sex and the city... really!

I saw it tonight with my housemate Shannon after winning tickets through a drawing. Finally, after months of anticipation I found out whether or not Carrie and Big get married, if anybody dies, and which scenes are dream sequences.

It was fabulous although it espoused many values I didn't really agree with. Here's my estrogen boost for the month!

sex and the world

My Human Sexuality professor from my MFT program has a blog that addresses important issues regarding sex and sexuality. The title of my blog actually stemmed from taking his class, although I admit that there hasn't been too much sex talk recently.

His blog brought to my attention a news story that one would say is beyond atrocious. I showed Bryan the story and he pointed out that it is great evidence for the depravity of humanity. Sometimes if I watch enough Oprah, I may start believing that people are generally good and have goodness in them. I need to remind myself that Oprahland is as fictional as The Shire.

Baaawwwston!

Why write my own entry when someone else so aptly described my vacation?

Highlight of the trip: Boston Red Sox's Lester had a historic no-hitter against Kansas City

T-shirt mania!

If I actually wore tshirts, I'd probably wear more shirts that have those witty slogans or fun pictures on them. The only one I have I got from China for about a buck fifty, and it's of a bunch of pandas performing the 24 moves of tai chi... or was it 32? My friend Vicky also has a cool panda shirt that I admire. I do heart pandas, or at least cartoon ones.

Once in awhile, I will enjoy perusing the tshirt sites to chuckle at. Not at threadless.com though - their pictures often confuse me. Here are some tshirt images from noisebot.com I find amusing!



One of these days when these tshirts go out of style, we get to say "That's so late 2000s!"

I'm trying to find enough time to blog meaningfully, but not very successfully.

What do I do with my free time?

For those who don't know, we moved in November. I heart our new house! One of the many reasons I like it so much is the backyard. At our old house, the only way to get to the backyard was through the garage. It was also very shady - my attempts at growing veggies all failed. Partly because of the shade, and partly because I never went back there to water the plants.

Our new backyard gets plenty of sunshine and I have been reaping the benefits. We've been able to pick lettuce whenever we want salad. No more wasting wilted lettuce! The picture above is my first harvest of snow peas... yes, all 6 of them. I plan on plucking more off the vines later this week, hopefully eventually to have enough for some yummy stir fry.

Here are more pictures of my garden!

Over the weekend, we went to a composting class. I plan on starting my own worm bin this week and throwing all our peelings and dealings in for the worms to eat. Free fertilizer!

Still here...

I feel the need to explain my hiatus. Around the end of March, I broke out in some unexplained rash that was both painful and itchy. It was mostly on my hands and then on my arms. And then it spread all up and down my legs.

After some internet research I determined it was contact dermatitis aka poison oak. However I don't know if it was actually poison oak that I rolled around in since I haven't ever seen the culprit.

I was miserable... couldn't sleep, couldn't concentrate, the discomfort was great. Topical steroids didn't help. Tried every OTC medicine possible. Tried acupuncture and herbal topicals. Tried homeopathic remedies. Nothing worked and it just kept spreading. This lasted for about 3 weeks before I saw the dr. again and she put me on oral steroids.

The steroids helped but for about a week after I stopped them I encountered various side effects... blurred vision, headache, restlessness, feelings of weirdness i think i'm in the twilight zone...

Anyway, I'm almost back to normal. When the busy slows down, I'll put up a meaningful post.

By the way, the picture above was not me. Through my internet research I found a fascinating gallery of poison oak/ivy victims. I wasn't as bad as the worst pictures, but my rashes looked similar to the ones here. Here's the link, but warning... it's not for the faint of heart!

And the survey says...

When arguing a certain idea or point, people like to use the communication device that cites research as evidence. Some examples include:

Research among top dentists show that 4 out of 5 prefer Crest over Colgate

Research shows that more than half of all Americans don't know the name of their vice president

Research indicates that 1/3 of the world's university students suffer anxiety attacks at least once while taking chemistry

Who the hell is Research and what makes him so credible? It seems anyone can bring Research into the conversation and win some points, until one converses with those who are irritating enough to ask where one received such information. What a pain in the butt to have to go look it up on wikipedia or provide the original research article!

I took a class last year called "Research Methods." Mesmerized, aren't you? I learned that Research is not as authentic as he often claims to be. If you look at any industry with a bit of money, they can get Research to say whatever they want. Yes, margarine is a healthy alternative to butter! Global warming doesn't exist! Global warming does exist! For every shred of evidence to back up a claim, you can probably find 5 more sources that state the opposite.

Before bringing Research into any conversation, best understand how he got the information in the first place. As dry and boring as the class was, it highlighted the importance of sample size, repeatability of experiment, controls, and placebo. Oh placebo, we love/hate you.

On a side note, I recently heard on NPR (I heart NPR!) about an experiment that evinced the irrationality of the human race. The results showed that people taking various pain medications felt better if they were told that the drug they took cost more. If you took a placebo sugar pill and was told that each pill cost $10, you were more likely to experience an improvement in symptoms than if you took the actual drug but was told each pill was $1. That's why people like to buy name brands even though the generic contains the exact same active ingredient. Paying more money made you feel better and not necessarily the drug.