Dumb & Smart

Yesterday I was assigned to take notes during a meeting when I didn't know what was going on. It was just a barrage of acronyms, glancing references to coalitions I'm not familiar with, and meeting-speak phrases like "we'll leverage that issue" or "let's finesse our dialogue with him." Even if I understood all the words of the discussion, without knowing context I couldn't take good notes - so I had to either guess at what it meant, or copy down exact sentences - and I couldn't write fast enough to keep up with the pace of conversation. Why can't they take their own notes? Or at least "context it" for me? But if I interrupt to ask questions, they get annoyed at having to take time out to bring me up to speed. The whole situation made me feel pretty dumb.

I like it, on the other hand, when my speech patterns influence other people. If I can manage to use a particular word in conversation and it gets stuck in someone else's head and they inadvertently use that same unusual word a few minutes later, it makes me feel smart. It comes down to a battle of wills - who has the most dominant speech patterns? Maybe I am just an egotistical maniac for enjoying that. But cut me a little slack. Honestly, I have so little power in my life, the only beings I can control are my guinea pigs, and sometimes not even then. They flounce away from me in defiance if I don't come bearing treats.

How to be Happy

I read recently that many people confuse pleasure and happiness. Pleasure is a fleeting sense of joy in response to a sensation, while happiness is the underlying state of being. The book went on to note that people who are habitually optimists tend to be happier, and they live longer. It advised that you should practice thinking optimistic thoughts and consciously become a happy person.

I'm not so sure it works that way. Maybe your personal capacity for happiness is something you are born with, like brown hair or attached earlobes - not what you strive to be, but who you are. (Of course, maybe I think that because I am not practicing optimism hard enough!)

But really, it seems foolish to practice thinking these optimistic thoughts, if they are not my true feelings about a situation, or especially if they will hold me back from recognizing real problems and doing something about them.

It reminds me of the parenting strategy I witnessed once, of a couple who would not give their young daughter things she wanted unless she professed to be happy. "I'm haaaapppy!" she would sob, tears rolling down her cheeks.

Take The Long Way Home

I had a great walk home yesterday. I took a different route, through a lively urban shopping district. Here are some things I saw along the way:

Ben & Jerry's free scoop day. I tried vanilla Heath bar crunch - yum.

Two shoe stores. I've never been in a shoe store that didn't have all the different sizes stacked up on the shelves, in boxes - but both these stores had just a single model of each shoe style on display. You had to ask the clerk to try it in your size. Actually in the first store I thought all they had was size sixes for little-foot people, so I left, but when I saw the same thing going on at the second store, I thought, "wait..they must have other sizes." I guess I have never purchased shoes anywhere but Payless. And probably won't break that streak any time soon. All the shoes I saw cost $400 and up.

Bridge over the park. In the midst of urban wilderness, suddenly there was a glimpse of real wilderness - at least, a sea of treetops, and the glimmer of a creek down below. Joggers leaned on the railings breathing in the fresh wind while cars rushed by on the highway behind them. Far off in the distance, I could see the towers of the cathedral near where I live. It looked like a fairytale castle.

Candle vigil for Tibetan victims. Twenty-some people sitting in circles around flickering candles, holding signs and pictures of victims, some of whom were just children. They were all silent and it was really eerie. I felt a pang thinking of all the awful things that happen in the world, that I am insulated from through luck, not merit.

Quick detour through the zoo. It was an hour before closing time, and the gates were open. I got to see the kangaroo, the emu, the maned wolves, and a pile of cheetahs lying together in the grass. The wolves were the best. I've always really liked them, even with the smell. The way they move, they look more horsy than doglike - they have long necks and a horse-like way of swinging their heads around and swivelling their ears, and narrow sloping shoulders, and long legs. I sneaked up on them very quietly and stayed just out of view so I could watch them playing together - gently pouncing at each other. The way they walk, both legs on a side moving together, looks so alien.

Library, to drop off my books. I found a literature discussion group that my dad might want to join posted on the bulletin board.

Pet store, to get guinea pig stuff.

