Land of Lakes and Volcanoes

Because it's important to have goals, here are some of the things we plan to do in NYC. Consider this a checklist. 1. Chinatown, lots and lots of Chinatown. 2. MoMA for some Bauhaus and Tim Burton and this . 3. Museum of Arts and Design , perhaps my favorite museum in NY. 4. Shopping in SoHo. This is all Lauren, but I'll watch and eat stuff. It'll be fun. 5. Walk the Brooklyn Bridge. Jess wants to do this and I'm all for freezing my butt off in the name of why-the-hell-not. 6. Baking cookies in the shape of body parts. Don't worry about it. 7. Maybe the Moth. Depends on how zonked we are from the travel. 8. Eat a lot. We're letting Sean be our guide here, but there will be pictures of tasty things that will prolong my drooling long after this trip is over. 9. Anything else NY throws at us. Count me in. I'm on vacation.

I am supposed to be waking up in 4 hours to head for Nueva York and instead I am just awake. Damn it all. So, a list. Things I am afraid of: 1. Making an idiot of myself. Full on idiot mode. Awesome. 2. Not doing things because I'm so afraid of making an idiot of myself. Less fun, more uncomfortable me. Lame. 3. Those signs on the interstate that say, "No one expects brain injury." I'm sorry, but wtf? I could not find a picture of this, thank goodness, because I wouldn't be able to look at it if I had. 4. Snakes. Despite being a biologist, I would be terrified to pick up this snake. Once it was in my hand, I'd be fine, but don't expect me to grab the damned thing. 5. Having what happened to my mom happen to me. Give money to the ALS Association . I mean it. 6. Just taking up space and leaving nothing of value behind when I go. So far, I'm working on positively influencing this tiny person:

I realized last night at my 10 year reunion how ridiculous the premise of Grosse Point Blank is. John Cusack, you weren't old. You weren't even close. Please stop acting like you were having a mid-life crisis at 28. Although, honest admission, when I saw this movie for the first time, I was a wee lass and I remember thinking, wow, Ten Year Reunion, he must be old. Thanks Hollywood, for skewing my age perception goggles. I'm better now. As the year windeth down, I've been doing to a little introspective retrospection, and have decided that I need to get. on. the. ball. One way to do this, I think, is to push myself to write more. Even if it's crap. This means finishing the NaNoWriMo novel, more blog postings (including going back to writing book reviews), and (my boss will be pleased) more academic writing. The last thing I had fun writing was my Spanish paper about reggaeton. Who would have thought that 9 pages in Spanish on Puerto Rican identity would ha...

This list is a draft, but will be finalized by the time 2010 starts. Expect revisions. 1. Do something terrifyingly creative and exposing. See previous post about live music. Even if I get humiliated, I have got to do something to feel like I'm doing more than taking up space. 2. Become a certified South Carolina Barbeque Association judge. I'm not kidding. 3. Remember that people only really like you if you're not faking it. There are some specific actions I'm thinking about taking here, but they're privado. 4. Be a better friend. 5. Kick a bad habit I picked up this year. Said bad habit shall remain secret, but it's there, and all the wrong people know about it.

I have once again had the opportunity to consort with musicians. This is such a mixed emotional thing for me. I love it. It washes over me like a warm bath, but then afterward I get the chills when the residual droplets evaporate. Specifically, there's two things I covet about musicians (items to follow). You will notice that I use the word covet, which MW defines as "to wish for earnestly" or "to desire (what belongs to another)". In other words, musicians* inevitably have two things that I lack, but wish I had. So here they are: 1. Creativity - Explaining to you what watching someone make music is like for me would be impossible because it's not like any other feeling. It's miraculous and mysterious, in the truest un-watered down sense. And I don't create anything. My life is productive, functional, reasonably fulfilling, but not creative. The only way I know how to describe it is that I ended up crashing at a house of musicians, and it ...

