Please let me know of errors and omissions. Leave your new or updated link in the comments--don't be shy! :)
The old "page 123" meme is going around again. Here are the instructions:
Pick up the nearest book.
Open to page 123.
Find the fifth sentence.
Post the next three sentences.
Yesterday was the last day of nice temperatures for a while, so the family hung out in the backyard, savoring the nice evening. (Today it was in the 90s, and the rest of the week will be in the 100s.)
(Click on photos to embiggen.)
Flowers from the yard:
Lucas is getting tall. He has also, in the past two weeks, begun talking in sentences. It was a very sudden transition--from one-word demands to subjects, verbs, adjectives--and his vocabulary has exploded.
I envy him his perfect skin:
He's tall. Sometimes he seems to be all long legs and giant head.
He retains his crazy fine motor skills. He spends a lot of time at his multimedia table, where we keep watercolors, markers, crayons, glue sticks, little foam pieces to glue onto paper, stickers, and scissors. He also loves to garden: to dig, to water the grass, to pull apart leaves and grasses.
At age 14, Woody remains a financial liability, but his quality of life is still quite high.
Mr. Trillwing and Woody understand each other incredibly well. Woody has always been Mr. T's emotional barometer, and continues to be so, even though he's now deaf (or pretends not to hear us). It used to be I could walk in the door and determine Mr. Trillwing's mood by glancing at Woody.
Mr. T doesn't like his own chin and neck. His vanity makes me giggle. I like watching him age, which he's doing quite gracefully. I mean, the dude is 46 years old, and do you see any gray hair or wrinkles?
As of today, Lucas has a new haircut (and a dirty face). No indication yet if he'll get the reddish hair and freckles Mr. T had as a kid.
We have a lot of stuff; this blog didn't get the name "The Clutter Museum" for nothing. However, aside from piles of paper and Lucas's toys and art supplies, this clutter doesn't tend to clog up the house.
It's all in the garage.
See, I'm very much of a save-and-purge mentality. I want to save up enough stuff to warrant making the trip to the thrift store to donate, or enough to have a yard sale. That, however, is a lot of stuff. So I tend to accrue piles of things I no longer want or need, but that are still in good condition: books, clothes that are in classic styles but no longer fit, toys that Lucas has outgrown.
It's this last category--all the material culture that accompanies baby- and toddlerhood--that I find particularly difficult to deal with. My approach has been to put my maternity clothes and Lucas's outgrown clothing, as well as his infant toys, into big plastic bins in the garage. I was saving them for our next child.
A few months ago, Mr. T and I decided to try to conceive a second child, but it quickly became clear to us that we lack the emotional energy, the physical energy, or the financial wherewithal to care for a sibling for Lucas. I'll soon be going back on the pill.
I'm 32 (soon 33), so I know my years of easy conception are waning. Sure, I understand I haven't closed completely the door to a larger family; after all, I could go off the pill within the next few years and still have a statistically low-risk pregnancy, or we could grow the family through adoption.
However, Mr. Trillwing is 13 years older than I am, and he does not want to be a raising teenagers when he should be enjoying his senior citizen years. I don't blame him. The thought of putting TWO kids through college--financially and emotionally--makes me uneasy. Really, despite my dreams of providing Lucas with a sibling--I can't imagine not having my own sister in my life--on paper the decision to have only one child is a no-brainer. Financially and environmentally and in terms of marital stress, it makes perfect sense.
But back to the stuff in the garage.
One of the hinges that raises and lowers our garage door broke a few days ago, and the landlord is sending out someone to fix it this week. To make the repairs, the door installer needs everything in the garage to be cleared away from the door to a depth of ten feet.
That's a lot of stuff--mostly Lucas's baby stuff. The automatic swing, the vibrating bouncy chair, the toddler play center, the playpen and safety gates, the bathtub that fits neatly into the kitchen sink. Numberless onesies in newborn and infant sizes, bearing their embroidered puppies and bunnies, their tiny cars and trains.
I need to figure out what to do with all of it. Giving it away means acknowledging, at least for the time being, that there will not be another baby in our lives, that we will never again share the joy of a first smile, of early giggles, of first steps and babbled words. (It also means no more sleepless nights or mastitis or runny poop, but of course I'm overlooking all those experiences.)
