ISleepInADrawer.com

The Breach

Lake New Orléans

Romance

Suzie's an indoor cat. Our apartment has no means currently to let her come-and-go as she pleases... at least, not without putting our belongings and our safety at risk. Plus, her previous home was all-indoors-all-the-time, and she lacks the proper vaccinations (especially against Feline Leukemia Virus) and flea treatment to permit extended contact with other cats... especially the 6 million or so feral cats that we see in Wallingford.

So, instead, she must content herself with our two-bedroom apartment. She's proven a worthy explorer so far, but still shows intense curiosity for the outdoors. She'll spend hours sitting in front of the sliding glass door, or one of the bedroom windows... just watching and listening. When I get home, I open the doors and windows for her, keeping the screens firmly in place, so she can drink in the whole range of senses.

Last week, however, I began to notice a cat hanging around our apartment building.

I'm pretty sure he's feral - no collar, and a huge scratch and scar embedded in his right ear from an old fight. He looks pretty young, between 1-2 years, like Suzie. I actually first noticed him two months ago, from the day we moved in. But, last week, I began to see him daily lurking around our apartment. Last Saturday, I fell asleep reading on the living room sofa, and Suzie fell asleep next to me in an easy chair. I woke up after half an hour, to find the cat perched outside of our screen door, staring at Suzie.

Sometimes, Zach accuses me of anthropomorphizing. In this case, he says I've gone off my rocker. But, I still think the I'm-really-undressing-you-with-my-eyes look is pretty universal. So, the feral cat likes my cat. Big deal, right? Suzie woke up from her nap eventually, and stared back at him, making a low, moaning cry. Eventually, she took to pacing, and I began to fear they'd both gang up on me and shut the sliding glass door, startling the feral cat and sending him running.

He came back three times on Sunday, once to a bedroom window when she was perched on the sill, and twice to the sliding glass door while she was playing in her "cave" (read: rug she's bunched up like a cave and takes all of her string toys into). I've kept the glass open only a little (screen firmly in place) when this cat has come around. But, Suzie's never done much more than stare back and make that low, strong cry. All this past week, I've come home to find him lurking somewhere about, either looking for her or staring at her once he's found her. If Zach and I are in the room with her, though, he keeps his distance. We both felt reassured, though, that there was always at least a screen separating Suzie from Don Juan.

Last night, both Zach and I were in our "study (junk) room" checking e-mail, when we heard the most horrific screeching and tearing noise coming from the bedroom. I ran in to find Suzie perched on the window sill, with Don Juan on the other side of the window, and nothing separating them... for D.J. had wrenched the screen out of the window with his claws. An overprotective father (read: mother), I wrenched Suzie out of the way and slammed the window shut. D.J. stayed on the other side, claws still embedded in the screen, until Zach ran out to chase him off.

We've replaced the screen, and Zach has quit threatening to poison D.J. We've put the Overprotective Parent gig back on the shelf, for now, though future rendezvous between the two felines will take place between at least one pane of glass from now on. Tonight, while watching Battlestar Galactica, we saw his silhouette (illuminated by a streetlight in our alley) pacing back-and-forth across our backyard fence, waiting for us to leave the room so he could look for Suzie.

I feel like a conservative farmer guarding his virginal daughter with a pitchfork. Apparently, my cries of, "But she isn't vaccinated against FeLV!" aren't fooling anyone. I'm assuming this is all for mating - that Suzie, though spayed, is still able to attract the boys. Particularly after last night's passionate attempted break-in, I've new found respect for the mammalian instinct to breed.

Last night in bed, I rolled over to Zach and asked him if he would passionately rip through a window to make love to me. He told me he would, except that his other boyfriends would get jealous.

Mass Hysteria

BBC News: "US People Getting Fatter, Fast"

That was one of the top 3 headlines this morning, along with a supposed breatkthrough in the Iraqi Constitution and a breakdown in EU-China textile talks.

Money shot: "Currently, about 119 million, or 64.5%, of US adults are either overweight or obese. According to projections, 73% of US adults could be overweight or obese by 2008..."

Nearly two-thirds of my fellow adults are either obese or overweight?! Well, if you can call me an adult. But, suddenly, with the revelation (to me, at least), that 64.5% of my fellow adults in this country are overweight or obese, my own problems with maturity seem as fleeting as a one-night stand.

I was most surprised, though, by the fact that I'd never heard of this problem before. Well, clarifcation: it doesn't take a lot of looking-at-the-general-public to realize this society has a problem with excess. But, I didn't realize that problem encompassed two-thirds of the adult population! Surprised that such epidemic news had escaped my usually-sensitive radar to the headlines, I thought I'd do some more reading up on the subject and scanned other headlines from US sources.

Nothing.

Well, almost nothing. Most of the headlines that popped up were from foreign news services. Domestic news services either buried the news in an insignificant locale or cushioned the blow. My favorites:
1. Minneapolis Star-Tribune: "Minnesotans Aren't the Fattest in the Land"
[Since when is variations on a theme of "We're not the worst!" suitable for a cheer? What's next?... Perhaps the Ugandan government, jumping up and down in unison, joyfully belching, "At least WE don't have as many AIDS cases as South Africa!"]
2. Chicago Tribune: "Waistlines Expanding Fastest in the South"
[Ah, south-bashing! I've been known to skinny-dip now-and-then in that inviting pool. But, don't partake in excess, lest it come back an reflect that nearly a quarter of Illinoisans are obese.]
3. Chicago Sun-Times: "South Will Rise Again -- If It Can Get Off Couch"
[Ah, more south-bashing! Dip your wick again and you win a hefty plate of pan-fried chicken, mashed potatoes with sausage gravy, fried okra, and a hefty slice of pecan pie!]
4. USA Today: "Obesity Ranking of States is Disputed"
[Fine. Kill the messenger.]
5. Corvallis [Oregon] Gazette-Times: "Twenty-One Percent of Us are Obese? Fat Chance."
[Oh sure. Look a gift horse in the mouth. At least you're not Mississippi, with 28.1% obese.]
6. Orlando Sentinel: "Slimming Down? No, We're Still Gaining."
["No, my children! The new trend is MORE, not less! Back to the bandwagon!"]
7. Arkansas Democrat-Gazette: "Arkansas is Cited in War Against Fat"
[Hours later, an innocent spelling error sets off a chain reaction, culminating in the formal declaration of war by the state legislature and Governor Huckabee against "that ungodly haven in the War on Fat, the sovereign African nation of Burkina FATSO."]