People keep making Top 10 and Top 100 lists of the decade, and I was considering making a Top 10 Album list. Music for me is associated with a time, an event, a place, certain people, and so this question for a Top 10 made me think back about everything that's happened in the past decade, and I was kind of bowled over. I haven't been through anything impossible or even that unusual, but I'm pretty sure that if I look back when I'm 80, and make a histogram of my life, it will look something like this: So my Top 10 list is of life-changing events. I tried to put them in order of importance, but instead they are in order by when they occurred. In short, I am ready for this damned decade to be over. Denise's Top 10 Life-Changing Events of the Decade: 1. College / grad school 2. Keegan's birth 3. Getting married 4. Getting divorced 5. Living alone for the first time 6. Teaching high school 7. Dating someone who really saw me 8. Peace Corps 9. Mom's death 10. ...

“Just because you’re an atheist, that doesn’t mean you wouldn’t love for things to have reasons for why they are.” p. 13 Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close I was going to write a post today about reflections on my first semester teaching at MTC, but I guess that will have to wait because other things are weighing on my mind. I'm sitting alone in my apartment on this blustery, wintry day (I love this weather), and am letting my old demons visit me. I was hoping to put up my Christmas tree today, but the current guardian of my surplus goods was out of town for the weekend, so I have to wait until tomorrow. The roommate is also out of town, and the apartment is warm and quiet. It's cozy, comfortable, and sadly empty. This always happens to me. These days of freedom and silence always start out well. I feel happy and comfortable, contented in the world I've built for myself. However, the longer I am alone, the heavier the silence becomes until it no longer feels like a w...

Today is the one year anniversary of my mom's death. You can say her passing or demise or whatever, but I discovered when she died that I hate all those euphemisms. It doesn't matter how you say it, the facts are still the same. Being an atheist, I don't really believe in an afterlife, at least not the way most people think of it. I think her atoms are still here, banging around, and her energy is now coursing through something else. It seems selfish, but today is a pretty big taking stock day for me. Maybe I should be thinking of her more, but I mean, she's gone, so what's she got going on? Alternatively, my whole life changed when she died. The consequences of those changes have been an odd combination of predictable and completely unexpected. My sister and I are closer than ever, which has been a welcome change from our previously surly and reluctant exchanges. Turns out that when your mom dies and your dad has a stroke, you're pretty happy to have a ...

Nursing homes are terrifying places. Don’t lie, you feel that way too. When I came to check out the place that we put my dad into today, there was a one legged man asleep in a wheelchair in the lobby, and a woman in what looked like an overgrown baby walker pacing back and forth in the lobby. Maybe I’m a bad person, but I was horrified. And I’m self-aware enough to know that it wasn’t them that made me feel that way because if someone younger with all of their limbs had been asleep in a chair in a lobby, I wouldn’t have cared. If I had seen a 45 year old woman pacing, I just would have thought she was impatient. It’s their age and infirmity that fills me with fear. It’s my ability to empathize, or rather perhaps to project my own fears onto other people. Nursing homes are terrifying because they force us to think about something we ignore on a daily basis: that one day we will be old, that something bad will probably happen to us, that we’ll get sick, that we might very well end ...

I don't normally remember my dreams, but it occasionally happens. Usually when it's something scary or it happens right before I wake up in the morning. I'm not sure how to classify the doozy from today. In my dream, my mom was still alive. She was already sick and in a wheelchair, and for some reason we were staying in Olivier's parents' house. There was an incident with a nurse, but the big thing in the dream was that I was supposed to go on some trip to French Canada (except in my dream I kept thinking Canadia) that I had booked a long time ago when I wanted to learn French. I had already paid for the plane ticket ($530), but now I was trying to decide if I wanted to go or if I wanted to stay and spend time with my mom. I decided to stay with her, but I kept kicking myself for not getting travel insurance. I obviously think I made a good decision in the dream, but I wonder why I'm dreaming that now. Also, when I woke up, I felt sad and disappointed tha...

I’ve been a complete pain in the ass lately. I can admit it, and I’m not really sorry about it either. I’m going through something profound right now. Someone used that word last night to describe my predicament, and it was pretty validating. It’s okay if I’m crazy right now – crazy things are happening! More specifically: I doubt if anyone who reads this blog doesn’t already know about what’s up with my dad, but just in case… He had a massive stroke almost a month ago, and he’s in a rehab hospital in Walterboro right now. He has some spontaneous speech, but most of what he says is nonsense. He understands most of what we say, but it has to be explained multiple times if it’s something hard to do or that involves a lot of details or steps. His entire right side is paralyzed. His recovery progress has been slow, which is frustrating. He’s also only 58. My mom died last year when she was barely 54. I’m 28, and it feels like the whole world is on my shoulders. I think I’d be h...