It means acknowledging, in short, that Lucas's babyhood is behind him. I might have come to grips with this development sooner, since he is almost three and a half feet tall. But I've noticed that every week Lucas grows less interested in the last of his baby toys. Even though he's young enough still to sleep in a crib, he's old enough to be afraid of the dark and whatever lurks in it. This week he requested a night light for the first time.
To be honest, many of the trapping of Lucas's babyhood will be easy to give away--I never was fond of them anyway, except that they have a connection to my son. But I do tear up when I think of the vibrating aquarium bouncy chair: 
The chair sat by my desk for many months as I was writing my dissertation. Lucas snoozed or looked at soft books or gazed, fascinated, at the bubbles and lights and sounds of the "aquarium." I can still summon the buzz, its exact pitch and cycle rumbling against the ball of my foot as I gently rocked Lucas, and I can still hear the sounds of waves that emanated from the speaker--still see, in my mind, its little light show. During those naps of Luke's, I sat in the dim dining nook that served as my office, the only sounds the vibrating chair, the recording of waves, and my typing. My dreams--of a completed dissertation, of motherhood, of a tenure-track teaching job--were illuminated then by the white light of a laptop, and by the gently pulsing, colorful lights meant to soothe an infant.
Getting rid of that chair means not only acknowledging that my little boy is growing up and that I'll likely not have another baby, but that another window is closing: All that academic training I had, all those aspirations and hopes of being rewarded in a traditional way for my intellectual efforts--my hopes, in short, for a tenure-track teaching job, are also passing away. We all know that working outside the classroom, that not publishing regularly, within the couple of years after graduating, can indicate to search committees a lack of intellectual resolve, a lack of loyalty to the ways and culture of the academy.
I remind myself of how much I love my current job. But in many ways accepting an academic staff job is like going back on the pill--it's one way of assuring one's intellectual progeny, if one has any at all after committing to an 8-to-5 gig, will not be taken as seriously as those on the tenure track.
Once I get on this train of thought, it's hard to get off, as any depressive knows: I should have worked for a disciplinary, instead of an interdisciplinary, Ph.D. I should have researched a topic that has more contemporary relevance. (Hello? I started my Ph.D. program days after September 11, but did it ever occur me to look at Middle Eastern studies, even though I was in a program and at a university that could have supported such research?) I should have spent less time pursuing my many intellectually and aesthetic interests and more time focusing on publishable topics. I shouldn't have spent so much time teaching.
But: I'm a damn good teacher. I like my areas of research. I like that I have many interests.
I also love being a mom, and I've observed that pursuing a full-fledged academic career makes being an engaged parent very difficult. I know I've done a good job of triangulating our financial resources, Mr. Trillwing's and my desire to have careers, and our geographic location into a high quality of life for Lucas.
That said, I'm always considering alternative paths: different careers, ones that will let me spend more time with Lucas while he's still young. Different, less expensive towns. Ways to live closer to our family support network. Alternative, more productive or creative or fulfilling ways to spend my precious evening leisure time.
Making these decisions is tough. And there's a lot of physical and emotional clutter--a warehouse of vibrating aquarium bouncy chairs--between me and where I need to be.
No, not me: Mr. Trillwing is celebrating ten years of sobriety today. If you have a moment, please go congratulate him.
Congratulations, Honey. I'm so proud of you.
As seen just about everywhere, but most recently at The Doctor Isn't:
First, the rules:
Step 1: Put your MP3 player or whatever on random.
Step 2: Post the first line from the first 25 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing the song.
Step 3: Post and let everyone you know guess what song and artist the lines come from.
Step 4: Strike through when someone gets them right
Looking them up on Google or any other search engine is CHEATING.
If you don't normally do very well at this game, you might take a gander at #16. Guessing the artist is pretty damn easy.
BTW, if you're a 20th-century Americanist, and you don't know the singer/songwriter in #12 and #20 (same dude), I'm going to have to revoke your folklore credentials. Seriously--the lyric contents just give it away.
My favorite first line from this group is #5 because hey, who doesn't love little baby ducks?
Mr. Trillwing is NOT allowed to play here, though I do tag him for this meme.
One final note: I only brought one of the following artists into my marriage. The elves load up my iPod in the middle of the night, and their tastes are alarmingly similar to Mr. Trillwing's. The iPod elves have (largely) converted me to their tastes.
