I haven't blogged for over a week, but I have a good excuse! You see, last week I got in a little tangle with the authorities and they KILLED me, but then three days later I was resurrected, so it's all good. Oh, wait, that wasn't me. Well, then I suppose I don't have a good excuse. Sorry about that.

My sister, Melissa, came up to visit me this past weekend and we had fun. We went to the One of a Kind Show and bought a towel for our little nephew, and it is dark green and has dragon scales and a hood, so that when he comes out of the bath he can be a dragon and ROAR!! He already roars, and it'll be that much more cute with a dragon suit. :)

I also crocheted a teddy bear for my mom because I LOVE HER and it is her birthday on April 13th, but I forgot to take a picture of it because I suck. Dammit! But it was cute (if amateur) and I hope she likes it.

Did you know that octopuses can walk on two of their tentacles like legs? Video one and two. Via MonkeyFilter (more amazing octopus facts within!).

I have updated the homage to Watson with new (and better) pics. Just so you know, Meredith. ;)

Since I got another bookcase, I've decided to devote the one in my room to housing random things, but mostly stuff for crocheting (read: YARN). So, here's the latest scheme in managing my yarn stash so that I can a) see what I've got, and b) fit it all in there somehow. This is just a small bit of my current yarn stash, but it's a start.



Sometimes one can find various uses for the boxes in which bookshelves came, and sometimes that use is an improptu shelf insert. :) Honestly, if I could, I would just take this summer off and learn to knit decently, crochet a ton of stuff I've been holding off on, and get a sewing machine and get some mad sewing skills. Lately, I've become enamoured with Craftster and the wonderful things people on there make, like powerbook laptop cases, a knitted banana vibrator cozy, frosted glassware, and the Amelia Earhart aviator cap.

The most recent thing I've made (tonight!) is a cat toy for Watson, a mouse (Crochet Me pattern) with pennies in it instead of stuffing, because that cat LOVES small change. It's pretty fun, it jingles when you throw it and when he attacks it, which inspires more play. :)



I'd also like to give my friend Frances a shout-out for her excellent article in York's Excalibur newspaper on various things found in sex-toy shops: Dolls, Toys and Lubricants—Oh My! I'd especially like to highlight these two paragraphs:

"There are also products that you're better off not using at all. ... Pam emphasizes a warning against spermicide, otherwise known as Nonoxynol-9, which "burns the sperm like pouring salt onto a slug" whether you feel it or not. It eats away at vaginal walls and can cause itching, drying, or burning sensations.

According to a 2002 research study by the Lancet Infectious Diseases Medical Journal and a 2001 report by the World Health Organization, "primary outcomes [of spermicide] were new HIV infection, new episodes of various STIs and genital lesions," and only kills less than ten percent of sperm in the process. The main way to avoid internal cuts (which lead to STIs) is by also avoiding the following: Oil-based products coming into contact with the condom; dry sex by using condoms without lubricant; and spermicide."

So... spermicide doesn't just kill sperm, it also causes STIs by eating through everything else, including condoms and vaginal walls. Awesome. Seriously, what are the manufacturers and marketers of spermicide thinking? They're certainly not thinking about women or disease-prevention. Spermicide is also listed as increasing the risk of urinary tract infections in women. Honestly, why is this stuff on the market AT ALL? Between this and the speculum issue, I'm starting to turn into a raging women's rights activist just by trying to have a normal sex life. Seriously, I would not put something that "burns the sperm like pouring salt onto a slug" into my vagina if it were advertised that way, so why isn't it? Whoever is making it doesn't really give a shit, I must assume, because I hope that they do know how their product works and where its intended usage would happen. This stuff makes me so angry. Why does it seem that the people who design pap smears and condoms and various non-pill/injection/patch birth control methods know NOTHING about female anatomy? Spermicide causes urinary tract infections because it doesn't just kill sperm, it kills the bacteria that live in the vagina and prevent UTIs. It destroys the pH balance. It causes genital lesions. And yet my mother recommends that I use it, because this is not publicized.

It is so frustrating. All I'm trying to do is have a normal life, where I don't get a sexually transmitted disease or infection or pregnant, and I'd like to have a yearly physical so that I know that everything's cool, and I'd like to be comfortable and safe while doing all of the above. Yet the speculum is designed in a very cold uncomfortable way and doctors only use lube with the damn things about half the time, and spermicide is basically poison to my body, and what the hell is that? And if your suggestion is abstinence, well... you get to deal with it when you get married, I suppose. It's still an issue.

