right, you'll see my score on the "authoritarian" scale, which apparently measures "...adherence to the social order and how much you favor obedience."
My percentile ranking of 6 on this means that of the people (n=30,000*) whose test scores they compare the results to, only 6% of them scored lower than me on this one. Ahem.
And my ranking on the "attention to style" scale (16) probably will surprise no one who knows me; it's supposed to be measuring "How aware you are of fashion trends. How much effort you put in to your own style." I'm fashion-impaired, in other words, which is partly explained by the functional vs. aesthetic scale; my score there indicates that I'm much more concerned with how things work than with how they look. Which tells you all you need to know about my home decor.
So anyway, I'm what they call an Imaginative Inventor, which you can read more about here for whatever that's worth.
Oh, and there's a feature here that allows you to assess my personality and then they compare your assessments to mine.
Go crazy.
*I haven't found any demographic or other information on these other test takers; 30,000 is a pretty huge sample size. But it would shed some light on the results to know whether they were mostly women, how they were recruited/selected to take the test (i.e. random or not), what the age range was, etc.
 OK, I admit it: on further reflection, maybe I am a little weird. Maybe. But it's part of my charm, as Miss Amy so kindly points out in the comments. Despite my rather lame remarks to the contrary in a previous post, I had to at least consider the possibility when I found this article in my notes today: "The Peerless Tool Chest of H. O. Studley," by Lon Schleining of Fine Woodworking magazine. I'd made a note of it to remind myself to keep looking for the poster that Taunton Press published a while back. It was a limited edition, and out of print. I kept hoping maybe I'd find one on eBay or something. But it's back in print! Yay! So there's something to be said for procrastination, I guess. Now if only there were more room on my walls.
I saw this very tool chest in person, at the Smithsonian Institution's Piano 300 exhibit in 2000-01. I was there with a bunch of piano technicians, who were in town for their national meeting (ahem, I was a member of the Piano Technicians Guild at the time, if you want to know the truth -- I really was holding out on you guys). Anyway, the guild chapter that hosted the meeting had also arranged for us to be bussed over to see the exhibit, after hours. Imagine it: nobody in the whole place but the geekiest of piano geeks.
The pianos of course, were fascinating, as were the composers' manuscripts & early editions and so on. But my absolute favorite item in the whole exhibit was the tool chest of one H. O. Studley. It was behind glass, unfortunately. Fortunately for the museum, I guess, or I would have fondled those tools all night, and I'm not just trying to be funny. At any rate, after spending a respectable amount of time looking at the pianos in the exhibit, I spent the rest of the evening quite literally on my knees looking at Mr. Studley's tool chest. I'd never seen such incredible beauty and efficiency! The way the tools all fit together! The way he had a tool for everything! In every size! And the way he'd utilized every bit of space, and decorated it all with scraps of piano materials: exotic woods, ivory, mother of pearl, ohhh god. And a special, designated place for every single item!!
My friends had to drag me out of there when the museum closed.
The tool chest is mentioned briefly in the Piano 300 exhibit notes, under "miscellany," but it is not pictured there. It is, however, featured rather prominently in another Smithsonian exhibit, at the National Museum of American History, entitled "Tool Chests: Symbol and Servant." It looks like the exhibit is no longer there, but I'd sure like to have seen the rest of these items, like this beautifully-used shoeshine kit from the 1950s.
One thing about tools, though. Women don't have them -- or, more accurately, when we do, we don't have the same relationship to them that men seem to. Our "tool kits" tend to consist of consumable products that are supposed to make us look or feel more, you know, "attractive" or acceptable -- or stuff that we use to enhance or "improve" our appearance: makeup, clothes, accessories (and yeah, I know lots of women who keep their makeup and so on in tool chests from the hardware store; and I've seen plenty of closets with organizational schemes that rival Mr. Studley's).
Or we have kitchen gear and/or household cleaning implements and products and that sort of thing (or some women do, apparently -- and yes, the vacuum cleaner is, technically, a power tool, as is the blender). But while these items may constitute "tools" in a sense, they are not generally considered essential to our livelihood in the way that the tool chests in the exhibit were to their owners (or if you want to make the case that they are, I guess that makes us either whores or chambermaids).
Those of us who engage in certain "feminine" hobbies like knitting or sewing accumulate a lot of gear, but these things are hardly ever how we make our living, and only rarely do we organize them in a portable form like the toolboxes on display -- it's more likely to be a room or a corner of the guest room or the dry part of the basement or something like that. More comparable, I think, to a man's 'workshop' than to these tool chests.
