All posts by Abi

Personal

Too Roman by Half

A colleague and I were talking about the forthcoming film Troy the other day. I said something like, “Well, I always sided with the Trojans against the Greeks, but then I’m too Roman by half.”

The first part, certainly, is true. I have always sided with the Trojans. Not Paris, who was an idiot. (Top tip: if you have to choose from among three goddesses, you will have one powerful friend and two powerful enemies. 2 > 1. You will be sorry. Make applesauce, or throw yourself on the mercy of Zeus, or jump off a cliff.) But the story of Hector, and the image of his body being dragged round the walls of Troy, won my sympathy more than Achilles’ spoilt brat behaviour ever did.

But the second part is true as well. I am too Roman by half. Admittedly, I’m not Roman enough to mind having my own first name (Roman girls didn’t), and I’m glad my paterfamilias didn’t have the power of life or death over me (not that Dad would have done anything awful). But as time goes by, I find myself succumbing to Roman-style superstition.

The Romans believed that there were “auspicious” times and “inauspicious” times. Indeed, the superstitious Roman matron (or man – this one spanned both genders) was as much of a stereotype as the boasting soldier or the virtuous girl of good family barely saved from prostitution. Juvenal, in his Satire 6, spends a good 40 lines on the subject of superstitious women. (He was always much gentler on his own sex.)

This is not limited to Romans, of course – the main character with Asperger’s in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time judges the auspiciousness of the day by the number of red cars he sees on his way to school. And millions of people read, and even make decisions based on their horoscopes. But it feels very Roman in me.

I’ve always had the feeling that there are “good days” and “bad days”. Over the last five years, as I’ve learned to deal with Seasonal Affective Disorder, I’ve been wryly conscious of the fact that my perceptions are as much a part of this as my luck itself. But after a few weeks like I’ve just had, something in me does wonder if the auspices are against me.

In addition to the usual slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, there have been several major irritants lately:

  • The carpet thing
  • My work situation, which is crap, but which I don’t want to discuss in public since it’s still going on.
  • Sacroiliac joint dysfunction
  • Being messed about with by an ebay vendor about a cane for the above. Again, still ongoing, so not the time to discuss.
  • Attempting to buy a particular sofa bed in IKEA, only to find that our penny-ante Edinburgh shop doesn’t stock it. I could have hoicked all the way out to the Glasgow one, but we were going to get it shipped, and shipping from Glasgow is much, much costlier than shipping the few miles from the Edinburgh branch. There goes my carefully composed room design…

All in all, bad luck seems to plague me right now. You’ll note, as well, that three of the five items listed there have been my attempts to spend money. Dealing with British vendors of any sort is often a trial – they usually assume that you, and your time, are of no value whatsoever, and that you’re happy to stay in the house all day waiting for deliveries that never come, or to pay through the nose for shoddy work and outright rudeness. (This is not universal, by the way – Hewit’s, my local bookbinding supplier, for instance, is a pleasure to deal with. Which is why I have too much leather under my bed, but that’s another story.) This disappointment with major purchases is leading to another great Roman virtue: frugality, since I can’t seem to spend my money anywhere.

Much more of it, though, and I’ll be tempted to follow yet another fine Roman custom, the proscription, where you write out a list of all your enemies and post it as a suggestion for the mobs…

Who can categorise everything?

Offshoring Redux, or, what does a sporran have to do with software?

The IT industry has been gripped by anxiety over the last few months over the growing trend towards “offshoring”. More and more companies are moving their software development to countries like India and China, where a highly educated workforce is willing to code for a fraction of the costs of North Americans and Europeans. This is a Bad Thing according to pundits, but, I suspect, an inevitable one. UK call centres and directory enquiries are already frequently staffed from the Indian subcontinent (with operators given “cultural training” so they can chat about the latest happenings on Eastenders.)

I also suspect that my own specialty, software testing, is going to see a renaissance in the US, Canada, and Europe. At present, software testing seems to be moving offshore along with the development. But I reckon a given company will try an average of one offshore implementation without onshore testing before we testers become very, very popular. Even “onshore” offsite developments need acceptance testing. How much more will projects developed across time zones, continents, and language barriers?

But some industries are supposed to be offshoring-proof. Right? Right? Wrong. sporran makers are under threat from offshoring.

Is nothing sacred?

Personal

Ouchy Head

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Well, if Martin’s recent sufferings weren’t enough, I appear to have developed the capacity for migraines. Imagine my delight.

