The Isle of Marm

It is actually an S.O.P. to sing the entirety of “Killing...

Wed, 22 May 2013 15:19:06 -0400

It is actually an S.O.P. to sing the entirety of “Killing Me Softly” while washing hands. I won’t judge you too harshly if you go with the Roberta Flack version, but I find that more aggressive lathering can be achieved with the Fugees’ version. “Strumming my pain” and “Scrubbing my hands” are fungible.

The eyes to see something: I JUST realized I’ve been looking at...

Tue, 21 May 2013 17:30:04 -0400

The eyes to see something:
I JUST realized I’ve been looking at pictures of my own brain in reverse for years. Because the little bloop on the one at 9’o’clock? That’s vitamin E taped to the LEFT side of my head.

Because I could pick up a pen and write—almost equally awkwardly—with both hands, the difference between left and right only finally sort of took when I started driving. Which was later than it should’ve been. I still sometimes look for the freckle, which was like a 1 pixel cheat sheet for handedness, and which sometimes didn’t work if I forgot which freckle was the one to look for, OR if I had spent any measurable amount of time outside, OR I couldn’t remember if I was supposed to think fReckle or freckLe. Regardless, this is one of those weird situations where because you are looking at a slice, discerning Up and Down is trickier. If the bloop is on the LEFT than all these are on the other side of the mirror.

I should probably sleep on my right, so that one ear matches his brother, but I think that might require inverting my whole room.

"It was in that moment, in the middle of contemplating how crazy useful it would be to have vice..."

Mon, 20 May 2013 17:40:00 -0400

“It was in that moment, in the middle of contemplating how crazy useful it would be to have vice grips as hands, that she suddenly flashed on exactly how long it had been since there she had—shit—even been held by dude. It had been a while, though as she did a reverse chronology memory scan of her highlight reel of the last decade, not actually as long ago as the first sense memory to bubble up. (Though that first memory was a doozy.) Slightly relieved that more than one dude had ever been able to put up with her own slippery vices, she decided that maybe just making sure that there were always 2 pairs of vice grips around the lab would be a more flexible option than actual prosthetics.”

Tingling?!? Buddy, I think we both know what stink lines look...

Sun, 19 May 2013 16:28:33 -0400

Tingling?!?
Buddy, I think we both know what stink lines look like. I’m done with this day.
Let’s get home and take a bath.

I bought and assembled a chair! Those of you who know of—or...

Sun, 19 May 2013 12:12:54 -0400

I bought and assembled a chair!

Those of you who know of—or have, through cohabitation, *endured*—my opinions about (1.) buying stuff, (2.) furnishings as anchors , and (3.) good sits (from the mightiest pharoah to the lowliest peasant…) may understand that it is kind of a big deal. Also, it kinda brings the map room together in a way the Switzerland of balls had not.

It’s an approximation of my favorite rocking bench—ca. 2001—outside of what was the Cornell Physical Sciences library. I have been and ever will be a rocker. Any precession, really. Per the dialogues of Catwoman and Phaedrus,

“The soul is always in motion,
now so am I.”.
(It scans better in Greek.)

As bad as I am at publicly ranking anything, I will tell you...

Sat, 18 May 2013 12:00:01 -0400

As bad as I am at publicly ranking anything, I will tell you this:

Of all the depictions of scientists on TV, I think Phil and Lem were maybe my favorites. Better Off Ted was a show ahead of its time. And I reblorg this—and I almost never utilize that button—having already had a bit of a good cry in lab this morning.

“Vocalists also tend to throw in a single, repeated...

Fri, 17 May 2013 16:55:00 -0400

“Vocalists also tend to throw in a single, repeated statement throughout the breakdown, giving those who are not dancing or moshing an opportunity to sing along.

The drums are usually simple, with a four quarter-note ride pattern with the snare on the third beat. Most commonly, the drummer plays quarter notes on the crash cymbal or china cymbal. Sometimes though, eighth notes are used. In some breakdowns where a very slow tempo is used, the drummer will play half notes, to give the music a very heavy, slow feel. The drummer usually follows the rhythm, or “chugs” of the guitar on the kick drum. In most cases, the drummer will use a double-bass drum or double-bass pedal to complement the “chugs” of the guitars. The guitars play a set of rhythmically oriented riffs, usually on open strings so as to achieve the lowest and heaviest sound for which the guitars are tuned, so the dancers in the audience can respond effectively. Sometimes, these are contrasted with either dissonant chords, such as minor 2nd intervals, tritones (flatted 5ths), or pinch harmonics.

