Carl Fredricksen had a way better idea for what to do with his house than refinance his mortgage, though!

She certainly wasn’t pranking me in this letter, but as you can see, her sense of humor is a family trait:

One year ago, my 18-year old niece lost the majority of her right arm following a car accident. My niece (and her whole family) couldn’t possibly have a better attitude about it, given that moping won’t make the thing grow back. Some folks in their little Iowa town were somewhat taken aback about their sense of humor, but screw them — it’s not their problem! If having a laugh about it and not dwelling on “the sadness” helps them through, then have at it!

For example:

(1) Four days after the amputation, my niece came home from the hospital in the shirt she insisted that my brother bring for her: an “It’s only a flesh wound” Black Knight shirt.

(2) She sent Valentine’s e-cards to everyone (one month after injury!) with a picture of her waving her pink-wrapped stump and the sentiment: “I nub you!”

(3) Here is a list of “Stump Stories” that she and her family came up with, to make the story more interesting than just a car accident:

* College costs an arm and a leg these days, but some grants pay for half.
* An airline lost it
* Iowa Corn Shark
* You know when that guy says “Keep your hands and arms inside the ride at all times.”…
* Magicians assistant for a really bad magician
* I was a carny
* I just can’t have nice things
* Coyote ugly incident
* Police should have shackled both my arms
* My new (car, tv, etc) cost an arm and a leg but I got half off.
* A type of mating ritual
* Train hopping when I was a hobo
* Zombies
* Bad paper cut
* My arm? Oh, ARGGGHHHH!!(acting surprised)
* That mosh pit at Fall Out Boy was scary!
* Maybe a horse bit it off.(from BtVS)
* A new weight loss program. “Ask me how I lost 10lbs. FAST!”
* Mexican Standoff
* Well I’m definitely never gonna say, “I would give anything for a hamburger right now!” again…
* Taking candy from a baby is harder than it sounds

So this is the kind of girl who can lose an arm in January of her senior year, graduate on time and start college in the fall as expected, have lots of friends and not crawl into herself. I think the important factor here is that before the accident, she already had an incredible sense of self — she truly didn’t care what others thought about her, but not in a surly teen way. Instead, she just liked herself and her friends, and if you didn’t like her, that was OK. I’ve yet to meet a teen girl who is as well adjusted as she was and is, and I’m getting teary-eyed thinking about how proud I am of her.

What an inspirational — and hilarious — letter. I was laughing and crying as I read it. I’m certainly not saying that there is only one way to respond to a life-changing event such as this, or that it’s the job of people with disabilities to make others comfortable around them. (Although that is a very intriguing topic, and one I’d like to go into sometime.) But I simply had to share this with all of you.

There’s the usual “Last time I checked, my maiden name came from my father, grandfather, great-grandfather, etc., so forgive me if I can’t see how keeping it and not taking my husband’s name is some feminist act” response, as well. This used to make sense to me, until some writer pointed out that this idea presumes that women don’t actually have last names, we are given them by men. No. All three of the last names I have been known by felt like me, and a good part of the reason that I took my first and second husbands’ last names was because I was ready for a change in identity, a new last name to mark a new phase in my life.

My birth name, incidentally, was “Lent.” The same issue that featured “The Ms. Myth” on the cover also featured an article on Lent that was highlighted on the cover as “Lent is for Everyone” or something like that. (Sorry, I don’t have a hard copy and can’t read the tiny cover script online.) As you can imagine, that amused me no end — the reason I took my first husband’s last name, Pearce, is some evidence that Lent is not for everyone.

And it didn’t have to do with any feeling that I ought to take my husband’s last name, or certainly any feeling against my parents or my father of blessed memory. It was Robin Lent I was tired of: tired of being a child, tired of my socially alienated self, ready to grow up and enter a new phase of my life. Which is why, when I got divorced, the notion of returning to my birth name wasn’t even an option. I was Robin Pearce. It didn’t matter where I “got” the name: it was mine. I don’t feel as though my clothing is any less my own because I don’t spin the wool, weave the fabric, and sew it myself — it’s mine because I wear it, and it expresses who I am. So too with my last names.

It felt so much like me that I hesitated a bit before taking “Abrahams” when Mr. Improbable and I married. But I did, because, again, it seemed that a major life transition was underway: not only was I getting married after a long time of being single, but I was getting my doctorate and already planning to convert to Judaism. I liked the idea of us both having the same last name; it made us seem more of a team somehow. And I wanted a Jewish last name to go with my new identity as a Jew. (Although, if he’d been named “Lipschitz,” I might have reconsidered. And I do go to a Reform temple so liberal that our current president’s last name is “McIntosh.”)

Lent, Pearce, Abrahams — different names, all mine, all denoting different phases of my life. I wonder if changing one’s name were more common in this culture, if it weren’t bound up with marriage traditions, but something that people could simply do or not do as they see fit, with no feminist/patriarchal/family baggage around it, who would? And when?

