statistical insights

I have a confession.

I am obsessed with stats.

This may make my parents the accountants overjoyed, this passion for numbers and data, but actually, I'm pretty sure they already knew that obsession of mine.

Plus, I think they're overjoyed to have a writer in the family; it rounds out the family line-up, which is heavily weighted towards the sciences.

But here are the stats I'm obsessed with: the ones that tell me how many people visit my blog, how they got here, and what they look at.

Yes, I'm obsessed with you. And your statistical significance in relation to me. I am obsessed with your p-value.

{That's one of the only terms I remember from my actual stats class in college, so I could be misusing it. Thought I'd throw it out there anyway, in case in makes me sound smarter.}

Right now, I'm most fascinated with the search terms that people used to get to my blog. Those are like little insights into the soul of a searcher.

Who, for example, sat down recently and searched "slice ornament Christmas mistletoe"? And what were they hoping to find? Perhaps instructions on making a Christmas ornament from orange slices and mistletoe?

But why would you want to do that? I mean, the oranges would, over the course of the Christmas season, shrivel up and most likely start to smell non-citrus-y.

Also, it's my belief that mistletoe shouldn't be combined with anything else. It's a statement piece {the statement: "Kiss me now"}, and if you muddle it with oranges, the statement could become muddled. People could start to think you're just supposed to wave at each other. Or shake hands.

And no one would naturally end up under the mistletoe if it were hanging as an ornament on the tree. Well, maybe your Christmas is a lot different than mine, but I see very little reason for two people to be lying down under the tree during a holiday party. And the whole point of mistletoe—based on my real-life experience with it via Hallmark Christmas movies—is to give two people who won't admit that they like each other an excuse to awkwardly kiss; the whole plot hinges on the mistletoe placement.

But enough on my mistletoe and orange ideas. {I didn't realize I felt so strongly about mistletoe.}

Another question this "slice ornament Christmas mistletoe" search brings up is: How did Google decide that this ornament mistletoe searcher should come to my little ode to my friend Lauren—in which I very briefly mention Christmas ornaments but do not mention a slice ornament?

And what did they think when they got here?

Of course, my Google stats can't tell me that, the details of what was going through someone's brain when they found themselves mired in a blog with Jane Austen in the title but that isn't about Jane Austen at all and is even less about Christmas ornaments. If Google could tell me that, this particular post would have a different tone to it. That being: stop thinking, everyone. Google knows. And they know that I just warned you, so really, I'm in more trouble than you are.

Three other interesting things to point out on my search terms:

• Many people get to my blog my searching on a variation of the title: Jane Austen didn't prepare, Jane Austen never taught me that, Jane Austen lessons. I'm guessing that these are people who know me, and I have casually mentioned my blog to them. However, because I still feel a bit stilted in self-promoting, I must not have told them the actual address. I must've said something like, "Yeah, I blog a little. Um, it's called Jane Austen Didn't [mumble mumble mumble]. Yeah, so...how are you? Let's talk about you."
  
  To all those people, I say: thank you for your persistence in Google stalking me. I wanted you to read my stuff, but my Midwestern shyness got in the way.
• More than one person has gotten here when searching for my sister. I am sorry, [insert sister's name here]. I'm now scared to mention you by name in case I'm helping any freaky stalker find you.
  
  I would, however, like to point out that our parents did us no favors in giving us such distinctive names. We are incredibly easy to find on the Interwebs, even if you don't know our last names. I'm going to start calling you Sarah, even in real life. See you at Thanksgiving, Sarah!
• Several people have searched for "horse tattoo" or "galloping horse tattoo" or even "how to get a horse to gallop." They ended up here because I wrote awhile back about my mother's tattoo—a blue horse galloping across her upper thigh. If you've read that piece, you know, then, that I freaked out when my mother got a tattoo; that other people are searching for the same type of tattoo is actually somewhat reassuring to me.
  
