thetatiana

I moved this from goodreads to here, because it's going to be so long. I want to review this book in pieces, because there's so much here to think about. Here's part one.

From the start I love the first topic, in which he gets at our real feelings on who counts as a person, who has personhood or a soul (nonreligious version), based on how we make decisions about what animals it's okay to kill or eat.

I was quite surprised to hear his opinion that babies and young children have less soulness than an adult, and knowing he has kids, I'm wondering how he has missed the fact that even small babies come into the world with 100% personness. They may be less able to control their environment but there's nevertheless a complete 100% personality there. People I've known as babies I can recognize as being the same people, with similar quirks and leanings, as they are as adults.

Hofstadter sees that we're programmed by natural selection to think babies are cute, and thinks that's why we put up with them, which is true, I suppose. But I think natural selection actually points us toward recognizing the truth of children's personhood, rather than fooling us about their real status. Natural selection always works in favor of the animal being selected, it always acts to align that animal toward reality. The forces of natural selection on prey may teach them to hide from predators effectively, for instance, but on predators natural selection acts to teach them to find their prey regardless of its clever stratagms. So I think it's a mistake to think natural selection on a species will ever act to dupe that species into believing something that's not true. You could say it's the babies who are duping the adults, but that has problems too.

That's all an aside from his real point, which is that whether we see it or not, we assign soulness or personhood on some sort of continuum rather than having it be a yes/no binary answer. The details of our various scales will be very different, but we all do have a scale of some sort and not just a soul switch in each creature that's set to on or off. I totally agree with him here.

I wonder if in the future people will look upon the Chik-fil-a ads with cows trying to get people to eat more chicken (and consequently less beef) with horror at how ghastly they are. Of course cows don't want to be slaughtered! How would you feel if you were a cow and saw that joke? Another thing I find creepy is the happy personified pig cartoons that so often grace barbecue restaurants. "Hi, I'm adorable Mr. Piggy, won't you please slaughter and slow roast me and eat me?" These things are funny but pretty sicko, when you think about them, and yet we don't really notice that they're sicko at all. They just seem normal.

* What gives you the most happiness in your life?
* What were your greatest moments?
* What are your favorite childhood memories?
* What are some of the nicest things that people have said to you?
* What was your best vacation?
* What makes you smile?
* What makes you laugh?
* Who makes you feel good just by being in that person’s presence?
* What do you enjoy reading?
* What songs put you in positive states?
* What is your favorite possession?
* What is your favorite day of the year?
* When have you unexpectedly had a better time than you thought you would?
* When have you been pleasantly surprised by the way something you did turned out?
* When did you feel you would succeed and you actually did?
* When have you felt joy about seeing someone you hadn’t seen in a long time?
* What praises and positive feedback have you appreciated?
* What is the nicest thing a teacher ever told you?
* When did you surprise yourself by being more skillful at something than you thought you could?
* How do you look when you smile at yourself in a mirror?
* When has someone given you a gift that you greatly appreciated?
* What do you consider your wisest decision?
* What advice do you have for others to increase their happiness?
* What did you do for someone else that you felt great about?
* What is the nicest thing a total stranger ever did for you?
* What have you been grateful for in the past?
* What are you grateful for in the present?
* When have you felt joyous for no special reason?
* What's the most fun thing you do that makes people look at you funny?
* What healthy activities give you a natural high?
* When were you about to give up and someone’s encouragement kept you motivated?
* For parents (aunts and uncles): What is a clever thing one of your children (nieces and nephews) said?
* What is your favorite question that anyone ever asked you?

My answers:
* What gives you the most happiness in your life?
Feeling useful.

* What were your greatest moments?
They are definitely yet to come. =)

* What are your favorite childhood memories?
Playing outside in nature, wading in the creek, building forts in the woods, climbing trees.

