I need some worms

Maybe my immune system is all fucked up because it hasn't been fine-tuned by the presence of parasites.  Evolution, I hate you.

so much to say

I've been thinking about what I would write over the weekend and early this week, but it's been hard because there's been a pretty radical shift in my thought processes, expectations, etc.  Which is fucking welcome, I'll tell you right now.

I went to Boulder Thursday morning through Sunday night.  In a word, it was awesome.  Cassie picked me up, and I stayed with her.  I got to hang out with an old friend, spent time climbing with Joe, ran into an old Jailhouse friend...I think.

The pub scene there is awesome. We went to both the Mountain Sun and the Southern Sun. Being there made me realize that every person I hang out with in Davis is married.  No wonder I feel like a leper here. There's a huge demographic hole between undergraduates and families here...a hole that I've fallen into.

I'd been beating myself up for wasting time over the last 4 years not looking, or doing other things, or whatever.  But in reality, I feel pretty ok in blaming it on the place.  Checking out Boulder and seeing all the young professionals made me pretty psyched.

I know I'm being very optimistic and my vision of the city is very biased, but if that's what it takes to get me to finish my PhD and get out of this rut, then so be it. I'm right on track to finish in a year, and I've got great prospects for getting a job or a post-doc out there - either in Boulder, Denver or Ft. Collins.  I've got quite a few friends out there (not all of them are climbers - which is a big deal to me).

I'm ready for a change.

I got to climb at the gym Movement, which is almost reason enough to move. On Sunday I climbed in Eldo with Joe - pretty tough stuff.  It's like a gigantic, chossy, crowded sandstone version of Donner. There were cliff swallow carcasses all over the place from the peregrines.  And a rescue.

People say the climbing around Boulder is chossy and not that good.  But holy shit is it close.  I drive 2.5 hours each way to climb on choss here.  If I could only drive 20 minutes to climb on choss that would be a vast improvement.

I'd like to go back and check out Fort Collins this summer, maybe climb up in Rocky Mountain, check out some of the other local climbing.  I also want to meet some professors/agency folks to talk about jobs.

One of the concerns I have about moving to Boulder is that it will be difficult to avoid the outdoor industry/pro-climber scene.  In Davis all of my friends are scientists first. Some of them climb, but it's certainly not their priority.  Nobody moves to Davis to be a pro-athlete.  It's different in the Front Range. You have all kinds of dirtbags moving there for the scene and it scares the shit out of me.  After my brief experience on the outermost periphery of the pro-climber scene, I don't want anything to do with it.  Joe made a good point though that with all of the agencies, biotech/atmospheric science centers and universities, there are many many people who do sports recreationally, not as their identity.

I want more.  I'm getting after it.

Donner party!

Not cannibals?

Exercise and weight loss: life isn't fair.

Interesting NYTimes piece on the relationship between exercise and weight loss.  A choice quote:

"In practical terms the results are scientific proof that life is unfair."

Cool interview on NPR

Last night I heard a really great interview with Michael J. Fox on NPR.  I wasn't expecting much, just listening to NPR's most emailed stories of the day, but I really liked a lot of what he had to say.  I've cut and pasted the bits I liked from the transcript.

The first excerpt is his interpretation of loss and failure and disappointment.  I've been thinking lately about how, not only have I learned a lot from the tougher times in my life, but that I actually feel defined by them.  And not by my successes.  In fact, I can't even think of a single life-event that I would define as a success.  I'm so lucky and privileged in life, that all of the things that might be considered "successes", I view as things I should be doing anyway.  

SIMON: Mr. Fox, do you learn more from success or disappointment and even failure?

Mr. FOX: I think you learn more from disappointment. But I think that success loses its sheen after a while and you begin to see that there's no such thing as absolute success, that there's always failure and there's always disappointment and there's always loss. But the secret is learning from the loss and realizing that none of those holes are vacuums.

Theyll be filled up. And if you try to fill them up with ego or a kind of immediate gratification, you're going to short-shrift yourself and you're going to lose the opportunity to find out what happens when you give the loss space to fill itself and let life kind of come in and fill the cracks.

