Blog of Bermanism

In the short time since my previous post, I’m rediscovered my confidence and my cheery optimism, mostly. However, in coming out of that state, I find myself in an even more confusing condition, that of having multiple conflicting emotions at all times, hence the title of the post. In biology, the structure of proteins has several states: primary structure is the linear sequence of amino acids that make up the protein; the secondary structure refers to the areas of the protein that interact and fold over on each other in a two dimensional representation; the teritary structure is the three-dimensional form that the final, active protein takes on, which allows it to perform its function in your cells; and, finally, the quaternary structure is the state of multiple proteins interacting to form a complex that performs a function independent of the function of each of the proteins that make up the complex. Thus, the cliche, “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts,” holds very true in biology as in everything else.

Which brings me back to my original point, I find myself in this hyper-emotional state that is very confusing to me. I’m generally not a very emotional person. I think I’m always friendly, open, honest, generally positive and happy. But, I think that I largely approach life from a non-emotional, logical standpoint. In fact, I think most men find themselves in this category. I feel emotions, but they don’t always affect me in apparent ways. When they do affect me, I try to apply logic to them and quickly discover the source for the instability and immediately set out to find a rapid solution to the problem that will result in my return to a hypoemotional and logical state of being.

But, in the last few weeks, as the birth of my baby grows ever nearer, I find that there just isn’t a logical way back to my ground state of being. I find myself in a constant state of excited-nervous-loving-anxious-happy-worry-terrified-ness. And, the strangest part of all of it is that I find myself being more dependent upon Rachel for emotional support, which is very counter to the role that I’m supposed to take right now, to be the emotional support for her (and every other kind of support you can imagine). So, the idiom, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, applies even to this crazy emotional state that I’m in right now. My daddy books tell me that this is really common, that fathers-to-be increase their dependence on their wives/significant others during the last month or so of pregnancy. There’s really no logic to it, just that the men’s needs are seldom met during this time (which is understandable).

In addition to my growing dependence on Rachel, I find this emotional state to be very distracting. This comes at a terrible time since I need to be more focused now than I have been in a very long time as I try to finish up as much of my work as possible before the baby arrives. I’m not sure if this state is the cause of my stress directly, or whether the stress is a result of the effect that this state has on my work. Either way, it sucks.

One, entirely unexpected revelation in all of this is that I think I now understand what women go through during PMS. I’ve witnessed Rachel breaking out into fits of laughing, crying, and stomping her feet all at once. I remember thinking to myself, “Self, that’s gotta be messed up!” and deciding that I was very lucky not to have to ever go through something like that. One emotion at a time is quite enough for me, thank you very much. But, now that I find myself in exactly that position, I understand that it is, indeed, messed up!

So, since the only cure for the quaternary emotional state is the birth of my child, I guess I can find solace in a tall glass of beer in the mean time. The beer tends to remove at least two emotional states from my seven simultaneous emotions, which is far more manageable. I’m kidding, obviously. Having a baby has not driven me to drink. If anything, it has driven me to drink less than before, which would put me at next to nothing, since I don’t drink much anyhow.

So, on that note *raises glass of beer*, here’s to the entirely unknown and quickly approaching future, and, hopefully, the to end of the quaternary emotional state.

Firstly, no, I do not have SARS, but it freaking feels like it. I got pretty sick after my little skiing-stunt with Chris in Lake Tahoe this year. I was blessed with the same cold that everyone else in the universe got, complete with a cough that never completely went away. It mostly went away until a few days ago, when some unknown and mostly-horrible smell started to pervade our apartment. Rachel’s currently superhuman sense of smell found the foul stench days before I even knew there was a problem. She emptied the trash, cleaned the kitchen, sprayed Febreeze, changed the baby’s diapers (oh wait, not yet…), and still the smell continued to get worse. With her nose to the ground, she followed the acrid smell until she was on the floor in front of her vanity sink in the bedroom. She opened the cabinet underneath and released an intensely powerful smell that I could only classify as decomposing rat. I called our manager and they sent someone out to check it out. They thought the smell was being caused by standing water under the apartment, but removing it didn’t do anything to make it better (and, we talked to the guy to bailed out the water this morning and he said that the water came back the next day and that it was fresh and clear and that he could have drank it. It was not causing the smell). So, we remain in an apartment that smells like a dead guy covered in glade plugins. It’s really pleasant. Want to come over?

