Showing posts with label appearance is all. Show all posts
Showing posts with label appearance is all. Show all posts

Sunday, February 13, 2011

3163 Sistine and blood

Sunday, February 13, 2011

“Unquestioned answers are more dangerous than unanswered questions.” Put another way, “Unanswered questions may be frustrating, but unquestioned answers are dangerous.”

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When you hear "Sistine Chapel", you think of the panel wherein the finger of God is reaching to Adam. And that's about all.

You can see the entire Sistine Chapel at http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/sistina_vr/index.html, a Vatican website. Wow!

It's a bit difficult to navigate at first. The controls are down in the lower left corner, but they don't explain what the cursor controls get you. You have to play with it a bit. Moving around isn't intuitive. It took me a half hour to get the snake and the apple right-side-up.

The painting around the sides seem to come from a much later date. They have a more Flemish look.

See if you can find the copyright mark on the floor.

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I don't know about Michelangelo, folks. His men all look like overblown bodybuilders, and his women look like male bodybuilders with globes glued to their chests. Don't real (natural) breasts kind of slope out from the collar bones? Does anyone have creases above as well as below? Even the babies are overdeveloped.

Yeah, I know people, including women, did more physical labor then, and were likely well muscled, but women sans steroids just don't get the same structure as men. That much definition requires more testosterone. Women's layer of fat under the skin softens the "cut". Also, the average woman was probably perpetually either pregnant or nursing, but that still doesn't explain those breasts.

I saw the real Pieta once. My first reaction* was that Mary was HUGE! If Jesus had been standing, he'd have been half her height, and maybe a quarter her weight. (*Well, second reaction. The first was, "That's one honkin' huge hunk of marble!")

It all makes me wonder if maybe old Mikey had some issue with women.

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Daughter and I got into a discussion of infectious waste (that which carries pathogens, as opposed to hazardous waste which is poisonous or otherwise harmful but not necessarily infectious) the other day, while she was waiting out her three-hour glucose test at the vampire's office, when I saw someone drop a blood-spotted bandaid in the waste paper basket.

She said it wasn't enough blood to be considered infectious. She does therapeutic massage in an acupuncture office, and she often works on people right after their acupuncture session. She says they sometimes are covered with little spots of blood. She does the massage with her bare hands.

I was horrified! Viruses are tiny, all it takes is ONE, just ONE, to infect you with hepatitis, HIV/AIDS, whatever, and a single speck of blood can carry a zillion of the hungry little bastards. All it takes is one! How can ANY amount of blood not be considered potentially infectious!

When I was riding the ambulance, we were serious about it. Even a speck went into the red box.

I don't understand.

When I got home I looked up the rules/laws, and yeah, infectious waste requiring special handling is defined as "pourable or drippable amounts of blood or body fluids, or items saturated with blood or body fluids". Saturated being defined as capable of dripping if squeezed.

They have to be kidding me. That makes no sense. All it takes is one viral body, and you don't need to be able to pour it to get that.

I am horrified. I wonder why they bother having any rule at all.

(Oh, yeah. Reading further, the answer is money, of course. Regular waste costs x to dispose of. Non-infectious medical waste costs 3x for disposal. Infectious waste costs 15x for disposal. So the definition is to limit costs while looking like you're making some attempt at controlling infection and protecting other patients and medical workers.)
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Wednesday, April 04, 2007

1194 Back Again, Again

Wednesday, April 4, 2007
[Edit - fixed the date.]

I'm back from a visit with Daughter and Hercules, and I'm so tired at this point I literally can't see straight. I occasionally pull all-nighters, and they don't seem to affect me too badly, so I don't know why I'm so tired. Maybe it was from thinking a lot as opposed to doing a lot.

It was a very good visit. A lot of very good things happened. Rather than attempt to compose an entry tonight, I'm going to simply paste in an email I wrote earlier this evening.

A few explanatory notes:
The person to whom I am writing the note, a family member, had sent me one of those "going around the internet things". The text was about how you can tell that summer's coming when young women start displaying their belly buttons, followed by a photo of a very heavy woman sitting on a park bench. The skirt of the woman's dress reaches to her knees, and hanging down from under the hem, between her spread knees, is a fold of drooping belly, complete with belly button.

And I hope the woman who sent me the sculpture park photos will not be offended. The outrage at the deterioration of morality upon which I comment was not hers, but that of the person who sent it to her.

I have edited to remove real names and insert the usual [aliases].

------------start of email-----------

I opened the "spring belly button" on the ancient desktop, and so the photo "revealed" very slowly, a line at a time. It crept down and I thought, "yes, not a belly button I'd want to see", and then it got to the skirt hem, then below, and then I almost fell off the chair! OMG!!

My second thought was "the poor woman". She probably didn't realize what was showing. I think we can be pretty certain that even if she knew her picture was being taken, she wouldn't want to be broadcast looking like that all over the internet! I worry that somehow, someone, some way, maybe someone who knows her, will send it to her. Of course, the photo may have been "shopped", and she didn't really look like that at all, but she's still a real person, and that might even be worse.

I guess I'm a prude. Am I strange to worry about the feelings of a stranger?

I got a broadcast from a woman in a retirement community in Miami, a blogging-buddy, complaining about how "this sculpture park" (in Denmark, I think) proves the erosion of morality today. Included were about 30 photos of anatomically correct statues, mostly couples in XXX-rated positions.

Now, I have to wonder, why would someone who is so concerned about the erosion of morals send those photos to 70 of their closest friends?

Ok, yeah, I'm a prude, and proud of it.

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I was amazed at the latest photos of [niece]'s tummy. Now THAT's a belly button to be proud of! I can't believe how perfectly round she is. I also can't believe there's still so long to go. This is the first tummy I've seen where the word "burst" is the first thought. "Twins" is the second.

