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The Playroom: In a pickle

2012-05-25T05:45:00-04:00

The other day, as my husband was clipping my daughter into her car seat, he picked up a pickle slice from the floor of my minivan. I was so busted.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a pickle.”

Oh boy, here we go. He knows it’s a pickle, I know it’s a pickle, but there is a reason I hide the fast food bags in the bottom of the garbage can. My husband doesn’t want me feeding the kids fast food. I don’t want me feeding the kids fast food either, but sometimes fast food happens.

“What is a pickle doing stuck to the floor of your car?”

“It’s your fault.”

“My fault? How is this my fault? I don’t even drive this car.”

“I bought apples.”

“You bought apples. And that is my fault? This is a pickle, not an apple.”

“I bought apples because I know you don’t like it when I buy the kids fast food, so I was trying to be healthy about it so instead of fries I bought apples and your daughter had a fit because she wanted fries and she threw her food all over the car. And if you didn’t give me such a hard time about taking the kids for fast food, then I would never have bought the apples, and if I hadn’t bought the apples then she wouldn’t have had a fit and the pickle wouldn’t be on the floor. So, you see, it’s your fault.”

And this is the part I didn’t say out loud.

And it would be nice if every once in awhile instead of pointing out everything that is wrong around here, like pickles stuck to the floor of the car, you might point out something positive and appreciate what I did accomplish yesterday.

The children are still breathing, all three of them, one of them even ate an entire serving of vegetables. They only watched an hour of television, and it was educational. I was right there when your son stumbled on the stairs so he didn’t take a header and we didn’t have to go to radiology. I spent a considerable amount of time evaluating whether or not we should get rid of all the Fisher Price little people in the playroom that are from when I was a kid because of the potential lead toxins in the paint. And all that started because the baby was chewing on one of them. I ultimately decided that the plastic ones were probably okay but the wooden ones were not. So I had to sort through all the little people and find the few wooden ones we do have left, the ones my dog didn’t chew up in the early 1970s. And then I almost did take the baby into the ER because I was so totally freaked out about lead paint, but I managed to stay calm enough not to. I took the kids to the park and there was just one too many fights in the sandbox over the blue shovel, and then this other kid was completely out of line relative to slide etiquette and so that was another fit, and only the nannies were there and none of my friends showed up because their kids actually take naps and none of the nannies speak English and they only want to talk to each other anyway, so I didn’t get to talk to a single adult person all day other than the lady in the drive thru, so, yeah, I went to McDonald’s.

“Well, do you think next time we could try not to let the pickle actually stay in the car so long that it dries out and adheres itself?”

Yes, I concede that would be fine, and that is a totally reasonable request.

I think a marriage counselor would be pleased with our conflict resolution relative to pickles stuck to the minivan floor.

Maraya Steadman, who lives in a Chicago suburb, is a stay-at-home mother of three children. Her website is marayasteadman.com/. Email her at maraya@steadmans.org.

Molarity Redux: Home for summer

2012-05-21T05:00:00-04:00

Welcome to Molarity Redux, the 31st strip in the updated, continuing adventures of Jim Mole and friends. Sometimes communication between the generations needs a translator.

Molarity Redux, the updated, continuing adventures of Jim Mole and friends, is posted monthly. For those new strips, check out the cartoon archives. View the first five classic strips and check back monthly for more classic Molarity strips, also available in the cartoon archives.

Graduates, you can go home again

2012-05-18T10:00:00-04:00

I was doing a little spring cleaning a few days ago, listening to NPR and dusting my apartment when I heard a jarring statistic: 85 percent of college graduates between 2006 and 2011 returned to their parents’ homes after graduation. I learned as I kept listening that the statistic turned out to be false, and a recent Pew study affirmed that number is actually around 30 percent, which still seemed high. I thought fondly back to two years ago, when I, too, fell into that category of “boomerangers” — the generation of kids who leave home for college only to come full circle and end up back at their parents’ house, jobless.

In the competitive world of undergraduates at Notre Dame, where not having a plan for life post-senior year seems unheard of, the prospect of moving back home after graduation felt akin to failure of the worst kind. More than disappointing anyone else, it would mean a personal disappointment, as the past four years would have seemed wasted. It would surely mean a return to curfews, financial dependence once again, our parents driving us insane.

Complete freedom — financial and emotional from those who reared us — certainly was an end goal of many like me growing up. We worked tirelessly as baristas and babysitters to have a couple bucks of our own, and negotiated and broke curfews, feeling suffocated by the iron fist of diligent parents. In high school we studied hard to get into colleges far from home, and then in college we networked and interviewed to get jobs in our dream cities, close to friends and far from home. The American dream for Notre Dame undergrads.

My American Studies-Spanish major did not exactly lend itself to a shoo-in job after college, however, and I found myself back in my old room in my parents’ house, despairing over my new sentiment as an adult-child failure. I wallowed and job-searched for about two months before doing some real self-evaluating and coming to a refreshing conclusion.

Having supportive parents and a place to go back to, as it turns out, is not the worst thing in the world. Besides rent-free living, wholesome home-cooked meals and nicer stuff than I could ever afford on an entry-level salary, living with my parents once again after four years of relative self-sufficiency proved to be both easy and enjoyable.

I lived (and worked for a bit) at home for almost six months before hightailing to Chicago, sans secure income, in pursuit of, well, life. Now having experienced about 18 months at an established ad agency, bills and rent of my own as well as the blissful feeling of no one telling me what to do, I find myself remembering fondly the days of 7 p.m. on-the-dot dinners, Scrabble nights with my parents and the lovable bickering with my little sister over the then-important arguments, like who put gas in the car last.

There’s a comfort to living with those who take care of you. Yes, my dear roommates also will offer care, but parents are different. I felt the pangs of needing to be taken care of when I was sick a few weeks ago and left work early. Back in the days of living on Summerlake Road, my mother would have taken my temperature, rubbed my back and made me warm tea. With the unforgiving Chicago wind beating at my window on that particular day, however, there was no way I would set foot outside to go to the pharmacy for myself.

Along with the nurturing our parents provide even post-college, a weird transition takes place: Our parents become almost cool. I am not referring to the fact that my parents have both Twitter and Facebook (a fact I find decidedly horrifying), but rather to the fact that I truly enjoy spending time with them now, much like I enjoy passing the time with my friends. Over glasses of Nobilo Sauvignon Blanc on the deck on warm Carolina evenings, my mother and I would talk about politics, books, life plans and everything in between. I looked forward to a Saturday morning run on the nature trail with my dad more than the evening I planned for the night before with friends. These relationships truly blossomed during my time at home post-college, and I look forward to any opportunity I can find now to make my way back home.

Moving back home for those few brief months after the whirlwind of senior year felt like someone had gifted me a pair of training wheels before I launched myself into the scary world of two-wheel big-kid bikes. I understood what it felt like to begin to manage my own finances and start paying cell phone bills, but I had the comfort of my parents guiding me as I took that first ride. I crossed the emotional hump of learning to live far away from the friends with whom I had grown so close during college, but I also had close by my commiserating parents, who had gone through the same thing a mere 30 years prior.

The challenge of growing up lies in a number of areas for those of my generation. Working 9-to-5 (or 6 or 7 or 8) and taking charge of personal finances are the simplest of challenges in light of the real ones we face — taking care of ourselves, finding comfort in the homes we create for ourselves as well as in the people we decide to surround ourselves with. Moving forward makes life easy when we have people helping us though what’s expected next. My interim step of life at home, while not a permanent one, eased that transition in a way I could not have imagined possible, and I am forever grateful for it.

Katie Peralta is a former Notre Dame Magazine intern who now lives and works in the Chicago area.

Photo by Matt MacGillivray.

Believing: A useful reminder from Dorothy Day

2012-05-17T13:00:00-04:00

“Of all hostilities,” Dorothy Day once wrote, “one of the saddest is the war between clergy and laity.” She penned those words in the summer of 1964 as some controversy, long since forgotten, roiled the Catholic Church in America.

As a founder of the pacifist, anarchist and activist Catholic Worker movement, Day was no stranger to controversy. Although she never hesitated to describe herself as “a daughter of the Church,” she occasionally found herself in vigorous public disagreement with such hierarchs as New York’s archbishop Cardinal Francis Spellman. But even amid the most fiery of those disagreements — over an attempt by the New York archdiocese to break a gravedigger’s strike and over Cardinal Spellman’s enthusiastic support for the war in Vietnam — she kept in mind and wrote about Jesus’ rebuke to his disciples when they suggested a sort of divine drone missile strike on some inhospitable Samaritans: “You do not know of what spirit you are” (Luke 9:55).

True, a war in Southeast Asia was raging, she wrote then, “but as for the hostilities in our midst, the note of violence and conflict in all our dealings with others — everyone seems to contribute to it. There is no room for righteous wrath today.”

The plainspoken, outspoken and occasionally law-breaking Dorothy Day knew a thing or two about righteous wrath and may even have indulged in it a time or two, but it scared the hell out of her.

In heaven, where she surely is, Dorothy Day has other things to preoccupy her, but I wonder what she would have to say about the controversies swirling within and around the Church today. Even a cursory tour of airwaves, web and blogosphere reveals a perfect storm of righteous wrath brewing. There are, to name only a few of its inflowing currents, the endlessly festering clergy sexual abuse scandal, the Health and Human Services mandates, the Vatican’s takeover of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the president’s endorsement of same-sex marriage, the American bishops’ investigation of the Girl Scouts and the fact that (insert here the controversialist of your choice) has been invited to speak at a Catholic institution of higher learning.

And it may be unavoidable to take “a side” in at least some of these disputes. It is an election year, after all, commencement weekends are approaching and Girl Scouts will be knocking at our doors to sell cookies soon enough.

Those lacerating hostilities in our midst that Dorothy Day noticed half a century ago are back in full force, too, and now, as then, “everyone seems to contribute to it.” Even at weekday Mass here at Notre Dame, an occasional public prayer may be heard from the pews that seems directed less to God than to the rest of us and which includes more than a hint of partisan slant, as if Our Lord is being encouraged to twist a few arms and maybe even break a few heads. We all seem to contribute to it.

