WOW!!

When I was a little girl—actually the whole time I lived with my parents—my mom would ask me to clean up my sprawling clutter, and I would simply re-stack, or push it around. I remember how she would look emphatically into my eyes and say, "THROW. IT. AWAY." Ever since, I've been fascinated with the things people choose to keep or dispose of. I am more of a "just-in-case" keeper, but I've recently noticed another reason for not getting rid of things. And I think it's universal.

When something grosses a person out, it's likely that they will ignore it for as long as possible.

Some people would argue that we're just lazy, but I see it happening around the house with disgusting things in particular. For example, I made a large bowl of macaroni and cheese, leaving it out with a paper towel covering, to keep it from the flies. I offered the leftovers to Will, who ate some and neglected to replace the covering. When I returned to find more mac, I counted my blessings and dug in. Only moments into my second helping, a fly crawled out from inside the noodley caverns. I was disgusted and promptly put the bowl back, with the covering on. I decided that this would serve as the perfect experiment to my theory. When the same Will later discovered that there was more mac, he was about to shovel it in until I told him about the fly. Then, the telling moment: grimacing, he put the cover back on the bowl and set it aside.


And so the stale bowl of pasta sat for about a week and a half. My theory was correct. Instead of immediately disposing of the spoiled food, he ignored it. The ol' out-of-sight-out-of-mind. But it was still within the range of scent. Tonight, I gave in and decided to scrape the thing out. I was, after all, the one guilty of this dirty experiment. To my delight, there was a living surprise waiting inside the moldy orange goop. Well, many surprises.



Now I owe him a new metal bowl and spoon. But the experience of seeing, even cultivating, real, live maggots was truly priceless. I'll have to include an addendum to the lab writeup.

Bottom of the Barrel

So, you know when you've once been the cream that rose to the top and soon sunk to the bottom of the celebrity barrel when you're Ben Affleck. I was paroozing movie trailers the other night and I happened upon a charming little film called "Extract" with Jason Bateman. When I noticed a suspiciously familiar but down-hill face in the clip, I checked the credits to see who was listed at the bottom with ("He's Just Not That Into You") as notoriety:



If this could happen to him, what could happen to the rest of us? Seriously, though, the movie looks pretty funny.

Some things

Well it's my first summer spent here in my collegiate residence, Eugene. So far, it has been a marvelous time, excluding the blistering heat. Going for a bike ride intended to refresh onself felt more like pedaling on a stationary exercise bike inside a dry sauna, in front of a hair dryer. But! those times have passed. And now it's prime time to work on projects and dawdling around, noticing things that are worth less than a penny during the academic year.

Around Eugene, telephone poles are the analogue facebook and craigslist, advertising public events, services, things lost and found. Though some people would say that these telephone poles are no more than cut up, dead trees, I would encourage them to look closer. Look at the layers of paper skins that these things still grow! They have faces! They have souls! I wonder if someone could do a cross section on one of these poles to find out how old they are, in respect to the amount of flyers stapled onto them.

Best $5 Ever Spent

A little while back I was privileged enough to experience "The Project", a Brooklyn based ensemble, at the University of Oregon. Originally I picked up on posters advertising the arrival of the beatboxing flute player, but I left the show completely enamored with the group as a whole (not to mention two cd's, autographs, and a how-to manual).

Almost Run Over!

I was almost crushed under the wheels of a small SUV. Here's what happened: This morning I was biking to school as usual. I took a right turn at a green light, in a continuous bike lane. I was watching closely for pedestrians, and suddenly I was jolted by the side of an SUV. I strained against the vehicle to keep upright. I yelled to the driver, but she made no response as she lowered her cell phone and straightened the path of her vehicle.
After pedaling for a few yards I was able to get my head around what just happened. Luckily, I was okay. But it could have been catastrophic. If she didn't run me over with her back wheels, someone else certainly could have; I could have broken an arm on the curb; my bike could have been demolished. Thankfully, it was all the "could have's" that kept me unharmed. They also pushed me into action. She could have sent me to the hospital or an early grave and she didn't even know it.

So with new found resolution in my two skinny wheels I raced after her. I followed her through another right turn and caught up on Alder. As I paced with her passenger window I shouted again. This time she looked over but figured it wasn't important, I guess. So I followed her as she turned left and finally got right up to her driver's window at the next stop sign. I yelled for her to roll it down. I shouted that she drove right into the bike lane a couple turns back and almost flattened me. She needed to be more careful. She needed to watch the bike lane. All she could say was, "Really? I'm sorry."

And isn't that the way it goes.

We have to watch out for one another. It's easy to tune out your surroundings and text while you're driving and listen to music with the windows rolled up, wishing that you couldn't hear the outside world so distinctly as you sped through it. I am not a drone. I am a real person sharing the world and I nearly paid the consequences for someone who wanted to disregard their responsibility and occupy it alone, selfishly. Even though we think we can live in our own comfort-attention bubbles, with iPods and cell phones and earplugs, we can not. It's just not an option. We share the world, and when we forget that, we forget each other. And that does us all great harm.

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