---

Blogger Insider
This time I've been paired up with Thea at syaffolee, who by the way wrote a novel in 30 days! Here are the questions she sent me:

1. The structure of most of your blog entries are certainly unique. You must have "interviewer" as one of your "hats" as well. How did you come up with this layout?
MPD...heh, heh NOT really. Since I'm always questioning myself mentally it just follows my own internal dialogue.

2. Have you lived in Maryland for most of your life?
Mostly yes, but I have this thing that happens every once in a while where feel I must live near the ocean. Twice in my adult life, (relatively speaking) I've lived for a year at a time on or near Chincoteague Island. Chincoteague is a small island off the coast of Virginia. If you read Misty of Chincoteague as a child, that's the place. During the eighties I lived in Princeton New Jersey, while my then lover completed a Phd. I also lived in Washington DC for four years (late eighties/early nineties).

3. Suppose (because of a dare) you find yourself in a "haunted" house and you find a dead body that's been rotting in the guest room for the past fifty years. What do you do?
Look for a wallet. Fifty years says I don't need to go for the air freshener, so if there's no wallet I'll call the cops on my nonexistent cell phone (boy I'd really like to have one of those). However, if I do find a wallet I'll put on my Nancy Drew hat, look for clues, and begin trying to figure out who done what to who.

4. If the meaning of life isn't 42, what is it?
Everybody knows it's 54! hmmm... or was it 55?

5. The people at NASA have selected you to be one of the founders of a new colony on Mars. What will be the first thing you do once you hit Martian soil?
Look for the ladies room?

6. If there was only one thing in which others could remember you by, what would it be?
A large painting of the inside of a red pepper

7. Okay, so time travel is possible. Except only in a limited sense--you can only watch past events like television. So what particular part of history would you tune into and why?
The garden of Eden so once and for all we could show that it really wasn't Eve's fault after all. And what about those dinosaurs?

8. You've just won the lottery. What are you going to buy?
Yeah, yeah okay so I give some to charity like a good girl, but then I buy:
an old jaguar sedan from the 60s with a brand new engine, a bunch of canvases and new brushes, a house on the ocean, an apartment in Manhattan, a trip around the world, a new lease on life... have I run out of money yet? Guess I'd better invest some of it.

9. What's your favorite book? Why?
I'll have to think on that one.

10. What was your favorite childhood board game?
Clue

11. You are going to start a cult called The Strawberry Monkeys. Who will you invite?
The folks who do the Tuesday Too, plus Su, Rob, Abbott, Mary and Dana. Just don't ask me what we do in this cult.

Link

---

Post 100
"Strange brew... girl what's inside of you", that's from an old 70s song the name of which I don't remember. Anybody know it?

So what?
Don't you sometimes wonder what's inside of you? I don't mean organs, or bones, or veins, but rather what's making you tick on a particular day. What's making me tick today is this: I've got some relearning to do, and I just don't want to. All that statistical "stuff" I knew two years ago is somewhere in my brain. Maybe I just need a jump start like the car. The car, the damn muffler is falling off and wired up with a coat hanger once again. Why do they do that? Fall off I mean, really it's like the statistics; perhaps a little rewiring would help there as well.

You're not making a whole lot of sense.
I didn't ask for your two cents worth!

Now you've gone and done it.
What? Who's asking the questions here anyway? Okay so I'm asking and answering; what do you want to know?

Are you going to finish that damn thesis in time?
I think I've got to find someone who's been doing statistical analysis for a while to help me, because I don't have time to go over all that crap again. Yes I said crap! I don't know how I ever got through all that "stuff" the first time. I'm rambling all over the place so I'm signing off. "You are the weakest link! Good-bye"

"Diamonds are nothing more than chunks of coal that stuck to their jobs."
--Malcolm Stevenson Forbes
Link

---

Tuesday Too #5
1.) New evidence suggests expansion of the universe is speeding up. Your time is now limited. What unfinished personal business would be your highest priority?
The funny thing is our time is limited, and yet we live as if it weren't. How much time do I have? Two weeks, two months, two years? The more time I have, the less compelled I am to change familiar habits and patterns. So I give myself two weeks, and even though it's very little time I know that one thing I must do is paint. Yes, catch up with many family members and friends, but painting would be something I'd want to do everyday.