  And Mama, perhaps we should consider putting a picture of your tattoo on here so that all those people looking for tattoo inspiration can find it here. {Also, that person who searched "how to get a horse to gallop" must not really be into horses all that much. Even I, someone who just tolerates horses, knows that you get them to gallop by wearing spurs, kicking them, and saying, "Giddy up!"}

All this discussion of how these people got to me has me curious: how did you get here?

tradition, expectations, and favorite underwear

My mother got a tattoo:  this is part 3 of that story.  You can go back to the beginning {and read all about how she sprung this news on me in the bathroom} here.

I worked through my tattoo shock during Fiddler on the Roof.

During the song “Tradition” when the people in Anatevka explain the very specific roles each member of the family and community plays, I leaned over to ask my mom, “But why did you do it?  Why get a tattoo at 53?”

“Because I was tired of being what everyone expected me to be.”

It was hard to miss the irony:  my mother announced that she wanted to surprise people for once in her life, just as a cast of Russian peasants was singing about how mamas should “know the way to make a proper home, a quiet home, a kosher home.”  In Anatevka, you were supposed to do what was expected of you.

But Fiddler on the Roof is about accepting change, especially changes in people you love.  It's a bit about how you may not always agree with their decisions, but that doesn't mean they're wrong.  And Fiddler is very much about family and community—and the continuity that love brings, even when there's change.

All this is very acceptable to me when represented in two-and-a-half hours and with a 15-minute intermission to allow you to buy the commemorative Fiddler nesting dolls.  I even like it when I get that dull ache of pre-emptive nostalgia during “Sunrise, Sunset” as I think ahead to what it'll be like when I'm older—perhaps when I'm 53—and I try to trace back how I got to where I am.

I do not like this acceptance of change idea when it's so clearly represented on my mother's thigh.  {Or anyone's thigh, really.}

But that idea my mother had brought up—of wanting to surprise people who thought they knew you—I connected with that.  That's the idea that makes my nostrils flare when someone tries to fit me into a box.  Being packed into the goody-two-shoes box also makes my eye twitch.

I didn't think that I alone owned that feeling; I just didn't know that my mother had a share in it, too.  Instead of having an eye twitch, she had unpacked herself for good from the goody-two-shoes box by getting that tattoo.

The blue horse on her thigh was an act of ripping the box apart and then stomping on it while wearing very muddy shoes.

****
Even the biggest changes eventually become accepted, known parts of your life.  The trick is to get through the time when you can't look at your mother without screaming, “TATTOO!  You have a tattoo!”  Keep that voice inside your head:  this is the best advice I can give.

As I learned more about my mother's tattoo—as I stopped asking questions in an accusatory tone—I got used to the idea.  She'd been thinking about it for several years.  She'd picked out the design a year before she actually got it—got inked, I think the lingo is.  She'd decided on a horse because she's always had and loved horses.

She'd wanted to get it on her lower back, but the tattoo man had guided her towards the thigh because it was less visible.

Dear Tattoo Artist in Iowa City—

Thank you for preventing my mother from getting a tramp stamp.

Sincerely,
A daughter who would've been more horrified

It's been a year since my mother got a tattoo.  At times, the absurdity of it stops me:  my mother, who used to sew matching Easter dresses for my sister and me, all frills and lace and pastel fabric, has something in common with that guy at my gym who has cut the sleeves off every shirt so that his tiger tattoo is always visible when he's lifting weights.

Most times, though, I think of my mother's tattoo as special underwear.  Don't deny that you have a favorite pair of underwear and every time you wear them, there's an extra kick in your step.

My favorite pair has French on it, useful phrases such as “Quelle heure est-il?”  This would be useful if I needed to ask a French person the time, had forgotten the phrase, and was in a situation where it'd be normal to look at my underwear.

Wearing your favorite pair of underwear makes you feel more powerful and prepared for the day, mostly because it's something that only you know.

My mother's tattoo is her permanent favorite pair of underwear so that even when she's wearing comfy sandals and a khaki skirt, all practicality on the outside, she can walk with a kick in her step:  she has a blue horse galloping across her thigh.

a blue horse galloping away from me

Here's where we left off the story of my mother's tattoo:

And then in the bathroom of the Walnut Room not too long later, my practical, comfortable-shoe-wearing mother hiked up her skirt and said, “Do you want to see my tattoo?”

