Abyssal plains, block disintegration, planetesimals, and upwelling mantles - these are the latest additions to my vocabulary. They're from the geology texts I'm reading in anticipation of a trip to Santa Fe. Besides the words (seamount, subduction, spreading ridges), there is the extravagance of the geologic time scale to be fit into the folds of my brain.
It helps that I'm used to the "publication time scale." At first, I'd send something off and right away hold my breath, but now it takes six months before I think maybe that I should be hearing something sometime. Right in this moment I have a full manuscript out to a publisher (query in January, request for full in May) and an anthology possibility (submission sent in February, "recommended for the second tier of editorial review" message this month). Anytime now I should hear if my little planetesimals have been captured into anyone's gravity field.
P.S. Does anyone anywhere understand the magnetic fields of the Earth?