City Creek

petals like snow
along the valley path
perfume each step

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Dreams and Aspirations

I've always found the "USE CAUTION" construction signs to be a bit, well, redundant. Shouldn't people be "using caution" anyway? Now, if they want you to be reckless, that would be an unusual event, worthy of requiring a sign.

Construction Sign Generator
Source for the base image

Made using Printmaster Gold, then saved as a .jpeg in Paint

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Maps and Gardens

I discovered the coolest weather map a week or so back. It shows me exactly what the conditions are in the Gibson Jack/Scout Mountain area before I decide to hike up. I can't remember if I saw the reporting station near Wild Horse Divide (near the upper turn of the Gibson Jack trail) or not. I have a visual image...that could just as easily come from other weather reporting stations I've seen. The one at the Arco rest area comes to mind.

Still weird weather here. We had a solid week of 80-90° weather, then a cold front moved in and it hasn't gotten above 60° since Tuesday. It's also been raining off and on through most of it. So we had some July followed by April. *shakes head* At any rate, I now have my garden roughly 75% planted. I would like some orange bell pepper plants, but otherwise all the peppers are in. I still need to find a tomato plant. I might buy some herbs that have already been started, especially if most of them don't come up. Last year, only the basil came up. And I suspect that one of the seed packets I had was contaminated with some weed seed. Cutleaf Nightshade, to be precise. I wasn't sure what it was, but then it bloomed. Its flower was quite similar to that of a tomato plant, which told me it was probably in the nightshade family, and then I was able to find it. This has the best picture I was able to find quickly. It produces fruit that looks vaguely like a small, green tomato, but that is poisonous. As soon as I figured out what it was, I pulled it up.

Anyway, I've got the peas, peppers, corn, radishes, carrots and zucchini planted, with a few herbs keeping them company. I hope it stays relatively cool for the next few weeks, as the peas will do better then. I may plant another row of corn, and I'll probably plant a few more herbs. If I get cutleaf nightshade again, I'll know that I have some contaminated seeds. I think it grew where I thought I planted rosemary...

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Postal Idiocy

Okay, the price of stamps just went up by one cent. At this time, the local post offices both have their stamp vending machine out of order, and at least one is being replaced by a supposedly "better" machine ... which takes only debit or credit cards. Now, no one is likely to want more than, say, five dollars worth of one cent stamps. More than likely, they'll want maybe fifty cents or even twenty five cents worth. With a debit card, afaik, there's no fee to the vendor, but with a credit card there is. Unless there's a minimum amount to require said fee (I'm no expert), this guarantees that the post office loses money.

Now, all that assumes that the post office was sensible enough to let people type in the exact number of one cent stamps that they need. Er, no. There were five options. If the options had been 5-10-15-20-25, it might have been passable. But, no. The options were 1-2-3-4-5. So they're requiring a debit or credit card be used for a five cent purchase, or less. Now, the whole purpose of having a stamp vending machine is to make it easy and convenient for after hours customers to get their stamps. This machine does just the opposite. My mom opted to wait until morning, when she could get the actual number of stamps she needed and not make a five cent charge to a card.

I hope that this machine is still in beta-mode, and can be modified once the complaints start rolling in. If it's in its final stage ... er, the post office is already losing money, and this will not help.

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Maple Wasp

Yesterday, I spritzed a bit of water on my maple tree during the hottest part of the day, and a few minutes later I saw a wasp land on a leaf, pause for a few moments, and take off. My best guess is that it was stopping to get a drink. Since I don't have a picture of that, I found a very nice picture (from here):

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Flowers from Gibson Jack

Below the fold are a few things blooming at Gibson Jack. Some of them were also blooming at Slate Mountain, but they're pretty anyway. I'm not going to try and identify them at the moment as today has been roughly 3 days long, and I'm a bit out of it.


Definitely in the carrot family. Beyond that, I don't know.



Another milkvetch.



I'm still going to call this one Spring Beauty, until I find a better match.



Something in the sunflower family. A lot of them grow like this one, so they're a bit hard to tell apart.



The common name for this is "pussytoes", which might be better parsed as "kitty toes" these days.


Lastly, more yellowbells. I'd never seen these at Gibson Jack before, but we had a slightly weird spring with late freezes and snowfall, so I suspect that they're usually just done blooming by the time I make it out there.

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Dragon Winds Around the Pillar

Very good discussion going on about the nature of being and Being, and which, if any, might apply to any notion of deity. As I've said before, though probably in different words, the only honest answer to whether or not I "believe in God" is "category mismatch error." Similarly, "does God exist?" is best answered by sprinkling rice grains around on the sidewalk. "Is God real?" More likely complex. `/^ One of the reasons I tend to avoid using the term "God" for the Divine is because it just leads to confusion. People tend to think they know what "God" means, which means they haven't the foggiest idea what it means, or they'd know that they have no clue what it means. As soon as you apply any descriptive term to the Divine, you've placed a limit on it. How presumptuous of you.

There's a common bit of taiji wisdom, that somewhere between 2 and 5 years in, students generally start to think they know everything there is to know about taiji. A year or two later, they usually come to the realization that they really don't know much at all, and that there's more to it than most people can learn in a single lifetime. I never went through a long phase like that, mainly because at push hands practice, Don has always been able to make me feel like a green novice. Maybe not quite so much lately. More of a yellow novice, that might turn orange or red in another ten years. And I've meandered a bit, but taiji is only a small piece of the Divine, and it takes years and years to really start to get a glimmer of a shard of an idea of what it's really about. How much more so for that-which-is?

There's (at least) one frustrated atheist commenting at the post I linked to. As far as I can tell, his objection follows the pattern: (1) you haven't actually made any testable claims; (2) therefore, what you've said is meaningless. Right. So, non-testable claims. Celtic music sounds green and gold to me. This is, in fact, a true statement; I'm synesthetic. All music and sounds have color associations for me. But how could that statement ever be tested by an outside observer? To someone who does not experience color/sound blurring, it's meaningless. Possibly if someone strapped electrodes to my brain, they'd see stuff light up in the "color" section of the brain when music was played, and the pattern might shift depending on the type of music, but as far as I know, we can't point to a brainscan and say, "Aha! She's experiencing gold and green right now!" I'd be surprised if that ever became possible.

