Collection

Synesthesia, misphonia, repetitive motion, ASMR - all threads in the skein of my family, and each one fascinating. For the record, 7 and L (lower case as well) are yellow and sometimes paler. Never bright. 4 is more a buff. And at least one person in my family has misphonia badly and copes with it, and another one has it intermittently and just doesn't. (None of us into ASMR that I know of: we are a deaf lot!)

Adventures in Teh Intarwebs, People Have Time On Their Hands edition: someone took the trouble for this. *SMH* Honestly, it's just bewildering.

Happy birthday to Nature, turning 150 this week! A few great links from the past couple of daily emails from them - one, on an astonishingly promising therapy for cystic fibrosis, a disease very closely related to the pulmonary fibrosis which had a hand in the deaths of four people I have loved very much. Another, pointing to the immune damage measles can cause, exposing victims to risk from diseases to which they were formerly immune. Thanks again, anti-vaxxers.

When I was a kid, it may have been anywhere from when I was eight to twelve or so, my aunts and maybe even my grandma were visiting. Mom had a bushel, perhaps even more, of tomatoes to can, and she was manning the pot on the stove. My memory is that I was at the back side of the table next to my aunt V, and mom gave me the bright chrome knife. A small knife, it's a heavy one, gleaming, and that day it was freshly sharp, and my job was to slit and skin the cooked tomato bodies, crushing them with my hand and pulling off the skin, and take out any part of the flesh not good for preserving. The tomatoes were terribly hot, and the acid would burn if you had a cut on your finger. But my only memory is the cacophany, the steam, the sitting around a brown formica table with my family, mom running the show.

Why tell the story above? Because this makes so much sense to me. (Though, to be fair: I have a *peninsula* in my kitchen, and it is spiff.) 

As we come to the season of holidays, treats, great meals and small ... what are your kitchen table memories?



Edited to fret: I fear there is a new addiction in the offing. Science Daily has an article about dingoes, AND an article about Ötzi. Hooray for twin obsessions!

Collection

Fella babies, today we start off with the direct line from representation to racism. (The click beyond.)

Marketing ten thousand steps for fifty years. Man, what a triumph - but not of healthcare information.

It's been my policy to view actual moving/sound footage of Trump as little as possible, so I rarely end up seeing Melania either. However, during his recent visit to the U.K., I caught a little of their welcome to Charles and Camilla ... and was car-wreck fascinated. Go to about :45 and watch her attempts to maintain a smile. It's eerie.




And then there's the light FIST she makes as she turns to enter the house. Yikes.

Welp, and if like me looking at those two (not meaning Charles and Camilla, but hey, YMMV) makes you feel dirty ... maybe it's a good thing. On the relationship of microbial bacteria and depression - not what you might think! (Or: hooray for pets!)

And here we have the final nail in the coffin as to my old argument with my bro: I am NOT a(n) historian.

Collection

#TFW a "Housewife" begins to discuss any treatment she has discovered for any possible ailment, real or imagined or self-inflicted ... (No, this isn't as clickbait sketchy as some of those "gawk at vintage advertising stories you see on Teh Intarwebs.)

Brain scans on rappers ... discovered that during freestyle rapping, brain activity increased in the brain areas that engage motivation, language, mood, and action.

This piece is a wistful one for me, as a writer who knows what I CANNOT do; I do not have the chops. But man would I love to read this story from the perspective of the kids whose world this already was.

NSFW ... since about 1600 (science-ing the what out of what?). Ahhh, I love it when The Arrant Pedant gives us glorious etymology. Enjoy!

Collection

It's the processed-everything and SUGAR, stupid. I'm so glad this science seems finally to be getting out more, let's hope it prevails.

Four(-eyed) flushers. It's probably been about fifteen years since I learned that putting anything other than effluvia or the tissue we use to deal with it into a commode yields problems for the sanitation systems which process our sewage. Now and then, I do still flush the hair after I clean my brush, but usually I do try to stick by the rule, sensitive to the cost of waste management (astronomical, in case you've never wondered). Hit the link above for another reason.

So, consequences are over I guess. Inevitable, but dispiriting nonetheless. Weinstein gets to be "relieved" because Asia Argento is also facing allegations of harassment. Lauer wants to be on TV again. I'm sure there are people who'd watch that; personally, I feel a bit dirty just pointing it out. But the thing is, lots of disgraced men are eyeing comebacks. Not everyone resides at the same level of repellence. But that is the point - they ALL apparently (think they) are owed careers and money and our attention. Sigh. I guess it's true. If you own it, you get to get away with anything.

Please do not click on the links in that last paragraph. If you don't already know what they are (and I suspect everyone does, or is smart enough to guess), you can just hover and read the URLs. That is 100% of the content of the clicks, and *not* clicking will save these outlets the information that we "care". Thanks.

...

...

...

Okay, let's lighten up after THAT, shall we?

My brother and I spent a good fifteen - maybe even twenty - minutes laughing about this last night:

What a great country, where a fella can offer up hot spuds to whoever wants to eat 'em! Ka-pow!

3 full pounds of consternating comedy, y'all. Click away.

In other completely bizarre vintage culture, this:

I'm still agog.

Collection

This is a short, but achingly clear essay about the forced intimacy of disability (author's word choice). It's both obvious and something most of us probably never think about. And it's heartbreaking. Go read it - please.

Shrew are you? Super neato-spedito piece about the winter shrinkage of the shrew. Because shrews' heads were not NEARLY small enough. Amusingly written, and may provide some excuses for human seasonal lassitude as well.

Why do men who have never experienced this form of attack get to define what an attack is?

Like great writing? Funny, but honest - the humor that comes not merely from that certain kind of anger that engages us, but also reaches out to consider the anger together? Click here. Yes, it talks about sex. It also talks about things that definitely are not sex.

