and beyond!

I survived the most horrible winter

2009-04-17T16:12:00.000-07:00

Soon I will be able to add a Published Work section to my resume. It will go nicely under all the minimum wage retail jobs and the glossed-over lack of a high school diploma, until I fail to mention high school altogether and just mention that I'm working on a degree.

On Wednesday I got an email from White Wall Review. They are publishing two of my poems under the pseudonym Patrick Walker-Nelson. That makes me a published poet times 9.

Today I went to Grant MacEwan College to chat up a student advisor. I think they are going to let me in.

2009-04-12T14:58:00.000-07:00

Woke up at two am to a house of dark, whippy, rainy air and two open windows, ate an orange in bed, which tasted very sweet on account of the dark, woke up again at seven to bells, pre-dawn and freezy floors, drank tea, got dressed, cleaned my rooms, and when the sun started warming up the floors I sat on them and wrote a bit. Then I played Bach, Dvorak, and Reger in the loud front room of the apartment, without the mute, and I sounded fantastic. Then I sat on the stairs to my door and almost finished a poem. Then he came and we left. The day has been full of delicious orange juice, milk, tea, and Starbucks [a slight lack of food, probably going to be rectified later] and a drenching of sun and three logic problems solved.

2009-04-03T16:24:00.000-07:00

The anti human-chauvinism movement slightly disturbs me. It's true that human chauvinism, the idea that humans are the surpreme goal and best possible product of evolution, is simply uninformed, but the writers trying to correct this view in the common consciousness seem too often to swing to the other, just as stupid, extreme, ignoring that though it may not be the pinnacle of anything but its own history up to this point, human achievement and ability is a marvelous thing.

At Chartres

2009-03-29T17:28:00.000-07:00

by Katy Didden

Who wielded the chisel
at the left portal,
south porch, the scene

of Theo chained,
naked to the waist, leaning in
to the brutal hand

of what looks to be
an even younger boy?
What man carved stone

to mimic flesh
as it would look inside
the torture of its flensing?

How he must have held
the scene in his own
mind, thought it back

to the act itself,
modeling the lines
with his own limbs

so he would know
both how a body
bends in pain, and how

a hand extends the flayer’s rake.

2009-03-29T15:20:00.000-07:00

While I realize how statistically plausible it is, it astounds and disappoints me continually how badly people misunderstand and misappreciate poetry in their attempts to "interpret it", as if this was some joke of an English class.

"What does the grapefruit stand for?'

"A grapefruit."

"But what does it mean?"

"What it says in the poem."

It is something of a hardship to revel in my own improved writing while people are asking such questions. [These past few weeks I've been working a lot, and am delighted to watch myself.]Most of them seem entirely unable to deal with the complexities and subtlties of metaphores that are not childishly simplistic, one-to-one and direct, but also entirely unable to take a phrase at face value before deciphering the metaphore which may be there. It's as if their set of mental catagories was less nuanced, less developed, and smaller than mine. As if they cannot easily relate physically unlike things by abstraction, except in common, popular cases. It disappoints me.

My poems are good.

I would have been proud to be an early American

2009-03-23T12:07:00.001-07:00

The writ of habeas corpus is one of what are called the "extraordinary," "common law," or "prerogative writs," which were historically issued by the courts in the name of the monarch to control inferior courts and public authorities within the kingdom. The most common of the other such prerogative writs are quo warranto, prohibito, mandamus, procedendo, and certiorari. When the original 13 American Colonies declared independence and became a constitutional republic in which the people are the sovereign, any person, in the name of the people, acquired authority to initiate such writs.

2009-03-20T18:32:00.000-07:00

1. x is the greatest prime

2. Form the product of all primes less than or equal to x, and add 1 to the product. This yields a new number y, where y=

[2x3x5x7x11x...x[x]] +1

3. If y is itself prime, then x is not the greatest prime, for y is obviously greater than x

4. If y is composite [not prime], then again, x is not the greatest prime. For if y is composite, it must have a prime divisor z; and z must be different from each of the prime numbers [2,3,5,7,11,...,x] smaller than or equal to x; hence z must be a prime greater than x

5. But y is either prime or composite

6. Hence x is not the greatest prime

7. There is no greatest prime

2009-03-19T12:00:00.000-07:00

I have left the windows open while I am at school.

Autobiographia Literaria

2009-03-18T11:56:00.000-07:00

-Frank O'Hara

When I was a child
I played by myself in a
corder of the schoolyard
all alone.

I hated dolls and I
hated games, animals were
not friendly and birds
flew away.

If anyone was looking
for me I hid behind a
tree and cried out 'I am
an orphan.'

And here I am, the
center of all beauty!
writing these poems!
Imagine!

2009-03-13T20:39:00.000-07:00

I enjoy the prospect of continent-wide DC supergrids. I think they're a good idea.

2009-03-13T14:07:00.000-07:00

Everything is fairly nice. I feel I have always lived on my own.

But my jeans ripped in the crotch. I sewed them up, and they ripped again. And then my other pair of jeans, the pair with sap on them that I was saving for the summer, ripped in the crotch. But that was the end of my pairs of jeans, and I am wearing the less-illegal, sappy pair at school before I go to Superstore for some intact pants.

