Six Months in the Public Schools

So, the Tiny Tornado has been a public school student for six months now, and that seems like a good time to take stock. My older two, who are almost 12 and almost 9, have been homeschooled straight through, so I am now qualified to talk at least a bit from both the perspective of a homeschooling mom and a public school mom.

The first thing to say is that the Tiny Tornado is in an excellent school with an excellent teacher. I like and respect the principal so much that I am sorry that he won't be able to continue at the same school next year. The school has plenty of resources, and good music and gym teachers. The building is clean and in good repair. Teachers change their bulletin board and hallway displays regularly, and the effect is one of a busy school where students are engaged in a variety of activities.

I've only been disappointed in two of the staff. I volunteered at a book fair, and got to spend some time with the librarian. At least on the day I was there, she was cranky with the kids who came through the library; she seemed to expect the worst of them; and she spent some time talking with a teacher about her class in very negative terms while the students, sitting quietly on the floor waiting to be released to explore the book fair, could hear them. OK: I have been disappointed in three of the staff, since I should count that teacher as well. As a parent, I think that it's important for kids to overhear us sharing the good things we notice, and expressing our high expectations. I think it's also important that they not overhear us venting our frustrations. For instance, when Raider comes home from work I might tell him, "The Lego Savant was a big help today! He took out the recycling without being asked, and organized the other kids to pick up the living room floor." If the Lego Savant is sitting nearby reading a book, it's just fine with me if he overhears this.

But if we've had a challenging day, and I've maybe disciplined the kids--say I took away the TV for the afternoon because they were fighting over it all morning--I think it's important for the kids to know that, once the discipline has happened, or once we've worked out a disagreement, it's behind us. I turned the TV off for the afternoon: they don't need to keep being punished for it. I might need to rant to Raider about the rough day I had, but I'm not going to do it where the kids can hear me. At least, I shouldn't do it where the kids can hear me.

The teacher's conversation with the librarian was like that. She'd had a rough morning with her class, and rather than letting it go, chose to have a loud conversation about it with the librarian where the kids could hear her do it. I think this sends a terrible message to kids. It says that whatever disciplinary action was taken for their behavior was not enough, that the incident isn't really put behind them. It suggests that the teacher sees them in negative terms, that she expects bad behavior from them. I also think it's wrong to poison the well: a student who is struggling in class may find a change of environment to be a new chance to shine, and a new adult as an opportunity to form a positive connection. For how many "bad" kids has a librarian, a gym teacher, an art teacher, a coach, been the one adult who saw them differently? For how many kids has the library or the art room been a refuge? Children should not be preceded into a new environment by the suggestion that they are troublemakers.

I was quite distressed by this teacher's behavior, and I hope it was a lapse brought on by stress and not a habit. But I was also bothered by the librarian's willingness to engage; she might have said, for instance, "Tell me about it later! Let's get these kids ready for the book fair!" But from watching the librarian interact with kids for the next two hours, I would not expect her to have that kind of sensitivity. She was suspicious of their motivation and behavior; she questioned the buying choices they made as she was helping them check out (if you don't want the girls buying the Justin Bieber photo books, don't put them out. If you put them out, let them buy them in peace! Say, "I hope you enjoy it!" Not, "I'd have hoped you could make a better choice. Is that how your mother wants you spending your money?").

The other weak staffer is the art teacher. At the beginning of the school year, I was actually quite excited by the projects I saw on the wall, and that the Tiny Tornado brought home. The kids painted great big sheets of paper in interesting patterns, then used them for the background for themed art that incorporated painting and collage. They were bright and arresting, and if they were a bit cookie-cutter (everybody make a house! everybody make an elephant!) the medium was at least interesting, and provided a chance to explore different textures and techniques.

And then the next set of projects went up. And they were big splashy colorful painting-and-collage projects. And then the next one. And the next one. As far as I can tell, all the art that the children have produced so far this school year has been in this same style. Maybe I simply don't understand what the expectations are for elementary school art, but I'd have liked to see some variation. And for the Tiny Tornado's sake, more opportunities to work in three dimensions.

One day in the hallway, I was admiring some really impressive clay sculptures in a display case. The art teacher passed by, and I said, "Are these all student work? They're very good." He said that they were indeed student work, from past years. I was pleased. I was happy to think of the Tiny Tornado working with a teacher who was capable of getting that quality and variety of work from students, and who would give them the opportunity to do it.

My bubble was burst when the art teacher said, "They did those with the previous art teacher."

Who is she, I wonder, and where is she teaching now?

As far as the Tiny Tornado's own classroom goes, there can be no complaints about the teacher. TT's class is "Begindergarten." This is a special class for kids who are old enough for Kindergarten but whose parents didn't think they were ready for it. So: 20 kids. 17 of them boys. Most of them perfectly nice, reasonably well-behaved kids like the Tiny Tornado, who just need a little time to mature. A handful of them: handfuls.

The teacher is a young woman in her second year of teaching. She is full of enthusiasm and good cheer. She handles her kids' behavioral challenges appropriately and affectionately. She and the school practice catching kids in good behavior. I have seen her, in the middle of a loud and chaotic process of transitioning from one activity to another, see through all the movement and noise in the room to catch a kid who can almost literally never sit still in his one fleeting moment of perfect behavior, and call him out on it to the whole class ("I see Aidan sitting quietly, ready to get started! Good job, Aidan!").

The classroom is extremely well-organized, and her days seem very well-planned with activities the kids enjoy. My only concern about Miss N is that, as a former teacher myself, I worry that she is going to burn herself out. Sometimes I joke that I'm glad TT got her early in her career, before she learns to temper her enthusiasm and manage her energy. But, sincerely, I hope that she makes a productive transition to being a slightly-less perfect teacher who can stay in it for the long haul.

That said, I think that an excellent classroom in an excellent school is a perfect case study for what is wrong with public education, as well as what is right about it.

Even in the Begindergarten, this school district places a strong emphasis on academics from an early age. There is almost no activity--not even during class parties on holidays--that doesn't focus somehow on phonological awareness, alphabet knowledge, or math skills. They've done some really cool projects. For instance, recently the kids each drew a winter scene, framed it in brown construction paper like a window frame, and then the teacher added a picture she took of them from the back, as if they were looking out the window. These came out very charming.

