tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-87721741078005302582024-02-02T16:45:44.305-05:00Let Them Eat Kaitthe eclectic musings of Kaitlin BergfieldAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07795523956178130004noreply@blogger.comBlogger73125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8772174107800530258.post-5754509254322414952015-01-27T11:29:00.000-05:002015-05-30T08:36:38.032-04:003 things I wish I’d known about sexuality and identity<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
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The transition from childhood to adulthood can be a
confusing time. (Do I win some kind of
award for understatement of the year for that?)
Sexuality and gender identity can be especially hard to understand and
deal with if a kid suspects their answer isn’t totally aligned with the norm. This stuff can involve a lot of questioning
and soul-searching, and it’s hard to know what to ask or how or to whom when
you’re only just emerging into a world that’s willing to give you the proper
framework for it rather than tell you you’re too young to be thinking about
that stuff yet. You can end up saying a
lot of stupid things to a lot of people you care about along the way, and
however genuine and necessary those statements and questions are, years or even
decades later you might look back on those conversations and know that the
other someone <i>still knows you said that</i>,
and you will wish you could call them and explain yourself now that you
understand what you really meant. (But
it’s not like I’m speaking from experience or anything, here.)</div>
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We’re getting better about helping kids through this
stuff now (I hope). Acceptance of
homosexuality is on the rise, the word “transgender” appeared for the first
time ever in the President’s State of the Union address, Gamergate was a
perfect demonstration of how strong our movement for women’s equality has
become (and how far we still have to go).
So maybe this post is a little old-fashioned now – but as my kids grow
up, I fully intend to make sure these adult messages are getting passed along
to them in a way they can understand.
Here are a few of the things I wish I’d known around, say, the age of
twelve, in the interest of avoiding some of those acutely embarrassing memories
I still harbor:</div>
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1. Gender is a concept, and it’s complicated</div>
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Here is a fact which bears repeating because of how
confusing it is for most people when they first encounter it: Sex, Gender, and
Sexuality are three totally distinct things.
Your sex is (more or less) the set of genitalia you were born with. Your gender is (more or less) what’s in your
head – your feeling about what type of person you are. And your sexuality is, to put it simply, what
you’re into. </div>
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The idea of gender being in your head is especially hard
for people. It’s infinitely depressing
as I start down this path of raising a child to hear how <i>early</i> and <i>often</i> people
ascribe masculine or feminine personality traits to their children based on
their sex. It’s so deeply rooted in our
culture to have only <i>two</i> genders and
to have those be defined entirely by <i>genitalia</i>
that many people wouldn’t dream of an alternative. And it’s destructive even for cis-gendered
kids – kids whose gender identity <i>does</i>
happen to coincide with what’s in their pants. It makes young boys feel they can’t express
their emotions through tears. It makes
young girls feel they have to love pink.
It creates all our favorite damaging stereotypes about adult men and
women. So imagine what it does to kids
who <i>don’t</i> feel as canonically
masculine or feminine as their genitals dictate (and, if we’re being honest,
that’s a lot of us). </div>
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For me, the biggest revelation I came upon way too late
was the notion of male privilege. It was
never presented to me explicitly how fundamentally differently society treats
men and women. I saw it all the time, of
course, but I lived it, too – and when you live it, it’s hard to see just how
pervasive and persuasive it is. So at
the time, it was hard to see that <i>for me</i>
(and I stress that <i>strongly</i>, here), a
yearning for male privilege was a large part of my sometimes-expressed wish I’d
been born a guy. Certainly not all of it
– but a huge, undeniable part.* I didn’t
understand at the time that gender is nothing but a construct, both a social
and a personal construct – and that because it is social in addition to being
personal, it’s very easy for outside forces to influence a person’s thoughts
about what they’re really feeling.</div>
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<i>What I would say to
Young Me now</i>: “You may think your decisions about gender are entirely your
own, but they’re not. They can’t be,
because you’re a social creature and you belong to humanity. You don’t exist in a vacuum. The best you can do is think long and hard
about it, quiet your soul, and ask yourself: how you feel, how that feeling
impacts your daily life, and whether you need to make an external change to
reflect your inner self.”</div>
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*This is such a critical point that I don’t want it to
get lost: This was my experience, and it wasn’t all of my experience. Everyone has a different journey and my road,
thank God, has been a relatively easy one.
I applaud the courage of those whose battle with traditional gender
roles is far more personal than mine.</div>
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2. Neither your gender identity nor your sexual
orientation has to be set in stone</div>
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I’ve said before that our society (our species?) puts a
lot of stock in labeling. We want you to
tell us you’re [insert-label-here], and we want you to stay in that
bucket. Jumping buckets just might be
some kind of sin.</div>
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In high school I heard a self-identified lesbian spewing
all sorts of hatred for a girl who had previously declared herself gay and then
dated a guy. I sat quietly by and let this
person rant. And I thought, “Wow, good
thing I’m straight and don’t have to worry about this!” <i>Ha! </i> There are so many things wrong with that
memory. This person’s <i>hate</i> for someone who changed their mind
– or didn’t change their mind at all but didn’t feel the need to tell an
outside person all the minute details of her inner desires! The assumption on my part that I was straight
despite all the still-building evidence to the contrary. My fear of other people’s opinions about my
sexuality. My belief that a person could
only ever be one thing and any “deviations” along the way were nothing more
than an attempt to figure out what that one thing was. My inaction in the face of her hate.</div>
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It may not be the most relevant use of this quote, but
whenever I think about these kinds of things I’m reminded of Maya Angelou: <span class="st">“I did then what I knew how to do. </span><em><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Now that I
know better</span></em><span class="st">, I do better.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="st">The more I’ve learned about gender and
sexuality, the more comfortable I am in saying simply, I like people. I can’t tell you what kinds, really, I just
know it when I see it. Or get to know
it. Or hear it from across a crowded
room. And tomorrow I might not feel the
same way. And it’s none of your damn
business anyway. And your interests and
self-identity are none of my or anyone else’s damn business, either.</span></div>
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<i>What I would say to
Young Me now</i>: “If it helps you to
think of your gender and sexuality in terms of labels, then by all means do it
– but don’t feel you have to hold onto those labels forever. Wear them while they suit you. And if anyone tries to push you into donning
an outgrown or ill-fitting coat, <i>push
back</i>.”</div>
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3. It is NEVER
okay to belittle someone else’s experience</div>
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I’m ashamed to admit I’ve repeatedly had to learn this
one the hard way. As a simple and
obvious example, even into high school I used to call all sorts of things ‘gay’. I said
it even though I had an amazing friend who early and often yelled at me for
it. And I’m still learning how to see
the world from other people’s eyes. Even
today I caught myself wanting to defend my hometown as I read about someone
else’s awful experience in it. #NotAllTucsonans,
style of thing. It was pathetic.</div>
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Acceptance comes up often in discussions of sexuality and
identity. We all view the world through
our singular experience, and by definition that makes it difficult to get into
the mindset of another person.
(Neuroscience tells us we get better at this as we get older, thank
goodness!) We’re called upon again and
again simply to trust that someone else is sincere when they tell us they like
people who identify as the same gender, when they say they’ve never felt
comfortable in the bodies they were born with, when they carefully explain why
the word ‘gay’, when used pejoratively, is offensive to them. And the moment we persist in arguing they
must be wrong or they shouldn’t be such a baby about things, we invalidate them
and their hard-earned sensibilities. We’re
saying our stupid comment matters more to us than the reality of their everyday
experience. We’re letting our singular, myopic
view of the world dominate the dialogue.
Wouldn’t it be nicer and easier all around to just give people the
benefit of the doubt and assume they’re intelligent people with the ability to
decide for themselves who they feel like and whom they like? Wouldn’t it be better to <i>embrace</i> their experience as another shining example of the vast
spectrum of human individuality?</div>
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<i>What I would say to
Young Me now</i>: “You will make mistakes and offend other people. That’s life.
So <i>when</i> someone tells you they’re
offended by your words, take the time to figure out their side. And if you still insist on saying what you’re
saying, know that you’ve just given your comment priority over someone else’s
feelings.”</div>
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I hope as my kids grow up and figure these things out for
themselves that I can direct them toward information like this to help them build
attitudes of acceptance and self-assurance.
I know as their mom I’m more or less a background voice to the tapestry
of friends and classmates and media outlets that will no doubt contribute to
their worldviews far more than I will. But
maybe, just maybe, I can at least give them a little bit of a leg up.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07795523956178130004noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8772174107800530258.post-22251822467141009682015-01-20T16:52:00.000-05:002015-05-30T08:36:48.897-04:004 Things That Aren’t True About Anxiety<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
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You may be able to tell from my <a href="http://kaitlinbergfield.blogspot.com/2011/04/panic.html" target="_blank">earlier posts</a> that I
suffer from the occasional panic attack or two.
Life often feels like a balancing act: caffeine intake, exercise, sleep,
food choices, movie selections, goals accomplished… you get the recipe wrong,
and you’re asking for an attack.</div>
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But my experience isn’t everyone’s. I read so many lists of things that “every”
person with anxiety supposedly experiences, that “every” friend should know if
they want to help… and sure, some of it rings true, but so much of it has
nothing to do with me and it drives me crazy to be defined by others’ too-broad
lists. It’s a symptom of a greater evil –
a desire to classify and cure all forms of mental illness, to compartmentalize
and, intentionally or accidentally, to marginalize. So here’s a list of what, to me, is NOT true
about anxiety.</div>
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<i>Myth #1: The
symptoms of anxiety are common to all anxious people<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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Anxiety runs the gamut from a mild difficulty around
which one can still function to a crippling daily bombardment of terror. It can come suddenly out of nowhere or
predictably in certain circumstances, and it can be about any number of subjects
or even nothing at all. </div>
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For years I convinced myself I didn’t really have an
anxiety problem because I couldn’t easily pigeonhole it into one of the classic
anxiety disorders defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. My attacks weren’t about nothing, they were
always about death. I could trigger them
myself if I thought about death long enough.
They didn’t happen very often or over a specific period of time. And not being able to define my problem in
the context of an external diagnostic system made me feel like a phony. I didn’t have anxiety and I didn’t deserve to
complain about it. I was just being
silly. And that’s a bullshit thing for a
teenager to have to feel when they’re sitting there in the shower bawling their
eyes out because one day they will, inevitably, die. </div>
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This is a truism that applies to so many different aspects
of life and self-identification: External sources don’t know your
experience. They can’t. If you’ve got anxiety, you’ve got anxiety and
no manual is going to justify or deny that for you. What those manuals <i>can </i>do is help inform you
of the wide variety of methods you can use to help yourself out of whatever you’re
experiencing. Which brings us to another
myth…</div>
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<i>Myth #2: There is
one best way to help all people who experience anxiety<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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The other night I told my husband we couldn’t watch the
Nostalgia Critic review of the movie Casper.
I didn’t have to say why. He
knows me well enough by now to leave it alone and watch it on his own
time. So tell me – exactly how many
other people with anxiety would this no-watching-Casper treatment apply to?</div>
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I hope it’s obvious that a mental hardship (not necessarily
a disease, a disorder, or even a problem) with symptoms as broad as anxiety would also
have a wide range of legitimate treatment options. And the most important part should go without
saying, that the person with the anxiety is the one with the final word on what
they will and will not allow for treatment and help. </div>
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This is something we often miss with mental hardship. It’s your brain that’s “broken”, so it must
be a reasonable assumption that a broken thing can’t be trusted to fix
itself. And in certain extreme cases,
that may be true. But it’s a rare case
of anxiety that doesn’t come and go. A
person not currently in the throes of anxious grief is certainly capable of
explaining how they want to be handled when they <i>are</i> having a problem. The phrase,
“What can I do to help?” is a powerful one.
Use it. As genuine and good a
place as you’re probably coming from, you can really, <i>really</i> mess with an anxious person in the middle of an attack by
doing and saying the wrong things.</div>
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But if I can presume, a word of caution to fellow anxious
folks: you know yourself best, but please be <i>open</i> to others’ insights. The
best help I got was from a counselor I was almost too proud even to go see for
the two sessions I really needed him. I
thought I could take care of it myself and no one could tell me anything I hadn’t
already considered. I knew in my bones
the book was closed on the afterlife, and the inevitability of my cessation was crushing. And all the
counselor had to say was, “I know you think you know, I know it feels concrete
to you, but what if you can tell yourself, logically, it’s <i>impossible</i> to know? What if
you can force that room for doubt?” At
the time I smiled and nodded and thought to myself that was a nice load of crap. Now I tell myself this every single time the
panic looms. It still feels like a lie
and it probably always will, but humbly I admit I don’t own the answer, and it
helps. Help can come out of <i>anywhere</i>.</div>
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<i>Myth #3: When
people are anxious, it shows<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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That depends. For
the big stuff, probably you’ll see some classic symptoms. Maybe it involves panic attacks, maybe it’s
physically apparent – but maybe it’s not.
To beat to death a tired cliché… that whole iceberg thing. Ten percent above water and all that. You know it.</div>
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I don’t like getting people all riled up about my anxiety.
It’s tiresome. So unless I really need a hug, I’m likely not
to mention how long it takes me to calm down enough to get to sleep some
nights. If someone never looks anxious,
always seems bubbly and happy, doesn’t seem to have a care in the world… it’s still
not reasonable to assume they never have a moment of <i>oh-my-God-I’m-going-to-die-right-now</i> pants-soiling fear for no
reason. You just never know. And it doesn’t make their troubles any less
real or worthy of regard if they <i>do</i>
open up to you about it.</div>
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<i>Myth #4: Everyone
who has anxiety wants to be fixed<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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Confession: I do. I
<i>really</i> do. But not with drugs, and not at the expense of
anxiety’s benefits – that high-strung, “dancing on the edge of something
awesome” kind of feeling. I don’t
believe it’s possible to simply excise the part of me that breaks down in
terror at the thought of death while leaving the rest of me intact. It’s a lament I hear often with various forms
of “mental illness”: No treatment, please, if it means any kind of loss of “self”. </div>
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That’s the real bitch about it. Much as we may want to, we can’t ignore that the
problem is in our brains and our brains are ourselves and our selves have been
built with anxiety (or whatever) as a fundamental component. So sure, I’d love for mental illness to be
taken as seriously by both the medical community and society at large as a
tumor or diabetes is – but I’m tired of the concomitant assumption that viewing
it in that light means it needs to be treated with the same sterile hand. It’s been my experience (and I’m positive I’m
not alone) that like it or not, my brain is myself and altering that means
altering me, which seriously limits the options on “fixing”. I also know dozens of people who feel that
life is much better, and they feel more like themselves, when they can manage
their symptoms with a pill. Both are
fully understandable, legitimate approaches to dealing with mental
illness. </div>
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Understanding goes a long way toward helping someone with
their anxiety. If you see a problem in
someone else, maybe ask them about it and see if they’d like you to do anything
or even just be there for them. If you
see it in yourself, find someone to talk to who will<i> listen</i>. That last bit’s critical. And most importantly, don’t let this post or
any other external source make you think your problems aren’t worth tackling.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8772174107800530258.post-67285863419298405842013-05-26T20:29:00.002-04:002015-05-30T08:37:11.497-04:00Something to Leave Out of Your Carry-On Luggage<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
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I had the most bizarre experience in the airport security
line today. </div>
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The security guard scanning the carry-on luggage asked to
run my laptop bag through the machine a second time, which I thought was a
little odd – there was almost nothing in the bag after I took my laptop out. The second time through, she stopped the bag
and hailed another security guard to search it.
She pointed at the screen to show him what to look for, and he nodded
and brought the bag over to me.</div>
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By this time I was thoroughly confused. The guard asked if I had anything sharp in
the bag that he could cut himself on and I told him no, not to my knowledge –
and what a weird question, right? I’ve
never been asked that when my bag’s been searched, before. He searched through all the main pockets and
came up totally empty, as expected, and then went through them again for good
measure. I was getting a little annoyed
at his persistent searching. </div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
But then he turned the bag over, opened the back pocket, and
pulled out a<i> 10-inch butcher knife!<o:p></o:p></i></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Let me tell you, a giant unfamiliar-looking knife is not
something you want to see come out of your laptop bag at the airport. I think my heart stopped. The guard looked at me like I was crazy and
then showed the knife to the first guard and then to another guard and asked if
I needed to be brought in for further questioning, and all the while I was
blathering that I didn’t know where it came from or how it got in there, and
absolutely yes, please go ahead and confiscate it. The third guard assured me I didn’t need to
be interrogated but of course they’d be taking the knife away from me, and to
my infinite relief they let me go on my way.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It took me about a half hour of racking my brain after
that to piece together a story about the knife.
It looked kind of like a knife from work in Arizona, and it’s possible I
put that knife in my laptop bag to keep from stabbing someone on the way to
cutting a birthday cake in the lab. And
then I totally forgot about it for many, many months up to and including the
moment it got pulled out of my bag by the very worst possible discoverer. I <i>still</i>
don’t particularly recall having done this, but it sounds plausible and almost
familiar. </div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I just want to point out that this means I’ve taken that
knife with me on at least one other flight before this one, if not a few more. I find it a little concerning that it hasn’t
been found before now. But if I could I’d
give those guards today a raise.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8772174107800530258.post-51201029867719108912012-10-06T16:25:00.001-04:002015-05-30T08:37:32.330-04:00Things Short-haired People Don’t Understand<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This should really be titled, “Husband – JUST READ THIS
AND QUIT NAGGING ME.” But I figured I’d write for a more
general audience, so here you go – things you people who’ve never had long
hair need to know about my lifestyle, because sometimes it just doesn’t seem to
get through.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
1. <i>I need more shampoo than you.</i></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Your hair is like ONE INCH long. At most.
