Everything2 New Writeups

Rough Skinned Newt (thing)

2013-05-20T08:07:35Z

The Rough Skinned Newt, or in scientific parlance, Taricha Granulosa (meaning: Mummy with Bumpy Skin) is a species of salamander living in The Pacific Northwest, from the panhandle of Alaska to central California. It is a mid-sized salamander, about six inches long, with a distinctive dark upper surface and pale orange lower surface. As its name implies, it also has rough skin.

As an amphibian, the Rough Skinned Newt begins life in slow moving or still waters and then metamorphosis into an adult that lives in damp forests. The Rough Skinned Newt lives in leaf litter and lives off of a diet of small invertebrates, meaning insects and worms. It returns to water to breed once a year.

None of this is that interesting to the non-herpetologist: like most salamanders, the Rough Skinned Newt lives a slow life consuming small insects and worms, and due to the low energy needs of a cold blooded animal, it can live quietly and slowly in the leaf litter. This is true of most…

oriented 3x (idea)

2013-05-20T05:58:48Z

In medical jargon, to be "oriented 3x" (or oriented times three) simply means to know who you are, where you are, and what time it is.

Complex questions of metaphysics, existentialism, space-time mechanics, and dasein aside, being and time in this context refers to one's ability to answer the following questions:

What is the date?
Where are you?
Who are you?"

Inability to answer these questions may result in findings of (or be the result of): head injury, intoxication, stroke, central nervous system infection (such as meningitis), hyperthermia, hypothermia, severe altitude illness, low blood sugar, hypoxia, dementia, poststructuralism, or a host of other interesting mental illnesses.

Following this basic assessment, the patient's level of consciousness may be graded on a scale like this:

Oriented and can do

…

Xiang mian (idea)

2013-05-20T02:21:30Z

Xiang mian (also found in Wade-Giles as hsiang mien) is the ancient Chinese art of divining an individual's character from his or her facial structure.

In xiang mian, the contours and shape of your face are read as a map of your inner landscape. Similar in theory to the popular 18th century practice of physiognomy, the face is an open book to practitioners of xiang mian, who still practice in China (primarily as medical diagnosticians). From the broad strokes of the forehead to the poetic angles of the zygotic arches - every bone and surface plane speaks.

Fundamental character typing in xiang mian is based on the relative proportions of the three main components of the face:

forehead width
cheek width
jaw width

Try this at home!

Find a picture of yourself looking straight at the camera. Lay a piece of…

Mama Sheik (person)

2013-05-20T02:16:04Z

Mama Sheik (b. 1968, d. 1993): legendary girl gangsta.

Mama Sheik grew up in the Hillside Projects in Milwaukee, became the founder and queenpin of the Sheiks, a competitive kickboxer, one-time bank robber, businesswoman, and in her final incarnation - Midwestern drug empress.

For these latter occupations, and possibly because she was a flamboyant and glamorous black lesbian woman of forbidden power whose closet could have kicked Liberace's closet's ass, she is very unlikely to be featured on A&E Biography any time soon.

At 11, she was a bright, popular 7th grader. She organized a competitive girls' neighborhood dance team (which she called the Sheiks, because she liked the power and strength connoted in the word), was active in school athletics, and was a model student.

The Sheiks were street-dancers competing on…

May 19, 2013 (log)

2013-05-19T23:28:42Z

Yesterday was cloudy with on and off showers, today more of the same. I love grey, overcast, rainy days!! Yesterday I played tennis for the first time in probably 30 years and it was fun!!! Of course, today my body is complaining, but it really felt good so I think I'll continue. Sort of fell off the exercise wagon for a few years, so I'm thinking any exercise is a good thing. Next time I will wear sneakers though, instead of work boots.

