An Exciting Evening at Our House

It's been really crazy lately--one of those stretches when we barely have time to breathe, when one event barely ends and the next is beginning, when Henry and I found ourselves asking the dreaded question, "Will we ever have a date night again?" and truly thinking that it's possible that we may not. And that question was followed by "Why does everything happen all at once?"

So tonight, I left work a little late because I have a project with a looming deadline that I probably won't make, ran a few errands, and arrived home around 6:00. Jonathan was at his grandparents' house, and Katie doesn't come home for Christmas break until tomorrow night. Just Henry and me. And nothing we had to do, no place we had to go, no one to transport anywhere.

We didn't get any meat out of the freezer for dinner, so Henry suggested we just clean up some leftovers, which made dinner--and clean-up--quick and easy. In one of those this-almost-never-happens moments, we realized that it was 7:00--and really didn't have anything we had to do. And this is how the conversation went:

Annette: I feel like I should be doing something.
Henry: We should go for a walk.
Annette: It's 24 degrees outside.
Henry: People mall walk. We should mall walk.
Annette: Where do you want to go?
Henry: Meijer?
Annette: I don't think we'd be able to get much exercise there. I should just go to the mall and go Christmas shopping.
Henry: What are you going to get?
Annette: I don't know.
Henry: Then don't go.
Annette: What are you going to do? Do you need to work?
Henry: We could . . . relax.
Annette: Well, what are you going to do to relax?
Henry: We could read . . . watch Doc Martin, Monk, or Cranford.
Annette: Hmmm . . . read . . . I could blog! And we could listen to music.

And so it's official. We've turned into those people who don't know how to relax.We even have to work hard to figure out how we're going to relax. And even as I type this, I'm thinking that there must be something that I should be doing. But I'm just going to breathe and dream of that great Christmas tradition--the one with Mama in her kerchief and Papa in his cap, just settling down for a long winter's nap. And maybe I'll read.

An Open Letter

To Fashion Designers, Clothing Buyers, and Any Others Who Are Responsible for the Pathetic Selection of Women's Clothing in Department Stores Today:

I've just wasted three hours of my life in another futile attempt to buy clothes. And you would think that after so many such futile attempts, I would give up—except for one thing. My personal code of ethics—and the law—require me to wear clothes when I'm in public. The only thing that keeps me coming back is this: my desire not to be naked.

So here's a question for those of you who are making, designing, and selling clothes for women: do you have any idea what most women look like, what sizes they are, and what they want to wear? Life has taken its toll. Age, babies, the occasional order of French fries and desserts, and too little time and money to spare to spend it at the gym have left us wanting to dress in more than a piece of thin knit material that becomes translucent when stretched across a body that admittedly weighs 10 to 20 pounds more than it should. And while some of us have just given in and purchased the paper-thin garments you offer, others of us would prefer not to go around looking like one of those Pillbury biscuit cans that has just popped open, with the dough hanging out the edges. And even though we may be a little pudgy, we would still like to look nice and feel attractive. And I would be very happy to buy clothing that would achieve that—if only you would make it.

Another thing—why do you make twenty varieties of the same three styles for years on end? I have enough of the one-piece- that-looks-like-two shirt and vest sets. I'm still wearing the same ones that I bought several years ago when the style became popular, and I don't want any more. It's time to move on. And what's the deal with all of the cardigans again? I'm sick to death of layering—either because everything I buy is cut so low that modesty demands I wear something underneath or simply because the style requires it. And I WILL NOT wear leggings. And most of you out there past the age of 25 shouldn't be wearing them either. Give it up with the leggings!

And while I realize that this is a world gone crazy casual, there are still a few of us out there who are expected to wear something a little nicer than jeans and a hoodie to the office. I'm good with that; in fact, I prefer it. And if you were to pull out some of your old catalogs from a few years ago you would find an article called a skirt. I like wearing those too on occasion. Perhaps you could spend some of the energy directed toward coming up with another pattern for one-piece shirt and vest sets toward revisiting the skirt.

Clothing manufacturing industry, you are a disappointment to me. And yet I need you. And, believe it or not, you need me. Have you ever gone into a store at the close of a season and seen the racks and racks of leftover clothing that is now marked 75 percent off? Think about why that may be for a couple of minutes. While I don't think a government takeover of the fashion industry would solve the problem, something must be done. Soon. My clothes are wearing out.












 

It's Just a Theory

A very long time ago, when I was a junior high and high school language arts teacher, I used a common exercise that many teachers of language arts use to encourage their students to write creatively and imaginatively. In this exercise, the emphasis was not on grammar, spelling, punctuation--the mechanical things that bog student writers down--but on allowing ideas to flow from brain to paper with ease. Usually on one day of the week, I would provide my students with some type of writing prompt that they were to respond to in a journal. Topics were things like, "What was your favorite birthday gift?" Or "Write about your favorite vacation." One subject that comes up in nearly every teacher resource book is this: "What would you do if you were the principal of your school?"

Students would inevitably write things like: "Have pizza and candy for lunch every day." "Get rid of math class." "Have recess for four hours every day." "Let students sit wherever they want in their classrooms." Students usually responded impulsively and really didn't give much thought to what the consequences of their policies would be if they ever actually were put in place. It wasn't the point.

At the end of the year, I'd send their journals home with them, and if the journal even made it home, it was probably stuffed in a drawer or thrown in a closet. (I know this because this is what my children did when they brought their journals home.) Years later, probably during spring cleaning, the journal emerges from the crowded drawers or the back of the closet. Now an adult, the journal writer reads through his childish notions and laughs at his immature ideas about what would have made a good school to a junior high student. The adult realizes that it wouldn't have been nutritionally healthy to eat pizza and candy everyday; that in fact it was important to learn math skills; that having recess for four hours wouldn't leave enough time to learn what was really essential; that sitting next to his friends in class probably would have made it even more difficult to pay attention to lessons. He realizes that the consequences of his childish policies would have had a devastating impact on his life.

So I'm imagining a young Barack Obama journaling away on the topic of what he'd do if he were to become president of the United States: "I'd take over the auto, banking, and heathcare industries"; "I'd make abortion as accessible as possible to anyone who wants one"; "I'd spend more taxpayer dollars than all the previous administrations before me"; I'd say whatever I wanted whether I had all the information I needed to comment intelligently." "I'd have the best, most expensive vacations ever, and I wouldn't care about what anyone else thought." "I'll appoint justices to the Supreme Court who think the Constitution is an antiquated document that has nothing to say about law in the twenty-first century, who will create legislation from the bench that will benefit minorities in the interest of fairness."

