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.
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Thursday, August 24, 2006
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.
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.
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
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!
Monday, August 21, 2006
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.
Friday, August 18, 2006
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.
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.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
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.
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.
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
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.
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.
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
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.
Monday, August 14, 2006
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.
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.
Friday, August 11, 2006
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.
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.
Thursday, August 10, 2006
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?
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?
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
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.
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.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
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.
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.
Monday, August 07, 2006
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.
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.
Friday, August 04, 2006
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.
Thursday, August 03, 2006
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 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.
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
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.
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.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
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.
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.
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