The second excerpt is him talking about his Parkinson's disease.  I can only hope that if my body fails due to MS I can maintain such a positive attitude:

Mr. FOX: And so I have a choice: I can either kind of quit and say, well, you know, this is not ideal, I'm going to give in. Or I can just push through.

The thing about, that Im always trying to explain to people - because so much of the time, actually, my pills are working and Im feeling great. And people say you look so good and you look so smooth, and I have to remind them and myself that when I am smooth and I am - the medication is working, thats not my natural state.

My natural state is one thats affected by the shortage of dopamine production in my brain. So my natural state is to be halting and at times tremulous and kind of just physically disturbed. I mean thats my natural state, given the situation in my brain. But Im always as happy either way. And so when it comes to me, body language lies.

The last excerpt that I enjoyed was about expectations.  Not only the expectations of others but the expectations of ourselves.  I wish I could unburden myself with such expectations. Because, really, it's awful. I'll never live up to them. I especially like the quote: "I think your happiness grows in direct proportion to your acceptance and in inverse proportion to your expectations." I suppose this is part of the philosophy behind radical acceptance.

SIMON: Mr. Fox, can I ask - do you think people have expectations of you?

Mr. FOX: It doesnt really matter, because I think they may, but Im pretty set on my path and pretty comfortable with what Im doing. And I have enough experience to know that I seem to be pleasing the people who I most want to please. And when Im not pleasing them, Im learning from their disappointment and it's pushing me in the right direction.

So I dont burden myself too much with others' expectations or even my own expectations. I think your happiness grows in direct proportion to your acceptance and in inverse proportion to your expectations. It's just a matter of putting one foot in front of the other, or doing the next right thing, so to speak.

Food for thought.

Spring wildflowers

Flowers from today's site visit in Napa/Sonoma.

Poison oak is such a handsome plant - Toxicodendron diversilobum

Who can resist a California poppy? Eschscholzia californica

Owl clover - Castilleja spp.

Zigadenus lily - Zigadenus fremontii

Naturalists among goldfields and blue dicks

Iris

Baby blue eyes - Nemopila insignis

Hound's tongue - Cynoglossum grande

Mule's ears - Wyethia mollis

Blue eyed grass - Sisyrinchium bellum

Sun cups - Camissonia ovata

Our prize: the endangered Clara Hunt's milkvetch

Lovely day, lots of flowers!  Walking through the goldfields.

Parting shot of the endangered Astragalus clarianus

Finishing up the season on a high note

I went to Gold Wall Saturday with Maki, a couple of her friends, and Ethan and his buddy Ben.  Ethan had never been there before.

Anyway, I sent Hippy Speedball, which was cool, considering I'd never even gotten a 1-hang.  I just grred and made it happen (even with a wet key hold).  I love it when that happens.  I'd worked it a little in the Winter before it got wet and just got back on it a week or two ago.  But then it kept raining...

That route is awesome.

Maki TRed and got a bit worked; she's a Tuolumne technical master and doesn't get to climb on steep jugs very often. I think if she came out a little bit more she'd crush.

Ethan climbed the shit out of the place, finally admitting that the climbing was pretty fun and "I might come back". For the first part of the day he had his poopy pants on, but that could be because he forgot his harness and had originally wanted to go to the Valley. After GW left dried out a bit he took the poopy pants off and had a good time. James Markovsky was there, with two minions...

I had a special request for the cookie-topped brownies that I've made made many times before. This was a particularly good batch, and the crew devoured them.  They are always a winner.

The wall was amazingly uncrowded, and although we expected it to be scorching, some inversion-layer magic happened and it was lovely most of the day.  It was so lovely that I stayed much longer than I normally do, and even ran a lap on Hillbilly Limestone at the end of the day (not clean). Ethan was belaying and could tell I was hesitant and started yelling at me until I actually started climbing and got so pumped I climbed past a clip and took a massive whipper.  YES!  Sometimes we all need to be encouraged in order to push beyond our comfort zone. Plus it's nice to know that really good climbers don't always expect you to be as good as them...he's fun to climb with. I'm thinking about going to Clark weekend after next. Ethan and some other folks will be down there.  I've never been.

I'm so excited about Boulder!

It was great to hang out with Maki and Ethan and company.  Good weekend for sure.