At the end of the school year, instead of throwing his journal away, shoving it in a drawer, or pitching it to the back of his closet, young Barack left it open on his desk, and he read his policy ideas over and over and thought they were good, but he never quite made it to the maturing part that allowed him to understand that silly policies have terrible consequences. And so years later, he implements what he believes are great policies and doesn't really care about the consequences. The consequences are beside the point.

And somewhere, a language arts prep school teacher in Hawaii is kicking herself for using "What would you do if you were president?" as a writing prompt.

Annette and the Miserable, Crazy, Nasty, Ugly Monday Morning

If you've ever had any grade schoolers in your house, you've probably read (many times) Judith Viorst's classic, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. With my apologies to Judith and to those who really do have serious problems in their life, here's my own personal version.

Because of all the thunder, lightening, and storms, I didn't sleep very much last night, which meant that Henry didn't either. When I half-woke from my brief, but deep stupor, after awhile I realized that it was much lighter outside than it normally is when we get up. I looked at my clock and realized it was 6:45--about 45 minutes later than we were supposed to get up. Something had happened to the alarm. After realizing just how late we all were, Henry got up for the first shower because he had to take Jonathan to driver's ed, and they needed to leave by 7:30. I could tell it was going to be a miserable, crazy, nasty, ugly Monday morning.

As I made the bed and wrapped my mind around what needed to happen, I started to wonder if I would be able to get ready on time for my mammogram, scheduled for 8:00. An 8:00 Monday morning mammogram is not the best way to start the week already, but thinking that I might have to postpone to another day was somehow worse.

I think I'll move to Tahiti.

Jonathan had gone to the basement to sleep to escape the flashing and booming of the lightning and thunder. I went down to wake him, thinking he possibly slept past his alarm too. When I told him it was time to get up, he snarled at me because the alarm he had set hadn't gone off quite yet.

I showered and got ready pretty quickly. Katie's future Cornerstone roommate had come to stay for a couple of days, and they were using the bathroom--and Jonathan couldn't get in to get ready. The ensuing chaos was more than I could handle, so I went downstairs to grab some toast and a banana. Someone had changed the setting on the toaster so that my "toast" ended up being tannish, slightly warm bread. There was no coffee. I could tell that it was going to be a miserable, crazy, nasty, ugly Monday morning.

When I got to the lab for my mammogram, the grouchy lady at the front desk took my name, entered it in her computer, and scoldingly told me I was supposed to be there at 7:30. "That's not what my calendar said," I wittily shot back. "I wouldn't make an appoinment for that early." And I wouldn't. She told me if I hung around, maybe they could squeeze me in--no pun intended. I told her no thanks--I needed to get to work and I would reschedule. Maybe--if I'm lucky--I can get another Monday morning appointment.

I NEEDED coffee. I went across the street to Horrocks, a market where I was sure I had seen a coffee bar. When I went to the coffee area, a sign said that the coffee was complimentary for customers. Not feeling quite right about walking in, taking free coffee, and then walking out, I asked the deli lady if I could buy some. "Coffee's free," she said. I grabbed a nice cup of French Vanilla and three peaches to soothe my guilty conscience.

It was a miserable, crazy, nasty, ugly Monday morning.

When I got to work, I went to the ladies' room. I looked in the mirror as I washed my hands and realized that my eyes looked strange--washed out. I realized I had put on all my makeup except my mascara, an event that may have now occurred twice in all my make-up wearing years.

When I get home, I thought, I'm going to pack for Tahiti.

I have to say, though, that with the exception of AOL not loading my emails properly and my fighting through the haze of fatigue to do my work, the rest of the day wasn't so bad. Of course when I went to Walmart at lunchtime to pick up a few things I needed, they didn't have my brand of deodorant, so for the first time in my deodorant-using experience, I'm trying a new brand.

I wonder if they have Soft and Dry in Tahiti.

Facebooking 101

Last Friday was family visit day at Cornerstone University, where Katie will begin her college career next fall. Upon arrival, we were ushered into a room where we could sign up for optional activities during an hour in both the morning and afternoon. The three of us decided it would be interesting to sit in on a class, and we signed up for a required course: Intro to Fine Arts.

After attending what felt like an eternal chapel service (all praise and worship music) that seemed to be a tangible example of what Michael Horton is writing about in Christless Christianity (another blog post perhaps), Henry and I set off to find Intro to Fine Arts.

Let's just say college just isn't what it used to be, back when I was attending courses like Intro to Fine Arts. One of the perks for Cornerstone students is that they receive a notebook computer upon arrival to campus, so everyone has one. As we took our seats, we noticed all the students around us, waiting for the professor to come in, and that part is pretty much the same. But while in my day we would have been pulling out our spiral-bound notebooks and digging for pens while having a conversation with a friend, these students were . . . Facebooking.

Yes--WiFi has made its way into the hallowed halls of Cornerstone. To be fair, not all of the students were Facebooking. Some appeared to be randomly surfing the Net, hitting sites that had nothing to do with higher learning. As the professor took his place at the front of the classroom, I expected that students would now pull up the screen where they typed their notes for Intro to Fine Arts. The student sitting in front of me, though, spent the hour checking course options at Hope College, Calvin, and Cornerstone and recording his findings on his Google calendar. It appeared, briefly, that he was going to work on a paper for another class, but thought better of it and sent a couple of emails instead. The two girls sitting a few chairs down from us seemed to just be surfing, with occasional visits to their Facebook pages.

The professor was discussing some of the differences between Renaissance art in Italy and in Northern Europe. The discussion was interesting, and Henry and I were impressed with his lecture. At one point, the professor asked the students what important event occurred in late October 1517. No response from the class. He threw out a couple of other clues: it had to do with a monk . . . Wittenburg . . . I was crying inside, using every ounce of strength I had not to scream out, "Come on!" Finally, one student said, "Oh!" and started making a gesture as if he were hammering something. The poor professor finally managed to get the response he was looking for: the Reformation.

In a lunchtime conversation we had with a philosophy professor, I brought up the issue of WiFi in the classroom. He told us that this fall, he would be banning computers from his classroom. A co-worker at DHP who teaches freshman composition at Cornerstone tells me he plans to do the same thing. There are still some voices of reason, apparently.

Dear Cornerstone Administrators (because I can't imagine that professors would ever go for this):

What are you thinking, putting WiFi in the classrooms? Do you not know that it is an irresistible force, akin to the gravitational pull? Do you not know that it has a force greater than Renaissance art, Old Testament history, chlorophyll, the respiratory system, Isosceles triangles--pretty much anything that might be discussed in a university lecture hall?

Perhaps this is your secret plan to collect more tuition as students fail classes while checking their messages, writing on someone's wall, or taking a quiz to find out which Disney princess they are most like. If so, it will probably work, and fewer and fewer people in this world will know that Renaissance art in Italy was more idealistic while the art of Northern Europe was more realistic. On the other hand, they will know if they have Belle's independent spirit or Cinderella's work ethic. And that will get you a long way toward an accounting degree.