I have neglected this blog's penchant for fashion, style, costume, and beauty of late, so here is a curious look at (sniff of?) Commes des Garçons' strange brews. Personally, I love sandalwood. But did you know that concrete is absolutely devastating to the environment? Won't buy. Might sniff ... if I ever actually go to a department store.

Question for my writer pals, Reiders, readers, and anyone generally a nerd for a word: HOW COME NONE OF YOU EVER TOLD ME ABOUT THE OED BLOG??? Because I am mad at each and every one of you. Y'all going to make me caterwaul, I'm all tears and flapdoodle I never saw this site before. Another sample: litbait. Hee.

Collection

A drag queen('s) ... identity is created, but no more so than the identity that each and every one of us have created for ourselves.

Nietzschean realness, y'all.

***

I have a question. Do I TELL my mom, who still clings to the last very few pills she has of Darvoset N (not available on the American market - or, possibly, anywhere at all - for decades now), that she was right all along? I made her throw out my 1986 Rx for Percodan at least a dozen years ago, when she was getting rid of things before marrying my stepfather and moving to his home. Did we destroy precious relics?

I think maybe no. I won't tell her. But still, pretty interesting science (and worth the clicks beyond for a wider view of the expense of medical waste). Maybe mom and I should have invited some researchers over when we threw out those painkillers. TEO's father, a pharmacist, may be spinning in his grave ...

***

Something of a different kind of archaeology here:

The Museum of Modern Art on somewhat less-modern art installations. Oh my gosh, this is such a cool confluence of several of my pet obsessions. Art, conservation/preservation, technology, the questions of relevance and impermanence, and - for me perhaps the most absorbing part - a detailed look at the process of resurrecting art by way of old tech. One of the most interesting aspects of this is that the installation in question isn't completely being brought out of its old medium by reproducing it digitally, and the driving force in reinvigorating the pieces is reversibility. The guts of the original computer code take us into a rather wonderful and tense procedural - "the elegant motions of the robotics". A lesson in writing - how to build tension! Stay tuned for the payoff.

(There is a small amount of male nudity at the link, in case that is an issue.)

***

Ever since Blogger inexplicably chose to redesign the dashboard so as to hide the Reading List of blogs I follow and reduce the view of information that used to be easily available, I've been poor about, you know, FOLLOWING the blogs I follow. One of the least-posted ones is also a very good one, Madame Isis' Toilette, which posts detailed beauty tricks and recipes, as well as sewing, mostly for the 18th century. Recently, several of Madame's 2013 posts have popped up on my Reading List ... here is a SPLENDID one:

The recipe for Queen's Royal - and, far more interestingly, a varied consideration of what the stuff was for! Her first positing post on the matter is here. One point worth noting in the first link I point to (her second post) is that she questions a clove-and-cinnamon heavy recipe's use as a lice repellant. But y'all regular readers here know - American Duchess has actually noted the specific use of clove for this very purpose, and even today, it is suggested as a natural mosquito repellant (please note: research is inconclusive on any uses noted at this last link; I include it as a demonstration of known USAGE, not as any kind of recommendation).

Critical reading, folks. It's a good idea, and I'm not excepting this blog from that standard.

***

And here is some critical Googling. I did an image search on Kamala Harris, because though I've heard her testimony of late, and know WHO she is, I wasn't sure I had a face to put to her name, and ... this is what I found:

Image: Google screen-grab
PLEASE embiggen this.

Yes, folks, the most important aspect of an image of a United States Senator is: her body. After that, because she is after all a woman, it's mostly family relationships. "Senator" is not among the categories Google has seen fit to choose for her. Not even "Politics" or her home state, constituency. Nothing but traditional feminine roles.

First and foremost comes her body. (And let us not even get started on the latest news in assessing women's bodies. Again.)

For comparison, a Google image search for John McCain falls thusly: Family, POW, Arms, Wife, ISIS. His body and his family do come into play, but then John McCain's body is very much in the news this morning, and the attention to it is largely born of his status as a former POW - not his sexual charms as a man. Possibly his cancer will change the labels above. And that is not ALL there is to see about him. On the other side of the aisle, Bernie Sanders yields: Quotes, Family, 2016, Socialist, and Bird. His body is clearly a source of amusement, but it comes in last, and again nobody's concerned with his physical appeal.


I would say this qualifies as Nietzschean UNrealness.

***

The final point made, I should also add that in fact my prayers are with Sen. McCain and his friends and family.

Collection

Ever notice how hard it is to find a supermarket in a city's downtown? But easy to find a McDonald's or other fast food? It's not just a happy coincidence.

There's a fast-food restaurant within walking distance in many low-income neighborhoods, but nary a green leafy vegetable in sight.

Do you know who Maggie Walker was? Find out here and especially here - it's nice to see her getting some attention.

A brief history of children sent through the mail. Bees, bugs, and babies, y'all. Thanks, Smithsonian Magazine, I am well and truly squicked. (And how many of you are now wondering what the weight limit on modern drones is ... ? Yeah, I thought so. Same as a Europran swallow.)

Also from Smithsonian, here is a cool look at Wonder Woman's origins ...




American Duchess talks with Cheyney McKnight on a range of things, including a nuanced look at slaves' clothes in America. The post alone is interesting, but the hour-plus podcast is highly worth the listen. Never say what we wear - what YOU wear - sends no message.

Yet again, researchers have looked to the yucky/bizarre medicine of the ancient past, and found it was not so bizarre after all.

