The Life and Times of Kelraiser

30 Grand

2008-12-16T21:33:00.001-06:00

I have now, finally, hit 30,000 words on the novel. Yea!

Shame on Wal-Mart

2008-11-28T20:17:00.006-06:00

Today Jason alerted me to the story about how an employee at a Wal-mart in NY was trampled to death by a crowd this black Friday morning. It is upsetting how it represents the ridiculous over-commercialization and greed that this holiday has come to represent. Christmas means a whole lot more than shopping and presents, and but I do enjoy giving thoughtful presents to my loved ones during the holiday, and I don't really want to be associated with the crazy violent consumers out there. The article about the violence said that they are reviewing tape at the store and that people will be prosecuted. Personally, I think Wal-Mart should be sued.

Every year you hear about someone getting hurt on Black Friday morning. This is the first time I ever heard of someone getting actually killed. And years ago, I used to think it was just that there are crazy and selfish people out there that are causing these problems, in little isolated cases like lightning striking. That was until a few years ago when I actually decided, for kicks, to go check out a Wal-mart at 5 am on Black Friday for myself, maybe get one of those computer deals for someone on my Christmas list. That experience convinced me that the problem is not so much the customers, but actually the corporate morons at Wal-Mart, and that they are super lucky that there are not more injuries and deaths from their poor management.

Like many stores, Wal-Mart advertises awesome deals on their pages and then tell you that there's only 6 in the store. So, this is not a sale ... this is a contest. A contest of endurance -- how long can you stand outside in the cold? Oh, and, after you stay up all night freezing your butt off, can you keep your cool when someone decides to shove in line ahead of you? And this contest preys on people with little money, people that are the most desperate to have things that they can't afford but that society tells them they ought to have, which might just give them the gumption to shove in line ahead of someone else, thinking that they deserve that tv more. And better yet, if that tv is a gift, I think people are even more likely to shove because they're not doing it for themselves, they're doing it for their kid or their wife or someone else whose eyes they want to light up on Christmas morning.

And I suppose it's fine for Wal-mart to sponsor a "contest" like this to get people into their store, but what they are doing encourages a mob. And they are simply not equipped to handle a mob at their stores. At the NY Wal-mart, the poor victim was an employee who actually got in front of a group of people who broke down the doors to Wal-Mart. The people were upset because they thought they'd seen employees let people in ahead of opening time that hadn't been in line. Poor guy, the employee was not trained to realize that getting in front of an angry crowd would be to put his life on the line. What he needed was tear gas. Or a whole line of people with big padded buttress things and face masks and perhaps clubs. Sure, Wal-Mart will tell you that they are not responsible for people's criminal actions of breaking into stores and act like they are the victims, losing one of their valuable employees ... but for goodness sake, they call their deals "Door-Busters". They are expecting people to be at their door the moment it opens and to run through it. They are expecting a mob. Why are they suprised when one shows up? Why are they not prepared? Wal-mart is criminally negligent.

If you've ever been in a crowd of people moving in one direction, you know that a mob has no brain. The people behind you are pushing the group, trying to elbow out the people behind them, but they have no idea what the people in front are seeing. You are shoulder to shoulder with people. You may have no idea what, or whom, you are stepping on. And if you do realize that you're perhaps stepping on someone -- don't you dare stop, because the person behind you has enough momentum to accidentally push you down, too. It's a powder keg. It's totally scary. When I went to Wal-mart that morning I was expecting us all to walk into Wal-mart one-by-one, perhaps a bit hurriedly, but not as a crushing mob. But there is no one controlling the crowd. They simply open the door. And because there's no crowd control, people cut in line, which aggravates everyone. Once inside, everyone makes a bee-line to electronics, some people running between the clothing racks, knocking things over, only to end up at another bottle-neck -- the entrance to the electronics section. Another mob-crush.

Best Buy, for example, has some "door busters" but half an hour before opening time they send out employees to give coupons to the first people in line for the items they are waiting for. So they "win the contest" without having to run through the door. I believe that since Wal-mart, even after all these injuries, still has not taken action to prevent them, that for them these "runs" on the stores are publicity stunts. And I totally believe that Wal-Mart might actually enjoy the publicity they get when someone is hurt or worse. What better way to advertise -- "Our prices are so low, people are maiming to get them!"

Wal-mart should be sued for inciting riots across the country every year. But instead we always blame the customers. I do think that people need to realize that flat-screen tv's are not worth staying up all night and shoving people around and to lighten up, get some holiday spirit. But Wal-mart needs to take responsibility here for the fact that they are the ones endangering people's lives in order to make a few dollars.

Novel Progress

2008-07-19T23:25:00.003-05:00

I just turned over 24,000 words. Slow and steady wins the race. I got the idea from the book "How to Write A Lot" that it might help to chart my progress in an excel workbook. I started the novel in October and started this log in March. And it was helping -- it was nice to log the number of words and watch my wordcount grow -- until I created this graphic. I would say that most scientists would glance at this graphic and say it's got no slope! Time to increase production.

Isn't it amazing what chaning the axis can do?

Re-Volt!

2008-07-19T23:21:00.003-05:00

I only just now learned about the existence of my dream car so I have to talk about it. Also, I must formally announce that I no longer want a Toyota Prius hybrid. That stuff is OLD news. And hydrogen fuel cells? Bleh.

I am super excited about the HPEV technology - the Plug-In Hybrid. So now I've got my eye on the Chevy Volt, slated to come out in 2010. I think I can stretch my Altima until then, so long as GM doesn't pull any fast ones and push it off indefinitely, and that government incentives make it affordable. The HPEV plugs into a regular wall outlet and gives 40 miles for a charge, plenty for most commutes, and then has a back-up hybrid gas engine for any further than that. So all told you get over 100 miles per gallon! I mean, it's like science fiction! Except it's science non-fiction because it actually exists right now. I just learned about it from the kick-butt movie "Who Killed the Electric Car", which I totally recommend (warning, you will probably get extremely p.o.'d watching this movie).

So I have a prediction that this is the future -- that the "gas" we put in these things will be from homegrown cellulosic ethanol (not corn. Corn = bad ethanol source) And that we will thus release ourselves from this oil debacle, except that we'll still want plastics, but that's not nearly as much consumption. And the power that we get coming off the grid will become cleaner and cleaner -- solar, wind, solar and hopefully solar will be replacing the coal. Bye carbon emissions, bye global warming. Our nation will become prosperous again because all of our energy will come from internally, no more importing, no more problems with the dollar sinking. We'll use our wealth to spread the technology across the globe and restore all the good will that our previous administration destroyed.

I feel optimistic today.

Novel Progress

2008-06-28T23:53:00.000-05:00

I'm at 22,109 words. I'm guessing that's like 1/4 of the way, but we'll see!

Fascination

2008-06-28T22:53:00.002-05:00

Last night I saw something
To explain I must confess
When I was seven
I imagined with longing,
Stealing the vial of silver
Sparkles, and pouring out all --
Every glittering drop --
Onto black cardstock paper
Breathless
Rejoicing in shimmering riches.

Last night I saw,
But this time unexpected,
Turning the corner,
Headlights panned darkness
And dark trees, grasses
Were revealed as diamond-studded
Sparkling, waving
Winking, blinking:
Fireflies speaking
In glittering Morse code.
Breathless
I rejoiced in shimmering riches.

Irish Roots

2008-03-02T21:28:00.003-06:00

As St. Patrick’s Day approaches, the malls and bars bloom shamrocks, and people plan where to get drunk to celebrate the man that Christianized Ireland, I think about my ancestry. According to my calculations, my blood is approximately 30% green. My father’s father was 100% Irish, his mother is some uncertain percentage, and both my mother’s parents were Polish. Actually, I am more Polish than Irish. But I have the Irish last name. And an Irish first and middle to match. However, I am a misbranded product of Ireland. I have never really felt all that connected to the Emerald Isle.