* What are some of the nicest things that people have said to you?
Once someone told me I was like Prince Myshkin, hah. Then he said, "and I don't mean an Idiot". =)

* What was your best vacation?
The time I spent a rainy weekend at the beach and failed miserably as a street musician. :D

* What makes you smile?
Seeing the birds, squirrels, and raccoons eating the food on the deck.

* What makes you laugh?
Kittens playing.

* Who makes you feel good just by being in that person’'s presence?
Any of my friends.

* What do you enjoy reading?
Hard core science fiction, literary fiction, The Wall Street Journal.

* What songs put you in positive states?
Songs to ritual to: Tool, NIN, SoaD, Carlos Vives.

* What is your favorite possession?
A present from a friend, I'm not telling which. :)

* What is your favorite day of the year?
First day of spring when the trees and animals seem to come awake.

* When have you unexpectedly had a better time than you thought you would?
At work every day.

* When have you been pleasantly surprised by the way something you did turned out?
Cooking Thanksgiving dinner for my family.

* When did you feel you would succeed and you actually did?
Taking any kind of standardized test, placement test, or whatever. I have the insane test mojo. =D

* When have you felt joy about seeing someone you hadn'’t seen in a long time?
At the airport picking up friends.

* What praises and positive feedback have you appreciated?
Any! I'm needy like that.

* What is the nicest thing a teacher ever told you?
Class is over now.


* When did you surprise yourself by being more skillful at something than you thought you could?
Trying to come up with intelligent answers to stupid questions.

* How do you look when you smile at yourself in a mirror?
Tired.

* When has someone given you a gift that you greatly appreciated?
Always. I love presents! =)

* What do you consider your wisest decision?
To finish college.

* What advice do you have for others to increase their happiness?
Notice the beauty of nature, love your friends and family and coworkers, take some time each day to just be, listen to great music, and dance.

* What did you do for someone else that you felt great about?
Taught some kids to like math.

* What is the nicest thing a total stranger ever did for you?
Santa Claus gave me toys.

* What have you been grateful for in the past?
My acoustic guitar that my brother saved up from his job at Wendy's to buy for me.

* What are you grateful for in the present?
The universe, my bauble and playground, bwahahahah.

* When have you felt joyous for no special reason?
Riding the carts in the grocery store parking lot.

* What's the most fun thing you do that makes people look at you funny?
Singing in the parking deck to get the cool echoes.

* What healthy activities give you a natural high?
Breathing. Oxygen is like ... wow.

* When were you about to give up and someone’s encouragement kept you motivated?
Filling out this quiz.

* For parents (aunts and uncles): What is a clever thing one of your children (nieces and nephews) said?
"What is the meaning of existence?" at age 4.

* What is your favorite question that anyone ever asked you?
"What is your favorite question that anyone ever asked you?"

Sonnet

As I did watch, these fourteen thousand years,
The vines curl slowly round these piers of stone,
The marble etched away by nature's tears,
And salamanders' toes, and all unknown
Unthought of tiny things, I dreamed of how
We'd speak, we'd sit, and paddle our bare feet
Amid the fountains' swift bright stabs of now,
Just so, as here alive we cherish sweet
A song's duration, framed between the deep
Long past and futile future reaching on
Alone into the mountains bare and steep
And past them through the night without a dawn,
Remembering all the while that bright sun's rise,
The light upon your brow, and in your eyes.





Double Star

On the lip of a crater you squeezed my hand
On the face of an airless moon.
I caught your eye and laughed and said,
“I think I should breathe some soon,

Or else change into my dragon form
Which has no need for air”
And your shining eyes glowed back at me
From beneath your shining hair.

“I’m good,” you replied, “I can just do this”
And the skin of you crumbled and broke,
The dark fell away and from underneath
The light of a new sun woke.

It waxed as I watched the last shreds of the shell
Break away blasted out by the light
Of the star of which the astronomers tell
That arose on the moon that night.

I saw you then with skin so bright
And remembered you from the start,
And then I recalled my own self as well
As I gathered you to my heart.

