otoh

As I recently explained, I hate snakes. So for this Halloween, here’s a little nightmare featuring a snake that I had a couple months ago. First, I should probably explain that I rarely remember my dreams and I’m not a big believer in dream interpretation. I did read recently that we probably dream nearly the entire time we are alseep. For some time dreams were associated just with REM sleep, but we probably just remember those dreams better.

Anyway, I know that part of the imagery for this dream came from something I saw on television. A snake had gotten inside an automobile and up behind the dashboard. They had to disassemble much of the interior of the car to extricate it. A rather odd tangent to this dream is the notion I have that snakes can’t back up. I know they can recoil before they strike, but I think that the movement they make along the ground is always forward (or sometimes sideways). I don’t know for sure that this is true. I looked in Wikipedia and, while the description of a snake’s locomotion doesn’t state that one cannot back up, it does seem to support this notion.

I know that one of the reasons I have this notion is from some friends of mine that used to have a pet boa constrictor. They had it out in the house one day and it started to crawl through the handle of a coffee mug. It was just large enough at the time that it could pass only about half its body through the narrow opening and then got stuck. It couldn’t go forward and couldn’t or wouldn’t go backward. They had to break the handle off the mug to free it.

So if a snake crawls into the spaces between all the wires and such in your dashboard, I don’t think you can grab its tail and pull it back out the way it went in. And it might get itself into a spot where it can’t keep going forward either. Even if it could go forward, who’s going to get in its face to coax it that way? NOT ME! But in this dream, it IS me. For some reason, I’m the one they call to get the snake out of the car.

So in this dream, I’m taking pieces out of the car revealing more and more of this huge snake completely entwined in the mechanical and electrical components. And the more of it I reveal, the more creeped out I’m getting because I HATE SNAKES. I AM NOT THE RIGHT PERSON FOR THIS JOB! But it is my job to get this creature that I fear and loath to go someplace it doesn’t want to go. And I had this dream on the eve of classes starting back this fall. But like I said, I’m not a big believer in dream interpretation….

Technorati tags: blog~personal~otoh

Star light, star bright
First star I see tonight,
I wish I may, I wish I might,
…Oh darn, it’s a satellite!

One of the books I’m reading states that in the year 2000 there were 2698 man-made satellites orbiting the earth and about two-thirds of them were dead. All that junk that will eventually (or has recently) burn up as it falls back into our atmosphere. But it made me wonder how much more is up there now. So I went to the NASA website and found a Worldbook Encyclopedia entry:

The Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, in 1957. Since then, the United States and about 40 other countries have developed, launched, and operated satellites. Today, about 3,000 useful satellites and 6,000 pieces of space junk are orbiting Earth.

Hmm. Three times as much stuff in just five years. Still running about 2:1 junk to useful ratio. (No surprise there.) Is it me, or does it seem we can’t go anywhere without leaving a trail of trash?

Technorati tags: blog~personal~otoh

Wilma passed to the south of us. We got a lot of wind and rain, some tornadic activity, a cold front, and Monday off from school. Our high temperatures the last couple days have been lower than our low temperatures of the last few months. And somebody had to start passing this photo around on email. It wasn’t me!

This other photo is also going around on email. The story with this one is:

Sisters Mary Catherine, Maria Theresa, Katherine Marie, Rose Frances, and Novice Mary Kathleen left the Convent on a trip to St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City and were sight-seeing on a Tuesday in July. It was hot and humid in town and their traditional garb was making them so uncomfortable. They decided to stop in at Patty McGuire’s Pub for a cold soft drink. Patty had recently added some special legs to his barstools which were the talk of the fashionable eastside neighborhood. All 5 Nuns sat up at the bar and were enjoying their Cokes when Monsignor Riley entered the bar through the front door with Father McGinty for a cold drink when they were shocked and almost fainted at what they saw.

Click either photo for a larger view.

Technorati tags: blog~personal~otoh

On the radio this morning the DJ said, “This close to Halloween, the scariest thing on my TV should not be the Weather Channel.” Hurricane Wilma is still down near the Yucatan peninsula but will likely hit some part of Florida sometime this weekend. At best we’ll probably have a lot of wind and rain. But I don’t want to write about the weather today (any more than I already have).

I hate snakes. They give me the creeps. I understand the role they play in nature and I wouldn’t want to be overrun by rodents by living in a world without snakes. I don’t encounter them often, but I try to maintain a “You-leave-me-alone-and-I’ll-leave-you-alone” policy.

I’ll occasionally see brown snakes slithering out of the way when I’m cutting the grass, especially if I’ve let it grow long — which in Florida in the summer can mean it has been more than four days. Sometimes I’ll see part of one that didn’t get out of the way quickly enough. (First, ewh! Second, sorry about that dude. I’d have let you get out of the way if I had seen you in time. Really.)

The only poisonous snakes that I’ve had close encounters with are rattlesnakes. I would see them when hiking in Eastern Kentucky when I lived up that way. They warm themselves on rocks in the sun during the cool days of the spring and fall. If that rock happens to be on the trail you’re following, a short detour is prudent.

