Fear Less

I am a fan of the author Gavin De Becker. Who, in my rarely humble opinion (what's the point of being humble about some conclusion you've come to as long as you're not following someone around trying to shove your opinion down their throat 24/7?) - is a downright genius.

He wrote the book, The Gift of Fear - which again, in my rarely humble opinion, every female alive should read.

Actually, any male that even remotely cares about a female should read it as well just so you can understand how we have to live in a world of potential violence against us. You'd probably be horrified to learn all of the things we have to simultaneously consider just walking out our front door.

If you're female, the information in the book could very well one day literally save your life.

After 9/11, Gavin came out with the book I'm reading right now - aptly called, Fear Less.

It stresses our natural survival system, like his other book. I'm about to totally plagiarize him and write an excerpt from one of his chapters right now because I think he had some really good points when it comes to breaking down emotions, animal instincts and being able to identify and compartmentalize them.

Come to think of it, it's not so much plagiarizing as it is copy right infringement. Don't tell him! I'm going to pawn it off as free advertisement for his books. Buy them!

To give you some background on his credentials: Gavin De Becker is widely considered America's leading expert on predicting and managing violent behavior. He advises such clients as the CIA and the U.S. Supreme Court, and his 70 member firm has protected clients from terrorism in Isreal, southern Africa, Europe, and South America. This three-time presidential appointee designed the assessment systems used to screen threats to all federal judges and the governors of 11 states, and his work has changed the way the U.S. government protects its highest officials. He is also a senior fellow at UCLA's School of Public Policy and Social Research.

Yes, I even violated the copy rights by taking that from the back jacket of the book. Consider me his new personal PR chick.

---
Beginning of Theft

Intuition has many messengers, but the clearest and most urgent is fear. Nothing in life gets attention as reliably as fear -- and that's the way the system is designed to work. Fear does some miraculous things when we perceive that we are in the presence of danger. First, it gets our bodies ready for action with a dose of adrenaline. It heats up the lactic acid in our muscles for running or fighting, and it even gives us a chemical called cortisol that makes our blood clot more quickly in case we're cut in a fight.

It's an amazing system designed to be a brief signal that gets you to listen, address the risk, and move on. The problem is that these chemicals are toxic, and in America, even more so since the tragic events of 9/11, lots of people are living in fear.

Our imaginations can be the fertile soil in which worry about anxiety grow from seeds to weeds, but when we assume an imagined outcome is a sure thing, we are in conflict with what Proust called an inexorable law: "Only that which is absent can be imagined." In other words, what you imagine cannot be happening in your presence right now, for if it were, you would perceive it. Similarly, the very fact that you fear something is solid evidence that it is not happening in your presence right now.

Fear summons powerful predictive resources that tell us what might come next. It is that which might come next that we fear -- what might happen, not what is happening now. A literal example helps demonstrate this: As you stand near the edge of a high cliff, you might fear getting too close. If you stand right at the edge, you no longer fear getting too close, you now fear falling. To carry this all the way, if you fall, you no longer fear falling -- you now fear landing. When compared with landing, falling isn't so bad.

This reminds me of a friend who used to be afraid of flying because of turbulence. After the four simultaneous hijackings, he told me, "Turnulence now makes me grateful. It reminds me that there are much worse things."

People use the word fear to describe so many feelings that are not fear, so I'll define our terms.

FEAR

• True fear is a signal in the presence of danger. It is always based upon something we perceive, something in our environment or our circumstance.

• Unwarranted fear is always based upon our memory or our imagination.

Imagine, for example, that you are about to board a flight when you are suddenly overtaken with dread and uncertainty about the pilot's ability to fly the plane. If the dread is based on a news story you saw three weeks ago about airlines hiring inexperienced pilots, it is unwarranted fear. If the fear is based upon seeing the pilot stumble out of the airport bar, it's the real thing. True fear is the messenger that intuition sends when the situation is urgent, and it's not easily quieted. If you want it to leave you alone, whatever questions it poses must be answered fully and credibly.

The challenge in dealing with anxiety caused by terrorist acts is that answers are hard to come by. Uncertainly is a key component of terrorism; we are left to wonder what might happen next, to what degree, and where. The lack of predictability predictably causes anxiety, which, unlike true fear, is always caused by uncertainty.