Anyway, the point of that story was to illustrate that at the exact same time that the mysterious smell attacked our olfactories, we both started to feel the onset of fairly extreme allergies. In Texas, we both had crazy allergies and took Zyrtec religiously to combat the issues. However, since living in Northern California, neither of us has had any significant problems. I’m allergic to most pollens, so spring time here (which is accompanied by a huge floral bloom in all of the trees) makes me sneeze from time to time and get my trademark swollen eye. But, it is nothing that needs medication and I can usually make it through the spring just fine. But, since the smell, both Rachel and I have been congested and coughing like crazy. It feels like someone dumped acetone down my lungs in my sleep and that I have to cough out the skin that lines them to get rid of the feeling. It is really annoying. And, poor Rachel can’t take anything for it due to her serving as an incubator at the moment. So, I’ve opted to suffer with her (which she thinks is stupid, and probably is, but those medications put me off of my game and I need to be on right now). So, we’ll call it sympathy allergies, since I didn’t gain sympathy weight (I actually lost a little). So, the allergies are driving us nuts. We’ve narrowed the list of allergens to two possible sources, spontaneous interdimentional aggregation and mold. Both of us are intensely allergic to molds, and, it turns out that dead things mold, a lot, and the spores are released from death molds can travel pretty far to find more dead things to feed off of. So, we’re back to the dead thing, which is probably stuck under the baseboard of Rachel’s sink cabinet. I suppose that the good news is that it’ll be gone, along with the mold in a couple of weeks. In the mean time, we both suffer, some of us needlessly.

In addition to this crazy SARS-like condition, I’ve found myself to be horribly stressed out. The impending birth of my child, while exciting and wonderful, is causing me all sorts of trouble in the rest of my life. My job as a Neuroscience Researcher, as many of you know, is kind of demanding. You really have to work your ass off to get anywhere in the field. Up until recently, I’d been trying to operate on the principle that a good amount of quality work yields the same quantity of results as working inhuman hours. I’m not sure if I’ve disproven that ideology, but it has definitely gone out of the window for me right now. I’ve essentially got 3 – 5 weeks left until we have our child and my productivity drops dramatically. I’ve decided that I need to have the vast majority of my Parkinson’s project completed within this time frame so that I can work on the data and writing of the paper at home while bouncing the little one on one knee. It turns out that I bit off a lot in trying to accomplish this goal. I have an insane amount of work to do, but I’m getting through it in around 60 – 85 hours/week. It’s back to grad school times for me right now.

In addition to trying to finish my project, I have three other projects that I’m trying to move forward on, two collaborations with other people in my lab, the entire mouse colony to maintain (~1500 animals), and the rest of my responsibilities in the lab to cover. It is a little nuts. But, wait, there’s more!

In addition to Rachel’s unfortunate feelings of hugeness, her constant need for urination, and the large amount of emotional support that I should be giving her right now, I have a lot of stuff to do around the house to prepare for the baby, which largely removes my ability to work on the weekends. I’m fine with all of it, it is just a lot to deal with, and I’m so freaking tired all of the time that I think my ability to take things as they come and relax has been worn down. Work has been a mess for me. I’m really stressed out about all of it and I’m letting people get to me more than usual. I’m not going to expand on that topic, you can email me for details. But, suffice it to say that I need to get back to the place where I’m confident in my abilities as a scientist despite what others may or may not think about me. I’m usually very good at being confident without the approval of other people that don’t matter much. But, the last few months have worn that ability down for me. If I can manage to get that back, my cheery optimism will return with it.

Anyway, I’ve rambled on long enough. With any luck, I’ll have a more positive outlook on things by this weekend and I’ll be able to post a cheerier post, unless out government screws all of that up too. They’re working on causing as much damage as possible in their last 10 months. Go team!

