Archive for April, 2010

From a press release by the City:

Grand Opening for a new pet adoption center at the PetSmart store near the Hulen and I-20.

The center is a unique, first-of-its-kind partnership, with the city’s animal shelter providing adoptable animals and staffing, PetSmart Charities providing the funding to renovate the space in the store, and PetSmart Inc. providing the space in the store rent-free.

Who

Mayor Pro Tem Danny Scarth will be speaking, along with Fort Worth Pet Adoption Partners representative and community leader Bill Boecker, PetSmart Charities Executive Director/Vice President Susana Della Maddalena, and PetSmart, Inc. Executive Chairman Phillip L. Francis.

When

Saturday, May 1, 10 a.m.

Where

4800 S.W. Loop 820 in southwest Fort Worth.

So, after mashing out most of an eleven-page rough draft this morning, and then moving on to making OChem Lab flashcards, which somehow segued into writing a page-full of Elizabethtown quotes, I have decided to make my distraction complete by finishing this post.

I noticed that there are two songs playing regularly on the radio these days that share a common theme. One, by Nickelback, has the following lines:

If today was your last day, and tomorrow was too late

Could you live each moment as your last?

Another song, by Kris Allen:

If this is all we got and we gotta start thinking
If every second counts on a clock that’s ticking
Gotta live like we’re dying

The idea is an old one: we have limited time, so we should use it well -  especially to tell those that we love them, be philanthropic, etc.

On the one hand, this idea is simple – to live a day like it was your last, to live like you were dying, one would obviously change their behavior. Anxiety about the future would be a waste, so that is discarded. Actions that we might be puting off – such as having a heart-to-heart with someone we love or have wronged – might suddenly take top priority. Charity and kindness and all that is good in life would prevail!

However, the concept is also a bit awkward. After all, if I applied this concept to my life, I could forget about my finals, and that would fell prett-y good. I could go home, give my sister a hug, take my dogs for a run, breath in the sweet perfumes of spring. Donate my life savings (a small sum). Fly to Europe. You know, basically be bright and wonderful and take a dive into some rose-colored glasses.

Of course, grades would no longer be an issue. Neither would, well, a lot of things. After all, if I’m not here tomorrow, I could do a lot of things without worrying about the repercussions. Not necessarily bad things, but, you know.

After all, the chances that I die within the next 24 hours are quite slim. Average chances give me about 60 more years, in fact. Therefore, is it logical to “live like you’re dying?”

And 24 hours is not a very long time to think. If you only have that long, some bad decisions might be made…

This is my point: if we are such irrational and single-minded creatures in life, who are constantly making bad decisions and then regretting them, what is to make us these pillars of logic and virtue in our last moments? After all, if you’re going to plan your daily life around the concept that you don’t have long to live, any sort of long-term plan is going to go out the window; and, if it turns out the prognosis of death was wrong, there might be some bad results. Furthermore, if today really was your last day, sure, you might, you know, call your mother. Plant a tree. Make some sacrificial giving. Then again, what’s to say that the things one chooses to do in their last moments are good, idealistic things? What’s to say you wouldn’t, say, call up old flames? That could be a pretty bad idea. Maybe even find such old flames and tell them how you truly, still, feel (good or bad).  Maybe you could look up some old enemies and give them a piece of  your mind, or perhaps even a piece of a fist. Go hangliding. Start a cult. Become a megalomaniac. Rob a bank.

After all, I am going to renege on my whole “I don’t believe in fate thing” and say that making a bucket list, or even acting on one, is tempting fate. I mean, if you make a list of things to do before you die at the age of 20, isn’t that just begging the universe to check out early? And if, let’s say, I made such a list, who’s to say it would be filled only with good, positive things…after all, I’m no rational creature. And, likely, neither are the people who wrote those songs.

(GF: to pre-empt your response to this one, let me just say that I admit, yes, there could be some good things one might be induced into doing if they were almost gone. But still.)

Me: This is weird, I know; you’re used to having made-up conversations with other people, but today, we’re going to have a heart-to-heart. Instead of reveling in the amusement that is imagining how others would react to your insane musings, we’re going to bite the bullet and face facts. No literary license, no ridiculous scenarios, just you and yourself and all that there is that is real.

