Thoughts on Some Crazy Cats

As the stories emerge in this 6 month stint, it is only fitting that characters do as well. I do best surrounding myself with people who are caricatures, over the top versions of themselves that make life hilarious and allow all experiences to be richer based on each individuals awkward/weird/dorky contribution to life. My life is full of caricature friends back home, and no one could ever take their place; similarly here, each person is so crazy individual that when I leave I will lament the loss of each true and wonderful gem that I will never meet again. 

The Hippie Scientist is one such friend whose keen personality I need to soak up as much as possible while we are still only living one floor away from one another, as is her roommate, my pal, whose name I haven't come up with yet. A true cross section of nature and nurture, Hippie Scientist is by nature wired for science, detail, facts, particulars, reason and no nonsense. Raised in Berkeley, she was nurtured to connect to her environment and universe, to think globally and act locally, to appreciate love in all forms and human bodies in their most natural state. In practice these dichotomies equal sheer brilliance. While at first glance she may come off to some as slightly studious and hinting toward know-it-all status, a second look reveals a true fascination with nature, particularly the ocean, and a sharp and fast mind that holds such a vast body of knowledge that the know-it-all label can be applied for its sheer truth and not for pretentious fluff. 

"Look at this shirt," she said to me last night, pointing at her own Tower-Hangout-Attire. She was wasted, as was I, and while our conversation at the moment probably had no ties to science, this was the kick she latched onto after 2 grown up lemonades, Kaisa-sized vodka sprites, somec*, and beer pong. "It has all the phylum of animals on it. Look at the mammals...there are only four," she put four deliberate fingers to her chest, where all the phylum were listed on her dorky shirt.  "Four. That is pretty insignificant. Makes you think, doesn't it. " She shot me a triumphant look that seemed to say, in its inebriated body language, "I know, right?", which is what any of my Seattle friends would have ended that point with, and then she headed back to the beer pong table. I laughed, because it was clear that she had thought of this before, this imbalance of taxonomy and the hierarchy of species, probably while stoned. The way feminism is my drunken soap box, the animal kingdom is hers- her politics is that of nature. I don't know shit about animals except for what you have to know about primates for anthropology, so I can only smile and acknowledge how profound her little statement was, with little to no understanding of the greater implications of there only being four phylum mammals on this planet.

The Hippie Scientist is one of the leading characters in this weird act, this "Real World Guam" experience, and there are many others, some whose names are yet-to-be-determined. A couple of others to chew on for now are "Lisa," named for his similarity to the Lesbian Man on the L Word, Captain Planet, who was incidentally not named for any Green Planet promoting, and Princess, who was fittingly named for acting like a Princess. All the time. It may not be of pressing importance for me to make a character summary for each individual here, because I hope I follow through with writing enough for them to reveal themselves, so for now, the Hippie Scientist is as much detail as I can muster. 

Besides, the Gold Mine is The Stoic Korean. I promise.