In one way, it was a first time experience, as I had never played doubles in the past. After turning 60 last month, it was encouraging to find I could somewhat hold my own, playing against my two sons, and partnering with the younger son's girlfriend. We were technically there to oversee my 2 eldest grandsons, who were at a local street fair to be picked up later, so with no grandchildren and their cadre of cousins and friends within earshot, I was able to say at one point to my sons, "You have all the balls." I know,…

eager (review)

2013-05-19T20:28:34Z

eager
by Helen Fox
Hodder Children's Books, 2003
Wendy Lamb Books, 2004

This is a science fiction book for children, intended for ages 9-14. It is a bit more thoughtful than most science fiction written for children this age, being a bit more concerned with what makes an AI conscious and a little less concerned with blood-and-thunder adventures.

The Bell family live in a middle-class English neighborhood at the end of the 21st century. Life is pretty good -- they have robots to do all of the housework, all of the comforts of modern living, and a school that makes learning fun. Their only concern, at the moment, is that their household robot, Grumps, is getting a bit old and makes unpredictable errors -- like serving dinner for breakfast.

This problem looks to be solved when they receive a gift robot, EGR3, from a scientist working with experimental IA's -- robots that learn like humans, and have…

PIMBY (idea)

2013-05-18T23:24:04Z

PIMBY is a response to NIMBY -- Not In My Backyard. While the NIMBY attitude is characterized by an unwillingness to accept any negative externalities involved in large public works or large companies (power companies, pig farms, sewage plants, etc.), PIMBY is the attitude that maybe we should replan these institutions to keep all externalities acceptable to the local community.

While this idea sounds pretty straightforward, the term is used with many shades of meaning by many different groups.

PIMBY is most often translated as either "Please In My Back Yard" or "Power In My Back Yard"; it is generally associated with personal solar power panels or wind turbines, where the homeowner produces their own power. It may also be used by those who raise their own food crops, food animals, use composting toilets, use greywater systems, passive solar heating, etc. The idea is basically that instead of relying on public utilities or corporations, the homeowner…

May 18, 2013 (personal)

2013-05-18T20:22:57Z

Sometimes, when I have writer's block, I do strange things. Strictly speaking, I don't have writer's block, but merely insufficient time to write. This story-- a novella, perhaps-- comes along swimmingly when I get the opportunity, and I almost have a complete draft, about forty typed, single-spaced pages in length. Never mind. I felt like doing something strange, and now a cat has died, blood splattered on the curb of main street. I suppose I'm only a witness, and not even that, having arrived a moment too late to report on the actual event.

My protagonist finds himself in an unfamiliar small town on a critical night of his life, and (entirely out of character) he's about to take a potentially dangerous combination of drugs. All of this makes perfect sense, in context. Trust me. Now, I could easily invent a small town and a restaurant. Lord knows, I conjured the protagonist's small town…

May 18, 2013 (log)

2013-05-18T18:07:48Z

(This was on my homenode, wrote it when Oolong resurrected it for me, but I'd rather move it to a daylog, and recommence bookmarkification and new things in that space)

I left a long time ago, and I took my action with me. That was what I needed to do, and it was my right to do it. Nobody owns my writing except for me, other than a bespoke textbook to which my university holds the copyright.Â

When people asamoth, they do it for a damn good reason, and whatever it is, they're more entitled to it than anyone else is to get pissed off that the asamoths owned their own creative labor and carted it off with them when they moved shop.Â

If you look at the writeup under asamoth, you'll see that some evidently believe that their ex should leave behind their vinyl records, furniture, art, books, and personal effects when they move out, on the grounds that all their personal belongings now somehow belong to the house. I think that attitude reflects the very soul of overbearing…

The shadows made her look a little treacherous. (poetry)

2013-05-18T13:30:56Z

Her bangs, tilted over one side of her face
gave mascara heavy eyes a
covert appearance

Her dark voice, raspy,
told a series of stories that sounded more like riddles,
interrupted by smoke circles.

Her blood red fingernails traced the rim of her glass,
the collar of my shirt, then
my neck, as she kissed me.

Just once.

. .

