bad words for good times

i guess i'm weak?

2005-12-26T19:39:00.000-05:00

After careful consideration, i've decided to start a sleep blog.

1) why?
2) what?
3) who?
4) where?
5) when?

1 - Why?

well, it occurs to me that sleep is one of the most important activities carried out by most every sentient animal on the globe. did you know you can go longer without food than you can without sleep? you can. but still, we don't really know why.

i've been reading a lot this month, both new books and old favourites, and i've noticed that in classical literature there's always references to sleep and dreaming, while in modern literature the topic is rarely broached. (when i say classical literature i'm referring to those works published before thomas edison permanently altered our view of night and day). Shakespeare, for instance, as well as Dickens both refer to sleep and dreams quite often, as do most religious works such as the Bible and religious texts/folklores associated with Eastern religions. Hell, i'm pretty sure i've even read Greek philosophers that touched on it. I've been thinking about it for several hours now, and the recent works of fiction i can recall don't generally discuss it. it's definitely not mentioned in most of the (auto)biographies i can remember... apparently we don't really think of sleep being that important to our lives these days.

but, of course, whenever the topic is introduced, there is unanimous agreement that sleep is vital to a healthy, well-balanced lifestyle. all i want to do is bring sleep into the forefront of discussions. Over the course of our lives, we spend a greater proportion of our time sleeping than any other activity, with the possible exceptions of working and raising children. despite that fact, we don't talk about it... i think that's part of the reason we don't know so much about sleep - ever since the 24 hour day started and we began our leap into the industrial, technological and information ages, sleep has been sacrificed for the benefit of our other commitments. no wonder it's estimated that at least 1 in 5 Canadians suffer from some sort of sleep disorder.

so that's why.

2 - What?

Are you not paying attention? it'll be about SLEEP.

Basically, i intend to post, each day, a brief summary of :

Where/When I slept
How long I slept
Whether I slept well
How I woke up
Details of any dreams/nightmares, if I remember them.

3 - Who?

me and anyone who reads it. Comments will be most welcome... what might you comment on?

Problems falling asleep
Solutions for problems falling asleep
Your dreams/nightmares (who knows, maybe one night we'll dream of the same thing)

4 - Where?

i'll have to make a new blog. i haven't done that yet. i'll tell you when i have.

5 - When?

i probably won't start until the new year. it feels like a 2006 idea.

everything is timing

2005-12-21T12:18:00.000-05:00

*this was conceived/written between 2:00 and 4:00 AM; wednesday, december 21st.*

walking home in the cold, snow falling and NO ONE on the streets... it's like being in a snow globe - tranquil and safe, with only the sounds of our footsteps slinking into my ears. i could be listening to music, but for once there's no sound to drown out. it's exhausting sometimes, walking everywhere, but i can't stop. in some strange way i feel that walking keeps me connected to the world, that if i were to ever commit myself to driving i'd lose that appreciation for one of the underlying facets of ancient human history... whatever has happened, wherever and whenever it took place, people walked. it's what we evolved to do, and in exercising even such a basic skill i feel it helps me realize some of the potential that we take for granted. through walking, i feel linked to those for whom it wasn't an inconvenience. back when there were no cars, no planes, no trains... when walking was all we could do, we did it, and so began the population of the world. walking was our first way of connecting with ourselves, with the world, with animals and plants we'd never seen, places we'd never been.

i can understand why it bothers you. regardless of where i am, as soon as i step out the door, the music goes on and i set out, ears teeming with melodies to drown out the idle grumbling of traffic and airplanes, horns and sirens. strange that such antisocial behaviour makes me feel a connection to others.

Tonight, none of that is necessary, it's so quiet.

walking with you, we never have anything to say to each other. i almost feel like listening to music while we're together, mainly because even when we do have things to say, we never say them. ironically, the two types of silence are the only ones i can stand nowadays... winter is when the nights become our nights, because even walking in silence, coats whipping in the bitter cold, we're the only two on the streets. Here, our need for solitude intersects with our need for companionship, an aggravating circumstance destined to lead to pleasures equalled only by the misery that is sure to follow.

but this time was different, this time you had something to say. hand in hand or arm in arm, it took the comforting mantle of silence for me to be able hear the words pass over your lips. you swore it had been that way all along, that all this time i'd been ignoring the obvious truth delineated by all the words that hadn't been said.

at home settled into the crook of my hips, you breathed it quietly on my neck while we tried to fall asleep. maybe i just wasn't listening, maybe it didn't register because i was too busy thinking, but i heard it said it to you, only to find that you were already asleep, perhaps dreaming of someone who walks the walk AND talks the talk.

timing is everything.

