Classic Memorial Day

This summer is starting out to be quite an adventure. Yesterday began with a +3-mile hike and picnic along the Eno River, where we saw various sizes of turtles sunning themselves on logs and rocks, lizards scampering up trees, and water snakes slithering through the river grasses. The snakes swam up to the water's edge, mouth open, checking us out as much as we were checking them out. Then, we went swimming in the quarry, where we stepped barefooted, gingerly over the red clay and dry pine needle-covered slopes to jump into the cool green water. The first jump in smelled like silty freshwater lake and uncertainty of what lay below the surface, and the longer we stayed in the water, the longer it smelled of the thrill of kids jumping off the ledge through the trees and of warm summer days when you don't have to be anywhere at any time. Hiking back to the car in our wet swimsuits and shorts (which gradually looked more and more like we had incontinence issues) sealed the summer in. The grand finale was a BBQ, the last hurrah at one of the party houses we came to know and love. Many of us are moving on to different parts of the same big city, and others are going to places further afield, and the reality of this split is starting to sink in. We've spent two years together, laughing and complaining over familiar beers and randomized music play lists. So the national Memorial Day may be about honoring fallen soldiers, but for us, yesterday was about honoring our journey together thus far.

Still on the mountain

I have that feeling these days, a lingering wish to be back on the mountain. It happens often - anytime I've spent more than a day living the rustic lifestyle. A few weeks ago, some friends and I hiked 5 miles up Mount LeConte in eastern Tennessee. We left on a Monday morning, backpack straps buckled and tightened, water bottles and hydration packs filled, coffee and toast warming our bellies. The trail we took was the steepest one up the mountain, a daunting task, but with the help of trail mix, energy bars, and a number of pit stops and photo opportunities, we all arrived at the lodge in just over 3 hours. One of the Mount LeConte lodge staffers showed us to our cabins, which had real beds and bunk beds with pillows, sheets and wool blankets, heaters in each room, and a big porch with rocking chairs. Restrooms were either flush toilets accessible only with the keys hanging in each cabin or pit toilets, which were always unlocked. Two pumps delivered cold filtered water and a hot water tap by the lodge filled our buckets for washing up. Thin, smoky coffee and hot cocoa were being served all day. Breakfast and dinner were served hot in the dining hall, family style, and lunch was sandwiches, trail mix, and cookies, served in a paper bag. During the day on Tuesday, we hiked, napped, played games, read, anything to fill the time and take in the fresh air.


We rose early to watch the sun rise from one peak, then hiked after dinner to watch it set from another peak, dipping below the mountaintops in spectacular color and drama. Of course, we applauded, another feat of nature successfully completed.

Camping out always makes me feel like this, because it's simple living at its best. Each summer for 6 years, I spent two weeks at Girl Scout camp in Wisconsin, where we slept on cots in platform tents. The summer before my senior year of high school, some friends and I spent a week on Manitou Island in Michigan, where we slept in tents, cooked meals in our dutch oven, and bathed in the lake. During my sophomore year in college, I backpacked for a weekend in the Ozarks, a trek made more difficult by hay fever and a lack of proper hiking footwear. No matter the length of the trip or challenge of survival, it's still the same feeling. The only time you have to worry about is breakfast time, lunch time, dinner time, and swim time. Your clothing options consist only of what's clean or dry, but usually not both, and by the end, usually neither. And nothing matches, so don't even try. The food is hearty, full of starches and sugars, often a little burnt, but always the best you've ever tasted. Your body is tired in that I'm-really-living kind of way, your hair smells like campfire smoke and lake (or well) water, and there's a constant layer of sunscreen and dirt on your skin. By the end of the trip, you're a little sunburned, the mosquitoes and flies have eaten you up, and you've scraped your shin or shoulder on a rock or branch. But you don't have to worry about bringing your wallet, cell phone, and keys with you everywhere. The constant drone of TVs and radios, road noise, and echoes from loud neighbors is gone. None of the trappings of civilized society even exist out there. It's just you and the wind, baby.

