Glow-in-the-Dark Cats

Scientists at the Gyeongsang National University in South Korea have cloned cats that have the ability to glow-in-the dark when exposed to ultraviolet light. By inserting a virus into the skin cells of a mother cat and placing those contaminated cells into the womb, scientists were able to prove that it was possible to clone an animal with a manipulated gene. Apparently, this development could allow for a better understanding of human genetic diseases in the future. But what about the benefits of glowing cats?

If you ask me, cats that could truly glow-in-the-dark would make for an unique and styilsh night-light. And, much like the new Litrospheres, they last for about 12 years. The only downside is that the latter requires no power source while cats require a steady diet. Still, the crazy cat lady down the street could have the most power efficient house in town. [InventorSpot]

Squirrely Behavior

On Sunday, while immersed in a discussion as to the necessity of wearing a full rubber suit in the cactus garden if we were going to dress as Martians and trip on mushrooms, I noticed two squirrels fighting rigorously.

Afraid the smaller's poor tufted head was going to be veritably torn off in the raucous fray, I approached, only to turn my head modestly aside upon realizing they were making love.

Fighting is so akin to fucking, sometimes it's hard to tell the difference.

There really is a thin line between love and hate.

PS I was at the Huntington Garden's cactus section (the largest of its kind in North America, and filled with creatures that resemble pincushion practical jokes and the Little Shop of Horrors - SHOUT OUT! - a play my fantastic friend Ruth did red lip-sticked, high-school hips-swaying backup singer utter justice to as a petulant youth).

Mom's Breakfast Casserole

My mom - a dubious chef at best - used to to make a scrambled egg/sausage oven-baked concoction to impress overnight guests.

It was good, in that Wal-Mart solid, Betty Crocker spongy kinda way. The warms wafts of mystery meat and over-cooked egg were rare enough that they always signaled a kind of eventfullness, and at their savory best, holiday cheer.

She was so cute for always pulling that trusty 'guests are here' recipe out of her little olive-green recipe card box.

I'm gonna call her and tell her I love her today.

happy birthday to my brother Eric! he's 25 already. holy-moly.

let's check out the origins of this phrase i've always found annoying.

HOLY MOLY

from http://www.BulbSociety.com we find that according to the ancient Greek poet Homer, the magical properties of Allium moly allowed Ulysses to enter unharmed the lair of the sorceress Circe. Southern European folklore regards the plant as good luck and a protection against demons. Allium moly is an ornamental allium, or flowering onion. It is a close relative of the famous edible alliums: Allium sativum (garlic) and Allium cepa (the common cooking onion).

Garlic reportedly gave strength to the pyramid builders and courage to the Roman legions. Medicinally, it has served as a popular remedy for colds, sore throats and coughs; physicians and herbalists prescribed garlic as a diuretic and for intestinal disorders and rheumatism; and people ate garlic daily as protection against plagues, disease and, of course, creatures of darkness. Early American colonists relied on the plant to treat a variety of medical problems, while later settlers strapped garlic cloves to the feet of smallpox victims hoping to cure them.

Onions also have been used medicinally for centuries. In the Middle Ages the onion was used as a charm against evil spirits, the plague and infection. The onion was a favorite spring food of American Indians, providing a frontiersman with a good nose a telltale means of locating an Indian encampment.

xmas presence

What is up with this eternal state of discontent and why do I insist on existing in it? I've noticed that no matter how I change up my life, that gnawing, under-satisfied sense of urgency always comes back as soon as I settle into the newest change.
Reprogramming this mindset, this ego, this melodrama that controls me is my primary interest and concern.
I won't let it rest, or relent to indulge when I think I can't fight it anymore. I have no choice. This is my life, and I have the free will to exist in this primal neediness, or experience life the way it can be, free of expectations and fully in the moment.
For me, the only choice is the latter.
I'm on a journey with myself. The outside doesn't matter anymore; not the way it once did.
What matters is learning to be fully present, with me, in every moment.

blind survival

in the soft dark, when the cars are finally still, and I am lying on my mattress under the skylight, i can hear the rumble of the ocean and the waves breaking on the sand.

last night, sleeping cozily in the nude under my feather blanket, i awoke suddenly, with the realization that were a tidal wave to hit and were i to survive, i would land somewhere naked and blind (well, negative 6 in both eyes).

i then began to seriously question why i didn't have a backup bag - contacts, old glasses, t-shirt, underwear, nalgene bottle, rope of course, for tying the unknown necessity - lying handily near for optimal grabbing as the unknown disaster struck.

give me a couple years, and i'm going to be one of those mamas in the mountains living under a rock in a buried bus.