So, as you were walking down the stairs today, you mused to yourself that if you were talking to somebody at that moment, and trying to explain how you felt, you might say that you felt somewhat “brain-dead” this week, is that right? Please elaborate on that for me.

Myself: Well, you know how sometimes you are reading something, and the words make sense – I mean, you know what they mean, it’s not like you’re reading Klingon or something – and you kindof get the point, but when you try to extrapolate the greater meaning, you come up blank? Like, say, you’re reading a textbook, but you can’t quite grasp what the point of something is in relation to the big picture?

Me: I happen to know you were thinking that also as something you were thinking that you might say to someone, if they had asked you to elaborate; so far none of this is new. Star Trek references? At least I know I understand them. Alright, I understand…so what is the scale of this feeling? Does it just apply to this week, or is it more of an existential-life-crisis sort of thing?

Myself: You of all people should know about me and extistential-life-crises. Sore subject.

Me: Of course, of course. I take that as a yes.

Myself: Well, that’s part of the confusion, see, maybe I’m just out of it this week. Like Scrooge – this could all be a bite of undigested beef! Or maybe it’s a harbinger of something much more.

Me: You’re hilarious. And I love how you worked “harbinger” into a sentence. Nice.

Myself: You know me well.

Me: Do you think this is just stress?

Myself: Yeah! The thing with me and stress, though, lately, is that I notice the symptoms before I notice the cause. And then I go – “Ok, you’re not sleeping or feeling well, clearly something is up….sooo…..” I haven’t placed it yet.

Me: Is it possible you’re being too hard on yourself?

Myself: To think that it’s stress? I’m confused.

Me: No, no — do you think being hard on yourself could be the cause of the stress?

Myself: What makes you say that? Well, could be that as much as anything.

Me: Hmmm…I’m going to take an educated guess and say that that’s a factor.

Myself: Do as you wish. It’s a free country.

Me: Hey, hey, be nice! I’m trying to help. Remember, God helps those who help themselves.

Myself. The irony is killing me. Doesn’t He also help those who wait?

Me: We’re getting off the point. I happen to know that you know that I know that you are being hard on yourself, and that’s a factor in this whole thing. Oh ye of little faith! Haven’t you survived before? Why do you doubt your capacity to make it?

Myself: Because I have nothing better to do. I don’t know! How would I know! If I knew we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

Me: Take a chill pill, man. See, you’re all wound up. Why don’t you relax? You know, relax!

Myself: …..

Me: Alright, I know, I’m being obnoxious. “You do not tell the sun, more sun, or the rain, less rain.” Or you, “just relax.”

Myself: It is a paradox. Much as I love those…

Me: You’re evading the question, you realize that don’t you?

Myself: Alright, alright, alright! Fine. So how do you know that being hard on myself is the whole cause of this? Huh?

Me: I said, educated guess.

Myself: You’re hilarious.

Me: Look, this was supposed to be honest. What is the game plan? We need a plan. Make a list, right?

Myself: Are you making fun of me?

Me: !! Look at you, you don’t even trust yourself not to laugh at you.

Myself: Another paradox.

Me: Off-topic. What’s the plan?

Myself: Well, my mother suggested buying new clothes.

Me: ….I’d be tempted to say “???”  if I didn’t already know the backstory on that one. But, I do, and, I also know that’s not entirely a total solution.

Myself: Make a gratitude list?

Me: Good start. What else?

Myself: Hmmm….I could practice “positive self talk”

Me: And actually take yourself seriously?

Myself: I’m a work in progress.

Me: I know, trust me, darling, I know.

As you very well know, we took your Organic Chemistry test this Monday. The third one of the semester, and man! it was brutal. As you grade our tests and the red ink flows, I would just like to say…

I hope that as you trudged up the stairs, carrying the large stack of papers, begrudging the tedious amount of grading to follow, you knew that we were walking other ways feeling like we had just had a rather grave encounter with a truck, specifically that we had been run over by it.

I hope that as the first few tests went down, and you shook your head at our obvious mistakes, you remembered that we had thought of little else but this test for the past few days. It had hung over our heads, a beacon of possible failure.