Sure, we can bicker over semantics - over definitions of "obese" and "overweight." And we can pick over every last case until we argue the findings down to more "acceptable" numbers. But, where would that leave us?

Oh yeah. With a lot of people eating too much, drinking too much, and taking no exercise. Right back where we started.

In this case, I'll trust my gut feeling - we're getting fatter. I cautiously patted my own belly as evidence, uncomfrotably shifting my feet as I recalled days where I was thinner. Sure, my docter laughed at me when I asked her if I was overweight. But, I could lose a few pounds without risking my health in any way. If I could, and if two-thirds of American adults are obese/overweight, I'm willing to bet you could to.

Permission

I had lunch yesterday with a close friend who was in Seattle for a few days. Brilliant beyond belief, she's in her second year of a complex and difficult graduate program in molecular/cellular biology.

The waiter sat us outside in the shade. The bees, thankfully, kept their distance. We chatted, smiled, hugged. I drank iced tea, and accumulated crumbs on my shirt. We each bragged about our pets and boyfriends. Old times were fondly reminisced.

She told me she's having some doubts about our chosen field. She's not sure if her degree program is something she really wants to see through to the end. It's been rewarding for her, yet difficult. We discussed the often bitter culture that washes through science, particularly "hot" topics in molecular and cellular biology. I sympathized with her frustrations with the sheer competition, cruel judgements, and clashes of egos that predominate the field... yet, considering the sheer might of her abilities, expressed surprise at my friend's hesitations to... well... jump in the deep end. She assured me she'll stay in the program for now, and will at least partially complete it, but that departure is something she's considering should her mood and temper fail to improve over time.

I found myself confessing the same frustrations with the portions of scientific inquiry I've been exposed to. Constant competition. Bitter rivalry. The persistent, long hours in an attempt to meek out yet another publication a week before your twenty-seven rivals are able to churn out similar data. As one more-humble-than-most, I've never understood this level of competition. I always reassured myself that, though this sort of atmosphere seeps into every crack, every corner, and surrounds like a blanket, I could indeed avoid it, and carve out my own James-shaped Thoughtful Spot in this field. One where I'd be spared from the juvenile spats, rumor-churning, and character assassinations that do nothing to further the quest for knowledge and everything to belittle the field and those who work in it in the eyes of the public. One where I could go and teach, or have my own little slice of research to sink my teeth in.

But, in the back fo my mind, there's always been a little voice of Doubt. Can you avoid it, James? Can you really? You may declare yourself a pacifist in the Great and Useless Clash of Egos, but that doesn't mean you're immune to its effects. They can still drag you in, kicking and screaming.

I don't want this useless culture to rot my innards. To make me cruel, cold, and calculating. I can't be that sort of person, and I won't. I'd looked at my friend, already in her own program, and thought, "That's how I'll be. I can float like her." But, it looks like she might not be able to avoid the poisonous culture - she might even take a step back, and reevaluate the course she's on.

Will the same happen to me? I told her I feared sinking in graduate school. I feared the impression that I had "failed." I don't know how she did it, but she reassured me: it need not be failure. It need not be giving up. It's a large step back, and statement: "I want no part of this." But, where would I go from there? My friend knows of my other interests - history, political science, geology - my desire to teach, know, grow. Is there still time for me to switch? To make the change, should I either flounder miserably or stand up and say, "I want no part of this"?

It's the uncertainty, I think, that gnaws at both of us. We're still both hoping we can lay low and avoid the mudslinging. Perhaps it's wishful thinking, but I'm still going to do this. So is she. We're both going to try.

It's just nice to have permission to step out, just in case.

The Arrival

We attended the Compline service at St. Mark's Cathedral this evening. It was my first time inside this structure and, as I prefer to do my exploring alone, I left Zach and his friend and took a brief tour before the service began.

I would love to ask buildings questions.
1. What have you witnessed?
2. How have you been treated?
3. Do you enjoy your role?

Have the people always been like this? Is the Compline service usually this full? I love poking around a setting, finding its worn spots, wondering, "How did this crack get here? What's the story behind it?" Our pew was broken. Why? How? There's relevance in the story - a reward for patience and persistence.

Just before the service began, I returned to my set, to find the sanctuary packed - filled much more than I would have expected for a city like Seattle, with a flare for the athiest side. My thoughts moved from worn walls to worn faces. Somber expressions ruled the room, sprinkled with a serious, yet tired, tension. I began to think to myself, "Has there been some sort of worldwide disaster that's sent people flocking to the churches? This is what I get for missing the news..." Don't misunderstand: I enjoyed the silence that accompanied such seriousness. Spiritual moments, for me, are desperately personal. But, I've found that the same is often not true for others. I was born too late to make contributions to the transcendentalist movement, and instead find myself thrust uncomfrotably into the modern trends of persistent, organized religious activity. My professions of the need for solitary settings for personal philosophical moments are met time and again with rolled eyes and "friendly" warnings agianst the inherent dangers of "do-it-yourself" religion. But really, anything other than personal moments, spent either physically or emotionally withdrawn into my James-shaped-hole-in-the-universe, seem as foreign to me as breathing methane.

Thus, I'm often the one sitting quickly in church, curling myself into a form self-labelled with "Don't touch me or approach me," when the minister/priest/what-have-you instructs all to "Greet one another in the name of the Lord!" "He's shy," they mutter. True - but your forced handshakes are shattering what could have been a small fragment of a true transcendental moment. I expect pronounced moments, and am therefore shocked when Anything Other Than That meets me.

