Science is a beautiful thing

I was following up on my favorite mad-scientist-is-going-to-destroy-Earth-with-man-made-black-hole story when I stumbled across several stunning pictures of the nearly complete Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Click on the picture above to see the rest.

Life's a song to dance through

I found my happy place back.

This little piggy went to Walgreens

I would never claim that my hometown or Central Missouri in general is anywhere near perfect, but I did grow up assuming certain things about the world.

I believed in the honesty and integrity of the police to uphold and follow the law. (Heaven forbid such a level of naiveté.) Granted, scandals and exceptions were to be expected, but they were just that - scandals and exceptions. Or if there was a pervasive problem, at least it was not wantonly and egotistically flaunted without shame or fear of punishment.
But bottom line - Cops followed the laws. Cops enforced the laws. Cops were good, hard-working people.

... I'll stop there rather than counter with an angry diatribe about the corruption and racism in this city that disgust me. I can't fathom either though I could clinically dissect both and write essay upon essay about the subjects. None of it makes sense at a personal level.
It's a shame, and it makes me sick... and no angry, self-righteous rant will make me feel better. Rather, I'm just left feeling horribly sad and bewildered. But I do know that when people ask me where I'm from, I still answer, "Central Missouri." I don't want to be associated with the ugliness that I see here.

...

I hesitate posting this at all since I don't want my blog to be bitchy or whiny or preachy or glum. In the rare occasions when I do write about or touch on a serious topic, I do so as lightly as possible. But I've been in a combination Anne/Eeyore mood this weekend, and so my sense of humor fails to help me navigate the craphole of decaying human morality. Ok, ok, that's a bit extreme... but such is my mood.

I ate my bologna sandwich, drank my apple juice, and drove to Walgreens. Obviously, I should have grabbed my book and crawled in the tub for a soak instead.

Betty and Germaine

Beauty and brains, pleasure and usability — they should go hand in hand.
- Donald Norman

I was lounging on my porch railing with O-ren just moments ago, when Betty and Germaine must have taken possession of me momentarily. At least, that's my only explanation for it since I had been pondering the nature of the leaves on a nearby tree only seconds before.

Simply stated, the average American woman must be a trilateral Superwoman triumphant over the spheres of career, home, and beauty/sexuality. (I could argue that she's a quadrilateral Superwoman, but for my current thought pattern, I'm lumping the last 2.) To which I thought - how now, brown cow? How did this get to be? Backlash to women's movement, aye, and that's a boogerbear to tackle. But interlaced with the backlash is also the fact that we're still raised to be people-pleasers and are used to doing more work than men for less - less pay, less praise, and less acknowledgment. So instead of picking the sphere (or proportioned combination of spheres) best suited to our personality and skills, we often carry them all on our backs at once. Awareness of the load on our backs can't remove it since it's held in place by social construct, and maintaining the proper placement of each sphere in relation to the others with regard to the social environment and our own needs and desires is always an exhausting struggle.

Anyhoo, such is a snippet of the ramblings in my head. Nowhere all-encompassing, and certainly not original thoughts, but mine for the moment nonetheless. And with that being said, I'm going to grab a bologna sandwich, apple juice, and a book and then go soak in the tub.

But first, somebody needs to create a new comic entitled "Betty and Germaine" detailing the adventures of America's favorite feminist duo.