11:57 PM
I did not read very much today given the exuberant state of festivities. My cousin and her husband came to my house for dinner, so that was fun. I actually showed them my list to get their opinion. I have a feeling that they didn’t get the whole concept. They are usually very open about gaining knowledge, but they were strangely close minded about which books to read. They did, however, suggest some books to add on to my list such as: Canterbury Tales and Beowulf. I have decided that I will never remove a book from my list. If I try a book and end up hating it, I may not finish it, but I will absolutely start every book on my list. I will only add on to my list.

What I did end up reading today consisted of Darwin addressing the possible difficulties of accepting his theory. The one difficulty that I actually read extensively about was the question pertaining to why there were not any intermediate species present. That is to say, why do species abruptly change from place to place, and not smoothly progress as the climate and environment gradually shifts. The main reason is that when any one species that is particularly better suited to its conditions will tend to exterminate the less well adapted variety.

Darwin also speaks to address the thought that development was dependent on the environment alone. And since the environment changes smoothly, then so should the varieties of a given species. But this is not looking at the whole picture. In general, the surroundings have a great effect, but a more obtrusive cause of distinction is the many other species that live in the various economies of life. This is a topic I may discuss again tomorrow, but for now I bid thee adieu.

As the new year approaches, I have decided to create Fun Fact Fridays, a new fact or myth examined. It’s only fitting that I begin, today of all days, with the biggest myth throughout the ages. What is the REAL meaning of Christmas?

I most likely will anger many devout Christians who believe everything they’re told about this momentous day. I must first put in a disclaimer that I love Christmas, not for its history, but for what it means to me.  Its a time when my family can get together and celebrate the end of another year and rejoice in the endless possibilities of the next to come. I even love most of the music. Hey, Mariah Carey’s Christmas album is still one of my favorite CDs of all time;-)

Every holiday I examine seems to have the same results: it started with a bloody past but, for most people, has now become positive. So, we should never forget the past it comes from, but we must choose to turn it into a meaningful experience for us.

Let’s start with the most asked question concerning Christmas. Was Jesus really born on December 25th? The answer is a resounding NO.

For many who don’t know, including myself, Jews did not celebrate Christmas as Christians see the birth of Jesus. Keeping with Judaism believes that birthdays are not celebrated as it is seen as a pagan tradition. Rather than commemorating his birth, the only commemoration Jesus alluded to concerned his death( you can find this in Luke 22:19). The New Testament made no reference to the birth of Jesus, just his adult baptism.  An ancient document in North Africa estimated his birthday to be March 28th, a bishop in 215 CE, said it was actually November 18th, and yet another historical account places his birthday on September 11, 3 BCE (an ironic date since one of the biggest tragedies in American history happened centuries later on September 11th).

In fact, it wasn’t until hundreds of years after Jesus Christ’s death that accounts of Christmas surfaced.

Through all my research, some of the sites speaking of the origin of Christmas have been harsher than others. Especially if its recounted by a Jew, simply because Christmas represents to them a time when their people were persecuted. One universal truth does stand out among all the information and that is the history of how Christmas came to land on December 25th. You see, as I’ve examined in past holidays, it all began as a pagan tradition (a word that is often misused. I’ll examine the true meaning of pagan next Friday.)

Before the Catholic church set up shop in Rome, the Romans celebrated an infamous holiday called Saturnalia celebrating the Sun God, Saturn. It was a week long event, lasting from December 17-25th and dealt mainly with breaking all the rules of law and integrity. When the Church took over Rome in 4th century CE, they decided to keep Saturnalia so as to keep the masses of people who followed it. To cover the horrific acts of the holiday, they tried to add a veneer of religion by claiming Christ’s birthday. This decision came about since Saturnalia was known as the birthday of the Unconquered Sun. The church used that as a metaphor because Christ was seen as the Unconquered Son.