I've written a very good poem.

I am employed. Tim is not the only one who can suggest to a former manager that he be re-hired, and asked when he can start. I can too. I will hate it. But I will have money. Money is a source of more pride and happiness than I initially thought, even though I thought it a considerable source.

2009-03-09T12:57:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday darling.

Annus Mirabilis

2009-03-04T10:41:00.000-08:00

Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) -
Between the end of the Chatterley ban
And the Beatles' first LP.

Up to then there'd only been
A sort of bargaining,
A wrangle for the ring,
A shame that started at sixteen
And spread to everything.

Then all at once the quarrel sank:
Everyone felt the same,
And every life became
A brilliant breaking of the bank,
A quite unlosable game.

So life was never better than
In nineteen sixty-three
(Though just too late for me) -
Between the end of the Chatterley ban
And the Beatles' first LP.

-Philip Larkin

Friday

2009-02-27T11:44:00.000-08:00

A packed-up room is strange. It keeps spitting me out. I feel incredibly drifty-around-the-house, and unproductive. Two days, and tomorrow doesn't count because I'll be in Sherwood Park from eight in the morning.

I miss his brain terribly. Starbucks is my mortal enemy for stealing all his hours.

2009-02-26T17:04:00.001-08:00

I like the word 'catharsis'.

In which Lizzy makes a mildly arrogant, but heartfelt diatribe

2009-02-26T16:14:00.000-08:00

The prospect of this Sunday afternoon petrifies me. This Sunday afternoon I will move out of my parents' basement [and more importantly, out of access to free internet, free emergency transportation and free use-of-a-telephone-number], and into a two-room apartment halfway across the city. After this Sunday afternoon, I will not be bothered by Kindermusik CDs played full blast through the thin floors, or requests for babysitting when I have things to do. I am petrified.

People keep telling me that I really have nothing serious to worry about. They point out the several thousand dollars in my bank account, my good grades, my cheap rent, my general self-sufficiency. They point out that I will survive. I know. I am not in the least concerned about eating or paying rent. I am terribly concerned about the animalistic tendencies that come with spending too much time surviving.

Is there anything in the world more depressing than a human who resembles a penguin from a BBC documentary? Doing nothing but moving from food source to food source, huddling away from the cold, and procreating like mad? Is there any factor that defines a level of civilization more than the time freed up from providing for one's survival for the pursuit of pleasure and learning?

The sight of penguin people makes me sick. I can think of nothing worse than being forced, through lack of intelligence or good money management or education or ambition, to spend most of my time on a job which does not utilize my mind or involve anything interesting. It drives people crazy, or turns them in zombies, and even their little free time is wasted because they cannot enjoy anything but cheap entertainment. I am very, very afraid of this.

I am not interested in becoming disgustingly rich. I am interested in earning enough, at a job I want to work at, to not have to worry about necessary expenses, to have freedom and money to study what I want in my [considerable] free time, to socialize with people I respect and enjoy,
to not waste hours on the bus, to buy healthy food, to plan for projects, perhaps to invest. I do not plan to spend vast sums of money on big houses or cars, vacations to dull tourist resorts, ridiculous clothing, gadgets, or pure-bred animals. But I do very much want to buy as much time and lack of complication as I possibly can, so I can read a lot of books.

Which is why I am afraid of moving out on Sunday, and of the job search next week, and of deciding what to take my first degree in. In my brief experience so far it does not seem like intelligence and hard work are very employable qualities, and it does not seem like most of the people who exist are worth talking to. The things I want most to do, even in the short term, require time and a relative lack of intruding stress, and this happy circumstance will take weeks at the least to establish even in a small degree. I am determined however. Wish me luck.

exhausted

2009-02-23T21:02:00.000-08:00

"Destroy! Destroy! Destroy!"
hums the underconsciousness.
''Love and produce! Love and produce!''
cackles the upper consciousness.
And the world hears onlythe 'love and produce' cackle.
Refuses to hear the hum of destruction underneath...
until such time as it will have to hear.

The American has got to destroy!
It is his destiny.

2009-02-18T18:59:00.000-08:00

I am drained in a half-satisfying, half-restless way. I've spent the day applying for jobs, reading an Ian McEwan novel, knitting for my enormous project which is now almost one-quarter to completion, writing, preparing and tracking magazine submissions [if I don't keep track I could get in trouble], practicing, setting up my new printer, and failing to do math. I finished one poem, which is not very good but not nauseating. I can't wait for Friday. I am going mad.

New York by Valzhyna Mort

2009-02-18T18:41:00.000-08:00

new york, madame,
is a monument to a city

it is
TA-DA
a gigantic pike
whose scales
bristled up stunned

and what used to be just smoke
found a fire that gave it birth

champagne foam
melted into metal
glass rivers
flowing upwards
and things you won't tell to a priest
you reveal to a cabdriver

even time is sold out
when to the public's "wow" and "shhh"
out of a black top hat
a tailed magician
is pulling new york out
by the ears of skyscrapers

2009-02-18T16:18:00.001-08:00

Nevermind two days, it's The-Day-After-Tomorrow.

