KattyWilly

It’s good for mothers and daughters to argue.

“Daughters get frustrated with their fathers but tend
to give them the cold shoulder and ignore them,” The
Independent said.

I guess there is no hope for a mom/dad like me.

There are many interesting things in this article about young children watching TeeVee.

http://thecelebritycafe.com/features/1250.html

“The study showed that children, especially young ones, got way too engrossed in the shows, and often became agitated if the shows were turned off.“

I have a nickname for the infernal device, the Hypmo-tizer.  I watch as kids sit down, tune in, and turn off.  You can’t talk to them, they will hear, nod their heads and not understand a word you say. 

Adult: “Hi Suzy, how was your day?”
Suzy: “Mmph.”
Adult: “Oh, by the way, Suzy, your hair is on fire.”
Suzy: “Mmph.”

Walk in front of the Hypmo-tizer and they will scream, “get out of the way!”.  It is not only children who exhibit this, growed-ups do it too, they just don’t get quite as agitated, unless the Game is on.

And this is even more interesting to me.

“Scientists involved in the project said that television can ‘reprogram the brain’.“

The concept that our brains are in many ways programmed.  I’ve always thought that we become programmed to think in certain patterns by the environments we develop in.  I was actually thinking about this last night in regards to music and the music we listen to as we grow up.  See Halley for a related musical item (my Beatles ablums were a hand me down from my older brother, I got the old worn out mono versions when he upgraded to the Stereo versions.  Makes me wonder how many times over the decades we will re-purchase all those songs).  I wondered if the music I listened to as a young person helped to develop patterns in my brain that have affected the way my mind works now as an adult?

Can you say Neal Stephenson’s “Snowcrash?”  This reviewer describes it here:

http://www.spies.com/~rawdon/books/sf/stephenson.html

“Stephenson postulates that the human brain is like a computer which can be “programmed”. Modern humans run a certain set of programs, but this virus (among others) bypasses the “high-level” programming and works at a much lower level, effectively rewriting our software.”

We miss you.

Cindy 1957-2002

I started reading my daily feeds in Bloglines. I was over reading an item at MetaFilter and traveling past J.D. Salinger and Pynchon and ended up looking to buy some more music.

When we were in Prague we travelled down to the Czech museum of animation near Netolice.  We picked up a Krtek book.  My sister sent me this article about the cartoon and it’s creator Zdenek Miler.

“If you look at America, it is epic.  Whereas here, it is more poetic.  I feel here there is more lyricism.”

That sounds nice to me, to live in a place that is poetic, and has lyricism.

Some Monday morning ramblings in the middle of the week.  I guess I’m continually behind 🙂

I was reading about John Perry Barlow’s latest sadness at losing yet another friend. There was a time when hearing about other people who have suffered loss would put me into a downward spiral of my own. Now I feel sad about how the ones who so loved, will now feel the pain and sorrow, but I don’t re-live that pain and sorrow myself as much as I used to.

I think part of that is because of a heightened sense of emotion in the first few years. Most of it is the emotions of loss, sadness, and sorrow. The level of emotion is similar to the strong emotions I sometimes feel when I wake suddenly from a dream and I still feel the joy, fear, or sadness I was experiencing in my dream. Imagine having that heightened sense of emotion, all the time. Every waking hour. It is almost as if my emotional world has been turned upside down, and when I’m awake I have all these intense emotions but when I sleep I don’t. I am begining to look forward to a time where the heightened emotions are joy, and happiness.

One of those strong emotions is the sadness for my daughters and the perception of the things that they have lost, the future with their mother that they won’t have. After a time I have begun to realize that we have all lost more than anyone can measure, but that doesn’t mean that the future is destined to be spent focused at every moment on what they don’t have.

In the comments on Barlow’s site someone said: “This is a transcendent place and if you can sit still in the beauty and pain, you can learn how to be free.” This reminds me that I can’t help focus on time right now. I have several deadlines coming up (God there must be a better word than that) and it seems that there isn’t any time to get things done. There is no time to “sit still”. I guess there is a desire to speed up the process, to get beyond the pain and on to the beauty and if I only had more time I could do that.

Barlow also talked recently about a topic that is becoming a focus in my life. My health. My focus has been on making sure that I have prepared enough for the girls to get through college. I think I have an idea that if I can get them through college then they will be prepared enough to survive on thier own.  I want to be able to do the things I need to do to make sure I take care of myself.  Barlow is getting a gift that cannot be measured.  Even if I could find someone to give me all the tests, and treatments and coaching etc, when would I have the time to do any of that?  It’s hard enough to find the time, or more accurately the energy, to do the treadmill for 20 minutes a day.

One of the things I have learned is that there is nothing more precious than time.

“These precious days we live through
Thrown away like tissue
I wish that I could give you all the time in the world”

If there was a Lottery for time I would be buying tickets every week.

Some photos from St. Paddy’s day and a couple extras.

Time After Time

“if you’re lost you can look – and you will find me
time after time
if you fall I will catch you – I’ll be waiting
time after time

after my picture fades and darkness has
turned to gray
watching through windows – you’re wondering
if I’m O.K.
secrets stolen from deep inside
the drum beats out of time -”