Tools of the trade

In school I always thought that the diligent fact checking, the piercing critiques, and need to justify all assumptions were intended to prepare us for a world where our facts would be diligently checked, our ideas subject to piercing criticism, and our assumptions thoughtfully questioned.  Regularly I realize I had it backwards, and that reality is far more frightening.  Back then, with the worry that an omission or flaw would be found came the comfort that someone more knowledgeable could fill in gap, patch up the hole, point the way.  For academia, it seems the point of the training was to learn the defensive arts.  Elsewhere, specific knowledge is more dilute and rather than a shield a compass is required.

Capitol Scents

I love the way DC smells.  I know it's not known for its olfactory charm, but there's a drought in LA and here, microparks bloom.  Between mall and metro, there's a patch of peaty moist mulch.  And a honeysuckle bush reminds me that school's nearly out for the summer.

Boogie Man

I'm sitting in a Starbucks near Fairfax and Olympic, and I nearly asked an older woman sharing my table to watch my things as I went to restroom.  Almost committing that irrationality that I've so often been the object of, except it's usually in airports.  In that arena where we have the most paranoid dreams about the abstract -- where we used to always have to tell that un-truth that yes, our suitcase had been within our sight since the moment we closed the latch, and unattended baggage is treated with the same gravity as a b*mb, we retain enormous faith in the specific, as long as it has an understanding smile.

2012

I think it started with Verizon's "Big Red". Ditch your boring job much better. . . You'll watch YouTube on a horse. . .

Catchy?  Yes.  And maybe I should be applauding this trend since there are some who attribute a certain amount of first world angst to the unattainable aspirational world that occupies those twenty minutes that ensure our favorite procedural fills the hour.

But this?  

It’s a problem as old as gaming itself. Stay home and just keep playing, or get to work on time so your coffee-breath boss doesn’t ride you like a rented scooter. Who says you have to choose? Your PS3 stays home, but the game goes with you. Never stop playing. PlayStation Vita.

I'm all for indulging the impulse to play hookie from work every once in a while, but I'd like to think that the potential payoff for doing so is more than playing Sony all day, and that I'll use the Star Gazer app more often than Angry Birds.

I'm OK, you're OK, gone too far? Are there people who see this commercial reflection and say, "Yes that's me, and I love what I see?"

Time

It's been three years, and it doesn't feel that long.  Three years since grad school; three with a job.  It's too easy to lose your sense of season in LA.  Where there's a pattern the rhythm is wrong.  Rain in winter, hot winds in the fall.  I travel for work to places with a more familiar clock, but it's a disorienting exercise.  March. . . in Oklahoma?  In like a lion and out like a lamb like my old home?

Then there's the matter of the lack of school calendar.  Freshman. Sophomore. Junior. Senior. New quarter; New quarter; New quarter; Break. New quarter; New quarter; New quarter; Break. No more.

Only sameness remains. 

Seth

Some physicists happily divorce their field. They leave before their heart is broken convinced that they could never really care for the sub-sub atomic, that they could never find such abstraction fulfilling. Biology treats them better anyway.

But Seth won’t love the one he’s with. This professor of mine loathes my department, our field, and anyone who dares show interest.

My senior year, Seth was sent to meet and recruit applicants from his alma mater; I was one such applicant. He was supposed to be selling the program, but all he could talk about was how nice it was to be back and how much he wished he could stay.

He scheduled his elective course for first-years during a required first year course. He protested the time change by not showing up.

Half an hour later, someone found him. He had been in his office but we hadn’t been persistent with our knocking; the lights were off in his windowless room.

He entered with creases on his cheek from the papasan chair cushion on his office floor and a chunk of hair sticking horizontally from the side of his head with There’s Something About Mary - esque determination.

But at the APS meeting, Seth looked great for his ex. He was in pinstripe pants and really nice shoes, and even in their best plaid flannel, no pure physicist could compete.

In front of the rest of the faculty, he asked me which program it was I visited at UC San Diego.

“Physics.”

“Really – and you met with – but you still didn’t. I mean, why wouldn’t you want to. . .”

I just had to let it go.

As I Was Coming From Van Nuys

Perhaps the most frustrating of hypothetical pursuits is the search for just the right come-back long after the moment has passed.

I was on the rapid metro, and he kind of looked like Bill O’Reilly. With a much larger stomach. His sunglasses afforded his eyes a privacy that made his expression obscene. And he was far too well dressed for the way he was sitting.

He accused me of speaking “woman-eze,” a dialect characterized by indirect responses. He had asked if I had a laptop in my bag. I said, “Not with me, no.”

