The Bauer Confidential

Our book club has become rather eclectic as of late. This month’s selection, Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, is not what one would imagine a group of ladies our age would choose to read.  When it was mentioned, as I was up for something a little less heavy, so I said sure, why not.  I thought it would be like the Harry Potter novels, highly imaginative and easy to read.

Twilight is definitely a mindless read.  The story of Bella, a teenager wiser than her years, who moves to the cloudy Olympic peninsula of Washington state to live with her father.  She finds herself fitting in at her new school with surprising ease.  Not all of her classmates are easy to befriend, however.  Bella’s initial meeting with her biology lab partner, Edward Cullen, leaves Bella unhinged and is just the beginning of the strange encounters the two share.  It quickly becomes evident that Edward Cullen and his “siblings” are not ordinary teenagers.  In addition to their ridiculous beauty and grace, there are things about the Cullen family that are far from normal.   Edward becomes Bella’s some-what unwilling savior, and the two become intertwined in a dangerous relationship that threatens Edward’s family and Bella’s life.

A rather unimaginative vampire story, it is evident that this book is laying the ground-work for a series.  Most of the novel is spent in explinations and exposition.  There is really only one suspenseful plot twist, and it is both predictable and under-utilized.  I was both right and wrong in my initial predictions about this novel, it was a very quick read, but doesn’t deserve any comparison to the Harry Potter books (which I willingly admit I’m more than a little partial to).  There are only a few novel vampire characteristics thrown in and Twilight is a very typical teenage Romeo and Juliet-like story.  These things don’t make the story bad, just sort of flat in my opinion.  I actually think that the later books in the series should be better and more exciting than the first, now that all the ground-work has been laid, that is if the author is more imaginative with the subsequent tales.  I’m sad to hear that reviews for the movie based off this book are so terrible, it seems like a story that would easily translate to the big-screen and that could be enhanced using a visual media.  I may read the next book in this series, it took me less than two days to read Twilight, so it wouldn’t be much time wasted.  If you are into fantasy and vampire novels, you may really like this book if you can get past the trite nature of the teenage romance.

We need to get an external hard-drive just to back up all the pictures we’ve been taking of our little girl.  Like any set of proud new parents we think our baby is the most perfect thing we’ve ever seen and feel the need to document this with scads of pictures.  She’s a pretty good model, but she’s got this great big smile that is really hard to capture on camera because she only does it when you really get in her face, and if you’ve got a camera obscuring your face she doesn’t give the big smile.  Keep checking our photo section under the “Photo” tab at the top of the page as we often add pictures there that we don’t post on the main site.  We’re working on getting video off our camcorder into a digital format but we can’t do that until we free up some space on our hard-drive.

This parenthood thing, it is at once incredibly rewarding and ridiculously terrifying.  Supposedly becoming a parent changes you fundamentally.  I had my doubts.  I thought, I’m a strong, adult woman, I know who I am, I know myself, becoming a parent isn’t going to change me.  Now that I’m experiencing it I think perhaps change isn’t the right word, I think parenthood enhances you, adds to who you are, forces you to grow in ways you hadn’t imagined.  Your heart must open beyond what you thought were its bounds, your imagination has to grow to keep this little being entertained, and your optimism is buoyed, because the world must be great with this wonderful new little person in it.

But there are new-found aspects of your personality that are a little disconcerting. There’s the worrying and the guilt.  A new found willingness to touch previously disgusting substances; somehow if it comes out of your baby, it looses a lot (though not all) of its gross-out factor.  Rejoicing at a poopie becomes common-place.  You find yourself speaking in short sentences, elongating your vowels, sometimes when you’re not talking to the baby.  You bore your friends with constant recountings (or blog posts) of the babies every move.  On Monday though, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, that parenthood had seaped into the essence of my very being.  I was getting ready for work, making a mental check-list of things I needed to do before heading out the door when I caught myself thinking “Mommy needs to put on deodorant.”  Even my internal monologue has been converted.