How about "The number 5 is brown." Not the numeral 5; the numeral can be just about any color. The number itself. 5, for me, is brown. Again, that statement will be meaningless to non-synesthetics, and most synesthetics will have a different color assignment for items. All an outside observer can use as "evidence" for these associations is self-reporting and neural scans. I find it highly amusing that Synesthesia used to be classified as a disease, probably because the first doctor to document it found it bizarre and "meaningless."

Back to the topic at hand, the "evidence" for the mystic's god is rather similar to the evidence for synesthesia. Self-reporting of very similar mental phenomenon (more overlap than most synesthetics' experiences, in fact) and neural scans of people going through "mystical experiences." Now, there's the purely materialistic response, that the brain just happens to be wired in such a way that these experiences are possible. The mystical response is that there's something out there to respond to, whether you call it "God", "that-which-is", "Tao", "the Absolute", "the Divine", "Fred," etc.

The fact that these experiences span traditions says that, if there is a "being" behind them, it must not care overly much what religious label you slap on yourself. I think of myself as a Taoist, for quite similar reasons to those given here, towards the end of the post. I ran across the Tao te Ching, and it spoke to me in a way that no text ever had. It made sense, and it felt like there was actual meaning to be had. Perhaps more importantly, I was not the only one who saw the world in this fashion.

I reject Christianity precisely because most forms of it do put limits on deity, to what it can and cannot do/will/be/allow. They put limits on what that deity is capable of while calling it "omnipotent." They claim its primary attribute is "love" yet maintain that it also created a torturous hell. They claim that certain actions on the part of humans require certain actions on the part of deity, as if it were a common merchant to barter with, or a police officer to regulate behavior. They attribute every possible good to the deity but blame every possible ill on humanity—making them, of necessity, equally powerful, in this essentially neutral world. If they would embrace these contradictions and take them to their zenalogical conclusion, there would at least be something useful there. As is, they simply try to deny that there is any paradox, or ignore any that is presented to them clearly.

The first step to knowledge is to know that you do not know. I reject any tradition that fails this basic test. Further, I reject any tradition that claims that only the mystical experiences of its own believers are valid, and the rest are some sort of sham. Finally, I reject any tradition which attributes specific properties or their negations to that-which-is. Yes, this means that I am making no testable claims about it. That is simply because there are no testable claims to be made, and that is as it should be.

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Gibson Jack, with dog

I hiked partway up Gibson Jack yesterday afternoon, and brought Buster along. The last time I tried to hike with him, it was a disaster. He still wasn't very well-behaved, and it was too much work to both hike and keep him in line. A year of working with him, however, has made a vast difference. He was very well-behaved. When he started pulling too much (which didn't happen often), I'd just say his name, and he'd look around and wait for me to catch up. When I stopped to dig stuff out of my backpack, he did have a tendency to wander around me in circles, thus wrapping his leash around me, but that was easily fixed. He really liked the Gibson Jack hike as there were many paths down to the creek, and he loves playing in water. Plus he could drink it. I had originally planned to go to Corral Creek instead, but then I remembered that the water there was supposed to be high in arsenic, and Buster wouldn't have understood why I wouldn't let him go near it. Anyway, I thought I'd post a few pictures of Buster and some scenery shots (and save flowers for a separate post).

Here's Buster looking happy.



Here is one of many places where Buster got to play in the water. He was still nervous of the water down by the parking lot, because of the loud noise it makes from the little falls there, but I finally coaxed him down to it by standing on one of the rocks at the edge. I used the same trick at a smaller stream further up the trail, when I knew he definitely needed a drink.


Scenery.


A fortuitous shot, where I just happened to notice that the moon was visible through the branches and so zoomed in to see if it would show up. It does, though not quite as well as I would have liked.

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The Dark One's Eyes

There's some rather disturbing news about ravens coming from Great Britain. Remember the ravens in The Eye of the World? Seems that attacks like that are really happening. So far as we know, there are no myrdraal or trollocs involved. Oh, and for anyone else looking for the Wheel of Time chapter heading icons, go here. It took me longer than it reasonably should have to find them, so I thought I'd share.

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Flower Finding

Okay, this one is some sort of milkvetch (towards the bottom of the page). It looks a lot like the Canadian milkvetch, so that might be what it is. Definitely a milkvetch though.

And I still think that the other flower m=is most likely some variety of spring beauty. I'm not a hundred percent sure, but there are some varieties with wider leaves.

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Maps and Rambling

I found this map after I got back from the Slate Mountain hike. The red dot on the blue trail is where I think I got to on that attempt. Guesstimating from the map, I was maybe 1-1.5 miles of the way in, certainly no more than 2.




Here I've inverted the colors on the map, which I think makes it easier to read, and I've marked out the route that I took the time I got lost. I'm not sure where, exactly, I turned around on Crystal Summit Road. I got a ride partway back. Bare minimum estimate from the map: 12 miles - approx. 1 mile ride = 11 miles. It's a bit hard to judge switchbacks, etc, on a map this small, so it could certainly have been further than that. On the plus side, if I'd made it all the way down Crystal Summit Road, I probably would have had cell phone reception to call my mom to come get me, as I would have recognized Bannock County Highway when I got down to it.

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Zyrtec

Zyrtec just recently came off prescription-only-status. I finally found a small sampler package to try it, not really expecting much, as generally I get the side effects from antihistamines with none of the benefits. Results? My breathing is better than it has been for about a month, but I'm experiencing mild dizziness with a touch of paranoia and minor...I don't know if hallucination is the right word, so I'll try to describe it. There's a sense that there's someone in the room with me, someone for whom there is a visual in my mind, but I do not actually see someone in the room. I have had this before on occasion, usually when I am extremely tired, so it's possible that the Zyrtec is not to blame...but a bit of research turned up lots of mental side effects on this order or worse. Also, vivid dreams and night terrors were commonly reported, which makes me a bit leery of sleeping. More in the morning. This stuff is supposed to last 24 hours...which means until about 6:00 pm tomorrow night. Assuming it doesn't get any worse, Zyrtec seems like a possible option if my allergies get ridiculously bad, but not otherwise.

AM UPDATE: It's clearly starting to wear off, about 12 hours later. Side effects are mostly gone as well. Thus the claim that it lasts 24 hours seems to be an exaggeration, but this does suggest it as a "use at night only" remedy, when it may help me sleep and I can thus sleep through the side effects as well. No night terrors or odd dreams from it.

