Does Science Ruin Pretty Things?

Anyone need to name a baby? My sister wrote a baby name book, hopefully heading toward publication soon!

For the past two weeks, she's been stuffing my inbox with potential book cover designs, including this one...



 

...which set the stage for the following conversation:

Bonnie:  What do you think of the cover art?
Sarah: It's nice. But the flower looks like a virus-infected cell covered with surface receptors.

Bonnie: Does not. Only your nerd brain would think that.

Sarah: Does too. The resemblance is uncanny.

 

 

 

Bonnie: Is not.

Sarah: Is too.

 

Bonnie:  Medical science ruins every pretty thing.
Sarah: Does not.


Awesome eclipse is still just as awesome
even though it looks like a dislocated intraocular lens implant.

Bonnie:  Does too.

Artisan white chocolate cappuccino truffles vs. Chocolate cyst in an ovary with endometriosis 

Sarah: Ewwww. Medical science ruins chocolate forever. I think you win this round.
 

The very best hug

Planes, Trains, and Zombiemobiles



 

My name is Sarah, and I'm a recovering All-Christmas-Music-Station-aholic. Sometimes, I still relapse, getting absorbed right back into perky Jingle Bells, shmaltzy Harry Connick Jr crooning about when his heart finds Christmas, and good old Elvis having a Blue Christmas. To my credit, I usually snap out of it and change the station when they play that horribly oversappy song about the kid who wants to buy shoes for his mom, but I'm still a sucker for "I'll be Home for Christmas." It gets me every time.

The thought of people longing for home--looking for any possible way to make their way there even if it's only in their dreams--is very touching. It explains why we brave the airports and tolerate the crowded lines.

 

There is, however, one airport I hope to never brave again. Not for all the Christmases in all eternity. Chennai International Airport: The place where travelers' hopes go to die.

 

On November 20th, halfway through the India trip, I took a tuk-tuk cab from the hotel to the Chennai International Airport.  (In my head, I like to acronym it to CHIA. It makes it seem so much friendlier.)

As a very special surprise, there's an airport regulation that forbids tuk-tuk cabs from entering airport property, so the driver stopped about a half mile away from the terminal and unceremoniously left me on the roadside with my 73 pounds of luggage.

 

For the record, 73 pounds is not an exaggeration. It had been weighed in New Orleans, New Jersey, and New Delhi, tipping the scales at 73 pounds every time. Why so heavy? Because I was carrying 600 pairs of reading glasses to donate to the eye hospital in Patna.

 

In case you've ever wondered what several hundred pairs of glasses in a suitcase looks like, consider your curiosity satisfied! However, on the airport X-ray security scanners it apparently looks a lot like a bomb. On a related note, you really haven't lived until you've narrowly avoided a cavity search at an airport in India.

 

From the roadside tuk-tuk cab drop-off, I followed some mutually-contradictory signs toward the "Domestic Terminal," which seemed like a fair bet since I would be flying from one Indian city to another Indian city. The signs brought me to a dead-end on a desolate sidewalk in front of an abandoned building. Taking a 50/50 guess, I turned right and kept walking northward. After about another quarter mile of abandoned buildings, I passed an empty café with stainless steel tables, a rusted metal fan slowly spinning in one corner, and a Coca-Cola sign glowing on a refrigerator case half-filled with moldy food.



 

 

There wasn't another living soul in sight. It was like a post-apocalyptic hellscape straight out of a sci-fi movie. It was Zombie Airport Nightmare (...not to be mistaken for this rather bizarre old-school computer game).  I kept walking north along the sidewalk, with the humid wind blowing the trash around my feet.

 

My bags were so heavy. The place was so abandoned. My left foot was starting to blister and bleed.

In another quarter mile, I reached the Domestic Terminal. A guard with an assault rifle stood at the door, blocking the entrance to the terminal. He looked at my itinerary then pointed further north and said "Two doors." I kept walking. One door: locked. Two doors: locked. Optimistic that maybe the guard had miscounted, I continued to the third door: locked. I returned all the way back to the security guard at the entrance. He looked at my itinerary again then pointed south and said "International Terminal."

