The Mystery of the Pregnant Mink

I've been wondering how wild animals handle pregnancy. My impression of life in the wild is that animals have to spend pretty much every waking moment foraging or hunting for food, and if they could gain weight, they would - but you hardly ever see a fat wild animal. I read an article about minks once, called "Living Hungry." A mink has to hunt continually, just to find enough food to survive. Their metabolisms are so high that if they don't make a kill and eat about once an hour, they die of starvation. They're an extreme example, but really life must be hard for any animal that doesn't have access to a grocery store. So when they get pregnant, how do they manage to put on the extra pounds?

Maybe they just spend more time eating, and less time keeping a watchful eye out for predators or defending their territories - they're forced to take additional risks in order to get enough calories. Or maybe they migrate to better hunting grounds or follow seasonal food, like whales traveling down the coast. (Though that raises the question of, if the hunting is better in those zones, why don't they just live there year-round?) It must be especially difficult for animals in temperate zones that mate in the fall and give birth in the springtime - because that means they have to gain all that weight in winter, the time of year when pickings are slimmest.

Or maybe in the wild, being pregnant is a normal state of affairs and most animals conceive every year, but then most of the babies die or get eaten. So it's a rare animal that spends a season non-pregnant or non-nursing, and without those extra demands on resources, that animal actually would be able to get fat. Maybe there is more "wiggle" room built into the system than it looks like - perhaps most animals don't have to spend all their time foraging just to survive, they eat until they're full and then have time to wander around doing other things (unless they're pregnant, in which case they just spend more time eating and less time wandering around). Still sounds like it's tough to be a mink.

I wonder about these things because, although I am not a mink, I have a high metabolism, and I'm not sure I can eat enough to gain the weight I'm supposed to. I try to snack extra, but then I usually don't have room for dinner, so I don't think I am managing to eat more than I did before I got pregnant. I think I am supposed to be gaining a pound a week from now on.

At the Clinic

I had a cool experience yesterday. I was calling around trying to find a place to get a flu shot, and found out that the city department of health gives them out for free (along with all kinds of other immunizations - childhood, preventive for travel, etc.). My tax dollars at work! They only give them out on Thursday afternoons, during a two-hour window, at a municipal building a couple miles from my office. So, I hustled on over there and found the building, which looked totally dark and deserted. The doors were unlocked, though, and the security guard told me to go up to the third floor. It was also dark and deserted. I wandered around trying doors, but they were all locked for the night. A cleaning crew was running a vacuum somewhere.

Then I tried another door, and it opened onto a hallway full of light, heat, conversation, and people. It was amazing. There must have been a hundred people there, standing and sitting against the wall, whole families, kids, people coughing. How did they all know where it was? Most of the people were Spanish-speaking and everyone looked tired. I put my name on the sign-up sheet and took my place at the end of the line. With all those people ahead of me, I figured I'd be there an hour.

To my surprise, they called me almost at once. I felt uncomfortably privileged as I walked past all the people and into the clinic. It turned out most of them were there for more complicated things, and there was a much shorter flu shot line inside the clinic.

As I sat down, the woman next to me smiled and said, "When is your baby due?" I turned to her with a million-watt grin. She's the first person who has noticed. I'm hardly showing at all yet. I said eagerly, "You can tell? You're the first! It's due in June," and just then the two women on the other side of me chimed in, saying, "I thought you were pregnant, the minute you came in," and everyone was congratulating me. They all traded theories on the baby's sex based on the way I'm carrying (all thought that it was a boy) and said that I was "carrying well" for my stage, though I'm not sure what that means. I felt lapped in friendship and sympathy and part of a community of women in that wonderful way I've felt just a few times before in my life. We were all different ethnicities and ages, and all laughing together like we'd been friends forever. It was just great.

Some Bold Plans

I've been researching places to give birth. The back seat of a taxi is looking like a better and better option. Just kidding.

Actually, after talking to a couple of hospitals in the area and touring a local birthing center, I am leaning toward the latter. It's basically an old farmhouse with three bedrooms - you show up when you're in labor, and a midwife checks on you periodically, and you have the baby all by yourself. The advantage is, no interventions, no pushy doctors, no fetal monitoring, no IV drips, no C-section. I'm worried to the point of obsession about being forced into a C-section. I know my body can do this on its own, given time. The down side of the birthing center is, no pain relief. They have hot showers, but no epidurals. When I told my friend that I was thinking of having natural childbirth there, she said, "You're brave." I don't think of it as brave though. I think of it as my only choice if I want to avoid being sliced up (now, and again for any child I might have in future).

I'm a little frustrated that it has to be this way. Despite the widespread availability of modern forms of pain relief, I'm going to have to do things the old, nineteenth-century way (actually, the way of all the previous centuries), suffering through every contraction, just because hospitals are so hyper and insane about interventions. I know that only 8-10% of women "need" a C-section (because their pelvises are too small, or because the presentation is wrong). But the hospitals in my area have a rate of 40%. Most of the time, the C-sections are given simply because doctors are tired of waiting and want to speed things up. It frustrates me that I have to hide at a birthing center just to escape that. Why can't it be my choice to labor as long as I want? Why can't I be the one to decide, instead of a doctor who doesn't even know me?

Anyhoo, so my job for the next six months is to psych myself up for natural childbirth. On days when I'm feeling good, it seems very doable. All those mantras about women's bodies being designed for it ring loud and clear. But then I stub my toe or hurt myself in some other way, and think, "Ahhh! I don't like pain! Make it stop!" and labor seems completely terrifying.

I also think I'd better keep my plans to myself. I just know that if I tell anyone, they will cheerfully say, "Hoo boy, you are crazy," and start relating tales of agony and try to convince me to go to the hospital. Even if it's really that bad, I don't need to hear about it. I need to be told, firmly and repeatedly, that it is fine and I can do it. "Si, se puede!"

Walking in Snowdrifts

It seems like I can't stay healthy for more than a few days at a time before I catch another cold. It feels like walking in deep snow, making just a little progress on the thin crust before I fall through into a mushy drift. I'm currently in the hacking-and-choking stage of the third cold of the winter. I managed to hold it at bay for a whole week - every morning I'd wake up with a sore throat and think, "This is it!" but then over the course of the day it would disappear, until I almost had hope that I was going to win.

Last Sunday the cold finally lost patience with me, stopped lurking, and went on the warpath. I went home early from work on Monday, fighting not to throw up in the bus. It was awful. The whole way home, I could feel my stomach heaving, and my throat starting to retch, and I just had to clamp my teeth shut and pray that no one was noticing. The second I got in the door to my apartment, I ran for the bathroom and threw up. It's not because of the pregnancy though. The baby's an innocent bystander, and actually hasn't caused me more than a few moments of nausea the whole time, which I appreciate. Although, I guess my immune system is probably suppressed on its behalf, and that's maybe why I'm getting sick so much.

I will also blame riding the bus, though, since people on the bus are always sick. It happens like this: I get on the bus, and invariably within a few minutes after I've sat down, the person next to me starts hacking. I quickly look away to inhale, hoping to get some uncontaminated air. The person on my other side chooses that moment to let loose a large, wet sneeze. I wait a moment or two so as not to seem rude, then quietly get up and move down the aisle to the standing-room-only section, where some guy launches a series of phlegmy coughs directly into my face. What gets me is the way no one on the bus even tries to cover their mouths. It's like a different culture.

Oh, enough complaining, though. The good news is that all the pregnancy books I anxiously peruse seem to agree that catching a cold isn't dangerous to a fetus (though taking cold medicines can be). So, that's all that matters anyway. I'm also happy because some friends gave us a bunch of baby stuff, so we won't have to go shopping for clothes, bassinet, etc.

Ode to Stretch Pants

Covering, not confining,
Shapely and refining -
To think I almost took you back
After try-on, to the rack!
Not work-appropriate, I thought.
Some instinct stayed my hand.
I relented, and I bought,
These pants that now I know are grand.
Now I wear you everywhere,
To work, and bed, while cutting hair.
"You'll wear those out," my mother said,
"Long before you reach month nine."
Little does she know - instead,
I'll wear you for my whole lifetime!

Tired, Happy, Worried, Tired

Things are good. I'm almost ten weeks along. At first I was really anxious and careful, I moved like I was made of glass, and was afraid of miscarrying from stress or exercise. Everything I had to do (climbing stairs, lifting and carrying boxes, taking a trip by plane), I instantly thought about the pregnancy, and then felt upset because it was all required for work, not anything I could get out of. As soon as I got home from work each day, I'd lie flat on my back, hoping to cancel out the day's worth of activity.

I've relaxed a lot now. For one, I seem to have come through all the stressful stuff fine (still pregnant, anyway), which gives me confidence that this baby isn't as fragile as I thought. For another, I don't really feel that pregnant. At first the knowledge occupied my every waking moment. Now there are whole afternoons when I completely forget about it. I haven't gained any weight, despite my best efforts. The first few weeks I ate at every possible opportunity, and even drank protein shakes before bed. Didn't gain a pound. I'm about to give up on trying and just let my body do what it wants, assuming the weight will come naturally in its own good time.

I'm really tired these days. Supposedly that is a common symptom of pregnancy. In my case it's because I started a second job, the kind of thing I can do from home. I wanted to get it underway now and then have it as an option to earn some money during my maternity leave. It is bringing in extra money, which is great, but it's also quite a time commitment. No more time for naps at the end of the work day. I worked a lot over Thanksgiving and will have to work every night and every weekend day for the next month, just to keep up. I feel like I'm running all the time, and never get a chance to rest. Of course that's not true. But the feeling of being harried, and being overwhelmed, never quite goes away. I haven't even had time to find a doctor yet, which is something I really need to do.