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Dandelions

When I bought my house, the backyard had obviously been badly neglected for many, many years. Every spring, the dandelions would crop up: more dandelions than grass in many places. I tried, somewhat half-heartedly, to put a dent in them, using a so-called "dandelion digger" and herbicides mainly. The herbicides didn't seem to do anything at all, likely because I didn't want (and couldn't afford) to use them in large quantities. Using a dandelion digger actually made it worse, as it left multiple pieces of root in the ground for each dandelion. I didn't know this at the time, unfortunately.

So last year I took a different tack. I got out a good, solid shovel, and just started digging in an area that I thought might be good for a garden. I dug and dug, and got all of the root at least 75% of the time. This spring, for the first time, I see a reduction in dandelions over an entire area. There are still plenty—more than I care to count—but that one area was largely clear. There is a downside, however. Digging in this manner also disrupts the grass. Now, in the garden area, that's fine. I'm thinking that I may as well cover the rest of it with black plastic and just start over, if that's what it's going to take to clear out the dandelions. They are quite pretty little flowers... but a bit too much like tribbles in some regards.

For the moment, I'm taking the "if it's near or in the garden, dig it" approach. Also if it's near or on the walkway I made last year, though I'm hoping vinegar will be sufficient to discourage them on the walkway itself. When I rototill the garden plot, hopefully tomorrow, I'll also dig up the area next to it and put weedmat on it, and keep prioritizing by nearness to the garden and walkway for digging. I already covered the area next to the elm tree in weedmat, partially because mowing there is such a ruddy pain, and it's rather refreshing to see a nice, empty spot. I ought to dig down a bit there and fill it in with bark or something over the weedmat...or maybe build a bench around the tree. That would be fun.

The interesting bit is all the stuff I've found back there whilst digging. Rocks, of course, and I pull them out for later use whenever I find them. Bits of trash that have gotten buried in the dirt. Old toys from residents of decades past. Lots and lots of charcoal; that might have come from the time this house caught fire due to Christmas lights shorting out, some years before I bought it. Broken glass. Most annoying, loads and loads of rusty spikes. They're generally 4-6 inches long, and about a foot down in the earth. It seems strange that there's so many of them, and they don't do the shovel a whole lot of good.

I think that's why the thought of digging up the whole back yard doesn't bother me all that much. I'm curious as to what else might be buried back there. Oh, I also found a paving stone that I put in, buried under about two inches of dirt and forgotten. As I'll likely use paving stones to hold the weedmat next to the garden down, I call that a nice score. And the kittens (now nearly cats) seem to like the dug-up areas better than the grassy ones; more places to hide, dig and play. ^/^

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Timing is Everything

On the way to Idaho Falls this morning, I stuck in my CD of Metallica songs (mixed from various albums). In the right mood, I find Metallica soothing. In the wrong mood, it just gives me a headache. This morning, it was soothing. Also, just as I hit a rather thick fog bank, the opening chords from For Whom the Bell Tolls were playing. It was quite apropros, and just a touch eerie. So listen to the opening chords if nothing else, and imagine them playing as you drive straight into this:







Sadly, the fog did not end just as the song ended. My life wasn't QUITE that much like a music video this morning. `/^

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Salt Lake Excursion

Yesterday, my mom and I wandered down into the Salt Lake area. My main interest was going to Wild Oats, primarily to stock up on Kasha (roasted buckwheat), but I figured if I was going down there anyway, I might as well find some other stops. Here's a map of the main area where we were (courtesy Google Maps). We didn't actually make it to the Thai Lotus, as we were at Wild Oats at lunchtime and they have quite a good salad bar...and we left around 4:00, before either of us was hungry for dinner.



It was quite a long day, three hours down and three hours back, plus tons of driving in between. Note to anyone using GoogleMaps to navigate Bountiful: Wiley (Willy? something like that) Street seems to be 400 North. There was a store carrying lots of sheet music just off of that street. At the Barnes and Noble, we wound up circling around a block into an alternate parking lot...which turned out to be for a Whole Foods Market. As Wild Oats had been low on Kasha, I was quite pleased by this, and promptly ran Whole Foods out of Kasha, or nearly. ^/^ Anyway, there was a little park in between the Barnes and Noble parking lot and the one where we parked, with much prettiness and one oddity. Pictures below.


The park wasn't much wider than what you see in the photo, but it was a nice little area.


Plum bushes blooming! I'm starting to wonder if mine got frosted at an inopportune moment, as it hasn't bloomed yet. Oh well. I got to see some anyway.


This is the oddity. Someone please explain to me how, exactly, a door at the bottom of cement steps is an emergency exit? Or is the sign for the manhole cover? I really don't get it.

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Squirrel

The image came from here, a gutenberg press book of children's stories and poems. I was actually looking for one with a walnut, but I liked the style of this drawing better. No idea if this will become a habit or not, but I had the idea tonight and couldn't resist putting it up.

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Slate Mountain Trail

This is one of the few major trails in the Gibson Jack area that I had never been on...until Sunday evening. I had avoided it in the past primarily because whenever I drove by, it looked like the whole trail was probably being baked by the sun. Since it was early in the year and heading towards evening, it wasn't too bad last night. The part that I was on would probably be okay early morning, too, but miserable in the middle of the day. The first part of the trail follows a valley, so there will be morning and evening shade. I have no idea how far up the trail I went. I had planned to turn around when the trail through the valley started going up one of the mountains, only there was a switchback and it went up the same mountain I'd been on, so I took that as an excuse to keep going. Also, the trail wasn't quite as steep after the switchback, so that made it even more inviting. I finally stopped when the trail seemed set to cross over from the mountain I was on to a mountain further back. It was quite a nice hike, though I have discovered that my hiking boots are only broken in when I'm wearing my nice, thick, winter socks; as soon as I switched back to my thinner, summer socks, I started getting blisters. *sighs*

Pictures and commentary below the fold.



The only bit of water I saw on this hike was right at the beginning, crossing over this bridge. I'm not sure what the name of the stream is... It may be the lower part of Mink Creek, as that trail is just a bit past, and above, this one.


A young moose! I saw him on the way up, when I was maybe 100 yards past the bridge. The people camping in the parking lot said that they (eventually) saw his mother, too, but I hiked on, and when I got back down, both were gone. (Incidentally, I'm not sure it's technically legal to camp in the parking lot, but they weren't building a fire and there was plenty of room... *shrugs*)



There were many of these rockfalls of shale along the way. Possibly they're connected to the name, "Slate" Mountain?


Cute green beetle. I saw several of these in the valley. They were capable of short flights, but didn't seem keen on staying airborne for long.


