State of Myself Address

I know better than to use a search engine to clarify my mental state, but of course I did. I don’t believe that my condition is dire, but I am a bit concerned. At risk of oversharing, I am putting forth an analysis of my current state. This is not to extort sympathy, or solicit advice, but hopefully evoke a sense of solidarity.

I did muster some enthusiasm today for a live interview with an NPR program and podcast in Utah, This Green Earth, talking about wasps.

Let me say up front that this is all on me. I own it. Neither you, nor anyone else who knows me, nor any institution, is responsible for my lack of will to do actions necessary to make myself feel better, and/or engage in acts to counter what is happening in our society at large. It is unclear to me, in fact, whether this is a permanent change to my character, or a period of dormancy before I become an ally and agitator again.

According to that search engine that begins with the letter “G,” I may have “passive suicidal ideation.” It is true that some days, or even fleeting moments on an otherwise “good” day, I experience the sentiment of not wanting to live, but not wanting to die, either. I am not, however, having thoughts of self-harm. I simply do not desire to exist, and I can tell you exactly why.

The major reason for my malaise is that I am tired of seeing other people, other species, and the planet itself, suffer at the hands of powerful, cruel, and ignorant human beings. I am utterly fatigued by what I am witnessing. I am also paralyzed with fear that my assets, or even my identity, will be seized at some point, leaving myself and my partner in poverty, prison, or worse. I am normally rather generous and charitable. No more. Not since personal data has been compromised.

Furthermore, advances in technology have eroded my motivation to create, to educate, and advocate. My work is but a drop of genuine humanity in a sea of AI imposters. I still have plenty to say, but no impetus or energy to put it on paper or online. Everything has ground to a halt.

While I consider myself an introvert, I am now bordering on being a recluse. I rarely go out in public, and almost never engage with strangers. I am living in a town where I have zero interest in getting to know anyone else. This is ironic, because I recall that when I moved to Tucson, Arizona at the beginning of the 2000s, it became obvious to me that most people there, while friendly enough, already had their circle of friends, and were not interested in expanding it. I now think this is the norm for any town that is essentially a retirement community.

I vowed to never be one of those people who would shut themselves off from new relationships, but I understand now. You can only trust the friends you already have. Mine live nowhere near me. I have close friends all over the world, some of whom I know only through social media and/or who are colleagues in entomology and natural history. It is painful to know I may never meet them, or see them again.

Physically, I have lost nearly ten pounds in the last two or three months, and I have not been trying. I do not think I am eating less, to any obvious degree, anyway. I try to walk regularly, but the weather has been rainy and, when dry, quite windy. Seasonal allergies to grass pollen make outdoor activities a miserable prospect currently. There are really no truly wild places anywhere within walking distance of our house, anyway.

The distrust I have for other people now unfortunately extends to therapists, psychologists, and others who could “help” me out of my funk. I am not even sure if my health plan covers that anyway, or what the copay would be. On the bright side, I no longer drink alcohol (last time was October 7, 2024), and have never used drugs. Still too much caffeine, perhaps, and sugar and fats, but those are still sources of happiness, along with sleep, blissful sleep. I live for those pleasures, my partner, and the Facebook reels of Taylor Tomlinson and Elle Cordova. That’s about it.

Hey, I didn’t promise I would have answers on how to cope. Rest assured, if I do find a way out, I will share that, too. Please be safe, friends.

Blogging and Booking Onward

Well, that was some year. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I feel a little like a trapdoor spider cautiously peering out from under its lid to see if it is safe to come out for a bit. As I write this the U.S. capitol is under siege from disgruntled supporters of our outgoing president. In other, unrelated(?) news, I’ve scheduled my second colonoscopy in five years.

It is my hope that all of you are healthy, still reasonably sane, and have not experienced any unanticipated losses of family, friends, and colleagues as a result of the global coronavirus pandemic, or any other tragedy for that matter. Maybe you found the experience helpful in creating a new trajectory for your career, or an opportunity to learn some new skill, or indulge in a long-neglected hobby. I wish nothing but positive things for all of you.

