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I am presently up to my eyeballs in just-in-time delivery of alligators, but I've been thinking a lot about identity formation. Partly because I proofread a friend's grant proposal a couple months ago, on identity; partly because a pal and I have started our own teeny tiny Sunday/Hebrew school, mainly to form a progressive Jewish identity in our kids; and partly because, for Reasons, my job has suddenly changed a great deal and its content now aligns better with my professional identity and corresponding values around science. (I am happier, but... this is just a little too much. But not bored! Nope, not even a little.)

(This is to remind me to write about it later, like after my grant is due...)

A brief anecdote, thought: I was with a group of women pals at the park, ignoring my children, and a pseudoscience topic came up. Let's say it was... essential oils. This person is a Licensed Llama Herder, which takes a good four years of higher education after a bachelor's. I said something to the effect that studies showed real essential oils and synthetic, fake essential oils had indistinguishable effects. "Well, I've seen them really help sick llamas sometimes," she said, "and besides it can't hurt, right?" And in that moment I realized  that, although Llama Herders take many years of science classes, they don't have what I consider a science mindset: that physical phenomena and living things have testable properties, and that if the data show it doesn't work, anecdotes don't mean it works only sometimes. That's not how any of this works.