Song of the Week #20

From 8-ish years ago:



From last summer:

the cockroach of cakes..

Yes..I'm referring to that beloved holiday favorite, the fruitcake.

*shiver*

I received this delectable morsel of..er..fruitiness..last week from a client. It was delivered to our office in a very unassuming box, and when the requisite tin was revealed my heart sank. I was immediately reminded of visits to my Pepaw's house all throughout my childhood. Why, you ask? Because for my entire life, until he was forced to move out of his house in 2006-ish, he had a fruitcake, in a tin, in the back, bottom shelf of his refrigerator. Almost 20 years. A fruitcake. All up in there.

It became a game, after my sister and I were around 4 and 6 years old, to run as soon as possible into the kitchen upon arriving at Pepaw's to check the fridge for the fruitcake. And it was ALWAYS there...lurking..

I think it knew we were there. I think it rose from its resting place at night to roam the town in search of Redi Whip. 8-/

Needless to say, fruitcake hasn't been something I've ever had any great love for. Even if there had never been an Evil, Undead Pepaw Cake, there would be no love. Those things are just nasty...and the fact that they actually DO keep so well is just disturbing. My comment about it to my coworker was that fruitcake would be one of the few things left if there ever is a nuclear holocaust..along with cockroaches, Bob Barker, those potato chips that cause anal leakage, and Hondas. Really..I HATE Hondas, but those goofy, little bastards just run forever. It's disturbing.

My fruitcake remains in the refrigerator in our office, unopened. I expect it to still be there in 2030. I may even go back to check.

Song of the Week #19

Yup...I've lost it. *grin*
But...it's true..

Song of the Week #18

Ok..
I am ashamed to admit I like this song. I truly am. WTF??
Yet...I do. *hanging head in mushiness shame*

Song of the Week #17

*grin*



I HAVE to see her live one day, too...with company. :)

one year ago today..

...it snowed. It snowed about 2 or 3 inches in south Louisiana. SO cool...
I've lived in south Louisiana since I was 2 1/2..for 32 years now..and it has snowed here more often and more significantly in the last two years than it did for all of the first 30 put together. It has snowed 4 times in those 2 years, and I only remember it snowing 3 times in all the previous ones.
Hmmm...;)

What does it mean?



Getting There



How far is it?

How far is it now?

The gigantic gorilla interior

Of the wheels move, they appall me ---

The terrible brains

Of Krupp, black muzzles

Revolving, the sound

Punching out Absence! Like cannon.

It is Russia I have to get across, it is some was or other.

I am dragging my body

Quietly through the straw of the boxcars.

Now is the time for bribery.

What do wheels eat, these wheels

Fixed to their arcs like gods,

The silver leash of the will ----

Inexorable. And their pride!

All the gods know destinations.

I am a letter in this slot!

I fly to a name, two eyes.

Will there be fire, will there be bread?

Here there is such mud.

It is a trainstop, the nurses

Undergoing the faucet water, its veils, veils in a nunnery,

Touching their wounded,

The men the blood still pumps forward,

Legs, arms piled outside

The tent of unending cries ----

A hospital of dolls.

And the men, what is left of the men

Pumped ahead by these pistons, this blood

Into the next mile,

The next hour ----

Dynasty of broken arrows!



How far is it?

There is mud on my feet,

Thick, red and slipping. It is Adam's side,

This earth I rise from, and I in agony.

I cannot undo myself, and the train is steaming.

Steaming and breathing, its teeth

Ready to roll, like a devil's.

There is a minute at the end of it

A minute, a dewdrop.

How far is it?

It is so small

The place I am getting to, why are there these obstacles ----

The body of this woman,

Charred skirts and deathmask

Mourned by religious figures, by garlanded children.

And now detonations ----

Thunder and guns.

The fire's between us.

Is there no place

Turning and turning in the middle air,

Untouchable and untouchable.

The train is dragging itself, it is screaming ----

An animal

Insane for the destination,

The bloodspot,

The face at the end of the flare.

I shall bury the wounded like pupas,

I shall count and bury the dead.

Let their souls writhe in like dew,

Incense in my track.

The carriages rock, they are cradles.

And I, stepping from this skin

Of old bandages, boredoms, old faces



Step up to you from the black car of Lethe,

Pure as a baby.


~Sylvia Plath



Something like that.

Song of the Week #16

My current favorite on their newer album, Odd Blood...



I want to see them live. :)

Kate Bush

I started listening to Kate when I was 16..right after I discovered Tori Amos. My then girlfriend's brother (ack), who's about 10 years older than us, was the one who provived me with my first Kate mix tape. It included Wuthering Heights, various tracks from The Kick Inside, Never for Ever, The Dreaming, and Hounds of Love. I may still have it in a box somewhere. I was only able to find Hounds of Love on CD, so I bought it along with The Sensual World. It was all so bizarre, but so extremely cool at the same time. I remember the guys in the little, indie CD store (the only one in our town at the time) making fun of me when I bought the CDs. One commented that he hoped I didn't blow out my tweeters listening to her. I just looked at him like the apparent piece of furniture he was. They also enjoyed picking on Tori fans, yet they always took my money. ;)
The purchasing of music at that time was an interesting thing..like finding a piece of the Holy Grail. Nothing I liked could be found easily, and it was expensive. I also had no means of listening to it anywhere but at home, as my car at the time didn't even have a tape deck. Hell..at the time, when I started driving it, it didn't have half its paint, a rearview mirror, sounded like a tank because the muffler was old, and it would stall when idling...sometimes. :) SO..off to my room I'd go as quickly as possible. I'd always open it in the car anyway, so I had a collection of cellophane wrappers and that annoying seal-sticker that is, to this day, almost impossible to remove in less than 5 pieces, in my car..all stuck to the plastic bags they came in. My parents bought me a very nice Sony stereo and CD player when I was 14, and I made good use of it. I had between two to four hours sometimes when I got home that I could listen to music freely and loudly without being made fun of or told to turn it down. (I had no headphones.) These were only on days that my sister went elsewhere and both parents were occupied at school/gym/work/whatevertheydid. It was my time to decompress. I needed to decompress constantly.
Kate was a weird phase, and I almost found myself disliking a lot of it. Listening to much of it now, it is kind of laughable at times, but I still love it..cheesy and bizarre or not. It's still good music and it reaches that very difficult-to-reach place inside me where music is concerned. I have a handful of artists/bands that are pieces of the Musical Holy Grail, and she's definitely among them.

