This past weekend, Wes, Shaun, Ginny and I attended a BBQ at the home of one of the lovely poly families we know.  In fact, this particular family serves as inspiration and a model for Wes, Jessie and I because they were doing what we’re doing long before us.

Because I haven’t actually gotten permission to use their names on here, I’ll use initials instead.  So, V and IR are married and V is in a serious relationship with S.  S moved into V and IR’s home last year and things seem to be going great.  We don’t get to hang out with them very often because everyone is busy and they live a bit far away, but it’s always a good time when we do.

It’s especially fun because they have put together quite a poly community on their own.  With the exception of one guest’s young siblings and another person who was not explicitly so, everyone in attendance was living an actively polyamorous lifestyle.

So, when people  hear about poly parties such as this, I think (and Shaun says he gets comments like this often) that they get an image in their head of what this looks like.  Namely, they assume that a BBQ attended by a bunch of polyamorous people is automatically a big orgy or it’s all a big excuse for individuals to hook up on various couches and in various rooms of the house.  Not to say this isn’t a possibility.  I haven’t been to any parties like this personally, but I’m sure they happen.  And I would suspect that a party made up of a bunch of people with lower boundaries and fewer rules about the way they carry on their relationships would have higher incidents of hook ups, at least down the road after the party’s end.  But when we were invited to the BBQ, we were invited to a BBQ.  This meant that there were hamburgers and grilled corn and copious amounts of potato salad, good beer, and delicious sangria (made by Ginny with leftover boxed wine from their wedding!).

Looking around the yard at the various groups intermingling what could be seen was quite typical for any BBQ: a bunch of people chatting about various subjects (mostly not about polyamory, though it came up here and there since we were amongst like-minded people), kids playing in the dirt and climbing trees (that’s right, those depraved poly people brought their KIDS to a party…and the kids had a great time both entertaining each other and playing with a bunch of the adults), good food being eaten and enjoyed, everyone helping with set up and serving…you know, nothing but a normal old Memorial Day party.

Shaun and I were looking around and he said, “Yeah, I don’t think anyone would be able to tell the difference between this and any other standard 30-somethings party” and he’s completely right.  In fact, it wasn’t particularly clear at all who was dating who.  People were affectionate, but in a very we’re all friends here kind of way.  You would have had to have kept close tabs on each person and who they happened to share a kiss with at different points to get any ideas about pairings.

This was, of course, not surprising to me because, well, I don’t particularly view any of us as weird in a day-to-day sense.  Wes, Jessie, and I have a pretty normal life in terms of things like having dinner together, sharing household chores, picking movies or television shows to watch, coming up with fun things to do on the weekend, whatever.  Making plans with Shaun and Ginny is the same.  It’s just that there’s sex involved and declarations of love involved too and that distinction makes everything else seem weird to outsiders looking in.

I hope that this blog continues to serve a purpose of showing the world how “normal” we ultimately are in many ways and that you can be weird in the ways that we are without being dangerous or morally abhorrent or whatever it is people assume about people living perfectly harmless lives outside of the mainstream.

A little while back there was a troll who attacked the blog on multiple entries who, amongst other things (like insisting on saying we are polygamists and that the women involved in our relationships are obviously victims of the wills of the sexist assholes we married) said that us talking about polyamory publicly was just a way for us to look cool since we’re all so obviously boring; that us having a alternate way of living and saying that we wish people were more accepting of it was just our way of standing out in a crowd (and being bored with our own privilege otherwise or something).  I know, it was a troll and trolls can stay at the bridges under which they live, but I would like to point out that we aren’t living this way for attention.  We are living this way because it is satisfying for us, because our relationships are healthier and improved because of our experience with this life, because how could we ever go back to denying ourselves the loves we have found.  And we would enjoy the privilege of being able to live this way in peace, so we talk about it and be out about it so that people can see that it’s really OK (and that it’s OK not to live this way).

But now I’ve gone and talked about the burgers that were consumed at the BBQ and I really want another one.  V made them and they had cheese and bacon INSIDE them and were cooked to perfection.  Damn it.  Have another BBQ, guys!

I woke up yesterday feeling distressed and hopeless. This happens to me every once in a while (and, thankfully, much less than it used to), and if I take proper precautions I can keep it from spiraling out of control for the rest of the day. Sometimes I can’t get through it by myself though. I often need to talk things out with Wes to figure out what’s sparking the distress and to determine a course of corrective action.
I struggle with insecurity…a lot. When I tell this to people who know me socially, they are often surprised by this fact. When I’m out in public, I tend to carry myself with a relatively high amount of confidence. In addition, a lot of the things I do have a performance component to it, so my ham-it-up nature suggests that I don’t worry about what people think of me or something. But much in the same way as many hilarious comedians are actually quite depressed and disturbed, my social persona is not the entire story. In fact, my outgoing nature now is the result of a lot of work.
It has been a long standing goal for me to become the person I am in public when I am alone or amongst those very close to me. It used to be that the insecure, crying, irrational girl only showed herself when she was sure that no one would see, except for Wes. It bothered me that I could be completely fine most of the time when out and about, amongst people who didn’t know me as well, but would be floored by any little thing when I was at home. Before, it was a matter of exerting lots of energy to be OK for all the people who didn’t matter as much and by the time I came home I wouldn’t be able to cope with stress. And yet, it never felt like I was exerting that much energy. When I was out in the thick of social interaction, I just didn’t think about it. I just “was” and when I would get home, I would let my mind wander to dark and sinister places where all the judgment of the entire world hid. And, if there was not sufficient evidence that people actually felt the way I feared they did, I would invent it.
I have made a lot of progress towards rational handling of this kind of thing. This is why I talk about it in the past tense. I have done well to merge the two personas so that the people in both my public and private life see generally the same version of me. This means that I am calmer and more rational at home and that sometimes I have issues in the public eye. In general this has led to a marked increase in my own sense of sanity. By bringing the two sides together I am happier all around.
But, this is certainly not to say that the issues are gone. I am still insecure often. I worry that all the things and people in my life who make me so happy are actually just fleeting occurrences and that the only thing that keeps them near me is me being perfect at all times. Any mistake I make, any moment of weakness, any bout with irrationality could be the thing that snaps the thread. This fear is so profound that even when I ask people directly if my fears are founded and they tell me that I have nothing to worry about, I can’t quite bring myself to believe them. When I hear the words, I have a lingering thought in the back of my mind, “Sure, you say that now, but wait until I really mess up”. And I translate me “really messing up” to crying one too many times or misplacing some item of theirs somewhere during a cleaning frenzy.
I have never been to a therapist, so I don’t have a name for this other than extreme insecurity. I couldn’t tell you where it comes from, what specific thing (or series of things) during my childhood led to me not believing people when they say that they like the person I am, flaws and all, but it is there. But I think I’ve gotten to the point where I can accept that this is both something I have to constantly work on and be vigilant about, but it is also a constant part of who I am. We all have our demons. I am not different from anyone else in this regard. It’s just that it’s very important to me that my demons don’t control me.
The biggest difference between the me of today and the me of a couple of years ago is that the tears don’t come so easily and that when I am weathering an episode of insecurity, the language I use has changed. Yesterday while talking to Wes about various things I admitted fully through tears that I was likely projecting all of these things, that if I ask myself rationally what kind of evidence I have to support my claims I can only answer that I have none, and that I have an active imagination and have invented this yet again. And while this may sound like I am too hard on myself, it is this type of questioning of my neurosis that leads to calm and progress. Yes, when I find that I am inventing and projecting, I disparage myself for it still, but the disparaging is less severe than it used to be because my goals now have shifted. I don’t just want to get better overall, I want to be able to deal better in the moment. No good ever particularly comes from me tearing myself apart for being weak. It is important to acknowledge it and say that it is not behavior I particularly want to repeat, but that’s where it needs to end. No one was ever as good at abusing me emotionally than me and I’d like to think that I am pretty reformed these days.
I set out to attempt to write about this is an amusing way, but as I thought about composing the first sentence I found that I had nothing funny to say. I couldn’t be self deprecating about this particular aspect of my personal struggles because it is pretty much the underlying cause of all of my problems. I can’t distance myself from it. I don’t have any hilarious stories about when I was really insecure…I generally regret all of my bouts with it and can’t glean a bright side from it. The only bright side is that it is so much better now. While I honestly and openly say that I struggle with insecurity, I don’t feel completely controlled by it anymore and sometimes that’s the best we can achieve. Being in control of our own life is truly the only definition of freedom that has ever made sense to me.
Thank you to all the people who have shown me such love and patience while I have waded through my mental mire. You know who you are. May you never doubt how much I appreciate you. And if I come to you and cry “How could you love someone like me?!?”, just smash a cream pie in my face, OK?

