Happy Birthday PD!

This blog turned one year old on Monday April 9th. I am seriously almost getting choked up when I think about it, like its my baby.

I am always amazed when a year has already passed, but I am convinced that in almost all humans our internal yearly clock is off and we always expect a year to be longer than it is.

I am thinking of one of the last scenes in The Royal Tenenbaums when Ben Stiller's stalwart character finally breaks down and tells his father, Royal, who he has a rocky relationship with "its been a tough year Dad."

What I wish for the future of this blog is that I continue to write and it continues to soothe me throughout Graduate school, but that people write more comments and that I stick to it each and every day of the week so no readers drop off like what has been happening lately. Its tough to do it every day, but I never regret it. I have been late to work because of blogging, or late to bed but my ideas always appreciate being given a chance.

Thank you for reading.

The Hole in Holiday

Yesterday was Easter. I spent it with Joes family. It feels good that things are changing for me. That I dont have to be stuck in my own parents house all day on Easter. And I have found that the sun will still rise the next day, even without my Moms roasted peppers in my stomach and a vague solemn depressed feeling cast over me that my own family hands out on holidays instead of bags filled with jellybeans.

And its so sunny today.

Stupid Things

When we do something stupid, it is sometimes that we have forgotten something: a friends birthday, to shut off the oven or to take the parking break off while driving.

But there is another genre of stupid things that I am more interested in. The kinds of things that are stupid because you were thinking too narrowly. There you were hitting the key of A in all different ways, standing on your head, hitting it with your pinky toe, throwing rocks at it, only to realize that you should have been hitting the key of B in order to evoke the sound that you wanted.

Sometimes someone comes in while you are doing your key-of-A shenanigans, and points out that you might try hitting B instead. You relax your contorted body and sigh, and you feel the stupidness all over. Other times its you who realizes your mistake, after some time away or after you have banged your head a few times on the key of A and it just hurts to much to continue in this manner.

It is both a great and sorrowful moment when you realize your ridiculous narrow thinking. A door in your mind opens, but sometimes it is difficult to believe that it was ever closed.

Cynicisms Awl

Do you know what an awl is? it is a pointed tool for marking surfaces or piercing small holes, but it is long and thin and sharp and persistent.

As a reaction to my own cynicism there is a side of me that is hopelessly idealistic and always reaching for something better, more noble or truthful or real. I see it most times ahead of me like a brass ring, but once I get closer and closer and put my hand out to reach for it, it pops like a soap bubble. Left in its place is nothing.

The same nothing that I knew before, the same nothing that I found the last time I reached up for a brass ring.

Lately, after the Physical Anthropology conference, I have just been feeling down about the research in my field-to-be. Most of it never amounts to anything I am sure and some of it is only important to Anthropologists and will never ever even tap on the shoulder of the common person. Then what is the point exactly?

I thought of how primate conservation is important because, if nothing else, you are helping to save a species. But why do we care about primates more than we care about lizards? Because we are primates, because learning about their genes and behavior can give us clues to ourselves, its about us again. Why do we care about finding fossils of ancient hominids? Because it is deeply exciting and satisfying to know where we came from.

My cynicism is so relentless that whatever I do, no matter how far I run, it will always come knocking at my door. In a dirty dark cloak pressuring me to question every movement I make and others make into oblivion, until it is all a meaningless pulp.

But, so far I have not learned anything from reaching and not grasping. I have not learned to expect the ring to disappear, or that the awl is strong and persistent and ubiquitous. I just keep trying, each time with the naiveté of a child and the ignorant enthusiasm of a fool. Thats all I can do, really.

Umbrella logic

I saw someone walking with an “I Love Lucy” umbrella and bright blue rain boots today, forget that it didnt match for now. I was reminded of how sometimes the only fun and uplifting thing on a rainy day is your rain gear.

It never once occurred to me to buy an item of clothing or an umbrella that would most likely be used pretty infrequently.

But today I realized the importance of playful and practical rain accouterments. It makes the already dreary day better.

I have a particular fondness for those umbrellas that are clear but tall and narrow and that create a little world that encases you as you walk. Also saw a Marimekko umbrella that almost lit the world on fire with its bright colors.

I must try it some time.

Its Ranunculus

I went to a florist the other day and we talked about my wedding. He made suggestion after suggestion, tempted me with talk of peonies and ranunculus and created a beautiful blossoming vision in my head. Pink frilly petals were multiplying all over the place and I liked it, but so were the numbers.

When I received the price quote I was pretty surprised but then after asking around I realized that this price was pretty reasonable for what he was giving us. So I sulked. And I still have yet to really resolve anything.

Two days ago Joe and I walked by a deli that sells flowers on the street. We stopped to check it out. I showed Joe what ranunculus was and we bought a bunch. They are now sitting in my living room all robust and yellow or red and making everything better. I remembered again that, as corny or cliched as it may sound, I am one of those people who really gets affected by the presence of flowers. It just makes my whole day better if they are sitting there.

So for our wedding I am starting to think that this large price is really worth it and I am getting weaker.

The Anthropologists

Got into the beige car with his Aunt in the back seat, who did not speak a word of English, and I not a word of Spanish. His mother, who had astonishingly petite hands, was in the front and in the drivers seat this wonderfully nice professor who offered to give me a ride and who is just as shy as I am. We rode in uncomfortable silence for about 45 minutes until I decided I didn't want the silence to feel this way anymore, so I made it relaxing silence instead and I closed my eyes and rapidly began diving into strange dreams. Opened my eyes and we had arrived in Philadelphia for the Anthropology conference.

I was dropped off at the Bed and Breakfast that I was staying at. It was creaky and intensely Colonial and a little bit creepy. I walked up the rugged steps to my dark pink painted room got under the flowered quilt and I slept. Woke from my nap and made my way to the conference, two cobble stoned streets away. On my way to the first lecture I ran straight into the woman from the University that I decided not to go to. I didn't see her name tag, but I didn't have to, I recognized her from her pictures on the web. In a rare I-just-woke-up-from-a-nap hazy moment of bravery I introduced myself. We talked for a few steady moments and then we went into the lecture.

Lecture after lecture, slides of graphs and charts and pictures, little geeky jokes sprinkled here and there. I sat in the dim lighting of the conference room thankful that, aside from my name tag, I was almost anonymous, but also a little sad and scared that I was.

As the weekend progressed I learned less about peoples research and more about living breathing humans. The group of students that I will be studying with took me in. I ate with them and talked to them, they asked me all sorts of questions that I answered. Someone who was interested in Primate Behaviour but who has to take a required genetics course said to me, “If an Art person can do genetics then there is hope for me.” I froze in amazement, but didn't say a thing. Then someone else made a comment about how I must have gotten accepted because of my advisor, who is currently my boss. And so what if I did, every damn thing I have done at work has been on my own merit so why cant I use that when I apply to school. I curtly reminded them that I had also gotten into another school where no one knew me at all.

And I had to ask myself why I want to study Anthropology when there are so many humans out there who I dont like.

I learned the importance of being able to give a good lecture, I also learned that some people have strange and lame research questions but they go on working as if they were finding a cure for AIDS. I guess you have to find something that moves you even if it is something as obscure as primate milk composition.

But most of all, in the midst of all these important sounding lectures and chuckling old men standing in circles, I learned that Anthropology is most about the Anthropologists.