There must be a catalog out there with prints and wallpaper just for hospitals. There's no other explanation. This is the 4th hospital I've spent significant time hanging out in at some point in the past year, and I must say, I'm beginning to find the decor rather stifling. I wonder what the consequences would be of rogue mural painting? I have some other random stuff, but I'm too tired and scattered to come up with anything more organized than this: 1. Best song lyric of the past two days (lots of car time = lots of radio time), from the Avett Brothers, Murder in the City If I get murdered in the city Go read the letter in my desk Don’t worry with all my belongings But pay attention to the list Make sure my sister knows I loved her Make sure my mother knows the same Always remember, there is nothing worth sharing Like the love that let us share our name 2. Random goods and services that you can purchase in the middle of nowhere between our house and the hospital. T...

This blog has become exactly the kind of blog I hate. Ones where people just whine about themselves all the time. I'm kind of going through some stuff right now, so I'm okay with it. Also, if I was getting married, or had kids, or whatever, I would be talking about that. I don't have any of that stuff, so it's just me. Hence the mopage today. I really do think I'm doing this wrong, and by this, I think I mean life in general. I think it's easy to confuse my desire for a family with a desire for a boyfriend. I don't need a man to make me feel better about myself. I don't feel like I'm a bad person because I don't have a boyfriend. What I do feel is that I want a family. I want people in my house. I want noise and negotiation. I want traditions and plans for Labor Day. I want people to cook for and someone to make breakfast on Sunday. I want people to sit on my porch with and talk about absolutely nothing. I don't think this desi...

I've been thinking a lot lately about communication in relationships, by which I mean any kind of meaningful human interaction, be it friendship or romance, family, or even something like roommates. It seems like one of those things that has to be in just the right balance, and that balance depends on each person's communication preferences, as well as the relationship that the two people have. It's so variable - how do you ever know if you're getting it right until you've already erred? The way I see it, there can be too much communication or not enough. I'll tackle not enough first. What if, for what seem like very good reasons, one or both people stop communicating about stuff that's pretty important to them? What if they know something that will hurt the other person, but it's not their place to tell them? What if they know saying something won't help a situation and might only damage the relationship? Maybe the communication stops because ...

I kicked ass this week by installing my new ceiling fan. Seriously. I am awesome. There was electrical wiring and the whole nine, and when I turned the power back on, everything worked exactly like it was supposed to. It makes no noise, it spins smoothly, there's no rocking. Essentially, it is excellent. As far as acceptance goes, I suck at it. However, I think this might be a lot like patience, where if you fake it, you're essentially doing it, so it all works out. Here's to faking it until you make it! Also, how can it only be Tuesday?? I don't even understand how that's possible.

Acceptance is not my strong suit. It doesn't fit in with my worldview very well. To me, accepting something means acknowledging that you can't change it. I'm not usually sorry about this as a character trait. I think it's what's enabled me to change my life so much, to be the person I am today. I honestly wasn't very happy growing up, and if I had just accepted that that was what life was like, I wouldn't have worked so hard to have something different. However, sometimes things just happen that you can't do anything about. I'm facing one of those situations right now. I have a hard time accepting that there's nothing I can do to improve things, no action I can take that might make things better. Everything I've tried to do, no matter how well-intentioned or innocent, has only made things worse. It's hard to realize that sometimes accepting a situation and doing nothing is the best "something" you can do. I hate it, but ...

This is my favorite movie ever. I´m not sure what that says about me, except that I have a deep abiding faith that love is both wonderful and possible. Some people might interpret this movie as Lee becoming a woman only through her relationship with Edward, which happens to be sexual and romantic in nature. The fact that she's the submissive in their sado-masochistic pairing might raise additional eyebrows. At first glance, this is not a very female friendly movie and it paints Lee in a rather bad light of needing a man in order to be happy. I happen to believe that there's something deeper going on. Lee (Maggie Gyllenhaal) isn´t perfect. She is profoundly and deeply scarred, both emotionally and physically. She is contained, as Edward says, ¨closed." She is still a child in many ways as demonstrated by her purple bedroom and canopy bed. Even her cutting kit is beribboned and the first implement we see her use against herself is the sharpened foot of a ballerina. ...