It is apparently not uncommon for women’s migraine status to change in pregnancy – sufferers may experience some relief, and non-sufferers may start getting them. This ties into the theories that migraines are hormonally based.

I don’t know if the two killer headaches I’ve experienced in the last month are true migraines. In both cases, my head was throbbing so badly it felt like it would explode, particularly behind the eyes. Any light caused stabbing pains in my eyes and temples, adding to the pain even more. Eventually, it hurt so much that I got nauseated, sometimes uncontrollably.

Yesterday’s headache was preceded by an unpleasant series of sensations as well. I went up into town at lunchtime, and while on my way back, I began to feel somewhat faint. (Since I have low blood pressure, I am familiar with the symptoms that lead up to fainting, though I have only once passed out. Specifically, I sometimes experience dizziness, ringing in the ears, sweating palms, nausea and a trailing off of extreme weakness. Yesterday I had three of the five, but managed to avoid the nausea and sweating palms by sitting down for a few minutes.) Then I got back to the office, and began to feel an incipient headache.

That feeling of faintness matches some of the symptoms of an aura, such as often precedes a “proper” migraine. Not being a doctor, I don’t know if my guess that this was an aura before a migraine is accurate (though as far as I can tell, the medical profession sometimes uses “migraine” to mean “bad headache we can’t otherwise explain”. It’s been the default diagnosis for Martin a couple of times.)

My head hurt all evening, meaning my poor Martin had to put Alex to bed. (I couldn’t bathe him, because the bathroom light was too bright. I took my shower later by candlelight.) I was better in the morning, but still too light-sensitive to take Alex to nursery; Martin had to do that too. Work was right out of the question.

Finally, about 24 hours after the first faintness, I’m feeling better. The light sensitivity has gone, the headache has vanished, and apart from a dragging tiredness, I’m back to normal.

The bad news is that, being pregnant, I dare not take painkillers. The worse news is that some pregnancy-onset tendencies to migraine don’t go away after the birth…

The good news is that Martin is wonderful. Thank you, Bun.

Family, Personal

The Quickening

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Hooray! The quickening!

Say “Quickening” to a science fiction fan and they’ll cringe. It’s one of the worst, tackiest films ever, a disgrace to the otherwise excellent Highlander series. So why am I so pleased about it?

In pregnancy terms, “quickening” refers to the moment when the mother can first feel the baby move. It tends to occur between 18 and 22 weeks for first pregnancies, and somewhat sooner in later ones (I’m at 16 1/2 weeks). There are two main theories why second pregnancies quicken earlier. Either the mother knows what she’s trying to feel for, or the uterus is more stretched and conducts the kicks better. I tend to believe the latter theory – neither Alex nor Chenoweth* has felt like anything other than something inside kicking out. (Note to self: time to watch Alien again.)

For many women, the quickening happens a week or two before the kicks are externally perceptible. This hasn’t been the case for me. Martin felt the third Alex kick I did, and I can already feel Chenoweth from the outside as well. (Haven’t yet timed it for Martin to feel. Probably over the next day or two.) This probably means I’ve missed the earlier movements in both cases, but I don’t really care.

In the days before ultrasounds, or even pregnancy tests, pregnancies weren’t announced until the baby was felt to move. Originally, it was thought to be the time the baby first moved, rather than first time it was perceptible. The quickening was the moment when everyone knew that a pregnancy was viable. If the pregnancy was a politcally important one, it was cause for public celebration. Look what happened when Jane Seymour felt a few kicks one day.

On 27 May 1537, Trinity Sunday, there was a Te Deum sung in St Paul’s cathedral for joy at the queen’s quickening of her child, my lord chancellor, lord privy seal and various other lords and bishops being then present; the mayor and aldermen with the best guilds of the city being there in their liveries, all giving laud and praise to God for joy about it.

Now, I’m not going to book St Paul’s, or even St John Vianney’s over the hill, but I am very pleased. Of course, we knew Chen was viable and moving after the scan (it was doing barrel rolls onscreen). But the quickening is still emotionally important. It’s the first time a baby becomes real, the first time I feel like there’s actually someone there. It’s also the beginning of the best thing about pregnancy for me: the feeling of closeness with the baby. In the years since Alex was born, I have often missed the slow, seismic roll of baby in the tummy, the feeling that he was right there with me all the time. That’s when I fell in love with him, and now I get to fall in love with his sibling.

