I'll get better at his multi-tasking thing

A "Raise My Science IQ" goal is occupying major head space lately - at noticeable expense to The Blog. I'm hoping my creative writing juices return after the initial shock* of dissections wears off.

*and awe

Sorry! Only a few days late, I wouldn't forget our anniversary!!!

"A Birthday" by Christina Rossetti

My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a water'd shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thick-set fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these,
Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a daïs of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.

Part of the reason I left TX State, and then started thinking about another profession

9 patients made nearly 2,700 ER visits in Texas
Wed Apr 1, 9:19 pm ET, Associated Press

AUSTIN, Texas – Just nine people accounted for nearly 2,700 of the emergency room visits in the Austin area during the past six years at a cost of $3 million to taxpayers and others, according to a report. The patients went to hospital emergency rooms 2,678 times from 2003 through 2008, said the report from the nonprofit Integrated Care Collaboration, a group of health care providers who care for low-income and uninsured patients.

"What we're really trying to do is find out who's using our emergency rooms ... and find solutions," said Ann Kitchen, executive director of the group, which presented the report last week to the Travis County Healthcare District board.

Eight of the nine patients have drug abuse problems, seven were diagnosed with mental health issues and three were homeless. Five are women whose average age is 40, and four are men whose average age is 50, the report said, the Austin American-Statesman reported Wednesday.

"It's a pretty significant issue," said Dr. Christopher Ziebell, chief of the emergency department at University Medical Center at Brackenridge, which has the busiest ERs in the area.

Solutions include referring some frequent users to mental health programs or primary care doctors for future care, Ziebell said.

"They have a variety of complaints," he said. With mental illness, "a lot of anxiety manifests as chest pain."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090402/ap_on_re_us/frequent_er_patients

25 Writers Who Influence(d) Me

Shar tagged me with this. Given the MeMe's rules -- "These are not necessarily your favorite writers or those you most admire, but writers who have influenced you" -- and a slight OCD tendency towards constant revision, shall do my best to keep the list as-is (i.e. alphabetized but otherwise unabridged):

1. Hans Christian Anderson
2. Gloria Anzaldua
3. Aphra Behn
4. Enid Blyton
5. Mikhail Bulgakov
6. Philip Caputo
7. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
8. Joseph Conrad
9. Roald Dahl
10. Angela Davis
11. Frantz Fanon
12. Nadine Gordimer
13. Nathaniel Hawthorne
14. Henrik Ibsen
15. June Jordan
16. R Zamora Linmark
17. Carson McCullers
18. Terry Pratchett
19. Ninotchka Rosca
2o. Christina Rossetti
21. Arundhati Roy
22. Zitkala Sa
23. Mary Shelley
24. John Steinbeck
25. Virginia Woolf

Like the sorcerer in Disney's Fantasia - except sexy and with dykier fanfare

I'm really fucking annoyed. As an alternative to musings on the time, energy and money required to accomplish a myriad tasks, I spent the evening ogling local celebrities. If I were just (a lot) more theatrically inclined, I might have crushed on the white-hot talented Carolyn Kuan eons ago. Ah well, as the old saying goes, "better late than never".

Associate Conductor Carolyn Kuan traveled to Geneva in late October [of 2008] to inaugurate the Large Hadron Collider, the largest particle accelerator in the world, built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) to study the origins of the universe. Kuan led the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in a performance of ORIGINS, a multimedia presentation featuring the music of contemporary composer Philip Glass and both earthly and outer-space images projected on a cinema-sized screen.

short 'n sweet 'n graphic love

Honey, you coming to get me?

After overcoming a few obstacles at the airport,
me and Dee found ourselves a cozy nook,
in a downstairs bedroom at Chez DJ Pink's.

Whoa, DJ Pink

Half-day treks followed by home-cooked meals and, last but not least, a bonafide Black Light office party. Wow to our Winter Carnival hosts for spoiling you, me, and everyone at the lodge rotten.

Ooh la la


Too bad you didn't capture the "Snowchick Wearing Just Snowshoes " picture you hinted at. But hey Babe, I promise to break out the furry embroidered boots if/when you get us invited to hula hoop at Burning Man...

Click here http://www.pbase.com/gshotfoto to view burning_man_2004 and '06 galleries

Dear Diary, what a sad soppy hot mess

My dear little friend Tiffany was rubbing it in the other night that there's a 9 year age gap between us. I managed to express my indifference to the "you were born waaay before Facebook technology" routine by turning my surprisingly firm and supple bustier away from her to discuss the new relationship with her older--by a year, excuse moi--sister. Amy's happy that coupling seems to suit me. Yes. Me too.

All the same, I feel as if I'm neglecting the folks who knew me before I began using baby talk at the grown-ups' table. (Will spare you the details since my list of nicknames for Dee is ongoing, with banana slug becoming a quick favorite.) While I've enjoyed getting togehter for happy hour, dinner, etc. with Dee's sibs and friends during the Christmas break...I'm beginning to miss my old school chums. And I feel especially bad about not calling my half-brother enough.

I recognize that a certain level of angst is Survivor's Guilt rearing its ugly, nagging head. But I also fervently wish it was February already.