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Language Log

Saturday, May. 26, 2012 - 6:44 a.m.

The bracelets mil got flopped big time as a dinnertime distraction. The giant slinky I had selected? Kept her engaged for the final third of the dinner. Who could have predicted that a slinky is a better toy for a two year old than a bracelet? Just sayin'.

Begin mantra: my mother in law is a kind, generous, considerate, beautiful person. I am indeed lucky to have her as opposed to some jerk.

I just, you know, need my alone time to recharge my human interaction battery, and it's going to be hard to come by for the next month or so. I really don't want to be a jerk to someone so sweet. I often have good points, but I don't trust myself to express them with patience and kindness when I'm emotionally tired. I'm all passion and unfiltered snark. At least in my head. My energy goes to keeping it there.

No, the only thing that really happened yesterday was when we went to the zoo, I went into the bathroom, and when I came out, mil said, "I hope you don't mind, I gave her a cookie. It's oatmeal raisin." I was like, ok, well, I do have an entire bag full of healthy snacks here that I packed for her. But that's all I said. I don't understand it, because I think our rule about sweets is pretty simple. If other people are having them and she seems interested, she can have them. Other than that, no offering sweet things unless she's clearly hungry and there's nothing else to give her. Seems reasonable to me. But the mil seems to get a real kick out of giving her sugary things. Guess it's a grandma thing? But in a little one, 200-300 extra calories a day for like 2-3 weeks straight can really add up.

She adores raspberries. Goes apeshit for them. Blueberries too. Why not get your kicks from offering her raspberries?

Anyhow, I get so nitpicky when I haven't had a chance to recover from human interaction. Lots of grandmas don't even feel the need to try to comply with parental preferences; she really does, just doesn't really get how the rules work sometimes.

Had dinner with them and a woman they met at their B&B; an academic who's taking a position here in the fall. Our interests somewhat overlap, so they thought we would hit it off. She is nice, but I can't say we hit it off. I wasn't feelin it, anyhow. Maybe later. I've kind of lost my ability to talk to academics. If I ever had any ability, which upon reflection I may not have.

Remember how originally when I transitioned to art, I thought it would give me more to talk about with people than Swahili tense/aspect? Turns out, not really. You give a little description of what you do, compliments or statements of intriguedness occur, they may inquire after the business end of things a bit, and then that's it usually. Follow-up conversations usually just involve the business end. Any galleries in town? How's business? That sort of thing. But as we know, for me the business end doesn't hold up long as a topic. The idea end of things doesn't get brought up much, and that's where it's at for me right now. The process, the potential. It is a bit ineffable, I'm not sure how I'd do if someone did ask about that, but they don't, so. Ultimately it comes down to my ability to raise topics that interest me, keep the other person interested and contributing to a discussion of the topic. I don't know how other artists talk about their work, so I don't even have a model to go off of.

*shrug*

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