On Cougar Town – ABC’s new show

OK. I watched the debut of this show the other night, and I have to say that I, like Judith Warner at the NYTimes, disliked it. I thought the show itself was trying too hard and I found myself wondering if anyone who still looked as great as Courtney Cox over the age of 40 would really have as many insecurities and anxieties. I doubt it, but maybe I’m wrong.

Something the show did get right, I think, was the sense of loneliness that Cox’s character feels after she gets a divorce. That is all-too real for most women. There’s the sense of relief that you’re out of that dull or horrible marriage, to be sure, but then follows the crushing realization that you are no longer young and you are spending your nights alone with your book or the latest reality television show. Even a bad marriage insulates a woman from having to feel old and alone. So that hit the right note for me.

But, then, I just don’t believe that someone like Courtney would be alone for that long. Her odds are upped, aren’t they? What about the rest of us? With our sagging boobs and dimpled butts? If we have a scintillating personality or a fascinating life, then maybe we will do well on Match.com. But, if not? Ouch.

Perhaps one of the most disturbing things about the show was Christa Miller’s face. Is she in the running to become the new Joan Rivers? She used to be so cute on the Drew Carey show, back before all that face-saving surgery. Yikes.

This is the photoshopped version.

Her smile here reminds me of the Joker.

If you watch the show, you’ll see what I mean. Her face barely moves and her lips are ridiculous.

This is exactly what I hope NOT to be like when I’m over 40. To my friends out there, if I go overboard someday on the silicone and botox, please set up an intervention and show me a tape of Christa Miller on Cougar Town. I’ll understand.

How to tell the phonies from your real friends.

Not that I’m an expert, or anything, but I’ve had a lot of experience with this topic. 

Recently, a friend of mine was in the hospital for a week in Boston with meningitis. Her mom lovingly called the names in her cell phone, telling them that A. was in the hospital and could we call her to calm her down. Not only did I call right away and leave a message, I kept calling until I got her on the phone.

She seemed surprised that not everyone listed in her cell phone called her back. Not even close. It seemed that a lot of people simply avoided the situation entirely, or called to see if A’s absence would ruin her friend’s upcoming wedding (in which A was a bridesmaid). Um. Maybe not an appropriate way to look at someone getting a rare disease, but at least the woman called back, right?

When my mom died over twenty years ago, I was only 14. I expected that my friends would show up with chocolate or pizza and we would hang out. In short, I needed some things to seem normal in order to go about grieving my mother without losing my mind. My best friend, C, was at summer camp. She begged her mom to let her come back, but her mom refused. Everyone else – all of my so-called best friends – disappeared. 

I think I got one condolence card from one of my friend’s moms. That was it. No phone calls, no drop-bys to see how I was, no attendence at the funeral. It sucked. I realized that I was utterly alone and that no one apart from me really gave a damn about my mother’s death.

The truth is – they were all scared stupid of touching death by seeing me. They didn’t know what to say or do, so they just left me alone.

I never forgave them, and the majority of them have scattered out of my life like windblown leaves. 

Almost the same thing happened when my father died 10 years later.

When bad shit happens, you find out what your ‘friends’ are made of. Even something as little as a new job that takes you away from daily interaction with your ‘friend/coworkers’ can be an eye-opening experience if you don’t see it coming. The majority of people in our lives are acquaintences or people we know – not our friends. Friends are there through the years, through the laughter and tears, through the moves half-way around the world, through the death of a spouse, friend, lover, or dog. No matter how busy they are, they make time to call, email, send a note or an unexpected present. They do not forget that you exist because it is inconvienant. Nor do they fail to return your mother’s call when you are in the hospital with a raging headache and a fear that something worse is going to happen to you.

How did we get here? As a society?

Are we so market driven that friendship has become all about quantity instead of quality? 

Sometimes I’m amazed at how many ‘friends’ I have on Facebook. And how many ‘friends’ other people have. Really? Or is this like climbing the Mt. Everest of friendship and planting your flag, shouting, “I have more friends than you, which means I’m the better person.”

Sometimes I worry that I don’t have enough ‘friends’. Or that people don’t really like me, they are just nice to me.

Nevermind that half the people I think ‘hate’ me or don’t like me are people that I wouldn’t actually want to be friends with – it’s just that I want to make the decision not to be their friends. Not vice versa.

This is, of course, a lot like grade school. 

