I don’t often make politically-tinged statements on my blog, or in normal conversation, for that matter. Although I’m pretty smart and better-educated than most, I know that I’m not well-informed enough about many of today’s big issues to participate seriously in a political debate.

And that’s okay. The amount of misinformed, narrow-minded political twaddle in the world (and especially here on the interweb) disgusts me, and I’d rather not add to it.

That said, this article about scientists’ responses to ethically-based attacks on stem cell research got me thinking. Now, I may not know jack about war or diplomacy or the economy, but I think I’ve got a pretty good handle on stem cells (for a layperson, at least).

I was originally going to post a question that the article planted in my head, namely, “Why are the people who protest animal testing and the people who protest stem cell research rarely the same people?” But I think I’ve already answered that one to my satisfaction, aided by a rereading of the article.

The moral basis of the pro-animal claim is that it’s unethical to cause suffering in a living creature (or through inaction allow a living creature to suffer). This makes sense to me. I’m okay with animals as test subjects, but only if they’re treated humanely. We have laws regulating this, and scientific progress is allowed to continue.

The moral basis of the pro-embryo claim (correct me if i’m wrong) is that it’s unethical to kill a human, here defined, I believe, as an entity which is genetically human and which is complete (i.e., not just a leg, a tooth, or an unfertilized egg). This makes slightly less sense to me. I don’t know the particulars of the laws regulating this field at the moment (or proposed laws), but I get the feeling that they’re fairly restrictive.

I initially didn’t see why these causes were all that different, and why there would be so little overlap in their supporters. I support both humane animal research and humane stem cell research* for the same reason: they make good science without being unethical, in my opinion.

But I see now how they differ. Animal-rights people are all about preventing the suffering of animals, but embryo-rights people are all about…something else. It’s not about the suffering of the embryos per se, but about their potential human-ness. (Right?) I want to pin it all on religion, but I’m sure there are other reasons behind the pro-embryo position. I can’t think of any good ones right now, though—anyone care to enlighten me?

But ANYWAY, the point that I was really trying to get to was one made by the second commenter.

[Scientists] can point to the development of IVF which has created the “problem” of leftover embryos and yet has mostly escaped villification from the anti-abortion crowd (no doubt because it’s bad PR to deny a mother the chance of conceiving a child).

This is an interesting point, and one that I’ve never considered before. Why *don’t* the people who loudly oppose stem cell research also loudly oppose in-vitro fertilization? Or do they? Have I not been paying attention?

It seems logically inconsistent to attack the stem cell scientists without attacking the IVF doctors. The scientists don’t create embryos for the sole purpose of killing them in the process of their research, they merely use extra embryos left over from IVF that were never going to be allowed to develop in the first place. Without stem cell research, IVF would still be chugging along, creating and discarding hundreds of thousands of potential humans every year**.

Yet, as far as I know, there is no strong political/religious/ethical movement to outlaw or restrict IVF. Why not? Why don’t the anti-stem cell people add an anti-IVF plank to their platform? Or, why are those groups okay with IVF but ethically opposed to stem cell research?

I’m (mostly) not trying to poke fun here. I do want to know where the debate actually stands, and what the real issues are. Thoughts? Corrections?

———
* By humane, I mean that nobody suffers unduly. The embryos themselves do not suffer, and the ones used in research were going to be killed anyway.

** This is a made-up number, but I think it’s order-of-magnitude correct. I’m sleepy right now and don’t want to bother looking it up. I’ll let you know if it turns out to be way off.

P.S. I personally think IVF is a Good Idea™. I figure this should be obvious, but I’m just clarifying here in case you were reading too fast and think I’m nuts.

For the next twenty-nine days, I will abstain from fast food.

The rationale? I eat fast food nearly every day. It’s quick, it’s easy, and it’s tasty. On my way from school to work in the middle of the day, coming home from teaching, or when I’m craving mozzarella sticks on a weekend afternoon, my default plan is to hit up the drive-thru at Chick-Fil-A, Sonic, Taco Bell, or KFC (in rough frequency order) for something greasy.

