by David Templeton

“I personally, can barely walk in high heels,” says Barbara Harrison, “let alone run through swamps. Watching cloned dinosaurs romping at a theme park only barely stretched my sense of credibility, but that woman running around through the whole movie in high heels—that definitely defied logic.”

Barbara Harrison is co-owner of Tom Harrison Maps, a Marin-based company that makes detailed topographical maps of state parks, forests and wilderness areas for use by hikers, backpackers and adventure-seekers, some of whom might jump at the chance to walk among living dinosaurs, like the ones in the new movie Jurassic World, but none of whom would do so in the kind of footwear worn by Bryce Dallas Howard as the executive in charge of the park.

“Also, my husband Tom used to be a park ranger,” Harrison adds, “and we lived on Angel Island for a while. Bringing 20,000 people onto an island the size of the one in Jurassic World—it’s just not possible. There is no way they would have the facility to accommodate all those people and still have room for dinosaurs.

“But that’s just my two cents worth.”

Harrison sees a lot of movies … when she’s not traveling the world. And even then she sometimes takes time to see a film or two. Sometimes serving as spokesperson and media representative for her family’s ever-thriving and popular map company (tomharrisonmaps.com), Harrison nonetheless considers herself retired, leaving lots of time to pursue her cinematic and globe-hopping interests. Call her a professional movie-going hobbyist, with tastes that run the gamut from artsy foreign films—especially those from or about Iran, where she spent part of her childhood—all the way to big Hollywood blockbusters.

Not that she doesn’t have standards. For example, she did not originally plan to see Jurassic World, which has already become the summer’s biggest hit, devouring box offices all over the world.

“I see these previews for films that are either sequels, or remakes of other films,” she explains, “and they’ve all started looking like the same movie. There are explosions, and there are fights, and you can’t tell the good guys from the bad guys. So when I saw that Jurassic World was coming, I thought, ‘Another sequel! Do I really want to waste my time with this?’” Then she saw Mad Max: Fury Road, yet another sequel/reboot, which she caught in 3D on the recommendation of friends.

Though she ultimately disliked the film—“I liked the original Mad Max movies much better,” she says—there was a trailer for Jurassic World during the previews, and Harrison was quite taken at how good the 3D dinosaurs looked.

“I sat there with my glasses on going, ‘Wow! That actually looks kind of amazing. And Tom wanted to see it, so I thought, ‘OK, as long as we see it in 3D.’ I like 3D. I especially enjoy animated 3D movies, because they tend to be done in bright colors, which tend to come through even with the 3D glasses on, which often make movies look dark. That didn’t bother me so much with Jurassic World though, because it’s kind of a dark movie. It has a dark theme, and you are sort of in the jungle.

“And those dinosaurs,” she adds. “In 3D, they really do pop off the screen.”

A scary thought, that.

“The thing is, I will see pretty much anything,” she says with a laugh. “I wouldn’t say it was my favorite action movie of the year, but it was enjoyable enough. I have to say though, I’ve noticed lately that there just aren’t as many good movies as there used to be. Even amongst the big summertime action films. So maybe it doesn’t take as much to stand out from the pack as it used to, because the pack is not what it used to be.”

There’s a survival-of-the-fittest, dinosaur vs. dinosaur metaphor in there somewhere, and it’s hard to disagree with Harrison’s summation. For the record, by the way, her actual favorite action film of the year so far is Kingsmen: The Secret Service.

“I thought it was a hoot,” she admits. “And I thought the theme of exploding heads was just hilarious!”

As for Jurassic World, in which the original plans for a theme park have been realized, drawing 20,000 people a day to an island crammed with hotels, rides and a bunch of dinosaurs, Harrison appreciated more than just the 3D photography. She loved the setting, as much of the movie had been filmed in Hawaii.

“We started going in the ’70s, on the cheap,” she says of the Aloha State. “The first time we went we found a place two blocks from the beach for $12 a night. And then, shortly after that they built the military hotel on Waikiki, and we always try to go there if we can get in, because it’s the only green space left in Waikiki, and it’s cheap—compared to other hotels in Waikiki, anyway. Oahu is my favorite island, and some of the scenes in Jurassic World, I noticed, were filmed there, though most of it was filmed on Kauai. I actually liked the movie Aloha, despite its problems, because I just like movies about Hawaii, because it’s fun to see movies about places I’ve been.

“I like Iranian movies for the same reason.”

Harrison attended the American High School in Iran, in the ’60s.

