Have Books, Will Travel

Working for a travel guide company really makes you want to go places. Though we're not as "upwardly mobile" as the future-MBAs downstairs, we're certainly more laterally mobile. Sadly, travel is currently just a pipe dream; I don't have the money to go anywhere, and I can't apply to travel for the company this spring because I plan to take an EMT course. Still, I'm really hoping to do a round-the-world trip before med school, maybe from June to August of 2007. Gleaned from the pages of our trusty guides, I present my top 20 most desired travel destinations (in no particular order, but numbered so you don't think I skipped any).

1. Easter Island, Chile. Big heads on a little island in the middle of fucking nowhere. Wow.

2. Mongolia. Did anyone else's parents threaten to send them to Inner Mongolia when they were naughty? I mean, um, mine didn't, either.

3. The Great Wall of China. I figure I'll tackle this one after Mongolia, maybe dress up in some skins, grab a sword, and see if I can one-up Genghis Khan.

4. Isle of Skye, Scotland. Apparently I don't like people.

5. The Pyramids at Giza, Egypt. I've felt small before, but I want to feel really, really miniscule.

6. Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Actually, I don't smoke. But I do love me some Van Gogh.

7. Moscow, Russia. Word on the street is that the Kremlin museum is amazing and that Red Square is of historical interest as well.

8. Machu Picchu, Peru. Gesundheit.

9. Angkor Wat, Cambodia. Very Lara Croft.

10. The Dalmatian Coast, Croatia. Supposed to be a cut-rate (but equally gorgeous) alternative to the French Riviera. Sweet.

11. Mount Everest, Nepal. This may be aiming a little high (there's no way I'd scale the goddamn thing), but I'd love to trek the region and, well, you can't exactly miss it.

12. Cape Town, South Africa. One word: penguins.

13. New Zealand. I'm a not-so-secret nerd and, like all nerds, am jonesing for the chance to make like Frodo and tramp around the mountains on the power of my big, hairy feet.

14. The Kingdom of Tonga. I admit, Fiji used to be my South Pacific destination of choice. But ever since Steph dated a guy named Tonga (who was, unbelievably, Tongan) I've been intrigued by it. Fiji is so last season, dahling.

15. Antarctica. Pretty much the Cadillac of exotic vacations. Though you'll notice that most of my destinations are warm-weather spots, I must admit to a certain curiosity regarding the only uninhabited, ungoverned continent on Earth.

16. Japan. Pretty much the whole country, although I'm going to need an infusion of cash before I go.

17. The Galapagos Islands, Ecuador. Again with the Darwin thing.

18. Edinburgh, Scotland. This makes two for Willy Wallace World, but I'll allow it.

19. The Taj Mahal, Agra, India. Apparently Agra sucks, but I'd love to see the world's greatest monument to love and bling.

20. Morocco. You know you want to play Bogey in Casablanca. Just don't go there for the waters.

Beating Around the Bush

Have you ever had a conversation in which you couldn't talk about the thing you wanted to talk about, but instead danced circles around it and spoke in vague metaphors and then left, ultimately unsettled, unsatisfied, and unsure whether you were talking about what you thought you were talking about? Yeah, me too.

Leaving Port Columbus

As my plane lifted off the runway of Port Columbus International Airport (the "international" part being slightly suspect) and circled over the curlicued streets of suburban middle America, I realized that for the first time in five years or so, I was actually sad to leave. I've always missed my mom and sister, but it's been a long time since I've thought, "Gee, wouldn't it be great to spend another week in Ohio?" Either I'm getting sentimental in my old age, or my house is a lot happier place without my dad. I'd put my money on door number 2.

My melancholy was lifted, however, when I noticed a copy of the SkyMall catalog in my seatback pocket. If you haven't discovered the joy of SkyMall, you've been missing out. (I feel the same way about the Home Shopping Network, but that's a newer love.) SkyMall is 260 pages of hilarity in the form of earnest advertisements for things you absolutely do not need--everything from a firewood-carrying cart to shirts with collars through which the tie is woven "to show off your expensive ties."

Maybe it's the general boredom of air travel, but after a few minutes with SkyMall, I start rationalizing the utility of its offerings. The Martha Stewart in me, for instance, likes the idea of an appliance for every miniscule kitchen need--thus, the necessity of the "Pop-Up Hot Dog Cooker" (a sort of toaster for kosher wieners). The cat lover in me digs the Feline Drinking Fountain and the Roof Patio Pet Home. And who doesn't need an Upside-Down Tomato Garden, an Inflatable Whirlpool Spa, or Gravity-Defying Boots? Many of the items are purely decorative, but at least justifiable in this sense--the Night-Before-Christmas Talking House sculpture, for instance, or the Mahogany Remote Control Holder. There is an excellent selection of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings merchandise, for those who feel that a replica of Lucius Malfoy's walking stick will lock in the title of "Least Likely to Get Laid...Ever."

