Category Archives: Nerds.

Chin up, muggle. There’s more than one way to be magic.

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I have a lovely little page-a-day calendar in my office. It’s full of quotes and illustrations. Most are at least interesting, some are absolutely excellent, and some days — perfection. (Exception: it turns out I’m not in love with classic Texan quotes… why do they always use the word ain’t?!)

Here’s today’s:

{By Unraveled Design - unraveleddesign.com}
{By Unraveled Design – unraveleddesign.com}

Here’s what I read: Chin up, muggle. There’s more than one way to be magic.

There’s always more than one way. But magic has go to the be the goal, don’t you think? Magic in some sense of the word, anyway.

 

Seth and I just got back from a rather magical vacation over the long weekend. I wrote two partial posts in the airport and got another mostly pounded out on Tuesday night. Lots of stuff to say, but when it’s not right, it’s not right. So Glinda the Good Witch and my friend Melissa, saying no without actually ever saying no, and the conundrum of commitment to the uncertainty of IVF are all presently on hold.

The spark will hit me when it’s time.

In the mean time, I’m a muggle with her chin up and tall shoes on. My head looks square, but my legs look great. Compromises.

ASSUME :: EMUSSA

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My freshmen year of college, some friends and I went taert-ro-kcirt-ing in the dorms on Halloween. Taert-ro-kcirt-ing is trick-or-treating backwards. Obviously.

We dressed up (just barely– some cat ears and butterfly wings or something of the sort) and went from door to door with a plastic jack-o-lantern full of candy that we handed out. Maybe we collected for UNICEF or something while we were at it? I can’t really remember… but I do remember it being an absolute blast.

I’m normally pretty scared to interact with people, especially people I don’t know. And people I do know. So all people, actually. But when we taert-ro-kcirt-ed, I don’t really remember minding at all. I felt silly and confident and fun as we knocked on each door and handed out candy and a smile– people didn’t expect it, they were so happy. Like I said, an absolute blast.

And maybe it is that simple. When you want to do the opposite of something, just turn the word around and do it. That easy.

I hope anyway. And here’s why.

Remember that chocolate I told you about earlier this week? All of that delicious and amazing chocolate?

Do you also remember about that little binge eating thing that tends to haunt me from time to time?

Welllll…. this:

A trash can full of shame...
A trash can full of shame…

Sigh. It was not the best afternoon of my life.

Delicious, of course, but so very out of control.

But why? When I have so much to look forward to!

I mean, first thing tomorrow morning, I’m getting on a plane and heading to Miami, one of the only places in the country currently untouched by this mess:

So much cold, so much snow.
So much cold, so much snow.

… where I will meet my husband for a lovely long weekend and to attend his work Christmas party where all of his co-workers and their spouses will be waiting to meet me and look at me and talk to me and realize how ugly and stupid and weird and lame I am…

Ah ha!!

I’m stressed. Stressed backward is desserts. So I’m eating desserts. Doing the opposite.

It’s science, don’t think too hard about it.

And the reason I’m stressed?

Really… it’s because I’m terrified. And even worse, I am certain that all of Seth’s coworkers and their spouses and basically all of the people of Miami are going to hate me.

What’s not to hate?! My jaw is so square. My hair is going to be so frizzy (Miami?! of all places!! with this HAIR?!). I haven’t lost any weight (I wanted to lose weight first!) and my clothes come from Target. I’m almost thirty-ONE and I have ZERO kids and I’m a NERD. A huge nerd. I really wish my right eye would open up as far as my left. Oh god oh god oh god. What am I even going to WEAR? What in my closet is the least make-you-hate-me-able of all???

 

Cheese and rice.

I have got to stop.

 

I assume that everyone who meets me down in Miami is going to hate me.

All evidence points to the contrary, of course– Seth loves these people and they love him back. Seth is awesome and Seth chose me so of course they’ll love me too. And if they don’t? B… F… D…

Not everybody clicks, and that’s ok. A truffle for everyone, you know?

But maybe it would be better to head to Miami with my jack-o-lantern full of candy before I start knocking on doors, if you know what I mean. To ditch the assumptions and just emussa instead that everyone is going to love me. That’s the opposite, of course.

Think it could be that simple?

 

Probably. And here’s why.

 

… I assumed that Theresa wouldn’t want to be in my book club because she was pretty and wearing fancy jewelry and drinking a fancy drink and married to a doctor and just seemed so cool. She overheard me telling someone else about it, though, and begged me to let her in. We’ve been texting ever since. I really, really like her.

… I assumed that Kristen wouldn’t want to be my friend because she’s pretty and thin and a pediatrician and therefore a “class A” doctor (not kidding about the classification system at my place of employment, that’s real), but today, after we ate lunch together, which we do pretty regularly, that Grumpy Gus told me I had “lifted her spirits” and wished me well  on my trip to Miami. We’re hanging out for my birthday next week.

… I assumed that my very young friend Emily (like younger than my sister AND brother) wouldn’t want to be my friend anymore after our mutual slightly-closer-to-both-our-ages-friend moved away over the summer, but Emily’s coming to my birthday dinner next week too. And also we do yoga and crafts and watch trash tv together. Traaaaaaash.

 

I wonder how much time, stress, and probably desserts, I could have saved myself from wasting, experiencing, and eating, respectively, had I gone in emussa-ing instead??? Not to mention how much cooler I could have played it if I hadn’t been busy trying to keep them from hating me instead of letting them like me like they were always going to do. (That’s a super confusing sentence. Leaving it.)

