Living in a tent? Cave?

Our skylights were immediately covered in snow, which is normal. However, due to the layer of sleet and ice that followed, the snow didn't melt off like it usually does. So we're sitting in our living room, remembering the dark depressing days before we installed the skylights! The light of the fire is one of our primary sources of light. It's a cozy feeling.

Fringe Review

So another good episode last night. Less of Walter's wacky humor than usual, but that's to be expected because for once Walter was in Peter's role: recognizing that his father's work was resulting in horrible crimes.
The episode begins with a wedding gone horribly awry when most of the groom's family dies - all of the descendants of Gramma, in fact, who was a Holocaust survivor. Given that and the German looking man who Gramma yelled at right before she died, it seemed obvious to the audience that this was a Nazi-related ethnic cleansing type of plot. Then the killer strikes again in a coffee shop, but this time, he only kills brown-eyed people. Only after Walter revealed his father's former association with the Nazi's did the team realize this was a Nazi related plot, which some fans complained about. However, I don't think it was that obvious - they didn't clearly see the villain at the wedding, and the second killing muddied the waters somewhat.
Significant moments: when they finally find the villain's lair, Walter almost dies because the man has mixed up a Walter-specific poison - one which does not affect Peter. This could mean 1 of 2 things: the poison was specific enough to ONLY hit Walter or Peter wasn't affected because he's from the alternate world and thus isn't directly related to our Walter.
Second significant moment: Walter takes matters into his own hands and kills the Nazi villain, who we later find out is an unaged assistant to his father. This is a clearly unethical act, and Walter's seeming justification - that he would do anything for family - is a bit off, given that Peter was never harmed. Added in to a previous episode this season when Walter kidnapped an FBI agent and performed human testing on him - with Astrid's help!! - and we see that although Walter is repentant and wants to make amends, he is not fully reformed. Walter still believes that the ends justify the means, just as Bell does.

Borrowing Accents

Some people can't help borrowing accents. You know what I mean - the American who suddenly sounds slightly British when walking around London, the person who gains an accent when talking with an exchange student. I find that I do this with writing. There are certain writers, only 3 that I've noticed, who tend to worm their voices into my brain. I start thinking like them, talking like them, and worst of all, writing like them. I don't like this because I need to find my own voice. So today, given that I've just finished a novel by one of these writers, I will keep my writing efforts to revision rather than creation, knowing that any new material will end up being written in a weak imitation of his voice.
Here are some examples:
1. Going to personal training is like going to hell with a very nice person, a person you would be friends with if she didn't so obviously think that pushups with one arm is a good idea.
2. Her husband awoke her as usual, at the 5:00 hour when her body normally roused itself, looking about for disturbances and normally going back to sleep. However, his acrobatics were more prolonged than usual - he was a man for whom a simple 90 degree turn was insufficient - each change in position necessitated at least 180 degrees of rotation and some degree of levitation from the bed. In order to halt the volcano, she spoke, asking how she could help. It was the cat causing the problem, an inordinately heavy puddle of sleeping fur that was preventing the acrobatics from achieving their end goal. Scooping up the fur, she re-deposited the cat goo next to her own thigh and the bed was finally still. But while her husband went immediately to sleep, she lay awake, eyes and consciousness linked to the drowsy body which had found the disturbance it was looking for.
3. As she shoveled the slowly rotting grass out over the bare tree roots, she felt a deep pull from within. The rich smell of decay reminded her of her own body's smells, the rich smell of menstruation, the threatening shedding of fertility deemed unclean and fearful by society for centuries past.

All my own writing, but all in imitative voices. For fun, see if you can pick which author goes with which example: Margaret Atwood, Jonathan Safran Foer, Anne Lamott.

We're going to Italy!

Booked the tickets yesterday! I'm very excited! I'm seriously going to only take about 3 days worth of clothes and buy all the rest as I go. :) :) :) lucky for Dale I'm already saving up clothing money. Now we just have to figure out how to see the entire country in just 2 weeks.

