Today's edition of Things That Can Only Happen To Me

Today I was teaching a lab class about insect foraging, so the students and I walked to UNC's arboretum for some observation of the fast-paced world of honey bee life. I got lost. In the arboretum. By myself. The students had to come find me. It's a good thing I have a good sense of humor about myself because that is harikari-quality embarrassing.

If you've ever driven with me, you know I pretty much can't pass cars. I just can't do it! It seems rude, and you can't deny that changing lanes adds some extra hazard to being on a four lane road. You know it does, you devilish maverick driver, you. Well, this IMMENSE MOVING VAN cut me off in the parking lot of my gym (what was it doing at the gym? "Hi I think I'll relocate oh wait how about some cardio now") then ended up driving 25 mph directly in front of me from the gym to my apartment. It finally pulled into my own apartment complex and TOOK MY SPACE. That's what I get for being a neurotic, ultraconsiderate driver, I guess.

Why does this happen? Probably because my common sense IQ is approximately that of an anaesthetized rhesus monkey's.

Post of Boredom-- yours and mine

Oh my Darwin, a week with no posts? This can only mean that I have better things to do than sit around and fester in my own cynicism. I'm truly sorry.

Last night, some dude was flirting with me at a bar. He was a nice, respectful, normal guy who was paying complete attention to me, so of course I wasn't interested at all. I don't know why, exactly ... but I really feel guilty for not being attracted to him. Poor guy-- how could he know I only date jerks? Sometimes I feel like I'm living in an Elvis Costello song.

I recently looked through some family photos that my grandmother had been keeping. It is never nice to be reminded of what you looked like in middle school, but it did provide closure to my speculations about why people made fun of me. Hair, braces, glasses... you might as well cover me in Post-Its that say "Kick Me!" And my nose has completely changed shape since then-- My nose is pretty cute now, let's be honest. How is that possible!? Maybe all those celebrities aren't lying about nosejobs after all.

Countdown until the end of June: 3 days. YAY.

Happiness is a warm turntable

The religious period of my life ended when I stopped believing in Santa Claus... since then, the closest I come to recapturing that feeling of trust and wonderment in a higher being is when I listen to good music. The Beatles spent six years building the foundation for everything I worship (and on the seventh year they rested, or maybe they were getting high). Maybe I don't get any moral direction from rock'n'roll music, but I'm clever enough to decide if I want to be good or bad all by myself. (I usually decide to be bad, because I don't really mind coming back as a lower life form... an insect, lab rat, or socialite). Sometimes a song will come on at a moment so apt that I know there is some all-knowing musician watching over me. Hence:

This morning, while I was recovering from a horrendous migraine and some breakup and family death-induced depression, I reached into the back of my car to find a new CD. When I moved here, I had only packed a few mix CDs and a few albums stolen from my mother (she only really listens to Paul McCartney so she won't miss them). I pulled out the Beatles' LOVE album and a copy of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot slid out from behind it.

My face looked like like this: WTF!?!?!?!??!?! if you can imagine that as a facial expression. My eyes were Ws and my nose was the T and my mouth was saying FUCK FUCK FUCK! It would look like a face, believe me:

W W
T

FUCK
FUCK
FUCK

YHF is one of my all time favorite albums, and I thought I had lost it years ago when I moved to college. How the fuck it ever got into the sleeve with LOVE is beyond me. I need this fucking album so much right now.

Thanks for looking out for me, incorporeal musical spirit of Jeff Tweedy! I love you. Sorry for saying 'fuck' so much.

Psychology is the new home ec

When you grow up, they tell you girls can do anything. They tell you that more women should go into science and math. And then they have things like Girl Scouts to make young women feel empowered.

What a load of crap.

Men don't actually want women to be their contemporaries in any field, particularly science and math. Males are raised with the expectation that they will naturally excel in "logical" subjects and like the perceived security that comes when they pursue a career in those fields. I have personally experienced many situations where a man will shamelessly tell me something that we both know is incorrect just to show me "how little" I understand compared to him. And you know what? 95% of Girl Scout badges are about "fashion" and "cooking" and other housewifery skills. I know because I was a Girl Scout. We had three committees in our camp for each meal we prepared: Cooks, dishwashers, and people who had to prepare the centerpiece. Do you think the Boy Scouts make centerpieces? No fucking way. Little girls, but not little boys, have the importance of a useless decoration committee impressed upon them by an organization that advertises delivery from this very trap. And this centerpiece committee hearkens to exactly where men want to keep women in the workplace-- in an ornamental and non-essential role.

It's lucky that I turned out to be such a man-eating bitch. Whenever some "man" spouts off some crap to me that I know he's made up, I don't fret. I don't feel stupid or frustrated, I don't cry, compulsively shop, or run and get another man's help. I don't feel insecure, regret my choice of career, or want to punch anything. I just remind myself that assholes like him will never get to date me or collaborate with me professionally, and that's a huge loss because I'm a great kisser and a kick-ass scientist.

Planning ahead

In about 23 years, when I have a midlife crisis, I'm going to have a really funky experimental punk garage band. My kids are going to be incredibly embarrassed. My third or fourth husband will leave me. I'll lose my job and have to move into a grungy basement apartment, but I'll be happy mixing the sounds I collect from the pigeons cooing for scraps in the park with the roar of airplanes taking off and the cool rhythm of coins falling into a vending machine.

I'm going to call my band Elyse and the Landlords. I'll send you my demo.

Nature fools me once again

This morning I was a-walking, a-walking to the lab, and I saw a bird lying on its back on the ground. There have been a lot of dead birds around campus lately. However, as I approached this sparrow, it suddenly flipped over and sat crouched on the ground, not moving but obviously alive. I happened to be just outside the birdsong lab I used to work in, and I had a grand notion that I would scoop up this poor injured bird and bring it to the experts for some TLC.

I was about five inches away when suddenly, the sparrow flew in my face and perched on a wall, laughing at me. What a little shit!

Cultural values

When I visited home last week, I went to the grocery store with my mom. She held up a box of organic cereal and said, "This is so expensive. It's like two bottles of wine." She then revealed to me that she converts the price of luxuries in wine bottles to determine if they are worth the expense.

I was surprised because I do the same thing with yogurt. In line to purchase my lunch, I think to myself, "I could buy six yogurts for the price of this hummus wrap." When I order a coffee, I think, "This is π/3 yogurts." In fact, I have become so adept that I can convert money to various yogurt brands as if they were foreign currencies. The exchange rate varies week-to-week because of grocery store sales.

In the future, when our government unravels into matriarchal tribes, mine will be a gluten-free yogurt economy with a rock'n'roll religion backbone.