And when you come home, life is just too comfortable. Too easy. You can get in your car and drive anywhere, instead of hiking two miles down the ridgeline. Your bed is too soft, your coffee too gourmet, your home too secure and sheltered from the elements. No one is there to serve you grits, eggs, pancakes, juice, family-style. You're not sharing a space with 5 other people. Nothing on TV is nearly as interesting as the landscape over the valley you stared at for an hour. Life is too easy and too lonely after you come down from the mountain. It's much better when you're sipping from flasks, wrapped in fleece and flannel, playing card games and joking about who in the group you'd eat first if stranded without food. It's an intimate experience where you're allowed to be pensive and philosophical, and you can't help but throw your arms around your friends at any given moment because personal space means nothing when you're all equally dirty and tired and completely satisfied with life in that very moment.

So yeah, even though I'm facing an exciting move to a new city and a meaningful new job, most days, I'd rather still be on the mountain. Maybe it's the early human in me, longing for a more communal life that's closer to nature. In the meantime, day hikes and longer camping trips will have to suffice.

Not-so-divergent pathways

My brother and I have the same birthday, but we're not twins. In fact, growing up, we were quite different. I was the serious kid who spent a lot of time in my room, reading books and listening to the radio. My brother spent more time getting and keeping my parents' attention by flexing his creative muscle with hands-on projects. We often played together when we were younger, saving our stuffed animals from tragedy and molding homemade play-dough. As we got older, we seemed to be on very different career paths. My brother, an extremely talented trombone and tuba player, looked forward to a promising career in music education, while I hoped to apply my love of science and writing to a career in environmental journalism.

A lot has happened since high school. Our budding talents are still being put to use, but now we're in the same industry. My brother always loved to work with his hands, creating public artwork strung between the kitchen table and counter tops and mixing his own pretzel dips. Now, he's the head pastry chef at a popular Chicago brunch spot. As a teenager, I dreamed of owning a farm with horses, and I marveled at the fact that we ate cherry tomatoes and broccoli from our little suburban garden plot. Now, I'll be researching economic issues related to agriculture and environmentally sensitive farming practices.

So yes, my brother and I are now employed in the food sector. But really, what makes people happier than good food enjoyed with family and friends and contributing to community development? Guess we're not so different after all.

Grad school makes you a huge nerd

Never have I laughed so much at a bunch of bars and pie charts. Who knew graphs were so hilarious?

http://graphjam.com

Evolution of the Unwinding

I'm sitting in the airport on my way home from Las Vegas. Yes, Vegas, home of everything ridiculous and unnecessary. Here, it is just too flashy and noisy and expensive, and the people are all drunk and annoying and badly dressed. The streets would feel huge except for the fact that the buildings are even huger. I was here for a conference, though I didn't go to many sessions because I've been in the process of unwinding. On Monday, I finished and submitted the very last paper of my graduate school career, and then I promptly sat by the pool and drank an overpriced beer from a plastic bottle and foolishly minorly sunburned my skin. Yesterday I hiked through Sloan Canyon, which was fantastic until the tour guide tried to blame climate change solely on the sun. It took a while to let that one slide. This was definitely a different world, which made me laugh and groan at the same time.

Before this Vegas trip, I was in Washington DC with the black-suited graduate student cohorts who are all applying for the same jobs with the federal government. I ate Thai food with some new people, relearned the Metro system, and daydreamed about my new professional endeavors.

So among all this jet-setting, it still hasn't hit me that I'm done with school. Maybe some time in the woods will help me get it all into perspective. That's next week. My cat will surely be sore at me for leaving her all alone for days at a time, except for the very kind folks who agreed to look after her. Fear not, dear kitty. In a couple of weeks, all we will do is sit on the couch and watch The West Wing reruns and try to put some space between what was and what will be.

It's over already?

Suddenly, the end of grad school is nigh. Last weekend, we celebrated the completion of our masters project presentations, the one thing many of us had been dreading for two years. When I watched those presentations from my admitted-student seat two years ago, I found it hard to believe that I would ever know enough about anything to stand up and talk for 15 minutes about it. And now I've done it and it's over - I knew enough to pick a project that was challenging but still within my capabilities. I may never read it again, knowing that it could have been so much more, but that's the beauty of it. Seeing what things could be is much better than knowing you've done absolutely everything possible.