So crazy...and she was only 19 when she recorded this song in 1978. I was two. :)

Song of the Week #15

Finnish death metal anyone? ;)




A friend put some of their stuff on a mix CD several months ago, and it's kinda grown on me. Good venting music. ggrrrr..

pieces of sky #1

These pieces are all pictures I've taken for the last few months with my old phone. I upgraded to an iPhone 4 today (yay!!) after a long wait to do so. *moment of silence for the old Samsung slider phone*
She was a good phone..all green and black and scuffed up..lol. Amazingly, it took decent pictures.

in lieu of a song this week...

I'm posting a link to an article about a local, Baton Rougian.

In my mind a truly heroic and selfless deed is its own form of good music. So rare and amazing in this day and age that one has to stop and take note.

Go, good guys. :)

(The word "link" is the link, btw..)

you must do the thing you think you cannot do...

One of my favorite quotes, and it comes from Eleanor Roosevelt.

Here, then, are the things I must do:

I must wake up tomorrow morning, and trudge through yet another week of hundreds, at a job I am beyond sick of performing.

I must not kill my coworkers. :D

I must combat the Java programming language and come out victorious, with another A, in three weeks.

I must readjust to several months of online classes to finish my degree next summer.

I must also pay for the more expensive (and mandatory) online classes.

I must laugh often.

I must make others laugh.

I must find the time, inspiration, and energy to draw/paint again.

I must begin training for a triathlon in the next month.

I must relearn how to swim, which I despise doing.

I must ignore the pain in my hands, knees, and left ankle while drawing, painting, and training.

I must continue forgiving.

I must spend less money on coffee and awesome pastries. :D

I must endure the impending holidays as "single me."

I must not jump out of a plane again, because I can't justify being risky anymore.

I must tolerate other humans.

I must stop and breathe sometimes.

I must collect more pieces of sky.

I must be flexible and patient.

I must cry.

I must not make others cry.

I must dream again.

I must make it snow. ;)

Song of the Week #14

Hmm..

Song of the Week #13

It's going to get cold finally...
I hope it snows again this year.

clocks and hearts can stop..

..but time marches on.
I am 34 years, 266 days, and 21 hours old. Give or take a few minutes. ;)
I was born two weeks late, and when they finally convinced me to come on out, I refused to breathe for a bit.
When I was one, I remember standing in my grandparents' livingroom in my snowsuit, looking out at the snow falling through their big window, and waiting for someone to take me out to play.
At two I loved Steppenwolf and Pink Floyd, and I would sit at the kitchen table with a pencil circling every "it" and "the" I could find in the articles and ads in the newspaper.
At three I had two imaginary friends, Dotsy and Pansy, who were as real to me as any of my family. When my sister learned to crawl, she'd make her way over to where I was playing and mess up or knock down whatever I was building (I was often building). I started dragging her as far from me as possible to buy some time to play a bit more in peace, and she'd always come back.
At four my grandmother died, and I remember how sad everyone was. My mom was never the same.
When I was 5, I told my parents that I refused to go trick-or-treating anymore because it was begging. I also figured out that Santa Claus, etc. were lies. I had to keep the secret from my sister for another four or five years.
At six, when I started school, I was completely lost.
Assimilating myself with the world has been very exhausting, and I think I had it all figured out back then. I'm only just recently realizing how little so much of the last thirty years or so has mattered fundamentally. Honestly, if I weren't such a natural optimist, I don't think I would have made it to this exact second in time.
So..what does all that time add up to?
I have a middle-aged friend who thinks their life will end sooner than average. I have a young friend that asked, "How does anyone know when they're middle-aged? How do you know it's the middle?" My dad is close to retirement, and I told him I want him to spend every cent he has living..that when he goes I want nothing left behind but memories. My mom seems to have nine lives, and has only used five of them. She seems afraid to live. My sister is like a cockroach..I don't think even nuclear holocaust could do her in, despite her best efforts. She was born pushing the limit. I've been too careful, and I've had too many close calls in spite of that.
I'm also only just beginning to live in ways. Picking up where that 5-year-old left off. How old am I again? ;)
So far I have very, very few regrets. I'm waiting out the biggest ones, and refusing to add any new ones to the collection. However many lives I have and wherever I am in their time-frames, I've decided that I'm doing pretty well. If I met myself, as I am now, at age 5, I have to think I'd very much like me.

Mystic
by: Sylvia Plath

The air is a mill of hooks----
Questions without answer,
Glittering and drunk as flies
Whose kiss stings unbearably
In the fetid wombs of black air under pines in summer.

I remember
The dead smell of sun on wood cabins,
The stiffness of sails, the long salt winding sheets.
Once one has seen God, what is the remedy?
Once one has been seized up

Without a part left over,
Not a toe, not a finger, and used,
Used utterly, in the sun's conflagration, the stains
That lengthen from ancient cathedrals
What is the remedy?

The pill of the Communion tablet,
The walking beside still water? Memory?
Or picking up the bright pieces
Of Christ in the faces of rodents,
The tame flower-nibblers, the ones

Whose hopes are so low they are comfortable-----
The humpback in his small, washed cottage
Under the spokes of the clematis.
Is there no great love, only tenderness?
Does the sea

Remember the walker upon it?
Meaning leaks from the molecules.
The chimneys of the city breathe, the window sweats,
The children leap in their cots.
The sun blooms, it is a geranium.

The heart has not stopped.
__________

Exactly.

Song of the Week #12

Song of the Week #11

Well...songS. :)
The first one is part of one of the songs Big Freedia performed. She was the opening act for Matt & Kim at the House of Blues in New Orleans last night. She's a Bounce rapper, and is from N.O. She invited some peeps on the stage with her dancers..hahaa...8-/ It was both mildly disturbing and completely awesome.



The second one is Matt & Kim's opening. They were also truly kick-ass, and I don't think I've had more fun at a show. I'm hoarse today, and couldn't help but dance, even if I suck. :)



I HAVE to go see them again sometime.

US education...

This was discovered accidentally via a friend of a friend on FB. I laughed my ass off, because it's actually very true.
Below is a map of what about 85% or more of Americans think of Europe, eastern Europe, and the Mediterranean region geographically.

Yup. I need to move.

I love these lyrics..

..so I'm putting them here.

