(no subject)

I just got back from spending about forty minutes wandering around in the outdoor environmental study area on campus, where they have planted all native Californian species in different sections of Channel Islands, redwoods, grassland, chaparral, foothill woodlands, desert, and wetlands. Besides easily identifiable old friends like madrone and manzanita, it turns out that mugwort and sweetgrass are native (who knew?) and now that I've seen a redwood and a sequoia right next to each other, I finally know what's different about a sequoia. There is a saguaro cactus in the desert area, which was pretty weird. I think all cacti look totally like alien life-forms or something, but this thing was well over twice as tall as I am, a few feet thick, and of course green and spiny. It reminded me of the Venusian pickle from It Conquered the World.

It was a pleasant sense of losing time, wandering around in there. I wasn't wearing a watch so I had no idea what time it was or how long I was taking, and I didn't care. I didn't have any sense that time was at all important. It took me about two circuits to see all the plants they had labelled and cover all the paths. It felt much bigger on the inside than it looked on the outside, like some kind of floral Tardis. This area is right outside the Kirsch Center for Environmental Studies, which is the only building on campus designed to showcase "environmentally friendly" design, energy use and materials (and the only one, I think, to have openable windows, I might add, to take advantage of the natural night-cooling available in our local climate).

(no subject)

I just got back from spending about forty minutes wandering around in the outdoor environmental study area on campus, where they have planted all native Californian species in different sections of Channel Islands, redwoods, grassland, chaparral, foothill woodlands, desert, and wetlands. Besides easily identifiable old friends like madrone and manzanita, it turns out that mugwort and sweetgrass are native (who knew?) and now that I've seen a redwood and a sequoia right next to each other, I finally know what's different about a sequoia. There is a saguaro cactus in the desert area, which was pretty weird. I think all cacti look totally like alien life-forms or something, but this thing was well over twice as tall as I am, a few feet thick, and of course green and spiny. It reminded me of the Venusian pickle from It Conquered the World.

It was a pleasant sense of losing time, wandering around in there. I wasn't wearing a watch so I had no idea what time it was or how long I was taking, and I didn't care. I didn't have any sense that time was at all important. It took me about two circuits to see all the plants they had labelled and cover all the paths. It felt much bigger on the inside than it looked on the outside, like some kind of floral Tardis. This area is right outside the Kirsch Center for Environmental Studies, which is the only building on campus designed to showcase "environmentally friendly" design, energy use and materials (and the only one, I think, to have openable windows, I might add, to take advantage of the natural night-cooling available in our local climate).

(no subject)

musing on what's missing. connections. disconnected from people, from power. power in the land. "if you knew what i know, you'd do as i have done / and raise your life unto the sky and root in the earth and stones." the reverse tree in the well. ancestors. multiple meanings to the word root. once had thought about seed. worry that a possible consequence would be being stuck when i don't want to be - rooted. possible solution - pick a plant that grows in both places, so the root can be either (although changed - some different species). birches, ashes, rowans, oaks, thorns, apples all grow in both places (as well as some that don't sound so good, especially meshed with "root").

aren't i back to something that sounds silly on, say, an mst3k group? am i just never going to be able to solve the problem of a name that works everywhere?

don't know where my power is, don't do anything in particular, have no connection to anything to base a name off of. but don't want to go with variations on "nobody" or "worthless" because come on. stick yourself with a name like that and like pulling a face, it'll stay that way.

(no subject)

musing on what's missing. connections. disconnected from people, from power. power in the land. "if you knew what i know, you'd do as i have done / and raise your life unto the sky and root in the earth and stones." the reverse tree in the well. ancestors. multiple meanings to the word root. once had thought about seed. worry that a possible consequence would be being stuck when i don't want to be - rooted. possible solution - pick a plant that grows in both places, so the root can be either (although changed - some different species). birches, ashes, rowans, oaks, thorns, apples all grow in both places (as well as some that don't sound so good, especially meshed with "root").

aren't i back to something that sounds silly on, say, an mst3k group? am i just never going to be able to solve the problem of a name that works everywhere?

don't know where my power is, don't do anything in particular, have no connection to anything to base a name off of. but don't want to go with variations on "nobody" or "worthless" because come on. stick yourself with a name like that and like pulling a face, it'll stay that way.

(no subject)

link via skatche:

"And that brings up another point - the futility of trying to save the world by getting gay people to accept Jesus. It looks from our numbers like the frequency of natural disasters could be more effectively reduced by encouraging Protestants to be gay."

bwaha!

(no subject)

link via skatche:

"And that brings up another point - the futility of trying to save the world by getting gay people to accept Jesus. It looks from our numbers like the frequency of natural disasters could be more effectively reduced by encouraging Protestants to be gay."

bwaha!