ANXIETY

Anxiety is caused, ultimately, by predictions in which you have little confidence. Image that you are anxious about being fired. You might have anxiety about the things you can't predict with certainty, such as the ramifications of losing the job.

Prediction in which you have high confidence free you to respond, prepare, adjust, accept, feel sadness, or do whatever is needed. Accordingly, anxiety is reduced by improving the quality of your predictions. Higher quality predictions increase certainty, and certainty is the antidote to anxiety. It's worth doing, because the word anxiety, like the word worry, stems from a root that means "to choke," and that is just what it does to us.

WORRY

Worry is the fear we manufacture -- it is not authentic, and it is not part of our defense systerm. If you look out the window and see lava from the local volcano slowly making its way toward your house, you don't worry, you run.

Unlike true fear, worry is a choice. Most often, people worry because it provides some secondary reward. There are many variations, but here are a few of the most popular reasons people worry:

• Worry is a way to avoid change; when we worry, we don't do anything about the matter.
• Excessive worry helps some people deal with matters they cannot influence. Powerlessness is one of the hardest things to admit, and there comes a point with risk where we have to do just that. Worry helps fight off that dreadful feeling that there's nothing we can do, because worrying feels like we are doing something.
• You've likely known someone who worried so much that people stopped telling that people anything. "Don't worry your mother" or "I'm worried half to death" are phrases that serve worriers by offering protection from too much reality.
• Worry can be a cloying way to have connection with others, the idea being that to worry about someone shows love. As many worried-about people will tell you, worry is a poor substitute for love or for taking loving action.

• Worry is a way to rehearse dreaded outcomes so that if they occur, the worrier believes he will be more prepared. Of course, it doesn't work. Worry simply gives people some of the very same consequences they'd get if the dreaded outcome occurred -- while doing nothing constructive to prevent anything bad from happening. Worrying is not the same as planning; it is not an effective security precaution.
  

Worry is a choice, but true fear is involuntary; it will come and get your attention if necessary. But if a person feels fear constantly, there is no signal left for when it's really needed. Thus, the person who chooses to worry all the time or to persistently chew on unwarranted fears is actually making himself less safe. Worry is not a precaution; it is the opposite because it delays and discourages constructive action, and action is the antidote to worry.

In Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman concludes that worrying is a sort of "Magical amulet" that some people feel wards off danger. They believe that worrying about something will stop it from happening. He also correctly notes that most of what people worry about has a low probability of occurring, because we tend to take action about those things we feel are likely to occur. This means that very often the mere fact that you are worrying about something is a predicator that it isn't likely to happen.

When you worry yourself into an artificial fear about terrorism, you distract yourself from what is actually happening in favor of what you imagine might happen. Since the human imagination is powerful, you can conjure quite a litany of possibilities. Any time you ask yourself the question "Could this happen?" the answer will be yes -- because anything could happen, but there are better questions, such as "Will this happen?" or "Is this happening?"

Is worry an intuitive signal? In a roundabout way, it can be. That's because what we choose to worry about, however bad, is usually easier to look at than some other, less palatable issue. For this reason, a good exercise when worrying is to ask yourself, "What am I choosing not to see right now?" Worry may well be distracting you from something important. For example, someone might worry about unseen terrorists (What will they do next? Do operatives live nearby? Are they engaged in something dastardly right now?), whiles at the same time choosing not to register that she's seen someone videotaping the nuclear power plant several days in a row.

Worry, wariness, anxiety, and concern all have a purpose, but they are not fear. So any time a feeling isn't a signal in the presence of danger, then it really shouldn't be confused with fear. It may well be something worth trying to understand and manage, but it is not likely to be directly relevant to your present safety.

End of theft
---

I love that breakdown! It's clear and to the point. I love when people accurately call things for what they really are. Love it.

I know the overall theme is on terrorism in his book, but the same formula can be applied to other situations in life. That's why I felt the need to share.

women's bathrooms

You can always tell the sign of a good restaurant/party house/hotel by the condition of their women's bathroom(s).
That's just a fun little fact.

If you want to know if you should plan any kind of event at a place, send some random female into their facilities and just observe the look on her face when she walks out.

If she comes out with a look of total disgust - don't even think about eating there.
It's as simple as that.

The look is unmistakable too. It's that clenched jaw, eyes half closed, every muscle in her body is tense and there is usually some subtle, if not full on, sneer on her face - stance.