The quarantines, lockdowns, and other restrictions allowed me the perfect circumstance to write not one, but two book manuscripts in 2020. Wasps: The Astonishing Diversity of a Misunderstood Insect, published by Princeton University Press, is already available for pre-order in the U.S. and Canada, and will be in stock for regular orders come late February. The landscape of the publishing industry is one of legal and geographical territoriality, however, and we still need publishers for Wasps in the UK and Europe, Asia, Australia, and other continents. Please comment if you can suggest a publisher, or are affiliated with one. Thank you.

Meanwhile, the other book is still in production and I am not at liberty to discuss it for now. It is also entomology-related, though.

Media appearances and promotions for the wasp book are already being scheduled, and I will post relevant announcements and such on my other blog, Bug Eric. I anticipate making regular posts about wasps the entire year, and Sense of Misplaced may take a backseat to that intention, we shall see.

The other big news from our household is that we will be moving from our current location in Colorado to Leavenworth, Kansas. Not because we are going to prison! The town is where my wife’s parents live, and we want to be close to them in their golden years. I will miss the mountain views and seemingly eternal sunshine here, but there is much to be said for being at the boundary of the Great Plains and eastern deciduous forests. We will also have an honest-to-goodness house, with a yard, something we do not enjoy at our current townhouse and its HOA.

Between book projects, I will need to find other work. I am hoping to find some clients I can write for online, as well as insect identification contracts. I love sleuthing the identities of various arthropods, especially in the interest of scientific research projects at the ecosystem level. Collaboration in general is something I look forward to engaging in more often.

Thank you for your patience this last year, I hope I haven’t lost you as a loyal follower during the book projects. Please do not be shy about asking what you would like to see from this blog in the coming year. I welcome suggestions and helpful criticism.

Firing Blanks, Comic Relief, and Other News

Writers sometimes get into a funk where they churn out bad product. That has been the case for me, recently, and I have aborted or discarded my most recent attempts. Meanwhile, I am still thinking, creating, and dealing with personal matters.

© Skyword.com

When the world is full of bad news and emotional stress, I find that I become annoyed more by the little things, and take out my frustrations on matters of little importance, like television commercials. Conversely, I can be too eager to put in my two cents on something like the Mueller report, for which I have little information to be making any assertions. So there you have two posts that you will not be seeing any time soon.

The "thought cud" I am chewing on now relates to how the structure of economies mirrors that of ecosystems, and those aspects that differ between the two. Also on my mind is the notion that there is no such thing as a naturally occurring pest. That has book potential, would help inch me out of typecasting as a "bug writer," and stimulate some serious conversations about how we treat other species and each other.

On a lighter note, I have registered for another stand-up comedy workshop, this one in Colorado Springs, this summer. It has been almost twenty years since I last tried this, in Tucson. The results can be seen on YouTube:

I now have enough new material that I can pick and choose what works and what does not, and now it will come down to arranging and polishing. Comedy demands excellence in writing, so it is a great exercise for me as a writer, too. I would rather not perform it, but it is worth remembering that if you do not perform your own material, then you are not finishing the job, and it might never see the light of day otherwise. Write for someone else, and you risk that something gets lost in translation.

Income tax preparation is still staring me in the face, too, complicated by the transfer of my late father's estate into my name, the many changes for the worse in the tax code, and a relatively dismal year in earnings. Filing extensions might be my best friend this year.

The greatest recent stress should be a great joy, but it gives me angst instead. We bought a house....in Leavenworth, Kansas. Not the "big house," but I still worry that it will seem like incarceration once we move there, probably in a year or two. My wife's parents live in Leavenworth, and we want to be closer to be able to see them happily into their golden years. This I am fine with. My in-laws are wonderful people. The other factor in our decision is that housing prices in Colorado Springs are increasing exponentially. There is no way that we could afford an upgrade out of our current townhouse in the....neglected, shall we say, part of town.

© Zillow.com
Our new and future house

Leavenworth is church, prisons, and fort, pretty much in that order. Churches form the social foundation of this small town. Prisons are responsible for whatever constitutes their tourist economy. Fort Leavenworth furnishes much of the population and drives the business sector. These are three aspects of life I do not like. Religion is a human institution fraught with the same problems as business and government. Prisons symbolize the mass incarceration of minorities. While I support our troops, I rarely agree with the missions they are deployed to, and almost never with military policy and the wasteful Department of Defense budget.

