Hodge Podgery

My synapses have been on overtime lately.  I’m a whirling dervish of energy and excitement.  I’d like to blame it on my giving up gluten and potatoes (I know I know..nothing to live for), but there’s something brewing in the inner regions of my psyche that have been dormant for so long.  Truth is I feel so much more me lately.  I keep thinking I’m as me as I’ll ever be, but then there’s another layer I had forgotten I locked away in a closet.

I did give up gluten, which has meant more time in the kitchen cooking delicious items.  Look at those gluten free pizzas with mushrooms and carmelized onions.  So delicious too.

“I get lost in my mind..lost in my mind….lost…I get lost…loooooooooosssssssssst.”  Pardon me while I sing along to Head and the Heart singing Lost in My Mind.

I’m also addicted to upcycling and repurposing.  My kiddo said this is how all hoarders start out.  She may have a point, except I’m not one for things lying about.  Except as I glance over at my art table it’s covered in paint, sea glass, canvases and my coffee mug with a naked woman with swinging breasts.  Don’t believe me?  Here’s a picture.  Genius.

Maybe physically feel better and it’s rewiring my mental.  I haven’t been feeling out of sorts, but lately I feel downright childlike.  I have a wonderment and such an appetite for life.  Maybe I’m replacing my bread and potatoes hunger for another.  A hunger to live as if there is a tomorrow of promise.

Now listen to this song….I think you’ll feel the way I do:

I’d love to feel
Your hand touching mine
And tell me why
I must keep working on

Yes I’d give my life
To lay my head tonight on a bed
Of California stars

Higgs Boson alert

So I’m feeling a little anti-climatic about the Higgs Boson.  I’m on high google alert (code red of course) for the confirmation that this elusive “God particle” exists.  There are hints, there are murmurs and there are numerous emails alerting me to this fact.  I am pins and needles sitting on the edge of my seat waiting for someone, anyone, to say “yes we have found it.”  This spec of dust that begat everything, all the stars and the universe and the very matter that makes us what we are.  Of course, this is just proof that Einstein was right.  E=MC squared (couldn’t find a little 2 to put up there).  From nothing, something can come.  From energy, matter can be made.  This Higgs Boson particle is the existence of the nothing that made the big bang.  

I don’t pretend to know what I’m talking about or even what they’re talking about.  I have forever been fascinated by space and the realm of possibility that there are otherworldly things of which I know nothing.  I cannot even comprehend string theory.  Look it up if you dare.  But what I do enjoy is the search, that desire to dissect and understand our very existence.  I’m not a religious person, but I do believe in things beyond the universe I can see.

So, what happens after Higgs Boson?  Michio Kaku believes we will then look for dark matter.  That invisible net that binds the planets and the stars together.  We are hurtling toward nothingness, but what does it matter anyway?  We only have this brief period of time here.  Then what?  I’m not sure.  I’d like to believe in another universe, in another time, I will be me just smarter.  I won’t return that phone call, I won’t go on that date, but I will still end up where I am.  Content in what I am contributing to the universe.  Content in the love that surrounds me like an invisible dark matter binding my soul and my heart.

So after the Higgs Boson discovery, I will be excited for the next thing and the thing after.  Because I want to know. I want to believe this all means something.

What I’m thinking about…..

1.  My electricity went off the other night for a few hours.  I realized I’m not completely comfortable with the lack of sound of electronic hums.  I tried to listen to my Ipod, but it just reminded me how dark and quiet it really was.  The lights came on around one in the morning and I immediately fired up my computer so I could be lulled to sleep by something, anything, that was on Netflix.  It’s not so much I can’t be alone with my thoughts.  It’s just nice to have a background noise to them.

2.  Today we are under severe weather warning.  Which, if you’re from the South, you know it means tornadoes.  Logically I’m not afraid of having to live through another one again.  Instead, I’m just weary of the worry it all brings.  This is repayment for the lack of winter this year.

3.  I finished a book of a certain genre that I have been lax about getting published.  It’s just that mentally I decided not to publish in that genre anymore and it’s like I’ve already said goodbye.  But it’s a shame to have something completed and not see it to the end.  I promised myself I would do something with it this year.  I just haven’t had the inspiration to do it.  Maybe soon.

4.  The coffee I bought with shots of fake caramel flavor just doesn’t taste as good as I hoped for.

5.  I’m eating Indian food for lunch.  Seems decadent.

6.  My daughter offered to make me breakfast this morning.  It still makes me sniffle that she does.

7.  I haven’t written a poem in a while.  I really should.  I’ll give it some thought.

There’re more things on my mind today, but a girl has to keep some secrets.

Stop looking back…there’s only forward

Michio Kaku

So last night I went to see a lecture by Michio Kaku.  I could bore you with his advanced theories of the universe and life itself, or I could just let you find him on your own.  Let me also take this moment to expose myself a true blue dork.  I love science.  A total geek.  Proudly flying my nerd flag.  I especially love space and physics even though I understand approximately 10% of it.  

I am a Higgs Boson groupie.  I love everything about it.  I watched the documentary “Atom Smashers”, not once, but three times.  I devour theories of life and the universe like some people do celebrity gossip.  These people, these brainiacs who wildly dream of what might be while awake, are my superstars (no pun intended).  They theorize about the beginnings of us all and dare to believe we can travel beyond what we know.  They don’t just ask why, they ask what if.  

Michio Kaku has been on numerous television shows and I’ve always been a fan.  It was like the Beatles were visiting, when I waited for the lecture to be over and for him to enter the small room where we sat for an off the cuff question and answer session.  If you’ve never heard him lecture, he’s funny and approachable and most of all brilliant.  He’s not just smart, he’s wicked “smaht.”  