An acquaintence of mine recently put up a post about how the Obama/McCain showdown is really about promising people the most goodies. Exactly like running for president in high school when the kid who handed out the full-size Snickers bars won the election. It wasn’t about substance, it was about show. We have a tendency to like people who give us candy bars. And we dislike people who don’t.

Then again, no one who likes me for a grown-up version of a candy bar will come to the hospital when I am sick or call me after I have moved away. Those are my temporary acquaintences in life, and I won’t mourn them when they go away either.

The Olympics are here! And I’m already over it.

The opening ceremony hasn’t even aired here in the U.S. and I am already bored of the Olympics. Isn’t that terrible? I blame all the media hype.

I blame the fact that for months, all I’ve been seeing everywhere is Olympics, China, China, Olympics, human rights, China, Tibet, Olympics, trade, oil, China, environment, China, Tibet, protests, Olympics, China.

In all my time reading and writing about China, this is the first time that I’ve ever been sick of hearing about China.

I wonder how long it will take before the media onslaught peters out?

When will we stop reading about what the Chinese people eat?

Or how their government tortures people? (Let’s not even go to the easy jab about the practice of waterboarding.)

Or freeing Tibet?

Or protecting Taiwan?

Or how – in a million other ways – the Chinese are simply inferior to us?

The U.S. has been reporting on China much like a big brother playing varsity with a serious problem with his kid brother trying out for the team. Maybe we are worried that our freshman kid brother (who is, by the way, much bigger physically than us) will be better than us. Or that we’ll be benched and have to watch our kid brother getting all the praise and venom that we are used to garnering from the international crowd. Or that we can’t handle the competition.

But doesn’t that just make us all look – well, ridiculous?

Maybe the Olympics will be a turning point for our knowledge about China. And I mean real knowledge, not  knee-jerk reactionary jargon that makes them look bad. They have problems, but they have some good points, too. In all seriousness, I think that we need a better understanding of the Chinese, and this might provide us with an opportunity.

But I doubt it.

We are far more interested in thinking we already know everything we need to know. And vice versa. Which, quite frankly, scares the bejesus out of me. Isn’t this how bad things always start? By a misunderstanding that engenders harsh feelings, which leads to more trouble? (That’s pretty much the way I remember being thrown off the merry-go-round in 3rd grade.)

I don’t think that China is our “enemy”. Nor do I think that they are our “friend”. They are our global cousins, and we don’t seem to like them very much.

They also aren’t the scapegoat that we make them out to be. Or the bogeyman. Or the devil.

Once upon a time, we were the “new money” and Europe hated us. Now Asia is the “new money” and the U.S. hates them. South America and India are just waiting their turn, so that East Asia can hate them. Europe is waiting for it to all revolve again. And Africa, Central Asia, and the Middle East remain, to put it politely, screwed.

Hong Kong is rainy this time of year. . . .

Well, I’m back from Hong Kong. After living there for nearly 3 years, you would think that I would be able to remember what the weather is like in summer. Luckily, I packed an umbrella, because we definitely needed it. It rained everyday. Actually, rained is a pleasant way of putting it for some of the days. At one point, we encountered a “black rain” day. Basically, this means run inside and stay there, and don’t come out until we tell you to. The rain was so bad that it made news headlines for days afterward, with dramatic pictures and roads completely washed away. It turns out that the Midwest is not the only place being drenched. (Though Hong Kong is mostly prepared for this in a way that the poor farmers simply cannot be.)

In the next few days, I’ll be retelling and reliving my trip in snippets on this site, with accompanying pictures.

In a stroke of luck, I managed to be in Hong Kong when an outbreak of bird flu was occurring. Thus, I got a firsthand experience and access to things that I wouldn’t have dreamed of back in Berkeley. This will help my dissertation project as well as my thinking through the issue of public health, prevention, and the cultural significance of disease surveillance. What fascinated me the most was that no one local seemed all that worried. People still purchased fresh chickens, people still went to the markets, and life went on as normal. Only with a lot of dead chickens in one market in Sham Shui Po.

Stay tuned for more. . . .

Thanks for ruining it for the rest of us, Tibet protesters.

I was scheduled to go to Kunming, China, in July as part of a thousands strong annual international academic conference. My panel’s topic? The cultural politics of disease prevention.  Specifically, I was scheduled to talk about bird flu, the sharing of samples, and all the politics that get involved in the implementation of health policies.

