Sleep: The Other White Meat

[greygirlbeast]

Thanks to the new (very expensive) medications, my insomnia is vastly better than it's been for years. But last night, I was awake until sometime after four, and then only got to sleep because I'd taken Ambien (which I dislike doing). Then I woke from a nightmare at eight, to construction noise from next door. And that was it. No getting back to sleep for me. I got up so the tossing and turning wouldn't wake Kathryn. So...now I have to manage to stay awake until tonight.

Yesterday, I did as little work as possible. But I did do a small bit of last minute editing on "The Maltese Unicorn" and sent it away to the anthology's editor. But mostly it was a "day off," after the insanity of Sunday and the big push to finish editing the short story.

I read Chapter Four of Gaining Ground by Jenny Clack ("Setting the Stage: The Devonian World"). I read the first part of Tales of the Slayers (Dark Horse), and especially liked "Righteous" by Joss Whedon and Tim Sale. Spooky made chili for dinner. Afterwards, we watched two short films by Nacho Cerdà, who directed The Abandoned (2006)— Genesis (1998) and Aftermath (1994). Both were very well done, though I was far more impressed by Genesis. Then we played WoW, leveling Gnomnclature and Klausgnomi to 30, before switching back to our main toons, Shaharrazad and Suraa, who we left stranded in Icecrown a couple of months back. That was yesterday. Oh, and the toilet broke. No, wait. That was day before. Night before last. Whichever.

Spooky got the new Rasputina CD yesterday, Sister Kinderhook, though I've yet to listen to it.

I know it's the future, and the world sucks extra hard now and all, but...my life would be at least 3% less annoying if the internet were not plagued by idiotic emoticons. Right now, I think the worst offender is— XD —though, I have to admit— o.0 —is a close fucking second. Oh, and— <.<, >.>, and >.< —are also nigh unto unbearable. These emoticons pretty much brand the user a total moron, even if the user is, say, Stephen Hawking. I actually sort of miss the days of ;-P and :-) and :-(. Things were so much simpler back then.

There are people on Earth, right now, who honestly believe all sentences should end with "lol."

Please have a look at the current eBay auctions, which end this afternoon. Thanks.

Er...and I have a few photographs from the Museum of Comparative Zoology, before the day went to crap:





Spooky spent some time with the collection of glass flowers created between 1886 and 1936 by Leopold Blaschka and his son, Rudolph.



More glass flowers.



There was a special exhibit devoted to the evolution of horns and antlers. Here is a member of the cervid Family Muntiacinae.



Many sorts of deer.



MCZ 1365, the holotype of the pelycosaur Dimetrodon milleri (Romer 1937) from the Permian of Texas.



MCZ 1036, boomerang-shaped skull of the Permian-aged leponspondyl amphibian Diplocaulus, also from the Texas red beds.



Here I sit, before a beautiful display of fish from the Eocene-aged Green River Formation. The display is in Roemer Hall, named for the Harvard paleontologist Alfred Sherwood Roemer. And I am holding my copy of Roemer's Vertebrate Paleontology (1933-1966), long the standard text on the subject. I got my copy at the annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology in Philadelphia in 1986.



Spooky, trying to sketch a bustard.



These creepy deer were watching her.



We seemed to be followed by deer— ominous deer —everywhere we went.

Photographs Copyright © 2010 by Caitlín R. Kiernan and Kathryn A. Pollnac

Comments

[iterum.livejournal.com]

There are people on Earth, right now, who honestly believe all sentences should end with "lol."

Maybe this just means that modern life has made more people habromaniacal?

Almost forgot: LOL.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

Maybe this just means that modern life has made more people habromaniacal?

What?

Almost forgot: LOL.

Bite me.

[fusijui.livejournal.com]

I really want to read that as "Hasbromaniacal".

[iterum.livejournal.com]

Well, now that the text is published, I have no authorial control over how it is read. Go nuts.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

I simply have no idea what the word means. I even tried breaking it down.

Habro - Habro is one of the 180 woredas in the Oromia Region of Ethiopia.

I don't think that's what you meant.

[iterum.livejournal.com]

Habromania is a delusion characterized by morbid or inappropriate gaiety, but I confess that I'm not sure why it should mean that etymologically. ("Habros" is "delicate" in ancient Greek.)

But "Hasbromania" works okay, too. Here, the kids add "lol" to every sentence because they see the world as their plaything and so live each day with unbounded delight.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

Habromania is a delusion characterized by morbid or inappropriate gaiety, but I confess that I'm not sure why it should mean that etymologically. ("Habros" is "delicate" in ancient Greek.)

Okay. Got it.

[fusijui.livejournal.com]

That kind of talk makes me think you're either a damned postmodernist, or a sympathizer with the evil Chinese pirates trying to despoil Mickey Mouse (an intellectual property of eternal value)!!!

