dreaded question: "What's the points spread on tonight's game?"

"I feel so uneducated," was a lament expressed the other day from one of my friends. What surprised me was this gal is one of the smartest, most well read, and interested people I know. So. This got me thinking.

Her comment was in regards to a conversation about my (yes, my) menstrual cycle. I chart it, observing cervical fluid and my basal body temperature each day, based on the technique elaborated on by Toni Weschler in her informative book, Taking Charge of Your Fertility. I became interested when I tired of hormonal cycle regulation (damn pills stifled my emotions and made me fat) and disposed of all those little white vacuum sealed pills, but found my menstrual cycles to be as irregular as ever. Never knowing when my period would settle into my new panties or my mar forever my white linen pants (I'm one of the few not struck down by debilitating cramps or downswings in my moods with this PMS business. Lucky, except that I was always taken by surprise when with no warning I'd need to rush off to the ladies' room, totally unprepared and without prepackaged wads of cotton to...um...anyway) was incredibly frustrating. Sometimes I'd have a period as soon as 21 days after my last, with sometimes as many as fifty-five days between menses. My boss/co-worker/one of my best friends here in Utah had just finished with this book, and hell, I wanted to take charge of my fertility. Or, at least be aware of when I could expect to get drownded.

(For those of you interested, as this isn't really what my post is about, I highly recommend the book. I remember one week in biolab as a freshman in college coming to the Female Menstrual Cycle lesson and thinking "oh man, I got this down. I mean. I should. I mean, I deal with this every month." And then being totally baffled by the horrifyingly confusing scientific-speak and convoluted presentation about processes that were occurring semi-regularly in my own body. So anyway, this book: very informative, very accessible, funny, engaging, and ultimately, educating, which is more in line with what my post is about).

So I got to thinking: how can she feel uneducated? I mean, the only reason I felt educated about the subject is because I was fed up with something directly relating to my experience and did the research on it. And it clicked. With so much information "out there," how in the world does one choose what to read/watch/listen to? Sure, sure, high school and even college degrees have pretty specific curricula, but after that? Why do I know so much about my period, and my sister knows so much about South Africa, and Katie so much about paper, etc etc etc?

I remember reading an article about the war with Iraq and American ignorance of its culture (yes yes yes, get on with it, you say), and the salient point was: we're not curious. The saturation of the media tells us exactly what we think we want to know and so we don't feel compelled to look further. (Take that how you will, but my point is): what are we curious about? What are our own and individual experiences pushing us toward? My frustration with my body got me asking questions about what I could do about it. I wonder if we're only going to "do the research" on what gets us going, and that's always going to be different. It's not a stock curricula, and it's not about being uneducated or ejuhmuhkated, or whatever, because no one ever will be, or everyone always is, or however one wants to evaluate it.

Anyway, in order not to make this seem like an exercise in futility, (or an overly elaborate and tiring encomium on the wealth of our melting-pot-resources and experiences) I'd leave on a note of this my own desire: to walk through life (well, with me, I might just be wandering around) with enough of an open mind to hear what is unfamiliar to me, and to be curious about it not for education's sake, but for the prospect of being able to connect with a stranger through that lovely medium, conversation.

Which means I might want to learn what a "curve ball" is.