For the male gender who may not yet be informed, let me explain.

We take our settings very seriously. We expect it to be clean. We expect to be able to see when we look in the mirror. We expect all the locks on the doors to work. We expect there to be plenty of supplies at our disposal.

We expect room to move. We expect there to be somewhere for us to put our purses and whatever other junk we happen to have with us.

We expect hooks on the backs of our doors - even if some of us aren't comfortable throwing our stuff up on said hook because we also know how easy it is for someone to just reach over and yank our stuff up and out.

NOT THE POINT!

We expect to not feel like we need to shower when we leave a public restroom.
Yes, I said it.
We expect this.

I always crinkle my nose whenever a bathroom is a) some one room thrown together with no thought enclosure or b) co-ed. Bite me. I don't want to share a bathroom with a male in my own house, let alone a bunch of strangers.

No offense. You men are wonderful. I just don't need to know *that* much about you. I see no real need to bond with you in that way. Stop peeing in front of me for crying out loud.

Now, a really well run place who cares about it's guest/clients/customers will build a real bathroom for women.

This will include up to three separate rooms. A foyer, a waiting area and the facilities themselves - which is large and has stalls on one wall and across from the stalls will be an entire wall side to side of mirrors and sinks.

The sink dispensers won't have the equivalent of Lava soap in them. It will be something fruity or flowery, usually some Yardley something or other that you wouldn't bother to spend the money on to put in your own house.

There will be lights - everywhere, so you can actually see what you're doing when you go to fix your make-up. There will be a large garbage can with a swinging lid on it so you don't have to actually see the garbage in it (if not two - one on either side of the room).

There will be a hand blow dryer AND a paper towel dispenser. Half of them have a folding changing table for babies attached to the wall that you can pull down and make your life easier. There is usually a machine that you can get tampons and pads from if you pay the quarter charge or whatever it is these days.

Each individual stall has a metal box for tampons and pads to dispose of and there is usually a huge roll of toilet paper (and another one behind it) and most of the time there will be a dispenser for those toilet seat covers which are more trouble than they're worth. It's nice to know it's available anyway.

There is at least one handicap, over-sized stall. This is not like a handicap parking space. The same rules do not apply. It's acceptable for anyone to use provided that no one is wheeling themselves in to the room before you go to use it.

Our sitting areas contain couches and nice chairs and mirrors with elegant frames on them. Some will have tables that contain baskets with items such as: bobby pins, safety pins, hair spray, spritzer, nylons, handiwipes, cotton balls, Q-Tips, pads, tampons and sewing kits in them. There is art on the wall, low lighting lamps on the table (designed to make our jewelry sparkle, no doubt) and either carpeting in these rooms or very nice tiles; usually carpet.

This is the norm.

Our bathrooms aren't just bathrooms.
They're conference rooms.
and yes, we *are* discussing *you*...

Now, let me set the scene now that you have all of that information floating around fresh in your head.

We were driving from Maryland back to New York. We found ourselves in the middle of East Nowhere, Pennsylvania when we decided to stop at a Citgo.

Seems normal enough, right?
Wrong.

My daughter and I go in search of the restroom. It is, of course, a one room hovel that we both squeezed into.
Fine.

We made our comments and then I looked up at the wall thinking that the dispenser was the usual tampon/pad dispenser.
Wrong, again!

I pointed to the dispenser silently until she looked up at it. When it registered what it actually was, she started laughing out loud.

Condoms!
In all my years, I've NEVER seen condoms sold in a women's bathroom.

But wait!
Not just condoms - adult novelty items too.
That was on the left side.

On the right side was - aspirin.
Seriously, aspirin.

All for the low, low price of $0.75 each.
We found the cracker jack mother of all dispensers!

You may get a condom or you may get an adult item - how lucky are you feeling tonight?! The right side was solely aspirin, but the left side - total guesswork!
She is, unmistakably my child. So we did what anyone would expect us to do left in a situation like this -- We wasted $4.50 on crap we wouldn't buy over the counter and laughed our asses off every time we dropped in three quarters and turned the knob. We had the added bonus of the bathroom wall being 5' from the outside cashier counter too and a full line in front of it.

We didn't care. It was too much for our senses as soon as this dropped out...

Tattoos.
The Ultimate in Fun & Fantasy.

Clearly, I have a lot to learn if tattoos are the ultimate in Fun & Fantasy. I've been doing it all wrong then. I'm going to have to rethink everything!

