Life as a Science

ARRRRRRRGH
Sometimes, you just gotta rant.
posted by sordaria @ 6:36 PM

Hmmm....math conference delivers interesting possibilites to my doorstep....we'll see what the weekend will bring. More on this later....I don't want to jinx anything by talking about it too soon. :)

Living by oneself is awesome, except when tommorrow's garbage day and it's after 12 and you're exhausted but still have to go downstairs and get the stinky garbage together.
Ugh.


posted by sordaria @ 12:10 AM

Today fate was very mean to me. Well, not so much MEAN, I mean, it did something nice for me, but in a very TEASING sort of way. And it did it TWICE!!! You see, there's this boy...(how many of my stories start out like that....)...this guy I have known for a few years, but I rarely see. He's in a band, and I'm totally smitten with him. Which itself is interesting, given how I hardly know him. I'll ponder that one more later. Anyway, so I haven't seen this guy in a while, not through lack of trying however, but as I am driving home from spending two hours downtown, who should I see leaning up against the wall of a certain bar, but Mr. Amazing himself!! My heart skips a few beats, and I, being the stalkerish girl I am, speed back downtown, careen around trying to find a parking space, throw some quarters in the meter and booter up the road, turning the corner onto said street very nonchalently, hoping to look as if I was just happening to pass by this way. Fate being as it was, by the time I got to the bar (it can't have been more than 5 or 6 minutes since I passed it in my car), said boy and friend had disappeared. Dejected, I mopped back to my vehicle, noting that I still had 27 minutes left on the meter. Damn wasted quarters. And if THAT wasn't enough, I proceed home to grab some stuff, and just as I am about to leave the house again, I quickly check my ICQ, and see that he has come online!! Well, in N/A mode, which is itself very exciting because he is NEVER NEVER EVER in anything other than offline mode. So, I get all excited, go into ONLINE status and send him a message......to no avail. There is no response from said boy, likely because he was never there to begin with -- his computer probably was just turned on and ICQ popped up automatically. That, or he ignored me. I choose to believe option number one.
WHY DO YOU TEMPT ME, OH FATE????
hmph.
But life goes on. Today is Ben's birthday, so I will go have fun with him and his colleages. Maybe some of them will be attractive boys. er....I mean.....nevermind. You heard what I said. Or rather, read it.
posted by sordaria @ 5:25 PM

A couple of things happened today that are worth mentioning. I'll put them in some sort of numerical list so that it's organized. Don't ask why -- it's late and I'm tired. That's reason enough. :)
1. Becca has helped me do stuff to this pretty dull page, so be prepared for some weird appearances and appearing and disapearing stuff in the next little while while I mess around with computer lingo.
1 (a) I now have COMMENTS, so leave me notes. I like notes.
1 (b) I want to put up pictures, but apparently need server space. I have no server space, knowing no servers very personally. Can anyone help me with this?
1 (c) I have made some space for links now, so if you know any fun and exciting links (CHRIS...), or just plain stupid but nonetheless enjoyable ones, please let me know!!

2. I have begun a new exercise regime that pretty much entails my butt wishing it was on someone else's body....and stabbing pains running through my frontal ankles and shins with every step I take. No pain no gain, right? I give this three more days until that slogan turns into "no pain, no pain."

3. Had my first sushi lesson today. Somehow it turned into a photo documentary of "how to make sushi with becca and Erica". Should be quite the montage, and if I ever get any server space, I'll enlighten you all. She's quite the lark.

4. I love downtown St. John's, but why is it always the case that, no matter what side of the street you're on, the only avalible parking spots are always on the OTHER side of the street???

5. I saw a mother duck and four ducklings cross the street yesterday evening on my way out to Jen's in Paradise. This was a three lane, fast, busy street, lots of cars, hectic time of day, but everything came grinding to a halt for this five-membered, feathered family. I love how Mother Nature raises her head ever so often to throw us the message that no matter how much we try to tame, alter, and conform our environment, we're still just impinging on her teritory, and her life still exists all around us. Flowers push and poke through sidewalk concrete, one strike of lightening can bring entire cities to a halt, and little ducks continue to walk from pond to pond, no matter if we've chosen to place a four lane speedway inbetween the two. It's a nice reminder that we don't rule this place...we simply live on it, like everything else.

