miscellanea

Words
The pen is mightier than the sword. The anagram of sword is words. Words can wound and words can heal but weapons are pretty much designed to destroy. Yet, as much as violence disturbs me, in certain circumstances, the knowledge that there's a sword behind the words (a mugging victim's mace or kick-boxing skills, for trite example) does indeed add to their power. Or am I blinded by Uma Thurman's ridiculously gorgeous moves in Kill Bill?

Sick of the sound of my own voice
I wish I could replace the need to talk with writing. Both help sort out the cacaphony of information and turmoil and contradictions of everyday life. But talking...talking needs a listener, a conversational partner. And has the potential immediate vulnerability that writing does not have. You may be turned away by the reader but you don't have to deal with that at the same moment you are poking at your exposed underbelly and trying to figure out from whence the pain emanates.

Do shitty things unto others and you will be shat upon?
Do all wrongs committed lead to some negative? They say that human progress, "righteous" wars, etc., must involve some carnage, some casualties. In our personal lives it seems, it would be better to stop using this excuse and consider that most hateful acts return to us. Everyday in the news, I read about someone who used, abused, cheated or destroyed someone else for their own pleasures/goals/plans of world domination. Over and over I hear the observer people say, how could anyone do that? How do you marry for money? How can you kill civilians in war and just write it off? How do you sleep at night when your deceptions have cost hundreds of people their life's savings? It must be distance. The ability to distance ourselves from the results of our greed or weakness. And that is a human trait. Goddammit, I need to stop reading the paper.

Active off
I've finished Natalie Angier's Beauty of the Beastly. It did not disappoint. She writes about certain genes, chromosomes, etc. being "turned off," which explains why some traits, diseases or abnormalities do or don't occur. But it's not like a switch. Or a roadblock. In some cases, another component (protein, enzyme, etc.) actively keeps things in the off position. Not unlike the famed finger in the dike, the raison d'etre of something in the cell is to supress something else. Active off. It's fascinating. I've started her book Woman; An Intimate Geography. It both challenges and confirms theories and notions that I've mused about for most of my adult life. It also confirms what Common Sense continues to scream out loud: Truth is fluid and new information does and should cause us to reexamine what we "know." Science and religion are in the business of explaining shit. Science just makes more sense.

What the Bleep
What the Bleep Do We Know? keeps creeping back into my consciousness. Attitude. Unmined power. Possibilities.

Big Boobs obsession migrates to the farmyard
We bought some chicken breasts the other day. Supersized, it seems. Made me want to peek under the skin for implants. A little freakish. And one wonders, are the thighs growing at same rate? Or do we have these poultry porn stars pushing their pecs around the farmyard like mammarian bulldozers?

Holy Communion Cannibal Miracle
In preparing for my menopause party, I did some research on saints and the whole bleeding heart thing...because, well, I love a theme. The shit that floated to the surface is amazing. Here are just two tidbits about the holy communion wafer miraculously transformed into flesh. I can't keep the phrase "Savor your Savior" from running through my head.

http://www.marypages.com/NajuKorea.htm
Holy literal eucharist
http://dsanford.com/miraclehost.html
and again: Welcome to the Burning & Bleeding Host of Betania, Venezuela website.