When I was a kid, being Irish meant that my ancestors had walked straight out of the pages of a fairy tale. It made my imagination run wild with the brownies. Ireland of my dreams was a place so lush and green it made your eyes hurt. The island was overrun by leprechauns obsessed with gold or sugary cereal, and a tall priest in a bishop’s hat and green robes roamed the land chasing snakes into the ocean with a curved staff. My ancestors had lived a charmed life. I was descended from magic.

I got older and the leprechauns disappeared into the hills. I learned about the Irish potato famine and strife with England, the various conquerors who had thought this green jewel an easy prize. And I learned about the mad racism that greeted those that fled to America, trading persecution and poverty for different flavors of the same. In reality I came from people who had struggled to make their way, keep their homes, their freedoms, and even their lives. But never having struggled for anything vital, this has always been a vague concept to me -- perhaps something akin to fairy tales and legend again. Being separated by so many generations from this heritage adds to the vagueness. Day to day I don’t think about my roots at all, except when someone might read my name for the first time and give me a wink … “Irish, eh?”

And then, of course, there’s St. Patrick’s Day, where every cliché related to Ireland is thrown in your face. At this time everyone reaches into their family tree and dusts off an ancestor or two so they can pin on buttons that say “Kiss me, I’m Irish.” It makes me wonder what the turning point was, when Americans went from putting up signs in the window that said “No Irish,” to filling those windows with cardboard shamrocks.

After I turned 21, celebrating being Irish meant drinking. A lot. And when people want to buy a lot of alcohol, enter Commercialism. After those folks sign on, expect the true meaning of any holiday to be seized, the core extracted, and the meaning sold back to you for a couple of bucks, a cheap version of the original. Strangely, they’ve done this to our nation’s pride day, the 4th of July, but people do still feel something akin to respect about this day, in spite of stuffing themselves with barbeque and wearing flag boxers.

It's all in good fun. I love parades and green beer as much as the next person. Well, except that I'm not a big fan of beer, so pass me the green punch instead. But the problem is that the celebration of St. Patty's Day has done to my concept of Irish heritage what McDonald's has done to food -- cheapened it, even made it easy and tasty to swallow, but there's really very little useful in it.

St. Patrick’s Day is here again, and this time I want to know what it means to be Irish. I’ve tried books, history, digging through my geneology. But what I really want is to write a letter to my ancestors and ask. Or maybe it would be enough to ask someone who lives in Ireland now. I would feel silly doing so, like I am one of the many Irish wannabes who wants to trade in their mutt ancestry for 100% pure green blood. Now that it’s “cool” to be Irish, the bandwagon is overflowing with drunken idiots in green plastic derbies.

It's enough to make anyone want to pull up their roots.

My Scientific Contribution

2007-12-17T16:51:00.000-06:00

I now must crow like Peter Pan ... ISI Web of Science shows that my master's thesis publication in Soil Science Society of America has now been cited 5 times. Five times! Apparently my research matter to at least 5 people out there. Perhaps all 5 articles show that my research was wrong, haven't checked that yet, but hooray!

Observation

2007-12-14T12:15:00.000-06:00

Today when I pulled into the parking lot at work, there was a gentleman sitting in his idling car. He was shaving.

This is not the first time I have observed this.

It makes me smile.

Wanted: PhDs from Charm School to Teach the World

2007-12-13T12:46:00.000-06:00

Jason, my lovely, ditched out on part of his Biology class so that we could spend our 11 month anniversary together. Being the ideal pupil, since the teacher was showing the movie Flock of Dodos that day, Jason ordered it through Netflicks and we watched it last weekend. What a great documentary! Jason and I talked for an hour afterward about it. It's written and directed by an evolutionary biologist with a sense of humor and genuine curiousity about how this controversy came about. He happens to be from Kansas, and so was particularly moved by the controversy in his home state about teaching Intelligent Design (in addition to evolution and other theories on the origin of man) in schools.

I will be giving a bit of the movie away here, but one of his points is that scientists are so appalled by these challeges to evolution and find them so laughable that their attitude is to ignore them. This benefits the intelligent design subscribers because the scientists are seen as snobs. Meanwhile the intelligent design folk can speak in a language that non-scientists can understand.

Controversy is an often-used tool to drive a wedge into scientifically proven phenomena. People love a controversy. "Which side are you on?" people ask each other, and take the bits and pieces of out-of-context fact and sometimes fiction they've gathered here and there to support their opinion. Who has time to actually sit down and synthesize all the evidence? I admit I am in the science arena, and there is absolutely no way any one person can see ALL of the data. You have to pick and choose. You have to know enough to weigh what is important against what is not. It's so much easier to come to an emotionally snuggly conclusion. Evolution is a big example. It's snuggly to believe that gaps in the evolutionary record, or situations of complexity that are difficult to explain (but are in fact explainable), indicate the presence of a divine power.

Global Climate Change is another. Isn't it much more nice and snuggly to believe there is no problem, that scientists are crying "Wolf" in a mad grab for funding dollars? It is true that there are some scientists out there that will say anything to grab those dollars from policymakers. I'm priviledged, so far, not to have met any of them, except for one example whose lecture I attended and who received the heckling of a lifetime from his disgusted scientific audience (incidentally, he was also employed by the Bush administration). There is, thankfully, an ethic underneath science as solid as the Hippocratic oath is for a doctor. Nothing is more disgusting to a scientist than to discover someone fudging a number or twisting a yarn out of data. Caution in interpreting data is taught from the very beginning. So is responsibility to true reporting.

But scientists definitely need to learn how to put up their fists in the public arena. Instead they decline to get into the ring, believing that their numbers and figures and journal articles can take the blows. Well, they don't. In fact, those ways make smart people feel ignorant, and are not going to get anyone on the side of science. People don't have the time to put down their busy lives and read journal articles that make their eyes swim with terminology only a handful of people in the world understand, and will revile scientists for talking over their heads!

Thank goodness for Al Gore, who figured this out long ago. Look how much he has accomplished so far, and he is not (A) valedictorian of charm school or (B) A scientist! Yet people believe him. Imagine what a charming scientist could do. Carl Sagan and Stephen Jay Gould, you left us too soon. We need a JFK or a MLK to further our second green revolution, and to quash the evolution debate.

Volunteers? Please send head-shots and CV's to: anyone who will listen.

I Heart Snow

2007-12-05T12:52:00.000-06:00

Today is St. Nick's Day, my 11 month anniversary with my honey, and the first honest-to-goodness snowy day of this winter. I love the way it brightens up the windows, reflecting sunlight. Last night I tried to get my cat to come out on my balcony to taste some snowflakes, but you could tell he was conflicted from the way he hung back and scrunched up his nose. Curiousity .... but alas ... disdain won out. Maybe I'll carry him out tonight.

Attack of the Killer Buffet

2007-12-01T20:08:00.000-06:00

Today a buffet table almost killed me. Oh yes, you may think that your furniture is indifferent to your existence, but this buffet of mine had murder in its heart. All I wanted was a surface to put my microwave on and free up counter space, and some nice pantry space below. All it wanted was for me to die.

I speak of a Leksvik Ikea buffet. Spawn of Satan. I recommend crossing yourself after looking at the picture, if you dare.