Fifteen minutes later, more people had boarded, and I had become re-immersed in my mp3s. I received a few comforting but uneasy glances, and I realized that he was talking about me.

“She’s part of the counter-revolution. But it’s genetic.” His wife had a 160 IQ, but that damn second X-chromosome kept her from being a provider. “They can’t do math. They can’t do science.”

“They care too much about how they look. Like you.” He turned. “You color your hair, you’ve got lipstick; you dress well. My wife dresses me.”

I do nothing to my hair but wash it, and my clothes were all hand-me-downs from friends, and. . . fuck it, yeah. Sometimes I do wear lipstick. And that’s so beside the point.

I tried to summon a laugh but, “You’re so off, it’s amazing,” came out with only a weak snicker. I was full of ammunition, but shooting blanks.

What else could I do? Spout off my resume? List every female scientist I know? Challenge him to an integration bee?

I’ve been replaying all day. Suggestions are welcome.

To You, Richard

Worries have a way of mating to produce illegitimate offspring, but the genetics of a little success bred with anxiety are much more bizarre.

I’ve read that even the great Feynman felt like an imposter at times, and thought up the following response to mounting optimism:

On being offered a job at Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study:

"They must have expected me to be wonderful to offer me a job like this and I wasn't wonderful, and therefore I realized a new principle, which was that I'm not responsible for what other people think I'm able to do; I don't have to be good because they think I'm going to be good. And somehow or other I could relax about this, and I thought to myself, I haven't done anything important and I'm never going to do anything important.”

So, he let himself once again “enjoy physics and mathematical things. . ."

. . . and won the Nobel Prize for what he did while he was there.

Bring It On!

When he quoted the Lord’s Prayer, I didn’t let on that I thought of John Candy imploring gold medals to be won and Godspeed through turn seven.

I nodded that with our increasingly secular government, our country is far from a Heavenly Kingdom.

But, his real hook was hurricane Katrina.
Considering Europe’s floods and last year’s tsunami, don’t I think that this all has to end soon?
Jehovah Is Coming.

I thanked him for my copy of Watchtower, “Natural Disasters: Are They Getting Worse?” (Yes? And inside I can learn why we should rejoice?)

Then, he found out that I go to school in LA.

“Ohh, that must be exciting! They had a few earthquakes last year didn’t they?”

“Umm. . . yeah I actually felt a small one during one of my final exams, it was a little scar-”

“I’d like to be in one sometime; not a really big one but – just to experience it once. And out there, they really know how to deal with it. I heard they’ll fill their bathtubs with water in case the power goes out.”

“Well, my parents do that here if there’s a thun-”

“Because they can lose power for days, and if your bathtub’s filled with water at least you can use the water to flush the toilet. They really think of everything. – Well, nice to meet you!

The Witness at my door was just kid from cushy suburbia wanting to be Eminem.

A Good Excuse

Applied math is one thing:

“. . . so, I duct-taped cardboard scraps on the fan I bought – for $15 – from e-bay. . . but it kind of just fell apart”

“Well, I had all this static in my experiment, so I bought dryer sheets and rubbed them all over my apparatus. It didn’t help, and now whenever I walk into lab I get a headache from the Downy fresh smell.”

Biologists have white coats, pipettes, and million dollar grants.

As much as Erin (duct-tape) and I (dryer sheets) enjoyed speaking fluid dynamics when our pre-med friends got too excited about proteins – there was a deep sense that we were doing playground science for our senior theses.

We comforted ourselves with the idea that there was far too little time between the due date of our manuscripts and graduation for our department heads to do much more than skim everyone’s abstract. We spent the final Saturday before the thesis deadline at Fenway.

I hoped my advisor didn’t notice my sun-burned nose as he detailed his summer plans for the project.

I described my meeting to Erin:

“He wants to make it a paper, he even said, ‘Heck it’s summer, we’ll send it on over to ------, see what they say.’ I’m quitting science if my thesis gets published in ------.”

And recently I learned:

There’s a new satellite journal, ------- Physics. The editors think the paper’s interesting; the reviewers think it’s publishable. It hasn’t been accepted yet, and it’s not ------ herself. But, my conception of science has been sufficiently debased to warrant, at least, some time off.

The Risible Lift

I try to stifle competitive urges.

And, I’ll think I’ve killed them all – until I get on the elevator.

Here in the med school, the first one on doesn’t ask where the others are going. He selects his floor, steps back, and we can make our move.