Eventually, this afternoon, I went to a little mini holiday party and ate some cocktail weenies (oy, so good) and got over it just a bit. I chatted with some people from another department (who I originally assumed hated me… but totally don’t– another excellent example of that assuming crap) and stopped the spiral. I’m going to face the day tomorrow essuma-ing instead of assume-ing and everyone is going to love me in Miami.

Or not. But it honestly doesn’t matter.

Regardless, the weather will certainly be warmer and I’ll get to spend a bit of time with my long lost husband (it’s really only two weeks, I’m being dramatic) and (you do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself around) that’s what it’s all about!

 

 

Coincidentally, I’ve talked about assuming before. But unfortunately, Tim Haight never taught me what happens when you assume something about yourself. Like that you’re super hate-worthy. Lessons are so much more difficult to learn on your own. I wish Tim were here.

He’d probably hate me anyway 😉

 

I’m so neurotic. You knew that already. Don’t hate me, k?

What Hatha Yoga with Rudra Taught Me About the “Like” Button

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A friend of mine from back in the day (Y-town for LIFE) recently posted an interesting entry on her blog and it got me thinking for days. It just kept popping back and back and back into my head. I loved what she said, but I also had a million alternative thoughts about the topic floating around and kind of wanted to write a rebuttal. It’s one thing to just come out here to this space and point-by-point rebut someone like Matt Walsh whose goal in life seems to be to get people riled up (and is he ever good at it!), but it’s different when it’s the musings of a friend… so I asked her what she thought.

I hemmed and hawed about it for a while because I didn’t want her to think I was some sort of jerk, but I just felt like I had so much to say and I wanted to discuss… here… with you… I finally got up the courage to send her a message while I sat on the runway in Lacrosse waiting to be re-fueled and re-flight planned and was just about out of things to do so I messaged Kacey. Her response was so excellent! She was totally cool with me running with her topic du jour (she’s kind of just cool like that in general) and so here we go! (Let’s check real quick on the jerk thing… Kacey? Or perhaps we should wait until the end…)

 

Kacey’s basic premise, and please forgive me if I’m misinterpreting, was that social media platforms like blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and the like, tend to be self-centered and focused on a culture of “look at me!” … that the desire for shares and likes and comments and such is really a desperate need to be acknowledged. And that that’s why many of us do it– to get the like or the comment or the share, to be acknowledged.

I don’t necessarily disagree, exactly, my rebuttal is more the notion that, at least in my mind, that all of that is ok. It’s ok to ask people to acknowledge you. (Hence the large number of times I’ve actually used the phrase “ACKNOWLEDGE MEEEEE!” both in this space and in real life… it’s like Kacey was speaking directly to me!)

It was so interesting to me that Kacey and I could do the same thing (blog) and use the same types of social media and ultimately take away such a different message from it. I was fascinated by that and I kept turning the notion of WHY that was over and over and over in my head until I think I finally stumbled upon something when I received an email reply from my long lost friend Lotisha who is Pauly-Shore-style in the army now. Literally.

…

Lotisha and I were labmates back in DC and I just adore her. She’s the tiniest person with the biggest attitude and after I got over being terrified of her I realized that I actually looooved her. And one of the things Lotisha and I loved to do together (besides give mice gonorrhea) was take fitness classes. Mostly through Montgomery County. And it was with Lotisha that I took my first ever yoga class. Hatha Yoga with Rudra.

I went into yoga class expecting a workout with emphasis on strength and flexibility. Rurda, however, was a sweatpants-wearing, afro-haired, Costa-Rica-yoga-retreat-bound man who was way into yoga as a practice, not just as an exercise, and during our first class he taught us what the word namaste meant.

According to Rudra, saying namaste to someone else or even to yourself was equivalent to saying “I salute the inner light within you.” I of course looked it up after that and it’s hard to say if that’s true exactly, except that it is widely acknowledged as a respectful greeting or goodbye. Regardless, I like what Rudra said. A lot. (Now. Then I was all “oh snap, this is weird, I don’t think I like it,” but I was wrong as I so often find myself to be.) And I think, to me, the “like” button is really more of a namaste button– a way to acknowledge the “inner light” of another person’s activity, selfie, food choice, witty quip, photo-of-babies-doing-baby-stuff, whatever. The thing about it, whatever it is, that resonates with me.

 

Of course like any other living, breathing human, Facebook also infuriates me at times. It incites major jealousy, constantly feeding my little green monster (30-ish? on Facebook? there’s LOTS of babies, of which I can have none). And, although this may surprise you, this big square head of mine doesn’t often photograph very well and the pictures I do end up posting tend to be the very best chin down, tongue-to-roof-of-mouth, least squinty eyed, minimal frizz, good angle photos that happen. When given the opportunity to paint yourself, why not paint your best self… the self you feel most comfortable with? Leave the dirty laundry for the old blog.

The important thing, for me anyway, is the attitude I choose to approach it with. I can’t possibly be the only one painting my best face out there… which means other people probably aren’t always as gorgeous/happy/un-double-chinned as they appear. Right? (Although I suspect the babies are for the most part real. The monster! So green!) The thing is, I see these perfect posts, these lovely brush strokes on social media because I choose to and because I enjoy it. I am apparently totally cool with voyeurism and I love to see what people are up to. I also love that it keeps me connected with people I otherwise wouldn’t be connected to. Like Kacey! And her blog!

Even amongst the perfect pictures and the happy statuses though, we do still catch glimpses of the truth. And when we recognize those things, those little winks that were meant just for us, we can acknowledge them in another way altogether– it’s the behind-the-scenes connections that might be a little more meaningful.

Because of Facebook, I re-connected with Dawn. Erika recognized my hurt and cheers me on day after day. Kacey and I are blog buddies. Nicole and I became friends, like real friends, long after college.