6. Cuckold's Cove is amazingly beautiful when seen from the top of Ladies' Lookout. (of course...there's 80 billion stairs to get up there....hence the hurtage of the butt...)

7. Goodnight.
posted by sordaria @ 11:57 PM

Note to self: hiking UP the northhead trail is much harder than hiking DOWN. Damn stairs.
posted by sordaria @ 11:15 AM

Good morning! It's 8:15am! I've been awake since 6:50! I had to drive my parents to the airport! I'm so freakin' tired! I think I'm going to go hike Signal Hill since I'm awake! I'm crazy! Good thing I just had a REALLY REALLY big cup of coffee!

heh heh heh
posted by sordaria @ 8:14 AM

This may be the Ben Harper talking....or the warm summer night....or a combination of the two, but frankly, I'm tired. Physically and mentally, yes, I barely got any sleep last night, having stayed out with the lovely peeps on George Street until 3ish and then stumbling home only to be awoken at 8am by my wonderful cat knocking items off my bookshelf and threatening to destroy everything within paw reach (which, as it turns out, is in fact EVERYTHING) if I didn't get out of bed and throw his toy mice down the hallway for him to chase. But more than that normal tiredness, I am tired of this other thing -- I am tired of being all by myself. Now, that may sound a little strange. I have lots of friends, some wonderfully close ones to whom I can trust the scariest secrets of my demented brain and heart, but when it comes down to it, I'm still lonely. I'm tired of, at the end of the night, saying goodnight to everyone and crawling home alone to my bed to sleep and to wake alone again in the morning. I wish that at the end of the night, I had someone to make that stumble home with me, to plop into bed next to me, to throw his arms around me as I drift off into sleep.....and I'm tired of trying to find this person. In the words of John Mayor, "Hurry up and get here."
Wow. The fact that I just quoted John Mayor means I'm being seriously sappy and depressing...so sorry to my devoted readers (becca and chris :)....but sometimes, a girl has just got to vent.
Goodnight and sweet dreams guys.
posted by sordaria @ 11:42 PM

Nights have a tendency of taking their own path.....they can start out planned and begin by going the way you set them out to...but then somehow friday decides that it would rather run itself, so screw you and your well thought out plans. Sometimes friday can decide to deliver you a wonderfully surprising and enjoyable night, full often of debachery and leudness, but ever so often it throws you a big crapbag of unhappiness. There are also nights inbetween, which deserve not much more than a shrug of indifference when you are asked, "how was your night last night?"
Last night was one of the last kind....started out wonderfully, then slowly went downhill....the funny thing is, I can't even totally say WHY it went downhill.....strange, yes, I know. But there it is.
In other news, I was interviewed by CBC radio yesterday about the Rhodes thing....stayed tuned to CBC Wednesday morning at 10:30ish Newfoundland time to hear my crappy stutterings. :)
All I know right now is that drinking is NOT on the menu for this evening. The thought of Rev makes me want to go hide under my pillow. Or camp out by the porcelin princess, one or the other. ;)

posted by sordaria @ 5:17 PM

I want to go for a slow walk around Longpond....like last week...in the misty rain...warm, wet, summer nights.....maybe I'll actually push you in this time!!
posted by sordaria @ 8:19 PM

I want to go for a slow walk around Longpond....like last week...in the misty rain...warm, wet, summer nights.....maybe I'll actually push you in this time!!
posted by sordaria @ 9:01 PM

I'm in an extremely restless mood right now. I feel as if life is out there, happening, but I'm just not a part of it. I'm sitting at home, granted, I have strep throat and therefore should be resting at home, but still, there is so much I could be doing tonight rather than sit on my butt. It also doesn't help that it's a bazillion degrees in here and I'm hot and cranky....cranky I think perfectly describes my mood. Cranky cranky mc crank. UUURRRRRGGGGHHH. It's sad when going to the movie store to return movies is the highlight of your night. I almost just did that but just couldn't get up the resolve to find something to wear. I know how stupid that sounds...but it's so hot out....and I'm so cranky. Looks like a night on the sofa. Thank god tommorrow is friday!!
posted by sordaria @ 8:58 PM