So we've been celebrating for a week now, while still working toward the final draft due date and wrapping up group projects and starting 15-page papers that are due in two weeks. The thing about grad school is that if you can't wildly procrastinate, then pull something of quality together quickly, you'll never make it. If you can't complain for hours on end about how much work you have to do, then stay out way too late on a Saturday night to be productive the next morning, you're not really living the grad student life.

It took me a while, but now that I'm ready to graduate, I think I've fully gotten the hang of this grad student life. Friday afternoon kegs, with 3 or 5 or 8 dogs darting between legs. Walking into the computer lab at any hour of the day and seeing the same friendly faces frowning at maps or 20-page PDFs for class. Parties that feel alternately like prom and freshman year frat parties. Bluegrass music, caber tossing, tug-of-war, and the pig that's been roasting in the ground since the night before. Bocce ball and barbecue in the apartment complex yard. And now it's almost over. In the real world, you don't often have Halloween parties in the forest, beer at your computer on a Friday afternoon, or hour-long breaks in the courtyard at 3pm. In the real world, there aren't many opportunities to spend a day on the farm, unless you own that farm.

Grad school isn't all parties, although that's what we'll remember. We'll probably all soon forget the econ problem set that we just couldn't figure out without conferring with classmates. We'll forget the policy memos and statistical models based on our professor's made-up data. The reading reviews will be out of our minds the moment we submit them through Blackboard. That stuff is all practice for the real world. But one thing is for sure - no matter now silly we see each other act on the weekends, no matter how studious our cohorts may be on a Wednesday before a big project is due, there is no doubt in my mind that this group of people will go out and change the world. We've joked that we'll just blow off the real world and live in a commune together, but the truth is that we'd all be miserable with that life. We're not here to while away the hours at some cubicle in some office building, filing TPS reports. Our goals are much bigger, our hopes are endless. We see the myriad social, environmental, and economic challenges that are just beginning to impact our lives. On New Years Eve, a friend gave a short but inspiring toast: here's to a really great year, not just for us, but for the world. Coming into a presidential election with a chance for real change, the spring green to the past eight years of frigid winter, there couldn't be a better time to unleash this flock of great minds and greater energy on the world.

I feel so lucky to be here among them. I made the right choice to come here, to take on big debt in exchange for the chance to take on something much bigger and better than what I could have imagined. I learned from some amazing people, professors and friends alike, and I wouldn't have done anything different. Now, many of us will descend on Washington, DC, or Boston, or San Francisco, or even somewhere in North Carolina. I hope that even with our families and jobs and new opportunities, we'll still keep our little community alive - our nation-wide commune full of organic gardens, musical compositions, and the variety of talents we'll have time to pursue again.

For the first time in my life, I'm not ready to leave this all behind. I'm not tired of the people, disenchanted with my work, or bored with my setting. I'm happy here with my crew and my task. Indeed, seeing what things could be is much better than knowing you've done absolutely everything possible. I know I'm going forth into something new that draws on what I've had here, and that is really much better.

Endorsement

Not that I have the power to sway anyone's vote, but because this is an important election year, I should state for the record that I am a strong Barack Obama supporter. I have been since he was elected a U.S. Senator, and since he spoke at my friend's graduation in June 2006, and since he started appearing on every talk show and answering questions in just the right way. For a while, I hoped he would lose the nomination to Hillary and come back to run again in 4 or 8 years, but since Hill and Bill have been pulling some tom-foolery with the media, I want Obama to whoop some Clinton booty. I was too young to really know much about politics when Bill Clinton was in office, but if the Clintons pulled the same kind of shenanigans back then, well, maybe what their enemies say about them is warranted.

On New Years Eve, my friend led a toast with an uplifting and hopeful wish for a truly great year, not just for us, but for the world. It was inspiring, and we needed it. Obama can bring it.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Vote. No matter who you vote for, please use the voice that this country has given you the opportunity to use. Give your input about your future. In the past 8 years, our country has fallen apart, partly due to apathy. Be part of the effort to bring it back together.

