Panspermia

It has recently come to my attention that some astrophysicists, along with other scientific types who concern themselves with the origin of life on earth, are dusting off and re-examining an oldish and formerly outdated theory: that of panspermia, in which it's believed that life on earth has its origins in space. For example, bacteria can be hurled into space by an asteroid crashing into a planet's surface and then some of them go dormant while hurtling through the space vacuum and possibly come to life once more upon reaching a hospitable environment. This is one reason that some people are so excited by evidence of polar ice caps on Mars, because evidence of water suggests bacteria which then could be hurled to Earth, revive (as some bacteria are apparently "immortal", or at least nearly so), and then we progress from there.

This is all remarkably interesting, and ties in well with last week's visit with the parents to the Air and Space Museum on the mall, but before I get to that let me just say how relieved I am that my friend the Monsignor is seemingly more attuned to continental drift than the origin of species, and on that fateful day on Devon Avenue when he saw me addressed in five different languages in the course of just a few hours, chose to call me Pangea and not Panspermia. Because really, it's a much better name. (Although people have taken issue with the name Pangea as well -- for example, Zen Boy, who also had a confusingly pan-ethnic appearance, and who said to me, "Pangea? But she was just a big blob of a continent -- and you're much more shapely." Certainly one of the best, and most erudite, compliments I've ever received, one which would have made me blush, except for the part where I'm so dark-skinned that I don't actually change color.)

I have been trying to get this post up for almost a week now, but have been having a crazily busy time. Hellraiser was in town last Friday through Sunday, and we took a one-day trip to the Delaware Shore on Saturday for a relaxing micro-vacation -- relaxing except for the part where I drove like 6 hours that day, which is really about 3 hours too much. Then J-ka popped by briefly on Sunday afternoon before heading back to NYC,
and after a day's rest (which was actually spent working and cleaning), my parents rolled into town on Tuesday for my birthday celebration and, perhaps more importantly, to pick up many, many boxes, bags and suitcases of my stuff and bring it back to New York to be stored in their garage for the coming year. (Not only is this parental stuff storage a bit infantilizing, in that I have this idea that in order to be truly adult I need to live in a place large enough to actually accommodate all of my things at once, but it's also kind of guilt-inducing, in that some of these things have been living in their garage for years and only just returned to my clutches upon my return to the East Coast last year.) In honor of their visit, and also because I was feeling a bit self-indulgent, I took the day off work and we bopped around town -- first to brunch around the corner, then to the arboretum, as we're all plant lovers, then to the aforementioned Air and Space museum, and finally to happy hour and then Ethiopian food with a bunch of friends. It was really a lovely day, enhanced by the arrival (finally!!!!) of my official offer letter from SoCal U on Tuesday evening, the best birthday present a girl could ask for (mostly), which enabled me to be a lot calmer than before, secure in the awareness that my escape from my current job unpleasantness will really happen, and that my complex logistical plans could finally be set in motion. For example, since Thursday I have: researched and purchased plane tickets for me and the folks and the piglets, all of whom will be arriving on the left coast on August 31 -- meaning that this page will have a new name as of September 1; purchased 4 items of luggage and packed 6 for distribution to various storage sites (some in NY, some in LA); created a 3-page to-do list and detailed timeline for the next month; found a potential subletter, also a tongueologist and seemingly trustworthy; and about 8 other things. Not to mention the daily 21-mile roundtrip bike to work in 90-degree heat -- last night I simply couldn't get off the couch and thought to myself, "but why?" and then started listing reasons and decided it was perfectly comprehensible.