But those of us, like me, who don’t mind finding fault with the leaders of church, state and opinion, ought to remember that the need to be right can become idolatrous, that the savor of high dudgeon can become every bit as poisonous as any heresy arousing it, and that, well, we do not know of what spirit we are. This summer of the year of Our Lord 2012 is a good time to be reminded of that.

Dorothy Day, pray for us.

Michael Garvey is Notre Dame’s assistant director of public relations. Email him at garvey.2@nd.edu.

Making It on Her Own . . . and You Can, Too

2012-05-17T09:00:00-04:00

Meg McElwee ’03 knows that the best things in life are often the most simple, like buzzing two pieces of fabric through a sewing machine, sketching out plans for a new dress or running her fingers over the fabric that will soon become a fort for her boys.

“Like any creative art, the pleasure and balm is found in the process and the product,” says McElwee, who learned to sew as a young girl.

While working as a teacher in Chihuahua, Mexico, McElwee was inspired by the rural landscape’s bold colors and the simple lifestyle of those around her. Instead of being able to run to a store when she wanted a new shirt, McElwee would sew it up herself.

She designed and created her own clothing, countless objects for her home and tools for her classroom, including aprons for her students’ cooking and painting activities. “The process,” says McElwee, “is, at once, meditative and challenging. The product is a thing of functional beauty.”

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With the encouragement of her husband, Patrick, McElwee began selling her patterns online. At first, this was a simple way to fund her “fabric habit.”

By the time the couple moved to Durham, North Carolina, her hobby was a growing business, Sew Liberated. She soon gave birth to Finn, now 2½, and Lachlan, 1, and running her own business fulfilled the dream of working from home while raising the children.

McElwee believes the benefits extend far beyond the income and personal satisfaction that Sew Liberated generates. “My design work,” she says, “helps fill me with a relaxed enthusiasm that I can then transfer to mothering my boys, and being an inspired parent has a far-reaching ripple effect on society.”

She enjoys creating spaces for her young boys to play, read and explore, as well as clothing that is well-suited for their active lifestyle. “I’m making Lachlan a pair of insulated, waterproof pants,” says McElwee, “so that he can comfortably sit and scoot while we explore the natural world during our frequent nature walks.”

The 30-year-old loves the fact that design and sewing give her the ability to customize clothing and home to suit her style — practical, simple, comfortable — while living within her means. She also enjoys “the freedom that comes with being able to sew clothing that fits your body, not the unrealistic measurements of the fashion industry.”

This freedom and adaptability is part of what make her sewing patterns, and the projects found in her books, Sew Liberated (2010) and Growing Up Sew Liberated (2011), appealing to so many — her company has sold more than 55,000 patterns. The clothing’s simple and elegant construction can be adjusted to any body type or fit. Sewists use the basic project as a blank slate, allowing their fabric choices, unique embellishments and personal touches to shine.

Through Sew Liberated, McElwee shares her love of this process and encourages others to showcase their unique style. “Sewing, design and crafting spaces are creative activities that replenish my energy reserve. Mothers must make it a priority to fill their own cups,” says McElwee, “and one way to do that is to delve into sewing and design.”

Grace Myers is a freelance writer who blogs at BetterWritinginBusiness.com. During her free time, she enjoys crafting and has made three versions of Sew Liberated’s Schoolhouse Tunic.

By Natural Design

2012-05-17T08:45:00-04:00

Andrew Sarnecki ’00 will tell you, “I don’t like the word ‘fashion.’” At least, that is, not in relation to his business.

This from a guy whose merchandise sells in more than 500 shops in 16 countries, including Australia, Japan and Costa Rica. That merchandise? Men’s surfing and climbing apparel.

But to him, he explains, the word “fashion” evokes images of runways and models. “I think of ‘high fashion,’” he adds. “Something that is not obtainable for most people.”

And Sarnecki, the 34-year-old creator and part-owner of HippyTree, a home-grown clothing company geared toward the “open-minded,” as its website states, is no elitist clothier. Images at the site of Sarnecki sporting flip-flops kind of give that away. “I didn’t go to design school or study fashion,” he says. “We’re into making wearable goods for your everyday person.”

Sarnecki grew up in La Habra, California. There, he and his family enjoyed the area’s many beaches, with Huntington and Newport as two of their favorites. During those early years, he says, he found himself swept up in something other than the tide. “The surf culture caught my eye,” Sarnecki says. “Whether it was the bright clothes or the baggy pants, I don’t know. That may have been a small part of it.”

But as a teen, he adds, the anti-establishment attitude of the surf culture really gripped his attention and his imagination. “It had its own fashion, music and art scene,” he explains, noting the brilliantly designed displays in local surf shops and print ads in surf magazines. Even “the graphics on the clothing and decals on the surfboards were inspiring.”

At that time, he says, “Many of the companies making surfboards and surf wear were not large corporations. They were start-up companies founded in people’s garages, and they were selling their products to independently owned surf shops run by surfers. This was all very appealing to me.”

So much so that after graduating from Notre Dame, where he majored in photography and graphic design, Sarnecki made the trek back home seeking work in the surfing industry.

Not long after his return, he took a job at Body Glove, a wetsuit company in Redondo Beach. During his six-plus years there, Sarnecki says, he touched all the creative functions of the business. Starting as an entry-level designer he moved from crafting hang tags and logos to product design of surfing wetsuits. Eventually he transitioned into advertising and marketing for the label and was hired as art director. All the while, he pursued his true career goal, surf and underwater photography.

He submitted his photos to the local surf magazines. “I was getting stuff published,” he says, “but things weren’t lining up the way I wanted.”

So Sarnecki, who had since moved to Hermosa Beach, in an area southwest of Los Angeles known as South Bay, started publishing his own surf photo booklets. He distributed them for free to surf shops. “I was building relationships with the shop owners,” who strongly encouraged him to create products they could sell in their stores, he says. In 2004, he released his first tide calendar, featuring his own art-driven photography, and a T-shirt under the HippyTree label. Within months, 12 stores sold out of his goods.

He continued to add to his product line, specializing in T-shirts that featured his playful graphics and photography. The company took off from there. “I’m an artist,” Sarnecki says. “I’m into designing practical garments that people need.” And what guy doesn’t need a dozen T-shirts a year and a sweet pair of nonbinding board shorts?

It may sound easy, Sarnecki says, but it isn’t. His sister Carolyn, who is a partner and the company’s COO, laughs, albeit sweetly, about her brother’s success. “We always knew Andrew had a special talent and that he would do something creative with it,” she says. “But, really, Andrew was an accidental businessman.”

However, she adds, over the years she has watched Sarnecki and the business evolve. The corporatization of the surf industry, marked notably by surf giant Billabong’s acquisition of other surfing retailers, she says, forced the company to adapt. In this regard, Carolyn credits her brother for his vision for the business. “He was able to look ahead and see how things would be changing,” she says, noting that the company is remapping its website and launching an online store. Still, she adds, “we appreciate the importance of the core surf shops. In order to be a relevant brand in our industry, you have to have a core.”

In return, Sarnecki lauds his sister, who holds an MBA from Columbia University, for keeping questionable business decisions in check. If he wants to shoot photos at Yosemite with some of their sponsored climbing athletes, for instance, his sister is there to weigh in on deadlines and dollars. Recently the label added climbing apparel to its line, Sarnecki says, tapping into the camping and outdoor industry with its “Surf and Stone” marketing platform. Reaching that niche, he adds, has been good for business.

Though HippyTree’s product-line is modest — mostly men’s T’s, sweatshirts and swim trunks — its marketing techniques take it beyond ordinary.

Sales manager and third business partner Josh Sweeney touts the company’s “Plant a Seed” campaign as proof of the effectiveness of building relationships in business. For the promotion, HippyTree packaged sunflower seeds in some of its product tags. They then asked buyers to grow a plant from those seeds and send in pictures of themselves with the plants when they bloomed.

“It took several months for people to grow that seed,” says Sweeney, a childhood friend of Sarnecki’s. “And every time they touch it they are subconsciously thinking of our company.” Plus, he adds, he and his associates like the personal reward that comes from “creating a cool conversation and dialogue” with people around the world. “It’s fun.”

The casual wear continues to sport Sarnecki’s unexpected and whimsical graphics — a tree shaped in the hang-loose surf symbol, a curl of a wave formed by wheat grass. Images, he says, that reflect both his childhood and adult experiences of nature that range from the Sequoia National Forest to Patagonia to the Galapagos Islands. “Of course all these beautiful landscapes I’ve witnessed have inspired the work.”

Nature imagery reaches every age and demographic because everyone can relate to it, says Sarnecki, who gets a surf in every couple of days before heading to the office. And if business wasn’t such a natural part of his life already, even Sarnecki’s mom helps out with billing and inventory a few days a week.

“It’s important that we are accessible and touchable,” adds Sweeney. “Our customers and fans see that we are normal people, just like them.”

Jessica Trobaugh Temple is a freelance writer living in South Bend.

Teacher Evaluation

2012-05-17T08:30:00-04:00

Writing a column on faculty fashion is no small task. Indeed, the first thought that comes to mind is, “Faculty fashion? Isn’t that an oxymoron?”

It’s no secret that faculty members are famous for dressing poorly, outlandishly or, even at their best, in styles that lost popularity a decade or two or even more ago (the length of that time-lag is dependent primarily on the year the professor in question entered graduate school). What is it about academia that seemingly produces an inability to pay attention to dress and hair styles — styles that are a ubiquitous presence in the media and our daily encounters with normal people? Does graduate school somehow produce the superpower of resisting the conformity pressures of society? Or, as we like to say in the social sciences, perhaps this really is the result of a selection effect: Academia doesn’t produce the fashion faux pas tendency; rather, people with a stunted sense of style are somehow inordinately drawn to the profession of teaching and research.

My favorite explanation: Perhaps we just aren’t paying these people enough and so they have to continue wearing the subsistence sweatshirts from their grad school days.