Yesterday was a beautiful day in Philadelphia.  The sun came up and it was immediately bright and sunny with barely a cloud in the sky.  It was warm but not oppressive.  Driving through the streets to get to the William Way Center, I saw so many people out and about, sipping on coffee or sitting in the window seats of cafes having brunch.  It is on days like this that the prettiness and excellence of the city is undeniable.

But perhaps everything looked so good to me because I was off to load in with Arcati Crisis to play at Shaun and Ginny’s wedding.

On Friday night, Wes and I went and dropped off a ton of stuff at the venue and went to buy a bunch of table cloths since the rental company they hired for linens sucks and didn’t really seem to understand what “We need them on Saturday” meant.  And then we went back to their house where Ginny’s brother Lane was, as well as several out of town friends.  They were working on wedding crafts, eating giant slices of pizza and smoking cigars on the front steps.  We hung out for a few hours and it was really fun for me to get to meet people from other realms of Shaun and Ginny’s lives, people who have know them for much longer and in different settings.  They were a diverse crowd and a funny crowd and in meeting them I got to see why we all get along so well.  They come from all over the country and I wish I was going to get more of a chance to get to know them, but seeing as I’m not going anywhere, I’m sure that those opportunities will arise.

On Saturday, I awoke around 7:30 in the morning with honest to goodness jitters.  Not bad jitters, just the kind that you get before something you’re excited about is going to happen.  They were “night before Christmas” or “night before my birthday” jitters.  When I finally succumbed to them, I realized that I was looking so forward to Shaun and Ginny’s wedding that I couldn’t even sleep anymore.  Then I got out of bed and went about getting ready, the excitement kept building.

When we got to the place, Arcati Crisis was all business.  We set to work getting out 100 pieces of necessary Rock Music equipment in order and, since we managed to beat the bride and groom there by a half hour, we were also telling the caterers and such what to do, always with the caveat of “Um…I don’t really know, but I guess this makes sense?” Shaun appeared, looking awesome in a yellow button down shirt and sweet green and yellow tie and his simultaneously hot and hilarious sunglasses.  This is a general theme about what I find attractive him.  I usually laugh and lust all at the same time.  Ginny arrived a little bit later looking like the picture of beauty.  She wore an almond colored 50’s style cocktail dress and a pearl headband and jewelry that she made herself.  She was also wearing a huge grin and she just looks so pretty when she smiles like that.

Eventually, we got everything set up and managed a sound check while the first guests started arriving.  Peter took on the role of wedding coordinator, something he is ridiculously good at.  He had put together a schedule for the day basically down to the minute.  There were a few hitches that put us behind for a bit, but somehow we ended up being only a minute over by the end.  I believe project/event management is Peter’s mutant power, which in this day and age beats the pants off of fire vision or hand spikes…at least in terms of being useful to people.  I’m pretty sure no one wants Wolverine to organize their wedding.  Though he might be kind of awesome at a Bar Mitzvah.

We played a bunch of originals while people arrived and Shaun and Ginny floated around saying hello to everyone.  Wes and Jessie walked around the room listening to make sure we sounded balanced and the right volume and then Jessie became the wedding photographer and walked around the whole time taking pictures of everything.  I was quite happy about that because I brought my fancy camera and I know that Jessie takes great pictures.

The ceremony was short but beautiful.  Their friend Staks was the officiant and started by asking for a moment to remember that not everyone is able to marry.  This was an important statement to make, in general, but also in a room such as that where there was such a diverse group with many different lifestyles.  The vows and exchanged words were about things so fundamental to a healthy, long lasting relationship: Trust, commitment to each other’s happiness, the feeling that they both can be everything that they are around each other, growth and change, and of course, love and a general bond and commitment to each other.  I wish that everyone who had ever expressed concern about their relationship and marriage could have been there to see it because being there, hearing their words, seeing the depth of emotion between them, you would be unable to deny the reality of the relationship’s strength and awesomeness.

Lane and I were the witnesses on their marriage license which meant a lot to me.  Then after lunch was served, I, the best man, the maid of honor, and Ginny’s father spoke, people from all different places in their lives.  I get to see them day to day but have known them for a relatively short time (though it feels like I have known them for much longer).  The wedding party (Jordan and Joy) have known them for years but aren’t able to be around as much now.  And of course, a parent always has a different perspective.  All together, it was a picture of a rich life filled with family and friends who, at least on this day (and from the sound of it, for many days to come), support and love them.  And this richness, to me, is so much more valuable than money or traditional professional success.

Ginny and I sang together and it went quite well, despite the fact that the band had learned it only a few days before.  I was happy for the chance to do it since Ginny has a lovely voice and everyone got to hear it.  Then the band’s dance set started and it was over in a blur.

At the end of the day, Shaun’s mom came over to me and complimented the band and things like that.  And then we talked about this blog.  Shaun had told me on Friday that she read much of what is on here…including my post about Easter.  Oops!  Well, hi, Shaun’s Mom (since you might be a regular reader now)!  But, the blog did something unexpected.  She didn’t react to the things I said in a defensive way in the slightest.  Instead, she apologized that I had felt uncomfortable and hoped that I would come back to visit and give her another chance.  Then she reminded me that this is all weird, and she’s right.  I have talked before about how I feel like I’m generally in a bubble when I’m at home because my life makes a lot of sense there.  Everyone there is part of it and is an active participant in my “lifestyle”.  Often when I blog about this stuff I am doing it because I have moments (many moments) where the bubble bursts and it inspires a lot of thought from me.  The absurdity of life is always blog worthy.  For Shaun’s mom, she just didn’t know what to expect, how to feel, anything about me and I explained to her that I was in a similar boat that day because it was the first time I was being introduced as the girlfriend.  So often I am introducing Jessie to people and people see it as “the wife giving her blessing” or something.  We were both in odd places and it was an absurd day on top of that.  But it meant a lot to me that she wanted to talk to me about it, that she wanted to move beyond it.  I felt accepted and saw potential of becoming part of the family and that means a great deal to me.

If yesterday was not argument enough that polyamory can be highly functional and truly preferred, I don’t know what is.    I was immensely happy for them all day, through the night, and am still beaming about it.  This is the picture of compersion.  I was so grateful to them for including in so many aspects of the day because I felt free to express to them how wonderful their love for each other makes me feel, and how lucky I am to get to experience it.

As the day went on, I often looked at Wes and Jessie and would feel compersion for them as well.  I was so happy that they were there and that they got to enjoy the day together along with me.  I am so happy that they found each other and that there is so much wonder in this house and in this life.  I understand that our lives are strange to many and seems impossible for many others.  That’s fine.  Everyone is different.  But take this as an honest and heartfelt statement: I could never go back to monogamy after having had what I have now.  There is so much joy in this life.  I feel overjoyed and happy so often, all because of the amazing people close to me.  How could I ever wish for anything else?