One of the problems with the modern concept of The Dirty, Stupid Past is that we no longer understand the most basic mechanisms of our world. We judge crazy old plant medicine without understanding plants in the slightest, nor allowing for the possibility that what we now call chemistry was for millennia the mere result of observation and implementation. The scientific method was only named in recent centuries; but the need for experimentation and innovation go back as far as humanity itself. Contemporary society considers itself very advanced, but hardly any of us understands the workings of anything we use, from our technology to our environment. Whereas, in times past when people were dependent upon their environment, and had no vast networks of text-bound research or even vast networks of other people's observations and experiences, communities (a) worked together and (b) knew their world intimately. Small as those worlds may seem to us today, the individuals living in them knew them better than we even know our own bodies anymore.

Collection

Donna Everhart celebrates making it halfway through a WIP. I very, very literally have no idea what that is like - because I don't know when it is.

"(B)limey, what's that?" Simultaneously cool and creepy, BBC shows us one of the creative innovations in security, as the global definition and even concept of privacy leeches away. "The ability to choose when and how to divulge information about ourselves is one of the things that make us human, argues graphic designer Leon Baauw"

Also at BBC online, this piece of art and science history took my breath away, but do be warned, for the squeamish there exists the possibility this could take your lunch away. Have you ever heard of dissectable "Venus" waxworks? The art is incredible - but, for a historical novelist like me, the look into the psychology of another age, the attitudes, is INVALUABLE. These sculptures are eerie and undeniably lovely.

More RULES for writers! Y'all know how I love those. Still, analyses like these do yield some intriguing data. Such as: the average published author relies on about 1/4th as many exclamation points as the average amateur writer. (I am not published, but if I had ten exclamation points in both my novels combined, I'd be surprised.)

Ever since learning what vocal fry is, I have become fascinated by the science of speech. Here is a GREAT piece on hating women's voices:





"[By] propagating ideologically inspired amoral theories, business schools have actively freed their students from any sense of moral responsibility." Depressing, but certainly true. Take a look at Newsweek's in-depth piece about the ascendancy of the shareholder - a pretty good history of Wall Street and business education over the past generation.

Have you ever been to a marketplace where haggling is common? Many Americans have not, but I have smiling memories of "special for you!" pricing on a vacation or two. The Atlantic analyses some of the history - and the future - of the way we shop. Hmmmmm.

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Haha! Here's the thing about the medicine beat in journalism. By nature, it goes for the shiny and the positive. "NEW BREAKTHROUGH" is a headline. "FURTHER TESTING QUASHES HOPES" is not. I recently included an NPR headline in a Collection post, even saying then that I tend toward skepticism. Here we have NPR explaining how headlines like that can be misleading. Which: exactly.

Because shiny. And sigh.

Teach your children well, fella babies. Critical consumption is, well, critical.

Image: Google image search, Labeled for Reuse
The Blue Diamond Gallery

Here is a piece on what it's like for perfectly legal people of Mexican heritage to live in the United States these days. If you don't want to read the whole piece - if you can't take the politics of it all - scroll down to "On whether her life has changed after the election of President Donald Trump" and take in the STORY, because it's a terrible and a great one. Here is how the disadvantaged are forced to work around the bigoted. I don't care how much you think this doesn't apply to you: please click.

It's a good thing sometimes to view the news from outlets outside of the United States. Hindustani Times has a look at a video from Ohio and a website lamenting the "Indian IT Mafia." But for those described, it's wrong to feel creeped out or threatened, of course.  Because throwing the words mafia, notorious, and outrageous at a group is totally friendly!

So, has anybody else heard of the "farewell address" from the leader of the so-called Islamic State? Yeah, me neither, until I pulled up news outlets outside the U.S. Do a Google News search on his name, and I don't even see any American outlets appearing in the search results - none current, and note covering this story. Shouldn't a retreat like this from the "supreme leader" of the so-called Islamic State be kind of big news? I could not find this on NPR, CNN, Newsweek, or the New York Times online.

Collection

Well, NPR is trying to make me fall in love with them today.

This story may only be exciting for ME, as a sufferer, but as we get into the warm-and-itchy season of eczema, I'm interested in research and treatments. I've heard of nemolizumab in a rash (har) of ads for a drug for psoriasis, and even wondered why psoriasis seems to get all the attention. Well, it seems it has been looked at for eczema too. For now, I'll stick with my old standby, but I'll keep an eye open as this progresses.

A little splotch of history

"How much would you expect to pay for ALL THIS ... mold?" As astonished as I am that developer-of-penicillin Alexander Fleming's mold was preserved at all, the price tag astonished me just a little more. The writing here is HILARIOUS, it's a fun piece - give it a click ... and discover the many luminaries who have also owned a piece of the mold.

Other projects that were vying for Lego production included depictions of the Addams Family Mansion and the Large Hadron Collider.

Plastic Figures. Legos! Legos immortalizing just a few of the women of NASA!

"Well, Dang."

It's become clear to me with age that I'm one of those people who "won't go to a doctor." The thing is, last time I did go - with labyrinthitis, an illness I know ALL too well - they decided to do tests on me ... and told me I had: labyrinthitis. Go home, take meclizine.

Which was what I knew before I took the DIZZYING step of leaving my home, exposing strangers to the virus, my mom insisting on across town to drive me and make me go (and exposing her - and by extension my ailing stepfather), and experiencing a few hours of matchless torture for the privilege of being told what I knew already.

And that test cost me $285.



So, this past Wednesday, when I felt a sore throat coming on, I turned into one of those treat-it-yourself morons. I spent a day at work, possibly quite contagious, downing NSAIDs and thinking I was beating this thing.

Yeah. I know. Just be glad you aren't one of my cube farm mates, I guess. I suck.


I took my laptop home that night just in case, so I could work from home, and not infect anyone.

Thursday wasn't great. I did work, though. You can get good electronic housekeeping done with a puddy and a pup for company.

Friday, though - no way. The fever that had begun the day before was 101.6. I don't know when I've had a fever to speak of; it's been long enough I was actually in incomprehension, looking at the thermometer.



