Yellowstone

I just spent the weekend in Yellowstone, where I gave two talks, and spent all day Saturday driving 'the loop', and stopping to see all the things. We saw a wolf! And so many bison. And a bunch of elk. And cranes and pelicans and too many wildflowers to count. We had a wonderful time. But here's what I learned about the talks...

First talk: science talk about the lives of stars. more or less a week of intro astronomy lecture compressed into an hour. I committed my usual nonsense, of making them 'Class, repeat after me.' and also participate in more meaningful ways, designed to help them remember that there are multiple ways for a star to die, and one of them is fast and 'loud' and one is slow and 'quiet', and a third is nothing really happening at all, just a fading away. This was very well received, and our friend Melanie, who has the ___fortune to be married to a dedicated amateur astronomer, claims she will even invite all her friends to come if I come back next year. Given that she is a potter, who has no interest whatsoever in astronomy, and hates to go to star parties, this seems like success. And that was all fine, and many people thought it was great. But I knew something different was coming. I could feel it percolating along under my conscious thoughts. Many people came back the second day, for:

Second talk: constellation stories. Ok. This is performance art, and not really science. I was really, really nervous about this. I've never done it without stars, so if it was cloudy, I didn't know what I was going to do. I've never done it in front of ~400 people, and I'd never done it in this type of venue, with mostly members of the general public, only a few of whom knew me and most of whom would be tired from a long day in the sun. But it went great. Better than great. It was inspired. I know, because I was there, being inspired by the venue, and the lighting, and the kids I kept dragging up on stage to help me act out the parts.

Before it was really dark, I started with a part about the tides, and had the kids up there 'dancing' the solar system, and figuring out why 'neap' comes from 'neafte' which is Saxon for scarcity. And some poor teenager was bored being the sun, and the moon and the earth had lots to do. Well, it's not always best to be the biggest and the brightest. Sometimes that means you have to just stand there and hold the solar system together.

Then I told the story of the Seven Wives Who Ate Onions. But I had no stars, because it was cloudy. I asked, and there were many fans of the Pleiades and the Hyades, but most people didn't know what I was talking about. So I brought three kids up, to be Orion, Taurus and the Pleiades, all in their line in the night sky. Orion struck his hunter pose, and Taurus used his fingers as horns, and the girl did her best to be multiple personality-ed. And so. It was hysterical, and everyone laughed and applauded and the kids were great, and then I told the story in my usual way, with all the waddling around hugely pregnant, and the men all confused, and all the drama of terrible winters waiting oh so impatiently for the miracle of a green shoot coming out of the ground. And there was lots of laughter and applause.

And then I told the story of Ursa Major, and the long tail on the bear (during which it occured to me to wonder if we ask the question wrong-way-round, and should be wondering why modern bears have short tails). And I wound up with two kids up there, one of whom was Callisto, and one was Zeus. In the middle, I just about panicked, because I realized that these two little kids were supposed to fall in love and have a child, but the boy saved it all, and was a trooper, and it worked out great. Because when I said that 'Zeus had a secret, he ALREADY HAD A WIFE!' the little kid said 'This is getting better for me all the time', which was a laugh line I couldn't have made up myself. And there was more laughter and nuttiness. And Zeus, despite the fact that he winds up looking like a nimrod, was really happy to play the part, and will probably talk about it all the rest of his days.

And then I closed with the Clash of the Titans, which is my favorite story to tell, but I added in this new thing, where half the audience was the sea monster, saying 'roar', and the other half was Andromeda, saying 'Help me, help me, help me' in this tiny little voice. And it was probably the best performance of this story in 1,000 years. Because you don't get a better setting than right in front of National Park Mountain, and you don't get a better audience than people on vacation, and you don't get better lighting than a campfire off to one side, and you don't get a better background set of noises than those made by elk settling down for the night next to the river. And it was magical and wonderful, and I was on fire, and I hope I get to do it again, because if there's one thing in life that I really love, it's telling stories that have been told for thousands and thousands of years; since even before we knew how to write them down. And it's better than television, and different than a play, because it's different when it's live, and when it's a single person's take on a single story and what it has to tell you about who we are. Every day, I'm a different person, and so I tell the story a different way, and it means something different to the people who take the time to listen. We make something brand new out of the past, and fold it into our common experience, and carry it, like a child, held inside us, close under our hearts.

Bummer.

But not really. Er, only sort of.