On the happy front, in those moments when I'm not actively working or worrying, I just close my eyes and feel gloriously happy. Having a baby is something I've dreamed about most of my life, that I was afraid would never happen. I'm so excited and glad. It's brought a particular tender new dynamic to my relationship with my husband, which I love.

I do get flashes of worry - not just about the regular practical things, like will I be able to avoid a C-section and will the baby be healthy and can we afford it - but about the long-term implications. Things we do now without a second thought, like spontaneously deciding to go to a movie and walking out the front door to make the next showing at the theater down the street, will be things we can never do after we have a baby. Or spending a whole day at a museum. Or going to lunch with friends. Or (gulp) sleeping more than three hours at a stretch. I'm anxious about the potential damage this will do to our day-to-day happiness. I don't want him to feel that I brought this on him before he was ready, or for him to get the brunt of the negative changes while I bask in the joy of motherhood. I will do my best to make it easy on him, but there's no getting around the fact that a baby will throw a lot of the pleasant aspects of our life together out of whack. So, we'll just enjoy our freedom while we have it, and keep our fingers crossed.

Then and Now

Feeling happy and lucky today. Sometimes I think back to my college days, or even high school, which were wonderful times. I remember staying up all night talking with my friends about life, the universe, and everything - the kick-ass play that we wrote together in high school - the afternoons I spent sitting on my dorm windowsill overlooking the quad, full of angst and loneliness, feelings of such overwhelming sadness that it was like a fierce joy inside me. I was usually lovelorn over some guy or another - or over love in general. It was how I wanted to be. The experiences I had in those growing-up years made me who I am, and I am glad to have had them. But when I compare that life to my life now, I can see that I have a baseline level of happiness now that I only used to achieve then on a particularly good day. Back then, I was ecstatic if I saw the guy I loved on my way to math class, if we exchanged a wave or a few moments of platonic conversation. Now, I get to see the guy I love every day. I get to kiss him! I'm allowed to hold him, and see affection in his eyes looking back at me. It seems nearly too good to be true.

Where's Erin??

I'm here! I just haven't been writing much, and I'm not sure why. I think I am reluctant to talk about being pregnant in my blog because so much of it is really personal. Not that I haven't written about personal topics before. This just feels like something I want to keep folded close for a while. And, it seems silly to blog about what I saw at the bus-stop or the little intricacies of friendship, when the pregnancy feels so overwhelmingly important and exciting to me right now. It's like saying "pass the butter" when there are fireworks going off right outside your window.

I haven't told anyone yet except for my family and a couple of friends. I'm afraid of jinxing myself. I especially haven't told anyone at work. Partly because that's the thing to do, you're supposed to soldier on through the morning sickness and not let anyone notice, because in case you have a first-trimester miscarriage you don't want to then go around to ALL your colleagues and explain that you are not, after all, having a baby. So that's a good practical reason. But also, I just don't feel like sharing anything that is close and special to me with people at work. I feel like they wouldn't appreciate it, so I don't want to "waste" it on them. I felt the same way when I got engaged, I didn't tell them until I had to (because I needed to ask for time off for the honeymoon). They acted happy for me when I finally told them. But my overriding feeling is that these people are not my friends, they don't understand me or what makes me tick, and it's not safe to bare my soul to them. I hold myself apart from them and share as little as possible. It has to do, I think, with their assignation of me to the lowest rank in the pecking order, and my refusal to accept that.

So for now, it's our secret. I have started sneakily wearing stretch pants because I could no longer fit into any of my regular work pants. I looove the stretch pants! They don't squeeze me at all. They are more amazingly comfortable than I thought any piece of clothing could be. I have not gained any weight yet, but my belly is pushing out a little bit. So I guess some other part of me has lost weight to compensate.

I'll write when I can, or when I can think of something good to post. In the meantime, thanks for bearing with the intermittent updates and for still reading my blog. :)

Yesssssss

I'm pregnant! and delighted.

And, now that I know it for sure, having a hard time thinking about anything else.

Update

I saw the curious pair again tonight when my husband and I went to the grocery store. He was standing in the same place as before; as before, she came out and joined him when she had done her shopping, and they walked off together. This time, instead of a mask the guy had on sunglasses that covered up more than half his face, and a black bandanna over his head. My husband thinks the guy is at least in his thirties. I can never judge ages, especially men's ages; but this time I noticed the guy had stubble on his jawline, so maybe he is older than I thought. I bet they are sleeping in the haunted house down the block - they headed off in that direction.

A Curious Pair

A couple weeks ago when I walked into the grocery store, there was a guy standing in the entryway next to the shopping baskets. He was young, maybe even in his late teens, with a huge backpack on his back, so huge it bulged out comically. It looked like it weighed about as much as he did. He had three or four other bags around his feet. He was standing with his feet braced apart, gazing off into the middle distance. The most striking thing about him was that he had a mask over his eyes, a strip of black cloth with holes cut out for the eyes, tied at the back of his head. He was like a cartoon robber. I made a wide circuit around him, but he was just standing there, not doing anything, and he was still just standing there when I left.

Then a few days ago I walked into the same store and he was there again, in the same place, with the same giant bag. This time, as I left he was walking out ahead of me, and there was a girl with him about his age. She was wearing a miniskirt over leggings and was loaded down with bags too. They shambled off together. Suddenly I wondered if they were runaways, hiding out together. He guards the bags while she does the shopping. Then they go back to their camp - are they sleeping in the park? or at the rundown house where no one lives, halfway down the block? Are they hiding from her parents? I would have liked to say something, find out their story and help them if I could, but there was something proud and self-sufficient about the pair, about the tone of her voice as she talked to him (though I wasn't close enough to hear what she said) and I was afraid to approach them. Now I wonder if I'll see them again.

A Place to Hide Away

I wish I had more privacy. Sometimes I just want to crawl away into a corner and sit still until the dizziness and weakness passes, but I have to keep sitting at my desk and responding cheerily when people talk to me, and acting like nothing's wrong. It's so hard. I wish I had an office where I could close the door. I would totally lie down under my desk.

At a job I had a few years ago, I felt so awful one day that I crept away to a different part of the building that was under construction. There was no one there; the work was being done at night. I found a corner and lay down among the sheetrock dust and tattered plastic, and just lay there, breathing, until the feeling passed. It was eerie, watching the breeze lift the plastic, looking at the blue sky through a gap in the rafters above me. I could hear phones ringing in the other part of the building. My big fear was that someone would wander past and see me there. Finally I felt well enough to get up and go back to my desk.

At school, there was always a nurse's office with beds where you could go and lie down if you needed to. I wish offices had those too.

The Essential Confrontation

Over and over, I see this confrontation:

A thin, dark-eyed, passionate kind of girl, arguing against animal cruelty or for consumer rights, gun control, women's right to choose, carbon emissions control, immigration rights, etc.
Versus
A heavyset, scowling, florid-faced man, often with a handlebar mustache, arguing from the opposite perspective and often from an industry or business point of view.

I've seen it so often that it's starting to feel like all basic conflicts can be boiled down into this stereotype. It's all about individual freedom of choice, versus producers' control of the marketplace. Biodiversity and species' "right to exist", versus the desires of humans to expand their access to natural resources and improve their economic outlook. Idealism versus pragmatism. Compassion versus greed. Urban versus rural. Education versus experience. Both are sincere, unshakeably entrenched in their convictions. It would be a stalemate, except that the man is always the one with the power. He listens, arms crossed, his scowl deepening, but he doesn't have to do anything to change, and he won't. The girl can rail at him all day and he'll never change - even if it made sense for him to, just to spite her, he won't.

Bearin' Arms

On the bus this morning I noticed a little placard with vertical letters fixed by the window. It read:

K
E
E
P
A
R
M
I
N

It seemed like an odd message for the transportation department to be promoting. Keep armin'? Surely they don't want their passengers to be armed? But then I thought it might be a friendly little reminder that they know their audience. It's like they're saying, "We know you're armed, so go ahead, we're cool with it." ...like the ambulances that have "Keepin' It Safe" printed on their sides, to help them look like they're in touch with the community. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to laugh, until I almost chuckled out loud. I wonder if anyone else ever reads it that way.

Scavenging

One of the families in my building is always throwing away stuff - often pretty good stuff - in the recycling bin in the stairwell. I think they go through the kids' rooms and purge every weekend, because there are always kids' clothes, toys, and games in there on Monday mornings. Sometimes I pick the stuff out and save it to donate, because I can't stand to see it thrown away. There are household items like lamps, picture frames, drying racks, toasters, and books. Once I got a nice jigsaw puzzle. Last week there was a good laundry basket - the kind with mesh walls that folds flat. Then a few days ago, there was a big bag full of shoes, kids' shoes and women's shoes. The women's shoes are a half-size too big for me but I'm still keeping a few pairs (maybe I'll grow into them? That bunion gets bigger every day). They're barely worn at all. Now I don't have to go shoe-shopping!

Early Bird

This morning I accidentally got ready for work early. I got up at the regular time, got dressed, ate breakfast, fixed my lunch, and then realized I still had 45 minutes before I had to catch the bus. I don't know what happened there. Maybe it was just the magical effect of actually getting out of bed when the alarm went off, instead of repeatedly hitting snooze. Anyway, no point being dressed when I didn't have to be, so I got undressed and went back to bed for half an hour. I still ended up at work early - d'oh!

Worries

I think I may have gotten what I wanted. It's probably too soon to say. But now that the possibility at least is there, I'm suddenly filled with fear.

The General Rallies His Troops, Wide-Screen Version

A bunch of churches in the area were showing free screenings of An Inconvenient Truth, which I hadn't seen before, so I went to see it last Friday. I chose the least churchy of the churches, a non-denominational "forum for people who believe in good" but don't worship a particular deity. Basically, atheists who worry about stuff. It's a nice group of people, I've gone to a few of their meetings before.