Either way -- cool.

[mizliz13.livejournal.com]

Sister Kinderhook (love that title) will make you smile.

And, as for emoticons, I use the most basic ones on occasion; I have no idea what the other ones even mean.

Brilliant pictures, as always.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

And, as for emoticons, I use the most basic ones on occasion; I have no idea what the other ones even mean.

Oh, hell. I use :-(, :-), and ;-) on occasion (these smiley face emoticons date back to the 19th Century, by the way). But these newfangled ones...sheesh. Kids these days. Grownups, too.

[mrs-ralph.livejournal.com]

I think 'Night at the Museum' would have been a whole different movie genre in that museum but those glass flowers look miraculous.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

but those glass flowers look miraculous.

They really are.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

I love the Dimetrodon. Something about his awesome fan across his back, maybe.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

And yet the sail of Dimetrodon milleri was modest when compared to those of D. gigashomogenes and D. grandis.

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

I have this lovely mental image of a field of these dinosaurs, with gently waving sails in bright colors.

[fusijui.livejournal.com]

Deer always look sort of disapproving and smug to me. Even when their antlers are moulting, or fly larvae are dripping out their noses. Creepy? Could it be that you'd been looking at their antlered skulls too much?

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

Could it be that you'd been looking at their antlered skulls too much?

It's like Scanners...only with taxidermied deer!

[fusijui.livejournal.com]

Ya know, if the current zombie fad lasts much longer, I'm certain there will be a zombie Bambi production, in whatever media. (If it's Cronenberg that makes it, I won't even sneer!)

[mellawyrden.livejournal.com]

Some of those glass flowers toured through my area (Corning Museum of Glass) last year. They're astonishing. I want to go to the Museum of Comparative Zoologgy with my sketchbook, now.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

I want to go to the Museum of Comparative Zoology with my sketchbook, now.

It's worth the trip.

[dragau.livejournal.com]

Were you ever on Metafilter or Plastic by any chance? I ask because those were the only places where I ever saw ;-P and it was associated with a user named mischief on both sites.

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

Were you ever on Metafilter or Plastic by any chance?

Nope.

[jdack.livejournal.com]

What in the hell is <.<, >.> supposed to be?

[greygirlbeast.livejournal.com]

What in the hell is <.<, >.> supposed to be?

Near as I can tell, it works like this.

Person A says something which Person B perceives as outlandish or peculiar. Person B then...

>.> = looks right

<.< = looks left

and finally >.< makes a squinchy face meant to denote pain at said peculiar or outlandish statement.

Yes, it's dumb.

[jdack.livejournal.com]

Wow. Dumb is an understatement.

[catconley.livejournal.com]

That's a hell of a lot of effort...

[martianmooncrab.livejournal.com]

plagued by idiotic emoticons.

having learned that > and < are math symbols, their current use confuses me, plus I learned to type on a manual typewriter, and I used a teletype in my Navy job.... so to me, emoticons are a different language I dont care to learn.

I also used to read baudot, so I am a real lumbering off to the tar pits kinda typist.

[stsisyphus.livejournal.com]

Although I'm not joining you in the hatred of emoticons, but I will join you in hatred of the omnipresent and superfluous "lol" suffix to all statements. Mind you, the saturation of emoticons that you have while being in-game in WoW will probably not endear you to the fact that humans draw breath, much less their typological habits.

[kathryn-aka-kat.livejournal.com]

Love the museum photos. Those deer really do look creepy.

About the emoticon constructions...
I admit I often use ^_^ instead of :-). There is a reason. I talk to people on IM clients (yes, that's another problem) and if I use the "sideways" version, then MSN or AIM will convert it into the most horrible sort of visual happy-face. But if I use the "longways" version, it stays as what I typed, and therefore I tend to go "longways" in other emoticons too. I shall try to avoid them here, sorry!

[ham-it-up49.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the glass flower pictures. They're really fantastical. I wonder if Gaiman's Stardust snowdrop is there somewhere?

[sovay]

Here is a member of the cervid Family Muntiacinae.

I love how beautifully the horns run back from the orbits of the eyes. But I am biased; I am fond of the various (true or not) deer with tusks, like the chevrotain and the water deer.

Here I sit, before a beautiful display of fish from the Eocene-aged Green River Formation.

That might make a very nice author's photo.

[ulffriend.livejournal.com]

Not sure if I should be embarrassed or grateful that I didn't recognize a single one of those emoticons...I'm leaning towards grateful.

I hope you are feeling better.

[dragau.livejournal.com]

"Why I hate 'lol' as punctuation: it's the text equivalent of nudging you and saying "Geddit?" without the chance for a retaliatory eyepoke." (via one of my twitter friends)