Thinking about Maine

I'm thinking about Maine a lot now. I don't know if I'll be back there this summer. When I grow up I'd like to have a little house in Maine near the beach.

Aletta

This is my great-great-grandmother Aletta (August 29, 1869 - December 14, 1959), pictured on the day she married Frances Collier's son Myron - June 29, 1892.

She was a teacher, a Presbyterian, and a member of the local Grange in upstate New York. Her husband Myron was a farmer who held several prominent positions in the Grange. Ruth was their only child. Aletta's great-grandfather, Abijah Wetherell Jr., was a sergeant in the Revolutionary War.

Some more photographs, this time trying out the new captions I figured out how to make.

Aletta's mother Mary Jane

Aletta's father Eason

Myron on their wedding day

Myron and Aletta in my backyard

This last caption takes up more room than will fit in the caption space. In the back row (left to right) are my great-uncle (Aletta's grandson), Ruth (Aletta's daughter), and Ruth's husband Ernest. In the front row are Aletta, Janet (Aletta's granddaughter) with her son (Aletta's great-grandson), and Myron.

Grad School Tip #12

When meeting with the professor with whom you'd like to work on a thesis about prehistoric archaeology, try not to forget how B.C. works.

Me: "So that happened in 2400 B.C., and then in 2500 B.C. ..."

Prof: "Wait, you mean that happened first."

Me: "What?"

Prof: "I'm confused. Which happened first?"

Me: "The bluestones. In 2400 B.C. And then that thing that happened after was in 2500 B.C."

Prof: "..."

Me: "NO WAIT! The opposite! BECAUSE OF B.C.!!!"

etc.

Sometimes I feel like an amorphous blob of embarrassment on legs. At least I remember how to say heterogeneous now. Or do I? ...



Comic from Hark, a vagrant.

Reunion

LOOK AT IT! That ONE RED TULIP. It mesmerizes me. (I actually think it's a yellow tulip with one red petal. Badass.)

Things of the past week: tulips and other flowers, big fluffy clouds, new shoes that destroyed my feet, the Oxford North American Reunion, more tulips, the end. Actually that's more like 1% of the things that happened last week. The other 99% didn't really warrant pictures, unless you want to see a picture of every page of Stonehenge: This Is Another Book About Stonehenge by British McGee.

Somebody That I Used To Know

April the 14th

Easter

I hope you all had a nice Easter and/or Passover and/or Vernal Equinox. We had my grandma and our friends over for dinner and, of course, there was much acting out fantasy crossovers of TV shows with eggs and Easter toys as the characters. "This egg is Moriarty and also Joan's mother," etc. Also, Stripey.

Thanks for your sweet comments on my last post.

Next Time

Next to the High Line there's a billboard that says:

How are you feeling?

I'm feeling very unstable and insecure. I also feel very worried and anxious about everything. I also feel trapped and I feel that I am much too fat and that people are laughing at me. I feel very frustrated and depressed. I feel that I am unable to meet the demands that have been made of me. I am in a bit of a rut creatively as well.

I read it and immediately joked, "Did they steal my journal?" And a guy next to me said, "No, they stole mine!" We laughed about it for a moment and then went our separate ways. I really wish I had struck up a conversation or something and gotten to know him better.

Anyway. That was the day. Lunch at Tea & Sympathy, the High Line, little stores in Chelsea Market where I found a card that looked like Stripey, watching a giant pillow fight in Washington Square Park, visiting Bobst "The Worst Place on Earth" Library, looking at fancy chocolate, and watching a man sing "The Fire Next Time" on the 6 train - not for the first time.

Janet

Like many people, I'm sure, "Mad Men" has inspired me to look at my own family's photos from the 1960s. In my case, though, it's not so much "Mad Men" itself (I've only seen bits here and there) as the brilliant analyses of the styles on the show done by Tom and Lorenzo (seriously, they could teach a college course on fashion and its connections to history, class, gender, etc.).

Of all the characters on the show, Betty Draper Francis is the one most similar to my grandmother - NOT in terms of personality (my grandmother was probably the sweetest person I've ever known, and Betty is ... not). Rather, they shared some similar circumstances. Both were born around 1930. Both of them had experience with fashion (Betty was a model and my grandmother studied fashion design at Parsons) before marrying young in the early 1950s, settling in the suburbs, and having children in the late 1950s and early 1960s. They even used the same names for their children.

The similarities pretty much end there, though. There were no (spoiler alert) secret identities or divorce/remarriage to French Canadians in my grandmother's family (although my grandfather was a Canadian of French descent - but he was an Acadian, which is different than a French Canadian. Never confuse them!).

There were, however, many pretty clothes. Although my grandmother never had the sort of money Betty had to spend on clothes, she did well. And of course, I'd love to have those clothes today.

Photographs (I sure wish they had dates on them!):
1. My grandparents, mother, and uncles in front of their house in the very early 1960s.
2. My grandmother and her brother, probably late 1950s or early 1960s.
3. My grandmother with her father and son, late 1950s. Check out that fur coat - I think it was raccoon.
4. My grandmother and my uncle in their backyard, mid-1960s. I like the little bow in her hair.
5. The whole family, including dog Suzy, c. 1966. I remember T&L saying that prints, including plaids, were in fashion around this time.
6. My grandparents and uncle, around the same year.
7. My grandmother. I love that bathing suit.
8. My grandmother with her parents and two youngest children next to the house she grew up in, mid-1960s.
9. My grandmother, her mother, and my grandfather, late 1960s or early 1970s.
10. My grandmother and her youngest child, 1973 (thanks, calendar!). I love the wallpaper. WOULD KILL for that coat.