BH=88 Me=87

Find out how long you are going to live.

personal deadline

I am setting my deadline to be done with my revisions for Friday. Hence, if you read lots of content on this thing this week, call me and tell me to get back to work. I am only allowing 1 email check per hour. And one house cleaning task per day. (Laundry doesn't count).

Kid Does His Vietnam Video Project using 70s Porn (and gets 97%)

This video was for one of his classes in school. All the voices, sound effects and editing are done by him, and the whole video was made using only a 70s porno [it's a clean video, though, safe for work]. Watch until credits, very funny and very creative.



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subscription

yes, you can now subscribe to the ol' blog. blogs are like assholes, everybody has one.
you can also click on the latest news from the NY Times. lucky you!
I recently read a quote by WH Auden, speaking of the rear end, and he said something along the lines of "everyone thinks their own farts smell good." how true, WH, how true.
I also think my own underarms and feet smell good. I guess it's adaptive. speaking of pheromones, something springy is in the air, because the birds and bees are calling me.

woke up early

woke up before my alarm this morning. it is raining lightly. I love getting up before the world does, and feel it is license to do something unproductive. been meaning to scan in some OLD photos. little did I know what a long, strange trip 1995 would be. looks like I am off to a great start. if I hadn't gone where I went, I would be where I am, now.new year's eve 1994 > 1995


not sure why, but we decided we needed hats

my birthday party 1994. dawn and lance


more bday party


kerstin and vivian the cat


seriously oldy. Rhett Miller 1987 at ISAS. we pretty much thought he was James Taylor or I don't know, Paul McCartney.


stew and mere at train station by Sarah Lawrence. stew was seriously tough, then.


dawn at Big Bend 1994


dawn and mere in Gauze. we made bread. tasted good, but did not rise.

there is a big, green blob of rain over us, right now. I am loving the rain, but it is not helping my agora-avoidance. I guess I should refrain from using the term agoraphobia.
got a little work done this weekend. a little napping. ran long yesterday by myself for the first time in a LONG time. Marie is out of town. I listened to NPR. I was EXTREMELY sweaty when I finished; it has been very humid. going to train clients this morning at 8, then start again at 2:45. hopefully 9 - 2:25 will be productive. just have to think about it one tiny step at a time. when I think about "finishing my dissertation," (for the second time) it is too overwhelming, and I feel like taking a nap.
been wearing my mbt shoes I got off ebay. they are neat. and I got them for a bargain.
I was going to swim outside at the J at 9, but with all this rain, I bet the water will be TOO COLD. I like my 81˙ at the TSC. in the fall I guess I will have to get someone to sponsor me so I can join rec sports. yes, I am rambling.

turn off npr

the other day I told Brad I was feeling agoraphobic. (and, I am sure it is not pathlogical, I just sometimes want to be inside and not out amongt 'em, as I like to say.) I am sure he knew what I meant and was just being difficult, but asked what agoraphobic was. that did not make me feel like sharing my innermost thoughts and feelings, so I said it was literally 'fear of the marketplace' - the agora. he said, well, you better turn off npr. why? because marketplace is coming on at 6:30. hilarious, Brad.

socializing

very proud of us for attending at least 20 minutes of the water polo party this evening. we played 4 square. that was about it. you could only hit the ball with one hand. of course.
must have sweat a lot today during our run because I chaffed like an idiot. we both took naps today. I think I have slept at least 12 hours in naps this week. the nap has called, and I have surrendered.

next time

just in case the Spirit of the Universe reads blogs, I would like to come back to earth sometime as:
a) a fast, powerful, male, possibly black, possibly gay, running back who plays 1A high school football (6 man?), then rockets to NCAA Division I success, NFL player for anyone except the Cowboys, and finishes up with a commentator job sitting next to Howie Long.
b) a tiny (under 5'5"), possibly Latina, agile, limber, classically trained professional dancer.
c) a child psychologist.
just wanted to let You know.

trying to do MANOVAs when they were T-tests all along. Ockham's RAZOR. duh!!!

