Two quick (completely unrelated) links...

1) Remember this post about Tamara, who graduated from Roanoke with me? Short recap: she wrote a blog about 31 dates in 31 days. Well, how about an ending straight out of a movie? Love it!

2) Via Andrew Sullivan, a really cool chart that helps you understand cell size.

31 Dates in 31 Days

Some of you who are Roanoke grads and Facebook users are probably already aware of a blog that ought to be required reading: Tamara Duricka's 31 Dates in 31 Days. Tamara was one of my coolest classmates at Roanoke and it's been so much fun reading about her adventures on the dating scene in New York. And she was even on Good Morning America today! I wouldn't be surprised if this idea turns into a movie script.

"Emily Dickinson's Secret Lover"

Awesome title for an article, right? Here are some other choice parts:

"Yet the notion of Emily Dickinson making out in her living room is so foreign to our conception of her that her autumnal tryst with Judge Lord has never become part of the popular lore about her.

The discovery that Dickinson did not have to wait until her dotage to experience some of the pleasures of ordinary romantic companionship has so far sunk like a stone, too. A carefully argued scholarly article titled "Thinking Musically, Writing Expectantly: New Biographical Information About Emily Dickinson," published this summer in the staid New England Quarterly, has caused not a ripple.

The author, Carol Damon Andrews, is an independent scholar who has worked at the Worcester Art Museum in central Massachusetts. She told a reporter for the Amherst Bulletin that she was pursuing some family history among her Penniman ancestors when she stumbled across two intriguing entries in the diaries of Eliza Houghton Penniman, a music teacher who gave piano lessons in Amherst before settling in Worcester.

The first entry reads, in part: "I commenced teaching vocal & instrumental music when I was 16. My first pupils were Fanny Sellon daughter of Dr S. of Amherst … & lawyer Dickinson's daughter Emily." This was in 1839, when Emily Dickinson was 8 years old. Part of the understated charm of Andrews' article is that she gives as much attention to her discovery that Dickinson's musical education began six years earlier than had previously been supposed as she does to the bombshell that follows, in a later diary entry:

'In Amherst … I had a class in music: … Emily Dickinson, daughter of lawyer Dickinson, to whom Dr. George Gould of Worcester, was engaged when in college there. Lawyer Dickinson vetoed the whole affair, the Rev. George being a POOR student then, and poor Emily's heart was broken.'"

That Emily Dickinson wasn't just some weird old maid sitting in her room is a point I enjoy making to my students every semester--especially when we read a poem like "Wild Nights! Wild Nights!"--sent, in letter form, to her sister-in-law (!) who lived next door.

I look forward to reading all of Andrews' article, especially since I am very fond of the New England Quarterly, especially their December 2005 issue.

Tales of Fourth-Grade Love

Here's just a brief glimpse of (we hope) lots of treasures to come: a note from Mike S.*, my fourth and fifth grade boyfriend. Here's what I remember about Mike S.: he was super cute, with dark hair and dark eyes, but short--probably the shortest boy in our class. He wore a three piece suit with a red tie to our first day of school. (We didn't wear uniforms back then, but did have a strict dress code--even still, a three-piece suit stood out!) He got into trouble all the time. This was of great concern to the teachers at our small private school, since I was a goody-goody who never got in trouble. Classic case of good girl/bad boy syndrome. He tried so hard to be good and impress me, but couldn't resist getting into trouble. I would get mad at him when he would get in trouble and then he would apologize and be good for a while. Seriously. How funny is that? One time, my teacher even tried to talk me out of liking him. But I was smitten with this little guy, and the feeling was mutual. I have a whole stack of notes from him--notes like the one I'll post below.

Here's a transcript:

"Dear Heidi,

Everyone thinks I like melanie and rayna. But I don't, they like me. Do you like Chris? I've heard he likes you. I'm in big trouble because my father found out I drew a heart with your name above it like this. [Drawing of heart with arrow with "Heidi" above it]

Love, Mike"

Sweet, right? This must have come early on in our "relationship," when insecurities and jealousies ran high. I also love the Romeo and Juliet touch of an angry father. (If I remember correctly, his dad wanted him to concentrate on school, not girls.)

