Don't just relax, watch the weather

I meant to post about this last week when I was just back from Europe. It turns out that the trope of 'just relax' is pretty uniquely American. So, to give you a little perspective, my friends at the conference were asking how things were going. Fine. A few minutes later I mentioned that it can be quite odd to commute between NYC and 'somewhere in the South.' The face of my close friend just lit of up. "But of course nothing's working," she said. "Your poor body. Going through all those temperature changes." And she was serious, and 2 other friends confirmed her suspicion that rapid weather changes would absolutely prevent me from having a baby. So there we have it: I don't need to relax, I just need to take a good long vacation near the equator.