pared-down, everyday version that does not require the wearer to be a stunning Lithuanian, while at the same time, a bit more out-there and unexpected than a basic red. To be determined - haven't actually tried it on yet. If it makes me look either stunning or Lithuanian, you, WWPD readers, will be the first to hear about it.

-Iridescent-glitter nail polish. The best of these is apparently a discontinued Chanel, but such is life. It's fabulous and holographic in the right light, but like all glitter polishes, refuses to ever entirely come off. 

Recent scientific findings

-Underage drinkers enjoy beer.

-Otherwise lovely women were horrible people in middle school.

-Ballerinas are pretty.

Manhattan: because I'd never make it as a farmer

-New Brooklyn continues to represent aspirational farming by non-ethnic white people. On that front, we have Swedish Brooklyn obsession, and the expansion of already-suburban New Brooklyn to actual suburbs. (Brooklyn, in case you were concerned, has yet to reach Princeton. Although we are getting a farm-to-table restaurant, and already have a cheerily Park Slope-ish coffee shop.)

-Yesterday, in the tragically non-hip borough of Manhattan, a really long-standing wanty was achieved: galaxy-print leggings. These, I believe, so $20, and the price had thus far been the obstacle. The price I paid, however, was that these leggings were being sold in a store on lower Broadway that I'd have never entered had I not seen them in the window. A store for tween girls and/or club kids, the overlap's substantial. The overlap with what I wear, not so substantial, and limited, I suspect, to these particular leggings. In any case, there were several dressing rooms, each of which contained a clown-car's worth of the popular girls at that age, accompanied by a really enthusiastic mom of one or more of them, who kept bringing her daughter/all the girls more stuff to try on, seemingly unsolicited. It appeared they'd come into the city for this, and had unofficially rented the store for a coming-of-age celebration of some kind. I couldn't decide if the problem was that they were taking forever or if it was that I was shopping at a store whose shopping bag bears the slogan, "Girls Only." But the leggings themselves (to be worn as tights, thank-you-very-much) are spectacular.

-Soba-ya continues to be the center of the universe. Not only because for $14, you can get a "mini" lunch special that's a sashimi bowl, a bowl of handmade-soba-noodle soup (neither "mini"), and various extras (or, for less $, a more sensible amount of food), and it will be all of it amazing, two of the best lunches you've ever eaten, and for the price of a hamburger in Princeton, but also because there, eating alone at the counter with book-and-phone, as I sometimes would to treat myself after an especially long week, was a punk legend/literary sensation.

Holiday fashionz UPDATED

On the day of my own department's holiday party, I first had to take NJ Transit, submit grade sheets, and otherwise be practical, so the thought of dressing up never even entered into it. I went the usual nothing-stained, nothing-torn approach... only to see a department administrator all sparkly and think, man, that looks like fun! I had also not dressed up the previous Friday, when I did the unthinkable and went out in the big city - dinner at Prune and a party in Williamsburg. It was chic; I was not.

Well, this afternoon is my husband's work party, and there's precisely nothing I must do, other than walk the poodle, before the big event. And it's being held basically a few yards from our apartment. I have no excuse not to wear something fabulous. But what? Vogue, you are of no use here.

UPDATE

As predicted, at a party for scientists, held in the middle of the scientists' workday at that, I was massively overdressed on account of wearing something that wasn't jeans (knee-length black shirt, long-sleeved t-shirt, the height of glam) and, OK, maybe a bit of sparkly makeup. My problem, not theirs, but not really a problem because I'm in favor of getting dressed up for even the slightest hint of a reason.

"[U]n jeune astrophysicien"

Typically, when this blog goes astronomical, it's to tell you about the latest in space-age attire. But today I must make an exception: my husband's astrophysics work has been written about in the Libération science blog!!! Nice touch on the journalist's part, pointing out that neither Jo nor his co-author are in fact Einstein. (I'm not being sarcastic - this is quite possibly the first flattering use of the expression, 'he's no Einstein.')

Those who want the backstory can also read about it in English here or here.

