Hermaphroditus

A lesson presented in a novel.  It fascinated me enough to post this after a blog I wrote yesterday!

It was called evolutionary biology.  Under its sway, the sexes were separated again, men into hunters and women into gatherers.  Nurture no longer formed us; nature did.  Impulses of hominids dating from 20,000 B.C. were still controlling us.  And so today on television and in magazines you get the current simplifications. 

Why can't men communicate? (Because they had to be quiet on the hunt.)
Why do women communicate so well? (Because they had to call out to one another where the fruits and berries were.)
Why can men never find things around the house? (Because they have a narrow field of vision, useful in tracking prey.)
Why can women find things so easily? (Because in protecting the nest they were used to scanning a wide field.)
Why can't women parallel park? (Because low testosterone inhibits spatial ability.)
Why won't men ask for directions? (Because asking for directions is a sign of weakness, and hunters never show weakness.)

This is where we are today.  Men and women, tired of being the same, want to be different again.

Excerpt taken from Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

Not Going To See Me That Way

72% of the women I used to know when I was growing up...

have become overweight or obese.



I've been given all the facts; I know the problem is huge for Americans, but can we really give in that easily? Can we really afford to lose control like that?

I just finished watching the movie Idiocracy starring Luke Wilson and Maya Rudolph.  The movie had a bit of a time travel theme in it where they fast forwarded 500 years into the future.  Everybody's IQ lowered significantly and slang became more of an official language... they ate from Carl's Jr and Buttfuckers (yes, Buttfuckers) -- the only thing that the filmmakers couldn't see was that the future population was going to be obese as well (apparently they could not find enough big people in L.A. to use as extras or maybe didn't have such an "enormous" problem back in '05).  I think WALL-E did a good job showing that we were heading that direction and if so, why do we still fall towards laziness?

Technology... savior or killer?

Red Dawn

Since I've returned for the last weeks of deployment in theater as part of an expeditionary Prowler squadron, the temperatures have risen significantly (thank God not the humidity!) to the triple digits.  Rain is hard to come by but the lightning shows are more abundant.  Sand storms are more of an everyday occurrence as most of our day flights involve playing games with the forecasters, listening to their predictions and then comparing them to our observations (and actual inhalation) of the dust lingering in the air.

A small chunk of us has already left to set up back on the Rock -- and in a flash like that, six months is over and we'll soon be home, back on deck, tackling the next set of challenges in our seeming future.  Our change of command will be life-altering in conjunction with our transition to carrier aviation.  I have to say, I think the learning curve will be awesomely steep, as most of my fellow JO ECMOs have none to little experience on a pitching deck.  That will make for a lot of new guy "d'oh!"'s and mistakes to learn from... all with the support of our ungodly amount of hinges.  On top of big picture changes, I scored a division billet fairly early in my aviation career (at least in my "new gal" opinion) of which I am humbled.  I have now so many goals in mind--some I am not even aware of, but trust me, they're there) and my homework is to figure out a plan to accomplish them.

Anyways, I have thought about a lot during this tour, and the next step is to go out and DO.  Do it all. 

See you all soon, where the mountains are snowy, the rain is weak but cold, and where I become rich and poor--all at the same time.