And my outsides, too, broke off and fled
Toward the edge of the farthest strand
And shining we flew with hand in hand
O’er that stark and airless land.

And nothing has ever been the same
Since the night when I lost my skin
And grew up and left the shards of my shell
And remembered the one within,

And I dance with joy as I go before
Looking back across the bar
To you, my friend, as I sing this hymn,
Remember who you are.





In the cool of the evening
When locusts sing Your praise
I surrender to You.



Recluse

Let me write you long love letters
That I can spend hours composing
So rattling mouth and frivolous brain
Won't be allowed to betray me again.

This deep slow swell of serious joy
Quietly shining here alone
In your presence that shallow fear
Wraps blather around and bundles off
Before it can get any signal through
To let you know it's here.

So read my long love letters
And learn of a secret sweet
One who's true and burns for you
Whom you can never meet.





Skygazer

Stars like clotted dust across the sky,
You fit the Barlow, focus, squint your eye,
As gleaming planets swim into your view
I watch the night, the telescope, and you.

Exploding starsurf winds, galactic seas
Across the aeon spins in mysteries
Of long ago, of here, the never now
The deeping cold, the whistling void, and thou.

"No thanks, I don't drink that much anyway. (click)"
"Daddy, who was that you were talking to?"
"Triple A road service."
He'd been on the phone with them for at least 10 minutes, listening to their spiel, and saying "uh huh... yes... okay... ah". I wondered what the sales representative on the other end of the line must think of him, and whether he even caught on that he'd been had. My dad had a great straight-faced delivery style. Often the only way you could tell he was kidding was by the twinkle in his eyes.

On another occasion, during the Asian currency crisis, when he was battling the cancer that would ultimately kill him, I called and asked how he was doing and he said "I feel like a million ... uhhh.... Rupiyah!" (the Indonesian currency that was virtually worthless at the time.)

He was fond of silly jokes, corny jokes, and really lame jokes. He was a fan of the Marx Brothers. Once when he had a gig with the symphony (he played trombone and often sat in with our local symphony when they needed extra bones) he walked out the door carrying his trombone, dressed in his white bowtie, tuxedo coat with tails, cummerbund, ruffled dress shirt, and his boxer shorts. "See y'all tonight!" Inspired by the fancy get-up, he was pretending that he'd forgotten his pants. He had a great poker face. I always meant to give him some boxer shorts with big red polka dots someday for a present, just so he could use them for gags like that.

Once after looking for a parking spot near the downtown library for too long, he parked in the handicapped place and dragged a leg all the way in. He was so serious about it, I'm sure all the passersby were brokenhearted at the poor crippled man whose family was trying so hard to pretend they didn't know him.



Mom at one point put up a whiteboard on the fridge for our large family to leave messages to one another. Dad would sneak in there when noone was around and draw bizarre cartoons on the board for us to find later. I remember one of a 50s looking dude with a flat-top haircut, dressed in a zoot suit. He was looking through a rickety telescope, and his eyes were popping out of his head with astonishment. There was no clue in the drawing as to what he might be seeing. I don't know why Dad was so careful not to be caught drawing those things, because you could tell who did them just by looking. Nobody else in the family was that weird. =)

On a picture of my older brother at about 18 months of age, looking with curiosity at a sleeping dog, he wrote "Charlie bags his first dog."

Once he wrote "glypns" on this mug someone gave him, in the box labeled "Hello, my name is:" My little brother was around 5 at the time, I guess, and he became obsessed with determining for certain who it was who wrote "glypns" on that cup. I mean, we all knew it was Dad, but he would never admit it. Mike was determined he would get Dad to fess up. "Admit it, Daddy! You DID WRITE GLYPNS!" He would not let it drop. Finally, Dad got the cup, erased the random string of letters, then wrote them back.... g...l...y...p...n...s. "There!" he said in triumph, handing the cup back to Mike. "I did write glypns!"

"Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!" Mikie howled. "I mean the FIRST time. Did you or did you not write glpyns the first time?" and so it went on.

At least 25 years later, long after Mikie had finally given up, my mom was just about to tromp Dad in some game or other they were playing (we were quite a competitive game playing family, innovating full-contact chess and other such recreations), when she said "All right, Charlie, what are your last words?" He thought about it a second and replied "I DID write glypns." I think that took the prize for the punch line with the longest advanced set-up. =) I expect he was saving that one up to be his real dying words, but was afraid he'd be hit by a falling piano or something and lose his chance. That would have been a shame.

Another one, along the lines of math jokes, is one day when he burst out to my mom with "Libba, you're one in a hundred thousand!"
"Thanks, Charlie."
(Big grin).

He was a really good liar. He played all games as though they were games of bluff. He played Scrabble, even, as a game of bluff. He would plunk down these crazy words, and say them with such conviction that you totally believed they were actual real words. I remember one night when he triumphantly announced "YOIGHTS!" and claimed his 50 point bonus. Mom and I hesitated.... should one of us challenge it? He would simply eat you alive if you didn't press him. Yet both of us were actually convinced that it was real, though neither of us had heard of it. Dad was very convincing. Finally I said "all right, I'll challenge", feeling certain I was about to lose my turn. Guess what? If yoights was a word, it wasn't one Webster had heard of. Mom and I started to giggle a little. "YOIGHTS!", such triumph in his voice! We had been totally taken in AGAIN! We kept giggling more and more, and kept setting each other off. Finally we were both doubled over, gasping for breath, saying "YOIGHTS!" with complete conviction, every time we managed to stop laughing for a second or two, and starting us both back up again. Daddy had that effect on Mom and me often.

Another demonstration of his amazing powers of bluff came whenever Mom served Tater Tots. Now Tater Tots were a huge favorite of everyone in our family. Mom fried them in very hot Crisco and margarine, amd they were crunchy, and hot, and so delicious! Somehow, back in the dawn of time, long before my memory formed, it became a tradition that whenever we had Tater Tots for supper, Dad would steal one from our plates. He did it very cleverly, though, using his talent for lying. I sat with my back to a big plate glass window overlooking the deck and woods, in those days, and Dad sat across from me facing the window. He would pretend to be looking at something outside, very subtly and in a way that did not alert any of my suspicions, despite the fact that we knew to guard our plates zealously on Tater Tot night. Then he'd make some oblique comment, something that seemed to be relevant to whatever odd thing was happening outside. Naturally, I'd innocently turn around, see nothing, and realize in that instant that I'd been taken once again. Turning back, I would find my plate had been relieved of one of my precious Tots. The lowdown crumb! Mom eventually got so annoyed with his suppertime hijinks that she never served Tater Tots again. =)



He looked so respectable and serious, and he was so quiet, that lots of people had no idea how crazy he was. He played up his image as the absent minded professor type, saying to me things like "hand me that paper there Charlie, I mean Laurie, I mean... what's your name again?" He would pretend to forget things sometimes, to make a joke of the fact that he really did forget things other times, so that you never quite knew when he was being serious and when he was making fun. Once I said to mom, "Oh, Daddy just pretends to be weird, he's really not as weird as he pretends to be." She thought seriously about that for a while, then said, "No, I think your Daddy is actually weirder far than any of us can even imagine." Later on, I realized she was right. =)

His humor was almost never crude, though when he was ill at the end, after his surgery, when his doctor asked him if he'd had any gas, and explained that in this case, as a sign of his digestion starting back up, gas was reason for celebration, Dad answered "Oh, it always is!" He kept on making jokes right up to the end. When my friend Miriam, a nurse, whom we had hired to stay overnight with him in the days after the surgery, refused to give him his oxygen mask, obeying the doctor's orders, he instructed mom the next day to cut her out of the will.