Really, I don’t think it’s any of these — and particularly not because they can’t afford a trip to Hermès, Gucci or at least T.J. Maxx or the outlet mall. These people, contrary to what a casual observer might infer, are making conscious choices about what they wear, and those choices are intended to convey something. Now they might be mistaken about what message the viewer of their outfits receives, but we are all, professors included, constantly and purposely sending messages to others through the way we present ourselves.

What message might academics be trying to send when they flout the dictates of fashion and good taste, and ignore the color-clash pain they inflict on others? Well, it flows from the same reason we drive beat-up cars (rust-buckets that are still only automobiles in the academic sense) and refuse to edge our lawns. These choices are rarely driven by financial necessity, but rather because we take some kind of perverse pleasure in conspicuously displaying our disinterest in the material world. We wish to demonstrate that we just don’t care about these kinds of mundane trappings because we are so engrossed in the ethereal, all-consuming life of the mind.

Ah, it’s a lovely image, isn’t it? So taken with our own deep thoughts, we don’t even notice that our pants haven’t fit for 10 years, our belts don’t match our shoes, our collars aren’t buttoned down and maybe even that our shirts are inside-out. As long as we don’t get arrested for indecent exposure, well, then, that’s just good enough. The slobs, in fact, sometimes look down their noses at those who do dress more fashionably, as if to say that anyone who actually coordinates their shirt, pants and socks couldn’t possibly be very serious about their scholarly work.

Now that I’m spending more time doing administrative activities, I’ve encountered a different set of messages sent by clothing choices: Efficiency and formality conveyed by the suit — an industrious and hardworking demeanor reinforced when we take off the blazer and roll up our shirt sleeves, and, my favorite, the loosened-tie look that seems to say, “I had to dress up for something important today, but it wasn’t you!”

The question, though, is whether the messages sent are in fact the ones received. I’m afraid in the case of university faculty (who, it has been proven, can be pretty clueless about social interaction and norms) this often is not the case. It won’t surprise anyone to hear that students are considerably more fashion-conscious than their teachers. And believe me, they notice what you are wearing. I’ve heard many a snarky observation by students traipsing out of other people’s classes and have even had comments written on my teaching evaluations about how that student’s other professors dress! (Really, the half-page tirade I once received about some misguided soul who wore the same outfit — a red sweater and black slacks — to class every day was something to behold.)

Their reaction, by and large, is not, “Professor Doffsweater must be brilliant!” More likely it’s, “What a schmo” or “Wow, is she out-of-touch.” Or more pointed and problematic, “He doesn’t even care about himself — he clearly can’t give a second thought to me.” One thing is certain: While they are labeling the prof as a dweeb in their heads, they aren’t likely to also be thinking, “This person is just like me, I want to be just like her when I grow up!”

And let’s not leave us administrators out. When we refuse to stoop to even business casual, the message to our colleagues can often be something different than efficiency and industriousness. More likely, distance and inappropriate status display are inferred, neither of which is likely to help produce a genuine or productive interaction.

What to do to correct all of this? We’ve got a long way to go, judging from the sartorial sensibilities displayed at the most recent faculty gathering I attended. But before we call in Joan Rivers to critique what happened on the O’Shag carpet last week, ask Professor Blackwell to create a worst- and best-dressed list at the annual President’s dinner, or create a hot-or-not voting website to accompany Course Instructor Feedback evaluations, we could just start small. Spend a few moments thinking about what kind of reactions might result from the following small set of faculty fashion flops. Then go, and sin no more:

Twenty popular faculty styles **

1. I’m not an Oxford professor, but I play one at Notre Dame.

2. This outfit worked at IBM in 1957, so why not wear it every day?

3. Why tuck in my shirt? I’ll just have to do it again tomorrow.

4. Bow ties say “intellectual,” are not the slightest bit nerdy and, as a bonus, they emphasize my growing midsection.

5. Versace Monday, Armani Wednesday: I’m sure to get a red hot pepper on rateyourprofessor.com.

6. I don’t have time to iron. I was up all night changing how we understand the fundamental building blocks of the entire universe.

7. That hole burned by 18 molar hydrochloric acid isn’t that bad. Why waste a perfectly functional pair of pants?

8. If you can get it at Sears, it’s still in style.

9. Suspenders and a belt. I teach security studies after all.

10. No one will notice I’m wearing black tennis shoes with this suit.

11. I need those elbow patches. Reading is hard work!

12. Polyester is the new black.

13. My gigantic glasses from 1987 are still in perfectly good shape. I think I’ll just replace the lenses.

14. Peace and Love. It’s still the ’60s, isn’t it?

15.This leather jacket will let them know that I’m cool, man . . . I mean, dude.

16. I’m a low-level administrator, but I really, really, really want to be a high-level administrator.

17. I wanna wear jeans! But I’d better make it formal by adding a blazer.

18. It’s not that dirty. It was on the top of the laundry hamper.

19. My black pants aren’t too short. How else am I going to show off my new white socks?

20.To Tweed or not to Tweed? That is the question. And the answer is: To Tweed!!

**Fictional composites of well-known stereotypes — any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. However, if you resemble one (or more) of these descriptions, you might want to reconsider your fashion choices.

Daniel J. Myers is vice president and associate provost for faculty affairs and a professor of sociology at Notre Dame.

The Playroom: A mother’s day

2012-05-11T05:30:00-04:00

In the wee hours of this morning, I woke up with the dog snoring in my ear, his leg over my shoulder. As I was lying there thinking, “This is so not right,” I also thought about how happy and content my dog was, lying there with his head on my pillow, flews flapping, snoring away. I kicked him out of my bed, said a few grown-up words about owning 153 pounds of dog, and went back to sleep.

Owning the dog hasn’t turned out exactly the way I planned, but then neither have a lot of things in life, such as parenting my kids.

I’m not sure what I thought parenting was going to be like. What the plan was.

If I had thought about it, I might have conceded that there would be some back talk. But I’m not sure I would have come up with “I hate you, you’re the worst mother ever,” from a 6-year old, and it certainly never occurred to me that it would be so difficult to take a bedroom door off its hinges.

I knew I would get tired, but never knew sleep deprivation was a CIA-endorsed torture technique that would make me contemplate gluing my eyelids to my head just to keep them open long enough to nurse a hungry infant. I didn’t know some kids would rather use a shower curtain than toilet paper. And I didn’t realize that following my mother’s advice, “If they’re hungry enough they’ll eat,” is a good way to starve a fussy eater until the child passes out at school from hypoglycemic shock.

My husband often tells me to manage expectations. It’s good advice, and gets me through Mother’s Day every year. But what are my expectations?

I expect that our children have some physical problem with their inner ear and they can’t hear my voice telling them to put their clean clothes away. I expect them to fight in the car, fight when brushing their teeth, fight over the stupid Wii I’m about to throw out the basement window, fight over breakfast cereals, pencils and water bottles. I also expect that, given freedom of choice with the remote, they will watch horrible cartoons about an ambiguously ageless character named Bob, who is a sponge. And no matter how often I try, they will not eat organic kale roots and esoteric grains from ancient Peruvian civilizations that turn out to be better for you than butter.

As their own people, they are never going to do or say what I might plan for them. Like this morning. After I kicked the dog out of my bed and got the kids ready for school, we were on our way out to the car and my son says to his sister, “Hey, I’ll give you 10 bucks to smell the dog’s butt.”

“What?”

As I back the car out of the garage and think, “Who says stuff like that?” I realize we are on time for school and the dog’s vet appointment. I’ve got my coffee, my dog, a beat-up minivan, a house in the suburbs and my kids. I am happy and content, just like my dog. Sometimes everything around here does go according to plan.

Maraya Steadman, who lives in a Chicago suburb, is a stay-at-home mother of three children. Her website is marayasteadman.com/. Email her at maraya@steadmans.org.

An Embarrassment of Clothes

2012-05-09T09:00:00-04:00

One of my favorite childhood photos is a fashion shot of me at about age 3. I’m standing on our pea-green carpeting, next to a jug of fake flowers, wearing an orange-and-yellow knock-off Pucci tunic vest. I’m hesitant to make eye contact with the camera, with a wary expression on my face that says, “I look like Bea Arthur. I will never forgive you for this.”

Sure, you could blame the ’70s. But when are parents going to step up and take some responsibility? Why don’t they just admit it? “When we dress our kids, we don’t always have their best interests at heart.”

I wasn’t the only fashion victim. Look closely at a photo of any small child dressed up in a sailor suit or reindeer antlers, and you’ll see an unmistakable message in their eyes:

“Help me.”

If you doubt it, visit awkwardfamilyphotos.com. You’ll get an eyeful. The category devoted to the ’80s is particularly enlightening.

Why the embarrassing clothes? Is this our way of punishing our kids for all the future misery they’re bound to bring us?

In the course of my anecdotal research, I’ve found that there are four distinct stages of dressing kids.

Stage one: We dress kids for a good laugh.

New parents are giddy with power. We have all the control — but deep down, we know this period is cruelly brief. So we assert our dominance while we can, before our babies can learn to crawl away from bad fashion choices.

In this first stage, we dress kids as peapods and gnomes for Halloween. We photograph them in flowerpots. We snicker as we put them in onesies that say “Does this diaper make my butt look big?” and “I only cry when ugly people hold me.”

There is a photo of future President Franklin Delano Roosevelt as a toddler, wearing a white frilly dress and patent Mary Janes, holding a hat with a marabou feather and pioneering a hairstyle that’s a cross between a bowl cut and a mullet. It’s proof that even the great ones can’t escape this widespread, socially approved fashion hazing.

If we truly respected our kids, we’d buy them comfortable black separates, with maybe a tasteful pacifier for a splash of color.

We would not — and I am guilty of this myself — dress them as poodles.

Above all, we would not excuse our behavior by insisting, “But it builds character!”

Stage two: We dress kids for identification purposes.

It goes without saying that we need to dress our children to stand out, or we’re likely to bring the wrong stroller home from Starbucks. All kids start out bald and drooling, after all. But if you pop yours into a leopard-print romper, there’s less chance of a tragic mix-up.

More common, though, is color-coding our kids. We dress them to match their siblings or sometimes the car upholstery. And we color-code them according to their gender.