I often make an attempt at healthy eating—a grilled chicken wrap, a fruit cup instead of fries, or anything-with-visible-veggies—but it doesn’t even begin to offset the nutritional imbalance and oversized portions that come standard with fast food.

Hence the resolution. Yesterday afternoon, over my chicken strips and waffle fries, I decided I was sick of it and made up my mind not to eat fast food at all for the next thirty days. Wham-bam.

To pretend that I could abstain forever would be setting myself up for failure. Besides, I don’t see any real harm in the occasional burger or beany-cheesy-thing; the point is that it shouldn’t be an everyday indulgence. Thirty days is short enough to be achievable, but long enough to (I hope) instill the good habits of going grocery shopping regularly, cooking at home, and packing lunches and snacks for school and work.

I am painfully aware that my level of self-discipline is pitiful, but I have every intention of following through with this resolution. Evidence? Well, I’m telling the internet, for one. I’ve had similar “secret” resolutions in the past, and none of them have lasted more than a few days. Not that most of you will be able to keep tabs on me, but breaking the resolution now would come with a good deal more guilt than if I’d kept it to myself.

Thanks to a 2.5-hour shopping spree* at SuperTarget last weekend, I have recently come into possession of a few items to help me on my quest: a crockpot, a toaster, a potato peeler, a pizza cutter, and various and sundry basic food items (like bread) that I usually don’t keep in the house because they’ll spoil before I get around to eating them. I currently have half a pot roast (yay crockpot!), several servings of vegetable soup, and the makings of fried rice in the fridge; half a loaf of bread and more soup in the freezer; and bananas and kiwis in the fruit bowl.

I made it through today with little trouble, but the real challenge begins tomorrow, when I’ll have to survive a full day away from home without resorting to the drive-thru. The plan is to bring snacks (baby carrots, trail mix, yogurt) to school and hold off on lunch until I get to the office (which has a microwave) at 3:00. If I’m not in danger of running late (ha!), I can even drop off lunch in the fridge at work on my way to school so it won’t get all bacteria-y in the meantime.

There is one exception that I should note. This fast food ban does NOT include Starbucks. Quitting Chick-Fil-A and Starbucks simultaneously would be . . . would be . . . I don’t know what I’d do with myself. Jump off a bridge or talk to pigeons or something. Besides, have you tried those new cupcakes they have? I had two today on my way to tutoring lessons. Is that better than snarfling down a hamburger? Jury’s still out. But the point is, yum. The vanilla kind are okay, if you like vanilla, but the chocolate are absolutely scrumptious. Way better than their cookies. My only complaint is that the boxes they use are much too big, so the cupcake ends up rolling around and squandering its tastiness on the cardboard.

Anyway, we’re keeping the Starbucks. But only for the cupcakes and the coffee-things; no sandwiches or crap like that from Starbucks—that would be cheating. Do not question my arbitrary resolution parameters.

In composing this post, I have suddenly realized that this means I’ll also have to give up my precious Chick-n-Minis for thirty days. Hmmm. For now we’ll leave them in, but if the torture becomes unbearable, I may throw them in with the cupcakes as freebies. It’ll still be a resolution worth keeping, and that’s the important part—the keeping.

This may seem like a trivial (or just plain silly) resolution to some people, but if I can do this, maybe I can set my mind to bettering myself in other ways. I might clean the apartment, exercise regularly, or set and acheive reasonable goals for myself. The possibilities are endless!

———
* I’m lazy and don’t usually buy day-to-day things (batteries, toasters, folders, dog treats) as I need them. Rather, I let the needs build up until I absolutely CANNOT get through another day without one of the missing items, at which point I’ll run out and pick up everything I’ve needed in the last month or two in a whirlwind of consumption. The same goes for clothes. When I shop, I SHOP.