The problem with this decision was the continued celebration of the holiday as it remained. It was not unheard of to see accounts of property damage, violence, singing naked in the streets( later reformed by the Catholic church in to caroling). There was also instances of human sacrifice, normally slaves or poorer people of the community and general humiliation of certain type of people-namely Jews. In 1466, Pope Paul II forced Jews to run naked through the streets of the city for his own amusement. The Jews were also forced to eat so to make the race more difficult and tiresome. (We all know how some good food can slow us down!) They ran as the Romans taunted them with laughter. Its easy to see why Jews are not very fond of the Catholic Church.

Now, to move past the Jews outrage over Christmas, I also found its origin in cultures throughout Europe. December 25th is the winter solstice, also called Yule, and celebrates the end of an industrial prosperous spring and fall and the changing into a new year and rebirth. It celebrates the god Odin, one of his main symbols being death or the end of a season/year.  This lasted into early January (possibly explaining the celebrations of New Years Eve, as well.) It, obviously, had nothing to do with the birth of Christ. Christmas trees are said to be originated from this since pagans worshiped amongst nature and trees symbolized continuous rebirth.

Not surprisingly, Protestants in Boston banned the observance of Christmas from 1659 to 1681 because they believe it was a Catholic invention and blasphemous to celebrate. Puritans in Europe felt the same way, even though the Catholic church tried to make it more religiously focused in response to the Puritan’s claim. Christmas fell out of favor during the last half of the 18th century during the American Revolution when it was seen as an English Custom. By the 1820s, writers believed Christmas was dying out. Along comes Charles Dickens, the infamous author of The Christmas Carol. A book that revived a new image of Christmas- one of joy, merriment, family, and goodwill. After Dickens, a slew of writers and artists released other Christmas related things: the first Christmas card, cookie, and carols followed over the next few years. By 1870, it was declared an American federal holiday and everyone celebrated the new message.

The most interesting point to note, in my opinion, is the evolution of Santa Claus. We all know the image of him is not real, and I have a real problem with lying to children about a fat man who magically pops into your house, eats your food, leaves toys that you may or may not like, and flies away before you can properly ask for a refund. And who is he to tell you you’ve been bad and don’t deserve any presents? What if you’ve been good all year, but your parents cant afford that bike you want. You write your little note to Santa asking for it and when you don’t get it, you think its because you’ve done something wrong and he doesn’t like you. Seriously, its just a therapy lesson waiting to happen. Anyway, in reality, Saint Nicholas was a real person, a bishop born in Turkey in 270 CE, though he wasn’t sainted until the 19th century.  He died in 345 CE on December 6th, but not before producing a script that called Jews “children of the devil” who put Jesus to death.

Goodness, these Jews had a rough time from Catholics didn’t they?

Followers of Saint Nick spread throughout Northern Europe, adopted by German and Celtic pagans who merged him with their god Woden who had a long beard and rode a horse through the heavens each autumn. When they merged Nick with Woden, they changed the date to winter, grew a beard, rode a flying horse, and put on winter gear. Catholics changed it to have him give out and receive gifts( hence the cookies for Santa every year when you know its your daddy grubbing on sugar cookies and milk) and do it on December 25th to correlate with their theory of Christmas. Now, here comes the funny part of it all. Ever wonder who thought up Santa’s outfit, and how the flying horse turned into reindeer?

None other than Coca Cola for the first and a poet for the second, my friends!

In 1822, Dr. Clement Moore wrote the infamous poem “Twas the night before Christmas” stating that Santa rode in a sleigh with reindeer. An illustrator named Thomas Nast, created pictures of Saint Nick from 1862 to 1886 based on the poem. Nast also gave the whole image of his living at the North Pole with elves and his list of good kids.

Coca Cola completed the image in 1931 when they contracted a Swedish artist Haddon Sundlom to create a coke-drinking Santa. Sundlom modeled it off a friend of his and the company insisted the costume be bright red-the same as the Coca Cola logo.

So there you go, folks. Another holiday down, another unanswered question resolved! As I said in the beginning, no matter how it started or how materialistic it has become, its still a time to celebrate the end of a year and the new beginnings just around the corner. I could repeat that its a time to celebrate family and goodwill towards man and all that but, really, we should be doing that every day right? Not just one day of the year? Well, that’s in an idealistic world. Come New Years day, most Americans are going back to what I like to the “Me” syndrome where the eternal question will be, what does that have to do with me?

