One Hundred Things My Mother Taught Me A Million Times – Chapter 56

(This is the only photo I have of anyone on my dad's side of the family - my namesake, Aunt Sue, and my grandmother Wade, neither of whom I met. Dad had a bunch of brothers too, but no photos of them exist that I'm aware of.)

#56– “Wear white if you want the media to take your picture. They love to photograph people in white.”

Although I’ve always considered this just a mom-ism, now that I’ve thought about it, and done a little research, it makes perfect sense. If you’ve ever watched America’s Next Top Model (guilty confession), you know that they always use a reflective screen to put light on the models faces. I’m assuming that a white shirt has the same effect, and I’ve seen white shirts recommended for photos on the websites of professional photographers.

Of course, as one who will do just about anything to avoid having her photo made, this lesson from mom was more about avoiding the camera: 1.  Mom was such a camera-hog that I back-lashed and tend to avoid having my photo made, and 2.  No matter how hard I suck in my stomach, stand tall, and smile my practice-perfected photo-face, I never look as good as I think I do, and that is just more than I care to reconcile.

I’d hoped there was a more sophisticated word than camera-hog for mom’s craving to be photographed, but all of the words I came up with, narcissist, egocentric, etc., really didn’t apply. Mother was not self-centered, she just liked attention and having her picture made.  There’s not even a clever antonym for photophobic, so I’m making up a new one, photobold, which also isn’t clever, but does give me closure. Oh, and just in case you were wondering, someone who tends to use overly long (pretentious) words is sesquipedalian. Click on Read More Below...

American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center By William Langewiesche

Although it is almost impossible to read, write or talk about 9/11 without getting emotional, I think author William Langewiesche does a commendable job in American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center. Essentially, American Ground is about how the debris from the 9/11 tragedy was dealt with. It’s is also an interesting homage to the people that took an intensely delicate and horrible mess apart and took it away, with dignity.

Langewiesche, almost by accident, was the only journalist given unrestricted access to what was called “The Pile” (the collapsed buildings). Other than the well-executed flying of the planes into the twin-towers, there was little about the disaster or cleanup that happened according to any plan or procedure. There are no procedures for how you deal with commercial airliners flying into 110-story buildings full of people, or how to clean up the resulting destruction.

What Langewiesche portrays in this book is sort of like Nietzsche’s observation, "Out of chaos comes order." The organization that emerged from nowhere, with no authority, to run the rescue and a cleanup effort is a testament to the human spirit. It is amazing what we can do when we have to. There was so little organization in the whole clean-up of the destruction that it was a astonishing that it got done at all – much less as safely and fluidly as reported by Langewiesche. Click on Read More Below...

One Hundred Things My Mother Taught Me A Million Times – Chapter 55

(Photo is of me in my Halloween costume - Old Lady Gaga)

#55 – “Always carry a handkerchief. It helps distinguish you from the riffraff.”

Many of the things mom taught me were not as much about utility as avoiding the horrors of commonality. Common is an interesting concept. What is common? Well, by mom’s definition, common is someone that doesn’t have the decency to carry a handkerchief. Of course with the advent of tissues, germ science and our “throw-away” society, we now carry disposable handkerchief’s, Kleenex.

As I typed the word Kleenex, it occurred to me that what I really meant was tissue, but some brands become so entrenched in our vocabulary that we use them generically, like Kleenex, Coke, Xerox and Google. Wondering if there was a word for these types of words (my mind works in truly spooky ways), I Googled and found the word, metonymy. Wiki then proceeded to suck me into its black hole as I further explored polysemy, synecdoche and sobriquet (I adore this word, which means nickname) - but back to mom’s hankies and riffraff.

When I was a kid, I spent a good deal of my time playing in my mother’s closet and drawers (chest of drawers, not under drawers). Her huge walk-in closet was my personal wonderland of dresses, hats and shoes, and her drawers (chest of), were a planet to be explored. I remember her dozens of dainty, perfectly ironed and lacy handkerchiefs; the fabric almost transparent with softness, tatted, and embroidered with initials and flowers. Not long ago I stumbled upon one of mom’s handkerchiefs. Now preserved in a picture frame, it hangs in a guest bedroom – an artifact of a particular, and in some ways very civilized generation. Click on Read More Below...

Science, Par Deux

“The mysticism of the religious visionaries of old arose from an intolerable disparity between the hugeness of their desire and the smallness of reality.”

Spanish Philosopher, Miguel de Unamuno

Did you know that “metacognition” is thinking about thinking, and that which allows us to outsmart ourselves - like leaving your credit cards at home when you go shopping? I think I should think about thinking more often. According to Walter Michel, Stanford University professor of psychology, metacognition/discipline is one of the most important lessons we can teach our children. Michel says, “Even the most mundane routines of childhood, not snacking before dinner and saving allowance, are sly exercises in cognitive training. Children are learning to outsmart their desires.” My thoughts on this topic could go really, really deep, but I’ll spare you.

Last year United States Geological Survey scientists in Alaska tracked and documented the longest non-stop migratory bird flight ever recorded. A bar-tailed godwit flew non-stop for 8 days at an average of 35 miles per hour, covering 7,250 miles! Well, I guess if you don’t have to stop to pee…. but on to more important matters, ants.

I’ve always said that humans are the fire ants of the universe. Well apparently I’m more right than I realized as humans and ants are eerily similar. For example, some ants get forced into low-status jobs and are prevented from becoming upwardly mobile by other members of their colony. Non-garbage workers who respond aggressively to the odors that linger on the garbage workers’ bodies confine ant garbage workers, to that thankless task. Hmmmm. In some ant species, the females venture out of the nest, seduce males, drag them back into the nest, snip off their genitals, and toss the rest of him out the door. Sound familiar? Some ant species herd and milk other bugs, take slaves, and farm (growing mushrooms). Oh, and by the way, insect poo poo is call frass. I knew you’d want to know that. Click on Read More Below...