One of those

2009-02-18T16:08:00.000-08:00

I am one of those simultaneous submitters. The few poems I think should be published by someone are sent to everyone, all at once.

I just adopted this strategy. We'll see how it goes.

2009-02-15T21:28:00.000-08:00

This is where I am going to live:

9806 85 Avenue

It will be my own pad. Suddenly it is quite clear that it is the most wonderful thing in the world that I will live alone, work and feed myself, amuse myself with whatever projects I like, not answering to anyone, study and work toward competence in the field of my choice, talk to people I want to talk to. For the first time it will finally be my acknowledged prime responsibility to produce my own happiness and build what will be my own life. I think this will be worth the considerable stress and trouble, and the necessary contact with unpleasant semi-morons and other frustrations.

Something beyond nice

2009-02-12T08:30:00.000-08:00

20 - 12 = 8 days

2009-02-11T16:14:00.001-08:00

"For the intellectual, material comforts are relatively unimportant; what he cares about most is spiritual freedom. The strength of the Catholic church has always been that it demands the sacrifice of that freedom uncompromisingly, and condemns spiritual pride as deadly sin. The Communist novice, subjecting his soul to the cannon law of the Kremlin, felt something of the release which Catholicism also brings to the intellectual, wearied and worried by the privilege of freedom."

-Richard Crossman

2009-02-11T15:49:00.000-08:00

La Petite Vie by Allen Edwin Butt

2009-02-09T16:01:00.000-08:00

Love is the kindest
expression
of absence—

Or else
is a day
by the river,

in which by
motion
it becomes clear—

there have been
in an hour an
infinite train

of rivers, & which
did you want
to see? One

comes slowly
to realize
there is no evading things

(the heart will have
its way, though
its will go

unfulfilled),
& there is no shame
in this.

The pleasures in this world—
soft breeze, soft
thighs, a bit of music,

words that make
a good sound—
suggest when taken

whole that the
thing
the body longs for

is not & never has been
some petite mort,
a true thing

known to grass
& the elderly man
with a kind word

in greeting. And
the woman saying
that she is about

to come, as in
going to arrive—
at last to fill

the body held so long
by stewards
in her name.

2009-02-04T17:22:00.000-08:00

She's lovely.

2009-02-02T16:52:00.000-08:00

My new address is close to the bus, the colleges, and the river valley.

Tom-Tom #4

2009-01-31T20:22:00.000-08:00

Is out.

soup-fed

2009-01-31T11:17:00.000-08:00

Today I am working on my cape and a new poem.

2009-01-28T18:33:00.001-08:00

I spent the last three days going through my drawers and cupboards again, and I have left myself with very few things. I've left myself with notebooks, a laptop, ice cream bowls, a microscope, a pair of jeans, headphones, the cloth for my cape, a sewing machine, books of poetry, a french press, a pile of sweaters, a saw, a tube of rare earth magnets, two towels, a baking pan, a box of tea, two boxes of envelopes - one for zines, one for business letters, The Book Thief, my pocket knife, the pod, my violin and music, a duvet, the secret compartment pillow, borosilicate glass cups, two lamps, a couch, a desk, a fountain pen, twenty ballpoint pens, two sketchbooks, two plates, my library card and my banking card, Jukebox by Cat Power, math books, thousands of dollars, one bra, one bookbag, one writerly dress, matches, a bird shaped cookie cutter, The Joy of Cooking.

I have no junk. I have a pile of library books. I will have great fun buying what more I need to set up house on my own.

Home is So Sad

2009-01-25T18:28:00.000-08:00

Home is so sad.
It stays as it was left,
Shaped to the comfort of the last to go
As if to win them back.
Instead, bereft
Of anyone to please, it withers so,
Having no heart to put aside the theft

And turn again to what it started as,
A joyous shot at how things ought to be,
Long fallen wide. You can see how it was:
Look at the pictures and the cutlery.
The music in the piano stool. That vase

-Philip Larkin

2009-01-25T16:39:00.001-08:00

I will possibly never look this pretty again.

2009-01-24T10:22:00.000-08:00

I have found a truly fantastic present.

Thoughts on BBC documentaries

2009-01-23T16:31:00.001-08:00

I find the ability and freedom to work wonderful. It seems incredibly lucky and good that I do not have to spend most of my day securing food and shelter or caring for hoards of offspring like most other creatures, and instead can concentrate on learning things, and producing things strictly for intellectual and emotional pleasure. In my case, producing poems.

More News

2009-01-23T08:27:00.001-08:00

I like practicing.

I'm going to be published again.

I bought some food.

I have another math test today.

I found a neat present.

I still rather miss Tim.

I'd like to make a quilt.

