Curious.
Automatic email reminders to return overdue books come standard with every San José public library account. And yet, I still manage to miss these deadlines.
All the warnings and bells and whistles are for naught if I just ignore them anyway!
(by the way, these are all fantastic books)
The morning after a rain storm in March, somewhere in San Diego:
Colleen and I were out rescuing earthworms in the gutters of the street corners of her driveway. Part of it was for fun, but mostly because we didn’t want to waste any of that valuable earthworm poop. She put our new earthworm friends next to the new California poppies in her front yard.
Soft soil seems cozier than cold concrete anyway.
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More than a month afterward I am in San José, picking up my own earthworms after rainy days.
It hasn’t happened yet, but sometimes I worry I might squish the earthworm with my thumb and index finger.
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No California poppies in our front yard in San José, so the rose bushes will do as a new home. I hear the poppies down in San Diego are going through a super bloom now.
Jim asked me where I was going next after leaving the lab. No clue, I said. I felt quite lost. I put all my eggs in the grad school basket, and that basket fell apart as all the admission decisions rolled in.
(Colleen: “Good! You need time to grow — away from school.”)
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Jim said he figured I would be lost, even before all the admissions decisions came in. He told a story (as he likes to do) about how he spent a summer in his youth catching grouper gonads.
Catching fish gonads doesn’t sound like the most glamorous summer job after graduation, but it was what the temp agency offered him. He wasn’t in a position to say no. The task: catch the grouper, tag the grouper, release the grouper. “I got pretty good at it, too.” Other fishers would look on in disbelief when he released them.
He took odd jobs like these long before he became the professor I know him as.
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The larger point he was trying to make: it’s okay to have a long, windy road to wherever you want to go. Compelling careers and fully lived lives don’t have to follow straight lines.
(they rarely do anyway)
Kathy and Colleen give me periodic updates about the caterpillars and butterflies in their yards. It’s still butterfly season after all.
Fun fact: Monarch butterflies only eat milkweed bushes. Colleen says a single caterpillar can decimate an entire milkweed bush in its quest to become a butterfly.
I find their big appetites endearing. Watching them in action makes me want to plant milkweed bushes in the family garden. I want a butterfly as a neighbor — who wouldn’t? — but first I must be a good neighbor to the butterfly when it’s still a caterpillar.
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There were severe storms in San Diego days after I took the photo above, and I wonder what happened to our colorful friend. The caterpillar’s grip is strong, but so are the winds and rain.
“What’s the point? We’re all screwed anyways.”
That’s what an old friend said to me in light of recent political events. (He didn’t vote in the recent presidential election. “It wouldn’t change anything,” is his justification).
That is his knee-jerk reaction to any situation he finds disagreeable — to disengage from the world and then rationalize it with an esoteric political rant he read on an internet forum. I grew frustrated with his nihilism and wondered where else such a view fetters in his life.
Was that always inside of him, or am I only realizing it now? How frustrating and sad it is to see former friends slip into apathy and cynicism. I fear I will fall into that same comfortable trap if I continue spending time with him.
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I can’t change my friend, and I can’t change the outcome of the election. But there’s still a lot in this world worth fighting for. Now is not the time to retreat into a cubbyhole.
I went for an evening stroll and got scared by a barking dog.
The sun was down and I wanted to escape the heavy rain.
I ran some laps around the park (after weeks of not running) and chased the UPS truck to the end of the street.
A dear friend had worked hard on her thesis over the past year (and more). I wanted to send good wishes her way.
:-O
(thrilled she did superwell!)
Jess and I were sitting on the second floor of the library when a big green beetle appeared. It was buzzing outside the window and trying to get in. Thud, thud, thud. For five minutes straight it kept flying into the glass, not once learning its lesson.
These particular windows cannot be opened (and it’s not like we can talk the beetle out of its misery) so Jess and I could do nothing but watch.
Jess: “I feel like that beetle sometimes.”
Me, too.