I have been going on like this for days.  I’m sure I’ll calm down with all this sentimentality and sappiness at some point, but for now, I feel like I am bursting with it.  I just can’t stop saying “I love you” and “I am so happy”.  I’m sure I’m making cynical people want to barf, but I’m OK with that.  To the Vomitorium with you! (Spell check does not recognize “vomitorium” and suggested that perhaps I meant “Victorian” or “Janitorial”.  No, those are not what I’m talking about.)

Well, I’ve blathered on about this long enough I suppose. I promise to return to my posts about stripper heals, germaphobes, and feminism shortly…though probably not all in the same post.  Although, now that sounds like a challenge.

Last Friday, I accompanied Ginny for a day of achieving nebulous wedding related goals that took us traipsing across town.   I say nebulous because really all we had in mind was to go get pedicures…

Note: For whatever reason, Ginny and I step out of our decidedly non-girly roles when we spend days together.  On one of our first dates, we went searching in antique stores for tea cups and bought yarn.  Subsequently there have been days filled with us wearing spiffy dresses, getting pedicures, and drinking overpriced specialty “martinis”.  Whatever, don’t judge us, Judgey McJudgerstein.

Anyway, we ended up stopping at several places in a futile attempt to find comfortable shoes to complete her wedding outfit.  I was also looking for shoes to go with my awesome Wedding Band Star outfit, but my requirements are a bit more specific.  I wanted light blue, open toed shoes of some sort and was experiencing complete failure in finding any.

I know…you’re sitting at the edge of your seat by now wondering what I’m going to talk about.  I can feel it in the air.

So, I thought today I would look on the Internet for a quick solution.  If the shoes I want exist, surely the Interwebz will give them to me.  I found my way to Amazon after the “rest” of the internet thoroughly disappointing me in terms of design AND prices I’m willing to pay.

Note: I am willing to pay $15 for shoes at this point.  Maybe $20 if they’re awesome.  Maybe.

Well, I thought Amazon was failing me too.  Who knew that my shoe inspirations were so obscure and expensive?  But then…then they showed me the way:

Can you hear the angels?  ‘Cause they’re totes singing.  If I ever saw a more impressive shoe, it must have erased my memory due to being too incredibly awesome to be remembered.  Now, get a load of the item name:

7 1/2 Inch High Platform Sexy Shoes Circle Light Up Shoes Stripper Shoes Ankle Strap Sandals Chrome Blue

First of all, I didn’t even know they made shoes that were 7.5 inches tall.  Second of all, apparently I can strip in these and not die.  I mean, they wouldn’t put that into the description if I could die wearing them, right?  Of course not!  and, of course, they light up in a way that is reminiscent of any of one of my favorite things: Oscilloscopes or Jacob’s ladders .

OK, I know that’s supposed to be pretty lights or something, but I choose to assume that it’s a tip of the hat to 1800’s science.  You know the kind I mean: Bringing the dead back to life by harnessing the power of the swirling lighting storm above your roof.  Or, um, using oscilloscopes to look cool.  That’s a thing right?

So yeah, these shoes combine my love of impractical, dangerous science with my love of being 7.5 inches taller.  In addition to those excellent things, wearing a ridiculous pair of light up stripper heals to Shaun and Ginny’s wedding would make me THAT woman at the wedding.

Picture it: I show up in a tube dress of some sort and those shoes, barely able to walk because those shoes are basically stilts and I am not trained in the art of not walking like an idiot in them.  In my hand is a handle of vodka and my hair looks like I just came back from a pretty wild night that resulted in me falling off of a dock somewhere.  I come in, see the looks from their family and friends and say something to the tune of, “Hey! DON’T JUDGE ME!” Maybe I’ll quote Jesus in a garbled fashion like, “mumble mumble mumble LEST YE BE JUDGED!” and then fall over…all classy like.  Then Peter will revive me with smelling salts and say “It’s time to play music now, Gina” and then we’ll all know how much of a rock star I really am.

This is how memories that last a lifetime are made, people.

Or…you know…not.  But only because the shoes cost over $100.

But seriously, folks:

When I went to meet Shaun’s mom on Easter (in the post I realize I described a similar “slut crashing the party” scene…), I put decidedly too much thought in the best way to NOT look like a slut.  This is, under any other circumstances, not difficult for me because I tend to not particularly dress like a typical hooker (mainly because I don’t have the budget for lightning shoes), but I was terrified that I was going to be walking into some kind of situation where she would want to brand me “Home Wrecker”.  Much in the same vane, I really don’t want to do anything to bring about the idea of “Oh…there’s that (married) whore who is invalidating their marriage”.  So, I will be looking like something out of Mad Men along with the rest of the band who will be similarly nicely dressed.

But still…I will dream about those shoes…and making a YouTube video of the scene I described above, because that’s fucking funny.

I have a confession to make: I used to watch Baywatch.  Even better?  I watched Baywatch with my dad.

You see, back in the late 60’s/early 70’s my dad was a lifeguard at Zuma Beach near Malibu in southern California.  Things about the job haven’t really changed much since then.  As you might guess, the reality of lifeguarding in South Bay expressed on Baywatch was…um…not accurate at all.  It was so very inaccurate, with Pam Anderson’s giant boobs barely being controlled by her flimsy uniform and David Hasselhoff…well…being David Hasselhoff, that we watched it for the pure hilarity of it.  It was one of the most entertaining shows on tv because it was so very terrible.

Watching CSI (any of them) gives me similar entertainment.  Here you have a group of Hollywood Attractive men and women who are all supposedly chemists who run around solving mysteries.  I don’t know much about being an actual crime scene investigator, but I’m fairly certain that they don’t generally investigate AND get into fire fights with deranged maniacs AND arrest them.  I’m pretty sure they pick up hairs, dissolve them in stuff and then put the solution in a variety of analytical machines.

I mean, I could be wrong about what the job actually entails, but much in the way that I’m pretty sure that most marine biologists start out (and never stop) crawling around in mud collecting samples of various mollusks as opposed to getting to swim with dolphins on a regular basis, the CSI shows make it seem like forensic chemistry is ridiculously exciting, dramatic, and entirely populated by sexy chemists.  Every time one of the female investigators shows up at a crime scene in leather pants, low cut shirts, and high-heeled boots, I laugh as they step around in blood and discuss the great abundance of semen on the walls and floor lamps.  Every time one of them glides through the lab with an unbuttoned, completely stain-free lab coat, I laugh because that’s not how you wear a lab coat and also, there’s probably not a safety manager there.

In short, I find the science in movies and television geared towards the general public HIGHLY entertaining.  It is most certainly one of my favorite things about popular media.  I know the awfulness of some scientific premises in media thoroughly annoy scientific people, but to me it’s just hilarious.  It’s not that I suspend disbelief.  It’s that it adds an element of comedy to a movie that probably isn’t all that serious to begin with.

I went to see The Avengers this week.  I absolutely loved it.  I have really enjoyed all of the Marvel movies that have come out in preparation for this one and it did not disappoint me.  It also had one of the greatest idiotic science sentences that I have ever heard.  It was so bad that I actually laughed out loud in a quiet theater about it.

I wouldn’t really call this a spoiler, but fair warning, I’m going to talk about a tiny part of it.

So, Bruce Banner, world renowned gamma ray expert and giant green anger monster, is talking to Tony Stark, one genius to another.  Banner jumps into gear to help look for this thingy that has a specific gamma ray signature.  He is told that they have tried all methods of detection and have failed (whatever that means).  Banner says something to the tune of “You haven’t tried everything…Get all of your spectrometers, put them on the roof and set them to detect gamma rays.”

That sentence is basically meaningless.  Stark says something about how brilliant that idea is and all I could think was, “I don’t think you know how spectrometers work…”

First of all, spectrometer is a catch-all term for analytical machines that analyze chemicals by exposing them to different wavelengths of light (infrared, UV/Visible, for instance).   When you say something like, “GET ALL THE SPECTROMETERS!” you are saying that all spectrometers work in the same way, require the same sampling methods, etc.  They aren’t and they don’t.  In addition, you don’t just walk up to a spectrometer, throw an unknown sample on it and say “tell me what that is”.  You either have to have a library of spectra for known substances to compare against or be really good at reading spectra (which, for me at least, is very difficult).  If you’re trying to figure out the concentration of something in a sample, you don’t just throw the sample on there and say “tell me how much is in there”.  Again, analytical chemistry is a science of comparison.  To figure out the concentration of something in an unknown mixture, you have to make up several samples with that particular thing in various known concentrations.  This is called a calibration curve.