The Trapeze Swinger

by: Iron and Wine

Please, remember me
Happily
By the rosebush laughing
With bruises on my chin
The time when
We counted every black car passing
Your house beneath the hill
And up until
Someone caught us in the kitchen
With maps, a mountain range
A piggy bank
A vision too removed to mention
But

Please, remember me
Fondly
I heard from someone you're still pretty
And then
They went on to say
That the pearly gates
Had some eloquent graffiti
Like "We'll meet again"
And "Fuck the man"
And "Tell my mother not to worry"
And angels with their gray
Handshakes
Were always done in such a hurry
And

Please, remember me
At Halloween
Making fools of all the neighbors
Our faces painted white
By midnight
We'd forgotten one another
And when the morning came
I was ashamed
Only now it seems so silly
That season left the world
And then returned
And now you're lit up by the city
So

Please, remember me
Mistakenly
In the window of the tallest tower call
Then pass us by
But much too high
To see the empty road at happy hour
Leave and resonate
Just like the gates
Around the holy kingdom
With words like "Lost and Found"
And "Don't Look Down"
And "Someone Save Temptation"
And

Please, remember me
As in the dream
We had as rug-burned babies
Among the fallen trees
And fast asleep
Aside the lions and the ladies
That called you what you like
And even might
Give a gift for your behavior
A fleeting chance to see
A trapeze
Swing as high as any savior
But

Please, remember me
My misery
And how it lost me all I wanted
Those dogs that love the rain
And chasing trains
The colored birds above there running
In circles round the well
And where it spells
On the wall behind St. Peter's
So bright with cinder gray
And spray paint
"Who the hell can see forever?"
And

Please, remember me
Seldomly
In the car behind the carnival
My hand between your knees
You turn from me
And said, "The trapeze act was wonderful
But never meant to last"
The clown that passed
Saw me just come up with anger
When it filled with circus dogs
The parking lot
Had an element of danger
So

Please, remember me
Finally
And all my uphill clawing
My dear
But if I make
The pearly gates
Do my best to make a drawing
Of God and Lucifer
A boy and girl
An angel kissin on a sinner
A monkey and a man
A marching band
All around the frightened trapeze swingers

Na-na
Na-na-na
Na-na
Na-na...




Because I think this is how we'd have been if we'd been able to grow up together. Still a mess, but with more and younger history. ;) Maybe. Mostly it's just perty.

Song of the Week #10

:)

Song of the Week #9

I can't help it...I love chick drummers. :D This duo also happens to be awesome, and I might be seeing them in a couple weeks...woohoo..

Song of the Week #8

Kelsie McNair
Everything by her, really...but you should click the track called "radiation." It's quite good. Promise.

America, America...

*sigh*
If only this weren't accurate. Especially in the south...

Song of the Week #7

I can't help but like this song. *shrug* And it makes perfect sense..
(Nothing decent available on You Tube or elsewhere, so..click da link. Cool site, actually.)
The Bloodsugars: I Want It Back

Solar Flares

I took Thor's Day off, so my week o' space is incomplete. But..I'M ok with that, and I think Thor would be, too. I can't imagine he doesn't approve of beer, food, and football. There were even temporary tattoos. VERY Thor. :)

ANYWAY...
A solar flare is a large explosion in the Sun's atmosphere that can release as much as 6 × 10 to the 25th joules of energy(about a sixth of the total energy output of the Sun each second). The term is also used to refer to similar phenomena in other stars, where the term stellar flare applies.
Solar flares affect all layers of the solar atmosphere (photosphere, corona, and chromosphere), heating plasma to tens of millions of kelvins and accelerating electrons, protons, and heavier ions to near the speed of light. They produce radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum at all wavelengths, from radio waves to gamma rays. Most flares occur in active regions around sunspots, where intense magnetic fields penetrate the photosphere to link the corona to the solar interior. Flares are powered by the sudden (timescales of minutes to tens of minutes) release of magnetic energy stored in the corona. If a solar flare is exceptionally powerful, it can cause coronal mass ejections.
X-rays and UV radiation emitted by solar flares can affect Earth's ionosphere and disrupt long-range radio communications. Direct radio emission at decimetric wavelengths may disturb operation of radars and other devices operating at these frequencies.
Solar flares were first observed on the Sun by Richard Christopher Carrington and independently by Richard Hodgson in 1859 as localized visible brightenings of small areas within a sunspot group. Stellar flares have also been observed on a variety of other stars.
The frequency of occurrence of solar flares varies, from several per day when the Sun is particularly "active" to less than one each week when the Sun is "quiet". Large flares are less frequent than smaller ones. Solar activity varies with an 11-year cycle (the solar cycle). At the peak of the cycle there are typically more sunspots on the Sun, and hence more solar flares.
Scientific research has shown that the phenomenon of magnetic reconnection is responsible for solar flares. Magnetic reconnection is the name given to the rearrangement of magnetic lines of force when two oppositely directed magnetic fields are brought together. This rearrangement is accompanied with a sudden release of energy stored in the original oppositely directed fields.
On the sun, magnetic reconnection may happen on solar arcades -a series of closely occurring loops of magnetic lines of force. These lines of force quickly reconnect into a low arcade of loops leaving a helix of magnetic field unconnected to the rest of the arcade. The sudden release of energy in this reconnection causes the solar flare. The unconnected magnetic helical field and the material that it contains may violently expand outwards forming a coronal mass ejection.
This also explains why solar flares typically erupt from what are known as the active regions on the sun where magnetic fields are much stronger on an average.
Solar flares strongly influence the local space weather of the Earth. They produce streams of highly energetic particles in the solar wind and the Earth's magnetosphere that can present radiation hazards to spacecraft and astronauts. The soft X-ray flux of X class flares increases the ionization of the upper atmosphere, which can interfere with short-wave radio communication and can increase the drag on low orbiting satellites, leading to orbital decay. Energetic particles in the magnetosphere contribute to the aurora borealis and aurora australis.
Solar flares release a cascade of high energy particles known as a proton storm. Energetic protons can pass through the human body, doing biochemical damage, and hence present a hazard to astronauts during interplanetary travel. Most proton storms take two or more hours from the time of visual detection to reach Earth's orbit. A solar flare on January 20, 2005 released the highest concentration of protons ever directly measured, taking only 15 minutes after observation to reach Earth, indicating a velocity of approximately one-third light speed.
The radiation risks posted by prominences and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are among the major concerns in discussions of manned missions to Mars, the moon, or any other planets. Some kind of physical or magnetic shielding would be required to protect the astronauts. Originally it was thought that astronauts would have two hours time to get into shelter, but based on the January 20, 2005 event, they may have as little as 15 minutes to do so. Energy in the form of hard x-rays are considered dangerous to spacecraft and are generally the result of large plasma ejection in the upper chromosphere.
If you'd like to see the most recent, kick-ass flare, go here.
There are also Flare Stars. :)

Song of the Week #6

In keeping with the space theme, Flo is bringing back some 80's fashion. Oh how I've missed the leotard-with-holes and school-girl-lost-in-the-woods look. It's like Lady Gaga and Bat for Lashes had a lovechild, but..damn..she can sing and I can't help but like her stuff.
I hope I get to see her next month..I'll wear my leotard with a pimp hat for halloween. :D

The Theory of Relativity

Y'know..I almost, kinda understand a couple parts of that equation. Scary...