So they were really pleased with the work I did. They called it 'creative' and 'clever' and 'well-written'. The editor said that the end-of-chapter pieces were particularly nice, and made him actually want to find out the answers.

However. The reason it took so long for them to get back to me is that they were unable to hammer out a compromise about the future of the book with the prior authors (not specifically related to me in any way, apparently). So the entire project is canceled. Which, if you think about it, means I dodged a bullet. They must be impossible to work with, if they couldn't even keep the project alive!

The editor is finding other work for me to do, because he wants me to keep some space in my schedule until their other astronomy textbook needs a new author (probably next year). Which is kudos for me.

So I'm bummed, but not as bummed as I could be... and at least it opens up the area in my head that I had been reserving for that project!

Still Waiting...

to hear from New York. This is two weeks past THEIR deadline.

8P

But in the meantime, we have family in town, and that's keeping us pretty busy!

Good Dogs!

An update about doggie boot camp, now that Smokey is well, and can actually leave the property... Dinner last night and breakfast this morning were not delivered until they were polite. Such a shock! Their little faces when I kept putting their dinner back in the pantry as soon as they broke their 'wait' were hilarious. This is not the way they expect things to go...

This morning, I walked the two-headed monster down to the pond and back. By the end of the walk, I had TWO slack leashes, and could just look around at the birds and the sunshine. Our "meet and greets" need practice, though. Poor Smokey is just so interested in people! He breaks his "sit, wait" as soon as they speak to him. But, given that we are now convinced that he was only about 7 months old when we got him, I am pleased with his progress. He only jumps up in front of people about half the time now (and rarely actually on them).

They are back to only being allowed out in the backyard one at a time, unless I'm right there with nothing to do but pay attention to them! While on the one hand, their running around kills some energy, on the other hand, they just get more hyped up. Not to mention completely filthy. Good thing we have a porch we can close them into!

I'm pondering some agility training for both of them. They could use a job where they can learn to work together... at something besides stealing my sandwiches off of the counter!

Perfecting New Mexico Green Chile

So here's what we've learned so far...

Anaheim peppers ARE the correct variety.
They grow just fine here in Utah, and they are always available at Carlos'.

Once you've got some in your hand, here's what you do:
Fire up the grill, as hot as you can make it.
Layer the chiles on the lowest rack.
Close the grill, and wait patiently.
Turn them when they start to blacken and blister.
Then turn them again.
Keep doing that, until they are totally black and blistered all over. It will look like you did it wrong, and you'll be nervous.

Dump the hot chiles into a heavy paper or plastic bag, and close it up tight.
Then leave them there. Once they are cool, you can put them in the fridge, but don't peel them yet.
Wait a couple of days. (This is very hard, because you want to eat them right away. But they need time for the roasted flavor to get into the 'meat' of the chile.)
Open 'em up and slip off the peel, which should just fall right off, practically.
Enjoy deeeeee-licious NMGC goodness, layered into everything humans can consume. Especially green chile-goat cheese-breakfast burritos. And cheeseburgers. And ham sandwiches. Who'm I kidding? I'd just about eat the plastic bag, and call it a sandwich!

Oh, BTW, don't let the dog get them off the counter while your back is turned. BAD DOG.

What I've been up to...

just to catch up, a little...

I've given a couple of talks---at USU, at ATK, and am getting ready to meet with the teachers for the summer class. This means I spend a lot of time on hold with the power company in Brigham City, among other things. ; )

I'm organizing lessons again. Which is not as much of a drag as it sounds, now that I've made everyone else responsible for themselves.

Our new pup has pneumonia. Poor little tyke. I got him an emergency roast beef sandwich today, because he was so pathetic. We've been working on him for the last ten days, and now have pulled out the big guns, antibiotically speaking. I just wish he would be able to breathe through his nose.

Trinkie and I are sneaking up on a reliable canter pirouette. If only all our tests consisted primarily of collected canter... we'd clean up.

We have a new fence to keep the dogs and the chickens separate.

We have newly re-upholstered chairs.

We have starts for the garden. Lots and lots of starts for the garden. Pretty soon, J's going to start complaining that I moved his cheese, and put baby tomatoes on it.

We have an asparagus bed! Now THAT is a commitment.

I have shredded years and years of old bills, bank statements, etc. We now have a filing system. With things in their files. With labels.

We have a new chicken coop. I cleaned out the old one. It wasn't nearly as disgusting as you think.

We have turned the compost heap, sorted out the brush pile and the woodpile and the compost pile.

