Thought it was about time to post on non-house related topics. I’m starting to turn into one of those single-topic people. At least it’s not about my dahr-ling kids…

(one day, one day)

On top of being a procrastinator, I can thank my genes for having an addictive personality. This manifests itself as doing unproductive things for ungodly amounts of time without being able to stop myself (I have consciously stayed away from more harmful vices than TV and internet for obvious reasons). I realized pretty quickly in undergrad that we couldn’t have cable, because I would just watch endless hours of TV and not get any work done. So that went by the wayside in second year (yay! one less bill). And the most disturbing thing was that I didn’t miss it after it was gone. Lately, a similar thing has happened with the TV entirely. Whereas normally I would catch maybe an hour of TV in the evenings, the house has kept us so busy that we have a wonky schedule and are not even home most evenings. When we are at home, I’ll pick up my latest book. So in the last three weeks, I’ve read three novels – first was The Kite Runner, recommended to me by a friend (heart wrenching – I’m not even sure I could see the movie at this point) the second was Spadework by Canadian author Timothy Findley (meh. Loved the first novel I’d read by him called Headhunter, but then Not Wanted on the Voyage disturbed me and this third one elicited no reaction at all) and now I’m reading The Bean Trees by the go-to gal Barbara Kingslover. God I love her. Whereas Timothy Findley is all over the place, Kingslover churns out these amazing character-driven novels that seep through with strong themes that I can resonate with – independent capable females, the splendor and frailty of nature, the dubiousness of religious fervor. What I would do to meet her, have lunch, chat awhile. Of course, it would have to be organically grown and locally harvested food. I started off with the Poisonwood Bible (a beautifully worn copy received as a gift from a generous soul), picked up Prodigal Summer for two dollars at a Thrift Store, and borrowed The Bean Trees from the local library. I want to run out and read all the books immediately, one after another. But my practical side is shouting “Wait!! Keep them safe for now, and after a bout of two or three uninspiring novels in a row written by others – whip them out! They’ll be twice as good!”

And for music. The soundtrack of my life of late has consisted of whispering mid-Westerners with banjos. In particular, Iron & Wine has been on heavy rotation. Instead of picking up the entire album, the songs have come piecemeal over iTunes as I find (and fall in love) with new ones. The played live in Barcelona, Spain on my birthday, which is a kicker because I am going to Barcelona in the near future, but the dates don’t match up. The closest to East Coast Canada they are playing is Chicago, which they play often. Not near enough, unfortunately.
Artist number two is Sufjan Stevens, whose ambitious project is to create an album for every state (while also recording other, non-state inspired albums). My favorite album is Illinois, but since that one was thirty dollars at the record store and Seven Swans was only twenty, I got the latter. It sees heavy play at home, especially the first half (which has my favorite song of the moment called “That dress looks nice on you”). Interesting enough, both Stevens and Iron & Wine have biblical undertones in at least some of their music. I’m not sure what that means, but it does remind me of something that happened this morning:
Today in lab meeting, Dr.Ford Doolittle gave a semi-philosophical science talk that dealt with creationism and its place (invited or not) in evolutionary science. What our role is when dealing with intelligent design arguments, as scientists. Overall, it was an excellent presentation. If my mp3 player/recorder had battery left, I may have recorded the talk because he’s, like, eminent. In the presentation, he brought up bacterial flagella, which is used often in intelligent design argument as an example of irreducible complexity. And mid-presentation, I was reminded of a dream I had, about a month ago, where I was arguing against irreducible complexity in the bacterial flagella. That’s right, apparently my special brand of geekiness spills over into unconscious-land. I was fighting the good fight in my dreams, baby!