In punk rock, breakdowns tend to be more upbeat…”

In the vast expanse of networked global telecommunications...

Fri, 17 May 2013 12:36:00 -0400

In the vast expanse of networked global telecommunications space, there persists an awkwardly chirped soundbite of a ~5 years younger version of myself on Headline News saying, “Oh, you know, a lot of science is just sorta sitting still and waiting: so, uh…”

I have found this preamble can justify a panoply of weirdnesses*.
(54 is a pseudoperfect number of hours though, it’s not weird.)

*Or at least activities that can be done with a non-otherwise engaged half of a brain.

Awkward Adventures in Time: Labor 4

Thu, 16 May 2013 19:05:00 -0400

Awkward Adventures in Time: Labor 4:

It is an intensely weird moment when one finds that one’s past is suddenly a plot point on TV. At the ‘view, the man in the wall was actually a possum in the wall downstairs, who we did not find out about until he died and then we had a whole bunch of really well fed flies appearing from nowhere and even now, years later, that thought induces a little bit of retching. I always knew we had squirrels in the wall—I’d hear them in the night and not sleep for days at a time—but the possums and corpses were a scarier development.

Which I may have glossed over before other people moved in. (Sorry CMC!)

I only just now learned on a podcast that the alarm clock as multiverse traversing trope was an unintentionally shared motif too. Awkward.

Every once in a while I will be going about my business, (which...

Thu, 16 May 2013 13:00:09 -0400

Every once in a while I will be going about my business, (which on this day was literally looking for supplies at an AutoZone to fix an instrument I use to cut up brains, because some days *that’s* what I do) and suddenly find myself thinking:

*Did* Adam end up fixing his mirror?

Because those were not pulled into iTunes as podcasts, sometimes those’ll suddenly play while I’m in listening to music in the the shower and those are the best showers.

Today I was asked both “So, is this your first baseball...

Wed, 15 May 2013 17:22:00 -0400

Today I was asked both
“So, is this your first baseball game?”
and
“Have you ever ridden a camel?”

and the answers were
“Of course not!”
and
“Of course!”,
respectively,

so I guess I can’t get too prickly about it.

I had one of those intensely effective days which, in...

Tue, 14 May 2013 21:17:18 -0400

I had one of those intensely effective days which, in conjunction with yesterday and the meeting on schedule for tomorrow, puts me on par to finish a fiscal quarter’s worth of work over the course of a week. I would have posted about my multiple midday successes, but I got pulled into a meeting. After that and then crushing some more work, I was going to get myself cheesecake for dinner, but on the way Tom Petty came on the radio¹ (…and the place I was gonna get it was closed) so Cheesecake flavored Jell-o will have to be considered “suitable”.

¹ A weird tic developed upon moving to TN: Whenever I hear Tom Petty, I am immediately put on guard against imminent abduction with thoughts of Jodie Foster saying “Was she…a large girl?”. It makes me …mindful.

(…I’m not small, but I’d make a terrible skin suit.)

It’s a tiny bummer because, though I left TN, the tic has lingered and I do enjoy the Heartbreakers et al. Anyhow, jello for dinner because I’m amazingly talented, you guys.

“oh no, Promotheus!” I still weep laugh about this at a regular...

Sun, 12 May 2013 19:41:54 -0400

“oh no, Promotheus!”

I still weep laugh about this at a regular frequency.

He’s legendary.

Sun, 12 May 2013 15:45:25 -0400

He’s legendary.

That this vehicle was neither driven by dog nor man dressed as...

Fri, 10 May 2013 13:41:35 -0400

That this vehicle was neither driven by dog *nor* man dressed as dog will hopefully remain in my top 5 disappointments of the day.

It dawned on me earlier that in the 10-15 some years that they...

Fri, 10 May 2013 11:39:21 -0400

It dawned on me earlier that in the 10-15 some years that they lived across the street (before she got the job at our school, though, if memory serves, even after she got that job), Mrs. Benjamin vacuumed their carpets *every morning* without a robot.

Admittedly, her children were the Rod and Todd Flanders to the gifted hellions that my brothers and I (and later, also my sister,) were; they were white carpets and a commodore 64 and frozen banana “popsicle” kinds of low mess kids; we were brown carpets and Apple ][E and artificial grape flavor stains on everything kinds of kids.