I do know, though, that the professors are on to you, and they are getting tired of lecturing to the wall and having no response to their questions. Most of them realize that notes can be taken with paper and pen, that technology is not always the answer. There is a life--indeed, a world--beyond Facebook.

Thank you for your efforts to encourage higher learning.

Sincerely,
Annette Gysen

And that was our day at Cornerstone.

Cherry Trees and Borrowed Books

Back in my grade school days (and probably for most who attended grade school back in the seventies), February was the month to honor the presidents--in particular, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln since February was their birth month. There were often art projects that involved cutting out silhouettes of the two men's profiles, and read-aloud time usually included two famous stories.

The first--which we now know is legend--was the story of Washington as a boy. In a moment of weakness, he chopped down his father's cherry tree. As all of us seventies children know, when Washington's perturbed father confronted him, young George did the right thing by admitting his wrongdoing: "I cannot tell a lie, father. It was I." While we children understood that chopping down that cherry tree was definitely the wrong thing to do, this future president foreshadowed the courage and honesty that would one day make him the heroic general who would become the first president of the United States. The moral: Great leaders are honest. They might mess up in some ways, but they would never tell a lie.

And then there was Honest Abe. As if the nickname alone weren't enough, we heard stories of Honest Abe walking twenty miles to return a borrowed book. The moral: Great leaders are responsible and always keep their promises. They put the needs of others before their own personal comfort. Personal integrity certainly is something that should be characteristic of anyone who holds public office.

Today, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told the press, "The bar that we set is the highest that any administration in the country has ever set."

Really? So what morals will the children of two hundred years from now learn from the read-aloud stories derived from this administration?

Perhaps one will be that a president doesn't really need to keep promises after he or she has been elected. It's all well and good to appoint former lobbyists to work in areas for which they've lobbied, even if you've promised not to do that--if they're really, really good at what they do and if their knowledge will further the agenda of the administration.

Another moral will be that if you appear to be sorry enough and pay back the taxes that you owe once you've been caught in tax "mistakes," you could still serve as the treasury secretary. But a combination of lobbying and tax indiscretions will disqualify you from a political appointment.

Ill-advisedly pardoning criminals in a previous administration is definitely part of high bar-setting. Looking the other way to set free a friend of the president who is guilty of tax evasion, fraud, racketeering, and funding America's enemies is a great credential for an attorney general.

In fact, the moral, as our president explained in his inaugural address, is that we measure things by whether they work. George could have served his country just as well if he framed the neighbor boy for chopping down that cherry tree and had never been found out. And if the person twenty miles away had forgotten his loaned book, Abe would have been perfectly justified in hanging onto it, especially since he was probably poorer than the person he borrowed it from.

And if you're bored by read-aloud time, maybe you could just play with your handheld electronic device, text message your friends, or sleep. The moral: Read-aloud time and stories extolling the virtues of former presidents may not be what works best for you. Practicing what works best for you--and getting away with it--may just be the best possible training for a career in politics.

Yes, It's True . . .

Please be sure that you're sitting down as you read this post. I wouldn't want to be responsible for any head injuries or broken limbs, for what I'm about to reveal here is shocking and certainly earth shattering:

I don't have a Facebook account.

Are you okay? Take some deep breaths. Have a drink of water. Put a cool washcloth on the back of your neck. I'll say it slowly as you adjust to the concept:

I

don't

have

a

Facebook

account.

I can nearly feel the collective gasp of the universe.

At least once a week I must respond to someone who wonders how a woman like myself, living in the twenty-first century, could possibly live, move, and breathe--indeed, connect with the real world without a Facebook account.

So once for all I'm going to set the record straight so that there is an answer, here in the blogosphere, to the question of why I don't have a Facebook. Let me assure you that in my mind these are strictly personal reasons that probably have absolutely nothing to do with you and your life. And that's okay. My reasons are my reasons; they don't have to be yours. There is much of value in having a Facebook, my 17-year-old tells me. And who knows more about socializing than a 17-year-old girl?

So here they are. The reasons Annette Joy Walborn Gysen doesn't have a Facebook:

1. You must be familiar with the parental cliches. There are about 37 of them. They're universals, and every parent uses them. Most of the time, they go right past us, and we don't pay any attention to them. But once in a while, one sticks, and there is no glue solvent strong enough to pull off a stuck cliche. In my case this is the one that stuck: "So if everyone else was jumping off a bridge, would you do it too?" And the answer, of course, is no--absolutely not! And this has become something of a life theme for me in certain areas, so that the more people doing something, the more convinced I am that it's not for me. I think you know where this is headed. If over 30 million people have Facebooks, I'll be the one in 30 million who doesn't have one. There's something satisfying for me about that.

2. Been there, done that. I've done the whole social networking thing already, and I've decided that I personally prefer flesh-and-blood encounters. Before there was a Henry, before most of you who are my age and older even heard of Facebook, I was networking on a Reformed adult singles site. Yes, it was a dating site, but it was also a site where friendships could form, where chatrooms were filled with the conversations of men and women in their early twenties to their seventies, where you could leave a brief message of encouragement, jest, or flirtation. It was fun for awhile, but for me, it was hard to convince myself that these relationships were real, that they could exist anywhere outside of cyberspace. For some people, this works. In fact, there were a number of couples who met and married. But for me, it wasn't really a satisfying means of communication, of socializing.

3. There's something of a generational boundary issue here. Parents and teenagers don't listen to the same music, wear the same clothes, and they don't have the same social hangouts. While I realize that Facebook is no longer only the domain of college students and teens, it started out that way in our family. And one of the things I learned from being a junior high/high school teacher and parent is that there need to be some lines--things they may do that I won't because I've reached a level of maturity that they haven't, some "them and us" dividers. For me, one of those places is Facebook. I don't go there, and I don't expect my teenage daughter to come with me to ladies' Bible study. I'm older; she's younger.

4. I just don't have that interesting of a life. If I were to post my status today, it would look like this:

Annette Gysen is sick of winter, and it's only January (so unique, isn't it?).

Annette Gysen is going to work.

Annette is really excited that Carol brought soup for everyone for lunch today.

Annette Gysen is copyediting right now.

Annette Gysen is still copyediting.

Annette Gysen continues to copyedit.

Annette Gysen is cranking the heat in her car on the way home and enjoying the warmth.

Annette Gysen is warming up leftovers for dinner.

Annette Gysen is having lots of fun sorting laundry and paying bills.

Annette Gysen is blogging about why she doesn't have a Facebook.