At first I thought this buffet simply wanted to hassle me. Last night I brought it home, opened the box, and discovered that two parts had been damaged during shipment. They had small gouges and cracks in their finish. Since I'd spent $179 plus tax on the thing, and shopped around for other flatpack self-assemble furniture I'd decided was poorer quality, I felt entitled to have a piece of furniture that at least started out in good condition. I found out that IKEA didn't agree.

I called the store this morning 15 minutes after they opened and spent 15 minutes on hold. Finally a kind voice told me I could bring in the two damaged pieces for a replacement. Great. I drove to Bolingbrook and was helped almost immediately. After poking around a while and not finding any spare parts in their IKEA junkyard room, a nice lady ordered up a brand spanking new buffet from the warehouse. When it came we opened it together. Damaged. Again.

The funny part about that is the lady helping me seemed to think I should be fine with that. Uh, no. The feet were damaged. I was sure that my beautiful buffet would be a rocker. So she acquiesed to ordering up yet another brand new buffet. But after that, sorry, extremely picky and unreasonable lady. So we waited. Another flat-packed buffet arrived and we pulled out the pieces. You guessed it. Again. And worse. This one had a strip of wood peeling off.

I had to pick the best of the brutes.** I chose the rocker set, because upon standing them up I discovered that the feet were only damaged on the inside part, so there were just enough level millimeters on the outside to keep her steady. The others with their rough edges and pieces of veneer falling off would be bait for Rascal to start chewing to heck. As you can see, I had nothing but the best of intentions for my new buffet.

While I was engaged in this tragic comedy, the not-yet-built buffet was no doubt chanting satanic spells and doing black magic dances around my apartment. Because when I finally got out of the store it had started to snow.

I had heard about the wintry mix storm they were predicting. But it wasn't supposed to happen until afternoon! I checked my watch. Oh. It was afternoon. I climbed into my car and made for 355. They would of course clear and salt the highways first, making it the safest way to attempt to get home.

Everything seemed ok, snow hadn't accumulated much, it was just blowing about. But as I drove north it gradually worsened. Cars in front of me were braking, probably to make room for people getting on the highway. I slowed down. This was when the buffet's chanting was no doubt coming to a head.

Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I see the SUV next to me moving erratically. I realize that he has lost control and is skidding and swerving. Suddenly I am skidding too! I'm not sure what brought it on, but I think it was that I was pumping my brakes for the people in front of me and then suddenly got on the accelerator trying to get away from the SUV, and we'd both probably hit the same slick. I pumped my brakes and all of a sudden my car skidded hard to the right and I was practically thrown onto the shoulder. While I have never been able to figure out what to do in a skid situation (what in the world does "steer into a skid" mean anyway?), instinct took over. I immediately let up on the brake and recovered control. I was all straightened out. Behind me I saw that the SUV had skidded into my lane. He was still spinning too. He spun completely around to face oncoming traffic. Thank God no one was there. He regained control and ended up on the inside shoulder, facing the wrong way.

In all seriousness, that moment where I was thrown to the side, I can't help shake the feeling that it was a divine push. If I had stayed in my lane, my car would've been eaten by that SUV.

The buffet sent from Hell had lost. Back in Wheaton, the screws and cam locks fell to the floor, exhausted of their incantation. I went a max of 35 mph all the way home. I got to see another car skid halfway up the embankment. No one was harmed. It all happened in the same stretch. I'd never seen anything like it before. Cars skidding about on the other side of the highway, too. It was like driving in an ice skating rink. You never knew whose butt was going to hit the ground, and if you were unlucky it might happen right in front of you.

When I got home, I faced that buffet. I conquered it. As one last slap, at the very end as I tried to assemble the drawer, I discovered that they had packed two left-side pieces for the drawer. Not wanting to face the woman who thought I was unreasonable, or risk certain death on the road or defeat from the heap of wood before me, I drilled some new holes in that drawer piece and made it work anyway.

Let me just say that my new buffet looks awesome. But I can't help but think it also looks a bit ... defeated?

**I did ask for a partial refund for this not-perfect piece, and I was refused because it was "obviously a manufacturer's defect" and not IKEA's fault. I can see how this would be logical, since it is the manufacturer's fault that they sell their furniture through IKEA. They must know that IKEA likes to drop it and then let their customers discover the problem once they get it home and then tell them that those gouges and dents are part of the piece's "charm". Silly manufacturer. Interesting that we found 3 wrecked buffets, and yet I'm certain they aren't going to take the others off the shelf. Leave them for the next sucker.

Cat House Rules

2007-11-29T13:03:00.000-06:00

My 16 pound silver and black American shorthair cat pretty much believes that he controls my life.

There is no sleeping in. As soon at the alarm goes off, he climbs up on my chest and sticks his nose in my face, his whiskers tickling me. "Time to eat! Time to eat!" he is saying. I slide out of bed and stumble to the kitchen, Rascal milling in front of my every step, oblivious to the fact that he is actually slowing down my motions to dispense his kibble.

He makes sure I'm not too messy. I can't leave food out on the counter because he will get into it. Small plastic objects left on tables such as pens or sunglasses are knocked onto the floor and chewed to bits. Trash must be taken out regularly otherwise if it gets a little smelly he'll knock it over and drag it around the kitchen like a racoon.

He is a constant chaperone. If Jason and I try to snuggle together reading books or watching movies, Rascal likes to climb up between us and plop down in the middle, gravity slowly pushing him down between us like a wedge. When we finish eating Rascal likes to sniff the plates to make sure what we ate was interesting.

When I am typing on my laptop, he likes to curl up in my lap. Or sit on the keyboard. It depends on his mood, really, and how much he wants to hassle me. In my lap he often gets tired of my arms dancing over his head as I type, and angry that my hands are too busy to pet him. So he reaches out and bites down on them. I just good-naturedly ignore it and swat him away. But the other day after he released my arm he hissed at me. Hissed. It was the first time ever that I'd heard him do it. My little kitten is becoming a rebellious teenager.

Or perhaps he is still punishing me. Recently I tried to keep him outside my bedroom for the night. I have been suffering from miserable morning sniffles for months now. As the frost sets in and ragweed dies away, the sniffles continue. I'm beginning to suspect my best furry friend. It's tough because he's slept with me for 3 years now. But I had to try.

Scratch scrach. Meow! Meow! MEOW! Scratch scratch. Meowwww. Plaintive wailing. All night. This must be why people in cartoons throw shoes and flowerpots at cats singing on their fences. Finally I gave up, exhausted, and let him in. He immediately jumped up onto the bed, curled up at my feet and fell sound asleep. He was even more tired than I was.

I've known for a long time that it is Rascal, and not I, that make up the rules in my house. Once, on a romp across my keyboard, he sent me a clear message. His back claws slipped under one of my keys and popped it off. I've never been able to get it back on straight. Now that key sits in a drawer, and there is a gaping hole in my keyboard like a face missing a tooth.

Which key do you suppose Rascal dispatched?

"Control," of course.

Novel Countdown

2007-11-26T20:41:00.000-06:00

I think I may occasionally report on here my novel's progress. I am currently up to 44 pages, double spaced.

Writing Class

2007-10-04T12:42:00.000-05:00

The dead birds on the walls are probably the first things that will strike you as you walk into my novel-writing class. Their glass eyes gaze down at you, their wings and necks are frozen at odd angles. They are ducks, hawks, woodpeckers. Some are stuck to pieces of wood. Some are on the shelf against the wall.

It's an adult continuing education class, and we get whatever random classroom is available. So we ignore the birds except for the occasional pun that leaks into our discussions. Dean, the instructor, occaisionally gets freaked out by them when he turns his head from the blackboard and realizes that one is staring at him.