{To read the rest of the beginning, all you have to do is click here.}

So there it was.  A horse in the style of a Native American petroglyph, those rock drawings you find in Utah and other places out West that the Indians used to share news about hunts.  It was a stylized version of it—the back end sort of devolved into swirly wind lines—but in the few seconds I took to look at the tattoo on the side of her upper thigh, I would definitely say it was a blue horse petroglyph.

“Oh my gosh, Mother, I hope that's a fake tattoo!”

“Nope, it's a real one.”

“On your thigh.  You got a real tattoo of a blue horse on your thigh.”  I felt the need to state very clearly and pedantically the facts of the case, as if I were in court cross-examining her.

“Looks like it.”

“Good Lord, Mother, put your skirt down.”  No one else was in the bathroom, but I still felt, for propriety's sake, that her skirt should be where it belongs.  Hiding the tattoo.

I looked away—down, over, up, anywhere else.

For how fancy the rest of the Walnut Room is, their bathroom is pretty institutional standard.  I thought about how pretty it would be in woodland colors, muted greens, perhaps, with paintings of walnut trees on the walls.  How appropriate.

“That is completely inappropriate, Mother!  You do realize those things are permanent, don't you?”  I did an impatient toe tap as she just laughed—laughed!—at me trying to spit out a complete sentence that didn't involve an exclamation point.

I've never called her Mother so many times in a row, but I couldn't help myself.  I felt the need to use her full name, and for me, that meant pulling out the drawn-out Mo-ther.

“Mother!  Stop laughing!  Does Grandma know you did this?” I asked as we headed back to our table.

****

My grandma and aunt heard me coming from 50 feet away.

“Mother, it's like I don't even know you anymore.  What in the world possessed you to tattoo your body?!?”

My mom's side of the family has this bouncing, echoing laugh, the kind that's effective even in very noisy places, which the Walnut Room is not.  On a Sunday afternoon, that place is as quiet as an Evangelical church during the confession of sins when the pastor tells you to think about what you've done wrong and get it right with Jesus. 

My aunt and grandma had started their bouncing, echoing, filling-the-Walnut-Room laugh before I even sat back down.  “Melodee,” my aunt got out. “You promised you'd wait and tell her in front of us so we could see her reaction!”

“Oh, she's still having her reaction; you didn't miss a thing.”  My mom’s eyes were all crinkly and twinkly from how much she was smiling.  I think she liked seeing me struggling for balance and poise, which doesn’t seem very motherly to me.

They all looked at me, ready for the show.  I serve as the entertainment sometimes in my family, a role that usually doesn't bother me, but in the face of a tattoo, I thought that maybe I didn't deserve to be the center of attention.

“But Mo-ther, what did Dad say?”

“Your dad made the appointment for me.”

Oh.  My.  Word.  I was utterly alone in this fight.  All my pillars of practical, level-headed responsibility—my grandma, my dad, my mom—had deserted me.

I started to think that maybe my grandma had a tattoo, as well, something like “Quilter 4 Life” in Gothic script.

In a world where my mother had a blue horse on her thigh, even that was possible.

a question i shouldn't have to ask

This is the beginning of a story for my writing class.  I've actually written more of it, but I thought I'd start with this sneak peek intro.

Since it's part of my writing class, that means I'm opening it up for critique.  Not that everything else on here isn't open for critique.  Critique away, really.

Just please remember the Oreo theory of critiquing:  make your criticism as yummy as possible and sandwich it between two nicer, chocolate-y things.  I think I just made that up, but you know what I mean—go for constructive criticism and eat a lot of Oreos.  They're very good with peanut butter.
 
****
There my mother stood in the bathroom at the Walnut Room of Macy's on State Street with her skirt hiked up.

There I stood, skirt thoroughly unhiked, staring at my mother's thigh.