What I’m saying is that analytical chemistry is a pain in the ass.

Readers of this blog will probably start to figure out that I have biases against various realms of chemistry.  I have already ranted at length about inorganic and now I’ve got my sights on analytical.  I should point out that I am very happy that both of these things exist…I just don’t want much to do with them myself and commend the people who have a passion for them.  My dislike of analytical chemistry is what made my graduation from college take 10 years instead of 5 (I just didn’t want to write those damned lab reports, so I had one class to finish for 5 years following the completion of everything else).  Luckily, the analytical professor at my university is one of the most patient saints in the world.  But I digress…

So that’s just what’s wrong with saying “use the spectrometers”.  Next he says that they should put all the spectrometers on the roof and set them to “Gamma Ray”.  Look, I know that gamma rays are waves just like light, but a generic “spectrometer” is not going to just detect them for you.  What’s more hilarious is that the reason they need an expert is that the particular thingy they’re trying to find has a particularly strange and faint gamma ray signature, so it would stand to reason that you would need a really specialized, VERY SENSITIVE detector to pick it up.

We have an infrared spectrometer in my lab.  It cost $35,000.  It’s a pretty good IR spec, but ultimately, infrared spectroscopy is a pretty limited analytical technique.  You sample by putting a drop of your unknown stuff onto a diamond.  IR light gets refracted and reflected through the diamond all up in your sample.  The bonds of the molecules get all excited and shake, rattle and roll and the machine converts these movements into an image, a spectrum.  You can tell the structure of a molecule by where peaks on the graph are.  It can only tell you big components.  For instance, in an organic molecule you will always see huge peaks indicating the presence of carbon-hydrogen bonds because organic molecules are ALL ABOUT those.  If there are subtle things you’re trying to find, good luck.  IR, at least a $35,000 IR, doesn’t do subtle very well.  It’s like your loud uncle at Thanksgiving who outs your in the closet cousin…but instead of a cousin, it’s carbon.

That’s a terrible simile, but whatever.  I like the image of a loud, asshole IR spectrometer eating a mountain of mashed potatoes saying, “DID YOU KNOW THAT CARBON IS GAY?  HE’S TOTALLY GAY.” And then everyone at the table says, “Yes, IR, we know. And since we are all made of carbon, perhaps we’re all a little bit gay…” and then a conversation about how we are all equals in the eyes of atoms and how we should all just get over who people fall in love with or are attracted to because we’re all just bags of chemicals anyway and chemicals just react.  It’s what they do.

Well, this just got really off topic.  Whatever, that’s what they pay me here for.

Hmm…I don’t actually get paid.  Well, then, um, I can talk about whatever the hell I want.

Anyway, back to Avengers science.  So the point I was making about the IR is that even not particularly sophisticated ones are hella expensive.  Spectrometers get more expensive the more impressive their detectors are.  Could you imagine how much a spectrometer with a detector calibrated to pick up a very particular gamma ray signature to find a strange alien cube by just scanning the ambient air on the roof would cost?  That’s NASA money…nay, that’s “Haha, we won’t pay for our foot soldiers to have working equipment and proper personal protective equipment, but by God, we need that thing that finds alien gamma rays deep in the arctic or something” money.

I’m sure there’s some sort of equipment that could be used for this process.  I don’t feel like googling it.  But I would think that if you had a spectrometer that did all that, you wouldn’t really want to stick it up on the roof.  You also wouldn’t want to walk outside with it on a flying aircraft carrier.  Just sayin’.

After Banner says this brilliant nonsensical thing, he and Stark exchange a bunch of techno babble to which Captain America says something like, “Uh, what?”  Don’t worry, Captain America, they didn’t actually say anything.

It is a generally known fact in the Geek Realm that Star Trek: The Next Generation scripts regularly had places where the characters were just supposed to adlib techno babble.  I suspect that’s why there were just so many mentions of tachyon pulses, polarity reversal, dilithium, and deflector shields.  I got the feeling during the particularly scientific moments in Avengers that this was what they were doing.

Stark: Hmm, science science science science.

Banner: Yes, that’s because of science and science.

Stark: Science!  Brilliant!

Banner: Yes, brilliant! GET ALL THE SPECTROMETERS.

Yeah, I laughed a lot.  Just like in Iron Man 2 when Stark makes a new element by building a proton accelerator out of crap he found around his beach mansion.  I thought that was simultaneously hysterical AND completely hot.  I often describe that scene as one of the hottest things ever filmed.  Stop laughing at me.  Whatever.  Robert Downey, Jr. plus tank top, plus proton accelerator = Drool.*

*Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are not necessarily shared by all contributors to Polyskeptic.

In conclusion, I love good science, but bad science can be fabulous…when in movies featuring Norse Gods, giant dudes with anger management problems, people with eyepatches and Uzis, and Captain America.  I never have a problem with stupid science if the point of the media is not to be scientific.  Comic books are awesome and also ridiculous, therefore the science gets to be far fetched and a little nonsensical. Plus, it’s fun to be a scientific person poking holes in the scientific claims of someone like The Incredible Hulk.  It doesn’t take away from my enjoyment of the movie that he says a bunch of bullshit, it just makes it Marvel.  I go into it expecting to hear it and get a little disappointed when I don’t.

Hmm…now all I want to do is watch a bunch of Mystery Science Theater 3000.  Stupid work.

Before my family moved to 4th and South, we used to visit the area frequently to go shopping and have dinner. We would often have dinner at the Copa Cabana, a staple of South Street that is still there. In fact, we celebrated my mom’s 61st birthday there just a few weeks ago. It’s a bar with an extensive food menu. My dad always said that he thought it was a great place to bring kids because they could be loud in there and no one would care because it’s loud anyway. I never really took advantage of the allowance to scream like an idiot in the place, but it’s nice to know that I could have without incurring the wrath of my parents. I probably still wouldn’t be as loud as the drunken Girls Night Out happening in the table next to us.

My dad had very predictable beer choices back then. When we went to the Philadelphia Pizza Company, he would order a Moosehead. When we had pizza at home, he would go down the street and grab a six-pack of Yiengling or a 40 of Budweiser (high class!). When we went to the Copa, he always got a Dos Equis. If he were the Most Interesting Man in the World, his slogan would be something like, “I don’t always drink Dos Equis, but when I do, I am probably eating cheap tacos”.

As a child, these trips to the Copa resulted in Equis being the first Spanish word I learned, far before “Hello” and “1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10”. It was also where I learned to dislike the taste of beer immensely (a malady that would only be cured years later when I went to Belgium and discovered that there are beers, many many beers, that taste better than Dos Equis or Budweiser). I was inquisitive as a kid and so when my dad was drinking his beer, I would ask about it. He would then give me the bottle and let me have a sip. I would take him up on this and remember that it was terrible. My mom never gave me any of her margarita.

