SkewedViews

I don't smoke. If I did, I'd like to think the warning labels alerting me to the dangers would give me incentive to quit. In fact, I'm surprised so many people continue to smoke even with the horrific images that some countries print on packets of cigarettes. Some warning labels do, of course, work. The old Mr. Yuck stickers from my childhood immediately come to mind. Seatbelt chimes also work most of the time (more likely because they don't stop beping until you click your belt). Fire alarms, too, typically do their job. Warnings help us to be better prepared for what is to come. If you do smoke, you surely have read that smoking causes cancer, lung disease, and emphysema. It won't help you get better; but, you knew what was coming. Theoretically, you are better prepared to face the consequences.

I don't smoke. I do, however, read. Although I'm not a fast reader, I consider myself a voracious one. I savor the paragraphs I ingest, chewing on each word. I swish sentences around my brain like a sommelier does a 1904 Boudreaux. I especially enjoy reading Smithsonian Magazine and National Geographic. I've come to appreciate several of the regular writers, and I look forward to articles by Abigail Tucker, Richard Conniff, and Joshua Hammer, to name but a few authors. I typically start with the front cover and read each page as I come to it. This builds the suspense since I don't know what's coming next (I generally skip the table of contents to enhance the anticipation). I get a little thrill when I turn the page and see a byline by one of these regular contributors. I know that I'm in for a genuine treat. I settle in and enjoy the journey upon which these wielders of the mighty pen take me.

There is, of course, a downside to this way of reading. I have no warnings. I don't know what's coming or what to expect when I flip the page to go on to the next article. There could be a story about drones that are ready for takeoff on the next page or a piece on Hadrian's Wall. Perhaps there is one about Otters who, apparently, are picky eaters or human edibles like Hanoi's ultimate Pho. There could also be more sinister stories. The biggest problem is there could just as easily be a full-page image of creepy, crawly things—like spiders—that could potentially spark a fit of hysterics in an unsuspecting arachnophobe. It's not a pretty sight when you're sitting on the Metro, reading about tattoos of the world, and you're about to turn the page when suddenly: three seats ahead of you on the left, you hear another passenger utter a blood-curdling scream. At almost the same moment, you see the magazine that the passenger was reading go flying through the air. Just as it crests the arc and begins to descend toward the floor, you catch a glimpse of several enormous, hairy legs. Yes, this poor passenger unsuspectingly turned the page, an innocent enough action, and landed on a life-sized—or worse, larger-than-life-sized—picture of a tarantula.

I don't smoke. But I do read. I have read the warnings on cigarettes that tell me that smoking may result in fetal injury, premature birth, and low birth weight; that cigarette smoke contains carbon monoxide; and that quitting now greatly reduces serious risks to my health. If I can read, and more importantly heed, these warnings, then I believe that like the cigarette industry, the magazine industry should be legally obligated to place warnings on their products as well. Any magazine that contains disturbing images of eight-legged creatures should come with a warning in big, bold letters right on the cover of the magazine that states:

WARNING: This Periodical Contains Images Of Spiders And May Cause The Heebie-Jeebies, Hysteria, Or Possible Fainting.

I'm not a fan of haircuts. I never have been. I don't remember crying or throwing tantrums when my mother took me to the barber to get my locks shorn. But, I do remember feelings of dread as I climbed into the chair. I would look in the mirror and try to imprint that image into my memory. That was me staring back at me. I knew once the barber did his duty, I would no longer be me. Not that I would turn into someone else, but I would be a different me; I would be reinvented, and I would have to start over in becoming comfortable with me. Hair is a part of who you are; it is part of your identity. So, you can't be you if you change your hair.

I'm still like that. I know I need to get my hair cut; yet, I put it off as long as possible. On the other hand, after two years in Catholic school, I'm reticent to let my hair grow too long. Once it's over my ears or my collar, I usually make an appointment at the salon. Although I don't like to get it cut, I don't particularly like it long either. It's just one of those dichotomies that make me me.

So, it's significant that this October marks one year since my last haircut. The last time a pair of scissors touched these tresses, I was in the Holy Land. I went to Chezie, a friend of the family and profession stylist. It was a nice haircut. Still, it took getting used to because it was very different from what I usually get. As it grew out and lost its shape, I watched it grow and did nothing. As I took note of losing sight of my ears, I did nothing. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore; I was beginning to look like a Beatle, and still I did nothing. Then, about four or five months after Chezie, I realized I still hadn't gotten a haircut. I also realized it had been almost six months. My record for not getting a cut was seven months. Now I was on a mission. I had to break my personal record.

