generous, but a little dirty

"Jacques wanted to be logical, even purely logical, while he considered me as being mainly intuitive. Which would not have disturbed me if he had not injected into his remarks a bit of irony, even scorn. But it was not enough for him to be logical. Nature also had to be logical, to function according to strict rules. Having once found a 'solution' to some 'problem,' it had to stick to it from then on, to use it to the end. In every case. In every situation. In every living thing. In the last analysis, for Jacques, natural selection had sculpted each organism, each cell, each molecule down to the tiniest detail. To the point of attaining a perfection ultimately indistinguishable from what others recognized as the sign of divine will. Jacques ascribed Cartesianism and elegance to nature. Hence his taste for unique solutions. For my part, I did not find the world so strict and rational. What amazed me was neither its elegance nor its perfection, but rather its condition: that it was as it was and not otherwise. I saw nature as a rather good girl. Generous, but a little dirty. A bit muddle-headed. Working in a hit-or-miss fashion. Doing what she could with what was at hand. Hence, my tendency to foresee the most varied situations..." 

-from A Statue Within, by Francois Jacob

My dad sent this quote to me over three years ago. I liked science then, I was doing science. I recall vaguely liking the idea of there not being a right answer, about there being room for error. About the importance of a feeling. Now I am a graduate student in microbiology. I can see the discoveries of Jacques Monod and Francois Jacob as brilliant, and I see and use their techniques every day.

I also imagine myself working with nature, not against her. I'm thinking about what the engineers are doing, the synthetic biologists. They are using her tools to trick her into giving up her secrets. My project is starting off just trying to ask her a question that she has never been asked before, and seeing if she will share with me.

Three years ago I found myself wanting to identify with Francois's nature. A rather good girl. Doing what she can with the best of intentions, no matter the outcome. A bit muddle-headed. I still do. Maybe this is what I want out of science. I don't want to prove anything to anyone. I don't want the glory of an I told you so. I'm not sure it even means anything to be right. I just want to go along my way. To do what I can with what is at hand. To be generous, but a little dirty.▪








I started writing this a few days ago, and since then have experienced the predictable ups and downs of the summer. Between my hormones and the heat, science is the strangest bedfellow. I am in love, I am enchanted, I am frustrated, intimidated, scared. Little life update: I have been anxious and stressed, despite loving what I am doing. I am snapping at Lena and not returning phone calls. Despite that, despite all of that, my daughter comes willingly into my arms, snuggles against me in her sleep. Despite all of that, upon arriving home late last night, tired, sweaty, I found four new comic books and a peach cobbler on my back porch. I am lucky the luckiest to be loved.

the calm before the storm

I'm having this weirdly intense dilemma. I've been rolling around town with a flash-pack--the bare necessities strapped to my back. Notebook, pen, water bottle, wallet, keys. Light jacket for the unpredictable NC summer weather. A paper I'm reading for a rotation.

The problem is that I've been using one notebook for everything. Random thoughts, things Lena says. Grocery store lists and blog post ideas. Science ideas, fellowship proposal ideas. Short stories and imagined monologues. Poems and notes on papers I'm reading. You get the idea.

The 'problem' happens when I open up a page for notes on the dopamine pathway with a professor I'm working with, and on the page before it is a short story about a one night stand that I've been working on.

I'm pretty sure this means it's about time I have two separate notebooks.

Y'all, grad school starts next week or so, and I've found my home. I'm sitting at Open Eye Cafe deriving the Michaelis-Menten equation, and I forgot that I LOVE MATH and writing things out. And getting stuck and getting myself unstuck. I'm reading a paper and I'm literally rewriting every equation in the paper until I get it. I'm not moving forward until I completely understand each figure, and how they derive their model.

I can't tell you how awesome this feels to be learning something. I mean I 'learned' a ton when I was a tech. And I know that grad school, it is work, and things like that, but right now I am so excited to be learning something and to be going back to school. What is demanded most from me right now is learning. And I love that. I love that!

Well, so also it's kind of a lie because I'm actually sitting at Open Eye right now and writing a blog post. but I also ran out of loose-leaf paper in order to derive all of my equations, and I was just thinking about how I might have to move to the notebook, but it seems really weird to be thinking about kinetics right after I've written something like this,



There is nothing new under the sun.