He's been gone now for five years. I always thought he would live forever. Something this week made me remember one of his jokes, and laugh. So I felt like writing some of them down, so that I wouldn't forget. However else he was as a father, whatever else he did or didn't do, he certainly made us laugh a whole lot. And that is something I'll always remember.

A few years back, we came up with an idea (my friends and I) that turned out really well.

It started because I noticed I would rant the same rant to friends (about a guy I was working with at the time) over and over, and I saw that some of their rants were repeats as well. We decided that to save time and effort, from then on, we would assign each rant a number. Then we could keep a table of all the numbers (it's an excel spreadsheet on my computer), and what rant belonged with which number, and in the future, instead of all that spittle flying and teeth gnashing, we could simply say "Rant number 17", or "Insert rant 25 here", and have done with it.



Soon other friends and family joined in the fun, so now on my computer I have a long list of different people's rants, each assigned a number, not necessarily sequentially. In fact, some of the numbers are negative, some are irrational, and others are imaginary. Pi is in there, and e, and of course 1337. =)

But a funny thing happened once we recorded our rants in the rantlist. We found that we never really had to invoke them after that. Just having them recorded, for all the world to see, indelibly set down in digital bits, enshrined on my hard disk, was enough to lift them off our hearts and minds entirely, and we became saner, happier people for it. It was an entirely unexpected side benefit, but all of us felt it. It worked out really great!

Thinking about it, we decided that the rantlist is possibly the serendipitous invention that could finally bring peace and harmony to humanity on earth. For instance, if the Palestinians could just write down in the rantlist, all the things that were wrong and unfair that the Israelis did to them, and the Israelis could similarly records all their rants, for the whole world and for posterity to see, then maybe the Middle East peace process could get going again, and things could finally settle down over there. =)

So, if you have any rants you want to get off your chest, just tell me what they are and pick a number to assign. I will add them to the list, and confirm that your number is available. Maybe someone will eventually host one online, that is open to everyone all over the world, all of the time, and then the world will become a happier, more peaceful place.

Santa just got me a new camera, a Canon Powershot A530, a nice low-end-but-more-than-I-need camera with 5 megapixels, just in time to record the fall beauty of my japanese maple. This tree is just about the prettiest tree I've ever seen. It's beautiful all seasons of the year. It's usually filled with birds of all description who perch there to get close to the feeders I fill for them outside the picture windows in my living room. In winter the bare branches are graceful and lovely. In spring the new leaves are red before the full deep green comes in. In summer it is lovely and shady and makes a sweet sound as the wind ruffles its hair. But in autumn, season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, it is breathtaking.

This tree is something like Laurelin from Valinor, west of Middle Earth, and I love it the way elves love trees. (laughs)

My mother and I can't remember when she planted it. It was some time after we built this house, perhaps during the 80s. So maybe it's 30 years old now. Not long after she first planted a tree there, Dad accidentally mowed it down, but without saying a word he went to the nursery and bought another one, for he knew how much my mother loved that tree. So this tree is that replacement, that my Dad planted after mowing the first one down.

After my dad died a few years ago, Mom wanted a smaller place with no stairs, so she sold the house to me. So I have come into possession (though it really owns itself) of this lovely being, this tree that sheds its grace and beauty (and leaves) across my back deck. This is the time of year when it is most glorious. =) The picture above was taken last week, as a "before" shot. These below were taken on my little cell-phone-camera last year.


First, on November 11, 2005


November 28th, 2005


December 2, 2005


December 2, 2005


Again December 2, 2005

Now this weekend, it is beginning again its annual display, and this time I can capture it in 5Mp glory! =)


November 11th, 2006


Dawn on November 14th, 2006

I really don't think Laurelin or Telperion could have been more beautiful.