Just recently, kids’ clothing giant Gymboree marketed onesies that said “Smart like Dad” and “Pretty like Mommy.” And JC Penney sold sweatshirts that said “I’m too pretty to do homework so my brother has to do it for me.”

Are we worried that we’ll accidentally play trucks with the girls and put tiaras on the boys? Or are we worried that the kids themselves will forget their gender?

Does it matter?

Whatever the motivation, we dress the girls in hyper-feminine tops that declare “Divalicious!,” while all boys’ clothes must be endorsed by a time-tested superhero or winning sports team.

The girls, confusingly, end up looking like overzealous drag queens, while the boys — well, the boys look exactly like they will in 20 years, when they are still living in our basements: under-bathed, in layers of sweats.

Stage three: We dress them better than ourselves.

When my son was born, among the usual gifts (receiving blankets, Peepee Teepees) was a set of heavenly blue Burberry pajamas.

For the baby!

I’m not ready to publicly confess that I was jealous. I will, though, share my first thought upon opening the box: “But he hasn’t earned them!”

Sadly, seven years later, I’m still waiting for my first item of Burberry clothing. And my son still hasn’t earned his.

Yes, of course we want our kids to have it better than we did. We want to give them the world. Designers have been taking advantage of this for years, making a bundle off teeny Oscar de la Renta frocks, Gucci hoodies, Dolce & Gabbana sneakers and Ed Hardy skull T-shirts that say “Love Kills Slowly” (just $24.95!).

I’ll say it. In my day, we wore mix-and-match Garanimals — and we liked it.

Time will tell if baby Ugg boots will warp these kids’ values. But if you want my opinion, when you get Burberry at birth, I can pretty much guarantee you that life is downhill from there.

Stage four: Kids strike back.

I don’t remember caring about what I wore until junior high, when I begged my mom for a pair of dark-wash, high-waisted Jordache jeans. (Timeless!) But my second grader already rejects whatever I pull out of the closet, saying, “I don’t want to look cute! That’s not my style.”

Her style, near as I can tell, is “materialistic hippie”: glittery, mass-marketed peace-sign T-shirts that are appropriate for all occasions.

Last year, a well-publicized study from Ohio’s Kenyon College concluded that almost a third of young girls’ clothing is sexualized. Well, sure, if you consider lace miniskirts to be oversexualized. They do go nicely, though, with the lower-back temporary tattoos (“tramp stamps”) girls can buy at Toys “R” Us.

We should probably be more worried about boys’ sartorial choices. Trend-setter Justin Bieber has been open about his preference for women’s slim-fit jeans, with the waist hitting just under the butt. I’m not sure if that’s categorized as oversexualized, but it is efficient: When it comes to de-pantsing, why not cut out the middle man?

And this is where we have to learn to let go. Just when it’s most painful to watch, we have to lovingly set our kids free. Like any good fashion fad, it all comes back full circle.

We may start out dressing them in embarrassing, clownlike clothes, but we make the most of the few years we can influence their wardrobes. We show them how to have fun with what they wear. We nurture their identities and build up their confidence. And it’s all for this:

So our kids can choose embarrassing, clownlike clothes on their own.

Paige Smoron Wiser is a writer for Michigan Avenue magazine and reviews movies as half of “Paige & Plummer” on ABC-7’s Windy City Live. She lives in Inverness, Illinois, with her husband and two stylish children.

Something to show for it

2012-05-09T08:45:00-04:00

It’s easy to lose sight of the fact — especially at universities where theory is a favorite pastime and ideas often remain in the abstract — that design is everywhere.

Your cherished heirloom bedstead likely began as a pencil sketch on a sawdusted workbench. The toilet down the hall took shape on computer screens. The car you drive to work represents the conceptual and practical talents of dozens, maybe hundreds, of automotive designers.

Design defines the things we wear, sure, but it’s infused into the ways we eat, sit, sleep, keep clean and keep time, too. Work and play, prayer and ritual, safety, security, shelter. All of it’s shaped for better or worse by the way our stuff’s designed.

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Student designs

Fortunately, we have among us a few who know what they’re doing. We call them designers, inventors, craftspeople, creatives — men and women who have learned to conceive powerful ideas and express them less in words than in the work of their hands. They are hardworking, mystical fusions of artist, engineer and tinkering humanist whose labors give form, meaning and comfort to products — and to the lives of those who use them.

Designers see. “The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something, and tell what it saw in a plain way,” Ruskin wrote as if wandering the cosmos. “Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion — all in one.”

Back on Earth, in a Riley Hall basement office near the studio where student workbenches teem with things like ball valves, dissected kitchen appliances and the plastic prototypes of their latest visions, Professor Paul Down of Notre Dame’s industrial design program equates design with organization. “It’s just about ordering things for a particular purpose or service,” he says. “Whether you’re getting on board a jet plane or just unlocking the door to your house, it’s all about solutions that weren’t naturally growing on the trees when man arrived on the planet.”

Each year a group of Down’s industrial design students — juniors mostly — enroll in the Product Design Research Project course he teaches with the help of such colleagues as Ann-Marie Conrado and Michael Elwell and shop technician George Tisten. They learn the language of materials and mass-production manufacturing processes, identify household problems that may be most acutely experienced by children, the elderly and the disabled, and then benchmark, brainstorm, think, draw, build, test and re-test their way toward product designs that offer innovative solutions.

While their peers meet educational epiphanies in London, Rome or Uganda, product designers’ eureka moments come on field trips to places like the JMS Plastics Inc. factory, about a mile from campus, where they get their first serious exposure to processes from injection molding to profile extrusion.

Across campus, in the similarly subterranean Bond Hall workshop of Professor Robert Brandt, furniture designers have received the same sort of illumination — sometimes even personal guidance on a project — from the staff of Cole Hardwood in Logansport or Johnson’s Workbench, a South Bend lumberyard and woodworking supply store.

For Brandt, design may lie somewhat closer to Ruskin’s artisanal predilections for hand tools and the earthier glories of wood. Students taking his four-semester Furniture Design concentration in the School of Architecture start with a “simple” table. It may be their first step from the two-dimensional drawings of their studies in classical architecture toward the work of genuine understanding that is the act of building in three-dimensions. They explore precedents — the Shaker style or the neoclassical American Empire and Biedermeier styles of the early-to-mid 19th century; distinctive later movements like the Arts & Crafts, Art Nouveau and Mission; or even standout contemporary designers — but Brandt reminds his students not to bind themselves up in tradition. “We don’t make antiques in here, so it’s got to be an original design.”

Each student presents Brandt with three to five ideas, and soon they’re machining their wood and reaching for the rasps, files, saws and sanders. “Craft to me is just expressing your idea with clarity,” he says. “If you look at something that is poorly crafted, you can’t get past that. You think, well, this isn’t much. But if something is crafted well, then you’re drawn into it. You start to understand the idea, the intent, clearly.”

Process and product make for quiet drama in the days and nights of the student designer, each year germinating some of campus’ most heartfelt accomplishments. Down thinks of the grin on a former student’s face after a breakthrough led to a design for a baby stroller that could both climb a curb and support the weight of an elderly or disabled pusher. Brandt recalls one student for whom building just “didn’t come easy.” At 3 o’clock on the morning of the review, she stepped back from her first project with tears of joy streaming down her cheeks.

Down’s students emerge with process books that anchor their portfolio and, not infrequently, earn honors from the International Housewares Association’s annual Student Design Competition. Brandt’s students, most of whom pursue careers in architecture with a sharper eye for the relationship between buildings and furniture, keep their finished tables, chairs, desks, mirrors, cabinets or clocks. For fifth-year architecture student Cristina Gallo ’12, the sense of satisfaction is incomparable. “It’s great to have something you can show people and say, ‘I can do this.’”

John Nagy is an associate editor of this magazine.

Rockin’ The Pony

2012-05-08T08:30:00-04:00

In the beachfront ghetto of Asbury Park, New Jersey, a dank, dirty dive bar called The Stone Pony slouches between a weedy parking lot and worn boardwalk, the last defiant sentinel of a bygone era when the sweaty heroes of rock and roll called its sooty sleaze their home.

Like everything in Asbury Park, the Pony has seen better days. No longer do the leather-jacketed bards of the boardwalk stomp its stage. But once upon a time the likes of Bruce Springsteen and Southside Johnny launched their careers here, and one clear Sunday afternoon five years ago a group of unshaven suburban kids made their debut at this lead-painted cradle of rock.

We clearly had no idea what the hell we were doing.

“Excuse me, do you have a riser I can put my keyboard on?” I asked the stage manager.

“You want a riser? Who the f___ do you think you are, Britney Spears?”

Greetings from Asbury Park.

It was the summer of 2007, and my high-school band had finally landed a gig at the biggest banner in the local rock band circuit. A good Stone Pony gig was immediate street cred, but we got even luckier: We were opening for the Jonas Brothers, a bubble-gum pop band that was clearly on its way, getting scooped up by the Disney machine a few months later. So lots of girls were showing up to this gig, and, sure, the venue meant getting our name out there — but hordes of screaming girls was another matter entirely. We knew the real reason we had joined the band.

We practiced about six hours a week, which put us way above most of the other bands on the circuit. We were pretty good, by local band standards, but the rock gods would not bear such hubris, as we were about to find out.

To the Stone Pony’s management and the crowd, we were about as meaningless as a Catholic classical pianist playing keyboards in a guitar-driven rock band — which, of course, I was. I had spent the morning lectoring Sunday Mass for the old ladies at St. Dorothea’s, looking polished in my Catholic-school uniform of jacket and tie, desperately pretending I was not going to spend my afternoon inhaling secondhand smoke at a dive bar in Asbury Park — which, of course, I was.

The band arrived early to load in at the Stone Pony, where my request for a riser as a pianist with a local band earned us a spot on the afternoon’s food chain somewhere between small rodents and whatever small rodents eat. We weren’t a “national act” like the professional punks who toured the country playing bars like the Pony. Those guys knew they were cool. They had the expensive gear, the nicotine-stained fingernails and all the street cred. One national act’s guitarist kept referring to the head stage manager as “that funny cat,” but he got away with it.