You are not the first to hide money in your bra. 

It has rained when someone else has been sad, too.
The weather did not choose you, as the first, to reflect a mood.

There has been a beautiful sunrise for someone else, before you.

We were not the first to be harmed, humiliated and confused.
(If only we were the first to harm, to hurt, to break a heart)

Hearts have been broken before this, yes.

You, poet are not the first to write a poem.
Not the first to pluck words like flowers,
hold them gently in your hands
then give them away.

You are not the first to hope that your words reach someone other than yourself.

You are not the first to discover water,
to cross a desert,
to climb a mountain. 

We are not the first to have loved, and lost, and loved again.

little posts

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you may ask yourself, how did i get here

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In case there was any confusion, the Talking Heads were talking specifically about me, 25, pushing Lena in one of those bullshit huge shopping carts disguised as a race car in the grocery store. And me again, being so utterly inspired and excited about science, and life, and words. And me again, every day I wake up.

**

L comes out with these gems of phrase. Some of which I know she's repeating from books, which makes my heart swell more than anything, and some where I have no idea the origin. In the car the other day she says, Mom, trees are flowers for giants.

**

7 or so years ago I had this boyfriend that wanted to replace my car stereo. I didn't let him for a variety of reasons, one of which he really liked exerting control over my life and I could tell that was what he was doing with my car, but now, 7 years later, I have the shittiest car stereo ever. Any volume required to listen to music with the windows down yields this crazy static-y crackling noise which drives me nuts. And also inexplicably this tapping sound? As if there is some part of the car that is tapping along to the beat. And I secretly sometimes think, you know, I ended up with a kid anyways, couldn't I have at least got a new car stereo out of it too?

**

The summer is almost over, and I can't think about kindergarten, so don't ask me about it.

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My first rotation is almost over, and between you and me, it was tough. A few weeks ago I was falling asleep at about 9, and sleeping hard until almost 7 the next morning. I thought I had mono or something. But now that the end is in sight, and I am so. freakin. excited. about my next prospects for rotations. I've been not exhausted when L falls asleep, which means I can like, read a book, read a paper, write something down, relax. And then boom, I am waking up at 6 AM with ideas and questions, being generally excited about life.

**

Which is funny, because Aspen wrote recently on her blog about listening to your body, and letting it rest, and giving it space, and like, yeah.

**

Got a few more secrets, a few more stories in my pocket. Until next time...

Little things

Here are some little things that have been floating around my brain for a while.

+I've been making Lena eat at least one vegetable per dinner, and the faces and the attitude that this kid makes is just astounding. She's going to be the most awesome teenager in the world based solely on the dramatic sighs I get from her when forced to eat half a slice of cucumber. Half a slice. And cucumbers don't even taste like anything!

+We're lucky to grow up with a diverse amount of families around us. It's making me more confident that there will be less scrutiny in her future for not having a d-a-d around. Also, L had play date the other day, and they were playing 'house', and L said to her friend, 'you can be the daddy', and the friend didn't want to, so Lena said, 'ok, we can both be mommy's.' I know it's not ground-breaking stuff here, but I just love that their family could have two mommies, and that was perfectly ok.

+I need to work on my elevator pitch of what I want to do in grad school. I'm really used to telling non-scientist people, so I end up just saying 'molecular biology!' really enthusiastically and that gets the point across. Have just realized that this does not fly with, oh, actual scientists.

+I'm about to start reading The Fault in Our Stars, which I've heard really great things about. I even requested it from the main campus library, and it's coming to the health sciences library, which is closer to my work. I'm inordinately excited about this.

Smells like teen spirit

The other day I realized that when it comes to choosing shampoo scents for kids it's really all about what smoothie flavor you want them to smell like. Orange crush? Mango tango?

This side of August seems a lot closer to a lot of things. Grad school, L being almost five. Things.

I've been busy and happy and you can find me at the pool almost every weekend. It's been good.

Sorry I haven't been writing here a bunch, but don't worry (I know you were worried) I have been writing.

I've been working on more science writing stuff. I've been guest blogging on Nature.com's Scitable blog, Student Voices. (I talked about principle components! And then a more asinine post on coffee.) I've also been working on things like personal statements. And thinking about short stories.

