Living in this Brain

So, today I cleaned out the big fridge with the HUGE help of my roommate Ben, and found these two slightly squishy long green things from his mom's garden. They were a) zucchini or b) cucumbers.

I do not know which. I just Google image searched from my bed and tried to match that to my memory, and I still don't know. (Downstairs is far away and honestly - holding one might not do much to clarify things). I do distinctly remember Ben correcting me, but I don't remember what I said or what he said, so it's not helpful.

Anyway, Ben pulled them out to make for dinner and then spent the evening out, so I helpfully put them back in the crisper drawer so they wouldn't become more squishy. Tricky bit is, the whole fridge cleaning thing began because another cucumber/zucchini died and made juice in the drawer, and then the drawer can't come out unless you pull the fridge out, and then you have to wash the bottom of the fridge and clean behind it and now I have Cleaner Cough because I'm a delicate Victorian flower and can't handle Tilex or anything else fumy, really.

Right. So. I was like, "Oh, I'm leaving for London tomorrow, I'll write Ben a note and remind him to eat the XXXs before they produce juice." But what to call them?

Thought process:

1) Cannot identify food type
2) Google image search
3) Very similar
4) If they had warts they would definitely be cucumbers, but not all cucumbers have warts.
5) Other part of brain - "Hey, so that's not a necessary but is a sufficient condition for being a cucumber, provided other conditions are met, like being long and green and incapable of independent movement!"
6) Other other part of brain, "You are a dork."
6) Other other other part "Some of the things in the fridge today looked capable of independent movement."
7) Other impatient task-driver bit "Irrelevant. Cucumber or zucchini? We have no clue, do we?"
8) Bit of brain that watches for cackling, poor choice of clothes, and general awkwardness/insanity "Please don't use 'we' it makes our internal chorus sound crazy."
9) Impatient bit "Well, let's just text "I put the vegetables in the crisper drawer, eat them before they get drippy."
10) Everyone else, "THEY'RE NOT VEGETABLES THEY HAVE SEEDS."
11) "Well they function as vegetables, and isn't there a Supreme Court decision saying a tomato is a vegetable?"
12) Too cool bit, "Yeah, you're a huge dork."
13) Obscure knowledge bit, "Wasn't that Nix vs. Hedden? And 1890 something?"
14) ADD bit "Oooh, we need to go to trivia night . . ."
15) Mouth and stomach, "Ooooh, BEER!"
16) Central command, "Alright, everyone, this is ridiculous. And the anti-Cleaner Cough Benadryl is kicking in. Goodnight."

I think I'll just send Ben a link to this . . .

Poem of the Day: A Finger, Two Dots, Then Me

My friends Katie and Peter got married on the 4th of July this year, and Katie's brother Evan read this poem. And then I cried. Weddings will do that to you.

A Finger, Two Dots, Then Me
(the poem I’d like my future wife to read
when I finally crap out )

by Derrick Brown

Lying together in the park on Seventh,
our backs smoosh grass and I say
I will love you till I become a child,
when feeding and bathing me is no longer romantic,
but rather necessary.
I will love you till there is no till.
till I die.
And when that electroencephalogram shuts down, baby
that’s when the real lovin’ kicks in.

Forgive me for sounding selfish
but I won’t be able to wait under the earth for you,
(albeit a romantic thought for groundhogs,
gophers and the gooey worms.)
I will not be able to wait for you...

but I will meet up with you
and here’s where you will find me:
get a pen-

Hold your finger up
(two fingers if your hands are frail by now)
and count two stars directly to the left
of the North American moon.
You will find me there.
You will find me darting behind amazing quasars
Behind flirtatious winks
of bright and blasting boom stars!

Sometimes charging so far into space,
the darkness goes blue.
I will be there chasing sound waves
riding them like 2 dollar pony ride horses
that have finally broken free and wild.
I will be facing backwards, lying sideways,
no hands, sidesaddle, sometimes standing
sometimes screaming zip zang zowie!
My God, it’s good to be back in space... Where is everybody?

You will recognize my voice.
You will see the flash of a fire trail
burning off the back of me
burning like a gasoline comet Kerosene Sapphire.
This is my voice.
Don’t look for my body or a ghost.
I’ll resemble more a pilot light than a man now.

I’m sure some will see
this cobalt star white light from earth
and cast me a wish like a wonderbomb.
And I’ll think “Hmmph. people still do that?”

