Hiding in the basement

This might be the first time we've heard the tornado siren as anything other than a test. (The last one was a test they neglected to communicate about in advance.)

We are now dutifully hiding in the basement. With laptops, because we're nerds that way.


Give me a damned blizzard any day.

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Note to self: stash a second chair in the basement for future terror.

Catching up on last semester

Two semesters down!

I'm done with my first year! And I decided to add another year to my time at Michigan, so I'm still two years away from graduating. :-/ The third year will allow me to get a second master's degree, so I'll graduate with both a Master in Urban Planning (specializing in land use and transportation) and a M.S. in Natural Resources and Environment (with focus on Behavior, Education, and Communication).

The end of my semester was packed, from a trip to Chicago for the American Planning Association National Conference to all the papers and tests. From there, a quick trip to the East Coast followed by a nasty cold kept me busy. I'm only now catching up to things I've been meaning to do for the summer -- including two research projects, one I'll be paid for!

More on the summer research shortly. In the meantime, I'm catching up on some notes I've been planning to post here for a while.

Train trip to Chicago! April 13.

a.k.a., what I would have tweeted if I were a Twitter person. 

• I welcome the track upgrades that they're planning for the Michigan-Chicago line, but there's no way they'll even blow the whistle fast enough to cross that many railroad crossings at faster than 30mph.
• Train travel = time travel. Look out the window and it's back to the industrial age.
• Wish I could have hopped the tracks to the train starting out on the South Shore Line. Pretty sure I would have saved half an hour. 
• Wow, I'm actually in Chicago! ...oh great, it's snowing.
• I'm two blocks away. Let's play "spot the planner."

The conference, April 13-15

a.k.a., there are a lot of planners out there!

• Everyone and their sister is talking about sustainability. You have to ask a few more questions to find out what they're really after.
• Everyone and their brother is talking about complete streets, and it's not only (not usually?) the transportation folks taking the lead.
• For most suburban communities, density is still a bad word. For some, esp. in the South, even walkability is a bad word, where one planner had much better success with "people-friendly.
• Community acceptance of the term "climate change" varies. Many presenters seem to think that they no longer need to censor that word -- that the constituencies now accept that weather is changing and that we both need to mitigate further change and adapt to what's already on its way. Following this train of thought, where "climate change" still triggers outrage and protest, for example from the anti-Agenda 21 crowd, it's a fading trend. If true, this is a major good sign.
• I don't get much out of most workshops. That's "conference sessions" in APA lingo: "workshops" are what you pay extra for. A good workshop I'll learn from and I'll have a great conversation with a panelist. I had two of those so, on the first day. The next few days were, comparatively, a letdown.

A meaningful victory

It has been jarring to go from a state where same sex marriage is legal, in a city where there are few restaurants that same sex couples wouldn't feel comfortable going out to on Valentine's Day, to living in a state where not only is there a constitutional ban on same sex marriage, but outside of the University area, it's not safe to be out on a resume. There's no ENDA here - you can be fired for being gay.

It's one of the things that makes me REALLY homesick. It's not that all of Massachusetts is sunshine and unicorns, and I know that this level of outness is recent, but it feels so frustrating to move backwards.


So while I was delighted that Rhode Island's recent passage of same sex marriage means that New England is now a complete set (collect them all!), I was more excited about Minnesota. That's two midwestern states now, with a third in the works. It feels less oppressive now. More hopeful.



Congress needs to pass ENDA already. Since it doesn't look like Michigan will any time soon.

The theme of this trip was... babies!!!

A whirlwind trip back to Boston where we squeezed in as many people as possible was exhausting but restorative.

Our party was more than the restaurant could handle, so I apologize for not moving around the table and seeing everyone. My food came really, really late and I was starving. But thank you to everyone who came.


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It seems like everyone's had a baby since we left. It's a very different social circle to return to. OTOH, lots of teeny weeny baby toes!

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One of the great things about Boston is that it is so walkable. And the weather was perfect spring weather. So spending a couple of days walking around to meet people and do things was great for feeling connected again. Normal, comfortable, sunny, walkable.


Of course, my errand route brought me past the Marathon memorials. For some reason, it made it feel less real to me.

Watching everything on television was surreal and horrifying, but I could recognize everywhere the news trucks were. I used to work over there; that's where I eat blue corn pancakes; THAT SHOOTING IS AT ARTHUR'S OLD BUILDING PLEASE TELL ME HIS TEAMMATES ARE SAFE. Everything felt so close and immediate and so impossibly far away and lonely at the same time.

Walking around town again and speaking with locals made it feel real. But looking at the memorials... they had become a tourist destination. People who had no connection to the city, or the victims, coming by to take photos. It wrenched me out of the present and made it feel like a fictional television show.

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I also had a great time with the niecephews. Running around with them returns that sense of normalcy. Like we never left. Except for those moments when it's obvious how much they've grown, and that we've missed it.

The birthday boy seemed very ready to turn four, especially as he enjoyed reading and then eating the letters of his name off the cake. And the toddler has decided maybe it's okay not to cry every time she sees me. It also helps to show up with a bag of tulle for hours of entertainment.

This is our last time seeing them in this house. They're moving next week. Change, change, change.

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But it was good to see everyone, and enjoy several days of perfect spring weather, and run around with the kids. Ready to tackle the summer back in Michigan now. Plus, we have guests arriving tomorrow. And motss.con next month. So we are importing enough friends so we feel settled.