I HATE: Girl hormones*. Until the day I give birth to my first child, I bet this will remain my absolute least favorite thing about my status as a member of the fairer sex. Boys, do you know what it’s like not to be able to control your emotions? At all? For several days at a time? Because it sucks big hairy donkey balls.

I love my job. I hate my job. My puppy is precious. My puppy is a shithead. I am gorgeous and stunning and lovely and most women would gladly give their pinky toes for a body like mine. I hate my skin, my hair, my thighs, my voice, my chin. I am overwhelmed by how wonderful it is to be alive every ever-loving moment. I am paralyzed by fear of my inevitable death. I want to nitpick and argue and be snarky. I want to hug everyone I see and tell them how much I love them.

But right now I mostly want to throw things and tear shit up. Or laugh until I cry. Or just cry. qaoeijvlkaergasksadklmnfaf.

I LOVE: Jay-fucking-McCarroll. Did anyone else see Project Jay tonight? That man is one hilarious mofo. Lordy, that was some good television. Kudos to the producers and editors and whatever other sorts of creative TV people there are who contributed to the making of the show. I was a huge Jay fan anyway, so they didn’t have to work hard to make me happy, but it was still impressive.

Oh man, and the part with Wendy Pepper? Bwahahahahaha. Where she was all, “Well, I’m working on some stuff, because my marriage? Totally went down the tubes. Fame, you know? Ha. Ha ha. Look at me, being all casual and pretending this isn’t my last chance to ever be on TV ever ever. Cameras? What cameras? Look how unrehearsed and breezy I am. Ha ha. So do you wanna go have sex in my car?”

I almost feel bad for the woman; she’s so pathetic I can hardly stand it. It’s so easy to hate her. I imagine that’s why they keep her around.

———
* I remember one of them is called LH. Luteinizing hormone, no? And there are a couple more…FSH? PGH? Am I even close? I remember there were charts with swoopy lines that went up and down. I paid SO MUCH ATTENTION in ninth grade biology.

P.S. Who do I have to blow to get a horizontal line around here? There’s supposed to be one right in the middle. It shows up when I preview the post, but I can’t get it to appear on the live site in Firefox or IE. Wtf, WordPress?

For several months now I’ve been complaining about being blind. I wear glasses when I drive, but otherwise I make do without because I can’t be bothered. This is usually workable, as long as I don’t have to see anyting more than five feet away from me*. Computer screen? Good. Book? Not a problem. Person I’m shaking hands with? Fine. Person on the other side of the room? Getting fuzzy. The blackboard? Ha. Anything outside? Practically invisible.

Last week I finally went back to my eye doctor, who told me that, by golly, I really AM blind! Legally blind, in my left eye. (My right eye is something like 20/40, which is how I manage not to run into walls.) I wasn’t blind at my last check-up a couple years ago—the doc said it was probably from so much computering. Phooey. On the up side, he also said my eyes were wonderfully healthy. Yay! If only I could see out of them.

I got fitted for contacts on Thursday, and the difference was mind-blowing. I hadn’t realized how blind I was until I was suddenly able to see like a normal person again. (Remember that my vision had gone downhill since my last visit, so I wasn’t seeing clearly even *with* my glasses.)

There’s SO MUCH DETAIL in the world that I feel like my head is going to explode just trying to process it all. Trees have leaves! Did you know that? And not only the tree I’m standing under—they all do! Buildings have bricks! Fences have slats! Cars and restaurants have people in them! People who can be recognized before they’re close enough to touch! My ceiling fan is dirty!

It’s a big, beautiful, detailed world out there. I feel like I want to take pictures of all these wonderful things so I don’t forget them.

Speaking of which, I swear I’m not becoming the type of crazy person who dresses her animals up like people, BUT. I got my puppy the most adorable little trenchcoat at SuperTarget yesterday. He *hates* it, but it’s absolutely smashing on him. My sweet widdle spy. If I ever find batteries for my camera I’ll show you.

———
* Like the overhead menu boards in restaurants, which are farther from the counter than you might think. Why do they make the words so small?