This morning I got an email from a colleague in Beijing, who speaks fluent Chinese, saying that she had received a message from the Chinese organizer that the conference was “postponed”. Not canceled, but postponed. Indefinitely. Hmm.

He was very sorry for any trouble – like having a $1200 round-trip ticket in hand already – and said that it was out of his hands. Which means that the government canceled the conference. Why?

If I had to guess, I would say it has something to do with the upcoming Olympics, their image, and all the young, passionate, slightly crazy protesters that basically made life hell for both China and their own countries. Academics, other than those in business, law and economics, are usually to the left. Which, at Berkeley, is a glaring understatement.

When I got to New York, and then to California, I had prior to that lived in mainly Republican strongholds: Indiana and New Hampshire. My family is Republican. And I always pushed against that, had arguments at the dinner table (even when we had guests over – classy!), and considered myself a hardcore Democrat.

After I moved to NYC, I still felt like a so-called liberal.

Then, I moved to Berkeley.

God, help me, but it turned me back to the center. I realized, from living here, that people on the far left really are as crazy as those on the far right. Basically, anyone who thinks that there are black and white answers to gray questions has got to be insane. Things in real life aren’t that simple; at least not over the age of 25. The last time I thought that things were as simple as ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’, I think I was 8 and watching a Disney film.

So, it’s not that far-fetched to think that a bunch of academics and students descending on a place relatively near Tibet isn’t such a good idea. I wish that it weren’t so, but recently I heard someone who is a retired academic talking about sneaking into Tibet. Really? I fail to see how that helps Tibetans. I also fail to see if anything we yell about, in the end, will help Tibetans.

Human rights? While we have no universal health care and Guantanamo? Not to mention the little trouble over escaped pictures from Abu Ghraib. My grandmother had a saying: “Before you go to another woman’s house to complain, clean up your own.”

So now, thanks to all the protests, we can’t go to China this summer. Terrific. I suppose people will say that at least it forced the Chinese government to meet with the Dalai Lama. But, you’ll notice that he also said he no longer wants complete “independence”. Just more say, similar to Hong Kong’s situation.

Yet in the bargain, the protests also caused young Chinese people to show off their own brand of protest. These were not ‘government sponsored’, they were true expressions of a people with waning patience, tired of being considered the de facto ‘black hats’ of the East. Of the world. They are the new Russians, and they know it.

We all just seem to get farther apart, instead of closer together. And that, really, is the true shame. The Chinese government isn’t great, but China is not the devil. Honest. I promise. And neither are we. Well, maybe some of the crazy fringe groups.

大家各位好。我觉得外国人不可了解中国的历史，也不明白中国跟西藏的关系，对台
湾“一个中国”的政策。美国人特别是没思考这些问题，是因为我们不管历史。我
国有挺好的动机，可是美国的政府只管经济的事。我们怕中国已经站起来了，马上
当世界上第一国家。从WWII下手，我国把自己看成最主要的“保护自由”的国家。
我们不应该劝你们哪条路要走。我们也不听外国的意见。可是，我们都只有一个世
界，要联合，当真友。

Miley Cyrus Vanity Fair Pics vs. Pictures of Underage Models: What’s the diff?

[Is this also a 'sick' or 'sexual' photo? I suppose it's what we make of it. You could see a loving father/daughter or incest. I, personally, see a picture of two beautiful people who happen to be related.]

The backlash against Miley’s pictures in Vanity Fair should have been timed with a stopwatch. The reaction would have been fast, maybe even a world-reactionary record (where the ‘world’ is mostly confined to the United States, natch). The problem? People seem to be outraged that a 15-year-old girl is draped in a sheet, looking all ‘post-coital’.

Um. Yeah.

It is definitely disturbing, but hasn’t anyone been paying attention for the past 30 years or so? Fashion models are often naked, and barely 18. Other models, under 18, are scantily clad ALL THE TIME in fashion ads. But, maybe ‘fashion’ gets a pass. I’ve always been a little suspicious of the barely legal girls, looking dead sexy, trying to sell me a bra, or jeans, or whatever. You rarely see, however, any real backlash against them. Perhaps because they aren’t on the Disney channel, hardly anyone thinks of them as ‘role models’, and none of them are easily recognized except a few big names. And anyway, can you imagine your daughter worshiping Kate Moss as a role model? What would the Kate Moss merchandise look like? A small pile of cocaine, a meth-ed out boyfriend, and a fashionable bag and hat to match?