We are about to have a new picnic table.

We have a long-term landscape plan, which includes tearing up the old driveway, and replacing it with plants. Nobody should have more driveway than house.

Phew.

Off to water the asparagus...

Smokey

Mom! Calm down. Lots of people have two dogs. Now we do, too. It's ok! Really.

This is Smokey. I was thinking of a puppy, since I have time at the moment. But then I saw this dog on the internet at the shelter in Park City. And he'd been at another shelter for two weeks. And black dogs, for whatever reason, are nearly unadoptable. And everyone wants a puppy. But maybe nobody wants this dog. Except maybe us. And then he leaned against my legs in that completely endearing way that Aussies do when they want you to take them home. So we did. He's got the twinkly toes. He's got the soulful eyes. He's almost got the eyebrows. He sleeps at my feet while I write in my blog. He's got the softest fur imaginable. And he and Captain think this is the best thing that ever happened to them.

Oh, and he needs to be taught to NOT chase the chickens. But he'll get that figured out. Soon.

Synchronicity

Yesterday, I went to give a talk at a nearby University. While I spent time thinking about it ahead of time, it took me all of an hour to prepare for this talk, and I wasn't nervous at all. In the middle of the talk, someone asked me about astroseismology and whether one of the oscillation modes could be responsible for the phenomenon I was trying to explain. Not that long ago, this would have made me nervous, and worked up. But I just said, 'I'm more or less completely ignorant about astroseismology, but I would guess that...' and it was fun to talk about. And fun to think about. And fun to argue about.

I was thinking about this afterwards, wondering what's different. Then, this morning, I was catching up with fellow bloggers, and find that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert, and yes, I probably have much more than that invested at this point, and so of course I feel like I can admit ignorance, defend my ideas, discuss new ideas thoughtfully and generally just have a good time giving talks. Even to physicists. Because, apparently, I'm an expert. Huh.

Subtle changes

Before I went to Socorro, I'd developed a bit of a wind phobia. Sometimes the wind here, near the mouth of Strong's Canyon, is pretty extreme. It has been known to blow the Adirondack chairs right off the deck.

But Socorro might also be called Sirocco, because it's really windy all the time there. So much so that people build adobe walls around their houses to keep their stuff from blowing away.

After about three months of cowering at night in my A-frame, I started to get annoyed. The fine desert grit blew right under the door and through the window frames. It got in my food, it got on my toothbrush. It coated the floor and the bathtub and made mud when I showered. Then, after about another month, I stopped noticing it all together.

We've got a bit of wind here at home tonight, the kind that used to make me cower under the covers.

It sounds like the sea.

Random Findings...

On Friday, I was cleaning out the furnace room. We store our outdoor gear in there---snowshoes and skis and tents and sleeping bags and, well you get the idea. It occurred to me that some shelves would be helpful. So I was putting them in.

I bumped a shelf into the duct work, and a little metal rectangle, a bit larger than an index card, fell down onto the floor with a loud clatter. I gasped because I thought I'd poked a hole in the duct, and stood on tiptoe to look at the duct work. And I saw this piece of brown paper. Which, naturally, I pulled on. It was a paper bag. Whatever was inside was heavy. As I pulled it toward the edge of the duct, a perfectly ordinary quarter fell on the floor. My brows furrowed and my heart thumped. I pulled the bag out, and held it in my hand for a long moment. A moment fraught with this much sheer, unexpected possibility had to be shared with someone else. So I brought the bag inside and put it on the kitchen table. Then I went out and did a bunch of other things while I waited for J. It was 3:50, and he was supposed to be home at 4. I kept wandering through the kitchen to stare at the bag until 4:40, when he FINALLY came home. At that point, I was coming in from the chicken coop with four eggs in my hand.

I said, "Come on! I've got something to show you! I didn't open it yet, because I wanted you to be here! Four eggs! Look!" which, naturally, made no sense at all to him.

As I was putting the eggs in the fridge, J casually opened the bag. I was telling him all about it, but I don't think he heard me, because I had to tell it again later. Inside the bag? More than $1000 worth of silver coins (according to wikipedia).

I told the story again, dragging J out to the furnace room, where he looked all over for other hidden treasure.

Naturally, the response has been mixed---from disbelief to amazement to envy. But the most interesting one is the response from a friend of a friend, who warned us that we shouldn't talk about it. We should keep it quiet. We shouldn't mention it out loud. Because the old owners might come and want the money back. Or get a court order to tear the house apart looking for more. I think less than charitable things about his view of the world.

