2010

This year I gave up my full-time field technician wanderings, and gave in to full-time sessile student life. I summered out west in Colorado, backpacked, rafted and hiked many a summer day away. It was the year I fell in love and had my heart broken in two; the year I closed a bittersweet chapter of my life in Gotham.

It’s the year I got stupid, soft and vulnerable; the year I wanted to hit the next person who told me I was a “strong woman.” It was the year I returned to woodcarving. And decided that if I wanted better abs, I needed to work at it. I started baking and discovered black walnut ice cream in 2010. I also started running seriously – no mere coincidence I’m sure.

I had something to prove to myself this year, namely, that it is possible to teach an old dog like me new tricks. I got through my first semester back in academia after a 13-year hiatus, and did much better than I could have hoped.

2010 is the year I moved back into a house for the first time since ‘97, and bought a bike, my first since a teen. I also decided I deserved a queen-size bed. And found a kindly Malaysian man in the Midwest who sourced for me a granite mortar and pestle, just like the one I used in my mother’s kitchen growing up.

I meshed my rugged outdoorsy side with a softer more feminine side that’s been shelved for a couple of years, when my dresses, skirts, bags and shoes were dusted off storage and back within arms reach. I suited up for Halloween, quite literally, donning a pinstriped business suit for the first time in 3+ years as my disguise of a past life. This year I found new friendships and forged older ones. I started collecting books again, and framing artwork.

Ahhh, the accumulation of material goods. A sign of roots, surely? But perhaps these roots are just as deep as my herb garden… a seasonal passion, a step in mid-air till it’s time to skip on by.

Work

Where else but in school would anyone entrust me with an ant project, and now a waterfowl gig. Last week I couldn’t have picked out a mallard from a wood duck and now I know at least 12 species by sight, and working my way through another half dozen. My new job involves me trying to make a dent in identifying some 20K duck wings in the next couple of months. The ducks are stored in a walk-in freezer where garbage bags upon garbage bags are piled high. And then there’s me frantically sorting, data entering and identifying duck wings, because I have taken this to be a personal challenge of sorts to somehow make a stinkin’ dent! But new bags arrive every week, so the battle hasn’t been in my favor thus far. Ironically, I’m considered a “lab assistant,” which brings to mind images of a sterile lab coat environment. Instead, I’m holed up in a former kennel, downwind from a body farm where pig carcasses ferment, sorting hundreds of envelopes, which I’m sure to check with a quick shake before opening. If it rattles, then open with care, because the shooter waited a tad long before mailing the wing, which now resides together with some frozen maggots, that scatter if you’re not careful.

I’m digging my new job.

Life as an undergraduate, amateur entomologist, home renter & volunteer trapper

I am home alone for about 10 days, so I proceed to lock myself out of the house and break my housemate’s blender. In a single day. I have also indulged in some guilty pleasures, namely frying belacan in my home – my first time since moving to the States – and boy, it was so good! And I still have a week to air out the house and remove all olfactory evidence.

When I’m not reveling in the wonders of having a kitchen again, I spend hours trying to identify hundreds of ants. I dump out vials of ethanol, filled with ants and chunks of peanut butter, and count and rinse the ants off with a harsh squirt of ethanol. Under the dissection scope, I clean up more goop with a metal prod and tweezers, and then the fun begins.

Petiole scale? Check. Spiked propodeum? Check. Acidopore? Nope. 3-club antennal segment? Check. And so it goes until I think I know what I have.

The ant expert came in last week and basically, I found out that I know squat, and I’m going to have to re-identify the samples I’ve completed. But I’ve since had a breakthrough and can now successfully i.d. four genera with no more than a quick glance. I just have three more to master, and then it’s on to the good stuff: trying to identify ants from partially ingested body parts in Texas horned lizard scat.

Just for kicks, once a week I go small mammal trapping, where I caught my first golden mouse and a couple of shrews.

And then, when I’ve run out of all other classroom distractions, I sit my arse down and study. School’s going well … ho-hum.

Fall Semester, Week #1

I have gone through a gamut of emotions this week, starting with wide-eyed terror (assessment test?!), confusion (iClicker thingamajig), annoyance (am I really going to have to fill up all these damn circles for my FULL name on every single Scantron test??), and a mild fit of depression (assessment test…sigh).

There’s also been a fair bit of excitement, mostly focused on developments outside the classroom. The house is looking great and I have a kickass bike! I slowed down my pace, and am running so much better (thank you, Simon). I walked to the farmers market today (and last Saturday), and expect to be mortared-and-pesteled by the morning.