News

2009-01-22T21:13:00.000-08:00

I am trying very hard not to succumb to any more unreasonable panic attacks. Things are improving slightly since the horrible week-after-Christmas from which I am still not quite recovered. I want to sleep too much, too often, but I resisted it tonight and finished my first article for a publication I don't produce. I got my first ever math exam back today, with an 89. I quit Starbucks. I would like to see Tim. An empty house to myself for a few days would also be wonderful. If you all convince me that you want to get your hands on it, a new issue of Tom-Tom will be started this or next week. I have plans to make borscht. I find buying presents stressful. Other people in general are stressful. I wish I didn't have to go to school tomorrow. I wish air was less conductive so tea would stay hot longer. Soon I will make a major announcement. I have lots of borrowed books to read, and want one more by Ian McEwan. I am extremely stressed. I stayed awake for 46 hours this week. I haven't been eating too well. I am usually cold. I got to explain a percentage difference formula to one of my classmates yesterday, which I liked doing.

White Night

2009-01-18T18:02:00.001-08:00

I haven't locked the door,
Nor lit the candles,
You don't know, don't care,
That tired I haven't the strength
To decide to go to bed.
Seeing the fields fade in
The sunset murk of pine-needles,
And to know all is lost,

That life is a cursed hell:
I've got drunk
On your voice in the doorway.
I was sure you'd come back.

Anna Akhmatova

She is a genious

2009-01-18T17:56:00.000-08:00

I wrung my hands under my dark veil. . .
"Why are you pale, what makes you reckless?"
-- Because I have made my loved one drunk
with an astringent sadness.

I'll never forget. He went out, reeling;
his mouth was twisted, desolate. . .
I ran downstairs, not touching the banisters,
and followed him as far as the gate.

And shouted, choking: "I meant it all
in fun. Don't leave me, or I'll die of pain.
"He smiled at me -- oh so calmly, terribly --
and said: "Why don't you get out of the rain?"

-Anna Akhmatova

2009-01-18T15:48:00.000-08:00

Lap top!

4 GB

320 GB

Intel Centrino processor

15.4 inches

2009-01-06T07:49:00.001-08:00

School!

2009-01-05T12:12:00.000-08:00

By 'reason' I mean both the process of coming to logical conclusions from given premises, and the correct conclusions logically drawn from the true premises of reality.

People claim that because un consciously-worked-out intuitions are often surprisingly correct, reason is insufficient to explain everything. They decide that there is something mysterious above reason. As if reason was a fanciful human invention and not the way things are.

But the very physical connections made in human [and animal] brains must obey the laws of physics, which can be expressed entirely using mathematics, the most logical and reasonable discipline to exist. Furthermore, since a lack of reason [substitute logic, order] results in chaos not condusive to life but only to entropy, it makes sense that natural selection favors the survival of creatures whose intuitions and unconscious brain activity are reasonable. This seems painfully obvious. If the brain stopped sending logical messages to the heart, or the heart stopped reading messages logically, the brain and the heart would both destruct in very short order.

Much closer to the level of conscious deductive reasoning than the activity of internal organs, the intuitive conclusions that humans often jump to are similarly helpful to the survival of the human when correct, and just as likely to have evolved to follow logical rules, by which they would be most certain to be usually correct.

[I admit that this is not a original idea, but it is one I came up with in a rough form quite a long time ago, I think when I was about ten, and I am very happy to be able to finally explain it.]

News Items

2009-01-03T11:17:00.000-08:00

I read Animal Farm this morning. It was terrifying.

Math class starts on Tuesday!

My mother has quit her job. This is awful news. It means that she will be home every day. Though I am mostly excited to practice and learn more math, it is part of the reason I am so excited about school.

I need to go to the library and the post office and to buy a new notebook.

2008-12-31T07:57:00.000-08:00

Although I have felt like I have been watching my own torturous death for weeks now, possibly since school ended and I started spending over half of my waking life with people I hate, yesterday I did not have to go to work, and I did pleasant things with nice people.

Laura and I went shopping for exotic fruit and we baked bread. We went with Tim to a giant fabric store where I bought some grey woollen cloth to make my cape out of, and then we went for cappuccino downtown. Back at my house, Tim and I made Laura listen to music we think she should like, and we ate more bread and read parts of books.

A productive day

2008-12-28T22:02:00.000-08:00

At last. I practiced scales and a concerto. I wrote. I read a chunk of The Bit and the Pendulum. I'm almost finished it now. I earned 40 dollars.

2008-12-21T08:35:00.001-08:00

I had the best breakfast today. Gingerbread cookies and an avocado smoothie. I drank it out of the blender. I'm calling in sick to work tomorrow.

2008-12-17T11:41:00.000-08:00

I've been reading a book about computation and information/quantum information theory. I've been thinking about the brain as a computer.

Use learning a language as an example. A computer program could provide the necessary codes for translating words from an unknown language input into words from a known language output. [If input aqua is 0011111 then output 1100000 for water.] This is what a human brain does as well when a person is first learning a language, but this kind of crude translation is not considered true understanding or fluency. A human brain eventually learns to directly substitute the words from the new language for words from the old one, doing away with the translational code entirely. As far as I know, a computer program could not do this.

On the other hand, say there is a computer program which reads more like this: if input equals that liquid stuff coming out of the tap, output equals aqua [oo11111] or water [1100000] depending on second input of either Latin or English. The second input is thought of as the language used in a conversation. This is plausible, but doesn't yet explain the transition between the two "programs", which the human brain is clearly capable of.

