saturday, august 19

•••    I watched the olympic gymnastics trials tonight. I know that all olympic competitors are amazing athletes, but I can really tell how amazing the gymnasts are because I was one, once, when I was little and lithe and happily in remission. and they are amazing. I think after elise ray retires from gymnastics she should play rugby.

as anyone who has been following gymnastics this summer knows, the trials are being held in boston, which made it just that much more fun for me to watch. did you see those shots of the boston skyline? the metal railing in front, that's on the cambridge side. it's on the side of the path where I ride my bike into downtown boston. and right at the end, the bridge with all the trees and the red domes behind it - that's the pedestrian bridge where I sit and watch the river in the middle of my run. the red domes belong to harvard. the trees belong to cambridge. it's the best bridge in the world, in my opinion. kind of fun to see it on national television. ;)
10:53 PM +

•••    you know what else I want? a webcam. a faster computer computer would be nice too. and I want a real graphics program; no more of this freeware junk. I want a perfect body, I want a perfect soul. . . actually no, that would be boring. :P
3:47 PM +

•••    this whole situation would be a lot less infuriating if I just knew when it might possibly be resolved. for all I know it will take another month before we get our webspace back - but maybe it will be fixed tomorrow. I have no idea. ugh.

I've seriously considered buying a domain and getting hosted for a few years, but today I came a lot closer to actually doing it than I ever have before. I stopped myself - I do not have a steady enough income to go around shelling out for shiny new urls when I have things like school and medicine to worry about (not to mention rugby dues) - but rrrrg, it was so tempting. it would be one thing if I had some grand plan or project, but this is just a weblog, and a fairly obscure weblog at that. I just don't want anyone to think I've voluntarily vanished without at least giving a warning beforehand.
3:32 PM +

•••    my glam name: pyrite blowplanet. watch out, I'm explosive.
(via mefi)
10:23 AM +

•••    republicans are idiots.
"a species goes out of existence every twenty seconds. surely a new species must come into existence every twenty seconds."
-- helen chenoweth on endangered species

democrats are idiots.
"the first step in saving any plant or animal from extinction is to become aware of and respect the fragile ecosystems that make up our own planet."
-- al gore on the demise of amtrak's texas eagle line
12:08 AM +

friday, august 18

•••    I took my bike in to the shop today to buy a new rear tire and have the gears looked at. it's such a cool place - wheels and snaky yellow air pumps hanging from the ceiling, bikes jacked up and upside down all over the floor, "bikes not bombs" and "one less car" stickers lining the walls in between wrenches, "the land of used partz" in the corner full of old axles and forks. it's like a metal-and-rubber jungle, and the bike mechanics are its benevolent rulers. when I grow up I'm going to learn how to repair my own bicycle. maybe I'll grow my own little jungle.
7:42 PM +

•••    I am ohsovery fucking tired. physically, emotionally, mentally, and whatever other kinds of tired there are, I am. and I can write this without feeling weird about it because no one is ever going to read it. hahaha. usually I would think to myself, there is no point in announcing to the internet that you are tired. there is no point in being obscure about things; if you want to talk about something, do so. otherwise save it for the journal. you have enough journals. and I would think, unnecessary expletives and gratuitous use of the word fuck just makes you sound like you can't think of anything better to say, and it diminishes a really good word. and I would think, get over yourself. or maybe just go to bed. but right now I don't know when I am going to get my weblog back, I am being divebombed by an enormous buzzing housefly, every single inch of my body hurts, and I AM SO FUCKING TIRED I COULD JUST CRY. no one on the web has any concept of what an amazing crybaby I am, because I don't tell the web. but I am a crybaby, and now I am going to go cry for absolutely no good reason other than exhaustion. maybe when I wake up tomorrow I'll come delete this.
1:25 AM +

thursday, august 17

•••    al gore really looks like he's reading a teleprompter, complete with stage directions. ick. he's much more effective when you don't watch his face.

anyhow.
blatant lie number one: he is not asking us to elect him just because the economy is good now. yes he is.
blatant lie number two: he has never given up or given in when it comes to the environment. except when it's profitable to do so, hmm? oil fields in alaska? anyone?
blatant lie number three: within the next couple years, science will discover the genes that cause every kind of cancer. oh. wow. this is worse than the internet initiative thing. time for the speechwriters to walk the plank.
sketchy statement number one: he chose joe lieberman because lieberman is the best man for the job. it seems to me that lieberman is the most politically convenient man for the ticket.
sketchy statement number two: as president, he will hold open meetings with the public. does the secret service allow that kind of thing?
sketchy statement number three: tonight, he will tell us what he plans to do when he is elected president. I'm hearing lots about what he wants to do, but nothing about how he is going to do it. seems like those of those are integral parts of a plan, but what do I know. I'm not a politician.