Scintillating--isn't it? Why anyone would want to read the details of my life is beyond me. I bore myself sometimes. And--I'm not saying this to be mean--but I really don't care what you're watching on TV, eating for dinner, or thinking about what kind of dog the Obamas should get for their daughters right now. I don't really even care what groups you belong to or who your friends are. In fact, I think we're both better off not knowing these things about each other.

5. In all seriousness--a friend of mine shared with me that many of the members of her church have Facebooks, and this enables them to let each other know when there are prayer concerns, when there's been a death or a birth--important matters of church life. But our pastor is very conscientious about letting us church members know all of these things by email. So if one in the body has a prayer concern that he or she wants to share, we all know about it and are on top of it. So for me, there isn't a need for a Facebook.

6. There are so many reasons, and I could go on for a very long time. And for me, that's the point. There are already other things I should be doing tonight, and here I sit, blogging. What if I had to go answer messages, post pictures, or write my own messages on someone's wall after finishing here? I can only allow myself to waste so much cyber-time.

7. I have to believe there's some money, celebrity status, something about one day being one of the ten people in the world who doesn't have a Facebook. I'm sure there will be a People magazine article, maybe a spot on Dateline, who knows--maybe I'll be able to write a bestseller about how I survived being Facebookless. There's nothing hotter right now than Amish fiction, and probably being Facebookless is akin to that in the twenty-first century. I think I just figured out how I'll make it in my retirement . . .

Postage Madness

Who would have thought that a little postage stamp could produce such huge headaches? In the grand scheme of wedding planning, I considered postage stamps to be a fairly small consideration--not worth a great deal of thought. I was pleased with myself a few months ago when I discovered the Website zazzle.com, where it is actually possible to purchase customized postage stamps. For not much extra money, I purchased some lovely "G" monogram stamps to use on thank-you notes, wedding invitations, and RSVP cards. And I was especially pleased because they were forever stamps, purchased at .41 cents each but useable even after postage rates went up.

However, I am quickly learning that in wedding planning, you really never can get too far ahead. This weekend as my mom, sister-in-law, niece, Katie, and I were collating and stuffing envelopes with invitations, I noticed a little suggestion from the makers of the invitations that I have the invitations weighed before mailing them out. I thought for a moment how embarrassing it would be if people had to pay extra postage to receive wedding invitations and quickly decided that it would be worth a quick trip to the mailroom at work to find out if my G stamps would do the job.

As Teresa, our expert mailroom person, took the invitation in hand, she knowingly commented that the invitation was probably going to require more postage than a typical letter, and weighing it only confirmed that reality. I told myself that we could still use the G stamps--on thank-you notes, on anything, really, that needed to be mailed. They were not a loss. I'd just head out to the post office at lunchtime and get what I needed, and the invitations would be in the mail by this Friday--right on schedule.

Who can fathom the reasoning of the US Postal Service, however? The postal clerk weighed the invitation, told me that it would cost .59 cents to mail each one, and I observed a poster with a wedding stamp on it. I said, "Can I get 70 of those?"

"No," she responded, "those won't be available till mid-June." Hasn't the US Postal Service heard of June weddings, which would require wedding postage stamps to be available by late April to early May? At this point, I decided to exhibit my maturity by finding out my other options. There was probably a pretty flower stamp or something attractive that I could use to mail my lovely invitations.

I discovered that the US Postal Service is charging us all .59 cents for mailings of two ounces, but does not yet have stamps available. One option was to purchase the above shown 2007 wedding stamp and add a .01 cent stamp with a Tiffany lamp on it. I would have to go downtown to the post office there, however, to purchase the dated wedding stamps. Another possibility was to use the .42 cent G stamps and add a .17 cent blue stamp with a ram's head on it. Then there's always metered postage, which the clerk told me I wouldn't want to do. I could have purchased stamps that cost .63 cents that were some kind of an orange shade, and there was another stamp in the .60-.70 cent range (the options began to blur after a while) of a river cutting through a hilly area, but for the extra cost, neither of them said anything of elegance, love, marriage, or romance.

Of course, the Friday deadline loomed ever before me, but I turned again to zazzle.com. In hindsight, I had decided that even though the G stamps were classy looking, they probably weren't the best choice, since I had G monogram seals for the envelopes, and the fonts really didn't match. So this gave me the opportunity to select an image that would be even more attractive and eye catching than the G.

This whole experience leads me to several questions, to which I do not have answers. Please, please leave your theories in the comments, because I really want to know.

~Why, in the grand scheme of things, do I care whether there's a blue ram's head stamp accompanying a G stamp on my invitation envelopes?

~How was I ever able to convince a man with Henry's maturity level to drop what he was doing to surf zazzle.com to find a suitable replacement for the G stamp?

~Has anyone ever really noticed the postage that came on a wedding invitation? Did it ever affect anyone's decisions on whether to attend?

~Will this be the biggest crisis Henry and I will ever face together?

~Who is the genius behind the US Postal Service who increases the rates yet makes it impossible for customers to buy postage?

~Why do there have to be so many pieces that go into the wedding invitation envelopes, making them too heavy to require regular postage, and is the CIA somehow involved in this?

~Have you ever considered fonts on a postage stamp before reading this blog posting?

Anyway--I paid extra postage to zazzle.com so that I can receive new postage in a couple of days to replace the inadequate postage I originally purchased because I was unable to purchase adequate postage from the post office. Hopefully this is the only glitch in the wedding planning, and things will all resolve so easily, at so little cost. And the invitations will go out on time. And from here on, let us all pay attention to the stamps that come on wedding invitations; some bride (and groom, possibly) has thought longer and harder than anyone ever should about it!

A Strange Habit

Area Eccentric Reads Entire Book

GREENWOOD,IN—"Instead of spending hours on YouTube every night, Mr. Meyer, unlike most healthy males, looks to books for gratification," said one psychologist.

I'm always the last to know about the best Websites. This week I was reading an industry magazine, and it quoted this article from The Onion, a paradise of satire and sarcasm for those who enjoy that kind of thing.

One of the questions that frequently arises in the publishing industry is whether print material, as we know it, will continue to be in demand. With technology such as Amazon's Kindle and newspapers dying away because of online news sources, it's a real concern. This article addresses, in a humorous way, the phenomenon of a young person actually reading a book. Enjoy!

Defining Terms

I made the most appalling discovery yesterday at work. K. and I were in my office, writing ad copy for books and music, and we had been working on the copy for a book about marriage. We had already used the word marriage about three times in about seven sentences, so we decided to see if there was another word we could use in its place for the sake of variety.

I have the Merriam-Webster dictionary on my computer, so I pulled it up, typed in marriage, and started reading. I didn't find any good synonyms, but I did discover this as the second definition: "the state of being united to a person of the same sex in a relationship like that of a traditional marriage (same-sex marriage)."