See, my mom raised us skeptical. She wasn't one to easily believe her kids were sick - we were NOT going to get away with malingering - and so, to this day, I often tend to disbelieve it when I am sick. Which is funny, because at heart I am an underachiever, often enamored of the idea of not being at work, home wrapped up in a blanket.

One of my bosses and I once had a conversation about the phenomenon of not being able to malinger; in his case, the superstructure for this was Catholic Guilt. In mine, Mom Guilt.

She's good, no doubt.

So for me to be out of work for two days is almost intolerable; I feel like I'm stealing.

Which is why this weekend - when it got so much worse - was not exactly relaxing. I think Friday may have been the worst of it, but Saturday wasn't the world's most breathtaking improvement. Yesterday - well, yesterday I made myself clean the dang house.

To be fair, being sick in a dirty house is the PITS. But it's a bit more of that mom thing. I wanted to be comfortable - but I also was insisting to my body, "I am better."

Well. Ish.

The cough still hurt a lot, though the fever was gone. I had energy enough to clean. "See!?" Clothes were laid out for today at work (oh yes I did go).

And then before bed I had to admit - that cough had blood in it. Old blood at one time, bright and fresh new blood at another.

Neither of these bears good implications, and I am not a complete ass. Though I did go to the office. Which ... actually may be completely assy. Fever or no, the likelihood where blood in the cough is concerned is "infection" (likely bacterial), and that means that, five days on, fever or no, I could be contagious.

Sigh.

I actually did feel remarkably good this morning. Which is odd, as I've had insomnia unlike anything I've experienced since my twenties for two nights running (and no nap yesterday, because housecleaning!).

I also called the doc.

One prescription later (seriously, I can take the cough; do just give me an antibiotic so I'm not Typhoid Mary over here), I can at least put to rest the Complete Ass of a Coworker concerns, and get on with things.

Thank goodness it didn't cost me $285.

Now to wait for the bill.

Collection

This piece from CNN is kind of a wonderful look at what it's like for freshmen representatives. In this age of political horrors, it's important to remember that some people really do want to serve. This look at first-timers is encouraging, and the excitement is one source of hope.

Are you a photosensitive sneezer? It’s funny; I am, but not in the way this article seems to describe this phenomenon. I can only sneeze when looking at a light if I needed to sneeze already; it doesn’t just happen spontaneously because bright light appears. (Bonus points to Scientific American for the phrase “for the trait to be expressed” AND for getting a “shed light” in there. I get the light-sneeze from my mom, and my mom does love a good (bad) pun, so this is a suitable turn of phrase. Heh.) I do prefer my phrase “photosensitive sneezer” to “photic sneeze reflex” – but their other article on the subject includes ACHOO as an acronym, which has a “Happy April Fool’s Day from Scientific American!” feel to it, so I can at least appreciate the whimsy. The pointer toward light-induced seizures and migraine is especially curious.

We need to help people, and computers, to avoid being distracted by unimportant, attention-grabbing, information.

SA also has a great piece on the road to pseudoscientific thinking. Is it paved with good intentions? Could be … Could also devolve into magical thinking, which is just as unhelpful to us, intellectually. The best part, though, is; it is UN-learnable.

The results are IN on the Pen and Goss (or Rex and Simone) flash fiction contest at Janet Reid's blog. I note with some fascination that she points out that a lot of entries were "constrained by reality" ... a hint to the Reidership?

This is not-Rex indulging not-reality.

Speaking of Janet's blog, I haven't linked it in ages except to show off my wee and timorous beasties. The decision to seriously contemplate self-pub, I think, may have colored my collection-linking tendencies, which disappoints even me. I haven't even *read* BookEnds' blog in too long. So how about a great link today, on textbook bad agenting? However I end up publishing, in the end, it's always wise to learn, and Mizz Reid is a good teacher. She's also a great cheerleader, reminding authors that we are NOT beggars at the banquet of publishing.

You should never be made to feel that you are somehow a lesser part of the publishing process.
--Guess Who?

Okay, and *sigh* - I'll "go there", as the kids probably haven't said for years, and get to the question of Nazi-punching. My feeling is this: no matter which side of the political or ethical/activist spectrum you fall on, this is YET ANOTHER DISTRACTION. Distraction has become the modus operandi at the highets levels of government and across all media (journalism and well beyond), and this is in its way just as frightening as any ideology.

I'll close out THAT thought, and this Collection, with two quotes ...

"To delight in a kind of comeuppance when someone is hoisted by his own petard—when someone who advocates violence against others meets a kind of of nonlethal violence—to enjoy hearing about that, that's not a crime. That's not an ethical transgression. That's asking more of human beings than they can resist."

"(W)hy are you writing about this relatively trivial question rather than something important?"

Exactly.

"Thank you, Eddie Izzard" - or - Tell Me a Story!

Somewhere along August or September of 2015, a work friend and I began making a point of getting some exercise regularly. Weather being what it is at that time of year, we first began by using the walking trails at our office. We work in, essentially, the local swamp. (Well, one of them.) So the walking trails have these awesomely hilarious signs, CAUTIONING the world that this is a WILDLIFE AREA.

The wildlife generally spotted about has consisted of turkeys, deer, and eagles, but one hears tales of snakes and bears (bit of a rabbit), and not far from here I do know there is a finned carp in a pond that'd give almost anyone a bit of a pause, as it is wont to Jaws impersonations. DUH-DUH ...

Anyway.

We started off with walking, but what self-respecting Modern American doesn't eventually retreat indoors, where there is air conditioning and a changing room and nothing but views of the parking lots?

I don't not!

Our fitness room at the office is in fact very nice, with many machines and weighty things and a television I've never used and thermostats that, it is my theory, actually function. (None of the other thermostats in the building would ever dare ...)

