Tuesday, March 27, 2007

A's latest burst of paranoia

I'd have to say that, on the whole, I'm a very laid back and rational person. I am prone to bursts of obsessive worrying on occasion. I had one Sunday after finding out that my nephew was born by C-section because he was too large (we'll find out more when we're not getting the information through the family grapevine), which set of a whole set of fears about when I have children (I was 9.5 lbs, which is fairly normal for my family). I managed to calm myself down by checking up on the weight of my cousin's baby (born normally, 9 lbs 4 oz), and by just realizing that it really doesn't bear thinking about, as it will happen when and if it happens (and a healthy baby is worth major surgery).

Sneaking around beneath that worry, and really coming to a head last night, was my concern about eating seafood. No, it's not really related, but apparently I was just in a worrying mood. I've been wondering for a while, thanks to the oceanography and marine biology courses I took during my undergraduate years, whether or not it was okay to eat seafood, but my concerns were really peaked by a recent series of National Geographic articles. So much of what is being consumed isn't harvested sustainably, but how do you find the stuff that is? I'm a seafood lover, but by 10 pm last night I had worked myself into such a frenzy that I was going to swear off seafood. Fortunately, my brain reminded me that the Monterey Bay Aquarium keeps the public informed about this sort of issue, and it turns out that they have a handy-dandy wallet-sized guide to tell you which fish you should eat (Gah! Orange roughy is to be avoided?! My family has eaten that for years!). Now I can stop with the self-flagellation (which we of puritan descent so love to do, be it about sinfulness, global warming, or American foreign policy), and set myself on the more challenging task of putting my money where my mouth is.

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