February 11th, 2010
As you’ve probably noticed, Crucial Minutiae has been silent for the last month. While all of us enjoyed writing together in this space for almost three years, this site has officially closed up shop.
But we’re not going away! Six of are currently incubating a Crucial Minutiae spin-off, and we will launch this new site sometime in March. We’ll announce the new blog here, then after a few weeks, this site will automatically redirect to that new space.
We’re already blogging in that space to kick things off — by the time we launch, you’ll have 100 new things to read, so keep us on your RSS feed until then!
Special thanks to Ethan Todras-Whitehill, the mastermind behind Crucial Minutiae, who suggested that our writers’ group try blogging three years ago. Our initial goal of Crucial Minutiae was for the blog to find its own tone and audience, and through its 1,000+ posts, it’s done exactly that.
And thank you to all of our readers since 2007 — we hope you’ll check out our new blog next month and bring the same insightful comments and discussion that you brought to Crucial Minutiae!
Posted in General, Writing | 4 Comments »
January 3rd, 2010
It turns out that blogging is much more easily accomplished from a Days Inn hotel room in an unfamiliar town during a blizzard than on a birthday or a visit home for the holidays. I’m not sure I have anything particularly insightful or pertinent to put out there, except to express my gratitude for warmth and safety. We sat on Interstate 90 for hours today with our surprisingly patient four month old in her car seat in the back, chattering (I’m assuming) about her hopes that we would change her diaper and feed her again some day. Finally, the state patrol kicked everyone off of the freeway and we found ourselves on even more treacherous country roads. There’s nothing like seeing car after car in ditch after ditch to remind you how lucky you are to be creeping at a snail’s pace ahead. On that potential metaphor, I think I’ll call it a night– only adding that in the past, I’ve spent the first few days of new years looking back and tallying up signs of progress. This year, I would rather look out at sideways snow and be glad that there’s more than a car between it and my family.
Posted in Career/Life | 4 Comments »
December 9th, 2009
About a year and a half ago, my old iBook died, and I wrote this post about what I learned from that experience: namely, your computer will die someday, and you probably won’t be able to back it up right before it does.
Since then, I’ve found myself returning to that post time and again, for reference about how to best back up my computer’s data. It’s strange yet satisfying to have written a post that becomes a reference page for yourself.
When my PowerBook stopped accepting a battery charge a few weeks ago, I didn’t have to panic. I had just backed up a few days before, so all I had to do was close the computer, write down the few places I needed to grab files I’d edited since then, and then hurry and grab that info before the battery ran out its final charge. A few weeks and paychecks later, I’m back up and running on my new computer, for which I’m very grateful.
I did find a few things I’d forgotten to mention explicitly (and forgot to do) last time:
- backup my Mail settings, passwords, rules, signatures, and ALL of the mailboxes (including my Sent folder).
- Here’s the link for how to do this in Mac Mail. Links to other mail program instructions are on Not OK Computer.
- Chat transcripts. Most people probably don’t care about these, but I have some great conversations with friends and work colleagues that I want to save. I use Adium on a Mac, so the path to find your chat program settings and transcripts is Users > Library > Application Support > Adium 2.0. Backup that folder, and once you’re on your new computer, you can put it in the same location for a seamless transition.
- I also totally failed to copy my Stickies, so I might have to perform emergency surgery on the laptop again to retrieve those. Honestly, it was kind of fun to disassemble the laptop last time… Edited to Add: Here’s how to back-up stickies!
Now go back up your data!!
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Beauty in a Wicked World is a weekly column by Jennifer Gandin Le. It appears on Wednesdays.
