un morceau de ta mère

Mother of sighs, mother of darkness, mother of tears, mother of cats and plants, and legislation to quell your pain or break your sanity….

If you’ve bequeathed twenty-three pairs of chromosomes to a living creature, if you’ve inherited a friend or relative’s descendents, or if you’ve taken in the orphaned of any species, I hope your Sunday was to your liking.  I started reading Sue Black‘s book All That Remains a week ago and came across a passage that was quite fitting for Mother’s Day, so I mentioned it on my bookface.

The part of you which came directly from your biological mother that isn’t simply half of your DNA and that will likely always be a part of you is inside your ear.

As the author explains, “While it is a fallacy that a pregnant woman eats for two, she does need to ensure that her diet is sufficient to meet not only her own needs but also those of her very demanding passenger.

“The nutrient building blocks required to construct our otic capsule were supplied by Mum from what she was eating around sixteen weeks into her pregnancy. So within our head, in that minute piece of bone just big enough to hold four raindrops, we will perhaps carry for the rest of our lives the elemental signature of what our mother had for lunch when she was four months pregnant. Proof, if any were needed, that our mums never leave us, and a whole new perspective on the mystery of how they manage to get inside our heads” (38, 39).

Find out exactly where the otic capsulse is located at Britannica.com.

I hope there were cats on the other side

But I doubt there were cats on the other side of the windows that these men were washing because that building is filled with businesses and not places to sleep.

The light was red, I looked up, and “we’re doing it,” we’re going to capture the sight.

Here’s what it’s like to do high rise window washing:

And if there had been cats:

Not Sweet Target

It sounds like Raveena sings, “cause I’m takin’ my sweet target,” but she actually sings, “sweet time, yeah.”

And while we’re in the season of spring, let me suggest you give “Bloom” a listen.

~!~

The last time I got new glasses was in 2016.  I still have that pair but wore them sparingly since the prescription was stronger than my primary glasses.  Anne Klein glasses that are the most comfortable pair of eyewear I’ve ever worn.  I got my eyeballs checked last year (mostly for refraction purposes), but the balls themselves were in very good condition considering how near-sighted I am.  Why didn’t I decide to wear the 2016 pair more often if I’d noticed my left eye not seeing as clearly as it did in 2019?  Because the arms are too thick and are not conducive to wearing while driving since they’ll cover up the blindspot over my right shoulder.  They’re also heavier and aren’t as “snug” around my head as my previous glasses.

For the new prescription, I decided to get new frames and new lenses for the Anne Klein pair.  The new frames are very comfortable and look awesome.  Here is 小木耳 aka Xiao Mu Er aka Little Wood Ear Fungus modeling them:

I’ll be getting the new lenses for the Anne Klein pair soon…and they’ll look something like this:

But what are you?

Serieusement.  How would you define your existence?  What is your relationship with and perception of your physical body?

Which of these two assertions do you agree with more:
A. I have a body.
B. I am a body.

Or as one redditor pondered, are you inside your body?

I prefer to think that I have a body.  I also like these comments:

~ you’re a brain piloting a bone mech wearing meat armour
~ I think my body is a microcosm of something greater. My identity begins and ends with my body, but my existence and qualia of my existence doesnt.
~ Neither. My body is an inconvenient afterthought needlessly anchoring my consciousness. I remember this every time I stub a toe.

~!~

Do you ever find yourself stuck between two mindsets?  Or in the viscous hairs of patterns whereupon you get a kick in life-momentum, you’re convinced something substantial is about to happen, and then it doesn’t; so then you fall into doldrums of waiting … just like Sisyphus.  Instead of pushing a boulder up a hill only to watch the rock roll down again, though, you’re chasing someone else who is draggin a boulder up a hill, and when you get to the top the person is gone?  You decide to stay where you are on that outcropping and just when you sit down because you’ve decided to watch paint dry or a carrion bird have a snack, you see that person on the bottom of the hill pulling that shiny boulder again.  So, you stand up, run, tumble, or plunge downward because you think you can catch them.  And it keeps repeating….you can never reach the person who is pulling you along.

Yeah, that’s where I am.

~!~

Nice Things

You had a bad case
of a six-pack,
the cans were encircled
too tightly
and you couldn’t loosen
the blue brew
from the red.

I had a sad face
from a clown’s last act
my skin suffocating with white resin
and an exaggerated mouth
piercing in red lipstick.

Sharpened incisors beat the canines
to the forefront of appetites
gleaming in sweat and ice
I clamped down on your wrist
like insatiable Claudia.

You didn’t scream
you didn’t beg me to stop
you just tried to choke me out
at the cliff’s edge
where an explosion of
tendons and seeds
waits for celestial heights
into free-falling.

– yiqi 25 April 2022 5:34 pm

This poem was inspired by a text conversation, Taylor Swift’s Reputation album, and Interview with the Vampire (Neil Jordan, 1994).

Originally posted on my tumblr.

Des fleurs violets

I went to the wedding of a really good friend on Good Friday.  The weather was excellent — sunny but not hot, breezy but not windy.  I was motivated just enough to take pictures of two sights I wanted to behold in the moment and in the future:

What was supposed to be a ceremony for 2020 was postponed twice on account of the state of global health.  I had to make sure that the dress I got for the occasion still fit — it did.  It has pockets.  I don’t think I’ll have another opportunity to wear it, mais ce n’est pas grave.  I’m fairly certain the groundskeepers of the venue did some pollen-blowing because none of the stone surfaces I’d looked at were covered in yellow powder.  Coupled with the mask, my sinuses were very happy (but my eyeballs ended up feeling drier than I was expecting).

Happy Easter… buy all the sugary treats for at a discounted pice tomorrow.  And then in a couple of days, July 4th merchandise will be everywhere.