The Theory of Relativity, or simply relativity, encompasses two theories of Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity. However, the word "relativity" is sometimes used in reference to Galilean invariance.
The theory of relativity enriched physics and astronomy during the 20th century. When first published, relativity superseded a 200-year-old theory of mechanics elucidated by Isaac Newton. It changed perceptions.
For example, it overturned the concept of motion from Newton's day, into all motion is relative. Time was no longer uniform and absolute, as related to everyday experience. Furthermore, no longer could physics be understood as space by itself, and time by itself. Instead, an added dimension had to be taken into account with curved space-time. Time now depended on velocity, and contraction became a fundamental consequence at appropriate speeds.
In the field of microscopic physics, relativity catalyzed and added an essential depth of knowledge to the science of elementary particles and their fundamental interactions, along with introducing the nuclear age. With relativity, cosmology and astrophysics predicted extraordinary astronomical phenomena such as neutron stars, black holes, and gravitational waves.
Albert Einstein‘s theory is known as the Theory of Relativity because its core principle is that the speed of light in a vacuum is always the same, relative to the observer. This is totally unlike the speed of anything else.
If you are driving along the motorway at 100km/hr and the car in the next lane is doing 120km/hr, you will observe it gaining on you at 20 km/hr. If this keeps up for an hour the other car will end up 20 kilometers ahead of you. Similarly, if the car in the next lane is doing 80 km/hr, it will appear to be going backwards at 20 km/hr, compared to you. But light, along with other forms of electromagnetic radiation such as radio waves and X-rays, doesn’t work that way.
No matter how fast you’re going, any beam of light appears to be travelling away from you at the same speed: 300,000 km/second. If you’re travelling at 50,000 km/second, and someone who is stationary switches on a lamp, the beam of light travels past you at 300,000 km/second, not at 250,000 km/second as you might expect. And yet, if the stationary person measures the speed, they also find that it travels away from them at 300,000 km/second. Weird!
How can this be? Bizarrely, as things move faster they get shorter and their time travels more slowly. So the observer moving at 50,000 km/second is measuring the light’s speed with a shorter ruler and a longer second. No wonder the light seems to travel the same number of kilometers each second, if the moving observer’s kilometers and seconds are different from those of the stationary observer.
At small speeds, the difference is not much. If you’re on a bus travelling at 100 km/hour, the bus gets shorter by less than a millionth of a millimeter, and its time slows down by the same proportion. Not enough to notice! But the effects predicted by Einstein’s Theory of Relativity have been repeatedly measured with larger objects and distances (such as planets orbiting the sun) and with objects travelling at high speeds (such as subatomic particles).

Another part of Einstein’s theory states that mass and energy are equivalent, and it provides a formula to convert from one to the other. This is Einstein’s famous equation “E equals m c squared”, where E is energy, m is mass (at rest), and c is the speed of light.
Any time you liberate energy, you are also reducing mass. When you discharge a battery, the electricity is generated by chemical changes inside the battery. These chemical reactions leave the battery slightly lighter than it was when it was fully charged, and the battery gets heavier again when you charge it up! Again, the difference is very small. Only a tiny proportion of the battery’s mass is converted into energy.
When you accelerate an object, it gets heavier. The faster an object goes, the heavier it gets. This is totally counter-intuitive, but it really happens. The energy used to accelerate the object doesn’t just disappear into nothingness; it reappears as increased mass of the object being accelerated.
This is why it’s impossible for anything to travel faster than the speed of light. As the speed of an object approaches the speed of light, it gets exponentially more massive (“heavier”). It would become infinitely massive at the speed of light, but of course you can never get that fast because it becomes harder and harder to accelerate the object as it gets faster and more massive.
This is a very informal explanation of the theory of relativity. The effects are so small at everyday speeds that we aren’t aware of them, but the theory is readily verifiable by experimentation.
Einstein’s theory points tantalisingly towards some kind of deeper understanding of the essential nature of time, gravity, energy and matter. Many scientists have spent a lot of time trying to unify these into an all-encompassing “theory of everything” but so far without success.

Dark Matter

Because I've been a bit down today, it seems fitting. It's also EXTREMELY cool.

The Universe is made up of 100's of billions of stars, presumably each the center of their own systems or part of nebulae or other systems and galaxies. Sometimes galaxies gather into clusters containing all sorts of visible matter (like stars, planets, asteroids, gases, and thermal energy). It turns out there is five times more material in clusters of galaxies than we would expect from the galaxies and hot gas we can see. Most of the stuff in clusters of galaxies is invisible and, since these are the largest structures in the Universe held together by gravity, scientists then conclude that most of the matter in the entire Universe is invisible. This invisible stuff is called 'dark matter', a term initially coined by Fritz Zwicky who discovered evidence for missing mass in galaxies in the 1930s. There is currently much ongoing research by scientists attempting to discover exactly what this dark matter is, how much there is, and what effect it may have on the future of the Universe as a whole.
In general, astronomers learn about the Universe by the electromagnetic radiation (or light) that we see from it. The light we see is in the form of radio waves, infrared, optical, ultraviolet, X-ray, and gamma-ray emission. But what if there is material in the Universe that does not glow? How will we ever know it is there? How can we tell how much of it there is? How do we know what it is? Dark matter has a gravitational pull on both the light and the sources of light that we can see. From the effects of "extra" gravity that we detect, we infer how much mass must be present.
The kinds of materials that we experience every day are made of atoms, which are composed of protons, neutrons, and electrons. We refer to this type of matter as "baryonic". Is the dark matter in the Universe made of the same stuff that we are familiar with, i.e., is it baryonic? Or is it something strange ... some kind of exotic new material, which we could call non-baryonic?
So far, it looks like there are both baryonic and non-baryonic types of dark matter. Some dark matter may be composed of regular matter (ie., baryonic), but simply not give off much light. Things like brown dwarf stars would be in this catagory. Other non-baryonic dark matter may be tiny, sub-atomic particles which aren't a part of "normal" matter at all. If these tiny particles have mass and are numerous, they could make up a large part of the dark matter we think exists.
Although dark matter was inferred by many astronomical observations, the composition of what dark matter is remains speculative. Early theories of Dark matter concentrated on hidden heavy normal objects, such as blackholes, neutron stars, faint old white dwarfs, brown dwarfs, as the possible candidates for dark matter, collectively known as MACHOs. Astronomical surveys failed to find enough of these hidden MACHOs. Some hard-to-detect baryonic matter, such as MACHOs and some forms of gas, is believed to make a contribution to the overall dark matter content but would constitute only a small portion.
Additionally, data from a number of lines of evidence, including galaxy rotation curves, gravitational lensing, structure formation, and the fraction of baryons in clusters and the cluster abundance combined with independent evidence for the baryon density, indicate that 85-90% of the mass in the universe does not interact with the electromagnetic force. This "nonbaryonic dark matter" is evident through its gravitational effect. At present, the most common view is that dark matter is primarily non-baryonic, made of one or more elementary particles other than the usual electrons, protons, neutrons, and known neutrinos. The most commonly proposed particles are axions, sterile neutrinos, and WIMPs (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles, including neutralinos).
Estimated distribution of dark matter and dark energy in the universeThe dark matter component has much more mass than the "visible" component of the universe. Only about 4.6% of the mass of Universe is ordinary matter. About 23% is thought to be composed of dark matter. The remaining 72% is thought to consist of dark energy, an even stranger component, distributed diffusely in space. Determining the nature of this missing mass is one of the most important problems in modern cosmology and particle physics. It has been noted that the names "dark matter" and "dark energy" serve mainly as expressions of human ignorance, much like the marking of early maps with "terra incognita".
An important property of all dark matter is that it behaves like and is modeled like a perfect fluid, meaning that it does not have any internal resistance or viscosity. This means that dark matter particles should not interact with each other other than through gravity, i.e. they move past each other without ever bumping or colliding.
Historically, three categories of dark matter candidates have been postulated. The categories cold, warm, and hot refer to the speed at which the particles are traveling rather than an actual temperature.