Last night we broke down plot and discussed how you develop the arc of a story. You start with a protagonist who has an object of desire, and motivations behind him that propell him to that desire. But alas, there are conflicts! Inner conflicts (emotions, hang-ups), personal conflicts (people in the protagonist's life), and environmental ones (forces of nature).

I am a protagonist! The object of my desire is to write a novel. My motivations are many -- my love of writing, my wanting to share a story and my perspective, the sense of accomplishment, the possibility of success. My conflicts are many -- inner: doubt, maybe I'm not good enough, maybe it'll be terrible, maybe I'll get bored with it after 30 pages, maybe I'll never get to 30 pages because I'll be trying to make the first 20 perfect. personal -- the time demands of my friends, family, and boyfriend (not malicious, of course!) environmental -- beautiful fall weather beckoning me outside, the time required by my job, chores, moving at the end of this month, even the writing class itself! Will this protagonist be able to rise above these conflicts? Or will she fall short, but learn something about herself in the process? ... stay tuned!

Astronomologic ...

2007-09-09T00:21:00.000-05:00

I was thinking about the word "Universe". "Uni" must mean "one", like unicycle, or unity. And then "verse" makes me think of a song or poem. So, being part of this universe is like we're all a part of this one complex and beautiful song, and everything that is working within it has rhythm and purpose in one vast sonorous symphony.

Note: I was not drunk when I wrote this. But I was a bit tired.

Dragon Fly

2007-09-04T15:38:00.000-05:00

Today a brilliant green dragonfly with a wingspan larger than my hand flew into our lab. We were harvesting pots of switchgrass and the doors were wide open since one person was running in and out with the plants she was rinsing the soil from. He came in and hovered a bit around our pots of switchgrass, no doubt wondering why things seemed so familiar and prairie-like but also so strange and lab-like. Then he came around the chest freezer and hovered on the other side of this cage-like partition, right at my knees, just so I could have a really nice look at him, before he ascended out of sight.

I am pretty sure Jason sent him, on his way out of town to Michigan for 9 days for work. Thank you, love!

The Party that Shall Not Be Named

2007-07-20T22:24:00.000-05:00

Had to go check out the Party that Shall Not Be Named in Naperville tonight to see all the Harry Potter revelers. As you know, tonight is the night!! Check out the boxes of books at the Barnes and Noble all labeled "DO NOT OPEN UNTIL JULY 21!" Naperville was transformed into a more magical world. I saw Dumbledore, Hagrid, Ron, Hermione, Harry, Dobby, Rita Skeeter, Professor Magonigal, many quidditch players, living portraits ... here's one of Ron and Hermione ... and Potter Potties, gotta love it ...

Storm

2007-07-19T22:32:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I drove directly into the red part on the radar map, just trying to get home to my no-doubt terrified cat. The sky was haunting. flashes every other second illuminated a claustrophobically low ceiling of grey clouds. I had the impression that God was soldering together heaven and hell, sparks flying everywhere.

On the highway I met the rain. It rattled my car until I was imagining it being pounded apart around me, paint striped off, belts shaking off their rotors, bolts dribbling behind me. I actually felt like I was swimming. Like my car was gliding instead of driving, wake churned up behind me, and I squinted into the windshield as if trying to blink away the water flooding the glass. There were seconds when I saw nothing but spiraling rivulets of water. Seconds where the scene before me was lit up as bright as noon by another flash of lightening. The ramp I took from one highway to another reminded me of a waterslide from a few years ago.

I took refuge for a little while under an overpass. I was just tired of driving. I threw on the hazard flashers and let trucks and cars fearlessly stream by me, dousing me with wake and mist. While just beyond the bridge I hid under rain pummeled the asphault, it boiled a pot just after you add the pasta. I had passed some other cars doing the same. Finally I got the guts to merge back on the highway, but only for a little while. I quickly got off and took side-streets home.

I wanted to write a poem about this. But instead it took too many words. Prose was streaming out of me. And the chaos of the storm wouldn't line itself up neatly into rows of verse. So this is my poem.

Yucky

2007-04-18T20:54:00.000-05:00

I've never felt sympathy for aliens before. But here I am, lying in my bed, sniffling, mouth breathing because my nose is clogged, my face sore from sneezing and being swatted at with tissues, feeling that if jason, the sweetest man on earth, saw me like this, he might reconsider his epithet "my pretty", and I feel sorry for those aliens. You know -- the ones in that movie that were slaughtering all humanity on earth, zapping them into dust with lasers or grinding them up and using their blood for fertilizer, from that awful remade movie with Tom "Can I Be Any Weirder" Cruise, and the little girl with the very memorable shriek. We had a common enemy, me and those unbelievably nasty aliens -- the common cold.

Rascal is looking at me as though asking what I've done with the girl that normally feeds him. She's here, curled up into fetal position inside this body possessed by cold bugs. When I have a cold, I feel insulated from the world. As though my head is burried under large heavy pillows. Sounds are dulled. My brain is fuzzy, as though operating on low oxygen. I'm more thoughtful, more introspective, though the thoughts come more slowly and are punctuated by a refrain of "ughs" and "icks".

Who likes being sick? There have been many days that I've foolishly wished I was sick, to have an excuse to stay home and clean house or lie around with Rascal all day. But the actuality of a sick day is more frustrating than relaxing. You stand up to do some chore or other, and you get tired much too quickly, realize you're making yourself dizzy or your throat feels worse, and soon you're back in bed, cursing the bugs again. Feeling wrathful like a lazer-wielding alien.

Bird Paradise

2007-04-16T20:47:00.000-05:00

Saturday. An overcast sky, a cool almost-but-not-quite spring day. Jason and I seize it, we've been waiting a long time for a weekend day like this one. On the way we stop into Caribou for vanilla latte (his) and chai latte (moi), then drive on to Delnor Park in St. Charles. We take the path out of the little parking area, and the park belongs only to us. The trees and brush are speckled with green, no full leaves yet. You can still see deep into the woods through almost barren branches. We sip the lattes in our hands, warmth seeping from the paper cups into our fingers. I brought the list of local birds that he'd given me. A guide to the birds of DuPage County that he'd found for me in the arboretum bookstore. We are in Kane County just then, but never mind, close enough. Jason's binoculars were tucked under his arm. "Canadian Geese", he points down by the water. They nuzzle each other just near the dam, and we chuckle a bit. Even though they're unimpressively common, they're still on the list, and I mark them off. It takes a moment for me to realize why Jason is intent on some trees about twenty feet in front of us. I see them. Tiny birds fluttering in their branches, barely visible to me, their dull coloration blending in to the woodsy backdrop. "Kinglets," he says, and puts his binoculars to his eyes. "Golden-crowned," he adds. He hands off the binoculars to me, and I squint through them, trying to find them in their limited field. It takes forever for me to trap one in my view, since they flit from branch to branch and only alight for a moment, tense and turning their heads every which way. They must also have ordered an extra shot of espresso in their morning coffee. And finally, once I find the small bird, it takes even longer for me to spot the tiny yellow stripe on his head which separates him from his ruby-crowned cousin. We get a little closer and ... I see it!

Also spotted that day ... ruby-crowned kinglets, mallards, mourning dove, great horned owl (but we saw that earlier by the courthouse in Geneva), hairy woodpecker, northern flicker (beautiful colors!), eastern phoebe, white-breasted nuthatch, brown creeper (Jason's favorite), american robin, dark-eyed junco, common grackle, and the infamous "jason e" bird.

Walking Through the Lilac Park in Winter

2007-04-14T22:39:00.000-05:00

for jason e

Whisps of white shift over the brick path;
Powder swirls around my ankles.
No footsteps in the snow but mine,
And they are quickly swept away.