2008-12-17T07:59:00.000-08:00

Grounded again. Merry Christmas. I'm going to finish The Bit and the Pendulum. It's really the most convenient week for it to happen - I have to work almost every day. This won't happen when I move out.

2008-12-10T23:03:00.001-08:00

Twenty minutes ago, I bought my very first hand saw.

2008-12-06T18:47:00.000-08:00

Because I understand it and didn't before, and because I'm thrilled about the information, I am going to explain something about the emission of light. Very simply, when an atom's energy is increased, its electrons move into an orbit with a larger radius. The electrons then jump back to their original orbit, and this results in a release of the energy that caused them to move into a larger orbit in the first place, in the form of a photon. A photon, you remember, has zero rest mass and is a particle of pure energy.

Episode

2008-12-04T06:42:00.000-08:00

At Starbucks yesterday, a customer complained to my shift supervisor that I'd been rude to her. Apparently I'd forgotten to get a scone for her, and when she asked for it, I'd continued taking an order while I went to the pastry case. Oh insulting. This sort of thing happens quite a bit. I am not trying to leave emotional scars, but really, I don't take precautions against it, for strangers, and I couldn't care much less.

2008-12-01T10:32:00.000-08:00

Collecting things to move out. So far:

- two square white plates - slightly bigger than desert size, much nicer for small meals than those ridiculous giant dinner plates North Americans seem to consider essential

- two square white bowls - food looks much nicer on white or clear glass

- a big towel, a face cloth, a hand towel

- a french press for tea - I may need another for coffee

- two double-walled borosilicate Bodum glasses

- a loaf pan

- my secret-compartment pillow

- floor lamp

- liquid measuring cup

- an old couch

I want:

- two knives

- a blender

- a cookie sheet

- measuring spoons

- two pots

- a whisk

- eating utensils

- mixing bowls

- a lap top

- a Bernina sewing machine

- small trees

- a bookshelf

- a MYTO chair

2008-11-26T04:15:00.000-08:00

I am, very slowly, getting thinner.

Listen up!

2008-11-20T14:34:00.001-08:00

For Christmas [or whatever other excuse you'd like to use to give me a nice present], I'd like a big, laminated, political world map. An upside-down one would be especially lovely.

I'd also like money. I want to buy a Blend-Tec blender. One of the ones that can puree ipods and marbles.

I'd also like Ariel by Sylvia Plath.

2008-11-18T22:00:00.000-08:00

Many of the poems that are chosen to appear in Poetry magazine, arguably the most eminent poetry periodical published in North America, frighten me. Really, it's not the poems themselves that frighten me. Most of them are not good enough to frighten or delight anyone. The merit they are assigned frightens me. These poems are praised for their rejection of the Significant, for their portrayals of late - night waitresses, and for their ambiguity.

They often accomplish nothing but a description of disappointing marital sex, or a description of a drunk outside of a pawnshop. But they aren't even good descriptions. A lack of philosophical content is thoroughly alright if the description itself is beautifully stated and stunningly accurate. But they are overblown, tired, in a style that mistakes its content to be profound; they use slang awkwardly, like parents trying to be cool. When a person finishes reading one, a person shudders. Is that false climax of a brilliant conclusion all that human thought is capable of at this stage? This is what my wife looks like when she climbs out of the shower. Oh eureka.

Nice Things

2008-11-16T17:01:00.000-08:00

The food situation in my parents' house is dismal, as a rule. They've started living mainly off of frozen dinners, which I am not around to partake of, which include meat, and which do not taste good enough to warrant the ingestion of hundreds and hundreds of calories. I've resigned myself to spending my tip money on food. Today I bought Liberty yogurt and a big honey apple. The apple I ate with Superstore peanut butter when I got home, which was a delicious way to go about it. I like Liberty yogurt a lot. It tastes much much better than any other yogurt to be found at the grocery store and doesn't cost any more than the mediocre brands. If I owned a food company, I would want to produce something similarly good.

I saw Casino Royale last week. I have never seen such an excellent shooting film. I am willing to admit its superiority to The Dark Knight.

And yesterday I bought a Bodum tea glass. They're selling them at Starbucks. I was surprised to see them on the shelf - most of the Christmas mugs are cheap and tacky. These are anything but. They are double-walled. They do not say Starbucks Coffee anywhere on them. It's a rare thrill of relief when a person recognizes something worth more than the money they will spend on it.

2008-11-15T09:26:00.000-08:00

Tom-Tom #3 comes out on Monday.

Materials Technology is Awesome

2008-11-13T12:22:00.000-08:00

20 minutes before I have to drag my feet toward Starbucks. You all need to know about gecko tape and similar materials.