We had spent the past few weeks desperately promoting our gig to all our friends on MySpace (MySpace!), and between our friends and grandmothers we had sold about 30 tickets. The stage manager smiled, collected all the ticket money we had made and gave us 10 percent — which we immediately decided to save for recording-studio rent (although we did buy a monster basket of fries from the bar’s grill, whose chef looked like a toad, though a cheery toad, and whose fries were damn good, particularly with the house-blend BBQ sauce, although I was afraid to ask The Toad what was in the sauce).

We hauled our amplifiers and instrument cases from my dad’s aging Suburban to the back stage, my eyes struggling to adjust from the wholesome clear of that Atlantic afternoon to the dive’s grimy dim. The Pony was a weary madam, her chipping paint and sticky floors lit by the purple-green glow of the arcade games. The bathroom walls bore the words of the prophets before us, the disaffected youth of that benighted decade — the ’90s.

The female bartenders wore cowboy hats and ripped, skintight jeans. I imagined they were husky-voiced ex-strippers from the seedy club down the block, and their lives of cigarettes and late nights had dragged them well past their prime. (Not that our drummer didn’t occasionally skip a beat when one of those pairs of jeans walked by.)

The Sound Guy, a bearded barbarian in the back booth, was the ultimate power in our minds. At his array of dials and buttons, he wielded the ability to take any band from mediocre to great. Or, more usually, from bad to worse. Above the sound board, Sound Guy had taped his own Dantean warning:

Sorry, I can’t un-suck the band.

We had some time to kill before we played, so we sat around and tried unsuccessfully to look very tough in front of the other bands. The staging area looked like a garbage-man convention in the hold of a pirate ship. Dirty Converses, ripped jeans. Flannel shirts over yellowing Ramones tees and stained wifebeaters. I glanced over my own costume of choice. My shoes were a little too clean, my plain white shirt a little too bleached, my scruff a little too even. My Catholic high school had a dress code, man, and I had been to Mass.

I took stock of my band. Jimmy, the guitarist, was only 15, but he looked and played like he was born with a Fender in one hand and a pack of Marlboro Reds in the other. He was a lousy student — I did his English homework in middle school — but a fearsome lead guitar. His full beard, mane of long hair and constant don’t-worry-be-happy grin gave the impression of a shaggy mutt playing a Gibson, which might be my favorite image of all time. Also: he could play a Les Paul behind his head.

Our drummer was Jeff. If the Scooby-Doo characters Daphne and Shaggy had a kid, that kid would have been Jeff. A pale, weedy ginger with a scrubby red goatee, Jeff worked landscaping, so he was always showing up to gigs in a rusting ’87 Chevy loaded with grass clippings or Mexican farmhands. Jeff had a penchant for gray wifebeaters, menthol cigs and mumbling. He was also damn good at the drums.

Chris, our bassist, was a phenomenally talented musician who made up for his technical ferocity on the bass with a complete lack of social charm, particularly via ripping his shirt off at shows. Chris once asked out a girl he knew via text message. She presumably had replied, “Thanks, honey, but to me you’re like a brother.” Poor Chris. Friend zoned. (He actually quit the band not long after the Pony show. His replacement, Sean, had a charming habit of forcefully hiccuping during awkward silences.)

Our fearless leader was Cam, a guitarist with an imposing Napoleon complex to compensate for his distinctly nasally voice — and, you know, his height. This was Cam’s band. Cam wanted us to sound like the Dave Matthews Band, but Cam sang nothing like Dave Matthews. We sounded like Oasis with a better guitarist. And when you are sitting in the staging area of the Stone Pony, you do not want to be anything close to Oasis. Oasis is fungus on the food chain of rock ’n’ roll.

The band before us, aptly named something like Nine Reasons to Die, had apparently finished early, because the head stage manager suddenly shouted for us to load our gear onstage. At least, that’s what I think he said. He really said something like: “WHOEVEA THE F___IN’ NEX’ BAND IS BETTA F___IN’ GET DEH S__T ONSTAGE IN LIKE TREE MINITES O’ I’M’A PUNCH YAS.”

The Pony’s stage manager had the cheerful disposition of a hung-over Oscar the Grouch and the beady-eyed appearance of an overfed gutter rat. His name was Elmo. Elmo was 5 feet tall. Elmo had a ponytail. And I was dead certain Elmo’s enormous bushy eyebrows were carnivorous.

Stage hands are a funny breed, because they are perpetually smoking, cursing angrily or both. Asking them for anything out of the ordinary will probably just earn you an insult to your manhood. The Pony’s knuckle-dragging cave dwellers were pale-faced, flippant toward authority figures and deeply suspicious of the new brand of BBQ sauce at The Toad’s grill. So go ahead, tell a stage hand that your band’s keyboard player needs a specialized input jack for the PA system. No? Didn’t think so.

We scrambled to get our gear on stage. The guitarists needed to tune, so I was left to carry my instrument up to the stage by myself. My weapon of choice was a Yamaha S90, a not-quite-top-of-the-line keyboard that weighed in at a literally staggering 52 pounds. We sound checked. I wiped the sweat from my forehead, suddenly nervous and self-aware. Sound Guy did his best to un-suck our sound, then gave us the thumbs up. Fans of the Jonas Brothers were nowhere near the stage. Chris scanned the audience, preparing to once again rip off his shirt.

Cam launched into his usual pre-show introduction of the band. His introduction sounded something like this: “Hiiieveryone, we’re Hollander an’ we’regonnasing asong feryou now, we reallyhopeyoulike it.”

Um, yeah. Let’s rock?

The entire concert was a sweaty haze of green and orange, courtesy of the colored stage lights that blinded us from seeing the audience. At one point, however, I did notice that most of our grandmothers had shown up to watch us play: a clutch of marmalade-haired ladies in floral sweaters, smiling proudly and doing their best to blend in with the Pony’s home crowd of barflies, bartenders and bouncers. Nice, too, to see strong representation from the church.

The undisputed highlight of the show? One of the speakers caught fire, a sacrifice to the rock gods. Elmo, cursing mightily, clawed his way up the stage and unplugged it, but not before everyone in the bar started cheering for our accidental pyrotechnics display. (To be honest, it had a much better tone when engulfed in flames.) Jimmy, ever the entertainer, started playing his Flying V so fiercely that I can only assume he was trying to ignite the rest of the amplifiers. Chris ripped his shirt off. No one noticed.

We finished the last song in our half-hour set to a roar of applause from our handful of friends. It sounded like we had won a few new fans. Our grandmothers cheered, and Elmo, scowling, roared for the next band to get onstage before he ripped off deh heads an’ fed ’em to the bouncers.

We had finally played a concert at the Stone Pony, the fiery crucible of rock royalty. We survived.

“Not bad, right Cam?” I said, trying to goad our Negative Napoleon into a positive mood.

“Dude, we sounded like ass. I couldn’t even hear myself think, your keyboard was so loud.”

Huh. I couldn’t hear my keyboard. Thanks, Cam. Sound Guy, who was finally unplugging the last of our gear, was surprised, however. “Dude,” he said, “little man over there is harsh.”

I shrugged. The smoke from the amplifier — or was it something else? — hung in the air.

“Sorry,” I laughed. “I can’t un-suck the band.”

Michael Rodio, a music major from Oceanport, New Jersey, is a senior in Notre Dame’s Gallivan Program in Journalism, Ethics & Democracy and this magazine’s spring 2012 semester intern.

Molarity Classic 130-134

2012-05-07T06:00:00-04:00

Strips 130-134 of the popular comic Molarity, which previewed in The Observer in 1977, take on printer problems, porn and gambling. Just another week in the Molarity universe.

130. After the printer ran a number of cartoons in the wrong order, I drew this one. FYI: I always drew the cartoon on an 8 ½ x 11 sheet of letter paper, vertically. Early on The Observer decided to run them as a strip. So The Observer staff or the printer offsite would shoot the cartoon, and cut and place it on the boards. I guess sometimes they got careless.

131. With this cartoon I tried to rub in the whole cartoon panels out-of-order thing. The heading on page 92 of the ND directory (back when they printed phone books) was some obscene combination that I cannot recall today.

132. The cover of this Observer had Phil Donahue appearing at Washington Hall. The corner heading was a dull “…sports trivia — page 8.” You have to recall that when my cartoon appeared, pornography was not available on computers and smart phones everywhere. You had to walk five miles in the snow, uphill both ways, to get smut.

133. The cover of this Observer had Father Hesburgh appearing on the Phil Donahue show. In previous cartoons I explained the laundry service they used to provide to men’s dorms. Someone asked me if I was saying Jim was a cross-dresser. I was not.

134. In this Observer , page 14 appeared on page 3, so printer problems continued and the first two panels of my cartoon on the misplaced page 14 were reversed. Mardi Gras at Notre Dame was a weeklong casino in Stepan Center. This was before Indian or riverboat casinos were common and before the local bishop decided gambling was not a great way for a Catholic university to prepare for Lent. The Mardi Gras booth in the third panel was the Grace-Lewis booth. Our theme was Dante’s Inferno, so I designed the booth to look like hell.

See the first five classic strips. Check back monthly for more classic Molarity strips. Molarity Redux, the updated, continuing adventures of Jim Mole and friends, also is posted monthly. For those new strips, check out the cartoon archives.

The Lost Art of Dress

2012-04-30T09:00:00-04:00

A box about the size of a computer rests on the table in Linda Przybyszewski’s kitchen, filled with just a portion of her vast collection of vintage Vogue and Simplicity pattern books from the 1940s to the 1960s. Sorting through the box, she gestures and turns as the skirt of her dress swirls and swishes, a la Donna Reed in It’s a Wonderful Life.

I compliment the dress, asking about its design. That’s all it takes to get Przybyszewski gushing about the dress she’s made using a vintage 1945 Vogue pattern. The passion in her voice as she marvels at the garment’s details brings to mind Julia Child describing a perfectly cooked beef bourguignon — some of the terms may be unfamiliar, but it doesn’t matter because you know by the sounds that it must be nearly perfect:

“It’s my new favorite from 1945. I made it in navy blue polka-dot rayon faille with long sleeves gathered here at the cuffs. Look at this gored and pleated skirt — and the bodice is cleverly yoked to allow gathers over the bust. It’s the quintessential 1940s skirt from wartime. If you think of what it would look like in white with short sleeves, it would make the perfect nurse’s uniform!”