Grant must have given up on waiting for us because we found him outside at the car checking the oil. We maintained our silence on our newly purchased stash of Black Magic condoms, tattoos and massage oil.

That is, until we couldn't take it anymore and started laughing again.
Then he made the distinct mistake of finally asking us what took us so long.

My daughter and I exchanged a bonding smirk and then I casually said, "Oh, we were buying condoms..."

He rolled his eyes.
Like he didn't believe me.
Then he must have taken a second to think about it.

Because he knows that if whatever I say sounds really off - there is a 99.997% chance that it's 100% true...

Grant: "Did you really buy condoms?"
Me: "Yes."

silence...

Grant: "You did not."
Me: "Okay."

silence...

Grant: "Why in God's name would you be in there buying condoms?"
The two of us in stereo, all excited: "Because we've never seen a condom dispenser before in our bathrooms! It wasn't JUST a condom dispenser either!"

more silence.. at this point I can see why he's confused... I've had my tubes tied for the last 14 years and my daughter is waiting until after she graduates high school at least... this is SO NOT THE POINT!

We produced our bounty so he could bask in our excitement with us.
He still wasn't getting it.

Grant: "You know those are the kinds of condoms you get when you want to get someone pregnant or take your chances of getting an STD from the condom itself from a place like this..."
Me: "DON'T RAIN ON OUR PARADE!"

a whole lot of staring at our excited little faces while trying to figure out what in God's name to say to us to get us to stop...

Grant: "I'm not sure what the big deal is - that's standard in our bathrooms."
Me: "Yeah, we went into your bathroom too (WE HAD TO!). You had a two sided dispenser too. One side, regular condoms. Other side, ribbed condoms, "for her" - no aspirin..."

a whole fuckload of silence...

That's when I felt it was time to break open the marital aid package with the massage oil in it, you know, to break the silence. And what did I get for my efforts?

NOTHING!
That's what!

The freakin' box was EMPTY!
Empty, I say!
What the Hell kind of rip off bullshit is that?!

I looked at my daughter and said, "I think we should go back in and complain!" - being my offspring, she was all for the idea of witnessing that.

Grant: "Get in the car..."
Me: "Fine. I'll write them hate mail instead."

If any of you B&I employees are reading this:

Dear Barnett International Corporation,

You suck. We hate you.
Oh, and you owe me $0.75

Signed,
A Disgruntled & Disappointed Dispenser User
And that, is my condom story.

Oh, and by the way - the tattoo box contained a scorpion and a cartoon kitten playing with a green tennis ball...I don't even want to know who thinks that's the ultimate in Fun & Fantasy...

Man...

Ever have a week go by and every one of those days you stare at your keyboard and think, "I have a million things to write about and not one of them should ever be put into print, let alone be said out loud or in public!"

I can't even say that anything really out of the ordinary has happened either. The mind has just been in over-drive lately - maybe, rampaging is a better word for it.

Rampage is certainly a better word for it than, "certifiable" or "needs sedation"...I'm just saying...

I'm filled with social problems and their solutions, long term outcomes of social issues, screw ups in history, personal crossroads, reanalyzing theories, etc, etc.

As if that wasn't enough, this morning Grant and I had a lengthy discussion about quantum physics that easily could have resulted in a mental fist fight.

Grant called me over to watch this on his monitor:


Let me just say this...

Sometimes literal people shouldn't talk to outside of the box thinking people that love to deal with space and time and stuff you can't see or hold.

There is a natural tendency for those of us that are too literal for our own good, perhaps - to want to find some practical application to whatever bizarre shit you just came out with that you're taking as gospel.

Me: "If "A" is true, then it could conceivably be a factor in examples "B, C and D" this way (I'll spare you the details.)"
Grant: "No, you're not thinking big enough."
stare
Me: "Okay, then it matters... why?"
Grant: "You're not getting it..."
Me: "I understood everything you just said."
Grant: "Yeah, but you want to use it literally."
Me: "Yes, I do... of course, I do!"

Good Lord...
I don't see what the hell good a theory is if I can't apply it literally. We BOTH know this about me - why on earth would you ever expect anything different.
Did I become someone ELSE over-night when you weren't looking?

Don't get me wrong, I'm ALL for theories.
Give me your theory!
I'll listen!