In any case, before all this nonsense was set in motion, I spent Wednesday feeling calm and surrounded by interesting input, much of which was attractive and attractively displayed flora (with a hint of fauna thrown in for good measure). Some of the plants in the arboretum appeared to have neon lights illuminating their edges (very 80s),
while others were unabashedly pink (especially for a tree, trees not being prototypically pink, at least in my world),
and the papyrus made me want to sit down with a scroll and draw pictures of cat-headed gods with big gold earrings and tiny skirts (kind of Long Island, now that I think about it).
Some of the canna lillies had interesting variegated leaves,
leaves that are apparently quite tasty to some kind of very neat hole-boring insect
who apparently couldn't care less about the also-attractively-variegated leaves just to the right.
Mom and Dad wanted to visit the bonsai exhibit, which I've already seen quite enough of -- for some reason, even though I'm down with plants, and with trees, and am interested in human manipulations of nature in order to create art, I find bonsai, well, boring. Go figure. So while they oohed and aahed over tiny misshapen junipers and cedars, I found myself looking skyward, at cool rooftops,
and rusting support hardware,
and a bit lower, at carved railing ends.
It was mostly quiet in the arboretum (thank god, since the last time I visited all I could hear was the scream of a chainsaw as it hacked down trees near the entrance and the whine of the woodchipper as it disposed of said trees, and possibly maybe also some overly lazy employees?), but there was some action to be seen, like with big butterflies,
and carniverous plants (although I checked inside each one and found no semi-digested insects or anything),
and adjacent to the above carniverous plants, and therefore living on the edge, our nation's carp, looking a bit less frightening than the last time I saw them.
Also somewhat frightening were these arum, which not only looked like they had arrived from outer space (so perhaps it is not just bacterial "seeds" that are everywhere in panspermia), but also are apparently extremely toxic, despite their resemblance to mutant corn.
The Air and Space museum was far less photogenic, although incredibly interesting because of my father's presence -- his decades of work as an aerospace engineer allowed him to tell all kinds of cool stories and give great background information on objects that otherwise would have been of maybe vague historical interest at best. (E.g., they have a lunar landing module in the museum, which was of interest to me and Mom because my due date was the day that we landed on the moon, except that I wasn't quite ready to come out and watch tv with everyone else, but Dad knew about the materials involved, issues with space radiation, rocket boosters and calculations, etc. etc.) He could identify a Lockheed F104 star fighter from the bottom of a steep escalator! And give brief and even comprehensible lessons in lift, drag, propulsion, and more while using Amelia Earhart's plane as a model. Meanwhile, in the midst of all the learning, I found myself entranced by this modest exhibit of Russian space toilets,
and almost compulsively translating everything for the parents. "So this means the valve is open, and this means it's shut; and that means 'entry' but this means 'exit' and I suppose this could really only work with men and..." Finally, a place where my expertise could be applied! What better outlet for birthday self-aggrandizement?!

Dilemmas

(And before I get to the point, a totally nerdy aside in which I relate that today biking home as I was thinking about this post I had the revelation that the word dilemma is analyzable into multiple meaningful word parts: di for two, and lemma for argument or assumption, and the realization made me surprisingly happy. In case my utter nerdiness was in question in any way.)

I've been keeping a haphazard Wildlife Journal on my computer for about a month now, where sometime before bed I write down the day's sightings. It was a downy woodpecker feeding its baby on a tree right next to my balcony that started things off, and my hourlong bike rides to and from work and nature-oriented visits in Monterey definitely provide me with plenty of things to write down. For example, today's entry:

heron catching and eating fish (bridge at bike path), flock of starlings, cat hunting in culvert near river (hunting what?), swallows in meadow near gazebo, geese on lawn at work, house finch and red-wing blackbirds behind FDA, goldfinch near basketball court, mourning doves at usual spot at trestle, cardinal near balcony

You get the general idea -- and NB that today's heron-catching-fish incident, spotted as I very very very slowly biked across the bridge where I usually see my heronly friend, was definitely the high point of my day. Which is a bit sad when said high point comes at like 8:30 am and you know it's all downhill from there.

Anyway, the dilemma. Every time I walk down the section of my street two blocks north of my building and it's after, say, 9 pm, I see rats. The other night I saw four: criss-crossing the street, heading into ivy, heading towards garbage, etc. etc. The street is pretty quiet, and reasonably well lit, so I can see them from pretty far away right up until the moment when I walk by, at which point I sometimes manage to see them pretty close up as well. And then if I turn around during the remaining few blocks, I have the pleasure of seeing them once more. So, do I include them in my wildlife journal? Part of the reason for the journal is to focus on the positive, and notice all the nice things that surround me every day (to counteract all the terrible things out there that it's all too easy to dwell on), such that the denizens of Rat Alley don't really fit in. And yet, they are certainly memorable sightings. Of animals. That I wouldn't call domesticated. What to do, what to do...