The movie was really powerful. It was based on the slideshow that I saw Gore give last year, with some added footage of glaciers breaking up, Katrina devastation, etc. The scene where the Larsen B ice shelf broke up and vanished into the Antarctic Ocean was particularly affecting. The ice shelf was so huge that scientists studying it assumed it would be there for centuries - but it broke up in a matter of days. I heard people around me gasping. One woman said, "Jesus." Another watching the glacier crumble said, "My God." In times of extremity, I guess even atheists reach for those familiar words to express their shock and sorrow.

Hole-Puncher Happiness

It is a truth universally acknowledged that it's more fulfilling to do things that are meaningful - like drafting policy, or negotiating contracts, or participating in coalitions - than it is to do the little maintaining-the-status-quo tasks that keep everything else running smoothly. Even my inner critic gives me a kick in the pants now and then, reminding me I should be moving up in the world. But the types of things I enjoy, honestly, are often really little things. It actually makes me happy to empty the hole puncher when it's all clogged up with punches, and put it back on the shelf clean and functional again. Or process the time sheets and file them away in the binder so if I ever need to look something up, I can do it at a moment's notice. Or fix up a document that's cluttered with spelling and formatting problems. What's wrong with me? I should want to WRITE the document, not fix it up! I should have my mind on higher things than the hole puncher. I am not supposed to enjoy those things. No one else around here does.

Yet the types of jobs that I yearn toward instinctively, for a moment or two, are often organizational and delivery jobs, like bike courier or mailroom clerk. I even wondered if it would be fun to work at the Department of Motor Vehicles (ditched that idea when it was finally my turn at the counter, and the girl who served me was so zombie-like and miserable she barely even made eye contact with me).

I think that deep down, part of the appeal is that those jobs are so clear-cut and simple, you can do them perfectly. You can deliver the envelope to the right address, and it's done, and no one could have done it better. Jobs that use more brain cells tend to be more subjective and there are lots of ways to go wrong, and you're never really done. Even if you think you are, part of your job is to keep coming up wtih fresh ideas and new ways to implement things. I love being creative, but on my own time - having it a job requirement makes me anxious.

So the goal of the decade, or one of them I think, is for me to come to terms with this aspect of my nature and find something I can do that is both satisfying to me in all the little ways, and also worthwhile in a larger sense, and also pays the bills, and also allows me to have self-respect and not mind telling other people about what I do. Cripes. That's probably most people's goal for their whole lives, and I doubt more than a small percentage ever achieve it.

Punnett Square

People who are beautiful are doubly blessed, I think, because they go through life seeing constant approval in the eyes of everyone around them. It should be easy for them to be confident - everyone is ready to say "yes" to them before they've even asked the question. People who aren't beautiful have it doubly hard, because they have to develop strength and personality to make up for their looks - and do so in a vacuum, with approval grudgingly given. What's interesting to me is the people who buck the trend - beautiful people who somehow don't realize it and end up shy, and not-so-beautiful people who have confidence to spare.

Being a Dork

I hope I never outgrow the kind of dorky helplessness that makes postal clerks call me "baby". I'd rather be nice than righteous, any day of the week.

Doing Your Best

In third grade we learned a song that went like this:

When I first came to this land,
I was not a wealthy man,
But I bought myself a farm,
And I did what I could.

And I called my farm Muscle in My Arm
But the land was sweet and good,
And I did what I could.

The song goes through numerous verses where he acquires a livestock, a wife, etc., giving ironic names to everything (the cow is named No Milk Now, the horse is Worse and Worse). It always bothered me a little that he names his wife as though she is another of his animals (Trouble and Strife) - and she apparently doesn't get a say in that. But what I liked about the song was its confidence that it is possible to do all you can - that you can set yourself this simple goal, accomplish it each day, and go to bed knowing you did what you could. If only life were that simple. In reality, how can you ever know you are actually doing all that you can? Maybe you could be earning more money in a different job. Or being a better person by taking evening classes or going to bluegrass concerts. Or making more friends at the corner coffeeshop. Or staying in better touch with the ones you have. Or learning to knit. Or spending time shopping for the perfect birthday present that will really make your husband happy. Or giving more to charitable organizations. Or getting more exercise. You can always do more, though it will always be at the expense of something else, and it's all about setting priorities and pushing yourself in directions you don't want to go. I would like to get up every day and do my best - but it's a constantly shifting target and I never know where to put my energy.

Dollarific

It's amazing what you can get at a dollar store these days. A small sampling of items available at the local Dollar Tree that I would expect to cost more than a dollar:

- a big bottle of shampoo or conditioner
- a two-gallon jug of cranberry-apple juice
- a shower curtain
- a plate, bowl, or mug
- a pack of three toothbrushes
- baby clothes
- a jigsaw puzzle
- a mop
- a tablecloth
- a package of stationery with eight cards and envelopes
- a Halloween costume

Too bad I don't actually need any of those things. I wish they sold guinea pig hay, contact lenses, and omega-3 flax oil supplements.

My Favorite Canid

Yesterday I visited the maned wolves again. They looked so cool and regal, stalking around in the dusk. Despite having lived at the zoo for years, they act like they've never managed to get used to people. I like the way they're so responsive to visitors' approach because it gives me the feeling that I'm in the presence of a real wild animal - an animal that will bolt if I make sudden movements, or relax and perhaps come closer if I freeze.


One of the most interesting things about them is the way they pace - moving both the legs on a side at a time. You can see the one in the bottom picture doing it. Giraffes do it too. They're the only two species I know of that pace. I wonder if okapis do. Is it something to do with being tall and long-legged? It looks like it would throw them off their balance though. Wish I was a field ecologist with a grant to study it.

Just Passing Through

I read last night that the average person will live in six different places and have ten different jobs over the course of his or her lifetime.

I must be above average, because I'm only a few years out of school but I've already lived in eleven different places and had thirteen different jobs.

The worst place I lived was probably the house with the Pumpkin Parlor. There were some good afternoons when I had the house to myself, and I could bake cookies, and the living room was flooded with sunlight, and I had my birds with me. But then my housemates would come home and start blasting rap music, often so loud I couldn't even have a phone conversation when I was in my room with the door shut. Plus, they never paid their share of the utilities so we were always having the electricity and water turned off. The worst job I had was at the pet store, because my manager was a Gulf War veteran who would stand up close to me and scream in my face like a drill sergeant. Luckily neither of those periods in my life lasted too long.

The best place I've lived (after my childhood home - so many good memories there, it has to go in its own category) is where I live right now. And the best job I've had is what I'm doing right now. So, I guess I have no cause for complaint.

Mini-Adults

Kids dressed up as miniature grown-ups make me feel uneasy in a way I can't explain. The other day I saw a huge poster filling the window of babyGap, showing a four-year-old in a little three-piece suit and tie, and another kid wearing a corporate-looking sweater over a collared shirt. Both had angelic expressions on. It made me want to say, "Auhhhh!" and run away.

I think kids should wear tee-shirts that get popsicle stains on them, jeans with holes in the knees from crawling around on the floor with the dog, clothes from thrift stores that they're going to grow out of in a few months anyway, and they should not care what they're wearing. For special occasions, they should wear something clean. Giving them miniature adult outfits is like apologizing for them being kids: "I know, he is short, but look, he is just a miniature corporate accounts executive like everyone else! Just wait a few more years and he will actually be human!"

Planning Ahead

I wish I was calmer. I wish I didn't have to psych myself up to make phone calls. I wish I didn't get heart flutters on Sunday nights when I know I have to go to work the next day (though my job isn't even that bad). I wish my dad had a job. I wish my brother had a job and a girlfriend. I wish my friends could find their soulmates and be happy. I wish there were homes for all the homeless guinea pigs in the world. I wish there weren't any antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria. I wish coral reefs weren't threatened. I wish we could have a baby. I wish there weren't any factory farms. I wish everyone had love in their lives.

There. That takes care of my birthday wishes for the next 12 years.

A Conversation

R: Here, let me do it. You're just going to mess it up.
L: Urgh! I was doing just fine. Oh, all right.
R: See, I'm doing it much better.
L: I know. They always say I don't know what you're doing. But it's just because you've had more practice. If I had that much practice, I'd be as good as you.
R: There's no good time when we could give you that practice though. It's just a lot easier to let me do it all the time.
L: Well, say you got hurt. I'd have to take over. Wouldn't it be better if I was prepared ahead of time?
R: Let's just hope that won't happen.
L: All right. On the other hand -
R: Ha.
L: - maybe I should be glad I don't have to work as hard as you do. I can just pretty much hang out all day.
R: That's true. Sometimes I get pretty tired.
L: Looks like you're about done there.
R: Yep. What do you want to do now?
L: Let's twiddle our thumbs.
R: OK!

Hope You Like Jamming Too

The jamming went great! Today for lunch I'm eating a peanut butter and homemade raspberry jam sandwich. It's like I'm in Little House on the Prairie.

Time and Tide

...wait for no man, and neither do raspberries. We picked them on Sunday, right off the vines - they were warm and perfect and delicious. Now it's Tuesday morning and despite having been refrigerated the whole time, they're already starting to get a haze of mold. I threw out the moldy portions, shoved the containers in the freezer - take that, moldies! - and tonight I'll probably mix up what's left with some honey and water on the stove, and try to make jam. Wish me luck.