Welcome, Chenoweth.

* We’re referring to the baby as Chenoweth, which is the planned middle name regardless of gender. It was my paternal grandfather’s mother’s maiden name, and I have always loved it. It’s Welsh in origin.

Bookbinding

Bookbinding Conference!

Though it was rather overshadowed by subsequent events (scan, tenth anniversary), I did actually go to the Society of Bookbinders biennial Training and Education Conference.

I was deeply intimidated by the entire thing. I’d never met a bookbinder before, ever. And the bookbinding world is still deeply rooted in the traditions of apprenticeship and mastery. Self-taught amateurs are like orphans among the hereditary nobility. Add to that that I’m crushingly shy about talking to strangers…

Of course, my fears were entirely groundless. Like any group of enthusiasts, the bookbinders were keen to talk to a fellow addict. I fell in with the Scottish contingent almost unintentionally, when I struck up a conversation with a woman from Aberdeen while touring the Reading University library bindery. Soon we had an accustomed place at the refectory tables for meals, and were chatting at tea breaks.

It was the first time I’ve ever had to listen to people talk about binding, watch demonstrations of bindings, and get a good in-person look at a few (very) fine bindngs. I even managed to buttonhole Mark Ramsden for some feedback on my green book. I’m still reeling a bit, digesting it all.

A few preliminary conclusions:

  • I’m not so hot on forwarding (book construction) as I thought. This is actually a good thing, because it means I need more practice, which means I have an excuse to bind more books. Previously, I was more conscious of my need to practice finishing (cover decoration), so the effort of forwarding (while pleasant) felt like a distraction from the learning process.
  • I have become increasingly conservative in my binding efforts. It’s time to reverse this trend. My interest in a lot of the more adventurous structures and decorational techniques was reignited by the things I saw, and heard about, in the conference.
  • I have a real taste for modernity in bindings. Most of my books on binding focus on the traditional styles, from about the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries through to the Arts and Crafts movement of the early 1900s. Some of these binding styles were very gaudy, and my taste runs more to simplicity. But until I saw some of the slideshows of modern bindings, I didn’t really see how to marry that taste for simplicity with fine binding. Now my head is full of ideas, visions of simple, restrained bindings. They’ll even cost me less in finishing tools!
Personal

10 Years

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A decade ago yesterday, I woke up in my parents’ house. It was my last morning as a Foley.

The house was full of college-aged guests, too impecunious to stay elsewhere. Then there was the family: two parents, two small children, and me (Mick lived elsewhere by then). And guests and relatives were wandering in and out from time to time. It was a zoo, but a delightful zoo, with someone unexpected in every room.

I laid out my beautiful wedding dress, handmade of silk by my mother, and the shoes I’d chosen to go with it. Then I realised that I didn’t have tights! A quick drive to Payless solved that, though all they had were “control top” tights. I shrugged and figured they would make me look even better in the dress.

By the time I came home, everyone was getting ready. I managed to get some mirror time, just enough to brush my hair and put a little makeup on. I never wear much, and that day was no exception. I took the least time to get ready of anyone in that house, with plenty of time to help Kathleen with her hair.

I remember very little after driving to the church in the van. Martin and I had memorised our lines, and were word-perfect through the ceremony, but I don’t recall much of it. We drove to the reception in Jeeps, with white streamers tied to the roll bars. We ate, drank, and were merry, but again, I remember very little of it.

I was just too happy.

I’m still happy now, a decade later. Not in the same euphoric, memory-destroying way, of course, or they’d have to lock me up as a danger to myself and others. But my marriage to Martin has been even better than the wedding.

There have been bad times, of course, and no doubt there will be again. But the greatest joy of our marriage is that we can overcome adversity better as a couple (even adversity within the couple) better than we could individually.

It is far from time to rest on our laurels – with a toddler running rampant and a baby on the way, we certainly have some challenging times ahead. But we have made a good start.

I love you, Martin, even more than I did on the day I cannot remember.

Personal

Virtual Identity

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A few weeks ago, Martin was musing on what these blogs are, really, and why we maintain them. He, like the blogger who prompted his article, used a number of real-world analogies to make his points.

I’m not so sure how far analogies can take me in describing why I do what I do on the web. (Come to that, I’m not sure I know why I do all that I do on the web.)

First things first, though.

Who are you on the Web, Abi?