HI

noticed someone from Honolulu looked at the ol' blog. I imagine it was Andrew, the Officer and Gentleman. yes, Brad and I have watched about an hour of the show this season. it is embarassing - for us and the participants.
while walking to my stats appt through the South Mall, I reminisced about making out with LG in the bushes. it was totally PG rated and funny. we just couldn't contain ourselves. and, as I may have mentioned before, in retrospect, it was the first time I became aware I might have problems with emotional intimacy. when he told me he loved me I felt totally freaked out and was not nearly as interested in him as I had been. hm.
it occurs to me when BH dances toward me that I still may have some of said issue, but I have definitely made progress. thank God!
had clients this morning. didn't get too much work done. a little.
ready for dinner!!!!

euphoric recall

I am watching my students go through the end of the year mating dances and thinking it looks like fun. a) it was not fun for me at the time b) it probably looks like more fun than it is, and c) I have a tendency to romanticize things. it's called euphoric recall. it is normal and human to do. and I don't act on it, so that is progress.
BH and I do need a romantic rendez-vous tout de suite, but I don't know what or when.

met with a stats person today. I learned you have to transform scores if distribution is skewed, and there are a bunch of transformations for a bunch of different distributions. interesting. I don't know if I had ever heard about that before. if I have, I don't remember.
now, I am back on a rewriting role. it is TEDIOUS to move and change my beautiful tables and figures. oh, well.

I listened to madamimadam the other day. I think it is a good record - the band, the arrangements, the songs, and the performances. the only thing I don't like are those crizazzy sound efx on broken keys. I didn't like those at the time. too cuckoo. but, other than that, I think it is good. I hadn't listened to it since it came out - SEVEN years ago. wow. time has flown.

there was an article in the Statesman today about foster kids. another prod.

yeah, no big deal

and, $1300 later we are graduating in the summer.
good thing I will be earning the big bucks to coach swim team....
yes, and my money laundering business. don corleone says he'll take good care of us.

we got 2 rose bushes yesterday, and 1 has 4 new blooms on it, already. guess it likes Park Avenue.

un more thing

I just got my new NIDA notes. This abstract is interesting and describes me perfectly (down to my rat brain and facial expressions!!!) FYI the nucleus accumbens is AKA the "pleasure center" of the brain. As far as I recall, it produces dopamine which acts on the VTA, which, in turn, sends signals to the prefrontal cortex. I.e. this activity/food/drug is fun, let's make our initial cognitive appraisal a positive one. Now, let's do it, again.

Drs. Susana Peciña and Kent Berridge of the University of Michigan have traced rats' liking for sweets to a 1-cubic millimeter site in the medial shell of the nucleus accumbens. Using fine-grained brain mapping, the researchers correlated mu-opioid activation of this area [by D-Ala²-N-Me-Phe⁴-Glycol⁵-enkephalin (DAMGO)] with the facial reactions rats exhibit upon receiving infusions of sweet tastes into the mouth. Enhancing mu-opioid activity in this hedonic "hot spot" produced two to four times the number of positive reactions (e.g., licking) to sucrose relative to other regions of the medial shell. Stimulating the hot spot with DAMGO also reduced the rats' negative reactions to a bitter taste by 25 percent. The findings suggest that opioid circuits in the medial shell involved in liking (e.g., positive facial expressions in reaction to a taste) and wanting (e.g., pressing a lever for a substance) are related but not identical, as activating mu-opioid circuits in widely distributed areas of the medial shell increased food intake.
The Journal of Neuroscience 25(50):11777-11786, 2005

finally, courage

After having 2 people's comments since Friday, I finally got the courage to look at them. OMG, it's things I need to leave out, and things I need to change the order of. I found 2 things I actually did WRONG. I can live with that. It is funny, I was dreading it, putting it off, cleaning the house, working in the yard, taking naps, moving my office home, rearranging my home office, thinking how terrible it will be, and it is not a big deal. Cutting and pasting and cutting.
My biceps are still sore from moving boxes on Friday. I still need to move at least a couple more boxes. Hopefully, I will have adapted to that training stimulus by then.
It is raining here and my favorite weather for hunkering down.
Only 2 more days of teaching swimming to college students. I imagine I will cry as I hate all change. I don't actually hate change, I just think I do. Ah, yes, Monsieur Hamlet. I did cry when I left Real to Reel, which I did hate. Weird. I think I also cried when I left Stream, which I also hated even more. Wow, stop the hate. Although, I can now see how the Universe was trying to tell me something...when you hate something, leave! Duh...only took me 6 years to really change. And here I am, parabolically close to finishing, and yet, talking to myself in cyberspace.
Hello, self. Get to work.