_{thanks to Evil Catullus for the title}

Dr. Gruber (idea)

2013-05-18T08:18:49Z

Early to mid-century movie trope, peaking in the 30's and again in the late 60's and into the 70's.

Nowadays they call it "concierge medicine": having a doctor on retainer, available on call for a select number of patients. In mid-century film, Dr. Gruber is the "family doctor", who lurks vaguely on the edges of the household staff, ranking somewhere over a servant, yet not quite a full member of the family.

Now, there may be some question as to why and how a doctor is needed for a home full of people who are a) wealthy and b) reasonably healthy. Actually, this isn't much of a question at all, since of course families at this level of wealth are invariably decadent and full of secrets. Assuming that there isn't an Identified Invalid or Elder, we're most probably going to deal with:Â

Â 1. The Problem Woman. She may drink excessively. She may have "nervous ailments". She may be dealing with nameless "women's problems", which range from an STD from…

When I woke up this morning, I thought I was a parallelogram. I still have a sneaking suspicion. (place)

2013-05-17T22:23:31Z

we are tangled in bed
when the laundrywoman comes in with her basket to collect
and so we dress, awkwardly (being found in a pile, you on my lap)
and i head out, my disappointment at being interrupted fading
into the immense stretching hallways
and the echoing floors and right-angle turns
in search of the lavatory

the first error i make is attempting to turn into a window
through which i can see my destination
and so i go around the courtyard, through the glass hall
through the four-exit dome with the table and white painted chairs
that the elders use in the evening for tea before they retire
(turning left) through the small kitchen and out into the grand hall
which is as wide as a room and as high as a theatre
green and brown carpet, red accents
great doors of unique character branching off into antique rooms

past a gathering of afternoon suits praying for the nonbelievers
(though i speak their…

The Possessed (review)

2013-05-17T08:10:51Z

"The Possessed" is Constance Garnett's translation of Бесы, Fyodor Dostoevsky's strangest completed novel. (It really is an odd book--you'd think putting all the most Dostoevskian of characters and tropes together in one book would produce a wonderfully typical Dostoevsky novel, but no. More on that later, perhaps.) That title is usually translated nowadays as Demons, restoring the blame that the passive tone of "The Possessed" removes from the characters.

So this isn't about that book. I've just finished the book that genuinely possesses this title in English: Elif Batuman's 2010 memoir of graduate school in comparative literature. Batuman chose her title consciously, wryly and aptly, with the same skillful wittiness that pervades the book. The subtitle is "Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them." Anyone who knows me even a little knows this has something to do with me, so I bought the book at a library sale.

…

May 17, 2013 (log)

2013-05-17T06:37:10Z

Hi, e2. Been a while.

This is just a quick note to thank those of you who offered kindness and support to Auspice while I was stuck in Minneapolis' VA Medical Center fighting off a rather nasty bacterial infection in my leg. I'm better now; the antibiotics and sleep and a return to the low-carb diet have done wonders.

Tax season is over. I made a decent amount of commission this year, but working 50+ hours a week almost certainly contributed to my unplanned extra week in Minneapolis, so I'll need to cut back and not work so many hours next season. Tentative plans for the summer include preparing for and (hopefully) passing the Enrolled Agent exam, (for work purposes, an EA is every bit as good as a CPA), continuing to lose weight through lack of carbs, and getting out to see my friends in meatspace instead of just talking to my friends who live in this black box next to my bed. Maybe I'll even get some noding done. We'll see how it all goes.

GRE essay prep: an instance of the results of this barbarous exercise (essay)

2013-05-17T03:24:30Z

I'm going to take the Graduate Record Examination. The math is easy. The reading/criticism isn't too bad. But there are two 30-minute essay sections, and that's not so cool for me, because I'm a slow, slow writer. I plod along, exchanging synonyms, tightening structure, adjusting paragraph divisions, and generally feeling horrible until I like what I see. Then I take a deep breath, and in a full voice, I begin a blissfully, unabashedly self-indulgent reading of my work.

Otherwise what's the point?