Which brings me to another random finding, this one inside my own head. Apparently, I have a sincere faith in the Universe's own peculiar brand of justice. If anyone showed up with a court order to tear my house apart over $1000 in coins, I wouldn't even have to do anything. Likely, the big pine tree in the front yard would fall on their heads, and drive them like a nail down into the sewer line. So I'm just not worried about this. Instead, I'm just childishly excited by the buried treasure that I found, and I'm having fun making up stories of how the money got there. All the sudden, I'm living in Nancy Drew's or Trixie Belden's universe. How fun is that?

Home

I've been home for a week now, and things are finally starting to settle down a little, so that I have time to check in here. Between going to get the ponies, and getting them settled in, and re-learning how to sit on my re-trained pony, and touching all my stuff, and checking in at work, and calling all the people who need to come and do things, and talking to my mom on the phone for THREE HOURS, and having sore muscles, and losing and finding all the bits of paper that document all my activities, and actually cooking food, and actually going out to not-Mexican restaurants, and taking the dog for walkies, and training him not to pull on the leash or chase chickens, ponies or children, and getting bikes tuned and assembled, and dropping off and picking up dry cleaning, and doing laundry (in the house!), and cleaning floors and washing dishes, and planting seeds, and learning how to live with someone else again, and getting new glasses, and signing up for landscape design classes, and cleaning up after the annual disaster known as winter, all I can say is...

I'm so happy to be home. But I'm not sure how I'll ever have time for a job. How did I ever fit it in?

Things I learned from Larry...

1) Take everyone at their own value. Larry Miller was one of the good guys. I met him when I served on the Board of Directors of the Clark Planetarium. He was the Chairman of the Board, and I was the token scientist. (And also the token woman, in a Board of 16. Oh, and token educator, as well. I wore a lot of hats there.) But while the Board was constructed in this way, I never once felt it from him. From the very first meeting, his leadership style was distinguished by an appreciation for what each individual had to bring to the Board. Occasionally, there would be discussions about absent board members, discussing whether they should continue on the Board, because their ability to bring money to the planetarium was inadequate. But Larry never applied this metric to me, instead recognizing that my 'in-kind' contributions were as valuable as any from the business or financial community.

2) Money is just numbers on paper. I'll never forget the day I heard him say this. It was a revelation to me, and caused such a deep and abiding change in my attitude towards money that it was a dividing point in my life. There was 'before' I had this idea, and 'after' I had this idea. It's one thing to hear me (a middle-class professor of physics) say this. It's another thing entirely to hear it from a self-made multi-millionaire, with hundreds of millions of dollars in assets. This was later re-inforced by reading Making Money by Terry Pratchett---'the dream of money'. But it was Larry who helped me get over a lifelong neurosis about earning and spending and debt. Just in time for this recession. For which J thanks him endlessly, no doubt.

3) If you get 'em in the door, the money will follow. He said this all the time, over and over. Probably because it was so different than the way the Director thought about things. He meant that if you got people to come to the IMAX (a low-profit-margin item), they would also go to the snack bar and the store (high-profit-margin items), but they wouldn't come for the popcorn. So don't try to sell them popcorn. Sell them IMAX tickets, and make it easy for them to buy popcorn. Now, this might not seem to apply to my life as a physics professor. But it does. Sell them astronomy, and make it easy for them to buy math.

4) First rule of business: Make it easy for them to give you money. Yes. This has made our little planetarium the success that it is. It's not something that occurs to you at first, when you are spending all your time worrying about the product. But you have to spend as much time worrying about the delivery. Really. You do.

5) A good marketing campaign will cost you $1/head. So you'd better plan for bigger profit margins than that. This is all of a piece with learning about a hundred business principles, which he taught me in this specific context, but which mostly taught me to think about businesses as an objective series of decisions to make. Business is a game. It has rules, but even more than that, it has probabilities. The key to being successful in business is balancing your probabilities. It's like poker that way.

6) Sometimes a single phrase, from the right person, at the right time, can change a person's life.

7) Cry when you are moved to do so, and don't worry about who sees it. Even if you are a man.

8) It's really, really fun to write a check for $250,000 to support work you believe in.

9) Each of us has a responsibility to others. Everyone has something to give. And finding out what that is, and how to give it, is the best work of your life.