Growing Up

Some things I thought I'd never grow out of:
1. Swimming at the pool. My brother and I used to groan out loud when they blew the whistle for Adult Swim. We never wanted to get out. We couldn't wait till we were 18 and could stay in the pool as long as we wanted. Then, we turned 18. And magically we no longer felt like swimming for more than half an hour at a time.
2. Monopoly and other board games. I loved those rainy Sunday afternoons when the whole family would get together in the den and play board games like Monopoly, Clue, Balderdash, Taboo, or Risk. Even now I get a flicker of joy at the thought of them. Then I remember that it's actually kind of pointless to spend an afternoon moving little squares of cardboard around on a larger square of cardboard, and all my eager anticipation dries up.
3. Barley sugar sticks. All the different flavors: rum butter, watermelon, sour apple, peach, blueberry (turns your tongue a violent shade of violet). Wait till I'm grown up and I'm allowed to buy as much as I want, I thought (my parents limited me to ten at time, or a dollar's worth). Now all I can think of is how they develop that sharp edge that cuts your tongue as you suck on them, and the sickening sweetness of them, and yes the blue tongue, which no longer seems quite so appealing.

Things I'm glad I haven't grown out of:
1. Pets. Being with animals - playing with them, taking care of them, petting them, talking to them, socializing them - is still one of the best things I can think of doing with my time. If I could, I'd have a whole houseful.
2. Books. I still love reading. The knowledge of a good book waiting for me at home gets me through the day sometimes. I read an article recently about how Americans' literacy abilities are dropping (not basic literacy, but ability to read and understand long or complex passages). The article's article argued that this could be a good thing, since the average American doesn't need to read much any more. I think it's something to really be concerned about though. Ability to read complex works keeps us in touch with the world, opens our hearts to art, inspires us. Any loss of ability or pleasure associated with reading is a sign that our intellectualism is slipping.
3. Being with my family. We're still close as can be. I can't imagine living away from them, somewhere I couldn't go home and hug them whenever I wanted.

Things I didn't expect to grow into:
1. Bunions, if that counts. I thought that was an old womanish problem caused by, I dunno, not enough exercise or a failure of willpower or something. I value the ability to get anywhere I need to, on my own two feet. It upsets me that I sometimes can't do that any more, if I'm wearing the wrong shoes or my feet are hurting too much. It's no longer a question of will - my body is just simply letting me down.
2. Cleaning. I enjoy it a little too much.
3. Being the kind of person who (no matter how introverted and shy and scared I think I am, from the inside out) other people occasionally describe as courageous.

What?

It seems like the world is getting noisier. Lately I've noticed that if I'm watching a movie on TV in the evening, I have to close the apartment windows in order to hear the dialogue properly - the grinding roar of traffic literally drowns it out. And walking down the street with a friend, I feel like we have to almost strain our voices to have a conversation over the traffic and other street noises. I wonder if I'm getting more sensitive, or maybe losing hearing in the upper registers now that I'm old. I read that this does happen. Some men literally can't hear their wives any more as they get older, since their voices are higher-pitched and those are the frequencies that are first to go. Anyway it makes me impatient with city living. I just want to be somewhere quiet and peaceful, where I don't have to strain.

Rhymes

Apparently people are more likely to adopt careers that rhyme with their names. The proportion of dentists named Dennis is disproportionately high, for instance. I guess kids named Gus Jiver or Kinvestment Wanker just don't have much of a choice about their destinies.

This might explain my career indecision. Erin rhymes with ...nothing. Maybe "swear in", but it's a bit of a stretch. Should I be an official oath-overseer?

The Depressing Post About Frogs

So here's the post I wrote last week.

I was thinking about a talk I went to on amphibian vocalizations and ambient noise. The speaker played a few tapes of frogs singing at a pond - a rich tapestry of creaking, warbles, trills, and other noises, against the background of insects, reeds in the wind, blackbirds, etc. It sounded very nice.

Then he played another tape where you could hear a plane fly overhead, and the frogs hushed down right away, almost like the sound was physically squashing them down. After the plane passed, they started up again cautiously. The scientist measured volume and frequency of vocalizations at several different locations and plotted them against air traffic, and found that frog songs were consistently depressed each time a plane went overhead. Sometimes this happened every 3-4 minutes, all day long.

I was struck by the idea that people in the plane were completely unaware of the impact they were having on these little frogs so far below them, but they were hurting them all the same. With a plane flying over every few minutes, the frogs' singing time is significantly shortened, and their stress hormones are elevated, causing their reproduction to be less successful. Just another nail in the coffin for amphibian populations, which are already crashing from pollution and habitat destruction worldwide. And just another metaphor for the impact human activities have on natural environments everywhere. It's like the whole of nature is flattening down in fear every few minutes. This is the kind of thing that makes me very sad.

Revelation at 5 PM

No wonder I've been feeling off-kilter all day. Mobius bra, full frontal twist.

Whew

Someone's put a lei of carnations around Gandhi's neck. On a day as loaded with significance as today, I can't help but think it's more than just a tribute, it's a symbolic gift intended to avert harm. As if to say, "This is where our hearts are. Don't strike." I'm just relieved nothing awful happened.

Do I Know You?

I'm really bad at recognizing people. You know how most people say, "I'm awful with names, but I know your face"? I'm good with names. If I can see it written down, or hear it and picture how it's spelled in my head, I'll probably remember it. But I seem to have trouble recognizing faces. I think I read too much as a kid, and it permanently warped how I learn things.

I find myself looking at someone across a restaurant, or at a park, wondering, "Is that who I think it is?" Sometimes the person I suspect it is is someone I know very well, so I should recognize them straight off. Yet I hesitate. There are bad consequences to guessing wrong on either side.

One time I smiled and then turned away from a colleague who had greeted me in a store. I thought it was a stranger just making a friendly comment - noticed the resemblance to my colleague, of course, but thought it couldn't actually be him. The next day at work, he asked me about it and I realized with a thunk of dread how rude it must have seemed.

Another time I saw a girl washing her hands in a campus bathroom and thought it was an acquaintance. I greeted her happily and asked how she was, and said I hadn't seen her around much lately. She smiled back at first and said, "Fine thanks!" but then her brow furrowed and she stopped making eye contact with me in the mirror, and I realized, staring at her, that she wasn't someone I knew at all. "Who is this freak acting like my friend?" she must have thought.

If only everyone walked around with big blocks of identifying text pinned to their clothing, then I would have no trouble.

50 Ways to Leave Your Job

Today I was thinking about all the fine distinctions between ways of leaving a job. Near the bottom of the ladder, you just quit or get fired or throw down your dishtowel and walk out. Further up, you get terminated, or give notice, or inform your superiors that you were "offered another position" (like you hadn't been looking - like someone just beat down your door and offered it to you). And if you're really high up in the world, you don't get fired. You can only be asked to step down - or perhaps you can resign in protest.

It must be scary to leave a very high-profile job, especially over some furor that blew up at the last minute. What if you liked what you were doing? What will you do next? If that job was your life, which high-profile jobs must so often be, leaving it unexpectedly would feel like falling into a bottomless pit. Do CEOs ever get asked to step down - and say, "oh, no thanks, I think I'll stay on"? And do people who resign in protest really do it on a moment's notice, or have they been unhappy for months and are just waiting for an excuse to go? Why do they think they can make the situation better by leaving and relinquishing whatever control they had over it? It's not like they're going on strike, and if the situation changes, they'll reconsider and come back. It seems like they're shooting themselves in the foot.

I hate the way jobs so often consume your identity like some kind of creeping vine, the way people define you based on what you do. I never want my job to be that important in my life. Perhaps because I'm holding it at arm's length like that, I am never going to be offered a job that important. I'll stay firmly embedded in the ranks of peons, with termination or being "offered another position" my only ways out.

Buffy and Dicey

Yesterday I watched the first two episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She looks so cute as a high school sophomore - with her round baby cheeks. Watching Buffy always makes me feel better because no matter how hard my life seems, hers is way harder, way more unfair, more dangerous, more scary - yet she approaches everything with confidence. It makes me glad that all I face are the slings and arrows of occasional social disapproval, which really doesn't matter. At the end of the day, I can go home and have a cup of hot chocolate and play with my guinea pigs. At the end of her day, she has to go hang out in the graveyard and fight vampires that are bigger and stronger than she is, and that just don't care she is only a kid.

I'm also reading Cynthia Voigt's awesome Tillerman series. Which also makes me feel better. My life is easier and a smoother ride in every way than Dicey's.

A Careening Career

Today I gave some serious thought to my job and my career. I'm not very happy in my work any more, for a variety of reasons. I'd like a job where I was a little higher in the organization, where I could do projects of my own instead of just facilitating what others do. I'd like to have a position that values my degree and allows me to use what I learned in school - right now I am lower ranking than people who have less education than I do, but much more aggression. I'd like a job that makes a positive difference in the world.

The more I try to think of jobs I could do, though, the more I feel that I'm just not suited to anything. I'm so sick of all the corporate games. The one-upmanship, the need to rush to claim credit (whether or not you deserve it), the need to constantly promote yourself and seek more challenging opportunities (whether or not you want them), the relentless, unvarying necessity of covering your ass all the time. It exhausts me. I just want to be somewhere where I can honestly be myself, and where that's all right. I want to be able to let down my guard without getting stabbed. I work with nice people, for the most part, and it's not an ambitious, money-hungry crowd, or we wouldn't be in this field. Yet even the mild corporate politics that pervade our office are too much for me at times. I can't compete - or, I just don't want to.

Walking home this afternoon, I tried to think of a job I'd rather do. I passed the library. I'd rather be a librarian. I passed the grocery store. Or a cashier. I walked past some old homes with dewy lawns and climbing roses. I'd rather paint roses all day, big old roses spangled with dew. Oh! There's a guy trimming the roses. Maybe I should be a professional gardener. There's the elementary school. I could be a school secretary. Anything, just so I can stop being a corporate rat. It's turning my stomach.