** Like the song from Aladdin, which I learned to play on the piano when I was little. I remember it being very very pretty, and now I wish I could find the sheet music.

I haven’t mentioned this here yet, but I’m moving. Not far, just 20 minutes or so out of town, but I still get to pack up all my stuff and schlep it somewhere new.

My current lease expires at the end of February. Due to the Katrina-induced rental housing crunch here in H-town, if I were to stay where I am now, my monthly rent would jump up $119, from $695 to $814. That’s ridiculous. I think my current apartment company is pretty bitchy anyway, so now’s a good time to get out.

Right now I live near Rice Village and West University Place, a lovely little area, very college-y, yada yada. I don’t take as much advantage of it as I could, though, and now that I won’t be working in the office any more*, there’s no reason for me not to live out in the ‘burbs where it’s cheaper.

There’s a big shiny new pair of complexes along 288 on the way to Pearland that I drive past every time I go to Wendy and Michael’s house, and since Sammy’s vet is in Pearland, I figured I’d apartment-shop while I was in the area for his surgery last Thursday.

Turns out those places were full, but I found another nice complex NOT on the freeway which

1. has door-to-door trash pickup (here I have to carry my trash to the dumpster),
2. costs $20 less per month than what I’m paying now, or $139 less than what I’d be paying in March,
3. has a COMPLIMENTARY MASSEUSE on staff, and
4. is across the street from a Chick-Fil-A**.

Duh, right? So after school I went back and turned in my application. I’m signing a 14-month lease to start March 1.

Despite being outside the Loop Beltway, I won’t be any further from school, timewise, than I am now. Pearland-to-UH is a straight shot up the freeway, while WestU-to-UH requires going through the Med Center or waaaay around it, the streets of both of which are slow and clogged with traffic lights.

The one kink in the plan is that the lease I’m in now requires 60 days’ notice in writing before I can move out. Even the non-science majors among you will see that there are not quite 60 days left in February. What I’ll have to do is wait until March 1, when my lease will automatically switch to month-to-month (for the privilege of which I will pay an exorbitant amount of money), which only requires 30 days’ notice, then immediately sign an “intent to vacate” form so they’ll stop charging me March 30***.

Essentially I’ll have two apartments for the first thirty days of March, both of which I’ll be paying for*^. It’s not ideal, obviously, but I’m not going to sign a 12-month, $814 lease to stay here.

The upside is that I’ll have a whole month to move and clean out my old apartment instead of the day or two I’d have if I moved the ‘normal’ way. That means there’s more time to draw it out and procrastinate, too, but that’s okay. I’ll manage somehow.

Did I mention the masseuse? Because they have one, my new apartment complex. Complimentary. That means free.

———
* I haven’t told you about this either, have I? Remind me.
** This is a step down from my current complex, which is on the same side of the street as a Chick-Fil-A, but it’s comparable.
*** At the month-to-month rate, one day’s rent is worth almost $40, so nitpickiness is very much worth it.
*^ Because I turned in my app the same day I toured, my first month’s rent at the new place is only $200, so this isn’t as bad as it sounds.

Tonight my parents and I went out for a belated (to avoid the crowds) Valentine’s Day dinner at Cafe Rabelais (reviews) in Rice Village. Hoo boy—that thar was some good eatin’, lemme tellya.

I had a garden salad of tomato, cucumber, avocado*, egg, shredded carrots, and potato (no lettuce), and a crusty sandwich of roasted peppers and goat cheese. All the ingredients were fresh and tasty and much lovelier than the veggies I buy at the store**. And fries! In a paper cone! The fries were fantastic.

The tastiest, though, were definitely the tangy white dipping sauce that came with the fries and the dijon salad dressing. I don’t even like dijon mustard, but this stuff was delectable.

Bonus: Ordering two dishes means I’ve got a whole other meal ready to go for lunch tomorrow. It’s waiting for me in the fridge at work. Mmm, French food.

———
* I love avocado dearly. It might be my favorite food ever. Definitely top three. I didn’t think much about this salad before I ordered it, as it was the only item on the menu with avocado in it and thus the obvious choice.

** To be fair, I usually don’t get around to eating anything I buy at the grocery store (except ice cream, which I don’t buy any more for that very reason) for at least a few days, so this may not be the store’s fault.

As a followup to last night’s post, I woke up an hour before my alarm went off this morning and felt fabulous. I’m about three days into a head cold, so I’m horribly congested and have a sore throat, but I couldn’t care less because today I FEEL HAPPY.

I’m usually pressed for time (understatement of the year) in the morning, so my breakfast usually consists of Chick-n-Minis if I get there before 10:30, or a chocolate chip cookie from Starbucks if I don’t. Today, however, as I was taking Sam on a long walk, I was craving a toasted ham sandwich. Since I don’t have bread, ham, or a toaster, I’m eating yogurt and pistachios instead, but hey, at least it’s (almost) free and not greasy, right?

Three cheers for Tuesday!

———
P.S. A clever movie trailer mash-up: Brokeback to the Future

Lately I’ve been having trouble controlling my moods. Not that I’ve ever truly “controlled” the way I feel, but for the last few months I’ve maintained a decent level of stability in my day-to-day emotions. Again, “maintained” is probably not the right word here—it’s not something I’ve consciously created, as far as I can tell…just luck, or fortunate circumstances, or chemistry.

Anyway, the last couple weeks have been unstable with a vengeance, unlike anything I’ve felt since maybe last summer. Some days I’m up, happy, bright, confident, and other days I’m down, gloomy, discouraged, frustrated.

Take this past week: I don’t remember much about Tuesday morning, but Tuesday afternoon at work I felt SAD. I wanted nothing more than to take a nap and not have to deal with anything.

Then Wednesday I was HAPPY! Life was wonderful! Work was fun! Things were still busy, crazy parents were still calling, but I enjoyed it all immensely.

I don’t remember what happened Thursday. I know Friday was a pretty good day, but then again, it’s Friday—hard to screw that up. But Saturday. Saturday I was GRUMPY. Nothing bad happened on Saturday to make me feel that way, but I was nonetheless pissy all day long. I had to proctor in the afternoon, so I figured I’d have a nice, relaxing morning, maybe get some housework done. HA. I woke up grumpy, took Sammy out, and then grumbled around on the couch for a while before crawling back into bed for a 10:30 nap. I don’t usually take naps, especially not at 10:30 in the freaking morning, but I didn’t much feel like facing the world right then, so back to bed I went.

I know that feeling. I hate that feeling. The feeling that staring at the ceiling, while not fun, is the only thing I care to do right now. That even if I did want to get up and focus on the real world, my body would quickly sabotage any attempt at useful work by collapsing again on the nearest horizontal surface. That my inner world of thoughts and obsessions is more relevant than anything the outside world could possibly offer. Mental inertia.

Saturday night I went over to Wendy and Michael’s house for dinner and to bask in the glows of their fireplace and television. Being around real people (i.e., not just Sam) distracted me from hating the world, but I was still generally a grumpmuffin.

Sunday, on the other hand, was wonderful. I bounced out of bed, full of energy, and marvelled at the gorgeous weather (almost exactly the same weather as the day before). I couldn’t bear to waste such a lovely day on the computer, so I drove up to my parents’ house and played a couple sets of tennis with my mom, something I hadn’t done in months.

I was happy to be outside, happy to be playing tennis, happy to be wearing tennis clothes*, happy to be alive—everything I did was SO WONDERFUL I could hardly stand it.

But why? Why why why? That’s what bothers me—I can’t figure out what made Saturday sad and Sunday happy. You might be tempted to talk about endorphins and serotonin, to say that sleeping too much begets grogginess and exercise begets feel-good-ness, which is all well and good, but I felt overwhelmingly happy or sad first thing in the morning, before I’d had a chance to do any of those things. It’s not like I overslept and then felt grumpy, or played tennis and then felt perky. While I’m sure those activities enhanced the feelings, the feelings came first.

I suppose the obvious experiment here would be to switch it up: to wait until I feel happy, then lay on the couch all morning, or to wait until I feel grumpy, then get up and run around. The first seems wasteful of a perfectly good mood. The second seems the healthier and more productive way to go, but realistically I don’t see it happening. I’m not giving up on the idea entirely, though—I’ll give it a shot if the opportunity arises.

I’ve also considered sleep as a possible factor. The ‘sad’ mood makes me feel as though I haven’t slept in days and could drift off at any moment, while the ‘happy’ mood has me bouncing off the walls, alert and bursting with energy. The problem with this hypothesis is that there’s nothing in my sleep patterns (that I’m aware of) that matches my mood swings. I usually make it into bed between midnight and 1:00, and most days I get up between 8:00 and 9:00. Since I spend my last waking hours on the computer, I usually push myself beyond the point where I start to get sleepy, so that when I do finally crawl under the covers I’m asleep within five minutes, if not sooner. Today I’m starting a sleep log, in case all those things I just said are a pack of lies and I really get much less (or much more irregular) sleep than I think I do.

And then there’s the whole death thing. I won’t pretend that my current obsession with my own mortality hasn’t had a hand in the moodiness—nothing brings me down faster than remembering that I’m going to die. I think about death maybe three or four times a day, on average. When I’m in a good mood and and my mind is well-occupied, I can usually shake it off quickly and go back to whatever I was doing. But when I dwell on it too long, I inevitably spend the next several hours feeling anxious, overwhelmed, and alone—just clobbered, really.

What are all these wacky moods, then? And why are they resurfacing now, when I’ve been more or less okay for the last few months? *Is* it some kind of sleep dep? Does it have to do with what I eat? (More on food and eating in a later post.) Do I have a destructive habit I’m not paying attention to? Some unresolved crisis in my subconscious?

There are so many things I don’t know about my own body, which is a real shame, as it’s all I’ve got. The only fix for this that I know of is better record-keeping. Maybe if I get it all written down and tracked (when I sleep, what I eat, how I feel, how much work I do) patterns will emerge that are invisible from my current one-day-at-a-time vantage point (forest for the trees, yada yada). I will try to be diligent about this. The last time I felt the way I do now, things got bad bad bad, so I’d like to nip this one in the bud (if I have any control over my moods at all, which I like to think I do). The up and the down and the up and the down is a stressful way to live.

But what about today, you ask? How was Monday? Meh. It was so-so.

———
* This is actually something that can make me happy any day of the year. I rarely wear tennis shoes day-to-day, but when I do, I feel strong and confident. Athletic clothes in general make me feel so, so sexy. It’s like magic: I put on my tennis shoes and a pair of cotton shorts and—POOF!—I love the way my legs look. (In case it’s not obvious, i.e., for the guys out there, I do NOT love the way my legs look the other 99 days out of 100.)

If you’re trying to get a loaf of HOT banana bread out of its HOT glass baking dish, don’t try to get all fancy and balance the whole thing upside-down on one potholdered hand while smacking the bottom with the other.

Just use two plates, like a sensible person would. Your tender, tender forearms will thank you.

I rather enjoyed this article. Though the ADD-ish, over-bulleted (in my opinion) style makes it easier to scan the quick points and pictures than actually read the piece through from beginning to end, I still managed to concentrate long enough to get the gist.

The author describes one possible near-future version (3–5 years) of the interweb. His vision takes many of the elements and entities that exist today and smooshes them together in a way that is simultaneously more centralized and more distributed.

This is what *I* have envisioned the internet becoming, as well (though not in as much detail). I’m psyched; the future’s gonna ROCK.

I only wish I were younger and could grow up with all this, but I suppose that feeling is the same for every generation. Le sigh. At least I’ll be able to tell my grandkids crazy stories about life in the early days of the internet, when we had to decide FOR OURSELVES what cleaning services to use and web pages to visit. Rough times, these.