oddly enough, I think my favorite moment of this whole night at the convention was when al and tipper kissed each other on stage. it seemed so real compared to all these elaborately orchestrated politics we've been subjected to over the past few weeks - even though I'm sure it was completely deliberate. at least it was nice deliberate. (did you notice the gore/lieberman tie set? blarg.)
10:55 PM +

•••    I am starting to wonder if anyone is going to read any of this, ever . . .
9:02 PM +

•••    I'm sure you've read the first few laws of cartoon physics, but have you read all of them? look closely and you will find enlightenment. (geeks shouldn't watch cartoons.)
2:38 PM +

•••    I just said goodbye to my favorite four year old for the last time this summer. the next time I see him he won't even be my favorite four year old anymore; he'll be five and I'll be a big college sophomore person. sigh . . .
12:24 PM +

•••    they keep finding dead birds thanks to this west nile virus thing, so tonight and friday they're spraying my neighborhood, including my street, with pesticides. they are insisting that the chemicals aren't concentrated enough to hurt humans, but I still don't like the idea of breathing in raid every time I go outside. and since I'm one of the millions of people in the world with asthma, this means I have two choices for the rest of the week: 1) stay in the house with the windows closed 24-7 or 2) triple-dose on ventolin. since I have to go out of the house for work, I am going to be high as a flying kite for a few days. won't that be fun? :P
1:06 AM +

wednesday, august 16

•••    the weather today has been a bit bipolar - it was cold and thunderstorming this morning, but then in the course of twenty minutes after the storm stopped it got humid and hazy, and the temperature shot up about a gazillion degrees. now it's gearing-up-to-storm-ominous again. anyway, when I left the house this morning in the middle of the downpour, I was reminded yet again that I don't have a raincoat.

when I was little I loved my raincoats. you know the little kid raincoats that are bright shiny plastic on the outside, cheap print fabric on the inside? they have amazingly poor ventilation, so in warm weather thunderstorms you're so drenched in sweat you might as well go without the raincoat, and if you happen to get water up the bottom from stomping in puddles it will take the rest of the day for the inside to dry out. the hoods have no drawstrings, so all they really do is obscure your peripheral vision. I always had those, always secondhand (and then my little sister had them thirdhand). my first one, which I started wearing at age two with the sleeves triple-rolled and the bottom hem grazing my toes, was green, and the lining was navy with white and green ducks. the next one was silver, lined in purple with pink and grey whales. then periwinkle, with blue lining covered in little white raindrops. the last one I got just before I turned ten; it was pale pink outside and light blue with white and pink ducks inside. I guess after that I was too old for plastic print-lined raincoats. I wish I could have one again.

I do have a yellow umbrella with a duck-head handle, which is something I always wanted but was never allowed to get when I was little. (buying an umbrella for a kid who already had a raincoat was absurdly extravagant, and I knew that - but it didn't keep me from wanting one. now that I have my own job and my own bank account, I get to be self-indulgent. sometimes it's all about the little things.)
4:22 PM +

•••    thoughts on recent science press release headlines:

Deep Space 1 spacecraft keeps going ... and going ... - nasa should be thrown to the feral pink bunnies for this one.

Can You Have Headaches Without Pain? - I always thought headache was an incredibly stupid word anyway. ache never describes it properly in my opinion. and now scienctific proof backs me up! ha!

Texts On Computer Screens Harder To Understand, Less Persuasive - this is about the most ill-concieved and conducted study I've read about this year (for one thing, the text was from time magazine), but they still managed to come up with a way to state the obvious in the name of research.

Giant Jellyfish Invade Northern Gulf of Mexico; Could Threaten Gulf Shrimp, Crab Fisheries - yes!! nature strikes back! ahahahahaaa! :D
1:27 PM +

•••    believe me, I'm as sick of this 403 forbidden stuff as you are.
12:46 PM +

tuesday, august 15

•••    I just ate chocolate cake for the first time in about three years. (it was, of course, completely devoid animal products. and utterly delectable - dense, sticky, sweet, just the way I like it. who says vegans have it rough?) I don't think I have ever tasted better frosting, not even the cream cheese frosting I used to love so much on my carrot cake when I was little. I've already had about a quarter of the whole double-layer cake and I would still be eating if I didn't think I was about to turn into a big squishy blob like bruce bogtrotter. (in the roald dahl book "matilda" - aren't you people up on your children's literature?)

today was my birthday, again. my real birthday was eleven days ago, but my family is a little disorganized sometimes, and we didn't get around to celebrating into today. which is fine with me; it's kind of fun having my birthday all stretched out. anyway, we went to an all-vegan restaurant, and I thoroughly enjoyed it despite my family's reaction to soy and gluten and seaweed. (delicious seaweed salad in sesame dressing, all green and glowing like squishy little emeralds.) besides, now all the doggy bag leftovers are mine!

now I have a bunch of curling-ribbon clusters around my head like a laurel wreath; wearing the wrappings from my presents is something I've been doing all my life. I look like a gift-wrapped idiot, but it makes me happy. and chocolate cake too . . . well.
11:17 PM +

•••    nader or vader?

it's a harder choice than you might think. there are lots of dead slugs all over the sidewalk today, which I think is very apocalyptic.