The Tool Chest exhibit notes acknowledge this gender disparity very briefly:
"Stereotyping by sex starts early in life. This toy tool chest declares carpentry to be boys' work." Indeed, the only item in this exhibit that clearly belonged to a female is this lovely needleworker's cabinet from the 1850s, with the accompanying note that "[w]omen and men alike take pride in the tools they use." Yes, well. Yall know whom to blame for that sort of thing. Before I digress further into patriarchy-blaming, however, I want to point out this upholsterer's chest from the exhibit. It reminds me of my grandfather's signpainting tool kit. Battered, efficient, not too fancy. My grandfather's was customized, like this one, and like Mr. Studley's. Only he was not given to luxurious extravagances like Mr. Studley. He was certainly no Freemason. His kit had drawers made from SPAM™ cans and sardine tins on one side, with its own hand-made Dixie Cup™ dispenser (there was another in his workshop). He used the Dixie Cups™ to mix paint in, and when they started selling the kind with the wax coating, rather than the old-fashioned paper kind, he went around and bought as many cartons of the old kind as he could find. He felt strongly that the wax contaminated the paint, and I believe him. There were still a few cartons left in the house when he died. There was a small hot-pot to melt the gelatin capsules to make the glue used to adhere the gold leaf to the window. And little cans and/or baby food jars of black and red and yellow paint (refilled from the larger, more economical cans at home, naturally). And a perfectly fascinating hemisphere of blue chalk, and a chalky blue string. Oh, and the brushes, in every size, in these shallow wooden drawers, and a spot with a little glass bottle that had a tiny cork in it, full of olive oil to dip the brush in after it had been cleaned. There was even a little cage-like contraption he'd rigged to keep the bottle from tipping. I think it might have been made from strips cut from a SPAM™ can. Remember the kind with the key on top, that you used the key to peel a strip of metal away to separate the top from the bottom of the can? He used those strips, unwound from the little key, and washed. I think sardine tins opened like that too, back in the day. My granddad loved SPAM,™ bless his heart. There was also a section in a corner of the tool kit that just fit a small coffee can, in which he stored the pieces of fluffy cotton that he used to buff the loose gold off of gold-leafed lettering. He'd hold the can up against the window just below each letter to catch the larger bits as they floated off. Bits of gold leaf don't take up very much space, so I don't know if he occasionally emptied that coffee can into a larger receptacle, but I do know he saved up all the pieces of cotton, so there must have been one somewhere. He put silver leaf and platinum leaf in the same container as the gold, on account of they have different melting temperatures, so they could all be separated later, when the time came to melt it all down. When he retired, he took all those pieces of cotton (50 or 60 years' worth, I'm guessing) and all those flakes of precious metal leaf, and had them melted down. I hope he hadn't planned to retire on the proceeds, because it was well under an ounce. That stuff is thin -- as in a couple of molecules thin. I don't know what ever happened to that old tool kit. I don't even have a photo of it. Sure wish I did. [Update: I corrected some typos and fixed a broken link. I also called my dad and asked him whatever had happened to that tool kit. He said, with a bit more bitterness in his voice than I expected, that he'd thrown it in a dumpster in Prescott, AZ about 14 years ago, right around the time he turned 50. After he finally admitted to himself that he really didn't like painting signs, wasn't especially good at it, and didn't want to do it any more, or even try. I suspect, from the rest of our chat, that there were some, you know, "father issues" resolved when he tossed that old kit out as well. It saddens me to know that it's gone, but I guess I can see where he was coming from. He's a much happier man nowadays. It's good, sometimes, to throw the past in a dumpster and walk away from it. I had no idea he'd hated it quite that much.]
Frequent commenter Sara tagged me with what seemed like a simple enough assignment: name five weird things about myself. She said she "really really wanted to know" what I think is weird.
Ahem. I'll try not to read too much into that.
But the trouble I'm having here is that I'm so boring. Seriously. I mean, what? I don't happen to think I'm the least bit weird. I more inclined to think everyone else is weird, and I'm not like them really much at all.
Oh, wait, I get it.
I am often considered eccentric, which I guess is sort of the same as weird. Oh cripes, do I have to look it up? I don't have free access to the OED online at home, and my OED is all mildewy & I can't look anything up in without gloves and a mask, neither of which I happen to have handy. But Webster's online says it has to do with supernatural-type phenomena, or witchcraft. Also: odd, or of strange or extraordinary character.