And home at last.

Superdreams

Things I want next time around, when I'm reincarnated as a superhero like Meg:

- wings (duh) - or actually, just flying ability. It must be hard to find clothes that fit if you have wings.
- finger-zapper of death to vaporize vexers
- stretchiness like the mom in The Incredibles
- Jedi mind tricks so I could cause a person to experience the same sensations they are causing in someone else - including good stuff
- built-in Babel fish
- ability to rewind

That's probably enough to start with. Wow, I'd have a great time racing around the world, reforming agriculture and correcting the balance of power. Oh and one more:

- an anti-nemesis force-field! Having to fight off a nemesis all the time must be such a drain on your productivity.

A Cause Without Rebels

Today, dodging the inevitable protesters handing out flyers near the subway station, it occurred to me how blase we are about free speech. There are protests and rallies going on all the time, people chanting and marching and handing out stuff. In many countries in the world, people who do those things are risking their lives - they could be arrested, tortured or even put to death. I get Amnesty International reports of people who have been imprisoned for twenty years, for doing less.

Yet, although we have the right to speak out about injustice, it's hard to get anyone to listen. In more authoritarian countries, anyone with a bullhorn on a street corner handing out flyers would be surrounded by an amazed crowd - people would listen, consider the words seriously, and perhaps join up. Here, busy commuters duck to avoid being handed things, or brush the protesters aside. Everyone is too accustomed to them to care any more - and there are so many causes worth fighting for, they all blend together. We're all blitzed by advertising and don't have room to think about anything more.

So whether governments choose to repress or allow free speech, it ends up having the same effect - nothing really ever changes.

Men

Occasionally I cross paths with guys who just make me glad to be female and heterosexual. I love men in the way that sculptors love curves, and painters love blue distance. They are just endlessly fascinating, a theme I can't help returning to. I can understand, if I think about it, what makes women attractive, but admiring men comes so much more easily to me.

Today I was buying a book, and the cashier had smoldering dark eyes and Bambi lashes. He kept looking at me - we looked frankly into each other's eyes and held eye contact the whole time as we were waiting for the machine to process my credit card. Maybe he liked the look of me, too. Maybe he just always does that. I feel totally in love with my fiance, and giving up other men is something I can do easily, in exchange for a life with him. But it still makes me happy to live in a world full of these other interesting men, and to see my life ahead filled with random encounters with them.

Turn, Turn

Today I've got that Quaker song in my head, "Tis the gift to be simple, tis the gift to be free, tis the gift to come down where you ought to be..." I am not quite where I ought to be. I need to be someplace where I'm not judged all the time - or at least, if I am being judged, then judged on something reasonable and considered to be doing well. I have fantasies of being somewhere where nothing is expected of me - like, just walking through a field of flowers. Doing such a fantastic job of being in that field. Or, feeding my guinea pigs, and their squeaks of approval are all that matters.

Being Soft, Reconsidered

I realized being soft isn't enough to save me from being yelled at. In fact, I think some people take advantage of it. If I want people to be nice to me, maybe I should inspire them with a bit of healthy fear by acting like a complete bitch.

Or, maybe I should just look for a new job. There are days when I really enjoy this one - opportunities to learn new stuff, in line with my interests, helping "save the world", a good group of people for the most part, etc. But there are other days when I'm bored to death doing menial tasks, and other days when people yell at me. More and more often, I find myself wondering why I put up with it.

Dang! Never fails - just as I get to the point in a job where I'm earning more than the minimum number of vacation days, it turns sour.

Wavering Resolve

I'm doing a terrible job of keeping my New Year's resolutions. They were:
1. Learn Spanish
2. Learn calculus
3. Find some kind of exercise to replace running
4. Don't buy any junk food

So far I have
1. Maintained a Spanish textbook in pristine, unopened condition on the bookshelf for three months until my coworker, from whom I had borrowed it, asked for it back.
2. Opened a calculus textbook exactly twice. Did all the homework for chapter one (graphs!) and half the homework for chapter 2 (functions!). Am now using the book to keep the Spanish textbook's spot warm.
3. Been running, haphazardly.
4. Been surviving nicely on the large stores of junk food that I socked away at the end of last year. The only thing I ran out of was potato chips, midway through January. Ahh! Then, last week, they were on sale and I bought two bags. I have not opened them. Perhaps it's OK if I just don't eat them. Honestly, how can I be expected to resist half-price chips?