When I was in graduate school, I knew a student who had long hair. One day he came to class, and his hair was short. I asked what happened, and he told me he had donated his hair to Locks of Love. I thought that was great and said one day I, too, would commit this act of charity.

Charity seems so easy. Drop a few coins in a donation box. Write a check and mail it off. Give a homeless person your leftovers from the restaurant. Yet, when you think about it, charity is about sacrificing so others don't have to. Although a few pennies in a pushke won't affect most of us, we are still giving up something for other people's happiness. I believe the more you sacrifice, the greater the charity.

I had no idea how much I would sacrifice when I started down this road. It seemed so simple when I began: don't cut my hair, no biggie. It never occurred to me I would be going through so many awkward stages along the way. It never occurred to me I would look so scruffy and unprofessional. It never occurred to me I would whine and moan about it so much. Yet, here I am, a year into it and going strong.

All of this to say that I'd like to thank everyone for their support: my management for giving the go-ahead even though I am a spokesperson for the agency; my colleagues for their encouragement (even if it comes in the form of teasing); my friends for their hair advice; and Sarit for always talking me out of cutting my hair.

Thanks!

When I was 12, my mother decided to help a coworker's father. He had befriended a stray alley cat and regularly fed her when she'd show up at his door. One evening, his sweet molly came home a knocked up queen. Her tom was nowhere to be seen; but, he had performed admirably. In due course, as these things go, she produced a litter of unwanted kittens. My mother's friend's father wasn't interested in full-time cat care, so he was trying to get rid of them. This is how we came into possession of a beautiful, tiny, blue-eyed alley cat that we promptly dubbed "Tigger." She was black, white, and gray with cat show-quality markings. She was playful and energetic until she went crazy in her dotage. She now lives under the china cabinet in a small box of ashes with a bronze plaque with her name on it.

Cats are truly amazing animals. The Talmud, (Eruvin, 100b), quotes Rabbi Yochanan, who says that we can learn modesty from cats since they prefer to do their business in private and subsequently cover it all up. Very hygienic, these independent little creatures. When we took Tigger to the vet for the first time, I remember the doctor telling us that all a cat really needs from people is to open closed doors and clean their litter boxes. God only knows what we would be facing if cats had opposable thumbs! They would probably be running the planet (as they were in New New New New New New New New New New New New New New New York). If we didn't learn modesty as R' Yochanan suggests, we certainly would learn curiosity. Besides humans, cats are probably one of the most inquisitive animals on Planet Earth. They are such fun to watch as they explore from one end of the house to the other...then do it all over again the next day as if the whole world had changed while they slept.

As I watched Rotem crawling around the apartment yesterday, I couldn't help but see a kitten on the prowl and not a little girl crawling this way and that. Our apartment is not particularly large, and I'm sure that even at 11 months, 3 weeks, she can probably get around blindfolded. Still, she explores every nook and cranny as if it were her first time looking in that corner or around that chair. She could probably spend all day rooting around in the kitchen, just to do it again the next day. When she's not exploring or upending everything in sight, she's sleeping, just like Tigger. I guess one burns a lot of calories with all that snooping.

She eats like a cat too. Tigger and Ella (our other cat) were both very delicate eaters. Neither was a pig, and neither would take larger bites than they needed. Rotem, too, is very dainty when she eats. And, like a cat, she will lean down and eat directly from the palm of your hand (although she can feed herself when she chooses). Fortunately, her diet consists of more than just boxed cat food (if it were on the floor, though, I'm sure it would go in her mouth—much like Ella, who would try to eat anything in sight).

While she doesn't purr like a cat, she definitely moves her head around to ensure you rub or kiss the right places. She stretches just like a lazy cat. Her delicate and demure cooing can sometimes be misinterpreted as the soft mews of a hungry kitten. Last night, we discovered yet another similarity between our sweet baby Rotem and Felis catus. We go gaga over every noise and evocation of her angelic bella voce; yet, we were surprised—but certainly not pleasantly—to learn at 3 a.m. that this little 18 lb. ball of joy can shriek like a cat in heat.

I spent the better part of last night listening to my daughter exercise her lungs. Who knew that such a small thing could pack in so much raw energy? If she were belting out "Che gelida manina" from Puccini's La Bohème or "Mon cœur s'ouvre à ta voix" from Saint-Saëns' Samson et Dalila, I would have applauded her artistic abilities. Even if she were performing her own cover of Queen's " Bohemian Rhapsody," I would have given her props for her taste in music (it was, after all, one of the many songs she regularly heard in utero). Sadly, while my poor baby may have been stretching the golden pipes, music it was not. It was the high-pitched shrieking that babies seem to muster only after the clock strikes one in the morning. For over an hour, I had the privilege to listen to this performance and several encores.