Posted in Beauty in a Wicked World, Education, Science & Technology | 4 Comments »
December 7th, 2009
During my first week as a Montana resident, I stood face to face with a politically conservative, devoutly Christian, Bikram-yoga loving, Scottish electrician who told me to have faith that the negative ions in this pure country air will cure all ills. I took an exaggerated inhalation and smiled at him. He proceed to share his idea that negative ions could be bottled and sold. It’s no news that our environment affects our health. However, it has become popular news recently. Nicholas Kristof devoted this week’s Op-ed to the topic, linking studies that show the low incidence of breast cancer in women living in Asia. But ethnic Asian women born and living in the United States have a much higher risk of cancer. Hmmmm. Oh, plastic. I’ve long feared microwaves and, despite my family’s incessant teasing, collect glass jars for storing leftovers. But I’m not convinced that’s going to keep me in the clear.
We can intend to shift our home environment (chuck everything plastic and eat well) and our external environment (live and work in a calm and nourishing place). But let’s face it, one or both of those is a complete luxury. Two other Crucial Minutiae-ers and I recently email chatted about internal environment versus lining all the externals up in a row. Perhaps an inner peace is the ultimate healer. Then the word “disease” came up and one of them passed on the reworking of that word into “dis-ease.” A brilliant understanding. You can live a pristine, wholesome, uncluttered, chemical-free life and still feel emotionally burdened and insane. Or you might, like a monk I once knew, live in the rush of mid-town New York surrounded by smog and the throng of unpredictable people, somehow maintaining the deepest ease in your heart.
Tags: cancer, disease, Environment
Posted in Environment, Health | 4 Comments »
December 2nd, 2009
I finally got back to work as an Artist (Writer) in Residence at the children’s hospital last week. My warm-up was an art project at a tree lighting ceremony for chronically ill kids. It went beautifully, but when I got home and discovered I just missed tucking my baby into bed, I was a wreck. All I could think was, how do moms do this? How did my mom do this? Late that night I was as actually happy to wake up at 1 and 4 and 6 a.m. to feed and snuggle my little one. I didn’t know how I was going to leave her for eight hours that day and worried over whether or not I’d left enough milk for her. This must be the Italian mama in me. You know the ones who cook the ten course meal and wonder if that’s enough. In any case, getting back into the swing of things went more smoothly than I expected. It helped that the other artist and dancer I worked with are amazing and that one of the first patients I met said she loved, loved, loved Shakespeare. What I didn’t expect was how much it would affect me to see unwell babies and their parents.
A few weeks ago, I created the word, mom-athy. Now I feel that its definition needs to be expanded. Evidently this sort of deep empathy extends not only to your own ailing child, but also to those of total strangers. You don’t usually take an infant to the hospital unless something is very wrong, so you can imagine the condition of the babies I saw when I first walked through the automatic doors.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: arts, healthcare, hospital, new mom, work
Posted in Health, Relationships, Writing | Comments Off
November 20th, 2009
At 7.30 yesterday morning, my boyfriend and I hovered over our new Montana friend Greg as he took this Middle East geography test in our kitchen. We’d remembered it while speaking with him about the arbitrary nature of political borders and hooting about the 50 elk we saw yesterday in the field. He fared better with his country placement than we had originally. PLEASE take it yourself. It’s fun, I promise.
What surprises/shocks you about your knowledge as you try to place each country?
http://www.rethinkingschools.org/just_fun/games/mapgame.html
**Thank you to Samantha Dabney for sending this map to me many moons ago. It continues to educate.
Tags: borders, middle east map
Posted in Environment, Orienting | 4 Comments »
November 19th, 2009
… and how I became that mom.
You can already guess, this is more minutiae than crucial. If you want something on the grounded and meaningful side from me, go back and read my birth story.
This all starts back when I was a kid and wanted to be an actress more than anything besides having lots of dogs and rabbits and a pony. I took acting classes, got headshots, and did a victory dance when a local talent agency wanted to sign me. Then my lawyer mom read all the fine print and became concerned about someone “owning” any part of her daughter. End of my career, thanks Mom. (Just kidding. I find writing far more rewarding.)