The park sleeps, tucked in for winter
Dreaming of spring sunset strolls,
Trilling warblers, lilac perfume,
A gallery of tulips nodding in the breeze.

In a warmer season I would meet you here,
Take your hand, lead you down this path
To discover some shady and fragrant corner,
And lie on the grass, the blades tickling our legs.

But last fall, the watercolor landscape bled
To brown, tapestries torn from every branch,
and every private room exposed
To austere sculptors: snow and ice.

Yet, I love that I met you in winter.
A metaphor for two people who love poetry:
Our hearts two bulbs in frozen ground
Full of hope for wet spring.

I think of you as I walk through this park
With frost on my lips,
My body clenched against the chill,
And I wonder if this winter stratified our souls.

I recall the sunlight in your smile
And the tiny green leaves in my heart –
The ones waiting for the thaw --
Begin to unfold.

Southside Irish Parade

2007-03-14T12:12:00.000-05:00

Last weekend I went with family and boyfriend to the South Side Irish Parade. I had never witnessed this spectacle before, so I thought I'd report back my findings:

Green Dogs: 2
Kids sleeping in wagons: 4
Men in Superman Costumes: 1
St. Patricks: 1
Irish Dance Schools: 4+
Drunk People: 1000s
Non-Irish People: 1000s
Irish Sweaters: 108
Candy caught by myself or sister: 0
Hugs given to Tony the Tiger by sister: 1
Amount of money owed to sister for aforementioned hug: $5
Bagpipe bands: lots
Men in Kilts: lots
Women in Kilts: some
Trekkies in parade: 1
Giant wrenches held by pipefitters union members: 2
Number of different potato dishes in Irish lunch buffet: 4
Giant walking glasses of Guiness: 1
Migrating Sandhill cranes spotted: 100s
Number of people crossing street in middle of parade when technically not allowed to: 5
Number of people not wearing green: 4
Green beers spotted: 5
Buckets of beer spotted: 10
Boys I kissed: 1
Boys I held hands with: 1
German boys I was in love with: 1
Irish boys I was in love with: 0

Germination Instructions

2007-02-21T18:17:00.000-06:00

(warning -- sappy alert)

Jack, my hiking buddy, has been sending me emails asking for my "expert" advice. It seems that he has a little horticultural problem. The seeds he special-ordered, for an exotic tropical African plant that he'd very much like to grow for its delicious berries, will not take. These berries are special, Jack tells me, because if you put one under your tongue, everything sour will taste sweet. Pure lemon juice transforms into sugar water to your senses. The instuctions ask for acidic soil, so he's practically nuked his soil with sulfur. And he's tried to counteract the buffering in the soil by diluting it with sand. He's also bought a pH meter from Home Depot that reads "7" no matter whether you put the sensor in bicarbonate or carbonic acid. But the seeds just sit in their pots with their non-existant arms folded and shaking their non-existant little seed heads, "uh-uh, no way". Some have even germinated with much promise, only to die back immediately, "psyche!".

For a while I was having a little bit of a love problem. I put my heart out there more than a few times. So many bad dates. So many good dates that turned out to be with bad boys. So many, in fact, that as a scientist and an analytical thinker I started to think that since I was the common denominator on all these dates, that perhaps I was the problem. I was too picky, or too sensitive, or too nice, or too ... something that I didn't know, and would never be able to fix. A couple times love even sprouted, only to die back. Nothing stings quite like that. To think you finally have it all figured out, and the rug pulled out from under you. Meanwhile my friends around me seemed to find love so effortlessly.

For Jack, I've been trying to come up with the secret to his seeds. While this is definitely not my area of expertise, I did take a plant propagation class in school, where I learned that some seeds are tougher than others. Some can be dropped haphazardly onto any soil, any conditions, and they will just grow like mad. Some require a trick to germinate. For example, some seeds need to be soaked in acid to mimic what it is like to pass through the gut of an animal that happened to munch on the fruit they hid in. It's a trick the plant evolved to have - so that they would not germinate in the wild until an animal had the chance to carry them a ways from the mother plant, and euphamistically, to ensure that there would be nutrients deposited all around the baby seed. Horiculturalists will sometimes "scarify" these seeds with hard seed coats to get them to germinate. They will file tiny scratches into the seed's outer shell to give the tiny embryonic plant inside a chance to break through.

Fire is another such trick. Pictures of Yellowstone following the great forest fires in the 80s famously depict the masses of purple fireweed that sprang forth out of the scorched earth between the blackened and barren tree stalks, having lain dormant in the soil for ages waiting for the signal of intense heat to inform them that the previously closed forest was now allowing light to shine in. There are also some pine cones that will only open to release their seeds after they've been subjected to fire.

Cold can be yet another trick for germination. Seeds may require "stratification", a period of cold and dampness, basically a "winter". Purple liatris needs this for one, a prairie flower. The prairie is a clockwork of plants that bloom at just the perfect time during the season. Too soon and they may be burned by frost, too late and they may be shaded out by taller prairie grasses. Some wait until very late when the grasses dry out and fall back before making their late appearance. All must be timed perfectly with when their pollinators will be able to find them, bees, moths, butterflies, even wind.

It would appear that my own heart required some tricks for proper germination. It needed to be broken a few times. To be devoured by loves that ended up not working out so well. To have little holes filed into it, little hurts from when I felt crushed by others, little emptinesses from times in my life I will miss. My heart needed the fire of someone passionate to bring it to life. It also required a "winter", a barren and loveless time where I felt spring would never come, to truely appreciate it when it did. And it needed for the timing to be just right.

I still haven't figured out the secret to Jack's seeds. But I believe I may have found the secret to my own germination problem, since I already feel the tiny leaves in my heart unfolding ... jason.

An Announcement

2007-02-15T16:44:00.000-06:00

I love Jason!

How We Met

2007-02-12T12:39:00.000-06:00

One of the first things someone will ask when I introduce Jason, is "How did you meet?" It's a very simple question, really, and this person is expecting the simple and true answer that I will give them: "Through friends."

But it always gives me a moment of pause, a moment of my life flashing before my eyes, and the parts of his that I've learned of so far, and I want to start at the beginning, the very beginning: when he was born, and when a few years later, I was born, and all the circumstances ... where he lived, where I lived, that we did not live near enough to each other to meet at the wrong time.

His grandfather introducing him, as a boy, to a great love of nature, a great blue heron just around the bend of their path, his head turned to their footsteps, wings quivering in readiness to leap into the air, and into a boy's heart. My dad taking the little green paperback dichotomous key around the backyard so that we could key out the apple tree, the ash, I still remember standing under the ash tree with the leaves in my hand, and it was a new and exciting game to know that this was not just any tree.

We both loved dinosaurs, and for some reason, the stegosaurus. Perhaps we were both pacifists from early on, going for the vegetarian one. When he was catching dragonflies, I was catching fireflies, and I left mine on the picnic table overnight in a jar, and coming back the next morning to grave disappointment, while he raised his more mercifully in an acquarium.

And then there were the hardships and heartbreaks we endured, each with its lonely pain, where knowing that the other person just existed might have made things tolerable. But without that knowlege, with no crutch to stand on, we learned so much more, and became who we are. We learned we are fragile, but we endure. There were our almost-loves, our almost-forevers, and when they ended, we had to trust that was for a reason, one that we wouldn't know for a while.

I don't know, yet, what inspired Jason to first love and write poetry. But I didn't like poetry at all until my senior year of high school, when I had an influential teacher named Mr. Brown who introduced me to the modern poets. Perhaps if I hadn't been able to love and appreciate poetry, I wouldn't have been able to love and appreciate Jason, since it is so much a part of him.