I have strep throat. Luckily, my fingers seem to be doing alright, and so I thought I'd post something before certain friends start abandoning me.
This strep throat thing got me wondering....where did I get it from? There's one big contender....urgh....but this got me thinking...before you kiss someone, should there be a rule whereby you have to list any ailments, coughs or tickles you've had recently? Just like STDs, should we be worried about KTDs (kissing transmitted diseases)? I mean really, if you know you might be carrying certain unwanted bacteria around in your mouth, don't you think it's common curtosy to warn someone else before you stick your infected tongue into there otherwise clean and healthy mouth??
And what if people started using their sick throats to get back at people they don't like? What if they kissed people, not out of love, or lust, or old-man-grossness, but instead because they insulted the old friend of their goldfishes' babysitter? What if strep throat became the new tool of the mafia??? This has many implications....

Of course, I could easily write this off to the fact that strep throat has a longish incubation time, and therefore the person I got it from likely had no idea they had strep throat when we kissed or shared water bottles or lip balm or whatever the heck the source of this crappy bacteria was. All I know is that penicillin is my best friend -- that, and numbing throat drops...mmmm....numbing....

And that's a rap. Happy becca?? :)
posted by sordaria @ 12:43 PM

Thunder showers can bring weird things.......bit of a different night last night.......must be the humidity.
posted by sordaria @ 11:41 AM

I wrote a little story yesterday...it kinda just popped into my head while I was showering, and was initially the beginning of a longer novel, but when I actually sat down to write it, it turned comic on me....not really sure how that happened, and was over before I knew it. Ever think that the characters you create are writing their own stories? That you are simply the medium they use? Scary.....
Anyway, here's the story. I'm not totally content with the ending yet, but that change will wait until another day. It's nice outside, so I'm going out. :)

Oh -- it doesn' t have a name yet. Maybe The Dead Finger, or something....,.anyway, here goes.


I have ten fingers. But only nine are alive.

It all started because she didn’t understand that there was a difference between blood and dying. And so, when a careless slip of the carving knife on its sharpening stick caused half of my right index finger to slip from the bone and begin spurting blood, Emily froze, the red brick crayon falling from her curled fingers, and then bolted for the stairs, screaming blue murder. She locked herself in her room and would not be pursuaded to emerge until, three hours later, I returned from the emergency room, and set up camp outside her doorway.

“Emily, let me in.” I said, not a question, but a demand, knocking firmly on the oak door. I silently cursed myself for not removing the lock when we moved into the house a year ago, and then, wanting to relinquish some of the blame for this disaterous afternoon, the former owners for installing the damn thing in the first place.

“No. You’re dead.” Again, not a question, but a statement of fact.

I looked down at myself. Seemed solid enough. I pinched my flesh of my left bicep. Ouch.

“Emily, I am not dead. Now open the door.”

“No! You died! You cut off your finger and there was blood EVERYWHERE and you’re DEAD so go back to heaven and leave me alone!!”

I decided that arguing the miracles of modern medicine with a hell-bent seven-year-old was too much for my current state of health, and so, with a last offer of peace, retired to the sun room.

“Emily, I’m not dead, although I am very tired, and so will be in the sun room drinking tea if you care to join me.”

Silence from beyond the door. Although being a mother, I knew the sound of a pout when I heard one.

Fifteen minutes later I was lounging in my favorite white and blue padded reading chair, pouring over the latest Lawn and Garden, and sipping luke warm tea with lots of sugar. I figured I would need the energy.

All of sudden Emily appeared in the doorway. Or rather, a floating head closely reminiscent of the one that usually sits on Emily’s shoulders poked its way around the doorframe, hovering there and surveying me warily.