Cut to: Monday night when I got an e-mail looking for babies 1-3 months for a commercial shoot with a certain famous toy company. I thought of my friend’s niece who was all set for college by age five because of the Baby Gap ads she did, asked the potential star’s daddy for permission, and sent in her pictures. The next day I got a call that yes, they wanted to “use” Francesca and maybe me as well. Could I send in a full-length shot of myself? I was flattered, but completely unprepared. I found a couple of candids where I’m holding Francesca, and I’m wearing tennis shoes and not much makeup. Why was I surprised when the response from the agent was… “Yeah. They just want Francesca.”
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Tags: child actor, modeling, talent
Posted in Career/Life | 5 Comments »
November 18th, 2009
(But not at the same time; that could be dangerous.) Today, I highlight two very cool creative fathers – one whose writing I’ve read gratefully for seven years, and a friend of his who’s taking his son on the adventure of his young life.
My friend Michael is a brilliant writer and father of two almost unnaturally gorgeous little girls, one of whom is currently being potty-trained. The Poop Monologues is a running list of things his two-year-old says while pooping, or while trying to. My favorites are “My drink. MILK ON IT,” “My school, my lunch, my turn around, my sleep, my poop. Itsy bitsy SPIDER,” and “My got bunga bunga chair. MY MOVE IT.” And this is just the beginning… Follow his tweets for small doses of surreal hilarity.
A few years down the parenting line, his friend, Matt, has an eleven-year-old son whose passion for skateboarding has led his family on an unusual educational path: 50 Skate Kid Learns the U.S..
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Beauty in a Wicked World, Education, Relationships | 4 Comments »
November 9th, 2009
I was thinking of going to the dermatologist. Should I tell my provider that I have skin? This was my reaction to a dizzying fight over the bill I received for the delivery of my baby and our hospital stay. We’re lucky to have insurance, I know that. But imagine my surprise when my provider wanted me to pay a penalty of several hundred dollars for not clearing it with them when I arrived at the hospital at 2:30 a.m. to have a baby.
“You must have known at some point that you were pregnant, and that’s when you should have told us.”
“You’ve been paying for my pre-natal visits. Isn’t that–?”
“With your doctor. This is a hospital bill. It’s completely separate.”
“Why exactly? Never mind. I did pre-register with the hospital, and we did call you to find out what would be covered months ago.”
This is really nothing compared to the nightmare my friend is facing. After severe back labor at her home for 14 hours, she went to the hospital and was advised to get an epidural. Now she’s got a bill of a few thousand dollars for using an anesthesiologist who wasn’t in network. Evidently she was supposed to ask in the thirty seconds between contractions. They would have told her that he was the only anesthesiologist in the hospital, so I’m not sure what she was supposed to do after that.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: coverage, health care, insurance, maternity, women
Posted in General | 3 Comments »
November 9th, 2009
In Sherman Alexie’s novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, the lovable narrator, 14-year-old Arnold Spirit (based on Alexie himself), touches on an idea that’s been goading me for years. We spend most of our life running from or trying to get into a particular tribe. By tribe, I mean social group identity.
Being from nowhere once made me feel like I had no place and therefore no “people.” Of course, I have many tribes, probably three of four that resonate most with me. There is something poignant about Arnold’s quote below, with its wonderful teenage-hood ness and cultural context. In 2009, how relevant is the fact that we are being asked to step away from the one or two tribes we clutch to in order to breed some tolerance in this world? Very, I think.
But how does one do this without watering down an identity?
I realized that I might be a lonely Indian boy, but I was not alone in my loneliness. There were millions of other Americans who had left their birthplaces in search of a dream.
I realized that, sure, I was a Spokane Indian. I belonged to that tribe. But I also belonged to the tribe of American immigrants. And to the tribe of basketball players. And to the tribe of bookworms.
And the tribe of cartoonists.
And the tribe of chronic masturbators.
And the tribe of teenage boys.
And the tribe of small-town kids.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Sherman Alexie, tribes
Posted in Environment, Orienting | 2 Comments »
November 8th, 2009
Our very own Courtney Martin is up for Next Great American Pundit at the Washington Post, and she would love your vote before tomorrow (Monday, Nov. 9) at 3pm EST!