They also came out mostly all alike. All the projects are cookie-cutter projects; there's no room for variation. If the kids are gluing together pre-cut pieces to make snowmen, the snowmen will have two eyes, a carrot nose, and buttons just like the model the teacher showed them. If a child wants his snowman to have three eyes, he will be told to do it like he was shown. The activities they do have a surface purpose: to practice the letter M, to count as high as 12, to make a little snowman. But the underlying purpose is also always to produce work that matches the model, to do it the way they have been told to do it.

The kids seem to enjoy the work they do; when I'm there helping with centers, they're having fun. And they are definitely experiencing multiple approaches to learning things: they might do a measurement project, a count-the-little-bears project, or a make-a-book project, each focused on a similar numeracy skill. But as they do each project, they are expected to do it exactly as they are told to do it. There is very little time in the classroom for children to make choices about how they will spend their time or what they will do. All the kids seem perfectly happy whenever I'm volunteering in the classroom (except poor B, who is temperamentally never happy: if they're doing centers, he wants to be doing morning meeting. If his group is at the math center first, he wants to be at the puzzle center. When he gets to the puzzle center, he doesn't want the puzzles that are available, he wants the firefighter one another kid has already started. And so on. I'm actually impressed with how Miss N and her classroom aide are supporting B in the classroom, and I hope he grows into a sunnier disposition, poor kid). But I can't help but wonder about the long-term effect of thirty-five hours a week, of "Do exactly what you're told. Produce exactly what you're told to produce."

The Tiny Tornado has learned a lot. This cannot be denied. He knows all his letters, is making big progress in matching letters and sounds (and can now identify consonant sounds at the end of words as well as the beginning!), can write all his letters, can count past 20 (though it's hilarious when he gets to 20-10 and 20-11), can recognize numbers into the teens. He is ahead of where both his brothers were at the same age, because we didn't do much systematic instruction when the Older Two were 5.

I am neutral on whether this is a good or bad thing. Both of the Older Two are perfectly numerate and literate now, which suggests that it is not necessary to spend hours and hours in direct instruction when kids are young. On the other hand, the TT was developing an interest in letters and numbers before he started Begindergarten, and has enjoyed learning them this year. It hasn't been stressful or negative, and his progress spares me the years of anxiety I suffered about whether the Lego Savant, now a voracious reader who devours multiple novels a week, would ever learn to read. As far as I can tell, TT's classmates seem to be enjoying themselves as well.

One area of flexibility in the classroom is that the kids are welcome to be where they're at: at a journal-writing center, for instance, some kids will dictate, some kids will write with spelling help, and some kids will write using their own mix of correct and invented spelling, and this is OK. This ameliorates much of the concern I might have had about the relentless emphasis on academics for what is essentially a class of pre-kindergartners. But I wonder what it will be like next year, when they move on to kindergarten or first grade. Last year, at the kindergarten information night, I was very uncomfortable with the academic expectations for kindergarten, though I suspect I'll be less concerned now that TT will have had a year of what is essentially Kindergarten Readiness. Still, I plan to visit a nearby district I've heard good things about, and consider whether I might be able to send him there under Schools of Choice.

I have heard a lot of criticism of the district from the parents of kids in middle and high school, from young adults who recently graduated from the district, and from the one or two kids I've met while they were attending the high school, about the effect that academic pressure has on the students. The district is affluent--at least 3 of TT's classmates are the children of doctors, for instance, and other parents are research scientists at the university. I hear that there is quite a bit of class-based tension at the middle and high school levels, and that it can be an uncomfortable setting for students whose families don't vacation at ski resorts or buy late-model cars for sixteenth birthdays.

Our decision to send TT to school was made pragmatically for the family: I needed childcare, and he needed stimulation. I am happy and relieved that it has worked out so well. Although I miss the wonderful open-ended art projects he used to bring home from his Reggio Emilia-inspired preschool, I am pleased with his academic progress (and so is he). Having some first-hand experience of the public school reinforces my belief that it would have been terrible for the Lego Savant (all those people around! all the time! never a moment to yourself! never a moment to think quietly!), and OK for Word Boy, who is more adaptable and inclined towards traditional academics. Though I think it has been good for Word Boy, who thinks too much of other people's preferences, not to be reinforced in his tendencies. I could do a whole nother post on that. Maybe I will sometime.

I've never imagined that the Tiny Tornado would stay in school long-term, and I continue to hope that's true, though it's not clear how my plans to become a Speech Language Pathologist will affect our homeschooling in another few years. I continue to be concerned about how factors like the pressure to conform, and the relentless beat of academics, will take their toll as the years pass by. The Tiny Tornado wants to homeschool for first grade, or possibly even this next year for Kindergarten. For my part, I very strongly do not want him to continue in this district past elementary school. We'll have to see what time brings.

 

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Fan Fiction: A Little Essay, and a Pride & Prejudice Story

I have been interested for a long time in fan fiction, particularly slash fiction, and have whiled away the occasional evening reading it on-line. One of my favorite reads of last year, in fact, was a novel-length piece of Harry/Snape slash fiction which I have, sadly, lost the link to. The thing I liked about it was that the writer gave her characters motivations that fit with the way they were written in the canonical universe. Harry was drawn to Snape, for instance, because he was the only person who could see Harry as he really was.

Fan fiction is an interesting world to dip into. A piece of fan fiction may be a brief as a paragraph describing a conversation that took place off-screen, or a fully-formed romantic story, or an entire novel. You can find fan fiction for every TV show or series of novels that has a following. I've even found fan fiction for the TV show Joan of Arcadia, which I watched on DVD a few years ago. I recently came across some extremely well-written Aubrey/Maturin fan fiction as well. Fan fiction can be faithful to the original, or, as with slash fiction, it can put characters in situations their creators never would have thought of. It can bring in new elements; some of the Aubrey/Maturin fiction I read set them in a magical universe. It can even bring universes together. For instance, at this link in the crossovers section at fanfiction.net you can find Pride & Prejudice crossed with everything from Jane Eyre to Anne of Green Gables, Yu-Gi-Oh, and X-men: Revolution. I'll have to go back there later and see if there's anything good.

