I was reading Respectful of Otters and was fascinated by the discussion about Rivka’s gender based on her writing style. Via some Language Log posts about Rivka’s writing style, I found the Gender Genie, that analyzes writing for gender differences.

According to the Gender Genie, I’m male. I analyzed two posts, one on the nature of evil (Words: 635 Female Score: 715 Male Score: 1580) and post on an NPR news piece on South Africa (Words: 250 Female Score: 344 Male Score: 583)

So. I write like a boy.

And I don’t care.

It’s now been ten years since I graduated from college. That means it’s been ten years since Mike Marlin’s death.

It’s strange the things that stick with us, and take on importance in our lives.

We went to the same high school; he graduated a year behind me. But in a high school with less than 100 people, class rank wasn’t really that significant. We both ran track, and that may have been the only thing we had in common. In college we had a few friends in common, and we hung out in the same places, but for the most part his friends didn’t seem to care much for me, so I spoke to him only rarely. But then I do have a tendency to avoid talking to people—fear of rejection I suppose—that perhaps leads people to avoid me.

I have regrets. I wonder whether I should have talked to him more, whether my avoidance of people is something I should change—whether I should reach out to people more, and to hell with the fear of rejection. I regret never thanking him for carrying me to the bus after I passed out at my last track meet. That and the fact that he was one of the people who was never cruel to me in high school. Sounds stupid when I put it that way, but that’s how it was. It was only when I went to Catholic school that I learned what cruelty really was. You take small acts of kindness where you can find them.

My absolute hatred of the Dominion Post stems from this time. Their front page picture of his body after it had been drug from the river was a punch in the stomach. I’ll never understand why people feel the need to publish pictures of such things. What good does it serve? There was a recent debate over the publishing of the photos of the mutilated bodies of the contract workers. Some claimed that people needed to see the photos to understand the true horror of it. I don’t get it. What is wrong with people that they can’t be outraged over the treatment of humans, unless it’s in full, living color? We can’t feel the horror unless we see it? That can’t possibly be right, although sometimes I do wonder.

But it’s been ten years now. And I still think about it, and I wonder how much has remained with others. How frequently do his friends think of him? Does his family wonder what his life would have been like?

I’d been thinking for the past several months about this upcoming anniversary. It’s odd I’ve thought more about his death, than the changes in my own life over the past ten years. I’ve also been thinking about death in general. It’s strange how death and illness seem to come in waves. I won’t go to a funeral for years, then suddenly I’m surrounded by grief.

I was recently thinking about my grandfather’s funeral. There has, for obvious reasons, been a lot of discussion of military funerals in recent months. Of whether it is respectful to show caskets coming back. Personally, I don’t see how honoring those who died in service to our country could be disrespectful, but then there is a lot I don’t understand.

My grandfather’s funeral was a hard thing. Not because we were close, but because we weren’t. He’d gone down to the local convenience store, like he did every day, to buy lottery tickets. He had a heart attack, and died right there. Someone stole his wallet—took it from his body. Of everything, that was probably the hardest thing for me to comprehend.

My cousin was in Jr. ROTC then. Still in high school, in his dress uniform, and trying so very hard not to cry. He was probably closer to my grandfather than anyone. It was painful to see such grief. Hard to see someone hurting so much. Hard because I felt like I should be hurting that much, yet I wasn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I was sad, but it wasn’t the same. During the memorial service my uncle described how my grandfather would play with his grandkids, but to me it was as if he was describing a stranger. My grief was for the relationship I never had, more than the relationship I did have.

So I’ve been thinking about this, and the death of my grandfather, and the death of Mike Marlin. There are so many ways to die, and so many different types of grief. Sometimes I feel as if that is what growing old is—absorbing all that grief, and making it part of you.

Sometimes I feel as if part of me has been old for as long as I can remember.

My mom, in a blonde wig.

(Dad’s going to get me the paper copy that I’ll scan for a better picture.)

Cancer (June 21 – July 22)

Your plans for a do-it-yourself replica medieval catapult will arrive today! Soon, your neighbors will become nervous (but you can explain that their fears are groundless — you couldn’t possibly hit anything that close with it).

This section from Making Light’s comment thread particularly amused me.

It’s about puncuation, and even mentions the Chicago Manual of Style.

Alas! My mornings are undone!

Today is Bob Edward’s last day at Morning Edition.

For as long as I have had a clock radio (excluding a few years when I was in college or working nights) I’ve woken up to Bob Edwards. For me, he is indellibly associated with mornings.

I don’t know how I’ll be able to get out of bed anymore…

Wednesday, March 17 9:03 a.m. Mix ingenuity and determination with no small measure of courage and you have the daring overnight heist of a child’s scooter from the front of an Alliance Road home.