Sunday I slept in, went to an orchid show in Sacramento (and didn't buy anything! Whoa!). In Savannah when we lived on the island I had these big tables covered with orchids.  It was so easy to grow them it felt like I was cheating.  In Davis everything dies.  The water sucks and the summers are scorching and dry.  In the evening Maki and I went out for sushi - softshell crab. mmmmm. Tempura mango ice cream.  yummmmm.

Cheeky octopus, why educated people curse...

I really enjoyed this video...great views of the octopus towards the end...clinging to speargun after stealing a diver's camera and recording itself. So cute!






Here's a link to a NYT piece on why educated people curse:

http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/why-do-educated-people-use-bad-words/

I find this interesting because, by most measures I am educated, and I definitely curse (I always say I'm trying to stop).

oh boy. I'm excited to put this week behind me.

This week has been busy.  Yesterday I met up with James at the GW and got a good, though short day in. I did the only 5.11 left at the wall which I hadn't done, Claim Jumper.  The only explanation I have for why it took so long is that there are no fixed draws, and I am a lazy girl.

Monday and Tuesday I was working in Sacramento. I got some samples in the mail that need to be processed in another lab, which I've never been to. I need to get the goddamn freezer in the mainlab fixed, so I have to call the freezer people. Who the freezer people are, I'm not sure. However I have this vision of oompa loompas coming in and doing a bunch of weird shit, singing a song, and then leaving after fixing the freezer.  That would be excellent.

I also made a movie about Jailhouse, inspired be the new school tradster video:

Maki came last night, and she's going to spend part of the weekend with me. We'll probably go sport climbing. She's never been to the Gold Wall, so why not check it out?  I think this may be one of my last weekends there. I'd like to start going to Donner...get a little elevation under me.

The most exciting thing (other than making kale chips for the first time) is that I bought a plane ticket to Denver next week. I'm going to spend a few days in Boulder hanging out with a good friend of mine (Cass) and climbing with Joe.  I also located my guidebook to Rodellar in Boulder, so I'll grab that as well. There are other people who I'd like to see in Boulder, but I have a feeling I'll be pretty overwhelmed.  I'd much rather spend quality time with a few people than see a whole bunch for just a few minutes. 

I want to check out the city to see if I'd like to move there.  Casey might be there too, and I'd like to see her.  She is part of my inspiration for getting out of Davis. I'd like to leave a lot of things behind in California, though I do love it. We have a history, this state and I.

I'm getting very restless these days.  

My brownie husband

90 seconds! A BARGAIN!

Climbing trip!

I want to go on a trip.  I'm thinking about going back to Spain for 2 weeks or so.  Woo!  I looked for my guide to Rodellar today but realized that I left it behind when I left Spain the the Fall.  So sad. That book sucked.

I'd actually like to check out some of the other crags...we'll see if Spain happens.  I'd like to go to the Red, and Smith and some other places as well.  There's a chance I'll go somewhere with Ethan for a few days.  I only have to be in Davis on Monday and Tuesday, and other than that I'm pretty much a free agent as long as I get my shit done at work.  Spending 12 hours a week in a cubicle in Sacramento is definitely NOT helping me get my shit done, but it is indirectly helping me get to Spain by giving some love to my bank account.

Dude.  by the way.  The supreme court justice is NINETY! That's too old to think.  I can't say I'm sorry to see a 90 year old step down.  That is OLD.

OK back to climbing.  Hopefully GW on Thursday with James, and then Maki is coming to stay with me Thursday night and we're going to go to GW on Sat/Sun.  I want to finish Hippy Speedball and try another 13.  Death Valley won't work out this weekend.  Apparently there's a shitload of snow up on Telescope anyway and I have no skis.

In other exciting news Dr. Rob is going to come and visit next week. I miss that guy. He is a wonderful friend and I've missed him since he moved to Colorado.  Sushi and catching up is definitely on the agenda.

Exciting things!

and so it goes until it goes no further

There are so many studies about emotions and evolution, emotions and neuroscience, emotions and whatever the heck.

