Busy

Too many arms, too little time.



What would Shakti do? (WWSD?)

She wouldn't be stuck at a desk all day for most of her awake time doing marginally useful things in a "trickle down" institutional economy. Shakti would be a dynamic, self-employed artiste, hardworking and successful in her endeavors. Shakti would have long ago finished her dissertation on death as a figure for historical anxiety in eighteenth century English poetry (perhaps with input from Kali). Shakti would have no time for plagues of mice in her apartment. As an incarnation of the Divine Mother, Shakti might indeed be barefoot and pregnant (again), but with abundant time and even more reason to nag loved ones and generally act bitchy. Shakti would be an unstoppable, irresistable love mo-chine.

Maybe Shakti would be Oprah Winfrey, generously bestowing PT Cruisers on her lucky audience (except on those days when she has to unload substandard Mary Kay gift packs). Or Madonna, saving the world one or two small Malawi orphans at a time.

To wit, "Used as a noun the word 'shakti' can also mean a female consort or a weapon, depending on context." Who doesn't love a consort/weapon? Especially these days. And as far as combination appliances go, even the MicroFridge can't compare, despite its handiness for storing and preparing Hot Pockets. Shakti avoids Hot Pockets.

Say it with Flowers

As a hypochondriac, neurotic, and a dilettante of non-western medicine, I've been a big fan of Bach Rescue Remedy(TM) for awhile now. It even does the trick on my neurotic and dilettantish cat. But until today, I had yet to understand fully the amazing power of flowers, as represented by the complete range of Bach Flower Remedies(TM). They're better than EST. I sure wish you'd known about this in 1980, Mom.

And had I known in 1980 that there is a cheap and non-lethal prescription for extreme mental anguish, when everything has been tried and there is no light left, I would probably be a happily married, Volvo-driving mother of two with a high salary and a daily Xtreme-Pilates routine.

Is there a prescription for that?

An index of Bach Flower Rememdies and their indications:
1. Agrimony – mental torture behind a cheerful face
2. Aspen – fear of unknown things
3. Beech – intolerance
4. Centaury – inability to say 'no'
5. Cerato – lack of trust in one's own decisions
6. Cherry Plum – fear of the mind giving way
7. Chestnut Bud (made with horse chestnut buds) – failure to learn from mistakes
8. Chicory – selfish, possessive love
9. Clematis – dreaming of the future without working in the present
10. Crab Apple – cleansing remedy, also for self-hatred
11. Elm – overwhelmed by responsibility
12. Gentian – discouragement after a setback
13. Gorse – hopelessness and despair
14. Heather – self-centeredness and self-concern
15. Holly – hatred, envy and jealousy
16. Honeysuckle – living in the past
17. Hornbeam – procrastination, tiredness at the thought of doing something
18. Impatiens – impatience
19. Larch – lack of confidence and self-esteem
20. Mimulus – fear of known things
21. Mustard – deep gloom for no reason
22. Oak – the plodder who keeps going past the point of exhaustion
23. Olive – exhaustion following mental or physical effort
24. Pine – guilt
25. Red Chestnut – over-concern for the welfare of loved ones
26. Rock Rose – terror and fright
27. Rock Water – self-denial, rigidity and self-repression
28. Scleranthus – inability to choose between alternatives
29. Star of Bethlehem – shock
30. Sweet Chestnut – Extreme mental anguish, when everything has been tried and there is no light left
31. Vervain – over-enthusiasm
32. Vine – dominance and inflexibility
34. Water Violet – pride and aloofness
35. White Chestnut – unwanted thoughts and mental arguments
36. Wild Oat – uncertainty over one's direction in life
37. Wild Rose – drifting, resignation, apathy
38. Willow – self-pity and resentment

One upon a time...*

The tragic events of
Five Years Ago
July 7, 1941
September 11, 2001
9/11/01
April 1996
November 8th
June 15, 1920
the slave trade
Palm Sunday, 1965
last Tuesday
November 22, 1963
June 22, 1941
Dec. 6
the last several years
his personal and professional life
the last few days
this period

In a world of
ambient intelligence
woe
unstable electricity distribution
rising life expectancies
shit
networked knowledge
private capital markets
strangers
their own
business process outsourcing
software diversity
smart everyday objects
trouble
bandwidth-on-demand
increasing complexity and diminishing institutional power
spam