Hence why an Anglican Cathedral filled with a conglomerate of souls, most of whom were as quiet and meditative as I've always wished, took me by surprise. I usually ignore the primates and ask the walls my questions. Instead, I suddenly began to look at the people around me. So many looked tired (is 9:30PM really that late?). I neglected the building, and willed my mind to look at my service companions:

What brings you here?

In this age where popes, priests, ministers, and laymen on the buses warn me of the dangers of an approach to religion/spirituality I believe in wholeheartedly with every fiber of my being, is it possible that you here, too, are like me? Are you here to take out of it what you can indeed take out of it, and leave the rest to tackle in your own solitary explorations? As the fluid collective of the male choir behind us rose and fell for the next thirty-five minutes, I observed Seattlites from all walks of life around me - wealthy, poor, homeless, gay, straight, couples, singles, students, parents, children, grandparents, ill, well, devout, devoid - and willed my cortex to turn my building questions to them:
1. What have you witnessed?
2. How have you been treated?
3. Do you enjoy your role?

Why are you here?

Alas, while I pushed my brain to project these inquiries, my vocal chords would not comply. I remained as silent as the grave, though my mind remained busy as the hive.

What will you take home with you? What moves you? The pretty music? The altar? Did you come to ask the building questions? Did it answer? Do you wonder about me as much as I wonder about you?

Spiritual exercises often infect me with this sort of dangerous curiosity: Is what I feel what you feel? I count myself lucky usually - my philosophical undertakings are usually solitary or, when entrance to an organized structure for relgious worship is required, there are often ample, isolated seats in the back. Yet, tonight... I was itching to slide a half inch closer to the twentysomething man next to me, look him square in his turquoise eyes and ask, "So, what are you here for?"

His answer would make all the difference.

The Box

Our trip to New York City is only a few weeks away. My second visit - Zach's first. And, while we're seeing two deeply-missed friends there, it's also time for us to consider what Must-Do's we must do.

So, any suggestions?

Realm of Fear

I don't intend for this site to become James' Kitty's Prasie Site.

Obviously not. Just remember: it's my first pet!

That said, we've named her. While I appreciated all the suggestions, particularly from him (it was almost Dr. Goodhead, I swear!), we (and by "we," I mean "I") chose to honor Kissy Suzuki from You Only Live Twice - but you can call her Suzie.

And I can't discipline Suzie.

I think it extends from an irrational-yet-ever-present fear, gashed deep and fast into my psyche. A fear so primal that my twisted simian brain can neither ignore it nor maneuver cleverly around it.

You see, I just want to be loved. Immediately and without question.

Considering human society, I suppose it's a pretty tall order. Maternal instincts are supposed to hold strong and fast, and yet I'm willing to bet the farm that I gave my mother her share of headaches (including the time I attempted to color my entire left arm with a ball-point pen).

So, with my fellow Homo sapiens sapiens difficult to lure into undying devotion to yours truly, in hops a rather frisky and gregarious specimen of Felis silvestris catus. She claws the rugs, drinks out of the toilet, and runs inexplicably from room to room with no evident rhyme or reason behind her warp-speed antics. She's recently discovered the joys of jumping up to the kitchen counter to see-what's-going-on, and attempts to scale the screen door as if it's Mount Everest. Sometimes, she licks plastic bags for a very long time.

And yet, I let her get away with it. I gently remove her from the offending gesture/mode-of-action, stroke her tummy, and unceremoniously deposit her in another room until she Raises Hell there. Why not anything otherwise? Well, I still want to be able to pet her!

Beyond petting, actually. I've discovered that I follow her around to pet her. This feline has tamed a primate. Pretty well, actually. I've thrice abandoned my laptop to find out what she's meowing about. As I took her to the veterinarian yesterday, she let out such a wail along the way that my skull split with guilt. When it came time for kitty's eye ointment and oral antibiotic drops (she has pink eye - freak), Zach had to play Bad Cop, administering the grisly medication while I calmly held her (burrito-style) wrapped up in a blue beach towel.

Thus, it seems my realm of fear extends so deep that I'm unwilling to draw the line, not even for a feline. I'll sacrifice my principles for Immediate Love - demanding instant gratification over the measured satisfaction of a slow-forming, tempered relationship. I'm paralyzed with the Fear of Unloved, so I'm willing to overlook a broken frame or scratched carpet.

Such a revelation begs the question: how would I treat my own child? Spare the rod and spoil the child? Every rational fiber of my being screams in opposition, though I fear my Fear of Unloved will trump the musings of my cerebral cortex, branding me the World's Worst Father of the World's Most Spoiled Child.

When I explained this nightmare scenario to Zach, particularly noting my fear of my fear, and how I don't know what to do regarding my fear of my fear of my fear, he paused, touched his fingers to his lower lip (which means he's really pumping some neurons), and looked me square in the eye:

Zach: "So, you're worried about our kid?"
Me: "Yes."
Zach: "A kid we don't have."
Me: "Uh... yeah?"
Zach: "James, we just got a cat. Not a kid."
Me: "Uh... I guess so."
Zach: "And we've had her for four days."
Me: "Oh."
Zach: "And I'm pretty sure she doesn't know her name, let alone that you gave her an extra scoop of food this morning just to hear her purr again. Now, the next time we give her her antibiotics, you be the one to squirt that ointment in her eye."

Yes, sir.

After all, I crave his love more than Suzie's.

Kids These Days

Last night, we left the cat free reign across the apartment while Zach and I slept listened to her run around knocking things over. This morning, I arose to survey the damage, only to find that she didn't break things... she just "explored."

Here's the part where I'm amazed, especially since this is my first pet... well, not counting my pet rock, which was a small slab of concrete I painted green and then poorly painted my name on in yellow.

Did you know that
1. 1-year-old cats can pull half the DVDs off of a bottom shelf? She really likes About Schmidt!
2. 1-year-old cats can unroll an entire roll of toilet paper, leaving it neatly folded on the floor?
3. 1-year-old cats love to leap up on the and sit on Zach's obliviously slumbering head (not once, not twice, but thrice!)?
4. 1-year-old cats really love to roll around in Zach's bath towel?