Either that or USC needs to up the admissions ante. The undergrads seem to be everywhere, in every nook and cranny, even where they clearly SHOULD NOT be and when they SHOULD NOT be there. This annoyance is exacerbated by motor vehicles. In the past week and a half, I have had the following experiences: I got hit by a car. In a vehicle: Just them. # of incidents: 2 Technically, one of these happened last semester, but then I considered it just a fluke. Last year it was a girl on her phone in an SUV so I was able to slap her back glass before she completely flattened me. My presence behind her vehicle merely elicited an impatient shrug. Today it was a girl backing out of a parking space in some kind of early 90s sedan. She did not appear to be on her phone, but she also wasn't watching what the hell she was doing. Because it was a sedan, there was no back glass. As a result, her bumper actually collided with my thigh. A couple of furious poundings on her trunk lifted her...

I had a great weekend to kick off the semester. Friday night was the acoustic Magnetic Flowers show at the White Mule , located in what was Jammin' Java in my pre-Nica life. Recently opened, the White Mule is helping to revitalize (I hate that word) Main Street Columbia. What that really seems to mean is "get white people to go there at night." Regardless, it's a nice little subterranean bar, complete with back patio and food until 10. I ordered a sandwich at 10 'til 10 and it was out to me in minutes, absolutely delicious, and accompanied by a peppery pasta salad. MF, photo courtesy of Mallane's FB page. So the music... I will admit that I wasn't really a Magnetic Flowers follower until this summer, but they have quickly become one of my favorite Columbia bands. Their music is varied, energetic, catchy and emotional. They take risks and while I'm not always thrilled with the results, the excitement they feel about their music comes across in ...

As someone whose life still revolves around academia at the age of 28, I find that Fall, rather than Spring, is my season of renewal. The inauguration of new exploits, the introduction of new people, and the opportunity to begin again all come with the arrival of a new school year. This year is no exception, as I am embracing a new avenue of part-time employment and with it a new and different academic setting. I have taught labs and co-taught courses before at USC, but this fall I will be an adjunct at Midlands Tech, teaching a lab and a lecture, although not for the same course. I am ridiculously excited about this, as I do truly love to teach, and that wasn't an option at USC this semester. It's also another semester that I hold on to my love of biology and share it with students. A new year also means a whole new crop of students in the courses that I study at USC as part of my research job. Last year we had a number of unexpected challenges and difficulties, but I...

I've been pretty personal on here lately, but I figure, you know, why not? So I've got problems - who doesn't? Tonight's topic is obsession. Really, it's "obsessing", but obsession sounds so much creepier. I obsess about things, particularly about relationships. I do this about work, about my family, about money, about everything. However, relationships are the most likely to send my mental anxiety processes ramping into overdrive. This is not my favorite thing about myself, and at times I have found it practically debilitating. An example would be when my mom died. I would start to think about her and it would feel like every sad feeling I had about her loss was crashing in on me, along with an acute awareness of every moment I would want her with me when she wouldn't be (marriage, kids, etc.). It wasn't there and then all of a sudden it was, all of it, so quickly that I couldn't seem to do anything about it until it was so overwhelmin...

Today a colleague and I went to Conway and recruited a rather large number of participants for one of our studies, and that was productive. I am, however, exhausted. We spent 6 hours in the car for 3 hours there. Now I'm watching a silly comedy in the hopes that it will cheer me up because I'm still moping and I'm getting a little sick of myself by now.

Well, I've been spouting self-pitying nonsense on Facebook for weeks now and it's 1:45 AM and I'm supposed to "get up" to go to Conway tomorrow at 7:30. So essentially, I'm at the point where I just need to get some stuff out. I'm not feeling good about my life right now. I'm trying to learn from my mistakes and move on, but self-pity has been creeping in a lot too. So, to let it out: I feel like a failure lately. I know there are so many things in my life that people would look at and see as success, but the things that really matter to me aren't going so well. I'm not sure why I seem capable of managing the little stuff while completely screwing up the stuff that's actually important. To list: 1) family and relationships, 2) education, 3) financial security and independence. I want a family. I always have, and while many of my friends who don't actually care about this have been in relationships for going on 10 years now, I am...