The heartbreaking story of
the prince that history forgot
friendship and love
a man who murders his wife
the prejudice she faced
an irretrievable loss
an Indian Air Force pilot
two Italian immigrant radicals
baseball legend Lou Gehrig
how the Hebrews won their release from Egyptian slavery
their renewed love
his children
the men who made it
her greatest love
our friend's friend

The bittersweet tale of
a misclaimed Civil War medal
baby ring-tailed lemurs
a young boy who’s worth getting to know
a dancer who finds her destiny
a fading starlet who must face a harsh reality
two boy geniuses
monstrous love
a life wasted by love
a roguish country singer
a girl who lives near a portal into Hell
a boy who escapes his poverty-stricken existence and becomes heir to a magical chocolate factory

*imagination brought to you by Google

The Interpretation of [some recent] Dreams

1. Gossipy secretary placing small dogs about body of college Provost standing in office doorway; supposed to be cocker spaniels but are really mini dachshunds.

Boss coming back from vacation

2. Serial killings/disappearances of loved ones and others; culprit looking for me.

Morning dream (post-coital), am not in my house

3. Someone is making up words that sound like other words.

Must explain why I woke up laughing at 6:30 am

4. Driving for hours in deserted wasteland with “family,” full of dread in back seat. Keep passing same advertisement on billboard.

Funnier than word dream when I told it

5. Psychiatrist is having marital problems; we kiss, stop because it's unethical.

Headache and night sweats: PMS?

6. Am pregnant, have doll-sized girl and boy; later, they die. Insensitive coworkers keep asking about pregnancy; must relive grief over and over.

Labor Day weekend

7. Losing control of 1950's convertible on road near grandparents' house on way to press conference for world peace; Bill Clinton one of many celebrities there, looks good.

Everyone promised my work would be rewarded, no one came through

When all else fails, make a list

Things that scare me

Ghosts

When a man loves a woman

The future

Grouped teenagers

War on Terror

Alzheimer’s disease

Success

The behavioral side effects of prescription sleep aids

Cockroaches

Things that make me anxious

People who like me but don’t know me

People I know and don’t like

The past

Sunday

Optimism

Long-distance travel

Feelings

Things I tolerate well

God

Enemas

Mice

Things I usually enjoy

The accordion

Old cemeteries

Reading the dictionary

Things I really like

Sexual intercourse

Antiquarian books

Things I love

Cheap novelties

Civilization and its Discontents

Once again, cats are in the news.
There is good news and there is bad news:

The good news is that cats (and the content of their feces) may be responsible for the empathy and affection that some people have felt and continue to feel for other people throughout the millennia - and perhaps have made a subtle but lasting impact on the direction of human history. Studies now indicate that cat feces has been equally influential on the popular music, fashion, and drug preferences in the young and impressionable. (e.g., cats= reefer; dogs, turles, ferrets, et.al.=horse.)

While some people (i.e., Kurt) have insisted offblog time and again that cats=schizophrenia, this link remains anecdotal at best. Nevertheless, aren't the costs we as a society and as individuals must bear for the mental illness of a few worth the friendship and love of the many?

This development ratchets up the "Nature vs. Nurture" issue - also referred to as "Nature vs. Culture," "The Raw and the Cooked," and, formerly, "Ashlee vs. Jessica" to an entirely new level of controversy: in each case, the duality is an illusion; contending forces are one and the same. Unless pregnant (in which case disaster may be imminent), women, when exposed to cats and their fecal matter, tend to become exactly the way women are, stereotypically, supposed to be. Men, it seems, become dull and complacently accepting of many otherwise untenable situations - which, according to man-on-the-street surveys and this blogger's personal experience, may also be as nature intended.

Feline toilet habits have proven invaluable to the progress of mankind. We know that cats can get the job done, if given the chance. If only the United States, almost all of Africa, China, Korea, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, the Taliban, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Europe excluding the Netherlands and Scandinavia, Russia and the former Soviet republics, Southeast Asia, the South American drug cartels, Halliburton, al Qaeda, and IKEA were more cat-centric and fece-philic societies, we could all look forward to another 1,000 years of world peace. As this is, sadly, not the case, the data suggest that our only hope may be to trigger a pandemic of cats. Osama Bin Laden? Not a cat person.

The bad news: Once again, scientists are alarmingly quick to tar women and the mentally ill with the same brush. They have always been quick to judge intense concern and ruthless integrity as "insecurity" and "guilt," but as those of us plagued with concern and strangled by our integrity know better, they just don't understand us. Nobody does. Except our cats.