On not needing glasses

Last night, I went with my husband and some of the other astrophysicists to go look at the stars with a telescope. We looked at the moon, at Jupiter, and at more that I'm not remembering. Great fun! As long as I don't have to calculate anything, I'm all in favor of astronomy. 

As we were about to go back, I pointed at some stars and announced that they seemed important. I'd located this, with my naked eye. Indicative not of any scientific skillz beyond a sense of what "important" might look like in this context, but of noteworthy eyesight. The others could only see it with a telescope. 

Coastal elites

-The epic hurricane that was to destroy Battery Park City was apparently not a hurricane here at all, but some rain, and everything's just fine. Was this a case of better safe than sorry, or just a chance to give my parents a sense of what life would have been like had I boomeranged (with husband in tow, like in a sitcom) on home? Was it a chance for commentators to hurl all kinds of misdirected class rage at a neighborhood whose residents are a whole lot less "moneyed" than in, oh, tons of other neighborhoods in Manhattan and Brooklyn, and who, certainly after 9/11 (and residents who weren't here for it nevertheless see Ground Zero daily) are not the aloof, nothing-can-touch-me UMC? There are only so many neighborhoods in Manhattan that two grad students sharing a (spacious! dishwasher-having!) studio can afford (if only at recession prices, and with the "help" of the world's most comically inept broker), so while this still makes me personally a whole lot less well-to-do than everyone else in the area, that should tell you something about the place generally. And.. I like that the best the Guardian could come up with to illustrate the posh was a couple of undeniably down-to-earth-looking people who do, alas, have what looks to be a spectacular well-groomed Bichon.

I mean, fine, if people had been all OMG let's shed a tear over the tragedy of condo renters-and-owners who are indeed richer and whiter than the average across the five boroughs having to "flee" to stay with friends and family (or, in some much-publicized instances, to stay in super-luxe hotels), then this could have been torn apart. But did anyone think this? This was far from the major/only part of Zone A covered in the press, even if WWPD coverage tilts heavily to where P resides. What this was, for BPC residents, was a significant inconvenience, potentially life-threatening to those who require emergency care, a short-term economic upset for lower Manhattan and beyond, and now, PR for the city that will make it look like we can't handle a teensy bit of rain. Even best-case-scenario leaving-your-apt-with-the-thought-that-everything-in-it-might-be-destroyed kinda sucks. As First World Problems go, this was among the more problematic. Anyway, I tend to be in the "better safe than sorry" camp, even though on some level I figured this was not going to be much of anything.

-Things sure do sound interesting up in Euphemistic Boston. Has anyone ever up and taught a freshman class on Really Small Questions? I'm so up to the task.

-My husband's choice to pursue rocket science in Euphemistic New Jersey means that I will need - for real this time - to learn how to drive a car. This is, like, on, as in happening in under a week. (Bye Uniqlo, bye Dos Toros, bye Chelsea Thai; bye and good riddance Ceci Cela, which completely changed its croissant recipe and now after over a decade of arguably-best-in-the-city serves something truly vile.) I'm of course scrambling to find ways to avoid needing to drive - I'll ride my bike everywhere! This will be a chance to try those online groceries I've heard so much about! I'll be finishing my dissertation and never going outside anyway! - but it's inevitable. I know that there are people who like driving, but by this I assume they mean adventure, the open road, etc., not someone who's a nervous wreck after twice failing the Red Hook driving test finally, after hundreds of thousands of lessons, driving to a just-beyond-walking-distance supermarket. I've at any rate vowed not to approach this challenge by taking NJ Transit to the PATH to the Fairway and back every time we need food.

Congratulations Dr. Bovy!

-One of the convocation speakers, a professor, described the "idle" part of grad school to perfection. Replace "daytime TV" with "'House'" and "Pacman" with "fashion blogs," and... yup. But we do work hard the non-idle times, we promise.

-On the way to the ceremony, Jo's mother and I spotted none other than Abs M., less than 24 hours after the last sighting. Either a) he's a ballet dancer who works in the Lincoln Center area, or b) he's totally obsessed with us.