In some places it’s shorter than your eyebrow hair. You don’t shampoo your eyebrows, do you? Why should you need to shampoo that part of your scalp at
all? But even so, for the sake of this
discussion let’s assume your hair is one inch long, and mine is ten inches
long. I will need to use – you guessed
it – TEN TIMES AS MUCH shampoo as you to get the same amount of coverage on my
hair. So don’t be telling me I’m using
too much shampoo. I’m using twice as
much shampoo as you. Three times at
most. So really, YOU are the one using
too much shampoo. </div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
2. <i>I should not shampoo every day.</i></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The thing about short hair is that it has not been on
your head long. ALL of your hair on your
entire head has been there for less time than the bit of hair that’s two inches
away from my head. I did extensive,
thorough research on this subject (thank you, Answers.com) and have determined
that hair grows at a rate of about half an inch per month. That means ALL YOUR HAIR has been around a
maximum of, say, three or four months.
Mine? These ends have been with
me for two YEARS. So while you can
happily destroy your hair by shampooing away replenishing scalp oils every
single day because you’re not even going to see that hair half a year from now,
I NEED that oil to maintain this mane I hope will still be treating me right
two years down the road. I don’t want
some kind of split-end mutiny on my hands.
Do you even know what split ends are?
Can you get a split end in three months?</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This applies to hair dye too, by the way. When I go to dye my hair, I’ve got to worry
about how it’s going to affect my look two years down the road. How old am I going to be? What will I be doing with my life? Will this affect any future job I could try
to get? Because some colors are easier
to dye over than others. I’m just lucky
I can go back to brown whenever I have to – I salute all you brave blondes out
there.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
3. <i>Your bad haircut
is as nothing compared to my bad haircut.</i></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Again, if you get a bad haircut, the absolute longest you
have to worry about it is three months.
And I’m pretty sure in two weeks it’s going to settle in just fine and
you can get it fixed, no problem. You
can move on with your life. Two weeks
isn’t even long enough to really notice the roots under my dye job. When my hairstylist messes up, she chops off three
extra INCHES, not millimeters – and we’ve already discussed that it can take
months to recover from that kind of error.
</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Now, you may be saying, “But you still have a lot of hair
to keep cutting and get the shape right.”
NO. If I wanted to take another three
inches off my hair, I would have done it the FIRST time. Now I have to wait another SIX MONTHS to get
it even to the point where it SHOULD HAVE BEEN WHEN I WENT IN. That’s HALF A FREAKING YEAR. If I want to cut more off and reshape it, I
basically have to resign myself to an entirely different hairstyle and
look. Maybe I don’t even have the right clothes
or earrings to pull off that mop. I
could have to invest in a whole new wardrobe.
So don’t tell me your awful haircut is worse than mine.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
4. <i>My hair takes a lot longer than yours to get
pretty every day.</i></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
If I want to do my hair and make it look actually pretty,
it takes me an hour. I have to do it in
layers, one row at a time, getting each section right before I move on to the
next part. This is a complicated work of
art I’m sculpting, here. I’ve watched
you short-haired people “doing your hair.”
It takes like ten minutes. It
doesn’t even involve any kind of iron. So
if I say I need to get ready to go out somewhere, you can assume that I need to get my hair done,
and that’s going to add an hour to whatever time you were estimating for
yourself. And that’s assuming you’re
also doing your makeup like I am. No? No makeup?
Add another half hour. Being
beautiful takes WORK, bitch.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
5. <i>A ponytail is a legitimate hairstyle.</i></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I don’t want to take an hour out of every single day to
get my hair looking gorgeous. You’ll be
lucky if you get that once a week. Once
a week for me is about equivalent to all the time you’ve racked up over the
week doing your hair daily, anyway. If I
don’t do my hair up nice, though, it’s utterly hideous because I also have
curly hair (and <i>that</i> is just a whole
other rant for later). It’s not only
ugly, it gets in my way. I can put up
with it getting in my way if it’s pretty, but if it’s going to be hideous too
then that is just unacceptable. So if I
shove my hair up in a ponytail all day long, DO NOT make fun of me and my childish-looking
hairstyle. It’s convenient and
comfortable. End of discussion.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I hope you’ve learned
something.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8772174107800530258.post-31486679756333725522012-07-24T03:06:00.000-04:002015-05-30T08:37:42.358-04:00Is it a healthy sense of caution if you’re constantly envisioning your own death?<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I’m on a plane over New Mexico right now (well, not <i>right now</i> right now, when I’m posting this or you’re reading this. I mean <i>maybe</i> I am. It’s just a highly unlikely coincidence.)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I’ve been saying to a lot of people lately that I’m not afraid of flying, and I see now that I was so, <i>so</i> very wrong about that. I thought I was telling the truth. But sitting on this plane right now, I don’t actually think I’ve gone a whole minute without being fully aware of a pervasive sense that I’m stuck in a poorly ventilated tin can death trap.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Let me give you (future me who’s reading this and trying
to convince herself she’s really not afraid of flying) a few examples that I’ve
come to realize do not connote a healthy level of fear:</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
1. As I sent that last-minute text to my husband before I
had to turn the phone off on the tarmac, I wondered whether he would think to post
my message to my friends on FB when I died so they could know the last sweet
sentiment I said to anyone I loved.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
2. I’ve repeatedly cycled through all my dozens of plane
crash stories, trying to figure out which one best applies to my current flying
environment and whether I’d die if any one of a wide variety of malfunction or
human-error scenarios occurs.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
3. When we lifted off I was looking out the window
watching the city get smaller and smaller, and with every miniscule lag in
acceleration (typical of even a successful takeoff), I was Zen-preparing myself
to watch that ground start to tilt and get bigger again. </div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
4. I was pretty convinced that the drawn-out grinding
sound I heard on the ascent was an engine failing.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
5. I practically ran back from the bathroom because there
was a small jolt of turbulence and I needed to get back to the safety of my
seatbelt before a panel ripped off the plane and I got sucked out the hole like
that one lady did in that one Cracked article I read that one time.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
6. When we landed on my first flight we turned into the
airport at an angle, and all I could imagine was the plane barrel-rolling out
of control and plummeting into the earth.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
7. Whenever we went into a cloud I was ready for the
moment another unseen plane collided headlong with ours, and I couldn’t decide
just how likely I was to even know what hit me in the fractions of a second it’d
take for me to get crushed or exploded to death. (I mean in a head-on collision,
our plane and the other plane would each probably be going ~500 mph for an effective
speed of ~1000 mph, or 450 m/s, and if our plane was in the neighborhood of 100m
long, then at row 25 I’d be dead in about a tenth of a second and it’s arguable
whether all of that sensory information could manifest a conscious
acknowledgement in that time, although I have a sinking feeling I might get to
enjoy a few milliseconds of perfect imminent-death awareness. P.S. <i>that</i> is why you learn algebra, my friends.)</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I know that air travel is safe. I know this.
I know that even if problems occur I’m likely to make it out just
peachy. But none of that matters when
you’re dealing with a phobia. Talking
yourself out of a death phobia is pretty useless.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
And I still fly.
Regularly, even. At the beach I
still swim out into water that’s probably deep enough to hold great white
sharks and I inadvertently do my best injured seal impression trying to stay
afloat. I’m totally willing to drive on
the Lake Ponchartrain Causeway even though I’m pretty sure the bridge is going
to collapse and I’m going to survive both the impact and the threat of drowning
only to be shredded alive by a pack of ravenous alligators. I sometimes even lean against railings on
high balconies, although that just seems foolhardy when I can get the same view
just standing near the edge rather than risking death-by-shoddy-railing-craftsmanship.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It’s just I feel nauseous every single time I get on a
plane.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8772174107800530258.post-62041333915762917892012-07-02T10:05:00.000-04:002015-05-30T08:37:52.529-04:00The difference between Necessary and Sufficient, or, Why your emoticons should not have noses<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In this crazy new cyber-world we’re living in, the
entire rich array of human emotional facial expressions is being reduced to nothing
more than a select few humble punctuation marks grouped together to look like
caveman scratchings turned on their side. In social media conversations, these so-called “emoticons” (also called “smilies”, for those of you not
hip enough to be up on your “cyber-lingo”) have assumed the vital role normally played by our naturally expressive faces, becoming the sole representation of our emotions toward the people with whom we interact. This is distressing in and of itself, but
it’s not the point of my discussion today.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Correctly typed, the most common standard emoticons
consist of virtual “eyes” and a virtual “mouth”, made using punctuation
marks. The simplest of these is the basic
colon-plus-end-parenthesis – :) – though many other variations exist: ;)
:D :( :’( </div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
But a deeply bothersome trend has managed to grow and
fester deep in the bowels of the emoticon world: the dash-nose. This hideous abomination has wormed its way
into all the great emoticons, a defilement I’ve never abided graciously: :-)
;-) :-D :-(
:’-(</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
And today, I finally figured out why that nose bothers me
so much.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Humans have a very limited range of physical features
they like to monitor during social interactions. When we see another human face, we attend
most to the eyes and mouth because these are the expressive features that move
and tell us how we’re supposed to respond to their owner. But a nose?
No one cares what a nose does. A
nose stays pretty much the same no matter what we’re doing, and outside of
augmenting a very select few emotional expressions (e.g. the scrunch of
disgust, the flaring nostrils of fuming rage), our noses are practically
pointless.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Which brings me to Necessary and Sufficient. These terms are regularly used in the
sciences to describe two unique aspects of how important a certain factor is in
creating a given outcome. A factor that
is <u>necessary</u> <i>must be present</i>
to produce an outcome, while a factor that’s <u>sufficient</u> is<i> all that’s required</i> to produce that
outcome. So if it’s <i>necessary</i>, you absolutely have to have it, and if it’s <i>sufficient</i> then it’s all you actually
need. (And it is possible for a thing to
be both necessary and sufficient – or neither.)</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
These are both readily testable properties. To determine if something is <i>necessary</i> for a certain outcome, you
just remove it and see if you obliterate the outcome. To determine if something is <i>sufficient</i> to produce an outcome, you
remove everything else and leave only it, and see if the outcome remains the
same. </div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
For example, removing a <i>necessary</i> facial feature will prevent you from recognizing an emotional
expression (like a smile), while leaving only a <i>sufficient</i> facial feature present will still allow you to recognize
that expression.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Let me demonstrate on myself. Say hello to me:</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiYlHlmrzMopKomq8ZJHv5goDLZhsA_Y6nvabuaEsoMoY3LxaFombK7xgUrzDW-CBwHtZOu-uXE9byAeIwmuuEVl-kR9MdN7ywTR8LK1hGCnhBxQ2wQObJrJ_tSmmQMU8Ev9QWxvKQxJA/s1600/whole_face.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiYlHlmrzMopKomq8ZJHv5goDLZhsA_Y6nvabuaEsoMoY3LxaFombK7xgUrzDW-CBwHtZOu-uXE9byAeIwmuuEVl-kR9MdN7ywTR8LK1hGCnhBxQ2wQObJrJ_tSmmQMU8Ev9QWxvKQxJA/s320/whole_face.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Howdy!</span></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I hope you were gracious enough to at least offer a
greeting. I mean look at that big ol’
toothy grin. <i>That</i> is a smile. How could
you ignore that kind of smile? And how
can you tell it’s a smile? Well, the corners
of the mouth are turned way up, the eyes are happily scrunched, and the nose…
yeah, it’s not doing much. </div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Now, let’s look at what happens when I take the liberty
of altering each of these three facial features (mouth, eyes, and nose)
independently. </div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Let’s start with Necessary. Is any of these three features <i>necessary</i> for you to be able to tell
that I’m grinning at you?</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4ftmkfK_HWnGRjC2tOQAfPHMKUKy0-5MGUtqqoH6A_LFWhatg5edka5AxT1aNw7IRt4MLhi730J_XQseUNqSoUVZPmdV_4WqHEVRkrCxkm0BP7Tfu9z-wI5higo6vIGG5ARH8GW7vxek/s1600/Necessary.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0em;"><img border="0" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4ftmkfK_HWnGRjC2tOQAfPHMKUKy0-5MGUtqqoH6A_LFWhatg5edka5AxT1aNw7IRt4MLhi730J_XQseUNqSoUVZPmdV_4WqHEVRkrCxkm0BP7Tfu9z-wI5higo6vIGG5ARH8GW7vxek/s400/Necessary.png" width="500" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">The truth is, no.
As long as you have any combination of the other two features (eyes and
nose, mouth and nose, eyes and mouth), you can tell I’m meant to be smiling at
you. That said, the third smile with
both eyes and a mouth present is definitely the most informative of the three
faces, in that it looks the most like it’s smiling. This suggests that the nose is the least
necessary component of the smile.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So how about Sufficient?
Would any of these features <i>alone</i>
be enough for you to tell I’m still smiling?</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjysSrn4PIGWJ0ozhCsUsoj7cXKv6OzHWCBsmNv2_USqBmzc6-qTbuP8-pyHHoBFzYxXdNdhJIWD2BreSUdXmzcfOXziBRmkUt-FLlkTzS3gGa-KMhu44SknJWwfZFkyaoUuzV3VKQjoy0/s1600/Sufficient.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0em;"><img border="0" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjysSrn4PIGWJ0ozhCsUsoj7cXKv6OzHWCBsmNv2_USqBmzc6-qTbuP8-pyHHoBFzYxXdNdhJIWD2BreSUdXmzcfOXziBRmkUt-FLlkTzS3gGa-KMhu44SknJWwfZFkyaoUuzV3VKQjoy0/s400/Sufficient.png" width="500" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Well, how about that?
My mouth and eyes are each sufficient, but my nose does </span><i style="background-color: white;">absolutely nothing</i><span style="background-color: white;"> toward helping you
figure out if I’m smiling. In fact, if
that nose picture still looks like I might be smiling at you, it’s only because
I didn’t go and doctor the dimple out of that freakishly sculpted right cheek so
you’re still getting the impression of a mouth-smile.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So what does this tell you about your use of :-) and :-(
and ;-) ? </div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">It says that the only thing the nose-dash is doing is
making you take longer to generate your virtual expression, and making others
take longer to observe and evaluate it. The
extra dash adds nothing at all of value.
In fact, if you were to do my same necessary/sufficient experiment with an
emoticon, you’d find that BOTH the eyes and mouth are necessary to convey
information, but the nose is </span><span style="background-color: white;">neither</span><span style="background-color: white;">
necessary </span><span style="background-color: white;">nor</span><span style="background-color: white;"> sufficient for </span><i style="background-color: white;">anything</i><span style="background-color: white;"> – see how it’s the </span><i style="background-color: white;">exact same dash</i><span style="background-color: white;"> for every emoticon you
type? </span></div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The emoticon nose is, in short, a <i>waste of a character</i>. This
could have a profound impact on the quality of your tweets, people. Think about <i>that</i> the next time you write another, “LOL :-D !!!!1!1!”</div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8772174107800530258.post-56011079237414176012012-06-24T03:31:00.004-04:002015-05-30T08:38:14.549-04:00I went up the mountain to kill a skunk<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="background-color: white;">Tucson, Arizona is a small city nestled in a gorgeous
desert ringed by mountains, remnants of an old volcano, and the city lights are
stunning on stormy nights like this one.</span><span style="background-color: white;">
</span><span style="background-color: white;">So tonight, on my way home from visiting with friends, I decided to
embrace my childhood and geological heritage and head up Catalina Highway into
the mountains to marvel at the nighttime view from the Babad Do’ag lookout
point up at mile marker three.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Everything was going so well at first. I had all the windows down and the music on
but (for once in my life) turned low, and there was a storm brewing to the
south and I could just catch flashes of lightning off in the distance beyond
the city as I navigated the winding mountain road up toward the lookout
point.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I was going to stop at Babad Do’ag, like I said, except
that for some reason red and blue lights were flashing as I approached and I
saw a couple of cop cars stopped at the lookout, and I decided that for the sake
of my own tranquility and enjoyment I would just move on and find a better spot
higher up on the mountain to stop and revel in the beauty of the night.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It was dark out, obviously, and there were enough cars on
the road that I didn’t have my high beams on.
So when something small and dark entered my field of vision, I barely
had enough time to slam on my brakes.