Happy Holidays, everyone! Peace on Earth, and all that jazz;-)

11:17 PM
It is now the four week anniversary of my starting this project. And I’m only 170 pages into my first book. Sad.

I finished chapter 5 today, In the end of this chapter Darwin talks about analogous variations that occur in many different species. The case that he chooses to talk about is the appearance of stripes across the legs of different breeds of horses. He contests that this variation is very common across all different varieties. He also speaks of a tendency for varieties of pigeon to have offspring that exhibit the characters of the rock pigeon, which Darwin notes is the common progenitor of the many varieties of pigeon. In relation to the horses, Darwin also notes cases where two very distinct breeds of horse were crossed and the mongrel had exhibited a very noticeable amount of stripes that were very similar to the zebra. This suggests that all modern horse species evolved from a common ancestor and that ancestor had stripes similar to the common zebra.

I have again forgotten to get pictures of my goban.

Tomorrow is christmas.

goodbye.

There’s no easy way to explain how I became what I am … what I feel is my purpose in life. I say it is my purpose not because I believe in destiny or fate, but because the chips have fallen in the manner that the path of writer is the only one laid open for me. I mostly began writing as a way to fill a void that I seemed to have missed while growing up.

I knew at a young age I would become a writer. I became a writer to rebel against the books I had read: the books of fantasy I read as a child that had elves and dwarfs but no Black characters. In all the books I read of fantasy the different races within man were washed away and replaced by different races of humanoids. I wanted to get back at them … and I wanted to tell my story.

My story: yes, I am Black, but people say I do not act like the stereotypical Black person. My characters, though they may or may not be Black, do not act like stereotypical Black people. The issues they face are not Black issues, their attitudes are not Black attitudes; they are just people, like you and I. They become without race by becoming human — just as I have done. I am Black because the world categorizes me as such; but in my writing I evolve into someone else, someone beyond race. I hope one day the world will look at me beyond race. Not because I am ashamed by my race, but because race is placed upon me by others and I prefer to be judged based on my own merit and worthiness.

I do not pull the race card often, and I do not see this as an example of doing so. It is merely the truth. My plot of revenge has been changed into a hobby of passion. I write because it is what I am best at. I write because if I don’t nobody else will be able to tell my story, and the world would suffer — howbeit not greatly — for it.

The story of how I became a writer is not finished. It shall never be finished as long as I am alive. The origin of how I became a writer is a journey that will continue until the day I die. Thank you for taking this step with me.

Read the poem “This Is My Story“

11:46 PM
So I have neglected to take some pictures of my goban. I did not get my stones today either, I SHOULD be getting them tomorrow. That is if USPS can move a package 30 miles in a day. I did manage to find some usable stones, but there was only enough to play on the 9×9 side of the board. 19×19 tomorrow hopefully.

Now to the real reason I am here. This section was about the variability of characteristics that are unique or extraordinary in a given species. Darwin did mention that he was not able to find any evidence of this in plants, but they vary to a large degree anyway. But there are some specific characteristics that vary greatly in a given species. Some of the so called secondary sex characteristics also vary in such a degree. I don’t really feel like writing anymore.

I made caramel.

Origin, about to hit the encyclopedias…

Reading Bogle’s piece yesturday on France, Gojira and “intelligent” writing, I couldn’t help but think “hold on, everyone’s trying to write like they’re intelligent now”, after peeping some Gojira lyrics and finding they meant more or less fuck all to me. The days of straight forward brutality are long gone, as most bands these days seem to choose to write about their poor grasp on science, drown everything in ham fisted cryptic metaphors, or speak out their ill informed opinions on politics. Much like the annoying dorky kid who will tell you at great length about how “metal bears more resemblance to higher music forms like classical music and jazz than standard rock” and other such boring pseudo-revelationary crap, every band now seems to be out to prove how intelligent they are, and shake of the already long shaken off image of “stupid metalheads” (everyone knows that we’re massive geeks and dorks). The result, meaningless lyrics seemingly written by a thesaurus and random number generator.