I have been joking about writing my own fan fiction for several years. I often write it in my head after I've spent time with an engrossing story. This is the first time I've actually done it. I just seemed to be inspried this week. I set out to write a Darcy/Wickham slash, but my story ended up having no sex in it. I guess my mind just isn't as bent that way as I imagined. I might have to do a companion piece of flashback slash; it just wouldn't fit right in this one.

For someone who has never had any talent for writing fiction, I think I did a pretty good job here. I like my dialogue, and I particularly think I managed to make my characters behave like they would in the book: Jane thinks the best of people, Lydia is heedless of social norms and blurts things out (thus driving the plot for me, just like she did for Austen herself); Lizzie is smart and inquisitive, and Wickham is shameless. I am especially pleased with the conversation between Jane and Lizzie, and I like Lydia's line about the cuckoo very much--that was a lovely bit of inspiration. I am disappointed that the plot starts with Elizabeth's curiosity about Georgiana Darcy's behavior but there's no payoff; what does Lizzie think by the end of the story? Who knows? And a writer with more self-control would have had less exposition up-front.

You are welcome to read it. You'll like it better, I think, if you're familiar with the book. I want to be clear about one thing: I wrote this as a self-indulgence during a very busy week nestled in a series of challenging months, for my own amusement and my friends'. If you like it, I'm glad to hear you say so, though it's not necessary. If you don't like it, you are welcome to say that, too. Just not to me. This is not a writer's workshop, and if anybody tries to give me "feedback" I will call down the wrath of Cthulhu on your ass. Consider yourself warned.

At one point I couldn't see any way for my characters to get out of the situation I'd put them in except to have Wickham suffer an unfortunate but too-convenient accident. My friend John S. and I had a playful conversation about it on Facebook that showed me a way out. Thank you, John, with all my heart. Writing this was the most fun I've had in a long time.

I WROTE THE DARN THING, SURELY YOU DON'T EXPECT ME TO COME UP WITH A TITLE TOO

"I must say, I was astonished by Georgiana's behavior this evening," Elizabeth Darcy commented to her husband as she brushed her hair before bed.

"Were you?" he answered in some surprise, looking up from the book he was reading as he waited for her. "I saw nothing out of the ordinary in her behavior."

Elizabeth said, "But that is precisely what is so astonishing! Confronted with Wickham, she showed no consciousness at all. Indeed, she greeted him like a lost friend of her childhood, and I overheard her commenting to him in the course of the evening on the strange coincidence that has, for the past several years, had the Wickhams leaving everyplace just before we arrive."

The Darcys had arrived that afternoon at Heatherhill to begin a long-planned visit with her sister Jane and Jane's husband Charles Bingley. The Wickhams, who had been imposing on the Bingleys' good humor and excellent larder for even longer than usual, should have been gone before the Darcys arrived. Indeed, Jane had assured Elizabeth in a letter written as recently as three days ago that they would be. That they were not gone was the reason for Darcy's cold demeanor throughout dinner and a long evening of whist and lottery tickets. Darcy was out of humor with the Wickhams, of course, but also with Charles Bingley, whose tractable nature he approved of only inasmuch as it allowed him to be the superior in their own friendship.

The Bingleys, sympathetic and easy-going, had been at the mercy of her sister Lydia and Lydia's shiftless husband since the early days of their marriage. Bingley could never bring himself to go so far as to tell Wickham to go, and the Wickhams had long since been inured to hints, no matter how pointed, or how frequently made. Jane's tendency to make the Wickhams feel welcome by ordering especially good dinners, and by improving Mrs. Wickham's wardrobe during her visits, only made matters worse. Mrs. Wickham always brought out her most out-of-style gowns, those which were badly mended, or those from which intractable stains could never quite be removed, during the early days of a visit, to inspire Mrs. Bingley to suggest a visit from her mantua-maker.

Since the arrival of three unwanted, overlooked, and ill-mannered Wickham children, Jane's sympathy had been especially engaged. She could not help but notice the improvement in the Wickham children after some weeks in the care of her own daughters' governess, and, while she might perhaps have been made indifferent to the fate her sister's own choices had wrought for her, she could not be indifferent to the well-being of children who could not in any way be blamed for their parents' ill behavior.

Mr. Wickham had always been able to use his considerable talents for charm and flattery to secure invitations to the country homes of new acquaintances, and if the Wickhams' tendency to long outstay any welcome meant that a second invitation was rarely proffered, there were always new bachelors or young couples looking to fill out a country party.

That ended with the arrival of the children. The Wickhams had no settled home of their own, no nurses or maids or governesses with whom the children could be left, and there were few who would tolerate the invasion of an entire family. That, and the Wickhams' spreading reputation, had long meant that only Lydia's sister Jane, and her doting mother, would offer them a refuge.

Mrs. Bennett was now herself a dependent. Through the compassionate intervention of his wife Charlotte, Mr. Collins had allowed her to stay on at Longbourne for well over a year after the death of her husband, and Mrs. Bennett had seen both of her remaining daughters married from that house. But she had made her removal to Surrey with her daughter Mary upon Mary's marriage to a rector with a modest living, and their home being too small to admit guests had made the Wickhams desperate for invitations to the Bingleys' home, and nearly impossible to pry loose once they had arrived.

Thus, the arrival of the Darcys to find the Wickhams still in residence. Elizabeth, who had endured many visits over the years, and retained some affection for her youngest sister, felt confident of her own ability to enjoy her visit with Jane in any case, and she was even confident that her husband, when he accustomed himself to the situation, would show something more like the cheerful, open demeanor he normally wore in the Bingleys' company.

Elizabeth's concern had been all for Georgiana Darcy, who at just fifteen years of age had been prevented at the last minute from eloping with George Wickham only through her brother's intervention. Surely it could not be comfortable to be with him again, and in the company of a wife whom he had also seduced away from her family at a tender age, and only married because her brother had once again intervened.

But Georgianna seemed perfectly happy to find the Wickhams at Heatherhill. Indeed, of everyone in the drawing room that evening, only Miss Darcy had seemed entirely at ease. "I would not have expected her to have the self-possession," Mrs. Darcy said. "Georgiana has every pleasing quality of character, but she is so easily mortified. I would not have thought her capable of it."

Darcy replied, "Perhaps her engagement to Mr. Winter has increased her confidence. She may previously, confronted with Wickham, have felt that she was still the naive girl with whom he took such liberties, but with her marriage to a most eminent and respectable gentleman less than two months away, she must think of herself as a grown woman who need not be concerned with the follies of her girlhood. In any case, Wickham will soon be gone. Bingley has assured me that he will put them out by Saturday."