If we get on at one and someone hits two, a sheepish blush says “I fold.” Fifth floor cardiology says “beat that” seventh oncology says, “Oh, I will”. But as the round closes and oncology smirks, the tech from the ER yells “Hold the door!” And her cart full of samples with biohazard labels beat the clipboards any day.

Record Labels

Revealing that I’m a physics major from “Boston” has never been a good ice-breaker. But I fare far worse when initial impressions are based on musical taste.

I don’t think I’ve ever recovered from the time in 4^th grade when my best friend asked who I liked to listen to, and I said the name of the only musical artist I could think of – Raffi.

Four years later, I studied before a reunion with that old friend. When the question was posed I answered confidently, “Boyz II Men”

“Ugh, R and B?”

I’m sure she could picture the townies cruising among our blinking traffic lights blaring “Down on Bended Knee” after the snow birds had gone to sleep.

In the era of free Napster, I downloaded indiscriminately and found a band I really liked -- HIM. But they play Finnish “Love Metal”.

I roll my eyes at Bryan Adams’ “Baby I’d die for you.” -- It’s a little dramatic. But I’m somehow fine with “Join me in death” -- honey – pentagram, 666.

But I won’t be known as a romantic, and certainly not one prone to tragic emotional debilitation. So, without a real answer to the question I say Weezer, but apologetically, to acknowledge that they’re a little too popular. Or, in a complete cop out I’ll cryptically say I’ve been buying movie soundtracks recently, so that I can smoothly transition to my aversion for Natalie Portman’s acting via the obscene Shins advisement in Garden State.

And I’ll admit, for those of you who have been paying attention, that I sometimes still get Baby Beluga stuck in my head.

Maybe Georgia Got It Right

On the Santa Monica promenade:
The air in this parking garage contains automobile engine exhaust.
Chemicals in automobile exhaust are known to cause cancer.

At Ross Department Store:
Some products sold here may be hazardous to your health.

The warning on Sweet’N Low no longer gives me pause.

So, I think that the easiest way to eliminate the implication of scientific scandal from the debate over evolution is to not resist.

Allow stickers that declare “Evolution is just a theory,” and require a few others.

“Newton’s laws cannot be proven.”

“The Central Dogma is not a fact.”

Science owes its success to the harsh critique of older ideas and the recognition that these ideas need not be wholly accepted or rejected. So, I find it hard to take issue with a warning that ends as I think every class should begin:

“This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered.”

Reason number 853 to dislike the DMV:

Creepy fingerprint technician.

I thought it would be do it yourself: thumb on inkpad, thumb on paper. Instead, there was a little inferred scanner and a man who was a bit too involved in the process. He put his hand over mine and worked my finger over the glass plate. After a few attempts at a scan:

“Wow this really just isn’t working today.”

More rubbing, some sympathetic glances from the guy at the next widow.

“Hmm. . . it’s never given me this much trouble before.”

Now he’s drawing on all his thumb-touching experience . . . and I’m trying to detach my mind from my body. . .

“Nope, it just doesn’t like your thumb – but I do.”

It finally takes, the technician smiles.

“You must have a complicated karma.”

On the upside, I didn’t make an appointment and didn’t have to wait at all. We’ll see how the DMV’s new One Hour Photo image goes over.

Sunset Boulevard

I knew that in LA, I’d meet people trying to break into the business. Stupidly, I thought such sightings would be occasional, that meeting F-list celebs would be novelty.

But small talk with any waitress will reveal her desire to be on screen and unless the 20-something at the party is working towards his PhD in something hopelessly un-cool, you’ll find that he’s paying rent by writing, editing, or if he’s really good, directing the next poor substitute for the spin-off of the spin-off of Debbie Does Dallas.

That academic 20-something plans to spend his days humbly toiling in a laboratory. He knows his role has nothing to do with Hollywood.

But the sidewalks are paved in red carpet, stretch H-2’s line the streets and even the road signs reek with fame.

Those who reside in the ivory tower may be notoriously out of touch, but this can make them particularly susceptible to the fantasy of stardom. By the time they are a 40 to 50-something they’re living with a full-blown delusion that their celebrity in the field of sono-luminescence is much more far reaching.

My statistical mechanics professor refuses to distribute e-mail address for fear that “every high school student in the country” would be contacting him for science fair advice were the information readily available.

He spent a good deal of today’s lecture venting about being hounded for interviews by the paparazzi of physics – the New York Times science editors and the producers at NOVA. In researching ways to maintain his svelte figure, our good professor had been disappointed to find that even talking on the phone burned more calories than sex. But, after spending a grueling day exhausting himself speaking about his discovery (pain endured ‘for the fans’), this world-expert on energy decided that effort spent on the phone just might approach the passion he puts into copulation.