I’ll write more about this later, because I have some serious concerns, but for now, I was browsing Fark and found this comment, in response to an article stating the severity of the economic crisis. For those non-farkers, the word “fark” is a synonym for the obvious four letter curse word that it closely resembles. Just sayin’:

How farked is farked? A few days ago it was going to be the worst recession since the early 70’s. Yesterday I heard it compared to the 1950’s. And now we’ve crossed the Great Depression threshold. And it’s only Monday! I’m going to get ahead of the curve here and compare it to the comet impact that burst “the dinosaur bubble” c.150 million BC. Sell! Sell! Sell! I suggest a diverse portfolio of cave paintings, fur loincloths, very large wooden clubs, and raw meat to weather the coming troubles. Watch CNBC for further updates.

No one could have predicted that letting a semi-retarded dry drunk with a history of abject business failure run the country for 8 years might end up having negative economic consequences.

I don’t like what’s happening here. I think the government’s response to the situation is retarded (any situation, actually), and I think that my Iguana, drunk, blind, and bleeding could do a better job of fixing the problem than they have. I mean really, “Oooh, oooh, let’s send everyone $600! That’ll fix everything!” == logic of retarded test monkeys on crack.

But then, logic appears to be increasingly fleeting these days. More on this topic later.

This past President’s day weekend marked the 7th annual Skiing Addicts Anonymous ski trip. For the first time since the ski trip’s inception, we did not go to Winter Park, Colorado. There were a lot of reasons for this (time away from work, expense, Rachel is 8 months pregnant), but, mainly it was because the group wanted to try something different. Winter Park remains one of my favorite places to ski in the world, but it is a big world and there are a whole lot of other places for us to explore. So, mostly out of convenience, we ventured to Lake Tahoe this year for the ski trip. I’ve been there a few times, but have never really skied the big, legendary ski resorts. So, with the help of my cousin Adam and the enormous generosity of his best friend’s family, we procured a cabin right on Lake Tahoe, striking distance from many of Lake Tahoe’s best ski resorts.

Sadly, the vast majority of the usual suspects couldn’t come on the trip this year. But, the people that did come made for an absolutely fantastic group. My trusty skiing sidekick and one of my closest friends, Chris, can always be relied upon to come on the ski trip, and he didn’t disappoint this year. He enthusiastically flew in from Portland to foray into the unknown lands of the Lake Tahoe ski areas. The rest of the people on the trip were from the Bay Area. Rachel came along for the first time since 2002 (and it was great to have her there), my cousin Adam was there, my closest bay area friend, Ken (who rows with me) and his girlfriend Kelly came along, and our rowing friends, Allison and Trent, joined the herd. Trent and Allison largely did their own thing skiing-wise; they both took snowboarding lessons and joined us for breakfast and for dinner every night. Kelly and Rachel don’t ski, so they relaxed to the insanely beautiful view of the lake from the cabin’s picture windows. So, the group that was skiing together was myself, Adam, Ken, and Chris. This combination proved to be a recipe for an effortlessly good time.

We all skied at about the same pace doing about the same level of difficulty of runs. Which made the experience both exhausting and wonderful. We decided that we would ski a different resort every day, a flight of resorts, if you will. We went to Squaw, Northstar and Alpine Meadows. We really enjoyed all three resorts. Squaw had some absolutely amazing terrain and a really neat layout. My favorite part of Squaw was Granite Chief. With great snow conditions, you could spend days exploring the different features a type of terrain back there. Plus, the view from High Camp is hard to beat. The only unfortunate part about Squaw was the quality of the snow. It was icy in the morning and evening and a little slushy otherwise, but that is California skiing for you. Chris and I attempted to ski KT-22 at the end of the day, but it was a solid mass of crusty snow. Chris made the comment that a snowball would have tripped you because it was solidly frozen to the ground. Squaw was great though, and Adam was a great guide through the complicated mountain. I’d love to go back after a big snow storm and check out all of the hidden treasures that the mountain has to offer.