The point is, it’s hard to really connect with or give a shit about lyrics if they mean nothing more than patting yourself and the collective scene on the back and congratulating everyone on how clever we’re all being. And generally they are actually quite simple cliche meanings such as “everyone in society is a sheep”, or “war is bad”, but dressed up in cryptic bullshit.

A favorite of mine is Origin, death metal probably being the worse culprit of this. They have many choice passages of meaningless, but here’s one of my favorites, from the song “Antithesis“:

Opposite, inversion, polarize, ostracize
Counteract, rise against, oppose all, agonize
Opening our path to ending, contravene in antipathy
Kill to, breed peace, death to, all war
Unordain, opulence, to install, turbulence
Infamous, oration, to dispose, all of us
Confronting our worst enemy, sub-atomic anatomy
Methods, implode, doomsday, explodes

I mean what the fuck is that man!, it’s just words…seriously. What the fuck. This is all completely redundant, plus implode and explode mean the opposite, so having them in the same line, separated only by “doomsday” means even less. Is this thing exploding or imploding!?!? cos it can’t do both! Ok, I’m guessing it’s probably about some kind of nuclear doomsday. Expressing this in a list of words that are kind of peripherally relevant though is not the best means of expression. They do this too in “Ubiquitous“, the entire lyrics of which are pretty much just explaining what the word means, in a similar, dead pan, list like way:

One, in all, things, everywhere
One, presence, exists, omnipresent
Haunt, disturb, dwell, in us all
Look, onward, to, ubiquity

Epoch of all time
Instant judgement finds
Face to face with gods
Everywhere at once

They could have saved a lot of space by just using the last line. After all, that’s pretty much the only really straight to the point bit (yes, that is what ubiquitous means). TBH Origin aren’t the worst or best example, but a favorite, as everyone seems to love them about now, just peep the lyrics of any recent death metal band and you’ll find something similar.

This becomes particularly hilarious when the people writing aren’t actually that clever, see the much mocked (and rather dated) “Droid Sector” by Nocturnus.

Cybernetic crafts approaching
Through skies lit with fusion discharge
Androids from the gamma quadrant
Moving at the speed of death

WTF?!? “Speed of Death”!?!?

When stood next to something typically crass and “dumb”, like “Porn Store Stiffi” by Bloodduster, I’ll take vulgarity any day. At least I can get what they’re saying, and it kina means something in the context of actual life. Bonus points for not being all serious and shit.

I’m catching the bus,
to go down to my favorite place,
it’s not the nicest,
but its where i like to show my face,
I like them porn stores
there’s nudes and it’s all free,
I like to wonder round,
rubbing my stiffie.

I may be standing there and a mag will take my fancy,
i will rub myself to cum still,
its quite relaxing

I’ll cum on you

LOL

Actually, “We are the word police” kind of sums it up even better:

Cunt I think is fine
It is my favorite line
We spent our time saying cunt
And finding words that rhyme
Go!!
Swearing all the time
And finding words that rhyme
I love to shout and scream
Mostly the obscene
I love to swear and spit and cuss
And cause a nasty scene

If you think about it, this kind of ironic self awareness and just being obscene for the fun of it is surely more intelligent (or at least entertaining) than a long word pissing contest…

Eyelicker

11:24 PM
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! I have finally completed my goban! It only took me 6 and a half hours to burn in all 38 lines. I guess I might post some pictures tomorrow. I think that it turned out really well, and the stones I ordered should hopefully arrive tomorrow.

Now to the matter of Origin. Darwin has finally made it clear to me why disuse would cause certain parts of an animal to atrophy. Natural selection is constantly trying to make plants and animals as economical as possible and through successive generations superfluous traits could eventually be lost. If the being used its nutrients to create an extraneous appendage then there would be less for the rest of the body so why would an animal waste nutrients on something that was clearly unnecessary. That’s pretty much it for today. toodeloo!