And then there were the moments that turned the trajectories of our lives in wild directions, but directions toward each other none-the-less. A moment on a mountaintop in Colorado for Jason which made him reconsider what was important to him. A moment in an ordinary hallway for me, when I was introduced to the first soil scientist of my life, who happened to be looking for summer help.

And there was a time when we were very far apart, in California. I loved it there. I had a life there. But something called me back - my family, a job waiting for me. But maybe something else, too. In fact, it always felt like Cali was temporary for me, from the day I arrived.

And then our mutual friends -- only two degrees apart we were, for many years. Our email addresses in mass emails inviting us to things were nearer to each other than we ever were. Thank goodness Susie came to work at Argonne. Thank goodness Susie's father knew our boss at Argonne from college. Thank goodness I came back to Argonne and met Susie, and that Susie knew a certain Kelly B., who knew a certain boy. And thank goodness we didn't meet sooner. We both agree that timing could have hurt us.

So how did Jason and I meet? Maybe next time I should be ready with the answer I feel is closest to the simple truth: "A miracle."

A Poem About Soil

2006-12-18T22:03:00.000-06:00

I can't believe it, but I wrote a poem tonight. It has been forever since I've done this. And about soil, no less! Well, I'm not planning on making this blog into an exclusive poetry session, that's just how it's been lately, and I promise it is only a phase. But check it out, I wrote a dirty poem!!

Into the Soil

I sink my fingers into the garden floor –
Fleshy human roots reaching
into the world below.
An organic aroma emerges
from the soil explored by my hands.
Decaying violets, gladiolas, maple leaves
offer their souls up
as their bodies melt into black humus.
This is how, one day, the last of my body shall exhale away.
But for now I turn up the remains of ancestors
And sink embryos of new plants just under the surface
So new life will send up periscopes out of the darkness –
A stem, some leaves –
Yet spend much of their energy seeking
Essentials from the underworld.

Other secret things may happen there:
Flowers may shake hands underground
And entwine each other’s roots in darkness
To support or strangle one another.
And some roots may rot away in sickness,
and slugs may usurp sugary blood --
a plant may struggle against an unseen enemy
until its leaves pale
and it drops them one by one as tacit tears.
There are victories in this world, too –
They manifest above, as tiny swollen seeds,
With little fanfare.

Then there are the others that live below
Those that gnaw on nature’s bloated remains
And unmake dead things to be made again.
They are the undertakers and embalmers,
And accountants, storing up riches.
But these workings, too, go on unseen
As I scar their world with my tools
And the mounds of earth I mould up,
become new mountains for ants and spiders.

I pretend for a minute
that this garden is mine to govern,
These plants my loyal subjects,
And this patch of earth –
I imagine it is also my earth.
But I know better.
After all, it is I on my knees in this garden,
bowing my head in obeisance,
hands petitioning the soil.

Another "Love" Poem

2006-12-16T15:42:00.000-06:00

Dedicated to My Heart

I’d like to dedicate this poem …
Lonely or aching, brave or bleeding,
Valiant, stolen, sick,
Sometimes worn on a sleeve
(Which the author of this poem does not recommend)
Often in the wrong place,
Or,
Sometimes in the right place
Just at the wrong time.
I dedicate this poem to you --
You.
Who have failed me time and again.

And, if I wasn’t relying on you
To beat once a second
To supply blood to my lungs,
I’d tell you off once and for all,
“It’s over,” I’d say,
“We’re not right for each other,”
and, “We should be friends.”
Then maybe I could place the ad:
SWF seeks sturdy heart
For long walks alone
Through difficult terrain,
Prefers: non-smoking,
courageous,
non-breakable.

This poem I wrote a few years ago after reading one too many sappy love poems, and not being in love myself at the time. I think this one would be super fun to read at some open mic night, hopefully in between two especially sappy love poems :)

Loves -- Another Poem

2006-11-22T23:46:00.000-06:00

I felt like I needed to post another poem to counter-act the other. Maybe I'll eventually post all my poetry. I've written less than a dozen. I'm not an oober poet, just a dabbler. I first drafted this in high school and it won some high school award, I forget, and then wrote a new version of it maybe 3 years ago -- perhaps when I knew a little more on the subject? Still learning, though. The "after Stephen Dunn" thing is a homage because he wrote this really excellent poem also called "Loves", and I am a bit borrowing his unique idea. It's sort of like when an amateur repaints a master's work to learn from his techniques. If you walk through the Louvre you see tons of aspiring artists doing it. Anyway, here it is:

Loves
(after Stephen Dunn)

Love is what I love most,
the kind that sweeps me off my feet
and jitterbugs me around the hall
with just a kiss of the eyes.

There’s something majestic to love
in a cloud of stars, and something
in a crescent moon, reminiscent
of an obnoxious grin
from a Cheshire cat.

I love the absolute dark--
the liquid blackness
that pools in my eyes,
inking out the whole world,
and me with it.

Of colors, I love purple. Of foods, Mexican.
Who does not love emperor penguins?
They waddle about,
beaks pointing to frigid blue skies,
as if they know it all.

When the trees come aflame, I love the fall,
and when thunderclouds engulf the sky,
and summer afternoons become pregnant shadow,
rain is coming,
I love that anticipation.
I have never loved the winter,
but it earned my respect back home, in Chicago,
with frost that burned my fingers through thick gloves.

I love words, especially those
that communicate
and the ones that lift me up
just by seeing them against the page
like, light … lithe …life,
maybe I love the letter l:
its slender grace, its lilt, its cursive loop.
And love, of course, such a dazzling word,
to see it, to say or hear it,
to mean it,
I love it more each time.

Soilies Descend on Indianapolis

2006-11-15T22:26:00.000-06:00

We're here. We're dirty. And we ain't leavin' till the last soil organic matter compound structure has been projected on a powerpoint slide and gawked at!

Yes, it's the Soil Science Society of America conference. Why Indianapolis, you might ask? Well, someone told me an interesting anecdote -- about 25 years ago one of the first of these annual meetings was held in Las Vegas. They've never returned. Why? They were banned by the city of Vegas. "You took up every single hotel room in this town. And your people don't gamble." True that. Drink, yes. Gosh, yes. But why zone out in front of a slot machine when you can geek out with some other soilies? Actually, I think if it were just the soilies, Vegas would've invited us back. We know how to party. Soil Ecology Society conferences: nuf said. The problem is really the agronomists and the crop scientists that share this meeting with us, they can be a little old school.

Favorite things overheard at this meeting:

"This soil has 75% base saturation. That's 75% B.S." (pause) "Kind of like me."

"Soil scientists do good science with bad methods."

Speaker: "Some of us are still teaching our students the lignin theory of soil organic matter formation. In my opinion that's right up there with teaching creation science." Audience: "oooooooooh."

Soil scientist trying to get others to help him finish his cake: "Come on, you guys have got to help me sequester this carbon."

Name of 3-dimensional mapping program for soil: "Blob3D"

Name of factor describing how constrictions in soil slow down soil water flow: "Retardation Factor." (Sort of felt like this factor applied to me and how well the presentation was entering my brain. I think it may have been slowed by this retardation factor.)

Abbreviation for mineral hydrolyzable carbon: "HyMin."

Name for particulate organic matter that is separated by flotation in high density salt solution: "Floaters."

Naive me to renowned scientist: "Oh, you're at OSU? Awesome. Is that in Columbus or Cincinnati?" (pause) Renowned scientist: "Heavens! Oregon State University, not Ohio!"

Renowned scientist visiting my poster who is keynote speaker at this conference and has written many classic papers and books and is doing me a tremendous honor by visiting my poster: "Are you familiar with my method of permanganate extractions?" Me: "Um. No. Refresh my memory."