© Wikipedia.org
Downtown Leavenworth, Kansas

Talk about a sense of misplaced, I fear I would feel completely alone. My wife has spearheaded the house hunt and put in the majority of work in the whole transaction process. I admire and appreciate her resourcefulness and resolve. She is not dragging me kicking and screaming through this, but more like heaving a limp body, heavy with resignation that this is going to be his destiny, like it or not. Ideally, I would rather live in southern California, or maybe one of the Mid-Atlantic states. It isn't the beaches, it is the vibrancy of people, the off-the-scale creative communities that draw my dreams there. It is the progressive nature of politics, the vastly greater appreciation of the natural world.

Now? I just finished sorting insect specimens from Miami for the Yard Futures project. Next up is....Los Angeles. Ah, what might have been.

Life-changing Events

Ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to announce that on Sunday, April 29, I will be marrying my fianceé, Heidi Genter, here in Colorado Springs. It promises to be a momentous event, and I am looking forward to it. It also means my priorities will change drastically.

I will not be able to guarantee regular posts to either of my two blogs (Bug Eric is the other) from this day forward. Last minute errands will take up most of the next two weeks. I am also working on a couple of projects that have guaranteed income potential.

After the wedding, our priorities will be merging our two households, and finding a more regular income-generating job for me. As the weather continues to warm, we will be taking advantage and going afield as often as we can.

In short, "real life" will be largely replacing the virtual one I have been leading the last several months. This does not mean I plan to give up putting new content on my blogs, but it will be on a as-I-can-do-it basis. I appreciate your understanding. Thank you.

Bereavement

There will be no posts in the immediate future, due to a family emergency. Heidi and I appreciate your prayers for the Geske and Genter families in the meantime. Thank you.

We're Moving!

Well, the blog is staying put, actually, but the author is moving from Tucson, Arizona to Colorado Springs, Colorado next weekend. This blog will be on hiatus until he gets settled and hooked up with whatever internet provider serves his neighborhood there. Thank you in advance for your loyalty and patience. I am optimistic that I'll be back by mid-October, with the promise of more regular posts, too.

Update.

Once again I find myself apologizing for the relatively sporadic nature of my posts here lately. No excuses, really, though I have been working rather random hours at the Tucson Botanical Gardens, and consequently eating randomly, sleeping randomly, and writing randomly. Maybe I need to take a class on time management.

I also just concluded a project in which I reviewed chapters for a forthcoming self-published book on the natural history of Virginia Beach, Virginia, by Scott Bastian. He has been a delight to work with, and he will be turning out a pretty unique book that has a wealth of information stretching far beyond the locality of Virginia Beach. You'll hear more about this once it is off the presses.

A relative lack of rain this year in Arizona (except for the area immediately adjacent to the Mexican border) has meant that many insects have been lacking, or at least less numerous, than usual. Perhaps because the Tucson Botanical Gardens is heavily watered, I have found a surprising diversity of things there, and expect the trend to continue through October.

Best wishes to my readers for a fruitful fall of exploring, image-taking, and enjoyment of autumn colors.

Apologies, Excuses, Suggestions

The loyal followers of this blog deserve to be dazzled and amazed much more frequently than the writer has been able to do lately. I sincerely apologize for the time lag and anticipate that things will improve soon. Today I will do a little explaining.

I am delighted to report that part of the reason I have been “missing in action” is because I have acquired some assignments that, believe it or not, are actually paying me for online content I am creating. As a co-moderator with Mandy Howe, I’m monitoring submissions to SpiderIdentification.org for a modest monthly wage. I want to express my sincerest thanks to webmaster Kyle Williams for this opportunity.

Kyle had also purchased the domain name “DustMites.org,” but soon sold it to another individual. That person, Tim McGuiness, is out of the same amazing mold as Kyle in that he, too, has offered to pay me for creating content. I am in the midst of doing that right this instant, and am facing a pretty tight deadline. The research alone has had my head swimming. Obviously, I am also grateful to Tim for his generosity. Both the spider and dust mite websites will eventually include advertising that may generate more income still for all involved, but first things first.