I'm sure you know that geckos can climb windows and even hang on to them with one toe. This is because their feet are covered in tiny hairs called setae, which are branched at the tops into tinier hairs called spatulae. These act something like super-velcro on a molecular level. The ends of the spatulae get rather entangled in the molecules of the material the gecko is attached to, increasing the area of contact between the two types of molecules, and therefore the strength of the Van der Waals force [in short, the group of forces acting between molecules, mostly attractive]. If a gecko applies a perpendicular force [lifts a foot straight up off the glass or other surface], the foot becomes unstuck, but force applied parallel to the surface cannot lessen the grip.

They've developed several different artificial dry adhesives modelled on gecko feet. Lots of them have a hold several times stronger than their natural counterparts. In place of setae, carbon nanotubes have been used. [Carbon nanotubes are the strongest materials known to exist. ]

I hope they make shoes soon.

2008-11-10T23:26:00.001-08:00

Plasma gets left out. It's a state of matter too. It accounts for most of the matter in the universe, in fact.

2008-11-10T09:56:00.000-08:00

I'd like to get thinner.

2008-11-08T11:16:00.000-08:00

On Guy Fawkes day, Tim and I had a ceremonial book burning of a box of horrible evangelical and "educational" [home schooly] books culled from one of his mum's shelves. Great fun. Burning, in general, is great fun.

Fire rivals trees for prettiness. Turquoise and diamond white flames flash in the corners. The ash from book pages remains in sheets and can be read from, if you don't breathe on them, because the ink is a pigment made from metal oxides. Before they are consumed, the pages glow purple and pink. The books collapse progressively into a series of kaleidoscope flowers. The sparks crawl over the edges like tiny worms. Pretty, unbelievably so.

And the temperature and the fact that this temperature is the product of pounds and pounds of material is oddly exciting. I liked the temperature, because it was icy cold out, and the air was positively wet.

2008-11-05T10:57:00.000-08:00

The [true] idea that everything has a reasonable explanation is a wonderful one, and the best imaginable relief from hopelessness and confusion. It makes me want to die a lot less.

2008-11-04T22:00:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is Guy Fawke's Day!

2008-11-02T05:51:00.000-08:00

New goals for November:

- print Tom-Tom #3 and make it not suck

- get a bank account at Superstore, where the interest rates are highest

- finish the rough draft of a certain story which I have promised to publish

- solve the bothersome trig problem from Vectors

- buy a dress

2008-10-31T11:24:00.000-07:00

I decided to do a pencil drawing of my own face.

Amazing, it actually looks something like me.

The eyes are too far apart, and it's a rough sketch,

but:

it is the most lifelike drawing I've made.

I've been saving this swear for years

2008-10-30T19:52:00.000-07:00

Being alive and myself is fucking brilliant.

now again

2008-10-26T22:57:00.000-07:00

now beginnings!

now that I am patched up,
something to say,
pleasant to go

you may see me standing
in the weak winter square
fluttering
like the fingers of the wind
in a cotton shirt

you say that I am pale
and small and tough
from growing
through a long ordeal

right you are!
I am beautiful
my backbone is
There

I wrote and published this last winter, but more people read my blog now, and I am proud enough of it to post it again.

Death Cab

2008-10-25T10:35:00.000-07:00

I want to live where soul meets body
And let the sun wrap its arms around me
And bathe my skin in water cool and cleansing
And feel, feel what its like to be new

Cause in my head there’s a greyhound station
Where I send my thoughts to far off destinations
So they may have a chance of finding a place
where they’re far more suited than here

And I cannot guess what we'll discover
When we turn the dirt with our palms cupped like shovels
But I know our filthy hands can wash one another’s
And not one speck will remain

And I do believe it’s true
That there are roads left in both of our shoes
But if the silence takes you
Then I hope it takes me too
So brown eyes I hold you near
Cause you’re the only song I want to hear
A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere
Where soul meets body

A physics lesson, given for the entirely selfish reason that I need practice explaining things I know

2008-10-24T10:00:00.000-07:00

The kilogram is a strange unit, yes? An SI mass unit referenced to a certain arbitrary physical object [the International Prototype Kilogram, funnily also known as Le Grand K] whose mass is actually fluctuating? Yes.

I read though, today, that if and when the coulomb is absolutely defined at [6.241 509 629 152 65 ×10 to the power of 18] elementary charges [an elementary charge is the charge carried by a single proton, although the absolute value of the charge of a single electron is the same], which has been proposed, the kilogram will become an SI derived unit, a much more respectable status.

If the coulomb had an exact numerical value based on a natural unit such as the elementary charge, this value could be combined with the definition of an ampere:

"the constant current which will produce an attractive force of [2×10 to the power of –7] newton per metre of length between two straight, parallel conductors of infinite length and negligible circular cross section placed one metre apart in a vacuum.", which must also be equal to a charge of one coulomb per second flowing past a fixed point.

Since force in newtons must equal [mass in kg times acceleration in metres per second squared]
one kilogram could be defined as the mass which will accelerate [2 x 10 to the power of -7] metres per second squared if subjected to the [2 x 10 to the power of -7] newton force which defines the ampere and therefore the coulomb.

Tell me whether or not this was remotely intellible. I want to get better at it.

2008-10-23T21:39:00.000-07:00

My parents are talking about moving again. It feels lovely to know that if they do, I won't need to be dragged along.