I might not take it as Gospel, but who cares if I do or not. It's something else to think about and I'm good with that. I'll even throw out whatever practical application I can think of going on the basis that said theory could be etched in stone as fact.

I'm there!

The above, I'm okay with. Got it. My issue is, it goes on the assumption that there are some kind of holes/spaces/openings that exist in our dimension versus the possibility that all these particles are just trapped in a giant box like container.

That's all I was saying!

Grant: "Everything is made up of particles and this new revelation fucks E=mc² and gravity."
Me: "Okay, that's great - except you can count on your particles plummeting out of a tree to the ground if you go up that ladder and then fall. You don't have to see the particles with the naked eye to know what the outcome is going to be - so I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss it."

Then this came up:



I said, "That could conceivably explain why twins can be raised separately and in other countries by other families and still have the same idiosyncrasies and know when something is happening to their siblings thousands of miles away" - which I thought was a valid point.

To further that line of thinking, it would explain why we still maintain a sense of tribal togetherness when a world wide crisis takes place.

Building on the surprise that I felt when people all over the world who live in far more horrendous conditions than Americans do, on a regular basis, felt such sorrow over 9/11... I've been trying to reason that out for ages...

Me: "Then you have to allow for figuring out if any of the particles have been diffused over time versus remaining the same or evolving to become stronger."
Grant: "You're not thinking big enough. You're contemplating the little things and not the universe as a whole."

I'm sure I visibly twitched...

Me: "Well, I can SEE people! I can SEE my surroundings! Of course, that's going to be my first thought... have we just MET? It's not like you haven't known me for the last 25 years! And you want me to IGNORE the fact that the universe is made up of ALL THESE TINY LITTLE PARTICLES IN FRONT OF ALL OF US because I'm not thinking BIG enough? There wouldn't even BE a BIGGER PICTURE without those little details."

This is what divides the big thinkers and the people that actually CARE about the details. He is one and I am clearly the other. It really doesn't have to be an argument. You need BOTH sides to figure stuff out.

Throw all the pieces of the puzzle on my desk in any order you want and I'll eventually make a picture out of it. While I'm working on that though, throwing another 6 sets of 10,000 puzzles pieces in the mix is only going to result in me having to sort out what pieces go to which set first.

Then this came up AGAIN. It's brilliant and the series is the easiest way to comprehend the concept. I own the book and I love it. The whole show is worth viewing if you have the time.

That led to us going over what *I* think the limitation is, and that's with our eye-sight. Our eye-sight is our handicap. If we could see with the naked eye these particles, it would change our perception. These particles exist and we know it because we can see them with certain microscopes and were able to track their patterns. The pattern ceased to exist when viewed with the naked eye.

Okay!
Granted!
Then that's our handicap.

And quite frankly, there's no real reason why we can't create contact lenses that allow us to see better than 20/20 if we can make lens for microscopes that can amplify vision down to the kind of level that allows us to SEE tiny particles...please...

Me: "Just like monitors. You see images on the monitor in 72 dpi (dots per inch). We are capable of SEEING more colors than that, but the monitor can't handle it (which is more due to how big the image file would be for downloads too). That makes the handicap the monitor, not your eye-sight.

When you design something print-worthy, you'd use a 600-1200 dpi creation. If you print out something that's 72 dpi, on paper, it will look like a bunch of fully formed dots and a lot of space not filled in. If you print out something that's 1200 dpi, it might look the same as the 72 dpi image on the monitor - but when you print it on paper, it will look as smooth as a photograph (depending, of course, on the paper as well as the printer)."

I thought that was a good comparison!
Which leads back to our eye-sight being the flawed piece.

Grant: "Why do I talk to you..."
Me: "I have no conceivable idea."

We decided we were better off just moving on to a different subject.
laughs

That is, until we were standing in an aisle at the grocery store and he looked at me and said, "The only reason I'm here is because you see me."

That made me laugh.

I want credit for biting the inside of my cheek and not saying, "WTF?! I'D STILL BE HERE WHETHER YOU SAW ME OR NOT!"

pillow talk

We have a California King bed.
It's 6' x 6'.

Which means that I have all this extra space and Grant is still short two inches of space unless he sleeps diagonally; which I don't ever see happening.

I sleep on my left, he sleeps on his right.
I have to be the closest one to the door.
He likes facing a wall.