8 bar butterflies

2005-12-19T13:22:00.000-05:00

have you ever been at a concert and felt yourself shivering in time with the music? i don't mean cold shivering, i mean the anticipation of knowing there's a chorus coming, or really being into a song. you know, when you're so into the song that your body literally prepares for the next length... Stars played "Your Ex-Lover is Dead" tonight, and i could feel a shiver/shudder pass up through my spine every few bars or so... sort of like when you're going down a steep hill on a roller coaster, and you feel the rush from the loss of gravity move through your entire body.

music always seems to affect me this way... ever since i can remember picking up purple by STP, that tingle's been around... i felt it the first time i listened to last of the ghetto astronauts, the first time i heard bob dylan... i remember almost dropping my discman outside of HMV when i first bought beautiful midnight, and the first time i heard shampoo suicide? forget about it. i smoked a hash cigarette with jimmy shaw tonight, and i can arguably say it was the best time i've ever had chilling with a musician... even whiteman was a little weird, jimmy just seemed to be cool... as if he was relaxing with old friends from his neighbourhood, which, i guess, he was. it was an amazing finish to a bizarre but even more amazing night; the best part was that i thought it wasn't going to happen.

sorry Danny - i'll make you some chocolates or something.

what would you do

2005-12-12T00:53:00.000-05:00

if you woke up in the morning and read\heard\saw that astronomers had discovered another solar system exactly like ours, with all the same planets and moons in the exact same orientation as our own?

now, i'm not saying that's the case, but i just thought of it right now, and i think i'd freak out something fierce.

i just want to forget it...

2005-12-07T16:17:00.000-05:00

*this post was written between 4:15 and 5:45 am; Sunday, December 4th, 2005*

My mind is racing. Trusty mechanical pencil. Must remember to double space. it'll make it easier to read tomorrow. and fuck the margins. lying here on the futon it seems so clear to me now. is this why i've been so excited to do mushrooms for so long? the words have been missing, huddled under 2 (two) blankets, with one tealight and liquid honey in my ears, i've found that quiet voice!

When faced with models of cultural evolution, it's often a valued approach to visualize (personify) the perceivable species as a whole. population ecologists do it all the time. microbiologists do it, too. it's my career choice to make pointed claims about the nature of our very defenses by extrapolating data on a small, but presumably representative subset. (not sure if that made sense, i AM on mushrooms, you know.) An example.

PART I

i find out that 85% of all the cells responsible for Tron taking place inside the body (let's call them "Tron cells" - say it with me, now!) are "groovy." it is a well established technique to apply this observation to the rest of the cells, used as a null hypothesis, to either be proved or disproved.

PART II

Hypothesis: Of all cells, 85% are groovy.

Now, this will either be proven or disproven. It may seem unreasonable at first, but the point i'm trying to make is that scientifically, stereotyping is a valid tool, provided that it leads to further questions to investigate what may then become known as a "phenomenon."

Here it is again.

Long winded explanation, i'll admit. now i can start rambling.

A commonly recognised example of extinction is the dodo bird. Not sure of it's latin, i don't think it's relevant. We ask ourselves what happened and try to answer by looking at the species as a whole. To follow while i'm going, imagine the thousands of years the dodo lived represented in one single dodo. when the species emerged, the image should be of an egg. When they became extinct, it should be that of an old dodo. It is a simple trick for looking at the success of an animal in its interaction with the environment. When the image of the dodo was at it's peak --> when the dodo looked its strongest, what were the actual birds doing? what other animals were around? were they hunted? were they predators? Did they tie their shoes or use velcro?
Flip flops? why, that's ridiculous, they're already a goddamned bird! but you get the point. On a geological time scale, the lifespan of a species provides specific timepoints where you can see the optimal growth considerations, interactions with other forms of life. Altruism, mutualism, symbiosm, parasitism, it is all available for study, at whenever the species hits its' peak. but there's a rule. let's call it "The rule."

