Seeking My Radium

I had an epiphany this morning which compared the discovery of Radium to my seeking true love and so I’d like to share a story, elaborate a metaphor and possibly explain in more detail what I’m trying to do here with my project.

One of my greatest heroines is Dr. Marie Curie, usually referred to as Madam Curie; but I like to give her the title she worked so hard to achieve. This woman not only married a man she absolutely loved and together they raised several brilliant children, but they also worked together in a lab at a time when most women were content to stay home and tend the household duties. Marie started off as a student in Dr. Curie’s lab studying the luminescence (radioactivity) of a substance called pitchblend. They ran into a puzzle however, when after accounting for all known light giving and light reflecting sediment within the chunk of ore she was looking at, she still had extra rays of light unaccounted for. Something in the crushed up dirt was emitting a light that could not be written off as coming from any element she knew existed in the pitch. So she put her brains to use and started removing the elements she did know. She melted, boiled, sifted, filtered, etc repeatedly in an effort to remove different elements one at a time. Iron, Carbon, Magnesium, all other commonly found elements and even the two “newest found ones” Uranium and Thorium were all taken out of the pitchblend. [This process was artfully shown in the black and white movie version of Madam Curie’s biography.] And yet once Uranium and Thorium were removed there still existed some element which produced light surpassing the qualities of Uranium and Thorium together! After months of effort, they successfully separated and identified the two new elements hidden in the pitchblend: Polonium, and Radium. Dr. Marie named the first for her homeland and the second because it was a wonder to behold like the rays of the sun. The lab dish had nothing in it but left over water marks and yet at night it glowed at night like a little lightbulb amazing everyone who saw it. -So the moral of the story is that after months of work with people thinking she was crazy, questioning if she was imagining things, and generally not giving up-Dr. Marie Curie helped find something which revolutionized the way the world operated. Her discovery changed medicine, electricity, even pop culture and the world will never be the same again.

With this story in mind, I want to find my Radium. I want to find a man who is stable and full of known qualities (like the pitchblend) but will upon further observation completely surprise and delight me. I want my relationship with my special someone to have as many different kinds of love as there are elements in pitchblend. I want to be protected by him and love him as a parent and guardian. I want to advise and take care of him as if he were my child. I want to idolize him and see only the good in him like I would an older sibling. I want to tease him and joke with him like a younger sibling. I want to greet him with huge amounts of love and pick up right where we left off whenever we see each other like I do with extended family members. I want to see his flaws and yet love him the more for his imperfections like I would a friend. I want the polite and courteous little nothings we do for perfect strangers we encounter in life for no other reason than that they are fellow humans and we acknowledge the fact. And yet, after all those rationalizations and types of loves-I want one more. I want something left over which only I can discover and is meant just for me to find. Some element of love which will fill me with wonder and change the way I view the world. Something special which might take years to find but will ultimately leave an imprint on all who observe its presence. Something so small in the grand scheme of things as to go unnoticed by the regular world, but when seen up close will force you to accept the truly awesomeness of unseen forces within your life.

I want to be filled with awe. I want my soul to burn with wonder and my heart to fill with warmth from the love of my mate. I have heard the mantra that my body is a temple and the right guy will come along and one day worship me as a goddess; well, (no offense to those well-meaning souls) my present self-esteem won’t support that theory. I DO however have degrees which prove I am a chemist and my present self-esteem wholeheartedly praises that fact. So as a scientist I am declaring my body is my laboratory! J By putting on makeup, exercising to lose weight, wearing new styles of clothes, and doing other girly rites of passage, I am changing the way I think. I am recalibrating my lab instruments so when I come across that certain man, my sensors will pick up on his qualities and recognize him. By learning to love myself I will be able to better distinguish love in general and be able to ferret out which someone has that extra zing to his personality; that added element to make my heart soar with delight for decades to come.

The bottom line is: I am conducting the greatest experiment I will ever do, and so I need the best finely tuned, top of the line instruments and calibrated lab equipment. I need my mind, heart and soul to be able to measure down to the smallest range so I can properly determine when I’ve met my someone-my personal radium. Because I’ve done the math: radium exists as 1/7^th of a gram within each ton (900000g!) of uraninite. Assuming I have the same chance at finding true love as Dr. Marie Curie did of finding radium, and having found out the world’s population is ~7.094 billion….my “radium” is one soul. Apparently science proves there really is just one person for everyone, and the margin for error is very small. Feel free to check my math, I believe with sig figs it rounds out to one, but I included the tenths for the look of the thing and to give myself more wiggle room! ;)