I’m sure I’ll take the light wonderbombs
to the point in the universe
where sound does end.
The back porch of God’s summer home.

It’s so quiet, you float
it feels the way cotton candy tastes.
He let’s me in through the back porch.
St. Peter’s busy in the front
building a catfish pond and swimmin’ hole
for sea-drowned-gray-green souls to enter up from.
I don’t mind his stories
I just get tired of his voice

So you should know what to look for
and exactly where to go...

Take your time and don’t worry about getting lost.
You’ll find me. Up there, a finger and two dots away.
If you're wondering if I’ll still be able to hold you
...I honestly don’t know

but I do know that I could still fall in love
with the swish of light that comes barreling
and cascading towards me
It will resemble your sweet definite hands.
The universe will bend.
The planets will bow.
And I will say “O, there ya are. I been waitin’ for ya. Now we can go.”

And the two pilot lights go zoooooooom
into the black construction paper night

as somewhere else
two other lovers lie down on their backs and say
“What the hell was that?”

And for good measure, here's the light saber duel that was part of the ceremony:

Hahaha

So - right after you fix healthcare . . . and can you do something about Firefly too? kthankx

Dear Reader

That's one of my favorites things to find in a book. A sentence beginning "Dear Reader . . ." I mean, you know you have a literate and witty writer on your hands when you see that. Plus, it's busting through the fourth wall, and that is always fun.

So, I feel that I need to write something so that all . . . 2 . . . or something of my loyal readers/creepy stalkers have something to look at besides that terrifying last post. So. My hair is reddish, I'm shopping for new roommates (some nice people located so far), I am considering officially declaring myself a nun for tax purposes, I'm wondering about trying to eat a vegan meal a day, I'm taking two summer classes, and I think I'm going to take the LSAT in September, because clearly what I need is another degree rather than, say, A JOB. Oh, and I might audition for American Idol. For shits and giggles. What should I sing? Think pop-rock but good for a lyric, and I want to show off my range. Also, when do they come to Denver???

There's your update.

Cathartic Creepiness

Ok, so this morning I had a super creepy dream. Really. It was incredibly creepy. I don't know what it means, and I don't have a Lifeline to Sigmund Freud. Interpret away. Unless you don't want to be creeped out.

It's really odd that I still remember it - normally I remember dreams when I wake up, if at all, and think something along the lines of: "well, that was fun" or "huh," and promptly forget it. But this one I still remember . . .

Ok, so I'm on a team of four people, no idea who exactly they are, but people I know and care about. There are other teams too. We're all in a large room with a glass floor in it, and under the floor is a dragon. Well, just the head of a dragon, it's rather large. The floor rolls back and the dragon opens its eye. Now, this is not an evil dragon, but it is carnivorous. And sphynx-like. We have to each answer a question, in turns, in our teams. If we get the answer wrong, the dragon eats us. Well, actually, we have to feed ourselves to dragon. Which at one point morphed into a sort of body a grub/earthworm thing with the torso of a woman. So apparently my subconscious worked out to sphynx thing and went for it, only in a nasty way. With a dose of inspiration from the South Park episode with Space Cash. Anyway, it was gross. Climbing into an earthworm stomach is disgusting. Also, at one point the earthworm/woman thing was starving and this guard sacrificed himself by climbing on in. Yergh. And like I said, I liked all the other teams, so while I wanted to be left standing, I didn't want them to go done. Quite dreadful.

So . . . is this an analogy for finals or am I insane? Mystery . . . hope I sleep better tonight. Last final tomorrow, woot woot.

The Derby (pronounced "Dahby")

"She ran with the heart of a locomotive, on champagne-glass ankles . . ."

I can't watch racing anymore. I'll just wait for the news people to tell me what horse broke a leg and had to be shot. Plus, even Derby winners don't always get retired to pasture after they finish their racing careers - a lot of them end up in dog food. Really. Like Black Beauty. So I'm doing homework instead.

Quote of the Day (QotD)

Alexandre Cabanel, Cleopatra Testing Poisons on Condemned Prisoners

"Certainly it would be a relief to cross Cleopatra off our list of objects we have lost, or believe we have lost: Atlantis, Jamestown, an entire tribe of Israel, good manners, Jimmy Hoffa."

Original NYT article here.

And another one, given the topic: "Age cannot wither her nor custom stale her infinite variety." If you don't know who wrote that, you have some reading to do.