2.) Because you are an expert, you are asked to give a lecture at Harvard. What is your field of expertise (real or imagined)?
Lucid dreaming and how it fits in the scheme of consciousness on an evolutionary scale is my narrow/broad field.

3.) This is your midnight or midday confession. Do you have an embarrassing vice to share?
Between 2:00 and 3:00 at three times a week, I watch the soap opera As The World Turns.

Post your URL in the comment.

Link

---

Factorial Design
Well that's going to be pretty boring!
Maybe to you it's boring, but to me at the moment, it's what my cup unfortunately is only half full of, or maybe I mean full of it. The critical memory that eludes me is how to do analysis of variance with groups of unequal size. You're right that's pretty damn boring! So without further ado, I say to you [adios amigos] meaning me goes to do what I must do without dragging you through the details.

Have you really got to go?
Yes, it's another one of those times where I must not allow myself internet access for a couple of days. Thus I give you the five rules for success in things not connected to cyberspace, or other places of social gathering.

1.) Thou shalt remain patient in the face of confusion.
2.) Thou shalt not, utter or type thy password.
3.) Thou shalt not, use thy computer for connection.
4.) Thou shalt not use or covet thy neighbor's connection.
5.) Thou shalt not succumb to the temptations of happy hour.

"Nobody ever died of laughter."
--Max Beerbohm
Link

---

Rethinking Oprah
No I didn't get a phone call from the family. The brother of my brother-in-law was once on Oprah though; how far removed is that? He wrote a book titled The Cliff Walk.

Rethinking why?
Because I realize as a blogger and as an artist I'm a filter of sorts as well. I filter, sift through, digest and evaluate what I perceive "out there." I just do it on canvas, paper and the internet. Now if somebody said, hey girl wouldn't you like to do that on television? Why of course I'd say no.

Who's fooling who here?
Yesterday's post has a self-righteous quality to it. I mean really, who the hell do I think I am anyway? The great buffoon of bazoogabezonk I guess.

Who do you really think you are?
I've been known to spout a bit of pop psychology more than once. I'm a person who would rather not be self-righteous, and I'm aghast when I find that I am. I'm sarcastic and end up with my foot in my mouth more often then not. Probably I have a higher opinion of myself than others do. Sometimes I should be knocked down a peg or two. Most of the time I'm just striding confidently through the world as if I knew all there was to know, and really don't know shit when I see it. I have a sense of humor which keeps me ticking.

"It is always the best policy to speak the truth, unless, of course, you are an exceptionally good liar."
--Jerome K. Jerome
Link

---

The Oprah Filter
Went to PJ's Pub just after 4:00 PM yesterday. While sipping my vodka and tonic, and making idle conversion with the barmaid, I noticed her attention was elsewhere as was the attention of the other five occupied bar stools. All were focused on the large screen TV above the bar. The volume was turned up; we are usually only subjected to this during Saturday afternoon sports mania. There was Oprah larger than life interviewing Andrea Yates husband: "Do you think you've really dealt with it"? and "Did you see any signs that this was coming"? That may not be the exact wording, but that's the gist/drift of the questions.

So?
First let me say that I also saw the Oprah Winfrey show on the afternoon of the six month anniversary of 9/11. Oprah on my TV screen is not larger than life. However, her questions to the husband of the once beautiful young woman, who was terribly burned during the world trade center attack gave me the same strange feeling. Strange is not the right word, the word is somewhere between frightening and disgusting, and it's not so much the questions that left that taste in my mouth (always nice to have something there besides my foot).