Ah, Spring

Today is a Sonic Sunday. In college, on days like this when the sun was warm and the air was spring-like, we would pile into the car, go to Sonic and get cherry limeades, cherry vanilla cokes, and the likes, and drive around with the windows down, listening to music and trying to forget about winter. Alas, there's no Sonic around here and too much work to do, but I did listen to my Spanish-language Ricky Martin CD on my way over to Target to pick up a few things, and I bought a Vitamin Water instead.

In the Midwest, days like this so early in the year are flukes. Another snowstorm is just around the corner. But down South, spring is surely on its way. The grass is still brown and the trees are mostly bare, but the perennials are starting to poke their leaves up and some of the trees already have fuzzy buds. So there's hope.

So wrong

Last night, my friends served Krispy Kreme bread pudding. It's like regular bread pudding, except made with Krispy Kreme donuts and chocolate chips. When it's warm, it's fantastic in small quantities. And I don't even like Krispy Kreme donuts. I've never done crack, but I would imagine that if crack gave you heartburn, it would be the exact equivalent of this dish. It's even better when you wash it down with a gulp of Coors Light from a keg.

I have now hit rock bottom. If I hadn't worked out the past 4 days, I would be SO ashamed. Never again will I sink to such lows. It was fun while it lasted. And now, the gym in T minus 8 hours.

Finally, someone who understands my plight

toothpastefordinner.com

...then you've made your life contingent on rivers

I just finished reading River Horse, A Voyage Across America by William Least Heat-Moon. It's the true story of his trip across the United States via river, but there are such poetic moments that it's hard to believe it's real. The author lives in the town where I went to college, and I share his appreciation of the lower Missouri River. Here are some great quotes, mostly from the latter half of the book, because that's when I started taking note of the words. I'll have to go back and read the first half again.

p. 235: "I said, If nature undoes immediately what we work years to do, then we're not doing it right."
p. 345: (quoting Pilotis) "'That river isn't about people - it's too primeval. When I see an ocean, I don't see time, but on the Missouri, I see time everywhere, along the eroded banks, down the shallow bottoms in those worn and rounded stones, even in the current. Flow and erosion, flow and erosion. The valley is the face of a clock, and the hour hand's the moving river, always showing how our days are ebbing, getting washed downstream. Civilization will run out long before the sun burns up and turns rivers back into planetary gases.' 'And later: Stand on the water's edge and see how easy it is to imagine a valley before you existed - then imagine it in a time when you're long gone. That river scours existence, pulls solidities loose and flushes them away. To it, our days are no more than cottonwood fluff. Our little selfish ploys and conceited aspirations are just so much sediment. People are about cleverness. A river's about continuance. We talk about dams and wing-dikes, but we don't need to fret about that Missouri. It's not endangered - we are. When I'm out on the water, I don't worry about it. I worry about me. I'm just too small for that river.'"
p. 355: "That night the Photographer reminded me of a famous line from Aldo Leopold, author of the celebrated book A Sand County Almanac: 'One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.' But that was two generations ago, and now the world is not so lonely for those who act on behalf of our planet."
p. 433: (quoting Pilotis) "Why do you think our passage must be continual travail? You've got to adjust to going downhill. Quit uprivering. Just follow the drainage down."
p. 453: (quoting a woman in a bar) "In full certainty, she said, 'When a man takes to the road, even if it's a river, he's running away, but when a woman takes off, she's looking for something.'"
p. 459: "Pessimism and negativism are cankers in the soul of long-distance voyagers, and continuance of journeys owes about as much to blind faith as realistic assessment - at least, that is my interpretation, drawn from reading many travelers' accounts, including those of Columbus."
p. 462: (a discussion between the author and Pilotis) P: "Does the ease of downstreaming make you second-guess yourself about refusing to take a jet boat up the River of No Return so you could have cooperated with the flow of the Missouri for halfway across the continent?" WLH-M: "'No, I said, because those two rivers forced us to earn passage - I think it's like rock climbing where the point is to go a difficult way, otherwise ascent is almost meaningless - the object isn't just to get to the top but to get there in such a way you learn the nature of the mountain.'... 'Four-lane highways are for passing, not passage.'"
p. 474: (quoting Pilotis) "The best human beings can do is borrow a river. We can live in a forest, in the mountains, in the earth, in the grasslands, but not in a river. That's strange for creatures two-thirds water."
p. 491: "On that hundredth night I understood that I had gone and entered a place, and I knew where I'd gone, but where I'd entered I had no idea. When our voyage was only a memory, where would I wash up? Just where is the great delta of old river travelers? When the journey is done, quo vadis? That's a question adventurers leave out of their accounts..."
p. 492: (the author remembering a conversation between him and his ex-wife) "The winter before, I had heard, 'Are you going to trade a boat trip for our marriage?' an impossible question for me since to walk away from the river, once the idea of crossing took hold of me, was to walk away from a long dream, a deep aspiration. The voyage was not more significant than the marriage because it had become one pillar of it - or, at least, one pillar of my life. Either way, I believed a long rivering necessary to my continuance as a man. To the question I said, If I fail even to try the trip I won't be worth being married to. And I heard, 'Then you've made your life contingent on rivers.' To that, I could say nothing."