My main Net identities are:

Naturally, I have several “spoof” and temporary identities about as well, which I would rather were not linked to my “core” identity. Nor am I alone in this. I suspect that the vast majority of E2 users, for instance, have secondary accounts for various reasons. But these are the ones that I identify as “myself”.

These identities are not all linked up (or weren’t, until I posted this!), but together, they present a multi-faceted image that I am willing to make available to absolute strangers, friends, and family.

Why do you spend all this time on these identities?

For a long time, I didn’t have a web presence. I didn’t feel that I had anything that important to say. Further reading convinced me, however, that most of the other people on the web don’t either. One of my teachers at Napier advised me make a site of all the things I would want to find on the web (and I have, both in my factual work on E2 and in the Bookweb).

This blog came about partly by imitation (because Martin had one), and partly to communicate with my family in California. But its usage has evolved. It’s now part of my “shop window” on the world, an expression of who I am right now and what I’m thinking.

But (to ask a basic writer’s question), who is my audience? Martin and I have received a number of comments and emails lately that have clarified this for me.

  • One of Martin’s high school friends Googled her name and found a reference to herself in Martin’s blog. This led her to get in touch, as part of the re-consolidation of that set of friends from his youth.
  • I got a comment on my blog from someone whom I have never met, who Googled his way onto the Bookweb and followed the trail here. Reading my blog convinced him that I might be worth chatting to, and we exchange the occasional email now as a result.
  • Another email was from someone I knew at St Andrews, who found the site (don’t know how) and sent me a “remember me?” email. Again, contact is being re-established.

Enough verbage. Who is your audience?

My audience is those people on the web who were, are, or might become, friends. As friendship extends into the virtual realm, so will the art of meeting people. My web presence is a shop window, an entry in a Personals column, an extended hand.

So?

So if you think you might want to know me further, click on the rooster at the top of the page and send me an email. Alternatively, add a comment here.

Because it’s a big, scary world out there, I’m not going to fall all over myself to be friends with everyone who drops me a line. I’ve made my pitch, described myself. But friendship is a two-way street. Tell me about yourself, make me care.

And in the spirit of Martin’s friend getting back in touch, I’m going to list a few people I would love to hear from again, even just a brief note. This page is indexed by Google, so if they search on their names they’ll find themselves here. If this is you, click on the rooster at the top of the page and get in touch. Tell me what you’ve been doing!

From Piedmont High School:

  • Liza Groen
  • Lisa Wright
  • Alta Swinford
  • Paul Casey

From Skyline High School:

  • Jason Camara

From Richmond High School:

  • Jetsun Eddy (Or are you spelling it Jetsün Eddy?)

From UC Berkeley:

  • David Corcoran
  • David Beckerman
  • Eleanor (El) Casella
  • Charlton Horne
  • Keith Gordon

From St Andrews:

  • Andrea Kagan
  • William Grant
Politics

Bad Man

So the finger-pointing about weapons of mass destruction rages on. Did Iraq have any? If so, where are they? If not, why did Saddam Hussein not co-operate with the inspectors? Did the British and American governments mislead their voters about the evidence? Did the intelligence services mislead the governments? We await further information with bated breath.

In the meantime, though, the pro-war lobby has fallen back on Plan B to justify the whole exercise: Saddam Hussein was a Bad Man. He did Bad Things to the people of Iraq. So we were justified in removing him. For short, I’ll call this the Bad Man doctrine.

The Bad Man doctrine is very appealing. It purports to make the world a better place by removing tyrannical regimes and replacing them with kinder, gentler ones. It is illegal, of course, under international law, but so are so many things that go on in politics.

But there are two very fundamental objections that I can see to the Bad Man doctrine.

  1. The first problem is that one country’s Bad Man is another country’s strong leader, doing the difficult thing in difficult times. Who’s the Bad Man in the Israel-Palestine conflict, for instance? We saw this a lot in the Cold War, when the definition of a Bad Man was mostly based on the political and economic ties between his opposition and the country doing the judging. This led to democratically elected but communist leaders like Allende being deposed for capitalist tyrants like Pinochet. Nor were the Soviet policies any more defensible: think Prague Spring, for instance.
  2. The second difficulty is that, even if we can agree a definition of a Bad Man that is more based in the interests of his victims than his politics or personal fortune, what do we do about it? There is no country in the world with the desire or the resources to sort out every murderous regime in the world. The Coalition of the Willing, for disparate reasons, supported the invasion of Iraq. How big a Coalition are we going to get to displace Mugabi from Zimbabwe, or the military junta in Burma? Unless the Bad Man doctrine is enforced consistently, it’s like the loitering and vagrancy laws in some American states – an excuse for pursuing private agendas, or for arresting people on insufficient evidence. We’d have to invent a Really Bad Man doctrine, and then we’d be back at problem one again.