What exactly was it then?
I was struck by the idea of Oprah as the American digestive system. "You've come along way baby"; we're not talking about Jerry Springer or Ricki Lake. Although if anyone remembers those are Oprah's roots. Wonder why we don't have reruns of the really old Oprah shows? Maybe they're on late night television, and I'm a morning person. Anyway, back to what exactly it was. It was the concept that America grows and defecates with Oprah; by the way she's on another diet I think. But I digress, so it's the ups and downs of America, and how many American's view of the world is epitomized/congealed/jelled/enveloped in, filter through and broadcast by Oprah. To me this is a very, very scary thing to contemplate.

"The Church says that the Earth is flat, but I know that it is round. For I have seen the shadow on the moon and I have more faith in the Shadow than in the Church."
--Ferdinand Magellan ...perhaps we need more faith in ourselves than in Oprah
Link

---

Watching Out

CLICK ABOVE FOR INFO. ON ANTARCTICA
Watching out that other things are not ignored, swept aside, dismissed, overlooked or covered up through slight of hand.

Other than what?
The hunt for terrorists is overshadowing much of our world view. As the focus narrows so does the broad picture lose it's attachment to it's surroundings. Yes we can be destroyed by terrorists, and we can destroy ourselves by being blindsided by too many leaves on the Bush!

What do you mean?
I mean that the hunt for terrorists, while making a president, is not saving the world from global warming, or third/second world countries from starvation, or women from oppression, or children from lack of education. I mean we shouldn't be tricked into nearsightedness and forget the other things. Let's not forget that we must drive gas guzzling SUVs, and to hell with the environment. By god it's America and that's the law! It's good for big business; the car business that is. So let's open our eyes when the laws are passed that shouldn't be, or not changed when they should be, or remain unchanged when change is desperately needed. While George is making a presidency of defending America and the world against terrorism, don't be fooled/mystified by a rhetoric which casts only a shadow of fear that obliterates other things.
GLOBAL WARMING LINK FOUND ON JULIE'S SITE

Link

---

Tuesday Too
1.) Would you please point us toward a prior post that you're particularly fond of, or expresses just what you had in mind on a subject which may or may not be substantive in nature?
Alien Nature

2.) Who is your favorite artist/artwork?
Marcel Duchamp: The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors Even also known as The Large Glass. There is also another very strange work of Duchamp's in the Philadelpia Museum of Art: Given: 1 The Waterfall, 2. The Illuminating Gas I once spent a number of hours there watching to see how many people missed it entirely = lots. Why? Why, because it looks like it's just a door hung on the wall, and many people fail to notice the two holes to peek through. Or did you mean why did I watch?I find museums and airports and streets and... great places for people watching.

3.) If it were possible to be the other gender for a couple days, after which you could without complications take up where you left off would you try it?
I am just so damn curious, how could I not?

Post your URLs in the comment

Link

---

Brain Dead
Not quite; however, yesterday was Saint Paddy's Day so that's my excuse. I'd forgotten to wear my green...duh, so my friend and PJ's Pub bartender Rob gave me a gorgeous neon glowing button to broadcast my Irish shenanigans to an unknowing public. Of course there was the lime in my vodka and tonic too, so I was well equip to become an O'Mally, or O'Riely, or Oh just about anything as the afternoon progressed. Many limes later, we moved on again in the spirit of green we watched Robin Hood, while smoking tiny green leaves.

How many limes?
Only three to be exact, but Rob makes a pretty mean drink. Thus we trooped out of there on foot to reqroup, reposition, remake ourselves into a most presentable roving Irish band bound for the pot-o-gold.

What else is going on?
Scrounging around in my brain for the Tuesday Too questions, which I'll post around 5:00 am tomorrow. I just can't do that stay up till midnight thing; I'm such a morning person.

"Laughter is the shortest distance between two people."
--Victor Borge
Link

---

Sacred Cows
Weeeee it's feeling/looking like spring; there's a tulip tree bursting open across the street. It's Saturday, and that means the farmer's market is open this morning = fresh sourdough bread! To hell with the diet; I like lots of butter and salt on my bread.