So, I consider this fabulous parenting. If you were to watch public service announcements now about parents and underage drinking, you would think that my parents were the worst ones in the world for letting me taste beer. But there’s a few things here. First, my parents drank around me. It wasn’t something they did when I wasn’t around or banned altogether from the household. I was used to seeing alcohol around (I actually frequently went with my dad for liquor runs and helped him carry stuff), seeing adults imbibe responsibly (I have never seen my mom drunk and have rarely seen my dad that way), and because my dad didn’t drink a beer and then say “drinking is bad! DON’T DO IT”, I was raised with the general impression that if I wanted to drink at home, I could, right there with my parents. There was no vice in it. They gave me a similar view on drugs. They never hid the fact that they’re Baby Boomers and that they both did various drugs frequently throughout the years. What they would say to me about drugs is this, “They’re not worth getting arrested over.” This is all they had to say. They didn’t tell me I couldn’t. After smoking a joint for the first time (I was 15), I came home and told them about it and how I was completely unimpressed with the whole thing. My dad described his experience with LSD as “the lights get really bright. I always hoped I’d see a crab painted like a checkerboard, but I never did.” He tried coke once and said that the experience was “meh”. And everyone generally agreed that we should all stay away from heroine. Again, I was raised with the idea that drugs were not forbidden, that they can be fun, but not worth getting into trouble.

So, the other day I see a link to this article saying that kids are now ingesting hand sanitizer in an attempt to get wasted. I read the article and could barely muffle my laughs. All I could think of was an Ellen Degeneres bit I heard a while back about how humans will do anything to get high. We will lick the anus of a muskrat if it holds the remote chance of giving us a buzz. Apparently, this is a big problem because teenagers are making themselves sick and having to go to the hospital. I don’t think anyone is dying though so I’m going to laugh at them. Teenagers are hilarious.

One time when Peter and I were in highschool, he and another friend of ours got the idea of snorting Smarties. I honestly can’t remember what he thought would happen when he did this, or why this idea seemed like something he should do. So one day, they brought in a tube of Smarties and he smashed one on our shared table in Home Room with his Calculus book. Then he snorted some of it and at the moment that the Smartie particles (Smarticles?) entered his nose, he went into a convulsion of hilarious proportions. Am I a heartless bitch? Maybe, but also he wasn’t convulsing because his brain was melting or anything. He was convulsing because Smarties sting like a motherfucker in your nose. We all learned an important lesson that day about snorting things. We’re not going to do it.

So if we’re going to coke, we’re going to freebase it.

Anyway, back to the idiots drinking hand sanitizer. So, if you read the article, the author states that the main ingredient in sanitizer is ethyl alcohol (ethanol, or the fun and horrible ingredient in “booze”) and that kids are getting sick because “ethyl alcohol is toxic”. I know it’s an NPR article and all, but something about this just cracked me up further. I think it was the “Reefer Madness” sound of the whole thing. Sure, ethanol is toxic, but in a way that even a lot anti-chemical people can get behind. It’s a fun kind of toxic, like having surreal conversations with Swamp Thing. (I have no idea what I mean by that, but the image is awesome.) To say “ethyl alcohol” instead of ethanol, to not put the caveat that this is the same shit in booze…I don’t know, it just sounds like they’re saying, “the kids are drinking HORRIBLE TOXINS THAT NO ONE ELSE CONSUMES AT HAPPY HOUR. Did you know that ethyl alcohol is TOXIC? OOoooOOOOoooOOOoOoOH.” Yes, I’m reading a lot into it, but I’m on a kick about this stuff right now.

So, here’s the thing about this. I don’t think it’s the ethyl alcohol that’s making them sick. I think it’s all the other alcohols in them that are also in it. Many of them have isopropanol in them (rubbing alcohol) and various other assorted alcohols. Readers of this blog probably know this, but did you know that you can drink methanol and isopropyl alcohol and still get a buzz on? Did you know that you should stick to ethanol because metabolizing the other two is way worse news than the toxicity of ethanol? Fun Facts: Ethanol turns into vinegar in your liver. Methanol turns into formaldehyde (you’ll be blind and well preserved if you drink enough). Rubbing alcohol turns into acetone (nail polish remover). Which of these three sounds the least illness inducing?

In addition, I don’t really know what the gel part of the hand sanitizer is, but I’m sure it doesn’t help. See? I can be anti-consumption of chemicals! I don’t think you should consume things found next to the can of Comet underneath your sink (unless you keep muffins there…but that would be strange, and likely covered in cleanser), or things that have revolutionized the Port-a-Potty industry. I have standards! My favorite part of the whole article was when they said that the best way to combat the problem is to keep hand sanitizer out of the reach of your teens. Like, only you, the responsible parent, can dispense it for them when they want to kill a bunch of bacteria. Otherwise, keep it in locked cabinets or something. Really? That’s what you should do?

Forgetting for a moment that I think you just shouldn’t have hand sanitizer around because soap and water is fine and that I think everyone is paranoid about germs. CONTROVERSIAL! You really think that the problem is that the kids have access to hand sanitizer? Or is it that they have a completely unhealthy relationship with alcohol and drugs? Don’t you know that one of the biggest things that makes the idea of getting drunk/high for teens is that it’s forbidden? Apparently, eating hand sanitizer makes them look cool to their friends. There isn’t a lot of currency higher than that in the teen world. I’m sure some parental board will crucify me for this and say that it’s different when I have kids or something, but honestly, what’s wrong with having a drink with your kids? It takes the mystery away and you can teach them how to do it responsibly. They won’t then go to college or whatever and end up in the hospital in the first week with alcohol poisoning. Also, they won’t feel the need to find bizarre and creative ways to consume alcohol.

I did a quick Google search for “drinking isopropanol” and most of what came up was teenagers asking the internet if they could drink it and not die. It makes sense…it’s cheap and unregulated…also, it’ll make you ill a lot faster and worse than a jar of Georgia Moon. Wouldn’t it be better if you had some positive influence on how your children, who clearly want to drink, experience alcohol? I would say the same for some drugs, but like I said, it’s really not worth getting arrested over. If only Ron Paul was president…I will never say that again. But you can say the same for many of the other forbidden things that kids are dumb about due to lack of guidance. Be honest with kids about things like drugs, alcohol, and sex. Is it so bad that you be completely upfront about your flaws, your struggles, your life history? I never saw parents as perfect or infallible. They told me everything, and ultimately I respect them more for that and feel like I was able to be relatively mature about things like this at a young age.

OK, so I still was pretty fucked up about sex, but they did a lot of other stuff right!

I was scrolling through my Facebook feed today, like I do, and I stumbled across this picture:

It had the following caption: Our fast “food” display is now 2 years old. The word food is questionable, since the bread-like and meat-like substances have not molded or spoiled in any way. Bugs won’t even bother with it. Please think twice about giving this to your kids. You have a choice, but they don’t. We truly are what we eat. 
— from LiveWell Wellness Centers 

This is not the first time I have seen these things.  A few years ago I saw something similar about how Cool Whip is totally disgusting because it doesn’t separate or decompose, vs. real whipped cream that barely lasts 10 minutes before it starts to separate and get kind of gross.  The comments followed were the obligatory “Eww!”, “Yeah, I stay away from that because it’s all CHEMICALS!” and “OMG DISGUSTING!”  It bothered me then and it continues to bother me now.  When I saw the Cool Whip thing, my main annoyance was that claiming that something is bad because it has chemicals in it is possibly the dumbest overly simplistic statement you can make.  You may as well say, “I have a personal problem with atoms”.  Not to be a smart ass, but everything everywhere is a chemical.  The air we breathe is made of chemicals.  The water we drink is a chemical.  WE ARE ALL CHEMICALS.  Our minds and bodily processes are a series of chemical and electro-chemical reactions.  DNA is a chemical.  Do you get it?  When you say “Chemicals are bad” you are betraying yourself as being ignorant and woefully misinformed about the nature of physical reality.  Also, to equate “natural” with “chemical-free” is to deny that there are a whole lot of things in nature that will drop you like a bullet, but more nastily.  Hemlock is natural.  Arsenic occurs naturally in nature.  Do I need to remind you about snake venom or the evil Brown Recluse?!?  How about how elements of the air will suffocate you if they are in the wrong percentage?  How about if you drink enough distilled water (free of horrible chemicals, other than water), your cells will burst and you will DIE!  See what you’ve done?  Now you’ve got my chemist up!