Thanks, Anderson Cooper

Twitter is dangerous because it is so gosh darn entertaining. Here's a excerpt from a news story AC linked to:

"Suleman, who gave birth to octuplets in January, brought home the last and smallest of the eight Monday, a hospital spokeswoman said.

But she is not the only one to claim a trademark on the nickname. A Texas company not affiliated with her has filed to trademark an Octomom iPhone game.

'You press on her belly and she has babies,' the company’s CEO said."

Full article here.

How do I feel about irresponsible self-absorbed mothers who don't work and live with their own moms and have 14 kids in multiple births through in-vitro? Oooh, that's a toughy . . .

Canadians are weird . . .

So, I was applying for the lottery to get tickets to the Denver Antiques Roadshow, and found this:


Haha! America is so not the only country with ridiculous laws! But, really? I'll keep you posted on if I get tickets, my family has some random stuff that just might be worth something . . . and by something, I mean maybe I have a button or a shoehorn that's secretly worth about $70,000 and wants to pay my debts and for school and for clothes and traveling all over and funding an animal sanctuary . . . ok, maybe more than $70,000. Hey, I can dream.

Hey - that's me!

Look! I made the Sheri Griffith trip catalog! Yep, that's me last summer, hanging out on the edge of the Colorado with my feet in the snowmelt, because damn is it hot down around Moab. Even in early June. Perhaps I have a modeling career despite being 5'2" . . . no? No. Fine.

Breathe

Wage peace with your breath.

Breathe in firemen and rubble,
breathe out whole buildings and flocks of red wing blackbirds.

Breathe in terrorists
and breathe out sleeping children and freshly mown fields.

Breathe in confusion and breathe out maple trees.

Breathe in the fallen and breathe out lifelong friendships intact.

Wage peace with your listening: hearing sirens, pray loud.

Remember your tools: flower seeds, clothes pins, clean rivers.

Make soup.

Play music, memorize the words for thank you in three languages.

Learn to knit, and make a hat.

Think of chaos as dancing raspberries,
imagine grief
as the outbreath of beauty
or the gesture of fish.

Swim for the other side.

Wage peace.

Never has the world seemed so fresh and precious:

Have a cup of tea and rejoice.

Act as if armistice has already arrived.
Celebrate today.

wage peace - judyth hill - september 12, 2001

DotD - Equal Measure

DotD = Desire of the Day. No planned posting schedule for these, just going to put them up when I find something that is trying especially hard to get me to trade grad school loan money for it.

This guy tickles my fancy because it's quirky and also makes big numbers understandable, one of my favorite math tricks. See it here at the Modern Poverty website.

Excerpts from GChat - Mixolydian

10:39 AM Jennifer: oh. my. gosh. I have to tell you about the toy we saw at Babies 'R Us

it was one of those glockenspiel type toys

10:40 AM and I've been wanting to get one of those for James

and it was a cool one because you could hit it with the mallet, but it was also attached to a keyboard so you could play it that way

10:41 AM I totally thought we were going to buy it...and then I hit the "ti" key

me: ooh, nice

and?

Jennifer: the leading tone was a full half step flat!!

me: what

that is beyond stupid

Jennifer: it was like...do, re, mi, fa, so, la, TAY, do!

me: how was it supposed to be a ti, then?

10:42 AM it couldn't lead anywhere!

Jennifer: I was like, you've got to be kidding me

and it wasn't just a bad egg...all of them were the same!

I couldn't believe it

10:43 AM shocked and appalled

me: they just straight up tuned them all wrong?

10:44 AM Jennifer: I guess!

it showed up in my nightmare that night

me: hahahaha

Jennifer: in my dream I was going to complain about it online but then I read somewhere that it was intentional

10:45 AM that they were encouraging children to learn both major and minor tonalities, and they were doing that by having a major tetrachord followed by a minor one

so I couldn't even complain about it!

me: hahahahaha

Jennifer: even though that's still ridiculous...even if it were true

me: dorkiest dream EVER

Jennifer: yeah well ;)

10:46 AM me: definitely going on my blog

oh snap

Jennifer: stealing my material, huh? ;)

jk

me: hey, you'll get full credit

Jennifer: oh joy

ha ha

10:47 AM which mode is that? I can't remember

it's the one before aeolian

me: a major followed by a minor?

Jennifer: a scale with a lowered 7th

10:48 AM me: the funny one

that sounds middle eastern?

hmmmm

Jennifer: brb...