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Having coffee with Linda Przybyszewski

Przybyszewski (pronounced preh-beh-SHEV-ski) is a Notre Dame associate professor of history, master dressmaker, collector of vintage pattern books and expert on the history of fashion. She owns more than 600 vintage pattern publications, fashion magazines, home economics textbooks and U.S. Department of Agriculture pamphlets. She’s written a book to be published next year whose working title is Nation of Slobs — an attempt, she says, to bring back the art of dress.

“We used to live a world where people cared about how they dressed. I am shocked how often I will be out somewhere, whether on a street or in a restaurant, and I see only a handful of people who seem dressed appropriately, and even fewer dressed beautifully,” she says.

Drawing inspiration from generations of women who taught the principles of dress in high schools and colleges — women she refers to as the “Dress Doctors,” Przybyszewski longs for the days when women in this country, well, knew how to dress appropriately.

She even teaches a class called Nation of Slobs: The Art, Ethics and Economics of Dress in Modern America, though her areas of academic specialization are actually cultural and legal history.

So how have we lapsed from a culture which so valued the art of appropriate dressing that it was included in public education curricula across the nation, to a culture that accepts (nearly expects!) to encounter grown women wearing pajama pants and slippers at the grocery store?

Throughout the first half of the 20th century, educating young women in the “art” of dress was as integral a part of their formal education as the “science” of housekeeping. High school and college textbooks with titles like The Mode in Dress and Home and Art in Home and Clothing enlightened the young female mind, assuring that garish gauntlets or passé peplums never hampered the future happiness and productivity of educated American women.

In 1923, the United States added a national Bureau of Home Economics to the USDA. By the 1930s, every public high school in the country and 36 land grant colleges had Home Economics Departments right alongside English and Science departments. Basic information like the six occasions for dress was taught to young women with the same academic rigor as algebraic equations or the periodic table of elements. (Incidentally, the six occasions for dress were: school; work/travel/city; housework; sports/spectator; evening in or out; afternoon affairs/tea.)

Simple, artful dressing (and living) was at one time so valued that home economists elevated the concept to the level of morality and honesty. Consider this, from Shelter and Clothing, a 1914 college textbook written by two women who taught at Teachers College at Columbia University:

A home based on the right principles will be simple. There will be simplicity of living, honesty in the expression of what is offered in the home. No ostentation or living beyond one’s means; simplicity in entertainment and in offering freely of what one has to friends, without apology or explanation; simple furnishings, simple, healthful food, simple, artistic clothing, all help to simplify life and give the homemakers more time for the family joys and intercourse.

So what happened?

“Blame it on the Baby Boomers!” says Przybyszewski.

“An increasing informality crept in after World War II as parents of Baby Boomers moved to the suburbs, and suddenly patios and dens became central to entertaining. People didn’t have to dress in formal attire as frequently.”

No need for evening gowns at a patio party, right?

Then women’s hairstyles began to slowly supplant the hat — a sartorial symbol of propriety.

“Poodle cuts, the sort of big hairdos, start in the late ’50s, and when you’ve inflated your hair to that degree, you don’t want to wear a hat and squish it. Sure, you’d see Jackie Kennedy wearing hats, but they really didn’t fit because of her big hairdo,” Przybyszewski says.

Then came the Youth Movement of the 1960s. In bygone eras, a teenage girl would look forward to looking like a grown-up, but when the ’60s rolled around, all the grown-ups wanted to look like teenage girls.

“If you take pattern books from the 1950s and the 1960s and you lay them side-by-side, it’s as if every model became a child. You go from this extraordinarily sophisticated look in the ’50s — sophisticated in design, sophisticated in cut, in color, so worldly, really — to just one decade later, when everyone is sporting what would have been known in another era as a toddler’s dress: a simple, A-line dress.” The gradual simplifying of design, according to Przybyszewski, eventually just becomes “stupidity of design.”

Paging wistfully through the couture section of a mid-1950s pattern book, she explains, “Dress designs of the 1950s were just more complicated, more difficult to create. So much more thought was put into them. There wasn’t even such a thing as a crew neck in dressmaking in the 1950s — this is what they did instead,” Przybyszewski says, pointing out a chic trapeze neckline.

Fast forward just one decade, to the mid-’60s: “Even the way fashion illustrators draw the models is transformed in the ’60s. These are supposed to be adults,” she says, scoffing at the models’ disproportionately oversized heads and large eyes, reminiscent of a small child. Think Twiggy.

“They don’t even bother to cut out sleeves in these dress styles. . . . They’re just sort of all one piece.”

Then came the 1970s, when home economics began to be formally dismantled, starting with a collective feminist sneer at the entire field, accompanied by congresswomen who openly criticized the federal funding of home economics on the grounds that it stereotyped people — 96 percent of people in the field were women.

“The number of people pursuing graduate degrees in home economics, specializing in costumes and textiles, drops precipitously in the 1970s,” Przybyszewski explains. “People just fled this field. The thought was: ‘If you’re not going to consider teaching people how to dress as a traditional art, then why should you bother studying the art principles and how they apply to clothing?’”

Home Economics in public schools got dumbed down or shrunk during the ’70s, and the entire system of teaching dressing, both in schools and in women’s magazines, was dismantled.

“All the knowledge that the Dress Doctors used to pass on to new generations was gone,” Przybyszewski says.

But there’s an interesting moment in the 1980s, as more women entered the workforce, when a book titled Dress for Success, first published in 1975, attempted to resurrect some semblance of the art of dressing.

“What this book did,” says Przybyszewski, “is rediscover some of the basic principles of what the Dress Doctors had been teaching for decades. The author advises that since women are going to enter the workforce, they had to dress in a more professional way.

“And since everyone during the ’60s and ’70s dressed like they were going to either the playground or a patio party, women needed to learn how to re-dress. Unfortunately, what they ended up with were lots of suits with little ties — designers’ attempts to re-create for women what men had in a standard suit and tie.”

It didn’t work.

So where does that leave us today? Are we doomed? Despite the gradual dismantling and marginalization of the art of dressing as an academic subject, how is it that some 21st century people still have managed to learn and apply the Dress Doctors’ basic principles of design, fit, color and occasion?

“Well, bits of the Dress Doctors’ advice, as though the pages were scattered to the wind, do show up in magazines and modern books, and some people may have put it all together. Secondly, these well-dressed people may simply prove that the Dress Doctors were right — that the principles of art, when applied to dress, naturally satisfy the mind and the eye. Some people still seek that satisfaction when they get dressed.”

But probably not the lady in pajama pants at the grocery store.

Susan Guibert is an assistant director in the Notre Dame office of public relations. She can be reached at sguibert@nd.edu.

O’Brien embodies commercial success

2012-04-30T08:45:00-04:00

Actor Dan O’Brien ’99 was tailgating before the Notre Dame at Stanford game last Thanksgiving weekend when a fellow tailgater began gesturing wildly in his direction and approached him.

As one of the co-stars of Whitney, NBC’s hit ensemble comedy (think Friends) O’Brien has had to adjust to being recognized — and sometimes accosted — by fans.

But this fan did not recognize O’Brien from the show. He was absolutely certain he had come upon the Fighting Irish leprechaun mascot — traveling incognito — and was determined to unmask him. “Yes you are! Don’t lie! I know you are!” the man insisted.

“I suggested the man might be thinking of the Xerox commercial that plays during Notre Dame games,” O’Brien recalls, chuckling. In it, O’Brien’s character discusses photocopying with a cardboard cutout of the leprechaun. “See! I knew it!” the man announced triumphantly before asking O’Brien to pose for a photo with him.

When O’Brien traveled to his native Alexandria, Virginia, for Christmas — he is part of a large, close-knit Irish-Italian family — his cousins stopped by to have photos taken with him, “so they could prove to their friends we were related.”

Such attention, though flattering, seems to have little effect on O’Brien, who recently moved his family from New York City to Los Angeles, where Whitney is filmed. Despite being a seasoned pro — his resume boasts an impressive array of stage and screen credits — the 34-year-old actor displays none of the self-absorption one might expect from a guy on the fast track to Hollywood stardom.

He’s just jazzed to have the gig.

Working on a sitcom filmed before a studio audience, “is the best of both worlds,” O’Brien enthuses, “It’s like live theater — but with do-overs.” In addition, he says, “It’s the best schedule in Hollywood. You go to work every morning and come home every afternoon.” Whitney allows him to spend “more time than ever before” with his wife and three children.

His acting life wasn’t always so cushy. Before he landed the role on Whitney, O’Brien spent 10 years in New York — primarily on the stage. He worked “every odd job under the sun.” Some part-time jobs were what one might consider typical for an aspiring actor — waiter, bartender, theater manager, extra on Law and Order — others were more unusual, such as supernumerary (nonspeaking actor) in productions at the Metropolitan Opera.

“As an actor you are always having to quit jobs when you get a play,” O’Brien says, “so I was always on the make.” One of the “craziest” jobs was “working as an undercover spy for a private eye firm.” O’Brien’s job was to track down and tally the number of knock-offs (counterfeit products) in Chinatown. “They hired a lot of out-of-work actors,” he explains. To avoid being recognized, “we had to wear really silly costumes.”

Despite the odd jobs, “I was always sort of ‘making it’ as an actor in my mind because I was always working on a play,” O’Brien says. His break came when he was doing a play with friend Michael Hannon, who “took me under his wing and introduced me to his agent,” O’Brien says. “I owe my career to him.”

That agent helped O’Brien get commercial auditions and finally “break into the business” (defined as getting paying work) when he was hired to do a commercial for America Online in 2004. “I thought I’d be on easy street,” he recalls, “but in fact they hardly played it. I just barely covered my union entry fees.”

As his reputation grew, more work followed. “About five years ago I started making really good money doing commercials — conveniently around the time I started a family,” he says. But easy street wasn’t always easy for the stage actor who had labored long and hard for the purity of his craft. O’Brien struggled with nagging doubts: Had he “sold out” by doing advertisements?