ONLY. ONLY ONLY ONLY. if you can see from the beginning through the end. fossil records are good enough for some things, but there has to be SOMETHING.

i have no idea where we are, we could actually be the generation of space monkeys, breathlessly waiting for our glorious unification with the future, and we can force all of the pettiness, wars are done, pollution isn't a problem and global warming is referred to in textbooks as "a problem we fixed." but we already had that. We already lived in peace, the original humans who discovered fire and worked in pairs, then groups. who learned that they could adapt, and build, and cook, and fight, and LEARN. we've done al lthat. Now we depend on what's causing the pollution. there are so many of us, we ARE the new pollution, and there are clear signs of the earth's distressed attempts to right the boat. now that war has been introduced, let's go through this image process again.

Form an image in your mind. it should be of a human baby. Let's call him "Tom," no, "T-dAwg." your image is a girl? then how about "Tracy?" no? ok, how about "T-dAwg?" good? good.

T-dAwg is a drooling infant. prehistoric humans amble around, bumping into things and weebling around. T-dAwg is a toddler. We've learned how to find and take shelter, to move around. T-dAwg learns how to speak. we discover fire. (booyah.) t-dAwg is an awkward teen. Gettin there, but now the dirty stuff is starting to attract our attention. T-dAwg is a rampaging, nubile adult. T-dAwg immediately sets to dispersing lil T-dAwgs everywhere possible. Fast forward a bunch of millenia. Bender (WWII). you get the idea. But, in true bender form, we got drunk and messed up the place, a bit. T-dAwg has a failing liver. (Ozone). T-dAwg is short of breath. (Global warming). T-dAwg has been cuttin' hisself! (Us!)

remember "the rule?" i've got time for you to scroll up and look.

i have no idea what T-dAwg looks like. I'm a hair on T-dAwg's head, or, perhaps more accurately, i'm as small a bit of T-dAwg as Tron cells are of us. i can't know that, and not being able to know that is driving me up the walls. if you were to ask me, on any given day, to take what i know of the dynamics of human genetics, cultural, social and technological evolution and creat e an image of T-dAwg, i see a frail body on several systems of life support! it's only a possibility, and this isn't an attempt to whip up an alarmist frenzy. the problem is that COULD be it. we COULD only be a tiny first step in an enormous evolution, we could be a heartbeat away from a giant race of murderous radical transforming robots landing and ending life as we know it!

but these are questions i can never answer, because they can only be answered after we're gone. and that is simultaneously the most unscratchable, unforgettable itch.

(but remember, i AM on mushrooms. i mean, i think it's a miracle i wrote anything)

because i'm dumb as rocks, but i can bake a cake...

2005-12-02T21:21:00.000-05:00

as i've always done before, i was reading up on some of the current intelligent design debate... for those of you not acquainted with the specifics, intelligent design is a theory that boils down to the belief that the complexity inherent in life on our planet is clear indication of a sentient creator. as i've always done before, i finished reading news and turned to science and nature.

i don't think intelligent design holds any water. the only reason i mentioned it is because pictures like this make me understand why people can.

at first, anyway.

why kosher's not so bad

2005-11-29T21:28:00.000-05:00

"if i ever become a tranny, i'm gonna change my name to 'bertrude.'"

The hebrew hammah, Reverend D. Thunder

it's things like these that

2005-11-21T00:34:00.000-05:00

make me want to cry

make me want to smile

make me want to fight

make me want to sleep

i need to increase my sample size.

2005-11-15T16:45:00.000-05:00

walking back to my lab just now i was passed by two security guards and an OPP Officer. They were escorting a rolling table with an 8x3x2 rectangle of white cloth atop it. The shadow of a body underneath was unmistakable.

there were 3 other people standing around me at the time. One, a girl probably in her third or fourth year, literally turned and ran away with her hands over her face. Another, an older woman, made the sign of the cross. the third person was a young boy, there with the older woman who presumably was her grandmother - at the very least, the little boy was in her care. He looked at the table, obviously having no idea what it was, tugged on the woman's sleeve, and asked what it was. The woman replied "Nothing, it's just a special table." The little boy seemed confused, but he shrugged it off and went back to playing with the elevator buttons.