I am talking like I need some time off, but that can't be it - I just had a long weekend. This feeling is more like laziness, sheer unwillingness to do the work that must be done. But I'm not usually lazy about my job. I think the long self-esteem downward spiral that started when I accepted a job I was overqualified for (following the advice of everyone I knew who urged me to "never mind about the money, do what you love") has just started to cross into officially-depressed-about-work territory. Being depressed makes it harder to rev up the energy to get out though. Especially when on the surface my job looks better and pays better than other things I could imagine myself doing. So, for the time being I am stuck.

Happy Friday

If I don't do a 'happy' post soon, no one will read this any more. I have some thoughts about frogs that I want to record, but it's depressing so I'll save that for a few days down the road.

So, here are three things I'm happy about:
- I don't work in a meat-packing plant (the most dangerous job in America according to Fast Food Nation).
- Monday is a holiday.
- Family and home life, which is sooo much more important to me than a career, is good and solid and brings me genuine happiness.

And now here's my latest favorite joke:
Three guys are driving through the Sahara Desert when their car breaks down. They're a million miles from anywhere. They get out and start walking. The first guy takes a bottle of water with him, the second guy takes an umbrella, and the third guy rips off the door of the car and takes that with him.

As they hike across the endless sand dunes, they see a figure approaching. It's a mysterious bearded man in robes. He says, "In my search for wisdom, I would like to ask you each a question."

He asks the first guy, "Why did you choose to bring that bottle of water?" The first guy says, "Well, it's a desert, so I thought I might get thirsty." The man nods and says, "Ah, very wise."

He turns to the second guy and asks, "Why did you bring that umbrella?" The second guy says, "Well, I thought I might want some shade." The man nods and says, "Very wise."

Then he asks the third guy, "Why did you choose to bring that car door?" The third guy says, "Well, I figured if I got too hot, I could just roll down the window."

Ha ha ha! But wait, there's more:

The mysterious figure then reveals himself to be a genie. "Since you have answered my questions, I will grant each of you a wish," he says.

The first guy says, "I wish I was back home with my family!" The genie bows and says "You have your wish," and the guy vanishes in a clap of thunder.

The second guy says, "Boy, I wish I was someplace cool, like skiing down the mountainside at Vail!" The genie bows and says, "You have your wish," and the guy vanishes in a clap of thunder.

Then the genie turns to the third guy and says, "And what is your wish?" The guy says, "...I just want my friends back."

Sad

At a museum exhibit on time, I watched a video of a woman's face aging 50 years in 30 seconds - watched the clip of her hair whitening, cheeks falling in, jowls deepening, over and over. It seemed like one of the saddest things I'd ever seen. Aging is the great inescapable tragedy in all our lives. I want my parents and all the people I love to be healthy and go on living, forever - or at least, as long as possible. I can hardly bear to think of my husband, who is so strong and handsome, getting feeble or arthritic, his hands shaking.

Then, the next day, I saw a dairy calf being born at the fair. It was amazing watching the calf tumble out of his mother and seeing him there on the ground, glistening and panting. When his mother saw him for the first time, her ears shot out and she just stared, then she hurried to him and began vigorously licking him. Everyone cheered. But the mother was just a young heifer herself, not even fully grown, and destined to be worn out long before her prime - most dairy cows are exhausted and sent to the slaughterhouse by age four, though they have a natural lifespan of up to forty years. And the poor calf was destined for veal. Calves aren't allowed to stay with their mothers for more than a few hours after birth - then this one would be put in a veal crate that wouldn't even allow him to stand up or turn around, for the rest of his short life. I watched the mother licking her calf, knowing they only had a few hours together, and decided that was the saddest thing I'd ever seen.

More Thoughts About Population

I used to think I shouldn't have kids because there were already too many people in the world. Every time I was stuck in traffic, had to ride home in rush-hour on the subway, or got jostled in crowds at the mall, I thought of that. The world is already full. More people just add to the crush and the burden on the environment, and mean that resources must be spread even more thinly.

Today I realized my feeling is shifting to a more subtle one, that I shouldn't have kids because the world they'll grow up in is in such terrible shape. I want to give them a childhood of woods and open spaces like the one I had, and opportunities to choose the lives they want. But the environmental problems I've been studying for years are getting worse, not better, and starting to hook together. Global warming is related to deforestation is related to soil erosion is related to industrial agriculture is related to antibiotic resistance and invasive species and urban sprawl and loss of predators and pollution, and all of these things are building to a crisis that's going to change the very face of our planet. My life has been shaped by knowledge of the coming crisis, not the necessity of coping with it. I don't want my children saddled with the misery of the coming environmental and social collapse. Not to sound all doomsday-y, it's not like the world is going to fall apart in a single day like in The Day After Tomorrow. It will just be a series of crises, like Katrina, that happen more and more frequently and tax our ability to respond to them until it is clear there is no such thing as normal any more, and the idea of a childhood like mine sounds like a fairytale from a hundred years ago.

Q-Rebels

Yesterday I was reading the directions on the Q-tip box. Did you know that there is a houseful of uses for them? I wonder if anyone actually does use them for "beauty on the go", rolling them in makeup ahead of time, or "tender touch" to clean between babies' toes. The one thing that everyone does use them for, cleaning your ears, is the one thing the box warns you never to do!

Love

I'm so lucky. I have the nicest, most thoughtful, wonderful husband I could hope for. He understands me the way no one else does. I feel awash in love for him.

Rural Ambitions

Today my friend was talking about her childhood growing up on a farm in Wisconsin. It was the nice, old-fashioned kind of farm. As a teenager she always had to pitch in with the farm chores - baling hay, feeding the llamas, fixing fences. She said she wasn't much into it then, but now she feels nostalgic for it, and she'd love to spend a summer back on the farm.

I've never had that kind of life. But I feel like I miss it too - maybe just the idyllic partial glimpses I've gotten of it, which I know don't show the whole picture. Sun glinting off fields in the late afternoon. Tree shadows throwing speckles across a creek. The warm smell of grass and manure and large animals, that hearty crunching of molars as a horse grinds its hay. Swallows flying out from the barn eaves and curvetting around in the dusk. I wish there was room in my life that I could even incorporate a few of these things in. I'm so disconnected from everything real like that.

Some Ranting About Population

I read an article in Science about how fertility rates in developed countries are going down. As a result, many countries are now offering bonuses to entice couples to have children - in France, paid maternity leave of 18 weeks for each of the first two kids and 26 weeks for a third kid; in Australia, $3000 a child and mothers are expected to take a full year off (in fact, child care won't accept a baby younger than a year). In Sweden, it's a few thousand dollars per child and 16 months of paid leave that can be split between the parents. Sweet!

Here in the U.S., the federal government guarantees up to three months of unpaid leave from your job if you work for a large corporation - and that's it. Child care expenses are so high that some women can't afford to go back to work after having a baby; their salaries wouldn't cover the child care. More from USA Today

I think financial considerations are definitely playing a role holding us back from kids. We're doing fine now, but I'm not sure we could afford to support a third person, or that my job would allow me to put my child first. If I have to go back to work after only a few months, how am I supposed to breast-feed for the first year? And if I'm leaving my kid at a day-care center for ten hours a day, how am I participating in the life of this child? Someone else is essentially raising my child for me, which isn't what I want. Some women go to part-time after kids, but with my job I wouldn't be allowed to do that.

Oh well. In a broader social sense, I guess it's good that it's difficult and expensive to have children here. There are way too many people in the world. We're shooting toward the 9 billion mark, and our planet is already so severely stressed and overburdened, the prospect of adding even more people to it just makes me shake my head. I think government officials who encourage people to reproduce are crazy. All countries, everywhere, should be encouraging people who don't want kids not to have them - so that all children can grow up happy and wanted - and encouraging people who do want kids to stop at replacement.

A professor of mine had a good idea about giving every woman on earth two passes for children. Women who didn't want to have kids could sell theirs, and women who wanted more than their share could buy someone else's. Birth control would have to be abundantly available so that no one would ever be accidentally pregnant. (The Science article also notes that in the U.S., population growth is slightly higher than in European countries, in part because of "a higher rate of unwanted pregnancies due to restrictions on birth-control information." Sigh.)

I guess the good news to me is that so far the insane fertility bonuses aren't working very well. The fertility rate is still below replacement in a lot of European countries. The pro-population growth camp worries that European nations will enter a low-fertility trap from which they won't ever be able to recover. Please. Of all the species on earth, we are about the least likely (after cockroaches) to ever become endangered. Countries with declining fertility rates should celebrate the fact that with fewer people, there is more to go around, and everyone's quality of life will increase. Then, they should put their pro-population growth advisors to work figuring out how to shift resources from their countries, which have plenty, to those that are really hurting - like the disaster zone that is Africa, where the average woman gives birth to seven children. That ought to keep them quiet for a while.

The Regret List

Here are a few things I regret, that I'd love to go back in time and change:

1. That spring when my bird was sick, I'd spend more time with her. I was in the throes of a new and awful relationship and I kept thinking if I just put more time into it, it would get better. So I would feed my birds enough for two days and then take off and sleep at his house. It's not like more time and attention could have saved her, but it would have been nice - and now I can never have that with her. I still miss her so much.
2. That whole relationship, incidentally. What a waste. All that came out of it were a few good angsty poems, and a healthy suspicion of "that" type of person.
3. At all the rock concerts of my youth, I wish I had at least worn ear-plugs. After my first concert, I walked into the parking lot wondering why my ears had this fuzzy white feel to them, like they were wrapped in cotton wool. My friend grinned at me and said, "It'll go away in a day or two." At least, that's what it looked like she said.
4. I'd take that class my mom wanted me to, the one taught by the famous marine biologist. It was an elective and she kept reminding me about it, but somehow I just never found time.
5. The fight I had with my parents about a boy I wanted to date. It was our only fight, at least that I can remember. I even slammed doors, like a typical teenager. I probably made them feel awful.
6. Mean things I said when I thought we were breaking up last year.
7. Pinning moths for my summer job in the biology lab. They had been in the freezer for months and I thought they were dead. Some of them started to come back to consciousness after they were pinned, trying to twitch their wings. It was nightmarish. I put them back in the freezer and cried.