Cold dark matter – objects that move at classical velocities
Warm dark matter – particles that move relativistically
Hot dark matter – particles that move ultrarelativistically

Mentions of dark matter occur in some video games and other works of fiction. In such cases, it is usually attributed extraordinary physical or magical properties. Such descriptions are often inconsistent with the properties of dark matter proposed in physics and cosmology.

Moon Day

Yup..totally predictable. Monday for the moon. :)
I'm stealing tidbits of interesting facts from NASA, mostly..

The moon moves in a variety of ways. For example, it rotates on its axis, an imaginary line that connects its poles. The moon also orbits Earth. Different amounts of the moon's lighted side become visible in phases because of the moon's orbit around Earth. During events called eclipses, the moon is positioned in line with Earth and the sun. A slight motion called libration enables us to see about 59 percent of the moon's surface at different times.
The moon rotates on its axis once every 29 1/2 days. That is the period from one sunrise to the next, as seen from the lunar surface, and so it is known as a lunar day. By contrast, Earth takes only 24 hours for one rotation.
The moon's axis of rotation, like that of Earth, is tilted. Astronomers measure axial tilt relative to a line perpendicular to the ecliptic plane, an imaginary surface through Earth's orbit around the sun. The tilt of Earth's axis is about 23.5 degrees from the perpendicular and accounts for the seasons on Earth. But the tilt of the moon's axis is only about 1.5 degrees, so the moon has no seasons.
Another result of the smallness of the moon's tilt is that certain large peaks near the poles are always in sunlight. In addition, the floors of some craters -- particularly near the south pole -- are always in shadow.
The moon completes one orbit of Earth with respect to the stars about every 27 1/3 days, a period known as a sidereal month. But the moon revolves around Earth once with respect to the sun in about 29 1/2 days, a period known as a synodic month. A sidereal month is slightly shorter than a synodic month because, as the moon revolves around Earth, Earth is revolving around the sun. The moon needs some extra time to "catch up" with Earth. If the moon started on its orbit from a spot between Earth and the sun, it would return to almost the same place in about 29 1/2 days.
A synodic month equals a lunar day. As a result, the moon shows the same hemisphere -- the near side -- to Earth at all times. The other hemisphere -- the far side -- is always turned away from Earth.
People sometimes mistakenly use the term dark side to refer to the far side. The moon does have a dark side -- it is the hemisphere that is turned away from the sun. The location of the dark side changes constantly, moving with the terminator, the dividing line between sunlight and dark.
The lunar orbit, like the orbit of Earth, is shaped like a slightly flattened circle. The distance between the center of Earth and the moon's center varies throughout each orbit. At perigee (PEHR uh jee), when the moon is closest to Earth, that distance is 225,740 miles (363,300 kilometers). At apogee (AP uh jee), the farthest position, the distance is 251,970 miles (405,500 kilometers). The moon's orbit is elliptical (oval-shaped).
Some ancient peoples believed that the moon was a rotating bowl of fire. Others thought it was a mirror that reflected Earth's lands and seas. But philosophers in ancient Greece understood that the moon is a sphere in orbit around Earth. They also knew that moonlight is reflected sunlight.
Some Greek philosophers believed that the moon was a world much like Earth. In about A.D. 100, Plutarch even suggested that people lived on the moon. The Greeks also apparently believed that the dark areas of the moon were seas, while the bright regions were land.

The Algonquin tribes of the Native Americans named the full moons for each month:

January: Wolf Moon: Hungry wolf packs howled at night
February: Snow Moon: Heaviest snowfalls in the middle of winter
March: Worm Moon: Start of spring, as earthworms (and the robins that eat them!) began to appear
April: Pink Moon: An early spring flower called "moss pink" started to bloom
May: Flower Moon: Many types of flowers bloom in May
June: Strawberry Moon: Strawberries were ready to be picked and eaten
July: Buck Moon: New antlers of buck deer, coated with velvety fur, began to form
August: Sturgeon Moon: Sturgeon, a large fish found in the Great Lakes, were easily caught at this time of year
September: Harvest Moon: Farmers could continue harvesting until after sunset by the light of the Harvest Moon
October: Hunter's Moon: Hunters tracked and killed prey by moonlight, stockpiling food for the coming winter
November: Beaver Moon: Time to set beaver traps before the swamps froze, to make sure of a supply of warm winter furs
December: Cold Moon: The cold of winter sets in

Happy harvest moon. ;)

Space?