11:58 PM
I have almost finished my goban now. I finished gluing all of the boards together and have planed off some of the more unsightly mistakes. Tomorrow I have to sand it to perfection and then burn in the lines. I can barely wait!

I continued reading today, and that in and of itself should be considered to be a shock. Not really, but I haven’t been reading fast enough to be able to complete this project before the end of the century. In this section Darwin discusses the possible ramifications of acclimatisation. That being the process of becoming accustomed to a new climate or environment. He mainly discussed how some plants fare better in some climates than do others. He also began to discuss how many species exhibit characteristics at similar stages of development. This is where I believe that our current knowledge of DNA would have been useful to Darwin, but alas he did not know. auf wiedersehen.

10:26 PM
I made some significant headway on my goban! I finished the second layer and started on the third. Now all I have to do is finish the third layer and sand it down. Should be fun. Off to reading.

11:24 PM
I must admit that I have again neglected to read a very significant portion of the book this night. It would seem that it is imperative for me to read during the day and not just at night. In this section, Darwin discusses the effects of disuse on certain animals. He spoke of many beetles that, through many generations, have completely lost their wings. He contributes some of this to misuse, but mostly he contributes the change to natural selection. The beetles with the smallest wings had the least chance to be blown off to sea and perish.

.

2:26 AM
I went to the movies with a few friends and didn’t get back until a few minutes ago. I didn’t end up reading today. Yesterday  rather.

9:52 PM
I must admit that I am exceedingly and inexplicably tired right now considering I slept until noon this morning. Now I must address my past transgression of not writing for a day. That day, Darwin explained a graph that he had drawn in his book that demonstrated a group of species branching off from each other, some of them dying off, some of them evolving into multiple distinct forms, and others staying the same through thousands of generations. It is an interesting graphic to depict the extremely complex and nigh incomprehensible idea of natural selection and evolution. That day I was able to finish chapter 4.

Today, whilst reading, I ended up reading almost an entire page without really processing what I read, so I didn’t get very far reading. Basically this section discussed the laws of variation. Darwin first discussed whether variation was due to natural selection or the direct conditions of life and concluded that the conditions create augmented variation in species and natural selection accumulates profitable variation.

After that he started to discuss the effects of disuse then I realized that I was for to tired to understand what he was writing. I need to read earlies in the day.

On an unrelated note, I began work on a goban. I am making it out of pine, red oak and poplar. Should be fun! Tomorrow awaits!

Last Wednesday, December 9, 2009, our Society President, Flavio Andreatta gave a lecture on the Origin of the Italian Language – Part 2. He began by mentioning that there are several major languages commonly spoken in Italy. These include Albanian, Bavarian, Catalan, Cimbian, Corsican, Croation, Friulian, Slovene. Other minor languages are also spoken including German in the north, Greece  and Latin in the south, plus many dialects. Major branches or groups of Italian dialects include Gallic, Italic, Latin, Greek and Venetic. They vary in phonetic pronunciation and use of vowels.

Before 1935 in Malta, Italian was the primary language. After 1935, Maltese grew to become the dominant official language in Malta. Italian is a minor language in Somalia, Eritrea, Libya, Ethiopia, and Tientsn China. Italian is widely spoken in Monaco, Corsica (a French territory) and 29 other countries.

In 1890, only about 2 percent of Italians spoke official Italian. Otherwise they spoke a dialect. But they could still understand Italian if it was spoken to them. By 1900, over 30 percent of Italians could speak Italian. This was largely due to schooling. By 1930, over 80 percent of Italians were fluent in Italian.

It is interesting to note that back in Italy, dialects still change over time. This is not the case after Italian immigrate to another country. Brazil has the largest population of Italian immigrants at over 1.5 million, as does Argentina. The people of Malta speak Italian today largely due to media broadcasts. Italian officials once refused to recognize Friulian as an official language. Today Friulian is not only an official language, it is also taught in schools. In Chipilo, Mexico, there is a population of light skinned people who speak a Venetian dialect that is well maintained to this day. This is thought to go back to Venetian Italian immigrants to the area from around 1865.

This car is like a predator… Just waiting to pounce on your ass.