Obviously, she has a thing for Zach, head and all. We're thinking we'll have to banish her from the bedroom during the night, since she enjoyed sitting by/on Zach's head and licking my toes as they poked from the distal end of the blankets.

Oh, and she also likes - really likes - to lick plastic bags. In her previous home, she was brought up entirely as an indoor cat, and it's been stressed to us by folks at the animal shelter that it's best she remain that way, but she also goes apesh*t for the stuff going on outside. You know - leaves and weather. Here's the part where, this being my first pet and all, I ask you if all of these things are normal for a 1-year-old cat.

As for her name, a few of you apparently like "Lolita," though I still can't quite bring my self around to it. Last night, discussions of possible names somehow led to Bond girl names (though, actually not Pussy Galore)... the poor girl.

Family

Both Zach and I were surprised...

It's a girl!

She's a domestic short-haired grey tabby, a little over a year old, (for now) named "Lolita," though we're taking suggestions for a replacement name, as her given name reminds me of
1. pretentious people
2. harlots.

Here's hoping she doesn't turn out as neurotic as me.

The Harvest

For the most part, I believe in karma... sort of.

In the long run, I think we will individuall reap what we sow. And, perhaps, as a society, we'll reap what we sow. I hope it's a largely passive ordeal, one in which active human thought takes a sideline and some sort of higher authority dishes out the appropriate... measures.

That said, I'd liket to take this opportunity to recommend "measures" for the fool who first came up with the idea of playing unnecessarily loud and pathetically executed live "easy listening" music in a restaurant while Zach and I are trying to have a reasonably calm dinner. Especially since this practice, at least in Capitol Hill, has spread through establishments at an alarmingly epidemic pace.

Right now, I'm hinging on having the fellow drawn and quartered but, if this measure is seen as too harsh, I could possibly drop the regular second step, which is hanging-until-nearly-dead.

Possibly.

The Message

Back in high school, before I came out (forced out?), I lusted after a friend of mine, and had to repeatedly resist the urge to tackle him and make him mine. Let's refer to him as K... for the simple reason that his first name begins with... well... K.

One day, during a discussion of politics among a group of us hormone-ridden freaks, K gleefully announced that he's now formulated the perfect presidential campaign slogan, one that would certainly catapult him into the White House, with a firm mandate to carry out his slogan's very policy:

"Demand Instant Gratification"

The crowd cheered at K's choice of slogan. I was more distracted by the fact that K announced it in such a gleeful fashion, hoping it could indeed be taken as a sign that he preferred to share his bed with another XY. [You must recall, of course, that I was a sophomore in high school at the time, and basically thought about two things: cookies and sexual activity.]

I laughed along with the others, of course, but, in reality, I found his slogan entirely immature and shallow. I wanted to lecture him - that joking about the selfish, petty, and superficial desires that were consuming our society to the core were, at best, counterproductive and, at worst, helping to accelerate our plunge down the abyss. But, instead, as I desired him, I bottled my idealistic objections, smiled, and resigned myself to defeat in this Morally Defining Moment - I'll apparently gladly throw political and philosophical idealism aside for the mere hint of fulfillment of a teenage fantasy.

But now, years later, as an adult (or pretend adult), nearing the one-quarter century mark in this rapidly evolving human society, I have to give K credit: He was right - such a slogan would land him in the Oval Office. It preaches the core tenet of modern advertising and materialism:

watch this! fast car gets me many women to impregnate VROOM VROOM

kids hate moms who don't buy them this cool sugar treat

smile when you drink sparkly beverage, or else you're not patriotic

war on terrorism means buy RV now!!!

you're ugly buy this skin product now before boyfriend dumps you

kids tell daddy that you don't love him until he buys cheap plastic device happy fun secret inside

Sadly, K was right.

don't stand up for your ideals in front of K 'cause you want to make lust with him many hours kissy kissy

Now, if you'll excuse me, my idealistic side needs some instant gratification, and is going to flog my pragmatic side a few dozen times.

Anxiety

As I was e-mailing him the other day, I decided that it's time to let the world know that I haven't been feeling "myself" for the past week or so.

Such a bland statement begs the question: what exactly does "myself" feel like? My simple answer would be, "I don't know, but not this."

First, let's get organized. I'm not:
1. suffering from physical ailments
2. dealing with "problems at home" [Zach, as usual, rocks]
3. paranoid
4. "special."

I've just felt... anxious. On edge. And a bit out of my skin. Not to say that life lately has been one nervous collapse after another. Far from it. I've been rolling along as usual... with activities including
1. hosting my much-changed father and his new wife for a few days last weekend
2. preparing for the visit of Zach's best friend
3. planning our own subsequent excursion to see/bother one-armed Sarah and two-armed Paul
4. cleaning, reorganizing, and asking our landlord about getting a cat
5. asking for donations to my team's Seattle AIDS Walk 2005 effort.
6. andsoforth.

But, while I say things are "rolling along"... well... that's been the source of anxiety: To where, dear James, are we rolling?

Small Things have been piling up - about the future. Here's the part where I think about the internet test I took once, in which my secret superhero power was time travel. Yes, I ponder my future often, and here I sit on the brink of a paradigm shift, not sure what lies beyond the horizon. With graduate school, what I've confirmed so far is my first lab rotation, of which I know little, and a significant pay cut as I descend to the level of grad student stipend. Aside from those two small bits of information, it's all a Big Unknown - a strange creature I stumbled upon one day walking down the street, and have so far merely ascertained that it
1. exists
2. smells a bit funny.