This AskMetafilter thread, "Atheists, when did you lose your faith?", inspired me to write something for another section of my site (!), about worldviews and how mine has changed since I've left Christianity. It's kind of long, but you guys can handle it.

Also, here is some strange graffiti that I see twice a week at YorkU, in the stairwell between the first and second floors of the south tower of the Ross Building:

This has been a good weekend. I crocheted a mouse for Metro, and got some good pictures of him, which should be up on Chris's website... sometime soon. (Patience, Meredith!) :) Metro's a nut, he REALLY likes to be under the covers. Sometimes we forget that and keep looking around the apartment for him, only to finally notice a suspicious-looking lump in the covers... and there's the kitty! And yes, he slept in the bed, sometimes curled right up by my legs and purring like a madman.

The other night, Chris and I were yelled at by random people on the street for kissing. "Get a room!" "Go to Church and Wellesley!" That last remark was a little confusing, since that would be the heart of gay Toronto, and we're not a gay couple. Ah, well. We also went to the Mediathèque to watch two short films that they're promoting right now -- Ryan and Hardwood. Both of them were good, but I think I failed to understand a lot of the visual significance in Ryan. They're both under half an hour and the Mediathèque is free, so check it out if you're around.

This has been a weekend of getting things done. Those things would include a trip to IKEA, buying me a digital camera, finally putting together my new bookcase and putting all my books in the living room for all to enjoy, putting up various things in Chris's apartment (photos, towel bars, curtains*, lid racks, etc.), starting crocheting a version of this rug, and doing some more exploring of Chinatown's markets and random food. The thing about shopping for food in Chinatown is that I don't know what half of it is. I also don't know how to find out most of the time, because half of the shopkeepers don't speak English very well at all (why bother? it's Chinatown!), and the signs are in Chinese. So... I'm lost. But, they have every kind of fruit all year round and mango juice to boot, so we're happy.

We also watched K-19: The Widowmaker this weekend, and I have to say... I never EVER want to get radiation poisoning. Gross. I'd like to do some research on the backstory of the movie though, because if it's true, then we just about had a nuclear explosion much larger than Hiroshima.

I'm currently reading Michael Shermer's How We Believe: Science, Skepticism, and the Search for God, and I found this passage interesting:

"In fact, science is a type of myth, if we think of myths as stories about ourselves and our origins (and not in the pejorative sense of myths as things "untrue"). Many gain considerable emotional, even "spiritual," satisfaction from reading scientific articles and books by geologists about the creation of the Earth, by paleontologists about human origins, by archeologists about the genesis of civilization, by historians about the development of culture, and especially by consmologists about the origins of the universe. Tens of millions of people watched Carl Sagan's 1980 Cosmos series with rapt attention. In 1997 the PBS series Stephen Hawking's Universe gripped viewers every Monday night. Books on evolution by Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould, Donald Johanason, and Edward O. Wilson are eagerly sought by readers and often find themselves on bestseller lists. Why? Because at these boundaries of scientific knowledge the lines between science, myth, and religion begin to blur as we ask ultimate questions about ourselves, our origins, and our place in the cosmos." (p.29)

I think a lot of that is true. I know a lot of people who are either studying science formally or informally and who find it beautiful in a certain sense. The same could probably be said for linguistics, especially when we try to find the connections between language and consciousness and intelligence. Regardless of the field, there is probably always a certain ability to use it to find meaning in one's life, which is generally the point of religion. Something to think about, at least.

Dear Anonymous, you who were so startled by the linked diagrams of the female menstrual cycle in the last post, perhaps you would like to peruse Vanessa Tiegs's art made with menstrual blood. Enjoy!

*The thing about buying a curtain rod with your boyfriend is that you suddenly learn that he watched WAY too much Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles when he was young and because he has a curtain rod in his hands, he suddenly thinks that he is Donatello (right, honey?) and has wicked martial arts skills.

Happy Birthday Sanda!

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have been betrayed by birth control. Now, don't get all panicky just yet (Dad! calm down!), this isn't the prelude to a birth announcement. However, DepoProvera and I have a deal: I take a shot every three months, and I don't get pregnant or a bleeding uterus. This deal has been working extremely effectively since August, but SOMEONE fell through on their end of the deal last night! So, yeah... guess why I was irritable last week? Hello, PMS.