                            1/7th g Radium             1 ton                     1.1 Man
Curie's % ->  -------------------    x      ----------      =    -----------------                 <--  My %
                            1 ton Uraninite           900000g            7094000 People

Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

So sugar and spice and everything nice- that's what girls are made of huh? Sure bet the guy wasn't saying that after a girl hit puberty and realized what happened every month. Today's adventure was derailed by another adventure. I had planned on playing with make-up tonight but instead ended up having to survive an ordeal known as first day of "that time of the month." The ultimate in girl adventures brought to second only by preganancies and sent to third by menopause. But right now, I'm surviving the monthly realization that my uterus is indeed working, however much I wish it would just fall out and leave me alone. But we'll move onto the story bit.
I started off the day thinking, "meh, it happens- I'll just pop some Ibuprofen and a Midol and the world will be good and no one will know." But an hour into work and I swore my nose was going to start bleeding from the sudden drop in blood pressure I encountered. Instant sweating, shaky fingers, pale ghostly skin tinged with green, oh yeah all symptoms I had before my very worried coworkers' eyes. I unsteadily walked to the bathroom and even with my forehead to the cold tiles and my butt in the air in a loose rendition of the yogic Child's pose stance I didn't feel that much better. I really hate going home sick but honestly I would have been in the way at work. I think it's better to just go home and get better so tomorrow I can be at 100% versus toughing it out until I end up passing out or throwing up. And all my coworkers would be worried about me instead of concentrating on work. So I asked to go home, and on the way I picked up a milkshake at McD's. Cuz' milkshakes make everything okay, even feeling like your womanly parts are about to emerge violently from your body and beat you up once freed. Once home I laid on the couch with my feet up and willed my back to stop seizing, my stomach to just shut up, and my body to get a grip on itself. Grudgingly it obeyed me, but backup forces were sent in to secure the rebellious traitors. THANK YOU BAYER-the maker of Midol. And to the scientists who came up with the winning combination, you are truly saints and should be hailed as heroes for the miracles you provide in a woman's monthly life!
So why am I discussing this very sensitive subject? Because I've vowed to become more in touch with my girly side, and it doesn't get more feminine than the organs discussed in Sex Ed classes. Scientifically they are the deciding factor in distinguishing females from males and thus they must be researched and analyzed. And the end hypothesis is: men are right to run away and make themselves scarce at this time. Men-you should be commended for your wisdom. To those brave souls who willingly put themselves in the line of fire from those they love intent of being there to acquire whatever the "little lady" should need, you are also to be hailed (I can't praise your smarts but in merits of courage you are unparalleled).

So as we speak, I have been sitting or in a prone position since noon this afternoon. I am properly dosed on pain meds and am drinking water like it's going out of style. I am hungrily eyeing my emergency chocolate stash like a starved hyena eyes a lumbering elephant and recovering my neutral personality mood. Generally speaking, I an usually good-natured, nice, and friendly ...which all goes to hell once a month when I become sappy, emotional, irate, and generally irriated at my own humanity. I am happy to say I've reached a point where by tomorrow I will be as close to my usual self as I'm liable to get. The ice cream I'm planning on devouring while watching a romantic movie will definitely help! :)

In short, today's adventure has infinitely made me more aware of my femininity and I've embraced my womanhood; as I took a nap in the fetal position I embraced my knees as well! And with my altar of Midol, chocolate, peppermint tea, and sappy movies all set up, I'm ready for whatever happens tomorrow. Or so I pray!

Losing my caterpillars

Caterpillars are warm, fuzzy, and greatly admired-by little kids and entomologists. Most adults though will give a start if one lands on them and some have even been known to be frightened and scream in their presence. [I will have it be known I was out in  S. Jersey, and it looked like it had horns and would bite me.] Usually caterpillars are ignored and left to their own devices unless needed for an introductory science lesson, and in truly horrible situations they are squished into the pavement by someone's heedless shoe. However, if the caterpillar is lucky and able to form a caccoon, after the crysalis stage caterpillars will emerge transformed into beautiful butterflies. And everyone loves butterflies.