When in your life would you have changed your name, and what to, and why?

(There were also some letters about my February 7 response to the woman who was overcome with emotion — not repulsion, as the headline said, I didn’t write that — about her granddaughter’s amputated leg. More on that later, because I’ve already gone on much longer than I planned to with this name business!)

This blog is written by a friend of Mr. Improbable’s: it’s titled “Esoph’s Fables: Letters Home from an American expatriate in Cancerland.” I’ve only just started reading it and he’s wonderful, both profound and funny. From a recent entry:

As a country, Cancer is divided not into provinces but districts named for organs: Breast and Prostate are very populous, as are Lung, Liver, Stomach and Colon. I am in an outback called Esophagus, which is a narrow strip of territory between Piehole and Belly. It is something like the Khyber Pass: Much traveled through but largely without permanent settlements.

Here’s another thing. Very strange to say, all Cancerlanders are either visitors to the place, whether long- or short-term, or Workers serving the aforementioned Visitors. There is no indigenous population. No one is born here. All come to be in Cancerland either by fate, or professional training and inclination.

About the greeting ritual: Americans engage in the handshake, the French in the air-kiss, Germans in the hug, Japanese in the bow. This is the way it goes in Cancerland: The Visitor extends a hand, palm up, the Worker facing him or her says, Gonna pinch, then pricks one of the Visitor’s fingertips with a needle, through which two little vials of blood are drawn. These vials of blood are the equivalent of the driver’s license back home, or the Social Security card: They serve as bona fides.

Two entries from writers from The Atlantic — one by Ta-Nehesi Coates, one by Alyssa Rosenberg — on the failure of “The Office” and “30 Rock,” respectively. I don’t think I’ll be watching “The Office” past this season, it pains me to say. The show has moved increasingly from a character-driven comedy to one of more and more implausible situations — and the “Scott’s Tots” episode was, frankly, unforgivable. I really hate to use the “r” word around my fellow white people, because it tends to make us stupid and defensive, but that episode was flat-out racist.* You do not bring in two dozen black kids as props to illustrate Michael Scott’s well-established disconnect from reality, you do not make their destroyed dreams the fodder for cringe comedy, and you sure as hell do not then try to end the episode on an upbeat note of unearned minor redemption for Michael Scott. (This is my point, not Mr. Coates’s — his gripe is basically that the damn show jumped the shark and does anyone really care about Jim and Pam anymore, anyway.) The “30 Rock” critique is a more thorough one of how the show has lost its focus over the past season or two. I’m going to hold off on my paean of love to “Parks & Recreation” for a future post, but it seems to me that this show is succeeding where the other two have failed.

Slate reviews the latest novel, and overall ethos, of writer Sam Lipsyte. I’ve read his novel Home Land and liked it quite a bit, so I’m inclined to give The Ask a try. I’ve got the following quote from Home Land on my Facebook page:

“When you work at home … discipline is the supreme virtue. Suicidal self-loathing lurks behind every coffee break. Activities must be expertly scheduled, from shopping to showers to panic attacks.”

So, so true.

Anyone who has ever taught will love this — a total e-mail smackdown of a rude MBA student. Check this paragraph:

In addition, your logic effectively means you cannot be held accountable for any code of conduct before taking a class. For the record, we also have no stated policy against bursting into show tunes in the middle of class, urinating on desks or taking that revolutionary hair removal system for a spin. However … there is a baseline level of decorum (i.e., manners) that we expect of grown men and women who the admissions department have deemed tomorrow’s business leaders.

And speaking of bad manners, the top five Facebook felonies, according to WCVB-TV.

And speaking of manners and television, did you know that “Mind Over Manners” is not just the title of my book, but also one of “TV Tropes” entries? TV Tropes, for those not in the know, catalogues the “devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members’ minds and expectations.” It’s a fairly addictive site for fans of any kind of narrative entertainment (they moved beyond television only a long time ago). Anyway, “Mind Over Manners” refers to characters who have kickass psychic powers but would never, ever use those powers for evil or to destroy another person’s free will. Oddly, they don’t list Sookie Stackhouse, the psychic waitress on “True Blood,” as an example of this. Though telepathic, Sookie refuses for ethical reasons to listen in on her friends and family — or does she? (No, really; I’ve only watched five episodes. So don’t tell me.)

I haven’t seen “Avatar” and don’t plan to. Special effects don’t thrill me; complex narratives, compelling characters, and moral ambiguity do, and even the most glowing reviews haven’t suggested that the movie offers any of those. Also, the film’s whole ideology of “communing with nature = good/technology = bad” really gets up my nose — especially when you consider the innate hypocrisy of the entire thing. Whatever spiritual high people are getting from seeing “Avatar,” it’s not from communing with nature, it’s from a three-to-four hundred million dollar movie using the most technically advanced filmmaking equipment ever. It’s a celebration of the natural world that would never have been possible without technology and capitalism. I have no problem with either environmentalism or capitalism, nature or technology, but let’s be clear on what’s going on here.