Wheeeeeeee!

As of this morning, all of my credit card balances are at $0. Look!
It is, I believe, the first time things have been this way since approximately 1997. That, plus my letter of appointment is supposed to be arriving today (said appointment officially approved by my new dean on Wednesday), so once I sign and fedex it back it's all official. And I'm taking the day off from work, though I haven't decided what to do with it beyond desperately needed cleaning before tonight's houseguest arrives. But already it's shaping up to be a pretty good day. Hooray for no longer laboring under the oppressive weight of graduate-school induced debt! I feel like this is the beginning of a new era...

It's a shame

that the Monterey area is so expensive (and, in a completely related way, becoming overrun with wealthy retirees), because really it's one of the most beautiful places I know. Not that being there is all nature appreciation, sadly. Firstly, all this travel is wearing me down -- a week a month seemed reasonable when I said I'd do it back a few months ago, but really it's way too much travel and is completely undermining all my other travel plans (Chicago, New York, perhaps a vacation, god forbid?) and when it comes down to it, just making me tired. Probably more troubling is the research project itself, which is difficult, not just because of absurd politics and logistics that get in our way, but also because I'm interacting with people who are going to be putting their lives on the line at some point in the near future. Voluntarily. And with pride, and a sense of duty. And for what?

It puts a lot of things in perspective, and brings back all those feelings of anger and helplessness that came to the fore four years ago already every time we went and marched against this war that was so clearly coming right at us for all the wrong reasons. Feelings that I've mostly submerged but that bubble back to the surface at mostly predictable times, like when my seatmate on a plane is someone coming back from active duty in Iraq, or when I see or read the news, or deal with government idiots and watch political chicanery. I'm not sure what it takes to train rational, kind human beings to be able to reach a mind-state in which they are capable of being killers. Obviously people have been able to reach this kind of mind-state for all of recorded history, but I still find it depressing that "progress" in "civilization" appears to mean simply advances in technology but not anything resembling advances in interpersonal interaction. I mean, every time I see a picture of a woman in a bikini near (or draped around, or morphed with) a glistening beer bottle I think, "aren't we past that yet? I mean, is this still going on? for real?" And that's just embarrassing advertising, but the ability to suppress empathy for other beings to the point where you can actually kill them, that's something a bit bigger. Although at some level they're both related to testosterone, I'm sure (and I'm saying that in all sincerity, and not as an offhand remark). I'm a lot more culturally Jewy than religiously, for a giant pile of reasons (some of which led me to declare myself agnostic at age 11 and request that this get me out of both Hebrew school attendance and my impending bat mitzvah) (to no freaking avail), but one thing I like is a modern interpretation of what it might mean to be in a Messianic age. Our people, as many of you know, don't believe that the Messiah has come yet, despite majority opinion in this country. Now, the idea of waiting for a physical, human instantiation of a son of god whose coming involves all kinds of rising from the grave, rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem, the return of chosen-type people to the land of Israel, etc. etc. seems, well, absurd. The idea of him (and apparently the position is only available to male descendents of King David) ruling in an era of world-wide peace, however, has always been appealing. And the modern, metaphorical interpretation that I quite like involves conceptualizing the world of human agency as feeding into a giant ocean: each good deed adds another drop into the ocean of human goodness, raising us all up communally ( I guess kind of like the trickle-down theory of morality) and the Messianic age will not come through the birth and ascension of some princely guy, but rather when the ocean of good deeds has taken us all high enough, where every person is as good as she or he can possibly be all the time, and the world of interpersonal interactions has altered to the point where peace and kindness are the norm rather than the exception. All of this emphasis on mindfulness and lovingkindness helps to explain the whole Jubu thing, I think. And has me turning to nature when humanity's got me down. I think sometimes that becoming a social scientist was maybe not the best idea. Not because of the difficulty I'm having finding a tenure track job that I want and that wants me -- although that's not nothing -- but because I feel like humanity is already so unbelievably human-centered that devoting my professional life to the study of human interactions is only feeding into the delusion that we're at the center of everything, and will be forever. And that I should have been a marine biologist, maybe, or an environmental epidemiologist, like this cool woman I met hiking at Point Lobos the other day. You know, and do some actual good for the world.