Thus, I've much still to discover... and, as one who loves to know more than most, the concept of a Big Unknown, consisting of a 5-7 year investment with a significant cut in compensation and free time, leaves me a bit... well... flustered. Plus, being around graduate students now, I've witnessed their abilities, in both intellect and drive, and wondered, staring into a mirror, if I also have what-it-takes. Can I do what they do? Can I achieve what they achieve? Looking at the Big Unknown from this end, it quite frankly doesn't seem likely. And that small chunk of self-doubt about the future, coupled with this nagging fear of failure, has succeeded in stuffing my panties in a bunch.

The loss of time and income, the looming and stressful end to my current job, and the approaching march of graduate school, broken only by some small tidings of joy in the interim (50% chance of piano, with 100% chance of a week in New York City)... well, they say "don't sweat the small stuff." But, I obviously, thrive by sweating the small stuff.

And, quite frankly, why shouldn't we sweat the small stuff? Why shouldn't we concern ourselves with the Small Things? We spend vast majorities of our short lives swimming in Small Things - school, sex, salary. They say "worry about the big stuff" - war, disease, the immortal soul. But, aren't I defined more by the Small Things than the number of near-fatal illnesses from which I've suffered and recovered? Yes, the Big Things lay a foundation (disease: I, for one, would not have gotten far had my parents not driven me to hospital so quickly when I suffered from croup), but isn't the fact that I like turkey bacon best on my BLTs as defining of a characteristic of James as the fact that I was treated in the hospital at four months of age for a respiratory ailment?

Sweat the small stuff. Learn from it.
1. I like the smell of Scotch tape. Obsessively.
2. I'm supposed to pick classes for my first quarter in graduate school. I have no idea how to do this. It worries me.
3. I loathe brushing and flossing, but I loathe going to the dentist even more, so I do the former to minimize the latter.
4. I've forgotten quite a bit from my undergraduate courses, yet I don't want to spend the next month studying up; instead, I want to enjoy my spare time while I have it. But, if I enter graduate school unprepared, I fear I'll appear stupid and bumbling to my fellow students.
5. I answer the phone "hello," but it sounds like "yellow."
6. Since I've little money, I persistently worry about having enough for the "far future." I'm afraid I'll turn around one day, realize I'm 75, and note that my bank account is nearly empty, and that I must work as a cashier to make ends meet, rather than spending my retirement reading books and picking flowers.
7. Tuvok is the best Vulcan.
8. I'm a slow reader, as it particularly evident when I tackle professional scientific papers.
9. I try not to drink much soda but, when I do, it's either Fresca or Diet Coke.
10. In an academic debate setting, such as my current job, I'm less inclined to defend my point, instead assuming that others present must know more than me. Thus, time and again, I'm railroaded by egomaniacal loudmouths who can simply yell out wrong things louder than I can humbly proclaim right things (Small Things).
11. My favorite novel, actually, is The God of Small Things. But, if I ever met Ms. Roy, I wouldn't tell her that - because she probably hears that from lots of people, and she's definitely smarter than I am.
12. I really miss having a piano in my life... playing it has actually helped me cope well with #10.
13. I fear failure.
14. I'm on the lookout for a good biography of King Henry VII, if anyone can recommend a title.

As I discovered yesterday, while writing Adam, setting a few of my angst-ridden Small Things - particularly when interspersed with other, brighter Small Things (he, unfortunately, had to read about my philosophy of sperm count in between my anxieties) - really puts the Soul at ease.

Therapeutic, but without the huge bill at the end.

So, for my sake, just to make me fell a little bit more mainstream, pile up a few small anxieties of your own, and sweat the small stuff. It won't hurt too much - after all, they're only the Small Things.

Flavor

Earlier this afternoon, I passed a co-worker eating the remnants of a hasty lunch.

Me: "Oh! I love that type of crisps! May I have one?"
Co-Worker: "Help yourself. I forgot I don’t like them very well."
Me: "Why?"
Co-Worker: "They’re too harshly baked for my taste. Almost burned."

Too bad I love "almost burned."

More often than not, it seems I do indeed love the nearly-burned/too-well-done moiety. Last night, an exhausted Zach requested that I take charge of dinner. In his words: "Jim, just cook something!" Hence, since I was cooking, we had BLTs. Once Zach coped with the fact that, more often than not, "cooking" entails two slices of bread with stuff in between, his next request took the form of, "Make our bacon separate, so mine isn’t burned." I suppose he tired of hearing the excuse, "Zach, veggie bacon is more sensitive to my cooking techniques, and thus much easier to burn." I don’t blacken it. But, James' bacon is guaranteed crispy!

Growing up, my mother and all three of my mammaws could testify that crispy bacon was tantamount to a religious tenet to my younger self. Perhaps, with such a complex, and occasionally contradictory, religious upbringing, I fled from Bibles and Sunday School, preferring instead the wholesome raptures of crispy, fried salted pork products. I once asserted that, when one draws a piece between the lips, draws the tongue up underneath, and firmly clamps down rabbit-like with incisors, how could anything OTHER than the salty, smoky, rough flavors spreading across the tongue accompanying that familiar crunch be anything close to satisfying?

To each his own, I suppose. Though all three mammaws and my mother will, I'm sure, willingly bring forth accounts of near horror on my part when the bacon is presented in any fashion other than crackling-crispy and just-a-tad-overdone. As I got older, my increasingly health-conscious mother pressured a switch to less-salty, thinner turkey bacon. With Zach, a near vegetarian, we’ve sampled several varieties of vegetarian bacon, which have all proven foreign to the original pork product.

Yet, I still crave them as much. This revelation last evening, when, upon Zach’s specific request that his bacon be "still soft," led to another New Thought: it’s not the flavor, really – it’s the FLAVOR that accompanies TEXTURE.

I crave the bland, overcooked sensation of a good "crunch." Not the whole flavor, just the leftovers that survive prolonged cooking. In bacon, crisps, and others.
1. When eating hard candy, for example, I don't hold it gingerly and patiently in my mouth, savoring the sweet flavors as they coat the tongue. Instead, I chew as soon as my molars can snap through, polishing off a candy cane usually in thirty seconds or less.
2. For pizza, as Zach has found out all too often, I bake until the cheese at the pie top forms a thin, brown crust of its own, coating the surface.