Deep breath…

But, still, when I outlined the above rant, it didn’t seem to completely address the underlying issue that I have with claims like that.  Making the entire argument be about how ignorant fear of “chemicals” makes no sense doesn’t really get to the heart of the problem.

So, I tried to think about it further.  I went searching for links about this kind of thing and found this.  The author sounds possibly intelligent for a little while, but then goes into the following tirade:

So why don’t fast food burgers and fries decompose in the first place? The knee-jerk answer is often thought to be, “Well they must be made with so many chemicals that even mold won’t eat them.” While that’s part of the answer, it’s not the whole story.

The truth is many processed foods don’t decompose and won’t be eaten by molds, insects or even rodents. Try leaving a tub of margarine outside in your yard and see if anything bothers to eat it. You’ll find that the margarine stays seems immortal, too!

Potato chips can last for decades. Frozen pizzas are remarkably resistant to decomposition. And you know those processed Christmas sausages and meats sold around the holiday season? You can keep them for years and they’ll never rot.

With meats, the primary reason why they don’t decompose ist heir high sodium content. Salt is a great preservative, as early humans have known for thousands of years. McDonald’s meat patties are absolutely loaded with sodium — so much so that they qualify as “preserved” meat, not even counting the chemicals you might find in the meat.

To me, there’s not much mystery about the meat not decomposing. The real question in my mind iswhy don’t the buns mold?That’s the really scary part, since healthy bread begins to mold within days. What could possibly be in McDonald’s hamburger buns that would ward off microscopic life for more than two decades?

As it turns out, unless you’re a chemist you probably can’t even read the ingredients list out loud. Here’s what McDonald’s own website says you’ll find in their buns:

Enriched flour (bleached wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamin mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid, enzymes), water, high fructose corn syrup, sugar, yeast, soybean oil and/or partially hydrogenated soybean oil, contains 2% or less of the following: salt, calcium sulfate, calcium carbonate, wheat gluten, ammonium sulfate, ammonium chloride, dough conditioners (sodium stearoyl lactylate, datem, ascorbic acid, azodicarbonamide, mono- and diglycerides, ethoxylated monoglycerides, monocalcium phosphate, enzymes, guar gum, calcium peroxide, soy flour), calcium propionate and sodium propionate (preservatives), soy lecithin.

Great stuff, huh? You gotta especially love the HFCS (diabetes, anyone?), partially-hydrogenated soybean oil (anybody want heart disease?) and the long list of chemicals such as ammonium sulfate and sodium proprionate. Yum. I’m drooling just thinking about it.

Now here’s the truly shocking part about all this: In my estimation, the reason nothing will eat a McDonald’s hamburger bun (except a human) is because it’s not food!

OK, come on now.  Your argument is that the burgers contain a bunch of chemicals, in addition to organic matter (BTW, just to continue by smart ass trend, most of the additives in food are also organic chemicals.  Organic means that they are based on carbon. Durpa do!) and so microbes and bacteria show up at the site of the burgers and go: Oh, I’m sorry, there’s too many chemicals in this.

Are you serious?  Bacteria are intelligent now?  If that’s true, we might be fucked.  Look, perhaps they don’t necessarily go after all the Big Bad Big Words that only a chemist can pronounce (that’s what my entire education was for, btw…to learn how to pronounce things like sodium and look hella smart and also to dismantle the health of the American public.  The secret is out!), but they will eat, you know, everything else.  McDonald’s hamburgers are not made up entirely saw dust.  They also include Grade Meat meat and soy and other things that sustain life.  Bacteria love that!

In addition, just to remind you that my chemist is still up, just because something is hard to pronounce does not mean that it is evil.  Yes, saying cheese is easy.  Saying the names of the chemicals that occur naturally from the cheese making process is hard.  It’s still cheese.

In addition to all this, I find it idiotic to say that food = decomposition.  Shitty food is still food.  Our bodies can digest them and extract useful stuff from it.

Of course, I am not the only person to answer these claims.  I found this wonderful blog entry about a study debunking the whole thing.  In short, if you leave a burger and a bun, any burger and a bun out in the air to dry out, bacteria will die because bacteria requires moisture to survive.  As is mentioned in the article, dehydrating food is a proven preservation method.  Beef jerky is simply dehydrated meat.  Also, food like this is loaded with salt, a known preservative (that’s apparently “natural” because it doesn’t have too many syllables).  In addition, under circumstances where a homemade burger and a McDonald’s burger were kept moist, mold grew on them both.  It must be food then since bacteria are food critics or something.

Now, here’s what I’m not saying.  I’m not saying that you should eat McDonald’s food.  It IS bad for you.  But, I shouldn’t even have to say that.  Making the grand accusation to today’s modern public that McDonald’s is bad is as obvious a statement today as “Cigarette cause cancer, like, really”.

Today while looking at that picture, I kept asking myself why I was so annoyed.  Clearly I agree that you should avoid this crap, that ingesting large amounts of it many times a week will lead to probable health problems.  So what’s my problem?  I mean, the underlying message that they’re promoting is ultimately correct even if the various associated beliefs are wrong, right?

And there it is.  There is the problem.  The sharing of these ideas makes you come across as a proper skeptic, not swallowing what the main stream wishes you to accept.  The chemical industry, big business, everyone who stands to make a profit from the ignorance of the public are taking full advantage of it at all times.  Not only do they not care about your welfare, but they wish to put it in danger.  It is black and white.

Obviously.  If there’s anything that’s black and white and not difficult to predict it’s nutrition or medicine or human physiology.  That’s why it’s so easy for people to lose weight.  I mean, if it’s just that humans are stupid and eat shit (while animals never do that, ever), then shouldn’t it be easy to lose weight and get healthy when you’ve cut out all the Bad Shit?  Why isn’t it?  Could it be that the obesity problem, the general health problems that people are more aware of now, all of that might be more complicated than fast food?

If you take these claims as fact without question, you are not a skeptic.  Yes, you should question everything and you should require evidence that the ideas that the main stream have accepted are true.  But why does that stop when the dissident perspective is presented?  Is it not possible that the point of view is not particularly accepted because it’s actually bullshit?  There are whack jobs on every side of an issue.  There are people who spread misinformation in both conservative and liberal circles.     People, regardless of politics or religion, will believe anything if they do not properly engage in a skeptical outlook.

Again, this is all a matter of skepticism being properly applied.  I am bothered by the spreading of this woo woo, ignorant information with a general hint of truth because it is shared with an air of “we are smarter than them”, an arrogance fueled by a general misunderstanding of science.  When you say that eating something because of all the chemicals in it and then say that the names of all the chemicals are hard to say, you don’t sound any better than the idiot claiming that evolution isn’t true because…THE BIBLE.  You are saying that science is hard, that being science literate isn’t important.  You just need to know enough to be scared and then avoid it all together.  Yes, you are right in that you should not accept that everything the FDA says is edible will do you no harm, but you are wrong if you justify this skepticism with bullshit facts.  This makes you just as bad as all the other ignorant people you feel superior to.

 

Jessie has a membership to the Philadelphia Zoo, so the past year has seen an uptick in my visits.  They’ve made a lot of improvements over the years and there’s many things that I enjoy seeing when I got there.  But there’s one exhibit that I would have to describe as my favorite: The otters.

It is difficult to describe how freaking adorable otters are when they’re leaping off of things into the water, chasing each other, playing with various toys floating in their enclosure.  When you see otters at the zoo, you have a hard time remembering that they are in captivity.  Or at least, you have a hard time seeing the downside.  The otters seems to be fine with it.  Anyway, when I catch a glimpse of happy-go-lucky otters, I look like this:

OK, admittedly this is a picture of me being pretty excited about the prospect of putting a pair of Peeps (armed with toothpicks) into the microwave.  It was after someone told me that they “battle” while they melt or something and this seemed awesome to me (for the record, no real battle happened…they just kind of melted…disappointing, but a pretty good use for Peeps).  I had also had a few glasses of wine (it was a Good Friday party after all).  Anyway, the point is I feel similarly excited about otters being all otter-y.