Amount it cost for a Japanese man to take a cab from Argentina to New York City:
$58,000

Today’s random facts:

Caesar crossed the Rubicon.

Napoleon was exiled to Elba and defeated at Waterloo.

There’s lots of stuff I never learned in history class.

I’m not sure that even Andy could drive that fast…

A Belgium motorist was left stunned after authorities sent him a speeding ticket for travelling in his Mini at three times the speed of sound.

Mraw!

The discovery of a cat buried with what could be its owner in a Neolithic grave on Cyprus suggests domestication of cats had begun 9,500 years ago.

A ride through the area surrounding Chernobyl

This sort of radiation level can not be found in Chernobyl now. In the first days after explosion, some places around the reactor were emitting 3,000-30,000 roentgens per hour. The firemen who were sent to put out the reactor fire were fried on the spot by gamma radiation. The remains of the reactor were entombed within an enormous steel and concrete sarcophagus, so it is now relatively safe to travel to the area – as long as we do not step off of the roadway……. and so long as action is taken in the very near future to rebuild the sarcophagus, which is crumbling away.
…
It shows various levels of radiation on asphalt – usually on the middle of road – because at edge of the road it is twice as high. If you step 1 meter off the road it is 4 or 5 times higher. Radiation sits on the soil, on the grass, in apples and mushrooms. It is not retained by asphalt, which makes rides through this area possible.

(via As I Please)

Today is the day to find strange and interesting stuff on the Internet.

Completely Random

Dr. Ruth was a sniper.

Julia Child worked for the OSS.

There Really Are No Snakes in Ireland

There are no snakes in Ireland, Newfoundland, New Zealand or many South Sea islands.

Crab Recipes from the Baltimore Sun

The Gentlemen’s C Presidency

When you go to a lot of trouble to gather those who are supposedly the best and the brightest, how do you accommodate those who are the richest and best-connected but not otherwise qualified?

In George W. Bush’s day, the accommodation was called the “Gentleman’s C.” Those who received it acquired the “gentleman” designation not by virtue of behavior but by birth, and the “C” on their transcripts should never be interpreted as “average” for it usually indicated frequent absences from class, papers from the frat file that had been used two or three times, and blue books that revealed a stunning lack of contact with the course material.

I have no idea as to the veracity of this, but the website where I found it is generally full of thoughtful and truthful posts.

Soprano Deborah Voigt was sacked after being told she was too large to wear her Royal Opera House stage costume

Soprano Deborah Voigt, 43, said she received many letters of support after her Royal Opera House dismissal, as she prepared for her Carnegie Hall recital debut and the release of her first solo album.

It’s hard to beleive that opera, of all things, would discriminate against someone who was heavy. I mean, when most people think of opera, they typically think of big women dressed in Wagnerian Ring Cycle garb.

Japanese actor a specialist in playing corpses

Fukumoto reckons he’s been killed more than 20,000 times — fans say it’s at least twice that — in thousands of TV appearances and nearly 100 movies over his 45-year career. But he can’t say for sure. Scripts often crammed in several killing scenes, which meant Fukumoto would die as one character and reappear later as another to get slain again.
…
In his 2001 autobiography, which has sold 80,000 copies, Fukumoto said he learned by studying stuntmen. But his hero was Charlie Chaplin, whose over-the-top antics were a useful model because Japanese death scenes are stylized, featuring actors who shudder violently and flop to the ground when killed.

Sicilian village spooked by seemingly spontaneous combustion

Spontaneous fires started in mid-January in the town of Canneto di Caronia, in about 20 houses. After a brief respite last month, the almost daily fires have flared up again — even though electricity to the village was cut off.

(via Neil Gaiman)

Vampires Everywhere!
From this article, it’s easy to see why movies and TV have changed a few things….

Theirs is not a Hollywood tale, and they laugh at Hollywood conventions: that vampires can be warded off by crosses or cloves of garlic, or that they can’t be seen in mirrors. Utter nonsense. Vampires were once Catholics, were they not? And if a vampire can be seen, the mirror can see him. And why would you wear garlic around your neck? Are you adding taste?
…
Ion Balasa, 64, explained that there are two ways to stop a vampire, but only one after he or she has risen to feed.

“Before the burial, you can insert a long sewing needle, just into the bellybutton,” he said. “That will stop them from becoming a vampire.”

But once they’ve become vampires, all that’s left is to dig them up, use a curved haying sickle to remove the heart, burn the heart to ashes on an iron plate, then have the ill relatives drink the ashes mixed with water.

Staking vamps through the heart and having them turn immediately to dust is certainly more dramatic.

And surprisingly less icky.
(via Language Log)