The sun setting on the other side of the mountain whose side I was hiking up. It was a bit hard to tell what I was taking a picture of, as the sun was a bit bright, but several of my attempts turned out well. This one was the most dramatic.


I know I've identified this one before, but the only name that comes to mind is Spring Beauty, and the leaves are wrong for that. I'm too tired to look for it, though.


Okay, I'm sure this is in the pea/clover family, but that's about it. It was the only one of its kind that I saw near the trail.


Just a pretty view from near the top of where I got to.


Okay, these I've seen before. Yellowbells, Fritillaria pudica. These were spread out everywhere on the east side of the hill, which means the snow melted pretty recently, as they generally bloom just as the snow melts.


And that's all for now. Hopefully I didn't slow your computer down too much with all of these! `/^

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April Searchlight (delayed by showers of madness)

I'd actually forgotten about this until I saw that Matt's was up... Long semester, I guess.

are corn chex gluten free: NO!!! The evil barley malt people strike nearly every non-specialty cereal. Don't bother with them. Even if the ingredients are clear, they're almost certainly processed on equipment that also processes gluten.
dexter season 1 nudity: Mildly excessive in a few places, but tolerable. The main characters always have something strategically placed, interestingly enough, so that only extras are shown in their birthday suits.
hat-filled: Ummm... then I suppose it fits?
odd day logic: It's dark outside, therefore the sun has hidden itself in a volcano?
"i get cavities" dentist: Try a fluoride rinse. Or is this some weird comedy sketch?
"mabinogi" food increase breast size: Sorry. I'm bemused beyond the capacity for rational thought.
"stripped threads" plumbing: If there's a way to fix it, it probably costs a lot. I just replaced the whole faucet. It needed it, anyway.
"were gonna have to redo every conversation we ever had": Seems to be a quote from Mr. & Mrs. Smith. Also seems to be lacking proper grammar.
a poem about not being fragile: Er...
There was an old codger from Kent
Whose spine was exceedingly bent
He replaced it with rebar
And now he can tee far
Without fearing a further spine dent.
(it's probably awful, but oh well)

biblical innacuracy: See "redundancy."
comparison nietzsche and plato: Well, they're both dead... And Nietzsche had this notion that Socrates had made the world less tragic and that this was, in itself, a tragedy. At least, that's what I got out of it.
dead week tips: Keep breathing.
fire bad tree pretty meaning: If you have to ask, you've never been there. Try, exhausted to the point where those are the only thoughts you're capable of forming.
gf slogans: Er, "Non-Poisonous Food For All"? The only real one I can think of is "Against the Grain."
have nightmares black cat: No, thank you. Though I once had a nightmare about a big black dog ripping out people's throats. It's the only nightmare that I know for sure I woke myself out of, as I didn't really want to see the rest of it.
my root chakra is black: First question, what does black symbolize to you? If it symbolizes life and vibrancy, don't worry about it. If not, visualize a color of light that does symbolize life streaming into it. And if you're depressed, or have other serious problems, please see a professinoal about them. Visualization only takes you so far.
physiologic basis of vampirism meaning: One or the other I'd understand. What does the physiology have to do with the meaning, except case by case?
scenery of hell: Having just watched the source episode, this seems appropriate--

Hawkeye: War is worse than Hell.
Father Mulcahy: How do you figure that?
Hawkeye: Tell me, who goes to Hell?
Father Mulcahy: Sinners I suppose.
Hawkeye: See Hell doesn't have innocent bystanders.

And that wraps up this (slightly late) edition of the Searchlight. Good night, Fare well, You've been a Wonderful Audience ... And I've obviously been watching waaaay too much Monty Python lately.

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Chanticleer

Concert tonight. Wow. If you haven't heard Chanticleer, you should. It's an all-male ensemble...and some of them can hit higher notes than I can. Seriously awesome. Awesome music. Awesome voices. Awesome awesome awesome. Mildly heavy on religiously themed music, but it was all beautifully arranged religious music, and mostly in foreign languages (which they pronounced flawlessly, I might add).

Incidentally, it seems that Pocatello's new Concert Hall (er, Stephen's Performing Art Center, iirc) is gaining quite a reputation among musical performers. It seems likely that this will garner us more and higher quality performers in future. Before I start to ramble aimlessly, I'll stop.

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Small Accomplishments

Between the air purifier and the pseudo-ephedrine*, I've been functioning much better. Especially considering that today the pollen levels were in the "high" range (link). We've also, finally, had a few warm days...set to end Wednesday, which is okay as I'm stuck inside for 90% of Wednesday. But I've started work on my little garden plot, digging buckets of dandelions and mallow and pulling out some nasty grass roots when I find them. What I needed to do was cover it in black plastic before the winter set in, but that should have been done, say, October, which was when I got sick for the first time that school term.

I think my digging of dandelions in that area last year made quite a difference. I haven't found nearly as many with deep, two foot tap roots. Actually, I haven't found any. FYI, dandelions are perennials. I did not realize this until I started trying to decrease their numbers in my yard. Also, I'm pleased to note that I have none in my front yard, while my neighbors to the north have some actually blooming already. Last year, I was quick with the shovel whenever I saw any in the front yard. It seems to have been effective.

Oh, and my hollyhocks are coming back. The two biennials are definitely going to make it. The perennial seems to be slower, but I think I saw a new leaf this week, so it might make it.

I don't think I mentioned it, but my garage door got stuck this winter, on a day when I wasn't up to dealing with it...and it didn't get dealt with until last Saturday, as a matter of fact. It is now closed. And if I can figure out what I did with the other opener cable, I think I can fix it without calling in any repair peoplings. The only issue is how, exactly, the cables fit into the grooves on the reel. If I get them in right, then I should be able to click "open" on the opener and it will wind itself back up properly. For anyone else with a low-clearance garage door that gets stuck: Unhook the cables from either side of the door. That will allow it to close. You can then detangle the cables at your leisure...so long as you haven't misplaced one of them.

Hmmm... One more. My last sets of in class tests are now graded. I have a few more homeworks to check-off and/or grade, and then nothing but final exams. I've even got the spreadsheets ready so that grades will be calculated automatically as soon as all the scores are entered.