2008-10-23T03:13:00.000-07:00

I am considering a serial for Tom - Tom #3 - #6 ish.

2008-10-19T10:37:00.001-07:00

It's a contest.

How long can I stand it?

Recently, five days became a ridiculous length of time.

I won't ask yet.

Delusion

2008-10-17T08:32:00.000-07:00

Unnatural when a person rediscovers that she appears to maintain an existence outside of her own head. She is in fact visible. The walls are solid and cannot be sidled or spied through. Others claim to be people just like her. Impossible. If she held her breath long enough in the swimming pool, she would not become a clownfish, she would die instead. Die! Impossible. Apparently her feet are her own, and the pain is hers when she scalds them with coffee. But she can watch the scenario like a film. The others that claim to be people [perhaps they are people, in which case she isn't sure she'd like to call herself a person] claim a claim on her and call it Love. Impossible. It's another word for bossing her hologram around. Only an idiot would think this visible act was a self.

2008-10-16T10:47:00.000-07:00

I am hyper serious.

Wherein everything I haven't written about drags around behind me. Like a catheter bag on a stand. [Metaphores!]

2008-10-16T07:18:00.000-07:00

I haven't written about it because I'm lazy and it's ironic, but I find nothing harder or more annoying than translating vague picture reels of logical sequences into words. But words have to be able to do more than This.

I am like an obscure young paleontologist fully expecting to discover every one of Darwin's missing links while struggling to pour plaster into shellfish fossils. All of my colleagues are sniggering at me, and the talented ones think I am revolting.

2008-10-11T11:04:00.001-07:00

Everybody's saying
that hell is the hippest way to go out
I don't think so

2008-10-11T10:52:00.000-07:00

I've been working on a poem four or five days now. I have part of one stanza. I have lots of promise. I want very much to finish.

Tom-Tom #3 will come out in early November.

2008-10-09T13:48:00.000-07:00

Going to school is less frustrating when your teacher understands more than you do. I like violin lessons. I do not like physics class.

book bag

2008-10-04T05:06:00.000-07:00

I am sick of sewing and every activity [such as slicing cloth with super-sharp shears] related to it. After nearly two weeks I've finished a new book bag, barely in time, since my old one now has thumb-sized holes in the bottom. The new one is everything a book bag should be: sturdy and huge. It's as plain as was possible without using only one color, but the three colors I did use - dark purple, bright blue, off-white - made the construction and design more obvious in an esthetically awesome way, and I prefer this type of beauty to printed fabric or added ornamentation. I haven't been so happy with anything I've made myself since a self-fastening envelope in August. If my comp's USB ports were working I would post pictures. Some of you will be lucky enough to see it in the flesh [cloth].

A cheerful post

2008-09-30T14:46:00.000-07:00

Glynis reminded me that a new set of goals, a set for October, is in order:

-Walk to Whyte Ave. This has been a goal for quite some time. It will be accomplished tomorrow.

-Finish The Lord of The Rings. I'm in the middle of the third part.

-Finish Six Not-So-Easy Pieces, including all the math.

-Read On The Wealth of Nations.

-Play my new Kymlicka piece to relative perfection.

-Buy a super nice cooking thermometer. Then make marmalade with it.

2008-09-28T22:08:00.000-07:00

They keep demanding that I lie.

I am so tired.

2008-09-24T07:23:00.000-07:00

I saw the "Poetry Route" posters for the first time yesterday, on the way home from school. The city of Edmonton thought that publishing poetry on the inside walls of buses was a creative idea. Perhaps it is. Regardless, I am not only intellectually, but personally offended by the posters. It is despicable that drivel like that is taking up recognition, funding, and publishing space that the work of talented poets is denied. If this is the sort of arena I have to look forward to, I'm not sure I want to be a more-published writer.

2008-09-21T14:05:00.001-07:00

A day of vague hatred. I am holding a meltdown at bay with avocado, milk, and sugar. I am dissecting my old cd player. I will cry later.

September 20

2008-09-20T11:24:00.000-07:00

I am trying not to ruin everything I touch. It's miserable to realize that I do. I want to improve things and make things, rather than degrade and destroy them.

I am suddenly aware of the process of [the broad sense of] industrial civilization, that is: thousands of years of certain human beings desperate to create perfect, durable, elegant things. They all wanted to outwit senselessness, waste of time, prevention of pleasure, decay, and despair with their own competence. So do I.

New Items

2008-09-19T22:11:00.000-07:00

I'd like to post some literary productions, but I find myself hoarding them for Tom-Tom #3. Thus:

I am sick. In my congested, sore, fevered and chilled and exhausted condition I have been spending eight hours a night scrubbing burned milk and tannin off of sinks, steaming wands, and pitchers. Also infecting countless Starbucks customers. When I'm not at work I'm reading The Two Towers and huddling under my ratty quilt. I look great when I'm sick. Sort of like a schizophrenic.

I've started violin lessons again.

I've ordered copper earrings from The Noisy Plume on Etsy.

I'm writing a new story and designing a building for it.