I'm gonna google it when I get back

10:50 AM me: k

10:51 AM Jennifer: mixolydian

the dang toy was in mixolydian mode

me: yes!

yes

10:52 AM now that's just wrong

Jennifer: there's just no reason for that

me: we're in America!

Jennifer: no possible justification

me: nope

Homeworking

From Warner Bros. upcoming Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: An example of a bad leader-to-be.

New verb. Do you like it? So here I am, being good and reading Primal Leadership: Learning to Lead with Emotional Intelligence by Goleman, Boyattzis and Annie McKee. I've already done everything else I have to do for this class for Monday. Anyway, I'm trundling along, reading the preface and learning that the book grew out of columns in the Harvard Business Journal, and learning that you should be nice to people, not yell at them, and not be negative if you want anything to get done. And then, I stumbled across this in Chapter 2:

"Such leaders have an emotional impact a bit like that of the 'dementors' in the Harry Potter series, who 'drain peace, hope, and happiness from the air around them.' " This is follwed by a superscript 7, which lead me to a reference of: 7. Dementors: J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (London, Bloomsbury, 1999) 187.

So there you go, reading YA fantasy is helping me learn not to suck peoples' souls out. Thanks, Harvard Press!

WW - Hating on the Other Half at Alta

Tracking Packages

"But now, says the Once-ler, Now that you´re here, the word of the Lorax
seems perfectly clear. Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot,
nothing is going to get better. It's not."

So, I have ordered all of my textbooks for the semester and actually have most of them in hand. I was able to get four of them used and had to buy three new, which was frustrating, because I like to save money and trees. Trees are shady and clean the air and are very nice, except when you run into them with a car or on skis, or even sometimes just walking, like my dad did with his head the other week. But still, I think chopping them down to make books is not so good, even though I love books.

Anyway, one of the outstanding ones is a big law casebook on Environmental Law, which I'm super excited to read, because I am a dork like that. I keep getting told by my professors that everything I say or suggest "is really policy" and I'm like, you betcha it is, just wait until I get all of this into law and it RULES OUR LIVES. So, this book of case law is on its way and has guaranteed 3 day delivery. Thank you B&N.

Here's what it's done so far:

I feel sort of badly for it that it's spent a significant time of its little book life in New Jersey and is now apparently taking a tour of the state. However, I will feel even sorrier for myself if it does not come on Thursday, because I have some catchup reading to do. Not to mention redesigning Natural Resource law and giving Environmental Health law some teeth. Dear manufacturers of the world, does the phrase "cradle-t0-cradle" make your timbers shiver?

Quick overview of classes:

Leadership and Ethics, School of Public Affairs, studying adaptive leadership, professor uses lots of clips (eg. scenes from Patton, Gandhi, and Obama's inaugural - hey, is the word inaugural related to the word augury?). Starting out by studying Ernest Shackleton, Victorian dude who lost his ship to Antarctic pack ice and proceeded to get himself and all 27 of his men out alive. I keep getting distracted because I have a hunch he was kind of cute in person.

Sustainable Land Use Planning, School of Architecture and Planning, doing all projects and research around advising the City of Aurora on incorporating sustainability elements into their revision of the city's comprehensive plan. I will be focusing on, what else, concrete ways to lower emissions, increase energy efficiency, etc. ie., policy.

Natural Resource and Environmental Health Law, a class I am super excited about. We're looking at both together because they're generally treated separately but of course the environment doesn't work like that. I like this professor's style A LOT. He is cool. I want to be him. Only without the bit where he served as a combat medic in Vietnam.

Excerpts from gChat: They had sex and she was bald?

I think I'll start doing these now and then. There are so many funny exchanges. Don't worry, I will not put up the hilarious ones that involve privileged information. This one refers to last Friday's new Battlestar Galactica episode.

Jennifer: oh!

one last thing

me:yes?

Jennifer: Adama and Roslin finally had sex

at the end of the episode

me: haha

how was that?

5:07 PM Jennifer: well, they didn't show it

that would have been nasty

they just showed them in bed

and she didn't have her wig on

and they were both very happy

me: they had sex and she was bald?