*I've also tried the newer phenylephrine. Basically, it will clear out the nose but not the sinuses, at least for me. So if I've got a sinus headache, the phenylephrine doesn't do a thing for it but the pseudoephedrine takes it out almost instantly. *shrugs*

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Fishing Expedition

I found a rather nice art print at Bed, Bath, and Beyond today. Better yet, it was on clearance. When I went looking for an image to post, though, I discovered that there was a companion piece. I have the one on the right, but foreshortened into a rectangle (or else this one has been stretched into a square *shrugs*). I think I like the one on the right better, mainly because the fish in the left painting looks lonely. Note also that the pictures themselves link back to a dealer in art prints who sells these as prints. Only problem is that I'd need to find a rectangular version of the companion piece for mine to match up! ^/^

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Philosophy Get-Together

I haven't made it to a philosophy club meeting for more than half the semester due to scheduling conflict, but tonight was an end of the semester get-together after the conflict. I planned to show up, mingle for a bit, and wander out. I didn't expect to stay for three hours nor to enjoy myself. Parties usually aren't my thing.

First off, there was food I could eat. Fruit, veggies, cheese and nuts, to be precise. There were also various breads and crackers and dips which, of necessity, I avoided. Possibly the dips were safe before people started dipping poisonous items in them. Possibly not.

There were also lots of people there whose company I enjoy, and I'm somewhat picky about that. Only one other person showed up from the math department, and he didn't stay for all that long. Plenty of people from the philosophy department were there, including most of the people I've seen/met at philosophy club. Also, Travis came, and he hasn't been around much this semester. He had a bit of a breakdown at the end of last semester, both health and mental as far as I've been able to tell, and has been recuperating. He has helped out with the taiji class in the past, and occasionally come to the Saturday morning class. Jen was more qualified to give him a pep talk than I was, and she recommended a book with an interesting title. The Noonday Demon.

Of course, my favorite moment of the evening was when meanings came up. I announced, "If everything weren't meaningless, nothing would have any meaning." When asked to elaborate, I waved. *grins*

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On the Virtues of Air Purifiers....

On the assumption that the problem was allergies, I went out and bought an air purifier for my bedroom yesterday. The result is that, despite having trouble getting to sleep and feeling like I tossed and turned a lot, I woke up feeling much better, and actually rested. It does make some noise, but it's worth it to be able to breathe freely. I think I had trouble sleeping because my body had gotten so used to not being able to breathe properly that it didn't know what to do now that it could. I had this weird dream about not being able to sleep unless I came up with the right sort of quadratics... somehow, I don't think that was really the case, though. `/^

The filter is similar to this one. Same brand, next size up. Amazon doesn't seem to have the exact model I got. It does have the filters, but they're only $5 less than in town, which would probably be made up for by the shipping. Hmmm... Here's a site that has them for $19.75. That actually makes me very suspicious... Might be legit. *shrugs*

On to Math 123, where we shall simulate the Monty Hall switch/no switch dilemma.

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Tired

I've been unusually tired this week, and I'm not sure why. I think it might be either a minor cold or middling allergies. So while I'm working on waking up, I'll maunder a bit about my week.

Tuesday I fell asleep in the afternoon. I often take an hour nap on T/Th. When the timer went off, I was in some deep stage of sleep, and knew that waking up all the way would be near impossible, so I reset the alarm for 40 more minutes. Then when it went off again, I made some Yerba Maté tea, which kept me awake through my evening class.

Wednesday I woke up to an odd dream. I don't remember details now, but Tip from SkinHorse was the POV character, having issues with a talking lion (and there was a talking lion in the comic a month or two back). So far as I know, this is the first time I've dreamt about a web-comic or its characters.

Then last night was the last Symphony concert of the season. Also the last guest conductor. When Dr. George walked out, they didn't have time to find a permanent replacement, so they've been playing musical-conductors (no pun intended) this season, but it looks like they've got someone lined up for next season. He's got a good reputation, and the preview of the schedule looked pretty good. Also, they've moved the Symphonies to Friday night instead of Wednesday. On the one hand, I'll never have an evening class on Fridays to interfere. On the other, I always get up early on Saturdays to make it to my taiji class in IF. Ah well.

Anyway, I need some more calories if I'm going to make it to my first class and give them their last in class test.

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Chili's in Pocatello

I finally got around to trying Chili's. It opened...around Christmas, I think. It's one of the few national chains to be responsible about food allergies. The current menu has allergen information for all of the most common food allergies. Bear in mind that they update this quite frequently. I have no idea if the same link will take you to the updated version after 30 April or not. The updates are necessary because they may change suppliers, or suppliers may change ingredients.

I had the Guilt-Free salmon, and it's probably the best salmon in town right now. Sizzler's is extraordinarily dry and always tastes old. Red Lobser's ... is just bland, especially since the spices that they DO use contain gluten and I have no choice but to order it plain. My mom had the Guilt-Free Chicken and I tried a small bite. Not as good as the salmon, largely due to an excess of black pepper so far as I could tell, but not too bad.

The one dessert listed as gluten-free was described as a chocolate shake, and I was hungry enough to try it. It would be more accurately described as chocolate soft-serve ice cream than as a shake. Quite tasty, though.

The only thing I really didn't like about the place was that the music was about a notch and a half too loud. It wasn't quite loud enough that I wanted to blow up the speakers, but it was loud enough to be more than background. Still, it's nice to have another reasonably* safe restaurant to go to.

*There is always a risk of contamination at a restaurant that is not completely gluten-free. The simpler the dish, and the fewer ingredients in it, the less chance it has for contamination.

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Random Trivia

I played a game of Freecell for the first time in quite a while today, and then I remembered an old roommate telling me that every Freecell game was winnable. I wondered about this, and found that the claim is quite common, but not quite true. This site has the best summary of those I looked at.

First off, it is not the case that every possible deal of Freecell is winnable (first illustration at the link). However, it turns out that the game "only" produces about 32,000 deals (far less than the total number actually possible via random chance). Of those 32,000 deals, all but one is winnable: Game 11982. So every other deal that comes up on the Windows Freecell game is winnable.

Now I'm curious as to how many of the total possible deals are actually winnable... ^/^

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A Musical Interlude

The songs are all referring to Expelled, the bore-fest of a movie now facing litigation on at least two fronts.

Rhapsody in Lies:

I’ve got a little animation of a cell,
When in haste, copy paste, yes indeed that was the plan, though-
Copyright infringement lawsuit noose is tightening on me

Imagine B.S.:

Imagine there’s no science
So many people do
Nothing to study or wonder
The end of seeking truth
Imagine all the country
Dumber than a post…

via Pharyngula


Not quite in the same vein, I notice that P.Z.'s reaction to the pope's visit was rather similar to mine. All I could feel was mild disgust when I saw how much news coverage it was getting, and note that, yes, this pope looks an awful lot like the emperor from Star Wars. I particularly liked this part of P.Z.'s post.

