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"[...]a vessel cleaving the dungeon of the waves[...]"
You're Love in the Time of Cholera!
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Like Odysseus in a work of Homer, you demonstrate undying loyalty by
sleeping with as many people as you possibly can. But in your heart you never give
consent! This creates a strange quandary of what love really means to you. On the
one hand, you've loved the same person your whole life, but on the other, your actions
barely speak to this fact. Whatever you do, stick to bottled water. The other stuff
could get you killed.
Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.
Never miss a word
You're Infinite Jest!
by David Foster Wallace
While you1 consider yourself2 to be clever,
there are those3 who think you're just full of yourself or, perhaps worse,
playing a joke4 on everyone around you, and yet you are pretty sure that
you really are that brilliant after all, since people would hardly take the time to
get to know you5 if they didn't care very deeply about what you had to
say to them, to wit, about their lives, their hopes, their dreams, their fears, their
drug habits, and of course what videos6 they prefer to watch, since,
after all, your impressive vocabulary and tendency to go on and on7 makes
you seem superior, able to educate them, and really drive a sense of something
ineffable into their measly little skulls while you are not above making a cheap
gag or really going after anyone or anything or telling them about incredible
futures involving tennis, geopolitics, and
1Meaning you personally, not someone like you or your own
personal daddy, for example.
2As well as you can see yourself, which, frankly, may not be that well.
3Though we wouldn't deign to be so peripatetic as to name them here, mind.
4Jokes, though not common in Victorian England, were known to originate
sometime in ancient history, perhaps as early as the time of Babylon, or even before.
It is thought that the history of the joke plays an integral role in the mindset of
the characters depicted here, though you may disagree at this point, in which case I
am facing quite the dilemma in relaying this narrative, no?
5It is rather time consuming, after all.
6Ha!
7and on and on and on...
Take the Book Quiz II
at the Blue Pyramid.
You're The Metamorphosis!
by Franz Kafka
Though you think you're in the midst of a dream, the fact of the
matter is that your life has become a nightmare. The nightmare at first seems
horrific to you, but you are slowly able to adjust to the facts of the matter
and settle down and make do with what you've been given. There are those that
would say you're pointless and absurd, but you're really just trying to
demonstrate that people can (and do) adapt to anything, no matter how absurd
it is. Not that this will really inspire them to change, because they probably
don't understand.
Take the Book Quiz II
at the Blue Pyramid.
About Me
- Σφιγξ
- possesses wholly unmerited academic pretensions; examines love as an entomologist; collects haunted dollshouses; notes the lunar phase as regularly as the temperature; peruses field guides; reads like a serial magazine subscriptionist; functions through coffee and "mood" music; draws to the very corners of the page; takes notes on unlined paper; reads poetry as prayer; observes textual authority with the incredulity of fiction; suppresses the smart-ass answer(s); adapts as well as anyone beseiged by her own bibelots; she is a sensation seeker in spite of all of this.
4 comments:
http://library.wur.nl/wda/dissertations/dis3389.pdf
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7998931.stm
I was going to say that after making the leap from serotonergenic brain system-encoding knockout mice (lacking the alleles produces maternal neglect or aggression), sociobiology can in part explain social cognition and behavior that seeks the phenotypes enacting the gene combinations most like us. It has implications for the immune system and social behavior, from the perspective of psychneuroimmunologists, to seek the mate with traits one is lacking, to form the best composite.
There is Divine orchestration, and not simply probabilistic couplings.
The thought occurs to me this morning that my goals in multiple domains are extremely lofty and specific:
(1) Learn Hebrew and the implications of the writings. Refresh French, German, Italian, Portuguese, for that matter.
(2) Read Mondays, Thursdays, Friday/Saturdays the readings for moral discernment and spiritual elevation.
(3) Keep abreast of contemporary/scientific issues - when the Nature weekly issues pile up I feel like I have failed, but when I sit down and read an article, really read it, it justifies the subscription.
(4) Grow artistically - the Exercise I have on deck requires that I sketch the lineaments while I am packing and straightening this week so that I will have nothing else to preoccupy me to finish it at the beach on the early mornings.
(5) Maintain the agreement/conversation with my best reader - so what is it now? Oracle Night? Libra?
(6) More class this summer -June 25th.
(7) Work overtime to pay off one line item this summer - the night shifts are vacant and beckoning
(8) Retest for the CMC with 59.00/each modules on my weakest areas: murmurs, balloon pumps, filling pressures with a Swan catheter before and after diastole and drug admin. I surprised myself by knowing the trivia from the test bank, like thiocyanate toxicity in nitroprusside dosing >3 mcg/kg/min and av blockade with digoxin toxicity, but I need more fundamental review in instrumentation.
(9) Stay in shape with work on this house, swimming, walking for miles, and ant-like emptying of a storage unit for the last time.
(10) Contribute to the education of my brother's children, who seem to have had an inauspicious start, but I forget that one completed kindergarten at five due to her late August birthday, and the other was a premie turning three this June. My autumn mindset with its timebound obligations fails to take into account their summer dispositions. They are where they need to be. More structure, like piano lessons for one, and for the other, group daycare for 4 hours a day/$165 a week pending.
(1) The absorption of the languages is coming along.
(2) I read four verses of Tehillim, the Haftarah, the weekly Parashat and a Hebrew-English translated text every week. I listen to lectures twice weekly. What this means is reading the footnotes. I want to get the whole Mishnah in a volume set; sometime this autumn.
(3) I read the dozen magazines between here and the Stephenson house. Some go to the P.O. box, some go there, and some come here. I am backlogged on the Critical Care Nursing magazine that accompanies my current certification.
(4) Exercise 91 is to be done. I have to struggle successfully with this.
(5) I will continue the conversation with my best reader; the one who matters most.
(6) Class was cancelled this summer. I am taking a computerized accounting class to obtain Quickbooks certification, among other things. I can contemplate the H&R Block tax prep class online, then. Perhaps. I need to keep my analytical mind sharpened like a whetstone.
(7) I have to winterize with painting and house maintenance; working an extra day here and there to pay the current contractor this month and next month.
(8) To be fair, the two online classes for the content areas processed my payment, but I had to request refunds because the classes would not load properly. No excuses, but that was the case in June. I bought some test books, but clearly, this piecemeal approach is not sufficient. I see that I am eligible to retest now. Instead of rushing to reschedule (ideally, before September 30th, which is my evaluation, so I can be compliant with my professional goal), I wait until the end of the month.
(9) My physical fitness is not a problem. I consider my level of fitness and endurance above-average compared to my peers.
(10). My brother's children are coming along even despite their parents.
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