Seriously, this was the hardest I’d ever put my foot down on a pedal in
my life. The smell of burning rubber
wafted up into my car and my purse flew onto the floor at my side and the
distant car behind me got far closer in the rearview than I would have liked,
but I narrowly – <i>narrowly</i> – avoided hitting
the skunk that then meandered out from under my bumper and happily went on its
merry way into the night. </div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I was a little shaken, but after I was sure the critter
was well off to the side of the road I continued up the mountain. I made it a couple more turns before I decided
enough was enough and I didn’t want to risk any more heart-attack situations in
the pursuit of a nice view I’d seen plenty enough already. So at the next pull-out I turned around and
headed back down the mountain.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
At this point I was going five under. I took extra precautions as I neared the area
where I’d just seen the skunk, hoping to see it earlier than I did last time even though I was pretty sure it would avoid the road completely after it
almost died.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
But here’s the thing about skunks – from the side they’re
pitch black. And while I was driving
away that bastard had turned right around just like I did, and it put itself
square in the middle of my lane again on my way back down the mountain.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
If I thought I slammed on my brakes hard the first time,
I was mistaken. That second time I
hammered that pedal to the floor so hard I was pretty sure the car was going to
snap. </div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
But this time I was heading downhill. The skunk went under my bumper and I felt a
little jitter even before the car stopped, and by then I just had to keep moving because it was already
past the wheels.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I wasn’t totally sure if I really hit it. The skunk was in the exact center of the lane
so maybe the car just went over it, maybe the jitter I felt wasn’t real, I didn’t
know. I turned the car around again and
headed back up the mountain to check because if the skunk was injured I was
damn well going to take it to a vet.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
But alas, when I got there the poor skunk was lying
slumped in the road, and as I slowed to examine it there was no movement,
nothing. Two other cars had come down
the mountain while I turned to head back for my skunk, so it might have been one
of them that did it, but I’m pretty damn sure I was the one that really killed
it.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
I didn’t end up stopping at any lookout points. The cops were still at my favorite spot as I
passed them for a fourth time on the way back down the mountain, and I thought
to stop and tell them about my poor little skunk, but they looked quite busy with whatever
delinquent they’d cornered up there in the parking lot so I let it go.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So really, in the end, I went up the mountain tonight to
kill a skunk. That was pretty much the
sole existential purpose of my well-intentioned detour this evening. I think I’m going to probably go cry a little
and sleep it off and try to convince myself it wasn’t my fault.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8772174107800530258.post-49123899489100750142012-05-06T01:15:00.000-04:002015-05-30T08:38:59.299-04:00URGENT! How to help a stroke victim<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Watch me use this blog for some good!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This is easily the most important thing you will learn
today – unless you learn how to give CPR or how to solve world hunger or
something. I’m going to tell you how to
detect a stroke and how to cure a certain type of stroke. You can easily save someone’s life with this simple
information.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroke" target="_blank">Strokes</a> are caused by a loss of oxygenated blood to parts
of the brain, and they can kill you or cause serious lifelong debilitation. They can be caused by head injuries and the
like, or spring up out of nowhere. Even
young people in their twenties can have sudden strokes, so don’t just think
it’s an old-people thing.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So first, how can you be sure someone’s had a
stroke? Well, a favorite mnemonic is the
first three letters of <b><u>STR</u></b>OKE:</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><u>S</u></i></b><i><u>mile</u></i>. Have the person
try to smile at you – check to make sure their face is symmetric and that the
smile is natural. </div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><u>T</u></i></b><i><u>alk</u></i>. Have the person say
a full sentence or two – make sure they are coherent. </div>
</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><u>R</u></i></b><i><u>aise both arms</u></i>. Have
the person lift both arms above their head.</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
If a person has problems with <i>ANY ONE</i> of these, get them to a hospital like right freaking
now. If they pass the test, <b><u>keep checking</u></b><u> over the next
few hours</u> to make sure things haven’t changed. Strokes are messy and things will often
change. The moment they do, get that
person to a hospital like right freaking now.
(Your time window is a few hours wide at best.)</div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
DO NOT EVER FEEL STUPID OR OVERCONCERNED FOR CARING
ENOUGH ABOUT SOMEONE TO TAKE THEM TO THE HOSPITAL. BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY.</div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Before I explain the most critical reason why you take
them to that hospital (like right freaking now), you have to know there are two
major types of stroke: hemorrhagic and ischemic. <i><u>Hemorrhagic</u></i>
strokes involve a hemorrhage – a burst blood vessel or something that causes a bleed
in the brain (nasty falls often cause hemorrhagic strokes). <i><u>Ischemic</u></i>
strokes are caused by a blockage preventing the movement of blood – for example
a blood clot that blocks an artery. (And
don’t worry – you shouldn’t have to know these words when you walk into the
hospital, they should know it for you.)</div>
</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
If you <b><u>get your
stroke victim to the hospital</u></b> and <b><u>tell
the staff you think they have had a STROKE</u></b> (note the emphasis on <i>both</i> of those critical items), the very
first thing the hospital ought to be doing is getting an MRI or a CT scan of
that person’s brain. If the hospital
doesn’t order a brain image for your stroke victim, INSIST that they do it
IMMEDIATELY.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Here’s why: You can tell the difference between a
hemorrhagic and an ischemic stroke using these imaging methods. Ischemic strokes (caused by clots) can be
treated with blood thinners, while giving blood thinners for hemorrhagic
strokes (caused by bleeds) will kill people.
Hemorrhagic strokes can be dealt with surgically.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So for example, if the stroke is <u>ischemic</u> and
you’ve caught it <u>within 2-3 hours</u>, the hospital can administer blood-thinning
drugs...</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>...And that person can walk away from
their stroke with no problems whatsoever</i>.
Zero.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
That, my friends, is a miracle. TELL THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW AND SAVE
LIVES.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8772174107800530258.post-55995541606919632452012-04-30T17:23:00.000-04:002012-04-30T17:36:43.236-04:00Another Five Abominable Brain MythsThe day after I posted my <a href="http://kaitlinbergfield.blogspot.com/2012/04/top-five-brain-misunderstandings-that.html" target="_blank">first list</a> of five brain
misunderstandings that make me cringe, I remembered another cringe-worthy myth
and have therefore been forced to compile an additional list. For the record, #1 on this list really should
have been #2 on the Top Five…<br />
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
#5. <i>Drugs will put
holes in your brain.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Sure, hardcore drugs can kill you, but they don’t do it
by putting holes in your brain. I’m
pretty sure D.A.R.E. is primarily responsible for spreading this myth, at least
according to a few of my fellow nineties kids.
</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
First, let’s tackle the bit about what a “hole” is. Generally speaking, the fastest (and only)
way to get an actual hole into your brain is with a bullet or a tamping iron or
something (see, for instance, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phineas_Gage" target="_blank">Phineas Gage</a>).
Otherwise, what one might call a “hole” is most often really a region of
damaged brain which, while damaged and nonfunctional, is still packed with all
sorts of fluids and tissue and whatnot. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Your brain is a very densely-packed organ full of cells,
bathed in a fluid called cerebrospinal fluid, encased in a skull. If you endure damage to the brain that doesn’t
open up the skull in the process, then the damaged brain regions are still
going to be filled with all that kind of stuff.
If you happen to see an MRI of such a lesion (say, from a stroke or a tumor
or something) it might look like a dark space in an otherwise bright brain, but
all that means is that the water moving around in that region is not neatly
organized like it is in the rest of the brain.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
So keeping that caveat in mind, not too many drugs even damage
your brain in a way that would create proper lesions like the kind described
above. In fact, I couldn’t come up with
one. Let me give you a list of popular drugs
that certainly <i>don’t</i> put holes in
your brain even when abused: heroin, cocaine, meth, pot, alcohol, ecstasy, LSD,
prescription pills, mescaline, bath salts, roofies… I think I’m starting to
stretch it here. Some of these will mess
you up all sorts, but unless they give you a stroke they’re not causing a brain
lesion that would look like a hole to anyone.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Still, kids, just say no to drugs.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
#4. <i>Your brain is
some other-entity that is separate from you</i>.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I’m going to admit I managed to confuse myself no end
trying to figure out what I want to say here, so bear with me.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I’m a hundred percent guilty of this idea of an
other-entity brain. I do it all the time
in these very posts, suggesting that your brain is something different from you
that does its own thing and occasionally gets up to mischief. It’s called anthropomorphizing, assigning
human characteristics to things that aren’t human. </div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Anthropomorphism is an easy white lie that allows us to speak
simply about complicated processes. Your
DNA <i>wants</i> to replicate itself, your
brain <i>decides</i> things, and so forth. Assigning wants and needs and decisions to
probabilistic biological processes is a completely inaccurate representation of
what’s really happening. And I don’t
have a problem with it, so long as it’s recognized as a rhetorical device that
simplifies a conversation. But it’s a
problem if you see it as the whole picture.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Anthropomorphizing the brain is especially easy, because while
a brain is simultaneously just an organ, a big glob of mush inside a person’s
head, it is also the very essence of what makes that person <i>that person</i>. I want to avoid getting into arguments about
a soul and whatnot – that’s not what I mean.
I mean that it is easy to think of your brain as “you”, and also easy to
see it as only a “thing”, and that makes talking about it difficult. And complicating this matter further is that
pesky word “mind”, which is somehow different still from a “brain” and falls
somewhere else on this “you” versus “thing” spectrum.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
The concept of “self” would take me all year and a few
hundred pages to tap into, so all I’m going to say is that trying to determine
who “you” are is a real bitch no matter how you cut it, and your “self” is an
ever-changing, many-headed beast that is exceedingly difficult – if not
impossible – to define. And the brain is
a vital facet of it. A brain is nothing
more than a bundle of neurons and synapses and electrical impulses, and it is
also the material substrate of the emergent Self. Just like electrons with their particle and
wave properties, both the mundane biological Brain and the lofty cognitive Mind
have to be thought of as two aspects of a singular whole, not discrete entities. It’s an ugly and difficult undertaking.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
As humans we need to have agents separate from ourselves
to explain certain of our actions, like addictions (“I try so hard to stop but
my brain just won’t let me”). Your brain
has to be that cognizant little scapegoat and it has to be something separate
from you. And it really <i>feels</i> that way, too. You feel like there’s some ugly little demon
sitting inside your head telling you to do bad things. It’s that fabled devil on your shoulder
exactly. You can have that cognitive
dissonance and I wouldn’t dream of taking it from you.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Here’s the thing.
Your brain isn’t separate from your mind or yourself – it’s all one big
package. <i>At the same time</i>, your brain is not a conscious entity. Believing that your brain <i>wants</i> or <i>needs</i> or <i>decides</i>, that’s
incorrect. Your brain is a
well-organized chemical soup that operates according to certain biological
principals, and from that soup your glorious conscious Self emerges. So you can trust that when I say your brain <i>wants</i> something, I’m only doing it to
simplify a point.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
#3. <i>The brain is a
muscle.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I don’t know whether people saying this mean “the brain
is literally a muscle” or “the brain is <i>like</i>
a muscle in that the harder you work it, the bigger/better it gets,” but I’m
going to shoot down the entirety of the former and a major assumption of the
latter.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
First off – and I think this one is obvious – the brain
is not literally an actual muscle. Not
in <i>any</i> way. They’re made of wildly different tissue types
and everything.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
The second statement, that the brain is <i>like</i> a muscle, contains a critical
caveat. In some ways, the brain <i>is</i> like a muscle, in that you have to
use it to keep it strong. But no matter
how hard people try to sell you their guaranteed fitness regimen to get you
ready for the Brain Olympics or whatever, the unfortunate fact is that the vast
majority of it is total bullshit designed to take your money.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I want to be careful what I say because it’s very
important not to throw the baby out with the bath water, and I don’t want you
to give up on those crosswords just yet.</div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Here are some things we know about the <i>benefits</i> of mental exercise. People with higher education tend to fare
better cognitively as they age. So do
people with mentally-challenging occupations.
This could be because those things help people get stronger brains, or
it could be because people with strong brains tend to get higher education and
mentally-challenging occupations. Also,
training people how to do various mental tricks can have long-lasting beneficial
results (that’s the whole definition of learning, right?).</div>
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Here are some things we know about the <i>limitations</i> of mental exercise. Generally speaking, a lot of the things we do
to hone our mental abilities – crosswords, puzzles, list-learning, et cetera –
just make us very good at tasks like crosswords, puzzles, list-learning, et
cetera. In other words, many mental
exercises don’t generalize very well across entire cognitive domains like
memory or processing speed. The idea of performing a set of discrete tasks to
give yourself a better <i>memory</i> in
particular is preposterous, so don’t believe any $50 computer program that
promises to train you into having a better memory. It simply doesn’t work that way. But that’s not to say exercising your brain
is hopeless.</div>
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If you want to make your brain into a lean, mean, information-crunching
machine, then you need to engage it in a <i>variety</i>
of <i>novel</i> tasks. Go ahead and do that crossword – but also
learn a new musical instrument and join a chess club and take up painting and
go ride a bike. <i>The most important thing you should do to exercise your brain is to
regularly teach yourself NEW things</i>.
Don’t just get good at the same old things. Get outside your comfort zone. I mean that.
<i>Get outside your comfort zone</i>. NEW and DIFFICULT things help your brain improve.</div>
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And keep in mind – none of this is going to make it any
easier to remember that new acquaintance’s name at a cocktail party. If you want to do that, go look up mnemonic
tricks for how to remember people’s names and be done with it.</div>
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#2. <i>Internet IQ
tests give an accurate representation of one’s true IQ.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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I’m going to show you a bell curve:</div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">The middle line
represents the average (µ) – in this case, the average IQ score. Each line on either side of that represents
one <i>standard deviation</i> (σ) from that
average, and is always a set number of points.
The colors represent what percent of the population falls between each
of those numbers.</span> </div>
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The standard Intelligence Quotient test (IQ test) is
designed to fit on such a bell curve. Researchers
have tested thousands of people and then normalized the scores so that the
average score (µ) is 100, and each standard deviation (σ) is 15 points away
from that. This means that 68.2% of the
population has an IQ from 85–115, 95.4% of the population has an IQ from 70–130,
and 99.7% of the population has an IQ from 55–145. </div>
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To rework that just a little, <i>99.95% of the population has an IQ less than 145</i>. Keep that fact in mind.</div>
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I’m going to use myself as an example here. I have an above-average IQ. I don’t know exactly what it is. The last time my IQ was tested I was five
years old, and IQ tests of five-year-olds are notoriously difficult because
they tend to vary a lot depending on the environment and the kid’s energy
level, etc. Before I could get my IQ
tested as an adult, I learned how to administer an IQ test and now I’m ruined
for IQ tests forever because they depend on me not knowing all the answers and
tricks. Nevertheless, based on other standardized
tests I’m confident that I have a moderately above-average IQ.</div>
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Every single time I’ve taken an IQ test online (even long
before I learned how to give the test), I’ve gotten a score anywhere from
140-170. </div>
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That’s <i>impossible</i>. For me, I mean. That score would mean I’m smarter than 99.6%
– 99.9998% of the American population.
Guys… I’m pretty smart, but I’m not <i>that</i>
freaking smart. </div>
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Put another way, an IQ over 155 (the middle of my
internet scores) happens for 1 out of every 8,000 people. There are less than forty thousand people
with an IQ over 155 <i>in the entire United
States</i>. Do I really think I’m as
good as the top 40,000 in the entire country?
<i>Definitely</i> not. (And by the way, if I really had an IQ of 170
I’d be in the top <i>500</i>, which is just <i>laughably</i> funny – hell, the test frankly
starts to break down as a good measure once the numbers get that high.)</div>
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I’ve tested some people with IQ’s this high, and they are
<i>incredibly</i> brilliant. Incredibly brilliant. I’d kill to be that smart. I’ve also tested people with IQ’s around 80,
and they’re also pretty darn smart. I
guess what I’m saying is that if you’ve got an IQ above 100, you should be very
proud of yourself. You’re smarter than
half your country. If you have an IQ
above 115, <i>congratulations!</i> You’re in the top 16% and that is very impressive
indeed.</div>
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But don’t ever trust a free internet IQ test. These tests aren’t structured like real IQ
tests, they don’t probe even a fraction of the cognitive abilities a real IQ
test does, they haven’t been correctly tested against thousands of people to
get proper averages and standard deviations, and many are <i>designed</i> to inflate your ego because they want you to come back and
click some more. (I don’t want to say
they’re <i>always</i> higher than your real
IQ, by the way – they’re just not trustworthy and accurate.)</div>
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It’s also worth noting that even a standard IQ test probes
a variety of cognitive abilities which in many ways have nothing to do with how
well you function in society or as a human being. IQ tests don’t tell how engaging or
charismatic you are, they can’t say if you can run a company, they don’t test
your ingenuity or your perseverance or your ability to empathize with your
fellow man. Those traits are all at
least as important as your “intelligence”.
Some of the most amazing people I've ever met had an IQ less than 70. So who really cares how many points you can
rack up with the click of a mouse?</div>
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#1. <i>Some people are
“left-brained” and some people are “right-brained”.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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How can I put this simply? THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS LEFT-BRAINED AND
RIGHT-BRAINED. </div>
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Oh sure, I know what people <i>mean</i> when they say that.
They mean that some people (“right-brained” people) have brains that
make them very creative and intuitive and free-thinking and whatnot – while
other people (“left-brained” people) have brains that are more analytical and
logical and objective. Generally the
people saying this are the ones who happily label themselves “right-brained”
and despise “left-brained” people for being stiffs.</div>
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Before I explain the problem I’m going to repeat myself,
because you can’t lose sight of this: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS LEFT-BRAINED
AND RIGHT-BRAINED.</div>
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This ill-conceived notion came about in the wake of observations
that certain brain functions tend to be lateralized to either the left or the
right brain hemisphere. For instance, your
<i>right</i> brain hemisphere receives
sensory input from and delivers motor commands to the <i>left</i> side of your body, while your left hemisphere controls the
right side of your body.</div>
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Also, in most right-handed people, language is supported
predominantly by left brain regions. For
lefties like me, on the other hand (pun not intended), language is more often
spread across both brain hemispheres or dominant on the right – which makes
sense, since we write out our language using our left hands and the left hand is
controlled by the right hemisphere.</div>
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That said, the vast majority of brain functions don’t
fall cleanly into one brain hemisphere or the other. In fact, even for the ones in which one side
of the brain does most of the work under normal operating conditions, if that
side gets damaged the other side can usually pick up the slack. (Practically the only cases in which this
doesn’t occur very smoothly are in the above-mentioned sensation, motor
control, and language production functions).