Anyway, our romance continued for about a year and a half, until he was (no joke) expelled from our small, Lutheran school for well...you wouldn't believe me if I told you...

*Last name withheld to protect his identity--and because, although I remember how to pronounce it, I sure can't remember how to spell it.

Love in space...

Take a look at this pretty funny article (from a Russian publication) about making babies in space. (You might want to send the kiddies out of the room.) My favorite excerpt is below. Is it just me, or it is simultaneously poetic and ultra technical? I guess that's a result of translation...

"'The biggest problem is how to conceive, because liquid cannot be spilt under the condition of weightlessness,' he added. 'But they do not need a bed in space. They can love each other in the air. And what will come out of that? As soon as he touches her, she will fly away in the opposite direction. A bed or at least some fastening device on a wall is more likely to be used.'"

Just in time for Valentine's Day...

...A thoroughly depressing Atlantic Monthly article with advice for single women age 30 and up: Settle! Ugh.

I will admit, though, that I related to this passage, even though I never watched Will and Grace:

"It’s not that I’ve become jaded to the point that I don’t believe in, or even crave, romantic connection. It’s that my understanding of it has changed. In my formative years, romance was John Cusack and Ione Skye in Say Anything. But when I think about marriage nowadays, my role models are the television characters Will and Grace, who, though Will was gay and his relationship with Grace was platonic, were one of the most romantic couples I can think of. What I long for in a marriage is that sense of having a partner in crime. Someone who knows your day-to-day trivia. Someone who both calls you on your bullshit and puts up with your quirks."

Actually, I think that what the author describes here (changing notions of romance) isn't settling at all, so much as it's growing up. Than again, maybe growing up is about settling into reality, whatever the heck that is.

Interestingly, I have just re-read Joyce's "Araby," a text we'll discuss in my ENG 102 course on Wednesday, and a story all about idealistic, romantic notions being crushed and put away:

"Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger."

Wake me up on February 15, okay?

Feminism and Romance

A conversation I have with some of my students every semester:

Young female student: "I'm not a feminist or anything, but..."
Me: "Well, do you believe in equal pay for equal work?"
Young female student: "Yes."
Me: "Do you believe you should have all the same rights as a man?"
Young female student: "Ummm...yeah."
Me: "Then I'm sorry--you're a feminist."
[Here's where the student usually laughs or thinks I am just crazy. Here's also where I take the time to point out that by this definition, many of the guys in the class are also feminists. They seem uncomfortable with this. I try to tell them that they shouldn't be--girls love guys who are all about girl power.]

Anyway, maybe I should bring this study to the attention of every young female student I have who claims she isn't a "feminist," as if the only kinds of feminists out there are bra-burners, male-haters or, as one of my students put it the other day, "big hairy lesbians." (Freshman can be so poetic sometimes.) In a nutshell:

"They found that having a feminist partner was linked to healthier heterosexual relationships for women. Men with feminist partners also reported both more stable relationships and greater sexual satisfaction. According to these results, feminism does not predict poor romantic relationships, in fact quite the opposite."

Translation: feminsts have better sex and healthier relationships--and their partners are happier, too. This shouldn't surprise us: a woman with a good sense of self-worth interested in a relationship based on equality (with a partner who feels the same way) is in a great position to have a successful relationship, especially compared to women who feel inferior to or submissive towards their partners.

Hey--this might be my most "adult" post yet. So I suppose I should add a disclaimer: I'm just reporting facts, not endorsing any actions. That's just in case my family--especially my parents--ever reads this blog. No worries, Mom and Dad, my own options for testing this hypothesis has been severely limited during my grad-school/job-search/new-faculty/only-slightly-voluntary "man sabbatical" (a term I borrowed from my friend Gretchen).