I'm not proud to say it, but shaking her into submission did cross my mind several times. It's very sad that babies are shaken and beaten to death; but, now that I have one, I have a bit more sympathy than I would have had a year ago. I can only imagine how difficult it is for a young couple who are already highly stressed because of a new baby and all the changes in their lives. Then, add to that stress several weeks of sleep deprivation because of a colicky baby. It can be a pressure cooker waiting to explode. Sadly, the infants are the ones who suffer the most.

Fortunately for my wife, my baby, and me, I do not have a violent streak, which seems to be the final ingredient to the deadly shaken baby cocktail. Instead of doing any harm to my crying baby, I simply walked into her room at regular intervals, leaned down, kissed her on the head, and told her that everything would be OK. She needed to go to sleep just like everyone else in the building needed to go to sleep. At some point around three a.m. she seemed to have gotten the idea and finally fell asleep. Alas, it was only for a few hours; but that was enough to allow me to get a few hours of shuteye before she started up again around six.

This morning, as we lay in bed with the baby between us, I looked at her sitting up on the bed playing with her feet and cooing. I was reminded of all the reasons I didn't throttle her last night and would never think of doing harm to her, even as I toss and turn in bed trying to drown out the sound of a shrieking baby at two in the morning:

• Walking in the door after a long day at the office to see her smiling from ear to ear
• Hearing her utter some random noise that if you turn your head just right, squint your eyes, and scrunch your nose sort of sounds like "daddy"
• Seeing her stretch her hands up to me to be picked up
• Watching her crawl for the first time
• Watching her stand on her own for the first time
• Seeing her sitting amidst all the tissue that she has just removed from a new box of Kleenex
• Holding her whiles she's sound asleep in your arms
• Hearing her angelic laughter
• Seeing her sound asleep in her car seat
• Watching her splash in the tub
• When she makes kissing sounds
  

When I began working, I did my best to clean out my email inbox at work before I left the office on Friday afternoons. I enjoyed this ritual of mine because it was cathartic knowing that I had completed my tasks for the week. When I arrived on Monday mornings, I knew that whatever emails were waiting for me were new news or actions that needed to be addressed during the coming week. It was a system that allowed me to keep track of everything so I could manage my work. I wouldn't delete the email until I had completed the project. It was a good system, and it worked well.

Like the Right Honourable Sir Joseph Porter, K.C.B. (First Lord of the Admiralty), I started right at the bottom of the rung. While I did not polish up any handles, I did begin my professional career as a temporary employee. And just like Sir Joseph, I applied myself and moved from temp to secretary to legislative affairs specialist to public affairs specialist. So it seems my system must have worked. I heeded Sir Joseph's system of how to rise to the top:

Now landsmen all, whoever you may be,
If you want to rise to the top of the tree,
If your soul isn't fettered to an office stool,
Be careful to be guided by this golden rule.
. . .
Stick close to your desks and never go to sea,
And you all may be rulers of the Queen's Navee!

Unfortunately, as I have accumulated more responsibility with each promotion, so too have I accumulated more emails. Today, I am no longer able to leave on a Friday on time, let alone with an empty inbox. I still do my best to delete emails only when the task is completed, but as my tasks have become more complex and long-term, emails sit in my inbox for longer periods of time than when I was still a secretary. Also, with greater responsibility comes more email. In my current position, I'm inundated daily with hundreds of emails that I've been cc:ed on—that is, emails that aren't even important to me, but that others feel that I should be privy to. In all, I average in the hundreds daily.

I do my best to keep up with them. I try to read as much as I can so that I'm current on the goings-on of NASA, but often it's overwhelming. It's hard enough just to keep track of the emails I have to read, let alone the ones I want to read. Sometimes the important ones seem to get lost in the shuffle with all the junk that I receive. And my system does help, but with so many emails flooding in, it's impossible to maintain this system to the level I would like.

As such, I feel that I need a new system. One that will help me even better than the previous one. And I think I found it. I call it the "Leftovers in the Freezer" system. When I make food, I feel guilty throwing it away. I paid for the ingredients. I slaved over the stove (or oven) to make said food. I can't just throw the leftovers away. So, I place them in a storage container and stick them in the freezer. Every few months, I go into the icebox and pull out the leftovers that have been sitting there long enough to become inedible. It's amazing how easy and guilt-free it is to trash freezer-burnt food. So too, with my "Leftovers in the Freezer" system, it is very easy to get rid of emails. All you have to do is just let the emails sit long enough to become obsolete. At that point, feel free to delete them without reading them. After all, they are now out-of-date and inconsequential.