(Warning. Self-absorption ahead. I don't do this on the blog all that often; this is just to make sure that readers have given informed consent, especially given how hard I bashed poor navel-gazing Jewel in Jukebox From Hell just now.)

When you drive 90 miles to work, you can find yourself becoming reflective on the way. Usually I ward this sort of thing off with either Schubert or Primus, depending on my mood, but sometimes a genuine insight drowns out the music.

Okay, got this? Forty-plus woman with extremely convoluted and conflicted attitudes towards the whole institution of the biological family. Grew up watching some really strange interactions among relatives; never wanted kids; got married relatively late; tends to build her own family, dynamically, from a pool of biologically unrelated friends. Tries not to get too attached to her own dwelling place. Highly extroverted at work and in social situations, but recharges her batteries most efficiently by seeking solitude.

When she goes into zoological research, what does she decide to study? Yup: Kinship, relatedness, mating and reproductive behavior, and population/community structure. Oh, and lately she's been (at least intellectually) most turned on by social insects.

Bugs teach you the damnedest things. Especially about yourself.