Courtney’s blurb about her latest entry in the contest:
I may not have a Nobel Prize, but I did manage to work the phrase “inaugural orgy” into my column. Vote for the next Great American Pundit at the Washington Post now through Mon. at 3pm: http://postfun.washingtonpost.com/post/entry/americas-next-great-pundit-vote
Posted in Brag Round-Up, General, Writing | 1 Comment »
November 4th, 2009
I found myself online late last night, later than I wanted to be. I try not to be on the computer after 10 p.m. anyway, but it happens. When it does, I don’t like closing the internet browser on a work-related screen or on something disturbing or sad. Instead, I find something good, true, or inspiring before I shut down and go to bed.
Last night, having already browsed my favorite sites of beauty and community, I typed “something beautiful” into Google and hit “I’m Feeling Lucky.” And Google took me straight to the blog titled “Something Beautiful,” subtitled, “When everything seems to be going wrong, something beautiful can really help.” The blogger says, on the About Me page, “When in need of an antidote to negativity, I often turn to beautiful things on the Web. I know when I have found something beautiful because I can feel my inner chemistry change almost the moment it appears on the screen.”
I didn’t even click on any of the links, nor did I plumb the 5 year archive (the site began in October 2004). I felt better, lighter, just knowing that someone else is out there seeking, and finding, the Beautiful.
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Beauty in a Wicked World is a weekly column by Jennifer Gandin Le. It appears on Wednesdays.
Posted in Beauty in a Wicked World | Comments Off
November 2nd, 2009
“Don’t tell Mom.” = An e-mail from my sister.
“I know.” = My response.
We hadn’t done anything illegal (you’re shocked, I’m sure). We hadn’t broken anything or hidden any evidence, and we weren’t re-enacting the Christina Applegate movie. We simply decided to protect the woman who bore us from: news of the Return of the Thrush. It may not be grammatically correct to capitalize the name of the infection or to put “the” in front of it, but it feels appropriate. We just weren’t sure Mom could handle it, even though she’s dealt with much greater crises with one hand behind her back and the other one cooking a gourmet dinner. You could hear her teeth grind every time she asked, “Is it any better?” and a pained sigh every time I said, “No, not really.” And I might have thought she was overdoing it a bit, had I not discovered for myself that knowing that your daughter is in pain is a whole new kind of anguish.
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Tags: breastfeeding, infection, mother, thrush
Posted in Career/Life, Relationships | 6 Comments »
November 2nd, 2009
Jennifer Gandin Le
Courtney Martin
Posted in Brag Round-Up | Comments Off
October 30th, 2009
When my mother turned 50, I sent her a card that declared joyfully “Congratulations, you are now officially a crone!” like she’d been reaching for that moment her entire life. She was horrified. She felt as if I’d labeled each one of her wrinkles with a proper name; but I, on the other hand, believed the word crone to be the most flattering thing to call a woman. As a child, I couldn’t wait to escape ingénue-hood for when oh when could I be that crone, an old woman who oozed grace and insight from having lived a life, a real gritty passionate life. I once dramatically confessed to my friend Maria, “I can’t wait to be old,” to which she responded in 7-year-old solidarity, “I can’t wait to wear lipstick.” She didn’t understand that “old” for me meant wise.
In pursuit of wisdom, I grew up trying to define it. I assumed that it looked serious–a solemn face furrowed in Deep Meaningful Smart Thought and often staring into the grassy distance. When I spotted people like this, I gazed upon them like a dutiful servant, terribly impressed by what they might know about the world, but never particularly soothed.
As I step into my 30’s (and therefore become supposedly wiser, though I’d trust a toddler’s insight over anyone’s my age), wisdom is begging for a new wardrobe. Be-gg-ing for it.
What I’ve noticed is that the people I respect the most do one thing consistently… Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: crone, Laughter, wisdom
Posted in Orienting | 6 Comments »
October 28th, 2009
I am naturally organized. It’s one of my superpowers.