We've had crazy storms here, and a tree fell on my car: but my car was ok. :)

And Lena and I have been great. In the following picture, only one of us had been crying only minutes before!

Seriously. Ok. Smell you later! (Orange crush for L, I've been in a more savory shampoo mood: rosemary and mint.)

bits & peices

I had this great nap-dream where Nathan Fillion and I were speaking eloquently on a multitude of topics. So clearly I fell asleep while I was watching Firefly and studying for the GRE.

Lena has this book about this bunny called Marshmallow, and it has this great line about how the bunny is really sad and if it was a kitten it would meow, and if it were a puppy it would howl, and if it were a baby it would cry, but because it was a bunny it just sat there feeling sad. WTF bunny!

Some Days

Some days are easy. When Lena wakes up early, and walks bleary eyed into my room and crawls into bed, demanding covers. When I make us a fried egg sandwich for breakfast, cut it in two, and bring it to the table, where Lena is sitting and waiting. When I'm a little sad, or lonely, and Lena knows this, and decides to inundate me with stuffed animals and offers up a shared nap, because there is nothing in the world that cannot be cured with snuggling. Snuggling. They way that Lena asks to snuggle. Easy days. The days when Lena exuberantly talks all the way home about Jupiter's moons and how Pluto is the smallest coldest planet. They days when laughter comes easy and often. The tears that fall go away quickly. We pick ourselves up off the ground and we laugh.

Some days are hard. There are moods. Lena is angry or I am angry, and no clothes fit right and Lena doesn't want to get out of the bath and I want to go to bed. Or Lena doesn't listen and I'm impatient. And there are days when I'm a little sad and a little lonely and a stuffed animal just can't quite cut it. 

Some days are easy and some days are hard, and I'm starting to learn how to better remember, in the depths of the hard days, there are always more easy, sweet, wonderful ones to come. 

Mama said there'd be days like this

There'd be days like this, my mama said

Insta-weekend

This weekend I crafted.

Lena and I made signs for our room, and Michael's had 50% off fake flowers.

Then I made a Hunger Games t-shirt.

I completely stole the idea from Forever Young Adult, but what can you do. Also I was the original t-shirt maker so it was very high school.

And then I cleaned my room and am still debating whether or not to throw away this doll.

 Lena likes it, and it's clearly Jewish, but for some reason this doll really bothers me. I have no idea why. I really want to toss it. I won't, but I might do something immature and not allow it in my room. It freaks me out!

Wow I am just a picture of maturity.

Also when Lena sleeps in my bed, I always want to do funny things to bother her, but instead I just stay in bed too long watching her sleep. And taking pictures.

Tidbits.

1) Valentine's day. I disprove of Lena's daycare perpetuating the farce that is Valentine's day. They are training her to be crushed in high school when her crush doesn't show up on Feb 14 because he is out having sex with his senior girlfriend in a car somewhere, and then again sometime between 20 and 25 waiting for a call or flowers or chocolate from some romanticized version of whatever sex she happens to be attracted to.
Not to mention that giving out Valentines at 4 is really just about impressing other parents. Do Lena and I spend an afternoon "crafting" together to make personalized valentines? Answer: No. I go to Target and pick out the least obnoxious least commercialized valentine's I could find. (Twilight or Glee?)

2) Pops told me today that Lena is 4 which means that it's basically a third of the way until she is a teenager. I think this was meant to be comforting, but it's really just scary.

3) The past few days have been gorgeous, and this has got to be the most mild winter we've had in a long time, but today is cold and rainy, and there are so many birds in the yard and it makes me remember a short story I was working on, and that I could get behind bird watching.

Finally,

4) It's hard to disentangle yourself from something that's been an almost constant presence for almost three years. It's petrifying and exciting. Some days it's like waking up from a nightmare with too many blankets on top of you, and it's a struggle to get free even when you know there's nothing scary anymore. Other times it's like coming up for air after a long time underwater. Anyway, it's all hard and complicated, but also the right thing to do. It's hard to wake up from a nightmare, but it's better in the end. Even if it was a nightmare disguised as a dream, and even if it was a dream that we called love.