muses

Perseverance Lands on Mars!

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The Mars rover Perseverance lands today.

The official sticker for the Perseverance mission. Courtesy of NASA

Thanks to forethought by my earlier self, I got a “boarding pass” for this rover! My name is going to take a rideabout on Mars today! Want to add your name to a future mission? Do that here.

Watch the mission:

Why is this mission cool? I mean, aside from the fact that it’s LANDING ON MARS.

Let’s all be science geeks today, shall we?

via GIPHY

Eighteen-ish

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SO this website has been around for 18 years, give or take, but I don’t have much to say, so things have been pretty boring. There’s a lot of craziness in the world right now, and I’m furloughed from my job, so I guess it’s time to mess around with the place again.

Have some Instagram photos.

[insta-gallery id=”2″]

Cathedral of Stars

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I’ve always loved looking up at the stars. I guess it’s odd that I never had a telescope.

Enjoy in full screen and let yourself marvel for a little while. I especially like the part where the radio telescopes look like they’re doing a little dance.

School Day

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I just finished listening to a program on St. Louis’ NPR affiliate (@stlonair) where they talked about chronic absenteeism in public schools. The guests mentioned that most chronically absent students fall into three groups: The ones who can’t get to school (elder or family care keeps them away), those who won’t (kids who get bullied or feel unnoticed), and those who don’t (ones who feel like school isn’t for them). I listened and felt sad. I went to public school for all of my elementary and secondary education, and I always wanted to go to school (except for that bit in high school, but I think most people encounter mean folks at some point in their schooling, and mine wasn’t that bad). I can fully understand those who can’t make it to school, be it that they are helping care for family members, or they can’t find a ride, or they have to work to support their family. I understand those who feel the only way to avoid bullying is to just not show up. But school was always fun for me. I liked to learn. And I just wish that those who don’t want to go, who feel like they will never get anything out of education, that they would discover that one thing that makes school fun, whatever it is for them.

Of course, I realize that not everyone had the upbringing that I did–my parents cared about my education and did whatever they had to do to make sure I was doing well–and I was able to come home to a stable environment every night, and these are powerful tools in schooling. But what makes one person love learning, and another one shake it off? Sure there were boring days in history class, and trigonometry still gives me headaches. But for every unfathomable bit of esoteric and useless trivia I encountered, there was a new phrase in English class or a new artistic skill, or those silly clocks in Geometry class and the lathed chess pieces from Shop.

Education is so important. The folks on the program talked about the need for mentors, someone kids can go to if they have questions or to be the stable force to advocate for them. One of my biggest fears is that my future kid won’t want to read or learn, and there will be this great gap between what makes me indescribably happy and what makes him or her smile. I can only hope that I can be a mentor to my kid, and any that I come across. I benefited from my education, and I hope we as a culture can find a way to make sure that all kids enjoy (and are able to go to) school.

Vintage

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I went out for a run the other day when it was kind of chilly, so I pulled on an old long-sleeved tee. It happened to be the shirt I got from the District cross-country meet in the fall of my freshman year of high school. It’s huge on me (what was with the XL phase we all went through in the early 90s?) and has lost all elasticity in the cuffs, but it’s soft and makes me laugh at its lovely navy-and-purple color scheme. It’s also nearly 20 years old.

I realized that I felt weird to wear a shirt that had seen almost two decades of use, when I was the original owner. I have a few vintage t-shirts my mother gave me (I’m wearing one today, natch) that are older than my high school shirts, of course, and probably some Goodwill shirts approaching that age, but my high school shirts are in remarkably good shape for workout clothes, and I will keep wearing them until I can’t (and then I’ll entertain ideas of making a quilt out of them). It’s just weird to think of wearing something I’ve owned for more than half my life.
Getting older doesn’t bother me, for the most part (except when I complain about aches and pains, and this stupid cough I’ve had for a week would have been gone by now if I was younger). I figure as I age the weird feeling will happen more often as I develop more nostalgia, as everyone does.
My friend Kate celebrated her birthday yesterday (and my parents celebrated their wedding anniversary!) and we had dinner. We had a good time, but I always forget I’m a year older than most of my core of friends. It’s not that big of a difference, it just sometimes makes me sad.
This website is now 11 years old. I know I haven’t kept it up, and I always intend to do more with it, but I just don’t have that much to say. There’s that meme for “Draw My Life” running around the viral video sites, and as much as I love them, I just don’t think my life would excite anyone. I’ll spare you my stick figures. Have a good one after the jump.

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Waiting for the rain

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Was that thunder I hear? Or just

A car rolling past, pulling
Into the driveway to make
A U-turn

So much noise that means nothing
Just humidity and heat
The plants wither on the porch
As we wish for a storm

Fourteen weeks without a rainout
In softball. It was a joke that you could tell
The weather the day of a game–it always
Rained on Thursdays.

I wish we could make that joke this year.

Inner worlds

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innerworlds.jpgThere are universes inside my head. Not literal ones, of course. No, just the worlds of imagination. I have stories that take place in different times, different worlds, places not our own, just floating around up there.

It’s a fun place to be, sometimes.
Plenty of stories, they just have to be written down.
One day.
Sure, I’ve written several hundred thousand words of stories for NaNoWriMo. And amazingly, none of them are in the same world; all of them are discreet places. I have some ideas for sequels, but haven’t finished the first in a series; can’t move on till the first is finished, etc.
I’ll just keep the ideas percolating, swimming around in the starfield of my own personal imaginary universe.
What’s your favorite inner world?
(image via iwastesomuchtime.com)