Female leadership

If Hillary Clinton becomes our next president, would Nancy Pelosi or Barbara Boxer run in the future?

Choose Your Candidate

I just took the Washington Post Choose Your Candidate Quiz. The questions are organized by topic, and the participant chooses which candidate response they most agree with. The participant doesn't know which candidate gave which response, and they can choose to hide or show the tally by candidate. Some responses are more obviously linked to certain candidates, but half the fun is guessing. I will not divulge who the quiz says my candidate is, but I have a few initial reactions:
1. You can take either the Democrat or the Republican quiz. When I have some free time, I'll take the other quiz. I'm curious to know what it would tell me, or whether it would just frustrate me. However, it would definitely help me brush up on what the other party has to say.
2. The quiz presents positions as talking points, which we all know are mostly BS anyway. It just goes to show you that the content carries less weight than the style of wording in politics. Just because a candidate says things in appealing ways doesn't mean they're more qualified to lead.
3. Does it really matter whether the quiz results align with whom you already support? How many people would change their mind after taking this quiz? Maybe it depends more on how decided you were before or what your experience has been with the candidates.
4. I'm definitely doing more research on the candidates. I know whom I'm voting for, but I also want to know more about all of our potential Presidents.

Stem Cell Breakthrough

Two weeks ago, scientists announced that they discovered a way to create embryonic stem cells from skin cells, without any use of the controversial embryos. If this technique is truly successful and proves to be the huge scientific breakthrough everyone believes it to be, then the stem cell debate is over. It also means that President Bush won.

I must admit, maybe that's okay. True, I joined the throngs of people outraged that Bush would defy scientific reasoning and refuse on moral grounds to support embryonic stem cell research. But being President of the United States is a tough job in which you're called upon to make decisions that will never appease everyone. At the end of the day, you do what you think is right.

Put yourself in his shoes. Try to make a controversial decision between what you feel is right for the country and what others want you to do. (You may think that just because you align with a certain political party that such an issue may never come up, but these days, you just don't know, and what you think you believe may be tested at some point.)

What President Bush did was put his foot down about what he felt was right, forcing the scientific community to find a solution that won't pose a moral dilemma for some people. So scientists did just that. Whether the administration sufficiently supported scientists working on such projects is another story that requires more investigation. But in the long run, if we now have the technology to do stem cell research that will pass the moral test and receive lots of new funding, isn't that what's best for the country?

Thanksgiving delights

This Thanksgiving, I had turkey for dinner. But it wasn't just any turkey. This turkey came from a farm nearby, where the birds were truly free-range, ate grain by the handful and all the bugs they could snatch up, and met their fate in a humane way. I bought this turkey from a farmer I know, whose farmer friend actually raised the turkeys. They were dispatched last Sunday, picked up on Tuesday, and brought to the table on Thursday. The farmer I know sends her children to a local school, which she must pay for, and she raises and sells her own chickens, ducks, and eggs. She and the turkey farmer buy their feed and other supplies from local stores, so my money is supporting local businesses instead of some big conglomerate hundreds of miles away.