Singer, MARIAH CAREY, appeared on the LOPEX TONIGHT show. She talks about what colour she is!

Hi, hello. If you know me, this post shouldn’t be that big of a deal. If you don’t already know me, and this is one of my first blog posts you’ve read, I ask that you start reading this with an open mind. It would be better for everyone. You should also go into this with the knowledge that I am indeed a Christian. For the sake of brevity I wont include many historical facts, so I wouldn’t recommend using this post as a reference point in any arguments. I just want to express how I think we should feel about the subject.

It’s the Christmas season. Or maybe it’s the holiday season. Whatever. We’ve all heard people declaring “war on Christmas”, or perhaps that we need to “put Jesus back in Christmas”. The short version of this long post is this: It doesn’t matter.

Throughout my life, I’ve heard many stories about the origin of Christmas. The past few years, I’ve spent some time looking into it. To be completely honest, I have no way of knowing the absolute truth in the matter. The only way I can really research it is online, and we all know that you can’t always trust everything you read on the internet. But I can say with some certainty that the holiday we celebrate didn’t originate with a Christian theme.

First, Jesus wasn’t born on December 25th. Obviously, I wasn’t there for Jesus’ birth, but most Christian scholars, historians, and traditions all point to Him not being born in the winter. People disagree on exactly when He was born. Some say the spring, others that I’ve read think it was in between June and August, still more people believe it was in September. I always just say around July for fun. But it’s no biggie – it’s not like we have to celebrate His birth on the exact day He was born.

The holiday itself was invented by pagans. This is virtually undisputed. To make  it short and simple, it was basically a celebration of winter solstice. There were many different parties going on for different reasons during this time. One major celebration was the feast of the Son of Isis. Another was the Birthday of the Unconquered Sun, which was pretty much a party because the days would start to get longer. Whatever the particular holiday one would celebrate, there was usually a lot of eating, drinking, merry making, and often even gift giving. Plus A TON of stuff Christians generally frown upon.

All of our great Christmas traditions were also from non Christ filled origins. The beginnings of the Christmas tree aren’t completely known. It is known that people would bring Evergreen trees into their homes during the winter them that their crops would begin growing again soon. It could be from the Roman feast of Saturnalia, where they honored the god Saturn by making evergreen wreathes and placing candles in live trees. It’s also possible that we get it from Scandinavian mythology in which they believed the entire universe was contained in a really big ash tree called Yggdrasil. They celebrated the winter solstice by hanging apples, nuts and little animal-shaped cakes from evergreen trees. Whatever the origin, it has nothing to do with Jesus.

Christ was never associated with a winter holiday until the year 350 when Pope Julius I declared that Jesus’ birth would be celebrated on December 25. In all reality it was very similar to our “Harvest Parties” or whatever your particular church decides to call their alternative for Halloween. It was a way to get pagans to convert to Christianity. As humans, we like to eat, party, gather together with friends and family, give and receive gifts, and just have an overall good time. If people decided to become Christians they would have to give up this feast. So it would be so much easier for them if Christians let them keep their celebration, but give it a Christian twist.

Since then Christians have found ways to make Christmas traditions fit a Christian theme. And Christmas has really developed into a holiday.

Here’s the way I see it, Christmas is a Christian holiday. Christmas is about the birth of Jesus. Though He wasn’t born in December 25th, I find no problem celebrating His coming into this world on that date. If you’re a Christian, then awesome! But Christmas isn’t the only winter holiday.

As I’ve spent almost this entire post explaining, Christians didn’t invent the winter holiday. We don’t hold exclusive rights to having a party during December. Heck, we’re the ones who stole December 25th. There is nothing wrong with giving people an alternative “reason for the season”, that’s what Christians invented Christmas for, but we don’t have to force every human being to celebrate out holiday ,for our reasons, our way.

Don’t give up your rights. If the government gets mad at your for doing something involving “Christmas” I give you permission to fight back. We have the same right as everyone else, we can have our celebration. Personally, I am on Christmas break. I call it the Christmas season. I say “merry Christmas”. But I’m not offended when someone doesn’t celebrate Christmas – not everyone is a Christian. Some people even call their holiday Christmas, but don’t really observe it’s true meaning. Still, this doesn’t really upset me. I am comfortable enough with my beliefs that I don’t need nonbelievers to validate my holiday.