If I keep going, I could think of dozens more things, but that's enough for now.

Zzzzzz

Here's something really interesting. Did you know that hibernating animals have to wake up periodically during the winter - to sleep? I always thought "mmm, they get to sleep for six months straight, sounds nice." But apparently hibernation is below the level of sleep, metabolically. Their brain activity, immune systems, everything is suppressed. After a few weeks, they get really sleep-deprived! They have to wake up and fire up their immune systems for a few hours to take care of any problems that might be around, sleep for about 12 hours, then go back into hibernation.

Starless

We went out to see the Leonid meteor shower on Saturday night. It was really hard to find a place that was dark enough to see them properly. Even the city parks were lit up. We drove around, past parking lots, shopping centers, and apartment complexes ablaze with light. Finally we found a campground and drove in there, parked illegally (because there is no parking for people who aren't staying the night), and lay in a field watching the sky. The stars were tiny flecks of light. The sky was darkest overhead, washing out to a pale grey glow at the edges. We saw five or six shooting stars during the time that we lay there.

The Leonids always make me happy, and I was glad to see even a few of them, but I couldn't help thinking of a night I spent under the stars on a camping trip, years ago. The stars were enormous - blazing blue-white, all different sizes, with the Milky Way smeared behind them. They took my breath away. We saw many shooting stars that night, and it wasn't even a meteor shower, just a regular night in the country. It makes me sad that an experience like that is out of reach except for special trips, and so few people get to experience it at all. A whole generation is growing up without having ever seen a shooting star.

Odd

I was sitting in the park reading a book about suburban wildlife. I read the words, "-- park, scientists announced in 1981, has the highest population of squirrels per millimeter of any place in the cosmos." It was the very park I was sitting in!

Just as I read that sentence, I heard a voice say, "Squirrel?" I looked up and saw a gypsy-looking old woman sitting on a bench near me. "Did you say squirrel?" I asked. She nodded and smiled. Then she went back to feeding the pigeons. I stared at her. There was no context to her comment - and of all the words she might have said, how odd that she picked that one. It was like she read my mind and spoke the one word that was dominating my consciousness at that moment. I thought she might even be a figment of my imagination, that if I blinked she would disappear.

Adventures in Bike-riding

I took my bike out for a spin yesterday. I almost never ride it. Basically, I'm nervous riding around cars, and the city sidewalks are broken up with chunks of asphalt heaved up by tree roots, overhanging shrubbery, trash cans in the way, driveways with cars pulling unexpectedly out, etc. so I can't get a smooth run - it's an obstacle course the whole way.

I'm also just not that good at bike riding. I thought when I was ten that I'd get better over time because I'd be stronger and bigger in relation to the bike. But it's still heavy for me to lift, and I still bark my shins and lose my balance trying to get on and off. Curbs defeat me utterly. If I try to ride off them, I get jounced out of my seat and almost fall off. If I try to ride up them, the bike just hits the edge and bounces off. I know there is a technique to riding, something about weight and balance, that would put me in control instead of gravity and momentum, but I haven't mastered it. So, I ride where it's smooth, hop off and walk the bike when it's not. At least I'm not embarrassed any more to do that in front of everyone. A lot of things that probably should embarrass me just don't. Perhaps it's a necessary self-preservation technique I've developed as a result of so often being in situations where I'm not in control or simply unable to blend in.

Anyway, yesterday I jounced and bobbled my way around the neighborhood streets on a mission to find a proper bike path. I knew there was a swath of woodland to the west, possibly with trails running through it. I got there really quick - one good thing about a bike is, it really extends your range. It would have taken me forty minutes walking to get there, and I would have been a lot more tired. Then I slid/scraped my way down a hill onto the trail. The trouble was, it wasn't paved. It was a narrow dirt track running through the woods with big roots and boulders sticking out of it. I had to walk my bike a lot of the way. The trees were lovely though. It was so refreshing being in the shade, with all that whispering, lush green all around me. I felt like I was far away from the city. A creek babbled alongside.

All this was great, until as I coasted cautiously down a hill, I saw a huge fallen log across the path ahead. I put on the brakes and as the bike drew to a stop, stuck my foot out to catch myself. Unfortunately the bike tipped the wrong way. noooo! Suddenly I was leaning out over the steep bank, with about a ten-foot descent over craggy boulders to the stream below. My feet couldn't reach the ground because I was still sitting on the bike. And then bike and I were falling sideways down the bank, my foot trapped in the front wheel spokes, my arms flailing. A concrete barrier reared in front of me. Salvation! I fell on it, still tangled in the bike, cracking my jaw and knee against the concrete. Got some bruises today to show for my adventure, but nothing worse. At least I didn't crack my skull open on a rock, or fall in the stream.

Unfortunately after I got untangled and carried my bike back up the bank, the front wheel would no longer turn. The brake had been mashed in so it was jammed against the wheel at all times. Carrying the bike all the way home seemed like a bad option. Eventually I hunted around for a forked stick and propped it in place to hold the brake away from the wheel. It worked! I felt like MacGyver. The stick stayed in place, too, all the way home.

So that's my adventure. Basically, this is why I have such respect for bike couriers. It's amazing how they can weave in and out of traffic. They don't have to stop and carefully rotate the pedal around to the top before taking off. They don't fall down hills, either. How the hell did they get so good?

My Subconscious Luddite

I had a yearning to read some young-adult fiction while we were on vacation, so we went to the library. But this town's library was different from what I was used to - or maybe just modern, as opposed to the dusty, old-fashioned libraries of my childhood. In the young-adult section there were no books on the shelves. Just video games, DVD cases, and board games. I picked up Lego: The Board Game. It was basically Pictionary, but you had to build things instead of sketching them - a lot more challenging on the surface, except that the things were really simple, like "pillar" or "circle".

Eventually we found some books on the shelves at the side of the room, but all the kids and teenagers were clustered around the more exciting entertainment options in the middle. There were even some video screens set up where kids could preview games for a minute or two before deciding whether to check them out (like at music stores where you get a free listen for the first 15 seconds of each track).

Suddenly there was an announcement over the PA that the speaker was ready, and that everyone should take their seats. Wondering what was going on, we shuffled over to an area where ranks of plastic chairs had been set up and sat down along with all the other people. The speaker was a scruffy, goateed dentist who was supposed to give a motivational speech about the importance of dental hygiene.

Instead (and unexpectedly for the librarians who had arranged this), he launched into a tirade about the modern video culture. He walked up and down the ranks of seats emphasizing his points. Pulling a young girl up from her seat, he pointed out the fishbowl glasses that she now had to wear after years of focused video gaming. "See that? Those games are poison!" he exclaimed. Next he pointed out a fifteen-year-old boy and with a gesture got him to cover his ears to show that he was deaf (from too many rock concerts). "Poison!" the dentist said. "And how many of you can even see the lyricism in books like Love for Lydia or Wuthering Heights? Your ability to concentrate on the written word long enough to see the color in those pages is gone. Now, you can only see color where it already exists." He raised his arms and with a gesture, included all the shelves of games and movies that the library had spent the last decade amassing to keep kids coming in the doors. "Poison!"

That's where I woke up. I wonder if anyone has thought of that Lego game though. I think it has potential.

A Brush With Cool

I went shopping at a 'cool' urban clothing store yesterday. The kind with disco lights overhead, and industrial warehouse walls, that plays rap music turned up loud in a constant yelling clatter. I wandered in and out of the edgy displays, feeling my features stiffening into an attempt to look bored and unapproachable, which is the effect that music has on me. I hate it; it feels like someone is yelling at me, and they're so angry they can't even draw breath and give me a turn to speak, they're just spewing out the anger in a long running monologue.

I couldn't find what I wanted, and I couldn't figure out which of the contemptuous spiky-haired girls around me were employees, and which were just fellow shoppers. I also couldn't think how to phrase my question in a way that wouldn't elicit a snort of mockery, even though what I was looking for was perfectly normal. The conviction came into my head that if I spoke, I would stutter, and that no matter how I asked, the reply would be just a long icy glare. Finally I slunk out. Some people just never grow into that scene, I guess. At least I have grown far enough beyond it that it no longer seems so important to fit in there.

Ready and Not

Maybe my friend has the right idea after all. Just peck-peck-peck all the time, reminding her husband "that room will be the nursery, for when we have kids," "I'll cut my hours to part-time when we have kids, so you'll need to get a promotion by then," "we need to have both kids by the time I'm 30, so that means I'm pregnant by age 27." He just rolls his eyes and laughs and says "OK, OK." I always thought a better approach was not to say much about kids so as not to put any pressure on. Getting him to agree to marry me was hard enough. But at least my friend has been "softening up" her husband all this time. He's used to the idea. I'm married (finally), in a place in my career where I can afford to take a little time off, and I have some savings - thought just about all the hurdles were behind me. But he rolls his eyes like a startled horse when the subject of having kids comes up. There's no indication he's going to get readier over time, and meanwhile I'm just in a holding pattern. Arrrrrrrrgh.

A bigger question is probably why I routinely have to fight him to get him to do things for our mutual long-term happiness. We ought to be of like mind on these things. I'm not sure how much of it you can chalk up to "oh guys are always like that, they don't know what's good for them," and how much is really a discontinuity between us.