-And there was a physics party! I wore my galaxy shirt for the occasion.

"Deep physics"

This evening, I was out with Jo and his family, at the oddly-cheap-for-Tribeca Japanese place whose Grade is no longer Pending and now a respectable B. Yum! We'd just tucked into our meals, and amidst the Flemglish, I notice a familiar face not far from our table. Abs Millepied himself! I wasn't sure, so I (discreetly) asked Jo, who speculated that She might come in, which would, of course, confirm the first sighting. And who should then enter but a very pregnant woman-whom-all-men-who've-ever-found-me-even-OK-are-lusting-after.

In my last unmarried moments, I suppose I did risk being left for Natalie Portman, which I of course would have been kind of OK with, considering. This was all the more risky given that Jo had just gotten an especially good haircut at Astor Place, and considering an alleged shared interest in astrophysics (sustained, apparently* - I'd have been stuck talking French intermarriage with the Gallic beau). But a variety of factors - her being about to give birth, the presence not only of Abs and myself, but also the Belgians, created a buffer.

* Ha! "It would have been great if we had seen Jane fall for Thor, not because of what he looked like without his shirt on, but because behind the gruff exterior he knew more deep physics than she did."

Grade Pending

-"South Park" must - must! - take on "Bridalplasty."

-As Terry, the chef on "Fawlty Towers," would have it, "the better the kitchen, the filthier it is." True, true. All my favorite spots (including, alas, the only affordable sushi in Tribeca, the best almond croissants on the Upper West Side...) are worst-ofs according to the Health Department website. My preferred restaurant in Chinatown had been closed altogether. In theory. Christmas day, its business was booming. A Christmas miracle! Still opted to return to a different establishment.

-Spot the astrophysics joke. I made the mistake of reading this aloud to my boyfriend, who wasn't fully listening, and who thought I was saying some 24-year-old in his field had been described as "noted."

-What is "New American Style"? If we're going by what represents America abroad, I'd think something less... white than this description. (Theory: old rich white people style moves east to west across the Atlantic, young inner-city minority-group style moves the other direction.) But then again, preppy has long since been reappropriated by the least-preppy Americans. No doubt the same will be true of "heritage," if it isn't already, or if "heritage" isn't just preppy with natural fibers replacing whatever it is that goes into making fleece.

-Snow, finally! Of course, the cape I ordered ages ago arrived just in time. It probably could still be worn, but my commitment to making snow-angels prevents it.

In which I learn how to use a "computer"

I just figured out (with technical help from Jo and, randomly enough, a comment thread to Dear Prudence) how to block the Facebook news feeds of the few acquaintances who've accounted for 99% of the information I've gotten from that site over the past however many years there's been such a thing as a Facebook news feed. Thanks to having done so, I can now find useful info, such as the fact that a college friend who's also dating a physicist (yes, there's a club) is getting to go to a taping of The Big Bang Theory and going to meet Sheldon. See, this is valuable information.

Pandas and galaxies

At the moment, it's just me and all the country's astronomers. What I mean is, I've accompanied Jo to DC, where he's attending a huge astronomy conference, and I'm watching cuddly pandas eat bamboo (the hotel's just next to the zoo and not a whole lot else), going to obscure museums (so far, I've seen exhibits on avant-garde Japanese fashion and American Jewish soldiers and the post-WWII DP camps), appreciating Whole Foods store-brand granola in a city that no doubt has good food somewhere but not somewhere I've found it, and pretending that DC in an especially cold winter is walkable, which, even with extreme layering, it's not.

Anyhow. WANT! (Yes, my purpose in life is to lower the average IQ in this astronomer-filled hotel.) While others study the galaxy, I just attempt to dress like it. Tragically, the $30 skirt is out of stock. These, meanwhile, are perfection, and would be an exception to my anti-leggings-as-pants rule. If there is a source for space-print material, and I could go about learning to make such clothes for myself, that's what the comments are for...

Dunkle Materie

Ich bin very impressed!

And he's smart, too!