Now, i think what the woman said was interesting to me because it clearly captured two different meanings of "Nothing, it's just a special table," but more importantly, that it was directed at a young child.

Quite clearly she knew what it was, and she thought it special enough to make a sign of the cross for whomever it was on that table. I tend to think that all the rationalization of childhood and teenaged violence is a construct of north american ideals. Had she told the boy the truth, i tend to think that he wouldn't have responded negatively. Children are so unaccustomed to being around death and hearing about it that, save for those who have reached a reasonable age, i'm not even sure they understand the concept until it becomes personally relevant, say with the passing of a parent, grandparent or sibling. would it really be so terrible if children knew that bad things happened in the world? maybe the perception of death as unpleasant wouldn't be so widespread if our most impressionable minds realized that there ARE such things that happen in the world, all around us, every day. i'm not suggesting that kids should be bombarded with images of death, misery and war, but the simple truth is that breeding a culture of ignorance with regards to the most inescapable truth facing humanity probably isn't very healthy.

The other interpretation of the woman's statement is that there really was nothing of note in the hallway. There was a table, some cloth maintained in a rectangular shape, and a body - mundane stuff, really.. i doubt very much that this is the way she meant it, but that's definitely how i interpreted it, and i don't think that's a very healthy outlook either. when that boy gets a little older, and he realizes exactly what it means when a body is being transported under a sheet like that, will he interpret that woman's statement as a means of protecting him, or will he interpret it in this second way, that death is the end, and a body's just a body. will he even care? will he remember at all?

i don't know when it became a good idea to hide the truth from kids. i can't help but think that, at some point, most children realize that their parents have been concealing things about life and death and all sorts of things in between from them, and if that IS the case, i guess it shouldn't be a surprise that our cultural views on those issues is less than ideal.

next time i think i'll just play with the elevator buttons. i'm sure that kid's having a lot more fun than i am right now.

stuff tastes different now

2005-11-14T14:24:00.000-05:00

i guess it's time for me to start blogging again. the nucleus of my life has once again slowly shifted places around the world, and lord knows i'm too lazy to keep track of individual addresses.

while i trudge around the city looking for things to snap/write about, satisfy yourself with ........

BUNNIES!

Today i turned 9013 days old.

2005-08-31T14:57:00.000-04:00

funny, i don't feel a day older than 9012.

i start my special day with some tea. in the early morning quiet, the flow of hot tea from a teapot into an eagerly awating mug is like listening to the quiet murmurs of a small stream. for a moment i forget the fact that i'm terribly behind schedule in the lab, that my apartment's a mess, and that i really need to decide what's going to happen with erin. looking around the room i find only loose ends. phone needs to be hooked up on monday. laundry needs to be done. dishes need to be put away. have to decide what to wear. have to vacuum. need to go to school. experiments are waiting. despite the mundanity of these everyday tasks, i feel the familiar weight at the base of my skull, and i crumple to the floor as waves of panic distort and coerce my heartbeat into a rhythm that resembles a tottering newborn's futile efforts to stay upright.

darkness then.

several moments later, eyes blink away the frustration borne of helplessness and clarity takes its place. a renewed sense of purpose replaces despair; muscles and joints creak and pop, forming a rhythm with the quiet gurgle of the relaxation fountain on the window sill as the brain tries to rouse them from their temporary lifelessness. a few shakes of the head tosses the torpor away, and a period of terrifying disorientation is replaced with dizzying awareness; smells and sounds become tangible as the derisive internal chorus returns to silence. the analyzer kicks in, and sanity regains its foothold on the fortress.

like every other time, i pledge not to make the same mistakes twice. to ensure that no matter what, this day and all after it will be different from the last. but the rousing grumble of the last piece of the machine objects. it almost causes a second attack, but this is different. no heavy weight, no headrush; no dizziness, and no queasiness. one blink, and the mind's eye brings with it the realization that i am powerless to prevent this from happening again. my only saving grace is that i haven't eaten, so i only have to suffer through some minor dry heaves.

i think i'll party tonight. you only turn 9013 once.