I find myself wondering how my former janitor pal’s venture is going. I had shared a fortune cookie with him on his penultimate day at my building that luckily implied (weirdly specifically, as that batch was inclined to prognosticate) imminent “success with a new business”. And I write “luckily” with an implicit “for me” because imagine if I offered, he accepted, and then the cookie gave him BAD news.

I’d consider hunting him down, but I have no need for his services as my carpets are maintained by a robot butler, as I had anticipated the late 90s. So, finding him might lead to briefly sated curiosity, but would not be particularly helpful. ¿Maybe?

There are a panoply of dangers inherent to sharing the future.

I don’t know how this song had gotten stuck in my head the other...

Thu, 09 May 2013 15:58:56 -0400

I don’t know how this song had gotten stuck in my head the other day, but listening to it in lab ~a couple shy of a hundred times has helped. It does a weird thing with switching from left speaker to right speaker that normally I’m okay with but continuing to listen to without the speakers external to me kind of stresses me out in office/headphones mode.

Trading up from Diaper Genies to Vortex Genies does little to...

Wed, 08 May 2013 10:54:55 -0400

Trading up from Diaper Genies to Vortex Genies does little to ameliorate my troubled thoughts regarding the abuse of Jinn in contemporary society.

Let them take what crumbs they can find, for there are no...

Tue, 07 May 2013 09:30:00 -0400

Let them take what crumbs they can find, for there are no crumbs.
Nnnooo Crrummmbs! in Newark.

This was excellent counterpoint to a weekend of awkward interactions with the prelingual, whereupon I found myself relearning caretaking beyond the ever useful

“Why are you screaming?!?
Stop screaming!”

"I can tell I spent more than enough time outside this weekend because I apparently look swarthy..."

Mon, 06 May 2013 23:43:59 -0400

“I can tell I spent more than enough time outside this weekend because I apparently look swarthy enough for elderly Spanish women to ask me if I speak Spanish (enough) and what gate does their ticket say they are assigned (Pasco, WA was only just assigned to gate 35), and *am I busy*—or could I help them get there.”

- I got them onto the transfer shuttle, I do not have the skills to fly a plane. I also briefly paused to remember that “occupada” was not the false cognate for “pregnant”, which was a quick self-esteem check.

Though SFO has a bigger complement of agents; and I split my travels from this coast enough between SFO, OAK, and SJO; I believe I *have* gotten to second with Miss Rosefa Torres before. It’s a memorable enough name.

Also in the security line was a guy with a comically vast array of weird items in his carry-on who looked as if he WANTED to get pulled out of line so he could make a speech about, I don’t know…diversity. (He was Red-Irish* and was glumly putting his laptop/batteries back on top of the 14 prescription drug bottles and 3 books about Islam and the newspaper from Cairo, and the child sized galabiya, and so on, as Torres was not so subtly reaching into the final frontier that is in my pants.)

The guy who drove me to the airport was the nephew of a professor in whose periphery I have been for some 13 years.

These are the voyages.

*Red Irish is one of my favorite JackDonaghyisms, distinguishing Irishness as regards its Red and Black-haired manifestations. I believe he prepended it to “bastard”, but I have no beef with the security line crusader: I just take notes.

While one must ask this question carefully and at the right time, the payoff is great: The S.A.F.E. S.K.I.E.S. on T.S.A. badges is an acronym more secret and contrived than S.H.I.E.L.D. —amazing.

The Isle of Marm

It is actually an S.O.P. to sing the entirety of “Killing...

The eyes to see something: I JUST realized I’ve been looking at...

"It was in that moment, in the middle of contemplating how crazy useful it would be to have vice..."

Tingling?!? Buddy, I think we both know what stink lines look...

I bought and assembled a chair! Those of you who know of—or...

As bad as I am at publicly ranking anything, I will tell you...

“Vocalists also tend to throw in a single, repeated...

In the vast expanse of networked global telecommunications...

Awkward Adventures in Time: Labor 4

Every once in a while I will be going about my business, (which...

Today I was asked both “So, is this your first baseball...

I had one of those intensely effective days which, in...

“oh no, Promotheus!” I still weep laugh about this at a regular...

He’s legendary.

That this vehicle was neither driven by dog *nor* man dressed as...

It dawned on me earlier that in the 10-15 some years that they...

I don’t know how this song had gotten stuck in my head the other...

Trading up from Diaper Genies to Vortex Genies does little to...

Let them take what crumbs they can find, for there are no...

"I can tell I spent more than enough time outside this weekend because I apparently look swarthy..."

That this vehicle was neither driven by dog nor man dressed as...