But, really, come on. Don’t get caught up in this struggle over the season. We can have out celebration, they can have theirs. We should invite them to celebrate with us, not fight over titles. I cringe every time someone starts some campaign demanding that we put Jesus back in Christmas. He’s still in it – that is, if you put Him there.

Grace | Peace | Love

-Josh

P.S. Don’t get upset when someone uses the term Xmas. In Greek, the letter X (chi) is the first letter of Christ and has been used as an abbreviation for Christ since the mid-16th century. It’s not some new conspiracy to kick Christ out of Christmas.

11:37 PM
While it is common for me to not read on Thursdays, I did today. I just don’t feel like writing about it. Maybe tomorrow.

It all started with this rhyme.

It seemed a very odd rhyme.

It made me sad and a bit  uncomfortable.

I wasnt sure I wanted to read it to my toddler.

So I googled it. And all hell broke loose.

Apparently(here, here, here), almost all nursery rhymes are political?

Cute & safe packages for painful grown up messages – Taxes, parliment, plague, guillotine…

It is intriguing.

Might never be able to go back to the innocent images they once evoked though.

I was sitting at my computer, iTunes was opened, and I was thinking of a playlist that I could never get bored of. For me, this is hard, because I am always finding new music and obsessing over a song or artist then moving on. I then got to thinking about the songs that will never die. Songs that have touched me or make me think. A few stood out:

1) Return to Oz by The Scissor Sisters

I was always touched by the lyrics of this song.  It reminds me of a time in my life where I started seeing the world for what it really was, and that amazing, accepting, glamorous place turned stale. I find the song so beautiful and the lyrics like a poem.

2) The Funeral of Queen Mary by Henry Purcell

This song was played in the beginning of A CLockwork Orange, and so, of course, every time I hear this song I am reminded of a movie that had so much of an impact on me. It is also such a dark, disturbing song, which gives it a lasting impression.

3) Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel by Tavares

This song is the most important song in my life. My daddy and I used to sing this song in the car all the time, and even when I went through that phase where corny disco music became “stupid” and “uncool”, I was always there with my dad belting it out and telling my dad that he was off-key. He said that they wrote that song for him to sing to me.

4) Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk by Rufus Wainwright

This song always, without a doubt, reminds me of Christmas and Chai tea lattes. I think it is because I started listening to it during Christmas while drinking a chai tea latte. I have a scene in my head of my mom and I driving home from shopping on a sunday, late afternoon and it starts to snow.

5) Origin of Love by Stephen Trask

The ideas presented in this song are so interesting, and the movie, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, has been a part of me for a long time. It reminds me of last winter my father was alive, which was a very (for lack of a better word) strange time in my life. This song brings back memories of the person that was always there for me after school, my babysitter, Kari. She was my best friend and understood all the shit I was going through. I look up to her so much; from her amazing talent playing guitar and singing, to her kindness and energy. She showed me the movie, so anything having to do with Hedwig brings back Kari.

6) Ghost Song by Jim Morrison

I have a HUGE crush on Jim Morrison. I don’t care that he is dead, he is still the hottest man… “alive”. This song is so poetic and so touching. The picture it paints is a delicate work of art. I just love this song and the feeling it presents.

7) The Theme Song to Cheers by Gary Portnoy and Judy Hart Angelo

Haha! My friends make fun of me sooo much for loving this show, but it brings me back to when I was a kid in Florida, and my dad would let me stay up so I could watch Cheers. It is, to this day, still my favorite show. Whether it be the fact that it makes me laugh out loud, or that I love Shelley Long, or that it brings back memories of my daddy, but whatever it is, it makes me smile the biggest smile, both inside and out.

10:48 PM
Yesterday I did not write because I had to prepare for my chemistry final. I feel like I did really well on it, but felt that reading might distract me, so I focused on studying. Now tomorrow I have three finals, none of which are particularly hard, but I need to study for them nonetheless. Therefore I will only read a small portion of Origin tonight.

