18 July 2002 - 20:53

Well, Elfy was at least partially right--I haven't been updating very much this summer at all! Things keep happening and distracting me.

I did get to spend the 4th with Junglefreak and Wheel and see fireworks and Men in Black II. I did start feeling much better when I took that course of zythromax.

I flew to St. Louis and spent two days with Jade. We two best friends were side-by-side the night before her wedding, and I wouldn't have had it any other way. Although I must say, getting ready for the wedding the day before reminded me of (lord forgive me) nothing so much as it reminded me of getting ready for a New College "Absent Friends" performance of Rocky Horror Picture Show the evening before..... complete with rehearsing, making sure everyone had all of their dressy clothes, and most especially, a 3 a.m. trip to Wal-Mart for make-up and, well, props (like a pair of $30 classical plastic garden collumns to put the taper candle holders on...).

Jade's children have grown so much. Cassie[01] was particularly charming, since she both remembered me and recognized me immediately, and since she loves animals and pretend games and telling stories and singing songs. We really hit it off. She reminds me of me when I was her age (3), not that I remember much. Of course, I love D-man very much too, and he's become quite mature these past couple years (he's 5).

The wedding was small and very lovely. Everything worked out just right, and Jade was absolutely beautiful. I don't know her new husband, Liquid, very well, but I respect him from what I do know of him. I'm glad that Jade finally has a partner willing to take responsibility for their relationship, and for the children.

Photos are available

Then I came back and finally got to get back to the internship! Of course, I was just in time for some cloudy, rainy weather, so I ended up spending some days in the lab. Meanwhile, Wheel and I closed the deal and signed the lease on our house for the year. I'm very, very pleased with it. Wheel left for West Palm to visit his family a week ago yesterday, leaving me to clean and move in alone.

No, not really alone at all. I took a bunch of bike loads over, yeah, but I never could have lugged over all the stuff that Junglefreak took in his stationwagon, or Arcanologist took in three trips with her car.

In fact, I was feeling kinda lonely and blue until Arcanologist showed up and reminded me again that I'm not alone, and not the only freak-like-me. Plus she took me to dinner and helped me move and started teaching me ancient Egyptian! (She really is an arcanologist).

And I can't forget Pairodox and Oregano, who also helped move, and gave us pizza.

I'm not going to say anything really knowledgable about film or anything. There are plenty of people on my buddylist to whom you can turn for that.

I'm going to say, I really loved Lilo and Stitch. Easily my all-time favorite Disney animated. The watercolor backgrounds are gorgeous, the soundtrack is fantastic--Hawaiian music and Elvis! And it's the first time I've heard Hawaiian in a movie theater, which was a thrill (despite Wheel insisting on nudging me and going, "What are they singing? Can you understand that? Translate for me!" and me going, "I can understand some of it if you're not talking to me!")... And then the aliens. And the surfing scene. Damn. It was a really good movie. Y'all should see it.

I feel like such an outsider when I'm with Raccoon and the other two interns, Mina and Chatterbox. Mina is another New College student, which is really nice, and Chatterbox is one of those extroverts who's just plain fun to be around. Raccoon can be kind of cold though. But really it's something besides all that--I just feel different. For not having gone to highschool, and not thinking people necessarily ought to. For not having a car. For not watching TV. For being quiet and for always saying the wrong thing when I say anything.

Next week is our last field week. After that we might clean the boat one last time, but essentially, at the end of July, we're done. Having spent at least a good chunk of three months doing the internship, I know that I love being on the water. I love watching the dolphins, even though you can't really see anything except for black triangles. I like reading the journal articles, even the ones about population dynamics of Minke whales that use a lot of statistical modeling that I have no background in whatsoever. I don't really like photo ID work (which involves looking at a slide of a dolphin's dorsal fin, and then looking at each picture in each of about 10 binders each with many hundreds of pictures, trying to find a picture of the same fin. And most of the time you don't find it. So you go to the next slide and start again...), but no job is perfect.

I love this work. This is what I want to do. I could do this sort of thing every day and be happy. I know I could.

What I don't know, after three months, is... I don't know if I could work with someone that I really don't like, every day. Someone who never says anything encouraging or supportive, someone who has no interest in me as a person, someone who I've never seen display any passion for this work that I am passionate about. I don't think I could do it. I don't think I could stand it. Temporarily, absolutely. As a means to an end. I can do it for three months to get experience that I need, to meet other people and so on. But indefinitely, as a job? It's not worth it. Not at all.

I mean, it's not like I'm in this for the money, or anything!

Happily, I think Raccoon is something of an exception. LabMom is supernice, and LabLackey is fun to be around. And Dr. Starr feels the same way about Raccoon that I do, and I liked him, and he's the one I might end up spending three years working with.

So those are some internship thoughts. The dolphins themselves have been great. I still can't get over how easy it is to find them. Man, they're everywhere! This week we've been out every day, and found subject-dolphins every day, and even gotten a little data. The weather has been mostly good...except hot.

Really hot.

Forget eggs. It's hot enough to fry a chicken on the sidewalk.

But I wear my sunscreen and drink my water and by golly, I bike to work and back every day, and spend all day in the sun, and no damage done yet. The ends of my hair are almost blond.

Today I felt especially cut off at work (it's been getting worse), but I'm blissful anyway because Wheel will be back tonight! Yay--and he'll bring with him Charspider and Overdrive, and there will be much rejoicing, and also moving of furniture and moving of things out of storage (I've essentially emptied B-dorm already).

But as if that wasn't enough... biking over here to B-dorm I saw Gillian.

Not a single day has passed all summer that I haven't thought about Gillian. I mean, really thought about her, not just in passing. It's worse since I started moving into the house, because I've been biking constantly, often several times a day, between B-Dorm and the house. The trip is along one road, Bay Shore, which is the only road to pass all the way N-S through that residential zone in which the house is. And Gillian lives on a road off Bay Shore, not far from campus. And I absolutely cannot drive near the road that she lives on without looking for her. She drives a dark green (looks almost black) Honda station wagon with a pastel license plate and a yellow "Save Tibet" bumpersticker on the lower left bumper.

And today her Honda zipped by and I waved and I saw her waving and to my heartfelt joy, I pedaled around the next bend in the road to see that she had stopped and gotten out of the car and came over to talk to me. And we talked, and it made me extra happy.

Then I got here and Wheel called, and he and CharSpider and Overdrive are On The Road, and had just stopped for dinner, and will be here in mere hours.

So thank you Jade and Junglefreak and Arcanologist and Pairodox and Oregano and Wheel and Charspider and Overdrive and Gillian Baskin and Platypus (who I'm talking to right now) and Nootropil and MY FAMILY (I can't wait to go home), 'cause life would suck so much without wonderful bright interesting people and their friendship. You all have my love.

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[01] Pseudonym'd for the name that she always gave for imaginary animals we were playing with.