I'm the more violent one and if someone breaks in - I'm going to be the first one looking for blood since I'm the Mom and that's how we react if we think our kids are in danger. Aside from that, I don't tend to be the one that sleeps as if I've slipped into a coma.

The way I see it is if someone breaks in, being the female and not straying from our instinctual belief that if that person isn't dead - we're going to have to spend the rest of our lives looking over our shoulder waiting for them to come back and finish the job - me being closest to the door is the best bet.

If I'm the one that happens to be whacked instead, Grant should be awake enough at that point to complete the killing-of-the-intruder task.

He would be really fucking pissed if someone killed my ass.
He waited 25 years to date me.

As luck would have it, my left side sleeping requirement and the door co-exist nicely together with his habits and the whole wall facing thing.

Win/win.
If we ever rearrange the room, we're both totally screwed and we'll probably have to break-up or go to counseling.

Okay, you've got the general layout now, right?

Now picture four foot of open space between us.
laughs...
This is NECESSARY!

It's been pointed out to me in 4,000 horrendous different ways that I sleep like a wild animal. He's all cocooned in his little straight line and I... am not.

I've heard it all.
These are among my favorite:

"Did a hurricane come through the room when I wasn't looking and just whip through your side of the bed?"

"You're like a bird. I expect to wake up and find sticks and leaves in the bed because you're obviously building a nest..."

"Are you alright? Because it looks like there was a 12 person struggle going on up in here!"

"Really, did you have an imaginary fight in your sleep with a pack of wolves? I can't tell who won."

Meanwhile, if there was enough room between the bed and the wall for him to slide out from underneath the sheet and his pile of blankets and comforter - his side would look like it was never slept in. I always joke that I'm going to get a comforter with a stripe down his side and I guarantee you that that stripe will stay in a single straight line.

I don't know how he does it.

I finally broke him of the BAD HABIT of trying to cover me up while I'm asleep. To do this, he would literally yank out bits of comforter I was laying on. NOT gently either, might I add.

DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW FUCKING ANNOYING THAT IS?!

I understand that gesture is suppose to be very sweet.
I really do.
I do!
Seriously!

Great!
You get credit for the thought.
Now, STOP WAKING ME UP AND LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE.

Oh my God.

I understand that you like to be covered to your ears and evenly under every square inch of smooth blanket and all that.

Me?
I could live without a flat sheet - entirely.
They're just a pain in the ass.
You'll find that kicked to the bottom of the bed by morning.

I want my blankets swirled around me like a nest (no comment) and I want one leg sticking out from under my comforter with the rest of it trapped under me. I LIKE IT! I know where everything is! If I get cold, fuck me - eventually my dumb ass will twist into a position where more of me is covered. Whatever.

I'm totally fine with whatever I'm wearing hanging off my shoulder and my pillow squashed in unrecognizable shapes under my head. I'M HAPPY!

I'm FINE.
Don't touch me unless you mean business!

It took a YEAR to make him understand that trying to sort out my disaster area and waking me up, was not a pleasantry to me - it just makes me cranky. For no reason. There is NO benefit.

Then I just lay there wide awake trying to figure out why the hell he insisted on doing that before he left the room and went about his day all happy like.

I lay there and seeth because NOW I'm miserable, cranky, tired and questioning what the hell I did that you're getting even with me for. Stop it!

hiss...

Anyway, for some odd reason, Grant and I share some of the same idiosyncrasies. I don't know why. Maybe it's because we shared the same water supply as kids. I don't know. But for whatever reason, we're both a little retentive about reading before sleeping.

To ME, this means shutting up and reading quietly to myself.
To GRANT, this means announcing to me every little fact he reads about that he finds interesting in the news.

The following is a recreation of the conversation that took place the last time...

Grant: "Hey, listen to this"...
putting my magazine down to look at him...

"Research confirms a theory first put forth in 1973 that magnetic fields drive both the in fall of matter into black holes and the production of light energy created by the process."

Me: Great.
goes back to reading said magazine...

Grant: "A black hole's gravity is enough to draw matter in and keeps it spinning in a stable accretion disk. But before it can take that final plunge, the material must lose some of its rotation speed, called angular momentum."

Me: nods

Grant: "Many people are familiar with the phrase 'bodies at rest tend to stay at rest, and bodies motion tend to stay in motion,'" said study team member Jon Miller, an astronomer at the University of Michigan. "The same thing is true for orbiting bodies — they tend to stay in stable orbits, unless acted upon by a force."