Ours was a 10-pounder, lean, and more than enough for three people. We spread olive oil and herbs under the skin and all over the top, and stuffed onions and carrots in the cavity. Although not as tender as a factory-raised bird, the meat was so flavorful and went down well with a dab of cranberry sauce. We even cooked and pureed the giblets, a fine feast for my kitty. Picking the rest of the meat from the bone after dinner was strangely satisfying in a primitive way. It was good to know where my meat came from, even if nothing else on the table was organic or sustainable. I can preach to my family all I want, but only they can can take the step to commit to sustainability. My dad now recycles, and I consider that a big step.

Small realizations

Last night, I went to a meeting of the local chapter of the Association of Environmental Professionals. Following dinner was a presentation about new state rules for stormwater management, a rather technical topic. Not only did I know exactly what they were talking about, I wanted to ask questions. I guess I truly am an environmental professional. Now if only we had some stormwater to manage...

Also, I'm back on coffee. I tried drinking black tea instead, but I'm sorry, tea is just not coffee. And I refuse to feel ashamed for my 1 to 2 cups a day.

The Primaries

As expected, the media are full of political blather about who's ahead, who's going to win, what surprises lie ahead, and the likes. A few points have been made that could change things completely. First of all, polls say that Hillary is ahead, but the participants of those polls are only people who could be reached via land line, thus eliminating anyone with only a cell phone. This means that a large percentage of people between the ages of 18 and 30ish don't have a voice in the polls. Also, Iowa's early primary means that many students registered to vote in Iowa won't be back from winter break in time to vote, leaving them out of a critical decision. But those are the people whose voices matter most, because the next president will really be our president. He or she will have the future of economy, the environment, health care, young injured veterans, foreign relations, and much more, in his or her hands. That's why even the primaries matter so much. Anything could happen. Everyone should vote, even if they think their candidate won't win. The right to vote is like our muscles. You have to exercise your right to vote in order to keep it strong and powerful. Even if you never enter a body-building competition or run a marathon or even lift heavy things, your muscles keep your body working properly. Public participation in choosing our representatives keeps our democratic system healthy and strong. So please, register now and make sure you vote in your primary, even if it looks like the candidates have already been chosen. Use your voice and exercise your political muscles. Send a message to the country about what change you want to see.

The last obstacle removed

My greatest regret since moving to the South is that I have not been able to indulge in the barbecue scene down here. Although I recently decided to eat some meat again, I vowed to remain loyal to locally produced, sustainably raised meat only. Which excludes barbecue, unfortunately.

Until now. Opening November 26th, The Pit in Raleigh will source local, sustainably raised pork and locally grown produce. Oh man, I can't wait.

Finally, the deluge

It's raining. Hard. It's been raining since Wednesday morning, and they say it won't stop til Saturday afternoon. This means less guilt about showering, doing dishes, flushing the toilet. It means we can have a contained fire at the Halloween party this weekend. But still, there's a pumpkin shortage and the corn crops are small, and there are no local apples or pears at the store. This rain, it's probably not a drought-buster by any means, but it helps. It means we'll have water past Christmas, which was an iffy prospect before. But what happens when the taps run dry? Where do we get water when that happens? Let's hope the rain dance works.

Reading cats' minds

So my new kitty Molly has been living with me for a month now, and every day, she amuses me a little more. Today, I learned something new about her. Molly is not just any old domestic medium shorthair, she is some sort of jungle cat obsessed with dead vegetation. Well, really any vegetation in general. I thought it was weird that she likes to sit curled up in my plant by the window, which is on a teetery stand and is usually freshly watered. (If you have a cat, by the way, you can probably see what's coming. Window plant + teetery stand + wet soil = cat jumping out of plant and knocking it over, spilling dirt all over the place.)

But today, I witnessed two things I have never seen a cat do before:
1. She picked up a dead leaf in her mouth and carried it into another room, where she "hid" it under the coffee table. What in the world would a ferocious carnivore want with a dead leaf? I think she has done this before, as I have found dead leaves "hidden" under my desk as well.
2. I was eating a bowl of grapes, pulling them off the clusters of stems. Molly took a stem cluster from the bowl with her paw, picked it up with her mouth, put it on the floor and played very diligently and protectively with it. It's as if she had done so a million times and knew just how to bat, catch, and chew the stems. Where would she learn such a thing? Maybe in her previous life, she was a barn cat at a winery.