You're

2008-09-15T12:03:00.000-07:00

Clownlike, happiest on your hands,
Feet to the stars, and moon-skulled,
Gilled like a fish. A common-sense
Thumbs-down on the dodo's mode.
Wrapped up in yourself like a spool,
Trawling your dark, as owls do.
Mute as a turnip from the Fourth
Of July to All Fools' Day,
O high-riser, my little loaf.

Vague as fog and looked for like mail.
Farther off than Australia.
Bent-backed Atlas, our traveled prawn.
Snug as a bud and at home
Like a sprat in a pickle jug.
A creel of eels, all ripples.
Jumpy as a Mexican bean.
Right, like a well-done sum.
A clean slate, with your own face on.

Sylvia Plath

On the literature front

2008-09-14T17:08:00.000-07:00

I've finished The Fellowship of the Ring, and I'm one chapter away from the end of Six Not-So-Easy Pieces.

Bones

2008-09-14T16:59:00.000-07:00

I am extremely happy today in honor of yesterday. I climbed a pine tree and ran down another hill. I slept. I went to the playground and swung on the swings. I curled up and drank hot tea. Everything is sensual today.

2008-09-10T19:54:00.000-07:00

The lack of butter and the abundance of margarine in this house is the last straw. I hate with great integrity. I am so tired of every mediocre aspect of living at home with these people. Happiness is nothing but work here.

2008-09-06T11:12:00.001-07:00

I am about five pages away from having filled an entire notebook by left hand. I've been practicing since the spring. I'm getting pretty neat and pretty fast. Making my body do what I want it to is great fun. On Tuesday I also climbed into a tree from the ground to a branch about level with my face, which I've never been able to do. I started by walking up the trunk while holding the branch I wanted to get on to, then hanging by my knees, and finally swinging my hips over and sitting up. Then I went higher.

2008-09-06T11:09:00.000-07:00

"I want to see, real and living, and in the hours of my own days, that glory I create as an illusion. I want it real. I want to know that there is someone, somewhere, who wants it too. Or else what is the use of seeing it, and working, and burning oneself for an impossible vision? A spirit, too, needs fuel. It can run dry."

-Ayn Rand

2008-09-04T22:29:00.000-07:00

In the middle, with curly hair.

To read before Christmas

2008-09-02T19:52:00.000-07:00

-Lolita
-Othello
-Six Not-So-Easy Pieces [again]
-The Fellowship of the Ring
-The Prince

September tomorrow

2008-08-31T11:05:00.000-07:00

I went for a walk with my headphones and found, wearing them, that I could stand my prole neighborhood.

TomTom

2008-08-30T10:47:00.001-07:00

Wow. After I jumped
it occurred to me:
Life is perfect.
Life is the best.
It's full of magic
beauty
opportunity
and television
and surprises -
lots of surprises, yeah.

2008-08-29T06:43:00.000-07:00

All my life, I worshipped her
Her golden voice, her beauty's beat
How she made us feel
How she made me real
And the ground beneath her feet

And now I can't be sure of anything
Black is white, and cold is heat
For what I worshipped stole my love away
It was the ground beneath her feet

Go lightly down your darkened way
Go lightly underground
I'll be down there in another day
I won't rest until you're found

Let me love you true, let me rescue you
Let me bring you where two roads meet
O come back above
Where there is only love

My oh my, My oh my

# 2

2008-08-26T17:08:00.000-07:00

I start real school tomorrow, as I've mentioned. I am not terribly nervous. The sum total of my preparations has been:

-printing off a map and a bus schedule
-buying mechanical pencils
-doing a load of laundry
-showering

The last time I went to school I was five. But the things I could be worried about do not seem very important. Mostly I don't want to get lost, although I probably will, and I hope I am able to do the work easily.

#1

2008-08-26T16:59:00.000-07:00

I'd like some nice clothes to wear. Lately I've gone into stores and tried on things and been surprised to look wonderful. I've stood in front of the changing room mirrors and acknowledged that the prettiness suits me. I can't afford it, but it suits me. I've put my utilitarian clothes back on and walked home.

A poem I like with no qualifications

2008-08-25T00:27:00.000-07:00

The room was cheap and sordid,
hidden above the suspect taverna.
From the window you could see the alley,
dirty and narrow. From below
came the voices of workmen,
playing cards, enjoying themselves.

And there on that ordinary, plain bed
I had love's body, had those intoxicating lips,
red and sensual,
red lips so intoxicating
that now as I write, after so many years,
in my lonely house, I'm drunk with passion again.

-C. P. Cavafy

because I have more friends over the internet

2008-08-22T22:01:00.000-07:00

I am happy. I start real school, for the first time in my life, next week. I'm probably going to get lost at NAIT. But I am taking physics.

Tonight, I am going to start sewing another secret-compartment pillow. I'd like to get better at sewing, since occasionally I have such excellent design ideas. Pillows are good practice.

I have an 80Gb ipod, and very nice headphones [Grados] to listen to it. Tim has the ipod until Sunday. He's putting a lot of music on it.

I bought purple ink for my fountain pen.

This is quite a lot like one of Glynis's new posts. I think I unconsciously imitated her.