Being 'Soft'

I wage an intermittent war with myself about being too much of a pushover. I'm a habitual avoider of confrontation, even the mild sort like delegating work to someone else to do - it just makes my heart pound to think about it. I'd rather do it myself than give orders. I think it hurts me in the long run because lots of people think they can walk over me - and they are so right. They can. At times I practically lie down in the road and say, "c'mon, step right there," all to avoid being yelled at.

It's not a totally self-defeating strategy, from an animal behavior point of view. I will never make it very far up the ranks. But, it does give me a reputation for being easy to work with. And it seems to win me friends among the other low-ranking females. I went to dinner with an old friend the other night, a really nice girl who, like me, is shy to an extreme. We were having a heart-to-heart and she told me that she feels "very safe" with me. And hearing that just made me so happy. Who cares about being the alpha? I would rather be trusted, any day.

Could It Really Be That Simple?

Could the solution to all my problems indeed lie in a simple haircut? A sweeping move that, along with my hair, takes away all of my insecurities, leaving me elegant, sleek, and always shevelled?

Why I Wouldn't Be A Good Farmer

I used to want to be a farmer when I was little. I liked the idea of living in tune with the seasons, completely supporting myself by growing everything I ate, and being surrounded by rolling pastoral landscapes.

Now I know enough about farming to understand how incredibly hard it is - and how it's not the kind of life you can buy into, from outside. Plus, for a small, independent farmer, having a second job to support the farming "hobby" is almost a necessity. So I just write about farming, instead of doing it.

Anyway, I realized today that there's an even more fundamental reason why I'd be bad at farming. I was working in my garden, which at the beginning of the week was entirely swamped in weeds. I've cleared half of it, and today I planted beans, tomatoes, and larkspur. Most of the weeds I ripped out were vetch - a nitrogen-fixer, good for the soil, and bearing tiny purple blossoms that feed lots of insects. As I cleared them, spiders and centipedes and beetles went scurrying out, looking for cover. I realized I was basically taking out a complete little ecosystem, which supported far more wildlife than my vegetable garden was going to, and replacing it with a monoculture. The land was more valuable to more species and certainly far more productive before I started "improving" it. Now I wonder if I shouldn't just leave the other half of the garden to be wild.

So there you have it - incurable idealism about the farming life has given way to incurable idealism about the value of undisturbed habitat.

Feeling Good

Great headline from yesterday's paper: Millions Rally to Support Aliens. Almost Onion-worthy.

Yesterday evening I planted three rows of cilantro in my new community garden. It's the first garden I've ever had that was all mine, and those are the first seeds I've planted in it. It was so lovely kneeling in the soft dirt with the pink sunset falling behind the trees, listening to birds settle down to roost and to the cathedral bells chiming (I was skipping practice). Later, I lay on the floor petting my guinea pig as she made little cheerful oinking noises, and listening to Tracy Chapman's "Baby Can I Hold You Tonight," and I just felt ridiculously happy.

Christine

I had an interesting conversation while stuck in an interminable line at the post office today. It started, as these things usually do, with an exchange of comments and some eye-rolling at the slowness of the line, between me and the girl standing behind me. Two of the post office clerks were apparently on break, leaving just one on duty to deal with a line that stretched out the door. Then she made an interesting remark about how a private company wouldn't tolerate such delays in service, and how this represented a failure of the free-enterprise system. I like it when people talk smart like that. Makes me feel like I'm back in college.