It <i>is</i> likely that each of the
two hemispheres is processing somewhat unique <i>aspects</i> of the same information, because there are two of them and
what’s the point of doing the exact same thing twice when you could be getting
more out of what you’ve got? (Ah,
anthropomorphizing is so <i>easy!</i>)</div>
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The “X-brained” problem really started when poorly-informed
people began making up a whole bunch of junk about all sorts of brain functions
supposedly being fully lateralized when really they aren’t. Then
another layer was added when people started pigeonholing these constellations
of “lateralized” functions into personality types, even though those “types”
are inconsistently described and don’t match known lateralization patterns and
have never been substantiated by any actual science (quite the opposite, in
fact). Finally and without any
supporting evidence, people started arguing that they were “right-brained” or
“left-brained” because they never understood math or because they were artistic
geniuses or because they were ridiculously super-geeky, and all because we needed
yet another label to attach to ourselves.</div>
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Whether we realize it or not, we seem to like calling ourselves
names. “Right–” and “left-brained” are
particularly ugly to me, because self-labeling in this way is a blatant unwarranted
dismissal of half of one’s potential merits.
It’s like saying “I’m just not good at math.” I <i>hate</i>
that phrase. I’m not saying it’s not
sometimes true. I’m saying that by
stating it, you are giving yourself a bye on having to apply any mathematical
effort. If you call yourself “left-brained”,
you’re giving yourself an undeserved escape route off the creative path. Math is not easy. Creativity is not easy. Saying you’ve got a certain type of brain or
that you’re just not good at something is fabricating an <i>untrue</i> “unconquerable” biological obstacle that you don’t have a
right to give yourself.</div>
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<i>So what</i> if
you’re not good at math? All that means
is you’ve got to work harder, not that you get to quit. If you’re not good at sports, or you’ve never
been artistic, or you just can’t dance, <i>work
harder</i> and actually <i>test</i> the
bounds of what you can and can’t do.
There’s a difference between recognizing your limitations and giving up
before you’ve even started, and “I’m not very good at X” and “I’ve always been
X-brained” are both just ways of artificially limiting yourself.</div>
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In short, both “right-brained” and “left-brained” are nothing
but meaningless self-deprecating insults, and now you should know better.</div>
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<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8772174107800530258.post-6955920671672057632012-04-21T16:59:00.000-04:002012-04-22T17:31:13.939-04:00The Top Five Brain Misunderstandings That Will Drive a Neuroscientist to the Brink<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I was reminded by a comment on my last post that there are a lot of common misunderstandings out there about the brain. So here they are, the top five TOTALLY RIDICULOUS things said about the brain that make me want to fly into a homicidal rage when I see them being propagated in popular media:</div>
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#5. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">To grow old is to grow senile.</i></div>
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This one is kind of personal because my research is on human aging. My grand design when I was fifteen was to cure Alzheimer’s disease, so I’ve been cogitating on it for a while. The truth is that there is a normal, healthy aging process, and there are a host of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">separate</i> pathological aging processes that unfortunately tend to get lumped in with healthy aging as What Happens To You When You Get Old. </div>
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Diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s aren’t normal. Dementia is not – I repeat NOT – something that happens to everyone.</div>
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This isn’t to say that healthy aging doesn’t involve some declines in certain cognitive functions. First and foremost, the speed of information processing decreases (meaning older adults are simply slower to do things than they used to be, and we young things must cultivate some patience). Also, older adults have also been reported to show declines in focused attention, meaning they can be more easily distracted. Finally, older adults tend to show moderate declines in some aspects of memory – for example in remembering certain names, or where the keys have run off to, or coming up with the right word in a sentence. Healthy aging is NOT, however, associated with the profound impairments of memory seen in diseases like Alzheimer’s, which at its worst robs people of the ability <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">even to remember</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">who they are</i>. See the difference?</div>
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Older adults also show <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">improvements</i> with age in other cognitive abilities. Vocabulary and other crystallized knowledge (i.e. knowledge of facts) both increase throughout the lifespan. Empathy and the ability to reason emotionally and socially are also far easier for older adults than young adults. </div>
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We are a society that fears aging and death, so much so that even words like “old” and “elderly” have acquired a negative connotation. And misunderstandings like #5 here serve only to help propagate this fearful, antagonistic sentiment toward older people. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">News flash</i> – unless you plan to jump off a bridge at age forty, you’re probably going to reach old age someday. It’s a stage of your life, just like childhood or adolescence or middle age. And, according to a lot of the people I’ve interviewed at my job, it can be <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">totally awesome</i> if you let it.</div>
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#4. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">You are born with all the brain cells you will ever have.</i></div>
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First off, I just want to tackle this notion of being born with all of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">anything</i>. In and of itself, that idea is kind of silly, because I think we all recognize that the version of you that existed a day before the miraculous moment you were born is just about the same as the version of you that existed the day after – minus that whole breathing and eating through your mouth instead of your bellybutton thing. It’s not like your fetal body is busily building and building right up until you pop out of your mother’s vagina and then all of a sudden you’re in decay mode, you know?</div>
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So with that aside, I’m here to tell you that not only are you not done making neurons when you’re born – you’re not done when you hit adolescence, or adulthood, or even that dreaded old age. You are probably done when you’re dead (but then again, that’s leaving aside the whole philosophical argument about exactly when that other mysterious life-capping moment actually happens and whether your cells still do their thing for a few hours after you’ve reportedly kicked the bucket).</div>
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The word we’re looking to investigate here is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurogenesis" target="_blank"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">neurogenesis</i></a>, or the creation of new neurons. For a long time we couldn’t find any brain regions that continued to make new neurons on into adulthood, but this was mostly a problem of detection – we didn’t have the right tools to find neurogenesis, so of course we assumed it never happened. Now that we can properly search for it, neurogenesis is cropping up everywhere – in our friend the <a href="http://kaitlinbergfield.blogspot.com/2011/03/why-everyone-should-know-about.html" target="_blank">hippocampus</a>, the cerebellum, any number of cortical regions – and it appears to be a very important part of continued brain maintenance and function. (Actually, there’s a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">really</i> cool story here about hippocampal neurogenesis that was still sort of hand-wave-y last time I checked, but even my two fellow brain researchers fell asleep during the talk we went to about it, so I’ve elected not to share it with you fine people. Count your blessings.)</div>
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Here are some fun facts about your brain growth after birth. Your head is disproportionately big when you’re born, but it’s not as big as it’s going to be when you grow up (otherwise your mum would be complaining a hell of a lot more than she already is). That increase in brain size from birth to adulthood comes with a slight increase in the number of neurons you have, but more importantly a large increase in the number of connections they make. In childhood your neurons shoot out all sorts of projections all over the place, and then during adolescence your brain goes through this massive pruning binge to take out the connections that aren’t doing you any good. Throughout your teenage years your neurons continue to gain efficiency as they get wrapped in layers of cell membrane called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myelin" target="_blank">myelin</a>, which is required to allow neurons to effectively propagate their signals. Therefore, your brain isn’t even fully developed until your early twenties. You heard me right – your early twenties. And boys, your brains take a couple years longer to get there than girls’ do. Explains a lot, doesn’t it?</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWOUimLqjJahcRlRRKqtEn2Uxhk8Ze-BZNrRpxNn9d5hGsn0QFXvzVAUDX3UIGCH3nqpRkGka_xdLZJLoxB1Cva26RBXVwdLOl3nD7HMwl736Z-cy4IRWdZoxprMPIUpDf7kXUgqaw2Bw/s1600/brain+growth+chart.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWOUimLqjJahcRlRRKqtEn2Uxhk8Ze-BZNrRpxNn9d5hGsn0QFXvzVAUDX3UIGCH3nqpRkGka_xdLZJLoxB1Cva26RBXVwdLOl3nD7HMwl736Z-cy4IRWdZoxprMPIUpDf7kXUgqaw2Bw/s400/brain+growth+chart.png" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;">You can tell this is an old chart because the “cell birth” line (among others) doesn't keep on going out through adulthood. Also, see how we’ve known<i> for a long time</i> that myelination and synaptic elimination and pruning continue into adulthood.</span></div>
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The upshot is that at this very moment, your brain is still making brand-new neurons. It’s a very modest amount compared with the total number of neurons in your whole brain, true, but new neurons are still being born. It’s happening right now. And it’s going to keep on doing that for a very long time, hopefully.</div>
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#3. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Smoking copious amounts of pot has no lasting detrimental effect on your brain.</i></div>
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Seriously? Are you high? First off, if you’ve ever met a chronic pot smoker, you already <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">know</i> this isn’t true. You know it. I shouldn’t even have to back this up with studies, but I’m going to anyway so we never have to have this argument again.</div>
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Here’s a very select smattering of the results from papers published <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">since 2010 alone</i>: (A) Chronic pot users <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22103843" target="_blank">perform more poorly</a> on measures of executive function (that means planning, reasoning and decision-making) than non-users, and this effect is worse for those who started before age 16; (B) rats given cannabinoids in adolescence showed reversible impairments on many cognitive tasks but <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22348124" target="_blank"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">irreversible deficits</i></a> in short-term memory measures; (C) chronic pot use has been associated with <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21050680" target="_blank">reduced hippocampal volume</a> (although, to be fair, having skimmed that paper I have some concerns about the methods – for a better review of the effects of pot on brain metabolism and structure I encourage you to look at <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19627647" target="_blank">this paper</a>); (D) and luckily, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22373942" target="_blank">treatment for pot addiction</a> with gabapentin significantly reduced pot use and increased performance on cognitive tests. Hell, if you want a recent review of cognitive deficits associated with pot use, just read <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3037578/?tool=pubmed" target="_blank">this paper</a>.</div>
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People make similar arguments about alcohol, and I’m here to say that large enough quantities alcohol will totally mess with your head over time. (This one I have some personal experience in! I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">swear</i> I used to be quicker than I am now, and I’m blaming vodka-tonics.) I won’t take you through a lit review here, I’ll just leave it at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korsakoff%27s_syndrome" target="_blank">Korsakoff’s syndrome</a>. If you think that’s unfair, fine, I’ll tell you all about run-of-the-mill alcoholics’ impairments in perceptual-motor skills, visual-spatial function, learning and memory abilities, abstract reasoning and problem solving. Don’t make me go there.</div>
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Please don’t try and justify your habits by saying they don’t affect you. It’s a no-brainer (pardon the expression) that excessive amounts of intentionally mind-altering substances will, over time, affect the brain and its function. I’m sorry, but that’s just the way it is. Just embrace the fact that you’re willingly damaging yourself and move on.</div>
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#2. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pretty much anything movies ever say about brain disorders and treatments.</i></div>
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As a writer, I struggle with convincingly portraying anything about which I know absolutely nothing. I understand the plight. But let me give you three of my favorite examples that will let you know just how disastrously misguided most movies and shows (and news outlets) are about the brain:</div>
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(A) <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">One episode of Boston Legal starts with William Shatner’s character animatedly yammering away in an MRI machine spouting off baseball statistics for a pair of scientists who are quizzing him while watching “brain activation” blobs flit across a still image of his brain. The scene cuts to a doctor’s office where the neurologist (?) informs him he has Alzheimer’s disease.</i></div>
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PROBLEMS (well, some of them): You cannot move more than a few millimeters in an MRI scanner or the image will be totally messed up; No one watches brain activation patterns real-time because (a) it’s not feasible and (b) some guy watching a bunch of blobs real-time isn’t remotely as valid as running actual statistics on the data; THIS IS NOT THE WAY YOU DIAGNOSE ALZHEIMER’S and it’s a disgrace to imply that it is; Using an MRI to detect Alzheimer’s is only now becoming a realistic possibility but it hasn’t reached clinicians yet and also people are focused not on brain function but structure; Semantic information (like baseball statistics) is one of the few things that’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">preserved</i> in early-to-moderate stages of Alzheimer’s; You would never ever tell someone, “the tests show you have Alzheimer’s disease,” because Alzheimer’s can’t actually be diagnosed until you are dead (while you’re still alive you really have <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">probable</i> Alzheimer’s), and a good doctor would break that news more gently and with a caregiver around to help assimilate what the doctor is telling a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">probable Alzheimer’s patient</i>.</div>
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(B) <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">In my favorite example from House, House has been in a bad situation he can’t remember because he was blitzed out on substances at the time. He gets his buddy to perform deep brain stimulation to jog his memory. The first jolt allows him to see a fuzzy, silent, black-and-white still image or two, so he says to crank up the juice – and then suddenly he can see the full memory playing like it’s a proper modern movie.</i></div>
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PROBLEMS: I don’t even know where the start. The House show always pulls out a single term like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_brain_stimulation" target="_blank">deep brain stimulation</a> (DBS) and makes a total mockery of it because apparently not a single writer on that show has ever even taken a single class in medical school. So to summarize a bare minimum of points – first off, your brain simply does not behave in this way when you electrify it. When electrically stimulated, you will probably perceive some anomalous sensations, but you will not replay the one memory you’re looking for, and it will not be a 1920’s silent film at low voltage and a modern movie a high voltage. Also, memories do not ever play back perfectly like that for you anyway, and you all know that. Finally, DBS would never be used for such a purpose – mostly it’s an extreme therapeutic option for people with Parkinson’s disease, severe depression, and certain other disorders, and no one has a good handle on why it works.</div>
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(C) <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Any movie in which “getting amnesia” means “losing all knowledge of yourself and sense of who you are.”</i></div>
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PROBLEMS: This phenomenon of losing yourself is real, and is called a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugue_state" target="_blank">dissociative fugue</a>. It is psychological in nature and usually occurs in response to a deeply traumatic situation (not a blow to the head). It’s also transient, lasting a few days or weeks at most. Amnesia is a totally different thing, best characterized by the movie Memento. It can be caused by head injury, surgical resection of temporal lobe areas, oxygen starvation, and a number of other insults. When a neuroscientist (or even Wikipedia) talks about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amnesia" target="_blank">amnesia</a>, by default they mean <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">anterograde</i> (forward-looking) amnesia, in which patients cannot form new memories (remember <a href="http://kaitlinbergfield.blogspot.com/2011/03/why-everyone-should-know-about.html" target="_blank">HM</a>…?). These patients often, but not always, also show <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">retrograde</i> (backward-looking) amnesia, meaning that they cannot remember past events. Amnesia is not transient. These patients will live their whole lives in never-ending cycles of few-minute increments. Also, they will never forget facts about themselves like their name and birth date and where they grew up, because this is a different type of memory unaffected by amnesia. This whole movie problem is really one of semantics – how freaking hard would it have been for that first major movie exec to do a little research and say, “Hey, this isn’t amnesia, it’s a fugue – let’s say this guy has a fugue instead”? They could have avoided decades of ridiculous misunderstanding! </div>
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And let me just make this clear: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">You will never – under any circumstances – get hit on the head, lose all memory of yourself and your past, and then regain it miraculously a few weeks later</i>. Never.<br />
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<span style="font-size: small;">(Update: Dammit, okay, I thought of a circumstance. If the blow to the head is part of a deeply traumatic situation, you could enter a fugue state - but that's not due to the head bump! My point stands.)</span></div>
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#1. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">You only use 10% of your brain – imagine how much smarter you would be if you used 100%!</i></div>
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<span style="background: white;">You know what happens when you use 100% of your brain? <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">EPILEPSY</i>. Freaking epilepsy. That’s the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">definition</i> of epilepsy. If you want to have a gran mal seizure, go right ahead and “use 100% of your brain” all at once.</span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">This “10%” notion gained credence because when we first started imaging human brains (using methods like MRI), researchers found that the little colored blobs lighting up during performance of any given task covered only a small portion of the total brain. Why? Because different parts of our brains do different things. During verbal tasks, language areas light up; during reasoning tasks, reasoning areas light up… you get my point.</span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">Suggesting that we should find a way to use 100% of our brains is like suggesting we should use 100% of our cars when we drive them. It would obviously be totally efficient if your car drove forward <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and</i> backward <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">at the same time</i> in all gears while also honking the horn and wiping the windshield and flashing the lights and blaring every possible radio station and opening and shutting the doors. That’s clearly the best way to get to your local grocery store. </span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">Our brains are, in some ways, no more than a conglomeration of specialized little parts which each do their own mental tasks. At any one time, you “use” about 10% of your brain to—</span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">No, you know what? I can’t even say that oversimplification in good taste. This whole “10%” thing is 100% bullshit. What does that even <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">mean</i>, “using 10% of your brain”? I dare anyone to quantify with our current methods (A) <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">how much</i> of our (B) <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">brains</i> we (C) <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">use</i> at any one moment. All three of those points need a better definition before you even start down that road, and anyone who takes the first step on it is asking exactly the wrong question based on a host of incorrect assumptions – for one, that the brain is a singular computational entity operating at X capacity like a damn CPU. The idea is utter crap on every possible level.</span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">Actually, that CPU bit brings me to an important historical point – brains have always been, by default, equivalent to whatever latest technology is hot at the moment. In this day and age, we equate it part and parcel with a computer. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNNRKRCdHau3hfutSnSOrjIQz_GU0oCqOi15t4a4GlGbFlqCRvObO5r510bvWhpqAlrRjEugDyi8h9hSKVky5VyELu1cZMQdberKvyChCvExWda-u08LBVcjHmpvOFjmhwdf01wDUSpyA/s1600/brain_computer.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNNRKRCdHau3hfutSnSOrjIQz_GU0oCqOi15t4a4GlGbFlqCRvObO5r510bvWhpqAlrRjEugDyi8h9hSKVky5VyELu1cZMQdberKvyChCvExWda-u08LBVcjHmpvOFjmhwdf01wDUSpyA/s1600/brain_computer.png" /></a></div>
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<span style="background: white;">It’s such a handy metaphor, right? Like they were made for each other. You know what people said your brain was like in the old days? A switchboard.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggEaSjyyIoTXrfi5olfK1eUNOXuFUxXWSrjXoBdwnFxm2hzRyYrsdEOFuoTiCiPUQWJjgLAi9qv9fVw0mnEbedLPOnOmR7bV9HyNX0ikD4u52ndifbyyCtD9A68Xqe3mf4xsT6driGcHU/s1600/brain_switchboard.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggEaSjyyIoTXrfi5olfK1eUNOXuFUxXWSrjXoBdwnFxm2hzRyYrsdEOFuoTiCiPUQWJjgLAi9qv9fVw0mnEbedLPOnOmR7bV9HyNX0ikD4u52ndifbyyCtD9A68Xqe3mf4xsT6driGcHU/s320/brain_switchboard.png" width="300" /></a></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-size: small;"> Extra points to the kids who know what a switchboard is.</span></div>
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<span style="background: white;">We don’t have a good sense for what the brain is really doing, so we associate it with metaphors and then generate silly notions based on what we know about those metaphorical devices. The point is this: Our brains are well optimized just the way they are, using different bits for different jobs. Just know that you do NOT want all your neurons to fire all at once. You will immediately die.</span></div>
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<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8772174107800530258.post-66426208963471097432012-04-15T16:57:00.000-04:002012-04-15T16:57:00.255-04:00Déjà vuDéjà vu is one of the coolest phenomena ever. I know I <a href="http://kaitlinbergfield.blogspot.com/2011/03/change-blindness.html" target="_blank">already said that</a> about change
blindness. I also said I’d change my
mind.<br />
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I love déjà vu in the same way that I love sneezes and
yawning and blind spots and dreams and migraines. These things all make me very happy. They’re small reminders that my brain is still
there, it’s organic, it does things I can’t predict. They point out that we are laughably unaware
of the mucky mushy underpinnings of our lofty cognitive musings. Déjà vu makes us remember we’re only human.</div>
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Well, maybe that’s not true for everyone. Déjà vu means different things to different
people. What it certainly is <i>not</i> is a literal re-experiencing of a
moment that happened in that exact same way at some previously unspecified
time. This is an incorrect
interpretation of the phrase, because even though the direct translation of
“déjà vu” is “already seen,” the definition of the word includes the notion
that one is re-seeing something one knows one <i>couldn’t possibly</i> have seen before.