Elizabeth laughed. "You mean he has agreed to allow you to do so."

Darcy could not help smiling. "It may be something rather like that. I am surprised Wickham did not choose to go; he must have known I would not tolerate their presence here."

Elizabeth was thoughtful. "I do not think they have anywhere to go. Nothing more than rooms, in any case. I know that it troubles Jane greatly to think of them taking the children out of her care. Perhaps the Bingleys have, for this reason, been less forceful than they otherwise might have been."

Darcy smiled again. "The Bingleys have ever been less forceful than they might have been. I have tried time and again to convince Bingley that the fact of the Wickhams having worn out their welcome in every house in England but this does not give them leave to become permanent residents. He is too soft." He paused a moment. "But I am not. Come to bed, Lizzie."

 

 

Elizabeth returned to the subject the next evening, in the drawing room. She and Jane had settled down to needlework, with their chairs pulled close for comfortable conversation. "Jane," she essayed, "do you not find Georgiana's behavior extraordinary?"

"Miss Darcy?" Jane replied, glancing over to the table where that lady was engaged in a hand of cards with the Wickhams and Mr. Bingley. "Her behavior is always above reproach."

"But it has not always been so, Jane," Elizabeth replied. "Surely you recall her near-elopement with Mr. Wickham?"

Jane said, "I confess I had not thought of it. It was so long ago it hadn't come to my mind."

Elizabeth said, "But now that you have recalled it, do you not find it strange that she should be so comfortable with Wickham?"

"I do not find it strange at all, Lizzie. People do not always think of the past. It may be as far from her mind as it was from mine."

"You cannot believe it! It is not in Miss Darcy's nature to be so composed in such a circumstance!"

"Lizzie!" Jane said, "This is gossip. If the parties involved do not care to rehearse the events, it is surely not your place to do so. In any case, why should it trouble you? Surely, since Wickham is here, it is better that Miss Darcy be comfortable than otherwise."

Elizabeth sighed. "As usual, you are right, Jane. But I confess it does trouble me. I cannot stop myself from puzzling over it."

"Perhaps Mr. Darcy can put your mind at ease?"

"I have spoken to him already, Jane. He cannot give an explanation. Or he will not."

 

 

The gentleman of whom they spoke had withdrawn to a writing desk in the corner of the room, explaining that he had some urgent letters of business to write. There were in fact no letters to be written, and the paper in front of him remained blank, the pen forgotten in his hand. He was as troubled in his mind as his wife, and with better reason: he knew the reason why Georgiana Darcy had no consciousness around Wickham. She had never had any dealings with Wickham but those of blameless friendship, and she had no memories of him except those of a girl who had enjoyed the friendly attentions of a boy she looked up to as a friend of her brother. Her near-elopement had been a fabrication of his own. The story was faithful to Wickham's character; he had not exaggerated that. But he had told Elizabeth a story that he hoped would engage her sympathy, in place of the truth, which he feared would drive her from him forever. Even now, were it to come to light.

He was interrupted by Wickham himself, who, the card game having broken up, seated himself nearby. "We have not had a chance to speak since your arrival," he said.

Darcy answered coolly. "I do not see that we can have anything to say to each other. Except perhaps, farewell. How progresses your packing?"

Wickham smiled. "Although Mrs. Wickham is eager to return to London, we cannot possibly take our leave until we have secured lodgings. I hope to make enquiries soon regarding townhouses to let."

Darcy scoffed. "You mean to let a townhouse? I had not heard that you had come into a sum of money."

"I have not," Wickham answered. "But one never knows. I have been thinking of your father lately."

Darcy made to rise. "You can have nothing to say to me about my father."

Wickham rose, too, and stood firmly before Darcy. "No, indeed, but I had some things I wished to say to him before he died, and never had the opportunity. Mrs. Darcy has always been a sympathetic friend; perhaps she will lend me an ear. But I did not come to speak to you of that. The ladies have proposed a game of charades, and sent me as their emissary to invite your participation. Will you come?"

 

 

"Bingley," said Darcy to his friend over a late glass of port that evening, "Wickham means to ruin me."

"Ruin you?" replied Bingley. "Indeed not. He is too busy ruining me. I was going over my accounts on Tuesday, and they are absolutely dismal. So long as you stand firm on barring them from Pemberley, you have nothing to be concerned with."

"I am serious, Charles," Darcy said. "He means to blackmail me."

"He has revived that old scheme? It was never a good one. Schoolboy buggery is shocking to nobody. If a gentleman can be ruined for it, no one in England is safe."

"It was shocking to my father," Darcy said. "As you well know. He was unbendingly severe on the practice. And it will be shocking to Elizabeth. She has no notion of such things."

"No more has Jane," Bingley agreed. "That is what he threatens? To tell Mrs. Darcy of your pederasty if you do not pay a sum of money?"

"Exactly. And I cannot pay, that is very plain. I would be at his mercy forever. But if I do not pay, he can ruin me with Elizabeth. I had no notion I could love a woman as I love her. She has made my happiness, which I thought lost forever. I could not bear to lose her." He turned to look out the window.

Bingley laid a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. "It speaks to the perversion of Wickham's character that he never could see how sincerely you cared for him. He threatened to tell your father about your affair in an attempt to secure a portion of your fortune, but I could have told him you were prepared to lay it at his feet, were he only to say the word."

Darcy smiled bitterly. "I had a scheme to pass our youth abroad together, to marry at the last possible decent moment, and, with no regard whatsoever for my future wife or her feelings, to carry on as we had been as soon as I had gotten myself an heir. I was remarkably naive, as well as shockingly callous."

"Many women would have willingly entered into such an arrangement, provided they were given the same freedom," Bingley said.

"True," said Darcy. "But not Elizabeth." He sighed. "I suppose I should have anticipated this threat. I did not realize how desperate Wickham had become."

"I could have told you," Bingley said. "Mrs. Wickham has unburdened herself most thoroughly to Jane with regard to their means and prospects. But I did not consider it could affect you in any way."

"Do not trouble yourself. I cannot think of any way in which being forewarned would have aided me," Darcy said.