Mandatory Brekkie

I never used to eat breakfast. I wonder now how I did it. It's not that I love breakfast - there's generally nothing I want to eat in the morning - but the past few years I've found I have to make myself eat, or I suffer the consequences. Within an hour after rising, if I haven't eaten anything I start to feel woozy, and if I still don't do anything about it, I start feeling shaky all over, to the tips of my fingers. Sometimes even eating at that point is too late, and I feel off-balance for hours afterwards. Dumb response - if my body really wants me to feed it, it should ramp up the hunger pangs, so that any kind of food sounds good - not so nauseous that it's all I can do to choke down something.

Who Killed the Electric Car?

I saw an amazing documentary on electric cars. I never even knew that there were such things as fully electric cars, but apparently just a few years ago all the major car companies were making them and leasing them out to people. Think of never having to go to a gas station again. You just plug it in at night and in the morning it's ready to go. The cars were fast, quiet, and super cheap - $3 worth of electricity could take you 100 miles. And virtually no maintenance needs, no oil changes, for instance, like in an internal combustion engine.

The people who got to drive them loved them, they were passionate about their cars. But GM and all the other car manufacturers yanked them off the market and even repossessed all the cars they had given out. They publicly promised to recycle them, but instead they crushed them and shredded them into landfill scrap at a site in the desert, almost like they were covering up a crime. The motivation was an unwillingness to change business-as-usual - they felt they could make more money pushing gas-guzzlers than by selling these cheap, efficient cars. With the support of oil companies and service stations who didn't want to lose business, the car companies even pressured California to repeal its law requiring a certain percentage of cars to be zero-emission.

As a result of this decision, air quality in California (already the worst in the nation) will remain appalling, smog will keep clouding the cities, children will continue to have asthma, and adults will suffer from chronic respiratory disease. It makes me so sick and angry, to think of all the human suffering that will result. We were so close. The law was passed, the technology was available, the cars were rolling off the assembly lines and being sold to customers. Yet industry still managed to squash the whole thing in order to line their own pockets.

I almost cried at the part in the movie where the electric car owners, who had been keeping a vigil outside the GM parking lot where their repossessed cars were being kept, had to watch them loaded onto car carriers and taken off to the crushing site. They tried to prevent it through nonviolent protest, but were arrested and hauled away. I know I'm probably just responding instinctively to the emotional concept of cars as these big, familiar domestic animals like oxen, to the symbolism of them being loaded up like Boxer in Animal Farm - but there are good, real reasons to feel upset about it. As long as corporations like GM and Texaco continue to have power to rearrange society to suit their needs, we will never be able to make any progress. The environmental problems that are pressing in on us will overcome us. It feels like a really hopeless situation.

Anyway, go see the movie - it's really good.

The Greeting

Today I witnessed the nicest greeting between relatives that I've seen in a while. A mom was stopping by the office to visit her son at his first job out of college. She came in all smiles, looking forward to seeing him, and when he was paged to come to the front desk he said, "woo-hoo!!" obviously excited in kind. They hugged each other warmly and she said, "Hi pumpkin!" With obvious pride he proceeded to show her around the office where he worked. I thought it was so nice. It made me wonder, how did they develop such a natural, unself-conscious, loving relationship? What's their secret, that other moms (pecking away with sad questions trying to be included in their sons' lives) and sons (slouched down in their seats, shrugging or monosyllabic) have somehow missed out on? When I grow up and have children and they grow up, I want us to have a loving and warm relationship like that. I want to greet them with "pumpkin" and have them not be embarrassed.

I'm like that with my parents, pretty much. Perhaps slightly less effusive, but only because I see them so often. I often visit on the weekends, and meet one or the other for lunch or a movie during the week. But I'm still not sure what the secret is. I would chalk my relationship with my parents up to them being just really nice, wonderful people. But I don't know how to be that nice and wonderful in my kids' eyes, or indeed in anyone's.

Dragonfly Again

Yesss! I have witnessed a real biological phenomenon!
I wrote last week about seeing a dragonfly zooming around the roof of a dark car. Now I just read in Science magazine that that really happens.

"Ever since 1998, the year the water-beetle journal Latissimus published a landmark paper entitled 'Another case of water beetles landing on a red car roof,' entomologists have sought to understand why aquatic insects tend to lay their eggs on dark-colored vehicles.

Now a Hungarian team explains why. Biophysicist Gabor Horvath and colleagues of Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest laid out red, black, yellow, and white plastic sheets by a marsh one sunny summer day. Over the course of 3 hours, 1229 aquatic insects landed on the sheets: 700 on the red and 398 on the black, but only 88 on the yellow and 43 on the white. The scientists then measured reflection and polarization patterns from four automobiles in the same colors.

The secret? Aquatic insects detect water based on the horizontal polarization of reflected light. Light from the red and black cars was highly and horizontally polarized, so from a bug's point of view, the darker surfaces look like water, the team concludes in the 7 July issue of Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

'We propose that visitors to wetland habitats drive light-colored cars to avoid egg loss by confused water insects,' the team wryly advises."

I get such a kick out of seeing things in the natural world and understanding why they're happening. Sometimes I think I missed my calling as a research scientist. I had the opportunity to go that route, and lots of encouragement. The specificity of the focus and the monotony of the routine turned me off though. I am really more of a naturalist.

Okapis On the Brain

Zen Dance

A couple days ago I went to a dharma talk about imperfection - learning to recognize that things aren't quite right, and being okay with it. There's a lot about Buddhist philosophy that really speaks to me. I remember once when I was caught in the rain, realizing that it was only uncomfortable as long as I was striving (mentally) to keep dry, and every raindrop that landed on me took me further from that goal. When I gave up the mental cringing each time a drop landed on me, the rain didn't bother me at all any more. The dharma talk called this the distinction between discomfort and suffering. It's interesting that we're hard-wired to notice problems and want to fix them, but we have to override our own natures sometimes in order to be happy.

I think I have a long-standing habit of feeling upset and frustrated that my body isn't more perfect. Mainly in the sense of being uncoordinated - not knowing how to move gracefully and not being able to picture what various poses look like - which makes my dancing entertaining to say the least. Last night at dance class, the dharma talk was fresh in my mind. I did my best to keep up with the choreography, but when I couldn't, I was able to feel a sense of forgiveness and liking for my body anyway, and to just enjoy the freedom of the movement. It was really a lot of fun. Once I think I would have left the class feeling ugly and disappointed in myself. So that's progress.

The Good Old Days

I miss homework. Not grueling term-paper style homework, but elementary school homework that was almost fun - lists of vocab words to memorize, math problems that were almost like little puzzles, assignments to read a chapter in our history book and answer the questions at the end. I wish for my job I was required to learn spelling bee words and read about the Pilgrims. At the time, I would rather have been playing outside with the dog. Or reading some horsey book. But now, those kinds of assignments seem like fun. Perhaps this is just an aspect of the general nostalgia that everyone has for "simpler times."

Spending Time

My friend says, "I don't want to look back on my life and think, 'I wish I'd spent more time cleaning.'" She is so right. So instead of cleaning, she tortures herself with impossible love affairs.

The fallacy I think is that love affairs don't make for long or even short-term happiness. Being pulled in different directions just makes you miserable. Cleaning does make for, if not happiness, at least a kind of contentment. At least, it does for me.

Maybe the real truth is that all of life is about trying to find worthy outlets for one's energy. The life-force just keeps going, we all just keep on waking up and being hungry and walking around doing things - being alive, and the passage of time, just never stops. So it's all about finding something useful to do with that time. There are adrenaline-goals, and mundane defaults. And maybe, if we squint hard enough and keep trying even when we're tired, there's a little glimpse of something that's worthwhile and lasting and the stuff that makes for good memories.

Doing Crunches All Day Long

I’ve been noticing a lot lately that my stomach muscles are clenched up, and my stomach's tied in knots. I have to consciously make myself relax – then a minute later I notice I’m clenched up again. It’s like the default position. I wonder why. I don’t have any particular stress in my life that should be making me tense. Despite probably sounding like a pathological worrier in my blog, I’m actually pretty laid-back. Well, the upside is that if this goes on for a few more weeks, I ought to have a great six-pack.

60+ Skeeter Bites

More than there are toes to clip! It’s the price for spending a warm summer evening outside with friends. I have bites all over my legs, ankles, even the soles of my feet, fingers, and palms (not to mention the two on my chest). I guess my blood is sweet.

Keeping It In Perspective

This morning I was talking to the maintenance guy for our building, and I found out he works seven days a week - holding down two jobs. "When is your next day off?" I asked him. "Christmas," he said. I was amazed. Here I am feeling a little like a cog in the machine because I'm just cycling through the weeks with not much to show for my time, but he never even gets a day to collect himself. His 'weekends' are an hour here or there at the end of the work day, a coffee break, a few minutes with his family at the breakfast table. Yet he still smiles every day.

Toe Woes, Part Dos

I am in charge of keeping 56 nails trimmed. At least I was until yesterday - now it's down to 55. And no, my husband's aren't included in that count.

In addition to my own fingers and toes, I clip my bird's nails every couple of weeks (four on each foot), and the nails on my two guinea pigs (four on the front feet, three on the back) every month.

Yesterday I was sweeping in the guinea pig area. They have a section of the apartment fenced off and carpeted for their use, with a bridge that I made to get in and out of their cage. While I was cleaning up, I noticed a big dark reddish-brown stain on the carpet. I couldn't think what it might be - I was trying to remember if I'd given them a piece of beet or anything like that to eat. It was in the hiding place frequented by our older pig, so I picked her up and took a look at her. One of her hind toenails was completely missing, and the stump was crusted over with blood.

