"The fact is that what I call myself, or my life, is a little pulse in the vast continuum of space-time-energy. There are billions of other pulses, some very large and some very small, and others in between, in this Vastness. By happenstance, I am related in different ways with a few other pulses. Like others, I shall disappear, and perhaps reappear elsewhere in another form. I have no idea whether there is a continuity or a direction in this movement of the pulse.

"What am I called to do in my own little corner of space-time? How do I listen? How do I respond? Apart from engaging with this question there is no meaning to my life."

-Ravi Ravindra

I sort-of miss those times when I used to feel unbalanced and scream Cat Power songs. Ah, sweet mid-twenties....

"If time had a place,
And space for your past.

Like a little novel,
I wanted to read again and again,
Would I be in your novel,
Would I begin and end in it?

If I had a place,
And space for your little boy eyes,
Could you really believe,
I certainly dare you,
I do not want to scare you,
Anymore.

Oh what a fuss when the king rides by,
Oh what a fuss when the king rides,
Straight through my heart,
Straight through my life.

If I kissed and touched your hand,
A million things I will never understand,
Oh what a fuss when the king trades in,
Oh what a fuss when the king trades.

Oh love, my love, for someone else's hand

You don't miss your water,
You don't miss your water,
'Till your well is gone."

Cat Power

Resonantie

Science is pretty...

or maybe you did

i can no longer remember your face
you didn't know train whistles were sacred

The dreams keep coming...

but the words won't.

The internet = still entertaining

Free Jackson Pollock artwork by Milton Manetas.

I am neither high nor reading Proust

What does it mean to remember something, someone? What is it, exactly?

Fuck off.

I'm officially irritable. Perhaps even truculent.

I also like this one

From A Softer World.

Strangely enough, writing it in a blog is not the same as saying it in person. What exactly are you good for, o all-encompassing internet?

We never even got a chance to lie in bed while it was raining outside. Curled against one another, looking out the window.

I bet it would have been lovely.

Goodbye, David Wheeler Wynn.

I Heart Wikipedia

Because of articles on Time, Clock of the Long Now, Eternal Return, Eternity, Space-Time Theories of Consciousness, and a List of Cycles.

Bring it on, wiki-baby. Motherfuckin' bring it.

"They say people in your life are seasons..."

all the young pretty girls are talking about failure all the young pretty girls are talking about failure all the young pretty girls are talking about failure all the young pretty girls are talking about failure all the young pretty girls are talking about failure all the young pretty girls are talking about failure all the young pretty girls are talking about failure all the young pretty girls are talking about failure

In case you forgot.

Loki, my dear, I knew you were up to something. Feel free to hide me amidst the eggs of a flounder, although of course I would prefer to hide in the neck-feathers of a swan. But clearly I can't find my own refuge. And I no longer trust the smell of honeysuckles.

But there were plenty of drunken text messages.

Perhaps it's good that I don't have a computer at home. Because there would have been a lot of drunken blogging last night. A LOT.

Strange to post in a blog, I know, but...

"I no longer want to know the names of things. I do not care if I am mute or if my tongue is useless for everything but the taste of salt. The verbal map is the wrong map. It is a labyrith to false treasure. This exotic, wholly liquid place lies outside words but well within the realm of the sensual."

Ellen Meloy - The Anthropology of Turquoise

new constellation

I want to make a new constellation
fashioning stars from rusted pocket watches and kindergarteners' art projects
old library cards and cats' stares
the shape of our hands while we sleep
the smell of pecan trees
my first thoughts upon waking
the color of your beard
train whistles, snail shells, and the tiredness of old men
the sounds that slip from us during sex
secret gardens and crushed wisdom teeth
the space above your collarbone
timelines
disappearing magic
all the tiny things that slip away
and the crinkles at the corner of your eyes

we can give each star its own gravity and spin
spend sunday afternoons lazily naming our favorites
and then pin it in my hair
or rest it on your pillow
or place it in the stillest part of me
where its orbits will carve spirals on my spine
and my veins will become entangled with its meteors
until eventually my movement, my pulse
will depend upon its nightfalls

Because in an ideal world I would make good money as a sexual health educator. But I live in Texas and George W. is president.

Alright, here are some lovely factoids about vaginas and semen - that's right, vaginas and semen! I am going to be throwing the phrase cervical mucus around, so you should start bracing yourself right now if that phrase makes you shudder. This is partly inspired by a fabulous website I found, mymonthlycycles.com, which helps users track their cycle, and will send you reminder emails when you are fertile, ovulating, or about to start your period (male readers, I apologize for use of the possessive "your").

* A woman usually ovulates 14 days before her next period. This means that if a woman has a 30 day cycle, she would ovulate on day 16.
* The normal vaginal pH is 3.8 to 4.5, the pH of semen is 7.2 to 8.0, and spermatozoa are immotile at a pH below 6. When a woman is fertile, her cervical mucus has a pH between 7.0 and 8.5, which is the optimum pH value for sperm migration and survival (according to the World Health Organization manual for examination of human semen and sperm-cervical mucus interaction 4th edition 2000). Below pH levels of 6.9, sperm die at a rate that increases with lowering pH.
*Sperm can live in the vagina 3-5 days on average under fertile conditions. During non-fertile conditions, sperm die in 2-4 hours.
* An egg lives 12-24 hours, and fertilization usually occurs 12-24 hours after ovulation.
* It takes about 2 hours for sperm to reach egg, but this can be as short as 2 minutes.
* It takes about 3 hours for sperm to fully penetrate egg.
* It takes an egg 3 days to travel down the Fallopian tube to the uterus. Once in the uterus, it takes another 3-4 days until implantation of the fertilized egg.
* An easy way for a woman to estimate her fertility is to use the Billings Method, a one-step reading of a woman's cervical mucus. "It is performed by the woman herself in a moment and without internal examination. Every day, she gently wipes the labia with clean, dry, white toilet paper. She looks at the paper to see if there is any mucus on it. If there is, she is likely to be fertile. If the mucus is wet and slippery, and can be easily stretched, then she is very fertile. If the paper stays dry, she is likely to be infertile that day. On the day of the most wet, slippery, clear mucus she is most fertile of all. This day is called the peak day, and is the very day she ovulates (Billings, 1978). She will also feel wettest on this day. She remains fertile for three days after the peak."