There are other examples, particularly from my cooking. When Zach discovered my philosophy of "better overdone than underdone," he wrote it off as a fear of consuming undercooked food, and the subsequent ugly possibilities of trips to the hospital for Salmonella infection. "Too many microbiology courses for a mild hypochondriac," he muttered. Perhaps. Or, perhaps my poor taste buds can't handle more.

I've always viewed the fifth sense with a bit of disdain, partially due to my own interesting defect. I'm unable to stick my tongue further than my closely-pursed lips, thanks to an extra fold of tissue holding most of the twitching organ to my lower jaw. A dentist recently asked how much speech therapy I had to endure as a result. "Uh, none. Isn’t it just a gay lisp?" A former physician broke the news to me, at the age of ten, that I couldn’t blow bubbles with bubble gum as a result. I silently cursed all physicians I had prior to him for failing to mention that fact, seeing as how I’d spent most of my childhood attempting to do so. Thus, with my primary taste organ partially immobilized, I consider it at least 50% nonfunctional. (I've also become a follower of the camp proclaiming, "Bite your ice cream, damn it! Don’t lick it like a little pussy!")

A teacher in college also made the mistake of informing me that much of our sense of taste is dependent on olfaction. The former enhances the brain's perception of the latter. Furthermore, it doesn't take too many biology classes to learn that the development of the frontal cortex in my bulging, sexy hominid brain came at the expense of my sense of smell. In that sense, we come in near last among the Animalia. So, while I have the cortical machinery capable of typing, you can bet I won't smell a fire in this building – or, when I do, I'll run hungrily in its direction, hoping it’s actually a plate of crispy bacon.

Thus, among the senses of
1. touch
2. sight
3. audition
4. olfaction
5. taste,
while 1, 2, and 3 are satisfactory, 4 is impaired at the expense of 2 and the aforementioned bulging cerebral cortex, and 5 is further retarded by its dependence on 4.

So, what does it mean that, in the limited array of flavors we can perceive and enjoy, I automatically gravitate towards the narrow range of "nearly burned, but not charred black"? I'm not exactly the life of the party to begin with, unless your party involves a Corona, a few installations of Battlestar Galactica, an intimate discussion of your favorite moment in Jane Austen's Persuasion, time-out for some bacon, a rousing game of Cranium or Trivial Pursuit, and finally Star Tropics for NES. So, while I'm not quite as low as white-bread-and-mayonnaise, I'm not a huge number of steps above it, either. In that sense, perhaps my tastes (or lack thereof) fit nicely into the James Puzzle. Is this it, then? Is it all yet another line of evidence proving that I, far from grabbing life by the horns, instead gently poke the horns a few times, sneezes, and then sits in the corner to eat some overcooked cornbread? Am I really just a dull ice-cream-biter?

Or am I just prone to overthinking?

When I broached this subject with another person, she sighed and handed me a peppermint candy (which immediately went into my mouth), advising me that, after the peppermint had been consumed, I should refrain from thinking about this subject.

For the record, I found a painful loophole: this peppermint candy has been in my mouth for approximately forty-five minutes, permitting sufficient time to
1. Overthink the above subject one last time, and
2. conclude that my chomp-and-go method for hard candy consumption is leagues more enjoyable than this patience-straining exercise in tongue manipulation.

The organ is, after all, nailed firmly to the cross – and we all have our crosses to bear.

The Price is Right

1 bag of Reese's Milk Chocolate Miniature Peanut Butter Cups: $1.99 at QFC

watching Zach forget to take the paper wrapper off of one miniature peanut butter cup: amusing

watching Zach forget to take the paper wrapper off of a second miniature peanut butter cup: "special," in so many ways

hearing her nightly childhood PRAYER to her cat: PRICELESS

Sacred Hour

Lately, Zach has been having some problems with King County Metro.

Though the bus faithfully takes him to work each morning, he's been plagued the past few days by a lack of seats on board. He's had to stand during the long ride downtown. Unfortunately, for Zach, this lack-of-seats means that he cannot read while riding to work. But, reading on the way to work is sacred to him.

We all have times like that, right? Or, if not, you should, naughty human. For me, it's lunchtime at work: I don't use that time usually to socialize with co-workers. I read, instead. It's a wonderous habit I picked up while working as a cashier in college, to avoid a small handful of co-workers who I didn't like, and who didn't like me in return. I simply brought it with me to Seattle. Of course, lunchtime isn't the only time I read. But, I consider it sacred - I must read during this time, this very personal period. For Zach, he reads on the bus in the mornings.

So, having to stand on the bus hampers Zach's Sacred Time, and he's unfortunately gotten to work the past few days in a very sour mood. To me, it's all entirely understandable. I'm sure I'll become equally sour when graduate school gives me scientific papers to read during lunch hour, rather than the latest alternative history novel or biography of Bloody Mary Tudor.

Yesterday, however, Zach found himself on a bus that had one seat unoccupied by human backside. Unfortunately, as he wrote me later that morning in an e-mail, the seat had a lady's bag on it, and she was sitting in the next seat. He asked her to move it, and she refused.

At this point, I should reveal that Zach doesn't back down from a fight. And, if he believes he's in the right, woe to you.

Apparently, he put his foot down. I'll let his e-mail do the talking:

"I asked her to move the bag so I could sit down and she refused. I didn't like her answer so I got into a fight with her. I told her that the bag didn't pay a fare and therefore couldn't rest on a seat. I said it was rude, but typical of people in this city to be so against sitting next to someone. Eventually, she relented and I got to sit down. I was mad and now I am tired."

As you can see, he also has little patience with Seattlites. At least, that is, when they're interrupting his Sacred Time.

Later on that day, he rang me at work.