4 seagulls on my Morning Run

They were perched on the concrete, sunlit and unruffled, one to a parking spot, in a perfect line of four.

And there was the mini-thanksgiving-turkey like skeleton of one of their own, in the foreground, picked as clean as could be.

hate when that happens

i sat down to write this morning, and all that came out was:

"All those ideas in the middle of the night:

What were they?"

oh wait

shit!

happy birthday to me!

yay!

27 on the 17th in 2007. need i mention 7, 17, and 27 are my lucky numbers? oh the pressure. this year BETTER rule or um, numerology isn't true.

just hanging on to this as i edit my website.

I am passionate about writing. In my stories I try to pull the curtain back and show what goes on behind the scenes of alternate realities most people can only imagine. 

We live in a fast and furious society where things change as fast as we become accustomed to them. I seek to give the small moments within this momentous existence the meaning and clarity - and humor - they deserve. 

I believe we should all live fully in each moment with few expectations. I believe in getting involved.  Life is too short, and it's happening all around us. Take a deep breath, and dive in.

Tears and Cheerios

It's not that easy to swallow
the most important meal of the day
When you're losing
the most important
somebody
supposedly
someday

new and improved marches forth

da da da duuuh.

here's my new insights on how i can still be me, only better!

-think before i open my mouth
-when i do open it, keep what comes out simple and honest
-count my blessings
-let it go. just let it go. it doesn't have to be navigated.

whew! even contemplating following this is a load off of life.

An Exercise in Honesty

Well, I'm back. It's been a long time since I've felt comfortable posting anything on here but emotionally ambiguous exercises in creative showmanship.

it's time to just start writing again. Spilling my guts. Keeping it real. Getting back to me, a concept which i write with hot flashes of fear and loathing about just what that has become. There's the real me. The spunky, sunshiny, in-your-face with ideas and always ready for an intellectual debate, single me. Then there's the I'm-trying-real-hard-here, sweet, submissive relationship me. The whoa-I-didn't-know-that-side-came-out-when-I'm-in-love-pretend-you-didn't-see-that me. Then there's the I'm-bad-cause-you-say-so-and-I'll-try-harder-I'm-sorry-me. Then there's the I'd-just-shut-up-and-be-what-you-want-if-I-could-just-keep-up-with-what-that-is me.

That's a lot of strung-together me's. The first is mostly happy, but lonely. The next is a place I'd like to be more often, and after that's a creature I'm glad to have the chance to nip and tuck. The rest are mostly sad but held at night. Either way, looks like I get about 50-50 across the emotional spectrum, which is at least a comforting thought to buoy my sinking self esteem with.

I'm trying real hard these days to combine the asserted and accused above me's into a hybrid forcefield of pleasure-making for the one who so demands it. My boyfriend.

My world. Rapidly becoming my universe. My everything.

The one for whom no amount of effort is ever quite good enough.

this is my life

sipping watery kona coffee, gnawing sugared, dried mango slices, listening to a very sad-sounding woman for Telefon Tel Aviv croon, 'life is beautiful.'

it's almost noon on a friday, and i just got up. because i was physically coaxed and mentally twisted into a too-long dream about the church i grew up in, the cult i am betraying as my book goes out to publishers even as i type.

and so i dream, with guilt and nostalgia, of the religious fundamentalists that betrayed me, too.

of course it begins with my mom, my bitter, conflicted, sweet mom. who coaxes me out the door and into her car, and before you know it, we're sitting in the old church driveway and she's pattering on about her thoughts and worries and old angsts.

i wander away from her, as she finds sister cheryl to talk to, and, in the back foyer of the old building which spills into the small soccer yard, find myself bombarded with gap-toothed grins, cherubic arms, and little bodies kicking in one-pieces. there are fresh-smelling, softly safe babies, EVERYWHERE. someone keeps opening the back door to the meeting hall and shoving them out.

a few of their older sisters, no older than eight though, their dresses long and respectful, follow them around. i avoid their eye contact and pretend we don't see each other. maybe they won't tell anyone i'm here. maybe brother gary doesn't have to know, doesn't have to come out gently firm, and tell me i am not welcome.
i glance down, glad suddenly to realize i am wearing a skirt, even though i'm still in my bedroom slippers, too.

damn you, mom! where are you? let's get out of here! i go to look for her, and before you know it, i'm back to acting like old heidi.