As a toddler, my parents once found me methodically pulling clean diapers out of their box, lining them up along the wall in the hallway, and then placing all of my stuffed animals in a diaper, one by one. As a pre-teen, I would empty my big container of collected pennies and line them up on the carpet in order of their year. Now, I take great satisfaction in a well-constructed Excel spreadsheet, and even my writing talismans on my desk-side table sit in a specific arrangement. I moderate Crucial Minutiae’s comments without second thought, and took deep satisfaction from re-organizing the weekly columns.
When I started meeting professional writers in my early 20s, I noticed that many of them, especially the most commercially successful ones, were naturally disorganized. They are brilliant writers and thinkers who, when they go deep into the writing process, seem to lose all sense of their physical world.
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Posted in Art, Beauty in a Wicked World, Writing | 5 Comments »
October 27th, 2009
I contributed to the recent media darling of a report: A Woman’s Nation (co-produced by Maria Shriver and the Center for American Progress). After speaking on a great panel with Michael Kimmel and Stephanie Koontz last week, I couldn’t stop thinking about the need to reframe this issue so that men feel like they can really own their own stake in making work policy more flexible, family-friendly, and generally honoring of the fact that we are all more than drones. Here’s an excerpt from the column I penned on this topic:
For all of our progress on framing the issue, however, one challenge remains largely unmet. We have yet to figure out a way to tag these issues as critical to both women and men. We have to stop using “work/life balance” as coded language for “working-mom stress.” Despite ample evidence that men are served by investing more time and energy outside the workplace and “coming out” as fathers while in it, there are very few men who are taking on this issue in a substantive, political way.
I’ve been getting lots of emails from men, in particular, who are excited about my argument, but no one seems to be suggesting a new framing, new language. Any ideas from the CM audience?
Posted in General | Comments Off
October 26th, 2009
My cohort at Emotion Technology (and husband) Christopher Gandin Le is live blogging for the CDC at the National Environmental Public Health Conference: Healthy People in a Healthy Environment.
Majora Carter, a genius and one of my favorite speakers on this subject, is speaking at this conference along with many other great minds. You can enjoy the highlights of a conference on a vital topic from the comfort of your own computer!
Check it out via Twitter
You can also register to watch a free live webcast here.
Tags: CDC, Emotion Technology, Environment, NEPHC, public health
Posted in Environment, Science & Technology | Comments Off
October 26th, 2009
The first brag round-up since August! Our Crucial Minutiae writers have been busy.
Jennifer Gandin Le
Courtney Martin
Cristina Pippa
- In August, Cristina gave (calm) birth to Francesca – the first Crucial Minutiae baby!
Kate Torgovnick
- Kate’s book CHEER! will be made into a TV show for Warner Bros. TV. Read about the show at Variety.
- “Is Your Friend Toxic?” on New York Post.
Posted in General | Comments Off
October 23rd, 2009
“The Killing Season” is not a spoof television show–it’s an eerie phrase used by Mongolians who live on those grassland plains called steppes. It’s not hard to imagine which season exactly is the killer. These nomads usually lose half of their herd (of camels, yaks, sheep, horses) during the brutal windswept winters. Since their herd is their livelihood, the death of the herd is a kind of death of human existence.
I don’t depend on a herd, but I am anticipating living in a cold unlike any I’ve experienced, partially because I’ll be living in a yurt. Winter blasted into Montana the first week of October with 1° temperatures, a foot of snow and icicles hanging like daggers from homes. The snow has melted and left us some semblance of fall, but aspens and cottonwoods never had a chance to turn golden yellow. The leaves froze into a mottled purple color; now they flutter like strange ghosts casting a strange purpley hue in the valley.
A friend of mine hates summer. I love summer. Maybe for her, summer is the killing season, a killing of some piece of her, but I’m not sure anyone reading this blog or using a computer (like me) can understand what a killing season actually entails.
Tags: mongolia, seasons, winter
Posted in Environment | 4 Comments »