MetaFilter has a very interesting ongoing thread about gender roles and transsexuals that I've been participating in a bit. It's threads like this that made me fall in love with MeFi back in the day, and I'm glad to see one like this instead of the petty whining that has characterized the last few months. I come to MeFi to learn and to be entertained. And, though none of you will understand the significance of this (unless languagehat happens to stop by), I must say that I've actually found myself appreciating quonsar lately. Q's been actually giving useful input and being nice instead of throwing in the snarky comments and inappropriate jokes that he is known and loved for. Some sort of a miracle must have happened!

I had a good chat with two of my linguistics professors today, and was introduced to another who usually has more research money to give jobs with in the summer, so that's good. I spoke with both of them about how they feel being professors and also being female, and whether they've been hindered in any way because of it, and they both said that they can't really say that they have, which is encouraging. When I was considering being a theology prof (!), I was always somewhat intimidated by the Boy's Club atmosphere of seminary faculty lounges. It's nice to know that things are good on that front, at least at York and U of T's Linguistics departments.

I was also encouraged by my Syntax professor to think about applying for U of T's graduate programs, especially if I decide to pursue Syntax instead of Sociolinguistics, and even more especially if I decide to study Inuktitut. Apparantly there is a professor there who did her dissertation on Inuktitut and is supervising a few Master's students in their work on the language, and there is another, more well-known professor there who works in Athabaskan languages. I'm still very keen on Sociolinguistics, but York only has a Master's, no PhD in the field, so it's good to keep my options open, and U of T has a higher status in the snottier regions of the world.

In other news, Chris got a cat from the Humane Society on Sunday and promptly named him Metro. He's 2 years old, incredibly cute and curious about everything and very friendly, and I have the feeling that I will have some competition for Chris's attention. There is a squirrel that somehow finds his way up onto Chris's ledge (he's on the 10th floor!) and I can't wait to see Metro react to THAT. He's cute enough that I might even let him sleep in bed with us next time I stay over. The Humane Society was kind of sad though... there are two other kitties in there that I really want now, they reminded me of Linda's cats and they were rubbing up against the bars of the cage and purring and awww.... and the dogs! SO CUTE! I so want a dog, and I really really can't have one. Someone needs to get a dog and be my friend so that I can play with it but not pay for it. That would be ideal.

What is wrong with me this week? I have every reason in the world to be happy, and I just feel blah. My boy has a cool new apartment and I can finally crash at his place again after two long months of not being able to (long story) and he bought me ice wine (yay!), I finally hung out with Ryan again and he made me laugh a lot and talked intelligently about beliefs vs. ideas, it is my birthday tomorrow and I get to see my best friend AND Sanda AND The Frames AND introduce a bunch of my friends who haven't met yet, my Dad is probably coming to visit me tonight, I have super-tasty chocolate truffles in my freezer from our Girl's Night last Sunday (ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, mint, Bailey's, mmmmmm), Gail and I went for coffee last night for ... oh, 2 hours? Heh. I made something super-cool for Sanda's birthday, and when she sees it she will throw her hands above her head like the cute boy in Boondock Saints. I have a roommate who makes me tea and has intelligent conversations and silly jokes with me, not to mention an evil kitty who is in love with both of us. I got my Syntax midterm back yesterday and got an A on it, and I had fun writing the damn thing. I'm realising that after two years of taking Linguistics, I'm just falling more and more in love with it, and with parts of it that I didn't expect to like this much (like Syntax!). I like my University enough to stay there for 2 consecutive years.* I like my Linguistics department enough that I'm totally going to apply for the Master's in Theoretical Linguistics here. I find it hard to leave work on time because I like everyone so much and we get in such interesting and funny discussions. Hell, who else has coworkers that constantly beg them to join the Flaming Dragonnettes, a girl's group based solely on bitterness and pyromania? Bethune is where it's at. I have at least one summer job this summer, and maybe a research position as well. I have tons of opportunities to tutor this summer. I'm going to BC this summer. I have a boyfriend who wants to name a dog Jesus so that he can yell and swear at him in the park ("Get the fuck back here, Jesus! Bad Jesus, bad!") and what are the odds that I found someone who makes me laugh that much?

And yet, I've been kinda down for the last couple of weeks. Maybe it's just the winter blues or the stress of school or the stress of Chris moving or... I don't know. I just wish I would cut it out. It's my birthday week, for crying out loud!

*Check out my post-secondary track record:
2001-2002: EBC
2002-2003: Tyndale
2003-2004: York (Glendon campus)
2004-2005: York (Keele campus)
2005-2006: York (Keele campus) <-- this is the same! egad!