Summer Reading: The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake; Tasty but not very filling...

After reading several good reviews and getting a personal recommendation, I decided to pick up Aimee Bender's latest novel, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake. I was intrigued as it follows the life of a girl who can taste feelings in food. Overall it was a pleasant and easy read. The characters were interesting enough, generally likable, there was not that much depth to them, but then it wasn't a particularly long book either. But I've read short stories with more developed characters... I also found it slightly unnerving that Bender doesn't use any quotation marks for dialogue and there were several sections of the book where I was just confused about where in timeline of the story I was exactly. For the most part it was what I expected, an easy, slightly fluffy summer read. Certainly not a bad choice at all if you're looking for something pleasant with some intriguing twists to read on a hot afternoon or at the beach. If you have more than I few hours to kill, you might want to bring a second book. It doesn't take much longer than baking a lemon cake to breeze through this one!

To share or not to share: the age-old internet privacy dilemma

Lately I've been in a bit of a panic over what to do about privacy on the internet. With all the fuss about Facebook privacy settings lately, I've started to feel a little uneasy about having so much information about myself on the internet. But how much is too much? And even if it's a lot of information, does it really matter? In a time where we're talking about doing away with Miranda rights and it's a crime to speak out against religion in Europe, do I really feel safe putting so much information about what I think on the internet?

A few months ago I went on a friend-culling crusade on Facebook, removing people I never really knew in the first place. Then I removed or untagged any pictures I felt did not show me in the "best light", aka at least moderately professional looking. A few weeks ago I considered leaving facebook completely, but decided to stay mainly for two reasons: one, there are friends from highschool and college that I would completely lose touch with, and two, both of my parents are now on Facebook and since they live 12 hours away in Michigan, Facebook gives me a unique opportunity to share my daily life with them in a new way. So getting off of Facebook completely was out. However I did want a way to separate my personal daily musings and happenings from my more academic, scholarly pursuits. And so the age old conundrum of multiple online personalities cropped up again. What information did I want to share with whom? Did it matter? Perhaps I should just put it all out there?

 In the end I decided on a system that may not separate who can see what completely but at least lets me organize my thoughts better and will hopefully allow me better control over the different types of information I share with the world. Facebook will now be my outlet for personal reflections for friends and family. I now have a twitter account which will be related to Stop the Tartuffery and where I will share thoughts on science, philosophy, religion, etc. etc. etc.

We'll see how it goes... Hopefully I can keep up!

Loss

Several weeks ago, my boyfriend and I had to, for lack of a better phrase, put our one of our cats to sleep. Now, I know I could say euthanize, but I just haven't been able to bring myself to say it. It's so cold, so clinical. Not at all the feeling I want to convey about Edna, my furry little buddy.

I was taken aback by the grief that I felt. I knew I would be sad of course. I had taken care of Eddie for nearly five years. Five years of chasing string and her sitting on cardboard boxes that she loved so much, and car rides that she hated so much, vet appointments, sharing my pillow at bedtime. But the pain I felt resounded through my entire body. Rumbling through my bones and there was an emptiness there that I found hard to explain. I had lost a friend and the pain was far more acute than I ever could have imagined.

She was a very vocal cat, as soon as the bottom of the cat food bowl was visible, we'd hear an anxious "Waaaawaoooow?" When we came home from the vet that night and set the empty cat carrier on the carpet, the apartment was silent. No hello was meowed to us, no scrambling of paws on the kitchen floor. I hadn't realized how how quiet our other cat was. That night I thought about death. The finality of it and how I could not offer my self soft condolences about "a better place." I felt ok about that, and I was happy that I felt ok about that. There was a brief moment at the vet's office, watching Eddie on the exam table, breathing heavy, my hand on her side that I felt that it was not my place to say that her life was over. But was that what I felt or did I want to remove myself from the responsibility of making that decision, be able to say that Nature did it! It wasn't me! But that is selfish, and I realized as I watched Eddie move her head about erratically, starting to wail occasionally, that this was my responsibility, it was my responsibility to ensure that she did not suffer unnecessarily. She had suffered from some sort of neurological complication as a result of a tumor on her neck that had presumably turned cancerous and metastasized. She was not going to recover. I was prolonging her pain not because she might recover but because I didn't want to let go. And so, soggy Kleenex in hand, face covered in mascara streaks, I told the vet that I was ready. We said goodbye, a tearful and painful goodbye, one last time, and left. I knew we made the right decision, there was no other decision to make, really.