I’m not very good at keeping this webpage updated.  This stems from many things, but mostly it is allocating time to write.  I like writing, I really do.  I struggle with it.  I was listening to a podcast, and the writer that was being interviewed put writers into two camps he called Mozart and Beethoven.  Mozart was a genius who thought in music.  He thought about it and constantly edited everything in his head.  By the time he got writing it down, it was basically a masterpiece.  Beethoven on the other hand, had to write everything down first, and his masterpieces came from constantly rewriting, editing, etc.   My writing style is more like the latter, with constant rewriting, revising, editing, etc.  The difference, my finished product takes more time per word written than the average writer, and it is never masterful.  This style may seem a bit tedious, but I find it enjoyable because unlike my occupation as a researcher, I see my final product (or the intermediate steps toward the final product) immediately.  I have to get over the first major hurdle (kind of like the activation energy for all of you chemistry geeks out there), which is I have to start writing.  Once I have a topic and I start, I can go on for hours and not notice.

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Now I got that out, let’s move on to a different topic: Nov 12.  It was Lincoln’s birthday, but it was also the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s Birthday, and the 150th anniversary of his publication “On the Origin of Species.”  As a scientist, and even more so as a molecular biologist, you would think that I’ve read this opus.  I have not, I am ashamed to admit.  I tried once when I was younger because I was told by a science professor how good of a writer Darwin was.  I didn’t make it too far before I put the book down and didn’t pick it up again.  Now that I am older and slightly wiser, and because I now have a much greater understanding of the evolutionary principle, I was going to go back and read it, but I discovered the “On the Origin of Species” audio book read by the famous evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins.  Dawkins has a kind of monotone british accent that if I didn’t listen to it while actively doing something, might put me under.  Don’t listen to this while driving unless suicide by falling asleep at the wheel is your goal.

I just finished listening to the book a few days ago, and I am completely amazed by just how good of a scientist Darwin was.  He tackles issues like the difference between species, variations of the same species, etc. Remember, this book was published in 1859, thus no knowledge of the genetics of inheritance, and the definition of what a species was or variations in the same species, etc.. were hotly debated.  He had a great grasp of the nuances of what current naturalist thought.  Of course, he devotes a lot of time discussing the evidence he collected that his theory is based on, but he also devotes a good amount of time discussing the questions his theory proposes, and arguments against his theory (in which molecular biology has addressed a vast majority).  His intelligence and thought process are all right there, and I’m left very impressed.

Darwin made a very insightful hypothesis, and even he understood that his theory wasn’t complete, there where few exceptions, and his theory would become more complete and modify over time as various parts are tested and information about inheritance is discovered.  I find it ironic that his theory of evolution has experience dessent with modification, but the basic backbone is still there today.

I should actually read it, because while I’m running around the lab or in the gym I get distracted and I’m sure I missed some interesting parts, so after I finish my current book maybe I’ll try tackling “On the Origin of Species” again.

On a final note, for anyone whose feels the urge to start posting comments in an effort to debate his theory…STOP.  This post is not meant to begin a debate about evolution. I just wanted to point out that no matter what you think, Darwin was a damn fine scientist.

When we first moved to the bay area, we briefly contemplated trying to buy a condo instead of renting an apartment. With sub-prime mortgages we could have pulled it off, at least initially, but we knew, even though our understanding of these financial matters was limited, that it didn’t seem right given our income and the cost of housing here. Even though we could have gotten a loan, it seemed the wrong thing to do, even though we really didn’t understand why. After watching the housing market tank this year we now know understand how people like us were getting loans they couldn’t afford and what that meant for the market and now the economy as a whole.
We moved to a vibrant neighborhood, full of upscale shops and nice restaurants. Over the last year the economic down-turn has been chipping away at the businesses here. A few newly constructed spaces are still standing empty after more than two years. A couple shops closed a while back, but new shops moved in to take their place. Citibank closed their mortgage office. Then Starbucks closed, which I have to admit didn’t break my heart, considering we have at least four independent coffee shops within four blocks of one another. Then a restaurant closed, and a fancy baby store. Though not in our neighborhood, we found out that they’re halting production at the chocolate factory that used to give tours so you could see how the chocolate was made, they’re consolidating production to a new plant in Illinois (perhaps a little ironic). Now it’s our pharmacy that has fallen prey to these times. It’s only a block from our house, very convenient, if a bit on the expensive side because of its focus on organic practices. There was no notice, it just closed; a victim of the shrinking credit market, unable to get the capital needed to continue operations. This has left me very sad. Despite being pricier, we often went there because it was just up the road, and when you’re sick you want your medicine fast. Also, the upscale brands they carried were usually less expensive there than elsewhere. They had a video section where rentals were just $1 a day, that’s how we watched The West Wing while I was spending so much time nursing Jocelyn. I’m harboring hope that they’ll find some way to pull it together, or a new investor or owner. I should have known something was going on, it seemed like they hadn’t restocked quite a few items but still it was a surprise. Now we’re joining the rest of the districts in our city with more and more defunct businesses standing empty since no one can afford to take the chance of opening anything new. I have to say in part that I blame the city. We happen to live in a town that is hostile towards business; with rents and the bureaucracy here it’s a wonder any shops survive.
I know that a lot of people are affected much more deeply by what is happening in the world than we are. People are loosing their homes, their jobs. But we are also loosing a lot as a culture, as small businesses close we loose more than just jobs in our community, but we also loose our sense of identity, our resources. Boarded up windows as you walk down the block make things a lot less inviting and actually lead to trouble. We know we should spend our money locally, but when you’re stretched thin, it’s hard to justify spending extra to keep it in the neighborhood as you barely scrape by. We’ve watched our bills go up dramatically as our retirement accounts have shrunk alarmingly. I’m afraid things will get worse before they get better, that’s what the economists keep saying.