At least we didn’t have to read his thermodynamic equivalent of Magical Me. He’s probably just waiting for someone to buy the screen play.

Netflix It

Most people join Netflix for the convenience and price. I’ve found that it’s also forced me to remove the bull from the list, Let’s see that in a sentence now: “The Seventh Seal? Yeah, I really need to watch that. It’s totally at the top of my list”.

The Netflix list is an online catalog of movies you’d like to see. When you send back seven and eight, DVDs nine and ten are sent to you.

And so the list evolves. It is born a collection of classics, arty films and foreign flicks. Then, you find yourself returning – without watching all those depressingly honest subtitled must-sees chronicling the lives of the disadvantaged, malnourished and lame.

Soon, your list no longer resembles a syllabus from the “Intro to Film” course you never quite found the time to take, and looks more like the HBO lineup you missed when your roommates refused to chip in for cable.

If only I could subject to the same polygraph that fanciful collection of things I say I’d like to do sometime. Instead of DVD’s in the mail, it would be a man at my door. He’d be built like a tumbler from Cirque De Sole. On the days when there’s nothing I have to do he’d burst into my apartment at 7am and yell, “Sky diving lessons!”. How quickly that list would become void of adventures and full of dates with my couch, some tea, my pajamas and Netflix.

Absurdity Like an Onion

Department drama update:
Below is an e-mail sent by The Victim (tenured faculty member, crazy) to the head of our department.

I need to correct a serious misunderstanding that you have of the
English language.

It is important to correct the record.

In your email below you state that one of the boy graduate students has been described as a "tosser" and you then state that the term "tosser" is the U.K. equivalent of "wanker".

Thus, you are implying that the word "tosser" is an american word.

You are incorrect.

This is a gross and serious error on your part.

Actually both "tosser" and "wanker" are U.K. expressions.

I do not know what the american equivalent is of "tosser" nor "wanker".

sincerely The Victim

And the original, from our dept. head:

Dear Dr. Administrator:

I received a copy of the outrageous e-mail below sent by your
faculty member, “The Husband” I want to know immediately how you are going to handle this attack as I will be speaking to the student and senior administrators tomorrow (Monday).

In writing to a 2nd year grad student, The Husband calls
him a tosser [U.K. equivalent of "wanker"]

Power Failure

On the hottest summer days, air conditioners draw more than their allotment of power and lights dim warning of an immanent blown fuse.

Recently, I’ve immersed myself in equations. Developing my mathematical intuition has put a deal of stress on my capacity to speak. As I spend more of my days mentally manipulating geometric objects, mathematical constructs that model physical phenomena, I become more proficient in translating thought into Greek symbols and integral signs.

But, I’m finding that this skill and that of expressing ideas in English multiply to a constant. My linguistic skills are approaching zero asymptotically.

While working, lapses in concentration shift my consciousness from my left brain to the right. The other day when I was studying, it was providing background music: the Garden state soundtrack. Tapping its foot, lip-syncing, playing the highlights. Fine.

I became lost in left brain. A few hours later, something started to irritate me.

As my focus shifted, I realized it was the music.

Baby Beluga

But there are only two stanzas -- barely, so the song was on repeat “Song That Never Ends” style.

“Baby Beluga in the deep blue sea,
Swim so wild and you swim so free
The waves roll in and the waves roll out see the water comin’ out of your spout. . . doot doot doot. . .

BAAAAYBEE-BA-LOOOGA
BAAAAYBEE-BA-LOOOGA

Is the water warm?
Is the da da dum. . . with you so happy. . .

Baby Beluga in the deep blue sea. . .”

For the next three hours, my right brain became an idiot kid I was babysitting, demanding my attention and being as irritating as possible. Regressing.

Until all that was left was:

BABY BELUGA!! BABY BELUGA!! BABY BELUGA!! BABY BELUGA. . .

“Oh, hey, Sarah?”

Another student startles me out of the trance.
Sharp breath. Microwave beeps.
Stretch and a fridge fan begins to whir.
And, ignorant of the elapsed time, my VCR is flashing 12:00.

Reset, I continue my work.

A Brick to the Head

Twenty-five e-mails, no body, same subject -- to one of the nicest professors I've met.

Frank Hall You Are A Sexist Pig

And one for the department head too.

Jake Brown You Are A Very Fat Sexist Pig

Sent to all faculty and students in my department, the Dean of the school, and a few reporters from the LA Times, by Sally -- "The Victim" -- one of our tenured professors.