Postcard From the Outer Banks, North Carolina

2006-11-02T19:43:00.000-06:00

There are three crabs on the bottom of the little swimming pool behind the beach cottage. They pace the floor, wall to wall. Today a Nor'easter blew down the banks and I went and stood on the beach. I watched a sea gull fly with all its might into the wind yet not move an inch. Sometimes I feel like that. The ocean was in white caps. I watched the sand blow down the beach, swirling like fog, just below knee level. It was almost ghostly. Footprints evaporated before my eyes.

We went to the top of the Currituck lighthouse and I was terrified of the wind. We were 160 feet off the ground, and I felt like the wind would like nothing more than to pluck me up and drop me into the sound. But it was beautiful. The trees are just beginning to turn here. And the red brick lighthouse stands out against the blue sky.

My favorite lighthouse was Cape Hatteras. It's painted in fanciful swirls of white and black, and is so tall. Where the Currituck's red stands out against the sky, this one leaps. They paint the lighthouses distinctively here so that they can guide people in daylight as well as at night.

I tried hang gliding on the sand dunes, just down the road from Kitty Hawk. You attach yourself to the center of the kite, pick up the kite, and start running as fast as you can down the dune, until your feet don't touch the ground any more. We were on the hang gliding bunny hill, so not very fearsome. I was a bit more concerned about climbing the lighthouse than the hang gliding.

Our Song

2006-09-19T22:55:00.000-05:00

Our Song or Song of the Train

Our song always begins with bells --
stacatto, alternating tones
brimming with anticipation.

Then comes a crescendo
of rolling percussion
growing to engulf us.
We take each others hands
just before a burst of notes

out of tune
squaking clarinet reeds, bent flutes.
The music pauses dramatically.
The conductor is poised on his platform.
We look at each other.

Our first kiss.

The first tenor sings out into the night --
the single lyric to our song --
"All Aboard!" he trebles.
You climb up into the orchestra.

The music fades into the distance
but the percussion continues in my chest.

This is a poem I wrote for my ex, while I was dating him. I was never satisfied with it so I never gave it to him, and now I know why. It's bittersweet, and I wanted to write him something happy. So now that it's over with him, I feel like the bittersweet tone is right, and I think it is finished after all. Perhaps it was prophetic that my poem would only come out bittersweet.

Having My Head in the Soil

2006-08-21T22:15:00.000-05:00

There is that expression about dreamers -- that they walk around with their heads in the clouds. And they say of practical people that they have both feet on the ground. I'm a mixed metaphor. My head is in the soil.

Ralph Waldo Emerson's wise words are published on the wall in my bedroom, under a beautiful photograph of a spring morning in the foothills of Virginia: "Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads." I suppose he meant to look around you at what we have on earth and truely appreciate the spiritual value of it's natural beauty, and if it's your belief, consider the creativity of the divine hand that made it that way. But, I like that quote because it has a more literal meaning to me. I appreciate what really is under our feet at all times -- the soil.

I am a soil ecologist. A few days ago I went to the Second City comedy club in Chicago with some friends and during an improv sketch the ensemble asked the audience to shout out a strange occupation that one of your friends has. My sister of course yelled out before anyone had a chance to think about it, "Soil scientist!" The comedienne on stage responded, "Soil scientist? As in the ground?" And then they proceeded to enact the lost work of Jane Austen, "Pride and Soil Scientist", the story of two people in love, but one is too proud, and one is too obsessed with soil.

The funniest part of the sketch, I think, was that both comedians knew tons about the soil, but not how to talk about it. We were left in stitches while the comedienne spoke of her love being like the white flaky things, y'know, in soil that give plants their food. The other said that without her love, his heart felt barren like the soil in the tropical regions that isn't really good and doesn't grow a lot or something like that, y'know what I mean.

I think that's why I like soil science. Everyone knows a lot intuitively about the soil already. It's important, of course. Things grow in it. Farmers tend to it with reverence. The abuse of it caused great hardship during the Great Depression causing the ecological disaster known as the Dust Bowl. Without it we'd have a tough time growing food, having clean water, sopping up and breaking down pollutants. Everyone's played in it one time or another, unless you're a big sissy.

And plus, everyone will turn into it eventually, unless maybe you shoot your body out into the vacuum of space like Dr. Spock or otherwise go to great extremes to preserve yourself. I had a professor once with a ballcap with the letters "TNS". He said they stood for "Temporarily Not Soil."

Personal Space

2006-05-10T12:29:00.000-05:00

Last year, on my way to work, I was hugged. Now I'm guessing you're about to skip on to the next person's blog, because to post about something so mundane sounds infinitely boring. I mean, is this Kelraiser one of those lame-type bloggers? One of thsoe who write stuff like "This morning I woke up and brushed my teeth and took a shower and realized I was out of shampoo ..." and that's as far as you get because your eyes have rolled into the back of your head and you just took a nose-dive into your keyboard, snoring?

Don't worry, this story is a little better than that. This is the story of the weirdest hug I ever received. I still wonder about that woman, and why she felt like it was the right thing to do at that moment, and looking back, I guess it was ... but I'm getting to the end of it before I begin, so here is the story in the proper order ...

Like I said, I was on my way to work. The usual commute I can do with with my eyes closed and my hands tied behind my back. Well, I've never actually tried to do it that way, but I imagine I could, if I could use one of those futuristic cars that works by mind control. There's rarely any traffic on the highways I take to work, but on this day there was. Usually I fly down the North-South Tollway and get on the ramp to the Stevenson Expressway, and then cruise right on to the exit I need for my work. But on this day there was an accident on the Stevenson, and it had clogged up traffic so far that the ramp between the highways was backed up, and I first had to lean on my brakes even before I'd made it to the ramp.

Despite the interruption in my crusing, I wasn't all that road enraged. My start time is flexible, and while I hate staying late to make up the time, it's ok. I cranked my radio and was just admiring the view from the bridge of the two backed up highways, the surrounding farmland and encroaching industrial development housing, and contemplating what I had lined up for work today. And as my eyes sort of wandered about, that's when I first saw her.

She was in my rear-view window. So close, I could swear she was sitting on my trunk. So close, I could tell the color of her eyes and the small wrinkles in her forhead that belied she was probably 40-ish. The only thing was, she was in her car, which was technically behind mine. Barely. She was a ... tailgater.

Hold on, I don't think you read that right. I can't stand tailgaters, and you need to feel that too if you're going to be on the same page with me here. So if you just kind of visually shrugged off the last word of that last paragraph without reading the italics with the necessary sneer and digust, please go back and reread it again. Maybe with some dramatic music playing in your head. Maybe think of zooming in on her head in an unflattering way and stamp the word "TAILGATER" in black block letters on her forehead, and maybe have her start cackling and twisting her mustache or something.

Together we crept down the ramp, about a half a car-length at a time, me obsessively glancing up in my rearview mirror ever few seconds. Unbelievable! She wouldn't back off! How was this going to get her anywhere faster? The highway was backed up for miles ahead of us. I felt the twinge of road rage. Then, reason won out - at the rate we were going, who really cared if she was on my tail, it wasn't like we were going to get in an accident at this speed. I decided to ignore her and focus on the car ahead of me, waiting for it to move another inch so I could take my foot off the brake.

I suddenly felt my car lurch forward. I looked up into my rearview mirror and saw eyes widen, her mouth forming the "O" as in "oh no," her head shaking in distress. I'd been hit. I let out the kind of sigh I reserve for my most aggravated situations, the one that practically collapses my lungs, and I pounded my steering wheel with the ball of my fist.