Continuing on this theme, I read a story once about two oriental maidens.I believe it was from a book titled Geisha: A Life by Mineko Iwasaki, I could be wrong. One maiden never plucked her eyebrows and became known as Caterpillar Girl but her family loved her and allowed her to be herself and as a hobby she did indeed take care of caterpillars. When they transformed into butterflies, she would lovingly gift them to a childhood friend who was nicknamed the Butterfly Maiden. This girl plucked her eyebrows and wore make-up and as a fitting beautification tribute- collected butterflies. Guess which one had men flocking to her with presents of multi-hued butterflies, sweet things to eat and pretty garments? You guessed it, not the Caterpillar Girl whom everyone viewed as odd. However, that changed when a stranger came into town and knew that the wealth and beauty was not in butterflies but in caterpillars, especially their caccoons. For this stranger knew how to boil and separate the threads and weave them into a fabric now known as silk. And so he courted the only girl in the village that mattered to him-the Caterpillar Girl. She became quite taken with the man, they wed and soon had a thriving business. The Butterfly Maiden was still gifted the butterflies, and still was visited by all the handsome villagers but it was the Caterpillar Girl who found happiness and love first. Moral of the story? I wanted to be Caterpillar Girl: be a rebel, stand out, and trust that someday someone would discover my uniqueness and worship it.

So for years I decided to let my "caterpillars" grow how they would, and let my mysterious stranger find me in a natural state. My eyebrows weren't excessively bushy but they weren't standard. And there were plusses: my eyelids never seemed puffy, my eyes stayed warm in the winter and the tops of my eyeglasses didn't get too greasy from being up against my eyelids. But, I always felt they were a slight hindrance to first impressions, men would see them and make assumptions about me. I figured my caterpillars would reflect my not wanted to fit it, to be alright with being different; but they could also signify laziness or unwillingness to get along with conventions-which is mostly completely untrue. Well, I want to quell those misguided thoughts and give people a clear view into my inner personality. Instead of bushy brows = stodgy self, I want refined and shapely brows = organized and clear thinking mind. Therefore, yesterday I ventured into a beauty salon for the first time in years resolving to transform my caterpillars. Cue theatrical theme: "Bum, bum, bummmmmm!!!!"

Turns out I'd forgotten just how relaxing the ambience of a beauty salon is. I opted for a quieter, less peopled one- because it's been a full decade and some change since I've had my eyebrows waxed and if I was going to shriek or whimper I wanted as few witnesses as possible! For those local followers- I chose a beauty parlor on 4th St called Creative Hairworks Salon. Walked right in and asked for availabilities. The lady said she could fit me in right then. Turns out she's the sole proprietor and owner and worker. I asked for a haircut and eyebrow wax. She charged $30 for the cut (shampoo, conditioner, cut, and style) and the wax was only $15. I had cut an ad out of a magazine which featured a girl with eyebrows shaped how I wanted mine to look. She looked at it, look at me and said it would look nicely with a few tweaks here and there. Then she led me to the sink, washed my hair, and conditioned it until it smelled like a veritable flower garden, and then with my hair wet in the sink she leaned over and started sudsing my eyebrow region. I guess you have to clean the hairs in order for the wax to stick, makes sense. Then she got a stick with the tip covered in what looked like honey and proceeded to dab goo over the offending hairs. A strip of clothlike substance was placed over the area and she rubbed over the hairs for about 20 seconds. Then RIP! off it came and instantly her hand put pressure over my brow deadening the nerves. She did this for each brow and in between, because while I do not admit to having a monobrow I will concede there are some stray hairs from each brow that may be checking out the other brow's area and happen to meet at the bridge of my nose. Surprisingly this method did not result in the red eyelids and forehead I remember from years ago. She did finish with some antiseptic lotiony stuff. I'm proud to admit, I didn't twitch, whimper or even wince! Yay!

As for the haircut, she cut the back and the sides until I had nice healthy and symmetrical ends. Eventually, a total 4 inches were lobbed off the length of my hair. It still comes to the middle of my back but is much easier to brush now. :) She even put this stuff called silk therapy on my hair which calmed down the staticy frizzles which were escaping from my head in every direction. I will admit it, my hair was so soft and smooth I couldn't keep my hands out of my hair all last night. It looks awesome!

So I now have lost my caterpillars and my dead ends and feel much more girly than I did before. Not entirely self-confident but definetely more put together. And that's a good start!
P.S. I'll post a picture of my polished brows once I've found my camera, but for now just imagine a comet with the main core closest to the nose and the debris field lightly arching up and away from the eye in a pleasing manner.
 Before (imagine a pair)

&


After: see? I told you they were awesome!