Update for fall 2011:

Nov 3, 2011

Dawn, Nov 11, 2011


Nov 13, 2011


Nov 15, 2011

Nov 16, 2011


Nov 18, 2011

We were talking about faith tonight on Feminist Mormon Housewives, and I posted something quickly there, an idea I wanted to develop further. Because when other people talk about faith, I think often they mean something completely different than I have. Maybe I don't have faith at all by their definition.

I don’t think I do have faith, if by faith we mean belief in something with no evidence. Now, I can't objectively prove the existence of God. I can't point to instruments that register his presence, or show his face to scientists and have them shake his hand. But personally, privately, I had to have scads of evidence before I believed. It's a subjective type of evidence, but it's very real evidence, nonetheless. It just isn't the sort that convinces anyone who didn't personally experience it. It's the sort that is accesible to one observer only. Me. =)

When I *did* exercise faith is when I began to question that I knew anything about how to live life. When I began to realize that there were awesome, wonderful, joyful, kind, and good people in the world, and they knew more about living life than I did. It was when I actually entertained the notion that they might be telling the simple truth about where all that joy and goodness was coming from, and thought it might be worth a try myself, that I first opened the door. I was acting on faith, perhaps, or speculation, or some crazy hope, or something, the night I first tried it, feeling foolish and hesitant, I tried praying, with all my heart, and got a real answer. Suddenly there was a feeling of peace and release, of happiness and understanding, that had not been there before. It didn't come from me. I knew that. It was something from outside me, and I was willing to suspend judgement on just what it was.

So I prayed more, and began going to church, reading the scriptures, etc., and each step of the way I saw more and more evidence. I received confirmation in my mind and heart, that this was good, that it was the right way, that I was on the right path. I gained knowledge that I couldn't have gotten on my own. Once I did those things, in faith, then I saw the results, and gradually gained a sure testimony and now what I have is something a lot more like knowledge, I guess. It's now something that's so familiar and sure, that there's no tenative feeling left. It's like gravity. Something you feel daily and recognize as a feature of life.

But there's a second meaning of the word faith, that I think I sometimes *do* have. It's a very powerful thing. When you exercise it, good things take form and solidify and become real in the world, that before were only odd notions, queer thoughts, or pie in the sky ideals. This type of faith is not supernatural or strange in the least. It's very ordinary and homely, in fact. This kind of faith is the willingness to invest your heart, mind, and effort, into something good, regardless of whether or not it has any chance of success.

Basically, all good things require someone to believe in them before they can be true. For instance, if a couple is in love, but neither of them is willing to invest real time and effort in their love, then their love will wither away and not exist. If, on the other hand, they move closer together, and think of themselves as “we”, and have faith in their love, then (if both of them do that) their love will blossom and thrive. The same is true for many other things, like currencies, companies, nations, laws, good engineering standards, friendships, etc. Only if people have faith in them, and act as though they are real things, will they survive and fulfill their goal.

I think that’s what Christ means when he says, “I see that your faith is sufficient for me to …” do whatever, bless people in some way. Unless we invest ourselves in Christ, and know that he’s a true and living God, then we can’t learn and grow, and he can’t bless us, as we could otherwise. It’s very ordinary and everyday, not supernatural or weird at all.

For instance, Sasha gets me to tutor him in physics and algebra. I have seen that he must have faith to be able to benefit from my tutoring. For when he doesn’t have faith, I will ask him a question such as “if you multiply this fraction by the same thing on top and bottom, are you changing it?” When he has no faith in me, he thinks “Why is she asking this? Let’s just work the problem! This is wasting my time!” and he's unable to learn. When he has faith, he can say “What do you mean?” and I answer “For instance, if you multiplied this fraction by 6/6 would you be changing it? Or would you still have the same thing you started with?” and then he answers "It's the same, because 6/6 is just another way of writing 1". Then I can go on to show him that the same thing is true if he multiplies the fraction by (T1*T2)/(T1*T2), or whatever, and bless him with that powerful tool for manipulating algebraic expressions. With the result that 15 minutes later he is beaming and excited because he totally understands now. However, without him exercising faith up front, this would never be possible.