Since it is springtime, I have also found myself out in the field quite a bit, though my allergies to pollens have sometimes made for miserable outings. It has also been extremely windy here in southeast Arizona, making it difficult to get respectable images of flowers, insects, birds, and other organisms to illustrate this blog with. I am very appreciative of my friends Margarethe Brummermann, Ned Harris, Fred Heath and his wife Mary Klinkel, John Rhodes, and others for including me in their own field trips.

I am hoping that all of you are also getting out and about, but if not, may I suggest investigating some of the blogs that I follow? Margarethe just started her own, all about Arizona beetles, bugs, birds, and more. It is listed, along with perennial favorites like “The Marvelous in Nature” by Seabrooke Leckie, on the sidebar of this blog.

Thank you again for your patience and understanding. May you enjoy the season.

Darwin Gets Swine Flu

I had the privilege of attending a seminar yesterday evening presented by author Carl Zimmer for the Department of Organismal and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst). The title was “Darwin Gets Swine Flu: Celebrating the Origin of Species in an Age of Pandemics.” Zimmer somehow managed to weave together eloquent prose with stunning graphics and a dash of humor. How else would you deftly convey something as sobering as influenza?

I must admit that I have been one of those folks who has brushed aside the hype associated with H1N1. I still wash my hands and take as many precautions as possible without unduly altering my daily life, but I may have to re-think this after learning what Zimmer knew already.

Thankfully, the death toll from influenza pandemics has steadily and dramatically dropped since the global catastrophe of 1918, but even without these periodic spikes, an average of 36,000 people die each year from the regular flu. This year, 10,000 folks have perished from H1N1, in the U.S. alone, since about April. There may be more fatalities yet to come, but we hope not, of course.

Why can’t we seem to conquer influenza? This is where Darwin comes in. Viruses simply evolve to fast for us to keep up with them, at least with our current vaccination technology. We even accelerate their evolution through our global travel, where tropical strains can mix with temperate ones and create new strains within days. The rate at which viruses reproduce is mind-boggling. The rate at which they mutate is staggering. The good news is that the majority of these mutations are fatal to the viruses themselves. Enough mutations survive, however, to create strains resistant to the latest vaccination, or otherwise insulate the virus from our ability to combat it effectively.

Ok, back up a minute. So what do the “H” and “N” and numbers stand for, anyway? “H” stands for hemagglutinin, “N” for neuraminidase, both of which are proteins that coat the exterior of a virus. These proteins are what our immune system antibodies recognize as foreign invaders. The numbers, one through sixteen, represent the known strains of the influenza virus. Where are the rest of the strains? Well, nearly all of them are carried by birds. Birds don’t seem to get sick from these viruses, at least not very often, but of course they have the potential to spread the viruses far and wide with their excrement, and dead bodies (from whatever cause of death).

Zimmer cautioned that “factory farming” of large numbers of poultry birds and pigs in relatively small, confined spaces may mean more flu pandemics in our future. Virus particles (for lack of a better, basic term) are easily passed short distances from one infected organism to another as it is, let alone when they are shoulder to shoulder.

Winter is the time at which we are most vulnerable to infection because viruses sneezed out or coughed out linger in the dry air much longer than in humid air. The viruses also drift farther, and settle on common items like doorknobs and telephones, too. No reason for paranoia here, just caution. After I wash my hands in a public restroom, I use the paper towel to open the door to leave, for example.

Time to switch gears now and encourage you to follow science through Zimmer’s books, website, and blog. The best place to start might be at Carl Zimmer dot com. Be sure to check out his award-winning blog, too, entitled The Loom. What an appropriate name for what Zimmer weaves together in a totally enthralling fashion. Keep up the great work, Carl!

Work, Work, Work

I do not like to make excuses for why there are long gaps between blog entries, but right now I am up to my ears in work, and my six month stint here at the University of Massachusetts is winding down.

My current priorities are to finish my tasks in the lab, complete a private project identifying bee specimens, and start packing up to move back to Arizona. Blogging is going to have to be put on the back burner for now, so please bear with me while posts are more infrequent.

Once I return to Tucson, I hope to also return to more creative, philosophical, thought-provoking, and nostalgic themes here at Sense of Misplaced. That is to say that I'd like to share with you some of my memories, and some of the people and experiences that shaped my life over the years.

I also aim to drive more traffic to this blog, and welcome suggestions for how to do so. Thank you.