introducing Emily

This is Emily. Isn't she darlin'?

Getting her to play nice with Maverick has been hard, though. Or rather, getting Maverick to play nice has been hard. This is not entirely unexpected; introducing new rats to each other often takes time. One accepted strategy is to put dabs of perfume on the rats so as to mask their scents, and then introduce them in neutral ground. It's taken 4 days of doing that, but the two girls finally are able to stay in the same cage without fighting.

They have, however, constructed separate nests in far opposite corners of the cage. Ha!

UPDATE: They now sleep next to each other (aww), but they still fight over sunflower seeds.

dryness

Boston is dry. Extremely dry. I sound like a frog in the morning, my throat hurts if I speak for more than 5 minutes. My hair looks suspiciously as if I have been hanging out with a Van de Graaff generator. My lips are split and sting horribly if I eat salty things. Even my hands are cracked and itchy. I've been drinking at least 2 liters of water per day, but it just doesn't seem to help... And there's no better way to appreciate how much your face hurts than to bike around Boston when it's 12 F, at night, in the wind.

extra terrestrials

If you had a peaceful extra-terrestrial encounter, what would you want the aliens to be like? What kind of alien would make you understand the purpose of life?

Think carefully. This is peaceful, which means the aliens are not in any way trying to hurt you or Earth. (But they could, out of kindness or misunderstanding. If you've ever read Speaker for the Dead, there's a good example in that book of how what is highest honor to one species could be death to another.)

Would you be moved by the one-ness of life if the aliens were humanoid like us? If they had legs and arms and heads and made noises to communicate and saw in the visible spectrum with eyes? Would it fill you with a sense of understanding about the order of things in the universe?

Or, would you think it was more beautiful if they were completely different? What if they're not even made of carbon? Could they be metallic? Or silicates? Would you decide that humans are truly special and unique, and be thankful that chance (or God, I suppose) allowed us to be the way we are? Would you collapse at the feet of entropy?

Maybe you would see the aliens and realize just how unevolved we are. Maybe they are near-perfect machines. Maybe they aren't machines at all - maybe their bodies are useless and their brains are everything. Maybe they don't even have bodies.

What would you want their senses to be? Do you wish they could see in the visible spectrum so you could take them to your favorite place and show them how beautiful Earth is? Do you wish they saw in x-ray or infrared or something else, so they could tell you about the world you can't see? Should they be able to hear sound? Should they have sense we don't have? What if they feel cosmic rays pounding through their bodies? What if they feel emotions like we feel force?

What do you want them to think about us? Should they marvel at us? Should they be disgusted? Should they be confused? Why?

What would you say to the alien? What would you tell them about Earth?

Earth is the sacred and the profane. We are children of paradox.

ugh.

Sunday I worked 7 AM to 1 AM with a 1.5 hour break.
Monday isn't looking any better.
Neither is Tuesday...

gooood morning

orange

I’m eating an orange shortly after waking on quiet Sunday morning. Outside the sun is bright and cold, and the leaves are falling like rain in a strong wind. Inside it’s still quite chilly, and I’m wrapped in thick blanket.

I don’t like the white rind underneath the tougher orange rind. I have to peel it off, strip by strip until the orange is bruised and the juice runs down my fingers and makes the hangnails sting. That’s good. It means the orange is perfectly ripe. I’m sitting by myself at the kitchen table. I’ve spread out paper towels over a wide area, and placed a bowl on either end. The left one is for rinds; the right one is for finished sections.

Peeling the orange takes at least half an hour and it’s not a painless process. My nails are too short to get each piece of rind, and so I must resort to a series of different knives, each carefully wielded so as not to puncture the fruit. Nevertheless, the juice drips down my wrists and gets my watch band sticky.

When the orange is finally ready I arrange the slices in the right hand bowl. I pick up the paper towel and the bowl of rinds and throw them away. At the sink I stand with my hands under the warm running water for far longer than is necessary, letting the warmth in to my bones. When I decide I’m wasting water, I allow myself twenty more seconds and I count down slowly, and then turn the water off.

Back at the table I sit cross-legged in the chair and arrange the blanket around my shoulders. I pick up a slice. My lips are cracked from the dry weather, and from smiling, and they sting with each bite, but the flavor is unsurpassed. More juice drips down my wrists. Between the third and fourth slices I wash my hands again. When the last section is gone I wipe down the table with a sponge and wash my face with hot water. I shove my hands in to my pockets and wrap the blanket around me and stand in the doorway to the kitchen, smiling. The room smells sharp and citrusy and the sun is weaving patterns on the table. My mouth still stings with flavor.

friends at crane beach