“I had a moment when I walked into my commercial agency and told them I couldn’t do it. I told my wife we needed to give back the money I’d made. She was pregnant with our first child at the time. She was nearly in tears. I prayed about it and asked God to give me a simple answer. I talked to my parents’ priest. Finally, one guy, Father David, said, ‘Get a grip. Keep doing the commercials — you can use your money to do good things.’”

He met his wife, Julie Shavers, a playwright and fellow actor, in 2002 when he answered a casting call in Back Stage magazine for a play she had written. At the audition, he recalls, “Julie told the director she had to cast me, because she was going to marry me.” O’Brien says he “knew” too, by the play’s second rehearsal. The couple has produced four plays together, including Silver Bullet Trailer, written by Shavers. They were married in 2005 and have three boys, Ammon, 5; Ivie James, 3; and Austin, 1.

O’Brien says the couple’s decision to move to Los Angeles was “a leap of faith. I prayed a lot about it. My sister-in-law is fond of saying ‘the Lord takes care of babies and fools,’ so I figured I was covered on all fronts.” Former classmate Andrea Kavoosi ’99 covered one front, introducing him to Vikram Dhawer of Authentic Talent and Literary Management, who became his agent in L.A. Dhawer worked to get O’Brien many film and television auditions — including the one that earned him the role of Mark on Whitney.

“As soon as I watched his commercial reel,” Dhawer recalls, “I knew I wanted to work with him because he was ‘that guy’— the guy I had seen in multiple commercials who was always funny and interesting enough to actually make me pay attention to the commercial.”

O’Brien credits Dhawer with also steering him toward more creative ways to get work — such as video auditioning for roles. With the advent of YouTube, if an actor wants a part nowadays, O’Brien says, it’s not uncommon for him to videotape himself reading the part and send a video link to a director or casting agent. One online audition caught the attention of actor/director Clint Eastwood — and nearly landed O’Brien a part in the film Gran Torino.

Even live auditions that don’t pan out are not a waste of time, O’Brien says. “If you do a good job and maybe aren’t exactly right for a part, a director will remember you and you could get called for something else.” Such was the case when O’Brien auditioned for Ben Stiller, who was directing a television pilot. O’Brien didn’t get the role, but Stiller was so impressed with O’Brien’s reading that he hired him to participate in a reading of a film script by Aaron Sorkin.

O’Brien admits he was a little star-struck when he arrived at Sorkin’s Hollywood Hills home to find a room full of well known actors with whom he’d be reading. Despite being on a successful prime-time sitcom, O’Brien has trouble even now imagining himself a peer to legendary actors. Achieving celebrity later — rather than sooner in one’s career — “keeps you humble,” he says.

On Whitney, O’Brien plays Mark — an irreverent, girl-chasing, commitment-phobic police officer with a penchant for blurting purple prose. O’Brien, in contrast, is a devoted husband and father and devout Catholic who recently put his two older boys in “timeout” for calling each other “dummies.” His children are not allowed to watch the show — too adult.

The day after an episode airs, O’Brien says, he is often teased by friends about the “dirty” things he says on camera. But, O’Brien adds, “I like giving this guy a voice. He has a point of view, and I want to show it . . . to show how he got there.”

Whitney Cummings, O’Brien’s boss as well as co-star, says, “I saw hundreds of actors, and he had the job when he said the first line in his first audition. He was so fresh, so real, so inherently funny. I knew I had struck gold.”

As the character evolves, viewers get to see Mark’s vulnerability, and O’Brien’s influence. In one episode, Mark is a Notre Dame fan (O’Brien, whose father, grandfather and brother are also ND grads, lobbied for it in the script). In another, Mark lets slip that he’s not as sexually experienced as he’d claimed. When he’s called on it, he explains he was raised Catholic — and considers “the act” to be something “special.”

Cummings says she is “the most protective of the role of Mark because secretly Mark is me and all my propaganda. Mark is a very complex character who keeps unveiling new dimensions that I think are surprising everyone . . . watching him negotiate who he thinks he should be with what makes him happy.” On O’Brien’s influence, Cummings deadpans, “Dan’s real life isn’t much of an inspiration, because from what I know he just constantly churns out children.”

Bitten by the acting bug in 7th grade after landing a part in a school play, O’Brien began acting lessons, fell in love and never looked back. In high school, “I did all the plays and really found my group of friends there.”

He landed his first professional role — lead in an off-off-Broadway play — the summer after his sophomore year at Notre Dame. Today his resume reflects a solid balance of stage and screen work, plus a few special skills — “stage combat,” “accents” and “an unbelievably realistic cricket sound.” A lifelong musician and composer, O’Brien enjoys playing piano and guitar, and still plays in a garage band “when my wife is out.” He also plays the trumpet, an instrument he played in the Notre Dame Marching Band his freshman year.

O’Brien hopes to do more writing and directing, and is currently at work on a screenplay with fellow Notre Dame alum Pete Cilella ’99. He would also, someday, like to write a script “about the Catholic experience . . . being Catholic . . . from a liturgical point of view. So much is happening right now . . . changes to the Mass. I would really like to explore some of that.”

Liz (Woyton) Warren is a freelance writer and lifelong Irish fan. She lives with her husband in Southern California.

An Irish home with London accents

2012-04-30T08:30:00-04:00

Sometimes looks can be deceiving.

For Londoners and tourists zipping past the red brick and brown terra-cotta building along Waterloo Road, the imposing letters stretching across much of the fifth floor identify the place as “The Royal Waterloo Hospital for Children and Women.” Smaller signs on descending floors inform passersby that the hospital is “Supported by Voluntary Contributions” with “Patrons” such as His Majesty King Edward VII, Her Majesty Queen Alexandra and the Prince and Princess of Wales. On the ground floor, over a door, there’s even direction to the “Out Patients Department.”

But spend some time examining the building, which appeared as “The Royal Veterans Hospital” in the 2009 movie Sherlock Holmes, and you see a modest plaque mounted next to the entrance with the phrase “Conway Hall” on one line and “University of Notre Dame (USA) in England” right below.

For the first time, Notre Dame has a student residence beyond campus it can call its own. Restoration of the art-nouveau façade — the 1823 building previously was rebuilt in the early 1900s — went hand-in-hand with a complete renovation of the interior.

The result, made possible with a gift from Notre Dame trustee Robert M. Conway ’66 and his wife, Ricki, can accommodate 268 students in 50,000 square feet of living space. The building now houses a chapel, an activities center, common rooms, study areas and flats that house four to eight students apiece. Completed at a cost of $62.1 million, Conway Hall opened last August, more than four months ahead of schedule.

At the dedication Mass on January 20, Rev. John I. Jenkins, CSC, ’76, president of Notre Dame, pointed out in his homily that the date marked the anniversary of the death in 1873 of Blessed Basil Moreau, founder of the Congregation of Holy Cross. Moreau, a French priest, had dispatched another French priest from his order, Edward Sorin (along with six Holy Cross brothers), to the United States to found a school.

The Notre Dame that Sorin established in 1842, according to Jenkins, now sends more than half its undergraduates to study abroad. Moreau’s international vision — he also sent religious to Algeria, Canada and what’s known today as Bangladesh — animates Notre Dame in a similar way.

In 1964, the University launched its first study-abroad program in Innsbruck, Austria. Today, less than a half-century later, more than 40 different programs in 20 countries exist for Notre Dame students and faculty. London’s 400 undergraduate and Law School students each year make it the largest.

Structurally and symbolically, Conway Hall represents the University’s efforts to become more international in its work and more global in its influence.

In his homily Jenkins called London “a center of culture, commerce and communication” as well as “the world’s most international city.” Having both Conway Hall and the University’s London Centre, a 15-minute stroll over the Thames River and through Trafalgar Square, allows Notre Dame to enhance both teaching and research.

What are called “Conway Conversations,” established by English literature Professor Greg Kucich, director of the London Undergraduate Program, bring academics, business figures and artists together for seminars, readings, concerts, debates and informal discussions. In addition, the London Centre, which co-hosts a full day’s discussion about internationalization and London to mark the Conway Hall dedication, hosts a steady lineup of lectures and international conferences with partners that have included Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and Cambridge University.

Jenkins calls Conway Hall “the largest international residence building for the flagship program of an ambitious international agenda.” That agenda involves two distinct yet related objectives — students and faculty from Notre Dame going abroad at the same time students and scholars from abroad are coming to Notre Dame. Indeed, a few days after the Conway Hall festivities, University admissions officers met with prospective British students at the London Centre.

At a dinner following the dedication ceremony, Robert Conway, senior director of Goldman Sachs in London and a former chair of the academic affairs committee of the Board of Trustees, recalled his own student days at Notre Dame in the 1960s, but he concentrated on the present and future, especially the capacity of overseas study to provide “a transformational experience” in a young person’s knowledge of the world, maturity, confidence and sense of independence.

“They are why we are here,” Conway said of the students. “They are why we do what we do.”

Bob Schmuhl is the Walter H. Annenberg-Edmund P. Joyce Professor of American Studies and Journalism at Notre Dame, where he directs the John W. Gallivan Program in Journalism, Ethics & Democracy. He taught at the London Centre in 2004 and is teaching there this spring.

The Playroom: Nit-picking

2012-04-27T06:00:00-04:00

This is my “Mom Brain” in action. I’m in a book store browsing titles, and I do a double-take on History and Lice, which was what I read on the spine of a book called History and Life.

I’m terrified of lice. More than hurricanes, earthquakes or escalators. I fear the day my kid comes home with nits, and I have to wash the kids, everything they own, everything I own, the car, the entire house and the shrubbery in hot water and special shampoo that costs more than it should because I would pay anything for a product that gets rid of lice.

Head lice is so prevalent in the Chicago suburbs it’s not even a stigma anymore, but the school office still sends home innocuous memos on screaming orange paper,

“This is to calmly inform you that a child in your child’s class has head lice, so don’t freak out.”

Well, who is it?

Within about 15 minutes after pick-up at school, the Momfia knows everything and descends on the mother of the afflicted child with a list of women who will come to your house to shave your kids head or, in the case of a girl with long, really long, red hair like my daughter, wash and comb and comb and wash and comb.