Rest in peace, Larry. I hope the heaven you believe in is waiting for you.

What is the word?

One of the tragedies of modern times is that so many words have fallen out of use. That weakens our ability to think and communicate in detail. My favorite example is 'melancholy', which describes a very specific, non-clinical emotional state. When I am melancholy, no other word will do. But the word is rarely used these days. I'm always on the lookout for feelings or experiences for which I have no word. And then I either make one up, or spend a lot of time looking for the word. And then I try to get other people to use it too. But just now, I'm stumped.

I'm learning to play bridge, and am filled with a sort of awe-struck, joyful laughter at how complicated it is. I can't help but shake my head at people, but not in a mad way, or as though I don't understand, just sort of an incredulous but admiring and good-natured 'Wow! People! Wow!' kind of way. (See how I don't have a word for this!?)

Let me explain a little. To play bridge, you confine yourself to fifteen words (one thru seven, the four suits, and a few extra), and then try to communicate the precise state of your 13 cards to someone else using only those fifteen words. There are entire systems of communication, and you are only allowed to do very specific things in those systems. And people take this VERY SERIOUSLY.

As a physicist, I might say, pompously, 'Well, yes, complication, of course.' But this is not the complication of nature, which is necessarily complicated, and can only be simplified so far before your idea doesn't represent the reality anymore. Bridge is an artificial complication---a system of rules that take years to learn, and decades to master. And it serves no practical purpose! How complicated are the rules? I have just received a summary of the American system. It runs 42 pages.

Wow! People! Wow! I wonder what the word is for this feeling?

PC or not PC?

I have the pleasure of teaching Honors 1500 in the fall. This is 'Perspectives in Physical Science', which means it can be pretty much anything I want. The last time I taught it, I did cosmology. Sure, I could do that again, but why? Just 'cause it's easier? I SCOFF at the notion.

My first thought was to do the environmental physics class I've been working on, with a slightly more policy-oriented focus, but I think that will just mess up my head for the later course. Besides. This is a chance to bust out and take a risk and do whatever. So then I had this idea: Physics @ Home. Not standard physics experiments in your house, but the physics OF your house. Physics of cooking, physics of cleaning, physics of heating, cooling, electricity, etc.

So, I can't be the only one who's ever had this idea, right? So I went looking to see what's out there in the world of books. Amazon turns up several, the most recent published in 1946. There IS a Science of Cooking book---I have this in my library at home, and have enjoyed it immensely. But nothing about the other topics at this level (although I've pinged my most edu-alert colleague to see what he knows). There's a Physics of Everyday Phenomena, but this is not quite the topical thing that I'm seeking---too many airplanes, not enough vacuum cleaners.

Please note that even GOOGLE (!) turns up zippo on the subject. GOOGLE! Crazy talk. I did a couple of specific searches, some of which turned up valuable info. Most of them did not. There's a physics of the microwave oven, for example. Which seems to mostly consist of lighting things on fire or exploding them. Very little on standing waves...

So this has got me wondering. Is this an idea whose time has come around again? Was the whole idea dropped because no one thought it was interesting? Because physicists traditionally have stay-at-home spouses? Because we've thoroughly divorced our lives from our work, and never the twain shall meet? Or because it seems too girly? Because we stopped teaching home-ec?

But what about the stay-at-home dad? Surely he wants to know why only egg whites beat up into that incredible froth? And why it falls if there's even a teeny bit of yolk? And why is a copper pan better anyway? Right? Or why is it so flippin' hard to get beef juice out of a pan, but not burned on veggies? Or how does low-e glass work? Right? Or why water makes that cool shape coming out of the faucet, almost always with a twist in it---where does the twist come from? And why is the sprayer attachment so much better at getting gunk off the sink? And what's the deal with teflon anyway? And why does the smoke go up the chimney instead of into the house? And why does soap work? And what does a GFCI do, and why do I need one in the bathroom? And why are CFLs loaded with mercury, and how do they actually save energy? And how does the water get up the corn stalk in the garden anyhow? And when I siphon out my fish tank, how does that work? And what's up with water levels?

Oh! Or the physics of beer, hello! I KNOW some people are interested in this topic!

Doesn't everyone want to know these things? I mean, Alton Brown! Right? That's a whole show devoted to this science in the kitchen.