These photos are beautiful, no matter what you think they mean. Meaning is applied by the viewer. You’d have to ask Leibovitz about the intent. And who knows? Better yet, who cares?

Why is this ad any less disturbing? To some – especially in fashion – it was a direct strike at what the media and marketing/PR companies promote to us as ‘beauty’. This women is naked, but she isn’t half as sexualized as Miley.

How young do you think the girl in the middle of this ad is? Does it matter if she is actually 23, but looks 16? Isn’t it the looking 16 that the advertisers are really after?

Now, I know that most people who have been calling Miley a whore will also think these girls are whores, too. And, because of my own picture above, I’m probably in the same bag. But before we cast stones at Miley, shouldn’t we analyze the culture in which she exists? Shouldn’t we look at what we take to be normal in 2008 and ask some questions? Shouldn’t we ask ourselves some hard truths?

Sex sells. Until it doesn’t, this is just going to be ‘business as usual’. As a feminist, I waffle about my own sexuality, wearing bikinis, and trying to look good all the time. But, then I think, why not? Why can’t a woman be beautiful, celebrate it, and also be savvy or smart about how she uses it? Certainly, women in Rome wouldn’t have blinked at this picture, if they had had pictures back then. And, Greeks and Romans did provide the model for all the freedoms we so passionately support.

Maybe this is just all to do with our Puritan ancestry. We just can’t escape from our own prudery. And the irony is that prudery leads to more underground perversion. The more you make sex into a big deal, the bigger problem you will have. Which is great for the advertisers and anyone selling us anything. It’s a vicious cycle, and I can’t see it disappearing anytime soon.

These are my two cents. But, then again, what do I know? I’m just a cultural anthropologist trying to make sense of how we see China. And that’s a-whole-nother can of worms.

Finally, some sanity about eggs, drinking 8 glasses of water per day, and other health fears that our grandparents never thought twice about . . .

One of the things that boggles my mind is the fact that some people will do anything to be “healthier”, where “healthier” is a stand-in for one or all of the following:

1. Look younger.

2. Stave off aging in all forms. Haven’t you heard that 50 is the new 30? (Or so people who are 50 hope.)

3. Stay attractive to the opposite sex.

4. Remain fit enough and attractive enough to get laid, either before or after your divorce.

5. Never get cancer. Or anything else scary.

6. Live forever. No, seriously. Forever.

Obviously, these are impossible dreams.

One of my friends argued with me the other day about his parents, who are nearing 60, still being middle-age and “active”. Not unless they plan on living until 120 and hiking part of the Appalachian Trail. Which, as far as I know, is neigh-on impossible*. (*Note: not the hiking part, the living to 120 part.)

In New York, when I worked in fashion, I used to see skinny women dragging liter bottles of water around with them. Because it was healthy, and good for their skin and kidneys. Apparently, both myths.

So, it is with some sort of pride in my “common sense” attitude about things I eat, drink, and do to keep myself reasonably fit for my age, that I share with you the following myth-busting story. Enjoy. And enjoy the coffee and eggs for breakfast for once, why don’t you?

By Dorothy Foltz-Gray, Health

Myth #1: Drink eight glasses of water a day
In 1945, the U.S. Food and Nutrition Board told people to consume eight glasses of fluid daily. Before long, most of us believed we needed eight glasses of water, in addition to what we eat and drink, every day.

The truth: Water’s great, but you also whet your whistle with juice, tea, milk, fruits and vegetables — quite enough to keep you hydrated. Even coffee quenches thirst, despite its reputation as a diuretic; the caffeine makes you lose some liquid, but you’re still getting plenty.

Contrary to common belief, urine color is not a great sign of dehydration, says Rachel Vreeman, MD, a fellow in Children’s Health Services Research at the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis: “If you’re thirsty, you should drink.” But don’t overdo it. Drinking too much can lead to hyponatremia, in which sodium levels fall, causing an electrolyte imbalance that can make you very sick.

Myth #2: Stress will turn your hair gray
The carpool, the spilled milk, the deadlines. Who doesn’t believe that stress can shock her locks?

The truth: “Too much stress does age us inside and out,” says Nancy L. Snyderman, MD, chief medical editor for NBC News and author of “Medical Myths that Can Kill You.” It ups the number of free radicals, scavenger molecules that attack healthy cells, and increases the spill of stress hormones in your body. So far, though, no scientific evidence proves a bad day turns your locks silver. “We gray according to genetics,” she says. And, let’s face it, when you do get those gray strands, hair products make covering them a cinch.