When I feel my heart breaking, all I want to do is hide from myself.  But there's nowhere to go. I'd say there's nowhere to go but forward, but that's definitely not true.  You can definitely go backwards. I suppose the only time I ever felt my heart truly break was when I found out that Traci had died.  I can understand why the heart is associated with love and pain and all the agony and all of the ecstasy. When your heart breaks, it hurts...in your heart.

And in a way it's very much like a physical injury.  It takes a lot of time to heal, and you are going to be worried about testing it again, and going out there with a weakened heart and making it worse.

I wonder if some people are born with stronger hearts than others.  Or if one can make their heart stronger through some sort of effort. Or if it will get stronger on its own without any effort whatsoever.  I don't know. Surely there are different degrees of fracture.

When I think about how broken my heart feels sometimes, and I know that as I go on in life, loss is inevitable...sometimes it's hard to even want to try. And of course, blah blah blah happy times and blah blah blah.  But still.  Just the very knowledge that I'm capable of feeling this bad and this broken scares the shit out of me. There's no way of preventing it...at least not for me. I'm terrible at pretending I'm ok.  And mostly I'm proud of that.  It takes a lot more strength to admit when you are not ok than to pretend that everything is peachy.

Sometimes I really miss her.  There are some things that only a sister would understand.  I'm not sure if never having one is better than having one and losing her.  I miss her when I see other people hang out with their sisters.  Even if in reality she was so sick that hanging out with her was very hard, I suppose at least there was the option, and always the hope that she'd get better.

So I don't really know what this post is about.  I'm thinking about one situation and writing about another.  And that's fine. People who know me know that I'm writing in layers about several different things. But isn't that how it always is?

Actually maybe not, and maybe it's a mistake to make that assumption. Assigning real value to something that should be taken at face-value.

What I do know is that I'm not gentle with myself.  So fucking hard to stop blaming myself for everything, and taking everything on.  Someone tells me that I suck and I believe them.  Questioning their judgement is an afterthought.  First I have to check myself to see if I've been shot, and where the damage is. What if I really do suck? And even though it doesn't matter, it's just heinous. Letting go of someone else's judgement oddly difficult. Why don't I trust myself? Why would I trust someone else before I would trust myself?  No clue.  Actually, it's only hard to write someone off if you've made the leap of faith to trust them in the first place.  Losing that trust is really effing hard.  You have to admit that you made an error in judgement and then reevaluate everything.  And even then you know that it's so much more complicated than you wish it was. All efforts to find simple reason and rationale are going to fail. And that sucks. Accepting the complication and shades of gray is much harder than making sweeping proclamations about the way things are. Placing things into fixed categories is often a symptom of youth.

I'll never have it figured out. God that's depressing.

But the sky was beautiful tonight.

Sarah Palin makes me want to jump out of a window. Tina Fey to the rescue!

I like this.

Oh how significant we are

Just to keep things in perspective.

Heading to Gold Wall tomorrow - hopefully it won't be too wet, too crowded or too hot.  Gold wall is sort of feast or famine.  It's really fucking cold, and then really fucking hot.  Rarely are there perfect temperatures.  Waaah.

Next week I think I'll head to Bishop to climb in the gorge, and then hike up Telescope Peak in Death Valley with Maki (if it all works out). And we are going to botanize together! Spring wildflowers!

Monday I'm doing a site visit for a new species I'm writing a recovery plan for in Contra Costa county.  It's an endangered Clarkia.

Why is it that I only work with extremely small populations and endangered or threatened species?  I haven't actually chosen my species, it's just worked out that way. I feel like the angel of death or something. No wonder I get depressed about conservation. Sheesh.

Finally, "Everything is amazing right now, and nobody's happy."

Blarg

Ugh I just wrote a super snarky post and deleted it.

Generally, I try not to self-edit on this blog. I don't want to pretend that I don't have thoughts and feelings that I'm not proud of, and that I know are less-than-wonderful.  But...in this case I decided to edit.  Trust me, it was funny, but probably the right thing...maybe.  I have no idea.

Easter brunch!

Emily had a brunch at her house today, southern-style.  All of the other girls put on dresses and looked fabulous, except me.  Bah.  Fortunately Bjorn and Lisa showed up in their best casual attire, and the Phil showed up in his Easter sweats.