"You should rest now," Bingley said. "Only hold him at bay for a few days, perhaps with a false promise of payment that must be secured, and we will come to some resolution."

 

 

No solution, however, presented itself to either Bingley or Darcy, and over the next few days Darcy grew increasingly despondent, while Wickham reveled in his discomfort. The ladies, however, merely attributed Darcy's sour mood to the presence of the Wickhams. "Lord, Lizzie," said Lydia Wickham to her one day as the sisters walked out together, "I would not be married to your husband for ten Pemberleys. He is always out of sorts."

"What are your husband's plans, Lydia?" Elizabeth replied. "He must have some notion of where you will go next. You cannot stay at Heatherhill forever."

"I do not know where we will go," Lydia replied. "I would love to go to London, but it is so dear. We were in Portsmouth last, and la! such society is there among the sea officers' wives. They are not so puffed-up as the ladies you encounter in London, being at least some of them from common stock. And housing can be had very cheap. But we cannot go back there until the Otter sails."

"The Otter?" Jane said. "How can the sailing of a ship possibly affect you?"

"There are two officers on board who have called Wickham out. One for cheating at cards, and the other for having relations with his wife. But once the Otter sails, she will be gone for months, and we can go where we will."

Jane said, "How could they accuse him so?"

Lydia laughed. "Oh, they are entirely in the right. But of course he will avoid the engagement if he can."

Jane said, "Lydia! How can you be so unfeeling!"

"I have been married to Wickham these nine years, Jane," Lydia replied. "I have been much in the world. Besides, what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander."

Elizabeth was shocked in her turn. "Lydia, you can't mean it!"

Lydia said, "I do indeed mean it. I cannot even tell you for certain that Wickham is the father of our youngest. But it makes no difference. So long as I am married the child is not a bastard. And I daresay Wickham has laid his share of cuckoo's eggs."

 

 

Elizabeth unburdened herself to her husband that evening. "I had no idea Lydia had grown so coarse. She speaks unfeelingly of another man fathering their youngest child, and of Wickham being challenged on grounds of honor as merely an inconvenience to her housekeeping. I should not be surprised--indeed, I am not surprised--but I am disappointed. One hopes for better. I thought Jane perhaps could have had some influence."

Darcy said, "Wickham has been called out?"

"Yes," Elizabeth said, "by two men, both officers of a ship called the Otter."

"Do you know their names?"

"No, Lydia did not specify."

"Is the Otter presently at sea?" Darcy asked.

Elizabeth was taken aback by his urgency. "No, she is at Portsmouth. It is the reason they cannot go back there."

"I must go to Portsmouth, Elizabeth. I shall leave at first light. You must say that I have been called to London on a financial matter. I shall be back as soon as may be possible, and in the meantime you must not be alone with Wickham, or allow him to put a letter into your hand. Do you understand me?"

"No," Elizabeth said. "I do not understand you at all."

"Then let me ask this instead: will you follow my instructions? Will you trust me, and follow my instructions without deviation?"

"I will," Elizabeth said, "if you tell me that by my doing so all shall be well."

 

 

Darcy returned nine days later, and on the tenth day, the Wickhams departed Heatherhill, saving the children, who remained in the care of their aunt. "I daresay we will be back soon," Lydia said as she mounted the carriage. "We always have such a jolly time." In response to this, Darcy and Bingley looked stern, and Wickham came as close as he ever had to showing consciousness, letting an expression almost like embarrassment, or fear, flicker over his features for a moment before rearranging them into their customary expression of ingratiating charm.

He was at some pains to maintain his composure. Darcy had paid their fare on the post-chaise to Portsmouth, and the cook had put up a basket of food for their journey, but he and Lydia were taking their leave with no money in the world but what Jane had slipped her sister in their leave-taking. He had sent off two letters of apology to the gentlemen in Portsmouth in the previous evening's post; this, and the money Darcy had paid them, had persuaded them to drop their claims of honor against him. But in his pocket was a list, and in Darcy's pocket an identical list, of other men he had cuckolded, which Darcy had been able to compile during his stay in Portsmouth, from intelligence the officers provided and through his own additional inquiries.

In his mind was the promise that Darcy had made him: that if Wickham again threatened his marriage, or indeed so much as returned to Heatherhill, he would contact these gentleman by clandestine means, inform them of their injuries at Wickham's hand, and offer a generous sum to the one who succeeded in killing him in a duel.

 

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Regrets, I've Had a--Not So Many, Actually

This blog post is dedicated to Joan Nestle, co-founder of the Lesbian Herstory Archives, and author of, among other things, the essay My Mother Liked to Fuck.

Sometimes, I realize that I have been wrong about myself. The recent example I keep going on about is that, until I started growing my hair last year after keeping it buzzed close to my scalp for several years, I had no idea I had curly hair. I knew I had curls at the nape of my neck, and I knew that if my hair got to a certain length it would swoop out into unattractive "wings" over my ears, but somehow I had no idea that my hair was curly all over. This is because my curls are fragile. Comb or brush them, and they stretch right out.

I don't know what inspired me, when my hair started growing in, to try a Curly Girl/no shampoo care regimen on it, but I did, and the result is curls. This isn't always a good thing--I get pretty Medusa-headed when I need a haircut, as I do right now--but overall I like it, and I am always pointing at my head and saying in wonder, "I have curly hair! Who knew?"

I was 46 years old when I figured out that I had curly hair. That shows a shocking lack of self-awareness.

But I was 47 when I figured out that I had been lying to myself and everyone else for 20 years.

You see, I had a lot of sex when I was young. Exactly how much sex depends on how you define it. I was an active and enthusiastic "everything but" girl starting at the age of 13 or 14. In the 9 months after I had PIV sex for the first time, I slept with five men, and there were at least two more I had sexual relationships with and probably would have had PIV sex with if anybody'd had a condom in their pocket.

Then I fell in love with another woman, and came out as a lesbian. We were together for over two years, and were monogamous during that time. In the year after we broke up, I had four lovers. The last one left me feeling a little rattled, so I decided to take a break from sex with other people, and it was at least a year before I dated anyone again.

[Side note: my experiences during that year taught me that some women can be just as unwilling as some men to believe you when you say you're not going to have sex with them. But that is maybe for another post.]

You don't need to hear every detail, so let me sum up. In the five years between when my first lover and I broke up, and when I got together with Raider, I was sexually active for three, maybe three-and-a-half, years, and had ten lovers.