lazy weekend

It has been a very lazy weekend in the Bayless household. Yesterday Dale built a fire and we watched basketball. I must confess I fell asleep. Dale actually did some work, but I was a completely non productive couch potato. Today is not much more productive. Thus far we have made Belgian waffles (YUM), Dale has read and I have taken a nap, and now Dale is playing video games while I ponder flights to Italy in September (YAY).
Since we have no real news, I'll stick to 7 quick takes:
1. The eczema on my thumb has returned with a vengeange. I'll start steroid cream today.
2. Last night we watched the Princess Bride, which never gets old!
3. I'm in the mood to bake bread, but probably will end up taking another nap.
4. Pipsqueak and Duchess eagerly filled in my spot on the couch when I got up - Pip is snuggled in the crevice between cushions and Duchess is all snuggled into the nest of blankets.
5. My next book is "Everything is Illuminated" by Foer. I'm looking forward to it, but I don't think I have the energy to start it today!
6. My friend gave me a flying screaming monkey recently. The cats hate it. The other night I was running in my sleep (nightmare) and I accidently kicked it out of bed, which made it scream and woke me up. Maybe the cats have a point...
7. Fringe had a flying screaming woman in the excellent show Thursday night. Connection? I think so.
BONUS: An iphone app, Flixster, just emailed me a picture of myself, one taken many years ago which I have never posted online. I find this EXTREMELY creepy.

Upcoming Fringe!

Tomorrow night is another night of Fringe! Looks to deal with some sort of horrible contagion, possibly spread by the ZFT terrorists? If not, then definitely created by some unethical scientist doing human experiments. Peter is infected and apparently under quarantine. So the question becomes: will they risk everyone's lives by setting Peter free? Will they allow Peter to die (oh, definitely not). Will Walter find the cure before or after the decision is made whether to set Peter free? Or even more unnerving, will setting Peter free show the infection to be psychosomatic and therefore not a threat? I cannot wait to see what lies in store, what Walter will call Astrid, and whether Walter will fixate on a food or just make inappropriate comments...

xfiles vs fringe (spoiler alert)

Many Tweeters noted last night that Fringe seemed to be a rehash of X-Files episode Home. Several went on to make disparaging comparisons between Xfiles and Fringe. However, I would say they missed the point.
Sure, there was a similarity between Johari Window and Home, in that both dealt with hideously deformed people. But that is where the similarity ends.
In Home, the people were deformed due to generations of inbreeding, chosen by the family themselves. They were violent by choice and driven by their own choices into the horror of their lives. In Johari Window, the people were deformed due to secret government/military experiments, which affected all the living creatures within the town - victims of the choices of others rather than of their own choices, and not universally violent, especially as shown in the end when one victim chose truth over concealment (although she did use violence to achieve that end).
This gets to one of the primary differences between XFiles and Fringe. In XFiles, the monsters and the mythology were driven by the existence and intervention of aliens - monsters were weird hybrids or results of alien experimentation, and the government conspiracy related primarily to the existence of aliens and their coming invasion. People were made who they were by their choices, or driven by their biology. In Fringe, the monsters and mythology are driven by unethical experimentation on willing and unwilling subjects, which Walter himself participated in. The people are driven by the results of other people's choices for them - they are victims. Further, the conspiracy is not, so far, well connected between evil individuals (David Robert Jones), massive corporations (Massive Dynamic), and the government/military (Russian cosmonauts, Johari Window).
In the X Files, a big focus was on the truth: what is it and how do we find it and prove it. In Fringe, the big focus is on the coming inter-dimensional war, and what is ethical in the face of that. William Bell still clearly believes that human experimentation is justified by this war, while Walter is learning that it is not, and is trying to make atonement. Yet Walter has still not dealt with one of his most heinous crimes, one which may be responsible for the coming war: the kidnapping of his own alternate son.
So yeah, Fringe borrows themes and ideas from X-Files, but they are examined and developed very very differently.

Sure, we're a Christian nation

I remember on September 12, 2001, I was reading an advice column. The columnist was so infuriated over the events of the day before that most of the column was his venting. But he did answer 1 letter. The poster had sent him an email during the attacks - while one of the towers was actually falling. The columnist sputtered on and on, venting all sorts of disgust at this human who was more concerned about his sex life than with the death of thousands of innocent Americans.
Today I was listening to K-Love (Christian radio) and they were talking about yesterday's horrific earthquake in Haiti. They talked about the poverty there, about how there are many missionaries there, etc. I switched stations to classic rock and was instantly hit with an advertisement for some woman's burlesque show. And that, right there, is the kind of Christian nation we are. We are completely capable of focusing on our own enjoyment even while our own countrymen are dying, much less when people outside our country are suffering.
I'm not saying we have to go around wringing our hands all the time (which we surely would if we were attuned to all the daily suffering in the world). But we could all benefit from some occasional hand-wringing, a little less focus on self and a little more focus on those around us.