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Now, some say that déjà vu is some special form of
extra-sensory perception, or it’s a signal the Matrix has been altered, or it
tells us things about our past lives, or it’s some sort of breakdown between
all the versions of our lives we’re simultaneously living. Here’s the thing. Déjà vu is already a beautiful miracle <i>without</i> making it anything paranormal or
supersensory. It’s a truly incredible
process and a delightful experience.
This may sound weird coming from an urban fantasy writer, but I just
don’t like the taste of forcing supernatural elements where they don’t belong.</div>
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Scientific theories posit numerous explanations for déjà
vu, most having to do with the medial temporal lobe (remember the
<a href="http://kaitlinbergfield.blogspot.com/2011/03/why-everyone-should-know-about.html" target="_blank">hippocampus</a>…?). Keep in mind that
researchers very rarely have the opportunity to study déjà vu, given how
transient and unpredictable it is – in fact, apparently only about 60-70% of
people report having ever experienced the phenomenon at all (yet another
<a href="http://kaitlinbergfield.blogspot.com/2012/04/object-of-your-dreams.html" target="_blank">variable thing</a> I thought was common to everyone!). So even some of the so-called “scientific
research” discussed here tends to wax philosophical.</div>
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According to these researchers, déjà vu may occur
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(1) Some aspect of the current experience excites the
brain pathways that produce a sense of familiarity with the event, but <i>not</i> those that support proper
recollection of a previous event, creating a disconnect that makes us <i>feel</i> like we know it without being able
to pull out exactly when or where we experienced it before. </div>
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(2) Our brains probably store memory in such a way that a
small stimulus (a smell, a color) can trigger the incomplete recall of a real
but different memory… and in some cases this might give us a sense that the
current experience has already been experienced. (The first part of this is certain – it’s the
second that’s up in the air.)</div>
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(3) Our two brain hemispheres might sometimes get
slightly out of sync when processing an input, such that one side gets that
direct input fractions of a second earlier than usual and therefore
misinterprets the added information from the other half of the brain as a
repeat of an already-experienced memory.
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(4) We “experience” many types of things in media like
books and movies, which allow us to feel strong familiarity for things we’ve
never actually experienced in real life – and when we see it in real life for
the first time we might accidentally think we’ve already seen it. </div>
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Alternatively,</div>
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(5) Some researchers believe that precognitive dreams
(i.e. dreams which predict future events) may create a sense of déjà vu later on
when they are properly experienced. I’ll
tackle this one shortly. </div>
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(6) And lastly – and this is the least controversial of
the theories because it’s the most testable – déjà vu can occur as a result of
an epileptic event, like a seizure, in the medial temporal lobe. </div>
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(There are plenty of other theories I’ve decided to let
you discover on your own, seeing how long that paragraph has become already.)</div>
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I like aspects of a lot of these, but I want to put my
money down on the first and last – the disembodied familiarity thing and the
seizure thing. </div>
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There’s a lot of evidence that one’s concrete knowledge
of a previously-experienced event (call it <i>recollection</i>)
and one’s comparatively vague sense of <i>familiarity</i>
with an event are different things that are processed differently by different
brain regions – recollection by the hippocampus, and familiarity by… well,
parahippocampal and/or perirhinal cortex, depending on who you talk to (they’re
both structures basically adjacent to the hippocampus). In the rare déjà vu experience, it’s possible
that something about the current environment differentially stimulates the
familiarity and recognition brain structures, creating a detached sense of familiarity.</div>
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Notice that in the previous sentence, I said it was
something about the <i>external</i> <i>environment</i> causing the brain
activation. But it’s also possible that
your brain just does this stuff to itself, without any outside help. For example, people with temporal lobe
epilepsy sometimes report feeling déjà vu right before a seizure strikes. But you don’t have to have epilepsy to have epileptiform
brain activity, and in fact every single person on the planet has endured some
level of seizure-like activity in his or her brain. Basically, every once in a while some tiny
group of neurons goes a little haywire and activates for no good reason, but
it’s natural and nothing to worry about.
Mostly these events don’t impact our conscious lives at all. But <i>maybe</i>,
sometimes these events occur in just the right place at the right time,
activating our familiarity structures out of the blue, and suddenly the whole
world around us feels like we’ve done it before.</div>
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Regardless of whether it’s externally or internally
generated, it makes sense that déjà vu is an innocent brain mistake which makes
us feel something that’s not really real.
It helps explain why we sometimes feel recursive déjà vu – the sense
that we’ve even had this particular sense of déjà vu before, and that we’ve had
a déjà vu of that déjà vu of a déjà vu, and so forth. That’s just our brain accidentally and
repeatedly triggering a feeling that this event has occurred before when it
hasn’t. So I’m pretty darn confident
that when you experience déjà vu, that exact experience has never happened to
you before – no matter how much you want to believe that. That want, that <i>need</i> – that’s just your brain talking.</div>
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Which brings me to precognitive dreams. I will certainly insult people with my
opinion about this, but I’m willing to take that hit and say that the ability
to actually foresee future events in a dream is literally impossible. Let me rephrase that so I can be totally
clear – precognitive dreams <i>cannot</i> be
the true experience of a real-life event before it happens.</div>
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There are just too many problems with the idea that dreams
can be pre-plays of real events (not least the violation of causality). I’ll name a small few. (1) The vast majority of things that happen
to us happen repeatedly, so it’s practically impossible to <i>avoid</i> dreaming up scenarios which will be similar to later life
events; also, “similar” is not at all the same as “identical”. (2) If you compare every dream that you’ve
ever dreamed with every event that has ever happened to you, you will
absolutely come up with matches, and it has nothing to do with foreseeing
anything. (3) Our brains can <i>make</i> us feel conviction about things we
actually can’t remember very well, so when those similar real events happen we
can be duped into accidentally overwriting our dreams to match the events
(someday I’ll write a post about this point).</div>
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Okay, enough of that.
I don’t want to give the impression I don’t believe dreams can be <i>predictive</i>. Brains are prediction <i>machines</i>. Especially human
ones. It’s arguably what we do best. So it’s totally reasonable that your brain
makes very, very good <i>predictions</i>
about the future while you’re dreaming, using information you might not
consciously piece together while going about your daily. I am a happy believer when someone tells me
that they always dream of a white elephant before someone dies – so long as
they also tell me the white elephant is their brain’s way of assimilating a
host of (subconscious) clues indicating those other people were about to
die. Such a dream would be entirely
plausible, and maybe even probable.</div>
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What I’m saying is that déjà vu serves as a reminder that
our brains are doing a lot of things behind the scenes. In fact we don’t have conscious access to the
<i>majority</i> of the things our brains do.
(Go ahead, try and stop your heart just
by thinking it.) When magical things
like déjà vu and prescient dreams happen to us, we can congratulate our brains
for being so gosh-darn brilliant without us even knowing it. They really are capable of miraculous feats.</div>
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P.S. I got really sick of seeing the phrase “déjà vu all
over again” in article titles as I looked all this up. I used to love saying that and now it’s
tainted for me forever. So sad…</div>
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<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8772174107800530258.post-15454304045626940882012-04-01T17:48:00.001-04:002012-04-01T17:48:50.128-04:00The object of your dreams<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;">Every single one of my writing ideas has surfaced in a dream.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The making of Canine, for instance, started with a dream about my departed dog – well, about a sentient dog-creature which I identified in the dream as both my sweet girl but also a male wolf-dog.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You know how dreams go.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;">I had occasion recently to question the nature of dreams – specifically, dream protagonists.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I was shocked to find that not everyone dreams the same way about dream protagonists.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;">I want you to think about all the dreams you’ve had – recently or over your life, I don’t care.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Actually, it would be interesting to consider whether your dreams have evolved over time, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I want you to think about the main characters in those dreams, and to assess the following three qualities (please keep in mind that it is feasible to have all possible combinations of these qualities as you consider them):</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;">1. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Identity</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Who is the protagonist in your dreams?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Is that person yourself, or someone else?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other words, what does your protagonist look like? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(If you answer, “Well, it’s like a version of me that does things I would never or can’t do,” then for this purpose, your answer is “yourself”.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;">2. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Agency</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">you</i> the protagonist, or are you more like a camera following someone else?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Do you identify that protagonist as yourself, no matter what they look like?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;">3. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Perspective</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are you seeing things from the protagonist’s perspective (first-person) or are you watching the protagonist from the outside (third-person)?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;">I ask you these questions because I was really surprised to hear the answers from my friends.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many people, when I’ve queried them, have said that (1) their real self is the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">only</i> protagonist they dream about, (2) they <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">always</i> identify as the protagonist, and (3) because dreams will be dreams, they see it in first person or in some combination of first and third person.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;">I thought this was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">CRAZY</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;">Like seriously crazy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Since I can remember, I’ve been dreaming either as myself or as other people or animals or characters (I told you about <a href="http://kaitlinbergfield.blogspot.com/2011/05/which-turtle-were-you.html" target="_blank">my dream</a> where I was Raphael from the Ninja Turtles, and in the first dream I remember I was a deer, and I’ve been my stories’ protagonists and strangers I don’t recognize).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Generally when I dream as a woman, I’m myself – but even that changed a couple weeks ago when I finally had a dream as another woman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of the time I identify as the protagonist, but I’ve had dreams where I’m just following someone else around, like I’m the camera.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And lastly, I’m pretty consistent with everyone else in that I have dreamed in the first, first-and-third, or third person (it’s ever-changing within single dreams, usually).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I still have a hard time believing my friends have <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">never</i> had a dream like that.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;">The point it really hammered home for me is that my experience is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i> everyone else’s experience. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of course I knew this, but not in so concrete a way – and it took me 26 years to figure out that not everyone has dreams in which they are a different sex or species.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wonder now how many other assumptions I’m making about so-called “human experience” that are just my personal idiosyncrasies.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s really kind of concerning.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11pt;">Please fill up my comment field with your answers to my above three questions, because I would really, really like some more data about this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You may answer in proportions – e.g. you dream as yourself 80% of the time but someone else 20% of the time, etc. Thank you!</span></div>
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<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8772174107800530258.post-51219031090704125602012-03-16T05:10:00.000-04:002012-03-16T16:39:53.398-04:00Blog StatsIt’s been over a year since I started this thing, so I’m
totally qualified now to inform you about the world as viewed from the
perspective of a seasoned blog veteran.<br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
No, just kidding.
I just wanted to tell you some things I’ve learned from obsessively
checking my blog stats this past year.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><u>Things I Have
Learned From Blog Stats</u></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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1. Firefox is a very popular web browser. So is Chrome.
Explorer, not so much (but who’s surprised by that?). Safari’s lagging even behind IE.</div>
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<br /></div>
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2. There’s a browser called Iceweasel.</div>
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<br /></div>
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3. I have kind of a big following in Malaysia.</div>
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<br /></div>
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4. Number three may have something to do with the fact that
for some reason I keep getting a lot of traffic from a teeth whitening webpage.</div>
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<br /></div>
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5. I hope number four is because I have nice white teeth. I really can’t tell what the hell that site’s
spamming.</div>
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<br /></div>
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6. I’m *this close* to breaking 6,000 page views. This doesn’t include my own views of my
blog. It does include the teeth
whitening views of my blog.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
7. There are a LOT of people getting misdirected to this blog by running Google searches about muscles.
My <a ,="" href="http://kaitlinbergfield.blogspot.com/2011/06/miraculous-muscle-molecules.html" target="_blank">muscle post</a> has 395 total page views – more than three times the page
views of my <a ,="" href="http://kaitlinbergfield.blogspot.com/2011/04/why-everyone-should-know-about.html" target="_blank">next-most popular post</a> about the hippocampus, and more than ten
times that of an average post.</div>
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<br /></div>
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8. Number seven happened because I stole a really useful
image from someone else.</div>
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<br /></div>
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9. Outside of muscle terms, neuron terms, and my blog
name, “love like woe zombie” is the only Google search term that made it into
the all-time top ten search keywords used to access this blog. (Apparently
someone used this term eight whole times to link <a ,="" href="http://kaitlinbergfield.blogspot.com/2011/04/skunky-wines-and-aliens.html" target="_blank">here</a>.)</div>
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<br /></div>
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10. In the past month, these search keywords led people
to this blog a total of 35 times (gosh, I’m sorry!): “hippocampal relay”, “neuron”,
“sex chromosomes”, “how to make sarcomere structure model”, “26’ uhaul truck
total length” (P.S. I can totally answer that one for you – it’s 26 feet), “let
them eat kait” (oh my God someone actually typed this into a search
engine! Maybe!), “sarcomere model on
paper”, “3x3 inch wall tiles photos”, “axon synapse”, and “bathroom tiles”. As far as I can tell only three of these 35 clicks
were meant for me.</div>
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<br /></div>
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11. I have earned exactly zero dollars from my lack of
advertisements. You’re welcome.</div>
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<br /></div>
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These all seem really self-denigrating, so I wanted to
send a shout-out to the guy who sent me an e-mail saying he’d found my blog by
searching for something like “zombie apocalypse survival” and stumbling onto
<a ,="" href="http://kaitlinbergfield.blogspot.com/2011/04/surviving-apocalypse.html" target="_blank">this post</a>. Man, you made my
freaking year. Thank you for letting me believe
that some of these accidental clicks are luring in people who actually read
some of the rest of what I put here. I
hope your novel-writing is going swimmingly!</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Thank you all for reading this blog. I am in awe of all of you and am deeply humbled
by your support.</div>
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<br />
<br />
P.S. – Guys, seriously, if you ever see me making a typo please let me know. I found like three today and it was depressing.<br />
<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8772174107800530258.post-26014231578710361512012-03-01T17:28:00.001-05:002012-03-01T17:28:42.715-05:00DO NOT PEE ON THE TOILET SEATOkay, ladies. I’ve
tried to be nice but enough is enough.
It’s time for you to be told. DO
NOT PEE ON PUBLIC TOILET SEATS.<br />
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<br /></div>
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You would think this would be like saying “Do not jump
parachute-less out of a plane” or “Do not pit chimpanzees against badgers in a
cage fight”. It should be a ridiculous
mandate because the eventuality against which you are striving is unrealistic,
deeply irresponsible or even impossible to realize.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Ladies, I should <i>not</i>
have to inspect a public toilet seat for your urine every damn time I sit down
on it. The toilet seat surrounds a big,
wide hole full of water. That hole (it’s
called a toilet bowl), that’s what you should be aiming for – not the
seat. You put your <i>legs</i> on the seat. Your <i>entire private area</i> should rest
comfortably in the big wide open space into which the pee is supposed to
directed. Your water, ideally, should
all end up pleasantly comingling with the toilet water. It was designed that way!</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I know why you’re scared to sit on that seat. I know you have reservations about where
other people’s butts and legs have been.