Which brings me to using nature as solace. I keep on posting all these lovely pictures of beautiful things because seeing them makes me feel better, and hopefully makes other people feel better too. I find I have no patience for kitsch these days, and just want straightforward beauty -- sure, I'm down with lightness and frivolity (who more than me?) but I'm just not up for the tawdrily ironic aesthetic these days. Am I just two steps away from Norman Rockwell or Thomas Kinkade (whose "national archive" was just a block away from my most recent hotel)? I certainly hope that watching baby seals body surf is different than buying a print of white kids sharing a single milkshake with two straws, but maybe not...

Ok, so Point Lobos is one of my favorite places around the Bay Area (Point Reyes being another, although I have never seen wolves or kings in either). I had been hoping to maybe go with a friend and play Edward and Charis Weston (with less public nudity), but he couldn't make it so I headed over myself on the one morning that was blessedly meeting-free. Almost immediately after reaching the parking lot, I had to stop and wait a while for a doe and fawn to decide what they were doing.
They were just ambling about unconcernedly (this was taken through my windshield) and eventually bounded off into the nearby field to the right. There were at least 4 other deer in that field, possibly more, since they're pretty hard to see.
Here's a close-up of the one in front of the sandy part of the hill:
The flowers that they're grazing on are really quite pretty,
but the view they get while grazing is just a bit nicer.
While watching the pelicans and cormorants fly by -- and not one person could explain to me why all the pelicans were going north while all the cormorants were headed south -- I kept on nearly stepping on the local lizards, who are really pretty good at the camouflage thing.
A docent had lent me binoculars for my hike (I keep swearing that I'll buy some and never do) and I used them to check out the harbor seals down below,
which felt a little Rear Window when they would raise their heads and look directly into my eyes (more frequent than you'd think). Also somewhat disturbed by my presence, but quicker to get back to normal, were the many crabs of the many tidal pools.
The kelp didn't care at all that I was there, and just lay around looking pretty and contrasting with water and reflected sun.
I knew that the kelp forests of the Monterey Bay supported all kinds of marine life, but I didn't know that they literally supported egrets. This one here landed on a sturdy-looking mass of kelp and proceeded to stand there and fish for a while, periodically engaging in what looked like an interesting conversation with the otter to its right, who seemed kind of ticked to have had its space invaded.
The interaction of water and rock does all kinds of cool things, making attractive glyph-like patterns,
and attractive non-glyph-like patterns,
and causing a stray piece of driftwood and feather to look somewhat dramatic,
and leaving behind salt encrustations that I'm wondering if I could cull and sell for $5 a bottle.
All the hiking and looking made me hungry, and I felt very clever indeed when instead of heading to an overpriced eateria in Carmel or Monterey, I picked up a salad at Trader Joe's and brought it on down to here. Sure a squirrel stole and ate some of my blown-away lettuce, but it was a small price to pay.
The next morning, my last in Monterey, I woke up early and hung out for a while on the beach behind my hotel,
along with a bunch of seagulls,
and lazy-ass seals just lying around.
Just down the road, though, the baby seals turned out to be a lot more energetic, as kids are wont to be, and entertained themselves body surfing in the waves as a small flock of Canadian geese looked on in jealousy. They seemed pretty happy, those baby seals. I hope they stay that way.

After a long day,

filled with meetings and internal politics and lots of logistically difficult data collection, it was nice not only to visit my favorite bathroom in the region before heading back to my room,

but also to stop by a pier en route home and watch jellyfish swim about in the unnaturally still waters, and then end the day at the beach just down the street from the hotel, replete with seagulls, cormorants, pelicans, otters, seals, and dolphins. And a setting sun. If it weren't for the sand flies, well, and the cold and hunger, I'd still be there right now.