Sweet!

I'm just now eating my first orange of the year from my potted orange tree. It appears to have weathered the frosts just fine (supposed to be cold-hardy to 20 degrees.) This orange had a bird-nip in it, so even though I wanted to wait to harvest them until later, I decided to take it down before bugs got in it. All my citrus-growing farmer's market friends tell me the longer I leave them on the tree, the sweeter they get. Instead of one honking huge orange like I got last year, I have 11 very small ones. And unlike last year's slightly soapy flavor, this one is SWEET!

Dangerous? Maybe to my mascara.

While I may have been sniffling slightly at the end of my re-watching of Dangerous Beauty, that doesn't make it any less of a Chick Flick.

Herpes Simplex 1 linked to Alzheimers

It appears there is strong evidence that HSV-1 is a major contributor to Alzheimers.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081207134109.htm

This definitely complicates the safer-sex landscape, since HSV is both nearly impossible to avoid and was previously thought not to have any truly serious long-term effects. Other than being extra-careful with partners who are know to be HSV-positive, I don't think it's going to change my own behavior much. The finding itself may actually be good news, because it's likely to lead to a *lot* more funding being directed toward finding treatments and vaccines for HSV, since people are *way* more frightened of Alzheimer's.

It also raises questions for my father, who was diagnosed with vascular dementia recently (which is unrelated to Alzheimer's, except that it has similar symptoms) and who gets big, fat cold sores at least a few times a year.

Visit to Mom's place.

I just got back from a visit to my mother in D/FW. I helped her with several minor repairs to the house. She cooked me several delicious meals and bought me a new business interview suit for Crossmas. She also got me a charging station/organizer something along the lines of this:

http://www.amazon.com/Rolodex-98800-Wireless-Organizer-Mahogany/dp/B00078A89I

We also discussed various plans for the future, which naturally involved a lot of discussion of her parents depression-era strategies, and general doomsdayism.

It's Time to Do Something

After letting myself proceed in a semi-productive-but-unfocused way for several weeks after losing my job, it's time to start setting goals and deadlines to get things back on track.

My original long-term plan was to switch from working full-time in the corporate world to contracting, so I could work for, say, six months, save a big chunk of change, then take some time off before getting my next contract. I realized sometime this weekend, that I have *already* accomplished that goal!
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I Just Don't Believe

I've followed up watching Dangerous Beauty (for the second time) with watching Moulin Rouge (my virgin experience.) There's a special kind of depression these two movies inspire, and, pausing half way through MR, I feel the need to put it down somewhere. The thing that bothers me about both of these movies is my total lack of faith in their messages. I do not believe in either courtly love or the idea that the existence of musicals somehow lifts up the human race. I feel very strongly that courtly love and the idea of an endless NRE experience is a poisonous falsehood that's lead to more human misery than anything besides war. And the thing that makes this belief hurt the most is that, like millions of others out there, I *want* to believe in the Perfect Relationship that Fixes Everything Forever, and that Love Conquers All, etc. And if both movies were just limitless romantic cheese, it would be easy to write them off as fluff. But in both cases, the fallacy of the idea of Perfect Love Forever is a strong undercurrent, forming a poignant juxtaposition that really cuts to the quick. And here again, if that's where it ended, I might be able to suspend my disbelief long enough to really get into things. But at least in Dangerous Beauty, the Final Message that, despite all the Little Difficulties (empires at war, sleeping with scores of people you don't love, the unexpected arrival of the Spanish Inquisition) it's possible to Make Courtly Love Work, and that members of the audience should Go For It, turning into the same lethal propaganda the rest of Madison Avenue is selling us.

It's hard to say if the failure of Ideal Love or the popularity of over-produced musicals is a worse tragedy for humankind. As a rule I passionately believe that musicals, like puns, are something the world would be better off without. And it's not that it's impossible to produce fantastic examples of each, because it is. But the incredible psychic damage done to the universe by the mainstream majority completely eclipses any possible benefit even the most fabulous gems could provide. I'd flush all my favorites away tomorrow if the rest went with them. I'd even be willing to take credit for doing so and be burned at the stake by musical theater fans everywhere. My death would be a small price to pay to free humankind from their pernicious influence forever. But I know it wouldn't help. Like a homophobe's mislead belief that "putting 'em all on an island somewhere would solve the problem," purging history of musicals and puns would be, at best, a temporary respite from the inevitable, as future "enthusiasts" squeezed forth the next generation of artistic defecant.

I don't really feel any better now , but at least I've whipped up a good lather of snobbishly righteous indignation to counterbalance my depression and ennui. Maybe now I can get off on Nicole Kidman in the most expensive outfit she's ever worn.

Or maybe not. *sob*