When you have run out of ink in the first red pen and moved on to another, just remember that most of us are living in apprehension, when all those little marked-up papers appear in the Chemistry office, each bedecked with our name and a number, usually stark and lonely and way too small.

This I can say for all of us. For myself, I add the following.

When you come to my test, before you begin, I just want you to know that at 10am the Thursday before the test, I was studying. At 10am the Friday before the test, I was writing the words “Robbinson Annulation” and wishing that I could be studying, instead of learning more things that might end up on the test. At 10pm Friday evening: I was studying. 10am Saturday morning, I was frantically finishing errands so that I could return to school and study. 10pm Saturday evening? I was writing out the mechanism for #6 on our practice sheet (Knoevengal addition). 10am Sunday, I was rocking a small baby in the hospital, singing “Somewhere over the Rainbow,” and in the back of my mind, I was trying to remember what the difference was between a Krapcho and a regular ester decarboxylation. At 10pm Sunday night? I was in bed, trying to sleep, not being able to, and worrying about whether I had studied enough. 10am Monday morning: pencil is out, breath is shallow, close your eyes and say a prayer. And another. And another. Open them, write your name. First problem: acid, base, acid, base, Nu, E+, Nu…acid…and away we went.

The thing is…

I’m not an organic chemist. I’m likely never going to be an organic chemist. I haven’t continuously studied organic chemistry for nigh on a decade, and yeah, I admit that six months ago I had no idea what the significance of an electrophile was; I couldn’t have told you the first thing about a Hell-Volhard-Zelinsk reaction; “zwitterion” just wasn’t a part of my vocabulary, and I couldn’t have told the difference between and alpha and a beta position, let alone their significance. The fact that pretty much every reaction ever is just acid-base at it’s core? Well, that’s still sinking in. Yet, think how far I’ve come!

But I also will tell you, that I do enjoy it, for how else could I have written out the mechanisms for every reaction half a dozen times? In the moments between panic and deep thought and “Alpha hydrogens….must deprotonate alpha hydrogens….” I was actually smiling inside, a little, just a little. Attempting mastery is difficult, but has its rewards, and is so much easier if the concepts are interesting.

Please remember this as you mark my paper, and write out the correct answer, large and shiny and bright on the page. As you consider the grade to write, remember how lonely it will be without friends. Three digits are better than two, after all, misery loves company, right? You always say that nothing in life is fair, professor! Here is your chance to right the wrongs of ages past! To reward hard work, and the blood, sweat, and tears that I poured into that test! To reward creativity (aka my answer on question 4), and to ignore tiny wrongs (like the time, on one question, when I think I lost a methyl group in the translation), and to, even, not prosecute grave offenses against the nature of chemistry too harshly -  (because I think I might have used OH- as a L.G…several times.)

Basically, professor, all things considered….please go easy on me. Go easy on us all.

Both College Girl and I went down the the Main Street Arts Fair yesterday, me at around two o’clock at she around early evening. We had such good times there in the last two years, and we both wanted to shop. But unfortunately, at both times, the crowd was so thick that you literally couldn’t get to the stalls.

Apparently spring fever (this was bluebonnets-burst-out-week in North Texas, after all) combined with the promise of “free admission” lured out way more people to Main Street than could comfortably move in a shuffling line past the stalls, having to concentrate more on not bumping into people than was workable for viewing of fine arts and crafts.

We stopped and bought some food, a small bag of sugared kettlecorn ($6 for the small bag) and a funnel cake ($7) and sat on the curb looking into a store where small bronzes dotted the window next to a revolving door, right next to Jamba Juice. It was pretty bad, actually, one of those moments when you remember days that you had no money and realize that back then at least you were spared the pain of getting ripped off on carnival food which you eat while watching unusual people wearing unusual cowboy boots going by and not being able to get to the artists you came to see.

At least we could still hear the street musicians.

I have to ask the organizers of the event whether there is anything they intend to do about this overcrowding thing. It was bad — as bad as last year when we went to the zoo on half price day during spring break.  It was so bad, I wondered where the fire marshall was.