(this is all somehow related in my mind.)
2:53 PM +

•••    yay! I'm so happy rick kept the little dancing turtles! what a gorgeous redesign. :)
1:58 PM +

monday, august 14

•••    I'm watching the democratic convention. clinton is a much better speaker than either w. or gore, which makes our prospects for the future a little depressing. however, I have to take issue with one thing he said (so far): [this country] is the leading force in human rights.

I don't even know where to start. we have sweatshops. we carry on trade relations with china, and we turn a blind eye to the rampant human rights violations there as long as it's economically convenient. we bomb people. our federally funded health institute performs illegal experiments on mentally unstable patients. we are one of the only first world countries that has failed to sign a bill protecting the rights of child laborers. we kill our criminals. we poison our atmosphere and our environment to keep industry going, even when it starts to make people sick. we fight for human rights only when it makes good pr.

if this is what we're supposed to be proud of, I don't want to be called one of clinton's "fellow americans." we can do better.
11:44 PM +

•••    the virtual fishtank at the museum of science in boston has an entire wall covered in high-definition wide-screen computer monitors, filled with shimmery cartoon fish and fluttering underwater plants. the lighting is dim and bluish, so you feel like you're underwater.

what the new companion website lacks in ambiance, it makes up for in accessibility. now I can send fishies to the museum from my dorm in pennsylvania, and without having to wait my turn at the exhibit's computer consoles. it's a very good thing. I love the museum of science - and now I can take it with me, minus the crowds, lines, and overzealous employees. (the last time I was in the virtual fishtank, which is really much more about computer modeling than it is about actual fish, I was accosted by a research and development team wanting to know what I thought about the usefulness of models as educational tools. I blanked and started babbling about astronomy research, which I think was not exactly what they had in mind.)
6:02 PM +

•••    I always think spite is finally dead, but then it manages to suck in one more labored breath... as usual, the alt tags on the images are at least as entertaining as the actual feature. I can't really swing dance, but I can pretend pretty convincingly, which I guess makes me smoother than this guy.
3:46 PM +

•••    last week the usgs released a statement saying a bunch of viruses and fungi are responsible for amphibian die-offs. in the middle of one paragraph they buried a slew of other possible reasons - ultraviolet radiation, environmental disturbance, stuff like that. as if anyone would be surprised at this point if they announced that frogs are dying thanks to us meddling humans? ugh.

we lived in farm country in upstate (very upstate; canada was a mile north) new york for a few years when I was little. there was a pond on our property, and it was absolutely full of frogs. they were mostly bullfrogs, the big green ones with yellow bellies and those funny gold spots on the sides of their heads. I never saw a deformed frog, though I did see one attack and attempt to eat a smaller frog, so I think it may have been deranged. anyway, after swimming and jumping with frogs, I never understood why it would even occur to anyone that their legs might be good to eat. they're so skinny and sinewy.
1:55 PM +

•••    somehow there's something very surreal about wil wheaton (you know, "shut up, wesley!") railing on the backstreet boys.
12:40 PM +

•••    it's raining.

it's one of those rainstorms that started very very quietly, as nothing more than a slightly heavy evening dew, and slowlyslowlyslowly picked up momentum. or, in this case, volume. gradual change isn't as exciting as sudden change, but in its own way I think it's more interesting. like the way my sansevieria has eight leaves now when it only had four back in may, the way bones and mud turn into fossil and rock, the way the world goes from black to dark to grey to dim to light every morning, and the way the things that give us nightmares and daymares eventually fade to bad memories that lurk like shadows . . .

I don't know what I'm going on about. anyway, it's raining. I like rain.
12:34 AM +

sunday, august 13

•••    when I got up this morning I watched close encounters of the third kind. such a wonderful movie; it's sad how it's been overanalyzed to the ground over the last twenty-three years. I say skip the intellectual approach, skip the second coming comparisons, skip the sociopsychobabble. watch the lights. listen to the music. and look at the aliens.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, and I don't believe that there ever have been close encounters of any kind, at least not here on earth. but I believe in extraterrestrial life, intelligent extraterrestrial life, somewhere. I can't imagine that it lives in a form with two arms and two legs and two eyes, but I would like to think it shares some more important characteristics with the aliens from close encounters: childlike, inquisitive, powerful without being malicious.

humans are like that sometimes, too.
3:11 PM +