When did this become an official definition for marriage? There is only one state in the United States that has legalized same-sex marriage (Massachusetts--the home of such stalwart people as Ted Kennedy and Barney Frank), so that would hardly qualify same-sex marriage as a widely accepted concept. And what's more, when did we start adding adjectival phrases to the beginning of marriage: "same-sex" marriage, "gay" marriage, "homosexual" marriage? Back in those radical sixties when I was growing up--as far as I know--it was just "marriage." At least it was in Wauseon, Ohio.

And now I realize that this is just one more thing that I have to protect my children from. When I was growing up, I was often told to "look it up" by teachers and parents when I had a question about a word's definition. And then as a teacher and parent myself, I was frequently sending students and my own children to dictionaries with their questions about spelling and definitions. Who would have ever thought the dictionary could be such a dangerous place?

Religion Is Good for Kids

"Kids with religious parents are better behaved and adjusted than other children, according to a new study that is the first to look at the effects of religion on young child development." This is the conclusion reported in Fox News on April 24, 2007.

The study was conducted by a Mississippi State University sociologist and his colleagues who asked the parents and teachers of more than sixteen thousand first graders to rate how much self-control they believed the kids had, how often they exhibited poor or unhappy behavior, and how well they respected and worked with their peers. These scores were compared to how often the parents said they attend worship services and talk with their children about religion at home. And of course the kids with the higher scores were the ones whose parents (more so if both did) attended worship services regularly and talked about religion with their children.

The study didn't look at which kids were the best behaved: Protestant? Jewish? Catholic? And one naysayer thought that perhaps only parents with the best behaved children attend worship services--so by implication, those with ill-behaved children must stay home. I suggest that this person attend an actual worship service of just about any congregation (including the one I belong to) and observe for about five minutes to debunk this theory.

So why would religion be good for kids? The conductor of the study sees three reasons: religious networks provide social support for parents, which can improve their parenting skills; most religious institutions promote self-sacrifice and are pro-family; and religious institutions imbue parenting with sacred meaning and significance. And I would say that those probably are contributing factors.

So why is religion good for kids, in the sense that it results in their behaving better? It starts with parents humbly recognizing that they are sinners saved by a merciful God, and their thankfulness to Him is demonstrated by obedience to His laws. As those who understand this about God and themselves, they also understand that this same saving mercy is necessary for their children, so they instruct them in His ways, and because these parents (in Reformed circles) made some "significant" vows "imbued with sacred meaning" at their children's baptisms, they require that their children obey those same laws as well--or there are consequences. It's a pretty simple formula, and it doesn't always result in good behavior (that sinner part!), but that theme of obedience or consequences would seem to be pretty basic. Unfortunately, that concept of consequences would seem to be lost on most of the general population. I haven't done any studies, but maybe that's a start at explaining it.

Irony in the News

As someone who has studied literature at the collegiate level, I enjoy a good irony. This week our family has been reading the book of Esther, and we've been observing the interesting ironies that occur throughout that biblical plot. So I've noted that this week's news stories reveal some interesting ironies as well.

-->of course in one of the biggest news stories of the week, radio personality Don Imus's stupidly uttered racial slurs resulted in national furor, which resulted in advertisers pulling their ads, which resulted in CBS's firing him. I read the account of all of this on the CBS Website, and the theme of it all was, of course, moral outrage--and there should have been, I suppose. But on the same day that I was reading about all of the moral outrage over racial slurs directed at a women's basketball team, CBS also had a news story about the growing number of women who are pregnant when they get married. Most wedding dress makers now have a maternity wedding dress line. And not only was there no moral outrage expressed at this trend, the pregnant brides were being applauded in this story for not trying to hide their condition (as they once did, back in the morally "dark ages" of the early to mid-twentieth century), but rather being proud of the shapes of their pregnant bodies. The story noted that no one thinks anything anymore about a woman who has established her career in her twenties and realizes that in her thirties she needs to play "catch-up" and combines becoming a bride with becoming a mother. This means that now we can have one shower for both wedding and baby gifts! How efficient of modern women! And how twisted our culture for becoming so incensed over racial slurs but not over this cultural phenomenon that is an attack on God's clearly established laws for marriage and family.

-->Another irony for CBS: News anchor Katie Couric apparently read an essay on her daily Web journal about when she got her first library card, and within a short time was accused of plagiarizing from a New York Times columnist. While the producer who provided the material for Couric was fired, no one seems to be too upset with Couric herself. But here's my question: Didn't this experienced journalist, who has the responsibility of reporting news (truthfully?) to the American people, feel a little funny about reading an essay that started out, "I remember when I got my first library card" when, one would think, she must have been aware that the story she was reading wasn't an account of when she got her first library card?

-->This from a USA Today report:

A recent study on global warming has resulted in "a report by hundreds of scientists that [tries] to explain how global warming is changing life on Earth. The scientists with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a summary of their findings on global warming last Friday and outlined details of the report focusing on various regions on Tuesday." Of course there is a great deal of gloom and doom ahead for those unfortunate ones still living on the North American continent from the middle of this century on.

It's springtime here in Michigan, and this past week (in fact the past couple of weeks) it has been like Christmas, weatherwise. In fact, people at church last week were saying, "Merry Easter!" And we had a horrible snowstorm Wednesday, resulting in many churches and schools cancelling activities, and at least one local car accident with a fatality related to weather conditions. What's more, I gather that this bizarre winter weather is affecting much of the United States. Need I say more about this irony?

-->And last for today (because I probably could go on all day with news ironies), USA Today's book editors and critics have chosen the twenty-five books from the past quarter century that have made the biggest impact on readers and the book publishing world. While The Purpose Driven Life and the first book in the Left Behind series made the top twenty-five, the one Book upon which these two are in some ways based, did not make the list.

Gay Babies? Whatever...

Today, class, will be a lesson in not necessarily believing what the mainstream media says is true; it is always wise when something sounds not quite right to check the source. It would seem that the media does tend to take conservatives--especially religious conservatives--to task. And I realize that this is not an especially profound or insightful observation, and yet I'm always a little surprised at the audacity of some to twist the words of others and how quickly the public is willing to accept the "he said/she said" accounts they read or watch.

Today during a break at work, I decided to check my AOL account for e-mails. Of course en route to accessing my mail, I saw the day's major headlines flashing before my eyes. As I skimmed through the list, I saw this headline: "Furor Over Baptist's 'Gay Baby' Article." A little surprised to see the words "Baptist," "gay," and "baby" all in the same headline, I decided to look a little further. I learned from the article that Dr. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Seminary, "has incurred sharp attacks from both the left and the right by suggesting that a biological basis for homosexuality may be proven, and that prenatal treatment to reverse gay orientation would be biblically justified." I was a bit intrigued, because I don't know a lot about Dr. Mohler, but I do know that he has been instrumental in spearheading the Founders' Movement among Southern Baptists, in an effort to return this church to its roots as expressed in the London Confession. I also know that he was one of the leaders named last fall in a Christianity Today article who is now making it "cool" to be a Calvinist. (I've always known that was cool.) And now AP reporter David Crary is saying he has written a "Gay Baby" article.