I cried a lot the next couple days. The apartment was too quiet. She was just...gone. I thought about how I hoped no one would say something about her "going to a better place" or "pet heaven."  I didn't know what I would say. Do people say things like that when someone's pet dies? I bet some people do. I just wasn't in the mood to coddle people and I probably would have made some snarky comment about how that was ridiculous...

I miss Eddie more than words can express, but this experience has reminded me of an important fact. Believing that death is final, that we do not go on to some magical heaven, or spiritual afterlife guided by a holy power, does not mean that we don't honor death and those who have died just as much as those who do  believe in an afterlife. Perhaps death is even more meaningful if this is the only life we have.

Edna: 2004 - 2010.

carpe diem.

Beards: not just for old men in history books!

Apparently, beards are not very popular in the South. I guess this really shouldn't come as a surprise as it is hellishly hot here for more than a few months out of the year. But still, I somehow thought that the awesomeness of beards would prevail. I grew up with beards being commonplace; my dad has had a beard for nearly all my life (all of it except a brief stint with a mustache in the late '80's, but I'll let that slide given the decade...). My boyfriend has a beard as well, and it certainly isn't uncommon to see lots of other men of all ages sporting a beard as well in the Midwest.

So as a Midwestern ambassador to North Carolina, I'm going to create some beard awareness: beards are awesome!


Beard Awesomeness 101:

Essential Viewing: The Trustworthiness of Beards

Essential Listening:

And the Daily Double: Philosophy for visual learners...

What are Action Philosopher comics, Alex!

These humorous and entertaining comics follow the lives and philosophies of all the big names in philosophy: Plato, Mill, Descartes, Rand, Jefferson, Freud, Nietzsche and the list goes on and on and on.

I was lucky enough to stumble across the first three books in the series at Schuler Books the last time I was in Michigan. My boyfriend was kind and clever enough to stealthily purchase them for me while I was in the ladies' room. It was a great surprise to get them later!

If you're like me, you have an ambitious list of books to read. I was looking at my bookshelf the other day and realized that all the books I've bought or received lately are non-fiction and in the challenging, I'm-going-to-need-write-notes-in-the-margin category. At the moment, I'm working my way through John Rawls' A Theory of Justice. It's massive, awe-inspiring, thought-provoking, and makes terrible bedtime reading. I promptly went out and got Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, because I always love a good post-apocalyptic tale. (Although, perhaps that's not the best bedtime reading either unless I also love post-apocalyptic dreams...) But sometimes I just want something easy. Something with pictures. And that, my friends, is the perfect time to bust out Action Philosophers! No reader's guilt there since I'm actually brushing up on my philosophy, all the while enjoying witty comics.

Who can say no to that?!

Thank you, Joe Wong. You made my day!

An essential sign for every workplace kitchen:

Yesterday's post got me thinking about how useful signs really are and motivated me to create this sassy, borderline-too-sarcastic-for-work sign for the kitchen area at my office. I've had to touch gooey bits of old food on dishes just one too many times this week.

If you've been a victim of similar such office crimes, I urge you to post your own message that your co-workers' mothers are, in fact, not on site to clean up their foody messes.

"Attention -- Drunks"

The next time you are taking a drive through the quaint town of Pecica, Romania, you might come across this sign:

The purpose of this fine sign, which reads "Attention -- Drunks," is to warn drivers that they may be in danger of driving into or over a highly inebriated townsperson who may or may not be clutching a bottle of booze. Such are the results of the town's "vibrant nightlife."

According to a recent article on Telegraph.co.uk, the town's officials "took action after a “despairing” number of accidents in the town, which has a population of about 13,000, caused by drunken revellers, with some even resulting in fatalities." 

Way to take charge of the situation and get to the root of the issue, Pecica!