Count me out.

I’d rather we faced the situation and told the truth. If there were no weapons of mass destruction, then the coalition has egg on its face. If there were, then we can debate the legalities of the war as it was presented to us. And if the politicians lied to the people, or the spooks lied to the politicians, then it’s time for some heads to roll.

(Don’t get me started on the Doctrine of Preemption…)

Bookbinding

Gallery!

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I’ve been photographing my bookbindings for some time now. And after my (much more artistic) fellow binder Chris asked me the dimensions of some of my things, I’ve even been measuring them. So I’ve had a growing collection of photos and measurements clogging up my hard drive and my notebooks.

At the same time, I’m often looking to show people the work I’ve been doing. I usually have my small green book with me in person, and at work there’s my big black and brown notebook. But anyone I know online has no way of seeing what I’ve been up to since the experiment last May.

And recently, since I’ve started doing more with the covers of my books, my learning curve has taken another steep climb. I find myself wanting to record the lessons I’ve been learning. I take a lot of mental notes about how my bindings go, but then I forget it all as other bindings get my attention. And since I’ve been giving much of my work away, I don’t even have the books to remind me.

It’s amazing that it took me this long to put the three issues together and make a gallery. But it’s up now, with pictures of most of the bindings I’m willing to have seen by the public, plus binding notes on some of my recent works. And with a format is in place, it’s going to be easier to record what I’ve been doing.

(Those who know me best may have a comment or two on the tone of the binding notes. You know who you are, and I know what you’re going to say. But trust me. It’s the flaws I learn from, not what goes right.)

Personal

On Craftsmanship

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I went through a pretty bad patch at work last month. I was feeling annoyed at the people I work with, stressed out by a developing problem that I couldn’t seem to solve, and frustrated with myself for getting into the situation at all. I was even having work stress dreams (coming into the office naked from the waist up, that sort of thing).

A lot of this was based on fear. I am performing a role pioneered by someone with vastly more experience and knowledge than I have. Even after a year, I am still scrambling to catch up, learning on the fly. But I feel like by now I should know everything I need to do my job. This made it hard to ask questions, and consequently made me defensive and unadventurous. I found myself backing away from challenges because I was afraid they’d turn into cans of worms, that people would ask me things I couldn’t answer. Easier to say no than to find a way to say yes.

But I was rereading A Degree of Mastery, one of my bookbinding books. The author, Annie Tremmel Wilcox, writes about the time that she was an apprentice bookbinder. She spends a lot of time thinking about the idea of craftsmanship, particularly as embodied by the master bookbinder she is studying with. And, reading that, I understood my real problem. The lack of knowledge, the feeling of looming intimidation, was only a symptom.

I had stopped approaching my job as a craftsman. I was no longer taking pride in the innate quality of the work I was doing, but had got tied up in the politics of it all. It’s easy to do in my role, where there is a lot of political give and take.

To a politician, the quality of your work is one of many negotiable items. You take shortcuts to do favours, until taking the time to do something right is seen as an imposition. A craftsman abhors this approach, and would rather do something less fancy but do it right than do more in some half-assed way.

As a craftsman, with the priority on the quality of my work, I find the barriers to asking for help have diminished. If the quality of my work is my primary concern, then the desire to save face by not appearing ignorant cannot be. That’s the primary concern of a polician.

Going into work is a lot easier now. I even keep a bone folder on my keyboard (above the F keys). It’s sort of a personal emblem of craftsmanship.

                              – o0o –

Grammar notes: Although I am a woman, I use the terms “craftsman” and “craftsmanship”. My alternatives appear to be “crafter” / “craftership” and “craftswoman” / “craftswomanship”. Now, “crafter” sounds like “crofter” to me, and I have nothing whatever to do with sheep. And while “craftswoman” is fine, “craftswomanship” is just too awkward. (Don’t even get me started on “craftspersonship”…) Besides, I am confident enough in my femininity to be able to use a masculine term about myself.