i'm running around the meeting hall, being chased by a little boy with a water bottle, shrieking and laughing, and 'not caring,' aka, hoping for some perverse reason that the meeting hall inhabitants will notice, that i am here, i am not following the rules, and i am creating a commotion.

i glance in, quickly, as i round a corner by a side door, and sarah quesnel is setting something down on a front table. pretty, perfect, painfully snotty, robotic sarah does not look at me. just like old times.

and then i wake up. and feel guilty. just like she'd want me to.

and for no apparent reason, except that perhaps my dream was playing a background soundtrack, a bible verse is sternly repeating over and over in my mind:

"you cannot serve two masters. for either you will love the one, and hate the other."

suh-weeeeet.

i remember

as i get older it seems the brain that is my computer - or is it the computer that is my brain? - gets shorter on storage. everything starts to scramble and popup at the most random times.

right now, as i'm trying to do data entry at my parttime job as an assistant, i am bombarded with distracting, almost tangible memories of a museum i visited in my childhood.

the oak trees along the shaded concrete path are thick, the woods beyond so dense that it feels almost like nighttime as i stand near a small driving bridge. the water is rushing and bubbling beneath. it feels like rain.
there is a loghouse museum here, an homage to the olden-days that i always found so magical. there's a gigantic dollhouse divided from my eager fingers by thick glass. it's still decorated in the 1850's style from when it was first filled with intricately designed furniture and props, perhaps by a little girl my age.
there's a sparkling train set, as broad, old-fashioned and intricate as the Ghostbusters trainset in the attic.
i am moving through the the musty dampness towards the vanilla warmth and buttery staleness of the ice cream parlor in the next room. I am looking forward to a bag of popcorn in a red and white striped bag. I can still feel the moist chill of the trees outside, on my forearms.
it's as if i'm there.

random, graphic moments such as these, from a long-forgotten time, have been popping up in my consciousness with all too much regularity these days. this brain-computer seems to be firing at random, digging up files i didn't even know still existed.

We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives. -toni morrison

well no wonder i'm feeling shitty

my new year's goals are set pretty damn high.

i'm in the process of waiting for publishers to call me back with, 'i love your book and want to give you six figures tomorrow!' so far, no one has even called with the first half of that statement.

i am, accordingly, freaking the fuck out.

i think the lesson here is that one must be patient and remember one's former way of living, which was, 'in the moment with no expectations.'

maybe i'll new year's resolve next year to be more the way i was when i was 22.

am i moving forward or backward?

well, my personal goals seem to be moving forward, which is YAY YAY YAY!

New Year's Resolutions

Work Goals for 2007:

1. Get a 2-book publishing deal. (preferably 3)
2. Invest the book advance in real estate.
3. Write my second book.
4. Complete my first screenplay.

Personal Goals:

1. Not be scared to love. Open up to my feelings.
2. Build a happy, healthy relationship.
3. Build friendships based on fun and maturity not co-dependence.
4. Build family relationships based on equality instead of parental roles.
5. Continue therapy.

Travel Goals:

1. Go to Austria.
2. Go to Croatia.
3. Go to Peru.


Longterm Goals:

1. Be a bestselling author and screenwriter.
2. Get paid to write and travel.
3. Have kids. (and a loving husband...if possible...)
4. Get involved in microfinance in developing countries.

To all the writers out there (even tho no one reads this but me)

from a column on salon.com:

Of course, like many other writers, I hate myself. I just fucking hate myself. I hate my writing. I hate my writing. I hate my writing. I hate my fucking voice in my head. I hate all the voices in my head. I wish for nothing so much as silence and contentment, but I have to keep talking because I believe if I keep talking I stay alive. If I stop talking, I die. That's how it is. So I hate my fucking self, but I can't stop talking and I can't stop writing and I can't stop these fucking voices from rehashing funerals from my childhood and visions of Christmas dinners, because I think if it stops I'm a dead man. It's all in there all the time hashing itself out. It's a life form. Language is a life form. Language, speech, imagination, it's a parasitic life form that burrows in and takes over.

And of course when I look at what I've written, I hate it. It's a bunch of fucking garbage! So what's new? Am I the only fucking writer who hates himself and hates his writing? Hell no. It's a sport. It's a national anthem. It's a way of life.

It's our way of life.

2007

It's a New Year.

It's gonna be good.

That familliar sense of adrenaline-pumped risk taking is coursing thru my veins,

this time with a crystal clear sense of calm.

i'm comin to getcha world,

and we're gonna catch in midair for a slow spin.

All will be well.

I'm less scared every day, and that's the best feeling I've ever felt.