Before the Civil Rights Movement, people like Martin Luther King Jr. looked at America, at the promise of equality and opportunity for all, and they had faith in it. They could have cynically thought "well, all societies in history have had their underclass. The ideal of America is some pie in the sky that can never come true. Equality is just empty talk" and if they thought that, then they would have either given up, or maybe tried to become the new ruling class, and subjugate whites underneath people of color, to even things out a little bit, historically speaking. They would have believed in that ugly world, and it would have come true. On the contrary, though, (and I honor them greatly for this) they *did* believe in America, so they were willing to work hard for it, and put their hope in it and risk their lives for it, and in the end they made it come true. Not perfectly, of course, but way way more than anyone could have hoped back in 1950.

I think when Christ asks us to have faith in him, he's doing the same thing I do with Sasha when I tutor him. He can't bless us and we can't benefit from what he has to offer unless we will exercise that faith up front.

Such is my faith, quotidian, plain, and dull. =) But it is the substance of which all the best things of my life are made.

Two weeks ago, when I was at Bruno's, a local grocery store, I saw a sign taped, for some reason, to the pavement of the parking lot. It read "Will someone please adopt the gray cat who hangs out here? She is sweet and friendly, and doesn't seem to have a home."

As a lover of cats, this interested me. I also remembered in 1971, how my family had moved into an apartment not 100 yards from there, temporarily, while we waited for our new house to be built. We brought along our cat Noel, whom I adored, my first real cat. We let our cats outside in those days, and Noel was no exception. But cats don't like to move. Noel was unhappy in the apartment, always confused about which door we lived behind, since they evidently smelled alike, and would be meowing to be let in to our neighbor's apartment quite frequently. After a few months, Noel went missing, to my great sorrow and dismay. I would get out of bed in the middle of the night and weep for him, looking out the kitchen window, and pray for his safe return.

It's October, and beginning to be chilly in Birmingham. I was concerned for the cat, and hoped she did find a good home.

The next week (last week), I happened to be at Bruno's again, and I saw her! She was indeed friendly and sweet. She bumped against my hand again and again. She was standing almost in the exact spot where the sign had been, though it was gone by that time, so I was not concerned that it might not be the same cat. I decided to bring her home and take care of her.



She loves being pet, is compulsive about that, and she was extremely hungry. I noticed when I got her home that she's awfully thick around the middle for someone as hungry as she is. I think now that she might be pregnant. She's perhaps 6 months or so old. Not too much older, from what I can tell. Dr. George is coming to see her Tuesday when we will find out for sure. It's awesome, though, because Grisha and Kim want a kitten, Rahul thinks he might want a kitten, and Alysson might want a kitten. So I may have three of the litter placed in wonderful homes already. Now I'm excited and I hope she *is* pregnant. =)

Her name is Grace, because she's Gray and Graceful, and because she is mine by the grace of God. =)

My Personality

Neuroticism	16
Extraversion	92
Openness To Experience	94
Agreeableness	99
Conscientiousness	56

Find your MySpace/Xanga/Hi5 soulmate / pysch twin Test Yourself Compare Yourself View Full Report MySpace Surveys, MySpace Codes and MySpace Layouts by Pulseware Survey Software

Interesting! I love quizzes! : )

Are other species really lesser beings than us? Or are they sort of like other cultures, having some elements which are better and some worse than ours, some higher and some lower aspects? Is there any limit to the things we can learn? What if we could become the very best of all the people we know, all the cultures, all the creatures?

I love how cats radiate contentedness, for instance. They are awesome!

Rumi is Alden's Triple, lol! 13th c. Islamic mystic poets ftw! : )

"Come, come, whoever you are.
Wanderer, idolater, worshipper of fire,
Come even though you have broken your vows a thousand times,
Come, and come yet again.
Ours is not a caravan of despair."