The new semester has come, and with it the students. It's like an annual invasion of insects with drivers' licenses. People are double-parked everywhere, sweating parents are trying to conceal their glee and/or sadness, and a new crop of freshman are positively vibrating with excitement at being let loose upon the world. This is truly an event that fills me with ambivalence. I work at a university. I wouldn't have a job without the students because I study them. I even really enjoy teaching them. However, there's that moment when I'm desperately looking for a parking spot and some kid who has no idea how to parallel park is blocking traffic and if I could wiggle my nose and make them all disappear, I would. This also happens when it takes twice as long to get coffee at Cool Beans, when they use the elevators to go to the second floor, and when they appear to not understand that walking in front of my car is a bad idea. Really, it is. The end result is that t...

I've been having anger management issues lately. I can tell they are getting to be issues because I'm starting to take things personally that maybe I shouldn't. People and situations have been disappointing me lately in bizarre and unexpected ways, and while 95% of what is going on actually has very little to do with me, after a while it becomes difficult to fathom that it could all be coincidence. I find myself wondering what sort of bad-planning mistakes I've made that have resulted in my current situation. I won't go into what's been happening here b/c a lot of what's going on just shouldn't be public, but I find myself looking critically at my situation and wondering how I can improve it, and I'm kind of at my wit's end about a lot of things. I don't feel despair or anything, just a resignation to sit back until the tide changes direction. I feel like I'm doing everything I can to paddle against the current just now, but it's...

Today was my mom's birthday, and I did some thinking about how she might feel about my life and decisions of late. Her main thing was always that I just be happy, and I think she'd like that I've figured out that I am happy, right where I am. She wouldn't like that I'm staying in South Carolina for an indefinite period of time, but she'd be proud of the life I'm building. She'd help me move in a week and half, and she'd be glad I'm taking good steps to get in a better financial situation. She'd be glad I'm dating someone who is good to me. She'd like the way I'm trying to get along with my dad and sister. She'd like the way I hang out with my nephew (although there hasn't been as much time for that lately, what with the moving and all). She'd like that I'm giving a bunch of her stuff to the Tatter's Guild, and she'd like that I'm doing crafty stuff, even if it is knitting right now, which she hate...

I put up my new paintings even though I'm moving in about a month b/c they were too beautiful not to. They were gifts from Briana and are by Wes North.

I got my taxes done today at the South Carolina State Credit Union on Huger, courtesy of the VITA program. I tried to do them myself, but got stumped by my Health Savings Account and my Peace Corps W2 with no state info on it. This program will file simple returns (1040s) for free and you can arrange to have any refunds direct-deposited too. The caveat is that your household has to make less than $40,000 per year. I’m not sure why they went with household, since a household of one person making below that (i.e. me), is in a really different situation than a couple or family making below that. I think it should be a per person number, but that’s not really the point. I got there at about 9:20AM, and they had to confirm that I had all the appropriate information with me. I did, having checked the website ahead of time. Then I had to fill out a checklist that said I had all the stuff, which was a little silly since they asked me if I had it all before they even signed me in. So I...

I am becoming increasingly annoyed by the camera on my phone and it's inability to deal with light objects with dark backgrounds. Saw this iris today on my walk with Spencer. Lovely, if totally washed out.

Keep in mind that I took all thes pictures with my crappy camera phone, but it occurs to me that I'm going to miss the weather and the GREEN here when I go. White iris. Some beautiful wisteria. Purple irises. Pink dogwood. My favorite color azalea.

Thursday and yesterday I rescued a couple of baby opossums. I found them Thursday night on the walkway in front of my house, wrapped them up and they made it through the night, so yesterday I drove to Carolina Wildlife Care out in Irmo and they are now taking care of them. This picture makes them look kind of evil and blurry, which is unfortunate, since they were actually quite cute. A few interesting points about this story: 1. Yesterday was Friday, and CWC is in Irmo, which meant that I had to brave malfunction junction at 5PM on Friday. Dumb, dumb, dumb. 2. If I was at home, out in the middle of nowhere, I would never have rescued baby opossums b/c things die all the time out there. It's just nature, but there was something about seeing them here in town. Letting them die just seemed wrong somehow. It's interesting how much difference context makes.