It didn't really seem like all that many people at the time, so I was surprised when I saw the results of a study that showed that I'd had more sexual partners than something like 90% of American women. I don't know where that specific study is, but you can find some stats at the Kinsey Institute website, if you're interested.

Reading that study reminded me of a scene in the TV show Roseanne, in which Jackie stops to think for a minute and realizes that, if she's had about three lovers a year since she was 18, that means she's slept with 60 men.

Thanks to the wonders of the internet, I was able to find the episode! I wasn't able to manage the time stamp on my iPad, but if you scrub to 7 minutes, 26 seconds, you can see the very scene, which is even funnier than I remembered. Jackie's face when she does the math is much like mine when I saw that study. If you'd asked me, "Would you say you've slept with more people than the average American woman, fewer people, or about the same?" I'd have guessed I was about average. Maybe on the high side of average.

Instead, I was apparently a slut.

For the last twenty years, I have said things like this about all that sex and all those people:

"There are people I regret sleeping with."

"I slept with too many people. I wouldn't want my kids to sleep with as many people as I did."

"I learned about sex and relationships through trial-and-error, and it was hard and bad."

Here is what I've realized, though: None of these things is true.

There is not actually one person I regret sleeping with. I had some bad sex, sure (Ron, I'm looking at you! I hope for the sake of your other partners that you eventually figured out that the duration of the sex act is not the only measure of quality). I also had some very good sex with some very bad people--including one woman who I halfway expect to someday get to Step 9 in AA and give me a call. I had some terrific sex with people it wasn't worth being in a relationship with, like this bartender named Ian, whom I met when I showed up in Ann Arbor for my orientation at UMich and spent the rest of the day and night with. Skipping my entire college orientation in favor of playing with Ian's kitten, eating sweet things in his bed while listening to music, and having a lot of sex is probably one of the most rebellious things I've ever done, and it was great.

On further inspection, he turned out to be kind of a jerk, and although I saw him once or twice, we never went on a date or slept together again. But we had a truly lovely relationship that lasted a little under 24 hours. I have often used my one-night stand with Ian as an example of why you should get to know people before you sleep with them, but in fact I am glad that I slept with him before I got to know him. Because that 24 hours was wonderful, and it was apparently the best he had to offer.

Here's the thing: I think that I have been unable to shake free of a certain story about sex: that it's something other people want from you, and you should only give it to them if they've proven themselves worthy. And that it's only OK if it happens in the context of a relationship, or at least leads to one. Hence my attempt to convince myself and others that sleeping with Ian was a mistake. We hear a lot that, while sex is a good thing, it's only good in moderation and with the right people, and I have often acted as if I believe that, too. But I don't. I believe that sex can also be good in excess, and even, occasionally, with the wrong people.

It's a fascinating glimpse into my own mind that I have held to, and expressed, ideas I don't believe to be true. It reminds me of the years when I identified as a lesbian, and the mental gymnastics I did to explain away my attractions to men. It has to do, I think, with being acceptable to the people I want to be accepted by. I didn't want my lesbian community to turn me out, so I pretended, even to myself, that I wasn't regularly having crushes on men. Similarly, I copped to all that sex with all those people but only in the context of disavowing (at least some of) it, because I didn't want people whose opinion I respected and whose friendships mattered to me to reject me. Or because I didn't realize how much I'd bought into that narrative. How much I still believed that such a thing as a slut existed, and that it was bad to be one.

I have been wrestling with this post for much longer than it usually takes me to crank one out. I'm not sure I'm saying what I want to say. And I can imagine people wondering why I feel the need to say it at all. Maybe I'll finish with an FAQ:

So, I did the math, and it sounds like you slept with maybe 20 people or so altogether. That doesn't sound like so many.

Yeah, it didn't seem like all that many to me, either, until I read that study.

I get that you like to talk about sex, but did you really have to include numbers?

Yes, I did. Because if we're going to talk about it at all, I think it makes sense to be clear about what exactly I mean.

Why are we talking about it?

My oldest kid is within a stone's throw of the age I was the first time I kissed someone. The first time someone put his hand between my legs. The first time I touched a penis. It gets me thinking about what I want my kids to know about sex, and how I want them to find it out. It gets me thinking about what I knew and didn't know, and how I found it out, what messages I was given, the way we are still, shockingly in our sex-obsessed culture, so quiet about how much sex we have and with who and how and why.

Also, it's just my way. I think about things, and when I think about them, I write about them. It's what I have always done.

It seems like you glossed over the risks that can come with sex.

Yes. I was lucky in that I never had a birth-control failure and ended up pregnant, and never caught an STI even during the brief period when I was using the Pill as my only form of birth control. I'm also lucky in that every guy I ever went home with the same night I met him turned out to be basically decent (I actually had more trouble with women in this regard--again, perhaps something I'll write about another time). I have never experienced sexual violence. But I think we focus too much on the risks of sex. I wanted to talk about the rewards.

You say you "had" a lot of sex. So, this is in your past?

No. I still have a lot of sex.

Oh, for heaven's sake, why did you have to tell us that?

Because I am 47 years old, have three kids, and weigh almost 300 pounds. The idea of someone like me being sexual is treated as a joke in our culture. I am here to tell you in all seriousness: fat middle-aged moms like to fuck, too.

You'll just say anything, won't you? Have you no shame?

No, I have no shame. That's my whole point.

I have no shame.

 

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Super Secret Super Spy

When we arrived at the Y for the homeschool swim party, our 13-year-old friend The Armorer, who had unexpectedly spent the night with us last night, didn't have his swim suit. His mom was a little late, so I asked a friend with 7 kids if, by any chance, she had a spare in his size.

Alas, not with her, she said, but said that someone who resembled her but with much looser ethics had been known to check the Lost & Found, "find" a missing swim suit for the afternoon, and then leave it behind again.

I was about to try this gambit when The Armorer's mom arrived.

Sadly, however, it turned out that his swimsuit had been left home.

I decided to try the gambit. This is the story of Super Spy Su And The "Missing" Swimsuit.

First, I decided that I would try to do this without actually telling a lie. I would say things that were technically true, and allow inferences to do the rest.

Accordingly, I went to the front desk and said, "We seem to be short a swimsuit. May I check the Lost & Found?"