“We just got back from a trip to Iran, the first time I’ve been back since I lived there,” she says. “I love it when I see a movie and get to say to myself, ‘Oooh. I know that place. I’ve been there. It feels like home. That’s a very special feeling.”

Even if there are genetically modified dinosaur clones chasing people through all that familiar scenery?

“Well, if the dinosaurs are in 3D,” Harrison says with a laugh, “then yes, definitely. Even then.”

Just don’t try to teach those dinosaurs to walk in high heels.

The natural world can only take so much abuse.

by Amy Alkon

Q: Last week, my girlfriend was all annoyed about something (something relatively unimportant). I’m normally not a bad listener, but I was getting stressed out just hearing about this. I blurted out, “Calm down!” and she really flipped, yelling, “DON’T TELL ME TO CALM DOWN!” It took me forever (and lots of “I’m sorrrryyyys”) to get her to mellow out. I mentioned this incident to a friend, and he said, “Man, don’t you know? You never say that to a woman!” Please explain.—Mr. Doghouse

A: There are times you may want to tell a woman to calm down, like when you lack live electrical wire to chew on or are curious as to how the nurses would react if you walked into the ER with your head under your arm.

Many people believe the myth that the typical man is about as emotionally sensitive as the typical hammer. However, neuroscientist Tor Wager looked at the findings from 65 brain imaging studies and found that—overall—men’s brains weren’t any less responsive to emotional stimuli than women’s. However, Wager’s study and others did find sex differences, like that women seem more likely to experience negative emotions—fear, anxiety and depression. Women also seem to be more emotionally expressive—verbally and in writing—and better at processing emotions, so they’re less likely to end up feeling dragged out back and beaten up by them.

But for men, when women get emotional, and especially when they veer off into rantville, emotion processing can play out something like this: Woman: “Knock-knock.” Man: “Who’s there?” Woman (upset): “Feelings!” (Silence. More silence.) Woman: “Hello? Hello?! I know you’re in there! I can hear the TV!”

To a man, an irate woman’s sharing of her emotional drama can be a bit like her sharing her Drano-tini. Relationships researcher John Gottman explains that men can become physiologically overwhelmed from stressful conversation alone, getting “flooded” with stress hormones and feeling physically ill and desperate to withdraw.

This happens through a “misattribution of arousal,” which means that your brain subconsciously (and instantaneously) puts mere talk that has a stressful vibe into the wrong bin—the “fight or flight” bin that alerts you, “Run from that tiger!” In response, adrenaline surges, your heart races, sweat beads up and parts of your brain and body that aren’t vital for bolting the hell out of there shut down. Yes, that’s a “Sorry, we’re closed!” sign on your digestive tract, and—oopsy!—there’s another on your brain’s higher reasoning center (which makes sense, considering that you’re supposed to be dashing away from the tiger, not parsing whether you have ill-will toward its mother-in-law).

The thing is, running away—as your body has primed you to do—would metabolize the stress hormones. But when you just sit there, the stress hormones just sit there, pooling, poisoning you, leading to sickening feelings. The natural impulse is to take shelter from the adrenaline storm—to escape and go off and recover—but this is hard to explain in any articulate and emotionally sensitive way in the moment, as your ability to reason is on sabbatical. So, in lieu of ducking under the nearest couch like the cat, you do it verbally, telling her, “Calm down!”

Of course, the problem here wasn’t that she needed to calm down, but that you did. So when you laid that on her, she probably heard, “I’m not just going to ignore your feelings; I’m going to dismiss them.” (This always goes over so well with women.)

Explaining the sex differences in emotion processing might help you both keep in mind that a man isn’t just a woman with a different set of funparts. For example, for her, venting her feelings may simply be a way of managing them. Chances are, she just needs you to be listening (or at least appear to be while playing Minecraft in your head).

The next time that she’s “all het up” about something, take some deep breaths and remind yourself that you aren’t under attack; you’re just somebody’s boyfriend. Should you start feeling emotionally swamped, take Gottman’s advice: “Let your [partner] know that you’re feeling flooded and need to take a break. The break should last at least 20 minutes, since it will be that long before your body calms down.”

Going for a run wouldn’t be a bad idea. However, in the spirit of better male/female communication, you need to tell your girlfriend your plan. No, you can’t just flash her a look of panic and bolt out the door—though being chased down the street by an enraged woman clutching your Renaissance Faire crossbow should do wonders in diminishing that nasty adrenaline buildup.