Because of Twitter, I got a couple blog posts re-tweeted by the Chris Lema and traffic, traffic, traffic on account. It let me keep up with my friend Dr. Kanth on his interview journey.

Because of Instagram, I get to keep up with #ohellabella and to see a #dailydoseofaddisyn. I also get sneak peaks into Mindy Kaling‘s life (yessss!).

And because of this blog, regardless of whether you like it, read it, share it, comment on it… or not… I have an outlet. I can share my words with anyone who happens to stumble across them. I share my ideas with people who are free to agree or disagree. Read on or roll their eyes. Whatevs.

 

That’s the beauty of the internet. It’s let’s us connect.

Or not.

 

Namaste.

Or keep scrolling.

 

You choose.

 

End rebuttal.

 

How about now, Kacey? Not a jerk, right? Just more rambling along the same lines. We’re all friends here 🙂

Pamela and Bernadette — the flour and the fiction

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Dang, guys… you and your friends and your mom and your dog are all basically freaking awesome. I write some of the craziest, silliest, saddest, weirdest, yet super honest, stuff and you’re awesome about it. Every time. The more whatever-est it is, the more supportive you (and your friends and mom and dog) are and I’m so super grateful. Huge props from me… and my therapist, who agrees that the catharsis of Under the Tapestry is probably the number one factor keeping me out of the loony bin. I mean, I assume he’d agree based on his positive comments regarding the post and the response to it. However, “loony bin” isn’t a phrase he tends to use all that often (i.e. ever– professionalism or whatever). So thanks for that. I’ll let you know either way in a couple of weeks and we can all cry happy or sad tears, eat happy or sad ice cream (with lactaid), and think happy or sad thoughts together.

When I say cathartic, I mean it, and it’s amazing how fessing up to that one dark moment seems to have released so many additional words that have been queuing up for a while. (Queuing because it’s my goal in life to become British. Obviously.)

So with the exception of on-the-internet I am, in all other respects, an introvert, which means, for the most part, I don’t love social situations on account of I’m incredibly awkward. Seriously.

Except it’s a little more nuanced than that because I don’t find being overly familiar with someone whose willing to be overly familiar right back a problem. For example, I’ll probably make a lame joke if we try to talk about the weather for 10 minute at a party, but if I run into you in the bathroom and you confess that you’re suffering from diarrhea, we’re basically going to hit it off right away. Probably I’ll tell you about all the GI distress I’ve struggled with and we’ll laugh and say, “ha ha ho ho hee hee– clearly we were meant to meet like this!”

(Quick fun fact– I just got a text from a brand new, way too quickly overly familiar friend that said “Well let’s just say maybe our meeting was meant to be.” With the exception of the “ha ha ho ho hee hee” I’m basically just writing from real life, yo.)

Books are what makes my introvert heart particularly happy because when you have read the same book as someone, you automatically have an intimate connection that you don’t have with just any random person on the street– no GI involvement necessary. And I think, after much consideration, that is why I like book clubs so very, very, very much.

It’s a social situation, that’s awkward, but it’s a bunch of other people who read the same book as you which means their mind has been in that same storied place and let every one of the same words and characters and thoughts and ideas tumble around in their brain just like you did. Maybe even some different thoughts or ideas about the very same words and characters. That’s intimacy right there. It’s also something non-small to talk about. An introvert-who-paradoxically-also-craves-social-connection’s dream.

So I basically love book clubs. I love everything about them. Everything except the social anxiety inducing process of identifying potential members, inviting identified potential members, and hosting a get together with all accepting invited identified potential members.

I guess you could say that it’s getting to the point of comfort with people that we can begin to relate over books that’s the hard part.

Despite the my awkwardness and the necessity to participate in uncomfortable activities (like talking to other humans who didn’t already know about my secret nerdiness) to get to the good part, I managed to start a third book club and we met for the first time a couple weeks ago to discuss The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler.

Success!

Everything about a book club is truly a celebration of the nerd-tastic to me and I spared no expense on Saturday. While reading the book on my Kindle, I highlighted any mention of the snacks and drinks served by each host. At game time, I noted the highlights, looked up recipes, and managed (with the tremendous help of my dear friend Amy) to whip up a feast fit for even the picky perfectionist Jocelyn. Granted, we’re not classy enough for the wine selections mentioned in the book… but everything else! Moscato and sweet white and sparkling pink to be served over ice (am I making your teeth hurt?) for my crew!

We had creme de menthe squares and lemon bars and molasses cookies and almond crescent cookies and cheese and crackers and venison sausage (Wisconsin, yo… and Matt got a deer!) and bottle after bottle after bottle of delicious wine.

It was a delicious menu, to be sure, but I was a bit concerned going into the event because I didn’t just want to make and serve it all… I also wanted to eat it all! So I endeavored to make as much as I could gluten-free and dairy-free. That’s where Pamela comes in…

Pamela the miracle worker.

Pamela the business-woman.

Pamela the magician and creator of the most amazing gluten-free flour I’ve ever tried:

Pamela’s All Purpose Flour – Artisan Blend

It says it can be substituted cup for cup for regular flour. Hard to believe, but in this case, finally true. The lemon bars, molasses cookies, and almond crescent cookies were all amazing… I don’t even think you’d know the difference if I didn’t tell you (although Seth swears that he can). Huge victory for me and by little buddy Noah this Christmas season– can’t wait to share all the recipes with his mom!

So Pamela was the first champ of the evening. I cannot recommend that amazing four highly enough if you struggle to bake gluten free!

And then came Bernadette. Not a flour. She’s the fiction.