Last week I had a battle with a bout of sadness and anxiety.  While I was at home healing from its effects, Wes sent me a video of baby otters.  OH MY GOODNESS!  All I wanted to do was pet them and let them scurry around and then pet them some more.

It made me feel immensely better.  The simple sight of baby otters lifted a good portion of the sadness and anxiety away.  It was then that I realized that baby otters would probably be a pretty good anti-depressant.  In fact, they probably make the best anti-depressant!  Everyone knows that mood disorders are due to various chemical misfirings and imbalances in the brain, right?  So, if looking at an otter does the same thing that medications do, why is it that you can’t go to your local pharmacy and fill a prescription for Baby Otter?

A simple Google search showed me my answer: A major species of otter comes from China.

Now, you might be getting ready to assume that I am about to reveal that otters from China are infused with massive amounts of lead or something, and so the FDA had to ban them in this country for use as medicine…you know, for our safety.  But that’s not it at all!

The truth is that this country is currently in the clutches of Big Pharma, an industry completely hell bent against embracing the magic of Eastern Medicine.  So, since otters come from China, this is, like, the same thing.

A moment to break character: I am not a proponent of “alternative medicine”.  I do not think that you can heal yourself by hoping really hard and aligning your chakras.  I DO however distrust the pharmaceutical industry.  I am quite skeptical of its motives from time to time and don’t take any claims of miracle drugs at face value.  I just wanted to point that out because as I did Google searches to try and find ridiculous links to holistic health sites, I started making myself sick and had to take a break.  The Yahoo message boards were the worst.  “People are fat because of Western Medicine!!!”  Deep breath…

So, clearly Western Medicine already knows about the anti-depressive effects of otters and how it’s a remedy without any side effects and clearly they are keeping them from us as a readily available item.  Sure, you can see them at the zoo, but we are programmed by society to dismiss our increase in mood in the presence of otters as a simple thought of “Oh, what a nice day at the zoo!  Those otters are cute.  Hmm, time to go get a soda in a tiger shaped cup!”  In reality, there are real physiological changes happening!  If you were able to sit in the presence of otters for hours on end, your depression would likely be cured completely.

And what about other maladies?  If all you need is positive thinking to cure all your ills (from depression to a tumor), then otters are all you need.  That’s right.  I am positing that otters can cure cancer.

The Chinese have probably known this for years.  I read somewhere on the internet that they have managed to figure out how to harness the inherent healing elements of an otter and produce it in powdered otter pellet form.  This way, you can get the obvious health benefits of otters without having to actually take care of an otter (which would obviously involve letting it live in your bathtub where it would swim around and crack clams open with rocks on its belly.  ZOMG CUTE!).

Powdered otter pellets work in much the way that actually seeing an otter works, as long as you’ve seen an otter before.  You go to the zoo and check out the otters.  You will never forget that experience (gee whiz! That was the best day ever!).  Now, when you take an otter pellet, you will remember that the pellet is made of the cutest animals on the planet.  You will remember that day at the zoo and THE HEALING BEGINS!

Another out of character moment:  Good lord, this is difficult.  You know, I thought that writing stupid “science” articles would be easy but it’s quite hard to not be constantly accusing myself of being full of shit.  “Yes,” I say to myself, “I know!  That’s the point of the HUMOROUS piece!” “Listen,” I say to myself back, “Go read another message board…”  

So, cancer sufferers who are growing tired of trying the same old remedies, why don’t you ask your oncologist about otters the next time you’re there.  Watch how they will scoff and say that there’s no evidence that otters cure cancer and then drop your doctor because they are just a cog in the Western Medicine machine.

AHHH!  I can barely stand myself right now.  At some point I’ll write a serious post about faith healing and Christian Scientists and this will really make me want to barf.  I think next time I need to write about something less harmful like how we’re days away from time travel due to one person’s vague understanding of relativity.  For now, I don’t think I can keep up this charade any longer.

In conclusion, here is a picture of an Asian Otter in a log:

If you’re having a bad day, I would suspect that picture just made it a little better.  You’re welcome!

And she nails the dismount!  Everyone knows that you get out of trouble on the internet by posting cute animal pictures.  I think a recent commenter is right.  I should just talk about boogers.  That’s much more noble.

—

Shaun here….

I will rarely use my admin powers (mwahahahaha!) in this sense, but I must vehemently disagree that otters are the cutest animal.  That title clearly goes to pygmy marmosets:

__

Gina back.  I won’t deny that pygmy marmosets are adorable, but…

Shazam!

So, if you read my bio, you may have noticed that I am chemist during the day.  In case you don’t believe me, here’s a picture of me being scientific:

OK, admittedly, that was taken at my bachelorette party and I wasn’t really doing much science.  Please note: The lab coat is bedazzled and is fabulous.  I was given a drink recipe and I was recorded giving a PBS style chemistry lesson, because my friends are awesome and they knew exactly the kind of thing I want to be doing for my bachelorette party.  Here is a picture of me not knowing whether the resulting drink would explode or not…I mean, it was unlikely as it contained lime juice, vodka, and sour mix or something, but you can never be too careful.  Gina Sez: Always Safety First!

Generally, when I’m in a lab setting, I either take on a maniacal mad scientist kind of persona, or a persona similar to the picture above…or more to the point, this:

I can’t really say that Beaker is my hero, per se, but he and I have a lot in common.  Well, maybe not a lot…OK, I say “Meep” a lot and I wear a lab coat for 9 hours a day, 5 days a week and I generally run around like a silly person in the lab and one time I almost fell head first into a drum of goo while trying to scrape out what was in the bottom.  It sounds like something Bunsen would tell Beaker to do.  Alright, I guess that’s actually quite a lot to have in common with a Muppet.  So be it.

Anyway, a few weeks ago I was talking to Shaun about how I’d like to do some science writing on here…but I wanted to do it my way.  My way generally means “ridiculously”.  I want to write bullshit science articles, spanning subjects such as those I actually know about and many that I don’t particularly!  This is the internet, people.  If I can’t write a bunch of bullshit conjectures based on no evidence on the internet, then what good is it?

What good is it, INDEED???

I started musing about this and decided that I had to have different photos of me in a lab coat with different thematic things, depending on the nature of the subject I was talking about.  Like…if I was talking about biology, there would be a picture of me in a lab coat holding a cat.  If I was talking about physics, it would be a picture of me in a lab coat falling off of something, you know, ’cause of gravity ‘n shit (which we all know is only a THEORY).

I told this entire idea to Wes and he said, “You just want another excuse to take stupid pictures of yourself!” Um…no…no…NO…I mean, sure, the pictures of myself are a benefit to mankind and all, but really it’s that I find writing bullshit that is obviously bullshit to be therapeutic and entertaining…to me…

(Full disclosure: I have had big plans to start operating a still in my basement to make a whole line of liquors.  The main point of this idea was to have an excuse to take a bunch of stupid pictures of myself in funny hats.  For example, my vodka would have a picture of me in a big Russian fur hat and the tequila would have me in a sombrero.  Who wouldn’t want this?  But yes, Wes had a point…)

Anyway, everyone else who writes here reads and stuff and forms thoughtful ideas.  My value is my wanton disregard for facts!

OK, I actually really like facts.  My real goal is that idiots will start citing my dumb science articles for school assignments.  That would be sweet.  If enough people cite it and don’t fail, then at some point my theories become true, right?  I mean, that’s how religion works.  If I say something that gets accepted by enough people despite complete lack of evidence, it’s still ok, right?  Sure!

OMG SOCIAL COMMENTARY!

So, yes, I am planning on making the Gina Sez column a regular thing on here in the hopes of entertaining you with my creative interpretations of facts.  I will also make up facts because that’s generally easier.  I mean, it takes so loooooong to Google things.

Also, just like many ultimately bullshit articles, the entries might contain some actual good information.  Like, I’ll probably drop character here and there if I actually start thinking critically about what I’m writing.  I’m so not method.

