Once upon a time, there was this girl named Julia. Now Julia was convinced that she was going to spend the rest of her life alone. And she was content with it. She made a career change and she became her a mentor. And she made friends. One of her friends was Rina, who invited her to a BBQ. She wasn’t sure if she was going to go — she had spent most of the day sleeping. But she went anyway. There were a lot of children, but she didn’t mind. So to amuse herself she struck up a conversation with her friends on, of all things, wet dreams. While they were going back and forth, a man, Roland, entered in from the outside, sat down and got caught up in the conversation. While her friends were offering up one misconception after another about wet dreams, Julia defended men, trying to explain how wet dreams really worked. But Roland, who was mightily amused about this oddest of odd conversations, was struck by the forthrightness and confident demeanor of this most intriguing, mysterious Julia. He knew right then and there that he had to take that chance of chances and find out who this Julia was… {to be continued}

I mean, she carried a set of adult diapers to save the time — now that’s what I call being prepared.

On the other hand, the scientist-type in me says I hope NASA gets “good data” (as scientists-types all over are wont to say). Seriously, NASA is spending a lot of money and research to understand how men and women adapt to the stresses of isolation and loneliness in space. The crew aboard the International Space Station (ISS) usually spends 6-12 months at a time living with each other. There are too many variables to know exactly what can happen out in the cold depths of space.

And when we do send humans to Mars, they may be gone for almost two years.

(So what should the first Martian crew look like? All seasoned military men like it was for the first Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and Space Shuttle missions? Perhaps we keep them mixed? And what about their status? All single? Or married? Or asexually-identified post-op transexual?)