I know the concept of restroom etiquette may be new to some of you. So let me outline my three solutions to this
pee-on-the-seat problem for you, in order of personal preference.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Number one. If we
all band together and learn how to pee correctly on toilet seats (and again,
that’s legs and butt on the seat, privates over the hole), then we can all sit
our butts down in comfort and get on with our respective days. Because let me reassure you, you don’t get
herpes from toilet seats. Or AIDS. On a day-to-day risk basis, you really don’t even
have to worry about infections or rashes caused by whatever awful flora inhabit
other women’s thighs – you should probably be more worried about getting hit by
a rickshaw on your way to work. Just
take a deep breath and<i> get over your
weird bathroom phobias and just sit the hell down on it already</i>. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Number two. You
can build up those quads and learn to hover more accurately over the really big
water-filled hole (remember, that’s called the toilet bowl), rather than the
little plastic ring around it. Like I
said, that hole is really big. Your pee
stream is comparatively small. This is
not NASA, this is hitting the broad side of a barn. Even if your pee goes all wonky and starts
spattering and running down your leg and whatnot, you should still be able to
accomplish peeing <i>into</i> the toilet
rather than <i>onto</i> it.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Number three. In a worst-case scenario, go right ahead – pee
on the seat. Pee all over it, and the
floor and the walls and the ceiling, for all I care. You know why?
Because right there next to the toilet – and I really, <i>really</i> hope you already know this one – there’s
a roll of paper which was created for the express purpose of wiping bodily
fluids off of surfaces. Ideally that
surface is your body, but if you want that surface to be the toilet seat then
fine, I’ll happily support your right to wipe the everloving piss out of it
(literally). And you know what? That paper is free. Even in public restrooms. You can use half a roll to clean up your
waterworks festival and no one will complain.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Just <i>please</i>,
for the love of God follow any one of the above three techniques to spare the
rest of us the full tactile glory of your excretions, because I am tired of
sitting on your pee. I’m really damn
tired of it. Don’t make me come after
you.</div>
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<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8772174107800530258.post-27588295489636061322012-02-05T15:39:00.000-05:002012-02-05T22:13:13.455-05:00More Weird JujuI told you about our <a ,="" href="http://kaitlinbergfield.blogspot.com/2011/03/weird-juju-weekend.html" target="_blank">weird juju weekend</a> last March. We had another weird juju evening this
January that I thought you might like to hear about.<br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
This time the juju object was very clear – it was <i>this</i> ugly beast (and don’t you dare say
“but the truck it’s leaning on looks just fine…”):</div>
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<br /></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6Sw6Xhom369E5rkaE1zqXcAxD1B9VXoDo3vAtzcKuqr3ZvyNFyj9mkz0MO6Rhlr5C7YSO-oqpyIHYamA5E-SHIGnP_0dSDLFpkGlTLrTppiohhO_2cHlPiuTSuT5j-QZOdpddVWyRDNs/s1600/UHaul_juju_small.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6Sw6Xhom369E5rkaE1zqXcAxD1B9VXoDo3vAtzcKuqr3ZvyNFyj9mkz0MO6Rhlr5C7YSO-oqpyIHYamA5E-SHIGnP_0dSDLFpkGlTLrTppiohhO_2cHlPiuTSuT5j-QZOdpddVWyRDNs/s320/UHaul_juju_small.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
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That, dear friends, is our U-Haul truck that we drove
from Arizona to Chicago – and the juju object is that horrible auto transport
trailer attached to the back of it.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Husband is terrified of my driving. I don’t think it’s warranted, but every time
I drive over a curb when he’s in the car I have to concede he kind of has a
point. He was okay letting me drive the
truck – he made me the night driver! – but he kept cringing and gasping and
offering helpful pointers and advice and by the time we pulled into Chicago I
swore that if I could just navigate the damn truck to our hotel destination without
crashing then I would get Shut The Hell Up About My Driving (STHUAMD) rights
for the rest of my life.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
That oath was my downfall.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I swore that oath in my own head just as we were turning
from the 55 onto the 94, which during nighttime rush hour was nothing less than
an overwhelmingly congested evil many-laned Cerberus nightmarish unholy beast of
a feat to attempt in a U-Haul the size of Texas. I had to get over <i>two lanes</i> in about a block and NO ONE was letting me in because
Chicago drivers are all (excuse my language) total assholes.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
But out of nowhere, some angel decided to pause and let
me in. He waved, I waved, and I started
to merge.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
And then the bad juju exploded.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
See, when that gentleman got to telling us the story
later, he explained that he had thought our auto transport trailer with our car
on it was just another sneaky Chicago driver trying to get in behind our
U-Haul. So what does my angel do? He jumps forward to try and cut off the other
car. The other car which is attached to
my truck.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
All I know is I’m going along just fine and then all of a
sudden that car is <i>way</i> too close and
then there’s a screech and a thunk as the trailer and his bumper collide.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Simple as that, in a span of seconds, away flew all my STHUAMD
rights. Evaporated. Forever.
And I <i>still</i> had to figure out
a way to get <i>back across</i> <i>three lanes</i> just to get off the damn
freeway and exchange information.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
So after a lot of merging and getting shunted to other
freeways and off ramps and neighborhood driving trying to find a spot big
enough to pull over our four-axle cruise liner, we finally managed to stop and
get things squared away (with a sprinkle of good juju, because his bumper was
scraped up a little but our trailer was fine and we had damage coverage anyway
even though we never buy damage coverage or insurance or warranties for
anything in our blessed lives). And then
there we were, stranded in the dark in a strange city in a strange neighborhood
about which we knew absolutely nothing.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
We didn’t know what the hell to do. We just turned right and right and right (and
maybe right and right again, for all I remember) – and then the juju
rollercoaster hit a new high. Within a
single nerve-wracking minute, there loomed a sign – for the 94 heading north! Seriously, if you’d seen all the damn turns I
had to make to get <i>off</i> that damn
freeway, you’d be way more impressed.
Imagine we were in Wonderland or the Labyrinth or something. It was like that.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Anyway, a few miles later we came to our exit… and the
juju coaster plummeted again when we failed to locate our hotel. I had thought the directions I had memorized would
be easy (ha!) and instead we circled forever through a maze of one-lane tiny
neighborhood roads searching fruitlessly for the damn place. We eventually pulled over and the husband excavated
his iTouch only to relearn that its battery was dead, and then booted up the
laptop but found only poorly-named secured wireless networks in that
isolationist little yuppie backwater neighborhood in which we found ourselves. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
So I called my sister to beg for internet help – and gave
her the <i>wrong hotel name</i> because they
all sound the same to me and I was being an idiot. <i>And
still</i> she managed to interpret my idiocy and sent some good juju our way in
the form of accurate directions to our hotel, which was apparently only two
short blocks away.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
As we pulled into the hotel parking lot all full of
jubilant relief at the realization that our horrible post-car-accident trauma
was finally over, we caught sight of a Chipotle across the street. Dinner secured! The good juju meter was off the charts by now.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
So we checked in and got back in the truck to re-park
around the back of the hotel, got out all our belongings including our stuffed
animals and overnight bags and musical instruments and potted plants (so that
they all wouldn’t freeze in the car), and got to the door – and the juju flat-lined
again when the husband started searching for our room keys.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
For ten minutes we sat there rooting through all our
stuff out in the cold trying to find those keys which we’d just been given mere
moments before. Nothing. Finally some lovely ladies showed up and let
us into the building, but that still couldn’t get us into our room which stood
so agonizingly nearby around the corner behind the first door on the right. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
Husband finally gave up and bade me wait with the stuff
while he went off to get a new room key from the front desk. He was gone awhile, and I got bored and
wandered over to the door to our room…</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
…And found it ajar.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I was already unpacked and watching TV by the time he
showed up again.</div>
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<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8772174107800530258.post-37489397970214962462012-01-21T08:00:00.000-05:002015-01-22T06:58:43.844-05:00Which Turtle were you?<div class="MsoNoSpacing">
I freaking love Ninja Turtles. More so now than I did back when they were age-appropriate, certainly. I miss my youth and am retroactively constructing a fictional fantastical view of how important TMNT really was to me. This is aided by a relative dearth of readily available photo and video evidence to the contrary. It’s further aided by continuing reminders in our (technically) adult household:</div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMdY1_RhQBkQclAn2-GAYnkSy088WkQJo-vDWquPdf8tslNqsXymItgV_aK5pxEdG7oFc5k5bmv9lUlQ0IruNRAoIWcRucZAeLKwUJHU7wf6NNSbTgOKPZdE5pKhoIEAkoflcT43ERyo4/s1600/IMG_2248.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMdY1_RhQBkQclAn2-GAYnkSy088WkQJo-vDWquPdf8tslNqsXymItgV_aK5pxEdG7oFc5k5bmv9lUlQ0IruNRAoIWcRucZAeLKwUJHU7wf6NNSbTgOKPZdE5pKhoIEAkoflcT43ERyo4/s320/IMG_2248.JPG" height="312" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>Recently discovered in a chocolate egg. </i></div>
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<i>Current home: Displayed prominently on the piano in the living room.</i></div>
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK5C7HagkUZG2giDBcemep-pPh-vjNfTmZtEWx33nJzz2aOXz3u3uUuY8GbkZSdPGXPgrFqDO3g4m_Da9rPMNLkUdQeb1Qool501Bt5ehxbnsxkxyS0Gw-FhNnSzvBYAmgeNxRYUOEgJA/s1600/IMG_2255.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhK5C7HagkUZG2giDBcemep-pPh-vjNfTmZtEWx33nJzz2aOXz3u3uUuY8GbkZSdPGXPgrFqDO3g4m_Da9rPMNLkUdQeb1Qool501Bt5ehxbnsxkxyS0Gw-FhNnSzvBYAmgeNxRYUOEgJA/s320/IMG_2255.JPG" height="222" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>Modern turtle enemies. </i><i>What the hell are these guys? </i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i></i><i>What happened to Bebop and Rocksteady?</i></div>
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQSMKOvRxcGw1n75l8hM5bIC1ahJtN_v1mAFAp4oX1GORa-GW8ZVDiatJYnEYHGqXqFkpKP8akkYD09YICH7XW6-5J3uJihuCEstl1lWQwR-_LahqKsypS3Ps2QpCLCS8HLUHgiuYSVoI/s1600/IMG_2258.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQSMKOvRxcGw1n75l8hM5bIC1ahJtN_v1mAFAp4oX1GORa-GW8ZVDiatJYnEYHGqXqFkpKP8akkYD09YICH7XW6-5J3uJihuCEstl1lWQwR-_LahqKsypS3Ps2QpCLCS8HLUHgiuYSVoI/s400/IMG_2258.JPG" height="400" width="300" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7bO8kWStdoAt08_WCLVPKZggfa45kSrZARSJq4Zz3odQjktpcVpQWlSbolCufCpUjMeUNdiUOeHqQVuUuDSp6HehJwQw_h_qhMdvAI-jkaovYtWOIfC_rTZynzvcvPLo8ls7bqahkeXE/s1600/IMG_2260.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7bO8kWStdoAt08_WCLVPKZggfa45kSrZARSJq4Zz3odQjktpcVpQWlSbolCufCpUjMeUNdiUOeHqQVuUuDSp6HehJwQw_h_qhMdvAI-jkaovYtWOIfC_rTZynzvcvPLo8ls7bqahkeXE/s320/IMG_2260.JPG" height="99" width="320" /></a></div>
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<i>Potentially the husband's proudest possession. </i></div>
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<i>Also on display on the piano. Right next to the wedding pictures.</i></div>
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The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were pretty much the coolest thing my generation’s TV had to offer (kids these days think TMNT was made for them but they are SO wrong). Any one word in the title would have been amazing enough for a little kid: Teenage. Mutant. Ninja. Turtle. But you put them all together and suddenly you’ve got an unstoppable tsunami of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Awesome</i>. With a capital A.<br />
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Who doesn’t still remember the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gn5iCn_T68c&feature=related" target="_blank">theme</a> song? Who didn’t love pizza almost exclusively because of the turtles’ singular culinary obsession? Who didn’t want to own <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">all</i> the action figures? </div>
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That was the best Christmas present I remember getting as a child – a big-ass box of Ninja Turtles action figures. And I got a life-size plastic version of Leo’s sword too (it was a sword to me back then, not a katana, because I didn’t know better). And I promptly hit my sister over the head with it and got it taken away. But those few fleeting moments of well-armed glory, they were magical.</div>
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The best part about the Ninja Turtles was that they were each unique enough to allow for favorites. I think my interest in each of them has vacillated regularly throughout the years, but the truth is my heart is sworn to Raph and always will be. Never mind that Leo dominates our household – that’s mostly the husband’s doing – or that most people think Raph is a whiny angsty baby (cf. that scene in the first movie where he spends the entirety of his farmhouse hideout time moping in a bathtub). Raph isn’t exactly my favorite, but he’s my turtle.</div>
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Let me break it down for you, those of you who don’t know the turtles like familiar friends. Kids tended to base their favorite turtle choices on one of three major attributes:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe0zTKGSSymtBjPdRsmIkNinqiFSGZdLdDoZfpEEuaapvhrveJ8DjUP9_Kg2h1hUkXAXbG7itj2hKYQYpQXd598h_1da1sCljqTwgCuv-yBkHaDDAfOXS_3xpeX4ExGmBGFB-Xq_OTVnw/s1600/Ninja_Turtles_breakdown.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe0zTKGSSymtBjPdRsmIkNinqiFSGZdLdDoZfpEEuaapvhrveJ8DjUP9_Kg2h1hUkXAXbG7itj2hKYQYpQXd598h_1da1sCljqTwgCuv-yBkHaDDAfOXS_3xpeX4ExGmBGFB-Xq_OTVnw/s400/Ninja_Turtles_breakdown.png" height="410" width="500" /></a></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Yes</i>, some kids chose their favorite turtle based on which Renaissance artist he was named after. So what? You got a problem with that? You want to start something? And <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">clearly</i> the makers of TMNT knew <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">nothing</i> about the Renaissance, anyway – the turtles’ names were totally misattributed in my opinion. Leo should have been the tinkerer. Mikey should have been the tortured brooding one, and Raph ought to have been the partier. I had a really hard time in Art History class thanks to the Ninja Turtles. Bastards.</div>
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Misattribution aside, I always wanted to be Leo. I wanted to be a leader and have an awesome weapon and kick ass. Or I wanted to be Donny, I wanted to be all scientific and technical. But I got Raph. Standoffish angsty hot-headed annoying Raph and his stupid useless sai.</div>
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This is because I had a dream when I was little. Real little. It was one of the very first dreams I remember, and it was long and perilous – I was a ninja turtle and I was stuck searching for hours through a neverending labyrinthine sewer system in a fruitless attempt to rescue April O’Neil from certain peril. I was Raphael. I can’t just ignore that kind of sign. My subconscious chose for me. It’s always going to be Raph.</div>
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Maybe this is why I always fall for angsty fictional characters, eh? </div>
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It’s all Raph’s fault.</div>
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P.S. I just took an online quiz and I got Donny. Figures. You can also take the quiz <a href="http://quizfarm.com/quizzes/new/jackattack15/which-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtle-are-you/" target="_blank">here</a>.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8772174107800530258.post-955485474633113312011-11-19T23:12:00.001-05:002011-11-20T12:26:38.994-05:00Google is your friendIt occurs to me that I may be too naïve and trusting a
person. I will probably be that little
old lady who gives all her money to the nice Nigerian prince who just needs a
money transfer because he lost a kidney while traveling abroad in Monaco, or
whatever. I have effectively already been
that little old lady, actually, a few times in my life. When I was working at Dairy Queen (it also
occurs to me that I should apparently just have named this blog ‘Notes from a
Dairy Queen’, given how much blog fodder those few short teenage months have
thus far given me) this quite cute disheveled long-haired ratty-shirted guy
once charmed me into buying him a whole ice cream cake “for a dinner for
homeless people out in the desert” just by playing me a song on his harmonica. I got duped into giving a psycho creepy
stalker kid a kiss in a foreign airport.
On a rainy day, a family friend had me totally convinced the video of
catastrophic flooding in Australia being covered on CNN was actually our
backyard river. In a series of factual
blunders, I even managed to accidentally fool <i>myself</i> into thinking pandas weren’t bears and held that belief for
years, and was so confident in my mistake I had other people in on it, too. ‘Gullible’ might as well be my middle name.<br />
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Also, I tend to see no problem living in places one
should probably avoid. Prime example:
when the husband went out of town for six months I moved into a smaller place
more suitable for a single person living alone.
It was the size of a port-o-potty and was all sorts of broken-down –
when the gas guy came by to approve the place and told me he couldn’t do it
because the gas heater wasn’t up to code, the landlord just told me, “It’s
fine, they always say that. Don’t worry
about it.” So I just moved in and didn’t
turn the heater on the whole winter. The
place was pretty much made of cardboard.