I had a great teaching day yesterday. One of those days when I actually miss being a high school teacher. I have good teaching days often, but they have to be pretty damn good to make teaching high school seem all rosy again. A little background is required. I loved some things about teaching high school. My interactions with the students were frustrating every day because you always want to do more - you want to somehow convince each one of them (even the ones you don't like b/c sometimes that happens) that you care about what happens to them and that you really do have their best interests at heart. Some days I felt like I really made that connection with students and those days were the best. And the surprising thing to me was what made me feel that way, that I had connected. It could be a student with a problem who felt comfortable enough to confide in me. This made me feel like I won the freakin' Olympics, but it's not something that happened every day. ...

Ha! Courtesy of GraphJam.

I have a sudden hankering to watch Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail. I haven't posted in forever, which is too bad, but I've been busy, ya know? I'm on Week 4 of my jogging program, and this is the first week when my jogging times have exceeded my resting times between jogs. I never thought I would like it, but if I know it's a running day, I feel antsy until I run and I feel so much better after that. Maybe I've been taken over by the pod people. I've also fallen behind on my reading, both of books and blogs, so it's not even like I have anything interesting to say. I have a few observations however. 1. I'm helping with the graph uploads for 102 this week, and some TAs put up with a lot more crap / rudeness than I ever would. Maybe it's b/c I was a high school teacher, but the way some of these people talk to their TAs, nuh uh child. I think not. 2. The weather is awesome. It's finally warming up and I'm digging that. I al...

I haven't posted as much as I like to recently because things have just been soooo crazy, so a quick update. I joined Ravelry recently, to keep track of my projects and look at others. There are so many ideas and projects I want to try! My user name is Domaknitrix if you want to look me up. Spring break is next week and I am so excited!!, as it is a chance to get caught up on work stuff, plan my next Biology 110 unit, write some blog posts (look for backlogged book reviews), and maybe make it down to the beach for a couple days. My family has formed a team to participate in the Walk to Defeat ALS , and you can support our team in general here , or you can contribute to my specific goal here . It's a 5K walk at Saluda Shoals on April 25th, if anyone wants to join the team. The more the merrier, and it's for a good cause. I'll probably blog more about this next week. This has also prompted me to do the following: I am jogging, like actually moving at a pace faster ...

I like stupid TV. It provides background noise and it doesn't require thought, and now that I can watch pretty much anything I like on Hulu , I often have something streaming. Despite not having time for a real post, I have enough time to watch Angel in the background. Yes, Angel, I said stupid TV. And Buffy is making a guest appearance. Let me just say, I haaate Sarah Michelle Gellar. Ugh, ugh, ugh. She's just so, vapid. How is it possible to be more vapid than these other characters? It's the blonde, wide-eyes, I'm so innocent yet so hurt and hard, ick. She's like a really stupid doll. And it's not just Buffy. It's every character she's ever played. She has four whole emotions and none of them are very believable. Sorry Buffy-ites, but there it is.

Courtesy of Pharyngula .

On the one hand I'm happy - yay diversity! On the other hand, how can it be that this is actually the first Hispanic to lead a university system in the US? In 2009??

There an article in Monday's LA Times about Jill Biden going by Dr. Jill Biden. Good for her! Apparently, this strikes people as pretentious, funny, and unnecessary. It was also pointed out that Lynne Cheney has a doctorate, and went by Mrs. Cheney. Good for her! I don't understand why this is pretentious. The argument made in the article is that usually only MDs go by Doctor. That is patently false. A doctor in a professional setting introduces herself as Dr. Whosawhatzit. If you met her on an airplane, she'd probably just tell you her name. People meet medical doctors in a professional setting every day, so we're accustomed to hearing MDs go by Doctor. In their corresponding professional setting, the university, PhDs go by Doctor as well. If you met one on the airplane, they, much like the MD, would just say their name. As the wife of the VP, she is perpetually in a professional setting, and is asking to be introduced in professional settings by her profes...