We have distribution channels set up for special rosemary spray that is supposed to deter lice and costs about $400 a spray bottle. We’ve got a product list of soaps and suds to use to wash every potholder and scrap of sheets and bed linens in your house and a phone chain and we all know who to call when the first nit is spotted.

A woman I know, not yet a full-fledged Momfia member, recently commented to me, “Lice? We have lice at school?”

Of course we’ve got lice, this is the suburbs.

Our kids share lockers and car pools, and they throw coats in giant heaps on the floor of the art room. All those little lice just jumping gleefully from one hoody to the next with their little lice jaws chomping, waiting for that long, red hair.

Lice at our school even made it to an agenda item at the PTO meetings, which downgraded quickly from discussing ways to stop the incipient spread and protecting our children to whether or not Labradoodles, Goldendoodles and Schnoodles could get lice from children, since they supposedly had hair and not fur.

As I was sucking the sugar off a Munchkin all I could think was, “I am so bored here. I do not care about your (grown-up word) ’Doodle, and protecting your dog from getting lice is so not the point of this agenda item.”

So after finishing my Munchkin I took a deep, calming breath, which I try to do often during PTO meetings. I told them, the PTO members concerned about their ’Doodles, that this discussion was a wasting our time, their dogs have absolutely nothing to do with the mission statement of the PTO, and then I told them dogs don’t get lice from children, not even ‘Doodles.

And then I got schnoodled.

Maraya Steadman, who lives in a Chicago suburb, is a stay-at-home mother of three children. Her website is marayasteadman.com/. Email her at maraya@steadmans.org.

Today

2012-04-26T11:00:00-04:00

“You are going to die today,” I kept thinking. But I couldn’t get the words out. I’ve never had to say those exact words to a patient before. I’ve told dozens of patients they have an incurable disease that will ultimately claim their life. It’s an abstract concept at that point. Farther down the road in the distant future, you’ll whisper “Rosebud” and fall into a deep sleep. There will be time to make amends, say good-bye, ask for forgiveness. Then finally one day is the day you die.

For Julien, that day had arrived.

Most patients are only half-conscious on the day of their death. Through the illness or fatigue or heavy doses of painkillers, they are drowsy and only faintly aware of their surroundings. In more lucid moments they usually focus on asking for medications to alleviate their symptoms, or superficially interact with the family in the room.

When I enter the room, it’s because the family has asked to speak to the doctor about their loved one’s symptoms or their state of being. The patient breathes deeply in the background, the focus of the conversation but not the focus of attention. We may discuss what the next steps are in seeking a cure or the next steps in keeping the patient comfortable. “Anything that we do at this point may prolong his life, but there is no cure. He will not have any meaningful quality of life and will spend the rest of his time in the hospital. Did you ever discuss with him what he would have wanted to do in this situation?”

Julien knew he had pancreatic cancer and that it would eventually take his life. He had decided several weeks ago to be kept comfortable during his last days and forego the prolonged agony of a futile ICU stay. I was the doctor covering the palliative care service at night, and I had been called by the nurse because he continued to vomit despite maximum doses of three medications.

Julien had complete consciousness, but he was weak, his gown covered in black vomit and his face pale underneath closely cropped gray hair. In many ways the consciousness was a gift so he could say his goodbyes and find peace, but it came at a price. He spit up black vomit, and I wiped his mouth with a towel, smearing some into his white stubble. I had to use the back of the towel to complete the job. I sat on the edge of his bed and placed my hand over the back of his bony hand. “Why do I keep vomiting?” he asked, sitting upright in bed, trying to get comfortable.

“The lab results show that you’re bleeding internally. You are vomiting up that blood, probably from the tumor invading your stomach.” The tests showed that the bleeding would continue to accelerate until he bled to death in the next few hours.

“What can we do to stop it?” He sat up and spit into the basin, and then lay back in bed.

“There is nothing we can do to stop the bleeding. I’m going to ask the nurses give you two more medications to try to stop the vomiting and reduce your pain, but they will make you very sleepy and make it harder to communicate with your family.” I changed the subject, trying to focus on the immediate symptoms.

“But then what will happen with the bleeding?” he asked.

“It will continue to happen and get worse until…” I searched for the right words. “I think it’s time to have your family gather around your bedside.” To say good-bye. I recalled an 18th century painting in drab grays and earth tones that showed a dying man with his family gathered at the bedside, holding his hand. The dying man’s other hand hangs off of the bed listlessly while the doctor packs up his things.

He looked up at me and said, “What does that mean, Doc?” His head lolled on his chest again, his eyes shut.

“There is nothing more we can do for you. We can do more to keep you comfortable, but I’m not sure how long we can maintain that state.” Say it. Just say it. “So it’s time to have your family come to your bedside, and be with you.” How can I possibly tell a man that today is his last day on earth while he looks me in the eye?

He tried to hold his head up and make eye contact, then tired of the effort. “Well, that sucks,” he said. He understood. We sat in silence for a moment, and then he turned his hand over, pressing his clammy palm against mine. “I guess I thought there would be more time.”

“I can call your wife and tell her to come in. Is there anyone else you want to be with you?”

“My son. But she’ll know that.” He tossed around in bed, but no position was better than any other. He was far away, running a to-do list in his head. After a few moments of thought, he lifted his brow and threw his hands up, releasing my grip. “Huh. Today.” he shrugged. “Can I have those medications now, Doc?”

Vincent DeGennaro is an internal medicine doctor and a global public health specialist in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School. He also works with the international nonprofit organization Partners in Health-Rwanda. See his An American Doctor in Rwanda blogs.

Molarity Redux: Question of the Day

2012-04-23T06:00:00-04:00

Welcome to Molarity Redux, the 30th strip in the updated, continuing adventures of Jim Mole and friends. The newspaper’s “question of the day” might be a little slanted…

Sidewalk style

2012-04-20T07:00:00-04:00

At first glance, Notre Dame in the wintertime isn’t exactly a bastion of fashion. Couture takes a backseat to cozy in the teeth of South Bend’s chilling climate.

But take a look past the dull blacks and browns, and ND’s subtle sidewalk style starts to emerge. Outlined against the blue-gray sky, bursts of bold color and offbeat accessories announce individuality, moxie and a determination to look — dare we say it — cool.

Dressing Up

2012-04-20T06:55:00-04:00

Bandage skirts wrap shivering legs tight, as chattering platforms tap the alleyway pavement. Eager eyes scan the crowd, taking in the color, fit and cut of each costume. Girls pretend they see a friend and dart to the front of the line. Boys jealously watch, miles from the entrance. Holding out their IDs, the ladies wait for evaluation. Bouncers appraise each entry, with a quick peek at the card and a much longer look at the outfit.

It’s a Thursday night at Feve.

To Feve or not to Feve — is that even a question? Notre Dame undergrads eagerly anticipate the day they can get into Club Fever, known as The Backstage Grill by day and the hottest club South Bend has to offer on Thursday nights. It’s a Domer hot spot that starts the weekend off on a fun, carefree note, a place to forget exams and obligations for a few blissful hours.

Once inside, lacy layers abound, as everywhere you turn another skirt rides up another behind. Men rock plaid shirts and jeans, emphasizing just how “chill” they are. Hazy lights illuminate the basement, where Domers meet and mingle amid drinks. Conversation flows, easy and worry-free.

As you lay your eyes on your love for the night, you slowly but surely make your way to the dance floor. Maybe, just maybe, you end up in “the cage,” a barred and elevated stage students love to dance on. Whatever happens, it’s sure to guarantee laughs the next day.

Feve demands different levels of fashion intensity from guys and girls. Men keep it simple and casual, rarely venturing from their standard T-shirts or button-downs. For the ladies, however, Feve is a land of short skirts, tight shirts and heels your mother would die seeing you in. Girls let their hair down and their hemlines up during this special night each week, taking advantage of the chance to be somebody outside their classes and extracurriculars.

From 9 to 5, it’s all about the J. Crew cardigans, Ralph Lauren cords, Frye leather boots and Tory Burch totes. Between 5 and 7, it’s time to throw on some running shorts and take a jog around the lakes. After that, pull on the Uggs and sweats, sit around and relax. Once the clock strikes 9:30, the transformation begins.

The contradiction between the classroom and Feve uniforms epitomizes a challenge Notre Dame girls face. It’s the Rory Gilmore vs. Carrie Bradshaw, Hermione Granger vs. Serena van der Woodsen dilemma. We’re expected to be smart, quirky and cute, but there’s no denying the pressure to be beautiful, seductive and loads of carefree fun.

On Notre Dame’s campus, these personae collide just as they eventually did for the more conservative characters of our childhood. Rory, the sweet bookish teen on the WB’s old hit show Gilmore Girls, eventually rebelled and flew her scandalous flag. Harry Potter’s know-it-all Hermione coursed through puberty, and suddenly the jerseys were chasing her instead of vice versa.

Gossip Girl’s glamorous Serena van der Woodsen always commanded an audience among men, and Sex and the City’s Carrie Bradshaw was unashamedly focused on attracting male attention. An emphasis on drawing the eyes of the opposite sex exponentially multiplies in college, where hormones and hopes run high and wide.

At Notre Dame, we’re spiritual sisters by day, sorority sisters by night. The University expects us to be exemplary members of society. The reality of college calls us to be a pretty party in a petite package.

While strapping on our heels and heading out for the evening, we find ourselves asking, “Who will we be this time around? Rory and Hermione? Or Serena and Carrie?”

Girls just want to have fun. Cyndi Lauper knew what she was talking about then, and her words still ring true today. Being young and free is a blessing, and we don’t want to miss taking advantage of it.

But no one can deny that the pressure to be a femme fatale sometimes weighs just as heavily as those textbooks in our backpacks. It’s hard to find the balance, and it’s hard to discern if and when we really need to. For now, when it becomes too much to worry about, you can find us on the Feve dance floor.

Adriana Pratt of Carmel, Indiana, is majoring in political science, with a minor in journalism, ethics and democracy. She is an assistant managing editor at Notre Dame’s independent student-run paper, The Observer.