poufy, puffy, displeasure

I realized today why exactly I hate winter. Its not just because it is cold. Its not just because it is bleak or because its dark. Its not just because I want to stay inside all day under the covers eating brownies.

It is because I hate *hate* having reduced manual dexterity because of winter gloves and I hate *hate* having a compromised range of motion because I am wearing a puffy down coat. And I hate other people wearing puffy down coats, they take up more room on the bus. I am always slowly swishing by someone and we are touching each other, but neither of us feel it that much. This dull sense of the space you take up sets in. I like to know how far I extend in every direction and I like others to know how far they extend too.

I want to be streamlined AND warm, is that too much to ask?

PS-did I mention the static? my hair waves in front of my face like a devilish invisible someone is tickling my nose with a feather to watch me suffer ever so slightly more. its the cherry on top of the sundae of my discontent.

Dr. Little Miss Queen of Darkness

Since I am experimenting with being a scientist lately, I feel like I am on the verge of becoming square. Some people think that because I am getting my PhD that I must be a good student. But I am really not, and I never was. I burned my report card in our driveway once, I remember my heart sinking in fear and sadness a bit when I saw the flame eat up my mediocrity. And feeling even worse when the report card was gone, but I still felt like a loser. And another year I meticlously cut out all the C’s, it created a swiss-cheese effect. I missed school many many many times-especially in 4th grade, due to “sickness”, that was brought on by I-didnt-do-my-homework anxiety. And then of course there was the time I climbed the Japanese maple tree in our front yard to escape having to get on the school bus to kindergarden. It worked.

Highschool was just a mess, over-fucking-flowing with bad feelings about school. Kicked out of honors freshman year, never to live it down to this damn day. Harassing the nun who taught us French. Every time she turned her back to write on the board-we moved our desks up just a bit-every-time-she-turned-around until we were right up on her and she was freaking out. I never really cheated or did drugs or anything like that-but I acted like I was bad ass and pissed off enough to do so. I think I drew on my sneakers once. I identified with Holden Caulfield, even though I probably never really finished reading the book.

And then of course there was Art School.

So now I am back in school, by some strange fluke of adult onset academic goodness. And I am feeling a bit like a Pollyanna, which I am not. I feel like I should get a tattoo or start smoking and wearing darker eyeliner and maybe become a self-loathing alcoholic. I think my voice should be raspier to reflect some kind of worldliness and experience in badness. I realized the other day that I still love the people who are super-smart, but who dont conform to what school has to give and who are, because they have some kind of advanced crazy mind, dark and brooding and screwed up. I still love people who are the most clever in a conversation but who get horrible grades. I like the tragedy of it and I love that song Little Miss Queen of Darkness because I imagine that they are talking about me, but I guess it will be Dr. Little Miss Queen of Darkness soon.

Welcome Back!

Scientists believed these tiny primates, Tarsius pumilus (or Pygmy Tarsiers) weighing less than two ounces, were extinct until researchers recently found some in the mountaintop forests of Indonesia!

I Want to Want

Nirvana is the supreme state free from suffering and individual existence, it is a state of wanting nothing. This is the ultimate goal for Buddhists, and I have finally made up my mind about what I think of this.

Have you ever wanted to be liberated from wanting something, either by getting it, or by just not wanting it anymore? and what about the four freedoms? what about freedom from want? I understand that the {freedom from want} is advantageous because the goal is to get.

But, I think wanting is action. Wanting is change. Wanting is innovation. Wanting is also the very first step in getting. In getting all sorts of good attainable things like grilled cheese and love.

So, I dont think you can reach enlightenment by not wanting. This is not to promote greed, you will probably never get all you want anyway. But I think that to want is to be alive. I want to want. Want is hope.

Beginning to see the light

Last night I couldnt sleep and of course that led me to lying in bed thinking about everything, ever. I realized something big about my brain and how it works. This is one of the interesting parts about being a student again, I am revisiting all of my old academic weaknesses (and there are many) with an adult perspective and slightly less drama.

I have realized that things upstairs work a little different for me than for most. For example, when I read something it never really speaks loudly to me, its just an unconvincing whisper. But when I see something then it makes almost instant sense to me, and hearing it is an extra bonus.

All these years I knew I was a {visual person}, but I think there are different types of visual people. There are people who can picture something in their head and then either draw it, or just understand it in a three dimensional way. I cannot do this. I cannot draw something from my head. In fact, one of my problems with math is that there is no inner image in my head of the calculations, there is tumble-weed wobbling by, but no numbers interacting, no gears, just utter blankness. But if I draw it out (or count on my fingers without anyone noticing) I can understand it much, much better.

So, my conclusion is that the reason why I am a visual person is not because I have some advanced visual mind, its because I have a mind that cannot picture things...so I need to see them. Shhhh.

{I am so glad that stupid ass is out the house} -spoken by a homeless man eating Chinese food on the 7 train tonight, regarding President Bush, of course. I chuckled on and off all the way home.

And above is a brilliant and beautiful illustration from the cover of The New Yorker, by Bob Staake.

Stuffed Animals

Tomorrow I am going to the museum again. Its a certain natural history museum that I have spent hours dreaming in as a visitor with my torn admission ticket shoved in the pocket of my pilled green fleece jacket. Hours marveling at the hall of biodiversity in all of its successive pinned butterfly loveliness, hours trying to stare deeply into the stiff and creepy glass eyes of a stuffed mammal, hours being drowned by the natural world and loving it. But I am not a visitor anymore.

I was in the mammals collection last week. Big metal cabinets were unlocked for me and inside of them were shallow and wide flat file shelves with tiny manila boxes on them. On the boxes were tags that read: Museum of Natural History with the species name written on them in perfect pencil script, the date they were collected, and where. Inside of the boxes were bones, skulls of primates, teeth of primates, fingers and toes and you name it. Also on the shelves were the stuffed animals, many of them. There was absolutely no one around, just me, the metal cabinets, the bones, the dust and the furry adorable has-beens all lined up like dead soilders in the drawer.

There was natural light coming through the window and onto the wide marble sill just like you would expect it to look inside of that museum, it was around 11am and the room was romantically dim. I had a cold and I was hungry and didnt want to make too much noise rattling opening the cabinets, so I didnt really enjoy myself as much as I think I did. But I am going back tomorrow, without my admission ticket and with a clearer head.