Anyway, those are my gripes. Racialicious, a blog on race and/in pop culture, has another one. I’m not sure I fully agree with all their points, but it’s a very thought-provoking post, definitely worth a read. And in case you’re still confused about how I can call “Scott’s Tots” racist when it was the white guy who looked like a fool, not the black kids, this might clear up for you the different ways a story can be racially insensitive.

Finally, my cousin Bill is friends with this guy. Check out his store: I love this stuff! And I love his writings on Islam:

If you walk into your average mosque, you’ll hear, “Islam is a way of life!” And then they’ll go on to tell you how to snort water all the way up your nose to make ablutions properly. They see Islam as a way of life in the “It-Tells-You-How-To-Do-Everything!” kind-of way. I don’t see it that way.

For me, “Islam is a way of life” relates to being a champion for ALL good, just causes on Earth. There is no separation between my islam and fighting for gender/environmental justice, closing the gap between rich/poor, taking care of my body, etc.

Yes. This is how I feel about being Jewish, as well. Being Jewish to me is the thing that pulls all the different aspects of my identity together — wife, writer, daughter, friend, scholar, person with a chronic illness, fashionista, feminist. My life has many colors; Judaism give me the canvas on which I paint my life, and puts the frame around it.

I hope to meet him someday, and I’m grateful to Cousin Bill, and Facebook, for making me aware of this amazing individual.

And what have you been reading lately, dear readers?

*No, this does not mean the writers deliberately set out to make a racist episode, or harbor conscious negative feelings toward black people. Nor does it make you a racist if you laughed at the episode, or if you intend to continue watching “The Office.”

Here is an entertaining article about what people ate at the theater in Shakespeare’s time. I’m always amused by these folks who write in to me complaining that someone dared to hum along to an opera aria, or, God forbid, be fat at them at a live performance. Because you know these same aesthetes with their delicate sensibilities, if you asked them what period in history they’d like to visit, will immediately get all misty-eyed and talk about the Athenian drama festival or Shakespeare’s original performances at the Globe. Yeah, good luck with that. You can’t handle a teenager texting during “The Blind Side” or an African-American woman wearing her church hat to a Sweet Honey in the Rock concert? Have fun with the groundlings munching oysters or the guy slaughtering chickens in the front row, then.

This article is absolutely fascinating: why there are so few Jewish writers of fantasy. (Yeah, I know, I immediately popped up the same names you’re thinking of — Singer, Ozick — the author addresses this.) As a Jew, a lover of genre fiction, and someone who did her dissertation on the psychology of narrative and genre, this absolutely floored me.

Some good old-fashioned straight-up ranting about a social annoyance: excess noise in U.S. airports. Amen, Patrick Smith. What a pity nothing will be done about it.

Good interview with the author of “Visibly Muslim: Fashion, Politics, Faith,” at the invaluable Muslimah Media Watch.

You want weird? I got weird. Or, more to the point, eBay does: an action figure of Elizabeth Bathory:

My favorite part is “Item condition: New.” It would have been funnier if they’d listed it as “Disturbingly well preserved.”

I got more weird, too. Check out this apparently real political advertisement. I mentioned in comments in my post on the “Demon Sheep” ad that my best friend, a theater professor, and I are thinking about doing some kind of project on the use of horror-movie imagery in political advertising. Here’s one for our archive.

Finally, as you may know, I have a thing for cardigans. I have a cardigan for every day of the week, and that’s only counting the grey ones. I mean, it’s close to being an obsession, like I’m the love child of Mr. Rogers and Michelle Obama or something. So imagine my delight that Academichic will be doing a whole week on cardigan fashion 101!

Chat tomorrow, and morel linky-loos on Thursday!

See, I’ve lived both sides of that neatnik/slob equation. If you imagine neatness-to-sloppiness on a kind of bell curve, I’m right in the middle: I keep things reasonably picked up and clean, but I’m not obsessive about it. And I’ve lived with two men who are on the extreme ends of that curve: my ex, who was downright monkish (not to say Monk-ish) in his cleanliness, and Mr. Improbable. Mr. Improbable, though a Jewish atheist, tends toward a rather Christian Science approach to dirt: it only exists if you mistakenly allow yourself to believe in the reality of it. (Or, in his case, notice it in the first place.)

So here’s what I’ve figured out about how to work through these inevitable conflicts:

1. Throw money at the problem. Obviously, not everyone can, but if you can, it’s worth it. Hire a housecleaner, and even better, try to get a space that’s big enough that there can be one little corner of purity and sanity for the neat person, and another corner where the not-so-neat person can throw all of their junk.