Tim was summoned to take me to the Lost & Found.

He caused trouble from the first by asking as we walked there, "What color is it?"

"Ummm...navy blue," I said, figuring the odds were good that, if there were any swimsuits in the Armorer's size, one of them would be navy blue.

Tim continued to make trouble in the Lost & Found room, "helping" me root through bins. I had hoped to be less supervised, so it wouldn't be quite so obvious that the only actual criterion I had was size.

"I'm not sure I'll recognize it," I said. "I can't always tell the kids' swimsuits apart. Look, here's one that is exactly like my husband's!" All of these things were technically true.

I had found a promising candidate, in navy blue even, but covered in white Hawaiian-style flowers...I was pondering how to pretend this was the swimsuit I was looking for despite it having not occurred to me earlier to mention the flowers, when Tim said, "Well, if you can't find his, this whole bag here has just been through the wash. He can borrow one of these for the afternoon."

I blinked a couple of times and said, "This one will do, then."

Tim even delivered it to the men's locker room for me.

So much for my brilliant career in espionage.

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I Have 30 Minutes

In thirty minutes, I need to pile the kids--including a friend who slept over last night--into the van, pick up the Tiny Tornado early from school even though I forgot to tell his teacher I would be doing so, and take the whole crew to a homeschool swim outing at the Y. I will need at least 5 of those minutes for collecting swimsuits & towels. In 24 minutes, I will post whatever I have managed to write. [sets timer]

Raider loves everything I write. If I post something to my blog or send him an e-mail, he drops whatever he is doing to read it. And then, we have this conversation:

Me: Did you read my blog post?

Raider: Yes! I liked it.

Me: Did you like it?

Raider, patiently: Yes.

Me: What did you like about it?

Raider: Its general goodness.

Sometimes I press him for details. I pressed him for details about yesterday's post, and he said he espeically liked "The afore-mentioned Mocha, for instance, went from Suave Seductive Butch to Frothing Drama Queen in something less than 96 hours." He said, "You have a way with words."

He also said he liked the math in the first paragraph.

I said: You don't feel like I share too much information about us?

Raider, sighing: No.

Me: That sigh says something different.

Raider: I am mostly teasing you. I mean, would we still be together if...

Me, interrupting: What you're saying is, that ship has already sailed.

Raider: Heh, yes.

I have been thinking about the Lego Savant. I recently read yet another on-line conversation in which people pulled out the old "Lego sets just aren't creative like they used to be" cliche. You know those Bingo cards for on-line conversations? There's one for Lego-related conversations where every square says, "These new sets have all these specific pieces and can only build the model on the box."

"Guaranteed Bingo by the seventh comment," the creator says. In this recent conversation, I Bingo'd at comment four.

I always think these people have never actually watched kids build with Lego, or that they themselves are not very creative. Or that, as parents, they are imposing some kind of ridiculous rule on their kids that they're not allowed to breakdown sets and re-purpose the pieces. The Lego Savant used to do that all the time; when he heard me commenting to someone that over the last couple of years, he had started keeping more of his sets intact for display, he said, "Oh, that's just because I finally had enough pieces to work on my own stuff."

The Lego Savant builds amazing stuff out of his re-purposed Lego Star Wars sets, which have wonderful pieces to work with. But what I was going to talk about was how much I enjoy his technical interest in new sets. He is excited by new pieces--he recently was talking to me about a dilemma he had about a set he got for Christmas (not the big one, with 3000+ pieces. A more modest one). On the one hand, it was a very cool set he would enjoy keeping intact; on the other hand, it had a couple of new shapes that were giving him all kinds of ideas for MOCs. (In Lego parlance: My Own Creations.)

Probably, it occurs to me, if he decides to keep the set intact, we'll end up at BrickLink or eBay, buying some individual pieces, or a lot, so that he can also build the ideas in his head.

He is also interested in new build techniques the designers come up with. "I've never seen a hinge done like this before!" he'll tell me. I have discovered that I like to build Lego sets, having helped my kids with many over the years, and for me it's much the same experience as doing a puzzle, or building a model from a kit. For him, it is that, but he's also experiencing it on a higher level, integrating what the designers have done into his own reportoire of techniques. He is inspired both creatively and technically by building kits.

He got a set with over 3000 pieces for Christmas this year. He is enjoying working on it, and learning a lot. But he has also commented a number of times on the interesting fact that, although it is the largest set he has ever built--it will be about 4 feet long when finished--it is technically a micro-build. Most Lego sets are built to minifig scale--if it's a car, you can put a Lego minifigure in the driver seat and it will be proportional.

The Super Star Destroyer, however, is built to a scale that is too small for the minifigs. There is a smaller detachable part--a ship, maybe, or just the bridge, I'm not sure--that is minifig scale. But the rest is micro-scale. The Lego Savant likes that it is huge but also a micro-build--an interesting paradox!--and he likes imagining how big the ship would have to be to be minifig scale.

In that same conversation at MetaFilter, a user wrote an excellent comment about how licensing Lego sets for Star Wars and other tie-ins is pretty well accepted as having saved the company from bankruptcy. Imagine a world without Lego! We are such a Lego-loving family that when it was time to renew my license plates in October, I actually toyed with the idea of getting a Lego-related vanity plate. I am not really a vanity plate person, though.

Time to go. I could say much more about Lego, and I might come back and add a few images to this later. But off I go to do the swimming thing with the kids.

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LYSF: 97% Monogamous

My most recent post on non-monogamy made me sound both wiser and more experienced that I really am. I am, in fact, neither wise nor especially experienced. I just did some math, and figured that Raider and I have been together for almost 235 months. During those 235 months, I have dated three other people for a total of...*counts on fingers*...just a hair under seven months. Raider, something less than that.

That's slightly less than 3% of our relationship. 2.97%, to be precise.

We are not exactly what you'd call swingers.

But why not? In my last post, I had much to say about the joys of non-monogramy. But non-monogamy as I practice it is hardly different from monogramy, at least statistically speaking. Why is that?

One reason is that I am profoundly conservative and prefer to protect my relationship with Raider, which is the best thing that has ever happened to me and the foundation of everything else in my life. If being non-monogamous makes me feel secure in my relationship, choosing not to date does too. I have been around the block enough times to know what can happen to people when they get caught up in their emotions. Heck, three different times, I have been the new girl on one end of a "V" when the person at the apex decided it was time to end their prior, long-term relationship (one of those three times was Raider, actually. That was a long time ago).