ugly baby

being told that I needed to revise my diss is pretty much equal to being told my baby is ugly. I was thinking though, in my dept they say, "your baby is ugly, but we love you." in the other half of my dept they say, "your baby is ugly, and by the way we are selling your baby into slavery." I can see that I did focus on each tree and each nuance of each leaf and didn't describe the forest in general. this does not seem like an egregious error and can be fixed. I can see where I was wrong, but I also think it is a style issue and not an empirical one. as BH said, do whatever they want and don't think about it as an attack. such good and sweet advice.
enjoyed "partying" with Lana and Ernie. we went to Whole Foods last night and Austin Java today. yummmmy. they are cool.
moved most of my office home today. we'll see how that goes. I want a desk and chair from IKEA. to put where, I don't know.

abort

not doing my defense tomorrow as planned. BH has been extremely sweet even before the last- minute postponement. I do not want to be victimized by the thing and realize everyone has these obstacles, some placed sooner rather than later on this path.
yesterday BH said we needed to change our addresses. to what? dr and mr h. so cute.
today, he helped me get very zen about the whole thing. that's neat. I am not going to deny that I am irritated, but, as I said I realize this happens to everyone at some point.
my parents decided to come down anyway. my dad said to "party." that was a good one.
going to be reformatting some things this weekend. I think the main problem was they skimmed it last night, didn't look at the update I sent them, and whatever. I will graduate this summer, and that is not a big deal. I feel a little like I have had a miscarriage and have to tell everyone because I told EVERYONE that I was pregnant. I know it is not even in the same universe as that kind of problem. ohm.

job or not job

"it is not the matter of giving that is in question, but when and how to give. that often makes the difference between failure and sucess.... job or no job- wife or no wife - we simply do not do _____ [whatever it is] so long as we place dependence on other people ahead of dependence on God. burn the idea into the consciousness of every man he can get well regardless of anyone. the only condition is that he trust in God and clean house."
the other one I have been thinking about is, "taking a trip, not taking a trip."
getting REALLY existential. subconsciously freaking out. consciously calm and peaceful. I feel certain on a deep level that if I do the footwork, everything will work out. I also quantified in my mind what I want: to find a job that I feel proud to do, that allows me to make enough money to support my family, that allows us to give money and time away. I know this is what I will find. I don't think God micromanages the job market in Austin, but I also do not think I got here to be dumped into miserable, spiritual self-sufficiency. I don't know why or how God helped me, but I do know that I would not be here were it not for a Power greater than I. it was not working doing it my way. I tried. A LOT.
I am trying to find the balance between acknowledging my unconscious freak-out without dwelling on it. without beating myself up for freaking out, while not denying that I am.
teaching for 4 hours today was exactly what I did not feel like doing, but did make me feel better.
yeah, the pms doesn't help, either. I guess it comes down to mary and isn't that interesting...

No duh

News flash

#1 song in US as illustrated in Venn Diagrams

Mims is hot

Easter according to Bill Hicks

"They [Australians] celebrate Easter the exact same way we do: commemorating the death and resurrection of Jesus by telling our children a giant bunny rabbit … left chocolate eggs in the night. Now, I wonder why we're fucked up as a race. Anybody got any idea? You know, I've read the Bible. I can't find the word "bunny" or "chocolate" anywhere in the fucking book. Where do they come up with this shit? Why not goldfish left Lincoln logs in your sock drawer? As long as you're making shit up, you know, go hog-wild. At least the goldfish with a Lincoln log on its back going across your carpet has some miraculous connotations. [in faux Australian accent] 'Mummy, today I found a Lincoln log in me sock drawer.' 'That's the story of Jesus!'"