I pulled off onto the ramp's shoulder and sat in the car for a moment, very angry and not sure what to do. I'd never been in an accident before. I watched her to see what she would do, and at first I thought she was going to go right past me. She sat on the ramp for a moment, holding up traffic behind her. She wouldn't have gotten very far, of course, with the traffic. Instead she pulled up behind me.

I jumped out and circled to the back to check for damage. She jumped out too. And before I'd even made it to the back of my car she was right in front of me, violating my personal space yet again. She was very distraught, apologizing over and over and it seemed like she was pleading with me, "I'm sorry. I'm running so late for work. My car stalled and I rolled and you look like a very nice girl. See, there's no damages ..." I had made it to the bumper by this point, and was examing it.

Finally I looked up and met her eyes. I'd been too angry to do it before, but now seeing that my car was fine I was just exasperated. I was about to say something about how, as far as I knew, when your car stalls your brakes still work. Or something about how maybe, if she'd not been an inch from my bumper to start with, she would have had time to hit her brakes ... And that's when she threw herself at me. I mean, she hugged me -- the kind of hug that renders you immobile with your arms trapped straight on either side, and leaves you feeling utterly ridiculous.

And when she finally let go, we were left looking at each other. I was in total shock. And I was more angry than ever, and couldn't keep my thoughts straight to say any of the mean things I'd been planning. I've forgotten what I eventually said. It was something like, "Ok, fine, let's go then." And suddenly I was back in my car. I waved her to get back on the ramp first, and incredulously watched her tailgate a different car the rest of the way down. Then I just went to work.

It's weird how we float around in these bubbles of our own personal space, all of different dimensions, and what a trauma it can be when the bubble is violated by a stranger. When she hit my car, I was thinking, "how dare she be so close?" and then to have the same reaction, but even more, when she hugged me -- apparently her bubble was very small, and mine very large.

I think she changed the size of my bubble, just a little. It seems that the bubble that I was in, not only was I not comfortable with letting strangers into it, I also wasn't really looking out past the edge of it. Now I check inside other cars on the road for my hugger. It's funny to me that when you are doing the same commute every day at the same time, so is everyone else, so you should recognize some of your fellow commuters. Once in a while I see the same guy that reads the morning paper propped on his steering wheel while cruising along in the center lane. It's been a year and I haven't seen my drive-by hugger again.

What if Hell Hath No Fury?

2006-04-11T20:50:00.000-05:00

We had a Franciscan at church a couple weeks ago, a very good speaker, who talked a bit about how a lot of saints in their writings have come forward with their belief in universal salvation ... ie, no one goes to hell. Which got me thinking, is there a hell? Would I behave differently if there wasn't?

I am pretty sure that I would behave exactly the same, out of the quest to get into heaven. But is every good thing I do therefore because I actually expect something good in return? Not now, but in the afterlife? Is this tit-for-tat ideology really what my faith means to me? Doesn't it make all actions seem selfish in the grand scheme of things?

It is even weirder to think about if I'd behave differently if there was no heaven. I still think I would strive to be a good person, out of wanting to turn earth into a heaven of sorts: if everyone is kind and loves everyone else, life on earth is just better for everyone, especially if that's all we get.

And while I was pondering this, a friend of mine sent me a web site to this muslim writer who writes out against radical islam and on her web page is this quote:

I carry a torch in one hand
And a bucket of water with the other
With these things, I will set fire to Heaven
And put out the flames of Hell
So that no one worship God
Out of fear of Hell
Or greed of Heaven.

- Rabia, Sufi Muslim

It's weird how sometimes you suddenly hear several times in one week about some thing or concept that you've never even thought about or heard of before. All of these things at once got me thinking about if heaven and hell exist, and it got me thinking about how extremists use heaven and hell to manipulate people into doing what they want (or what these groups think that God wants). I think I heard somewhere that suicide bombers are told that dying for their god in such a way gurantees their eternal reward. And didn't past Popes promise salvation to all those who died during the Crusades? It makes me wonder if things would be better if there was no hell or heaven, in the sense of your afterlife being punishment in flames or a reward that is greater than what you can find on earth.

Is there really a hell? Would it matter if there wasn't?

If you need for there to be justice, where bad people go to a bad place after death, this seems like a selfish wish. Better to hope that no one is truely bad, and that bad actions can be redeemed.

Is there really a heaven? Would it matter if there wasn't?

Probably the latter two questions will inflame people more than the first two. But why do people need for there to be a heaven? Could it be a selfish idea to want to extend your existence and be rewarded for your good actions? Isn't it also a bit of a selfish need to want to be reunited with your loved ones in the afterlife? If you found out there was no heaven, would you honestly want to go back and change your whole life around to be more self-serving, when your good actions made life better for others and also made you feel good about yourself at the time?

If there is a heaven or a hell, I imagine it to be a sort of dream where you replay your life over and over in your head, and feel joy or regret for your actions. Kind of like how people say "wow, I saw my whole life flash before my eyes" when they have a near death experience. Except that the flash lasts forever. I'm definitely no authority, though, this is just my imagination.

p.s. I place no claim that these views truely reflect any real catholic ideologies or necessarily my personal viewpoint in absolute terms, they are merely my mind's meanderings.

E-Date

2005-07-26T20:42:00.000-05:00

I owe my current happiness to Al Gore. At least, that's what he'd claim, right, since he invented the internet?

Over a year ago, one of my college buds invited me to a website called Orkut - a free friend networking site, not unlike Friendster. (Side note - when I invited my Dutch friend to join, he kindly informed me that "kut" is a very not nice word in Dutch for part of the female anatomy.) And so I got on it, had a bit of fun playing with the profiles and checking out what my friends wrote about themselves. I wrote a couple cheesy (I like cheese, see the theme?) testimonials about them. And then I joined a few of the fun online communities, like "AnyoneButBush 2004" (didn't work out so well, but I'm sure I got myself an FBI file for it) and "Knitting" (swapped a few stories about socks) - even joined a community for people that like soil (more on that another time).

I can't remember exactly what triggered me to do it, but I randomly emailed someone. I remember feeling a bit frustrated at the time because I was not meeting anyone new. I was out of grad school, moved back home with the p's, hanging out with my college and high school buds - but it seemed like our circle never grew. And I also kept hearing about people trying out internet dating. I met someone who was engaged to someone he met online. Anyway, all of these circumstances culminated in my deciding to just search people in the Chicago area for someone I might have something in common with, even just to make a new friend.

Greg and I talked for a couple of months online before we met for lunch. I remember making sure it was a very public place, and giving all the info I had on this internet guy to my sister just in case I should mysteriously disappear. I didn't tell my parents for ages how I met Greg, because I was sure that they'd be weirded out by it.

It may seem a little weird to use the net - perusing the profiles just like comparing CD's on Amazon or something. And then there's all the stigmas - I had a friend who dated a guy she met on the internet and he said, "Hey, if this works out, we'll just have to tell everyone we met at a concert or something cool like that." And of course there's the visions of 40 year old predatory men with unibrows and pocket protectors typing away and giggling like schoolboys on the other end - you never know what you're going to really get until you meet IRL (in real life).

But weirdness all vanishes when you meet the right guy. Anyway, what's weirder than meeting a drunk guy at a bar while you're drunk, and giving him your phone number? From such humble beginnings, many a happy knot has been tied ...

But I have to say, thanks Al. And much thanks to my alma mater, the University of Illinois, since they are the ones that really invented the internet, of course!

Update: We broke up. Never mind! I still like Al Gore, though.

2005-07-20T09:33:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I started this blog, and since no one will ever read it, just thought I'd write something stupid and post it to the millions ...

Cheese is good.