Me: trying to figure out a polite way to say I don't care... I just smiled instead and then went back to reading...

Grant: "If angular momentum from the disk were not dissipated away, gas in the accretion disk would circle the black hole forever in a stable orbit, like the planets around our sun."

Me: I'm not even looking up from my magazine at this point, or responding... he's all into space and I don't know jack about it other than what I've learned from him... I stick firmly to the earth and interest in our bodies of water...

Grant: "Magnetism's role - Using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, the researchers studied GROJ1655-40, a binary system made up of a seven-solar-mass black hole that is stealing gas from the surface of a normal star. The siphoned gas accumulates in an accretion disk around the black hole."

Me: staring at the ceiling... one page, I'm just trying to read ONE PAGE...

Grant: "The spinning gas generates its own magnetic field, and this field powers a "wind" of charged particles blowing away from the black hole."

Me: ...all's fair in love and war, right? So I say back...

"Now they have a birth control ring that you put in and don't have to remove it for three weeks. It offers a full month of pregnancy protection by delivering a continous low dose of hormones. It's called NuvaRing. HEY! Did you know that you can get text messages to your phone from places like babycenter.com that will notify you when you're likely to be most fertile."

silence... I got my tubes tied 15 years ago... this isn't even an issue, but still, it was fun to say out loud...

10 minutes later
he must have forgotten...

Grant: "The wind, which Chandra detected, transfers angular momentum from the inner regions of the disk outward. This slows down some of the spinning gas, allowing it to fall onto the black hole."

Me: "Listen to this question! 'My Guy's condom tends to slip off. Why?" and the response is: Sounds like the condom is too big or too small for his size. While he's thrusting, it either slides away or pops off, explains Mary Jane Minkin, MD, professor of ob-gyn at Yale University School of Medicine. "there's no standard condom size, so have him try different brands and styles until he finds one that stays put," she says. If the rubber tends to come off post ejaculation but before he's pulled out, your guy is likely waiting too long and needs to withdraw his penis sooner. "After orgasm, a guy instantly starts to lose his erection, making the condom loose," adds Dr. Minkin."

more silence
finally...

Grant: "Did you really just read the answer to that question as being, "The condom is too big or too small"?

me being all proud of my profound and insightful reading material... I pipe in with a resounding...
..."Yes!"

deafening silence

Grant: "The magnetic field also causes turbulence and friction to build up within the disk. The friction heats up the gas to millions of degrees, causing it to glow brilliantly in the ultraviolet and X-ray bands."

twitch

Me: "Know what a pale or whitish tongue usually means? Iron deficiency. Shows up more often in vegetarians and vegans, since top sources of iron are red meat, poultry and shellfish"

stare
silence...

Grant: "The researchers believe magnetic fields play an important role in the activities of black holes of all sizes, whether they are stellar-mass ones whose accretion disks are fed by companion stars, or even galaxy-anchoring supermassive monsters whose disks are formed from the stellar winds of multiple stars. The finding should also apply to other objects that have accretion disks, such as neutron stars and white dwards, Miller said."

Me: "Gradasil is the only cervical cancer vaccine that helps prevent against 4 types of HPV; two types that cause 70% of cervical cancer cases and two more types that cause 90% of genital warts cases. It's only for girls between 9 and 26 though. They don't know how long it'll last either."

clearly I was being too quiet...

Grant: "What are you reading NOW?!"
Me: An Astroglide ad.
Grant: ...

Me: "Want to know the names of date rape drugs?"
Grant: "Not really..."
Me: "GHB, Rohypnol and Ketamine"
Grant: ...
Me: "Hey! A G-spot article! I MUST read this. Shhhh..."

it's quiet...
then...

Grant: "We already know that disks around some young stars are driven by [magnetic] processes," Miller told Space.com. "It would not be a major surprise if all accretion disks rely on internal magnetic properties, at least partially."

Me: "Did you know that 1 in 5 people in the United States over the age of 12 are infected with the virus that causes genital herpes? That's like, 45 million people"

Grant: "OKAY! Can we go to sleep now?!"
Me: "Sure"

So, what have we learned from this story...

One...
It's best to read to yourself at night in this house.

and...

Two...
He reads intellectual stuff at bed time.
I apparently read smut.