I’ve managed to accumulate a fair bit of stuff just in the last week -- how does that happen? -- desk, dresser, old schoolhouse desk top with missing legs, dismantled church pew, three chairs, two tables, bench, side table, hollowed out stereo, blinds, and a patio swing. [Yay estate/yard sales, flea market and abandoned furniture in condemned building.] Is it inevitable? Every time we stay in one place for any amount of time, do we always end up hoarding and collecting craploads of stuff? And I have projects – things I need to fix up and paint around the house. Unbelievable.

Somebody smack me if I start singing along to Joe Walsh’s “Average, Ordinary Guy.”

Bye, bye Vagabonding Days

It’s only fitting that my field jeans, summer field pants, work boots, and socks are all falling part. Word is out that this is my last season as a full-time field hand. I have my trunk packed, I’m stocked and stoked from CO microbrews, my house keys arrived in the mail, and I will soon give up keys to my storage locker.

It’s time for a more ordinary, mundane, predictable existence. Classes, fixed schedules, part-time job, and life as a student in the Midwest. It’s all vaguely familiar.

I’ve manufactured quite the send off to my wandering days, with a last-minute backpacking trip squeezed in on my final break, and a 3,000-mile roadtrip in my sights. Since I start my journey on Friday, the 13th, I thought it appropriate to christen my drive with an audiobook of Stephen King’s Misery. I hope to tune in while driving through my favorite state of Kansas … quickly, efficiently, and preferably, with no memory of the experience whatsoever.

Inevitably as I wind down, I find myself a little wound up, reflective and nostalgic. The question that’s been plaguing me of late is this: Have I sufficiently engaged in my life in the last 2+ years?

I know I’ve been lucky to have had this time. A time of unfettered travel, a time where I start a new life with a new job at a new place meeting new people for a few months at a time, a couple of times a year. With each field season, I’ve packed up my life and car and relocated, resettled and started anew. I’ve learned that for some people, I am willing to drive thousands of miles for a project even if all the elements are not yet in place and the details are sketchy and I have no where to live.

I have learned that I have lost not an ounce of my intensity when it comes to my work. I’ve seen myself grow professionally, making new connections and strengthening others, while coming a little closer to deciding what I want to be when I decide to grow up

I did take care of myself this summer. Yeah … I took good care of myself this summer. I pushed hard, and worked off a fair amount of angst, anxiety and stress. I lost weight. I gave up sleep. I indulged in ice cream, chocolate and giant cinnamon rolls. I made time for me.

I finally gave myself a rightful place in my own life.

Life Aloft

During a summer spent between 6,000 – 12,000 feet, I learned that:

1. Woodrats and voles die when left in traps through the night
2. It takes twice as long to rehydrate backpacking meals at higher elevations (duh!)
3. Cooler, crisper air attracts gas-guzzling, RV-idling crowds, seeking cooler, crisper air
4. Layering is the way of life
5. Time elongates and stretches in open natural places and distances seem further … key elements for gaining perspective and clearing the mind
6. Allergies do not improve at this altitude
7. I still run like crap (at two months in, I think I’ve worn out the ‘adjusting to the altitude’ excuse)
8. I get sunburned
9. Roadkill consist of marmots, elk and the occasional moose
10. I run my life independently and semi-proficiently, with little outside interference …

… enjoy it, honey, ‘cos it’s all coming to an end

Me & Time

So it occurred to me over the weekend, as I was actively engaged in watching ice melt, that a lot of the underlying stress I am feeling about the upcoming Fall 2010, when … in my head, anyway …I am making this HUGE, drastic change in my life, is based on the notion that I am not at my personal best. And I’ve been trying to take and make the time, albeit not very successfully, to try and sort out a fair amount of baggage and angst from earlier this year, that so threw off me off kilter.

But some things can’t be rushed. Some things are done, when they’re done.

It’s a nice idea to start my next phase in life back in school at the top of my game. But truthfully, how often are we really at our very best? For the most part, we’re shuffling between our best and our worst, hopefully edging ourselves more towards one end of the spectrum over the other.

I’ve had more highs than lows in my life; I’ve been at my best more often than my worst. And if I can maintain that balance, maybe that’s okay for the time being. Until this magical thing called “time” does its thing and everything is alright again.

Time sure likes taking its bloody time though…