In fact, someone told me later about a friend of a friend whose house in
Tucson was broken into after the burglar <i>just
kicked in the wall and walked in</i> – and given the size of the hole I managed to
put into the closet wall just by leaning a hand on it, I think my place fell into
that same Laughably Easy burglarizing category.</div>
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But none of this really hammered home for me until I came
home one day and realized I’d locked myself out. I was sitting there staring at the door,
wondering what the hell I could do – when out of the corner of my eye I saw an
angel, an actual angel rooting through the big dumpster in our alley. This homeless guy had with him a whole
shopping cart of goodies he was diligently trying to augment – surely he’d have
a screwdriver in there somewhere? I
walked over and explained my plight. And
sure enough he did have a screwdriver, and in under two minutes he and I had
pried my window open and got me inside. And
you know what he said, while we were breaking into my house? He told me, “This place isn’t safe. I have a sixteen-year-old daughter and I
would never let her live in a place like this.”</div>
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<i>That’s</i> how I
got schooled that my house was potentially not my finest choice of living
situation.</div>
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I’m looking for apartments in Chicago right now and I’m
trying to keep these and other reminders in mind as I look at all these
adorable places and fail again and again to remind myself that they are cheap
because I am probably going to get shot walking out the door. I’m not a good judge of these things. But my friend helped me develop a great
litmus test for checking out neighborhoods I know nothing about: 1) Google the
address, 2) Find the closest park, and 3) Google the park name. If you see news of a shooting, beheading, or
bomb-planting in that park in the first five search hits, you are probably not
about to settle into a nice neighborhood.
Seriously, this works.</div>
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If anyone could help me out with this whole Chicago thing
I’d be deeply obliged.</div>
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<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8772174107800530258.post-87403322763957366072011-09-25T02:08:00.000-04:002011-09-25T15:14:30.384-04:00Nerds are the best kind of peopleI’ve just returned from the Arizona Browncoats’ sixth
annual <a ,="" href="http://www.cantstoptheserenity.com/" target="_blank">Can’t Stop the Serenity</a> event, and if that didn’t make any sense then
you’ve probably never seen the cult classics <a ,="" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefly_(TV_series)" target="_blank">Firefly</a> (the TV show) or <a ,="" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_(film)" target="_blank">Serenity</a>
(the movie). Obviously I recommend both. And I bet you wouldn’t argue with me that Can’t
Stop the Serenity is a nerdy event.<br />
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This event represents exactly why nerds are the best
kind of people. On every scale, it
exemplifies the very best that people can be, and what they can do when they
come together for a good cause.</div>
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To summarize in one sentence, Firefly was a space cowboy sci-fi show that waxed
profound in its portrayal of a group of mercenaries struggling to survive a
universe that failed to appreciate their particular brand of morality. Firefly has a wealth of fantastic messages enmeshed
in it, about ethics, righteousness, equality, the list goes on. I mean to say that this nerdy space cowboy
show <i>in and of itself </i>was a
production promoting the best kind of people.
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But it was canned in the first season by Fox. </div>
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Enter the browncoats, the cult followers of Firefly. Like the characters they idolized, they
banded together for a common cause: to give a final voice to their favorite
show. They actually scraped together the
cash themselves to fund a full-length film chronicling their favorite crew, and
out of that sprung Serenity. How awesome
is that?</div>
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And it gets better.
Now around the country, browncoats put on annual Can’t Stop the Serenity
screenings of the movie, and all the proceeds go to benefit <a ,="" href="http://equalitynow.org/english/index.html?gclid=CNjBofvct6sCFSvftgoduys2eA" target="_blank">Equality Now</a> and
other organizations seeking the empowerment and equality of women
worldwide. It’s a charity the show’s
creator, <a ,="" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joss_Whedon" target="_blank">Joss Whedon</a> (of <a ,="" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffy_the_Vampire_Slayer_(TV_series)" target="_blank">Buffy</a> and <a ,="" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollhouse_(TV_series)" target="_blank">Dollhouse</a> fame), feels very passionate about. Six years in, these screenings
have raised <i>over half a million dollars</i>
for Equality Now.</div>
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So yeah, all of that is great and all – strong moral messages
and philanthropy and whatnot, it’s real nice. But would you also believe that nerds<i> are the most courteous moviegoers I’ve ever
had the pleasure to sit with?</i></div>
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I know! This is at
a dedicated cult-movie screening where you’d <i>expect</i> people to be all rowdy and annoying. <i>And
still</i> no one yelled over the dialogue, no one clapped out of turn, and when
the important bits came around no one ruined the surprises for anyone who hadn’t
seen the movie yet (yes, there were two of them in the crowd). One cell phone did go off, but the girl
instantly turned it off and looked absolutely mortified.</div>
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The husband and I have all but sworn off movie theaters
after our last twenty our so experiences where we’ve been subjected to people
having entire conversations throughout the movies we paid ten dollars a ticket
to watch. But these browncoats were
fantastic and their conduct throughout the whole evening – in the theatre,
during the speeches and fashion show and front-running show screenings, milling
around the lobby, even in the bathroom – was exemplary. It was amazing.</div>
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I’m totally going back next year.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8772174107800530258.post-43032788550615297432011-09-23T17:15:00.000-04:002011-12-22T13:35:15.508-05:00When the husband’s away…Everyone has idiosyncrasies they choose not to display
around other people. Some of us do this
because we’re prudish and self-conscious, and others of us do this because we
don’t want to annoy the ever-loving piss out of our loved ones. When my husband is out of town, my life
changes in oh-so-many infinitesimal ways…<br />
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1. <i>Loneliness is
cleanliness.</i> Can you believe I’ve
actually done the laundry every single week this month? And the dishes? And I’ve made my own meals for dinner? You should see my house right now, it’s
gorgeous. It is absolutely miraculous
what you can get done when you have no excuses like, “He totally put that there
and he can damn well pick it up himself.”</div>
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2. <i>Loneliness is
craftiness.</i> I never would have <a ,="" href="http://kaitlinbergfield.blogspot.com/2011/09/just-like-riding-bike.html" target="_blank">scrounged up the sewing machine</a> if the husband was around. I’m making holiday costumes and learning to
face-paint and cleaning things I’ve never cleaned before and mending things
that really don’t need mending. In
husband-departures past, I’ve hauled out the acrylic paints or the
earring-making supplies or the molding clay and gone to town. Oh, and the husband was out of town for a
couple weeks when I <a ,="" href="http://kaitlinbergfield.blogspot.com/2011/06/unfinished-business.html" target="_blank">made the Stargate</a>, too!
See? I’m only ever creative when
he’s gone.</div>
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3. <i>The house turns
bulimic.</i> With all the cleaning and
all the crafting, the house pretty much waffles daily between being pristine
and qualifying as a natural disaster area.</div>
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4. <i>There’s this
thing called ‘fruit’…</i> I’ve said we
don’t eat in. But as part of point one,
I’ve been going to the actual grocery store and picking up actual fruits and
vegetables and actually consuming them on a regular basis. And the white nectarines in season right now
are <i>delicious</i>.</div>
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5. <i>Abstinence makes
the heart grow fonder</i>. Normally I’m
not much of a drinker. No, honest. But when the husband is away and I don’t have
my regular social drinking partner and wine-bottle-sharer, I go crazy. On days when it normally wouldn’t cross my
mind once, I’ve found myself staring down the beer in the fridge and wondering
how long I’m going to hold out before I start drinking alone. I could shank a baby right now for just one
good glass of white wine. I’ve finagled
my way into <i>two</i> glasses of wine this
week and I’m still dying. I think this
defines alcoholism.</div>
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6. <i>Cereal = all-day
staple</i>. Cereal is no longer just for
dinner. Breakfast, lunch, second lunch,
dessert, midday snack, midnight pick-me-up… it’s so versatile! Especially when I don’t want to leave the
house. Which leads me to…</div>
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7. <i>Self-imposed exile</i>. I’m a natural-born hermit. The husband makes me leave the house to walk
around the university, or get food for dinner, or buy things, or
socialize. But now, I don’t have to do
any of that! I can sit in a single spot
on my couch <i>all night</i> and no one will
bother me! (Friends of mine, don’t get
any smart ideas about taking me out of this in a fit of pious pity. I <i>like</i>
it.)</div>
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8. <i>Forget personal
hygiene</i>. I still brush my teeth
twice daily. But it can be hard to get
up the motivation to shower when no one with whom you interact is going to get
within a few feet of you in a given day.
And makeup and hair maintenance and cute clothes are all straight out
the window when the bed is calling for you to sleep in just a few minutes more…</div>
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9. <i>Cadaver nails</i>. That’s husband’s name for my fingernails when
they start growing out of control, he says they look like when people die and
their nails keep growing (I’ve heard this before, but I’m not
sure it’s true). But I <i>hate </i>cutting my nails. <i>HATE</i>. It takes forever and then you have to file
them and I never had this problem back when I used to bite them off. So when husband’s gone, the claws come out.</div>
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And finally…</div>
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10.<i> Absolutely NOTHING
in moderation.</i> At least, with regard
to media. The husband can only watch
things once or twice before he gets bored with them. He hates listening to music on repeat. Me? If
I don’t consume <i>everything</i> a song or
a band or a show has to offer, if I haven’t yet worn it like a second skin, if
I can’t repeat it back verbatim, then I feel I haven’t really experienced it
yet. And when husband is gone, there’s
no one to limit my addictions. So far
I’ve watched both seasons of <a ,="" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Family" target="_blank">Modern Family</a> straight through four times. Four.
That’s forty-eight episodes, back-to-back, four times over. And each night I find a new song to fall in
love with and play it on repeat for hours – last night it was <a ,="" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-mxBDuRaZ8&feature=relmfu" target="_blank">Silver Sun Pickups</a>, tonight it’s Mark Martel’s <a ,="" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dREKkAk628I&feature=related" target="_blank">“Somebody To Love” audition tape</a> for Queen
Extravaganza (and my God, does that man ever sound like Freddie Mercury! Be still, my beating heart!), and so on. It never ends.</div>
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Anyway, I’d keep going on this list but my cereal’s
getting soggy and I have to reorganize the pictures on the piano and I just
reached the episode where the whole family takes a trip to Maui, and I really
like that one. Peace out!</div>
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<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8772174107800530258.post-56884476562588536812011-09-21T22:40:00.000-04:002011-09-21T22:41:03.482-04:00Just like riding a bike!I’ve taken up sewing again. Well, effectively for the first time. The other day I dragged my brand-new untouched
sewing machine (gifted to me a few Christmases ago by my mother) from the
highest recesses of our hall closet, because I finally found a use for it:
making Día de los Muertos costumes for our stuffed animals.<br />
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Best not to ask, really.</div>
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Let me give you some background on me and sewing. When I was young, my mom’s sewing machine was
always set up in the family room and my sister and I dabbled in making crude
stuffed animals and whatnot on it. I own
no evidence of this, but I’m confident I was once capable of threading the
machine and sewing in a straight line, and even a curved line on some daring
days. But that was a long time ago.</div>
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So when I opened this box, I have to admit I was feeling
a little trepidation. It was a daunting
beast of a machine, with a really big manual that had lots of diagrams. (I’m exaggerating. It was a big book <i>because</i> there were a lot of diagrams, three languages, and painfully
exhaustive large-font instructions, such as “Disconnect the machine from the power
supply by removing the plug from the main socket!” and “Never drop or insert
any object into any opening.”) Hesitantly
I threaded the needle, pinned down my first test scrap, and pressed with ginger
care on the foot pedal.</div>
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And it turns out, relearning to sew is just like
relearning to ride a bike!</div>
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See, after I stopped riding my bike in high school I was
nervous about getting back on it in college.
But by the end of my first week, I was still wobbly but I was getting
the hang of it. I was even confident
enough to take one hand off the handlebar to wave a thank-you to a row of cars
that had stopped so I could cross the street—</div>
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And my hand twisted and I flew headfirst over the handlebars
and my backpack knocked straight into my head and I scraped both knees bloody
and totally ruined my good new jeans. Right
in front of dozens of stopped cars full of laughing drivers. Yep.
Grace personified, that’s me.</div>
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So when I say it’s just like riding a bike, I mean that I
am comically inept at relearning to sew.
So far I’ve wasted half a spool of thread and a good dozen scraps of
fabric and filled my house with more shouted cursing than even the foulest-mouthed
sailor would admit to, and all I have to show for it are two disembodied doll-size
jacket arms. I’m just glad Dead Day isn’t
for another month and a half.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8772174107800530258.post-81877677980681939222011-09-03T01:07:00.002-04:002011-09-03T01:43:19.012-04:00No green thumbs on these hands<div class="MsoNoSpacing">I’m an awful plant owner. </div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">We have three plants living in our house: an orchid, a ficus, and I think an amaryllis. I’m pretty sure if my poor plants could talk they would scream in fear every time my husband leaves and they get left in my care. </div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">The probable-amaryllis has the most to fear from me at the moment. (I have a feeling my comment field’s going to ping with the correct answer to my flower ambiguity about five seconds after I post this.) It was a gift from my mother a few years back, and after a half hour of internet searching I’ve seen lots of amaryllises (amaryllii?) with our same pot and I think I remember seeing that flower on the box when we got it. </div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Who knows? That’s not the point. The point is it has not once flowered in our house and I finally decided to heed my sister’s advice and look up how to properly care for a bulb plant.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">And of course the first thing I read was not to put it in a sealed pot, which is exactly the kind of pot it came in. So one screwdriver and a good deal of effort later I’m left with a cracked pot bottom and a shower of soil all over my kitchen sink. Good start.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Also, I think this thing gets watered by the husband about every three days. That might be too much? Is once a week better? And how often would all these East Coasters and Midwesterners water a plant if they lived in a desert? I keep reading all this “cool, dry place” business and let me tell you – cool is not happening. Dry I can manage, no problem. Ten percent humidity is an Arizona standard. But cool? </div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Like I might have mentioned once or twice on this blog and even in this post, I live in Arizona. We don’t do basements or cellars. We can’t even get cold tap water nine months out of the year. If you want cold water out of the tap, you rig a strainer filled with ice up to the faucet. (Desert rats take note – I got that tip from a Facebook friend and I’m paying it forward because it works-ish.) Outside of my refrigerator the coolest any part of my house gets is about 78 degrees, this time of year. That’s not even close to the 60-something I’m seeing on the web. </div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">(Do people still call it the web? I feel like that’s some holdover from the 90’s all of a sudden, like “cyberspace” or “the Net” – although Sandra Bullock is holding up incredibly damn well, come to think of it. Good on her. Okay I’m rambling.)</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Plus, some sites say to take the bulb out of the soil to make it go dormant and some say not to and some say to do it in summer and some in fall and some when the leaves start to turn yellow and some say to cut the leaves down to the bulb and others say leave two inches… <i>All I want is the industry standard, people!</i> Gosh!</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">It’s enough to drive a girl crazy. The internet is not remotely helpful for advice. It’s as bad as reading scientific literature, with everyone all defending their mole hills, except on the internet it’s a lot harder to sift out bullshit.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Can someone help me? How does one get a flower out of an amaryllis (probably) bulb?<br />
<br />
My poor plants.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8772174107800530258.post-71477392305159861562011-08-22T17:33:00.000-04:002015-01-21T07:08:47.437-05:00Got to love the First Day<br />
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I love the first day back at school! All of a sudden campus is crawling with students again. The freshmen are all stumbling around trying to figure out how to get to their brand-new college classes, the seniors are already showing up all jaded in pajamas like they couldn’t be asked, the grad students are trying to figure out whether to bother even printing the syllabus. It’s a day full of adorable blunders and maddening accidental breaches of etiquette, and I can’t decide whether to stay indoors and weather the storm or go out on every class break just to enjoy the show.</div>
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I’ve seen nine First Days now at this university and they never change. It’s so nostalgic. Kids come by and try opening our lab’s key-locked door, and I’m reminded to go write the sign explaining that classroom ###-<b><i>B</i></b> is that-a-way around the corner. 11:35 rolls around and I panic and run out to grab a lunch before the classroom floodgates open for a nightmarishly crowded lunch break at the student union (it’s the only food the freshmen apparently know about). The gym is off-limits this whole first week until the undergrads settle into their schedules and realize 3:00 is not an appropriate exercise time for them. There’s no point at all to trying to bike around in the ten minutes before every hour, not when skateboarders and pedestrians have no idea yet where their right-of-way ends and the bike lane begins (come to think of it, I don’t see as many rollerblades around of late – has an era finally come to an end?). </div>
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All around me I see kids sitting in hallways waiting for classes to start and I remember my first year here, little eighteen-year-old Kaitlin sitting anxiously in the hallway of the social sciences building trying awkwardly to figure out what to do with herself during the break between 9:00 and 9:50. I hear them asking each other questions – where is this or that building, when is your lunch break, where do you go for good coffee – and I can practically hear myself trying to start up those same meet-and-greet conversations that for me never ended up going anywhere. I miss my fellow first-year grad student, who showed up so cheery-faced in my first class of graduate school and with whom I shared all of my first grad school memories. I happily fail to envy the other students in my lab, who’ve not yet moved beyond class-taking and have to run off with lunch in hand to sit through a four-hour lecture.</div>