Apparently the religious community is upset with Mohler for saying that scientifc research "points to some level of biological causation" for homosexuality because this leads to the thinking that homosexuals have no moral choice about being homosexual. Gay-rights groups are upset because Mohler says that even if there is a biological basis for homosexuality, it is still sinful. They even claim that he supports medical treatment for babies before they are born that would alter their sexual orientation if it is determined that they are homosexual. Some gay-rights blogs are comparing Mohler to Josef Mengele, the Nazi doctor famous for death-camp experimentation.

My first thought was, Oh, great, another evangelical leader has shot off his mouth again, and now it's one who has even been labeled "Reformed". And then I realized, This is the information age. I bet I can access Dr. Mohler's article and find out if he really is guilty of reckless thinking.

Not only did I read Dr. Mohler's article, but I added his blog to my favorites. The newspaper article was referring to a blog posting on March 2 entitled "Is Your Baby Gay? What If You Could Know? What If You Could Do Something about It?" Note that "Gay Babies" is nowhere in the title. Also note that the tone of the article from the start is hypothetical. (The use of the word "if" and the question marks are dead giveaways.) Mohler goes on to report in his blog that scientists who have been researching whether there is a genetic disposition to homosexuality are finding some evidence "that biological factors may at least contribute to sexual orientation."
These scientists are basing their findings on research conducted on sheep.

Mohler also reports:

What makes the sheep "sexual partner preference testing" research so interesting is that the same scientists who are documenting the rather surprising sexual behaviors of male sheep think they can also change the sexual orientation of the animals. In other words, finding a biological causation for homosexuality may also lead to the discovery of a "cure" for the same phenomenon.

To the right: Note that Mohler himself is not making any assertions about whether homosexuality is biologically based. He simply is reporting about and even quoting the scientists who are conducting a study. In fact, in his conclusion Mohler points out that there is no widely accepted proof that any biological basis for sexual orientation exists. He says that given the effects of the fall, it wouldn't be surprising to learn this is true but that the Bible still condemns homosexuality, and the discovery of a "gay gene" would not overturn that moral verdict. In fact, Mohler explains, having this knowledge, if it were true, would enable pastors and churches to more effectively help those struggling with this sexual temptation.

To the left: Mohler reminds us that all humans are made in God's image. "All persons . . . are equally made in the image of God." Again, he carefully couches his ideas about prenatal treatment in a series of hypotheticals, and, in fact, he's basing his speculations on suggestions from the scientists conducting the study: "If a biological basis is found, and if a prenatal test is then developed, and if a successful treatment to reverse the sexual orientation to heterosexual is ever developed, we would support its use as we should unapologetically support the use of any appropriate means to avoid sexual temptation and the inevitable effects of sin" (emphasis added). Sounds a little different than the writer of the AP article put it. And a little more compassionate than Josef Mengele.

So I came away from this experience with a high regard for Dr. Mohler. His article is well written, well reasoned from Scripture, and highly respectful without compromising biblical principle. I would highly recommend that those readers of this blog who enjoy reading the writings of thinking Christians check out Dr. Mohler's blog.

If I could so easily locate Dr. Mohler's on-line article, read and comprehend it, and then quote it accurately here, why couldn't the paid, experienced AP reporter do it?

Find Dr. Mohler's article here: http://www.albertmohler.com/blog

Proverbs 31 Dolls (Seriously!)

I received the March flyer from my local Christian booksellers yesterday and browsed through the pages. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the most recent product for young girls: the Proverbs 31 doll. Here's what the ad says: "Proverbs 31 dolls encourage young girls to pursue Biblical womanhood. [They] come with a Bible lesson, cookie recipe, two cookie cutters and a list of activities." And they have very spiritual, Old Testament names like Leah, Elisabeth (with an "s," not a "z"), and Abigail.

And now I see that I've done all the wrong things in training up Katie to pursue biblical womanhood. I've made sure that she goes to church and hears solid preaching, I've tried to teach her at home using biblical principles of right and wrong, I've made sure she goes to catechism, and I've sent her to Christian school so she will learn how to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. What she really needed was just a good cookie recipe (Do you think the Tollhouse chocolate chip recipe on the bag of chocolate chips would be okay?), a cookie cutter (probably the Christmas star), and a list of activities (I'm guessing things like read your Bible, sew an apron, and make a scrapbook). I've completely messed up! And to top it off, the name Kathleen/Katie is nowhere in the Bible!

But wait a minute--shouldn't these dolls come with a flashlight for those occasions when they work while it's still dark, a laptop with Quicken for tracking and calculating all those real estate transfers and for all of that personal finance they manage, and maybe a really great sewing machine for all of those scarlet clothes, bed coverings, and linen garments they'll be making? I don't see anything at all about cookie baking in there...

Self Esteem v. Confidence (and the Plight of America's Youth)

One of my co-workers shared a Fox news story with me today that reports on a new study that shows that today's college students are more narcissistic and self-centered than their predecessors. Apparently we've been telling them that they are special too much. The benefits of this narcissim: It can be useful for meeting people and auditioning for American Idol. So those children going into the sales and entertainment businesses should be all set.

The downside to this emphasis on specialness is that these students won't be able to sustain a romantic relationship, they are at risk for infidelity, lack emotional warmth, and exhibit overcontrolling and violent behaviors. They also react agressively to criticism and favor promoting themselves over helping others. The psychologists who conducted this study attribute this narcissism to the self-esteem movement of the 1980s, technologies that encourage narcissism such as MySpace and YouTube, and just too much indulgence.

"Permissiveness seems to be a component," one of the experts noted. The antidote? More authoritative parenting. Duh!

Contrast this report on America's priviliged, spoiled youth with last night's ABC special on the South African young girls who have been selected to attend the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy. While I'm not a big Oprah fan, I am glad to see an overly rich celebrity putting her money where her mouth is--giving these underprivileged girls an education in the hope that they will be able to make a difference in their country.

These young girls, twelve to thirteen years old, were amazing. As many advantages as American children have--that's how many disadvantages these children have. Several of the girls interviewed have lost one or both of their parents, and they all come from poor homes, most without indoor plumbing. One young girl gets up at 4:00 in the morning to walk to the bus and risks rape and murder every time she leaves her house.