Jennifer: yep

5:08 PM but it was sweet

me: ok, good to know

Jennifer: I'm glad they didn't show it happening though ;)

ok, go take a shower

5:09 PM

Armadillidiidae

Yes, that is spelled correctly, and no, I did not make it up. You will no doubt be delighted to learn, as I was, that that Armadillidae is the family name for roly polies!!! Or pill bugs! How great is that? Really great. Yeah. It's a fun world.

What else. I went to Sundance. That deserves it's own entry or entries, but for now I will summarize and say that we saw The September Issue, a documentary about Vogue's Fall 2007 issue and more specifically Grace Coddington and Anna Wintour. Anna Wintour is the editor of Vogue and is the inspiration behind the title character in the novel and movie The Devil Wears Prada. Grace Coddington is the creative director of Vogue, and is incredibly gifted. The photographs above are from a couture shoot in Paris she styled for the September 2007 issue. It was a highly entertaining film and I recommend it.

Ok, I am going to go ahead and publish this now because I wrote it a few days ago and want to get it out. But more on Sundance to come!

December Playlist

Ok, so I sucked at blogging in December. Fortunately, I think everyone else sucked as well, for the same reasons I did. Lots of family, friends in from out of town, skiing, etc. I tend to live a lot in December - it's my favorite month of the year, despite the lack of light. And don't worry - one of my New Year's resolutions is to post more regularly to this blog, and also to send out a mass e-mail informing people that it actually exists. At which point, you'd all better periodically comment so I know it's worthwhile to keep writing!

Alright, here are the songs:

1. Hello Dolly "Put on Your Sunday Clothes"

Great song from a musical full of great songs. Further immortalized by Wall-E.

2. Pat Benatar "We Belong"

My favorite arrangement of this song is in a Sheraton Commercial from two years ago. But the original is good too.

3. Newton Faulkner "Gone in the Morning"

So so catchy. Fantastic lyrics like "I'm gonna master all kinds of kung fu/I'm gonna live inside a tiny zoo/ I'm gonna grow myself a giant afro - incredible."

4. Barenaked Ladies and Sarah McLachlan "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen"

I decided not to do a whole playlist of Christmas songs, although, trust me, that would have been easy. This one I wanted to throw in because it's new to me and sort of jazzy. Hurray for syncopation!

5. Chuck Berry "You Never Can Tell"

Quentin Tarantino has fantastic taste in music. This song also makes me think of a Gilmore Girls episode . . .

6. The White Stripes "We're Going to Be Friends"

I have this habit of loving maybe 1-5 songs from an artist or group and kind of hating everything else. I don't think I like most of The White Stripes, but this song is amazing.

7. Taylor Swift "Fifteen"

Cat introduced me to Taylor, and now I love her. And have redeveloped my complex over not having been a child prodigy. I figure I have time to do something showy though - just look at Grandma Moses!

8. Neil Patrick Harris "My Freeze Ray"

Oh, Neil. Why are you gay? WHY??? *ahem* Any song about a crush that has the lyrics "You make me feel/what's the phrase/ like a fool/ kind of sick/ special needs/ anyway . . . " is getting it right.

9. Edward Sanders and Helena Bonham Carter "Not While I'm Around"

I saw Sweeney Todd last year around the New Year, and so in the days around New Year this year I kept singing this to myself. Mostly in the shower. I've come to realize that my brain definitely knows what time of year it is and pulls up memories from past years right on cue - weird.

10. Sara Bareilles "Love Song"

This is probably one of my favorite songs of 2008. She wrote it about her recording company (thank you my Sarah B. for that tidbit) and it totally changes the meaning of the song when you know that.

11. Amy Winehouse "You Know I'm No Good"

Oh Amy, if you had no talent this whole destructive downward spiral would not be nearly as tragic.

12. Basement Jaxx "Red Alert"

Caught Bend it Like Beckham on TV and reconfirmed that it an awesome movie. Note to self: watch Match Point ASAP.

13. Jesse McCartney " Leavin' "

Dear Jesse,
Despite your inability to buy me a drink on a date, I will still go out on one with you. Etc.
Loves,
L

14. Natasha Bedingfield "Unwrittten"

Yes yes, I know it's the The Hills song, whatever, I like it.

15. Morton Lauridsen "Les Chanson des Roses: No. 5 Dirait-on

First heard this when one of my high school choir directors had the senior choir perform the piece. The lyrics are a base on a Rilke poem. Very calming and uplifting all at once.

WW - Petroglyphs on the Colorado River

Belated, I know. One of the hands is a child's, it was very small, and one is missing the little finger.