(I'm bolding the ones that have been correctly identified because I'm not big on the strikethrough thing.)
1. Take an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, just like they say in the Bible.
2. I saw the harbor lights; they only told me we were parting.
3. How did I ever find you? I've been waitin' so long.
4. Oh my fair North star, I have held to you dearly.
5. I love little baby ducks, old pick-up trucks, slow-movin' trains, and rain. (Tom T. Hall, "I Love")
6. Come along and ride this train. (Johnny Cash, "Ride This Train")
7. You wake up in the morning, drink a beer and take a valium. (Tom T. Hall, "Everything From Jesus to Jack Daniels")
8. Every time you touch her sets your hands on fire.
9. I saw you this morning / you were moving so fast.
10. If this isn't love, the whole world is crazy. If this isn't love, I'm daft as a daisy.
11. Love is blindness, I don't want to see / won't you wrap the night around me? (U2, "Love is Blindness")
12. Go to sleep, you weary hobo. (Woody Guthrie, "Hobo's Lullaby")
13. Do the mornings still come early / Are the nights not long enough?
14. I took the Polaroid down in my room / I'm pretty sure you have a new girlfriend.
15. I'll be clickin' by your house about 2:45 / Sidewalk sundae strawberry surprise
16. "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash." (Johnny Cash, Opening Medley, Johnny Cash Show)
17. Don'tcha take it too bad, if you're feeling unlovin'.
18. On the floor of the limo, there's a bottle of whiskey, a white Stetson hat with a fine feathered band.
19. Feelings are strange, especially when they come true
[skipping over a Spirit Nation song in Lakota, since I have no chance of transcribing it correctly]
20. It was early springtime, and the strike was on / it drove us miners out of doors / out from the houses that the company owned. (Woody Guthrie, "Ludlow Massacre")
21. In the rattle of the paddle came a whisper soft and low / from a soldier who had been wounded in the fray. (Johnny Cash, "When the Roses Bloom")
22. Darling, I'm in love with you, and I'll be one with you one day.
23. I want to walk into the light / Day has turned cold; hold back the night.
24. All the snow has turned to water, Christmas days have come and gone.
25. Take my hand and run with me, out of the past called yesterday.
(cross-posted from BlogHer)
On Thursday, the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service's tax-exempt division told an audience at Georgetown University that the IRS would be looking into how colleges and universities spend (or don't spend) their endowments. (You can download his remarks here as a PDF.) Senator Charles Grassley (R - Iowa) and others have called for an investigation--and potentially regulation--of endowment spending by U.S. colleges and universities. Representative Peter Welch (D - Vermont) also amended HR 4137, a reauthorization of the Higher Education Act as the "College Opportunity and Affordability Act of 2007," to require "annual reporting by colleges and universities on how much of their endowment was paid out each year for the purpose of containing college costs." Welch also had proposed, but withdrew in February, an amendment that would have required colleges to withdraw at least 5 percent of their endowment each year and to use those funds to contain the cost of college for students.
But what is an endowment, exactly? Concordia University Wisconsin describes it thus:
An endowment is an amount of money (fund) that is given to the University with a stipulation that the funds are invested to earn annual interest rather than spent immediately.
a permanent source of income for University programs and/or departments. Gifts to an endowment are invested, with a percentage (currently 3.8%) of the income growth supporting a specific University purpose as directed by the donor(s). The remaining income (minus an administrative fee) is reinvested into the endowment, ensuring that the value of the investment grows forever.
Non-university foundations are required to spend at least 5% of their total value each year to retain their tax-exempt status. At issue is whether there should be a 'required payout' for university endowments, as well. These can be sizable amounts -- for Harvard, that would mean an annual payout approaching $2 billion. The universities with the largest endowments are spending less than the 5% per year required of non-university foundations. Some parents of students at some of these schools have asked why tuition remains so high if the endowments have, over the past decade of investment, created such wealth for the universities.
It's particularly disgusting for universities, centers of free thought about the values, insights, and behaviors that matter most to a culture, to represent grasping money-making machines, as Harvard does to more and more people. The striking thing about Harvard University, the talked-about thing, the thing much more notable than its professors and its libraries (which, as Tim points out, aren't as impressive as you might think given all that cash), is a degree of wealth unmatched by many nations of the world. What sort of power fantasy is Harvard playing here? Why has it, in gaining wealth obscenely disproportionate to any other institution of higher learning in the world, and obscenely disproportionate to anything that Harvard University might need to maintain and improve itself, removed itself from the fellowship of universities?