And then I was wondering why we are surprised that there aren't more women in physics. Nobody talks about the physics of your oven. What's up with that? I don't mean to say that it's all women would be interested in, although I realize it sounds that way! But ovens are something everyone should be interested in. Right? Absolute, supreme utility---the oven. I've read studies that show that women are interested in biology because they see the utility. Conversely, they lose interest in physics because they perceive it to be non-utilitarian. Not helpful. Not useful. But all the chicks I know (and lots of men) love Alton Brown. And that makes me wonder.

Oh. I am so excited to go back to the classroom, where anything can happen...

Creeped out...

So, I was on a web page, where I had to put in some information.

Several hours later, I was at a completely different web page.

But a special deal regarding the first web page's information showed up in the advertising banner at the top of the page.

Sometimes cookies creep me out.

Spring is coming.

The astronomer in me feels that this is true.

But so does the gardener. After some frustration with web order forms, I've ordered all the seeds for this year's vegetable garden. We finally begin to feel we know how to do it. And there are so many things to try! But mostly tomatoes. And potatoes. Hoo boy! Must be the Irish in me that makes it so that I can buy an 80# sack of potatoes in the fall, and eat them ALL before they sprout! Maybe this year, we won't have to buy 'em!

Home... soon!

Could I have been...

Tim Reynolds makes me want to learn to play... well, anything really. But maybe drums. It's the only thing I could imagine playing with that kind of intensity.

Dude. The guy's seriously amazing. Every time he comes around on my Pod, I have to stop everything else I'm doing.

Word of the Day: Generalist

The local NPR affiliate has a terrific radio program called University Focus, in which a chair or director of a program at UNM is interviewed about what's happening in that department. This weekend's guest was the head of the Education School. She delivered a broad overview of what each person in her area was doing, and how it impacted the broader field. She was able to explain all of this cogently, and talk about the interfaces between the sub-fields so that even I was nodding along. At one point, she paused to explain to the interviewer (unapologetically, I might add) that she is a generalist---curious about everything, hyper-aware of the big picture, and the interconnections between sub-fields. And I thought, 'I'm one of those!' Now, here's what's interesting:

1) I didn't have this word before. I had 'specialist', but not 'generalist', and that says something important about the culture I inhabit. I have never heard one of my colleagues call themselves this. They ALWAYS say they 'specialize in' this or that.

2) Because I didn't know the word, I didn't know myself. I get frustrated with people or situations that require me to specialize. I thought this was a character flaw, not a strength. I work primarily with specialists, and have always been troubled that I just don't obsess about the fourth significant digit in the same way they do. I thought there was something wrong with me, partly because my specialist colleagues so often denigrate the big picture. (i.e. 'The first thing we should do with all these E/PO people is take them out in the backyard and shoot them.' Yep, someone actually said this to me, casually, over lunch. Youch. Still having trouble not over-reacting to the casual shooting talk... I probably over-reacted a little. Ok. Maybe a lot.)

3) Because I didn't know the word, I didn't have the idea, and I couldn't plan around my strengths. Here in Socorro, I've been learning that, while I think it's fun to dabble in specialization, it's not because I'm interested in the specific specialization. It's because I'm interested in the idea of specialization and the people who specialize. Other people are MUCH better at chasing down every last detail, and taking 18 months to get the bandpass right. It's not that I don't care, or don't think it's important. It's just not captivating to me. I'm not intrinsically good at it. Oh, I actually would do it. I'd spend days tamping down the noise in an image, or perfecting the gaussian fit to a maser spot. I'd drag myself to it day after day, instead of rushing to it. And the last few years, the dragging feeling for this kind of work has gotten much, much worse. I thought this meant I was lazy, and getting lazier. Lazy? No. Probably not. It's crazy, the things we do to ourselves in our own heads.

4) The word explains a lot of things that have been mysterious to me. It explains my Black Holes talk. It explains why I'm so good at public talks, and teaching, and E/PO. It explains why people tell me that I could probably talk about tax law, and still make it interesting to a general audience. It explains why some other people are not this way, and can not do this. It explains why my advisor and I had such a clash of wills. He was a specialist, and expected me to be one too. It drove him crazy when I'd give broad overview in the first 35 minutes of a talk, and spend 10 minutes delving into the details of my data reduction, and then ask for questions. It explains why I dread talks to specialists about specialties. Oh, I can do it. I can even do it so they love it. But once it's over, I forget it, and I spend no more time thinking about it, refining it, thinking about how I could do it better next time. But I do this for more general talks. They'll keep me up at night, thinking of new, better metaphors, long after the talk is over.