"International Terminal? For my domestic flight? Are you sure?" I asked politely.

In reply, he gripped his assault rifle with both hands, looked at me in disgust, then turned away. I took that to mean he was sure.

 

 

The International Terminal was nearly a half mile back in the direction I had just come from. The stray zombie dog was still following me, probably waiting for me to fall down dead so he could eat my brains. I trudged southward past all the abandoned buildings again. Both of my feet were bleeding now. 

 

I finally reached an area with human beings again, found another assault-rifle-toting security guard, and asked him how to find the International Terminal (...for my domestic flight). He pointed down the sidewalk to a building another 200m south and said "Past the food stand. Turn right. Take the lift (elevator) to the 2nd floor."

I walked south. I passed the food stand. I turned right.
There was no lift. There was no 2nd floor. There was just an open latrine with a man peeing, and two more stray dogs.
My bleeding feet were soaking through my socks. My shoes had started to make bloody wet squelchy noises with every step. The stray dog was licking my ankles whenever I stood still.

"Brains! I want delicious brains! But feet will suffice for now."

I did eventually manage to find the International Terminal (...for my domestic flight). 
I did eventually manage to get through security ("They're eyeglasses! I swear, they're eyeglasses! I have paperwork!").
I did eventually manage to catch my plane out of Chennai.
I did all of that without having any limbs gnawed off by stray dogs.
Nearly a month later, my feet have nearly healed.
We'll call that a happy ending.

 

May your holiday travels be easy by comparison.

May you find a way to be Home for Christmas.

 

 

The Christmas Bird

 

What?  Like you've never seen a Christmas tree
decorated with beaded chicken keychains before?

It's totally festive.

 

 

Happy Holidays!

Colorful. Chaotic. Complicated.

The last few months have been busy, and I have unapologetically failed at blog life. Getting back on track now that I'm home from India and the jet lag has simmered down, here are some letters from the road.
Have you ever had an experience in which nearly every moment left you feeling like it had been a mistake to get involved? Yet when all was said and done, the trip was the right thing to do. It's impossible to describe, really. It was an amazing learning experience, just with plenty of interesting bumps along the way.

---------------

Dear Hotel Delhi37,
When Bonnie and I stepped out of the airport into the smoky chaos of New Dehli in the middle of the night in an unfamiliar country that has a reputation for being somewhat unsafe for women, it was a comfort to know that the hotel reservations had already been smoothly arranged online and paid in advance.
It was slightly less comforting when we called your hotel from the taxi cab for directions and learned that its true location was a half hour away from where it had been mapped, and that even though you had my reservations you did not actually have a room for me to stay in that night.
It was a nice touch that you politely wished me a pleasant evening after informing me that I would (a) be homeless for the night, and (b) not be receiving a refund.

The warmth of that welcome literally brought tears to my eyes,
Sarah

-----------------

 

 

Dear Hotel Saptagiri Employee,

It was with great relief that we arrived to your hotel, found a vacancy, and booked a room for the night after our change of plans from Hotel Delhi37. We appreciated your help escorting us to the oddly windowless room, and your many words of advice to remind us that women should not be traveling here. I admit I found it terrifying slightly unorthodox when, instead of allowing us to keep our room key, you wordlessly stuffed a piece of paper in the key card activator slot then took our actual key away with you for the night.

Four restless hours later, we awakened to happily realize that we had not been part of the movie plot from Hostel.

 

Thank you for sweet dreams,

Sarah

 

----------------

Dear Sathya Sai Ashram Bookstore,
When we visited this commune idyllic peaceful village founded on Sai Baba's teachings, populated entirely by Sai Baba's believers, decorated on every surface with Sai Baba's pictures, funded by zealous donations to Sai Baba, designed to house all of Sai Baba's pilgrim visitors, with all activities scheduled around Sai Baba's worship services, and all road signs inscribed with various sayings from Sai Baba, I was worried that I might not be able to find any books by/about/dedicated to/obsessing over Sai Baba. What a delight to find your bookstore with 800 square feet of wall-to-wall quality Sai Baba literary masterpieces. Not weird at all.

Enriched by variety,
Sarah

-------------------

 

Dear Indian Toilet Paper Branding Experts,
My concept of desire will never be the same again.

Thank you for this paradigm shift,
Sarah

-------------------

 

 

Dear Madras Crocodile Sanctuary,
Although I was a bit disappointed that we didn't get to see the particular species of crocodile with wings growing from its skull-base, I was very impressed by the crocodilian biodiversity within your sanctuary, and likewise impressed by the many reminders not to place my hands, feet, or head inside the crocodiles' mouths.

Appreciatively,
Sarah

---------------------

Dear Mahabalipuram Shore Temple World Heritage Site,
It was surreal to be able to walk through the grounds of this beautiful structure, in awe at the workmanship, and knowing that the effects of time, weather, and the ocean will likely eventually sweep away any trace of it. To be there at this moment in time and experience this was a memory I will keep forever.
As an aside, when the guidebook mentioned that *one* of the beaches near the Shore Temple is used as an open latrine by the locals, I do kind of wish that it would have also specified *which* beach. If one beach is a relaxing tourist attraction and the other one is a toilet, you just never know when a little detail like that might be important.

Sincerely,
Sarah

---------------------

 

Dear Bodhgaya Mahabodhi (Mahavihara) Temple,
Thank you for my single most colorful, tranquil, beautiful day in India. I wasn't sure what to expect, arriving at the peak of pilgrimage season, but within your walls people were polite, safe, kind, and seemed driven by a deeper cause. I was amazed by the confluence of believers from all over the world, with different languages and backgrounds, serenely coming together here.
As the Buddha holds a significant place within Buddhism and Hinduism, I was impressed to find that the two religions seem to coexist side-by-side here in a fairly unstrained way. I sincerely admire that example.
Can I move in?

Thinking it over,
Sarah

----------------------

 

 

Dear Lawyers of the Bihar High Court,

We normally do outreach clinics for the poorest people in the city each afternoon. Many of them sleep in rough tents on the streets, cook their food over fires built from burning dried cow manure, trudge through raw sewage to get where they need to go, and subsist for a year on less than you spent on a single pair of shoes. The impoverished, unwashed, uneducated patients at our outreach clinics line up quietly, they move their weak and elderly to the front of the line so that their frail bodies won't have to wait so long, and they thank us for even the smallest gestures like giving them a pair of reading glasses.

We took a day away from them to come serve you instead. When we arrived to do an outreach clinic for your group of High Court Lawyers, I expected that such educated people in charge of establishing law and order would be the very example of civilized manners. What I encountered instead was a horde of self-important men, yelling, mobbing, spitting on the floor, throwing things, elbowing to the front of the pack, pushing your hands through our gated dispensary window to take anything within reach. By the end of the clinic, I had nothing left but exhaustion and disgust.

 

Questioning humanity,

Sarah



 

-----------------------

 

 

 

Dear Dr. Ajit Sinha,

You are one of the kindest, gentlest men I have ever met in all the world. At 82, you still wake up every day wanting to find a way to serve others. You go to the worst parts of the city to work for the most neglected population you can find.

That Wednesday after outreach clinic in the downtown central slum, you noticed a woman standing at the pharmacy shop window who couldn't pay for her eyedrops. I saw you reach into your own pocket and pay. I saw you insist that she keep the change so that she could have something to eat that night.

I saw what you are trying to do for the world around you, and that was worth the entire trip.

 

Thank you,

Sarah

 

-----------------------

 

Dear Man with Bilateral Peters Anomaly in the Eastern Slums of Patna,
Thank you for bringing us your hope and your trust. I can't even find the words to describe how sorry I am that we couldn't help you. I wish you hadn't been born with eyes like yours. I wish an ophthalmologist had found you when you were an infant while your eyes and brain were still learning to see. I wish cornea transplant tissue was readily available in your city. I wish the world were fair. I wish I could stop thinking about you.

I wish it weren't so complicated,
Sarah

 

Great Horrible Art

My high school History teacher used to say that the political spectrum isn't a linear construct with Conservatives at one end and Liberals at the other.

 

 

Instead, he pointed out that the radical ideas at either end of the spectrum tend to bleed across into each other. Picture it more like a circle: 

(Or maybe a Mobius Strip.
Who doesn't love a good mind-blowing Mobius Strip?)

When you think about it, that concept applies to all sorts of things. The spectrum wraps around and brings together two things you thought were polar opposites, but they turn out to be perfect neighbors.

Think of food combinations that are so wrong they're right:  banana bacon cookies? curly fries dipped in a chocolate milkshake? salted fruit?

Think of how things get muddy at the extreme ends of the emotional scale: you laugh until you cry? cry until you laugh? One state connects right across into the other, and even though it all seems to happen through some weird backchannel that makes no sense, it still happens.

 

That brings us to art. Art can be so horrible that it's brilliant. So brilliant that it's horrible.

 

Two years ago, while walking through an all-comers amateur art show on the med campus, I came across a hilariously bad painting. A black jaguar on a green background that made me silent-laugh so hard I coughed a little. Since that moment, it has stood out in my mind as one of the most wonderful pieces of terrible art in the history of wonderfully terrible art.

 

Three weeks ago on call, I was walking into the hospital in the middle of the night when I turned a corner and there it was, like it had been suddenly resurrected from memory and hung up on the wall again:

 



 

Look at its awesome finger-toes! And hind hooves! And the way its initially-deformed rump has been painted over with a green that will never match any other green on that canvas. The crinky tail. The red watermelon-slice mouth right smack on the front of its creepy human face! The nearly-neckless head sprouting straight up out of its right shoulder, and the faint silhouette of a fifth leg. 

It's clearly the unapologetic work of a genius.

Or a 3rd grader.

Or a genius!

Or a 3rd grader!

Or a genius.

 

And there's more!

Like this gem featuring Abraham Lincoln, some sort of Star Trek Frankenstein, a blue duck, Shakespeare and robots:

And the jaguar's companion piece, The Rhinoceros:

Plus this one entitled After Dinner Chat:

 

Take a closer look at the painting above the couch there. Wouldn't your life be more complete if you had a sofa-sized painting of a blonde lady running away from a deranged hybrid fox-mongoose-orange-crocodile on a beach? It's weighty stuff.

 

Congratulations Steven Sorscher, whoever you are.

For what it's worth, I vote "genius."

Religion, Sex, or Aliens

Every Wednesday night, the eye department holds Grand Rounds.
"Rounds" because the group discusses interesting patient cases, like back in the good old days when a medical team would walk 'round the hospital ward from patient to patient, talking about them together.  "Grand" because we say so.
Tonight's Grand Rounds included a presentation regarding a psychotic man who had pulled out his own eyes with his bare hands. The thought of such a devastating act of deliberate self harm is disturbing to say the least. From a seat in the back, I could see waves of squirming uneasiness roll across the people in the room.
The presenters had invited a psychiatrist in to comment at the end of the talk. When someone asked him why he thought this particular patient had done such a thing, he said something epically wonderful:

"In psychiatry,

it always comes down to

religion, sex, or aliens.

Always."

And there you have it. The mysteries of human motivation and behavior clarified. At least the mysteries of psychotic human motivation and behavior, which arguably aren't quite the same thing as all human motivation and behavior, but surely there's got to be some overlap in that Venn diagram.

So here's a challenge: For your major decisions and actions today, can you feasibly find a way to connect them all back to religion, sex, or aliens?
With that in mind, this is my day in review:
7:00am  Wake up to an alarm clock. (Aliens. Pretty sure alarm clock technology was brought to us by aliens, via the pyramids.)
7:15am  Eat breakfast.  (Religious praises to whichever divine omnipotent power created Raisin Bran Crunch and commanded that thou shalt eat it for breakfast.)
8:00am  Go to work.  (Religion again. Most religions, at their core, seem to share the idea that in the name of goodness and decency you should look at the world around you, see how you might be able to help, and do it. ...It would've been super creepy if I had found a way to pin this one on aliens or sex.)
11:16am  A gnarly old vet tells me I'm pretty. (Sex... his motive, not mine.) Momentarily flattered, then I remember his vision is only good enough to tell whether a hand waving in front of his face is moving side-to-side or up-and-down. He can't tell what I look like. He can just tell I'm probably-ish female.
3:48pm  Eat. (I guess I'll have to file this under "Other Stuff: Hungry.")
5:00pm  Go to the aforementioned Grand Rounds.  (Nary a sexy, religious alien in sight.)

Tell me about your day.

My sister sent me this article, and I think it's pretty great.
I'm sharing it on the off chance that it will hit home with anyone else, too.

The Trouble With Bright Girls 

Published on January 27, 2011 by Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D.  

in The Science of Success         

Successful women know only too well that in any male-dominated profession, we often find ourselves at a distinct disadvantage. We are routinely underestimated, underutilized, and even underpaid. Studies show that women need to perform at extraordinarily high levels, just to appear moderately competent compared to our male coworkers.

But in my experience, smart and talented women rarely realize that one of the toughest hurdles they'll have to overcome to be successful lies within. We judge our own abilities not only more harshly, but fundamentally differently, than men do. Understanding why we do it is the first step to righting a terrible wrong. And to do that, we need to take a step back in time.

Chances are good that if you are a successful professional today, you were a pretty bright fifth grade girl. My graduate advisor, psychologist Carol Dweck (author of Mindset) conducted a series of studies in the 1980s, looking at how bright girls and boys in the fifth grade handled new, difficult and confusing material.

 

She found that bright girls, when given something to learn that was particularly foreign or complex, were quick to give up--and the higher the girls' IQ, the more likely they were to throw in the towel. In fact, the straight-A girls showed the most helpless responses. Bright boys, on the other hand, saw the difficult material as a challenge, and found it energizing. They were more likely to redouble their efforts, rather than give up.

Why does this happen? What makes smart girls more vulnerable, and less confident, when they should be the most confident kids in the room? At the 5^th grade level, girls routinely outperform boys in every subject, including math and science. So there were no differences between these boys and girls in ability, nor in past history of success. The only difference was how bright boys and girls interpreted difficulty--what it meant to them when material seemed hard to learn. Bright girls were much quicker to doubt their ability, to lose confidence, and to become less effective learners as a result.

Researchers have uncovered the reason for this difference in how difficulty is interpreted, and it is simply this: more often than not, bright girls believe that their abilities are innate and unchangeable, while bright boys believe that they can develop ability through effort and practice.

How do girls and boys develop these different views? Most likely, it has to do with the kinds of feedback we get from parents and teachers as young children. Girls, who develop self-control earlier and are better able to follow instructions, are often praised for their "goodness." When we do well in school, we are told that we are "so smart," "so clever, " or " such a good student." This kind of praise implies that traits like smartness, cleverness, and goodness are qualities you either have or you don't.

Boys, on the other hand, are a handful. Just trying to get boys to sit still and pay attention is a real challenge for any parent or teacher. As a result, boys are given a lot more feedback that emphasizes effort (e.g., "If you would just pay attention you could learn this," "If you would just try a little harder you could get it right.") The net result: When learning something new is truly difficult, girls take it as sign that they aren't "good" and "smart", and boys take it as a sign to pay attention and try harder.

We continue to carry these beliefs, often unconsciously, around with us throughout our lives. And because bright girls are particularly likely to see their abilities as innate and unchangeable, they grow up to be women who are far too hard on themselves--women who will prematurely conclude that they don't have what it takes to succeed in a particular arena, and give up way too soon.

Even if every external disadvantage to a woman's rising to the top of an organization is removed--every inequality of opportunity, every chauvinistic stereotype, all the challenges we face balancing work and family--we would still have to deal with the fact that through our mistaken beliefs about our abilities, we may be our own worst enemy.

How often have you found yourself avoiding challenges and playing it safe, sticking to goals you knew would be easy for you to reach? Are there things you decided long ago that you could never be good at? Skills you believed you would never possess? If the list is a long one, you were probably one of the Bright Girls--and your belief that you are "stuck" being exactly as you are has done more to determine the course of your life than you probably ever imagined. Which would be fine, if your abilities were innate and unchangeable. Only they're not.

No matter the ability--whether it's intelligence, creativity, self-control, charm, or athleticism--studies show them to be profoundly malleable. When it comes to mastering any skill, your experience, effort, and persistence matter a lot. So if you were a Bright Girl, it's time to toss out your (mistaken) belief about how ability works, embrace the fact that you can always improve, and reclaim the confidence to tackle any challenge that you lost so long ago.

[Psychology Today, 2013]

The fifth child is expendable

Last weekend, I went home to see my parents for the first time in over a year. Invariably, being home involves recalling all the reasons I probably shouldn't have made it through childhood. For example, this memorable day:

 

A tarp and a dream: one shining moment in a
  long and illustrious line
     of bad ideas,
many of which involved the roof of the house, and/or my sister, Bonnie,
  and the remaining handful probably involve telephone poles....

Speaking of Bonnie, today we officially booked tickets for our next trip together! We haven't traveled with each other since the epic Arizona road trip of 2012 which started with a pair of cats vomiting in the car, climaxed with a conflagration that attracted not one but two rescue crews, and finally ended with a highway patrol stop in the dead of night.
This time around should be even better!

 

 Sai Baba wishes us luck.

 

32-ness

 

Mandatory deep thoughts on the verge of another birthday? Here are my hopes, dreams, goals, and shortcomings in 32 words. It turns out they're a lot like the 30 words two years ago, and they're still just as sincere:

 

Things I've learned 


This enormous world is full of new things to learn.

Things I want

Still not sure who You is yet.

Things I want to improve at

Everything

Speaking of ducks...

Speaking of ducks (...which I actually was in the last post, but really "speaking of ducks" is probably a pretty good conversation segue anytime. In the grand scheme of things, all of life is just an ongoing conversation about ducks, isn't it?)

Anyway, speaking of ducks, I just came across this picture on my camera from a couple months ago in Rochester and it cracks me up.

 

There's a pretty nice lake about 400 yards east of here, but these two aces picked a 1-inch-deep driveway puddle basking in the neon glow of a sketchy gas station instead.

Location. Location. Speaking of ducks. Location.
.

It perches in the soul

Have you ever had a totally visceral response to something? Pure amygdala? One moment you're minding your own business, then the next moment -WHAM- you're responding to something before you even know what hit you.
Just by chance, one evening last week I walked past two things that gave me the -WHAM-, but  at completely different ends of the spectrum.

-    -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -

There's a long-term rehab facility/nursing home about halfway between my apartment and the grocery store. It's a low-lying concrete building on the north side of the street, with a design clearly inspired by Soviet block countries during the Cold War. Apathy seeps from its frigid, dead walls. I usually avoid looking at it but on this particular walk I glanced up, and when I did I saw two of its inmates facing toward me.
Blank stares through bald windows, with slacked jaws and glassy eyes, like something strange and shriveled that doesn't recognize itself anymore. As though they themselves aren't sure if they're still people. It hurts to see them, it hurts to think about them, and then it hurts to feel guilty for hurting. It's the same feeling that comes slowly creeping in when I watch my mom walking with her twisting hemiplegic body, or when I pass the ICU waiting room and a cluster of people are melted into each other sobbing, except the feeling is delivered all in one jolt just by looking at that nursing home. 

-    -   -   -   -   -   -   -   -

There's a memorial fountain on the hospital campus. It was built in memory of a woman who lost her brave battle against cancer, designed with a smooth mirrored water surface and floating lily pads surrounding a landing that's inlaid with lights that twinkle in the pattern of the stars that were in the sky the night the woman was born.

In May, there was a pair of ducks in the memorial fountain. In June, there were none. Then when I walked by last week, there were six ducklings swimming and bobbing around all over that fountain with reckless abandon.

WHAM. Pure dumb joy. Like a dog chasing a tennis ball or Harry Carey limbering up for the 7th inning sing-along or the kid at the top of the rollercoaster with a giddy laugh caught in her throat. It is wonderful.

And appropriately enough, the fountain is edged with this poem:

 

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

 

And sweetest in the Gale is heard.

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm.

 

I’ve heard it in the chillest land

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb of me.

           

- Emily Dickinson