The food was excellent! Cheese grits, brown sugar cupcakes in a ham wrapper with candied pineapple (yep, you read that right), french toast casserole, a bacon log (see photo below), fruit salad, biscuits with sausage gravy...and I made some puff pastry squares with pastry cream and sliced strawberries.  Mimosas were served, of course.

After brunch we had an Easter egg hunt, and I found the one that looked like a rock.  Matt said "It's almost like you spend all day every day looking at rocks."

Ok, here are the pics.  And by the way, Kevin helped me figure out why my photos indoors are always so yellow, so half of the pictures are yellow and half are "auto-white-balance."

Notice that the cupcakes are not in paper wrappers...they are in MEAT wrappers!

Ooooh...not a good shot.

That's better.

"She's not fat, she's just big-boned!" -Emily

Barefoot in the kitchen.  Just like a proper Southern Lady.  Not preggers though.

Bacon log. I had a bite. It was salty.

James looking dapper

My strawberry pastry squares

Marit in a pretty dress; Bjorn in a sweatshirt.

I found an egg!

Tiiiiiired.

Damn I just bouldered for two and a half hours (with papa-to-be Jake and Nunley), and then the Nunsquatch and I went for a 42 mile bike ride on the American River bike trail.  I'd always heard that the trail was super nice, but had never ridden it before.  It is pretty nice, I must say.  And there are toilets, which is a bonus.

I do like biking around Davis though.  It's nice that you are out on roads through ag fields where there isn't much traffic (and the drivers are generally bike-savvy).  In addition, the other bikers out there are savvy and are moving pretty fast.  There are a lot of walkers, joggers, slow bikers and people with dogs on the American River bike trail...there can be a lot of weaving and dodging people.  Both are very nice though.  I'll try to make biking around Sac more of a regular thing now that I'm going to be working at the FWS office Mondays and Tuesdays.

I just need to figure out how to get my neck to NOT HURT when I do long rides.  Neck pain sucks.

Veggies!

A photo of California redbud (Cercis orbiculata).  One of the first natives to flower, the flowers bloom from all over the trunk and branches before leaves appear.  So pretty!

Maki stayed with me Wednesday night, which was fun.  She didn't have to be at work in Vallejo til 2, so I made french toast with some pumpkin brioche I had in the freezer. Then we went for a walk along the greenbelt, harassed some turkeys and bought some veggie plants from ACE.  It's way more fun planting things with somebody else!  I have 4 tomato plants, a Japanese eggplant and a chili pepper.  Typically I have a forest of tomato plants and few tomatoes...we'll see how it turns out this year.

Sorry for the qualities of the photos, but honestly, I'm not even pretending to be a photographer.

TURKEY!!

April Fool's!

Happy April Fool's Day!

There are a slough of jokes streaming through my reader page today.  Some of the best:


Doggie tock covers

McDonald's scraps composting because food won't decompose

I'll keep adding more as I see them throughout the day.

Narcissism

I read an interesting article on narcissism today and thought I'd share it. Being an athlete and hanging out with other athletes, sometimes full-time or professional, you run into a lot of this.  Science is also rife with narcissists. People are often at the top of any domain because they are narcissistic, so it has its benefits.  They are just terrible in any kind of relationship, friendship or otherwise. It's a classic trade-off. I need to get better at detecting it and making sure that I don't let toxic people get close. On the other hand, I don't really let anybody get close so maybe I shouldn't worry about this...

Is Narcissism a leadership trait?

This article only deals with workplace relationships, but the information is relevant to other areas. Narcissists can be extremely attractive:

Nevertheless, some narcissists are considered productive because of their ability to inspire others with their visionary and charismatic personalities that are effective in environments that call for strong leadership.

But I think that admiring these traits from afar is best. I have experienced this aspect vividly:

“When they are challenged or perceive competition, they often derogate and undermine anyone, even those closest to them, they perceive as threats (and unfortunately, they are vigilant in scanning for threats),” he explained.


It's not fun.


I think one of the first criteria I look for in any relationship is someone who looks me in the eye and asks "how are you" and listens.  Follow up questions are a bonus (it shows people are actually thinking about what you said). 


My advisor is an extraordinary leader, visionary and charismatic, and is far from being narcissistic.  It's been amazing working with him, and his example will carry over into my future.