Wednesday, February 26, 2003

In Which Our Heroine Better Understands Her Bizarre Array of Knowledge
If there's something I'm known for, it is the fact that I know the things that other people just don't (well, that and the fact that I'm just a wee bit taller than most other people). My knowledge isn't necessarily in any particular depth, but it is certainly an odd collection of facts. I always thought this was just because I travelled a lot and had different sets of experience to other people was the reason why. But I'm starting to wonder about that. I think there may be a corrolation between this odd set of facts and my odd curiousity. Particularly of late. As though I'm not involved in enough things, enough projects, I've been spending my time on the T reading. Free reading. I met a friend for dinner last night, at our common waiting spot - the Harvard Coop Bookstore. It is a handy place to wait, as I can fritter away hours in a bookstore like no one else. I love to just get lost in them. Plus, last night I wanted to purchase a book. I needed a new book, and I even knew which book I wanted - "Just and Unjust Wars." My friend was aghast. "The last time we met here two weeks ago you bought books. Have you read them all?" "Yes." Then he found out which book I wanted. "Just a little light reading there?" Well, yes. I seem to really be thirsting for knowledge lately. Fiction doesn't hold as much appeal at the moment. I want to know about things, and then I want to fix them. I wound up with a book entitled "The Key to My Neighbours House" which is about the atrocities and the quest for justice after the genocides in the former Jugoslavia and Rwanda. I'm a quarter of the way through it already. Fascinating, but very sad. I'm hoping that, almost like a novel, there is indeed justice found at the end.

When we went to check out, I figured out the other way I know so many weird facts. It is because I know a lot of delightfully weird people with funny backgrounds. We were there waiting to check out, and my friend picked up a newly released book on the sociological history of sex. A quick skim revealed he didn't think it went back far enough. The next thing I knew, I was learning all about how yeast reproduce. Turns out yeast has sex. Except it isn't called sex, it is called "schmooing." Really. Schmooing. This is the way yeast do when thoughts of a young yeast turn to thoughts of love and apparently it is all very complicated. It takes more to schmoo a yeast than just some flowers and a cheap bottle of chianti.

I really do have these sorts of conversations with people all the time. Last week, it was all about learning about the pirates in the 19th century that operated off Cape Cod. This week it is the intricacies of schmooing. And a little insight into the artworks of Marc Rothko. Next week, who knows?

I sat and read for an hour last night on genocide in Bosnia. And once I fell asleep, there was a very complicated dream about kittens being born, which is kind of amazing seeing as I've never actually seen kittens be born. There were three kittens, and I was going to name them Iris, Henry and Peregrine. This is significant somehow, but I think it would take Jung himself to figure out why.
Love,
Anne

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