It all makes sense when he talks.  He makes you question the world around you, the reality of what is.  His best analogy was of life itself being a bathtub filled with bubbles.  Our universe, the only one we know of, being one of millions of bubbles in the bath.  Who knows what lurks around us.  If there are mirror universes or parallel dopplegangers maybe someday our ancestors will know who they are.  Until then, we can dream of what might be and be reminded how really amazing it is we exist at all.

If you’re not familiar with Dr. Kaku’s work, then you must google him immediately.

Exactly how I feel today

We’re off to see the wizard…the wonderful wizard of awwwwwws

Music Mondays – Bon Iver

They won a Grammy for Best New Artist so you should know who they are.  Bon Iver may not have been the popular choice, but you have to hear them to appreciate the talent.  I was just grateful a band with pure talented sound could win out in a sea of flash.  Usually, it’s the Lady Gaga’s who garner all the attention and leave the moody lyrical alternative rock on the shelf for musicphiles like myself.

One of my favorite songs is Holocene, the harmony so piercingly pretty and uplifting.  It’s an unusual sound, but in a sea of pop-same-ness, it’s a welcome respite.  They’re the type of band you put on the Ipod and then lay back with your eyes closed and float away to another place.  The best music doesn’t need to explode in your face or shake your molars (although I do appreciate the Foo Fighters).

Their videos are artistic masterpieces, none more so than Hinnom, TX.    It’s simple, yet effective and beautifully colored.  I love the strangeness of the instruments used and it makes me long to play them myself.  My absolute favorite Bon Iver song is Perth.   I was first introduced to them when a dear friend of mine inserted their music into a video he was making.  Although their video is pretty good, his was better, but the song had me with the first chord.   I love the drums in this song too.  I could listen to it over and over and I’m doing just that.

So, they may not have won any supporters after what many deem is their stealing of the Grammy, but give them a listen anyway.  You might recognize the true talent and become a rabid fan such as myself.   Of course, they’ve been around a while, founded in 2007 by Justin Vernon.  I guess better late than never to the party.  Here’s to their continued success and even more albums.

Other notables:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGAH9ihcWv4&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxmcQGeNcMc&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhJ0OKB3Lmc&feature=related

Now go listen!

Mieze’s Musings # 3

Sometimes the people I own take me on a car ride to the house we use to live in.  The smells and the sounds frighten me, but I do like feeling the earth beneath my paws again.  It’s not the same anymore though.  I used to sprint out the door and travail around the woods.  I’d lick dew off blades of grass and chase bugs for hours.  I never paid attention before to the chill in the air and how my hip hurts when it’s cold.  

I didn’t sprint this time.  I meandered along sniffing the air and wishing I was on my soft blanket looking out of the window.  I saw a bug and couldn’t be bothered by it.  I think my opinion of what makes me happy has changed lately.  In my youth, I was happy chasing.  In my older age, I’m content with a warm place to lay and an occasional scratch on my ear.  I still like to drink the water drops off the grass though.  They will always be delicious.

Another One

I rarely comment on pop culture.  Not because I don’t follow it, but because I’m mostly bored by the travails and triumphs of the famous kind.  Except for Meryl Streep.  She’s a goddess. I still read People magazine and I always check out the entertainment section of any news.  I so don’t care who Jennifer Aniston is dating.  Leave the poor girl alone and let her date.  I am interested in fashion but not in their politics.  I’m a moviephile, but I don’t care of their lives outside of the characters they play.  Again, except for Meryl Streep.

Having said all that, I read Whitney Houston died and felt that pang of sadness.  I know the world mourns the loss of her talent.  It’s tragic that someone who seems to have had it all at her fingers could become a victim of her addictions.  We do not know the cause of death yet, but everyone is holding their breath just knowing it’s drug related.  Having a mother who is a full blown addict (even though she thinks a prescription means it’s not addiction), we’re always waiting for the time she takes an extra pill or increases her intake from three pain pills and three anti-depressants a day to an overdose or worse.  I consulted an addiction specialist who advised me to mourn her as if she’s already passed.  He assured me that unless she’s willing to seek treatment, there is absolutely nothing I can do but to demand her sobriety or I am no longer in her life.  So my sister and I did it.  Now, we just wait for the phone call.

I have sympathy for anyone who is beholden to addiction.  It really isn’t a switch that can be shut off.  It’s devastating not only to the people around them, but to themselves.  I don’t believe in rock bottom, I believe it’s so much lower than that.  I can’t imagine what my mother goes through every day in order to medicate herself to the point of comfort.  I don’t believe it’s a choice she makes any longer.  But there is a choice to get help.  When your family and friends beg you to go into rehab, you are making a choice not to.  Of course, she isn’t making decisions with a sober mind, but I do believe she sees the destruction she’s caused to those around her and no longer cares.

Yet, as I read Whitney Houston passed away, I thought about those Powell boys who were murdered by their father.  That really is a true tragedy.  They were innocent and subjected to their father’s evil.  Who knows what talents they might have possessed or what they might have contributed to the world.  It will never be known now.

I just remember shaking my head when Amy Winehouse drank herself to death.  Just another in a long list of talented, famous people who succumb to their addictions.  So, after watching the train wreck Whitney Houston became (and it was like watching a train wreck if you ever saw her reality show), she’s added to that list.  I often wonder what it’s going to take to convince these troubled minds to live to a ripe old age.