So..it HAS occured to me, on many occasions, that the title of this blog might be a bit misleading. I know that if I happened upon it, I'd assume it had at least something to do with space..something astronomical. Because I never intended for anyone to really read anything here, the title wasn't so important a year or so ago when I created it. I just wanted a place to put things I couldn't keep in my head, and I AM Space Dog...so. *grin*
Anyway, it just so happens that I very much love all things astronomical and always have, so I hereby dub this week Space Week. This way I'm at least not disappointing anybody looking for spacey stuff for a few days. (Wow..I make it sound like I have herds of readers or something..lol.)
I'm going to do my best to post something everyday through Saturday.
Tonight's post, because I can't be where I want to be, is about Jupiter:

It's believed that Jupiter is a failed sun. I think everyone knows it's the largest and fifth planet from the sun, but lesser known is the fact that it is the only planet that has a center of mass with the Sun that lies outside the volume of the Sun, though by only 7% of the Sun's radius. The average distance between Jupiter and the Sun is 778 million km (about 5.2 times the average distance from the Earth to the Sun, or 5.2 AU) and it completes an orbit every 11.86 years. Jupiter's rotation is the fastest of all the Solar System's planets, completing a rotation on its axis in slightly less than ten hours; this creates an equatorial bulge easily seen through an Earth-based amateur telescope (it's true..I've seen it).
Along with the Sun, the gravitational influence of Jupiter has helped shape the Solar System. The orbits of most of the system's planets lie closer to Jupiter's orbital plane than the Sun's equatorial plane (Mercury is the only planet that is closer to the Sun's equator in orbital tilt), the Kirkwood gaps in the asteroid belt are mostly caused by Jupiter, and the planet may have been responsible for the Late Heavy Bombardment of the inner Solar System's history.
Along with its moons, Jupiter's gravitational field controls numerous asteroids that have settled into the regions of the Lagrangian points preceding and following Jupiter in its orbit around the sun. These are known as the Trojan asteroids, and are divided into Greek and Trojan "camps" to commemorate the Iliad. The first of these, 588 Achilles, was discovered by Max Wolf in 1906; since then more than two thousand have been discovered. The largest is 624 Hektor.
Most short-period comets belong to the Jupiter family—defined as comets with semi-major axes smaller than Jupiter's. Jupiter family comets are believed to form in the Kuiper belt outside the orbit of Neptune. During close encounters with Jupiter their orbits are perturbed into a smaller period and then circularized by regular gravitational interaction with the Sun and Jupiter.
Jupiter also has 63 named natural satellites. Of these, 47 are less than 10 kilometers in diameter and have only been discovered since 1975. The four largest moons, known as the "Galilean moons", are Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. Galileo Galilei is credited with discovering them in 1610, using only a telescope.
Then, of course, there's the Great Red Spot (pictured above)..a swirling mass of gas resembling a hurricane. The widest diameter of the spot is about three times that of Earth. The color of the spot usually varies from brick-red to slightly brown. Rarely, the spot fades entirely. Its color may be due to small amounts of sulfur and phosphorus in the ammonia crystals. The edge of the Great Red Spot circulates at a speed of about 225 miles (360 kilometers) per hour. The spot remains at the same distance from the equator but drifts slowly east and west.

Over here on Earth, Jupiter was assigned different functions, however. Because it's so large and is either the fourth or fifth brightest object in the sky, after the Sun, Moon, Venus, and sometimes Mars, it has obviously been visible to the naked eye since ancient times. The ancient Greeks associated Jupiter with their ruling god, Zeus. He was the rain god and lord of the sky, making his name an appropriate one for the king of the planets. His weapon is a thunderbolt, which he hurls at those who displease him. He is married to Hera but, is famous for his many affairs, and is also known to punish those that lie or break oaths. The Romans renamed him Jupiter, and he held the same general function in their mythology, but it varied over time. In the early Republican era, when Rome was an agricultural city, he first appeared as an agricultural god in charge of sun and moonlight (Jupiter Lucetius), wind, rain, storms, thunder and lightning (Jupiter Elicius), sowing (Jupiter Dapalis), creative forces (Jupiter Liber) and the boundary stones of fields (Jupiter Terminus).
As Rome developed into a city of commerce and military force, Jupiter evolved into a protector of the city and state of Rome. As with his earlier agricultural form, he could be invoked through a variety of titles, each dependent on the responsibilities being requested of him :

As a warrior god - JUPITER STATOR, FERETRIUS and VICTOR.
As great god of the Empire - JUPITER OPTIMUS MAXIMUS.
As protector of the Empire - JUPITER CONSERVATOR ORBIS
As protector of the Emperor - JUPITER CONSERVATOR AUGUSTORUM

According to Hindu mythology, Jupiter is considered to be the teacher of gods, or Devas. In Vedic astrology the planet Jupiter is known as Guru, Brihaspati and Devagura. Jupiter is a good indicator of fortune, wealth, fame, luck, devotion, wisdom, compassion, spirituality, religion and morality.
The 12 years of the Chinese Zodiac (also recognized in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam) originated outside of China proper, perhaps in the northern-central Asia. These 12 signs derive not from the 12 months of the year, but from the 12 years of the Jupiter cycle (it's orbit). Jupiter is known as the Year Star.
In Norse mythology, Jupiter is closely related to the hammer-wielding god, Thor, associated with thunder, lightning, storms, oak trees, strength, destruction, fertility, healing, and the protection of mankind. Thursday (Thor's Day) is named for him.

BEER 101

Yes..the beer I'm writing about must be in ALL CAPS!!!
I have become a BEER connoisseur. For close to a year now, my friend (oh..let's call him Merlin the Honorary Lesbian) and I have been semi-frequenting an awesome bar here in Baton Rouge, LA. The Cove (and Port Royal) is (are) the absolute best bar(s) to visit here if you're interested in not only educating yourself about beer and the various brewing processes, but also sampling a mind-boggling variety of local, American, and international beers. (They also have tons of liquors, wines, and a very special collection of scotches.) This is serious stuff, people. This is not keg party beer, not for tailgating, not for downing by the case, and it requires a bit of a commitment on the part of the drinker. You don't order these to get hammered..these are liquid art, and you're even offered study materials and encouraged to keep a Beer Log (I don't so far). I'm never sure if I should be more impressed with the selection of 439 beers or the knowledgeable bartenders. We don't even pick anymore..they just tell us what we want.
Last night I was given Ayinger Celebrator Doppelbock, and I liked it enough to drink two. I even got little, plastic goat ornaments (they're around the neck of the bottle, like in the logo). Great beer AND plastic goats you can hang from your ears..or..whatever's handy. Can't beat that. :D
For now it's my favorite, and I love the label. Next time..who knows?
Four hundred or so to go...wow..Merlin and I may have to start working out.
In the meantime I encourage anyone who may happen upon this to check out the sites I have linked, including Beer Advocate, and, if you're a true beer lover, begin your education. I'm planning to go for my doctorate.