I am often told that religion is a source of morality. I've read the Bible myself; I can see that there were moral philosophers at work behind that book, that we have a tradition of law in the Old Testament, with a fellow named Jesus adding social justice and concern for the poor and weak in the New that are actually rather commendable. I also see a lot of myth and error and misplaced obsession with the supernatural that rational people are willing to set aside to focus on the core humanitarian message … or at least they do so in the best of circumstances.

Yet what I also see in modern religion is a re-prioritizing: the secular concerns that should matter, the egalitarian word of a religious tradition that valued the cohesion of the social fabric and demanded equal treatment for even the least of society is ignored, given a little lip service perhaps, but made subservient to the intangible theological nonsense of prayer, of an invisible god, of submission to dogma and hope in an unevidenced afterlife.

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GF: Stuff to Avoid

I'll expand this at some point, but the primary reason I'm writing is a reaction to a cereal that was shelved with Fred Meyer's specifically gluten free products. The specific product was Health Valley's "Corn Crunch 'Ems" cereal, essentially like corn Chex, but with no suspicious ingredients, and no warning that it had been processed on equipment that also processed items containing wheat, which is probably the source of the reaction.
So for now the list is very short. Avoid any Health Valley cereals, whether they're shelved with the gluten-free items or not. The only possible exception is if you find one actually labeled as gluten-free, but make bloody sure that it says "gluten free" NOT "made with gluten free ingredients."

I'll also put in a few of the less obvious ingredients to avoid, so that I have a list of more than one item.

1. Caramel Color
2. Dextrin (if unlabelled as to source)
3. Dextrose (if unlabelled as to source)
4. Health Valley: Corn Crunch 'Ems cereal
5. Malt
6. Mono and Di-Glycerides
7. MSG (Monosodium Glutamate)
8. Starch (if unlabelled as to source)
9. Vegetable (*) (if unlabelled as to source)

Gluten Free Tips Index

Incidentally, this cereal is almost certainly the reason I was feeling so lousy on Tuesday. The trash truck carried away what was left of it this morning.

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Getting There

Amazingly, next week is the last "real" week of classes, then dead week, then finals' week. This semester has been a bit odd. Being sick for a full month has turned the beginning into a rather unpleasant blur in my mind. A very long unpleasant blur. Comparatively, everything else has gone quickly.

My entire Math123 class did very well on their last test. The lowest score was a 70%. However, my Math143 class did horribly on their logarithm test. I wound up curving it so that the average score was a 70% instead of being right around 60%. Last fall's class also did very poorly on that test, but they had the excuse that the test was the week after Thanksgiving Break. I'm wondering if it's connected to logs being taken out of the Math 108 curriculum so that they're brand new to nearly everyone in 143. As for stats, we're on hypothesis testing and confidence intervals.

Yeah, I'm rambling. Yesterday I got cold chills in the afternoon and started feeling very tired. This morning I felt wretched. After getting a decent lunch and an hour nap, I made it through my last class okay, and I feel semi-okay right now. Hopefully that was the worst of it and tomorrow I'll wake up feeling better. Which means I should head to bed.

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Meaningful

I have to recommend Greta Christina's article complaining about the phrase "Everything happens for a reason." I have a somewhat different take on it, but I definitely see where she's coming from. My version would be "Everything that happens has meaning." I prefer this because it does not have the same implication of a grand design. It also need not apply to everyone in the same way. And an event that has meaning to one person may be meaningless to another.

Perhaps more importantly, it avoids the passivity of "Everything happens for a reason." The meaning of an event may not be obvious. It's up to you to find it. It's all the more crucial because failing to find it means that you may miss something further down the line. Looked at this way, "Everything has meaning" is a prescription for paying attention to the things that happen to you. Are some bad events your own fault? There's a lesson in them. Are they unavoidable? Then learn from your own reaction to them. Is a good event because of something you did? Figure out what it was you did!

With this attitude in mind, it could also be phrased "It is possible to learn from everything that happens." Maybe not from the event itself, particularly if it's an event we have no control over, but from our reactions to it and from the way people around us deal with it. It's also important to acknowledge that the event happened. We can't learn from an event if we're in denial about it. As Greta Christina points out, however, we can't learn from it if we assume we never have any control over it, either.

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West Mink Creek

YAY! Hiking! Warm! Snow! As in, it's now warm, but Mink Creek hadn't melted off. yet. More than half the trail was still covered in snow. Squishy snow, so it wasn't very slick, but there was the potential to sink down in it. Several times I sank down to my ankle. Once I sank clear to my knee. In most places, there were dry patches you could walk on to avoid sinking in the snow, but not in all of them. As I got there at 17:00, I didn't make it very far. I got to the bridge over the water and turned around. I think that might be a half-mile up the trail. Possibly three-quarters of a mile. Anyway, there are a few pictures below the fold.


Here's a nice view of the creek itself. Don't be fooled by the snow. It was quite warm up there except in one shadowed spot. I was wearing a very light jacket at first and quickly removed it.


This is the view back down the trail from where I turned around. It kinda looks like someone ought to do some work on the bridge this summer. Certainly by next summer it'll need it.


And this, this, is me! Or my shadow, at least. `/^

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Dexter, Season 1

I watched the first season finale of Dexter today. Wow. Impressive. And while I had figured out that the ice truck killer had some connection to Dexter's past, the actual connection hadn't occurred to me. It now seems quite obvious, but it certainly didn't occur to me before the reveal. No, I'm not going to spoil it here. I'm sure that someone else has posted it if you really want to know without watching.

I love seasonal plot arcs, where each episode still has a mostly self-contained plot, but there's an arc linking the season together. In this case, the link is the ice truck killer. I can't think of an episode without at least one minor detail connected to him. Most had more than one. Dexter is absolutely fascinated with the killer's work; it's beautiful to him. The killer seems equally fascinated with Dexter, as he keeps leaving him gifts and hints. At the end, killers collide in a battle for, er, well, that would be spoiling it, now, wouldn't it... `/^

Overall, I loved the series. Main edits for network television: language, minor violence cuts, and some nudity. The nudity is worst in eps 5 through 8, makes a minor repeat appearance in 11, and that's mostly it. Some of it was plot-relevant. About half of it was clearly, "Hey! We're Showtime! We get to show naked people!" And now... Now I have to wait for the second season to come out on DVD. Apparently it's possible to download for $1.99 an ep, but lacking a DVD burner, I'd just as soon wait. But for anyone with a morbid sense of fun, this is a good series to check out.