Well, I can read palms, but I wouldn't say I'm psychic or anything. I really just make shit up, more or less. And I can see auras, sometimes, but they're right there for chrissakes and anyone can see them I guess if they know where to look. It's hardly supernatural, at any rate, and I know nothing at all about witchcraft.
So I guess that's one thing.
And there's the part about not having a TV, or a microwave, or a car. But I'd certainly get those things if I wanted them. It's not that I disapprove of them or anything.
So that makes two things.
And I did study old Icelandic in college. That's kind of weird, I guess.
OK, three.
Having too many shoes isn't really all that weird; plenty of people have too many pairs of shoes. Can't count that. Likewise knitting. Lately it seems like everybody is knitting. So that doesn't count.
I have more than one accordion.
Busted. That's four.
Being unmarried, on purpose, at my age is considered kind of strange in certain circles, apparently, but I don't really travel in those circles, so I'm not too sure about that one.
Being bisexual is downright unpopular in certain circles. On the other hand, I've tried being a lesbian and I've tried being straight, and they both feel really weird to me. So do I count that or not?
Youall can help me out here, those of you who actually know me in person. Can you name one more weird thing about me? Or at least give me some perspective on what's considered weird? Go ahead, you probably won't hurt my feelings. I'll just delete your comment if you do.
I know my sister reads this blog from time to time, as does a certain high school chum, and Julie knows me, and of course Magpie has known me for years, and Fstorch, though I don't know if he reads this blog very often. Anyone else? Vergelimbo I only met once or twice, and I was on my best behavior. Anyone else? Please de-lurk and leave a commment.
 No, I'm not talking about politics.
It's that time of year again. Occasional commenter Fstorch sent me this photo he took the other day of a field full of mushrooms just down the street a ways.
He was driving by and saw all these mushrooms that had sprouted up practically overnight. Huge mushrooms, all over the whole field. Intrepid nature photographer that he is, he immediately circled back and got his camera and documented the event. And of course sent it to me, because, well, I asked him to. They do spring up all over the place here this time of year -- and not just mushrooms. All kinds of fungi.
 Also slime mold, which as it turns out, isn't really a fungus, technically. It just sort of looks like it must be fungal in nature, and it usually appears in the same kinds of places, and under the same general conditions: hot, humid, dark, dank, yucky. Decaying wood chip mulch, yum.
In fact, slime molds (Kingdom: Protista; Phylum: Amoebozoa Class: Mycetozoa) were classified with the fungi for a long time, at least by the mycologists, who called them Myxomycetes ("slime fungi"). The zoologists also claimed them, however, and classified them as Mycetozoa, or "fungus animals," which I think is charming. The zoologists appear to have prevailed in some respects.
These photos are from late last summer, and also from Fstorch; I'm not sure why I didn't post them here at the time, but I think it was at the beginning of that blogging and writing and thinking slump that I had going for a while there. Slime mold is more interesting than politics, as you can see.
 Anyway, these photos show a slime colony in two of its several life cycle manifestations. Seriously cool looking stuff, I think, although apparently it's sometimes mistaken for dog vomit. It's even referred to sometimes as Dog Vomit Mold. I'm not making that up. This one was in the little garden right outside our neighborhood pub. And yes! it really does move! Kind of. You can sort of see it when you compare these two pictures, even accounting for the difference in scale. They were taken maybe a day apart.
And this from the wikipedia entry on slime molds:
"In the DVD release of "This is Spinal Tap" there is an outtake of an interview with David St. Hubbins where he speaks of slime moulds, saying "They are both plant AND animal...it's like they can't make up their mind...but if they ever did, they can take us over just like that!" Think about it. But not too hard.
Today's quiz is just plain silly; but I've decided to post test results on Fridays instead of a random ten list. I was kind of bored with those. I can't even remember where I found this one - it's just one of those blogthings quizzes. I clicked on it somewhere even though I didn't really want to know what kind of meat I was. I mean, gross.
Seriously, though: this one is, like, so true. People are sometimes pretty scared of my exotic ways.
| You Are Fish |  You have a well formed palate and a daring appetite. If it's served to you, you'll at least try it. People are pretty scared of your exotic ways. But once they get a taste of you, they're addicted. What Kind of Meat Are You? |
But what does "well formed palate" even mean?