I have a couple ideas for posts I want to write, but they’re going to be fairly long and involved, and there’s no time for that these days.  Additionally, I’ve had a bunch of random things pop into my head that I want to mention to people, but that couldn’t really be a whole entry onto themselves.  So here are a few of things that have been on my mind lately, in no particular order:

Why do they put pockets on baby clothes?  What do the clothes-makers expect the baby will put in the pocket, a baby wallet or baby cell phone?

Why do only women lactate?  If you look at it from an evolutionary perspective (or even a creationist point of view if that’s your thing), wouldn’t it be better if both parents could feed a baby?  It might interfere with the men going out hunting, but then the women would have more time for gathering or hunting.  It just seems like it would be a good way to hedge your bet should something happen to the mother.  And it would just be awesome if women didn’t have to do all the breastfeeding.

Do you like coffee?  Do you hate to clean your coffee pot?  Matthew and I like coffee a lot, but our coffee maker is a pain to clean.  Also, with the baby, we’re often unable to be drinking our coffee at the same time, so making a whole pot is a bit of a waste.  The other day I bought one of these single cup coffee makers by Melitta.  It makes really great coffee (better than our coffee pot I think) and it’s really fast.  We waste less coffee this way too.  This isn’t meant to be an endorsement or anything, I just really think this works well and wanted to share.

A random picture to go with the random thoughts.  Matthew is helping Jocelyn with her tummy-time exercises and watching her roll over.

This month’s book club selection was a bit different than the normal literary fare for our group.  The Man in My Basement by Walter Mosely weaves the tale of an African-American man, Charles, in his mid-thirties whose involvement in the world around him has diminished to practically nothing.  He has no family, has lost his job, alienated his friends and is in serious danger of loosing his familial home.  Having done questionable things during his previous employment, he has been blacklisted and is unable to find work.  He drowns his sorrows as many have done before him, but is soon presented with a unique opportunity.  An older white gentleman, Mr. Bennett, arrives on Charles’s doorstep with a proposition, allow him to spend the summer in Charles’s basement and be handsomely compensated, but no one can know of the arrangement.  Averse to the idea and made uneasy by the white man, Charles turns him away, but eventually gives in to the scheme due to his desperate circumstances.  Charles does not understand the details of what is to come, this is no ordinary landlord and tenant relationship, but more of a warden-prisoner arrangement that will make Charles question his life, his prospects, and leave him unimaginably altered by the experience.

Scholars of race relations will undoubtedly find a great deal of symbolism in this story.  Charles is the descendant of free black people who were never slaves.  In preparing the basement for Mr. Bennett, he discovers a treasure-trove of his family’s history, though it takes a great deal to make him see the worth of these items that have so long been collecting dust.  Mr. Bennett, though white, is hiding his true identity to pass in the world.  His reasons for seeking out Charles and the basement dwelling are initially vague and ultimately disturbing.  The ending of the book is a little difficult to believe and though fundamental changes have been made to Charles and his way of life, we are ultimately left questioning how he will interact with the world.

Though interesting, this book was not exactly my cup of tea.  Definitely for a mature audience, there are some parts of this novel that I found not only unpalatable but pointless.  The main problem is that the author does not make us care about the characters.  They are both so flawed, and Mr. Bennett initially so vague, that instead of building intrigue through mystery, the author fails to make us invested in them.  The story is blessedly short, and not particularly complicated; therefore it is a quick read.  If you are interested in racial studies, you may find this story enlightening, otherwise you will probably want to skip this book.