She was younger than me, and a lot more together-looking, with great cheekbones and the kind of straight, sleek, mousy-brown hair that doesn't need anything done to it. Though her English was perfect, she spoke with a faint accent. It turned out she was born in Macedonia. She came to the U.S. at the age of sixteen, and put herself through college all on her own. I said that it must be hard to be so far from your family. I said it genuinely, but also somewhat automatically. To my surprise, she reacted as though people had rarely said it to her. She got a far-off look in her eyes and said, "It is really hard. You never stop missing your family. You learn to survive with that ache, but it never goes away."

We compared jobs. She was an investment banker, one year out of college, working herself to the bone with twelve hour days. I said I liked my non-profit work, but was finding it very non-profit, and sometimes felt that I should have taken a more lucrative career path. She asked what I was earning (with apologies, but I didn't mind telling her - like all confessions, it was easy to tell a stranger). Her salary was quite a bit higher. "Must be nice to be able to leave work at five," she said wistfully. "Must be nice to earn what you do," I said, and we grinned at each other. Maybe someday we'll each get the chance to experience the other side.

After a pause, she said the thing that stuck with me. She said, "I didn't realize until this conversation how lonely I really am."

I wanted to reach over and hug her. She seemed a hair's breadth from crying. Instead I said something like, "It's hard, isn't it." It's even hard for me, and I grew up here, and I get off work at five. She said, "I just have no time for my own life, and I have no one here."

Then she straightened and said, "I hate it when I get like this, feeling sorry for myself." "Everyone is allowed to feel that way sometimes," I said. She nodded and said, "Anyway, I'm leaving in a couple months. I'm moving to California to live with my boyfriend."

We talked some more, about life plans and families and careers. We were just getting into that endlessly rich topic of how to balance childbearing with a career, when we finally reached the front of the line.

In parting, we wished each other well and said we were glad to have met. I hope things work out for her and the boyfriend. Maybe she can take him home to meet her parents in Macedonia sometime.

Expectations

It seems like a lot of people are suddenly laying expectations on me, that I never asked for (or expected, ha). Mi amigo, who now starts work earlier in order to waylay me and try to get me to speak Spanish, asks every time he sees me whether I have been studying, and tells me that I need to. Why?? Yeah, it would be nice if I could say more than "Hola" and "no comprendo," but why, out of all the people at my office, did he decide I need to learn Spanish? and why would I anyway - just so I could chat more with him? when I already tense up every time I see him, and wish I could sneak out the back door?

Then there's religious expectations - which, granted, are up a notch this week because it's holy week. But they're just going to intensify as it gets closer to the wedding and the forces of Catholicism and Episcopalianism duke it out over my soul.

Then there are general work-related expectations - that I do all the assignments first, that I give everybody's work top priority, and do it all with a smile. The bombardment goes up and down in intensity, but never quite goes away.

I wish I had an office with a door I could close, so I could control my work environment better. My territory is public space, and people use it as such - sitting on my desk, leaving their things there, and talking to me as long as they want (not as long as I want). That's more or less what it's like to be an introvert in all walks of life, I think. Other people use you. They control the conversation, not you, and they decide when you are allowed to leave. They even say things like "you're nice" or "you're easygoing" or "thanks for your patience." I'm not nice. Or patient. If I had a choice, I'd leave. Or yell at them. Someday there's going to be a breaking point, and some person will be innocently talking at me about their day and ignoring all my efforts to escape, and I am just going to scream, "Fuck you!!!" and run away.

Only A Month Away

Planning a wedding is really complicated. I think I should have started earlier. I keep making lists, and spending entire evenings online researching options, but I'm not making much progress. People tell me to enjoy my engagement, and I do get flashes of pure joy and anticipation, but then I come back to reality - ever-present worry and fear that indeed it will not get done.

So far I have bought a dress, booked the church, and picked out a man.

So far we have not gotten rings, a photographer, food, cake, music, a marriage license, passports, shoes, a suit, flowers, candles, or readers.

Luckily I have an awesome mom who is pitching in, and four more weekends to run errands and try to get some of this stuff done. Wish me luck!