Why is healthy eating so unfulfilling?

And I do mean unfulFILLing. I had a salad for lunch. It was quite a large salad - probably 1.5 to 2 cups of spring mix lettuce alone. It had chicken, almonds, and edamame, along with mandarin oranges and a ginger soy dressing. Good solid protein there. Yet I am starving, very very hungry. Worst part: I was hungry less than an hour after eating the salad.
On the plus side, I went to Teavana (lunch at the mall) and got myself 2 caffeine free teas to enjoy. I'm gonna go enjoy one of them with a serving of peanut butter M&M's (270 calories and very filling).

The Force of a Sleeping Cat

A common formula for force is mass X acceleration. Given this equation of a sleeping cat, like Duchess, is 9 pounds X 0 = 0. However, there must be a special formula for sleeping cats. Because last night, my 9 pound cat pushed me to the edge of my bed, while doing nothing but sleeping. Given that she pushed 150 pounds of weight, her force must have been at least, what, 150 pounds? (I bet my Dad could calculate this exactly).
I propose changing the acceleration variable. It simply cannot be zero. I propose that when a cat falls asleep, their acceleration changes from 0 to 10x their weight. This results in the equation, for Duchess, of 9 pounds X 90 = 810. That surely explains her ability to shift my dead weight several inches.
Science experts, care to explain further?

7 quick takes

1. Baby, it's cold outside, but the sunlight streaming through these windows is keeping me nice and toasty!
2. Tonight Dale and I get to meet some new people - a young couple that just moved here. I'm pretty excited about the prospect of widening our social circle.
3. I'm short on hours this week, but that doesn't matter because I'll pretty much be working all day tomorrow.
4. Dale surprised me by saving up all his "mad money" in order to buy a flat screen TV. Sneaky guy! Can't say I'm upset about the decision though - a larger higher quality TV will make reading basketball scores much easier.
5. Dale also sweetened the deal by buying a waffle iron. If you are my brother, sister-in-law, or parents, you will know how much Dale and I love WAFFFFFLES!
6. I was saving my mad money to buy a pair of kick-ass Doc Marten boots. When I tried on said boots, yesterday, they were unbearably uncomfortable.
7. Any suggestions on a great treat (preferably shoe related) I could spend my mad money on? (Please, no worthy suggestions like charity - we already give away $ and our mad money is meant to be spent indulgently!)

Horror Stories of High School Abstinence Classes

My only source for this is a group of teens who attend Leesville High School. I would love to believe that these stories aren't true, or are exaggerated, or even that all of them have conspired to deceive me, but I think it's most likely that these stories are at least partially true.
We taught our high school group about sex this fall. We taught them the Biblical view that sex is good, it is spiritual, it is designed for procreation and pleasure and intended for marriage. But we were also real with them. We taught them about birth control. We taught them about how to think through the consequences of premarital sex. We tried to teach them that their sexuality is valuable - a priceless part of themselves that can only be shared so many times before it becomes less special. And we had a no-holds-barred Q&A period when we discussed many issues about sex.
In response, they told us what they are learning in high school. They report that their health teacher takes a goldfish out of a bowl and lets it die, demonstrating what premarital sex is. Today one of them said the health teacher brought in cookies and said the cookies were cheap prostitutes. Then they performed a skit in which one student tried to convince another student to eat the cookie, while another student tried to dissuade him from eating it. They tell us that they are so grateful that we have given them more information about sex. That we have talked about sex as more than just some bad thing that must be avoided at all costs.

I wonder how many goldfish have to die before our kids are taught the truth about sex.

Saying Good bye

My good friend Kerry is leaving Raleigh on Wednesday, and leaving the country on the 16th. She's going to live in the largest slum in Central America for the next 2 years, working with the kids who live there. To follow her journey, check out her website. I hadn't realized until today how much I'll miss Kerry - her awesome laugh, her crazy sense of humor, her squeeze-you-to-death hugs, her passion for doing good, any good that occurs to her. I'm glad she's going - because it's what she wants. But I'll miss my Kerry.

Smile Detection

Over the holidays, we visited some friends who have a cool camera that has "smile detection." It will not take a photo until everyone is smiling (if the option is on). So Dale tried to fool it. I'd say he was successful: