World Building

Tonight I got home from work late — really, really late. 9:00 late. Today was Exhibition Night, the end of the Intersession period between New Year’s and the start of the spring semester. All of the Intersession classes focus on physical education or the arts; mine was cooking and nutrition, which sort of straddles the two (especially with the amount of walking we had to do to get to grocery stores, community kitchens and the like).

Our class cooked the food for Exhibition Night, but I didn’t get a chance to take part; I spent the whole day trying to get the class cookbook together, and eventually succeeded after THREE trips back and forth to Kinko’s. (Don’t ask.) Now, I enjoy cooking — it’s a very relaxing experience for me, most of the time — so by the time I got home I was ready to do some playing around in the kitchen for myself.

What transpired over the next hour was a perfect example of WHY I love cooking. The following more-or-less recounts my thoughts and actions in the order they took place.

1.) Look in the fridge for supplies. Hmm, there are those two chicken thighs I’ve been thawing out for a few days; I’d better use them for something now or I’m going to lose them.

2.) Pull out the chicken thighs, rinse, drain, squish out excess moisture. How can I cook these? Well, they’ve got a lot of fat in the skin and dark meat is pretty forgiving of high temperatures; I can sear the outside and then add a sauce and cook on low heat until they cook through. I have that jar of Bombay Simmer Sauce; maybe I’ll use that.

3.) Heat up cast-iron skillet to medium-high. Cover outside of the thighs with a very small amount of safflower oil, black pepper, and kosher salt. Let’s put the skin side down against the pan first; it’s a thick layer of mostly-fat, so it should crisp up pretty nicely when it hits the hot iron.

4.) Put chicken thighs in the pan, skin-side down. After 3-4 minutes … wow, look at that. The fat rendered out of the chicken and is coating most of the bottom of the pan. I’ve got enough hot lipid in there to saute some veggies. What can I use…?

5.) Quick search of the refrigerator and cabinets turns up onion, minced garlic, red peppers, and sliced mushrooms. Oooh. Okay, quickly, chop up half of the onion and throw it in there. (ow ow eyes burning ow) Flip over those chicken breasts, mix up the rendered fat with the onions to saute them nicely. Add the garlic a couple of minutes later; mix. Repeat for the mushrooms next, then the peppers.

6.) By this point a fair amount of moisture has cooked down into the pan, and we’re getting out of saute land and into stewing territory. Time to chop up some tomatoes — and yes, I have two Romas waiting for just such a purpose. (Chop chop chop.) Hmm, that doesn’t look like enough. I’ll add this can of diced tomatoes, too, after I drain out most of the juice into a mug. Mix in tomatoes and cover. Drink tomato juice. (Mmm. Lycopenes.)

7.) Somewhere around this point, I unconsciously shifted from “South Asian” mode to “Italian” mode. Maybe it was the leftover spaghetti waiting in the fridge for something to use with it. Maybe it was the fact that mushrooms and peppers didn’t seem very Bombay-ish. Maybe I just realized subconsciously that I had a jar of pesto I was waiting to try out. Whatever the reason, I put away the Bombay Simmer Sauce and opened up the pesto instead. Two heaping teaspoons, mix, mix … yeah, that looks about right. And I’ve got a ton of pesto left over for future experiments.

8.) Need green veggies. Spinach? Naw, I always do spinach. Hey, I’ve got this steamed broccoli left over! (Chop chop chop. Mix mix.) Cool, that’ll go well with everything else. Need time for this to cook down and for the chicken to finish cooking through; I’ll cover it and check back in 20 minutes. (Sets timer.)

9.) 20 minutes later … Wow, look at all that liquid. Even with all the tomatoes in there, the liquid is … GREEN! Whoa. Okay, gotta reduce this. Turn up the heat. (Bubble bubble bubble) There we go… (mix around, watching while liquid evaporates)

10.) 5 minutes later … Hmm. Okay, most of the excess liquid is gone, but this still isn’t looking much like a pasta sauce. Ahh, yes, my mom’s old trick for thickening sauces: tomato paste! (Opens up a can, mixes it in) MUCH better.

11.) Seasoning, seasoning … the pesto will have added a lot of flavor, but what can I do to spice this up a bit more? Garlic pepper, check. Fresh ground black pepper, check. Oregano, check. … That’s enough, I think. Don’t want a repeat of the Vegetable Beef Soup Incident. (mix mix mix)

12.) That chicken has GOT to get broken up now. Is it done? (Presses in spatula tip, breaks off a piece) Yep, it’s done. (Chops up chicken into small chunks, removes thigh bones, gnaws on thigh bones for excess meat) Ooh, hot hot hot … but TASTY!

13.) Y’know what this still needs? The same thing the world always needs: CHEESE. (Pulls out Parmesan/Romano/Asiago cheese blend, dumps in a liberal amount, mixes up)

14.) Moment of truth. Heat up some spaghetti noodles, spoon the chicken/veggie/pesto/chees

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I’ve been tagged by Chris Miller for the Sixteen Things meme, in which one is supposed to share sixteen random facts about oneself. So, let’s see here…

1. I love being tall. I’ve gone through life being self-conscious about a lot of things over the years, but my height is one thing I’m very grateful for. I can reach the top shelves in cupboards, control the projector on the ceiling by going up on tiptoe, and see over the heads of nearly everyone else in the crowd. It’s one of those things I have no control over, so I can’t exactly be proud of it - but damn, it’s cool.

2. I love planes, especially fighter jets. I used to build models of them as a kid, with my dad’s help. It’s one of the few really happy memories that I have of my childhood relationship with my father.

3. As implied by #2, Dad and I didn’t get along very well until relatively recently. In my pre-teen years I think he didn’t know what to do with me; my pastimes and interests were alien to him, as his were to me. Our relationship is much better now, as we have each grown to respect the other in spite of our (often dramatic) differences of opinion.

4. Knick-nacks on my desk: two beanbag animals (a seal and a killer whale); five D&D monster minis (including the Gargantuan Black Dragon); a model of Serenity; a dragon holding a letter opener shaped like a sword; a posable wooden mannikin; a beach scene in a bottle; a chintzy porcelain dolphin sculpture given to me by friends at work; a garter belt that I caught at a wedding (still waiting for that tradition to pan out); a headband decorated with strawberries (an in-joke present from friends); a stuffed Yoda; a bronzed bust of a mermaid, based on a drawing by Monte Michael Moore; and my Podcast Peer Award for Best Production.

5. I collect mermaids. Paintings, the aforementioned bust, books of fantasy art, images found online — I even ran a story contest once in which I commissioned stories about mermaids. I love ‘em. And, incidentally, I think that The Little Mermaid would have been ten times better if they’d kept the original ending.

6. I think I have a bit of gender dysphoria. Not enough to make me feel like a stranger or a prisoner in my own body, but enough that I find myself drawn to certain things that would be considered more feminine than masculine. This may be why I find myself drawn to using transformation as a theme in fiction; I’m very envious of the androgynes in my Metamor City setting, as they have the freedom to explore both the masculine and feminine drives within themselves without experiencing any sort of prejudice for doing so.

7. I’ve never tried nicotine or any sort of illegal drug. I used to enjoy reading about them to find out how they worked and what they did to the body, but I’ve never actually tried any of them. Of course, part of that may have been because I didn’t know anyone who could sell them to me during my younger, stupider days.

8. I sing everywhere. In the car, while out walking, shopping in stores, while cooking, in the shower, with musical accompaniment or without — if I’m not intensely focused on something else, chances are good that I’m singing.

9. I get really annoyed at writers who don’t live up to the potential of their premise.

10. Ten years ago I was an ardent opponent of “condoning” homosexuality in fiction. I even had a falling out with two of my favorite authors on the TSA-Talk mailing list because they revealed that one of my favorite characters was a lesbian. Now, I’m an ardent supporter of marriage equality and have written about several gay and bisexual characters in a positive manner. Channing and Feech, if you ever read this: I’m sorry. You were right, and I was wrong.

11. I did my master’s thesis research on water conservation in fasting elephant seal pups. Like many projects in biology, that sounds kind of silly, but it actually had significant relevance to a much broader field of study about evolutionary adaptations in mammals.

12. The proudest moment of my life to date: When I defended my thesis to my peers and colleagues at the end of my master’s program.

13. I have had a crush for years on Christian singer-songwriter Rebecca St. James. I’ve met her three times at various events, gotten her autograph on several items, and one time even gave her a gushy handwritten letter about what a significant blessing her music had been in my life. She still isn’t married, and there’s a tiny part of me that still holds on to the ludicrous hope that I could be the one she’s been singing about waiting for all these years. Which is kind of pathetic, since I seem to lose the power of speech every time I get close to her.

14. Favorite artists: Boris Vallejo, Julie Bell, Luis Royo, Dorian Cleavenger, Alex Ross, and (the oddball exception to the overall pattern) Phil Foglio.

15. I taught myself to play the guitar a couple of years ago, largely because I was the worship leader for our little church and had gotten sick of dragging my ginormous electric keyboard around. I find playing guitar to be very relaxing; there’s something therapeutic about it, and it allows my mind to enter a sort of Zenlike state that I can’t get into if I’m just sitting there.

16. I hate answering online surveys. So that should tell you how much I value our friendship, Chris. :-p

To carry on the meme, I’m tagging the following people: Dan Sawyer, Scott Roche, Dani Cutler, Kimi Alexandre, John Scalzi, Mur Lafferty, Arcturus Rann, Jenivi7, DanaeWinters, Rachel George, Cunning Minx, Heather Bowman Tomlinson, Victoria Folks, Robin Hudson, Philippa Ballantine, and Kitty Nic’Iaian.

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As I sit here, nearly all of my worldly goods are packed up in my car and trailer, awaiting transport to California. Tomorrow morning I set out for Chicago, my first stop, where I’ll be visiting with two of my fellow podcasters. Subsequent stops will take me to Springfield (MO), Denver, Albuquerque, and Phoenix, before finally arriving in the Bay Area on July 31st.

I’ve been busy over the last week and a half working on the reading for my REACH Pre-Service program. Last Saturday I finished The Disciplined Mind, which is an excellent book that I heartily recommend to anyone interested in education. I’ll post my thoughts on the book in more detail in a later post. Right now I’m working on Mastery, a book written by a former Army Air Force pilot and aikido instructor — the premise of which is that there is a distinct path to self-improvement that requires us to love the process of self-improvement. We have to embrace the journey even when we’re not seeing results, because the practice itself is its own reward. I can speak to the truth of this on a number of levels, particularly in playing guitar and writing fiction.  I’m a bit more than a third of the way through the book and greatly enjoying it; I look forward to continuing to digest it over the course of my travels.

Once I arrive in Cali I’ll be staying with a friend in Palo Alto until my room in Berkeley becomes available on August 4th. Her house is quiet and beautiful and has a lot of space in which to work, which will give me a great opportunity to focus in on my remaining coursework and crank through it quickly and steadily. I haven’t been able to spend as much time on the coursework as I would have liked to thus far — my previous day job, which ended yesterday, and the work of getting ready to move cross-country have utterly devoured my time — so I’m looking forward to the chance to be alone with the books, with no greater responsibility than to absorb this material and prepare for the career that awaits me.

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Today is my last day at the office, and my co-workers have decorated my cubicle with streamers and balloons. Folks have been stopping by all morning to ask about my new career and to wish me luck. It’s funny how often we stop to appreciate things — or people — only when we’re about to lose them. In this, I mean not only my co-workers’ appreciation for me, but my own appreciation for the people in my life here.

“All change is felt as loss.” My friend Mae said that on her blog recently, and boy is it ever true. I know that the life that I’m headed for will be more satisfying, fulfilling and exciting than anything that I’ve done in years, and I’m very pleased that I will be geographically close to so many of my best friends. But I haven’t spent the last four years in a vacuum, either. I don’t have very many people here in Michigan who I’m still really close to, other than my parents, but the ones I do have are all the more precious for their scarcity. In particular, Bryan, Sara and Andrea have become very dear to me, and it saddens me to know that I’m only going to see them once or twice a year now — unless they decide to join me out in California, which is more than I can probably hope for. I’ve had dear friends in the past whom I’ve grown apart from, and it’s always heartbreaking. I’m grateful that that didn’t happen with my friends in Cali — Joe and Sarah, Art and Steph, Stina, Heather, Christie — but it’s a persistent fear at the back of my mind: I love these people and I don’t want to lose them.

I don’t often say it in those words, because they make us uptight Americans feel all funny and awkward, but it’s true. I truly, dearly love my friends here, and it hurts to leave them. I don’t want to say good-bye. I want to take them along with me as I start my new life, to keep them close to me forever … but I can’t. They can’t live their lives for me — and I can’t stay here to live my life for them. And so we part, in the joyful hope of better lives for each of us and the bitter sorrow of knowing that our paths no longer run beside each other.

Dammit, now I’m crying. But then, Tolkien said it best: “I will not say, ‘Do not weep,’ for not all tears are evil.”

All change is felt as loss — even the good kind. A month from now school will start, and I’ll be fully caught up in my new life. Six months from now I’ll have settled into some sort of routine and will, I suspect, be very glad of the choice that I made to go. I keep telling myself that, as scary and often sad as this transition is, it would be far, far worse if the opportunity had never come. If I’d seen my hopes fall apart again, after so much time and money invested in trying to get this job … well. The sort of black despair I would have fallen into is not something anyone would have wanted to see. Things truly are better this way. This is good. This is right.

But today I will weep for the friends I’m leaving … because this new chance for growth doesn’t come without a price. And it’s a price I’m feeling very keenly today.

“Most certainly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.” -John 12:24 (World English Bible)

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I haven’t posted much on this blog lately. That’s mostly because I’m wrapped up in another blog, the one I have to do as part of my education training:

http://christhescienceguy.blogspot.com

Much of the stuff discussed there will probably mean little to people who aren’t already part of the Reach Institute’s training program, but it nevertheless has to take priority right now, because that blog is actually school-work for me. Those of you who are interested in seeing the sorts of things that a new teacher is trained in may find it of value. For those who are bored stiff by such things, I apologize, and I hope to be able to get back to putting fun stuff on this blog soon. I definitely want to record my cross-country adventure when it happens, so keep your eyes peeled for my travel blog…

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As mentioned previously, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Myers-Briggs personality typing and the Jungian concept of cognitive functions on which it’s based. One of the more interesting ideas I’ve heard, put forward by Jungian psychologist John Beebe, is that our different cognitive functions (or, rather, “function-attitudes”) express themselves in our dreams in the forms of various archetypes. Our brains ascribe faces and personas to these different ways of thinking, presumably so that we can process our thoughts and feelings about them.

What I find interesting is the idea that these archetypes — the hero, the father, the eternal child, etc. — aren’t universally tied to specific cognitive modes. Different people will use the same archetype to personify different ways of thinking/interacting with the world, and the outcome of who gets cast in which role is predictable based on a person’s particular personality type.

Normally Myers-Briggs personality typing assumes four modes of consciousness (called “function-attitudes”) for each person:

1.) Dominant: This is your “default setting”, the function-attitude you’re most in tune with. The dominant function gets cast by the subconscious in the role of the Hero. For me, this function-attitude is Introverted Intuition, meaning that I tend to look for the deeper patterns and hidden structures that underlie the observable order of things. The theories and belief systems that guide us are only provisional models, limited by our own imperfect knowledge; the Truth, the actual, absolute Truth, is ineffable, and when we attempt to describe it we are trying to draw lines around things that we can never completely understand. A dominant Introverted Intuitive function means that you try to look past these limitations and attune yourself with the deeper reality — which probably explains my fascination with the mystical side of the world, as well as my openness to seeing situations from different points of view.

2.) Auxiliary: This is your second most comfortable mode of operation. It is personified in dreams, according to Beebe, by the Father/Mother/Mentor archetype, the Obi-Wan to your Luke Skywalker. If your dominant mode is an information-gathering one (as mine is), your auxiliary mode will be a decision-making one (which allows you to act on the information you’re getting.) My Auxiliary function is Extraverted Feeling, which is a decision-making process that assigns value to things and ideas based upon their effects on people. (The counterpart function-attitude, Extraverted Thinking, is more concerned with abstract facts and objective outcomes.) Operating on the basis of Extraverted Feeling means that you assign moral/ethical weight to actions and policies and you see yourself and others in relationship to the community around you. This is the mode that leads INFJs like myself to become idealistic crusaders.

3.) Tertiary: This is a mode that you can learn to operate in, but it’s less developed, and you need to focus more effort on it in order to make it work for you. When you’re under stress, or distracted, it’s likely to be subverted by its “shadow function” — about which more will be said later.  The Tertiary function, according to Beebe, is personified by the “Eternal Child”, the archetype of the Peter-Pan style innocent who never grows up. I must confess that I have a hard time seeing how this plays out with my own Tertiary function, Introverted Thinking.

Tertiary Ti means that you (1) often need solitude in order to focus on analyzing things in a logical, impersonal way, (2) place heavy emphasis on personal experience, and (3) have a tendency to cling to pet theories and rigorously defend them, even if they’re unverifiable, and filter out data that don’t fit with that frame of reference. I can see this last tendency in myself in the way I used to get heavily caught up in the UFO mythos, or in the strong affinity that I feel for the idea of the Lost Kingdom (a hypothetical maritime civilization that some believe existed about ~10,000 years ago and was responsible for many ancient monuments around the globe).

Introverted Intuitives can get so bogged down with the countless possibilities that they can imagine that they tend to pre-judge things and filter out the stuff that doesn’t fit with their viewpoint, just to try to maintain some semblance of stability in their worldview. This can lead to a certain immunity to criticism and contradictory evidence if we aren’t careful.

4.) Inferior: This is the function that we are least conscious of; it’s part of our identity, what we think of as “us”, but it’s so close to our subconscious that we usually aren’t even aware that it’s at work. My inferior function is Extraverted Sensing — what one website describes as “orientation to your environment by immediate, gut-level response.” That same website describes my own relationship to my inferior function with disturbing accuracy:

As an inferior function, Se often leads INJs in either (or both) of two directions: to shun everything of a bodily nature as corrupt and animal (e.g. Immanuel Kant), or to crave “letting loose” and table-dancing or delivering some serious violence. … Some get into guns or karate, taking an off-kilter delight in fantasies of getting into a confrontation with someone and surprising the hell out of them with the damage they can do (see Taxi Driver). Some idolize jazz musicians as people who are completely in touch with their animal selves, able to “let go”. … A different way, perhaps the genuine reunification with the inferior function, is to find an unconditional pleasure in “the now” and a peaceful, live-and-let-live philosophy–enjoying each moment, “being present” no matter what comes.

Given that I often fantasize about doing spontaneous, adventurous stuff; that I have a deep interest in weapons and martial arts, even though I hate violence; that I have often been fascinated by jazz musicians and envied their spontaneity; and that I have recently been captivated by both the Christian mystics, who “practiced the presence of God”, and the Zen Buddhists, who emphasis “mindfulness” of the present moment … yeah. That paragraph could have been written about me.

Beebe says that the Inferior Function takes on the archetypal role of the Anima, the “muse” or “spirit” that embodies a man’s feminine side (or the woman’s masculine side, which Jung called the Animus). Given that, I guess it’s not too surprising that I envision my Muse as sensual, passionate, spontaneous, and fickle — she’s an embodiment of Extraverted Sensing, beyond a doubt.

So those are the four function-attitudes that make up my conscious identity, the person that I think of as “me.” But there are four other function-attitudes, as well, and these are the mirror-images of the four “identity” components. Because they’re unconscious and largely suppressed, these modes of thinking embody the dark side of my human nature — what Jung called the Shadow. And Beebe says that the Shadow’s four modes of operation are personified in our dreams by archetypes, as well.

Next time I’ll take a look at the components that make up the INFJ’s “shadow self”,  to see if they match up with the dark side I can see in my own nature. And, if space permits, I’ll tell you about that dream I had the other day that made me think there might be something to Beebe’s ideas…

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I’ve always been interested in personality profiles, the idea that you can categorize the broad mass of humanity into distinct types whose internal drives and motivations can be understood. Most personality tests are either fairly limited in scope (focusing on one particular area of life, such as the way you handle romantic relationships) or so general as to be useless (such as the old Sanguine/Choleric/Melancholy/Phlegmatic model that was based on Hippocrates’ four bodily humors). In the last couple of weeks, though, I’ve returned to a style of personality test that I first tried out more than a decade ago: Myers-Briggs Personality Typing, and especially Keirsey’s modified interpretation of how the different personality types interrelate. And I’ve got to say that I’ve been astonished at how accurate this system is at identifying both my strengths and my weaknesses.

I’ve often felt like many aspects of my own personality were paradoxical or contradictory, which is upsetting when you place a good deal of importance on making sense of your place in the universe. As I’ve read what psychologists have observed about people with my personality type (INFJ, in Myers-Briggs parlance), I’ve discovered that that’s not at all uncommon for people like me. My type is referred to as “complex”, and “while perhaps enhancing self-awareness, may make it difficult for INFJs to articulate their deepest and most convoluted feelings” (from TypeLogic.com).

It’s reassuring to know that I’m not crazy — that the struggles that I often face within myself have understandable, explicable causes, and that these weaknesses are tied in to the same mental structure that gives me my many strengths. Now that I understand where my weaknesses come from, I feel like I can be better-prepared to keep watch against them; I can strive to strengthen the areas where I’m weak, or at least compensate for them, without feeling like I’m “defective” or “broken” because I have those weaknesses. (Did I mention perfectionism is a trait of INFJs?) I can also seek out friends and confidantes who are strong where I am weak, and take advantage of their differing skills to complement my own.

I used to hate those self-assessments that some employers ask you to take, because I didn’t feel like I understood most of my own weaknesses. When I saw the weaknesses of the iNFJ personality type listed, however, I was able to read through them and think, “Yeah, that’s true … yeah … ouch, I hadn’t thought of it that way…” As a result, when I filled out my self-assessment for my new teacher credentialing program, I was able to give a much more balanced and realistic presentation of my strengths and weaknesses.

I’m going to be paying more attention to my dreams in the future, too. Myers-Briggs personality typing is based on the ideas of Carl Jung, who said that dreams are one of the ways that our subconscious mind tries to tell us things. Jungian psychologist John Beebe says that the different “function-attitudes” that make up our mind are often personified in our dreams in accordance with various mythic archetypes: our dominant function-attitude, the primary mode in which our brains operate, often gets cast as the hero, while the “shadow functions” that embody the dark side of our nature often take on the roles of the antagonists. I’ve already had one dream last night that seemed to fit this model very well — more on that another time — so I’m going to pay more attention from now on and see if the pattern continues.

INFJs are rarely at complete peace with themselves - there’s always something else they should be doing to improve themselves and the world around them. They believe in constant growth, and don’t often take time to revel in their accomplishments. They have strong value systems, and need to live their lives in accordance with what they feel is right. (PersonalityPage.com)

Looks like I’m cnnforming to type again. But you know what? I’m cool with that.

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I am confident of this one thing:

That my eyes will be blessed when they gaze upon Your beauty
And my lips will be sweet when they whisper words of praise
And my heart will be dancing when it knows that You are with me
And I will see Your goodness … in the land of the living

-100 Portraits/Waterdeep, “Land of the Living”

That song has been a feature in my worship times for the last three years, through hardships, setbacks and disappointments beyond number — both for me personally and as I’ve seen the general disintegration of the world around me. It has been a declaration of faith in the midst of circumstances where I could see no way to move forward, an altar raised to remind me that God was not through with me yet and would not leave me stranded in the wilderness.

Now, at last, the prayer has been answered: I’ve officially been offered a job teaching at a charter school out in the Bay Area. And to make matters even better, they’re going to pay for my credentialing program. Completely.

I cannot begin to say what a blessing this is. To know that I can not only start a new career, but do it without the fear of going thousands of dollars in debt, without the spectre of student loans hanging over me, and in a place where I already have lots of friends waiting for me to arrive … I’m tearing up as I’m writing this.

Looking back, it is clear to me
A man is more than the sum of his deeds
And how You make good of this mess I’ve made
Is a profound mystery

Looking back, I know you had to bring me through
All that I was so afraid of
And though I questioned the sky, now I see why:
I had to walk the rocks to see the mountain view
Looking back, I see the lead of love

–Caedmon’s Call, “Lead of Love”

One thing I’ve learned over the last few years: you can have all the talent, all the brains, all the skills, but without the right opportunities and the courage to act outside your comfort zone, those assets won’t get you anywhere.

God has brought me to the place where I can be where I need to be and do what I need to do. This is important work, and I believe in it greatly. Now I have the chance to do it, and make a life for myself doing it.

All glory and praise be to Almighty God, who made a way where there seemed to be no way. I know that as I go to teach these teens about this amazing universe we live in, I will be helping to give them the chance to make something of themselves. This is my mission field, the work of the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth: imbuing knowledge, curiosity, and a passion to see this Creation well cared-for and well-protected for generations to come.

Thank you, God. I know now that I will see Your goodness in the land of the living. Let my service be pleasing in Your eyes.

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So, my job interview at ARISE High School went very well; the teens liked me, the principal liked me, and their current teacher liked me. I had the teens dissect kidneys and talked to them a bit about how the kidneys work, what can make them malfunction, and what we can do to treat it when they stop working. It was a fun lesson, and the students really seemed to get into it.

After the lesson was over, the principal picked out three of the students and had them interview me, picking out questions from a list of twenty while the current teacher watched and took notes. After I left, the principal debriefed them, and all three students recommended that they hire me. So, yes, things are definitely looking good. The teacher said that a formal offer letter should be coming my way soon.

All of which means that I have a lot of planning to do in a short period of time. I’m now looking for housing in the East Bay — currently leaning toward Berkeley, since it’s probably the closest thing I’ll find to another Santa Cruz — and figuring out what my budget will allow. I have firmly committed to live below my means so that I can save up money for the inevitable big expenditures and random disasters, something that I didn’t do when I was in grad school (to my great cost). I’m currently looking at rentals that will be about 20% of my gross monthly income, as opposed to the ~48% of my income that I was paying when I was in grad school. Even with the cost of gas having doubled, I feel good about my ability to live below my means under those conditions.

I’m also planning how I will actually get out to the Bay Area when the time comes to drive there. One thing that I want to do this time is avoid the long, lonely trek down the I-80 corridor; I’ll be driving alone, and there’s no one along most of that stretch whom I actually know. It’s not too often that you get the chance to head for a destination without any particular time when you must leave or arrive, so I figure this is a good chance for me to take a longer route and see some of the people I’ve been meaning to see for a long time.

Here’s what I have in mind for a rough itinerary:

Day 1: Detroit to Chicago, 305 miles. Taking it easy the first day, I plan to stop here and visit my fellow podcasters P.C. Haring and Cunning Minx. No shortage of cool stuff to do in Chi-town, or so I’m told.

Day 2: Chicago to Springfield, MO, 512 miles. I have family here: my aunt and uncle and my cousin Ryan. They’ve slept over at our house lots of times on their visits to Michigan; this is my chance to return the favor.

Day 3: Springfield to Denver, 770 miles. My long-time pen pal Bella Connor lives in the Mile High City, and I’m very much looking forward to meeting her in person.

Day 4: Denver to Phoenix, 911 miles. This is the longest day of the trip, but it will be totally worth it: this is the home of Leann Mabry, the dear friend who helped me to really break into podcasting. I may take Day 5 off from driving just to have the chance to hang out with her, assuming that her schedule permits it.

Day 5 or 6: Phoenix to Aptos, CA, 706 miles. My friends Joe, Sarah, and Heather all live in this little town on the southern side of the Santa Cruz Mountains, making this the perfect place to stop, rest, and hang out before making the final trek “over the hill” and up into the Bay Area.

Going this way, the trip is about 3286 miles, as opposed to 2409 miles along the I-80 corridor. The difference in gas is about $100 at current prices, which I’ll easily make up for by not having to pay for hotel rooms along the way (not to mention the possibility of home-cooked meals at some of my stops). I’ll get to see some large swaths of the country that I’ve never seen before, and share time with friends I might not see again in person for a long time.

This feels like the right way to do it: take a long, burdensome trip and turn it into an adventure, with friends at every stop. So what if it takes a few extra days? I may never travel those roads again — and if there’s one thing I’ve learned about life in general, it’s that you have to find the joy in the journey.

