Heptadecagon

Melina had a few little ladies over today and they decided to hit the foot spa. A great time was had by all, although the water was, at least at first, ice cold. I took the picture before they hauled out a load of picture books to read while they relaxed. I hope May is just as nice as this last day of April was.

I was going to post about one's ability to rationalize, and how I felt that if one finds the need to do so, to rationalize and rationalize again after making a choice, that perhaps the choice wasn't the correct one in the first place. And then I thought that someone out there, a writer much better and more profound than myself, had to have spoken about rationalization before. Sure enough I could find a quote. In fact, the one I liked best is from Ayn Rand (something I find so ironic for many reasons that I won't go into here): “Rationalization is a process of not perceiving reality, but of attempting to make reality fit one’s emotions.”  Go think about that for a bit.

I gave my last exam of the semester yesterday, which included two questions for extra credit. The first question said, Assume that a woman could be an "on-demand" ovulator like a rabbit, in which copulation stimulates the hypothalamic-anterior pituitary axis and causes LH release. Due to the LH release, an oocyte was ovulated and fertilized on day 26 of her 28 day cycle. Why would a successful pregnancy be unlikely at this point. Most people tried to answer the question. They probably thought about the question with respect to the uterine cycle (or at least I hoped they did) and if nothing else, realized that at day 26, so close to the end of the cycle, the endometrium would be almost ready to be shed, resulting in menstruation. Even if the fertilized oocyte successfully made it to the uterus to implant itself, we have to figure in the travel time it takes to get from the uterine tube to the uterus. The journey takes more than two days; by the time the oocyte would make i...

I discovered many a thing about a certain character of mine last night and this morning, when I was working on a homework assignment given to me by the author who runs my 2nd ever writing class. The course is entitled Character Treatment . Our plan is to learn more about our characters and how to make rich and vibrant personae so that our stories can, of course, be deeper and more satisfying. So what did I learn? I learned that Philippa, an almost 17 year old girl, is really quite fiesty and wants to do more with her life than her mother has accomplished with hers; that she has never thought about sex but all of a sudden seems a bit more interested, and wonders who in the world she'd be willing to do something like that with, and if she did consider doing that, what would it feel like? I learned that even though she's been sheltered all of her life, she can cope well, and that she will battle for what she wants and thinks is right. She is brave, she is smart, she is actuall...

In a Bucknell alumni magazine, under Reviews & Criticism , I ran across the following blurb about a recent book: Tweak It (Center Street): Negotiating a busy career, attending kids' recitals and mailing the Christmas cards before the holidays are not problems for Cali Williams Yost despite a resume that reads -- deep breath -- wife, mom, former commercial banker, founder and CEO of the consulting firm Work + Life Fit, media commentator, author, Mashable Top 14 Twitter career expert and blogger, one who is consistently cited on Forbes.Com's list of Top 100 Websites for Women. She takes to task employers or workers who insist on one way: sacrificing personal lives for work. Her most recent venture is the "Tweak It" program, which draws on the experiences of "naturals," men and women who make small changes in routines to keep everything that matters in the daily picture. I have to be honest, I walked away with a bad taste in my mouth after reading the bl...

I participated in a Run for Boston event on Monday night. In our little neck of the world, about 2000 people gathered to run a 2.62 mile loop on the local high school track. You can imagine that the track was packed. I wouldn't call it a run so much as a run/walk. Either way, the event, which was happening all over the country, probably raised a large sum of money for the folks affected in Boston. While there was no entry fee to run, the sponsors sold Run for Boston T-shirts at $20 a pop. One hundred percent of the proceeds will benefit OneFundBoston.org. Awesome cause, awesome way to raise money. But what about the people of West, Texas? Different circumstances, but a tragedy nonetheless. I don't find it any more difficult to find sympathy for one set of people over the other. Do you? But I do find it more of an effort to discover how to help these people of West, Texas. I did an online search on funding for both causes, and Boston came up with search results galore, while ...

In a very uncharacteristic and anti-Chris-like move, I just said to myself, Screw you, Salmonella , and licked the entire brownie bowl clean. Then, I moved on to the spatula. And it was very good. I should say excellent, even. Worth every possible future gut-wrenching moment.