I'm Back

So this summer, starting around the beginning of July, I kind of went on hiatus. I know, I know, the world almost came to a stop and the three people who check my blog each day were bereft of 30 seconds worth of reading material ... anyway, I know I have been away for a while, but in all fairness, quite a bit happened to us this summer.

I got married (the fabulous photos are from Langdon photography, they are amazing!!!)

We went on a mini-honey moon to central West Virginia, where we hiked and relaxed and the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Rockhall, Maryland (to the right is an image of the resort at Stonewall Jackson Lake, where we stayed at a resort in central West Virginia and to the left is a picture of me eating too many blue crabs in at our own, personal all-you-can-eat crab fest Rockhall).

I got a paper accepted to the American Journal of Pathology (we actually found out the paper was accepted during our mini-moon, making the week extra special).

We bought a house and moved into it (down to the right is the view from our terrace).

I spent an intense week at Cold Spring Harbor learning about the Cellular Biology of Addiction and made a number of wonderful new friends.

I found out my paper is on the cover of the American Journal of Pathology!!!! (the cover photo, human macrophages infected with HIV in the presence of dopamine, is on the left).

And last, but definitely not least, I submitted a huge grant.

And this is in addition to all the big stuff Aviva did, and all the great little things (sold some photos on-line, made some great new friends in our new complex, got some very difficult assays working, etc ...). Its been quite the summer, and I have to say, when I thought about all I was going to have to do before the summer it seemed like a lot, but it felt like a lot more when I was doing it. Anyway, at some point I lost the ability to blog (and to work out and really to do anything but move boxes and write) so you have all been without my witty insight for a while, but now, I think I am back and I look forward to getting back to sharing my life with all of you.

The Green in the Middle

Summer in San Diego isn't really all its cracked up to be. Not that there is not perfect beach weather almost all summer, there is, but there is perfect beach weather for a lot of the year so going to the beach is not that special. And in San Diego, and the rest of the desert that is Southern California, in the summer everything dies. The hills along the freeways are dotted with conifers in a sea of yellow grass and the deserts are again empty after their short spring burst. Human activity keeps lawns and some areas green at great environmental cost, and some canyons and valleys with streams and rivers maintain some green growth, but the area is like a husk of itself from the spring.

Moving to New York, with California weather making up the vast majority of my life experience, I was stunned by the greenery. When I first came for a job interview last summer, I was struck by how green the Bronx seemed, with trees all over the place ... very different from the idea in the back of my mind that the Bronx was an urban wasteland. This summer is the same, trees and grass and bushes growing up almost overnight and covering my neighborhood in a blanket of green. People say that New York is too urban, too many buildings that block out the sun, too much metal and stone, and there are certainly parts of the city where that is true. But that thought really misses the beauty of the trees bursting to life all over the city, of the flowers and bushes and general life spreading through the concrete and metal that dominate in the winter.

And in the center of the city sites a green gem, Central Park. This park is tremendously famous, in dozens of movies and TV shows, and hugely influential in New York culture separating the city into the East and West sides and providing an outlet for the athletic and outdoorsy endeavors of the otherwise building bound Manhattanites. When I first went to the park last fall, then several times in the winter and spring, and even now in the summer, I am always struck by the seeming incongruity of the huge number of over urban, too busy New Yorkers running, biking, skating, walking, hiking, playing sports and generally playing in the park. Its amazing. I had always assumed New Yorkers to be city-bound, not outdoorsy, over worked people, but here was this massive, green playground in the center of the city proving me wrong.

And now, as I become busier and more over-worked, I am thankful that the park exists, as it has become as important to my life as seems to be to everyone else. I try to skate there at as often as I can, making the 6 mile loop on some of the best concrete I have ever skated on. I go out of my way to walk through the park on my way through the city. I go to birthdays and picnics there. I go there and stand on the great lawn and look around and see buildings towering but seeming far away and it feels like I am far away. It seems too easy to get away here, and of all the things in Manhattan the park most makes me wish I lived there.

I am not sure if people would find a way to be outside if the park were not here, but I would like to think so ... it makes the people here seem more "whole". It would certainly be more difficult for me to go skating and do my long walks through the city. But theres no worry, the park is here to stay and I am so happy it is ... I must be New Yorkifying ...