Okay, one minor spoiler, or preview, as it pertains to the second season and I haven't actually seen it yet. Apparently Dexter's body cache will be found, and he'll have a heckuva time keeping one step ahead of his own department. Now that sounds entertaining.

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Coming Back to Life

darkness returns
once driven away
by too bright light

embrace darkness
balance out light
let freedom ring

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Better Day

As I seem to have figured out what was causing the chills/swings. I have severe sensitivities to artificial fibers and materials in my clothing. It seems to have gotten worse recently. The sweater itself was cashmere, but the zipper was plastic with metal bits. This was enough to cause me problems. I don't blame anyone for scoffing; if it hadn't happened to me several times already, I'd scoff too. *shrugs*

First incident: I was sitting and reading before heading off to teach and started feeling... odd. Not sick, exactly, but sort of on the verge of being sick. It occurred to me that the shirt I was wearing was polyester, and that Don had mentioned that some taiji practitioners wound up having trouble with artificial fibers. I took the polyester off and instantly felt better. Okay, I got rid of all my more than 50% polyester clothing and went on with life.

Next incident was worse. I was wearing a 100% cotton T-shirt, or so I thought, and started feeling feverish with horrible nausea. This cotton T-shirt had a plastic design going all the way around in places. I was feeling utterly and completely miserable, on the floor in the bathroom, wondering if I needed to go to an emergency room. I took off the shirt. Five minutes later, I was fine. So I got rid of any shirts with plastic designs covering significant portions of them, or stopped wearing them if they had sentimental value, and went on with life.

It's gotten progressively worse, unfortunately. I can't wear metal jewelry either and don't like plastic jewelry. A leather cord with something wooden on it seems to be okay, but it's hard to find pretty examples of that. This is the first time that something on an external piece of clothing, worn over other clothes, has caused a major problem. I'm not particularly happy about it, but at least I know how to avoid a repeat now. Question is...can I remove the zipper without ruining the sweater... I like cashmere.

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Rant

What arrogance to presume knowledge, most especially knowledge about something often described as unknowable. Such desperate, fearful, clinging arrogance. It's a front, of course. The more desperately we cling to something the more terrified we are that it is going to go away, be revealed as a fraud. The more desperately we cling to something, the less faith we have in it, and the more we fear that it is not worthy of such faith. What good is an intricately constructed house built upon a foundation ready to crumble?

If there is such a thing as a conscious, willful, creator god, then the entire universe should in itself be revelation. At every term, every event must reveal such a god's handiwork. What arrogance, then, to place the works of humans above the works of such a creator-god. What arrogance to presume that one's own interpretation of this work of humans is the only valid one. What arrogance to place such limitations on this creator-god.

But the arrogance doesn't stop there. It only gets worse. When the creator-god's handiwork doesn't live up to believer expectations, rather than see this as reflecting the creator-god itself, it's transferred onto humans. Assume the conclusion; distort any thought-process, any evidence, any god, to make the conclusion fit. Is it not the most supreme form of arrogance to shape god rather than try to discover it? A creator-god requires a bigger box than the vanity of human presumption. Let it out of the book, already. Haven't you done enough damage?

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Annoying Day

Most annoying, I'm not sure why. I've been having cold chills and mood swings which seem to be connected. Not particularly severe mood swings, as they're the kind I can step back from and watch without much difficulty, but still annoying. That's the reason for the bevy of quizzes: distraction. I don't know if it's a cold, a response to my first large quantity of chocolate in several weeks, off-kilter hormonal fluctuations, a reaction to phenylephrine (most recent replacement of pseudoephedrine; only tried it this week), or something else entirely. It seems to have lifted somewhat at the moment.

However, I will say that Dexter is a good antidote to intermittent minor depression. I found the entire first season at Wal-Mart (yes--wal-mart--on a Sunday--don't ask--ICK). I'd already missed a few eps, as I tend to forget that there's actually something to watch on Sunday nights, so it's been handy to catch up. And I was half-wrong about the editing for tv. Yes, they edited out language. Not really any nudity thusfar, which is surprising given that it's a Showtime series. They did edit the scenes with Dexter carving up his victims, and cut out some of the in-station subplots that didn't directly involve Dexter. The last was most likely an issue of timing rather than rating.

I think, though, that the episode that aired tonight has to be my favorite so far. Several high-profile women who committed suicide in the same way had the same therapist...so Dexter goes to therapy! He finds it surprisingly helpful, to the point that he almost regrets killing the guy. Almost. Favorite line: "I can't kill him tonight; I need another therapy session."

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Can't complain here...

Can be puzzled, but can't complain. `/^ Honestly, I figured I'd match up as Willow.

Which Buffy Character Are You*? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Spike Congratulations, you are Spike- the Vampire. Spike 75% Daniel (Oz) Osbourne 67% Buffy Summers 50% Angel 42% Rupert Giles 33% Willow Rosenberg 25% Tara Maclay 25% Xander Harris 8%

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Elemental, My Dear Watson

Note: Spelling errors are theirs. Also, I haven't quite figured out why "lightning" is supposed to have lots of friends...

What is YOUR Element? created with QuizFarm.com

You scored as Lightning You are lightening! Similiar to fire, you are sometimes random, can be bad, but in other ways, can be very useful! You are extremely unstable when angry, but it takes a lot to get you angry, and when you are, you destroy swiftly. But as with lightening, your anger appears and dissappears, and you never tend to hold a grudge. People interest you, and people are interested by YOU, causing you to have a lot of friends. Lightning 96% Wind 83% Water 46% Earth 42% Fire 29%

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Progress?

I've had a few solo taiji lessons lately, where Melissa's been out of town and Mark's either overslept or not been feeling well, so Don took the time to try and improve my push hands, among other things. It seems to have been time well spent, as about halfway through our usual push-hands time slot Mark stopped, bowed out, and said "You push with Teacher a while." It could have meant many things, but judging by the tone of voice, I think he was frustrated with me... i.e. I wasn't giving him as many openings as he was used to. ^/^ That's not to say that he didn't push me out a few times, but I think it was more (mental) work than he was used to.