So of course I utterly despise timed composition. But I've been training myself in it so that I won't completely fail. The prompts are published on ETS's website, so I've been writing from those. I started out taking...a very long time for each essay. Now, I'm often just barely down to the 30-minute mark. I'm getting there. I think I'll be okay.

Writing these is taking up all of my writing time, just when I wanted to get back into e2. But I hypothesize that the GRE might not be out…

dog park (place)

2013-05-16T17:56:19Z

This is mainly written from the perspective of a city dweller who holds down a nine to five job and where open space is considered a premium.

Poor Fido, cooped up in the empty house for hours on end just waiting for you to come home after a hard day at work. Naturally, when you come strolling through the door heâs going to treat you like the return of a conquering hero and after greeting you is also going to want to go to the great outdoors and take care of some âpersonal businessâ. After that, the pooch is probably going to want to play a game or two of fetch before curling up at your feet and settling in for the evening.

And then the routine resumes again the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that and so on and so on.

Sounds pretty boring doesnât it?

Well, if you want to give Fido a break from the monotony and allow him some time with his fellow canines, you might want to consider a trip to your local…

These Bookshelves (poetry)

2013-05-16T10:08:43Z

Even as I became older,
I would sometimes be reminded of how little I knew.

These bookshelves always seemed a solid wall of erudition and authority,
That I could never quite hope to reach.

But now they've collapsed,
Although still standing untouched.

Now just a mass of old volumes on scant frames.

Ouroboros (personal)

2013-05-16T05:24:31Z

Last week I went looking for the St. Germain elderflower cordial I first tasted because Ouro sent me a bottle. I thought of him as I criss-crossed the town checking in shops. But I did not write to say hello.

A few weeks ago, I heard from a filmmaker who liked a photograph I had taken at Pere Lachaise. I had only taken it because it reminded me of Ouro. He liked it too, and had used it as his avatar icon on various sites for a long time. The filmmaker wanted to use it on a movie poster, but a smidge of the border around the ouroboros was cut in the frame. Could I tell him where in Pere Lachaise (a cemetery the size of a small town) Iâd taken it? I did remember. I remembered finding it, and thinking of Matthew as I got down on the ground to frame up my shot just so. I should have, but I did not write to say hello.

There are regrets. Regret and terrible confusion and a visceral sense of loss, even given the distance of time and space between his death and our last conversation.…

resentment (personal)

2013-05-15T18:25:21Z

"I'm resting, leave me alone," my mother said, waving my sister off with annoyance. We would later put it together that she'd been lying there on the floor of her cluttered, studio apartment for about two days by then. Her vital organs were already beginning to shut down.

My sister, a detective in the San Francisco Police Department, had just broken the front window and let herself in. She didn't have a key; she hadn't been to see my mother for over a decade. No one in our family had, apart from me and my brother. And he--a fairly high-functioning autistic man, from whom my mother was regularly stealing disability checks--had no real choice in the matter.

Not exactly Norman Rockwell stuff, I know.

* * *

As far as I can tell my mom had always been crazy. I may have first realized this when she told my sister and me about the end of her first marriage, which happened when…

Rain Cage (poetry)

2013-05-15T09:47:31Z

Â Seven miles north to Tuscany.
We have no response for the rain.
Â Likened, once, to a playground bully
Â Â rapping upon your skull for pain
Â Â that numbs you until you cannot think, you
Â Â cannot imagine your own face.
Â Only blood sitting weary and slow and
Â eyeballs floating in empty space.

Nearly perfect spheres see themselves,
Â milky surface area unable to close.
Moving them from one side of the world to another
Â hardly makes a difference
Â Â (as far as you know).
Oh rain of mammoth, tell what we have done.
Â Give us who we are,
Â and tell where we go.