These girls should be (by American standards) defeated, bad students, depressed and despairing, and completely lacking in confidence. But, on the contrary, they were remarkably poised, confident, and communicated their desires to be leaders, "make a difference," and find a cure for AIDS. Again, these are twelve- and thirteen-year- olds. One girl, commenting on her poverty, said, "We don't have much, but my mother told us that we shouldn't let that get us down. This is what God has given us." They were quick to tell interviewers what they were good at ("I'm at the top of my class," I'm a hard worker," I love mathematics"), but never once did they express an attitude of arrogance.

They spoke respectfully, lovingly of the parents and grandparents who care for them--even two sisters who watched their father shoot their mother and then kill himself. It was an inspirational story, and I used about a whole box of tissues during the hour the special was on. (I'll also be recording it Saturday night when it is shown again; it will be required viewing for Katie and Jonathan. It should be required viewing for every child in America.) When these children were shown their new school--an amazing facility designed by Oprah herself--they were most excited by the shiny new bathrooms and showers. You'd have thought they were given an iPod or some kind of game system.

So in America, we have been teaching our children to sing, "I am special, I am special, Look at me," to the tune of Frere Jacques. In South Africa, poor children are taught the value of education, family, hard work, and responsibility to others. In fact, they have already learned the important lessons that we are trying so hard to buy for our children here in America. I'm thrilled that these lovely girls will have this opportunity in Oprah's academy, but the plight of American children seems to suggest that money isn't the answer. Maybe once these girls get their education in South Africa, they can come to America and help us out.

The Dangers of Publishing

Danger and intrigue rocked the Christian publishing industry here in Grand Rapids today when Zondervan's corporate offices were evacuated after a suspicious package, emitting a foul odor, was opened in the mailroom.

Of course at our own publishing house we followed the breaking story with great interest. Some of our coworkers once worked at Zondervan, and the news writers on our local TV station's web site entertained us by, at one point, saying the package "omitted" a foul odor. For those of you who just aren't seeing the entertainment value here, these kinds of language slip-ups are incredible fun for us editorial types.

Also, the same web report featured a paragraph explaining that two Zondervan employees were being treated for respiratory problems (seriously! no laughing matter!); following that was a paragraph saying that other employees were taken to a Krispy Kreme office across the street for further treatment. And in a great gesture of charity and concern, the Rapid bus service sent two of their buses to the scene to provide a warm place to stay for the rest of the evacuated employees. (This may be a silly question, but why didn't they just go home?)

And so, as an editor at a Christian publishing house, ever mindful of the great risk I take every day when I go to work, I will be contacting my insurance agent tomorrow to increase my life insurance policy--before the insurance industry catches on and increases the premiums for employees of Christian publishing houses.

And so we are left with so many questions about what could have motivated such a horrendous attack. The following are my own theories:

*An outraged radical fundamentalist Christian has simply had it with gender-inclusive Bible translations

*A twentysomething is frustrated by the lack of authentic, relevant books and is seeking vengeance on one of the largest Christian publishers

*Someone has decided that forty days of purpose just isn't enough; "I need at least fifty days of a Purpose Driven Life!"

*One of those silly dogma-insistent people has taken great offense at Rob Bell's "creative" definition of heaven and hell in chapter 1 of The Sex God

*A collector is ticked off because she will no longer be able to add to her plush collection of "Jesus Loves Me" animals since Zondervan is discontinuing its 3-D line of Inspirio gift products

The theories are as endless as the Christian fiction mysteries that Zondervan publishes . . .

Postscript: One day later, we still don't know much more about the circumstances surrounding this mystery. But the Kent County Police Department has identified the lethal substance in the package. It is . . . DIRT!!!

Twentysomethings Part 2

While the attitudes of twentysomethings professing to be Christians are scary enough, those who make no such claim are even scarier. In January, USA Today reported the findings of a Pew survey that was part of the MacNeil/Lehrer Productions' Generation Next project. The findings revealed that the views of young people today on politics, social attitudes, and life goals are far different from their baby boomer parents'.

The survey asked more than seventy-five questions; 579 young adults (18-25) and 922 adults (age 26 and older) were a part of the study. It is purportedly the most extensive study of this age group. Interestingly, 130 of the participants had to be reached by cell phones because they didn't have land lines.

Generally, it was determined that the younger generation is far more tolerant than its predecessors. No surprises there.

Here are some of the scarier findings:

*Young people are equally split (47 percent in favor, 46 percent opposed) over gay marriage; of those in the older age group, 64 percent were opposed.

*The top goals of the younger generation: 81 percent want to be rich, and 51 percent want to be famous. A study of college freshmen in 1967 revealed that 85.8 percent believed it was essential to develop "a meaningful philosophy of life"; only 41.9 percent thought it was essential to be "very well off financially."

*48 percent of the younger group identify more with Democrats; 35 percent with Republicans.

*36 percent of the younger group have a tattoo; 30 percent have a body piercing in a place other than an ear lobe; 25 percent have dyed their hair a nontraditional color.

And the bottom line? Scott Keeter, Pew's spokesman, projects that this group's views on social issues will not become more conservative with time. "One can imagine the complexion of these issues changing pretty significantly when this generation is in positions of power and authority," Keeter says.

I think it's going to take more than a Starbucks card, a laptop, and a group of friends to stand up to these challenges. . .

Twentysomethings

I first became aware that the twentysomethings were a special demographic, worthy of my complete attention, in the fall of 2005 when I attended a publishing conference. I sat in on a session for editors on how to reach the twentysomething market with the books we publish. As I sat next to my co-worker, listening to the twentysomething experts tell us what we must do if we want to capture the attention of this age group (and it's simply understood that we do want to), we scribbled notes to each other like, "Grow up!" and "It's all about me!" Since that day, I have concluded that the only thing more disturbing than the twentysomethings' self-absorption is my industry's obsession with kow-towing to their demands--as if there were no such thing as thirtysomethings, fortysomethings, fiftysomethings--you get the idea. So now Christian bookstores are filled with books that tell our stories in a relational, experiential, and authentic way; none of that old-fashioned garbage that would advise us how to live Christianly or address that most useless subject of all--doctrine and theology. (Twentysomethings love words like "authentic" and "relevant." They have discovered that in the entire history of mankind, there have only been a handful of authentic, relevant authors, including the early church fathers, three or four medieval Roman Catholic mystics, a couple of Jewish rabbis, and Rob Bell and Donald Miller. Hopefully with their cultural contributions, we will have many more authentic, relevant writers.)

