“I’m not passive,” I said. uggs discount And I added, “I hate it when you shrink me.”
     “Your wife is screwing around on you, you think she’s building a case to take the kids away from you, and you’re just letting it happen. I’d say that’s passive.”
     “What am I supposed to do?”
     “I told you.” Another exasperated sigh. “Okay. I’m taking a couple of days and coming up to see ugg discount you.”
     “Ellen—”
     “Don’t argue. I’m coming. You can tell Julia I’m going to help out with the kids. I’ll be up there this afternoon.”
     “But—”
     “Don’t argue.”
     And she got off the phone.
     I’m not passive. I’m thoughtful. Ellen’s very energetic, her personality’s perfect for a psychologist, because she loves to tell people what to do. Frankly, I think she’s pushy. And ugg discount she thinks I’m passive.
     This is Ellen’s idea about me. That I went to Stanford in the late seventies, and studied population biology—a purely academic field, with no practical application, no jobs except in universities. In those days population biology was being revolutionized by field studies of animals, and by advances in genetic screening. Both required computer ugg discount analysis, using advanced mathematical algorithms. I couldn’t find the kind of programs I needed for my research, so I began to write them myself. And I slid sideways into computer science—another geeky, purely academic field.
     But my graduation just happened to coincide with the rise of Silicon Valley and the personal-computer explosion. Low-number employees at startup companies ugg discount were making a fortune in the eighties, and I did pretty well at the first one I worked for. I met Julia, and we got married, had kids. Everything was smooth. We were both doing great, just by showing up for work. I got hired away by another company; more perks, bigger options. I just rode uggs discount the advancing wave into the nineties. By then I wasn’t programming anymore, I was supervising software development. And things just fell into place for me, without any real effort on my part. I just fell into my life. I never had to prove myself.