First Mate Susanne, recently denied tenure by the department of Economics because of her "horrible personality" (and who is filing dismissal charges against all tenured faculty in Econ because of the denial) is an accomplice. The two flood our e-mail server and argue with the cool logic of Ann Coulter, and Bill O’Reilly.

Sally claims to have won a medal, and the claim is dubious at best. The foundation that gives the award confirmed that she never received it. She retorts that the Dean conveniently tracked down an alternative institution awarding a prize with the same name as the one she did get. But, she is offering no alternative organization to contact. right

The Dean tells her that she needs to issue a retraction to her claim. She won't back down, and Susanne demands that the Dean apologize for doubting the success of a brilliant woman. An excerpt, from "How To Apologize" by Susanne:

I am a mother of two children, and I spend a lot of time teaching my children how to say sorry when they've hurt someone, you know, like, when they've hit another child over the head with a brick. I have noticed that lots of people teach their children how to say sorry, but then when their children grow up to become academic deans, they (I mean the deans, not the parents) engage in all sorts of indecent acts, and then it turns out they've forgotten how to say sorry. Since I am not merely a mother, but also an educator, I am happy to explain to you how you should say sorry to The Victim.

There are three components to saying you're sorry. First, you need to say that you're sorry to the person you've hurt, and you need to do it graciously. You're not allowed to wait until the person has left the room and only then say "sorry," or mumble the apology into a tissue as you blow your nose, or say "solly" instead of "sorry," or say "sorry" in a nasty sneering tone of voice, or say "sor" now and "ry" six hours later. (Believe me, I've seen it all.)

Second, you need to specify what it is that you are sorry for, and you need to refer specifically to the hurt you have caused. It doesn't count if you say out loud "I'm sorry ...," and in your mind you add, "... that the grass is brown." Another total no-no is for you to say, "I'm sorry I made you feel bad," or (worse) "I'm sorry you feel bad." This non-apology makes it sound like the problem lies with the other child's feelings rather than with what you did to the other child to cause the feelings. It is also important for you not to wiggle around and apologize for some minor by-product of your action, as in, "I'm sorry I spoiled your hair-do," and meanwhile the blood is spilling out of the other child's head and messing up his or her hair.

Third, you need to make good, that is, take corrective action. An exemplary apology would be for you to say, "I am sorry I hit you over the head with a brick. Please can you tell me what I can do to make your head feel better. Here is my t-shirt, and you can use it to tie around your head so the blood stops flowing. How about I ask my mother to drive you to the hospital."

The Valley

1 – I get on the highway and see I’m a little low on gas, just above the warning zone.

2 – I soon have to get off the freeway to close the hood when my latch becomes disengaged.

3 – I realize I’m now mid warning zone, and it might be a good time to fill up. And – I forgot my wallet.

4 – When getting back on the freeway, I fail to realize that at some point the 101 intersects with itself at ninty degrees. One portion runs N-S, another runs E-W. However, the E-W portion is still labeled N-S, and a direct route to the valley involves traveling on the 101N, and then the 101S. It was 101N when I got on at first, but taking the 101N after my brief turn off actually took me back towards Los Angeles, where taking the 101S at this point, signed “to Los Angeles” would actually continue taking me away from the city. How stupid of me.

5 – After another five miles on the freeway, my hood’s once again flapping in the breeze.

6 – Off the highway again, I evaluate the cost of my navigational mishap: a half gallon of gas. My gas-o-meter is now hitting the bottom of the orange hazard zone.

7 – *pop* exunt the freeway – again

8 – Sans wallet, was able to scrape together 23 pennies, 17 dimes, six nickels, and 20 eurocents. In LA, that’ll buy you .92 gallons, or about 45 minutes sitting in traffic. The cashier at Shell clearly thinks I’m an idiot.

9 – Arrive, borrow money from friend in the valley, fill up the tank, feel fabulous, like I can go anywhere, do anything “as long as my hood doesn’t. . . crap”.

10 – I pull off, again and test the hood this time:
shut it, pull up on it – *pop*,
shut it, pull up on it – *pop*,
shut it, pull up on it – *pop*,

*SLAM* the damn thing shut.

Ow! The grill falls off the car, onto my foot.

Fuck

I examine the grate and decide it’s entirely ornamental.

The fact that I live in the land of highway bumper cars and among even the shittiest of shitty automobiles, none I’ve seen lacked grills, almost persuades me to try to put the thing back on.

But I try the hood again, and this time it doesn’t budge. So, I throw the grate in the passenger seat and pray that frontal nudity on a car isn’t something that gets the attention of the LAPD, known for its recent crackdown on jaywalking and double parking.

And me without my license.