Myth #3: Reading in poor light ruins your eyes
It’s the common-sense refrain of mothers everywhere — reading under the covers or by moonlight will ruin your eyesight.

The truth: “Reading in dim light can strain your eyes,” Snyderman explains. “You tend to squint, and that can give you a headache. But you won’t do any permanent damage, except maybe cause crow’s-feet.”

Your overtired eyes can get dry and achy, and may even make your vision seem less clear, but a good night’s rest will help your peepers recover just fine.

Myth #4: Coffee’s really bad for you
Surely something 108 million Americans crave so much each morning couldn’t possibly be good for you? Wrong.

The truth: Too much may give you the jitters, but your daily habit has a lot of positives. “Coffee comes from plants, which have helpful phytochemicals that act as antioxidants,” says Stacy Beeson, RD, a wellness dietitian at St. Luke’s Boise Medical Center in Boise, Idaho. One set of antioxidants appears to increase insulin sensitivity, which might explain a lowered risk of type 2 diabetes in people who sip java. A Harvard study of more than 125,000 coffee drinkers found that women cut their risk of type 2 diabetes by 30 percent. Other studies suggest that coffee cuts the risks of Parkinson’s disease, colon cancer, cirrhosis and gallstones. Drinking joe gives your brain a boost, too. And, despite the jolt of energy it provides, coffee has no effect on heart disease.

Two to three cups a day is fine for most people, Beeson says. But if you take your coffee with a racing heart, anxiety, or wide-eyed nights, cut back or switch to decaf. If you’re pregnant or low on calcium, talk to your doc about the best brew for you.

Myth #5: Feed a cold, starve a fever
The old wives’ tale has been a staple since the 1500s when a dictionary master wrote, “Fasting is a great remedie of feuer.”

The truth: “Colds and fevers are generally caused by viruses that tend to last 7 to 10 days, no matter what you do,” Vreeman says. “And there is no good evidence that diet has any effect on a cold or fever. Even if you don’t feel like eating, you still need fluids, so put a priority on those.” If you’re congested, the fluids will keep mucus thinner and help loosen chest and nasal congestion. A little chicken soup spoons in some nutrients, as well.

Myth #6: Fresh is always better than frozen
Ever since scientists honed in on the benefits of antioxidants, the mantra has been “eat more fresh fruits and veggies” — implying that frozen is second-rate.

The truth: “Frozen can be just as good as fresh because the fruits and vegetables are harvested at the peak of their nutritional content, taken to a plant, and frozen on the spot, locking in nutrients,” Beeson says. “They aren’t trucked far distances to sit on grocery shelves.” And, unless it’s picked and sold the same day, produce at farmers’ markets — though still nutritious — may lose nutrients because of heat, air, and water.

Myth #7: Eggs raise your cholesterol
In the 1960s and 1970s, scientists linked blood cholesterol with heart disease — and eggs (high in cholesterol) were banished to the chicken house.

The truth: Newer studies have found that saturated and trans fats in a person’s diet, not dietary cholesterol, are more likely to raise heart disease risk. (An egg has only 1.6 grams of saturated fat, compared with about 3 grams in a cup of 2 percent milk.) And, at 213 milligrams of cholesterol, one egg slips under the American Heart Association’s recommendation of no more than 300 milligrams a day. “Eggs offer lean protein and vitamins A and D, and they’re inexpensive and convenient,” Beeson says. “If you do have an egg for breakfast, just keep an eye out for the amount of cholesterol in the other foods you eat that day.”

Myth #8: Get cold, and you’ll catch a cold
It must be true because your mother always said so. Right?

The truth: Mom was wrong. “Chilling doesn’t hurt your immunity, unless you’re so cold that your body defenses are destroyed — and that only occurs during hypothermia,” Vreeman says. “And you can’t get a cold unless you’re exposed to a virus that causes a cold.” The reason people get more colds in the winter isn’t because of the temperature, but it may be a result of being cooped up in closed spaces and exposed to the spray of cold viruses. Staying warm may not prevent a cold, but staying cheerful might. A study at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh says positive people exposed to cold viruses have a 13 percent lower risk of getting a cold than gloomier souls.