“You got a tattoo?!?”

****
It was a Sunday in late June, and downtown Chicago was sweating.  Or at least everyone there was sweating, me included as I power-walked down Randolph as efficiently—yet gracefully—as my strappy gold heels would allow.

I was late for meeting up with my mom, grandma, and aunt.  They'd all taken the 7:30 train in from Iowa that morning—leaving Burlington at 6:00 to allow plenty of time for the 45-minute drive to the station.  You always want to have a time cushion; this is one of my mother's travelling rules.

Another travelling rule is:  always take way more underwear than you'll need.  They can be shoved in the corner of your suitcase, barely taking up any room, and wouldn't you rather have them than need to turn an already-worn pair inside-out in the event of an underwear emergency?

So—even if it's just a day trip, consider putting underwear in your purse.

The time cushion rule is a family joke.  It's one of those reliable, comforting yet overdone conversations that families can fall into.  Everyone knows their lines.  No one strays from their part, and we all laugh.

It goes like this:  my dad will say, “Melodee, our flight is at 10 tomorrow morning.  What time do you want to leave for the airport?  How about we get there 2 hours ahead?”

When it comes to schedules, my family typically plays by the rules. If the airline says to be there two hours in advance, we like to be there. Even if we've checked-in online and aren't checking any bags.  You never know what can happen; this, perhaps, is an unspoken family mantra that leads us to do things such as bringing seven pairs of underwear for an overnight trip.

My mother answers, “So that'd be leaving at 7:15, if we want to be there two hours ahead.  What if we aimed to leave at 6:30?”

“If we leave at 6:30, there won't be any traffic, and we'll be there three hours ahead,” my dad explains.

Three hours early starts to sound very appealing and safe to my mom, so she expands it.  “Maybe we should shoot for 6:00.  Even if there isn't usually traffic, there could be tomorrow.  You never know what can happen.”

The time gets pushed back and back until my dad says, “Oh, why don't we just leave now?  If your mother had her way, we would've left for the airport right after breakfast today.”

That's when we all laugh.

****
Even though I hadn't confirmed this with my mother, I was pretty sure she'd made everyone leave for Chicago by 6:00 this morning.  Maybe even 5:45.

And here I was, rushing, but I wouldn't make the deadline—12:00 under the clock at Macy's. I should've worn more practical shoes, but the strappy gold sandals go perfectly with the brown dress I got for my brother's wedding and then only wore the one time.

Dresses should always be worn more than once.  Except a wedding dress, of course, but other dresses you should try to get good use out of.  It justifies buying them.

Seeing Fiddler on the Roof (with the original Tevye!) on a girls' day out was a fine justification to pull out my brown dress.  First, though, we were meeting at Macy's to ogle all the fancy things but certainly not buy any of them, a worthwhile and cheap way to pass the time before curtain.

“You're late!” my mother greeted me.  She had on very comfortable shoes and khaki skirt, a more matronly choice, to be sure, but I looked longingly at her cushy sandals and tried to imagine my feet in them.  She always dresses so practically, which means she's never worried if she'll be able to walk all the way back to the train station from the theatre.

“I know I'm late!” I greeted her back.  I launched into an explanation about sneaking out of church early to catch the train, but she cut me off.

“Well, you're here now.  We thought we'd go up to the Walnut Room, and you can eat.  You're probably hungry.”

She was right.  I'd had a banana on the Metra into the city, but it wouldn't be enough to get me through the show.

“That sounds good, Mommy.” I don't normally call her that, but it slipped out, I think because I felt taken care of and anytime somebody does that, you're bound to become more relaxed and a little childlike.
And then in the bathroom of the Walnut Room not too long later, my practical, comfortable-shoe-wearing mother hiked up her skirt and said, “Do you want to see my tattoo?”

****
More to come soon, including what exactly her tattoo is and my very grown-up reaction to my mother's complete departure from everything I ever knew about her.

If you want to know more now, right now, you can jump ahead in the story here:

• Part II
• Part III