So workout pal and I started  using The Room for our "walks", and very early in the going, "walk" really became a misnomer for me. I use the elliptical, and for over a year now I have been attempting this weird thing I like to call actually "meaning it" - and the effects have been overwhelming.

Ohhh no - I haven't lost WEIGHT. That's strictly for amateurs (well, or people who are not women pushing age 50 with a vanishingly short stick). Women who are pushing 50 with a vansihingly short stick and expect to lose weight are mad, I tell you. Mad!

(Okay, actually I have lost roughly 25 pounds. Things still ain't what I'd like 'em to be.)

But what has come of all this work is that archaeologists have discovered traces - the most tantalizing indications - of a long-lost waistline, dating to roughly, oh, seven years ago.

Also, as a person with multiple back and leg sprains to my discredit, I find I am not in incessant pain.

My knees do still make the most comical noises when I take a set of stairs.

But plantar fasciitis and such other wonders have taken their leave of the ruins.

When many people work out, music helps to pass the time. I do well enough with it; Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk" was a serious challenge when I began using the elliptical. But to truly lose the time and find my brain absorbed in some experience other than "this is HARD!" and "I am super sweaty!", I have to be told a story.

Words, senator. I need words!

Probably the writer in me - or, at least, the reader (which is all "writer" even means, in my case).

Music can set a beat, but only a story can take me out of the workout and mean it.

There was a long, long series of Gayle Waters Waters to sustain me. Indeed, during her tenure literally talking me through many months of workouts, I went from being unable to complete seven minutes on the machine, at level four, through an incremental progression of bumping my levels slightly and increasing time spent at each level. I went from seven minutes at four to ten minutes at five, then fifteen, then twenty - then back down to ten minutes, but at six - then fifteen - then twenty. By this method, I had gotten up to twenty minutes on twelve by election day here in the U.S.

I took a bit of a tumble after that. And I can attest to how quickly pain will happily return to a body not in motion. Pain rapidly becomes more nimble than thou, and will cut ya soon as look at ya. Pain is a punk, and lies in wait.

These days, I'm at a steady level nine, twenty minutes, and the elliptical tells me I'm getting in three miles a day. (These ten or fifteen or twenty minute increments are, ideally, a twice-daily routine.) It's still enough work I haven't bumped up yet, but within a week I expect, I'll have to go to ten.

Gayle has, sad to say, run out on me. I turned to Looney Toons classic shorts for a bit there. I grew up on these, and do still love them (see also, Gossamer).

Somehow, though, they didn't quite work for me. Spectacle more than story? I'm not sure what it is(n't).

Image: Wikipedia (of course)

Enter, Eddie.

Eddie Izzard's brilliantly educated, daft, beautifully made-up standup has been Just the Ticket for me of late, particularly the closer we get to The Inauguration.

One wants to see a more recent show of his, given history's ... fascinations ... since Dress to Kill.

Plus, he is one of the extremely FEW famous people I am capable of finding attractive in anything more than the most ephemeral, useless way. I love to watch his face, and hear his voice, watch him ranging across the stage as he confirms/denies/confirms/ denies/confirms/denies/confirms/no-really-COMPLETELY-denies the death of Engelbert Humperdinck.

Nummy.

I've always had a weakness for a certain British mode of speech (it's less the accent than the gloriously aristocratic carelessness - and, in his case, a rather foxy heedlessness physically). Izzard modulates through many modes, effortlessly. It's gorgeous to witness. Talent and funny, tasty stuff. I also happen to share a birthday with him, so that's fun.

Birthday cake, or death? I'll have tea. (By which I mean, Stoli and tonic, no fruit - no, NO FRUIT, please. Thank you.)

I know for Brits, gin and tonic would be more the thing, but I am a woman all my own, and long ago realized gin is just wretched. I drink it only on the occasion it is necessary to remember that one crush from college, and oddly enough that occasion is nonexistent. And so.

Eddie Izzard is capable of something perhaps even surpassing storytelling. The casting of Sean Connery as Henry VIII (even though he is Scottish), and occasional cameos from James Mason - his rollicking trips across Western history. Holy Jeff. The guy is something more than just a raconteur.

AND he has helped off with ten pounds of ugly fat!

Bonus!

Whatta guy. I should buy him a drink, in thanks.

Gin optional.

Music, too.

Collection

Every week at the very *least*, I am struck with gratitude for a couple of things in my upbringing - one, I grew up at a time when popular entertainment was thinner on the ground, so we had 3 networks and PBS to choose from until I was like THIRTEEN and, gasp, a whole *fifth* channel showed up (what eventually became Fox). PBS being a great place to visit, its programming made up a hearty chunk indeed of my up-growin', and I still gravitate to its offerings, some of them as old as I am, but always intriguing - and, to boot, with parents like mine a great way to learn critical television watching.

Our Earth is a master chef. She really knows how to cook!

All this intro is apropos of the neato-spedito NOVA now playing. Shiny gems! How do opals come to be? What can we learn from so-called "flawed" diamonds (now I want one; I've never given two hoots about a dang diamond before, but - five billion year old geology, preserved in a beautiful uncut stone? GIMME inclusions!)? I am enchanted by how excited these scientists are, it's funderful to watch. The thing about learning the science of things we romanticize is this: sometimes, understanding the properties that lead us to emotional conclusions actually *deepens* the fascination and mystic feeling.

Glamour, I admit/protest, is not generally a source I think of when it comes to news. Yet somehow, in my wanderings around the intertubes, at some point this week I bumped into this piece about Uber's discrimination against minorities and women. (Yes, the info here points specifically to discriminating against Black people; do you think they're better with other POC? I don't.) It's sad, and it is a good article.

This post from Ann Bennett made me happy if only for using the term "messes" in my favorite way, but it's also a neat agricultural/cultural/foodie piece. On the health benefits and history of 8 messes of poke salad. (Bonus content: in the comments, she uses "victuals.")