Myth #9: Your lipstick could make you sick
In 2007, an environmentalist group, the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, had 33 lipsticks tested for lead. Although there’s no lead limit for lipstick, one third of the tubes had more than the limit allowed for candy. That started a scare that spread like wildfire.

The truth: “The reality is that lead is in almost everything,” says Michael Thun, MD, head of epidemiological research for the American Cancer Society. “It’s all around us. But the risk from lead in lipstick is extremely small.” In fact, lead poisoning is most commonly caused by other environmental factors — pipes and paint in older homes, for instance. The bottom line, Thun says: The risk from lipstick is nothing to worry about.

4 big health whoppers
Most of us want to believe in “miracle” cures. But if it sounds too good to be true, it is.

Weight-loss formulas
The National Institutes of Health warns against taking any drug combos sold without U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval, including herbal mixes that promise big results. “The problem is that many contain stimulants and may be dangerous for people with underlying heart disease, high blood pressure, and other chronic illnesses they may not be aware of,” says Marc Siegel, MD, a New York City physician and author of “False Alarm: The Truth About the Epidemic of Fear.” “And you may not know how much stimulant you’re getting.” It’s far better to ask your doctor about FDA-approved appetite suppressants or, best of all, exercise and watch what you eat.

Arthritis fixes
Copper bracelets, shark cartilage, honey-and-vinegar mixtures, magnets. If only they would cure arthritis. But it just isn’t so, Siegel says. In fact, copper can cause an allergic reaction. Although there’s no cure for arthritis, rest, exercise, heat and drugs recommended by your doctor can help.

Colon cleansers
Colonics have been hawked as everything from a toxin remover to a cancer cure. But they only do what your intestinal system does already. Enemas, laxatives, or passing a rubber tube through your rectum and pumping water in and out can be expensive and dangerous. “There’s no evidence that colon cleansing is necessary,” Siegel says. And experts say long-term cleansing can cause anemia, malnutrition, infection, intestinal damage and even heart failure.

Alzheimer’s cures
Removing silver fillings, zapping your brain with electricity, or taking smart pills won’t keep your memory intact, says Stephen Barrett, MD, a retired psychiatrist who operates www.quackwatch.org. “Reputable drugs for slowing memory loss are only in their infancy. If brain tissue is dead, you can’t revive it with something in a bottle.”

People in New England and NY, prepare to buy a lot of Off! . . .

I’m sure that this story in the Times whizzed by a lot of people, but I’m scared.

Bats, which normally hibernate in the winter in caves in New York, Vermont, New Jersey, are dying in droves. They are flying out of their caves in winter – odd enough – and then dying right there in front of the caves in the snow. Literally dropping dead.

I know, for most of us bats are terrifying. They are associated with vampires, deadly nights, and scary monsters at Halloween. But I like bats.

They’re cute, really, if you ignore the wings.

Although I know that most people picture something more like this:

It’s a bit like sharks and spiders. Humans have a knee-jerk reaction to things flying in their hair, even if it’s accidental.

Anyway, bats are dying in droves, to the point where scientists are saying that up to 90% of bats will be dead by spring. The bats that do survive might be too skinny to procreate in the spring. Bats have a fairly slow reproductive rate. One female bat only has one pup per spring.

The true downside? They have absolutely no clue what’s killing the bats. A fungus? No, probably just a side effect. A virus or bacteria? Who knows. Pesticides? Maybe they played a role in depressing the bats’ immune systems. Can we catch it? Again, no idea. They are warning people to stay away from bat caves, as people might accidentally help to spread whatever is killing the bats.

This is bad news for us. And the planet.

Bats can eat up to half their weight in bugs every single day. That’s a lot of bugs. And mosquitoes.

I think that if you live on the East Coast, you should probably stock up on bug spray and pray for a really low season of West Nile virus. Because you will be bitten – a lot. And not by bats. By bugs.

Personally, I think this is just another sign that we’ve thrown the balance off. And, unfortunately for bats, they don’t reap the benefits of IVF therapy, or antibiotics, or antivirals, or antifungals. So, we’re probably looking at the demise of countless species of bats, that we will never see in such great numbers again in our lifetimes. Probably because of something we’ve done inadvertently.

And people wonder why I don’t have kids.  I’d rather save the bats.

Ah, spring break is finally here.

Me on Spring Break in Panama City – 1992. With my cheerleader girlfriend, Kathy.