Salt?
Yes I confess I'm a [saltaholic]. God help me when the blood pressure goes. Really I wouldn't know if it goes or not, because I haven't been covered by insurance in ten years! Thus my trips to the doctors office are very, very limited. Like now I'm looking around for some wood to knock on, and telling myself that it's time to quit smoking, quit drinking, quit complaining, quit any other vices. It's like spring cleaning for the mind/body. Start riding the bike, but give up salt...not yet, throw it over my shoulder maybe, and don't tell me "it tastes just like butter". It does not. On the other hand, if you give up butter you'll be rewarded by getting the beautiful man or woman, or maybe you become the beautiful man or woman. How becoming is that? or she'll becoming round the mountain when she comes. hmmmm

I think you've gone around the bend again.
As in bender? Bend her what? Okay...I'll quit now.

Which one?
Complaining, I will hence forth refrain from complaining. Actually at the moment things are going pretty well so I've got nothing to complain about. Those are the kind of things people should give up for lent - nothing things. After all sacrifices are a pagan thing, so giving up nothing would be the christian thing to do.

Your not making fun of religion are you?
Not really, but then if that's your sacred cow where's the idol harm in that. By the way, remember Lot's wife turned to a pillar of salt. What a way to go. That's what people mean when they say, "you go girl".

"Interestingly, according to modern astronomers, space is finite. This is a very comforting thought - particularly for people who cannot remember where they left things."
--Woody Allen
Link

---

Shrinking
Yes, the Tuesday Too is shrinking; as they say on Firesign Theatre: "to almost nothing at the bottom of the pool". I must say, I've met some amazing people and found some interesting blogs to keep up with, while engaged in this madness. The range of things people blog about is staggering. Okay, I know we got some who insist on telling us about doing the laundry, but I've found that to be the more rare than you might think. And what do I know? Maybe it's the zen of laundry: the sound of waterless washing!

Today = Thursday
Seems blogger's been "blogged down" = trouble posting. So the above I wrote yesterday, and today I say, while we've shrunk, it's not "the size of almost nothing" yet, so I'll do it again next Tuesday.

What else is going on?
Oh, just more thesis paralysis that I'm fighting against, and sometimes winning. Most of the data collection is done, and will be totally over by Friday...eeeeekkk that's tomorrow. Then I suddenly metamorphous into a mathematician/statistician and run the data and write the results. unhmm yeah right...

"Men are born to succeed, not to fail."
--Henry David Thoreau ...and women too!
Link

---

Tuesday Too
1.) Lucid dreaming is operationally defined as knowing that you are dreaming while you're dreaming. Does dreaming (lucid or ordinary) play a significant role in your life? Are you a lucid dreamer?
I have found that when I pay attention to my dreams, I'm much more likely to have a lucid dream. In a very real (hard copy) sense, dreaming is quite significant, because that's the topic of my current research. In a more ethereal sense the significance is revealed through the coordination of my dreaming and waking life = more lucid dreams = more conscious waking life and vice versa.

2.) If you are a survivor of a failed relationship, can you tell me one reason you're glad the relationship is over? It doesn't matter if you're the "leavee" or the "leaver".
Yes, I finally was able to stop my maniacal leg shaving!

3.) You have been selected to put one thing in a ship that travels to far end of universe (god knows where that is). What do you put in and why?
My phone number, just in case I don't remember it when I get there.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
--Arthur C. Clarke
Link

---

Heart
My friend Abbott is home after spending three days in the hospital. He did not have the angioplasty, because it turns out that was just about as risky as not having it. He's not a young guy, buy rather a very young 80 year old guy. We had dinner last night in one of our favorite Korean restaurants (Niwana on 33rd St.) and I asked him what he thought was his greatest adventure. "Well probably one night in Batum on the coast of the Black Sea when we had to..., or I might have to say it was one night in the mid fifties when we found the... in Tehran". He traveled extensively up until about 10 years ago. The ...s are things I can't tell you, but I can tell you they're not war stories, although he has plenty of those including a bullet wound and being run over by a tank during the battle of the bulge.