11:16 PM
wouldn’t you know it, I read more than I thought I would! Divergence of character is an extremely interesting topic. Darwin spends what he considers inadequate time to discussing the ways by which a species can change to become more diversified and be able to occupy different sectors of the local economy. He likens diversification to division of labor: when several pieces become very specialized in a particular goal, and there are many parts to the whole, it will generally work better than if all the pieces were trying to do the same thing. Darwin discusses that in order to support the most life in a given space if the species present are greatly diversified. Not only should there me different varieties, but different genera, or even different orders.

This brings me to a topic that I feel should be addressed. Grass. The idea of grass, in my opinion, goes against the concept of diversification. If one wanted to support the most amount of life with the least amount of effort, grass is not the best solution. Many people spend time trying to keep their lawns from even having different varieties of grass which makes it all together harder to keep the grass growing. On another note, people agonize over keeping their lawns green all year, but as far as an evolutionary process goes, it would make sense for a plant to turn brown during the winter because it needs the energy to stay alive. But many simply drown their lawns in water all year ’round. Seems like a little too much work if you ask me.

1. dreams:
sun on wood
golden sap forest smell
writing

5-6 people
asleep
under a patchwork
of blankets and sleeping bags
on a huge bed
like the one we built ourselves
inside the strawbale structure
of the skunkhouse

my dance moves
in window reflection

running
along ocean
before we shimmy up
over rock formations
and hit
flat shallow water
that goes on for miles
and there is a dog
and a leather black jacket
and i wave
akwardly
not expecting
to see you/be seen by you
across that liquid expanse

joanna’s collapsed lung
resultng in
fake thyroid scars

2. all the trainwhistle sounds
these ears (a museum) have collected
over the past 8 years
in this city
a river based city
a cooking city
and still
still
still
the noise
crawling across night
from tracks
to wherever i am
reminds me

2. running on rainwet sidewalk
an alarm
going off
inside a house
i wonder
if it will still be ringing
when i pass again
on my way back

3. sun
exploding gray monotony
to bits
for 5 golden minutes

5. white board note
in red ink
daring me
to eat
breakfast leftovers

6. corinne telling me
if we ever would have
i would have treated you like a prince

corinne telling me
about elephants wearing pink eyeshadow

corinne telling me
something about someone being infinitely lame

corinne telling me
how she reduces stress
by reducing her needs
during visits home

corinne reporting via text
how i have offered
to be the towel boy

corinne
gets it just right
when she talks about
preemptive missing

7. a rolodex so heavy
it could never be exhumed
alongside a reclamation
like a knife
sharp
and catching light
on its blade
before throwing it back

8. as the saltwater poem
begins dreaming
i roll my gold filigree sleeves

For a simple Sunday dinner, try this delicious and nutritious spinach
Cheesecake. It is therefore possible to have the cake in the oven a few minutes
free to do other things while cooked to perfection.

The secret of this cake is nutmeg, freshly grated. It 'really Zing!
Therefore it can not replace the grated nutmeg spice tin – a whole nutmeg
grateful and a bit 'of everything for this dish!

SPINACH CHEESE PIE – Serves 6

1 (16 oz) pkg. mincedfrozen spinach, cooked and well drained

3 eggs

£ 1 low-fat ricotta

4 oz grated cheese, low fat or tofu

1 / 4 cup chopped onion

Dash freshly grated nutmeg

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray a 9 – inch cake pan baking
Spray.

Mix all ingredients and mix gently, then pour the mixture into the
Pan and bake for 1 hour until golden and knife inserted in the top
Center comes out clean.

Add a little 'hotcrusty bread with butter, a glass of wine, and threw a
Simple salad and dinner on Sunday and is ready to eat!

OPTIONS:

Top the cake with slices of fresh tomatoes, once it's finished, then send it to:
oven for a few minutes to set the tomatoes.

Crumble a few slices of crispy bacon and add the cheese and
A mixture of spinach before cooking.