2. Divide housework in an equitable way, not an equal way. Let’s face it, the person who cares more is always going to do more of the housework, even if that “more” consists only — only! — in thinking about it. The way to keep it equitable is for both parties to accept different roles — I’ll call them the “Brains” and the “Muscle.” The neater party is the Brains. Brains decides what needs to get done, and when, and more or less how. Brains is in charge. Muscle does what Brains asks to the best of Muscle’s ability.

If both parties genuinely love and respect each other and want to please the other and create a peaceful, as well as sanitary, home, this works really well.* Brains is happy because Brains gets to be in control, and can often unload unwanted chores onto Muscle. Muscle is happy because Muscle gets a cleaner house than they would be capable of creating on their own, and they don’t have to think about anything, just do as they are asked.

Both Brains and Muscle should be willing to let go of some of their ideal standards. Muscle may not always do as good a job as Brains would like on a given chore, which means Brains needs to embrace the concept of “good enough.” Muscle may spend more time doing housework than Muscle is used to, in which case Muscle needs to develop mindfulness. Housework can be a valuable exercise in either paying attention to the sensory details of the world around you, or, alternately, turning your brain off and letting all those cool creative ideas kick around on your mental back burner.

And, of course, Brains and Muscle should both appreciate each others’ efforts, and express that appreciation on a regular basis.

That’s what I’ve figured out works, anyway. Of course, it’s very clear here that I’m talking about a romantic relationship (which is what the original question was about), not roommates. What solutions have you found for the Odd Couple situations — romantic or roomies — that you’ve been in?

*If there are unresolved issues in the relationship, or if Brains and Muscle are heterosexual and in the thrall of gender norms, this won’t work. But if either of those are the case, Brains and Muscle are going to have some problems down the road regardless.

Esther is about coming out of the closet.

Esther is about being fabulous and unashamed.

Esther is about facing the music and dancing.

Esther is also my Hebrew name, and when I converted, I gave this talk at my naming ceremony:

I chose Esther as much for her weaknesses as for her strengths. She is the least heroic of heroines. Esther is not a judge or a warrior or a matriarch: Esther is a girly girl. She is pretty and charming and wants life to be easy. She wants other people to make the hard decisions, to wrestle the scary angels of history and destiny. The traditional role of women is not a burden or a constraint on Esther—rather, it is her greatest temptation. Women can get away with not taking ultimate responsibility for our lives. Women can get by on our charm and good looks. Women can sit in the boat admiring the scenery while the men do the heavy rowing. And this is what Esther wants to do.

And yet, when the dice are thrown, she does take responsibility, and when she does, she takes it all the way. Although Mordechai must convince her to take action, she is not simply his handmaiden or puppet. Independently, she assesses his arguments and is persuaded. Independently, she plans a course of action. Independently, she improvises brilliantly and bravely, with lipstick, dinner-party banter, and a bottle of wine.

I look at Esther and I see a warning about the temptations I face.

I look at Esther and I see an inspiration to take responsibility and improvise.

I look at Esther and I see a woman I would like to have as a friend.

Esther’s story is comic, it is improbable, it does not mention God.* The story of Esther teaches us to take control of our destiny, yet always be ready to accept the unpredictable turns of events. It teaches us to enjoy good times but never assume that they will last. It teaches us that we can do great things in diaspora, but that ultimately Jewish security rests on having our own land. It teaches us that sometimes we need another person to remind us to be a hero, and there is no shame in that. It teaches us that the one who is rescued can become the rescuer, that the student can educate the teacher. It teaches us that we must take responsibility without the luxury of signs and miracles, without a sense of being called. Finally, it teaches the most important ways for a Jew to serve God is not through ostentatious piety, but through fighting idolatry and working for the future of the Jewish people.

All of these things I believe.

For those of you who are interested in further thoughts on Esther, read my sermon here. Reverend Victoria Weinstein of Norwell First Parish Unitarian Church, whom I met through her wonderful and oft-referenced “Beauty Tips for Ministers” blog, graciously invited me to speak to her congregation three years ago. Her explanation of the role of image in the ministry is first, and my thoughts on style, beauty, and the book of Esther are second.

*If you are reading from a Catholic bible, this isn’t the case. Catholic bibles include verses about Mordechai praying that were deemed non-canonical by the compilers of the Hebrew and Protestant bibles. With due respect to the Catholic tradition, I find it very important that God and the concept of direct communication with the Divine are not mentioned in Esther. Sure, it may not have been easy to be Abraham (what with that self-circumcision and all) or Moses, but God was telling them what to do every step of the way. Mordechai and Esther must make very difficult decisions under conditions of uncertainty, believing they know God’s will but without the specific guidance of how to make that will come to pass. Like most of us.