Zach: "Did you read my e-mail?"
Me: "Yeah... I'm so proud of you!"
Zach: "Really?"
Me: "Yeah. Way to stand up for yourself!"
Zach: "Well yeah. She was being stupid. There was a seat there and I wanted to sit down and read."
Me: "Good for you! Let it never be said that you don't know how to draw a line in the sand. You stood up for your convictions! I'm proud."
Zach: "Exactly. I wasn't going to take it any longer. I finally found a bus that had a seat available, and I was going to take it. I was standing up for my convictions."
Me: "Yeah. And it's not like it was an undreasonable demand."
Zach: "Yeah."
Me: "How very Picard of you."
Zach: "Huh?"
Me: "You know. From First Contact, when Picard is like, 'The line must be drawn here. This far! No further!'"
Zach: "Oh, God."
Me: "Oh yes! And then he's like, "And I will make them pay - "
Zach: "Can I go now?"
Me: "Oh, shut up."
Zach: "Finished?"
Me: "Yeah. But was it like that? Did she have a big bag?"
Zach: "Um, I'm not sure."
Me: "Was she some stupid young girl with her thumb up her ass?"
Zach: "Uh, no. She was some old lady."
Me: "Huh?"
Zach: "Yeah. She was older. Like, over 65, probably."
Me, yelling: "WHAT?!?!"
Zach: "Yeah. What's wrong with that?"
Me: "You didn't tell me she was old!!"
Zach: "So?"
Me: "You yelled at a senior citizen?!"
Zach: "Hey! It's not a crime - "
Me: "THAT'S NOT THE POINT!"
Zach: "And you said I was good for me to stand up for my convictions!"
Me: "Well, that's before I found out you yelled at a grandmother!!"
pause
Zach: "So, you're saying here that, in the same situation, you wouldn't have stood up for your convictions?"
Me: "My convictions say that you DON'T YELL AT OLD PEOPLE!!!!!"
pause
Me: "Did you really argue with a senior citizen?"
Zach: "Yeah. I wanted to read!!!"
Me: "I can't believe you yelled at a grandmother."
Zach: "We don't know if she's a grandmoth - "
Me: "THAT'S NOT THE POINT."
Zach: "Then what is the point?!"
Me: "You don't argue with senior citizens!"
Zach: "That's you're conviction?"
Me: "Yes."
Zach: "And you're sticking with it?"
Me: "YES."
pause
Zach: "So, does this mean that, when I'm old, you won't yell at me?"
Me: "Oh, I wouldn't be the farm on that one, buddy."

I later added that, every half-decade or so, I put my Convictions up to a lengthy review process, and discard the outdated ones. Here are some that I've tossed over the years:
1. People who smoke cigarettes look cool. [thrown out at age 22]
2. I'm going to have twelve children. [thrown out at age 5]
3. Anal sex is icky. [thrown out during a special session in my late teens]
4. I'm going to watch Duck Tales every afternoon for the rest of my life. [thrown out, tearfully, at age 11]
5. Light brown M&Ms taste the best. [thrown out whenever they threw out light brown M&Ms]
6. If I ever had to be drafted into the military, I think I'd be okay. [thrown out whenI threw out #3]

Parallels

I've recently given in to a guilty pleasure.

Alternative histories!

For those of you out there scratching your heads, consider them what-might-have-been. You know the books I'm talking about: the "what if" scenarios – the hybrid progeny of science fiction geeks and history buffs. And, since I'm a science fiction geek and history buff, such scenarios are right up my alley. To an extent, at least. I find the very concept of an alternative history fascinating. Very often, it's a single, seemingly-insignificant event that changes (a "pivot point," I call it), and consequently the world unravels, and is rewound into a form as alien to us as the interior of a star. In my own department, just stop and consider:

1. If a certain ancestor of mine hadn't switched sides (pragmatic, yet perhaps cowardly) at just the right moment during the Wars of the Roses, he would've left the Tower of London in two pieces rather than one, and you would most likely be ISleepInADrawer.com-less. And Arkansas would have lost several generations worth of dentists, doctors, and farmers.

2. If I'd taken a different route to work one day while in college, I wouldn't have met a friend of mine along the way, who told me about this internship she's applying to in Seattle. I wouldn't have decided to apply to it, too, eventually go, and fall in love with the city enough to return, and apply to graduate school. Seattle would have one less crackpot roaming the streets, and I would probably be working at Rush University, in the position I turned down to come here.

3. If I'd indeed decided to "play sick" one New Year's Eve from work as a cashier at a certain clothing store in Davenport, Iowa, I would not have met Zach.

While it's fun to ponder my own existence in such terms, I find it more sobering still, and just as fascinating, to ponder Bigger Questions. What if this had happened rather than that? How would things be different if we had done A rather than B? One can come up with all sorts of scenarios all throughout history. What if sperm/egg interactions in the parents of the following famous/infamous folks had been just a little bit different, permitting a different sperm cell to interact with the chosen egg and, consequently, make a very different human being from...
1. Fidel Castro
2. Alexander the Great
3. Jawaharlal Nehru
4. Lizzie Borden
5. Dr. Seuss
6. William the Conqueror
7. the Unknown Rebel of Tiananmen Square
8. Cain
9. Jim Garrison
10. James Oglethorpe
11. Galen
12. Alfred Hitchcock
13. Alexander Fleming
14. Tomás de Torquemada
15. Mel Brooks

Stop and ask yourselves: What would a world be like without the Reformation? Without penicillin? Without Alf? What would we be like instead?

I see much of it as a duel between Significance and Insignificance. If one single event can indeed alter history, then NO single event is insignificant. Every event has the potential to alter the outcome of history-as-we-know-it and, some would argue, indeed DOES alter the outcome. One could even dissect events to the molecular level. If neutron A moves to point B rather than point C, then event X is replaced with event Y, and, therefore, Indira Gandhi is not assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards in 1984 and instead dies peacefully in her sleep in the late 1990s.

By that model, whether or not I sit in this chair balancing myself on my left butt cheek or my right butt cheek is as important as whether I was standing an inch to the left of a sidewalk crack this morning while waiting for the bus, or an inch-and-a-half to the left.

And both hold as much importance as my undergraduate GPA, my credit score, and the brand of deodorant I wear.