I know I'm not the only one who's done this in the past few days:
I was wondering what's up with Liz and the lymphoma, and has her painter dude decided whether to phone or get out of the booth, and how's her garden, and what's she got to say about the world today? So I click on the Granny Gets a Vibrator link and freak out totally because it goes to some page full of dumbass sex toy links and I figure that she's gotten blogjacked or exceeded her bandwidth or gotten sick of advice (and/or scolding) from well-meaning fans & yanked her blog offline, or maybe she just needs to be quiet for a while.
I figured I'd worry about it later, when I had more time. I figured news of her would surface somewhere, maybe in somebody's comments or somewhere. Plus, I mean, I don't even know the woman, not in person. I have a few other things to worry about right here; I can't worry about everybody, although I do make an effort some days. And it's not like she's the only uninsured person in the world with a serious illness.
Or even in Deep Inferno, for that matter.
Is that really the name of a town or did she make that up? I think she made it up.
All the same, I was wishing I had written down her email address somewhere just in case I ever thought of anything useful to say to her. She's my total shero, not only for her fabulously skewed take on the world and her great writing but also her compulsive haircutting disorder (my admiration of which has led me so far astray) and her weightlifting.
Anyway, Twisty had a similar experience trying to get to the GGAV site, and she commented on it here, whereupon Sara & Joanna left links to this post on Liz's son Finn's blog: Finnegan's Wake-up Call (which I think is a great blog name), at which you can leave comments for Liz if you're so inclined. There's a paypal link on the sidebar and I'd like to encourage youall to send the gal some money. She's got no health insurance.
And did I mention the fucking lymphoma? That shit ain't cheap.
While you're there, I also encourage you to read young Finnegan's entire blog. The kid's clearly a chip off the old block, and enormously smart.
Via Kathy at Birmingham Blues, and Susie over at Suburban Guerrilla, I get this happy little piece of news: the recess appointment of Paul deCamp to head the Wage & Hour Division at the Dept of Labor. He'd been nominated for the post, but the Senate hadn't yet confirmed him, so he's in on a recess appointment.
This guy's a lawyer with a lot of experience representing management -- he's defended Wal-Mart, among others -- but not so much experience on the workers' rights end of things. Except as regards, you know, helping management subvert said rights, or at least stretch them to the breaking point.
The Wage & Hour Division, in case you're wondering, is the unit that enforces overtime, workplace discrimination, and child-labor laws.
It's the timing of an appointment like this -- right before Labor Day -- that really seems cynical to me. The actual appointment doesn't really surprise me in the least.
According to Wikipedia's entry on the subject, Labor Day has been celebrated as a Federal Holiday on the 1st Monday in September since the 1880s, despite some rumblings to adopt May 1 as Labor Day -- the date which happens to be celebrated as Labour Day in the rest of the world.
Apparently it was believed that a May 1 holiday would be seen as aligning the U.S. with internationalist (or even, horrors, socialist!) movements. In the wake of Chicago's Haymarket riots in May of 1886, Pres. Grover Cleveland made the September date official, very likely at least in part to discourage the sort of political demonstrations that take place around the world on May Day (which also, of course, has pagan underpinnings).
The original U.S. Labor Day Parade in 1882, which was organized by the Knights of Labor, had a loose affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan, according to Howard Zinn in "A People's History of the United States," which was another reason the more progressive sorts favored the May 1 holiday date.
This watered-down version of a day commemorating the efforts and historical struggles of workers is generally celebrated here in the U.S. with picnics, barbecues, and family gatherings, or as a day for shopping at hyped-up markdown sales where you can get fabulous deals on crap manufactured overseas in sweatshops by children, among other things.
[PS: There's a bit more here on the history of labor unions in the U.S., if you're interested.]
[PPS: and a lovely piece over here at digby's place, also via Suburban Guerrilla.]
Raise your hand if this surprises you.
Thought so.
Thanks go to Julie for that one. And she did bring me a huge bag of basil today, as promised. She is a librarian and a gardener.
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Philosophy reflects whether you agree with the philosophical foundations of the United States, such as: liberty, equality, democracy (though limited, not absolute), capitalism, checks and balances, constitutionalism, etc.
The photo of Deanna Troi was actually on the fridge, and it wasn't a picture of her, or even of the actress who played her, but rather it was a picture of my 25th birthday cake. A painter friend of mine used to make these fabulous cakes, and then get a bunch of white frosting, some food coloring, and a palette knife and mix all the colors herself and paint with the frosting on the cake from whatever photo you'd give her. Note the Star Fleet insignia (some made up, some from ST:TOS uniforms) on the cupcakes. 