Yay! Jo just passed his candidacy exam! It's all over the blogosphere! As preparation yesterday, I thought I should ask him some physics-related questions, but all I could come up with was that there is an inclined plane, and a ball rolls down it, and friction and, gosh, who knows. But anyway, congrats!

Another TV post (ducks head)

Latoya Peterson is correct that "The Big Bang Theory" is both hilarious and, well, racist. For one thing, the three characters that matter (Penny, Sheldon, and Leonard) are the white ones, while the two sidekicks providing comic relief are Indian (arranged marriages!) and Jewish (Portnoy-like sexual perversion, a repulsive appearance, and an overbearing mother with a New York accent!) respectively. Whereas the white characters go by their first names, humanizing them, the others go by their last, highlighting their ethnicity.

The notion that a TV show or movie somehow 'embraces diversity' because the drama between the white folks takes place against a mostly-silent background of non-whites is, of course, BS. Yet the show is kind of hilarious. While I'm supposed to be offended twice over - as a woman, by Penny the dumb blonde, and as a Jew, by Wolowitz the cliché - I'm... not? I don't know, it could just be that even if we see more of the white characters, they're not exactly portrayed in a flattering light. Leonard is in many ways a Jewish stereotype, both physically and as a character, yet he's meant to be an all-American nerd, whereas the tall, Germanic-looking Sheldon is both asexual (as in, never expressing romantic interest in anyone) and perhaps clinically socially awkward.

One gets the sense, both from the show and in real life, that (allow me to generalize) while not all Asian- or Jewish-Americas are nerds, of those who are, many grew up in cities or suburbs where they could find like-minded friends. Whereas many unhyphenated-American nerds grew up in small towns where they were, ala Sheldon, beat up or otherwise made to feel out-of-place for not, say, watching football. Furthermore, city or small town, the stereotype is for a Jewish or Asian kid (well, boy) in America to be nerdy, so there'd be less expectation for a naturally math-and-science-loving guy from either group to act otherwise than there would be for a non-'ethnic', native-born American boy, black or white. In a sense, I can imagine Leonard or Sheldon having had a harder time of it growing up than Koothrappali or Wolowitz. Does that matter for the show? Kind of, because it gives an alternate explanation for why we're supposed to care more about the white physicists, other than the fact that someone behind the scenes decided this would be a 'white show' and as such had to feature whites.

While I mostly agree with her analysis of the show, I do have to take issue with Peterson's question: "So, we only get one nerd of color?" It seems clear to me that we get, at the very least, one and a half. As Peterson notes later in the post, "the character of Wolowitz is coded as heavily Jewish as Raj is coded as a the perpetual foreigner, but with a bit more malice. Wolfowitz [sic - Freudian slip?] lives up to a great many Jewish stereotypes, including having a mother who appears only as a shrieking, disembodied voice determined to ruin any chance Wolowitz has at a normal life." While the actor who plays Wolowitz looks remarkably like Jason Schwartzman, who is most certainly white in "The Darjeeling Limited," Wolowitz is not white in the context of the "The Big Bang Theory." It's not at all hard to imagine that this same actor, in another role and context, would be seen as white, thus the Jews-and-race conundrum.

P.S. Thanks to Matt for the link, and thus for leading me to this post!

Template for a run-out-of-ideas blog post:

Did you ever hear about Group X? They have First World Problem Y. The told the New York Times allll about it. Have they no shame? Surely the author of the article accurately represented Group X, because come on, these are horrible people. Aren't they so spoiled? Can you believe people like Group X exist? It's disgusting. My friends and I are nothing like the members of Group X. Wait, let me look up details about the various members of Group X, because obviously what will upset the Group Xers and show them their place is more publicity.

Or, why Rita has the right idea. Of course, if everyone eliminated re-mocking people mocked in the NYT from their bloggings, there'd be a whole lot of empty space on the Internet.

Major (scientific) questions of our age

Looks like Jo wrote another paper! It's about gravity and particles and other things I know tons about. What can I say, math is hard.

Silliness aside, well done, Jo!