---

For one…

Ode to a Pub Waitress (poetry)

2013-05-15T02:58:26Z

Sylvia, I want to sip at the shake of your hips
I want to move to the state of your hair, Sylvia
I want to haunt with the ghost of your smile,
you creamy fire engine, you easy bowl of milk

Sylvia, I want to hop your fences and feed you apples,
read your palms like braille; you gentlest of souls,
you gypsy moth,
you dripping locomotive.

Sylvia, your thighs are packed like
suitcases I desperately need to open. Sylvia, I want to
powder your nose, plant violets behind your eyes and
watch your realization bloom. I want to test your
ripeness, you summer peach. I want to match your lashes
to kiss your cheeks; you raucous flowerchild,
you wide-eyed suckerpunch,
you lusty antithesis,
you onomatopoeia

Uncross my borders and
test my teeth; Sylvia, would you
cover my mouth so I can breathe?

Life before death (essay)

2013-05-14T23:49:38Z

I don't answer calls from Unknown.

It's not so much that Unknown and I aren't on speaking terms as much as the truth that I see Unknown trying to hide behind the basketball hoop pole on the playground. As if on the count of ten I look up and won't notice him standing against the aluminum pipe when I know Unknown has a face and a mother and is tugged down by gravity just like me. Somewhere light reflects off him and somewhere he has to pick what he'll eat for dinner and where he has to pee. Because Unknown is a person or a machine built by a person. Usually.

Unknown does not leave a message.

The Iranian lady who cuts my hair answers calls from numbers she doesn't recognize because they might be customers but lots of times they're from machines trying to sell her automobile service policies that never pay. She got out of Iran and to the U.S. and started a hair cutting business which would have been impossible for a woman in Tehran. She divorced her…

The Bat Man (fiction)

2013-05-14T23:07:26Z

"Superhero registration, please hold for transfer." The receptionist set the phone down and adjusted the frames of her horn-rimmed glasses, and flicking a stray blond lock from her flawless face. She carefully read the application form that had been submitted by the man eagerly standing in the center of the room.

She took a careful look at him. He was of an indistinguishable age, probably early thirties. Tall, muscular, undoubtedly handsome beneath that black mask, and wearing a neat, pinstriped baseball uniform that looked like something from the 1940s, though with a decidedly modern looking batter's helmet. He wore, as well, a shoulder belt, by which he carried on his broad back three baseball bats.

"Mr.-- Wayne?" The receptionist seemed slightly unsure.

"Oh, Wayne's my first name. My last name is Bruce. So Bruce-comma-Wayne."

"Mr. Bruce," the receptionist began delicately, "I'm sorry, but you can't use the superhero name you've…

taxi (thing)

2013-05-14T17:07:37Z

Sometimes, things just donât turn out the way you planned them. That seems to be the main premise behind the theme of the television show Taxi and its cast members. I mean, does anybody want to grow up to become a cab driver in New York City?

Taxi was easily one of the funniest shows I watched back in the late 70âs and early 80âs. During its short five year run it won a total of 18 Emmy Awards, three of which for âOutstanding Comedy Seriesâ. While thatâs all well and good, Taxi also covered some issues that given the times, might have been considered taboo. Hereâs a short listing of some of the more controversial ones.

Drug abuse

Animal abuse

Single parenting

The Cast

Alex Rieger as portraved by Judd Hirsch.

…

Dr. Joyce Brothers (person)

2013-05-14T13:38:15Z

I usually donât like it when the death of an individual provides me with a spark to write about them. It seems a bit ghoulish but in this case Iâll make an exception.

âI invented media psychology; I was the first, the founding mother.â

Long before there was a Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz, Dr. This or Dr. That dishing out advice on television for what ails you there was another doctor who, depending on your point of view, should be credited with establishing the format that is still in use today.

Her name was Dr. Joyce Brothers and hereâs her story.

Joyce Brothers (nee Bauer) was born in Brooklyn, New York to a pair of attorneys who shared a law practice together. She would later go on to attend Cornell University where she majored in home economics (you can major in that?) and psychology. She eventually earned a Ph.D from Columbia University.

She married an internist in 1949 but the couple struggled early on…