Once, when I was hiking with some friends, one member of the group was carrying a .22 caliber pistol. (I’m not a fan of guns either, but that will have to be another post.) We had gotten separated by a couple hundred yards when we heard a couple of shots from his pistol. He had come across a rattlesnake and, with a policy far different from mine, shot it. A small caliber firearm is, in my very limited experience, not a very effective way to kill a snake. But there’s an old wives tail — no, tale, hah — that a snake won’t die until after the sun goes down. I was about to find out why.

As we gathered around to find out what the shooting was about we saw this small (I remember it as being maybe two feet in length) rattlesnake with a couple small holes in its body. (I don’t give the guy much credit for brains, but he was either a good shot or gotten really close.) Then I watched as he took out his pocketknife, stepped on the snake’s head with his heavy boot, and cut the head off.

Believe it or not, now comes the really creepy part. He decided he wanted to keep the rattle as a souveneir. So he reached down with his knife once more and began to cut the rattle off the tail. And the headless body of the snake struck at his hand! If the head had still been on it would have been a sure bite. But the head was lying on the ground. Ewh, ewh, ewh!!! That is one of the creepiest things, if not the mostest creepiest thing, I have ever seen.

Technorati tags: blog~personal~otoh

The ad is nearly a half-page in the magazine I’m reading. A large white box with a thin black double outline and black text in the center: “Stop being narcissistic.” Then in much smaller type at the bottom is the web address www.endyournarcissism.com.

So the first thing I’m wondering is: Would a narcissist be so egocentric that they would assume the ad is placed there just for them to see? Or would they assume that it is meant for everyone except them? After all, there’s nothing wrong with me!

So, strictly in the interest of intellectual curiosity, I visited the site and sure enough I found:

Narcissism is easily recognized in others, but rarely in ourselves. We define narcissism in narrow terms to cast ourselves outside its net.

But, if we tend to define narcissism to apply to everyone else, wouldn’t this ad tend to make one assume that it is meant for everyone else? So, other than the idly curious like me, does this ad ever really attract the ones (meaning you, not me) that it intends to draw? (Note: I don’t, of course, mean you, the few people that read this blog. I mean you, everyone else. We all know there’s nothing wrong with us….)

Somebody’s head hurts. I think it’s mine.

Technorati tags: blog~personal~otoh

You said I had a heart of stone, but you took me for granite.

I like my women the way I like my coffee, but I can’t afford $500-a-cup.

Q&A:

Q^*1: How does a woman get rid of cockroaches?

Q^*2: What’s the last thing a man says when he breaks up with you?

When I read the most recent Harry Potter book, one sentence stuck in my mind:

Harry was left to ponder in silence the depths to which girls would sink to get revenge. (P 314)

Just shows where my head has been… apparently up my ass. So this post is just getting some of the crap off.

A^*1: She asks them for commitment.

A^*2: I’ll call you tomorrow.

Technorati tags: blog~personal~otoh

Music is given to us with the sole purpose of establishing an order in things, including, and particularly, the coordination between man and time. ~ Igor Stravinsky

Some days I feel in tune with the universe. All the traffic lights are green. I arrive at a door just in time to hold it open for someone with an armload of books. I see an incredibly colorful sunrise or sunset. I feel young and light, like floating downstream. I’m in synch with whatever song the cosmos is playing. Sweet music.

Other days. Every. freakin’. light. is. red. Doors close in my face. Clouds hover and follow me around. A man far older than I am looks back at me from the mirror. I’m out of synch, out of tune, out of touch, out of time. Cacophony.

Music is the silence between the notes. ~ Claude Debussy

Silence is very important. The silence between the notes are as important as the notes themselves. ~ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Silence is the fabric upon which the notes are woven. ~ Lawrence Duncan

After silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music. ~ Aldous Huxley

The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes — ah, that is where the art resides. ~ Artur Schnabel

My silences may be too long, but when I am silent I can listen. I feel the rhythm first. Gradually, a melody emerges. Eventually, finally, harmony. Sympathetic vibrations. Resonance. Flow.

I can’t remember where I read this:

A bird is nature’s way of turning worms into music.

One of the great frustrations in my life is that I love music but have no talent for singing or playing an instrument. Maybe I’m a worm…and some bird will turn me into music…. Becoming music rather than making music has some appeal.

Use the talents you possess, for the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except the best. ~ Henry Van Dyke

Music in the soul can be heard by the universe. ~ Lao Tzu

Technorati tags: blog~personal~otoh

We met virtually, by accident
Strangers, then friends
Broken, battered, and abused
Stranger than fiction
From across the tracks
(who’s on the wrong side now?)
I watched
She healed and grew
She danced away
She is gone, anon

Technorati tags: blog~personal~otoh

A man by himself,
left alone.
A single woman,
solitary tear.

Technorati tags: blog~personal~otoh