Song of the Week #5

Yes...it's a REMIX. 8-/
I have no idea why, but I really love this. (Well..aside from the fact that it's an awesome Muse song that I relate to as usual *grin*.) I listen to it quite a bit on my iPod..it makes me happy. Hope it makes you happy..or at least a bit dancy.
Dance in your underwear...it's fun.

Who knew?

I stumbled upon this randomly, and was quite intrigued. My peeps have been pretty innovative, AND they make awesome beer and whiskey.
I, for one, am VERY happy for the toilet invention.
Top 10 Things Invented In Scotland
(Sorry...it's bing.)

I have NO idea...

Yup...I've reached that place. The WTF place. I actually don't know anything about anything, and it's kind of nice in ways. Sort of. 8-/
I have definites, don't get me wrong...I mean..I KNOW quite a bit. But, that's all the big stuff...the big picture. The rest...goodlord.
The little picture is getting weirder by the day, and I can't do anything about it.
Except drink some. And listen to music. And go into my room and sleep when possible. And coffee...sometimes cakeballs.

I am planning to get a tattoo in the next couple of weeks, and in the meantime I've been bored and impatient. Work is difficult and busy, but I've decided to take it easy as much as possible and just do my best to NOT be quite as OCD and workaholic as I have been for the last seven years. I'm actually almost slacking, which is SO not me. I take long lunches, I hang out at Starbuck's, I take extra breaks, and I have been doodling quite a bit. I even doodle on myself, because (as I stated before) I'm impatient. I've even gotten my coworker into doodling on HERself..hahaa. And I have examples:




Yes...I'm THAT bored.
(And..wow...is my skin looking old??? Crap.)

Ah...the randomness...
And...not. *sigh*

Song of the Week #4

I'm really just getting into this band, but I've heard their music for a couple years now, off and on. This one's almost mildly funkeh at times. ;) I heard it this morning on the way to work.

poetry FAIL

:)
But I'm posting it anyway, because I'm a big, cheesy, retarded, pitiful dork in love. You really can't expect anything else from me...

100 pieces of sky

I could write backwards
to when we met
and find you smiling
your crooked grin
upsidedown
naming the stars
haunting cafes alone;
you documented every second
I wasn’t there.
I counted heartbeats
from when you started it
for me..
the number is now
infinite.
I could draw a map
of what I’ll find in your eyes
like a tattoo of certainties
I can’t get right;
I’m already marked
and I know the way..
how do you find the middle?
I’m upsidedown
and smiling
holding back a storm..

I will collect
100 pieces of sky
for every wrong turn,
every time you cried.
I will dispense them
as thoughts
as snow
the smell of magnolias,
your skin in pink fleece;
wrap them in ribbons
until you can sing
to me
and I can write
the end.
I will dispense
crooked grins
with certainties
and document the stars
you light
in heartbeats.


SO disgusting. Really.
If I read this elsewhere, I'd have to go vomit.
:D

Mars Hoax??

WTF!!??
I'm very annoyed and disappointed. I got this (very goofy) forwarded e-mail containing a (very goofy) Powerpoint of how Mars will be huge and close to Earth later this month. Upon further investigation, I've learned that it is not only untrue, but that I'm also a perpetuator of enormous stupidity. And...it's OLD! OLD HOAX!
*sigh* I forwarded it..astronomy geek that I am.
*hanging head in shame*
I'm a sheep.
*bleat* (Don't sheep bleat??)

The article, Beware the Mars Hoax, explains the whole thing, and it also gives the correct date and information for the REAL event.
The only question I'm left with now is: WHY in the world would someone go to all the trouble to make something like that up and then spread it all over the internet?? I mean..is it some sort of weird graduate project on mass emailing trends? Is there someone out there that's angry at Mars and trying to make it look bad? Does someone want to just be sitting at home on the night of August 27th laughing gleefully and maniacally about all these people standing around in fields and their yards, staring blankly into the night sky for indeterminate amounts of time?
AND..I wish I had that kind of time and energy...just to waste. I could build a time machine or clean my kitchen. Whichever was more pressing.

green M&M's

I work with crazy people.
It's a fact.
Unfortunately, this likely means I'm ALSO crazy, but I still say that the fact that I can recognize THEIR craziness is proof that I'm at least relatively sane. Really. Go ahead..give me a Rorschach test. That one is a pretty butterfly, not roadkill in the sun...and that one..hmm.. Definitely a baby sea lion, NOT someone running along the beach dressed like a banana. Those are daisies, not a trunk-full of AK-47's.
(Did I pass?? *eyetwitch*)

With our new, M&M-green shirts, we definitely look a bit more suspect. In fact, we've even been eating more M&M's. Subconscious hunger-identification? Freudian feeding?
For this entire week, we've been in the clutches of a lingering tropical depression, which decided it likes us SO much, it shared several inches of rain. Most of this was dispensed very slowly and sporadically as drizzle and mist, with occasional, brief downpours, so that we could also have the pleasure of working in it. My feet and entire body have been wet for more than 8 hours a day for the last four days. Sweat and rain and mud, oh my. I feel like a gigantic prune. I love air conditioning. I love long showers. I love dry clothing.
I'd make a TERRIBLE snail. (Except for the mobile home part...that's SO convenient.)

As we progress into the worst time for hurricanes (August through October), I'm thinking we might not be lucky this year. It's been two years, and prior to that it was only three. Russian roulette with Mother Nature leaves me nervous and irritable.
Where are my M&M's!?
If we get a bad storm, I have to work 6 days a week, 10 hours or so a day, in very close proximity to ALL my coworkers...then I likely get to return home to no air conditioning, no long shower, and no dry clothes, bedding, air, anything. Imagine sleeping in a sauna. I will also drink too much beer and have to eat cold ravioli from a can again. 8-/
I need non-tropical vibes sent my way. And maybe some color-safe bleach.

Song of the Week #3

There were at least six in the running for this week, but in the end this one won. The others will be relegated to the file cabinet in my head or added to the playlist.

because I can't write..

..and I'm too exhausted to create tables in SQL and query them. Ahh..impending geekdom.
I should be writing at times like these. Instead, here are two poems by two poets I rather like:

From a Vacant House

It is hard to want a thing you know will hurt another,
yet the heart persists, doesn't it, with its dark urges, liquid wish?

