Thoughts On Stuff

At the intersection of aquatic life and the linguistic phenomenon referred to as the glottal stop is my new favorite animal. The cuttlefish. Cuddlefish, as I and all my American intervocalic-R speaking, Midwestern native neighbors would say. Nova had a show featuring the darlings of the
Cephalopod
world. I learned that there’s a species of cuttlefish (not a fish) called the flamboyant cuttle fish and I’m in love. In the show, they had been talking about cuttlefish in general – how they change colors like they’re LED-packed, how they’re smarter than most birds, and how they’re smart possibly because they’ve given up their exterior armor – and then they introduce the flamboyant cuttlefish. Now, they talk about this species with B roll of this super-cute, plump, colorful, kinda-octopus, kinda-plush toy-looking thing that waddled around walking (instead of swimming, like their cuttlefish friends) and I almost fell over. Then they showed how big they were … about an inch long. Eeeeeeee!

Here’s some video.

I think I’m going to try making a plush version.

Jason and I have decided to not change last names. We decided that a while ago.

This weekend, I asked Jason’s mom how she chose his name – he was born in September, and August through November spell out J-A-S-O-N. (How Jason’s sister got her name is an even better story, but not mine to tell. Then again, neither is Jason’s. Hm.)

I was named after Sonja Heine, the famous figure skater and actress. My parents decided to change the spelling, thinking that j is a hard letter to make when you’re little. It also kept me from dotting the j with a heart, star, smiley face, etc.

I like that my parents were so concerned for their new child, getting the hang of spelling and the making of letters. I get asked if I’m Norwegian a lot. (Once, I was asked if I was a squarehead. That query came from an old man.)

*warning – totally gross, smoopy, mushy stuff up ahead*

If my name has been spelled like my namesake, I could do this: sonjasonjasonjasonjasonjason

So I’m considering it – chainging my name, a single letter actually, in reflection of my solidarity to my soulmate.

Some day, I’m going to look back through my blog archives, and wonder in astoundment the strange titles I chose, and how although they’re cryptically (or punfully) related, they don’t really give an indication of the post content. Thank Vishnu for full-text searching, eh?

Anyway, Jason says that kitten licks hurt. I think that’s hilarious.

That is all.

I’m craving sugar. Last night I mowed through a box of Japanese liquor chocolates that Al sent. Today, I’ve been raiding the circ desk’s gummi bear stash.

I was changing out the display in the case in the children’s room, and briefly pondered eating the crafts. I mean, they were airplanes made out of candy, but still. They were at least 5 months old (when my predecessor left).

I’m looking at them right now. Still looking.

For the second Christmas in a row, Lifehacker has posted my impromptu gift-wrap idea.

Thanks to Jake for pointing it out, and for making my free association with gift wrap the Flinstones cereal rap.

It’s time for a new one. This year, I found myself needing impromptu gift wrap, but the office keeps track of copier use. Instead, I used Project Gutenberg to decorate my gifts. (PG is a collection of free e-texts, sometimes stuff so old it can’t be copyrighted, or publications people want to be freely available.) I found person-appropriate stories, and printed out the text on copier paper, and wrapped the gifts in that. One person got the first portion of Alice in Wonderland (in German) and another person got the Gift of the Magi. I cut and pasted the text into a text editor, then decreased the margins so the text would run almost to the edge of the page. I changed the font and size so I could fit as much as I could – Gift of the Magi fit all on one page with 8 pt. Times font. (I used Times because a serif font works well when text is tiny, a trick I learned in the one graphic design class I took.) The receiver of this gift has something to read on the bus on the way home from work. I kind of hate gift wrap – it’s so shiny and pretty, and then you immediately throw it away – so giving it another reason to exist makes me happy.

Plus, personalizing a personal gift kicks altruism up a notch.

I’m kicking it up a further notch by adding to my list of New Years resolutions the pledge to volunteer with Project Gutenberg. They need people to proofread the texts they add to the database. I’ll be able to do it when I want, and from home.

Here is my Halloween costume.

My costume was that I wasn’t wearing a costume (unless the Sonya costume consists of jeans and hoodies) but I had a big ol’ flesh wound. My story goes that I was mugged on the way to the party. The muggers were kind of bitey. My plan was to turn zombie halfway through the evening. I succeeded.

I didn’t drink too much, but I did eat too much candy. That’s edible blood I made, then left in the microwave too long, so then it became hard candy blood. That, plus a cupcake and dozens of handfuls of candy corn left me with a tummyache the likes of which have not been seen since nigh 1985.

Also, check out Zombie Einstein.

He says “E=MC(dead)”.

Then he bit me.

p.s. – like Miss E said, rum jello shots are just fine. I overreacted.

Hey, you maybe didn’t know that I have low-grade abnormal cells (aka: pre-cancer) on my “Wizard of Os”, and Angela just sent me this weirdly free offer from Merck.

Merck is the pharma company that’s coming up with groundbreaking new drugs and stuff and maybe even an HPV (aka: genital warts) vaccine (or something like that). That would be cool, because “HPV is so common that by age 50 as many as 8 of 10 women who have sex will be infected with it.” HPV causes cervical cancer. Cervical cancer is a bummer. Now you know.

Either way, the deal is they’re sending out TWO FREE bead bracelet kits, and donating $1 to cervical cancer research.

I roll my eyes at a pharma company donating money to research that they’re pursuing, but then again, I’m interested in not having cervical cancer. So, order a bead kit. They don’t say the word ‘cervical’ on the beads, and maybe you can make your mom something nice for her birthday. Or a cat collar. Or shoelace sparklies. Or just a bunch of stuff to stick up your nose. You choose.

Edit: To clarify, there are 30-some strains of HPV. Only six or so can cause cancer. The rest just give you nasty warts on your junk, which actually sounds kind of nice, compared to cervical cancer, but not as nice as not having warts. The other thing is that dudes usually don’t show symptoms, especially the cervical cancer kind, so you really can’t tell just by looking. Condoms don’t necessarily protect. Kinda scary, yeah?

Overheard last night at Steak ‘N Shake:

(two young female voices)
“I’ll have the chicken strip basket and fries.”
“Nothing for me.”
(waitress leaves)
“You can’t not eat! I’m not eating by myself.”
“I already ate – I’m just company for you.”
“You should totally eat – you’re so skinny anyway. You’re like 90 pounds.”
“Yeah, but I’m only five feet tall. You’re the lucky one, you’re tall.”
“Whatever, you’re skinny. And last night at the show there was this, like, really short girl down in front and she totally got pinned against the guard rail and they had to, like, rescue her. She was super short. She was like four-eight.”
(silence, then same girl speaks)
“She was literally a midget.”
“Oh my god – I’m so glad I’m not any shorter!”
“Yeah, I think anyone shorter than five feet is legally a midget.”
“Wow. We’ll I’d better not shrink.”
“Why not? You could have a handicapped sticker.”
“And park anywhere I want?”
(discussion of handicap benefits continues as Jason and I pack up and leave)

Right now, just now, I realized that I could see my pulse visually. I mean, I realized that if I focused my attention on the peripheral view of my eyes, I could see movements that correlated to the rhythm of my heartbeat. The blood entering and leaving changed the shape of my eye, perceptively so.

That’s a new one.