My favorite items, however, are those that not even a geek could love. There are always a few that are jaw-droppingly heinous, and this issue's winner was the "Robotic Animatronic Chimpanzee." Next to a picture of the mock ape was this description:

"Amaze friends and guests with this lifesize and incredibly lifelike robotic animatronic chimpanzee! This fully animated and robotic chimpanzee just 'comes alive' with state-of-the-art Hollywood animatronics that emulate the sounds, movements, and behaviors of a live chimp. Guided by infrared vision and stereoscopic hearing, this lifesize, fully articulated chimpanzee bust follows motion and sound around a room with its head and eyes. He's painstakingly hand-crafted with realistic hair and skin and boasts a dynamic, interactive personality that can be startlingly expressive, displaying moods ranging from happy and curious to fearful or even angry--just like the real wild animal! Moves autonomously or by remote control. Chimp runs on 4 D batteries or an AC adapter; remote runs on one 9V battery (batteries and adapter not included)."

And the price? A cool $149.95, plus $16.50 shipping. I think I know what somebody's getting for Christmas; if you're lucky, it could be you.

Better after Death, or, Requiem for a Necrophiliac

Amazingly, I'm back home in Ohio. It's been nearly a year since I've visited the Buckeye State, and things are the same as always, only less so.

My dad no longer lives in my house (sic semper tyrannis). My mom has redecorated (it looks nice--very pre-slammer Martha), there are a few more unnecessary housing developments on the way to my neighborhood (itself an unnecessary housing development, but who's counting?), and my cat is FUCKING FAT. I swear, my mom's feeding him enough to make kitty fois gras. Fortunately, more kitty means more soft snuggly belly, so I'm not complaining.

An additional development is that, due to the current trend among my mother's friends to ditch their sorry-ass husbands, my mom's friend Lynna is living in our spare bedroom. This is awesome, because 1. Lynna is funny, and 2. her son, Reid, is also sleeping here sporadically, and I think my sister might have some sort of sexual tension with him. (This is entirely speculation and/or wishful thinking--sister + boy in basement = Thanksgiving fireworks! And you thought explosives were only for July 4.)

In other news, I'm feeling fairly intimidated by my bookshelf. Not only do I forget half the things I read in high school, but I picked up Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese and flipped to her most famous sonnet. For those who skipped English lit, old Lizzie was an "invalid" who was saved from spinsterhood by the poet Robert Browning and spirited away after the furious writing of love letters. Here it is:


XLIII
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,--I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life ! --and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.


Now, how intimidating is THAT? "I shall but love thee better after death"? I can barely get someone to love me post-coitally, much less post-mortem. Maybe if I were a lovely invalid, locked away by her cruel father...but do we even have invalids anymore, or did we get rid of them along with "consumption" and the tophat? I should stop reading poetry and start working on not doing sit-ups, so I can fit more turkey come Thursday. Ah, here comes my lard-ass cat. Play time.

Twinnish

Eek! My blog was discovered by none other than my roommates, about whom I had studiously avoided writing nice things. Furious blushing ensued. This is problematic because 1) it means I can't gossip about them, and 2) they might mention it to other people. I'm much better off with fewer readers because I occasionally do stupid shit like posting a list of friends I wouldn't mind sleeping with, then waking up panicked at 3am and removing it. Don't worry, you're probably not on it (wink, wink).

On an unrelated note, I recently took some flak from my sister for changing my Facebook profile picture to an alpaca. I had pretty good reasons for doing this, namely, that I don't have any pictures of myself with brown hair; and that my previous picture featured my boyfriend, whose own Facebook picture now includes two Spandex-clad blondes. It's pretty lame to have a Facebook picture that says, "I love my boyfriend" when his says "I love the feel of nipples through Spandex."

So the alpaca got me thinking. Does everyone have a secret animal twin? Experience shows that not all animal twins are secret, one famous example being George W's resemblance to a monkey. (Let's not give him chimp status--that's a little too evolved.) This implies that many of us have only to discover our animal counterparts (though I suspect that an embarrassing number of them are rats or turtles). Goldie Hawn looks like a toothy giraffe, and I think we can all agree that Cheney looks like a really angry frog:



















I'm not really sure that I resemble an alpaca, but I'd give my left nut to be that soft and cuddlicious. (Ha! I got you! I don't have a left nut!) In any case, I urge everyone to take a long look in the mirror and find their inner animal twin. Especially Cheney. That frog is fucking scary-looking.

Listmania

Things that should make me happy, but don't:
+ Being accosted by random men, who walk next to me and tell me I'm cute, then swear they're "heartbroken" to find out that I'm dating someone. (N.B.: This isn't about me; it's a really common thing in Cambridge. Everyone here is bonkers.)
+ Finding out my boyfriend has a job lined up for next year, for which they will pay him an absurd amount of money. No, really. ABSURD.