“Hello Emily. Would you like a biscuit?” I motioned to the plate of peanut butter cookies I had laid on the table in front of my chair. Emily’s favorite.

A body slowly appeared in the doorframe to accompany the head. It was dressed in black jogging pants with a baggy black sweater with U of T written in yellow across the front, and black socks with cats and balls of wool running across them. Apparently, Emily had already gone into mourning.

“Ghosts don’t drink tea.”

“Too bad for them,” I mused, “they don’t know what they’re missing.” And took a big loud slurp.

Emily slinked her way across the tile floor to my chair and touched my bandaged finger.

“But there was blood, so something died.” She said ademently.

“Emily, honey, people bleed all the time – it doesn’t mean they’re going to die!”

But she was set, and there was no changing her mind. Hell hast no furry like a stead fast seven year old....

“No. There was blood so SOMETHING died.” She poked again at my bandaged finger, wrapped up to a least twice its normal size.

“They mumified your finger,” she said. And then, “I’m sorry your finger died, mummy.”

So that was to be it. My finger was to be sacrificed, so that I could live. I sighed.

“Me too sweetie.”
And Emily climbed up into my chair and chewed on a cookie.

And so, though I have ten fingers, only nine have lived to see this, my 55th birthday.

Emily came home from university this past weekend, and brought me a birthday present. It was a new pair of gloves, with the right index finger cut off. She grinned as I opened the package.
“I figured ghost fingers don’t need to be kept warm.”

I sighed and then we both burst out into peals of laughter.








posted by sordaria @ 5:26 PM

Yesterday I went on a hike along the cliffs towards Maddox Cove from Cape Spear. We stopped twice to sit out on jutting peaks of rock and watch and listen. A minke whale came to visit, swimming right underneath where we sat watching, entranced. Humpbacks showed their white flukes as moving pools of greenyblue so that we could follow their progress underwater. Sitting there on the rock, with the sea wind in my hair, the sun in my eyes and the entire ocean spread out before me, dotted with white seabirds and grey whales, I acknowledged, once again, that this place is in my blood. This is my home, the gift my parents gave me by having me here.....this place has such a frightening beauty.....I wish almost that I could wrap it all up in celophane with a "don't touch" sign so that we can't harm it, change it or destroy it anymore than we already have. We really can be monsters, sometimes.
posted by sordaria @ 5:22 PM

So, there's lots of things I don't understand in this life. Einstein once said that we don't know one millionth of one percent about anything....or at least something like that...that was quite possiby a very bad paraphrase.

But what I'm really trying to ramble on about is the fact that people never seem to stop amazing me in the stupid ways they can act when they get stuck in a certain thought process. And no matter how untrue or unreasonable that thought process may be, or how much people attempt to persuade against it, some people just won't let them selves be convinced otherwise. And it sucks when this comes to relationships, because if you're too scared to ask, nothing will ever happen. And that's the way it is.

That was likely very confusing. But, there's my life. A little skewed as always.

posted by sordaria @ 4:58 PM

So, there's lots of things I don't understand in this life. Einstein once said that we don't know one millionth of one percent about anything....or at least something like that...that was quite possiby a very bad paraphrase.

But what I'm really trying to ramble on about is the fact that people never seem to stop amazing me in the stupid ways they can act when they get stuck in a certain thought process. And no matter how untrue or unreasonable that thought process may be, or how much people attempt to persuade against it, some people just won't let them selves be convinced otherwise. And it sucks when this comes to relationships, because if you're too scared to ask, nothing will ever happen. And that's the way it is.

That was likely very confusing. But, there's my life. A little skewed as always.
posted by sordaria @ 4:19 PM

Well. Here I am, then. I have officially arrived and am part of the great World Wide Web.

Somehow, though, I don't really think this is changing anything.....does anyone actually read these? Am I posting for no other reason than simple self-appreciation? Is there anyone out there? Hello? Well, if not, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (just a shout out to one of my all time favorite authors there...)

I'll now try to learn how to use this thing so I can start posting relevent musings and murmers...so far this has all been just a lot of huiee....however that is spelt.

posted by sordaria @ 3:50 PM