Tomatoes Feel It Too

Super amazing journal bounced my paper. Argy bargy ensued about the next best place to send it. I want a realistic goal with the aim to get it published. Boss wants super amazing journal minus 1. Probable-nobel-laureate-coauthor suggests a strategic (ie realistic) second journal but Boss and PNLC have history and debate has broken out. Yawn.

But why the 'meat is murder' reference (oblique though it was)? Well, the past 24 hours has given me the chance to think seriously about how different people make decisions in difficult times. That got me thinking about my lovely friend, CellBoy, who travelled overseas to a strong lab to post-doc.

CellBoy and I met as undergraduates and I always tried to make him marry me. It was a bit of a running joke between us and we simply always had a lot of time for each other, but never any sparks. But I digress. CellBoy took more years than many put together to conduct his PhD. He was dedicated, spent more time at the bench than most people, but was just so thorough (OK, verged on pedantic!) that it took ages. He left with dreams of getting through things a bit faster next time around, but that hasn't materialised. The two year post-doc is much older than my school-aged child.

Good old Facebook has kept us together though and yesterday he announced that he's leaving science to work in science editing or some such thing. My dedicated, competent, totally lovely CellBoy is giving up. Of course, as a friend, I'm happy for him but it does make me wonder whether the Tomatoes Feel It Too.

On a less serious note (and I might get into trouble from all quarters for this comment), he happens to be one of the most girly men I know. So maybe that's his fault?! It would seem that pushing through the politics of my male-dominant environment would probably not be easy even if i harboured a Y chromosome.