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This ninth year is the last year for me, and I’m going to miss all of this First Day at College ridiculousness. It’s been fun. But THANK GOD I’m getting the hell out of here before I make it to ten.<br />
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<br />
UPDATE: I made it to ten. Thank you, data collection setbacks. Ten was the same as the rest, except that the incomers looked like children.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8772174107800530258.post-63239272595730963422011-07-26T19:00:00.001-04:002011-07-26T20:48:08.253-04:00Arizona Part 3: Still on the Water Thing<div class="MsoNoSpacing">I realized I wasn’t done with water. Don’t worry, even I’m growing bored of it. I’ll be on to bigger, better Arizona things soon.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">I just wanted to let you know not to cry for me over the fact that we never got snow days as kids. And no, we didn’t get heat days, either, even though in a hundred and ten I can tell you that school swamp coolers just don’t cut it.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">(Aside: Swamp coolers. Would you believe that when it’s really hot and dry, you can run water over a pad and then draw air through it into a house, and as that water evaporates it cools that house? People have made these machines (also less inventively known as ‘evaporative coolers’) for bone-dry places like Arizona, and in practice they even kind of work. In June. For a while. Husband and I used to have a swamp cooler in our house, and in July and August we sweated buckets late into the night playing Dance Dance Revolution in our unders in the privacy of our living room while the swamp cooler pumped in heavy, wet, not remotely cool air that smelled of local sewage treatment plant. Delightful. End aside.)</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8UMv3Tp-dZdBiNa6elCvN4zBjdedAUpX7KcRgwLS3Aed-532ZPCwLS7mERyuzpm1YjAuWzzUQfI5aEsWildBjKtYh9JQsOngrYau0TzVqYe42fwvWcbcNgq5yDEalaa7fCgr_cTdm5Pw/s1600/P7202014.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8UMv3Tp-dZdBiNa6elCvN4zBjdedAUpX7KcRgwLS3Aed-532ZPCwLS7mERyuzpm1YjAuWzzUQfI5aEsWildBjKtYh9JQsOngrYau0TzVqYe42fwvWcbcNgq5yDEalaa7fCgr_cTdm5Pw/s320/P7202014.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">This is a swamp cooler. The pigeons love that it drips water, and probably love less the way their insides feel after trying to drink it.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">So we didn’t get snow days, and we didn’t get heat stroke days. But we <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">did</i> get a couple of flood days.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Arizonans don’t know what the hell to do with precipitation of any sort when they do get it. Worse, it only comes in deadly bombardments and not in manageable drizzles. Flash flood warnings are a regular occurrence, and annually a number of people have to get pulled by firemen out of cars stalled in underpasses that look like this:</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilCIVwxjPYqywtQxkyAwF8LVk-xB9251qWSbvB8tO3vuEzJ9roLEHrwPSJV29Lqsp-GS5sCiXMknMSB_rDDL8XpHiAR31fZ0c_FedDbb2G0jPYOgNCGdXvIYRGtT56yNPTxBNBwM-u5ow/s1600/IMG_3209.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilCIVwxjPYqywtQxkyAwF8LVk-xB9251qWSbvB8tO3vuEzJ9roLEHrwPSJV29Lqsp-GS5sCiXMknMSB_rDDL8XpHiAR31fZ0c_FedDbb2G0jPYOgNCGdXvIYRGtT56yNPTxBNBwM-u5ow/s400/IMG_3209.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Taken this week.</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">There’s little adequate drainage to speak of anywhere in our city. The water is supposed to be channeled along the sides of roads and dumped into gutters, but the gutters are too small and fill fast with debris, and soon even the main streets become filled with running water. It inevitably drains off onto secondary streets, which city planners have elected to allow to dip <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">into</i> the deep drainage washes (now running feet deep) rather than build more drainage tubes and run the roads <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">over</i> them. I mean bridges, those are like, expensive, right? And you can see from the picture above how well these ditches work. They speak for themselves, really.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">So if you live anywhere, pretty much <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">anywhere</i> in the city, when it starts really raining you’re unlikely to be able to drive anywhere else of real import because your car will get stuck in the water. This is especially true of the boonies where we lived, as we had to cross no fewer than four major washes running straight off the mountain before we could get out of our suburban corner and into the proper city. And by the way, our city planners may suck at planning for water, but our drivers are even worse at driving in it. If you could get past the washes, you’d probably get sideswiped by a hydroplaning idiot trying to turn left. </div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">(That idiot was me, I admit, when I was sixteen and full of newly-licensed hubris on the back streets of Minneapolis during a summer storm – I almost took out two entire branches of my extended family driving my cousins and sister to rent some DVDs. Hell, they might have been VHS tapes, come to think of it.)</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">So on flood days, we got to stay home. It was beautiful.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">And I have had one “snow day” in my life. I was living for two months with the parents after college, it was winter time, and by some miraculous force of Higher Power, we woke up one morning to see the sky had snowed and sleeted and the world was covered in a very thin film of icy powder. My dad and I were carpooling to work then, and we got in his car and made a valiant effort for two straight hours to try and cross either of the two bridges leading from my parents’ house into town, both now covered in ice and snow that still, bizarrely, had not melted even by ten o’clock. There is no way to get into town without crossing one of these two bridges. And my dear city has, to its name, exactly one snow plow. And I think they were trying to de-ice something on the bridge too or something, which is the extent of my knowledge on the subject because I am a native Arizonan and know nothing at all about precipitation (I had never even heard of a roof rake until I was in my second quarter century on this earth). <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">No one</i> was getting across those bridges. So we gave up and went home. And yes, I may have had a bachelor’s degree already under my belt when it happened, but I might as well have been five for how excited I was to finally get a single mostly-legit snow day in my life.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-D_TTJcworJiKfG70n7P09_lsk3C4AmSq860qkIiZ5g0D4x4QxGiLKJqVh4QT7nkaQSaVOUraLdxQknfqDYXt7H-7VO1WM4b7ZdmHfPQmX4aKncRI0ICvmbUk5OEIWt_Jv2NxVt8En_c/s1600/IMG_0344.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-D_TTJcworJiKfG70n7P09_lsk3C4AmSq860qkIiZ5g0D4x4QxGiLKJqVh4QT7nkaQSaVOUraLdxQknfqDYXt7H-7VO1WM4b7ZdmHfPQmX4aKncRI0ICvmbUk5OEIWt_Jv2NxVt8En_c/s400/IMG_0344.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Picture courtesy of my dad. Gorgeous, right? And yes, <i>this </i>shut down an entire corner of the city for half a day.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8772174107800530258.post-48278100825214827272011-07-25T14:10:00.002-04:002011-07-25T20:20:55.681-04:00Arizona Part 2: The power of water<div class="MsoNoSpacing">We’re moving out of Arizona at year’s end. I’m already missing it. </div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">See, I’m a native here, and by that I mean I was born somewhere else but I don’t remember much of it. Home to me has always been here, in this little patch of dirt ringed by purple remnants of an old volcano. Home is washes that only run with water a few months of every year – torrential flash floods of mud in summer, frigid snowmelt in winter. Home is saguaros and javelinas and creosote and knowing how to pronounce all of them. Home is just the right amount of sky. Home is sun, and sun and sun, with a few miraculous moments of weather. Home is where precipitation is considered nothing short of blessed, all the time. Home is one day of snow every seven years, snow that never sticks, snow that dances and falls and disappears instantly. Home is coyotes howling and cicadas buzzing and frogs chirping in raucous chorus and the morning call of mourning doves. Oh, the mourning doves! My heart cries already. Home is mesas and roadrunners and pico de gallo and temperatures too hot for thermometers and cracked pavement and cacti and swimming pools and year-round flip flops and only owning casual wear and painfully gorgeous sunsets. How am I going to survive living anywhere else?</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Water. In the desert it all comes back to water. It’s the precious thing. I have so many memories about water. How are people going to understand my lust for water? Can I give you some Scenes from the Life of Me, sort of thing, and maybe you can harbor some of that lust with me?</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">When I was a wee babe, solid water was something that came in trays out of a freezer. I was shocked, delighted, aghast when I found it also in the open trunk of my red-and-yellow toy car in the back yard one uncharacteristically frigid winter morning. I was young, so young, and I could never claim that to be my first experience with natural ice but it’s the first I remember. It was just so <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">weird</i>. Water wasn’t supposed to do that. I was so giddy about frozen water my neurons hardwired that memory into something I still have all these many years after I’ve forgotten the majority of my childhood.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">The first time I remember seeing snow falling was in fourth grade. Maybe it was fifth. It snowed in the courtyard outside our classroom and the teachers let us all out to play in it – because when were we ever going to get that chance as children again? We were mesmerized. It almost stuck to the ground. </div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">In school we learned all about water. I knew from the age of seven that to qualify as a desert a place has to get less than twelve inches of water a year, and our place got eleven. Well, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">back then</i> it got eleven. Now it’s becoming sort of a joke to say we’re still in a longstanding drought, as we fail year after year to reach our mark, as the water table falls ever farther and we import more and more foreign water via aqueducts from other states… </div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">But I digress – back to those school days. We attended special assemblies all about water and how to conserve water. There was a duck. A guy in a duck suit, whatever. We learned to conserve water and we did a damn fine job of it, too. When we went to visit my cousins out of state, my aunt was I think a little appalled that my sister and I would spit our toothpaste into the sink before washing it away with a short burst from the tap. I was appalled they were willing to just let the water run a full two minutes for no reason. It was one of those cultural things.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">The only award I ever received for a school science project was about water. It was second grade, and we were trying to figure out what kind of water helped bean plants grow best. The answer, according to our results, was tap water. Little did we know at the time (well, okay, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I</i> didn’t know – maybe my two collaborators were better informed than I was) that tap water had become quite politically charged that year. They were just getting the Central Arizona Project water system online, pumping water in from Colorado, and the whole project was fraught with problems and most of the town wanted it canned. Needless to say, CAP gave us an award for our work and we got to go up on stage and collect a plaque and everything.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">Water, water, it was all about water – about the ebb and flow of nature, all governed, wholly and mercilessly, by water. Seasons were measured not by temperature so much as by water. And there was no better example of that than at the creek by my parents’ house. </div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY80hfBVTx9n33LKyPYfDU2yx0t_6h2DvL5R83FhStGXulyeh_BcYYNU2L-_7Yd1NH187MCS-slJwwi2c_z3biIof8N0m8ogDKAT7Xrc8Cyf9kTBxAjZY1_zSclQbXRJd3oaaQgE9hyeU/s1600/IMG_1927.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY80hfBVTx9n33LKyPYfDU2yx0t_6h2DvL5R83FhStGXulyeh_BcYYNU2L-_7Yd1NH187MCS-slJwwi2c_z3biIof8N0m8ogDKAT7Xrc8Cyf9kTBxAjZY1_zSclQbXRJd3oaaQgE9hyeU/s400/IMG_1927.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The creek</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">(People who live in Arizona haven’t invented any new words for dry washes – we still call them rivers and creeks and whatnot, even when they don’t have any water in them.)<br />
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The creek was – and is – a magical place. It runs off from the adjacent mountain canyon, cutting into the valley and joining the aptly named Rillito River that runs through town. And when I say The Creek, I’m speaking of a particular one-block section or so surrounding the point where it intersects a horse trail leading up from our neighborhood into the mountains. This section is bounded on one side by the white rocks – a waterfall of, well, big white rocks that sit on someone’s private property. (When we were little we scarce knew of the white rocks, because we didn’t dare step past the private property line with its intimidating yellow warning signs full of bullet holes. And when we were older, it became our actual duty as kids to cross that same property line and see what we’d been missing.) The creek is bounded on the other side by, um, I guess by more wash, which we tended to access from the other side of our neighborhood and which is therefore a distinct entity called the Meadow. </div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">The creek is dry most of the year, but in summer when the monsoons come it has water in it. It flows for a few days, sometimes, after a heavy rain. And in the winter it runs for even weeks at a time as the snow melts up on the mountains.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwtclXYiF_g5O9jm46BsW6E1v1whBZT82Gi5GVzovMoTDH8UJR1QbLekwVfN64DJ7N5TwvwO4LmUAhKLH15Gw5NUIpZL1rjicMxdkcqnVFekBizagJ15hroTEImSbEA0imrc8_E-c7Dnk/s1600/IMG_1940.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwtclXYiF_g5O9jm46BsW6E1v1whBZT82Gi5GVzovMoTDH8UJR1QbLekwVfN64DJ7N5TwvwO4LmUAhKLH15Gw5NUIpZL1rjicMxdkcqnVFekBizagJ15hroTEImSbEA0imrc8_E-c7Dnk/s400/IMG_1940.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The creek after it rains</span></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">When we were very little, my mom would get us in our swimsuits and we’d go splash about in the foot or two of water flowing lazily through the broad section of creek right where the big trail crosses it, made broader by a rock dam built so that hikers could get across even on those few days when they needed a bridge to do so. There were little fishes and tadpoles swimming in the creek and I never understood how they got there or where they went when the water went away. </div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">When we were much older my friend and I found out where they went. We had trekked out to the white rocks, to the pool at their base which was much deeper than the rest of the creek, and there found the last few remaining inches of water evaporating away weeks after the latest rain. And in that algae-filled slime writhed hundreds of fish, flopping helplessly body-to-body, asphyxiating slowly, squirming against each other in an effort to reach the last vestiges of fetid water. It was a horror I don’t think either of us has forgotten. And there was nothing at all we could do.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">So I figured out where the fish went. I never figured out how they got there. They spawned seemingly out of nothing, growing to fill that deepest pool in the creek at the base of the white rocks. The same white rocks where we once found a rattlesnake curled up sleeping in a cranny, the white rocks that had that one perfect groove for a butt and a lower back, the white rocks with a just-obscured view of the house over the hill where sometimes you could hear voices or dogs barking, the hill I didn’t want to admit I looked warily up at more often than my overconfident sheltered preteen attitude felt was strictly necessary. </div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEEuYvL4J3fVfe7tdH_wJyrPs7VtFRhM08U4PQMNuTaY6kMXxqexKQOT5dsyCJxEgdRngzk5j3MIzI0bq7CvT4mbNcU4Xe0Ibx4sW3DL_uuekcXB2fjE_WONXqfFDm0fOxWp3VYSUd2gg/s1600/IMG_1943.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEEuYvL4J3fVfe7tdH_wJyrPs7VtFRhM08U4PQMNuTaY6kMXxqexKQOT5dsyCJxEgdRngzk5j3MIzI0bq7CvT4mbNcU4Xe0Ibx4sW3DL_uuekcXB2fjE_WONXqfFDm0fOxWp3VYSUd2gg/s640/IMG_1943.JPG" width="412" /></a></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">My only picture of the white rocks: the obscure patch of white hidden behind the brush just over the left ear of the equally obscure deer. You might <a href="http://kaitlinbergfield.blogspot.com/2011/04/home-on-range.html" target="_blank">remember this picture</a>.</span></div></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div></div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">The white rocks were the best place to be in the winter, when the snowmelt was six feet deep and you could make a show of jumping in with all your clothes on and shocking the crap out of your nervous system. It was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">cold</i>. One of my very best memories of those preteen years was formed when my best friend and I convinced some classmates to jump in with us. The two of us seasoned veterans just jumped right in all brazen and casual about it, and the rest followed like good lemmings. I still remember the look on one boy’s face when he came up gasping for air yelling “oh <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">shit</i>” repeatedly, poor desert rat with no sense for ice water. And I think I kind of fell a little in love with another of them when I saw how stoically he handled the experience. That was one of those testing-ground kind of days, you know? It was a bonding thing. I held onto some of those friends for years.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">We had some beautiful times at that creek. It makes me emotional, thinking about the creek. If you took the trail to the creek and turned right, you’d reach the white rocks, but if you turned left you’d reach our three rocks. We had these three rocks, and we may have named them but I don’t remember now. I just remember the feel of them, the big flat one and the tall craggy one and the little one, and the way they made this perfect shallow pool and the way you could lie on them and stare up at the sky and let your feet dangle in the water.<br />
<br />
There existed a Moment, on those rocks. You know how Moments go. They’re a little piece of perfection encapsulated in a single image or sentence or smell or feeling, a memory too good to let go. This Moment was perfect because the air was clear and everything was green and the water was flowing and the sun felt just warm enough on skin and it heated the rocks just right, and we were lying there poised like Abercrombie models on the big flat rock and all of a sudden a duck flew by. A bloody mallard duck. For those of you who don’t understand, I will let you know that mallard ducks don’t happen in Arizona, not out in the wilderness. That mallard made it a Moment and I won’t readily forget it.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">The creek hasn’t been the same since it flooded. I don’t remember how many years ago it flooded, but it did, and all our favorite spots were terraformed beyond recognition by a wall of inconsiderate water. Nature at her best, the bitch. She gouged a whole new path for the water to go and marred everything we loved irreparably, in a single night. Out here in the desert, the water commands respect.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8772174107800530258.post-88943010463534371482011-07-25T03:40:00.000-04:002011-07-25T03:40:35.780-04:00Interjection: Fast Things<div class="MsoNoSpacing">Oops!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I interrupted my (ironically very slowly generated) theme about fast biological things to tell you my lament about Arizona.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And now I’m interrupting my lament series about Arizona to wrap up the Fast Things theme.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fast.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing">All I wanted to say was: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Blah blah blah</i> eyes are also complicated <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">blah blah</i> now imagine how much has to happen for you to slam on your brakes at an intersection <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">blah blah blah </i>be a safe driver.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Fin.</div><div class="MsoNoSpacing"><br />
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