Okay, SUPERMOON! Who doesn't love a supermoon? I don't not! Pick your link here.

A 49,000 year old human settlement in Australia? Linkyness from the Sidney Morning Herald, because I kind of love that their domain is SMH.com. Most news'll do the SMH to you. (The posture in this picture? That doesn't remind me of anyone I know, at ALL. Except totally.)

You can adapt through mutations, but if you interbreed with the local population who are already there, you can get some of these adaptations for free.

Click for the story behind the quote: the genetics behind Neanderthallergies. Hmm!

For centuries, nobody batted an eye at singular they...

I'll pause with this quote and say this: honestly, in my nearly 50 years on the planet, I had never even heard of anyone objecting to "they" (or ... thinking it is new!???) until a year, maaaaayyyybe two, ago. What rocks do the people live under, who protest against this as politically correct tyranny? What language do they speak? As The Arrant Pedant says: this complaint is not about grammar.

Collection

This is a GREAT piece from NPR on fun that's no fun for some - but if you listen, please also read. Because this piece is monochromatic.

Okay, and in the what is old department, we have irony … which, like anything else, is STILL not new again. Does anyone remember the scene from Name of the Rose, where Brother Jorge argues against the idea that Christ ever laughed? It’s a more important question than most of us are really able to comprehend. The turn-of-the-millennium context is strong, but I might quibble with one or two points on the Protestant history in this essay. But the overall point is: one generation ALWAYS complains about the next. (This one is for Jeff Sypeck, as we were so recently discussing the subject of hand-wringing elders!) I would argue the statement that people are especially self-aware these days. And what we’re dealing with nowadays is less “irony” than a couple of decades of SNARK, which has become exhausting.

Walt Whitman, recognized, in 1871, that "the aim of all the litterateurs is to find something to make fun of."

Enclothed cognition has been getting a great deal of attention. NPR’s recent piece by Invisibilia included the issue of feeling in control – a test subject who participated in one study protested that she preferred to feel like she was more in control – but, of course, we take control over this in the choices we make out of our wardrobes in the first place, right? I have had countless discussions with others at the office in any one of my squillion different jobs and offices, about how multiple people seem to be dressed the same way on a given day, or about wearing bright colors to wake or emotionally perk ourselves up.

I personally feel I exert a great deal of control over my emotional state and my readiness for a day based on how I choose to dress. It’s one part of the reason I set out my clothes when I come home rather than trying to choose something in the morning. Planning saves me time and pre-caffeinated “thinking”, and it gets something done I won’t have to manage in a stressed-out state. I also have a little fun with it – ooh, what jewelry will I take out on the down, what style will I deploy? And I go to bed knowing it’s one less thing to deal with. It’s also a decompressive time at the end of a work day. I come home, feed the kids, put Pen in her yard, and Goss and I go up to the quiet bedroom, where I shuck the day literally and figuratively, and plan the next one. It is a peaceful ritual, and gives me quiet time with The Grey Poobah, while Yellow Poobah enjoys some decompression of her own in her beloved yard.

On August 8, as I languished in the Atlanta airport with thousands of other victims of the Delta outage,  one of the things I noticed was the number of people who were dressed WELL. I was not one of these people. When I travel at all, I tend to dress not merely for comfort, but actually for invisibility. When I was young, this was a mechanism to deflect attention to whatever attractiveness I possessed, and to make my way with the least resistance. Flying or driving, I did not want to be approached - traveling alone, nobody wants company at the rest area or sitting tightly packed on a plane. A woman doesn't want to be subject to her own appeal. With age, I continue the comfort-lack-of-style as a matter of practicality and owing to how sick I get.

There is a freedom (hah) in ageing-woman invisibility, but for a lot of us it is also painful. If your figure has also changed with the years, it can be difficult to survey a crowd of thousands and to feel invisible. Or, worse, to think of being seen - for the dowdy old thing you have become. No longer caring.

Mr. X is coming in my direction at some point in the next several months. Invisibility is a problem, and frumpy is a not-having-it deal breaker. So I have invested in some comfort clothes that are less ... beige.


Okay. Enough of that.

Now on from enclothed cognition to ... well, how about literally another way of thinking?

… that Botox thing, where empathy is constrained by the paralysis induced by the botulonum toxin? It’s called embodied cognition. Huh.

Collection

Museum Day is coming, September 24! Do you have one you'd like to see but haven't been there, or not recently? Check to find out whether they are participating ...

Awrighty, fellow Trek fans. We've been saying since 1987's Next Generation debut that Star Trek's tech was prescient - the personal computer ubiquitous by the late 80s strongly resembled the terminals used in the original series, flip phones looked rather like the original communicators ... and, later on, we pointed to Trek's PADDs as inspirations for today's tablet devices. Welp, ladies and germs, please officially welcome the food replicator. Kind of. There's been talk of 3D printing's resemblance to some of the sci-fi technologies long dreamed of, even before Trek. At bottom, though - all the "wow, look how predictive science fiction is!" gee-whiz comes down to this: humanity is composed of a whole lot of dreamers and a few innovators, and the latter bring to life the visions of the former. Because you don't have to be an Asimov fan to be into robots, or read Philip K. Dick to want to talk to someone and see them at the same time.

In need of a funny story? KD James has a great one, about a frog in a fireplace. Go! Enjoy!

Ooh, a nice post from someone I knew about six lives ago - no parking, comfort zone!

I've known for years that dying in the hospital - or living in one, for that matter - is anathema to me. As it is to most people. But I fail to subscribe to a unique tenet of modern life, that you have to go to the hospital every time something goes wrong, especially the older you become. Here are two reasons there is hope this could change. Understanding is growing, that hospitals are bad for us, particularly for the elderly. And there are other ways to find care, such as hospice. I could live with hospice. And I could die with it, too. Much more happily than any hospital bed.