News Update 1

So, my mom called me this morning. Apparently news get around super fast and she wanted me to come out to see her and go for a shopping trip. Superstitions used to say if your house broom fell over you could expect company--I wonder if in this instance her shopping cards started vibrating? That might have been a badly done joke, so we'll move on. It should be noted my mother hails from South Jersey and so make-up, clothes, especially shopping and all things girly are practically instinctual for her. But I grew up mostly in Wyoming so I can't say I really picked up on the knack of conquering malls and making them beg for mercy. And regrettably the make-up I remember her putting on while I was a child wouldn't suit my color palette, this side of the Mississippi, or this decade. So I admitted I was clueless in my last post and my mom being a mom seized on my plea for guidance and has convinced me to do a girl's holiday with her in Branson, Mo around my birthday in August of this year. Malls, hair salons, maybe a spa or something will be involved. We're going to get someone in the big malls to show me how to put on current make-up trends, hair salons might give some body and extra color to my hair, and maybe a mud mask or something might come up in the schedule. There's even huge make-up stores down there which I'm sure will be like walking into a foreign country to me-but, I'm going to do it and my mom's gonna be there with me, for better or worse. Could be good: our relationship has been strained and tense at best these last 5 years and maybe a neutral shopping trip could help restablish or form friendly bonds. You never know. Works in the movies- To Wong Fu, Freaky Friday, just to name a few. And let's face it, it would definitely get me a few steps closer in a shorter amount of time, my budget just can't handle that much change so quickly. So, I'm going to have to start planning and researching so I can have a game plan when I get there. I'll have to find make-ups I want to try, fashions I could be comfortable in and which stores I can find my sizes in, as well as planning my hair make-over. I'm thinking a few highlights or lowlights along with some very loose curls. I'm tired of my straight hair and love it when I take it out the bun and it's kinda spirals all over the place. So I will foster that love and try to love it all the time. Thanks mom for the offer and I'll see you around August! It could be my best birthday yet!!!

Introduction

Greetings! I am a female specimen of the human race, with all the discernable anatomically correct features in the proper places and yet, I am disinclined to call myself a woman because I hardly ever think of myself as one; in my mind I am foremost a scientist of an almost neutral gender. But it is increasingly dawning on me that such an opinion puts me squarely outside popular culture. Wearing "comfortable" jeans and baggy t-shirts paired with a prudent bun as a hairstyle is resulting in me being chronically overlooked on the dating scene. Men seem to be put off and have no desire to find the curves underneath the wrappings, so to speak. This is unfortunate and has led to me being 30 years old and still single, which quite frankly sucks!

I have been reminded of a song by Aretha Franklin: "You make me feel like a natural woman"- well, it's a beautiful thought but I should not be dependent on someone else to make me feel like a woman. I should just be one and proud of it! No one else can make me beautiful, or happy, or anything really, just myself. But I don't. I get up in the morning and avoid looking in the mirror. I don't see what I like, I see all my flaws. So I brush my hair and look out the window and fix my hair in the same hairstyle it gets most days: up and out of the way in a bun. What's the point of having long hair if I never let it down? I try not to touch my body any more than is necessary because of the plush soft spots that are prone to jiggle if disturbed. I see the slender girls and know...I'll never look like that because let's face it I love food too much! I can be like Catherine Zeta-Jones or Queen Latifah or Sofia Vergara though- I may not be as busty but I can sure be as curvy and unreservedly proud of my figure.

So here it is, my project. I am going to become my greatest science experiment. I will learn to wear makeup to hide my perceived flaws, I will wear tighter and more stylish clothing to remind myself of my feminine figure, and I will try girly rites of passage that I've ignored or avoided in the past, including (eep!) maybe a tanning salon. In short I will follow bits of advice written down by the so-called girl's bible "Cosmopolitan" and other girly type books, and I will conform my body into a version of beauty just like in the Dove soap real beauty campaign. And I won't stop until I perceive myself as beautiful. I am going to endeavor to see myself and my body as it is and not as the white blubber suit I degradingly call it. And if there is some part I don't like- I am going to enhance it (as naturally as possible!) until I see it as amazing.

My ultimate goal is to find a meaningful relationship with that certain (unknown now) someone, but I need to love myself first before I can be with him-whoever he is. And as I am logically minded, I will approach this step-by-step and log my attempts, both fails and successes. I intend to be comfortable with my body and confident with my looks to the outside world. In so doing this, my hope is that my personality will shine all the brighter and help me attract my someone.

That having been stated, this blog may end up being as heard as a whistle in a hurricane but this was the only way I could think of to force myself to change my self-image. And frankly I just blogging as a self-help/ vent session/ adventure log so I don't really need to be followed, but it'd be appreciated.  To whoever you are: if you're like me, know you're not alone; if you're not like me, count your blessings! I hope you are entertained, enlightened, or intrigued by my blog. I know it will be an adventure and I will try to inject some humor for everyone's viewing pleasure. :) So, welcome to my metamorphosis from a chemist to a woman.