This obsessive line of thought has not been my constant companion for the nearly twenty-five years of my existence. No, the seeds were planted sometime in the late 1990s, when I read Fatherland, by Robert Harris. As the title suggests, it centers on one of the more popular "pivot" events for alternative histories: what if the Nazis had been victorious? Harris' work, however, gets props, so I read in reviews, for being one of the more realistic "what-ifs." I cherished the book, read and re-read it, ignored its faults, and praised its purpose: what-might-have-been. I thought about other "pivot points" I could come up with. Some were more obvious than others:
1. the South wins the American Civil War through event X, splitting the United States forever
2. the American War of Independence fails, as the British government tightens its grip on North America
3. President Truman decides not to use atomic weapons against Japan, leading to a direct and drawn out Allied invasion of the Japanese mainland
4. the Cuban Missile Crisis escalates into a full-blown nuclear conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union

Simple pimple, right? The hard part is deciding what happens after the "pivot point," and how far after will you go? Presumably, the further into the future you go from that pivot, the more radical the changes become. Thus, in my own Gedankenexperiments, I'd often limit myself to the last two hundred years or so of human history, and try not to overstep the boundaries of my limited learning in history. Desires to push the limits, though, often fueled my interest in history. I can safely assert that many of the historical readings I've undertaken in the past ten years or so have been launched largely through pondering, "What if?..."

I stayed away from reading more alternative histories, though. Looking on the shelves at bookstores, I wasn't entirely tempted by what I saw. I'd wanted something at least as realistic as Harris' view of the U.S./Greater German Reich Cold War in 1964, not accounts of
1. Aliens invade during World War II, forcing Hitler and Japan to team up with the U.S., U.K., and Stalin to beat back the invaders, paving the way for peace!
2. Time travelers go back to the Civil War and give the Confederates twentieth-century weapons, ensuring their victory!
3. At the end of the Cretaceous, an asteroid fails to strike Earth, giving the dinosaurs 65 million more years of glory!

I realize that, sometimes, asking for pragmatism from science fiction is like asking for the moon, but... c'mon folks. I want to read about something I can relate to. That's part of the fun, isn't it? Seeing how things could change, and then comparing them to your own existence, or what you know from istory, right? Perhaps not. Anyway, the above examples, and other poorly-written accounts, turned me away. I was demanding good writing, relevance, and a relatively realistic Mirror Universe.

But, within the past year or so, I heard a story on NPR advertising Philip Roth's latest work: The Plot Against America. Very character-driven, and a quite-frankly smashing novel even without the alternative history aspects, receiving it as a gift from Zach (after a few well-placed blatant hints on my part) opened my heart to temptation once again.

Yes, James... Go for it! Read another alternative history!

I resisted for about six months, but have finally given in. The final catalyst was a non-fiction biography of the six wives of King Henry VIII (remember: Tudor England nerd, too). In it, the author made a rather insignificant, small comment regarding the relationship between Henry and Wife #4, Anne of Cleves, that made my mind jump into alternative history mode: what if it hadn't been as the author says? How would things change? And, suddenly everything changed. I went back to a point about Henry's first wife, Catherine of Aragon, and found a similar seemingly-insignificant part, and drooled.

Must... read... more.

So, I'm now halfway through How Few Remain, an account of North America in the early 1880s, nearly two decades after the South, bolstered by a great victory at the Battle of Antietam (pivot point), gains international recongition from England and France, and thus succeeds in separating itself from the U.S.A. I chose it not for any particular interest: I'd merely formed a list of four or five alternative histories that I'd like to read, and found that Barnes and Noble carried only this title. I'm guessing that many of the alternative histories are like this one, focusing on a large number of famous names, and their experiences in the Mirror Universe, paralleling how we know them in the Real World. So far, in How Few Remain, I've run into:
1. Geronimo
2. George Custer
3. Abraham Lincoln
4. Samuel Clemens
5. "Stonewall" Jackson
6. James Longstreet
7. Frederick Douglass
8. Theodore Roosevelt
9. Jeb Stuart
10. Alexander Pope

To me, it's a bit busy. Almost too busy. Too many well-known names, all philosophizing over what-might-have-been, had only the Union won at the Battle of Antietam. Of course, we know what would have happened, but the point is almost driven home too well. Too obviously. I'll finish the book, though. I'm interested in how the Battle of Louisville is going to unfold! The author has also written a sequel, set in WWI, where the U.S.A. and the C.S.A., still bitter enemies, take different sides in the conflict, bringing a European war to American soil. I may even read that, for more ideas. But, I enjoyed Fatherland and The Plot Against America partically because they steered away from a large number of well-known characters. Sometimes it's okay to invent a few new main characters, and let the differences in this world unfold to the reader by passive absorbance, rather than direct, passionate statement. That's part of the fun, isn't it?

Well, from what I've seen in the bookstores, perhaps my own personal tastes are in the minority. That said, I believe reading How Few Remain has opened a Pandora's box: I'll read more, most definitely. I'll just complain about the writing styles with a bit more vigor, if it suits me. I'll also keep up my own thoughts regarding what-might-have-been. I've two good ones already, thanks to the aforementioned biography of Henry VIII's wives, and I'd like to build upon them, and see what-happens (or, what-might-be). If I knew some nitty-gritty details about history, I could even dissect these "pivot points," further. What good is Henry VIII, after all, when I don't know which butt cheek he put most of his weight on while sitting on the throne?

I am reminded of the closing of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince, in which our narrator, one final time, laments the perceptive differences between children and adults:

"Here, then, is a great mystery. For you who also love the little prince, and for me, nothing in the universe can be the same if somewhere, we do not know where, a sheep that we never saw has--yes or no?--eaten a rose...

"And no grown-up will ever understand that this is a matter of so much importance!"

Indeed. And, if you are wise, you'd do well to ponder the rose's fate the next time you pick a seat on the bus. Pay special attention to which butt cheek you balance on; after all, who knows what the consequences could be.