And, as an antidote to thoughts of death - how about the top 9 things John Davis Frain has to teach us about owning a convertible? Bwaaaaaahahahahahahahahaaaa!! (Notes: my brother and I used to ride in the back seat of my dad's Fiat Pininfarina as kids; this was a family car! I had forgotten about the rain thing. Dad bought another Fiat in the early 1990s, and brother asked him, "Hey dad, did you break down and get a radio?" Dad replied, "Yes; it even has a tape deck! But they don't make 8-tracks anymore, do they?" My Beloved Ex was MOST excited to take that 8-track off his hands. Because: dork.)

Paul Lamb's summer of waning ticks and chiggers, horseflies ... and how writing is really rewriting. He's such an evocative writer of *place*.

Collection

Stephen G. Parks and his partner on whether or not salt can expire. I love this post!

Feelin' flossy? Okay, much as I'd love to cite a classic Simpsons joke, I won't comment on the fact that the Brits are the ones finding that flossing is not efficacious. As for me, I do it less as a health concern than just because it makes me feel like my teeth are cleaner and out of  very minor concern that what I clean out of there could cause bad breath.

(W)e’ve trapped ourselves behind glass. We’re so bewildered by real life that we’ve had to invent a hashtag for it, and IRL – in real life – is now a state that is removed from the way we actually spend our days.

Okay, y'all have me dead to rights. I can't pretend I am not obsessed with The Drumpf's hair. But so many people are! Anyway, how am I not going to share this headline: The Citrusy Mystery of Trump's Hair? The plot thickens (even as the hair thins). This writer, though, misses the fact as obvious as my sixth grade teacher's ever-changing locks. She left every Friday with faded color, and returned to class Mondays with bright red hair. It was just a temporary rinse, and regular maintenance was for the weekend. Okay, now who's going to monitor Donald's mood-hair-color schedule? (BTW, "chromatic symphony with his face" is brill.)

Americans have a situation of overdue justice, wherein a male candidate is finally drawing as much sarcastic, snickering attention for his appearance as so many female candidates have long endured.

Also political wives, daughters, celebrities, athletes, any victim of anything which is covered by the media ... and, indeed, even the reporters, anchors, and commentators themselves, if they have the misfortune to be women ...

Speaking of women ... it is not only the problems we face, but the eloquence with which sometimes those are addressed, that makes it impossible for me to keep this blog from turning, at times, to the social and political struggles in the world. It is important *for* our world that, for instance, people should read the extraordinary and harrowing statement of the plaintiff (I refuse to call that woman a victim) in the Brock Turner case. It would be good, too, to click on the link above ... when the simple fact of a victim's gender can make murder "understandable".

Let's have a lighter note. Have you been following Janet Reid's blog as it goes to the dogs? It's also going to piglets, horses, and of course cats as she takes a month off babysitting her reiders to get in some good reading time. Her community's pet photos are a lovely way to while away an August day.

Y'all know I enjoy a good "oldest" artifact, and Cute Shoes knows I love jewelry - how about two for one? The oldest gold bead - inevitably, courtesy of The History Blog.

Also at The HB, on the road to hell with good intentions. The kids who tried to fix an ancient petroglyph ... It makes your heart just hurt, really.

And hearth rights - in a different way than I usually conceive of the phrase, as in the rights of a team to excavate and learn. The US Air Force and an archaeological team in Utah have brought to light a hearth dating back more than 12,000 years. And proof the area was once lush wetlands. And the oldest known human use of tobacco seeds. Huh!

Oh ... what do I usually mean by hearth rights? It's an ancient principle - basically, the concept of domicile and the precept of hospitality, manifest in the concrete. The hearth is the center of manmade fire, and it was a physical heart to humans' daily lives for millennia, throughout the world. Tending the hearth, the right to be warmed beside it, to enter its protective light out of the darkness, to be fed from the food cooked upon it - these were core to human experience throughout history, and hearth rights were not to be trifled with. The hearth gave us community, sustenance, security from the night. This is why hospitality, enshrined in so many cultures, is such a great gift.

But the archaeological right to explore is perhaps as important. It is the way we record how we once lived - and reflect that upon how we live now.

And finally, from The Washington Post - better passwords aren't nonsensical, they're LONGER. This also marks the first time I've ever failed to cringe at the phrase "all intensive purposes".

Collection

Stephen G. Parks and his partner on whether or not salt can expire. I love this post!

Feelin' flossy? Okay, much as I'd love to cite a classic Simpsons joke, I won't comment on the fact that the Brits are the ones finding that flossing is not efficacious. As for me, I do it less as a health concern than just because it makes me feel like my teeth are cleaner and out of  very minor concern that what I clean out of there could cause bad breath.

(W)e’ve trapped ourselves behind glass. We’re so bewildered by real life that we’ve had to invent a hashtag for it, and IRL – in real life – is now a state that is removed from the way we actually spend our days.

Okay, y'all have me dead to rights. I can't pretend I am not obsessed with The Drumpf's hair. But so many people are! Anyway, how am I not going to share this headline: The Citrusy Mystery of Trump's Hair? The plot thickens (even as the hair thins). This writer, though, misses the fact as obvious as my sixth grade teacher's ever-changing locks. She left every Friday with faded color, and returned to class Mondays with bright red hair. It was just a temporary rinse, and regular maintenance was for the weekend. Okay, now who's going to monitor Donald's mood-hair-color schedule? (BTW, "chromatic symphony with his face" is brill.)

Americans have a situation of overdue justice, wherein a male candidate is finally drawing as much sarcastic, snickering attention for his appearance as so many female candidates have long endured.

Also political wives, daughters, celebrities, athletes, any victim of anything which is covered by the media ... and, indeed, even the reporters, anchors, and commentators themselves, if they have the misfortune to be women ...

