Month: October 2007

Last night I didn’t feel like reading or watching TV so I was browsing photographs on Flickr. I just cannot freaking believe how many mind-blowingly talented people there are in the world, and this was just one infinitesimally small piece of it. Just one area where people are talented, and yet there was more than I could ever look at in a lifetime. Seriously, the gorgeousness of some of the photographs, the incredibly sublime beauty and emotion I saw.

This one was uploaded by someone called cherynf. I couldn’t find a complete name. I was searching on “abandoned graves,” thinking I might find a possible cover for my book, although an abandoned grave wouldn’t really be right. Honestly, right now I don’t have a clue what should be on the cover. Not that I really get a say. Actually, I get a say, but it’s the publisher’s call, although usually they don’t want to go with a cover you hate.

I KNOW. I just figured it out! A picture of the Duke Building they used to be in, but taken at night. One, it’s a really beautiful building, two, taken at night it will symbolize that they are not there anymore, but give a slightly haunted feel. It could work! It’s perfect!

Here’s a shot I took, but this was just a quick, uninspired straight on shot. Someone shooting at night for something more atmospheric could certainly get more creative, shoot just one lovely corner, or window, in the moonlight. Maybe even looking out one of the windows.

Here’s the other side, with the statue. This is one of the old photographs I scanned when I went down there. As you can see, there’s a lot to work with here, for someone who is talented.

I saw this on Cute Overload. It was made by Simon Tofield. My cat Buddy does the patting the face thing. When he does it his nails are ever so slightly extended, not enough to pierce the skin but enough to give his pat some bite.

All praise Simon Tofield. Who absolutely must have a cat, this is so true to life (except for the bat, of course).

Four more days of giving him medicine four times a day. I wish I could tell him. Sigh.

I’m actually feeling bad for Watson, who lost his post at Cold Spring Harbor and now will be remembered for his remarks about race as much as his DNA discovery. He’s trying to apologize for them, but there doesn’t seem to be any getting around his implication that blacks are genetically inferior. I did note that he didn’t say better or worse, he just said different, and different is neutral. But then he made that comment about black employees (“people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true,” that we are equal). And saying we are not equal feels less neutral, except that was the reporter paraphrasing so to be fair we should hear the whole thing in context. But he also made that comment about being gloomy about Africa, although I have no idea what he was trying to say, except again it was about not being equal.

It’s upsetting when thinking people think ugly things.

Should I go to the library today? Maybe I should. It looks like a nice day for a walk. It’s probably a three mile walk there and back so I always feel like I got my exercise in for the day when I go to the library. Part of the reason I’m such a walker is because my step-father had terrible terrible problems with his legs, and his doctors always told him walking would help and he just never really took that advice, and suffered greatly as a result.

Just try. I mean come on. Look at this face!! And that is after giving him medicine four times a day. He luuurrrvvves you. You must luuurrrvvve him back.

I was just talking about this on Echo, but someone posted a line-up of Halloween movies and I had this wonderful flashback to a Halloween from my past. I was in high school, and a bunch of us went to a midnight movie double feature. I just flashed on us all sitting up in the balcony screaming, throwing food, laughing. It was just fun in that high-school-act-like-an-idiot and do it very loudly way. One of the movies was The Night of the Living Dead, which I was seeing for the first time. ACK.

This year I will drum in the Village Halloween Parade, as I’ve been doing since I was 40.

But now I’m thinking I’d like to do something afterwards. Rocky Horror on 8th Street would have been perfect, but that theatre closed, what? Ten or more years ago?? Actually, because of the parade that theatre would have been impossible to get to. I have to find something on the west side. The problem is, even if I do find something, all my friends are like me and they are going to want to stay in and hole up on Halloween. I’m not sure anyone is going to be swayed by the “Come on! Let’s go to scary movies and act like assholes! It will be fun! pitch.

Watson, who won the Nobel for discovering the structure of DNA, “said he was ‘inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa’ because ‘all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours – whereas all the testing says not really’.”

“He went on to say he hoped everyone was equal but that ‘people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true.'” How discouraging. Story here.

Although, it was a frequent complaint among the parapsychologists that science shouldn’t block the way of inquiry just because they didn’t like what they found. This is, of course, racism and not science, but I would bet that Watson would make a similar argument. I wonder what he even means. How are we not the same exactly? Sad, sad, sad.

HEY! I just got a coupon for $1,000 off a crypt at St. Joseph’s Mausoleum. First, don’t rush me. And second, I couldn’t possibly care any less about what happens to my body after I’m gone. I checked off the donor thing on my license, made arrangements for my cats, and as far as I’m concerned my job is done. To my family: don’t spend a cent beyond what it costs to cremate me, and there should be enough in my savings to cover that.