Apparently, twentysomethings are the inventors of community, coffee, and computers (the 3 Cs), and so they expect these things to be readily available to them wherever they go. So if your bookstore, church, doctor's office, or hair salon doesn't offer lattes, feature a warm, comfortable gathering place for conversation, and provide wireless internet service, twentysomethings tell us that they will go elsewhere where they can have these things. This is kind of like when you were a child and your friend came over and insisted on having the blue ball gown for her Barbie; when you told her that the blue Barbie ball gown was yours and you wanted it for your own Barbie, she told you to give it to her or she would take her Barbies and go home. Except that you and your friend were about eight, and these people are in their twenties.

The good news, however, the twentysomethings tell us, is that if we build it for them, everyone will come. Yes--I actually have a quote from Aspiring Retail magazine, November 2006, where twentysomething expert Margaret Feingold tells us as much: "If you can pull a twentysomething in your store, you can get anyone in your store and they'll want to stay." Whatever did we do before the twentysomethings came along and showed us the pleasure of gathering with friends, drinking good coffee, and surfing the Net? Thank you, twentysomethings! Our lives were so dull and lonely before you introduced us to these innovations in entertainment and culture.

When asked why retailers (and, by implication, publishers) should care about reaching out to twentysomethings, the enlightening answer is that we should care because "long-term they're the future shoppers of your store." So for now, even though they're not interested in purchasing much, we need to give them free coffee, soft chairs, and wireless internet so that they will come back in a few years when they are ready to spend money. Twentysomethings--do you realize that you are going to be twentysomething for only about ten years? Then you will be thirtysomethings, then fortysomethings, then fiftysomethings--you get the idea. If you follow the pattern of previous generations, you will get married, have children, and work full-time. You won't have time to sit and chat with your friends, sipping coffee, and reviewing your favorite web sites together. You will not always be twentysomethings.

My suggestion to the twentysomethings who will not attend a church, purchase a book from a bookstore, go to a doctor, or buy jeans at a clothing store unless the 3 Cs are somehow incorporated into the experience is to realize that not everything in life is about entertainment. We go to church to honor God (not ourselves)in the way He wants us to honor Him, we go to a store to purchase whatever product we may need or want, and we go to doctors' offices to get help with our health needs. Those of us who aren't twentysomethings discovered a place long ago where the 3 Cs are available 24/7. We call it "home." Check it out sometime.

And by the way, twentysomethings: You really didn't invent coffee, community, or computers. They've been around for at least forty or fifty years.

Why Ask Why? Part 2

My first posting on this topic was intended as a humorous reflection based on some lighthearted, enjoyable conversations that I had last week with several people near and dear to me. And, interestingly, it's a topic that just doesn't want to die, so I'm compelled to visit it again.

I have no brilliant answers to those questions raised by categorizing the population into two groups: language people and math people. And based on some of the reactions I've gotten, I was starting to think that perhaps I had oversimplified--that maybe to place people in one of two categories was unfair. But after further reflection, I think those reactions tend to support my theory rather than destroy it. So at this point, I'm not prepared to take a dogmatic position on this matter of great universal significance, but these are some of my observations I'm gathering as evidence in forming my theory (admittedly a scientific process, so there may be some holes in the process for this language person).

First, all of the objections I've heard to my two-category theory have come from those I would classify as math people. Note the comments: Aaron (math person) is rolling his eyes at me, and Julia (math person) is exclaiming "Good grief!" And H., the math person who wanted to know the reasons apostrophes form possessives the way they do (rather than simply accepting the rules), pointed out quite convincingly that his experience would show that he is both a math and language person (and to be fair, he is--and yet, as of last night, he really had to think hard to remember the reasons for the apostrophe rules that I had explained to him the previous week).

On the other hand, the language people who have read the posting have made comments like "That's cute, Annette!" "That's funny!" No objections, no eye rolling, no criticism, and no attempts to argue that they are both language and math people.

Another observation I noted was from lunch yesterday. I found myself at a table with two accountants who said that they did not care about the whys. Neither of them liked algebra, and one of them even pointed out that his wife, an English/literature teacher, was the one in their family who was always asking the "why" questions. Before this, I would have automatically placed accountants in the math people category--that's what they do all day.

So here are some of the questions and observations that emerge from this. My first thought, especially after talking with the accountants, was that obviously there must be subcategories. There are, in fact, math people who can do what language people do--and do it well. But further reflection makes me go back to my original two-category theory: Of course math people want more than two categories. Two categories is just too simple, too easy. So it would just be part of their "why" nature to object to a two-category theory. Note that the language people are very happy to accept that there may be just two categories of people. How typical of both groups!

It does seem that math people do tend to cross over into the language category more often than language people venture into the world of math. Again, this fits the profile. We language people are perfectly willing to accept our limitations, to stay where we belong, to keep letters and numbers separate and distinct. Math people--not so much...

And as to the accountants? I've decided that maybe their work is just a language form of math. They simply "crunch numbers," looking for the bottom line. They follow a process, and so there is no need for algebra, theorems, or anything more than an understanding of basic math. But--oh no--I have just placed myself into a category with accountants! There must be some other explanation...

Why Ask Why?

Today I enjoyed lunch with two publishing co-workers. C. majored in French, and J. and I were English majors, so we're all fairly math challenged, and it took all three of us to figure out how to work out the tip since lunch ended up being on the house. (We were eating at Bennigan's, which offers a 15-minute lunch challenge; if they don't bring your food in 15 minutes, it's free. It took them 15 minutes and 42 seconds.) And from that we concluded that it's the math people who must know why; it's enough for us language people just to know.

But what led up to all of this was a conversation about why some of us are willing to simply accept a rule or follow a procedure--and that is enough for us. I shared with the two of them a recent incident where I was explaining to a friend a rule of punctuation. When punctuating a possessive noun that is a proper ancient name, like Jesus or Moses, the appropriate punctuation is this: Moses' staff. No extra "s" on the end--that's just how it is. We editors know these things. But more modern names, like James, even though they may end in "s," get an apostrophe, "s": James's giant peach. My friend asked me why this was so. My response was that it didn't matter; that's just how it is. He wanted to know why. He is a math person.

So from there we began to compare notes. J. has been an editor most of her adult life; like me, she's content to know the rules--she doesn't really care why. All three of us agreed: Just tell us the procedure for accomplishing a task on a computer. We really don't even want to know anything more. C. shared with us that she has just recorded in her planner the steps to finding out the percentage of difference between two amounts, a task she has to perform every year at this time. So now she's written down the procedure, giving her a list of steps to follow, so next year she'll be okay.

Please don't mix up numbers and letters for us language people. We like things straightforward and kept in their appropriate places. 2a-3c=x is meaningless. And don't ask us to figure out which train will arrive first when one moves at x number of miles per hour and one moves at y number of miles per hour. Just tell us what time the trains are arriving and departing so we know which one to take. We really don't care about the math that will tell us how fast they're moving and which one will get there first! Life is just too short. . .