At book club, people came and went… some stayed the whole time, others popped in for a bit and left early, but once everyone was all gathered around in my living room (doh! not enough comfy chairs!) we popped the movie version of the Jane Austen Book Club in and watched for our friends who hadn’t had a chance to read the whole book.

It’s the same general story, of course, by the characters in the movie were basically mutilated… especially Prudie’s poor husband Dean who really got the short end of the movie stick, I must say. But besides that, at the end of the night, as five girls remained (some of us tipsy, myself included), four of whom were introverts (Amy, let’s face it, you’re as extroverted as they come), we all decided that the best character in the movie, the one we all endeavor to be like, was Bernadette.

Granted, book Bernadette was probably a good twenty years older than movie Bernadette, but that didn’t change the fact that she was a woman who was 100% comfortable in her own skin… no matter what. And we all loved that. Who wouldn’t?

Maybe someday it will be the norm for us, that level of self-comfort. I hope so! But more importantly… it is my sincere hope that we, at the very least, become that way around one another in relatively short order. Wine will help at first, of course. Wine and gluten-free cookies. But a bunch of introverts out of their shell on account of books? Seems like a recipe for comfort to me.

Perhaps someday I’ll even write all of us into a book. A couple of teachers, an environmental policy specialist, a science writer, some doctors, a nurse, a healthcare administrator… and the recurring and fascinatingly flighty Sister Doctor. You’ll read it, right? Somebody’s going to need to start breeding dogs and dating a sci-fi enthusiast… then we’ll have it down.

The Corner of My Brain Where Ann Lives

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People leave impressions on me all the time– big ones, small ones, profound ones, good ones, bad ones, green ones. All different kinds of impressions.

But some people do a bit more than just leave an impression. Some people seem to inhabit a corner of my brain in a way that reminds me a lot like a photograph in the magical world of Harry Potter — more than just a picture, you know? Rather, an interactive depiction of the person captured.

I started thinking about this the other day as I watched someone give a PowerPoint presentation and found myself repeatedly distressed about things like hanging widows, inconsistently bulleted lists, and, worst of all: “neiserria gonorrhoeae.” Not italicized. Not capitalized (i.e. Neisseria gonorrhoeae) and I was just horrified. I found myself mentally screaming at the presenter: “You’ve got to have respect for the pathogen!!! Geez!!!” It was only after the fact that I realized where that intense feeling came from– it was Ann’s!

Ann was my advisor in grad school. I suppose when you spend 6 straight years under the tutelage of any one person, they’re going to leave a pretty big impression, yet… it’s so much more than just an impression. She truly inhabits a corner of my brain at this point and the thoughts that come from that corner belong to both Ann and to me. I was just as upset about the non-italicized pathogen name as Ann would have been– the thought was independently mine, yet clearly planted by Ann.

A photograph of the actual brain transfer in progress just before my dissertation defense.
A photograph of the actual brain transfer in progress just before my dissertation defense.

And there are other people occupying other corners and niches… most of them for the better.

My high school biology teacher, Ms. Bertsos (because I am completely incapable of calling her Gen, no matter how old I get and how long we’ve been Facebook friends) has her own space. I channel her when I make jokes about science and when I let my weirdness shine even in professional settings. Turns out, people seem to like me better when I’m genuine– and to be honest, that’s probably why I always liked Ms. Bertsos so much. I also channeled her every time I ever skinned a mouse, but that’s another story for another day…

Somewhere I have a picture of Ms. Bertsos making scrambled eggs over a bunsen burner for our AP biology breakfast bash... but it must be in Ypsilanti somewhere. Dang! No matter, this photo of Kelly and me was taken the very same day (see breakfast items in the background) and I've basically recreated the scene for your viewing pleasure. (Yes, this really happened.)
Somewhere I have a picture of Ms. Bertsos making scrambled eggs over a bunsen burner for our AP biology breakfast bash… but it must be in Ypsilanti somewhere. Dang! No matter, this photo of Kelly and me was taken the very same day (see breakfast items in the background) and I’ve basically recreated the scene for your viewing pleasure. (Yes, this really happened.)

My boss from the Writing Center, Sylvia, she occupies another area– it’s the area that makes me patient and thoughtful about my words. It’s the area that encourages me to be empathetic and to try as hard as I can not to judge other people. It’s the part the always assumes the best… or assumes not at all.

At this point I should think it would be obvious that I have only one picture of Sylvia and me... sad face! Brain transfer happened big time this weekend though, we were at a Writing Center conference in St. Cloud, Minnesota.
At this point I should think it would be obvious that I have only one picture of Sylvia and me… sad face! Brain transfer happened big time this weekend though, we were at a Writing Center conference in St. Cloud, Minnesota.

Unfortunately, I recently recognized another occupant– one that’s not so good. It seems that there is a big chunk of my brain devoted to housing what essentially amounts to an amalgamation of every “mean girl” I’ve ever encountered. The thoughts and attitude of that mean girl are, as with the good occupants, both theirs and mine. And, without a doubt, the mean girl in my mind is a huge source of insecurity.

This morning at church, Seth and I ran into someone we knew up at Michigan Tech. She was an RA at the same time that we were and she was a pretty big fan of Seth (ahem). She was gorgeous then and she’s gorgeous now. Not only is she gorgeous, but she’s also the mother of a couple kids with another clearly on the way. Gorgeous, fertile, everything I am not… begin downward spiral.

The mean girls in my mind were after me with full force.