Oh, and I do well with writing assignments, so if there is anything anyone would like me to write a load of hooey about, please leave me your ideas!

STAY TUNED!

When I was younger and starting to become aware of my own sexuality, I used to get attracted to people who made me laugh.  This started at an early age.  I think my first crush was on a kid who was a year or two older than me when I was in 3^rd grade.  He used to crap me up all the time and I think attraction for me at the time summed up to wanting to spend more time with him and hoping that he liked making me laugh.  This attribute served to be the thing that really attracted me to people for years.

OK, it’s not really any different now…not in the slightest.  But, now that I’m a bit older and a bit more self aware, I have realized much more what the attraction was about.  Wes will look at this and move to remind me that I think everything is funny.  I won’t argue against that point as it is very true that my sense of humor covers a wide range of things.  It really does suck to be you if you manage to NOT make me laugh because that generally means I’m either highly upset with you or you are the least funny person on the planet.

Note: This has happened.  I have, in fact, not laughed at things.

Anyway, as I have mentioned before, I have had the fortune of being surrounded by generally very intelligent people for most of my life.  Some of them have been very funny also and so I think I have often equated a fabulous sense of humor with intelligence.  It has become apparent to me that the real number one thing that initially attracts me to you is your intelligence.

If you are smart AND funny, well, then you have the potential of being hella sexy to me.

The things that the people I have been attracted to have in common are that their sense of humor and general social skills indicate that they are also comfortable with these aspects of themselves.  I am attracted to confidence and it is confidence that is backed by a mind worth being confident about.  When all these things align, I find myself attracted.  It usually comes upon me unexpectedly (heh heh…SO MATURE).

Notice that I have made no mention of body type or looks.  For me it has always been the case that I am attracted to a mind long before I am fully attracted to a body.  When I am out and about, I notice that some people are good looking, but that does not immediately equate to attraction.  Sexual attraction growing to the point where I actually want to do something about it takes time and generally only happens after I have had a chance to connect with someone intellectually (often in the form of a very funny conversation).

Today I was having a text conversation with Shaun during which he said this:

Fine. So long as this part does not get me type cast.  I still have dreams of one day playing roles of a kung fu master/spy with a pet/sidekick super monkey.  His name is Mr. Mister.

Wait…wrong text conversation.  That is clearly irrelevant to this post.  Right?  Yes, definitely.  No, the one I meant to quote was one we had in response to his latest post.  I was saying that I wish I was generally more attracted to people, that there wasn’t such a strong mental element to it.  He said,

I have trouble comprehending the idea of having a desire which is blocked by another feeling.  I find attraction to be undeniable when it happens.  It hits me quite strongly and immediately.

I have talked about this with Wes, and with women like Jessie and Ginny and it appears (based on a very small sample) that there is a divide about this between the sexes.  Ginny being our in-house sexologist probably has more to say about this from an intellectual/academic standpoint…you know, with like studies and facts and shit.  So hopefully she’ll want to weigh in!  But yes, based on my “research”, the women I have spoken to experience attraction in a way similar to me while Wes has communicated similar sentiments as Shaun where he doesn’t really understand how someone can be good looking to me but I am not attracted.

Part of it could be that this is an inherent biological difference between men and women.  From an evolutionary biology point of view, the female of the species is the bringer of offspring, the continuer of the line and so genetic dominance is attractive.  In humans, the best “candidate” isn’t necessarily the man who can lift a truck over his head or beat the shit out of the neighbor.  It could be the cleverest person.  People want their children to be intelligent so that they can become the next Bill Gates or something.  Especially in our technology laden culture, we have the advent of the sexy nerd.   Industry is moving away from manual labor more into mental labor.  We are elk no more!  I don’t know…ask Dawkins or something for a better explanation of this or read Sex at Dawn…which I should probably do.

But I think much of it has to do with how women are programmed to feel and think about sex by society.  Yes, I am about to speak in some generalities.  So sue me.

So, the battle of the sexes in high school or college or at the single’s bar:

Men are considered aggressively sexual by nature.  Boys will be boys and all that.  There’s nothing they can do about it.  IT’S JUST HOW THEY ARE!  Their mission in life is to have sex.  Women are the gate keepers of sex.  They are not sexual by nature.  Those who are happen to be deeply flawed and sinful (and are god damned whores).  In addition, because men are aggressively sexual and women are the gate keepers of the number one thing that they want, they will do whatever they have to get it.  Men, just because they’re men, are entitled to sex.  To deny them it is cruel, but YOU MUSTN’T GIVE IT TO THEM, lest you want to become a god damned whore.  Basically, you are either a frigid bitch or a god damned whore.  I can’t stress that enough.  Men are stupid, base creatures that have no choice but to do whatever the testosterone coursing through their blood tells them to do and since you, as a woman, have no real value in society except for your ability to have children and then raise them not to be serial killers (serials killers are a result of women in the workplace, obvs), you must remain virtuous so that your mind can be kept clear so that you can mother everyone.  It’s like that part in Clash of the Titans where you find out that the oracle can only tell the future as long as she remains a virgin.  And then she has sex with Perseus and can’t see the future anymore and dooms the Earth.  Next thing you know, Zeus is screaming “Release the Kraken!” and a bunch of other stuff happens and then Perseus stabs the kraken with his testosterone laced phallic sword, and all the peasants rejoiced.  Thank goodness there was a male demi-god around so that no one had to pay for the oracle’s whoring ways.

Or something.

In addition to the massive amount of responsibility women are burdened with as the sacred gatekeepers of consensual (hopefully baby-making) sex, there is the whole other issue of the high likelihood of rape/assault.  Yes, this happens to men too, but not nearly as often.  Men are generally not afraid of being raped when they leave their house and go wait for the bus.  Women deal either consciously or unconsciously with the concept of Shroedinger’s Rapist.  Every man has the potential to harm you.  We are gatekeepers not only of the consensual sex we have, but also of the non-consensual sex we have.  If we are raped or are assaulted, we must have done something to encourage the asshole who did it, because men can’t help themselves.

I mean, don’t even get me started about the magical nature of my hair that I so brazenly allow to fly freely on a daily basis.  Also, you can usually see my wrists.  THE SCANDAL!

Yes, that was likely the worse wrap-up of gender relations ever, but I think I made my point, while also getting to mention krakens.  Big win!

In case you missed my point, I’m saying that, at least in America, women are the victims of a sex negative society and I think that it has affected how most women experience attraction initially.  In an existence where being female is a flaw, in a culture that does not condemn violence against or shaming of women NEARLY enough, feeling a great sense of safety, trust,  and value beyond our reproductive organs is attractive.  These conditions make us feel safe to express our sexuality, to allow it to develop and exist.

This is, I think, a large part of my experience.  When I am out and about and see an attractive woman, I find that I have more of an instant physical attraction to her…likely because I am not programmed to fear for my safety around her.  She might be a maniac, but that worry doesn’t enter my mind.  I am programmed to be wary of men I don’t know well so initial physical attraction is hindered by that fear.   I have experienced wanting some kind of sexual contact with a woman without the desire of a relationship (though only mildly…I’m still new to letting go of my inhibitions in this regard and haven’t ever actually acted on these mild desires).  I have never experienced this with a man.  And I think this all comes down to whatever threat level I feel.

So that explains why some women have more reservations about allowing themselves to just be attracted to people.  Admittedly, as I explained above, my attraction to people still doesn’t develop simply because I feel safe with them.  When I feel safe, then I can get to know you more.  OK, so I don’t think you’re going to hurt me, but are you actually enjoyable to spend time with otherwise?  Feeling safe leads to a meeting of the minds.  Attraction to the body comes after this, for me.  I don’t know why this is.  Evolutionary biology?  I’m just some kind of weirdo?

Wes and Shaun think I’m weird for this, but the women close to them seem to agree with me.  What do you think?