5) When the word showed up in my head, it caused an almost physical sensation of a mental paradigm shift. An appropriate metaphor is that I had a foot stuck in the mud, and a quarter of my attention focused behind me, because that's the direction everyone else was looking. Suddenly, that foot has come free, and my attention is one-hundred percent in the direction I've actually been going. Bigger steps are possible, without that one foot always stapled down someplace I didn't want to be. That's kind of terrifying actually, to recognize that I've not been completely devoted to the things I'm good at. Terrifying for a lot of reasons. It's probably going to terrify a lot of people too, who seem to think they have a stake in what I do. ; )

I think I was just ready to own this word, and the idea it represents. I had to come to Socorro to know for certain that I COULD be a specialist, which makes it much easier not to be one. That sounds odd, but makes a lot of sense for someone like me, who also has issues about being told she can't do things. (Want me to do something? Tell me I can't, especially in the sense of mayn't. Oy. Such an Achilles heel, that.) I am now certain that I don't want to be a specialist of this kind. The research institution's brand of single-minded devotion is something I'm capable of, but it chafes in the long term. That doesn't mean I have a short attention span. It means I have a broad attention span. (to shift the metaphor from time to space...)

It helps a lot that I recently met Richard Sabo in Montana, an extremely distinguished retired surgeon, (once President of the American College of Surgeons---wow) who commented to me off-hand that he wasn't sure he'd want to be a surgeon now, because the field is so specialized. He'd hate to do only gall bladders. All gall bladders, all the time. I knew what he meant, but I didn't have a word for it. Now I do. He's a generalist. Ah. I get it now. I'm one of those.

More antics from Captain...

It's been a week now, and Captain has clearly settled in. He went for big hikes yesterday at the VLA, and had a wonderful time. He was good both on and off the leash, and then came home and snoozed the rest of the evening. He snores. Little whiffly dog snores. It's painfully cute. He also plays with toys, which is new for us.

Today, J joined the lunch group at DJ's. He was oddly nervous, but of course got along fine. Everyone should have a stuffed sopapilla from DJ's at least once in their life. Seriously. It's practically a religious experience. Everyone was very interested in his reaction to Socorro. I know why---people often really, really hate it. But, as J says, green chile sure makes up for a lot of empty space!

Some Perspective

It's pretty hard, right at the moment, to keep everything in perspective. Between all of our own personal dramas, the local dramas that come with the tragically bizarre collapse of the economy, and the global dramas that come from not being able to keep our grubby mitts off yesterday's sunshine, a person can get seriously overwhelmed.

But then, you get to see this.


Please allow me to interpret the sci-jarg. The dot in the middle of the left image is an optical image of a galaxy that formed very early in the Universe. How early? About 12.8 billion years ago. You are looking at it as it forms, because the light that left during formation is just now getting to us. Ok. Go away and think about that for a minute, because that should blow your mind right there.

Back? Ok. The image on the right is of the same object, in the radio. Specifically, you are looking at the light emitted from carbon monoxide (CO). Go away again, and ponder the existence of carbon monoxide, only 870 million years after the Big Bang. Need some help with the staggering-ness? C and O form in stars. The existence of CO means there were stars that lived AND died before this big cloud could form. AND the cloud had time to cool enough for the C and the O to get together and share some electrons over coffee and a biscuit. AND the cloud had time for gravity to begin to draw it together to form something new. 870 Myrs is not very long for all of that to happen! The first stars must have been very, very massive, and very, very short-lived in order to get all this done in that short time. So, go. Ponder.

Back? Ok. So now you have to think about this. You are looking at a supermassive black hole (some millions of times the mass of the sun), and a giant elliptical galaxy (trillions of times the mass of the sun, eventually forming trillions of stars) being 'born'---at the same time, in the place, very early in the history of the Universe. Staggeringly, this is exactly how we thought it should happen. Staggeringly, I can explain it to you. Staggeringly, you can understand. Score one for the teeny-tiny, microscopic gray matter connections inside your head.

One of the biggest comforts of being an astronomer is knowing that the vast majority of the Universe doesn't care about me. It just does what it does. It goes on in all its profligate excesses of space and time, and all its random happenstance, whether or not I'm paying any attention at all.

Another comfort is that I am paying attention. And my own little gray matter adds its little pieces to the puzzle, which are written down, and so will be remembered long after we've forgotten all this year's particular drama, and the last of yesterday's sunshine is all used up.