Simpson's Paradox

Two years ago, when we were looking for this apartment, we were so close to renting a different one. It was pretty, sunny, close to the train, and pretty cheap, but also a smallish walkup with no dishwasher. We talked about how much money we could save living in slightly cramped apartment, and decided that we weren’t home all that much, we didn’t cook all that much and we could hand wash dishes to save money on rent.

I was completely shocked when they turned us down, and asked the broker if we had some kind of problem with our credit score or rental history. He said that the owner didn’t want to rent it to us because we were not married.  When I explained that we actually are married, and that I had said this on the application form, and that women aren’t legally required to change their names, and what year is it, anyway? he said I could submit our marriage license for reconsideration.

So then I took a picture of our marriage certificate, and my left hand wearing my wedding ring, and with my middle finger out and pointing to the 2015 date on the paper, because it’s not actually the 1950s anymore. Harold talked me out of sending that photo but he could not talk me into calling that broker back, and then I found this apartment on my own, and I forgot about the whole thing.

Anyway, that’s why we ended up not spending the pandemic in a cramped apartment handwashing dishes three times a day and walking five flights down to the laundry room, all conveniently located near the job I don’t have any more.

In the craziness of 2020, I realize how lucky I am to spend another winter break playing stupid games with my formerly-work friends. It’s a nice bit of normalcy in pandemic life, because for the last few years, we’ve played Civ and other games together over our teaching breaks. Now that we’re not coworkers anymore, it’s extra nice to catch up, play together and just spend time laughing with good friends.

Also, I’m going to make a careful sneaky plan, and kill them all.

@lisarina6

Zoom meeting or Seance??? ##fyp ##foryou ##foryoupage ##teacher ##teacherlife ##teachersoftiktok ##2020 ##virtual ##zoom ##google ##school ##facts ##reallife ##true

♬ The Creepy Music Box (Psychological Thriller / Horror) – Film Music Experience

From WorkBro, who probably needs a new name since we don’t even work together anymore.

Boston’s early voting began at 11:00 this morning, so I was in line outside the polling station at 10:40. We’d requested mail-in ballots, but they mysteriously haven’t arrived, and I’m not taking chances with the fake dropboxes and the mysteriously delayed mail. The line was already out of the school and down the corner when I got there, everyone masked and 6 feet apart.  Poll workers counted off how many people could enter the building to stand in other masked, distant lines, roped off from the school.

You don’t have to show ID to vote, but the shortest line was the one to have my license scanned without my touching the scanner or the poll worker touching my license, and the shortest line is extra important now that being indoors with other humans is a good way to catch the plague. Then I got a sterilized pen to mark my ballot and a sterilized glue stick to seal it. Then I voted for the guy who kinds sucks but isn’t a literal white supremacist, dropped my ballet in the box, and handed my marker and glue stick back to be re-sterilized, careful the whole time not to accidentally stand close to anyone.

My local polling station is in the school where I taught ESL night classes last school year, until we went home for a few weeks of online classes last March. When I used to get to work about 5PM, there’d always be little kids getting picked up from aftercare. I think a scout troop met there too, and at least one crafting class. There was pretty much always a bake sale in the lobby, and always something to chat about in the school’s main office.  I mean, I don’t want this to sound idyllic, I was usually in the main office using their copier because because the night school’s copier was broken again, but still. It was a busy, friendly community school.

The adult ed office is right off the gym/auditorium/general community space that’s used for voting.  Of course I couldn’t just go in, it was closed off and there’s no casual visiting in covid anyway. But I know that just off the voting area, behind the locked gate, there are a couple sets of vocabulary matching cards that I left on my desk in the before times.

These are taken over a few years, and you can tell that by my friends’ clothes and my hairstyles. But my outfits? Apparently I wear my space scarf and purple cardigan to every class day, and I wear my BostonFIG shirt and red flannel to every event outside school. Ok, fine, these are most on-brand outfits, but I swear I own more than 2 sets of clothes.

Central photo: Gabe and I are holding tupperware at a school party to sneak some extra dumplings home for Sydney and Harold… but when the Chinese moms who’d cooked everything found out we wanted to take some home, they piled more and more dumplings on. So much food!

Top right: My second-grade babies. Little Bonnie was one of my sweetest second-grade students, and then I helped tutor her in reading the next year. One day, she wrote her homework in invisible ink to prank me, and I almost died. Her mom’s my FB friend now so I can keep watching her grow up.

Bottom right: A few years ago, one of my students, Carol, absolutely KILLED this clue in classroom Taboo, with “in Meg’s favorite city, the big monkey climbs this.” It was just perfect. I remember it so clearly because it such an amazing use of context and limited vocab.  Anyway, Carol is a student services officer at our school now.  I guess she remembers that day too.

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