a healthy curiosity

I see that everyone has gotten all nervous and uptight about global warming. I can't turn on CNN without seeing Al Gore's crumpled-paper-bag face looking earnestly back at me. Even the local paper today ran as its top headline, "ARCTIC IS SCREAMING, SCIENTISTS SAY." Or something. I didn't read it very carefully.

I'm a good liberal girl; at least, I was raised to be one. I memorized the leftie environmental catechism before I was three: you know, save the environment, protect the seal pups, boo the big conglomerates, hate the hunters and the timber companies and those people who are whacking down the rain forests. I was such a good liberal girl that the first almost-president I ever voted for was Michael Dukakis. Show me five other people in the country who can say that.

I've abandoned some of the quainter liberal sacred cows along the road to thirty-nine years old. But I still care about seal pups and frown at litterbugs. I recycle, as long as someone makes it really convenient for me. And although I drive a minivan, I occasionally feel bad about it. Okay, so mostly I feel bad because the price of gas is truly irritating when you drive a car that gets ten to the gallon, and because I think buying gas supports the Saudis, who run possibly the most loathsome regime on earth. But also, I feel a tiny bit bad because maybe my big car is polluting something. Or exploiting something. Or whatever.

But here's the thing. When it comes to global warming, I don't feel the way everyone says I'm supposed to feel. No gloom, no anxiety, no stress. Actually, I can't wait for global warming. I'm looking forward to it with an emotion that approaches breathless anticipation.

I don't mean that I'm hopeful of getting an ice-free winter and not having to dig up the cannas in fall -- though, admittedly, that would be a nice perk. No -- I'm mostly just eaten up with eager curiosity. Melting ice caps? Howling hurricanes? Rising water levels? Way cool! Wonder what that's gonna be like! I hope I live long enough to see the world get all shaken and stirred and changed around. Because you know, it's been this one same way my whole life, and I'm ready for a little climatic action!

I know what you're all thinking: People are going to lose their homes as the ocean invades the coasts. Subsistence farmers in Africa are going to see their dusty crops get swallowed in sandstorms and shriveled by desertification. Human beings will die from this. Worst of all, those cute little seal pups will drown by the millions. How can she be so callous?

OK, maybe I'm a horrible person. But I just really, really love to watch a good show. World, entertain me! Show me something different! I wanna experience something new under the sun!

Come to think of it, seven years ago I felt the same way about trying for the first baby. My then-husband was all mushy about it: I love you so much. I want to have a baby with you, sweetheart. But for me it was more like, Hey, I've never been pregnant before -- that'll be interesting! I ended up trying fetus for all the same reasons I had tried acid a few years earlier. (In an eerie parallel, fetus, like acid, turned out to be a much worse trip than expected, and it went on and on and on long after I desperately wanted it to stop).

Before that, curiosity got me to tie the knot with a stranger. Partly I got married in a rush of altruism brought on by romantic literature (see the post me and victor hugo from 11/07), but partly I was driven by the sudden thought of, Hey, marriage! Won't that be new!

It was the same thing when I lost my virginity. But, my God, how I hate that archaic phrase. Do people still actually say that in 2007? Let me start over:

It was the same thing when I had sex with my first guy. My roommate and I were hanging out on the sofa one night talking about our flowerful hymens and such, and she commented, "It's not that there's anything wrong with virgins, but I've been one for eighteen years and now I'm bored." I laughed and thought, She's so right! The next night there was a party at Sig Ep, and after eighteen years of saying "Non, monsieur, non, je te prie!" I changed my answer to, "Yeah, sure. Your place?" And that was that. I can tell you that it was marginally better than a bad acid trip or hyperemesis of pregnancy, but only in the way that being stabbed with a dull pocketknife is better than being shot in the head.

(In fact, it was bad enough that I didn't have sex again for two more years. For the rest of college, people were always asking me, "Hey, why are you putting your clothes back on already?" and I was always having to explain to them, "Well, I think sex is really boring, plus it hurts. So I pretty much just like to fool around, and then leave." Strangely, many people resented this answer; I never understood why. Regardless, they should have blamed Mr. Inept from Sig Ep instead of telling lies about me and calling me nasty names behind my back.)

So that's how it is. I just like to try new things. I thrive on novelty. I have an inquiring mind. Christ, stop frowning at me -- those are GOOD things.

Hey, you know what else I'm looking forward to? The destruction of the world's oil reserves. It's going to happen; it has to. When it does, we'll all be riding bicycles or strapping on daedalus-style wings of feather and wax. That would be fun. And one thing is for sure: when it happens, ten thousand Saudi princes and their nutcase Wahhabi clerics will all fall down sobbing and crawl out into the desert to die. I'm going to stop eating so many doughnuts and take better care of myself, because I really want to live to see that day.

Anyway, didja know the Arctic icecap may be all gone in just a few more years? How exciting is that! What do you think will happen next?