Did it dampen my interest in the art? Not completely. Actually, I’m thinking of going back this morning. But if it’s that crowded again, I’m coming straight home. This is supposed to be the wide open west our here, not the Tokyo subway.

JINKIES!

1. Wrote two lab reports this afternoon. @___@.

2. Cell test Wednesday. @____@

3. Another holiday, that wasn’t anything like The Holiday, gone.

4. Mathematical equation expressing the umber of things I have to do before now and somewhere around May 8th that are important, pressing, and better be done right or else:

n =

[ 6.02*10^23 + to infinity and beyond + yearly rate of name-bubbling on a scantron]

divided by:

[|today's OChem quiz grade|*(amount of time I feel I should have spent on Lab Report #3/Actual time spent on it)*(integrated area under the curve that is steeply moving in the earthbound direction, which represents my sanity and mental order) - my understanding of the adaptive immune system*how many flashcards I could have gone through in the time I have made up this ridiculous equation]

And no, n≠42. Not today.

Random awesome music.

I was over at my mother’s for Easter and picked up a recent copy (okay, it was July 2009) edition of the Atlantic to find a new book review and personal essay piece by Sandra Lsing Loh called “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off!” What was this the author wanted to abandon? Marriage, it turns out. In a reflective essay considering four recently released books on marriage, the author suggests that we are now in a post-marriage society and the best thing would be to never get married at all, raising children in tribal family groups or giving them to the new breed of homemaker dads.

It took me aback — or perhaps, I should say, it took me back — right back to the 70′s. Only this time, men are not being castigated for being insensitive over-libidinized macho men, but instead, and I quote, “male kitchen bitches” who are too concerned with boulibaise (or however you spell it) and who, unbelievably, no longer want to have sex.

Maybe just not with the particular women they are married to, I would have to suggest to the author?

Okay, let’s get one thing straight here, Ms. Loh. You can bring forth these ideas of yours and act as if you’ve just hatch them onto the scene, but all this proves is that you did not read enough Doris Lessing in college. We are not brinking on a new age of marital enlightenment. These problems with marriage you have disclosed in your essay have been around a while, perhaps as long as three to five thousand years. People used to get around some parts of the problem with poligamy, but the problem was, this created large groups of men who had no spouse and a very acrimonious household without clear heirs; reference the story of King David in the Bible. It seems pretty clear that marriage is just plain hard. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. When it doesn’t a lot of effort is put into trying to dampen the expected negative consequences, rarely with great success. A lot of people who get divorced wind up admitting ten years later it probably wasn’t the greatest idea; yet nevertheless new hordes of filing-for-divorcers show up daily.

Our own Tarrant county recently completed a huge new court building for “family court,” almost entirely to handle the legal fallout of divorces.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, although Loh’s essay is well written and well argued, I’m not buying her thesis for a second. And what’s more, I think the entire tone smacks of the kind of male-bashing I grew used to in college.

Just last night, perhaps ironically, I was teaching myself a new guitar song. I’m into folk and blues and country, and somehow, this song seemed to say a lot to me after reading that article. If this essay wasn’t good enough to elucidate the sentiments; perhaps Tammy Wynette can do a better job. And as she says, let’s please try to keep our expectations reasonable. “After all, he’s just a man.”

I ran the dogs today; down the street, past the park, down to the duck pond, and towards the bike path in Tanglewood. The pups enjoyed it very much, though they often got distracted by the sights and smells.

I returned early; I had promised A., my youngest brother, that I would come back and go do something with him. Feeling bad for BT, the older dog who didn’t get to run (he likely couldn’t keep up), we took him for a walk to the park. A. played in the playground for a few minutes, and then we walked up the little creek. After a while, I let BT off leash and he roved around the grass; A. stomped around in the water. We walked over to a grove of trees, and then A. found a nice little hill and rolled down it over and over. BT and I sat and watched, then we all lay down and watched the clouds move slowly through the darkening sky. After a while, I picked up A.’s shoes (very wet by this point), and we walked home.

I wish I had taken my camera with me; the view from atop the hill was very nice. The park is turning green again, and little yellow flowers dotted the lawns.