Often my friends will ask me why I have decided to remain a lifetime student. They wonder why in the world would I forego a chance to earn more money and to have nice things. If I got a real job, they hint, I might be able to do more. Like go to Hawaii or buy a house, or have a baby. You know, adult things.

And sometimes I agree with them.

My bank account waits anxiously for the beginnings of semesters, when my fellowship is deposited. Then, at the end of semesters, I cry when I see my credit card statements and compare that to the $100 left in my checking account. I limit myself to shopping only at Old Navy and H&M, because I can’t afford to pay more than $10 for a shirt on my ’salary’.

When I have two books and several articles to read per week, plus my Chinese homework, and my eyes actually ache from overuse, I wonder why I’ve chosen this path. I’m reading about things that no one in their right minds would ever sit down to learn. Or, for that matter, would ever even know existed. Like a two-volume tome written by an old missionary on life in China in 1860.

When I’m writing an essay in Chinese and it’s taking me forever, or when I’m asked to play “Rock, paper, scissors” in Chinese class and I have no idea what that is because I don’t recognize the way they say it, I think that I’ll never be good enough at this language. I cried in my Laoshi’s office the other day, trying to explain why I’m so quiet in a classroom full of background speakers (meaning that they learned Chinese growing up, but haven’t officially learned how to write, etc.).

On a Saturday and Sunday, when I think to myself: “Great! The weekend’s here. Now I can get some serious work done!” I ruefully think about the years when my weekends were actually mine, instead of just an unbroken amount of time for reading more and maybe writing some of that new field statement.

When I visit friends who have jobs, lives, cars, homes, kids – I think, wow, maybe I missed the boat.

And then, spring break comes around and I realize why I’m still in school.

Because it rocks. Hard.

I have a week to do anything I want. Closely followed by an entire summer to do whatever I want. And I’m not even French.

I won the lottery with this job. Here’s why:
I get to teach next year, which will be great. Making a difference? Check next to that career box.

I get to write and research about things I care about, and which will make some contribution to the overall knowledge of the world. Loving what you do? Yep. Most of the time.

I get to write for a living. Oh, it’s not the novels I imagined, but it’s writing nonetheless. Fulfilling career choice? Uh, yeah. I guess so.

Plus, those summers, Christmas breaks, and spring breaks off. Totally free. To write those novels. To travel to China and do more research. To wander the earth in the pursuit of knowledge.

When you put it that way, it doesn’t seem so bad, this life I’m living.

Money is nice, but having time to spend it is nicer.

Solano Avenue in Berkeley makes me realize how much I hate people.

Solano Avenue is in North Berkeley, away from the rat-trap of downtown, campus, and students. It’s in an affluent neighborhood, with oodles of upscale shops selling you over-expensive things that you have absolutely no need for. Like a cloisonné vase turned into a one-of-kind lamp. Or fancy wool yarn for knitting. Or stiff leather chairs in the modern style. It also has a lot of restaurants, from the cheap and cheerful, to the swank and silly.

On weekends, Solano Avenue is filled with dogs, strollers, couples holding hands, friends hanging out, homeless people begging, people milling about the Peet’s coffee shop – it’s a clap-trap of goings-on.  On a sunny day, it’s wall-to-wall pedestrians. No matter if I’m walking or driving, people on Solano Avenue make me hate people. And Berkeley.

But especially when I’m driving.

There are no crosswalks with lights (only one, and almost no one uses it), so walkers just cascade into traffic as though they were J.H. Christ himself, able to stop cars with a single wave of the hand. They sip their coffee, talk on their cell phones, chat and smile with each other, and take their sweet time getting to the other side of the street.

Overheard conversations also drive me insane. About whether or not they’ll take in the new exhibition at MOMA. Or if a drive to Napa is worth it. Or the new “Brazilian music class” they’ve joined. It’s a bit pretentious, but done in a “we’re so not like that style”. These are rich, white people who don’t know they are rich, white people. Rather, they are “middle class”, “hip” people who “care about the world”. And their large, no foam, non-fat, soy chai lattes.

Of course, I think about the irony of it all, as I buy my occasional baguette and walk down to get my latte. I try not to talk about my boat, or my next trip to Bali. But, then, I don’t have to try very hard, since I’m a graduate student and I don’t really have any money. I’m an insider-outsider who loves to use hyphens to describe things. I’m in between myself.

And, maybe, just maybe, I hate myself a little bit, too.