Next, we went to Northstar. Now, the day was Saturday on President’s weekend, so things were a lot more crowded than Friday at Squaw (though I’m sure Squaw was a nightmare as well on Saturday). But, we managed to get to the top and went directly to the backside. We had a blast. The black runs at Northstar are mostly like difficult blue runs everywhere else, except that they’re all at least a mile long. It was a perfect way to spend the morning, so we hung out on the back side and skied as many of the runs over there as possible. The snow was a little better at Northstar than at Squaw, so we really enjoyed tearing it up. We packed our lunches that day and ate outside at some picnic tables at the top of the mountain (it was probably 45 degrees at the top). That was really nice. Then, we headed over to Lookout Mountain, where I had discovered the actually hard runs that are over there. We skied a few of the easier ones, then headed down Stampede. This was a seriously hard run. It was really, really steep at the top and most of the people on the run were on their butts the whole way down. I don’t think people realized how hard it was until they were on it, and then they stuck and had to get down the run. Anyway, it was really fun. Ken made it down the run without getting hurt, which was both impressive and a relief (he tends to get hurt a lot). He then told us that he isn’t doing that kind of run anymore and we all went on to the next run over, which was easier, but still hard. Then we spent the rest of the day doing some screamer runs, and finished up in the terrain park where Chris and I fell on top of each other twice, once on a rail and once in the trees. Oh, I almost forgot. It got so warm in the afternoon that Adam and Chris took off their shirts and were skiing with their jackets open and nothing underneath them for the whole day. It was great, except that Chris ended up with some really nice snow rash from the fall off of the rail.

The last day was spent at Alpine Meadows, which was also a blast. We had the honor of being joined by Kelly’s friend, Shannon for the day. She totally kept up with us, so the dynamic stayed the same, and it was fun to have a girl along. None of us had had much experience with Alpine, so we were all flying in the dark. But, it turned out to have some really interesting terrain and some really hard stuff to ski. I loved the layout and we really made the most of the day there. We explored as many parts of the mountain as possible, including the backside (which involved hiking a good 1/2 mile from the top of the mountain to the high traverse). Unfortunately, Sun Bowl on the backside was a slush puddle because that day was even warmer than at Northstar. So we waterskied down and got off of the backside, back to the better snow. I think one of our favorite runs at Alpine was Wolverine bowl, which was a double-black diamond. It wasn’t actually that hard, just steep. You could get up some serious speed down that run, and it was a real blast. Alpine also had a lot of mogul runs, which made me happy, except that the snow was really carved out, the moguls were the size of four of me, and the snow was running really fast, so I had a hard time skiing them. For the piste de resistance, Chris did his yearly naked run for the last run of the ski trip. This year, though, I had vowed to do it with him. So, we got to the top of the lift that let out most of the way to the top, skied out into the sun, stripped down to our skivvies, stuffed our clothes into our backpacks and skied all the way to the bottom in nothing but our underwear with Adam following behind us with the video camera. I’ve gotta say, this was a much more liberating experience than I expected and I got a real adrenaline rush from it. I wasn’t very cold at all (and the sun had gone down at this point and things had really cooled down). Plus the comments, looks, and people’s general reaction to Chris and I doing this crazy thing were genuinely amusing. This one woman stopped us on the mountain so that she could take our picture. And, we had a following of young snowboarders who had made it their sole purpose to make us fall. When we didn’t fall, they started throwing snow balls at us. We just took it in stride and went along with it. We got to the base and walked out the car still stripped down. I’m sure all of the parents of all of the young children really appreciated it, but we didn’t care. It was really fun and I’ll certainly do it again next year. Unfortunately, I think the experience pushed me over the edge with getting a really crappy cold that I still have the tail end of after two weeks. But, I’d do it all again.

Anyway, this post has gotten long enough, but it was such an amazing ski trip this year, especially being able to come home to Rachel and Kelly and Izzy and just relaxing and enjoying some seriously great company. I’m not sure what we’ll do next year, especially since we’ll have a 10 month old baby on our hands, but we’ll probably do something. This year was effortless, it just worked, everyone was happy, and we all went home feeling like our skiing itch had been well scratched. So, until next year.