It sounds very appealing in some respects to make attending completely free, but two things to consider. First, what’s the argument for making it free to wealthy families? That doesn’t serve a social justice objective. Even in a very well-endowed institution, there is a sizeable per-student cost. If it isn’t defrayed by tuition, it’s paid from endowment income, and that payment deprives the institution of other opportunities to use those funds elsewhere.
Second, there’s a lot of evidence out there that lowering the sticker price of selective higher education has a perverse impact on the quality of applicants, e.g., that parents are using high prices as an informational signal of quality.
How then do charitable institutions of higher education justify the practice of increasing spending on merit aid at the expense of need-based financial aid on their campuses? The strategy, which has quite a number of adherents, essentially seeks to raise or maintain institutions’ status by buying well-credentialed students who don’t need the money. Funds that could help academically-qualified poor kids to enroll in good schools are instead being used to entice affluent students with fat GPAs and high SAT scores, the raw material (along with endowment figures, graduation rates, and other quantifiable factors) upon which institutional status is built.
The disparity is made worse at a time when students from low-income families -- one of the fastest growing segments of college-age young people -- are finding it increasingly difficult to afford college at all. Many of those financially-needy students who make it to college are being forced to take on unmanageable levels of debt, including higher-priced private loans, as a result of these policies.
Would it serve the public good to compel wealthy colleges to spend a minimum percentage of their endowments each year? We think so. Currently, 62 colleges have endowments of at least $1-billion and they control the vast majority of higher education endowment assets, according to the National Association of College and University Business Officers. Perhaps the lawmakers should focus the proposal on those institutions and any others that eventually reach the $1-billion mark -- that way they can't possibly be accused of endangering colleges that are anywhere near the financial brink.
Given the rising tuitions, embracing the mandatory payouts is tempting. But for several reasons, that would be a mistake:
* Impracticality. The popular image of endowments as a big slush fund is inaccurate. Most college endowments are a compilation of hundreds or even thousands of gifts, many restricted by the donors for specific purposes, such as the arts or sciences. A federal mandate to pry open endowments is as likely to create more science labs as student scholarships.
* Academic freedom. Congress stepping in to dictate how schools should handle their endowments is akin to telling them how to recruit freshmen classes.
* Future responsibilities. College officials refer to this as "intergenerational equity," which means not spending down what might be needed in the future.
A recent survey of 765 colleges and universities found they are spending 4.2 percent of their endowments’ value each year. Meanwhile, private foundations — which are legally required to spend at least 5 percent of their value annually — average 7 percent spending.
Higher education endowments differ from private foundations in one particularly important respect. Private foundations exist to give their money to others, while college and university endowments support just one charity — their school. But isn’t being your own sole beneficiary reason to spend more, not less? Particularly when a substantial area of spending — financial aid grants to current students — targets precisely the people you expect will be your future donors?
Paradoxically, it is precisely the meager financial aid outlays of endowment-rich colleges and universities that make the true miserliness of low payout practices most apparent. Stanford University spends $76 million on undergraduate financial aid, a sum that sounds generous but amounts to a mere 0.5 percent of the value of its endowment. The university spends just 4 percent of its $14 billion endowment toward operating expenses. If the 5 percent payout rule required Stanford to spend another 1 percent of its endowment, and that money was directed toward financial aid, students would enjoy $211 million in additional support. That is precisely the cost of letting all 6,600 Stanford undergraduates attend tuition-free.
The University of Texas’ nine campuses enroll 147,576 undergraduates who each pay on average $5,903 in tuition. All of U.T.’s undergraduates could attend school tuition-free if the system spent half the amount the university’s endowment grew just last year.
Of course just because a college can afford to offer education tuition-free doesn’t mean it should. Giving a free ride to students who can afford to pay obviously would cut into the bottom line in other ways. Also, education is a real service for which people should pay. And a higher quality education should command a steeper price.
But college and university endowment spending practices should reflect the public responsibility that adjoins tax-free status. When people donate to a school they get a tax break because their donation is supposed to serve the public. When those untaxed funds sit unused, piling up for decades, taxpayers are making a sacrifice and getting nothing in return.