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I recently started listening to The Voice of Free Planet X, which is a very interesting daily podcast put out by creative ubermensch Jared Axelrod. In Wednesday’s episode (#136), Jared lamented the decline of suits, ties and other formal wear. He argued that the disappearance of these garments from everyday life has led to a sort of inverse restriction on our clothing options. He quoted Lord Whimsy’s recent thoughts on this subject:

As if trying to look “casual” wasn’t just an uglier kind of affectation! To do away with such baseline standards of adult dress is the illusion of freedom, a lame gesture that leads to even more restrictive mores. Adolescent-minded Boomers won’t be satisfied until the only socially acceptable way to present oneself is to dress like a six year-old. And when that day comes, none of us will feel free–just undignified and infantilized. Given the choice, I’d rather be coerced into looking like an adult than a child.

Jared concluded that “We are born naked; everything else is cosplay.” The implication I took away from that was that the suit and tie are no more artificial than anything else someone might choose to wear.  I haven’t spoken to either Jared or Lord Whimsy about this, but what they seem to be arguing is that all clothes are pretense, pure affectation laid over top of the — ahem — naked truth of our physical bodies.

I respectfully disagree. To explain why, I’m going to use an extreme example to illustrate a point: 

There is a distinctive article of clothing that is usually worn by Catholic priests when they go out in public, the black shirt with the white collar. There are some other vestments that may or may not be worn with it, but the shirt and collar are the most distinctive parts of the outfit.

Now, as far as I am aware, there is no law that prohibits me from going out and getting a black shirt with a priest’s collar and wearing it as I go about my daily business. But even if I don’t say anything about it, even if I do nothing else to try to convince people that I’m a priest, people will ASSUME that I am and they will treat me accordingly. And that would be disingenuous of me, because I’m not a priest. The outfit would encourage people to draw false conclusions about who and what I was, and I might be able to use those false conclusions to manipulate them into reacting to me the way I wanted them to.

Like I said, that’s an extreme example, — but I think that we can do the same thing with other kinds of clothes. Our clothing — like hairstyles, jewelry, piercings, tattoos, or any other form of body modification — is a way of making a statement about ourselves to the people around us. And just like the words we say, that statement can be something true, or it can be a lie. Our manner of dress can be a window into our inner self, or it can be a façade that we put up to disguise what lies below the surface.

For me, the jeans and t-shirts that I wear in my everyday life are making an accurate statement about me. I value comfort and practicality, clothes that can take some abuse before wearing out. I don’t want to spend a lot of time or money on clothing because there are other things that are more important to me. My shirts usually have some sort of snarky or humorous message on them, and that reveals something else about my personality.

When I put on a suit, I’m putting on a costume. The jacket, the tie, the uncomfortable shoes, and the cuff-links, all of them represent a persona that is different from the person I am in my everyday life. Sometimes, that’s not a bad thing: weddings, funerals and other formal engagements are the rituals of modern society, and we put on costumes in order to symbolize that these events are special moments that are set apart from our daily lives. We willingly put on those costumes and subsume our own identities into the collective identity of the community – because, in that moment, our individual identities are less important than the role we’re playing. We symbolically become the community that is bearing witness to these important moments, and in so doing we take the attention off of ourselves and put it where it belongs: on the people we are honoring with the ritual.

If I were to adopt that same persona in my daily life, though, it would not be an accurate depiction of my inner self. That suit, that costume, would become a barrier between me and the world, a layer of emotional defense that would lead people to draw false conclusions about the kind of person I was. For me, it would be an affectation, because it would be using a medium of self-expression to say something untrue about myself.

Now, I hasten to add that what is an affectation for me might not be an affectation for someone else. If you find that wearing a tie or a sport coat leads to a better expression of your inner self, then by all means go for it. The beauty of our relaxed attitude toward modern fashion is that you can CHOOSE to dress as casually, formally, or eccentrically as you wish. It’s not as if anyone at the office is going to disapprove if you choose to wear a suit, and even at a science fiction convention, the bouncers aren’t going to throw you out for dressing inappropriately because you showed up in a blazer.

Contrary to what Lord Whimsy says, formal clothes have not disappeared; they’ve just become optional. Corporate America has recognized that people do not have to subsume their personalities beneath a standard uniform of suits and ties in order to be capable, effective workers. The lack of a uniform standard for “proper” attire gives us more flexibility to choose clothes that reflect who we are. That’s the true measure of whether an outfit is an affectation or authentic: not whether it’s fancy or simple, formal or casual, but whether it is a true expression of yourself.

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