But there have also been long stretches of time when I just plain wasn't interested in dating--for instance, the decade or so beginning when I got pregnant with the Lego Savant in September 2000. During this time, I was very busy birthing and adopting babies and caring for them, while also teaching English, coping with chronic pain, homeschooling the babies when they turned into kids, watching all of Joss Whedon's oeuvre, and trying to have some semblance of a couple relationship with Raider. I had no time to think about dating. When I did think about it, it seemed entirely possible that my non-monogamous days were over.

Even when I have been willing to date, my parameters have been very narrow. I have tended to choose my time and place very carefully. My time and place was usually the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, where I was a worker for a number of years. I flirted a lot at festival, with women I knew only as Mocha or Mullein or Flame or Rocky, women who were conveniently going to return to homes far away, in Seattle or Nebraska, or even better, on another continent altogether. I need a lover that won't drive me crazy, was my philosophy, someone who'll thrill me, and then go away.

When I started to think, back in 2010 or thereabouts, that I might be interested in dating again, I figured it just wasn't going to happen. My days at Michigan are behind me, and there isn't anything else like it in my life. Sure, I still go to conferences. I attend the Friends General Conference Gathering almost every July, for instance. But it is hard to imagine any setting less like the heady hormonal stew of the workers' camp at Michigan. It's like the place is bathed in an anti-sex dampening field. (The High School & Young Adult dorms are probably exceptions to this.) And all the people at FGC, or in FLGBTQC, that I might have been interested in also attend nearly every year. In other words, I would almost certainly see them again! No, thank you.

Finally, dating often sucks. The afore-mentioned Mocha, for instance, went from Suave Seductive Butch to Frothing Drama Queen in something less than 96 hours. If the right woman can have Raider thanking her by proxy for the good energy she brings to our relationship, the wrong woman can have me flopping down on the bed next to him, sighing, "That was so not worth it." My first lover and I broke up in 1988; Raider and I got together in 1993. I packed a couple of lifetimes' worth of bad choices, drama, "processing," and tears into those five years. I have no patience for drama, but until very recently, I had almost no faith in my ability to date without it.

I still want to tell you all about those five years. You learn a lot from bad decisions; perhaps others could benefit from my experience without having to suffer quite so much. And I would like to tell you about the last six months, when I have figured out that dating doesn't have to suck, and that it can be a pleasure to see a person again, if you choose the right person. But that is about all I can say on that subject.

 

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My Mother, Poor Woman, Is Still Dead

The Tiny Tornado and I set an alarm to make sure we're up in time for school. But we mostly don't need it. He tends to wake up sometime after 7, and crawls into bed with me for a cuddle. We use the alarm to tell us it's time to stop snuggling and get moving.

He's such an energetic little person. This morning, after the alarm, I said to him, "Are you ready for another day?" He said, "I sure am!"

This morning during our cuddle I found myself thinking about my parents. I told Raider that if I'd known how liberating it would feel to be disowned by my dad, I'd have worked harder to push him to the brink years ago. We wonder, though, if it would have been possible while my mom was still alive. It makes me curious about what was going on between them, marriage being the complicated thing it is. We imagine him as a dog straining to escape, and her as the one holding the leash.

This morning, I found myself thinking about how my mom died friendless. People liked her, but she always saw the worst in everyone. When I was a child, I wondered how it could be that my mom didn't actually like any of her friends. As I got older, I realized that her "friends" were generally relatives, or the wives of my dad's friends. I think she experienced liberation as her siblings and in-laws died in recent years, and when her last surviving brother was so unethical in his handling of my Uncle Charlie's estate that she felt clear to sever ties. Perhaps this is something else we had in common: that we hung onto bad family relationships too long, and were relieved when their ends were taken out of our hands.

The wives, though--lovely women who seemed to sincerely like my mom. But my mother always chose to see the worst in everyone. Given a choice, she ascribed the least flattering motivation to everyone's actions. She magnified people's flaws and failings, and overlooked their gifts. In recent years, she had simply refused to socialize with these people anymore; my dad carried on without her. And she never, that I saw, made any effort to make friends of her own, on her own terms.

When I was a senior in high school, I became friends with a group of girls who transformed my ideas of what friendship could be. They changed my life for the better, and for good. I'd previously been part of a large, fun, and loving but messed-up crew that thrived on drama and loved to gossip behind each other's backs. It was eye-opening to fall in with a group who actually liked and supported each other. A whole new model of friendship!

My mother, of course, didn't like these girls. She never liked any of my friends, but for some reason she had a particular disdain for this group. She had a derogatory nickname for each of them, for instance, which she used whenever they weren't present. And, while I was experiencing these friendships as the first truly healthy and loving relationships of my life, my mother questioned my motives. She thought these girls were beneath me--even as I, struggling to break old habits, wasn't always sure I deserved them.

One of her favorite accusations was that I had chosen these friends because they weren't as smart as me, so that I would look better by comparison. I can remember arguing with her about it many times. For one thing, these girls were smart. I have lost track of a couple of them, but the rest turned out to be:

1. A math major in college who worked for the census bureau and is now a teacher.

2. A mechanical engineer.

3. A Sociology Ph.D. who is a researcher at the University of Wisconsin.

4. A History Ph.D. who is a professor at Kalamazoo College.

If my intention was to look smarter by comparison, well, I'm going to say that was a failed strategy.

I tried to tell her, also, that to the extent that I was choosing friends in order to look smart to some imaginary audience, it would make more sense to choose smart friends. "Hmm," someone might say, "I never though Su Penn was all that bright...but she must have something going on upstairs to be able to keep up with that crew." But she could never see another point of view than her own, and she could never see the goodness in people.

I am so much like my mother that I count it as one of the great blessings of my life that I have managed to not be like her in this way (after some early false starts and failures). My mother was a lovely woman, a raconteur, hilarious to listen to. She made a vocation of keeping and passing on the family's stories. People liked her; over the years, many people have told me of their appreciation for her sense of humor or her charm or her thoughtfulness, and I have no reason to think they were being insincere. People were ready to love my mother, but, for the most part, she did not love them back.

That is my eulogy for today.

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