Why are you telling us this?
I guess, because as I witness his struggle to survive and appreciate the incredible life he has led, I struggle with my own delusions of life everlasting. And, since it's not demonstrably ongoing I feel a sense of urgency to make the very most of what I have. Now if I could live with that attitude on a moment by moment basis, in other words keeping that idea constantly in my awareness I just might be able to live a life worth living.

So?
If we are always struggling to keep up with what we've left behind, or failed to remember then we don't have time to live while we're living.

Where are you going with this?
That's just the point exactly. Sometimes it's the getting going that takes you away from the being there. I know that sounds simple, but there are future/imagined future things that set themselves in front of the present. In a convoluted way that makes sense, because of course the future is always in front of the present.

"It's always too early to quit."
--Norman Vincent Peale

Link

---

Changing Gears
My best friend is having angioplasty today; I hope the doctors know what they're doing. Everyone assures me it's quite effective, and the risks are not too high. Not too high? One of the risks is a stroke. I know this guy would rather die of a heart attack than to be mentally incapacitated by a stroke; however, a risk of stroke is acceptable if taking no action means certain death by heart attack. Statistics become meaningless when you reach the age of mortality.

What age is that?
Is it when I become anxious about other people dying, that I see my own death revealed in a convex mirror? Why convex instead of concave? Because convex is an outward movement, explosion rather than implosion. Life begins to bulge, swirling around a mid point. It is no longer a flat horizontal plane; the swirling patterns are at first hard to decipher. As one becomes accustomed to the new structure it appears to slows down. Perhaps it's that we speed up to be better able to read the ever changing circular configuration. It might be like forming a permanently open synaptic gap between your short term memory and your long term memory. Not at all like dragging around a ball and chain, but rather more like being a reflective ball. There is no one dragging and nothing to drag.

"The observation of others is colored by our inability to observe ourselves impartially. We can never be impartial about anything until we can be impartial about our own organism."
--A. R. Orage
Link

---

Tuesday Too
1.) Is there someone in your life who is or was your mentor? How did this person influence your life?
While there have been many people who have influenced me, there is one in particular who has been my computer guru over the last several years. That would be Su, who once jokingly said, "blog me." Okay Su, I'm blogging you. She set me on this path that has forked here and then there, but always leading towards more of what I call techno mania, or internet obsession. Not that I mind my current compulsion, as a mater of fact I wouldn't want it any other way. Whenever I can't figure out what's wrong with my computer hardware, or my own hardwiring, I call Su.

2.) What do you consider one of the biggest problems facing you as an individual?
Oh I have no problems whatsoever. Yeah, sure me and Mr. Potatoehead for world peace. I'd have to say currently it's overcoming my natural inclination to procrastinate, which is a definite deficit in trying to complete my thesis before the credit police wipe my slate clean. In this case a clean slate would not be a good thing.

3.) What's your favorite movie and why?
This question has probably been asked by every question nut (myself included) out there, but I'd like to know. If you've already answered this question in you blog or journal just give a link to your prior post. I've seen more movies in the last few months than I've seen in the last five years, but still I would say it's one I saw a long time ago - Flatliners. Why? Because I'm fascinated not by death, but by the implied meaning of dreams in the movie and the daring curiosity of the characters. And even though it might be out of fashion, I have a passion for Julia Roberts.

Post your URL in the comment.

"We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing."
--R. D. Laing
Link

---

Research
Just a quick hello, from "Researchville". Much struggling and cussing and have finally finished one of the universities that I randomly sampled via email (with permission) by posting to every 5th person on the roster. Now it's a matter of waiting and hoping that I get a few more participants. I now have 43 subjects. Ideally I'd like 120 subjects; I' d be satisfied (okay to analyze data) with 100 at this point.

How come I'm not linked yet?
Way too much thesis pressure at the moment. I haven't even finished cruising last Tuesday Too's sites. No wonder I'm into too. Will do soon. The post for the Tuesday Too will be posted around around 5 AM Tue. morning eastern standard time.
Link