Things that shouldn't make me happy, but do:
+ My parents' divorce will be final in early December. Go Mom!
+ The guy who was walking in front of me on my way back from the gym last night, and who stopped, turned around, looked at me, and emphatically yelled, "Motherfucker! I am not going to jail! You can fucking go to hell!" (Bonkers.)

Things I suspect, but can't conclusively prove:
+ Blondes get more attention from random men than do brunettes. (This is supported by circumstantial evidence gathered both before and after I dyed my hair brown. Being a good scientist, I must also admit the possibility that I've just become uglier.)
+ The existence of Mongolia.
+ My sister is much hotter than I am (despite being a brunette).

Melancholia

"I can find a thing I cannot see and see a thing I cannot find. The first is time, the second is a spot before my eyes. I can feel a thing I cannot touch and touch a thing I cannot feel. The first is sad and sorry, the second is your heart." - The Golux, in James Thurber's The Thirteen Clocks.

The Trouble with Theory

The Kansas Board of Education voted yesterday to include a short commentary on "intelligent design" in their high school biology curriculum. "Intelligent design," or, as I like to punctuate it, "intelligent" design, posits that 4 billion years is not long enough to create life. Instead, they argue, our universe could only have been created by a "higher power." Since the Bill of Rights* specifically bans government establishment of religion, this "higher power" can't be God (right?). Jesus Christ, who are we kidding? Of course it's God. You don't see any atheists pushing "intelligent" design, do you?

The trouble, I think, is with the word "theory." Somehow the religious twats** in this country have decided that "theory" means "guess," along the lines of "Y'know, Pa, I have a theory them pigs got out 'cuz of that big durn hole in the fence." It's science, stupid. If we weren't sure, we'd call it a hypothesis. Unfortunately, that's too big a word for some folks.

Though the scientific literature does a damn good job of refuting the "intelligent" design proponents' objections to evolution, here's a summary.

Objection: There are "holes" in the fossil record that can't be explained.
Refutation: First of all, those "holes" are being filled all the time--scientists are constantly finding fossils that fill in the so-called gaps in the record. Second, absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence. (The religious right should be familiar with this one--where's the evidence of God's existence?) Third, let's explore the implications of the "holes in the record" idea. If there are holes, and God created each species separately, then God must have created and destroyed earlier species, replacing them with extant species. Thus, instead of cats and tigers evolving from one feline ancestor, we must assume that an early cat was created, then destroyed. Then, spontaneously, housecats and tigers were created--but they're not related. This is clearly bunk--anyone whose housecat has ever stalked an ant should be able to testify that domestic cats are nothing more than very small tigers.

Objection: There hasn't been sufficient time for scientific processes/evolution to create the complexity of our universe.
Refutation: This is true IF AND ONLY IF you believe that the world is only a few thousand years old. Astronomy tells us that the universe is about 13 BILLION YEARS OLD. Geology tells us that life on earth has existed for 3.5 billion years. And here's the kicker: you can actually observe evolution on the scale of the human lifetime. That's right, folks: entire species have undergone observable evolution since you were born. And we're not talking bacteria or viruses, either (which, incidentally, evolve MUCH faster). Species of mammal, bird, fish, reptile, and amphibian have all evolved while you went about your TV-watching, Bible-thumping lives. If a species can evolve while you're frittering away your existence, think about what can be done in a BILLION YEARS. Now imagine 3 billion.

Objection: The "building blocks of life" (amino acids, fats, etc.) couldn't have been created without the help of a "higher power."
Refutation: In 1953, Miller and Urey showed that mixing together the presumed contents of the early atmosphere (water, methane, hydrogen, and ammonia) and adding lightning could produce amino acids and other organic molecules. Know how long that took? A WEEK. And while Urey and Miller were certainly smart, I wouldn't exactly call them a "higher power."

Many intellectuals and atheists have scorned religious fervor, echoing Karl Marx's sentiment that "Religion is the opiate of the masses." I am not anti-religion, but then again, I'm not anti-opiate, either. Like heroin use, religion is not an activity in which I engage, but I don't mind if others do. I do, however, scorn those who use religion as an excuse to ferment their brains. There are many very intelligent scientists who subscribe to a religious faith and who realize that science and religion are not irreconcilable. If parents want to discuss their faith and its implications for evolutionary theory in a setting other than public schools, they may do so. If they want to send their kids to parochial schools, they have that right. But for the love of God, don't fuck with the First Amendment.



* Amendment I
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

** See last paragraph. I am not calling all religious Americans twats; just the stupid ones.

He's So Manley

I've been walking around Cambridge for the last few days with one of my favorite poems in my head; some people get songs stuck in their heads, but for me, it's poems. Dorky, I know. Anyway, it's by Gerard Manley Hopkins (hence the exceedingly dorkalicious and otherwise-misspelled title of this post). Here goes:

Spring and Fall
to a young child

by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep, and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.