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I was visiting [Daughter] and [Hercules] Monday and Tuesday. [Daughter] and I went out with her realtor and looked at some houses. It was interesting and fun.

[Daughter] is very easily swayed by propinquity to woods. She's in love with, and they have a (too low) bid in on, a house that's more than they can afford, and very tiny, but that backs on woods and a creek. I pointed out that she and [Hercules] often need to have space between them. This house has the rooms arranged all around the center, so that no matter where they are in the house, they'd never be more than just around the corner from each other. She agreed that could be a problem.

One house she liked was in very bad condition, but much larger and $70,000 less than most of what they'd seen, so maybe they could fix it up. I found some, and I suspect extensive, dry rot. I advised her she'd not be buying a house, but a lot and foundation. This house was meant for someone who wants to tear down and custom-build.

Another house was extremely ugly inside, and the tenants lived like pigs. It was really bad. But the structure looked sound and well-kept, and there was nothing a crowbar, paint, new flooring and new molding wouldn't fix. It had great potential. Best of all, it had three or four bedrooms, an attic that smelled like an attic should, and was big enough that if they were in opposite ends, they'd be completely unaware of each other. Oh, and the roof looked new. Even if they don't go for that house (it's next to a busy road), I hope she at least learned a little bit from my comments. (I had promised myself I would make no persuasive comments at all, but, well, I tried to be quiet, but she asked....)

She and [Hercules] are both frustrated that they can't find something that a) they both agree on, b) they can afford, and c) doesn't sell out from under them. I explained to her my "theory of fate":

I told her that things happen as they should. If they don't find the perfect house now, or what seems to be the perfect house is torn away from them, it's because it's not yet the right time, or not yet the right house. It will all happen as it should.

That doesn't mean that bad things don't happen. Sometimes bad things happen because they should, because there is an experience you are meant to have, or a lesson you need to learn. You might buy the absolute perfect house, and then find it's on a floodplain. Those kinds of bad things you recover from eventually, and you are stronger, smarter, and better for them.

That's only if you have been honest and moral going into something. If you cheat, or do something you know is wrong, then any bad outcome is not a survivable beneficial lesson, but deserved retribution, from which you learn and earn nothing. It's not part of your "path", because you left your path. I really believe this.

[Daughter] was surprised when I said that. "Retribution" sounded like, um, God, religion, which isn't "me". I said it's not necessarily a religious thing. It's not an old man up there meting out punishment. It's just the way things work. Actually, it's probably psychology. Surviving, learning, and strengthening from something you did not cause is easier than from something you know was your own "badness". But that's not all of it. I do believe that some things are "ordained", are meant to happen on your path to enlightenment. I believe that if you do and be "good", stay true to yourself, then things will happen as they should, and even if they seem bad, they are necessary.

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On the personal front, after many less than satisfactory experiences, I have killed all my online dating profiles. If I ever try that again, I'm going to be a lot more mysterious on paper, and insist on a fast meeting, so that the dashed expectations aren't so painful.

On March 3rd, I met a new man at a weekend Mensa gathering in New Jersey. Absolutely everything is wrong with the whole thing! He lives too far away ([Northern NJ]), he's too tall, too urban, too much into sports, too into pop culture, and much much too young (46). I absolutely cannot see him walking in the woods or going to county fairs with me. But he's nice looking, has a fast and eclectic mind that fascinates me, a backstory I'd like to hear, and he seems to be impressed with something about me. Not sure what, but I'll take it. He had dinner with[Daughter], [Hercules], and me last Monday. [Daughter]'s opinion is that maybe it won't work in the long run, but otherwise she approves and says "Have fun, Mom!"

Well, we'll see. He's certainly very attentive. I haven't had that in a very long time.


------------end of email-----------

When I said "everything is wrong", I am referring to "The Requirements". I sort of had an idea of what I wanted to find in a man. (I'm going to call this guy "The Man".) The Man is nice looking, but appearance wasn't a requirement. Among the requirements were that a candidate for my affections had to be smarter and faster than I, and possess an intricate mind. I think he does. It's the first thing I noticed about him. I suspect that he can not only stand up to me, but is capable of manipulating the "Master Manipulator" (as I have been called, but never believed). He could be very dangerous.

In no other way does he fit any of the other oh-so-important requirements, like age, height, propinquity, retirement (available time), social similarities, etc. It's interesting that I'm beginning to think that maybe those aren't so important after all.
He does do volunteer work with autistic kids. A service requirement I hadn't considered.

Dangerous.
Hmmmm.
"Have fun, Mom!"
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Monday, December 26, 2005

#495 Quiz - What's Important to Me

[May 2011 update: A lot of people are getting here through a search for "what's important to me". Please note that the link below still works, I think, but the quiz you'll find there is NOT the same quiz I took way back when. The new quiz is rather short and shallow. And the pie chart I got when I took it no longer shows.]


Life Piechart - QuizGalaxy.com
Take this quiz at QuizGalaxy.com


Health is most important in your life.


Having a high focus on health indicates that you are very health-conscious and you realize that if you don't have your health, you have nothing. You are devoted to living healthy.

I don't know why they chose "Health". Seems like they could have just as easily chosen Love, or Fun, or Career. Of course, I eat vegetables and fruit. I guess they thought that was more important than the fact that I smoke/have smoked.

Love or Fun would have been most accurate.

I think Money got high because I said I will pick up pennies on the street (I consider them lucky. I don't spend lucky coins.) Family got low because none of my family lives nearby.

This quiz actually reflects more one's circumstances than where one places importance.

Oh, well. I like that I seem to have come out fairly well-rounded.

~~Silk