Seeing her, talking about her, the Facebook friend request she immediately sent Seth, sent me into a series of crazy thoughts– Seth could have been with her and, no doubt, he would have preferred it, seeing her makes him see how much he missed out on and how ugly I really am, if Seth had married her, he’d probably have kids by now and he’d have a pretty wife, I can’t be either of those things for him…  and so on and so forth… all the way to crazy town…

So in that moment of insecurity, I texted my friend Adriane (who was my RA when I started at Michigan Tech and is still one of my most favorite friends of all time). Her response, and I quote:

“Just be nice to everybody, maybe she’s not so bad. Besides you’re better than her anyway. Don’t let her ruin a minute of your day, it’s not worth it.”

Yesssssss.

I was letting the mean girl in my brain do all the thinking, rather than appreciating the thoughts of the crazy and awesome lady scientists Ann and Ms. Bertsos or the kind and compassionate and non-judgmental Sylvia.

In reality, it wasn’t ever a contest and it isn’t now. Seth and I are Sleepless in Seattle style MFEO and I’m sure that our Tech friend’s family is happy too. We’re doing our thing, they’re doing theirs, and we just happened to end up in the same small town. We have MTU in common, we were all RAs, and we have all, no doubt, had some time to grow up. The person I am now is still, admittedly, jealous and insecure a lot of the time– but being a nice, albeit crazy, scientist overrides all that. So nice to everybody I shall be.

Thanks, Adriane! You can hang in my brain too 🙂

 

PS: A “hanging widow” is what we in the biz (of being crazy) call it when one word of a longer title on a PowerPoint slide gets bumped to a second line and it makes everything look crazy unbalanced. Three options to get around it: 1) re-word the title to make it shorter, 2) make the font a bit smaller, or 3) hit enter somewhere else in the title to make it two relatively even rows of text.

Honestly, I was anal before I ever even met Ann– she just helped to shape that crazy into what it is today. I think I’m actually glad for that. She knows how to make a presentations look nice. And I do love presenting things; total adrenaline high. More on those nerdy highs to come!

X is for the xylophone I almost stole…

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… and I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for you pesky kids!

(Scooby Doo? Am I the only fan? Ruh roh…)

But seriously, I almost stole a xylophone from Lincoln High School in Ypsilanti, MI.

(And good thing, too, because I don’t know where I’d go with the letter X otherwise.)

Thankfully, we’ve just recently passed the statute of limitations on xylophone-related crimes and I can no longer be prosecuted… so it’s finally safe for me to share this story with you.

Band, and particularly marching band, is a super big deal in high school… if you’re in it.

Nerd alert, right?

Except it doesn’t matter because if you’re in the band, particularly the marching band, you’re too busy learning music and having a blast to care whether it makes you uncool or not.

Which is why that band camp line in American Pie is so universally funny to everyone. If you weren’t ever in band, you probably think they’re making fun of band nerds. But what you don’t realize is– we’re totally in the joke. Because band… well, band is like that. It’s insane. There’s long hours, physical activity, forced closeness, long periods of inactivity, huge commitments, ridiculous uniforms, so many things that make it so unique. And when you’re in it, you know you’re a dork, but you don’t even care. Because band is freaking FUN. Hard, yes. Intense, of course. But so much fun. So bonding. So cool to be a part of.

So that xylophone…

I told you how I was in the drumline, but drums were mainly my thing during the marching season… and only because we didn’t march with any keyed instruments and I liked the snare. It was fun to be part of the group that kept the rhythm– the cadences, the roll offs, the taps after the whistles. But during the concert season, I was dedicated primarily to keyed instruments… bells, chimes, marimba, vibraphone, xylophone. And oh man, I loved, loved, loved playing the xylophone.

NOT the almost stolen xylophone-- this was the completely intact one.
NOT the almost stolen xylophone– this was the completely intact one.

(I also loved playing the beaded gourd, but sadly… only got to do it once during a performance. Perhaps in another life.)

At good old LHS, we actually had two xylophones (perks of having a percussionist as a band director, our section of very expensive, school-owned instruments was quite well-stocked)… one was in need of repair, but was great for practicing. It just had a broken string on the bottom that made some of the keys sound kind of dead, but otherwise completely intact.

Between my junior and senior year, the band director I’d come to know and love/hate (because that’s another thing about band– the director is like a parent and sometimes they throw tantrums and sometimes you do, but at the end of the day, you love each other, so it’s all good) offered to let me take home that busted xylophone for practicing… except he made absolutely no note of it for the incoming director. No one, except the people I chose to tell (you know, other band nerds who would be excited that I had a xylophone in my basement) knew anything about it. It was wonderful!

I kept it all year, no one ever the wiser. I practiced and practiced and practiced on it– particularly Sabre Dance, because it was fast and exciting and made me feel awesome when I played it. (Ugh, my poor parents!)

Until the day after I graduated from high school, when another kid from the percussion section showed up at my house to pick it up. I don’t know how he knew… I guess I must have said something, or maybe I said something to the new director out of guilt? I don’t know. But he came and got it and I was so sad that I got busted. Because that xylophone was sweet.

The other thing that was sweet? Being in the band.

Although I haven’t played a single note on anything other than a table top or a steering wheel since 2001, I still feel like music and being part of the music is a huge part of me. I hum Honor’s Band songs I haven’t heard since 2000 while I’m washing dishes. I play the cymbal part to Stars and Stripes Forever with my bare hands.

I loooove marches. (So does my two month old niece, Claire— it’s spectacular!)

I am a band nerd, through and through. I even almost stole a xylophone.

Maybe I’d still be a musical type person if I actually had.

Regardless, the band was a big part of my life and I will forever love all those people who experienced it with me (Kelly! Christin! Laura! Emily! Other Emily! Tammy! Kacey! Dolly! Alex! Stevie-D! yes, even Evan a little bit! and so on and so forth! you know who you are!). I told you about Tim Haight and making assumptions before… but that was just the tip of the iceberg. I have a million and one stories and even more lessons, but the biggest one is this: cool doesn’t matter. Not nearly as much as you might think. What really matters is what you enjoy. If you enjoy doing the “cool” things, more power to you, but if what you enjoy is anything else– do it anyway!

Turns out: cool, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

Understanding that at the age of 15 is a challenge, yes. But when you’re in the band, your peers are in the same boat and at band camp (it’s a very real thing), during sectionals, while marching on the football field or along a parade route, on a long bus ride to band festival, you are cool, because you’re part of something big and fun and empowering and musical.

I imagine any group activity you really enjoy is like that, whether it’s a sport or drama or the school newspaper or yearbook or television station or whatever. These days, for me, it’s blogging (which is surprisingly communal) and book clubs and loving dogs and doing “homely” things that give me that community. That empowerment. That joy. And at 30 years old, it’s a lot easier to not worry about what other people think is cool.

Especially now that I can no longer be held responsible for any xylophone-related crimes. Whew.

U is for ulcers… and other things that maybe aren’t completely your fault.

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The letter U has been bugging me and over the last several days, I have written and then deleted thousands of words about all sorts of things. The unexpected was a good thought, but I really already hammered that point home when I first started writing last fall. Ululation is what came to mind when I made my initial list, but pretty much all I had to say about that was, “Dang, that’s an excellent way to express strong emotions. Like the whistle on a tea kettle… got to have a way to release the steam…” and then I realized I’d pretty much already done that before, too.  And I had already written about Unicorns back in January. Too bad, too, because I feel like I could have gone the Voldemort direction with that…

But then last night, just as I was drifting off to sleep, the story of Nobel Laureates Robin Warren and Barry Marshall popped into my head. (And then I emailed myself a sleepy and disjointed message that I’m now trying to decipher…) Warren and Marshall won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2005 for demonstrating that peptic ulcers, previously attributed to type A personalities and high levels of stress, were actually an infectious disease resulting from gastric colonization with the bacterium Helicobacter pylori. (So… you count sheep, I count microorganisms. It’s whatever.)

I thought about those ulcers and I thought about all those people for all those years who felt so sick and then felt even worse because they thought it was their own fault– if only I could calm down! Relax a bit! Then I would get better.

Turns out, a prolonged course of antibiotics probably would have been about the only thing to do the trick. I wonder how that felt– good to know it wasn’t your own fault? Sucky that you felt like it was for so long?

And yet, ulcer sufferers aren’t the only group of patients to have blame placed squarely on their own shoulders. Many other disease sufferers are seen the same way– tummy troubles? Unless you can get a diagnosis of Crohn’s or celiac disease, you end up in the IBS catchall and if you could just eat better, reduce your stress, whatever, you’d be fine. Mental illness too… unless you’ve suffered from one, there’s just no way to know what it’s like and we have very little understanding of why. But truly, I can imagine nothing worse than fibromyalgia or chronic fatigue syndrome or any other number of exceptionally difficult to diagnose autoimmune and rheumatological disorders… throw in the fact that women are much more likely to suffer than men and we recognize quickly why the term “hysterectomy” was coined (because women needed all their lady bits removed to cure hysteria…. I’m not even kidding… feel free to rage, I’ll wait…).

 

Once upon a time, Antonie van Leeweunhoek looked through his homegrown microscope to observe what he called “animalcules” that later proved to be the agent of infectious disease. (Note: I really liked the book Microbe Hunters. It’s an over-dramatized, yet accurate, story of the history of microbiology and very engrossing if you’re into that sort of thing.) Eventually, we as a society stopped believing in humors, airs, and miasmas and started recognizing the reality that was contagion. Today, researchers work tirelessly to investigate pathways of cause and effect; to uncover the mechanism behind the diseases we still don’t understand. And someday, I have to believe the blame will end up in the right place… that is to say, off the sufferer’s shoulders.

But what about societal ailments?

Those are a little tougher… tougher to recognize. Tougher to understand. Tougher to cure.

What do I mean by societal ailments?

Things like obesity and fat-shaming.

Things like racial intolerance and categorizing young black men as thugs.

Things like blaming a woman for her own rape because of the clothes she was wearing.

Things like assuming homelessness is self-inflicted.

These things have causes too. Some personal, most not. Personal accountability is important, of course, but ultimately, the causes are insanely complex. Insidious. Difficult to pinpoint and even more difficult to comprehend.

I have, of course, a million thoughts on the above examples. I’m sure you do too. The point I think it’s really important to make here, though, is that all of these things are a little more like ulcers than we may realize.

You see, even the cause and effect of H. pylori infection and gastric ulcer is subject to mitigating circumstances. Approximately 80% of the world is estimated to be colonized by H. pylori, yet far fewer people than that actually ever have overt symptoms of disease, be it gastritis, ulcer, or cancer. Many other factors play a role, things we still don’t completely understand (although, guys, my friend, Dr. Jones from Indiana (I am not even kidding!) made major strides in figuring out some of those factors).

{I got some images from here and here... but I assure you, this composite did not exist until now.}
{I got some images from here and here… but I assure you, this composite did not exist until now. You believe me, right?}

We can’t control the world we grow up in anymore than we can control the microorganisms that colonize our body or the genes our cells express. So maybe, just maybe, we can stop blaming each other… stop blaming ourselves for every little thing, and look to the humble ulcer as an example of why.

 

This should have been the first thing I said, but dang: NERD ALERT!!!

R is for rocks.

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My mom is a teacher. A conservative estimate suggests that approximately 37.2% of my weirdness can be explained by that fact.

One of my favorite “games” (games in the way that a graham cracker is a “cookie”) when I was little went something like this…

My mom: “lamp… table… chair…”

Me (with excitement): “chair! lamp! table!”

Alphabetizing. Super cool.

For real, I loved it though.

As much as I loved alphabetizing my mom’s little lists of words, my favorite thing to alphabetize was my set of rocks and minerals flash cards.

Nerdiest sentence ever written? Maybe…

And why did I have rocks and minerals flash cards? Mom?

But to me? Rocks are crazy cool. I’ve loved them for as long as I can remember and I’ve carried the mason jar full of my most treasured rocks around with me as I moved from Ypsilanti to Houghton to Hancock to Bethesda to Silver Spring to Rockville to Marshfield… all over the dang place, because I just love them all so much.

The mason jar full of rocks. (The second one-- I broke the first by allowing a baby to play with it. Poor decision.)
The mason jar full of rocks. (The second one– I broke the first by allowing a baby to play with it. Poor decision.)

(Btw, I was storing things in mason jars before it was cool. I’m a total mason jar hipster.)

Each rock is special for a different reason too. Each one has a memory. Each one serves as a touchstone.

My grandparents brought me lava rocks (two different kinds!), pumice, and coral from Hawaii when they went to visit my aunt who lives there. At the time, I could imagine no place more exotic. And rocks that came straight from a volcano?! Too cool!

Yes, that's Curly's nose. She shares her mom's enthusiasm for rocks and I couldn't get her away from the lava rocks!
Yes, that’s Curly’s nose. She shares her mom’s enthusiasm for rocks and I couldn’t get her away from the lava rocks!

My Grandpa John even stopped one time while driving through the Appalachian Mountains to pick up a rock for me. He knew I’d never been there and thought I’d want a piece. He was right; I still have it, even though I have been there myself now. The strong silent type with a heart of gold, my grandpa. He always knew how to make me crazy happy!

My dad brought this polished heart back from Connecticut when he was there on business. I loved so much that the natural features of the stone made in incomplete, yet still so perfect. I remember thinking that it was absolutely genius to carve the heart so that it would have a natural hole at the bottom. I don’t know why. Abby’s heart was perfect, but I liked mine so much better (no offense, Ab, I’m sure you loved yours too… mine was just better). See:

All the way from a Connecticut airport!!
All the way from a Connecticut airport!!

My Aunt Patty and Uncle Phil brought me a piece of mica back from Georgia. Natural glitter?! Too cool! And hematite is so cool and smooth… it always reminds me of putting my face against my mom’s arm. It reminds me of her jewelry.

Hematitie (left), mica (right)
Hematitie (left), mica (right)

I found this peacock ore myself on the shore of lake superior. I learned more about minerals after that… and more about iron and copper mining in the UP. Fascinating.

I found a cool rock, I busted it open-- peacock ore inside! Score!
I found a cool rock, I busted it open– peacock ore inside! Score!

Rocks from lakes, big and small. Rocks I saved up to buy with my baby sitting money from Natural Wonders (my favorite ever store in the Briarwood Mall). Rocks that looked neat and smelled funny (I had an exquisite sulfur specimen that I couldn’t justify bringing to college with me and likely still resides in my parents’ basement). Rocks that I convinced myself were fossils and some that really were. And so on and so forth. Rock after rock.

It is going to take me FOR-EV-ER to get these back in the jar just so... worth it for the photo. And to inspect each one again for the first time in a long time. They never get old.
It is going to take me FOR-EV-ER to get these back in the jar just so… worth it for the photo. And to inspect each one again for the first time in a long time. They never get old.

I like the way they look. I like the way they feel. I like the way they smell. I like the way an unpolished rock completely changes if you get it wet. I like that there might be a surprise (an ore! a fossil! an agate!) on the inside. I like that they just exist that way… through natural processes of the earth, through amazing series of coincidences of chemistry and pressure and temperature and time. One individual rock is like one individual life. Unique. Special. Worth knowing and remembering.

Sometimes I’ve thought that maybe I should have been a geologist– or at least taken Rocks for Jocks in college. But I’m not, and I didn’t. So it’s just a little hobby.

These days, when I watch my niece Emma pick up and carry around hand fulls of rocks, berries, pine cones, twigs, leaves, and flowers, I am reminded of how much I have always loved such things… and how much I still do. Something about the symbols of the outdoors are so enjoyable to me and I feel inspired to bring them into my house. Jars of rocks, buckets of sea shells, frames full of branches, and prints of leaves. A little throwback to the naturalist child that I was and jars full of memories– my own and others. The sea shells are from my grandma, and she and her mother collected them over many, many years. The branches were from someone else’s birch tree, left at compost just for me to find. I pressed the leaves from plants in my year and spray painted their silhouettes onto canvas. And the rocks are, as I described, many storied. And it always comes back to the rocks.

A friend of mine from Michigan Tech (we worked in the Writing Center together) posted a picture of the rocks in Lake Superior relatively recently and I was absolutely enamored. I mean, look at this:

Photo Credit: Angela Badke
Photo Credit: Angela Badke (amazing, right???)

Who needs the teeny tiny sand and salty water of so many beaches when you can find beauty like this on the shores of Lake Superior? Just gorgeous. Just rocks.

 

When I was in Arizona in the spring, I went on a guided tour of the Desert Botanical Garden and learned a ton about desert flora and fauna and was especially fascinated by all of the cactus facts. The tour guide kept quoting ages of certain cacti, though, and I wondered how exactly you could tell the age of a cactus since they don’t have rings like trees. I (nervously and nerdily) asked the question, and the Seth Rogen look-alike tour guide explained that it’s all through observation. Expert naturalists spent tens, even hundreds of years, multiple dedicated lifetimes, observing the natural history of so many different cactus species for the sake of knowledge. Not because the cacti change anything, not because they serve as medicine or fuel or food or anything like that, but just because they’re interesting. Naturalism at its finest, perhaps? I think I’ll do the same of rocks… just sit back and enjoy the beauty.

Q is for a “word” I hate: qua.

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Sometimes late at night when I’m having trouble falling asleep, I pull out my iPhone (terrible for sleep, I know!) and play the game Bookworm until I finally find myself drifting off. It started off as more of an obsession, of course, as all iPhone games do, but I eventually got millions of points and got bored of it and now it’s like counting sheep. Except when there’s a dang Q.

The basic premise of the game is to make words and get points without letting one of the flaming tiles get to the bottom of the board. If it does– BOOM! The whole thing explodes and it’s game over.

Bookworm
Welcome to Bookworm! (That’s what the worm says if you’ve got the volume turned on when you open it up. It’s also what my sister says if you ever mention the game. Apparently, it provides endless hours of entertainment while breast feeding or pumping or the like.)

Q is, just as in Scrabble, kind of a toughy, but Bookworm actually gives you the u to go with it and counts that Q-U combo as two letters of the three letter minimum. After that, it becomes relatively easy to add an A, make the word “qua” and move on.

Except freaking QUA. What… the… heck???

I can’t stand words I just don’t get. It stresses me out.

CAN’T STAND IT.

It’s why I quit Words With Friends real quick.

You see, it’s not that I don’t believe that words I don’t understand are real words. I’m perfectly capable of looking them up, reading the definition, and moving on with my life. I’m also perfectly cool with made up, Dr. Suess-style words because generally I get them, even though they are for fake and have no true Websterian definition. (See, Webserian, I can even make up my own words. And you, intelligent reader, no doubt get what I mean.)

But qua? I just can’t handle it.

Here’s why:

Google search for "qua"
Google search for “qua”

Obnoxious. Perhaps a few other sample sentences would help:

The work of art qua art can be judged by aesthetic criteria only. (Thanks, Dictionary.com)

<discussing the story qua story> (Very helpful, Mirriam-Webster.com)

he’s hard to pin down if you get him on entertainment qua entertainment (Right, oxforddictionaries.com, very good)

It’s all clear now, eh?

Except it’s not to me. Granted, according to Google (what a sweet graph!), it’s an old word and usage has waned considerably over time.

Definitions by Google... even better than dictionary sites. Super impressed.
Definitions by Google… even better than dictionary sites. Super impressed.

But even in that case, I can usually appreciate a word anyway.

For example, I’m currently reading the book The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco as part of our 1001 book challenge. The book was first published in Italian in 1980 and translated into English in 1983 (love me some Wiki!), but takes place in the 14th century and is written accordingly. I’m super glad that I’m reading it on my Kindle because it allows me to quickly look up words I don’t already know or can’t figure out from the context… or those that I can figure out, but make me curious anyway. Like pudenda, another word for the external genital organs. It’s like the 14th century monk’s way of saying cock, in my mind anyway. And I get that.

I don’t get qua.

Perhaps I never will.

And it bugs me.

Worst of all: I continue to use it to avoid letting my little game blow up in my face. Honestly, I try to make queen or quiet or quote instead, but those are tough, and more often than not, I resort to qua. And for that, I am ashamed.

Such a tiny little word to cause such a large amount of stress in my life. Clearly, I have a problem. And that problem is words.

Words are also the solution though, and here I share qua with you. Now it’s your problem, too. Can you give me a better sentence? Something more useful? A better reason for this QUA?! I’d appreciate it very much.

Clap for the Clap!

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Ladies and gentlemen, the plague is upon us.

It’s upon me anyway.

I haven’t been sick in a while, I suppose I was due. But my goodness– this cold is miserable! Trying to keep a little perspective, though. Thank goodness for drugs (better living through chemistry!) and the snuggles of my sweet pup. I have a feeling I’ll be on the mend in short order and all will be well by the weekend.

It better be, anyway! Because I’ve got PLANS! Book club on Saturday night… Wes Anderson movie marathon on Sunday. I’m pumped about both– so sickness be gone!

So. Are you ready for a forced and awkward segue? Good!

Sickness… diseases… bacteria… bacterial STDs… I studied bacterial STDs in grad school…

And we’re there.

Some seriously good news on the gonorrhea/chlamydia forefront last week!! My old boss emailed to let me know that my coinfection model has been repeated. And not just once, but TWICE. Once in another strain of mice (in case you’re “in the know”… I did it originally in BALB/c mice, another graduate student just did it in C57/Bl6) and once by another group up in Boston (total burn moment for the drunk PIs who tormented me at my poster in Banff– mwuahahaahaha!!). Both repeated my entire first paper– demonstrated coinfection with gonorrhea and chlamydia in female mice (which is ridiculously and unfortunately common in female humans) and increased levels of gonorrhea in mice that are coinfected with chlamydia (which incidentally, has also been shown in women since I graduated… word).

So, all that’s good news… but the really exciting thing to me is that while I was in grad school, I found the freaking mechanism. I did flow cytometry, I made beautiful figures, I wrote a paper and planned to submit it to PNAS (it’s a big deal), but since I graduated in 2011, that lovely piece of work has sat there in my dissertation on a shelf. HOWEVER, now that others have repeated the findings from my original manuscript, my grad advisor feels comfortable getting this second one out there. YESSSSSSS!!!!!

Gonorrhea’s pretty exciting, huh? Better than whatever virus is hanging out in my sinuses at the moment, anyway.

So let’s celebrate– and CLAP for the CLAP!

 

(Clap = gonorrhea. But I’m sure you already knew that.)