As near as I can tell, it must have happened several days ago, and probably when she was crossing the bridge from her cage - the structure must have slipped and pinned her nail between the two pieces, and she had to tear it off to get free. Poor pig! then she must have lain in there bleeding for a long time, and we never even noticed.

She seems fine now and the nail will eventually grow back. I fixed the bridge so it can't happen again. I feel like a bad mom though. I should notice when things happen to my kids!

Flower Girl

A girl with a huge vase full of flowers sat down next to me on the bus - lilies, irises, roses, baby's breath. I smiled and said, "Is it your birthday?" She gave a short ironic laugh and said, "No, I wish!...just someone being kind." I said automatically, "That's nice."

Then I thought about it some more, what someone being kind meant, and realized she must have had something bad happen to her, maybe a death in the family. I shouldn't have said anything at all. The last thing she needs is nosy strangers assuming things are good, when they're the opposite. I also felt a little awed, that people around me might be coping with things like their parents' deaths, miscarriages, losing their jobs, cancer diagnoses, or any number of other catastrophes - and my life is so sunny and free in comparison. It's like I'm skating under the radar. I feel almost guilty that nothing like that has happened to me, and terrified of how I will cope if it does.

Still Got It

I got hit on at the bookstore. It's been a while since anyone hit on me. I wasn't expecting it - for one thing I wasn't exactly looking my foxiest, I had on old clothes and my hair pulled back.

Anyway, I was sitting on the floor shamelessly reading a book I wasn't planning to buy, when I heard someone say, "Hey, I always do that too!" He had to repeat himself because the first time I didn't realize he was talking to me. Then I glanced up, saw him, and grinned. That was all the encouragement he needed; he plopped down next to me and said, "So what are you reading?" and it went from there. He asked my advice on classes he should take next semester, wanted to know where I went to school, asked what my favorite movies were, asked if I believed in telekinesis (his attempt to demonstrate his powers involved holding my hand and trying to read my mind). He had this shy, dorky manner about him, but at the same time he was pretty forward.

I acted friendly but the whole time I was trying to think of a way to bring into the conversation the pertinent facts that I was a) married b) waaay too old for him. Funny, usually I want people to think I am younger than I am. He was a nice fellow, but I just didn't want him wasting his time. Finally I said, "It's nice talking to you. But do you mind if I finish reading this section? I really want to find out what happens next." He got the idea right away, said, "Oh! Oh, sure," and hung around for a few more minutes pretending to read a book off a nearby shelf, then moseyed off.

Fears for the World

Things seem to really be unraveling in the Middle East. It's very worrisome. It feels on the one hand very far away and nothing to do with me - yet on the other, it's events of the type of ferocity and political bent that in the past have started global conflicts.

Once again I'm struck by a sense that the world is really far too dangerous and crazy to have children. Perhaps people throughout history have felt this way. "How can I have children? Cave-bears will eat them!" "They'll be sent to fight in the Crusades!" "They'll die of malaria." (sadly, that's still true in many parts of the world.) Now, though most of the things that endangered children and the rest of us throughout human history are avoidable in the U.S., there are new dangers to contend with. Suddenly completely unrelated people thousands of miles away might pose a threat to us all.

Cycling Through

Sometimes it seems like I spend the whole week looking forward to the weekend, and the whole weekend resting, and I never actually make much life progress.

The weeknights are pretty much shot because I'm tired, so I don't make an effort to do much. But I have this vision that great things will be accomplished on the weekend - I'll write, I'll go to cultural events, I'll visit friends and family, I'll go hiking, I'll learn new recipes. Instead, given half a chance, I do homebody things, resting and reading, because that's what I like doing. Then suddenly it's Sunday night, and I write it off as "another relaxing weekend" and plan to do the great things next time around.

I think it's because I tend toward living for the moment (aka laziness), as opposed to having a productive and meaningful existence. They're both really good life philosophies, but they're in conflict with one another. Whatever I pick, I'm going to feel obscurely guilty that I'm neglecting the other philosophy.

Wants

It's so, so hard to be consistently happy. So I have this whole bee in my bonnet about how I want to have a house and babies and try to recreate a childhood for them like the wonderful one that I had. Afternoons in the park, me and my husband swinging the kids between our hands, trading smiles over their heads, etc. It seems impossible to get there, from here. And I feel occasionally unhappy, verging on panicked, because of this.

But if I had a mortgage running me into the ground like some of my friends, and if I was a parent, which is like accepting a full-time, 24-7 babysitting job that you have to pay someone else to take over for you if you ever need an evening off - whew, would that really make me happy? I can't help but wonder if I wouldn't look back wistfully on the afternoons when I could come home from work, flop down on the bed, eat potato chips, and read Steppenwolf, totally unencumbered.

Dragonfly

Yesterday on the way home on the bus, we were stopped in traffic when I saw a dragonfly dancing above a car next to us. The car was a shiny dark blue-black color, and the dragonfly must have thought it was a pond, because he circled it repeatedly and tried to land, then finally flitted off. Then I noticed the girl sitting in front of me turn to her friend and point out the car. I couldn't hear what she said, but when her hand described the exact arcs of the dragonfly, I realized she must be telling him what we had both just seen. I love it when there are those moments of shared perception. It was like one time when I was driving and there was a magnificent rainbow over the highway, and a woman called in to the local radio station to say that she was on this particular highway and anyone in the area should go look at the rainbow. I felt like all of us in our separate cars were united by witnessing this same glorious sight.

The Gardenwife

I realized why I enjoy gardening so much. It's basically like cleaning. Here I am trying to steer myself away from becoming a boring housewife by developing an outside interest like gardening, but no, the garden is basically just an extension of the house. When I'm out there pulling weeds, watering, planting, pruning, mulching, it's the same routine as when I'm cleaning the house - go through and remove what shouldn't be there, put in what should.

I think it's borderline unhealthy that I like cleaning. It appeals to some organizational instinct that I have. The sign of a small mind. I use it to procrastinate when I should be doing big-picture things that require actual mental effort. My dad laughed when I told him this and said he's the opposite, the knowledge of cleaning tasks awaiting him inspires him to sit down and work on mathematical problems.

At least gardening, unlike house-cleaning, has some physical results. I've already harvested green beans, tomatoes, and gladiolus, and there's dill, spinach, zucchini, carrots, beets, and yellow squash coming up.

All Good

Coming down off a great weekend and work seems a little unreal. On Saturday, I worked in my garden, my husband played tennis, and we went to a movie and then out to dinner with friends. Yesterday, I really got into this book about life on Guernsey Island in the early part of the century. Later, we invited people over to watch the World Cup, and I fixed dinner. Very simple, but nice. I just felt happy the whole weekend. I have a good set of friends, my health, and the nicest husband in the world. I'm really pretty lucky.

Feeling Loved

Last night after dance class my friend and I sat on a bench in the dusk eating cherries together and talking about relationships. It wasn't the class, or the cherries, or even the conversation so much that mattered. But somehow the synergy made me feel better. I went home relaxed and happier than I've been in a while.

Argh

I need to get better with relationships. I'm not smooth like I want to be. I get het-up about little things and end up having stupid arguments about sunscreen's effect on melanoma that aren't even about that - instead they are about being ignored all morning and worrying that our marriage isn't as perfect as other people's.

And I need to really pull back and do some thinking about the kid question. I tried to have a "talk" about it this weekend, but didn't get anywhere. I ended up just floundering with "but it will all be worth it in the end," while he brought up sensible concerns about how a baby would interfere with sleep, hobbies, etc. He is right. Having a baby would interfere with our lives. And I can't express articulately why that just doesn't matter to me, why I still want us to have kids. It's an emotion that goes below language.

I'm too focused on getting him to agree to have kids (soon), and not enough on what is actually important - I should be thinking and planning and interested in the whole concept of creating a person, and busily making room for this person in our lives. Instead I have some crackpot notion that if I can just get him to say 'yes', everything else will magically fall into place. I'm so stupid and naive.

And I can't focus when there are a bunch of people over. I'm supposed to be this great hostess and make everyone feel at home and get them talking to each other, and instead I just flit around trying to talk to whoever looks left-out, and ignoring everyone else, and I have no idea if people are even having fun or not.

At work, I go around with my ears flattened down and my tail tucked. I feel beaten-down and I don't know how to change that. Being more assertive just seems to get me in trouble - my job is to be the low man. But after a couple of years of this, I'm starting to feel incapable of taking on anything more challenging; my self-esteem is shot. Getting married is just about all I have to feel happy about and proud of right now. When that wears off, what will I have?

Chivalry

One of the bus drivers I ride with occasionally has a one-man chivalry crusade. Several times during the bus trip, he'll clear his throat and make a little announcement, like "Now I know there are some fine gentlemen on this bus. And they know it's not right for a lady to have to stand. So I'm sure they'll be happy to give up their seat and let the ladies sit." What's funny to me is how this announcement, which I'm sure he intends to be nice, makes people uncomfortable is such a variety of ways.
- The men who are sitting feel uncomfortable because they feel like they just got called rude.
- The women who are standing feel uncomfortable because they didn't think the men were rude, but the announcement makes it sound like they expected to be given seats.
- Some of the men, on hearing the announcement, get up and offer their seats to women. This makes men who did not stand up feel like they were rude.
- Some of the women, on being offered seats, decline them, to show the men that they didn't think they were rude. This makes the women who accepted seats feel rude.
- After a little while, if there are still women standing, the driver will repeat his announcement. Then the men who offered their seats and were told, "no, it's ok" feel bad all over again, because they did offer, and now they're being chastised since there are still women standing.

Meanwhile, on exiting the bus some women pause to say, "That was nice of you," to the driver, thus reaffirming his belief that this is a good thing to do, and ensuring that he will continue to do so.

What an amazingly complex social landscape we live in.