One of many interesting things about good sensing-hands is the amount of mental concentration it takes, though concentrations really isn't the right word. It's awareness. Pure awareness. No thought. This state of mind is both difficult to attain and difficult to maintain. It's similar to the state of hyper-awareness that can come with an emergency, except that it's calm; there's no urgency. My current weakness is surfacing from that calm when I have something and putting more effort into a push than is actually necessary, but it's much improved from a few months ago.

Another interesting thing is that there is always progress to be made. Always further to go. Always more to learn. Even the great masters report that they still have more to learn, and that is as it should be. A path that comes to an end serves no purpose; it is a dead branch. A path that continues to grow and shift and change, now, that is something worthwhile.

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Spring

It's finally starting to feel like spring 'round these parts. Time for me to get back in shape. I know that a big part of the reason I've been having more problems with my asthma is simple lack of walking. Walking a fair distance opens something up in my lungs that nothing else seems to, and vastly improves my breathing...if I do it on a regular basis. I'd also like to get back up to a decent walking speed, even with Buster in tow. Not so long ago, I could make it from my dad's house to Chubbuck Road and back in just under an hour (roughly 4 miles). Today I made it from my dad's house to the interstate and back in maybe 80 minutes (roughly 3 miles). Admittedly, that included time to stop and play with Buster, and to give him a chance to romp, but I'd like to do better. If I can get that down to an hour, then I'll try tacking on the extra distance to Chubbuck Road.

And no ducks today, sad to say. The canal was dry where Buster and I were walking. He was quite well behaved on the way out, and got more unruly as we headed for home. I think he was trying to conserve energy on the way out, and figured he had plenty to spare once we'd turned around. Ah well. He's still vastly improved from last spring when I first started walking him.

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Not Cussworthy? - Redone

Apparently "gods-bedamned" doesn't count as cussing. ^/^

(Found this at Apostate's Chapel)

As for today... nothing much of interest happened. Rigid motions in 123, quadratic formula with applications in 108, quantifiers in logic and Heidegger in Phil/Lit. When I think it won't give me a headache, I'll post an excerpt from Heidegger. He can be quite unintentionally amusing. Yes, he's trying to describe stuff for which no adequate words exist, but still...

??? Er, I think the meter's broken. Matt's blog also scored 0%, which is...somewhat inaccurate. *shrugs* Seems to be working now; Matt's still only scored 33.5%, though.

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Floodgates

Mom's water heater went ker-splash today. Well, more like, ker-glug-glug-glug. Better than ker-boom, I suppose. We discovered that the basement slopes to the northeast, which is a spare bedroom that is currently storing tons and tons of cardboard boxes...many of which were sitting directly on the now-soaked carpet. We sort of suspect it had been leaking since Saturday, when I went over and smelled something that, at the time, reminded me of rotten peas; I think it was just a touch of the damp, mildewy smell that was horribly obvious tonight.

So she's got a new water heater now, and I helped her carry some loose rugs outside to dry (or freeze; whichever happens first). On the plus side, that one bedroom was the only one that was strongly effected. More than likely, she'll need to replace that carpet, but it was a recycled one anyway. When Grandma first moved into that house, that carpet was in either the downstairs or upstairs living room, and got swapped into that bedroom when she replaced stuff. Pretty blah, imo, but it was better than the patchwork mosaic that was peeling off of the floor when she moved in.

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March Searchlight

First up, anyone here looking for gluten free info should just go to my gluten free tips index. I won't list out the relevant search terms as that would only divert traffic to this post. As for the rest of the search terms that led here... Read on:

flower printouts: surprisingly popular search term. It took me a while to figure out why it might lead to my blog... It was from Mom's birthday three years ago, when I printed out flowers and stuck them all over her wall. She actually left most of them up until she switched rooms.

sporadic hair loss: Better than consistent, I suppose... If it were me, I'd look for a correlation between foods and/or medications.

"overconsumption of tea": Can't say for anyone else, but, in large quantities, anything from the tea plant (camellia sinensis, iirc) makes me ill. Dizziness and nausea mainly. Basically, one or two cups a week is about all I can handle any more.

"what happens in a brothel": Ummm... You mean you don't know? Do your parents know what you're searching for? `/^

accidental dyeing clothes: Three options, (1) Live with the new color (most often my choice); (2) Re-wash it, putting bleach in the machine if there's no change; (3) Look next to the fabric dyes in a store; there's often a color-ridder product there (as I've never tried it, I can't say how well it works). Btw, if it's already been run through the dryer, you're probably stuck with (1)

ancient creatures: Much older than recent creatures.

chicken and leak stew: I suggest you buy a new stewpot...unless you meant the vegetable, leek.

dogs sporadic breathing: Unless your dog is undead, I'd suggest taking him to a vet.

explain the mathematics behind searchlights: ??? Er, the mathematics of the searchlight pattern, of the way the device works, or what?

om carved rock: Well, I have one... but I picked it up at a store in Boise. The closest I found online is this, which is nearly 8 times more expensive than the one I got.

origami paper with philosophical sayings: I've never seen it, but it sounds awesome!

ricinoleate rash: Next to gluten, ricinoleate is my biggest pet peeve as far as being put in products. It comes from the castor bean, whence ricin, a deadly poison, also derives. If you think normal processing can get out all the ricin and leave only the...whatever ricinoleate is...behind, you're dreaming.

squirrel flingers: ??? All that comes to mind is a bizarre anecdote that Hawkeye told on M*A*S*H. Found here

so this happened during my first year of medical school and i was in the middle of a test in my anatomy class, and it was really tough! It asked me questions like "how many bones are there in the human hand?" and I kept asking myself "how many bones are there in the human hand?" and out of nowhere i heard this little voice that said, "24!" and i looked around the classroom and there sitting on the windowsill was this little grey squirrel, with a very intelligent face, and it pointed at its hand and said "24" so i wrote it down. and right afterwards i ran to the library to check. And would you belive it, that stupid squirrel was off by 4 bones! So i ran all around the school campus trying to find him, i wanted to kill him! And i finally found him, he was sitting on a bench, next to the psych department. "You were wrong!" I screamed at him! "theres 28 bones in the human hand." and he said, "Oh! I thought you meant a squirrels hand."

the bacchae color theme: There was a color theme? My pages were in black and white...

use of purple in the living room: Just pair it off with good contrasting colors. Just like any other room in the house.

what it means to dream of bugs under your skin: It's a sign of a guilty conscience imploring you to make amends or it will make you suffer and squirm endlessly. That or it could just be that a limb was getting numb and tingly while you slept...

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