8/9/06
Cat Parasite May Have Altered Human History



Kevin Laferty is a smart, cautious, thoughtful scientist who doesn't hate cats, but he has put forth a provocative theory that suggests that a clever cat parasite may alter human cultures on a massive scale. His phone hasn't stopped ringing since he published one of the strangest research papers to come out of the mill in quite awhile.

The parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, has been transmitted indirectly from cats to roughly half the people on the planet, and it has been shown to affect human personalities in different ways.

Research has shown that women who are infected with the parasite tend to be more warm, outgoing and attentive to others, while infected men tend to be less intelligent and probably a bit boring. But both men and women who are infected are more prone to feeling guilty and insecure. Other researchers have linked the parasite to schizophrenia.

Toxoplasma, he notes, is "frighteningly amazing." It can change the personality of a rat so much that the rat surrenders itself to a cat, just as the parasite wanted. The parasite's eggs are shed in a cat's feces. A rat comes along, eats the feces, and becomes infected. The behavior of the rat undergoes a dramatic change, making the rat more adventuresome, and more likely to hang out around cats. The cat eats the rat, and the parasite completes its life cycle.

That manipulation of the local ecology is not unusual for a parasite, Laferty says. "This is something that many parasites do," he says. "Many manipulate hosts' behavior." So it wasn't much of a jump to the next question. "We have a parasite in our brain that is trying to get transmitted to a cat," he says. "This changes an individual's personality." So if enough personalities are changed in a given society, will the culture of that society also be changed?

He's not suggesting that it's a big player in cultural evolution. Lots of other things are more powerful, ranging from geography to weather to the availability of natural resources. But if enough of us are infected, and undergo personality changes, will that also alter our combined personalities, or our culture? Laferty admits anthropologists are not likely to embrace his theory. A single powerful leader can have a dramatic impact on a culture. We can all think of examples. But can the collective personality have a similar effect?

"Anthropologists are not in agreement that you can drive a culture from the bottom up," Laferty says. But he sees that happening throughout the parasitic world, involving many types of animals, so why is it inconceivable that it could also be happening among humans?

It will be a long time before we have the answer to that, if we ever do, but in the meantime here's a bit of good news. Cat lovers need not get rid of their cats. The chances are not great that a modern cat, kept on a diet of safe cat food and not left to feed off rats, will transmit the parasite to humans. It's possible, but not likely, Laferty says.

And that leads him to this final comment: "This isn't about trying to freak cat owners out," he says. "Simply having a cat as a pet doesn't mean you're going to get infected, for sure." Of course, maybe some other parasite is making him say that.


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Helpful Hints from Lisa H.: How to succeed in romance without really trying

1. First, stop trying. This means: stop looking forward to any intimate human contact besides "the usual" (e.g. mass-transit frottage, visits to the chiropodist, those dudes on the corner who always high-five you).
2. Next, rethink your definition of success. In most cases, an oversized Lynyrd Skynyrd t-shirt and a couple of reliable showerhead masturbation fantasies can be considered satisfactory outcomes.
3. Consider taking up a hobby where you could encounter potential helpmeets who have honed down their standards to accommodate your specific needs. Loner hobbies like taxidermy, Civil War re-enactment, and ham radio are ideal. Or, invent a new hobby. Depending on your audience, the story of how you came into your extensive collection of Vietnam War trophies could make you seem like a "real catch." Imply the horror: no one has to know the truth.
4. Don't act surprised by out-of-the-blue sexual requests, especially those requiring phone calls to NYC's "Quality of Life" hotline (311).
5. Squeamishness is a luxury you cannot afford.
6. Avoid inadvertent touching post coitus. Any intentional touching should lead to more coitus.
7. Be willing to share/give away apparently inconsequential items, such as your signed first-editions of Prozac Nation and The Hottest State, or the 60-year old bottle of brandy smuggled out of the Eastern Bloc by your great uncle (may he rest in peace, wherever he is).
8. Although you may find habits such as excessive mouthbreathing, a fantasy-fur fetish, or a soulpatch-muttonchop combo unfamiliar, never make suggestions to a candidate re: more appropriate social behavior, attire, or hairstyle unless directly requested. You just may lose out on the Skynyrd t-shirt if you do.


Her confident smile says it all.