Speaking of women ... it is not only the problems we face, but the eloquence with which sometimes those are addressed, that makes it impossible for me to keep this blog from turning, at times, to the social and political struggles in the world. It is important *for* our world that, for instance, people should read the extraordinary and harrowing statement of the plaintiff (I refuse to call that woman a victim) in the Brock Turner case. It would be good, too, to click on the link above ... when the simple fact of a victim's gender can make murder "understandable".

Let's have a lighter note. Have you been following Janet Reid's blog as it goes to the dogs? It's also going to piglets, horses, and of course cats as she takes a month off babysitting her reiders to get in some good reading time. Her community's pet photos are a lovely way to while away an August day.

Y'all know I enjoy a good "oldest" artifact, and Cute Shoes knows I love jewelry - how about two for one? The oldest gold bead - inevitably, courtesy of The History Blog.

Also at The HB, on the road to hell with good intentions. The kids who tried to fix an ancient petroglyph ... It makes your heart just hurt, really.

And hearth rights - in a different way than I usually conceive of the phrase, as in the rights of a team to excavate and learn. The US Air Force and an archaeological team in Utah have brought to light a hearth dating back more than 12,000 years. And proof the area was once lush wetlands. And the oldest known human use of tobacco seeds. Huh!

Oh ... what do I usually mean by hearth rights? It's an ancient principle - basically, the concept of domicile and the precept of hospitality, manifest in the concrete. The hearth is the center of manmade fire, and it was a physical heart to humans' daily lives for millennia, throughout the world. Tending the hearth, the right to be warmed beside it, to enter its protective light out of the darkness, to be fed from the food cooked upon it - these were core to human experience throughout history, and hearth rights were not to be trifled with. The hearth gave us community, sustenance, security from the night. This is why hospitality, enshrined in so many cultures, is such a great gift.

But the archaeological right to explore is perhaps as important. It is the way we record how we once lived - and reflect that upon how we live now.

And finally, from The Washington Post - better passwords aren't nonsensical, they're LONGER. This also marks the first time I've ever failed to cringe at the phrase "all intensive purposes".

Collection

"(W)hen anonymous harassers come along — saying they would like to rape us, or cut off our heads, or scrutinize our bodies in public, or shame us for our sexual habits — they serve to remind us in ways both big and small that we can’t be at ease online. It is precisely the banality of Internet harassment, University of Miami law professor Mary Anne Franks has argued, that makes it 'both so effective and so harmful, especially as a form of discrimination.'”

Have you ever heard that thing, men are afraid that women will laugh at them and women are afraid that men will kill them?

… Is there hope? Hard to say. Rachel Dolezal has all but disappeared from the media, but her life’s not looking easy, given a prurient catch-up peek. But then, there is this ...  “(T)he smartest way to survive is to be bland.” Hmm.

Okay, let's lighten up.

Thanks in part to Kiehl's and the National Museum of American History's Division of Medicine and Science, as well as a number of other famous skin and health care names, a massive collection of beauty and hygiene products' images have been digitized in a photo archive of stunning usefulness for 19th and 20th century vintage fans, historical authors, and just beauty nerds such as myself. This makes a good conservation move as well, as some of the artifacts in the collection are deteriorating and cannot be made to last forever. Cultural/research notes: Cuticura's emphasis on the beauty of white hands hints at the "ideals" of beauty in this period. There are resources on the needfuls of menstrual care, and health tonics galore. I can see getting quite lost-slash-carried away down this rabbit hole!

In other artifactoral news, Gary Corby has a very cool post about the earliest keys - goodly, and of goodly size as well. So cool.

Laughter Is the Worst Medicine?

Disclaimer - though this post riffs on the litany of illnesses I've been enjoying this past month, it's not actually about them, so we open with sort of a non-kvetch alert ...

The cough that's running like wildfire through our cube farm these days is a bit like The Office Hugger. It's everywhere, welcome nowhere, and prone to cling. If it chances to make you chuckle in the slightest, it will take you in a death grip and not let go.

I sound like a six-pack-a-day emphysematic, is what I am saying. The tiniest mirth takes me down, choking, and Snagglepuss himself would wonder how I make that hideous, wheezing sound.

Last week, at the height of a fuller roster of head-cold symptoms, I was taking meds.

I. Hate. Cough medicine.

It strips your brain away and makes you stupid.

I haven't written since the mini retreat with my beloved and talented friends. Nor edited. Nor researched.

Nor has Miss Penelope been blessed with a good walk for too long now.

It was pretty easy to forgive myself for that in the full throes of migraine and flu. Even last week, she was so sweet with her Wheezin' Mama, I was feeling the guilt less strongly than seems fair. Plus, having lost thirteen pounds in a day and a half with the flu, I've still held off eight to ten of that, so "exercise" has been demoted (ahh, the poison of "success" ...).

Today, though the cough is still irritatingly eager, the guilts are asserting themselves - about the lovely young lady who depends upon me for kibble and walkies - and about the work, which I'm missing. Though I have said for some days now I'd pay a good $10 for someone to pummel me on the back and loosen up my chest, I actually haven't felt "sick" since last week. And I take the guilt/missing my writing as good signs too, really.

Best of all, the loss of time thanks to Daylight Savings Time has not cut me down.

Sadly, one reason for this is that I had a bit of a freak-out at work today, thanks to cognitive issues from last week causing a misunderstanding; but (a) I blame the cough meds, and (b) as dismaying as it was, it was not an actual "problem", in that no damage has been done. My sense, a bit over two years into this job, is that this upsets me more than anyone else. So it will be necessary for me to perform like a rockstar on something else soon, and this too shall pass.

In the shorter term: tonight, we walk with Penelope in nature.

I just hope she won't make me laugh.