900,000 Chickens A Week

Yesterday I toured a poultry slaughterhouse. We followed along watching as the carcasses, hanging from hooks on a traveling assembly line, were defeathered, chilled, and sliced into meat cuts. It's very state-of-the-art with machines transferring and deboning the carcasses, and workers inspecting and slicing them up. I was OK seeing everything after the birds were dead, because after that point there's no suffering. It was a little eerie, kind of like a sci-fi thriller, watching the ranks upon ranks of thousands of carcasses, traveling across the ceiling and down into giant machines. They kind of looked like dead baby dolls, headless, hanging by their stubby legs.

We also visited the kill room, and that was hard for me. Seeing the live birds in crates ready to go onto the conveyer belt, seeing them strung up by their feet and flapping to try to get away, and seeing them continue to flap and struggle after their necks were slit, was pretty disturbing. I just felt like what was happening to them was so awful and so undeserved. And not even in aid of any fine or noble cause - just to make chicken nuggets. I wanted it to be over for them as soon as possible. Knowing as each second passed that they were still alive and suffering was the worst part. We saw chickens with blood all over their wings and breasts, still flapping and trying to get away. I couldn't tell if it was reflex, or if they were really conscious and experiencing every moment of that.

I think as slaughterhouses go, this was one of the better ones. It was designed with worker comfort and humane guidelines in mind (for example, the chickens are hung onto the hooks in a darkened room, so they stay calmer). We talked a lot about how the chickens are raised, and this company is head-and-shoulders over the others in the business. But no matter how well you do it, it's still a terrible industry. At the end of our tour, the rest of my group was very enthusiastic about the facility, so I gather that others are much worse. If that's true, then I don't think I have it in me to see any others.

Friends

So yesterday I went to dinner with some new friends from work, and glibly confessed my aspirations to someday have a family and a house in the suburbs, and my worries that I'm not going to get there doing environmental work. I always fall into the trap of assuming that because people are treating me warmly and like I've known them for years, that I can relax and be open with them. Like I've already passed the test. But - Erin! You have not passed! This IS the test, going on right now! So I say things like that and the mood turns against me, almost like a temperature change. And I suddenly realize I'm not in the company of bosom buddies, at all, and that I just shot myself in the foot, and from now on there's always going to be a kind of frosty reserve in their eyes when they speak to me.

Yesterday my downfall started when someone asked if I partied a lot in college, and I said that I hardly ever went out, that I wasn't very cool in college, and then someone else asked what kind of music I liked, and I said that lately I've been enjoying classical (strike two), and then I wrapped it up with my confessions about the suburbs, after which there was a poignant pause and then someone said, "I'm really anti-all that. It's so terrible, environmentally. That's not how I would ever choose to live." Which was when I suddenly woke up and realized these weren't my friends, at least not yet, and perhaps now wouldn't ever be. The thing is, they're nice people. But you do have to keep up a facade of coolness as you get to know new people, and say what they want to hear, and later after they've decided you're in, you get to be yourself. I know that. I just forget to do it.

Money

Today I'm feeling frustrated in my career. It started when I saw, quite accidentally, an ad for a public transportation services communication assistant (yes, I know that doesn't mean much - but essentially they wanted someone to help soothe angry people when the trains are running slow, and write little articles for the internal newsletter). The qualifications were a bachelor's degree and the salary was three times what I make.

I didn't realize, when I chose to go into environmental, non-profit work, exactly how non-profit it was. I always wanted to have an environmental career, and I loved studying ecology in college, and I turned down a couple of soulless jobs so that I could hold out for one that I felt would help me make a difference.

Now I have that job, and most days it's great. But. I am earning less money than anyone I know. I am earning less money than before I went to grad school. It frustrates me because while my fiance is on a good career track, I don't want to count on him financially. I should be capable of paying my own way - but I am not, and it's not a matter of not working hard enough or not being smart enough, because I do work hard, and I am bright, but I'm still not earning enough money for us ever to qualify for a mortgage (his paycheck isn't enough to make up for mine being so far below average). And as important as the environment is to me, having a home and a family is also important to me. I feel upset thinking that I may not be able to have those things, and it's my own damn fault.