A sea town. Gulls, those malefica, uselessly scissor
thin-boned bodies against a beach washed of its will,

where a season ago women lay, dogs and children fastened
to the long arms of their concern, the men vacant and glittery

with spandex and oil. It is November, and already books thicken
at my bedside, a crush of paper characters awaiting the eye's

hurried pass, their unread stories attendant through the night,
until its bandage lifts to a morning blush, and I am held

within the parenthesis of a spare white house, a little thinner,
empty hands chilled like the faithful, offering myself to discipline's

cool machinery. I will stand on the pier, gesturing and cold.
I will open my mouth to your opening mouth.

--Mark Wunderlich




today is tuesday; email me on saturday

the secret of life is decisiveness
and to describe something
i see the distance and move immediately into it
now i am really alone
from here i know these things: that a hamster is a lonely fist
that my poems exist to dispel irrational angers, that i want to hold your face
with my face
like a hand
the secret of life is that i miss you, and this describes life
tonight my heart feels shiny and calm as a soft wet star
i describe it from a distance, then move quickly away

--Tao Lin



Male poets are weird, self-important creatures, but I like a handful of them because they sometimes say things I haven't found a way to say yet. Too many female poets write about the sunset and grandma's hands, strangers in coffee shops and why men are self-important creatures.
I like to write about self-important sunsets, and I hold my coffee cup like my grandma did.

Song of the Week #2

heheh..

moon, moon, moon...

When I was a much shorter and more sensible person, I actually thought the moon followed me. I know that lots of kids (and, hell..maybe some adults, too) think this. It isn't uncommon. I REALLY believed it, though, until I started reading astronomy books and encyclopedias. The truth was immensely depressing, but it made sense. I mean, WHY would the moon pick ME to follow anyway? Surely there were other more important and interesting people out there for it to occupy its time with. Other people doing more exciting things with their time than Lego cities and epic Star Wars battles.
So I accepted that I was not special.
The older I get, though, I have to wonder... The above picture was taken last Monday night using my cell phone. I actually pulled over to take it, so that it might join 100 other photos of the Louisiana sky I've been collecting for almost two years now. It didn't look very blue with the naked eye. What happened?
It followed me home and all the next day. What do the books know, anyway? ;)

Song of the Week #1

Ok..so I was thinking I'd post a song I can't get out of my head once every week. In actuality, there are lots of songs I can't get out of my head in the span of one week, but I can't possibly inflict them all on the world (or..well..all two people that read this goofy blog, which counts as my world *grin*). I guess I'll be finding them mostly on YouTube, so I apoligize for that in advance. ;)

Without further ado..

self-portrait with ethnic food

I look better with some bacon and grits (with SYRUP!!).





The 115 degree heat index, with actual temperatures around 101, has made me as much of a shut-in as I'm able to be. Convenience stores and take-out have become my sources of sustenance. My trash was so stuffed with styrofoam containers, energy drink aluminum, and fatty snack wrappers that anyone happening to wander in might assume a small herd of video game programmers lives here.
This week I am made of hummus and stuffed grape leaves, pico de gallo and jalapenos, hamachi and seaweed salad, beer from four different countries, Red Bull and Monster, and M&M's and Reese's Cup ice cream. If I don't buy groceries soon, I fear what might be next. Redi-Whip straight from the can? Ramen Noodle? Indian food??! 8-/

*waiting for fall with my head in the freezer (which is empty except for tater tots)*

Pendulum..

I pace.
Then I sit.
I can be still briefly.
Then I wander and try to accomplish something necessary and/or responsible.
Then I pace.
I sometimes write or doodle. Eventually I need sleep.
I pace in my sleep.
I dream the wrong people in scenarios yet to happen.
I dream about accomplishing something.
The wrong people pace and smile and touch.
I dream scenarios.
I wait to sleep.
Sometimes I dream it right. Eventually.
The smile is right.
I know the touch.
It made me pace once. Years of pacing.
Back and forth.
Awake and dreaming.
I can be still briefly.
Sometimes I write.

∞

From Wikipedia: (yeah..I know..it's not a "reliable source," but I'm not writing a paper here) ;)
Infinity (sometimes symbolically represented by ∞) is a concept in many fields, most predominantly mathematics and physics, that refers to a quantity without bound or end. People have developed various ideas throughout history about the nature of infinity. The word comes from the Latin infinitas or "unboundedness.".
The infinity symbol is sometimes called the lemniscate, from the Latin lemniscus, meaning "ribbon". John Wallis is credited with introducing the symbol in 1655 in his De sectionibus conicis. One conjecture about why he chose this symbol is that he derived it from a Roman numeral for 1000 that was in turn derived from the Etruscan numeral for 1000, which looked somewhat like CIƆ and was sometimes used to mean "many." Another conjecture is that he derived it from the Greek letter ω (omega), the last letter in the Greek alphabet. Also, before typesetting machines were invented, ∞ was easily made in printing by typesetting an 8 type on its side.

smelly caaat, smell-lly caaat...

wordswordswordswordswordswordswords

funny...looks like 'swords' over and over again, if you don't look closely. Appropriate? I dunno..
I have a cat, appropriately named Mojo, sprawled halfway across my lap and halfway across the sofa cushion next to me..trying desperately to maneuver his head under one of both of my hands while I type. Occasionally he resorts to just trying to grab one. He would like to be ON my laptop, but I tend to frown on that. He IS love...
I have become the single person whose main physical contact on a daily basis is with their pet...a pet I didn't even seek out. He found me, for some strange reason. Does this mean I need him? I must...
At least he loves me, and I've learned to love him..grudgingly, as he's predominantly been a maniacal pain in the ass since he appeared in early August. *sigh* I'll never have a dog...just a goofy, adorable, ingenius, insane, slurping, smelly cat. Oh well...at least he's smart..smarter than most people I have to interact with.
Haphazard...seems to be my life's theme. At least it's never dull. ;)
I don't believe in random, though..I think everything happens for a reason, because I've seen it. Even awful things..when they seem like the worst thing that could happen, it's for a reason...you just don't always see it when it happens...sometimes you never do. I know that what seemed to be some of the most horrible and impossible to endure events of my life were actually fortunate. I survived just fine, learned from it all, and realize fully that I am better off now (despite my whole being alone with a cat thing). I just wish I could also know what the point has been..that I could see the final outcome of it all. But..I guess I wouldn't understand it if I did..out of context and all. I think I already have seen snapshots, in dreams. I still dream things that happen...sometimes literally, sometimes symbolically.
I wonder which ones are real?
Maybe Mojo knows.
I'll ask him the next time he runs across my laptop and I to get to the loveseat. He's very subtle.
Like life.